February 5, 2016
Error 53
Thousands of iPhone 6 users claim they have been left holding almost worthless phones because Apple’s latest operating system permanently disables the handset if it detects that a repair has been carried out by a non-Apple technician.
My God, it's full of cake!
Crushed between two Portals pushes Valve's Source Engine to places it was probably never intended to go. (SLYT)
akin to a Rorschach inkblot
A federal court panel has ruled that two of North Carolina’s 13 congressional districts were racially gerrymandered and must be redrawn within two weeks. Critics of the 2011 Republican-led redistricting contend the map lines were drawn to concentrate black voters in districts that reduced their overall political power. North Carolina is home to 3 of the nation's 10 most gerrymandered congressional districts.
Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
The cat's name is Haku
"Text Mode Lives!"
I Want to Believe
Edgar Mitchell, NASA astronaut, Apollo 14 Lunar Module Pilot, and outspoken alien visitation believer, has died at age 85. [more inside]
"There’s white and then there’s the how-white-my-shirts-can-be white..."
Stealing White: How a corporate spy swiped plans for DuPont’s billion-dollar color formula By Del Quentin Wilber [Bloomberg Business]
“At first, you’re like: Why are they stealing the color white? I had to Google it to figure out what titanium dioxide even was,” says Dean Chappell, acting section chief of counterespionage for the FBI. “Then you realize there is a strategy to it.” You can’t even call it spying, adds John Carlin, the assistant attorney general in charge of the U.S. Department of Justice’s national security division. “This is theft. And this—stealing the color white—is a very good example of the problem. It’s not a national security secret. It’s about stealing something you can make a buck off of. It’s part of a strategy to profit off what American ingenuity creates.”
Watch for the bit where it almost flies into the door
The future will be boring. TBD.
What is Design Fiction?
"the deliberate use of diegetic prototypes to suspend disbelief about change. That’s the best definition we’ve come up with. The important word there is diegetic. It means you’re thinking very seriously about potential objects and services and trying to get people to concentrate on those rather than entire worlds or political trends or geopolitical strategies. It’s not a kind of fiction. It’s a kind of design. It tells worlds rather than stories." — Bruce SterlingExamples of Diegetic Prototypes in Design Fiction. [more inside]
Schrödinger's Fetus
On February 2, 2016, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control released new guidelines advising all sexually active women to abstain from alcohol unless they are on birth control. The recommendation and related infographic were quickly criticized. [more inside]
100 years of Dada
On February 5, 1916, 100 years ago today, the Cabaret Voltaire opened in Zurich, Switzerland, marking the beginning of Dada. Happy birthday, Dada! [more inside]
Down these mean streets a man must go
Full cast radio adaptations of The Big Sleep, The Lady in the Lake, Farewell My Lovely, The Long Goodbye, The High Window, and three more Raymond Chandler mysteries. Starring Toby Stephens as Philip Marlowe.
There's only power, BIM is the power.
In 1980, Menahem Golan showed us a harrowing vision of the power of rock...in 1994 The Apple is a futuristic, dystopian disco rock musical that also manages to be a druggy, sexy biblical allegory. [more inside]
A Flag for No Nations
Jury rigged Skylab fix alien satellites fall marathon man disaster refugees ubiquitous. [more inside]
Pip Pip Pip Pip Pip Piiiiip
First broadcast on Feb 5th 1924, the BBC's Greenwitch Time Signal has collected some history. The pips have marked the hour with six (or seven) beeps for over 90 years. Sometimes the pips arrive on time, but the merely human announcers "crash the pips" by talking over them. Sometimes, the pips go missing entirely, throwing the BBC and its listeners off-kilter. In 2014, Radio 4 celebrated their 90th birthday in musical fashion.
A short medley of announcers playing with, swearing at, and missing the pips (via). [more inside]
Synthetic Dance Moods from Turkey, and more psych/prog/advanced music
Are you looking for a world of progressive and psychedelic music? Look no further than Psyche Music aka Prog/Psych/Advanced Music Reviews and Psychefolk aka Psyche Van Het Folk. The sites are old, so beware of dead links, but there's also more online now than there was when Progressive.Homestead.com was first linked on the blue, over a decade ago. Now hear Metin Alatli's "Alamooga Esinlenmeler" for 34 minutes of "early 70s Moog-madness" from Turkey.
Centriphone
SLYT: Centriphone - an iPhone video experiment by Nicolas Vuignier
Dignified housing at an affordable price
"For over a decade, architecture students at Rural Studio, Auburn University's design-build program in a tiny town in West Alabama, have worked on a nearly impossible problem. How do you design a home that someone living below the poverty line can afford, but that anyone would want—while also providing a living wage for the local construction team that builds it?" Now Rural Studio has a prototype it's trying to bring to market, and it's hitting its biggest challenge yet: how to fit its small, efficient, inexpensive houses into an infrastructure that has no place for them.
Two drummers and a lot of hair
The Melvins-Big Business merger crushes the entire Houdini album live. Watch them play Night Goat and just try not to flip over your desk. [more inside]
Adorable Friday cephalopod
Even the title of the game was plagiarized.
ProbablyRichard spends an hour discussing the PC adventure game Limbo of the Lost. A game so bad and so terribly produced that "when the plagiarism was first discovered, many were incredulous that the developers could actually get away with such blatant copyright violation. Some posited that it may be an ARG (Alternate Reality Game)." and was eventually disowned by every person associated with it.
Windes blast and weder strong
The English are famous for complaining about the weather, but this is nothing new. Nearly a thousand years ago, an unknown musician set down a single verse that still carries heartfelt sadness about the longeurs of winter, leaving us a wistful window into existence, art and society in the early medieval years. Decoding the earliest surviving secular song in English.
Crossfire
Missing Jon Stewart. Trevor Noah is smooth and charming, but he hasn’t found his edge.
Cut it out NASA, you don't have the money or a plan for Mars
"Members of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology tore apart NASA's Journey to Mars initiative, claiming the program needs a much more defined plan and clear, achievable milestones to work. Those in attendance also doubted the feasibility of a long-term Mars mission; they cited the massive amount of money needed for the trip — much more than NASA currently receives year to year — as well as a significant leap in technological development. Because of these enormous challenges, a few witnesses at the hearing suggested that NASA either rethink its approach or divert its attention to a Moon mission instead."
"That’s when the narcotics officers kicked in the door."
The NYPD is Kicking People Out of Their Homes, Even If They Haven’t Committed a Crime via ProPublica and the New York Daily News.
Satanic work experiments significantly impaired in such bioethics
What a marvelous knight for a moondance.
Tables Turned
Your Code in Spaaace!
In the ISS there are two Astro Pi computers, Ed and Izzy, equipped with Sense HATs, two different camera modules (visual and IR), and stored in rather special cases. They are now running code written by UK school children - the winners of a competition. The data will be feeding back soon! [more inside]
"We love you, Dave Mirra, we're going to miss you."
WOT!! No Anti - Virus Software .....
The Malware Museum (archive.org) is a collection of malware programs, usually viruses, that were distributed in the 1980s and 1990s on home computers. Once they infected a system, they would sometimes show animation or messages that you had been infected. Through the use of emulations, and additionally removing any destructive routines within the viruses, this collection allows you to experience virus infection of decades ago with safety.
Reinforcing Deterrence on NATO's Eastern Flank
Wargaming the Defense of the Baltics. As Presently Postured, NATO Cannot Successfully Defend the Territory of its Most Exposed Members. [more inside]
Why, Why, Why?
The shadow leader of the House of Commons, Chris Bryant, has joined calls for the Tom Jones song Delilah to be banned from Six Nations rugby matches because it incites violence against women. [more inside]
Flatware for those who can afford it!
Despite the name games, airline food hasn't changed much. Economy class meals still come in a wrapper, and business or first-class meals come with real cutlery. This list shows the sometimes striking difference between what the different classes eat.
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