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MIT cuts ties with Walter Lewin after online harassment probe - The Tech
Here’s What Police Actually Planned To Say If Darren Wilson Was Indicted
firehose'“It is a tragedy that the officer and the Brown family will struggle with for the rest of their lives,” [FOP President Chuck] Canterbury said. “But anger is not the solution. Angry people can’t fix things or heal. So I hope that we can all take a deep breath and let the justice system work.”
It concludes that the Order believed Wilson would be “cleared of the charges made against him today.” '
This Greenpeace Stunt May Have Irreparably Damaged Peru's Nazca Site
firehoseof course
The Peruvian government is planning to file criminal charges against Greenpeace activists who may have permanently scarred the Nazca Lines World Heritage Site during a publicity stunt.
James Randi: debunking the king of the debunkers - Telegraph
djempiricalugh. the #yourheroesaregarbage is hitting close to home today.
“The survival of the fittest, yes,” he said. “The strong survive… I think people with mental aberrations who have family histories of inherited diseases and such, that something should be done seriously to educate them to prevent them from procreating. I think they should be gathered together in a suitable place and have it demonstrated for them what their procreation would mean for the human race. It would be very harmful.”
By Will Storr
7:19AM GMT 09 Dec 2014
There are few public figures who’ve had decades of an almost perfectly positive press, as James Randi has. The 87-year-old debunker of the paranormal was Richard Dawkins before God invented Richard Dawkins - angry, verbally aggressive, a hero to the kinds of people who don’t believe in Big Foot and are rational enough to become sleepless with fury at the brainlessness of the idiots who do.
Author and thinker Isaac Asimov once claimed Randi’s "qualifications as a rational human being are unparalleled", whilst the New York Times has called him our "most celebrated living debunker". More recently he's been the star of an award winning documentary film telling his incredible story.
Originally a magician and escapologist known as The Amazing Randi he graduated, as a young man, to the more serious business of exposing con-men and the self-deluded who claim supernatural powers. His long life and career has been devoted to the pursuit of truth above all else. The film An Honest Liar dramatically recounts his brilliant exposés of celebrity spoon-benders and faith healers. Along the way we’re told Randi is on a “crusade to try to change the world” and that he is “in love with the truth.”
The man himself explains “magicians are the most honest people in the world. They tell you they’re going to fool you and they do it.” But there’s another side to the legend that will be rather less apparent to the average viewer. James Randi, the honest liar, has been caught being anything but.
This became apparent to me over the course of a few months as I researched his life for a book about irrational beliefs. Having spent time with creationists, homeopaths and people who swore that wig wearing aliens could be found playing the roulette wheel in Las Vegas casinos, I began to notice there also were plenty of people in the sceptical-atheist movement who seemed to suffer from the same biases and accidents of reasoning as the eccentrics.
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I decided to take the story of the movement’s pioneer as a kind of case study. Could it be true that the icon of the truth-fetishising sceptic movement was, himself, a liar?
Randi has certainly been a controversial figurehead. I’d heard rumours he’d once declared himself doubtful of the science behind climate change, which seemed to me a sceptical step too far. And then there were his startlingly intolerant comments about drug users. Writing on his blog, Randi announced himself to be pro-legalisation, because “the principle of Survival of the Fittest would draconically prove itself.” Those who decided to use them, he wrote, “would simply do so and die” and “any weeping and wailing over the Poor Little Kids who would perish” were “crocodile tears, in my opinion.”
But the first thing I discovered about The Amazing Randi is that he certainly has been amazing. Born in Toronto in 1928, Randall James Hamilton Zwinge’s life changed aged 12 when he saw a magician named Harry Blackstone Snr. He was electrified. But it was Harry Houdini that really lit his competitive fire.
As an escapologist Randi escaped from a straight-jacket dangling over Niagara Falls, phoned his mother from inside a coffin in Halifax harbour and, in 1974, won a Guinness World Record for lying naked in a slab of ice for 43 minutes and eight seconds. As his celebrity grew, he toured with Alice Cooper and made a guest appearance with The Fonz on Happy Days.
Randi's guest appearance on Happy Days (screen shot taken from An Honest Liar)
But his true fame came, not as the talented magician he undoubtedly was, but as a debunker. His involvement with Uri Geller’s 1973 appearance on The Tonite Show Starring Johnny Carson was typical in its brutal effectiveness. Geller was perhaps the most famous magician in the world, at that time, known for bending spoons and fixing watches with the powers of his mind which he repeatedly insisted were real. Randi was invited to advise programme’s staff in advance of Geller’s stunt, which involved moving his hand over an array of seven metal canisters and sensing which one contained water.
Randi told the team they should supply their own props and guard them absolutely from Geller and his people. Gellar began his trick as Carson leaned over his desk, fascinated. Nothing happened. “I’m having a hard time with you,” said Geller. He continued trying. A dark look fell across his face. “Let me rest a minute.” He leaned his chin in his hands and glowered at the canisters. They cut to an ad break. When they returned, in front of millions of viewers, Geller had given up.
As I read deeper into Randi’s vast cuttings file I began to discover one or two oddnesses. Take, for example, his early life. Randi claims to have been born with an IQ of 168 which would comfortably make him a genius, the generally accepted lower limit being 125. He reckons he was so intelligent that, as a young boy, he was given a special pass by the authorities that said he wasn’t required to attend school. Instead, he educated himself in the Toronto Public Library and the Royal Ontario Museum.
Over the course of many interviews, Randi told journalists that, by the age of 12, he’d taught himself geography, history, astronomy, calculus, psychology, science, mathematics and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.
I also uncovered a history of complaints of dishonesty by people that Randi, as head of the James Randi Educational Foundation [JREF], had battled with over the years. They included homeopaths, psychic investigators, university professors and an audiophile who was convinced he could tell the difference between some speaker cables that cost $16,000 and a standard set.
Some accused him of making up quotes by them in his best-selling books, some of aggressively mischaracterising them, others of straightforward lying.
One better known complainant was Dr Rupert Sheldrake, the Cambridge biologist whose controversial idea of morphic resonance allows for the theoretical existence of ESP. To test his notion, Sheldrake ran a number of studies on a dog that seemed to know when its owner was coming home.
Following a burst of publicity for Sheldrake, Randi told a journalist, “We at JREF have tested these claims. They fail.” But when I met Sheldrake, at his Hampstead home, he made a serious charge. “Randi’s a liar and a cheat,” he said. “When I asked him for the data, he had to admit he hadn’t done any tests.”
The Amazing Randi performing 'magic' in 1974 (The LIFE Images Collection/Getty)
According to Sheldrake, his direct requests for data were twice ignored. After appealing to others at the JREF, Randi eventually wrote back, explaining that he couldn’t supply the data because it got washed away in a flood and that the dogs he tested are now in Mexico and their owner was “tragically killed last year in a dreadful accident.”
Unusually for Randi, he was polite. “I over-stated my case for doubting the reality of dog ESP based on the small amount of data I obtained,” he wrote. “It was rash and improper of me to do so. I apologise sincerely.”
But, publicly, Randi then attacked Sheldrake. Of his own failure to provide the data he wrote, “A search of our site would have supplied [Sheldrake] with all the details he could possibly wish. Alternately, I could have supplied them, if only he had issued a request. That’s what we do at the JREF.”
In 2011, I travelled to Las Vegas to Randi’s annual fan convention, The Amaz!ng Meeting, to ask him about several of these claims of dishonesty. He countered most either with denials or appeals to the fact that the events happened a long time ago. When it came to Sheldrake he said, “What specific experiments are you referring to?”
“The ones you told Dog World magazine you’d done,” I said. “In New York. The owner was killed, the dogs are in Mexico and you lost the files in a flood.”
“That was one of the hurricane floods,” he nodded
So what prompted these tests?
“I must admit to you that I don’t recall having said that these tests were even done. But I’m willing to see the evidence for it.”
I handed him the emails Sheldrake provided.
“Oh,” he said.
Pressed about his treatment of Sheldrake, he insisted he didn’t lie because when he made the offer to send the data it hadn’t yet been destroyed by Hurricane Wilma. It was only after our meeting I realised Wilma took place four years before he stated that the data was available. But before we parted, I told him my research painted a picture of a clever man who is often right, but who has a certain element to his personality which leads him to overstate.
“Oh I agree,” he said.
“And sometimes lie. Get carried away.”
“Oh I agree. No question of that. I don’t know whether the lies are conscious lies all the time,” he said. “But there can be untruths.”
It was a brave and surprising moment. Even more surprising, though, was what Randi had to say when challenged about his wish to see survival of the fittest being allowed ‘draconically prove itself’ on drug users. It sounded a lot like Social Darwinism. “The survival of the fittest, yes,” he said. “The strong survive… I think people with mental aberrations who have family histories of inherited diseases and such, that something should be done seriously to educate them to prevent them from procreating. I think they should be gathered together in a suitable place and have it demonstrated for them what their procreation would mean for the human race. It would be very harmful.”
More recently I’ve begun to wonder about his educational foundation, the JREF, which claims tax exempt status in the US and is partly dependant on public donations. I wondered what actual educative work the organisation - which between 2011 and 2013 had an average revenue of $1.2 million per year - did. Financial documents reveal just $5,100, on average, being spent on grants.
There are some e-books, videos and lesson plans on subjects such as fairies on their website. They organise an annual fan convention. James Randi, over that period, has been paid an average annual salary of $195,000. My requests for details of the educational foundation’s educational activities, over the last 12 months, were dodged and then ignored.
Nothing of this or of Randi’s extreme views is evident in the movie, An Honest Liar. Whilst his dishonest lying is hinted at, the film also colludes in some of his sleights of hand. One such episode is his "Carlos Hoax". In 1988, in an effort to expose the gullible the media, Randi persuaded his now-partner Deyvi Pena to pretend he was a medium who could channel a 2,000 year old spirit before promoting him to journalists in Australia. For decades, Randi has claimed the stunt a success, saying it “proved that the media can be willingly seduced so long as they’re convinced that surrender to bunk will increase ratings.”
The documentary, too, presents the hoax as a win for Randi. And yet contemporary accounts have it that, on the contrary, journalists were actually widely sceptical of Carlos. A reporter for The Skeptic said, “None of the media coverage was credulous; all disbelieved that [Pena] was genuine.”
Writing in The Daily Grail, Greg Taylor recounts how when a researcher rang Randi for his opinion on Carlos, he wriggled out of answering. “So when a media channel actually checked with the world’s most prominent skeptic on this topic, he basically scammed them himself – and yet went on to bemoan how the Australian media didn’t include skeptics’ opinions on the matter.”
The film’s director, Justin Weinstein, says he’s aware of this very different perspective on the Carlos Hoax. But, he says, his documentary is not strictly a work of journalism. Rather, like Randi, he’s a storyteller. “Sometimes there are greater truths you can reach when you don’t adhere to the facts.”
When I tell Weinstein that my own research lead me to believe Randi was someone who couldn’t be justly described as "an honest liar" he says, “There’s no doubt he’s made misstatements. Sometimes in order to get to a truth you bend the truth. And in Randi’s case sometimes he bends it too far. The irony is he’s leading a sceptical movement that’s calling it out when other people are lying.”
But for Weinstein, and for Randi’s many thousands of his disciples, the ends justify the means. “Regardless of the facts that may have been bent in the course of Randi’s life,” he says, “the achievements he’s made in terms of changing peoples lives for the better is undeniable.”
Transcript Shows Inconsistencies In Goodell's Testimony On Rice Matter
firehosefuck Goodell
Malcolm Gladwell Accused Of Plagiarism
firehosefuckin' finally
NoPhone, A Slab of Plastic Designed to Wean People Off of Their Smartphone Dependency
firehoseit's real now
The NoPhone is a “cold slab of plastic” with no features to speak of that provides a sort of rectangular surrogate for users attempting to wean themselves off of their smartphone addition. The phone can’t make calls, surf the web or calculate a tip — in fact it’s not actually a phone. It does, however, boast one or two notable things that most high-end smartphones lack.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does it have a camera?
No.Is it Bluetooth compatible?
No.Does it make calls?
No.Is it toilet bowl resistant?
Yes.
images via NoPhone
via Coudal Partners
Remote-Controlled Car Fitted With a GoPro Camera Captures Fast Moving English Bulldog in the Throes of Pursuit
In 2013, a very fit Thunder the Texas Bulldog chased after a remote-controlled car cleverly fitted with a GoPro Hero 2 camera, which captured the absolute and unmitigated joy of the fast-running canine in the throes of pursuit.
Thunder running up and down the street and a bit in the yard and driveway – footage captured April 4th, 2013 – noon – sunny conditions – shot with GoPro Hero 2 set to 720-60 attached to RC-GroundCam 1 (RC-GC1)
Whether he’s going after a camera on a mono-pod or skateboarding to his heart’s content, Thunder the Texas Bulldog seems to love being on the move.
via 22 Words
Report: Jets Players Lied About Concussion Symptoms To Get Out Of Games
firehosethe Onion, but their most believable article yet
American Voices: Report: CIA Paid Psychologists $81 Million For Ineffective Torture Techniques
Chicago Comic Shop Chain Calls Kelly Sue DeConnick “Mrs. Matt Fraction” In Bitch Planet Listing - This looks bad.
firehose'And just to get ahead of this particular defense, it’s false equivalence to argue Graham Crackers’ ‘joke’ is excused by the fact that Fraction’s name was also changed–crediting a woman’s work under her husband’s name has historic and problematic associations. “Mr. Kelly Sue DeConnick” does not.'
This is how Chicago’s biggest comics shop chain, @gccomics, listed @kellysue (via @DaRealEllen). Not funny.: pic.twitter.com/iMerYioTnh
— Janelle Asselin (@gimpnelly) December 11, 2014
Here’s some non-compliant advice for comic proprietors everywhere: listing a female creator’s work using their husband’s name isn’t a joke. It’s sexist.
For some context, Chicago area comics chain Graham Crackers has explained that censoring the title on the inaugural issue of Kelly Sue Deconnick’s feminist comic Bitch Planet is standard for newsletters: “Have no problem with BITCH PLANET title – iContact Newsletter does. I also have to change Sex to $ex when I send newsletter.”
Jannelle Asselin, former TMS weekend editor, points out that Graham Crackers’ listing for DeConnick’s husband also contained a name change:
For clarity, here is the review of both Bitch Planet and Sex Criminals – an attempt at a joke that fails miserably. pic.twitter.com/AowVslyfcd — Janelle Asselin (@gimpnelly) December 11, 2014
Graham Crackers has already apologized and amended the newsletter:
2 comics we enjoyed came out same week by husband/wife – thought it was ‘cute’ to switch credits on BOTH creators. Never meant to offend.
— Graham Crackers (@gccomics) December 11, 2014
Can’t apologize enough that I’ve upset so many people, especially ones that didn’t realize I did it to Matt as well. Very sorry.
— Graham Crackers (@gccomics) December 11, 2014
If anyones looking for it, I’ve changed it on the website so Matt and Kellys names are no longer swapped…
— Graham Crackers (@gccomics) December 11, 2014
While it is exciting that DeConnick and Fraction have comics coming out the same week, celebrating that by changing DeConnick’s name is worse than tone-deaf: it totally denies the wider context of what it’s like to be a woman and a female creator. And guess what? It’s not the first time it’s been done to her.
And just to get ahead of this particular defense, it’s false equivalence to argue Graham Crackers’ ‘joke’ is excused by the fact that Fraction’s name was also changed–crediting a woman’s work under her husband’s name has historic and problematic associations. “Mr. Kelly Sue DeConnick” does not.
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Who Else Did the Golden Globes Forget Besides the Obvious Tatiana Maslany? - COME ON!
firehoseeven ray donovan, which as far as anyone knows was cancelled five minutes into the first episode, got two nominations
On January 11, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will take another hosting spin on the Golden Globes train but today the actual nominations were announced. We are disappoint.
Here’s the full list:
MOTION PICTURES
Best Drama
- “Boyhood”
- “Foxcatcher”
- “The Imitation Game”
- “Selma”
- “The Theory of Everything”
Best Comedy
- “Birdman”
- “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
- “Into the Woods”
- “Pride”
- “St. Vincent”
Best Director
- Wes Anderson, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
- Ava Duvernay, “Selma”
- David Fincher, “Gone Girl”
- Alejandro González Iñárritu, “Birdman”
- Richard Linklater, “Boyhood”
Best Actress in a Drama
- Jennifer Aniston, “Cake”
- Felicity Jones, “The Theory of Everything”
- Julianne Moore, “Still Alice”
- Rosamund Pike, “Gone Girl”
- Reese Witherspoon, “Wild”
Best Actor in a Drama
- Steve Carell, “Foxcatcher”
- Benedict Cumberbatch, “The Imitation Game”
- Jake Gyllenhaal, “Nightcrawler”
- David Oyelowo, “Selma”
- Eddie Redmayne, “The Theory of Everything”
Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy
- Ralph Fiennes, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
- Michael Keaton, “Birdman”
- Bill Murray, “St. Vincent”
- Joaquin Phoenix, “Inherent Vice”
- Christoph Waltz, “Big Eyes”
Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy
- Amy Adams, “Big Eyes”
- Emily Blunt, “Into the Woods”
- Helen Mirren, “The Hundred-Foot Journey”
- Julianne Moore, “Map to the Stars”
- Quvenzhané Wallis, “Annie”
Best Supporting Actress
- Patricia Arquette, “Boyhood”
- Jessica Chastain, “A Most Violent Year”
- Keira Knightley, “The Imitation Game”
- Emma Stone, “Birdman”
- Meryl Streep, “Into the Woods”
Best Supporting Actor
- Robert Duvall, “The Judge”
- Ethan Hawke, “Boyhood”
- Edward Norton, “Birdman”
- Mark Ruffalo, “Foxcatcher”
- J.K. Simmons, “Whiplash”
Best Screenplay
- Wes Anderson, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
- Gillian Flynn, “Gone Girl”
- Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, and Armando Bo, “Birdman”
- Richard Linklater, “Boyhood”
- Graham Moore, “The Imitation Game”
Best Foreign Language Film
- “Force Majeure Turist,” Sweden
- “Gett: The Trial of Viviane Ansalem Gett,” Israel
- “Ida,” Poland/Denmark
- “Leviathan,” Russia
- “Tangerines Mandariinid,” Estonia
Best Animated Feature
- “Big Hero 6″
- “The Book of Life”
- “The Boxtrolls”
- “How to Train Your Dragon 2″
- “The Lego Movie”
Best Original Song
- “Big Eyes” from “Big Eyes” music and lyrics by Lana Del Rey
- “Glory” from “Selma,” Music and lyrics by John legend and Common
- “Mercy Is” from “Noah,” Music and lyrics by Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye
- “Opportunity” from “Annie,” Music and lyrics by Greg Kurstin, Sia Furler, Will Gluck
- “Yellow Flicker Beat” from “The Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 1,” Music and lyrics by Lorde
Best Score
- “The Imitation Game”
- “The Theory of Everything”
- “Gone Girl”
- “Birdman”
- “Interstellar”
TELEVISION
Best TV Comedy or Musical
- “Girls”
- “Jane the Virgin”
- “Orange Is the New Black”
- “Silicon Valley”
- “Transparent”
Best TV Drama
- “The Affair”
- “Downton Abbey”
- “Game of Thrones”
- “The Good Wife”
- “House of Cards”
Best Actress in a TV Drama
- Claire Danes, “Homeland”
- Viola Davis, “How to Get Away with Murder”
- Julianna Margulies, “The Good WIfe”
- Ruth Wilson, “The Affair”
- Robin Wright, “House of Cards”
Best Actor in a TV Drama
- Clive Owen, “The Knick”
- Liev Schreiber, “Ray Donovan”
- Kevin Spacey, “House of Cards”
- James Spader, “The Blacklist”
- Dominic West, “The Affair”
Best Actress in a TV Comedy
- Lena Dunham, “Girls”
- Edie Falco, “Nurse Jackie”
- Julia Louis-Dreyfus, “Veep”
- Gena Rodriguez, “Jane the Virgin”
- Taylor Schilling, “Orange Is the New Black”
Best Actor in a TV Comedy
- Louis CK, “Louie”
- Don Cheadle, “House of Lies”
- Ricky Gervais, “Derek”
- William H. Macy, “Shameless”
- Jeffrey Tambor, “Transparent”
Best Miniseries or TV Movie
- “Fargo”
- “The Missing”
- “The Normal Heart”
- “Olive Kitteridge”
- “True Detective”
Best Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie
- Maggie Gyllenhaal, “The Honorable Woman”
- Jessica Lange, American Horror Story: Freak Show”
- Frances McDormand, “Olive Kitteridge”
- Frances O’Connor, “The Missing”
- Allison Tolman, “Fargo”
Best Actor in a Miniseries or TV Movie
- Martin Freeman, “Fargo”
- Woody Harrelson, “True Detective”
- Matthew McConaughey, “True Detective”
- Mark Ruafflo, “The Normal Heart”
- Billy Bob Thornton, “Fargo”
Best Supporting Actress in a TV Show, Miniseries or TV Movie
- Uzo Aduba, “Orange Is the New Black”
- Kathy Bates, “American Horror Story: Freak Show”
- Joanne Froggatt, “Downton Abbey”
- Allison Janney, “Mom”
- Michelle Monaghan, “True Detective”
Best Supporting Actor in a TV Show, Miniseries or TV Movie
- Matt Bomer, “The Normal Heart”
- Alan Cumming, “The Good Wife”
- Colin Hanks, “Fargo”
- Bill Murray, “Olive Kitteridge”
- Jon Voight, “Ray Donovan”
First of all, Poehler didn’t get a nom so I’m sure that’s going to be awkward/make for some jokes. Nothing for Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which I know folks have been loving, though Fox as a network didn’t get any nominations. I know there’s more, and please chime in with where you think they went wrong in the comments but goddammit NOTHING FOR ORPHAN BLACK ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW. As if Tatiana Maslany’s nomination and loss last year wasn’t bad enough. I just…
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New Superhero Comic Priya’s Shakti Combats India’s Rape Culture Head-On
A free-to-download comic book in India is currently making waves across the Internet, and not just because its awesome female superhero rides a tiger into battle and gets her powers from a Hindu goddess. That’s just a kick ass bonus to the real theme of the book—enacting social change to improve the lives of the the tens of thousands of Indian women who report being raped each year.
Priya’s Shakti, written by Ram Devineni and Vikas K. Menon with art by Dan Goldman, tells the story of a rape survivor who teams up with the Goddess Pavarti to speak out against the sexual violence and discrimination that so many Indian women face. Devineni, an Indian-American filmmaker, says he was inspired by the Delhi bus gang rape of 2012, and wants readers to understand how difficult it is for women who survive sexual assault in India to come forward and seek justice without being further targeted for public shame by their communities.
The Tribeca Film-Institute-funded project also has an augmented reality component that contains animation, videos, a hashtag campaign (#StandwithPriya) and real-life accounts from Indian survivors of sexual assault. Users can scan the AR code found in either hard copies or digital downloads of the book (which you can download for free if you like their Facebook page), as well as on murals that the creators hope to paint “all over India.”
“The content provides a deeper understanding of the issue of sexual violence and takes the readers beyond the story of the comic book,” Devineni told Mic.com. “I was trying to figure out how to show the struggles of real survivors of rape in the comic book, and augmented reality allowed them to tell their stories in their own voices.”
A common complaint for many comic fans who want better female representation is that while most male vigilante’s origin stories involve someone close to them getting hurt, the origins for women instead usually involve them getting hurt—especially raped, of course—and fighting back. But by that same token, seeing women who are not only able to go on with their lives after being assaulted but also change their world for the better can be very powerful, especially for a culture that’s so quick to judge these women. It’s also heartening to see Priya depicted as a darker skinned heroine, something that’s not only rare in comics at large but also important given India’s noted problems with colorism.
Priya’s Shakti won’t officially debut until the Mumbai Film and Comics Convention next weekend (Edit: It’s also worth mentioning that the book will be available in English, Hindi, and Marathi, and will eventually be translated into other languages.), but you can currently download the first issue for free on ComiXology.
(via Mic.com)
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Leaked email reveals secret anti-piracy meeting between Google, Sony, and Homeland Security
Hollywood studios have struggled with Google over piracy issues before, but a new leak suggests the companies may be patching up their differences with some unexpected help from Homeland Security. A leaked email sent to Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton on March 19, 2012, provides a new look at how Google fits into anti-piracy efforts, in Hollywood and beyond. The email describes a small, secret group assembled Homeland Security's John Morton, apparently assembled to address piracy and other crimes on the web. Sent by a member of Sony's legal affairs team, the email suggests the meeting as a place where the company's "Google issues" can be resolved. "Google is apparently willing to do more than its public (and not so public) positions," the email says.
"Google is apparently willing to do more than its public (and not so public) positions."
On the web side, the group includes a senior ICANN member and Vint Cerf, Google's Chief Internet Evangelist as well as a pivotal figure in the creation of the internet. On the corporate side, the group includes a surprising array of companies that have faced and fought back various piracy and copyright issues. The President and CEO of Eli Lilly is involved, as a result of the company's successful fight against counterfeit pharmaceuticals sold online. The language service Rosetta Stone is also included, as well as representatives from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. There's no firm indication of the meeting's subject matter, but given the long and often tense relationship between Google and the content industry, it seems likely that piracy issues would quickly find their way to the top of the agenda.
The email is reproduced in full below:
Subject line: Today's call with John Morton, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security
John is calling you today to invite you to join a small group being formed to meet with him and Google ( and a few others) to explore working together to find a "compromise " to the Google issues; his theory is that a small group will be more constructive and productive.
Google apparently is willing to do more than its public (and not so public) positions; Google suggested you as the most balanced and reasonable person on the studio side and specifically requested your participation. No other studio would be involved.
You are his first phone call invitation to this small group. He plans on also inviting the Chairman , President and CEO of Eli Lilly , John C. Lechleiter, who is very involved in fighting counterfeit pharmaceuticals; additionally , he wants to invite Ernie Allen who is the President and CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. I have attached the resumes of each of these 2 gentlemen. Lastly, he is thinking of including someone from Rosetta Stone; I still have not confirmed who that would be. From what I understand, John does not want the group any larger.
On the Google side, I have been told that Vinton C. Cerf , Vice President and "Chief Internet Evangelist", as well as Dr. Stephen C. Crocker, Board Chair of ICANN, would attend. They are childhood friends and together have been responsible for laying the Internet’s foundation. I have also attached their resumes.
The meetings would be in Washington most likely since the others are in Indianapolis , Washington and Virginia respectively. Lastly, he has asked that we keep this very confidential.
Supreme Court of Canada: Cops can search your phone upon arrest
The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled in a 4-3 decision that law enforcement can search someone’s phone when they get arrested—but that such a search must be directly connected to that arrest and the officers must keep detailed notes.
The Canadian decision offers a significant difference between a related decision (Riley v. California) from the United States Supreme Court, which ruled 9-0 in June 2014 that law enforcement cannot search an arrestee’s phone unless they have a warrant.
The Canadian case, known as Kevin Fearon v. Her Majesty the Queen, revolves around a woman operating a jewelry stall in July 2009 at a flea market in Toronto’s Downsview neighborhood. Toward the end of the day, as the victim was packing up, she was held at gunpoint by two men and was ordered to open her car. The men took an estimated CAD$10,000 ($9,800) to CAD$40,000 ($39,200) worth of jewelry.
Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments
The predictable result of Spain’s “Google tax”: No more Google News
Google News will shortly shut down in Spain, the first time the news-search service has abandoned an entire national market. The move is a response to Spain's new intellectual property law, which would require Google to pay publishers in that country for publishing even small excerpts of their content.
The head of Google News, Richard Gingras, explained the decision in a blog post earlier today, which reads in part:
Sadly, as a result of a new Spanish law, we’ll shortly have to close Google News in Spain. Let me explain why. This new legislation requires every Spanish publication to charge services like Google News for showing even the smallest snippet from their publications, whether they want to or not. As Google News itself makes no money (we do not show any advertising on the site) this new approach is simply not sustainable. So it’s with real sadness that on 16 December (before the new law comes into effect in January) we’ll remove Spanish publishers from Google News, and close Google News in Spain.
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New York just made sex reassignment surgery much more accessible
Governor Andrew Cuomo just made sex reassignment surgery in the state of New York more accessible than ever before. According to The New York Times, his office sent a letter to insurers this week that lays out new grounds rules for coverage. As far as the state is now concerned, if a doctor decides that sex reassignment surgery is medically necessary, health insurers no longer have the option of denying coverage.
"An issuer of a policy that includes coverage for mental health conditions may not exclude coverage for the diagnosis and treatment of gender dysphoria," states the governor's letter.
insurers in New York "may not exclude coverage."
In the US, most private insurance policies don't provide coverage for people who wish to transition from one sex to another. But now that the rules in New York have changed, a total of nine US states mandate coverage. And thanks to an announcement by the Obama Administration in May, transgender people across the US who receive Medicare cannot be automatically denied for coverage of sex reassignment surgery.
Not everyone is cheering the change. Leslie Moran, spokesperson for the New York Health Plan Association, told the Times that although healthcare providers don't oppose the treatment, they worry that mandating coverage could lead to higher insurance rates across the board. This assertion was dismissed by the state's superintendent of financial services Benjamin Lawsky, however. Given the relative small number of people who require the surgery, he told the Times, he would be surprised if the new rules caused a noticeable rise in insurance premiums.
this "opens up an entire world of treatment for transgender people"
"This is an absolute sea change in the way that insurance for transgender people will cover their health care needs," Michael Silverman, executive director of the the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, told The New York Times. "This essentially opens up an entire world of treatment for transgender people that was closed to them previously."
Cops use taser on woman while she recorded arrest of another man
A 36-year-old Baltimore woman claims she was tased by police and arrested while filming the arrest of a man with her mobile phone, according to a lawsuit to be served on the Baltimore City Police Department as early as Thursday.
Video of the March 30 melee surfaced online this week. Police erased the 135-second recording from the woman's phone, but it was recovered from her cloud account, according to the Circuit Court for Baltimore City lawsuit (PDF), which seeks $7 million.
Kianga Mwamba was driving home from a family gathering in March. Stopped in traffic, she began filming the nearby arrest of a man who she says was kicked by police.
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Houston fans to be torn between Taylor Swift and rooting for the Astros
firehoseamputate Texas
This is a real Sophie's choice for people who like baseball AND the musical stylings of America's favorite Taylor.
IMPORTANT NEWS:
Note: the date of the Taylor Swift 1989 tour show at #MMP is subject to change if it conflicts with an #Astros postseason home game.
— Houston Astros (@astros) December 11, 2014
Wait, Minute Maid Park has its own hip abbreviation hashtag? Okay.
Sorry, Taylor Swift fans and/or congratulations, Astros fans! I guess it's true what people say: players gonna play play play play play.
Damian Lillard reveals his personal connection to Eric Garner's death
The Portland guard went to Facebook to explain why he wore an "I Can't breathe" shirt during warmups.
Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard was the latest NBA player to voice his support for Eric Garner, the New York City man killed by a police officer who put him in a choke hold during an arrest. Lillard joined Derrick Rose, LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant and others in wearing an "I can't breathe" shirt during pregame warmups on Wednesday night.
But for Lillard, the case especially hits home.
In a Facebook post, the Trail Blazers' star compareed the Garner case to that of Oscar Grant, a man shot and killed by transit police in the Bay Area. Grant was friends and Lillard's older brother and the two crossed paths from time to time. Lillard discussed Grant's killing with Yahoo! Sports' Marc J. Spears last year, saying he wanted to use his fame to help spark change in his hometown of Oakland.
"Right now it is out of control," Lillard said. "While I don't think [the problem] can be completely taken away - it's always going to be a problem - I do think it can be better. With being in the NBA, I have so much influence with a lot of the kids, I think I can at least start to change the culture."
Lillard showing his support for Garner is in the same vein.
Watch Shaq make Easy Bake Oven holiday treats
Yep, Shaq is still the best.
Watch everyone's favorite giant toss bread around! "I didn't miss it like a free throw!" Oh, Shaq, you're a national treasure. Nic Cage should be trying to steal you in a major motion picture.
NOTE: I would watch that movie at least three times.
When asked to solve a bug of a software that we do not know
ROSE BOWL: Oregon’s Playoff Eligibility at Risk - Rule Of Tree
firehosethe labor dispute's been resolved, but if this had happened, it would have been HILARIOUS
Bellard Creates New Image Format To Replace JPEG
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Breaking Madden: The quest for a 4-12 playoff team
firehoseJon Bois is a god
The NFC South is horrible. It could be worse, and it will be worse. Let's blow it to Hell.
This season, there's a very good chance that we'll see a team wander into the playoffs with a losing record. It's only happened once before over the course of a full 16-game season, in part because the NFL's scheduling tendencies present a sort of safeguard against it. Each team plays six games against its division rivals, which automatically inflates the division's cumulative winning percentage by 12 wins.
To produce a division champ with a losing record, all four teams in the division must work very hard to be very bad against the rest of the league. This is what the NFC South has done in 2014.
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Combined, these teams have a .229 winning percentage against the rest of the NFL. For comparison's sake, Washington's winning percentage as of this writing is almost exactly that (.231).
Consider how difficult it must be to assemble such a Bad Football Megazord. These are four different football solutions, sitting in four different test tubes hundreds of miles apart, with different players, coaches, game plans, philosophies, and cultures, and -- presumably -- sitting at different places on the rebuilding/contending spectrum. Maybe they downshift a little to be only as good as they have to be, or maybe all the badness aligned at the right moment.
Let's help them out. The mission of this week's episode of Breaking Madden is to engineer the worst playoff team in the history of American football:
Music: "Free Bird," Lynyrd Skynyrd
I. THE SETUP.
We'll start the season over with versions of the Falcons, Buccaneers, Panthers and Saints that are even worse than their real-life counterparts. This will be a four-step operation.
1. We scuttle the offenses by creating eight of the most terrible quarterbacks the sport has ever seen: short, slow, weak-armed, oblivious, and brittle. That's one starting quarterback for each team, plus the requisite backup.
2. We lay waste to the kicking game by giving each team a horrible placekicker. They are just as bad as the quarterbacks, and their legs are barely strong enough to kick an extra point.
3. We edit all the real-life quarterbacks and kickers to make them running backs instead. The likes of Drew Brees, Matt Ryan and Mike Glennon will be our stud backs. (I feared that Cam Newton would actually be a good running back, so I made him a center instead.) Aside from their positions, I changed absolutely nothing about them.
4. Now that we have all the running backs we need, we release all real-life running backs into free agency. The NFC South isn't really known for its elite running backs, but still, we don't need them clogging up the depth chart.
As for those miserable quarterbacks and kickers, I recruited them, as usual, via Twitter.
if you would like to be in the next Breaking Madden, please tell me about the most The South moment of your life
— Jon Bois (@jon_bois) December 8, 2014
These are the 12 brave suckers we have ended up with.
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2532770/twitterplayers2.0.png)
Tell y'all what, they had some amazing stories. One person told me about their dad, who got crap-hammered and did donuts on a four-wheeler until he broke his leg. Another broke a church pew while moshing at a Christian rap show. One man witnessed a couple at a NASCAR block party leave their child in the custody of a random drunk man wearing a cape and no shirt. If stories such as these interest you, by all means:
BREAKING MADDEN ROSTER CUTS: WEEK 15
Alright. Let's crack open this shitty little division we've made. Sorry about the "we." I've just decided that you're complicit in this, is all.
II. THE REGULAR SEASON.
What we have here is a five-foot-tall Panthers quarterback running a play action with Derek Anderson, our new 6'6, 31-year-old running back. Or maybe it's an actual handoff that failed? Hell, I don't know.
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His running back is well past the line of scrimmage, and he's still trying to sell the handoff. Literally. He is trying to sell the ball, for sale, because his center bequeathed it to him and he has no idea of what to do with it. Can you buy the football in the middle of a play? I'm sure they would have written a rule against it if you weren't supposed to.
There's plenty more in the way of horrid quarterbacking to show you, and we'll get to that. First, though, I want to talk about Madden's artificial intelligence, and what it's making of all this nonsense. I want to make clear that in this episode, I never controlled any of the players, and I didn't really call any plays during the season, either. I just signed off on whichever play the game recommended.
So it was Madden's idea, and not mine, to punt inside the red zone.
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2538422/punt.0.gif)
This is a game that knows what shit smells like. It knew its field goal kicker was so untenably bad that it wouldn't trust him to kick a 35-yarder. And rightly so, because there was no way in Hell that was happening. Here, let me show you. To the practice field!
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The Buccaneers' kicker, Danny Roes, is just like every other kicker of the NFC South, in that his field goals would be more accurate if he strapped a stick of dynamite to it, lit the fuse, and ran away. This is actually a pretty impressive distance for these little guys. It stayed in the air for like 20 yards! In the wrong direction.
But back to that red zone punt. Is there really a line of code in this game that says, "punt at the opponent's 15 if X is true"? I doubt it. I think this is a case of Madden thinking independently, which it really shouldn't do, because this is dumb. It only presents any benefit at all if the punter can manage a coffin-corner, which he almost certainly can't and which I never saw a punter do, because punters have no practice coffin-cornering from 15 yards away, because NO ONE EVER DOES THIS. Instead, the dude just booted it out of the back of the end zone for a touchback, which just spotted the other team an extra five yards.
It's okay, Madden. You are full of awful ideas, but I can see the effort, and I appreciate it, and I want you to know that.
In order to end up with the worst division winner possible, it was important to ensure that these teams lost every game to teams outside the NFC South, but it was also crucial to the mission for these teams to be more or less equally bad. I didn't need one team running the table and picking up six gimme wins from its division rivals. I simulated about 10 seasons, pausing between each one to try to balance the scales. I'd do so by releasing Jimmy Graham, Julio Jones, and other star players, slowly but surely, until each team achieved a resting point of "horrible as hell."
After enough tweaking, we hit the jackpot.
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2540862/standingsscreenshot.0.png)
Ideally, of course, we'd have all four teams finish with an 0-10-6 record. To play through all those interdivisional games would probably make for a weeks-long project, and besides, a 4-12 division champion is plenty bad, even for my tastes. (We even had a tie! I did not watch that Saints-Panthers game, and I am glad I didn't.)
We did succeed in losing every game to every other team in the NFL. None of them were one-score losses, and only one of them was a two-score loss.
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2538004/weekbyweek.0.png)
They just got clobbered, y'all. As you can see, the vast majority of their games were lost by four-score margins. About half of them were 40-point losses. That is what you ought to expect from teams that are quarterbacked by these poor people:
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2540950/qbs.0.png)
(A brief aside: the first names of my created players are usually "YOUR." The default name is always "YOUR NAME;" I only edit the last name because that's the one that shows up on the jersey. It's a rare time-saver within the Breaking Madden production process, and also it reads like the players are being introduced to me by a Vaudeville man.)
I really hope you're enjoying those stats. The game made them just for you. Please note in particular the statistics of one Justin McElroy, starting quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons: one touchdown, 29 interceptions. His team won the division.
Seven of these quarterbacks saw significant action. These are the footprints of a desperate, panicked artificial intelligence, I'll tell y'all what. Sure, switch to the other guy. He's the same guy. Oh, you're switching back to the first guy? Sure, do that. You are out of moves. Video game, play thyself.
The rushing numbers are even funnier.
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2538116/rushing.0.png)
HOW THE HELL DID THE FALCONS WIN THIS DIVISION? Their quarterback was impossibly bad, and they rushed for negative-three yards over the course of the entire season. Noted running back Matt Ryan rushed for 43 yards on 90 attempts, good for about 0.5 yards per carry.
But hey, let's see how the rest of the quarterbacks did! Drew Brees had 42 yards on 29 carries ... oh, hey, Luke McCown had 355 yards on 1.6 per carry! Not too bad! I mean, it is too bad, but he's who passes for good around here. Oh, you know who probably did pretty well? Mike Glennon. At 6'7, he's one big ol' drink o'water. Bet he could move those chains. Let's take a look at hisOH MY GOD
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2538406/glennonstats.0.png)
Mike Glennon, how the shit did you do that? How did you take the ball 100 times for five yards? Come with me, Mike. We're not doing anything else until we take you to the practice field.
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2538426/poorglennon.0.gif)
All right.
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2538430/poorglennon2.0.gif)
Okay, okay, yeah. I get it. We're good, Mike.
III. THE PLAYOFFS.
Our Atlanta Falcons are going to the playoffs with a 4-12 record. A more reasonable system of governance would leverage executive authority to take the NFC South's playoff berth away from them and relegate them to college football, but this is the NFL, and this is Madden.
Late in the season, starting quarterback Justin McElroy was lost for the year to injury, leaving the equally brittle Dan Morris to lead the team into their wild-card matchup with the 12-4 Dallas Cowboys.
Well, we made this big ol' pot of stew, and now the time has come to dump it on the floor. Godspeed you, NFC South. Set sail to a foreign realm, one that will love you. We all hate you here.
Music: "Saturday=Celebration" by Big K.R.I.T. feat. Jamie N Commons
Click here for many more episodes of Breaking Madden.
Orlando Scandrick visits Children's Hospital, dominates Madden
firehoseamputate Texas
The Cowboys cornerback got tattled on by a teammate.
Apparently, Orlando Scandrick takes his gaming very seriously ... even at a Children's Hospital.
Scandrick played a kid in Madden at Children's Hospital and hit him wit a surprise onside
— Justin Durant (@JDurant52) December 9, 2014
He was winning and going for 2
— Justin Durant (@JDurant52) December 9, 2014
Dallas Cowboys players spent Tuesday visiting local area hospitals and taking some time to play Madden with the kids, but Scandrick's aggressive play style was quickly reported to the world by teammate tattle-tail Justin Durant.
I bet Dez didn't go for two with the lead!
.@DezBryant playing video games with a guest at a local children's hospital pic.twitter.com/aJt1zs1aUt
— Dallas Cowboys (@dallascowboys) December 9, 2014
RIP Dollree Mapp, who's the reason police have to get search warrants
firehosevia Ibstopher
- Dollree Mapp, the Cleveland woman who successfully checked police power in a landmark US Supreme Court case, died on October 31 at the age of 90 or 91, according to the New York Times.
- Police tried to enter Mapp's home without a warrant to look for a man wanted for questioning about a bombing. But she challenged the search — and her eventual arrest — in a court case that led to a major Supreme Court decision in 1961.
- Police arrested Mapp for sexually explicit materials found in the home, and she was sentenced to prison on obscenity charges. But the Supreme Court threw out the conviction, deciding that courts must suppress evidence gathered through police misconduct — in this case, a warrantless search — in certain kinds of cases.
The ruling checked police power at the state level
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The US Supreme Court. (Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images)
Before the Supreme Court's decision, only federal courts threw out evidence gathered illegally by police. The Supreme Court decision in Mapp v. Ohio cited the Fourth Amendment to extend that rule — known as the exclusionary rule — to state courts, explained the New York Times.
"The state, by admitting evidence unlawfully seized, serves to encourage disobedience to the federal Constitution which it is bound to uphold," Justice Tom Clark wrote in the majority opinion.
The exclusionary rule has been a topic of controversy in legal circles. As a judge, former Justice Benjamin Cardozo said, "The criminal is to go free because the constable has blundered." Former President Ronald Reagan also criticized the rule, claiming that it relies on the "absurd proposition that a law enforcement error, no matter how technical, can be used to justify throwing out an entire case."
Later court rulings carved exceptions to the rule — particularly in cases in which police made errors while acting in good faith, receiving incorrect legal guidance, or relying on bad information from another agency.
Some legal watchers worry the rule could be further watered down or even abolished by the current Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Roberts worked under the Reagan administration to undermine the exclusionary rule, according to the Times.
But for now, the exclusionary rule remains a key check on police misconduct — and Americans have Mapp's belligerence, as police called her behavior at the time, to thank for that.
Florida State University Lecturer Resigns Following Racist, Homophobic Rant - VIDEO
firehosevia Ibstopher
Florida State University College of Business senior lecturer Deborah O’Connor has resigned from her position following an outburst last week on Facebook in which she used racist, Islamophobic and homophobic slurs, reports the Tallahassee Democrat.
In response to a post by hair stylist Colin Lively last Thursday on the police killings in Ferguson, Staten Island and Cleveland, O’Connor’s comments included:
“YOU elected POTUS, Holder et al. And they are supposed to represent all Americans, not just blacks … why don’t these ass clowns insert themselves into their stories?”
“Take your Northern fagoot [sic] elitism and shove it up your ass.”
“I teach at a University, you asshole. What do you do?”
“You are an intellectual fraud, just like your Messiah. Obama has single-handedly turned our once great society into a Ghetto Culture, rivaling that of Europe. France is almost at war because of his filthy rodent Muslims who are attacking Native Frenchmen and women.”
O'Connor has confirmed her decision to bring a planned retirement next spring forward as “the path of least resistance.” Her comments have since been deleted.
Lively said:
"I'm surprised her employers weren't aware of her and hadn't done something about it. I feel very bad for any woman who carries that kind of rage inside her heart. I feel very bad and sorry for her."
Watch a report, AFTER THE JUMP...
swolizard:Neil deGrasse Tyson for galactic chancellor...
firehosevia KV
Neil deGrasse Tyson for galactic chancellor representative in the milky way galaxy for Earth