Few authors have bridged the divide between speculative and so-called literary fiction as gracefully and capably as Booker Prize winner Margaret Atwood. From her early fiction such as The Handmaid’s Tale, through the MaddAddam trilogy and her more recent work with the Future Library project, Atwood has embarked on a imaginative, even visionary, exploration of what the future might hold—for better or for worse. Atwood’s latest work, The Heart Goes Last, imagines a chilling futuristic social experiment at odds with the emotional lives of its protagonists. Join Margaret Atwood and interviewer Kelly Link, a writer whose fiction also inhabits the intersections of fantasy and realism, for a conversation about the future in fiction and the future of fiction.
Advance tickets to this event are now SOLD OUT. But, if you become a BBF member at the Bibliophile level or above, you can still receive a complimentary ticket to Atwood’s keynote as well as an exclusive “swag bag” just like the ones we give BBF presenters. You’ll pick yours up at BBF 2015 on October 24!
Facebook says it’s now streaming more video than YouTube. To be able to make that claim, all they had to do was cheat, lie, and steal.
I’m a professional YouTube creator. Some people think that this is some kind of joke but I have 30 employees. All of them work in the online video industry, about half of them work directly on producing videos for our educational YouTube channels. We’re a small, profitable business.
Facebook is an interesting, emerging platform for us. Reaching an audience is valuable, even if there’s no way to turn that value into money. So I’m excited about the potential future of Facebook as a video platform.
But there are a few things that make me wary, not of their ability to grow my business, but of whether they give a shit about creators, which is actually pretty important to me. Let’s go through them one by one.
They Cheat
This is the least important, but it does bug me.
If I embed a YouTube video on Facebook, only a tiny fraction of my audience will actually see it. But if I post the same video natively on Facebook, suddenly it’s in everyone’s feed everywhere! This data is pretty easy to come by for us, and Facebook is happy to admit the strategy. A SciShow YouTube video embedded on Facebook will reach between 20,000 and 50,000 people and be viewed by hundreds of people. The same video uploaded natively will get a reach of between 60,000 and 150,000 and be “viewed” by tens of thousands (more on what those “views” actually mean later).
* is for clicks to open the YouTube video. ** is for clicks to open the Facebook video (rather than autoplay)
A second video did better both natively and as an embed, but did MUCH better natively.
So Facebook is pushing Facebook video. I guess that’s their prerogative (unless someone decides there’s an anti-trust argument to be made.) But as a creator, it seems like an abuse of their power.
They Lie
When a “View” is not a view.
In our analytics-obsessed world, it’s tempting to first ask how to measure whether something is a view, but if we take a step back and just ask what a “view” is, the answer becomes clearer. What is a view? It’s when someone watches the video. And Facebook counts views significantly before people could be said to be watching the video.
Facebook counts the “view” at the three second mark (whether or not the viewer has even turned on the sound) in the midst of a precipitous decline in retention. At that moment, 90% of people scrolling the page are still ‘watching’ this silent animated GIF. But by 30 seconds, when viewership actually could be claimed, only 20% are watching. 90% of people are being counted, but only 20% of people are actually “viewing” the video.
YouTube, on the other hand, counts views in a logical way…the view is counted at the point at which people seem to actually be engaging with the video and not just immediately clicking away. This is usually around 30 seconds, but of course is different for videos of different lengths.
Retention on YouTube for the same video.
This might seem a little like this is a victimless crime, but it fundamentally devalues the #1 metric of online video. The view is the thing that everyone talks about and it’s the thing creators sell to advertisers in order to make a living. Applying that word to something far less valuable is going to be extremely disruptive to creators. Ad agencies and brands are confused enough without Facebook muddying the waters by calling something a view when it is in no way a measure of viewership.
When Facebook says it has roughly the same number of views as YouTube, what they really mean is that they have roughly 1/5th of YouTube’s views, since they’re intentionally and blatantly over-counting to the detriment of everyone except them.
They Steal
Welcome to the bit that really pisses me off
According to a recent report from Ogilvy and Tubular Labs, of the 1000 most popular Facebook videos of Q1 2015, 725 were stolen re-uploads. Just these 725 “freebooted” videos were responsible for around 17 BILLION views last quarter. This is not insignificant, it’s the vast majority of Facebook’s high volume traffic. And no wonder, when embedding a YouTube video on your company’s Facebook page is a sure way to see it die a sudden death, we shouldn’t be surprised when they rip it off YouTube and upload it natively. Facebook’s algorithms encourage this theft.
What is Facebook doing about it?
They’ll take the video down a couple days after you let them know. Y’know, once it’s received 99.9% of the views it will ever receive.
Creators have been yelling (apparently into a void) about this for over a year now. Fullscreen CEO George Strompolos shared his thoughts on Twitter last month:
And then he was joined by the Fine Brothers, who run one of the largest channels on YouTube
Destin Sandlin, who runs the “Smarter Every Day” channel released a video on the topic after a video of his was ripped and re-uploaded by a subsidiary of Bauer Media Group and received 17 million views on their Facebook page.
But most creators have responded, thus far, the same way as me. By shrugging our shoulders and saying “What am I gonna do about it…it’s Facebook, they’re massive.”
But that’s exactly what makes it so awful.
It’s no secret that YouTube was built, in part, on copyright infringement. Among the user generated content that drove traffic to YouTube in 2006 and 2007, there were plenty of Family Guy and Daily Show clips. But YouTube was a tiny start-up flying under the radar. As soon as it got big (and got bought) Google fixed this problem with “Content ID,” a system that analyzes every single video uploaded to YouTube and checks it against a massive database of known owned content.
It’s a little inexcusable that Facebook, a company with a market cap of $260 BILLION, launched their video platform with no system to protect independent rights holders. It wouldn’t be surprising if Facebook was working on a solution now which they can roll out conveniently after having made their initial claims at being the biggest, most important thing in video.
But even if they do have a system, it won’t function as well as Content ID. Content ID works so well largely because YouTube is good at monetizing content. So, instead of taking a video down, a copyright holder can claim the video and receive revenue from it. Content ID has claimed millions of videos and is responsible for over a billion dollars in revenue so copyright holders love it. But without a good system of monetization, Facebook can only remove videos, not send big checks to the owners of stolen content. For the copyright holder, interfacing with a profitless system is just a pain in the ass with no upside.
What to do? Well, the lack of searchability on Facebook makes it impossible for creators to discover when their content is being freebooted, so if you see suspect content, please reach out to the creator so they can take action. If you have any legal or technical solutions you think might work, please post those as responses to this. And above all, just know that this is an issue and share what you can with who you can. Facebook won’t hold itself accountable, but maybe they will if we make them.
Facebook is big enough that it shouldn’t need to resort to these tactics to build its video presence. It makes them look weak to be so excited about skyrocketing numbers if those numbers are based on cheating, lies, and theft.
Here are the Yo-kai Watch french fry holsters you asked for ⊟
Finally, the equipment you need when you and your fellow Jibanyan fans engage in the deadly sport of Dippin’ Duels. Or for whenever you want quick access to some McDonald’s french fries, when you’re not at McDonald’s or near any horizontal surface.
They’re on sale in limited quantities at McD’s in Japan.
A chihuahua named Lemon was featured on the TV broadcast during the Marlins' Bark in the Park. This is extremely good stuff. Here is a transcription of that very important dog interview.
"Grrr"
"Woof! Woof!"
"You know, it's tiresome rooting for a rubbish franchise that routinely parts with its best players in exchange for salary relief with no regard for the fan base who publicly financed a new stadium for rich person owner Jeffrey Loria. But it is nice to have an excuse to put on this dog dress."
Long ago, in the year 2013, a ragtag band of adventurers known as the Warner Bros. discovered a musty scroll that spoke of an ancient treasure buried deep within the hills of the west. It was the legendary chest said to contain long-lost filming rights to Dungeons & Dragons. How could this assemblage of scribes, accounting wizards, and a level 14 casting agent resist the allure of such a prize?
Arming themselves the boots of rebooting, a cloak of distraction, and a several vials of a powerful nostalgia potion, the troupe answered the call of high adventure. Having negotiated a murky labyrinth festooned with obstacles left by studio gods displeased by the works of man, this group reached their destination. But a shield of litigation ensconced the glittering hoard that lay before them. “Nay,” bellowed the sorcerers of Hasbro’s Allspark Pictures and Sweetpea Entertainment. “Thou shalt not take these ...
this is what I get for liking straight white anything
I’ve seen maybe three UFC fights in my whole life, and while they were crazy-entertaining, it never became something I followed; I’m just not a sports girl. However, when I see powerful women like former MMA fighter Gina Carano performing amazing athletic feats, then parlaying those sports careers into endorsement deals and acting roles like their male counterparts, it fills me with hope. It’s inspiring. This is how I used to feel about Ronda Rousey.
The Entourage movie was terrible, but I enjoyed seeing Rousey in a supporting role kicking the crap out of Turtle. It was one of the few bits of genuine fun in an otherwise boring film. Having heard Rousey talk about important stuff like body image was also hugely encouraging, as she’s often criticized for having a “masculine” figure, which she brushes off by saying that she’s not a “Do Nothin’ Bitch.” One would hope that someone who challenges ideas of what “masculine” and “feminine” are would be more understanding of, if not entirely knowledgeable about, transgender athletes. For Rousey, however, this is not the case, as commenters rightfully pointed out when we posted a video of Rousey this weekend.
In an interview with the New York Post two years ago, Rousey commented on a transphobic rant made by UFC fighter Matt Mitrione about fellow female MMA fighter, Fallon Fox, who is a trans woman. Mitrione was suspended for it. Meanwhile Rousey, while admitting that Mitrione deserved the suspension and that he worded his thoughts “poorly,” then went on to defend those views, saying about Fox:
She can try hormones, chop her pecker off, but it’s still the same bone structure a man has. It’s an advantage. I don’t think it’s fair.
I understand the UFC doesn’t want to be associated with views like (Mitrione’s). I’m also glad they didn’t straight cut him.
I guess it’s good she’s using correct pronouns? *sigh* Rousey has competed against intersex athletes in Judo before, but didn’t take issue with that because “that was something they didn’t choose,” showing a fundamental ignorance about what being trans even means. Rousey continued:
It’s not something that happened to [Fox]. It was a decision she made. She should be aware in her career after that, it’s going to be an arduous path. I don’t know why she’s surprised by that. It’s going to draw a lot of emotions.
What if she became UFC champion and we had a transgender women’s champion?. It’s a very socially difficult situation.
What’s worse is that Rousey claims she came to these conclusions after “doing research.” If she’d actually done more than a cursory Google search as a part of this research, she might have come to learn that trans women undergoing hormone replacement therapy actually lose muscle mass and bone density, which means that they wouldn’t have any advantage over a cis woman in a fighting sport like MMA. Most major sports authorities, including the International Olympic Committee, the NCAA, and the Association of Boxing Commissions acknowledge this, and allow trans athletes to compete according to how they identify, so long as they are legally that gender.
If trans female athletes had so much of an advantage over cis women in competition, wouldn’t they be winning every sport in which they compete all the time? Wouldn’t cis female athletes be getting disproportionately injured all the time? That just doesn’t happen, and it’s disheartening to know that someone like Rousey, who had the potential to be a role model for all women via her sport of choice is not only operating from a place of willful ignorance, but from a place of fear – a land of scary, transmisogynist “what ifs” that have absolutely zero basis in fact.
Though her original comments were made two years ago, she has yet to clarify or amend them, and she has yet to fight Fallon Fox in competition as Fox is, as of yet, not allowed to fight in the UFC. In an awesome interview with Jezebel, Fox commented on Rousey saying:
I mean her whole thing is like, “Look at what I did. I was persistent. This is how I got women into the UFC. I didn’t take no for an answer. I never stopped, and I rose to the top, and I convinced Dana [White, UFC President] because I was persistent.” But when I’m persistent? Yeah, when I’m persistent about transgender women they’re like, “You should just stop. Just go away don’t even try to attempt it.” Now Rousey is doing the gatekeeping.
*double sigh*
It’s sad and infuriating to watch a woman of Rousey’s stature, one who’s fought hard to get women their due in her field, turn her back on women who are not like her. Rousey is a hypocrite who flouts gender norms when it suits her, but throws women under the bus when it doesn’t. I can no longer respect her big talk about body positivity and being persistent and not being a “Do Nothin’ Bitch” when she’s unwilling to afford trans athletes that same respect. No matter how many belts she wins.
In case you weren’t aware, Canadian researchers recently launched a social experiment to see how hospitable strangers can be to a hitchhiking robot. hitchBOT, a robot that had already made its way across Canada and Europe, was attempting to add the United States to its growing list of seen sights. Unfortunately, it met an incredibly sad, tragic endonly two weeks into its U.S. jaunt as it was destroyed in Philadelphia.
Needless to say, America’s failed the social experiment, and it’s all thanks to one jerk. Presented here is a video of the malicious destruction and hitchBOT’s end.
Whatever the dude’s problem is, it wasn’t cool that he took it out on a robot just trying to make its way across the country. This is why we can’t have nice things, folks. And this is why everyone thinks we’re violent jerks. It’s because when something is minding its own business, some person comes along and beats the hell out of it simply because they can.
We’ve been seeing a tremendous amount of movement in the tabletop gaming space of late, as crowdfunding, 3D printing, laser cutting, new casting technologies, and high-quality on-demand printing have significantly lowered the barriers of entry for even the smallest game concerns. Now, a scrappy start-up with a great idea can […]
It's a tragedy that had everyone from NPR to the Washington Postdissecting smartphone photos of a dismembered robot. HitchBOT, a Canadian research team's initiative "to see whether robots could trust humans," fell well short of its goal to travel from Massachusetts to San Francisco over the weekend when Philadelphia vandals attacked the bot. Armed only with conversation software, the machine lasted just two weeks relying on the kindness of strangers to forward its journey. The US proved too much despite HitchBOT successfully traversing Canada and parts of Europe in 2014.
However, there may be a happy ending yet. Not willing to let robot violence scar its city, hackers and makers in Philadelphia are reaching out to the HitchBOT team to offer new life to the fallen Canadian after hearing about the robot violence.
"We’ll say that at this moment, if we get the OK from the creators to repair or replace the needed parts for HitchBOT, we’ll be happy to do so," wrote Georgia Guthrie, executive director for a local makerspace called The Hacktory. "If not, we understand… and we may just build ourselves a HitchBot2 to send along on its journey. We feel it’s the least we can do to let everyone, especially the Robot community, know that Philly isn’t so bad."
The Apple Watch is starting to pop up in the wild pretty regularly—I saw several on wrists at the airport last week, and once you see someone using a gadget in an airport it’s pretty much officially mainstream. Though the $10,000 price of the top-end Watch Edition version drew criticism for being outrageously expensive, it’s important to keep that number in perspective. As far as luxury watch makers go, $10,000 isn’t really even a mid-market price. And luxury watch makers, perhaps hoping to cater to a clientele that appreciates fine timepieces but also wants to have the latest gadget without looking like a double-Swatch-wearing refugee from the mid-'80s, have struck back.
Witness the Skyview Pinnacle from boutique timepiece manufacturer Nico Gerard. According to Mashable, which interviewed Nico Gerard CEO Andy Pluemer, the Skyview Pinnacle comes with a Swiss-made automatic mechanical movement that takes six months to produce. On the opposite side of the band from the normal watch face sits a transplanted Apple Watch, looking confused and out-of-place, like a chronographical CatDog.
Like the Apple Watch itself, the Skyview Pinnacle comes in a number of styles—three, to be exact. Two are relatively inexpensive, coming in at $9,300 for a black model or $9,500 for a blue model (both of which ship with stainless steel Apple Watches awkwardly attached). On the other hand, if you’re Alec Baldwin, maybe the $112,000 gold version is more to your liking. It comes with a genuine Apple Watch Edition watch on its backside and will enable you to say "You see this watch? This watch costs more than your car!" with a high level of certainty.
During an interview with Jamie Bell, Kate Mara, and Michael B. Jordan over the weekend, Atlanta Rock 100.5’s Steven J. Rickman antagonized Mara and Jordan with racist questions about the film’s casting and totally inappropriate comments on Mara’s appearance.
If you don’t want to sully your day by watching the clip, it features Rickman being intentionally ignorant about Sue and Johnny Storm’s familial relationship (“you’re black; how does that happen?”); berating the actors for not watching the movie, and criticizing Mara’s short hair cut (apparently she was “way, way hot” before). The clip ends with Rickman asking Mara if the hair comment made her uncomfortable, and assuring her, “I’m a toe guy, and your toes are fine.”
Obviously, it’s an impressive testimony to their patience (and the frequency with which these dehumanizing interviews occur) that Mara and Jordan stayed reasonable throughout, and I’m glad they didn’t rise to Rickman’s bait and give him the dramatic outburst he was likely looking for.
But actors shouldn’t need to remain calm in interviews where they’re not being treated with basic human decency. There’s professionalism, and then there’s being put in a position where you have to ignore someone insulting your humanity, and the two get conflated way too often. Dealing with racism and sexism is not “just part of the job description.”
Check out this selection of images directly from the upcoming Rage of Demons storyline. The following images are of postcards available at Gen Con. All eight demons described, in a storyline WotC's Mike Mearls describes as "So what's Rage of Demons about? Imagine of Cthulhu woke up in the Underdark and there were eight of him." Meet Yeenoghu, Demogorgon, Zuggtmoy, Baphomet, Graz'zt, Orcus, Juiblex, and Fraz-Urb'luu!
The long dispute between Hasbro and Sweetpea Entertainment has come to and end, opening the door for a brand new Dungeons & Dragons movie! The deal between Warner Bros, Hasbro, and Sweetpea, will see a movie set in the Forgotten Realms, written by Wrath of the Titans' David Leslie Johnson, and produced by The Lego Movie's Roy Lee.
Lee, who also produced How To Train Your Dragon, will be producing the film which has been written by Wrath of the Titans' David Leslie Johnson. It'll be set in the Forgotten Realms (of course). At Hasbro's end, there is involvement from Brian Goldner (Hasbro's chief executive) and Stephen Davis (chief content
Neurosurgeons successfully implant 3D printed skull
A 22-year-old woman from the Netherlands who suffers from a chronic bone disorder – which has increased the thickness of her skull from 1.5cm to 5cm, causing reduced eyesight and severe headaches – has had the top section of her skull removed and replaced with a 3D printed implant.
The operation was performed by a team of neurosurgeons at the University Medical Centre Utrecht and the university claims this is this first instance of a successful 3D printed cranium that has not been rejected by the patient.
The operation, which took 23 hours, was led by Dr Bon Verweij. The patient’s skull was so thick, that had the operation not been performed, serious brain damage or death may have occurred in the near future.
It may be the dead of summer in the northern hemisphere right now, but the must-have clothing item for white collar women isn’t a breezy blouse and matching culottes. It’s a desk blanket. Female office workers around the world brace for hot weather by bundling up—even as their male colleagues type away in shirtsleeves.
There’s a simple reason: Office temperatures are designed for men.
A new study confirms that women’s body temperatures are much lower than the standard used to set air-conditioning levels, making women much more prone to feeling uncomfortably cold. The study was published online in Nature Climate Change (paywall).
Though the new research is based on a small sample size of 16 women, it replicates previous findings. One study found that the standard metabolic rate used to set office temperatures is as much as 35% higher than the average female metabolic rate.
Others have shown that women feel comfortable with room temperatures of around 77°F, compared with men’s preference for less than 72°F. For comparison, the US government recommends office temperatures be between 69°F and 73°F (20.5°C to 22.8°C).
The discrepancy dates back to the 1960s and ’70s, when scientists and regulators set workplace indoor climate standards based on the metabolic rate of a 40-year-old man weighing 70 kilograms (154 pounds). Women, however, tend to have lower metabolic rates. That means the steady blast of Arctic air conditioning that keeps the average guy comfortable is likely to send women swaddling themselves in cardigans and thermal socks.
Ending the AC double standard would also have other benefits. Homes and offices generate as much as 30% of total carbon dioxide emissions, say the authors of the new study, Boris Kingma and Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt of Maastricht University in the Netherlands. Adjusting cooling levels to account for women’s comfort could dramatically slash energy consumption. (It should be noted that the study was funded by advocates for renewable energy.)
Thawing out women office workers, in other words, might keep the planet from warming quite so quickly.
fukken boo "madness and corruption, Lovecraftian horror, werewolves, possession"
With Occult Adventures just out, Paizo has just announced August 2016's new hardcover! Designed to work alongside the Strange Aeons adventure path, Horror Adventures includes madness and corruption, Lovecraftian horror, werewolves, possession, and more!
Know Direction recorded the seminar where it was announced and will post it soon - keep an eye on their page for it!
They describe the new Corruption rules as a major new system "by which you can slowly descend into a new form. Vampires hinted at after the biting.
"As far as bone-based logos go those are top notch."
Intimidation Game
(Est. 1970) "The Milwaukee Admirals are a professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League. They play in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA at the BMO Harris Bradley Center. They have been affiliated with the NHL's Nashville Predators since that team's founding in 1998."
Opinion/Notes: When I first saw the Google results for the old logo I couldn't believe that that was the real thing. But, indeed it was and it was totally bonkers. Everything about it was so wrong but in such a charming, naive way that it's actually kind of sad to see it go. Still, no team sporting that logo can be taken seriously and the new logo invokes the Pirates of the Caribbean vibe with a menacing skull and some extra spiky typography. The skull/hat/uniform drawing is okay for what it is — minor league hockey — and it now works like a proper sports logo. The wordmark is not my cup of tea but it's admirable what they did with the "S" to get rid of the space between it and the "L" and to make the logo symmetrical. The better elements of the identity are the detail "A" on the admiral's hat and the "MA" bone alternate logo. As far as bone-based logos go those are top notch.
Select Quote: The new logo is an evolution of the Admirals last logo and features a more fierce and determined sailor. The sailor is accented by the upper portion of a naval uniform and a hat that was inspired by the one worn by the Admirals "Captain Crunch" logo from the late 70s and early 80s. The hat is adorned with an "A" composed by three bones.
The Admirals secondary mark, dubbed the M&A, is the letters "M" and "A" interwoven in bone script and connected with a hockey stick for the horizontal bar of the "A".
Logo detail.Skull face on its own.Alternate logo.Uniform.New logo introduction.
Onyx Path announced a new edition of Vampire: The Masquerade at Gen Con. This will be the game's 4th Edition, 18 years after the previous iteration. The game will feature updated rules, and an advanced metaplot. (thanks to Fabrício for the scoop).
Onyx Path confirms that the V20 planned run will be finished, with V:TM4 coming after. More information will be coming soon, when they get back from Gen Con.
Local authorities in southern China are investigating distillers for adding the impotence drug Viagra to their products. Officials seized more than 5,300 bottles of baiju, a clear, grain-based spirit that is the country’s most popular hard liquor, along with large quantities of sildenafil, the generic name for the drug.
The suppliers reportedly told customers that the liquor had “health preserving qualities” and was made with “Chinese herbs.” Alcohol producers in China frequently market their products as containing ground-up animal parts that purportedly enhance male virility; unlike endangered wildlife products like rhinoceros horn, Viagra actually treats erectile dysfunction, but also comes with significant health risks.
Police in the city of Liuzhou are scrutinizing two plants for adding the drug, and at least 51 Chinese distillers are suspected of doing the same, according to the Financial Times.
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer said earlier this year that sales of Viagra were up 47% in China, thanks in part to its heavy marketing efforts.
'at one point, an SFPD cruiser pulled up to the intersection of Steiner and Waller, only to say "thank you for obeying the law" over the loudspeaker, which drew cheers from the crowd'
yay
'It wasn't the media, nor the motorists, who needed to see just how bad the current laws are. It was the people enforcing them.'
no, dipshit, it's the people writing and enacting them
(File under: cyclists are assholes; cops are assholes; everyone go home)
Photo by Kevin Montgomery
The protest hadn't even started before the first motorist laid on the horn.
Hundreds of cyclists rode through The Wiggle yesterday evening in protest of a San Francisco police captain's calls for a crackdown on bikers coasting through stop signs. But instead of breaking the law, protesters wanted to show the city just how bad traffic would be if every bicycle approached intersections just as a car does.
Riders arrived at every stop sign in a single file, coming to a complete stop and filing through the intersection only once they were given the right-of-way. The law-abiding act of civil disobedience snarled traffic almost immediately.
"The thing you say you want — every cyclist to stop at every stop sign — you really don't want that," Morgan Fitzgibbons, one of the protest's organizers, told SF Weekly. "You're going to destroy traffic in every neighborhood that has a heavy dose of cyclists."
The protest, flanked by an army of TV cameras and amused onlookers, was in response to a directive from SFPD Park Station Captain John Sanford, who ordered his officers to punish cyclists for "zipping past" cars and supposedly endangering people. According to Hoodline, Sanford told a community meeting last month that increased enforcement was aimed at "the protection of life" in his district and that cyclists "present a hazard for many people."
Media outlets such as Streetsblog, a sustainable transit publication, and organizations including the San Francisco Bike Coalition condemned the police mandate, arguing that police resources are better spent ticketing scofflaw motorists who cause a disproportionate amount of injuries.
"SFPD has a citywide goal of dedicating 50 percent of traffic citations to the five violations that have caused the most traffic deaths in San Francisco," Chris Cassidy, an SF Bike Coalition spokesperson, wrote in a statement. "When Park Station is way behind on meeting its own safety goals, that's hardly the time to divert precious enforcement resources away from the deadliest traffic violations."
By strictly obeying the law, bicyclists expected to demonstrate the downsides of current policies — and what drivers would have to contend with if Park Station clamps down.
Dozens of cyclists gathered ahead of the protest at Steiner and Waller in the Lower Haight, the heart of a popular bike route known as The Wiggle. Around 5:30 p.m, a few riders ventured out into the street, stopped at the intersection, and patiently waited for their individual turn to cross. A car stuck behind them began honking, seemingly confused as to why cyclists weren't riding through the intersection as the driver was accustomed to.
The unwelcome delay was already making its point.
Photo by Kevin Montgomery
Shortly after, a parade of cyclists rode up from Duboce Park. Within minutes, an entire city block was engulfed by the riders. But the protest wasn't meant only to discourage SFPD from enforcing a bad law. The riders also hoped to prove that a better way exists.
Cyclists, along with a growing number of organizations and local politicians, believe bike riders shouldn't be legally treated like cars, but rather treated as what they are — bikers. There's been a growing call for the city and California to adopt what is known as the "Idaho Stop" law. Since 1982, Idaho has permitted cyclists to treat stop signs as yields and red lights as stop signs, which allows bikers to conserve energy, clear intersections faster, and become more visible (and thus safer) by getting in front of traffic.
Board of Supervisors President London Breed endorsed the Idaho Stop yesterday, admitting to the Examiner that's how she already treats stop signs while biking.
Breed's colleague on the board, Supervisor John Avalos, similarly endorses the policy, telling SF Weekly, "The law makes absolute sense."
"Stop signs are major hindrance to bike safety and have an impact on pedestrian safety," Avalos added. And, as this video from yesterday's protest shows, cyclists obeying stop signs would make traversing The Wiggle a much slower affair.
Stop signs also proved to be a hindrance to traffic. Cyclists, joined by waves of commuters coming from downtown, quickly stacked up Steiner to Duboce Ave. Drivers caught in the traffic had to wait at least ten minutes to clear the city block. And in two instances, drivers frustrated by cyclists obeying the law broke the law themselves and weaved into a lane of oncoming traffic, gunning their motors straight through the intersection to skirt the gridlock.
Photo by Kevin Montgomery
The mood of the protest was largely jovial. The handful of counter-protesters seemed to respect the cyclists' protest. And at one point, an SFPD cruiser pulled up to the intersection of Steiner and Waller, only to say "thank you for obeying the law" over the loudspeaker, which drew cheers from the crowd.
But that one ice-breaking officer was the only cop at the protest. And that might have been the only downfall of the event. It wasn't the media, nor the motorists, who needed to see just how bad the current laws are. It was the people enforcing them.
'the hunter also quoted a passage from the Bible’s Genesis in response to the criticism: “Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me.”'
As the outrage on social media after the killing of the Zimbabwean lion Cecil by an American dentist still rages, the internet has found another target for its fury: Sabrina Corgatelli, a hunter from Idaho who has been posting pictures of animals she killed during a legal hunting trip to Kruger National Park in South Africa.
On her Facebook page, Corgatelli appears with the corpses of an impala, a crocodile, a blue wildebeest, and a kudu, among other trophies. But the picture that has attracted most enraged comments is one in which she poses with a dead giraffe wrapped around her.
“I got a amazing old Giraffe. Such a amazing animal!! I couldn’t be any happier!! My emotion after getting him was a feeling I will never forget!!!” she wrote.
“Everybody just thinks we’re cold-hearted killers, and it’s not that,” she said. “There is a connection with the animal, and just because we hunt them doesn’t mean we don’t have a respect for them.” And, she added, “Giraffes are very dangerous animals. They could hurt you seriously very quickly.”
Her interviewer, Carson Daly, asked Corgatelli, who is listed as a senior accountant at Idaho State University, if she is concerned about suffering professional repercussions because of the pictures. “How can an employer chastise you for something you do on your personal time that’s legally done?” she answered.
Quartz has reached out to Corgatelli via email and Facebook, and will update this post with any response.
On her Facebook page, the hunter also quoted a passage from the Bible’s Genesis in response to the criticism: “Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me.”
This year's Gen Con set a new record, with 61,423 individual attendees (that's 197,695 turnstile). The annual growth since 2010 has been 9%, and it has more than doubled its attendance since then. Of course, Indianapolis hasn't doubled its number of hotels, so it's not all good news! Next year's convention moves back to August, starting on August 4th, 2016.
Here's the full press release for those who enjoy press releases!
Gen Con 2015 Continues Six-Year Streak of Record-Breaking Growth
INDIANAPOLIS (August 3, 2015)Gen Con 2015 has set an all-new attendance record with a unique attendance of 61,423
'Upon returning, Aldrin actually had to declare to customs the items he was bringing back from the moon: mainly rock and dust samples, said to weigh about 50 pounds in total. The astronauts were put into quarantine for 21 days out of fear that they might be carrying undiscovered pathogens. (They weren’t).
These forms might have been done more as a joke than anything, but today, astronauts still have to go through customs in the country that they land in. In a 2013 Reddit AMA, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield revealed that NASA kept his passport on the ground while he was in space, then brought it to him after he touched down in Kazakhstan.'
Like any other American returning home from a business trip out of the country, former NASA astronaut Buzz Aldrin filled out an expense report and a customs form when he came back from the moon. Aldrin—the second man to step foot on the lunar surface, after Neil Armstrong—recently shared the paperwork on Facebook. The records include signatures from Aldrin and a Honolulu customs inspector, and one of the most unusual itemized itineraries in history: Florida to Moonto Pacific Ocean to Hawaii, and then back home to Houston.
The official travel voucher also mentions the USS Hornet (misspelled on the form). That’s the ship that picked up Aldrin and the Apollo 11 crew after they landed in the Pacific.
FL-MOON-HI(NASA/Buzz Aldrin)
Aldrin was reimbursed exactly $33.31 (about $215 in today’s dollars) for “travel expenses”—likely the costs of having to drive his own car to and from Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, Texas. Luckily, he was not responsible for paying for actual transportation from Earth to the moon—or even to Cape Kennedy, Florida, where Apollo 11 launched, as he had a government plane for that.
Buzz’s travel schedule for July, 1969.(NASA/Buzz Aldrin)
Upon returning, Aldrin actually had to declare to customs the items he was bringing back from the moon: mainly rock and dust samples, said to weigh about 50 pounds in total. The astronauts were put into quarantine for 21 days out of fear that they might be carrying undiscovered pathogens. (They weren’t).
Buzz’s customs form. Note the cargo in the righthand column.(NASA/Buzz Aldrin)
These forms might have been done more as a joke than anything, but today, astronauts still have to go through customs in the country that they land in. In a 2013 Reddit AMA, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield revealed that NASA kept his passport on the ground while he was in space, then brought it to him after he touched down in Kazakhstan.
OnlyMrGodKnowsWhy
Few authors have bridged the divide between speculative and so-called literary fiction as gracefully and capably as Booker Prize winner Margaret Atwood. From her early fiction such as The Handmaid’s Tale, through the MaddAddam trilogy and her more recent work with the Future Library project, Atwood has embarked on a imaginative, even visionary, exploration of what the future might hold—for better or for worse. Atwood’s latest work, The Heart Goes Last, imagines a chilling futuristic social experiment at odds with the emotional lives of its protagonists. Join Margaret Atwood and interviewer Kelly Link, a writer whose fiction also inhabits the intersections of fantasy and realism, for a conversation about the future in fiction and the future of fiction.
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