firehose

If you are a young fresh-faced, Bible believing Christian who is totally 100% sure that the earth is only 6,000 years old, that human beings had pet Pterodactyls, lived to be 900 years old and that evolution is a lie from the pit of hell, then I have some good news for you!

When was the last time you had some friends over, one of you got abducted by an elephant, one captained a war fleet and another had eight babies*? It was NEVER, wasn't it? Admit it!

Tales of the Arabian Nights can fix that. You might not know it, but there's a gaping hole in your board game collection. A hole that begs to be filled. And you must fill it. You must fill it with this. The finest storytelling board game in existence.

Have a great weekend, everybody! Ideally, make sure it's great by playing this.

*And was then abducted by an elephant.

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General Motors finds itself at the center of controversy in India.  On Wednesday, the company announced the voluntary recall of 114,000 units of its Tavera model to address issues related to emissions and specifications. Now it appears there was more to the recall than meets the eye.

The Economic Times is reporting that the company admitted that its employees violated testing norms by fitting the multi-utility vehicles sent for emission tests with engines that had already passed inspection. Also, the weight of several of the models was increased to escape the stricter emission standards that lighter vehicles have to comply with.

Now the Detroit-based automaker is moving swiftly to reduce the fallout from the revelations. Sam Winegarden, GM’s vice president for global engine engineering who has been overseeing the development and production of engines across the company’s portfolio since 2004, has been ousted, according to Automotive News. The CFO of the Indian unit, Anil Mehrotra, also has been fired—and still more than 20 other officials may be let go.  GM has confirmed that it dismissed several employees for violating company policy, but hasn’t revealed their names.

The Indian government has set up a committee to investigate the matter.

Amazon surprised investors yesterday with an earnings per share loss of $0.02. Its shares fell on the news in after hours trading. But since then, its stock has gone up and actually hit a record high today. In the eyes of its shareholders, it seems Amazon can do no wrong.

Investors have decided to focus on how great Amazon is doing in the US and ignore its weaknesses overseas. Amazon’s overall sales rose by 22% while its North American sales increased by about 30%. It also improved gross profit margins by 28.6%, slightly better than what analysts expected.   

Still, Amazon was expected to report a profit, not a loss. Amazon’s negative earnings per share occurred because it’s been spending a lot more, mainly to expand and shore up its US business.

Amazon shares hit a record high of $313.62 before falling. Now, it’s trading around $311.55 a share. We’ll see if investors are as generous the next time Amazon reports earnings.

Got to admire a castle with teal weaponry.

Those tasked with selling NBC’s Community to a new audience have often relied on subjective and intangible elements: The layers to its comedy. Its simultaneous embracing and deconstruction of sitcom tropes. Its “heart,” whatever that means. But Sony has hit upon a far more effective selling point in the trailer for Community’s syndicated run: The girls are hot and have boobs. Sometimes, they even talk about their boobs.

As one Community fan on Reddit points out, the preview—which is, unfortunately for everyone who likes hot girls with boobs, not embeddable—begins with a fairly astute introduction to the myriad “slackers” and “jocks” that comprise the show's dynamic. Said jocks, Troy and definitely Abed, engage in jock things, like kung fu and staring at tits. Said slacker, Jeff Winger, sleeps in class, fights for family, and lives for love, and so on.

Then, after a sensed phantom ...

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Flavor Flav’s fried chicken chain is no more. Shocking absolutely no one with a working knowledge of who Flavor Flav is, the very last Flav’s Chicken & Ribs location has been evicted from its building in Sterling Heights, Michigan after an extended battle with the site’s owner. Back in June, the owner tried to evict Flav and company, claiming the Chicken & Ribs partners hadn’t paid rent in months. The restaurant tried to stay open via a motion to stay and an agreement to kick over back rent, but that never really happened. Thus, the closure. U-Hauls showed up on Wednesday to haul away all the restaurant's equipment, while cops watched to make sure nothing shady went down.

The Michigan location was the last of three Flav’s Fried Chicken restaurants to close. Other outposts in Las Vegas and Iowa have already come and gone. 

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Arduino and LEGO Projects is a new book by developer Jon Lazar that gives detailed instructions on how to build, wire, and code projects like a TARDIS from Doctor Who that lights up and plays sound, a Karotz-inspired LEGO animal that reacts to Twitter, and an RFID-activated crystal ball that reacts when a hand is waved in front of it. Arduino and LEGO Projects is currently available to purchase from Amazon.

image via Jon Lazar

djempirical

amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khpov8rLa3k

Original Source

Sir Christopher Wren’s Plan for London after the Great Fire of 1666.

Link

djempirical

#hoax? too juicy to be real.

At a recent show in Paris the pop star, David Guetta, was forced to flee the stage in embarrassment when at the start of his show he hit the play button on the wrong track.

Instead of hearing Guetta’s usual pop-house hits, fans were inadvertently treated to a personal self help CD that had been prescribed to Guetta for treatment of crippling chorophobia – the irrational fear of dancing.

Guetta took to Twitter to release the following statement: “To all my fans, I’m sorry that you had to find out that I have been pre-recording sets and not playing live.”

“Please understand that this is not due to lack of talent or laziness but because of this crippling phobia, for which I am seeking professional help, as was heard when I accidentally hit play on my coping CD.”

The EDM star claimed that the condition developed in childhood following a dancing accident at a school talent show which left the performer “acutely embarrassed” and a “confirmed bed wetter.”

The pop star went on to further say that ordinarily he doesn’t “even look at the crowd. I’ll just twiddle some knobs on the mixing desk thingy. When I do have to look up to the crowd I’ll close my eyes as if enjoying myself, or I’ll let my golden locks dangle in front of my eyes so I don’t see people dancing.”

“Ironically with no-one dancing it probably would have been one of my shows that I would have actually enjoyed.”

Original Source

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After today's hearing, a Massachusetts state trooper assigned to the Hernandez case approached Singleton in court, handed her a search warrant, and seized her cell phone. As she reviewed the warrant in the court hallway, Singleton told ABC News "I am not talking about it." Hernandez's longtime girlfriend Shayana Jenkins added, "Get away from us. We're not talking."

There's already a mod collective porting tabletop Shadowrun modules to Shadowrun Returns.

Over 16 games, Ramirez has hit .250 with an on-base percentage barely over .300 and three home runs in 60 at-bats. More important than the numbers are the quality of the plate appearances, and talent evaluators who have seen Ramirez are not filing reports that indicate he's anywhere close to resembling what he was before two performance-enhancing-drug-related suspensions helped jettison him from the game: one of the best right-handed hitters in major league history. "This isn't Manny Ramirez," said one scout who recently saw Ramirez. "This is a 41-year-old still trying to play baseball and not doing it very well."

saathi1013:

cyprith:

Because Spellbound and Spindles just funded. The diversity focused fairy-tale anthologies are a go!

FAIRY TALES WITH COLORS, WITH DIFFERENT SHAPES AND SIZES AND VOICES AND PEOPLE.

But! They still have 22 hours left in the fund. And if they get up to 15k (only $2,190 away as of this post), they’ll be able to pay their authors professional rates.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT KIND OF A BIG FUCKING DEAL THAT IS, TUMBLR?

Professional pay-rates in an anthology not only featuring but exclusively centered around minority, LGBT, and disabled characters? 

HUGE.

For Eggplant to be able to pay her authors professional rates in this anthology means that not only is this anthology so very socially necessary, but that it can play in the same pay-league as the Generic Rich White Men Writing About Rich White Men Society.

So please reblog. Share. Scream from the rooftops for the next 22 hours. Because this isn’t just a book telling stories about equality. If Eggplant makes enough here to pay the authors pro-rates, then the fantasy industry as a whole just became a more even playing field.

Go Tumblr. You got this.

Fair point.  The Kickstarter is funded, which is an amazing achievement, but we can still do more.  Let’s prove that this isn’t a ‘niche’ market, but something EVERYONE benefits from.

Speaking of benefits - scroll down the Kickstarter page and see the rewards that give you copies of ebooks already available in Eggplant’s store? part of the money for those levels goes to those authors, too.

Like Cyprith, who’s not only a gr9 fanauthor (bless!), but who also wrote a really keen urban fantasy novella; or Lori Ann White, who wrote a novella about a fat woman with psychic powers.  Or how about books that contain f/f relationships? They have two (1) (2).

So you’re not just supporting a single project that is inclusive and diverse, you’re supporting a company that explicitly states in its guidelines:

We are especially interested in stories with non-Western European settings, minority and disabled characters…

Like, is this not a thing to love?

Imagine the rape joke looking in the mirror, perfectly reflecting back itself, and grooming itself to look more like a rape joke. “Ahhhh,” it thinks. “Yes. A goatee."

A potent mixture of fart spray and deer repellent intended to be a prank turned serious Wednesday when more than a dozen campers from the Christian run Camp Wo-Me-To in Jarrettsville, Md., had to be decontaminated while six were hospitalized due to physical reactions.

Emojitracker is a realtime visualization of all emoji symbols used on twitter. Careful, the rapidly updating visuals might make your head hurt.

On-Off (Katowice, Poland)

On-Off (Katowice, Poland)

Wikileaks (Valencia, Spain)

Ne travaillez jamais (Besancon, France)

Gentrification (Valencia, Spain)

HELP (Praghe / Czech Republic)

El rescate del euro (Niort, France)

The Enlightened Vandalism (Vila-real, Spain)

Lock (Montreal, Canada)

Spanish muralist and street artist Escif hails from Valencia, Spain but is actively globally with recent works popping up throughout Canada, Italy, and France. His use of subdued colors and simple lines helps the artist communicate his humorous and often direct commentary on capitalism, politics, the economy and other sensitive social issues. His work is much more about the message than style. In an interview with Unurth the artist shares:

Although sometimes is not easy to separate, I try to focus my work around concepts, not just shapes. I try to found my style like the consequences of my own ideas. I understand the painting as an exercise of reflection that can be shared with people. I’m not looking for decorative paintings, I try to wake up viewers minds.

Above is just a tiny fraction of Escif’s work over the last two years or so. You can see much more on his blog Street Against, on Facebook, or over on Flickr. (via arrested motion)

gnujoshua writes "The FSF has launched a fundraiser for Replicant, the fully free Android distro. As of version 4.0 0004, Replicant runs on 10 different devices, but, the hopes are that with additional funds, the developers will be able to purchase more devices and grow the project so it will run on more devices. Yesterday, the FSF asked Mark Shuttleworth if the Ubuntu EDGE would commit to using only free software and be able to support Replicant. But, in an AMA on Reddit, Shuttleworth confirmed that Replicant would not be supported because the EDGE hardware will require proprietary drivers/binary-blobs." Replicant now supports ten devices, compared to only the HTC Dream not all that long ago.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

DavidGilbert99 writes "Microsoft's priorities are Windows, Office, Xbox, and Surface. Windows Phone is no where near the top and that is the main reason why it has failed to make the impact many hoped for in the three years it has been around. While Microsoft can take the hit and play the long-game, the same cannot be said for Nokia, the other main player in the eco-system. While it has done all it can to evolve the platform, it needs Microsoft to step up and begin innovating. Bryan Biniak, Nokia VP, agrees: 'We are trying to evolve the cultural thinking [at Microsoft] to say 'time is of the essence.' Waiting until the end of your fiscal year when you need to close your targets, doesn't do us any good when I have phones to sell today.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

lolzpicx:

A guy pushing a Great White Shark back into water. 

Everyone who has ever set foot on an accelerator thinks they know where the worst drivers live, but they can’t all be right. I set out to determine which city’s drivers most deserve our steering-wheel slamming, bird-flipping frustration.

U.S. Prison Populations Decline, Reflecting New Approach to Crime:

Tightened state budgets, plummeting crime rates, changes in sentencing laws and shifts in public opinion have helped contribute to the biggest decline in the nation’s history.

notscientific writes "Each wolf has a unique howl, which scientists can now decipher through voice recognition (audio), allowing them to identify wolves individually. The scientists developed sound analysis code that can tell which wolf is howling with 100% accuracy. Previously, pitch was used to tell wolves apart, but these only achieved a relatively low accuracy rate. This sound analysis is important because it could well give researchers the first proper way to effectively monitor wolves in the wild. Interestingly, this research comes after the recent finding that dolphins have names for one another. In the case of wolves, their howls are essentially their names."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Daniel_Stuckey writes "When you walk around a city, there are things you can just sense, like if you've wandered into a dodgy neighborhood, or where the new happening spot is. Intuitively, we know that a city's more intangible characteristics, like class or uniqueness, play a big role in what it’s like to live there, but until now there was no way to actually quantify that idea. Researchers from MIT Media Lab may have found a way to measure this 'aesthetic capital' of cities, with their website Place Pulse, a tool to crowdsource people's perception of cities by judging digital snapshots—a sort of 'hot or not' for urban neighborhoods. Some 4,000 geotagged Google Streetview images and 8,000 participants later, the team found that by using digital images and crowdsourced feedback, they can accurately quantify the diverse vibes within a city (pdf), which in turn can help us better understand issues like inequality and safety."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "Wikipedia today announced it has launched support for editing content on your mobile device. The first version of mobile editing, which requires a Wikimedia account, is available right now. 'For our first release, our primary goal was to create a fast, intuitive editing experience for new users and experienced editors alike, while still sticking with markup editing for now,' Wikimedia's Juliusz Gonera explained. 'We started simple so we could observe our users' needs and expectations.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

jfruh writes "July 26 is Sysadmin Day, the system administrator's version of Secretary's Day. Are you giving your hardworking sysadmin the recognition they deserve? Blogger (and, yes, sysadmin) Sandra Henry-Stocker argues that a holiday like this is needed because due to the nature of their job, in everyday life sysadmins 'get noticed least when they do the best work' So if your systems run so smoothly that you sometimes forget you even have a sysadmin on staff, be sure to recognize them for their excellent work today."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "Apple's had a small, very secretive office in Cambridge, MA for a few months now. And we finally know what they're doing: Building a team that works on speech technology for Siri. Sure, it's interesting for Apple to have a remote engineering team. And hiring from MIT is a no-brainer. But here's why this is a bigger deal: Apple has always relied on Nuance, a Boston-area company, for the speech-recognition technology behind Siri. By branching out with its own speech team — stocked with former Nuance scientists, no less — Apple could very well be signaling a move away from relying on Nuance for this core technology. And the speech wars are just heating up: Microsoft and Amazon both have speech engineering offices in the Boston area too."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.