David Lidsky's Blog, page 3082
January 9, 2015
The Global Supercomputing War On Ebola Starts With Your Laptop
Download this software and your device's spare processing power will be donated to researching treatments for the deadly Ebola virus.
You probably leave your computer and phone on when you're not using them. And even when you are using your laptop, you're not constantly pushing it to use all of its processing power. A number of projects have exploited that latent potential to search for aliens, solve unsolved conjectures in mathematics, and run climate change simulations. Now, your idle devices can join the international search for a treatment for Ebola, at no cost of time, money, or effort to you.
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Why Honda Is Only Being Fined $70 Million For Hiding Consumer Deaths
The max fine that the NHTSA can impose in such cases is capped at $35 million, and the sum total was actually made of two separate fines.
The $70 million fine which the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration slapped on Honda this week for failing to report more than 1,700 accidents that took place since 2003 was a record, but that record may not last for long—it might be a symptom of regulators finally waking up automakers' failures to protect consumers from dangerous technical faults that they likely knew about.
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Watch How The U.S. Stole Land From Native Americans
This land was not our land.
A new interactive map from the science and humanities magazine Aeon tells a vital story that Americans tend to conveniently forget: this land was not our land. Hit "play," and you'll see every cession of land from native peoples between 1784 and today. From the birth of our country to today, we seized 1.5 billion acres of native land.
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First Look: The Making Of Coldplay's Choose Your Own Fate Video For "Ink"
The creators reveal how they developed the 300-plus possible stories that viewers can experience with the song.
In November, pop-rock titans Coldplay released a gorgeous and engaging interactive video for "Ink," a single from their chart-topping 2014 album Ghost Stories. The animated clip, developed by Los Angeles design agency Blind, is a choose-your-own-adventure-style story about a lost traveler given multiple opportunities to chase his elusive lover or go his own way. In all, there are more than 300 possible paths and stories a viewer can experience.
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Yahoo Steals Search Share From Google Following Deal With Mozilla
Google's share of search drops to 75%, its lowest since 2008.
After Yahoo replaced Google as the default search engine on Mozilla's newest Firefox browser in November, it didn't take long for the deal brokered by CEO Marissa Mayer to pay off.
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As "Inherent Vice" Goes Big, Here's Your Crash Course On Paul Thomas Anderson's Seductively Surreal Universe
Buckets of frogs. Flying bowling balls. Rick Springfield. Anderson is the master of capturing our messy, strange reality.
Navigating Paul Thomas Anderson's universe is like trying to catch a bucketful of frogs while blasted on Acapulco Gold. (Hang tight, all will become clear.)
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Stay Calm, But Radiation From Fukushima Has Crossed The Ocean To North America
The nuclear disaster took its time coming to America, but now it's here. (Don't worry, it's not dangerous. But call us if you develop super powers).
In the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, a lot of disconcerting rumors about its global consequences swirled around the Internet, ranging from predictions of the complete irradiation of the Western United States to the destruction of the country's seafood supply. The truth, thankfully, isn't quite so dire.
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The Worst Product At CES Looks Like It Was Designed By Michael Bay
Meet the Mad Catz L.Y.N.X. 9, a $300 game controller for smartphones and tablets that almost no one should want to hold, let alone own.
Every year in January, a colossus stoops over Las Vegas, squats, and heaves its bowels, emptying a fecundity of new gadgets into the shithole of the Mojave Desert. It's not much of an honor to be asked to declare any of these unnecessary new gizmos as being the single worst design of CES. In fact, it's the equivalent of being asked to judge a farting contest in the amoebic dysentery ward. But after much consideration, I have to declare Mad Catz L.Y.N.X. 9 the winner of Co.Design's first annual "Worst Design of CES" award.
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Jazzercize Has A Hardcore New Logo To Shake The '80s Vibe
Remember Jazzercise? It lives! And it just rebranded itself as sexy, hardcore fitness.
Jazzercise, the king of 1980s aerobics, has introduced a new logo to shake the leotard look. It's part of a new Jazzercise brand identity that's meant to be "edgy, intense, hard-hitting and modern" in what's no doubt a response to the meteoric rise of Zumba and CrossFit help fuel growth and protect marketshare.
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January 8, 2015
Google Launches A Beautifully Designed Help Page
Google is serious about security. And design.
From a company so famously blasé about design that its logo was created by its founder messing around on Photoshop, Google recently has been gaining all kinds of plaudits for its aesthetic taste.
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