Hasta La Gadget!

It’s nearly impossible to find two people involved in a physical fight at Burning Man. When Dan Fredinburg stumbled upon just that, he responded the way only Dan Fredinburg would.

“He walked right into the middle of it and started dancing with both people,” Fredinburg’s friend, Max Stossel, told The Huffington Post Monday. “The two very angry men were confused at first. But eventually everyone was laughing and no longer fighting.”

Fredinburg’s lighthearted attitude carried him through a life rich with adventure, one tragically cut short Saturday by an avalanche on Mount Everest after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit Nepal. It was Fredinburg’s second attempt to summit the highest peak on earth, having survived a similar disaster nearly a year ago.

As news of Fredinburg’s death spread, tributes poured in from across the globe. Friends, loved ones and acquaintances shared memories and tributes to the 33-year-old, who ran a privacy team at Google, a climate change nonprofit called Save the Ice and a combination cafe and social impact startup incubator. They hailed him as a warrior poet, a bright burning star, a Viking philanthropist, a swashbuckler of the finest order, a silent force for justice, a hero.

Fredinburg at Burning Man.

“He had this incredible hacker mind, always finding innovative ways to solve problems,” Stossel said. “He used that mind to bring more love into the world, more adventure into the world, and create those kinds of experiences for the people he cared about.”

Now, the people he cared about want to ensure Fredinburg’s legacy continues well beyond his untimely death. On Monday, a group of his closest friends launched LiveDan, a campaign and website dedicated to the principles that guided Fredinburg’s life.

“To Live Dan is to live life as an adventure,” Fredinburg’s close friend, Mike North, a co-creator, told HuffPost. “To not be afraid to go out and pursue dreams and crazy ideas. To get yourself out there in the world and do it. Dan was doing so much, and with no hesitation.”

For now, LiveDan works as a simple tool: Visitors to the site can “pledge to live fearlessly” by sharing plans for their own upcoming adventures. Users are also encouraged to donate to Save the Ice and two Nepalese orphanages that Fredinburg was fundraising for with his Everest climb. A Crowdrise campaign launched in his memory over the weekend has raised nearly $50,000 for the orphanages.

Fredinburg and his girlfriend, Ashley Arenson.

North said he expects the campaign will evolve into something larger, but he’s not sure yet what that will be. “We are doing it exactly how Dan would do it,” he said. “We don’t know exactly where it’s going or what it’s going to be, but instead of sitting around and thinking about it and planning it, we just decided to do it. It’s going to live a life of its own.”

Ashley Arenson, Fredinburg’s girlfriend of nearly two years, told HuffPost via email that being around Fredinburg made it feel like anything was possible. “Living Dan is living life as you are, who you are, and who you want to be,” she said. “Sometimes that means taking the more difficult, less traveled roads. Dan took the untraveled roads.”

In addition to his two Everest expeditions, Fredinburg had climbed to the summits of Mount Kilimanjaro and Carstensz Pyramid. To help raise money for Save the Ice, he organized a sailing trip through the Maldives for nearly two dozen of his friends earlier this year, tracing one of the original routes taken by the Swedish Vikings and talking to local residents about climate change.

North said Fredinburg’s sense of leadership and fearlessness extended to his travels. “There was one point where it was pouring rain so much that the captain couldn’t see out the front of the boat,” North recalled. “So Dan went out to the front of the boat with a squeegee. He just stood out there in the storm for a while, squeegeeing so the captain could see.”

Fredinburg (front) and his friends on an adventure trip he organized.

Such endurance and determination characterized everything Fredinburg did, especially when it came to planning for an Everest climb. Before his first attempt last year, he walked for 20 straight hours in an effort to mentally prepare himself for the journey, North said. “He walked the whole Bay Area, all the way up to Marin and back down,” he said. “His feet were covered in blisters.”

Although Fredinburg’s first attempt to summit the mountain ended in an avalanche, North said giving up was never an option. “It was never a question that he wouldn’t do it,” he said. “He was set on going back. He wanted this more than anything. It was his dream.”

North added that he has managed to find some solace in the idea that Fredinburg died doing what he loved. “For him, that was the thrill of life — pushing things right up to their limits and being there. Being aware and capable and able to handle it,” he said. “I know that’s where he wanted to be. He wanted to be on the edge.”

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

President Barack Obama stood behind the podium and apologized for inadvertently killing two Western hostages – including one American – during a drone strike in Yemen. Obama said, “one of the things that sets America apart from many other nations, one of the things that makes us exceptional, is our willingness to confront squarely our imperfections and to learn from our mistakes.” In his 2015 state of the union address, Obama described America as “exceptional.” When he spoke to the United Nations General Assembly in 2013, he said, “Some may disagree, but I believe that America is exceptional.”

American exceptionalism reflects the belief that Americans are somehow better than everyone else. This view reared its head after the 2013 leak of a Department of Justice White Paper that describes circumstances under which the President can order the targeted killing of U.S. citizens. There had been little public concern in this country about drone strikes that killed people in other countries. But when it was revealed that U.S. citizens could be targeted, Americans were outraged. This motivated Senator Rand Paul to launch his 13-hour filibuster of John Brennan’s nomination for CIA director.

It is this double standard that moved Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu to write a letter to the editor of the New York Times, in which he asked, “Do the United States and its people really want to tell those of us who live in the rest of the world that our lives are not of the same value as yours?” (When I saw that letter, I immediately invited Archbishop Tutu to write the foreword to my book, “Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues.” He graciously agreed and he elaborates on that sentiment in the foreword.)

Obama insists that the CIA and the U.S. military are very careful to avoid civilian casualties. In May 2013, he declared in a speech at the National Defense University, “before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured – the highest standard we can set.”

Nevertheless, of the nearly 3,852 people killed by drone strikes, 476 have reportedly been civilians. The Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), which examined nine drone strikes in Yemen, concluded that civilians were killed in every one. Amrit Singh, a senior legal officer at OSJI and primary author of the report, said, “We’ve found evidence that President Obama’s standard is not being met on the ground.”

In 2013, the administration released a fact sheet with an additional requirement that “capture is not feasible” before a targeted killing can be carried out. Yet the OSJI also questioned whether this rule is being followed. Suspected terrorist Mohanad Mahmoud Al Farekh, a U.S. citizen, was on the Pentagon’s “kill list” but he was ultimately arrested by Pakistani security forces and will be tried in a U.S. federal court. “This is an example that capturing can be done,” according to Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations.

The fact sheet also specifies that in order to use lethal force, the target must pose a “continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons.” But the leaked Justice Department White Paper says that a U.S. citizen can be killed even when there is no “clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.” This renders the imminency requirement a nullity. Moreover, if there is such a low bar for targeting a citizen, query whether there is any bar at all for killing foreigners.

There must also be “near certainty” that the terrorist target is present. Yet the CIA did not even know who it was slaying when the two hostages were killed. This was a “signature strike,” that targets “suspicious compounds” in areas controlled by “militants.” Zenko says, “most individuals killed are not on a kill list, and the [U.S.] government does not know their names.” So how can one determine with any certainty that a target is present when the CIA is not even targeting individuals?

Contrary to popular opinion, the use of drones does not result in fewer civilian casualties than manned bombers. A study based on classified military data, conducted by the Center for Naval Analyses and the Center for Civilians in Conflict, concluded that the use of drones in Afghanistan caused 10 times more civilian deaths than manned fighter aircraft.

Moreover, a panel with experienced specialists from both the George W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations issued a 77-page report for the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan think tank, which found there was no indication that drone strikes had advanced “long-term U.S. security interests.”

Nevertheless, the Obama administration maintains a double standard for apologies to the families of drone victims. “The White House is setting a dangerous precedent – that if you are western and hit by accident we’ll say we are sorry,” said Reprieve attorney Alka Pradhan, “but we’ll put up a stone wall of silence if you are a Yemeni or Pakistani civilian who lost an innocent loved one. Inconsistencies like this are seen around the world as hypocritical, and do the United States’ image real harm.”

It is not just the U.S. image that is suffering. Drone strikes create more enemies of the United States. While Faisal Shahzad was pleading guilty to trying to detonate a bomb in Times Square, he said, “When the drones hit, they don’t see children.”

Americans are justifiably outraged when we hear about ISIS beheading western journalists. Former CIA lawyer Vicki Divoll, who now teaches at the U.S. Naval Academy, told the New Yorker‘s Jane Mayer in 2009, “People are a lot more comfortable with a Predator [drone] strike that kills many people than with a throat-slitting that kills one.” But Americans don’t see the images of the drone victims or hear the stories of their survivors. If we did, we might be more sympathetic to the damage our drone bombs are wreaking in our name.

The killing of the two Western hostages led the New York Times to say: “The [drone] program is under fire like never before.” But until the administration is more transparent about who is killed, and whether they are following their own rules, there will be no significant change. “I predict that even this episode will have no effect,” Zenko told the Times.

Drone strikes are illegal when conducted off the battlefield. They should be outlawed. Obama, like Bush before him, opportunistically defines the whole world as a battlefield.

The guarantee of due process in the U.S. Constitution as well as in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights must be honored, not just in its breach. That means arrest and fair trial, not summary execution. What we really need is a complete reassessment of Obama’s continuation of Bush’s “war on terror.” Until we overhaul our foreign policy and stop invading other countries, changing their regimes, occupying, torturing and indefinitely detaining their people, and uncritically supporting other countries that illegally occupy other peoples’ lands, we will never be safe from terrorism.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, past president of the National Lawyers Guild, and deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Her most recent book is “Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues.”

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Over the last few weeks, Google has quietly been rolling out the ability to interact with your Android device on a limited basis, right from the search bar. It started with asking Google to “find my phone”; now, you can set alarms, send directions, or leave yourself a note.

Read more…

Smartphone cameras are getting more capable and in each generation, there is a race to compete with more professional and dedicated digital shooters. For the past years, DxOMark’s rankings have become the litmus test of the smartphone world when it comes to that particular feature set. For a while, Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus held the top scores … Continue reading

As you might have heard by now, Valve has decided to put an end to their controversial feature on Steam which allowed modders to sell their creations to other gamers for a price. According to Valve, it seems that they underestimated the different communities of gamers, like those who mod Valve’s own games versus those who mod games of other developers.

So how does Bethesda feel about this? The company was pretty excited about the feature earlier on, but it seems that they took have decided it was not the best course of action. In a blog post on their website, Bethesda issued a statement which hopefully helps clarify the situation for gamers.

According to Bethesda, “After discussion with Valve, and listening to our community, paid mods are being removed from Steam Workshop. Even though we had the best intentions, the feedback has been clear – this is not a feature you want. Your support means everything to us, and we hear you.”

Bethesda goes on to explain their stance on the matter, claiming that despite their belief that mods should be free, developers who spend their time creating mods should be justly reward for their efforts as well. “We believe most mods should be free. But we also believe our community wants to reward the very best creators, and that they deserve to be rewarded. We believe the best should be paid for their work and treated like the game developers they are.”

In any case we suppose that’s the end of that, anyone happy/disappointed to see the feature go?

Bethesda Issues Statement On Paid Skyrim Mods , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.