AdamSmith

Not a joke, just parking this here for future reference.

Without comment.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/10572747/Francois-Hollande-conference-with-the-greatest-respect-there-was-un-elephant-dans-la-salle.html

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/14/republican-gay-rights-campaigner-announces-quitting-gop

So now Google will know when we get hot flashes, or smoke weed in bed and set off the CO alarm. https://investor.google.com/releases/2014/0113.html https://nest.com/blog/2014/01/13/welcome-home/ Next up -- smart sex toys? There has to be a niche for reverse-feedback teledildonics somewhere in all this.

Kinky.

Interesting argument: http://m.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/01/bridgegate-is-a-disaster-for-the-republican-party-too/283022/

Astounding. Man Tries to Hug a Wild Lion, You Won’t Believe What Happens Next! earth porm When you hear of someone trying to hug a wild lion, you immediately think you know exactly what’s about to happen. But trust me when i say, you will not see this coming. Kevin Richardson is a South African Zoologist who over the years has conducted extensive research on the native animals of the African plains. If this was any one other than Kevin trying to hug a lion, we may have had an all too predictable story to tell. But with his decades of hands on study and research, Mr. Richardson has developed an awe-inspiring and heart-warming relationship with these ferocious felines of the South African Savanna. Strapped with a jeep full of GoPro cameras, Kevin takes his crew as close as they can get to these wild creatures, without letting the rest of them get out of the car. Obviously. As you hear him call for these animals and then watch them charge after him, you immediately think to yourself ” Yup! This guy’s about to get eaten!” But to all of our surprise, these gigantic lions wrap their paws around him and give him the most adorable hug you’ll ever see in your life. It’s truly amazing to see these 400 pound animals act like house pets around Kevin as they cuddle a frolic through the bushes. It’s almost too beautiful to be real. Kevin is able to use his unique relationship with these animals to capture people’s attention and draw awareness to the problems facing the wild life in Africa. While many people still see Africa as a gaming paradise, teaming with animals to hunt, the numbers of wild life are dwindling, bringing many animals, including these majestic lions closer on the endangered species list. So much so that Kevin predicts that if we continue down the same road, we will not be able to see any more lions within the next 20 years. When looking for reasons why these animals numbers are dropping Richardson has found a common thread. These wondrous creatures are losing their natural habitats very quickly, due to unscrupulous hunting and human “development”. It is Kevin’s hope that with his ability to interact with the animals, surpassing the need for fear to force submission, he can change the view and outlook we have on these beautiful creatures. Instead of the predator, “Kill or be Killed” mentality, these over sized cats are more playful than primal. http://www.earthporm.com/man-tries-hug-wild-lion-wont-believe-happens-next/

Triumph of hope over experience?

So MsGuy and others have posted recently on the Singularity and other looming phenomena that may have less than desirable outcomes for H. sapiens. What do you think may be the greatest risk? Possibilities I can think of, in rough order of likelihood: Catastrophic climate change Food chain collapse Global pandemic -- too much human biomass on the planet, too well connected due to modern transportation Potable water crisis Nuclear annihilation Malevolent machine sentience In turn, possible saving developments: Cost-effective mass-scale desalination Terraforming to actively reverse climate change Nanomedicine, biomaterials/bioelectronics, etc. H. sapiens genetic engineering Neutral or benevolent machine supersentience Karellen ...?

Environmental Research Letters Volume 8 Number 2 Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature John Cook1,2,3, Dana Nuccitelli2,4, Sarah A Green5, Mark Richardson6, Bärbel Winkler2, Rob Painting2, Robert Way7, Peter Jacobs8 and Andrew Skuce2,9 John Cook et al 2013 Environ. Res. Lett. 8 024024 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024 © 2013 IOP Publishing Ltd Received 18 January 2013, accepted for publication 22 April 2013 Published 15 May 2013 Abstract We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics 'global climate change' or 'global warming'. We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. In a second phase of this study, we invited authors to rate their own papers. Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage of self-rated papers expressed no position on AGW (35.5%). Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus. For both abstract ratings and authors' self-ratings, the percentage of endorsements among papers expressing a position on AGW marginally increased over time. Our analysis indicates that the number of papers rejecting the consensus on AGW is a vanishingly small proportion of the published research. 1. IntroductionAn accurate perception of the degree of scientific consensus is an essential element to public support for climate policy (Ding et al 2011). Communicating the scientific consensus also increases people's acceptance that climate change (CC) is happening (Lewandowsky et al 2012). Despite numerous indicators of a consensus, there is wide public perception that climate scientists disagree over the fundamental cause of global warming (GW; Leiserowitz et al 2012, Pew 2012). In the most comprehensive analysis performed to date, we have extended the analysis of peer-reviewed climate papers in Oreskes (2004). We examined a large sample of the scientific literature on global CC, published over a 21 year period, in order to determine the level of scientific consensus that human activity is very likely causing most of the current GW (anthropogenic global warming, or AGW). Surveys of climate scientists have found strong agreement (97–98%) regarding AGW amongst publishing climate experts (Doran and Zimmerman 2009, Anderegg et al 2010). Repeated surveys of scientists found that scientific agreement about AGW steadily increased from 1996 to 2009 (Bray 2010). This is reflected in the increasingly definitive statements issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the attribution of recent GW (Houghton et al 1996, 2001, Solomon et al 2007). The peer-reviewed scientific literature provides a ground-level assessment of the degree of consensus among publishing scientists. An analysis of abstracts published from 1993–2003 matching the search 'global climate change' found that none of 928 papers disagreed with the consensus position on AGW (Oreskes 2004). This is consistent with an analysis of citation networks that found a consensus on AGW forming in the early 1990s (Shwed and Bearman 2010). Despite these independent indicators of a scientific consensus, the perception of the US public is that the scientific community still disagrees over the fundamental cause of GW. From 1997 to 2007, public opinion polls have indicated around 60% of the US public believes there is significant disagreement among scientists about whether GW was happening (Nisbet and Myers 2007). Similarly, 57% of the US public either disagreed or were unaware that scientists agree that the earth is very likely warming due to human activity (Pew 2012). Through analysis of climate-related papers published from 1991 to 2011, this study provides the most comprehensive analysis of its kind to date in order to quantify and evaluate the level and evolution of consensus over the last two decades. . . . 5. ConclusionThe public perception of a scientific consensus on AGW is a necessary element in public support for climate policy (Ding et al 2011). However, there is a significant gap between public perception and reality, with 57% of the US public either disagreeing or unaware that scientists overwhelmingly agree that the earth is warming due to human activity (Pew 2012). Contributing to this 'consensus gap' are campaigns designed to confuse the public about the level of agreement among climate scientists. In 1991, Western Fuels Association conducted a $510 000 campaign whose primary goal was to 'reposition global warming as theory (not fact)'. A key strategy involved constructing the impression of active scientific debate using dissenting scientists as spokesmen (Oreskes 2010). The situation is exacerbated by media treatment of the climate issue, where the normative practice of providing opposing sides with equal attention has allowed a vocal minority to have their views amplified (Boykoff and Boykoff 2004). While there are indications that the situation has improved in the UK and USA prestige press (Boykoff 2007), the UK tabloid press showed no indication of improvement from 2000 to 2006 (Boykoff and Mansfield 2008). The narrative presented by some dissenters is that the scientific consensus is '...on the point of collapse' (Oddie 2012) while '...the number of scientific "heretics" is growing with each passing year' (Allègre et al 2012). A systematic, comprehensive review of the literature provides quantitative evidence countering this assertion. The number of papers rejecting AGW is a minuscule proportion of the published research, with the percentage slightly decreasing over time. Among papers expressing a position on AGW, an overwhelming percentage (97.2% based on self-ratings, 97.1% based on abstract ratings) endorses the scientific consensus on AGW. Full paper: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article

And likewise.

Also no joke.

Actually not a joke... http://www.toiletfinder.com/

An actual ad on craigslist for NYC! Skilled toiletmaster needed for humor/review website: ToiletFinder.com (Midtown West) Hello, Craigslisters! Our website ToiletFinder.com, provides-- you guessed it-- potentially life-saving services for those in need of a quick potty spot. We've all been in those pesky situations when after a bad meal or drink, a gastrointestinal nightmare is soon brewing, and one thing quickly leads to another! Well, our website seeks to address this very precarious (albeit extremely common) scenario and has essentially transformed the art of finding a toilet into a mathematical certainty. You can think of the site as kind of a Yelp.com for toilets. Everything is anonymous, and squatters are free to leave as little or as much information as possible. Feel free to take a look around the site, and get the inside scoop on your favorite venues' toilets! http://www.toiletfinder.com. We have recently received a generous initial round of angel investment funding and are seeking a talented, humorous, and fearless community organizer (or two) to spearhead the toilet finding community and our mission of making public toilets accessible to all. This is a paid position of $10 - $15 per post, depending on the location of the venue, and the humor level. We are looking for a long term relationship with an experienced, and highly skilled toiletmaster that is capable of delivering a good hard-bellied chuckle or two for our readers during his/her free time for a steady stream of supplemental income. In addition to the financial gain, this opportunity is a great way for a budding writer or humorist to GET NOTICED and receive a great amount of free visibility. Development on the official ToiletFinder.com app has been underway for some time, and we anticipate an iOS/Android launch within approximately two months. The successful candidate will work closely with our tight-knit staff consisting of highly-educated working professionals in the New York City metro area gearing up the website for our hotly-anticipated app launch. The successful toiletmaster will experience the inner workings of a true fast-paced NYC startup environment and be a part of a supportive, creative, and passionate team. We truly love what we do. Please submit your resume, the link to your ToiletFinder.com user profile, and your PayPal email address to be considered. Thank you, -- The Staff at ToiletFinder.com 400 Lafayette Street (google map) (yahoo map) http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/wri/4283046182.html

Furthermore... http://www.boytoy.com/forums/index.php?/topic/18649-who-knew-illuminated-manuscripts-contained-so-many-fart-and-poop-jokes/#entry105861

Sewage pipe bursts, flooding Golden Globes' red carpet http://nypost.com/2014/01/12/golden-globes-red-carpet-floods/

The NSA Is Bad for Business And that’s why all the biggest tech rivals are joining together to limit government surveillance. By David Auerbach Slate.com Americans may not be paying attention to the NSA scandals—polls inconsistently show that 40 to 50 percent of the country is OK with whatever it is the NSA is doing—but tech companies certainly are. The big-name Internet companies have launched a Reform Government Surveillance (RGS) coalition, arguing for heavy restrictions on the NSA’s ability to do all the economy-size surveillance that’s been revealed over the last seven months. The coalition includes Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo, plus LinkedIn and AOL—among the tech behemoths, only Amazon is notably absent. (Disclosure: I used to work at Microsoft and Google, and my wife is a Google software engineer.*) The continuing fallout from Edward Snowden’s revelations, each one giving lie to the NSA’s prior congressional testimony, has produced some serious embarrassments, from tapping Angela Merkel’s cellphone to hijacking Google and Yahoo’s intercontinental data pipes to refusing to deny that it spies on Congress. Wired has analyzed the reforms proposed by Richard Clarke’s advisory panel and found them to be toothless or, worse, enshrining in law what the NSA has already been illegally doing: vast, warrantless bulk collection of metadata and data of hundreds of millions of people. If a standard of privacy can be set for the NSA, it will be easier to demand that companies provide it as well. The RGS campaign is fairly specific in its demands and goes much further than Clarke’s panel, putting them closer to the Electronic Freedom Foundation than to Dianne Feinstein. This opposition sets the RGS companies apart from the telecoms: AT&T and Verizon have been quite cooperative with the NSA, and got retroactive legal immunity for aiding the mass, illegal surveillance without protest. The RGS coalition asks that “reviewing courts should be independent and include an adversarial process” (gasp!), says the government “should not undertake bulk data collection of Internet communications” (darn!), and “governments should limit surveillance to specific, known users” (sacre bleu!). That last one would put half of the NSA out of business. It’s notable when nearly all the major Internet competitors, some of them in bloody rivalries with one another, come together take a stance so vastly at odds with that of the government and a large chunk of their customers. Not even the Stop Online Piracy Act, which would have made Internet companies subject to burdensome requirements to battle piracy and persecute pirates, united tech companies with such vigor. (Microsoft and Apple have generally only offered tepid opposition to anti-piracy bills.) When competitors agree across the board, there is usually only one broad motivator: money. The NSA, it seems, is very bad for business. Aside from damaging the overseas reputations of these international businesses (notably in Europe and China), the surveillance has caused RGS companies to take major financial hits just to protect themselves from the NSA. Google is now encrypting all its internal traffic, and Yahoo is following Google’s lead—expensive, time-consuming, and logistically ugly work. Add that to headaches like the NSA paying off encryption giant RSA (to the tune of $10 million) to add a back door into their default encryption algorithm, and it’s clear that the bottom line is at stake. Pando journalist Yasha Levine calls the Reform Government Surveillance coalition a charade, citing Google’s lack of willingness to provide their own users with anonymity and freedom from surveillance. Putting aside that only the NSA’s actions were actually illegal, Levine does have a point: The increasing microtargeting of users by Internet and marketing companies allows the aggregation of incredibly detailed profiles of consumers. This profiling targets different characteristics than NSA data, though it’s still intrusive. But have privacy advocates and journalists been suckered by the coalition, as Levine claims? No. Privacy activists are fully aware of what these large companies are doing, but for them, the NSA revelations are perfect for triangulation. The corporations want the NSA out of their business, and they want to use personal information as a cudgel to direct public opinion against the NSA. Privacy advocates want more protections for personal information, and they want to use the NSA as a cudgel against corporations. If serious oversight is granted and the contents of the NSA’s requests for data are better exposed, that will lead to a lot more exposure of what companies, too, are collecting on consumers. If a standard of privacy can be set for the NSA, it will be easier to demand that companies provide it as well. The dance of the tech companies can appear baffling. The companies want to hold on to all the useful data (market research, browsing histories, consumer profiles), while dumping as much of the sensitive data as possible (anything relating to health, criminal activity, and as much personally identifiable information as is feasible). They want to make money while being as minimally liable as possible. These goals are complementary, not contradictory, and since what corporations are interested in (viz., money) is very different from what the NSA is interested in (anomalous signals of terrorism or dissidence), the NSA’s data demands do not line up with Google’s or Facebook’s. But this distinction is far more visible within tech companies than outside of them. To some extent, the largest Internet companies may like the idea that increased government transparency will lead to increased corporate transparency, since the sleaziest practitioners of consumer profiling and targeted advertising aren’t Google, Facebook, and Apple but shadowy third-party marketers like Acxiom and Turn, who don’t have to answer to consumers in the way that the big names do. If increased privacy demands wipe out Acxiom’s market share and force Internet companies to abandon tracking cookies in favor of Google’s or Apple’s own advertiser IDs, Google and Apple won’t shed any tears. The flaw in Levine’s anti-corporate line is seeing the surveillance debate as a zero-sum game, where any stand taken by corporations must be assumed to be bad for consumers. Often that’s the case, but here it’s not. It is depressing that the only chance of reining in the NSA’s illegal activities comes via the advocacy of multi-billion dollar companies. But activists have often succeeded best when they’ve succeeded in pitting giant societal forces against one another, instead of trying to start the revolution in their faculty lounge. We should be thankful that for once the free market is helping to temper the excesses of our security state. Update, Jan. 10, 2014: This piece has been updated to include a disclosure that the author used to work at Microsoft and Google. (Return.) David Auerbach is a writer and software engineer based in New York. His website is http://davidauerba.ch. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/01/google_apple_facebook_and_the_nsa_tech_companies_come_together_to_limit.html

Lauren Davis on io9goofballery 4/14/13 11:00am Who knew illuminated manuscripts contained so many fart and poop jokes? There's plenty of silliness sitting in the margins of illuminated manuscripts, and the Tumblr The Discarded Image collects some of the goofiest of the goofy: cats licking their junk, murderous bunny rabbits, prankster monkeys, amorous animals, and tongue-wagging jokesters. But perhaps the highlight of blog is its extensive collection of butts, and the poop and fart humor that goes with it. NSFWish images below. Evidently, the fart-powered trumpet was always good for a laugh, as was the pooping monkey. Personally, I'm rather partial to the floral scrolls that emerge out of sometimes disembodied butts. You can check out all the ass-themed marginalia on The Discarded Image, or explore the whole blog for tons of cartoony images that show just why these manuscripts provided such great fodder for Terry Gilliam's Monty Python animations. The Discarded Image [via MetaFilter] http://io9.com/who-knew-illuminated-manuscripts-contained-so-many-fart-472867722