marcospinello @marcospinello - Tumblr Blog

#1yrago Regulating Airbnb drives down local rents (as well as house prices)

Airbnb has led to much of the rental housing stock in some of the world’s most expensive cities being turned into unlicensed hotel rooms, driving up both rents and house prices even further.

Opponents of regulatory approaches to fix this often say that Airbnb’s contribution to inflation in housing costs and values is negligible, and/or that any benefits from curbs on Airbnb would be canceled by other forces that are driving up housing costs.

But LA County provides a natural lab for evaluating this claim: some of the cities within the county have limited Airbnb and others haven’t, allowing a group of researchers to publish a study that found that limits on Airbnb and other short-term rental platforms does exactly what proponents of the rules promise they will: lowers the cost of rentals, and also the cools down property price bubbles.

https://boingboing.net/2018/12/20/unlicensed-hotels-vs-tenants.html

radical-eve

gridbugged-deactivated20200707

Source (x) (x)

missreaddevil

I want one.

shinvermouthea

thought that said angels, which is objectively cooler

moonlace

This post went from cyberpunk dystopia to fantasy revolution real quick

fuzzymiraclebanana

Holy shit take a look at some of the other things on that page that people have made. If the face bedazzling, the specific clothing patterns, the projector that gives you multifaces (like that one keanu reeves movie), or the other crazy masks aren’t a sign of a growing cyberpunk distopia era I don’t know what is.

I wish we didn’t have to live in any dystopian future but I would rather us slowly grow into a cyberpunk one rather than the shitty one we currently have…

linguisticmaps

Orthographic depth

Languages have different levels of othographic depth, that means that a language’s orthography can vary in a spectrum of a very irregular and complex orthography (deep orthography) to a completely regular and simple one (shallow orthography).

English, French, Danish, Swedish, Arabic, Urdu, Tibetan, Burmese, Thai, Khmer, Lao, Chinese, and Japanese have orthographies that are highly irregular, complex and where sounds cannot be predicted from the spelling. These writing systems are more difficuld and slow to be learned by children, who may take years. In the medium of the scale there’s Spanish, Portuguese, German, Polish, Greek, Russian, Persian, Hindi, Korean, where there are some irregularities but overall the correspondence of one sound to one phoneme is not that bad. At the positive end of the scale there’s Italian, Serbo-Croat, Romanian, Finnish, Basque, Turkish, Indonesian, Quechua, Ayamara, Guarani, Mayan languages, and most African languages (because there were no history of spelling, so a new one of scratch was made as very regular), they all have very simple and regular spelling systems, with usually a one-to-one correspondence between sounds and letters. These are very easily learned by children.

Orthographic depth has several implications for the study of psycholinguistics and the study of language processing and also acquisition of reading and writing by children.

Note: remember that there’s no objective numbering on the three categories I made, there are more than just these three categories, because it works like a spectrum. Three categories were used just as a means for simplification.

housecatincarnate

musicalmelody22

Fun Story: My director kept telling me and my tenor sax buddy to play softer. No matter what we did, it wasn’t soft enough for him. So getting frustrated, I told my buddy “Dont play this time. Just fake it”

Our Band Director then informed us we sounded perfect.

fororchestra

To my readers: “p” means quiet, “pp” means really quiet. I’ve never seen “pppp” before haha.

On the contrast, “f” means loud, and “ffff” probably means so loud you go unconscious.

corruptbucky

I had ffff in a piece once and my conductor told me to play as loudly as physically possible without falling off my chair…

justtkeepcalmm-deactivated20250

Me and my trombone buddies had “ffff” and he sat next to me and played so hard that he fell out of his chair.

The lengths we go for music.

lady-gorthaur

Okay yeah so I play the bass clarinet and the amount of air you have to move and the stiffness of the reed means it only has two settings and that is loud and louder, with an optional LOUDEST that includes a 50% probability of HORRIBLE CROAKING NOISE which is the bass equivalent of the ubiquitous clarinet shriek.

elsajeni

One day, when I was in concert band in high school, we got a new piece handed out for the first time, and there was a strange little commotion back in the tuba section — whispering, and pointing at something in the music, and swatting at each other’s hands all shhh don’t call attention to it. And although they did attract the attention of basically everyone else in the band, they managed to avoid being noticed by the band director, who gave us a few minutes to look over our parts and then said, “All right, let’s run through it up to section A.”

And here we are, cheerfully playing along, sounding reasonably competent — but everyone, when they have the attention to spare, is keeping an eye on the tuba players. They don’t come in for the first eight measures or so, and then when they do come in, what we see is:

[stifled giggling]

[reeeeeeally deep breath]

[COLOSSAL FOGHORN NOISE]

The entire band stops dead, in the cacophonous kind of way that a band stops when it hasn’t actually been cued to stop. The band director doesn’t even say anything, just looks straight back at the tubas and makes a helpless sort of why gesture.

In unison, the tuba players defend themselves: “THERE WERE FOUR F’S.”

FFFF is not really a rational dynamic marking for any instrument, but for the love of all that is holy why would you put it in a tuba part.

minguskingus

This is the best band post

Everyone else go home

oxboold-deactivated20180729

Oh man, so I play trombone, and we got this piece called Florentiner Marsch by Julius Fucik, and we saw this

which is 8 fortes. We were shocked until,

that is 24 fortes who the fuck does that

prokopetz

Who does that?

This guy. Take a good look - that is the moustache of a man with nothing to lose.

vivelafat

Julius IdontgivaFucik

septemberbells

More like Julius Fuckit

sushinfood

Pyrozod’s tags for this were too hilarious not to share

haha-leigh

I haven’t been in band for years but this made me laugh so hard

hisroyalnerd

I haven’t seen this post in ages and I’m dying of laughter

tobinlaughing

I didn’t think it could get better after The Foghorn Tuba Story, but it did. It got better. Bless you, MusicTumblr.

cyber-sec

North Korea's APT38 hacking group behind bank heists of over $100 million

Source: https://www.zdnet.com/article/north-korea-s-apt38-hacking-group-behind-bank-heists-of-over-100-million/

Whitepaper (PDF): https://content.fireeye.com/apt/rpt-apt38

compoundchem

Autumn is here! Here’s the chemistry behind the 🍁 colours we’ll be seeing over the coming weeks: https://wp.me/p4aPLT-sn

woshibai

“Competitive“ by Woshibai

Translator: @paradisesystems, Sally

nilaavu

The state of Kerala, India, is experiencing one of the worst floods since 1924. Over 20,000 houses have been damaged completely and 10,000 km of roads have been destroyed. Essential services have taken a hit, with shortages in medical supplies and drinking water reported from several places. A red alert has been issued in 11 of the 14 districts.

324 people have lost their lives since the rains started on May 29. Over half of them - 190 across 14 districts - have died in the last few days. Over 314,000 people have been moved to relief camps across the state with many more still missing or unreachable.

AnboduKochi is a non-profit organisation that has been one of the largest groups to provide relief support in Kochi, they need cash to transport all the donations they have been getting and make sure it gets to the relief camps.

keralarescue.in is an initiative by Govt. of Kerala, Kerala State IT Mission and IEEE Kerala Section for effective collaboration and communications between authorities, volunteers and public

Google has put out a consolidated and pin-dropped list of centres providing rescue ops, including shelters, food and water, medicine and essentials, volunteers, Jeep rescue and ambulances, among others.

In case you are looking for someone stranded in Kerala or have information about someone, use the Person Finder, which crowdsources information, to help.

Below are some ways to donate and help rebuild the lives of those affected.

The Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund (CMDRF) is 100% exempt from tax and “is an emergency assistance release mechanism granting immediate relief to families and individuals distressed by calamity, loss of life due to accidents and chronic diseases.”

Amazon lets users donate to one of three NGOs: Goonj, Habitat for Humanity and World Vision India. Once you select one of the three NGOs, you can choose what you want to donate by going through their wishlist

Flipkart allows users to donate to NGO Goonj

Paytm allows users to donate to the CMDRF and matches each donation made rupee for rupee

Oxfam India is on the ground providing dry food, clean water, shelter & long-term recovery.

British Malayali Kerala Floods Relief Appeal if you are living in the UK

Kerala Flood Relief Fund from USA if you are living in the US

Kerala Flood Relief Fund from SMYM Australia or Donate to Help Kerala Flood Victims by Australian India Foundation Incorporated if you are living in Australia

Milaap is a crowdfunding website

Ketto is also a crowdfunding website

Please consider donating any amount of money you can. If you know of any more resources and ways to help, please add to this post.

eldritch-crone-deactivated20210

Hi! I am not sure if any of my followers saw, but I’ve been saying it is pretty bad for Kerala right now. (PS: I’m safe right now, and my family has moved to shelters or high-level areas).

Just in case, if you didn’t know, Kerala is a small state in the south-west part of India. We are mainly known for our cynicism, sarcasm, and our love of going to “The Gulf”. We are that part of India that had Muslims before the Mughals Invasion and Christians before the British Invasion and lived more-or-less in harmony with each other throughout. We love our socialism, our love of eating beef, and generally trying to resist the majoritarian principles of rest of the country.

And currently, Kerala is trembling under the fury of the monsoon.

There has been incessant rain for the past three weeks, and most parts of Kerala are flooded. Till yesterday , 12 out of 14 districts were on Red Alert. All 44 rivers on this small strip of land was overflowing. As the rains continued, most lakes, reservoirs, and dams got filled and 33 dams were opened. And the outflow of these dams combined with rainwater rushed through towns and cities alike.

There has been landslides, sudden top soil movement and road collapses throughout the state, but especially in hilly areas. Most bridges, roads (including National Highways) are either completely destroyed or flooded beyond use.

Ten thousands of homes have been inundated and families have moved away. People and entire cities & towns have been marooned.

This man is inside his home; neck-deep in water [he made this video and shared it through social media in an effort to get noticed and rescued]:

The Kochi International Airport is flooded and would be shut down for ten days. Railways are jammed and most roads are flooded. Most dams are open and cities have turned into lakes and rivers. The fact that there are water disputes with neighbouring states and state-level & national-level politics involved doesn’t help the common people of Kerala either.

This is not a water-tank over-flowing. It’s an entire dam that is overflowing (the Peringalkutthu dam, to be precise): .

The death toll is currently estimated to be about 300 and over 3 lakh individuals have been displaced. It is only because of high inter-connectivity and an educated population that the death toll has been under control.

And this is just the beginning:

Those who are rescued has to deal with extensive property damage.

Farmers have to deal with huge crop loss.

Most rescue shelters are running out of food and medicines.

Food shortage will continue even after the floods as most of our food comes from Tamil Nadu/Andhra Pradesh, and the roads and railways connecting the two states are flooded.

Roads, Bridges and Communication channels will have to be rebuilt.

Outbreaks of water-borne diseases as water will get contaminated

Outbreaks of mosquito-born diseases like Dengue fever as stagnant water persists.

Large sections of Kerala is flooded. Kochi has come to a halt.

Seriously, we are in big trouble. So, if you can donate, please do. Small acts of kindness goes a long way. If not, please signal boost.

urfavegothstagemom

@xena-oreo-princess

ashramof1-deactivated20201019

The situation is dire. Any form of help would be welcome.

nixcraft

Please share it and help fellow human beings who are in need of help.

mapsontheweb

What do you call a sun-shower?

humansofnewyork

“I took him to see Brokeback Mountain when it came out. I thought I was challenging him with the choice. But at the end of the film, he turned to me and said: ‘That’s me.’ We’d been married for thirty years. Our kids were still young. I didn’t know what to do. Do I leave? Do I stay? We were ex-pats in another country at the time, so we were all alone. I had nobody to talk to. We went to a therapist to see if it was possible to stay together, and she told us: ‘I’ve seen it work. But only if one person is very discrete and the other is very tolerant.’ So I agreed to try. It’s been ten years. It’s been exhausting in a lot of ways. I asked too many questions at first. I made myself miserable. Now I give him a lot of space. And I get a lot of space in return. I’ve been traveling alone for about two months now. I know what’s going on back home but I don’t ask about it. My friends ask me why I don’t move on with my life. I don’t know the answer. Maybe I’m just too afraid to be alone at this age. But I still feel like he’s my soul mate. We have the same view of the world. We both love children. We love traveling and good food. He really is a good man. He’s just gay. And we’ve had such a good life together, I’m just not ready to stop sharing it.”

nasa

5 Examples of How Our Satellite Data is Helping the Planet

We could talk all day about how our satellite data is crucial for Earth science…tracking ocean currents, monitoring natural disasters, soil mapping – the list goes on and on.

But did you know there is another way this data can improve life here on Earth?

Our satellite data can be used to build businesses and commercial products – but finding and using this data has been a daunting task for many potential users because it’s been stored across dozens of websites.

Until now.

Our Technology Transfer program has just released their solution to make finding data easier, called The NASA Remote Sensing Toolkit (RST).

RST offers an all-in-one approach to finding and using our Earth Science data, the tools needed to analyze it, and software to build your own tools.

Before, we had our petabytes on petabytes of information spread out across dozens of websites – not to mention the various software tools needed to interpret the data.

Now, RST helps users find everything they need while having only one browser open.

Feeling inspired to innovate with our data? Here are just a few examples of how other companies have taken satellite data and turned it into products, known as NASA spinoffs, that are helping our planet today.

1. Bringing Landscape into Focus

We have a number of imaging systems for locating fires, but none were capable of identifying small fires or indicating the flames’ intensity. Thanks to a series of Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contracts between our Ames Research Center and Xiomas Technologies LLC, the Wide Area Imager aerial scanner does just that. While we and the U.S. Forest Service use it for fire detection, the tool is also being used by municipalities for detailed aerial surveillance projects.

2. Monitoring the Nation’s Forests with the Help of Our Satellites

Have you ever thought about the long-term effects of natural disasters, such as hurricanes, on forest life? How about the big-time damage caused by little pests, like webworms?

Our Stennis Space Center did, along with multiple forest services and environmental threat assessment centers. They partnered to create an early warning system to identify, characterize, and track disturbances from potential forest threats using our satellite data. The result was ForWarn, which is now being used by federal and state forest and natural resource managers.

3. Informing Forecasts of Crop Growth

Want to hear a corny story?

Every year Stennis teams up with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to host a program called Ag 20/20 to utilize remote sensing technology for operational use in agricultural crop management practices at the level of individual farms. During Ag 20/20 in 2000, an engineering contractor developed models for using our satellite data to predict corn crop yield. The model was eventually sold to Genscape Inc., which has commercialized it as LandViewer. Sold under a subscription model, LandViewer software provides predictions of corn production to ethanol plants and grain traders.

4. Water Mapping Technology Rebuilds Lives in Arid Regions

No joking around here. Lives depend on the ability to find precious water in areas with little of it.

Using our Landsat satellite and other topographical data, Radar Technologies International developed an algorithm-based software program that can locate underground water sources. Working with international organizations and governments, the firm is helping to provide water for refugees and other people in drought-stricken regions such as Kenya, Sudan, and Afghanistan.

5. Satellite Maps Deliver More Realistic Gaming

Are you more of the creative type? This last entry used satellite data to help people really get into their gameplay.

When Electronic Arts (EA) decided to make SSX, a snowboarding video game, it faced challenges in creating realistic-looking mountains. The solution was our ASTER Global Digital Elevation Map, made available by our Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which EA used to create 28 real-life mountains from 9 different ranges for its award-winning game.

You can browse our Remote Sensing Toolkit at technology.nasa.gov.

Want to know more about future tutorial webinars on RST?

Follow our Technology Transfer Program on twitter @NASAsolutions for the latest updates.

Want to learn more about the products made by NASA technologies? Head over to spinoff.nasa.gov.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

sophiarichter

A wind-powered dandelion that clears land mines - another inspiring application of biomimicry

usnatarchives

A bust of Elbridge Gerry by Herbert Samuel Adams, U.S. Senate collection. (U.S. Senate Collection)

The “Gerry” in Gerrymandering

By James Worsham | Editor of Publications, NARA

The U.S. Supreme Court this week decided not to get involved in whether certain legislative and congressional districts have been “gerrymandered”—a practice that dates to the early days of the country.

The cases before the court involved a practice in which districts are drawn to favor one person, one political party, or one class of people.

“Gerrymandering” was named for Elbridge Gerry, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

As Governor of Massachusetts (1810–1812), Gerry approved a redistricting plan for the state senate that gave the political advantage to Republicans. Someone observed that one of the districts looked like a salamander, and soon the process was known as “gerrymandering.”

“The Gerrymander: a New Species of Monster” Boston Gazette, March 26, 1812. (Library of Congress)

Since then, “gerrymandering” has for years produced odd-shaped congressional and state legislative districts.

Gerry remained on the scene in the early days of the republic. In addition to signing the Declaration, he also signed the Articles of Confederation.

Find out why Gerry refused to sign the Constitution, over on the Pieces of History blog.

austinkleon

A Disgruntled Federal Employee’s 1980s Desk Calendar

During the eighties, a nameless Cold Warrior grew frustrated in his job for the Department of Defense and poured out his feelings in an unusual way. He was a midlevel (GS-11/GS-12) analyst working at the U.S. Army’s Combined Arms Center, at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. Every GS-11/GS-12 in that era would have been given a government-issue desk calendar, and this Kansas scribe made the most of his. Like a monk, he labored over his document every day, adding carefully crafted letters and elaborate drawings to what became, over nine years, a remarkably full chronicle of the decade.