Good Reads

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You could tell it was going to be a huge party because almost nobody had heard of the kid who was throwing it. Word was that his name was Tyler Hadley, he attended Port St. Lucie High, and, most crucially, his parents were out of town. Where exactly Tyler's parents had traveled, or how far, no one seemed to know.
[...]
Tyler's friend Markey Phillips missed the party because he was visiting his grandparents in Chicago that weekend, but he had hung out with Tyler two nights earlier, playing video games and watching television at Markey's house. Tyler had "seemed pretty fine" that night. But two weeks before that they had been hanging out at Markey's house when Tyler blurted out, in the middle of a conversation, that he "wanted to kill his parents and have a big party after." Nobody had ever done that before, Tyler said — throw a huge party with the bodies still in the house.

"That's crazy," said Markey. He figured Tyler was trying to make a joke. Nobody ever took Tyler seriously when he talked about killing his parents.​
- read the full article Tyler Hadley's Killer Party (from Rolling Stone)

I lived in Port St. Lucie for about a year. It really is a cesspool.
 
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image courtesy Grit Matthias (Flickr)

REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) — In this land of fire and ice, where the fog-shrouded lava fields offer a spooky landscape in which anything might lurk, stories abound of the "hidden folk" — thousands of elves, making their homes in Iceland's wilderness.

So perhaps it was only a matter of time before 21st-century elves got political representation.

Elf advocates have joined forces with environmentalists to urge the Icelandic Road and Coastal Commission and local authorities to abandon a highway project building a direct route from the Alftanes peninsula, where the president has a home, to the Reykjavik suburb of Gardabaer. They fear disturbing elf habitat and claim the area is particularly important because it contains an elf church.

The project has been halted until the Supreme Court of Iceland rules on a case brought by a group known as Friends of Lava, who cite both the environmental and the cultural impact — including the impact on elves — of the road project. The group has regularly brought hundreds of people out to block the bulldozers.

And it's not the first time issues about "Huldufolk," Icelandic for "hidden folk," have affected planning decisions.​
- read the full article Iceland's hidden elves delay road projects (from Associated Press)
 
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It’s Christmas Eve in Japan. Little boys and girls pull on their coats, the twinkle of anticipation in their eyes. Keeping the tradition alive, they will trek with their families to feast at … the popular American fast food chain KFC.

Christmas isn’t a national holiday in Japan—only one percent of the Japanese population is estimated to be Christian—yet a bucket of “Christmas Chicken” (the next best thing to turkey—a meat you can’t find anywhere in Japan) is the go-to meal on the big day.

 
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You could tell it was going to be a huge party because almost nobody had heard of the kid who was throwing it.


- read the full article Tyler Hadley's Killer Party (from Rolling Stone)


"that's kind of cool."

That comment withstanding, I don't think this latest generation is a lost cause. Even after reading the lack of empathy or sense of right and wrong many of the kids in the article exhibit.​
 
LOL at the bold

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AKRON: Cuyahoga Falls developer Joel Testa asked family and friends for a gift on his 42nd birthday two weeks ago. He sent out a Facebook message requesting help to feed and clothe Akron’s homeless population during the holidays.

Testa and his wife, Mary, would shoulder most of the expense personally, yet on such short notice, pulling it together was a daunting task.

Soon, parents, aunts, uncles and cousins plus dozens of friends and Testa Co. employees stepped up to help. His daughter’s scout troop made scarves to donate to the project, and Acme Fresh Market donated gift cards to help defray the estimated $2,000 price tag.

Testa said he is passionate about changing the perception people have of the area’s homeless.

“Generally, people are afraid of the homeless,” said Testa. “The homeless are not lepers. Homelessness can happen to anyone.”

[...]
Chris Matthews, 28, has been living “here and there” on the streets for two years. He moved to a parking deck about a week ago, he said.

Matthews came to Akron to be near his brother, who has since moved away. His dream is to find a job and move to warmer weather in Baton Rouge, La.

Each day, he reports to the library and scours the Internet to find a job to pay for the bus fare.

Matthews said he appreciated what the group of people did for him and his homeless friends.

“They handed me a ticket and said it was for a four-star restaurant. I didn’t even know there was one in Akron,” he said.
- read the full article Homeless offered fine dining experience (from the Akron Beacon Journal)
 
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For more than a decade, musicians have battled rampant music piracy that has put labels and record stores out of business at a rapid pace. Unlike the shift to Amazon that did in the book store chains, record stores are suffering from outright theft, and the migration to iTunes or Spotify streaming isn't making up the difference.
[...]
In the case of Iron Maiden, still a top-drawing band in the U.S. and Europe after thirty years, it noted a surge in traffic in South America. Also, it saw that Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia, and Chile were among the top 10 countries with the most Iron Maiden Twitter followers. There was also a huge amount of BitTorrent traffic in South America, particularly in Brazil.

Rather than send in the lawyers, Maiden sent itself in. The band has focused extensively on South American tours in recent years, one of which was filmed for the documentary "Flight 666." After all, fans can't download a concert or t-shirts. The result was massive sellouts. The São Paolo show alone grossed £1.58 million (US$2.58 million) alone.

And in a positive cycle, Maiden's online fanbase grew. According to Musicmetric, in the 12 months ending May 31, 2012, the band attracted more than 3.1 million social media fans. After its Maiden England world tour, which ran from June 2012 to October 2013, Maiden's fan base grew by five million online fans, with a significant increase in popularity in South America.​
 
hahahhahahaha!!!

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Bloomberg TV provided viewers with an important lesson in digital currency when one of its anchors had a gift card stolen while showing it during a live broadcast.

On Friday, December 20, Matt Miller surprised his two fellow anchors – Adam Johnson and Trish Regan – with bitcoin gift certificates during his “12 Days of Bitcoin” segment. Johnson then flashed his certificate on the screen for roughly 10 seconds - more than enough time for a Reddit user to scan the digital QR code with his phone and take the gift for himself.

The user, who goes by the name “milywaymasta,” took to Reddit to explain what happened.

“The guy that is hosting the series gave bitcoin gift certificates to the other two hosts. One of them opens up the certificate to reveal QR code of the private key,” he wrote. "They then proceeded to show a closeup of the QR code in glorious HD for about 10 seconds. Hilarious."

“I took it, it was only $20 worth. It was exhilarating nevertheless. I'll send it back once Matt gives me a new address since someone else can sweep the old one. A segment on bitcoin security and the importance of NOT showing the private key and also BIP0038 (Password Encrypted Private Keys) Wallets will be more than enough compensation.”


Although milywaymasta offered to return the cash, Miller followed up with the user on Reddit, stating that it would not be necessary.

“So freaking classic but also a GREAT lesson in bitcoin security!” he wrote. “You can keep the $20 - well earned.”
 
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After reading a novel, actual changes linger in the brain, at least for a few days, report researchers.

Their findings, that reading a novel may cause changes in resting-state connectivity of the brain that persist, appear in the journal Brain Connectivity.

“Stories shape our lives and in some cases help define a person,” says neuroscientist Gregory Berns, lead author of the study and the director of Emory University’s Center for Neuropolicy. “We want to understand how stories get into your brain, and what they do to it.”

Neurobiological research using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has begun to identify brain networks associated with reading stories. Most previous studies have focused on the cognitive processes involved in short stories, while subjects are actually reading them as they are in the fMRI scanner.

The study focused on the lingering neural effects of reading a narrative. Twenty-one Emory undergraduates participated in the experiment, which was conducted over 19 consecutive days.​
- read the full article Does reading actually change the brain? (from Futurity)
 
The Sunday New York Times turns in a masterpiece of investigative reporting on Benghazi. Seven chapters in all. I know a lot of you think Benghazi is old news, but the NYT turns in the definitive account of what happened and more importantly WHY it happened. Lots of original research. It also details the attempts of the Republican party to tie this somehow to Al-Queda.

I predict this will easily win next year's Pulitizer Prize for investigative reporting.

It's an excellent read, folks.
 
Holy wow, folks, this one's important.

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline?page=1

Gasoline lead may explain as much as 90 percent of the rise and fall of violent crime over the past half century.

So this is the choice before us: We can either attack crime at its root by getting rid of the remaining lead in our environment, or we can continue our current policy of waiting 20 years and then locking up all the lead-poisoned kids who have turned into criminals. There's always an excuse not to spend more money on a policy as tedious-sounding as lead abatement—budgets are tight, and research on a problem as complex as crime will never be definitive—but the association between lead and crime has, in recent years, become pretty overwhelming. If you gave me the choice, right now, of spending $20 billion less on prisons and cops and spending $20 billion more on getting rid of lead, I'd take the deal in a heartbeat. Not only would solving our lead problem do more than any prison to reduce our crime problem, it would produce smarter, better-adjusted kids in the bargain. There's nothing partisan about this, nothing that should appeal more to one group than another. It's just common sense. Cleaning up the rest of the lead that remains in our environment could turn out to be the cheapest, most effective crime prevention tool we have. And we could start doing it tomorrow.
 
Nothing to add... yet...but I foresee hours of time spent here reading. Thank you to everyone who has posted so far...

Slides her chair closer and gets comfortable :kiss:

BB
 
Doctor Sleep. Got it for Xmas and read it through quickly. Worth the read if you are a King fan. Just good popcorn for the brain.

And yes - a good read changes you, sometimes fundamentally. Ever read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"?
 
Doctor Sleep. Got it for Xmas and read it through quickly. Worth the read if you are a King fan. Just good popcorn for the brain.

And yes - a good read changes you, sometimes fundamentally. Ever read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"?

I loved Doctor Sleep and I was really expecting it to be shite.
 
I have not read it yet. There are a few I have never picked up. That is one. The other was something about Tom Gordon. Joyland. Roadwork. I guess I have missed a bunch.
 
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I have not read it yet. There are a few I have never picked up. That is one. The other was something about Tom Gordon.

Jesus and his Mother Mary!! It's his best! When I finished it I slid into a depression and couldn't read anything for two weeks. I loved it more than his old classics.

Tom Gordon was okay, bit dull...nothing really happens.
 
I went out to pick it up at the bookstore but it was a complete shit show trying to get any where near it. The traffic was ridiculous. I'll try again tomorrow. Always cool to find another good read.

What about Joyland or Roadwork?
 
I hated Joyland. It was not a King novel, it wasn't even like his Colorado Kid pulp fiction.
 
I'll be skipping Joyland. Roadwork?

Roadwork is one of the bachman books, its good, but not fantastic.

Also, I liked Joyland, but it was written in the hard boiled detective mould, and I'm good with that.

However, I cant read the dark tower series so take it as you will.
 
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From fake tweets to feigned poverty, the Internet was ablaze with hoaxes in 2013. Tess Lynch reported on the "rise of the hoax economy" for Grantland, calling out the biggest dupes of the year.

Lying isn't new, but the nature of the lies is changing, Lynch writes: "Our focus has shifted from the amusing to the emotional."

The emotional stories draw many in, including the media.

"I think what it says is that we still haven't figured out how to navigate consuming news online," she tells NPR's Arun Rath. "Sometimes it's harmless and fun, but then other times — especially when crowd-funding comes into play — it gets a little icky."

Here are three of her highlights:​
- read the full article The Internet Hoaxes That Had Us All Clicking For More (from NPR)
 
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In this July 23, 2013 file photo, United Nations peacekeepers search a house suspected to have been used by members of al-Qaida’s North African branch in Timbuktu, Mali. The al-Qaida cell occupied Timbuktu for 10 months until January 2013. When they fled, they left behind thousands of pages of documents, including over 100 receipts, showing that they assiduously tracked their cash flow, down to the $0.60 one of them spent for a single light bulb. The accounting system on display suggests that far from being a fly-by-night terror organization, al-Qaida is attempting to behave like a corporation. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)


TIMBUKTU, Mali (AP) — The convoy of cars bearing the black al-Qaida flag came at high speed, and the manager of the modest grocery store thought he was about to get robbed.

Mohamed Djitteye rushed to lock his till and cowered behind the counter. He was dumbfounded when instead, the al-Qaida commander gently opened the grocery's glass door and asked for a pot of mustard. Then he asked for a receipt.

Confused and scared, Djitteye didn't understand. So the jihadist repeated his request. Could he please have a receipt for the $1.60 purchase?

This transaction in northern Mali shows what might seem an unusual preoccupation for a terror group: Al-Qaida is obsessed with documenting the most minute expenses.​
- read the full article $0.60 for cake: Al-Qaida records every expense (from Associated Press)
 
If a picture’s worth a thousand words, a GIF is easily worth a million. The file format—which uses a series of images to produce a looping video, like a flip book—is a tremendous way to convey all sorts of moving wonders, and 2013 was the year that the GIF truly went mainstream, with GIFs of celebrities, sports and politicians filling the Web.

But 2013 was also a banner year for science—so much so that the word ‘science’ was Merriam-Webster’s word of the year. It’s appropriate, then, that we use the GIF to explore some of the coolest, weirdest, most remarkable science stories of 2013. What follows is a non-exhaustive list of amazing science GIFs from 2013, in no particular order.

Dissolving Electronics

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Over the past few years, the University of Illinois lab led by John Rogers (one of Smithsonian magazine’s American Ingenuity Award Winners) has engineered all sorts of amazing devices that bridge the gap between biology and technology: stretchable batteries that could be used in wearable gadgets or medical implants, tiny LEDs that can be implanted in the brain to manipulate individual neurons and ultrathin electronics that can graft circuits onto human skin.

Perhaps the most amazing creation, though, is their entirely dissolvable electronic circuit, which could someday be used in environmental monitoring and medical devices so that circuitry disappears after it’s no longer needed.


Chelyabinsk Meteor

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In February, a massive, 12,000-ton meteor—the largest known to hit Earth since 1908—flew through the skies above Chelyabinsk, Russia at 60 times the speed of sound and shattered into pieces. The meteor caused damaged to about 7,200 buildings and caused nearly 1,500 people to seek medical attention for injuries. Luckily, no one was killed; luckier still, dozens of local residents caught the event on camera.


A Washcloth is Squeezed in Space

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Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who spent 166 days at the International Space Station before returning in May, is the ideal astronaut for the social media era: he frequently tweeted photos from space and posted videos to his followers on YouTube, who number just over one million, to show what life in space is really like. In April, in response to a question submitted by high school students, he posted a video showing what happens when you try to wring out a washcloth in the space station’s zero-gravity environment. Spoiler: it’s not too easy.​
- read the full article The Coolest Science of 2013, in GIFs (from xxxSOURCExxx)
 
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