These startups were all called game-changers, darlings of the tech market for a single moment in Valley history. In reality, none of them deserved the hype. They were destined to be average, but they were heralded as Facebook killers instead. So where are they now?
Our friends over at Dark Matter Coffee were kind enough to help us make it through the busy holiday season by sending us five bags of coffee. Because we at The A.V. Club believe in spreading the holiday cheer—but also in murdering adorable puppets—we’re giving away 12-ounce bags of Black Blood coffee to five lucky readers. Black Blood coffee is a collaboration with Mastodon, and... well, we can’t really top what Dark Matter has to say about it:
The year is 2420, techno-organic life forms rule the earth, the cyborg Mastodon seeks vengeance against the Clovis people for the genocide of his kind. The terrestrial leviathan fuels himself with Black Blood, as he prepares to enter the time portal known as the Dark Matter Machine.
Through the power vested in Black Blood, the Mastodon shall reclaim its throne of world domination. Dark Matter Coffee™ and ...
The grand jury hadn’t said a word yet, but the press releases foreshadowed fear. Ferguson-Florissant schools closed. Clayton schools closed. Riverview Gardens schools closed.
The eventual announcement also brought inaction. Officer Darren Wilson would not face charges in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
That’s yesterday’s news. Here’s today’s, delivered far too early to a child of five, or a child of 18: Your future is closed.
The odds have been stacked against the children of Ferguson, a once all-white suburb that is now majority black in population (but not its power structures like the mayor’s office or police force). About two-thirds of children receive a free or reduced lunch because their families are poor. Last week, Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery talked to the friends and acquaintances Brown left behind. He interviewed 16-year-old Kaylen Lucas:
We come to school every day and at least someone says: I didn’t think we were going to have school today. … It’s really stressful, everybody is talking about getting all of our work done before the schools get shut down if there are riots.
Another student says the cancellations take a huge toll on the psyche—and college applications: “It’s been hard to keep up with band, tennis and National Honor Society meeting, when they were all getting scraped.”
The list of closures affects schools that are rich and poor, black and white, emblematic of districts that are more segregated today than before Brown vs. Board of Education. Indeed, after this summer’s shooting and ensuing protests, two prominent scholars on race and education called Ferguson “a reality check for anyone ignoring the changing racial demographics of our suburbs and the need to work toward sustainable, racially diverse suburban communities and schools.”
That makes the closure all the more despairing. Why fret over big-box stores staying open but not our schools? The National Guard arrived in Ferguson last night presumably to keep calm in the streets. Would it not send an even more powerful message for those officers to guarantee the safe passage of thousands of children to school?
There is no rewind button here. There’s no going back to the night of Aug. 9 when Brown was shot six, or eight, or 12 times. Or the next four hours where his body just lay there, Twitter as its witness. Last night’s grand jury decision makes any further action against Wilson highly unlikely.
Yet they closed the door on the future.
This moment of fatalism is what advocates of racial justice fear most, that somehow we’ve reached the end of a line and change is never coming. Things won’t get better. At a criminal justice conference last week, one panelist dreaded precisely this defeated reaction if a grand jury chose not to indict: “I can’t DO anything with that.”
In many ways, Ferguson’s schools and children are our last hope. For today at least, even that has been taken away.
On Sunday (Nov. 23), three astronauts—an American, a Russian, and an Italian—escaped the surly bonds of earth and voyaged to the International Space Station, the giant orbiting research vessel that they’ll call home for the next five months. The explorers were greeted by three of their crewmates who, a few weeks earlier, traveled to the ISS in a separate launch. This was the 42nd expedition (pdf) to the station, the latest chapter of a program that has continuously dispatched astronauts to it since 2000.
Launch sites used to alternate between NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and the Russian Federal Space Agency’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. But when the American space shuttle program retired in 2011, Baikonur became the sole launch site.
As a result, all astronauts are now also cosmonauts, and some aspects of the pre- and post-launch itinerary have a distinctly Russian—and Kazakh—flavor. NASA’s Flickr page contains images from the last 20-plus launches, and many of the same themes recur again and again, highlighting the sometimes banal, sometimes quaint, and sometimes surreal steps involved in preparing for launch in the modern era of spaceflight. The photos below are from a combination of recent expeditions, but the rituals remain the same each time.
Expedition 40’s Reid Wiseman, of NASA, has his spacesuit pressure-tested. He’s lying in his Soyuz capsule seat, which has to be custom-molded to each cosmonaut’s body to prevent injury on landing.
After landing in the snow in a remote area near the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan. the crew of Expedition 41 are immediately wrapped in sleeping bags and blankets.
Matryoshka dolls depicting the flight crew are made for each expedition. This is Expedition 39, seen at a welcome ceremony after the cosmonauts return from space.
An anonymous reader writes It's the oldest rock on Earth--and it's from Mars. A 4.4-billion-year-old martian meteorite, found in a dozen pieces in the western Sahara, has ignited a frenzy among collectors and scientists; prices have reached $10,000 a gram, and museums and universities are vying for slivers of it. It is the only known martian meteorite made of sediment, a conglomerate of pebbles and other clumps of minerals from when the planet was warm, wet, and possibly habitable. The story of the discovery of the rock and its significance is fascinating, as well as the details presented about the economics of rare space materials. Apropos, this older story about missing moon rocks.
Over thirty years after its original release, the BFI has announced that Blade Runner will once again be hitting the UK’s big screens next year.
Different World
Set in 2019, Blade Runner is a dystopian vision of the future, originally released in 1982, a time when the Cold War was still at its height, apartheid gripped South Africa and the internet we know today was little more than a pipedream. The world has moved on politically and technologically, with the fall of Communism and the successes of the equal rights movement, but, thankfully, it does not look anything like what Ridley Scott depicted in Blade Runner.
Who, for instance, could have predicted that people could watch HD TV on a 9-inch tablet? Who would have imagined that land-based shops and attractions would become virtual? Take the casinos for example: nowadays scores of punters play mobile games recommended by sites like http://www.zebracasino.co.za/ on their smartphones but they have probably never visited a brick-and-mortar casino in South Africa.
Well, the film’s star Harrison Ford would probably not have had a clue about these technological advances but, given that the alternative was a planet infiltrated by ‘replicants’ devoid of emotion and set on taking over the world, that is probably for the best.
Given that we are just less than five years away from the world inhabited by Ford and his Blade Runner colleagues it is perhaps apt that the film is due to be re-released in cinemas next year. BFI has announced that Blade Runner: The Final Cut will be shown in cinemas across the UK from April 3, 2015.
Recognised by Critics
Although dividing opinions amongst critics on its release, Blade Runner became a critical success taking over $33m worldwide and racking up a number of high-profile awards including, among others: a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award (1982) and a BAFTA Film Award (1983).
More to Come?
The Final Cut was originally released in 2007 to mark the 25th anniversary of the cult film’s release and was digitally re-mastered by Scott using the original negatives. Now seven years after that release fans’ passion for the film is undiminished. Ridley Scott has reportedly written a sequel and has interest from Harrison Ford in becoming involved. With any second Blade Runner film still a number of years from coming to fruition, this re-release will whet cinema-goers appetite for Ford’s character, Rick Deckard.
A grand jury decided not to indict Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown. Scores of documents detailing testimony from the proceedings were released by St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch. Read the documents below.
Mike Belance was driving his kids to school on a Thursday morning last February when a car came barreling down the road and collided with his in the intersection. Belance was making a legal left turn. The other driver, a police officer in an unmarked car, was going approximately 75 miles per hour—more than twice the legal speed limit. The impact was enough to fling Belance's Kia sedan about ten feet off the road. It was the day before Valentine's Day, and by February 17, Belance's five-year-old son, who had been in the backseat of the car, was dead from his injuries. Belance and his 14-year-old daughter, while badly hurt from the collision, survived.
As of today, no one has been charged in the child's death.
"Things indicted so far: Social media, regular media, the public Things not indicted: The person who killed a kid with his hands up"
St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch gave a long speech Monday night, explaining all of the reasons he did not secure a grand jury indictment of Darren Wilson, the white police officer who shot dead the unarmed black youth Michael Brown in August.
While protesters outside the Ferguson courthouse and interested observers around the world waited on tenterhooks, McCullouch spent several long minutes complaining that the intense public interest in the case made his job harder.
“The most significant challenge encountered in this investigation has been the 24-hour news cycle and its insatiable appetite for something, for anything to talk about,” he said, “following closely behind with the non-stop rumors on social media.”
That opening statement sounds like, "None of this would be a problem except the Internet."
McCulloch also gave a lengthy discourse about the inconsistencies among witness statements as an explanation for why the grand jury did not indict Wilson on charges ranging from involuntary manslaughter to first degree murder:
“Many witnesses to the shooting made statements inconsistent with other statements they made, and also conflicting with the physical evidence,” he said. “Several witnesses adjusted their statements in subsequent statements.”
Criminal justice experts (as well as Law and Order viewers or Serial podcast listeners) know that eyewitness accounts are notoriously contradictory and changeable. But these inconsistencies are usually sorted out at a trial, under examinations and cross-examinations by the prosecution and defense—not by a grand jury.
In fact, grand juries almost always deliver indictments—that’s why a judge famously explained that prosecutors can usually persuade grand juries to indict just about anyone or anything, including a ham sandwich. But there’s with one big exception: cases involving police shootings. As Quartz has reported, cops who kill citizens are rarely punished; when their cases do make it as far as grand jury, the ham sandwich rule doesn’t apply.
Things indicted so far: Social media, regular media, the public
Things not indicted: The person who killed a kid with his hands up
Gary Kubiak's playcard is like a graduate level Waffle House menu.
I remember one particularly lenient class in college where our professor told us we could take one 3x5 index card with notes on it into our final exam. I meticulously wrote in incredibly tiny font basically everything we needed in the course on that double-sided index card, and I passed.
Ravens offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak's playcard is the same idea, except it's the size of the posters I had in my dorm room:
'It's the first time in NFL history that a team three games under .500 leads a division. The 3-7-1 Carolina Panthers are still in the running just a half-game out, and we guess you can't count out the 2-9 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, either.'
The AFC North and NFC South were impacted by Monday's game between the Baltimore Ravens and New Orleans Saints, and the Buffalo Bills helped themselves in a tough AFC East.
Both the AFC North and the NFC South were impacted significantly by Monday's matchup between the Baltimore Ravens and the New Orleans Saints. The Ravens wound up winning Monday Night Football, 34-27, and in doing so made the race for the AFC North even tighter. There are now three 7-4 teams in the division, while the Cincinnati Bengals, thanks to a tie, are ahead of them all at 7-3-1.
The NFC South is a mess. There's no nice way to talk about a division that now has two teams at 4-7 that are tied for the division lead. It's the first time in NFL history a team three games under .500 leads a division. The 3-7-1 Carolina Panthers are still in the running just a half-game out, and we guess you can't count out the 2-9 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, either. The Saints looked decent at times Monday, but the Ravens were still the class of the Superdome.
Not much changed in the other division impacted Monday -- the AFC East. Both the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets are in the division, but only Buffalo was really competing for anything coming into this game. They've helped themselves with a win and are now 6-5, alongside the Miami Dolphins. But both teams trail the New England Patriots, who sit at 9-2 and should run away with the East again.
Here's a look at all of the divisions and where they stand after Week 12:
AFC North
The Ravens did themselves a big favor, but at 7-4 they're still in a three-way tie for second place in the division. At least one wild card team will come from the AFC North, but the winner and a first-round home game is still totally up for grabs.
AFC South
The Indianapolis Colts downed the Jacksonville Jaguars Sunday -- as expected. They're now 7-4, with a comfortable lead over the 5-6 Houston Texans, who just lost quarterback Ryan Mallett for the season. The Tennessee Titans are 2-9, and are non-factors along with the aforementioned Jaguars, who have just one win on the season.
AFC West
The Denver Broncos got off to a shaky start Sunday, but they rallied to beat the Miami Dolphins and now have an 8-3 record and the AFC West lead. It's not exactly a comfortable lead though, as the Kansas City Chiefs and San Diego Chargers both sit at 7-4. The Oakland Raiders have a single win on the year.
AFC East
The Bills are surprisingly relevant at this point in the season, but it's hard to imagine them catching up to the aforementioned Patriots. Miami and Buffalo are making things interesting at 6-5, and are certainly in the wild card discussion, but the Patriots (9-2) have won their last seven games and don't look to be slowing down. The Jets' (2-9) season was over in early October.
The AFC playoff picture after 12 weeks is as follows: 1. New England, 2. Denver, 3. Cincinnati, 4. Indianapolis, 5. Kansas City, 6. San Diego, with the 7-4 AFC North trio (Piit, Cle, Bal) just outside the wild card spots.
NFC North
This division is a two-team battle at this point. The Chicago Bears are 5-6 and are firmly behind the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers. Green Bay has the lead at 8-3, while Detroit sits at 7-4. The Minnesota Vikings are 4-7 and are a non-factor. This division is a definite contender for two playoff representatives, the Packers and Lions.
NFC South
The worst division in football gets even worse. The Saints are now 4-7 on the season and in a tie for the NFC South lead with the Falcons. Atlanta holds the tiebreaker, and with just four games left, and even .500 8-8 division winner seems like a best case scenario.
NFC West
The Arizona Cardinals still have a commanding lead at 9-2 this season, but the Seattle Seahawks just scored a statement win over the West leaders to move to 7-4. The San Francisco 49ers are also 7-4 after beating Washington Sunday. San Francisco still has both games against Seattle remaining on the schedule, so that race will likely go down to the wire.
NFC East
The Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles are tied for the NFC East lead, which isn't too dissimilar from recent seasons. The big difference this year: they're both good teams. Both are 8-3, and the two will face off on Thanksgiving for sole possession of the division lead. The New York Giants (3-8) are a non-factor, as is Washington (3-8).
The NFC playoff picture after 12 weeks is as follows: 1. Arizona, 2. Green Bay, 3. Philadelphia, 4. Atlanta, 5. Dallas, 6. Seattle, with the 7-4 Lions and 49ers just outside the final wild card spot due to tiebreakers.
Hey everyone, so last night my car was broken into and my collection of magic card were stolen. I've been collecting them for about 10 years now and they are worth about 1.5k total.
I was parked around the corner from guardian games, and I believe it happened between 4:30 and 5:30pm on sunday
The basic plan will provide download speeds of up to 5Mbps (megabits per second) and upload speeds of 1Mbps, according to Google, which announced its pricing plans Monday and said consumers in some neighborhoods will be able to sign up next month. Customers will pay a one-time “construction” fee of $300, but there will be no monthly charges after that.
The middle-tier plan that provides Google Fiber’s promised 1Gbps service will be priced at $70 per month, with the construction fee waived for a one-year commitment. That plan includes 1TB of cloud storage across Google Drive, Gmail and Google+ photos, the company said.
The most tricked out plan will be priced at $130 per month. That includes the 1Gbps Internet service and 1TB cloud storage, as well as more than 150 TV channels and the ability to record up to 8 shows at once.
''UPDATE: We've switched to an alternative livestream from Ferguson. The citizen who was filming the previous livestream, Bassem Masri, was hit in the head with a tear gas canister and had his phone stolen. You can follow Masri's updates on Twitter by following him @Bassem_Masri.'
sorry: it's Vice
Protesters have once again taken to the streets of Ferguson, MO tonight.
"We are profoundly disappointed that the killer of our child will not face the consequence of his actions. While we understand that many others share our pain, we ask that you channel your frustration in ways that will make a positive change."
Ernie Button is a photographer who, in his quest to join his wife in whisky drinking, started taking photos of his drinks. He noticed that certain types of the alcohol would leave behind complex patterns of rings and others would not. So his curiosity drove him to reach out to experts to find out why.
Upon News of Plea Deal, Activists Vow to Organize Until Marissa Alexander is Free
Today, Marissa Alexander has chosen to accept a plea deal with the State of Florida. The plea deal includes time served (1,030 days), an additional 65 days in Duval County Jail which will begin today, and two years of probation while wearing a surveillance monitor. Marissa Alexander is a black mother of three from Jacksonville, Florida who, nine days after prematurely giving birth, was forced to defend her life from a brutal life-threatening attack by her estranged husband, and subsequently prosecuted by State Prosecutor Angela Corey. Alexander, her legal team, and thousands of supporters were preparing for a likely difficult trial to begin this December. If found guilty, she would have faced a mandatory 60 year sentence.
The Free Marissa Now Mobilization Campaign supports Marissa Alexander’s self-determination to make the best choices she can while navigating the violent and impossible circumstances created by her abusive husband, Angela Corey, and Florida’s judicial system. “The plea deal is a relief in some ways, but this is far from a victory,” said Alisa Bierria, from the Free Marissa Now Mobilization Campaign. “The deal will help Marissa and her family avoid yet another very expensive and emotionally exhausting trial that could have led to the devastating ruling of spending the rest of her life in prison. Marissa’s children, family, and community need her to be free as soon as possible. However, the absurdity in Marissa’s case was always the fact that the courts punished and criminalized her for surviving domestic violence, for saving her own life. The mandatory minimum sentences of 20 years, and then 60 years, just made the state’s prosecution increasingly shocking. But we have always believed that forcing Marissa to serve even one day in prison represents a profound and systemic attack on black women’s right to exist and all women’s right to self-defense.”
In 2010, Alexander fired a single warning shot that caused no injuries while defending herself from an attack by her abusive husband who strangled her and threatened to kill her. In 2012, she attempted to invoke Florida’s Stand Your Ground immunity, but was denied and sent to trial where she was found guilty and sentenced to a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison. Supported by an international grassroots movement, Alexander successfully appealed the verdict in September 2013, but Corey filed charges again, this time announcing that she would pursue a mandatory 60 year sentence for Alexander. On November 27, 2013, almost exactly a year ago and after serving nearly three years in prison, Alexander was released and put under very strict house detention while she prepared for her retrial.
The campaign vows to keep organizing for Alexander’s freedom and raising awareness about the issues surrounding her case. “It is critical that we keep the momentum of our support and love going until Marissa is restored to her family and community,” said Sumayya Coleman, a Free Marissa Now lead organizer. “In light of Marissa’s decision to not go to trial, we continue to stand in solidarity with her and her family. Marissa has been consistent in her self-advocacy, including defending her life when attacked by her husband, rejecting a punishing three year plea deal offered to her in 2012, and taking the plea offered to her today. As difficult as it is to see Marissa unjustly sent back to jail today, her supporters around the world stand by her. We are standing our ground that women have the right to defend themselves from violence, and that black women’s lives matter.”
Alexander’s case has unfolded in the context of the larger crisis of mass incarceration that disproportionately impacts black women and survivors of domestic and sexual violence. The ACLU estimates that 85-90% of people in women’s prisons have been victims of domestic violence or sexual abuse. For the next 65 days, the campaign urges Alexander’s supporters all over the world to organize rallies and forums that raise awareness about Alexander’s case and the cases of other incarcerated women who face similar circumstances, such as Charmaine Pfender.
Supporters are gathering at the following events this week:
Chicago, IL When: Monday, November 24 Time: 6:30 pm Where: Chicago Police Dept Headquarters, 35th & Michigan
Oakland, CA When: Tuesday, November 25 Time: 6:00 pm Where: Eastside Arts Alliance, 2277 International Blvd
Jacksonville, FL: Supporters are also invited to take action with Free Marissa Now in Jacksonville in December. On December 6 the FMN Jericho Prayer March in Jacksonville, Florida will hold a peaceful march for all victims of violence to figuratively tear down walls of injustice through prayer, words of encouragement, and rallying. Pastor Annie Theresa Bryant Montgomery of Abundant Peace Ministries and event coordinator says, “This March is for Marissa, but also bigger than Marissa. This is a rallying cry for justice for all victims of violence.” On December 8th, the Monument Quilt will be on display in Jacksonville. Supporters of Marissa Alexander are welcome to add a message to the Monument Quilt, details can be found at freemarissanow.org.
“We will not stop organizing until Marissa Alexander is free!” said Aleta Alston Toure, a Free Marissa Now lead organizer based in Jacksonville. “During the next 65 days, we must continue to use the attention we’ve brought to Marissa’s case to highlight the broader ongoing crisis of mass incarceration, police violence, and prosecutorial abuse. There are thousands of Marissa Alexanders still behind bars, still facing devastating prison sentences, and still being threatened in their own homes. We must stay the course, spread the word, and change the system until all of our sisters are free.”
Free Marissa Now will keep Marissa Alexander’s supporters updated about the new address where she can receive mail and next steps for the Marissa Alexander Freedom Fundraiser.
The Free Marissa Now Mobilization Campaign is an international grassroots campaign led by a core of organizers representing the African American/Black Women’s Cultural Alliance, New Jim Crow Movement - Jacksonville, and INCITE! Women of Color and Trans People of Color Against Violence. For more information, see www.FreeMarissaNow.org.
