How far do New Yorkers walk to get to their nearest subway station? Ben Wellington calculated the distance from each of Manhattan's station entrances to every one of the borough's residential buildings, and found the Manhattan address with the longest subway-schlep of all.
As the Rosetta spacecraft acquires more precise measurements of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, scientists are able to create detailed 3D models. Last week, the ESA made that data available for downloading, allowing people to make their own comet replicas—sometimes, with a few creative embellishments.
Bill Watterson, the elusive cartoonist behind Calvin And Hobbes, was spotted recently in the front pages of a coffee table book called Puck: What Fools These Mortals Be. Puck was a humor magazine published from 1877 to 1918, and was known for its lavishly-produced political cartoons that could take up a full two-page center spread. In the foreword, Watterson waxes rhapsodic about how excited these early cartoonists must have been about the opportunity to stretch themselves artistically before questioning whether political cartoons are ever likely to thrive again, seeing as how newspapers are collapsing and the Internet “seems to reduce everything to niche markets of dubious profitability.” Still, the occasionally cantankerous cartoonist offers some optimism about the Internet’s potential at the end of the piece, which makes for a short, sweet read.
The reproduction of the foreword also features some artwork from the book itself—it’s impressive stuff ...
Open Road Media has created this great video featuring sci-fi and fantasy heavyweights like Patricia C. Wrede, Ellen Datlow, Elizabeth Hand and N.K. Jemison talking about the women who have influenced them and the power of genre writing to change perceptions on gender, race, and feminism. If anyone wants to make a feature-length documentary about these authors, you’ll get no objection from me.
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The chiptune scene has exploded in the last decade, with bands like Animanaguchi using old video game hardware to create new sounds that benefit from the simplicity and retro stylings of their instruments. The movement has also generated a ton of covers of popular songs, most of them from upbeat, poppy albums. It’s rarer for slower, less energetic tunes to get the 8-bit treatment, even though they can be just as (if not more) beautiful than the fast-paced stuff. Take for example, Tom Waits’ growling, low-fi, bluesy 1999 album Mule Variations, which turns out to work surprisingly well when stripped down to the kinds of sounds that emanate from an old Game Boy.
We know this courtesy of online musician Buddy Peace, who released Donkey Kong Variations, his 8-bit tribute to Waits’ work, in June. While the loss of Waits’ distinctive voice robs the songs of some of their ...
On Sunday, Madeline Jaross, an In Other Words Board member, told the Oregonian that the nonprofit, volunteer-operated feminist bookstore and community center might close at the end of of February. She cited a lack of financial resources, low board retention, and a shortage of volunteers as contributing factors. She told the Oregonian that In Other Words gained name recognition as a Portlandia filming location, but that greater visibility did not translate to improved finances.
Yesterday, In Other Words reached out directly via email, corroborating press coverage and rumors that they were closing, and outlined exactly what would need to happen to keep their doors open. Here's the email:
Hello friends. Here is some news, the rumor you probably heard about In Other Words closing is partly true. We are facing some problems as an organization and we urgently need to fix them by November 8th .
No one among the volunteers, people that use the space to show their work, for rehearsals, organize meetings, or teach/take classes wants to see IOW close.
We need help. We are reaching to our community.
PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD TO ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS AND NETWORKS. Here is a summary:
o In order to stay open, In Other Words needs a substantial increase in financial gifts, particularly in monthly sustaining funds. Please visit our fundraising page http://inotherwords.org/support-us to make a financial gift today in the name of feminist community building. Please encourage your friends and networks to do the same.
In Other Words has an urgent need for more volunteer leadership. Please view the job descriptions at the bottom of our homepage www.inotherwords.org and email volunteer@inotherwords.org to express interest in volunteering, and plan to attend the volunteer orientation on October 18th at 3PM. Please encourage your friends and networks to do the same.
o In Other Words has an urgent immediate open seats on the Board of Directors. Job descriptions are attached, and also listed at the bottom of our home page www.inotherwords.org. Please emailhumanresources@inotherwords.org to apply to the board of directors, and plan to attend the next Board of Directors meetings on October 16th at 6:15PM.
The email also included job descriptions (.pdf) for nine positions In Other Words needs to fill.
Obviously, it's sad to see any bookstore close its doors for financial reasons, but it's also worth noting that In Other Words is one of only 13 remaining feminist bookstores in the country. Feminist bookstores might seem like a relic of '70s, but in a literary climate where gender parity in publishing is nowhere near where it needs to be, they serve a much-needed purpose.
The official decision to close or stay open won't be made until a general assembly meeting on November 8.
Drink Red Bull? You may have $10 coming to you CBS News Thanks to a settlement of a class-action lawsuit, some consumers of Red Bull products might be entitled to either $10 in cash or $15 in Red Bull products. The settlement covers customers who bought a Red Bull beverage between 2002 and Oct. 3, 2014, but ... and more » |
Giorgio Ghisi, Vision of Ezekiel, 1554
firehosesorry, it's Vice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po_9wS9FMhc
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submitted by manterbanter [link] [19 comments] |
firehose'Mason Tvert, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project, told Ferner that Hickenlooper's remark was a "a pretty reckless statement."
"Gov. Hickenlooper was elected by 51 percent of the state’s voters, whereas 55 percent approved the marijuana initiative in 2012," Tvert told Ferner. "Some of them might now be thinking they made a pretty reckless decision when they voted him into office." '
At least one African country has been able to fight back against Ebola: Nigeria, West Africa’s largest and most developed nation, has set the tone for a successful public health response to the frightening and often-misunderstood disease.
Faisal Shuaib is a Nigerian physician and public health expert who works for the Gates Foundation as the deputy head of the polio eradication program in his home country. When the Ebola outbreak in the region became a pressing issue, the Foundation decided to shift resources to combat that disease—a somewhat surprising decision, given the global philanthropy’s focus on illnesses that affect a much broader population over the long term. But after public health experts told Gates Foudnation CEO Susan Desmond-Hellman, herself an epidemiologist with experience in Africa, that this outbreak was different and frightening, the organization moved $50 million, literally overnight, to support an anti-Ebola campaign.
Shuaib talked to Quartz this week about his work in Nigeria and how to prevent this crisis from becoming a pandemic.
It must have been right around March, when they continued to have cases and there seemed to be community-level transmission that was going on. That was the point when WHO escalated the problem to a global level. Knowing that the virus is very infectious, getting to community level, I knew we would be here for a long time. A place like Lagos, the commercial heart center of Nigeria, if we were to have widespread outbreaks, it would rapidly move out to other parts of the country that do not have the resources that Lagos has to combat such an outbreak.
The moment the case from Liberia was diagnosed, and our government declared a public health emergency, I knew in my mind, given the lists of contacts that this individual had at the airport and the health facility, we potentially had an explosive outbreak in the making. Every other thing has to take a backseat.
Clearly, we had learned in the past about the aggressive transmission that takes place, with Ebola outbreaks in Uganda. Looking at the trajectory of the outbreak in West Africa, this is an outbreak that could quickly overwhelm a health system. By the time we had a case in Nigeria with several potential contacts it became clear that if we did not act rapidly, the whole system could be overwhelmed and even the gains we had achieved with polio eradication would be quickly reversed. This is what has happened in other West African countries. The kind of effort that is being scaled up right now is commendable, but it is still clearly behind the curve, it is still too slow.
A war-like approach is devised; the federal government leads the Emergency Operations Center, but working with international development agencies like the WHO, UNICEF, the US [Centers for Disease Control], [Doctors without Borders] and the Red Cross. Together with these organizations, we sit in one place, co-location in a designated facility, and we do joint planning, agree on strategies to be used, and implement these strategies based on a clear understanding that people are comfortable to deliver on specific tasks.
Supported with funding from the Gates foundation, we established about four teams: A point-of-entry team, screening passengers coming into the country and those traveling out, anybody who has any symptoms or a fever; an information-dissemination group; a case-management group; and the fourth group is a contact-tracing group, an epidemiology surveillance group, this group was very, very important toward the kind of success that we achieved.
What we did was ensure that anybody that had contact with a case was tracked down and monitored on a daily basis, recording the temperature, if they developed a fever, brought into the isolation center. Cast out a wide net for any potential contact with the index case, a way that ensured ruthless efficiency.
At this point, we’ve gone a month since the last case of ebola virus disease was discharged from the treatment center, followed up almost 900 contacts until they’ve exited the stage of developing the disease. We’ve continued to conduct enhanced surveillance in the health facilities and the communities as well. We feel pretty confident that we’ve got a handle on this, on the outbreak, but from an epidemiological point of view, we cannot declare the outbreak is over until 42 days, equivalent to two incubation periods, after the last case was discharged from the hospital.
I am back really to the polio eradication program already as of last week, I handed over the reins back to the other incident manager that has been appointed to sustain the program.
We are not letting our guard down, we are not under any illusion whatsoever that we don’t continue to remain as risk as long as we continue to have an outbreak in the west African sub-region. Doubling of cases every three to four weeks in Sierra Leon and Guinea and Liberia. The fact that we’ve now reported cases in the US shows that there is no country that is free of the outbreak until every country is free of the outbreak.
You need to rapidly counter-attack misinformation, because panic and fear tends to decrease the chances of people reporting to the health facilities. People are concerned they might be stigmatized. Communication very clearly to the society around the fact that getting ebola virus disease is not a death sentence. The key is reporting early to the health authorities who know how to manage care. One of the reasons why people succumb is that without reporting to the health facility, once people get vomiting or passing stool, its hard to replace fluids and electrolytes.
One thing that can change the outbreak is for nations to come together and deploy resources. Rapid action is required, delay is very dangerous, people need to move. There is a need for countries to train, prepare ahead, to implement their epidemic preparedness plans, and do simulations or table-top exercises just in case you do have an outbreak. It’s not enough to have the resources, it’s not enough to say you are done training.
I cannot over-emphasize the fact that people have to continue to be vigilant around their borders. Wealthier countries have to mobilize resources in a concerted manner, and they need to act now.
Paris has had driverless trains since it upgraded its Metro cars in 1998. Sixteen years later, London is looking to do the same, upgrading 250 trains on four of its lines to become driverless in the next decade—but the move is not without controversy.
The trains—to be rolled out on the Central, Bakerloo, Waterloo & City, and Piccadilly lines in 2022 to replace the entire stock of older trains by the mid 2020s—will initially have human drivers (unlike the automated metro networks in Dubai, Tokyo, and Barcelona, among others). And even when they’re operated without drivers, the trains will have a staffer onboard to assist passengers.
The trains are designed to be “future-proof” and last 40 years, the city’s transportation agency proclaims (London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, called them “Darth-Vaderish”), with wider double doors, air-conditioning, and Wi-Fi for smartphone users.
But big changes don’t come easily. The city’s transportation unions have vowed to go to war against these trains, citing safety concerns as well as potential job losses. They say that the Victorian infrastructure of London’s single-track underground tunnels needed skilled human drivers to maneuver through them. A spokesman for Transport for London told the BBC that no drivers will lose their jobs.
The unions have also pointed to an incident in March 2012, in which a driver’s sharp eye saved a 5-year-old boy’s life: He stopped the train when he spotted a small hand reaching up from the track.
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Video shows NYPD officer taking $1300 from man, then pepper-spraying him RT Video has surfaced appearing to show a New York City police officer taking $1,300 from a man who says he was robbed and then pepper-sprayed by the cop during a stop-and-frisk last month that ended without arrest. The New York Daily News published ... NYPD Cop Allegedly Steals $1300 In Stop-And-Frisk, Pepper Sprays Victim ...Huffington Post Brooklyn Construction Worker Alleges Cop Stole $1300 in Cash, Pepper ...NBC New York all 42 news articles » |
firehosein _military_ funding
Lawmakers Approve $700 Million in Military Funding to Fight Ebola NBCNews.com WASHINGTON — House Republicans signed off Thursday on an additional $700 million to pay for the military mission to help fight Africa's deadly Ebola outbreak. The move by Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon and Appropriations ... and more » |
firehose"there have already been more illegal contact calls this year than the 54 for all of last season"
The NFL's VP of officiating is okay with the trend of increased penalties this season.
NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino is okay with the rising number of penalties in the NFL this season, telling the Associated Press on Thursday that "we're in a good place" and added that he doesn't "see a diminished product on the field."
According to the league, NFL games this season are averaging about 17 penalties, up more than two per game from the 14.7 at this point in 2013. The biggest difference in the number of flags has come in the defensive backfield. Illegal contact, defensive holding, defensive illegal use of hands and offensive pass interference are all at Week 5 highs over the last 20 years, according to STATS, and there have already been more illegal contact calls this year than the 54 for all of last season.
Blandino made it clear that he does expect things to go back to the way they were. "If we pull back now, then we aren't being consistent, and I think that's important," he said.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell also commented Thursday on the issue of increased penalties and the pace of play:
"There was a good report on the state of the game, the pace of the game, the instant replay system that has I think improved, not only the consistency of calls, but also I think on the pace of the game. It's had a significant impact because we have been able to do it more efficiently and our crews, with their communication system, have been able to do that a great deal quicker in officiating the games."
Goodell noted that the pace of the game has improved because of the increased efficiency among the crews, and this is supported by the fact that games are actually running a few minutes shorter this season despite the increase in penalties.
While the increase in penalties has made for a cleaner game, it has also brought greater frustration among the players that have seen their highlight-worthy plays negated by a flag. Fifteen touchdowns have been wiped out already, up from 11 at this time a year ago, according to STATS.
"As long as there have been officials," Blandino said, "there's players that complained about calls."
LOOK OUT, FIREFIGHTER.
Move over, other creepy-ass mascots. There's a new creepy-ass mascot in town, courtesy of the AHL's Adirondack Flames. AND HE'S ABOUT TO KILL THIS FIREMAN.
The Adirondack Flames debut their mascot: Scorch pic.twitter.com/VhcltsNhJb
— Diana C. Nearhos (@dianacnearhos) October 9, 2014
Yep, that's Scorch. He's a sentient, anthropomorphic flame with a ghoulish hockey puck for a head. And we love him. THE BACKSTORY:
Scorch is apparently the surviving flame from the Great Fire of 1864 in Glens Falls.
— Diana C. Nearhos (@dianacnearhos) October 9, 2014
Well, sure, yeah.
firehosethis idiot
Adrian Peterson told a court room staffer that he "smoked a little weed" before a drug test, and could be arrested again as a result.
Adrian Peterson may be arrested again after admitting he "smoked a little weed" to a court staffer before giving a urine sample Wednesday, according to Fox 26 in Houston. Peterson had his arraignment on felony child abuse charges that same day.
Smoking marijuana classifies as a drug violation of Peterson's bond conditions. The Montgomery County District Attorney has already ask the judge presiding over the child abuse case to hold Peterson's $15,000 bond and have the Minnesota Vikings running back arrested again.
Peterson's misstep prolongs what has been a bad week of headlines for the running back. On Monday, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune released a report detailing a rape accusation against Peterson stemming from a hotel party, as well discrepancies in how money from his charity had been spent. Peterson later released a statement refuting or explaining the claims made in the report.
A trial date of Dec. 1 has tentatively been scheduled for Peterson's child abuse case, in which he stands accused of severely beating his four-year-old son with a switch.
firehosethe governor's race just got weird
firehose"Checking in should have always been automatic — a feature every phone ships with that lets you keep up with friends and track where you've been"
no THANK you mr. HAMBURGER
Checking in should have always been automatic — a feature every phone ships with that lets you keep up with friends and track where you've been. Even Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley, who popularized the check in, would say so. But until the last year or so, the technology to let smartphones track your location without eating up your battery, hasn't existed. So we had Foursquare, which let you check in by opening the app and tapping a few buttons. A few years later we got Swarm, Foursquare's dedicated check-in app, which made the process even faster. But neither app felt effortless.
Today, that's all changing with Foursquare's new Swarm widget for iOS 8. If you enable the widget, swiping down to your iPhone's notification center now lets you check in with one tap. Foursquare has spent years refining its location-tracking engine, so its guesses are generally pretty accurate about where you are. If you're the kind of person who uses Swarm to track your life, it's a dream come true. But the widget also includes a list of nearby friends, a feature that Foursquare has been pushing in one way or another for years. Now you can check in with a swipe, but also see which friends are close by.
Finding nearby friends is a utility dozens of companies have spent years trying to pin down
Finding nearby friends is a utility dozens of companies have spent years trying to pin down. Facebook tried it with Nearby Friends. Foursquare tried it. Google tried it with Latitude. Even Apple tried it with Find My Friends. But as time has gone in, it's become increasingly clear that people don't want such a feature as much as Silicon Valley might have thought. In iOS 8, Apple has moved its native friend-finding capabilities to inside the texting app. But no app besides Swarm makes nearby friends just a swipe away. Now, the app has the potential to create the serendipitous moments every friend-finding app dreams of.
Since Swarm launched this summer, it has fared okay in the App Store charts. Swarm dropped out of the App Store Top 1000 early, but has held tight to a Top 100 spot within the Social Networking category. It's worth noting, however, that initial App Store reviews were terrible, but seem to have improved. Like with Facebook's new standalone Messenger app, it seems that app users aren't big fans of having two apps in the place of one. With its increased focus on the check-in process, something early Foursquare users loved, Swarm seems to be heading in the right direction. And to some, an easily accessible "nearby friends" feature could be a killer app of its own.
An updated Swarm app should be available shortly in the App Store. Foursquare wouldn't provide any further information on when or if a similar feature would be coming to Android.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
firehosevia Toaster Strudel via ThePrettiestOne
Ron Funches beat
firehosemeanwhile, in Portland
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submitted by baconbananapancakes [link] [39 comments] |
firehoseattn: obviously, and also http://society6.com/celestepille/oxfords-gov_t-shirt#11=49&4=16
Use this link to get free shipping on items in my shop. I’ve added some new prints and shirts including this special shirt design of my teen detective Scully and Mulder art.
I’ve also got some other new shirts up there along with the ever popular Grown Woman shirt.
Free shipping through October 12th!
I've recently discovered that running is a deliciously simple and effective way to get fit. In less time than it takes me to commute to my gym, I can experience all the sweaty goodness of a stress-relieving workout and take a tour of San Francisco's beautiful neighborhoods. But I made the amateur mistake of assuming that since running is simple, it should also be easy.
Unlike every other form of workout I've tried, from yoga to weightlifting, I didn't bother to get a coach. And, after four months of regular running, my terrible technique caught up with me and the chronic pain has left my running shoes collecting dust in the closet.
My story is all too common among the millions of aspiring health nuts who use running as their entrance into fitness. One experimental study published last year in the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine found that roughly a third of new runners sustain some form of injury in under a year.
There's such a hunger for a tech solution that one device manufacturer, Heapsylon raised $100,000 in crowdfunding and another $5 million in investment for a concept smart sock that can detect and improve running technique.
The resulting product is the Sensoria, a $149 anklet device attached to a special running sock. It coaches users with real-time analysis of their food striking position and stride. It will be available to its crowd-funders later this year and available to the public in Q1 2015.
I took the Sensoria out for an exclusive spin around San Francisco's famous hills to see if a sock that's priced roughly its weight in gold could be the saving grace of injured runners everywhere.
The Sensoria itself is a horseshoe anklet that attaches to a special sock via five brass knuckle-like magnets stitched near the lower shin area. Special sensors in the bottom of the sock measure where the foot makes contact with the ground and for how long. The anklet, which contains a CPU that analyzes data from the sensors, is so light that I would forget I had it on. It's discreet enough to go unnoticed on the streets unless a stranger is looking close enough at my feet to see a small hump in the sock.
The real magic is in the smartphone app, which displays a detailed heat map of where pressure is being placed on your foot, along with detailed statistics on foot contact time, cadence, steps taken, stride length, and speed (Heapsylon also makes a shirt with an embedded heart-rate monitor, which works in tandem with its software).
Even to a proud data nerd, all these statistics can seem overwhelming. So, Sensoria interacts with the user through an automated coaching assistant that yells out simplified advice when it detects poor form. "You're failing to land on ball," it chirps in my ear, if I fail to heel-strike consistently for more than 30 seconds. If my stride becomes irregular (a mistake that can result in debilitating injury), Sensoria chimes in with a "Pick up the pace!" command.
To appease both perfectionist marathon fanatics and newbie joggers, Sensoria takes a Swiss-like neutrality to rabid internal debates within the running community on proper form. Its default, for novice users, recommends landing on the ball of the foot — known as "forefoot striking". Experts have the option to switch to heel striking and can precisely narrow in on their preferred cadence per minute.
For the sake of experimentation, I left on all the defaults for my initial run up San Francisco's famous fog-covered trails.
I took Sensoria out for an late evening, 4-mile run up one of San Francisco's famous routs, Bernal Heights. Two miles of flat street running and 400 feet of winding upward elevation on a paved trail let me see how the smart sock could handle all sorts of environments.
Immediately, my sock told me my running technique was lacking; I was still on my home block when I triggered its first warning that I was failing to properly land on the ball of my foot. After a few minutes of frustrating correction, I eventually got up high enough on my toes to quiet Mara, my lovingly-named virtual coach.
I was duped into believing that I had instantly become the image of running perfection
Unfortunately, half a mile later, I was duped into believing that I had instantly become the image of running perfection. The anklet had become unhinged: without notification, it just stopped giving advice. I spent the next 3 miles nervously checking my phone every time it went quiet, even though I had eventually adjusted my sock to keep it reliably paired.
Aside from this design bug, Sensoria performed admirably on flat streets. Running is perhaps uniquely prone to poor form because it’s so repetitive. Unless you have the motivation of Lance Armstrong or consume a bathtub full of caffeine, it's near impossible for mere mortals to maintain concentration for 10,000+ monotonous steps.
On hills, Sensoria struggled. Even though it can keep track of elevation, it doesn't quickly adjust its advice. During the hardest part of my run on a 30-degree incline at base of Bernal, Mara blared at me to maintain the same cadence I kept on flat streets.
The Sensoria did eventually adjust to the ascent, but only after a half-mile of badly timed instruction — a rather unpleasant experience when I would normally just quietly enjoy the view of San Francisco rooftops. I encountered the same frustrating bugs running back downhill and when I had to jog in place during red lights. Despite the less-than-perfect performance, Sensoria did live up to its promise. I feel like my technique improved and I enjoyed knowing that I was on track to a less injury-prone run.
For really serious runners, likely the target demographic for this, Sensoria is more likely to supplement a coach than to completely replace one. I took the wearable sock to my own technique guru, Kelly Starrett, famed Crossfit mobility expert and author of the upcoming Ready to Run.
As an initial diagnosis exam, he had me ditch my shoes and run barefoot; it's a strategy he says naturally orients humans to run with proper forefoot striking and helps identify the best possible technique that they are currently capable of.
"You don't need to spend $150 on a sock, you just need to run barefoot for two minutes," he said.
Barefoot running exposed the limits and promise of Sensoria
Barefoot running exposed the limits and promise of Sensoria. In only a few seconds, Starrett noticed that I place a dangerous amount of weight on the outside of my foot (I "prance", in his less-than-kind terminology).
During my initial run around San Francisco, I had unwittingly gamed Sensoria's forefoot-striking system by keeping high on my toes, but this change was unlikely to solve the chronic pain caused by more fundamental problems. Apparently, I compensate my poor leg flexibility by bowing my feet outwards, which translates into terrible technique.
For right now, Sensoria can only sense poor technique coming from ball or heel striking, not overexertion on the inside or outside of the foot ("pronation"). Heapsylon tells me they hope to add this feature in the future.
Still, Starrett is bullish on Sensoria's technology. Once I fix my underlying physiological issues, the smart sock will ensure that I maintain fidelity to my hard-trained technique through the entire run. He's also excited that Sensoria could be applied to all kinds of sports, from basketball to rowing, as proper foot placement is a secret sauce to injury-resistant exercise.
Indeed, the unintended applications are rather expensive. I had the idea that Sensoria might be the ultimate shoe shopping aide, since it can sense which shoes naturally fit my foot while walking.
So, I secretly tested out the Sensoria with running shoes and a pair of old Birkenstocks. I wanted to see if their engineering team could see which shoe was easier on my knees without me telling them what I was wearing in each test. Sure enough, they correctly identified the Birkenstock as a "minimalist" shoe, which I had been wearing to ease the pressure on my legs during casual walks around my neighborhood.
It'll be exciting to see what developers and coaches do with new wearable technology when they can get their hands on the latest versions.
Sensoria enters a crowded market of eager tech entrepreneurs who want to own a slice of the lucrative fitness market. Over the next year, a generation of wearables will make the evolution from simple step counting to advanced biological sensors.
For instance, the upcoming Athos shorts measure effort from major leg muscles to help athletes identify whether they're using the most powerful parts of their body for each movement. The US Open tennis team partnered with e-clothing manufacturer Om Signal on a smart shirt that measures breathing and stress levels.
Even though Sensoria isn't perfect, I'm still going to wear it during runs
Even though Sensoria isn't perfect, I'm still going to wear it during runs. It's worth using even with the bugs, which potentially could be fixed in the public version.
The most exciting aspect of Sensoria isn't what it can currently do but how the next wave of wearables will transform the way we train. Countless runners take up the sport haphazardly, ignoring the collective wisdom of experts that has built up over decades.
As more smart clothing becomes technique-aware, amateurs will instantly be connected to cutting-edge science in an app that packages advice into simple real-time advice. The more data is collected on runners, the better data scientists can engineer advice to inspire the running masses into safe, peak performance.
For now, I'm eager to get back into running and I know I'll need some sort of tech to keep me focused on injury-free technique.
Photography by Josh Lowensohn
firehose"Any GIF files uploaded to Imgur are now automatically converted to MP4 video, compressed, and then displayed just as a standard GIF would be", using a new container format
GIFs are positively everywhere, and have been for a while — there's no stopping them. But the massive photo sharing service Imgur thinks they can be improved upon and brought forward into the modern age. "Let's get real, the .GIF format is outdated and is not really that great for the modern web anymore. " says Imgur founder Alan Schaaf. "It was created in 1989, and it wasn't even created for the purpose of animation. What we're trying to do is keep that same experience almost intact but just make the technology around it much better."
To that end, the company is announcing a new way of handling GIFs. Any GIF files uploaded to Imgur are now automatically converted to MP4 video, compressed, and then displayed just as a standard GIF would be. However, the conversion to MP4 means that GIFs can now be significantly larger and higher quality, and the resulting files are still smaller than your average GIF. "What we found in our testing is that we're able to reduce the size of these files by about 10 times," says Schaaf. Imgur provided us with a few examples — the standard GIF file displays much smaller, while the GIF-to-MP4 converted version is significantly larger, while the file itself is smaller.
Thanks to that conversion process, Imgur is able tp raise the file size limit for GIFs from 5MB to 50MB, allowing users to create bigger and more complex GIFs. Another advantage to the MP4 format is that the GIF will auto play at full speed even as it is loading, so the familiar choppy version of a GIF you're probably used to seeing as it loads will be a thing of the past.
Like the old GIF — but better, faster, stronger
Imgur also had to build its own file container to work with its new format, which it is calling .GIFV. This will essentially let the MP4 video GIF play back as a normal GIF would. There's no play, pause, or rewind controls like you'd see in a normal MP4 video container; it functions just as a standard GIF does and .GIFV files should be embeddable anywhere on the internet, just like standard GIFs.
All in all, Imgur seems to have this set as a pretty painless upgrade — and with lower bandwidth requirements, dealing with GIFs on mobile phones should get a bit easier, as well. Imgur's new .GIFV format should be rolling out today, and the company says this is just the beginning of improvements it'll be making to the GIF experience. "We're not done yet," says Schaaf. "You will see other cool GIF stuff come out of Imgur."
firehose"Bing returned more complete results than Cortana, indicating that Microsoft could improve its mobile assistant by more fully integrating it with its search engine", lol
There is nothing sweeter than pulling out your phone, asking it a question, and getting back the one obscure piece of information you need to settle a debate or win a drunken bet. Smartphones from Google, Apple, and Microsoft all offer a personal assistant who claims to be flush with knowledge drawn from around the web. But when it comes to providing useful answers, a new study shows there is a clear choice when you're stumped and need to phone a friend.
The SEO consulting agency Stone Temple has published the results of a case study it conducted on the digital assistants that come standard on the mobile devices powered by Google, Apple, and Microsoft. The Verge reached out to the company, and it confirmed that none of these tech giants had ever been a client, but of course this is still a study from a private company, not rigorous academic research, so take it with a grain of salt.
Stone Temple presented each service with 2000 voice queries, and tabulated the results. Not surprisingly, given Google's specialty in search, Google Now was the clear leader. It returned the most enhanced results and complete answer by a wide margin. The study cross-checked the queries with web searches on Bing and Google. Interestingly, Bing returned more complete results than Cortana, indicating that Microsoft could improve its mobile assistant by more fully integrating it with its search engine.
The study also checked a bunch of Easter eggs — What does the fox say? What is love? — but doesn't provide any concrete data on which system has the best sense of humor.
firehosejust love how confused Letterman is at the end
Miku on letterman~ (video).
