firehose

PEORIA, IL—Citing the increased visibility of gay athletes, politicians, and officials, area teen and homosexual Alex Zaragoza, 15, told reporters today that he is worried about running out of opportunities to become the first openly gay member of a...

The war between coffee shop squatters and coffee shop owners has been brewing (if you will) for two decades. The battle lines are pretty clear: the squatters want to sit with their laptops; the owners want traffic moving through their coffee shops.

New York Times

Scandal-Weary San Diego Asks a Question: Where's the Mayor? New York Times SAN DIEGO — In the five weeks since Mayor Bob Filner was first accused of sexual harassment by an aide, San Diego has almost felt like a city held hostage. National Twitter Logo. Connect With Us on Twitter. Follow @NYTNational for breaking news and ... San Diego Mayor in Sex Harassment Settlement TalksABC News San Diego Mayor Bob Filner in mediation with city as recall effort pushes forwardCNN International Mayor Bob Filner could be ousted under obscure city charter provisionLos Angeles Times all 286 news articles »

You should check out "White Like Me: Race, Racism, and White Privilege in America," anti-racism activist Tim Wise’s educational film about racism and white privilege. Especially if you’re white.

The “umami” craze has turned a much-maligned and misunderstood food additive into an object of obsession for the world’s most innovative chefs. But secret ingredient monosodium glutamate’s biggest secret may be that there was never anything wrong with it at all.

NEW YORK—Saying the comparisons are “unbelievably flattering,” New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez told reporters Friday that he is extremely humbled to currently be mentioned in the same breath as all-time baseball greats Mark...

New submitter Galaga88 writes "In what is probably another attempt to evade charging sales tax, Amazon's terms of use through Warehouse Deals forbids crossing state lines with certain rented textbooks. The penalty for doing so? Retroactive forced purchase of the book. At least it's yours to keep afterwards. 'Some experts believe the policy is another reflection of the extreme lengths to which the company continues to go in order to avoid collecting state sales taxes. But could Amazon’s use restriction and other complicated rental conditions cause problems for students or lead potential textbook renters to take their business elsewhere? It seems like a policy that would be nearly impossible to enforce. But Richard Hershman, vice president of government relations at the National Association of College Stores, points out that if a student has textbooks sent to her home state and ships them back from a different state where she attends college, Amazon could easily note the new shipping location.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Following several decades of couching its reality TV programming behind titles intended to lend them a patina of narrative focus—or, at the very least, geographical location—MTV has finally just picked up a show called Jerks With Cameras, because that’s where we’re at now, let’s just admit it. As its self-loathing name suggests, Jerks With Cameras hails from Jersey Shore executive producer SallyAnn Salsano, who obviously similarly figures there is no longer any reason to hide—that a person’s soul, having already been scraped bare, can no longer conceal its warts beneath so much maquillage and fakery. Cry havoc, and let slip the jerks with cameras!

Also, it’s a prank show where a bunch of “comedian” jerks are given cameras, then asked to go out and be jerks to people on camera. Should it be a proven success, and only affirm MTV’s deepest ...

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xombiedirge:

The Little Three Colors Cornetto Print Series by Joey Spiotto / Blog / Store

Part of The Official Edgar Wright Art Show, opening Tuesday, 20th August 2013, at Gallery1988 / Tumblr.

astronemma:

NASA Rover Gets Movie as a Mars Moon Passes Another

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems/Texas A&M Univ.

The larger of the two moons of Mars, Phobos, passes directly in front of the other, Deimos, in a new series of sky-watching images from NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity. Large craters on Phobos are clearly visible in these images from the surface of Mars. No previous images from missions on the surface have caught one moon eclipsing the other.

Read more via NASA.gov

I've noticed my Air's battery just ain't quite what it used to be. When I compared the record of battery capacity with that of my old MacBook Pro, my jaw hit the floor.

One of the many reasons we're excited for the return of Omni magazine is access to their vaults. Just recently, the new owners of the magazine republished this iconic Dune art from a collection of rare work by John Schoenherr. Not only are these illustrations stunning, but Frank Herbert praised their accuracy.

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Making it Better

The Future Tense

In 1975, shortly after joining the board of the Washington Post Company, Warren Buffett wrote a letter to the chairman and chief executive, Katherine Graham. He had some advice as to how the company should invest its pension accounts.

All 19 pages were recently published by Fortune, and are well worth reading. In the brief excerpt below, Buffett, then just 44 years old, makes a succinct case against traditional stock picking and fund management. We’ve highlighted some passages, and you can annotate the text by hovering over any paragraph and clicking the quote bubble off to the right.

If above-average performance is to be their yardstick, the vast majority of investment managers must fail. Will a few succeed due either to chance or skill? Of course. For some intermediate period of years a few are bound to look better than average due to chance just as would be the case if l,000 “coin managers” engaged in a coin-flipping contest. There would be some “winners” over a 5 or 10-flip measurement cycle. (After five flips, you would expect to have 31 with uniformly “successful” records—who, with their oracular abilities confirmed in the crucible of the marketplace, would author pedantic essays on subjects such as pensions.)

In addition to the ones benefitting from short-term luck, I believe it possible that a few will succeed—in a modest way—because of skill. I do not believe they can be identified solely by a study of their past record. They may be operating with a coin that they know favors heads, and be calling heads each time, but their bare statistical record will not be distinguishable from the larger group who have been calling flips indiscriminately and have been lucky—so far.

It may be possible, if you know a good deal about investments as well as human personality, to talk with a manager who has a decent record and find that he is using methods which really give an advantage over other investors, and which appear to be likely to provide continued superiority in the future. This requires a very wise and informed client—and even then is not free from pitfalls.

For openers, there is one huge, obvious pitfall. I am virtually certain that above-average performance cannot be maintained with large sums of managed money. It is nice to think that $20 billion managed under one roof will produce financial resources which can hire some of the world’s most effective investment talent. After all, doesn’t the big money at Las Vegas attract the most effective entertainers to its stages? Surely $50 million annually of fees on $20 billion of managed assets will allow an array of industry specialists covering minute-by-minute developments affecting companies within their purview; top-flight economists to study the movement of the tides; and nimble, decisive portfolio managers to translate this wealth of information into appropriate market action.

It just doesn’t work that way.

Down the street there is another $20 billion getting the same input. Each such organization has its own group of bridge experts cooperating on identical hands and they all have read the same book and consulted the same computers. Furthermore, you just don’t move $20 billion or any significant fraction around easily or inexpensively—particularly not when all eyes tend to be focused on the same current investment problems and opportunities. An increase in funds managed dramatically reduces the number of investment opportunities, since only companies of very large size can be of any real use in filling portfolios. More money means fewer choices—and the restriction of those choices to exactly the same bill of fare offered to others with ravenous financial appetites.

In short, the rational expectation of assuring above average pension fund management is very close to nil.

The entire memo can be read at Fortune. The 1962 image of Buffett is from an interview with an Omaha, Nebraska, television station, KMTV.

Next read: Meet Vaclav Smil, the Canadian polymath whose books Bill Gates is racing to read

Cameron Esposito often uses her sexuality as fodder during her stand-up sets, and it's both hilarious and beautifully honest. But when someone in the audience—a fellow comic at that—heckles her for said honesty, she strikes back hard.

In "What Not to Yell at a Lesbian Comic," which is now posted on The Advocate's website, Esposito begins by describing the fascinating set of a middle-aged beginner comic who made up for his lack of punchlines with an abundance of big butt references. Her simultaneous fascination with and disdain for the guy is hilariously brilliant. Anyway, once Esposito herself gets up on stage, she starts discussing how she likes her porn: two big, shaved, sexy black guys. This elicits quite the reaction from the aforementioned comic, and their exchange is both feminist and comedy gold. Do yourself a favor and read it all here. 

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Comics veteran Chris Claremont says he's been asked to consult on Bryan Singer's "X-Men: Days of Future Past," the "First Class" sequel based in part on one of his most famous stories.

You're not a pop culture juggernaut until Mr. Potato Head says you are. Spider-Man? Star Wars? Star Trek? Kiss? Batman? All these were nothing until this starchy Solomon designed to recognize them with a themed Mr. Potato Head toy. And now, Doctor Who is joining this carbohydrate-loaded elite.

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Frat bros whose keg stand experience is so woefully underappreciated in today’s job market have a new potential application for their skills in the world of acting, provided they can get over it being kind of queer. As UPROXX reports, a casting notice recently went up on the Facebook page for CBS’ forthcoming legal drama Reckless, the series we previously learned would feature a sexy Yankee attorney sexily clashing with a sexy Southern attorney over a sex scandal, with the pair eventually crossing the ol’ Mason-Dixon line. That's a euphemism for the waist, just above the body's sex parts. They will have sex.

Since then we’ve also learned that the sexy Southern attorney, played by Twilight’s Cam Gigandet, will be named Roy (Ling Genitals, ideally), and that he is described as “a liberal Renaissance man” who “surfs, loves skateboarding and hip-hop but also fishes, hunts ...

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25 minutes of newfound footage of the 2011 Japan tsunami shows the surging water washing away boats, cars, and houses as well as a destructive fire spreading nearby.

video via Leaked Channel

via Todd Lappin

Philly.com

Christie rewrites bill giving medical marijuana to minors Philly.com Gov. Christie told the Legislature on Friday that he would ease restrictions on minors using medical marijuana, but only if certain stipulations remained in place. The governor returned a medical-marijuana bill (S-2842) with recommended changes, saying he ... Gov. Chris Christie says he will allow medical marijuana for chronically ill ...New York Daily News Christie says he'll sign medical marijuana billCBS News New Jersey governor to sign law easing pot use for sick kidsChicago Tribune CBS Local -The Express Times - LehighValleyLive.com -Allentown Morning Call all 190 news articles »

Grant Morrison delivered a bit of a mindfuck on Wednesday. Strangely, he didn't do it in one of his own comics, but by revealing the secret end of Alan Moore's seminal Batman graphic novel The Killing Joke — namely, that Batman actually murders the Joker at the end.

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An exhaustive investigation is long overdue.

“The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook.” —Julia Child

 

On Friday, the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) denounced a Russian law that criminalize public support for gay rights as "inconsistent with the fundamental principles of the Olympic and Paralympic movements” -- but asked that athletes abide by it anyway.

“The athletes are always going into countries with laws different than his or her own country. They’re going to agree with those laws in some ways, they’re going to disagree with those laws in other ways,” USOC chief executive Scott Blackmun told Russia's R-Sport. “It’s our strong desire that our athletes comply with the laws of every nation that we visit. This law is no different.”

Blackmun also refused to comment on American runner Nick Symmonds, who this week dedicated a silver medal he won in Moscow to his gay and lesbian friends.

“I know he feels strongly about this issue as many Americans do, beyond that we really don’t have any comments,” Blackmun said. “We encourage our athletes to work within Russian law, and I know Nick is trying to do that as well.”

h/t BuzzFeed

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The catalyst for Hepler’s abuse was a six-year-old interview in which she admitted she didn’t enjoy combat in games. This was enough for fans to blame her for unpopular changes in Dragon Age II, describing her as a ‘cancer’ that was destroying BioWare. ‘I was shown a sample of the forum posts by EA security,’ says Hepler ‘And it included graphic threats to kill my children on their way out of school to show them that they should have been aborted at birth rather than have to have me as a mother.’

I almost always go for a barb. Also, less lawful than I thought. And slightly more evil. Wonder what...