The movie industry has seen its share of struggles as we transition into a digital future, and likely no one has felt the pinch more than film company Kodak. The struggling outfit is getting a life-raft, though, in the form of several studios...

Even carrying your iPhone's charger everywhere you go doesn't guarantee you'll be able to keep your phone running all day. Sometimes outlets can be hard to find, and for those times the NomadPlus is here to help—transforming your iPhone's standard charger into a portable 1,500 mAh battery for back power on-the-go.

Read more...

Dedicated to Laurel D., who is celebrating her birthday this weekend. Hope you have a good one, Laurel!

(Laurel asked me to do a comic about Firefly, but I’ve never seen that show so I did a comic about fireflies instead.)

Here are more insects.

The ultimate staple of every record in Weird Al‘s discography has to be the polka medley. While the rest of the tracks are parodies, the polka is the only time where he actually takes the lyrics from the originals, reintroducing them for the contemporary polka audience. In his latest, “NOW That’s What I Call Polka!” from his freshly released Mandatory Fun, he covers several pop smashes we’ve all heard, or overheard.

Miley Cyrus – “Wrecking Ball”
Foster The People – “Pumped Up Kicks”
One Direction – “The Best Song Ever”
Psy – “Gangnam Style”
Carly Rae Jepsen – “Call Me Maybe”
will.i.am – “Scream & Shout” (Feat. Britney Spears)
Gotye – “Somebody That I Used To Know” (Feat. Kimbra)
Pitbull – “Timber” (Feat. Ke$ha)
LMFAO – “Sexy And I Know It”
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – “Thrift Shop” (Feat. Wanz)
Daft Punk – “Get Lucky”

You’ll notice that some of these are dated, but it doesn’t seem like the singer/parodist is too tech-savvy. I mean, he doesn’t even have a SoundCloud page. Check out “NOW That’s What I Call Polka!” below:

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Read more articles like "Hear Weird Al’s New Polka Medley Covering Miley Cyrus, Daft Punk & more" on PMA - Pretty Much Amazing.

Tags: Daft Punk, Foster The People, Miley Cyrus, Weird Al

isei-silva:

sweet-bitsy:

lampsarepeopletoo:

punsicle:

hurdygurdygirl:

This is how I’d play chess

I HAVE NEVER LOVED A VIDEO SO DEARLY

HOLY SH*T

Isn’t this how everyone plays

This is exactly how you play

Smithe’s Supercharged Techno Illustrations (And Graffiti).

Some recent work by master of the surrealist, robotic dreamworld Smithe.  See way more below:

Smithe: Tumblr

• Since we first published this science, nothing about Sally has changed. Nothing. Sometimes, you talk to her and you’re about to say, “Sally, don’t you realize your body language indicates deep-seeded issues with commitment? Issues that spring from your own narcissistic fear of aging?” But then you just cross your arms (classic body language) and listen to her complain about how it’s too difficult to return a used dress to the department store.

The Amazon Appstore already gives away one free app each day, but today it's decided give away 30 apps, worth a combined total of $100, for free to anyone with an Android phone. Here are the pick of the bunch that you should download first.

Read more...

nudityandnerdery:

pixelkitties:

So the Fifty Shades of Gray Grey trailer is out…

Isn’t Fifty Shades of Neigh the Bad Horse origin story?

Quedaos con el nombre: Jim Martin. Es el sujeto al que más vais a odiar durante el resto de vuestros días por una sencilla razón: es el creador de la impresionante casa del árbol basada en BattleTech que podéis ver en la fotografía. ¿Por qué lo vais a odiar? Porque vuestros hijos también verán esta foto y a partir de entonces no se conformarán con nada ligeramente inferior.

Sirva como ejemplo la cara de los vástagos de Martin. Sobre todo la del niño, que teniendo la impresionante casa que tiene ya está mirando a su padre exigiéndole algo más ("papa, esto no dispara nada, es un asco"). No puedo menos que felicitar a Jim por su creación, pero sobre todo por crear una herramienta que va a proporcionar tantos dolores de cabezas a todos los padres del mundo.

Visto en Nerd Approved

Ver más: árbol, casas, robots
Seguir @NoPuedoCreer - @QueLoVendan

 

QueLoVendan La tienda de gadgets y regalos originales - Cupón dto. 5% -> SOY_FAN_DE_NPC

Things just got mainstream: Amazon announced a dedicated 3D print service. 

The online retail giant stepped deeply into the world of 3D printing by launching a new “Main Product Category” called “3D Designs & Print on Demand”. It’s very much like Shapeways or Sculpteo: great designs may be browsed, searched, selected, printed and then shipped to your door. 

At present the service boasts over 200 products, some of which are customizable. Shapeways has teamed with Mixee labs to provide twenty 3D model generators with which customers can quickly design personalized objects of various kinds. Generators include various rings, pendants, figurines and items of jewelry. They’re easy to use and prices are reasonable, at least for 3D printing. 

Amazon’s tagline says: “Introducing Amazon’s 3D Printing Store; Shop the Future”. They’re not kidding - this is how the future may very well turn out. Browsing and designing objects that show up at your door tomorrow. 

While this functionality has been available for some time from Shapeways and other similar services, Amazon takes it to a whole new level. Shapeways might be the biggest 3D print service, but they certainly do not have Amazon’s 250M client base. In fact, Amazon likely adds more new clients every week than exist at most 3D print services today. And these clients could purchase 3D printed items in a way they’re already very familiar with. Some of the 3D printed items even qualify for Amazon Prime, the company’s flat-rate shipping service. 

Amazon also offers a way for designers to apply to their service if they wish to include their designs in the Amazon 3D Print Store. At this point, Amazon’s 200 items are far less than Shapeways catalog, but with Amazon’s massive size, that could change very quickly. What designer wouldn’t want their designs shown to a quarter of a BILLION possible clients? 

But how is Amazon producing the 3D prints? Did they just buy a pile of EOS machines? Perhaps some Stratasys? No, it appears from their press release they’ve partnered with Sculpteo, one of the largest 3D print services. Sculpteo’s CEO, Clément Moreau, says: 

Amazon’s deep understanding of customers coupled with Sculpteo’s fast, high-quality manufacturing process offers an unprecedented level of product possibilities for customers.

There’s no mention of Shapeways, so we presume they’re not part of the deal behind the scenes. However, it's possible Amazon is in fact using Shapeways or other 3D print services behind the scenes in addition to Sculpteo and hasn't made that known. 

So what happens now? We can think of several implications of this blockbuster announcement. 

Shapeways may face a steep challenge. Assuming Shapeways isn't part of the deal, Shapeways at the moment may have the edge on 3D content due to their long existence and relationships with many designers, but Amazon’s depth of client base may shift that over the next few years. It may be that Shapeways will have to partner with another retailer in a similar deal if they haven't done one with Amazon. 

Sculpteo could be a huge winner in this deal. The Amazon shoppers will drive significant business towards Sculpteo’s 3D print factories, which will use economies of scale to grow rapidly. 

MakerBot and Cubify / 3D Systems might not be pleased with this development, as it means some potential 3D printer buyers might instead use Amazon to satisfy their 3D printing urges. Both companies have been pursuing a content strategy around customized model generators, which Amazon now provides, too. 

On the other hand, the announcement could mean this: A huge number of people will now be exposed to 3D printing through Amazon. This could very significantly grow interest in the technology, causing growth in all participants. More water floats all boats, so to speak. 

Amazon’s 3D printing venture seems very serious - and permanent. It’s a bold statement to their retail competitors, who will surely try to keep up with Amazon with their own 3D printing operations. 

Via Amazon

likeafieldmouse:

Trevor Paglen - They Watch the Moon (2010)

"This photograph depicts a classified ‘listening station’ deep in the forests of West Virginia.

The station is located at the center of the National Radio Quiet Zone, a region of approximately 34,000 square kilometers in West Virginia and parts of Maryland.

Within the Quiet Zone, radio transmissions are severely restricted: omnidirectional and high-powered transmissions (such as wireless internet devices and FM radio stations) are not permitted.

The listening station, which forms part of the global ECHELON system, was designed in part to take advantage of a phenomenon called moonbounce.

Moonbounce involves capturing communications and telemetry signals from around the world as they escape into space, hit the moon, and are reflected back towards Earth.

The photograph is a long exposure under the full moon light.”

xysciences:

A shockwave just after an explosion. 

[Click for more interesting science facts and gifs]

willzone:

Comic-Con 2014 Exclusive: The main bad guy from ‘Pacific Rim 2’ revealed!

Synchronized waking up. [x]

If Disney Princesses Were Actually Sloths by Jen Lewis

Previously: Nicolas Cage as Disney Princesses

chroniclesofachemist:

Those are fucking PHOTOS of molecules I dont fucking know how to react when I was in school they told me this shit is impossible look at this beauty you even see the doublebonding oh my fucking god tahts so fucking beautiful.

mfw microscopes are getting this good

SOURCE

aaeds:

yungvenuz:

sixpenceee:

Mayflys are a winged insect that have a short lifespan. They mate in such a way that all of them mature in the exact same time. The will die out soon, but for the time being Wisconsin looks like something straight out of a horror movie. 

SOURCE

nnnnnnuh

That’s…not too far south of where I live. 

We Bored Pandas are huge fans of perfectly timed photos that capture perfect (and usually funny or unexpected) moments that come and go with a blink of the eye. The internet is abound with images shared by people who have captured images at just the right moment or from just the right perspective, so we wanted to share some more of them with you.

Anyone with a smart phone, point-and-click camera, DSLR or any other sort of camera can potentially capture such a moment – whether it’s staged or spontaneous. If you’ve ever captured such a photo, share it with us below!

Source: reddit (h/t: distractify)

Source: imgur

Source: reddit (h/t: distractify)

Source: reddit

Image credits: Vladimir Levin

Source: reddit (h/t: distractify)

Source: buzzinspired.com

Image credits: Tom Baum

Source: imgur

Source: reddit

Source: imgur

Source: reddit

Source: reddit (h/t: distractify)

Source: imgur

Source: imgur

Image Credits: Adde Adesokan

Source: reddit

Source: reddit

Image credits: Nick Kelly

Source: unknown

Image credits: Mrsnef1

Source: allarmo.livejournal.com

Image credits: troyANDabed

Source: reddit

Source: unknown

Image credits: Arainya

Source: reddit

Source: imgur

Source: reddit

Source: reddit

Source: reddit

Source: imgur

Source: imgur

Source: buzzland.com (h/t: buzzfeed)

Source: reddit

33 Pictures Taken At The Right Moment originally appeared on Bored Panda on July 29, 2014.

“Take a look at the TP53 mutation database“, my colleague suggested. “OK then, I will”, I replied.

I present what follows as “a typical day in the life of a bioinformatician”.

I click through to the Download page. At first sight, it’s reasonably promising. Excel files – not perfect, but beats a PDF – and ooh, TXT files. OK, I grab the “US version” (which uses decimal points, not commas for decimal numbers) of the uncurated database:

wget http://p53.fr/TP53_database_download/TP53_tumor_database/TP53_US/UMDTP53_all_2012_R1_US.txt.zip
unzip UMDTP53_all_2012_R1_US.txt.zip
#  inflating: UMDTP53_all_2012_R1_US.txt  
#  inflating: ._UMDTP53_all_2012_R1_US.txt

Wait now. What’s that weird hidden file, starting with a dot?

less ._UMDTP53_all_2012_R1_US.txt 
# "._UMDTP53_all_2012_R1_US.txt" may be a binary file.  See it anyway? 
# no, I don't want to do that
strings ._UMDTP53_all_2012_R1_US.txt 
# TEXTXCEL

At this point, alarm bells are ringing. I’m thinking “Mac user”. Don’t get me wrong; I own a Macbook Air myself, I see smart people doing good work with Macs. But in my experience, biologist + Mac + text files = trouble.

I push on and check the number of records in the main text file.

wc -l UMDTP53_all_2012_R1_US.txt
# 0 UMDTP53_all_2012_R1_US.txt

Zero lines. That can’t be right. We look at the file using less.

Aha, the old “line endings” issue. Easy enough to fix with the classic utility dos2unix – in this case, called as mac2unix:

mac2unix UMDTP53_all_2012_R1_US.txt > /tmp/UMDTP53_all_2012_R1_US.txt
# dos2unix: Skipping binary file UMDTP53_all_2012_R1_US.txt

Well that’s odd. Even odder is that this works.

cat UMDTP53_all_2012_R1_US.txt | mac2unix > /tmp/UMDTP53_all_2012_R1_US.txt
# on we go; overwriting the original since we can always get it from the zip
mv /tmp/UMDTP53_all_2012_R1_US.txt UMDTP53_all_2012_R1_US.txt
wc -l UMDTP53_all_2012_R1_US.txt
# 36248

The web page said there should be 36 249 records…but the file looks OK. Right, let’s get on and parse this file. It’s tab-delimited, I like Ruby, so I try to do the right thing and use a library – in this case, the Ruby CSV library. First, just a run-through to see that it all works as expected:

require 'csv'
f = "UMDTP53_all_2012_R1_US.txt"
CSV.foreach(f, :headers => true, :col_sep => "\t") do |row|
    puts row['Name']
end
# prints lots of names and then...
# ArgumentError: invalid byte sequence in UTF-8
# 	from /usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/csv.rb:1855:in `sub!'
# 	from /usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/csv.rb:1855:in `block in shift'
# 	from /usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/csv.rb:1849:in `loop'
# 	from /usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/csv.rb:1849:in `shift'
# 	from /usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/csv.rb:1791:in `each'
# 	from /usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/csv.rb:1208:in `block in foreach'
# 	from /usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/csv.rb:1354:in `open'
# 	from /usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/csv.rb:1207:in `foreach'

Not all as expected, then. Colour me astonished. Frankly, this is why people resort to splitting on the delimiter instead of using libraries…anyway, search the web for that error and you’ll find a lot of confusing, conflicting and sometimes, just plain wrong explanations and advice. Let me save you the trouble. The Ruby CSV library expects UTF-8 encoding. This file is not encoded in UTF-8. So what is it? A surprisingly tricky question to answer.

First step: another visual examination using less, which shows some odd characters. The file contains a “Medline” column, so I search PubMed with the UID and see that author Mol<8F>s is supposed to be author Molès. I am not an expert in character encoding but when I post my frustration to Twitter, I find someone who is:

So tell CSV to transcode from macRoman to UTF-8:

CSV.foreach(f, :headers => true, :col_sep => "\t", :encoding => "macRoman:UTF-8") do |row|
    puts row['Name']
end

All good! I can parse the file and start using the fields to do something useful. Once again the interesting part (analysis) takes minutes, getting to the analysis takes hours or days.

It’s always tempting to say “well all of these problems could be avoided if people only did [insert better approach here]“. The thing is, they don’t. Dealing with it is just part of the job and having the skills to deal with it, I think, deserves more recognition than it gets.

Filed under: bioinformatics, computing, research diary Tagged: database, parsing, tp53

Мечети Ирана. © Mohammad Reza Domiri Ganji


















via

Nerval's Lobster writes: Over at Dice, there's a breakdown of the programming languages that could prove most popular over the next year or two, including Apple's Swift, JavaScript, CSS3, and PHP. But perhaps the most interesting entry on the list is Erlang, an older language invented in 1986 by engineers at Ericsson. It was originally intended to be used specifically for telecommunications needs, but has since evolved into a general-purpose language, and found a home in cloud-based, high-performance computing when concurrency is needed. "There aren't a lot of Erlang jobs out there," writes developer Jeff Cogswell. "However, if you do master it (and I mean master it, not just learn a bit about it), then you'll probably land a really good job. That's the trade-off: You'll have to devote a lot of energy into it. But if you do, the payoffs could be high." And while the rest of the featured languages are no-brainers with regard to popularity, it's an open question how long it might take Swift to become popular, given how hard Apple will push it as the language for developing on iOS.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

When it comes to photographing the elusive Milky Way in one of the most light-polluted major cities like Singapore, timing is critical. Most of the faint details will be washed out by the extreme light pollution and if we were to shoot the Milky Way under unfavorable atmospheric conditions, our attempt would be futile.

Unfortunately, most of the tutorials online only work in locations that are at least 2 stops darker than most of the dark locations in Singapore and so, we need to do more in post-processing to unveil the elusive Milky Way and more complex workflow is required if we’re shooting at much brighter locations.

In this tutorial, I am going to show you how I shoot the Milky Way that’s obscured by the heavy light pollution in Singapore using photography equipment that you may already have and a workflow that probably works in most versions of Photoshop without purchasing additional plugins.

Equipment I Am Using to Shoot the Milky Way in Singapore

1. Unmodified full-frame DSLR camera (Canon 5D Mark II)
2. Wide angle lens (Canon 16-35mm f/2.8)
3. Tripod
4. Intervalometer
5. Memory cards and batteries

Step 1

If the atmospheric conditions are favorable, locate the Milky Way using mobile apps like Star Walk or SkySafari for example. I have developed a simple app for the same purpose too and it can be downloaded here.

Step 2

Switch to Bulb mode on your DSLR camera and set the aperture to 2.8, ISO to 6400 and focal length to 16mm. Remember to shoot in RAW format.

Step 3

I use a technique called Expose To The Right (ETTR), a concept that’s been around for more than a decade, to obtain the maximum amount of signals possible with a single exposure. You can produce an ETTR image by pushing its histogram to the far right by increasing the exposure during your shoot. I took mine at 16mm, F2.8, ISO6400 and I exposed my camera for 9 seconds.

The ETTR technique, however, has its limitations and using just this technique alone won’t work for most parts of Singapore and so further processing is required to bring out the best of what’s recorded in the RAW file. A more complex workflow is required if I shoot from a brighter location.

Step 4

Normalize the image by playing around with the sliders until you’re able to see the elusive Milky Way!

Step 5

At this juncture, if you’re shooting at a location that’s at least 2 stops darker than mine, which also means you are able to expose your camera for 30 to 40 seconds using the same settings (F2.8, ISO6400 @ 16mm), then you’ll probably be able to get away with a nice image by adjusting the sliders. But unfortunately, we need to do more to make the image pop when it’s taken in Singapore and the post-processing workflow will become more complex if the exposure time is reduced to 5 seconds or less at much brighter locations.

In Photoshop, click on Image -> Adjustments -> HDR Toning. Then play around with the Detail slider along with the rest to achieve to look you want and mask out the overexposed part of the image.

Step 6

From here onwards, you can tweak the image to your own liking!

So there you go! Thanks to Photoshop that we can now enhance the data that were recorded in the RAW file to unveil the beautiful Milky Way galaxy which we can’t see with our naked eyes in Singapore. But does Photoshop make the Sentosa image above any less real?

There are definitely many ways to achieve the same or better result and this is just one of the workflows that you can use without purchasing additional Photoshop plugins. As Singapore offers varying degrees of light pollution, different workflows will be required to unveil the elusive Milky Way taken at different locations.

For a full tutorial, please visit the post on my website here.

Here’s some of my images taken in Singapore. Note that not all images below were processed using the workflow presented in this tutorial:

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About the author: Starting out as a self-taught photographer in September 2010, Justin Ng has garnered his photographic experience from a diverse range of subjects, events and locations eventually earning recognition and publication in world-famous media sources like the BBC, CNN, National Geographic, Yahoo!, Space.com, EarthSky, and UniverseToday, just to name a few.

Justin was published as Asia’s top 30 photographers by Signature Weddings, listed as top 6 landscape photographers in the world by Pixoto and recently, he has been named as Canon EOS World Photographer of the Year 2013. He is currently a writer/content contributor at Space.com and SLR Lounge.

To see more of his work, be sure to visit his website or follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, 500px or Instagram. This article originally appeared here.

An anonymous reader writes: Wladimir Palant is the creator of the Adblock Plus browser extension, but he often gets asked how it compares to a similar extension for Chrome called Adblock. In the past, he's told people the two extensions achieve largely the same end, but in slightly different ways. However, recent changes to the Adblock project have him worried. "AdBlock covertly moved from an open development model towards hiding changes from its users. Users were neither informed about that decision nor the reasons behind it." He goes through the changelog and highlights some updates that call into question the integrity of Adblock. For example, from an update on June 6th: "Calling home functionality has been extended. It now sends user's locale in addition to the unique user ID, AdBlock version, operating system and whether Google Search ads are being allowed. Also, AdBlock will tell getadblock.com (or any other website if asked nicely) whether AdBlock has just been installed or has been used for a while — again, in addition to the unique user ID." Of course, Palant has skin in this game, and Adblock Plus has dealt with fallout from their "acceptable ads policy," but at least it's still developed in the open.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes: Electronic Arts has announced a new program called "EA Access," a subscription-based service that will grant Xbox One users access to a small catalog of EA's popular games, as well as early trials of upcoming games. They're beta testing the service now, and the available games are FIFA 14, Madden NFL 25, Peggle 2, and Battlefield 4. (More titles will be added later.) They're charging $5 per month or $30 per year. It probably won't ever include their newest releases, but it's interesting to see such a major publisher experimenting with a Netflix-style subscription service.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A year ago I got to illustrate one of the endings in Ryan North’s brilliant Hamlet choose-your-own-path book To Be or Not To Be. These are all things you may be able to find outside right now (if you can bear to put down this amazing book).