firehose

“Instead, films that cater to grown-up tastes are becoming a valuable commodity for studios looking to tap into a growing demographic: ticket-buyers age 50 and up who still adhere to the ritual of seeing the latest releases on the big screen rather than streaming via Netflix or renting from services such as Redbox. For years, teens and twentysomethings fond of 3-D spectacle and comic-book action have topped the film industry’s most-wanted list of customers. But with increasing competition for entertainment dollars from gadgets, video games and online outlets, Hollywood is courting a more reliable group: the 76 million or so Americans born during the Baby Boom years, 1946 to 1964.”

- Hollywood’s hot new target demo? Baby Boomers | Democrat and Chronicle | democratandchronicle.com

“What do avant-garde writers have to say to children? Kindergarde: Avant-garde Poems, Plays, Stories, and Songs finds out!”

-

Kindergarde: Experimental Writing for Children by Marthe Reed, Black Radish Books — Kickstarter

Lafayette, represent!

“

Google Fiber has a great consumer model. Everyone will have access to a minimum of a 5Mb connection for free. A gigabit connection is $70/month. Could XMission do the same? If you subtracted the cost of the infrastructure, and had ubiquitous service throughout a city, these numbers are easy to match and even beat. Ever since the dawn of Internet service to the home, it has been known that 99% of subscribers have minimal impact on the network. The cost of raw Internet bandwidth has plummeted over the last decade, and when you’re Google, it is even cheaper. When Google announced their fiber project, they initially claimed their network would be open to other providers. When Kansas City launched, they quietly retracted that. Even though Google is promising a number of upgrades to iProvo, having a government sanctioned monopoly for $1 is a sweet deal that would have never been offered to a local provider like XMission. Those upgrades will be paid for by subscriber fees, and Google will make a profit. They wouldn’t be doing this otherwise, nor would I.

The most unfortunate aspect of this deal is that cities will continue to lobby Google to monopolize their fiber service, and after the necessary deep concessions, Google will accept. Some day the US may wake up and find that we’ve installed another communications giant that needs to be broken up. I have lobbied hard for the past decade for open municipal fiber infrastructure, and will continue to do so, but so far, that idea is shrinking rather than growing.

”

-

The $1 Fiber Optic Network | Transmission

by a competing Provo ISP

“

While the United States average downstream speed of 7.4 Mbps is still significantly less than Asian countries, it does place us a marginally-respectable eighth place for average connection speed. The United States has seen downstream speeds jump 28 percent year-over-year in the States thanks primarily to cable DOCSIS 3.0 deployments.

Roughly 19 percent of this country’s Internet connections are now capable of speeds above 10 Mbps, a bump of 90% since last year, but only a 5.5% jump since last quarter.

More regionally, Akamai found that Vermont is now the fastest state in the country with an average downstream speed of 10.8 Mbps, followed by Delaware at 10.6 Mbps. Vermont led all states with an average peak downstream connection speed of 41.4 Mbps. Delaware and New Hampshire also came in first place with 87% broadband adoption rates courtesy of their smaller size.

Since last quarter, the global average broadband connection speed increased 5 percent to 2.9 Mbps.

Note however the report doesn’t focus at all on upstream speeds,; the word “upstream” isn’t mentioned once in the report. That’s good news for many companies that would very much prefer upstream speeds not be mentioned at all, and don’t even bother listing them on their website. The significant number of telcos that can barely offer 896 kbps upstream likely wouldn’t make our ranking in upstream speeds particularly attractive.

”

-

Average U.S. Connection Speed Now 7.4 Mbps - U.S. Now Eighth Place For Average Connection Speed | DSLReports.com, ISP Information

about to go from Comcast’s 10Mbps upstream speeds (except when it’s 10kbps, which is usually while I’m working) to CenturyLInks 896kbps upstream speeds (except when it’s 450kbps for no reason).

all carriers suck forever

“

Many survivors live in Massachusetts, a state that requires residents to have health insurance, “which should cover most of their required treatment,” said Amie Breton, spokeswoman for Massachusetts’ consumer affairs office. “The total cost of that treatment is impossible to calculate at this early stage.”

Massachusetts is among about 20 states that require health insurers to pay for prosthetic limbs, but many plans don’t cover 100 percent of those costs, said Dr. Terrence Sheehan, chief medical officer for Adventist Rehabilitation Hospital in Rockville, Md., and medical director of the Amputee Coalition, a national advocacy group.

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, another big insurer, is changing its policy and will pay for some of the more expensive bionic limbs when there is a demonstrated need, said Dr. Michael Sherman, chief medical officer. He said that 15 blast survivors admitted to hospitals are Harvard Pilgrim customers and that the insurance company is discussing “whether we might absorb some of the copays and deductibles.”

The 26 hospitals that have treated bombing victims have charity funds that will cover some of the costs, said Tim Gens, executive vice president of the Massachusetts Hospital Association. Some injured residents may be eligible for Massachusetts’ public health funds for the uninsured or underinsured. People with huge medical bills they can’t afford are eligible, regardless of income.

”

- Boston victims face huge bills; donations pour in

ohmygil:

I’m not sorry

concealment writes "Sparkler Filters up north in Conroe [Texas] still uses an IBM 402 in conjunction with a Model 129 key punch – with the punch cards and all – to do company accounting work and inventory. The company makes industrial filters for chemical plants and grease traps. Lutricia Wood is the head accountant at Sparkler and the data processing manager. She went to business school over 40 years ago in Houston, and started at Sparkler in 1973. Back then punch cards were still somewhat state of the art." See kottke.org for an eye-popping view of one of the "programs" — imagine debugging that.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google Drive got a handful of new social features today, with an update that brings profile photos and group chat to the collaboration software.

The changes are designed to make it easier to see who's in a file and communicate with them without leaving it. Profile photos of anyone who has opened a particular file will now appear whenever multiple people are collaborating on a document. (Users without photos can select from a variety of animal drawings, including a monkey and an alligator.) A new chat button at the top-right corner lets you start a group chat about the document from inside Drive, a nod toward messaging ahead of the oft-rumored Babel that could be announced by Google next month.

Meanwhile, the march of Google+ across the product line continues into Drive, as hovering over a photo brings up your colleague's contact details and an invitation to add them to a circle on Google+. It comes as Dropbox — arguably Google Drive's biggest competitor — has signaled social ambitions of its own, adding new features around photo sharing and management.

The new features will roll out over the next day or two, Google said.

• Source Google
• Related Items google google drive collaboration documents chat dropbox Google

By Justin McElroy
on April 25, 2013 at 1:43p

Game Info

Platform 360, PS3, Win

Publisher Namco Bandai

Developer Digital Extremes

Release Date 04/23/2013

As we consider Star Trek: The Game (of the Movie based on the Show), as we hold it up to the light to try to find something, anything we can salvage, let us not forget Chris Pine.

Chris Pine is just a regular guy from L.A. who happens to be physically without fault and whose dad was on CHiPs. You probably know 100 guys just like him. He didn't know he'd be contributing to one of the worst games, technically and conceptually, I've played.

He just wanted to be Captain Kirk.

You just want to be Captain Kirk.

It is too late for Chris Pine. It is not too late for you. That's why I am going to devote around 950 words to preventing you from buying — nay, playing — Star Trek: The Game.

Is there a worse fit for Star Trek than a third-person, cover-based shooter?

Is there a worse fit for the world of Star Trek, that subversively powerful force of social equality and acceptance, than a brainless, cover-based third-person shooter? I submit that there is not. (You do get to pilot the Enterprise for one stage, but by "pilot" I mean you play a terrible, poorly explained turret mini-game.) Everywhere else, Kirk and his partner Spock are given optional objectives that emphasize phasers set on stun rather than kill, but rewards are paltry and a fourth of the game's achievements are built on accruing kills. So you tell me.

At one point, a crewmember on the radio refers to the Gorn (the disposal phaser blast catchers that keep you from your objectives) as "creatures." A sentient alien race that happens to not speak English. A Starfleet officer. Creatures.

The "creatures" have absconded with a dangerous, magical MacGuffin that the Vulcans need for their "New Vulcan" colony to replace their exploded homeworld. Kirk and Spock set out to shoot every possible Gorn to bring that MacGuffin back.

The Gorn have also "infected" some Starfleet officers and turned them against our heroes, possibly because developer Digital Extremes already had the character models lying around.

You'll know the rare clever lines of dialogue because you can't hear the actors' hearts breaking as they deliver them

The story is largely expressed through Kirk or Spock making an extremely obvious point about their situation and the other noting that it's a very obvious to make. (This happened eight times before I lost count.) There is the occasional good line for Zachary Quinto as Spock or our beleaguered Mr. Pine — you'll know those rare lines because you can't hear the actors' hearts audibly breaking as they deliver them.

Star Trek refuses to let go of the player's hand, indicating objectives twice, sometimes even three times. (Text prompt: "Shoot the locking mechanism" Spock: "Captain, now would be the time to shoot the locking mechanism" Kirk: "Spock, I need to shoot the locking mechanism!") If you forget where to go, your trusty tricorder is a left-bumper press away with a red reticle. Except when it stops working.

This is a verbatim bit of text from one prompt in Star Trek: "Work together by both rapidly pressing X to complete co-op pry door objectives." I swear to God, if there's a collection of words and punctuation that makes me want to throw every video game in a well and just read a book more I can't think of it.

And yes, you read that maddening prompt correctly: There's co-op. Which is short for cooperative, which is a funny way of saying "I'll shoot half the guys so you don't have to, now help me pry open this door." The fact that you and your online or local partner are separate entities manifests interestingly in one level when you and your partner are each given guns that can teleport the other. But don't worry: The idea is severely limited (you can only transport onto small, specific pads), under utilized and promptly forgotten about after that level.

There's co-op. Which is short for cooperative, which is a funny way of saying "I'll shoot half the guys so you don't have to, now help me pry open this door."

"Three times I had to quit Star Trek and restart simply because the game ceased to function."

Are you ready for the surprise twist? Star Trek is also broken.

Three times I had to quit Star Trek and restart simply because the game ceased to function. A door didn't open, a cutscene didn't trigger, whatever. It just stopped. Nearly every animation is glitchy. The Gorn are designed to clip through themselves. Your AI partner will sometimes sprint irrationally from a fight, occasionally when you need him to come fix you up so you don't die.

Star Trek has picked up practically every bad habit of the past five years of game design. Hinky ledge traversal. An arbitrary upgrade system. Hacking mini-games that evolve from "dull" to "Ambien" through the course of the game. Samey secondary weapons.

It's almost messianic in its willingness to take all of gaming's sins onto its rickety frame. Sadly, unlike Jesus, the death of Star Trek would do nothing to dismiss these sins, they'll still be just as present tomorrow.

Wrap Up:

Star Trek is a collection of every sin of the modern third person shooter

Chris Pine didn't know any of this going in. He gave a solid, enthusiastic performance as Kirk, even on the clunky lines. He's just a beautiful, regular joe from LA doing his best to bring something fans care about to life. Chris Pine gave a shit. Chris Pine did his job.

Why did nobody else?

Star Trek was reviewed using a retail Xbox 360 copy purchased by Polygon staff. You can find additional information about Polygon's ethic's policy here.

About Polygon's Reviews

After more than a year of bouncing between appeals courts, the hacking case involving David Nosal has ended with a conviction. Wired reports that Nosal was yesterday found guilty of conspiracy, stealing trade secrets, and violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) in the US — despite the fact he hadn't personally accessed anyone else's computer. While Nosal will seek to appeal the decision ahead of sentencing later this year, it's a high-profile win for the US attorney's office.

---

The case began when FBI agents raided Nosal's home in 2005. Attempting to start a business to compete with the company he'd previously worked for, Nosal was able to convince former coworkers to use their credentials to access company computers and copy client information. Although the coworkers were the ones that physically accessed the database, the federal government charged Nosal with violating the CFAA, which was put in place to prosecute people who access computers "without authorization." In April 2012, Nosal's legal team took the case to the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where they were able to strike off some of the hacking charges levied against him.

Nosal didn't illegally access the computers, he paid other people to do it for him

In August, the US Department of Justice decided it would not ask the Supreme Court to take Nosal's case due to fears that prosecuting the former executive under the CFAA would turn into a catch-all for prosecuting people who used work computers inappropriately. Although Nosal's lawyer is confident the ruling will be overturned, yesterday's verdict still raises questions over how an anti-hacking law was applied to a case where the defendant didn't physically access the computers he was accused of hacking. The same statute was also used to pursue Aaron Swartz over accusations he breached security controls of an MIT database to download millions of JSTOR academic articles. Since Swartz's death, there have been increased calls for the law to be reformed and sentences lowered.

• Source Wired
• Related Items law legal hack security conviction hacking computer fraud and abuse act cfaa david nosal

by acid

third-star-till-the-morning:

laralaralara:

(quite possibly one of many) Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine’s vocabulary battle(s) [x]

I just wonder what Zach mean by pyrrhic talking about Benedict… I do know what that means btw.. It seems these two got close. And you start to wonder  that it’s not all roses.

That said: I don’t think demulcent means what he thinks it means. :)

Have you read the book?

darthcamaro writes "Mark Shuttleworth has taken a lot of heat for Ubuntu's decision to use Unity, to move away from Wayland and about its stance on the community distros like Kubuntu. In a new interview Shuttleworth shoots back claiming no matter what he does people will always find fault due to...'competitive pressures.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There's an interesting article on The Atlantic about how viewer counts are measured on YouTube. I like this quote from Ted Hamilton at YouTube (emphasis mine):

We think of views as a currency and therefore we have to make a significant effort to eliminate counterfeit views, if you will.

No shit. I guess that explains all of the ads. So yes, viewers are the product.

More than six million Spaniards were out of work in the first quarter of this year, raising the jobless rate in the euro zone's fourth biggest economy to 27.2 percent, the highest since records began in the 1970s.

By Jeremy Laird on April 25th, 2013 at 1:00 pm.

Equitable though Her Majesty’s United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland may largely be, a few isolated injustices still stalk the land. That I have to work for a living hardly seems fair, for instance. But even more odious is the fact that consumerist tat like smartphones, ultrabooks and tablets now have better screens by many metrics than our hallowed PC monitors. What gives? A recent interview I did with monitor maker Iiyama for ye olde PC Format mag dug up some answers. I also discovered why things aren’t likely to dramatically improve any time soon. Meanwhile, the roller coaster ride for AMD’s fortunes continues. This week, I predict survival!

Panel prognostications
First, display tech. As our very own Alec ‘Fingers’ McMeer will confirm, I’ve an unhealthy fetish for flat screens. I want them bigger. I want them better. I’m never really satisfied. So the state of smartphone, ultrabook and tablet screens has got my gander.

Take high-end smartphones. 1080p is now the default resolution for top handsets. That’s as many pixels as any PC monitor up to and including 24 inchers. OK, there are a few 1,920 by 1,200 panels around. But it’s very much the same ballpark.

Odds are this has at least as many pixels as your desktop panel…

Meanwhile, tablets and ultrabooks are now popping up with 2,560 by 1,440 and 2,560 by 1,600 panels. That puts them up with 27-inch and 30-inch monitors. Google’s Chromebook Pixel takes things a step further with a 2,560 by 1,700 panel.

Obviously pixel density isn’t everything. Especially not for gaming where big resolutions give graphics cards a pummelling. But mobile displays are often simply better quality thanks to newer panel tech, like the latest iteration of IPS or screen technology you just don’t get in monitors, most obviously AMOLED.

Inevitably, it all comes down to money. According to Steve Kilroy, UK manager for display specialist Iiyama, part of the problem is that the market for monitors is shrinking as both private punters and businesses plump for portable devices over traditional desktop PCs.

…and this very likely has a lot more

So, with all the money sloshing around in the mobile market, the bulk of the investment in terms of modern panel manufacturing is focussed on laptops, tablets and smartphones.

What’s more, even if sales of portables and desktops were more evenly matched, there’s an incentive to major on mobile. “Screen substrates are produced in long sheets. And you can cut more screens for tablets out of a single sheet than for monitors,” says Kilroy. More screens per sheet means more money.

Don’t ask, don’t get
Then there’s the fact, according to Kilroy, that there’s not much demand from mainstream consumers for high res or high DPI monitors. The general upshot is that panel makers reserve their best technology for phones and tablets.

Kilroy also doubts we’ll see any major changes in basic screen technology. “There’s no sign of OLED making it into the mainstream,” he says.

Indeed, according to Kilroy the trends most likely to transform the monitor market in the near term are things that aren’t necessarily of much interest for gaming or trad desktop computing. Like interactive touchscreen displays for Windows 8. Ghastly.

All pretty grim, then. But there is one glimmer of light among the gloom. Kilroy sees IPS completely taking over from TN in the next few years.

Apple’s 13-inch MacBook Retina packs a potty 2,560 by 1,600 pixels

“Once IPS panels become capable of 2ms to 3ms response over the next two to three years, you can expect to see IPS completely replace TN technology for all but the most price sensitive parts of the market,” Kilroy reckons.

Of course, the snag with that notion is that the new generation of cheap 6-bit IPS panels isn’t all that wonderful. Whisper it, but they’re not that much better than the latest TN efforts. It’s really only viewing angles where cheap IPS retains an obvious advantage.

It’s not great news but I thought it was worth sharing. At least you know that buying a monitor today doesn’t expose you to much risk of waking up a few months later and finding the market has been revolutionised and you’d have been better off waiting.

A couple of promising panels
Having said all that, I just so happen to have had a play with two new 27-inch screens recently. I suspect both are based on the same 2,560 by 1,440-pixel IPS panel, probably from LG. Anyway, I’m talking about the Iiyama ProLite XB2776QS and ViewSonic VP2770-LED.

The latest 27 inchers from Iiyama and ViewSonic are perfectly peachy

Both are roughly £400 panels, so not exactly cheap. But I think they may just be the most beautiful screens I’ve ever seen for pure image quality. Unlike earlier 27 inchers, they have nice, smooth anti-glare coatings rather than that sparkly gunk. I reckon the whites are a bit cleaner and brighter than before. And the contrast looks improved, too.

Anyway, they’re stunning, so there is still progress being made. If you can afford them and have a graphics card that that handle the heat, I very much doubt you’ll be disappointed.

AMD, again
So, AMD. Have reports of its imminent demise been greatly exaggerated? One intriguing way of tracking the fortunes of a company is to observe which employees are walking through the door and the direction they’re going.

A few years ago, AMD suffered a major brain drain as Apple snapped up some of it finest and brightest CPU and graphics engineers. Well, it appears at least some of those people are returning to AMD.

Last year Jim Keller, who worked on chips for iPhones and iPads while at Apple and was the lead architect on the Athlon 64 (AMD’s last really successful CPU design), returned to the AMD fold. Then late last week came news that graphics guru Raja Koduri has also returned from Apple.

Ultimately their identities and occupations aren’t the point. What matters is that they clearly judge AMD is enough of a goer to make returning worthwhile. And you have to assume they’re in a pretty good position to make that call. Ditching Apple for AMD says something.

I know I go on about this AMD roller coaster a bit and that it entails a certain amount of flip-flopping. But it really is critical for the health of the PC to have at least two players in both the high performance CPU and graphics markets. And that means AMD must survive.

By Emily Gera on Apr 25, 2013 at 8:46a

Electronic Arts' EA Partners label, a program that provides contract-based publishing for numerous independent studios, will soon be shutting down, Game Informer is reporting.

This apparent closure follows the departure of CEO John Riccitiello, layoffs across the publisher's mobile and social game sectors and the shuttering of a number of Facebook titles developed by Playfish, the studio EA purchased for roughly $300 million in 2009.

Partners was founded in 1997 under Tom Frisina, best known for his role as co-founder of Accolade and Three-Sixty. A decade later, EA would help to publish a number of successful titles including Harmonix's Rock Band, Valve's The Orange Box and Crytek's Crysis.

We have contacted EA for further details and will update when more information becomes available.

“

When your ad started to play, and I saw the beautifully-shot scenes of taped-up car windows with exhaust feeding in, I began to shake. I shook so hard that I had to put down my drink before I spilt it. And then I started to cry. I remembered looking out of the window to see the police and ambulance, wondering what was happening. I remember mum sitting me down to explain that daddy had gone to sleep and would not be waking up, and no, he wouldn’t be able to take me to my friend’s birthday party next week. No, he couldn’t come back from heaven just for that day, but he would like to if he could. I remember finding out that he had died holding my sister’s soft toy rabbit in his lap.

Surprisingly, when I reached the conclusion of your video, where we see that the man has in fact not died thanks to Hyundai’s clean emissions, I did not stop crying. I did not suddenly feel that my tears were justified by your amusing message. I just felt empty. And sick. And I wanted my dad.

”

-

An open letter to Innocean and Hyundai | Copybot

TW suicide

By John Walker on April 25th, 2013 at 5:00 pm.

As I mentioned a few days ago, a popular technique from publishers who want bad news stories to go away is to employ silence. Just pull down the shutters, switch off the lights, and sit on the floor below the window until everybody goes away. And RPS has had enough of that nonsense, so we’re taking silence to be a response worth reporting. Such is the case for Deep Silver, who as Adam revealed the other day are still selling their dismembered, bikinied torso statuette version of Dead Island: Riptide, despite having previously apologised for even considering doing so.

Whatever your feelings on the statuette, what makes this so interesting is the peculiar PR practices that got us to this point. Here’s how it went down:

On the 15th January, we received a press release telling us of this amazing special edition of Dead Island: Riptide, in which you would receive a dismembered torso of a woman as a statuette. Astonished that this was real, we posted about it, rather outraged, as did very many other gaming sites. There was a lot of internet noise, which came to an end when Deep Silver issued an apology for it later that same day. It read, in full:

“We deeply apologize for any offense caused by the Dead Island Riptide “Zombie Bait Edition”, the collector’s edition announced for Europe and Australia. Like many gaming companies, Deep Silver has many offices in different countries, which is why sometimes different versions of Collector’s Editions come into being for North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia.

For the limited run of the Zombie Bait Edition for Europe and Australia, a decision was made to include a gruesome statue of a zombie torso, which was cut up like many of our fans had done to the undead enemies in the original Dead Island.

We sincerely regret this choice. We are collecting feedback continuously from the Dead Island community, as well as the international gaming community at large, for ongoing internal meetings with Deep Silver’s entire international team today. For now, we want to reiterate to the community, fans and industry how deeply sorry we are, and that we are committed to making sure this will never happen again.”

That final paragraph seems pretty conclusive, yes? They “sincerely regret this choice” and they are “committed to making sure this will never happen again.” Well, as Adam pointed out earlier this week, no they weren’t. So what’s going on?

Why would a publisher make such a contrite, impassioned statement, and then just carry on regardless, selling the “Zombie Bait Edition” on Amazon and via GAME as if they’d never muttered a word? So we asked them, the day before yesterday. I sent an email to them, via their PR (who to the best of our knowledge has done his best to get a response for us), saying:

Could we get a statement from Deep Silver regarding the Dead Island torso? After their apology, it did seem rather like they wouldn’t be selling it. But of course they are.

So the question is, when saying,

“For now, we want to reiterate to the community, fans and industry how deeply sorry we are, and that we are committed to making sure this will never happen again.”

what did they mean? Because right now it looks like it was just a lie to make the story go away.

And, as you might have guessed, we’ve heard nothing back. Not a peep. Nor did we, I should add, back in January (although I think the email I sent might have read, “What the fuck are you thinking?!”).

And nor has anyone else, this time. There’s been no comment from the publisher since it was spotted that they were still selling the product they so deeply regretted and were so wholly sorry for having created. They’ve employed The Silence. The game is out, the thing’s on sale, so what do they care about talking to anyone about it?

So, yes, you can probably conclude that they’d had thousands of the things manufactured already, and didn’t want to lose a bunch of money on the things. And you can conclude that their apology at the time was completely insincere, and designed just to make the fuss die down while they were in full promotional swing for their game. A game, it turned out, that was pretty crap after all. But while there may be guessable reasons, cynical or otherwise, it remains the most bizarre behaviour to so openly and obviously deceive about something. What Deep Silver are failing to recognise is that trust does make a difference, and while companies like EA can swallow so much lost trust and survive, smaller publishers like them should surely be playing the game far more carefully than this?

Troublingly, Deep Silver are the publisher who got Saints Row out of the THQ jumble sale, a series that could so easily be hideously mishandled. And their attitude to this almighty mess is to pretend it’s not happening, to ignore the press they’ll certainly come running to when Metro: Last Light is about to release in a couple of weeks, and again when Saints Row 4 starts winding up its hype. It’s a very worrying attitude indeed.

We leave the ball in Deep Silver’s court. We’d love to report their statement on why the torso went on sale after they so heavily implied that it would not.

Matt Jones cuts up an entire watermelon in just 21 seconds in this impressive video.

via Daily Picks and Flicks

Chill capybaras — the largest rodents in the world — relax in hot tubs and munch on grass in these videos uploaded to YouTube by fuafuacapybara and capylife. The unusual, barrel-shaped herbivore is a cousin of the guinea pig, is native to South America, and typically grows to an average weight of 108 pounds.

via Cute Overload, Tastefully Offensive

Since 2009, South Korean artist Yeonju Sung has been using foods to make elaborate women’s clothing for her series, “Wearable Foods.” Most of the clothing is made out of fresh vegetables and none of the items are actually wearable, or long-lasting—they exist primarily in Sung’s photographs.

This series deals with the concept of creating images that interchange the actual reality and the made-up reality on many levels. This body of work is her version of the made-up reality, which destroys the core meaning of clothing, which is the ability to be worn.

This series of her work forces viewers to defy the actual meaning, the functionalities, and the aspects of what clothing signifies in our lives. The essence of clothing and food has been reinterpreted. Each element does not fulfill its own role and yet, each suggests an unconventional and even contradicting role – un-wearable clothing that is made out of the materials that do not last.

via Visual News

Philly.com

Mortgage rates fall, 15-year fixed at record - USA Today USA TODAY The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 3.4% in the week ended April 25, according to Freddie Mac's weekly survey, out Thursday. That's down from 3.41% the prior week and headed toward the record low 3.31% of late November. The same ... US rate on 30-year mortgage slips to 3.40 percentBoston.com Mortgage Rates : 30-Year Fixed Rate Drops To 3.40% - The Mortgage ReportsThe Mortgage Reports Mortgage rates at or close to record lowsUPI.com Chicago Tribune -Inman.com -MarketWatch all 35 news articles »

Paris

le Bat

theodp writes "Steinar Skipsnes came up with a unique way to get more women into tech. Make them up. Posing as 'Sarah Hanson,' a 19-year-old woman who claimed to have auctioned off 10% of her future income in return for $125,000 to fund her Senior Living Map startup, Skipsnes pitched the story via email to generate press coverage. It worked — VentureBeat, HuffPo, Yahoo!, AOL, GeekWire, and others took the bait. But after doubts were aired about the story, Skipsnes fessed up to concocting the too-good-to-be-true hoax about the female teen entrepreneur to appeal to the interests of the tech press. 'I started to think "what if I took the elements of what the press loves and created a story?"' Skipsnes explained. "So I did.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

~Georges Bataille

Fictional cases

The condition was used in movies as the triggering element of the plot by the characters, which the most famous are Leonard Shelby from Memento, Lucy Whitmore from 50 First Dates, Dory, from Finding Nemo and Do Kyungsoo, from the EXO fanfiction Anterograde Tomorrow.

Link

sciencehabit writes "Citing an increasingly bleak outlook for federal research funding, Harvard Medical School is shutting down its major primate center, which has recently experienced the departure of several key scientists and an investigation into its handling of animals. In the announcement, which surprised many primate researchers, the school said it will not seek to renew the New England Primate Research Center's (NEPRC's) 5-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and will 'wind down operations' at the center in Southborough, Massachusetts, over the next 2 years. The center, which has a nearly 50-year history, had done groundbreaking work on an AIDS vaccine and developed animal models for diseases such as Parkinson's, among other accomplishments."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.