firehose

 Operating on the therapeutic theory (already endorsed by the people making a movie out of these same events) that a nation cannot truly recover from its wounds until someone has made some money out of them, Fox has announced that they’re also getting into the cinematic-depictions-of-the-Boston-Marathon-bombing game—a game very much like playing the lottery, in that it’s trashy, exploitative, and very likely to make someone (but not you) rich.

Based on the book Long Mile Home: Boston Under Attack, The City’s Courageous Recovery And The Epic Hunt For Justice by Boston Globe reporters Scott Helman and Jenna Russell, Fox’s planned event series will tell the heartwarming story of a city coming together in the wake of a senseless tragedy. It will also, by its very existence, tell the less heartwarming story of TV executives realizing that dramatizing recent tragedies while the wounds are still raw ...

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Tech industry shuttles have become a symbol of economic inequality and gentrification in San Francisco, sparking a variety of protests since late last year. Now, activists are trying to hold city leaders accountable for letting those shuttles use public bus stops, and without regard for their environmental impact on the city and its residents. The Coalition for Fair, Legal and Environmental Transit and a local labor union are suing the city, county, board of supervisors, the local transit agency, the shuttle companies, and Mayor Ed Lee himself, for creating a pilot program that charges bus companies just $1 per stop and granting it a special exemption from California's environmental review law.

Protesters allege preferential treatment for tech companies

From the get-go, San Francisco protesters treated the pilot progam with scorn. When every single passenger who wants to ride a public bus has to pay $2, it might not seem fair that a entire busload of well-paid tech workers should get to ride for a single dollar per stop, particuarly with evidence that the shuttles were impacting public transportation with 35,000 boardings per day. It seemed that the city had found a way to legalize an illegal practice, in their eyes, by charging a token amount. (Other vehicles stopping at bus stops face hefty fines.) But the heart of this latest lawsuit is that the city may also have unfairly exempted the program from the very environmental review that might have found fault with the idea.

Generally, projects that might impact residents have to undergo an environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act — the same review that the city's own public bus system is undergoing now. But the city declared the shuttle program exempt as a form of "information collection," a type of exemption usually reserved for the likes of soil and water tests. When activists filed an appeal last month, the city board of supervisors rejected it in an 8-2 decision, so now they're hoping to make their case in court.

"We know that these buses are having devastating impacts on our neighborhoods, driving up rents and evictions of long-time San Francisco residents," said Sara Shortt of SF's Housing Rights Committee, which helped file the lawsuit. "We've protested in the streets and taken our plea to City Hall to no avail. We hope to finally receive justice in a court of law," she told the SF Examiner.

Key landmarks are shown in yellow. Sites of potential flood barriers are in red.

John Timmer

Want to make Manhattan waterproof? A few years ago, the idea seemed ludicrous to everyone but a handful of researchers and urban planners. But the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, extended outages, and infrastructure damage changed the conversation. Suddenly, long-ignored plans for multi-billion-dollar flood barricades were given serious attention.

But does it merit the attention? In today's issue of Science, researchers describe a risk assessment model that they use to consider a variety of approaches for flood-proofing the Big Apple. They conclude that, for now, adaptation makes more economic sense than a giant flood barrier—but that may change. Under a middle-of-the-road climate scenario, where storm intensity and ocean levels both rise, building a barrier starts to make sense before mid-century.

Options

The authors of the new study (who are scattered among four different academic institutions) focus on a number of different plans for minimizing the impact of floods. At the low end, the city would simply harden key pieces of infrastructure, like the subways, airports, and electrical generation and distribution sites. Accompanying that would be changes in the building codes requiring that buildings elevate above common flood levels and/or incorporate basic levels of waterproofing. Since New York has a massive existing stock of buildings, some effort would also have to be made to compel changes in that.

Web browsers generally allow users to send a "Do Not Track" signal that lets advertisers know the user prefers not to be tracked for the purposes of serving up personalized ads.But it's largely a futile exercise, because websites and advertising networks are free to ignore the signal. Even Yahoo, which had been honoring Do Not Track requests, decided to stop doing so this week.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation may have a solution. Last night, the group announced "Privacy Badger," an extension for Chrome and Firefox "that analyzes sites to detect and disallow content that tracks you in an objectionable, non-consensual manner."

Privacy Badger doesn't automatically block ads. The group explained:

Apple

We’re precisely one month away from Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, and the Internet Rumor Machine is already churning out predictions of what we’ll see unveiled in the conference’s keynote. Last year’s keynote had three huge tentpole announcements: iOS 7, OS X 10.9, and the new cylindrical Mac Pro. This year, rumors point to the spotlight shining squarely on OS X.

9to5mac has a lengthy speculative summary of all the things that we might learn from the keynote. According to the site, we’ll be hearing all about OS X 10.10 (yes, that would be pronounced "oh-ess ten ten-dot-ten"), which reportedly carries the internal code name "Syrah" but which might potentially launch as "OS X Yosemite." This would fit with Apple’s new direction of naming operating system releases not after big cats, but after places in California that carry special meaning to the company.

And what, besides a plethora of tens, will the new version of the operating system bring? Signs point to a substantial visual overhaul incorporating iOS7-style design cues like "sharper window corners, more defined icons across the system, and more white space" than Mavericks. The visual look of OS X has undergone a slow evolution over the past 13 years, with the majority of the typography and visual style freezing around OS X Leopard (version 10.5, released in late 2007). Shifting to iOS 7’s razor-thin typeface and high-color, high-contrast interface elements would be the biggest Mac desktop visual change since the initial bump from OS 9 to OS X.

By Nathan Grayson on May 2nd, 2014 at 9:00 am.

Finally! A new Call of Duty game! What has it been? Five years? Ten years? One whole minute? Never mind the agonizing wait. All that matters now is this perfect moment, this sweet embrace. Activision were planning to take the wraps off Call of Duty: Ominous, Obvious, Or Utterly Meaningless Subtitle (aka, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare) this weekend, but a couple of leaks have prompted them to offer a few early details. Foremost, this one is being developed by series first-timer Sledgehammer as part of Activision’s plan to give each series entry a three year development cycle. Second, it’s about Private Military Companies (PMCs) deciding to STOP TAKING ORDERS and START TAKING OVER and there’s a brief SHOCK-YOU-MENTARY below. Third, there’s also now a trailer and this time the villain is Kevin Spacey.

Kevin Spacey is out of control:

And here’s the documentary trailer:

The trailer is loaded with FutureTech that falls somewhere between Crysis and Titanfall (awwwwwkward), including exoskeletons, jetpacks, cloaking suits, and hover bikes. Also, there’s a scene where they blow up a bridge I regularly drive across. So long, Golden Gate Bridge! Please don’t ever do that in real life.

I’d comment on how odd it is that Legitimate Journalistic Outlet Vice is now helping a major gaming company make commercials about very, um, ethically dubious military companies, but… oh wait, I just did. Anyway, PMCs. They’re trendy to be afraid of, right? I guess they’ll be supplying the generi-brand Bad Guy Corp soldiers we’ll be shooting at this time.

Game Informer, meanwhile, has the ‘zkloosive first screenshot, which features a man who looks remarkably similar to The Wire, Luther, and Pacific Rim actor Idris Elba. That probably means something unless it doesn’t.

It’d be pretty rad if the game had a black lead, though. And hey, maybe a new developer (who, admittedly, has collaborated with Infinity Ward on previous games) leading the charge will breath some life back into the stagnating series. Put some spring back in explosions’ step. Make the setpieces dumb in a good way again, instead of dumb in a played-out way. It remains to be seen. For now though, we know there will be more Call of Duty. Just as the tide ebbs, grass grows, and global warming ensures both of those things will go all haywire soon, there’s a new Call of Duty game. The world has its equilibrium. The circle of life (and virtually ending it) continues.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare – a name that will confuse NO ONE EVER SHUT UP ACTIVISION CAN’T HEAR YOU LALALALA – will be out on November 4th.

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Monolith, night dive, Night Dive Studios, no one lives forever.

Josh Olin, the community and eSports manager at Evolve developer Turtle Rock Studios, is no longer with the company in the wake of a series of remarks related to vilified Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling.

Olin, a former community manager at Treyarch Studios (Call of Duty: Black Ops) and Riot Games (League of Legends), said on Twitter on Wednesday, "Here's an unpopular opinion: Donald Sterling has the right as an American to be an old bigot in the security of his own home. He's a victim."

The tweet was in reference to Donald Sterling's private racist remarks being made public, the ensuing media attention and punishment meted out by NBA league commissioner Adam Silver. The commissioner announced on Tuesday that Sterling was banned for life from NBA events and would pay a fine of $2.5 million. Silver is also attempting to force a sale of the Clippers.

After Olin's remarks hit Twitter, some of his followers — he has some 142,000 — challenged the original tweet. "When you were raised in an era where segregation was perceived as 'right', that will stick with some people," Olin later said. "Doesn't make him a monster."

How do sports video games handle scandals like Donald Sterling? They don't

Olin later clarified that he believed Sterling was a victim because of "illegal wiretapping resulting in a MASSIVE, life altering breach in privacy." Today, Olin tweeted he was "expressly not defending [Sterling's] remarks or actions."

The situation appears to have come to a head today, with developer Turtle Rock tweeting, "The comments made by our former community manager stand in stark contrast to our values as a game development studio. We sincerely apologize for his remarks and in no way endorse or support those views." Olin said the situation was "very poorly handled by malleable management."

Polygon has reached out to Turtle Rock Studios seeking comment. A representative for 2K Games, which is publishing Evolve, declined to comment, but confirmed that Olin is no longer at Turtle Rock.

Olin said in an email to Polygon that "it appears" he was fired and called the situation "developing." He provided the following statement:

"Anyone who follows me knows my tweets were not in support of Sterling's actions. Rather, they were promoting three core tenets I believe in: 1) The harm sensational media presents to society. 2) The importance and sanctity of your privacy within your own home. And 3) The right to be whatever you want to be as an American, as long as it isn't hurting anyone else. That last point not to be confused with condoning Sterling's actions, which I don't.

"That said, it's disappointing to see that a select few in Turtle Rock and 2K Games management bought into this hysteria without even having a conversation with me - or even thoroughly reviewing the context of the tweets themselves. Ironically, it serves as a great example of why I hold tenet #1 above so close to heart. That said, everyone should totally still buy Evolve. The guys and gals making that game know their ***, and are making it good."

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