firehose

So, like, the grown-ups are defending “like” now.

A must-read piece in the New Republic:

Few, if any, of the people demanding a boycott have argued that this would “end” LGBT discrimination in Russia. Most of us understand that Russian antipathy towards LGBT rights is deep seated. In an article I wrote for Salon a few days ago, I also made the case that, at least in the short term, Putin stands to gain from all the outrage because it reinforces Russians' ideas about how unique they are and further underscores the country's independence from the West. This does not mean the calls for boycotts are useless. Labeling justifiable outrage and calls for justice as useless and counterproductive smacks of blaming the victim. It's not our calls for boycotts that may cause an increase in violence against the LGBT community in Russia, but rather the law which Putin signed in July—a law that has, in effect, codified Russian homophobia and stripped the Russian citizens of the one way that they could ever expect to effectively combat it.

Ioffe's assertions that American attitudes towards LGBT rights have only recently changed is true. In fact, the change has come at an astonishing pace. What she fails to mention, however, is that this change only happened because of gay visibility, starting with more and more gays and lesbians coming out to their friends and families. Prominent celebrities and politicians revealing their sexuality, along with LGBT characters in movies and on TV, helped de-stigmatize the gay community in the eyes of so many Americans, who began to see us less as predators and AIDS victims and more as neighbors, cousins, coworkers.

This is precisely what the Russian propaganda bill denies its citizens. By criminalizing speech advocating “non-traditional sexual lifestyles,” Russia has denied its LGBT citizens the same path toward progress that so many societies in the West have taken. Look no further than the many reported cases of Russians who spoke out against the ban before it was ratified and who were later fired from their jobs. This is the reality on the ground. And if the gays there cannot speak for themselves without fear of imprisonment, it is up to those of us outside to speak for them.

Go read the whole thing.

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Scalia says the Supreme Court shouldn't be 'inventing' new minorities like gay people.

Original Source

“The English language was carefully, carefully cobbled together by three blind dudes and a German dictionary.”

- David Kellett (via englishmajorhumor)

OnlyMrGodKnowsWhy

Via @MultitaskSuicide

The first known globe to include the New World was recently found at a London map fair—an impressive 500 year survival for it being engraved into ostrich eggs.

According to analysis by an independent Belgian scholar, Stefaan Missinne, PhD., the globe not only predates the previous record holder—a globe made of copper alloy between 1504 and 1506, now on display at the New York Public Library—but the evidence suggests it was actually the model used to cast that previous record holder. The two globes are identical down to their smallest details, from the wave patterns on the ocean to the disproportionate size of continents. The handwriting is the same, and even the typos match up: “HISPANIS” instead of HISPANIA and “LIBIA INTEROIR” in place of LIBIA INTERIOR.

A Rare Find

The grapefruit-sized globe was spotted at the London map fair in 2012 by an anonymous globe and map collector. By that point it had already passed through two dealers’ hands since being purchased from a unnamed but apparently important European collection. Due to these layers of mystery, globe expert Stefaan Missinne was called in to figure out if the globe was legitimate, and if so, when and where it originated.

The globe’s northern and southern hemispheres each came from the round bottom half of an ostrich egg. To figure out its age, Missinne sent the globe to a radiologist who used CT scans to measure the bone density loss in the shell. By comparing the density to that of modern ostrich eggs, and eggs of known ages in museum collections, Missinne calculated the rate an ostrich egg loses bone density: about 10 percent each century. This means the ostrich egg globe would have been engraved around the year 1500, consistent with the idea of it being the cast for the copper globe. And since copper can be melted but egg cannot, the egg would have had to come first.

Ahead of Its Time

Whoever made the globe had access to the latest information about explorers from all the European countries vying for world domination. Many explorers were just returning from their journeys that profoundly changed the way people saw and understood the world. The shape of the Asian peninsula, for example, reflects the explorations of Italian Henricus Martellus, and the two tiny islands of North America were those happened upon by Christopher Columbus. Other details reflect the then-recent exploratory accounts of Marco Polo, the Corte-Reals, Cabral, and Amerigo Vespucci, who coined the name New World, or “MVNDVS NOVVS” as it is labeled on the globe.

Missinne suspects the globe was engraved by an Italian hand, as he describes in the cartography journal Portolan today. The scholar points specifically to Florence which, in 1500, was the richest city in Europe and a renowned map-making hub. Feuding families in positions of power funded exotic artistic and cultural projects, so an ostrich egg globe of the newly discovered lands would have been right up their alley.

The Drama is in the Details

Another creative force in Florence at the time was Leonardo Da Vinci. The lack of New World references in Da Vinci’s writings, and the artist’s inexperience with engraving, suggest to Missinne that Da Vinci could not have been the globemaker himself. Still, the great thinker’s influence is apparent. The transfer of the map from paper to globe appears to have been done via Da Vinci’s unique method for transferring a 2-dimensional drawing to a 3-dimensional sphere by slicing it into triangles.

Apart from the new lands depicted on the globe, the waters tell their fair share of stories, too. In the Indian Ocean, for example, a sole ship is shown tossed on the waves, its origin and destination unknown. And off the coast of Southeast Asia, the Latin legend warns of a legendary monster: “HIC SVNT DRACONES” it says; Here there are dragons.

Original Source

Twin Squash (Sega - arcade - 1992)

ultrace:

Advice to future game developers: if you’re going to create a game in a genre that’s currently crowded, such as the versus-puzzle-game-where-you-drop-blocks-on-your-opponent population was in 1991 when Sega released Twin Squash, make sure your gimmick is good, something unique. If, during the design meetings someone suggests that your hook might be, say, still images of a rogue’s gallery that couldn’t even form its own Breakfast Club, go find a ruler and then beat them to an inch of their life.

Seriously. Someone thought that a clown, Robby the Robot, a frog prince and Frankenstein’s Monster all would fit well in the same game. And they start you off with the clown, like he shouldn’t be the terrifying final boss of whatever game he’s in.

And efforts to re-engineer the young-male imagination are doomed to fail.

The first all-in-one desktop 3D printer, scanner, copier, and fax machine is (supposedly, almost) upon us, hitting Kickstarter on September 4th. AIO Robotics hasn’t released anything more than a digital rendering, but from the company’s post on RepRap.org, a 3D printing enthusiasts’ site, here’s what we know about the proposed product:

1. It’s going to be cheap, or at least cheaper. “We have not finalized the pricing yet,” an AIO Robotics representative wrote on the forum, “but it will be significantly cheaper than the Makerbot Replicator + Digitizer,” a combo that would give you the same scanning and printing capabilities. For reference, the Makerbot Replicator (the 3D printer) costs $2799 and the Digitizer hasn’t been priced yet, though $500 is touted as a likely price tag.

2. It has an on-board computer that can handle 3D scanning data, so it doesn’t need to connect to a desktop PC.

3. All the scan data will be uploaded to the cloud, where they’ll be reassembled into a 3D rendering. When a RepRap user asked if local processing wasn’t better, someone from AIO wrote that using the cloud would make the device itself cheaper. But for anyone worried about privacy or a dodgy internet connection, AIO will offer a more expensive version that does the processing itself.

4. It will have a fax button, presumably so you can scan an object and send the scan directly to a friend’s 3D printer to print out automatically. This is already possible in principle if you have a 3D scanner and your friend has a 3D printer—but making it a built-in, instant feature of a single desktop device seems to have some people excited.

Still, would anyone want a 3D fax? Two obvious objections present themselves. First, you probably don’t want people randomly faxing you objects and using up your precious supply of printing filament. And second, if you want to see an object someone has 3D-scanned, she can just email you the scan, which would be cheaper, easier and better quality than a 3D printout. Remember, the only reason people had fax machines was they didn’t have scanners and computers yet.

So it may be that the chief use of AIO’s fax function is to answer the all-important question: How many times can you 3D-fax something back and forth before it turns into a shapeless blob?

A 21-year-old who was interning at a London investment bank has died after reportedly working 72 hours in a row.

How is the combination of pizza, birthday cake and games at Chuck E Cheese causing fights?

San Francisco Chronicle

Big Oregon wildfire latest in West commanding attention CBS News Strong winds in the Columbia River Gorge fanned an Oregon wildfire burning across nearly 8 square miles, forcing the evacuation of dozens of structures Monday while other residents waited to hear if they were going to have to leave. The Government Flats ... Wildfires near The Dalles still threatening homesSeattle Post Intelligencer Wildfire near The Dalles has residents on edge, and the edge of evacuationOregonLive.com Wildfires near The Dalles threatening 70 homesNorthJersey.com Uniontown Herald Standard -Herald and News all 95 news articles »

Adopting a tactic used at dinner tables everywhere, Fox has opted to just ignore its racist Dads and quietly hope things change, following complaints from an Asian-American advocacy group who asked that the network reshoot its pilot. The main offending scene—which involves Brenda Song dressing up in a “sexy Asian schoolgirl” outfit/Sailor Moon costume we’re not really supposed to call “sexy” in polite society—will remain, with network executives responding by saying that, eventually, “You will see that Brenda Song’s character is a strong, intelligent, empowered young woman who basically runs the company, and who almost always gets the upper hand.” Even when she’s asked to be a living erotic manga-based masturbatory fantasy for laughs, and she makes the empowered decision to comply. (Because how else will she get the upper hand, unless all the lower hands are busy?)

Furthermore, Fox reiterated its TCAs stance ...

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Boutique home video distributor Criterion commissioned Samuel Hiti (Los Tiempos Finales, Death-Day) and a list of other great comics artists to create artwork for the individual films in the company’s box set for the long-running Zatoichi series starring Shintaro Katsu as a blind, but incredibly quick and accurate swordsman. Hiti designed the cover for Zatoichi the Fugitive, the fourth [...]

A wedding photographer accidentally flew a DJI Phantom quadcopter into a groom’s head during a photoshoot. The groom had a cut on his cheek and the side of his head, and though the photographer says he “felt horrible,” “the bride and groom were able to laugh about it after and we continued the shoot.”

video via WeddingMan123

via reddit, Daily Picks and Flicks

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Yes, just like Han Solo.

ADX, the excellent fabrication studio/hub/event space, is full of good ideas. As part of their presence at the upcoming OMSI Mini Maker Faire on Sept 14-15, they're looking for someone who harbors this particular fantasy of portraiture. Here's what you gotta do: Either become a member, or befriend someone who is, be prepared to fork over $450 for materials (really not that much, considering!), and email them what your plans are for your Carbonite figure "once you break free from the encasement." How about pass it down through future generations? This is heirloom material!

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British astronaut Tim Peake — who will be going to the International Space Station in 2015 on Expedition 46 — recently posted photos of a toolbox and is contents that will be taken aboard the ISS.

images via Tim Peake

via reddit, Blame it on the Voices

OnlyMrGodKnowsWhy

:(

We've known about North Korea's practice of selling state-manufactured, high quality meth in foreign countries, typically China, for at least two years, but now it seems the drug is sweeping the country. A new report in North Korea Review, highlighted today by the Wall Street Journal, is titled "A New Face of North Korean Drug Use: Upsurge in Methamphetamine Abuse Across the Northern Areas of North Korea," and alleges that meth has gone from the state's factories to smaller, independent "underground laboratories and 'home kitchens.'" The drug is now prevalent in the Northern areas of the country. One of the study's authors, Kim Seok-hyang, told The Journal, "Almost every adult in that area (of North Korea) has experienced using ice and not just once … I estimate that at least 40 percent to 50 percent are seriously addicted to the drug." 

Opium was once the North Korean drug of choice, but the fields dried up in the middle of the last decade. But now meth is being embraced. In March, a report alleged an unknown number of North Korean diplomats were given about 44 pounds of illegal drugs to sell on trips abroad. (Including a diplomat in at least one Eastern European country!)  Meth seems to have also reached the people. "Doing ice was a social thing; it was a lot of fun," a North Korean defector told The Journal. Sometimes teenagers give their friends meth as a birthday present. That same defector said he used crystal meth, typically referred to as "bingdu" or "ice," before crossing the Tumen River to escape the People's Republic for China. "I felt really focused, all I could think was go, go, go. I didn’t sleep for two days after that," he said. 

Meth use has apparently become so widespread that Kim Jong Un tried to enforce a crackdown on meth use in the northern parts of the country almost two years ago. So far, it doesn't seem the effort was effective. 

Original Source

The agency finally owns up to its role in the 1953 operation.

An anonymous reader was the first to write with news that Groklaw is shutting down: "There is now no shield from forced exposure. Nothing in that parenthetical thought list is terrorism-related, but no one can feel protected enough from forced exposure any more to say anything the least bit like that to anyone in an email, particularly from the U.S. out or to the U.S. in, but really anywhere. You don't expect a stranger to read your private communications to a friend. And once you know they can, what is there to say? Constricted and distracted. That's it exactly. That's how I feel. So. There we are. The foundation of Groklaw is over. I can't do Groklaw without your input. I was never exaggerating about that when we won awards. It really was a collaborative effort, and there is now no private way, evidently, to collaborate."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

App.net may finally be ready to change the world — but first it has a lot to overcome, not the least of which are the many misconceptions about what the hell it is exactly.

Today Australian mining giant BHP Billiton announced that its profit fell 30% in the first half of this year, as its largest sales category, iron, slumped along with demand from China.

Luckily, the future is… demand from China! But not for iron ore; for food, and specifically, for potash, a key mineral ingredient in fertilizers. The company decided to invest $2.6 billion developing a new potash mine in Saskatchewan, Canada, and is considering bringing on a partner to co-invest in the project. The money will go toward preparing the infrastructure around the mine, though not to start mining straight away.

The CEO of BHP, Andrew Mackenzie, delivering his first earnings report since taking the top job at the world’s largest mining company earlier this year, reported that revenue for the year ending June 30 fell from $72.2 billion in 2012 to $65.5 billion in 2013. Though it’s been cutting costs (by some $2.7 billion so far this year), he said, BHP needed to be ready to produce a commodity that will influence the next stage of China’s growth. The quantities and kinds of food that a wealthier and more populous China will demand are likely to put a strain on the country’s arable land, so it will need potash fertilizers to boost crop yields.

The Jansen investment suggests that last month’s break-up of one of the two global potash cartels may not cause prices to fall by the 25% predicted by Uralkali, the Russian potash producer that broke up the club. The uncertainty had analysts wondering whether mining companies would continue investing in new extraction operations, but BHP’s decision is evidence that miners, at least, expect future demand to make such investments worthwhile down the road. Canada’s own potash firms, Potash Corporation of Canada and Agrium, likewise remained fairly sanguine about the development during recent earnings announcements. 

Mackenzie said his company has expected lower prices—set by major buyers of the mineral like China and India—for some time, but that demand will rise 2% to 3% per year until 2030. That could leave a significant gap between supply and demand for BHP to fill in.

Still, it’s no sure thing—MacKenzie said the plan for Saskatchewan is to prepare the groundwork but leave BHP “the flexibility to enter the potash market only when the time is right,” likely not until 2020.

doctorscienceknowsfandom:

einsteinsface:

Iceland; I salute you.

More details, fact-checking:

The preacher in question is Franklin Graham, asshole son of Billy Graham.

The event has not yet occurred: it’s scheduled for September 28&29. It is not at all clear whether the arena will be empty when the time comes.

News article in English.

Aha! Thanks for that.