Google isn’t sitting idly by while Genius accuses it of copying lyrics. As part of a larger defense of its lyrics search practices, the company has mentioned that it will "soon" attribute the third party providing song lyrics. This should "make it clearer" as to where the lyrics come from, the company said. In theory, this would point complaints to the third parties instead of making Google should all the blame.
In the broader defense, Google maintained that ts workers "do not crawl or scrape" sites to grab lyrics, instead licensing the text from outsiders. They’re automatically updated whenever there are new lyrics or corrections, Google added.
LyricFind, a key supplier for Google’s lyrics, recently maintained that it didn’t source verses from Genius and even ruled it out as a lyrics source as a "courtesy." The allegedly copied lyrics were available on "many other lyric sites," the company argued. As such, LyricFind may have inadvertently grabbed lyrics from another company that was using Genius’ lyrics without permission.
The disclosures and the response won’t necessarily calm nerves at Genius’ offices. However, they do illustrate the messiness of lyrics search. There’s a chain of companies involved in putting those words on your screen, and it’s not always easy to see who’s being honest.
Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation.Image: CBS
“It’s for the children…I’m a role model,” Jean-Luc Picard awkwardly jokes when a Starfleet Admiral hailing the Enterprise notices the rainbow-colored “Captain Picard Day” banner in the background of their communique in “The Pegasus.” Twenty-four years after he first said it, it’s not just the kids aboard the Enterprise he’s a role model to.
That seventh season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, first broadcast in 1994, has given the fandom an excuse to celebrate Captain Picard Day every June 16—a rough approximation of the stardate the episode took place on—as a celebration for why we so dearly love Sir Patrick Stewart’s noble hero. While it’s perfectly befitting that a humble man like Picard would be irked by the “exaggerated impression” the kids aboard the Enterprise have of its Captain, the reason Picard Day endures for Star Trek fans is exactly that impression. In the video below, we dive into why Jean-Luc embodies our greatest hopes for what Starfleet and Star Trek itself aspire to.
Each of Star Trek’s legendary leaders helps embody the franchise’s loftiest ideas—the devil-may-care swashbuckling heroics of Kirk, Sisko’s impassioned heart, Janeway’s wry smirk in the face of intellectual curiosity, Archer’s relatable humanity as he chased the ideals of the bigger universe thrust upon his people. But the reason we love Picard so much is that he seemingly, almost impossibly, manages to encapsulate all those ideals in a single, enduring, indomitable man.
A scientist. An explorer. A diplomat. An ambassador. A patron of the arts, be they the classics or the pulpier stylings of Dixon Hill. Picard is the embodiment of the society Starfleet’s utopia is built on, a man who champions the rights and freedoms of not just the people he captains aboard the Enterprise, but the countless worlds they meet along the way in their mission of peace and exploration. Picard could know barely anything about your world, but the minute he saw an injustice, he’d be willing to lay down his life to correct it.
Even an austere look of consternation is made majestic by Picard.Image: CBS
The fact that he’s so humble about it all, even a little embarrassed as he is in “The Pegasus,” is part of the charm. Because to Captain Picard, everything he does is just what any good person should do, not the action of a lofty hero or role model. It’s just…the right thing. There is an earnestness in that humble nature that just amplifies what we’ve always loved about him.
The fact that he does so with words and a steadfast belief in the truth of his ideals (and only very occasionally with a full complement of the Enterprise’s photon torpedos) is another part of what makes Picard stand out among his fellow Trek captains. There is a reason that so many of our favorite moments to recall of Picard’s tenure in The Next Generation aren’t moments of action-packed drama or ass-kicking space-antics—even if he did get a badass ship maneuver named after him—but the stirring speeches, the passionate moments where the weight of Picard’s words carry the day.
Who doesn’t get chills when he defends Data’s right to exist in “The Measure of a Man?” Who doesn’t tear up when, near broken, he defies terrifying Cardassian torture in “Chain of Command” with that famous cry that there are, and always were, four lights? But underneath that eloquence, there always remained a deeply emotive man. In “The Inner Light,” we watched him live an entire lifetime, something no one else could ever understand, then have to pick himself up and carry on as the Enterprise’s captain. This speaks to the compassionate man that lay beneath his austere surface.
Picard’s deeds across the seven seasons of The Next Generation and its movie follow-ups are important, but we remember his words above all, wisdom that guides us to strive for the ideals they represent.
A line is drawn, and cross.Image: Paramount
And even though he’s much more of a diplomat than an action hero, the times we do remember him for his physical badassery—like his rallying cry of “The line must be drawn here!” in First Contact—are burned in our minds for how alien they are compared to the things we otherwise remember. And because Picard himself ultimately realizes that too in these moments, our image of him as this idealistic legend grows, those lofty aims forged ever stronger by the moments he temporarily wavers.
It is these attributes that make Picard one of Star Trek’s most enduring icons, even among the legendary heroes that have lead each series to boldly go where no one has gone before. They are the attributes that we know he will momentarily waver from once again in his upcoming solo series, which is what makes that show such an inherently intriguing idea in the first place. The very thought of a man like Picard faltering from his noblest characteristics is frightening, because of the weight of expectation we have put on him as we’ve seen him champion those characteristics, time and time again, in the face of the gravest threats.
But in the weight of that expectation—and within that new TV show—there lies hope. Because deep down, no matter what causes Jean-Luc Picard to waver, we know he’ll come back to the ideals we have loved him for, for all these years. Because that’s what he does. Because it’s the right thing anyone would do.
What new traumas hide behind those wise eyes?Image: CBS
Happy Captain Picard Day, Jean-Luc, this year and every year. You might not think you’ve earned all the fuss, but you really have.
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If you want an electric pickup truck, you sort of don’t have any options right now because none currently exist for the public to buy, at least here in the U.S. There’s the Rivian R1T, of course, but it isn’t available yet. And there’s the Tesla pickup truck which we’re told might happen this summer. So, if you want one now, you kind of have to build it yourself.
That’s not a problem if you are amateur robot builder and YouTuber Simone Giertz, also known as “The Queen of Shitty Robots.” She’s no stranger to using angle grinders and welders, so there’s really no stopping her otherwise. This project will yield, as Giertz claims, the first functional Tesla pickup truck ever. I’m so onboard.
She and her team decided early on that they were just going to wing it, which is honestly how the best plans are conceived. They used a Tesla Model 3, which has a steel chassis and is easiest to wrench on. Plus, it’s the cheapest Tesla you can buy new.
So! Giertz and her team strip out the Model 3, saw some body panels off and mock up and attach a truck bed. And yo! This isn’t spoiling it for you or anything but it looks freaking sweet. Way better than that stupid rendering from Elon Musk.
It’s a ute! Girl made herself a bitchin’ ute.
Giertz doesn’t stop there. She then hires a production company to film a fake commercial with it. And it’s absolutely perfect, even filled with the smooth voiceovers that say absolutely nothing.
The Tesla truck’s name? The Truckla. I’m obsessed. I wouldn’t be surprised if Giertz starts getting custom orders after this. She can become a Tesla coachbuilder. She’s already got a great coachbuilder’s name.
This is a timelapse video of the ‘world record’ [citation needed] Minecraft inspired 21,600 domino cube being built by Youtuber DominoJOJO, and the whole thing collapsing in a matter of seconds. I thought the internal structure of the cube was pretty impressive. Maybe not impressive enough to not get completely wrecked like the first little pig’s straw house, but for pigs being so smart that one clearly wasn’t wearing his thinking cap. Thank God for having at least one non-idiot brother. Isn’t that right, Frank? "I wouldn’t know anything about that." Wow, and on National Siblings Day too? "That was in April." Oh riiiiiiight, how could I forget the card you didn’t send?
Keep going for the video.
Thanks to Jeffrey S, who agrees domino people are a special, patient breed.
via Geekologie – Gadgets, Gizmos, and Awesome https://geekologie.com/
Light painting saved Denis Smith’s life. A decade ago the native New Zealander was working as a Xerox salesman in Auckland, earning more than $300,000 a year but blowing it all on fast cars, expensive cigars, and copious quantities of alcohol. “I was killing myself working, trying to sustain that lifestyle,” Smith says. “It developed into an overwhelming sense of fear and depression.”
Smith and his wife resolved to make a clean break. They sold their house, cars, and most of their belongings and moved to Adelaide, Australia. Deciding he needed a hobby, Smith bought his first camera and began taking photographs during long walks through the wild Barossa Valley near their home. “I thought I was Ansel Adams,” Smith recalls, “but then I joined a few Flickr groups focused the Barossa Valley and realized that so many other people had taken exactly the same photos.”
But it was also on Flickr that Smith discovered the then-small community of “light painters”—photographers who shoot at night, using colored light sources and long exposures to create intricately composed images. Fascinated by the process, Smith began experimenting with his own light photography, eventually developing what became his signature technique: the “ball of light.” Smith discovered that by standing in place while swinging an LED light on a cord in a circle he could create near-perfect spheres of light. A short documentary about the process by filmmaker Sam Collins racked up a quarter million views, turning Smith into one of the world’s best-known light painters. (In the process, Smith also quit drinking; he’s been sober for 10 years.)
Smith now gives talks about light painting all over the world and sells a custom-built LED tool on his website so that amateurs can create their own balls of light. Recently, he added a new technique to his portfolio, “liquid light painting.” It all started in his bathtub, where he experimented splashing around with a flashlight fitted out with an acrylic, lightsaber-like blade. Then his wife photographed him playing around with the same tool in the ocean, down the road from their house.
It took Smith two summers to perfect the style—Adelaide is too cold the rest of the year to go into the water—but the results were worth it. Although he still shoots at night, the technique is otherwise very different from the ball of light images. Instead of a single long exposure, Smith programs his camera to rapidly take thousands of one- or three-second exposures over the course of several minutes. While the camera snaps away, Smith waves and splashes colored LED light implements around like a Jedi practicing his technique. The final images show brilliant streams of light cavorting above the water like some psychedelic sea creature. Because he’s constantly moving, Smith remains invisible to the camera—he doesn’t have to Photoshop himself out in post-production, as many viewers assume.
Like his ball of light images, the liquid light photographs attracted significant interest on social media; the store on Smith’s website now sells the components of a “liquid light” system for DIYers. And although his passion has become a job—he’s now sponsored by Olympus—Smith tries to stay in touch with what attracted him to light painting in the beginning.
“It’s a fine line between it being something personal for me to escape the pressures of daily life, and a business,” he says. “I’m trying to keep some of it for me, but also satisfy the hordes.”
Ever see a product labeled “Amazon’s Choice” while online shopping? Turns out, that badge might not mean much at all.
According to Amazon, the label is automaticallygiven to products based on an algorithm—allegedly taking into account positive reviews and price—but reviews aren’t always that reliable, after all. They can be easily manipulated or faked. Because this label is based on an algorithm, rather than Amazon examining a product for themselves, quality control is hardly a guarantee.
Here’s how this played out with one product labeled as Amazon’s Choice, as Buzzfeed News reported this week:
Amazon customer R.D. left a one-star review of the faulty pet hair vacuum, but after she received a refund, the review was taken down without her consent. She contacted Amazon to report it, then attempted to republish the negative review. Amazon did not follow up, and her second review was never approved. “The vacuum still has great reviews and is listed as Amazon’s Choice. This whole incident deeply perturbed me,” she said.
In other words, it turns out some of Amazon’s Choices are kind of crappy.
In reviewing a few dozen items for sale by Amazon, Buzzfeed News took a look at a child’s thermometer, a flask, a breathalyzer, and a dog collar, all of which either had serious quality issues, manipulated reviews or reviews for other, totally unrelated products in its listing which may have been an accident. (A Macbook Pro charger listing had reviews for pistachios and a sewing machine, while the dog collar had several reviews for RuPaul’s Drag Race.)
Similarly, Amazon’s recommendations are particularly problematic when you find products with only a few reviews. Here’s a listing for a recommended gaming monitor:
There are 15 reviews in total, with 2 of them considered “critical” or bad.
When you dig a little deeper, seven of those 13 positive reviews were written by participants in Amazon’s Vine program—customers who have been “vetted” by Amazon and received this console for free (albeit taxable as income for Vine participants).
This doesn’t necessarily mean that these reviews aren’t reliable, but there are pretty obvious questions of bias at play. And again, this product has only 15 reviews, a noticeably small number to have acquired Amazon’s so-called stamp of approval. Strangely, there are also two versions of the listing above—one with the badge and one without (though they’re virtually identical otherwise).
“We launched Amazon’s Choice in 2015 as a way to simplify shopping for customers by highlighting highly rated, well-priced products ready to ship immediately for the most popular searches on Amazon,” the company said in a statement to Buzzfeed News, stating that it does remove the label if the company determines that the recommendation should not be made.
So what to do instead of depending on the “Amazon’s Choice” label? As we’ve written before, cast a critical eye on the reviews: if a reviewer has a wildly different experience than other reviewers or there are a ton of positive (or negative) reviews with a single sentence comment, then it’s worth reconsidering buying the product. And look for verified purchases from users, so there’s a better chance they’re legit reviews.
Reddit is another good resource; try doing an online search for a product you’re on the hunt for using Reddit and you should get a good sense of an item’s actual quality and reliability.
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This is a CG video (the robot isn’t real) from the folks at Corridor Digital imagining what would happen if Boston Dynamics’ humanoid robots finally get fed up with their constant abuse and decide to fight back. Obviously, this is a very real possibility. I wouldn’t even call it a possibility, it’s just what’s actually going to happen. And, God willing, I won’t be around to see it when it happens. "Where are you going to be?" Six feet under. "Like dead?" No, in my shallow robot apocalypse bunker. I mean somebody is going to have to repopulate the earth after the robots are finally defeated. "And that’s going to be you?" ‘The Father Of Future Humanity’ they’ll call me. "Lofty goals." Dream big and pray they aren’t nightmares — that’s my motto.
Keep going for the video. Also, feel free to send it to your friends and family and tell them it’s real.
Thanks to Bosun Higgs, Jeremy, and Deksam, who agree the future, and end, near.
via Geekologie – Gadgets, Gizmos, and Awesome https://geekologie.com/
