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(Photo via USA TODAY Sports)
Per a league source, Lynch received a fine in the amount of $11,050 for his backward dive while grabbing his crotch into the end zone at the tail end of his career-long 79-yard touchdown run. Lynch wasn’t flagged for the move, which was deemed to be unsportsmanlike conduct.
One of the most dramatic economic shifts currently taking place in the world is in the oil-producing countries of the Persian Gulf—until recently swimming in excess cash but now, as oil plummets, turning to a chronic trade deficit. Their misery, however, is to Europe’s benefit. Because of those lower oil prices, there is a very real possibility that the European Union will become the world’s largest surplus economy next year.
These are takeaways in a note to clients (pdf) from Michael Pearce at Capital Economics. Look at Pearce’s chart, which tracks the impact of $60-a-barrel oil. The Gulf’s considerable turn of fortunes means a trade deficit for the first since 1998, a time when oil prices plunged to $10 a barrel.
But for China and the euro zone, $60-a-barrel oil means lower import payments and an improvement in their trade balances, worth 0.2% of global GDP in each case. Another big shift is in the US, whose oil imports have plunged from about 11 million barrels a day in 2008 to 7 million now, offset by domestic oil production surging to 9 million. The US trade imbalance looks likely to drop to below 2% of US GDP, its lowest since 1997.
The Moscow Times |
Putin Calls for Less 'Latinization' of Russian Language The Moscow Times Maxim Zmeyev / ReutersA woman walks past a shop window at a shopping mall in central Moscow. President Vladimir Putin has called for an end to the "excessive Latinization" of Russian words, expressing support for a lawmaker's initiative to cut down on ... and more » |
via: 3dprint.com
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake.
He's everywhere.
And that's the whole point of the Elf on the Shelf, the bright-eyed, Kewpie-esque doll that millions of parents display around their homes in December as a reminder to children to behave. The elf, the story goes, is an agent reporting back to Santa Claus, and he's tasked with documenting any seasonal misdeeds for his jolly boss.
The elf also, a new paper argues, promotes acceptance of a surveillance state. An excerpt from co-authors Laura Pinto and Selena Nemorin:
Children...may not touch the doll, and they must accept that the doll watches them at all times with the purpose of reporting to Santa Claus. This is different from more conventional play with dolls, where children create play-worlds born of their imagination, moving dolls and determining interactions with other people and other dolls.
Instead, the elf encourages children "to accept or even seek out external observation of their actions outside of their caregivers and familial structures."
Also, this.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
On the whole, working at home is a pretty good deal. The commute is great and the dress code can't be beat. It's also quiet—at least the weekdays are during the school year, for those of us who are parents. But that quiet can also beget loneliness, especially if you live alone or your spouse has a job that requires commuting. That's where pets come in. Ranging from dogs to tree frogs, the Ars staff has a number of four-legged creatures keeping us company throughout the workday.
When we gave you a peek at our offices at Thanksgiving, a few of you asked about our pets. So as we all hopefully spend Christmas in the company of those closest to us, we thought we'd share some "family pictures" with you.
Marlowe Bangeman
Macintosh is our 13-1/2-year-old Airedale Terrier.
8 more images in gallery
I've owned a lot of different creatures in my life, including a prairie dog, Jenday Conures (who found a new home when they wouldn't stop screaming during inopportune times in my home office), and poison dart frogs. Currently, we have a small menagerie in the Bangeman household, starting with our oldest and most venerable member, Macintosh. Mac is an ancient (13-1/2-year-old) Airedale Terrier who enjoys sleeping and defending the house loudly from all manner of delivery folk. Our other dog is Martini, a four-year-old miniature bull terrier. She's a clown, typical of the breed, and her favorite thing to do is to bat a tennis ball around the house—but only if she has another tennis ball in her mouth (otherwise it's no fun).
Read 22 remaining paragraphs | Comments
firehose"Apple isn't interested in tracking, data collection, or advertising" beat
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
THIS IS HAPPENING BECAUSE YOU BITCHES COULDN’T CONTROL YOURSELF WITH THE FUCKING MEMES WHEN WILL YOU LEARN, WHEN WILL YOU LEARN THAT YOUR ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES
This Monday at the World Wide Developer’s Conference, Apple’s Craig Federighi introduced a brand new app for iOS 8 that, by its own marketing copy, purports to offer “your whole health picture” at a single glance. And yet it’s missing a very popular health app function among half its potential user base: a period tracker.
Which is really a bummer, since period trackers are great. I started using one a few years ago when my menstrual cycle started acting more like a random number generator than a mathematically predictable natural disaster and now I can tap a few things on my phone and tell you with certainty whether I’ll be having my period on next Christmas. The only problem with my period tracker is that the app is slow, buggy, and full of ads that take forever to load (I could get rid of the ads by paying for it, but that wouldn’t fix how slow and buggy it is, so I find myself less than inclined to fork over the cash). The same functionality, baked into a crisp, responsive Apple interface would have me swapping apps in a heartbeat.
So it’s too bad that Apple’s “Health” doesn’t appear to have any nods to the menstrual cycle at all. From Mercury News:
Since it was introduced in September, the Health app has been under fire for this apparent oversight, becoming part of the ongoing discussion of whether the gender gap among tech employees affects the industry’s products and services.
I doubt Apple engineers and product designers purposely excluded female users, although I think it’s worth pointing out that the company’s global workforce is 70 percent male. It’s also worth noting that there’s no indication the app was geared for men, although that has not raised as many concerns. Apple didn’t respond to my request for comment.
Mercury News’ Michelle Quinn noted that the app lacks other, simple, gender associated functionalities. It won’t remind you to perform a breast or prostate self-exam, for example. But the app does ask you to identify your sex, so there’s at least some nod to basic biological differences. Or, you could say that the app could easily know which set of extra features and reminders to use, based on the user’s identification. (Or if it wanted to be a bit more inclusive, it could just ask whether you have a prostate or a menstrual cycle or breasts.)
The question Quinn raises is whether this is a problem with Health, if it’s an oversight, or part of a purposeful effort to keep the app gender neutral. I agree with her that it seems a missed opportunity to include a common bodily function that both necessitates tracking due to its relatively long frequency and is comparatively simple to track (no step counter, no calorie database, no motion sensor, heck I did it with a whiteboard calendar when I was in high school). And while I think a lack of women involved in the project could have easily lead to a period tracker being de-prioritized in the development cycle, I wonder if tracking and predicting a menstrual cycle veered too far into “prediction” rather than “data collection” for the app makers to be comfortable. Apple doesn’t want to be in the position of giving out medical advice: they’re not a medical company. Even Health’s ad copy stresses how it’s going to interface with other health and fitness apps so that they can collect better data, not how the app itself will improve the user’s health.
Either way, I think the convenience and utility of an integrated period tracker in all iPhones would have sounded way cooler than any misgivings that it might have sounded not-cool to developers. Not only would it present a vital service to half their potential userbase, it’d be a great step on towards the continual destigmatization of menstruation.
(Seriously, if anybody has a period tracker they really like, sing out in the comments.)
(via Mercury News)
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A couple of very excited southern sea otters at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, Calfornia gleefully enjoy a bunch of colorful frozen Christmas treats that were made specifically for them.
Watch our otters go crazy for holiday ice treats. It probably doesn’t hurt that the “frosting” is minced clams!
images via Monterey Bay Aquarium
Thanks to the wonderful Twitter feed from the park rangers at the Grand Canyon National Park, we have this incredible shot of a light dusting of snow that fell over the Grand Canyon today.
A Week 16 taunting call against the Steelers highlights just how arbitrary and potentially costly bad officiating is getting in the NFL.
Week 16 was not a banner weekend for NFL officiating. There were the usual bad helmet-to-helmet calls (Panthers cornerback Josh Norman's hit on Browns receiver Andrew Hawkins on the first play of the second quarter of their game). There were questionable in bounds/out of bounds calls (Vikings tight end Rhett Ellison's touchdown/not touchdown right before halftime should have been a touchdown). It had shaky unnecessary roughness calls on tackles near the sideline (seriously, Vikings linebacker Gerald Hodges initiated contact with Dolphins rookie receiver Jarvis Landry decidedly in bounds but was penalized for taking him to the ground). There was even a quarterback fumble ruled an incomplete pass with no review (Big Ben's hand was empty as hell against the Chiefs).
But there was one shitty call that was so egregious, that I hope the referee who called it isn't allowed anywhere near any playoff games. The offending call would be the ridiculous taunting penalty called against Steelers cornerback William Gay after a particularly spectacular, unspectacular play made by Steelers middle linebacker Lawrence Timmons on third down.
Picture this, the Steelers found themselves up 17-6 in a must win game with 12:39 left in the fourth quarter. Their opponent, the Chiefs, was facing a third-and-17 from their own 23-yard line. The Steelers, of course, played way off the receivers, defending everything deep, and forcing Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith to dump the ball off short to tight end Travis Kelce. Timmons was all the way on the other side of the formation in coverage, but hauled ass and made a one-on-one tackle in the open field for a gain of of just two yards. It may have looked like just a routine play since it wasn't likely that Kelce was goign to gain enough yardage to get the first down anyway. If you really look at the play, you have to appreciate just how fast Timmons was running and to be able to gather himself and make a sure tackle. It's the opposite of routine or easy.
Gay had also broken up quickly on the play, but was trailing Timmons by a few yards as he took Kelce down. All Gay did was walk up until he was across from Timmons and crossed his arms. It's a common thing that players do, assuming a stance and staring at a teammate who just made a big play like "Yeah, we see you big dawg!" From the TV copy and the All 22 that is the extent of what Gay did. Seriously.
Notice how I didn't say anything about him gesturing at Kelce? That's because it didn't happen. Kelce wasn't even in the same general direction where Gay was facing, and he was off the ground and running off the field before whichever referee threw the flag. Yes, that's right, they didn't even call the shit right away. They waited and still got it wrong.
(It was first-year referee Ron Torbert and his crew calling the game).
As near as I can tell one of these morons threw the flag because he thought Gay was taunting a Chiefs player when there wasn't even one in the vicinity. All because he was standing there with his arms crossed. Dassit. They all refused to look up at the jumbotron to see just how absurd of a call they were about to make.
The Steelers had fought their ass off to force the Chiefs into a punt, but because of a completely arbitrary and inconsistent rule that allows referees to call stuff they didn't actually see, one which also does not allow for a review to keep the refs honest, the Steelers defense had to go back on the field as the Chiefs continued the drive. They were still able to limit the Chiefs to a field goal, but what if that hadn't been the case? What if the Chiefs had marched down the field after that stupid ass taunting penalty and scored a touchdown which gave them the momentum they needed to come back and eventually win the game?
The league would have a lot to answer for if that had been the case. A potential division winner knocked out of the playoffs because of a taunting penalty on a player that didn't taunt anybody. I could see the headlines.
Something has to be done about this. Officiating is getting more and more ridiculous by the week!
Well, not quite everyone.
This is apparently a thing that's possible:
Merry Christmas Eve! Have a Starbucks on us! Have the barista scan the pic below. Don't be a grinch, please use for 1 pic.twitter.com/Npzh6QiyRa
— Doug Fister (@dougfister58) December 24, 2014
That is incredibly nice of Doug Fister! And you get the added gift of explaining to the barista that "no, this wasn't a gift from a family member. A pitcher for the Nationals got this for me. No we don't know each other. His name is Doug Fister. Yes, Fister. Yes, that's pretty funny but can I have my drink."
Well, not anymore. Coffee On Fister has ended:
Sorry for the misunderstanding. The gift card was meant as a first come, first serve until the amount ran out, just a little holiday gift.
— Doug Fister (@dougfister58) December 24, 2014
I don't see many angry replies to the initial tweet, but I guess some people thought Doug Fister would buy them coffee FOREVER and are now disappointed. I'm curious how much it was ...
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submitted by billautomata [link] [1 comment] |
firehosevia Toaster Strudel
firehoseWILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
ain’t no party like a wilfred mott christmas party
Edinburgh University has given a library card to their faithful feline patron.
This cat knows what’s up.
Burn this hell orb
Kill Woody Allen in 2015
this idea is so original, i love it
firehoseI often miss having unfettered access to the AP wire
The Associated Press sets the style standard for much of journalism. It gathers most reporters can't reach. Tweeting fake stories from one of its accounts can send a shiver through the stock market. It will also remind you to prepare for World Kidney Day.
This is the AP Planner Twitter account, an idiosyncratic guide to holidays, anniversaries, and events. It tweets a few times a day, mostly about politics, entertainment, and celebrity birthdays: yesterday's, for the record, included Pearl Jam vocalist Eddie Vedder.
The catch is that it's a collection of free samples from the far larger and more comprehensive AP Planner, a rolling calendar that other news outlets can buy subscriptions to. So instead of getting a selection of the most relevant news, you'll find a curio cabinet of pretty much random things occurring tomorrow, a week away, a month away, 50 days away, and 100 days away.
In the months and months I've scrolled back, I've found exactly one retweet from another AP account: apparently The Interview was big enough to merit its own AP Planner update.
It would make the best wall calendar ever.
And it would make sure you never, ever, ever missed Christmas.
firehoseall car carriers suck forever
Uber is putting the screws to New York taxis, and it's announcing the move with a Christmas Eve news dump. This morning, New York City Uber users received an email saying that anyone hailing a yellow cab through Uber’s service will have to pay a $2 surcharge.
New York users have the option of hailing a yellow cab using Uber’s app, or hailing one of Uber’s black cars. This summer, Uber cut fares on its UberX black cars by 20 percent and touted the fact that they’re now cheaper than yellow cabs. (Bloomberg found Uber to be very slightly cheaper.) Now the company is further undercutting the New York taxi industry, not by lowering fares again, but by hiking the price of hailing a cab through its app. Considering how convenient hailing through Uber’s app is, and that cab fares were neck-in-neck with UberX's, adding a $2 surcharge to yellow cabs is a significant blow.
Uber isn't lowering prices, it's hiking the price of its competition
In its email, Uber claims the fee was added for the benefit of drivers, though the fee will be going directly to Uber. "This fee is a small charge added to uberT trips on behalf of yellow and boro taxi drivers who utilize the Uber platform," the email says. An Uber representative said in an email that the fee is designed "to cover costs associated with provisioning the platform." Similar fees have been put in place in Washington, D.C., and Chicago.
The next paragraph is more direct about why the fee is bad news for taxi drivers: "We want to take this opportunity to introduce uberX, the low-cost Uber."
Earlier this month New York lawmakers introduced a bill that would allow yellow cabs to design their own e-hailing app. Given Uber’s rapid growth, and its enthusiasm for destroying its competition by any means necessary, it’s likely too little too late.
