#photos #flowers #pepperplant

~sniff, sniff.

#photos #flowers

StarTalk Live! Satisfying our Curiosity about Mars

StarTalk Live descended on The Bell House in Brooklyn, NY on 9/14/12 to celebrate the landing of the Curiosity Rover on Mars and the exploration of our solar system. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Eugene Mirman were joined by Dr. David Grinspoon, a co-investigator on the Radiation Assessment Detector, one of the experiments on the Mars Science Laboratory, and comedians Sarah Silverman and Jim Gaffigan (Mr. Universe). Part 1 of the show is focused on exploring the Red Planet. You’ll find out why Curiosity needed a nuclear power source… what an Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer does… what Mars has in common with Earth… what stratigraphy is… what gives Eugene Mirman joy… how scientists fall in love… and the real origin of the giant face on Mars.

We watched the YouTube video as pictured above.

#photos #tv #startalk

After Surgery, Surprise $117,000 Medical Bill From Doctor He Didn’t Know

In operating rooms and on hospital wards across the country, physicians and other health providers typically help one another in patient care. But in an increasingly common practice that some medical experts call drive-by doctoring, assistants, consultants and other hospital employees are charging patients or their insurers hefty fees. They may be called in when the need for them is questionable. And patients usually do not realize they have been involved or are charging until the bill arrives.

#medical

Maggie: I’ll only watch Bruce Lee if I have an assignment.

#photos #maggie #movies #brucelee

This is a Facebook problem not a “Safari in iOS 8” one.

File uploads work just fine on tcrbang.com on iOS 8 with Safari.

#socialmedia #fail #screenshots

Snapped this at the annual Art in Your Eye.

#photos #arts

#photos #bees

Apple Says iOS 8 Update Keeps Data Private, Even From the Police

“Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data,” the company said on the new webpage. “So it’s not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8.”

Christopher Soghoian, a principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union, said Apple’s new privacy policy reflected the revelations of the government surveillance programs revealed in documents leaked by Edward J. Snowden. “The public has said they want companies to put their privacy first, and Apple has listened,” Mr. Soghoian said.

A message from Tim Cook about Apple’s commitment to your privacy.

A few years ago, users of Internet services began to realize that when an online service is free, you’re not the customer. You’re the product. But at Apple, we believe a great customer experience shouldn’t come at the expense of your privacy.

Our business model is very straightforward: We sell great products. We don’t build a profile based on your email content or web browsing habits to sell to advertisers. We don’t “monetize” the information you store on your iPhone or in iCloud. And we don’t read your email or your messages to get information to market to you. Our software and services are designed to make our devices better. Plain and simple.

One very small part of our business does serve advertisers, and that’s iAd. We built an advertising network because some app developers depend on that business model, and we want to support them as well as a free iTunes Radio service. iAd sticks to the same privacy policy that applies to every other Apple product. It doesn’t get data from Health and HomeKit, Maps, Siri, iMessage, your call history, or any iCloud service like Contacts or Mail, and you can always just opt out altogether.

Finally, I want to be absolutely clear that we have never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services. We have also never allowed access to our servers. And we never will.

This topic was top of my list when I switched from Google and Android to Apple and iPhone.

Google wants to know everything and Apple wants to sell hardware.

#apple #google #privacynews

Ode to Stepfather

A young boy grows up with the influence of a tough stepfather figure.

This is also quite good. The bearded man may have harsh at times but he was there.

Only lasts about 15 minutes.

#podcasts