this is the most genius thing I have ever witnessed
firehose
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29 Apr 23:45
Yahoo employees are less desperate to leave since Marissa Mayer arrived
by Max Nisen
In its most recent annual report, Yahoo announced that it had seen an incredible 340,000 job applications in 2013, double the previous year.
Now there’s evidence that the internet company has reduced the massive brain drain that it suffered during its years in the doldrums as well.
After Marissa Mayer’s appointment as Yahoo CEO in 2012, outbound applications by Yahoo employees to smaller tech startups dropped by 44%, according to data from recruiting software provider Jobvite. And relative to the pre-Mayer era in 2012, overall outbound applications are down by a full 50%.
The data aren’t comprehensive. They measure the number of Yahoo employees that have applied to companies that use Jobvite’s software. Jobvite didn’t disclose what specific client companies Yahoo employees have applied to, but companies that use the software include Twitter, Square, and Yelp.
The overall direction of the data does seem to support what the company’s CFO Ken Goldman said about the company’s ability to attract and retain talent, that more people want to come and stay at the company.Through some combination of its change in leadership, aggressive acquisition of startups, cultural change, and high compensation, Yahoo appears to have changed the way applicants and employees think about it.
Yahoo’s rising share price—up about 37% over the past year—is likely also contributing to staff loyalty, especially for employees compensated with stock options. (That exceptional performance of Yahoo’s stock since Mayer took over has a lot more to do with its investments in China internet giant Alibaba and Yahoo Japan than the company’s core business, which investors don’t seem to value very much.)
According to Jobvite, Apple employees have looked for jobs elsewhere at a 63% higher rate during Tim Cook’s tenure versus that of Steve Jobs. (Apple wasn’t immediately available to comment on that.)
29 Apr 23:44
Private security guards are a sign of inequality. But are firefighters and detectives?
by Tim Fernholz
Is US inequality shown by the number of people who earn their living guarding other people’s stuff?
Two economists argue that “guard labor” is an indicator of inequality, highlighted by this chart showing the correlation between the two trends:
Samuel Bowles and Arjun Jayadev suggest that the connection isn’t good for the US economy: Too many people are wasting their productive time guarding other people’s wealth, while in other countries, social norms and equality suffice to do the same job. It’s a compelling argument, especially when you consider, as they do in their broadest definition, that 5.2 million Americans were working in 2011 as guard labor, in the armed forces, or producing weapons. With all this focus on guns, there is less labor focused on butter.
But that great chart above is a little misleading because you get the impression from the article that we’re mostly talking about rent-a-cop security guards wearing ill-fitting blazers. If you look at where they get their specific numbers, it turns out that Bowles and Jayadev are actually talking about the category “protective services occupations” as the US government construed it in 2000, a category which includes security guards and police officers, but also firefighters, detectives, and animal-control officers. Private security guards are only about a third of this count in the US.
Consider this: From 2003 to 2013, the number of workers in “protective service occupations in the US” grew 9.2%, with 274,000 new jobs created. Just under 40%—105,070—were new security guard jobs, and that number didn’t grow as fast as the number of actual police officers. Here are some selected examples from the last decade:
You can come up with reasons for growth in these occupations that don’t rely on inequality, but just affluence. There’s more need for “gaming surveillance”—casino security—in a country where more people can afford to gamble, and more investment in criminal investigation, rather than street patrols, in economies where they can spend more on sophisticated law enforcement. Investments in fire safety may come from similar reasons, although there are good arguments that Americans aren’t using our firefighting labor very effectively. The rising number of security guards may reflect liability conscious sports arena owners rather than huge growth in gated communities. Meanwhile, the drop in private detectives may be a sign of lessening inequality, at least if all the film noir movies involving wronged heirs and wealthy playboys are to be believed.
That’s not to say there’s not an important point in this argument: The real waste in labor productivity that the authors identify may be the prison industrial system, where the number of imprisoned Americans and the number of people paid to guard them keeps growing even as crime rates go down.
29 Apr 23:44
Rick Santorum Is Running for President
by Dan Savage
Rick Santorum is running for president. Again. According to the Republican Rulebook, the 2016 Republican nomination is his by rights. Santorum was the last NotRomney standing in 2012 and the GOP always nominates the runner-up next time around. To seal the deal Santorum went on MSNBC's Morning Joe today and urged Republican primary voters not to make the same mistake in 2016 that they made in 2012: failing to nominate Rick Santorum. Because it turns out that Santorum and only Santorum, according to Santorum and only Santorum, could've beaten Barack Obama in 2012. But we don't have to take his word for it! Some of Obama's own flying monkeys thought Santorum would've won if GOP voters had the sense to nominate him. They even told him so:
"Look, I thought I could have won last time," he said. "I'm convinced. You know I asked one of the Obama minions who were running the campaign 'Hey, why didn't you guys help me? I was up there battling Romney and all these folks at MSNBC were saying wouldn't this be great if, Santorum were the nominee, why didn't you help me? Why didn't you go out and bang me a little a bit, hit me you know, as being too conservative?'" "And the consensus was, 'We didn't want you, because of this,'" Santorum added, holding up his book.
Obama's minions were convinced that a book Rick Santorum hadn't written yet would win him the election. That must be some book. Anyway, Rick Santorum wrote a book. It's here. And Esquire's political blogger Charlie Pierce wrote a blog post. It's here. Money quote:
Bullshit, bullshit, and also, bullshit. First, I don't think this conversation [with an Obama "minion"] actually happened but, for the moment, let's assume that it did. One of the key factors in the president's re-election was a 12-point gender gap over a guy who once held relatively moderate positions on women's issues, but who abandoned them because he was a big old 'ho who wanted to get nominated. If the party had nominated Santorum, who actually believes this stuff, and has campaigned on it his entire career, there would have been a gender gap the size of the fking Bosphorus.
The gender gap was a key factor in the president's re-election. But it wasn't the only gap that factored in:
The backing Mr. Obama received from gay voters also has a claim on having been decisive. Mitt Romney and Mr. Obama won roughly an equal share of votes among straight voters nationwide, exit polls showed. And, a study argues, Mr. Romney appears to have won a narrow victory among straight voters in the swing states of Ohio and Florida. Mr. Obama’s more than three-to-one edge in exit polls among the 5 percent of voters who identified themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual was more than enough to give him the ultimate advantage, according to the study, by Gary J. Gates of the Williams Institute at the U.C.L.A. School of Law, in conjunction with Gallup. The results are consistent with earlier research on the number and political beliefs of gay voters.
A 12-point gender gap? That's nothing. Romney suffered a 52-point queermo gap. Obama and Romney split straight voters down the middle while 76% of voters who identified as queer backed Obama. It's hard to picture a scenario in which Rick Santorum—AKA "Frothy Mix," AKA "Man On Dog," AKA "Ban Gay Marriage"—would've picked up a larger share of the LGBT vote in 2012 than Mitt Romney did. And unless Rick's daughter has millions of imaginary gay friends—and they're all registered to vote—Frothy Mix doesn't have a prayer in 2016.
Tertiarymatt, bernot likes this
29 Apr 20:10
Box Brown On Chronicling Andre The Giant's 'Life And Legend' In New Graphic Novel [Interview]
by Chris Sims
Box Brown’s Andre the Giant: Life and Legend is already one of my favorite graphic novels of the year. In an exhaustively researched, incredibly compelling biography, Brown goes through the major events of Andre’s life, both in the ring and outside of it, and he pulls off the pretty amazing trick of making him seem like a flawed and relatable human being while simultaneously painting him as the larger-than-life giant that he was.
Today, with the book finally being released next week, I’ve spoken to Brown about the research that he did, his experience watching Andre’s match against Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania III over and over, and why he’s not Facebook friends with pro wrestler Blackjack Mulligan anymore.
ComicsAlliance: How did you first encounter Andre the Giant?
Box Brown: Honestly, I try to think about when I first got into wrestling, and I remember WrestleMania VI being the first time that I watched WrestleMania as it happened. I remember being aware of WrestleMania V and what was going on and what happened, so I got into wrestling between those two. I must have known who Andre was, but one of my first memories of Andre was at WrestleMania VI, one of many swan songs for him. He and Haku were the Colossal Connection, and they lost the tag team belts to Demolition. Andre had been a heel for a really long time, and he kind of turned babyface. Then he was off TV for a while, after that. Well, for a minute.
CA: So your first encounter with him was towards the end, then.
BB: Yeah, way towards the end of his career. I’d really only known Andre as his WWF persona, where he was a heel with the black singlet with one strap, after he’d been bodyslammed by Hogan. They’d still talk about that. He was just the biggest, baddest dude.
CA: [Laughs] They still talk about that. Every week. So was it a thing where you saw him then and thought “what’s his deal?” and had to know more immediately, or did it come gradually over the course of being a fan?
BB: No, I’ve been a lifelong wrestling fan after that. There’s some gaps in the 2000s, I have to admit — most of the 2000s, to be honest with you. I’ve gone back and done my homework a little bit, but there was a gap. I think it wasn’t until later that I started reading about Andre the Giant’s life and got interested in him as a subject for comics, and got super into researching more and more stuff about him. I guess I’d just been goofing off on the Internet, and stumbled across the story of him getting a ride to school from Samuel Beckett.
I thought that would make a cool comic, so I made it into a mini. Then I started looking up other Andre the Giant stories, and there were so many good ones. I was holding his life under a microscope a little bit, and he had this fascinating, tragic, short life.
CA: As a wrestling fan, you always hear those stories. Everyone’s got an Andre story. The first one you always hear is how he used to drink bottles and barrels of wine, and they had to use that to figure out the amount of anesthesia to give him.
BB: Sure.
CA: Did you just keep on hearing them, and did you want to just know which ones were true?
BB: Yeah, there’s so many. I think years ago, I saw the A&E Biography of Andre, probably in 2003. The initial interest in his story came from that, because that was a little bit of a behind-the-scenes look at his life, and there were all these stories about him drinking a hundred beers. I think that’s true — he’s a huge guy, all the guys on the road drank a lot anyway, they were all huge guys. A beer can barely fit in his hand, it’d be like an orange juice glass at a diner. That’s what a beer is to him. I could have a million of those.
CA: The way you draw him, the thing that I really notice is that you’re always doing these close-ups of his hands, either contrasting with other people or just with the tiny little neck of a beer bottle poking out from his fist.
BB: That was the thing. I watched a lot of footage of Andre, and that’s one of the things that, once you start looking at how big his hands are and comparing them to the things in the shot with them, is amazing. He’d shake hands with people and their hands would just get completely buried in his giant hand. I know there’s a handprint in stone somewhere, where you can compare your hand to his.
There’s a video that I believe the AWA made back in the day, and Andre’s in it. You just see a Jeep Wrangler, and you see his hand coming out and opening the door, and his hand takes up almost the whole door. It’s a good example of how much larger he is than the average person.
CA: Even the Andre shirts that WWE sells just have the handprint on them.
BB: I was thinking about that. You’d have to take the measurements of the mold and find what the actual size was, because that would be a cool tattoo.
CA: I love the way it’s used as this recurring motif in the book. There’s a shot of it at the beginning, then you see it again in the fight with Chuck Wepner, where it’s even bigger than Wepner’s boxing glove. You have him putting his hand on Robin Wright’s head to warm her up.
BB: Yeah, that was a common thing. He was on The Tonight Show, and it was so hard to find. There was a lot of footage of him talking about The Tonight Show, so I was trying to find all this footage, like “where is this footage of Andre with Johnny Carson?” But it was during the summer, and Carson had a guest host, Joey Bishop. They’d always compare hands, just as an example. It must’ve been really shocking to the average person.
Christopher Guest [Count Rugen in The Princess Bride] talks about it. He would try to shake Andre’s hand every day, because it was just such an experience. It was so powerful, you’d shake his hand and realize that he could just crush you so easily.
CA: What all did you go through for the research?
BB: Well, I did a lot of things. I have a ton of sources in the book. There are a lot of these shoot interviews out there, there’s stuff that’s been written in the past, like the Sports Illustrated interview. All kinds of stuff.
One of the things that was really helpful to me was this group of Internet wrestling fans, and it looks to me like it must’ve been done in the early days of the Internet, like newsgroups. It’s that old. This group of wrestling fans, and this guy known as “The Claw Master,” compiled Andre’s full win/loss record. It had every match he was ever in, whether he won or lost, what city it was in, the date, and who he wrestled. I remember specifically that there’s a story about One Man Gang in the book, and One Man Gang talked about what happened to him in the ring. It was a tag-team match with Andre and “Captain Redneck” Dick Murdoch, and they dumped a beer down One Man Gang’s throat, even though One Man Gang was a teetotaler. He didn’t drink at all, and they dumped a beer down his throat.
Which was pretty cruel! But I was trying to figure out when that occurred, but I had his Win/Loss record right there, so I could find it and see when it occurred, where it was, where to place it in the story. It was interesting, and it was funny — I found out that it was the next day that he broke his ankle getting out of bed.
CA: Of all the stuff that you went back through, was there a favorite moment? Something that made you see Andre in a new light, or something that really resonated with you?
BB: I remember when I was working on the part in the book where Andre gets in a fight with Blackjack Mulligan. Mulligan wrote about it in his book, which is amazing. He published it himself, so it’s not copy edited or anything. So we actually became Facebook friends, and I would talk to him about it, and get the story that appears in the book directly from him.
But then he started replying to a lot of my posts with some… extreme political views that I don’t share. So… we’re not Facebook friends anymore. [Laughs]
CA: That’s such a great story, too, the idea of these two guys who are clearly friends, who get drunk and just want to beat the hell out of each other, but Andre doesn’t want him to have his cowboy boots because he might really get hurt.
BB: He didn’t want Blackjack to put the boots to him!
CA: The great thing is that it’s exactly what you picture when you hear “two ’80s wrestlers partying.”
BB: These guys just getting drunk and throwing each other through a wall.
CA: But you actually talked to Blackjack Mulligan about it?
BB: I still have the transcript of what we talked about, and man, the language he was using. Just in casual conversation! He didn’t really know who I was, he just knew I was working on this book, and he was cutting a promo via Facebook chat about this fight in his friend’s hotel, and having to pay like $600 to pay to fix the wall. He was just ranting and raving, and using all kinds of offensive language. [Laughs]
CA: The first time I encountered your stuff about Andre, it was the story about Bad News Brown that ran in the fanzine, The Atomic Elbow. That story’s interesting for a lot of reasons, but the thing that I really latched onto was that you talked about how there are different versions of that story from the different people who were there. And if people don’t know, it’s a story about Andre telling a racist joke on a bus tour of Japan, and Bad News Brown taking exception to it. Bad News Brown, who was also an Olympic medalist in Judo.
BB: Oh my God, the treatment of Bad News Brown. I could do another book on that alone. He was a national champion in Judo in 1968, he fought in the Olympics, he had more skill than anybody in pro wrestling, and they bring him to WWF and make him be “Bad News Brown,” a totally, pretty racist gimmick of “a black guy from Harlem.” That was his gimmick. Meanwhile, he had legit ability. But that’s a digression.
CA: That story being the first thing I encountered with your work on Andre was really interesting, because Andre does not come off well in that story.
BB: The story in The Atomic Elbow was from Hogan’s perspective, and the one in the book is from Bad News Brown’s perspective. It’s not totally different, but there are slight nuances that are in there that I don’t think Hogan picked up on. Hogan’s view of it is, of course, a little bit skewed, so I used Bad News’s, which is probably the closest to reality, since he was one of the parties of the event.
But yeah, Andre definitely does not come out looking good there.
CA: That comes in the dead center of the book, but reading it in The Atomic Elbow two years ago, and being someone who was aware that the book was coming and who was excited about it, I couldn’t help but think of it as a prologue. It’s like a sample chapter that you’d find in a magazine. And you do a lot of stuff like that — it’s not a romanticized view of Andre. There’s a quote on the back, from John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats about how you’re not portraying him as larger than life, but as he actually was. Was there ever a time when you were wary of including stories like the altercation with Bad News Brown, because Andre’s such a beloved figure in wrestling and a friendly giant that people knew from The Princess Bride?
BB: No, there wasn’t. I think that moment was not Andre’s best moment, but it doesn’t define him as a guy. I think all people have flaws, and to not include those things would’ve been untruthful on my part. To whitewash, let’s say, or to make it look like Andre was always a happy individual, or always this kindly babyface that he was on TV, it just wouldn’t be true. It’s not the case for anyone. Nobody’s perfect, and everybody plays the heel and the babyface at times in real life. I think that was the case with Andre as well.
A lot of people talked about him later in life being kind of an ornery type guy. I think it had a lot to do with the pain that he was in, and having no patience for the fanfare that comes from being a pro wrestler. I think he was in a lot of pain just moving around, and he lost his patience for a lot of the autograph signing type stuff.
CA: I almost don’t want to spoil it for anyone who reads the book, but there’s a moment at the end where Bad News Brown shows up again. Having read that story two years before of it and being aware of that story, I was almost in tears when they were friends again.
BB: [Laughs] In the interview with Bad News, if you watch it, he talks about it in a serious manner, and he tells that story where they made up eventually, and you can tell he’d come to peace with Andre as a guy. I wanted to include that in there, too, as a little bit of redemption for Andre.
CA: One of the big sections of the book is based around the most famous Andre the Giant match, which is the one against Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania III, in the Pontiac Silverdome.
BB: 93,000 fans.
CA: You do an 11-page recreation of that match, with your commentary on why it’s an important match in Andre’s life and career. What was that process like? How many times did you watch that match?
BB: A lot. [Laughs] That’s actually the only match that I ever convinced my wife to watch with me. But I think she appreciated it, I actually think I convinced her to appreciate the intricacies of what made that match so great for a moment.
One of my favorite things about it is that it’s this huge, huge spectacle that sold out the place, and the match itself really worked. But the whole time, Andre is able to go only so far. He had ten minutes, maybe, that he put on of the actual match. Twelve minutes, maybe. But it was spectacular nonetheless. And Hogan, there’s no discounting how great Hogan is in that match, selling for Andre the whole time, for almost the entire match.
I watched it many, many times, and I think I started to get into watching wrestling at that speed. You’re watching every single move, and considering each decision that Hogan and Andre are making in the ring. It’s also when I noticed that Andre is winking to the camera during it, which is one of my favorite moments.
I’d watched that match ten times before I noticed the wink. Every time I watch it, I really enjoy it more. There’s this part where Hogan’s in the corner and he’s selling, and Andre just yells to the crowd “Look at your champion now!” It’s this thing that he didn’t really have to do, but he’s playing it up for the crowd. You can tell he’s having the time of his life.
CA: You can’t imagine Andre not enjoying being on a stage like that. It’s the stage that’s finally the right size for Andre.
BB: I think Andre really liked performing. I don’t know if he ever told anybody this, he was a pretty quiet guy, really. But I don’t see any reason why he would’ve continued to wrestle and perform in the ’90s. He could’ve retired. He didn’t have to go out there anymore, and he couldn’t really move. He could barely move and he was in a lot of pain.
I don’t know if you remember this, but he would come out at some of his last shows for the WWF with braces, barely getting involved in the match, but he still wanted to be out there. I don’t think it was the money. I’m sure he got paid well, but he didn’t really need the money. There was no reason to be out there, except for wanting to do it, even though it was so much travel, which was really taxing on him.
CA: One thing that I hadn’t really thought of, even though I’ve known who Andre was for 20 years, was that yeah, that guy wrestled in Japan, which means he was on a plane for hours.
BB: There was one year where he went back and forth to Japan — back and forth — three times in one summer. It’s insane. I think he really loved Japan. He loved traveling the world, and he had a giant appetite for experience and traveling the world.
CA: I don’t know if this is going out on the final version, but the copy I have has quotes from people like Mandy Patinkin and John Darnielle, but it’s also got Mick Foley and Jim Ross. Have you heard from wrestlers about it?
BB: I heard some interesting stories. It was reviewed in the Pro Wrestling Torch, which was cool, and I heard a rumor from someone that Chris Cruz, the old announcer from WCW, ordered the book from his local comic shop, and that he ordered two because Bruno Sammartino wanted one. That was super thrilling.
From doing this book, I’ve realized that there are a lot more people that are interested in wrestling than are letting on. I feel like there are a lot of closet wrestling fans out there.
CA: I would not know anything about that.
BB: You’re very out of the closet. [Laughs] But I really feel like everyone kind of has an affinity for pro wrestling.
Andre the Giant: Life and Legend is out next week from First Second.
firehose likes this
29 Apr 19:51
masteradept: eviltwinjen: exsequar: Fan: If you got to...
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Courtney
shared this story
from  Super Opinionated.
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Fan: If you got to create your own superhero, who would it be?
Mackie: Mine would be an everyday woman who is nice to men. Like, she goes out with her friends after work, and if a guy comes over and says hello she says “Hi!”. Or if she’s on a date with a guy, and she’s like, “oh this isn’t going well”, she comes up with clever stuff so he’s not stuck there trying to make interesting conversation, just like a really nice girl!
Look. I love Anthony Mackie as much as the next girl. But I need to point out this really gross quote because I’m uncomfortable with it not being visible. Basically he’s demanding that women be friendly and open to strange guys, ignoring the fact that we might not be so open thanks to a little thing called rape culture. And the last bit? The girl doesn’t like a date so it’s HER job to entertain the guy so he doesn’t have to do any hard work? There’s a lot of entitlement here and lack of regard for a woman’s emotions and it makes me really uncomfortable.
I just think this is an important reminder that even the most lovely guys grow up in our society and have those dangerous ideas. Video here: [x]
I’ve been enjoying Anthony Mackie being a gift all over Tumblr, but I’ve also been counting down to the moment when someone will find him saying/doing something problematic. Because people—especially celebrities—will ALWAYS disappoint us. Even your best friend is going to let you down sometimes, and they’re not constantly being interviewed and filmed (most likely). Just like ScarJo awesomely calling out sexist interviewers but then defending Woody Allen…the celebrities we love are all mixed bags. All we can do is try to improve the conversation with the voices we have.
Damnit. We can’t have nuthin nice.
firehose likes this
29 Apr 17:44
From The Collection: 002
by Tobias Frere-Jones
I took the city bus to get to school. The high point of the trip was getting a transfer, a rough slip of paper rattling and clanging with type.
I would ask the driver for one, and then take it home rather than use it. I just liked the way they looked, and didn’t really notice the hodgepodge of typefaces. But my fondness for “blue collar” typography surely started here.
Click for the big image and enjoy the traffic jam of sans serifs.
H James Lucas, bernot likes this
29 Apr 15:55
Boehner on immigration comments: 'You tease the ones you love' - USA TODAY
firehose"Speaker John Boehner still loves you, even if he did joke about your squeamishness when it comes to passing an immigration bill. “You tease the ones you love,” Boehner told reporters Tuesday"
Washington Post |
Boehner on immigration comments: 'You tease the ones you love' USA TODAY Note to House Republicans: Speaker John Boehner still loves you, even if he did joke about your squeamishness when it comes to passing an immigration bill. “You tease the ones you love,” Boehner told reporters Tuesday in explaining his much-publicized ... Sen. Chuck Schumer: Immigration bill will get signed into law this yearWashington Times Schumer's 'little secret' on immigrationThe Hill (blog) Boehner vs. the base on immigrationKTOK Patriot Post -Newsmax.com -Techsonia all 60 news articles » |
29 Apr 15:54
Magic Mirror
by Liz Upton
firehoseThis is awesome. And looks pretty easy!
Michael Teeuw was out shopping with his girlfriend, when he noticed a display mirror with illuminated lighting. Being one of those people whose minds tend to wander in the frocks department, he decided he’d go home and make a better one.
With one-way mirror glass (the sort they use in TV-show and, for all I know, real-life police interrogation rooms) mounted over a flat display device, outputting white text on a black background, the effects you can achieve are rather special, especially if, like Michael, you really care about typography.
Best of all, for most people the hardest bit of reproducing this project at home won’t be the Raspberry Pi end – frankly, the bit we’d expect you to find most tricky is making the wooden frame. Michael has done all the hard work with the interface, and integrating all the information he needs when gazing at his own beauteous visage: namely a nice uplifting compliment, the weather, clock and calendar, and a news feed. He’s also made detailed wiring instructions available, along with all of his code. (I’m noticing some additions to the codebase have been made since he put the project on his blog, most notably an alert that tells him to empty the dishwasher.)
Visit Michael’s website to see a step-by-step guide to replicating this project at home.
Daria Nifontova, Alexander Yarovoy and 3 others like this
29 Apr 15:48
MIT club giving every undergrad $100 in bitcoin
by Jacob Kastrenakes
firehose"Giving students access to cryptocurrencies is analogous to providing them with internet access at the dawn of the internet era,"
no, it's analogous to giving tons of college students $100
A club at MIT wants to see what will happen when an entire community has access to a digital currency, and to find out, it plans to give every undergraduate student on campus $100 worth of bitcoin this fall. The MIT Bitcoin Club says that it's raised a half million dollars from alumni and the bitcoin community, which it plans to use to cover the cost of bitcoin for the campus' more than 4,500 undergrads and to finance informational programs about bitcoin. The group also plans to work with researchers on campus to study how students are using the new currency.
"Giving students access to cryptocurrencies is analogous to providing them with internet access at the dawn of the internet era," Jeremy Rubin, a sophomore computer science student at MIT and one of the two students behind the project, says in a statement. The club says that it has no idea how students will actually end up using their bitcoin, but it hopes to work with merchants around campus to begin accepting it to give students a way to get started. Logistics and timing for distributing the bitcoin are still being decided, but the project's organizers say they're working with quite a few members of faculty for support.
- Source MIT Bitcoin Club
- Related Items mit jeremy rubin dan elitzer mit bitcoin club mit bitcoin project
bernot likes this
29 Apr 15:45
2013 MacBook Airs get a speed bump and a $100 price cut
by Andrew Cunningham
firehose'upgrading from 4GB to 8GB of RAM still costs $100'
The MacBook Air gets a CPU bump today, but that's all it is.
Andrew Cunningham
Apple doesn't often do price cuts, but today it has given its entire lineup of MacBook Airs a $100 price reduction. The base 11-inch model now starts at $899, while the 13-inch model starts at $999. Stepping up to the $1,099 and $1,199 models (respectively) will get you a 256GB SSD instead of a 128GB one, and upgrading from 4GB to 8GB of RAM still costs $100 across the lineup.
The laptops have also gotten a mild CPU refresh, and they graduate a 1.3GHz (2.6GHz Turbo) Core i5-4250U to a 1.4GHz (2.7GHz Turbo) Core i5-4260U. These CPUs are technically "new" but the architecture that powers them isn't—they're part of Intel's Haswell refresh, a mid-cycle bump that amounts mostly to small clock speed increases and improved overclocking potential on the desktop. Improvements to performance and battery life, especially in the tight quarters of a MacBook Air, will be marginal at best, and the $150 CPU upgrade option remains a 1.7GHz (3.3GHz Turbo) Core i7-4650U.
While this price bump is good news for people on the fence about buying one of Apple's ultraportables, these laptops have been around since June of 2013 and they'll be due for an upgrade soon. Apple has updated the MacBook Air at its Worldwide Developers Conference in both 2012 and 2013, and the company's release calendar is predictable enough that another WWDC launch wouldn't come as a total surprise.
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29 Apr 15:44
Firefox gets a revamped look, improved features in latest release
by Kwame Opam
firehosedon't care, too buggy
Mozilla today released the latest version of Firefox, revamping the browser's overall look and feel in the process. Based on roughly two years of work, version 29 emphasizes customizability and ease-of-use in a way that radically departs from previous iterations — and puts it more in line with browsers like Chrome than ever before.
In a blog post announcing the release, the company states that changes really come to bear in the updated tabs and menus. The chrome is much sleeker at a glance, and resembles its Google competitor right away. Menus, meanwhile, have been updated to be fully customizable, allowing the user to surface specific features and plugins to the browser bar on the fly. Bookmarks can also be added with just a click.
The new update also comes with changes for mobile, an area that Mozilla has spent an increasing amount of resources on in recent months. Deeper under the hood, Firefox Sync has been updated to allow for easy syncing across devices. Users will need to set up a Firefox Account to access the feature, after which they can access saved passwords, bookmarks, and their browsing history when they start a new session on their Android smartphone.
- Source Firefox Blog
- Related Items mozilla firefox firefox 29 browsers
29 Apr 15:41
Google's Nexus phones will reportedly be replaced by premium Android Silver handsets
by Vlad Savov
firehosegreat
The Android Silver project, which was rumored earlier this month, has today been corroborated by four fresh sources, all of whom point to a major shift in Google's mobile strategy. The Information reports that the current scheme of offering Nexus-branded handsets with Google's unadulterated vision of the best Android user experience will be scrapped, to be replaced by a set of high-end Silver phones that will closely adhere to it. The change is both expansive and expensive, as Google is said to be planning to spend heavily on promoting these devices in wireless carriers' stores and through advertising, essentially subsidizing the development and marketing costs for its hardware partners.
In exchange for this new contribution, Google will gain tighter control over the software shipping on the selected phones. The promise is that the company will clean up third-party bloatware, ensure prompt and reliable software updates, and introduce a real standard and consistency to the user experience across Android devices. LG and Motorola are identified as the likeliest first candidates for taking part, with the first phones anticipated as soon as next year, while Samsung, HTC, and Sony might need a bit more convincing. Then again, all three of the latter companies already offer Google Play Editions of their leading phones, which might be the closest analog we have at the moment for what an Android Silver device will look and act like.
- Source The Information
- Related Items nexus android plans strategy roadmap rumor speculation Google Cellphones Software
29 Apr 15:39
Choose Your Own Cliptastrophe: Decide how Donald Sterling will be punished and what happens next
by Tom Ziller
firehoseChoose Your Own Adventure
Shared for "Your teammates Jamal Crawford, J.J. Redick, Ryan Hollins, Hedo Turkoglu, Glen Davis and Jared Dudley are in your breakfast nook playing Ticket to Ride. (Only Davis wore the sartorially appropriate stovepipe hat and bowtie.)"
Let's go on an adventure to figure out what happens once Adam Silver lays the hammer down on Clippers owner Donald Sterling.
Donald Sterling is going to get punished on Tuesday, but we don't yet know how it will happen. Will Adam Silver go hard on the Clippers' racist scumbag owner, or will he use soft power to drive him out? How will players -- most notably the L.A. Clippers -- react to that punishment? Will Tuesday's Game 5 of the Clippers-Warriors series at STAPLES Center actually happen?
We don't know. But thanks to some cosmic consultation, I have determined how each choice the commish and the players make will impact the NBA, and specifically the Clippers, long-term. Follow along in this textual adventure: Choose Your Own Cliptastrophe.
Note: Each of the links lead to the next (and different) step in the adventure. Click and follow them to read this story properly).
***
YOU ARE ADAM SILVER
"Holy crap, this is bad. Thrity-some odd years and Donald Sterling mostly keeps his virulent racism limited to his housing projects and the courtroom depositions. I'm on the job three months and this asshole is on TMZ banning black people from his black girlfriend's framily. Dammit dammit dammit."
"I checked the Guide To Commissionering and the section on getting rid of racist owners was really short. Getting rid of broke owners seems pretty easy, but racist ones pose a problem. I don't think I can get away with Marge Schotting him -- the heat from all these sports takes is too hot -- but I really don't want to be in a court room or anywhere with this guy. Dammit dammit dammit. I wonder if David wants to come out of retirement."
An NBA public relations employee knocks on the door to Silver's green room.
"Mr. Silver, the media has been waiting an hour. They are joking about Detox on Twitter again."
"Oh, alright."
You are Adam Silver. Do you ... ?
Announce that Donald Sterling is banned from any more games this season and is fined $1 million.
***
YOU ARE CHRIS PAUL
Adam Silver is pouring sweat. You are pouring sweat, too, because you did bodyweight squats the entire time you were waiting for Adam Silver to show up on your TV and make his announcement. He announced that Sterling can't attend games this season and will face a $1 million fine.
Welp.
Kevin Johnson, who is advising the players' union that you run (or at least of which you are president), calls. He wants to know what the Clippers are going to do tonight. Man man man.
You are Chris Paul. Do you ...?
YOU ARE CHRIS PAUL
Adam Silver is pouring sweat. You are pouring sweat, too, because you did barbell lunges the entire time you were waiting for Adam Silver to show up on your TV and make his announcement. He announced that Sterling is banned from NBA games for life, is fined $1 million and must turn over operation of the franchise to someone else in the organization.
DeAndre Jordan, who stopped by to borrow your bathroom because his flooded after he attempted to flush a burning effigy of Donald Sterling, walks in. He wants to know what the Clippers are going to do tonight.
You are Chris Paul. Do you ...?
***
YOU ARE CHRIS PAUL
Adam Silver is pouring sweat. You are pouring sweat, too, because you did handstand pushups the entire time you were waiting for Adam Silver to show up on your TV and make his announcement. He announced that he has asked the NBA Board of Governors to strip Donald Sterling of the Clippers franchise.
Your teammates Jamal Crawford, J.J. Redick, Ryan Hollins, Hedo Turkoglu, Glen Davis and Jared Dudley are in your breakfast nook playing Ticket to Ride. (Only Davis wore the sartorially appropriate stovepipe hat and bowtie.) Crawford looks up and asks what the players should do.
You are Chris Paul. Do you ...?
***
YOU ARE DONALD STERLING
"The NBA went soft on me. Cowards. But Silver did tell me not to do something -- he told me not to come to games this postseason. And he fined me, For what? What happened to freedom of speech? He's not going to get away with this."
"Or maybe this time, I let it slide. Things are a little hot right now. V was wearing that ridiculous mask the other day -- that's not good. She shouldn't have to hide who she is out in the streets. Only on Instagram and at my games. Maybe I just put my head down for two more games and pay the fine. This team sucks anyway."
You are Donald Sterling. Do you ... ?
***
YOU ARE DONALD STERLING.
"Hand over my team to someone in the family? Like my loony wife or my disloyal son-in-law? Ha! What a joke."
"Or maybe I accept the punishment, fake some remorse and move on. I mean, they can make me give the team to another Sterling, but I'll still see every dollar Chris Paul and Blake Griffin make for me."
You are Donald Sterling. Do you ... ?
***
YOU ARE DONALD STERLING.
"TAKE MY TEAM? Hell no. Over my dead body."
You call team president Andy Roeser.
"Andy. Andy. Tell the press that Adam Silver can take my franchise when he pries it from my cold, dead hands. And I'm coming to that damn game. I own this team. I own those players. I own all of that money in that arena."
***
YOU ARE A BEVERLY HILLS PIZZA DELIVERY MAN.
You realize you are delivering a pizza to Donald Sterling's house. Man, that dude is a scumbag. You remember that you have a dimebag of kush in the glove compartment. You have an idea.
You sprinkle the kush all over the pizza. Looks just like basil. Err, oregano. You don't really know your herbs very well.
You take the pizza up. "Mr. Sterling, it's such an honor! I really respect how you hate black people! I would love to pick your brain about how you managed to become so successful!"
Sterling, flattered, invites you in for pizza. Sterling is ravenous. He eats half the pie. He begins act loopy. Wait. Oh shit. You remember you bought that kush over in Carson. Oh damn, it's totally laced with PCP, huh? PERFECT.
You get to talking about the future of the Clippers.
"I don't know, my son-in-law's a real jackass. I don't want to turn the team over to him," Sterling says.
"What if I told you I knew someone who could run the team, someone who respects your legacy and would be forever loyal?" you say.
"Who?"
"Me."
You lay out your 20-year plan for Southern California dominance. Sterling is impressed. You encourage him to eat more pizza. Sterling goes to his office and returns with a cartoonish oversized deed to the Clippers. He signs it over to you. You are now the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. Sterling laughs until he falls asleep.
You are confirmed by the NBA Board of Governors within two weeks. No one cares if you have $8 and a 1997 Mazda to your name. They are just glad to be rid of Sterling. Sterling sues, but every oral argument he makes is derailed by discussions of his sexual escapades. The courts consistently rule in your favor.
The Clippers win five championships by 2030. Damn, you're good. Eventually, a bronze statue of you is installed in front of the NBA league office, for you are the savior. You saved the Clippers. You saved the NBA.
THE END
***
YOU ARE DONALD STERLING.
You show up to Game 5. Clippers fans have formed a human chain around STAPLES Center. Players from both the Clippers and Warriors have joined in. Jermaine O'Neal is wearing an obviously fake white beard and he bellows, "You Shall Not Pass." Who the hell is this guy? "Do I pay you, boy?"
"I wouldn't take your money if Rihanna's shirt was made out of it, asshole."
"Whatever, you're fired. Get out of the way."
Neither O'Neal nor the fans will move. You fumble around in your murse, pull out your cheap cologne, believing it to be your pepper spray. You hold it up toward O'Neal and spray.
The cologne hits you in your eyes, goes up your nose and into your mouth.
You hit the ground. Hard.
The nightmares come every night. Jermaine O'Neal in a wizard's cloak. He had a staff. He was summoning basketballs with his staff and zipping them at your head. Hard. Your head hurts so bad. The basketballs never stop coming. You can't sleep. You feel as if you are losing yourself.
A woman shows up. "Mr. Sterling, it's October 30, 2014. The Clippers' home opener is tonight against the Lakers. Will you be attending?"
You show up. Then the basketballs come out. Lots of them, bouncing against the floor. The teams are warming up. So many basketballs. You begin to sweat. You see Jermaine O'Neal. He has a white beard. You feel woozy. You sweat. Hard.
"I gotta get out of here."
You stand to leave. You make eye contact with O'Neal. Oh no. He begins moving toward you. You shuffle to the tunnel. O'Neal is gaining. He's dribbling the basketball. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. The tunnel goes dark. Pitch black. Bounce bounce bounce. A voice booms out.
"Do you have to be seen in dark places, Donald?" Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.
"No, I don't! I'll never be seen in a dark place again!"
The bouncing gets louder. It's right on him. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.
You wake up in the hospital bed. It's May 1, 2014. Your mouth tastes of rubbing alcohol. A woman enters.
"Mr. Sterling, you're awake. Would you like me to put the game on?"
"NO. I NEVER WANT TO SEE OR HEAR A BASKETBALL EVER AGAIN. Sell the team. Sell the team."
Unfortunately for you, the bouncing of the balls never stops. And you can never get Jermaine O'Neal's bearded visage out of your mind.
THE END
***
YOU ARE RONALD STERLING.
You hate basketball. And you are really super-duper racist. As the new owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, you're disgusted that all of your highest-paid players are black. So you trade them. Chris Paul to Cleveland for Spencer Hawes in a sign-and-trade. Blake Griffin to the Bulls for Jimmer Fredette in a sign-and-trade. DeAndre Jordan to Toronto for Steve Novak and Tyler Hansbrough. Jamal Crawford to Portland for Meyers Leonard.
You fire Doc Rivers and hire your best friend from Shinnecock Hills, Buff Flanderson, as coach and GM. The Clippers go 2-80. God, you hate basketball. At the end of the season, you announce that the Clippers have seceded from the NBA and will join the National Lacrosse League. You fire everyone except Buff and sign your buddies to multi-million contracts. Every person you ever meet for the rest of your life shakes their head at you.
Meanwhile, the former Clippers go on to great success. Clippers fans receive free hypnosis from an L.A. doctor. The treatment allows them to forget all painful Clippers memories and receive positive memories from the greatest moments in Lakers history. They become the most passionate Lakers fans you can find.
THE END
***
YOU ARE KOBE BRYANT.
You now own the Clippers. This means you have retired from basketball. For now. MJ came back once as an owner. You'll come back twice. "That dumbass Jim Buss kept D'Antoni? Ha! I'll show him."
Chris Paul shoots 2-14 in the 2014-15 opener. You waive him. Blake Griffin fouls out of the second game. You waive him. DeAndre Jordan scores six points with seven rebounds in the third game. You waive him. "Dammit, this team sucks," you say approximately four million times in the first week of the game.
You acquire a time machine through Craigslist. You bring 1998 Kobe to 2014. You turn the team over to your bestie Pau Gasol and announce that the team has signed a number of players who are 6'3, about 200 pounds and only have the skills of ball-handling and passing.
You ride sadly into the sunset.
THE END
***
firehose likes this
29 Apr 15:36
Domestic Dispatches: The Unused Kitchen
by Michelle Slatalla
firehose'I created a stage set rather than a workspace and now I spend half my time removing stains from porous marble and trying to hide my mismatched coffee cups from view.
It’s a common problem. “Blame the Pinterest effect,” says Alexandra Lange, a Brooklyn-based architecture critic. “People look at pictures of high-end kitchens and think theirs need to look the same. But those photos should have a disclaimer that warns ‘This is an unused kitchen.’”'
|
Courtney
shared this story
from  Remodelista:
|
| ...or you could research your materials before you install them? [shrug] |
The first kitchen we had, when my husband and I were newlyweds, was about half the size of our current bathroom. It had room for a sink, a placemat-sized workspace, and a four-burner stove that was one cut above an Easy Bake oven. I could roast a 12-pound turkey in it. Unstuffed.
I’ll say this about that kitchen, though: every inch of it was used. And shortly before we grew out of the house, we were able to install a built-in dishwasher, a luxury that came with a doubly high price because it diminished our storage space by half.
I thought about this the other day when my husband was rooting around in the great, unexplored Northwestern territories of my freezer. “Do you have any idea what this is?” he called, waving around a frozen block of something that could have been a stew, a tomato sauce, or a woolly mammoth.
Photographs by Liesa Johannssen for Remodelista.
Above: My Wolf range with impractical marble backsplash.
I barely heard him from the other end of the kitchen, where I was bent over the giant Wolf stove, retrieving a broiler pan from the side-by-side garage we call the oven.
It is a beautiful kitchen, with marble and nickel and a weathered barn-door table that sits on a Persian rug. And we use it all the time. Which is the problem.
When I designed this kitchen, for inspiration I relied on a big pile of tear sheets of beautiful photos from magazines and websites—pictures of kitchens that looked like no one ever cooked in them. What I didn’t realize was that no one did.
These days there are two kinds of kitchens: kitchens that get used and kitchens that don’t. I wish I had known this before I remodeled mine.
Instead? I created a stage set rather than a workspace and now I spend half my time removing stains from porous marble and trying to hide my mismatched coffee cups from view.
It’s a common problem. “Blame the Pinterest effect,” says Alexandra Lange, a Brooklyn-based architecture critic. “People look at pictures of high-end kitchens and think theirs need to look the same. But those photos should have a disclaimer that warns ‘This is an unused kitchen.’”
Above: To guard against stains, I installed a 3-inch-high strip of stainless steel.
Blame the trend on the 1950s. That's when kitchens began to evolve from humble workspaces—for preparing meals and washing dishes—into bloated rooms with identity crises. The first indication of trouble, says Lange, was the pass-through window to connect the kitchen to other rooms in the house.
"After the pass-through came the breakfast bar, which turned into the giant island with stools that sit two feet away from a kitchen table. The different uses of these redundant spaces became mysterious and led to the fragmentation of the meal as an idea," Lange says. "Nowadays people say, 'Why should I cook a turkey when I can buy a cooked turkey at the store and just take it out of the refrigerator to eat at one of these stations' instead of having a meal together at a table. "
These days, there are unused kitchens with fancy appliances that look new, stainless sinks as shiny as the day they were installed, and open shelving that holds museum-worthy displays of carefully arranged dishes.
There's nothing wrong with that, of course. Some people don't like to cook. Others use their beautiful kitchens as extensions of their living spaces, outfitting them with sofa, fireplaces, and oil paintings. Says kitchen designer Susan Serra, "Kitchens as living spaces has become the overarching trend in recent years, in fact in the past 20 years but with an extra strong push since 2008."
In fact, "a designer can get great enjoyment specifying materials for a kitchen that is mostly unused," says Serra. "Exotic marbles (carefully sealed, of course), wood surfaces, metals for countertops such as a very thin semi-polished stainless steel, concrete countertops, and pristine white cabinetry are a joy to work with."
But in a kitchen like mine where roasting chickens and bubbling tomato sauce and acidic lemon juice all routinely splatter surfaces, I learned the hard way that it is not a good idea to have a porous marble backsplash or countertops.
Above: My new stainless steel ledge doubles as a display shelf.
Luckily, I figured out a simple fix for the backsplash. We installed a 3-inch-high strip of stainless steel behind the stove to divert grease—and that stopped the staining. For the countertops? I have made my peace with the etching from blotches of lemon juice and will even go so far as as to tell people, "Imperfection lends character." Some days I even believe that.
But if I were to do it all over again? The next kitchen I design will be impregnable. It will have a stainless steel backsplash that covers the entire wall behind the stove, and the countertops will be made of kryptonite (as that appears to be the only surface truly impervious to wear). The Persian rug can stay, though; the pattern hides stains.
Want to know more about removing stains from marble? See My Dirty Secret: Or How I Learned to Live with a Marble Backsplash. See more of Michelle's weekly columns in our Domestic Dispatches archives.
More Stories from Remodelista
29 Apr 15:27
George Clooney Gets Engaged
by Mallory Ortberg
|
Courtney
shared this story
from  The ToastThe Toast:
|
| The Toast is now my official source for all my feelings re: celebrity marriage events. |
The news is officially out. After PEOPLE exclusively confirmed that George Clooney was Clooneywas off the market, his fiancée, human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin, was congratulated by her law firm.
“You’re a fool,” the supervisor had told her.
“I know,” she said.
He thumped the desk in frustration. “You’ll be dead before the ceremony’s finished.”
“I don’t care,” she said.
“You’ll break his heart.”
She hesitated, this time. “I know.”
The supervisor visibly composed himself before he came around to the front of the desk. He knelt beside her and took her hand in his. “You understand, don’t you,” he began, “why we started the Tears in Rain project? Why Tyrell Corp manufactures Clooney girlfriends with two-year lifespans? Why none of you are permitted to go Offworld? That it’s for his own good, for his protection? That every single one of your predecessors has happily –gratefully — powered down after her watch ended?”
His hands were warm over hers. “I know,” she said.
“And yet you refuse.”
“I do.”
“Replicants don’tmarryhim. They retire. And darling, it’s time for you to retire.”
He brought his face up to hers and looked directly into your eyes. “You haven’t forgotten what you are?” he asked, his voice soft and low and dangerous. “What all of you are?”
She looked away. “I know what you tell me we are.”
He let out a heavy breath. “Then it’s true.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Itis. Itis true.” Realization and triumph stole over his face like a sunrise. “You think you’re human. You really do. You’ve forgotten.”
She wrested her arm away. “I haven’t forgotten anything.”
“Where were the two of you last Christmas?”
“We were at Lake Como, with his mo–”
The supervisor laughed. “How long do you think you’ve known him?”
The room was beginning to feel hot and stifling. “I’ve — he wants to marry me. We love each other.”
“Do you remember the time he took you to Sutherland Falls?”
“Of course I do. This is getting ridiculous. I understand that you’re upset and I’m happy to return the equipment and the money but I’ve made my decision.”
“Are you sure it was you that he took there?”
She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “What an idiotic question.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t one of the others? Are you sure that memory is yours, and not a memory from an earlier model?”
“I was there. And I’m marrying George. And I’m leaving. And you can’t — and you can’t stop me.”
“Of course,” the supervisor said, laughing now, and she carried his laughter with her as she ran down the hallway. “It’s too bad you won’t live, but then again, who does?”
The first night of their honeymoon, she found a paper unicorn on the nightstand by her side of the bed. “It’s just from housekeeping,” George had said, bewildered and a little amused by her obvious terror. “It’s just origami, a decoration. You want me to get rid of it? I’ll get rid of it.” He wandered off in the direction of the bathroom, holding it lightly in his hand. George held everything lightly; George had all the time in the world.
Then again, who does?
Read more George Clooney Gets Engaged at The Toast.
firehose and -1 others like this
29 Apr 15:26
If you put every living human on a pile, it would only take this space
by hodad
firehosebut, but what
what if it's just their, you know
what if it's just their _skulls_
firehose likes this
29 Apr 15:25
Boehner opponent dismissed from Christian college for ‘electile dysfunction’ ad | The Columbus Dispatch
by hodad
hodadJohn Boehner’s Tea Party challenger is my #cff aunt’s neighbor in #ohio and, until recently, an adjunct lecturer like me! #precariouslabor #workersrights #ifyouhaveaBoehnerlastinglongerthan23yearsseekimmediatemedicalattention
WASHINGTON — Cedarville University has dismissed tea party conservative J.D. Winteregg as an adjunct professor of French after he produced a crude Web video that was critical of his congressional opponent, House Speaker John Boehner.
Mark Weinstein, a Cedarville spokesman, said in a statement yesterday that the political commercial “did not represent the views or values of Cedarville University,” a small Christian school in Greene County.
Winteregg, one of three tea party conservatives challenging Boehner in the May 6 Republican primary, attracted national attention this year when he claimed in his video to be the cure to “ electile dysfunction,” a reference to Boehner, R-West Chester, serving in the House since 1991.
The minute-long video includes sexual innuendo and shows couples gazing longingly at each other.
“Used on a daily basis, Winteregg in Congress will help you every time the moment is right — to have your voice heard at the federal level,” a narrator says in the ad. “If you have a Boehner lasting longer than 23 years, seek immediate medical attention.”
The university was not amused.
“Cedarville University does not engage in partisan politics and holds a high regard for displaying Christian values in the community,” Weinstein said.
Weinstein said Winteregg “concluded his teaching responsibilities” last week.
Winteregg, who also is a high-school French teacher from Troy, had conducted an online French class each semester at Cedarville for the past three years.
“The ad obviously touched a nerve,” Winteregg said yesterday.
The video apparently was not used as a commercial for broadcast and cable TV.
Tea party conservatives are sharply opposed to Boehner, claiming he has not been willing to confront President Barack Obama enough.
firehose likes this
29 Apr 15:19
the speed of news
by kris
firehosevia Osiasjota
i don’t have anything to write here. it was in the comic already, i wrote it down for you to laugh at up there. i don’t have anymore to say about it. it’s about how… how when like, they make you wait to get to the information you really want by putting it at the end of the broadcast so you’ll watch the ads, but then they also do that online too.
hey! change of subject — we did our 52nd podcast episode last night! one year of the chainsawsuit podcast. my mom said we’d never make it this far! my dad said it would be over in the first month! my friends said we should just give up! we — wow, my family and friends are really unsupportive. here’s to many more!
Damiani.guilherme, firehose likes this
29 Apr 15:18
Tufts University And Federal Government In Standoff Over Sexual Assault Policies
firehosevia Russian Sledges
The Massachusetts school failed to comply with Title IX, the Department of Education said Monday. UPDATED.
Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.
Flickr: Knar Bedian / Creative Commons / Via Flickr: hyekab25
The Department of Education said Monday that it "may move to initiate proceedings to terminate federal funding" at Tufts University after finding the Massachusetts school failed to comply with Title IX.
Title IX is a federal law that requires schools to "respond promptly and effectively" to sexual violence and harassment. Among the school's specific violations, according to the government: Tufts didn't employ a Title IX coordinator for two academic years, and "allowed for the continuation of a hostile environment" for one student who identified as a survivor.
The Department of Education said Tufts' violations aren't limited to these past incidents; its current policies don't comply with Title IX requirements, either. But in a statement on Monday, Tufts called this an "unsubstantiated finding" — one that led the school to revoke a voluntary agreement it made with the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to work toward compliance on April 17.
According to the university, at the time that agreement was signed, OCR didn't inform Tufts that its current policies were out of compliance — only its past practices. Days later, when OCR informed the school of its current finding, Tufts revoked its signature.
"We could not, in good faith, allow our community to believe that we were not in compliance with such an important law," the school said, adding that its "repeated requests to speak with OCR in Washington about this new finding have been unsuccessful."
In its statement, OCR acknowledged that Tufts had made "important improvements" to its policies. "However," it said, "more changes are necessary to ensure the safety of more than 10,000 students."
Tufts said it was "surprised and disappointed" by the "unexpected and troubling" declaration:
Tufts University is deeply committed to the safety and well-being of our students, faculty and staff. We have in place and fully support policies and procedures that comply with Title IX, are consistent with the significant guidance documents issued by the department, and effectively serve our students, faculty and staff. We believe the department's recently announced finding has no basis in law ...
In an email to BuzzFeed, activist Wagatwe Wanjuki — who founded the blog Raped At Tufts University after a disappointing experience with Tufts' judicial process in 2008 — said she was "heartened" at the news of OCR's findings.
"I know too well the impact of the university's failure to take sexual assault seriously," Wanjuki said. "While I am disappointed that the same university that failed me in the aftermath of sexual violence has done the same to other survivors, I am grateful for the actions of the Department emphasizing the need for schools to protect students' civil rights under Title IX."
Tufts said it has requested to meet with OCR in Washington; OCR said it "stands ready to confer with Tufts on how to come into compliance speedily."
Along with Monday's press release, the Department of Education also published the voluntary agreement in question — the sort of document that is often kept between schools and federal government. Though it has pulled out of the agreement, Tufts said it's still moving forward with "actions described in that agreement."
"Indeed many of those actions have already been undertaken," Tufts spokeswoman Kimberly Thurler said in an email.
Read the government's letter to Tufts University.
LINK: Read a letter sent to students and faculty by Tufts President Tony Monaco.
29 Apr 15:08
shouldbecleaningmyroom: this is the most intense butt wiggle I...
firehosevia Nathan Fhtagn
this is the most intense butt wiggle I have ever seen.
the butt wiggle is so strong that the cat actually begins to float.
29 Apr 14:36
What It’s Really Like to Be Around Neil deGrasse Tyson (Comic)
by Nitrozac and Snaggy
firehoseI don't think I would ever get tired of that
Re/code.
Osiasjota and -1 others like this
29 Apr 11:40
Farting Means You're Healthy
firehoseI'm so healthy
Not long ago, we heard about a catchy idea for a cookbook: "Fart-free food for everybody." In theory, these recipes would be helpful for some people — and those in their vicinity. But being a bit gassy may actually be a small price to pay for a lot of benefits to our health.
firehose likes this
29 Apr 09:30
submitted by finiteautomata
[link] [15 comments]
Keep an eye out: Video of bike thief in Sellwood from yesterday
firehosegreat
Hello reddit.
This bike: http://stolenbicycleregistry.com/showbike.php?oid=24717
... was taken by this guy in Sellwood about 24 hours ago:
Vid1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSPnAsxL2aM Vid2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3ANcSfxC4s
" The attached photo includes the criminal that broke into cars and garages and stole a brand new bicycle. A lightweight aluminum frame, Shimano 105 components and a Velo saddle are now in this idiots hands."
also: "His accomplice was a middle aged female in workout attire outside our gate."
yes, the video's a little dorky because of the security camera encoding ... not sure how to correct that just yet
[link] [15 comments]
29 Apr 09:29
New concepts for milling white rice | World Grain
by gguillotte
Complete removal of the remaining aleurone layer is then effected, without damage to the endosperm by the use of warm tapioca grains. This system is called the Neo Tasty White Process (NTWP), and the processed rice product from this system is called Tasty White Rice (TWR).
29 Apr 09:29
Neighbors Upset Over Couple's 'Up'-Themed Home Renovations | At Home - Yahoo Shine
by gguillotte
A Santa Clara, Calif. family who painted their historical home to resemble the multi-colored house that’s carried away by balloons in the animated Disney-Pixar movie "Up" has upset their neighbors, who complain that the home looks like a “clown.”
Yahoo Shine could not reach the homeowners, Hosam Haggog and Fatima Rahman, for comment. Neighbors say the husband and wife spent the last two years renovating their four-bedroom,two-bath home, which they bought in 2011 for $415,000. The home is now valued at around $800,000, according to real estate site Zillow, and it sits on the oldest street in the city's Old Quad neighborhood, a stretch of 100-year-old Victorian homes, many worth $1 million or more.