Planetaki Planet example

Steampunk sequencer generates audio from Lego blocks

2010-03-10T10:25:59+00:00

In 2007, steampunk musician Yoshi Akai wrote his master's thesis on how to turn color into sound, and he's been dreaming up unorthodox ways of producing music ever since. Case in point: the Lego Sequencer MR II, a contraption that uses three-dimensional Lego structures to emulate a three-channel, eight-step sequencer, where each differently colored plastic brick produces a different sound and complex combinations (including tremolo and overdrive) are possible when the blocks are stacked. Akai tells us it works using resistors embedded in each and every block, with parallel networks of resistors formed as the bricks pile up, equalling lower resistance and thus a higher frequency sound generated by the contraption. While the result certainly won't back a techno track -- Akai says he's "building sound more than playing sound" -- it looks like a good step up from the lethargic phaser noise produced by his Wireless Catcher, a lot of fun to play with, and much less expensive than hiring a team of hot models. Video after the break.

Continue reading Steampunk sequencer generates audio from Lego blocks

Steampunk sequencer generates audio from Lego blocks originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Twitter Defamation Lawsuit Dismissed, As Tweets Were Considered Too Vague

2010-03-10T10:28:25+00:00

Last year, we wrote about how a property management firm in Illinois, Horizon Group Management, had sued a tenant for defamation over a short Twitter message she sent, claiming:

"Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's okay."

The woman had a grand total of 20 followers at the time, so it wasn't like this was likely to have a huge negative impact on the company. Still, what was impressive was how Horizon defended its decision to sue, saying:

"We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization."

That seemed rather obvious, given that by filing the lawsuit, the company brought a lot more attention to the fact that some of its tenants were unhappy. And, even worse, the lawsuit has gone nowhere. Dark Helmet alerts us to the news that the lawsuit has been dismissed as the comments were considered "too vague" and didn't meet the qualifications to be considered libelous. This doesn't mean that their can't be defamation via Twitter, so if you're going to defame someone, at least be vague about it in your 140 characters.

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Town Battles Supermarket Expansion and Wins

2010-03-10T10:25:47+00:00

Image from Mail online There can hardly be a town without Tesco in Britain. The supermarket controls 30% of the business in the country and has stores everywhere. As it expands relentlessly it often wipes out small local businesses in its way. Sheringham, a resort town of 7,500 people has held out for 14 years against Tesco. Instead it has butchers and bakers and fishmongers along its main road. Tesco applied for planning permission to build on the main street and met with opposition by the loca...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Robert Scheer: An Oscar for America's Hubris

2010-03-10T10:26:21+00:00

What a shame that the one movie about the Iraq war that has a chance of being viewed by a large worldwide audience should be so disappointing. According to press reports, members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences finally found a movie about the Iraq war they liked because it is "apolitical." Actually, "The Hurt Locker" is just the opposite; it's an endorsement of the politically chauvinistic view that the world is a stage upon which Americans get to deal with their demons no matter the consequence for others.

It is imperial hubris turned into an art form in which the Iraqi people appear as numbed bystanders when they are not deranged extras. It is a perverse tribute to the film's accuracy in portraying the insanity of the U.S. invasion--while ignoring its root causes--that the Iraqis are at no point treated as though they are important.

They never have been, at least in the American view. No Iraqi had anything to do with attacking us on 9/11, and while we are happy to have an excuse to grab their oil and deploy our bloated military arsenal, the people of Iraq are never more than an afterthought. Whatever motivates Iraqi characters in the movie to throw stones or blow themselves up is unimportant, for they are nothing more than props for a uniquely American-centered show. It is we who matter and they who are graced by our presence no matter how screwed up we may be.

Indeed, the only recognition of the humanity of the people being conquered comes in a brief glimpse of a young boy, a porn video seller, the one Iraqi whose existence touches the concern of the film's reckless soldier hero. The American cares deeply about the quality of the sex videos he purchases, but, as it transpires, he is indifferent to the quality of his own family's life back home. Even that depressingly sad commentary on life in America is mitigated by the fact that it produces even more dedicated warriors. Maybe a deeply unsatisfying home life is a necessary prerequisite for being all you can be in the Army.

Yes, it is true, as Chris Hedges is quoted in the beginning of "The Hurt Locker": "The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug." That's from his book "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning," and the most positive thing to come out of this film might be that some people will be encouraged to read his brilliant book. But the film itself is otherwise an enlightened Rambo story: War is hellish but entertaining, and real men are those who will rise to the task no matter if its larger aim is absurd.

But the real addiction to war is not that of hapless soldiers, those troops that the filmmakers insisted on applauding as they clutched their Oscar statuettes. Rather, that addiction lies in the lust for power and profit among those who sent the soldiers to Iraq to kill and be killed in a war known to our leaders to have been undertaken for false purposes. Invading Iraq became the obsession of the Bush administration after 9/11, as opposed to dealing with Afghanistan, where, as then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld put it, there were no good targets. The Taliban hardly provided as worthy an adversary as Saddam Hussein in our quest to replace the Soviet empire as a reason for our massive military expenditures. And there was the wan hope that the oil in Iraq would pay for it all. That oil hasn't paid for any of it, but while U.S. taxpayers get stuck with the bill, the multinational corporations swarming over the place will do very well.

Bringing up such crass motives presents an inconvenient truth for those who believe that American foreign policy is driven by higher goals. For them I would point to the example of Clinton-era Ambassador Peter Galbraith, who became a cheerleader for George W. Bush's war. His hawkishness was supposedly based on concern for Iraq's Kurdish population even though that group was living outside of Saddam Hussein's area of control. After the U.S. invasion Galbraith was an active adviser on the writing of Iraq's constitution and lobbied to include language that gave the Kurds control over the oil in their region. Galbraith was at the time advising a Norwegian company that secured oil rights from those same Kurds, and he, in turn, received 5 percent of one of the most promising oil fields, worth an estimated $100 million.

Don't you think at least one of the soldiers in "The Hurt Locker" would have known that kind of stuff was going on? If so, it's disrespectful to our troops to have censored such innate GI wisdom.

Jesse Ventura Also Filmed Role in The Wachowskis’ Secret Futuristic War Movie

2010-03-10T10:26:23+00:00

You might recall that late last year, Arianna Huffington (co-founder of the liberal news website The Huffington Post) published a few tweets claiming that she was shooting a part in a secret Wachowskis Brothers film, a movie about the Iraq War, from the perspective of the future. We wouldn’t have believed it but Huffington posted photos from the set, one of which features Any Wachowski and Wachowski brother turned sister Lana Wachowski. Was it possible that the Wachowskis have actually sneaked their next film into production without anyone noticing? Or is this just part of a short film, commercial, or test footage for a potential future project? No one had any idea, and nothing more has been learned about the project until today.

Appearing on Tuesday’s episode of the Howard Stern Show on Sirius/XM Satellite radio, the professional wrestler turned actor turned governor Jesse Ventura dropped word that he just got done filming a movie for the Wachowskis. When asked if he missed acting and would ever consider returning to the big screen, Ventura dropped the bomb shell:

“I just did one with the Wachowski brothers…”

And if you think this is strange, it gets a lot stranger. More details follow below.

Ventura explained that he didn’t know where this film is gonna end up, to which Stern asked “What is the film?” Ventura responded: “I don’t know…” Ventura revealed that they didn’t have a script, and the whole thing was done ad-lib/improv.

“Wait til you hear what they did. They brought me, and they brought Arianna Huffington in after me. Arianna was there, and they had her looking like cleopatra. What they did… Do you remember what John Travolta looked like in that horrible film Battlefield Earth? They put multicolored dreadlocks on me all the way to here. They gave me this crazy beard that was hanging down pointed, looked like Travolta, right? And they put a third eye in the middle of my forehead. Because what this is, is this is a hundred years in the future, and they wanted me to talk about the current war in Iraq and how I felt about it. And so I got to vent, looking like this maniac in this whole outfit.”

Ventura said he did his rant about Iraq and then he was questioned by Lana off camera, documentary style. Stern responded that he doesn’t “understand what this part is about”, to which Ventura quickly responded: “Neither do I!”

Anyone have any ideas or know anything more solid? We’ll keep you updated.

Erik Davis (of cinematical fame) e-mailed me in response to the previous posting asking if it could be Cloud Atlas, the Wachowskis-produced Tom Tykwer-directed adaptation of the postmodern novel by David Mitchell . But as far as I’ve heard, that film is still in the development stages and Tykwer just wrapped last week on a new feature called Drei (Three), so it is unlikely that he is back behind the camera so soon. Or maybe Tykwer is no longer involved?

You can check out more photos from the Huffington shoot in our previous post about the project.

Lisa Guerrero: Taking a Red Carpet Ride Into the New Media Millennium

2010-03-10T10:26:21+00:00

I've been a broadcaster for 17 years, but Sunday's Academy Awards pre-show "Live From The Red Carpet" on Oscar.com was the first time I've ever hosted a show on the web. It was an eye opening experience to say the least, for me...

While most of the televised pre shows have a live element, ours was a two hour live event with no commercials, no teleprompter, no seven second delay, so essentially, no net. We used broadcast quality cameras and technology so what you saw on our site was as clear as what you'd see on your flat screen and our webcast, produced by ABC, was groundbreaking!
Through Facebook, we were able to take questions from viewers at home and ask them to the stars on the red carpet in real time. Pretty cool stuff.

When a fan wrote the following question of Amanda Seyfried, it led to a very funny and surprising answer... "Were you a fan of Nicholas Sparks before you did Dear John?" ...refering to the author of the novel her film was based on. She told the story of meeting him on location and gushing that she was a fan and loved one book of his in particular. Only problem was, he didn't write it- she got him confused with quite a different author, James Patterson!

Ooops!

Because our webcast was live, there was no telling what stars we would get to our stage, so basically I prepared for two weeks to interview any nominee or presenter who could end up on our show.

I watched all the films that were nominated and read as much background info as I could to prep for any possibility, but being live, there were plenty of surprises...

Early in the show Wolfgang Puck marched onto our stage with food trays and mini Oscar chocolates in hand. When he left I looked at the 6" Academy he'd left me with, and then over at my shorter co-host, Brett Chukerman, and blurted out, "Look, he's as tall as you!"
I couldn't believe I just teased this guy about his height, live on camera. I felt like I shot a puppy.

Later in the show, Matt Damon came on to our stage. After we exchanged a kiss on the cheek, he explained to my co-host that we "knew each other in a previous life." This led to immediate buzz on the internet- did we used to date??? How do they know each other? What did he mean by "another life"? I was bombarded with email and texts....that's the power of streaming live online.

BTW, no, we never dated- he lived in Boston when I was a new broadcaster at New England Sports Network and we have mutual friends in the sports world. I also dated his agent years ago, "in a previous life."

Other things that helped to make our red carpet coverage different than the other shows were the streaming posts on the right margin of the screen allowing viewers to comment on our interviews and banter during the show, and the ability to get the biggest stars of the night because the show was co-produced by The Academy itself. It's kinda awkward though when you have so many A-listers lined up to be interviewed that you have to speed through an interview with Mariah Carey to get to Jennifer Lopez and then to wrap her up quickly to bring on Quentin Tarentino. Nothing like cutting off one of the world's greatest directors 'cause we have a hard out.

I honestly almost didn't take the gig when I got the offer- I had never done a "webcast" before, but after learning more about new media and its huge impact on how we watch big events and how as a reporter we can cover them better, I'm sold.

I finally joined the new millennium last week by putting up a Facebook page and am starting to produce video blogs to post here and at LisaGuerrero.com. It's exciting to know that we can create and control the content on our own sites and not to always be at the mercy of a network or news director. Finally, "Live From The Red Carpet" was a huge success for ABC.com. Estimated traffic at Oscar.com during "Live From The Red Carpet was exceptional and the Facebook element allowed viewers to feel like they were interacting with their favorite stars.

Getting dolled up and rubbing elbows with the starts at awards shows just got a lot more interesting, and apparently, a lot more viewers.

Tweet Defense – Fight Zombies With the Power of Twitter

2010-03-10T10:25:50+00:00

We’ve seen many, many iterations of the popular tower defense games over the years, but this one has a special meaning for all you Twitter fans out there.

Based on a tried and true concept, Tweet Defense is an iPhone game that lets you fight zombies with various tower defense units, but with a social twist: it grabs your various Twitter stats – number of followers, friends and tweets – and calculates bonuses to your defense based on them. It’s like an infinite time sink which connects two enormous time wasters – Twitter and tower defense. In other words, it’s beautiful.

Get Tweet Defense for $0.99 from the App Store.

Tags: iphone, tweet defense, twitter

courier-sans-swiss-beauties.jpg 277×349 pixels

2010-03-10T10:24:24+00:00

via http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.practise.co.uk/artwork/courier-sans-swiss-beauties.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.practise.co.uk/work/archive/courier-sans.html&usg=__hWo47Hc1l_-6Kccyp3v6mfuLmqs=&h=349&w=277&sz=95&hl=en&start=4&um=1&tbnid=S0bXhIeXSehTvM:&tbnh=120&tbnw=95&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcornel%2Bwindlin%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den-us%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1

Most adulterous professions

2010-03-10T10:26:36+00:00

A survey of the 1.9 million accounts on AshleyMadison.com, a dating site for people looking to cheat on their spouses, rounds up the most common occupations among the would-be infidelitous:

For Women:
1. Teachers
2. Stay-at-home Moms
3. Nurses
4. Administrative Assistants
5. Real Estate Agents
For Men:
1. Physicians
2. Police Officers
3. Lawyers
4. Real Estate Agents
5. Engineers

Who Cheats? Docs and Stay at Home Moms! (via MeFi)

(Image: The Seventh Commandment, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from pasukaru76's photostream)

Previously:

Martin Jetpack priced at $86,000, mere mortals will soon be able to buy one too

2010-03-10T10:25:59+00:00

Tired of the limited legroom, bad food, and worse movies you have to put up with during a flight? Well, it's time to bust out your company credit card and get yourself a Martin Jetpack, which has just become the first commercially available jetpack. Driven by a pair of washing machine-sized fans strapped to your back, this personal transporter will give you a pretty cool 30 minutes of flight time and comes with a bunch of redundancy systems to ensure any mistakes don't turn fatal. The rotors are built out of a carbon / Kevlar composite and are powered by a two-liter V4 two-stroke engine capable of delivering 200hp (or 150kW). Good old gasoline is the fuel of choice here and private individuals are expected to be offered the chance to fulfill every geek and geekette's dream later this year. Just make sure you have $86,000 lying around to fund it.

Martin Jetpack priced at $86,000, mere mortals will soon be able to buy one too originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 04:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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History, Revealed -- By: Kathryn Jean Lopez

2010-03-10T10:26:13+00:00

The Washington Post reports:

As troops massed on his border near the start of the Persian Gulf War, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein weighed the purchase of a $150 million nuclear "package" deal that included not only weapons designs but also production plants and foreign experts to supervise the building of a nuclear bomb, according to documents uncovered by a former U.N. weapons inspector.

The offer, made in 1990 by an agent linked to disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, guaranteed Iraq a weapons-assembly line capable of producing nuclear warheads in as little as three years. But Iraq lost the chance to capitalize when, months later, a multinational force crushed the Iraqi army and forced Hussein to abandon his nuclear ambitions, according to nuclear weapons expert David Albright, who describes the proposed deal in a new book.

May I quote Karl Rove in his NRO interview?

The world is a better place now that Saddam is gone: He was a brutal dictator who started wars and destabilized the Middle East. He led a rogue regime that constantly thumbed its nose at the demands of the world. And Iraq was a home to terrorists.

8-bit Lebowski art

2010-03-10T10:24:24+00:00

via http://www.blameitonthevoices.com/2009/08/8-bit-lebowski.html

New Inception Tidbits: Plot Details Confirmed, Running Time and Conception

2010-03-10T10:26:23+00:00

There hasn’t been much new on the Inception front recently, but I thought I’d cover some of the recent tidbits we’ve missed.

/Film Shane T informs us that in the February issue of Empire Magazine, there is a very brief mention of Inception in the “On-Set Preview” section, where it states that writer/director Christopher Nolan came up with the idea for the movie when he was only 16 years old. Crazy…

Secondly, Playlist has also reprinted a quote Nolan gave the magazine which further confirms the leaked plot line from last year:

“Basically the film deals with levels of reality, and perceptions of reality which is something I’m very interested in. Its an action film set in a contemporary world, but with a slight science-fiction bent to it. Cobb [Leonardo DiCaprio's character], who is the center of things and expert in a particular technology that the film revolves around, has put this team around him [Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon Levitt]. It’s very much an ensemble film structured somewhat as a heist movie. It’s an action adventure that spans the globe.”

And lastly, star Leonardo Dicaprio was recently interviewed by movies.ie where he was asked about Inception, and answered:

“I can tell you it’s about two hours long, give or take,” DiCaprio smiles. “Anything more than that, and Chris has vowed to have me strung up by my tongue…”

Grayson Offers Medicare Buy-In Bill, Makes Impassioned Speech (VIDEO)

2010-03-10T10:26:21+00:00

When Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) first became a father, his health insurance company refused to pay for the birth of the child, and Grayson had to pay $10,000.

Grayson told the House that story Tuesday during an impassioned and personal speech urging fellow lawmakers to support legislation that would allow Americans to buy into Medicare. Grayson introduced a four-page bill Tuesday that would make that a possibility. He asked would-be opponents to grant Americans the option to buy into the same health care plan that the federal government already offers.

Grayson: Isn't it time that we finally did something good for America? Isn't it time that we gave all Americans the right to buy into a public plan like this? Isn't it in fact past time that we did something like that and what's the harm? I say to those people on the other side of the aisle, if you don't want to buy into the public option, that's fine. But don't prevent me and my family and the ones who I love from doing the same. Let us have our alternative. And remember, remember what you said so many times before. You say the government can't do anything right. Well let's see. Let's see right now. Let's let people buy into the public option, this bill.

WATCH:
More on Health Care

Confirmed: Congress's Shower Room Is a Hotbed of Naked Gazing [Extreme House Makover]

2010-03-10T10:25:53+00:00

Salty sailor and homoerotic harasser Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) recently described a naked confrontation with Rahm Emanuel in the Congressional gym's locker room, where they "don't have shower curtains." They need an Extreme Makeover: House of Representatives Edition. More »

Health Care: Final Push For Obama?

2010-03-10T10:26:21+00:00

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has chosen a suburban St. Louis high school to make his closing argument for a health care overhaul, pushing a new anti-fraud plan as he cranks up the pressure on skittish Democratic lawmakers to act fast.

Obama is to speak Wednesday at St. Charles High School, his second health care address in three days. His speech comes as congressional Democrats stand on the brink of delivering the president a dramatic success with passage of his sweeping overhaul legislation – or a colossal failure if they can't get it done.

Business groups that oppose the legislation are also stepping it up, with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce announcing a coordinated campaign to spend as much as $10 million on ads, starting Wednesday, saying, "Stop this health care bill we can't afford."

Leaders in the House and Senate are waiting for a final cost analysis from the Congressional Budget Office in the next day or so that will allow them to start counting votes – and twisting arms – in earnest. In the House, in particular, getting the needed majority will be touch and go.

The two-step approach now being pursued calls for the House to approve a Senate-passed bill from last year, despite House Democrats' opposition to several of its provisions. Both chambers then would follow by approving a companion measure to make changes in that first bill.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has said he expects the House to act by March 18, the day Obama leaves for an overseas trip. That timetable would be tough to meet, and congressional leaders told White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel that they don't need deadlines handed down from the White House, according to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee.

"He was certainly informed that we don't feel that we want any deadline assigned to us," Waxman said.

Republicans are playing on House Democrats' suspicions of their Senate colleagues, arguing that Senate Democrats may not hold up their end of the bargain and the votes will be damaging politically for Democrats in November.

"They will be voting, when they pass the Senate bill, to endorse the Cornhusker kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, the Gator-aid, the closed-door deal," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said, citing controversial elements of the Senate bill.

An Associated Press-GfK Poll released Tuesday found a widespread hunger for improvements to the health care system, but also found that Americans don't like the way the debate is playing out in Washington.

About four in five Americans say it's important that any health care plan have support from both parties. And more than three in five say the president and congressional Democrats should keep trying to cut a deal with Republicans rather than pass a bill with no GOP support.

Leaders of both parties in Congress say that's not how it's going to work out. After a year of off-and-on negotiations, Republicans adamantly oppose Obama's plans. The White House and Democratic leaders say it's now-or-never for a health care overhaul, which would cover an additional 30 million Americans, require almost everyone to buy health insurance and impose new restrictions on insurance companies.

The president is applying pressure from the outside. In a speech Monday in Pennsylvania, he railed against insurance companies. The message for his Wednesday afternoon speech is aimed directly at the political middle. The plan he's touting would bring in high-tech bounty hunters to help root out health care fraud, a populist idea with bipartisan backing.

Waste and fraud are pervasive problems for Medicare and Medicaid, the giant government health insurance programs for seniors and low-income people. Improper payments totaled an estimated $54 billion in 2009. They range from simple errors such as duplicate billing to elaborate schemes operated by fraudsters peddling everything from wheelchairs to hospice care.

The bounty hunters in this case would be private auditors armed with sophisticated computer programs to scan Medicare and Medicaid billing data for patterns of bogus claims. The auditors would get to keep part of any funds they recover. The White House said a Medicare pilot program recouped $900 million for taxpayers from 2005-08.

A presidential memorandum Obama will sign Wednesday directs Cabinet secretaries and agency heads to intensify their use of private auditors under current legal authority.

The White House estimates that expanded use of private audits throughout the government could recoup at least $2 billion for taxpayers over three years.

___

Associated Press writers Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Charles Babington and Donna Cassata contributed to this report.

Congress Gym Usually Tame, Insist Lawmakers

2010-03-10T10:26:21+00:00

It's no secret that members of Congress broker deals on the treadmill or in the weight room of the House and Senate gyms. But former congressman Eric Massa's accusation that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel once berated him in the gym's shower over his vote against President Obama's budget left Washington watchers wondering how much business politicians conduct while naked.

The answer, lawmakers revealed Tuesday, is not much.

U.S. Shifts Iran Policy, Embraces Opposition

2010-03-10T10:26:21+00:00

After keeping a careful distance for the last year, the Obama administration has concluded that the Iranian opposition movement has staying power and has embraced it as a central element in the U.S.-led campaign to pressure the country's clerical government.

Administration officials and some allied governments believe that a combination of domestic unrest and international sanctions targeting Iran's Revolutionary Guard offers the best hope for forcing Tehran to yield on its nuclear program, and could even lead to a change in the government.

The Yahoo Cycling Team Is Going To Love This New Google Maps Feature

2010-03-10T10:24:17+00:00

Yahoo is backing a cycling team. I don’t know why — but they’re doing it. And today their passion got a little boost: from Google.

Google is announcing tomorrow at the National Bike Summit in Washington, DC that Google Maps will now include biking directions in the U.S. Apparently, this was the most-requested feature for the service, as some 57 million Americans ride bikes.

Thousands of miles of bike trails have been added to the maps. And there is also step-by-step directions, much like you can see for driving or public transportation directions in the maps. There is also a new layer that shows bike trails and bike-friendly areas on roads. Yes, it’s a bike-lover’s dream.

To make this new feature happen, Google partnered with Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, a nonprofit group that converts old rail lines into bike trails. The group have given Google information on some 12,000 miles worth of trails in the U.S.

To coincide with the launch, Google also has a cycling contest. To enter, you simply have to tweet with the hashtag #bikewithgoogle. The randomly selected winner will get a voucher for $2,500 to be used at American Cyclery.

I fully expect that hashtag to be dominated by members of Yahoo’s cycling team tomorrow.

Find out more about the new feature in the video below.

CrunchBase Information

Google Maps

Yahoo!

Information provided by CrunchBase

Release Dates: Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin and Zemeckis’ Mars Needs Moms!

2010-03-10T10:26:23+00:00

Disney has announced a release date for the Robert Zemeckis’ produced adaptation of Berkley Breathed’s children’s book Mars Needs Moms! and Paramount Pictures has confirmed the release o fthe Steven Spielberg-directed 3D performance capture adaptation The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. Details after the jump.

Mars Needs Moms! will hit theaters on March 11th 2011 in Digital Disney 3D and likely in IMAX 3D as well (considering Disney’s deal with the IMAX company). The performance capture film is being directed by The Prince of Egypt/The Time Machine helmer Simon Wells and stars Seth Green, Joan Cusack and Dan Fogler. Here is the book description for Mars Needs Moms!:

Milo doesn’t get it: What’s the big deal about moms? They’re just slavedriving broccoli bullies. Yet they are worshipped the world over! Perhaps even the galaxy over-because here come Martians and they’re after one thing only: moms. Milo’s mom in particular. Who better to drive them to soccer practice and to pizza parties? That’s quite a long way to come for a mom-could it be that Milo has been overlooking something special?

From Pulitzer Prizeâ€“winning comic strip creator of Bloom County and bestselling author Berkeley Breathed comes a funny, poignant book about how the unique love that binds our families can be overlooked in the rush and tumble of everyday lives . . . especially those of disgruntled little boys.

Paramount Pictures has confirmed that the Steven Spielberg-directed 3D performance capture adaptation The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn will hit theaters on December 23rd 2011. Official Plot Synopsis follows:

Directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Jamie Bell (”Billy Elliot,” “Defiance”) as Tintin, the intrepid young reporter whose relentless pursuit of a good story thrusts him into a world of high adventure, and Daniel Craig (”Quantum of Solace,” “Defiance”) as the nefarious Red Rackham. Bell and Craig are joined by an international cast that includes Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Gad Elmaleh, Toby Jones and Mackenzie Crook.”The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn,” from a screenplay by Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish, is produced by Spielberg, Peter Jackson and Kathleen Kennedy, is the first in the series of 3D motion capture films based on the iconic character created by Georges Remi, better known to the world by his pen name “Herge” and is due for release in 2011. Executive producers are Nick Rodwell, Stephane Sperry and Ken Kamins. Paramount Pictures will release domestically and in all English speaking territories and Asia, excluding India. Sony Pictures Releasing International will distribute the film in Continental Europe, Eastern Europe, Latin America, India and the remainder of the world.

sources: EW, Box Office Mojo

No-Fly List Nearly Doubles Since Christmas Attack

2010-03-10T10:26:21+00:00

WASHINGTON — It starts with a tip, a scrap of intelligence, a fingerprint lifted from a suspected terrorist's home.

It ends when a person is forbidden to board an airplane – a decision that's in the hands of about six experts from the Transportation Security Administration.

The no-fly list they oversee constantly changes as hundreds of analysts churn through a steady stream of intelligence. Managing the list is a high-stakes process. Go too far in one direction and innocent travelers are inconvenienced. Go in the other direction and a terrorist might slip onto an airplane.

It could take minutes to put a name on the list. Or it could take hours, days or months.

That's because the list is only as good as the nation's intelligence and the experts who analyze it. If an intelligence lead is not shared, or if an analyst is unable to connect one piece of information to another, a terrorist could slip onto an airplane. Officials allege that's just what took place ahead of the attempted Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound jet.

In the months since the arrest of Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab, the no-fly list has nearly doubled – from about 3,400 people to about 6,000 people, according to a senior intelligence official. The list expanded, in part, to add people associated with al-Qaida's Yemen branch and others from Nigeria and Yemen with potential ties to Abdulmuttalab, a counterterrorism official said.

The no-fly list has been one of the government's most public counterterrorism tools since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Adding more people to the list could make Americans safer when they fly. But it could also mean more cases of mistaken identity.

Current and former intelligence, counterterrorism and U.S. government officials provided The Associated Press a behind-the-scenes look at how the no-fly list is created. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security issues.

Despite changes over time, the list remains an imperfect tool, dependent on the work of hundreds of government terrorism analysts who sift through massive flows of information. The list ballooned after 9/11 and has fluctuated in size over the past decade. In 2004, it included about 20,000 people. The standards for getting on the list have been refined over the years, and technology has improved to make the matching process more reliable.

There are four steps to banning a person from flying:

_It begins with law enforcement and intelligence officials collecting the smallest scraps of intelligence – a tip from a CIA informant or a wiretapped conversation.

The information is then sent to the National Counterterrorism Center, a Northern Virginia nerve center set up after 9/11. There, analysts put names – even partial names – into a huge classified database of known and suspected terrorists. The database, called Terrorist Identities Datamart Enterprise, or TIDE, also includes some suspects' relatives and others in contact with the suspects. About 2 percent of the people in this database are Americans.

Analysts scour the database trying to make connections and update files as new intelligence flows in. Abdulmutallab's name was in TIDE before the Christmas Day attempt, thanks to a warning his father gave the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria about the alleged bomber's extremist ties in Yemen.

But much of the information coming into the center is incomplete. This is one reason analysts didn't connect Abdulmutallab's father's warning to other fragmented pieces of information. Because of this, analysts did not send his name to the next tier of analysis at the Terrorist Screening Center, another Northern Virginia intelligence center, staffed by analysts from federal law enforcement agencies across the government.

_About 350 names a day are sent to the Terrorist Screening Center for more analysis and consideration to be put on the government-wide terror watch list. This is a list of about 418,000 people, maintained by the FBI.

To place a name on that list, analysts must have a reasonable suspicion that the person is connected to terrorism. People on this watch list may be questioned at a U.S. border checkpoint or when applying for a visa. But just being on this list isn't enough to keep a person off an airplane. Authorities must have a suspect's full name and date of birth as well as adequate information showing the suspect is a threat to aviation or national security.

_Once armed with information for those three categories, about a half-dozen experts from the Transportation Security Administration who work at the screening center have two options. They can add a suspect to the "selectee list," a roster of about 18,000 people who can still fly but must go through extra screening at the airport. Or, if analysts determine a person is too dangerous to board a plane, they can put the suspect on the no-fly list.

The names on each list are constantly under review and updated as the threat changes.

In 2007, officials removed people who were no longer considered threats. Some were inactive members of the Irish Republican Army, a former law enforcement official said. And in 2008, the criteria was expanded to include information about young Somali-American men leaving the U.S. to join the international terrorist group al-Shabab, the senior intelligence official said. If a person on the no-fly list dies, his name could stay on the list so that the government can catch anyone trying to assume his identity.

At times, officials have allowed passengers to fly even if they are on the no-fly list, the former law enforcement official said. In some cases, this is to let agents shadow suspected terrorists while they're in the U.S. Before this happens, FBI agents and TSA experts consult with each other. If it is decided a suspected terrorist should be allowed on the flight, he and his belongings might then go through extra screening, he might be watched on camera at the airport, and more federal air marshals might be assigned to monitor him during his flight, the former official said.

As the government takes on more responsibility for checking names against the lists, officials hope the number of mistaken identity cases will dramatically decrease. And since Dec. 25, national security officials have been looking at ways to change and improve the standards for placing people on it.

One thing is for sure: Another incident like the Christmas Day near-miss will cause more re-examinations of a system still far from foolproof.

___

Associated Press writer Matt Apuzzo in Washington contributed to this report.

___

On the Net:

http://www.nctc.gov/docs/Tide_Fact_Sheet.pdf

http://www.fbi.gov/terrorinfo/counterrorism/tsc.htm

How to Look Like a Gadget Lover Without Buying Any Real Electronics [Wtf]

2010-03-10T10:26:14+00:00

12 Full Color Printed VHS Video Boxes: $9. Full Scale Plastic Washer and Dryer Set: $139. 2 Piece 20" Wide Screen LCD Style Computer Package: $49. Outfitting your entire home with prop gadgets: Probably a bad idea.

If you're like me and ever looked at one of those prop TVs in a store and wondered how much they go for, then the mystery is finally over. You can seek out Props By IDM, a company who sells such fake gadgets, and price check. [Props by IDM via Boing Boing]

Impressions: Civilization V or 'I Wanna Hex You Up'

2010-03-10T10:25:54+00:00

We already told you that Sid Meier's Civilization IV was finally getting a sequel with Civilization V later this year, and then we showed you the trailer that contained absolutely no gameplay. But now we've actually seen an early build of the game, and we can tell you how hexy it is. That's right, forget about old Civilization games which only had four cardinal directions to choose from when moving your units; this installment ramps that up to to six. That's right! Two whole new directions! It's a brand new game!

In all fairness, it is Civilization but Firaxis made plenty of substantial changes to it. Besides hexing it up, they've also added ranged units (think archers, artillery, ICBMs, etc) and taken out the ability to stack units up into an army. Also, only one unit can occupy a spot at any given time, meaning you won't be able to bulldoze your opponent from one hex. They've also built an entirely new engine for this game, meaning you'll see some really nifty stuff ... provided you have a DX11 card and a multicore processor.

Gallery: Civilization V (03-09-10)

Continue reading Impressions: Civilization V or 'I Wanna Hex You Up'

Impressions: Civilization V or 'I Wanna Hex You Up' originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MIT gurus use polyethylene to suck heat away from your next CPU

2010-03-10T10:25:59+00:00

Man, MIT is making all of these other places of higher learning look silly. For what seems like the fortieth time this month, scientists at the university have revealed yet another breakthrough that might just change the way we compute in the future. Polyethylene, which is about as common a polymer as they come, could very well become a vital part of the way your next processor is cooled, as MIT boffins have figured out how to cause said polymer to "conduct heat very efficiently in just one direction, unlike metals, which conduct equally well in all directions." If you're still struggling to figure out why this matters, have a listen at this: "this may make the new material especially useful for applications where it is important to draw heat away from an object, such as a computer processor chip." In fact, even Intel is taking notice of the development, though no one's saying outright when exactly this stuff will leave the lab and hit Dell's supply chain. There's no time like the present, guys.

[Thanks, Kevin]

MIT gurus use polyethylene to suck heat away from your next CPU originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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avantgarde on the Behance Network

2010-03-10T10:24:24+00:00

via http://www.behance.net/Gallery/avantgarde/438409?utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Instant