Short story vending machine promises old-school distractions

In the French city of Grenoble, there are unusual vending machines that don’t dispense soda or snacks — they print out short stories that look like paper receipts instead. These machines were built by a publishing company called Short Édition , which placed eight of them in public locations (such as the city hall and libraries) as part of a pilot project. Each dispenser has 1-minute, 3-minute and 5-minute buttons, so readers can choose how long their stories are, all of which were written by members of the Short Édition community. Company co-founder Christophe Sibieude told Agence-France Presse that his team came up with the idea while in front of a chocolate candy machine: “We said to ourselves that we could do the same thing with good quality popular literature to occupy these little unproductive moments.” Best thing about these story dispensers is that they’re free, giving residents something to do if ever they get tired of poking on their phones or want to read the old school way. Via: PSFK Source: Short Edition , Konbini

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Short story vending machine promises old-school distractions

NASA Has Halted Curiosity’s Work to Investigate a Short Circuit

NASA engineers are currently investigating a short circuit that has occurred aboard Curiosity. The Mars rover is not carrying out any further work until the fault is diagnosed. Read more…

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NASA Has Halted Curiosity’s Work to Investigate a Short Circuit

LA issues cease-and-desist to Uber and other car ride apps

“How can ride-app outfits like Lyft, Uber and Sidecar operate in a town with strict rules about how and where taxis can do business?,” asks Dennis Romero at the LA Weekly . “Los Angeles Department of Transportation taxicab administrator Thomas Drischler this week came up with an answer. They can’t.”        

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LA issues cease-and-desist to Uber and other car ride apps

Are you donating to one of America’s worst charities?

The Tampa Bay Times has done some excellent investigative reporting on the 50 worst charities in America — organizations that took in more than $1 billion over the past 10 years, and gave almost all of that money to their own staffs and professional solicitors. The series explains how charities like this operate and skirt the regulatory system. But if you’re feeling TLDR, there’s also a PDF that can help you quickly figure out if you’re donating to one of these scams . A large portion of the 50 worst is made up of charities devoted to cancer and veterans’ issues.        

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Are you donating to one of America’s worst charities?

More evidence that Haiti’s cholera epidemic started with UN Peacekeepers

Haiti has been battling a massive cholera outbreak since, roughly, around the time international aid groups arrived in the country following the 2010 earthquake. Now, genetic evidence links the strain of cholera in Haiti to a rare strain native to Nepal — further proof that it was Nepalese UN Peacekeepers who brought cholera to Haiti . This news comes two months after the UN claimed immunity from any financial liability relating to the outbreak, writes Stacey Singer at the Palm Beach Post.        

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More evidence that Haiti’s cholera epidemic started with UN Peacekeepers

Investigating leaks, Harvard secretly searched deans’ email accounts

The Boston Globe today broke the news that administrators at Harvard University secretly searched the e-mail accounts of 16 resident deans last fall, in an attempt to determine the source of “a leak to the media about the school’s sprawling cheating case.” [The Boston Globe]

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Investigating leaks, Harvard secretly searched deans’ email accounts