The Internet Arcade

The Internet Arcade "The Internet Arcade is a web-based library of arcade (coin-operated) video games from the 1970s through to the 1990s, emulated in JSMAME, part of the JSMESS software package. Containing hundreds of games ranging through many different genres and styles, the Arcade provides research, comparison, and entertainment in the realm of the Video Game Arcade."

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: State Legislatures and ALEC

If John Oliver can spend 17 minutes on state legislatures and ALEC when he only has 30 minutes a week, why can't a real news program that airs daily or a 24 hour news network that runs 7 days a week? I just don't understand.

I watched Steve Kornacki and Melissa Harris-Perry this weekend as well as Meet the Press and George Stephanopolis (well more like had on in the background or fast forwarded through) and they just covered the horse race, the polls. Not once did they cover any issue any of the candidates were running on. Though a few times they mentioned that the GOP is just running against Obama and not for anything. But if they're really not running on anything (and I could believe that) imagine what would happen if the press was constantly pointing that out.

RIP Click

NPR reports. "Tom Magliozzi, one of public radio's most popular personalities, died on Monday of complications from Alzheimer's disease. He was 77 years old. Tom and his brother, Ray, became famous as "Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers" on the weekly NPR show Car Talk. They bantered, told jokes, laughed and sometimes even gave pretty good advice to listeners who called in with their car troubles."

The takeaway from six years of economic troubles? Keynes was right.

Anatole Kaletsky writes in Reuters, The takeaway from six years of economic troubles? Keynes was right.

Thus the six years since 2008 have provided strong empirical support for the supposedly outmoded Keynesian view that government borrowing is more powerful than monetary policy in stimulating severely depressed economies and pulling them out of recession. In a sense, it is odd that the power of fiscal policy has come as a surprise – or that it continues to be categorically denied by the German government and the U.S. Tea Party. The underlying reason why fiscal policy is so important in recessions, and has now come to dominate over monetary policy, is a matter of simple arithmetic that should not be open to debate.

Recessions generally occur when private business and households decide to spend less than their incomes in order to reduce their debts or increase their savings. If this process of “deleveraging” is happening in the private sector, which it clearly has been, then simple arithmetic shows that economic balance can only be restored if some other sector of the economy spends more than its income – and such excess spending is only possible if that “other sector” is willing to increase its debts. Disregarding the role of exports and imports, which must sum to zero for the world as a whole, the government is the only possible candidate to play the crucial balancing role as the “other sector.” It is therefore a mathematical certainty that governments must increase their borrowing whenever businesses and households decide to boost their savings by spending less than they earn.

How Boston is rethinking its relationship with the sea

The BBC shows How Boston is rethinking its relationship with the sea "Sea levels are rising, the land is sinking. It's going to become a big problem for some cities on the US East Coast, so in Boston people are thinking the unthinkable - copying Venice and Amsterdam, and becoming a city of canals."

"The canal idea was floated when architects, developers, real estate experts and business owners were brought together in May to discuss ways of preserving the city's buildings in this watery cityscape of the future."

The 10 greatest changes of the past 1,000 years

The Guardian presents The 10 greatest changes of the past 1,000 years "In Europe, the last millennium has been shaped by successive waves of change, but which shifts, in which centuries, have really shaped the modern world? Historian Ian Mortimer identifies the 10 leading drivers of change"

Nice list, with a number of items that completely surprised me.

The video of Sharyl Attkisson getting "hacked" actually just shows a stuck delete key

Vox writes The video of Sharyl Attkisson getting "hacked" actually just shows a stuck delete key.

Former CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson has become something of a hero among segments of the right ever since she was pushed out from the network this spring over concerns that her reporting had taken an anti-Obama bias. In the view of Attkisson and her supporters, CBS had silenced her for telling the truth on Benghazi and other scandals. (She also drew heat for reporting a link between vaccines and autism, an idea that has been widely debunked.)

On Tuesday, Attkisson will publish her book, Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama's Washington. It reiterates her criticisms of the Obama administration and alleges a campaign to silence such dissent.

The book is in the news this week because it details what Attkisson describes as hacking attacks on her computer. She presents the evidence in such a way as to strongly imply that the Obama administration ordered her computer hacked as retribution for her critical reporting. On Friday, Attkisson released a video of the central allegation in her book. But it turns out that what the video actually appears to show is not sophisticated US government hacking, but a stuck delete key, and a former reporter with breathtakingly poor computer literacy."

I didn't know the name Sheryl Attkisson and I'm glad about that. This stuff just amazes me and I can't take any of these people seriously.

The video has taken the right-leaning web by storm, and is widely seen as proof of Attkisson's unstated-but-clear implication. The Blaze called the video "what could be evidence of the government taking over her computer." TownHall ran it with the headline: "Watch Someone in The Government Take Over Sharyl Attkisson's Computer." Fox News columnist Howard Kurtz called it "highly sophisticated hacking" and "chilling stuff." Breitbart News deemed it "More Evidence the Government Hacked Sharyl Attkisson's Computer."

Old Masters at the Top of Their Game

The NY Times has a feature, Old Masters at the Top of Their Game. "After 80, some people don’t retire. They reign." They profile several octogenarians and nonagenarians including Betty White, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Edward O. Wilson, Frank Gehry and Carl Reiner.

OK Go - I Won't Let You Down

Nice use of drones.

Lava Flow Threatens Pahoa, Hawaii

In Focus shows Lava Flow Threatens Pahoa, Hawaii "On June 27, a new lava flow emerged from Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano, flowing to the northeast at a rate varying from 2 meters per hour up to 15 meters per hour. In the months since, the 'June 27 breakout' lava flow has crossed more than 12 miles and now threatens the small town of Pahoa. The molten rock has already claimed acres of forest, several roads, and small farm buildings, and buried the Pahoa Cemetery. Dozens of Pahoa residents have been evacuated ahead of the slow-moving disaster, as state and federal officials work to protect what they can and plan for the worst. If the flow continues as projected, dozens more houses and businesses are threatened, and a large section of Pahoa may be cut off from the rest of the island if the flow remains active and reaches the sea. [26 photos]"

The Living New Deal

Living New Deal is a site that records the projects of the New Deal.

No city, town, or rural area was untouched by the New Deal. Hundreds of thousands of roads, schools, theaters, libraries, hospitals, post offices, courthouses, airports, parks, forests, gardens, and artworks—created in only one decade by our parents and grandparents—are still in use today. The long-term payoff from this public investment helped propel American economic growth after the world war and is still working for the American people today.

Because these public works were rarely marked, the New Deal’s ongoing contribution to American life goes largely unseen. Given the scale and impact of the Roosevelt years across America, it seems inconceivable that no national register exists of what the New Deal built. The Living New Deal is making visible that enduring legacy.

There are lists of projects by state and categories, but there's also this interactive New Deal Project Map. Turns out that a senior center a few blocks from me was originally a local branch library funded by the New Deal. Also a small bridge I pass over a few times a week was a project.

Terms of Service

Al Jazeera America has posted a non-fiction graphic novella, Terms of Service by reporter Michael Keller and cartoonist Josh Neufeld (who drew Brooke Gladstone's comic The Influencing Machine). The subtitle is "Understanding Our Role in the World of Big Data" and it does a nice job balancing the issues of privacy, social media, and new forms of data tracking.

Astronomers Observe An Expanding Nova Fireball For The First Time

io9 reported Astronomers Observe An Expanding Nova Fireball For The First Time "An international team of astronomers have finally caught a glimpse of an expanding thermonuclear fireball from an exploding white dwarf. It's the first time this kind of data has ever been captured, allowing the researchers to study how the fireball evolves and rapidly expands into space."

"This particular nova is located about 14,800 light-years from here in the constellation of Delphinus (the Dolphin), so technically speaking it exploded some 15,000 years ago. The astronomers observed the event on August 14th, 2013."

"The data showed that the ferocity of the initial expansion was intense, engulfing a region the size of the Earth's orbit within a day, and passing Jupiter's orbit in less than two weeks. At the 43-day mark, the fireball had expanded to the size of Neptune's orbit."

"We found the initial nova explosion wasn't spherical, giving the fireball a slightly elliptical shape," noted Australian National University's Michael Ireland in an ABC News article. "This happens because the white dwarf's atmosphere is spinning, and there's a disk of accreted material falling onto it from the companion star, so there's a lot happening to prevent the system from being spherical when it goes bang."

"What's more, mysterious multiple shells were seen as the nova exploded. A main shell expanded at about 600 kilometers per second, but there were also semi-transparent shells further out going even faster. The astronomers observed the optically thick inner shell and the transparent outer shells expanding at the same time — and they're not entirely sure what they are."

Talks I've Been To Recently

I saw Melissa Harris-Perry give a talk at the Radcliffe Institute, Who's Choosin' Who? Race, Gender, and the New American Politics. This was one of the most entertaining talks I've been to. She spoke much more quickly and candidly than on her TV show with a lot of amusing asides. The main point was that in our government the winners don't take all, they take some, but lately it's been closer to all. Which is odd, because even as more minorities get elected they seem to have less and less influence. While there were nice graphs and things, it still seemed more about the asides. She doesn't seem to be a fan of Hilary (anyone who loses to a black guy named Hussein who just a year prior was a school board president, you've had your chance). She's less against Sarah Palin than I would have expected. Egalitarian incompetence should exist for women as it does for men, see John Edwards and Palin caused many woman GOP women to run in the next election. She also pointed out that Rick Perry and Justice Scalia favor repeal of 17th Amendment, allowing direct election of Senators.

I saw Art Spiegelman and Phillip Johnston's Wordless! at the ICA. Spiegelman spoke about and read from early wordless (often woodcut) comics while Johnston led a jazz sextet providing a soundtrack. I'd read some of the works in the collection, Graphic Witness. I enjoyed the presentation but I didn't learn all that much.

I saw Slate‘s Dahlia Lithwick at the Harvard Kennedy School talk about how the Supreme Court Is Increasingly Wary of the Media and Internet (full audio at that link). Justice Stewart gave Bob Woodward a lot of insider information for his 1979 book The Brethren, that's not going to happen again. The court has no press arm and believes everything that anyone needs to know is in the opinions. It seems lost on them that the average person isn't going to read (or necessarily understand) an opinion that journalism could be a useful tool to them. Court reporters are allowed to bring into the court one piece of paper and one pen. No video of the arguments is taken. While audio of arguments is released, it's made available after 5pm on Friday, "when news goes to die". She said that for the Obamacare ruling a reporter had three options:

• They could be in the chamber and see and hear the ruling, but were not allowed to take notes and couldn't leave early
• They could be in an overflow room where they couldn't see but hear, take notes and leave (but not come back)
• They could be in another room where they couldn't see or hear the ruling but could read the opinion.

The court doesn't get modern journalism. When asked about the difficulties of getting several rulings in one day and having to write about them, Justices say to write articles on different days. Journalists don't understand this, though I think I might be on the Justices side on this one. There's enough time to read the court summaries and write a quick article and they could write more detailed articles after having time to read the opinions. We wait for months between arguments and rulings, what's a few more days?.

I saw Jill Lepore explain How Wonder Woman Got into Harvard also at the Radcliffe Institute. I knew some of the history, that Wonder Woman was created by William Moulton Marston, who invented the lie detector (hence her magic lasso) and lived with his wife and girlfriend and there was a lot of bondage in the early comics. It turns out there was a lot more I didn't know. His wife, Elizabeth Holloway Marston, was as accomplished as he, at a time when that wasn't common. She had a law degree from BU and a masters in psychology from Radcliffe and was an editor for Encyclopædia Britannica. The girlfriend was his student Olive Byrne. He came home and told Elizabeth that Olive was moving in and if she objected he'd leave her, she said ok if Olive would raise the kids so she could have a career. Elizabeth and Olive continue to live together long after William's death. This arrangement damaged his academic career which had some questionable issues anyway. Olive's aunt was Margaret Sanger who was a famous birth control activist and founded organizations that became Planned Parenthood. Marston was surrounded by feminists and conceived Wonder Woman to teach kids that woman could be the equal (or better) of men. The bondage stuff was using the iconography of suffrage and feminist movements (editorial cartoons often had women breaking chains). Many of the plots were modeled on events from Marton's past. When he was at Harvard, women weren't allowed; some Wonder Woman stories had her breaking into colleges. A psychology professor of his didn't believe in educating women (even though he also taught at Radcliffe for the money) and was the model for the villain Dr. Psycho. It was a really interesting talk and I'm curious about her new book, The Secret History of Wonder Woman.

Cops can force you to use Touch ID, but not your passcode

Cult of Mac reports Cops can force you to use Touch ID, but not your passcode.

"A related feature has now been the subject of a court case in Virginia, however, with the judge ruling that cops can legally force suspects to manually unlock their iPhones using Touch ID. This differs from the current ruling related to passcodes. Police cannot force defendants to give these up on the basis that they are considered ‘knowledge’ rather than a physical object, and that knowledge is protected by the Fifth Amendment. A fingerprint, on the other hand, is considered to be more in line with a DNA sample or physical key, which means that citizens are compelled to give them up to police."

I hate when laws don't keep up with technology. This is similar to when you privacy rights were different based on if your ISP was a phone company or a cable company.

Rand Paul just gave one of the most important foreign policy speeches in decades

Last week Vox reported Rand Paul just gave one of the most important foreign policy speeches in decades. "Sen. Rand Paul just gave one of the most important speeches on foreign policy since George W. Bush declared war on Iraq. But instead of declaring war on another country, Paul declared war on his own party. Or, at least, its entire approach to foreign policy."

"His moderate non-interventionism is a far cry from his father's absolutist desire for America to exit the world stage. But Paul's stance is light years away from the hyper-hawk neoconservatism that's dominated Republican foreign policy thinking for decades."

6 reasons Elizabeth Warren should run for president

While I'm a big fan of Elizabeth Warren, I don't think she's managed to accomplish much in the Senate. Now that's fine, no one in the Senate has accomplished much and she has managed to raise a lot of money (though I wish there was less money in politics). I've been mostly annoyed with all the questions about should she run for President. To me the obvious answer is no. But Ezra Klein gives 6 reasons Elizabeth Warren should run for president and I find them pretty compelling.

Most of it comes down to that by doing so she could have more influence in political agenda and if she loses she'll probably have more influence as a prominent Senator. And hey, Obama won with not much more experience.

Here's how gun control works in Canada

After last weeks shooting in Ottawa, Dylan Matthews explains Here's how gun control works in Canada "Here's a more detailed rundown of how Canada and the US's gun control regimes differ."

European Scientists Conclude That Distant Comet Smells Terrible

NPR reports European Scientists Conclude That Distant Comet Smells Terrible

"A European spacecraft orbiting a distant comet has finally answered a question we've all been wondering: What does a comet smell like? 'It stinks,' says Kathrin Altwegg, a researcher at the University of Bern in Switzerland who runs an instrument called ROSINA that picked up the odor. The European Space Agency has posted a full rundown of the comet's BO on its website. The mix includes ammonia (NH3), hydrogen sulphide (H2S), formaldehyde (CH2O) and methanol (CH3OH). Of course, anyone visiting the comet would be wearing a spacesuit (on top of that, the sense of smell is notoriously numb in space). Nevertheless, taking a whiff of this comet would be like sharing a horse barn with a drunk and a dozen rotten eggs."

Science!

Watch: Neither candidate at a Congressional debate could name a book he'd read recently

Vox writes Watch: Neither candidate at a Congressional debate could name a book he'd read recently "In a debate Tuesday night for a contested House of Representatives seat in Staten Island, Rep. Michael Grimm (R) and his opponent Dominic Recchia were each asked, "What was the last book you've read?" Neither could come up with an answer"

I'm not sure if it's better that they couldn't come up with a lie. I wonder what newspapers and magazines they read?

This is what it’s like to try to get a Voter ID when you’re disabled, poor or don’t drive

WonkBlog describes This is what it’s like to try to get a Voter ID when you’re disabled, poor or don’t drive - The Washington Post "But it glosses over the reality of life for some voters, who may struggle to get around because of disabilities, who may lack the seemingly small sums necessary to pay for documentation, who may not have the flexible scheduling to visit a government office twice, or three times, or more."

Boehner’s Lawsuit Has No Legal Basis

Remember when the Republicans in the House voted to sue Obama for delaying a provision of Obamacare? Whatever happened with that? Oh right, nothing. The Washington Monthly writes The Congressional Research Service Finds that Boehner’s Lawsuit Has No Legal Basis

"Now, three months after the party-line House vote to green-light the lawsuit, no complaint has yet been filed. If this stretched out delay means that Boehner has actually redirected his sue-Obama gambit toward oblivion, the reason may be this unnoticed six week old CRS report. While bearing an opaquely generic title - ‘A Primer on the Reviewability of Agency Delay and Enforcement Discretion,’ the report actually targets a single instance of alleged agency delay and exercise of enforcement discretion - the Obama Administration’s adjustments of effective dates for the Affordable Care Act’s so-called employer mandate to offer employees ACA-complaint health insurance or pay a tax. This delay happens to be the basis - the sole basis - for the legal action against the President that Boehner outlined in July. Although shrouded in twelve pages of fine print and protectively bureaucratic phraseology, the report’s bottom line is clear: not merely are the legal underpinnings of the Republicans’ planned lawsuit weak; the report turns up no legal basis - no ‘there’ there - at all."

"The Report offers two conclusions: First, under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), no rulemaking procedure was necessitated by the Administration’s initial one-year delay in enforcing the employer mandate, past the ACA’s prescribed January 1, 2014 effective date. This was so, the Report states, because, `where an agency fails to take a discrete action by a statutory deadline, … no rulemaking is required.'"

"Second, the Report states that, when, in February 2014, the Administration announced an additional year’s postponement of full enforcement of the mandate, until January 1, 2016, “informal rulemaking procedures” appeared to be required. In fact, as the report’s authors reference, the Administration had engaged in precisely the type of informal rulemaking process that, the report concluded, was called for. The Administration’s action finalized a September 2013 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, making adjustments in response to comments from interested parties, precisely as prescribed by the APA. In other words, having been asked whether the Obama administration had crossed all its t’s and dotted its i’s, the CRS’ answer was unequivocal: yes it had."

USS North Dakota SSN 784 Commissioned

DefenceTalk reports USS North Dakota SSN 784 Commissioned. Excerpts:

USS North Dakota (SSN 784) officially became the Navy’s newest addition to the submarine force following a commissioning ceremony held Oct. 25, at Naval Submarine Base New London.

North Dakota is the 11th Virginia-class attack submarine to join the fleet, and the first of eight Block III Virginia-class submarines to be built. The Block III submarines are being built with new Virginia Payload Tubes designed to lower costs and increase missile-firing payload possibilities.

The 10 current Virginia-class submarines have 12 individual 21-inch diameter vertical launch tubes able to fire Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAMS). The Block III submarines being built will have two-larger 87-inch diameter tubes able to house six TLAMS each.

As the most modern and sophisticated attack submarine in the world, the submarine can operate in both littoral and deep ocean environments and presents combatant commanders with a broad and unique range of operational capabilities. North Dakota will be a flexible, multi-mission platform designed to carry out the seven core competencies of the submarine force: anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, delivery of special operations forces, strike warfare, irregular warfare, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and mine warfare.

The submarine is 377 feet long, has a 34-foot beam, and will be able to dive to depths greater than 800 feet and operate at speeds in excess of 25 knots submerged. It will operate for 33 years without ever refueling.

TIL the word littoral.

Apple Replaces iPad Destroyed by Exploding NASA Rocket

So I'm reading this story in Cult of Mac, Apple replaces iPad destroyed by exploding NASA rocket.

I setup my iPad to take a time lapse on the ledge of the road, it was being held by the Smart Cover. Rocket launches everything looks good and then it blows up, about 15 seconds later the shockwaves comes and knocks my iPad down into the swamp. I can’t see it because the water is so murky and when I finally get it it doesn’t turn on so I lost the video also… Tried cleaning it and plugging it into iTunes nothing happens.

However, after being prompted by his fellow Redditors to try bringing the iPad into the Genius bar to tell them “it landed in a swap because a spaceship exploded,” iOSecure found himself rewarded for his good faith.

I just went to the Genius Bar and explained what happened. He called out the manager and the manager said “I think we’ve officially seen it all” she then offered a free replacement but on 16GB instead of 64 which I had (not complaining)

Great story, I totally believe this about Apple (or about a genius bar). As I read "it landed in a swap because a spaceship exploded" I thought of the Luke in the Empire Strikes Back who landed in a swamp because (basically) a spaceship exploded. He should name his iPad "R2". Then I thought, I wonder if I could rename Siri to "R2" so I could say "Hey R2...". Well my iPhone was plugged in, so I said "Hey Siri, can I call you R2?". Well both my iPhone and iPad were plugged in so I got two different answers:

iPhone Siri: But...everyone else calls me Siri

iPad Siri: No. But really, I can't imagine why you'd want to

First I think it's nice that I got two different answers. It gives Siri some personality. Second, this situation is an answer to iPad Siri's response. It would be nice to talk to only one Siri if more than one is listening.

What It’s Like to Carry Your Nobel Prize through Airport Security

I thought I had blogged this already. Astrophysicist Brian Schmidt, who won the 2011 Nobel Physics Prize for co-discovering dark energy—the mysterious element of the universe that is causing the expansion of spacetime to speed up describes What It’s Like to Carry Your Nobel Prize through Airport Security "Among the many changes the Nobel Prize brought to Schmidt’s life: travel hassles. Here’s what he said it’s like to carry a Nobel medal aboard an airplane:"

They’re like, ‘Sir, there’s something in your bag.’

I said, ‘Yes, I think it’s this box.’

They said, ‘What’s in the box?’

I said, ‘a large gold medal,’ as one does.

So they opened it up and they said, ‘What’s it made out of?’

I said, ‘gold.’

And they’re like, ‘Uhhhh. Who gave this to you?’

‘The King of Sweden.’

‘Why did he give this to you?’

‘Because I helped discover the expansion rate of the universe was accelerating.’

At which point, they were beginning to lose their sense of humor. I explained to them it was a Nobel Prize, and their main question was, ‘Why were you in Fargo?’”

Apparently they didn't think it was as dangerous as a belt buckle.