firehose

This is interesting reading, but I'm left wanting more. What are the lessons here? How can we do this better next time? Clearly we won't be able to anticipate bombings; even Israel can't do that. We have to get better at responding.

Several years after 9/11, I conducted training with a military bomb unit charged with guarding Washington, DC. Our final exam was a nightmare scenario -- a homemade nuke at the Super Bowl. Our job was to defuse it while the fans were still in the stands, there being no way to quickly and safely clear out 80,000 people. That scenario made two fundamental assumptions that are no longer valid: that there would be one large device and that we would find it before it detonated.

Boston showed that there's another threat, one that looks a lot different. "We used to train for one box in a doorway. We went into a slower and less aggressive mode, meticulous, surgical. Now we're transitioning to a high-speed attack, more maneuverable gear, no bomb suit until the situation has stabilized," Gutzmer says. "We're not looking for one bomber who places a device and leaves. We're looking for an active bomber with multiple bombs, and we need to attack fast."

A post-Boston final exam will soon look a lot different. Instead of a nuke at the Super Bowl, how about this: Six small bombs have already detonated, and now your job is to find seven more -- among thousands of bags -- while the bomber hides among a crowd of the fleeing, responding, wounded, and dead. Meanwhile the entire city overwhelms your backup with false alarms. Welcome to the new era of bomb work.

NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

Houston Suburb Votes Down $69 Million High School Stadium NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth The Katy Independent School District, near Houston, hopes to pass a $99 million bond package Nov. 5 that includes a $69 million stadium. If it passes, it'd be the most expensive high school facility in Texas history. advertisement. It was a bad night for stadium ... and more »

Washington Post

Fast-food workers in Seattle could soon make $31000 a year Los Angeles Times Burger flippers in Seattle could soon take home more than $31,000 a year. Ed Murray, a candidate for mayor of the Pacific northwest's largest city, has endorsed a $15-an-hour minimum wage. The city's current mayor Mike McGinn said he may go even higher. Number of states pushing minimum wage hikesFox News New Jersey voters approve minimum wage hike7Online.com NJ voters support annual minimum wage hikephillyBurbs.com NorthJersey.com -Q13 FOX -Patch.com all 95 news articles »

Taboo: The Sixth Sense (Rare - NES - 1989)

fmtownsmarty:

Here’s one interesting thing about Taboo: The Sixth Sense. Almost every time you play it, the cursor for text input is a reddish-brown square BUT there’s an extremely infrequent occurence where  the cursor is replaced with a transparent red skull. I’ve spent a lot of time playing this game, to the point where it became a daily ritual throughout most of 2009 and yet among what has probably been hundreds of taboo run-throughs I’ve only seen the red skull thing happen like 4-5 times ever. Luckily, I was using an emulator one of those times so I was able to save state it (here’s the file but unfortunately I was using Nestopia for Mac at the time and I don’t know if it works on anything else) I can’t remember if I’ve ever told anyone about this before, and I haven’t seen any mention of it on the internet but it’s something that’s always been pretty fascinating to me. 

My point here is that this game is haunted, and is probably responsible for the great Nintendo fire of 2009 (described here). I assume that my copy tried to play itself or something, which caused the whole box of nintendo tapes to burst into flames in the middle of the night. 

Anyway I thought it might be nice to mention this here now that Halloween’s finally over. 

Yr Pal,

FM Towns “A Cockfight of Feelings” Marty

geekygodmother:

Victorian Roller Skates

Twitter's interface makes it easy to neglect its own weight. When you're standing there thumbing your phone screen, you don't always grasp the power you have to make an impression-- however small-- on every one of your followers with a single click. When you're famous, that number is in the range of hundreds of thousands of people you can contact instantly with whatever sub-140-character information you desire.

So yeah, here's David Price broadcasting a photo of his French bulldog Astro pinching a loaf to 191,000 followers:

Astro knows magic!! He said taddaaaa!! #perfectform pic.twitter.com/XayZRhIWyG

— David Price (@DAVIDprice14) November 6, 2013

And yeah, that's textbook pooping form, but it's not magic. My dog pooped out something with a legible bar code on it last week. That's magic.

Here are the slides for the talk I gave yesterday, entitled “Playing with ‘Game.’”

The talk starts out with some basic semiotic theory — basically, the difference between a thing, the name we give a thing, and what the thing actually means. This serves as an entry point into talking about not only the way the word “game” is incredibly overloaded with different people’s interpretations, but also as a way to start discussing the way games themselves can mean things.

This leads to exploring the notion of “play” as space — free movement within a system, which is not a new idea at all, ranging from Derrida to Salen & Zimmerman. And then to looking at the two big sorts of play I see: the play of the possibility space of a set of rules, and the possibility space of a set of symbols or signs, which we might be more used to calling the thematic depth of a literary work. Along the way I break down writing techniques, game design techniques, and more, trying to find the ways in which these tools can be applied to games of different intents — which tools work best for a given craftsperson’s purpose?

I was really stuck on this talk. I had it conceptually all worked out, and could ot figure out a good way to convey it at all. My first several drafts were dry and jargony and a mess. And then I saw Daniel Benmergui give a talk at EVA in Argentina about the difference between “sense” and “meaning,” using David Lynch and Braid as examples, and it unlocked everything for me.

So if you want to know why I think a six-word story is like Journey and how Howling Dogs is like Super Mario Brothers, this is the talk for you. And if the above sounds incredibly intimidating and way too much like grad school in literary theory, the good news is that the talk is full of waffles.

Ian Albinson of Art of the Title has created a video that illustrates the history of video game title design, from the 1981 arcade classic Donkey Kong to 2013 hits like Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us. A full list of the games featured can be found in the video’s description on Vimeo.

via Nerdcore

Bushick, a “sprawling neighborhood in northern Brooklyn, was one of the borough’s first European settlements and has been known for many things over its long history: for its farms, then for its breweries and factories, then for the blight and crime that descended in the decades after those employers closed,” the The New York Times said in an article about the transitioning area in 2011. Bushwick continues to transition, and has become an even more popular neighborhood for artists, musicians and hipsters as prices in nearby Williamsburg rise.

With the new, comes the end of an era. The Market Hotel opened in 2008 in Bushwick as a venue for punk rock shows and a loft-style living residence. No permits were issued, so both the shows and the residents were under the radar, and illegal, until recently. The Market Hotel is now a legal venue but in order to get the building to code, current residents must move out. Photographer Adam Krause documented The Market Hotel’s residents during their final days. Krause has yet to make it to a Market Hotel show, but he tells PDN via e-mail that he “listened to lots of British Oi! music, ’80s punk, hard core, Jamaican ska and 2tone.” So The Market Hotel seems right up his alley!

Jar Jar Binks dies in this video clip from Star Wars Episode I.I: The Phantom Edit, a fan-edited version of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace by Santa Clarita, California-based editor and producer Mike J. Nichols. In the clip, Nichols kills off the controversial character Jar Jar Binks by dropping him over the side of a waterfall. He then cut out all of Jar Jar Binks’ parts from the rest of the film. Meesa gots crushed on the rocks below!

video via Withmorten2

via Digg

nk497 writes with this excerpt from PC Pro "Amazon plans to give independent booksellers 10% of the takings from ebooks bought on Kindles they sell, the online giant has revealed. The new Amazon Source program aims to encourage independent bookstores and small retailers to sell Kindle readers by offering commission for the first two years of the device's life. As an alternative to the 10% kickback from book sales, retailers opting into the Amazon Source program can choose instead to receive a larger discount up front when buying the devices for resale."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

superheroes manatee by Joel Micah Harris

I’m in New York City for the marvel retreat and I was walking near the campus of New York University. I was walking near a couple who were loudly arguing

" I’m telling you they are Norse gods."

"no, it’s a family of superheroes who live in a fancy superhero world."

" why won’t you listen to me?? I’m telling you they are Norse gods!!"

 this is going back and forth and we all stopped at a traffic light and the argument is getting heated. the boyfriend getting more and more exasperated that his girlfriend won’t listen to him about the one thing he clearly is an expert on

 I turned to them and I said: ” I work at Marvel comics, they are Norse gods.”

 I walked away as he yells out: THANK YOU!

as I get further away from them I hear: GOD DAMN!! YOU NEVER BELIEVE ME ABOUT ANYTHING!

 it was my mitzvah for the day

historicwomen:

Elizabeth Roemer 1929- 

Elizabeth Roemer is an American astronomer known for her work on comets and asteroids. In 1946 she won the year’s Science Talent Search, boosting her into a successful career in astronomy. In 1964, Elizabeth discovered an asteroid, 1930 Lucifer and in 1975 she discovered 1983 Bok. She retired in 1997. The asteroid 1657 Roemera is named in her honor. 

Maggie has shared a couple (here, here) articles on Thorium as a super-fuel. This sounds like a fantastic implementation!

Via IndustryTap:

Laser Power Systems (LPS) from Connecticut, USA, is developing a new method of automotive propulsion with one of the most dense materials known in nature: thorium. Because thorium is so dense it has the potential to produce tremendous amounts of heat. The company has been experimenting with small bits of thorium, creating a laser that heats water, produces steam and powers a mini turbine.

Current models of the engine weigh 500 pounds, easily fitting into the engine area of a conventionally-designed vehicle. According to CEO Charles Stevens, just one gram of the substance yields more energy than 7,396 gallons (28,000 L) of gasoline and 8 grams would power the typical car for a century.

SON MYUNG HEE, detail / 2010 / Aluminum wire, fiberglass lifecasting.

SON MYUNG HEE / 2010 / Aluminum wire, fiberglass lifecasting.

Wedding / 2009 / Aluminum wire, fiberglass lifecasting.

Han Hye yeon / 2011 / Aluminum wire, fiberglass lifecasting.

Han Hye yeon, detail / 2011 / Aluminum wire, fiberglass lifecasting.

Kim Seong Su / 2010 / Aluminum wire, fiberglass, lifecasting.

Kim Seong Su, detail / 2010 / Aluminum wire, fiberglass lifecasting.

Lie Sand Bong’s Dress / 2008 / Aluminum wire, fiberglass lifecasting

Lie Sand Bong’s Dress, detail / 2008 / Aluminum wire, fiberglass lifecasting

Korean artist Seung Mo Park (previously) continues to amaze with his astonishingly crafted figurative sculptures made with tightly wrapped layers of aluminum wire based on fiberglass forms. The works shown here are part of the Brooklyn-based artist’s Human series where he recreates the delicate wrinkles and folds of clothing as well as the sinuous musculature of the human body in metallic layers remeniscent of tree rings. He’s also sculpted bicycles, musical insturments and other forms as part of his Object series. (via My Modern Met)

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No DS today due to secret lockdown M-W-F schedule, but Dr. Emily and myself have a guest comic over at Erika Moen's Oh Joy Sex Toy.

This one is about science and is safe to read at work. The genitals are highly abstract. It's 3 pages. I've attached the first here.

You should check out Emily on her blog and on Twitter.

***

I mayyyyy have also put up a new shirt from Erika that cracks me up.

In what is now a constantly recurring theme in college basketball, John Calipari and the Kentucky Wildcats landed yet another big recruit after forward Trey Lyles committed, CBS Sports reported on Tuesday.

Rivals.com ranks Lyles, a 6'10 forward from Indianapolis, as the No. 8 prospect in the class of 2014. His commitment was enough to make the Kentucky class of 2014 the top recruiting class, according to 247 Sports.

Lyle's decision came down to the Wildcats and the Louisville Cardinals after he removed the Florida Gators and the Butler Bulldogs from his list. Kentucky recruited Lyle rather aggressively after he decommitted from the Indiana Hoosiers in the summer of 2012. Lyles committed to the Hoosiers before he had played a single game in his freshman year of high school.

Lyle's commitment ends a losing streak for Calipari's invincibility when it comes to getting every recruit he wants. Emmanuel Mudiay, the top guard in the class of 2014, committed to Southern Methodist University in late August. Kelly Oubre, another coveted recruit, cancelled his official visit to Kentucky and committed to Kansas. So for a short period of time, Calipari's recruiting prowess looked mortal.

Calipari bounced back in a quick way, landing four-star guard Devin Booker and Lyles in one week's time. Add five-star forward Karl Towns and four-star guard Tyler Ulis to the mix, and its good for one of the best recruiting classes in the country. The four recruits to Kentucky are all ranked in the top 50 in the class of 2014.

There's still plenty of recruits available who could make significant shifts in the recruiting rankings. Of the top 10 recruits in the class of 2014, according to Rivals.com, only three have committed to schools so far. Two players most likely to launch a team to the top spot, Jahlil Okafor and Tyus Jones, maintain they will attend the same school. Jones cancelled his official visit at the end of September after Ulis committed to Kentucky.

More from SB Nation College Basketball

• Marcus Smart: The person, the cowboy, the pro

• Andre Dawkins has a story (and he'd rather not talk about it)

• SB Nation's 2013-14 All-American team

• The march toward midnight: All Cinderellas are not created equal

• Q&A with Oklahoma's Lon Kruger

Ministry of Supply is a Kickstarter-funded, new-materials-based fashion house that produces clothing (to date, men's business clothing) based on new fabrics with exotic dirt/water-shedding properties, breathability, and stretch/give. A lot of this stuff has already made its way into the sportwear world, but it's pretty new in business wear, and the result is things like no-iron shirts; slacks with invisible, breathable crotch-venting; odor-absorbing socks and so forth. The slacks don't get wet in rain and are stretchy ("more elastic than cotton but not as stretchy as spandex").

The company also makes a button-down dress shirt called the Apollo that uses a NASA-engineered form of polyester that pulls heat away from the body when it’s warm and keeps it locked in when it’s cold. They make socks with heat vents and carbonized coffee grounds woven into them, because coffee grounds are effective odor-absorbers. (The socks don’t smell like coffee. I checked.)

Ministry of Supply’s latest product comes in the form of the Aviator chino pants, which look like normal dress pants from afar but show their high-tech secrets once you get up close. They’re sort of stretchy — the material feels more elastic than cotton but not as stretchy as spandex — and they have a practically invisible ventilation system throughout the crotch.

The coolest thing about them is that they have a slick-coated fabric that won’t get wet in the rain. The pants also feel like they’re ketchup-proof; if you spill anything on them, it will probably just wipe right off with a napkin. They’re machine-washable in cold water.

The Lab-Engineered, Water-Resistant Dress Pants of the Future [Tim Moynihan/Wired]

via http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/02/takahiro-iwasaki/