firehose

People Magazine

Three gunned down near college as killings surge in Baltimore Reuters Gunmen killed three people and wounded one overnight near the University of Maryland, Baltimore, police said on Wednesday, the latest killings in a city that has seen an upturn in homicides following the death of Freddie Gray in April. Two gunmen ... Baltimore shooting didn't involve students or employees of UMBWashington Post Fatal US shooting near University of Maryland campusSydney Morning Herald Three shot dead near University of Maryland, Baltimore campusToronto Star Fox News -CBS Local all 338 news articles »

Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

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Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

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Huffington Post

Disney Removes Bill Cosby Statue at Hollywood Studios New York Times LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Walt Disney World officials say a bronze statue of Bill Cosby is being removed from the Hollywood Studios theme park. Local news outlets report the statue was being removed after the park closed Tuesday night. Disney offered ... Walt Disney World Resort Confirms Removal of Bill Cosby StatueNBCNews.com Bill Cosby statue comes down at Disney park after drug revelationsWashington Post Bill Cosby bust is removed from Walt Disney WorldRTE.ie The Guardian -Philly.com (blog) -Daily Beast all 72 news articles »

NBC 6 South Florida

Sarah Palin Pulls the Plug on her Subscription-Based Channel NBC 6 South Florida Former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin is pulling the plug on her digital channel, Sarah Palin Channel, according to Yahoo. The channel promised to deliver perspectives that “cut through the media's politically correct filter.” Just a year ... Sarah Palin shutting down subscription-only web channelThe Week Magazine Sarah Palin's subscription-based web channel going offlineFox News Sarah Palin's subscription web channel going offline, content moving to FacebookNew York Daily News Sky News Australia all 137 news articles »

LINCOLN, NE—According to a comprehensive new study published Wednesday by the University of Nebraska, the vast majority of Major League Baseball games are played between the Minnesota Twins and the Oakland Athletics. “Our research has conclusively shown that out of the entirety of professional baseball games held in the United States, over 85 percent are regular-season matchups between the Twins and the A’s,” said lead researcher Alex Morrell, adding that virtually every MLB game over the past 40 years has pitted the A’s against the Twins in Minneapolis. “If you were to, say, choose any game throughout the week at random, there’s an overwhelming probability that you would see A’s pitcher Sonny Gray starting on the mound, with Brian Dozier leading off for the Twins.” Morrell added that of the small remaining percentage of major league games, none whatsoever involve the San Diego Padres.

The company is scrambiling to fix bugs in its Google Photo app that tagged a black man and black woman as "gorillas." 

The advice meme as we knew it (original characters captioned in Impact) is dead. But while the Internet cultural vanguard moved on, a newer class of Internet user, the well-connected mainstreamer, reinvented it. We live in the age of the post-meme.

Scientists at the Open University, UK, have discovered a rare group of five gravitationally bound stars they say should “put the makers of Star Wars to shame.”

Read more...

OED Word of the Day: nurdle, v. Will many nurdle during the Ashes?

ladysmatter:

huntingtonlibrary:

Check out this rad 18th-century book. It includes piles of aquatints of landscapes with cool little flaps that reveal a landscape architect’s improvements. And we got one of our magnificent library assistants to play with the flaps for you, tumblr followers.

book featured in gifs: Humphry Repton (1752-1818), Sketches and hints on landscape gardening, London, 1794. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.

Super rad!

historicaltimes:

Mont-Saint-Michel, France - ca 1900

via reddit

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella didn't waste any time dropping the company's previous focus on "devices and services" after he was appointed as chief executive last year. In recent weeks former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has departed Microsoft, alongside the company's head of phones Jo Harlow. Nadella warned of "tough choices in areas where things are not working," and it appears we're seeing the first major signs of that today. Microsoft is cutting 7,800 jobs primarily in its phone business, and the company is writing off $7.6 billion related to its acquisition of the Nokia phone business. That's more than the $7.2 billion Microsoft paid for Nokia's phone business last year.

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A more focused phone portfolio will mean less Lumias

"We are moving from a strategy to grow a standalone phone business to a strategy to grow and create a vibrant Windows ecosystem including our first-party device family," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says in an email to employees today. "In the near-term, we’ll run a more effective and focused phone portfolio while retaining capability for long-term reinvention in mobility." The new job cuts follow 18,000 over the past 12 months that Nadella originally announced nearly a year ago. Microsoft completed the majority of those cuts back in April, so these new reductions are part of the company's new financial year.

It's not immediately clear what a "more effective and focused phone portfolio" means for the future of Microsoft's Lumia phones, but with the exit of Elop and Harlow it's clear Microsoft isn't as focused on creating a big spread of Lumia devices anymore. Microsoft is planning two new high-end Lumia devices for its Windows 10 Mobile software later this year, but we're unlikely to see the high number of mid- and low-range devices that Nokia used to produce regularly. Nadella says he's committed to first-party devices like phones, but that the company will focus on three areas: business, value phones, and flagships. It sounds like there will be a lot less Lumia devices produced in the future as a result.

Nadella's full memo can be found below:

Team,

Over the past few weeks, I've shared with you our mission, strategy, structure and culture. Today, I want to discuss our plans to focus our talent and investments in areas where we have differentiation and potential for growth, as well as how we'll partner to drive better scale and results. In all we do, we will take a long-term view and build deep technical capability that allows us to innovate in the future.

With that context, I want to update you on decisions impacting our phone business and share more on last week's mapping and display advertising announcements.

We anticipate that these changes, in addition to other headcount alignment changes, will result in the reduction of up to 7,800 positions globally, primarily in our phone business. We expect that the reductions will take place over the next several months.

I don't take changes in plans like these lightly, given that they affect the lives of people who have made an impact at Microsoft. We are deeply committed to helping our team members through these transitions.

Phones. Today, we announced a fundamental restructuring of our phone business. As a result, the company will take an impairment charge of approximately $7.6 billion related to assets associated with the acquisition of the Nokia Devices and Services business in addition to a restructuring charge of approximately $750 million to $850 million.

I am committed to our first-party devices including phones. However, we need to focus our phone efforts in the near term while driving reinvention. We are moving from a strategy to grow a standalone phone business to a strategy to grow and create a vibrant Windows ecosystem that includes our first-party device family.

In the near term, we will run a more effective phone portfolio, with better products and speed to market given the recently formed Windows and Devices Group. We plan to narrow our focus to three customer segments where we can make unique contributions and where we can differentiate through the combination of our hardware and software. We'll bring business customers the best management, security and productivity experiences they need; value phone buyers the communications services they want; and Windows fans the flagship devices they'll love.

In the longer term, Microsoft devices will spark innovation, create new categories and generate opportunity for the Windows ecosystem more broadly. Our reinvention will be centered on creating mobility of experiences across the entire device family including phones.

Mapping. Last week, we announced changes to our mapping business and transferred some of our imagery acquisition operations to Uber. We will continue to source base mapping data and imagery from partners. This allows us to focus our efforts on delivering great map products such as Bing Maps, Maps app for Windows and our Bing Maps for Enterprise APIs.

Advertising. We also announced our decision to sharpen our focus in advertising platform technology and concentrate on search, while we partner with AOL and AppNexus for display. Bing will now power search and search advertising across the AOL portfolio of sites, in addition to the partnerships we already have with Yahoo!, Amazon and Apple. Concentrating on search will help us further accelerate the progress we've been making over the past six years. Last year Bing grew to 20 percent query share in the U.S. while growing our search advertising revenue 28 percent over the past 12 months. We view search technology as core to our efforts spanning Bing.com, Cortana, Office 365, Windows 10 and Azure services.

I deeply appreciate all of the ideas and hard work of everyone involved in these businesses, and I want to reiterate my commitment to helping each individual impacted.

I know many of you have questions about these changes. I will host an employee Q&A tomorrow to share more, and I hope you can join me.

Satya

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Microsoft Build: Microsoft Continuum for phones demo

Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

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The job is 10 hours per week, for $12.50 an hour. We are especially interested in hiring people in New York City and San Francisco,

“People should, and do trust me,” Clinton said when asked if she would vote for someone she didn’t trust and blamed a “barrage of attacks that are largely fomented by and coming from the right” for persistent questions on her credibility.

The 50-year-old actor, who made his fifth appearance as Iron Man in the Joss Whedon-directed film, took in a cool $80 million between June of 2014 and 2015, according to Forbes, making him the highest-earning actor in that time period (his earnings for the drama The Judge also contributed to the total). Like his character, Tony Stark, Downey, Jr. is a shrewd businessman, and has cashed in on the massive success of the Disney-owned franchise by negotiating a generous cut of the profits made on sales of movie tickets, merchandise, and home video (he famously made $50 million for the first Avengers). His cut for the franchise is so high, in fact, that Marvel famously limited the salaries of its other stars, like Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth, as they entered the fray. 

According to Forbes, Downey, Jr.’s fellow Avenger Scarlett Johansson made $35.5 million overall, though that was in part thanks to her leading role in the hit action film Lucy, as well as her many endorsement deals.

The second highest-earning actor on Forbes’ list is Jennifer Lawrence, who finished with 34th overall, with $52 million, placing her right behind Kim Kardashian. She can thank her role in The Hunger Games for most of that cash, and the film franchise’s final installment — due in November — ensures that she’ll be back on this list next year. 

At number three for actors is Jackie Chan, which may come as a surprise to American fans, as he hasn’t done many movies stateside in a long while. But the 61-year-old is still a superstar in China, and earned a mint overseas with Dragon Blade, his film with Adrien Brody and John Cusack, Dragon Blade (the movie will be released in the U.S. on September 4). Chan also owns a Segway dealership and movie theater chain. 

Following Chan is Vin Diesel, who flexed his way to a $47 million payday, mostly for Furious 7. Fun fact: If Diesel made $1 for every one of his Facebook fans, he’d make just about the same amount of dough. 

Diesel’s Furious co-star, The Rock, meanwhile, made $31.5 million, which is probably really embarrassing when the two hang out and lift together. 

Other high earners include Bradley Cooper ($41.5 million, thanks to the unending success of American Sniper, for which he served as both and actor and producer); Adam Sandler ($41 million); Mark Wahlberg ($32 million, thanks to Ted 2 and his producing stint on such projects as HBO’s Entourage and Ballers); Johnny Depp ($30 million, no thanks to Mortdecai); Channing Tatum and Leonardo DiCaprio ($29 million apiece); and Sofia Vergara and Kevin Hart ($28.5 million each).

Raven-Symoné said, “I don’t really like talking about it that much because he’s the reason I’m on this panel in the first place - he gave me my first job. But, at the same time, you know, you need the proof and then I’ll be able to give my judgment here or there.” Goldberg added, “We’ll see what happens. As more information comes out people can make judgments. I don’t like snap judgments because I’ve had snap judgments made on me. So I’m very, very careful and save your texts, save your nasty comments, because I don’t care.”

mira-of-sassgard:

I never wanted to see that fucking game again fuck you

ifpaintingscouldtext:

Delphin Enjolras | The Murmur of the Sea | c.1875

africanaquarian:

nozayn:

Beyoncé & Jay-Z are attempting to buy the rights to the confederate flag so it can’t be used anymore God is Real

This is so perfect because how heated would white southern racists be to see two black millionaires buy the rights to their symbol of hatred.

cashcats:

C$C$ on Instagramz

There are hundreds and hundreds of similar Tweets. A recent innov8tiv article claims to have tech fixes that will help solve the nuisance—a hodgepodge of ideas like turning mobile data on/off, resetting or restoring your phone, deleting “bad” apps, and more. innov8tiv also says the glitch is happening on older phone models, but many of the reports I’ve seen specify that they have a 6. There is a lot of misinformation out there, and no one, including Apple, seems able to pinpoint the problem.

So what’s going on, Apple? This is a widespread annoyance with no fix or clear communication in sight. All we know for sure is that iPhone users are not amused.

So when I first got into Scientology, I did Personal Values and Integrity and then Overcoming Ups and Downs in Life. These courses touched on the observations I was aware of when I was younger. It was right there in black and white. It was amazing, and I felt that finally something was speaking my language. It totally connected with me.

Pretty soon after that I got onto the Purification Rundown, and I started moving up the Bridge.

bigbadbro:

Teleroboxer (nintendo virtual boy)

(Nintendo - 1995)

They are mostly OutKast themed, AS THEY SHOULD BE.

Atlanta is getting an expansion MLS franchise. Fans were asked "to provide their suggestions for the team name," then chose "Atlanta United FC" anyway. They should have picked one of our many suggestions:

- FC ATLiens

- ATLetico

- Soccerboxxx/The Club Below

- FC Stankonia

- Sporting Boy Tell 'Em

- Footie Mob

- Footie Hoo

- Kick-Fil-A

- Real Soccer Players of Atlanta

- FC Barves

- Kriss Inswinging Kross

- Pitch Homie Quan

And now some from Twitter:

@JasonKirkSBN Wacka Socca Flames

— Matt Berry (@MattBerry05) April 16, 2014

@JasonKirkSBN judging by the cities finacial state i think ATLiens is a v good name

— PFTCommenter (@PFTCommenter) April 16, 2014

@JasonKirkSBN The Atlanta Shermans.

— Alfredo Vera (@AlfredoFVera) April 16, 2014

@JasonKirkSBN soccerplayalisticadillacmuzik

— Matt Berry (@MattBerry05) April 16, 2014

YES

@JasonKirkSBN @MattBerry05 Socquemini

— Murder Kroger (@murderkroger) April 16, 2014

@celebrityhottub @SBN_BillC @JasonKirkSBN SportingOttieDopaliscious Atlanta

— Violence (@PhilKenSaban) April 16, 2014

"Atlanta's club does not yet have a name, but their colors will be red, black and yellow..." pic.twitter.com/FPVgQetQPz

— Violence (@PhilKenSaban) April 16, 2014

@SBN_BillC @JasonKirkSBN Gold Football Club

— John Infante (@John_Infante) April 16, 2014

Please share your ideas in the comments! We are GOING to get one of these chosen.

This is bizarre.

The American Outlaws are at tonight's match between the United States and Honduras, the first match of this Gold Cup for the USMNT. They're in full voice, as the US fan group always is, but right now they may be a little hard to spot, because apparently CONCACAF representatives didn't like their banner.

Shame, @CONCACAF. Ripped down. Damaged. pic.twitter.com/hGw5XwMpo0

— The American Outlaws (@AmericanOutlaws) July 8, 2015

This is really, really weird. The banner appears to be the standard "American Outlaws: Unite & Strengthen" banner, which doesn't say anything strange or obscene. It's been at many matches in the past with no problem so why there's suddenly an issue with it tonight is mystifying.