Month: February 2017

via Dilbert
Dilbert 2017-02-11

In Avengers: Infinity War, the Avengers are going to meet the Guardians of the Galaxy. We all more or less knew that, but to hear Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige come out and say it in this brand new teaser video will make the hairs on your arm stand up straight.

Tonight, from the Atlanta set of Avengers: Infinity War, Robert Downey Jr. took to Facebook to reveal a very early look at May 2018’s highly anticipated Marvel crossover. In it, he, Tom Holland, and Chris Pratt talk briefly about the film, while the writers and directors also tease the grand culmination of what will be 10 years of Marvel movies. Watch this video and be amazed.

Did you catch that concept art? Of course, the image above of Thor and Rocket Raccoon is the standout, but also—the stuff of Thanos and Tony with some new Iron Man armors! And what is the set they are on? What a delightful treat on a Friday evening.

Here’s Downey’s live video too, with a few cameos you’ll recognize.

Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, Avengers: Infinity War opens May 2018.

via Gizmodo
Holy Crap, This Avengers: Infinity War Teaser Will Give You Goosebumps

Some people probably already know this, but for those who don’t: UPS truck drivers don’t take left turns, and despite this usually resulting in longer route, they are saving millions of dollars in fuel costs. From a report: The company decided on eliminating left turns (or right turns in left-hand driving countries such as India) wherever possible after it found that drivers have to sit idly in the trucks while waiting to take the left turn to pass through traffic. So, it created an algorithm that eliminated left turns from drivers’ routes even if meant a longer journey. This meant that drivers do not have to wait in traffic to take a left turn and can take the right turn at junctions. Of course, the algorithm does not entirely eliminate left turns, but the number of left turns taken by UPS trucks is less than 10 percent of all turns made. Turns out that UPS was right — the idea really paid off. In 2005, a year after it announced that it will minimize left turns, the company said that the total distance covered by its 96,000 trucks was reduced by 747,000km, and 190,000 litres of fuel had been saved. In 2011, Bob Stoffel, a UPS Senior Vice President, told Fortune that the company had reduced distance traveled by trucks by 20.4 million miles, and reduced CO2 emissions by 20,000 metric tons, by not taking left turns. A recent report by The Independent says that the total reduction in distance traveled by UPS trucks now stands at 45.8 million miles, and there are 1,100 fewer trucks in its fleet because of the algorithm. Even by conservative estimates, that’s tens of millions of dollar of savings in fuel costs.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

via Slashdot
How UPS Trucks Saved Millions of Dollars By Eliminating Left Turns

By Chris Heinonen

This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer’s guide to the best technology. When readers choose to buy The Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here.

We spent 10 hours researching and more than 70 hours performing hands-on testing to determine that the Denon AVR-S720W is the best receiver for most people. It offers by far the easiest setup process we’ve ever seen in a receiver, and it’s the simplest to use of the models we tested, with none of the usability flaws of its competitors. It provides very good sound quality and every new feature you might need, including AirPlay, Bluetooth, Pandora, and Spotify Connect support plus the ability to connect directly to Internet radio stations and local DLNA servers.

Who should get this

If you have an older receiver without HDMI support, now is a good time to upgrade. All the new models we tested support HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2, which means they’ll work with Ultra HD 4K displays and sources. If you already have an HDMI receiver but want to buy a 4K TV and want to be able to switch between 4K sources now (or soon), upgrading makes sense.

Wireless audio streaming has become much easier on newer receivers, as well. Our top pick offers AirPlay, Bluetooth, Pandora, and Spotify Connect support, along with the ability to directly connect to Internet radio stations and local DLNA servers. If you’re still hooking your tablet or smartphone directly to your receiver instead of streaming, upgrading will make listening to that audio much easier.

New models also usually support Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, but as those audio technologies require more speakers, this isn’t a major reason to upgrade (for most people, anyway).

If you already own an HDMI receiver and don’t plan to use 4K sources or don’t need to stream wirelessly, you can hold off for now. In most cases new receiver models won’t sound any better than what you have; they’ll just offer more features and futureproofing.

How we picked and tested

In 2014, we surveyed Wirecutter readers to see what they wanted in a receiver. (Though we conducted that survey two years ago, in that period of time there have been no new surround-sound formats or HDMI versions that would significantly change what to buy.) We wanted to know how many speakers our readers used, how they listened to music and watched video, and what they expected from a receiver. Close to 1,000 people responded to the survey and helped us define the criteria we would look for in our choices.

Knowing what our readers wanted based on our survey, as well as keeping an eye on what features would be needed in the near future (as best as anyone can, that is), we narrowed our research and testing focus to receivers with:

• Five or more channels of audio
• Five or more HDMI inputs (along with a few analog-video inputs)
• Ability to decode Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio
• Access to online content, with emphasis on Pandora and Spotify support
• A way to stream music wirelessly, either Bluetooth or AirPlay
• A built-in phono stage (a bonus)
• Dolby Atmos and DTS:X support (a bonus)

This year, after all our research we brought in and tested six receivers that matched our criteria: the Anthem MRX 520, the Denon AVR-S720W, the Onkyo TX-NR555, the Pioneer VSX-1131, the Sony STR-DN1070, and the Yamaha RX-V481. See our full guide for more on how we established our criteria for how we picked and tested.

We tested the receivers in a 25 by 12 by 7½-foot home theater and in a 13 by 11 by 8-foot home theater using KEF R300 speakers for fronts and surrounds, a KEF R600C center channel, and an SVS PB-1000 subwoofer. We performed Atmos testing using KEF R50 Atmos modules. The KEF speakers are 8-ohm nominal loads and 88-decibel efficient (claimed), so a receiver should be able to drive them without too much effort.

Our pick

The Denon AVR-S710W is the best receiver for most people because it is the easiest to set up and has every feature most people will need. In our tests it sounded very good and didn’t distort even at high volume levels. It supports important wireless streaming standards, has enough inputs for most people, and supports future standards in case you decide to upgrade.

The hard truth is that most receivers will sound almost identical at this price range because they use similar-quality amplifiers and digital-to-analog converters (DACs), so the major differentiator in sound quality will be your speakers. Because of this fact, features and price become more important when you’re selecting a receiver.

A receiver is the most complex AV device most people will ever buy. Everything in your system has to run through it, so once you’ve gotten everything hooked up, it looks like a giant wire Cthulhu. Even for experienced AV enthusiasts, setting up a receiver, with its dozens of buttons and options, can be daunting.

However, our pick (along with the other Denon models) sets itself apart from the moment you turn it on, with its easy setup guide. It makes the process as painless as possible, running you through the setup step by step, helping you do everything necessary to get the receiver running—and we mean everything. For example, it guides you through hooking up your speakers, from stripping the wire to determining which ones are connected and then confirming that they’re on the correct terminals.

Runner-up

If the Denon AVR-S720W is unavailable, the Pioneer VSX-1131 is a good choice. It has most of the same features as our top pick, plus an additional HDMI input for seven in total. Like the AVR-S720W, the VSX-1131 has AirPlay, Bluetooth, Spotify Connect, Dolby Atmos, and integrated Wi-Fi support. It will convert an analog video signal to HDMI, too, so you need to run only a single cable to your TV. It even offers the component-video and phono inputs that the Denon model lacks, though it will accept only 480i over component, so you can’t have your older Wii console or other device set to 480p mode. It also features Chromecast Audio support, which we really like to see.

Unlike the Denon AVR-S720W, which supports HDCP 2.2 on all six of its HDMI inputs as well as its output, only three of the Pioneer VSX-1131’s seven HDMI inputs support HDCP 2.2, so it can’t work with as many Ultra HD devices. The room-correction system is Pioneer’s own MCACC, which in our tests didn’t perform as well for us as the licensed Audyssey system on the top-pick Denon model.

Upgrade pick

If you’re concerned only about sound and don’t need streaming features integrated into your receiver, the Anthem MRX 520 offers the best audio quality. The main reason you might want a model from the Anthem MRX series is because of the company’s more advanced and powerful room correction (better than the one in our Denon pick, which is good for its class). In our tests, we ran all of the receivers through their integrated setup routines, and the Anthem was the only one to accurately detect and configure all of our speakers with a proper crossover. Anthem now offers an iOS version of its ARC app, as well, so you no longer need a PC to run the audio setup.

This guide may have been updated by The Wirecutter. To see the current recommendation, please go here.

Note from The Wirecutter: When readers choose to buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn affiliate commissions that support our work.

via Engadget
The best receiver

We would lie if we were to claim that the Apple TV is a perfect console, because that’s not true. While it does have its share of problems, no one can deny that it also has a lot of potential. The developers are working hard to improve it and bring it to current standards in terms of functionality and available content, but there are certain shortcomings about it that may tick off some people.

The App Store discovery doesn’t work as it should and give the fact that you cannot link applications on the web doesn’t help boost the ATV’s popularly either. However, in the past 2 weeks we went on a download spree and got to play a wide range of games on the ATV. If you’re an Apple TV gamer and want to know more about the best titles you should check out, then you’re in the right place. Below we’ll take a better look at the Best apple TV games that we think every Apple TV owners should play. Let’s check them out!

1. Galaxy on Fire: Manticore Rising

Space shooters seem to be enjoying a lot of success on the Apple TV and Galaxy on Fire: Manticore Rising is certainly a title that deserves your attention. The game is fun to play, has great art and we believe that its shortcomings in the voiceover department can be overlooked. Why? Well, because the developers just gave us first look at how the Siri Remote may be used in the development of future Apple TV games.

In terms of control, it’s limited and your ship will automatically attack enemy ships. Using the motion controls is fun and exploring the vast space is an experience in itself given the great graphics. If you’re into space shooters and want to play a slick title that perfectly fits the genre, then you may want to give Manticore Rising a shot.

2. Oceanhorn

Do you love The Legend of Zelda and think it’s an amazing game? Well, we also think the same. Even more, we want to let you know about Oceanhorn which is a sort of Zelda clone. What we love about this title, aside from its resemblance to Zelda, are the top notch graphics. These actually give you a glimpse of the ATV’s capability as a gaming console for less derivative games. Overall, the game is really fun to play, yet it’s not a masterpiece by any means. However, it does prove that titles such as it may be a convincing leap to a bigger screen.

3. Alto’s Adventure

If you have an iPad or an iPhone, chances are that you may have already played Alto’s Adventure. This is a very fun and interesting game to say the least. Not only that, but it features smooth animations, stark colors, amazing environments, and minimal artwork. All of these combined result in a world that captivates you and makes you want to play more. As you’ll zip down the slopes, all you have to do is jump. You can also hold the button to perform backflips, so playing the game is very simple. If you’re into very simple games that you can play either on the subway or at home while having a cup of tea, then Alto’s Adventure is a title you should certainly not miss.

4. Bean Dreams

Bean Dreams is probably one of the funniest games we’ve ever played on the Apple TV. In the game you’ll play as a Mexican bean that simply can’t stop itself from jumping. This means that you just need to use your thumb to move the character right or left. When playing it on the Apple TV, you can either use a controller or the Siri Remote to enjoy it. Overall, Bean Dreams resembles Mario a lot and it’s a fresh take on the game that we think you’ll love. We’ve also had a lot more fun playing it with the Siri Remote rather than a third party controller, but your mileage may vary.

5. Skylanders: Superchargers

If you never thought that cramming a 10 GB game on a console is impossible, then you’re wrong. Skylanders Superchargers managed to do just that and you can now play it on the Apple TV. What makes this game special is the fact that it uses the app thinning technique on the tvOS to stream various parts of the game on the fly. Better yet, since it also features iCloud Saves, you can literally play this game anytime and anywhere as long as you’re connected to the internet.

If you want to play the game, you also have the option to purchase a 75-dollar starter pack, a vehicle, 2 figurines, and a controller. If you don’t want that, then rest assured. You can have just as much fun by opting for the in-app purchases. Have fun!

The post Top 5 games to play on your Apple TV right now appeared first on Apple TV Hacks.

via Apple TV Hacks
Top 5 games to play on your Apple TV right now

Did you see and like the first John Wick film from 2014? If so, close this browser window quickly and urgently—X out the window; shut your laptop lid; destroy your tablet with a single, perfectly placed bullet; or even stab your smartphone with a pencil—then use a burner phone to order a ticket for the sequel with haste.

For the rest of you or for those less smitten with the first entry in the revenge-action series, I will do my best to implore you to see this film without spoiling its bloody majesty. John Wick Ch. 2 is a dizzying, enjoyable mess of guns, cars, knives, more guns, and martial arts, but it’s also an incredible example of how an action-film director can position so many disparate elements—scenery, cast, tension, pacing, and cinematography—to make filmmaking excellence look so easy.

They pull Wick back in

John Wick, played by Keanu Reeves, opens this sequel with one thing on his mind: tying up a loose end. The original film documented Wick, a retired, legendary hitman, returning to his murderous roots after having his civilian life turned upside down by Russian mobsters. That film also spent a decent amount of time building up Wick’s desire for revenge (and his ability to kill pretty much anything he wants to). With that out of the way, Wick 2 wastes no time punching its foot on the action accelerator.

After wrapping up that earlier quest and enjoying a brief moment of solace, Wick finds himself in an entirely different pickle, all thanks to an Italian man named Santino D’Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio). Turns out when Wick wanted to retire a few years back, he called in a pretty dark favor from D’Antonio, and this leaves our hero with one more debt to clear. “I didn’t want to do this,” D’Antonio insists, but he’s clearly desperate—as proven by his quick shift from a casual conversation over espresso to whipping out a grenade launcher.

Thus, Wick embarks on a journey that is similar to its predecessor—but only in the fact that Wick is on a mission to kill a specific target (and anybody who dares get in his way). What’s intriguing here is that the feel of this murderous journey is changed so drastically by his motivation: paying a debt, instead of exacting revenge. Reeves milks this distinction pretty successfully and without necessarily saying all that much, since Wick isn’t exactly a chatty guy. His tone, word choice, and interactions with fellow hitmen and other underworld “allies” play out very differently when Wick is driven by something other than blind rage. The distinction adds a surprising weight to the proceedings.

Nowhere is this more evident than when Wick faces off against another hitman named Cassian (Common). The two clearly have a history, though it remains largely unexplained, and their respectfully adversarial relationship is a major highlight throughout the film. Common’s charisma and steely-eyed demeanor shine in equal parts in this role, and it’s tense and fun to watch him play off of Reeves—especially when they want to, but cannot, trade blows. I’m still reeling from their most climactic moment.

Like John Wick before it, Ch. 2 benefits from a stellar ensemble cast, with some known characters returning in satisfying ways and other brand-new ones filling in some very interesting gaps about Wick’s past as a hitman. (One of these allies, who hands Wick a freakin’ Kimber .45 ACP, will be particularly satisfying for anybody who’s watched Reeves’ career for a long time.) Whether Wick is visiting a sommelier who happens to stock “vintage” guns or seeking help from a network of underground soldiers, he always seems to run into an actor at the top of his or her game.

A medium-rare ribeye of action

But, yes, you’ve come here for the action.

Wick 2 continues the first film’s tradition of longer shots, opting to avoid jarring cuts and edits wherever possible. Once more, director and longtime stunt supervisor Chad Stahelski lets incredible action setpieces play out with the only emphasis coming naturally from how fists, feet, and bullets fly. Unlike his stunt work in The Matrix, Stahelski doesn’t use wires or slowdown tricks to augment his chaotic scenes.

Think of it this way: John Wick does things in real time that The Matrix‘s Neo needed to freeze time to pull off. That held true last film, and it’s only more intense this go-round. I noticed a few fights in which the camera was zoomed tightly to Reeves, so that I couldn’t see how slowly his enemies approached him from the opposite side of the camera, but I was too mesmerized by his martial arts mastery and accurate gun fire to care. Wick has a knack for finding headshots with the greatest of ease—and Stahelski makes sure the camera is pointed in such a way that everything looks perfectly aimed and triggered. Reeves also spends a lot of the film injured, which makes his Rambo-like invincibility easier to root for. Somehow he’s able to sell that pain while flipping foes over his shoulders and individually snapping many of their necks and limbs.

A couple of scenes fall into a cookie-cutter category of “open floor, everybody gets shot” sequences, but most benefit from dramatic lighting and beautiful framing. Whether Wick is tearing through a goth-metal concert at a Roman palace or trying to survive a perilous walk through subway platforms, he and his bloody antics are always framed in succulent fashion. (Don’t even get me started on the final battle, which plays out like a Euro-trash funhouse of violent comeuppance.)

Wick Ch. 2 is a rare kind of sequel—one that doesn’t render its predecessor redundant, but that answers the question of why the series should keep going. As fun as the 2014 movie was, it only feels like an appetizer compared to Ch. 2‘s main course: a medium-rare ribeye. It’s juicy, it’s tender, and it’s bloody—and it’s a welcome cinematic escape.

via Ars Technica
John Wick Ch. 2: The righteous violence we so desperately need right now

sudo apt-get install kodi

sudo nano /etc/default/kodi

ENABLED=1

kodi

via MakeUseOf.com
Kodi + Raspberry Pi = Your Home Media Center Sorted

Art by Michael Ramirez

USA –-(Ammoland.com)- The Oh So Tolerant Left … NOT

“What a bunch of intolerant, hateful, bigoted, hypocrites, claiming moral superiority to me and you while burning, stoning and beating the very thing they claim to up-hold. Keep messing with the silent majority and you will learn what intolerance really feels like as we crush your hate with our fists.” ~ Anonymous

Did you enjoy this cartoon?

• Sign up for Ammoland in your Inbox and get our daily cartoon and email news!

You call yourself pro-gun? Prove it by joining anyone or all of these fine civil rights organizations:

• National Rifle Association (NRA) : http://ift.tt/1L87xW6
• Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) : https://www.saf.org/
• Firearms Coalition : http://ift.tt/11kvzre
• Jews For The Preservation Of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) : http://jpfo.org/
• Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) : http://www.ccrkba.org
• Gun Owner of America (GOA) : http://gunowners.org

About Michael Ramirez

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Michael Ramirez, combines an encyclopedic knowledge of the news with a captivating drawing style to create consistently outstanding editorial cartoons on Ammoland Shooting Sports News. Share this page and help spread our pro gun, conservative message with humor. Visit : http://ift.tt/2b5QCXQ

This post The Oh So Tolerant Left … NOT appeared first on AmmoLand.com Shooting Sports News .

via AmmoLand.com Shooting Sports News
The Oh So Tolerant Left … NOT

MySQL 8 features invisible indexes. But what good is an index if you can see it? br>

Is It Really Invisible

You probably know by now that indexes can really speed up data searches. And many of you have mastered the use of EXPLAIN to see if the optimizer is using an index for your query. Which means you should know that sometimes for some queries an index does not help.

mysql> CREATE TABLE t2 (
 -> i INT NOT NULL,
 -> j INT NOT NULL,
 -> UNIQUE j_idx (j)
 -> ) ENGINE = InnoDB;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> insert into t2 values (1,2),(3,4),(5,6),(7,8);
Query OK, 4 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> explain select j from t2 where j>2;
+----+-------------+-------+------------+-------+---------------+-------+---------+------+------+----------+--------------------------+
| id | select_type | table | partitions | type | possible_keys | key | key_len | ref | rows | filtered | Extra |
+----+-------------+-------+------------+-------+---------------+-------+---------+------+------+----------+--------------------------+
| 1 | SIMPLE | t2 | NULL | range | j_idx  | j_idx | 4 | NULL | 3 | 100.00 | Using where; Using index |
+----+-------------+-------+------------+-------+---------------+-------+---------+------+------+----------+--------------------------+
1 row in set, 1 warning (0.00 sec)

mysql> 

So a simple select of j with values over 2 uses j_idx. br>

Hocus pocus – Your Index is now Invisible

But what if we are not sure if that index is really helping? Deleting an index for testing (and then rebuilding) can be a time consuming task. With MySQL 8 you simple make the index invisible.

mysql> alter table t2 alter index j_idx invisible;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)
Records: 0 Duplicates: 0 Warnings: 0

mysql> explain select j from t2 where j>2;
+----+-------------+-------+------------+------+---------------+------+---------+------+------+----------+-------------+
| id | select_type | table | partitions | type | possible_keys | key | key_len | ref | rows | filtered | Extra |
+----+-------------+-------+------------+------+---------------+------+---------+------+------+----------+-------------+
| 1 | SIMPLE | t2 | NULL | ALL | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | 4 | 33.33 | Using where |
+----+-------------+-------+------------+------+---------------+------+---------+------+------+----------+-------------+
1 row in set, 1 warning (0.00 sec)

mysql> 

In this overly simple example it is easy to see that the query is not using a key, does not know of any possible keys, and had to read more rows to answer the query. So the j_idx query was helping for this case. You can also know if this is true by looking for errors occuring for queries that include index hints that refer to the invisible index, Performance Schema data shows an increase in workload for affected queries, or suddenly the query starts appearing in the slow query log.

Not for Primary keys

Any key can be made invisible except implicit or explicit primary keys. And it is storage engine neutral from MySQL 8.0.1 onward but 8.0.0 can only works with InnoDB. Please read the manual for more detail.

Presto-Change-o

But how do you reverse the invisibility?

mysql> alter table t2 alter index j_idx visible;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
Records: 0 Duplicates: 0 Warnings: 0

via Planet MySQL
MySQL 8 Invisible Indexes

Stack Overflow is filled with thousands of questions and answers, and many of those are book recommendations from programmers with many different levels of skill. Dev-Books collects together the most recommended books.

If you’re curious, the overall top recommended book is Working Effectively with Legacy Code, with Design Pattern: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software coming in second. While the titles for these are as dry as the Atacama Desert, the content should still be quality. You can sort books by tags, like JavaScript, C, Graphics, and whatever else. This obviously isn’t the end-all of book recommendations, but it’s certainly a good place to start if you’re just getting into coding or looking to beef up your knowledge.

Dev-Books

via Lifehacker
Dev-Books Is a Massive Collection of the Most Recommended Coding and Programming Books