I will play Civilization IV in honor of Leonard Nimoy's memory. His best reading was clearly the quote for "Railroad" -- http://www.youtube.com/watch...
Kevin Fox said it better: "@kfury: When I left moments ago it was all FCC and net neutrality and now it's llama llama llama.
Internet, you have the attention span of a newt."
- Stephen Mack
Article from Feb 22, 2015 by Kara Pernice: "Summary: Don Norman’s 3 levels of emotional design (visceral, behavioral, and reflective) helped me understand how my pure love for the Nest thermostat morphed into abhorrence. I was a proud early adopter of the unique, cool, and pretty device. It helped me save energy, and communicated to me. But things went bad when it let me down emotionally."
- Stephen Mack
(via Nakachi on FB) From Kristof's post: "SUPERMARKET shoppers are more likely to buy French wine when French music is playing, and to buy German wine when they hear German music. That’s true even though only 14 percent of shoppers say they noticed the music, a study finds." ... "Those studies are a reminder that we humans are perhaps less rational than we would like to think, and more prone to the buffeting of unconscious influences."
- Stephen Mack
"It’s not that we white men are intentionally doing anything wrong, but we do have a penchant for obliviousness about the way we are beneficiaries of systematic unfairness. Maybe that’s because in a race, it’s easy not to notice a tailwind, and white men often go through life with a tailwind, while women and people of color must push against a headwind." Also, if there's a tailwind, that may imply that I'm not as fast as I thought I was.
- Eivind
From the article: "Between 350,000 and 500,000 people die in China each year from severe air pollution, the country’s former health minister says.
Chen Zhu, who served as minister until March 2013, released his claims in a commentary published in the December issue of The Lancet medical journal. Chen’s revelations are particularly significant, the Telegraph writes, as he is the most senior government official who has mentioned a pollution-related death toll– which are generally subject to censorship in China."
- Stephen Mack
A friend on FB shared this recent article, "Somebody Took a Picture of Beijing's Skyline for a Year -- and It's Horrifying" (http://www.takepart.com/article...) but they don't actually show the gallery of the year of pictures, and I couldn't get that article's source site to load. So I'm sharing this one instead.
- Stephen Mack
Burning Man Tickets for 2015: Registration for individual sale opens Wed Feb 11, closes Sat Feb 14, tickets go on sale next week at noon on Wed Feb 18 - http://tickets.burningman.org/#
If you are possibly going to attend Burning Man this year, you must register between now and Saturday at noon Pacific to be able to try to buy tickets next week when they go on sale on Wednesday at noon. Details on the page linked.
- Stephen Mack
Good grief. That's absurd and frustrating. I swear I hit the button instantly, too, but still barely made it. It must have come down to fractions.
- joey - team everyone
#saturdayff (inspired by Holly's post about BattleBots returning) In 2001, some co-workers at TiVo built a robot for competition in BattleBots season 3 -- "Fast Forward." TiVo was a sponsor for the season, so a lot of us got free tickets to see the show. I spent a weekend on Treasure Island watching the robot fights. Glimpses of me appeared on TV. - http://battlebots.wikia.com/wiki...
They don't show the prelims, but there were several rounds without audience and cameras (and with the arena hazards disabled). Fast Forward qualified in the prelims, then beat its early round competitor ("The Annihilator") to advance to a quarterfinal match that they told us would be on the air. But we lost in quarterfinals to a bot named "Twin Paradox" (which then lost in the semifinals). As it turned out, that quarterfinal match with TiVo's bot was never aired.
- Stephen Mack
From the article: "SACRAMENTO -- Two state senators said Wednesday they will introduce legislation to eliminate a controversial 'personal belief exemption' that allows California parents to refuse to vaccinate their children.
'We shouldn't wait for more children to sicken or die before we act,' Sen. Richard Pan, a Sacramento Democrat who is also a pediatrician, said at a Wednesday news conference. 'Parents are letting us know our current laws are insufficient to protect their kids.' "
- Stephen Mack
We had a Waldorf school for my son's Kindergarten year, and the personal exemption rate was 70% or so. Aside from the expense, that was a huge factor for me in not having him return there for first grade.
- Stephen Mack
From the news article: "The creator of "Game of Thrones" says he once wrote a TV pilot with a plot focused on an alien landing at the Super Bowl.
George R.R. Martin is now a famous author who has the clout to go to the Super Bowl.
Martin attended the Rolling Stone party on the eve of the Super Bowl and plans to attend the game Sunday, his first ever trip to the big game.
He is rooting for the Seattle Seahawks because "the opposing team is the evil Patriots. The deflaters, the spygate-rs."
- Stephen Mack
If, in fact, aliens do land today at the Super Bowl, I will nod knowingly.
- Stephen Mack
From the article: "Another year of waiting for The Winds of Winter to blow is in store for fans of George RR Martin, as his publisher confirmed there are no plans for the much-anticipated latest volume from his A Song of Ice and Fire series to appear in 2015. Instead, readers will have to comfort themselves with an illustrated edition of three previously anthologised novellas set in the world of Westeros."
- Stephen Mack