The Weird, Random, and Interesting things that Fit Nowhere Else Thread

[Elerond]

This reminds me bit of this casting notices for actors that somebody started to post in social media 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Elerond]

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/10/tamir-rice-shooting-cleveland-police-emergency-medical-expenses

 

"The city of Cleveland wants the family of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy killed by police, to pay hundreds of dollars to the government to cover “emergency medical services” for the child’s “last dying expense”, according to records.

 

The city’s attorneys filed a claim on Wednesday against Rice’s estate alleging that the family owes $500 for an unpaid EMS bill from the boy’s death, sparking outrage from Ohio supporters of the family who described it as a particularly cruel legal maneuver.

 

“The callousness, insensitivity, and poor judgment required for the city to send a bill after its own police officers killed a 12-year-old child is breathtaking,” Subodh Chandra, the family’s attorney, said in an email. “This adds insult to homicide.”

 

Cleveland police officer Timothy Loehmann fatally shot Rice, who was black, on 22 November 2014 – within two seconds of arriving at a local park, in response to a 911 caller who warned of a juvenile carrying a weapon that was “probably fake”.

 

Loehmann later testified that he thought Rice, who had a toy gun on him, was 18 years old.

 

News of the $500 claim comes two months after a grand jury declined to indict Loehmann, which means the officer will not face criminal charges.

 

According to documents sent to the estate with the claim, the $500 covers $450 for ambulance services and $10 for “mileage”.

 

Loehmann and another officer did not check Rice’s vital signs or perform first aid in the minutes after he was shot, but did physically restrain the boy’s sister when she attempted to reach him.

 

The request for money from the family comes from a city that earned widespread scorn after it claimed in a defense document last year that the 12-year-old’s own actions “directly and proximately” caused his death."

[Amentep]

This reminds me bit of this casting notices for actors that somebody started to post in social media 

This reminds me that not too long ago, I was on a local university's campus and was looking at the fliers that had been put up on the student boards.  One was an advert looking for actors for a horror film. Three guy roles total, two being searched for, and 2 women roles. One guy role was already filled by the producer/director who would be the lead actor and film's star.

 

The 2 women's roles indicated that they required nudity and pornography and that this was non-negotiable. One was a girlfriend role and one was an evil cult leader.

 

A little later the plot synopsis clearly indicates that both women would, at different parts of the story, be having sex in the story with each other and the character who was the lead guy role. The role that already belonged to the actor/producer/director.

 

Surely there's a cheaper way to get women to have sex with you/a three-way than producing a film?

[Gfted1]

The Best BB-8 Yet Recognizes Voice Commands and Comes When It's Called.

[Volourn]

"This reminds me that not too long ago, I was on a local university's campus and was looking at the fliers that had been put up on the student boards.  One was an advert looking for actors for a horror film. Three guy roles total, two being searched for, and 2 women roles. One guy role was already filled by the producer/director who would be the lead actor and film's star.

The 2 women's roles indicated that they required nudity and pornography and that this was non-negotiable. One was a girlfriend role and one was an evil cult leader.

A little later the plot synopsis clearly indicates that both women would, at different parts of the story, be having sex in the story with each other and the character who was the lead guy role. The role that already belonged to the actor/producer/director.

Surely there's a cheaper way to get women to have sex with you/a three-way than producing a film? "
 

Yeah that's pretty disgusting though any woman should simply pass on such an attempt of grossness. Espicially a univesity film. I doubt they were gonna be paid lots. No doub there are pieces of crap out there who uses whatever 'power' they may have to get what they want.

[Raithe]

I think the main point that producer was having was that those were descriptions for the LEAD character in a film. Not extras, not supporting cast, but the main female protagonist to a movie.

[Hurlshort]

The money stuff is pretty crazy.  It's like their stuck a few decades in the past.  Maybe the roles are smaller, which would explain it, but it still sounds ridiculous. 

[ShadySands]

The Best BB-8 Yet Recognizes Voice Commands and Comes When It's Called.

I might have to spring for this but dunno if the wife will be down for it since I still have two unopened Sphero BB-8s

[Gfted1]

I remembered you bought those the last time so I was thinking you may be interesed in this one.

[Volourn]

"I think the main point that producer was having was that those were descriptions for the LEAD character in a film. Not extras, not supporting cast, but the main female protagonist to a movie."

 

That doesn't change a single thing. Appearance/physical attributes matter. That's just life. And, again,  seriously doubt that there are no physical descriptions for male characters - lead or otherwise. You don't think the character Leonardo Dicaprio played in Titanic wasn't described as physically attractive (for ladies)?> L0L Come on.

[Amentep]

"I think the main point that producer was having was that those were descriptions for the LEAD character in a film. Not extras, not supporting cast, but the main female protagonist to a movie."

 

That doesn't change a single thing. Appearance/physical attributes matter. That's just life. And, again,  seriously doubt that there are no physical descriptions for male characters - lead or otherwise. You don't think the character Leonardo Dicaprio played in Titanic wasn't described as physically attractive (for ladies)?> L0L Come on.

 

From the Titanic script (AFAIK):

Jack is American, a lanky drifter withhis hair a little long for the standards of the times. He is also unshaven,and his clothes are rumpled from sleeping in them. He is an artist, and hasadopted the bohemian style of art scene in Paris. He is also veryself-possessed and sure-footed for 20, having lived on his own since 15.

[Raithe]

70 Years ago Six Philly  Women become the first serious computer programmers
 
 

70 years ago, six Philly women became the world's first digital computer programmers. Without any real training, they learned what it took to make ENIAC work – and made it a humming success. Their contributions were overlooked for decades.
 
For most of us born with both feet firmly planted in the information age, it's far too easy to take modern computers and the internet for granted. We'll complain about the latest comic book movie's less-than-perfect CGI, sigh loudly if our movie doesn't load instantly on Netflix, and we can't even imagine life without smartphones anymore.
 
But in the early 1940s, before the dawn of the Digital Revolution, only a handful of computers existed in the entire world. These were built and owned by large research institutions like Harvard University and Bell Laboratories, and ran about a billion times slower than today's computers. Even the word “computers” back then commonly referred not to machines, but to people — mostly women who used adding machines to calculate ballistics trajectories during wartime. Some of those calculations could take up to 12 hours on an adding machine. ENIAC would reduce that to 30 seconds.
 
In 1945, the U.S. Army recruited six women working as computers at the University of Pennsylvania to work full-time on a secret government project. For the next year, they used their creativity, tenacity and solid backgrounds in mathematics to become the original programmers of the world's first electronic general-purpose computer, called ENIAC.

“These women were hired pretty much to set this machine up, but it turns out that no one knew how to program. There were no 'programmers' at that time, and the only thing that existed for this machine were the schematics,” said Mitch Marcus, the RCA Professor of Artificial Intelligence in the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania. “These six women found out what it took to run this computer — and they really did incredible things.”
 
The birth of the Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer, or ENIAC, at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946 marked a crucial step forward in the advancement of computing technology. Seventy years ago on Sunday, February 14, 1946, physicist John Mauchly and electrical engineer J. Presper Eckert revealed to the public their breakthrough creation to much fanfare. (February 15, the day ENIAC was formally dedicated, is recognized as “ENIAC Day” by the Philadelphia City Council)

“So ENIAC, instead of doing five additions a second [like its predecessors], each of its 20 accumulators could do 20,000 additions a second,” said Marcus, who has pursued ENIAC as a side interest for more than two decades. “When it was finished, it could actually compute the trajectory of an artillery shell faster than the artillery shell could travel.”

Not only was ENIAC incredibly powerful in terms of speed, but unlike earlier machines, it wasn't built for a specific purpose and could tackle a multitude of different problems. Mauchly's original proposal was to use it for weather forecasting, but the U.S. Army later funded the project for the purpose of automating the calculation of artillery firing tables. Each line of these tables typically took a single person about 40 hours to complete.

ENIAC, and its raw computing power, was noticed soon thereafter by John Von Neumann, a mathematician working on a top secret project at Los Alamos. In fact, ENIAC's first "job," enabled by its versatile architecture, was to perform calculations to design and build the hydrogen bomb.

'A GIANT HUMMING MACHINE'

Using present-day technology, ENIAC's design and functionality can be recreated on a tiny chip less than a tenth of the size of a postage stamp. (For the computer's 50th anniversary, ENIAC-on-a-chip was actually made by a team of students led by Penn Engineering professor Jan van der Spiegel in 1996.) But the early machine took up an entire room and consisted of refrigerator-sized panels fitted with 17,468 vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, 1,500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors, and about 5 million hand-soldered joints. It cost about $500,000 to build (about $6 million today).
 
“I've thought about what it must have been like to stand inside that huge computer. There would be the smell of hot electronics, and it was the first machine that didn't have things clacking, so it was just a giant humming machine,” said Bill Mauchly, the son of John Mauchly and one of the six original ENIAC programmers, Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli. “And it had this light show that was unprecedented — like being in a cathedral or something.”
 
Construction of the 27-ton, 680-square-foot behemoth began in July 1943, including the fabrication of ENIAC's 20 accumulators — basically these were electronic adding machines responsible for taking numbers in and performing part of a calculation. To perform a multistep calculation, these units had to be wired up with large cables and trays used to carry perfectly-timed pulses from one accumulator to another.
 
Thus, programming ENIAC was a complicated exercise in digital choreography for the six women recruited for the job. Joining Antonelli on the project were Betty Snyder Holberton, Jean Jennings Bartik, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum, and Frances Bilas Spence. The feat was made even more challenging by the fact that no one in the world had ever done anything quite like this before.
 
“They stepped in to do a job that they didn't understand, that nobody understood,” said Bill Mauchly, a Berwyn resident who hopes to put together a Philadelphia-area museum honoring ENIAC. “So they had to invent, discover, and learn how to work this machine without any real training. In that sense, they were real trailblazers.”
 
He believes they were probably the first people to have “programmer” as a job title, even though it was nothing like the occupation of today. Babysitting this giant, complex computer was very physical work, requiring them to haul cables and trays to different parts of the room-sized machine to get it to run programs correctly. They would even crawl inside the hug structure to fix faulty links and bad tubes.
 

 


OVERDUE RECOGNITION FOR SIX PIONEERING WOMEN

But the programmers' accomplishments and vast knowledge of the machine wasn't recognized at the time due to a stigma that existed about women not belonging in a mathematics environment outside of the “clerical” human computer work. For instance, Holberton was told by her undergraduate math professor that she should be out getting married and having babies instead of being in the classroom. Despite the discouragement she experienced early on, Holberton became one of the most skilled ENIAC programmers and stayed in computer science long afterwards, making key contributions to the first commercial computer produced in the United States (UNIVAC), sorting algorithms, and one of the earliest high-level programming languages (COBOL).
 
“The first time I talked to Betty Holberton, who wrote the demo program for [the Feb. 15 ENIAC public unveiling], she said to me, 'There was this big dinner that night, and we girls were not even invited,'” said Marcus, who had confirmed this fact earlier by looking at the guest list in the Smithsonian archives. “The women were viewed as operators of the machine. They were there to help men figure out how to use the computer and were given basically no credit, and their role was entirely minimized. The fact that they weren't invited to the dinner is pretty telling, I think.”
 
In the last decade or so, their contributions to ENIAC have finally come to light through articles, books, and a documentary short film. Mauchly notes that after his father's death in 1980, his mother initially started speaking publicly about his work in the project — but after realizing the women's vital accomplishments, institutions wanted to know more about ENIAC from her point of view.
 
“Her involvement in the project started to come out, so then later, her talks started to center more on her role,” said Mauchly, who also worked in computer engineering for most of his life. “It wasn't that my mom thought out of the box — rather, she said, 'What box?' She didn't really see obstacles and wasn't afraid to try new things.”
 
Today, anybody with an Internet connection has dozens of free online programming courses to choose from on websites like Codeacademy, Coursera, and Khan Academy. The ability to learn computer programming is now available to the masses and valued as a highly coveted skill — a development set in motion by the six pioneering women that dared to take some of the very first steps.

[Raithe]

TheWeek: Samsung warns customers not to discuss personal information in front of their smart tvs

 

 

Samsung has confirmed that its "smart TV" sets are listening to customers' every word, and the company is warning customers not to speak about personal information while near the TV sets.

 

The company revealed that the voice activation feature on its smart TVs will capture all nearby conversations. The TV sets can share the information, including sensitive data, with Samsung as well as third-party services.

 

The news comes after Shane Harris at The Daily Beast pointed out a troubling line in Samsung's privacy policy: "Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party."

 

Samsung has now issued a new statement clarifying how the voice activation feature works. "If a consumer consents and uses the voice recognition feature, voice data is provided to a third party during a requested voice command search," Samsung said in a statement. "At that time, the voice data is sent to a server, which searches for the requested content then returns the desired content to the TV."

 

The company added that it does not retain or sell the voice data, but it didn't name the third party that translates users' speech.

Update, Feb. 10: Samsung has updated its policy and named the third party in question, Nuance Communications, Inc.

[Barothmuk]

Researcher illegally shares millions of science papers free online to spread knowledge

 

A researcher in Russia has made more than 48 million journal articles - almost every single peer-reviewed paper every published - freely available online. And she’s now refusing to shut the site down, despite a court injunction and a lawsuit from Elsevier, one of the world’s biggest publishers.

 

For those of you who aren’t already using it, the site in question is Sci-Hub, and it’s sort of like a Pirate Bay of the science world. It was established in 2011 by neuroscientist Alexandra Elbakyan, who was frustrated that she couldn’t afford to access the articles needed for her research, and it’s since gone viral, with hundreds of thousands of papers being downloaded daily. But at the end of last year, the site was ordered to be taken down by a New York district court - a ruling that Elbakyan has decided to fight, triggering a debate over who really owns science.

 

“Payment of $32 is just insane when you need to skim or read tens or hundreds of these papers to do research. I obtained these papers by pirating them,”Elbakyan told Torrent Freak last year. “Everyone should have access to knowledge regardless of their income or affiliation. And that’s absolutely legal.”

 

If it sounds like a modern day Robin Hood struggle, that’s because it kinda is. But in this story, it’s not just the poor who don’t have access to scientific papers - journal subscriptions have become so expensive that leading universities such as Harvard and Cornell have admitted they can no longer afford them. Researchers have also taken a stand - with 15,000 scientists vowing to boycott publisher Elsevier in part for its excessive paywall fees. Continue reading

All these paywalls do is encourage bull****ting papers by fudging sources based on the abstract.

[Elerond]

Twitter user shames male trolls who slam women for posing 'half naked' by sharing their own shirtless images alongside their hateful words

 

Funny side of things, but I though it still fits here better than in The Funny Things thread.

[Raithe]

I found this amusing.. but not a funny threads amusing.

 

 

"I once had to rush back inside a convention hall as the con was closing in order to a retrieve a sick friend’s medication, and I didn’t understand why people in the crowd were jumping out of my way (literally—one guy vaulted a table) until I realized I was dressed as the Winter Soldier and doing the Murder Walk because that’s just how I walk in those boots. I got the meds, got out, and made a mental note.

 

I repeated the experiment later, wearing the boots but otherwise ...my usual clothing and mimicking the expression I thought I’d had at that moment. People parted like I was Charlton Heston.

 

I now wear that style of boots whenever possible. I recently had a man do a double-take as I walked by and ask me, politely, where I had served because I “looked like a soldier.” I’m not current or former military. I was wearing a flowy purple peasant top and looked as un-soldierlike as possible.

 

Moral of the story: wear comfortable shoes, square your shoulders, and walk like you’ve been sent to murder Captain America."

[Guard Dog]

Just read an article about a guy in England who went into the hospital for surgery to remove a cyst from his testicles. They screwed up the paperwork I guess and removed his testicles instead. Yikes! How'd you like to be the doctor who has to explain THAT to him when the anesthesia wears off? I can't imagine he'd take it well.

[Malcador]

Just read an article about a guy in England who went into the hospital for surgery to remove a cyst from his testicles. They screwed up the paperwork I guess and removed his testicles instead. Yikes! How'd you like to be the doctor who has to explain THAT to him when the anesthesia wears off? I can't imagine he'd take it well.

 

 

I bet the doctors were in for quite the bollocking

[JadedWolf]

"Well, sir, we have some good news and some bad news for you, sir. Let's start with the good news to cheer you up a bit, eh. Well then, if you've ever dreamt of being in a choir, I have some wonderful news for you..."

[Gorth]

Just read an article about a guy in England who went into the hospital for surgery to remove a cyst from his testicles. They screwed up the paperwork I guess and removed his testicles instead. Yikes! How'd you like to be the doctor who has to explain THAT to him when the anesthesia wears off? I can't imagine he'd take it well.

Let me tell you son, you've got no balls!

 

Yeah, that's a really bad mistake to make. Haven't heard about it, but I sure hope he had the kids he intended to have in life.

[Bartimaeus]

I wonder what the damages for that would be in the U.S....astronomical, I'm sure.

[Raithe]

What the difference is between Hispanic and Latino...

 

http://www.vox.com/2015/8/19/9173457/hispanic-latino-comic

[Raithe]

Hm, and I don't see the point in starting another EU thread up, but for the potential interest ..  after Cameron's return from the EU and what the reforms are being pushed for..

 

 

What is in the deal on reform of Britain's EU membership struck in Brussels?

 

:: The Eurozone

For the first time, the pound is protected as the EU has agreed there should be more than one currency in the eurozone and responsibility for securing the financial stability of the UK should remain in the hands of Britain.

British taxpayers will never be made to bail out countries in the eurozone, British businesses cannot be discriminated against just because they are outside the eurozone, and the eurozone cannot act as a block to undermine the single market.

 

:: Immigration

There will be new powers to stop criminals coming to the UK and to deport them if they commit crime in the UK.

On benefits, anyone coming to the UK from the EU who does not find work within six months can be required to leave and there will be an emergency brake that allows the UK to stop paying in-work benefits to migrants for seven years.

Host nations can cut migrant workers' child benefit payments for children living overseas to the rate paid in their home countries.

The agreement confirms measures to deny free-movement rights to nationals of a country outside the EU who marry an EU national, as well as action to tackle the use of sham marriages to gain residence rights.

 

:: Sovereignty

A lengthy passage from earlier drafts, which stated that the phrase "ever closer union" in EU treaties did not amount to a legal commitment to "political integration" was struck out of the final text, in an apparent response to Belgian sensitivities.

But the new text makes clear that EU treaties will be amended to state explicitly that references to ever closer union "do not apply to the United Kingdom".

 

:: Implementation

All of the reforms included in the agreement would take effect if Britain votes to remain in the EU following a referendum and once it informs the secretary-general of the European Council of the result of that referendum.

 

And a lot of people here are still unhappy with the situation. Most notably that they feel if we don't leave the EU now, we're going to be stuck with a rather obtuse, not exactly democratic EU in charge of everything.

[ShadySands]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEUT6SZjqls

[Gfted1]

Dive into the uncanny valley with Boston Dynamics’ newest bipedal robot.