firehose

Holy hell, I miss The Merlin Show. 2007 was a good year for the Internets.¹Here's Merlin talking to Chris Wetherell, the original creator of Google Reader (as I recall).

Jay-Z calls out baseball agent Scott Boras in a song from his upcoming album, "Magna Carta Holy Grail." Hov, as we hip-hop fans know him, is basically just rubbing it in Boras' face that New York Yankees star Robinson Cano left Boras to sign with Jay's new sports agency, Roc Nation. The song is titled "Crown" and here are the lyrics in question, via HipHopDX: "Scott Boras, you over baby / Robinson Cano, you coming with me"

The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood was arrested by Egyptian security forces on Thursday in a crackdown against the Islamist movement after the army ousted the country's first democratically elected president. The dramatic exit of President Mohamed Mursi was greeted with delight by millions of people on the streets of Cairo and other cities overnight, but there was simmering resentment among Egyptians who opposed military intervention. Perhaps aware of the risk of a polarized society, the new interim leader, judge Adli Mansour, used his inauguration to hold out an olive branch to the Brotherhood, Mursi's power base. "The Muslim Brotherhood are part of this people and are invited to participate in building the nation as nobody will be excluded, and if they respond to the invitation, they will be welcomed," he said. But a senior Brotherhood official said it would not work with "the usurper authorities". Another of its politicians said Mursi's overthrow would push other groups, though not his own, to violent resistance.

What’s more all-American than an American company designing a smartphone for the US market, to be manufactured in a half-million square foot factory in Texas? Nothing, says Google’s new ad campaign for Motorola’s Moto X “superphone,” which will be released in October.

Don’t let the image of two people jumping off a dock in Google’s new ad confuse you: You can be sure that in the creative meetings, mock-ups accompanying the text of the ad—which has lines like “Imagine what will be possible when you have the world’s best design, engineering and manufacturing talent located here in the USA”—probably included bald eagles, American flags and at least one joke promo video set to Mighty Wings from Top Gun.

A customizable phone made in the only facility of its kind in the US

Google says that, beyond what has already been hinted at in terms of the advanced self-surveillance capabilities, long battery life, wireless charging and unbreakable case of the Moto X, its phone will be unique in a number of ways. The first is customizability: People will be able to order their phone direct from the US factory in designs and colors they customize themselves, and the phone will ship with a background image they upload in advance.

The second thing about the Moto X that will be unique is that it will be assembled in the US at a 500,000 square-foot factory formerly occupied by Nokia, just outside Fort Worth, Texas. The facility will employ 2,000 people once it’s running at full capacity, says Google, which also claims that this factory is the only one of its kind in the US. It’s owned by Singapore-based Flextronics, and the parts that go into the Moto X will come from “traditional” supply chains, with microprocessors made in Taiwan and LED screens from South Korea. Presently, no smartphones are assembled in the US, although the primary microprocessors in Apple’s iPhone and iPad are produced in Austin, Texas by Samsung.

America was the first country to join the European Union. Great Britain was the second.

A group of Goffin's cockatoos just impressed the hell out of researchers from Oxford after they picked their way through a series of five complex locks to reach a reward.

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Global transparency watchdogs are disputing the rationale for a US federal judge’s ruling that exempts American oil and mining companies from publicly divulging their payments to foreign states and their rulers.

The reproach—from Oxfam and Global Witness, the UK-based transparency watchdog—stems from a July 2 ruling by US District Judge John Bates. In his decision, Bates sided with oil and business lobbyists who asserted that if American companies were compelled to publicly reveal such payments, they would be at a competitive disadvantage to state-owned extractive companies that can keep them secret.

The American Petroleum Institute, representing oil companies, specifically said such public disclosure is barred in Angola, Cameroon, China and Qatar. It suggested that payments be revealed to regulators, but privately and not for public consumption.

But in a statement today, Global Witness asserted that the four countries in fact permit public disclosure—if regulators in a company’s home country require it (here is more detai.l) In an email exchange, Dominic Eagleton, a staff campaigner for Global Witness, said:

“Angola has had (for at least 2½ decades) a standard Production Sharing Agreement contract that includes a provision which allows for disclosure should an issuer’s regulatory agency (read for that SEC) require it.

Cameroon is an EITI (Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative) implementing country–the EITI requires the disclosure of the same revenue payment data as [Dodd Frank act section] 1504.

No law that bans disclosure has been discovered in Qatar (given the company that made this claim is responsible for the production of at least 50% of Qatar’s gas output, it’s hard to believe they’d be shut down even if such a law existed).

In China, the only evidence that was provided to the SEC was a comment from a law firm (not even a credible ‘legal opinion’), which stated in essence that things can be confidential if the government determines them to be—as is the case in producer countries across the world—but they did not cite any particular law.”

In response, the API’s Carlton Carroll sent me the following by email:

“I would reiterate that these countries bar disclosure and any exceptions to that are ambiguous at best. The overarching problem is that the rule makes US companies less competitive when competing for energy projects around the world. In addition, the rule puts existing progress to increase transparency at risk. US companies are making substantial progress working for over a decade to enhance transparency in a way that doesn’t harm their competitiveness.”

We are in he said-she said territory.

But Bates’ decision countervails a global trend affecting the resource business.

Natural resource deals in the frontiers of the world typically share a trait—the metals or hydrocarbons involved are usually controlled by powerful politicians or bureaucrats, and you tend to see lubrication by bribery and other sweetheart payments. But for the last decade, momentum has been building behind the disclosure of such payments—in June, the European Union approved a law requiring transparency, and big mining deals are under legal scrutiny around the world.

Among the probes, a US grand jury is investigating a sweetheart mining deal in Guinea involving an alleged $12 million bribe and the Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz. In the UK, the Serious Fraud Office is investigating African mining deals including in Congo (paywall) by Kazakhstan-based Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation.

Bates’ decision still leaves US-based drillers and miners potentially exposed to transparency rules. Those that have European operations are subject to the EU law. In addition, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) can rewrite the disclosure rule to align with Bates’ quibbles. In a statement, Oxfam said resurrection of the SEC rule will “help prevent corrupt government officials from squandering oil and minerals wealth in resource-rich countries.”

Simplify README now that reader_archive and feed_archive are no longer useful.

“From some people’s perspective, it might seem like a kind of restriction. However, we hope people can appreciate the fact that we’re selling our products worldwide. … There are many different regions around the world, and each region has its own cultural acceptance and legal restrictions, as well as different age ratings. There are always things that we’re required to do in each different region, which may go counter to the idea that players around the world want the freedom to play whatever they want.”

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Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata explains his company’s region-locking stance, asking the policy’s opponents to please understand.

It’s worth noting that Sony and Microsoft both face the same challenges, yet their respective next-gen consoles are region-free (IGN conducted this interview before Microsoft’s region-free announcement). PS Vita is also region-free.

BUY Nintendo 3DS and 3DS XL consoles, upcoming games

Yes, that Michael Jackson. In the '80s. And yes, it's America's fault, obviously.

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Rob Bishop, our developer-evangelist, spent some of last summer visiting US hackspaces, giving Raspberry Pi talks and demonstrations. Because there was only a short time we could spare him for, there were large parts of the country that he wasn’t able to visit – and you let us know you weren’t happy about that.

So this summer, Rob is going to be visiting the parts of the USA that you shouted most loudly from: namely the Midwest and the Pacific Northwest. He’s put together a preliminary map, showing a proposed route (not yet set in stone) and the locations of hackspaces across the country. Click this image to visit the interactive map. The green line is Rob’s route, and green pins are proposed stops: blue blobs are hackspaces.

Rob will be in-country from around 5th-25th August; we’ll confirm dates later when we’ve drilled the route down a bit more. If you live somewhere on or close to this proposed route, and you’d like a visit at your hackspace or makespace, please leave a comment and we’ll see what we can do.

Rob will not be able to visit grade schools, but he may decide to fit in some university visits. Once he’s got feedback from you in the comments, he’ll confirm dates with the individual venues.

Like last year’s Raspberry Roadtrip, these events will consist of a talk, Q&A, live demos and (hopefully) some kind of competition for best Raspberry Pi hack.

And if you’re somewhere we haven’t covered yet, don’t despair: Eben and I are also planning a smaller hackspace tour, after last year’s romp through NYC, DC, the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. It’ll take in some more of the southern states and send us up through Texas in September, after Linuxcon in New Orleans (where Eben is keynoting). We’ll have more details nearer the time.

I've been holding out on you. I know, I'm sorry. I don't even know why, because these lemon bars ... oh man, they are meant to be shared. In fact, keeping them to yourself would be very dangerous. The truth is that I've been making this lemon curd recipe on its own for years, and I've been tinkering with my favorite shortbread recipe for years. Now, finally, I've had the presence of mind to bring them together. No need to thank me — you're welcome.

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My kids (7 and 4) love to make things out of recycled cardboard, from curious Rube Goldberg-ian contraptions to palaces for stuffed animals. They do wonders with scissors, tape, and magic markers. A friend told us about Makedo, a system of reusable plastic clips and hinges for cardboard construction. We ordered a set and have been having a ball. The sets even come with a plastic saw for cutting the cardboard. It's not as quick as a box cutter or sharp scissors, but sawing itself can be fun, and the point on the saw handle is meant for punching holes for the clips. And yeah, I guess it's safer too. We didn't make the cardboard gorilla at right but I'd like to! We're gonna need a lot more clips though. There are a variety of Makedo kits available but the 65-piece starter kit is only $14 from Amazon, and comes in a sturdy tube. Of course, if you buy it from Amazon, the shipping box is part of the present! "Makedo FreePlay Kit For One"

The Portland Police Bureau is searching for a pet rabbit, snatched from its hutch in Southeast Portland in late June.

"Bonnie" is a 19 pound Flemish Giant rabbit.

The owner told police a person claiming to be a “rabbit advocate" had come to the door offering advice a few weeks before the animal disappeared.

The victim is working with the Humane Society and the animal can be returned “no questions asked."

Animal theft is a Class C felony, police said in a news release.

vurtual:
Three Amigos (by Christina Evans)

Original Source

Why didn’t French president François Hollande join the storm of criticism from EU member countries when it was revealed that the United States’ PRISM electronic surveillance program was spying on all internet traffic passing through the US? Perhaps because he knew that France has a similar program, alleges French newspaper Le Monde.

“All of our communications are spied on,” reports Le Monde, citing unnamed intelligence sources. Data is gathered by the DGSE, France’s intelligence agency, and stored on a supercomputer capable of handling “tens of millions of gigabytes,” which is housed in the basement of the DGSE’s headquarters.

The DGSE is known as “the firm” (la boîte) in France, and the Paris building that houses it nicknamed “the swimming pool” (la piscine—it happens to be near a competition swimming complex.) Some spies who work for the organization (link in French) call it “the service” (le service.) Notably, while the DGSE is currently blurred out on the satellite view of Google Maps, as of February 2011 its distinctive shape was clearly visible.

Like the NSA’s various domestic and foreign spying operations, the DGSE is gathering both data from the internet and phone records, alleges Le Monde. If the program is as Le Monde describes it, it could be illegal under French law. Like the NSA’s program, France’s gathers “metadata” on phone calls—i.e., who called whom, and for how long—which researchers have shown can be quite revealing.

French officials have denied that the country’s own electronic surveillance program is illegal, but Le Monde reports that there are seven other French intelligence agencies which have access to the data and use it to spot individuals whose communications look “suspicious.” As with the NSA program, then, it appears that the DGSE’s efforts are a broad and comprehensive dragnet used to turn up likely targets for more intrusive surveillance, like phone tapping.

Failure (Alternative Comics): Faithful readers of ROBOT 6 may recall the name of cartoonist Karl Stevens from a fall 2012 story about his Boston Phoenix strip Failure being canceled after an installment referred to Bud Light — one of the paper’s advertisers — as “diluted horse piss.” The Phoenix denied this at the time, and, [...]

“Stampede 101 – get boots to be Marshal for the parade. I love how these turned out! They have that new boot smell.”

Retired astronaut Chris Hadfield will be marching as the marshal in the Calgary Stampede Parade on July 5th in a fancy new pair of custom cowboy boots (complete with a Canadian maple leaf). Does this make him a space cowboy?

image via Col. Chris Hadfield

diegocg writes "Recent browser benchmarks are showing surprising results: in 'a geometric mean of all four performance-based categories: Wait Times, JavaScript/DOM, HTML5/CSS3, and Hardware Acceleration,' Firefox 22 'pulls off an upset, replacing the long-time performance champion Google Chrome 27 as the new speed king.' (Other browsers benchmarked were IE10, Opera 12, and Opera Next.) With these results, and Firefox developers focusing in fixing the UI sluggishness, can this be the start of a Firefox comeback, after years of slow market share decline?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "Sanders Kleinfeld explains how his experiences with a Makerbot device led him to the decision that 3-D printing hasn't quite arrived as a legitimate, consumer-friendly technology. Quoting: 'Waiting five hours for your Yoda feels like an eternity; you can play approximately sixty rounds of Candy Crush Saga in that same timeframe (although arguably, staring blankly at the MakerBot is equally intellectually stimulating). To make matters worse, I’d estimate MakerBot’s failure rate fell in the range of 25%–33%, which meant that there was around a one-in-three chance that two hours in, your Yoda print would fail, or that it would finish but once it was complete, you’d discover it was warped or otherwise defective. ... The first-generation MakerBot Replicator felt too much like a prototype, as opposed to a proven, refined piece of hardware. I look forward to the day when 3D printers are as cheap, ubiquitous, and easy to use as their 2D inkjet printer counterparts.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nyder sends this quote from TorrentFreak: "Swedish payment service provider Payson received an email stating that VPN services are no longer allowed to accept Visa and MasterCard payments due to a recent policy change. ... The new policy went into effect on Monday, leaving customers with a two-day window to find a solution. While the email remains vague about why this drastic decision was taken, in a telephone call Payson confirmed that it was complying with an urgent requirement from Visa and MasterCard to stop accepting payments for VPN services. 'It means that U.S. companies are forcing non-American companies not to allow people to protest their privacy and be anonymous, and thus the NSA can spy even more.'" Oddly, this comes alongside news that MasterCard has backed down on its financial blockade against WikiLeaks.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.