A while back, Talking Points Memo had this small post:
If you read TPM through our RSS feed, you should know that one of the many benefits of Prime membership is full text RSS feeds. No ‘read mores’ or 'click throughs’. And of course, zero ads. Click here to sign up.
Now that is not the kind of thing that’s going to blow any minds. Nice, but still just a small thing. But TMP knows its core audience of wonky, lefty political junkies wants their fix fast. They know that RSS is the best tool to deliver that fix, and they’re making it a little easier for members to get it.
Lately I’ve been doing some old-fashioned market research, trying to figure out what the growth opportunity is for a reader. Ten years ago, there were dozens of industry analysts tracking the “RSS market.”
Back then, some estimates pegged RSS usage around 10 or 11 percent of Internet users. Today, there are still millions of users, but probably in the single digits percentage-wise.
But while there aren’t analysts writing annual RSS reports any more, I think the opportunity is more clear than ever. I’m old enough to remember when Apple’s market share was around 3 percent of all computers sold. Nobody needs to hear the Apple story again, but it’s easy to forget that it wasn’t too long ago that the Mac was destined to die. But the company had a better, cleaner UI and it focused on doing the little things well.
Right now, we’re focused on doing the little things that make users happy. (As always, please leave comments about what you want to see.) I don’t think we’re talking about anything radical.
We’re not in a hurry. We don’t have VC money or investors pushing for a quick return. There is no timetable to cash out. We’re just trying to make an insanely good reader. I don’t know what the “market opportunity” is for RSS and frankly, we don’t concern ourselves with that stuff. It’s just a matter of of doing the small things right.
According to some top-selling ebooks in Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle store, for example, the Ebola virus is spreading like wildfire across the United States, can be transmitted in the air, can be warded off by vitamins and may be spread intentionally as a plot by the government.
Those outlandish claims are not true, and they’re commonly repeated in a bevy of ebooks self-published by "experts" seeking to profit from Ebola fears. The Washington Post reviewed 84 recently published ebooks about ebola and found almost all “contain information that’s either wildly misleading or flat-out wrong.”
InHateSong, we ask our favorite musicians, writers, comedians, actors, and so forth to expound on the one song they hate most in the world.
The hater: Mary Timony has been part of some of the most consistently inventive, just plain consistent bands in the vaguely defined realm of “indie rock” since her early days in seminal groups like Autoclave and Helium. The latter band’s beautiful noise evolved into a mystical, medieval fantasy that Timony would explore across several solo albums, before she teamed with Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein for the spiky post-punk of Wild Flag. Timony’s newest group, Ex Hex, continues that trajectory, with the band’s aptly named debut Rips buzz-sawing through 35 minutes of uptempo garage rock, led by Timony’s complex, but never fussy guitar work. Rips is available now through Merge Records.
The hated: John Mayer, “Your Body Is A Wonderland”
The A.V. Club: Thanks for making me listen to “Your Body Is A Wonderland.” I’d never actually heard it the whole way through.
Mary Timony: Really? That’s pretty amazing. I don’t think I had either, to be honest. It’s one of those things that if you hear it, you try to do anything to can to not hear it.
AVC: So why did you pick it?
MT: I just had always had a gut reaction whenever I heard it, of just like, ugh. It fascinatingly grosses me out. There are a few songs I could have chosen, but this one, there’s the most stuff to think about. Something interesting happened actually as I was listening because—like you said—I had never really spent a lot of time listening, but I [went through] a few phases of my relationship to this song as I was listening. My initial phase was just kind of like, “Oh God, I hate this song.” That lasted for a little while. And then as I was listening to it a few more times, I started to have this Stockholm syndrome, where I was like, “Oh, actually the song’s pretty good.” I can’t say I’m full of hatred for it anymore. I can’t tell you why that happened.
AVC: This may be the first time a HateSong has made someone come around. So if you don’t hate it anymore, what now?
MT: I don’t hate it anymore. I think the lyrics are really, really horrible, but I guess what happened after listening to it… There’s this jazzy breakdown in the middle, and I was like, what the fuck is going on? It’s this part of the song that’s so different from the other song. The person who wrote it is like, “Help, get me out of here! Let me just do something original instead of something really prosaic and boring!” I’ve heard people say about it before, but John Mayer’s a good guitar player, actually. So that made me come around a little bit.
But then I was like, well, you’re such a good guitar player. Why are you just doing so little with so much? There’s bands like the Ramones that do so much with so little, but a person like John Mayer just does so little with so much. He’s actually pretty skilled. He went to Berklee and can sing really well. But you put all that together and this crappy song comes out.
I guess I don’t love it, but I think I got a little bit lulled into the stupidity of the song or something. It kind of hypnotized me.
AVC: That’s interesting that you say “lulled.” I don’t know if you know that John Mayer grew up with really bad anxiety—
MT: That made me soften up to him, too. I agree.
AVC: So he started taking a lot of anti-anxiety medication. And if you look at John Mayer fans talking about this song on the Internet, you’ll see them saying things like, “It’s so relaxing!”
MT: Well, there you go. If you’re just on a shit-ton of Xanax, you’re going to write a shitty song.
AVC: Well, almost everybody is on some kind of medication nowadays. “Your Body Is A Wonderland” is like a love song for Xanax nation.
MT: [Laughs.]That’s a really good point. It totally makes sense. The opening part of the song—you’re right, because there’s this relaxed groove that’s just so relaxed. There’s no edge in the song at all. I totally see what you’re talking about.
AVC: As a musician, I don’t know that I’d want someone praising my song as “relaxing.” I don’t know if that’s a great adjective.
MT: [Laughs.] Well, yeah. That’s Kenny G. It’s in the world of “smooth.”
AVC: If somebody told you, “I really liked your new album, it was very relaxing,” would you take that as a compliment?
MT: No! I would be like, “Oh no. That’s bad.” But he’s going for this relaxing, sexy guy thing. If you watch the video, that’s kind of what they’re doing: relaxing and making out. That sound of the acoustic guitar with its open chords, the person that’s playing it just sounds so boring. The intro to the song has this slight reggae vibe, like the guitars are actually on the upbeats, which just immediately makes me cringe. But then, when you throw the lyrics over that guitar part, I feel like someone’s throwing up on me a little bit.
AVC: Do you know who he wrote this song about?
MT: No. Do you?
AVC: A lot of people thought it was about Jennifer Love Hewitt, but they both denied it. It’s actually about this girl he was with when he was 14. So the whole song is kind of creepy, in a sort of a hebephile sort of way. It’s about two 14-year-olds having sex.
MT: Well, there you go. That’s creepy. He’s reflecting on his first sexual experience in the song. I don’t want to hear about that.
AVC: I also don’t buy a 14-year-old boy saying, “Let’s take our time while I explore every inch of you.”
MT: [Laughs.] Yeah, I don’t know. I guess he’s fantasizing about it. I don’t know. That’s just creepy. I don’t want to hear about it. But also just the phrase, “Your body is a wonderland”—I just feel slightly violated. It just doesn’t sound appealing to me, I guess.
AVC: Well, he never says anything about her personally. She’s just a body. He even says, “I’ll never speak again / I’ll use my hands.”
MT: That’s the line in the song where I’m just like, what? “I’ll use my hands.” That’s such a weird thing to say. What are you, like 3 months old and you just learned how to use your hand? It leaves so many questions. Obviously, he’s just talking about rubbing some girl down with his hands. But it’s such a weird line. But that is a good point: You don’t really get to know whoever this person is that he’s talking about. I guess maybe that’s why it’s so creepy. I hadn’t really thought of it that way.
AVC: Have you ever read any of his interviews? There was one he did for Rolling Stone where he was talking about what he looks for in a woman, and he was just like, “First, I need somebody that I admire more than myself”—which is already a bad start.
MT: Well, that’s going to be really hard for him probably, I would imagine. That would be not many people.
AVC: But then he adds, “Well, isn’t it also about having a beautiful vagina? You need them to have a beautiful vagina that you can just camp out on for, like, a weekend.”
MT: Wow. Well, there you go! Said by a guy who wrote this song. Perfect. Oh my God, that is insane. I can’t believe that. All right. You have officially put me back in the camp of “I hate this song.” I don’t know what was happening.
AVC: Obviously, girls who hate the idea of someone appreciating them just for their bodies would hate this song.
MT: Yeah, it’s creepy. That’s pretty much anyone.
AVC: And yet, if you look at his Twitter followers, it’s easily 90 percent girls. They love this guy.
MT: That’s true. Well, a lot of people think he’s cute, and they like being treated shitty by guys. He’s a big stud, apparently. That ultimately is what is shocking about the song. If John Mayer can convince people that they want to have sex with him through singing this song, I am just horrified. I just have no faith in humanity anymore. It’s the most vapid song about vapid people having sex with each other. I don’t get it.
AVC: You know, he’s also said that he “scientifically engineers” his songs to be “as accessible as possible.” He tries to make them vapid. He’s actually a fairly smart guy.
MT: Well, that’s what I mean. He’s a real player, and he can sing really well. But that totally makes sense to me. Well, there you go. He just wants to be famous and rich, and he’s making it happen for himself. He’s figured out the key of success. He’s obviously laughing all the way to the bank. Or maybe he’s miserable at the top, I don’t know.
AVC: I don’t know either. I haven’t really listened to any of his albums. His newer ones could be really dark and tormented for all I know.
MT: I haven’t listened to anything. Literally the only song I know is this song, and like you were saying, I never really made it all the way through before judging it as horrible.
AVC: But then it kind of won you over.
MT: Well, it did, but then we started talking about it, and I’m completely back on the other side.
AVC: Do you still teach guitar?
MT: Yeah, I do. Not really too much at the moment, because I’m really busy with getting ready for the record to come out and the tour. But yeah, I do in general.
AVC: Because it seems to me that people who get really technically good at guitar—particularly something as rigidly structured as blues guitar—are just more likely to produce blander music.
MT: This song actually really made me think about that. You know Mr. Big? They’re this band in the late ’80s, Billy Sheehan. Those guys are known as serious musicians—or at least that’s what I thought as a teenager. I had heard that from my guitar teacher or whatever. And I just think the worst songs in the world are written by people who are really technically skilled who are trying to dumb it down. Remember that Mr. Big song? [Sings.] “I’m the one who wants to be with you”? Yeah, that’s a horrible song. It’s so boring. There is something about people that are really technically skilled trying to write simple songs that they write the most boring-ass songs.
AVC: But you’re a really skilled guitarist, and your music’s not boring.
MT: Well, you’re very nice. I’m not from that world of super technical people. And I think there’s a point for me where I just made the choice of not getting into that stuff anymore. I’ve always gone back and forth. I got really into practicing from when I was 18 to 20. Then I was like, I can’t do this anymore. I just want to be creative. And then I stayed in the “I just want to be creative” camp for like 10 years, and then when I started teaching, that’s how I went back into practicing all the time. So I kind of see the benefits of both. You just can’t argue with the Ramones. They do so much with so little, with three chords. And then there’s John Mayer, who’s trying to do something simple, but it just sucks. But he’s just so technically skilled.
AVC: If one of your students wanted you to teach them how to play “Your Body Is A Wonderland,” would you?
MT: This is why I feel like I started coming around to this song—or I did because I have to do this stuff with kids a lot. Actually, I’m really lucky and a lot of my kids have pretty good taste, but I do just turn off my brain. I had to teach someone that song “The A Team” by Ed Sheeran. That song I almost chose, because I hate it. It actually really makes me a mean person. I really hate that song. But I was able to just turn it off, and be like, “Okay, you just need to teach them the chords, and just have no opinion about it at all.” And I can even bullshit and be like, “This is a really good song for you to learn, because of these chords that you don’t know!”
In one way, that’s why teaching has been really good for me, because I’ve become so much less judgmental and jaded. If a kid is into something, I’m totally into it, because it’s going to make them excited about music. It’s been good for me, because I don’t have as much hate about music. It’s not good to be filled with hate. It’s not good for anybody… [Laughs.] Poor Ed Sheeran. Actually, I don’t feel bad for him, because he’s probably made so much money off that, he’s doing great. But that song, oh my God. That’s just terrible.
AVC: I don’t know what song that is, but I’m not going to listen to it.
MT: Don’t do it.
AVC: But your very good point aside, John Mayer deserves a little hate. He once said to Playboy of the “Your Body” backlash, “If you think those songs are pandering, then you’ll think I’m a douchebag. It’s like I come on very strong. I am a very… I’m just very. V-E-R-Y. And if you can’t handle very, then I’m a douchebag. But I think the world needs a little very. That’s why black people love me.”
MT: What the fuck?! What does that even mean? Oh, that’s gross. Oh man, did you see any live clips? I watched the video a bunch of times, and then I just watched this one—I don’t know if it’s a video or a radio show or something—of him playing it live. It’s really close up on his face, and he just makes the most amazing faces when he’s singing, I have to say.
AVC: The “John Mayer face” is kind of an epidemic now.
MT: Really? Is this some phenomenon I don’t know about?
AVC: Go see any local blues-rock band and you’ll see guys making John Mayer faces.
MT: Oh my God. See, I didn’t even know about this.
AVC: He’s ruined a whole generation.
MT: Oh my God. I was not even aware. Well thanks to The A.V. Club, now I know all about it.
AVC: You’re welcome. And thanks again for making me listen to this song. I was watching the video when my wife came home yesterday. She walked in on me. It was awkward.
MT: You’re like, “Have you ever heard this song? It’s really good! It’s really relaxing!” [Laughs.] That is so fucked up. Yeah, I totally can see the whole Xanax connection now. I really think you nailed it. That’s the problem. It’s just too chilled out.
AVC: Once we both get on Zoloft, we’ll love it.
MT: Probably. We’ll probably be like, “Ohhh yes, this feels great. It’s just so chill.”
AVC: Well, I think we’ve talked enough about John Mayer for a lifetime. I appreciate you doing it for this.
MT: I’m going to go listen to this song a few more times now.
AVC: Yeah, you just need a song to chill out and come down from this interview.
"Students rarely pay the full sticker price, but since those from households in higher income brackets are more likely to do so, tuition increases might prompt more borrowing at the top. Higher-income students also are much more likely to apply to more selective, and more expensive, private institutions."
The easy assumption about student debt is that it’s mainly a result of kids from low-income families trying to finance their education. But the fastest growing cohorts of borrowers are those from more affluent households, according to a new Pew Research Report.
The number of borrowers from high-income families has doubled since 1993, while borrowing by those in upper-middle income brackets has increased nearly 30%.
A greater percentage of low-income students leave school with debt. But in the ’90s, it was only the low-income quartile that had a majority of students graduate with debt. Now, each quartile, even the most affluent one, sees half or more of its students graduating with debt. Overall, 69% of students finish school with loans to pay off:
Average student loan debt for individual borrowers has jumped from $12,434 in 1993 to $26,885 in 2012.
The specific reasons are hard to track down, although rising tuition certainly is a factor, even with the offsets of grants, tax credits, and financial aid. Students rarely pay the full sticker price, but since those from households in higher income brackets are more likely to do so, tuition increases might prompt more borrowing at the top. Higher-income students also are much more likely to apply to more selective, and more expensive, private institutions.
For-profit schools cost more out of pocket, have become enormously popular, and contribute a great deal to the overall increase in student loans, but they tend to attract students from lower-income and less-educated families, and are unlikely explanation for the increase in borrowing among the more affluent.
Skelton Crew Studio, which produced the Chog plush from Chew, will begin taking preorders Wednesday for the first two items in a new line of plush toys based on David Petersen’s acclaimed Mouse Guard series. “Israel Skelton of Skelton Crew Studios and I were chatting after the release of his Chog plush from the comic […]
Police Chief Mike Reese has announced his impending retirement from the Portland Police Bureau this morning—an unsurprising development for city hall watchers who'd been waiting for such a decision after a federal judge this summer finally approved a package of police reforms between the city and the US Department of Justice.
Reese, who's led the bureau for a little more than four years, making him one of the longer-tenured chiefs in recent history, will be succeeded for the time being by one of his longest-tenured assistant chiefs, Larry O'Dea. Reese will serve through the end of this year.
All three—Hales, Reese, and O'Dea—will appear at a press conference at noon. An announcement from the mayor's office has touted the "smooth transition" as the city's first in two decades.
“Larry O’Dea is one of the most decorated officers in the bureau—11 medals and 75 letters of commendation,” Hales wrote in a letter to city employees this morning. “He shares my goals and aspirations. He has been living the idea of community engagement. He has led the bureau’s equity work. He has the respect of the command staff, the rank-and-file, and the community. He is the right leader at the right time.”
Much of an announcement from the mayor's office praises Reese's implementation of the DOJ reforms, which have included a new emphasis on de-escalation and changes in the bureau's use of force policies. Reese was praised for increasing diversity hiring. He's also worked in recent years to beef up the bureau's data analysis capacity. Reese also stood firm in the Aaron Campbell shooting, firing Officer Ron Frashour for firing the shots that killed Campbell and defending his stance in an arbitration hearing the city ultimately lost.
But Reese also presided over several personnel and harassment scandals involving high-ranking officers, including the long saga over Captain Mark Kruger, which culminated in a legal deal that wiped away Kruger's discipline for a shrine to Nazi-era German soldiers. Kruger also saw police discipline wiped away in a retaliation case that saw him try to shame an officer who'd complained to the bureau about harassment. Kruger was cleared, but posted the letter saying so on his door. Reese's office, according to an investigation, initially tried to bury the retaliation claims until a whistleblower leaked it to the Independent Police Review in the city auditor's office.
Reese also once flirted with running for political office, considering a mayoral run, even opening a campaign account. That would have made him an opponent of Hales, who became his boss. Reese pulled out before ever really diving in, shortly after he was accused of exaggerating a slow response to a rape claim by his officers to discredit the Occupy Portland movement.
“I thank Mike Reese for his leadership and his service,” said Hales, who signed off on the Kruger deal while claiming he never saw it. “Mike saw us through the investigation and settlement with the DOJ. This was a key milestone for our city and the community’s relationship with the bureau.”
Going with O'Dea means Hales will depart from past practice with senior management openings by hiring from within absent a lengthy national search. His announcement lists the following priorities for O'Dea, who is now Hales' chief.
● Expanding community engagement. That includes the walking beats re-introduced this year.
● Focusing on equity and diversity issues, including training for officers and continued recruitment of a more representative workforce.
● Critiquing the Police Bureau’s budget, ensuring taxpayers’ dollars are used wisely.
● Implementing the DOJ settlement on schedule.
“My four primary focus areas are: Community trust and relationship building; diversifying the bureau and bureau leadership; communications and collaboration; and being fiscally smart and responsible,” O’Dea said. “I am so excited about the direction we’re moving,” he added. “You can see it in the command staff and in the rank-and-file. It’s about relationships with the community. It’s not about the number of arrests; it’s about working on the things that are important to the community.”
Read the full statement after the jump.
Chief Mike Reese today announced his plans for retirement from the Portland Police Bureau. Mayor Charlie Hales has named his replacement: Assistant Chief Larry O’Dea.
“Larry O’Dea is one of the most decorated officers in the bureau — 11 medals and 75 letters of commendation,” Hales said. “He shares my goals and aspirations. He has been living the idea of community engagement. He has led the bureau’s equity work. He has the respect of the command staff, the rank-and-file, and the community. He is the right leader at the right time.”
Hales, O’Dea and Reese today will host a press conference about the transition, which is planned for January 2015. It will be the first smooth transition between chiefs in two decades.
The mayor praised Reese’s tenure as chief, citing not only the U.S. Department of Justice settlement, but also the opening last month of the most complete law enforcement training facility in the region. Under Reese’s leadership, the bureau instituted new discipline guidelines, new training procedures, and has hired a more diverse set of new officers in recent recruitments.
“I thank Mike Reese for his leadership and his service,” Hales said. “Mike saw us through the investigation and settlement with the DOJ. This was a key milestone for our city and the community’s relationship with the bureau.”
Reese joined the bureau in 1994 and served as a sergeant, lieutenant, captain and commander. A native Portlander and graduate of Roosevelt High School, he has served as chief since May 2010. O’Dea will immediately begin leading strategic planning that has long-term impacts for the bureau, including the DOJ settlement implementation, budget, staffing study, promotions, and transition to a new records management system.
O’Dea has served with Portland Police since 1986. He has been a uniformed patrol officer, sergeant, lieutenant, and captain. He has served as assistant chief of services and assistant chief of operations.
He has an executive certificate from the Mark Hatfield School of Government at PSU; a bachelor’s degree in social sciences from Portland State University; and an associate’s degree in criminal justice from Portland Community College.
“We have made important strides in diversifying the bureau, in hiring, in training, in discipline guidelines, in de-escalation,” Hales said. “And with Mike taking a well-earned retirement, Larry O’Dea is exactly the right person to handle the big challenges ahead.”
Hales said his priorities for the next chief will include:
● Expanding community engagement. That includes the walking beats re-introduced this year.
● Focusing on equity and diversity issues, including training for officers and continued recruitment of a more representative workforce.
● Critiquing the Police Bureau’s budget, ensuring taxpayers’ dollars are used wisely.
● Implementing the DOJ settlement on schedule.
Among the DOJ settlement’s requirements are consistent leadership and smooth transitions between chiefs. O’Dea participated in all aspects of the DOJ discussions, and understands the nuances of the complex agreement.
O’Dea said he is honored to accept the position of police chief.
“My four primary focus areas are: Community trust and relationship building; diversifying the bureau and bureau leadership; communications and collaboration; and being fiscally smart and responsible,” O’Dea said.
“I am so excited about the direction we’re moving,” he added. “You can see it in the command staff and in the rank-and-file. It’s about relationships with the community. It’s not about the number of arrests; it’s about working on the things that are important to the community.”
No joke. There was a time when all this Hate, real and imagined, met face to face on the street. Or the Hate put its petty differences aside and took it out on riot police and Starbucks storefronts, together. "Little Beirut". Now it's all confined to this little box.
I think librarians often go underappreciated because people think that all they do is catalog and check out books. While these are some of their duties, librarianship isn’t a job that just anyone can do. Librarians are the gateway through which people can find and access almost any type of information. They’re actually more like wizards—wizards with master’s degrees.
After seeing stores filled with Japanese Wax Food Models for displays and the varying quality/realism. It’s incredible to see this video of how they are made! Trippy.
Every Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!
Cardinals fans confronted Ferguson protesters at Game 3 of the NLDS in St. Louis on Monday night.
At one point a "Let's go Cardinals" chant turned into a "Let's go Darren," referring to the police officer who shot and killed Mike Brown, an unarmed teenager, on Aug. 9.
I get it. I get that India’s space program is a young upstart that is capable of participating with the major, established players, but there are approximately infinity ways to show that in a cartoon without being condescending and racist. The Times of India wasn’t too pleased with it, either:
The NYT cartoon sketched by Singaporean artist Heng Kim Song takes stock of India’s successful Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) – albeit, in a rather condescending manner.
While we concede that there are still many cattle-rearing citizens in our country, you’d be hard pressed to find any at the Indian Space Research Organization – the space agency that launched MOM.
India still counts as the first nation to have successfully made it to Mars in its maiden attempt – and to have done it at a fraction of the cost incurred by other countries.
And so dhoti and turban clad or not, we’re still teaching a thing or two to the ‘elite space club’, who judging by this photo, appear to be a bunch of stodgy, xenophobic fogeys.
And the thing is, I’m willing to believe that the intention of the cartoon was to depict the space “establishment” as just that: stodgy old fogeys who could learn a thing or two but aren’t really listening. But the tone-deaf portrayal of India isn’t really made better if it was unintentional. In fact, that kind of makes it worse.
Accidental racism—or any prejudice—can be the most dangerous kind, because it’s less indicative of the singular motivation of the person or publication responsible and really reveals the lens through which our culture sees the world. It’s a prejudice that has become so accepted that it’s seen as reality, and that’s troubling. Speaking of unconscious prejudice, I’m sure you’ve also noticed that there are three people depicted in the comic and all of them appear to be male despite the involvement of women in space exploration.
I’m absolutely not calling the artist or the Times themselves racist, but whether it was intentional or not, the comic is.
A large number of readers have complained about a recent editorial cartoon in The International New York Times, about India’s foray into space exploration. The intent of the cartoonist, Heng Kim Song, was to highlight how space exploration is no longer the exclusive domain of rich, Western countries. Mr. Heng, who is based in Singapore, uses images and text – often in a provocative way – to make observations about international affairs. We apologize to readers who were offended by the choice of images in this cartoon. Mr. Heng was in no way trying to impugn India, its government or its citizens. We appreciate that readers have shared their feedback, which we welcome. — Andrew Rosenthal, Editorial Page Editor
Meanwhile, India’s space program is probably going to keep kicking ass and taking names as the orbiter, Mangalyaan, continues to study the Red Planet and send back awesome post cards.
[Trigger warning for rape threats and harassment.] Last month games critic Anita Sarkeesian spoke at Portland’s XOXO Festival about the Internet’s enduring culture of misogyny and how to support women online. XOXO has now posted the speech in full, and in spite of the almost overwhelmingly upsetting subject matter, this is still one of the funniest and most hopeful responses to online harassment that I’ve ever seen.
Most importantly, for anyone wondering how to help support people facing similar abuse online, Sarkeesian shares what she’s learned first hand: “one of the most radical things you can do is to actually believe women when they talk about their experiences.”
At least one member of this household is happy with their created character.
The latest addition to the NBA 2K franchise released Tuesday in North America with NBA 2K15 gracing store shelves. It's an incredibly lifelike reproduction of basketball, but one new feature is anything but. SBNation.com believes in scientific pursuits, so we put the Xbox One edition of the game through its paces.
The process to get your face in the game is fraught with difficulties. When prompted you're asked to position your face inside a box, wait for it to turn green, then slowly turn left and right for a complete scan. At the end it maps out the points on the model, presumably being more accurate the more points of data it has loaded in.
A dog - IT SCANNED
Pepper is a good dog. A very good dog. She lived a tough life until my wife and I rescued the now 10-year-old chihuahua who was seized in the raid of a puppy mill. Sure she's missing some teeth and is afraid of strangers, but I thought she was ready for the NBA.
It look five scans to get Pepper in the game. She moved around a little too much and NBA 2K15 had issues plotting her face. This example boasted 1,613 points of data.
A bobblehead - DID NOT SCAN
This Jordan Staal bobblehead is always on my desk. Given it has depth and human features I was sure it would scan. After 20 minutes of adjusting the lighting the Kinect camera finally recognized Jordan's face.
Eagerly I waited for the result and ... nothing. The game crashed, kicking me back to the Xbox One home screen and needing to start again. I gave up.
An onion - DID NOT SCAN
Maybe there was something in the game's wizardry that meant only organic items to scan. Rummaging around the pantry I found a hapless onion. Scanning the onion by itself didn't work. So I drew a face on it -- still nothing.
Using my Jack-O-Lantern skills I carved a face, drew with red Sharpie to give definition and finally spray painted the onion light brown. The result: One ruined Sharpie, too much inhaled spray paint and no scan.
Stuffed animal - DID NOT SCAN
This probably wasn't human enough, but it was worth a try.
Photo of a human - DID NOT SCAN
The picture for a brief second was picked up by the camera, but utterly failed when it came to to turn the head left and right. There was nothing I could do to make this shampoo ad work.
William Shakespeare finger puppet - DID NOT SCAN
I don't remember where this came from, but no luck for the bard.
Me - I SCANNED
I'm jealous of my dog. This had more than 4,000 points of data and was considered a "great scan."
'American candidates they had presented were being rejected in favor of Indian prospects. In response to one of these complaints, Infosys' global enterprise lead allegedly said, "Americans don't know $#!%"'
dcblogs writes: A lawsuit by four IT workers alleging that outsourcing firm Infosys favored hiring Indian workers over U.S. workers now includes an account from a former Infosys recruiter about the alleged practice. It includes accounts by Samuel Marrero, who worked in Infosys's talent acquisition unit from 2011 until May 2013, of meetings with executives at the India-based IT services firm. Marrero and other recruiters "frequently complained" to higher-ups at Infosys during these weekly calls that many of the highly qualified American candidates they had presented were being rejected in favor of Indian prospects. In response to one of these complaints, Infosys' global enterprise lead allegedly said, "Americans don't know $#!%," according to the lawsuit. Infosys has denied allegations that it discriminates.
Twitter has filed a lawsuit against the US government, alleging that its First Amendment rights to free speech are being violated by rules that prevent it from disclosing the quantity of national security requests it receives. Twitter is currently able to publish the number of national security letters and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act orders it receives in extremely broad ranges — such as between "0 and 999" — and it argues that this is not narrow enough. It also argues that it should be able to inform the public of what orders it has not received, whereas currently zero falls within that enormous range.
"We should be free to do this in a meaningful way."
"When the government intrudes on speech, the First Amendment requires that it do so in the most limited way possible," Twitter writes in a court filing. "The government has failed to meet this obligation."
Ever since the PRISM documents began leaking in 2013, tech companies have been pressing the government for permission to publicly publish more information about how much information they've had to hand over. That pressure culminated in a deal earlier this year that allowed the publication of NSLs and FISA orders, so long as they were in those huge ranges. However, that deal was reached by the government and Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Yahoo — not Twitter. Though the rule applies to Twitter, Twitter isn't happy with it and is now by and large looking to have it invalidated along with other rules that prevent national security request figures from being published.
"It’s our belief that we are entitled under the First Amendment to respond to our users’ concerns and to the statements of U.S. government officials by providing information about the scope of U.S. government surveillance — including what types of legal process have not been received," Ben Lee, a lawyer with Twitter, writes in a blog post. "We should be free to do this in a meaningful way, rather than in broad, inexact ranges." Twitter has already drawn up a more detailed transparency report and says that it hopes this lawsuit will allow it to publish the "full" version of this document in the future.
"A GT filing says that the stock sale was merely coincidental, and that the stocks were being sold according to a schedule set in March of 2014"
GT's stock rode high on the iPhone rumors for months, but it dropped when the new iPhones launched without sapphire and fell down a hole when it announced the bankruptcy filing.
GT Advanced Technologies, the company Apple currently relies on for sapphire in its iOS devices, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy yesterday. The filing came just a few weeks after Apple announced its new iPhones on September 10—both the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were widely expected to use sapphire instead of glass to protect their screens from scratches. This didn't happen, though, and it sent GT's stock price sliding downward even before yesterday's bankruptcy filing pushed it off a cliff.
Now The Wall Street Journalreports that GT CEO Thomas Gutierrez has sold over $10 million in stock since February of 2014, including 9,000 shares worth about $160,000 on September 8. This was two days before the iPhone announcement. The stock closed at $17.15 on the 8th, but had fallen to $12.78 on the 10th following Apple's event.
A GT filing says that the stock sale was merely coincidental, and that the stocks were being sold according to a schedule set in March of 2014. The WSJ reports "no obvious pattern to his sales."
Creepy dolls, puppets, art, ceramics and other collectibles spotted on the PBS series “Antiques Roadshow” that look like they should be haunted! Sorry for the nightmares.
'the show—which already has a straight-to-series order of 10 episodes'
Realizing that there are at least two types of American stories, American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy is launching American Crime Story, an FX anthology series that tackles true crime with the same sober, reserved touch he’s brought to fictional scenes of people impaling each other. Fittingly, the show—which already has a straight-to-series order of 10 episodes—will begin with a case that has plenty of psychosexual drama, knife-wielding psychos, and uncomfortable racial undertones built right in. American Crime Story: The People Vs. O.J. Simpson will be based on Jeffrey Toobin’s The Run Of His Life, with The People Vs. Larry Flynt screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski drafting a script that will revisit the Simpson case from the perspective of the lawyers, whose bumbling antics and spoiled children have kept us entertained for decades now.
Like American Horror Story, each succeeding season of American Crime ...
Big Tex is the 55-foot-tall, beloved mascot of the State Fair of Texas—a, well, Texas-sized carnival held in Dallas every fall. True to his roots, Tex wears size-70 cowboy boots, a 75-gallon hat, and jeans with a 22-foot inseam.
From the time he debuted at the 1952 Fair—and interrupted only briefly when he was tragically destroyed in a 2012 fire—Tex has presided by the Fair entrance, greeting all who mosey by with a deep, drawling "Howdy folks!"
He assures patrons he is "mighty proud to see 'em." He makes occasional, Fair-related announcements. He has not, generally, been viewed as a public-health authority.
Not until this year, at least. This month, the following was added to Tex's daily repertoire:
That's right, "Remember, always wash your hands before eating!" says the statue that resembles John Wayne after a growth-inducing nuclear accident.
The reason, of course, is that this is the year Ebola came to Dallas. Citizens of the Metroplex are, understandably, nervous. School hallways are being slicked with bleach. Some parents are keeping their kids home entirely. At the Fair, gallons of hand sanitizer have been installed near the fried lemonade stands. (Yes.) A photoshopped image of Big Tex wearing a face mask has made its rounds on Texas Twitter, which is like regular Twitter, only with more whoopass.
Even though the risk of transmission beyond the infected patient, Thomas Duncan, is infinitesimally small, and even though all 50 people he had contact with are now being closely monitored by the CDC, it can't really hurt to implore the Fair's 3 million visitors to scrub their hands. And who better to let people know that than the Colossus of funnel cakes himself.
Dustin Batton (left) and Josh Daniels (right) argue the merits of Measure D, a proposed tax on sugary beverages, at an election event Oct. 6. Batton is a lobbyist for the No on D campaign, and Daniels is co-chair of the Yes on D campaign. Photo: Mark Coplan
The beverage industry in recent days contributed another $600,000 to its fight to defeat Measure D, a proposed tax in Berkeley on sugary beverages, bringing the amount it has given so far to $1.4 million.
The contribution comes on top of $7.7 million the beverage industry has donated to stop a similar soda tax measure on San Francisco’s ballot. The Measure D campaign had already won the distinction of being the most expensive in Berkeley, and the new contribution made Oct. 1 only accentuates that fact. The beverage industry spent more than $2.6 million to defeat a similar tax in Richmond in 2012.(...)
University students who take out loans are essentially betting that the education they’re financing with debt will help them get a decent job—and that the job, in turn, will help them repay the loan.
Defaulting on student loans, then, means something went terribly wrong.
Alas, such a turn of events is far from uncommon. Last month, the US Department of Education released its latest batch of data on student loan defaults. Broadly, the news was good. Overall default rates fell to 13.7% from 14.7% the prior year.
But the there’s plenty of variation under the top-line numbers. The schools with the highest rates mostly were for-profit colleges (which have such notoriously bad track records on this that they have attracted regulatory scrutiny in recent years) and community colleges (where having to take out a student loan to pay for the relatively affordable tuition might be indicative of more serious financial straits.) Student loan default rates were also surprisingly high at a number of well-known, four-year institutions.
So should you be upset if your alma mater is on one of these lists? Not necessarily. It’s hard to know the complete story of why one school might have a higher rate than another because there are so many factors at play. Still, Moody’s analysts recently noted that default rates are correlated with factors such as high student retention and graduation rates, which are, in turn, associated with student ability to repay loans. Moody’s analysts also note that schools with greater financial resources have greater capacity to support students through both financial aid and student services.
Here are the big public schools with the highest three-year default rates. This list is limited to schools that had at least 5,000 students go into repayment mode in fiscal 2011—mostly schools on the large side.
Here are the four-year, non-profit private schools with the highest rates, limited to schools that had 3,000 or more people due to begin repayments in 2011.
For comparison, here’s the Ivy League. Things are looking pretty good. All eight universities fell well below the average default rate of 7% for four-year, non-profit private schools.
The data here represent the 2011 three-year default rates for all accredited American colleges. That number measures, by school, the percentage of federal student loans that were supposed to get repaid beginning in fiscal 2011 but went into default—meaning the debtor went 270 days without payment—some time in the next three years. This number doesn’t capture those who are teetering on the verge of default or who have entered deference or forbearance programs, which let debtors temporarily halt payments without defaulting. It also doesn’t account for the fact that some schools attract more low-income students who are vulnerable to default, or the fact that some schools just happen to be in economically depressed areas.
followup; "Mexican federal agents have disarmed all police in the city of Iguala and taken over security. Local officers are alleged to have conspired with a criminal gang to kill 43 missing students, with a mass grave discovered."
Wondermark.
www.avclub.com
Every Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!
OnlyMrGodKnowsWhy
