firehose

Legacy

Because telephone area codes are increasingly becoming less constrained to particular geographic areas, scholars and cultural critics have noted that “Area Codes” may be incomprehensible to future generations of listeners.

Link

With many coastal areas still cut off from transportation and communications, government officials and relief workers were left guessing Monday as to the full impact of the storm, known as Yolanda by Filipinos. “Right now we’re operating in a relative black hole of information,” Dr. Natasha Reyes, emergency coordinator in the Philippines for the international medical group Doctors Without Borders, said in a statement Monday. “We know from the very little we can see that the situation is terrible. But it’s what we don’t see that’s the most worrying.” The official death toll, which stood at 1,774 Monday night, was expected to rise to 10,000 or more, according to officials and relief workers who surveyed the damage from the air. Between 2 million and 3 million people were believed to have lost their homes, Joe Curry, Philippines representative for Catholic Relief Services, said in an interview. Millions more were left without access to adequate food, clean water or shelter.

When we found out that Iran had secretly owned a Manhattan skyscraper for decades, we knew the country’s rulers had a talent for moving money, but a new Reuters investigation has revealed a $95 billion corporate empire controlled by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

At least some of that revenue comes from the confiscation of property from religious minorities and other presumed enemies of the state, Reuters reports, and the organization, known in Farsi as Setad Ejraiye Farmane Hazrate, provides Iran’s supreme leader with significant economic clout and independence from the elected government. Iran’s parliament even declared that it would be prohibited from exercising any oversight over the Khamenei’s business interests in 2008.

Setad reported $52 billion in real estate investments in 2008. Today, that would make it larger than major real estate firms like the US’s Simon Property Group and comparable to Blackstone, which bills itself as the largest private real estate fund in the world with $69 billion in assets under management.

Setad was originally set up by the first supreme leader after the 1979 revolution in Iran, which overthrew a Western-backed autocracy in favor of an Islamic government. It’s public mission was intended manage properties abandoned or seized during the revolution for charitable aims and then shut down when the assets were disposed of.

Under Khamenei, who came to power in 1989, Setad has grown into a massive conglomerate. According to the US Treasury Department, which has sanctioned its holdings, Setad controls 37 companies directly, including one worth $40 billion, and maintains stakes in dozens of public and private companies. It also has a charitable trust with additional holdings, akin to the one that ended up controlling that New York skyscraper seized from the former Shah of Iran. While it’s impossible to know for sure exactly where the profit goes, Reuters reports the company has been re-investing the money to grow the firm, paying for the Ayatollah’s 500-person executive staff, and providing some charitable benefits.

Most disturbing, however, is the continued practice of seizing property belonging to members of the Baha’i, a minority religious group, and others accused of acting against the regime. According to Iranians interviewed by Reuters, Setad obtains court orders allowing them to seize properties and send agents to dump occupants and possessions alike onto the streets. Even when Setad’s targets have managed to successfully fight back through Iran’s legal system, it involves paying significant sums of money—often 20% of the property value—to well-connected insiders.

In “Gymkhana 6″ rally driver Ken Block pilots his 650 horsepower Ford Fiesta race car around an obstacle course filled with diabolical video game-style hazards and challenges including a swinging wrecking ball and a variety of drift stunts. The video was produced in association with Need for Speed: Rivals. For more of Block’s Gymkhana videos see our previous coverage.

NPR

WNC businesses can learn more about health law Asheville Citizen-Times A free workshop for businesses on the Affordable Care Act will be held at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday on the first floor of the United Way Building. Those interested should register at http://justeconomics wnc.org. To find a health care navigator, call 855-733-3711. Obama's sudden 'fix' gives states another headache from health careWashington Times Democrats gut ObamacareThe Independent Florida Alligator all 4,790 news articles »

First time accepted submitter MalachiK writes "A senior academic and former UK government drugs adviser reckons that pretty soon it'll be possible to enjoy the fun of being drunk without having to suffer the negative effects of alcohol. In a proposal reminiscent of Star Trek's synthehol, Professor David Nut has identified a number of molecules that he claims offer experiences that are subjectively indistinguishable from alcohol intoxication. Apparently a major advantage of using these more selectively psychoactive drugs is that the effects can be quickly reversed. It's not all good news though as Professor Nut seems to think that the drinks industry is using its financial and political clout to stop this sort of research being undertaken."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Justin Bieber’s recent antics in South American brothels aren’t surprising at all. Prostitutes are a far safer bet for the young singer than bedding one of his fans.

Unfortunately, he probably doesn't believe in science.

In Alabama it’s illegal to have an ice cream cone in your back pocket at all times.

“I Fought the Law” is a photo series that illustrates (and often violates) bizarre state laws like a Texas prohibition on unusual kid’s haircuts and California law that bans biking in pools. The series is by New York City photographer Olivia Locher.

In California nobody is allowed to ride a bicycle in a swimming pool.

In Texas it is illegal for children to have unusual haircuts.

via Feature Shoot

“Of course it is exhausting, having to reason all the time in a universe which wasn’t meant to be reasonable.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

Microsoft's Xbox One hardware teaser wasn't the only video for the new console that it unveiled this morning. It also published a brief "His and Hers" ad in which a lady named Jennifer uses Kinect voice commands to begin playing Dead Rising 3 while her boyfriend is watching a soccer match.

Xbox One 'His and Hers' ad is disruptive, cute originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 11 Nov 2013 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

image by tmack0

Buildmore posted a photo:

Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Why we can't have nice things, Exhibit A:

Look at this goat, everybody. LOOK AT IT.

Its name is Bambi and it's a Nigerian Dwarf goat trying to eke out an existence—like so many of us—in a rapidly changing Buckman neighborhood. You know the story: Rents are rising, condos and apartments are reshaping the landscape, there's that one vegan grocery store. Next year, the vacant lot Bambi and other goats call home will be developed. The herd will have to move on.

All of which means Bambi's got enough going on in her life that she can probably do without you kidnapping her and painting her horns red (plus she's topping the charts at a whopping FIVE-GOAT FRIENDLINESS RATING). And yet look at Bambi's fucking horns, guys.

Here's a report Christopher Frankonis, part owner of the herd at the popular Buckman "Goat Field," filed with police yesterday afternoon (broken into paragraphs by me):

Just before noon on Sunday, November 10, 2013, I received a text from former owner of the herd of goats residing at Goat Field, the superblock bounded by SE Belmont, SE Taylor, SE 10th, and SE 11th (the herd is now owned by myself and several other of the people who have been helping him take care of them this year), saying that someone had called him (his contact number is still on signs attached to the fence) to let him know there was a goat outside the fence.

At this time I was a block away, since I was heading to the field already for other goat business. Indeed, tied to the gate on Taylor with a bungee cord was one of our Nigerian Dwarf goats. The reason it doesn't appear to have been an escaped goat that someone latched to the gate for us is that her horns had obviously been painted, or stained, red (a prank?) — which suggests (to us anyway) that she was taken at some point between 6:00 PM Saturday (the last time any of us were there to check in on them) and noon Sunday.

According to some passersby hanging out when I walked up, they had been there a bit earlier, walked away, but turned back as they were leaving and saw Bambi suddenly tied to the gate, as if someone had waited for them to leave. That the goat was tied outside upon return suggests maybe a different person brought her back? Stealing her would have required someone inside — which is also trespassing — handing her off to someone outside.

To sum up: stolen goat, defaced goat (if that's the right term for painting/staining a goat's horns), returned goat. Filing so there's some sort of record in the event anything turns up or anything else happens.

Frankonis tells the Mercury goat escapes are pretty rare, but that Bambi has been known to sneak out between visitors' legs as they enter/exit the gate. That's not what happened here, though.

What happened is you guys vandalized a goat.

Cut it out, Portland. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

A hellscape surrounded it: the tall, once-gleaming corners of what was known once as "Turner Field." Once, people walked these spaces, and purchased beer in aluminum mock-bottles to drink while watching a game, and living life as people did in the now-distant year 1997.

Now, only feral dogs and the merciless wind inhabited its spaces, a picture of desolation itself.

We approached from the east, staying downwind to prevent possible scavengers from picking up our scent. Ahead, we found the stadium. Its profile was sorrow itself, a devastated shell of a former age.

The damage boggled he mind. How anyone had made it in this stadium for 17 years, much less five minutes?

The human soul can endure far more than suspected, far more than anyone dared conceive even in their most ghoulish nightmares. That was the only possible explanation for living among such rubble, and doing it for so long.

I bet they only had one Waffle House in here, I thought out loud to myself.

The filth of three generations covered the ground:

We somehow moved through it, driven only by the desire to see the face of decay itself. Time had devastated the once-proud temple of sport, and parts were literally falling off of it as we moved. I looked up, and saw the threads of Turner Field unraveling before my very eyes.

We needed to move fast. The entire building was seconds from falling down around our ears.

Devastation.

I looked down, and saw the shadow of some forgotten horror:

It could have been just water stains, but I'm pretty sure it was something way worse, like the shadow of a spherical thing incinerated by a nuclear flash. Something like a giant novelty baseball, or Cee-Lo.

We moved in the dying light. On the wall, a sign written for the long-dead, indicating some mysterious distance in the primitive imperial units of the late American period. Devolution must have set in by this point, as a sign indicating direction was written without words, and now pointed to...to what? What was it trying to tell them? And what was it telling us, now, standing amidst the rubble of a dead people?

The dust of ages covered everything. I should have worn gloves, but the urge to reach out, to touch something human, to come into contact with ruin itself. This that is dead was once alive, I thought to no one in the silence.

Who were these strange people of the past?

Why were they so fond of the University of Alabama?

What were these ghostly messages from the past?

What was a Taco Mac? Where was it? AND WHAT DID IT MEAN? We had no answers, but then---

--oh god--

WALKERS.

We fled quietly but quickly before they caught our scent. As I retreated, I passed one last mystery, a broken promise from the dead to the miserable living.

No you won't, I thought to myself. You won't ever call again.

More from SB Nation MLB:

• Why do the Braves need a new stadium?

• The many strikeout faces of Alex Rodriguez

• MLB Hot Stove | 5 clubs that will shape the MLB offseason

• Presenting SB Nation's 2013 MLB Awards

• Death of a Ballplayer: Wrongly convicted prospect spends 27 years in prison

Batman bin Suparman, a Singapore man who became an Internet sensation in 2008 for, well, being named Batman bin Suparman, has — against all odds — turned to a life of crime. The National reports the 23-year-old Suparman was arrested in August after he was caught on security video sneaking into a store on two [...]

The world's first hat revolution took place in Turkey in 1925. On November 25 of that year, the parliament passed a law that made it mandatory for all men to wear Western-style hats in public places; all civil servants had to wear them, and no other type of hat would be allowed.

Some 80 people were publicly executed earlier this month in North Korea, the first known large-scale public executions by the Kim Jong-un regime, the JoongAng Ilbo reported. The people were executed for relatively light transgressions such as watching South Korean movies or distributing pornography.

HTTPea:

HTTPea is a tool to send HTTP requests. HTTPea supports sending GET, PUT, POST, HEAD, and DELETE requests with custom headers and parameters.

HTTPea features a smart response parser, which takes the server’s response and displays it in the most useful format. You can drill down into a JSON document, view an image, or display a web page, but you can also view the raw response if you need to. You can even view the history of your requests to resend requests you make frequently.

App Store

As already known by anyone who’s ever paid attention to an MPAA dispute, listened to the counter-protests of the NRA, seen a modern action movie, or is reading this while absentmindedly firing a semiautomatic into the air, gun violence is more prevalent than ever, yet its presence continues to have little bearing on a film’s ratings. In fact, according to a new study published in the December issue of Pediatrics (presumably for innocent children who don’t already know this), the amount of gun violence in PG-13 movies now outpaces that in R-rated ones, as studios tailor their would-be blockbusters for a broad family audience by ensuring they have none of the sex and profanity they or the MPAA might find objectionable, in between all the bloody carnage.  As a result, researchers estimate that scenes depicting gun violence have more than doubled since 1950, now occurring an average ...

Read more

A white conservative won a seat on the Houston Community College Board of Trustees after sending out flyers in his predominantly black neighborhood that showed stock images of African-Americans and included an endorsement by a family member who has the sa...

BRISTOL, CT—Saying that the program will further strengthen their afternoon lineup, officials at ESPN announced Monday that the network has started searching for a few loud-mouthed fucks to host a new sports talk show.

Kings of the Beach (EA/Ultra Games - NES - 1990)

port of the 1988 home computer volleyball game

vgjunk:

We’re approaching peak 90’s-osity here, folks.

Lexi the dog shows off an amazing collection of tricks and parkour skills in this video upload by her owner and animal rescuer Katerina727.

via Viral Viral Videos

After a performance at the New York Comedy Festival on Saturday, Anthony Jeselnik told the crowd that Comedy Central has canceled The Jeselnik Offensive. The Laugh Button provides the firsthand account, noting that while Comedy Central hasn’t given official word on the show’s fate, a cancellation makes sense by the numbers: By the end of its second season in August, Offensive’s ratings had slipped to about half of its first-season audience. Death-by-numbers would be an oddly banal end for Jeselnik’s show, which courted the wrath of network brass as a matter of routine—like when Eric Andre lit firecrackers on the set, or when Jeselnik made jokes about the Boston Marathon bombing mere hours after the smoke had cleared.

But as Jeselnik told The A.V. Club earlier this year, the network has been on board with the show’s edge-pushing mission since the first episode ...

Read more

georgetakei:

An age test. http://ift.tt/HRIBEj