firehose

After six months of film producers, book writers, and a legion of tourists trouping to his door, David Henneberry wants to set the record straight and demystify what has become a legend.

TOTAL FURNISHING UNIT (1971) | Joe Colombo | Socks Studio

Joe Colombo (1930-1971) was one of the most radical Italian industrial designer, indeed. In the years after he studied at Brera Academy of Fine Art (following classes of painting and sculpture) he became part of the avant-garde scene of the “Nuclear Movement” of painters who sought after a new artistic inspiration in the 1950′s anxiety for the atomic bomb. His forthcoming interest in the design for the future was already latent in his early sketches of “nuclear cities”, with space shuttles airways and subterranean metropolis with layers for storage, transportation and living. Despite his outrageous visions he was a prolific product designer and an architect during all his life, with many realizations in the domain of commercial furnitures and appliances. His aesthetics built on the theory that “we will have to make the home live for us, for our needs, for a new way of living more consistent with the reality of today and tomorrow.”

Historical Photographs of La Sagrada Familia | Antoni Gaudi | Via

Cycling down the Eiffel Tower: 1923 | Via

rjmarvin writes "$7 million in federal grant money originally tasked with terrorism prevention is now being used to fund construction of a new data center in Oakland to electronically gather and analyze data around the clock from a variety of sensors and databases, displaying selected info on a bank of giant monitors. The center will mine massive data streams, helping the police department tap into 911 calls, port and traffic cameras, license plate readers, gunshot sensors, social media posts and commuters' electronic toll payments."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New research from the U.K. suggests music suppresses women’s normal responses to alcohol consumption, inspiring more drinking.

A Tea Party candidate for Idaho's House of Representatives defended himself against allegations of hypocrisy following an NBC News article in which he admitted to signing his entire family up for Medicaid while running on a platform that calls for the dismantling of all government programs.

Evidence from the final research vessel to brave the treacherous waters off the coast of Africa in 2001 may have just turned the tables on the accepted scientific view of how—and how quickly—the Sahara became a desert.

lawebloca:

like a boss

The numbers: The world’s largest spirits company reported a 3% spike in net sales growth for the quarter ending Sept. 30. Volumes—the number of units sold—were up 0.6% from the same three-month period last year.

The takeaway: A tale of two hemispheres. Austerity measures in western Europe and government crackdowns on gift-giving in China are hurting Diageo’s sales growth on the eastern side of the Atlantic. “Government policies in China have led to a substantial fall in net sales in Diageo’s Chinese white spirit subsidiary,” the company said in a statement. Strong sales growth in both the North America and the Latin America/Caribbean regions, however, are helping counterbalance the company’s flailing performance elsewhere.

But the strong sales in Latin America are being offset by devaluing currencies in the region, pinching the company’s US dollar profits. “Colombia was weaker, and currency weakness led to destocking in the distributor channel in West Latin America and the Caribbean,” the company said.

What’s interesting: Diageo is counting on Guinness to drive growth in Africa. Africa currently buys more of Diageo’s beer than any other, and Guinness, in particular, has proved wildly popular; it currently accounts for roughly 45% of the company’s beer sales on the continent. The company, however, is banking on its ability to speed up what have already been extremely strong sales in the continent—sales have grown by roughly 13% per year since 2007—by rebranding and relaunching its popular Irish stout. The campaign is set to be the largest ever launched by the company in Africa.

forlackofabettercomic:

Seems like a needlessly confusing sign, but at least it’s honest I guess!

choose your friends

The House voted Wednesday night to end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling.

The bill passed 285-144; 144 Republicans voted against it.

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schwit1 writes "Mark Cuban won a years-long fight with the federal government Wednesday as jurors decided that the billionaire basketball team owner did not commit insider-trading when he sold his shares in an Internet company in 2004. The jury in federal district court in Dallas said that the Securities and Exchange Commission failed to prove the key elements of its case, including the claim that Cuban agreed to keep certain information confidential and not trade on it. The nine-member jury deliberated about half a day before reaching the unanimous decision that ended the three-week trial."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Documents provided to The Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden reveal the agency’s extensive involvement in the targeted killing program that has served as a centerpiece of President Obama’s counterterrorism strategy.

Politico

New Jersey voters elect Democrat Cory Booker to US Senate Reuters By Victoria Cavaliere. NEWARK, New Jersey | Wed Oct 16, 2013 11:13pm EDT. NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - Democrat Cory Booker, the charismatic mayor of Newark, was the unofficial winner of a New Jersey special election on Wednesday, handily ... Cory Booker wins New Jersey Senate raceLos Angeles Times Cory Booker wins Senate seat in New JerseyBBC News Booker wins New Jersey senate race, Dems keep seatFox News Seattle Post Intelligencer all 898 news articles »

Behold the most astonishing Craigslist you will see today. I shall copy it in full, because it may very well be a joke—it's that incredible—and if that's the case, it will probably get taken down pretty soon. (Here's the link to it.)

NICKELBACK TRIBUTE SEEKING THE RADDEST BASS PLAYER (Clackamas)

Chad Kroeger and Daniel Adair are looking for our Mike Kroeger to play bass in the raddest Nickelback tribute band ever! Kick lameness to the CURB and prepare to take THE STATE fucking hostage, as we take this DARK HORSE down THE LONG ROAD of awesomeness HERE AND NOW for ALL THE RIGHT REASONS. . .. . .We are gonna hit the stage SILVERSIDE UP with a tribute to Nickelback releasing their double album of greatest hits. Lets grab Portland and Seattle by the balls!!! No one admits it but the fact is everyone secretly loves Nickelback. . ...It's like Jim Gaffigan says, "how did Mcdonalds sell a billion cheeseburgers if no one ever eats there???" I say the same to all you fuckin' hipsters! How did the greatest band in the world that everyone loves to hate, sell over 50 million records if no one likes them. . .. . .I have the panache and the tones of Chad down pat. I have studied his succulent mastery of rock and can pull off all of his amazing rock moves right down to his lion mane of golden curly hair. I will grab your girlfriend by the throat and softly sing her white trash sexual innuendos in my sultry Canadian baritone, while playing lightning out of my Mesa triple rectifier of doom. My drummer has worshipped at the altar of 3 Doors Down and then followed Daniel as he metamorphosed into the hard rock equivalent of multiple female orgasms that is Nickelback. . ...We just need the best Bassist in Portland!

I have some requirements:

must not be really old (like 38 or something)
NO hipsters, if you like PBR you are out!!
No hipster mustaches, even if they look good from multiple angles
No girls at practice! leave Yoko at home, she can come flash her titties at shows!
No Gays, No offense, we love the gays....but Nickelback practices a heterosexual conservative Christian Canadian lifestyle
MUST BE AWESOME, we are and so must you be!

So if you have an amazing bass rig, look like a rockstar, and know you need to be part of something that is bigger than life itself email us

If it is a fake, well done. If it is not... sweet Jesus. I will review the shit out of this band if they ever start playing shows.

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In light of the unholy union of GoDaddy and Media Temple, I thought I'd share my experience with WebFaction.

They're great.

More than once, they have upgraded my host for free. They just doubled the memory for all levels of their hosting plans for free, for new and existing customers. That means even their cheapest plan now comes with 512MB of memory (OS, DB's and web server don't count against the total).

Their email support is fast and consistently helpful but I usually find what I need in their online FAQ. The only problem I had was with a noisy neighbor on a shared host and WebFaction cleared that up quickly without any fuss.

The WebFaction control panel is about as nerdy as I want it to be. There are easy installers and quick database creation tools but not a bunch of Joomla garbage or up-sell for spam filters. It's web hosting for people that just want to make stuff on the web.

For $8.50 per month, you get a reasonably resourced web and database server that also comes with impeccable customer service and negligible down time.

WebFaction hosts all of my stuff, from Macdrifter and NerdQuery all the way down to a lowly WebDAV and email server. It feels like I pay too little for what I get back. Shhh.

brickfrog:

my fav ontd headline in a long time

"But it's becoming excruciatingly, obviously clear to everyone else that where value is created is no longer in New York, it's no longer in Washington, it's no longer in LA. It's in San Francisco and the Bay Area."

brokeandbespoke:

Camillo Love, Red Cotton Denim, and some $100 Hand-made Cone Mills Selvedge Jeans

True story. I graduated from high school eighteen years ago in the same class as a guy named Camillo Love. We weren’t friends per se, but certainly knew each other well enough to nod at one another when passing in the hallways of Berkeley High School, or when crossing paths at a weekend house party. Though I’ve forgotten the names and faces of a couple hundred people with whom I was similarly acquainted, Camillo Love’s always stuck. I’m sure it’s not too hard to guess why—what a great ‘effing name.

It was for this reason that when, a couple of months ago, a friend of mine mentioned that he’d just run into Camillo, images of a misspent youth in Berkeley rushed back into my head. To be fair, I’d actually already been taking a short walk down memory lane. I was packing up my apartment for my recent move, and had just flipped through an old high school yearbook. In fact, it was because I’d shared a picture from that yearbook that my friend brought Camillo up in the first place.

My friend said that Camillo was now making jeans in Oakland (where I live), and that he’d passed along my contact info since Camillo was looking for a little publicity for his small business. A few days later Camillo contacted me, and invited me to try out a pair of his jeans and to visit his workshop.

Camillo’s path to becoming a producer of handmade artisanal denim was a long and interesting one, and bears some repeating here. After high school, Camillo joined the navy. He worked as a boiler engineer on the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk and spent some time stationed in Japan. This was the early-aughts, and he noticed that there was a real demand for and fascination with vintage American workwear among certain people in Japan. At the time, it looked to Camillo like these Japanese denim enthusiasts just liked old American jeans. Armed with an entrepreneurial spirit, Camillo thought it might be profitable to use his connections to the U.S. to sell some jeans in Japan. He had a friend ship about a thousand pairs of old jeans to Japan, and from that load Camillo sold about two pairs. It was a tough lesson in learning about the small details (like the use of selvedge denim woven on narrow shuttle looms) and American craftsmanship (I’ve no doubt that for some of those jeans their journey to Japan from the U.S. was their second trip across the Pacific) that went into the jeans so highly coveted by Japanese collectors.

After leaving the navy and a short stint in the Merchant Marine, Camillo returned to the Bay Area and began doing some carpentry and construction work. This confirmed two things: that he wanted to own his own business, and that he wanted to make things with his own hands. As serendipity would have it, it was about this time that Camillo came into contact with a couple of important people in the Bay Area (and global) denim scene and it all clicked. The fiasco in Japan, a nascent business idea, and the possibility that making jeans himself might fulfill his passion for handcraft led to the slow evolution of Red Cotton Denim.

Camillo dove into the work. He’d never sewn before, so he took classes on pattern making and garment construction. He started by making jeans for women—girlfriends and their friends. Then his guy friends started asking for jeans, and he developed the pattern that is now Red Cotton Denim’s first cut. After lots of trial and error, Camillo had a jean that was ready for market.

Though a visit to Camillo’s Oakland workshop shows a business in its nascent stages, you can’t help but feel the passion he has for what he does. One of the first things he confided to me was that he was not particularly good at promoting his brand. His energy is directed at mastering the art and craft of making great jeans. When I was there he showed me a pair of nearly finished jeans that he’d stopped working on because they didn’t meet his standards—a single chainstitch on the vertical seam connecting the two sides of the seat had skipped, and was held together by only one thread for about 1/16”. I certainly wouldn’t ever have noticed it, but I was impressed by his quality control.

I also understood when he told me the stakes were so much higher when the brand was just him—he couldn’t afford to have a bad pair of jeans out there. Red Cotton Denim isn’t the brainchild of apparel veterans looking to ride the Americana/workwear wave to the bank. Camillo doesn’t have an MBA, and there is no marketing or PR budget for the brand. In fact, the entirety of the brand is Camillo sitting in his workshop sewing jeans while friends have donated their talents when and where they can. A friend made the website. Another friend helped realize the labels and printed them out. And yet another friend shot some pictures for the website. Red Cotton Denim is the fruit of one dude’s labor and passion, and it’s very refreshing.

You may have noticed that I’ve been wearing jeans a lot lately with sport coats and ties, and that’s thanks in large part to how much I love wearing my Red Cotton Denim jeans (seen here and here). Initially priced at $198, Camillo has some exciting moves on the horizon (including limited runs of jeans with various Japanese and American denim, and a slim tapered fit) for which he needs some additional funds, and so he’s liquidating his current stock of jeans for $100. You will not find a better deal on some hand-made raw selvedge denim jeans, and by buying a pair now at deep discount you’re also helping to realize the future of the brand which I know has great things in store for denim enthusiasts. FYI, the remaining stock is all made with a great year-round deep indigo 12 oz. Cone Mills denim, just like the ones you see in the pics above.

I was just at Camillo’s workshop yesterday and know he has a wide array of sizes in stock too, including 28’s for you skinny guys, 33’s for you dudes who are in between sizes, and even some 36’s and maybe some 38’s as well. The more standard 32’s and 34’s are in stock too.