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Ohio below average in Bloomberg’s innovate states ranking

Ohio needs to brainstorm ideas and become more innovative. That’s the finding from Bloomberg’s new ranking of the most-innovative states.
The Buckeye State ranked 29th among the 50 states.
Here’s how Ohio ranked in each category Bloomberg measured:
R&D intensity: 27th Productivity: 26th High-tech density: 38th STEM concentration: 21st Science and engineering degree holders: 36th Patent activity: 16th
Massachusetts was deemed the most-innovative state, while Mississippi was the least-innovative.
Click…

via Columbus Business News – Local Columbus News | Business First of Columbus
Ohio below average in Bloomberg’s innovate states ranking

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David Bowie fused science fiction and pop culture

David Bowie passed away yesterday following an 18-month battle with cancer. The news was confirmed through his official website, his publicist and son Duncan Jones, who tweeted, "Very sorry and sad to say it’s true." Though he only lived to 69, it’s hard to think of an artist who had a larger impact on pop culture. Bowie was a gifted and prolific songwriter who created iconic albums like Diamond Dogs, Heroes and Let’s Dance. He was also a fashion icon, actor, painter, producer, Broadway star and performer who invented iconic alter-egos like Ziggie Stardust, the Thin White Duke and Major Tom.

Bowie had a huge impact on geek and sci-fi culture. His first hit, Space Oddity, was released shortly after 2001: A Space Oddysey and the same month that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Many of his music production techniques were also highly innovative. Bowie collaborated with Brian Eno on the album Low, creating new sounds with Eno’s AKS synthesizer and an Eventide Harmonizer. He was also an accomplished actor who starred in the groundbreaking sci-fi film The Man Who Fell to Earth, along with fantasy classics The Hunger and Labyrinth.

Suffice to say, David Bowie had a big impact on a number of us here at Engadget. The following are some tributes, anecdotes and memories of how his work affected us.

Roberto Baldwin

Calling David Bowie a musician or pop star is like calling Everest a mountain. His art rose above everything and glistened in a sunlight too powerful and air too thin for most to handle. And yet, that voice never spoke down to us from its position at the very edge of the earth.

Instead it welcomed everyone into his world of aliens, space and sometimes fear. It spoke to the odd. The kids that couldn’t figure out where they belonged. The adults lost in a sea of grey. The musicians, the artists, the dancers, the writers. When we needed someone, when we needed solace, we turned to Bowie or one of his many disciples: Lou Reed, Morrissey, The New York Dolls, Nine Inch Nails and on and on and on.

I keep thinking this is an elaborate piece of performance art. Bowie will rise again. Bowie will lead us out the depression of his own passing. It’s tough to imagine something as human, as earthly, as cancer taking him from us. He was our alien crooner. Can aliens even get cancer?

But he will lead us out of the sadness that’s surrounded his passing. His voice will tell us it’s going to be alright. His music will be our solace. The "Thin White Duke," "Ziggy Stardust," "Aladdin Sane" even the "Goblin King" will be blasting out of speakers and headphones for days, weeks, years, millennia. I’m devastated today. But tomorrow and the next day and the next and so on, I’ll be besides myself with happiness because I’m here and David Bowie made that possible.

Steve Dent

I think I played Suffragette City on a continuous loop for about a month when I was 17, disaffected and usually high. I also wore the grooves through Space Oddity, Ashes to Ashes and China Girl. Needless to say, I was a huge fan of David Bowie the musician, and that’s never changed.

I wasn’t that knowledgeable about the depth of his cultural impact, though, until I saw the David Bowie Is retrospective at the Philharmonie museum in Paris last May (it’s currently at the Groninger Museum in The Netherlands). Going through the exhibition, you realize how Bowie had an uncanny ability to predict and then define pop culture. The sheer quantity of his creative output was also mind-blowing. Through each of his phases — Ziggy, Major Tom, Alladin Sane, etc. — there wasn’t just albums, but highly inventive costumes, artwork, music videos, books and more. Bowie was very hands-on with all of those side-projects.

He didn’t do it all alone, of course. Bowie liked collaborating with choreographers, designers and artists, both well-known and avant garde. That includes a mime (Lindsay Kemp), Japanese fashion designer (Kansai Yamamoto) and fellow rockers Freddie Mercury, Mick Jagger and John Lennon. At the end of the exhibition, we were marveling at how different his phases were, and how inventive he was in each. As the Philharmonie put it, "He never bows to the expectations of the record company or sticks to a winning formula. For Bowie, that’s the moment to move on to something else."

Jon Fingas

I came late to David Bowie fandom — by the time I was old enough to appreciate him, I’d missed his Ziggy Stardust days and the ’80s pop era. I’d learn to like those, too, but for me Bowie was defined by the ’90s and how much he embraced technology.

Remember how Bowie was once again the coolest thing because of the drum-and-bass and industrial music in Earthling? How he even found his way into a video game, Omikron: The Nomad Soul? This was a man who refused to settle down as his hair turned gray, who wanted to push technological boundaries rather than retreat to what he knew. It’s fitting that his last album, Blackstar, was an out-there experiment uniting electronic music with avant garde jazz and rock. And it was a pretty damn good experiment, too.

I don’t want to beatify him. Everyone knows Bowie’s troubles with drugs, his fractured family life and the occasional album that didn’t blow everyone away. But it’s rare that you get an artist of any kind who stays vital and relevant right up to the very end. I’ll miss you, David.

Jessica Conditt

Even though I grew up decades after the launch of "Space Oddity," Ziggy Stardust or even "Under Pressure," David Bowie influenced my young life in incredible, unforgettable ways. I can’t hear his voice without soaring into a galaxy of memories: I’m in fifth grade and I hear the name, "David Bowie," for the first time. It’s uttered in reverence by a friend who is infinitely ahead of her time (and continues to be today).

I’m in middle school and it’s nighttime. I’m sitting in a car outside of an apartment complex with my dad, the volume cranked up as the tinny radio finishes playing "Space Oddity." Bowie croons, Ground control to Major Tom / Commencing countdown, engines on, and my young mind is blown. My dad’s name is Tom. Somehow, this song is about him. It’s a warm and heartbreaking moment, perhaps the first time I realize that, yes, even my dad is going to die one day. But it’s not morbid; it’s beautiful.

I’m a teenager, watching Jonathan Rhys Meyers make out with Ewan McGregor in Velvet Goldmine, a movie that parallels Bowie’s life and romances to such a degree that he’s threatened to sue the production company. I fall in love with the unabashed, unapologetic openness of the glittering, gaunt man that’s modeled after Bowie. I fall in love with parts of myself that I’m just beginning to understand.

There are plenty of smaller memories scattered throughout my personal Bowie galaxy — driving with friends and singing "Under Pressure" at the top of our lungs; dancing on my own to his later work with Trent Reznor; watching him play a convincing Nikola Tesla in The Prestige; devouring his new, gorgeous YouTube music videos. The best part is that I know this galaxy will never run out of stars. Though the man himself has left Earth, Bowie’s art will continue to shape my life in small, welcomed ways.

That’s the power of art — it has an unencumbered ability to exist and influence human thought for centuries after its creators have faded to stardust. That’s the power of David Bowie. Cheers.

Nathan Ingraham

I must admit that I’m not as familiar with David Bowie’s works as some of my fellow editors, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been felt his massive influence on music on popular culture. Anyone who knows even a little bit about music history knows that Bowie’s work has influenced hosts of artists across a huge variety of genres and decades. As I was growing up in the ’90s and becoming deeply obsessed with music, two albums that blew my young mind away and remain favorites to this day are U2’s Achtung and Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral — two albums that simply wouldn’t exist without Bowie.

U2 visited Berlin in 1990 and 1991 to record Achtung Baby in the same studio that Bowie recorded his famous "Berlin Trilogy" of records (Low, "Heroes" and Lodger)in the late ’70s. It’s no coincidence that the band had the same producer on board, Brian Eno, the man behind some of U2 and Bowie’s most famed work. Say what you will about U2 now, but the band had a 15-year period where it released numerous all-time classic albums, reinventing its sound several times — that thirst for reinvention was directly influenced by Bowie, and the band knew Eno was a producer who could get them there.

NIN mastermind Trent Reznor’s appreciation for David Bowie is well-known — NIN did a co-headlining tour with Bowie in 1995 in support of The Downward Spiral. That would have been my first concert, but for a variety of teenage reasons it didn’t come together. It’s a real shame, because I’ve since seen plenty of videos of Bowie’s performances on that tour as well as his onstage collaborations with Reznor on "Reptile" and a reworked version of "Hurt," and all those performances were fascinating.

I’ve dabbled in Bowie since, but for whatever reason the influence he had on some of my favorite albums wasn’t enough to push me fully into his world. I’m sad I didn’t appreciate him as much while he was alive — but fortunately, he’s left a huge mark on the music world and dozens of albums to explore. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to spin up Low.

Timothy J. Seppala

I came to know David Bowie through the works of others. Growing up a ’90s kid, it was impossible to turn the radio on and not hear Nirvana’s unplugged cover of "The Man Who Sold the World" at least once a day. And then years after its release, I discovered "I’m Afraid of Americans," his song with friend Trent Reznor, while I was in high school.

It was an impromptu Rock Band party that’s perhaps my most vivid memory of Bowie, though. Friends and I were cramped into a small living room, holding plastic instruments and rocking out to "Suffragette City" in front of a modest Samsung LCD TV. I’m pretty sure I mangled the song’s drum parts, but when someone belted out Wham bam thank you, ma’am! it was hard to not smile despite my inability to keep rhythm.

He was my favorite artist’s favorite artist, and albums that’ve had such a huge impact on my life (specifically, Nine Inch Nails’ The Fragile and Reznor’s soundtrack work) almost assuredly wouldn’t have happened were it not for the trails Bowie blazed in his career. Even now, in the wake of his passing, some of my favorite artists are showcasing their love and respect for the man, and I’m discovering even more about how smart and prescient he was. It’s things like that which make me forever grateful for the indelible impact he made on music and culture. Thank you, Mr. Bowie.

via Engadget
David Bowie fused science fiction and pop culture

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The Great YouTube Ban: Hickok45 Explains It All For You

First Hickok45 was banned by YouTube. Apparently the ban hammer came down due to some cross-posting issues with the Don’t-Be-Evilers at Google+. Then he was back. Then they zapped him again. The good news: he seems to be back … Read More

The post The Great YouTube Ban: Hickok45 Explains It All For You appeared first on The Truth About Guns.

via The Truth About Guns
The Great YouTube Ban: Hickok45 Explains It All For You

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These Secret Netflix Codes Can Reveal Tons of Hidden Categories

These Secret Netflix Codes Can Reveal Tons of Hidden Categories

Netflix has tons of great content, but it can be hard to find it all if you don’t know what you’re looking for. The site’s algorithms show you what it thinks you want to watch, but these codes can help you venture outside the suggested depths.

Netflix fan site What’s On Netflix has a helpful list of codes that can reveal a multitude of narrow categories and category combinations that Netflix may not readily reveal to. To manually explore a category simple enter the following URL:

http://ift.tt/1Oj1bRU

Then, replace INSERTNUMBER with one of the codes from the site below. What’s On Netflix has dozens of numbers for very specific categories, including everything from B-Horror Movies to Anime Fantasy. Check out the full list at the source link below.

The Netflix ID Bible – Every Category on Netflix | What’s On Netflix


via Lifehacker
These Secret Netflix Codes Can Reveal Tons of Hidden Categories

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Make Your Own “USB Condom” for Added Security When Charging from Untrusted USB Ports

When you need a quick charge of your phone or other device, it’s easy to just connect it into any old untrusted computer or public charging station. The chance of malicious data getting through to your phone is pretty slim, but it still exists. Over on Node, they show off a way to make sure only power can get through the USB port.

You’ll essentially be disassembling a couple of different USB plugs and then reassembling them together to create a connection that blocks data transfers but allows powering. You’ll need some light soldering skills, but otherwise it’s a simple project to make for yourself. It’s probably not a necessity for most of us, but it’s a fun little thing to make either way.

How to Create a Tiny USB Condom | Node


via Lifehacker
Make Your Own “USB Condom” for Added Security When Charging from Untrusted USB Ports

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J.J. Abrams Explains Why The Force Awakens Isn’t Just a Carbon Copy of A New Hope

J.J. Abrams Explains Why The Force Awakens Isn't Just a Carbon Copy of A New Hope

A droid carrying important information is jettisoned on a remote desert planet. A mechanically inclined loner with a mysterious past finds it, setting them off on an adventure that will see the destruction of a huge weapon and more. Yes, The Force Awakens mirrors the original Star Wars, and J.J. Abrams thinks it had to.

“It was obviously a wildly intentional thing that we go backwards, in some ways, to go forwards in the important ways,” Abrams said in a podcast with The Hollywood Reporter. “Ultimately the structure of Star Wars itself is as classic and tried and true as you can get. It was itself derivative of all of these things that George loved so much, from the most obvious, Flash Gordon and Joseph Campbell, to the [Akira] Kurosawa references, to Westerns — I mean, all of these elements were part of what made Star Wars.”

Though Abrams admits to hitting all the tried and true beats from the original film, he thinks that pales in significance to everything else.

“I can understand that someone might say, ‘Oh, it’s a complete rip-off!’” he said. “We inherited Star Wars. The story of history repeating itself was, I believe, an obvious and intentional thing, and the structure of meeting a character who comes from a nowhere desert and discovers that she has a power within her, where the bad guys have a weapon that is destructive but that ends up being destroyed — those simple tenets are by far the least important aspects of this movie, and they provide bones that were well-proven long before they were used in Star Wars.”

Those bones, he feels, were necessary to get where this story had to be.

“What was important for me was introducing brand new characters using relationships that were embracing the history that we know to tell a story that is new — to go backwards to go forwards,” Abrams said “So I understand that this movie, I would argue much more than the ones that follow, needed to take a couple of steps backwards into very familiar terrain, and using a structure of nobodies becoming somebodies defeating the baddies — which is, again, I would argue, not a brand new concept, admittedly — but use that to do, I think, a far more important thing, which is introduce this young woman, who’s a character we’ve not seen before and who has a story we have not seen before, meeting the first Storm Trooper we’ve ever seen who we get to know as a human being; to see the two of them have an adventure in a way that no one has had yet, with Han Solo; to see those characters go to find someone who is a brand new character who, yes, may be diminutive, but is as far from Yoda as I think a description of a character can get, who gets to enlighten almost the way a wonderful older teacher or grandparent or great-aunt might, you know, something that is confirming a kind of belief system that is rejected by the main character; and to tell a story of being a parent and being a child and the struggles that that entails — clearly Star Wars has always been a familial story, but never in the way that we’ve told here.”

Abrams continues from there:

J.J. Abrams Explains Why The Force Awakens Isn't Just a Carbon Copy of A New Hope

“And yes, they destroy a weapon at the end of this movie, but then something else happens which is, I think, far more critical and far more important — and in fact even in that moment, when that is happening, the thing I think the audience is focused on and cares more about is not, ‘Is that big planet gonna blow up?’ — ‘cause we all know it’s gonna blow up. What you really care about is what’s gonna happen in the forest between these two characters who are now alone.”

“Yes, the bones of the thing we always knew would be a genre comfort zone,” Abrams concluded. “But what the thing looks like, we all have a skeleton that looks somewhat similar, but none of us look the same [on the outside]. To me, the important thing was not, ‘What are the bones of this thing?’ To me, it was meeting new characters who discover themselves that they are in a universe that is spiritual, that is optimistic and in a world where you meet people that will become your family.”

It’s a great podcast, that’s well worth a listen. They talk about Abrams’ early career, why he didn’t want to be “The sequel guy,” how Rian Johnson contributed to Episode VII, how Abrams influenced Episode VIII, and more. Here’s the link again.

[The Hollywood Reporter]

Contact the author at germain@io9.com.

via Gizmodo
J.J. Abrams Explains Why The Force Awakens Isn’t Just a Carbon Copy of A New Hope