Offbeat
UserpicEnjoy
Posted by Sasha

Solo free tight rope walk record. Do not try it at home!


Word of the Week
UserpicDystopia
Posted by Sasha

A dystopia (from the Greek δυσ- and τόπος, alternatively, cacotopia, kakotopia, or simply anti-utopia) is an imaginary community or society that is undesirable or frightening. It is literally translated as "not-good place", an antonym of utopia.

Synonym: kakotopia


Ms Crighton-Smith, who was travelling on a train in south London, told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme: "I had Airdrop switched on because I had been using it previously to send photos to another iPhone user - and a picture appeared on the screen of a man's penis, which I was quite shocked by.

"So, I declined the image, instinctively, and another image appeared, at which [point] I realised someone nearby must be sending them, and that concerned me. I felt violated, it was a very unpleasant thing to have forced upon my screen.`

"I was also worried about who else might have been a recipient, it might have been a child, someone more vulnerable than me.

"My name on Airdrop says Lorraine so they knew they were sending it to a woman. The images were of a sexual nature and it was distressing."

How to turn Airdop off

Airdrop is specific to iOS device and Apple Macs. It uses wi-fi and Bluetooth to talk over a short range to other devices, like other iPhones.

Its default setting is for "contacts only", which means only people you know can see you.

But if you want to share your information or your contacts with other people, you may make a change to the settings and change it to "everyone".

"This means that typically in a train carriage, or tube carriage, you can see other devices," commented Ken Munro, a cybersecurity consultant at Pentest Partners.

"That's what's happened in this particular case, someone has enabled everyone and then hasn't then set it back. As a result anyone within wi-fi or Bluetooth range can send something to you that's quite horrible."

He added that Apple could tackle the issue by making Airdrop return to its default setting if it had not been used for 10 minutes or so.

A spokesman for Apple declined to comment.


From smartphones to designer handbags to cars even, counterfeiting has long been a part of Chinese industry, where trademarks can be a slippery concept.

Beijing was awarded the 2022 games on Friday despite the city's lack of snow.

Piggy-backing on the massive popularity of Frozen might be just the ticket to dampen down some of the criticisms levelled at the decision - from the lack of snow to China's poor human rights record.

But just how similar are the two songs? Judge for yourself: here's China's promotional number and here's Frozen's "Let It Go".

"Plagiarism, stealing, copying - that's the only thing China can do," said another YouTube user, zn4807. "There's nothing you can do, this is China, from officials to the people, there's a culture of plagiarism, theft and copying."

Chinese business magazine Caijing Online, cited by the New York Times, analysed the instrumentation in the songs and said they had similar prelude chords and an eight-beat introduction, and run at almost exactly the same tempo.

Read more at BBC.


On foot and public transport

If you’re on foot, you should also first identify whether you’re being followed. Try to keep an eye on your pursuer without looking back. You can use the reflective surfaces of store windows. Try to note any characteristics of your tail, particularly things they can’t change as easily as clothes, such as height and weight. Also pay attention to their shoes. While they are following you, it might be easy for them to quickly shed a coat or add a hat, but they are probably not going to have time to change their shoes.

Once you are certain you are being followed, you should also make steps to change your own appearance. “Keep moving and possibly ditch your jacket or put on a baseball cap - little things like this make a big difference. The person who is following you has built a mental image - any variation you can acquire to develop the ‘change’ is a throw off,” says Devine.

Read more how to loose your tail and how to avoid the company behind the wheel


There are some pretty amazing fact behind the classics. See the full selection of films at BBC

Mulholland Drive, number 21
“The movie is a surrealist dreamscape in the form of a Hollywood film noir, and the less sense it makes, the more we can’t stop watching it,” wrote Roger Ebert in his review of Mulholland Drive. “Nothing leads anywhere, and that’s even before the characters start to fracture and recombine like flesh caught in a kaleidoscope. Mulholland Drive isn’t like Memento, where if you watch it closely enough, you can hope to explain the mystery. There is no explanation. There may not even be a mystery.” Director David Lynch has said: “I don't know why people expect art to make sense when they accept the fact that life doesn't make sense.”

Some Like it Hot, number 30
Marilyn Monroe’s contract stipulated that her films had to be shot in colour, but test shots of Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in drag were said to be so grotesque that director Billy Wilder opted for black and white. Jerry Lewis turned down Jack Lemmon’s role, later telling Esquire: “I felt I couldn’t bring anything funny to it. The outfit was funny. I don’t need to compete with the wardrobe. So whenever Billy Wilder saw me, he said, ‘Good afternoon, schmuck, how’s it going?’ And, of course, Jack Lemmon sent me candy and roses every holiday, and the card always read: THANKS FOR BEING AN IDIOT.”

Psycho, number 8
Composer Bernard Herrmann once told director Brian De Palma: “I remember sitting in a screening room after seeing the rough cut of Psycho. Hitch was nervously pacing back and forth, saying it was awful… ‘Wait a minute,’ I said, ‘I have some ideas. How about a score completely for strings? I used to be a violin player you know.’” According to Hitchcock’s original notes, “Through the killing, there should be the shower noise and the blows of the knife. We should hear water gurgling down the drain of the bathtub, especially when we go closer it… during the murder, the sound of the shower should be continuous and monotonous, only broken by the screams of Marion.” As Herrmann put it, “He didn't even want any music in the shower scene. Can you imagine that?”


Apple
UserpicTake a Note, Bro
Posted by Sasha

Apple Store in China

Chinese economy concerns wipe $40bn off value of Apple.

The 5% fall in share price in the world’s biggest company was mirrored by a slide in shares in mining and commodity firms to their lowest levels since the stock market crash of 2008. Investors regard the mining and commodities industries as vulnerable to a slowdown in the world’s second biggest economy.


Nigel Richards’ command of the language of Molière, as the French like to call it, stretches to “bonjour” and being able to count. However, the New Zealander who has been called “the Tiger Woods of Scrabble” certainly has a way with words – even French ones. Despite his linguistic handicap, Richards has just won the francophone world Scrabble championships after reportedly memorising the entire French Scrabble dictionary in just nine weeks.

“He doesn’t speak French at all – he just learned the words,” his close friend Liz Fagerlund told the New Zealand Herald. “He won’t know what they mean, wouldn’t be able to carry out a conversation in French, I wouldn’t think.”

Read the rest of the article at The Guardian.


Mexoryl SunblockIn 2006, the FDA approved Mexoryl. No need to smuggle it from France where it was aprooved by the French authorities in 1993.

What's so great about Anthelios with Mexoryl?

Dr. Vincent DeLeo, Chairman, Department of Dermatology, Founding Director, Skin of Color Center, St. Luke's-Roosevelt and Beth Israel: "It produces a product which gives us almost perfect protection against sunshine."

Dr. Darrell Rigel, clinical professor of dermatology at New York University: Mexoryl "is the No. 1 individual ingredient in terms of protection from Ultraviolet A radiation."

You want the science? Here: "The UVB range of sunlight is 280 to 320 nanometers, and the UVA range is 320 to 400. Mexoryl sunscreens protect against UV wavelengths in the 290-400 nanometer range. Since Mexoryl doesn't cover the entire UV spectrum, it is usually combined with other active sunscreen agents such as titanium dioxide, avobenzone (stabilized with octocrylene) to ensure broad-spectrum UV protection."

And Mexoryl is convenient: It doesn't degrade in sunlight. One application, and you may be good for 24 hours --- even if you swim or exercise.

Yes, this stuff costs more than creams that protect against sunburn. The thing is, those creams don't offer long-lasting protection against Ultraviolet-A rays (UV-A). And UV-A doesn't cause sunburn --- it causes cancer.


The opening scenes from dozens of movies, including 2001, There Will Be Blood, Lost in Translation, Seven Samurai, and Star Wars. https://youtu.be/y1lMnbvf5eM


Offbeat
UserpicNew Study on Aging
Posted by Moxietype

According to a new study Published by the BBC,  the aging rates vary widely.

A study of people born within a year of each other has uncovered a huge gulf in the speed at which their bodies age. The report, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, tracked traits such as weight, kidney function and gum health.

Some of the 38-year-olds were ageing so badly that their "biological age" was on the cusp of retirement. The analysis showed that at the age of 38, the people's biological ages ranged from the late-20s to those who were nearly 60.


Venus de Milo with reconstructed arms, holding distaff and spindle, spinning thread in the ancient technique. For more info see this Slate story, "What Was the Venus de Milo Doing With Her Arms?" slate.me/1EIFLfm

Venus de Milo Spinning Thread by CosmoWenman on Sketchfab


Offbeat, Photography
UserpicGuide to Disguise from Stasi Archive
Posted by Sasha

Hitchhiker with a beer bottle

Hitchhiker with a beer bottle...

Old lady at a drop box

Old Lady at a Drop Box

Suspicious Looking Humster

Suspicious looking humster also appeared in Stasi Archive.


Photographer Jimmy Nelson travelled the world documenting some of the world's last remaining indigenous cultures. The result is Before They Pass Away

The prints are chromogenic prints mounted on aluminium and framed in nut wood behind museum art glass or diasec, depending on size.

Rauwhiri Winitana Paki

Rauwhiri Winitana Paki
Taupo Village, North Islands
New Zealand, 2011

Lufar Childeren

Rauwhiri Winitana Paki
Taupo Village, North Islands
New Zealand, 2011


Milo Moiré 

Milo Moire.
Photo: Twitter.

Milo Moiré brought her naked performance art to the people in Basel Wednesday.

In a public square a few minutes from the Art Basel fair during the second day of VIP previews, posing in just sneakers with smiling locals, Moiré performed her latest piece, Naked Selfie. The performance artist was previously known for a piece in which she dropped paint-filled eggs from her vagina.


Awesome. See more here

Spices by Color

Foods by Color

Blueberries by Color


A new website gives New Yorkers a chance to see what their apartment building, neighborhood bar or favorite coffee shop looked like more than a century ago.


UserpicBerlin in 1945 in Color
Posted by Moxietype

Berlin in 1945 after the war. 7 minutes, in color.


Firefox
UserpicFirefox Download Session Bug
Posted by Sasha

If you cancel the download in Firefox, it is likely that the downoad will still continue in the background. The observed bug was in Firefox 30 (Mac 10.8.5). To manually remove the download session, folloe the instructions below.

Mac OS X 10.7 and above: By default, Mac OS X Lion hides the ~/Library folder (which contains the profile folder, Crash Reports and other user data for Mozilla applications). You can open your user Library folder by holding down the Option key while opening the Go menu in Finder, then selecting Library. Once it's open, you can drag the small icon of a folder in the header of the Library's window into the Favorites section of the Sidebar, where it will be conveniently accessible whenever you want.

In this case the problem was caused by sessionstore.js in the Profile_Folder.

Removal of sessionstore.js fixed the issue for this session.


That is how Perestroika was captured by the photographer Gavrilov in mid-80s-early 90s in the former Soviet Union.

Alcoholics during Perestroika

Empty shelves during Perestroika

People digging in trash during Perestroika