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We now know exactly which robot was used to deliver an explosive device and kill Micah Xavier Johnson who, police say, killed five police officers and wounded 7 others in a shooting spree last week.
When the Dallas Police Department made the fateful decision last week to use a bomb disposal robot to deliver an explosive that ended up killing Johnson, they may have changed the course of robotic policing history.
And yet, we knew next to nothing about how Dallas Police Chief David Brown made the call and nothing about the hardware used to deliver the bomb. Read more...
wallpaper.com | Modern micro living: Yves Béhar unveils robotic house Ori wallpaper.com These days, it seems bigger isn't better — and with the unveiling of Ori, the intelligent, robotic house system designed by Fuseproject's Yves Béhar it's further confirmation that slim is in. Globally, as domestic spaces shrink and living costs rise ... and more » |
Goshka Macuga's uncanny android is just the latest in an army of artist's robots that began invading 100 years ago with one question: what is it to be human?
The androids have arrived, at least a century after modern art prophesied them. Artificial humans are advancing from the screens and pages of science fiction into our art galleries to look their flesh and blood cousins eerily in the eye.
Artist Goshka Macuga, shortlisted for the Turner prize in 2008, has created a talking android for her latest exhibition at the Schinkel Pavillon in Berlin. It has black hair and bushy beard and talks philosophy: an intellectualtake on the Action Man toys I used to play with as a child. Macuga's robot has all the spooky uncanniness of a synthetic person with a realistically moulded face and bionic arms. Most robots have futuristic names, or cosy ones to suggest they are cute and friendly. Macuga's creation is called To the Son of Man Who Ate the Scroll.
Continue reading...A huge Dash button promotion, a fitness tracker that improves your posture, and keypad-enabled deadbolts lead off Monday's best deals.
http://deals.kinja.com/todays-best-li…
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If you're curious about Amazon Dash buttons, there's never been a better time to stick them around your house. As part of a Prime Day countdown promotion, Prime members can purchase all the buttons they want for just $1 each, down from the usual $5. Plus, you'll still get a $5 credit the first time you use it, meaning Amazon's literally paying you to buy household essentials.
$175 is a fair amount of cash for a single floorstanding speaker, even one that has dual subwoofers built right in, but $175 is the best deal Amazon's ever listed on the Klipsch R-26F by over $100, and it's only half its usual price, meaning you can buy a pair for the price of one.
While you can't control these Schlage deadbolts with your smartphone, the ability to unlock your front door with a passcode is perfect for house sitters or overnight guests, or for just unlocking the door while you're carrying groceries.
$69 is the best price Amazon's ever listed, and you can choose from several different finishes to match your decor. Just note that that is a Gold Box deal, so don't get locked out of these savings.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000NJJ1MQ/…
The world is full of fitness trackers that can count your steps and estimate calories, but today only, we've found a deal on a wearable device that can also help you improve your posture.
The Lumo Lift is a tiny clip that you attach to your clothing like a Fitbit One, but in addition to counting your steps, distance, and calories burned, it'll also start vibrating whenever you slouch. Assuming you heed its warnings and start sitting or standing up straight, this has the potential to meaningfully improve your life in a way that counting steps might not.
Today only, Prime members can snap one up for just $50, which is $30 less than usual, and a match for the best price we've ever seen.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N9P8GMW/…
Your next TV really should have HDR support, and this 2016 Samsung 4K fits the bill for $590.
http://gizmodo.com/sonys-new-tv-t…
http://gizmodo.com/the-future-of-…
http://sploid.gizmodo.com/check-out-the-…
That's still a little expensive (though not too extravagant for a 50" set), but it gets you a great upscaling engine, local dimming, smart apps, Samsung Smart View, and yes, HDR. Today's price is the best we've ever seen, and about $60 less than Amazon's current price (which is itself Amazon's all-time low).
$175 is a fair amount of cash for a single floorstanding speaker, even one that has dual subwoofers built right in, but $175 is the best deal Amazon's ever listed on the Klipsch R-26F by over $100, and it's only half its usual price, meaning you can buy a pair for the price of one.
At $180, the FLIR ONE thermal imager is undoubtedly a luxury. But still, it's predator vision for your phone! It also normally sells for $250, and today's extended Lightning deal price is the best Amazon's ever listed.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00…
https://www.amazon.com/FLIR-ONE-Therm…
http://gizmodo.com/the-smaller-ch…
French press is your favorite way to make coffee, and it'll be an even more aesthetically pleasing process with this 100% stainless steel press for just $24.
http://lifehacker.com/most-popular-c…
We've seen less expensive french presses before, but if you prefer this model's shiny and simple design, $24 is a fine price.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015A2BQ50/…
The Logitech G502 was your choice for best gaming mouse (though you don't need to be a gamer to appreciate its benefits), and the upgraded Proteus Spectrum model (which includes fully adjustable backlighting) is on sale for an all-time low $60 today.
http://co-op.kinja.com/most-popular-g…
http://lifehacker.com/improve-your-v…
The marquee spec here is the DPI range of 200-12,000, adjustable on the fly. There are also five easily movable and removable weights, and 11 customizable buttons, along with the classic Logitech dual-mode scroll wheel. Mechanical microswitches and a braided cable are also nice touches.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B019OB663A/…
Ready to get swole? Today only, Amazon's offering big discounts on performance nutrition products from the likes of BSN, EAS, Clif, and more, for Prime members only.
Inside, you'll find dozens of powders, shakes, bars, and more in a variety of flavors and formulas. Just note that the big red price listed is not the deal price in most cases. Look a little below that for the Prime price to see what you'll actually pay.
Amazon's virtual shelves are awash in $20 Bluetooth earbuds, but if you're willing to pay a bit more for superior sound quality, Jaybird's Wirecutter-recommended X2 sport earbuds have never been cheaper. Just note that this deal is only available today, and only for Prime members.
https://www.amazon.com/Jaybird-Sport-…
If wall-mounting your TV has been on your to-do list, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better deal on a mount. This model holds TVs up to 55", can extend up to 15" away from the wall, and can swivel and articulate in any direction, all for just $21.
https://www.amazon.com/Mounting-Dream…
These $6 deals from Andake can support your neck, your back, and your senses while sleeping on a plane. If you have any long trips on the horizon, these are no-brainers.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01…
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01…
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01…
Few activities will give you as much self-satisfaction making some fuckin' pasta from scratch, and this discounted roller makes it (relatively) easy to spin out both thin spaghetti and wide fettucini noodles. Plus, your friends will see it sitting out on your counter and think you're some kind of culinary savant.
https://www.amazon.com/Imperia-Pasta-…
http://adequateman.deadspin.com/lets-make-some…
We love shining a spotlight on good mini flashlight deals, and at $6 for a two-pack, you could scatter these all around your home. They're even zoomable, so you can focus or widen the beam depending on the situation.
Update: Sold out, but here's a larger and brighter version of the flashlight for $6.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016UGGBHS?…
If you've got the space for it, this feature-packed NordicTrack treadmill is marked down to $449 on Amazon today as part of a Gold Box deal. That's the best price ever listed, and a great deal for any treadmill that inclines up to 10%, and includes 20 built-in workouts, a space-saving fold-up design, and a lifetime frame warranty, and a 25 year motor warranty.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0193V3DJ6/…
LOFT wants to play a game, to solve “mystery” if you will, with their Mystery Flash Sale. Lucky for you, you don't need to sign up for emails to get any discount; that's what we're here for. Use the code LUCKY50 to get 50% off your entire regular-priced purchase.
Anker, purveyor of your favorite battery packs, charging cables, Bluetooth speakers, earbuds, and more, just released a deluge of promo codes and discounts on dozens of products in preparation for Prime Day.
There are too many deals to list on this page, but head over to our dedicated post for all of the links and promo codes.
http://deals.kinja.com/ankers-preppin…
$10 is a great price for any 32GB microSD card, but it's basically unheard of for an 80MB/s model from a reputable manufacturer like Samsung.
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Select…
Sugru is right up there with binder clips and the Raspberry Pi in Lifehacker's pantheon of must-have gear, and you can stock up today with 8-packs from Amazon for just $18 each.
http://lifehacker.com/top-10-diy-mir…
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008URBC9I/…
We've seen plenty of deals on “premium” Google Cardboard-compatible VR headsets, but this is one of the only ones we've seen that includes a magnetic button on the side, which means you won't have to pair an external Bluetooth remote to navigate within VR apps. Seriously, if you haven't played with Google Cardboard yet, you'll have so much fun.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FU98R1E?…
If you still enjoy the feel of an old-fashioned paper magazine, Amazon's selling 6-month subscriptions to dozens of popular titles today, including Vanity Fair, Wired, Popular Science, and a lot more. Just note that this is a Gold Box deal, meaning it's only available today.
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This article originally appeared in Vulture.
When Marvel Comics announced that a 15-year-old black girl named Riri Williams would be taking over as Iron Man later this year, the company was prepared for an attack from the right. Indeed, Brian Michael Bendis—the veteran scribe who introduced Riri in an Iron Man comic a few months ago and who will be writing her upcoming adventures—sounded a bit cocky about the high ground he held against his potential critics.
“Some of the comments online, I don't think people even realize how racist they sound,” he told Time in the article unveiling the move, referring to past assaults on Marvel for replacing traditionally white characters with nonwhite ones. “All I can do is state my case for the character, and maybe they'll realize over time that that's not the most progressive thinking.” Ironically, progressive thinking is what fueled the most pointed backlash to the news. The new Iron Person was emblematic of Marvel's efforts to become more representative of marginalized groups, but she also prompted a difficult question: What does progress really look like in superhero fiction?
The geek commentariat on Twitter swiftly and collectively reached two incriminating realizations about Riri. First, this black female character was created by and will be written by a white man. The contrast irked some on a creative level: “You can't call these diverse stories without diverse voices,” tweeted writer Carly Lane. Others looked at the problem from a financial standpoint: As pseudonymous blogger theblerdgurl put it, “I am happy to c a girl who looks like me as a lead in a #Marvel comic. I just wish someone who looks like me cld profit from it. #IronMan.”
That pecuniary line of criticism led to the second, more startling realization: Not only was this black female not being written by a black female, Marvel has no black female writers. Indeed, experts struggled to name a single black woman to have ever written a Marvel comic during the company's 77-year history. “Still can't think of a Sister who ever wrote for Marvel,” tweeted columnist Joseph P. Illidge. “Q for the superhero comics historians: has a black woman ever written an ongoing series for Marvel?”tweeted podcaster Al Kennedy, and when no one could come up with one, he followed up by saying, “Jeez. Feel like an prime idiot for not picking up on this before now. Easy to be in a cocoon as a white dude.”
Indeed. For much of the history of superhero fiction, the genre lived in that cocoon—white men paid other white men to write stories targeted at white men. As such, the most important characters were, themselves, white men: Batman, Superman, Captain America, Spider-Man, and the like. This is, of course, not unique to comics; it's true of all entertainment. But in the past few years, superhero comics have been morphing into something more multifaceted and representative, and they've been doing it in a way that movies and television can't.
Marvel has taken the lead on this front, using a fascinating tactic to get attention for their diversity pushes. Instead of trying to sell readers on new characters who aren't lily-white dudes, they simply rebrand their intellectual property. There's a long tradition of different people taking on the monikers of existing superheroes after the originals die or retire, so why not use that trope in a way that pushes the envelope on identity politics? You're not going to get much mainstream media attention by pitching the idea of a black girl who uses a robot suit. But if you say she's Iron Man—a name familiar to anyone who's purchased a movie ticket in the past eight years—all of a sudden, you've got yourself a Time headline. It's much harder to do those kinds of swaps in film and TV. Doing an all-female reboot of Ghostbusters or theoretically casting a person of color as James Bond is an exceedingly costly gamble; comics are cheap to make, so you can go back on your experiment with little risk.
The experiments have thus been plentiful. First came the 2011 introduction of Miles Morales, an Afro-Latino kid from Brooklyn who took up the role of Spider-Man during a period when Peter Parker was out of commission. Then came the 2012 shift in which Captain Marvel was recast as a woman. The next year, a new Ms. Marvel was introduced who, unlike her predecessor, was Pakistani-American and Muslim. There were twin announcements in 2014 that there would be a new, female Thor and a black man wielding the shield of Captain America. Last year brought yet another surprise: White-bread Bruce Banner would no longer be the Hulk—that emerald mantle would be held by a Korean-American kid. Now, we've got Riri.
All of those changes are pretty inarguably positive. It's hard to claim that making marginalized identities more prominent is anything but a step in the right direction. But how far does that step really stretch? To be sure, it's important for fans of the insanely lucrative and ever-growing superhero genre to see people like themselves on the page and on the screen. If you thrill to the antics of spandex-clad do-gooders, you deserve to not feel invisible, especially if you're a young person whose notion of identity and self-worth are still being formed.
And yet, Marvel has been undermining its own efforts in a number of ways. First of all, a lot of the changes have felt decidedly impermanent. The original Thor is still stomping around in the cosmos, waiting in the wings if and when his corporate overlords ever want to bring him back into the spotlight. The same goes for the Hulk. Puny Bruce Banner can go green whenever Marvel needs him to. Even more odd are the situations of Spidey and Cap. In each case, the replacement and the original are still operating in the Marvel universe under the name “Spider-Man” and “Captain America,” respectively. If there are two superheroes with the same name, and one's had that name since your grandfather was a kid—and has that name in a multibillion-dollar film franchise—why would you ever assume the nonwhite newbie will outlast him?
Luckily, there are no signs that Ms. Marvel or Captain Marvel will revert to their original statuses—no one is sharing their mantles. Even better, those two characters, in their new incarnations, have repeatedly interrogated race and gender (and, in the case of Ms. Marvel, faith). The rest have touched on identity politics only lightly, though often memorably. Thor has struggled with the fact that no one seems to take her as seriously as her predecessor, the black Captain America has dealt with racist hate groups, the Korean-American Hulk has challenged Asian-nerd stereotypes, and Miles has wrung his hands over whether he feels comfortable with people talking about his ethnicity.
The issue being addressed in the past 24 hours is the fact that four of the most lucrative and famous of these characters—Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America—are being narratively stewarded by people who don't share their ethnic or gender identities. Their solo titles are all being written by white men. That's certainly not to say white people can't write about race or men can't write about gender. Of course they can. And Bendis is a very talented writer—his stories about Riri could be dazzling and groundbreaking.
But the post—Riri outcry is about matters that are larger than any one story decision: Why should we be prioritizing white, male creators' takes when a nonwhite, non-male character is put in the foreground? Aren't we losing a tremendous opportunity by not having people who look like those characters tell their stories? And isn't it frustrating that, as theblerdgirl noted, a black woman won't pick up the paycheck for a story about a black girl, especially after Marvel has reaped so much goodwill and praise for introducing one?
All of that said, it would be a shame to look at the critiques that progressive nerds are making about the Iron Man news and conclude that they're calling for a kind of identity siloing, in which only black people can write black characters, only women can write women, and so on. Marvel just needs more black creators and women creators, period, doing all kinds of series. Things are getting better, as of late. According to industry analyst Tim Hanley, nearly 19 percent of the company's creators are female, a number that's been generally rising in recent years. Last year, there was an outcry over the paucity of black creators on Marvel titles; there are a few more now, including none other than Ta-Nehisi Coates.
However, looking at the backlash to the Riri announcement, one is reminded of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's oft-quoted line about gender on the Supreme Court: “People ask me sometimes, ‘When do you think it will it be enough? When will there be enough women on the court?' And my answer is when there are nine.” If a black girl can dream of flying as high as Tony Stark, it's perfectly reasonable for geeks to dream of a superhero-comics publisher whose staff is as diverse as its characters.
See also: Ta-Nehisi Coates Annotates His Black Panther Debut
Hey, Robot-heads and Robot-head-ettes! For the next few hours, you can see the Season Two premiere of Mr. Robot, the USA show from Sam Esmail, on your choice of social networks. It's on Twitter right here:
It's also available on YouTube and the show's homepage, although it's broadcasting live there, while the Twitter version lets you start from the beginning. This season, is Mr. Robot machine or mannequin? Watch and find out!
Moving the Needle on Trade The Weekly Standard (blog) "We saw no other option but to use our bomb robot, and place a device on its extension for it to detonate where the suspect was," Dallas Police Chief David Brown said at a news conference. "Other options would have exposed our officers to grave danger. and more » |
thenarrowroad posted a photo:
When it's cloudy and inside I'm feeling grey,
You bring the sunshine like the month of May. - Leeon
beachammm posted a photo:
Taken from a hot air balloon, during summer sunrise.
beachammm posted a photo:
Taken from a hot air balloon, during summer sunrise.
beachammm posted a photo:
Taken from a hot air balloon, during summer sunrise.
beachammm posted a photo:
Taken during the take off of a hot air ballon flight, during a summer sunrise.
SadrachTop posted a photo:
London during sunset.
ArtGordon1 posted a photo:
ArtGordon1 posted a photo:
ArtGordon1 posted a photo:
Julius Virca posted a photo:
...Late summer early fall sunrise over Fanshawe Golf course on the outskirts of London On.Canada
Juliana Lauletta posted a photo:
Felt so lucky to catch these guys doing bubbles with this amazing sunset behind them in Southbank. I was inside of a pub on Saturday when I noticed the pink hues in the sky and ran away quickly to photograph. Took a bunch of shots to capture this. Hope you like it as much as I did. :)
We have a Photo Walk this week. Come and join us if you are in London. :)
This is also my entry for #flickrfriday #sunset
Thanks for all your support, Flickr Friends!
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philwornath posted a photo:
Lazy Shot of Millenium Bridge in the evening hours