firehose

See? Emotions.

At a recent lecture at the University of Toronto, GZA "Genius" of the Wu Tang Clan gave students a sneak preview of his upcoming cosmology-themed album "Dark Matter" by spitting some scientifically accurate rhymes about the Big Bang, the "fastest growing infant since the time of birth."

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ST. LOUIS—Temporarily ceasing all his regular affectations and posturing, local man Jeremy Claremont was his actual, genuine self for nearly half an hour today, sources have confirmed.

PISSBRAU is a Boston based company dedicated to the ancient and exotic art of piss brewing. Please follow us for more information on our latest offerings.

Hang on to your hats (and/or your airline rebooking hotline number).

Apparently, since weather in the northeastern US has been relatively calm for a while, mother nature is considering rolling a season’s worth of storms into one.

Computer weather models are showing signs of a possible storm moving northeast from the northern Gulf of Mexico—which could combine with a harsh outbreak of Arctic cold from the Yukon headed south this weekend.

That idea is now backed by the National Weather Service, which shows a possible nor’easter (a major storm blowing with northeast winds off the US East Coast) on its official seven-day forecast map and calling the storm “a concern for travel” in a forecaster discussion message.

[Despite] dramatic variation [in the models]—some dry, cold solutions for the East Coast—some snowy ones from the Tennessee valley to the mid Atlantic—some rainy, windy ones all the way into New England. The wave will still affect major airports from Dallas to Atlanta, and probably the big hubs of the mid Atlantic region on the always-busy travel days before Thanksgiving.

At this point, the most likely scenario would be cold, wind-driven rain in the big coastal US cities, with up to a foot of snow stretching from inland New England as far south as the Carolinas. The cold would stick around after the storm exits, with high temperatures in the 20s and wind chills possibly in the single digits as far south as New Jersey on Black Friday.

According to this afternoon’s iteration of the Euro model (a meteorological model that famously predicted superstorm Sandy’s rare left hook into New Jersey six days out), at the storm’s peak, wind gusts on Cape Cod could approach hurricane force.

So when would the peak of the storm most likely hit? On the busiest American travel day of the year, of course, during arguably the busiest time window: Wednesday afternoon.

A lot would have to go right (or wrong, depending on your perspective) for the above scenario to materialize, but for a storm that’s still about a week away, the consistency in number-crunching over the past few days lends confidence to the notion that a storm will form; it’s just a matter of its track.

If snow falls on New York City’s Central Park, it will be the third consecutive year that the city experienced an abnormally early blast of winter weather. (Then again, the last time the Big Apple got more than five inches of snow before December 1st was in 1938.)

Of course, the storm outlook could change, given that it’s an advanced prediction. But if flying turkeys fill the skies of Gotham a week from today, remember you heard about it here.

Update November 21 2013 9:33 PM EDT: Readers have pointed out that the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) offers limited late night service on select routes of the “L” (“elevated“) train system. 

Original post:

The London Underground announced today that in 2015  it will begin offering 24-hour subway service on weekends. By doing so, London joins an elite group of cities—Copenhagen, Berlin and New York—that offer all-night service options.

As part of his larger city transit plan, London’s Mayor Boris Johnson hopes the change will boost the economy and prepare the city of 8.3 million for the 500,000 new residents expected by 2031.

The expansion will only affect certain central London lines: the Central, Jubilee, Northern, Picadilly, and Victoria lines. Every day 3.5 million trips are taken on the Tube, with the lion’s share—around 73%—along these lines.

All night service of any type is a rarity on the metropolitan subway systems of the world. New York City’s MTA is joined by Copenhagen’s driverless all-night Metro in offering true all-night, underground train service, while Berlin’s U-bahn (Underground train) replaces its trains with buses for overnight service. Most major metropolitan transit systems, including those in Singapore, Boston, Tapei, Tokyo, Seoul, and Washington, D.C. shut down from 11:30pm-12am until 5am-6am.

These announcements were marred by the news that the Underground will lay off 750 station agents and ticket sellers, closing most of the ticket offices. Some workers will be transferred from ticket offices to train platforms. The changes are expected to save £270 million  ($437 million) over the next five years.

Fig old-fashioneds at Manhattans project.

The man charged with sending ricin to Obama now accused of trying to frame ... Calgary Herald JACKSON, Miss. - A man charged with sending poison-laced letters to President Barack Obama and other officials has been charged with trying for a second time to frame the man first arrested in the case — an Elvis impersonator. James Everett Dutschke has ... and more »

One of the best things about working on Raspberry Pi has been the opportunity to meet groups of people who are trying to bring about the same sort of change in the teaching of other subjects that we’re aiming for in computing. One great example is the computer-based math(s) (CBM) movement, which aims to redefine the teaching of mathematics in schools away from mechanical calculation and towards problem solving. From their website:

The importance of math to jobs, society, and thinking has exploded over the last few decades. Meanwhile, math education is in worldwide crisis—diverging more and more from what’s required by countries, industry, further education… and students.

Computers are key to bridging this chasm: only when they do the calculating is math applicable to hard questions across many contexts. Real-life math has been transformed by computer-based calculation; now mainstream math education needs this fundamental change too.

computerbasedmath.org is the project to perform this reset. We’re building a completely new math curriculum with computer-based computation at its heart, while campaigning at all levels to redefine math education away from historical hand-calculating techniques and toward real-life problem-solving situations that drive high-concept math understanding and experience.

Today, at the CBM education summit in New York, we announced a partnership with Wolfram Research to bundle a free copy of Mathematica and the Wolfram Language into future Raspbian images. We believe this will make the Pi a first-class platform for teaching CBM techniques to children of all ages. As Conrad Wolfram said today: “Coders will be able to use the power of Mathematica’s maths out of the box, not only enriching what they can do but also showing off the power and importance of maths.”

Future Raspbian images will ship with the Wolfram Language and Mathematica by default; existing users with at least 600MB of free space on their SD card can install them today by typing:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install wolfram-engine

You’ll find Mathematica in the app launcher under the Education menu.

We’d like to thank the team at Wolfram Research for the enormous amount of effort they’ve put to get the Wolfram Language and Mathematica running well on the Pi. Over the next few months we’ll be running a series of blog posts from Wolfram exploring some of the neat tricks you can get up to with them. This is going to be fun!

This isn't a big shock, but it is a big achievement. Ten months after the US Secretary of Defense ordered our armed forces to prepare facilities and training so that women could be integrated into combat and infantry positions, four women will graduate from Camp Geiger, home to the eastern Marine Corps School of Infantry. They will be the first women in history to do so.

Today, we got some hard numbers on the asteroids, comets and other objects whizzing through space near Earth.

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Neat Zelda, Nintendo shirts from Threadless ⊟

These two shirts from Threadless – “It’s Dangerous to Go Alone, Take This" and "A Pixel of My Own" both manage to make nice, wearable designs out of t-shirt subject matter I usually roll my eyes at.

Like, when was the last time a “haha Zelda reference” shirt was actually cool?

PREORDER The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, upcoming games

From 1977 to 2012, she recorded 140,000 VHS tapes worth of history. Now the Internet archive has a plan to make them public and searchable.

British-born photojournalist Charles Ommanney set out to capture the essence of one of the most intimate relationships that many Americans share—a love affair with their guns.

iFixit has posted its teardown of the Microsoft Xbox One video game console. They found that the Xbox One is easy to disassemble and most of the parts — with the exception of the hard drive — are easy to access and repair. For more photos, information on repairability, and to find out what’s inside, check out the full teardown at iFixit. Previously, we posted about iFixit’s teardown of Sony’s PlayStation 4 video game console.

photos via iFixit

Some people like Thanksgiving! I am not really one of those people! (There's too much "food" and too many "people" for my liking.) But I am a person who likes the Muppets! AND CHECK OUT HOW DELIGHTFUL THIS LOOKS! It's the "Lady Gaga and The Muppets' Holiday Spectacular"!

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And if that's not enough, OPB Plus has a Thanksgiving western marathon full of westerns I haven't even seen, like McLintock! As far as I can tell, McLintock! is 96 percent people falling into mud, one percent people falling into water or off of ladders or into piles of canned goods, two percent racist, one percent sexist, and 100 percent Chill Wills. Just like Thanksgiving!

Wait, what was that again?

God bless you, Muppets and OPB and Kristen Bell and Joseph Gordon-Levitt—and yes, even you, Lady Gaga. This Thanksgiving might be the first one I have ever looked forward to.

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Pop Chart Lab has created “The Chart of Hand Tools,” a new art print that includes “over 300 meticulously illustrated tools celebrating those who build, repair, and create.” Signed and numbered prints are available to purchase online.

Breaking down all manner of hand tools by their basic function, this sprawling print covers the most basic, such as the humble yet mighty hammer, to the most highly specialized, such as the 24 types of files depicted here. A hand-crafted compendium of ingenious and essential devices, this chart is a complete cut-list of the tools that empower makers and artisans.

images via Pop Chart Lab

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

Good morning!  Another day, another comic. Just click through!  This one is about Edward, the Black Prince!  It is in celebration of heading to Leeds this weekend for Thought Bubble, which I am very excited for!  There is a big ol’ statue of him there.  Becky Cloonan and I are fans.  She’ll be there too!  A lot of great people will be, possibly even… YOU?

And at the bottom of the comic, you’ll notice a link to the new shirts in the store, which I am just going to keep on reminding you about.  Get ‘em while they’re hot.

At Swords’ Point: Humor As Weapon:

beatonna:

Inspiring!  I’ve seen so, so many of those old cartoons where the joke is a woman as a stupid secretary, shrill wife, terrible driver, etc. I cannot imagine being a lady cartoonist going against those entrenched norms in a profession dominated by men, thank you Comics Journal for the profile on this thoughtful lady and her work!

This is an article I blogged way back in the beginning of this tumblr when I had not many followers.  I think Betty Swords deserves a second go with a bigger audience.  I have much respect for my predecessors.  

How does the site vet potential “freelance curators,” to make sure they write only the most sanctimonious of content? An anonymous tipster sent us the “test” they have applicants fill out, explaining that it comes after “several” phone interviews.

It turns out your social network may be working against you in your job search, but it’s not those Friday night photos that should concern you. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that information applicants share online can lead to hiring discrimination, particularly for Muslim candidates.

“Both by itself and controlling for a host of demographic and firm variables, our Muslim candidate was less likely to receive an interview invitation compared to our Christian candidate in more politically conservative states and counties,” said Christina Fong, one of the study’s lead researchers.

Researchers Fong and Alessandro Acquisti submitted 4,000 job applications then tracked employers to find out how many searched for a job candidate online. The study analyzed the number of interview offers a Christian candidate received versus a Muslim candidate, as well as a gay candidate relative to a straight one, then cross-referenced that information with the US states and counties where the companies were based.

While the overall number of employers searching for applicants online is small—the study found approximately 10% of companies searched for an applicant—the results showed statistically significant evidence of hiring bias based on a job seeker’s online profile, particularly when it came to Muslim job seekers in more conservative areas of the US. Comparatively, the study found no difference between the gay and straight candidates when it came to interview offers.

The study addressed a novel tension, between what US law allows and what we publicly reveal about ourselves. “The United States protects various types of information, making it risky for certain personal questions to be asked during interviews,” concluded Acquisti, but that same information is often online and available to strangers, including interviewers and employers.

Claims of discrimination against Muslim workers spiked after 9/11, both in the US and globally, and over a decade later the effects still linger. In France, a Christian citizen is two-and-a-half times more likely to get called for an interview than an equally qualified Muslim candidate, and discrimination lawsuits have been filed—and won—against prominent companies, including the recent ruling against Abercrombie and Fitch.

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Titan Arm is an upper body exoskeleton that augments arms strength by nearly 40 pounds. The exoskeleton was created by a group of University of Pennsylvania engineering students in an effort to make a low cost robotic aid for occupational lifters (like warehouse workers) and for physical therapy. The students designed and built a functional prototype in just 8 months for a cost of $2000 (existing exoskeletons cost many times that amount). Earlier in November the Titan Arm team won the 2013 James Dyson Award—the £30,000 prize will be used to continue development of the exoskeleton.

via Discovery News

photos via James Dyson Award, video via Nick McGill

Potluck, the social network created by Branch for link sharing and discussion, has been completely redesigned. Potluck 2.0 is an iPhone app that presents users with “Snacks” — swipeable cards with summaries of curated news stories — that users can comment on to have an intimate discussion with friends. Libby Brittain explained some of the changes in a post on Medium. The redesigned app is available to download from the iTunes App Store, and can also be accessed on the web.

images via Josh Miller

Generate Your Own Universal Surveillance Justification:

The government has invented a bold set of universal talking points, which can be used to justify any invasive surveillance program.

We must laugh, or else we shall go mad….

In my latest post for Popular Science, I wrote about the Sour cocktail category and how when you understand the basic format, you can make zillions of cocktails in that style. When writing the story I had a fun and interesting debate on Facebook about how one defines a sour. To some people, a sour is a drink that contains spirit, citrus, sweetener, and egg white. But that was how the sour appeared at one point in time. At another point, the sour always used lemon juice and not lime. I took the broader view, calling a Sour a cocktail with a base, a sour component, and a sweet component. So technically you could muddle Sour Patch Kids and NutraSweet in a glass of vodka and call it done. But please don't do that. Instead, spend your time clicking over to PopSci.com to read the story.

[Visit Alcademics.com for the full post.]

Grant Thompson (aka “The King of Random”) demonstrates how to make a decorative swan out of an apple in this video and Instructables article.

via Make

You can hear the cries echoing out over Wall Street: “Timmmmmbbberrrrrr!”

Ok, maybe not. But the investment fund GMO says it’s the asset the fund expects to have the best return over the next seven years. Run by investor Jeremy Grantham, GMO manages $112 billion, and its team is bearish about the US stock market’s recent heights because its strategy is based on reversion to the mean. Grantham is unimpressed with stimulus and the Federal Reserve’s bond-buying, but timber is a winning buy thanks to China’s interest in the commodity and hopes of more housing growth in the US. Buying up forest is not without its caveats, according to GMO’s Ben Inker, largely because you have to actually, er, buy up a forest:

Timber is one of the least liquid assets you can find, and that’s part of the reason why it has generally been priced to give pretty good returns. You can’t own timber in a really liquid way. Timber REITs [real estate investment trusts, which are vehicles for investing in real estate that offer tax breaks] aren’t a wonderful expression of timber. Timber companies turn out to be a lousy expression of timber. If you want to own timber, you really have to own the trees or structure it as a limited partnership that is going to actually make money as the trees are harvested. That means you are talking about a minimum of a 10- to 15-year holding period. So if you buy timber, you are going to be stuck there for awhile. You lose the ability to move to different asset classes if pricing changes. So that 5.9% forecast looks pretty today. But I wouldn’t stick tons of my portfolio in timber, because maybe a year from now there are going to be some assets classes that are priced to deliver better than 5.9%.

So much for dreams of fast wood-fueled riches. But Grantham and his company have an uncanny record of long-term foresight.

Bah!

In addition to learning how to craft new technologies, undergraduate engineers are learning to not care as much about their fellow human beings, suggests a new study from a sociologist with a degree in engineering.

Erin Cech surveyed 300 students as they entered undergraduate engineering programs at four universities in the northeastern US, and again 18 months after graduation. The questions dealt with their professional and ethical responsibilities, the importance of understanding the consequences of their work, the importance of understanding how people use machines, and their degree of social consciousness. “All four of these measures declined significantly from the time they entered school as freshman to the time they left college,” Cech says via email. The “understanding the consequences of technology” and “understanding how people use machines” measures were the two that dropped the most, she adds.

Cech attributes this change in attitudes to the nature of engineering studies. ”Issues that are nontechnical in nature are often perceived as irrelevant to the problem-solving process,” she wrote in a prepared statement. “There seems to be very little time or space in engineering curricula for nontechnical conversations about how particular designs may reproduce inequality – for example, debating whether to make a computer faster, more technologically savvy and expensive versus making it less sophisticated and more accessible for customers.”

There is, though, one big caveat to this study: Cech did not survey a control group of undergraduates in other subjects. So while her results are intriguing, it’s not clear whether engineers in particular come out of their studies with a dulled sense of social responsibility, or it’s just something that happens to all graduates when they start having to fend for themselves in a harshly competitive economy.