New Jersey resident David Silverman, the President of American Atheists, has published a tale on Twitter regarding his application to the state's Motor Vehicle Commission for a personalized license plate that reads "ATHEIST."

What exactly drives NASCAR fans to file complaints with the Federal Communications Commission, the body that regulates TV and radio broadcasts.

In a perplexing (or not that perplexing given that it’s Glenn Beck) announcement, everyone’s favorite right-wing nutjob orders a female staffer to send out a memo throughout his entire kingdom decreeing a zero-tolerance policy for CFLs, of all things.

Dog Camera Mount has created the Mutt Mount, an adjustable harness with a mount for a GoPro camera. The Mutt Mount is currently available to purchase at Amazon.

image via Dog Camera Mount

via Mike Monteiro

Signs of Life

If you could teleport to a random place of the surface of the Earth, what are the odds that you'll see signs of intelligent life?

Borislav Stanimirov

The surface of the Earth is about 70% water, so you'll usually plop down into the ocean.

But even there, you could find signs of human habitation.

But first, we'll start with ...

The big stuff

In one way or another, humans have altered every square meter of this planet. But we'll start with the obvious: Roads, houses, and fields.

To get an idea of how often Borislav would stumble across such obvious structures, I loaded up a sample of random geographic coordinates[1]Generating uniform points on a sphere is tricky—you can't just pick a random latitude and a random longitude. The solution is to either do a bunch of math or use something like GeoMidpoint's Random Point Generator. in Google Earth.

Most of the points were over open ocean, out of sight of any land. Once you get away from the major ports, the odds of having a ship in view are not that good, so I continued sampling until I had 50 land coordinates.

Based on Google Earth imagery, Borislav would definitely see clear signs of human activity in about 10 of those 50 points. Six of them were actually in cultivated fields (in Poland, Argentina, Brazil, Pakistan, and Kazakhstan). Another point was in a highway cut along the coast of French Guiana. One was in a small town deep in the Amazon, and another on a road in the Australian outback.

In another five or ten cases, Borislav might be able to see something if you looked carefully or walked a short distance; it's hard to be sure without actually visiting the points to find out what you can see. Included in this list of marginal points was the only US location on the list, a spot in the woods outside in Keachi, Louisiana—a town which, during the American Civil War, saw the creation of a contingent of 'Highlanders' complete with government-issued kilts and plaids.

Most of the points were in the middle of deserts, barren mountains, tropical jungles. or—in one case—central Antarctica. All in all, it seems like the odds of landing somewhere with human artifacts in view are about one in four to one in three—and that artifact will usually be either a field of crops or a dirt road.

Look down

If you find yourself on a beach, check the sand. Sand all over the world contains tiny grains of plastic, mostly from industrial spillage into the oceans.[2]Patricia L. Corcorana, Mark C. Biesinger, Meriem Grifi, Plastics and beaches: A degrading relationship. Even if you land in the water, you might still be able to spot bits of plastic debris; the ocean is covered with them, which leads to heartbreaking consequences.

Sample the air

If you have a CO2 meter—and you know Earth's atmospheric history—you can also detect the changes we've made to the air around you. Over the past hundred years, we've rapidly increased CO2 concentrations from less than 300 parts per million to over 400—higher than they've been in millions of years. It's not proof of technological activity, but it's a pretty good tip-off that something weird is going on.

More sensitive testing could detect human-generated aerosols, or—by testing the soils—detect the alterations we've made to the global nitrogen cycle.[3]'Although carbon dioxide may get more press, “the nitrogen cycle has been altered more than any other basic element cycle,” says John Aber, vice president for research and public service at the University of New Hampshire.' Scott Fields, Global Nitrogen: Cycling out of Control

Look up

Depending on the humidity, you may have a good chance of seeing jet contrails. Under the right conditions, these water vapor trails from planes can linger for hours. In many parts of the world, they're a common sight. However, in areas with fewer flight paths—central Africa, South America, and Australia, in particular—they might be less easy to spot.

But even if you find yourself in the middle of the Algerian desert, the Peruvian Amazon, or the Arctic cliffs of Transfiguration Island, there's an easy way to see evidence of intelligent life:

Wait for nightfall.[4]And then go crazy and burn down your civilization when you see the stars for the first time.

At any given time, there are hundreds of satellites in the sky. Most of them are too faint to see, but if you're in an area without much light pollution, and you look carefully enough, there's virtually always a satellite visible. Their rapid motion across the sky and various highly inclined orbits make them unlikely to be anything but artificial.

It's often said that the Great Wall of China is the only human artifact that can be seen from space. This is wrong.

But in my opinion, the real problem with this factoid isn't that it's wrong—it's that it overlooks a much cooler point. The Great Wall of China may not be the only artifact on Earth that you can see from a satellite ... but our satellites are the only human artifacts that you can see from everywhere on Earth.

Want to see signs of intelligent life? Just look up.

Can’t even believe I’m doing this.

I first tried cauliflower pizza a loooooooong time ago. Back before I even knew what blogging was, back when most of the “healthier” recipes I made came from people in the gym who ate only steamed broccoli or put raw eggs in their protein shakes. I was so disappointed with the result that I SWORE I’d never try it again. Never ever ever, Taylor Swift style.

And I’ve done a great job of ignoring the trend.

THEN.

I found this recipe on Tasty Kitchen and decided to give it a try since it was called THE BEST CAULIFLOWER CRUST PIZZA. That meant it had to be the best, right?

It’s actually cheese on cheese. Now that… I can do.

It is pretty darn good. For once, I was thrilled to be wrong. Since, you know, I’m never ever wrong. Never ever ever, Taylo– eh, you get the gist.

We absolutely loved this. No, it does not replace pizza for me, but it’s a fun “new” meal. You can check out more of my thoughts on all that in the post.

Click here for the step-by-step recipe!. Cheesy goodness all around.

---

©2012 How Sweet It Is

Piled Higher & Deeper by Jorge Cham		www.phdcomics.com
title: "Not so bad" - originally published 8/21/2013 For the latest news in PHD Comics, CLICK HERE!

Editor’s note: James Altucher is an investor, programmer, author, and several-times entrepreneur. His latest book, “Choose Yourself!” (foreword by Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter) came out on June 3. Follow him on Twitter @jaltucher.

This is going be a bullet FAQ on starting a business. No joke. If you’re a lawyer, feel free to disagree with me, so you can charge someone your BS fees to give the same advice. If you can think of anything to add, please do so. I might be missing things. If you want to argue with me, feel free. I might be wrong on any of the items below.

There are many types of business. Depending on your business, some of these won’t apply. All of these questions come from questions I’ve been asked.

The rules are: I’m going to give no explanations. Just listen to me.

1) C Corp or S Corp or LLC?
C-Corp if you ever want to take on investors or sell to another company.

2) What state should you incorporate in?
Delaware.

3) Should founders vest?
Yes, over a period of four years. On any change of control the vesting speeds up.

4) Should you go for venture capital money?
First build a product, then get a customer, then get friends-and-family money (or money from revenues which is cheapest of all) and then think about raising money. But only then. Don’t be an amateur.

5) Should you patent your idea?
Get customers first. Patent later. Don’t talk to lawyers until the last possible moment.

6) Should you require venture capitalists to sign NDAs?
No. Nobody is going to steal your idea.

7) How much equity should you give a partner?
Divide things up into these categories: manage the company; raise the money; had the idea; brings in the revenues; built the product (or performs the services). Divide up in equal portions.

8) Should you have a technical co-founder if you are not technical?
No. If you don’t already have a technical co-founder you can always outsource technology and not give up equity.

9) Should you barter equity for services?
No. You get what you pay for.

10) How do you market your app?
Friends and then word of mouth.

11) Should you build a product?
Maybe. But first see if, manually, your product works. Then think about providing it as a service. Then productize the commonly used services. Too many people do this in reverse and then fail.

12) How much dilution is too much dilution?
If someone wants to give you money, then take it. The old saying, 100 percent of nothing is worth less than 1 percent of something.

13) Do you listen to venture capitalist?
Yes, of course. They gave you money. But then don’t do anything they ask you to do.

14) What if nobody seems to be buying your product?
Then change to a service and do whatever anyone is willing to pay for using the skills you developed while making your product.

15) If a client wants you to hire their friend or they won’t give you the business (e.g. like a bribe) what should you do?
Always do the ethical thing: Hire the friend and get the client’s business.

16) What do you do when a customer rejects you in a B2B business?
Stay in touch once a month. Never be angry.

17) In a B2C business?
Release fast. Add new features every week.

18) How do you get new clients?
The best new clients are old clients. Always offer new services. Think every day of new services to offer old clients.

19) What’s the best thing to do for a new client?
Over-deliver for the first 100 days. Then you will never lose them.

20) What if your client asks you to do something not in your business plan?
Do it, or find someone who can do it, even if it’s a competitor.

21) Should I ever focus on SEO?
No.

22) Should I do social media marketing?
No.

23) Should I ever talk badly about a partner of an employee even though they are awful?
Never gossip. Always be straight with the culprit.

24) I have lots of ideas. How do I pick the right one?
Do as many ideas as possible. The right idea will pick you.

25) What is the sign of an amateur?
– Asking for an NDA.
– Trying to raise VC money before product or customers.
– Having fights with partners in the first year. Fire them or split before anything gets out of control.
– Worrying about dilution.
– Trying to get Mark Cuban to invest because “this would be great for the Dallas Mavericks.”
– Asking people you barely know to introduce you to Mark Cuban.
– Asking people for five minutes of their time. It’s never five minutes, so you are establishing yourself as a liar.
– Having a PowerPoint that doesn’t show me arbitrage. I need to know that there is a small chance there is a 100x return on money.
– Catch 22: showing people there’s a small chance there’s 100x return on their money. The secret of salesmanship is getting through the Catch 22.
– Rejecting a cash offer for your company when you have almost no revenues. Hello Friendster and Foursquare.

26) What is the sign of a professional?
– Going from bullshit product to services to product to SaaS product. (Corollary: the reverse is amateur hour).
– Cutting costs every day.
– Selling every day, every minute.
– When you have a billion in revenues, staying focused. When you have zero revenues, staying unfocused and coming up with new ideas every day.
– Saying “no” to people who are obvious losers.
– Saying “yes” to any meeting at all with someone who is an obvious winner.
– Knowing how to distinguish between winners and losers (subject of an entire other post but in your gut you know — trust me).

27) When should I hire people full time?
When you have revenues

28) How long does it take to raise money?
In a GREAT business, six months. In a mediocre business, infinity.

29) Should I get an office?
No, not unless you have revenues.

30) Should I do market research?
Yes, find one customer who DEFINITELY, without a doubt, will buy a service from you. Note that I don’t say buy your product, because your initial product is always not what the customer wanted.

31) Should I pay taxes?
No. You should always reinvest your money and operate at a loss.

32) Should I pay dividends?
See above.

33) What should the CEO salary be?
No more than 2x your lowest employee if you are not profitable. This even assumes you are funded. If you are not funded your salary should be zero until your revenues can pay your salary last. Important RULE: the CEO salary is the last expense paid in every business.

34) When should I fire employees?
When you have fewer than six months’ burn in the bank and you aren’t getting revenues growing fast enough.

35) When should you have sex with an employee?
When you love her and the feeling is mutual.

36) What other reasons should one fire an employee?
– When they gossip.
– When they don’t over-deliver constantly.
– When they ask for a raise because they think they are making below industry standard.
– When they talk badly about a client.
– When they have an attitude.

37) When should you give a raise?
Rarely.

38) How big should the employee option pool be?
15 to 20 percent.

39) How much do advisers get?
One-fourth of 1 percent. Advisers are useless. Don’t even have an advisory board.

40) How much do board members get?
Nothing. They should all be investors. If they aren’t an investor, then one-half of 1 percent.

41) What if one client is almost all of my revenues?
Treat them very nicely. Don’t forget the Christmas gift basket.

42) What’s the best way to sell anything?
Show arbitrage: If they pay X now they are buying something worth X * Y. That is the ONLY way to sell.

43) What is the best way to sell anything?
Part II: fear and agitation. Get them afraid (the world is falling apart). Get them agitated (this is the only way to stop it).

44) What’s the best way to talk about your competition in a meeting?
Use “choice ambiguity” (Google it). Say, “all of my competition is great. I wouldn’t even know how to choose among them.”

45) What’s the best way to value a company?
Ask yourself (no BS): How much would it cost to recreate the technology, services, brand and customers you have already built. Then quadruple it and see what people would pay.

46) Should I ever worry about the news or the economy?
Absolutely not. The best businesses are started in horrible economies.

47) What happened to all of my friends?
You don’t have anymore friends.

48) How do I charge more for my services?
Itemize as finely as possible and charge for each item.

49) Do I charge per hour or per project or per month?
First per project, then per-month maintenance.

50) How do I prepare for a meeting?
Know everything about the clients: competition, employees, industry. Over-read everything.

51) What is the only effective email marketing?
Highly targeted email marketing written by professional copywriters, and the email list is made up of people who have bought similar services in the past six months.

51a) Corollary: If you have zero skills as a copywriter then everything you write will be boring.

52) Should I give stuff for free?
Maybe. But don’t expect free customers to turn into paying customers. Your free customers actually hate you and want everything from you for nothing, so you better have a different business model.

53) Should I have schwag?
No.

54) Should I go to SXSW?
No.

55) Should I go to industry parties and meetups?
No.

56) Should I blog?
Yes. You must. Blog about everything going wrong in your industry. Blog personal stories that you think will scare away customers. They won’t. Customers will be attracted to honesty.

57) Should I care about margins?
No. Care about revenues.

58) Should I spin-off this unrelated idea into a separate business?
No. Make one business great. Throw everything in it. Do DBAs to identify different ideas.

59) Should I hire people because I can travel on a seven-hour plane ride with them?
Don’t be an idiot. If anything, hire people the opposite of you. Or else who will you delegate to?

60) When should I say “no” to a client?
When they approach you.

61) When should I say “yes” to a client?
Every other conversation you ever have with them after that initial “no.”

62) Should I have sex with an employee?
Stop asking that.

63) Should I negotiate the best terms with a VC?
No. Pick the VC you like. Times are going to get tough at some point, and you need to be able to have a heart-to-heart with them.

64) Should I even start a business?
No. Make money. Build shit. Then start a business.

65) Should I give employees bonuses for a job well done?
No. Give them gifts but not bonuses.

66) What should I do at Christmas?
Send everyone you know a gift basket.

67) If my customer just got divorced, what should I say to him?
“I can introduce you to lots of women/men.”

68) When should I give up on my idea?
When you can’t generate revenues, customers, interest, for two months.

69) Why didn’t the VC or customer call back after we met yesterday and it was great?
They hate you.

70) Why didn’t the above call back after we met yesterday and it was great?
“Yesterday” was like a split second ago for them and a lifetime for you. There’s the law of entrepreneurial relativity. Figure out what that means and live by it.

71) Should I hire a professional CEO?
No. Never.

72) Should I hire a head of sales?
No. The founder is the head of sales until at least 10 million in sales.

73) My client called at 3 a.m. Should I tell him to respect boundaries?
No. You no longer have any boundaries.

74) I made a mistake. Should I tell the client?
Yes. Tell him everything that happened. You’re his partner. Not the guy that hides things and then lies about them.

75) My investors want me to focus.
Should I listen to them? No. Diversify in every way you can.

76) I personally need money. Should I borrow from the business?
Only if the business can survive for another six months no matter what.

77) I just bought two companies. Should I put them under the same roof and start consolidating?
No. Not for at least two years.

78) Should I quit my job?
No. Only if you have salary that can pay you for six months at your startup. Aim to quit your job but don’t quit your job.

79) What do I do when I have doubts?
Ask your customers if your doubts are trustworthy.

80) I have too much competition. What should I do?
Competition is good. It shows you have a decent business model. Now simply outperform them.

81) My wife/husband thinks I spend too much time on my startup?
Divorce them or close your business.

82) I’m starting my business, but I have relationship problems. What should I do?
Get rid of your relationship.

83) Should I expand geographically as quickly as possible?
No. Get all the business you can in your local area. Travel is too expensive time-wise.

84) How do I keep clients from yelling at me?
Document every meeting line-by-line, and send your document to the client right after the meeting.

85) I undercharged. What should I do about it?
Nothing. Charge the next client more.

86) I have an idea for an app but don’t know how to execute. What should I do?
Draw every screen and function. Then outsource someone to make the drawings look like they come from a real app. Then outsource the development of the app. Get a specific schedule. Micromanage the schedule.

87) I want to buy a franchise in X. Is that a good idea?
Only buy a franchise if it’s underperforming and you can see how to improve it. Don’t buy on future hopes; only buy on past mistakes.

88) I want to buy a franchise in X. Is that a good idea?
Rely on the three Ds: Death, Debt, Divorce. When someone dies, the heirs will sell a business cheap. When someone is in debt, they will sell a business cheap. When someone divorces, the couple usually has to sell a business cheap. IMPORTANT: even if the trends in the industry are in your favor, you CANNOT predict the future. But you can use the past to help you get a deal. Always get a deal.

89) I have a lot of traffic but no revenues. What should I do?
Sell your business. There’s only one Google. (Well, there are two or three Googles: Facebook, Twitter … )

90) I have no traffic. How do I get traffic?
Shut down your business.

91) Should I hire a PR firm?
No. Do guerilla marketing. Read “Newsjacking” and “Trust me I’m Lying.” PR firms screw up from beginning to end. The first time I hired a PR firm, instead of sending me my contract they accidentally sent me their contract for “Terry Bradshaw.” He was paying $12,000 a month. Was it worth it for him?

92) My competition is doing better than me across every metric. What should I do?
Don’t be afraid to instantly shut down your business and start over if you can’t sell it. Time is a horrible thing to waste.

93) I’ve been in business now for six years, and my business doesn’t seem to be growing. It’s even slowing down. What should I do?
Come up with 10 ideas a day about new services your business can offer. Try to get a customer for each new service. I know one business in this situation that refuses to do this because their VCs are telling them to focus more. You’re going to go out of business otherwise.

94) Is it unethical to run my business from the side while still at my job?
I don’t know. Did God tell you that in a dream?

95) My customer called me at 5 p.m. on a Friday and said, “We have to talk.” And now I can’t talk to him until Monday. What does it mean?
It means you’re fired.

96) XYZ just sold for $100 million. Should I be valued at that? I’m better!
No, you should shut up.

97) Investors want to meet me and customers want to meet me. Who do I meet if I need money?
You should know the answer to that by now.

98) If an acquirer asks me why I want to sell, what should I say?
That you feel it would be easier for you to grow in the context of a bigger company that has experienced the growing pains you are just starting to go through. That 1+1 = 45.

99) I just started my business. What should I do?
Sell it as fast as possible (applies in 99 percent of situations). Sell for cash.

100) I can change the world with my technology.
No you can’t.

100a) Corollary: Don’t smoke crack.

101) If you’re so smart why aren’t you a billionaire?
Because I sold my businesses early, lost everything, started new businesses, sold them, and got lucky every now and then.

101a) Corollary: These rules don’t always apply. But like Kurt Vonnegut said, “if you want to break the rules of grammar, first learn the rules of grammar.”

RULE #infinity:
You create your luck by being healthy and not regretting the past or being anxious about the future.

Original Source

The prescient economist A. Gary Schilling says US growth is going to remain slow for some time to come. In a piece for Bloomberg View yesterday, he wrote that the US is about five years into a process of deleveraging—the reduction of debt on its balance sheet—to make up for years of excess. And then came the bad news:

My forecast is for another five years of unwinding the excess borrowing by banks worldwide, U.S. consumers and many other sectors.

Quartz asked Schilling to quantify this further and his consultancy sent us the following graphic that shows US debt levels by sector, notably where they’ve come from, and where they are going.

Note Wall Street’s massive leveraging upward in the decades before the financial crisis. Once you see where the US was last year, it becomes clear that there’s still a ways to go.

On the reduced role of debt in an economy’s growth, Schilling writes: “…in the 1947-1952 years, each new dollar in debt in the entire economy was associated with a $4.62 increase in GDP. Recently, that figure has dropped to 9 cents because derivatives and other layers of financing do little to promote economic growth.”

Yet this same factor causes Schilling to predict that short-term pain will lead to a brighter long-term forecast where technology and innovation drive rapid growth in the US economy. Eventually, at least.

We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.

Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Is this the first time Twitter fake-killed an already dead celebrity?

Caffeination is a new webseries created by The Pancake Epidemic, directed and edited by Jesse Meeker, and hosted by coffee specialist Brandon Davenport. The group will road trip around the United States — stopping in San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Spokane, Missoula, Idaho Falls, Cheyenne, Boulder, and La Verkin — to explore coffee culture and the roasting business.

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

An anonymous reader writes "New Tesla owner and Executive DIrector of Cloud Computing at Dell, George Reese, brings the Tesla Model S REST API authentication into question. 'The authentication protocol in the Tesla REST API is flawed. Worse, it's flawed in a way that makes no sense. Tesla ignored most conventions around API authentication and wrote their own. As much as I talk about the downsides to OAuth (a standard for authenticating consumers of REST APIs—Twitter uses it), this scenario is one that screams for its use.' While not likely to compromise the safety of the vehicle, he does go on to say, 'I can target a site that provides value-added services to Tesla owners and force them to use a lot more electricity than is necessary and shorten their battery lives dramatically. I can also honk their horns, flash their lights, and open and close the sunroof. While none of this is catastrophic, it can certainly be surprising and distracting while someone is driving.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ever wished you could see Krypto give birth to puppies? Have no fear, the latest CSBG spotlight on the strangest comics of all-time is here! See Krypto's red kryptonite sex change in all of its "glory."

Contrary to popular belief, water filters don't actually run on magic and disposable plastic. However, they're actually very easy to change out, and for much less than the sticker price that comes along with the Britta name.

Read more...

quickhits:

Washington Post: “William Allison, 92, came to today’s march with same sign he marched with in ‘63 pic.twitter.com/qT3kL8VlEP via @HamilHarris #MarchonWashington”

Amazing.

Map of each state’s most popular search term

Commissioner Amanda Fritz, working with Mayor Charlie Hales and the Portland Development Commission, is working to find Old Town homeless rest area Right 2 Dream Too a new home beneath the Broadway Bridge's Lovejoy Street ramp (map)—but a dispute with one of the owners of the group's current site could unravel the complicated deal.

The deal, if reached, would mark a potential breakthrough in a nearly two-year fight in that saw the city declare the vital site a recreational campground and fine its operators and landlords more than $20,000. It would include a tentative agreement to settle a lawsuit filed by Right 2 Dream Too last year.

Several details are still being worked out, including the status of the fines, the cost of providing electricity and water to the proposed new site, and the timing for any move. The proposal calls for the PDC to lease the land—a portion of an odd-shaped parking lot at NW Lovejoy Court and Station Way—to the city for an undetermined amount of money from September to next August. The city council, at the urging of Fritz, would then grant a permit to Right 2 Dream Too. That potential permit would require, among other conditions, a commitment to start discussing, by next June, whether the new site is working well or if another site should be found.

But there's been a holdup involving Michael Wright, one of the owners of the current spot at NW 4th and Burnside. Wright wants a promise to be able to host another group of homeless Portlanders on the land, or food carts, in exchange for agreeing to drop the lawsuit (and have the fines he's facing waived).

He says the fines have been in abatement during the negotiation period, but interest continues to be tacked on. Wright says the group would like the city to extend some relief to his economic interests in exchange for their move. Wright has tried and failed to host food carts on the lot, but they're not allowed because it's unpaved.

"I don't care to waive any right to help the homeless at this point," Wright tells the Mercury. "They have not agreed to any alterations or variances that would help the property owners again. I don't want to give a way the only tool that's ever gotten a call from them, which is helping the homeless."

Update 11:28 AM: Fritz says the city has agreed to update its offer by taking out language specifically banning homeless camping on the site, instead offering to allow any legal use. She says the lawyer for Right 2 Dream Too, Mark Kramer, wasn't available so didn't know if Wright would accept that offer.///

Since taking over the city's code enforcement and building bureau in June, Fritz has made solving the impasse one of her top priorities. Her calendars show various meetings on the subject over the past few weeks.

"It's giving permission ahead of time instead of seeking forgiveness," Fritz says. "The zoning on the new site is better—and the fact that we can set conditions to make sure it continues to operate as well as it has been.... It's recognizing that this has been a place where people can safely rest."

Right 2 Dream Too has been mulling over the relocation since earlier this month, hashing out concerns that the proposed location wouldn't be as visible as its current home—key for protesting and raising awareness about homelessness issues—and possibly not as easy to manage. The self-run site has flourished on the very prominent corner of NW 4th and Burnside, providing shelter and safe sleep to dozens of homeless Portlanders every night. Spokesman Ibrahim Mubarak did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

"A few of us went to view this site. It has great potential, however it takes away from our visibility," Mubarak wrote to board members on August 12, in an email obtained by the Mercury.

The group and its landlords filed suit in December 2012, arguing the city was incorrectly interpreting its code in fining Right 2 Dream Too. The two sides appeared in court this summer after the city filed a motion asking Multnomah County Judge Karin Immergut to toss the suit, arguing the site's organizers had failed to fully exhaust the city's bureaucratic process of appeals.

The current site has been criticized by the Portland Business Alliance and other business interests (developer David Gold blamed it for the demise of a PDC-backed deal for a new hostel across 4th, on Burnside), and tolerated by Chinatown dignitaries who find the group quite neighborly but never liked that it sits beneath the Chinatown gate.

Any tentative agreement for a move would come as the Lee Family Association, which represents Chinese Lee families in America and around the world, is planning its national convention in Portland for the first time in 86 years. The convention will be held in the Lloyd Center's Doubletree Hotel starting this Sunday. Gloria Lee Luebke, an Old Town/Chinatown neighborhood activist, says the group normally holds its parade in its host city's Chinatown but decided to hold its Portland parade on the east side.

"In part that's because of Right 2 Dream Too," she said, taking pains to say the organization "maintains a pretty decent place" is "very responsible," and has "participated in the community," including in a recent cleanup effort. But that, in her personal opinion, "the location is inappropriate" given the cultural importance of the gate.

Asked if the the Lee Family Association or any other group put pressure on Fritz's office to broker a deal based on the convention's arrival, she said "I don't think so. That's part of the problem of the culture, being Chinese. There's a tendency to not stand up and speak out."

The city and R2DToo have discussed various other sites in recent weeks. R2DToo at one point looked into moving into a building vacated by Transition Projects.

The site under consideration—a parking lot—does come with its own issues. It's very much out of sight and in an area with little traffic, abutting the north end of the US Postal Service yard. It's hardly a sunny place and gets a fair amount of noise from nearby trains heading past Union Station as well as streetcars passing on the ramp overhead. Car traffic, on the other hand, isn't so audible.

Mubarak wrote earlier this month he's also worried about the portion of the lot R2DToo wouldn't control (Fritz says they've been offered a portion of the lot away from the train tracks). The issue being whether the group would be responsible for people who might be turned away from the rest area but decide nonetheless to camp out right outside it.

But the proposed new site—provided a final agreement emerges and the council approves it—has the benefit of becoming legal. Fritz says it's zoned more flexibly than the current site, which is zoned for commercial uses and requires projects to undergo a historic design review. The proposed site is zoned for "employment," which allows industrial uses as well as group shelters and does not require a design review. Council approval is important, because commissioners have the right to interpret code as they see it.

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Few things are more grotesque than those costume-mascot-theme-park-animal-character things that barely conceal the angry, sweaty teenagers inside them, and this goes double when those things are supposed to be Homer and Marge Simpson. HOWEVER. Something that totally makes those goddamn monstrosities worth looking at is the remarkable/terrifying amount of pictures and video that Inside the Magic (via io9) has of Universal Studios Florida's Simpsons-themed "Fast Food Boulevard," which opened in June.

On the downside, Moe's Tavern looks entirely too clean and like you wouldn't even get hepatitis there, but on the upside, it opens daily at 10:30 am! There's also Kwik-E-Mart, Krusty Burger (whose food trays look as disgusting as Moe's should), the Frying Dutchman, Lisa's Teahouse (of Horror), and more. I'd say if you wanted to spend insane amounts of money to go to a glorified mall food court and eat a bunch of expensive cheap meat that's been congealing under heat lamps, this should be where you go. This has to be the first time that a broad satire of American life has been turned into an actual place that Americans will spend money to go to, right?

(Also on the boulevard: the Android's Dungeon comic book shop, which, like entirely too many places that once sold print media, is now merely a hollow shell, "with absolutely nothing behind it except restrooms and a pathway.")

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Company of Heroes 2 developer Relic has added new graphics, fresh design and extra letters to the series' classic multiplayer map, Semois, now named Semoskiy. The upgraded map comes in two free variants, summer and winter, with summer available in today's patch, and winter due on September 10.

Company of Heroes 2 summer multi map out today, winter on Sept. 10 originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 27 Aug 2013 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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