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Working For Amazon Sucks
Be happy you don’t work for Amazon! The New York Times release an article after interviewing over 100 Amazon employees, one of which said: “Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk”. Amazon apparently has a tool they call the “Anytime feedback Tool”, which allows employees to discreetly criticize or praise fellow coworkers, and is often used in performance reviews.
After reading the article, Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, came out and said “THE ARTICLE DOESN’T DESCRIBE THE AMAZON I KNOW.”, and encourages employees to report any negative behavior directly to HR, or to Jeff, himself – as if that’s going to do anything. Get the full scoop here.
Overhead Computer Control panel
A pretty sweet photo story by a Reddit user hit the big time all about this crazy overhead control panel that he built for his computer which has a bunch of cool ways to control all kinds of things on the computer from pumping up the playlist on iTunes, to just adjusting the back-light power and general aesthetic of the actual panel. The thing looks insanely heavy and not necessarily something I’d want dangling above my computer, but there is no denying the coolness factor. Click to see the Montage here.
Real Life First Person Shooter (Chatroulette version)
If you haven’t seen it, you’ve got to check out this interactive live action game that the team over at Realm Pictures put together. They also have a complete behind the scenes video of the incredible amount of work and coordination that went into making this video and project happen. Oh, and did I mention, they filmed it entirely while interacting with unsuspecting people on CHATROULETTE! Watch this now, you really should!
New Shotgun Shells To Shoot Down Drones
Snake River Shooting has unveiled a series of ammunition specifically designed to shoot down those pesky drones that are peering in on your privacy. You can check out the VERY limited information they have at dronemunition.com From the looks of it, these shells are to be fired from your standard 12 gauge shotgun and could only be used where firearms are currently legal to be used. The shells would be different than the more lethal buckshot or birdshot used by many shotgun hunters, these shells are purported to deploy a “Ferromagnetic ballistic payload”, which is basically iron/lead which is typically what you find in bullets/shot shells. I think this is more of a fun branding thing that the company is doing, but the geek inside of me is secretly hoping for more of a magnetic dust that destroys the drone from the inside out!
Ashley Madison + Leaked Data
A few weeks ago, a group of hackers made a claim that they breached the database of Ashley Madison, and threatened to release personal data unless the site was shut down. After not complying, a ton of information was let loose over the last few days. The dumps included the personal information of men and women who were looking to cheat on their spouses (even though not ALL users were married), which included military personnel, and our good friend, Josh Duggar.
Photographer Accidentally Lets Tiger Loose in Detroit
Earlier in the week, the Detroit Free press reported that there was a tiger on the loose in the somewhat well known Packard Plant which is one of the many abandoned buildings that dot the landscape in the motor city.
It turns out the British photographer, David Yarrow, had rented the place for two days, but had not informed the company renting the abandoned factory that he would have a tiger, two wolves, and a bobcat there for the project he was shooting.
You’ve gotta see the video of them trying to get this tiger back into its cage, trying to prod it from where it was sitting with a weed-whacker, flag it down with a big blue tarp, and a number of other questionable and dangerous tactics. Eventually the tiger was returned to his cage without harm done to people or tiger.
Photographer Shoots Airplane Flyby With 30 Strobes
Photographer, Dan Vojtech, recently photographed extreme pilot Martin Sonka, using a set up of 30 Fomei S600 DC strobe flashes. The pilot flew passes through a canyon of strobe heads very close to the ground and the images that were created were pretty cool! A little refinement and this could be a cool technique moving forward for photographing cars and other fast moving objects.
This App Shoots VHS-Quality Video on Your iPhone
If you’re jonesing for the 80’s and 90’s and wish you could emulate the style of video that you got with the old Super8 VHS camcorders, there is an app for that! VHS Camcorder, a $4 app in the iTunes app store converts your iPhone video camera into a 1985 camcorder. It does an amazing job! Check out the example video below.
Woman Photoshopped by 30 Countries
Similar to last year’s article that went viral, a portrait was sent out to “retouchers” in 30 countries to see how they perceive beauty. In short, these are very painful images to look at, and look like a 15 year old edited them. I understand that the point of this exercise wasn’t to achieve perfect edits, but it certainly would have helped.
Is the iPad Pro Coming?!
While there isn’t much information about it, little details have been leaking about a potential iPad Pro. Bits of code in the iOS 9 beta seem to indicate that an iPad-like device is going to be released with a screen resolution of 2732×2048. This doesn’t 100% confirm the existence or imminent release of an iPad Pro, but it’s enough to get us excited! Apple is rumored to have an event scheduled for September 9th to introduce new iPhones, Apple TV, and possibly the iPad Pro.
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