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After 282,619 Pageviews, This Will Be The Last Post.

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Tue, 2 Jul 2013 16:41:00 -0700

Goodbye Google Reader

So Long And Thanks For All The RSS.

Related articles

Statement from Edward Snowden in Moscow: “In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me,… No, the Obama administration is afraid of you.”

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 20:41:00 -0700

Statement from Edward Snowden in Moscow: “In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me,… No, the Obama administration is afraid of you.”:
via wikileaks

Statement from Edward Snowden in Moscow
Monday July 1, 21:40 UTC
One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.
On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic “wheeling and dealing” over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.
This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.
For decades the United States of America has been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.
In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.
I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many.
Edward Joseph Snowden
Monday 1st July 2013

The post Statement from Edward Snowden in Moscow: “In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me,… No, the Obama administration is afraid of you.” appeared first on disinformation.

"We have art in order not to die of the truth." - Friedrich Nietzsche

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 20:36:00 -0700

Marin County:

"We have art in order not to die of the truth." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Signs and posters placed along Highway 101 in Marin City, San Rafael, Larkspur and Novato.

"Predominant opinions are generally the opinions of the generation that is vanishing." - Benjamin Disraeli

"You know, a long time ago being crazy meant something. Nowadays everybody's crazy." - Charles Manson

"The higher the buildings, the lower the morals." - Noel Coward

"If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done." - Peter Ustinov

"What Jesus blatantly fails to appreciate is that it's the meek who are the problem." - Life of Brian

"Everything tells me I shall succeed." - Napolean Bonapart

YTD - 388

Restore The Fourth Protest Organizer Speaks Out

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 14:55:00 -0700

Restore The Fourth Protest Organizer Speaks Out:
I spoke yesterday with Restore The Fourth’s Sam Oslos, an organizer for the group’s San Francisco chapter.
The group is planning nationwide protests for the 4th of July – including major cities such as New York and San Fran – in order to oppose recent revelations that the NSA is targeting the communications of US citizens, in violation of Fourth Amendment constitutional protections.
It was a fascinating interview. Those interested in joining a protest (or starting one) in their town or city should visit restorethefourth.net. Oslos reminded me that the group is non-partisan and a “unifying cause” for those who oppose warrantless surveillance within the United States.

The post Restore The Fourth Protest Organizer Speaks Out appeared first on disinformation.

Elite Athletes Often Succeed When They Are Younger Or Older - But Not Both

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 14:53:00 -0700

Nick Symmonds winning the men's 800m national title. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Elite Athletes Often Succeed When They Are Younger Or Older - But Not Both:
Some elite track and field athletes peak young, under the age of 20, while others peak later - but only a small fraction of star junior athletes had similar success as senior athletes.

An Indiana University analysis compared the performance of elite track and field athletes and conclude that physical maturation is behind the disparity, with athletes who mature early reaping the benefits early, seeing their best times, jumps and throws at a younger age than Olympians, many of whom mature later.

read more

Coal-Fired Power Plants Virtually Extinct in New England

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 14:52:00 -0700

English: Castle Gate Power Plant near Helper by David Jolley 2007. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Coal-Fired Power Plants Virtually Extinct in New England:
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. – Tiffany Mellers jogs behind her two daughters as they pedal their bikes along a ribbon of packed sand along Long Island Sound. “They are good girls,” Mellers said. “They deserve a healthy life.”
[More]

How Secret Spying Programs Affect the Clinically Paranoid

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 14:52:00 -0700

Carry On Spying (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

How Secret Spying Programs Affect the Clinically Paranoid: So, the government is spying on you.They're lingering on your landlines, ogling your Googling, and eavesdropping on your emails. You're no terrorist, but who knows? Some innocuous correspondence may have tripped the government's imperfect terrorist-finding algorithm--after all, you've been awfully active on Homeland discussion boards lately. Might your unceasing adoration of Mandy Patinkin be mistaken for a violent agenda? [More]

Headless Movements Rising in Egypt, Turkey, and Brazil

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 14:27:00 -0700

Headless Movements Rising in Egypt, Turkey, and Brazil:

Yesterday and today,
millions of Egyptians have marched against Mohamed Morsi's
government. Time
reports that the number of demonstrators yesterday "equaled and
possibly exceeded some of the highest peaks of the original
revolution against deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak," adding that
"Tahrir Square, on the edge of downtown Cairo, was packed to the
point where crowds extended all the way across two bridges to the
other bank of the Nile. And the crowds in Heliopolis were equally
massive—completely covering the district."
Today five ministers
resigned from Morsi's cabinet, and the military has
threatened to step in on the opposition's bahalf. On the bright
side, that suggests that Morsi won't be able to count on the armed
forces to crack down on the protests. On the not-so-bright side, it
means the military might try to coopt this surge of people power,
perhaps even using it as a cover for a coup.
Meanwhile, the mass protests in Turkey
have not ceased, and another people-power movement is burning
in Brazil, where some protesters have taken to chanting "Turkey
is here!" Tactics can be contagious: These movements have
different roots, are appearing in different contexts, and will no
doubt arrive at different outcomes, but they're all watching and
learning from each other, and from the other grassroots protests
that have flared around the globe over the last few years.
According to the Financial Times, Turkey's
ruler has
mistaken that mutual awareness for a centralized
conspiracy:

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's
prime minister, has suggested that the same outside forces are
behind protests in both his own country and Brazil, as Turkish
authorities continue their crackdown on overwhelmingly peaceful
protesters....

"The same game is being played in Brazil," Mr Erdogan told a large
rally of his supporters in the town of Samsun on [June 22]. "There
are the same symbols, the same posters. Twitter, Facebook is the
same, so are international media. They are controlled from the same
centre. They are doing their best to achieve in Brazil what they
could not achieve in Turkey. It is the same game, the same trap,
the same goal."

In fact, far from being centrally controlled, these movements
are notably resistant to control. They are, in the Brazilian
sociologist Giuseppe Cocco's
phrase, "self-convening marches that nobody manages to
represent, not even the organizations that found themselves in the
epicenter of the first call." But people in authority have a hard
time comprehending that sort of loose, decentralized action. As
Moisés Naím
wrote last week,

The protests—informal, spontaneous,
collective, often chaotic—are baffling to governments organized
along hierarchical lines of authority. In Brazil, for example, a
survey found that 81 percent of those who participated in one of
the massive rallies simply learned about it via Facebook or Twitter
and decided to join. In these cases, with whom should a government
negotiate to restore order?

The leaderless, spontaneous nature of the protests also makes it
difficult for the government to find someone to blame—or to decide
whom to arrest in the hope of weakening the movement by cutting off
its head. There is no head.

Governments misunderstand that at their own peril.
Related: "If
This Is a New Cold War, Who's the Enemy Supposed to Be?"

Is Indiana Ready for Cold Beer at Convenience Stores? Is America Ready to End Prohibition?

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 14:24:00 -0700

Is Indiana Ready for Cold Beer at Convenience Stores? Is America Ready to End Prohibition?:

In the Hoosier State, it’s against the law for convenience
stores
to sell cold beer!
"Is Indiana Ready for Cold Beer at Convenience Stores? Is
America Ready to End Prohibition?" is the latest from Reason
TV.
Watch above or click on the link below for video, full text,
supporting links, downloadable versions, and more Reason TV
clips.
View this article.

Community Editorial: OC's Toll Road Agency Gets Water Boarded - VoiceofOC

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 14:08:00 -0700

Community Editorial: OC's Toll Road Agency Gets Water Boarded - VoiceofOC:

Community Editorial: OC's Toll Road Agency Gets Water Boarded
VoiceofOC
Denied a waste discharge permit by the State Regional Water Control Board for their first 5.5-mile “Tesoro” segment of a 16-mile extension of the Foothill-South SR 241, they now must make some tough decisions. Acting as their own lead agency, they tried to ... Sadly, the OC Board of Supervisors approved the Ranch Plan lacking a comprehensive transportation plan, and this toll road, all 16-miles of it, will not ease the impending stop-and-go for all of South County. Some of us tried to tell decision-makers like San ...

Easier navigation without GPS Webmaster level: All #WebmasterTools

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 14:07:00 -0700

Easier navigation without GPS:

Webmaster level: All

Today we’re unveiling a shiny new navigation in Webmaster Tools. The update will make the features you already use easier to find, as well as unveil some exciting additions.

Navigation reflects how search works

We’ve organized the Webmaster Tools features in groups that match the stages of search:

Crawl: see information about how we discover and crawl your content. Here you will find crawl stats, crawl errors, any URLs you’ve blocked from crawling, Sitemaps, URL parameters, and the Fetch as Google feature.
Google Index: keep track of how many of your pages are in Google’s index and how we understand their content: you can monitor the overall indexed counts for your site (Index Status), see what keywords we’ve found on your pages (Content Keywords), or request to remove URLs from the search results.
Search Traffic: check how your pages are doing in the search results — how people find your site (Search Queries), who’s recommended your site (Links to Your Site), and see a sample of pages from your site that have incoming links from other internal pages.
Search Appearance: mark up your pages to help Google understand your content better during indexing and potentially influence how your pages appear in our search results. This includes the Structured Data dashboard, Data Highlighter, Sitelinks, and HTML Improvements.

Account-level administrative tasks now accessible from the Settings menu

Account-level admin tasks such as setting User permissions, Site Settings, and Change of Address are now grouped under the gear icon in the top right corner so they’re always accessible to you:

This is the list of items as visible to site owners, “full” or “restricted” users will see a subset of these options. For example, if you're a “restricted” user for a site, the "Users & Site Owners" menu item will not appear.

New Search Appearance pop-up

Beginner webmasters will appreciate the new Search Appearance pop-up, which can be used to visualize how your site may appear in search and learn more about the content or structure changes that may help to influence each element:

To access the pop-up window, click on the question mark icon next to the Search Appearance menu in the side navigation.

It includes the essential search result elements like title, snippet and URL, as well as optional elements such as sitelinks, breadcrumbs, search within a site, event and product rich snippets, and authorship information.

We hope the new navigation makes it easier for you to make the most of Webmaster Tools. As always, if you have additional questions, feel free to post in the Webmaster Help Forum.

Posted by Mariya Moeva, Webmaster Trends Analyst

The Earl of Bunwich Folds

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 14:04:00 -0700

The Earl of Bunwich Folds:

It’s approaching six o’clock and the Earl of Sandwich is holding a strong hand. He’s been at the card table since noon, but things have not been going his way; already he’s lost a fancy timepiece, a ship, some silver candlesticks and an entire flock of sheep. He’s starving but can’t afford to stop playing to eat.

The rest of the table has folded, and only his nemesis remains: the Earl of Bunwich, who rather fancies getting his paws on the jewels his mistress wears, and for that matter, also his mistress’s jewels, which even now threaten to spill from her décolleté. His stomach rumbles loudly, prompting Sandwich to remark that he’s a bit peckish.

In order to show off, Bunwich calls his servant over and asks him to bring him some food. The servant hesitates; this is a highly unusual task. What shall he bring? Bunwich leans back in his chair and with growing flourish requests a bun, cut in half, with some loose ground meat, a pickle, some green beans, a tomato and a slice of cheese. The servant looks alarmed. Insert the top half of the bun halfway, between the pickle and beans, Bunwich adds, only make it upside down.

Not to be outdone, Sandwich calls his servant over and asks for a sandwich. A sandwich, your honor? the boy replies, puzzled. That’s what I said, the Earl replies.

I bet everything I own that my dinner will be imitated for generations to come, offers the Earl of Bunwich, certain his opponent is bluffing.

Off speeds the boy. When he returns, he carries with him a piece of ham stuffed between two slices of bread. Bunwich laughs.

Sandwich merely eats, with his hands. Bunwich looks at the plate upon which his dinner sits. He has forgotten to ask for a knife and fork, and has no idea how to bring the food to his mouth. A long moment passes as dust motes float in the air in the candlelight.

Bring me one of those things Sandwich has, calls someone from another table. Bunwich stops smiling.

I fold, he sighs.

Family Dinners in a Hurry, Golden Press, 1970

Also from this book: S'mores, The Arithmetic of Desperation

Dog Owners dressed like their Dogs

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 14:03:00 -0700

Dog Owners dressed like their Dogs:

Dog Owners dressed like their Dogs, this was actually a typo but after taking a second look at this strange and fun photography eerie we think the title could fit as well. Swiss photographer Sebastian Magnani compared the two of them in his photo series “Underdogs”. He created 8 diptychs showing how similar humans are to their loyal friends..

By Sebastian Magnani

Infographic: A History Of Banksy’s Graffiti Art

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 14:01:00 -0700

Infographic: A History Of Banksy’s Graffiti Art:

Online canvas art gallery Canvas Elite has created an infographic that traces the career of the famous and mythical graffiti artist Banksy.

The infographic highlights the artist’s most significant artworks from 2001 to the present, including “Pulp Fiction” and “Street Maid”.

This interesting historical timeline of Banksy’s career also includes notes on what have happened to some of his artworks after their creation—one have been accidentally painted over while some others were damaged, sold in canvas version or even stolen.

See below for the entire infographic.

Click on image to enlarge

Click on image to enlarge

[via Canvas Elite]

WTF is Wrong with Americans?

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 14:00:00 -0700

WTF is Wrong with Americans?:

Our generation has been bought and sold. Told that college is the only way to have a stable future, we were convinced at 18 to agree to hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt on which we could never default. But we were assured that it would pay off. State college costs have increased at the same speed as private colleges, and the explosion of heavily advertised for-profit colleges which give the least ‘return on investment’ has been encouraged by a financial industry happy to give exorbitant loans, knowing that they’re guaranteed by the government, which is de facto selling the young into indentured-servitude.
But we were told not to worry, we’d be fine. Or at least better off than those who couldn’t afford college, for whom the best strategy was joining the army. We’d be better off than the millions of our cohort who, excluded from the ‘real’ economy of jobs and wages, work in the murky, informal and illegal economies of drugs and crime and who, snapped up by the state, are kept in the worst and most expensive form of ‘social care’, prison.
The largest employment and financial crisis in 80 years has revealed the mendacity of this system, has laid bare the lies of a government and a system that throws its young into the arms of loan sharks, un-paid “internships”, precarious employment without benefits or career advancement, and the military-industrial and prison-industrial complexes. We need to stand up and fight.
A number of these issues are addressed and confronted in the Shareable book Share or Die: Voices of the Get Lost Generation, which features many essays on our generation's plight. And the conflict between education, prison, and the military is attacked head-on in a new comic which wonders WTF is Wrong With Americans? And though I don't agree with focusing the blame on the entireity of the American people (as opposed to the heads of state and corporate bosses who have designed the system), I think there are many valuable points about the decisions and priorities of the American state.

[Column] Don’t wait for them to report the truth and save us.

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 13:11:00 -0700

[Column] Don’t wait for them to report the truth and save us.:
When you turn on the TV in Romania, you’ll see they broadcast exactly the same TV shows as US, France and Japan. Even if it’s news, music, comedy, they all look exactly the same.

This was a discovery for me.

When you go out, you’ll see people talk and behave exactly the same as the people in TV. This was another discovery for me.

Economically, culturally and historically, Romania is different from every other country like they are.

Politician, police, and mass media. They are the universal and basic structure of all the countries.
The slogan of Fukushima Diary is “against media blackout”.

What does that mean ? Protest against the media companies or the government? Prove they lie to us ?

No, they are not accurate. The slogan means, Remember we can ignore them.
Fukushima Diary is not competing. It’s not fighting against any specific body.

Fukushima Diary is showing everyone can be a replacement of media, and everyone can live without the protect of the government.
I’m not an expert about anything. but I can update the world about what is going on in Fukushima nuclear plant now if you read it.

Now there are only a handful of people remaining updated about Fukushima situation. They have been attending the press conference of Tepco from day zero and still fully motivated. The point is they are all individuals.

The situation keeps changing. If you miss one event, it would be difficult to catch up with.

Even I find it difficult to catch up if I’m offline for a half day.
If you are motivated, you can be better than mass media.
I’m also researching a good place for Japanese. I know the government will never care about us.

I chose ignoring instead of begging.
This is what I believe justice is.
I don’t wait for the TV to report the truth. The same way, I don’t wait for the government to save us. If you feel like something is wrong, you don’t have to wait for someone to confirm it. Just do it.

Nobody is going to save us but ourselves.

Iori Mochizuki

“I’ll be the one to protect you from a will to survive and a voice of reason”

-Counting Bodies Like Sheep To The Rhythm Of The War Drums, APC

China’s Tianhe-2 Doubles World’s Top Supercomputing Speed Two Years Ahead Of Schedule

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 13:09:00 -0700

China’s Tianhe-2 Doubles World’s Top Supercomputing Speed Two Years Ahead Of Schedule:

The name of China’s newest supercomputer, Tianhe-2, translates to MilkyWay-2. It’s a fitting moniker, maybe even a modest one. There are an estimated 300 billion stars in our galaxy. Tianhe-2 can run 100,000 times as many calculations per second as there are stars in the sky. Tianhe-2 is now the fastest computer on Earth, doubling the speed of its American rival, Titan—and it arrived two years ahead of schedule.
How did Tianhe-2 knock out Titan? Put simply, it’s a brute. Tianhe-2 uses six times as many cores (3.1 million) and twice the power (17.8 MW) as Titan to achieve double the speed (33.86 petaflop/s).
No single machine has held the top spot for more than one cycle since Japan’s K computer in 2011, and China hasn’t had the leading computer since Tianhe-2′s predecessor, Tianhe-1a. When completed, Tianhe-2’s theoretical peak performance will be 54.9 petaflop/s. That mark may stand for a little while. The US, at least, has no plans to build another supercomputer until 2015.

China is now a recognized supercomputing power. The country boasts 66 machines on the Top500, over twice Japan’s 30 and a total second only to the US. Top500 editor, Jack Dongarra, who toured the Tianhe-2 facility and wrote a paper on the supercomputer earlier this year, says it’s notable that, apart from its processors and coprocessors, Tianhe-2 is entirely of Chinese make.
“Most of the features of the system were developed in China, and they are only using Intel for the main compute part. That is, the interconnect, operating system, front-end processors and software are mainly Chinese.”
Even as China’s star is on the rise, the US remains undisputed hegemon. The US is home to 252 supercomputers, or 50% of the Top500 list, and American companies IBM, Cray, Nvidia, and Intel still provide the hardware and know-how behind most of the world’s fastest machines.
Tianhe-2 and Titan are at the bleeding edge of supercomputing, but total power is growing fast too. Whereas there was only one supercomputer processing petaflop/s in 2008, there now are 26 such systems, up from 23 last November. And the list’s combined computing power is 223 petaflop/s, up from 123 petaflop/s a year ago.
If supercomputers continue along their current trajectory, sometime around 2018—maybe a little later—the world’s fastest computer will breach the exaflop/s barrier. That’s five times faster than the entire June 2013 list combined.

Source Data: Top500

What will we do with all that speed?
The Human Brain Project, recently funded to the tune of a billion euros, plans to use exascale computing to build a complete digital model of the brain. The Square Kilometer Array radio telescope will use an exascale computer to link a 3,000 kilometer array, 50 times as sensitive and 10,000 times faster than any telescope in existence today.
All that says nothing of ordinary desktop, laptop, or (more likely) mobile computing. If today’s personal devices are speedier than a supercomputer from a couple decades ago, perhaps we’ll carry petaflop/s power in our pocket, glasses, or contact lenses twenty years from now.
Jason Silva says modern telescopes “extend the optic nerve of humanity.” But our brains are the more powerful organ, sitting behind the optic nerve and interpreting its input. Modern supercomputers are the brain’s James Webb. They extend, expand, accelerate, and augment our mental powers—the universe’s greatest trick yet.
Image Credit: Visit to the National University for Defense Technology Changsha, China by Jack Dongarra

Why did Google kill Google Reader Anyway? via Brian Shih, Former Google Reader Product Manager

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 07:28:00 -0700

Why is Google killing Google Reader?

I think the reason Google always wanted to pull the Reader team off to build these other social products was that the Reader team actually understood social (and tried a lot of experiments over the years that informed the larger social features at the company). Reader's social features also evolved very organically in response to users, instead of being designed top-down like some of Google's other efforts. - Brian Shih, Former Google Reader Product Manager (READ MORE)

Last Day for Google Reader and Other News You Need to Know

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 06:59:00 -0700

Last Day for Google Reader and Other News You Need to Know:

Welcome to this morning's edition of "First To Know," a series in which we keep you in the know on what's happening in the digital world.
Today, we're looking at three particularly interesting stories. Monday is the last day for Google Reader. In a move to curb the anger of power users everywhere, Google released several new features for its news service. In smartwatch news, Apple filed for the “iWatch” trademark in Japan. Finally, four new slides from the PRISM program have been revealedThe Washington Post explains how data is acquired, analyzed and stored
Check out the video above for more on these stories. Read more...
More about Google Reader, Apple, Features, Prism, and First To Know Series

Infographic: Fourth of July Fireworks

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 06:57:00 -0700

Infographic: Fourth of July Fireworks: Click image to view entire infographic

Click image to view entire infographic

One of the great things about the Fourth of July is the fireworks, and this handy infographic reminds you to practice good safety when using them.

From showing you the type of fireworks which are legalized in every state, to treating firework burns, this infographic contains some commonsensical but necessary cautionary advice.

While no one likes to think of getting injured on happy occasions, this is essential for everyone to have—just in case.

Scroll down to view the highlights of this infographic.

[via Daily Infographic]

A ‘Camera’ That Records Smells

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 06:56:00 -0700

A ‘Camera’ That Records Smells: [Click here to view the video in this article]

Ever notice how vivid and forgotten memories can be conjured up when you smell something?

This is because our sense of smell is thought to have a “direct link to our emotional memory”.

Designer Amy Radcliffe believes that smell plays an important role in how we “consume and record the world”. However, we have not been able to systematically capture and store it.

Her new project, the ‘Madeleine’, is a kind of ‘camera’ that captures smells instead of images. Radcliffe thinks that an “analog, amateur-friendly system of odor capture and synthesis” could profoundly change the way “we regard the use and effect of smells in our daily lives”.

To capture a smell, the funnel is placed over the object to be recorded, and a small pump then sucks the air over an odor trap that absorbs the particles that composes the smell.

Users can then send in their exposed odor traps to be developed at a lab. A small capsule and bronze disk is then sent back, allowing memories to be relived at any time.

Radcliffe is currently working with fragrance labs to further develop her concept.

Click to watch the video to see how the ‘Madeleine’ works:

[via Amy Radcliffe and Guardian]

5 Ways to Give Your Kids a Free-Range Summer They'll Love

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 06:55:00 -0700

5 Ways to Give Your Kids a Free-Range Summer They'll Love:

If you’re anything like our family, financial limitations mean an under-scheduled summer, which can translate into a lot of bickering and boredom. Not to mention, the parental guilt can really get to you when you’re seeing friends posting pictures of their family trip to the shore or Lego Land, especially if even a local day camp seems economically out of reach. Remember this, Mom and Dad: it’s the simple adventures they can have without spending a dime, in your very own neighborhood, that will build memories of happy childhood summers.
Encourage Exploration
Think of your town or suburb as a wild human habitat. Let them find and enjoy play spots outside official, sanctioned playgrounds. My kids have, for years, visited a vacant lot that they call “Nature Center.” The last time they went, they spent hours constructing a fort, and later found that what they thought was merely a wall of ivy was actually concealing a part of what might have been a barn or a shed. This led to frenzied spelunking, vine-swinging, and the triumphant finding of various trophies: a putty knife, a totally-almost-not-broken toy, and a partial roll of what looked to be roofing paper. I put my adult judgments aside and let them have their adventures.

One thing that has worked for us is to break more rules. Not the rules that matter and keep everyone safe and sane, but just small extravagances such as letting them move the furniture for fort-building. It will keep them happy for hours, and once you’ve reconciled yourself to inevitable cleanup at the end of it all, it can be extremely liberating to just let it happen. Similarly, a couple weeks ago, we gave the kids dry-erase markers and let them draw and write on any mirrors or windows they wanted.

Family Foraging
Send them out to pick blackberries, or any other wild crops they can forage in your area. Blackberry bramble grows wild in a lot of places. It’s easy to identify, with spreading thorn-covered vines and broad elliptical leaves. Sometime in the late spring, they’re covered with white blossoms that eventually turn into tight, chartreuse clusters that mature until they become soft, darkly purple berries by July or August.
Help your kids keep an eye on their maturation cycle so they don’t miss the window of time after they’re no longer too sour and before the summer sun has finally had its way with them and they’ve become hard, shriveled black husks. Make sure they’re suitably prepared to wrangle with the thorns, which can be fine and almost imperceptible. It’s best to go out early or late, so long sleeves can be worn for protection. Bring empty jelly jars, but not big ones—big ones mean too much weight on the bottom layers. Let your kids eat their harvest, or (for a low-parental-involvement “recipe”) make into fruit smoothies.

Let Them Run the Garden
In keeping with the theme of crops and harvests, seriously put your kids in charge of the garden. All that’s usually required is conscientious watering, but keep them responsible for that along with attending to weeding and picking what’s ready to eat. Let them tell you about the way the leaves droop on a hot afternoon, about the aphids and the ladybugs, the worms they spot in the soil, and when they think the melon will at last be ready to harvest. Send them to work on it every day, and let them give you a farmer’s report. And if you’re not lucky or ambitious enough to have a vegetable garden, give them a section of the yard to manage . . . or even a couple seedling pots on the windowsill. Just get them involved with dirt and growth. It connects them with the origin of our food and with the cycle of life. Make sure each evening that they have a stubborn ring of grime around each nail bed that resists all scrubbing, and smells like earth.

Let Them Run Errands
If, like us, you’re lucky enough to live where it’s reasonably safe, toy with the idea of letting your children run simple errands for the family. We live a half-mile away from the public library, and our seven-year-old has begun to check out and return books by himself. A lot of this is dependent on your child and everyone’s comfort level. We confirmed with our local law enforcement that there is no minimum age at which a child can free-range in the community, and since Zeke showed every sign of being of ready and responsible, it was wonderful for everyone. (And no one will fault you at all if you creep along at a distance the first time or two, hiding behind trees and telephone poles.)
A baby step towards letting your child handle a simple errand on his own can be encouraging several neighborhood kids to band together to do things as a group. We have befriended like-minded parents in our area, and when our kids have free-ranging adventures together, it functions as pack security. Not to say they never experience any sort of danger, but with several children playing and exploring together, there’s someone to report home to us if there is a problem or an injury. A middle-school aged child can handle a whole passel of charges if they’re happily engaged in distracting activities outside.
Send Your Kids Up a Creek
We have a hike-and-bike trail near our house that follows a meandering creek, and our neighborhood crew of children will often spend hours there. They roll up their pants legs and go creek-walking to access the best blackberry harvest, they pick fennel, and they skip stones. The other evening they came home and breathlessly told us about an imaginary world of play they’d enjoyed for hours; they called it “The Cliffs of Abandon.” We didn’t think anything was unusual about their creek play until a child visited who’s raised under more regimented confines. She couldn’t believe our kids were allowed to wade in the creek, or that the blackberries were actually safe to eat. Now she’s an active member of our pack of wild children.

A boy my son plays with just recently returned home from a week vacationing with his family at the Disney compound. They live a few miles away from us in a lovely house in a pristine neighborhood. He’s a sweet kid and we all enjoy his company. Zeke mentioned, though, that his parents don’t let him play outside unattended, and that he’s not allowed to ride his bike in the neighborhood because it’s “too hilly.” I’ll take a summer of mud-pies and pillow forts for my kids over that, any day.

Theories Of Truth

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 06:54:00 -0700

Theories Of Truth: I have wanted to comment for some time about a number of available “theories of truth.” The occasion has now been presented by the fact that I am writing the fourth chapter of my new book (on whether and how philosophy makes progress, forthcoming from Chicago Press), which is about the surprisingly not-so-straightforward concept of progress (and truth) in science itself, the very discipline normally held to be the paragon of a truth seeking enterprise.

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The Hidden World Found in Symbols

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 06:54:00 -0700

The Hidden World Found in Symbols: By Eric Draven

In order to fully grasp and understand society, control, agendas, it helps to understand symbols and why they are prevalent.

Symbols are a part of our daily lives but for most people they often go unseen. During our lives, at some point or another, every human being experiences an “a-ha” moment. That millisecond of conscious thought, in time and space, when someone realizes that the world is nothing like they thought it was. From that moment on, they start seeing the world in a whole new way. It is almost as if the proverbial rose-colored glasses simply fell to the ground and got stepped on, breaking the chains that bound this person to a certain set of beliefs which dictated how they saw the world.

If you spend some time in the big city watching the hundreds of people mindlessly strolling along, you will realize that the majority of individuals tend to look downward towards the ground. This obviously has implications on how they see and interact with the world. However, every once in a while, some break free and have looked up to the moon, the stars and a bigger reality around them and nothing can be the same again.

Even the most seemingly innocent symbols have meaning hidden in them. Those in branding and marketing, the mad men of Madison Avenue, as well as those in power have an astute understanding of symbolism while most of the population is still looking downward muddling through life. Most choose not to, or have not opened their eyes to the knowledge or understanding of what’s around them and how the manipulations by the few control the many. Symbols are one of the vehicles in which hidden messages and archetypes have a way of subtly influencing society.

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Is Anything Stopping a Truly Massive Build-Out of Desert Solar Power?

darin.r.mcclure@gmail.com (Darin R. McClure ) — Mon, 1 Jul 2013 06:53:00 -0700

Is Anything Stopping a Truly Massive Build-Out of Desert Solar Power?:
The vast and glittering Ivanpah solar facility in California will soon start sending electrons to the grid, likely by the end of the summer. When all three of its units are operating by the end of the year, its 392-megawatt output will make it the largest concentrating solar power plant in the world, providing enough energy to power 140,000 homes. And it is pretty much smack in the middle of nowhere.
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