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American Vice News Reporter Kidnapped In Ukraine
ROYAL JEWELLERY || The Rosenborg Kokoshnik Tiara Made in the...
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ROYAL JEWELLERY || The Rosenborg Kokoshnik TiaraMade in the 1930’s by the Danish jeweller Dragsted, The Rosenborg Kokoshnik Tiara was acquired by Prince Viggo, Count of Rosenborg for his American-born wife, Princess Viggo. As the couple didn’t have any children, the tiara was inherited by Prince and Princess Viggo’s sister-in-law, Princess Margaretha, who in return passed it on to her daughter-in-law, Countess Ruth of Rosenborg. Following her death, it was put on an auction at Bukowskis where the estimated value was placed at more than $200.000 but it did not sell. It is modelled after the traditional Russian headdress, the kokoshnik (hence the name), and consists of garnets and diamonds.
North Korea: the new generation losing faith in the regime | World news | The Guardian
The Pope in the Attic: Benedict in the Time of Francis - Paul Elie - The Atlantic
Director of User Experience and Design - Boston Globe (Boston, MA) - Smashing Jobs
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Boston Globe Media Partners (BGMP) is seeking a Director of UX and Design to own all strategic and operational elements of the visual experience associated with several of its primary digital properties (<a href="http://Boston.com" rel="nofollow">Boston.com</a>, <a href="http://BostonDeals.com" rel="nofollow">BostonDeals.com</a>, <a href="http://RadioBDC.com" rel="nofollow">RadioBDC.com</a>, our Classified sites, and others). The Director will construct and manage a collaborative studio environment that encourages idea exploration through rapid prototyping and experimentation.
This role will be responsible for UX throughout the entire development life cycle, providing creative leadership, from art direction to information architecture to UX development best practices. He/she will manage a team of visual designers and UX specialists, operating from a data-driven usability framework to design highly functional web products and create style guides across diverse BGMP digital brand.
The Director will serve as BGMP’s in-house evangelist and champion for the value of UX and the UX process, working to create a bridge that connects user experience to both business and technology disciplines. He/she will lead a group that drives all vision, budgets, and timelines on the visual side of a growing digital operation.
Blue world This amazing image is part of a series of maps in a...
firehosevia Bunker.jordan
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Blue world
This amazing image is part of a series of maps in a manuscript from the 1460s. What is striking is not just that we can so clearly recognize Europe, Asia and Africa, but that these continents are depicted so incredibly beautifully, in deep blue and gold. The map seems to float in space and above it various winds are blowing, produced by men with toy trumpets. Clouds are quietly drifting by. Who can resist jumping in and becoming part of this intoxicating blue world?
Pic: New York, Public Library, MS 87 (15th century). More blue maps from this book here.
Spotters' guide to UFOs, 1967
firehosevia multitasksuicide
Found in Bruce Sterling's tumblr: UFO typologies, 1967
A Visualization Showing Where Asteroids Have Hit The Earth Since 2001
NYPD's Twitter photo contest backfires with images of aggressive police force
The New York Police Department attempted to harness Twitter to drum up support today, but things haven't exactly gone as planned. Earlier today, the official NYPD Twitter account asked followers to tweet photos of themselves with NYC police officers under the hashtag #myNYPD — but so far, many users have jumped on that hashtag to flood it with images of police aggressively apprehending apparent suspects. So far, these are hardly the friendly images the NYPD was hoping for.
While it's hard to say if the force used in many of the pictures tagged with the #myNYPD hashtag is justified or not, the overall sentiment is clearly one in defensive of citizens against an overly brutal police presence. Either way, there's little doubt that the anti-police co-opting of the #myNYPD hashtag is picking up mainstream attention — it's one of the top trending items on Twitter right now. It's a lesson in social media that the department is likely not to forget anytime soon.
- Via RT.com
- Source NYPD News (Twitter)
- Related Items twitter nypd mynypd police new york city Facebook
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Parents' Privacy Concerns Kill 'Personalized Learning' Initiative
firehose'It is a shame that the progress of this important innovation has been stalled because of generalized public concerns about data misuse, even though inBloom has world-class security and privacy protections that have raised the bar for school districts and the industry as a whole.' [Although it was still apparently vulnerable to Heartbleed.]'
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Justice Scalia Might Not Totally Get How HBO Works
firehosevia Russian Sledges
![Justice Scalia Might Not Totally Get How HBO Works Image AP Photo/David Tulis](http://cdn.thewire.com/media/img/upload/wire/2014/04/22/AP685932577733/lead_large.jpg)
The Supreme Court heard arguments today in a very complex case concerning the technical details of television broadcast rights. So it might concerning that the Justice might not totally understand how TV works.
The nation's broadcast networks went to court to stop Aereo, a startup company that allows users to access over-the-air television shows on computers and mobile devices for $8 a month. The networks argue that Aereo's service is infringing on broadcaster's copyright, and the latter saying that it doesn't, because the programs are already free to anyone with an antenna. It's a somewhat complicated case that will turn on the Justices' rather precise definitions of key technical terms.
(Click through for a more in-depth look at the case).
This might be something they are not be fully equipped to do, based on some of the questioning we saw today. Specifically from Justice Antonin Scalia, who apparently did not know difference between HBO and regular old ABC.
Scalia apparently thought HBO is free over the airwaves. pic.twitter.com/db1YQSVBiO
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) April 22, 2014
According to the court transcript, Scalia made the faux pas when asking Aereo's lawyer David Frederick whether the company could pick up non-local signals. Scalia asked, "I mean, you could take HBO right?," before Frederick explained that "HBO is not done over the airwaves." The distinction between over-the-air broadcast networks (which Aereo transmits) and the most popular premium cable channel (which they do not) is pretty key to their whole argument.
Justice Sotomayor (and maybe the lawyers) also seemed to lack certain information going into the case, per the transcript:
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: So Roku is -- Roku is paying a license for no reason.
MR. CLEMENT: I'm sorry?
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Roku is paying a license for no reason? They sold me a piece of equipment.
MR. CLEMENT: I don't know all the details of that particular piece of equipment.
Or maybe she's just showing off some tech savvy by dropping that she has a Roku.
![](http://atlanticwire.feedsportal.com/c/34375/f/625848/s/39a2c98d/sc/1/mf.gif)
Apple's letting anyone help test its next OS X update
Apple is suddenly taking a much more open approach to testing its desktop operating system. For the first time in years, the company is inviting regular consumers to help test upcoming software updates before they're distributed publicly. Apple says the OS X Beta Seed Program will allow anyone to "test-drive beta software and provide quality and usability feedback that will help make OS X even better."
To enroll, you'll need to sign a fairly serious confidentiality agreement that likely forbids you from spilling details on new features early. From there, it's as simple as downloading a small tool that will tell the Mac App Store that your Mac is eligible to receive the pre-release software. A new utility called "Feedback Assistant" is also included, which is where you'll put your thoughts on features being tested or any bugs you come across. Apple also encourages all users to make a backup before downloading beta updates — just in case things take a bad turn.
The big question is whether Beta Seed Program participaints will gain early access to the next full-fledged revision of OS X, which will likely debut at this summer's WWDC conference. It remains to be seen how far Apple will open the doors with the new beta program, but it's good to see the company taking a big step beginning today.
- Source Apple
- Related Items beta os x beta testing os x mavericks os x beta seed program Apple
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creepingmonsterism: You know, Peter Parker is a great hero for the millennial generation because...
firehosevia Rosalind
You know, Peter Parker is a great hero for the millennial generation because he’s always struggling economically and old newspaper editors think he’s a menace.
kimimisstuff: Images from the intro to Sakura Taisen: Atsuki...
firehoseforgot about Sakura Wars
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Images from the intro to Sakura Taisen: Atsuki Chishio Ni
I’ve started my Let’s Play, come have a read over here! Link!
(Overworks/Sega - PS2 - 2003)
To The Max: Dynasty Warriors 8 Xtreme Legends Ported
firehoseYES
By Alice O'Connor on April 22nd, 2014 at 12:00 pm.
Few games deserve the hyperbolic titles publishers bestow upon them, but with dozens of soldiers routinely being hurled into the air at once then whacked and zapped by a tiny lady with a giant four-bladed crossed-axe shuriken, Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends Complete Edition can probably get away with it. Something about Omega Force’s mythological take on Chinese history has always put me off playing the series, perhaps as I’m less au fait with Japanese genres, but they’re a sort of silliness that I’ve enjoyed knowing exists with a big budget thrown behind it.
DW8XLCE is coming over to PC from PlayStations in May, publisher Koei quietly announced on Thursday shortly before we all skipped away to enjoy the long weekend.
So what’s this Complete Edition business about? Koei’s bundled together both Dynasty Warriors 8 and its standalone expansion, Xtreme Legends. Does it particularly matter what the expandalone added if we never saw the original game anyway? Stuff. New bits. Things.
While Koei regularly sprays Warriors sequels and spin-offs at consoles–everything from Gundam and Fist of the North Star to the Trojan War and The Legend of Zelda–it’s a lot more reserved on PC. The last game ported to PC was DW7 in 2012, but that was never officially released round our way.
Look, here’s a trailer from the PlayStation version showing off many of the game’s bright colours:
__________________
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dynasty warriors, Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends Complete Edition, Gnarly, koei, Omega Force, Tecmo Koei.
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Museum acquires 'virtually complete' source code from Atari's arcade heyday
Acquiring the source code to virtually every coin-op game Atari made when it dominated the early 1980s arcade scene — Asteroids, Missile Command, Centipede — would seem to be enough of a coup. Yet for Jeremy Saucier, the most intimate contact with that era comes in the thousands and thousands of pages of paperwork, much of it routine.
Test-market reports. Focus group results. Written intel on what someone at Atari, for example, thought of Williams' Joust, how that was going to do as a competitor, and what Atari should do in reply.
"You see how this critical company worked at a critical time," Jeremy Saucier, assistant director of the International Center for the History of Electronic Games (ICHEG), told Polygon, "and how they saw the industry."
ICHEG and its home, the Strong National Museum of Play, today announced the acquisition of what is practically the corporate archive for Atari Games' coin-operated division: Twenty-two palettes' worth of material, bought some 15 years ago by a collector in California, and trucked to Rochester, N.Y.
The obvious jewels — including the code and original cabinet silkscreens for a test game that only produced two units — will likely go on display in some form. The bulk of what was acquired may have little impact as an exhibition but should provide critical context to researchers studying the advent of video games in the 1970s and 1980s.
The fact a company hung on to these kinds of workaday documents, and someone saw fit to buy it all up as an historical record, is a lucky break for researchers, said Jon-Paul Dyson, ICHEG's director and the vice president for exhibits at The Strong.
"The video game industry has always moved so fast, it's always forward-looking — 'What is the next game? What do we do for the next quarter?'" Dyson said. "But I think Atari, because it is the company that more or less founded the industry, it had this interest, in how it operated, in this preservation of its legacy."
All of this stuff was bought up when Midway Games, after acquiring Atari Games (the coin-op division spun off from the main company after the mid-1980s home console crash) shut it down in 2003. A man named Scott Evans, who worked in electronics recycling and salvaging, bought the material from a liquidation sale. "He recognized the importance of it all when he saw people were tossing out this stuff," Saucier said.
Evans kept the material in storage for years. He'd made donations to ICHEG before, and that relationship led to a long conversation that culminated with today's donation.
One of the specimens included is Maze Invaders, an unreleased Atari coin-op game from 1981 heavily inspired by Namco's Pac-Man and Stern Electronics' Berzerk. Ed Logg, the programmer of Asteroids and, later, Gauntlet, was assigned to build it. "They put it on a test program and it didn't do well," Dyson said. "It only produced a couple of units. You can see how it took tons of games to get to an Asteroids, and how one of the most successful designers of the 20th century, even he had his failures."
The code is stored on 8-inch floppy disks — when floppy really meant floppy. Saucier and Dyson said they are confident that they will have "a high rate of success" recovering that code to more stable media. "Some of it will be a challenge to get at," Saucier said, "but I know the collector [Evans] has read some of the discs."
Just as critical to the understanding of these games' development are the numerous binders charting their development, Saucier said. The one for Asteroids, for example, begins with Logg's handwritten notes on the control setup (Asteroids was a button-only game) and the sound effects. "These binders include production schedules, what will be done at what time, cost estimates," Saucier said.
It's like 'if we were able to get Gutenberg's business records, and tell how he was able to create the printing press.'
"It may be like, if we were able to get Gutenberg's business records, and tell completely how he was able to create the printing press," Dyson explained. "Coin-op is what launched the video game industry, and it still has reverberations to this day."
Other materials acquired include 2,800 videos on a number of formats of the day — Betamax and VHS, for example — showing things from focus group reactions, to game demonstrations, Atari's participation in industry expos, and even office parties.
"I don't know what those will look like," joked Saucier, "but we'll let you know."
Saucier said even with many of the specimens identified and their importance well known, it will take some time to catalog everything and curate an exhibit for the public. Much, much more will be held in an archive for researchers to access.
The Strong recently acquired the games collection and business records of Broderbund Software, the publisher of Myst and the original publisher of Prince of Persia. And last year, it exhibited "Atari By Design," which showcased concept documents of several Atari games next to playable versions. Some 50 Atari cabinets already are in The Strong's collection of arcade pinball and video games.
So it's not necessarily the games, but maybe something more mundane, that makes this acquisition so valuable.
"It's the kind of thing that is very ephemeral," Saucier said. "It's hard to find this sort of thing in an archive. The things you see here are actual field reports from field tests. There are reports coming back, saying how Asteroids did when it was on its first field tests. There are reports where Atari representatives went to a game show, and they're writing a report on what they think of Joust, and what they think it's going to do.
"It's a body of information not just about Atari, but about the industry as well."
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Netflix still sucks on AT&T, and now AT&T plans to offer Netflix clone
firehoseall carriers suck forever
AT&T and an investment group run by former Fox President Peter Chernin announced today that they have created a $500 million venture "to acquire, invest in and launch over-the-top (OTT) video services." This venture "creates the opportunity for us to develop a compelling offering in the OTT space," AT&T Chief Strategy Officer John Stankey said in the announcement.
OTT services provide video programming over an Internet connection, one that may come across the same wires as a separate cable TV service. AT&T hasn't been a fan of OTT provider Netflix. It's still haggling with the company over how much money the video service should pay for a direct connection to the TV and Internet provider's network. Netflix was able to strike a deal with Comcast, improving video quality for Comcast subscribers; Netflix quality on AT&T has remained substandard.
AT&T's new venture is with the Chernin Group, which Peter Chernin founded in 2009. "This alliance positions AT&T and The Chernin Group to take advantage of the rapid growth of online video and OTT video services, with each party bringing significant and complementary strengths. The strategic goal of this initiative will be to invest in advertising and subscription VOD channels as well as streaming services," the companies said.
Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Apple Fixes Major SSL Bug In OS X, iOS
firehoseWOKKA WOKKA
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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The American Middle Class Is No Longer The World’s Richest
sae9HoB.gif (GIF Image, 373 × 184 pixels)
firehoseTW: violence
still, something to throw at anyone who scoffs at therapy dogs
(the violence is not to the dog)
OpenSSL code beyond repair, claims creator of “LibreSSL” fork
OpenBSD founder Theo de Raadt has created a fork of OpenSSL, the widely used open source cryptographic software library that contained the notorious Heartbleed security vulnerability.
OpenSSL has suffered from a lack of funding and code contributions despite being used in websites and products by many of the world's biggest and richest corporations.The decision to fork OpenSSL is bound to be controversial given that OpenSSL powers hundreds of thousands of Web servers. When asked why he wanted to start over instead of helping to make OpenSSL better, de Raadt said the existing code is too much of a mess.
"Our group removed half of the OpenSSL source tree in a week. It was discarded leftovers," de Raadt told Ars in an e-mail. "The Open Source model depends [on] people being able to read the code. It depends on clarity. That is not a clear code base, because their community does not appear to care about clarity. Obviously, when such cruft builds up, there is a cultural gap. I did not make this decision... in our larger development group, it made itself."
Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments
4,000-Foot 'Big Nate' Strip Sets World Record For 'Longest Cartoon Strip Created By A Team' [Video]
I am completely unfamiliar with Lincoln Pierce‘s Big Nate, owing mostly to the fact that it is a newspaper strip that is not rooted in complete and utter soul-crushing despair, but the one thing I know about it is that it lives up to its name. It is certainly a big comic. So big, in fact, that this month, it broke the world record for “Longest Cartoon Strip Created By A Team” with a group effort spearheaded by pierce and chronicled on The Today Show in front of a smiling, benevolent Al Roker.
The strip, recreated from Pierce’s artwork by volunteers from schools across the world, clocks in at 3,923 feet and two inches, officially netting the world record and dethroning the previous record set by French schoolchildren in 2000. So suck on that, French children! USA! USA! USA!
The strip, which follows the adventures of an 11 year-old and which was created by a man who is super into Cheetos, was laid out at New York City’s 30 Rockefeller Center, covering the ice skating rink and a good portion of the surrounding streets for the official presentation on The Today Show. Young fans in various countries were encouraged to project individual panels from Pierce’s newspaper strip onto posterboard and then send them to Pierce for the full, completed strip, though one assumes that there weren’t a lot of takers in France.
As for why Guinness refers to this as a “cartoon strip” and not a “comic strip,” well, your guess is as good as mine, but I’m guessing it has a lot to do with the folks at Guinness coming up with these categories while imbibing a little too much of their own namesake product. For more information, check out the official Big Nate website.
The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum Opens Awesome ‘Calvin & Hobbes’ Exhibit
[Via The Daily Cartoonist]
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Golden Goose, A Kitchen Gadget for Scrambling an Egg Without Breaking the Shell
firehoseWITCHCRAFT
Golden Goose is a kitchen gadget by Y Line Product Design that can scramble an egg without breaking the shell. The hand-powered gadget quickly rotates the egg back and forth to mix the white and yolk without breaking the shell and introducing outside air to the mix. Y Line Product Design is currently raising funds for the Golden Goose via a Kickstarter project.
images via Y Line Product Design
Gunslinger, A Compilation Video That Condenses 30 Years of Western Movies Into One Wild Hour
As a followup to their Skinemax and Memorex videos, Smash TV has created Gunslinger, a compilation video that condenses 30 years of Western movies into one wild hour.
Painstakingly assembled from more than 50 Western movies, ranging from Sergio Leone’s early Spaghetti Westerns all the way up to 90s reimaginings such as Desperado and Wild Wild West, Gunslinger serves as a humble attempt to pay homage to one of the longest running and most influential genres of the silver screen. Whether your loyalty lies with the trusty sheriff, the dastardly villain, the ruthless mercenary, the opportunistic thief, or the unpredictable vigilante, it provides a thrilling look at heroism, betrayal, greed, loss, and justice in a time when law and order was as rare as the gold men killed for.
submitted via Laughing Squid Tips
10 Science Fiction And Fantasy Stories That Editors Are Tired Of Seeing
firehosezombies
parallel universes
time travel
"stories that think they are steampunk, because a clock, goggles, airships or gears have been added to the story"
revenge
retold fairy tales
mermaids
"extremely dramatic event in order to bring conflict and drama into the story, such as rape, incest, suicide, etc."
pregnancy horror
puns
twist endings
To you, your short story is unique and perfect. To editors, it's "the third steampunk time-travel story we've seen this week." But which trends should you try to avoid? To find out, we asked some of the top editors in the field which type of science fiction and fantasy stories they're tired of seeing. Here's what they told us.
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Mobb Deep at the Doug Fir, Sunday April 20
firehose'the only respite being a shout out to deceased rap soldiers, including former archrival Tupac, a gesture my date found "so cute and adorable!" '
welcome to Portland
![](http://www.portlandmercury.com/imager/b/toc/12274786/8fac/1398188541-pmercmobbdeep-2.jpg)
All photos by Minh Tran.
On Sunday night, Mobb Deep put on a powerful, bare-bones show that served as a not-so-gentle reminder that they wrote the great American songbook for East Coast gangster rap almost 20 years ago, and did it within a span of two perfect albums. While they've had bigger, more club-focused hits since, the crowd clearly favored the brutal album cuts off both The Infamous and Hell on Earth.
Working through a dense library of songs, the set felt a lot shorter than its one-and-a-half-hour runtime, with the only respite being a shout out to deceased rap soldiers, including former archrival Tupac, a gesture my date found "so cute and adorable!" A good smattering of enthused and very mohawked punk rockers made it clear that the Mobb's influence stretched beyond rap listeners, and that their stories of hustle, oppression, and intimidation struck a universal and ominous chord.
At the end of what could possibly have been the smallest (albeit sold out) crowd they've played for in a decade, Prodigy exclaimed it was "One of the best shows on tour!" With all of the love beaming in the room, we could believe it.
Lots more photos after the jump.