The Walking Dead: Bizzaro Version

Your favorite face-smashing, arrow-shooting, child-losing, shotgun-blasting misfits have so far survived the zombie apocalypse. But what if they didn’t?

Tonight is the Midseason Finale!

Elsewhere:

• ‘The Walking Dead’ season 2 episode 6 ‘Secrets’ recap: The truth comes out

#tv #thewalkingdead

The ultimate guide to the Facebook Edgerank algorithm

EdgeRank is the name of the algorithm which Facebook uses to determine what appears in their users’ news feeds. The news feed is Facebook’s ‘Killer App’. There is a plethora of information available to Facebook users, and the newsfeed is the order in which it appears.

It determines which of your connections is the most important to you and thus appears most frequently, and which kinds of content should appear higher than others. For anyone seeking to market a product or service on Facebook it’s essential you understand how this algorithm works.

Reading this gave me a better understanding of how Facebook sorts the News Feeds, not so much for marketing purposes, but for my own sanity.

Facebook also gave me sort control once again. Thank the gods, I need shit sorted by date/time.

I have a real hard time with Facebook deciding what’s a Top Story and what’s not. It probably doesn’t help that I won’t assist them with machine learning by clicking the blue triangle.

#facebook

Turn On the Server. It’s Cold Inside.

Two researchers at the University of Virginia and four at Microsoft Research explored this possibility in a paper presented this year at the Usenix Workshop on Hot Topics in Cloud Computing. The paper looks at how the servers - though still operated by their companies - could be placed inside homes and used as a source of heat. The authors call the concept the “data furnace.”

They acknowledge that it is more likely that data furnaces, if adopted, would be placed first in basements of office and apartment buildings, not in individual homes. But as a “thought-provoking exercise,” the authors give homes the bulk of their attention.

I suppose it’s all about trust before it could go mainstream.

#hardware

Is the Chevy Volt Fire-Prone? Feds Open an Inquiry

In May, a Volt that had been subjected to crash tests at a NHTSA test site burst into flames three weeks later while it was stored in a garage. Just a few days ago, a battery that had been damaged in another test two weeks earlier burst into flames. […]

During that test, the car’s battery was damaged and the coolant line was ruptured. When a fire involving the test vehicle occurred more than three weeks after it was crashed, the agency concluded that the damage to the vehicle’s lithium-ion battery during the crash test led to the fire.

Talk about your delayed reaction. Read the comments for mixed reactions.

#autonews

Global warming much less serious than thought

“Many previous climate sensitivity studies have looked at the past only from 1850 through today, and not fully integrated paleoclimate date, especially on a global scale,” says Andreas Schmittner, professor at the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State uni.

“When you reconstruct sea and land surface temperatures from the peak of the last Ice Age 21,000 years ago – which is referred to as the Last Glacial Maximum – and compare it with climate model simulations of that period, you get a much different picture.

Doomsday’ers seem to only look at modern times. The Earth has had a much bigger history.

Elsewhere:

• Last big chill suggests lower climate impact of carbon
• Global warming: Propaganda creates myth of disagreement

#naturerocks

inertia writes:

I watch
Two parallels, conforming; an interlude of working parts.
A subliminal paradox; a deliberate encounter,
That manifests into sweaty palms and awkward contortions.
Diminishing the craving; you’re on the platter.
A feeble want; desire.
A magnetic attraction
To blame this hunger on starvation;
To drink my fill of divine.
Slowly begins the ache from faltering nerve confusions.
Rapidly the pulses strike me…
You are my everything.
The fear of humiliation astounds me.
You watch as I tare my gaze from your mouth.
I want to kiss you.
Waiting for your approval, an exchange of pacifications.
The line, the entrance, the pigments that web in your eyes.
Or the others that form from veins as they travel through your skin and
Transmit vinegar in threw your touch.
Leaving me suffused in the remnants of grace;
You smell of wine and I of grapes.

I watch
Two armies, two columns, two surges echoing transmissions and receptions.
In a gallery, hanging from brass fixtures, I’m suspended from a
Mobile of organs and flesh.
Soon I will be an exhibit.
The eerie notion of being trapped inside your own head,
Being pricked by a pin while under the impression that it is a sword.
I embrace the illusion that
You are nothing but a statue that I’ve brought to life.
Replay the destruction for the ones left alive,
I don’t want to look with my own eyes;
I can’t refuse you.
I won’t lose you;
I want to taste you,
Waste you.
I want to peel you
Whole.

#writtenword

GOP Contenders: Don’t Slash Military Budget

On defense spending, former Massachusetts Gov. Romney said nearly $1 trillion in cuts are on the horizon for the Pentagon over the next decade, noting that is the same as the costs for the nation’s new health care law. He blamed Obama for that, adding, “We need to protect America and protect our troops and our military and stop the idea of Obamacare.”

I’m thinking the Obamacare idea is much better than spending billions on the military.

#politics

via Gif Bin

#animalkingdom #animatedGIFs

Inside Facebook’s Amazing Oregon Data Center

It’s the place where Facebook lives-and an awful lot of effort goes into making sure that the site loads up quickly and reliably every time every one of those 800 million active users pays a visit.

Cool hardware tech for those interested.

#hardware #facebook

The How I Manage My Email article was somewhat popular and so I’ve implemented some aggressive database caching. It’s not perfect and still needs more tuning but overall it’s a good start.

Also, the Submission editor got an upgrade as well and is currently using the latest Magic Editor. w00t.

In other news, I’ve got openSUSE 12.1 with Xfce up and running. The only real installation annoyance was that my software install/don’t install choices weren’t respected. I don’t want Libre Office installed but apparently openSUSE thought otherwise.

One tip: if you know you’re going to install, skip the Live CDs. They’re not worth the trouble. And neither is the GNOME Shell.

#tcr