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Public Enemy's own Chuck D, who has a BFA in graphic design from Adelphi University on Long Island. He talks to Juxtapoz magazine about it in this interview.
Last year's crash of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo was caused by a premature repositioning of the vehicle's tail wings, an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board found.
"re-worked to allow for ground-based running back in 2005 at a college in Vermont"
#twomugglesinvermont
Invented, along with a young, lightning-scarred wizard, in an Edinburgh café, Quidditch might seem quintessentially British. It’s played on broomsticks. It’s a tad rough, but sportsmanlike. It has a 170-page rulebook.
But the British, it seems, are doomed to fall at the final hurdle in all the sports they’ve created. This time, the defeat may be even more painful: France snatched the victory from the Brits in the final of the very first European Quidditch Games. (Not to be confused with the European Quidditch Cup, which took place in April).
Played amongst the olive groves and hills of Tuscany in Italy, the game has shed some of the grimmer aspects lent to it by its origins as a dank boarding-school sport for wizards. But the competitive spirit was strong. Twelve teams battled over the course of the games. In the last head-to-head, the French keeper broke a shoulder and left the pitch in an ambulance. But his team won the day.
Quidditch was originally conceived of as an airborne game for the Harry Potter series of books by British author JK Rowling, but was re-worked to allow for ground-based running back in 2005 at a college in Vermont. Each player holds a “broomstick” between his or her legs. There are five balls in total: a quaffle, three bludgers, and the “snitch,” which is attached to one of the players’ shorts and must be snatched during the action.
France, which won the final 90-50, will now have its sights set on the Quidditch Global Games, organized by the International Quidditch Association for muggles the world over.
The good news is that Chipotle’s guacamole is going to be fine. The bad news is you might not want to eat any Mexican cilantro for a while.
The US Food and Drug Administration is detaining cilantro from the Mexican state of Puebla through the end of August, Bloomberg reports, because of “objectionable conditions” found at farms and packing houses. Those conditions range from a lack of soap in the bathrooms to “human feces and toilet paper found in growing fields and around facilities.”
The FDA and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have linked Pueblan cilantro with outbreaks of cyclosporiasis dating back to 2012. The disease is caused by a parasite that induces “prolonged and severe diarrheal illness.” The illness is most often found in the tropics and subtropics, and is not common in the US.
The FDA believes the fresh cilantro was most likely contaminated with the parasite through its contact with “growing fields, harvesting, processing or packing activities” or through contaminated irrigation, crop protectants or waste waters in Puebla.
Chipotle and Taco Bell both told Bloomberg that they get their cilantro from California, so fast food fans can breathe easy.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest said the case highlights the need for farmworkers to “have the kind of adequate toilet, handwashing, and sanitation facilities that will prevent the appalling conditions FDA found in Puebla.”
A neighborhood in the Mexican city of Pachuca has become the a giant colorful canvas for a collective of urban artists.
More than 200 houses in the hilly neighborhood of Palmitas, one of the most depressed areas of the capital city of Hidalgo, located in the center of the country, have abandoned their worn down, gray facades for a kaleidoscope of bright colors. The mural, located roughly 100 miles outside Mexico City, encompasses roughly 20,000 meters (roughly 215,000 square feet), and has recast the homes of more than 450 families, according to artnet News.
The goal of the project, a partnership between Mexico City-based art group Germen Nuevo Muralismo Mexicano and the local government, is to use art to prevent crime in the neighborhood, involving the community in the production of the murals and creating an attraction that draws more visitors.
Over the course of six months, the artists, known for their street art and graffiti, have been covering the concrete surface of the buildings with colors that reflect the personality of local residents and add a new dimension, Enrique Gómez, one of the members of the art group, tells Quartz.
“The neighborhood is not the same as when we arrived,” Gomez says. “Now you can breathe colors everywhere.”
The second phase of the project, which began more recently, will cover the walls of the neighborhood’s steep streets with figurative murals that allude to the inner history of the neighborhood. That history is being derived from conversations between residents and the artists during their months of work together.
A very large number of scientific and technological luminaries have signed an open letter calling for the world's governments to ban the development of "offensive autonomous weapons" to prevent a "military AI arms race."
The letter, which will be presented at the International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) in Buenos Aires tomorrow, is signed by Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Noam Chomsky, the Woz, and dozens of other AI and robotics researchers.
For the most part, the letter is concerned with dumb robots and vehicles being turned into smart autonomous weapons. Cruise missiles and remotely piloted drones are okay, according to the letter, because "humans make all targeting decisions." The development of fully autonomous weapons that can fight and kill without human intervention should be nipped in the bud, however.
The Amiga 500: It's an Amiga. It's a Commodore. It's the bleeding edge of 1987.
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Last week marked the 30th anniversary of Amiga, the PC line from Commodore that tried to fight the growing IBM PC hegemony in the spirit of the Commodore 64. And despite being unaware of the Amiga's birthday, I somehow managed to recently publish two brief tours of landmark computers from the 1980s: the Apple II Plus, which I had rescued from my parents' attic, and the TRS-80 Model 100, which I won on eBay with a bid of $35. This sparked an e-mail from Ars reader Dave Hough, and the subject line said it all: "would you like another old computer - amiga 500."
Dave was clearing things out and wanted to find a good home for his Amiga 500—the computer upon which his kids first learned to program. Who was I to say no?
This past Saturday, I met up with Dave and picked up a box filled with not just the 500, but a host of attachments and accessories—everything but the monitor. Fortunately, there was an RGB to composite video adapter in the box as well, so I didn't have to go on a great search for RGB-to-VGA converters. The box even included something more valuable: a SupraDrive hard drive.
doit is a modern open-source build-tool written in python designed to be simple to use and flexible to deal with complex work-flows. It is specially suitable for building and managing custom work-flows where there is no out-of-the-box solution available.
doit has been successfully used on: systems test/integration automation, scientific computational pipelines, content generation, configuration management, etc.
" 1. A device consisting of cords or threads of different colours arranged and knotted in various ways, used originally by the Incas of Peru and the surrounding areas for recording events, keeping accounts, sending messages, etc."
somehow not already a startup name
OED Word of the Day: quipu, n. A device used originally by the Incas to record events, etc.
why would they? why would any judge ever involuntarily commit a 50-year-old white dude with a law degree? are you a fucking insane drifter or something
Officials in Georgia clarified Monday that John "Rusty" Houser was never involuntarily committed in 2008 despite previous reports — a distinction that would have prevented him from buying the gun he used in the rampage.
According to the petition for a personal protection order, Houser's family says that on April 22, 2008, it petitioned a judge to involuntarily commit Houser because "he was a danger to himself and others."
On that same day, court documents show, Carroll County Judge Betty Cason did issue an order — but it wasn't an order to involuntarily commit.
Instead, it was one step below that: An "order to apprehend." That order would have allowed Houser to be evaluated by doctors for up to five days, plus another three days of observation, according to Probate Judge Marc E. D'Antonio, who was the chief clerk at the time in Muscogee County, where the hospital Houser was taken to is located.
It would have been up to the hospital to petition D'Antonio once evaluation period was up, unless the patient was willing to stay voluntarily.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation says no follow-up petition to involuntarily commit Houser was ever filed — and no judge ever signed one.
That's why the situation never rose to the level where it was required to be reported to the FBI's database, which would have later prevented Houser from buying a gun.
D'Antonio told NBC News that if Houser had been ruled in need of involuntary treatment, he would have reported that to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, who would then send it to the FBI.
"That never happened," he said.
Investigators with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have told NBC News that the gun Houser used in the shooting was purchased legally last year in Alabama. (Permalink)
In The Word for World Is Forest, Le Guin’s oppressed Athsheans, normally as even-keeled as the attendees of a holistic healing convention, fight back against the human colonists when it becomes clear that their very survival is at stake. Le Guin—who, despite her intellectual pugnacity, is gracious and jovial in person—sees herself in much the same terms.
“You could put it that I’m spoiling for a fight,” she told me. “But on the other hand I’m kind of tired. Turning it into a fight is not my natural wish. But if I’m pushed, I will push back. And I’ve been pushed quite a lot.”
The protest was part of a demonstration by the National Convening of the Movement for Black Lives, which met at Cleveland State University for a weekend conference on police brutality. Protests turned nasty, however, after the city’s Regional Transit Authority reportedly detained a 14-year-old for a seemingly minor reason.
via saucie: "all new startups are about rich white male convenience beat"
Sometimes a five-minute coffee run can turn into a frustrating half-hour wait, depending on how many caffeine cravers are in line ahead of you. But what if you could know how crowded a place is before heading out for a latte, or a trip to the DMV, or even waiting in a hideously massive line at Trader Joe’s? That’s the concept behind Density, a new device that detects foot traffic in real time.
Here’s how it works: Businesses place Density—which comes in the form of a tiny black box, below—on their door frame, somewhere around hip height. Using infrared distance sensors, Density detects when someone has entered or exited the building. The device counts the number of customers who pass through each day, or even how many patrons are inside at a given moment. (A guest’s identity is entirely anonymous, and Density cannot capture any information about him.)
Anyone looking to gauge the crowd at a local establishment can receive notifications for free by downloading the Density app.
Tracking becomes a bit trickier when there is a line out the door or a set of double doors, but for the most part Density is reliably accurate. Although the company doesn’t have an official accuracy count, CEO Andrew Farah tells CityLab, “in some [test] environments, we’re at 98 percent.”
One catch is that the device cannot be obtained through the company directly, but instead must be purchased via location services or point of sale systems. Density licenses its data to startup companies for $25 per month (or, in some cases, per installation), and these companies then distribute their sensors to merchants at no cost (hardware and installation are free).
A handful of companies are devising ways to use it to boost sales during lagging periods. A startup called Requested in Sacramento, CA is using Density to offer discounted rates at local restaurants. Whenever Density detects slow foot traffic at a restaurant, Requested users will automatically receive a discount.
Since the service’s technical launch two weeks ago, Density is “under water with requests,” says Farah. The company has already received inquiries from startups, malls, major retailers, and Fortune 500 companies. Requests have also come in from more surprising sources, such as churches using the device to tally their congregations, or a company that runs homeless shelters.
Moving forward, Density has plans for pilot deployments in Austin, L.A., and New York City by the end of summer. They also hope to expand their business to location apps in order to determine what bars or nightclubs might be trending on a given night.
The Boy Scouts of America on Monday ended its nationwide ban on openly gay adult leaders. But despite a compromise allowing conservative church-sponsored units to pick their own volunteer leaders, the Mormon Church, the country’s largest sponsor of Scout units, said it might leave the organization.
“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is deeply troubled by today’s vote by the Boy Scouts of America National Executive Board,” said a statement issued by the Mormon Church moments after the Scouts announced the new policy.
“In spite of a request to delay the vote, it was scheduled at a time in July when members of the church’s governing councils are out of their offices and do not meet,” the statement said. “When the leadership of the church resumes its regular schedule of meetings in August, the century-long association with scouting will need to be examined.”
Mormons use the Boy Scouts as their main nonreligious activity for boys, and the Cub Scout and Boy Scout units they sponsor accounted for 17 percent of all youths in scouting in 2013, the last year for which data have been published. The negative reaction to Monday’s vote took many Boy Scout leaders by surprise; it had been widely assumed that the exemption for religious sponsors would keep them in the fold.
“The church has always welcomed all boys to its scouting units regardless of sexual orientation,” the statement by the church headquarters continued. “However, the admission of openly gay leaders is inconsistent with the doctrines of the church and what have traditionally been the values of the Boy Scouts of America.”
Under the Boy Scout policy adopted Monday, discrimination based on sexual orientation will also be barred in all Boy Scout offices and for all paid jobs — a step that could head off looming lawsuits in New York, Colorado and other states that prohibit such discrimination in employment.
One legal threat was immediately averted. In response to the change, the New York State attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, announced on Monday that his office was ending its investigation of the Scouts for violating state anti-discrimination laws. (Permalink)
Super Opinionated.