firehose

Gunkerty Jeb writes "Alma Whitten, the director of privacy at Google, is stepping down from that role and leaves behind her a complicated legacy in regards to user privacy. ... Whitten has been at Google for about 10 years, and while she has been the main public face of the company's product privacy efforts in the last couple of years, she has been involved in engineering privacy initiatives for even longer. Before becoming the privacy lead for products and engineering in 2010 in the aftermath of the Google Street View WiFi controversy, Whitten had been in charge of privacy for the company's engineering teams. During that time, she was involved in the company's public effort to fight the idea that IP addresses can be considered personally identifiable information."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Smokehouse on Brighton Beach, UK.

Jack Mills, a retired fisherman, and his wife Linda opened up their little black smokehouse on the seafront fishing quarter of Brighton over a decade ago. The couple can be found daily smoking fresh caught fish in the traditional way, using just oak, applewood, and salt.

Contributed by Ondra Loup.

The 7 inch tall hand-painted and cast resin Forever Alone Statuette brings the extremely lonely rage comic character (internet meme) to life. It is available to purchase at ThinkGeek.

Your massive library houses hundreds of leather-bound books, warmly lit by your fireplace. On the mantle, just below a painting of you in a velvet robe, is a series of ivory busts. Among them: Shakespeare, Bach, Lincoln, Athena, Einstein, and one you’ve recently added. It will have been a decade tomorrow that you’ve lived alone in this house and it’s time you commemorated that feat. Now, among the marbled faces of the greatest individuals in history you have… the Forever Alone Statue. Time to celebrate. You would invite your friends, but… come on…

images via ThinkGeek

KindMind writes "Alfred Anaya was a custom stereo installer who branched out to making secret compartments for valuables, who the DEA sent to prison as a co-conspirator when a drug dealer used his creation to smuggle drugs. But Wired points out the bigger question: 'The challenge for anyone who creates technology is to guess when they should turn their back on paying customers. Take a manufacturer of robot kits for hobbyists. If someone uses those robots to patrol a smuggling route or help protect a meth lab, how will prosecutors determine whether the company acted criminally?'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Vermouth Cocktail http://bit.ly/ZZoIA9

I'm surprised it's taken this long, but someone finally imagined what lens-flare-loving J.J. Abrams' Star Wars flick might look like, specifically, a lightsaber duel. It's... well, it's quite bright, as you might expect when the combatants are wielding weapons that create their own lens flares in addition to the sun. SO. MANY. LENS FLARES.

Read more...

Chinese restaurants often have entirely different names in Chinese. I think the old Royal East's Chinese name was "Spring flower." Patty's eyes widened: "You know about Chinese names?" She looked around the empty restaurant. "Chinese name is 'Number One Scholar Special Eating Place.'" "That," I said emphatically but unconvincingly, "Is a good name!" Number One Scholar was authentic and ironic and would work well in our neighborhood. But I did not convince anyone and Pu Pu lived for many years. Soon it will serve dumplings. It will never have served a hot pot.

Answers here.

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59 comments

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Immediately after its telecast of “The Walking Dead,” AMC’s live “The Talking Dead” — in which fans and host Chris Hardwick dissected and probed “TWD’s” season finale — hung on to 5.2 million of its viewers.

Which means that, at 10 p.m., “The Talking Dead” beat the season debut of HBO’s sex-and-swords drama, “Game of Thrones.”

”

- ‘Walking Dead’ tops ‘Bible’ on Easter Sunday - The Washington Post

In this cute Kid Snippets video by BoredShortsTV, adults act out (using voices and a script from kids) the scene from Star Wars where Han Solo, Chewbacca, Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker escape from the Death Star.

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

When Matt Fraction, Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon reteam for the fourth volume of their acclaimed spy-fi series Casanova, they’ll bring with them a literary heavy-hitter: Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon.

“When Casanova returns at the end of the year, the main story by Moon and me will be backed up by shorts created by Michael Chabon and Bá,” Fraction wrote on his blog. “He keeps saying ‘Like Tales of Asgard‘ and I’m not sure if he’s kidding or not.”

Chabon won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which follows two Jewish cousins who partner to create the Escapist, one of the most popular heroes of the Golden Age of comic books. Many of the events of the novel, which is dedicated to Jack Kirby, are based on the lives of actual comic-book creators like Will Eisner, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Jim Steranko and Stan Lee.

The author later teamed with Dark Horse for the anthology Michael Chabon Presents the Amazing Adventures of the Escapist, and the miniseries The Escapists, written by Brian K. Vaughan. Chabon, whose other novels include Wonder Boys and The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, also contributed to DC Comics’ JSA: All-Stars #7 and Batman: Death by Design.

Asked last night on his blog whether the Chabon announcement is an April Fools’ prank, Fraction replied, “It’s not. I hate April fools. but nobody will believe it anyway; proper PR to go out tomorrow, follow-ups surely to follow, etc.”

Debuting in June 2006 in Image Comics’ 16-page “slimline” format, Casanova follows the timeline-jumping exploits of free-lance thief and espionage artist Casanova Quinn. Marvel began publishing the series under its Icon banner in 2011, with the arrival of the third volume.

Illustration by Bob Clarke

Passings | Bob Clarke, one of the original artists for MAD Magazine, passed away Sunday of complications from pneumonia. He was 87. Best known for his “Believe It or NUTS!” parodies, Clarke actually began his career at age 15 as an uncredited assistant on the Ripley’s Believe It or Not comic strip before joining the Army, where he worked for Stars and Stripes. At MAD, he also drew “Spy vs. Spy” for many years, and illustrated the famed January 1961 back cover congratulating John F. Kennedy on his election (the front featured Richard Nixon; the editors were hedging their bets). [The News Journal]

Creators | Charles Soule talks about taking the reins of DC Comics’ Swamp Thing: “Swamp Thing isn’t just a horror book by any means — it’s also a book about superhero action and philosophy and humor. This is a title that’s open to just about anything.” Soule’s plans include new supporting characters and short story arcs that build up to a bigger structure. [USA Today]

Comics | Erin Polgreen, editor of the tablet anthology of comics journalism Symbolia, wonders if there is a place for humor in the non-fiction sequential world: “I often feel, as an editor of a news product, that we have to prove the veracity of our work since it’s not ‘typical news.’ That often means we fact-check the funny out.” But she’s figuring out a way to make it work. [The Hooded Utilitarian]

21: The Story of Roberto Clemente

Comics | Joseph Hughes kicks off baseball season with some pages from Wilfred Santiago’s 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente and Mark Chiarello’s book of baseball cards, Heroes of the Negro Leagues. [Comics Alliance]

Comics | Free Comic Book Day is a little more than a month away; here are some tips for making the most of it. [Graffiti]

Manga | Seven Seas has confirmed a new manga license: Senran Kagura: Skirting Shadows, which is based on a video game about a team of high school girls training to be ninjas. [Anime News Network]

Retailing | Tate Otterhill, who opened Tate’s Comics in Lauderhill, Florida, 20 years ago when he was 17, talks about his customers, the “wow factor” of his store, and how he can serve digital comics readers: “The new customer who doesn’t go to my store and is reading digital comics is someone who doesn’t know about our store, once they go, they say, ‘I need more of this digital book’, they still read digital, but come here looking for more.” [Sun-Sentinel]

Designer Nigel Evan Dennis has created Where have all the wildlings gone?, a stylized guide to the many Game of Thrones characters and their ever-changing allegiances, as well as a minimalist timeline of Westeros’ recorded history dating back about 13,000 years.

Find out where loyalties began, how they changed, or they betrayed one another. See who has no loyalty at all. It is always changing…

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

With FlightCar, travelers leaving their car at the airport can get free parking, a free carwash, and even gas cards by renting their vehicle out to others using the service. FlightCar insures every rental up to $1 million, and screens every renter. Drivers can list or rent a vehicle at the FlightCar website.

via Alexis Ohanian

via http://www.micahlidberg.com/viewlarge/crafty.html

If you found yesterday’s post too saccharine for your taste, well, here’s a different sort of mother-daughter exchange. Hannah found this card nestled among a basket of Easter eggs that her mom gave her.

related: I can has guilt trip?

extra credit: “Family’s Easter decorations have neighbour hopping mad” [cbcnews]

gaeth:

Turns out Netflix is a dick

How To Curb Child Sex Trafficking / Clackamas County Check-In

make them pay

One of the things that always seems to trip people up when it comes to analyzing marginalized identities in stories is the difference between a story that has fucked up shit in it versus a story that says fucked up shit.

This is a very important distinction that everybody analyzing narrative media needs to understand.

So I’m going to help a muthafucka out right quick.

A story that has fucked up stuff in it acknowledges that the bigotry, oppression, abuse, etc. that are seen as normal in the context of the story are actually really fucked up.

A story that says fucked up things reinforces fucked up shit about the real world we live in without calling it out as fucked up.

Consider HBO’s Game of Thrones. It’s an example of both a story with fucked up shit in it and a story that says fucked up shit.

As a show that has fucked up shit in it, Game of Thrones makes it abundantly clear that Westeros is a horrible place for a woman to live. Virulent misogyny is the norm, and women who openly wield power or exercise agency must be truly exceptional. The sexism of Westeros society is presented as detrimental on a variety of levels. Game of Thrones is by no means a feminist or womanist show, but it’s an excellent study in how women try to make the best of a bad situation.

As a show that says fucked up shit, Game of Thrones reinforces notions of faceless brown savages who need white people to civilize them. Now, I love Daenerys Stormborn, and I find her journey among the most interesting on the show. That said, the Dothraki embody the worst stereotypes about the cultures of people of color. Namely, that we live to fuck, fight, and loot. Also, notice how, despite their obvious importance to Daenerys’ journey, we don’t get to know them as individuals the way we do their Westeros counterparts.

“Fine,” you may think, “But how do you tell the difference?”

There are no clear-cut rules to determine these things, but there are things we can pay attention to. There are patterns that often emerge when you stop to think about these things in terms of gender, race, sexuality, class, disability, etc.

1. Who gets to be normal, desirable, and/or admirable?
2. Who defines what is good, beautiful, and true?
3. Who gets to live?

Consider ABC’s Once Upon A Time.

• Who gets to be normal, desirable, and/or admirable?

Although attractive cast members are the norm, it’s obvious that Snow, Emma, Charming, Ruby, Henry, and the various Scruffy White Dudes define what is normal, desirable, and admirable in that story. Damn, that’s so white I might need sunglasses just to look at it. And we don’t have any openly LGBTQ characters on the show (though Regina and Ruby ping my gaydar something fierce).

• Who defines what is good, beautiful, and true?

Again, people on Team Snow and Charming are the ultimate arbiters of all truth and morality. Those who oppose or question them are objectively evil. Unfortunately, every person of color is either dead (Henry Sr., Nameless Fairy Godmother, Lancelot, Gus Gus) or playing for Team Evil (Regina, Tamara, Sidney).

• Who gets to live?

No Black folks, that’s for damn sure.

So, even saying as much, or even meaning to, OUAT says fucked up shit about race, gender, and sexuality. That is, if you want True Love and Happily Ever After, you’d better be white and straight.

I hope that clears things up.

Is Clara the new River Song on Doctor Who?:

Can we talk about this boring, predictable pile of an episode? Is it that time yet?

Google's Terms of Service and Privacy Statement motivated me to give up over 3,000 Google+ Friends, and to stop using the Google search engine and the rest of their products, attractive as they were. Finding alternatives is definitely do-able. Here's where I am, one year later.

Put down the leftover Easter candy.

Actor David Morrissey, who as The Governor menaced Rick and the other survivors at the Prison throughout Season 3 of "The Walking Dead," will return to the AMC drama in the fall as a series regular.

Astonishing X-Men #61 variant cover-  An homage to men’s fashion magazines of the 80’s

In case you needed yet another reason not to taunt animals 10 times larger than you, here you go: A man visiting Antelope Island State Park in Utah provoked a 1500 pound bison and the bison, being a bison, rammed the man into a nearby fence. More »