Couple Married 72 Years Dies Holding Hands
From KCCI:
“They brought them in the same room in intensive care and put them together — and they were holding hands in ICU. They were not really responsive,” said Dennis Yeager.
Gordon died at 3:38 p.m. holding hands with his wife as the family they built surrounded them.
At 4:38 p.m., exactly one hour after Gordon died, Norma passed too.
“Neither one of them would’ve wanted to be without each other. I couldn’t figure out how it was going to work,” said Donna Sheets. “We were very blessed, honestly, that they went this way.”
I do not normally consider myself the sentimental type, but that is damn near tear-worthy right there. (via Kottke)
What I Learned by Being a Migrant Sex Worker in Japan
Rhacel Salazar Parrenas for Bloomberg (Part 1 and Part 2):
In the clubs, men bond over their ability to objectify hostesses with no admonishment. In the place where I worked, customers usually commented on the appearance of the hostess assigned to their table immediately after being introduced to her, expressing either approval or disapproval, and in some cases rejecting her, telling the club manager to replace her with someone more attractive. Sometimes customers would request a hostess with a specific physical feature, notably large breasts.
I often heard customers describe me as “futote,” meaning fat, and “kuroi,” meaning dark. I could not retort because customers patronize hostess clubs not only to avoid rejection but to experience male superiority. Hostesses can express only positive comments about clients. As one of my co-workers observed of our clients, “No one wants to listen to them. No one tells them they are good-looking. No one admires them. That is why they go to the club.” Hostesses try to generate sales by bolstering the masculinity of their customers.
There is no great secret here. The average male does not visit this type of establishment out of some underlying desire to objectify women. Rather, men are looking for attention they are unable to receive elsewhere.
These bars make it easy for a man to walk in and obtain immediate gratification through attention, something they would otherwise have to spend a great deal of effort on. It is almost like the fast-food equivalent to picking up chicks, except in this case the dream ceases once the man exits the premises.
The bottom line is that most men are merely looking for the idea of meeting a girl. It has nothing to do with objectification, feeling superior or anything evil. Instead, it is merely a way to have an enjoyable few hours with a companion who provides the attention otherwise unattainable elsewhere. In rare cases this involves sex, but mostly it involves social drinking and conversation. It is patently harmless for both the worker and the customer.
Like with everything else in life, the 99% are persecuted for the crimes and stupidity of the 1%.
NYTimes Sues The Federal Government For Refusing To Reveal Its Secret Interpretation Of The PATRIOT Act
From techdirt:
NY Times have now sued the federal government for not revealing its interpretation of the PATRIOT Act, pointing out that if parts of the interpretation contain classified material, the Justice Department should black that out and reveal the rest, but simply refusing to reveal the interpretation entirely is a violation of the Freedom of Information Act. You can bet that the feds will do everything they can to get out of this lawsuit, just as they did with the various lawsuits concerning warrantless wiretapping.
This will be an important case to watch. An unclassified law with a classified interpretation appears to be a pretty egregious misuse of the classification system for the mere purpose of witholding information from the public.
For a president who promised a new era of transparency, Obama has a pretty shitty track record even though his administration continues to be lauded for their work on this subject. Someone needs to open their eyes and see the damage they are causing the nation - damage rivaling GWB at this point.
At a Tokyo radiation hotspot, weirdness abounds
From BoingBoing:Officials were worried this week, when they discovered a radiation hotspot in Tokyo, kicking off readings as high as 3.35 microsieverts per hour. (For context, a dental x-ray is about 5 microsieverts. This wasn’t a massive amount of radiation, but it was concerning. The AP reports that readings of that level have been found in the Fukushima evacuation zone.)
The good news: This has nothing to do with Fukushima. It turned out to be an extremely localized hotspot, and officials found the real source nearby.
The bad news: The real source turned out to be something the AP is describing as “mystery bottles” stored under someone’s house. No. Really.
Now that is some really crazy shit. I know people are freaking big time about these weird localized hotspots. To find one not caused by Fukushima is pretty distressing. It should be interesting to see how the local government deals with this.
Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died. As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, “I’m not glad he’s dead, but I’m glad he’s gone.” Nobody deserves to have to die - not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs’ malign influence on people’s computing.
Richard Stallman, self-appointed free software movement spokesman and toejam lover, on Steve Jobs’ death.
What an asshole. (via The Loop)
You hear people talk about television actors as the people we don’t know who we let into our homes, since they show up in our dens each night. Every Apple event, Steve showed up in my home too, wherever my Mac was. I would read the liveblog first, then watch the video as soon as Apple made it available. I’ve watched countless interviews with the man, too. So part of the reason I think his death hits me hard is because I really do feel like I knew him—even if he didn’t know me.
Why Steve Jobs’s death feels so sad by Lex Friedman of Macworld.
Friedman captures the essence of how I feel by eloquently articulating why so many people felt a connection with Steve Jobs, a man they never once met. I took a stab at translating my emotions into words but completely missed this outstanding theory.
How Steve’s Death Has Affected Me
Since I learned of Steve’s death I have been struggling to write how I feel about it. I know deep down in my heart how I feel, but translating those emotions to words has been challenging.
I was at work when I learned of Steve’s passing. It was around 8:45am when I heard. We were in the middle of an “assist visit” from a group of auditors rifling through our networks and network documentation. I was sitting at my desk when a colleague walked through our office door and screamed my way, “did you hear the news?”
“What news?” I had been engrossed with work, and although we had two televisions tuned to the MLB playoffs, I had not been paying attention.
“He’s dead. Steve Jobs just died dude.”
“Shut the fuck up dude,” I screamed back, while a small chill slowly crawled down my spine. I did not really believe my colleague. We are always joking about various things so it was not out of the realm of possibility for someone to say something this fucked up. My co-workers like to tease me about Apple, so I thought this was just another one of those pranks.
“No, I’m serious. It’s on the news. He just died!”
About all I could muster up was a, “whoa, that fucking crazy.” I quickly switched to the internets and jumped over to CNN. Sure enough, they had one of their “breaking news” alerts at the top of the site. It was short: Apple Co-Founder, Steve Jobs has passed away. Twitter was overflowing with tweets about Steve’s passing
As a human being hearing the news of another’s death, a wave of sadness immediately washed over me. I had no personal interaction with Steve but I was still upset to hear he passed. Although his health was in a precarious position, his death felt sudden.
For reasons I am still unable to fully comprehend today, as the reality of the situation set in, this huge wave of sadness hit me as if I were being smacked in the face. I believe I did a pretty good job hiding my emotions at work – something I think I am good at overall – but I am still pretty upset and even more confused. In fact, I do not normally consider myself an emotional person. I have only ever felt this way when a family member has passed away.
But why so much emotion for a man I have never met? Anecdotally, I do not appear to be the only one who feels this way. Many people are just as surprised and saddened by this loss. I have read a good deal of tweets and facebook quips from people who feel similarly.
Even as I write this I can feel the emotions. For some peculiar reason I am hugely sad to see Steve pass. This is a man I had never met once in my life but who is seemingly having a huge impact on my emotions.
I have never felt this way when someone I did not personally know has passed away. This is the type of impact Steve had on the world, on people, even without personal interaction. He touched people’s lives in ways that others have never come close to. Surely this is why Apple is so successful at creating products with such emotional appeal. Steve’s best product was himself.
Steve Jobs will be missed. Rest in peace m’friend.
Steve knew that his people were his company. And while he made us work hard, never settle, never accept mediocrity, he also made us feel like people. Like we were as much a part of Apple’s success as he was.
The Rundown by Matt Drance.
Although this quote does not entirely reflect the tone of the story it is worth pointing out. This is quality rarely seen in our leaders. Most fail to recognize the importance of their people, falsely assuming leadership is only responsible for the success of a company. If only more of our leaders were like Steve.
Beautifully simple tribute to Steve Jobs which has been passed around the internets since the world learned of Steve’s passing.
Steve Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple Computers and the only American in the country who had any clue what the fuck he was doing, died Wednesday at the age of 56.
Last American Who Knew What The Fuck He Was Doing Dies.
Only on The Onion.
Steve Jobs, the visionary in the black turtleneck who co-founded Apple in a Silicon Valley garage, built it into the world’s leading tech company and led a mobile-computing revolution with wildly popular devices such as the iPhone, died Wednesday. He was 56.
Steve Jobs, Apple founder, dies.
RIP.
Steve Job had a huge impact on so many lives. He will be missed.
Now Mr. Haynesworth, 46, is asking for full exoneration on all of the rape convictions, although DNA from the other two cases is not available. But the circumstantial evidence supporting Mr. Haynesworth’s claims of innocence is so powerful that along with his own lawyers, the prosecutors from both jurisdictions where the rapes occurred support his efforts, as well as the attorney general for the commonwealth, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli.
With no one arguing against exoneration, most judges would be expected to congratulate Mr. Haynesworth on his new life, perhaps with an apology as well, and send him into daylight and freedom. But in July, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals of Virginia said, in essence, “Not so fast.” The court called for additional briefs in the case, which will be heard again on Tuesday by all of the judges of the court.
Cleared of Rape but Lacking Full Exoneration by John Schwartz from the NY Times.
In what world does it make sense where the DNA and circumstantial evidence, defense attorney’s and prosecutors all agree this man should be fully exonerated yet the Court of Appeals opts not to allow this man to be immediately cleared until after there are additional briefs? Is this what we call “justice” in America now?
At least eight different kinds of computer virus including Trojan horse, which steals key information from infected computer hardware, were found at Mitsubishi Heavy’s main office or production sites, the Yomiuri said. It is the country’s biggest defense contractor, winning 215 deals worth 260 billion yen ($3.4 billion) from Japan’s Ministry of Defense in the year to last March, or nearly a quarter of the ministry’s spending that year.
Japan’s defence industry hit by its first cyber attack from Reuters.
I find the “first cyber attack” claim to be pretty dubious, especially considering it is 2011. These so-called “cyber attacks” happen every day. That Mitsubishi is finally capable of detecting and confirming an intrusion is terrifying. Hopefully the other defense contractors have a much better grasp on information technology and information assurance practices.
This situation is only going to get worse.
Lastly, I wish the article did not refer to what they found as a virus. It is better described as malware. Calling what was found a virus gives the impression that installing some form of anti-virus software would have detected the malicious activity.
Nothing could be further from reality.
A glimpse of North Korea from Boston.com.
All of the imagery is absolutely stunning.
An Ohio woman said Tuesday that she endured nearly four hours in police custody that included being forced off an airplane in handcuffs, strip-searched and interrogated at Detroit’s airport on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks — all, she believes, because of her Middle Eastern appearance.
Shoshana Hebshi, 35, told The Associated Press she was one of three people removed from a Denver-to-Detroit Frontier Airlines flight after landing Sunday afternoon. Authorities say fighter jets escorted the plane after its crew reported that two people were spending a long time in a bathroom — the two men sitting next to Hebshi in the 12th row.
Passenger: Was Cuffed, Searched Over ‘Appearance’ at NPR.
The terrorists have won.
