For the past decade, photographer Jonathan Higbee has been photographing the streets of New York. In the chaos of the busy city, he manages to capture the fleeting moments of perfect coincidences. Thanks to his keen eye for these moments, he has created a series of photos that show fantastic and amusing coincidences.
As Jonathan writes, he moved to New York almost a decade ago. He lived in Los Angeles, Detroit, and Kansas City before. After moving so often, he has realized that the best way for him to explore his new hometown is through art and creativity.
For Jonathan, experiencing New York for the first time was “an intensely surreal experience.” So many sounds, sights, and smells; so many people flooding the streets all the time. Some might find it intimidating, but Jonathan loved every moment of it. And he began capturing the moments on these busy, ever-living streets.
Over time, Jonathan’s street photography from New York has become the project he named Coincidences. The artist explains that it’s an attempt to “filter the madness and confusion” and “tame the anarchy.” In the sensory overload that never fades away, he managed to extract moments in time and preserve them in a series of fantastic photos.
Jonathan has lived in New York long enough that he got used to its pace. But, his Coincidences project keeps growing. He calls it “his love letter to New York” and to “the infinite number of magical, ephemeral and serendipitous moments that make it a city unlike any other.” And indeed, I believe photos like this are a wonderful way of paying a tribute to the city he has grown to love so much.
I now leave you to enjoy more of Jonathan’s photos. If you’d like to see more, make sure to visit his website, Instagram, and Facebook. You can also follow him on Twitter and subscribe to his YouTube channel.
Seattle startup TurboPatent has raised $3.25 million to bolster its growing suite of automation tools for patents and intellectual property.
James Billmaier. (TurboPatent Photo)
TurboPatent focuses on corporations and law firms, automating tasks like formatting or document preparation, for example, freeing up people to work on more complex issues. The service is designed to cut costs, save time and lead to more accurate patent documentation.
In addition to the $3.25 million round, the company is working on closing another $1.25 million.
Investors in the round include Voyager Capital, IP management software company Anaqua, former president of Paul Allen’s Vulcan Bill Savoy and John Amster and Geof Barker, co-founders of patent risk management company RPX. Savoy and Bob Romeo, CEO of Anaqua, have joined TurboPatent’s board of directors.
Today, TurboPatent employs 20 people out of its office in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood. The company says aims to have the same impact on the patent industry as CAD (computer-aided drafting) did for engineering, the cloud for IT infrastructure, and robotics for manufacturing.
Charles Mirho (TurboPatent Photo)
TurboPatent raised $1.4 million in funding last year and introduced several new products that use artificial intelligence to improve the patent application process. TurboPatent’s latest product is called Invention Hub, a place for companies to track ideas from developers, engineers and others. A beta version of the program is available now. It lets companies see where they are in the patent process and use analytics to figure out how likely an idea is to win a patent.
Formerly known as Patent Navigation, TurboPatent has an experienced team led by co-founders James Billmaier and Charles Mirho. Billmaier was previously CEO of Melodeo, a cloud-based media platform company that sold to HP in 2010. He also teamed up with Paul Allen in 1999 to launch home-entertainment technology company Digeo, which was eventually sold in 2009 to ARRIS Group Inc.
Mirho, meanwhile, is a patent law veteran, having worked as a patent counsel at Intel and later as a managing partner of a patent law firm.
The 1959 Looney Tunes episode titled Mexicali Shmoes exemplifies why the 2nd Amendment is of such importance when it comes to equality for all. The episode shows the usual wacky adventures of the titular character Speedy Gonzales . . .
In this case two Mexican alley cats named Jose and Manuel are giving him chase and constantly failing due to Speedy Gonzales being able to outrun them. The show introduces Speedy Gonzales’ cousin; Slow Poke Rodriguez. Who happens to be the slowest mouse in all of Mexico. Yet somehow Slow Poke Rodriguez is able to stay alive and not be eaten by Jose the cat.
On an adult level, this shows that Speedy Gonzales is able to beat his attackers because he is faster and stronger than his attackers. He has the benefits of age, health, and genetics at his advantage. Slow Poke Rodriguez is slow, weak, and an easy mark.
In the world of the gun grabbers you have two choices: fight off your attackers with your bare hands or call the police and hope they arrive soon enough to save you, your family and other innocent life. But as The People of the Gun know already, waiting for the police to save you isn’t a reliable strategy. You might even call it a Hail Mary.
Slow Poke Rodriguez equalizes his faults with Speedy Gonzales’ physical traits by carrying a revolver to defend himself. No different than a senior citizen or someone that happens to be smaller and weaker would carry to defend themselves.
As shown, Slow Poke Rodriguez walks out of his home, is suddenly attacked and what does he do? He defends himself with a gun. No different than my 64-year-old father today. He might be older, weaker, and slower due to age. But he is still dangerous and can defend himself.
Carrying a firearm is all about equalizing what nature has made unequal.
The 2nd Amendment is all about creating a level playing field. It gives strength to the weak to fend off violent attacks from criminals and gives We The People the ability to fend off violent government from usurping rights and liberties. What’s not to love?
Samir Bodas, co-founder and CEO of Bellevue-based Icertis, thinks the contract-lifecycle management industry his company serves could become as large as the customer-relationship management industry that propelled Marc Benioff into the Salesforce Tower. He just raised $50 million in additional funding to prove that theory.
The Series D round, led by Meritech Capital Partners, brings the total amount of money raised by the company to just under $100 million. The round also included the company’s current investors as well as two new ones, PSP Capital Partners and Cross Creek Advisors, and GeekWire has learned that the new round values the company at a little less than $500 million. (Bodas declined to comment on the valuation.)
It marks one of the largest venture capital rounds in a Pacific Northwest company so far this year.
Icertis built software delivered over Microsoft’s Azure public cloud that helps companies keep track of deals with suppliers and customers that require extensive contracts. Given how the legal system works, that’s a lot of contracts, and Icertis’ software also helps companies negotiate better contracts by highlighting ways to save money or move faster.
A sample Icertis dashboard. (Icertis Image)
“There’s tremendous opportunity to tease out risk, to tease out more value, to look at the text of the contract and say, ‘this clause doesn’t look right,’” Bodas said in a recent interview. He compared contract-lifecycle management software to the emergence of cloud-delivered CRM software used by a lot of companies to manage their sales cycles.
Both those services used to be handled as part of a huge enterprise-resource planning software package companies bought from vendors like IBM or SAP and installed on their own servers, but cloud computing has upended that market much the same way it has everything else. Icertis counts companies like Microsoft and Daimler among its customers, and has around 600 employees, including 400 or so based in India working on its technology.
The company has about 100 people in the U.S., 75 of whom work in Bellevue. Like most startups with fresh cash, Icertis plans to open new offices (mostly in Europe) and expand its work on sales, marketing, and customer support, Bodas said.
Icertis is also working on technology improvements that will bring machine-learning capabilities into its products, which is also something the CRM industry is trying to do. As noted above, such technology could be used to help customers find problems in contracts before it’s too late, and it could also make it easier to do the most important part of managing contracts: making sure the other party is living up to their end of the deal.
SpaceX’s Starman, drifting in a Tesla Roadster, has an incredible view of Earth on Tuesday. (SpaceX Image via YouTube)
This might be the ultimate space oddity.
High above his home planet, where millions of people are no doubt sitting in traffic in cars of their own, “Starman” drifted effortlessly through a wide open expanse on Tuesday.
The mannequin in a spacesuit — launched aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket on Tuesday — sat in the driver’s seat of Elon Musk’s cherry red Tesla Roadster. With the top down, Starman drove off toward a deep-space orbit listening to David Bowie’s “Life on Mars.”
(SpaceX Image via YouTube)(SpaceX Image via YouTube)
SpaceX beamed a live internet view of the unprecedented adventure via its YouTube feed, where more than 200,000 viewers were watching at one point.
Assorted camera angles captured views from inside the Roadster over Starman’s shoulder; from out in front of the hood looking back; and from off the driver’s side of the car looking back toward Starman.
Earth continuously moved into the frame to serve as a dramatic blue backdrop against an otherwise deep, black setting.
Clearly amused by his own stunt, Musk tweeted that “apparently, there is a car in orbit around Earth,” later adding that the Tesla was over Australia.
Watch the video below for as long as you can — Musk has said Starman and the Tesla could drift for “maybe in excess of a billion years.”
SpaceX now has a live feed of its Mars bound simulated astronaut, a dummy wearing the private space company’s new crew uniform. There are cameras mounted on the Tesla Roadster the dummy is “driving,” which was the primary payload for SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launch, which went off almost perfectly as planned by SpaceX earlier today.
The livestream switches between cameras, including one mounted on the hood, one behind the Astronaut’s shoulder, and one facing back down to Earth. It’s quite the view, and it’s amazing.
This is easily the most fun payload ever sent to space, so good job Elon. Also, kudos on the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy ref.
In a few short days the Olympics will descend upon the Earth, and with it will come hundreds of stories of triumph and failure that you need to be able to watch—or at least talk about the next day. Your best friend is about to turn into an ice skating expert, and your brother is going to painstakingly explain the rules of luging to you. The weird winter sports are upon us, and unless you want to spend your days glued to sites like Deadspin, eagerly waiting for the next clip of a guy taking a set of skis to the nards, you’ll need a way of watching these events.
So here’s a guide on how to watch the 2018 Winter Olympics. I’ve split it up into the different forms of viewing—from live to time delay to on-demand. Remember that this year the Olympics are in PyeongChang, South Korea, which is 14 hours ahead of the Eastern Standard Time Zone (so 15 hours ahead of Central, and 17 hours ahead of Pacific). If you don’t live in one of those time zones you can see how far ahead (or behind) PyeongChang is by checking this website, or you can add this Google calendar, which will tell you when every event is taking place.
How to watch if you have cable or satellite
If you’re one of the millions of cable and satellite subscribers in the US, you have the easiest method of watching the Games this year. NBC holds the exclusive rights to broadcasting the Olympics in the US, and claims it will be live streaming 1,800 hours of Olympic winter sports over the two weeks of the Games.
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The streams will be in HD and available via NBCOlympics.com on your Edge, Safari, Chrome, or Firefox browser. If you prefer to watch the streams on your TV, phone or tablet you can do so via the NBC Sports app available from the iTunes App Store, Google Play, Windows Store, Roku Channel Store, Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Comcast X1, or Samsung TV.
The only thing required, besides solid internet, is the login for your cable, satellite, or telco subscription so you can prove to NBC you pay your carrier fees.
If you’d prefer to watch the games the old-fashioned way, with NBC curating them and deciding what events are and are not worth your time, then you can catch the (almost) 24/7 broadcasts available on NBC, CNBC, NBCSN, USA, and the Olympics Channel.
How to watch if you have no internet but do have some rabbit ears on your TV
If you are me circa 1996 and are lacking high-speed internet and cable, but you do have access to broadcast television, then you can catch the most popular events by tuning into NBC’s broadcast.
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You’ll need a good antenna, and your TV will need to have a digital tuner built in (check the manual to confirm). To assure that your house can even receive NBC over the air, check out the TVFool and punch in your address. The website will not only show you what channels are available in your specific location, it will also tell you which way to point that antenna to ensure the best reception for a particular channel.
NBC is channel 28, which means if I want to watch it at the office I should direct my antenna northeast. Image: Screenshot
How to watch if you have internet, $40, but no cable subscription
Respect to you, my card-carrying cord cutter. You’ve survived this long without sucking at the teat of big ISP. But unfortunately, due to NBC’s stranglehold on the games in the US, your options for watching the Olympics are limited.
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Your first choice is to watch what NBC airs on its local broadcast. Your second choice is to watch the streams available online; however, you’ll only get to watch 30 minutes before NBC requests you log in via your cable, satellite, or telco provider, so plan accordingly. Your third option is to hunt for illegal streams on YouTube, Facebook, or Twitch—but be advised that NBC protects its broadcast rights in the US with almost unusual zeal, and there’s no guarantee a stream will last through an entire event, let alone the whole two weeks of the games.
If you want to guarantee you’ll have access to all the events you want to watch, your best option might be to get a Hulu Live TV subscription for the duration of the Games. In fact, Hulu Live TV might be the best way to watch the Olympics, period.
If you’ve never subscribed before, a two-week trial is free and should cover you for the entire 2018 Olympics. If you have subscribed before, you’ll need to pony up at least $40 for the monthly subscription.
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Hulu worked with NBC and the Olympics to create its experience, which allows you to subscribe to specific sporting events. (For example, lovers of curling can get that weird thing and only that weird thing.) You can watch them live, or DVR them automatically, and you can also watch short clips, for when someone inevitably performs some heartbreakingly triumphant feat of human spirit and everyone at work won’t stop talking about it.
Hulu gave Gizmodo a sneak peek at the layout, which will be exclusive to its app, and we were definitely impressed by the polish. The first aspect of it, where you choose your favorite sports, is live now.
But remember, it costs cash, and if you aren’t already a Hulu subscriber, that might be a bridge too far.
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Subscribers of other live TV services, like YouTube TV, PlayStation Vue, and SlingTV won’t have as curated or customizable experience. Instead, you’ll need to stick with watching the games from the five available broadcast stations (your online TV login for these services, sadly, does not work with NBC’s live streaming solutions).
How to watch if you’re just plain broke
Look, we all hit hard times, and not everyone can afford $40 for a Hulu subscription or $60 for cable—at minimum. Unfortunately, NBC really does not care if you don’t have the money because its entire function on this earth is to make money.
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So if you’ve got no money and really, really want to watch the Olympics, you’re going to have to get crafty. One possibility is to use a premium virtual private network (VPN), connect to a UK server to give you a UK IP address, and access the BBC stream through TVPlayer.com. As TechRadar points out, BBC won’t stream everything, but you can the Eurosport channel for less than $10. Add in a VPN subscription (the free versions are not always reliable), and you’re looking at less than $20 for the full two weeks of the Games.
Another option is to check in with your local bars to see what events they’ll be tuning to and when. NBC and its affiliates will also post the coolest clips online, so you’ll be able to at least get a taste of what’s happening—and remember, you can still watch NBCOlympics.com for 30 minutes before it demands an authentication.
If you don’t mind wading into a gray area that definitely violates someone’s terms of service, you can try bugging a family member for their cable login like you usually do for HBO and Netflix. That will give you instant access to the best version of the Olympics without the 30-minute time limit.
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If you’re friends and family are as broke as you are, a VPN is too much of a pain, and standing outside a bar looking in on the happy paying customers just won’t fly, then you’ll have to resort to looking for those less than legal streams online. But again, remember, there is no guarantee on how long those streams will last. And if they’re not on a regular streaming website like Twitch (where they are a violation of the terms of service and will be quickly killed), then you may open yourself up to malware and viruses. So practice safe browsing techniques and don’t click on anything that looks big, shiny, and clickable—it’s probably something nasty.
And if all else fails, head to Twitter. Someone will absolutely be live tweeting the event you love as it happens.
The countdown makes me gasp every time. Ten seconds until the next episode of whatever show my daughter is watching. Nine seconds. Eight. Seven. Six.
“Okay, turn it off!” I say from across the room.
“The next one is starting,” the kid says in a giddy surge of rebellion.
Three. Two. One.
I lunge to grab the remote and then hit the power button, just in time.*
Video autoplay is designed to hook us to our screens—Tristan Harris, a crusader against technology’s race to hijack our attention, compares it the “bottomless bowl,” referring to a study that found you can trick people into eating way more soup if you give them a bowl that automatically refills itself. For parents, it makes setting screen-time limits a challenge. (“What? How are you on Season 8 already?”) If you want to make sure your kids aren’t watching an infinite stream of shows featuring a British pig family or a talking yellow sponge, reclaim your power by turning the autoplay feature off. Here’s how to do it:
Firefighters regularly risk their lives to save people, so we as a society should be providing them with the best designs for tools that help them in their work. One such invention, the newfangled PyroLance, takes a cue from the world of digital fabrication. With an assault rifle form factor, the PyroLance is a "transitional attack tool" that’s something like a handheld waterjet cutter.
When approaching a burning and enclosed structure, firefighters may need to breach it to fight the flames within. The problem is that breaching introduces a sudden influx of fresh oxygen to the fire within, which can lead to flashovers or backdrafts, catastrophic, potentially explosive escalations of the fire.
The PyroLance allows firefighters to remain outside of the structure and to cool the temperature inside of it–without breaching. By firing pressurized water loaded with a non-metallic (i.e. non-sparking) aggregate, the tool blasts a tiny 3mm hole through just about anything: It’ll blast through two layers of brick in 30 seconds, a concrete block in 35 seconds and 3/4" plate steel in just under a minute.
Once the hole is formed, the operator changes the jet to a spray, which fills the room as an ultrafine mist that’s still under high pressure. The reduced water droplet size contained in the mist allows it "to absorb heat and extinguish fires in record time," boasting a reduction of 900 degrees in under a minute, according to the company.
Here’s some footage of it in action. (Please note that the annotation "The powerful jet cuts a 6mm hole" is an incorrect statement added by Business Insider):
If you’re interested in the science behind how and why the PyroLance works, this video below explains further:
