Mario and Fafa review stuff that has been seen on TV — via Youtube
A central cooling plant in Google’s Douglas County, Georgia, data centre — via Wired.com
Photo: Connie Zhou
It seems like another life. At the height of his corporate career, Tom Palome was pulling in a salary in the low six-figures and flying first class on business trips to Europe.
Today, the 77-year-old former vice president of marketing for Oral-B juggles two part-time jobs: one as a $10-an-hour food demonstrator at Sam’s Club, the other flipping burgers and serving drinks at a golf club grill for slightly more than minimum wage.
While Palome worked hard his entire career, paid off his mortgage and put his kids through college, like most Americans he didn’t save enough for retirement. Even many affluent baby boomers who are approaching the end of their careers haven’t come close to saving the 10 to 20 times their annual working income that investment experts say they’ll need to maintain their standard of living in old age.
For middle class households, with incomes ranging from the mid five to low six figures, it’s especially grim. When the 2008 financial crisis hit, what little Palome had saved — $90,000 — took a beating and he suddenly found himself in need of cash to maintain his lifestyle. With years if not decades of life ahead of him, Palome took the jobs he could find — via redwolf.newsvine.com
When surveillance and national security supporters look back on the last three years at some remove, one of the lessons they may learn is that the reflexive obsession with secrecy cruelled the capacity of security institutions and governments to obtain any sort of social licence for surveillance, or even of basic trust.
The obsession of the United States government with secrecy has long since reached Kafkaesque proportions — but if you’re the victim of one of its campaigns, it is nightmarish.
Two weeks ago the US Department of Justice sought and obtained a gag order to prevent American journalist and sometime Crikey contributor Barrett Brown and his legal team from discussing his prosecution. Brown, who revealed many connections between the US government and the growing cyber military-industrial complex in the US, faces an array of charges with sentences totalling over 100 years in prison, including for sharing a link online.
At the point where even the US mainstream media had worked out that the prosecution of Brown was another example of the Obama administration’s war on investigative journalism, the administration decided enough was enough and secured a gag order to undermine the growing profile of Brown’s case. The prosecution argued the gag order was necessary because Brown was manipulating the public
. This is Barack Obama’s America, where telling the world about your Kafkaesque prosecution for sharing a link is manipulating the public
.
The gag order is symptomatic of the way this administration does business: it imposes secrecy requirements on others, while of course retaining the right to reveal whatever secret information it feels is in its own interests. An Obama administration gag order is routine in cases where it has pursued journalists and whistle-blowers, or its agencies have demanded the co-operation of IT and communications companies to spy on Americans, or provide back doors into their products to allow spying.
One of the genuinely amusing moments in the Obama administration’s hysterical overreaction to Edward Snowden was when Obama claimed in all seriousness that he had been planning to initiate a debate about the extensive powers that enabled the National Security Agency to spy on both Americans and the rest of us, but Edward Snowden came along and ruined his plans by revealing the true extent of surveillance — via redwolf.newsvine.com
What manner of creatures lurk in the deep and uncharted depths? I’m not sure, so grab your crochet hook and cuddle up to the unknown! — via Etsy
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals makes more than 1,000 foster placements a year, said Gail Buchwald, the ASPCA’s senior vice president of adoptions.
Fosters are an indispensable component for shelters, but there is a lot of turnover, she said, because of so-called foster failures — people who fall in love with their foster pets and adopt them.
When a foster becomes an adopter, no one minds, Buchwald said, but it does leave shelters on a constant lookout for new fosters.
There is no question that saying goodbye is the most difficult part of fostering, she said, and this list might help encourage people who are considering it:
- Remember you are saving lives. Without foster homes, more animals will have to be euthanised
- Remember the goal — to help foster pets find loving, forever homes
- Learn to celebrate successful adoptions
- Don’t feel guilty. Animals are resilient and adaptable
- Start or join a foster support network
- Take a break so you don’t burn out
- Cherish the memories
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
Kittens always seem to be crowd-pleasers, but sometimes it takes a little while for them to venture outside. Zoo Berlin welcomed an Ocelot kitten on 16 July, and the little one has been nursing, sleeping and growing strong out of the public’s sight, until recently — via ZooBorns
This medical case may give a whole new meaning to the phrase beer gut
.
A 61-year-old man — with a history of home-brewing — stumbled into a Texas emergency room complaining of dizziness. Nurses ran a Breathalyser test. And sure enough, the man’s blood alcohol concentration was a whopping 0.37 percent, or almost five times the legal limit for driving in Texas.
There was just one hitch: The man said that he hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol that day.
He would get drunk out of the blue — on a Sunday morning after being at church, or really, just anytime,
says , the dean of nursing at Panola College in Carthage, Texas. His wife was so dismayed about it that she even bought a Breathalyser.
Other medical professionals chalked up the man’s problem to closet drinking
. But Cordell and Dr Justin McCarthy, a gastroenterologist in Lubbock, wanted to figure out what was really going on.
So the team searched the man’s belongings for liquor and then isolated him in a hospital room for 24 hours. Throughout the day, he ate carbohydrate-rich foods, and the doctors periodically checked his blood for alcohol. At one point, it rose 0.12 percent.
Eventually, McCarthy and Cordell pinpointed the culprit: an overabundance of brewer’s yeast in his gut.
That’s right, folks. According to Cordell and McCarthy, the man’s intestinal tract was acting like his own internal brewery — via redwolf.newsvine.com
At the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium, the Clouded Leopard cub Tien has a new playmate, who will hopefully become his mate one day. Sang Dao (pronounced Sing Dow), five and a half months old, arrived on 12 September from Tanganyika Wildlife Park near Wichita, Kansas. She’s been settling into her new zoo, and keepers have started introducing her to Tien, who was born May 1 at Point Defiance. These photos were taken the day after her arrival. The two cubs — and their caretakers — seem to have had a wonderful rough-and-tumble time at the introduction — via ZooBorns
Carn – Jeff Le Bars from Jeff Le Bars on Vimeo
Réalisation: Jeff Le Bars
Musique et Sound Design: Sylvain Livenais
Film de fin d’études réalisé à l’école Emile Cohl de Lyon en 2012
A backpack computer has been developed to let people test a bionic eye so the implant can be perfected for those needing it.
The bionic eye project aims to give some vision to people who have lost their sight by transmitting images from a pair of glasses which have been fitted with a video camera.
Those images go to the implant, which stimulates the optic nerve.
The prototype computer will simulate the experience for testers and help researchers develop the algorithms required for mobility and orientation.
The head of the wearable computer laboratory at the University of South Australia, Bruce Thomas, says the testing project involves equipment readily available which has been modified and made easy to use for practical medical research — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A species of bee reintroduced to the UK after becoming extinct has nested for the first time in a quarter of a century.
The short-haired bumblebee started dying out in Britain in the 1980s and officially became extinct in 2000.
A reintroduction project saw queen bees brought over from Sweden.
After two releases of queens at the RSPB’s Dungeness reserve in Kent, offspring worker bees have been recorded there for the first time.
Short-haired bumblebees were once widespread across the south of England but declined as their wildflower rich grasslands disappeared.
Nikki Gammans, who leads the project, said: This is a milestone for the project and a real victory for conservation.
We now have proof that this bumblebee has nested and hatched young and we hope it is on the way to become a self-supporting wild species in the UK
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
Artist Derek Yaniger created this adorable tiki-style illustration featuring Elvira hanging out in a graveyard full of zombies. He only made 80 of these great prints that are even autographed by Elvira herself — via Neatorama
When my older son discovered his first wiggly tooth, I realised that I had the chance to define the Tooth Fairy experience for another generation. As I pondered how the Tooth Fairy would collect our family’s teeth, it occurred to me that she has an awful lot of teeth to gather, especially considering the ever-rising world population. It seemed prudent to figure out a way to send the teeth to her for processing, rather than make her visit the homes of all 7,103,000,000 people on Earth. As such, I installed a pneumatic transport system (as at the bank drive-through) in my house, for the purpose of sending teeth to the Tooth Fairy, and receiving renumeration back from her.
The Raspberry Pi serves up an interface that I built using Hype, which allowed me to quickly animate the movement of the capsule on the map and the spinning tooth on the Under Review
page. I expect to eventually use the pneumatic transport system to exchange messages and objects with the other creatures that come at night
, as my son calls them, so I included buttons for Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny. The HTML5 interface can play sounds, too, if it is Added to Home Screen
as a web app — via Youtube
A home is incomplete without at least a hint of eldritch horrors. The small tentacle is approximately 14.5” inches tall. The large sized tentacle is standing at about 32”. And the medium sized tentacle is about 23”. It’s reinforced with steel wire, and weighted with sand. The imagery is a screenprint made from an original woodcut illustration, copyright Camilla Taylor — via Etsy
Meet Mr Jimmy Niggles, an Aussie with a craft of a grizzly bear. Portrait photographer Mr Elbank, along with the rest of his portraits, shot Jimmy and his beard Barry
bringing out every blemish and freckle with a unique use of lighting. Not only was I impressed with the photography, but I know every girl wants that big grizzly bear to cuddle up to during these winter months. The story behind his beard is that back in 2009, a dear mate of Jimmy’s found a mole on his neck that turned out to be melanoma. A few months later he tragically passed away. Since then, Jimmy’s and his mates started Beard Season and he has been growing his beard ever since. Check out Jimmy’s site This is Beard — via Trendland
Running into battle armed with a broadsword, bow, and quiver of arrows was perfectly acceptable if you were fighting in the Hundred Years’ War or fending off some orcs on Middle Earth. But when it comes to World War II, such medieval weaponry looks like child’s play next to the technology of the time. A sword isn’t the most likely of defences against rifles and tanks. However, for John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill, nicknamed Mad Jack
, there was nothing he’d rather arm himself with than a trusty sword and bow.
Born into an old Oxfordshire family, he graduated from the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in 1926. Before his World War II fame, Mad Jack worked as an editor of a Nairobi newspaper, a model, and a movie extra, appearing in The Thief of Bagdad due to his expertise with a bow. That same talent with archery took him to Oslo, Norway where he shot for Britain during the world championships in 1939.
By this time, of course, Europe was fast approaching World War II. Mad Jack had left the army after ten years of service, but happily returned to it because of the country having gotten into a jam in my absence
.
By May 1940, Mad Jack was the second in command of an infantry company. He always marched into battle with a bow and arrows and his trusty basket-hilted claymore by his side. Despite these weapons being wildly outdated, Churchill defended them, saying, In my opinion… any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
Foreign secretary William Hague gave an award to former Telegraph editor Charles Moore, for writing a hagiography of Margaret Thatcher, who used his acceptance speech to build a precarious connection between my comments about the sponsors, my foolish answerphone scandal at the BBC and the Sachs family’s flight, 70 years earlier, from Nazi-occupied Europe. It was a confusing tapestry that Moore spun but he seemed to be saying that a) the calls were as bad as the Holocaust and b) the Sachs family may not’ve sought refuge in Britain had they known what awaited them. Even for a man whose former job was editing the Telegraph this is an extraordinary way to manipulate information.
Noel, who is not one to sit quietly on his feelings, literally booed while Charles Moore was talking, and others joined in. Booing! When do you hear booing in this day and age other than pantomimes and parliament? Hague and Johnson are equally at home in either (Widow Twanky and Buttons, obviously) so were not unduly ruffled, but I thought it was nuts. The room by now had a distinct feel of us and them
and if there is a line drawn in the sand I don’t ever want to find myself on the same side as Hague and Johnson. Up went Noel to garner his gong and he did not disappoint: Always nice to be invited to the Tory party conference,
he began, Good to see the foreign secretary present when there’s shit kicking off in Syria.
Noel once expressed his disgust at seeing a politician at Glastonbury. What are you doing here? This ain’t for you,
he’d said. He explained to me: You used to know where you were with politicians in the 70s and 80s cos they all looked like nutters: Thatcher, Heseltine, Cyril Smith. Now they look normal, they’re more dangerous.
Then, with dreadful foreboding: They move among us.
I agree with Noel. What are politicians doing at Glastonbury and the GQ awards? I feel guilty going, and I’m a comedian. Why are public officials, paid by us, turning up at events for fashion magazines? Well, the reason I was there was because I have a tour on and I was advised it would be good publicity. What are the politicians selling? How are they managing our perception of them with their attendance of these sequin-encrusted corporate balls?
We witness that there is a relationship between government, media and industry that is evident even at this most spurious and superficial level. These three institutions support one another. We know that however cool a media outlet may purport to be, their primary loyalty is to their corporate backers. We know also that you cannot criticise the corporate backers openly without censorship and subsequent manipulation of this information — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A Hawaiian woman with a 35-letter surname has persuaded the US state’s authorities to change their official ID card format, because her king-sized name will not fit.
Janice Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele, whose traditional Hawaiian name comes from her late husband, said she would never consider using a shortened version, and so used local media to press officials to take action.
I love the Polynesian culture I married into, I love my Hawaiian name. It is an honour and has been quite a journey to carry the names I carry,
Ms Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele, whose maiden name was Worth, said.
For years she has carried two forms of identification: her driving licence, which only has room for 34 characters, and her official Hawaii state ID card, which in the past had room for all 35 letters.
But the problem came after Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele’s state ID was renewed in May — and came back the same as her driver’s licence, with the last letter missing, and with no first name — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The Improbable Research Nobel Prize Award ceremony was held at Harvard Thursday night to award this year’s scientific projects that make people laugh, then make them think
, as the organisers, the Annals of Improbable Research, put it.
The awards, held every year since 1991, are meant to raise the question: How do you decide what’s important and what’s not, and what’s real and what’s not — in science and everywhere else?,
write the organisers. And, each year, the awards do just that, lofting projects unlikely to win a real Nobel Prize into the scientific limelight in a zany show that asks the question, why is this science so uproarious? — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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