firehose

The melding of music and ducks hasn’t always been taken particularly seriously, but that’s about to change. Tuomas Holopainen, keyboardist of Finnish prog-metal band Nightwish, is releasing his solo debut, Music Inspired By The Life And Times Of Scrooge, on April 15, and it has nothing to do with Dickens. Instead it’s a symphonic concept album based on Don Rosa’s graphic novel The Life And Times Of Scrooge McDuck, which traces the origin of the beloved Disney character. Rosa will also be illustrating the cover of the album. The video for the album’s lead track, “A Lifetime Of Adventure,” has already been released; says Holopainen in an interview featured on the album’s trailer, “This is not a so-called commercial album.” Do tell. The daring way in which Holopainen’s noble noncommerciality contradicts Scrooge McDuck’s inveterate capitalism is an epic question of ideology perhaps ...

<img class="size-full wp-image-15337" alt="Oh. How ominous. c/o nytimes.com" src="http://www.bkmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Screen-Shot-2014-02-25-at-12.12.45-PM.png" width="635" height="422" />

Oh. How ominous.
c/o nytimes.com

It hasn’t really been all that long since we asked the question that was begging to be asked, “Where does the New York Times find these people?” And yet the paper of record continues to publish the kind of articles that leave us scratching our collective head, wondering if the editors at the Times genuinely think that this kind of writing has any inherent worth other than its ability to serve as an object of ridicule.

The article in question (which we first came across in Rusty Foster’s excellent, must-subscribe—no, but really, you must subscribe—newsletter “Today In Tabs“) is titled “On Being Both the Wolf and the Lamb,” and is a first-person account of one woman’s experience in her gentrifying neighborhood. Erika Anderson—a  freelance writer and instructor at Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop—relates the complex feelings she has about Crown Heights, the area of Brooklyn she calls home. Anderson writes, “one of the first questions you confront in any five-borough conversation is, ‘Where do you live?’

“‘Crown Heights,’ I say. Inevitably the next question is: ‘How do you like it?’ You would think this would be straightforward, easy to answer, but it’s not. Not for me.”

The reason that there’s no clear answer for Anderson is because, while she enjoys parts of her neighborhood, like the “restaurants on Franklin Avenue” and “the literary scene,” Crown Heights also has an above-average crime rate relative to the rest of the city, and Anderson herself was sexually assaulted not far from her home. The crime happened on “the morning after President Barack Obama was re-elected” (which, strange detail, but ok), and took place on the corner of Nostrand Avenue and Dean Street. Anderson was approached from behind by a strange man who then “slipped his hand between [her] legs and grabbed [her] crotch,” before running away. Anderson reported the attack to the police, who were, it sounds, helpful without offering any real promising of being able to, you know, help. The sad fact is that most crimes like this (misdemeanor sexual assaults) which are perpetrated by strangers go unpunished, and such was the case with Anderson’s assault.

There is little doubt that any victim of a random crime—be it a sexual assault like Anderson’s, or the mugging her roommate experienced later that same week—needs to process that crime in his or her own way, and I don’t find fault with Anderson feeling unsettled in the neighborhood that rapidly transformed from being simply the place that she lives into a crime scene. However (and this is a big however!) the way in which Anderson incorporates her traumatic experience into her larger opinion of Crown Heights and its residents is so emblematic of everything wrong with gentrifiers that it’s mind-boggling. Rather than recognizing that sexual assaults and street crime happens all over New York (Anderson claims that, “other than isolated splotches of Manhattan and the Bronx” her neighborhood is one of the least safe in the city, ignoring that the crime map she references demonstrates that Crown Heights has similar crime statistics as Williamsburg and Brooklyn Heights), she condemns all of Crown Heights as being a place full of dangerous people (from the Caribbean!) who resent her presence because of her… what? Her whiteness? Yes! You see, what Anderson hadn’t realized when she moved to Crown Heights was that she was “riding the sea foam of the latest wave of gentrification on a blow-up dolphin from Disney World” and that  ”contributing to the crime map was the first and only sign that [she] belonged.”

I’m sorry, but fuck that. Contributing to the crime map? Really? Her only possible contribution to the neighborhood is to be a victim of the local “thugs”? Fuck that! Anderson claims to have moved into a neighborhood where she “doesn’t necessarily belong” and so is now “facing the consequences.” What does that even mean? That as a white woman, the natural consequence of living in a predominantly black neighborhood is to be sexually assaulted? How did this get by an editor at the New York Times? Anderson’s whole point seems to be that, yes, she is still comfortable visiting all the places (the restaurants, the French bakery, the reading series) where she is surrounded by other people she knows, people who are gentrifiers like her, but the entire rest of the neighborhood gives her PTSD. So now, she never takes out her phone in public anymore and spends a small fortune on cabs at night (even though, you know, her assault took place in the morning). I can’t imagine living in a neighborhood where I felt so viscerally uncomfortable, and think that I would probably do anything I could in order to move, but Anderson—who says she can’t afford to move—ends her essay by writing, “I am a part of this neighborhood now, whether I like it or not.” So despite the fact that she sees herself as a walking victim and views her community as being full of countless criminals, Anderson is staying. Lucky Crown Heights, right?

This is one of the faces of gentrification, and it is terrifying. (And it’s no less terrifying that a writing instructor would use a metaphor about “a blow-up dolphin from Disney World,” but I guess that’s beside the point right now.) There are a variety of reasons that people move to different New York neighborhoods, and there’s no doubt that some people are forced to relocate to places that they might not otherwise have chosen due to reasons like rising rents. But, if you happen to be someone like Anderson and are truly uncomfortable in the place you live, then, guess what? Don’t live there! And don’t ascribe your feelings of fear and discomfort to a whole community of people. And also? Don’t write an article about it in the New York Times because it’s not the best career move to out yourself as not only obtuse and ignorant of certain basic realities of city life, but also as the kind of writer who sincerely references herself as a “wolf and a lamb.” The only other thing I’d ever be interested in reading from Anderson now is her “Goodbye to All That” essay. Who knows? It could come any day now.

Original Source

We’ve heard it repeatedly how silly pennies are from an economic perspective. But something’s really amiss when you can’t get 100 fakes unless you have 349 real ones…

(via Boing Boing)

And that’s apparently a deal… On Amazon, you need at least 524.

"Henry the 5th

This Prince after he succeeded to the throne grew quite reformed and amiable, forsaking all his dissipated Companions, & never thrashing Sir William again. During his reign, Lord Cobham was burnt alive, but I forget what for. His Majesty then turned his thoughts to France, where he went & fought the famous Battle of Agincourt. He afterwards married the King’s daughter Catherine, a very agreeable Woman by Shakespear’s account. Inspite of all this however, he died, and was succeeded by his son Henry.”

15 year old Jane writes English History.  A reader sent me this one, it’s really great.  Click through the image.

Gender & Women’s Studies/Politics (emphasis in Legal Studies), Scripps College

Mocking Equality: Reproduction of Gender Hierarchy in Collegiate Mock Trial

firehose shared this story from ANIMALS TALKING IN ALL CAPS.

I GOT A BOX LOT OF OLD URBAN DECAY NAIL POLISH ON EBAY. THE PRICE WAS INSANE BUT RIGHT NOW I’M DOING THIS KIND OF ASPHALT BASE COAT WITH BRUISE SPONGED ON THE TIPS AND IT LOOKS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING.

WHAT DID YOU SAY, HONEY?

NOTHING, JEFF. I’M ON MY BLUETOOTH! SHELLY, DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN WE USED TO HAVE TO HOLD THE CORDLESS IN THE CROOK OF OUR SHOULDER THE ENTIRE TIME OUR NAILS WERE DRYING? I MEAN, SERIOUSLY, HOW DID WE LIVE?

Google has spent years analyzing who succeeds at the company, which has moved away from a focus on GPAs, brand name schools, and interview brain teasers.  

In a conversation with The New York Times’ Tom Friedman, Google’s head of people operations, Laszlo Bock, detailed what the company looks for. And increasingly, it’s not about credentials.

Graduates of top schools can lack “intellectual humility”

Megan McArdle argued recently that writers procrastinate “because they got too many A’s in English class.” Successful young graduates have been taught to rely on talent, which makes them unable to fail gracefully.

Google looks for the ability to step back and embrace other people’s ideas when they’re better. “It’s ‘intellectual humility.’ Without humility, you are unable to learn,” Bock says. “Successful bright people rarely experience failure, and so they don’t learn how to learn from that failure.”

Those people have an unfortunate reaction, Bock says:

“They, instead, commit the fundamental attribution error, which is if something good happens, it’s because I’m a genius. If something bad happens, it’s because someone’s an idiot or I didn’t get the resources or the market moved. … What we’ve seen is that the people who are the most successful here, who we want to hire, will have a fierce position. They’ll argue like hell. They’ll be zealots about their point of view. But then you say, ‘here’s a new fact,’ and they’ll go, ‘Oh, well, that changes things; you’re right.’”

People that make it without college are often the most exceptional

Talent exists in so many places that hiring managers who rely on a few schools are using it as a crutch and missing out. Bock says:

“When you look at people who don’t go to school and make their way in the world, those are exceptional human beings. And we should do everything we can to find those people.”

Many schools don’t deliver on what they promise, Bock says, but generate a ton of debt in return for not learning what’s most useful. It’s an “extended adolescence,” he says.

Learning ability is more important than IQ

Succeeding in academia isn’t always a sign of being able to do a job. Bock has previously said that college can be an “artificial environment” that conditions for one type of thinking. IQ is less valuable than learning on the fly, Bock says:

“For every job, though, the No. 1 thing we look for is general cognitive ability, and it’s not IQ. It’s learning ability. It’s the ability to process on the fly. It’s the ability to pull together disparate bits of information. We assess that using structured behavioral interviews that we validate to make sure they’re predictive.”

A behavioral interview, in contrast with those that ask people to figure out how many tennis balls fit into a tennis court, might ask how you’ve reacted to a particularly difficult problem in the past. They can also help find people who fit the company’s definition of leadership. It’s not about leading a club at school or an impressive prior title, Bock says, but the ability to step up and lead when it’s necessary.

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	firehose shared this story from Geeks of Doom:
	buried lede

Fukunaga has Beast of No Nation next on his list. The film stars Idris Elba in drama about child soldiers in Ghana.

	Courtney shared this story from A Black Girl's Guide To Weight Loss:
	Yeesh.

Apparently, owners of the new FitBit Force are reporting burns and rashes appearing from wear of the product, and FitBit is finally requesting that people send theirs back.

Fitbit said it is halting sales of its newest fitness-tracking bracelet and recalling the product after months of complaints from consumers who say the band has caused rashes on their wrists.

From WallStreetJournal: One user says she developed this rash after wearing the Fitbit Force. Kim Reichelt

The voluntary recall of the Fitbit Force is a serious setback for a startup that markets its products as a way to “help people lead healthier, more active lives.” It is also a public relations headache, coming days before Fitbit shows off its products in Barcelona at next week’s Mobile World Congress, an annual confab for the mobile industry with tens of thousands of attendees.

The San Francisco company said in a statement that it was conducting the recall of its newest bracelet “out of an abundance of caution” and repeated an offer to refund consumers who purchased the $129 Force.

In a blog post, Fitbit Chief Executive James Park wrote that 1.7% of Force users had reported an irritation. In the company statement, Fitbit said “affected users are likely experiencing an allergic reaction” to materials in the bracelet.

Mr. Park wrote that “some users may be reacting to the nickel,” a component of the stainless steel used in the device. Others, he wrote, “are likely experiencing an allergic reaction to the materials used in the strap or the adhesives used to assemble the product.”

[...]

The Force is Fitbit’s newest product, designed to track people’s activity, such as steps taken, distance traveled and calories burned. At night, it tracks users’ sleep patterns. Data can be seen on the wristband’s display or on a smartphone or computer.

Soon after its release in October, wearers began complaining about blisters, rashes and itchy dry patches on their wrists. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that some of the skin problems required medical attention and prescription medication. At least one person said that she had been offered a financial settlement from Fitbit.

Since that report, the Journal has received emails from others who say they developed similar rashes from Fitbit’s earlier products.

Now, I skimmed the comments – I know, I know, most comments sections are minefields – and saw this comment:

Fitbit has a real problem on its hands. And they’re still not telling their customers what the problem is.

Skin exposure to nickel can *cause* nickel allergy. It develops after repeated or prolonged exposure to nickel in an item worn next to the skin. You can treat the symptoms, but you will always have the allergy from that point forward. So you need to be careful about jewelry, watches, eyeglass frames and other such objects….for the rest of your life.

This is not a “stop wearing the Fitbit Force and the problem will go away” situation. They’ve created an ongoing health issue for those Fitbit Force customers.

I do not believe this was intentional. I think they were punked by a Chinese manufacturer. Perhaps they didn’t oversee the manufacturing process adequately. It happens. — Charleen Larson

This stood out to me because, if she’s correct and this kind of exposure can create an allergy in someone as opposed to irritating an already-present one, then it’s a nasty situation – we wear our fitness tracking devices twenty-four seven (at least I do), so you would hope that the manufacturers would use non-irritating metals for this, right?

Apparently, not. Larson was right. From CNN:

Nickel allergy is one of the most common causes of allergic contact dermatitis — an itchy rash that appears when your skin touches a usually harmless substance.

Nickel allergy is commonly associated with earrings and other jewelry for body piercings. But nickel can be found in many everyday items — from coins to necklace clasps, from watchbands to eyeglass frames.

Nickel allergy can affect people of all ages. A nickel allergy usually develops after repeated or prolonged exposure to items containing nickel. Treatments can reduce the symptoms of nickel allergy. Once you develop nickel allergy, however, you will always be sensitive to the metal and should avoid contact.

If your device has been recalled, visit contact.fitbit.com and get in touch with the FitBit team so that you can get a more reliable device. I hate to hear this happen to a good company – many people love and trust the FitBit brand – and it’s good to see them doing right by their supporters.

What do you think? Have you had this experience with your FitBit Force? What device are you using now?

According to a report from DNAinfo New York, the latest plastic surgery craze to hit New York City is somehow both completely unsurprising and laughably surreal: facial hair transplants. The theory is that the current beard trend with Brooklyn hipsters has caused an increase in such procedures.

Whether they’re filling in a few gaps or doing a complete beard construction, New York City doctors who specialize in the procedure said they’re seeing a growing number of men paying as much as $7,000 to pump up their beards.

To be fair, DNAinfo New York notes that there are a number of factors that coincide with the increase in these kind of transplants, including a growing awareness that they exist at all.

image via Anthony Kelly

via DNAinfo New York

Turn Google Music into a separate, beautiful application compatible with your Mac’s media keys and including support for notifications.

The NFL Network host was back at it, joining NFL draft prospects in running the 40-yard dash.

There are two constants every year at the NFL Scouting Combine. NFL hopefuls will do extremely athletic things and Rich Eisen will don a pair of football cleats to go with a suit and run a 40-yard dash. Eisen was back at it on Tuesday, his 10th year of running the 40, clocking in with a 6.00 on his first attempt. On the second attempt, he made "history" with a 5.98, sneaking under the 6-second threshold.

The 5.98 time was his best in 10 years of running a 40-yard dash. You can now now re-live the jacket-flapping, tie-blowing dash in GIF form.

He went so fast, he ran right out of his pocket square.

In addition to his 2014 attempt, let's take a trip down memory lane to remember some of his previous attempts. Here he is in 2013, getting outrun by Titans guard Chance Warmack.

Even with a 10-yard headstart in 2012, Eisen wasn't able to hold off Robert Griffin III, Cam Newton (from 2011) and Andrew Luck.

Like a fine wine, Eisen has gotten better nearly every year. He's come a long way from his initial time of 6.77 seconds in 2005.

Although the improvement is impressive, there is some question about Eisen's use of performance enhancing drugs. Deer antler spray has been a hot topic in sports and well, the evidence is troubling.

Visiting one of the many test sites for the "goto fail" bug in Safari in OS X 10.9.2 confirms that the problem has been fixed.

Andrew Cunningham

After several months of testing, Apple has released OS X version 10.9.2 to the general public. In addition to the typical laundry list of updates and security fixes, the second major update to Mavericks fixes the "goto fail" SSL/TLS bug that Apple patched in iOS 7 on Friday. The SSL bug isn't mentioned in the release notes that appear in Software Update, but the bug is mentioned on Apple's security page for 10.9.2. We were also able to confirm the fix by visiting several goto fail test sites in Safari after applying the update. Security updates for Mountain Lion and Lion have been provided as well, but previous versions of OS X were never affected by the goto fail bug in the first place—those patches will fix other problems, but users won't need to worry about the goto fail bug either way.

Apple has been criticized by members of the security community for patching the iOS flaw without providing a fix for OS X. iOS 7.0.6 was taken apart within hours of its release, demonstrating the bug to anyone who cared to look for it and leaving the unpatched OS X exposed for four days. Mac users could avoid having their communications exposed by avoiding Safari and Mail.app in favor of other applications, but any applications that use OS X's SSL implementation were still unsafe. As of this writing, working proof-of-concept attacks that exploit the bug have already appeared.

Since news of the goto fail bug broke on Friday, some people have noted the apparent irony of relying on Apple-implemented encryption to download a fix for a critical iOS and Mac crypto bug. Fortunately, those concerns turned out to be misplaced, since goto fail does nothing to break the code signing protections Apple uses to ensure only authentic updates get installed.

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For all of you who were not at PaizoCon, you missed the little reveal/announcement that was made about out NEXT kickstarter, after we finish sending out our current two kickstarter; Free RPG Day 2013 & Obsidian Apocalypse.

This new kickstarter named Empire of Tears will be coming in early 2014 and it will be our 1st ever adventure path for Pathfinder. What makes Empire of Tears so different from any other adventure path out there? Well first off it is going to be completely written by Female RPG writers. Christina Stiles is heading this one up as the project manager and we have several other well-known and respected female RPG writers in the industry who are "available for this project". The Empire of Tears adventure Path will be easily to integrate into any generic, retail store run or homegrown Pathfinder campaign. This adventure path then takes your party on journeys to new and unique locations including the world of Exodus, campaign world for the NeoExodus: A House Divided Campaign Setting.

We are also looking to do some threshold goals that we will be teaming up with other well know 3PPs to provide great add-ons, encounters and side treks tied to this adventure path and their own campaign worlds.

Expect to hear more about this kickstarter project in coming months.