firehose

 

 

Hopefully no one steeped on his blue suede shoes at market basket.  I wonder if he enjoyed saving money on that 4% coupon!

 

Back in 1990, in an awesome piece for The New Yorker, author Ian Frazier told the—shall we say—little-known story of Wile E. Coyote's endless legal battles with the Acme Company. Now, the tale of Coyote's legal tribulations, suing Acme for grievous personal injury and catastrophic product malfunction, has been designed and republished by Michael Bierut of Pentagram, featuring original diagrams by Daniel Weil.

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An anonymous reader writes "A team of researchers at Johns Hopkins has published results demonstrating that caffeine seems to boost long-term memory. In a double-blind study, participants were shown a series of images soon after taking either a caffeine pill or a placebo; 24 hours later they were tested on a similar, but not identical, series of images. Those who took the caffeine pill were more likely to correctly classify images as being different, identical, or similar to those seen the previous day; researchers refer to this as a 'pattern separation' test. The beneficial effect of caffeine on the long-term memory of honey bees was covered by Slashdot earlier."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As of Jan. 9, Los Angeles-based coffee start-up Tonx, which hand-picks, roasts, and delivers fresh coffee beans to customers’ doorsteps, began accepting a new, and rather unexpected, means of payment: Starbucks gift cards. Simply provide Tonx with a valid gift card number and security code (here), and the company will exchange the balance of your card for an equal amount of credit for Tonx’s subscription coffee delivery service.

“It’s that simple,” Tonx co-founder Tony Konecny told Quartz. “People can literally exchange their gift card balance dollar for dollar.”

It may seem odd that any company, let alone a Starbucks competitor (albeit a small one), could springboard off the coffee giant’s gift cards, but that’s exactly what Tonx intends to do. The value on Starbucks cards can only be used to buy things at Starbucks or be transferred to other Starbucks cards, so Tonx’s plan—at least the skeleton of it—is to amass a large gift card balance of its own.

The approach makes sense when you contemplate the size of the Starbucks gift-card program. Some $4 billion was put on the cards last year worldwide, and an incredible 10% of Americans received a Starbucks gift card over the holidays. The chances are that a good deal of that money is sitting unused. Over $650 million remained in Starbucks card balances at the end of last year, the company said in an earnings call last month. All Tonx wants to do is leverage a bit of that dormant cash.

Tonx’s promotion doesn’t appear to be a sore spot for Starbucks—at least not yet. “Honestly, we’re just humbled by the strong participation in our gift program, and this just validates that further,” a company spokesperson told Quartz. “I definitely wouldn’t say we’re deeply concerned about it.” Tonx did suggest that Starbucks’ coffee is overpriced and should be swapped for Tonx’s “home-brewed, fresh-roasted” offering, but also admitted that it, like much of the coffee industry, owes a great deal to the coffee giant.

Konecny wouldn’t share precisely how the company intends to make use of all that Starbucks credit. “We’re going to do something a little bit more sophisticated than buy a thousand slices of banana bread,” he said. But, he added, ”If we had to buy a thousand slices of banana bread, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.”

de L’Isle’s map of the Holy Land (1782)

Map “Palestine: The Holy Land” by Guillaume de L'Isle (Delisle) in 1782. Terra Sancta : Palestina. Date: 1782 Author: Guillaume de L'Isle Dwnld: Full Size (6.9mb) Print Availability: See our Prints Page for more details pff This map isn't part of any series, but we have other maps of the Middle East that you might want to check out. It's old favorite Guillaume Delisle, but not, this time, depicting the...

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

Bennett Haselton writes "Google created controversy by announcing that Google+ users will now be able to send email to Gmail users even without having those Gmail users' email addresses. I think this debate misses the point, because it's unlikely to create a deluge of unsolicited email to Gmail users, as long as Google can throttle outgoing messages from Google+ users and terminate abusive accounts. The real controversy should be over the fact that Google+ users can search a public database of the names of all Gmail users in the first place. And limiting the ability of Google+ users to write to those Gmail accounts, won't do anything to address that." Read below to see what Bennett has to say.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

'Sherlock' exec confirms Series 4 and Series 5 plans:

Update [Monday 13 January 2014]: The BBC’s Press Office told CultBox today that, despite Steven Moffat’s announcement, there is “nothing the BBC can say officially as yet”.

…But if I was in their shoes, I wouldn’t take long about it. I’d wait perhaps until the timeshift figures for s3e2 were in, and then announce. (Or else time it to coincide with the s3 DVD release.) Strike while the iron’s hot…

Sherlock could be back in time for Christmas as BBC bosses urge producers to fast-track new episodes:

gallifreyfallsnomore:

• Hit drama is expected to be the BBC’s main event for Christmas 2014
  
• New Year’s Day episode of Sherlock attracted more than 13 million viewers
  
• News comes after BBC was rocked by ITV’s Christmas viewing figures
• New episodes are already planned and filming could begin in spring
  
• Benedict…

steampunksteampunk:

Xuming Haute Couture

Sherlock Holmes's creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle embraced football, fairies and public feuds. Here are 19 things that you may not know about the writer.

Once again, professional friends and gifted comedians Amy Poehler and Tina Fey were the highlight of this year's Golden Globe Awards.

It’s merger Monday with a kick.

progressive-politics:

Image via https://www.facebook.com/Asylum.Seeker.Resource.Centre.ASRC

What an extraordinary quote. I’d never heard that one before.

davidfwalker:

I’ll be there.

Signal boost.

From the TV series Person of Interest, Season 3, Episode 12.  Harold writes some code. The code is Fortran, from Example F Program—Big Integers.

Given that the scene is apparently set in 1980 it’s nice to see a historically accurate language in use.

Simon Dakin writes:

Regarding your post about the TV series Person of Interest, Season 3, Episode 12.

The code on the screen uses Fortran language features that were NOT available in 1980. Some were introduced in Fortran 90 which was released as a standard significantly after 1990. The code sample it uses is actually from a site dealing with a variant of Fortran called F that is based on the Fortran 95 standard.

Sadly an epic fail.

The First Trappist Brewery in the US [Link] From the Boston Globe: “It’s the kind of ale monks like to drink,” said Keeley, noting wryly that people “love the idea of monks brewing beer.” That's because they have a good track record. Yup. This is good news for my state.

Well, here’s my thing: i think continuity is the devil. i think it’s constricting and restrictive, i think it’s alienating and off-putting, and it inflicts an artifact of linear time as we experience it on something that exists outside of linear time as well as keeps new readership away by keeping comics a matter of trivia and history rather than actual stories. 

I believe in consistency, or at least consistency as I see it and understand it, above the rigid strictures of continuity. Otherwise the entire exercise starts to fall apart as the logic of linear time spreads. What war did Frank Castle fight in? If you still think Vietnam, then Frank is closing in on 70 years old. What year did Reed Richards go into space? 1961 or 2001? 

I feel that gently adjusting the past to align better with a character is logical and right and necessary. At it’s most basic and fundamental, it lets the stories get better and be better. 

I’m speaking about a mild kind of ‘retconning’ that to me… like, i’m sorry, but making Sue Storm not a child when she met Reed Richards, making her NOT fall in love at first sight with the grown-ass man standing before her 4 year old self and rather giving her agency and action in her own love story hardly seems like a continuity-destroying ZERO HOUR-worthy flaw to be reconciled. 

there’s bad examples, of course. 

The short version is, i suppose, that it depends but i feel we can’t treat these stories as literal historical documents but rather spiritual ones, for lack of a better world. What’s more important, that Frank Castle was in Vietnam, or that Frank Castle was a soldier, right?

and so on.

tastefullyoffensive:

[paperpills]

-beautiful-promise-:

Casual reminder that this gif existt

_{Chimamanda Adichie - The Danger of a Single Story (TED Talks 2009)}

On my way back from Copenhagen, I stayed for a few days in cold and dark Iceland. This fascinating and stark island in the North Atlantic is fast becoming one of the top places to visit in Europe — with or without Eyjafjallajökull blowing it’s top. Reykjavik is stylish and easy to get around in and the rest of the country is a mix of mountains, seaside, towering cliffs and, of course, hot springs like the famous Blue Lagoon. It’s interesting how the Icelandic tourism industry has turned this essentially inhospitable land into a place that is comfortable to stay.

While most Icelanders live in modern homes and apartments, even up until the 1940s, many lived in tiny houses called turf homes. Since wood was so hard to come by on this nearly treeless island, farmers scavenged driftwood from the black sand beaches, marked the wood with a brand to show that they belonged to his family, and planed them down to build small homes. These homes were then surrounded with turf as insulation. These homes were not heated as there was a real fear of fire burning down the precious driftwood homes, so a separate “fire house” was built to hold a fire and cook food.

While there are some beautiful hotels in Reykjavik and the main touring areas in the south and east part of the island, I kept seeing tiny cottages nestled up against the volcanic mountains topped with creeping glaciers. Many of these cottages are available for rent all year long and feature small kitchens and amazing views.

The Hvoll Cottages near the small town of Vik is about two hours from Reykjavik. “Vik” means “bay” in Icelandic and these cottages have access to several black sand beaches, rock outcroppings and many of the waterfalls and parks in the south. Vik has become more famous since becoming the setting for many scenes in the Games of Thrones TV series. Also near Vik are the Hotel Laki cottages. These little cottages are for two to three people and have simple beds, cooking facilities and showers. Most of these little cottages are heated with steam or power from local geothermal power plants.

If you want to get closer to the highlands in the interior or the Golden Circle for its geysers and waterfalls, the Cottages Lakethingvellir are located near Þingvellir (Thingvellir) National Park. The nearly 400 square feet cottages have two bedrooms, a small kitchen and dining area and views of the lake. They are named Ármannsfell, Arnarfell, Miðfell and Búrfell.

What’s nice about these cottages is that they are away from most city lights and if you come to Iceland in the winter and are lucky enough to have a clear night, keep your eye on the north part of the sky around midnight for the Northern Lights. They are like nothing you’ve ever seen in your life.

Photo of Iceland turf houses by Wilder Wolf