firehose

UGG Heaven. Thank you!!!

Milke, 50, was on death row for two decades, and the Arizona Supreme Court had gone so far as to issue a death warrant for Milke in 1997. The execution was delayed because she had yet to exhaust federal appeals. The appeals court said Thursday it wasn't expressing an opinion on Milke's guilt or innocence, though it heavily criticized authorities for staking much of their case on a detective with credibility problems. A federal appeals court threw out Milke's first-degree murder conviction in March 2013, saying prosecutors knew about a history of misconduct by the detective but failed to disclose it. Maricopa County prosecutors were preparing for a retrial.

The plane departed San Francisco at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, en route to Sydney, with 251 passengers on board. The plane was diverted to Canberra, with the pilot blaming the diversion on debris on the runway. After the plane landed in Canberra, the crew was unable to take off because the pilot exceeded his flying hour limit. To make matters worse, the passengers weren’t allowed to enter the Canberra Airport due to customs and immigration issues. Instead, the passengers were forced to stay on the tarmac – reportedly spending nearly four hours in their seats before crew allowed them to get off and get some fresh air. United Airlines gave the passengers snacks and drinks. Flight UA 863 finally landed in Sydney at about 6 p.m. local time Friday, nine hours behind schedule – finally bringing an end to the travelers’ ordeal.

The Guardian's Martin Chulov interviewed a senior leader of ISIS— one who came up through the ranks with the group's top leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The single most interesting quote from the ISIS leader, whom Chulov refers to as Abu Ahmed, is quite disturbing: he credits the group's rise, in large part, to American prison camps during the Iraq war, which he says gave him and other jihadist leaders an invaluable forum to meet one another and to plan their later rise. "Here, we were not only safe, but we were only a few hundred meters away from the entire al-Qaeda leadership."

The WikiLeaks founder has used the whistleblowing website’s official Twitter account to publicise a funding drive for the creation of a life-size bronze public artwork featuring himself, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, described as a “a monument to courage”.

The Duggar family helped get an anti-LGBT bill get passed in their hometown Fayetteville, Arkansas on Tuesday, Dec. 9. The new bill helped overturn a measure that would have prevented landlords and business owners to evict or fire people based on their gender identity. During the campaign, the Duggars also donated $10,000 to three opponents of the Ordinance 119.

A 12-year-old boy carrying a pellet gun died from a single shot fired by a rookie police officer, according to an autopsy released Friday.

A 911 caller found 17-year-old Lennon Lacy hanging by a dog leash and a belt Aug. 29 in the town of Bladenboro, his feet 2 inches off the ground. Lacy's mother and supporters with the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP said there are too many unanswered questions after the state medical examiner ruled the teen had killed himself. Bladen County District Attorney Jon David confirmed to The Associated Press through a spokeswoman Friday that the FBI is involved in the case. NAACP attorneys also confirmed that the FBI will review the case.

A folk artist who became a folk hero to some after picking a fight with fast-food giant Chik-fil-A over use of the phrase "eat more kale" — similar to their trademarked "eat mor chikin" — has won his legal battle.

"John 'Gruber' Boehner ...  John Boehner 'Grubered' conservatives tonight. And by that I mean the conservative base in particular," Hannity said. " We've got our own Gruber. It's John Boehner. Boehner is Gruber. He's full of it."

Joseph N. Fonge pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Boston to three counts of wire fraud for falsifying his income. The changes he made scored his daughter more than $160,000 in financial aid from the university and the federal government over three years. (For context, the national average for undergrad financial aid was $14,180 per full-time student last year.)   The father’s inaccurate federal income tax returns misrepresented the student’s need in the College Scholarship Service profile and Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) for tuition help at Harvard, where 70 percent of attendees get financial aid to cover the $58,607 yearly cost. And that’s not all: Fonge is also on the hook for defrauding the University of Rochester $46,600 for another daughter back in 2010. He is scheduled to be sentenced March 4.

A lawsuit against a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer who allegedly choked and hog-tied a 12-year-old boy in 2010 has been settled on undisclosed terms, court filings show. The 2012 lawsuit alleged that Ferguson Police Officer Justin Cosma, who was then serving as a police officer in Jefferson County, Missouri, and his then-colleague Richard Carter approached the shirtless 12-year-old as the boy was checking his mailbox at the end of his driveway. "Unprovoked and without cause, the deputies grabbed [the boy], choked him around the neck and threw him to the ground," the lawsuit, which was filed by the victim's family, said. The officers allegedly then “hog tied” the young boy, which means they restrained him by tying his hands to his feet. The child, according to the lawsuit, "suffered bruising, choke marks, scrapes and cuts across his body" due to his treatment by the officers, and had to be "transported to a medical facility for medical treatment."

virtual-artifacts:

A simurgh - a monstrous mythical bird with the power of reasoning and speech. From ‘Ajā’ib al-makhlūqāt wa-gharā’ib al-mawjūdāt (Marvels of Things Created and Miraculous Aspects of Things Existing) by al-Qazwīnī (d. 1283/682).

That Bitcoin thing you keep hearing about but still don’t exactly understand (just a guess) keeps expanding, and now Microsoft will let you use it to buy video games if you live in the US.

They’re not the first game seller to add the payment option, but they’ve beaten Apple, Google, Sony, and Nintendo to the punch. So, expect the first three to follow soon and Nintendo to get on board approximately a million years later.

But don’t worry; you’re not going to have to switch over to a weird Internet payment system just to buy Xbox games. They likely added the option because it’s free and relatively easy to do so, which makes it an easy way to attract people who are into spending digital money. As digital video game distribution grows, it only makes sense.

It’s also great for Bitcoin’s future that a major company is getting comfortable with the currency. It can be used not only on video games but also across all of Microsoft’s digital offerings to buy apps, music, and video. If, like many people, this still all sounds like nonsense to you, you can head over to the Bitcoin site to get some for yourself and figure out how it works.

Or you can watch a quick video on it and probably still only sort of understand it:

(via Eurogamer and The Verge)

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Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

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This is my kind of Christmas tree 😍 #9gag

therumpus:

Here’s today’s Daily GIF!

The millennials landed on the job market at a miserable moment in economic history. On the upside, that should give us something to lord over our children when we’re middle-aged and cranky. On the downside, our poor timing will probably depress our incomes for some time to come, since graduating into a recession can drag down your earnings for years.

Although the Catholic Church has always opposed nuclear weapons, the Vatican reluctantly acknowledged during the Cold War that mutual assured destruction was the best-worst option for averting catastrophe. Today, a dramatic declaration from Pope Francis reversed that position.

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Yes, Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat has finally, finally announced out loud that the Doctor not only can be a woman, but that the character's next reincarnation may finally see this monumental (and long overdue) change.

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Chicago-based comedian and artist Robert Bacon, whose design work we’ve written about in the past, has designed a map of San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) in the style of the classic SNES video game Super Mario World. Posters of Bacon’s BART map are available to purchase online at RIPT Apparel, along with many others from his Video Game City Maps Collection.

images via RIPT Apparel and Some Chicago Improvisor

via Boing Boing

The end-of-year spending bill deal crafted by congressional leaders Tuesday would dramatically expand the amount of money that wealthy political donors could inject into the national parties, drastically undercutting the 2002 landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul.

Print Now, Admire Forever. 50 Digital Joints. Via Solidsmack:

Meredith Scheff-King has created a handy little layout of 50 Digital Joints. …Gazing upon the individual pages of Jochen Gross’ 50 Digital Wood Joints just wasn’t enough. Desiring to view, in a single glance, as many wood joints as humanly possible, she composed a layout organizing the joints by Dovetail, Jigsaw, Tenon and Miter. It’s quite the example of wood joinery and a perfect size to fill that empty spot to the left of your drill press….

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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!

The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! We also offer the LulzBot TAZ – Open source 3D Printer and the Printrbot Simple Metal 3D Printer in our store. If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!

One hundred years ago, a crisis in urban masculinity created the lumberjack aesthetic. Now it's making a comeback.

I’m already dreading my New Years resolution, and it’s still weeks away. Like millions of other Americans, I’m going to start working out — specifically, running. I love the way running makes me feel, but only when I’m not running. This is because even when I’m racking up modest mileage, my legs burn, my chest itches, and my lungs feel like they’re filled with a thousand burning matches. What's up with that?

OnlyMrGodKnowsWhy

@MultitaskSuicide

Brayden dives 19 spots, splashing down at number 45

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