interesting things
I don’t base jump, I don’t encourage base jumping, and under no circumstances would I recommend attempting a high bar routine while base jumping. Only bad things will happen. Luckily for Mr. Richard Henriksen, he lived to tell the tale- just barely.Â
-Via NY Daily News
Anonymous is claiming that Kody Maxson, a 30-year-old (former?) Facebook employee living in New Westminster, British Columbia, is the man who allegedly harassed Vancouver-area 15-year-old Amanda Todd so relentlessly that she took her own life on Oct. 10. In their YouTube video, a Guy Fawkes-outfitted anonybro with an auto-tuned voice reports that Anonymous has discovered a connection between Maxson and Todd, and it looks pretty damning.
Linking to a Pastebin page with Maxson’s personal information, Anonymous lays out pretty specific personal information. Vice takes it a step further by publishing information that allegedly connects the two — including screenshots of Google Maps near Maxson’s house, more of Maxson’s personal info, and screenshots of jailbait websites accounts that appear to link Maxson and Todd. Even though they’ve blurred out some of the names, you can see the disturbing association painted pretty clearly.
If Maxson is the creep who Anonymous alleges him to be, he’s in for a world of pain, as Facebook groups have already popped up with names like, “Kody maxson WILL die,” and “Kody Maxson Better Sleep With 1 Eye Open.” After all, he would be the principal orchestrator of Todd’s misery — the one who originally asked her to flash him, and then proceeded to hunt her down online a year later, demanding (according to the notes in her heartbreaking video) that she put on a show for him or he’d expose her. She didn’t, and what happened next is truly awful:
That’s when Amanda got “really sick” — she was diagnosed with depression and started drinking and doing drugs to get rid of the anxiety. It didn’t help, and the bullying, which grew more intense as more and more people found out about the naked photos, didn’t stop. The man created a Facebook page with a list of her friends and school, using Amanda’s naked chest as his profile photo. She changed schools, but the bullying followed her there, too. (That’s the thing about the internet.)
As we know, the harassment continued, and eventually culminated in Todd committing suicide. The story blew up but, as usual in cases like this, it was too late to help the actual victim. As Katie rightfully points out:
But the power of internet anonymity – the sense that you can say whatever you want online, that it doesn’t matter – exacerbates the issue, as does a culture that sends young women (and everyone else) mixed messages by teaching them that the only way they’ll be loved is if they show off their bodies, unless they do it too often/the wrong way/to the wrong people, in which case, they’re sluts.
In light of Gawker’s exposure of notorious troll Violentacrez, and Katie’s article about CreepShot-posting creeps being called out, it feels like there’s steady momentum in the direction of increased intolerance of this specific brand of internet bullshit.
Maybe taking away the anonymity of these people won’t completely solve the problem, but perhaps it’ll slow things down, allowing would-be harassers to think twice. It likely won’t stop the real psychopaths, those hell-bent on being creeps, but it’ll probably encourage people who aren’t 100 percent devoted to being gross to put the brakes on. Plus, there is so much power in peers telling peers: “Hey, what you’re doing isn’t cool, so knock it the fuck off.” I’m guessing that’s our most effective weapon in bully culture, the ability of everyone on the sidelines to say, “Shut it down, weirdo!” Threatening to expose their asses is the internet equivalent of a badge of shame, but perhaps worse; trite as it is, you can’t take the internet off at the end of the day. Your name will always be out there, forever branded. Don’t believe me? Just Google “Michael Brutsch.”
Anonymous – Amanda Todd’s Punisher DOX
Screenshots [Vice]
Unmasking Reddit’s Violentacrez, The Biggest Troll on the Web [Gawker]
via Jezebel http://jezebel.com/5952080/anonymous-names-names-outing-the-man-who-allegedly-drove-amanda-todd-to-suicide
At Google’s Zeitgeist conference, its chairman, Eric E. Schmidt, described a long-term future in which life is managed by robots — and one a little bit closer to reality in which billions more people can access information with new devices and connectivity.
via NYT > Most Recent Headlines http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/the-future-as-imagined-by-google/
We’ve heard rumors of a smaller iPad for a couple of years now.
Steve Jobs himself once dismissed the idea, but he was famous for carefully controlling PR, and even making distracting statements. Now it appears the 7-inch iPad is finally on its way–and soon.
One of the more intriguing bits concerning the iPad mini’s internal components that have “leaked” is its battery. MacRumors has got hold of a pre-production part that it deems likely to be a match for the final in-production battery–and it’s pretty convincing. It has a capacity of 4490 mAh or 16.7 watt-hours. That’s almost exactly three times the size of the iPhone 5’s 5.45 watt-hours and a third of the iPad 3’s 42.5 watt-hours.
The mini’s leaked battery details are not just trivial data. They implies that the mini may not be as powerful in terms of graphics or computing cycles as the full-on iPad, simply because there’s less room in the battery for energy to drive more powerful chips. But we do know that the iPad 3 uses a double line of LEDs to light its retina screen, and these seriously munch into the 3’s battery life. The mini is rumored to not have a retina screen, and this along with its small size means it may gobble down much less power per hour.
These arguments point to one of two main conclusions. The iPad mini may have a prodigious working battery life, lasting far longer than the iPhone does. Or it may be based on the iPhone 5 chipset (rather than the iPad 2 internals, as had previously been suggested) and thus have a more expected battery life, but deliver a computing performance that’s as good as the iPhone 5 and far better than the iPad 2.
A rumor a week ago suggested the new smaller iPad would come only with a Wi-Fi option, lacking the 3G capabilities of the bigger iPad. This rumor didn’t chime with us because Apple has already shown it can design modular hardware for the bigger iPad, with the mobile broadband system slotting into the iPad’s case as a daughterboard to the full motherboard. Why wouldn’t it do the same trick, possibly even with identical circuitry, as it does for the full iPad? Technologically it wouldn’t be tricky or expensive to develop, and it would give Apple the option of selling a more capable mobile device to users who may prefer its smaller screen size over the bigger iPad.
And remember–a mini iPad is going to be much more portable than a big iPad. Apple could make yet more money by letting its users have access to books, music, and apps on the go, and not just when they’re in a Wi-Fi area.
iPad mini SKU information, including price, has allegedly appeared in the systems of Media Markt, a German-based big box electronics retailer with a presence across Europe. The mini is, according to this info, due in 16 individual types: 8 each of white and black, with half of each color being equipped with mobile broadband and memory in capacities from 8GB to 64GB.
At the bottom end it’ll likely cost $323 and the top-end version with broadband will be about $841. For comparison the Amazon Kindle Fire is $159 and the slightly more capable Google Nexus 7 is $199.
According to one of the more recent rumors, Apple’s launch even for the iPad mini will have a big element dedicated to iBooks. The 7-inch or so screen the new iPad is said to sport is roughly the size of a large paperback book’s page, and if it features the same in-cell touch sensing as the iPhone 5 this means the display will make for an excellent e-reader.
Apple’s already made a big push for e-textbooks and compared to its other content offering systems it seemed that at first iBooks wasn’t quite so well used. In January Apple pushed out iBooks 2 and an authoring tool to let anyone put together a book for the platform and that immediately led to 350,000 book downloads and 90,000 downloads of iBooks Author in the first three days. Perhaps now is the perfect time to remind schools and home users of iBook’s power, and to push a device that seems ideally suited for consuming reading material.
All of these pieces of the puzzle join pleasingly together, and they don’t necessarily point to a 7.85-inch iPad as being the simpleton, low-price cousin to the iPad. What they may imply is that the mini is going to be a very capable device, possibly among the top in its size class and easily outperforming its immediate peers.
It seems to be priced aggressively. The low margin entry level system–at around $250–is Apple’s version of a “loss leader,” and it’s countered by the bigger units with more memory and mobile broadband units. Apple makes more money on these larger capacity devices, as it has long done so on all iDevices, because it charges a premium for the memory chips.
This strategy is in stark contrast to Amazon’s strategy with the new Kindle Fire, which is sold in a one-size-fits-all capacity and at zero profit to Amazon. Jeff Bezos’ company makes all its money from the Fire on selling apps, books, and other content for it–and can do so because the Fire is running so heavily a modified version of Android that it can basically only access material from Amazon’s digital lockers. Apple’s machine is similarly tied to Apple’s iTunes system, but is also free to run apps that deliver content from other partners. But Apple makes money on both the hardware and the software.
An iPad mini with more power than the iPad 2, perhaps approaching iPhone 5 class power, also makes sense in terms of Apple’s future product portfolio. The iPad 4 is presumably due in Spring, and if it were much more than a generation ahead of the iPad mini in terms of performance then it would make the mini look like a very poor buy for at least the next six months until that product was upgraded.
Will it cannibalize “full” iPad sales, or damage the iPod touch’s sales figures? That’s hard to predict, but Apple seems to have pitched its size far above the iPod and significantly less than the iPad–meaning it’ll appeal to different users.
[Image: Flickr user danpawley]
Chat about this news with Kit Eaton on Twitter and Fast Company too.
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No matter which way the election goes in November, the Republican vice-presidential nominee sees nothing but upside, writes Mark Leibovich in the latest issue of The New York Times magazine.
via NYT > Most Recent Headlines http://www.nytimes.com/glogin?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/magazine/paul-ryan.html&OQ=_rQ3D2&OP=52415daeQ2FS9KgSQ51uH(Q2BuuwQ27SQ27BeQ27SeBSQ27eSQ254_4NQ231KSr47Q2AMQ2Bv41kowQ25Q2A
As the Obama administration comes under increasing scrutiny for its handling of the terrorist attack in Libya, Ambassador Susan Rice is defending her actions, saying that political considerations did not factor into her early statements on the attack.
In an interview with The Washington Post published on Tuesday, Susan Rice, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, said, according to The Post’s characterization, that  “she relied on daily updates from intelligence agencies in the days before her television appearances and on a set of talking points prepared for senior members of the administration by intelligence officials.”
When asked whether there was an attempt to “pick and choose† among explanations she replied, “Absolutely not,†adding that, “It was purely a function of what was provided to us†and, as The Post writes, “had been given to Congress the day before.”
A Journal analysis of Chinese economic data suggests that capital is pouring out of the country—about $225 billion in the 12 months through September, equivalent to about 3% of China’s economic output.
via WSJ.com: What's News US http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443507204578020272862374326.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us
Taliban victim to receive ‘prolonged care.’
Mark Bowden’s new book, “The Finish,†tells of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden raid from the top down based on access to Obama. He speaks to Doug Stanton about what he found.
via The Daily Beast – Latest Articles http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/15/the-finish-mark-bowden-on-the-hunt-for-osama-bin-laden.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Farticles+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest+Articles%29
