firehose

An anonymous reader writes "Recording private conversations or activities using Google's Glass eyewear or similar wearable technologies without consent could become illegal under a push to overhaul Australian state and federal privacy laws. From the article: 'The Australian Law Reform Commission discussion paper, released on Monday morning, recommended 47 legislative changes aimed at updating existing privacy laws for the digital age. It proposed the government introduce a statutory cause of action for a serious invasion of one’s privacy, in what would be the first time a person’s privacy has legally been protected in Australia. It also recommended harmonising rules for using technology to monitor and record authors, which are currently legislated by state governments, to deal with the implications of new technologies such as wearable devices and drones.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

panbutnotpeter:

“The culture at that time was trying to deny that homosexuality even existed, and here they had well known Hollywood players involved in it, so they didn’t want to see what was there. […] What is extraordinary about [Rope] is its treatment of homosexuality. I mean today it still is one of the most sophisticated movies ever made on that subject; probably treats them more as people than anybody else has. Hitchcock certainly knew that, and it certainly attracted him. And what he liked was not that they were homosexual, but that they were homosexual murderers. If they were just murderers he wouldn’t have been interested, if they were just homosexual he wouldn’t have been interested. You had to have another little twist to it…”

— as told by Arthur Laurents, the screenwriter of Rope, a 1948 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, adapted from a 1929 play based on a real murder case. Arthur Laurents, both of the actors portraying the couple (John Dall and Farley Granger), and the composer of the featured piano score were all known to be gay in real life (though it’s said that Granger resented the gay label, and he officially came out as bisexual towards the end of his life). The character played by Jimmy Stewart in Rope was also gay, but the final version of the script was so subtle due to censorship that Laurents was unsure if Stewart ever realized he was playing a gay character.

In the Blade Runner interrogation scene, someone is clearly listing Applesoft BASIC code on an Apple ][+, e.g. “] LIST 100-10000”.

At the end of February, Broadcom announced the release of full documentation for the VideoCore IV graphics core, and a complete source release of the graphics stack for the BCM21553 cellphone chip. To celebrate, we offered a $10k prize to the first person to port this codebase to the BCM2835 application processor that sits at the heart of the Raspberry Pi, and to get Quake 3 (which already runs on the Pi) running on the newly open ARM driver, rather on the closed-source VPU driver. Our hope was that the ported driver would be a helpful reference for anyone working on a Mesa/Gallium3D driver for VideoCore IV.

I’m delighted to say that we have a winner. Simon Hall is a longtime Pi hacker, who also produced the first ARMv6-accelerated copies-and-fills library back in 2012 and wrote the DMA kernel module that we integrate in our Raspbian releases. The prize couldn’t have gone to a more fitting recipient.

So, without further ado, here are Simon’s instructions for getting the driver up and running.

SETTING UP THE DEVICE

You will need:

• a Raspberry Pi, preferably a 512MB version, with the latest Raspbian
• a network connection
• a monitor capable of displaying 1080p
• an SD card, at least 8GB (10GB is recommended)

We need plenty of space to build the kernel. Compiling will take around 12 hours, so it is helpful to overclock the Pi for this task. We also require the latest firmware, and the necessary packages we’re going to use to build the code.

Note: We’re going to use gcc 4.7, as the code generated is 10% faster than with 4.6. 4.8 is 10% faster still, but this is not available on Raspbian. If you cross-compile you can get better frame times.

Enter the raspi-config utility with:

sudo raspi-config

Expand the filesystem, set the overclock to at least medium (900 MHz), and reboot. Now perform an update with:

sudo rpi-update

and reboot again. We need to install several packages. Enter the following command to do this:

sudo apt-get -y install gcc make bc screen ncurses-dev g++-4.7 libsdl1.2-dev

FETCHING THE SOFTWARE

Enter the following commands to retrieve the necessary software from GitHub:

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux.git
git clone https://github.com/simonjhall/challenge
git clone https://github.com/simonjhall/dma
git clone https://github.com/raspberrypi/quake3.git

BUILDING THE KERNEL

This will take around 10 hours with all kernel modules. Pruning the modules to the bare minimum can improve compile times if you wish. Enter the following commands:

cd linux
git apply ~/challenge/kernel/patch.diff
zcat /proc/config.gz > .config
make oldconfig
make menuconfig

Enter “general setup”, select “local version”, enter the string “simon” and then exit to the main menu and save. Now build the kernel with:

make ARCH=arm

INSTALLING THE KERNEL

Enter the following commands to install the new kernel:

sudo make ARCH=arm modules_install
sudo cp arch/arm/boot/Image /boot/kernel_simon.img
sudo su
echo kernel=kernel_simon.img >> /boot/config.txt
echo gpu_mem=128 >> /boot/config.txt
reboot

When the devices comes back up, verify that the new kernel is loaded with the following command:

uname -a

You should see something similar to this:

Linux raspberrypi 3.10.33simon+ #1 PREEMPT Sat Mar 22 09:49:59 UTC 2014 armv6l x

BUILDING THE REST

Enter the following commands to build the rest of the software:

cd ~/quake3
git apply ~/challenge/quake/patch.diff
./build.sh
cd ~/dma
cp ~/challenge/kernel/module/dmaer.c .
make
./install.sh

Next, verify that the module has installed with this command:

tail /var/log/kern.log

You should see something similar to this:

Mar 23 15:22:45 raspberrypi kernel: [ 20.814750] smsc95xx 1-1.1:1.0 eth0:lin1
Mar 23 15:22:45 raspberrypi kernel: [ 21.376702] bcm2835-cpufreq: switching td
Mar 23 15:22:45 raspberrypi kernel: [ 21.376710] bcm2835-cpufreq: switching td
Mar 23 15:22:46 raspberrypi kernel: [ 24.472575] Adding 102396k swap on /var/S
Mar 23 15:25:02 raspberrypi kernel: [ 143.984835] 20c00000 f2c00000 deadbeef
Mar 23 15:25:02 raspberrypi kernel: [ 143.984866] major device number 248
Mar 23 15:25:02 raspberrypi kernel: [ 143.984890] vma list size 12, page list 6
Mar 23 15:25:02 raspberrypi kernel: [ 143.984909] allocated dma channel 4(f208
Mar 23 15:25:02 raspberrypi kernel: [ 143.985242] qpu ENABLED
Mar 23 15:25:02 raspberrypi kernel: [ 143.985264] V3D identify test: V3D versi2

Now enter the following commands:

cd ~/challenge/source
make
sudo make install

SETTING UP THE GAME

First of all you must ensure that you have the Quake 3 Arena data files on your Pi. You require the ‘point release’ pak files installed. There are various ways to do this but you could either transfer them from another machine with SCP, or copy them across on a USB stick. Copy the files into a folder called ‘baseq3′. This should now contain pak files numbered from 0 to 8 (eg pak1.pk3).

Next, enter the following commands:

sudo mkdir /root/.q3a
sudo mv baseq3/ /root/.q3a/
cd ~/quake3/build/release-linux-arm/
sudo mknod char_dev c 100 0
sudo cp ~/challenge/quake/demo.cfg /root/.q3a/baseq3/

RUNNING THE GAME

Enter the game folder with the following command:

cd ~/quake3/build/release-linux-arm/

Run the game using this command:

sudo ./ioquake3.arm +exec demo

If you wish to play the game after a reboot, you must run the following commands to re-load the necessary files:

cd ~/dma
./install.sh

If you see multi-second pauses of the game, this is because the system is paging to swap! You can see this by running top at the same time, and watch the swap usage jump during a spike. Close some running programs to alleviate this problem. Running the game without gdb and loading minimal kernel modules will prevent swapping.

Washington Post

White House Clock Glitch on Health-Care Deadline Day Wall Street Journal The White House can't seem to escape glitches related to the Affordable Care Act. As of about 9 a.m. a countdown clock on the White House website's home page was saying that people had about 15 days left to enroll in health care — 14 days longer than ... Final day push for health insurance signups in Pa.SFGate Last day to sign up for Obamacare exchanges The Obamacare enthusiasm gap ...Politico Obamacare website down in lead up to enrollment deadlineNew York Daily News Chron.com -Reuters -MLive.com all 621 news articles »

blame-my-muses:

giddytf2:

shisha-kebab:

Probably the awesomest clip job ever.. Not my photo

I can’t imagine how long it took to shave that.

shit, that’s gorgeous…

You know that spring had arrived with the sighting of Vaderus brachysithos and Plectroopero hyperstormereus pic.twitter.com/5zPFgYcqvm

— Darth Cleavage™ (@darthcleavage) March 31, 2014

Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts Movie Expands Into A Trilogy:

"We all knew it was coming, since nothing makes a studio happier than a franchise. They were announced in the New York Times as “three megamovies,” which is probably different from regular movies somehow."

ambient-entropy:

Spearhead of rock crystal, Copper Age, Valencina de la Concepcion, Spain

A Literary map of Texas by Dallas Pub Lib (1955)

Literary map of Texas Literary map of Texas by the Dallas Public Library (1955) Date: 1955 Author: Dallas Public Library Dwnld: Full Size (5.98mb) Source: Library of Congress Print Availability: See our Prints Page for more details pff This map isn't part of any series, but we have other maps of Texas that you might want to check out. A Literary Map of Texas, compiled by the Dallas Public Library....

the BIG Map Blog - Interesting maps, historical maps, BIG maps.

For those who missed the first sci-fi interfaces Movie Night, my friend Reed stepped up and brought a multi-camera setup to the event and edited in post so you could vicariously see what it was like. Watch above, but if you’re more interested in reading, the transcript (edited because the messiness of the spoken word) appears below.

[0:00] INTRO

Hey, good evening. Thanks for showing up. This is actually a wild hair idea that occurred to me in the shower about three and a half weeks ago. My name is Chris Noessel. Every year for the past five years I’ve hosted a private showing in my home, and I thought, "How on Earth and I going to cram all the people I want to invite into my small living room this year?" I tried to work out the logistics and just failed. But fortunately I was able to contact The New Parkway and they said, "We love this sort of thing. And we have a slot open. And we have the film pre-licensed." So for all those reasons a big round of applause to The New Parkway.

[0:52] THE PROJECT

So I’m going to do one plug really quickly, if you’re not familiar. You’re here because you love the movie. I’m going to tell you a little about the project that this evening came about from. About six years ago my coauthor Nathan Shedroff approached me with this cool idea about a book. He noticed that the Motorola Star-Tac phone was surprisingly like the Star Trek communicator, and thought, "Hey, there’s probably a connection here." So over the course of about six years we collected every sci-fi interface that we could in an online database. We tagged that cloud with a database and wrote a book about the results. That book was published in 2012. We just went through our second printing where all of the errata (that many people here may have pointed out) is now corrected. In fact, one of the awards for the trivia contest is a copy of that second [printing].

[01:45] INTERFACE TRIVIA!

So, that’s what that project is about. Since just before the release of the book I’ve been hosting a website called scifiinterfaces.com where I’m slowly releasing that database that we built up and adding a few other things, so it’s actually quite a lot of nerdery all in one place.

So I want to start up the evening. What we’re going to do is some Fifth Element interface trivia. What I need is 10 volunteers…

[No spoilers from the transcript! Answers to the trivia are in the video. If you want to try the questions yourself, put your answers in the comments before watching it, though all the awards have been given out.]

1. Why is March 18 Fifth Element Day?
2. How many cigarettes is Korben allowed each day?
3. How many points does Korben Dallas have on his license when he gets in the taxi, and for extra credit, how does he know?
4. What Big Label appears on this interface in the film?
   
5. What Big Label appears on this interface in the film?
   
6. What Big Label appears on this interface in the film?
   
7. What is Leeloo looking at when we see this close up of her eye?
   
8. What word is repeated three times in the encyclopedia?
9. This image is associated with which entry in the encyclopedia?
   
10. This image is associated with which entry in the encyclopedia?
    
11. Fill in the blank "This is a police patrol. This is not an exercise. Can you please spread your legs and _______________."
12. In the pilot of sci-fi university, the weapon against ultimate evil is an example of what two interface principles?
13. Can you name any of the four things that the design of the ultimate weapon tests for?
14. What does it mean that the ultimate evil approaches Earth in exactly the right bearing and at exactly the right time to be stopped by a spinning weapon that cannot be aimed?

[21:06] SUCH INTERFACE

As you may have surmised, the blog covers individual interfaces in movies. I’m going to talk very briefly about one that appears in this film.

One of the reasons why I picked The Fifth Element to watch annually is that it has a number of great interfaces. On the blog there are 53, some of which contain multiple interfaces. It’s chock-full of interface goodness. We’re going to talk about this particular one. Note that this isn’t one of the great ones, this is one of the ones that could use improvement.

[22:14] 4 A DAY

So let’s take a little tour. When Dallas wakes up we see that his apartment sort of "comes on" after his alarm, and one of the things he does is he walks to this machine to get his cigarettes. At the very bottom it shows what his goal is. "TO QUIT IS MY GOAL." (That’s what the shirt says.) At the top is kind of a reminder. It says, "Quit smoking!" With "4 Refill" and "4™ a day." On the right side is this utterly inexplicable LCD display. I think those "1s" are meant to represent the cigarettes, but I’m not certain. And I think in the center is a huge, overblown "there are four left." Why on earth would you need that, when you can glance to the left and look? And the last thing. Is that the temprature of the cigarettes? Is it important that they stay at 27.5 degrees? Really, that makes no sense at all.

And then this is the interface panel that’s he’s got, the buttons that he has to push, and they make more sense. You’ll see Korben only presses the bottom one and it’s kind of useless.

Audience member: It’s a tiny humidor! [This is brilliant, whoever suggested it. But I looked, and it's too warm!]

To explain why this is good, we have to dip down very briefly into persuasive design. Has anybody here every studied persuasive design?

[23:19] HOT SIGNALS IN THE PATH (poorly explained)

Awesome. Did you study under B.J. Fogg? B.J. talks about a principle called "putting the hot signal on the path." What that means is, when you are trying to provide a trigger for a user to get them to recognize an opportunity to change their own behavior, it needs to be a hot signal. Hot in this sense is one that gets the user’s attention readily. And that’s one of the problems with this interface. There are signals all over it to tell Korben, "Hey, you don’t want to keep smoking." There’s a surgeon general’s warning in the back. There’s that reminder of the goal.

But we also know that humans have a psychological capacity to habituate. You see something a number of times and you’ll stop seeing it anymore. (The other thing is that if the surgeon general’s warning is meant to persuade anyone, it’s behind four glass vials where it absolutely cannot be read. It’s a piece of misery.

I have one story to tell to illustrate the hot signal in the path. Back when I had a small apartment in Houston, we had an air conditioner that was located in the attic. It had a drain pan that actually dripped through a hole in the ceiling directly onto the head of the shower-er. That was freezing. I hated this thing. I thought, "Screw that." I took the hole and moved it to the side. (Oh wow you can’t see me there. I disappeared when that happened.)

This seemed to solve my problem. I had no cold water, I could enjoy my showers. But what ultimately occurred was that the water flooded the drain pan above me. My short term goal of not being frozen to death was actually a bad thing to design for. I should have left it above me because it was a hot signal in the path. (The irony there I hope you’ll appreciate.) The signal was in a place where I would encounter it, in a place the designers know I would be. And that’s what hot signals on the path are.

When we take that same principle and apply it to the interface, we want to stop the habituation by having this [the goal statement] be an e-ink display that changes every day. And [the surgeon general's warning] be an LED screen that changes and doesn’t show text. You can’t read text there, through a glass vial. What you want to see back there is an image. And I borrowed one of the images from the Australian cigarette packages that are really gory and really gross and make you think twice. "What the heck am I about to smoke?"

[26:01] WRAP UP [Leaving off the transcript]

Okey doke. That’s all I’m going to leave you with. Because a) there’s beer and b) there’s a cool movie to watch. But if you dig this kind of thinking, there are four places you can get it.

[26:19] MOAR

• @MakeItSoTweets (soon to transition to @scifiinterfaces, be forewarned)
• facebook.com/scifiinterfaces
• scifiinterfaces.com
• RosenfeldMedia.com (for the book)

[26:41] 3 quick announcements:

• I have Movie Night shirts up at http://26253.spreadshirt.com/ (What’s that red cross-bar for? The site was down at the time.)
• If you’re interested in trying some future thinking, come to Cooper’s Design the Future class, which I’ll be teaching.
• Stick around for a post-show preview of the next sci-fi university

OK, we’ll see that start in about a minute. You guys enjoy the show.

steveholtvstheuniverse:

every achievement in cinema history has led up to this moment

How To Negotiate With People Around The World

midcenturymodernfreak:

Batman (1966)

"No use, Joker! I knew you’d employ your sneezing powder, so I took an Anti-Allergy Pill! Instead of a sneeze, I’ve caught you, cold!!!"

Via: 1 | 2

Rambo Tribble (1273454) writes "Reuters is reporting that the U.S. National Security Agency managed to have security firm RSA adopt not just one, but two security tools, further facilitating NSA eavesdropping on Internet communications. The newly discovered software is dubbed 'Extended Random', and is intended to facilitate the use of the already known 'Dual Elliptic Curve' encryption software's back door. Researchers from several U.S. universities discovered Extended Random and assert it could help crack Dual Elliptic Curve encrypted communications 'tens of thousands of times faster'."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Last day to get free Pokemon X or Y with 3DS purchase ⊟

Hey, if you were planning to pick up a 2DS, 3DS, or XL and take advantage of that free Pokemon X or Y download offer… do that. Today.

The deal expires today, so if you want that free game, you’d better register a new system and one of these games: 

• Animal Crossing: New Leaf
• Yoshi’s New Island
• Lego City: Undercover
• Super Mario 3D Land
• Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D
• Mario Kart 7

And while you’re enjoying savings, pick up a copy of Bravely Default for $31.66! Image via Automatic-Captions.

BUY Pokemon X and Y, upcoming games

Nintendo

William Peake, The Pope seated on the seven-headed beast of Rome, 1643

jakemalik:

the internet angers me cause I see all these amazing pictures

of such wonderful looking places

that I want to travel and adventure to

but i’m just sitting here like

Former Missouri wide receiver T.J. Moe took to Twitter to share his thoughts Wednesday's landmark ruling.

Big news broke Wednesday afternoon in the continual fight between student athletes and the NCAA: the regional office of the National Labor Relations Board ruled in favor of a group of former Northwestern football players, considering players employees and allowing the formation of a union.

Former Missouri wide receiver T.J. Moe brought his unique point-of-view to the Internet, taking to Twitter to let the world know how a player might feel about such changes.

It all started with Doug Gottlieb saying something with questionable veracity.

Wrong RT @GottliebShow: There are exactly zero College football players who spend 60 hours a week on football, unless you count video games

— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) March 26, 2014

Moe was quick to provide his own schedule, which sounds absolutely exhausting.

Saturday itself covers a ton of hours- meetings, film, walk through, warm ups, 3-4 hour game. Day starts at 9am ends at 11pm if night gm

— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) March 26, 2014

Add in travel and thats another 4-8 hours if away game. Sunday is a lift, meetings for hours, then practice. Sat. & Sun cover a ton of hrs

— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) March 26, 2014

Correct RT @THunt35:whats funny you are just talking hrs to get by not the extra hours you put in to perfect your craft for pt at this level

— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) March 26, 2014

It wasn't just Gottlieb that Moe took issue with, as the former Tiger touched on unwanted potential financial (and academic) fall-out from a union.

Still not sure a union is the way to handle it. If you want to be treated like an employee, must be prepared to be terminated at any time

— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) March 26, 2014

Must also be prepared to strike if it comes to it. Can 18 year olds strike and not get a scholarship? Many can't afford college tuition w/o

— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) March 26, 2014

The other side is a lockout. Can we lockout college kids and withhold their scholarships so they then cannot attend class for the year?

— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) March 26, 2014

How about taxes? If you start paying any type of salary, the government is now allowed to tax students. W-2's sent to every athlete

— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) March 26, 2014

Could smaller football programs end up shutting down? Moe thinks so.

Many colleges can't afford all of these benefits and money it would require to meet union standards, so would football programs shut down?

— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) March 26, 2014

Or if they do comply with the union standards, schools will be forced to shut down other non revenue sports.

— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) March 26, 2014

You're then taking away education opportunities from a large number of high school athletes just because their sport isn't as popular.

— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) March 26, 2014

If students want to be treated like employees, fine. However, be ready for consequences. If you're late to work, that's grounds termination.

— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) March 26, 2014

Moe was quick to say that while he does not support the idea of the union, the NCAA is still in the wrong.

I think we're digging a hole that could really damage college athletics. I hate the NCAA bullying, but don't think union is answer

— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) March 26, 2014

What the student athletes need is someone to go to bat for them. Not sure what that look like, but making themselves employees isn't smart

— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) March 26, 2014

Another good point- if being paid a salary, no need for scholarships anymore. Gov't gets involved with taxes and would cost everyone more $$

— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) March 26, 2014

And how about Title IX? major lawsuits would follow if football and mens basketball (The only real revenue sports) began getting paid

— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) March 26, 2014

Do I think there's a way for college athletes to receive more money? Yes, absolutely. How about allowing kids to get what they can?

— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) March 26, 2014

Autographs, card deals, jersey deals, shoe deals... allow them to get endorsements. Why limit a kid just because he's in college?

— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) March 26, 2014

I know this, there would be far less complains from student athletes about the NCAA if allowed to promote themselves and make $$ from that

— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) March 26, 2014

Tell me Nike wouldn't love to sponsor a ton of college athletes and use them for profit? Of course they would. Both sides win

— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) March 26, 2014

Instead of stopping NCAA video games and not promoting jersey sales for individuals, why not cut a deal with the players for compensation?

— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) March 26, 2014

As great as it sounds, Moe's suggestion won't ever happen without something disruptive happening -- like, say, a union or a big lawsuit (and there are more than a few). It is also worth noting that the proposal is one of the College Athletes Players Association's (the group working with the players) listed goals.

Race The Sun developer Flippfly has announced their next game, Hexarden, a "thoughtful, meditative puzzle game" where players place hexagonal tiles to connect water and seedlings, thus bringing their artistic garden to life. The game has no announced...

A very cute striped tabby obsessively and repeatedly taps at anything made out of paper, switching paws when necessary, in these videos posted by tamaonyada in 2012.

via Tastefully Offensive

Giant kill rock headed towards Mars

Where not to go, Most popular attractions by state (larger)

kirideth:

So I loved the Utena shoes so much that I had to buy the Anthy ones, too. Now they won’t be lonely.

hey treesofarden

hey villeashell

comicbookreport1:

ECCC 2014: Gail Simone Extends RED SONJA Run

Is that cover hell on wheels or not?

erikkwakkel:

Sealed with a kiss

This discovery about a secret Viking message is special - and will put a big smile on your face. For years researchers have tried to crack a Viking rune alphabet known as Jötunvillur. It is found in some 80 inscriptions, including the one above, which dates from the 11th or 12th century. Recently the news broke that a runologist in Norway was successful. It turns out that you had to replace the rune character with the last letter of the sound it produced. So the rune for “f”, which was pronounced like “fe”, represented an “e”. And so researchers were able to decode the 900-year-old message on the piece of wood above, which turned out to be - wait for it… - “Kiss me”! It gets better, however. It turns out that coding and decoding such messages was a playful game, a leisure activity. This is clear from the fact that some of the inscriptions invite the reader to solve the code, stating for example “Interpret these runes.” This, of course, makes the discovery of the “Kiss me” message even more sensational. The kiss was no doubt the reward for the successful individual who cracked this particular message. Two Viking lovers entertaining themselves with a playful coding game - that came with a delightful climax. Awesome.

More information: this Norwegian article originally reported the story, which is also the source of the image (made by Jonas Nordby, the researcher who cracked the code). I picked up the story from the invaluable Medievalists blog (here).