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Seagate 10 TB Helium-Filled HDDs for Consumers

Posted by takyon on Wednesday July 20 2016, @06:21AM (#1978)
2 Comments

Melania Trump Copies Michelle Obama Speech About Hard Work

Posted by takyon on Tuesday July 19 2016, @05:04AM (#1977)
17 Comments

Qandeel Baloch: Pakistani social media star strangled by bro

Posted by takyon on Saturday July 16 2016, @10:23PM (#1973)
4 Comments
News

Pakistani QT killed by brother for what would be usual vanity stuff for Westerners on social media:

Qandeel Baloch: Pakistani social media star strangled by her brother

Qandeel Baloch, one of Pakistan's most famous and controversial social media stars, has been strangled to death in what police are calling a case of so called "honor" killing in the city of Multan in the country's province of Punjab. Azhar Akram, Multan's chief police officer, told CNN that Baloch was killed by her brother in her family's home after he had protested at the "kind of pictures she had been posting online."

[...] She had nearly 750,000 followers on Facebook, where her videos went viral but were also the subject of much debate and discomfort. In recent weeks, several of her posts encouraged her audience to challenge old practices of Pakistani society. In a July 14 post, Baloch referred to herself as a "modern day feminist."
Hamna Zubair, the culture editor of Pakistani newspaper Dawn, told CNN that she had received much criticism for carrying pieces on Baloch. One commentator asked her if she would be "reporting from a brothel" next.
Baloch tightly controlled her narrative in the media. She shared little about her personal life and was something of an enigma; nobody really knew which city she was based in.

She found fame and slipped into the national consciousness after declaring that she would perform a live strip tease online if Pakistan won a cricket match against arch rival India.
As her media profile grew, Zubair said Baloch became aware "of her power to deliver a certain message about being female in Pakistan," and that she had become a "burgeoning activist for increasing women's visibility" in the country. She made more headlines after posting selfies on her Instagram account with Mufti Abdul Qavi, a senior member of the clergy. The bizarre pairing led to frenzied media coverage and resulted in Qavis's suspension from his post on one of Pakistan's religious committees. After news of Baloch's death, while waiting to go on air on a local channel, Qavi told CNN that "her death should be a lesson for all those who point fingers at someone's honor."

[...] A couple of days ago, local media reported that Qandeel Baloch had married at 17 and left her husband about a year later. After the reports were published, she confirmed that her legal name was Fouzia Azeem and that she had been using an alias for safety reasons. Earlier this week Baloch had stirred up more controversy by releasing a kitschy music video on YouTube called "Ban," which mocked some of the restrictions that she had been subjected to. Behind the scenes, however, things were a bit different. Hassan Chaoudhry, a reporter for local paper Express Tribune, told CNN he had spoken to Baloch on the phone just two days ago, saying she was sobbing and "feared for her life." On the morning she was murdered, Qandeel had shared a picture of herself staring defiantly into the camera, wearing a pair of leopard print pants and a black tank top. She had written that she was a fighter. "I will bounce back," she said, adding she wanted to inspire women who have been "treated badly and dominated by society."

I Have a Job Interview Next Week

Posted by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday July 15 2016, @09:47PM (#1968)
11 Comments
Career & Education

I would be writing Mac OS X security software. That is, if I get the job.

A recruiter contacted me on LinkedIn quite a long time ago. I don't check LinkedIn very much at all. I apologized for my late response then asked her to email me. She and I spoke on the phone a few days ago, then I emailed her my resume this morning.

The manager responded just one hour after she submitted me. She said he was very enthusiastic.

She called to ask when I could interview on-site. I said "anytime". She must now ask the manager when he wants to see me, but she expects it will be late next week.

Happily I just bought a new dress shirt at Nordstrom Rack. It looks really sharp with a tie. I'm going to wear blue jeans with the dress shirt and tie; I used to have a suit, a really nice one that I enjoyed wearing, but I donated it to a thrift store because I got the impression that no one believed I was really a coder.

Real coders don't wear suits, see.

My shoes are thrashed. I'm hoping saddle soap and shoe polish will make it less apparent that I live in poverty.

My new apartment is working out well. Happily it is close to the best bus line in Vancouver. I can stay out late in Portland, then get home at one in the morning.

I've developed a problem with sleeping excessively. I'll be up for one day, sleep round the clock the next day, up for one day then round the clock again. In part it's because I have no commitments of any sort, in part it's because the bus doesn't run during the early morning.

If I go out after waking up, I have no problem staying awake, but if the bus isn't running there's no where to go. Eventually I go back to bed.

A friend is going to lend me a bicycle. That would enable me to go to a 24-hour restaurant if I wake up early in the morning.

I don't know yet but the kind of work I'd be doing, I expect they'd be cool with me working at night. It's uncommon that employers object to that, but sometimes they do.

I have grown weary of eating rice and beans.

Crank Alert: Hydrino Based Power

Posted by takyon on Wednesday July 13 2016, @06:17AM (#1965)
3 Comments

The Sex Scandal Blowing Up Oakland's Police Department

Posted by takyon on Friday July 01 2016, @11:55PM (#1944)
5 Comments
News

http://www.vice.com/read/oakland-underage-sex-work-scandal

Not so long ago it was possible to point to Oakland as a police reform success story. In the last decade, the cops have gone from conducting an average of 3,000 searches without probable cause every year to 280 in 2015. Officers are now required to wear body cameras. After decades of abuse, violence, and corruption, the police department seemed to finally be changing.

In the last few weeks, though, a scandal has emerged that threatens to tear the department apart. In brief, 14 Oakland police officers are currently under investigation for sleeping with an 18-year-old sex worker—three of them when she was 17, thus allegedly committing rape and sex trafficking under California law. The woman, using the alias Celeste Guap, told the East Bay Express earlier this month that she was having sex with the cops for money and protection; she had been given a friend's arrest history and information about undercover prostitution stings.

Hints of the scandal surfaced last year, after a suicide note written one of the officers involved, Brendan O'Brien, mentioned Guap, prompting an investigation. But the higher-ups allegedly dragged their feet, and the supposed cover-up has only widened the sordid scandal has since expanded. (According to Guap's later comments to the media, she's actually had sex with "more than 30 officers" from multiple agencies around the Bay Area.)

The shocking and salacious events were the catalyst to Oakland appointing four police chiefs in two weeks. Initially, Sean Whent, who was promoted to top cop at the end of a similarly messy 2013 shuffle that saw three new police chiefs in three days, got canned because he allegedly knew about Guap sleeping with Oakland cops but didn't press for a speedy and public investigation.

Don't Blame Life Extension for Right-Wing Fox News

Posted by takyon on Thursday June 23 2016, @10:44PM (#1933)
10 Comments
/dev/random

A funny article I found on NBF:

Do not "blame" life extension for Rupert Murdoch and Fox News, If Murdoch died Fox would still be right wing

Which is a response to: Bonus Level: The World's Most Powerful Humans are Getting Another 10-15 Years on Earth

A common argument against life extension is that it would allow the elites to live indefinitely, accruing more power, wealth, and influence for themselves. To that I say: If you're so worried about it, stop waiting for them to die, and start killing them.

"Bama Camera" Arrested After 1st Amendment Audit Call Flood

Posted by takyon on Tuesday June 14 2016, @01:11AM (#1924)
7 Comments
News

Alabama ACLU and Newspaper Criticize Police for Arresting Citizen Journalist by Bama Camera

The Alabama police department that had a man arrested on a felony charge of jamming up their emergency lines – even though he did not make a single call – is now taking heat from the local ACLU as well as the local newspaper.

But the Wetumpka Police Department is still sticking to its guns, threatening to arrest anybody else who posts their non-emergency phone number of (334) 567-5321.

They claim that by calling that number, it somehow leads turns into a 911 call, which they claim makes it difficult to respond to actual emergencies.

But all they were doing were exercising their First Amendment right to petition for redress of grievances by complaining about how officers ripped a camera out of Keith Golden’s hands for recording the police department from public property.

First Amendment Audit (Wetumpka PD) "I don't care about your 1st Amendment Rights"

Arrest Update by Bama Camera
**UPDATE**FPS-USMS-BAM CAMERA by News Now Houston

Teaching asylum seekers how to interact with women

Posted by takyon on Wednesday June 08 2016, @11:21PM (#1917)
6 Comments
Career & Education

Too spicy for Soylent: Norway teaches migrants about Western women

Should Western relationship norms be taught to migrants? The BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme attended a controversial class in Norway that aims to teach asylum seekers how to interact with women.

"When you move to another country, there will be different cultural codes compared to what you are used to," says instructor Margareth Berg. "And that will be codes that are not written or spoken about. Somebody has got to tell them what is normal behaviour."

In 2009, a spate of rapes by migrant men in Norway prompted the introduction of the controversial classes for refugees. Incidents of mass sexual assault by gangs of men in the German city of Cologne at the new year shone a light on this approach. Now, other European countries are thinking of introducing similar training.

The class in Haugesund, in west Norway, is no longer just about rape prevention. Now, it includes discussions around communicating with the opposite sex, boundaries, domestic violence, and what to do if you witness a sexual assault. Public awareness videos about rape are also shown.

It lasts four hours, and is not compulsory - although many refugees take it as part of a series of courses offered to new arrivals, including language courses and help with finding work. In this class, most are Syrian, but there are also some Iraqis and Afghans.

Desperate, Dirty Millennials

Posted by takyon on Tuesday June 07 2016, @12:08PM (#1915)
8 Comments
/dev/random

(NSFW) http://www.vice.com/read/theres-now-a-porn-genre-about-how-broke-millennials-are-456

Vice, keeping a hand on the chest to feel the millennial pulse.