Merijn

The other day I posted the news that the low railroad bridge that’s famous for ripping off the tops of trucks is finally going to be raised by eight inches, bringing an end to the internet’s viral fun. A reader alerted me to this interesting short documentary about the bridge:

The film features interviews with the man who has been recording all the bridge collisions since 2008, a state engineer who worked on a solution to the problem (a sensor to detect tall vehicles and trigger a stoplight and an “OVERHEIGHT MUST TURN” LED sign), and researchers at a behavioral research lab about how drivers plow into the bridge despite several layers of warning signs and (presumably) the knowledge of the height of their vehicle. (via @ShawnWildermuth)

Tags: video

Yet another potential use for CRISPR, although the gene editing technology is usually considered for macroscopic tasks, like editing mosquitoes, tomatoes, CO2-eating “ideal plants”, or even human babies, new research aims to deploy it against bacteria and viruses. An alarming number of bacteria are now resistant to one or more antibiotics, so this new line of inquiry would certainly be welcomed if it proves effective.

In their recent study, Dr. Edgell and his colleagues successfully used a Crispr-associated enzyme called Cas9 to eliminate a species of Salmonella. By programming the Cas9 to view the bacterium itself as the enemy, Dr. Edgell and his colleagues were able to force Salmonella to make lethal cuts to its own genome.

As we discover more of the benefits of our microbiota, it would also be interesting to have a solution to bacterial infections which doesn’t create problems for our “good bacteria.”

Conventional antibiotics do not distinguish between good and bad bacteria, eradicating everything indiscriminately and occasionally creating problems for people with weakened immune systems.

There’s still a long way to go though.

Now researchers face the challenge of demonstrating that Crispr antibacterial and antiviral drugs are effective in living animals and in humans, not just in the lab, and that they will be cheaper than conventional therapies, Dr. Barrangou said.

This is a worthwhile video of impressionist Jim Meskimen reading 'Pity The Poor Impressionist' (a poem he wrote about what it's like being an impressionist) in twenty different celebrity voices as his face transform from one celebrity's to the next thanks to the terrifying power of deepfake technology. If I didn't know any better I'd swear he really did transform into all those people. "Do you know better, GW?" THIS MAN IS A CHAMELEON. Keep going for the video.

HONK!

Boston Dynamics programmed their Atlas robot to do a gymnastics routine.

I lost it when it did that little jump split at about 13 seconds in. That looked seriously human in a deeply unsettling way.

Tags: gymnastics   robots   sports   video

Legendary skater Tony Hawk breaks down 21 increasingly complex skateboarding tricks, from a standard ollie to a kickflip to a McTwist to a 1080 to a couple of tricks that have never been done. As someone who has always been in awe of what skaters can do but hasn’t logged much on-board time myself, I learned a lot from this.

See also a beginning skater learning how to do a kickflip in under 6 hours.

Tags: how to   skateboarding   sports   Tony Hawk   video

(Note: This post contains images of simulated crime scenes.) Frances Glessner Lee is known as “the mother of forensic science” for her role in revolutionizing how crimes were investigated. Starting in the 40s and using her skills in making miniature models that she learned as a young girl, Lee built detailed and intricate crime scene dioramas to help train homicide investigators to properly investigate and canvas a crime scene. From a Smithsonian exhibition of Lee’s work:

At the time, there was very little training for investigators, meaning that they often overlooked or mishandled key evidence, or irrevocably tampered with crime scenes. Few had any medical training that would allow them to determine cause of death. As Lee and her colleagues at Harvard worked to change this, tools were needed to help trainees scientifically approach their search for truth. Lee was a talented artist as well as criminologist, and used the craft of miniature-making that she had learned as a young girl to solve this problem. She constructed the Nutshells beginning in the 1940s to teach investigators to properly canvass a crime scene to effectively uncover and understand evidence. The equivalent to “virtual reality” in their time, her masterfully crafted dioramas feature handmade objects to render scenes with exacting accuracy and meticulous detail.

Every element of the dioramas — from the angle of minuscule bullet holes, the placement of latches on widows, the patterns of blood splatters, and the discoloration of painstakingly painted miniature corpses — challenges trainees’ powers of observation and deduction. The Nutshells are so effective that they are still used in training seminars today at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore.

Here are some images of Lee’s surviving dioramas (found here):

In a video about the Smithsonian exhibition, curator Nora Atkinson explains that it shows how Lee “co-opted traditionally feminine crafts to advance the male-dominated field of police investigation”:

See also this Vox video about Lee’s work, which goes into detail about the evidence at a couple of the crime scenes:

Tags: crime   Frances Glessner Lee   video

YouTuber Lord Vinheteiro recently played the same pair of tunes on six different pianos, ranging from a $499 used upright to a $112,000 Steinway to a $2.5 million Steinway grand piano that’s tacky af. Which one sounds the best?

I’m not sure that you get the full effect and nuance of the super luxe pianos after the audio has passed through YouTube’s audio compression and whatever phone or computer speaker or headphones you’ve got going, but the more expensive pianos sound better than the lower-end ones for sure. I would have appreciated a medley at the end that repeatedly cycled through all six of the recordings to better hear the differences.

Tags: audio   music   video

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frustrating and funny interactive dark patterns

LJ Rich has synesthesia and perfect pitch and wrote about what that feels like for her personally.

Now, I’d like you to imagine you’re chatting with your conversation partner. But instead of speaking and hearing the words alone, each syllable they utter has a note, sometimes more than one. They speak in tunes and I can sing back their melody. Once I know them a little bit, I can play along to their words as they speak them, accompanying them on the piano as if they’re singing an operatic recitative. They drop a glass on the floor, it plays a particular melody as it hits the tiles. I’ll play that melody back — on a piano, on anything. I can accompany that melody with harmony, chords — or perhaps compose a variation on that melody - develop it into a stupendous symphony filled with strings, or play it back in the style of Chopin, Debussy or Bob Marley. That car horn beeps an F major chord, this kettle’s in A flat, some bedside lights get thrown out because they are out of tune with other appliances. I can play along to every song on the radio whether or not I’ve heard it before, the chord progressions as open to me as if I had the sheet music in front of me. I can play other songs with the same chords and fit them with the song being played. Those bath taps squeak in E, this person sneezes in E flat. That printer’s in D mostly. The microwave is in the same key as the washing machine.

I have a friend with perfect pitch and one of the first times we hung out together, the horn on a tugboat sounded and she said, “C sharp”. I looked puzzled so she explained, and then I peppered her with questions about all the other sounds around us. It was like watching a superhero do their thing.

But with great power sometimes comes great irritation. From a NY Times article about Rich:

LJ said she had been a “weird prodigy kid.” For her, perfect pitch had been a nightmare. The whole world seemed out of tune. But then teachers introduced her to Indian ragas, Gamelan music and compositions with quarter tones, unfamiliar modes and atonal structures. As her musical horizons expanded, her anxiety dissipated. (She remains exceedingly sensitive to pitch, though. Her refrigerator, for example, hums in A flat. Working from home, I hear my fridge running 12 hours a day. Blindfolded, I’m not sure I could pick the thing out of a lineup of three other refrigerators.)

Tags: audio   LJ Rich   synesthesia

Meet Vincent LeVine. He’s the subject of “My Dad, the Facebook Addict”, a short documentary by his son Dylan. He started off using Facebook normally, keeping up with the news and chatting with friends, but evolved into a fierce meme warrior stocked with a “nuclear arsenal” of memes at the ready to destroy anyone who wants to come at him.

I can have a meme war with anybody and destroy them. And I’ve done it! People actually bail at the end and go, “Who is this guy? He’s got like every meme ever produced on the internet! He can knock us out with his memes!” And I do, I have tons of memes, I just keep memeing them to death until they just surrender because they just can’t do it anymore. They don’t have the memes that I have.

Vincent is very entertaining and it was difficult to not just quote all of his lines in the video. You can check out his Facebook account for yourself or watch his technique for hygienically blowing out birthday cake candles.

Tags: Dylan LeVine   Facebook   video   Vincent LeVine

50 years ago last week, Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar was published for the first time. In a piece for The Atlantic, Ashley Fetters talked to a pair of kid lit experts about why the book remains so popular today.

Part of why both kids and parents love The Very Hungry Caterpillar is because it’s an educational book that doesn’t feel like a capital-E Educational book. Traditionally, children’s literature is a didactic genre: “It teaches something,” Martin says, “but the best children’s books teach without kids knowing that they’re learning something.” In The Very Hungry Caterpillar, she adds, “you learn the days of the week. You learn colors. You learn the fruits. You learn junk-food names. In the end, you learn a little bit about nutrition, too: If you eat a whole bunch of junk food, you’re not going to feel that great.” Yet, crucially, none of the valuable information being presented ever feels “in your face,” Martin says.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar was certainly one of my favorite books as a kid — along with Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Richard Scarry’s Busy, Busy Town & Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, and the Frog & Toad books — and it was one of the first books we read to our kids. I remember very clearly loving the partial pages and the holes. Holes! In a book! Right in the middle of the page! It felt transgressive. Like, what else is possible in this world if you can do such a thing? (Also, “caterpillar” is such a satisfying word to say, both correctly and, er, less so… I still default to my childhood “callarpitter” sometimes).

Tags: books   Eric Carle   food   The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Roald Dahl’s oldest daughter Olivia died from the measles when she was seven years old. She died because there wasn’t a reliable measles vaccine then, and in this heartfelt letter he wrote years later, Dahl wants everyone to know that there is such a vaccine now.

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

‘Are you feeling all right?’ I asked her.

‘I feel all sleepy,’ she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunised against measles. I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because in those days a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered. Today a good and safe vaccine is available to every family and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it.

I feel so tired when I think about parents not vaccinating their children against easily preventable fatal diseases. It’s child abuse and the kids know better! Here’s a tweet from Erin Faulk sharing some screenshots of teens asking how they can get vaccinated over their parents’ objections.

“Vaccines. And now my kids don’t die.”

Tags: Erin Faulk   medicine   Roald Dahl   vaccines

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This is a video demonstration of the ~2,800 piece LEGO concert grand piano built by LEGO lover and music teacher SleepyCow that's looking to garner some more support on the LEGO Ideas website. The build includes "a removable keyboard with 25 independent working keys, each key connects to its own hammer, working damper and pedal functions, realistic piano lid which can be open either half stick or full stick, realistic fall board with a soft close and locking pins, removable music stand, and height adjustable piano bench." The piano IS functional (pushing the keys does cause the hammers to strike -- also operable player piano style with a LEGO Power Functions motor), although it doesn't actually make any noise since it's strings are made of that nylon LEGO twine and not actual piano string. Still, it's a very impressive set and I would be tempted to build it if it does make it to production. Of course whether I'll be able to assemble it correctly remains to be seen. "There isn't a snowball's chance in the devil's butthole." FACT. Keep going for the video.

Bij de Klantenservice en Technische Helpdesk krijgen wij nog wel eens de vraag hoeveel internetsnelheid nodig is. Zo is het niet altijd duidelijk hoeveel Netflix, Spotify of televisie in HD verbruikt. We grijpen dit moment aan om de zaken in perspectief te zetten.

U kent het misschien wel, een buurman die loopt te pochen over internetsnelheden van honderden Mbit per seconde. Het is makkelijk te geloven dat 200, 400 of zelfs 1000 Mbit/s download altijd nodig is om prettig te kunnen browsen en video’s te streamen. Of dat een hoge abonnementssnelheid automatisch voor betere WiFi en stabiel internet zorgt. Niks minder is waar.

Televisie en vast bellen (VoIP)
Bij ons gaat televisie en vast bellen via de internetverbinding. De internetsnelheid die nodig is om een digitaal kanaal in SD-kwaliteit te bekijken is slechts 4 Mbit/s. Kijkt u in HD-kwaliteit? Dan gaat het om zo’n 8 tot 12 Mbit/s afhankelijk of u op DSL of glasvezel zit. Dit geldt per tv-ontvanger die aan staat.

Video en muziek streamen
Een van de populairste dingen die we op dit moment online doen is video en muziek streamen. Bekende voorbeelden hiervan zijn natuurlijk YouTube en Netflix als het om beeld gaat. Apple Music en Spotify Premium zijn veel gebruikte muziekdiensten. Hoeveel bandbreedte heeft u nodig om de laatste series te bekijken of die ene hit te beluisteren? Hier volgt een overzicht:

Deze getallen zijn mogelijk dankzij compressietechnieken die zo zuinig mogelijk omgaan met de beschikbare internetsnelheid. U moet dus met heel wat mensen tegelijk video en muziek streamen wilt u aan 200 Mbit/s komen.

Gamen
Online gamen is ook typisch iets waarvan gedacht wordt dat het een hoge internetsnelheid nodig heeft. Laten we kijken wat de verschillende consoles in realiteit verbruiken:

Sony heeft geen harde cijfers bekend gemaakt. De verwachting is dat de minimale snelheden voor de Playstation 4 vergelijkbaar zijn met de XBOX One en Nintendo Switch.

Wanneer wel?
Dit alles wil natuurlijk niet zeggen dat hogere internetsnelheden nooit nodig zijn. Voor grote gezinnen of bedrijven die met veel mensen tegelijk online zijn is het natuurlijk fijn om wat ruimer in de jas te zitten. Maar ook als u regelmatig grote bestanden moet versturen of in de cloud zet is meer internetsnelheid prettig. Denk aan fotografie of videobewerking bijvoorbeeld.

Meer weten?
Neemt u eens een kijkje op onze webpagina ‘Internetsnelheid uitgelegd’ voor meer informatie.

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

Volgens de Belgische consumentenautoriteit Test-Aankoop ligt de werkelijke actieradius van elektrische auto's tot 40 procent lager dan het bereik dat de autofabrikanten opgeven. Dat zou komen omdat de standaard voor de gebruikte test sterk verouderd is.

Ads by Project Wonderful! Your ad could be here, right now.

Been a while!

PVV-leider Wilders heeft in een toespraak in Brussel nogmaals de redenen opgesomd waarom Nederland uit de Europese Unie moet stappen.

Om zijn standpunt te onderstrepen knipte Wilders vervolgens een ster uit een meegebrachte Europese vlag. De ster staat volgens Wilders symbool voor Nederland. Hij wil de ster mee terugnemen naar Nederland en "teruggeven aan de Nederlandse bevolking".

De PVV hield de manifestatie in Brussel met het oog op de Europese verkiezingen van donderdag.

An anonymous reader writes "A new study published in the March edition of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology indicates that a gamer's experience of a video game and not the content of the game itself can give rise to violent behavior. In other words, 'researchers found it was not the narrative or imagery, but the lack of mastery of the game's controls and the degree of difficulty players had completing the game that led to frustration.' Based on their findings, researchers note that even games like Tetris and Candy Crush can inspire violent behavior more so than games like World of Warcraft or Grand Theft Auto if they are poorly designed and difficult to play."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Geloof me, het komt nog voor. Je belt naar een autobedrijf om te informeren of de occasion die je op internet gezien hebt er nog staat. Gelukkig, nog niet verkocht. En als je aangeeft straks te willen komen...

Posted by Aaron Rothman, Product Manager

Promotional mail has a lot of images, from pictures of snazzy new shoes to photos of that rock-climbing gym you’ve been wanting to try. But right now, those images are buried inside your messages—and with only subject lines to go on, it can be a challenge to quickly pick out the deals and offers that interest you most. To help you find what you’re looking for faster, you can now sign up for a new field trial for Gmail that lets you view the Promotions tab in a more visual way.

To take part in this field trial, you can sign up at g.co/gmailfieldtrial and if you’re selected, a new grid view will bring to the top of your inbox key images from deals, offers, and other marketing emails if you have the Promotions tab enabled. Grid view also comes with infinite scrolling, making it easy to quickly scan through your messages and find the ones that look interesting.
You’ll be able to toggle between the new visual grid view and the standard list view by clicking a button at the top of the tab. We’re just experimenting for now, but we hope this view will make it a little bit easier for you to get things done. Sign up at g.co/gmailfieldtrial and if you're selected, we’ll follow up for your feedback!

Note: If you send promotional emails, check out the Gmail Developers site to learn how you can give your readers a better experience in Gmail using this feature.

Vandaag werd bekend dat ING ambitieuze plannen heeft met jouw betaalgegevens. Volgens een directeur van de bank zit er een team van big data scientists klaar om jouw betaalgegevens te ontleden. Mag dat zomaar? Wij zetten de belangrijkste vragen op een rij. 

1. Mag ING dit doen?

Ja; de ING moet zich bij het gebruiken van jouw betaalgegevens aan de Wet bescherming persoonsgegevens houden. Die wet bepaalt dat de bank je gegevens alleen voor duidelijke doelen mag gebruiken en niet zomaar aan anderen mag verkopen. Ook moet de bank voor ieder doel een geldige basis hebben. Uit informatie van de bank blijkt dat ING je betaalgegevens alleen analyseert en je aanbiedingen doet als je daar toestemming voor geeft. Dat maakt het in principe legaal, tenminste als die toestemming duidelijk is en je genoeg informatie krijgt over wat er precies over je wordt geanalyseerd en hoe zich dat vertaalt in een aanbieding.

2. Maken we ons dan druk om niks?

Nee, dat ook weer niet. De precieze regels over gebruik van Big Data (het gebruik van grote bakken data om mensen te benaderen of voorspellingen te doen) zijn nog onduidelijk. In de eerste plaats omdat het koppelen en analyseren van gegevens ook ongunstige gevolgen voor burgers kan hebben. Kan een adverteerder bijvoorbeeld negatief selecteren bij ING (“stuur deze advertentie alleen naar mensen met een bovenmodaal inkomen/die nooit bij McDonalds pinnen/weinig bij de apotheek komen”)? Kunnen mensen voldoende overzien hoe hun gegevens worden gebruikt en wat voor ‘aanbieding’ dat oplevert? Zijn alle bedrijven zo braaf dat ze pas je gegevens analyseren als je toestemming geeft? Of draai je gewoon mee in de Big Data-molen en wordt je alleen benaderd na een ‘ja’ ? Weet je überhaupt nog wie er wat over je weet en wat die gegevens over je zeggen? Snappen bedrijven hun eigen algoritmes wel? Hoe weet je hoe een beslissing over je tot stand komt? En wat kun je er tegen doen? Is het ok dat je straks overal alleen aanbiedingen krijgt als je data over jezelf weggeeft?

3.  Dus wat nu?

Het wordt tijd dat politici zich serieus met dit onderwerp gaan bezighouden. Vooralsnog ziet Den Haag vooral de voordelen en kansen rondom Big Data. Voordelen voor het bedrijfsleven dus. Over privacy, discriminatie, voorzienbaarheid en informatie richting burgers wordt veel minder nagedacht. Daarom organiseert Bits of Freedom op 9 april aanstaande een (besloten, dat wel) workshop voor Kamerleden over big data, profilering en privacy. Uiteraard zullen we je op de hoogte houden van de inhoud.

De Amerikaanse politie heeft huiszoeking gedaan in een villa van tieneridool Justin Bieber. Agenten waren op zoek naar beelden van bewakingscamera's.

Bieber wordt ervan verdacht dat hij het huis van zijn buren met eieren heeft bekogeld. De schade liep in de duizenden euro's, onder meer omdat in de gevel zeldzame houtsoorten waren verwerkt.

Volgens de politie verzette Bieber zich niet tegen de huiszoeking en stelde hij zich coöperatief op. De sheriff benadrukt dat de 19-jarige zanger niet formeel is ondervraagd en ook niet is aangehouden.

Cocaïne

Agenten arresteerden in de villa in Calabasas bij Los Angeles wel een bekende van Bieber, omdat die cocaïne bij zich had.

Bieber heeft wel vaker bezoek van de politie gehad. Onlangs klaagden zijn buren al over roekeloos rijgedrag. Ook had de zanger het herhaaldelijk aan de stok met paparazzi en haalde hij zich de woede op de hals van een Australische gemeente, waar hij een muur van een hotel had 'opgeleukt' met graffiti.

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BiQ has released the DVDRip of film “After Porn Ends”. It is a non-rated documentary movie exploring into the personal side of the six billion dollar a year pornography industry. Participants included Asia Carrera, Nina Hartley and few more ..

Plot: After Porn Ends, is a documentary that not only examines the lives and careers of some of the biggest names in the history of the adult entertainment industry; but what happens to them after they leave the business and try and live the “normal” lives that millions of other Americans enjoy. They hailed from the rural South, steel towns, and the San Fernando Valley. As teenagers, and young adults, none of them thought that porn was in their future. They were artists, baseball players, child prodigies, and even Ivy Leaguers. Now, after their lives in porn; they’re TV stars, bounty hunters, writers, and social activists. What happened in between? And now that they’ve moved on, can they really live a normal life after porn?

Genre: Documentary
iMDB Rating: 5.9/10 from 1,679 users
Directors: Bryce Wagoner
Stars: Mary Carey, Asia Carrera, Luke Ford

Release Name: After.Porn.Ends.2010.DVDRip.x264-BiQ
Size: 834.54 MB
Video: x264, 720×404 @ 1292kbps
Audio: AAC @ 119kbps
Runtime: 94 min

Links: iMDB – RT – Official Site – Trailer
Subs: Here
NFO: Here

Download: Google Search

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