When Mika Brzezinski was tasked with reporting on the chlorine attack at a Chicago furry convention this weekend, the confusion in her voice became palpable. "Did I get that wrong?" she asks, stumbling over the words "furry convention." No, Mika. No, you did not. While their co-host tries to continue reporting on ... More »
Annnnd here's the source of the response and counter-response pieces we'll be reading for the next week.
Drew Sterrett couldn’t know that when his friend slipped into his bottom bunk late one night in March of his freshman year, she was setting off a series of events that would end his college education. It was 2012, and Sterrett was an engineering student at the University of Michigan. The young woman, CB, lived down the hall. A group of students had been hanging out in the dorm on a Friday evening—there was drinking, but no one was incapacitated—when CB told Sterrett that her roommate had family members staying in their room and she needed a place to spend the night. Sterrett loaned her a shirt to sleep in and assumed she’d crash on the mat he and his roommate kept for visitors. Instead, CB came and lay down next to him on his bed. The two had made out in the past but had no serious romantic interest in each other.
Researchers have uncovered an extremely stealthy trojan for Linux systems that attackers have been using to siphon sensitive data from governments and pharmaceutical companies around the world.
The previously undiscovered malware represents a missing puzzle piece tied to "Turla," a so-called advanced persistent threat (APT) disclosed in August by Kaspersky Lab and Symantec. For at least four years, the campaign targeted government institutions, embassies, military, education, research, and pharmaceutical companies in more than 45 countries. The unknown attackers—who are probably backed by a nation-state, according to Symantec—were known to have infected several hundred Windows-based computers by exploiting a variety of vulnerabilities, at least two of which were zero-day bugs. The malware was notable for its use of a rootkit that made it extremely hard to detect.
Now researchers from Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab have detected Linux-based malware used in the same campaign. Turla was already ranked as one of the top-tier APTs, in the same league as the recently disclosed Regin for instance. The discovery of the Linux component suggests it is bigger than previously thought and may presage the discovery of still more infected systems.
A song about how naive we used to be. It's time to learn more about The Little Mermaid, The Land Before Time, Peter Pan, James and the Giant Peach, Alice in Wonderland, The Giving Tree, E.T., Milo and Otis, and Ferris Bueller. You can't go back.
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No one who gets a postgraduate degree in Hobbit Studies ever imagines they’ll be sued by the Estate of J.R.R. Tolkien. I certainly didn’t expect to wind up in court against Christopher Tolkien and his lawyers, like Frodo Baggins facing down the Nazgûl on Weathertop. Little did I know I was heading into a legal and scholarly Midgewater when I wrote and published The Lord of the Rings: A New English Translation.
As anyone who’s read the appendices to The Lord of the Rings knows, both it and The Hobbit are Tolkien’s translations from the so-called “Red Book of Westmarch,” an ancient manuscript written in Late Vulgar Adûni. How Tolkien came to possess the Red Book is a mystery, and the Tolkien Estate has never allowed other scholars access to it.
Tolkien’s original translation is justly famous and beloved. He treeherds an unwieldy ancient text into lyrical modern English and captures the vast scope and romance of the epic.
It is also deeply flawed.
Tolkien refers to Quendi people as “elves,” a common term in his time, but considered highly offensive today. And while Tolkien was a great scholar of the Quenya and Sindarin languages, his command of Late Vulgar Adûni was rudimentary at best, and his translation of the Red Book suffers for it.
In the most infamous instance, Tolkien botched The Hobbit’s “Riddles in the Dark” chapter in the first edition. He was so confused by the text’s use of pronomial prefixes in the subjunctive that he has Gollum leading Bilbo to safety in the goblin caves, rather than pursuing him with murderous malice. Tolkien corrected this blunder in later editions, but the damage was done. Similarly, he describes there being nine Nazgûl, when in fact there were only three.
Because Tolkien’s Estate didn’t let anyone else so much as peek at the Red Book, his TheLord of the Rings remained the only available version for half a century. Nobody even attempted a new translation until me.
When I entered the Hobbit Studies program at the University of Chicago in 2003, I wasn’t planning to write my own translation. Like most of my peers, I was content to lead a quiet scholarly life, writing my dissertation on Adûni phonology and having friendly debates over second brunch about whether or not Balrogs have wings (they don't). The best I really hoped for professionally were a few publication credits and a full-time lecturer job at a small Franciscan college.
The prestigious scientific journal Nature is making its articles free to share and read online, a move that brings us one step closer to open access. The articles, dating all the way back to 1869, will be provided to subscribers and some media outlets in a format that can be read and annotated, but not copied, printed or downloaded.
by Casey Chan on Sploid, shared by Casey Chan to Gizmodo
I drink bourbon because it's good for you. And because it's delicious. And because it has alcohol. And because it's lovingly made by people who love bourbon just as much as me. Gear Patrol took a tour of 12 bourbon distilleries in 5 days to show how the best bourbon makers make their bourbon.
Ignoring the fact that this is a book about government sanctioned child murder whose primary love triangle protagonists are all technically underage teens —heck, Lionsgate does it so why can’t we?—the Humper Games seems like your pretty standard “let’s put porn in that thing you like” story. Here’s the official synopsis, courtesy of WoodRocket:
Welcome to The Humper Games, the sexiest competition of any dystopian future! As an 18 Year old Tribute, Kantmiss Everyween, must take her place in the 69th annual Humper Games. With the help of her friend, Puta, she must do everything in her power to survive a life-or-death contest filled with fighting, sex, talk show appearances, cat-calling, waiting for the next episode of Serial, getting her dystopian future iCloud account hacked, and hanging out with Lenny Kravitz.
Personally I’m not a fan of the name they’ve chosen for their Katniss stand-in (though excellent job on Puta, that’s a brilliant one right there), and the mention of certain current events topics—the iCloud hacking, Serial, etc.—concern me. WoodRocket, you have a certain standard to uphold. We don’t want you cribbing dumb joke ideas from The Starving Games, here. Especially not when “Kat-tits” was right there for you.
The 30-minute parody is already available on the WoodRocket website if you are so included, but if the site ever decides to follow through and make a bunch of sequels (which, according to the press release, would be called Catching Firecrotch and Cockingspray Part 1 & Part 2), we have some suggestions of what we would like to see for next time:
A shot-for-shot remake of the foodplay scene from 9 1/2 Weeks, but with bread.
A feverish hatesex scene between Hamish Abernathy and Effie Trinket, of course.
The words “That is mahogany!” must be uttered at some point, preferably in reference to a buttplug.
Someone has to finger someone else with the District 12 salute.
A scene where Gale Hawthorne (Cockthorne) gets whipped by Peacekeepers (Peniskeepers) in front of of the entire district, except it’s okay because he’s actually super into it.
A Cornucopia scene where everybody races each other for the best sex toys.
As is the custom in so much amateur porn, Buttercup the cat must be indifferently watching during a sex scene. (warning, that link’s NSFW)
Seneca Crane’s pubes have to be magnificently sculpted or else what’s the point?
At the end, the words “In loving memory of Philip Seymour Hoffman” should fill the screen. No sex gimmick there. We all just miss him a lot.
Japanese robotics fighting contest where the makers have no technical skills and the robots have to be as crappy as possible - video embedded below:
Hebocon is a robot sumo-wrestling tournament for those who don’t have the technical skills to actually make robots. 31 pseudo-robots that don’t even move properly came together to go head to head. The robots in this tournament are nothing like what their builders initially imagined them to be, robots are forgotten on the train, the strategies made with careful planning only result in failure, and the entrants who enter the ring brag about their robot’s secret moves that don’t really exist. This is the heated battle between crappy, but lovable robots.
Frank Rich: What would you do in Ferguson that a standard reporter wouldn’t?
Chris Rock: I’d do a special on race, but I’d have no black people.
Frank Rich: Well, that would be much more revealing.
Chris Rock: Yes, that would be an event. Here’s the thing. When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it’s all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they’re not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before.
Frank Rich: Right. It’s ridiculous.
Chris Rock: So, to say Obama is progress is saying that he’s the first black person that is qualified to be president. That’s not black progress. That’s white progress. There’s been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years. If you saw Tina Turner and Ike having a lovely breakfast over there, would you say their relationship’s improved? Some people would. But a smart person would go, “Oh, he stopped punching her in the face.” It’s not up to her. Ike and Tina Turner’s relationship has nothing to do with Tina Turner. Nothing. It just doesn’t. The question is, you know, my kids are smart, educated, beautiful, polite children. There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Let’s hope America keeps producing nicer white people.
Frank Rich: It’s about white people adjusting to a new reality?
ChrisRock:Owning their actions. Not even their actions. The actions of your dad. Yeah, it’s unfair that you can get judged by something you didn’t do, but it’s also unfair that you can inherit money that you didn’t work for.
Frank Rich: Would you seek out someone to interview who might not normally be sought out?
Chris Rock: I would get you to interview somebody, and I would put something in your ear, and I’d ask the questions through you.
Frank Rich: You’d have a white guy.
Chris Rock: And I would ask them questions that you would never come up with, and we’d have the most amazing interviews ever.
Frank Rich: And we’d be asking white people and black people?
Chris Rock: Just white people. We know how black people feel about Ferguson — outraged, upset, cheated by the system, all these things.
Frank Rich: So you think people can be lulled into saying the outrageous shit they really feel?
Chris Rock: Michael Moore has no problem getting it. Because he looks like them. But the problem is the press accepts racism. It has never dug into it.
Frank Rich: When Obama was running for president, a certain kind of white person would routinely tell reporters, “He’s just not one of us.” Few reporters want to push that person to the wall and say, “What do you mean he’s not like you, unless you’re talking about the fact that he’s African-American?” Where else besides Ferguson would you hypothetically want to interview white people?
Chris Rock: I’d love to do some liberal places, because you can be in the most liberal places and there’s no black people.
Frank Rich: I assume one such place is Hollywood.
Chris Rock: I don’t think I’ve had any meetings with black film execs. Maybe one. It is what it is. As I told Bill Murray, Lost in Translation is a black movie: That’s what it feels like to be black and rich. Not in the sense that people are being mean to you. Bill Murray’s in Tokyo, and it’s just weird. He seems kind of isolated. He’s always around Japanese people. Look at me right now.
Frank Rich: We’re sitting on the 35th floor of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel overlooking Central Park.
Chris Rock: And there’s only really one black person here who’s not working. Bill Murray in Lost in Translation is what Bryant Gumbel experiences every day. Or Al Roker. Rich black guys. It’s a little off.
But the thing is, we treat racism in this country like it’s a style that America went through. Like flared legs and lava lamps. Oh, that crazy thing we did. We were hanging black people. We treat it like a fad instead of a disease that eradicates millions of people. You’ve got to get it at a lab, and study it, and see its origins, and see what it’s immune to and what breaks it down.
The Very Hungry Rust Monster is a mini-comic I made a few years back. I’ve seen it floating around Tumblr without attribution recently, so I’ve uploaded a higher-resolution version, properly credited.
Micro-drones are typically thought of as more of a toy rather than a tool. If you want to capture real recreational aerial footage, you buy a bigger, heftier drone, right? Well, not necessarily. ZANO wants to change all that by packing both power and ease of use into a tiny package that measures just 2.5 x 2.5-inches and weighs just over 1.2lbs.
Created by Torquing Group Ltd — a company that has spent years creating micro-drones for military use — the ZANO is being called, “the world’s most sophisticated nano drone.”
ZANO wants to be the best of all drone worlds. Easily piloted with an iOS/Android app that anybody could use, autonomous when you want it to be, able to avoid obstacles, featuring decent video and photo features, and even optically stabilized.
The uses, as you can see, are vast. You can set it to follow you (it will avoid obstacles along the way), tell it to sit in one spot, have it take your group picture from a distance, control it using your smartphone’s motion sensors and more.
ZANO connects to your smartphone using on-board WiFi, and anything captured will be zapped over to your phone automatically over the airwaves.
This is what the app’s GUI will supposedly look like:
The camera on board can capture 5MP images and tops out at 720p video because of bandwidth restrictions, but that number might go up to 1080p at 60fps in a future update. The battery will let you fly the little guy for 10-15 minutes at a time between recharging.
Here’s some more footage of the current prototype in action. The prototype can already hold position, avoid obstacles, capture images and video, and beam them back to the smartphone.
The Kickstarter, which only launched a few days ago, has already raised and impressive £183,475 (approximately $287,000 USD), and is well past its funding goal.
To find out more about the drone, or pick up a ZANO for yourself, head over to the Kickstarter campaign. ZANO is set to go into beta in March 2015 and ship in May 2015 assuming everything goes to plan, and you can reserve your own for a very reasonable £140 (approximately $220 USD) if you snag the super early bird special.
After that, be prepared to drop £150 (~$235 USD) for the early bird deal, or £190 (~$297 USD) once all the early bird slots are gone.
Asia Carrera aka Asia Lemmon aka Jessica Steinhauser is the 4th person in the United States to be permitted to exercise her religious freedom and don the cap of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster for her driver’s license photo.
In Endogenous adenosine A3 receptor activation selectively alleviates persistent pain states, a paper in Brain by researchers led from the St Louis University Medical School, scientists document their work in switching off neural pain pathways by activating an adenosine receptor.
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