firehose

We test every Google Glass app so you don't have to.

Gus Mueller, who creates the amazing Acorn, among other cool products:

WWDC 2013 is fast approaching, and chances are good that we’ll get some sort of preview and song and dance about how iCloud sync is even better than ever for developers. Honestly, would you expect Apple to say anything else?

But how are we going to know Apple has finally fixed iCloud syncing for developers and is really serious this time? And I’m not just talking about Core Data syncing, I’m also talking about the APIs developers are given to push document data back and forth. The broken stuff, the things developers laugh at Apple about and have given up on.

Here’s my short and inconclusive list of things that will let us know iCloud might be ready for real world developer use.

It’s a good list, and worth reading in full.

Stepping back though, the reason Apple consistently gets the cloud not quite right is the exact same reason Android’s UX, despite improvements, is still a little off.

I wrote last week in The Android Detour:

Apple invests in software, apps, and services to the extent necessary to preserve the profit they gain from hardware. To serve another platform would be actively detrimental to their bottom line. Google, on the other hand, spreads their services to as many places as possible – every platform they serve increases their addressable market.

So what about Android? I remain convinced that Android was, first and foremost, defensive. To own the bottom of the pyramid is to own access to the top, where Google’s profit lies. Android ensured that no one company would ever monopolize the bottom of the pyramid like Microsoft did for PCs.

Apple cares, and wants to make iCloud great, but the product they sell is the priority; Google cares, and wants to make Android great, but the services they provide are the priority. And anything that is not a priority will never be perfect.¹

ē

1. I’d posit it’s more likely that Apple will internalize the idea of iCloud as a core component of their products than Google will internalize Android as what their company is about; I think Android development (within Google) may have peaked. It’s rather striking how much of a disconnect there seems to be between Android fans and Google itself

tea-at-221b:

John Barrymore as: Sherlock Holmes

Roland Young as: Dr. Watson

1922 version of Sherlock Holmes.

YouTube is the latest site to jump into the original programming arena with the announcement of a gritty adaptation of the popular video.

You’ve seen them on the bus, in museums, and at movie theaters: senior discounts. As a reward for being old, senior citizens pay a quarter less for bus fare, a small fortune less for movie tickets, and receive discounts generally all over the place. If you’re a twentysomething, or part of what some journalists have colorfully called “the screwed generation,” you may be wondering: why not me?

In this picture, you can see the fifteen-year-old Ray Bradbury — long before his famous author days — posing with the incredible movie star and singer Marlene Dietrich. How did this happen?

Read more...

rachel shared this story from Colorlines.

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Two weeks ago we learned that the author of a recent Heritage Foundation report against immigration reform wrote a 2009 Harvard dissertation claiming immigrants of color have low IQ. (Its abstract reads: "The average IQ of immigrants in the United States is substantially lower than that of the white native population.") Now, students at the University are asking questions about why the racist paper got approved in the first place.

Think Progress reports:

Over 1,000 Harvard students want to know how and why Harvard University's JFK School approved a 2009 doctoral thesis arguing that Hispanics have lower IQs. The thesis was written by Jason Richwine, a co-author of a paper by the conservative Heritage Foundation that argued immigration reform would cost taxpayers $6.3 trillion. The discovery of Richwine's paper by the Washington Post )sparked a firestorm around the Heritage study, and several days later Richwine resigned from the think tank.

Harvard students delivered a petition last week demanding an investigation into how a thesis built on those views and assumptions was able to make it through the approval process in the first place. "Academic freedom and a reasoned debate are essential to our academic community,'' the petition read. "However, the Harvard Kennedy School cannot ethically stand behind academic work advocating a national policy of exclusion and advancing an agenda of discrimination." As of last Wednesday, May 15 the students had collected 1,200 signatures.

Richwine's recent Heritage report claimed that immigration reform legislation would cost taxpayers $6.3 billion in safety net spending over the next fifty years. The finding was expected to provide a key piece of ammunition for anti-immigration conservatives in Congress. But the report's credibly took a blow when Washington Post reported that Richwine's dissertation from just a few years earlier argued for an IQ-based immigration policy. His abstract reads:

The statistical construct known as IQ can reliably estimate general mental ability, or intelligence. The average IQ of immigrants in the United States is substantially lower than that of the white native population, and the difference is likely to persist over several generations. The consequences are a lack of socioeconomic assimilation among low-IQ immigrant groups, more underclass behavior, less social trust, and an increase in the proportion of unskilled workers in the American labor market. Selecting high-IQ immigrants would ameliorate these problems in the U.S., while at the same time benefiting smart potential immigrants who lack educational access in their home countries.

The revelation of Richwine's earlier work provide evidence for what we already know about what often drives Heritage Foundation claims: they are motivated primarily by cultural arguments about immigrants and people of color, not sound economics. Now, over 1000 Harvard students are calling on their university to take a hard look at how that argument was ever approved as academically sound.

The City of Roses was a darling of the pre-recession economy, but things are changing and the creative class has more options than ever before.

The history of science fiction television is full of shows that have a lot of wonderful stuff... but you just know they could be even more awesome if someone seized their raw potential with both hands. Which classic TV show do you wish you could personally make a new version of?

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@firehose

Move it!

Happened around 11:10 a.m. at 5 Cambridge Center, AlertNewEngland reports.

Robert Love, who took the photo, reports:

Leak so big, it sounded like a fire hose.

NStar got the gas turned off around 11:40 a.m.

Original Source

North Country Public Radio

Vermont governor signs end-of-life bill - USA Today USA TODAY The bill is the first in the nation to become law through legislative action. GAN END OF LIFE LAW 052013. Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin signs the end-of-life bill at the statehouse in Montpelier, Vt., on Monday, May 20, 2013. The law is the first to legalize ... Vermont passes law allowing doctor-assisted suicideReuters Vermont Hospitals Take Wait-and-See on Aid-in-DyingValley News Vermont governor to sign aid-in-dying bill - The RepublicThe Republic Fox44abc22yourvoice -vtdigger.org all 26 news articles »

[insert literary reference]: Why Do Men Keep Putting Me in the Girlfriend-Zone?:

literaryreference:

You know how it is, right, ladies? You know a guy for a while. You hang out with him. You do fun things with him—play video games, watch movies, go hiking, go to concerts. You invite him to your parties. You listen to his problems. You do all this because you think he wants to be your friend.

But…

Inspired.

hanswan: Keita Takahashi (高橋 慶太) Born 1975, known for his quirky, innovative videogames Katamari Damacy and Nobi Nobi Boy, Takahashi was invited to create a new playground at Woodthorpe Grange in Nottingham, Britain. “I hope that whole families will be able to play in the park together. It would be great if people’s pet dogs can also play with the equipment. What gives me the most joy is seeing people having fun. [Playgrounds and video games] are both fun things. They actually aren’t that different.” Says Takahashi. That is what I particularity like about Keita Takahashi. If your aim is to see people having fun, why limit yourself to a single branch?

If your cat dies, the new merged company will probably start a twitter fight with you about it.

SUNNYVALE, CA—Finally overcoming competition from the likes of Google, Microsoft, and AOL, internet corporation Yahoo firmly re-secured its place as an industry leader after Sunday’s purchase of millions of blogs written by 13-year-old girls.

cosmicbrownie:

Little girl dressed as Stan Lee at Motor City Comic con!!!

itwbennett writes "Last week, Dell said that it would be 'refining' its OpenStack plans. Now we know that 'refining' means 'backing away from'. Although the company wouldn't answer direct questions on the subject, a press release spells it out like this: 'Sales of Dell's current in-house multi-tenant public cloud IaaS will be discontinued in the U.S. in favor of best-in-class partner offerings.' Interestingly, none of Dell's initial partners, including Joyent, ScaleMatrix and ZeroLag, have platforms built on OpenStack."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new rumor contends "The Dark Knight Rises" and "Inception" director Christopher Nolan is in early talks to helm the next James Bond film.

Back in the mid-1970s, legendary filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky tried to make a movie of Frank Herbert's Dune, featuring people like Mick Jagger, Orson Welles and Salvador Dali, with designs by H.R. Giger and Chris Foss. It would have been astonishing, whether or not it lived up to the book. Now, a new documentary tells the story of that failed enterprise.

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EA Sports lifted the curtains today on one of its core additions to Madden 25 this year, Connected Franchise owners mode. In it, players take on the role of team owner, setting prices for tickets and concessions as well as having the option to relocate teams to both domestic and international cities. Owners also handle the hiring of team personnel, such as scouts, trainers and coaches, and they answer questions from the media. Players will manage stadium upgrades and market their superstar athletes so fans will buy their jerseys, increasing their teams' yearly profit.

The options to import draft classes from EA's NCAA Football series and take control of all 32 teams in the Connected Careers mode were woefully absent from last year's game, but will return to Madden 25. Additionally, the game's primary career mode will receive a face-lift thanks to an improved user interface that includes a transaction log to follow the movement of players from team to team. The mode's UI includes a new Trade Center, allowing users to see what other teams are offering for players and draft picks so they can top their opponents' bids.

Lastly, Madden 25 will feature more media personalities for the career mode's in-game Twitter feed, such as ESPN fantasy analyst Matthew Berry and Fox Sports NFL writer Peter Schrager. It will also receive new legendary players and coaches, including Mike Ditka and William "The Refrigerator" Perry.

Relocate your team in Madden 25's franchise owners mode originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 20 May 2013 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mark Ross of the Parks and Recreation Department of Portland, Oregon discusses Mill End Park—the smallest park in the world— in this short video by the Humanwire series on Rocketboom. The 2-foot diameter park was founded in 1948 by local journalist Dick Fagan. In recent years it hosted a miniature Occupy protest complete with plastic police officers and tiny protest signs.

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

photo by Matthew Nenninger & Tracie Andrews

Regdar with the Vorpal Sword in the Wizard’s Tower.

Dungeons & Dragons Clue is nearly identical in gameplay to the traditional board game Clue, but with Dungeons & Dragons-themed game pieces, weapons, and a redesigned game board. The game also comes with special Monster Cards, which “shake up game play even more.” Dungeons & Dragons Clue is available to purchase from ThinkGeek.

It’s a dark night, when the group assembled at the Archmage’s castle. What started as a wonderful dinner party has turned into a ghastly scene. The Archmage has been murdered (by a doppelganger, no less). The doppelganger hides amongst the group hoping to escape, but it didn’t count on two things. First, the castle is magically sealed until the murderer is caught. And second: you’re on the case! So it goes, with Dungeons & Dragons Clue.

images via ThinkGeek

NEW YORK—Confirming months of speculation, developers at Rockstar Games revealed today that the missions in the upcoming Grand Theft Auto V video game will largely revolve around the player serving as a tutor and volunteering for various comm...