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Microsoft has created Star Wars-style holographic communication

Microsoft’s I3D research group has figured out how to create a live hologram of another person to be placed in another room. A massive array of 3D cameras in one room captures an entire person’s movements and speech in real time, then projects them into another room where a HoloLens user can see them and interact with them.

Fuckable Easter Fleshlight by Loretta Churck

Still one of my favorite things in the world

The misadventures of Merrick Garland as he acclimatizes to the zany world of Washington DC. https://medium.com/@sarahlml/episode-one-merrick-s-world-e265fe9d4c5c#.c5tg8k3xj

Thanks to pleasingwoe for sending a link to the REAL story behind this photo: 

http://www.thesartorialist.com/photos/the-shot-vintage-photo-contest/

If you live in a city where public transit options are sparse, or one where they’re temporarily out of service, you might have to use a car to get around. If that’s the case, these new maps can help you gauge how long it’ll take you to get to a given point—inside or out of your city—by car.

Here are some reasons the Vienna-based doctoral student Peter Kerpedjiev made these maps:

@Tanvim Three things. 1. Curiosity 2. Learn new technologies 3. I like to go skiing and wanted to know which areas are easily accessible

— Peter Kerpedjiev (@pkerpedjiev) March 16, 2016

Kerpedjiev previously created a series of “isochrone maps” of European cities, which represented public transit commuting times as concentric layers of color around each city. Essentially, the maps show how long it would take, by rail or by foot, from a particular city to another point in Europe. In a new, more geographically diverse set of maps, he’s charting travel times by car. Here’s what he says the maps are designed to show, via his blog, Empty Pipes:

The wonderful thing about portraying driving times is that it's possible to make such maps for cities from all over the world. In doing so, we can see the how the transportation infrastructure of a region meshes with the natural features to create a unique accessibility profile.

To illustrate, he uses the example of Lincoln, Nebraska, which has diamond-shaped, concentric layers surrounding it, and compares it to Vienna (where he currently lives), which has rounder layers:

The difference in the driving times has a lot to do with the way roads are designed in the two cities. In Lincoln, they intersect in grids, so it takes longer to drive from point A to point B if the points are in a diagonal line. In Vienna, on the other hand, the roads are laid in all directions, so it doesn’t take much longer to travel in any one direction versus another.

When comparing cities in different parts of the world, or even different parts of the same country, it’s interesting to see all of the factors that can potentially influence our commute, Kerpedjiev says:

The differences in accessibility between different cities of the world can range from the trivial (Denver, CO, vs Lincoln, NE) to the substantial (Perth, Australia, vs. Sydney, Australia). Individual cities can have a wide automobile-reachable area (Moscow, Russia) or a narrow, geography-, politics- and infrastructure-constrained area (Irkutsk, Russia).

Kerpedjiev’s maps only cover select cities across the world, and his travel times, he notes on his blog, are estimates based on GraphHopper and OpenStreetMap data. But they reveal a lot of great information about each city’s unique geography and particular infrastructure. Play around with others here.

Daniel Holland made the striking observation that if you faceswap The X-Files' Scully and Mulder, you get a synthpop duo. (more…)

Chris Earnshaw began taking photographs of Washington, D.C. more than 40 years ago. By the time he paid a visit to a museum to tout his work, he had in his possession—in plastic bags and filing drawers—3,000 Polaroids of a city long gone.

Woolen Unfuckables Pattern Book

Long live the new streaming media regime. (credit: Videodrome)

There is a growing chasm between people who watch broadcast TV and those who watch streaming shows. Consider that in 2015, Netflix subscribers watched CBS shows 42 percent less than non-subscribers. That means nearly half of Netflix subscribers have just stopped watching CBS. Netflix subscribers also watched Fox 35 percent less, ABC 32 percent less, and NBC 27 percent less.

These numbers come from a new report released by Michael Nathanson of research firm MoffettNathanson. Nathanson is tracking shifts in TV viewership over time, and he estimates that 2015 saw a 3 percent drop in TV viewing. This is part of an overall trend that saw a precipitous decline in TV viewership in 2014, combined with a corresponding rise in subscriptions to streaming services. In an attempt to keep up with these changes, most networks are now using a new Nielsen ratings metric called "live plus 7" or just "L7," which bases audience numbers on how many people watched the show—via DVR or streaming—within seven days after it aired live.

About half of last year's drop in network viewers was caused by Netflix, based on the company's claim that they streamed 29 billion hours of video in 2015. Those hours would account for about 6 percent of overall L7 viewing in the US last year, and it meant that Netflix took a solid bite out of overall viewership numbers. Nathanson predicts that Netflix will account for 14 percent of all TV viewing by 2020.

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the telling numbers tucked inside the news. We’re trying out a new approach, with fewer news items but more detail, so please bear with us.

1 in 3

According to the White House, the share of families who have a hard time affording diapers. A new program will give low-income Americans access to cheaper diapers. [CNN]

21 years old

California’s legislature has voted to raise the age limit on buying tobacco products to 21 from 18. The bill now awaits the governor’s signature. The legislation would also apply to vapers who use electronic cigarettes, a move that would surely devastate the guy who is somehow walking in front of me every day on the way to work blowing sick clouds. [Associated Press]

59 percent

Percentage of Florida Republicans who think Sen. Marco Rubio should suspend his campaign should he lose in the winner-take-all primary in the state next Tuesday. Sad! [Washington Post/Univision News Poll]

29.0

People are jazzed about this whole democracy thing America has going on right now: 29 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the states that held primary contests through March 6. That’s the highest level of turnout since 2008, but keep in mind that as we continue through the primary process and the contests potentially become less significant, that share may drop. [Pew Research Center]

1,700 names

A list of purported Islamic State members has been obtained by intelligence agencies, Sky News reports, but there’s plenty of reason to be skeptical of the list. It apparently includes tens of thousands of names, but only 1,700 identifiable ones. This is the kind of list where you really want to be sure it’s legit in case of a false positive, but it’s a potentially massive intelligence gain for the powers fighting the Islamic State. [The Washington Post]

11,000 amendments

Number of proposed amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Only 27 of those stuck, and many of the rest were really, really dumb. To commemorate the 225th anniversary of the Bill of Rights, the National Archives is apparently pulling everything it has from the “HORRIBLE PROPOSED AMENDMENTS, A-F” filing cabinet. [The Washington Post]

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just-shower-thoughts:

I love how stars are billions of miles apart and we’re like “that’s a soup ladle”.

You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the telling numbers tucked inside the news.

0 screeners

Following an early leak of several episodes last year, HBO will not send out “Game of Thrones” screeners to members of the press this year. I would be mad, but it’s not like anyone sends me screeners anyway, so now we’re all on even footing. [Entertainment Weekly]

2 inches

Astronaut Scott Kelly is back after setting an American record for the longest time spent in space. He served as a human guinea pig so NASA can find out what happens to someone after he spends a year up there. Good news for Kelly: He grew 2 inches in orbit, as zero gravity means that cartilage isn’t compressed like it is here on Earth. Bad news for Kelly: His bones are weaker because they don’t need to hold weight in the same way. [NBC News]

2 cities

Forget all that other Super Tuesday news, there’s a big story coming out of Alabama: Clay County is no longer the last totally dry county in the state! Alcohol sales are now legal in the cities of Ashland and Lineville. Congratulations! [ABC 3340]

11 of 15 states

Results are still coming in from Super Tuesday, but it appears that Donald Trump is on track for the Republican nomination. Trump needed to finish the night with 297 delegates across all contests so far, according to FiveThirtyEight’s analysis of the race, and he currently has 336. Both Cruz and Rubio lag behind their targets. [FiveThirtyEight]

17 puppies

A Maremma Sheepdog in California had 17 puppies in one litter, a likely state and breed record. [CBS News]

40 (b)

Sen. Ted Cruz is trying to make sure he satisfies an obscure rule in his quest for the nomination. Republican National Committee Rule No. 40 (b) says that a candidate has to win the majority of delegates in at least eight contests in order to be nominated. This led the Cruz campaign to blitz the outer island territories of the Unites States, seeking clean wins in the smaller, more winnable territories so that he can remain eligible for a potential convention fight without having to win outright in bigger states. [POLITICO]

140 stores

Sports Authority will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after missing a $20 million interest payment in January. It will also close 140 of its 463 stores. [Fortune]

192 hours

Minjoo, the opposition party in South Korea’s legislature, set a new record for longest-ever filibuster: 192 hours. It was working against a law it claimed would reduce privacy. In 2011, Canadian legislators filibustered for 58 hours, so it’s a big jump. [Atlas Obscura]

10,000

The NYPD said it will no longer arrest people for drinking in public, urinating, or littering on the island of Manhattan. Basically, make sure to do all your nonsense before you get on the train to the outer boroughs. It will remove 10,000 cases per year from the courts, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. [DNA Info]

1.5 million votes

New Zealand will begin voting on a proposed change to the nation’s flag, a vote that will run through March 24th. In the first referendum, 1.5 million votes were cast to determine which of several possible new flags would be put in a head-to-head matchup against the current banner that incorporates the Union Jack and the Southern Cross constellation. The current flag has led to some confusion with Australia’s flag, which has similar elements. The new, proposed flag involves a silver fern as well as the constellation on a black and blue field. [BBC]

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Among the many revelations in John Oliver's definitive takedown of Donald Drumpf was the fact that the thin-skinned billionaire had been so wounded by being called a "short-fingered vulgarian" by Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter that he's spent a quarter-century sending Carter letters decorated with tracings of his hand-geometry to prove the length of his fingers. (more…)

Inspired by the "evolutionary tree diagram" format, Talking Heads vocalist, artist, and writer David Byrne drew numerous tree diagrams meant to "explain" everyday phenomena, terminology, and the irrationality of life. For example, above is the diagram of "Romantic Destiny" (2003). Ten years ago, Byrne collected his diagrams in a wonderful book titled Arboretum.

Möbius Structure of Relationships:

Legacy of Good Habits:

History of Mark-Making:

See more on Byrne's site: "Tree Drawings/Arboretum"

Carla Hayden is President Obama's choice to head the Library of Congress. (The White House / Facebook)

President Obama's choice to head up the Library of Congress would be the first African American, and the first woman, to hold the job — if she's approved by the Senate. And that fact would likely bring a fresh perspective to a job that is increasingly important to the technology industry.

Obama on Wednesday nominated Carla Hayden, a former president of the American Library Association. Hayden currently runs the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore. She was born in Florida and has roots in Chicago. There, as a librarian with the Chicago Public Library, she met the Obama family.

If confirmed as librarian of Congress, Hayden would have a position with very real power, as it's responsible for settling some of the weightiest policy questions in tech. The institution has handled questions such as whether it's legal for you to unlock your own cellphone so you can take your device to another carrier, or whether it's legal for security researchers or your local mechanic to access the software powering your car.

[What a new law about cellphone unlocking has to do with coffee, cars and consumer freedom]

You see, every three years, the Library of Congress can bless certain technological practices by granting them exemptions from a law that would otherwise make them illegal. This is a function of America's copyright system, which is governed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The Act forbids you from circumventing the copy-protection software that hardware manufacturers put in their devices. This has made certain activities technically illegal, except when the librarian of Congress periodically decides that they're not. Tinkering with cellphone and automotive software are just two examples of this.

As more of our everyday devices are coming with embedded software — think smart refrigerators or intelligent TVs, for example — that means that the next librarian of Congress will likely have a tremendous say over our technological future. This goes to show how important Hayden, if she's confirmed, could be.

Hayden's nomination drew plaudits from consumer groups Wednesday.

"Dr. Hayden has a strong record of promoting public access to the Internet and digital resources,"  the advocacy organization Public Knowledge said in a statement. "We expect that as the leader of one of the world's foremost cultural institutions and libraries, she will continue to promote the public's interest in access to knowledge."

Hayden is known for weighing in on policy issues. In 2003, she stood up to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft over the Patriot Act. Hayden pressed the Justice Department to reveal how often officials were using the law to force libraries to turn over data on their users. Although Ashcroft called the librarians' campaign a bunch of "baseless hysteria," he eventually agreed to make the information available.

Tech industry trade groups praised Hayden's experience.

"Her past work updating library systems for the digital age are exactly the skills needed to modernize the digital infrastructure at the Library of Congress," said Michael Beckerman, president of the Internet Association, which represents Google, Uber and Netflix. "We look forward to her leadership and partnership in shaping a digital future for the U.S. Copyright Office and the Library of Congress more broadly."

Obama's decision, which was announced on Facebook, follows his previous pattern of picking Americans with diverse backgrounds for high public office. For instance, he has selected more than 140 women and over a dozen gay or lesbian nominees to become federal judges. Obama published a post Wednesday to SCOTUSblog that outlined his principles for doing so:

[T]he third quality I seek in a judge is a keen understanding that justice is not about abstract legal theory, nor some footnote in a dusty casebook. It’s the kind of life experience earned outside the classroom and the courtroom; experience that suggests he or she views the law not only as an intellectual exercise, but also grasps the way it affects the daily reality of people’s lives in a big, complicated democracy, and in rapidly changing times.

You can find a list of all the previous librarians of Congress here. 

By the way, the precedent Hayden would set on diversity — if she's confirmed — is important not just in historical terms, but also possibly in the context of a very current debate about diversity in technology.

The history of professional flatulence.

The photographer Christine Osinski moved from lower Manhattan to Staten Island, near Snug Harbor, in 1982. She and her husband had just been booted from their loft, which was slated for redevelopment. They decided that they wanted to buy. “We were tired of renovating places,” Osinski says, “just to get thrown out.”

Before embarking on their house hunt, the couple didn’t know much about Staten Island. Arriving in New York from a working-class neighborhood on Chicago’s south side, Osinski was intrigued by the pull of the epicenter; she thought of Manhattan as the mainland. For her, Staten Island had been a place to breeze past when Manhattan’s close quarters and scorched sidewalks became insufferable. “We took the ferry a lot in the summer just to cool off,” Osinski says. “We’d go back and forth, back and forth, but never got off.”

But Staten Island inspired an onslaught of nostalgia. Osinski immediately noticed “how familiar everything seemed, and how that brought everything back so immediately.” It reminded her of Chicago. She and her husband bought a house and got to work repairing its crumbling roof and siding.  

Osinski had just accepted a job at Cooper Union, where she still works as a professor. But she had summers off, which gave her time to take photos. Throughout the hottest months of 1983 and 1984, she lugged her heavy tripod and 4x5 camera around the town, snapping photos of her new neighborhood. A selection of her landscapes and portraits are compiled in a new book, Staten Island Summer.

Her new neighborhood conveyed, she told me, the pride people take in their homes, however modest. “A sense of people struggling to live as well as they can,” she explained.

Osinski photographed scrubbed vinyl siding, tidy lawns with neat hedges, and the occasional picket fence with sloughing paint. She also trained her eye on social rituals: neighbors gathering for beers and conversation; two young women with hair teased within an inch of its life, seemingly waiting for something exciting to happen to them.

Roaming around with her camera helped Osinski connect with her new home. “The thing is, when you go out and take pictures, you’re looking—you’re really using your eyes,” she says. “You’re looking at things and thinking, ‘what’s interesting?’”

What jumped out right away was the sense of space and breathing room. There might be a lot between two houses, or a multi-acre parcel containing just one single, small home.

In one image, overgrown grass spills through a chain-link fence, while portly Putti stand atop brick columns of the home next door. In another, two young boys lounge around a car parked on the side of a driveway or road, not a single house in sight.

This quiet, quotidian landscape is a sharp contrast to the contemporary street photography that documented daily life in Manhattan. Those images were more likely to feature women in ankle-length fur coats stomping down gum-pocked sidewalks, or grimy, graffiti-covered train cars—high-octane, high-decible stimulation.

Osinski now lives in Connecticut. And since she snapped these images, the sleepy veneer has eroded, replaced by concrete, glass, and steel. Though Staten Island is still the least populous New York City borough, construction has boomed as a result of ambitious plans for development along the North Shore. Between 1990 and 2010, the number of housing units on Staten Island increased by 26 percent, and the number of vacant commercial properties shrank by 23 percent between 2001 and 2010, according to a report prepared by the think tank Center for an Urban Future.

“All those spaces are gone,” Osinski says. “Everything’s built up.” What’s left are the photographs, preserving calm, quiet summer days.

Summer Days Staten Island, $40 at Amazon.

As You Have Forsaken Jeb, So You Have Forsaken Me: My Curse Shall Lie Upon This Nation for Seven Times Seven Generations by Barbara Bush

amillionlayers:

drhoz:

supaslim:

calyxofawildflower:

wallabri:

americanninjax:

eisuverse:

wilwheaton:

broodingsoul:

zoniduck:

lettersfromtitan:

enslayed:

nadiacreek:

mshoneysucklepink:

copperbadge:

tehnakki:

essie007:

letteredlettered:

badmotherflanner:

destinationtoast:

tiltedsyllogism:

quicklikelight:

randomlyrelevant:

peppapigvevo:

jhenne-bean:

isaacfhtagn:

wirehead-wannabe:

meaninglessmonicker:

striderriere:

captoring:

punlich:

tharook:

foxfireicecream:

smitethepatriarchy:

argumate:

shlevy:

comparativelysuperlative:

rosalindfranklins:

argumate:

sysice:

wrapscallion:

I have no idea who Scalia was. Isn’t that the thing that people call themselves when they are furries but with reptiles?

You’re thinking of scalies. Scalia is a quantity that has magnitude but not direction.

You’re thinking of scalars. Scalia is an opera house in Milan.

You’re thinking of La Scala. Scalia is is a form of thermal burn resulted from heated fluids such as boiling water or steam.

You’re thinking of scalding. Scalia are subjective internal experiences.

You’re thinking of qualia. Scalia is the region of Northern Europe consisting mainly of Norway, Sweden, and Finland.

You’re thinking of Scandinavia. Scalia is a company that makes trucks.

You’re thinking of Scania. Scalia is a a wizard and a Snatcher in the gang led by Fenrir Greyback in the Harry Potter universe.

You’re thinking of Scabior. Scalia was the guise assumed by Peter Pettigrew in his capacity as an Animagus,also in the Harry Potter universe.

You’re thinking of Scabbers. Scalia is a type of triangle where no two sides have the same length.

You’re thinking of Scalene. A Scalia is a method of stealing people’s valuables or money through elaborate falsehoods, deception and acting.

you’re thinking of scams. scalia is the bone that connects the humerus to the clavicle.

You’re thinking of scapula. Scalia is a small knife with a thin, sharp blade that is used in surgeries and dissections.

You’re thinking of a scalpel.Scalia is an abnormal lateral curvature of the spine.

You’re thinking of scoliosis. Scalia is the author of “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.”

You’re thinking of a Scamander. Scalia is a flat tool used for flipping food.

You’re thinking of a spatula. Scalia is any one of numerous species of saltwater clams or marine bivalve mollusks in the taxonomic family Pectinidae.

You’re thinking of a scallop. Scalia is the eighth astrological sign in the tropic Zodiac, and one of the three water signs, along with Cancer and Pisces.

You’re thinking of Scorpio… Scalia is a vegetable in the onion family, with long green stalks, usually added to a dish for flavor.

You’re thinking of scallion. Scalia is the ship name for Scott McCall and Malia Tate from Teen Wolf.

You’re thinking of Scott/Malia. Scalia is the primary antagonist in the He-Man cartoons. He wants to seize control of Castle Grayskull, the cultural and political stronghold of Eternia, so that he can conquer the universe and shape it to accord with his own evil vision.

You’re thinking of Skeletor. Scalia is a method of using oars to propel watercraft. In modern crew competitions, it refers to two-oared rowing.

You’re thinking of sculling. Scalia are green-skinned, shape-shifting antagonists in the Marvel comic universe.

You’re thinking of Skrulls.  Scalia is the skeptic; Mulder is the believer.

You’re thinking of Scully. Scalia was a villain in the excellent and under-appreciated scifi original series Farscape. He perused John Crichton across the uncharted territories for his knowledge on wormhole technology.

You’re think of Scorpius. Scalia is the electronic music producer and DJ who just won a grammy.

You’re thinking of Skrillex. Scalia is the sportscaster for the LA Dodgers.

You’re thinking of Vin Scully. Scalia is a traditional mush of pork scraps, cornmeal, and spices popular with the Pennsylvania Dutch .

You’re thinking of Scrapple. Scalia is the big, shaggy monster from Monsters, Inc.

You’re thinking of Sully. Scalia is an itchy skin condition cause by mites burrowing under the skin.

You’re thinking of scabies. Scalia is that guy who landed a plane in the Hudson after some geese flew into the engine.

You’re thinking of Chesley Sully Sullenberger. Scalia are the scary bird-like creatures from the 1982 fantasy movie The Dark Crystal.

You’re thinking of Skeksis. Scalia is an Egyptian amulet in the form of a beetle.

You’re thinking of scarab. Scalia is a character in Mortal Kombat whose catch phrase was GET OVER HERE.

You’re thinking of Scorpion. Scalia is  is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Scalia combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues.

You’re thinking of Ska music.  Scalia is a beverage, common in Spain and Portugal. It normally consists of red wine, chopped fruit, a sweetener, and a small amount of added brandy. Chopped fruit can include orange, lemon, lime, apple, peach, melon, berries, pineapple, grape, kiwifruit and mango. A sweetener such as honey, sugar, syrup, or orange juice is added. Instead of brandy, other liquids such as Seltzer, Sprite or 7-up may be added. Scalia is steeped while chilled for as little as minutes or up to a few days.

You’re thinking of Sangria. Scalia is a type of machine-readable paper form, frequently used by students to mark down answers to multiple-choice questions on exams. 

You’re thinking of Scantron. Scalia is when you purposely sink a ship at sea.

You’re thinking of scuttling. Scalia is the low level kitchen servant who does the grunt work.

You’re thinking of scullions. Scalias are Australian legless lizards, of the genus Pygopus, with prehensile tails and scaly flaps in place of hindlimbs.

You’re thinking of scalyfeet. Scalias are people (usually children) who behave badly but in an amusingly mischievous rather than harmful way.

You’re thinking of scamps. Scalia is a highborn maiden of three-and-ten, with a fair face and auburn hair.

TAKE THIS MESMERIZING VIRTUAL TOUR OF A FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT HOUSE THAT WAS NEVER BUILT

This is a recent favorite of mine by Christoph Niemann, part of a series of six animations done for MoMA.