Buzzfeed?s Benny Johnson broke the tongue-wagging story of Newark Mayor Cory Booker?s Twitter Direct Message to a hilarious Portland, Oregon stripper named Lynsie Lee, who works at a vegan strip club called Casa Diablo. Although Johnson?s headline blares ?NSFW: Cory Booker?s Interesting DMs With A Portland Stripper,? the NSFW part is all the nekkid pictures Johnson digs up to get across the point that Lynsie is a stripper. The DMs themselves could be out of a Victorian courtship primer.
Booker and Lee appeared in the Twitter movie Follow Friday: The Film, and the famously Twitter-happy mayor struck up a friendship with Lee. Johnson details the story in that Buzzfeed-y way that looks like all the pages from a children?s picture book laid end-to-end, which is really creepy when lots of the pictures are sexy nude twitpics. Long story short, in March, Lee joked that she?d love to be Booker?s First Lady some day, and another female Booker fan ?warned her off,? claiming to ?DM on the reg? with Hizzoner, at which point Lee produced a screenshot of this exchange:
Booker: And the East Coast loves you and by the East Coast, I mean me.
Lee: Well now I?m blushing :)
Booker: Its only fair
What?s the big deal? Not much. Cory Booker DMs a lot, and he?s single, so if you view this as flirtation rather than innocuous charm, so the eff what? It is, however, a good excuse to throw lots of unrelated naked pictures of naked boobies on your blog, and for people like Gawker (Gawker is a person, right?) to snark about the future Senator Booker?s sexuality:
Cute! And newsworthy, certainly, for the fact that Cory Booker seemed to be expressing?pantomiming??some kind of flirtatious interest in Lee. Who Cory Booker is dating, or not dating, has been?an open question throughout his mayoralty and into his Senate run.
That?s not actually true, in the sense that Gawker implies. Booker actually has been pretty clear that he dates women, but doesn?t think that should matter. Maybe someone else really wants people to know that Mayor Booker kinda sorta flirted with a stripper, who knows.
The scooplet has made a pseudo-celebrity out of Lee, who is now being pursued by reporters. The second-funniest thing about this story was Politico media reporter Dylan Byers retweet-shaming New York Times reporter Michael Barbaro?s attempts to contact the principals in this story:
Michael Barbaro ?@LynsieLee Can you follow me? I write for the New York Times.
Michael Barbaro ?@hellocalla @kn8 Call ? can you follow me back? I am a reporter for The New York Times.
Sorry, man, but that hasn?t been an effective line since about 1978.
The funniest, though, was this crack from Lynsie Lee herself:
my favorite part is that Buzzfeed is what I named my vibrator
Don?t look now, but I think Ben Smith has a golden cross-marketing opportunity on his hands, as long as he can beat The Daily Caller and The Huffington Post to the punch.
Daily Intelligencer?s Joe Coscarelli managed to get a statement from a Booker spox:
?I think it?s pretty well known that the mayor talks with people from all walks of life on Twitter,? Booker spokesman Kevin Griffis told Daily Intelligencer. ?There have been a couple of stories about that over the years. Really, the most shocking part of this story was learning there is a vegan strip club in Portland.?
Contact: Morgan McCorkle mccorkleml@ornl.gov 865-574-7308 DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The ability to control nanoscale imperfections in superconducting wires results in materials with unparalleled and customized performance, according to a new study from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Applications for superconducting wires, which carry electricity without resistance when cooled to a critical temperature, include underground transmission cables, transformers and large-scale motors and generators. But these applications require wires to operate under different temperature and magnetic field regimes.
A team led by ORNL's Amit Goyal demonstrated that superconducting wires can be tuned to match different operating conditions by introducing small amounts of non-superconducting material that influences how the overall material behaves. Manipulating these nanoscale columns -- also known as defects -- allows researchers to exert control over the forces that regulate the wires' superconducting performance. The team's findings are published in Nature Publishing Group's Scientific Reports.
"Not only can we introduce these nanocolumn defects within the superconductor and get enhanced performance, but we can optimize the performance for different application regimes by modifying the defect spacing and density," Goyal said.
A wire sample grown with this process exhibited unprecedented performance in terms of engineering critical current density, which measures the amount of current the wire can carry per unit cross-sectional area. This metric more accurately reflects the real-world capabilities of the material because it takes into account the wire's non-superconducting components such as the substrate and the buffer and stabilizer layers, Goyal said.
"We report a record performance at 65 Kelvin and 3 Tesla, where most rotating machinery applications like motors and generators are slated to operate," he said.
The paper reports a minimum engineering critical current density at all applied magnetic field orientations of 43.7 kiloamperes/cm2, which is more than twice the performance level needed for most applications. This metric assumes the presence of a 50-micron-thick copper stabilizer layer required in applications.
Generating defects in the superconductor is accomplished through an ORNL-developed self-assembly process, which enables researchers to design a material that automatically develops the desired nanoscale microstructure during growth.
The mechanism behind this process, which adds very little to the production cost, was the subject of a recently published study by a team led by Goyal in Advanced Functional Materials.
"When you're making the wires, you can dial-in the properties because the defects self-assemble," Goyal said. "You change the composition of the superconductor when you're depositing the tape."
Goyal, who has collaborated with multiple superconducting technology companies, hopes the private sector will incorporate the team's findings to improve upon existing products and generate new applications.
###
The study is published as "Engineering nanocolumnar defect configurations for optimized vortex pinning in high temperature superconducting nanocomposite wires." Co-authors are ORNL's Sung Hun Wee and Claudia Cantoni and the University of Tennessee's Yuri Zuev.
The research was sponsored by DOE's Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability. The research was supported by ORNL's Shared Research Equipment (ShaRE) User Program, which is sponsored by DOE's Office of Science.
ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy's Office of Science. DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit http://science.energy.gov.
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Contact: Morgan McCorkle mccorkleml@ornl.gov 865-574-7308 DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The ability to control nanoscale imperfections in superconducting wires results in materials with unparalleled and customized performance, according to a new study from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Applications for superconducting wires, which carry electricity without resistance when cooled to a critical temperature, include underground transmission cables, transformers and large-scale motors and generators. But these applications require wires to operate under different temperature and magnetic field regimes.
A team led by ORNL's Amit Goyal demonstrated that superconducting wires can be tuned to match different operating conditions by introducing small amounts of non-superconducting material that influences how the overall material behaves. Manipulating these nanoscale columns -- also known as defects -- allows researchers to exert control over the forces that regulate the wires' superconducting performance. The team's findings are published in Nature Publishing Group's Scientific Reports.
"Not only can we introduce these nanocolumn defects within the superconductor and get enhanced performance, but we can optimize the performance for different application regimes by modifying the defect spacing and density," Goyal said.
A wire sample grown with this process exhibited unprecedented performance in terms of engineering critical current density, which measures the amount of current the wire can carry per unit cross-sectional area. This metric more accurately reflects the real-world capabilities of the material because it takes into account the wire's non-superconducting components such as the substrate and the buffer and stabilizer layers, Goyal said.
"We report a record performance at 65 Kelvin and 3 Tesla, where most rotating machinery applications like motors and generators are slated to operate," he said.
The paper reports a minimum engineering critical current density at all applied magnetic field orientations of 43.7 kiloamperes/cm2, which is more than twice the performance level needed for most applications. This metric assumes the presence of a 50-micron-thick copper stabilizer layer required in applications.
Generating defects in the superconductor is accomplished through an ORNL-developed self-assembly process, which enables researchers to design a material that automatically develops the desired nanoscale microstructure during growth.
The mechanism behind this process, which adds very little to the production cost, was the subject of a recently published study by a team led by Goyal in Advanced Functional Materials.
"When you're making the wires, you can dial-in the properties because the defects self-assemble," Goyal said. "You change the composition of the superconductor when you're depositing the tape."
Goyal, who has collaborated with multiple superconducting technology companies, hopes the private sector will incorporate the team's findings to improve upon existing products and generate new applications.
###
The study is published as "Engineering nanocolumnar defect configurations for optimized vortex pinning in high temperature superconducting nanocomposite wires." Co-authors are ORNL's Sung Hun Wee and Claudia Cantoni and the University of Tennessee's Yuri Zuev.
The research was sponsored by DOE's Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability. The research was supported by ORNL's Shared Research Equipment (ShaRE) User Program, which is sponsored by DOE's Office of Science.
ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy's Office of Science. DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit http://science.energy.gov.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
BARRON, Wis. ? Chuck Kirkwood thought he was in trouble when he was called into the Barron High School office about 70 years ago.
Instead, he was asked to play taps for a military funeral. He accepted, and calculations are that he's performed at about 3,500 funerals and counting, the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram reported (http://bit.ly/161E3lf).
"I was never in the service, but I feel so indebted to those who serve," Kirkwood, 84, said. "I feel I don't deserve a lot of credit for what I do. Those who have served and are serving should always be getting the honor ? not me."
It was 1943 when he was sent to the principal's office, recalling high school band director Francis White recommended Kirkwood play taps at military ceremonies when the person who normally performed was not available.
"I've been playing at military funerals ever since," Kirkwood said. "I've played for Veterans Day, Memorial Day, flag-raising ceremonies and a number of other events in Barron and many other communities around here. I enjoy it, but I have to say, I remember being a bit nervous that first time in high school."
Kirkwood in recent years has kept a log of military services in which he's performed. Based on an average of slightly more than 50 a year, he estimated he's played in more than 3,500 such services.
Kirkwood started playing the trumpet in an effort to help his breathing.
"I had asthma real bad as a kid, and my dad (Charles) was a pharmacist in Barron. A doctor friend suggested that I play a horn to help my breathing," Kirkwood said. "I started playing and haven't quit."
Kirkwood managed to play at military funerals even while doing mechanical work for 44 years for the Barron County Highway Department.
"When I first started doing it, I would take a couple hours of vacation, but then one of the other fellas I worked with talked to the Highway Committee and said Legionnaires weren't getting docked when they went, so then I didn't either," Kirkwood said. "I would take my suit to my mother's house, change clothes, play, change back and go back to work. I made up the time missed by working longer those days."
The story of how a poster celebrating the end of the Defense of Marriage Act made its way into history
NMAJH/Facebook
Last week a container arrived at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. Inside was the newest piece in the museum's permanent collection, and, in a sense, the newest physical object of Official Jewish History, if that's what the museum's imprimatur conveys.
Shira Goldstein, the museum's exhibitions coordinator, opened it up and pulled out the poster it held. As far as art go, the poster wasn't much -- text on a white background. But what it said and where it had been imbued the poster with some greater significance. In bright rainbow letters it proclaimed: MAZEL TOV (to EVERYONE!). Three weeks earlier, on June 26, 2013, it had been outside the U.S. Supreme Court, held up in celebration as the Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act.
That the poster had arrived at the museum at all was a bit of a miracle in itself, a small miracle, facilitated by the formal structure Facebook gives to the social networks we are all a part of.
A colleague of Goldstein's had first noticed the poster in an image on the New York Times's website, part of a gallery the newspaper ran covering the day. "We immediately knew it represented a wonderful Jewish response to the Court's decision and thought it would be a great way to tell the story of this historic moment," Goldstein wrote to me. But how would they find it? Who had the poster?
Goldstein had the museum put up call for the poster on its Facebook page, which 46 people re-shared. Other people wrote their own posts announcing the museum's search. Additionally, Goldstein reached out to a couple of Jewish programs and institutions in DC, asking them to publicize her efforts. Two days later she got an email from Cody Pomeranz, a summer intern at the Center for American Progress. He had the poster.
How exactly the search made its way to Pomeranz is a bit unclear. Here's what we do know: His colleague at CAP, Hannah Slater, is the one who put the whole thing together. On Friday the 28th she opened up Facebook and saw a post from a friend of hers named Adam Berman, who had shared it from a friend of his, whom Slater does not know. The text was signed by yet a third person, "Adam S.," whom neither Slater nor Pomeranz knows. "I have no idea how many people may have shared the message before I saw it," Slater says. Here's what the post she saw looked like:
NMAJH/Facebook
How were these people all connected? They didn't know each other through Facebook; they knew each other from growing up or summer camp or college or work. Such networks have always existed, and they've always been used to convey news and gossip and opportunities. What Facebook did was to give those natural social ties a technological layer, and that layer allowed a message to spread far and wide at a speed that would once have been unimaginable.
"What's crazy," Pomeranz says, "is how many people were talking about it." After he had contacted the museum, he went back read through the Facebook comments of people searching for the poster. "I think I remember one guy saying, 'I hope this mensche steps up!' It was a weird feeling, in a good way."
Left: Pomeranz with the poster at the CAP office. Right: Goldstein with the poster in Philadelphia at the National Museum of American Jewish History
Pomeranz credits another intern with the idea for the sign. "I'm Jewish and I tend to say 'mazel tov' a lot in place of 'congratulations,' " he wrote to me. "One of my fellow interns said, 'Why don't you do that for a sign?' " Pomeranz liked the idea, so he grabbed the markers and got to work.
"Back in September," he adds, "I saw my oldest sister get married. It was a Jewish wedding, and when her husband broke the glass and we all jumped up and roared "Mazel Tov!" It was an incredible moment of joy, love, and family."
"Everyone deserves that moment, regardless of sexual orientation" he continues. "So after I finished 'Mazel Tov,' I added, in parentheses, 'to EVERYONE!'."
Zynga stock falls 17 percent in morning trading. Zynga says it's dropping plans for a US gambling license that would let it offer casino-type online games with real money.?
By Associated Press / July 26, 2013
The corporate logo of Zynga Inc, the social network game development company, is shown at its headquarters in San Francisco in 2012. Zynga will largely abandon its long-running efforts to build a real-money gaming business in the United States, a prospect investors once believed to be the struggling company's sole lifeline. Zynga stock tumbled on the news.
Robert Galbraith/Reuters/File
Enlarge
Zynga?investors cashed in their shares Friday after the company said it was dropping its plans to pursue online casino-style games in the U.S.
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THE SPARK: The San Francisco company said late Thursday that it was no longer seeking the U.S. gambling license it would need to move into casino-style games, which are played for real money. The company still plans to test a gambling product in the United Kingdom.
Zynga?posted second-quarter earnings late Thursday and reported that it had trimmed its losses. The company has been cutting staff to reduce costs.
THE BIG PICTURE: Adding online gambling could have given?Zynga?a potentially large source of revenue that the company badly needs.
When?Zynga?went public late 2011, its games, such as "Farmville" and "Mafia Wars," were the most popular on Facebook. Things have changed since then. King.com, the maker of "Candy Crush Saga," has unseated?Zynga as the top social games maker.
The second-quarter results were?Zynga's?last under the direction of founder and CEO Mark Pincus. The company brought aboard former Microsoft executive Don Mattrick as CEO , who ran the Xbox video game business.
THE ANALYSIS: Mattrick is well-regarded in tech circles and there is some optimism in his ability to turn?Zynga's fortunes around.
Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter sees changes within Mattrick's first 180 days at the company. "We believe Mr. Mattrick will act swiftly to focus on a handful of new initiatives and to right-size?Zynga's?staffing levels," Pachter wrote.
Zynga?did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
SHARE ACTION:?Zynga?Inc., fell 60 cents, or 17 percent, to $2.90 in morning trading Friday, then stabilized in early afternoon trading. The stock is down 63 percent since its initial public offering in December 2011.
If you've been holding out for a new $40/month smartphone, you're in luck. We're not even three months separated from T-Mobile's MetroPCS acquisition and the value carrier is already reaping benefits from Ms. Magenta. The Bring-Your-Own-Phone carrier is getting its first Windows 8 Phone handset, the HSPA+ Nokia Lumia 521, and the Jelly Bean-running LG Optimus F3. Both phones feature 5MP cameras, July 26th street dates for select markets and attractive pricing -- the 521 is $99, while the F3 is $149. The news doesn't stop rolling there, either.
Not only is the wireless provider's device lineup expanding, but its coverage area is too. Metro's availability is growing to 19 additional cities (listed after the break), including Washington, DC; Cleveland, Ohio and Fresno, California. Sadly, the embedded press releases don't mention the most important aspect of all: whether you can get the F3 in a Grimace-worthy hue.
Buzzfeed?s Benny Johnson broke the tongue-wagging story of Newark Mayor Cory Booker?s Twitter Direct Message to a hilarious Portland, Oregon stripper named Lynsie Lee, who works at a vegan strip club called Casa Diablo. Although Johnson?s headline blares ?NSFW: Cory Booker?s Interesting DMs With A Portland Stripper,? the NSFW part is all the nekkid pictures Johnson digs up to get across the point that Lynsie is a stripper. The DMs themselves could be out of a Victorian courtship primer.
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Public release date: 15-Aug-2013
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