Abercrombie & Fitch Gets a Brand Readjustment #FitchTheHomeless

Most of us prefer not to think about old people rolling in the hay, right? Gross. Old people and prostitution? Well, that might be interesting. Check out this snippet from a recent news article:

The suspects are accused of running a prostitution ring out of their apartments, using cocaine, and ultimately causing drunks and drug addicts to bother others living in the building, pass out in the halls, and leave used condoms in the rec room. Oh, the building in question? It’s a senior citizen housing complex in New Jersey, and the two main suspects who were arrested after a drug and prostitution sting last month are 75 and 66 years old…

That’s right. While most eldery folk spend their time watching game shows or talking about their grandkids, these two residents of ran a prostitution ring straight from a senior citizens home. James Parham and Cheryl Chaney ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Residents were too scared to leave their apartments after hearing drunks scramble up the stairwells and finding crack-addicted prostitutes unconscious on the floor. Security officers were often off-duty when Parham’s “friends” entered the building. One resident described her 98-year-old neighbor’s reaction late one night:

Someone was banging on her door real hard and kicking it, literally kicking it. She was shaking like a leaf. I had to stay with her that night.

Ironically, the Englewood Housing Authority requires a thorough background check before residents can move in. Both came out clean, save for a few minor arrests for disorderly conduct on Parham’s record. 

What other creative retirement ideas will seniors think up next?

               The United States had the distinct honor of returning over a dozen illegally smuggled dinosaur fossils to the government of Mongolia. The collection included two Tyrannosaurus baatars (relatives of the Tyrannosaurus rex), six Oviraptors, and “several” Gallimimuses.

Several of the fossils, including one of the Tyrannosaurus baatars, had been confiscated from an auction after they had been sold by a Florida fossil dealer last June.

Perhaps it goes to show that for some, the opportunity to own an authentic piece of natural history is simply too strong to resist. For the rest of us, a trip to the museum ought to still be enough.

Social media is useful for more than just sharing pictures of what you ate for lunch.

By examining geotagged posts on Twitter, researchers at Floating Sheep have been able to construct a map of common racial, homophobic and other discriminatory slurs across the the US.

The map, which is called “Geography of Hate,” builds on a previous project from the research center that shows the locations of racial slurs against President Obama. According to researchers, the purpose of this new project is to better examine the use of social media as a platform for hate:

The prominence of debates around online bullying and the censorship of hate speech prompted us to examine how social media has become an important conduit for hate speech, and how particular terminology used to degrade a given minority group is expressed geographically.

Instead of analyzing the tweets algorithmically based on key words, the researchers are now examining each tweet individually to weed out non-derogatory uses of the words and slurs in question. About 150,000 tweets were flagged and categorized by a group of students from Humboldt State University between June 2012 and April 2013.

The derogatory tweets in any given place are weighted by the total amount of tweets in the area, meaning some results are not what one would expect–Orange County, California produced the most hateful tweets, but its significant amount of Twitter activity in general made it less prominent on the map than other areas.

Interested in learning more about the results of this study? Check out the details here.

What do you think the US should do about the bloody conflict in Syria?

Image By: Ryan Nagelmann

Do you Snapchat?

Since it’s release in September 2011, Snapchat has been a popular mode of communication for teenagers and young adults.

The application, available for Andriods and Iphones, allows users to send pictures or videos to a recipient for a prearranged time, no more than ten seconds. Then the Snap will “disappear forever.” 

Some have scoffed at the functionality of the app, saying it promotes sexting and can be used for communication between terrorists and criminals. 

There may be a way to mitigate some of this behavior, however it is going to come at at a price.

Engineers like Richard Hickman, lead examiner for Decipher Forensics’ Snapchat research, have developed ways to retrieve photos from the Android version of Snapchat. 

Decipher Forensics released a blogpost on Wednesday saying they would charge $300-500 to recover Snapchat photos using recent forensic software.

This same software can be used to get back deleted text messages, photographs, calendar data, phone records and contacts.  The company started researching Snapchat after they were asked to look into it for both a divorce and missing child case. 

So what does this mean for millions of Snapchat users?

Do you think the app will redouble its precautions to make sure the photos are really deleted? Will Snaps become evidence in the courtroom? 

It’s tough to keep up with all of the news flowing out of Syria.

From Israeli air strikes to coastal massacres to chemical weapons to US and Russian Cooperation there is a huge amount of information streaming out of the region at all time.

Well, maybe not all times, that stream was abruptly cut off Tuesday when Syria’s Internet went down for nearly 20 hours.

Maybe no one should be surprised that the Web could shut down in a nation wracked by war. But as the conflict in Syria has become more dire, with a death toll near 90,000, the web has gained prominence as a way to distribute information, within the country and internationally.

How is the Internet being used in modern day conflicts?

So far both sides in the Syrian civil war have made pretty good use of the web. Rebel forces have hacked multiple government websites to post interactive maps and descriptions of atrocities committed by the government.

But pro-Assad forces would not be out done, and formed the Syrian Electronic Army, a force dedicated to rooting out dissent by tracking online communication. Even journalists, because they are barred from writing reports, use online video to update the world on what is going on.

 Internet is becoming more and more important to everyone, especially those wanting to exercise free speech.

his short outage caused a decent amount of strife, if this were to happen again for a longer period of time who knows what could happen?

It is amazing what controversy 2 words can create.

Google should know… each word typed into its search engine matters…

Then it should have been no surprise to Google the minefield they stepped into when it made a small change on its local home page in Palestine.

It announced that it has replaced “Palestinian Territories” with “Palestine”.  

In the hyper-sensitive world of Israeli-Palestinian relations the move triggered outrage.

The change was thought to infer that Palestine was now being legitimized as a sovereign state rather than disputed “territories”.

Israel has questioned the move, stating that it raises questions about the multinational company’s involvement in international politics and damages prospects for peace.  

As with the successful bid for upgraded status at the UN General Assembly (non-member observe state), Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signaled Google’s move as a victory for Palestine and another step forward in their quest for liberation.  

Many seem to think Google has an ulterior motive, though they claim they are following the lead of the UN, the Icann (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), and the ISO (International Organization for Standardization), and that they always consult a multitude of sources and authorities when naming countries.

Is Google seeking to legitimize the Palestinian cause? Or are they simply adhering to the new international norm?

Do they even have anything to gain from doing so?

Let us know in a comment below.  

On Tuesday, Delaware became the 11th state (plus Washington D.C.) to permit same-sex marriage, following Rhode Island‘s legalization of same-sex marriage by five days.  Same -sex couples will be eligible for marriage licenses on July 1st of this year.  

The bill passed in the Senate, with a vote of 12-9.  

Same-sex marriage also won state referendums in Maine, Maryland, and Washington in November 2012. 

According to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, a majority of Americans, 53%, support same-sex marriage.

Could this mark a new trend in the United States?  Will other states follow suit?

Many argue that the aforementioned states are indicative of a new progressive era in our country, even with some 42% of Americans opposing same-sex marriage (NBC/WSJ poll).

What direction are we headed in?