Pusha T, Live In Concert

Pusha T's set was the culmination of a gradual separation from his brother, No Malice, with whom he performed as Clipse until three years ago. The Virginia native made his name as a writer of sharply observed scenes of the drug trade and a connoisseur of unsettling, emotionally raw production.

He was vulnerable up there on stage at Le Poisson Rouge, playing none of the hits he made as part of Clipse (the ones the crowd knew by heart), instead favoring his more recent work with Kanye West, and pulling from his solo mixtapes and debut album, My Name Is My Name. The songs are full frontal assaults dappled with graceful metaphors and harmonies that leave marks. Eyes wide, face open, Pusha doesn't shirk anything, rapping about dirt he's done, ugly facts, and praying. "I'm just talking to the world like it's you and I," he says during "Suicide."

He put the audience on his back, building trust and moving toward a moment between the first and second verses of his encore, "40 Acres." He shut his eyes, leaned on the mic stand and visibly gathered himself before hurling his meticulously drawn story out into the air, even though it hurt to say the words.

Set List

• "King Push"


• "Blocka"


• "Millions"


• "Hold On"


• "Suicide"


• "So Appalled"


• "Mercy"


• "Cook It Down"


• "My God"


• "Exodus 23:1"


• "I Don't Like"


• "New God Flow"


• "Pain"


• "Nosetalgia"


• "Sweet Serenade"


• "Numbers On The Board"


• "40 Acres"

Credits

Producers: Mito Habe-Evans, Robin Hilton, Frannie Kelley, Amy Schriefer; Event Coordinator: Saidah Blount; Audio Engineer: Kevin Wait; Videographers: Alex di Suvero, Becky Harlan, A.J. Wilhelm; Special Thanks: (Le) Poisson Rouge; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann

Source: http://www.npr.org/event/music/230520404/pusha-t-live-in-concert?ft=1&f=10005
Similar Articles: mrsa   Capitol shooting   once upon a time   nytimes   Olivia Nuzzi  

Microsoft Yanks Windows RT 8.1 Update “Temporarily” Following Discovery Of A “Situation”

If you are a Windows RT user looking forward to moving to Windows RT 8.1, you can’t, at least for a little while. Today Microsoft removed the update from the Windows Store following the uncovering of a “situation” that was “affecting a limited number of users updating their Windows RT devices to Windows RT 8.1.”

So, the code is now unavailable “temporarily” while Microsoft fixes whatever the heck is wrong. The issue appears to impact the booting cycle of some machines after they update.

Microsoft is likely pissed that it had to yank the update – it was hoping for a very smooth Windows 8.1 update cycle. Still, if the error had been present in the vanilla Windows 8.1 update, and not its RT flavor, the embarrassment would have been greatly magnified. Windows RT, of course, is a sliver when compared with Windows 8.

Aside from this error, the Windows 8.1 release cycle has been mostly smooth. There were reports of individual user problems, and a general meme was that the update process took longer than expected, but worked. Until today.

How many Windows RT users are there? I don’t know, but given that the majority are presumably Surface RT users, Microsoft is delaying those who both bought into its hardware efforts as well as its new software platform. That’s not a very good Saturday for the company.

Peter Bright of Ars Technica has the best analysis of the situation:

To call this embarrassing for Microsoft is something of an understatement. While x86 PCs have extraordinary diversity, in terms of hardware, software, and drivers—all things that can prevent straightforward upgrading—the Windows RT devices are extremely limited in this regard. Upgrading Windows RT tablets should be absolutely bulletproof. It’s very disappointing that it isn’t.

Precisely.

We’ll have preliminary market share numbers for Windows 8.1 upgrade cycle next week, though I don’t expect this specific bug to move those numbers too much.

Top Image Credit: Dell Inc.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/7X8ytLTLBt4/
Category: taylor swift   Rafael Caro Quintero  

This Isn't Your Granny Smith's Harvesting Technology

In West Michigan, it's apple harvest time. That may conjure up images of picturesque orchards and old-fashioned fun: growers harvesting apples and then selecting them by hand.

Think again.

Robotic arms, computer vision and high-resolution photography are helping Michigan growers wash, sort and package apples at top speeds in the business — think 2,000 apples per minute.

With this modern technology, farmers are expanding production and getting Galas and Ginger Golds from Michigan orchards to grocery stores faster and more cheaply.

That's especially important during bumper crop years like 2013, when Michigan apple growers are expected to bring in a potentially record-setting 30 million bushels.

Rob Steffens, an apple grower on West Michigan's fertile "fruit ridge," has about 280 acres of orchards northwest of Grand Rapids. He packs 800 to a 1,000 apple trees into each acre, which is about three times as many trees as his father grew on the land.

With so many new trees, Steffens and other Michigan growers needed a way to process all those extra apples faster and more cheaply.

So Steffens pooled his resources with six other farmers to build a $7 million apple packing plant. It's where his apples are sorted, washed, waxed and readied for shipping to grocery stores.

Wooden crates with "Steffens" stamped on them stack up against one wall in the warehouse. A machine picks up the crates and dumps the apples onto a sort of water conveyor belt. The three-foot-wide river of bobbing apples moves quickly, as a machine sorts the fruit.

Then the apples go through a tunnel filled with flashing lights.

"Really, this is the brains of that," Steffens says, as he points to the tunnel. "This takes a picture of each apple — I think it's between 25 and 29 times a second."

The computer then forms a 3D model of each apple so it can figure out the fruit's size, color and quality. The apples are sorted by weight and color in a fraction of a second. Bruised or misshapen apples are rejected.

"See, and it's kicking out fruit like this," Steffens says as he points to a blemish no bigger than a dime on the skin of one of the rejected apples.

The high-tech machine means the growers can process and pack way more fruit with the same amount of workers. On a typical day, the machine can scan almost 2,000 apples a minute.

"It's processing at an astonishing rate," says horticulturist Randy Beaudry, at Michigan State University.

But this new technology, he says, is what Michigan apple growers need to compete with other states.

"If, for instance, a large box store says, 'OK, we want fruit that are between 2.5 and 2.75 inches.' And they want them 80 percent red with coloration. And they want zero defects — Michigan growers can get that fruit," he says. "And they can do it within a few hours time."

Each year, Michigan is typically only behind Washington and New York state in terms of apple bushels. That has a lot to do with good weather and luck. But it's also because growers have been changing their orchards. Growers have been ripping out older, taller apple trees and replacing them with smaller ones, Beaudry says.

"The trees are shorter. They're closer together," he says. "We create what we call fruiting walls. That's a relatively recent innovation, but it's part of a long-term trend to reduce the size of apple trees, so that they're harvested more easily and more efficiently. So we don't need as much labor."

More and more technology is needed to move labor-intensive agricultural products like apples efficiently to market, Beaudry says.

Fortunately for us, the end result still tastes like an old-fashioned Michigan apple in October.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/10/14/232235993/this-isnt-your-granny-smiths-harvesting-technology?ft=1&f=1008
Tags: Johnny Manziel   David Frost   Myla Sinanaj   Spain train crash   jimmy fallon  

How to Start a Billion-Dollar Empire With a Laptop

Alexis Ohanian graduating from the University of Virginia in 2005.

Photo courtesy of Alexis Ohanian

The skills needed to be successful today are rapidly evolving, which is why education has never been more important—especially for those in the technology industry, where I'm lucky enough to work. Companies (at least the kind ambitious people want to work for) no longer look for someone to come in from 9 to 5 and uphold the status quo. They want resourceful and innovative employees who work hard and get their jobs done regardless of the circumstances.

To baby boomers, these trends are scary, eating away at the foundation of a steady job and life that they helped instill. But we millennials welcome these new paradigms because they instantly show who is resourceful and who isn't—who will go the extra mile and who will coast to the finish. For the people with the skills to succeed, life is good.

Unfortunately, college alone can’t give those skills, and the economy isn’t helping, as promising yet under- or unemployed young adults with six-figure student loan burdens can attest. Meanwhile, people like Bruce Nussbaum, a professor at Parsons and the author of Creative Intelligence, say that America is experiencing an innovation crisis. Meanwhile, higher education is under fire for its narrow focus on rankings and its insane cost.

So how can we nurture creative thought in a productive way?

Peter Thiel, the billionaire PayPal founder, thinks the answer is paying students to skip college altogether. He set up the Thiel Fellowship, which awards $100,000 each to 20 people under 20 to pursue their dreams. There are two problems with Thiel's education solution. First, the Thiel Fellowship isn't scalable. Helping 20 kids a year is great, but more than 21 million students enroll in college each year, so the Thiel Fellowship is only helping less than 0.00000095 percent of students. The second problem is that giving a select number of students the option of going to college or getting $100,000 to work on a business creates a false and harmful dichotomy.

The best way to incubate innovation and entrepreneurship is found at the intersection of college and supplemental education. If you sample where today's resourceful elite—the tech titans starting billion-dollar empires with laptops—got their skills, it's almost always a combination of college and supplemental education, like learning how to code with Codeacademy and taking practical classes at places like General Assembly. (Disclosure: I'm an investor in both companies.) The most promising businesses are either building programs for their employees or encouraging them to take supplemental courses to continue learning. These programs, especially in software development, don't offer accreditation—they offer the skills to make careers.

But this doesn’t mean skipping out on traditional higher education. Although no college is perfect, professors and fellow students teach you really important skills. These crucial four years can go a long way toward turning shy and inexperienced freshmen into well-rounded, connected, and inspired graduates.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/10/alexis_ohanian_reddit_co_founder_on_solving_america_s_innovation_crisis.html
Tags: Texas A&m Football   grand theft auto 5   Ozil   Kelly LeBrock   Lady Gaga Applause  

Obama says it appears some progress in Senate toward averting default

By Roberta Rampton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Monday it appears there has been progress in Senate fiscal impasse negotiations but that there is a good chance the United States will default on its debts if Republicans are unwilling to set aside some partisan concerns.

Obama emerged from the White House to visit Martha's Table, an organization that makes meals for low-income families where some furloughed government workers have been volunteering.

Obama, who is to meet congressional leaders at the White House at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT), said he would be able to determine at that meeting whether the progress is real toward ending a government shutdown and avoiding a debt default ahead of a Thursday deadline.

"My hope is that a spirit of cooperation will move us forward in the next few hours," Obama said.

Obama warned "we stand a good chance of defaulting" unless real progress is made this week in the Senate and House of Representatives and if Republicans are not willing to set aside some aside some of their partisan concerns.

A debt default would send interest rates shooting up and the damage to the economy would be greatly magnified "if we don't make sure that the government's paying its bills and that has to be decided this week," he said.

(Reporting by Roberta Rapmpton; Writing by Steve Holland; Editing by Bill Trott)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-says-appears-progress-senate-toward-averting-default-171306391.html
Related Topics: sports illustrated   USA vs Costa Rica   indicted   usain bolt   pga tour  

Samsung Smart Media Player: An Expensive Roku Alternative

Samsung has just announced its Smart Media Player, a Roku or Apple TV alternative that runs the company's Smart TV interface to provide all the streaming you need. Sadly, though, it seems to have priced itself outta the market.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/v3BN65Z5Xa8/samsung-smart-media-player-an-expensive-roku-or-apple-1447641512
Related Topics: 49ers   Johnny Manziel   TSLA   tupac   lollapalooza  

BenQ SH940

Most people don't need a data projector with 1,920-by-1,080 resolution. But for those who do, the BenQ SH940 , stands ready to fill the need. With more than twice as many pixels across and almost twice as many down as SVGA's 800 by 600, the SH940 can show a large spreadsheet with fully readable text in all the cells, an engineering drawing with clear detail, or four windows at once with each one showing roughly the same amount of data as a single SVGA screen. If that's the kind of resolution you need, the SH940 will be of more than a little interest.

With 1,920-by-1,080 pixels, the DLP-based SH940 is a step up in resolution from the Editors' Choice Canon REALiS SX80 Mark II. It's also a step up in rated brightness, at 4,000 lumens rather than 3,000. However, it doesn't offer the Canon SX80 Mark II's LCOS technology, which delivers better image quality than either DLP or LCD chips, and it doesn't offer the kind of color management that makes the SX80 Mark II such a good choice for showing photos at top quality. That said, the SH940 delivers on the most important issue for a data projector, with high-quality data images.

Basics
The SH940 weighs in at 15 pounds 14 ounces, making it most appropriate for permanent installation or for being mounted on a cart for room-to-room portability. Either way, as the 4,000-lumen rating makes clear, it's designed for a medium- to large-size conference room or classroom.

Using SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) recommendations, 4,000 lumens would be appropriate in theater dark lighting and with a 1.0 gain screen for roughly a 270-inch diagonal image at the projector's native resolution. Even with moderate ambient light, it would still be suitable for a 170-inch diagonal screen, which is easily big enough for a large conference room.

One nice touch for setup is a little extra convenience in finding the right spot for the projector. The 1.5x zoom lens gives you flexibility in how far you can put it from the screen for any given size image, while the vertical and horizontal lens shift adds flexibility for the position up, down, left, and right. I measured the vertical shift as roughly 60 percent of the screen height up or down from the midpoint, and the horizontal shift as roughly 20 percent left or right from the midpoint. Position the projector anywhere in this range, and you can move the image to center it on the screen.

Beyond that, setup is standard, with the usual HDMI, composite video, and VGA for a computer or three-input component video, plus the less common option of using five-input component video with BNC connectors.

Data and Video Image Quality
Data image quality for the SH940 is excellent, with the projector sailing through our standard suite of DisplayMate tests. Colors were fully saturated and vibrant in all preset modes and color balance was in the top tier for projectors, with suitably neutral grays at all levels from black to white in all modes.

More important for data images, the projector also did an excellent job with detail. Both black on white and white on black text, for example, were crisp and highly readable at sizes as small as 6.8 points. Even better, analog connections were as rock solid as you would expect from a digital connection. I didn't see any pixel jitter or moiré patterns, even on screens that are designed to bring those problems out.

The SH940's video quality, unfortunately, isn't in the same league as its data image quality. The key issue is noise. With DVDs, noise showed up in almost every solid area in the image, like walls or the sky, and was annoyingly obvious in enough scenes to make it impossible to ignore. With Blu-ray discs, the noise was far less obvious, but there was more than with most projectors.

In addition to noise, the SH940's video suffers from rainbow artifacts. These artifacts, with light areas breaking up into flashes of red, green, and blue, are a potential concern for any single-chip DLP projector. With the SH940 I saw barely a hint of them with data images, and only with test images designed to make them show. As with most DLP projectors, however, the artifacts show up more often in video.

The good news for the SH940 is that with video I saw the rainbows notably less often than with most DLP projectors. Even those who see the artifacts easily probably wouldn't find them bothersome enough to be an issue for a few minutes of video in a presentation. However, they show often enough that they could easily be an annoying problem for the same people for long sessions.

One other plus for the SH940 is its audio system. The 10-watt mono speaker delivers enough volume for a large conference room or classroom, and the quality is among the best I've run into in a built-in audio system in a projector. If you need stereo or still better volume or sound quality, you can connect an external sound system to the projector's stereo output.

If you need a projector in the 4,000-lumen class, but don't need the SH940's high resolution, there are less expensive choices available, including the Editors' Choice Epson PowerLite 1880 MultiMedia Projector.

Similarly, if you need a projector that can show video reasonably well in addition to showing data images well, or you need one designed to let you tune the color just so, the Canon REALiS SX80 Mark II will be the better fit. But if you need a projector specifically for showing detailed data images at large enough size for a mid- to large-size conference room or classroom, and you don't need to show much video, the BenQ SH940 could be exactly the projector you want.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/Tn65BD7nZyY/0,2817,2425944,00.asp
Similar Articles: jets   Delbert Belton