Mischievous Ramblings II

New Blue Marble

A ‘Blue Marble’ image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard
NASA’s Suomi NPP. (NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring)

 

From the Washington Post:

Feast your eyes on it: NASA released one of the sharpest, most stunning true-color images of our planet the world has seen Wednesday.

SCOTUS on GPS trackers used by law enforcement

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that police must get a search warrant before using GPS technology to track criminal suspects.

via www.msnbc.msn.com

What the Supreme Court Really Said About GPS Trackers

via WSJ Law Blog

 

IANAL, but I like the idea that SCOTUS seems to have decided that GPS trackers are not business as usual, that they are "a trespass", and they seem to require a warrant.

Good news.

"It's fine to be proud of it."

(Manny Serratos, posted on Facebook)

Hilarious: Microsoft keeps it old-school with a pricey text adventure game

Microsoft keeps it old-school with a pricey text adventure game, Visual Studio 2010

Microsoft has jumped onto the free-to-play bandwagon with its latest game, a text-driven adventure called Visual Studio 2010. The innovative new game marries the traditional interactive fiction text adventure with its arcane commands and exploration with the free-form, open-ended gaming pioneered by the likes of SimCity.

There are two major modes to the game, a textual spell-casting game, and a more complex interactive puzzle mode.

Play starts with the spell game. The game has three difficulty modes. In the two easiest modes Visual Studio questers must cast spells to appease a malevolent gatekeeper known only as "the compiler," combining the text adventuring of Zork with the wizardy and magic of Loom. If the player's spell contains even a single faulty incantation, the compiler will respond with a torrent of abuse and spells of its own; the player must piece together clues contained within compiler's response to determine how they went wrong.

Daily Kos: WA-01 Do you want a solid Progressive or a self financed millionaire New Dem?

What else has she done since 2008.  Well, after her loss Darcy went to DC and worked for 3 years as the Executive Director of ProgressiveCongress.org where she set about helping to build the progressive infrastructure we Kossacks like to complain we don't have.  She joined the boards of several progressive organizations like Netroots Nation Foundation, ActBlue, Progressive Ideas Network and NARAL.  

via www.dailykos.com

Let's be clear.  Either of these ladies would be better than a lot of other choices.  But there's no reason for us to settle.  Settling gets us Blue Dogs who fight for things we don't believe in.  We should be backing the best electable candidate who matches our values.

And that's Darcy.  No question.

Send a geek to Congress!

"River of Meat Blood"

From Gizmodo:

Drone Pilot Discovers River of Meat Blood

Seems like a "Dallas drone hobbyist" was flying his camera equipped drone around when he "...discovered a huge stream of blood emptying into the Trinity River..."

Seems like the meat packing plant (aka slaughterhouse?) he was flying near was (probably) illegally discharging, um, waste material into the local watershed.

As more and more drones get into private hands, this is an example of the way that we, the people, can turn the tables on the wholesale surveillance state -- by turning the cameras on them.  Turn the cameras on the police, the corporations, the politicians... on The Man!

Apropos of, well, everything about this: Eye3; Engadget; TechCrunch