Genesis 2:17
"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, can u not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."
Genesis 17:15
"And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, can u not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be."
Genesis 22:12
"Can u not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Can u not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son."
Exodus 20:4
"Mmm can u not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth."
Brandon Duncan, a.k.a. Tiny Doo, faces life in prison for allegedly benefiting from the crimes committed by a gang he’s affiliated with under an obscure California law. Courtesy photo
A rapper with gang ties charged in San Diego under a conspiracy law that allows for the prosecution of gang members if they benefit from or promote crimes committed by other gang members pleaded not guilty Thursday and had his trial set for next month.
Brandon Duncan, 32, is accused in a gang conspiracy involving nine local shootings between May 2013 and February of this year.
“They’re charging Brandon Duncan with crimes that the District Attorney admits that he had no involvement in or even knowledge of. That is the definition of injustice,” defense attorney Brian Watkins said outside court.
“It’s really given a black eye to the legal system here in the DA’s office,” the attorney said. “To charge someone with crimes while admitting he had no knowledge of those crimes. Based on his artistic expression, he made a rap album — a rap album that’s actually made in 2012, these shootings occurred in 2013 — so there’s absolutely no connection.”
Duncan — unlike five co-defendants — refused to waive time and had his trial set for Jan. 23.
The defendants were recently bound over for trial after a preliminary hearing.
More than a dozen documented gang members are charged in the case.
“It’s important for the community to understand that this case is not about punishing someone for rapping and it’s not about a First Amendment issue,” according to a statement from the District Attorney’s Office. “This case is about protecting our neighborhoods by taking violent gang members off the streets and holding them accountable for the crimes they commit using a law that voters passed and the court has recognized as constitutional.”
Duncan — also known as Tiny Doo — has been making rap music since he was 14 and has worked with such artists as Lil’ Wayne.
I first found this drawing years ago when it was a test DWG file for a plotter company. A couple years back Florian Römhild …re-drew the guide in DWG format and a few others have also modified the popular drawing like the Whisky Drinks version. I figured I would place the drawing for all to have fun viewing in AutoCAD 360.
Australian design studio Omvivo has created Le Cob Bath, a high design bathtub inspired by the iconic LC4 chaise lounge created by famed architect and designer Le Corbusier. The tub features three-quarter inch-thick glass sides and a decorative drain filled with pebbles. According to TheRichest, the Le Cob Bath retails for $34,000.
Some Facebook users had a good year. Some had a less good year. But nobody had quite the action-packed 2014 Facebook did. In the spirit of the “year in review” posts clogging up Facebook news feeds from San Francisco to Shanghai, here’s what Facebook’s year looked like!
Neither has disappeared yet, but Paper, a Facebook app announced with much fanfare on Jan. 30, indeed has vanished, at least from the public consciousness.
Until the 19th of that month, when the hubbub of the usual outrage and controversy surrounding Facebook was drowned out by the sound of a billion jaws collectively hitting the floor:
Not one to hold back, Zuckerberg reached into his treasure chest again, this time spending a modest-seeming $2 billion on Oculus, a virtual reality company that has yet to sell any products to consumers. A couple of days later, he also bought a drone company.
Nearly there! In December, Facebook made employees read Chinese propaganda, stood accused of “being morally unacceptable” (by the Daily Mail of all places) and was chided for participating in Russian censorship. But it was the “year in review” that really fired up passions to round off 2014.
So my (beloved!) ex-boyfriend's apartment caught fire this year, which was very sad, but Facebook made it worth it. pic.twitter.com/AvU8ifazXa
The invented corporate buzzword has been around for years, but the burger chain Shake Shack has taken things to a new level in its S-1 filing for an IPO.
The company can’t seem to resist a portmanteau. “The Shacksperience” is its employee-development program, which teaches staff to “live and breathe” the “Shack Pact,” an agreement that encompasses the company’s value system and brand, and which is printed on the inside cover of the “Shackademics” training manual, presumably accessible through the “ShackSource,” its proprietary online training portal.
The company attributes its strong financial performance and profitable growth to “Shack-onomics.”
That doesn’t even touch the menu, which includes both the perfectly reasonable “ShackBurger,” as well as the more strained “Shack-Cago Dog“—both are trademarked.
There’s a long and proud history of made-up words in the food industry (see the “McEverything”), and more generally, in corporate America.
There are many sub-genres of buzzword, jargon, and corporate invention. There’s the tortured acronym (consider Barclays’ LiMME, which led inevitably to BLiMME), the self-consciously different name for a common department (recently, tech companies havepreferred “People Operations” to Human Resources), and all manner of designations, appellations and handles that are incomprehensible to anyone on the outside.
It makes sense to create a product name that fits a brand or can be trademarked, or to use a name to make a point, or just to have some fun. But appending what’s basically a menu-item naming convention to the economic rationale for a company’s existence is a bit much. Could someone ask this corporate Shackspeare to please Shake the habit?
Seattle is the defending champion and top the Super Bowl 49 odds menu heading into the playoffs.
Russell Wilson and the defending-champion Seattle Seahawks are the top seed in the NFC heading into the playoffs, and sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com have them listed as the betting favorites on the updated Super Bowl XLIX odds.
Seattle cruised to a 20-6 win over the St. Louis Rams in Week 17 to earn the top seed in the NFC for the playoffs at 12-4 SU thanks to tiebreakers that gave them the edge over the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys -- the other two NFC teams with a dozen victories. That has the Seahawks set as the 11/5 favorites at the sportsbooks heading into a first-round bye.
The three other teams that earned first-round byes then follow behind the Seahawks on the Super Bowl XLIX odds heading into the postseason, with the New England Patriots at 3/1, and both the Denver Broncos and the Green Bay Packers at 5/1. New England is the No. 1 seed in the AFC, with Denver the No. 2 seed.
Both of those teams went 12-4 SU on the year. Aaron Rodgers and the Packers are the No. 2 seed in the NFC behind the Seahawks.
The Dallas Cowboys are then at 12/1 on the odds to win the Super Bowl at the sportsbooks as the No. 3 seed in the NFC, and they'll play host to the Detroit Lions at AT&T Stadium in their Wild Card weekend matchup at 4:40 p.m. ET Sunday afternoon.
The Lions, who fell to the Packers 30-20 in Week 17 to lose the NFC North division title, are back at 40/1 on the updated Super Bowl betting lines.
The Pittsburgh Steelers locked down the AFC North division title and the conference's No. 3 seed with their 27-17 Sunday Night Football victory in Week 17, and Ben Roethlisberger and company sit at 20/1 on the Super Bowl odds heading into their home Wild Card weekend matchup against the Baltimore Ravens at 8:15 p.m. ET Saturday night.
The Ravens finally clinched their playoff berth in Week 17, and they're at 40/1 on those NFL futures.
The Indianapolis Colts are the No. 4 seed in the AFC and they're at 35/1 on the Super Bowl odds with a home Wild Card weekend matchup against the 40/1 Cincinnati Bengals on tap for 1:05 p.m. ET Sunday afternoon.
The Carolina Panthers host the Arizona Cardinals in the opening Wild Card matchup at 4:20 p.m. ET Saturday afternoon, with both of those teams longshots on Super Bowl odds -- Carolina is at 40/1, and Arizona is at 60/1.
Pekka Väänänen has a great blog post on running the classic PC game Quake on an oscilloscope! The post has an overview of how Pekka takes the 3D primitives in the game and uses them to drive an oscilloscope’s X-Y mode, much like a classic vector arcade game. A computer soundcard is used to generate analog signals for the oscilloscope, and the limited bandwidth gives the edges of the world an eerie distorted quality that fits the mood of the game perfectly. Nice work!
These documents are more general than what we've seen from Snowden, but -- assuming they're real -- these are still national-security leaks. You'd think there would be more news about this, and more reaction from the US government.
The team announced Monday morning that coach Mike Smith has been fired. On Monday, NFL Media Insider Ian Rapoport added that it would be a surprise if general manager Thomas Dimitroff's job is in as much danger. NFL Media's Albert Breer added Dimitroff is safe, but Blank plans on shaking up the organizational structure, per a source.
The Falcons are wasting no time in their coaching search, requesting permission to speak with Denver Broncos offensive coordinator Adam Gase, Rapoport reported, per a source.
HR files leaked in the hack provided the motive part: a massive restructuring in Spring, 2014, in which many longtime SPE employees were laid off. After researching the online footprint of a list of all the individuals who were fired and had the means to be able to access sensitive data on Sony's network, Norse said it identified a handful who expressed anger in social media posts following their firing. They included one former employee — a 10-year SPE veteran who he described as having a "very technical background." Researchers from the company followed that individual online, noting participation in IRC (Internet Relay Chat) forums where they observed communications with other individuals affiliated with underground hacking and hacktivist groups in Europe and Asia. According to Stammberger, the Norse investigation was eventually able to connect an individual directly involved in conversations with the Sony employee with a server on which the earliest known version of the malware used in the attack was compiled, in July, 2014.
theodp writes This holiday season, Google and the National Parks partnered to let girls program the White House Christmas tree lights. While the initiative earned kudos in Fast Company's 9 Giant Leaps For Women In Science and Technology In 2014, it also prompted an act of civil disobedience of sorts from St. Augustine of Canterbury School, which decided Google and the U.S. government wouldn't determine which of their kids would be allowed to participate in the coding event. "We decided to open it up to all our students, both boys and girls so that they could be a part of such an historic event, and have it be the kickoff to our Hour of Code week," explained Debra Knox, a technology teacher at St. Augustine.
Airbnb has grown so large that it's now spawning other startups that fill the tiniest of niches. Meet "Can I Stay with You While I Rent my Place on Airbnb?" which, perhaps due to the unwieldy name, is also being called the "Airbnb for Airbnb." Just like the name suggests, this startup — featured this week on Product Hunt — pairs Airbnb hosts together so one can rent out their place and still have a place to sleep.
There's no cost to using the service, but you'll likely want to come to some agreement with your fellow host before shacking up at their place. The site suggests that you could split some of the cash proceeds from your rental with your new-found Airbnb buddy, or you could offer to host them for free in the future while they rent out their own place to make some dough. Alternatively, you could just share a six-pack and call it a friendship.
The fact that such a service exists shows how fast and fully the Airbnb economy has grown — even if the idea behind the service is at the very limits of logic. After all, unless you're taking advantage of the other host, you're probably just going to come out even at the end anyways.
This bi-colored northern cardinal has female plumage on its right, and male plumage on its left. Called a "gynandromorphs," these animals are rare in nature. Rarer still is the chance to study one for extended periods of time — but researchers recently had such a chance with the bird you see here.
The comedian, fighting an onslaught of accusations that he sexually assaulted more than two dozen women over many years, is paying six-figure fees to private investigators for information that might discredit his alleged victims.
There are more than 58,000 homeless college students in America today, according to FAFSA data from the 2012-2013 academic year. The figure — which does not account for students who either do not realize they qualify as homeless (i.e., couch-surfers) or those who choose not to report their cases out of fear or shame — marks a more than 75 percent increase over the previous three years.
Super Opinionated.
The Toast » The Toast.
