An Isochronic Map Showing How Many Days It Took To Travel To The Furthest Corners Of Britain’s Empire

Apple yanks drone-strike-tracking app from App Store

The app, Metadata+, was created by Josh Begley, research editor for The Intercept; Begley changed its name from Drones+ after it was rejected as “objectionable” by Apple five times.

At the time, an Apple employee told Begley that the app would never be approved if it focused on US drone strikes, but would have a chance if he “broadened his topic” because “there are certain concepts that we decide not to move forward with, and this is one.”

Metadata+ never the word “drone” – this may be how it snuck past the Apple censorship board. But seven months later, Apple has unceremoniously yanked it.

Apple: a giant corporation that gets to decide which journalism you’re allowed to access with apps on your device, and whose lawyersrepeatedly told the US government that changing this situation should be a felony punishable by five years in prison and a $500,000 fine.

Ecosystems work great – they just fail miserably. The important part of a benevolent dictatorship isn’t the “benevolent” – it’s the “dictatorship.”

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Santa Connects With Child Using Sign Language

“A little chocolate won’t do any harm.” You’ve likely heard your chocolate-loving friend utter this sentence on more than one occasion, or maybe it’s a mantra that you use yourself. But frankly, it undersells chocolate’s myriad benefits. This sweet is capable of much more than simply “not harming” you – it can help you. In fact, there are scientifically-backed studies that prove chocolate can help you live a better life (and we’re not just talking about the happiness you derive from its deliciousness).

Watch: A haircut may not solve homelessness — but it can make all the difference for these women.

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Migrant women hired to make $70 "This is what a feminist looks like" t-shirts are paid $1/hour and sleep in dormitories with 16 women in a single room.

If it would take a woman worker in the factory two weeks of pay to buy one shirt, what’s feminist about that?

Is it important to know the real story behind our clothes? Read the full story here

AIDS-drug-gouging hedge-douche reneges on promise to cut prices for Daraprim

Martin Shkreli, the hedge-fund douche-bro who hiked the price of an off-patent drug used by AIDS and cancer patients from $13.50 to $750, then promised to lower the prices after becoming the Most Hated Man on the Internet did no such thing, because he is a liar.

http://boingboing.net/2015/11/25/aids-drug-gouging-hedge-douche.html

That is the course that world leaders set when they met at the United Nations in New York on September 25 to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 17 goals range from ending poverty and improving health to protecting the planet’s biosphere and providing energy for all. They emerged from the largest summit in the UN’s history, the “Rio+20” conference in 2012, followed by the largest consultation the UN has ever undertaken.

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Unlike their predecessor, the Millennium Development Goals, which focused almost exclusively on developing countries, the new global goals are universal and apply to all countries equally. Their adoption indicates widespread acceptance of the fact that all countries share responsibility for the long-term stability of Earth’s natural cycles, on which the planet’s ability to support us depends.

Johan Rockstrom goes all in on poverty reduction and climate change.

Walmart heirs' net worth exceeds that of population of a city the size of Phoenix #1yrago

It’s grown 6,700% since 1983, to $144.7B in 2013 – greater than the net worth of 1,782,020 average Americans.

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The Moon Parka - A jacket made of synthetic spider silk

Remember the Japanese biomaterials company Spiber? In 2013, they presented a cocktail dress made of Qmonos (from the Japanese word kumonosu meaning ‘spider web’), their present 11-year-10-design-iterations-and-656-gene-synthesis synthetic version of stronger than steel and more flexible than nylon lightweight spider silk.

Snip from geek.com:

The end result of all that research is a method for producing artificial spider silk through a fermentation process using bioengineered microorganisms to produce the silk proteins. A real spider can only produce so much silk, but an engineered cell that does nothing but spit out silk proteins can be used to scale production up quickly.

Now they presented in collaboration with The North Face a new prototype called The Moon Parka, which is currently touring North Face stores across Japan. It’s intended to show that practical applications of spider silk are possible (cost is now 1/53,000 of what it was in 2008). Spiber aims to deliver the final product next year. Presumably only in Japan. But fingers crossed for a worldwide rollout at reasonable prices.

Watch their promo-launch video below:

[North Face x Spiber] [Spiber] [picture by North Face]

When’s the last time you thought about the revolving door? This modest invention—something you likely encounter with a sense of dread while rushing off to the office or airport—is something of a modern miracle. Every time a revolving door rotates, it generates enough electricity to power a 60-watt light bulb for 23 minutes, equalizes indoor temperatures, and reduces carbon output—ultimately slowing climate change.

Revolving Doors Are an Energy Powerhouse. Why Don’t We Use Them? | GOOD