The tension between grape growers and hungry birds is at an all-time high. Standard-issue scarecrows have proven ineffective. Air cannons no longer startle. It’s time to call in the secret weapon. Summon the Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Men.
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We here at Technabob are big fans of Richard “Datamancer” Nagy, the craftsman responsible for high quality steampunk computers and accessories. Sadly Datamancer passed away earlier this week. While that may be stunning news to his fans, it’s even more of a loss to his family. As a token of respect and goodwill, eBay user bruteforce1889 is auctioning off a keyboard made and signed by Richard.
Bruteforce1889 will donate all of the proceeds from the auction to Richard’s family.
You can bid for the keyboard on eBay. Rest in peace Richard.
[via Boing Boing]
This week in tech reads, some bright minds took on the bigger questions that go beyond which apps to downloand and which devices to buy. Here’s a reading list of smart takes for your weekend.
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SYDNEY (AP) — A shark killed a teenager off Australia’s east coast Saturday in the nation’s second deadly attack this month, police said.
Zach Young, 19, was body boarding with three friends about 100 meters (330 feet) offshore at Riecks Point, near the northern New South Wales city of Coffs Harbour, when he was bitten on the legs, New South Wales police said in a statement.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — You can take our word for it. Americans don’t trust each other anymore.
We’re not talking about the loss of faith in big institutions such as the government, the church or Wall Street, which fluctuates with events. For four decades, a gut-level ingredient of democracy — trust in the other fellow — has been quietly draining away.
Has the major star of a TV series ever spent so much time off-screen for strictly creative reasons? Damian Lewis only appeared in one of the first seven episodes of Showtime’s Homeland season 3 this fall. Then, on Sunday, his character Nicholas Brody came back to the foreground in a riveting hour. The episode depicted Brody withdrawing from heroin and then was getting built back up by a special-ops team charged with preparing him for a dangerous assassination mission in Iran. Despite winning an Emmy for his role on the show last year, Brody’s off-screen time reflects the conundrum faced by Homeland writers after they spared Brody’s life last season: How best to fit a falsely accused terrorist who fled the country into a Virginia-based story about a CIA case officer?
A new study claims that women are HARD WIRED regret casual sex whereas men are HARD WIRED to think random sex is great. This isn’t because civilizations place high value on controlling female sexuality and humans are social creatures with an aversion to ostracization; this is because of SCIENCE. HARD WIRED SCIENCE.
The research, published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior does uncover some interesting stats about who says they regret sex (note the difference between people who say they regret sex and people who actually regret sex, since relying on people to self-report feelings in a way that completely isolates the feelings a person actually feels versus a the feelings a person feels like they’re supposed isn’t necessarily, you know, reliable). According to the research, which surveyed over 24,000 people, when it comes to sex, hetero women most often regret losing their virginity to the wrong partner (ugh), infidelity, and having sex with a new partner too fast. In contrast, hetero men regretted not having sex enough; their top three self-reported sexual regrets were being too shy to make a move, not having enough sex when they were young, and not having enough sex before they were married. Researchers found that even gay and lesbian respondents followed similar patterns of regret.
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — The U.S. has offered to help destroy some of the most lethal parts of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile at an offshore facility, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical weapons said Saturday.
The international organization’s director-general, Ahmet Uzumcu, said in The Hague, Netherlands that the U.S. government will contribute “a destruction technology, full operational support and financing to neutralize” the weapons, most likely on a ship in the Mediterranean Sea. The weapons are to be removed from Syria by Dec. 31.
The details of “Better Call Saul,” the “Breaking Bad” spinoff that may either be a prequel or a sequel to the show, have been sketchy.
But in a recent interview with Yahoo TV, writer/ producer Peter Gould hinted that Saul the lawyer will spend some time inside a courtroom. Gould noted that Saul (Bob Odenkirk) has a clownish look and said, “I’ve been hanging around in courtrooms lately, and it’s not as broad as I thought originally. He dresses in a ridiculous way, he’s got billboards, he’s got ridiculous ads, but he is a shrewd customer.”
When asked if he was hanging around there as research for the spinoff, Gould said, “Yeah, there’s a little bit of that. A little bit of research.”
Earlier today, my colleague Amanda Marcotte wrote about the New York Times’ decision to run an A1 above-the-fold photograph of an Israeli breast cancer survivor, her tank top lowered to expose a lumpectomy scar and part of her areola, to illustrate a story about breast cancer screening. Marcotte laid out three ways of looking at the image, but came down hard on the side of a single interpretation: “It’s grossly inappropriate to sexualize breast cancer, which is a serious and deadly disease.”
How did the Times objectify this woman, according to Marcotte? Because she’s wearing a tank top. Because lowering her tank top to show part of her breast “is reminiscent of a strip tease shot.” Because a strip tease shot to illustrate a story on breast cancer is part of “the sexualization of discourse around breast cancer,” which “strongly implies that the main reason to keep women alive is as life support for their delicious breasts.” With this shot, Marcotte says, the Times “proved that they’re as dependent on WTF traffic as everyone else.”
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