Want to boldly go where no man’s gone before? Well, we might not be able to yet but the people working on the issue are here to help you pay your way while grounded on Earth. The NASA Federal Credit Union has teamed with CBS Consumer Products to launch a new line of Star Trek-themed […]
Yang spoke with CBR's Joe Illidge about comics' growing diversity, how personal experiences informed their careers and where the Man of Steel fits into it all.
In just the first half of 2015, US political campaigns spent more money on Uber rides—$124,880—than they did in the entirety of 2014, a year with actual voting, and one in which we saw the controversial car service trounce taxis among the political class.
A Quartz analysis of 2015 campaign finance data provided by the Sunlight Foundation shows that, among the top 10 Republican candidates and top three Democratic candidates, Texas senator Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign reports the most Uber use of any campaign. But add in the spending by Super PACs, essentially shadow campaigns that can raise unlimited amounts to help candidates, and two of Florida’s favorite sons—former governor Jeb Bush and current senator Marco Rubio—outspend the rest of the field by a significant margin.
Uber is easy to politicize. Its clashes with local transit regulators in major cities like New York and San Francisco, its eye-popping valuation, its hiring of former Obama aide David Plouffe, and CEO Travis Kalanick’s libertarian leanings have put the firm on the map for both parties. (See Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s criticism of the “gig economy” epitomized by Uber and other employers of contract workers. See also the massive reaction her comments triggered in the media, and the way Bush played it all off with a well-publicized Uber ride in San Francisco.)
Voters, however, are unlikely to make their decision next year based on a candidate’s stance on an car-service app. One political operative who requested anonymity to speak blames the politicization of Uber on urban reporters who are themselves obsessed with the service.
But if nothing else, the campaign data shows that Uber is increasingly taking over the transit world. Political campaigns are themselves a particularly lean brand of startup, aiming to launch a viable candidate who can corner the market, or least just over 50% of it. (And then, like many startups, they’ll shut down after 18 months or so.) In any case, if they’re choosing Uber over other transit alternatives, you have to think that some combination of cost, convenience, and efficacy must be attracting them.
“Strange” and “new” are relative terms, as a fascinating series of Japanese woodcuts unearthed by the Public Domain Review handily reminds us.
Inspired by the dress and habits of visiting Americans, artists in 1850s Japan once dedicated themselves with an ethnographic intensity to the study of exotic Western newcomers. Today, the artwork provides Americans with a novel perspective on their ancestors, described in portrait titles like People of the Barbarian Nations – Americans,and Americans’ Love for Children.
This particular genre of woodcut is known as Yokohama-e, and was produced in the small fishing village of Yokohama, today one of Japan’s most international cities. Yokohama was one of the first ports that Japan opened to foreign trade, at the insistence of the American government. The US made several failed attempts to get Japan’s attention throughout the early 19th century before finally forcing Japan out of isolation in 1854.
The images below were retrieved from the digital archives of the US Library of Congress.
“Yokohama meishō benten: Amerikajin” (Famous places in Yokohama: Americans.)A carriage ride along the shoreline in Yokohama, in “Yokohama kyūjitsu Amerikajin yūkō” (Americans enjoying Sunday in Yokohama).(Sadahide Utagawa)A woman holds a parasol and a man smokes a cigar in “Shōsha – Amerikajin” (True picture of Americans.) Yoshikazu Utagawa.Women in Western dress riding sidesaddle in “Gokakoku no uchi – Amerikajin” (People of the five nations – Americans). (Utagawa, Yoshitora)An American couple in “Bankoku zukushi – Amerikajin” (About foreign lands – Americans). (Yoshitora Utagawa).“Bankoku jinbutsu zue – Amerikajin” (People of the barbarian nations – Americans). (Yoshitsuya Utagawa)An American couple conversing with Japanese translation in the text, in “Amerikajin – bango wakai” (Americans – Japanese translations of barbaric languages). (Yoshitora Utagawa)An American man holding a glass and a Japanese courtesan holding a bottle in “Amerikajin yuko sakamori” (American enjoying himself). (Yoshitora Utagawa)“Amerikajin yūgyō” (Americans taking a stroll). (Yoshifuji Utagawa)A husband stands nearby while his wife breast-feeds an infant in “Amerikajin no zu” (Portrait of Americans). (Yoshitora Utagawa)Two American men baking in “Amerikajin no zu – pansei nokamato” (Portrait of Americans – bread making). (Yoshikazu Utagawa)A mother and child with a Japanese manservant leaving for a walk, in “Amerikajin kodomo o aisu zu” (Picture of Americans’ love for children). (Yoshitoyo Utagawa)(Yoshikazu Utagawa)
The Tube is out of service again today (Aug. 6) and Londoners—a sweary bunch at the best of times—are displeased.
Impero, a London-based digital and social agency, has created a live map to show a selection of the foul-mouthed griping over the London tube strike. “The F*cking Tube Strike” map shows swear-filled tweets and Instagrams that are posted within the city’s limits.
The 24-hour strike began Wednesday night, as 20,000 workers from four separate unions walked out to protest plans for all-night weekend tube service.
Iranian scientists say they have successfully cloned a mouflon—an endangered wild sheep, nearly extinct due to illegal hunting—which was born to a domestic sheep surrogate mother at the country’s Royan Institute. The baby mouflon is two weeks old and healthy, the leading biomedical researcher at the Institute told The Guardian. The creature’s name is Maral, traditionally a Persian name for new babies (and also reindeer).
The scientists took cells from a mouflon through biopsy and inserted them into unfertilized eggs of a domestic sheep. The best embryos were then transferred to the womb of the surrogate mother. Interspecies cloning of endangered animals has been the subject of experiments for about 15 years, with limited success. Conservations groups point out that it does not help preserve shrinking wild animal habitats.
The Royan Institute is known for its infertility treatment for humans, pioneering in vitro fertilization in Iran and even drawing medical tourists from across the Middle East.
We're on day who-the-heck-knows of the Android Stagefright security vulnerability, and there's really no point keeping track of the days because no one's going to fix it. The Android ecosystem can't deal with security, and it won't change until it's too late.
Android was originally designed, above all else, to be widely adopted. Google was starting from scratch with zero percent market share, so it was happy to give up control and give everyone a seat at the table in exchange for adoption. The sales pitch was simple: "Apple locked you all out of the iPhone and with Microsoft you're just a customer, but on Android, you'll all have a say in the end product." The open source nature of Android allowed anyone to adapt its code to their hardware, and OEMs and carriers could (theoretically) alter or fork it to their hearts' content.
Now, though, Android has around 75-80 percent of the worldwide smartphone market—making it not just the world's most popular mobile operating system but arguably the most popular operating system, period. As such, security has become a big issue. Android still uses a software update chain-of-command designed back when the Android ecosystem had zero devices to update, and it just doesn't work. There are just too many cooks in the kitchen: Google releases Android to OEMs, OEMs can change things and release code to carriers, carriers can change things and release code to consumers. It's been broken for years.
Miles clearly treats each discipline decision as a unique circumstance, as he's booted valuable players for less than what third-stringer Domond is accused of doing. But letting this news coincide with the beginning of fall camp every year is uncomfortable, to say the least.
Maybe it was a joke, or maybe all Goodell can do is laugh at this point.
Roger Goodell has come under plenty of scrutiny as NFL commissioner with former players, current players and many others criticizing his decisions. That includes the Tom Brady situation, but at least one person appears to think Goodell handled it properly.
Former Packers general manager Ron Wolf accepted his gold jacket on Thursday ahead of the Hall of Fame enshrinement and had a brief message of support for Goodell.
Is it possible Goodell is criticized so much that his only response to being told good job is to laugh hysterically? That wasn't just a basic courtesy laugh. Even Jimmy Fallon thinks Goodell was a little over the top.
There is a chance this could be an inside joke, but it doesn't seem that way. It really appears Wolf was giving Goodell legitimate praise and Goodell's only response was to crack up laughing.
#TBT By the time I was 16 yrs old, I had already enrolled in four high schools across the country due to being evicted and lil' trouble with the law.. McKinley HS (Honolulu, HI), Glenn Cliff HS (Nashville, TN), McGavock HS (Nashville, TN), Freedom HS (Bethlehem, PA). I was also 6'4 225lbs, rockin' a dead caterpillar on my lip (aka the porn 'stache) and all the kids in every high school thought I was an undercover cop cause I looked like a mutated, yet handsome SOB of a man child. Plus in Nashville I was already hangin' out in honey tonk dive bars on Music Row and hustlin' cars from crackheads. Yup, one of the many reasons why I'm a grateful man for the life I have today and also grateful I straight up kicked puberty's ass early in life. #GodBlessSamoanAndBlackGenetics #AndGodBlessOurTeenageYears #AndWTFWasIThinkingWithThisMustache
Rapper charged with second-degree assault after throwing shake.
Busta Rhymes was arrested Wednesday night after throwing a protein shake at a gym employee's head in New York City, because Busta was fully equipped and came with all the supplies.
A photo posted by Busta Rhymes (@conglomerateent) on
Earlier this week, Busta attempted to bring a cameraman into Chelsea's Steel Gym with him so he could record his workout. The gym employee in question did not like this, and refused the cameraman entry.
On Wednesday, after a scuffle that involved mutual water-throwing, Busta hurled the protein shake, which was either chocolate or strawberry and either Muscle Milk or Lean Body but almost certainly was a whey composite, at the gym employee's head.
“This has been going on for a long time,” another gym employee told The New York Daily News.
The gym employee suffered "lacerations" but is widely expected to survive.
Fans of Musem Bot might like my newest creation, FBI Bot. There’s a site called the FBI Vaullt where you can browse publicly-released FBI records on various American citizens and organizations. There are thousands of pages of records. I thought I’d make a little bot that tweets a random page from it four times a day.
When the media talks about social media, it’s always about young, white Americans. We spoke to a wider sample — including a sex worker, a pastor’s wife, a rapper — to see why people do what they do online.
In America anime is seen as a white or asian pastime, but there is a growing community of black anime fans. Cecilia D'Anastasio goes to Otakon, Baltimore's anime convention, to explore the intersection between American race issues and Otaku.
The government had constantly denied that Canada was involved in spying or espionage — until an enterprising young Englishman named William Macadam came along.
These days, the buzziest startups with the highest valuations — think Uber and Airbnb — aren’t just the ones challenging incumbent businesses; it’s almost an assumed part of the deal that at some point the most successful startups will have to go up against the government.
CLEVELAND—Hailing the bygone era as a golden age of opportunity, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal spent his opening remarks during Thursday’s GOP debate vowing to return America to a time when he was a rising star within the Republican Party. “I want to bring America back to its best days, back when our future as a nation looked bright and I was widely considered to be the leading voice of a new generation of conservatives,” said Jindal, emphasizing that the country had strayed too far from the halcyon days that Americans enjoyed for a brief period in early 2009. “Comparing our nation today to where it was during that idyllic time when I was being touted as a potential heir to the Ronald Reagan legacy, anyone can plainly see that the most powerful country in the world has lost its way and replaced hopefulness and optimism with utter despair ...
Not only will Nicki Minaj soon have her own videogame, featuring her likeness and voice, she’ll be providing “creation direction” on its production. Following the success of the surprisingly subversive Kim Kardashian: Hollywood game, developer Glu has decided to branch out into other celebrity-centric titles, including this upcoming project with Minaj, as well as a Jason Statham shooter and a Katy Perry fixture. Eh, don’t really care about those other two …
But Nicki’s game? That’s a day one download for me.
Sesame Street residentErnie knows a good movie when he sees it. It has to have funny parts, sad parts, surprising parts, and Charles Bronson tearing somebody’s private parts off. That’s why the 1974 vigilante film Death Wish, starring Bronson as widower who seeks vengeance on his wife’s killers, is the perfect choice for date night. Like with most things involving Bert and Ernie, Bert is slow to come around, but by the time the chainsaw mutilations kick in, he needs little convincing that this is a great, great movie.
At least that’s the alternate reality presented by Youtuber Eric Zaldivar in “Bert and Ernie watch Death Wish.” The footage splices together well, as both Death Wish and this early Sesame Street skit share the same low-fi analog picture. The pairing also puts Death Wish in clear perspective, presenting over the top violence that was condemned ...
“And So It Begins” is the latest in the long-running series of over-the-top Old Spice commercials. The spot sees the return of former Old Spice spokesman Isaiah Mustafa as he does battle with his replacement Terry Crews over which Old Spice scent is superior. Mustafa is fighting on behalf of the Timber scent, and Crews is battling for Bearglove.
Years ago, Fallout fans discovered that it was possible to escape the opening area of Fallout 3 at the start of the game, thus allowing players to go through a game as a baby. It was a fun trick, sure, but it seemed untenable for an entire game...until now. (Permalink)
This is so cool. Stitched together from both old and new clips of Soyuz launch footage over the years, this video shows what a Soyuz flight from Earth to the International Space Station looks like. And it’s absolutely incredible. You get to see the launch, approach and how it docks to the ISS from multiple angles. (Permalink)
The album is currently available for pre-order, but Apple Music subscribers can check it out right now; the Chronic mastermind will be streaming it on the service for the next hour or so, before conducting an interview about the album with Beats 1 DJ Zane Lowe at 11 p.m. Central. Dre called in to the DJ earlier today, explaining that royalties from the album will go toward constructing a performing arts center for the city of Compton, itself.
Super Opinionated.
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