firehose

My friend Antonio Mannina from Florence in what is possibly the most classic cold weather ensemble one can put together. A double-breasted heavy serge blazer, light grey flannels and the obligatory woolen tie. As always a lot of rich texture, all Florentine bespoke, sedate colouring. I rarely see a real life execution more exemplary than this one (incl. the definitive Italian vibe).

hypnosec writes "Mozilla has developed an open payment service API to support app purchases in Firefox OS, and has released a draft version allowing app developers to process payments. Pointing out the drawbacks of the different models for payments on the web that are currently available, Mozilla has revealed that it is looking to introduce a common web API that would make payments through web devices easier and more secure while being flexible and retaining today's checkout button features that are available for merchants. Partly based on Google Wallet, Mozilla's WebPayment API will remain open to ensure that it is used by a wide range of payment service providers. As a first step towards this, Mozilla has introduced the navigator.mozPay function, allowing web apps to accept payments."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The joint introductions of Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond is one of Doctor Who's most memorable scenes, but young Amelia's first onscreen appearance might have gone very differently. Steven Moffat had plans to introduce the character even if David Tennant's Tenth Doctor had stuck around.

Read more...

pastagfirullah:

androphilia:

Muslim Women Against Femen

WHAT THE FUCK
WHEN SOMEONE TELLS YOU TO LEAVE THEM ALONE IT IS TIME TO STOP “HELPING”

Ruby Hamad wrote a great article about Femen this week: 

In such a sexually repressed society, what benefit could her actions serve other than to be used as a warning by opportunistic clerics over where Western-style freedoms will lead? Nude protest is so far off the grid in Islam it is just too easy to dismiss. There is a chronic tendency in the West to treat our own liberalism as an innate rather than acquired characteristic. We may be comfortable enough with naked female bodies that we no longer wish to kill women who expose them, but no society can change overnight. And yet, we insist on speaking to Islam through that peculiarly Western phenomenon known as post-enlightenment rationalism.

lokithehedgehog:

Tummy rubs (x)

Muscovite youths. 

elevenacres:

Chelonia (mydas) virgata, Schweiger, vulg. Carey. (1838-1857)

Three or four men drew weapons to rob a pair of pizza delivery men, they got food but no cash

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Ikea says it has withdrawn 17,000 portions of moose lasagna from its home furnishings stores in Europe after traces of pork were found in a batch tested in Belgium.

minusmanhattan:

CMYK by Skurktur.

Masashi Wakui

Lesley Ann Ercolano

Paul Baggaley

Akihisa Nakamura

Reggie Ballesteros

Satoki Nagata

Roeselien Raimond

Cathy Hammer / New installation by Kaarina Kaikkonen

Paul Andrews

So here we are at our 30th edition of Flickr Finds, my personal challenge to ferret out the greatest photos found on Flickr every few weeks. It should be bi-weekly, it never is, but I think we all benefit from the quality versus the regularity. This is a really phenomenal week for photography, and if you like what you see here please click through each photo above to learn more about the individual photographers—this is truly only the tip of the iceberg for each of these artists. If you’d like you can check out previous Flickr Finds.

prguitarman:

I looked up from my phone and saw this.

macabrekawaii:

cats are such beautiful assholes

Is this the ring that helped inspire J.R.R. Tolkien to write about the One Ring of Middle Earth? This Roman ring, which is associated with a divine curse, is part of a new exhibition at the Vyne in Hampshire, England, investigating its links to Tolkien and its possible influence on his work.

Read more...

There were two sessions in a row on Wednesday afternoon at this year’s GDC. The first was a panel of women in the games industry, discussing the causes and results of the #1ReasonWhy and #1ReasonToBe phenomena – the reasons to be and not be in the games industry. The second was Feminist Frequency’s Anita Sarkeesian, talking about the positive and negative consequences of her Kickstarter campaign, and the way forward from here. I came out of the first – vivid, passionate declarations of purpose from the likes of Leigh Alexander, Mattie Brice and Brenda Romero – feeling certain that the industry and its audience was on a wave of significant change. An hour later I came out of the second – Sarkeesian’s challenging and demanding story of recent horror – re-grounded to the current reality, introspective, and further determined.

There is a clear message: Rock, Paper, Shotgun will never back down on the subject of sexism and misogyny (nor racism, nor homophobia, for that matter) in games, the games industry, and the games journalism industry. Good times are ahead – we can see them.

(more…)

Real life Dr. Light capsule hologram

This made the rounds a month ago after Andrew Butterworth created it for Gauntlet Gallery’s ”Mega Man Boss Battle” show, but I’m posting it anyway because I GIF’d the clip up after seeing it on Albotas, and because it’s now available to purchase for $3,000!

You can see the original Light Capsule replica video here.

BUY Mega Man games and more, upcoming games

Submitted by: ToolBee

Tagged: gifs , puppies , critters Share on Facebook

How are you going to explain this to your child?

“What’s innovative about a video wall?” I hear you cry. “We’ve all seen them. Big…walls of video. Been done for years.”

We’ve said many times that the single most innovative thing about the Raspberry Pi is its price. $25 or $35 gets you something that would have cost you four or five times that amount before the Pi arrived on the market. This means that you can save large sums of money in some applications, especially in applications where you need to buy a lot of separate devices. A video wall requires one device per screen, and another to drive them all together. I’ve seen video wall solutions being run with all kinds of devices at the back end; previously one of the cheapest ways to do this was to buy a Playstation for each of your screens – obviously a much more expensive (and power-hungry – you’re spinning a lot of hard drives all day to get the result you want) way to get what you’re after.

Plus, of course, our HD video capability’s really great.

So Alex Goodyear at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy has put together a really elegant video wall, supported by a group of Raspberry Pis. Energy consumption and cost are both reduced enormously, making video walls like this much more accessible to enterprises which don’t have huge funds, like museums, schools, shops, galleries and offices.

You can use different sizes and orientations of screen in the same set-up here; you can use the screens to show one large moving image or many small ones; you can display static content like photos or web pages alongside moving content on the same wall.

Read more about what Alex has come up with at CCFE – we’re looking forward to seeing more of these in the wild!

Last week I ran a short session at Campus London with a roomful of students from local schools. Only one of the students had seen a Raspberry Pi before and only a couple had used a command line interface or seen a computer program. In just over an hour they learned how to set up the Raspberry Pi, did a bit of Linux and then hacked Minecraft using Python. Here’s what they thought of it:

“I used a raspberry pi and it showed me how exciting and useful new technology can be. Also learning simple coding was very useful and made me want to learn more. It made me more interested in technology and coding. It made me really consider my careers options involving technology.” —William

“This has pushed me to finish my game I am currently developing.” —Joseph

“It has made me interested about learning coding. I have realised coding isn’t as hard as I thought.” —Lara

“I want to learn more about programming, because it was really interesting.” —Ellie

“The most important thing I learned was how to use Raspberry Pi.” —Finley

Running minecraft from the command line

“The most important thing I learned was how to change the commands to Mine Craft.” —Harjoat

“We had a go using a device called a Raspberry Pi which let us hack into a game and let us give it commands. It was really fun and exciting to learn all these new things.” —Jasmine

Reading these comments makes me smile, it was a fantastic session and shows what you can learn in short amount of time. A few lessons jump out from the feedback:

1. When given the opportunity, most young people find computing to be a powerful and exciting thing.
2. Everyone gets something different out of learning how to tell a computer what to do.
3. Play is a powerful way to learn and computers are a good way to play.

These lessons are hardly new—it’s where Logo, Scratch and Lego Mindstorms come from—but what has changed is the accessibility and opportunity. With a £30 computer and a free game you can learn computer science in a beautiful, constructionist sandbox. (“Why dig when you can code?” “Are you an Alpha or an Epsilon?” “Hack with your brain, not with your pickaxe.” And other rubbish aphorisms coming soon to a T-shirt near you.) Quite simply, you can teach yourself to think in powerful ways while messing about. I don’t know about you, but as a teacher I think that this is quite profound.

Hacking Pi Minecraft using the API and Python.

I’m going to blog more about Pi Minecraft in future; I think that its potential as a teaching and learning tool is huge.  I’ll be writing lesson plans for it and hopefully not just computing lessons: Martin O’Hanlon’s analogue clock for example would be a brilliant to teach trig and geometry in the constructionist stylee. If anyone out there—teachers, programmers, Notch, whoever—want to help then get in touch. The School of Minecraft has a nice ring to it don’t you think?

P.S. Campus is an amazing place: if you are a tech start-up or entrepreneur (or would like to be!) and can get down there, check it out. I love it.

The future of streaming video service Hulu has been decidedly hazy lately, and now Reuters is reporting that the former head of News Corp. has entered a bid to purchase the company. According to the report Peter Chernin — who currently sits on Hulu's board — offered $500 million. In March several reports indicated that Disney and News Corp. had been holding discussion on what to do with the company, with both parties contemplating buying the other out — or selling Hulu altogether to a third party. Comcast serves as the third partner behind Hulu, but due to regulatory restrictions associated with its acquisition of NBCUniversal it's not allowed to participate in such decisions.

It's important to note that Reuters doesn't state that the deal is done, but the move would make sense. As Reuters points out, The Chernin Group has holdings in several high-profile technology companies, including Pandora. As president of News Corp. at the time Hulu was founded, Chernin was also an outspoken advocate for the venture, calling it a "game changer for internet video."

Disney and News Corp. have reportedly been disagreeing on what direction to take the service, with Disney said to be fond of an ad-supported model while News Corp. favors a subscription service. In January CEO Jason Kilar announced he would be leaving the company, but despite the uncertainty the company actually reported a strong 2012, with revenue growing 65 percent.

• Source Reuters
• Related Items hulu peter chernin streaming video the chernin group disney news corp.

HTC’s new "Facebook Phone," the First, runs stock Android. Phandroid reports that the unadorned OS is lurking just beneath the surface, accessible either by resetting the default launcher, or disabling the Facebook Home app from its own settings. While the fact hasn’t been confirmed by HTC itself, this would make the First only the second HTC phone to run an un-skinned version of the OS, following 2010’s T-Mobile G2.

On a page titled "Answering Your Questions on Home and Privacy," Facebook tells us that Home can be turned off, but it doesn’t make any mention of what our other choices are. When we spoke with HTC’s Chief Product Officer, Kouji Kodera, late last year, he told us that the company is "very proud of HTC Sense," the company's name for its oft-maligned skin and custom software experience. Kodera added that HTC would "like to continue shipping it on every device," so the news of a definitely comes as a surprise.

It’s worth pointing out that a phone running more-or-less unmodified Android isn’t the same as a Nexus phone — only the latter gets updates directly from Google. But the idea that there’s a new low-priced HTC phone on the horizon without Sense could make a whole other class of prospective buyers sit up and take notice.

• Source Phandroid
• Related Items stock android android skin android skin facebook home aosp First HTC Cellphones

zacharye writes "Mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets have long been considered the future of computing and a new projection from market research firm Gartner shows just how important the mobile market has become. According to the firm's estimates for 2013, Apple devices will outsell Windows devices for the first time this year. The estimate takes into account sales of Apple's iPhones, iPads and Mac computers as well as desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones powered by Microsoft's various Windows operating systems..."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

meme4u:

http://memeblock.com/

sefsar:

So this happened when I got the screen on my iPhone replaced. We calculated it as about 45 years.

A 12-year-old in his cell at the Harrison County Juvenile Detention Center in Biloxi, Mississippi. The window has been boarded up from the outside. The facility is operated by Mississippi Security Police, a private company. In 1982, a fire killed 27 prisoners and an ensuing lawsuit against the authorities forced them to reduce their population to maintain an 8:1 inmate to staff ratio.

everybodyilovedies:

Not exactly part of the Marvel NOW run but basically so I’m counting it, Carol Danvers gets a new look, a new ‘do, and a new name, in Captain Marvel!

• This is the start of Captain Marvel Volume 1.
• Issues 1-11 have already been released.
• Written by Kelly Sue Deconnick
• Art by Dexter Soy, Filipe Andrade

Plot Synopsis: Carol Danvers, previously Ms. Marvel, decides to take up the mantel of her deceased mentor, Captain Marvel. In this kick-butt tale of Carol wanting to punch things and traveling through time, Carol punches things and travels through time. In the first six-issue story arc, we travel with Carol back in time to WWII, where she fights alongside some kick-ass female fighter pilots. From there, we discover that the surprising source of Carol’s time traveling misadventures!

After punching her way back to the present, we follow Carol through her life as a superhero, Avenger, friend, and modern fabulous lady. To date, Carol has punched sharks, giant mech-monsters made from the bodies of downed air craft, dinosaurs, and now is now doing battle with a foe she cannot (or at least shouldn’t) punch: her own body.

Reasons to Read This: Caarrrooolll. The love I have for this woman. Ugh. If you want to read about an empowered lady kicking ass and taking names, read this book. If you want to read about a superhuman who deals with very human insecurities, doubts, and fears, read this book. If you want to read about a superhero who just wishes every problem that could be solved by punching it or throwing a car at it, read this book.

Useful Background Knowledge: Carol was previously Ms. Marvel. The title of “Captain Marvel” was held by the Kree (alien) man, “Mar-Vell”, who was partly responsible for giving Carol her powers when he was trying to protect her from an explosion of alien tech. The first 6 issue arc does a great job giving you a run-down of Carol’s basic power set, history, and personality in general. Sirdef also has a character sheet on her for tumblr marvelcon. Some daddy issues in the background (prerequisite for being an Avenger, of course), problems with alcohol in her past, but her biggest weakness could probably be described as her fear that she won’t be powerful enough to protect the people close to her.

Favorite Part: Her mentor Helen’s letter-speech in the first issue. You start talking about space, women, and flying: I start bawling like a baby. It’s beautiful prose that captures everything this book is about.

• New-Reader Friendly: 5/5
• Recommend Yes!