Thursday, May 31, 2018

"Baltimore High Schools Sick Of Getting Whupped By Football Coach Who Spends Millions On His Team"

DS:
Last season, St. Frances went 13-0 and outscored opponents 534-61

...

Poggi did more than merely coach the St. Frances football team, however; he also bankrolled it.

Poggi owns a financial service firm based in the city, Samuel James LTD. A report in the February issue of the Catholic Review, a newsletter of the Baltimore Archdiocese, identified him as a “hedge fund manager” and said that he personally pays for “more than 40 football players” to attend SFA. The piece put the school’s entire enrollment at 172 students, and said “out of town” players are given room and board in rowhouses in Baltimore’s trendy Canton neighborhood.

...

Poggi spent the 2016 football season as a special teams assistant on Jim Harbaugh’s staff at the University of Michigan—where his son, Henry Poggi, was a running back

"N.F.L.’s Alternate ‘Cheerleaders’ Don’t Cheer or Dance"

NYT:
In interviews with a dozen women who have worked for N.F.L. teams as noncheering cheerleaders and six others who had direct knowledge of the noncheering squads, they described minimum-wage jobs in which harassment and groping were common, particularly because the women were required to be on the front lines of partying fans. The fans had no reason to believe these women were not actual cheerleaders because the women often dressed exactly like the cheerleaders dancing on the field or nearly the same.

...

The Ravens don’t hide the existence of a team of women — called the Playmakers — who might look and dress like cheerleaders but are actually marketers.

...

In the Redskins’ online sales video for these suites, they feature photos of suite owners posing with the team’s cheerleader ambassadors. Having close interaction with the ambassadors is a tacit perk of the elite club. As a voice-over in the video says, “membership has its privileges,” the video pans over a photo of a woman in a bikini.

...

“You thought it was going to be so glamorous and glitzy, like what the Cowboys’ cheerleaders have

Ten funny tweets



Wednesday, May 30, 2018

So they chased a goose off the field at the Angels Tigers game...





"Down goes the goose"

"Russian Commandos Debut Arctic Combat Buggy That Looks Right Out Of Fast And Furious"

TD:
There is little information about the vehicle as of yet, but it seems to be a relatively simple conversion of the original design that replaces the rear, powered wheels with triangle-shaped tracks and substitutes the front, unpowered axel with a pair of skis.

"Pro basketball players' synchronous movements might help us predict the next NBA champ"



"Forget highlight reels of 360-degree dunks and half-court shots, these videos of NBA players moving in sync could be the best predictor of who will win the 2018 championship."

"MoviePass . . . sent out an email to its subscribers Wednesday announcing that it’s partnering with student loan refinancing service Laurel Road"

"Refinance your debt with Laurel Road, and get a free annual MoviePass membership!"

"Contractor Fined $20M For Defrauding Navy"

BD:
According to a Thursday DOJ release, Inchcape Shipping Services Holdings Limited overcharged the Navy for years, and was only brought to task when a trio of whistleblowers — all former Inchcape employees — went to the FBI.

...

according to the provisions of the act, the do-gooders will will receive approximately $4.4 million in awards.

"Chuck Palahniuk 'close to broke' as agent's accountant faces fraud charges"

TG:
Palahniuk – one of many starry authors represented by the firm, including the estates of Mario Puzo and Studs Terkel – said his income had dwindled for several years.

...

Webb’s alleged activities emerged when an unnamed author did not receive an expected payment of $200,000, and repeatedly asked him where it was.

"A Florida man has pleaded guilty to impersonating a member of Saudi Arabia’s royal family to orchestrate several fraud schemes involving theft of millions of dollars"

"also attempted to use his false identity to buy a Miami hotel and had the nameplate “Sultan” on his condominium’s front door."

"De Beers was founded in the midst of a potential catastrophe for the diamond market"

BB:
The gems, once almost impossibly rare recoveries from a handful of rivers in India and Brazil, saw a sudden jump in supply in the 1870s and 1880s after the discovery of the first mine deposits near Kimberley in South Africa.

...

The rising sophistication of lab-grown diamonds threatens a potential repeat of the Kimberley supply surge.

...

The discount for De Beers' lab-grown Lightbox gem diamonds will be far greater than seen in the market at present

...

By pricing its Lightbox Jewelry-branded gems as low as $800 a carat – an 81 percent discount to the price of natural gems, compared to the 32 percent discounts existing synthetic gems are fetching – it’s sending an unmistakable signal that artificial diamonds should be considered little better than rhinestones.

“It’s kind of like dropping the atom bomb on the lab-created industry,” said Zimnisky. “This isn’t about trying to take market share in the lab-created industry, it’s about trying to steer the identity of the industry and prevent it cannibalizing natural diamonds.”

Saru concept art; Neon green tongue; Jurassic Park pin

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

"A Tesla sedan in Autopilot mode crashed into a parked Laguna Beach Police Department vehicle Tuesday morning"

LAT:
"Thankfully there was not an officer at the time in the police car," Cota said. "The police car is totaled."

"for the past month, Wizards of the Coast has been running an alternate reality game that bridges the gap between Wizards of the Coast’s Forgotten Realms and our own world"

ARGN:
The alternate reality game kicked off on May 1st with a code hidden away at the bottom of the Stream of Many Eyes‘ announcement page on the Wizards of the Coast website

...

Upon closer inspection of Glovers’ reviews for gaming stores, players (who started referring to themselves as #TeamVolo) noticed all of the gaming store reviews included surreptitious references to the names of Forgotten Realms locations. The first player to visit each location and give staffers the location as a passphrase received a key-shaped USB drive, branded with Elminster’s sigil.

"the #BoycottABC hashtag . . . went from being to liberal advocacy campaign to a pro-Trump censorship rallying cry in a matter of minutes"

BF:
It started on Tuesday morning when actor Roseanne Barr compared Valarie Jarrett, a black senior advisor to former president Obama, to an ape

...

on Tuesday morning, #BoyCottABC took off as an anti-racism protest

...

That is, until midday, when ABC responded. The network announced it had cancelled Roseanne

...

After ABC's announcement, it took only minutes for the hashtag to completely change hands, switching from those denouncing racism on the left, to pro-Trump and conservative accounts accusing ABC of partisan bias and censorship
Bonus:



Also:
Our new Ratio Bot uses a still-evolving algorithm to identify tweets from celebrities, politicians, pundits and otherwise prominent individuals that are in the process of getting ratioed

Monday, May 28, 2018

"Insurgents excavated graves in a cemetery in a refugee camp in the Syrian capital Damascus in search of the remains of three Israeli soldiers who have been missing since Israel's invasion of Lebanon 36 years ago"

NYT:
Raja said the insurgents' aim was to find the remains of the soldiers and transfer them to Israel.

...

Raja added that Syrian security forces, while examining the belongings of gunmen being transported to northern Syria earlier this month, arrested a woman and confiscated two bags of soil she was carrying, apparently from the cemetery, and sent them to authorities for DNA analysis.

Spider-Man mask with functioning eyes

4D attraction in China

Saturday, May 26, 2018

Friday, May 25, 2018

I'm pretty sure Lando's shirt is a Gordon Gartrell



"USC President C.L. Max Nikias to step down"

LAT:
"There is nothing more sacred to this board than the wellbeing of our students"

...

The cornerstone of Nikias' legacy is a $6-billion campaign launched in 2011, then described as the largest such drive in academic history. The university collected gifts and pledges to surpass the goal about 18 months ahead of schedule, according to USC. For his "exceptional progress" in the $6-billion campaign, trustees awarded Nikias a one-time $1.5-million bonus three years ago, making him the third-highest paid college president in the nation that year.

Maya Moore "Wings" poster; Max Rebo adventure; Dream with his helm









So along with the release of the movie comes the release of the ‘Art of Solo’ book written by @sfzuckuss & @clyne_design with lots of great stuff from the art dept, props, CFX and of course the costume dept. Some of the best spreads in it are by our resident concept artist Adam Brockbank who also worked with us on Rogue One. Having him on our team really takes the pressure off, he makes everything look so beautiful. Will post more soon, but do yourself a favour and treat yourself to a copy. There’s things in it that you barely see in the film that are well worth a look at. I loved doing this drawing of Lando/Donald Glover, he was a real pleasure to work with ...and this was his favourite look. #landocalrissian #lando #capes #hawaiianshirt #highwaisted #whiteboots #donaldglover #childishgambino #starwars #soloastarwarsstory #solomovie #costumedesigners #costumedesign #costume #lucasfilm #glyndillon #davecrossman #conceptart #conceptartist #artist #funfilm
A post shared by Glyn Dillon (@glyn__dillon) on

"Essential Products Inc., a startup co-founded by Android creator Andy Rubin that launched last year . . . has canceled development of a new smartphone"

BB:
It was valued at $900 million to $1 billion about a year ago

...

The startup has spent more than $100 million on developing its first products

Thursday, May 24, 2018

"Apple Rejects Valve's 'Steam Link' App on iOS After Previously Approving It Earlier this Month"

"The Steam Link app would allow iOS and Android users to stream games from their Steam library on their desktop computer right to their mobile devices"

From last week:
Quite simply, Steam Link for iOS devices and the Apple TV works so well it straight up feels like there's some kind of actual wizardry powering it all.

Muji "has been fined 200,000 yuan ($31,000) for selling 119 imported clothes hangers in China which were labeled as being 'Made in Taiwan' and had 'Taiwan' listed as their 'country of origin'"

"Muji has since rectified its mistakes and changed its packaging"

"Two weeks before the Belmont Stakes and a chance at the Triple Crown, a deal has been reached for the breeding rights to Justify"

ESPN:
The buyer is Coolmore, who bought the breeding rights to the last Triple Crown winner, American Pharoah, and the price is in the $60 million range

...

Justify is the most famous offspring of Scat Daddy, which Coolmore stood at stud from 2008 to 2015, when the horse died.

Justify was purchased at the Keeneland yearling sale less than a year after Scat Daddy's death for $500,000 by the China Horse Club and Winstar Farm.

This year, Scat Daddy became the first sire in 95 years to produce four starters in the Kentucky Derby

"Here’s Amazon’s explanation for the Alexa eavesdropping scandal"

Re:
Echo woke up due to a word in background conversation sounding like “Alexa.” Then, the subsequent conversation was heard as a “send message” request. At which point, Alexa said out loud “To whom?” At which point, the background conversation was interpreted as a name in the customers contact list. Alexa then asked out loud, “[contact name], right?” Alexa then interpreted background conversation as “right”.

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Smoking Ghost Rider mask; Adorable Lil Wolverine; Saturn pin








Picard on the Farm Instagram feed



"I Went To The Mysterious Fyre Festival Merch Drop"

Digg:
Just past noon, a fellow Digg editor mentioned in Slack that they'd received an email from a pop-up shop claiming to have authentic Fyre Festival merchandise.

...
That afternoon, we found out that another member of the Digg team received the pop-up shop email — both were contacted at their personal addresses. This, at least, piqued an intra-office mystery: why were they the only ones to receive the email? Were they, in any way, connected to the Fyre Festival fiasco?

...

This suggested another possibility: What if this pop-up shop was being run by a totally unrelated set of scammers? There were now three explanations: (1) These folks are legit, they came into possession of official Fyre-branded merch and decided to make a quick buck, (2) as suspected above, this is a sneaky way for folks behind the Festival to make money off the disaster, or (3) maybe, just maybe, the pop-up shop is a grift on a grift, peddling counterfeit Fyre merch to whoever's gullible enough to buy it. Internet sleuthing could only go so far. The only way to truly find out was to just show up at this thing, and ask around.

...

That guy identified himself as Chris. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, wearing one of the Fyre Festival shirts, normal glasses, shorts, some shoes that at least looked to be Adidas Yeezy Boost 350 V2s and a chunky wristwatch covered in diamonds.

...


A previous version of this article stated that Chris's watch was encrusted with what I guessed were Swarovski crystals. In an email Chris clarified that the base model of his watch costs approximately $30,000

"Three patients infected with the deadly Ebola virus escaped from a hospital holding them in quarantine in the Congo city of Mbandaka"

Reuters:
Two of the patients got out on Monday but were found dead a day later, said Henri Gray, the head of the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) mission in the city.

Another left on Saturday, but was found alive the same day and is now under observation

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Waterfall-side noodle bar where you have to pluck noodles as they flow past


Hirobun. From Yelp:
When we were seated, a lot of my questions and concerns got answered. Our party sat at the 4 seats farthest down the line, but each group has their own bamboo shoot to grab noodles from, so you don't have to worry about people in front of you grabbing your food. The experience was extremely fun and surprisingly filling. The bunches of noodles come quick and often. More than enough to go around, but be prepared, because if you aren't looking or get distracted, you may miss some of your noodles that will float right past you and into the river.

The noodle bar overlooks the waterfall, with every seat facing it. You do sit on the ground, which is slightly uncomfortable. Every seat has a great view with lots to look at. It is breathtaking. The last round is pink noodles, so that's when you know the meal is over. The noodles themselves taste great. The quantity was more than enough to fill. We were all full and satisfied after the meal.

This is a must-try restaurant when visiting Kyoto. The restaurant is ~45 minutes to an hour away in Kibune, but well worth the trek.

Happy Umlaut

"As a scooter charger you're a legitimate bounty hunter"

TA:
“It’s really fun to grab a few scooters, charge them, and in the end it pays for a fancy dinner,” Abouzeid says. “It’s like a game and I would do it even if the prices were halved, which they probably will be.”

Like Pokémon Go, when you enter “charger mode” the Bird app displays a real-time map of Birds across your area that require charging. The reward for capturing and charging these Birds can range from $5 to $20 depending on how difficult the Bird is to locate—and some can be really hard to find. Bird chargers have described finding Birds in and under trash cans, down the side of a canyon, hidden in bushes, or tossed sideways on the side of the street.

“Finding the really hard ones is so awesome,” says Lucas, a young teenage Bird charger in L.A. who didn’t want his last name or his age listed since he technically hunts under his parents’ account. “It’s become a big trend at my high school. People are like, ‘Oh are you gonna charge tonight?’ I have friends send me Snapchats like, ‘I just got 18 in one night!’

...

But while Bird hunting is fun and games for some, other chargers take the job much more seriously. Charging in some cities, like San Diego, has become a cutthroat competition between workers where every last dollar counts.

Hoarding in particular has become a problem in these crowded markets. Bird and other companies will pay a $20 reward for missing scooters, so some chargers simply keep the scooters in their garage until they’re reported missing by riders or the bounty goes up to $20, then claim the finder’s fees.

"Police in a Cleveland suburb thought they had a drunk on their hands when a man called to report a pig following him home from a train station"

"A North Ridgeville, Ohio, officer arrived on the scene early Saturday to find the man was very sober and a pig was in fact following him"

"The Story Behind Star Wars Kinect"

NYM:
“I’ve heard various reasons as to where that [mode] came from,” Jesse Harlin, who worked on video-game music at Lucasfilm at the time, recalled. “The one that I heard most often was that Microsoft had had success with a Kinect dance game, they had licensed a number of songs for a different dance game, and then that game fell through. They had that license and they had all these songs, and they knew that that gameplay was something that worked well with the Kinect. So somebody at Microsoft made the decision that they were going to add a dance section into the game.”

...

“By the time it reached my desk,” Harlin, the music supervisor, said, “there was nobody saying, ‘Do you think this is a good idea or not?’”

"Two hundred USC professors on Tuesday demanded the resignation of university President C. L. Max Nikias, saying he had 'lost the moral authority to lead'"

LAT:
About an hour after the faculty members sent the letter, board Chairman John Mork released a statement saying that while trustees were "troubled by the distressing reports" about the campus doctor, he and others on its executive committee "strongly support" Nikias.

"The executive committee of the board has full confidence in President Nikias' leadership, ethics, and values and is certain that he will successfully guide our community forward,"

"Norway Rejects Plan for Fish Farm on ‘World’s Largest Ship’"

"Pure Atlantic had planned to construct what would have been the world’s largest ship, some 500 metres (546 yards) long and 90 metres (98 yards) wide, to house a giant fish farm off the coast of Norway."

Ten funny tweets






















Monday, May 21, 2018

"Mosquito explosion in southwest Russia makes it ‘impossible’ to leave home"

WP:
Torrential rains and abnormally warm weather have spurred a mosquito infestation that has terrorized the Voronezh region in southwest Russia.

...

Meanwhile, across the Bering Sea, Alaska’s KTVA reported the season’s first swarm was spotted near Fairbanks about 10 days ago. In Alaska, mosquitoes grow so large that locals refer to them as “the state bird”

"Serena Williams apparently won beer pong at the royal wedding after-party"

"Williams met Markle in 2014 when they teamed up for a flag football match at a Celebrity Beach Bow event organised by DIRECTV."



Ten funny tweets























"Injured college football player files complaint with police"

As:
The flagrant foul was committed in an annual game between the two universities in Tokyo on May 6. The Nihon University player came running from the quarterback's blindside and tackled him from behind long after he had thrown an incomplete pass.

The quarterback suffered injuries that will require three weeks of treatment.

After the late hit, which drew a flag, the Nihon University defensive player continued to commit more personal fouls before he was ejected from the game.

"How Being Part of a 'House' Within a School Helps Students Gain A Sense of Belonging"

KQ:
Sept. 30, 2016 was a big day for Lake Canyon Elementary. Students, teachers, and staff arrived at the Galt, California, school wearing white shirts and before long were sent to stand by one of six large cardboard boxes. After a drum roll, cannons sprayed confetti over each cluster of students. The color matched one of six new banners, like the orange one reading “Sebete” and featuring a bear meant to symbolize courage. As music played, the boxes were ripped open to reveal matching T-shirts. Pulling them over their heads, students began doing something they’d continue every day until graduating: representing their house. Three semesters later, Principal Judi Hayes said, “Every part of our school culture now flows through the lens of the house system.”

If the image calls to mind Harry Potter being assigned to Gryffindor, that’s not far off the mark.

Gallery of classic video game idle animations

"Gamasutra recently checked in with a broad array of developers from around the industry to learn what idle animations they most enjoyed"

Sunday, May 20, 2018

Space Marine hoodies



At Gametee.

"Officials said late Saturday that the lava had entered the ocean, and advised all people to avoid the area because of a new hazard: laze"

WP:
Laze occurs when hot lava meets the ocean, sending a plume of hydrochloric acid and steam — along with fine glass particles — into the air.

Laze plumes travel with the wind and can shift directions without warning, the county civil defense agency said.

Ten funny tweets






















Animated pitch for Lockheed

"SUNY official's astonishing accounts called into question"

TU:
Chief of staff at Upstate Medical University not an attorney, but claims to be

...

His account of the bombing was among numerous astounding claims that he made last October during a 57-minute videotaped speech — titled "Courage Under Fire" — that have been refuted, could not be verified, or are so far-fetched that longtime State Department and other current and former U.S. government officials described them as not credible.

The questions about Garcia's background have recently stoked unrest among a few high-level members of the university's faculty, some of whom have questioned how Garcia, who has very limited experience in the hospital sector, quickly became the right hand to University President Danielle Laraque-Arena and has seen his roles expanded to include overseeing human resources and the campus police force.

Witches, swamps









Saturday, May 19, 2018

Daredevil's descent; Glowing carpet; Freehand on a tank








"Florida Atlantic University reported false numbers to the government, exaggerating how many women played for its sports teams, just a year after it ranked among the worst in the country"

PB:
“We believe the cause was simply a clerical error,” Metcalf said. “FAU takes its responsibility to provide equitable athletic participation opportunities extremely seriously.”

...

But even after subtracting the 55 women unaccounted for on FAU’s report, the school’s numbers indicate it disproportionately gave athletic scholarship dollars to men last year, violating federal law.

...

For all its lucre, however, college football is still divided into haves and have-nots. Seventy-five FBS teams took all the profits, while the other 51 programs either broke even or lost money, Education Department reports show.

Friday, May 18, 2018

"USC has fired two supervisors in the student clinic where a gynecologist was allowed to continue practicing despite years of misconduct complaints from patients and co-workers"

"The University of Southern California said Friday it has received about 200 reports from former patients of gynecologist Dr. George Tyndall in the wake of a Los Angeles Times investigation detailing years of misconduct complaints and is establishing a process to forward some of those accounts to the Los Angeles Police Department for criminal review."

Hasbro Has Officially Trademarked the Smell of Play-Doh

BW:
Today, Hasbro (NASDAQ: HAS) announces that the iconic PLAY-DOH scent, known and loved by fans around the world, is officially recognized by the United States Patent and Trademark Office as a registered trademark of the brand. The trademarked scent, which Hasbro formally describes as a unique scent formed through the combination of a sweet, slightly musky, vanilla-like fragrance, with slight overtones of cherry, and the natural smell of a salted, wheat-based dough, makes the PLAY-DOH brand one of the few active and certainly most famous scent trademarks in the country.

Bill Gates on meeting Trump: “So when I first talked to him it was actually kind of scary how much he knew about my daughter’s appearance. Melinda [Gates’s wife] didn’t like that too well”

TG:
Gates told the audience how Trump had encountered his daughter Jennifer, now 22, at a horse show in Florida. “And then about 20 minutes later he flew in on a helicopter to the same place,” the Microsoft co-founder said. “So clearly he had been driven away but he wanted to make a grand entrance in a helicopter.”

"'In the 1950s,' Bertaud writes, 'China established a regulation requiring that at least one room in each apartment receive a minimum of one hour of sunshine on the day of the winter solstice, December 21'"

even though the rule no longer applies, its impact on the spatial structure of Chinese cities remains.”

Tron was shot in black and white; 2001's "floating" pen was taped to glass; Tobey Maguire really had to catch all those items






"I went to the exclusive after-party where cryptocurrency investors blew off steam with drugs and naked dancers"

BI:
The group in question had just come from a cruise ship, the Cornucopia Majesty, where a pair of Aston Martins were awarded to two guests through random selection — glowing bracelets were distributed at the start of the cruise, and those lucky enough to receive the bracelets that glowed the longest were gifted the sports cars.

The crowd is visiting the city to attend Consensus, the sprawling blockchain conference that has attracted nearly 8,500 people.

"For years, Chinese students flocked to MSU. Now their numbers are declining"

LSJ:
Between 2006 and 2014, MSU’s Chinese undergraduate enrollment skyrocketed from fewer than 100 to nearly 4,000. For a time, more Chinese undergraduates were enrolled at MSU than at any other university in the country.

Collectively, they've made a tremendous impact — culturally and financially — on MSU and in the surrounding community.

By . . . 2015, the steadily growing stream had begun to ebb. MSU had started recruiting Chinese students earlier than most, but other U.S. schools soon threw their hats in the ring. China began bolstering its own universities. More recently, the federal government has begun issuing fewer student visas.

The decline is more than an issue of demographics for MSU and the surrounding community.

Many Chinese undergraduates arrived with a lot of disposable income. Their presence created new markets for high-end apartments and luxury cars.

"We got ad men to rebrand evil corporations for 2018"



Skynet and others get a makeover.

"Saudi Arabia has detained at least five people connected to the campaign to end the kingdom’s longtime ban on women driving, despite the fact that the government has promised to lift the ban next month"

NYT:
The Saudi government has billed the lifting of the driving ban as part of a reform push spearheaded by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The changes have also included curtailing the powers of the religious authorities and expanding the entertainment options available in the conservative kingdom.

But those efforts have coincided with waves of arrests that have scooped up clerics, businessmen, members of the royal family and activists who have a history of challenging the government’s positions.

Thursday, May 17, 2018

At Elon Musk's town hall tonight in Los Angeles


"San Francisco ‘Dream House’ Raffle Draws Scrutiny; No Homes Actually Awarded"

SFC:
The annual raffle, which costs $150 per ticket to enter, is a benefit for the non-profit Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA). Over the past decade, the homes offered as the raffle’s grand prize form a gallery of high-end real estate in the city’s priciest neighborhoods. But KPIX 5 has learned that over 10 years of contests, not one of the posh homes have actually been awarded as prizes.

...

“It does appear this raffle is getting a reasonable return for this charity,” Borochoff said, noting the contest is perfectly legal.

"Sheffield’s new Mayor might just be the coolest one you’ve ever seen"

Met:
He has even been on Channel 4’s The Hunted, where he tried to evade being captured for a month

...

And his official portrait included just as much humour. He chose to crouch on top of the staircase in Sheffield Town Hall, leading to many dubbing him ‘the new Batman’.

Ten funny tweets



A post shared by Camilla Andersen (@camilla_andersen91) on


















Wednesday, May 16, 2018

I think the Toyota spokesperson might be pregnant



"The official dance tutorial to This is America by the choreographer herself, Sherrie Silver"

"The new service, which is already being used by thousands of Google employees, will 'frustrate and seduce' users of YouTube’s free service"

BB:
The new approach marks a big cultural shift for YouTube and its parent. Google, a division of Alphabet Inc., has sustained the most popular video site and search engine in the world by prioritizing free, easy-to-use services.

“Our top priority at YouTube is to deliver a great user experience, and that includes ensuring users do not encounter excessive ad loads,” the company said. “For a specific subset of users who use YouTube like a paid music service today -- and would benefit most from additional features -- we may show more ads or promotional prompts to upsell to our paid service.”

...

They will “smoke out” people who can afford to pay for a subscription and shepherd them to the new service.

“There’s a lot more people in our funnel that we can frustrate and seduce to become subscribers,”

"Former students recount decades of disturbing behavior by USC gynecologist"

"Women who attended USC from the 1990s onward found themselves reassessing appointments with Tyndall and often recoiling."

Related:
Michigan State University has settled hundreds of lawsuits filed against it by the survivors of MSU doctor Larry Nassar's sexual assaults.

The settlement, which covers all 332 current claimants, will cost Michigan State $500 million

"Like most Americans alive today — young or old — Mr. Stern had never heard of this government-approved oppression of the female gender, which was known for decades as the 'American Plan'"

PG:
His senses and curiosity quickly awoke when his professor referred to the United States’ version a century ago of its own “concentration camps,” ones used in America’s case to detain and quarantine women suspected of transmitting sexual diseases. For days, weeks or months at a time, tens of thousands of suspected prostitutes and others deemed to be loose women of questionable moral character were rounded up and locked away, without due process.

The detentions included invasive, forced gynecological examinations of females as young as their early teens and painful, ineffective treatments

...

“This was all very sexist, in that any woman who might be promiscuous could be deemed a threat to national security
From last year:
Scott W. Stern's The Trials of Nina McCall, the true story of one of the largest mass quarantines in U.S. history and the women who fought against it, is being adapted into a film.

"Three Israeli men were detained for questioning Friday after a burning kite they tried to fly into the Gaza Strip fell on the Israeli side of the border, setting off a small brushfire"

"The fire was quickly extinguished and the three men were taken into police custody for questioning."

"These Lizards Are Full of Green Blood That Should Kill Them"

TA:
Red blood cells only live for four months or so, and when they die, our bodies recycle the iron within them. That process inadvertently creates a green pigment called biliverdin, which is then converted into a yellow one called bilirubin. Both of these are toxic, and our livers quickly filter them out of our blood. When you get a bruise, the unsightly green and yellow colors come from the biliverdin and bilirubin unleashed by dying red blood cells. When infants get jaundice, that’s the result of bilirubin building up before their newborn livers kick into action.

...

The lizards’ blood contains so much of the green pigment that it completely overshadows the normal red of their hemoglobin.

"Shady Marketplaces Selling Fake Facebook Profiles Operate In Plain Sight"

BF:
A Facebook profile seller told BuzzFeed News they typically purchase pictures from a group in India that harvests photos from places like the Russian social networking site VK, which is not indexed by Google and therefore less likely to show up in a reverse image search. The seller told BuzzFeed News that they prefer to buy photos of attractive women. “If you post pics of a sexy girl and send friend requests to Indian men, Arab speakers, or South American men, they will accept quick and then all their friends will request you,” the seller said. “In a few days you will have thousands of friend requests.”

For most buyers, what really matters is that the fake accounts are believably real to the untrained eye and don’t trigger Facebook’s spam protections. To make sure of the latter, many of the aged-account purchasing websites offer explicit instructions to “warm up” the accounts and make them appear authentic. The website for AccsMarket tells users they “must first perform some common actions that a normal person would do after registering. Example: fill out the page, subscribe to several people, put a few likes, fill out the page, fill in some photos, make a few reposts, comments, etc.” The accounts seller noted that one successful way to warm up a profile is to engage in political debate. “I’d make the account pretend to be in favor of Catalonian independence and as soon as you post anything about Catalonia and independence you get dozens of friend requests from indepentists,”

"Someone, somewhere, is making a banned chemical that destroys the ozone layer, scientists suspect"

"Emissions of CFC-11 have climbed 25 percent since 2012, despite the chemical being part of a group of ozone pollutants that were phased out under the 1987 Montreal Protocol."

The Twins are giving away a Star Wars-themed Joe Mauer bobblehead



"It was only when placing one of the beams aside we happened to put it down with daylight glancing along its length and we spotted that it . . . was covered in apotropaic markings."

BB:
A customer came in one weekend looking for “an oak beam for his fireplace lintel.”

...

Apotropaic markings, or protection marks, are basically magic symbols thought to ward off evil influences and keep malevolent fates at bay

"ABC Plays Up ‘Roseanne’ and Product Placement at Annual Presentation"

NYT:
it was intriguing that ABC touted all the product placement in its shows. The network highlighted Toyota Camry shots in “Modern Family” and Quaker Oats on “Good Morning America,” and the presentation included a video in which one brand executive said, “We had full access straight to the writers, straight to the talent, and I think that’s unique.”

...

The Trump victory in 2016 plus the ratings for “Roseanne” have ABC executives talking up its “heartland strategy.” One of its most diverse shows, “Fresh Off the Boat,” about an Asian-American family, is being tossed to Friday night.

"Near the end of the Cold War, in an operation that seems made for a major Hollywood movie, a U.S. Air Force C-5 Galaxy transport plane discreetly flew . . . to the African country of Chad in order to steal one of the big attack choppers"

TD:
On May 21, 1988, the U.S. military had ordered the start of the mission, known as Operation Mount Hope III, with the relatively simple objective of having the elite Army aviators get to northern Chad and extract a Mi-25 Hind D – the export designation for Mi-24. Libyan forces had abandoned the aircraft, and a host of other equipment, as they retreated after suffering a major defeat at the hands of the Chadian military

...

The U.S. government was eager to get its hands on one of the Soviet’s then most advanced helicopter designs.

...

The situation there was tense with reports of increased Libyan activity on the other side of the Aouzou Strip. Months before Gaddafi’s forces had sent his own aircraft to try and destroy abandoned planes, helicopters, and other equipment in the area.

Tuesday, May 15, 2018

"All 18 of Pennsylvania’s members of Congress and both its senators are men. So are all five statewide elected government officials"

"Tuesday’s primary is expected to nominate a number of female Democrats in districts likely to be competitive in November"

Ten funny tweets





















"The deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan is turning up in a new way: The cost for U.S. personnel to take a three-mile helicopter flight to Kabul’s airport is surging"

BB:
it’s too dangerous for Americans to drive to the airport, so helicopters are needed.

...

if the new rate takes effect “it will literally be cheaper to fly halfway round the world and return to Kabul than to travel three miles from Embassy Kabul to the Kabul airport,”