firehose

Fertilizer is a strategic commodity, and that’s no load of manure.

In fact, it’s potash—a mineral salt mined from the ground to add nitrogen to industrial fertilizer production. In the past several years, the production of this valued commodity has been shaken up: In 2013, an informal cartel between two companies in Belarus and Russia that had dominated the industry was shattered—probably by Chinese pressure—and the Russian company’s CEO was held hostage by the government in Belarus, at least until Russian oligarch (and NBA franchise-owner) Mikhail Prokhorov bought his freedom.

You can imagine, between the importance of the resource and the involvement of so many state-connected companies, not to mention the long history of political intrigue around the mineral, that American intelligence would be keeping an eye on the industry. And it was, although perhaps for different reasons than you might think: In 2008, general Keith Alexander, then the head of the National Security Agency, the US electronic surveillance hub, made several specific trades of stock in potash firms while otherwise holding mostly mutual funds and American tech investments.

The speculation included selling shares of a big Canadian producer and a Chinese, state-owned aluminum firm frequently linked to potash deals (this, six months before a major  industry downturn) and buying stock in an American producer before selling again without any apparent gain. Indeed, none of the investments, revealed in disclosure forms the NSA initially tried to protect as classified, provided much profit to Alexander, and government ethics reviews haven’t found any wrongdoing. But it is surprising that Alexander, a US official, would be investing in foreign firms in a highly opaque and politicized industry.

Foreign Policy reporter Shane Harris, who wrote about Alexander at the time of the stock sales, suggests a trigger for the trades might have been the NSA’s growing knowledge of Russian and Chinese hacking on behalf of state-owned companies, and increasing US engagement with cyber espionage overall. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has repeatedly said that the NSA engages in industrial espionage; US officials say that any commercial information gathered by federal intelligence agencies is used purely for strategic reasons and isn’t shared with American firms.

Alexander, who’s also been criticized for hiring an NSA official to work part-time at his consulting firm, had no comment on the Foreign Policy story and did not immediately return a message Quartz left at his firm.

For the past year we have been busy building, testing, documenting and refining the process of taking 3D printed parts and using “Lost PLA” burnout to cast for parts for more robust applications. The documentation is bordering 100+pages, with 20+ pages of brute force data. We will try to keep it simple, show off with a few shiny throwbacks, hopefully inspire ideas for the potential, and give some technical specs to boost the capabilities of those open source open hardware folks who love a good clean walkthrough. [click here for more information]

The sketches go through the simple breakdown of a furnace in basic parts and vacuum trap parts. Blast furnace information can be found here.  Any casting plaster can be used for when investing flasks for casting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parts can have clean interior corners, where CNC machines would fail to accomplish because of the cutter size. Self intersecting geometry is also not a problem. Edge case castings have been hearty with 13 fins space 1.6mm apart extending 15mm up and continuous for 40mm. This means complex geometry for cooling fins has little cost to prototype.The hard part is conceptualizing how volumetric shrinkage occurs. Basically the part will shrink ~2-3% depending on the alloy, but holes will get bigger as metal contracts from the side walls of the plaster. This means that parts need to be scale up ~2% while holes need to shrink by 2%. This allows parts to be well toleranced if machined afterwards.

Extremely complex parts that cannot be machined can easily be cast in production volumes allowing standard 3D print/cast parts to; withstand high temperature applications, parts have higher strength to weight ratio, parts can be custom bearing/bushing systems(when bronze is used), and parts can be used to create custom heat sinks (when aluminum is used).

Rapid manufacture of injection molds allows for even the smallest of shops to become competitive with standard injection molding. 3D printing adds ease and flexibility for companies to change their designs/molds faster and keep up with the demand.

More in depth information can be found here…  Rapid Manufacturing MK3

A high-value Guantanamo detainee has asked a military judge to end a new policy at the detention facility that allows female guards to escort him to meetings with his attorneys. He says that according to the U.S. Supreme Court, the policy violates his religious rights.

So a few days ago, it was suggested to a faction of the hot, pathetic misogynist mess known as GamerGate that launching a boycott of Tor Books was a possible “action op” for them. This was quickly shot down, no doubt in part because the person suggesting it was Theodore Beale, and no one at this point actually gives a crap what he thinks about anything. However, last night I went on another Twitter tear on the subject of GamerGate, and I woke up this morning to a few chuckleheads bleating to Tor about what a terrible person I am, in order to, I don’t know, get Tor to talk to me sternly about having opinions on the Internet, because apparently Tor is my dad. So maybe this push to boycott Tor because of me has legs after all! Hooray!

That said, my takeaway from these furtive attempts to make me shut up about the fact that GamerGate is basically a bunch of terrible human beings being shitty to women, up to and including threatening them and publishing their personal information online in an obvious attempt to silence them is to be just a little bit sad. Not because a few of these human-shaped pieces of ambulatory refuse are trying to do it, but because they’re thinking too small about it.

I mean, seriously, boycotting just Tor Books? Why limit yourself? Sure, it’s the largest publisher of science fiction and fantasy books in North America and possibly the world, but it’s just one imprint of Tom Doherty Associates. There are several other imprints, including Forge, Starscape, Tor Teen and Seven Seas. You should boycott those, too. That’ll show me!

But even then, you’d be thinking too small. Tom Doherty Associates is itself just one appendage of the publishing giant known as Macmillan, with offices in 41 countries! It publishes thousands of books a year! What a target! You should boycott all of Macmillan. Man, I’m quaking in my boots just thinking about it. But even then, it’s small potatoes, for Macmillan is just one part of the mighty Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, with annual sales in the billions of euros. Boycott it all! No doubt all of Stuttgart shall fall into a shambles at the thought.

But even then you are not done, boycotters! For you see, I am crafty and have diversified my revenue stream. I have many publishers and many people I work with. You must punish them all for having me in their midst. All of them. And not just the tiny imprint or sub-company that works with me directly. That’s what a coward would do. And are you a coward? Well, yes, probably, because the tactics of GamerGate have been astoundingly cowardly right from the start. But still! Think big, my friends. Your boycott must not just take out a few targets, it must nuke them all from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

With that in mind, here are your other boycott targets:

In the UK I am published by Gollancz, which is part of Orion Publishing Group, which is in itself part of Hachette, which is part of Lagardère Group. Crush them!

In Germany I am published by Heyne, which is part of Random House, which is itself owned by Penguin Random House, which is jointly owned by Pearson and Bertlesmann. Squish them!

In audio, I am published by Audible, which is owned by Amazon. Surely it is worth giving up your sweet Amazon Prime subscriptions to make Jeff Bezos shake in his chinos!

But wait! We’re still not done. Because as you may know I have TV deals! One is with FX, which is owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, which is part of 21st Century Fox (yes, it’s 21st Century Fox now. Look it up). You will need to boycott it all. Yes, even Fox News. Be strong! It’s for the cause!

Another is with Syfy and Universal Cable Productions, which is part of NBCUniversal, which is itself part of Comcast. So for this one, some of you will have to give up cable, and possibly your Internet connection. Keep your eye on the prize! It will be worth it!

My third TV deal is with Legendary TV, which is part of Legendary Pictures. And you’re thinking, whew, at least they aren’t part of a multinational corporation! True, but they make films that are distributed through a number of film studios, including Warner Bros (basically, all the DC Comics movies) and Universal. They also own both Geek & Sundry and Nerdist Industries. Noooooo! You can’t get your nerd on anymore! Stay focused! Your pain will make victory that much sweeter!

So, in short, in order to effectively punish my business partners for me having thoughts you don’t like, all you need to do is boycott three of the five major US publishers, two of the five major film/television studios (plus selected product of one of the other ones), and the largest single online retailer in the world. Which, well. It will keep you busy, at least.

Which, to be clear, I am fine with. While you are off whining to these corporations about me, perhaps you will be too busy to, you know, threaten death, rape and assault against women who also dare to express thoughts you don’t like. And you know what? I think that’s a fair trade.

So please: If you’re going to boycott a company because of me, at least do it right. Do it big. There are all your targets, laid out for you. Go get ‘em! I’ll be rooting for you, kids!

And in the meantime, just remember this:

Still true, people. Still true.

It looks like Homeland Security is in the panty business now.

According to the Kansas City Star, Peregrine Honig was going about her day, just trying to sell some cheeky World Series panties in her store, Birdies Panties, when she got a visit from Homeland Security

The panties, with "Take the Crown" and "KC" across the bottom, were set to be sold in Honig's Birdies Panties shop Tuesday. But Homeland Security agents visited the Crossroads store and confiscated the few dozen pairs of underwear, printed in Kansas City by Lindquist Press.

"They came in and there were two guys" Honig said. "I asked one of them what size he needed and he showed me a badge and took me outside. They told me they were from Homeland Security and we were violating copyright laws."

It's a good thing we have Homeland Security to protect us from the terror of bootlegged panties.

Viewed through the idea that it's a standalone expansion to Sid Meier's Civilization 5, Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth streamlines gameplay in the long-running strategy series to enhance the pace of the historically-strapped franchise. As a...

Contrary to what's portrayed in scifi, short bursts of laser pulses travel at speeds far too fast for the human eye to see. But what would it look like if we could film it in slow motion? Thanks to a team of physicists from the Polish Academy of Sciences, we now have the video evidence.

Read more...

PhotoMath is a new app by text recognition software company MicroBlink that can solve math equations after a user snaps a photo of it. More complex equations can be solved by taking multiple pictures. The app is available now for iOS and Windows Phone. An Android version is scheduled to release in 2015.

 

 

images via MicroBlink

via TechCrunch

Thanks to the unwavering ability of the campaign to wield the press as a weapon, even its appearance in the New York Times under the headline “Feminist Critics of Video Games Facing Threats in ‘GamerGate’ Campaign” has managed to reinforce some of the group’s favoured talking-points.

Peyton Manning is now the all-time leader in touchdown passes with 510. Brett Favre's mission: to surpass that in a single game. We realize how impossible this sounds.

I would like to throw 511 touchdown passes in a single game of Madden NFL 15. I will not disable any rules or exploit any glitches. These will be legal, honest-to-God touchdowns in a standard 60-minute football game. If I score 511 of them and make every extra point, the final score will be 3,577 to 0.

Y'all, I'm serious. Stick with me here.

The significance of the number 511, of course, is that last week, Peyton Manning threw his 510th career touchdown pass and surpassed Brett Favre as the all-time record holder.

I have stated many times on record that, in my estimation, it sure would be something to see Brett lace 'em up and give it one more go and show all these young kids a thing or two.  Further, I have posited that the ol' Gunslinger still has some magic left in that arm of his. Finally, and this is crucial, I hold it to be true that it just hasn't been the same without the Gunslinger out there runnin' and gunnin' and finding a way to win any which way he knows how and goin' out there and choppin' it up and just havin' some fun out there.

The game plan for this particular episode was inspired by valued Internet subscriber and www.twitter.com visitor Keith Mullett:

@jon_bois I told you, breaking madden week 17: the gunslinger takes back his records from peyton

— Keith Mullett (@KeithMullett) October 19, 2014

I laughed it off at first, but my heart began to fill with dread as I realized that throwing 511 touchdown passes in a game might actually be possible, at least on paper. I began to wish I'd never even considered it, because once I knew it was within the realm of possibility, I couldn't not try it. Trying it would probably mean a single game that lasted 14, 16, maybe 18 hours.

My first step was to find companions who would understand my struggle.

if you would like to be in the next Breaking Madden, please tell me about the worst shift you ever worked at any job

— Jon Bois (@jon_bois) October 20, 2014

Turns out, lots and lots of people have really terrible work-shift stories! Narrowing the field down to 12 was a challenge. Click here to hear their stories. One individual had a boss who took a dump in a 7-11 cup. Another accidentally destroyed a Humvee with a tank. Still another worked a double at the Olive Garden on his 21st birthday after moving to a new city with no friends. Remarkable, all of them.

Brett Favre and I will not break any NFL rules along our journey, but we will definitely tip the scales in our favor in every way that is legal. Nowhere in the rule books does it forbid the Broncos from fielding five-foot-tall cornerbacks and safeties who are bad at everything. Nor does it disallow the Packers from suiting up four unstoppable seven-foot-tall wide receivers.

Neither, unfortunately, is there an NFL rule that prevents some doofus from wasting hours and hours of his life in pursuit of something he won't even be able to prove he did. See, as longtime readers of Breaking Madden know, the game stops counting once you reach 255 points. After that, you can keep scoring as many touchdowns as you want, but they won't show up on the game's scoreboard. There is no screenshot I could possibly take that would prove to you that I really did do this.

But I will know. This isn't about you.

THE STRATEGY.

This number is everything:

7.045

In order to score 511 touchdowns in a 60-minute game, I will have to score one touchdown per 7.045 seconds of game clock. After running a few experiments, I think this strategy is the most effective and reliable.

1.

I should mention here that I'm controlling both the Broncos and Packers in this experiment. The Broncos will be completely aiding and abetting Brett Favre's quest. This is legal! If you've been watching the NFL for very long at all, you know it's perfectly legal for a team to defeat itself.

On the kickoff, I'll move the Broncos' return man out of the way to ensure he doesn't field the kick. The ball will drop out of the back of the end zone for a touchback, and no time runs off the clock. This is the easy part.

2.

Oh, there's another thing I forgot to mention! Peyton Manning is now the Broncos' field goal kicker. He is terrible at it, which is important. I need him to make the worst, shortest attempts possible so as to conserve game clock.

The duration of this play varies, but it usually runs about three seconds off the clock. The Packers take possession.

Here, the Broncos call a field goal block, which means they have no secondary. The Packers call a Hail Mary, Favre throws a bullet as soon as he possibly can, and we've got our touchdown. Boot the extra point, which takes no time off the clock, and we're back to Step 1.

If every step is properly executed, scoring a touchdown takes between six and seven seconds -- just barely under our limit of 7.045 seconds. If y'all can think of a more efficient means of doing this, I'd love to hear about it in the comments, but this strategy was the most efficient I came across.

And dang it, I think that means something. It would appear as though 511, or a number very close to it, is the logical limit of touchdowns that can possibly be scored in one game. Why wouldn't the career touchdown pass mark arbitrarily be 350, or 617, or 820? Why would it sit right there at the precipice?

It all joins together. It's like watching glass shatter in reverse. The numbers have been patiently waiting for me. I have to do this.

THE GAME.

Madden is going apeshit in a hurry this week.

This year, the franchise introduced a new feature to the kicking game. It displays an array of paths that estimate your kick's trajectory and helps you to aim a little better. It's pretty neat! Except for when your kicker is Peyton Manning.

I'm not even touching the controller there. The game is just totally flipping its shit. This display is implying that Peyton might somehow kick the ball 30 yards backwards. Lord knows I tried, but I never managed to pull that off.

Kicking was far and away the toughest part of this whole thing. I had to keep it away from any Packers who might catch it and run it back to the house. I also ran the risk of hitting one of my dudes in the butt.

That was bad news. It seems that if your field goal attempt hits a teammate and then falls on the ground, Madden counts it as a fumble. Precious seconds go off the clock, especially if I didn't realize what happened and I'm not quick to call a timeout. And remember, this is such a tight operation. Assuming I did everything exactly right 511 times (which is probably not humanly possible), I'd only have around 200 seconds of game clock to spare. Losing 10 seconds on some random play could scuttle the whole deal.

So, Peyton. Peyton ain't too good at all this kickin'.

Peyton would much rather be throwing the ball, as evidenced by this play, which I ... guess is legal?

He kicks the ball to his offensive lineman, who takes it and rumbles forward for a few yards. It's the opposite of an armpunt. It's a legpass!

I mean, it's certainly illegal to throw the ball to an offensive lineman, since he doesn't line up as an eligible receiver. But hell, ain't mean you can't kick it, I guess! By exploiting a loophole, Peyton Manning just blew our understanding of legal offensive football wide open.

If Madden was correct in allowing that play, that is. We might not wanna trust Madden.

This is the game's play-by-play report from a test run I did. Those of you who are sports experts may find this to be unusual!

Peyton Manning attempted a field goal from his own 20, but rather than turn over possession to the Packers, the game let the Broncos keep the ball. Not only that, the game decided to re-spot the ball all the way across the field to the Packers' 13.Madden was trying to hide the ball from me, or maybe it just no longer understood what the hell was going on.

With 14:01 remaining in the first quarter, I was feeling an ounce of optimism and a bucket of dread. The good news: I scored my ninth touchdown in the 59th second of the game, which meant I was keeping a pace of one touchdown per 6.55 seconds. I was a half-second-per-touchdown ahead of schedule. If sustaining this pace for a minute was doable, it meant to me that whether or not I succeeded was entirely in my hands.

The bad news: I looked up and realized the first minute of game clock had taken up 30 minutes of real-world time. By that pace, the game would take me 28 hours. Now, that first minute was so slow in part because I kept pausing and recording replays, but bare minimum, each game minute was bound to cost 15 real minutes. That meant 15 hours of gameplay, unless I took breaks, which I would have to do ...

... for the time being, I decided to stay the course. Things got messy. On one occasion, I accidentally called a Denver pass, and completed a pass despite trying to throw the ball away. That cost me about 10 seconds. Another time, a field goal was caught and returned for a Packers TD, which of course was of no use since it wasn't a passing touchdown. More seconds wasted.

I just couldn't slack off at all. I had to be careful to do everything the same way every single time. Example: never, ever call trips right on a Hail Mary.

My receivers took up so much mass that they essentially played defense against one another. It didn't matter which button I'd pressed, they all decided the ball was for them.

We've seen this time and again in Breaking Madden: when some stuff gets weird, even the stuff that shouldn't be weird gets weird. This, for example.

wheeeeeeeeeee

An outlandish game score should have absolutely nothing to do with a game's physics engine, right? No matter how ridiculous it is? Why would a 217-0 score make the physics mess up? And yet, the game throws a tantrum and yanks Ryan Van Bibber 30 yards downfield for no reason. This is the first time I've ever seen that happen.

It's like the various elements of the game -- the textures, rendering, physics, scorekeeping, artificial intelligence, all that -- is part of one big game of telephone. Except, instead of a coherent message being gradually deteriorated, everyone's just screaming. It's just a room of people screaming, "AAAAAAAAAHHHH."

Here's a man whose hand has been replaced with a football.

This poor fellow's ball-arm probably isn't all that difficult to explain. There was just an error in the collision detection or something. The engine was trying to make the ball be in his hand, and it messed up terribly. What I can't explain: he's holding his arm in the sky, which I never see a ball carrier do, and which no ball carrier would ever do. Just holding it aloft in horror as the townspeople prepare either to hoist him around as some sort of demigod, or devour him alive.

THE RESULTS.

I'm not gonna try to hold y'all hostage. Look, I failed. I do believe I successfully proved that it was at least possible, and that in a real-world football game, with both teams working toward the same goal, 511 passing touchdowns could happen. But it didn't happen.

Here is why it didn't happen.

Click here for many more episodes of Breaking Madden.

Feminist criticism has been met with free-speech paranoia on numerous occasions in the past two years.

submitted by bverde536 [link] [8 comments]

Dammit, Hydra.

— Marvel Entertainment (@Marvel) October 22, 2014

We shared the above tweet with you when we posted the trailer last night, but well, it maybe got a little lost in the shuffle amidst everyone freaking out about ballerinas and Pinocchio. We think it deserves center stage, because that response is wonderful. And in other Marvel twitter news: they’ve released the first teaser poster!

Love the @Avengers: #AgeofUltron teaser trailer? Check out the official teaser poster! pic.twitter.com/8KDjlZxnfv

— Marvel Entertainment (@Marvel) October 23, 2014

Boy, is that shiny.

OK, go watch the trailer again, and let’s discuss.

Previously in Marvelous things

• Talking The Hawkeye Initiative With Jeremy Renner
• Giant Rumor Alert: The Third Avengers Film Might Be Split Into Two Parts
• And This, Ladies And Gentlemen, Is Why Jeremy Renner Is A National Treasure

Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?

Announcement: http://t.co/FWbGnLsXGW is NOT Gamergate! http://t.co/JnjGLV86cS Please help us share this post.

— GamersGate (@GamersGate) October 23, 2014

GamersGate, according to their official Facebook page, “is the leading digital distribution platform for PC, Mac, and Linux games, with over 6000 games available.” They also must have done something awful in a past life, because damn. Those poor bastards. Twitter thinks so, too:

@GamersGate @TheQuinnspiracy im confused and a bit enraged every time I get your newsletter ;) — Emanu! (@Emanu_G) October 23, 2014

@GamersGate @DanimalFarm You poor, poor fucks.

— Soraya Een Halloween (@Cavni) October 23, 2014

.@GamersGate I’m so sorry — Pumpkin Hill Zone (@Fengxii) October 23, 2014

@GamersGate ISIS rebranded, can you not? http://t.co/lz3P5zIMy9

— John Drinkwater (@johndrinkwater) October 23, 2014

Not GamersGate related, but worth your eyeballs:

Your Mentions When You Say The Secret Word #GamerGate http://t.co/TLLG0WjpWd — Bram Stoker’s Scott (@bombsfall) October 19, 2014

Here’s what they have to say on Facebook:

Announcement: GAMERSGATE.COM is NOT Gamergate!

As many of you are aware of, recently there has been a fierce and infected discussion about sexism as well as journalistic ethics in the gaming industry. We’ve received threats and harsh words from around the world and want to make it clear for everyone that Gamersgate.com is not part of this controversy whatsoever.

Next year Gamersgate.com celebrate our 10th anniversary and since start we have been selling games for download. We are one of the original download platforms and we do our best to support gamers so that they can buy and download games to good prices. Anytime, anywhere.

Theodore Bergqvist. CEO – Gamersgate.com

Please help us share this post.

You can make it through, Gamersgate. I believe in you.

Previously in that other thing

• We Ran the Best Bits of Chris Kluwe’s Blistering #GamerGate Essay Through the Madden Giferator
• Adobe, Mercedes-Benz are Latest to Pull Ads at the Behest of GamerGate
• Joss Whedon, Boston Globe Journalist Smack Down “But GamerGate Is About Journalistic Ethics!” Argument

Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?

l0kasenna:

lunarobverse:

A brilliant metaphor

6. Cycle lanes are built just for you, and then the cars drive in those too.

Previously: a Decemberists album where nobody gets murdered.

"Everything In This Song Is Spelled According To Modern Convention"

"A Girl Who Is Alive And Not Anne Frank Plays A Piano Without Any Semen On It"

"No One Visited The Penny Arcade That Day"

"The Characters On This Old-Timey Postcard Have Not Come To Life To Comfort You About Your Parents' Divorce"

"The Boy With One Head On His Body"

"I Have Pictures Of My Living Family And No Pictures Of Executed Criminals In This Photo Album"

Read more Songs From A Neutral Milk Hotel Album That Does Not Reference The Holocaust at The Toast.

On her last day at her job leading bus tours of San Francisco, one woman decided she could no longer hold back her honest (racist) views about the city's Chinatown. Some German tourists took video of the whole thing—it's not clear if they were among the cheering tour guests who apparently thought the guide made some salient (racist) points.

Read more...

The actor hadn’t talked about gamergate due to fears of being ‘doxxed’ – and indeed she was, shortly after she spoke out