After waving good-bye to billions in the subprime mortgage market and bailing out nefarious mustache-twirling mortgage lender Countrywide, Bank of America says it can no longer afford soap for its employee's break rooms.
They can still afford to pay CEO Ken Lewis a cool $28 million a year says the New York Post:
Bank of America chief Ken Lewis may have taken home $28 million, but he's still slashing wasteful perks such as free soup and crackers for employees.
The nation's second-largest bank posted grim notices yesterday around its offices here and elsewhere that it no longer can afford giving employees any freebies.
The notice listed goodies it will eliminate at its employee kitchenettes: soup, crackers, flavored teas, sugar-free hot chocolate and hand soap.
The bank presumably will keep hand soap in bathrooms. City laws require it, but not necessarily at snack counter sinks.
Since there are no food or beverages to handle anymore at the kitchenettes, there's no need for soap to wash hands - a found bonus for bean counters.
"We'll continue to have plenty of soap in '08," a bank spokesman said dryly. What a marvelous company. Well, now you know what to get your favorite banker for her birthday.
CLEANING OUT BOFA [New York Post](Thanks, Yossi!)
Today, Foxtrot (easily the geekiest of the mainstream comic strips) took a great little swipe at the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the notorious 1998 US Copyright law that makes it illegal to break DRM.
With previous releases, such as an AK-47 under it's belt, Hello Kitty looks poised to roll out a full army. This time around, some gun-loving nut put together a Hello Kitty-themed AR-15 assault rifle for his wife (how romantic) and posted the finished result on the interwebs for the world to see. It's so cute, it makes me want to shoot something. [Rifle Gear via Mobilewhack]
1) Waxed Mustaches. We've seen a few guys wandering around with this look, which takes the wispy mustaches that hairless hipsters of yore sported, and turns them into pointy weapons. Rollie Fingers did it better.
2) '70s-style tennis headbands. We first saw this last year at a Ratatat show, when we thought we had somehow wandered into a Bjorn Borg lookalike contest. This year, it got really out of control, as every eighteen-year-old with a vintage Iron Maiden shirt decided to discover his inner McEnroe.
3 through 10 after the jump!
3) Ultra-tight pants. We're pretty sure that the Mission boys have started binding their feet in order to get into these. How can that possibly be comfortable? The only way these can fit is by their obvious reliance on...
4) Male Butt Reduction Surgery. It's impossible to be concave instead of convex, but some of our local cooler-than-thous manage it. If there was a gay Sir-Mix-A-Lot, he'd be very sad when wandering the Valencia Corridor.
5) Any weekday show at Mezzanine. Doors 9, show 10...I mean, 11, I mean, headliner at 12:30 on a Tuesday morning? Come on - some of us have day jobs. Oh, wait...we meant "the conditions of our trust fund require us to wake up by eight!"
6) Fixies with really narrow handlebars. We're decidedly in the "they're ok if you can really handle them" school when it comes to fixed-gear bikes. We also think that most people who ride them in this city should probably still be using training wheels. But why, oh why is everyone sawing off the handlebars? Is steering now lame?
7) Hanging out in front of Kilowatt and loudly scoffing at the bridge and tunnel crowd on a Friday night. Guys, it's Kilowatt. You aren't exactly on the road less traveled at Sixteenth and Valencia.
8) Two-hour lines for weekend breakfast at Boogaloos. (see picture at top) It used to suck to try to go there...now it's just pointless. It's not that good.
9) Hating Ritual because there are too many hipsters there. Get over it. The coffee is really good, it's locally owned, and ever since they covered up the electrical outlets, the Web 2.0 "I'm using this place as my office and am talking about synergy on my Blackberry" factor has dropped dramatically.
10) Hating on hipsters. It's ironic, it's self-referential, it's a giant meta-circle of hipster haterdom!
Images:
Rollie Fingers from CNNsi.com, Bjorn Borg from the Encyclopedia Brittanica (concise.brittanica.com), jeans from findcoolclothes.com, Web 2.0 from Wikipedia, hipster stencil from Flickr user brainsik under a Creative Commons License, fixie bike from velospace.org, boogaloos pic from flickr user TfUnQ under a Creative Commons license, Ritual Roasters photo by ldandersen under a Creative Commons license
Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has been called the internet's candidate, and what's on the internet can't help but spill over into World of Warcraft. On New Year's Day a group of Paul followers are planning a march from Ironforge to Stormwind on the Whisperwind server to show support for their favorite candidate. The march will begin at 8:30 PM. Depending on the route they take, this could be an extremely short march (Ironforge to train tunnel to Stormwind) or an extremely long and humorous one as dozens of Ron Paul supporters sporting newbie Gnome and Dwarf characters die in droves trying to cross the Burning Steppes. Unfortunately Whisperwind is a non-PVP server, so the worst any political opposition can do is /rude, /spit, and kek.
Ron Paul supporters plan rally in Azeroth [WoW Insider via Game Politics]
[more ...]
By Jesse Robbins
The New York Times has a really interesting Circos/Clusterball style visualization of the names used by US presidential candidates to refer to opponents in the debates preceding the Iowa caucuses. (Link)
A graph of common words used by candidates in the debates is available as well:
Link (via information aesthetics & visualmethods.blogspot.com)
Link (Thanks, Darren!)"Even though every inmate was only allowed to do one a month, and I was only there for five months, I begged because I said I was an expert potter -- ceramicist actually -- and could I please make the entire nativity scene," she said.
If a new iPhone or iPod touch found its way under your tree and you just can't wait until Apple officially supports third-party application development to extend its functionality (who can wait until February?), it's time you jailbreak your favorite new portable device. We've covered two methods for doing so already, but that feisty Apple keeps on changing things up, and the latest firmware (which all of you new owners are likely running) requires a bit more finesse before you gain access to the throng of great apps that have already been developed for the iPhone. So today we're jailbreaking that iPhone or iTouch of yours to open it up to the wonderful world of third-party software.
NOTE: I've only tested these instructions on my iPhone using a Mac, so I can't absolutely guarantee the same level of success on the iPod touch or Windows computers. However, the software was made to jailbreak either the iPod touch or the iPhone on either Windows or Macs, so it should work fine on either. That said, I'll be referring to the iPhone through the rest of these instructions. If you're looking to install apps without activating your iPhone with AT&T, our pals over at Gizmodo have covered that.
UPDATE: It seems that there have been mixed results for some users attempting to downgrade from the 1.1.2 firmware. The downgrade appears to be working for some, not for others. If you have trouble downgrading to 1.1.1, you can simply restore the current 1.1.2 firmware and everything should be back to normal, but unfortunately you won't be able to install any third-party apps. I'm very curious to hear what kind of luck others are having with this, so if you give it a try, let's hear your experience in the comments.
Check Your Firmware Version
First thing's first: Dock your iPhone, open up iTunes, and find out what version of the iPhone firmware you're running by clicking on the Summary tab when your device is docked and seeing what it says after Software Version. If for some reason you're running one of the early 1.0 firmwares (1.0.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.2), we've already covered how to jailbreak those phones here. Instead, though, I'd recommend jailbreaking your phone using the following method, since you'll get new and improved features from the newer firmware. If you're currently running the 1.1.1 firmware, skip straight to the Jailbreak Your 1.1.1 iPhone or iPod touch section.
Downgrade or Upgrade to the 1.1.1 Firmware
Whether you're running 1.1.2 (the latest firmware) or one of the early 1.0 versions, you want to install the 1.1.1 firmware on your iPhone if it's not the firmware you're currently running. The reason is that the 1.1.1 firmware features a one-click jailbreak through mobile Safari, which makes the process incredibly simple and is a necessary step in jailbreaking the latest 1.1.2 version. So how do you successfully downgrade/upgrade to 1.1.1 since it's not the latest firmware?
Well, first you need to download the 1.1.1 firmware, which you can do here for the iPhone and here for the iPod touch. Make sure that the file ends in _Restore.ipsw, which it should by default. While it's downloading, go ahead and reboot your iPhone into recovery mode. To do so, plug in your iPhone, hold down the power and home buttons at the same time until your iPhone restarts (don't slide to power off), and then release the power button. Continue holding the home button until your device enters recovery mode (as indicated in the screenshot).
Since your firmware is probably still downloading, go ahead and download the 1.1.2 jailbreak files here and unzip the contents on your desktop.
When the firmware completes downloading (which—at a whopping 152 MB—can take a little time), make sure you know where you've saved it and fire up iTunes if it isn't already open. Again go to the same Summary tab where you found your current firmware version. This time, though, you're going to restore the firmware to the 1.1.1 version you just downloaded. To do this, Shift-Click the Restore button in Windows or Option-Click on a Mac and browse to where you saved the 1.1.1 firmware, select it, and restore. When the restore process completes, it will end with an error. Don't worry if this happens, as the jailbreak software is made to overcome the error.
Once you get to this point, close out of iTunes completely and then run either the windows.bat file if you're a Windows user or the jailbreak.jar user if you're on a Mac to get your phone past this error and booting into the 1.1.1 firmware. If you're running jailbreak.jar, all you need to do is click the Boot from Recovery button.
Jailbreak Your 1.1.1 iPhone or iPod touch
Now it's time to perform the first portion of the jailbreak with the 1.1.1 firmware, which—as I said above—is extremely easy. We've covered this in detail before, but here's a quick refresher:
Point mobile Safari to http://jailbreakme.com/ and tap the Install AppSnapp link. Safari will close after a bit and eventually your phone will return to the Slide to unlock screen. After your unlock the phone, you should see Installer.app on your home screen, meaning it worked. When I used this method my iPhone froze the first time I tried unlocking it, so I restarted my phone and sure enough, there was Installer.app. That's really all there is to it.
Jailbreak and Upgrade to 1.1.2
At this point you could just rest comfortably in the knowledge that you're running nearly the latest firmware and it really doesn't have that many differences from the latest version, but if you want to take advantage of the latest ringtone improvements and you want to be sure you've got all the latest and greatest bug fixes and features available, you may want to upgrade to 1.1.2. I did, and here's how it works.
First, fire up Installer.app on your iPhone, find the Tweaks (1.1.1) section of the Install tab, and install an application called OktoPrep. Nothing special will show up on your phone after you install it, but it will have made a few tweaks on your device making it possible to jailbreak 1.1.2 after you upgrade.
Now you just upgrade your iPhone the normal way—by connecting your device to iTunes and selecting Update from the Summary tab. iTunes will go through the long download and upgrade process and when it's done, you'll be updated to 1.1.2 but not jailbroken. To complete the jailbreak, close iTunes, make sure your device is connected, then head back to the 1.1.2-jailbreak Folder you downloaded earlier and re-run either windows.bat (if you're a Windows user) or jailbreak.jar (if you're on a Mac).
Follow the instructions each app offers, and when they finish, you should see Installer.app on your home screen and be completely updated to the latest firmware and jailbroken. That means it's time to start installing those apps!
My current favorites—for those of you new to third-party iPhone or iPod touch apps—include:
- iFlix, and incredible Netflix account management tool
- iMapIdle, an app that works in conjunction with IMAP email (including Gmail) to enable real-time, push-like email notification
- iPhoneHome, an app that lets you change the default double-click behavior for the home button
- Navizon, a pseudo-GPS locator that determines your location in Google Maps using cell towers your phone communicates with (iPhone only, obviously)
- Apollo, the native IM app
- MobileScrobbler, which uploads everything you play on your iPod to your Last.fm account
- WebSearch, a web search tool for quickly performing a search on any web site without going through the rigmarole of loading a site, finding the search box, and then entering your search terms
- HuaRongDao and iSolitaire, a couple of really nice looking and addictive games for your device.
Now you're probably thinking, Great, my iPhone's all jailbroken, but I sure wish I knew all the ins and outs of this beast, including how I can squeeze the most productivity from this little gem of a device. Lucky for you, the best iPhone book I've ever written (with Jason Chen of Gizmodo) is both in stores and shipping right now!
Finally, if you're looking for more to do with your iPhone, here's how you can:
- Use Your iPhone's Internet Connection On Your Laptop
- Stream Music from Your iPod touch or iPhone to Any iTunes Library
- Set Up Gmail with IMAP
- Remote Control Your Computer with Your iPhone
Adam Pash is a senior editor for Lifehacker who hacks his iPhone for business and pleasure. His special feature Hack Attack appears every Tuesday on Lifehacker, and his book, How to Do Everything with Your iPhone, is in stores now. Subscribe to the Hack Attack RSS feed to get new installments in your newsreader.
A San Francisco woman reported her Honda Civic stolen to the San Francisco police. A few weeks later, she got a parking citation in the mail for her stolen car. Then she got another. And another. In total, her car got ticketed 29 times while being listed as stolen. She called the police and the city's Department of Parking and Traffic, but didn't get any solid answers about the whereabouts of her car, nor why it was being ticketed after being reported stolen. Eventually, she and a friend decided to drive around locations where the car had been ticketed to try to find it.
After driving for three hours, they located the car and waited for an hour before the police showed up. San Francisco's finest were not interested in catching the thieves and didn't search the car before releasing it. The thieves had put 1,000 miles on the car, but otherwise kept it clean. The city claims "parking control officers," who don't work for the police department, aren't expected to figure out which cars are stolen. "Their handheld ticket devices store auto theft information only from San Francisco's database -- not the entire state." Ah, well that's good to know.
[via Jalopnik]
(Photo by salimfadhley)
(these are the folks who made me)
In the Islamic world, you're not a full-fledged devotee until you've made a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca. But just because you join 2 million others in the crowded streets of the ancient city of Muhammad's birth doesn't mean you need to go without Wi-Fi, right? A Saudi Arabian ISP has strung up 70 Tropos 5210 routers across the city in an 802.11a meshed network, and will offer free access on a, b or g to all Hajjis (as those who make the pilgrimage, or Hajj, are known). Tropos—whose routers are also used in the mesh network in Google's hometown of Mountain View, CA—said the whole thing went up in 60 days, but will only be a temporary installation. [InfoWorld; source image]
By Nat Torkington
Scientific American have an interesting article about gender balance, bias, and abilities. The danger in talking about whether ability is sex-linked is that people want to simplify the science and your position down to "girls' brains can't do this stuff" but reality is more complex and inoffensive than this. (update: changed some of what I said about the distribution to reflect the comments)
I'm taking two things away from the Scientific American article: (1) on average, abilities have different distributions across the two sexes; and (2) although these tendencies are probably influenced by hormones, targeted training can lift skills. The distributions are the important bits here: mathematical ability in girls tends to be quite tightly clustered, whereas boys tend to divide into either are more extreme, including the very good and the very poor. The bimodal (correction: broader) distribution of boy math talent puts the lie to "boys are better at math", a misconception that came from the way we select the best at math. The very good boys have, on average, better skills than the tightly-clustered girls, so when we select "the best at math", we get mostly boys even though there are huge numbers of girls not very far below them and a huge reservoir of more unskilled boys (correction: than girls) at the bottom end of the distribution.
And we do select "the best at math"—the article talks about kids choosing disciplines based on what they're best at. In general, boys and girls look at their abilities and if they're better at numbers go into sciences and if they're better at words go into arts. So there are girls going into the arts that have better math skills than the boys going into sciences (the girls just happened to have even better verbal skills). This will always be true in individual cases, but the studies show this is an overall tendency rather than anecdotal evidence from specific cases.
What does this mean? I think it shows we need to do a better job of emphasizing that science and technology can be verbal as well as numerical: Larry Wall, the creator of Perl, is a linguist by training, and there's a similar elegance in great code as in great poetry. If we finally acknowledged that science and technology are fields where words are critical and a keen mind for meaning can go far, rather than pretending it's all math with syntactic sugar, we might get better computer programmers not to mention a better gender balance. And finally, first year classes should have catch-up skills-building options for those boys and girls who weren't at the top of the curve. Do readers know of computer science departments (or senior high schools) that test for specific aptitudes and offer remedial courses for those lacking? Drop me a note in the comments if you do.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Eric,
Hope you are having a Happy Holidays? I have been thinking about you lately and how you just can't afford to be involved in Yelp. I ask myself, how can he not afford to be working with Yelp. Your Los Angeles would be a huge magnet to people who are looking for you in the area. Plus, with over 300 people coming to your page every month to decide to spend money in your store, there is a huge opportunity here.
I have to ask, what matters most, price or profit? Eric, which would you rather have? Price only lasts for a moment and profit lasts for a lifetime. I am very confident that Giant Robot would b a huge success on the site. Plus, your success is directly tied to mine, and I wouldn't have made contact with you if I didn't think I could help bring you more profit.
Let me know what I can do to make this work, I know you will have extreme success, we just got to get you involved. What are your thoughts?
-Best
Brent
Isn't this a fucked up email? It's one of the rudest, condescending emails I've seen in a while, and it came from Yelp.
1) has this guy Brent really been thinking about me?
2) can I really afford to work without Yelp? I've done it so far.
3) "Your Los Angeles" Yes, "My" Los Angeles.
4) I get 300 people looking at my page? That's it?
5) Price or profit and he inserts my name there? There's some fucked up shit. What's more important? Neither, it's doing things right. There's more to it, and if this dude had any business experience, he'd be cooler.
6) Giant Robot would "b"?
Pretty uncool Yelp.
San Francisco citizen, code monkey, sketch comedy player
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