Weird News of the World Thread - Part 2

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Promising NFL Rookie Retires Because Of Concerns Over Head Trauma

Despite being a rookie drafted in the third round, linebacker Chris Borland was an important part of the 49ers defense last season, even starting eight games. With Patrick Willis retiring and Justin Smith reportedly considering the same, the 49ers will rely on Borland even more heavily this season. Or, were going to. Outside the Lines is reporting that Borland, 24, has told the 49ers that he is retiring "because of concerns about the long-term effects of repetitive head trauma." Via OTL:

"I just honestly want to do what's best for my health," Borland told "Outside the Lines." "From what I've researched and what I've experienced, I don't think it's worth the risk."​

"I feel largely the same, as sharp as I've ever been, for me it's wanting to be proactive," said Borland. "I'm concerned that if you wait till you have symptoms, it's too late. ... There are a lot of unknowns. I can't claim that X will happen. I just want to live a long healthy life, and I don't want to have any neurological diseases or die younger than I would otherwise."​

The head trauma crisis has seemingly loomed over the NFL for the last half decade or longer, with Pop Warner participation rates declining, beloved former players who suffered from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) committing suicide, and a billion dollar concussion settlement between the league and former players still unresolved. The question now is whether Borland's retirement is the beginning of a trend, or something that will be looked back upon in five years as merely a blip on the radar.

Borland told Outside the Lines that he began considering retirement as far back as training camp, when he believes he suffered a concussion but played through it in order to try and make the team. After the season he says he met with former players as well as doctors, which only further solidified the decision. He plans on going back to school at Wisconsin—where he graduated with a degree in history*—to work towards his new career, possibly in sports management.

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_...er-chris-borland-retires-head-injury-concerns

Well that's unprecedented

 

[Teelie]

Yeah the Republicans have done a phenomenal job of brainwashing their poor idiot voters to think that we are the nation of haves and soon to haves haha. Those trickle down economics are bound to work sometime

And that's all we'll ever get: a trickle of wealth to those who are not wealthy.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Keep Your Underboob(s) Selfies at Home, Says Thailand

Things to pack for your next Thailand vacation: passport and visa; a few swimsuits, if you're a beach person; comfy shoes for sightseeing; some sort of translation guide; underboobs for selfie-taking. Just kidding! Leave those underboobs at home.

The country recently banned underboob selfies—which, apparently, are a thing (?)—citing the "Computer Crimes Act," which, too, is apparently a thing but is more about protecting Thailand's public image than its computers.

Via The Daily Dot:

The 2007 law specifically bans anything that might cause "damage to the country's security or causes public panic" as well as "any obscene computer data which is accessible to the public." It says nothing about breasts, which are of course present on some 50 percent of people in Thailand and around the world.​

But really: it's not about your boobs, ladies. It's because, gosh darn it, everyone just wants to see your beautiful faces!

"When people take these 'underboob selfies' no one can see their faces," said ministry spokesman Anandha Chouchoti. "So it's like, we don't know who these belong to, and it encourages others to do the same."​

Kind of like when you fly down the sidewalk in a hurry because you're late for something/you don't like to meander, and some well-intentioned stranger—usually, a man—feels inclined to interrupt and tell you to lighten up and smile while your insides seethe with rage, no?

http://www.dailydot.com/lifestyle/thailand-bans-underboob-selfies/?tw=dd

Apparently they will put you in prison for 5 years if you violate this

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

The Secret Service Wants to Build a Replica White House

The Secret Service hasn't been doing an awesome job guarding the White House lately, so Joseph Clancy, its director, plans to ask the House Appropriations Committee for $8 million so that president's guard can build a replica White House on the Secret Service training grounds in southern Maryland.

Not the whole house, of course. The New York Times got a peek at Clancy's prepared remarks which detail a practice White House that "would mimic the facade of the White House residence, the East and West Wings, guard booths, and the surrounding grounds and roads."

This is the same area that a crazy person breached last year after hopping a fence and kicking a Secret Service dog. It's also roughly the same area where a drunk government worker crashed a drone earlier this year. And it's certainly better than the "rudimentary, not-to-scale simulation of the north grounds of the White House, using bike barricades to act as the fencing" that the Secret Service currently uses for training.

The government loves creating fake things. Just a few miles from Obama's house, there's an entire fake village in northern Virginia, complete with a mosque and a fake subway. The Navy SEALs have a fake city on an island in the Pacific for training purposes. So if a Secret Service thinks a fake White House will help them prevent more intruders from attacking the president, well, sure why not. Maybe the government can pick up the loose change left behind by the obscenely expensive F-35 program to pay for it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/u...white-house-to-help-protect-the-real-one.html

Seems like a big old waste of tax payer dollars if you ask me

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Buncha Geese Just Dropped Dead Out of the Sky

In a dark omen for the denizens of Idaho, thousands of dead snow geese rained down from the sky this weekend, seeding the state's fair plains with infected bird guts.

"Basically, they just fell out of the sky," Idaho Fish and Game spokesman Gregg Losinski tells Reuters.

Investigators, declining to comment on potential supernatural causes, attribute the 2,000-strong bird storm to avian cholera.

A Fish and Game press release assures readers, "Humans are not at a high risk of infection," but also contains a worrying combination of the words "eagles" "feeding" "infected" "birds" "carcasses" and "delayed incubation period."

According to Schmidt, "The important thing is to quickly collect as many of the carcasses as possible, to prevent other birds from feeding on the infected birds." In the case of Mud Lake WMA, biologists observed about twenty eagles in the vicinity of some of the carcasses. Because of a delayed incubation period it is uncertain where these eagles might be located, if and when the avian cholera affects them.

If the public observes dead birds, they are asked to call and report the location to the Upper Snake Regional Office at 208-525-7290.​

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...000-snow-geese-found-dead-in-idaho/?tid=sm_tw

Imagine seeing that

 

[Duran Man]

Buncha Geese Just Dropped Dead Out of the Sky

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...000-snow-geese-found-dead-in-idaho/?tid=sm_tw

Imagine seeing that

There is something fowl about this.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

This Catfish Was Just Named After A Star Wars Character

Can you guess which one? I bet you can guess which one.

Jonathan Armbruster, biological sciences professor and curator of fishes for the Auburn University Museum of Natural History, named the previously unknown species of catfish Peckoltia greedoi, after, well, you know who.

UNCANNY, THE RESEMBLANCE.

http://io9.com/this-catfish-was-just-named-after-a-star-wars-character-1691996443

That's hilarious

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Map Shows How Quickly A Zombie Outbreak Would Spread From Your Town

If Patient Zero for a zombie outbreak were to turn up somewhere in the United States, how long would it take the hordes of undead to take over the country? With the interactive Zombietown, USA map, you can click on a town and watch the zombies eat their way across the nation.

Zombietown, USA is an exercise in speculative epidemiology from Cornell physics graduate students Alex Alemi and Matt Bierbaum. They explain that their map uses 2010 US Census data and Gillespie dynamics to map the spread of the outbreak in different cities. You can adjust the parameters — changing the kill-to-bite ratio or making your zombies fast or extremely sloooooooow. Then click on a city and watch the infection grow.

The pair have also filed a paper, co-authored with professors Christopher R. Myers and James P. Sethna, where they explain their entire process and what they've learned from running their simulations. According to their system, for certain parameters, certain cities are at a particularly high risk for zombie infection:

After 28 days, it is not the largest metropolitan areas that suffer the greatest risk, but the regions located between large metropolitan areas. For instance, in California it is the region near Bakersfield in the San Joaquin Valley that is at the greatest risk as this area will be overrun by zombies whether they originate in the San Francisco area or the Los Angeles / San Diego area. The area with the greatest one month zombie risk is north eastern Pennsylvania, itself being susceptible to outbreaks originating in any of the large metropolitan areas on the east coast.​

Of course, this doesn't cover a Walking Dead, everyone-who-dies-becomes-a-zombie scenario. Then all bets are off.

http://mattbierbaum.github.io/zombies-usa/

This thing is fun

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Woman Dies After Being Struck by Plywood in Windy Manhattan

A common nightmare for New Yorkers came true yesterday evening when a woman walking in Greenwich Village died after being hit by a large piece of plywood blown from a nearby construction site.

The New York Times reports that the 37-year-old woman was talking on her cell phone while walking in front of 175 West 12th St. when a four feet by eight feet piece of wood struck her, knocking her into a wall. The wood was blown from the security fence of a construction site on Seventh Avenue, according to the NYPD.

From the Times:

A caller to 911 reported that the woman had suffered trauma and head injury after wood from a building hit her, a city official said. The city's Emergency Medical Service responded at about 5:56 p.m., the official said.

The caller to 911 told dispatchers the woman was lying on the ground and appeared to be confused, the official said.​

The woman, whose name has not been released, was rushed to Bellevue, where she was pronounced dead just after 9 pm.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/19/n...reenwich-village.html?src=twr&smid=tw-nytimes

Killed by plywood, what a weird way to die

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

The Biggest Online Drug Market Just Vanished, Taking $12 Million With It

Evolution, the most popular online drug market since the Silk Road, has disappeared without warning. Users say $12 million in Bitcoin has also vanished. And it looks like a classic scam.

The darknet market, which sells guns, stolen goods, and counterfeits along with pretty much any drug you can think of, gained fans by loading more quickly and staying online more reliably than competitors like Agora and the various Silk Road clones. Its multi-signature escrow system was designed to prevent rip-offs, and the site was easy to browse. Evolution looked so polished and professional that people worried it was the FBI honeydicking its way to another drug bust.

It doesn't look like the FBI was involved in this disappearance, though. There's no takedown notice, no announcement about shutting down the internet's current king of illegal sales. Vendors and customers are furious—their money is gone, and a staff member is saying that the site's pseudonymous creators have taken the money and bounced.

For the past few days, delays have hobbled the site. Vendors and users haven't been able to withdraw their money. And now, Evolution is nowhere to be found when you search Tor, the dark web browser used to access it.

"Kimble" and "Verto" are Evolution's head honchos—like the Silk Road's erstwhile Dread Pirate Roberts, they run the show. As Evolution users scramble to figure out why the site is down, these creators are gaining a villainous reputation. One of Evolution's vendors announced the exit scam on Reddit, just days after hosting a glowing AMA talking about how much he liked the service:

I have admin access to see parts of the back end, the admins are preparing to exit scam with all the funds. Not a single withdrawal has gone through in almost a week. Automatic withdrawals has been disabled which is only doing on rare occasions

I am so sorry, but Verto and Kimble have f***ed us all. I have over $20,000 in escrow myself from sales.

I can't f***ing believe it, absolute scum. I am giving this warning to you all as soon as I possibly could of.

Confronted Kimble and Verto about it, they confirmed it and they're doing it right now..​

It'll be damn near impossible for vendors and buyers to get their money back if this is a true scam. They did, after all, put their money in the hands of people involved in running an illegal digital black market. So this is a bad day for anyone with a substantial chunk of change getting held by the service.

It's a great day for Agora, Evolution's main competitor. Without its more polished rival around, Agora is likely to see an influx of new customers.

http://gizmodo.com/the-biggest-online-drug-market-just-vanished-taking-1-1692124463

It's things like this that make me glad I'm sober now, sucks to be those guys

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Police Have Raided Uber's Parisian HQ

French police have raided the offices of Uber in Paris as the taxi service continues to operate in the city despite officials claiming that it breaks national laws.

Hot on the heels of charges being made against Uber employees in South Korea over allegations of operating illegal taxi rings, Le Monde is now reporting that French Police have raided Uber's offices in Paris. The newspaper reports that 25 policemen raided the building, seizing documents and electronic hardware.

Uber has been operating a low-cost service called UberPop in Paris. As The Verge points out, French authorities passed a new law at the start of 2015 which requires taxi services must license and insure its drivers. Officials claim that Uber breaks these rules; Uber claims that its service is legal according to the letter of the law. One of them must be wrong. Uber continues to operate.

The Verge reports that 'the raid unfolded 48 hours after France's supreme court referred "two key provisions" of the chauffeur licensing law to the country's constitutional court.' Meanwhile, Uber has referred to the raid as an "attempt at intimidation" adding that it will "vigorously defend the rights conferred upon it by EU law and the French Constitution." It remains to be seem what will become of Uber in France—and, for that matter, the rest of the world.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/18/8240685/uber-france-office-raided-police-uberpop

Uber causing a ruckus again

 

[Slushy]

That's hilarious

If the alien fish was green, it would look so much like him. That's crazy!

Uber causing a ruckus again

I like Uber, but they wouldn't be getting so much grief if they paid their share to follow regulations instead of trying to cut corners.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Drunk Man in Tree Falls, Is Impaled on Fence, Dies

A man who was minding his own business, just drinking in a tree like we all do sometimes, met his fate in a horrible freak accident when he fell from said tree and was impaled on a fence. Good reason not to climb trees.

The man, identified as 30-year-old Edwin Ochoa, was found in the East Hollywood neighborhood of L.A. close to 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday after he'd fallen twenty feet from the tree to his death. Los Angeles police officers on the scene explained that they found over a dozen beer bottles at the base of the tree.

The AP reports that residents told cops that the man was known as a heavy drinker. Even better reason not to climb trees. Sad death.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/2ebc...en-man-falls-tree-gets-impaled-fence-and-dies

Yet another reason I'm glad I quit drinking

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

China Finally Admits It Has an Army of Hackers for Cyberwar

China is finally admitting what we've known for years: Yes, it has cyber warfare units, and plenty of them.

The nation's government has previously denied any organized cyber warfare efforts, despite investigations pinning blame for hacking attacks on the U.S. on the People's Liberation Army. In the latest update to a PLA publication called The Science of Military Strategy, China broke from its tradition of denying everything related to digital spying and network attack capabilities and explicitly revealed that it has specialized units devoted to using computers as weapons.

Joe McReynolds, an expert on Chinese military strategy at the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis, told Shane Harris of the Daily Beast that this is the first time China has admitted that it has digital weapons teams "on both the military and civilian-government sides."

McReynolds says China splits its offensive infosec groups into three categories: operational military units, teams within civilian organizations that have been given authorization to hack, and "external entities" which sound a lot like hacking-for-hire mercenaries.

This explicit reveal could change the often-tense dynamic between Beijing and Washington, since it makes China's usual tactic of denying everything way less effective, according to Harris:

"It means that the Chinese have discarded their fig leaf of quasi-plausible deniability," McReynolds said. "As recently as 2013, official PLA [People's Liberation Army] publications have issued blanket denials such as, 'The Chinese military has never supported any hacker attack or hacking activities.' They can't make that claim anymore."​

Maybe this is a little red-heeled baby step towards more transparency from the PLA? Most analysts had assumed that China was lying about its capabilities previously, so it's not like this news is shocking. What's more surprising is that the updated version of The Science of Military Strategy came out in 2013, but because it was only made available to foreign experts recently, it didn't gain mainstream attention until now. I'm curious about whether the PLA has made contradictory statements in the time between initial Chinese publication and when foreigners finally read it.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/18/china-reveals-its-cyber-war-secrets.html

Never thought I'd see this day

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

How To Murder Someone With An MRI

A little-known and harmless side effect of MRIs gives us an intriguing way to murder people. Tricking them into getting an MRI would be tough, but afterwards? It's almost too easy.

Magnetic resonance imaging machines are a safe, painless, and effective way to take a look at a person's insides. They put the person in a strong magnetic field, and then hit them with radio pulses. The magnetic field puts the person spin on a person's atoms in alignment, and the radio pulses throw them out of alignment. As they slowly realign, the give off their own signals, which the machine detects and interprets. Different tissues realign in different orders, so an MRI will not only give doctors a picture of the shapes in a person's body, but a picture of the material that makes up each shape.

While no one loves being shoved in a tube and magnetized, the experience is worse for some than for others. Some people feel a tingling sensation, a burning sensation, or a vibration along their skin. The process has come to be known as peripheral nerve stimulation. Basically, a changing magnetic field can induce an electric current. And electricity can stimulate nerve activity.

At low levels this nerve activity is minor. People feel the prickling of skin. Crank the machine up fifty percent higher than threshold level, and the "prickles" start to hurt – but at least the only nerves this level affects are sensation receptors. Muscles are also run via nerve impulses, and one of the most important muscles in the body is the heart. Get an MRI powerful enough, and it can stimulate the heart and the diaphragm, two fairly critical systems for those of us who want to continue to live. So far, there's no need for an image produced using the kind of power that would put a person's heart in danger, but that doesn't mean an MRI machine – suitably modified – couldn't do it. Anyone up for writing a medical murder mystery?

http://io9.com/how-to-murder-someone-with-an-mri-1692231236

Good to know

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Mother Jones Undercover Investigation Blown By Producer's Arrest

A Mother Jones story on the Winn Parish Correctional Center blew up this weekend when a senior producer was arrested for trespass, apparently prompting a second reporter who had been working undercover as a guard to abandon the investigation.

According to a local news report from the Winn Parish Enterprise, James West was arrested Friday night after he was reportedly spotted on prison grounds filming with a drone. ["His license noted an address in New South Wales, Australia, but it is believed that he was here on assignment from New York," the paper reports.]

The other details via CNN:

West went to the rural prison on Friday night. According to [Winn Parish Sheriff Cranford Jordan], guards noticed a man running from his vehicle toward the prison's fence. The man drove off when the guards approached, Jordan said, but the guards recorded the number on the vehicle's Texas license plate.

Deputies arrested West, an Australian, near the prison.

"An Australian with a Texas license plate in Louisiana runs some red flags," Jordan joked.

[Mother Jones co-editor] Monika Bauerlein denied that West did anything wrong and said West was within his rights to photograph..

"James was stopped by police while doing newsgathering in a public place and arrested when he refused to show the contents of his camera," she said.​

West was released on a $10,000 bond Saturday, but the bigger revelation came Monday, when one recently hired prison guard—Shane Bauer (a Mother Jones senior reporter who once spent two years in an Iranian prison)—failed to show up for work.

A spokesperson for the facility claims Bauer—who's reported on American prisons before—lied about his connection to the magazine, but Mother Jones claims it was listed on his application.

"He did not conceal his identity or employment history," Bauerlein told CNN Wednesday. "If and when we publish a story, we'll be glad to discuss it further."

http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/18/media/mother-jones-journalist-arrested/index.html

Man talk about commitment to getting the story

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Parents Are Dying for the Option to Microchip Their Kids

In 2013, over 20,000 children went missing. 8,000 of those kids are from New York City. With statistics like that, it's hard to fault parents for wanting to be as informed about their child's location as possible. What parent wouldn't want to guarantee their child's safety? But are surgically implanted tracking devices the answer?

The good news is that kids are safe, for the moment, from any surgery that involves a chip being placed under their skin. The Observer spoke to Todd Morris, president of Brickhouse Security, a Manhattan company that specializes in personal and home safety, who told them that it's currently impossible to place anything under a child's skin to track their movements. Not only would they need the chip under their ear, but the child would also need a cellular receiver and battery placed below the skin as well. Morris says that he doesn't think parents would go for such a thing, but as Brickhouse currently gets several calls a day from parents wanting to microchip their offspring, I'm willing to bet that there are some people out there who would absolutely see a little pain and unsightly battery lines under the epidermis as a fair price to pay for peace of mind.

Luckily for parents, Brickhouse does provide other methods of monitoring children, like GPS trackers that attach to belts and tags that send parents notifications if a child has wandered away. For parents of special-needs children, these tools can be a lifesaver—and while we're probably a few years from seeing enhanced by surgery, more and more companies are providing parents with the ability to keep tabs on their kids in less intrusive ways in order to keep kids safe and comfortable. Former news anchor Lauren Thierry's clothing company, Independence Day Clothing, takes into account how some children living with autism may have sensory triggers that prevent them from wearing anything with too many tags or buttons and hides their monitoring systems in specially designed compartments meant to prevent distress. "

I've seen a girl chew through a Hello Kitty watch in 15 minutes to get it off—my heart went out to her," Ms. Thierry told the Observer. "And you want her to wear an ankle bracelet?"​

Some experts are skeptical of this new trend in wearable tech. While it can help kids who are lost or have wandered away, The Observer notes that it may not be as helpful when a child has been abducted by a parent and not a stranger, as a parent would have intimate knowledge of how to remove or disable any device. Still, there have been abductions (by strangers) that have been foiled with the use of apps that track location. But of course, as kids grow older they'll be less pleased by clothing with built-in GPS. And unlike a microchip, no matter how ugly and bulky it might be, the clothing can (and likely will) be removed.

The good news is that unless a child has a high risk of being abducted or going missing, there's probably no need to install any sort of tracking devices on them, according to Brickhouse's CEO, Todd Morris. He told The Observer that too much tracking can lead to "living in fear," which isn't what personal safety is or should be about. And while the statistics on missing kids are alarming, the numbers are, fortunately, very low compared to the number of children currently being freaked out about by the concerned parents of America.

http://jezebel.com/parents-are-dying-for-the-option-to-microchip-their-kid-1692123084/+megneal

If you had the option would you put a chip in your kid?

 

[Teelie]

Kids are not pets. They don't need to be microchipped to be followed around in case their helicoptor parents briefly lose track of them.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

"Biodegradeable" Plastic Is Not So Biodegradeable After All

Biodegradeable plastic, now often found in plastic bags and bottles, contains additives that are supposed to get microbes to break down tough plastic faster. But a new study from Michigan State University finds that some of these additives may actually doing, well, nothing.

Aside from generally sounding virtuous (thanks, greenwashing!), "biodegradeable plastic" is a bit of a catch-all term, so let's get more specific. There are bioplastics, usually made from renewable plant materials, and there is ordinary plastic made from petrochemicals with chemicals added to speed up degradation—supposedly, anyway. The current study looks at the latter category.

Researchers at Michigan State University tested three additives in two common types of plastic: low-density polyethylene (aka the stuff of plastic bags) and PET sheets (aka the stuff of plastic containers). In theory, these additives help attract microbes that will gobble up the plastic.

To test that, the team put the plastics through a battery of tests designed to simulate different landfill conditions. First, there was an anaerobic, or oxygen-less, condition, much like being buried at the bottom of a big landfill. Second, they mixed it with compost. And lastly, the researchers buried the plastics under soil for three years.

In all of these conditions, the plastic treated with biodegradeable additives fared no better than those without. "Thus, no evidence was found that these additives promote and/or enhance biodegradation of PE or PET polymers," the authors concluded.

An earlier study from 2013 found that biodegradeable plastics with additives had a similarly unimpressive records. These studies are limited in length for logistical reasons, but they do tell us that we really don't know much about happens to so-called "biodegradeable plastics." They might just be too good to be true.

http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/es504258u

Well that sucks

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Cisco's Going to Ship Its Equipment to Empty Houses to Dodge the NSA

The NSA is willing to go frighteningly far for your secrets, but at least one hardware manufacturer is willing to go further. A Cisco executive just said his company will ship its networking equipment to vacant addresses to avoid NSA interception. Clever idea.

The NSA was caught putting backdoors in Cisco electronics last year, and this week Cisco's security chief John Stewart revealed the dead drop plan to skirt the government snooping, admitting it's not foolproof. "We ship [boxes] to an address that's has nothing to do with the customer, and then you have no idea who ultimately it is going to," he explained. "There is always going to be inherent risk."

And he's totally right. Just check out this picture from leaked NSA documents showing government goons intercepting Cisco networking equipment. You can tell it's Cisco because the dang logo is on the side of the box:

Of course, Cisco is also trying to figure out exactly who has NSA beacons already installed in their equipment, though it's hard for them to tell since they have no idea what the NSA's top secret technology. The company's best bet is to ask customers to pick up the equipment directly from the factory or ship it to an empty house, as if it were some sort of drug deal. Because this is what surveillance in America has come to.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/0..._supply_chain_taps_ask_cisco_for_a_dead_drop/

Okay

 

[KevanG]

And America is still the land of the free?

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

You bet, check the abuse of power thread for some more neat info on how free we are

 

[KevanG]

It seems that Americans are free to just take it and get arrested if you complain.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Mexican Wrestling Star Perro Aguayo Jr. Dies After In-Ring Accident

Mexican wrestling star Perro Aguayo Jr. has died at 35 years old after an in-ring accident in a match last night in Tijuana. According to f4wonline.com, he hit the ring ropes after taking a dropkick from Rey Mysterio Jr., as seen in video of the full match, and was injured either then or when his tag team partner Manik hit them as well. (Either way, it seems to have been simply a freak accident.) As seen in the several videos above, taken from ringside—these are difficult to watch, but don't show the exact moment when Aguayo seems to have been injured—Mysterio and the other participants in the match continued briefly, with Aguayo's partner, apparently unaware of the seriousness of the situation, pulling him out of the way of the action. Medical personnel are seen attending to Aguayo in the video above, but he died later in the night in Tijuana's Hospital del Prado. There are conflicting reports on the cause of death, but the report above cites sources at the hospital who say it was cervical spine trauma caused by hitting the ropes.

http://deadspin.com/mexican-wrestli...jr-dies-after-in-r-1692824531/+brendanoconnor

Vids at the link

 

[Marvolo]

Parents Are Dying for the Option to Microchip Their Kids

http://jezebel.com/parents-are-dying-for-the-option-to-microchip-their-kid-1692123084/+megneal

If you had the option would you put a chip in your kid?

With current technology probably not, but if the chips were really small and had tiny power sources that could last for years and recharge on its own then I'd be fine with it up until a certain age. Just forrare occasions. It's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. But it could be abused and an obsessive control freak overbearing parent could do some damage with an implanted sub dermal tracking chip in their kid so I'm not sure it's a good idea in all cases.