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Archive for the ‘Computer Articles’ Category

Printer refuses humor magazine because “Christian owners” want to protect “the kids”

Solderer writes, "Old-school humor Magazine The American Bystander was dropped by its printer, citing prurient content (i.e. humor). Publisher Michael Gerber describes the ongoing situation in terms that would doubtless please Benjamin '**** Proudly' Franklin."

When the guy picked up, he was as nice as pie. "I gotta tell you," he said, "this magazine ...

Parkland kids’ Rube Goldberg machine illustrates the aftermath of school shootings

Alex Little writes, "The Parkland kids created a rube goldberg machine that shows the predictable domino effect of responses from politicians and media after every school shooting."

Kesha and her younger brother Sage teamed up with March for Our Lives activists to create “The Most Vicious Cycle,” a music video for the single, “Safe”, depicting ...

A sensible, free guide to negotiating book contracts

The Authors Alliance is a nonprofit that advocates for authors, libraries, readers and scholars (I'm on their advisory board); they've done a ton of great work, notably a tool for authors to claim their copyrights back from publishers, even when the original contract specified that the rights were signed away "in perpetuity."

The latest ...

Trump joins past Republican presidents in new version of The Republican Club painting

Andy Thomas, the artist who creates wonderful paintings depicting historical presidents from each party hanging out, has updated The Republican Club to include Donald Trump. It was spotted on the White House wall during an interview with the president on CBS News.

The artist, who lives in Missouri, United States, was "ecstatic" ...

Coca-Cola, trying to mix Maori with English, accidentally puts “Hello, death” on vending machine

In an attempt to blend English with Maori, Coca-Cola stamps a brilliant blooper onto one of their New Zealand vending machines: "Kia Ora, Mate!" Translation: "Hello, death!"

"Kia ora" is commonly translated as "hello" in Maori, while "mate" can be used as "buddy" in English. But in Maori, "mate" is not the kind of buddy you ...

Wannacry ransomware cost the British National Health Service £92m ($121m)

The Wannacry ransomware epidemic was especially virulent, thanks to its core: a weaponized vulnerability in Windows that the NSA had discovered and deliberately kept a secret so that they could use it to attack their adversaries.

Despite the incredible havoc Wannacry wreaked around the world, it made a pittance for its wielders: they walked ...

New David Bowie documentary in production at BBC

BBC Studios Production is completing a new feature documentary, David Bowie: The First Five Years, to air next year. Its the third in director Francis Whately's trilogy that has included "David Bowie: Five Years" (2013) and "David Bowie: The Last Five Years" (2017). The film will cover the Bowie's formative years as an artist, starting ...

What would a “counterculture of AI” look like?

****** math kills: ****** math "proved" that being selfish produced optimal outcomes and torched the planet; ****** math rains hellfire missiles down on innocents; in the 1960s, ****** math drove the "hamlet pacification program," producing 90,000 pages a month in data about the endless hail of bombs the US dropped on Vietnam.

The Spirit ...

Bruce Sterling on the next 50 years of climate-wracked maker architecture

Bruce Sterling's hour-long lecture to the Southern California Institute of Architecture is pretty good vintage Sterling: a seeming grab-bag of loosely related futuristic, ascerbic observations about climate change, Estonian e-residency, Kazakh new cities, monumental architecture, rotting Turinese palaces, Silicon Valley arrogance, AI, new-new urbanism, and so on -- which then all seems to pull together ...