How good have the Kings been this season? They’re even beating NFL teams - http://t.co/XELSAnTmcE pic.twitter.com/0ZCyGUZYCV
— Sean Leahy (@Sean_Leahy) October 20, 2014
This was spotted on a local station in Los Angeles, so this was almost certainly meant to be the hockey Kings, not the basketball Kings.
Hey, at least the Los Angeles Kings are also reigning world champs. It can always be worse, Seattle.
Bailey Nebbia, the beautiful Golden Retriever who first achieved fame with the “I Have No Idea What I’m Doing” meme, is back with a few new and fabulous outfits that show that Bailey does have more than a little idea as to what she is doing.
images via Bailey the Golden Retriever
via Bored Panda
Today in “stuff that is surreally relevant to your very specific fandom interests,” Captain Kirk uses a picture of Supernatural‘s Castiel and Kevin Tran to have a conversation about Sailor Jupiter. I am not making that up. It actually happened.
I am, of course, referring to William Shatner’s Twitter, which as we all know is a minefield of hilarity and strangeness. In between livetweeting episodes of Castle and checking in on the International Space Station, the Shat took some time to tweet out this picture of Misha Collins and Osric Chau bein’ silly.
Oh goodness! Sailor Moon meets Rico Sonotsuave! pic.twitter.com/CDwXMLSm3D
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) October 19, 2014
The Internet, of course, responded in kind:
You know what is even more frightening than that photo? People correcting me telling me that it’s Sailor Jupiter’s outfit!
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) October 19, 2014
That’s when it started to get weird:
Wasn’t Sailor Jupiter a giantess? Is that part of the ‘in joke’, too? — William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) October 19, 2014
And then:
.@DanWinchester_6 She was VERY TALL and very strong. You read YOUR manga, dude! Moon Prism Power Activate! Ha! — William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) October 19, 2014
I can’t decide which I want to believe more: that William Shatner already came into the discussion with a working level of knowledge about Sailor Moon, or that he googled Sailor Jupiter after being corrected in order to come up with more ways to make fun of Osric Chau, and then decided to keep going so he could school randos on Twitter. Either way, sir, you are my hero. Never stop tweeting.
(via William Shatner on Twitter, image via Star Trek Continues)
Previously in Shatner
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In news that should provoke squeals of delight from fans of all ages and roles within the IT department, Hasbro has announced a My Little Pony movie for 2017. According to Variety, the animated film is being written by Joe Ballarini of Ice Age: Continental Drift, who will put his experience with talking animals and epochal events in the history of our Earth’s evolution to work on the franchise, which involves magical horses and the grown men who ardently defend their rights to love them.
In a way, it’s surprising that it’s taken this long for a My Little Pony movie to be announced, given the franchise’s renewed popularity. My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic continues to foster a strong following on TV and certain subsections of DeviantArt that you would be wise to avoid, while the recent movies My Little Pony: Equestria Girls and Equestria ...
Goofy whale side-kick or bust: Disney announced today that the animated musical Moana is set for a November 23rd, 2016 release date, and in spite of some residual Disney misgivings, I can’t help but be excited. I mean, just look at that concept art. No matter what, Moana should be gorgeous.
Disney’s upcoming animated feature also has a reassuringly-credentialed creative team–Ron Clements and John Musker of Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, and The Princess and the Frog. According to Oh My Disney, Musker and Clement’s first entirely-CG film follows Moana, a chief’s daughter with a knack for navigation, as she sails through the South Pacific to appease her ancestors. Along the way, Moana teams up with the demi-god Maui, “encountering enormous sea creatures, breathtaking underworlds and ancient folklore.”
Clements spoke briefly about Moana‘s enormous scope and the strength of its titular heroine:
John and I have partnered on so many films – from The Little Mermaid to Aladdin to The Princess and the Frog [...] Creating Moana is one of the great thrills of our career. It’s a big adventure set in this beautiful world of Oceania.
Moana is indomitable, passionate and a dreamer with a unique connection to the ocean itself [...] She’s the kind of character we all root for, and we can’t wait to introduce her to audiences.
Well, I know what I’m watching two Thanksgivings from now. What do you guys think?
(via Coming Soon)
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Star Wars happens a long, long time ago. Gozer is an ancient God. Both have taken forms with pale, disgusting, flaccid surfaces. And then…there’s this.
I’m not saying that Gozer was a Sith, but I’m not not saying it, either.
Google has been updating a number of its Android apps with its new material design recently, and it looks like Gmail will be the latest to get a visual overhaul shortly. Android Police has obtained early access to Gmail 5.0 for Android, and there’s a surprise addition of Yahoo and Outlook.com support inside the app. Gmail for Android has traditionally supported just Google’s own mail service, but it looks like the search giant wants to help Android users manage all of their mail from within its Gmail app.
Could spell the end of switching between Android email apps
A leaked video demonstrates the new Gmail app, and Google notes within it that more than just Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook.com accounts are supported. It’s not clear whether the upcoming Gmail app will also support Exchange ActiveSync accounts like the built-in Android mail client, but if it does then that could spell the end of switching between mail clients on Android for most users. Yahoo and Outlook.com are a welcome addition for Android users, and it’s a move from Google that may also help keep phone makers bundling apps like Gmail with devices.
Google’s Gmail 5.0 for Android isn’t available just yet, but expect to see it arrive in the coming weeks alongside Android Lollipop. Most of the visual changes include updated iconography, tweaked buttons, rounded avatars, and an improved compose mail screen. There's no word on any potential updates to Google's Gmail app for iOS, but it's reasonable to assume similar changes will make their way over to the iPhone and iPad versions.
For hours on an April day this year, 6,600 emergency calls from people in seven states didn't reach responders. The 911 outage affected 11 million people; in Washington state, every single person was affected. And in a new report investigating the causes of the outage, the FCC found this: "It could have been prevented. But it was not."
According to the report, the outage was caused by a simple coding error. A Colorado-based company, Intrado, Inc., which many service providers rely on for 911 infrastructure services, failed to properly route calls to emergency responders because of a bug in its software. Essentially, the coding error caused the system to stop giving unique IDs to 911 callers, and instead began counting them, one after the other, in one large set. When the set reached its pre-determined limit, the calls stopped coming through. Intrado's system, because of the coding error, failed to realize there was a widespread problem.
The resulting 911 outage disconnected services in North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, California, Minnesota, and Florida, but the worst problems were in Washington state, where every emergency service system was affected to various degrees.
The outage was caused by a simple coding error
One of the most striking details from the report, which relied on "confidential reports, public comments, and related documents," found that the system could have been fixed almost as soon as the outage started. Intrado operates a so-called "redundant hub" in Miami, where emergency calls can be re-routed. But because the problems were not swiftly identified, the outage went on for six hours. When the calls were finally sent through Miami, service was immediately restored.
The FCC takes several lessons from the outage and followup investigation. As The Verge highlighted this month, the seven-state outage may have been an outlier in size, but hardly in type. Similar 911 outages are more frequent than many people would expect, and the FCC points out in its report that "sunny day outages" — where external problems aren't the cause — seem to be on the rise.
Partly, the problem stems from attempts to reconcile aging emergency infrastructure with new mobile technology. Both carriers and 911 centers may be taking shortcuts when setting up their emergency systems. While it's recommended that systems have multiple failsafes to work as backup in case of problems, many don't, opening the door for "single-point" failures, where a minor problem at one point may cause the entire system to fail. When multiple carriers outsource their 911 responsibilities to the same third-party, as happened in the April outage, the problems can be exacerbated: communication between so many compabies becomes a challenge, and it becomes less clear who needs to be held accountable in an emergency.
The FCC's report ends on a less than hopeful note: "As the Nation transitions to new methods of communications, we need to take care to ensure that our inherent trust in the 911 system does not get lost in that transition."
IBM announced today that GlobalFoundries will acquire its chip manufacturing business in a deal expected to close in 2015. IBM will pay GlobalFoundries $1.5 billion over the next three years to complete the transfer but will presumably save more than that over the long haul by offloading a costly chipmaking operation.
IBM designs the chips for its Power servers and mainframe computers and will continue to invest in chip research even after outsourcing manufacturing to GlobalFoundries. IBM is continuing a previously announced $3 billion investment over five years in semiconductor technology research, and the company said that "GlobalFoundries will have primary access to the research that results from this investment through joint collaboration at the Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE), SUNY Polytechnic Institute, in Albany, NY." Additionally, GlobalFoundries will become "IBM's exclusive server processor semiconductor technology provider for 22 nanometer (nm), 14nm and 10nm semiconductors for the next 10 years."
GlobalFoundries will take over IBM manufacturing facilities in New York and Vermont, and the company "plans to provide employment opportunities for substantially all IBM employees at the two facilities who are part of the transferred businesses, except for a team of semiconductor server group employees who will remain with IBM." GlobalFoundries will also acquire thousands of patents and IBM's commercial microelectronics business.
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A 39-year-old UK man has been convicted of possessing illegal cartoon drawings of young girls exposing themselves in school uniforms and engaging in sex acts. The case is believed to be the UK's first prosecution of illegal manga and anime images.
Local media said that Robul Hoque was sentenced last week to nine months' imprisonment, though the sentence is suspended so long as the defendant does not break the law again.
Police seized Hoque's computer in 2012 and said they found nearly 400 such images on it, none of which depicted real people but were illegal nonetheless because of their similarity to child pornography. Hoque was initially charged with 20 counts of illegal possession but eventually pled guilty to just 10 counts.
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firehose"The cop seems partly amused, partly in disbelief as Seim asks him for identification.
"This is my ID right here," the officer says, pointing to the police patch on his uniform.
"That's not ID, sir," Seim counters. "If I showed you a badge if you stopped me, would you take that as ID? C'mon. Let's be reasonable. Anybody can have a patch, sir."
The officer then shows two forms of ID.
Seim asks if he's been stopping people in the unmarked vehicle. When the officer admits he has, Seim explains that it's against state law to do so.
"I'm not going to write you up today," Seim says. "What I am going to encourage you to do is take this car back."
When the officer starts to smile, Seim holds firm: "I could call a sheriff out here and demand that you be written up for this because you are in open violation of Washington State RCWs."
The exchange remains polite throughout, and ends with one final table-turner as Seim sends the cop off with a "you be safe out there" in the edited clip."
auto-side eye to anyone saying they're a "constitutional activist" but this is kind of amazing
firehosegreat
firehosesaucie quit showing off
firehosevia Albener Pessoa
~it just works~
Unlike single-core performance multi-core performance has decreased significantly. The "Good" model (which has a dual-core processor in both lineups) is down 7%. The other models (which have a dual-core processor in the "Late 2014" lineup but a quad-core processor in the "Late 2012" lineup) is down from 70% to 80%.Poole notes that Apple may have switched to dual-core processors in some Late 2014 Mac minis because Haswell dual-core processors use one socket to connect the logic board and processor while Haswell quad-core processors use different sockets. This would mean Apple would have to design and build two separate logic boards specifically for the Mac mini, while other Macs use the same logic boards across its individual line.
firehosevia Albener Pessoa
~it just works~
After going more than two years without an update, Apple's Mac mini was refreshed yesterday, adding Haswell processors, Intel HD 5000/Iris graphics, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and PCI-based flash storage options for the higher-end models. 
firehosevia Albener Pessoa
autoreshare
firehosevia Ibstopher
shared mostly for Nina Totenbag and RBG talking about their collections of Notorious RBG swag
Ginsburg: I think a law clerk told me about this tumblr and also explained to me what Notorious RBG was a parody on. And now my grandchildren love it and I try to keep abreast of the latest that’s on the tumblr. I have—and in fact I think I gave you a Notorious RBG...
Totenberg: Two of my three. I bought one.
Ginsburg: I have quite a large supply.
Totenberg: Do you have the one—what’s the one ‘you can’t have truth without Ruth'”
Ginsburg: Without Ruth. [nods]
firehose#nevergo
"Facebook, apparently thought his name was “made up,” as they decided Columbus Day would be a great time to deactivate the Facebook accounts of Shane and his wife Jacqui Creepingbear.
Both had their accounts reactivated, but Jacqui explains that this has happened before. Facebook has repeatedly shut down her husband’s account. But after the last time, when the social media giant was provided with a valid drivers license, proving that the name was real, they thought the issue was over and done with.
Apparently, Shane explains, if Facebook receives a notification that your name is fake, if they do a simple visual glance at it and believe that it is, they will delete your account with no investigation. Apparently that also means they will not even look through files that you submitted in the past to prove you are who you say you are."
djempirical100% of the shares of this article on FB included a joke about this guy not being a “real” Native American because he has a mustache. :( :(
Perhaps it was nothing more than a disturbing coincidence, but this Columbus Day, Facebook decided to delete the accounts of Native Americans from the Midwest Village of Yellow Springs, Ohio. Yellow Springs became nationally known after Dave Chappelle’s Block Party toured popular spots in the comedians hometown.
Yellow Springs has something of a reputation for social justice activism, going back to Horace Mann, and – now that you mention it – the Antioch College and University, where Coretta Scott King, the wife of Martin Luther King, Jr. graduated (though her time in Yellow Springs was hardly devoid of encounters with racism) often serves as a magnet for activists.
Many of the students at Antioch have been visible at the John Crawford protests in nearby Beavercreek.
One of those associated with Antioch is Shane Creepingbear. He’s the Assistant Director of Admission and Multicultural Recruitment and Enrollment Coordinator at Antioch College.
While he is easy enough to find on the Antioch website, Facebook did no investigation before deleting his account. Facebook, apparently thought his name was “made up,” as they decided Columbus Day would be a great time to deactivate the Facebook accounts of Shane and his wife Jacqui Creepingbear.
Both had their accounts reactivated, but Jacqui explains that this has happened before. Facebook has repeatedly shut down her husband’s account. But after the last time, when the social media giant was provided with a valid drivers license, proving that the name was real, they thought the issue was over and done with.
Apparently, Shane explains, if Facebook receives a notification that your name is fake, if they do a simple visual glance at it and believe that it is, they will delete your account with no investigation. Apparently that also means they will not even look through files that you submitted in the past to prove you are who you say you are.
The timing of the account deactivation is particularly disturbing. Yes, it could all be a coincidence, or it could have been a targeted date by a racist who had a grudge against Shane and Jacqui, and wished to use the laziness of Facebook account verifiers as their weapon.
Facebook has – not surprisingly – not responded to our request for a statement about this.
firehosecake set beat
djempiricalvia a French friend on FB
Photo: Ben Raynal
When 4pm hits, the country comes to a halt, and the blood glucose levels of its inhabitants goes bonkers. The kids are off school, so it’s snack time (l’heure du goûter) for them, and apparently everyone else. The ritual in my neck of the woods is to get a third of a fresh baguette, cut it in half lengthwise, and spread some salted butter and strawberry jam on it. It doesn’t get much better than that.
No respectable French person, whether they’re a dietician, a nutritionist, or a lingerie model, should utter such nonsense. Bread is delicious and healthy (I’m not talking about Wonder Bread here, people, I’m talking about the real handmade-with-love deal), so there’s no way it can be responsible for such evil doings as making me put on pounds. That whole thing is just a conspiracy against the best people on the planet: bakers.
In France, if you go to the ‘café’ and ask, very appropriately, for a cup of Joe (“un café, s’il vous plaît!”), you only get a thimble-worth of the stuff. Now, if you love coffee, that’s just not enough. You don’t want to admit it, but the only place where you can get an honorable amount of caffeine is Starbucks. Unfortunately (or not), there are very few of them in France, so until café owners get themselves some properly sized cups, you’ll have to remain miserable, or go abroad.
It’s not like you have much choice. Your driver’s licence (pink and made of the thickest blotting paper on the planet) is 3in wide and 4.5in long, and so is your ID card. Only French wallets can handle that kind of ridiculous.
When it comes to cheese, we’ve got one rule in France: the stinkier, the better. I know it seems appalling, but it’s a very accurate gauging system. For most French people living abroad, the lack of variety among cheeses is nothing short of tragic. Whenever someone asks me if I’d like some cheddar, my heart sinks, and I pray for that horrid block of orange crap to turn into a foul-smelling camembert.
It was not until you left the country that you realized some businesses actually cared about their customers. In France, if the store closes at 5pm, at 4:50pm the metal blind is halfway down the front door, and the staff is vacuuming between your feet. You don’t count on a smile either; it’s not in anyone’s contract to be pleasant.
This is one of the many perks of being French; you pay next to nothing to attend university, which means you don’t end up with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt when you reach 25. Yay to high taxes and national solidarity!
Let’s be honest, the stereotype of the French person chain smoking is very close to reality. There are exceptions, of course — for example, I’m a non-smoker, but I’m the only one of all my French friends who doesn’t smoke (breastfeeding moms included). Everybody seems to give it a try as a teenager, and most people just get hooked for good, despite the rising price of cigarettes (the cheapest pack of 20 now costs 6.5 Euros).
That was one hell of a French invention! The Minitel is the ancestor of the internet connection. That thing looked like a small PC in a funky beige/brown colour combination and allowed you to make train reservations, look up a phone number (very much like an online directory), and access porn! In 1982! 3615 ULLA was the code to have a hot conversation with some sexy lady…
Your English can be grammatically perfect, but your accent remains as thick as the layer of butter on your 4pm snack. It’s not your fault — there’s not much you can do about it — but be aware that your pronunciation of “little,” “Worcestershire sauce,” “sourdough,” etc., is how everyone can figure out you were born and raised in France in a split second.
firehoseTobias Frere-Jones
