Is Nuclear Power the Fix to Global Warming? (via Dice News in Tech)
While President Obama has put climate change back on the national agenda, the likelihood of significant action is low. Earth continues its resolute march toward global warming, the results of which continue to be born out in every storm, drought and species die-off. A chorus of experts has offered…
As Microsoft ramps up its Los Angeles-based Xbox Entertainment Studios, you have to wonder whether its goal is to bring innovative platforms to old-school media, or old-school media to innovative platforms. If the top-down hiring is any indication, it may be the latter.
Here’s a heads up to the millions of people looking for love on line: Your security and privacy are probably at risk. Many of the most popular dating sites are playing fast and loose with your romantic avatars. Some of them are susceptible to hackers and, to paraphrase a Microsoft cybersecurity expert, anything that you post on line is pretty much permanent after 20 minutes, whether you’ve deleted the file or not.
Still feeling brave? A few more facts, then. Of the most trafficked sites, only Zoosk and the alternative dating site Fetlife offer standard HTTPS encryption, and Fetlife only implemented it after user complaints. Sam Yagam, CEO of the wildly popular OkCupid, has said that his company just doesn’t see a need for encryption because users haven’t asked for it. Well, OK.
Dice News in Tech (http://s.tt/1zvbz)John McAfee was climbing into a unique group of eccentric, adventurous and filthy rich legends like William Randolph Hearst, Howard Hughes and Richard Branson. But unlike them, and more like Icarus, he stopped paying attention and flew too close to the sun.
Thanks to a hacker who traced his smartphone tracks, McAfee was found earlier this week in Guatemala, where he was arrested Wednesday for entering the country illegally. Although he sought asylum on Thursday, his request was denied. Later that evening, he complained of chest pains and was taken to a local hospital. His return to Belize is now pending.
McAfee’s free-fall has been riveting.
If you’ve looked at pretty much any media site in the past two weeks, you already know some of the details. McAfee, 67, is a pioneer in the anti-virus industry and founder of the company that still bears his name. For the past few years, he’s been living in Belize, allegedly experimenting with MDPV, aka Bath Salts. He’s also been blogging about their many supposed benefits.
Dice News in Tech (http://s.tt/1w12x)
Dice News in Tech (http://s.tt/1vhIh)Coming in the not-too-distant future…via Los Angeles magazine…an oral history of the Palomino, that legendary, long defunct, country & western nightclub on Lankershim in North Hollywood, CA.
LA Times Magazine May 2012
Once a utopia for Socialist visionaries, century-old Llano del Rio is now just dust in the High Desert wind.
As one travels east into the desert on Pearblossom Highway, just past rickety towns and careworn ranches, the spectral remains of a utopian colony called Llano del Rio appear through a haze of dust. Two river-rock chimneys, positioned like faceless Moai, and an eerie length of wall are all that are visible from the road.
The stone edifices break up the scrubby surfaces of a landscape interspersed with cairns of trash, buckwheat and sage. A confluence of politics, economics and human frailty generated the rise and fall of what used to stand here, and it has sparked enough interest to fill at least one book and countless chapters in others.
Utopias are propelled by political motivation; their creation is a moral judgment on the existing state of affairs. California, always at the cusp of reinvention, responded to the chaos of the dawning of the industrial age by spawning the largest number of utopian colonies in the country. One of the most celebrated was Llano del Rio, brainchild of Indiana-born Job Harriman.
Movie City News, April 26, 2012
http://moviecitynews.com/2012/04/is-crossmedia-film%E2%80%99s-next-wave/
At the forefront of one of the film narrative’s many reinventions is a next wave of software developers, gamers, filmmakers, writers and composers; a confluence of independent talent dedicated to creating entertainment which employs a variety of mediums and crosses all media platforms, in order to create immersive story experiences for the general public. Think Steve Jobs meets James Cameron, who meets Joe Papp, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and then Maya Deren. Together they create a multi-use, multi-purpose, story arc that can be accessed via phone, laptop, television or theater.
