Author: carpetbomberz

By Dean Treadway In this. the first Allan Fish Online Film Festival, constructed by the site’s co-founder Sam Juliano after the untimely death of his British co-hort Allan Fish, Sam has asked many of the site’s contributors to throw in on a film festival designed to highlight Fish’s obviously consuming love of cinema. Many of […]

via Allan Fish Online Film Festival, Day 3: A Sidebar of Experimental Short Films — Wonders in the Dark

You have everything from Norman McLaren to Stan Brackhage and everything in between. Watch all the films it will make you want to see more, I guarantee.

The FBI paid approximately $900,000 to a third party to help break into the iPhone 5c of San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein said recently when questioning FBI director James Comey at a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing.

via Sen. Feinstein claims FBI paid $900K to crack San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone — AppleInsider – Frontpage News

Given the fact that cracking “could” be done when it needed to be done, law enforcement did it’s job. But to say that it shouldn’t be so hard or cost so much? I’m not on board with that. Cracking a phone should be expensive, and hard to do, especially for the pursuit of justice. This may be a case of false equivalency, but compare the cost of a Hellfire II missile and a drone mission in Yemen or Afghanistan to the cost of cracking 1-encryped iPhone. No comparison cost-wise. The phone crack is much cheaper. And in light of what it costs to maintain the security of the President of the United States on every weekend trip he makes to Florida? (a bargain by any measure) So carry on DOJ, carry on US Congress/Senate. Nothing to see here, just move along now and let the market dictate what level of security the consumer requires, THANK YOU!

The Raiders of the Lost Walmart is a recurring series here at Consumerist, where the brave explorers who read this site excavate their local discount stores, finding ancient treasures along the way. What we mean is that readers send us pictures of overpriced electronics that are obsolete or even unusable, and that will probably never…

via The Most Precious Treasures Of The Raiders Of The Lost Walmart — Consumerist

The best part of this whole collection is that the Electronics managers of the respective Walmart facilities keep these things on the shelves for people to see. They may never buy them, but they can pick them up and hold them and read the packaging just like it was some kind of hands-on exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. And those security tags! The best, truly the best.

Golf balls and potatoes are both round, dimpled, and typically found on the ground. That’s about all they have in common, though, so the recall of hash browns produced by McCain Foods and sold under supermarkets’ private labels that may contain diced golf balls is still an interesting agricultural mystery. Now another retailer, northeastern chain…

via Wegmans Hash Browns Also Recalled For Possible Golf Ball Bits — Consumerist

All the brands mentioned in the  original recall on the Consumerist.com website made me feel a little happy. None of them were brands or regional brands that I recognized. That is, until today. Wegmans is headquartered here in my small town and is a big hero locally. Nationally it is rising with a bullet. So a bit of a setback and  hopefully they will be extra cautious with their contracting and branding of 3rd party food product, like frozen hash browns and such.

Besides being beat up by staff, there are other things United has missed, but Japan Airlines got very right…

via United vs Japan Airlines — Gaijinass

JAL is a phenomenon everyone should treat themselves to at least once in their lifetimes. I’ve flown JAL on one trip to Japan and it was fantastic. Prior to that my wife and I were loyal to NorthWest out of Detroit. Loved McNamara airport after the new terminal went in. It was beautiful clean and a joy after trying to traverse the mess of the old terminals A/B/C/D. I was so sad when Delta shut that down and threw everything to Atlanta, GA Hartsfield airport. Let’s mention that too BTW, Atlanta. Airlines all over the world have willingly bought into the sales pitch that Atlanta is 3 hours from 90% of all the people flying within the US by air. But does that justify forcing all your Japan flights to originate there? Can you imagine this for instance. Flying 4 hours south to Atlanta to then and ONLY then begin the 12 hour journey across Canada/Alaska/Japan? It’s nuts. Detroit alone took 3 hours off the first leg of our flights to Japan. Enough said about that, let’s get back to Japan Airlines (JAL).

Our closest airport with JAL flights was Toronto, so we took a puddle jumper across Lake Ontario, 45 minutes tops. Then embarking on the 12 flight in coach on the world’s best airline, JAL on the best airplane the Boeing 777. Yes, I said 777, not 787. I’ve been on both, still like the 777, the size, layout and the entertainment center options at each seat. And the staff! OMG, as Gaijinass says in his blog entry, they are cut above. Not just safety staff, but experts in the cabin morale business. They keep everything under control and moving along. No excuses, no apologies, just professionalism and honesty from sea to shining sea. The flight IS part of the vacation as far as I’m concerned when you fly on JAL.