From: http://nintendoeverything.com/
by Kimberley Mok
from http://www.treehugger.com/
Photos: Jan Gunneweg
From: http://wzlx.radio.com/
From: http://www.prefixmag.com/
We have some interesting news from the Beastie Boys camp for the second week in a row. After reporting last week that they were nominated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, we're learning today that the trio now has their own pair of Converse shoes. The $200 kicks are super-limited and feature previously unreleased photographs taken by Sunny Bak during the Licensed to Ill tour in 1986.
And should you opt to throw down a pair of benjamins on the shoes, you can feel good about your decision because 10 percent of the sale goes to Prop 8 Films. According to their website, Prop 8 Films is "dedicated to creating socially conscious documentary films for a wide audience throughout the world."
You can buy the shows now on eBay.
Michelle and I are saddened to learn of the passing of Steve Jobs. Steve was among the greatest of American innovators - brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it.
By building one of the planet’s most successful companies from his garage, he exemplified the spirit of American ingenuity. By making computers personal and putting the internet in our pockets, he made the information revolution not only accessible, but intuitive and fun. And by turning his talents to storytelling, he has brought joy to millions of children and grownups alike. Steve was fond of saying that he lived every day like it was his last. Because he did, he transformed our lives, redefined entire industries, and achieved one of the rarest feats in human history: he changed the way each of us sees the world.
The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented. Michelle and I send our thoughts and prayers to Steve’s wife Laurene, his family, and all those who loved him.
From: http://gizmodo.com/
This just blew my mind. Back in 1987 Apple made a video about a future computer that would have a touchscreen with a computerize assistant you could talk to. They were off in their prediction by only 18 days. Wow.
In 1987, former Apple CEO John Sculley wrote about a concept called the Knowledge Navigator. It was a far out idea that was way ahead of its time. Its time, evidently, was today. The Knowledge Navigator features a digital assistant that is almost identical to Siri, which just launched hours ago, though Siri is a disembodied voice, not a guy in a bow tie. Less bow tie is always good. Check the video and tell me it's not eerily similar.
Here's the kicker, though. Andy Baio of Waxy.org noted, "The date on the professor's calendar is September 16, and he's looking for a 2006 paper written 'about five years ago,' setting the year as 2011." September 16th, 2011. So, twenty-four years ago Apple predicted that there would be a magical, touchscreen device, that could do video calls, that would have a digital assistant you could interact with, and that would pull down data from a massive network (coughTheCloudcough)... and they were only eighteen days off? That's fucking crazy.
What kind of dark magic is at work here? Does Apple have a time machine (other than their product, Time Machine) or a crystal ball? Is that how they rule computers? Time travel? Absolutely nutso. [Waxy.org and BYTECellar]
Update: To clarify, the video is not from 1987. The video was made in the mid-90's. The 1987 date was when John Sculley wrote about Knowledge Navigator is his book Odyssey. Sorry confusion be banished!
UPDATE 2: To avoid confusion and on the advice of Andy Baio, I've swapped in an edited segment of the video. To be clear, this video was produced in 1987. The previous video was produced in the mid-90's and contained this 1987 video in it. So they're still time-traveling warlocks. Everybody got that? Okay, good. Thanks, Andy!
"It's fantastic to see this project finally come to fruition. Blackfriars Bridge is an ideal location for solar; a new, iconic large roof space, right in the heart of London. Station buildings and bridges are fixed parts of our urban landscape and it is great to see that this one will be generating renewable energy every day into the future. Unknown to most, there are many hundreds of buildings now powered by solar in the capital as investment in this technology increases. For people to see that solar power is working is a vital step towards a clean energy future."Perhaps even more encouraging is the news that this is not just a case of slapping on solar panels and calling it green. The panels themselves are just one part of a much broader retrofit of the station that includes installation of rainwater harvesting systems and "sunpipe" solar day lighting.
From: Wired.co.uk
By Mark Brown
Researchers from the University of Dallas in Texas have hijacked one of nature’s most intriguing phenomena — the mirage — to make an invisibility cloak. It can hide objects from view, works best underwater and even has a near-instant on/off switch.
To understand how it works, you need to first grasp the basics of the mirage effect. This unusual experience, sometimes seen in the desert or on hot roads during the summer, can trick your brain into seeing objects that aren’t really there.
The iTree is a top-quality iPhone and iPod docking station made out of a simple tree trunk. This is hollowed out using a special technique and specialized tools, expertly proportioned to produce optimum sound quality.
By NIGEL DUARA, Associated Press
from http://www.aol.com/
EUGENE, Ore. -- Sometime after midnight on a moonlit rural Oregon highway, a state trooper checking a car he had just pulled over found less than an ounce of pot on one passenger: A chatty 72-year-old woman blind in one eye.
She insisted the weed was legal and was approved by the U.S. government.
The trooper and his supervisor were doubtful. But after a series of calls to the U.S. Attorney's Office, the Drug Enforcement Agency and her physician, the troopers handed her back the card - and her pot.
For the past three decades, Uncle Sam has been providing a handful of patients with some of the highest grade marijuana around. The program grew out of a 1976 court settlement that created the country's first legal pot smoker.
Advocates for legalizing marijuana or treating it as a medicine say the program is a glaring contradiction in the nation's 40-year war on drugs - maintaining the federal ban on pot while at the same time supplying it.
Government officials say there is no contradiction. The program is no longer accepting new patients, and public health authorities have concluded that there was no scientific value to it, Steven Gust of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse told The Associated Press.
At one point, 14 people were getting government pot. Now, there are four left.
The government has only continued to supply the marijuana "for compassionate reasons," Gust said.
One of the recipients is Elvy Musikka, the chatty Oregon woman. A vocal marijuana advocate, Musikka relies on the pot to keep her glaucoma under control. She entered the program in 1988, and said that her experience with marijuana is proof that it works as a medicine.
They "won't acknowledge the fact that I do not have even one aspirin in this house," she said, leaning back on her couch, glass bong cradled in her hand. "I have no pain."
Marijuana is getting a look from states around the country considering calls to repeal decades-old marijuana prohibition laws. There are 16 states that have medical marijuana programs. In the three West Coast states, advocates are readying tax-and-sell or other legalization programs.
Marijuana was legal for much of U.S. history and was recognized as a medicine in 1850. Opposition to it began to gather and, by 1936, 48 states had passed laws regulating pot, fearing it could lead to addiction.
Anti-marijuana literature and films, like the infamous "Reefer Madness," helped fan those fears. Eventually, pot was classified among the most harmful of drugs, meaning it had no usefulness and a high potential for addiction.
In 1976, a federal judge ruled that the Food and Drug Administration must provide Robert Randall of Washington, D.C. with marijuana because of his glaucoma - no other drug could effectively combat his condition. Randall became the nation's first legal pot smoker since the drug's prohibition.
Eventually, the government created its program as part of a compromise over Randall's care in 1978, long before a single state passed a medical marijuana law. What followed were a series of petitions from people like Musikka to join the program.
President George H.W. Bush's administration, getting tough on crime and drugs, stopped accepting new patients in 1992. Many of the patients who had qualified had AIDS, and they were dying.
The AP asked the agency that administers the program, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, for documents showing how much marijuana has been sent to patients since the first patient in 1976.
The agency supplied full data for 2005-2011, which showed that during that period the federal government distributed more than 100 pounds of high-grade marijuana to patients.
Agency officials said records related to the program before 2005 had been destroyed, but were able to provide scattered records for a couple of years in the early 2000s.
The four patients remaining in the program estimate they have received a total of 584 pounds from the federal government over the years. On the street, that would be worth more than $500,000.
All of the marijuana comes from the University of Mississippi, where it is grown, harvested and stored.
Dr. Mahmoud ElSohly, who directs the operation, said the marijuana was a small part of the crop the university has been growing since 1968 for all cannabis research in the U.S. Among the studies are the pharmaceutical uses for synthetic mimics of pot's psychoactive ingredient, THC.
ElSohly said the four patients are getting pot with about 3 percent THC. He said 3 percent is about the range patients have preferred in blind tests.
The marijuana is then sent from Mississippi to a tightly controlled North Carolina lab, where they are rolled into cigarettes. And every month, steel tins with white labels are sent to Florida and Iowa. Packed inside each is a half-pound of marijuana rolled into 300 perfectly-wrapped joints.
With Musikka living in Oregon, she is entitled to more legal pot than anyone in the nation because she's also enrolled in the state's medical marijuana program. Neither Iowa nor Florida has approved marijuana as a medicine, so the federal pot is the only legal access to the drug for the other three patients.
The three other people in the program range in ages and doses of marijuana provided to them, but all consider themselves an endangered species that, once extinct, can be brushed aside by a federal government that pretends they don't exist.
All four have become crusaders for the marijuana-legalization movement. They're rock stars at pro-marijuana conferences, sought-after speakers and recognizable celebrities in the movement.
Irv Rosenfeld, a financial adviser in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., has been in the program since November 1982. His condition produces painful bone tumors, but he said marijuana has replaced prescription painkillers.
Rosenfeld likes to tell this story: In the mid-1980s, the federal government asked his doctor for an update on how Rosenfeld was doing. It was an update the doctor didn't believe the government was truly interested in. He had earlier tried to get a copy of the previous update, and was told the government couldn't find it, Rosenfeld said.
So instead of filling out the form, the doctor responded with a simple sentence written in large, red letters: "It's working."
From: http://www.digitaltrends.com/
By: 
Andrew Couts
From: http://www.cbsnews.com/
Obama: Awlaki death "major blow" to terror
Obama, GOP leaders praise killing of Awlaki
Who was Anwar al-Awlaki?The U.S. and counterterrorism officials all spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss intelligence matters.
Multiple terror plots linked to Anwar al-Awlaki
Video: Anwar al-Awlaki urges attacks on Americans
2nd U.S. jihadist reported dead in drone attackAl-Awlaki had been under observation for three weeks while they waited for the right opportunity to strike, one U.S. official said.
A look at al Qaeda's Web magazine
Special Section: The Killing of Osama Bin LadenWord from the U.S. of his death comes after the government of Yemen reported that al-Awlaki was targeted and killed Friday about five miles from the town of Khashef, some 87 miles from the capital Sanaa.
Pictures: Terror attacks since 9/11
From: http://www.complex.com/
By Jian DeLeon
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When Nancy Grace 
This just blew my mind. Back in 1987 
