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15 Aug 21:12
Group Of Friends Engage In Passionate, Incoherent Discussion About Current Events
SACRAMENTO, CA—Sharing their thoughts and opinions on a wide variety of topics and hot-button issues, five friends eating dinner at Tapper’s Bar and Grill Wednesday had a lengthy, animated, and utterly incoherent discussion about current event...
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15 Aug 21:12
Wot I Think: Gone Home
by John Walker
By John Walker on August 15th, 2013 at 7:00 pm.
You will be more interested to read about Gone Home after you’ve played it. And it will be more interesting to write about after everyone has played it. Gone Home is a wonderful game, and one that is fundamentally reliant on its being approached with a clean slate. If this is enough to convince you to give it a go, then perfect. If not, read on and I’ll do my best to say as little as possible while relaying why it’s so compelling. Here’s wot I think:
Opening premises are safe. Let’s start there. You’re a 20 year old girl called Kaitlin, arriving to an unfamiliar family home after a year of travelling around Europe. Your family moved while you were away, to a surprisingly large mansion house, and you’re going there for the first time. Except no one’s home.
The very first thing you see, in the first-person adventure, is a note from your younger sister, Sam, taped to the front door. She’s appealing to you not to find out where she’s gone, but promises she’ll be home some day. From here on this is a game of simply exploring an unfamiliar house, filled with quite literally the familiar, piecing together the last year of your family’s lives.
It’s remarkable how little can be said of what this entails, despite its relative mundanity. But it’s the mundanity that makes Gone Home so damned special. It’s ordinary, recognisable, relatable. It’s a house, and we’ve been in those. It’s not a spaceship or government headquarters or battle-strewn desert. It’s a home.
But it’s a home that’s simultaneously peculiar, unknown, and distant. You’ve never been there before, and nor indeed has Katie. One of Gone Home’s most masterful moves is to allow you to share in this contemporaneous experience of known and unknown, safety and yet alienation. Why is no one home? How serious is the storm outside that seems to have taken the TV down? Where is Sam? What’s up with mum and dad?
Everything is learned through poking about. Drawers and cupboards can all be explored, items picked up and examined (and importantly, carefully put back where they came from, if that matters to you). Letters can be read, locked cabinets opened, personal effects rifled through. And throughout, key items will be accompanied by narration from your sister Sam.
That’s explained in the opening missive. Sam explains that since she’s always told her big sister everything, now that you’re away she’s going to write it all down in diary entries as if directed at you. It’s through these entries that perhaps the core story is told. But it’s just one of three main narratives that are there to be discovered, all of which are compelling.
The house is beautifully presented. Everything is superbly realised, capturing the game’s setting of 1995 without labouring the point. (The era is portrayed not through awkwardly placed headlines nor clumsy declarations of who is the president, etc, but rather through underground musical tastes, technology, and common sense.) Objects like cereal boxes are rendered with more care than the average game puts into an entire kitchen, and that’s if you’re lucky enough to be playing a game that remembers humans tend to need and use kitchens.
The other most outstanding feature is the representation of a teenage life. While slightly faltering at the very start, Sam is soon established as defiantly and brilliantly 16/17. Her passion, fire, and studious uninterest is incredibly honest in its telling, and all the more impressive since she’s never actually there. Her story is utterly gorgeous, so wonderfully allowing you to not only nostalgically reflect on that time in your own life, but crucially, empathise rather than patronise. It’s so often so easy, when remembering or observing teenage life, to condescend to the emotions and actions. To misunderstand that because you’ve forgotten the intensity of your feelings at the time, that they were in some way less valid or less real. Gone Home is a game that knows that feelings are real as they are experienced, and does not diminish them. And that’s a joy.
There is one area that’s deserving of criticism, but it’s hard to know how it could have been done better. It’s undeniable that in order to let you uncover the stories of the last year in chronological order, things do have to become a little contrived. Locked doors and hidden keys are the solution here, which is about as gamey as can be, and certainly incongruous with the defiantly non-gamey setting. You also do have to wonder why personal letters are left in easily discovered places, and indeed why year-old correspondence is still at the top of piles. I wish it were more easily dismissible, but when a game is so focused on reality, unreality does stick out rather. You’ll not be able to avoid thinking, “But… but why would that be there? Why would that door be locked?”
But this certainly wasn’t serious enough to impede on a uniquely engrossing game. Beyond finding the items you need to progress further through the house, nothing is obligatory here. You could emerge at the other end having missed swathes of your family’s tale, not learned various mysteries of the building, or not have pieced together various elements, were you not to explore every nook and drawer. The game’s lack of panic about ensuring you see and hear everything is refreshing, and in turn it gratifies to be rewarded with nuggets because you meticulously ransacked. (But then put everything back in place, surely?)
I presume you could race through the game in an hour if you were ridiculous enough. It took me three or four, and I absolutely adored it. It’s touching, unsettling, deeply honest, and enormously compassionate. Which is a word you far too rarely get to use of games.
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15 Aug 21:11
Report: There Only 17 Total Square Miles On Earth Where Gays Not Discriminated Against
WASHINGTON—A new Pew Research Center report revealed Thursday that on the entirety of planet earth there exist only 17 square miles where gays are not systematically assaulted, slandered, or violently threatened for their sexual orientation.
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15 Aug 19:55
Those classic Star Wars comics really did fill the gaps between movies
by Charlie Jane Anders
People sometimes look down on Marvel Comics' line of Star Wars comics from the late 1970s and early 1980s, because of the random green rabbit character and other stuff. But LucasFilm's Jennifer Heddle has a great article on the official Star Wars blog, explaining why they were essential.
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15 Aug 19:55
Datacenter Gives Internet To 70 Percent of Navajo Nation
by timothy
Nerval's Lobster writes "The Navajo Nation cut the ribbon August 13 on an $8 million data center that has been under debate and development since 2000, when then-President Bill Clinton expressed shock that a 13-year-old Navajo girl who just won a new laptop couldn't connect to the Internet. At the time that girl won the laptop in a school contest, the Navajo Nation--a 27,425 square-mile region that covers portions of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico--had barely any IT infrastructure. The incident helped drive debate among leaders of the Navajo Nation, many of whom said they believed adding telecommunications and computing facilities were secondary to other concerns for the chronically poverty stricken region. The 50,000-square-foot facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico includes 25,000-sq.-ft. of datacenter and an equal space for computer training and business incubation, according to Nova Corp., an IT services company owned by Navajo Nation and formed in 2004 to execute an IT plan to create the "Digital Navajo Nation" (PDF). The drive to get it built also helped push development of a $46 million broadband project designed to cover about half of Navajo territory with 550 miles of fiber, 32 new cell towers and upgrades to another 27. It will eventually connect more than 30,000 households and 1,000 businesses." 
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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15 Aug 19:19
'Race-switch' robbers found guilty on all counts - NYPOST.com
by hodad
firehose'One shot showed Monsalvatge wearing a t-shirt from "The Town," the movie prosecutors said they copied during the stickup.'
the Boston criminal mind is severely overrated (even in Stupid Fucking New York)
Riyad Hasan
The " Mac the Guy" Mask model used by robbers,who robbed Queens check-cashing store.
The trio of black robbers who donned Hollywood-grade masks to appear Caucasian during the stickup of a Queens check cashing joint were found guilty on all counts in Brooklyn federal court today and each face life in prison.
Akeem Monsalvatge, Derrick Dunkley, and Edward Byam remained expressionless as the jury handed down their verdict while relatives broke into sobs in the court gallery.
Drawing their criminal inspiration from the Ben Affleck flick "The Town," the crew shelled out nearly $3,000 for three masks and dressed up as cops during the heist that netted them a $200,000 windfall.
The threesome immediately embarked on a coast to coast shopping spree from Manhattan to Beverly Hills as they gorged on luxury items including $1,600 Christian Louboutin shoes and $600 Louis Vuiton belts.
The robbers managed to fool staffers at the check cashing store that they were white - but a trail of criminal miscues eventually led to their arrest and yesterday's guilty verdict.
The men showed an employee at the bank a picture of her house to indicate a readiness to harm her family if she resisted.
Cops found the picture at the crime scene and traced it to a nearby Walgreen's where surveillance footage showed one of the men purchasing the image from the store's photo department.
The blunders didn't stop there. Byam made the questionable decision to e-mail an effusive thank you note to the mask company to praise the realism of their product.
Prosecutors also showed jurors pictures of the men drenched in luxury items in hotel lobbies and nightclubs across the country.
One shot showed Monsalvatge wearing a t-shirt from "The Town," the movie prosecutors said they copied during the stickup.
As in the film, the crew wore masks, doused the crime scene with bleach and intimidated staffers by announcing details of their personal lives.
Prosecutors also revealed text message exchanges between the childhood buddies after the crime where they praised their collective handiwork and signaled a readiness for another heist.
The three pals blew kisses to their crying families in the gallery and shouted "I love you" to several buddies before being escorted out of cour
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15 Aug 19:01
Music: Great Job, Internet!: Toro Y Moi covers "Slough" by Ricky Gervais as David Brent, awesomeness ensues
by Kayla Reed
Ricky Gervais recently reprised the beloved David Brent from The Office to teach the internet how to play guitar. In Learn Guitar With David Brent, Gervais (who actually began his career as a pretty sweet new wave musician) dons his old office garb and quietly plays in front of a black backdrop.
Chaz Bundick, aka Toro Y Moi, recently covered one of these tutorial songs. "Slough" is a tender homage to the beloved town in which The Office is set. Gervais' version is definitely worth a listen, as he is actually talented. Bundick, however, takes it to a whole other level, adding all his Toro Y Moi-ness and turning it into something pretty awesome.
Read more
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15 Aug 18:58
I hate Strong Female Characters
I hate Strong Female Characters:
The Strong Female Character has something to prove. She’s on the defensive before she even starts. She’s George from The Famous Five all grown up and still bleating with the same desperate lack of conviction that she’s “Every Bit As Good as a Boy”.
.
When I talk about this, people offer synonyms; better, less limiting ways of saying the same thing. What about “effective female characters”, for instance? But it is not enough to redefine the term. It won’t do to add maybe a touch more nuance but otherwise carry on more or less as normal. We need an entirely new approach to the problem, which means remembering that the problem is far more than just a tendency to show female characters as kind of drippy. We need get away from the idea that sexism in fiction can be tackled by reliance on depiction of a single personality type, that you just need to write one female character per story right and you’ve done enough.
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15 Aug 18:58
The Many, Many Jobs That Won't Earn You Enough to Live in Your City
by Emily Badger
firehosevia saucie
Fair-market rent for the average two-bedroom apartment in the San Francisco metropolitan area will run you about $1,795 a month (that's for the metro area, not the city proper; the latter number is even more absurd). That makes San Francisco the second most expensive rental metro in the country, behind Honolulu. And the number has two major implications: Increasingly, only certain occupations can afford to live in the region. Meanwhile, all kinds of workers any city needs – bank tellers, parking lot attendants, fire fighters – cannot.
So what happens when a city becomes unaffordable to the people who keep it running?
Full-time fast-food workers famously have a hard time getting by wherever they live. But the same is true in many metropolitan areas for decidedly less-maligned jobs like child-care worker, home health aid... and urban planner. Details from the depressing intersection of high housing costs and low wage growth come from an updated database by the Center for Housing Policy that runs the numbers on 76 occupations in 207 metro areas.
A full-time income for a housekeeper or a waitress with intermediate-level experience won't cover fair-market rent for a two-bedroom in any one of these metro areas (should said housekeeper or waitress be, say, a single mom). Drill in to a metro like San Francisco, and all kinds of occupations won't even cover a one-bedroom (based on the standard that you shouldn't devote more than a third of your income to housing):
This ultimately means that people needed to work in downtown restaurants and hospitals, or well-to-do neighborhoods, often must live at the far reaches of a metro area. Or it means they're spending way more on their housing than a family budget can really afford.
"It’s all part of this tradeoff that lower-income, even moderate-income workers are having to make," says Maya Brennan, a senior research associate with the Center for Housing Policy. "What am I going to sacrifice here? Am I going to sacrifice space and try to squeeze people into a smaller home, or sacrifice the length of my commute, or is it going to be money for food, retirement savings, money for my kids? What’s going to give in order for this housing and wage mismatch to realign?"
You can pull numbers on every one of these jobs and cities, for both rental properties and owning a home, through the Paycheck to Paycheck database. Homeownership is understandably even farther out of reach in most of these places (although renting is now cheaper in a few locations where people can at least afford to make a down payment). But for a more realistic picture, we also pulled some discouraging occupations from two other metro areas among the nation's most expensive, Washington and Boston.
Here we found at least one livable job: auto mechanic.
Top image: sculpies/Shutterstock.com
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15 Aug 18:54
Q&A: Homeless in Boston
by OnlyMrGodKnowsWhy
Reddit "Ask Me Anything" with a local homeless advocate:
If you want to divert your dollars, look for the LEAF project in Harvard Square. There are mobile kiosks that you can use to swipe a card, and any money donated goes to local providers in the Square.
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15 Aug 18:38
Useless Plastic Box Covertly Left On Best Buy’s Shelves by Street Artist
by EDW Lynch
Recently Los Angeles-based street artist Plastic Jesus covertly installed a fake product on the shelves of five LA area Best Buy stores: a small plastic box, complete with an official-looking product tag that reads “Useless Plastic Box 1.2.”
Another gadget you don’t really need. Will not work once you get it home. New model out in 4 weeks. Battery life too short to be of use.
photo 1 by Nick Stern, image 2 via Plastic Jesus
via Daily Mail
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15 Aug 18:30
Typhoid Mary Case May Be Cracked, A Century Later
firehose'Mice infected with the salmonella strain typhimurium, known to cause symptoms of typhoid fever in rodents, showed increased activity of a protein known as peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors, or PPAR-gamma, the study found.
The protein “controls the metabolic pathways in the macrophage and it allows the macrophage to bring in fatty acids to utilize them as a carbon source, for energy," Monack said.
Mice whose genes were altered to be deficient in production of the transcriptional protein were a lot like Typhoid Mary -- infected, but not sick. Six weeks later, levels of the tell-tale protein were nearly undetectable.'
When Typhoid Mary died in 1938, in medical exile on a tiny New York island, she took untold numbers of Salmonella typhi to her grave. No one knew how the bacteria managed to thrive and not kill her.
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15 Aug 18:25
To the Half-Wits Skateboarding Down 26 Last Night
by Anonymous
I don't care if you and your brand-name helmet cam wind up an unrecognizable jumble of debris at the side of Sunset Highway below Washington Park. That's your business. But should some shard of truck tire on the shoulder pitch you beneath the wheels of a family trying to get home from the Hops game, that's on them. Forever.
Needless to say, no one gives two fucks about your longboarding skills or the inevitable Web video documenting them. None of the people hitting their brakes and nervously watching you instead of the road saw a couple of bad asses living life to the fullest. All we saw were two narcissistic jerks.
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15 Aug 18:25
The Greatest Story You Will Read All Day.
by Alison Hallett
firehosemeanwhile, off the Oregon coast
A fishing boat exploding off the coast of Oregon—but two kitties (and their owners) managed to survive the blast:
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — When the engine of their tuna boat exploded last week, owners Mark and Cynthia Schneider had no choice but to jump into the ocean and leave behind their two cats on the doomed vessel.
After being rescued by a nearby boat, they were stunned when they looked out at their sinking boat and saw one of the cats — a tabby named Jasper — on the bow. The other cat, a calico named Topaz, was in the ocean and eventually swam through the debris to safety on the rescue boat.
Jasper remained stranded at sea on the bow. As the boat sank deeper into the ocean, he was forced to jump in and swim toward his owners about 100 yards away. The cat made it to safety unharmed.
The story notes that the couple lost $40,000 worth of tuna when the boat sank, fish that was "destined for New Seasons Market." So, sorry if there's a tuna shortage at New Seasons—BUT AT LEAST JASPER AND TOPAZ ARE OKAY!
firehose and -1 others like this
15 Aug 18:19
Should We All Stop Taking Birth Control?
Are hormonal contraceptives actually a tool of a capitalist patriarchy intent on altering and suppressing femininity?
15 Aug 18:11
Best Brunches - Thrillist Nation
by hodad
1. Nowhere
2. Nowhere
3. Nowhere
4. IHOP when they have the free pancakes
5. Nowhere
6. That one place with the totally DECADENT boysenberry pancakes and artisanal smoked bourbon maple butter syrup
7. Nowhere
8. Nowhere
9. Maybe some place that lets you take a nap afterwards or something?
10. Nowhere
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15 Aug 18:07
San Diego's Hooters, Other Businesses Tell Mayor To Stay Away - Northwest Public Radio
firehosewhat a headline
this is an amazing world and time we live in
San Diego's Hooters, Other Businesses Tell Mayor To Stay Away Northwest Public Radio At the entrance to this Hooters restaurant in San Diego, the sign is up telling Mayor Bob Filner that he's not welcome. San Diego Mayor Bob Filner, who is refusing calls to resign following the dozen or so accounts of women who say he sexually harassed them ... and more » |
15 Aug 18:06
Gizmodo I Never Want to Stop Watching This Incredible Vine Compilation Video | Valleywag Revealed: S
by Raphael Orlove on Raphael Orlove, shared by Annalee Newitz to io9
firehosere: Valleywag
"We've found a copy of an unpaid job listing Lean In Foundation's editor-at-large tried to delete. If Facebook's celeb COO Sheryl Sandberg just made $91 million last week (and God only knows how much from her book), why can't she pay her interns a cent?"
Gizmodo I Never Want to Stop Watching This Incredible Vine Compilation Video | Valleywag Revealed: Sheryl Sandberg's Unpaid Intern Disgrace | Kotaku Microsoft's Slow Response To Xbox Harassment Leaves One Woman Stunned | Deadspin Michigan State Coaches And Players Fall For Mannequin Prank | Gawker Impressionist Sings 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' As 19 Different Divas
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15 Aug 17:53
Grease fires shut Red Line
by OnlyMrGodKnowsWhy
OnlyMrGodKnowsWhyYo momma so fat when she take the Red Line they have to shut it down in both directions due to grease fires
Grease on tracks just outbound from South Station ignited in four separate spots shortly before 8 p.m.
The T shut Red Line service in both directions. Firefighters at first responded to Broadway due to heavy smoke. After evacuating the station, however, they discovered the smoke had been blown into that station through the tunnel from South Station.
Why there might be grease on the tracks.
8/14/13 - 7:50 pm
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15 Aug 17:50
White House Increases Security After Man Shows Up At Oval Office Looking For Obama
firehosethe Onion
"Additionally—and this is of the utmost importance—we must make an effort to keep all doors and gates to the White House locked at all times. No exceptions.” Sources later told reporters that Glazer wanted to talk to Obama about getting E-ZPass booths installed along Nebraska toll roads.
WASHINGTON—The U.S. Secret Service announced Wednesday that the White House has upgraded its security procedures following a recent incident in which Donald Glazer, a 51-year-old man who had no prior appointment scheduled, showed up unannounced at t...
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15 Aug 17:48
Station To Station: Astrobase Command
by Adam Smith
firehosesounds/looks like the base-building part of XCOM + FTL
By Adam Smith on August 15th, 2013 at 6:00 pm.
Craig sent me a link to Astrobase Commander earlier today, wisely recognising it as the sort of thing that would cheer me on a dank and earthbound Thursday (I spend Wednesdays on the moon). Unfortunately, the link appeared in a tiny chat window, running over two lines, and momentarily creating the thrilling promise of a game called Astrobastard Commander. I want to play that game. Thankfully, Astrobase Commander looks great as well and should present plenty of chances to behave like a terrible space-bastard. It’s “a sci-fi sandbox space station-building game with roguelike elements and AI-generated stories”. I’m thinking Redshirt, Space Station 13 and more conventional base-building all mixed into a potent brew, or perhaps compacted into a nutritious pill.
Coming from a team of three based in Montreal, Astrobase sounds intensely ambitious but it also appears to have a focused design. Players create a race, deciding the body type and traits, as well as tweaking stats, including ‘social’ and ‘variance’. Then it’s onto station-building, with basic modules available from the start and more advanced tech unlocking over time. Then the characters arrive and the stories begin.
We’re taking a page from tabletop RPGs on how stories diverge based on character skills. Will diplomatic missions result in making friends or enemies? Will adventures on unexplored alien planets yield artifacts or casualties? Will choosing an inexperienced but very intelligent recruit for a power plant job give you more power or a fiery-meltdown-of-epic-proportions? Anticipating and matching the needs of a job or mission team to the skills of your crew is critical to your success.
The website contains plenty of details, including some possible scenarios. Many of them are drawn from existing future-fiction:
OH MY GOD SOMEONE BROUGHT BACK AN ALIEN EGG THAT SURVIVED DECONTAMINATION AND IT HATCHED IN THE CREW QUARTERS. NOW THERE ARE ALIENS RUNNING AROUND THE STATION AND ONE JUST CHEWED THROUGH MAIN ENGINEERING AND THERE ARE FIRES AND PLASMA LEAKING EVERYWHERE AHH WHERE ARE THE SECURITY TEAMS!
Lesson Learned: It’s a dangerous universe out there. Be prepared and Don’t Panic!
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15 Aug 17:48
Google blocks Microsoft's new YouTube Windows Phone app
by Tom Warren
firehoseROFFFFFLLLLLLLLL
Microsoft's recently released YouTube application for Windows Phone is being blocked by Google. In a statement issued to The Verge, Google confirms that the application has been blocked for violating the terms of use. Despite the two companies collaborating on an app based on HTML5, Microsoft's app is still breaking YouTube's terms of use. "Microsoft has not made the browser upgrades necessary to enable a fully-featured YouTube experience, and has instead re-released a YouTube app that violates our Terms of Service," says a spokesperson. "It has been disabled. We value our broad developer community and therefore ask everyone to adhere to the same guidelines."
Developing...
- Related Items windows phone windows phone 8 google youtube api app application
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15 Aug 17:47
Cat Uses Human’s Hands To Open a Box
by Kimber Streams
Migou the cat uses his owner’s hands like a puppet to open a box in this 2011 video.
firehose and -1 others like this
15 Aug 17:41
Snubbed by Google Fiber, mad at Comcast, Baltimore seeks its own fiber
by Jon Brodkin
firehoseThe Wire Season 6: McNulty, now a fiber installer for the City's utility arm, FiBal, stumbles across a network of meth dealers running a darknet transactions server and paying with Bitcoin. After buying some, he tips off his old partner Bunk, bumped down to vice after a sexual harassment charge.
They try to escalate it to the Feds to find out that they already know about it and know McNulty bought meth from it. They recruit McNulty as a CI to infiltrate the network.
Meanwhile, Marlo's corners are seeing less and less business thanks to the darknet, Silk Road, and other online competition. He rings Avon, now a motivational speaker/professional money launderer, who connects him to the Greek, who's now a liason for both Russian and Chinese organized cybercrime, to see if Marlo's street contacts and underground logistics are a good fit with FiBal. Which, of course, leads to bodies as Marlo's deal inevitably goes south.
McNulty's infiltration kicks over Marlo's involvement, and it's time to get the gang back together.
The Sun, now a three-issue-a-week Advance Media "publication", doesn't cover anything. We see the writers and editors from Season 5 drinking themsleves into a stupor while writing BuzzFeed posts at the end of every episode.
Google Fiber is coming to a few select cities, but not nearly enough to satisfy the demand.
So Baltimore, which "spent a year trying to convince Google to build a high-speed fiber network" only to lose out to Kansas City, is launching a search for a different broadband fix, reports the Baltimore Business Journal.
"The Board of Estimates on Wednesday voted to hire Magellan Advisors, a broadband Internet and community development firm, on a $157,000 contract that will provide the city with a range of options to pursue expanding its broadband fiber optic infrastructure," the Journal reported. "As part of that plan, Magellan is being directed to identify costs and risks associated with expanding city broadband infrastructure and 'identify key anchor tenants' that would lease portions of an expanded city-owned fiber optic network."
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15 Aug 17:09
Oregon legalizes marijuana dispensaries (AP)
by gguillotte
Oregon is legalizing medical marijuana dispensaries.
Gov. John Kitzhaber signed a bill on Wednesday giving the state authority to license, inspect and audit stores selling marijuana.
Medical marijuana patients currently are required to grow the drug themselves or designate someone to grow it for them.
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15 Aug 16:58
The surprising ages of the Founding Fathers on July 4, 1776
by Jason Kottke
firehose"Hamilton, Lafayette, and Burr were perhaps the Gates, Jobs, and Zuckerberg of the War"
suck a nail gun while pulling the trigger
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from  kottke.org.
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For the Journal of the American Revolution, Todd Andrlik compiled a list of the ages of the key participants in the Revolutionary War as of July 4, 1776. Many of them were surprisingly young:
Marquis de Lafayette, 18
James Monroe, 18
Gilbert Stuart, 20
Aaron Burr, 20
Alexander Hamilton, 21
Betsy Ross, 24
James Madison, 25
This is kind of blowing my mind...because of the compression of history, I'd always assumed all these people were around the same age. But in thinking about it, all startups need young people...Hamilton, Lafayette, and Burr were perhaps the Gates, Jobs, and Zuckerberg of the War. Some more ages, just for reference:
Thomas Jefferson, 33
John Adams, 40
Paul Revere, 41
George Washington, 44
Samuel Adams, 53
The oldest prominent participant in the Revolution, by a wide margin, was Benjamin Franklin, who was 70 years old on July 4, 1776. Franklin was a full two generations removed from the likes of Madison and Hamilton. But the oldest participant in the war was Samuel Whittemore, who fought in an early skirmish at the age of 80. I'll let Wikipedia take it from here:
Whittemore was in his fields when he spotted an approaching British relief brigade under Earl Percy, sent to assist the retreat. Whittemore loaded his musket and ambushed the British from behind a nearby stone wall, killing one soldier. He then drew his dueling pistols and killed a grenadier and mortally wounded a second. By the time Whittemore had fired his third shot, a British detachment reached his position; Whittemore drew his sword and attacked. He was shot in the face, bayoneted thirteen times, and left for dead in a pool of blood. He was found alive, trying to load his musket to fight again. He was taken to Dr. Cotton Tufts of Medford, who perceived no hope for his survival. However, Whittemore lived another 18 years until dying of natural causes at the age of 98.
!!!
Tags: history lists Revolutionary War Samuel Whittemore Todd Andrlik USA war