firehose

Martha Rich


Martha Rich


Martha Rich

Martha Rich

Ducks meandering in the middle of the road interrupt a police chase and are captured in this dash cam video by the Portland Police Bureau in Portland, Oregon. Police officer Mark James stops the pursuit to escort the ducks out of the road.

via reddit, Daily Picks and Flicks

Watch Out: Your 401(k) Is Being Targeted - Forbes:

The tax breaks for 401(k) and similar retirement savings plans add up to $100 billion a year and will cost the government an estimated $429 billion from 2013 to 2017. That’s more than the mortgage interest deduction. These plans are also tempting targets politically, because 80 percent of their benefits go to the top 20 percent of earners, according to the Tax Policy Center. That’s why liberal-leaning groups, like the Pension Rights Center, say the plans’ tax breaks should be trimmed.

Should You Request The Genetic Test That Angelina Jolie Opted For? - Forbes:

The test can be expensive. For people whose insurance does not cover it, the cost could be as high as $3,000, although some states offer coverage to women who meet certain criteria, such as having two “first-degree” relatives (mother, sister or daughter) with breast cancer or two “second-degree” relatives (grandmother or aunt) with ovarian cancer. Federal law requires insurers to cover testing for women in certain high-risk groups.

…

Even in high-risk patients, breast cancer is most often detected in stage 1, in which about 90% of women are cured. Detection of ovarian cancer, however, most often occurs when the disease is at an advanced stage; survival rates are far lower.

Jolie, 37, said she has delayed a decision regarding surgical removal of her ovaries, in part because ovarian cancer tends not to develop until a woman is in her late 40s or early 50s, even among those at high risk. Jolie’s mother, Marcheline Bertrand, died of the disease at age 56.

Internet celebrity arrested in Clark slaying | MyCentralJersey.com | mycentraljersey.com:

McGillvary was arrested at the Greyhound Bus Terminal in Philadelphia by members of the Philadelphia Police Department around 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Union County Prosecutor Theodore J. Romankow said.

“I am grateful for the overwhelming response and dedicated effort by the public and law enforcement that led to this arrest,” said Romankow. “I believe that everyone is a little safer with this person off the streets.”

…

According to the investigation, the two men met in Times Square in New York sometime last weekend, then returned to Clark before Galfy on Sunday morning drove McGillvary to a train station, where he boarded a train to Asbury Park.

The pair then exchanged text messages throughout the day, and McGillvary returned to the Clark area later on Sunday, authorities said. Galfy reportedly picked him up at the train station, and they then returned to his home for a second time.

Authorities said they believe Galfy was killed sometime Sunday night, but they’re not sure when McGillvary left the scene. But on Monday, McGillvary used his Internet connections to meet up with some “fans” in South Jersey who later that day brought him to a Haddonfield-area train station, where he indicated that he was heading for Philadelphia en route to Georgia, according to the investigation. Authorities say the fans are cooperating.

On Tuesday, McGillvary, posting under his Facebook moniker “Caleb Kai Lawrence Yodhehwawheh,” is believed to have penned a chilling and graphically worded account of being drugged and sexually assaulted several days earlier.

“What would you do if you woke up with a groggy head, metallic taste in your mouth, in a strangers (sic) house … and started wretching (sic), realizing that someone had drugged (and) raped (you?) What would you do?” the post read.

Aidan Gillen Mashup (The Wire vs. Game of Thrones) (by abmcw)

it’s all in the game of thrones

Good.

The BAA is inviting 5,633 runners who were unable to cross the finish line at this year's marathon back to run in the 2014 Boston Marathon next year.

In a press release today, they listed the eligibility as having at least crossed the half-marathon checkpoint when the race was stopped at 2:50 PM. They do not yet know what the total size of next year's field will be set at, but those invited back will be given the chance to be a part of that field automatically by using a non-transferable unique code that will be given out in August.

Those affected by this decision should already have received an e-mail letting them know that they were included.

Original Source

This meeting was SO BORING you guys.

At a public meeting, MassDOT released some opinions on the McGrath Highway.

MassDOT has recommended that the McCarthy Overpass portion of McGrath Highway be grounded and the roadway developed into a Boulevard that reconnects East Somerville, Union Square and Brickbottom.

The recommended plan preserves continuity at Washington Street, while enhancing pedestrian and bicycle connections. The removal of the overpass will allow for wider sidewalks, bicycle paths, added green space that will help spur redevelopment and enhance existing uses along the corridor.

Now, if only we can figure out why there is an extensive McGrath rehab in progress when MassDOT intends to remove it.

Original Source

Welcome to Paradise

Just making sure people will feel welcome when they visit my Animal Crossing: New Leaf town.

We all need somewhere we can go and be happy and be ourselves and be silly if we want to. As the mayor here, that’s the kind of town I’m trying to build. There’s no judging here.

PREORDER Animal Crossing: New Leaf, AC:NL guide, upcoming games

itwbennett writes "Today's CIOs speak business-buzzwords as a second language. And there's a good reason for that. There is a trend among CIOs to distance themselves from being regarded as technologists and to put themselves forward as business strategists. It boils down to one simple rule: Just as you should never be the first to mention compensation in the interview process, you should never be the first to break out the tech jargon in a business setting."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Umbrella-toting Marines protect Obama, Turkish PM from raindrops:

“Why don’t we get a couple of Marines,” he said. “They’re gonna look good next to us. Just ‘cuz I’ve got a change of suits, but I don’t know about our prime minister. There we go. [Gestures to press.] You guys, I’m sorry about.”

Well, of course famed movie rip-off artists The Asylum were going to take on Pacific Rim, and of course their attempt would be called Atlantic Rim. What I wasn't expecting that it would look actually kinda good.

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Google Chat Autoblocking Contacts in GMail, It says Blocked in Google+, I don't have Google Plus - Google Groups:

For now, the only work around would be to enable Google Plus in your account with a minimal profile and remove these contacts from the Blocked circle.

Last December we wrote about The Sketchbook Project, a crowd-sourced library of sketchbooks based in Brooklyn. Starting in June, 4,500 sketchbooks from the library will touring the United States aboard the Mobile Library. If you’d like to submit a sketchbook to the project, here’s how to participate. The Sketchbook Project is run by the New York City-based Art House Co-Op.

photo and video via Art House Co-Op

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

Harry McCracken has a pretty good articulation of the conventional wisdom about Google+:

Google+ is exuberant. It’s fun to use. And yet I’m pretty positive I won’t spend remotely as much time in it as I will in Facebook. You might have already guessed why: My friends, family and acquaintances are all on Facebook, where they add up to a bustling community I enjoy being part of. More than any particular feature that Mark Zuckerberg and company have cooked up, it’s the people in my life that make Facebook, well, Facebook…

I don’t feel guilty about favoring the social network that feels more like an extension of my world. That’s Facebook. And since Facebook exists, I don’t have much of an incentive to pour more energy into Google+. The two services aren’t identical in particulars and emphasis — today’s Facebook seems to be built on the philosophy that everyone should share everything at all times, sometimes in an automated fashion, and Google+ isn’t like that at all — but ultimately, they scratch the same itch.

I don’t know much about itches, but I believe the conventional wisdom is wrong: from Google’s perspective, Google+ is not a social network meant to compete with Facebook. Rather, it’s an identity system that follows you everywhere.¹

Think about it: what is more valuable? Inane chatter, memes, and baby photos, or every single activity you do online (and increasingly offline)? Google+ is about unifying all of Google’s services under a single log-in which can be tracked across the Internet on every site that serves Google ads, uses Google sign-in, or utilizes Google analytics.²

Every feature of Google+ – or of YouTube, or Maps, or GMail, or any other service – is a flytrap meant to ensure you are logged in and being logged by Google at all times.³

Google’s mission is ostensibly “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

That was once true, but a better formulation today is: “To organize user information and make it universally trackable and marketable.”

Make no mistake, Google+ has been a massive success. Credit to Google for their willingness to be misunderstood and portrayed as a loser even as they mine information Mark Zuckerberg can’t even dream of.⁴

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1. Not that Google doesn’t love the social stuff, but that’s icing on the cake
2. I was challenged on this point, and originally hedged, but I believe it’s true. It’s not clear technically how it would be done, but the terms of use for Google Analytics were amended to allow this. See this thread on Hacker News for both points of view. I’d love to be proven wrong and will change this if I am.
3. And they’re successful! I’m signed in right now, and you probably are too.
4. This is a tad hyperbolic; those ubiquitous “Like” buttons accomplish the same thing for Facebook

From an extended feature in The Atlantic:

Even Otellini betrayed a profound sense of disappointment over a decision he made about a then-unreleased product that became the iPhone. Shortly after winning Apple’s Mac business, he decided against doing what it took to be the chip in Apple’s paradigm-shifting product.

“We ended up not winning it or passing on it, depending on how you want to view it. And the world would have been a lot different if we’d done it,” Otellini told me in a two-hour conversation during his last month at Intel. “The thing you have to remember is that this was before the iPhone was introduced and no one knew what the iPhone would do… At the end of the day, there was a chip that they were interested in that they wanted to pay a certain price for and not a nickel more and that price was below our forecasted cost. I couldn’t see it. It wasn’t one of these things you can make up on volume. And in hindsight, the forecasted cost was wrong and the volume was 100x what anyone thought.”

This was certainly the XScale, which is ARM-based. There is no way an x86 chip could have fit in an iPhone (and there remains no way today).

The issue facing Otellini wasn’t just cost; rather, Intel saw themselves as a chip design company, and that meant their focus was on x86, the instruction set architecture (ISA) they invented. ARM was licensed, and that just didn’t fit with Intel’s image of themselves (they proceeded to sell XScale in 2006).

A few weeks ago, I wrote that Intel needed to change their identity:

It is into a climate of doom and gloom that Krzanich is taking over as CEO. And, in what will be a highly emotional yet increasingly obvious decision, he ought to commit Intel to the chip manufacturing business, i.e. manufacturing chips according to other companies’ designs. Intel is already the best microprocessor manufacturing company in the world. They need to accept and embrace their destiny.

Otellini is right. What a different world it would be had Intel followed this advice back in 2006.

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Japanese chef killed over noodles on German island - UPI.com:

Japanese chef Miki Nozawa was killed while on the German holiday island of Sylt after a fight over a meal sparked a fight between the cook and two disgruntled customers.

Nozawa, 57, died of a brain hemorrhage after the fight Sunday night, Sylt Chief Public Prosecutor Rüdiger Meienburg said.

Two men, 50 and 36, reportedly approached Nozawa in a club Sunday night after they had eaten a meal prepared by the chef earlier in the day, German paper Sylt Rundschau reported. The three men got into a physical confrontation around 2 a.m. Monday, which resulted in Nozawa’s fatal injuries.

Neither of the men has been arrested as police lack strong enough evidence to issue a warrant, Flensburg prosecutor Ulrike Stahlmann-Liebelt said.

Bond Villains: Max Zorin and May Day.

1985.

Poor Commander Hadfield. Without that wondrous zero gravity environment to work in, Earth has become a rather boring place.

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“Go to sleep or I will call the planes.”

- How some Yemeni parents warn their children, according to activist Farea al-Muslimi, testifying before Congress on the use of drones. (via The Washington Post)

tastefullyoffensive:

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Holy shit. A recent news story claims that Tim Dog “may be up to his biggest scam yet” — faking his own death. WREG in Memphis interviewed Esther Pilgrim, one of the women featured in this Dateline story back in June of last year, who had been one of many victims reportedly swindled out of [...]