Pete Souza/The White House In the photo that has hung in the West Wing for three years, President Obama looks to be bowing to five-year-old Jacob Philadelphia, his arm raised to touch the president’s hair — to see if it feels like his. WASHINGTON — For decades at the White House, photographs of the president at work and at play have been hung throughout the West Wing, and each print soon gives way to a more recent shot. But one picture remains after three years, its staying power testifying to the thousand words it seems worth to those who see it. In the photo, President Obama looks to be bowing to a sharply dressed black boy, who stands erect beside the Oval Office desk, his ... Continue reading →
Google co-founder Sergey Brin was spotted Wednesday wearing the search leader's forthcoming augmented reality goggles in San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood. In April, Google confirmed it was working on glasses that can do things like show maps, messages and other information by releasing a mocked up video of a person using the glasses to take photos, receive messages, share videos of what they're seeing, and obtain directions. Like Google's press images for what it calls "Project Glass," the glasses Brin wore while walking down King Street were lens-free with a small, clear prism-like display mounted above the right eye. It wasn't clear if the glasses were completely self-contained, or if they were wired to what appeared to be a smart phone in his left hand. Brin, ... Continue reading →
“This is the last thing you want to hear when you’re couch surfing,” said my host, Cortney Fielding, a thirty-year-old freelance writer, when I arrived, this winter, at her one-bedroom apartment in the Nob Hill neighborhood of San Francisco. “Couch surfing” refers to the practice of temporarily lodging with a stranger—free of charge, unless you count being incessantly sociable as payment. Fielding and I, along with 3,965,492 others, are members of CouchSurfing.org, a hospitality-exchange network that pairs travellers looking for a place to crash with locals willing to accommodate them or perhaps just meet for a beverage. There are members in every country, including North Korea, Pakistan, and the Vatican, and also in Antarctica. They speak, all told, three hundred and sixty-five languages—Saramaccan, Yapese, Quiché, ... Continue reading →
I'm never gonna say goodbye unless there's a copyright complaint. Oh, rickrolling, will you ever cease to entertain us? Apparently so, given that one of the most widely viewed versions of the 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You Up” on YouTube has been taken down due to a copyright claim filed by AVG Technologies. (This particular link appears on the image board 4chan alone some 3,720 times and at a couple hundred thousand other places around the Web.) It’s still unclear exactly when the video was pulled, though Torrentfreak calls it a new development. Rickrolling, for the uninitiated, is the practice of making a link seem like it’s about one thing, only to then actually link to Rick Astley doing his oddly dad-like dancing. (We ... Continue reading →
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Jim Wilson/The New York Times Native Americans are particularly vulnerable to sexual assault in remote Alaskan villages like Emmonak, women’s advocates say. More Photos » EMMONAK, Alaska — She was 19, a young Alaska Native woman in this icebound fishing village of 800 in the Yukon River delta, when an intruder broke into her home and raped her. The man left. Shaking, the woman called the tribal police, a force of three. It was late at night. No one answered. She left a message on the department’s voice mail system. Her call was never returned. She was left to recover on her own. “I drank a lot,” she said this spring, three years later. “You get to a certain point, it hits a wall.” One ... Continue reading →
It is a Hebrew class, beginning with the Aleph Bet — there is a six-word Arabic acrostic of the 22 Hebrew letters to help students remember. It has been nearly two decades since the language was taught in Gaza’s schools, and last month, after much debate, Hamas officials chose to add it to the optional curriculum rather than Turkish or German. “Through the Hebrew language we can understand the structure of the Israeli society, the way they think,” explained Mahmoud Matar, director general of the Hamas-run Ministry of Education here. “The Arabic language is a basic thing for the Israelis, and they use it to achieve what they want,” Dr. Matar added. “We look at Israel as an enemy. We teach our students the language ... Continue reading →
