Nerval's Lobster writes: "Dice [note: our corporate overlord] collects a ton of data from job postings. Its latest findings? The number of jobs posted for NoSQL experts has risen 54 percent year-over-year, ahead of postings for professionals skilled in so-called 'Big Data' (up 46 percent), Apache Hadoop (43 percent), and Python (16 percent). Employers are also seeking those with expertise in Software-as-a-Service platforms, to the tune of 20 percent more job postings over the past twelve months; in a similar vein, postings for tech professionals with some cloud experience have leapt 27 percent in the same period. Nothing earth-shattering here, but it's perhaps interesting to note that, for all the hype surrounding some of these things, there's actually significant demand behind them."
Tax return uncovered due to vulnerability affecting shared links to documents.
Dropbox has disabled access to previously created shared links to certain kinds of documents after the discovery that some users' sensitive files—including tax returns and bank records—were exposed through Google AdWords campaigns.
The flaw, which is reportedly also present on Box, impacts shared files that contain hyperlinks. "Dropbox users can share links to any file or folder in their Dropbox," the company noted yesterday while confirming the vulnerability:
Files shared via links are only accessible to people who have the link. However, shared links to documents can be inadvertently disclosed to unintended recipients in the following scenario:
A Dropbox user shares a link to a document that contains a hyperlink to a third-party website.
The user, or an authorized recipient of the link, clicks on a hyperlink in the document.
At that point, the referrer header discloses the original shared link to the third-party website.
Someone with access to that header, such as the webmaster of the third-party website, could then access the link to the shared document.
Dropbox said it's not aware of this vulnerability being exploited.
Google has just announced a major release of Google Maps for Android and iOS. The biggest new feature is lane guidance, which will direct you to the proper lane so you can make your exit. The full changelog was posted on Google Play:
Turn-by-turn navigation now displays distance, arrival time, and quick access to alternate routes
Save and manage offline maps in a custom list for when you're traveling or have a slow connection
Transit results now display total walking time of your trip and the next scheduled bus or train
Sign in to see your “Places to review” list from recently saved or searched-for places
If you have the Uber app installed, open it right from Google Maps when comparing route options
Bug fixes
Lane guidance was one of the few things a standalone GPS could do that Google Maps couldn't. The feature will display a series of arrows under the turn indicator, showing the number of lanes and which direction each lane allows you to turn. For a right turn on a straightforward road layout, it will direct you to the right lane, but roads aren't always that straightforward. Directions this specific naturally require a lot of road data, so the feature is currently only available in the US and parts of Canada and Japan.
Surprisingly, Google Maps 8 also integrates with Uber (a Google Ventures investment—maybe not that surprising), and will list the service as a navigation option where it is available. Choosing Uber will jump you straight into the Uber app with the destination selected.
v3rgEz sends this piece from the Boston Globe: "Taxpayers in the United States spend $139 billion a year on scientific research, yet much of this research is inaccessible not only to the public, but also to other scientists. This is the consequence of an exploitative scientific journal system that rewards academic publishers while punishing taxpayers, scientists, and universities. Fortunately, cheap open-access alternatives are not only possible, but already beginning to take root, as this article explores in-depth: 'Why is it so expensive to publish in these open-access journals? According to the journals, these fees defray their publication and operating costs. However, this argument is undermined by the existence of open-access journals that charge authors nothing and have negligible operating costs. One prominent example is the Journal of Machine Learning Research (JMLR), one of the top publications in the field of machine learning. JMLR has a similar editorial process to many other journals, with a volunteer editorial board and an automated system for managing the peer-review process. Unlike many closed-access publishers, it does not take any advertising. MIT provides the web server for hosting JMLR, which would otherwise cost around $15 per year. The biggest expense is paying for a tax accountant to deal with paperwork so JMLR can maintain its tax-exempt status. Altogether, the total cost of running JMLR since it was founded in 2000 is estimated to be less than $7,000, or $6.50 per article published. This proves that cheap open-access publishing is possible.'"
Stanford University has announced that it is pulling its endowment out of investments in any of 100 publicly traded companies that are focused on extracting coal. No future investments will be made in any of those companies, and the university will instruct the managers that run its non-endowment investments to avoid these stocks as well.
The move's immediate trigger was a report by an investment advisory panel, which acknowledged some basic features of coal power: it releases more carbon dioxide per unit of electricity than any other fossil fuel, and those emissions are contributing to climate change. The panel also noted that lower-carbon alternatives are available. But it drew the line at coal; renewable technologies aren't yet available to be rolled out on a sufficient scale to allow Stanford to go fossil free.
Fossil Free Stanford (FFS) is the name of the group that put the issue on the map, and it's acknowledged in the university's announcement. FFS is part of a cross-campus effort at divestment happening on over 400 college campuses, possibly modeled on the successful campaign to get universities to divest from companies that did business in South Africa during the apartheid era.
"Bishop reveals his genuinely amazing strategy for dealing with his mechanical oppressors: Shooting them completely in the dick."
The early ’90s were spoiled for choice when it came to comic book adaptations. Not only was Batman: The Animated Series on the air, but X-Men led Marvel’s push to get on the small screen, diving right into the often convoluted continuity of everyone’s favorite mutants, luring in a generation of fans, and paving the way for cartoons to follow. That’s why we’ve set out to review every single episode of the ’90s X-Men animatedseries. This week, our time-travel epic continues with the revelation that Wolverine has some next level eyeliner game.
Previously, on X-Men:
In our last episode, Bishop and Shard were sent back from their crappy furture to prevent it from becoming an even crappier future, and promptly screwed up. Then they went to a crappy present, where they recruited alternate universe versions of Wolverine and Storm, who were in loooooove, and gave it another shot. Then they screwed up again. Those kids really do have the making of X-Men!
In our discussion of the highs and lows of Season 3, we all pretty much agreed that despite a few readers singling out the sheer amount of fun Marvel Universe cameos that stocked up the otherwise lackluster episodes, it was not very good. We did, however, learn a few things! Apparently I may have been slightly mistaken on my timeline: It seems this episode wasn’t inspired by “Age of Apocalypse,” it was actually the other way around. While the comic crossover launched in 1995 — with this episode airing in September of that year — the lead time for the cartoon and the collaboration going on suggests that maybe having time travelers kill off Professor X was an idea that had its roots on the show before going into comics. If nothing else, that would explain why they didn’t bother to match up the outfits for the show, even though they were dedicated enough to give us a 100% comics accurate look at Maverick.
Now, let’s see how many times the X-Men can screw up the past before they manage to screw it up just right!
If that establishing shot of Bard College looks familiar, then you might want to brace yourself. Thanks to the handy plot device that is time travel, there is a shocking portion of this show that recycles footage from last week’s episode, which wouldn’t be so bad if they did not lead every episode with a recap that uses recycled footage already. Seriously, there are multiple recaps of what happened last week crammed into 22 minutes of footage. Apparently the people who made this show — which in this case include writer Gary Greenfield and producer/director Larry Houston — decided that their target audience for these episodes included kids age 8 to 12 and goldfish.
Season 4. Not off to a great start.
Anyway, as you may recall, last week ended with our ragtag team of ersatz X-Men completely failing to prevent Young (But Bald) Charles Xavier from being turned into a fine red mist by Trevor Fitzroy and Nimrod. But to be fair, they did master the fine art of the comedic pratfall.
So that’s something.
After dusting themselves off, Bishop just sort of shrugs and decides that they might as well give it another shot, which is the only time that anyone in this show ever mentions that being able to travel through time gives you infinite mulligans. You’d think that instead of getting increasingly frustrated, they’d just keep popping back from the future like that one episode of SeaLab.
Then again, Mario Sunshine had infinite lives, too, and those bonus levels caused me to shatter multiple Gamecube controllers with my bare hands, so I can see where he’s coming from.
Speaking of frustration, before they can make the jump, the racists from the diner show up to cause more trouble, pinning the explostion at Bard College on the team and causing all kinds of ruckus. Bishop, who is quickly becomoing my favorite character in this episode, is getting ready to just shoot them with that gigantic laser-shotgun and be done with it, but Storm takes the opportunity to go Full Storm once again with another pretty astonishing Battle Pronouncement™:
“WHIRLWIND FROM THE HEAVENS, ENGULF THESE MISGUIDED SOULS!”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen an episode from Seasons 4 or 5 before, but I really hope Marvel Dracula shows up and those two just get in a full-on bluster-off.
Wolverine, whose actual mutant power is resilience, decides that he’s done with this after fifteen minutes and one botched rescue attempt, and asks Bishop to send him back to his own timeline, because it “wasn’t so bad” to live in a full-on apocalyptic wasteland where his race was hunted to extinction and nobody could find a pair of pants that wasn’t torn to shreds. Storm, however, encourages him to stick with it.
Hey, is that the Punisher’s belt?
Of course, there is a problem. If the “time waves” from Xavier’s murder have reached all the way to 2055 (The Future!), then coming back is going to be far more complicated, because they’ll have to deal with all that, and it’s at this point that I have to shove my glasses back up, clear my throat, and announce that That’s Not How Marvel Universe Time Travel Works, You Guys.
See, as established very early on, the Marvel Universe (including, one assumes, animated adaptations), has very strict rules governing time travel. Picture, if you will, a rope that’s frayed at the end. Those frayed edges represent the multiple possible futures of the Marvel Universe — They’re all in there, existing more or less concurrently, which is why we can have Cable, Bishop, X-Man, Rachel Summers, Deathlok and all the other characters who have come back existing at the same time, even though they came from different futures. The reason for this is that every someone comes to the past, they don’t prevent their future from happening, they just create another timeline, splitting so that we follow that rope from the main body of the present down to one of another strand. All the other strands still exist; nothing changes for them. Just for us, reading the books (or following the rope) here in the present. I mean, c’mon. That’s the entire premise of What If.
I mean, yeah, it doesn’t make much sense, but are you gonna tell me TIME WAVES are better?
But anyway. Assuming that anyone out there is still awake after that diatribe, you can probably guess what happens when they head back… to the future!
Yes, it seems Bishop’s continued screwups have caused those pesky time waves wash up an alternate future where Master Mold is in charge and Forge is dressed like a New 52 Parademon:
He’s fully in the pocket of the Master Mold administration, having been presumably spared because his mutant power to build things is very useful in a future dominated by robots that need time machines. Surprisingly, this is never explicitly stated, making it one of the rare moments where the show lets a logical sequence of events speak for itself.
Forge doesn’t want to show them how to operate his time machine, so the good guys heroically threaten to shoot and stab him until a robot arrives, at which time Bishop reveals his genuinely amazing strategy for dealing with his mechanical oppressors: Shooting them completely in the dick.
I take back everything I said about not being excited for Season 4. If this is the level of robot crotch violence we’re going to get in the next few weeks, I am one hundred percent down.
During the action, Shard also tries to convince Forge to help her by telling him that Master Mold and his other genocidal robots “don’t care about you,” which is a really weird, Jack Chick tract way of doing things. I mean, I don’t think Alternate Forge is helping the sentinels because he thinks they’re best friends or something, it’s not like he’s trying to get in with the Cool Kids by shoplifting. I’m pretty sure that he’s helping them because if he doesn’t, they will murder him with lasers. “Caring” does not really enter that equation.
And yet, it works, and after the robots and their crotches have been dealt with, Alternate Forge agrees to send them back for their third try at stopping Fitzroy and Nimrod — but not before Shard is killed because apparently the fate of the world wasn’t enough motivation to get them to take things seriously.
It’s worth noting that when Shard gets shot, Wolverine goes “Kid!” because her name still hasn’t been mentioned. The only person to say it (unless I missed it at some point in the first half, I’m not going back to check), is Bishop, after she’s dead, when he’s telling everyone that it’ll be okay because if their plan works, she will never been shot in the first place.
THAT’S NOT EVEN HOW TIME TRAVEL WORKS IN THIS EPISODE!
So, speaking of Fitzroy, what’s he up to before he shows up to help murder Shard? Why, he’s in a conference with Master Mold, whose robot crotch is the largest and most powerful of all:
That’s why he sits like that. It’s a power move.
Fitzroy gives Master Mold our third recap of the events thus far, but after failing to stop the X-Men from heading back through time again, he’s sent to go do the job right — but not before he hears Master Mold and Nimrod, two robots, discussing their plan to kill him once he succeeds, out loud. With him in the next room.
Robots are dumb, y’all.
With that knowledge, Fitzroy has a sudden change of heart, dropping by to help the X-Men before they go back through time and giving them a holographic note to show to the one that’s already back there trying to blow up Professor X.
So how is Professor X?
Well, I hope you liked the fight with the racists in the diner the first time last week, so we get it again, in its entirety, all recycled footage until Professor X beats feet and ends up running facefirst into Bishop and his magnificent mullet. Keep in mind that this Professor X has already met Bishop, Wolverine and Storm and read their minds to determine their sincerity, which I assume is why Bishop gets him to do it again so we can get another Goddamn recap.
Eventually, they take him back to the room where he was exploded to death twice in the last episode, and honestly, don’t you think they’d try to take him literally anywhere else? Like, at this point, how are they surprised at all when Nimrod and Fitzroy show up with a giant bomb?
It’s worth noting that in the fight against Nimrod, Wolverine drops what is arguably his best line since “Check please!“, popping his claws and growling “Let’s see what you had for breakfast!”
Rave Dracula traps the good guys in a force field sphere with a very large bomb, but once they show him the 3D video of himself talking about how it’s in his self-interest to not kill them, he lets them out, goes back to the future, and that’s pretty much that. The other set of X-Men from the first trip (Bishop’s second) blink out of existence, and Bishop explains that the only reason they haven’t is that their big metal bracelets are keeping them from being affected by… time waves.
So, in a moment that I honestly can’t believe happened in a show where you can’t say the word “kill” or show a punch being thrown, Wolverine and Storm embrace and commit temporal suicide.
But it’s okay! Regular Wolverine and Storm are back at their picnic, flirting with each other while Professor X watches, smiling because he can remember them making out when he was 19, I guess.
What a bunch of creeps.
Discussion Question: One of the actually-pretty-cool moments of this episode was the reveal that Alternate Wolverine and Storm have pet names for each other, and hers for him is “Tough Guy.” Awwww! So with that in mind, what are some other good pet names for the X-Men?
Alabama's Ha Ha Clinton-Dix has been the lead safety the entire draft process, and that's not changing.
Like the 2013 draft, there should be three safeties taken in the first round this year. Well, there are three safeties who grade out as top-32 picks, at least.
Leading the way is Ha'Sean Clinton-Dix of Alabama. He's been the top safety throughout the entire process, going wire-to-wire as No. 1. Calvin Pryor of Louisville has pretty much done the same thing as Clinton-Dix, just at No. 2. After them, Jimmie Ward continued to emerge this season and his coverage ability can't be overlooked.
Clinton-Dix is a balanced player with the room to grow into a special safety in the NFL. Teams are looking for big safeties who can run and hit like Clinton-Dix can. No other safety in this class demonstrates as much balance at the position and few are as athletically gifted. Clinton-Dix is one of the top 10 players in this class.
Pryor is the type of defensive back who could be brought in to start immediately. From a physical standpoint, he is ready for the NFL. He's a good all-around safety who is physical in the run game. Against the pass, Pryor has shown he's capable of playing zone or man.
Most of the concerns with Ward's game are minor. He's not the ideal size to play safety, and his straight-line speed isn't incredible and he could do a bit better job of tackling at times. Despite his flaws, Ward has the skills to be an impact player in the secondary. He's laterally explosive and has the ability to diagnose plays. So many of the instinctual elements to safety come through in Ward's game consistently. He should be a late first-round pick.
Hey look everyone, Joyner is short! Done? Joyner is short. He knows it. Teams know it. But that shouldn't stop them from liking him. Forget his size. Joyner is a playmaker. He can play the run and the pass. And by play the pass, we mean dropping into coverage from the slot, patrolling the deep middle of the field and even blitzing the quarterback. Joyner is the utility knife of the 2014 draft. If teams want him solely as a depth piece, he can fill two roster spots because he can play both corner and safety and did so at Florida State.
5. Deone Bucannon | 6'1, 211 pounds | Safety | Washington State
Tight ends should hesitate working up the seam with Bucannon in coverage. He's capable of delivering crushing hits, separating the receiver from the ball. More importantly, he can run and cover tight ends in man situations. With his physical playing style, Bucannon is also an asset against the run.
6. Dion Bailey | 5'11 3/4, 201 pounds | Safety | Southern California *
"Jack Bauer is the James Bond for the folks who listen to AM radio and eat inside the Burger King."
Against all odds, plausibility, and good taste, Jack Bauer returned to us Monday night with the first two episodes of the ninth season of 24. It was as wildly fun and dumb as ever. Let's relive the magic through GIFs, Vines, and terrible set design.
1. Jack Bauer is the James Bond for the folks who listen to AM radio and eat inside the Burger King. At this point, Kiefer Sutherland has played Bauer for 14 years, which is longer than Sean Connery or Roger Moore can say of their work as Bond. He's a piece of 21st-century Americana that, I'd argue, is a story of our contemporary pop culture can't be told without.
He's only James Bond in that way, though, because Jack Bauer has never found anything funny or sat down for a drink. (At one occasion, in Season 5, we very briefly see him eat some bacon and eggs. This is the only time he eats anything.) He's more like ... I don't know, a Charles Bronson who cares way more.
Like Bronson in the Death Wish era, he is pretty dang old: his actor, Sutherland, is 48 years old. Bauer is even older. In the show's universe, the year is actually roughly 2022. It might even be a little later than that, actually. Point being, Jack Bauer is at least 56 years old. And this is why, when we check in on him for the first time in four years, this is what he's doing.
Just nappin' in an abandoned building in London. This is a show about not sleeping as much as it's about counter-terrorism. For the first time -- apart from a moment in Season One when he briefly nods off, and excluding all the times he's been knocked out by the butt of a pistol -- he's sleeping.
Come on, dude. You can't get away with that, and you REALLY can't get away with that in the opening scene of a show that, unlike any other show, explicitly notes what time it is. Dude, it's 11:09 in the morning.
2. Jack Bauer loves that hoodie. It's kind of adorable. Note above that he sleeps with the hoodie pulled over his head. When the CIA finds him and chases him through said abandoned warehouse, he and the hood are inseparable.
That's nine un-edited seconds from the scene. He's pulled down the hoodie. He's shot at, he takes cover, and THERE'S THE HOODIE AGAIN. Jack, are you trying to conceal your identity? I doubt the CIA is gonna go shoot up a warehouse on foreign soil to apprehend some rando for loitering and petty trespassing; they usually just issue a citation for that. Think they know it's you, pal.
3. Again with every intelligence agency office looking like it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
It seems to me that if you're building an intelligence agency's office, there would be a special imperative not to make it so you can see through all the walls. And y'all know that's gonna break, right? In nearly every single season, CTU came under direct attack and lots of people died. It's like the Simpsons chalkboard. It's just gonna happen. (It does happen, only 40 minutes into this first episode.)
The only intel office in the 24 universe not to look all artsy-poopsy is the Washington, D.C. office in Season 7. It was all bleak fluorescent lighting and cubicles, and if that isn't a dig on D.C.'s relative squareness, I don't know what is. 24 spent one season in the capitol, and it got the hell out.
4. The President was born in 1440.
When James Heller first appeared on 24, his actor was 66 years old. In the show universe, we're roughly 15 years later, which would put the President at around 81.
I think this is 24's way of going normcore. They've already had two black Presidents and a lady President. I'd suggest they go with a gay President next, because it's the year 2022 and they could sell that, but to my recollection, there have only been two gay characters across the show's entire run:
a) A hyper-sexualized evil lesbian terrorist who makes out with ladies for the benefit of male gaze, and b) James Heller's son. Heller and the government suspected he met with terrorists, so he subjected his own kid to torture techniques that left him thrashing and screaming and in misery. Later, it was revealed that he didn't know they were terrorists, and wouldn't talk because it was a sexual encounter with another man. When Heller finds this out, he scolds him: "What's the big deal? You should've told us."
Yep, Heller -- and, by extension, the show and its writers -- just shake their head ruefully at a gay man who won't come out in this neocon rightist universe they've created. I don't think anyone who writes this show has ever met a gay person.
Anyway, Heller's a shit. He's like if Pat Buchanan never found God.
5. Internet cafes are probably the best cafes.
Remember, in the 24 universe, it is the year 2022. This is one of the most tech-forward agencies in the world. They are calling them "Internet cafes."
6. Y'all, we don't really need all this continuity.
Please note that on Jack's file screen (which looks like a player bio in Madden 06), there is a file for "children" and a file for "brother." In the future, nobody has more than one brother.
Graeme Bauer is a callback to Season Six. It turned out that the mastermind of an Illuminati-esque shadow organization who wanted to destroy the world, and who was little and bald and mousey and looked absolutely nothing like Jack Bauer, was just coincidentally Jack Bauer's brother.
Season Six really might have been the stupidest season of any show in the history of American television. This is only one of several callbacks to that trash fire of a season in last night's episodes. In fact, it's like part of the point of Season Nine is to retroactively tie up that season. No need, y'all, really. You're like a five-year-old who just knocked over a jar of spaghetti sauce at the grocery store. Honey, no, don't clean it up. You'll cut yourself.
7. The U.S. government keeps 'high score' screens.
Bauer got all those on a single quarter, too. Should've typed in "ASS" for every one. Would've been funny.
8. A WOOD AND WROUGHT-IRON DOOR ARE YOU SHITTIN ME
That's the door to an interrogation room in the CIA office, which is supposed to be the very most secure room in the entire building. You know, the building with the plasma screens and fashion-forward lighting and glass walls? I think the set builders just put in a request for "LONDON STUFF." This show's interpretation of "LONDON STUFF" is just castles and dungeons and shit.
Also, we almost got through two entire hours of this show without a single line of dialogue in a British accent. THIS SHOW IS IN LONDON
9. Jack Bauer lacks a healthy social life.
His wife's dead, his girlfriend's dead, his other girlfriend was so traumatized by torture as a result of affiliation with him that he had to leave her. His daughter might not hate him but is presumably on another continent. His best friend magically turned into an evil terrorist and is in prison. One of his bosses was the only casualty of a nuclear explosion; another was shot in the head in a train yard by Bauer himself.
Even his greatest nemesis -- who, in some ways, would make him kind of a peer -- isn't around. President Charles Logan nearly committed suicide, was kidnapped by Bauer, was stabbed by his wife, was kidnapped by Bauer again, and eventually shot himself.
He's so lonely. Please don't shoot at him.
10. And definitely don't shoot at him like this.
Ma'am, I'm not sure what your plan was here. You're firing your handgun into foreign soil, and in the general direction of a windowless van that is 150 feet away.
And you really think that this is what's finally gonna bring down Jack Bauer? Don't you remember the time his enemies fed him so many torture drugs that he literally, actually died, and then woke up and violently murdered them all? Ma'am, do you even watch this show?
11. we at Dish Network are pleased to announce that we have added the Stranglin' Henchman Network to our premium lineup of programming
simply tune in to channel CAM012 to get your fix of your fellow disposable bad guys gettin strangled
Also, dude, if you lose one feed in a partitioned, multi-feed display, the first place you wanna look is the switch box you're running it through. I've never seen a TV with four built-in inputs that will simultaneously display four feeds without some sort of external receiver. It looks like you're, uh, foolin' around with the volume buttons? Yeah, you're gonna die in like 75 seconds probably.
12. Also, dude, you're gonna die. Guaranteed.
I'm not bothering to go back and find out what his name is, because he is definitely going to die. He's some sort of aide to the President, or the Secretary to the Whatever Thing Guy. I'm not going to look up his official title, either, because he is definitely going to die.
We know this because the show is already setting him up as a total hate-able stiff. When President Heller, who is suffering from progressive memory loss, forgets a couple details in a practice speech, this guy just rips into him. Heller is clearly embarrassed and hurt by this, and if there's one thing in the world I cannot stand to see, it's bad or sad things happening to old people. Even if that old person is kind of a shithead, and a President who really should be stepping down.
I'm also pretty sure that Jack is going to be the one to end him, directly or indirectly. Jack and Audrey (on the left there) were ex-lovers. Jack probably has feelings there, and if he acts on them, he'll have to compete with this guy. He competed for Audrey with another guy once. I don't remember his name either, but I called him Mr. Bean, because he looked and talked exactly like him.
Jack tied him down in a hotel room, stripped the wiring from a lamp cord, pressed it against his nipples, and electrocuted him to death.
What about Icelandic whisky? Well, if you’re Egill and Hali Thorkelsson, two brothers from Iceland, you have to make it up. Being the first producer of whisky in Iceland gives them the crare opportunity to define a whole new category of national whisky. Founded in 2009, the Eimverk Distillery has set out to do just that.
Being first offers many advantages, but it also brings with it some specific challenges. Iceland has no malting facilities, no proven yeast strains, no native mash bills. While understandably tight-lipped about their yeast sourcing, they are eager to talk about their mash bill. One of their main goals was to produce a traditional-ingredient spirit, and they use 100% Icelandic-grown barley. A hardy, dense grain, the cold climate concentrates the nutrients and flavors into a smaller package than warmer climate varieties. Another major challenge is that Iceland is, according to Egill, a vodka and schnapps nation. Reykjavik, Iceland’s largest city and capitol, has just one whisky bar.
Hali and Egill Thorkelsson
A tour of the distillery shows that this is definitely a labor of love. From the repurposed milk chillers to the custom-made still (named Elizabeth, after their grandmother), the whole operation takes place in a space the size of a large garage. They store their barrels off-site in the Icelandic countryside. They currently run at about 30,000 liters per year with the capacity to double that. Every third week the process is shifted to make a batch of gin, again using only locally grown ingredients. When asked how they learned to make whisky, they both laugh, “YouTube!”
They do, however, have years of experience home brewing their own beer, and just as importantly, they have the Icelandic spirit of adventure. It is appropriate that their single malt expression will bear the name of one of the island’s first explorers, Hrafna-Flóki (Floki of the Ravens); Flóki to his friends.
Elizabeth
At this point, it might be tempting to wonder about their ability to be a serious entrant into the whisky marketplace. It might be instructive to note that their gin, Vor (Icelandic for spring), recently won “Double Gold” at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition this year. It’s more tempting to think they may be on to something, Iceland being perhaps the best place for such a micro-distillery. “How many micros in the US can have a bottle in every store in the nation?” Egill asks.
Careful not to rely too much on the instructive merits of YouTube, their niece, Eva, is finalizing professional training in Scotland. Formal training can only get you so far, however. The rest comes from a lot of trial and error, or as Egill calls it, “playing.” Experimenting with over 160 recipes, the process was to “taste a lot of whisky, get a lot of opinions, and make a lot of mistakes.”
So sometime in 2017, the first bottle of Icelandic single malt whisky, “Flóki,” will hit the shelves. Their standard expression will be a 3 year old aged in bourbon barrels that is “not complex, with a few key ingredients to make it very drinkable.” It will also be organic and eco-friendly. All their power is geothermal, and the only pesticide used is a little thing they like to call “winter.”
Sara at the Dillon Whiskey Bar with a cask of Flóki
But what about the defining of a unique, Icelandic expression? “I like smoked,” Egill admits, and Iceland has plenty of native peat. He notes that traditional Icelandic methods of smoking usually are, er…dung-related. This might be one area where he’s willing to deviate from traditional practices, but he rules nothing out. The normally straightforward master distiller becomes ambiguous when pressed for more details, but hints that something might be bottled before the single malt is introduced.
For the curious, adventurous, or just plain impatient world traveler, you can try some slighty-aged Flóki (1-12 months in virgin oak, medium plus char) from their pre-release 4.5 liter mini-casks at Dillon Whiskey Bar in Reykjavik.
I attended the taping of this past Sunday’s episode of Last Week Tonight, and during a pre-show Q-and-A, one audience member asked John Oliver about his favorite part of the new set.
Screengrab from HBO
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While you might initially assume that the backdrop is the New York City skyline—the show tapes in New York—it’s actually full of landmarks from all over the world: Beside the Empire State Building is the Washington Monument, the Burj Khalifa, and even one of the Great Pyramids. (It makes sense, given that the show has thus far taken a more international perspective on the news.)
But Oliver’s favorite part of the new set is this:
Screengrab from HBO
Just over Oliver’s right shoulder is the castle where Stannis Baratheon hangs out on Game of Thrones. As the Huffington Post notes, it’s called “Dragonstone.”
There’s always a bit of fakery to these late-night backdrops, and it’s fun to see Oliver taking this convention one step further.
Mere days after the fitness-tracking app Moves assured users about their privacy after its acquisition by Facebook, the company has changed its privacy policy to allow itself to share data with third parties. The Wall Street Journal reported the changes late Monday, which were pushed as an app update to Moves users.
by Tom Ley on Deadspin, shared by Charlie Jane Anders to io9
Martin Mull was a lot of things—a brilliant comedian, a folk singer, an egomaniac—but one thing he will always be remembered for is almost getting himself killed by Bill Murray.
Taronga Zooin Australia is celebrating the arrival of its second Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat joey in three years, a breeding success story that could also help the Critically Endangered Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat.
The female joey, which has been named Sydney, has just begun venturing outside mom Korra’s pouch at eight months old, to the delight of keepers and visitors.
Photo credit: Taronga Zoo
Keeper Brett Finlayson said the birth was particularly exciting as Southern Hairy-nosed Wombats are notoriously difficult to breed.
“Compatibility and timing seem to be crucial ingredients for success, as the female is only receptive to the male for a 12-hour window. Korra and our male, Noojee, have proven to be a great pairing as this is their second joey in three years,” said Brett.
See photos and learn more after the fold.
Discovering the successful “formula” to breed Southern Hairy-nosed Wombats is also seen as an important step towards saving their Critically Endangered cousin, the Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat, of which there only around 200 left in the wild.
“There’s no zoo-based breeding program for Northern Hairy-nosed Wombats at this time. However if we can perfect and apply what we learn from our breeding program here to Northern Hairy-nosed Wombats in the future, the ramifications for this critically endangered species could be immense,” said Brett.
"Put a smile on your face, asshole" is Portland's best motto
I am a born and raised Portlander. I love all you hipsters, punks, yuppies, scenesters, hippies, bikers, etc....I don't care what your style is or how old you are, I will treat you all with the same respect you deserve. That being said, if you work in the service industry, try for at least once not doing the passive aggressive bullshit attitude that this town is infamous for being. Not only can anyone see past it, but that cow-chewing-curd dead stare you give of either hating your job or the people that come in is tiring and juvenile. If you don't like your job quit, otherwise, try making the most of your day and you'd be surprised how much you get back out of it. Put a smile on your face, asshole.
The good news is that the renewal rate was high enough for App.net to be profitable and self-sustaining on a forward basis. …
The bad news is that the renewal rate was not high enough for us to have sufficient budget for full-time employees. After carefully considering a few different options, we are making the difficult decision to no longer employ any salaried employees, including founders. … Additionally, as part of our efforts to ensure App.net is generating positive cash flow, we are winding down the Developer Incentive Program.
They’re putting on a good face, but it sure sounds like it’s over. It now has no full-time staff, very little money, and even less motivation for developers to write apps for it — and that’s just after the first major renewal period. Now that it’s pretty clear that the future is dim, it’s likely that even more people will abandon the service before the next renewal.
I would have loved to be proven wrong on my pessimisticpredictions and criticism of their scattershot product direction. They’re good people. But I just don’t see a fundamentally social platform, even with a bunch of other features on top of it, getting a usefully large audience to succeed “on a forward basis” rather than “winding down” without being mostly free and having explosive growth from the start — especially when competing with similar, massive, free services.
Here’s a small selection of the 27 sketches Jeremy did for fans at this year’s FCBD event at Heroes! We had such a great time— hope everyone had a chance to get the FCBD Skyward/Midnight Tiger comic!
The combination of Comcast and Time Warner would not dominate the Internet the way AT&T dominated the telephone industry. But recent events suggest that Comcast is already large enough to threaten competition on the Internet. Preventing the company from getting even larger might avoid the need for a lot more regulation in the years ahead.
“Despite everybody thinking that this is some great publicity stunt or marketing ploy, this has been a genuine concept from the get-go,” says Tarik “Cilvaringz” Azzougarh, the album’s producer. “It happened to get a lot of publicity — great — but it is a genuine concept with a genuine core and a genuine goal.”
Twitter's stock is currently plummeting down almost 17 percent, but it could have been even worse. The lockup period expired yesterday, prompting fears of a crash should employees and investors decide to sell their stock. But former Twitter employees complained earlier today that they were blocked from cashing out.
April and May 2014 will go down in Internet (or at least A.V. Club) history as the Spring Of Cicierega. The evil genius who recently unleashed Mouth Sounds and Crocodile Chop on an unsuspecting online public is back and still determined to undermine ‘90s nostalgia with “Say It Ain’t SoCal.” The song combines two of Weezer’s most overplayed, Guitar Hero-friendly hits, “Say It Ain’t So” and “Beverly Hills,” to create a mashup that Cicierega describes simply as “How to ruin a good Weezer song (no Smash Mouth).” See, he’s not a complete sadist.
“Say It Ain’t SoCal” isn’t available for download yet, but it is streaming on Cicierega’s Tumblr page.
ZooBorns.
