February 27, 2017
The dog was created specially for children. He is the god of frolic.
Alt-hug, Inc.
Every kiss begins with Kay, but maybe ends in binding arbitration
Washington Post: Hundreds allege sex harassment, discrimination at Kay and Jared jewelry company. Declarations from roughly 250 women and men who worked at Sterling, filed as part of a private class-action arbitration case, allege that female employees at the company throughout the late 1990s and 2000s were routinely groped, demeaned and urged to sexually cater to their bosses to stay employed. Sterling disputes the allegations. The arbitration, first filed in 2008 and still unresolved, now includes 69,000 women. [more inside]
Robot Cat (slyt)
is a very friendly machine/animal. but he doesn't like if somebody is unfriendly for animals. Beware of my ROAR! [more inside]
A pink fluffy reverse funnel
Timeless Vie is a parody-MLM turned blog aimed at exposing the issue within the MLM industry, and particularly in how it targets women. Starting out as a thread on Mumsnet, it aims to debunk claims and share stories.
The Cloud is Listening (And Permeable)
Data from connected CloudPets teddy bears leaked and ransomed, exposing kids' voice messages [Parents] don't necessarily realise that every one of those recordings – those intimate, heartfelt, extremely personal recordings – between a parent and their child is stored as an audio file on the web. They certainly wouldn't realise that in CloudPets' case, that data was stored in a MongoDB that was in a publicly facing network segment without any authentication required and had been indexed by Shodan (a popular search engine for finding connected things).
Unfortunately, things only went downhill from there.
In other words, please be true
SpaceX have announced the first space tourism mission to the Moon, launching next year. The two private citizens will be flying in the new Dragon 2 spacecraft and launched by the Falcon Heavy, which will undergo testing this summer. With the launch of a Falcon Heavy priced at $90 million, the mission as a whole will likely cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
“The 'Great Deceiver' has returned to Middle-earth...”
Middle-earth: Shadow of War [Trailer] [YouTube] A new ring is forged in this sequel to Shadow of Mordor. [more inside]
Did I mention I like his egg paintings
Scott Conary is an oil painter in Portland, Oregon. He paints eggs. Gorgeous, glowing eggs. Also other things, sure. Meat sometimes. But also eggs.
Barcelona Is Really Serious About Its War On Tourism
A new strategic plan from Mayor Ada Colau to ease the swarm of tourists in the city will raise property taxes on short-term rentals and increase costs for day trippers.
From drug sniffing wasps to football playing bumblebees
The fact that bees and wasps can be trained to sniff out items is not news, and has thoroughly been researched. But the ability of bumblebees to learn from (and even improve upon) the example of others to perform more complex tasks for rewards is a more recent discovery. And because the research is from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), the promotional demonstration video is all about the potential for bees to play soccer (YT video with captions and instrumental music). Abstract available from Science magazine, full article is paywalled.
Reddit is Being Manipulated By Big Financial Services Companies
Reddit is being regularly manipulated by large financial services companies with fake accounts and fake upvotes via seemingly ordinary internet marketing agencies. [more inside]
Love and Cheeseburgers (and Tacos)
Claire McNear of The Ringer takes a look at the weirdly burgeoning "fast-food wedding industrial complex".
Shower Orange
Make no mistake: Everything about Casablanca is indelible
The End of a Beautiful Friendship - Laura Miller reviews Noah Isenberg's We'll Always Have Casablanca and tracks the movie's recent loss of prestige among critics and fans.
Yesterday's bureaucracy is today's curiosity.
Top secret winner's envelope
"It was also the last Oscars ceremony for which the names of winners were released to the press, or anyone for that matter, before the onstage announcement.... The academy's official history lays blame on The [Los Angeles] Times for breaking an embargo and publishing the winners in the paper's evening edition before the ceremony was underway. Think of it as the era's equivalent of a tweet that scooped everyone else. " [more inside]
"Draw, podnuh!" Or not.
The iconic western image cultivated by TV and film includes one ubiquitous element. The large (.44 or .45) handgun carried on a belt made for the purpose, in a low slung holster strapped to the leg for fast draw. This means of carrying a firearm is called the "Buscadero Rig." We have all seen it worn by Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autrey, John Wayne, James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Clint Eastwood, the Magnificent Seven, Pallidin, and every member of the Cartwright family.
It didn't exist in the 19th Century. [more inside]
“Behind the eyes, we feel ourselves shrink”
Airport security: Building a digital wall "We had already been through boarding pass checks, passport checks, scanners, and pat downs. At the gate, each passenger had already had their tickets scanned and we were all walking on the jet bridge to board. It’s at this point that most people assume that it is all done: finally we can enjoy some sense of normalcy..."
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