firehose

The moment the Internet has been waiting for since Draft Day arrived in the third week of the NFL preseason.

MICHAEL SAM SACKED JOHNNY MANZIEL. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

If there is smoke coming out of your computer, you might consider closing your Twitter client -- or browser -- for a few minutes. ESPN's servers are probably crashing as you read this.

Despite the best efforts of his Ravens players, Harbaugh was focused on the football.

Apparently the Baltimore Ravens were really bored during Saturday's preseason game against Washington. That or they were trying to annoy head coach John Harbaugh.

Let's zoom in a bit of Terrell Suggs.

Dance on Ravens. Dance on.

Most of us don’t need science to tell us that we are obsessed with our smartphones. Still, there’s plenty of research out there describing the dopamine effect—a neurotransmitter that sends pulses to your brain’s reward and pleasure centers with every new text or tweet—and the widespread addiction to that momentary pleasure, which has been compared to cravings for nicotine, cocaine, and gambling.

But a new study offers a different explanation for our obsession. It’s not just addiction that makes people clutch their smartphones so tightly, the researchers argue, but also the anxiety of losing devices that are loaded with huge amounts of highly personal data. And, they say, there’s a cure to that (reasonable) anxiety, or at least a way to lessen it—back-up systems and security measures that safeguard our data.

Published in the latest issue of the International Journal of Mobile Communications, the study was conducted by two Canadian researchers at McMaster University in Ontario. They explain that the growing processing power of smartphones means that we are all carrying around enormous stashes of what they called “assets”—sensitive and indispensable data. This could range from personal and professional contacts to treasured photos and confidential bank account information.

As anyone who has lost a device knows, the loss of those “assets” can make an inconvenience into a truly traumatic and anxiety-provoking experience. Beyond the temporary electronic disconnection, the data contained on a phone can present a privacy and security risk, if it finds its way into the hands of a malicious third party.

The Canadian team found that only very few users knew about ways to protect their data in a situation where their smartphone system is lost or stolen. Others, they said, were “simply in denial of the risk of their losing their phone.” The researchers suggest a social awareness campaign to encourage smartphone users to make their devices more secure.

To get you started on the path to less smartphone-loss anxiety: Enable the remote device lock system, which activates the password locking option on your phone, preventing others from accessing your data. Other options include encrypting your smartphone by navigating the security settings on either your Android or iOS system, and using a program to “time bomb” your data, deleting and disabling it after a certain time period.

The Broncos kicker can return in Week 6 against the Jets.

Denver Broncos kicker Matt Prater has been suspended for the first four games of the NFL season after violating the league's substance abuse policy, according to the Denver Post. The issue at hand here is alcohol, not performance-enhancing drugs.

What did Prater do to earn the suspension? He was guilty of drinking a couple beers at home while on vacation, according to his attorney. Prater has been in the league's alcohol program since he was charged with a DUI in 2011. The NFL reportedly wanted to suspend the kicker for a full season before settling for four games.

The NFL's substance abuse policy says "the use of alcohol may be prohibited for individual players in certain situations where clinically indicated in accordance with the terms of this Policy." Here's a look at the section about alcohol-related offenses:

The Broncos open their season with home games against the Colts and Chiefs before going to Seattle in a Super Bowl rematch to face the Seahawks in Week 3. The Broncos have a bye in Week 4 and host Arizona a week later. Prater will be eligible to return in Week 6 against the New York Jets.

Prater has been one of the league's top kickers for the last five seasons. He has only failed to convert higher than 80 percent of his kicks once over that span. Last season was the best year of Prater's career, as the 30-year-old made 25 of 26 field goal attempts.

NFL punishment has been the spotlight throughout the summer. Prater's suspension comes less than one month after Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice was suspended two games for domestic abuse.

popular shared this story from Vox - All.

"Blacks represent 13% of the population but commit 50% of the murders; 90% of black victims are murdered by other blacks," writes Time's Joe Klein, calling for "provocative" thinking on race in America. "The facts suggest that history is not enough to explain this social disaster."

there are many countries where white people murder each other at a much lower rate than you see here in the United States

Yet the disturbing truth, according to the FBI's most recent homicide statistics, is that the United States is in the wake of an epidemic of white-on-white crime. Back in 2011, the most recent year for which data is available, a staggering 83 percent of white murder victims were killed by fellow Caucasians.

This is not to say that white people are inherently prone to violence. Most whites, obviously, manage to get through life without murdering anyone. And there are many countries full of white people — Norway, Iceland, France, Denmark, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom — where white people murder each other at a much lower rate than you see here in the United States. On the other hand, although people often see criminal behavior as a symptom of poverty, the quantity of murder committed by white people specifically in the United States casts some doubt on this. Per capita GDP is considerably higher here than in France — and the white population in America is considerably richer than the national average — and yet we have more white murderers.

To understand the level of cultural pathology at work here, it's important to understand that 36 percent of those killed by whites are women — a far higher share than you see with black murderers.

Clearly, the social disaster of white violence has complicated roots. But the beginning of an answer is to admit that we have a problem. It's striking that President Obama, who's frequently found time to comment on the height of black men's waistlines, seems oblivious to this torrent of white killing. To be fair to the White House, however, it would be uniquely difficult for Obama to address this delicate issue. The real tragedy is that none of Obama's 43 white predecessors have addressed it either. Indeed, looking back on America's political iconography, there are disturbing trends toward the glorification of white violence. Peer inside the US Capitol building, and you'll find a monument to Confederate President Jefferson Davis — the leader of an insurgency that caused an unprecedented quantity of violent white deaths.

But whatever the causes or past mistakes, the important thing is to confront this important subject in the future. As we look ahead to a 2016 matchup that should give us two Euro-American major party nominees for the first time in a decade, perhaps America can finally get the debate about white violence it deserves.

Red Hook’s Cutting-Edge Wireless Network – NYTimes.com.

Robert Smith, a 19-year-old in a gray T-shirt and camouflage pants, climbed the stairwell of the Joseph Miccio Community Center in Red Hook, scaled a ladder at the top floor and jumped onto the roof. He soon found what he was looking for: bright, white plastic boxes, each about the size of a brick, some with little antennas sticking out. Mr. Smith pulled a laptop from his backpack and got to work, tending to the nodes of the Red Hook mesh, an ambitious plan to link up a local wireless digital network across the neighborhood.

With the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway just ahead and the Lower Manhattan skyline in the distance, Mr. Smith worked on keeping the digital conversation going. He was examining two devices on the roof while wirelessly conversing with a minicomputer a few hundred feet away on the roof of a school that had a high-speed Internet connection.

Though these white boxes, spread across various rooftops in Red Hook, may appear haphazard, or guerrilla even, the Red Hook mesh is actually in the vanguard of wireless networking. Unlike the Internet available at work or at home, which typically arrives through a wire and follows a carefully plotted path from Internet provider to user, a mesh network is improvised — and remarkably resilient.

A change is as good as a rest, especially for a Time Lord. As Peter Capaldi’s 12th Doctor—or, as he really ought to be called from now on, the Doctor—observes toward the end of his debut outing, “I’m the Doctor, I’ve lived for over 2,000 years, and not all of them were good; I’ve made many mistakes, and it’s about time I did something about that.” So much of the substance of “Deep Breath” deals with identifying and explaining the nature of the Doctor’s mistakes, particularly in his treatment of his companion Clara. In these lines, it’s not hard to hear Steven Moffat acknowledging his own missteps in the show’s handling of the character. On an episode-by-episode basis, there is plenty to like about Doctor Who’s 2013 output, but the 11th Doctor and Clara’s time together was ...

I do not officially have a bucket list¹ but if I did have one, watching a total solar eclipse would be on it. Was just talking about it the other day in fact. Well. I am pretty damn excited for the Great American Eclipse of 2017!

In August 21, 2017, millions of people across the United States will see nature's most wondrous spectacle -- a total eclipse of the Sun. It is a scene of unimaginable beauty; the Moon completely blocks the Sun, daytime becomes a deep twilight, and the Sun's corona shimmers in the darkened sky. This is your guide to understand, prepare for, and view this rare celestial event.

It goes right through the middle of the country too...almost everyone in the lower 48 is within a day's drive of seeing it. Cities in the path of the totality include Salem, OR, Jackson, WY, Lincoln, NE, St. Louis, MO (nearly), Nashville, TN, and Charleston, SC.

Weather will definitely play a factor in actually seeing the eclipse, so I will be keeping an eye on Eclipser ("Climatology and Maps for the Eclipse Chaser") as the event draws near. Early analysis indicates Oregon as the best chance for clear skies. Matt, I am hereby laying claim to your guest room in three years time. So excited!!

[1] Also on this hypothetical bucket list: dunking a basketball, going to outer space, learning to surf, and two chicks at the same time. ↩

The Chemin de fer de Petite Ceinture (French for “little belt railway”) was a 32 km railway that encirled Paris, connecting all the major railway stations within fortified walls during the Industrial Revolution. In service from 1852 to 1934, the line has now been completely abandoned for 80 years.

Several developers and local officials have recently set their sights on the vast swath of unused land, tunnels, and stations as an opportunity for new development. However, some railway enthusiasts and related organizations want the tracks and stations to be preserved indefinitely as part of the cities’ heritage. Others want to turn areas of de Petite Ceinture into parkways similar to the nearby Promenade plantée, a 4.7 km park built on an elevated train track in 1988 that later inspired New York’s famous High Line.

As part of his project “By the Silent Line,” photographer Pierre Folk has been working since 2011 to photograph the 160-year-old railway’s last remnants before any final decisions are made. He stalks the tracks at all times of the year, often returning to the same locations to document nature’s slow reclamation as rusted tracks and crumbling tunnels are swallowed by trees, vines, and grass. This is just a small selection of Folk’s work, you can see many more photos right here.

gifsploitation:

Death Wish 3 (1985)

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He probably has health insurance.USA Today/Anthony Gruppuso

The San Francisco Giants took on the Chicago Cubs on Tuesday in a game that was stopped due to heavy rain. The ground crew struggled to get the tarp on properly to protect the field—leading to Wrigley Field fans booing the crew and chanting “Pull, pull, pull!”

The game was called after a four-hour delay, and the Cubs won 2-0. Except that the Giants appealed the decision to Major League Baseball and won, the first time a protest has been upheld in 28 years. The Cubs failed “to properly wrap and spool the tarp after its last use,” MLB said. But it turns out there might have been another reason that the Cubs’ ground crew didn’t have a night to remember.

The 15-member crew was “undermanned” for the job of spreading the tarp, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, due to an ongoing staffing shortfall designed to get around Obamacare requirements. Last winter, the Cubs reorganized its game-day staffing schedule to keep the seasonal workers under 130 hours per month, the newspaper reports. That is the amount of time necessary for a full-time worker to qualify for employer-provided healthcare benefits for businesses over 50 employees under the Affordable Care Act, or the employer must take a tax hit called the Employer Shared Responsibility Payment. Sources told the newspaper that 10 crew members “were sent home early by the bosses Tuesday night with little, if any, input from the field-level supervisors,” which the baseball team doesn’t dispute, but it said there was no reduction in ground-crew staffing budgets.

Other, less wealthy, teams told the Sun-Times that they did not make any changes to their staffing due to the Affordable Care Act. “Embarrassing, and they got caught,” one official at another team said. Another called the move “cheap.”

Luckily for the Cubs, it didn’t matter in the end. They still won the suspended game on Thursday, 2-1.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Takeshi no Chousenjou (Taito - Famicom - 1986) 

legendsoflocalization:

WTF are grilled Mormons doing in Takeshi’s Challenge???

Here’s the deal: http://legendsoflocalization.com/what-are-grilled-mormons-doing-in-takeshis-challenge/

“Who is this old man and WHERE IS MY DOCTOR!?” It’s what I’m imaging many Matt Smith fans saying for most of the Doctor Who Season 8 premiere but I hope they stayed through to the end because Peter Capaldi is making magic happen.

[Our recaps always includes SPOILERS. Read on at your own risk.]

I’ll start off by admitting I had extremely low expectations for the premiere. Mostly because, excluding the 50th anniversary episode, the second half of Season 7 left me feeling disillusioned with one of my favorite television shows. I wanted this to be good, but I wasn’t getting my hopes up. Whether that affected my enjoyment, I can’t be sure, but “Deep Breath” was in fact a much needed breath of fresh air for the sci-fi series.

We’re back in Victorian London once again, a venue I dare say we should put a giant red X over from here on out, but there’s something different this time. Namely, a tyrannosaurus rex. Not the first time our Doctor has run into one, and of course he can speak their language, but we don’t get into any of that until the mighty rex vomits the TARDIS up. Quite the visual. Madame Vastra, Jenny, and Strax are already on the case and in usual form when Jenna Coleman’s Clara and the “fresh” faced Doctor stumble out of the TARDIS.  Not surprisingly, the Doctor is quite disoriented about his current predicament and very confused about who he even is. On the other hand, Clara is also scared and confused. The one big disconnect for me in the episode is this – while I don’t believe we know if Clara has ever witnessed a regeneration first-hand, she knows it’s a thing that happens and has been involved in every one of the Doctor’s lives.

It’s a small thing but it takes up a good portion of Clara’s reluctance and distrust of the Doctor throughout the episode. Much like the Doctor’s befuddled state. It’s almost uncomfortable to watch as Capaldi plays a seemingly senile man who frightens those around him instead of instilling his usual confidence. The group of friends put him to bed and go about explaining how our current dinosaur predicament might connect to recent murders around London. Specifically murders in which the victims seemingly spontaneously combust. We, as viewers know a clockwork fiend is at large but we can’t be sure if they’re connected just yet.

Meanwhile, Vastra gives Clara a hard time for her reaction to the Doctor. In a rather tense conversation she’s accused of having a school-girl crush on him and admonished for forgetting the man with the young face is actually very old. “You might as well flirt with a mountain range,” says Vastra, and indeed, the Doctor himself exclaims to her later, “I’m not your boyfriend.” Perhaps this is more to shock viewers into realizing the Doctor has not always been an object of desire (your mileage may vary of course :) ) and won’t be this season (Rebecca is going to give me the evil eye over this, I just know it). This is also where we find out Clara’s idea of a sexy fella is Marcus Aurelius.

Moving on, Clara gets dressed up like the Victorian governess version of herself and the Doctor makes a run for it out of a second story window after seeing the poor T. rex go up in flames. Vastra is convinced the Doctor will work it all out on his own and tells Clara she’d be of more help solving the murders. The Doctor, however, is running around in a nightgown, still wondering who he is. He winds up in an alley admiring his face but also wondering “Why did I choose this face?” harkening back to Capaldi’s “The Fires of Pompeii” appearance as some sort of vague warning to himself. But there’s also the lighter, “Who frowned me this face?” and jollies with another alley occupant about his Scottish accent.

Eventually, Clara remembers she’s the Companion and can absolutely figure out things on her own and discovers a message she believes is from the Doctor in the newspaper. “Impossible Girl” it reads, with another hint to find the meeting location on the back of the page. She and the Doctor wind up at the same location, a restaurant, and after a slow burn throughout the episode, we finally begin to see what this Doctor/Companion pairing will be like. The two have a “normal” conversation and seem to be “making up” until Clara realizes the Doctor was being well, the Doctor, and actually calling out what he feels are her faults, not his own. I’d like to give more thought on this exchange after a second viewing but for now let’s move on to OMG THE ENTIRE RESTAURANT IS FULL OF SCARY CLOCKWORK PEOPLE!

Yes, the end game is revealed, the combustion deaths are really to cover up for clockwork robots stealing pieces of people in order to look more human. “There’s something very familiar about all this,” says Biff Tannen.

The restaurant is a front for human collection and Clara and the Doctor are swiftly taken down what I would assume is the Victorian version of Batman’s bat-pole and into the inner sanctum of robot charging stations (actually the remnants of their ship). They’re all asleep so the Doctor quickly falls back into detective mode, trying to figure out exactly what’s going on here and why. But when they start to wake up and it’s time to run, the Doctor leaves Clara behind to save himself. We know the Doctor wouldn’t really do that, but after how he’s been acting the rest of the episode there’s a moment where I thought, “maybe he really did.” So does Clara, of course, but she can’t worry for long as she has to save herself by outsmarting the clockwork creatures. She realizes they aren’t so smart and decides holding her breath will make them think she’s actually one of them. It works. Until she absolutely can’t stand it anymore and must suck in air. It’s a tense and crushing moment for the hero you thought was going to get away from the villain. But really, all that’s needed is just a bit more stalling (aka talking the lead clockwork robot in circles) until the Doctor (and Vastra, Jenny, and Strax) arrive. She had faith he would.

The ragtag team attempt to fight their way out but realize it’s fruitless and attempt the not-breathing thing again. Only Jenny can’t hold out and Vastra, being the Silurian she is, has extra air to spare in her lungs and gives some to Jenny…with her mouth. Yes, this was the rumored kiss we’d heard about and is absolutely a cheat. However, it’s absolutely shot for viewers to find it sexually arousing. So, that’s kind of messed up. I know I’d absolutely prefer they’d let the married women kiss like married people do.

Moving on, the Doctor is removed from the equation for a one-on-one with the head clockwork robot. We learn this particular robot has an odd sense of religion, constantly talking about how they’re trying to get back to the “promised land.” The Doctor quickly dismisses this as superstition while continuing to unravel the mystery even though they HAVE MADE A HOT AIR BALLOON OUT OF HUMAN SKIN. Turns out, the original ship the clockwork robots were on was called the SS Marie Antoinette…the sister ship to the SS Madame de Pompadour, the center of Steven Moffat’s fan-favorite episode, “The Girl in the Fireplace.” Yes, while they may not be shiny and new (they have been hanging around for a while, after all), these are the same clockwork repair droids we’ve seen before, with the same fault in their programming. The Doctor shares some deep thoughts with the villain about identity and our denouement involves going against our programming. Will the Doctor go against his and “kill” the creature or will the robot go against his and “self-destruct.” We’re left to wonder as the clockwork man falls to his death from above London.

To wrap things up, confuse us, and start us off on our mystery of the season, we learn for certain neither the Doctor nor Clara put the mysterious advertisement in the paper and see the clockwork man “alive” and well again in a beautiful garden. It’s the “promise land” of course, says a mystery woman named Missy. But she’s very familiar with the Doctor it seems, calling him her boyfriend and claiming he loves her. I’m pretty sure this won’t wind up being River Song but also quite worried about the terrible trope she might fall under. But the indication is she’s the same woman from “The Bells of Saint John” who connected Clara with the Doctor in the first place.

But we’re not done yet! The Doctor and Clara return to current time with Clara still a bit disillusioned about this new face of his. Luckily she gets a well-timed phone call from “her” Doctor. Yes, Matt Smith shows up one last (?) time as the 11th Doctor to reassure Clara. I stand by my thought that she shouldn’t need reassuring but let’s face it, this is more for the fans than anyone else and it’s a cute scene.

So yeah, I think it’s safe to say I really enjoyed this episode. As I mentioned earlier, my low expectations may have played a part but regardless, I was just thrilled to get pure enjoyment from Doctor Who again. The episode had lots of humor, lots of drama, and I was also legitimately scared for the first time in a while. I still have to do some thinking on the presentation of Vastra and Jenny’s relationship here (it could certainly do with some fleshing out rather than quick quips about flirting with other people) and there were some “interesting” religious themes in the episode which might raise a few eyebrows (the cross impalement chief among them) but overall I’d call the episode a success in introducing our new Doctor. Harkening back to “The Girl in the Fireplace” could have turned out hokey or ruined the original outing but it fits well here and doesn’t feel obtrusive. I feel like the arc of this episode will have the new-Doctor adjustment period lasting shorter than usual but we shall see. All I can say now is, keep up the good work.

What did you think of the episode? The new intro? And of course, the new Doctor?

Previously in Doctor Who

• Peter Capaldi Reveals His Deep Passion (Read: Fanboy Nature) For Doctor Who And Its Villains
• New Doctor Who Fashions From Her Universe, Including a 9th Doctor Dress!
• Steven Moffat Discusses the Good and the Bad of Online Fandom on the Doctor Who World Tour

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