Uncategorized

Many thanks to Scoople for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed on The Loop. It’s an app I’ve been using for some time.

Cast your vote on the most relevant Apple stories of the day. Predict how others in the community will vote. Win when you’re right. Get the free Scoople app.

They say silence is golden – but there’s a room in the U.S that’s so quiet it becomes unbearable after a short time.The longest that anyone has survived in the ‘anechoic chamber’ at Orfield Laboratories in South Minneapolis is just 45 minutes.

Bryan Larrick: The downfall of newspaper publishing is not something to shrug one’s shoulders at, like with Blockbuster falling apart. It is a genuine tragedy.

Infowars:

A bill already passed by the Senate and set to be rubber stamped by the House would make it mandatory for all new cars in the United States to be fitted with black box data recorders from 2015 onwards.Although the text of legislation states that such data would remain the property of the owner of the vehicle, the government would have the power to access it in a number of circumstances.Given the fact that the same bill also includes a controversial provision that would empower the IRS to revoke passports of citizens merely accused of owing over $50,000 in back taxes, stripping them of their mobility rights, could the mandatory black boxes or a similar technology be used for the same purpose?

The story gets a little hyperbolic with nightmare scenarios but some will still find this bill worrisome – I do.

New York Times:

On Wednesday morning, three vintage warplanes were trussed up and hoisted over the port side of the ship for a barge ride up the Hudson River to a museum near Schenectady, N.Y. They had to go to make way for the new star attraction: Enterprise, the prototype for the space shuttles that is due to arrive in New York City next week.

Those lucky enough to live in Washington DC saw the Shuttle Discovery fly over earlier this week. The Enterprise will do her own New York City fly over on Monday, weather permitting.

New York Times:

All 32 sports at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London will be streamed live at nbcolympics.com.“The hot topic is always, ‘Why don’t you show all your sports live?’” said Rick Cordella, vice president and general manager of NBC Sports Digital Media. “We wanted to take care of that.”During the London Games, nbcolympics.com will be able to handle as many live streams as there are live events. “Whatever is on schedule that day,” Cordella said, “if cameras are on it, we’ll stream it.”

Great news for those of us who like sports that aren’t considered marque events. I’m a big fan of little or never shown Summer Olympic sports like Fencing, Judo and Velodrome Cycling.

Some great pics of one of the greatest cities in the world.

The Next Web:

This video is from the Danish TV show Dumt & Farligt. It takes a Phantom Flex, a camera that can run anywhere from $50k-$150k, and applies it to some of the silliest and most awesome 2500 Frames-per-second slow-motion footage I’ve seen.

Talk about “fun with explosives and a high speed camera”!

Drew said he felt sad and wanted to help his father with medical bills.“He is so important to me. We like to play with each other. Lots of times we like to play games,” Drew told a local television station.

I don’t mind telling you that this story pulled at my heart strings.

The Telegraph:

The 104 residents of the village will cast their votes later this week on whether to alter the name.“People are now willing to discuss changes to the spelling of the name,” Franz Meindl, the village’s mayor, said in a television interview. “But first all Fuckingers have to agree on whether want to change it or not.” For centuries the tiny village in northern Austria lived life in happy obscurity, but life changed when US troops, stationed in the area at the end of the Second World War, discovered it, and since then the village’s name has been a constant source of amusement for tourists and irritation for locals.At least 13 £250 road signs bearing the village’s name have been stolen, and the sight of semi-naked women posing for photographs beside signs has become a common sight.

Brings to mind the “interestingly” named Canadian town of Dildo.

You’re welcome.

Photographer, Mac and iOS developer David Smith took these shots of the Space Shuttle. Incredible.

The Loop reader Eric Breese shot this video from the South East corner of the Lincoln Memorial and sent it to me today. […]

“Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life.”

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’ criticism of how Comcast meters bandwidth usage of its own Xfinity app on Xbox 360 has gotten the attention of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

ThinkGeek:

Short of whipping out a skillet and doing a quick fry-up, how can we enjoy that wonderful meaty sweet and smokey aroma without the temptation and subsequent belt-busting and heart-clogging richness of actual cured-pork ingestion? Bacon scented candles, of course!These premium scented candles are long-lasting and made from actual rendered bacon fat using a top-secret process that preserves bacon’s natural aromas and essential oils.

Mmm…Bacon. I have to imagine the only people who would buy these would be single guys. Would any woman allow you to fill up her home with the smell, however delicious, of bacon?

Hearing the commotion, Cisco came from the back yard and into the driveway, barking at the officer, as any dog would do. Mike’s hands in the air, a gun pointed at him, he was afraid for his life, and therefore could not move or attempt to quiet or restrain Cisco. He told the officer that Cisco would not bite him, to please not shoot his dog. Almost immediately, a bullet was put into Cisco’s chest, killing him instantly.

The cop was responding to a domestic dispute call, went to the wrong address and shot this poor guy’s dog.

Bill Amend:

Announcing my simultaneous first steps into the worlds of e-books and self-publishing. I’m pretty excited. If you’re an iPad user who likes FoxTrot or who has a kid who likes FoxTrot, these are for you.I’m calling them FoxTrot Pad Packs, because I like the metaphor of collectable cards and how you build up your collection via booster packs. I made them myself using Apple’s free iBooks Author software. Each $1.99 book contains 100 strips, some old, some new, some story lines, some stand-alone jokes, some black and white dailies, some color Sundays. The idea is to create mini books that take maybe 20-30 minutes to read and which aren’t bogged down with a ton of outdated references, as happens with my older, chronologically arranged print books.

Most of us are fans of the strip and this looks like an interesting way to collect a variety of them.

Amazing.

Netflix’s CEO is taking Comcast to task for violating the principles of net neutrality.

Becker Auto Design is offering luxury conversion vans that’ll set you back $400K. It’s a lot of money, but boy, you’d be riding in luxury.

Many thanks to Pixelmator for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week.

Pixelmator – beautifully designed, easy-to-use, fast and powerful image editing app for Mac OS X.

Instarchive:

There’s been a lot of talk about Instagram lately. We’re pretty sure the sky isn’t falling, but you should always have a backup, so we built this little tool for you.It’s called Instarchive, sign into your Instagram account and we’ll send your photos down to your computer in a convenient zip file. It’s quick and easy, we hope you like it.

Hat tip to Daring Fireball.

Cool Material:

The Craft Beer App has (deep breath): an enormous database of craft beer (from all 50 states), beer podcasts, beer videos, beer descriptions, reviews, ratings and food pairing recommendations. Most importantly, it will locate your favorite craft beers around your location. Want an Allagash White, like, yesterday? Done. Left Hand Milk Stout? No problem.The availability obviously depends on your location, but it’s easily the best use of geo-location to date. Besides, what else are you going to do in the car/bus/cab? Draw something? This is obviously better.

Mmmm…beer.

My dog sends me texts. I post them here. Yeah, it’s weird.

I couldn’t help but laugh at a few of them.

TechCrunch:

Livestream, the live video streaming service, is announcing an interesting new product: a $495 hardware encoder that can be connected to virtually any camera and that can stream HD video directly to the Web through a WiFi connection or most USB wireless modems.The small device is fully integrated into the new Livestream platform. The purchase price includes three months of free access to Livestream’s ad-free HD streaming service (normally $45/month). Livestream describes the device as “the industry’s first affordable unlimited ad-free HD live streaming end-to-end solution.”

This could be a very exciting piece of tech for broadcast geeks. It would allow them to quickly and easily get high quality video streamed live to the web.

Dark Roasted Blend:

Dizzying heights, pervading mists and isolation seem to invariably fuel humankind’s spiritual quests and lofty aspirations, so it comes as no surprise that we find monasteries and other sacred architecture suspended high above deep valleys, perched on impossible rocks and looming over gorges. The air is certainly clearer there, though at these heights, it’s often much foggier.Serving partly as castles and almost always as unconquerable fortifications, these ancient sites were built on steep cliffs and daring promotories, often accessible only by secret paths – and thus provide the utmost seclusion amid serene surroundings, so valued in true spiritual devotion.

As a Canadian, all I can think of is, “It must be a bear to get beer up there.”