Tag: Saved for Later

The arrests of people working for the Al Jazeera English news channel appeared aimed at deterring journalists from reporting on the Muslim Brotherhood’s continuing protests.

via NYT > Most Recent Headlines http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/30/world/middleeast/egypt-detains-journalists-it-says-aired-false-news.html

The twenty-mile drive from Hong Kong International Airport to the center of Shenzhen, in southern China, can take hours. There is customs to negotiate and a border to cross, but they aren’t the problem; the problem is the furious pace of commerce between the former British colony . . . (Subscription required.)

via The New Yorker http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/01/06/140106fa_fact_specter

A stash of exposed but undeveloped film was found at an old supply depot in Antarctica. The depot had been built by the doomed Terre Nova expedition (1910-1913) and then restocked to be used by the Ross Sea Party who stocked supplies for Ernest Shackleton’s 1914-1917 expedition, which never collected them. It is believed that the negatives were left by the Ross Sea Party, which was stranded when their ship blew out to sea in a blizzard. The 22 negatives have been carefully developed, and came out pretty clear, considering they’ve been frozen into a block of ice for a century! -via the Presurfer

(Image credit: The Antarctic Heritage Trust New Zealand)

via Neatorama http://www.neatorama.com/2013/12/30/100-year-old-Negatives-Discovered-in-Antarctic/

MILAN (AP) — The Italian distributor of the film "12 Years A Slave" has apologized for promotional posters attacked as racist for featuring Brad Pitt and Michael Fassbender, despite their relatively minor roles, and not the film’s star, Chiwetel Ejiofor.

via Yahoo News – Latest News & Headlines http://news.yahoo.com/italian-distributor-apologizes-quot-slave-quot-posters-113926454.html

On the whole, SantaCon may have gone a little smoother this year than it has recently. But despite the heavy police presence and the relatively low number of summonses,  the lasting image will still be the video of a group of red-suited drunks beating the snot out of one another in the snow. Gothamist has a more full account of the transgressions that accompanied the night, but really all you need to see to understand why everybody hates this event is this video, in which a well-lubricated scrum of Santas slips around violently in the gutter, punching each other for a very entertaining minute and a half or so. Merry Christmas, you belligerent jerks!

Read more posts by Adam Martin

Filed Under: santacon
,jerks

via Daily Intelligencer http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/12/this-is-why-santacon-cant-have-nice-things.html

A reporter at TIME magazine recently got a phone call from a woman named Samantha West who wanted to talk about health insurance. When the reporter asked her if she was a robot, she laughed and said, "I am a real person, can you hear me okay?"

TIME Washington bureau chief Michael Scherer got the initial call from Samantha on his cell phone, and although she sounded somewhat like a real person who wanted to talk about healthcare, he quickly deduced that she was definitely a robot.

Scherer and his colleagues called her number back multiple times and made some recordings — she can sort of carry on a real conversation, and parts of it are convincing — she laughs naturally and has a few different responses to the word "robot."

But then, according to TIME:

She failed several other tests. When asked “What vegetable is found in tomato soup?” she said she did not understand the question. When asked multiple times what day of the week it was yesterday, she complained repeatedly of a bad connection

TIME published the robocaller’s phone number, and eventually the number just began diverting to busy signals. Before it did, they tracked down a human, who said he was Bruce Martin of Premier Health Plans, Inc. He apparently denied Samantha being connected to the company, and although he initially asked TIME to advertise his service within the article, his website was quickly taken offline.

But that’s not the most interesting part.

One Atlantic reporter tried to track down the technology used. Alexis Madrigal spoke with interactive voice companies who all said only one program might be capable of Samantha’s range of conversation. Madrigal ultimately concluded that the technology doesn’t really exist right now for a robot to casually chat with callers — it’s more of a Ferris Bueller setup.

His conclusion is that these calls might be made by people unfamiliar with English or with accents who have pre-recorded responses on a soundboard that they play during the call. But it’s not certain — he too was rebuffed by the only human voice to answer Samantha’s number.

[image via Shutterstock]

via Gawker http://gawker.com/robot-callers-are-denying-that-theyre-robots-1483880807

CBS newsman John Miller is negotiating his exit as a senior correspondent to join his old friend Bill Bratton back at the Police Department, a reliable source tells me. Miller…

via http://pagesix.com/2013/12/16/cbs-newsman-miller-to-rejoin-bill-bratton-at-nypd/

The initiative, backed by Right to Life of Michigan, becomes law in March.

via NYT > Most Recent Headlines http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/12/us/michigan-most-insurance-for-abortion-is-banned.html

Huy Fong Foods faces an unexpected delay in shipping Sriracha and other sauces as it meets stricter health regulations.

Hot sauce manufacturer Huy Fong Foods cannot ship any more Sriracha and two other sauces it makes until mid-January because the California Department of Public Health has begun enforcing stricter guidelines for the company.

via L.A. Times – California | Local News http://latimes.com.feedsportal.com/c/34336/f/625246/s/34b80d35/sc/21/l/0L0Slatimes0N0Clocal0Cla0Eme0Esriracha0E20A1312120H0A0H6110A6940Bstory0Dtrack0Frss/story01.htm

From a study in the APS journal Psychological Science: "Sexual imagery is often used in magazine and TV ads, presumably to help entice buyers to purchase a new product. But new research suggests that women tend to find ads with sexual imagery off-putting, unless the advertised item is priced high enough.
The findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reveal that women’s otherwise negative attitudes about sexual imagery can be softened when the images are paired with a product that connotes high worth."
via reddit.com/r/science

via MetaFilter http://www.metafilter.com/134697/Women-find-sexually-explicit-ads-unappealing-unless-the-price-is-right