firehose

Remote-sensing techniques have unearthed clues to the fate of settlers who mysteriously disappeared.

The Browns almost beat the Patriots ... almost.

You knew it was probably too good to be true, that the Cleveland Browns and Jason Campbell would stun the New England Patriots and former Browns coach Bill Belichick. And it was.

Cleveland led 26-14 in the fourth quarter. Tom Brady and the Patriots then engineered a quick drive with less than two minutes left that ended with a Julian Edleman touchdown. Then it was time for the onside kick. It worked.

On the ensuing drive, on first-and-10 from the Cleveland 30-yard line, the refs called a dubious pass interference call on the Browns.

That put the Patriots at the one-yard line with 35 seconds left. But Brady and Co. didn't need 35 seconds. He hit Danny Amendola on the right outside corner of the end zone for a touchdown.

The two-point conversion failed, but the damage was done. Cleveland's upset bid ended thusly, in the most Browns way possible.

The bullshitter generally either knows the statements are likely false, exaggerated, and in other ways misleading or has no interest in their factual accuracy one way or the other. “Talking bullshit” is thus a lesser form of lying, and is likely to elicit a correspondingly weaker emotional response: whereas an obvious liar may be greeted with derision, outrage, or anger, an exponent of bullshit tends to be dismissed with an indifferent sneer.

Link

The Hunger Games paints an eerily apt picture of the world’s reality. The Capitol is the rich nations of the world: the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Israel, some oil kingdoms, most European nations. The Districts are the poor nations of the world—Haiti, Nepal, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Papua New Guinea, many countries in central Asia and Africa, all of which have per capita incomes less than $10 per day.

The Capitol, with all of its abundance of food, advanced medical care, and gadgets, is surrounded by a giant high-tech, booby-trapped WALL. The point of the Games is to burrow through the WALL to get to the material paradise of the Capitol without getting killed or caught and sent back to the Districts to starve.

The most important difference between Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games and my variant is that the poverty in the real world is unfathomably worse than the poverty depicted in the series. The only way I know to convey this to my students who have never left the United States is to read to them every word of Nicholas Kristof’s New York Times essay, “Where Sweatshops are a Dream.”

The other difference is that, in Suzanne Collins version, the evil the Capitol does with its Games has roots as deep as the nation itself, while in the United States, at least, we build a wall to keep immigrants out in contradiction to our own historical traditions and the example set by the founders of our nation. We do this not only heartlessly, for the sake of what are in all likelihood relatively small gains for a modest slice of our population, but also stupidly. The tight restrictions we impose on immigration come at great cost to our economy, to future government budgets and the future geopolitical power of the United States.

Are immigration restrictions necessary? There may be some limit to the speed at which we can take in newcomers. But there is good reason to think it is much higher than the current rate of immigration. In the decade from 1900 to 1910, immigration was over 1% of the US population per year. There were some strains, but things didn’t fall apart, and America is much stronger now because of those early 20^th century immigrants and their descendants. For comparison, the number of permanent legal immigrants into the US now is only 0.33% of the US population per year and the entire stock of undocumented immigrants in the US is only 3.7% of the US population–nothing close to the 1% immigration rate the US had in the first decade of the 20^th century. And those immigrants would assimilate much more quickly into our communities if they didn’t have to hide in the shadows because of the laws that brand them as criminals.

The philosopher Michael Huemer gives a good discussion of the ethics of immigration restrictions here.  A key point is that many US citizens would love to host immigrants from other countries. Some Americans are preventing other Americans from welcoming immigrants as they would like to. And many people around the world would be delighted to come to the United States even if they were totally barred from receiving any public assistance whatsoever.

In the real world, exclusion is a form of cruelty that we take for granted. Keeping people out of a material paradise for no good reason turns utopia into dystopia. By keeping immigrants out, the United States—like the other rich nations of the world—plays the role of the Capitol in my twist on The Hunger Games. But all we need to do to change that is to honor once again the words on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free …”

Follow Miles on Twitter at @mileskimball or on Facebook. His blog is supplysideliberal.com. We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.

spaceexp:

Heavy lift rockets from around the world

Cool.

Gronk may have suffered another major injury against the Browns.

New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski suffered a potentially serious knee injury against the Cleveland Browns on Sunday, needing to be carted off the field in the second half.

Gronkowski caught a pass and went over the middle before a Browns defender upended him, his helmet colliding into Gronkowski's knee. The tight end collapsed into a heap on the field, clutching his knee while trainers went to check him out. He limped onto a cart and was later taken into the locker room. The Patriots have not given any immediate update on his status.

Before the injury, Gronkowski was having a quiet day, being held to two catches for 32 yards by the Browns defense. He has been struggling with multiple injuries for most of 2013. Gronkowski's 2012 season ended early when he broke his forearm, which required multiple surgeries to remove infections. He also had back surgery during the offseason and didn't make his season debut until Week 7.

Gronkowski's status will be updated when more information is available.

More from SB Nation NFL

• Complete NFL Week 14 coverage | Live scores

• Winter Wonderland Sunday

• Texans fire Gary Kubiak

• What makes Seattle’s defensive front so good?

• PFT Commenter: Kirk Cousins' elite wedding registry

A man does pushups at different times with different baby goats on his back in this July 2013 video posted by MJOrbit.

via Say OMG

This compilation of dogs afraid of crossing a cat’s path proves that the “scaredy cat” isn’t always a feline.

via Huffington Post

In their latest commercial, Delta Faucet created a “drum kit” of sorts using their new line of touch faucets and enlisted percussionist Glenn Kotche of WILCO to play it.

In this 30-second TV commercial, Glenn “plays” the touch faucets to re-create one of the most popular songs of the 1960s, “Reach Out, I’ll be There“.

Tim Longo, creative director of Star Wars: Republic Commando and Tomb Raider has assumed the familiar position of - wait for it - creative director, at 343 Industries. Beyond Entertainment spotted a change in Longo's Twitter biography noting the job change earlier today, which sees him replacing Halo 4 creative director Josh Holmes.

David Ellis, designer at 343i, also hinted at Longo's new position when he tweeted that he looked forward to giving Longo regular feedback as he plays through the recently-announced Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition. Longo replied that he's "all #343Industries & @HaloWaypoint now!"

Holmes' LinkedIn profile lists his most current position as "Franchise Creative Director" for 343i, but his Twitter biography has been updated to read "EP [Executive Producer] @ 343." We've reached out for clarification on the position changes.

Tomb Raider, Republic Commando creative director joins 343 Industries originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 08 Dec 2013 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

If all of chemistry is a dance party, then all the elements are guests, capable of attracting, repulsing, forming bonds, and experiencing explosive reactions.

Read more...

Charlie the Brown Lemur tries to steal a baby bottle from Willie the Kid at the Exotic Animal Experience in Orlando, FL in this video from September 2013.

via Daily Picks and Flicks

sp00kyoctoberween:

IF I SEE “CONSENT IS SEXY” ONE MORE TIME I AM GOING TO SCREAM. CONSENT IS NOT SEXY, CONSENT IS FUCKING MANDATORY. STOP TRYING TO MARKET THIS IN A WAY THAT DOESN’T DISPLAY HOW FUCKING MANDATORY IT IS TO HAVE CONSENT. IT IS NOT A PLUS. A PERK. A THING THAT DESERVES A COOKIE. IT. IS. FUCKING. MANDATORY.

Would you eat "eggs" made of plants, even if they were cheaper, better for you, and tasted the same?

Too many facts suggest this was not a simple case of consensual sex.

The rich and beautiful No Man's Sky has stolen the show at VGX. Check out the trailer below and marvel that just four people are working on this incredible space adventure game.

Read more...

the agent man writes "The Hour of Code event taking place December 9-15 has produced a number of tutorials with the goal to excite 10 millions kids to code. It's really interesting to contrast the different pedagogical approaches behind the roughly 30 tutorials. The University of Colorado's 'Make a 3D Game' tutorial wants to excite kids to code by focusing less on coding. This pedagogy is based on the idea that coding alone, without non-coding creativity, has a hard time attracting kids who are skeptical of computer science, including a high percentage of girls who think 'programming is hard and boring.' Instead, the 'Make a 3D Game' activity has the kids create sharable 3D shapes and 3D worlds in their browsers, which they then want to bring to life — through coding. There is evidence that this strategy works. The article talks about the research exploring how kids get excited through game design, and how they can later leverage coding skills acquired to make science simulations. You can try the activity by yourself or with your kids, if you're curious."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It took penalties, but MLS's ultimate prize will reside in Kansas City.

Sporting Kansas City are the champions of MLS.

It took 120 minutes of 1-1 soccer and 10 rounds of penalty kicks to separate Sporting Kansas City and Real Salt Lake, but when Lovel Palmer hit the crossbar with his penalty in the 10th round, it had finally ended. Sporting and their 18,000 fans who had stood in sub-freezing temperatures for hours were rewarded with a 7-6 win in penalties.

The final was billed as a a matchup of two of MLS's best teams and they certainly lived up to the hype, even if it wasn't always the prettiest soccer. The match was physical from the start, which was only egged on by Hilario Grajeda, who deemed anything short of a drive-by unworthy of a foul. That Uri Rossel went down with an injury in the eighth minute and had to be substituted off didn't help, but in between all of the hellacious fouls, there were chances, drama and plenty of entertainment.

C.J. Sapong almost put Sporting in front in the 25th minute, but a tremendous save by Nick Rimando kept the home side scoreless. Not long after a mistake by Jimmy Nielsen gifted Robbie Findley a chance from five yards, but he missed the open goal from five yards and hit the post. Just before halftime, Dom Dwyer got a chance fot the home side, but Rimando was there again to deny him.

Alvaro Saborio put Real Salt Lake ahead in the 52nd minute, but as much of the credit on the goal belongs to Kyle Beckerman. The midfielder ht a sublime, no-look chip to Saborio, who chested the ball down and fired past Kimmy Nielsen. It was a wonderful play and stunned the crowd at Sporting Park, but they were back to chanting mere minutes later.

Sporting responded well to the RSL goal and pressure for the rest of the half, with one glorious chance for Javier Morales the only Salt Lake chance of note. But for all of Sporting's time on the ball and forays forward, they couldn't turn it into chances. That is until the 76th minute, when Aurelien Collin equalized.

Graham Zusi, who had plenty a handful of great balls in the match only for them to be wasted, hit a perfect corner kick, but Collin still had to beat Chris Schuler to get to it. Few players in the league can muscle off Schuler, but Collin was able to and head past Rimando to ignite Sporting Park.

Neither side was able to find a goal in the final 14 minutes so the match went to extra time, where Sporting dominated. Rimando was called upon time and time again to keep RSL in the match and every time, he did. He had to repeatedly rescue RSL and Sporting could have had a penalty to boot. Schuler took down C.J. Sapong, but Grajeda waved play on and replays showed it was the right call. It was a clean shoulder-to-shoulder play and in no way a foul.

It looked like Saborio might put RSL in front when he beat Nielsen in the 105th minute, but he was correctly flagged offside and the goal did not count. As time went on and fatigue set in, the match slowed and penalties were required to decide the match.

There, Sporting prevailed. They had a chance to win it in the fifth round of penalties, but Zusi fired over the bar so the shootout went on and all the way to the 10th round. There, Palmer beat Nielsen, but hit the crossbar and that was it -- SKC were champions.

Sporting Kansas City: Nielsen, Sinovic, Besler, Collin, Myers, Rosell (Olum 8'), Nagamura, Feilhaber, Dwyer (Bieler 72'), Sapong, Zusi.

Goals: Collin 76'.

Real Salt Lake: Rimando, Wingert (Palmer 72'), Borchers, Schuler, Beltran, Grabavoy, Beckerman, Gil (Velasquez 87'), Morales, Saborio, Findley (Plata 112').

Goals: Saborio 52'.

Never mind iCupid and Tindr. The almost decade-old Couchsurfing, which is available in 100,000 cities across the globe, is becoming the go-to hookup app for a certain class of young world travelers.B

submitted by DrSuresh [link] [26 comments]

America is a country that is now utterly divided when it comes to its society, its economy, its politics. There are definitely two Americas. I live in one, on one block in Baltimore that is part of…

Lorraine Daston, executive director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, has spent decades studying the emergence of modern science. One formative experience, she says, was a graduate-school seminar where she and fellow student Katharine Park noticed something strange. The philosophers they studied in their class on 17th century metaphysics—Bacon, Hobbes, Leibniz, Locke—were obsessed with monstrous creatures. Their professor didn’t care, nor did the other students, so Daston and Park carved out their own intellectual turf and wrote a landmark scholarly article about monsters. Years later they expanded the study and in 1998 published the monumental history, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750.