David Lidsky's Blog, page 3131
November 3, 2014
Not Good: New York's 911 Dispatch System Was Down For Nearly Two Hours
The city's troubled dispatch system has been down since 2:30 p.m. ET.
Welp. A source at FDNY tells DNAinfo that New York City's 911 dispatch system was down on Monday from roughly 2:30 p.m. ET to 4:10 p.m. ET. The system is typically used to prioritize 911 calls and assign out emergency teams, and while the computerized system was down, call dispatchers had to write down cases by hand and communicate with emergency services over the radio.
AMC To DirecTV Customers: Run, Don't Walk, To Protest Possible "Walking Dead" Blackout
A contract dispute could leave fans hanging halfway through season five.
AMC ran ads during Sunday night's airing of its number one hit, The Walking Dead, to alert viewers of its ongoing contract dispute with DirecTV, which could leave fans of the zombie horror show without new episodes, midway through season five.
Looking For The Cheapest Weed In The U.S.? Head To Oregon
But Washington isn't far behind.
Oregon is the state that holds claim to the cheapest weed in the union. On average, a gram of marijuana costs $9.78 in the Beaver State, a relative deal compared with the national average of $13.99.
Google Didn't Actually Say It Was Ditching "Don't Be Evil"
"Don't be evil" isn't even Google's actual mission statement.
"Don't be evil" was never part of Google's mission statement, but the motto has been something of a guiding light for the company as it expanded from a tiny search engine into a $380 billion firm specializing in everything from robotics to AI to cars. In an unenlightening article typical of guarded tech CEOs published a few days ago in the Financial Times, Google boss Larry Page laid out a few of the challenges the company faces as it continues to grow. At one point, when asked whether Google needs a new mission statement, Page responds, "I think we do, probably... We're still trying to work that out."
Frank Lloyd Wright Architecture School Might Not Lose Accreditation After All
Raise the money, and you can have your independent institution, Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation president tells students and alumni.
The embattled Frank Lloyd Wright Architecture School may have worked out a plan that will allow its master's program to continue.
Trouble, Trouble For Spotify: Taylor Swift Removes All Her Albums
Swift joins a growing list of artists who have refused to stream their music on Spotify.
David Byrne, The Black Keys, Thom Yorke, and now… Taylor Swift. The multiplatinum pop star joins a growing list of artists who have decided to withhold their music from Spotify, claiming its contentious pay-per-play revenue sharing model is unfair to the people creating music. Here's what happens when you try to access her archive on Spotify now:
Virgin Galactic's Fatal Crash May Have Been Due To An Unauthorized Tail Deployment
The National Transportation Safety Board said the plane's "feathering" system, which typically requires two steps, initiated on its own.
On Friday, shortly after being dropped from a cargo aircraft over the Mojave desert, Virgin Galactic's SpaceShip Two exploded at a height of 45,000 feet, seriously injuring pilot Pete Siebold, who managed to eject from the spacecraft before it disintegrated, and killing co-pilot Michael Alsbury. It casts an ominous fog over Virgin founder Richard Branson's budding space tourism efforts, where customers are invited to pay $250,000 per seat for the chance to flown to the edge of space and back. Branson was hoping to start commercial flights as early as next spring.
How Flickr Is Learning To See What's In Your Photos
More than just a fun hack, "Park or Bird?" gives us a glimpse at where deep learning and computer vision are headed.
Smart as they are, computers are still as blind as a bat. It's why search engines index the web using text and why you still have to fill out those annoying captchas. But with advances in machine learning and image recognition, computer vision is slowly getting to the point where it will be useful to us.
October 31, 2014
Inbox, Paper, And Sway: Why Tech Giants Are Suddenly Reinventing Their Core Apps
Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have all launched new takes on old apps this year, and it's not exactly a coincidence.
If you look through the App Store reviews for Facebook Paper, it doesn't take long to find the recurring theme.
A Sad, Digusting Pet Machine That You Can't Tear Your Eyes From
What to watch this weekend: Flesh Computer, a horror sci-fi short that would give David Cronenberg the creeps.
In a dilapidated apartment complex, a handyman tinkers with a grotesque project. It's a sort of a pet--globs of thick-skinned meat, spurting wires connected to electronic equipment, plopped across a few shelves in the back of a facilities office--but it's got personality! Look how its mouth-like orifice quivers when it breathes. Aw. This is Flesh Computer, a short film from writer/director Ethan Shaftel.
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