John Gordon Ross

Anyone who works as a freelancer these days has to be at least a bit familiar with techie things. But it isn’t just that. When I was a kid and those vaguely SF puppet shows were on the television and all the other kids wanted to be Greg Gogetem or Steve Savetheuniverse, I wanted to be the guy in a white coat and glasses called Doc or Brains. Here are some technology-related feeds I find useful and/or entertaining.

Mashable » Watch the exciting 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2' Super Bowl spot

Sunday 5 February 23:48:35 UTC 2017

Welcome to the frickin' Guardians of the Galaxy. A new trailer (above) for volume two of the Marvel smash dropped during the Super Bowl on Sunday. SEE ALSO: These are the most talked about Super Bowl LI ads that you won't want to miss It gives viewers yet another peek at the whole gang: Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), … [Link]

Mashable » NASA are real winners of the Super Bowl with longest Hail Mary pass ever

Sunday 5 February 23:47:44 UTC 2017

Because, yes, space geeks love sports, too, astronauts on the International Space Station decided to join in the Super Bowl fun and set up what they're calling "the longest Hail Mary pass ever." One of the ISS crew members threw a pass the length of the interior cabin with perfect spin, which the crew humorously claimed traveled 564,664 yards. Of … [Link]

Mashable » The Schuyler Sisters from 'Hamilton' give sisterhood a shout out in stellar Super Bowl performance

Sunday 5 February 23:39:03 UTC 2017

The Schuyler Sisters gave "America the Beautiful" their own spin during their Super Bowl performance on Sunday. Phillipa Soo, Renée Elise Goldsberry, and Jasmine Cephas Jones — the actors who originally starred in Hamilton — united to perform together moments before the big game between New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons on Sunday. The trio perfectly altered a lyric by singing … [Link]

Slashdot » How Open Sourcing Made Apache Kafka A Dominant Streaming Platform

Sunday 5 February 23:39:00 UTC 2017

Open sourced in 2010, the Apache Kafka distributed streaming platform is now used at more than a third of Fortune 500 companies (as well as seven of the world's top 10 banks). An anonymous reader writes: Co-creator Neha Narkhede says "We saw the need for a distributed architecture with microservices that we could scale quickly and robustly. The legacy systems … [Link]

Mashable » Lady Gaga prepared for her Super Bowl halftime in a pink football uniform… and no pants

Sunday 5 February 23:37:44 UTC 2017

Lady Gaga got ready for her Super Bowl 2017 halftime show the only way she knows how — with some real fashion flair. As the players took the field, Gaga posted an Insta of her warming up, though her warm up outfit did not include pants. Instead, she opted for a pink, personalized helmet and jersey.  SEE ALSO: Superb Owl 51 is … [Link]

Mashable » Someone built a 60-hour 'Pokémon' game into 'Minecraft' and it's beautiful

Sunday 5 February 23:08:23 UTC 2017

There's a Pokémon game on PC now. Sort of. For all the ways that Minecraft has been twisted and transformed over the years, Pokémon: Cobalt and Amethyst is something new. It's a full-blown game built inside of Minecraft, with what developer Phoenix Projects says is "60 to 80 hours" of gameplay. SEE ALSO: 7 things 'Pokémon Go' badly needs in … [Link]

Mashable » Have a damn good cup of coffee with this 'Twin Peaks' supercut

Sunday 5 February 22:52:56 UTC 2017

If you've never seen Twin Peaks, it's a show about the murder of a girl in a small town and also about a bunch of people who really like coffee.  Showtime, promoting their airing of the complete series leading up to the new season in May, released this caffeinated promo clip to get fans amped. Honestly, it's going to make … [Link]

Slashdot » Disney Thinks High Schools Should Let Kids Take Coding In Place of Foreign Languages

Sunday 5 February 22:39:00 UTC 2017

theodp writes: Florida lawmakers are again proposing a contentious plan that would put coding and foreign language on equal footing in a public high school student's education. Under a proposed bill students who take two credits of computer coding and earn a related industry certification could then count that coursework toward two foreign language credits. "I sort of comically applaud … [Link]

Mashable » Of course Chelsea Peretti styled her own birth announcement after Beyoncé

Sunday 5 February 22:24:41 UTC 2017

There is no way you can overshadow a Beyoncé birth announcement — all you can do is pay respect. That's the lesson Chelsea Peretti thankfully learned when she made her own birth announcement on Saturday. Peretti, who is married to comedian Jordan Peele, announced their first child on Instagram. SEE ALSO: What to do when you're so overwhelmed by the Trump … [Link]

The Joy of Tech » JoT #2379: The ultimate spectator sport!

Sunday 5 February 22:18:08 UTC 2017

It’s the big BIG game! [Link]

Mashable » This heartbreaking video tells the story of two child refugees, 80 years apart

Sunday 5 February 22:10:13 UTC 2017

If you — like many Americans — only get your news from President Donald Trump's Twitter feed, you'll come to believe that all Syrian refugees are terrorists. A new video released by UNICEF challenges that obscene assertion. In it, an 80-year-old man discusses his traumatizing experience as a child refugee escaping Nazi Germany. A Syrian boy, himself a refugee, then … [Link]

Slashdot » 14,000 Domains Dropped Dyn's DNS Service After Mirai Attack

Sunday 5 February 21:39:00 UTC 2017

chicksdaddy New data suggests that some 14,500 web domains stopped using Dyn's Managed DNS service in the immediate aftermath of an October DDoS attack by the Mirai botnet. That's around 8% of the web domains using Dyn Managed DNS… "The data show that Dyn lost a pretty big chunk of their customer base because they were affected by (Mirai)," said … [Link]

Mashable » Even the pope has a Super Bowl spot

Sunday 5 February 21:29:10 UTC 2017

The Super Bowl isn't just the height of sport, it's also the height of branding. Now, it looks like the pope is getting in on the action. SEE ALSO: These are the most talked about Super Bowl LI ads that you won't want to miss The pontiff stars in a 50-second spot that will be shown to tens of thousands of … [Link]

Mashable » Why your iPhone battery meter sometimes goes haywire

Sunday 5 February 21:23:52 UTC 2017

I understand alternate facts. Sometimes my iPhone’s battery meter delivers them. Fact: I have a 18-month-old Apple iPhone 6. I keep it in god shape, never dropping it, subjecting it to extreme temperatures, or dunking it in bodies of water. I charge it regularly.  Fact: On a recent weekday afternoon, I picked up my iPhone, which had been sitting on my … [Link]

Mashable » Elon Musk throws subtle shade at Trump over travel ban

Sunday 5 February 20:59:58 UTC 2017

Elon Musk took a subtle swipe at Donald Trump on Twitter after the president criticized the U.S. justice system. On Sunday, the CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX praised America's judicial arm — a day after Trump tweeted angrily about a federal judge's decision to block a travel ban on citizens of seven mainly Muslim countries. SEE ALSO: Elon Musk's private … [Link]

Slashdot » Are Gates, Musk Being 'Too Aggressive' With AI Concerns?

Sunday 5 February 20:39:00 UTC 2017

gthuang88 reports on a talk titled "Will Robots Eat Your Job?" Bill Gates and Elon Musk are sounding the alarm "too aggressively" over artificial intelligence's potential negative consequences for society, says MIT professor Erik Brynjolfsson. The co-author of The Second Machine Age argues it will take at least 30 to 50 years for robots and software to eliminate the need … [Link]

Slashdot » Anonymous Takes Down 10,613 Dark Web Portals

Sunday 5 February 19:39:00 UTC 2017

An anonymous reader writes: Anonymous hackers have breached Freedom Hosting II, a popular Dark Web hosting provider, and have taken down 10,613 .onion sites. In a message left on all Freedom Hosting II sites, the hackers claim to have found massive troves of child pornography imagery hosted on the company's servers. The hackers dumped 74GB of server files (half of … [Link]

Mashable » Shyamalan's 'Split' tries to hold off 'Rings' at the box office

Sunday 5 February 19:38:58 UTC 2017

The Sixth Sense, Signs, The Last Airbender, and The Village. Those are the only four M. Night Shyamalan movies to have earned more domestically than Split. The James McAvoy-led horror flick picked up an estimated $14.6 million in its third weekend, which was good enough for a three-peat at #1 in the domestic box office. That's a feat director M. Night … [Link]

Mashable » Forget yoga mats — yoga boards will give you a much better workout

Sunday 5 February 19:00:00 UTC 2017

The 'MYB YOGABOARD' has a curved shaped design that can make your workout more intense. Practicing yoga on this board can improve your balance, stimulate body control and quicken muscle building. Read more…More about Real Time Video, Real Time, Yoga Board, Yoga Mat, and Workout [Link]

Mashable » People can't stop sharing this cartoon about Trump's 'Muslim ban'

Sunday 5 February 18:47:37 UTC 2017

Last week, President Trump gleefully signed a defacto Muslim ban, hoping to ban green card and permanent resident holders from seven Muslim-majority countriesOn Friday, the Constitution caught up with him.  On Friday, Seattle judge (and Bush appointee) James Robart issued a temporary nationwide restraining order, lifting the ban nationwide. President Trump had a typical Twitter meltdown and appealed the judgment. Later, … [Link]

Slashdot » Can The Mayhem AI Automate Bug-Patching?

Sunday 5 February 18:39:00 UTC 2017

"Now when a machine is compromised it takes days or weeks for someone to notice and then days or weeks — or never — until a patch is put out," says Carnegie Mellon professor David Brumley. "Imagine a world where the first time a hacker exploits a vulnerability he can only exploit one machine and then it's patched." An anonymous … [Link]

Mashable » Here are all the best Super Bowl commercials in one place

Sunday 5 February 18:15:01 UTC 2017

The Super Bowl: the one time of year people not only tolerate but actively seek out commercials.  Hell, if you're a cord-cutter or DVR owner with an ad blocker, it may be the one time of year you actually see commercials. Perhaps you were hoping this year's commercial breaks might provide an escape from our country's current political insanity. Wrong!  SEE … [Link]

Slashdot » Mozilla To Drop Support For All NPAPI Plugins In Firefox 52 Except Flash

Sunday 5 February 17:34:00 UTC 2017

The Netscape Plugins API is "an ancient plugins infrastructure inherited from the old Netscape browser on which Mozilla built Firefox," according to Bleeping Computer. But now an anonymous reader writes: Starting March 7, when Mozilla is scheduled to release Firefox 52, all plugins built on the old NPAPI technology will stop working in Firefox, except for Flash, which Mozilla plans … [Link]

Mashable » Snapchat drops Snapbot in Houston, lands best free Super Bowl advertising

Sunday 5 February 17:31:57 UTC 2017

The biggest brands spend millions each year on 30-second ads for the Super Bowl. But one of the year's big names didn't have to craft a commercial to get attention on one of TV's biggest nights. Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, dropped a Snapbot — its interactive vending machine that dispenses the limited-edition Spectacles — in Houston, Texas on Sunday. … [Link]

Mashable » The devastating 1889 Johnstown Flood killed over 2,000 people in minutes

Sunday 5 February 17:00:00 UTC 2017

A tree protrudes from a house tossed by the flood.Image: Bettmann/Getty ImagesOn the morning of May 31, 1889, Elias Unger, the president of Pennsylvania’s South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, awoke from a night of heavy rain to an impending catastrophe.Just below his home, swollen by ongoing rainfall, the artificial reservoir of Lake Conemaugh appeared to be on the verge of … [Link]

Mashable » Brutally honest ad for a 2002 Oldsmobile brings the internet infinite joy

Sunday 5 February 16:59:42 UTC 2017

You know it's a dark day in America when a used car salesman is more capable of telling the truth than the president. A Facebook ad for a 2002 Oldsmobile went viral this weekend for all the right reasons. Instead of trying to oversell what is undoubtedly a deeply terrible car, the advertiser keeps it honest with folks. This is a … [Link]

Mashable » Leslie Jones lost it when she impersonated Samuel L. Jackson on 'SNL'

Sunday 5 February 16:38:01 UTC 2017

You'd think Saturday Night Live's Super Bowl-centric "Celebrity Family Feud" sketch would have been ripe for political humor, given the Trump vs. Atlanta narrative that has surfaced. As it turns out, not so much! The real stars of this sketch are Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones, as Justin Bieber and Samuel L. Jackson, respectively. McKinnon is her typically over-the-top self … [Link]

Slashdot » Which US Cities Have The Worst Malware Infection Rates?

Sunday 5 February 16:34:00 UTC 2017

A new report from Enigma Software Group identifies the American cities with abnormally high infection rates for malware. An anonymous reader quotes TechRepublic: In 2016, Tampa, Orlando, and St. Louis each had malware infection rates per capita more than five times the national average — the highest in the U.S., the report found. Those same three cities were also at … [Link]

Mashable » A group of New Yorkers came together to remove swastikas from a subway car

Sunday 5 February 16:21:28 UTC 2017

A group of New York City subway riders came together to remove Nazi imagery sprawled across a train on Saturday night. Documented in a Facebook post by Gregory Locke, passengers in a Manhattan 1 train pooled resources to remove swastikas and hate speech from the train. According to Locke, swastikas had been drawn in Sharpie across every window and advertisement in … [Link]

Mashable » How to use Google Calendar’s smart meeting scheduler

Sunday 5 February 16:11:00 UTC 2017

Scheduling meetings on Google Calendar is now a whole lot easier.  A recent update to Google Calendar implemented one of the better features of the iOS and Android apps — intelligent suggestions for meeting times, so you no longer have to worry to make sure the rooms and times work well for everyone – the calendar takes care of it for … [Link]

Mashable » Kristen Stewart turns a Super Bowl party into an erotic French film on 'SNL'

Sunday 5 February 16:04:25 UTC 2017

Saturday Night Live's vision of Super Bowl Sunday starts out innocently enough.  A bunch of dudes are hanging out to watch the big game while the woman of the house (Vanessa Bayer) — an outdated stereotype who doesn't get sports and only exists to please her man — cooks pizza rolls. On the surface, it's a Totino's ad. Then, Sabine … [Link]

Mashable » 6 things to look forward to in Super Bowl LI if you're really into referees

Sunday 5 February 15:43:30 UTC 2017

Hey there, fellow Ref Heads!  It's that special time of year again when the two best teams in the NFL go head-to-head to finally crown a champion. But the real show, as always, is going to be that sweet, sweet refereeing. It has been an exciting playoffs, as the referees have called every penalty from delay of game to illegal motion, … [Link]

Slashdot » Report Finds PFAS Chemicals In One-Third of Fast Food Packaging

Sunday 5 February 15:34:00 UTC 2017

dryriver quotes CNN: Most of the time, when you order fast food, you know exactly what you're getting: an inexpensive meal that tastes great but is probably loaded with fat, cholesterol and sodium. But it turns out that the packaging your food comes in could also have a negative impact on your health, according to a report published Wednesday in … [Link]

Mashable » 'SNL' shares a new 'Welcome to the USA' video for Trump's America

Sunday 5 February 15:24:12 UTC 2017

In Trump's United States, all visitors are welcome … unless they come from one of seven predominantly Muslim nations, self-identify as Muslim, or just look too darn brown. That's the message communicated in the newly updated U.S. customs "welcome" video, which Saturday Night Live helpfully edited to account for Trump's controversial immigration ban. It would be funny if it weren't … [Link]

Mashable » Mute all the disruptions in your life with this noise-canceling device

Sunday 5 February 15:00:00 UTC 2017

‘Muzo’ is a portable acoustic device that prevents vibrations to cancel out unwanted noise. Read more…More about Real Time Video, Real Time, Sound Machine, Inventions, and Kickstarter [Link]

Slashdot » Google, Unlike Microsoft, Must Turn Over Foreign Emails, Rules Judge

Sunday 5 February 14:34:00 UTC 2017

Every year Google receives more than 25,000 requests from U.S. authorities for "disclosures of user data in criminal matters," according to a U.S. judge's recent ruling. But this one is different. An anonymous reader quotes Reuters: A U.S. judge has ordered Google to comply with search warrants seeking customer emails stored outside the U.S., diverging from a federal appeals court … [Link]

Mashable » Kristen Stewart's 'SNL' monologue blasts Trump's obsession with Robert Pattinson

Sunday 5 February 14:06:49 UTC 2017

True story: Donald Trump, the electoral college-mandated 45th president of the United States, once obsessively trolled Kristen Stewart on Twitter. She brought Saturday Night Live viewers up to speed during her opening monologue this week. It happened in 2012, when Stewart was caught up in an on-again/off-again situation with her Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson. Trump, just a reality TV celebrity … [Link]

Mashable » How the city of Atlanta finally fell in love with Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan

Sunday 5 February 14:00:00 UTC 2017

You could hear it late in the season, a thunderous chorus of Atlantans all chanting the same three letters, again and again. "M-V-P! M-V-P! M-V-P!" Throughout the Falcons' 11-5 season and their impressive playoff run all the way to the Super Bowl, the chants grew louder as the team inched closer to the ever-elusive championship. The man who fans had deemed … [Link]

Mashable » This goofy 1908 children's book traces the path of a bullet with a literal hole in the pages

Sunday 5 February 14:00:00 UTC 2017

IMage: Internet ArchiveIn 1908, author and artist Peter Newell published The Hole Book, a fancifully illustrated children’s tale that incorporates a literal hole in the pages to trace the trajectory of an accidentally-fired bulletThe errant projectile sows chaos through a variety of scenes, shattering fishbowls, perforating hats and detonating gas tanks before coming to rest in a particularly dense cake.Newell had … [Link]

Mashable » Superb Owl 51 is swooping in to save your weekend

Sunday 5 February 14:00:00 UTC 2017

We know that the news has been depressing recently. It's been causing a lot of unpleasant feelings. SEE ALSO: 'Hamilton' will make a Super Bowl appearance Thank goodness we have a bright spot on the horizon this weekend, an event that will be bound to lift our spirits and perhaps make us momentarily forget the current state of America. Enter Superb … [Link]

Mashable » Alec Baldwin's Trump is back on 'SNL': 'Prepare to go to war'

Sunday 5 February 13:34:44 UTC 2017

This Saturday Night Live cold open basically wrote itself.  In the two weeks since the sketch comedy series last aired — on Jan. 21 — the U.S.A. has weathered the Trump administration's immigration ban; increasingly strained international relations with Australia, Germany, Mexico, and Arnold Schwarzenegger; adviser Steve Bannon's secret presidency; embarrassing gaffes around Black History Month and Holocaust Remembrance Day; … [Link]

Slashdot » Reporter Pans Open Source Laptop Kit TERES-I

Sunday 5 February 11:34:00 UTC 2017

The Verge's Paul Miller has some harsh words for the $242 open source DIY laptop kit TERES-I from Olimex. Instead of buying one hyper-integrated board that has all of the laptop's brains and I/O on it, you buy several little boards and wire them together. Then you put them inside a mostly finished case built by Olimex — although if … [Link]

Slashdot » Developer Argues For 'Forgotten Code Constructs' Like GOTO and Eval

Sunday 5 February 7:34:00 UTC 2017

mikeatTB quotes TechBeacon: Some things in the programming world are so easy to misuse that most people prefer to never use them at all. These are the programming equivalent of a flamethrower… [But] creative use of features such as goto, multiple inheritance, eval, and recursion may be just the right solution for experienced developers when used in the right situation. … [Link]

Mashable » Melissa McCarthy makes a better Sean Spicer than Sean Spicer on 'SNL'

Sunday 5 February 6:58:11 UTC 2017

If there's one (small) good thing about Donald Trump's presidency, it's giving America's best comedians a smorgasbord of weirdness to tuck into. On Saturday Night Live, Melissa McCarthy took a turn as Press Secretary Sean Spicer and it was brutally good. Ill-fitting suit? Check. Alternative facts? CheckInsane gum addiction? Check and check. SEE ALSO: Trump’s Muslim Ban could have doomed … [Link]

Mashable » Legal action over boxing livestream highlights Facebook's piracy problem

Sunday 5 February 5:56:14 UTC 2017

The presence of questionable content on Facebook Live is nothing new, but getting sued for it? That's a little more unusual. Two Australian men may be facing legal action after they streamed a highly anticipated boxing match on Facebook Live. To the chagrin of the cable television company Foxtel, Darren Sharpe and Brett Hevers livestreamed the Danny Green versus Anthony Mundine … [Link]

Slashdot » Massive Study Links IP Addresses Per Capita To GDP

Sunday 5 February 4:34:00 UTC 2017

Three researchers "decided to scan the entire IPv4 address range every 15 minutes between 2006-2012 to work out what insights they could gain from humanity's mass connection to the internet," reports ITnews. The study…analysed data from 411 large regions from middle to high-income countries and found a positive correlation between GDP per capita and the number of IP addresses per … [Link]

Slashdot » Ask Slashdot: How Do You Deal With Aggressive Forum Users?

Sunday 5 February 2:34:00 UTC 2017

Slashdot reader dryriver writes: I've noticed a disturbing trend while trying to resolve a rather tricky tech issue by asking questions on a number of internet forums. The number of people who don't help at all with problems but rather butt into threads with unhelpful comments like "Why would you want to do that in the first place?" or "why … [Link]

Mashable » The White House just brutally burned Australia's Prime Minister

Sunday 5 February 1:45:39 UTC 2017

If Australia thought it mattered to the new U.S. administration, the message is now loud and clear: Nah, not really. In one week alone, details of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's call with Donald Trump were leaked to the press. He was apparently told by the U.S. president that he "was the worst call by far" on a day that included a … [Link]

Slashdot » New Book Describes How AirBNB Influenced City Laws

Sunday 5 February 0:34:00 UTC 2017

"For years, Airbnb was the friendly foil to Uber, aiming to work with cities rather than against them," writes Slashdot reader mirandakatz. "But as it grew and regulatory challenges mounted, the startup had to grow fangs." She shares an excerpt from a new book called The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are … [Link]

Mashable » 'The Lego Batman Movie' is a pop-culture feast that also gives good Batman

Sunday 5 February 0:20:25 UTC 2017

Mashing up two brands can be a great way to make neither seem appealing: Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, Men in Black and 21 Jump Street, the Flintstones and the Schmoo — you get the nausea … errr, the idea. And that's the inherent risk of The Lego Batman movie, in which Warner Bros. takes two of its most potent film-franchise … [Link]

Mashable » People are going crazy over this light therapy mask for acne

Sunday 5 February 0:00:00 UTC 2017

Neutrogena is changing the at-home acne treatment game with this LED Light Therapy Acne Mask. After cleansing your face, put on this mask for 10 minutes. The blue and red lights help fight acne. Don't forget to continue your daily skin care routine. Read more…More about Led Light Therapy Mask, Led Light Therapy, Breakouts, Inflammation, and Skin Treatment [Link]

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