sensation

Head Ache

. . 400 Pinball Machines and Counting at the Texas Pinball Festival (Video)

Yes, folks. Step right up. It’s the 2013 Texas Pinball Festival, except… Whoops! You missed it. But don’t despair, because Tim Lord was there with his camcorder to interview organizer Paul McKinney and to point his lens lovingly at pinball machines new and old, complete with whistles and bells, oh my! It was a riotous time, with players of all ages. Pinball machines were played, bought, and sold. There were plenty of exhibitors, including some with shiny-new machines. The most interesting of these may have been Multimorphic, which is making “the world’s first modular, multi-game, pinball platform.” In other words, one machine that can become many games, sort of like a video game console.

Riding the Rails . American Experience

At the height of the Great Depression, more than a quarter million teenagers were living on the road in America, many criss-crossing the country by illegally hopping freight trains. This film tells the story of ten of these teenage hobos — from the reasons they left home to what they experienced — all within the context of depression-era America.

. . Deadly New Bird Flu Virus in China Possibly Linked to Dead Pigs

“Once influenza adapts to pig cells, it is often possible for the virus to take human-transmissible form. That’s precisely what happened in 2009 with the H1N1 swine flu, which spread around the world in a massive, but thankfully not terribly virulent, pandemic.” “As far as any scientists know, the H7N9 forms of flu have never previously managed to infect human beings, or any mammals–it is a class of the virus found exclusively in birds. It is therefore extremely worrying to find two people killed and one barely surviving due to H7N9 infection.”

. . Non-Invasive Mind Control Lets Humans Wag a Rat’s Tail

Let me tell you a mind-bending story about mind control. This is a sci-fi idea that’s quickly becoming a reality as scientists better understand that grey matter between our ears, and this year has been one for breakthroughs. The latest comes from Boston where a Harvard Medical School research team has whipped up a way for a human brain to control a rat’s brain. This so-called brain-to-brain interface enables a human subject to move a rat’s tail without getting wires plugged into her head. That doesn’t mean it’s a simple process. The process starts with a strobe light, of all things. The strobe stimulates the human subject’s brain which then puts out brainwave signals that are picked up by an EEG. The EEG data is then translated into an ultrasonic frequency that’s blasted into the rat’s head. Equipment aside, it’s akin to a kind of telepathy, as it’s fairly non-invasive.

. . Is An Alien Message Embedded In Our Genetic Code?

The answer to whether or not we are alone in the universe could be right under our nose, or, more literally, inside every cell in our body. Could our genes have an intelligently designed “manufacturer’s stamp” inside them, written eons ago elsewhere in our galaxy? Such a “designer label” would be an indelible stamp of a master extraterrestrial civilization that preceded us by many millions or billions of years. As their ultimate legacy, they recast the Milky Way in their own biological image. Vladimir I. shCherbak of al-Farabi Kazakh National University of Kazakhstan, and Maxim A. Makukov of the Fesenkov Astrophysical Institute, hypothesize that an intelligent signal embedded in our genetic code would be a mathematical and semantic message that cannot be accounted for by Darwinian evolution. They call it “biological SETI.” What’s more, they argue that the scheme has much greater longevity and chance of detecting E.T. than a transient extraterrestrial radio transmission.

. . ‘Racist Cake’ Cutting Sparks Outrage

Swedish minister of culture is under fire for her participation in the event.

. . Instagram anti-police pic sharing tied to Montreal arrest

The image, which she photographed about a week ago after spotting it on a brick wall in Montreal’s Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighbourhood, shows the police commander with a bullet hole in his forehead. His name is also written beside the image. The graffiti has since been removed. Lafrenière is the head of the service’s communications division and frequently appeared in the media during the student protests. Pawluck said she finds the whole situation a bit ridiculous. “I think the person behind the artwork should be in my place … all I did was take a photo,” she said.

. . Tot, 3, ate mother’s LSD sugar

The girl, from Coombabah on the Gold Coast, was rushed to hospital suffering hallucinations, anxiety and convulsions in November, 2011. She initially told her mother she was feeling “big and small” but later at the hospital police overheard the girl begging for help to stop the burning sensation and save her from dying. Court documents revealed the child was heard saying “Mummy, I’m hot. I’m on fire. Help me, mummy” and “I’m going to die”.

. . Videos show Orleans jail inmates with a loaded gun and taking drugs, and one roaming Bourbon Street

Inmates at the now-shuttered House of Detention in Orleans Parish didn’t have to forgo all of their vices, according to videotapes aired during a federal court hearing Tuesday over a proposed consent decree to govern jail reforms in the parish. One inmate is seen shooting up heroin, while others freely snort drugs behind bars and chat on cell phones. Another inmate releases bullets from a long-barreled handgun onto the ground inside the jail, behind bars. In another video, an Orleans Parish jail inmate went out on the town in the French Quarter, chatting up cops and cruising down Bourbon Street. How he got there remains uncertain.

. . Poll: Majority now say pot smoking should be legal

A majority of Americans now support legalizing marijuana use — the first time public support has crossed the 50 percent threshold, according to new polling from the Pew Research Center. Pew found that 52 percent of Americans said marijuana use should be legal, compared to just 45 percent who said it should be illegal. The level of support has jumped 11 percentage points in the last three years. Support is even higher among younger American adults, with nearly two-thirds of Millennials — those born since 1980 — supporting legalization. The findings cheered marijuana advocates, who said politicians need to follow voters’ lead. “Not too long ago, it was widely accepted in political circles that elected officials who wanted to get re-elected needed to act ‘tough’ on drugs and go out of their way to support the continued criminalization of marijuana. The opposite is quickly becoming true,” said Tom Angell, chairman of Marijuana Majority.

. . City Recruits Minority Lifeguards Even if They Can’t Swim

In a staggering case of affirmative action gone wild, officials in a major U.S. city are actually recruiting minorities to be lifeguards at public pools even if they’re not good swimmers. It’s all in the name of diversity. You can’t make this stuff up. It’s a real-life story out of Phoenix, the capitol of Arizona and the nation’s sixth-largest city. It has more than 1.4 million residents and, among its official mottos is “value and respect” of diversity. This means “more than gender and race,” according to the city’s official website. It also encompasses “uniqueness and individuality” and embracing differences. “We put this belief into action to provide effective services to our diverse community.”

. . Bears In Russia Are Addicted To Jet Fuel, Sniff It To Get High And Pass Out

The containers were left in the Kronotsky Nature Reserve and the nearby creatures picked on their strong smell of kerosene and gasoline. The animals love this smell so much that they have begun deeply inhaling the fumes for minutes at a time before digging shallow holes for themselves to lie in once they’ve achieved their desired state.

. . Cat Marnell: Glimpse from the $550,000 book proposal of drug-addict beauty editor

Excerpts from Cat Marnell’s $500,000 book deal have been revealed, and the tell-all memoir, How to Murder Your Life, seems to be an in-depth confessional of her life as a drug addict. The former xoJane.com beauty editor has been in and out of rehab for her addiction to prescription drugs, and was fired from the web site in September last year – telling the New York Post she’d rather ‘smoke angel dust with her friends’ than hold down a full-time job. Now, the 29-year-old, who was also a former beauty editor at Lucky magazine, has released the no holds barred re-cap of her drug-fueled and ‘glamorous’ life in New York.

File under Culture, Graffiti, SeMeN SPeRmS BLArRrG, SeMeN SPeRmS Links 'o Death

Conjured by o~ SeMeN SPeRmS ~o on April 9, 2013

Tags: action, Addicted, Addiction, Alien, American, Angel, Angel Dust, anxiety, Arizona, artwork, Better, Bird Flu, Book, Boston, brain, brainwave, Bullet, Can, Case, cat, child, China, class, Control, Cops, court, Creatures, Culture, Dead, detention, Drug, Drugs, dust, Extraterrestrial, Extremely, Film, Fire, Fired, Flu, Found, French, frequency, Girl, Gold, Graffiti, gun, handgun, High, Home, hospital, How To, Human, Inmates, Interview, jail, Lie, Love, LSD, machine, majority, Marijuana, Media, Medical, Milky Way, mind control, Mother, Murder, Nature, New York, New York Post, NOT, official, person, pinball, Police, post, Pot, prescription, Rehab, Research, Revealed, Russia, scheme, School, Sci-Fi, sensation, Shooting, site, smell, Smoking, snort, Some, spread, stamp, Story, Student, suffering, Teenage, Teenagers, Texas, time, U.S., Ultimate, Universe, University, US, Video, Video game, Virus, World

T. Rex – 2 Complete Concerts – Wembley 18th March 1972

Bolan at his best. No question: If there was any doubt in your mind; this proves once and for all that Bolan indeed rocks.

It’s interesting to contrast the two performances; in the 5:30 show the acoustic set is much stronger; in the 8:30 show, the electric stuff is sensational, leading off with a rousing version of CADILLAC. The restoration of the image from 16mm is absolutely first rate; most of the footage was rescued, along with the original stereo recordings, from 100s of rusting film cans in Ringo’s garage.

Marc and the band are in top form, somehow managing to cut through the teenybop adulation with real, loud, rock’n'roll. Whether or not Bolan’s Tolkien-esque lyrics are your cup of tea, Ringo Starr who filmed all this certainly knew enough about pop idols to keep the camera focused on Marc and let the myth take care of itself.

What’s surprising about the Wembley audience is the intensity on fans’ faces, both girls and boys — when Bolan breaks into a wicked version of “Summertime Blues” there’s just a hint of the Sex Pistols’ punk sneer that was just five years away.

5:30 Show

8:30 Show

File under Blast From The Past, Music, SeMeN SPeRmS BLArRrG, SeMeN SPeRmS ViDeO CLuB, Sex

Conjured by o~ SeMeN SPeRmS ~o on March 29, 2013

Tags: 1970s, 70's, Band, Cadillac, Camera, Doubt, electric, England, fan, Film, footage, Girls, Glam Rock, Legend, Live Music, Marc Bolan, Myth, NOT, Original, Pop Music, Punk, Record, Recording, ringo, Ringo Starr, Rock 'n Roll, SeMeN, SeMeNSPeRmS, sensation, Sex, Sex Pistols, Summertime Blues, T.Rex, UK

Money $hot$

. . Fake Walnuts Filled with Concrete in China: There’s a set of photos making the rounds on the Internet these days, but even though they recently went viral, they were actually released a year ago. They show a bunch of normal-looking walnuts that when cracked open reveal a very hard filling – concrete pebbles. According to Ministry of Tofu, these fake walnuts were bought by a certain Mr. Li, last February, from a street vendor in Zhengzou, Henan province. When he got home and started cracking them, he noticed that instead of a meaty seed, many were actually filled with concrete pebbles wrapped in tissue. But Li’s case is not an isolated one. Apparently, many Chinese walnut vendors try to maximize their profits by carefully cracking open the hard shell, taking out the nutmeat, replacing it with concrete and tissue so it doesn’t make a strange noise, and gluing it shut. This way they can sell the nuts and the seeds separately.; .; .
Here’s How You Buy Your Way Onto The New York Times Bestsellers List – Forbes: So it would’ve cost more than $211,000, and that’s before ResultSource’s fee, which is typically more than $20,000. Kaplan settled for making the Journal’s list, reaching the pre-sale figure of 3,000 by securing commitments from corporate clients, who agreed to buy copies as part of his speaking fees, and by buying copies for himself to resell at public appearances. Kaplan expresses significant reservations about taking part in what is essentially a laundering operation aimed at deceiving the book-buying public into believing a title is more in-demand than it is. “It’s no wonder few people in the industry want to talk about bestseller campaigns,” he writes “Put bluntly, they allow people with enough money, contacts, and know-how to buy their way onto bestseller lists.”
. . Napster: the day the music was set free: I was 17, and the owner of an irregular music collection that numbered about 20 albums, most of them a real shame (OMC’s How Bizarre, the Grease 2 soundtrack). One day I had unsupervised access to the family PC and, for reasons forgotten, an urge to hear the campy orchestral number from the film Austin Powers. I was a model Napster user: internet-equipped, impatient and mostly ignorant of the ethical and legal particulars of peer-to-peer file-sharing. I installed the software, searched Napster’s vast list of MP3 files, and soon had Soul Bossa Nova plinking kilobyte by kilobyte on to my hard drive. “It’s difficult to describe to people… how much material was suddenly available,” the technology guru John Perry Barlow tells Alex Winter, the director of Downloaded, in his new documentary. Speaking to me on the phone from the US, Winter added: “There was no ramp up. There was no transition. It was like that famous shot from 2001: A Space Odyssey, when the prehistoric monkey throws a b…
. . Emoticon-based “Moby Dick” gets its day in the sun: In the US Library of Congress: The US Library of Congress welcomed Moby Dick onto its vaunted shelves this week but it wasn’t the famous Herman Melville-penned whale tale version oh no, it was the version told exclusively in emoticon – you know those little signs like J, . Emoji are the emoticons typically used in Japanese texting though they obviously are used world-wide to annoy or entertain everyone depending on your opinion of them. Called “Emoji Dick,” the emoticon book project was undertaken back in 2009 by data engineer Fred Benenson. According to the Library of Congress’ blog, in 2009 Benenson started a campaign to fund the “Emoji Dick” project and within a month raised enough money to put it together – $3,500.
. . NASCAR Crash Daytona 500 2013 [Video]: Fans sprayed with debris. Someone got mashed by a tire. NASCAR tried to take this down.
. . Kurt Cobain had the worst jeans.
. . Kara Vandereyk – Jailed After Having Sex With Pit Bull In Front Yard: According to Las Vegas Metro Police, an officer was patrolling the 300 block of N. 16th st. Tuesday when he came across a naked woman who appeared to be engaged in sexual relations with a dog. Officers arrived on the scene to find the woman, who was still undressed, laying on the ground. When the woman saw officers approaching, she said “Hi” to them and then began fondling the dog in a sexual manner.
. . Drivers stoned on marijuana test their driving skills: CNN may have just posted their best piece of investigative journalism in years. In the following video, three drivers of varying ages got incredibly high on marijuana and test-drove cars around a course. A driving-ed instructor accompanied them to avert any chance of an accident, and police watched from the sidelines to spot any visible ‘signs’ of inebriation in their movements.
. . An ‘alternative universe’ will eventually destroy ours, says Higgs researcher: Remember that Higgs-like particle that scientists finally managed to pin down last year at the Large Hadron Collider? Well, it’s proving to be a harbinger of bad news. According to Joseph Lykken, a theoretical physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the mass of the Higgs boson indicates that “the universe we live in is inherently unstable, and at some point billions of years from now it’s all going to get wiped out.”
. . Gallon Smashing: The Video Sensation Out To Destroy Harlem Shake: I love this. I know that the comments are going to be filled with people decrying the destructive aspects of ‘Gallon Smashing,’ and they’re not wrong, but there’s so much that’s great about this concept. There’s a level of straight up slapstick comedy that is incredible. This kid (is it the same kid every time? I think it might be) has the moves of a silent comedy star. I like that the prank isn’t necessarily about getting other people wet or anything (although that happens, as is the unpredictable nature of smashing gallons of milk). And I like that this guy seems to be in his teens – exactly the right age to be doing stupid, destructive, anti-social prank behavior. When frat boys start doing this it won’t be funny.
. . College women told to urinate or vomit to deter a rapist: The list of 10 tips by the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs was billed as “last resort” options to deter a sexual assault. “Tell your attacker that you have a disease or are menstruating,” read one tip. “Vomiting or urinating may also convince the attacker to leave you alone,” read another.; Thanks Jasmine
. . Scorecard: How Many Rights Have Americans REALLY Lost?: For example, the following actions may get an American citizen living on U.S. soil labeled as a “suspected terrorist” today: Being young (if you live near a battle zone, you are fair game; and see this) Using social media Reporting or doing journalism Speaking out against government policies Protesting anything (such as participating in the “Occupy” movement) Questioning war (even though war reduces our national security; and see this) Criticizing the government’s targeting of innocent civilians with drones (although killing innocent civilians with drones is one of the main things which increases terrorism. And see this) Asking questions about pollution (even at a public Congressional hearing?) Paying cash at an Internet cafe Asking questions about Wall Street shenanigans Holding gold Creating alternative currencies Stocking up on more than 7 days of food (even though all Mormons are taught to stockpile food, and most …
. . How a “revenge porn” site got built: Fake identities to trade photos: Earlier this month, “revenge porn” entrepreneur Craig Brittain sat for an on-camera interview with CBS4-Denver, where he explained how his website IsAnybodyDown is nothing more than “entertainment.” Brittain’s site shows nude pictures of people, mostly women, without their consent, along with their personal contact info. The website advertises links to a service called “Takedown Hammer” which promises to get victims off the site if they pay $250. Many assume the “Hammer” is Brittain, since its e-mails come from the same IP address; Brittain denies it. In any case, to many of the victims, Brittain’s site looks like a simple extortion scheme.
. . USA vs China: Who Is Hacking Who? Part 2 – Eastern Europe: Facebook, Twitter, The New York Times. The United States of America. All seemingly hacked by the Chinese. China. Seemingly hacked by the US. Big time. But is there another option? “At least 40 companies including Apple Inc., Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. were targeted in malware attacks linked to an Eastern European gang of hackers that is trying steal company secrets, two people familiar with the matter said.” Bloomberg Chinese-hackers According to Tom Kellerman of Trend Micro there could well be – “We’ve all been watching China, but they’re not the most advanced cybercriminals. The most advanced are from the Eastern Bloc and Russia.” Tom Kellerman via CNN
. . Dairy farmers spray milk at the European Parliament in Brussels: A protest staged by dairy farmers in Brussels has entered its second day. Farmers sprayed thousands of litres of fresh milk at the European Parliament in Brussels on Monday in protest at what they say are excessive milk quotas and prices below the cost of production.
. . Airport diamond heist: It is shockingly easy to breach perimeter security at most airports.: The testimony at the hearing made it very clear that airport security is only as strong as its weakest link. This seems self-evident. Yet, despite all the money and manpower wasted on airport security theater in this country and around the world, perimeter security remains so lax that a guy with a costume and some bolt cutters can make a hole large enough to drive a van through. This is great news for heist fans, to be sure. But it’s pretty alarming for everyone else.
. . Power and the Internet: All disruptive technologies upset traditional power balances, and the Internet is no exception. The standard story is that it empowers the powerless, but that’s only half the story. The Internet empowers everyone. Powerful institutions might be slow to make use of that new power, but since they are powerful, they can use it more effectively. Governments and corporations have woken up to the fact that not only can they use the Internet, they can control it for their interests. Unless we start deliberately debating the future we want to live in, and the role of information technology in enabling that world, we will end up with an Internet that benefits existing power structures and not society in general.
. . ‘I’ve been cleared to have sex!’ Porn legend Ron Jeremy gets back to business after near-fatal aneurysm: Porn legend Ron Jeremy, 59, has been released from hospital after a near-death experience and he’s already planning on getting back to business. Doctors have told the prolific star that he’s cleared to have sex after he left Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles around week ago.
. . Large Labia Project Tumblr
. . Earlie Johnson’s vintage porn collection stolen: “I had a sinking felling because my porn collection is valuable, man,” Johnson told WZZM 13. Johnson collects rare performances by black adult film stars that were difficult for him to find and impossible to replace. He says the stolen pornography collection is worth $7,500, much more than the televisions that were taken. “I had a collection that had every African American that’s ever been in porn, from the 70s up until now,” explained Johnson. “My collection was the best in Michigan– a guy in Connecticut told me that,” said Johnson. He believes the thieves realized the value when they stumbled on the porn. “They came upon it and looked at the titles and realized what they had ran across… and realized people will pay cash money for them DVDs.” Johnson says his rare footage can’t be found on the internet. “I trade and I collect and I look at them too. I ain’t got no problem with that,” said Johnson.
. . Chinese Eugenics: The BGI Cognitive Genomics Project is currently doing whole-genome sequencing of 1,000 very-high-IQ people around the world, hunting for sets of sets of IQ-predicting alleles. I know because I recently contributed my DNA to the project, not fully understanding the implications. These IQ gene-sets will be found eventually—but will probably be used mostly in China, for China. Potentially, the results would allow all Chinese couples to maximize the intelligence of their offspring by selecting among their own fertilized eggs for the one or two that include the highest likelihood of the highest intelligence. Given the Mendelian genetic lottery, the kids produced by any one couple typically differ by 5 to 15 IQ points. So this method of “preimplantation embryo selection” might allow IQ within every Chinese family to increase by 5 to 15 IQ points per generation. After a couple of generations, it would be game over for Western global competitiveness.
. . New anti-piracy system will hit U.S. Internet users next week: Starting next week, most U.S. Internet users will be subject to a new copyright enforcement system that could slow the Internet to a crawl and force violators to take educational courses. A source with direct knowledge of the Copyright Alert System (CAS), who asked not to be named, has told the Daily Dot that the five participating Internet service providers (ISPs) will start the controversial program Monday. The ISPs—industry giants AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon—will launch their versions of the CAS on different days throughout the week. Comcast is expected to be the first, on Monday.
. . Boy meets girl. Girl strips on webcam. Tells boy to do the same. Girl blackmails boy: Now, people are being warned about another risk of finding love in the online world – webcam extortion. Webcam extortion. Image from ShutterstockBut it’s not the familiar headline of perverted hackers blackmailing young women into stripping in front of the camera. This time the tables have turned, and it’s *men* who are being victimised by *women*, in a peculiar twist on traditional webcam extortion. Singapore’s Police Force has warned of femme fatales befriending potential victims on sites such as Facebook and Tagged.com. The women enter steamy webcam conversations with their prey, where they strip and encourage their male victim to do the same. What the man doesn’t realise, as he feverishly rips his clothes off and agrees to engage in various sexual acts in front of the camera, is that his female love interest is secretly recording everything that’s going on. The male victim is then blackmailed for money by the woman who threatens to circulate the compromising photographs
. . As Secretive “Stingray” Surveillance Tool Becomes More Pervasive, Questions Over Its Illegality Increase: Of course, we’ve seen this pattern over and over and over. The government uses “terrorism” as a catalyst to gain some powerful new surveillance tool or ability, and then turns around and uses it on ordinary citizens, severely infringing on their civil liberties in the process. Stingrays are particularly odious given they give police dangerous “general warrant” powers, which the founding fathers specifically drafted the Fourth Amendment to prevent. In pre-revolutionary America, British soldiers used “general warrants” as authority to go house-to-house in a particular neighborhood, looking for whatever they please, without specifying an individual or place to be searched. The Stingray is the digital equivalent of the pre-revolutionary British soldier. It allows police to point a cell phone signal into all the houses in a particular neighborhood, searching for one target while sucking up everyone else’s location along with it. With one search the police could potentially invade count…
. . Banksy Work, Taken From London Wall, Turns Up in Miami, for Auction: “Slave Labor (Bunting Boy),” a 2012 work by the mysterious British graffiti artist Banksy, has vanished from a wall outside a discount store in London, and turned up at an auction house in Miami. And the town council in Haringey, the north London borough where the Banksy work appeared last May and disappeared last week, say that they want the piece returned. The stenciled piece, which shows a young boy at an old fashioned sewing machine creating a string of Union Jacks – the flags are in bright red, white and blue; the rest of the picture is in black, white, grey and sepia – appeared last year during the celebrations commemorating Queen Elizabeth’s 60 years on the throne. It was taken as an acerbic social comment, as most of Banksy’s works are, and has been regarded as a cultural attraction in the Turnpike Lane neighborhood where it stood.
. . More on Chinese Cyberattacks: Wow, is this a crazy media frenzy. We should know better. These attacks happen all the time, and just because the media is reporting about them with greater frequency doesn’t mean that they’re happening with greater frequency. Hype aside, the Mandiant report on the hackers is very good, especially the part where the Chinese hackers outted themselves through poor opsec: they logged into Facebook from their work computers. But this is not cyberwar. This is not war of any kind. This is espionage, and the difference is important. Calling it war just feeds our fears and fuels the cyberwar arms race.
. . JStylo-Anonymouth – Writing Style Anonymization: JSAN is a writing style anonymization framework. It consists of two parts: JStylo and Anonymouth. JStylo is a standalone platform for authorship attribution. It is used as an underlying feature extraction and authorship attribution engine. Anonymouth is the writing style anonymization platform. It uses the extracted stylometric features and classification results obtained through JStylo and suggests users changes to anonymize their writing style.
. . Science of Stylometry a Weapon Against Hackers, Trolls, Malware: It’s been used to question or confirm the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays, Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey and St Paul’s letters for hundreds of years. Now the science of stylometry could be used in the fight against hackers, trolls and malware writers that wreak havoc on the web. At the same time, stylometry – the analysis of a person’s unique writing style – could also be used by employers to identify whistleblowers or whingers among their staff. What you say online could be traced back to you using stylometry. “Your writing style can give you away and on the internet anonymity is difficult to achieve,” say the US researchers who have developed online tools to analyse writing. Advertisement The researchers, from Drexel University in Philadelphia, studied the leaked conversations and contributions of hundreds of anonymous users in underground online forums. They were able to identify 80 per cent of users using stylometric analysis to match writing styles to authors.
. . Barnacle sex, superlong penises and spermcasting: Barnacles are known for having very long penises. National Geographic reported in 2008: To cope with changing tides and a sedentary lifestyle, the gnarly crustaceans have evolved penises that are eight times the length of their bodies—the longest relative to body size of any animal. My sedentary lifestyle has had no such effect. I feel cheated. That article also noted that barnacles have the ability to change the size and shape of their penises to suit their living conditions. Barnacles living in gentle waters have long, thin penises best equipped for maximum reach, the study found. But those animals living in rough waters have shorter, stouter penises that are better able to withstand strong waves. [...] The researchers also transplanted barnacles living in gentle waters to rough waters and vice versa, to make sure the penis variations they observed were a result of the environment and not due to genetic differences. The results showed that barnacles coul…
. . Facebook Hacked! Facebook OAuth flaw allows gaining full control over any Facebook account – Hacking News: Facebook OAuth is used to communicate between Applications & Facebook users, to grant additional permissions to your favorite apps. To make this possible, users have to ‘allow or accept’ the application request so that app can access your account information with required permissions. As a normal Facebook user we always think that it is better than entering your Facebook credentials, we can just allow specific permissions to an app in order to make it work with your account.
. . Circumcision: The History of Metzitzah BʼPeh Disease Transmission: More than 200 years of disease and death transmitted through metzitzah b’peh, the direct mouth-to-genital suction done by mohels to the bleeding just-circumcised-penises of baby boys.
. . Revealed: al-Qaeda’s 22 tips for dodging drones: The document includes advice such as “hide under thick trees” (believed to be bin Laden’s contribution), and instructions for setting up a “fake gathering” using dolls to “mislead the enemy”. Found by the Associated Press in a building in Timbuktu, the ancient city occupied by Islamists last year, the document is believed to have been abandoned as extremists fled a French military intervention last month. It is a Xeroxed copy of a tipsheet authored by a Yemeni extremist that has been published on some jihadi forums, but that has made little appearance in English. The list reflects how al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghbreb anticipated a military intervention that would make use of drones, as the war on terror shifts from the ground to the air.

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File under Comedy, Fashion, Graffiti, Music, SeMeN SPeRmS BLArRrG, SeMeN SPeRmS Links 'o Death, Sex

Conjured by o~ SeMeN SPeRmS ~o on February 25, 2013

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For The Older People And The Kids

✰ Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have ‘Nothing to Hide’: The deeper problem with the nothing-to-hide argument is that it myopically views privacy as a form of secrecy. In contrast, understanding privacy as a plurality of related issues demonstrates that the disclosure of bad things is just one among many difficulties caused by government security measures. To return to my discussion of literary metaphors, the problems are not just Orwellian but Kafkaesque. Government information-gathering programs are problematic even if no information that people want to hide is uncovered. In The Trial, the problem is not inhibited behavior but rather a suffocating powerlessness and vulnerability created by the court system’s use of personal data and its denial to the protagonist of any knowledge of or participation in the process. The harms are bureaucratic ones—indifference, error, abuse, frustration, and lack of transparency and accountability.
✰ Pure ecstasy can be ‘safe’ for adults, health official says: B.C.’s top health official says taking pure ecstasy can be “safe” when consumed responsibly by adults, but he says he is not advocating legalized recreational use of the drug. Provincial Health Officer Dr. Perry Kendall says while the pure form of the drug has been proven safe in controlled clinical trials by psychiatrists, the type of ecstasy sold on the street is laced with potentially dangerous impurities.
✰ Why Are Twinkies Cheaper Than Carrots?: Next week, the U.S. Senate will begin floor debate on the 2012 Farm Bill, which lays the groundwork for nearly $1 trillion in U.S. government spending over the next decade. Most of that spending goes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP — still sometimes referred to as food stamps), and to subsidies and incentives for farmers. Efforts to restrict SNAP spending to healthier foods have been fought bitterly, and successfully, by the junk food lobbies. Meanwhile, the current Senate proposal would give tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to Big Agribusiness, but would give next to nothing to programs benefiting the environment, organic food, nutrition, or small farmers. The food blog Civil Eats calls the proposal an “all-you-can-eat-buffet for the subsidy lobby.”
✰ Murder alleged after drug lab blast in Livermore: A man and woman who were critically burned in an explosion in Livermore were arrested Thursday on suspicion of murdering a third person who died in the blast, after authorities determined the three had been making hashish oil in an apartment. The explosion occurred on May 21, 2011 at 3624 Silver Oaks Way. It killed Paul Lom, 35, of San Jose, while critically injuring Lexie Miriyah Hutson, 23, who lived in the unventilated apartment, and her boyfriend, Evan Aviles, 22. An investigation determined that all three had been making hashish oil, a controlled substance, said police Sgt. John Hurd. The group had been using liquid butane, which is highly flammable, to extract the oil, Hurd said, and allowed an unknown amount of butane to pool on the floor. Hutson and Aviles were each booked Thursday on suspicion of murder and manufacturing a controlled substance. Both lost parts of their fingers and were severely burned as a result of the explosion, which left the structure uninhabitable.
✰ Family Claims Man Shot By Police Was Handcuffed: SELLERSVILLE, Pa. – The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office is now investigating Saturday’s shooting of a 26-year-old man during a confrontation with Perkasie police. Michael Marino was shot to death by an officer after he started acting strangely, cursing out neighbors and struggling violently with police. Friends and family claim Marino was unarmed and handcuffed at the time. The district attorney won’t comment further. Neighbors who saw Marino say they knew something was wrong. The three officers involved in the arrest are on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.
✰ Why the U.S. Media Barely Covered Brutal Right-Wing Race Riots in Tel Aviv: Several weeks back, Israel was rocked by a night of right-wing race-riots targeting African refugees in Tel Aviv. The thuggery was frightening – refugees were attacked, African-owned businesses and stores were vandalized and a community was forced to hunker down behind closed doors in fear for their lives. Perhaps more disturbing still was that the riots, which began with an anti-immigrant demonstration, were incited by Israeli politicians representing the increasingly influential hard-right. They fired up the crowd, calling the refugees “infiltrators,” and a “cancer,” and accusing them of violence and rape. It was a classic example of “othering” – eliminationist rhetoric that led directly to action by the xenophobic crowd.
✰ Parents Sue School Over Forced Shower: The complaint states that West berated and harassed the 8-year-old, third-grade younger brothers on Nov. 15. The parents claim West told the child he “smelled badly, was dirty and that he had bad hygiene,” and took him to see Van Rite. They both told the child to disrobe and take a shower in their presence and while another student was in the nurse’s office, the parents say. “While P.T. objecting to completely disrobing and taking a shower, defendants West and Van Rite forced P.T. to remove his clothing and began violently washing his body with a washcloth, scrubbing him over a large portion of his body, stuck cotton balls in his ears, all while ridiculing and harassing him about being ‘dirty,’” the complaint states. “P.T. was then forced to apply deodorant at the insistence of defendant West and Van Rite, who then told P.T. ‘if you ever come to school dirty again[,] we will strip you buck naked and throw you in the shower and scrub you down.’”
✰ Media Consolidation: The Illusion of Choice (Infographic) These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America: As a dad (and blogger) I’m concerned with the integrity of the news and entertainment my family and I consume every day. Who really produces, owns and airs the shows my kids are glued to every evening and which companies select the stories I read with such loyalty each morning? I’ve always advocated for critical consumption, and what could be more important than an awareness of the sources of our families’ daily info and entertainment diets? And today, most of our media is controlled by one of six companies.
✰ Swedish Left Party Chapter Wants To Make Urinating While Standing Illegal For Men: Known as a socialist and feminist organization, the party claims that seated urination is more hygienic for men — the practice decreases the likelihood of puddles and other unwanted residue forming in the stall — in addition to being better for a man’s health by more effectively emptying one’s bladder, The Local reported. But not everyone agrees. “Men scatter urine not so much during the actual urination as during the ‘shaking off’ that follows,” John Gamel, a professor at the University of Louisville, wrote while addressing the issue in 2009. “As a result, forcing men to sit while emptying their bladders will serve little purpose, since no man wants to shake himself off while remaining seated on the toilet.”
✰ FBI Seizes NAMBLA List During Search: Following his May 23 arrest, Godek waived his Miranda rights and told agents that he had been “collecting pictures of teen boys for a very long time” and preferred “boys aged 14 and older,” according to Messineo’s affidavit. Godek admitted that he masturbated to these images, and “sent such pictures” to others via e-mail. With Godek’s consent, agents searched his vehicle (in which he had been living) and located the NAMBLA membership list and “articles about the arrests of NAMBLA members.” Investigators also seized “printed child pornography images,” a digital camera containing illicit images, and an “article about methods of enticing boys into sexual activity.” The FBI affidavit does not detail why Godek was in possession of the membership list, or what, if any, role he has with the secretive organization. NAMBLA claims it is a civil rights group dedicated to ending “the extreme oppression of men and boys in mutually consensual relationships.”
✰ Groupthink And The Elevator Experiment: Want to see how people will change to fit in? In 1962, groundbreaking social psychologist Solomon Asch teamed up with the television show Candid Camera to demonstrate how quickly a basic social norm (how people stand in an elevator) could be reversed using group conformity. Just imagine all the behaviors and beliefs you could get tricked into following, via the power of social pressure. (The elevator experiment was still effective when replicated in the present day on the University of South Florida campus.)
✰ It happens – athletes poop their pants: Exhausted and dangerously dehydrated, Moss was losing control of her body with every step. But she trudged on, pushing herself toward victory. The legs went first. A quarter mile after passing the Sizzler, Moss wobbled, then her knees buckled inward and she telescoped to the ground like a dynamited building. The moment she hit the pavement, her bowels cut loose, emptying against her will. The torrent breached her dainty, light-blue running shorts and moved down her legs, where the hot, acidic fecal matter stung her skin and the putrid stench tattooed the inside of her nostrils.
✰ Scores of N.C. inmates ‘innocent’ of gun charges, yet still imprisoned: A USA TODAY investigation, based on court records and interviews with government officials and attorneys, found more than 60 men who went to prison for violating federal gun possession laws, even though courts have since determined that it was not a federal crime for them to have a gun. Many of them don’t even know they’re innocent. The legal issues underlying their situation are complicated, and are unique to North Carolina. But the bottom line is that each of them went to prison for breaking a law that makes it a federal crime for convicted felons to possess a gun. The problem is that none of them had criminal records serious enough to make them felons under federal law. Still, the Justice Department has not attempted to identify the men, has made no effort to notify them, and, in a few cases in which the men have come forward on their own, has argued in court that they should not be released.
✰ Marx 1975 Toy Catalog: Featuring Jack Davis illustrations.
✰ The next consumerization revolution: Your personal data: You’re giving away what’s valuable about you Right now, users give away valuable information about themselves. Sometimes they get something of real value in return, but most online businesses give away worthless “value” dressed up using gamification techniques. Klout, I’m looking at you. As we see more data breaches and grosser levels of disrespect for user privacy, I suspect the public will start to realize they’re being had. And as they’ve learned they can do in other venues, they’ll take charge. The pieces are out there to create a data brokerage that pays you I fully expect to see services pop up that act as personal-data brokers, giving users a cut of the money made from their personal information — the data users explicitly choose to share, not what is gathered about them sneakily. Again, this business model has long existed, but not in a way that allows individuals to participate in the proceeds.
✰ Cop dies during 3-way sex; widow wins $3M lawsuit: A jury has awarded a Georgia woman $3 million over her husband’s heart attack, finding that his doctor should have warned the Atlanta cop against strenuous activity like the three-way sex he was having at the time he died, WXIA-TV reports. William Martinez, a 31-year-old Atlanta police officer, collapsed and died while he and a male friend were having sex with a woman who was not his wife at an Atlanta airport motel in 2009.
✰ Pervy Perp Again Busted For Sex With Teddy Bear: For the fourth time in the past two years, a Cincinnati man has been arrested for masturbating in public with the aid of a teddy bear, records show. Charles Marshall, 28, was arrested Wednesday evening after employees at a health clinic spotted him pleasuring himself in an alley. Marshall, pictured in the adjacent mug shot, was cited for disorderly conduct. Municipal Court records show that Marshall has already been convicted three times of engaging in public indecency/disorderly conduct with a teddy bear. The misdemeanor counts resulted in short jail sentences and small fines for Marshall. Marshall was first busted in February 2010 when witnesses spotted him engaged “with a teddy bear in mens bathroom” at a public library (which prompted a judge to order him to “stay away all Hamilton Co. public libraries”). He was again arrested in November 2010 and August 2011 for “masturbating w/a stuffed animal (teddy bear)” and “masturbating using a teddy bear in a public place where minors
✰ Human Microbiome Project Explores Our 100 Trillion Good Bacteria: Babies born by Caesarean section, Dr. Proctor added, start out with different microbiomes, but it is not yet known whether their microbiomes remain different after they mature. In adults, the body carries two to five pounds of bacteria, even though these cells are minuscule — one-tenth to one-hundredth the size of a human cell. The gut, in particular, is stuffed with them. “The gut is not jam-packed with food; it is jam-packed with microbes,” Dr. Proctor said. “Half of your stool is not leftover food. It is microbial biomass.” But bacteria multiply so quickly that they replenish their numbers as fast as they are excreted. The bacteria also help the immune system, Dr. Huttenhower said. The best example is in the vagina, where they secrete chemicals that can kill other bacteria and make the environment slightly acidic, which is unappealing to other microbes.
✰ Hitchhiker retracts claim he was victim of drive-by shooting: A hitchhiker, who says he is writing a memoir called Kindness in America and claimed he was victim of a drive-by shooting in Montana, admits he shot himself, according to Montana authorities.
✰ Parents arrested after police find children blindfolded and bound outside Walmart (video): A suburban Chicago couple is behind bars and their five children are in protective custody after two of them were discovered blindfolded and with their limbs bound in the parking lot of a Walmart, police said. Adolfo Gomez, 52, and Deborah Gomez, 43, of Northlake, Illinois, were arrested after police visited the store in Lawrence, Kansas on Wednesday and spotted a 5-year-old boy sitting on the ground beside a large SUV with his hands tied behind his back, his legs bound and a blindfold covering his eyes. A 7-year-old girl was found inside the vehicle, also bound and blindfolded, along with three other children, ages 12, 13 and 15, who were not restrained. Thanks Jasmine
✰ More Women Were Likely Videotaped in Sears Dressing Room, Says Lawyer: Female customers who shopped at a Sears store in North Hollywood, Calif., over the past three years may have been videotaped in the dressing rooms and restrooms, according to an attorney representing 25 women suing the retail chain. The group is suing Sears and a former maintenance worker who allegedly videotaped them from 2009 to April 2012. Michael Alder, the attorney for the plaintiffs, said an unknown number of female customers were also likely videotaped in the store during that period. “There’s a lot of people who were patrons and don’t have any idea that they’ve been videotaped,” Alder said.
✰ Furry Child: Chinese Girl’s Body Covered by Black Spots & Fur: 6-year-old Lili of Liuchang village of Qingzhen county city in Guizhou province, the left side of her face covered with black fur, with large and small black spots all over her body. When she was 2 years old, her mother left the family never to return, her father took her to a childcare nursery and disappeared without a trace, and it was kind-hearted distant relative Liu Mingying who brought her back from Guiyang to the village. She has now reached school age and though the school is right in front of her home, attending school is still something unattainable for Lili. Qianzhong Morning News/CFP Lili was born with these black spots, and when she was two years old, her mother could no longer stand this “fur child”, and in her frustration abandoned Lili, never to return. Her father, who had been working long-term in Guiyang brought her to a children’s nursery, and never reappeared.
✰ KeepTheWebOpen.com: But where can a digital citizen turn for protection against the powerful? This question lay at the heart of the fight to stop SOPA and PIPA and keep the web open. While I do not have all the answers, the remarkable cooperation we witnessed in defense of an open Internet showed me three things. First, government is flying blind, interfering and regulating without understanding even the basics. Second, we have a rare opportunity to give government marching orders on how to treat the Internet, those who use it and the innovation it supports. And third, we must get to work immediately because our opponents are not giving up.
✰ Bondage-Loving Swedish Mom Admits Building Sex Chamber In Abandoned Military Bunker: A Swedish mom has a face that is 50 shades of red ever since police came across a secret sex chamber she set up at an abandoned military bunker near the town of Nordmaling. Last Friday, two fisherman came across the old bunker and discovered what appeared to be either a garden of earthly delights complete with a silk-sheet laden bed, ropes, dildos and leather items — or a crime scene. The fishermen assumed it was a crime scene, according to Sweden’s The Local, especially since a similarly equipped dungeon was discovered in March 2011 in an abandoned farmhouse.
✰ Woman’s mouth ‘falls pregnant’ to twelve squid after biting into sea creature, scientists claim: When examined, the doctors found ‘baby cephalopods’ attached to her mouth. These are small pods, covered in a cement-like material to make them stick. Inside the pods is an ‘ejaculatory apparatus’ and sperm – with the apparatus expelling the sperm quite forcefully. After the victim of the ‘attack’ was hospitalised, doctors removed the baby cephalopods from her gums, tongue and cheek. It was only then that the pods were formally identified as ‘squid spermatophores.’ The Center’s paper says: ‘She did not swallow the portion, but spat it out immediately. She complained of a pricking and foreign-body sensation in the oral cavity. ‘Twelve small, white spindle-shaped, bug-like organisms stuck in the mucous membrane of the tongue, cheek, and gingiva [gums] were completely removed, along with the affected mucosa. ‘On the basis of their morphology and the presence of the sperm bag, the foreign bodies were identified as squid spermatophores.’
✰ He rigged his rig to beat toll: Now you see it, now you don’t. A Queens truck driver took a move from the magician’s playbook, making his license plate seemingly disappear as he drove through a toll plaza without paying the $40 fee, the Port Authority said Wednesday. Orlando Payano’s tractor-trailer had a cable running from the license plate to the dashboard cigarette lighter when PA police stopped it recently on the Staten Island side of the Goethals Bridge, authority spokesman Steve Coleman said
✰ Conspiracy Of Silence [Video]: Conspiracy of Silence is a powerful, disturbing documentary revealing a U.S. child sex abuse and pedophilia ring that leads to the highest levels of government. Featuring intrepid investigator John DeCamp, a highly decorated Vietnam war veteran and 16-year Nebraska state senator, Conspiracy of Silence reveals how rogue elements at all levels of government have been involved in systematic child sex abuse and pedophilia to feed the base desires of key politicians. Based on DeCamp’s riveting book, The Franklin Cover-up, Conspiracy of Silence begins with the shut-down of Nebraska’s Franklin Community Federal Credit Union after a raid by federal agencies in 1988 revealed that $40 million was missing. When the Nebraska legislature launched a probe into the affair, what initially looked like a financial swindle soon exploded into a startling tale of drugs, money laundering, and a nationwide child sex abuse ring. Nineteen months later, the legislative committee’s chief investigator died suddenly
✰ You know it’s an election year when… Barack Obama honors Israeli president with Medal of Freedom: US President Barack Obama has awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Israeli President Shimon Peres, the man who has overseen the killing of Palestinian women and children by Israeli forces in the occupied territories for decades.
✰ Jesse Ventura Explains Why Governments Are Like Gangs: “When you vote, you’re essentially choosing gang members — do you want the Crips to lead or the Bloods?” Ventura says, noting that the Bloods’ colors are red, like the Republicans, and the Crips’ color is blue, like the Democrats.
✰ Top 10 Most Incredible Prison Escapes: Every year, thousands of inmates escape from prisons around the world. Of these, most just walk away from minimum-security corrections facilities, but other inmates implement complex, ingenious, and often violent schemes in order to make their getaway. Whether the work of notorious outlaws, WWII G.I.s, or 18th century writers, the following are the top 10 most incredible prison escapes.
✰ Police: ‘Forest Boy’ story is a hoax: The story of the so-called Forest Boy — a riddle that has perplexed people in Germany and elsewhere for months — is a lie, police in Germany said Friday. The 20-year-old hoaxer, who claimed he was 17 and lived in the German woods for five years, is actually from Hengelo, in the Netherlands. He never lived in the forest and made his way to Berlin some time last year, police said. He had been declared missing in September when he was 19. But because he was an adult and could determine where he wanted to live, there was no further investigation by Dutch authorities, police in Germany said. Police say the man has admitted his story is a lie and confirmed his identity. He will have to leave a Berlin city youth home since he is not under age.
✰ NPIEE: The North Pole Inner Earth Expedition: The science is real. The story is more than 5,000 years old. The legend says that at a certain place above the Arctic Circle, there exists an oceanic depression or an entrance into the Earth. It’s a place where the maritime legend claims sea level isn’t level anymore. The discovery that the earth is hollow would forever shatter our long-held beliefs about how planets are formed. More importantly, however, discovering life beneath the earth’s crust could potentially provide us with new tools that would allow life on the surface to regain environmental balance, harmony, and possibly even peace. These prospects make the North Pole Inner Earth Expedition the greatest expedition in the history of the world.
✰ Living Stem Cells Discovered in 17-Day-Old Human Corpses: The cadavers in question had been kept at 39 degrees F (4 degrees C) to keep from rotting. The stem cells the researchers isolated give rise to skeletal muscle, the kind connected to the bones, as opposed to the kind in the heart or other internal organs. [The Science of Death: 10 Tales from the Crypt & Beyond] Apparently the stem cells were able survive in the total absence of oxygen. “These cells are so resistant to extreme and deleterious conditions that they stay alive up to 17 days after death,” Chrétien said. The researchers also recovered viable stem cellsfrom mice 14 days after death. These cells appeared to function properly after they were transplanted into living mice, helping regenerate damaged tissues.
✰ Officials investigating possible lungs found on South L.A. sidewalk: L.A. NOW Southern California — this just in Los Angeles County officials are investigating what appeared to be a pair of lungs found on a sidewalk in unincorporated South Los Angeles. A citizen called to report what she thought were the organs about 8:30 p.m. Sunday in the 13100 block of Avalon Boulevard, said Sgt. Robert Dean of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Deputies responded and called the coroner’s office to the scene. Additional testing will be done to determine if the remains are in fact lungs and whether they are human, Dean said. “We don’t know what they are,” Dean said. “It’s really weird.”
✰ Tennessee’s deadbeat dads: The three men who have 81 children by 46 different women… and they’re not paying child support to any of them: Three men in Tennessee have notched up a staggering 78 children by 46 different women between them – and are doing their best to squirm out of paying for a single one. Terry Turnage has 23 children with 17 different women, while Richard M. Colbert has 25 children with 18 women. But Desmond Hatchett takes the record with 30 children with 11 women. On rare occasions, they pay a few dollars to the long-suffering mothers but mostly leave the state to pick up the slack – while one eludes his responsibilities altogether thanks to a stint in prison. The latest deadbeat dad to emerge from the state is Turnage, who was summoned before a judge over child support payments for his 23 kids by 17 different women – but didn’t show up to court.
✰ Woman accused of castrating man with bare hands: Police in Shelby say they arrested a woman over the weekend after she squeezed a man’s testicles out of his scrotum. Joyce Maxine Gregory, 35, is charged with malicious castration and assault inflicting serious bodily injury, according to Shelby Police Chief Jeff Ledford. Police say Gregory got into an argument with an older man Saturday morning. When he went outside to call 911 she followed him and grabbed his scrotum.
✰ What Does It Mean To Be Cool? It May Not Be What You Think: “James Dean is no longer the epitome of cool,” Dar-Nimrod said. “The much darker version of what coolness is still there, but it is not the main focus. The main thing is: Do I like this person? Is this person nice to people, attractive, confident and successful? That’s cool today, at least among young mainstream individuals.”