Become A Real Geek: Learn The True Tech Lingo Advertisement I have come across people who say they are tech savvy, but they don’t seem to know a single term when it comes to technology. Of course you can be somewhat tech savvy even though you don’t know the tech lingo, but if you want to become a true geek, you should probably spend at least some time learning the tech lingo that most geeks know today. If you think about it, how many times have you been lost in a conversation where tech lingo is thrown around like it was yesterday’s news? This glossary contains many terms – some of which you will most likely have heard before, but it also contains lingo that might have escaped your awesomeness. If you’re looking to become a real geek then don’t miss out reading through this glossary. Are you going to be one of those or are you going to take it a step further and actually get into it all? Poetic Cases’ Tech Lingo Glossary Infographic (Click Infographic To Enlarge)
Chris Burden Has Died at 69 Chris Burden.Photo via MOCA TV. Performance artist and sculptor Chris Burden, who may remain best known for a performance in which he had himself shot in the arm, died today at his home in Topanga Canyon, California, at age 69. The cause was malignant melanoma, according to the artist's friend Paul Schimmel, as reported in the L.A. Times. Both Los Angeles and New York currently have sculptures by the artist on prominent display: Urban Light (2008), his assemblage of streetlamps, is on view outside the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). “Chris was an artistic giant, a mentor to so many, an influential teacher, a maverick who played by his own rules, a fearless risk taker, endlessly curious and also rigorous and exacting," New Museum director Lisa Phillips told artnet News via email. Chris Burden, Urban Light, 2008. “Few artists can claim a body of work as rich, varied, and influential as Chris Burden," LACMA director Michael Govan told artnet News via email. Next Art World Article
The Film That Launched America's Debate About the Suburbs - Curbed Features The city is over. That's an argument we've heard before. We're hearing it again now, an apparent backlash against the past decade's trend toward new urbanism, with its live/work city lofts, mixed uses, and rooftop gardens. For over a decade, this trend has brought young urban professionals and retirees alike back to the city with its compact streets and walkable spaces. But now the suburbs—and the people who promote them—are fighting back. The suburbs were first pushed on the masses during the 1930s. The film, though not directly commissioned by FDR, was certainly a product of his administration: the script was based on an eleven-page outline by "FDR's filmmaker," documentarian Pare Loretz, and the original concept for the film was that of the Housing Act of 1937's co-author, the housing advocate and urban planner Catherine Bauer Wurster. An aerial view of Greenbelt, Maryland, under construction. The film was divided into three parts. · Curbed Features archive [Curbed]
When Cops Perceive Differences as Danger - Pacific Standard In a San Francisco group home in 2008, a mentally disturbed woman named Teresa Sheehan was armed with a knife and threatening violence. Two police officers who arrived at the scene shot and killed her. A case about how this unfortunate episode could be litigated made its way to the Supreme Court this year, and the Court’s decision came down on Monday. The Court ruled that the officers should be immune to criminal charges for their actions, because, at the time of the shooting, it was an open question whether the Fourth Amendment required police to have special considerations or different methods for dealing with people with mental illness who seem to be posing a threat. Seven years after that shooting, the question is as relevant as ever. When people have trouble expressing themselves, they may communicate pain or frustration in other ways that police officers may interpret as being defiant or destructive. Advertisement — Continue reading below
Man's Best—and Oldest—Friend - Pacific Standard Dogs may have become man’s best friend much earlier than previously thought, according to research published today in the journal Current Biology. A new study finds that dogs' ancestors may have split from wolves as much as 40,000 years ago. This comes in direct contrast to previous genetic analyses, which suggested that the split occurred just 16,000 years ago, according to Pontus Skoglund, a research fellow in genetics at Harvard Medical School, and lead author on the study. Researchers still don’t know exactly when or where dogs were domesticated, or even which wolf population eventually gave way to our obedient sidekicks. So when Skoglund and his colleagues at Stockholm University and the Swedish Museum of Natural History came across an ancient Siberian wolf bone, they hoped “this ancient wolf might shed some light on that question,” Skoglund says. If the ancient wolf was roaming Siberia 35,000 years ago, the ancestor to modern dogs might have been as well.
The Evolution of Spite - Pacific Standard America’s prejudice problem has spent almost a year on the world stage. After the shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, last summer, a spate of white-cop-on-black-kid murders has followed, leaving racial tensions uncomfortably simmering above the surface. From 12-year-old victim Tamir Rice in Cleveland to the death of Freddie Gray in the back of a Baltimore police van, there remains no corner of the country that has gone untouched by violence, uprisings, and yet more violence. It is hard to understand how a nation so long considered among the paragons of socio-ethnic acceptance (despite many obvious examples to the contrary) has developed an appetite for re-instating the wedge between whites and blacks, but a new evolutionary theory seeks to explain how our predilection for spite against those who differ from ourselves is cultivated. Advertisement — Continue reading below We have the capacity for change, then, but how can we foster it?
The History and Evolution of Social Media Social media has become an integral part of modern society. There are general social networks with user bases larger than the population of most countries. There are niche sites for virtually every special interest out there. There are sites to share photos, videos, status updates, sites for meeting new people and sites to connect with old friends. It seems there are social solutions to just about every need. In this article, we’ll review the history and evolution of social media from its humble beginnings to the present day. Precursors to Social Media Usernets Usenet systems were first conceived of in 1979 by Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis. Usenets have no centralized server or dedicated administrator, setting them apart from most BBSs and forums. Group sites such as Google Groups and Yahoo! BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems) The first BBSs came online in the late 70s. While there were legitimate BBSs, most were at least somewhat involved in illicit, illegal, or other shady practices. Online Services
Paul Ford: What is Code? | Bloomberg A computer is a clock with benefits. They all work the same, doing second-grade math, one step at a time: Tick, take a number and put it in box one. Tick, take another number, put it in box two. Tick, operate (an operation might be addition or subtraction) on those two numbers and put the resulting number in box one. Tick, check if the result is zero, and if it is, go to some other box and follow a new set of instructions. You, using a pen and paper, can do anything a computer can; you just can’t do those things billions of times per second. Apple has always made computers; Microsoft used to make only software (and occasional accessory hardware, such as mice and keyboards), but now it’s in the hardware business, with Xbox game consoles, Surface tablets, and Lumia phones. So many things are computers, or will be. When you “batch” process a thousand images in Photoshop or sum numbers in Excel, you’re programming, at least a little. 2.1 How Do You Type an “A”? It’s simple now, right?
Teachings by Win Bassett How are you? Pity soaks the moment like wet bread. Do I spit it out, or must I gum this unguent down? I learned in my first week as a hospital chaplain never to ask, “How are you?” Back in the hospital, my fellow interns and I watched the film Wit, along with most other summer chaplaincy programs in the country, to understand why we shouldn’t ask how someone is doing. I've been asked, "How are you feeling?" I have been asked as I was emerging from a four-hour operation with a tube in every orifice: "How are you feeling today?" I'm waiting for the moment when I'm asked this question and I'm dead. I'm a little sorry I'll miss that. I asked the question all summer. Wiman goes on to write, “prevarications, extenuations, tomorrow’s tease of being: / we are what we are only in our last bastions.” I visited this man almost every day for two months last summer. I’ll call him Joe. My first overnight stint, one that spans morning to morning, came four weeks into my summer program at the hospital.
Meet the Man Behind the Map: Washington, D.C.'s and Baltimore's Historical Trains, Subway-Style - Curbed Interviews The remnants of abandoned train lines are still visible to this day, often drawing curiosity from what David Edmondson calls "legacy train nerds." As a railway enthusiast, himself, Edmondson became tired of not knowing where these train lines were or how they connected, deciding to take it into his own hands to map each line in a colorful subway-style map. He describes his maps as "quasi-geographical train service diagram[s]" that are able to show the rails and also the service of each train. By utilizing 1930's railway timetables, he's completed a map of the San Francisco Bay Area's historical trains and is currently working on one that will cover the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore areas. To create these and more maps, Edmondson started a Kickstarter project with a $250 goal that has already been exceeded and is currently reaching $1,000. Now, with a delivery date for the D.C. What interested you in starting your project to create historic railroad maps?