Whoa. New design for Flickr. Plus 1 TB of free storage. I might be heading back there…

Phew. Good job, internet!

"You are a good boy." —Joe Biden

Phew. Safe from a made-up threat.

Cool! In North Carolina it's partially legal to turn left on a red light if you're on a motorcycle, as long as you wait 3 minutes, according to §20-158(e). Just yesterday I got stuck on my scooter in a left-turn lane that couldn't pick me up until *finally* a car pulled up behind me and triggered the induction loop. This would have been good to know. Utah just passed a similar law with a 90-second wait that includes bicyclists, who are even more prone to the not-getting-sensed-with-the-sensor thing: http://www.ksl.com/?sid=25189591&nid=148&title=bikes-motorcycles-can-turn-left-on-red-light-under-new-law

"The standard line among Trek apologists is that the franchise is not just a lot of sci-fi nonsense but a meaningful exploration of what it means to be human. And among Trek’s kaleidoscope of Vulcans and androids and holograms and shapeshifters, this is a core concern. But Trek has a very particular take on what it means to be human. Part of what it means, the franchise teaches us, is participating in an ongoing progressive project of building a utopian society. Even though the bulk of Trek comes from the ’90s, the franchise launched in the mid-’60s, and the now-anachronistic spirit of midcentury optimism has remained at the heart of the franchise throughout. It’s a big part of what makes Trek great."

What you've always wanted: a font made out of cats.

FBI surrounded the Saudi student about his pressure cooker, only to discover that he was… cooking rice!

Full recap of this Peter Pan thing…

Play this game!!

Map of cicada broods. We're mostly clear this year.

"This political juggernaut runs totally contrary to what North Carolina has stood for during the last half century. It represents class warfare against the middle class and the working-class residents of our state. Justice lies at the core of our civic life. And we are all responsible for sustaining that justice."

Hrm.

It's amazing that we made it to 2013 before this was invented.

There will be no CS7. Adobe's moving everything to Creative Cloud now. New versions of Photoshop CC, InDesign CC, etc. out in June.

"It is just a matter of time before the detainees start to die"

Hungry, hungry hippo (via By Common Consent)

Creeping sharia, through the Biebs.

Gah. This story keeps getting worse. "The prosecutor behind this case Assistant State Attorney Tammy Glotfelty, has charged Kiera with two felonies, yet two days later this same prosecutor did not charge a white 13 year old boy Taylor Richardson for shooting [and killing] his 10 year old brother with a bb gun. Glotfelty said it was an accident."

Fascinating account of his year offline. The internet is far more real and physical than we think.

Hey Alan, have you seen this?

Take my future awesome class on Middle East politics! Now that I've made this thing, I really, really want to teach the class. Hrm.

Gah.

As Nancy watches videos at http://www.cutegirlshairstyles.com/, I'm trying to convince Rachel to let me do this.

Finished with this crazy stats paper! Only one class left!

More on automating tasks to save time.

Check it out, Jennifer Shen, Michelle Hahn Welch, TJ L, Jenny Orgill. Too bad this was posted during the test…

Holy crap. "Inside the building is a data center full of humming servers — double the size that the company used in the past — that would be considered one of the top 25 supercomputers in the world. The 2,000 computers have more than 24,000 cores. The data center is like the beating heart behind the movie’s technology. Even with all of that computing might, it still takes 29 hours to render a single frame of Monsters University, according to supervising technical director Sanjay Bakshi."

Crazy stuff

What if the Tsarnaevs Had Been the "Boston Shooters"?

The only way to stop a Mormon with a samurai sword is another Mormon with a samurai sword.

Strangest use of 3D printers?

Whoa. Most convoluted definition of a variable ever. Apparently rainy 4th of Julys make you less patriotic, less Republican, and less likely to vote. :) "The estimates imply that days without rain on Fourth of July in childhood increase the likelihood of identifying with the Republicans as an adult, voting for the Republican but not the Democratic candidate, and voter turnout. Our findings are significant: one Fourth of July without rain before age 18 increases the likelihood of identifying as a Republican at age 40 by 2 percent, the share of people voting for the Republican candidate at age 40 by 4 percent, and the share of people turning out to vote at age 40 by 0.9 percent. The evidence is consistent with childhood experience having foundational effects less susceptible to adult political influence. It also suggests that there is political congruence between patriotism promoted on Fourth of July and Republican beliefs, as well as Fourth of July transmitting a non-partisan civic duty to vote" (via John)

Czech ambassador weighs in: "As more information on the origin of the alleged perpetrators is coming to light, I am concerned to note in the social media a most unfortunate misunderstanding in this respect. The Czech Republic and Chechnya are two very different entities - the Czech Republic is a Central European country; Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation."

The Onion wins yet again.

Browser accordion

Winning entry of tonight's methods poster session. Boom. (And Kat Alexander's too. Go Middle East peeps!)

QBASIC was the first programming language I played around with. I made guessing games with ASCII stick figures. This is absolute nuts. It's compiled from a single 12,000 line .bas file.

Man, this GDELT dataset is incredibly exciting. I just need to find something to do with it…

Holy crap. The article that has driven much of global austerity policy, which found that countries with a debt:GDP ratio of more than 90% had negative GDP growth (and thus led international and domestic institutions to religiously reduce debt) inadvertently had an error that dramatically changes the results. A high debt:GDP ratio actually has no effect. Whoa. Probably the best initial lesson, though (beyond the wrongheaded adherence to austerity), is that research needs to be easily replicable and accessible—authors should make it easy for anyone to take their data and run alternative models. Yikes.

PSA

Cool. Bryan Center bomb threat is fake. As you were.

"Terrorism, even the terrorism of radical Islamists and right-wing extremists and lone actors all put together, is not an "existential threat" against our nation. Even the events of 9/11, as horrific as they were, didn't do existential damage to our nation. Our society is more robust than it might seem from watching the news. We need to start acting that way. " "Empathize, but refuse to be terrorized."

How I feel about stats sometimes… (language alert)

And thus it begins...

Fascinating account of an abandoned e-mail address and its hapless users.

This graph is fantastic

Totally agree with all this stuff. Why I tinker.

Counting with Buzzfeed

Hey Emily and Morgan—this is for you.

This is why the internet was invented.

Oops. Someone in Japan is probably unemployed now.

This North Carolinian legislative session has been awesome.

"It is Genghis Kahn bathed in sherbet ice cream"

Hey look! It's Matthew Parks!

Whoa. That's a lot of people.