The past few months have seen Flickr take some major strides forward in catching up to its modern photo-sharing competitors. It has a renewed web interface that's still being actively updated, modern apps for iPhone and Android that Yahoo can rightly be proud of, and a full terabyte of storage for every user. What it didn't have until now, believe it or not, was the option to embed its images on a webpage. Admittedly, that functionality isn't as critical as it once might have been, with most people now just tweeting or Facebooking the images they want to share, but offering it does build toward Flickr's goal of being a comprehensive photo portal.
The embed option can now be found under the sharing menu, with Flickr automatically adding attribution and its own logo as an overlay. You'll be able to browse other publicly-shared photos from the same Flickr account from the same spot, and as always, Flickr promises to "never compress or resize your images."
What do you do when a student asks for advice on how to pick up girls instead of answering a biology exam question? After reading this teacher's response, I'd say he nailed it.
A redditor participating in the site’s Secret Santa gift exchange won the Santa lottery: Bill Gates himself. User NY1227, whose first name is given as Rachel, posted Wednesday about a handful of gifts she received from the former Microsoft CEO, including a National Geographic travel book addressed to her and a sizable donation in her name to Heifer International, a charity focused on hunger and poverty.
Rachel wrote in the r/secretsanta subreddit about her experience, which began when she received a shipping notification that she was about to get a package weighing 7 pounds. When the package arrived, she found inside a stuffed animal, a book, and two cards.
The stuffed animal was a cow, which was representative of another gift described in one of the cards: Bill Gates had donated a cow on her behalf to a family in need via Heifer International. Per Heifer International’s site, a full cow donation costs $500. The card was signed by Bill Gates, and Gates included with the package some reddit-worthy proof: a photo of himself in front of a Christmas tree holding the toy and signed card.
Pigs may not fly, but they do swim in the Bahamas, as captured in this delightful video. While it’s not completely clear as to how or why they got there, these feral pigs have certainly made themselves at home. Even the cay is informally known as Pig Beach is a nod to these porcine locals.
Our submitter in Boston says she found this note on the kitchen counter “after my evil roommate abused some Adderall and stayed up cleaning, organizing, and generally banging around till an obscene hour.”
Adds our submitter: “I can’t wait until the day when I live alone.”
New submitter ttyler writes "It turns out a MacBook's built-in camera can be activated without turning on the green LED. An earlier report suggested the FBI could activate a device's camera without having the light turn on, and there was a case in the news where a woman had nude pictures taken of her without her knowledge. The new research out of Johns Hopkins University confirms both situations are possible. All it takes are a few tweaks to the camera's firmware."
"The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) is an executive agency, which means it reports directly to the Governor. FDOT's primary statutory responsibility is to coordinate the planning and development of a safe, viable, and balanced state transportation system serving all regions of the state, and to assure the compatibility of all components, including multimodal facilities. A multimodal transportation system combines two or more modes of movement of people or goods. Florida's transportation system includes roadway, air, rail, sea, spaceports, bus transit, and bicycle and pedestrian facilities."
Design by: N/A
Opinion/Notes: It's not that a logo for the FDOT is the most interesting story but there is something to be said for a government agency trying to put its best foot forward and almost succeeding. The new logo isn't particularly good — it has too many styles of things (swoosh, dots, Termintator-esque wordmark — but compared to the relic it had before, it's a drastic improvement.
Select Quote: The current FDOT logo replaces the previous logo that served the Florida Department of Transportation since 1989. The new logo was designed by combining three elements; the FDOT acronym, the state of Florida, and the multi-modal pathway to correspond with the department's mission. The modernized look also symbolizes the department's efforts to continually move forward and adapt to new technologies and ideas.
Fireplace for Your Home is a collection of hour-long videos of warm fireplaces available to stream on Netflix. You can watch “Crackling Yule Log Fireplace” or just an ordinary “Crackling Fireplace,” though “Crackling Fireplace with Music” is currently listed as unavailable.
'George has never really played a video game before'
On episode 26 of Co-Optitude — a retro video game show by Geek & Sundry — Felicia Day and her special guest George Takei have a blast while playing Mario Party 4. It was a special moment, since George has never really played a video game before. According to George, this was his “virginal effort.”
Felicia also appeared on a recent episode of George Takei’s new web show Takei’s Take. They both sat down to chat about how video games could potentially improve focus and multitasking.
High-Resolution Scan of 1988 Amsterdam Transit Map!
Have I ever mentioned how much I love my readers?
I posted about this map last Monday, praising its visual clarity, but also lamenting the fact that I didn’t have a higher resolution version of it to really savour the details.
Almost immediately, I got a submission from Alain Lemaire, who generously sent me full high-resolution scans of the whole map from his personal collection. He provided me with four separate scans, one for each quadrant of the map (which is obviously too big to scan in one piece), which I have simply combined them into one big file (4325 × 4653px, 6MB) in Photoshop.
Tumblr’s maximum image size is way too small for a detailed map like this, so I’m hosting it over on my personal website. Click the image above or here to go and view/download it.
Alain has this to say about the map:
In my opinion, this map is a diagrammatic beauty, but pretty much rendered useless outside the city center because of the lack of bus stop labels and a geographic backdrop. Might have been the reason why GVB decided to drop this beauty and put the current – rather bland but more practical – design in place which does not feature any stop labels at all but does have a clear geographic backdrop. That way at least you do have a reference point for using the map. Maybe Hans van der Kooi could tell you more about the history and eventual decommissioning of this map.
As far as the colour coding goes, Van der Kooi used colour and line width to show which lines go where: thick red for all tram and thin red for all bus lines to the central station and main transit hub in Amsterdam, thick green for trams on the inner ring route along the city center, thick yellow for ‘other’ tram routes and thin yellow, green, blue and purple for all other bus routes. It seems to me he used yellow for most lines terminating at Sloterdijk station, which served as a second transit hub in the late 1980s. All regional bus lines are shown in black and white. For comparison: the current official map uses colour only to distinguish between tram, bus, peak bus and regional bus. Not of much use if you want to easily determine where your line is heading.
It's been talked about and endlessly dissected. It's either the future of professional computing or an overpriced, undersized trash can. It's the new Mac Pro, it's on sale starting today, and I've finally had a chance to hold it in my own two hands.
It cuts a striking figure, despite its relatively small stature. It's also incredibly dense, far heavier than I expected. Ten inches tall, six inches around, and about 11 pounds, it's also astonishingly reflective — and picks up fingerprints really easily. But it's beautiful, understated, and looks great on a desk next to the 4K Sharp monitor we've paired it with. It's particularly good-looking with its case off, exposing the Mac Pro's machinery, but the case is required for dissipating heat. You can't even use the Mac Pro with it off.
All the device's ports are on the back, bordered by a light that turns on and pulses when you spin the computer toward you. When you first turn it on, the fan kicks in, and smells a little like a new car at first. But we've been using it for a few minutes and it's quiet and cool, with little indication that it's even on in the first place. It's so unassuming and unadorned that you almost overlook it — that's a huge improvement from the big, boxy previous models.
We've only just begun testing the Mac Pro, and we're already running tests and benchmarks on the new device. There's a lot to explore with this particular device, but one thing's for sure: there's never been a computer quite like this before.
And it really does look a little like a trash can.
Apple is being forced to change its refund policy to fit under Australian consumer law after it was found to be lying to consumers about what they were entitled to by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), according to The Sydney Morning Herald.
Apple and its suppliers told Australian consumers they were only entitled to what Apple wanted to offer them when products failed, rather than what they should have been entitled to under Australia's new consumer laws.
Under Australian consumer protection law, Apple is required to provide either a full refund or replacement for products with "major failure" and to offer free repairs, refunds or replacements for products with "minor faults". Apple is also responsible for non-Apple products sold in Australian Apple Stores. Apple's warranty practices and AppleCare packages must offer services in addition to Australian consumer law, rather than replacing them.
Instead, the ACCC found that Apple was telling Australian consumers they were only entitled to a full refund if the product was returned within two weeks rather than the two years under Australian law. Apple was also apparently telling consumers they could only get a full refund or replacement on products within a year of purchase, rather than two years. Finally, Apple was saying it was not responsible for non-Apple products it sold and only offered store credit rather than full refunds or replacements.
In response, Apple will start reassessing all claims about faulty products purchased over the past two years starting on January 6, and will provide customers with new warranty benefits once reviewed. The older claims will take 90 days to review, with the ACCC potentially taking further action if Apple does not follow through. In addition, Apple will publish a note on its website detailing Australian consumer rights, stock ACCC consumer rights brochures in its retail stores, and retrain staff and resellers.
Apple has run into trouble with its warranty practices in the past. In March, Apple adjusted its warranty policies to fit under Australian consumer law as well. Apple has also faced fines over AppleCare practices in Italy and lawsuits from other countries in the European Union.
"Martin Freeman is a treasure and does mostly great work here, but too frequently he's pushed into the background to give the often unlikeable Thorin, or another character, the spotlight. ...Benedict Cumberbatch's Smaug was a high point in the same way that Andy Serkis' Gollum was a high point in the first movie."
Peter Jackson's second The Hobbit film is here, giving nerds on the Internet something else to argue about.
Before going forward, an important spoiler warning: this article assumes that you've seen both The Hobbit films and read the book and takes no pains to avoid spoilers for any of it. As such, it will spoil not just the movie and the book, but probably also many elements of the next Hobbit film. If you haven't read the books and want to be surprised by the next movie, do not pass beyond this point.
Let me begin by saying that I didn't dislike The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.
This was emphatically not the case with last year's An Unexpected Journey, which has a whole pile of structural and thematic problems. Peter Jackson and crew took what could have been a reasonably watchable two-hour fantasy film and padded it out to three hours with interminable chase sequences, memorable-for-all-the-wrong-reasons rock monster battles, and pointless Elijah Wood cameos.
'Many commenters on r/MensRights were bitterly opposed to the spamming move. "I can't believe y'all here are making false accusations to prove a point, and are getting upvoted for it," one commenter wrote. "I thought the [men's rights movement] was vehemently opposed to false accusations?"
"Before everyone goes all torchy, how do we know anyone at Occidental actually responds to this, or how it is responded to?" asked one top-rated commenter. "Before harassing an institution over this, we should check our facts, or we become what we despise." '
Occidental is where Lisa Wade of Sociological Images teaches. Wade:
'The men targeting Occidental's anonymous report form are mad that women are being listened to, that men's voices are no longer given so much power that they can effectively drown out the voices of women. They're mad because they're not the only ones that matter anymore. I get it. To them, it really does feel unfair. Something really is changing. They ARE being demoted — from a superior to an equal — and it feels wrong to them because they're so used to being privileged, to being the most specialest girl in the whole world.
She added that backlash was "a good thing. It means we're winning the fight. They're gonna have to get used to it." '
You should read this whole New York Times report on poverty from Eduardo Potter. It's about how our attitudes toward the poor in America have changed, and how we're losing the war on poverty. But I think one paragraph in the piece is the most important part. It highlights exactly what's wrong with the Republican war on government. Turns out, government is what's holding a lot of us up:
Without the panoply of government benefits — like food stamps, subsidized school lunches and the earned-income tax credit, which provides extra money to household heads earning low wages — the nation’s poverty rate last year would have reached almost 31 percent, up from 25 percent in 1967, according to the research at Columbia.
I understand the thinking among Republicans is that if we let these people get to work on their own, with no assistance, they won't need government benefits. But they're wrong. There's simply not enough wealth to go around. Our wealth is stuck up at the top 1% of the population, and they're not letting it trickle back down. Without those benefits, without the wealthy paying the meagerest amount of taxes, we're looking at a country where nearly a third of us are impoverished. That doesn't sound like America to me.
Apple is being forced to change its refund policy to fit under Australian consumer law after it was found to be lying to consumers about what they were entitled to by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), according to The Sydney Morning Herald. 
