Tag: frauenfelder

California now requires conviction before civil asset forfeiture

California police departments’ license to steal cash from innocent people has been restricted, thanks to a new bill signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown. Let’s hope the federal government follows suit. Nick Sibilla of The Institute for Justice says: Since 1994, California state law has required a criminal conviction before real estate, vehicles, boats and cash under $25,000 could be forfeited to the government. But those requirements are completely missing under federal law. So California police could instead partner with a federal agency, take the property under federal law, and reap up to 80 percent of the proceeds. To fix this, the new law requires a criminal conviction before agencies can receive forfeiture payments from the federal government on forfeited real estate, vehicles, boats and cash valued at under $40,000.

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California now requires conviction before civil asset forfeiture

Generate your own random fantasy maps

Martin O’Leary not only made a cool fantasy map generator , he’s giving away the source code and has described the process at a high enough level for an idiot like me to partly understand how it works. I wanted to make maps that look like something you’d find at the back of one of the cheap paperback fantasy novels of my youth. I always had a fascination with these imagined worlds, which were often much more interesting than whatever luke-warm sub-Tolkien tale they were attached to. At the same time, I wanted to play with terrain generation with a physical basis. There are loads of articles on the internet which describe terrain generation, and they almost all use some variation on a fractal noise approach, either directly (by adding layers of noise functions), or indirectly (e.g. through midpoint displacement). These methods produce lots of fine detail, but the large-scale structure always looks a bit off. Features are attached in random ways, with no thought to the processes which form landscapes. I wanted to try something a little bit different. It’s an odd feeling to look at these instantly-generated, detailed maps and realize that they represent nothing. I feel like I’m being wasteful pressing the “Generate high resolution map.” The Uncharted Atlas is a twitterbot that posts a new map every hour.

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Generate your own random fantasy maps

The liquid that pours itself – Polyethylene Oxide

Steve Mould demonstrates an unusual mucilaginous substance that pours itself out of a beaker, once you get it started. This stuff reminds me of some bad head colds I’ve had.

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The liquid that pours itself – Polyethylene Oxide

"Skin gun" sprays patient’s own stem cells on wounds to speed healing

The SkinGun , announced today, was developed by RenovaCare to spray autologous (self-donated) stem cells on patients with chronic wounds and burns. For patients suffering severe burns and other wounds, the prospect of a quick-healing, gentle spray containing their own stem cells will be a promising alternative to conventional skin graft surgery, which can be painful, prone to complications, and slow-to-heal. Based on preliminary case studies, CellMist System patients can be treated within 90 minutes of arriving in an emergency room; a patient’s stem cells are isolated, processed, and sprayed on to wound sites for rapid healing. Preliminary investigational use in Europe and the United States indicate the potential efficacy and safety of RenovaCare’s technologies. Clinical observations point to the potential for regeneration of new skin in as little as four days, rather than the many weeks of painful and risky recovery required by traditional skin graft techniques.

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"Skin gun" sprays patient’s own stem cells on wounds to speed healing

Smartphone maker Foxconn replaces 60,000 workers with robots

A Chinese government official told the South China Morning Post that a Foxconn factory has “reduced employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000 thanks to the introduction of robots. It has tasted success in reduction of labour costs. More companies are likely to follow suit.” As many as 600 major companies in Kunshan have similar plans, according to a government survey. The job cuts do not augur well for Kunshan, which had a population of more than 2.5 million at the end of 2014, two-thirds of whom were migrant workers.

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Smartphone maker Foxconn replaces 60,000 workers with robots

Deep microscopic zoom into a mosquito’s eye

https://youtu.be/QtMAHm4ZfIs Mathew Tizard says, “Something I made in 2005 – A zoom into the microstructure of a mosquito’s eye, created using scanning electron microscope imagery. The white dots you see at the deepest zoom level are called ‘ ommatidia ,’ clusters of photoreceptor cells. ”

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Deep microscopic zoom into a mosquito’s eye

Uber assigns "its IP to Bermuda, leaving less than 2% of its revenue taxable by the US"

Like many other corporations, Airbnb and Uber use offshore shell companies to avoid taxes. The companies aren’t profitable yet, but they have set themselves up to avoid taxes once they become profitable. For years, pharmaceutical and tech companies including Pfizer, Merck, Google, and Apple have slashed their U.S. federal tax bills by using offshore tax havens and shifting profits abroad. Airbnb and Uber are starting to extend this strategy across vast new fields: PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that sharing-economy businesses generated $15 billion in revenue in 2014 and will take in $335 billion in 2025, growing largely at the expense of companies that pay billions in U.S. taxes. Bloomberg: The Sharing Economy Doesn’t Share the Wealth [ via ]

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Uber assigns "its IP to Bermuda, leaving less than 2% of its revenue taxable by the US"

TV program shows to send an email in 1984

Attention crackers – his Micronet password is 1234. “How to send an e mail 1980’s style. Electronic message writing down the phone line. First shown on Thames TV’s computer programme ‘Database’ in 1984”

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TV program shows to send an email in 1984

Man has fun pranking email scammers

https://youtu.be/KDc-M4dHr0s?list=PLSKUhDnoJjYmeW6nNasZSaVAGh4u91pEk I’m enjoying James Veitch’s weekly video series where he has fun with email scammers. In this episode, James has an exchange with a US soldier named Mary Gary who discovered a buried safe while on a routine patrol and wants to share the $15 million booty with James.

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Man has fun pranking email scammers