teases: on • reblogs: on

ShortFormBlog

Read a little. Learn a lot. • Ask Us Stuff!FAQArchiveTimeline

Tagged: News

Our best freaking stuff right now:

August 15, 2012
09:23 • 9 months ago

nationalpost:

U.S. aiming to hit 6,000 km/h in test flight of supersonic ‘waverider’
The U.S. military conducted an unmanned test flight on Tuesday of its hypersonic Waverider aircraft, designed to move at six times the speed of sound using technology that bridges the gap between planes and rocketships, a military official said.

A B-52 bomber launched the remotely monitored, nearly wingless experimental aircraft, officially known as the X-51A, between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m., John Haire, a spokesman for the 412th test wing at Edwards Air Force Base in California, said in a statement. Results of the brief test flight will be released on Wednesday, he said. (US Air Force / AFP/Getty Images)

That looks sort of fast.

August 6, 2012
22:21 • 9 months ago

hypervocal:

Curiosity on Mars is awesome. @MarsCuriosity, the Twitter account, is cool too! Listen here as the people behind the account talk about NASA and social media.

Highly recommend you keep an eye on Politics Powered by Twitter, the great new Sirius XM show put together by the HyperVocal guys — it’s the first officially-sanctioned radio show about Twitter. And it’s great. Plus, this interview with the people behind the Curiosity Rover’s Twitter account is super-fascinating. A must-listen.

August 2, 2012
16:23 • 9 months ago
State officials have confirmed that the Megabus, which crashed into a concrete pillar off of I-55, lost control as the result of a flat tire. Firefighters have been forced to use four ladders to try and free passengers trapped in the top of the bus, and more than 30 ambulances have reportedly arrived on-scene. 15 patients have been sent to surrounding hospitals, but no word yet on the severity of their injuries. A live, but audio-free, stream of the continuing events is available here. (Photo via Jennifer Feldman) More on the story here

State officials have confirmed that the Megabus, which crashed into a concrete pillar off of I-55, lost control as the result of a flat tire. Firefighters have been forced to use four ladders to try and free passengers trapped in the top of the bus, and more than 30 ambulances have reportedly arrived on-scene. 15 patients have been sent to surrounding hospitals, but no word yet on the severity of their injuries. A live, but audio-free, stream of the continuing events is available here. (Photo via Jennifer FeldmanMore on the story here

July 24, 2012
16:41 • 10 months ago
tmz:

Sherman Hemsley, the actor who made the character George Jefferson famous in “The Jeffersons,” has died, El Paso cops tell TMZ.

You may not remember this, but George was a groundbreaking character for his day. A real icon — and we’ve lost a few this year. RIP, good sir.

tmz:

Sherman Hemsley, the actor who made the character George Jefferson famous in “The Jeffersons,” has died, El Paso cops tell TMZ.

You may not remember this, but George was a groundbreaking character for his day. A real icon — and we’ve lost a few this year. RIP, good sir.

July 20, 2012
07:40 • 10 months ago
He looked so calm when he did it. It was like scary. He waited for both the bombs to explode before he did anything. Then, after both of them exploded, he began to shoot.

Eyewitness from Aurora, Colo., theater shooting during showing of “The Dark Knight Rises” last night.

More:

9News in Denver live-streaming video.

Video of police response calls, including calls for gas masks.

Developing story and related On Deadline blog posts.

(via usatoday)

July 18, 2012
15:26 • 10 months ago
Barney Frank, Ron Paul among co-sponsors of new medical marijuana bill
House Resolution 6134, also known as theThe Truth in Trials Act, was introduced Tuesday by Representative Sam Farr on behalf of himself and 18 other congressmen. The bill aims to overturn existing federal regulations which prevent medical marijuana patients from discussing state law, and their compliance with it, during federal prosecution of marijuana-related offenses. It also aims to crack down on federal raids of dispensaries and caregivers by declaring that “No plant may be seized under any federal law otherwise permitting such seizure if the plant is being grown or stored pursuant to a recommendation by a physician or an order of a state or municipal agency in accordance with state law.” (Photo via Dank Depot) source
Follow ShortFormBlog: Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook

House Resolution 6134, also known as theThe Truth in Trials Act, was introduced Tuesday by Representative Sam Farr on behalf of himself and 18 other congressmen. The bill aims to overturn existing federal regulations which prevent medical marijuana patients from discussing state law, and their compliance with it, during federal prosecution of marijuana-related offenses. It also aims to crack down on federal raids of dispensaries and caregivers by declaring that “No plant may be seized under any federal law otherwise permitting such seizure if the plant is being grown or stored pursuant to a recommendation by a physician or an order of a state or municipal agency in accordance with state law.” (Photo via Dank Depot) source

Follow ShortFormBlog: Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook

Follow us on Facebook:
15:06 • 10 months ago

  • $1 billion to boost students’ math and science performances source

» The money will finance drastically increased salaries for Corps-selected teachers — with each set to receive a $20,000 pay raise — and would require participating teachers to commit to program participation for a multi-year period. Over $100 million in funding will be set aside for the new project, effective immediately, and the President will include another $1 billion in his budget proposition for fiscal 2013. ”I’m running to make sure that America has the best education system on earth, from pre-K all the way to post-graduate,” Obama told a crowd in San Antonio, continuing, “And that means hiring new teachers, especially in math and science.”

Follow ShortFormBlog • Find us on Twitter & Facebook

09:25 • 10 months ago

storyboard:

Capturing Libya: Through a Hipstamatic Lens

To photojournalism purists, it was pure blasphemy: a prestigious prize, third place for photo of the year, granted to a New York Times photographer who’d used not a 35mm to document U.S. soldiers in Iraq, but simply, his iPhone — and an app called Hipstamatic. Immediately, traditionalists went berserk: “What we knew as photojournalism at its purest form is over,” one photojournalist lamented. Using Hipstamatic in a news report, another commentator proclaimed, was “cheating us all.”

And yet, to Ben Lowy, a conflict photographer who has made a career out of a certain brand of iPhonography — and will debut the first ever photojournalism-inspired Hipstamatic lens with his namesake later this year — the award was a well-needed wake-up call for photojournalism fundamentalists. Last February, Lowy set out to capture the uprising in Libya from his iPhone (alongside millions of protesters who’d document the Arab Spring on their mobile devices) in photos that would fuel reporting from the region in outlets around the globe. In October, Lowy’s Hipstamatic images of everyday life in wartime Kabul were published in the New York Times Magazine, prompting the magazine’s photo editor, Kathy Ryan, to defend their use on the paper’s 6th Floor blog. And since then, Lowy has published an iPhone photo a day — from dramatic images of war to mundane life in Brooklyn — on his Tumblr, captured under the title, iSee.

Read More

That he’s found a home on Tumblr suggests that Tumblr is a place for new approaches.

09:05 • 10 months ago
The Free Syrian Army carried out this attack in retaliation for the massacres committed by the regime and because of the international silence. We promised that we are going to hit the regime in its most sensitive axis. This was necessary for us.
COL. MALIK KURDI, deputy commander of the Free Syrian Army, which claimed responsibility for an attack in Damascus that killed Syria’s defense and deputy defense ministers. (via the Washington Post)

Some intelligence experts are already calling this attack devastating for the Syrian government, one that could hasten Assad’s fall. Analyst Anthony Skinner of Maplecroft, for example, says the deaths are “a massive psychological blow to the regime.”
July 17, 2012
17:21 • 10 months ago
Internet Defense League introduces the web’s new ‘Cat Signal’
The Internet Defense League, a group of “people and sites who use their massive combined reach to defend the open internet and make it better”, has introduced a rallying cry of sorts should anything similar to SOPA, PIPA or CISPA rear its head once more. Borrowing an idea from the Caped Crusader, the IDL will publicly debut on July 19, 2012 — the same night as The Dark Knight Rises — and plans to use a portion of its seed money to let the Cat Signal shine in major cities around the country.  source
Follow ShortFormBlog: Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook

The Internet Defense League, a group of “people and sites who use their massive combined reach to defend the open internet and make it better”, has introduced a rallying cry of sorts should anything similar to SOPA, PIPA or CISPA rear its head once more. Borrowing an idea from the Caped Crusader, the IDL will publicly debut on July 19, 2012 — the same night as The Dark Knight Rises — and plans to use a portion of its seed money to let the Cat Signal shine in major cities around the country.  source

Follow ShortFormBlog: Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook

Recent posts and stuff we dig:
14:18 • 10 months ago
The Pitch, week 3: Scientology, Journatic, Romney’s veepstakes & more!
Make the SFB writers work for you! It’s Week 3 in our Facebook project, The Pitch! So far we’ve tackled the Supreme Court and Seventeen Magazine. Now we need your votes to determine what story we need to delve deeper into. You have until Friday evening to like the photo of the story you want to win. source
Follow ShortFormBlog: Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook

Make the SFB writers work for you! It’s Week 3 in our Facebook project, The Pitch! So far we’ve tackled the Supreme Court and Seventeen Magazine. Now we need your votes to determine what story we need to delve deeper into. You have until Friday evening to like the photo of the story you want to win. source

Follow ShortFormBlog: Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook

July 16, 2012
12:39 • 10 months ago
11:01 • 10 months ago

azipaybarah:

‘Slam Drunk’

In which Jason Kidd is reminded of why being a sports star in NYC isn’t the easiest job title — and why the NY Post and Daily News should call each other before using the same headline.

July 15, 2012
18:52 • 10 months ago
gifhound:

Stumpin’ in the rain! “You know, this feels kind of good,” remarked President Obama, as he opened a speech in the pouring rain outside Richmond, Va yesterday, the congressional district of House Majority leader Eric Cantor.
[Source: AP]

The president will try to get your vote, even if he has to stand in the rain to win you over.

gifhound:

Stumpin’ in the rain! “You know, this feels kind of good,” remarked President Obama, as he opened a speech in the pouring rain outside Richmond, Va yesterday, the congressional district of House Majority leader Eric Cantor.

[Source: AP]

The president will try to get your vote, even if he has to stand in the rain to win you over.

More posts:

 

ShortFormBlog is the product of Ernie Smith, Seth Millstein, Chris Tognotti, Sami Main, Scott Craft, Matthew Keys, Julius the laid-off RSS robot, awesome links from awesome sources, a hacked version of Wordpress, Tumblr's Tumblarity, the letter Q, the number 13 and a series of tubes.

Copyright 2009-2013 Ernie SmithAsk us stuff!E-mail usFollow us on TwitterFollow us on Facebook

    TwitterCounter for @shortformblog   Real Time Web Analytics   Creative Commons License Real Time Web Analytics