Links O' War: Tuesday July 16th, 2013

Here are your morning links!

TCU SPORTS

Frogs Headline Summer League Play - TCU Horned Frogs Official Athletic Site
Members of the Horned Frog baseball team continue to compete across the country and the world in their respective summer leagues.

A&M, Texas head state’s early football commitments | Dallas-Fort Worth Sports News - S...
National Signing Day is more than six months away, but with arguably the most level playing field among the big Texas schools since the old Southwest Conference days, the 2014 recruiting season is turning into a free-for-all.

Foul Territory: TCU product Matt Carpenter soaking in All-Star experience
Matt Carpenter left TCU in 2009 as the school's all-time leader in games played (241) and at-bats (843). He also ranks among the all-time leaders in hits, doubles and walks.

TCU buys Fisher More College; will use property for parking and staff offices | TCU 360
Fisher More College, the small Catholic liberal arts school that was located next to the TCU Police station, is now scheduled for renovation after being purchased by TCU, Fisher More president Michael King said.

Foster Sawyer talks TCU commitment, quarterback craft - SBNation.com
SB Nation Recruiting caught up with Fort Worth (Texas) All Saints quarterback Foster Sawyer to discuss his pledge to the hometown Horned Frogs and how he feels about TCU taking two quarterbacks in the 2014 class.

College Football: The Big 12's Best Traditions | AthlonSports.com
There are many reasons a sports fan can come to the realization that the college game is a better product than the professional version. Some of that has to do with charming, sleepy college towns and the scenic tailgating. The college game has bigger stadiums filled with more dedicated fans, historic bands and student sections. The offenses are more innovative and the rivalries are drenched in decades of bitterness.

Casey Pachall's Return is a Huge Boost for TCU | AthlonSports.com
By all accounts, TCU quarterback Casey Pachall had a great spring. The Horned Frogs’ mystery man earned praise throughout spring drills, and though the status of his competition with Trevone Boykin remains officially unresolved, Pachall’s return to the starting lineup seems inevitable.

BASEBALL: TCU, FBISD products climbing in minor leagues - Your Houston News: Sports
The current list of former Horned Frogs with Sugar Land roots includes a trio of minor leaguers succeeding at their respective levels. Elkins grad Chad Huffman is at Triple-A in the St. Louis Cardinals organization, while Kempner’s Kyle Von Tungeln and Kyle Winkler are in Class A in budding pro careers.

Fields and Hunter Tabbed Lombardi Award Candidates - TCU Horned Frogs Official Athletic Site
TCU defensive linemen Devonte Fields and Chucky Hunter appear on the watch list for the 2013 Rotary Lombardi Award.

GEEK/NERD/TECH

Surface Watch, iWatch, the Moto X, and Thom Yorke: 90 Seconds on The Verge | The Verge
In the ocean depths, the ancient creature stirred. Born not of this world, but another, distant land — an ashen hellscape of fiery retribution. It waited for eons in the cold pressure, adjusting...

Apple reportedly in talks to buy company behind Kinect sensor | The Verge
Apple is reportedly looking to acquire Israeli fabless semiconductor company Primesense. According to local newspaper Calcalist, Apple has offered $280 million to buy the 3D sensor specialist...

The Hyperloop is coming: Elon Musk will reveal plans for new transport system on August 12th | The Verge
Elon Musk's vision for an entirely new form of transportation will be revealed to the world on August 12th. The founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors tweeted this morning that he would "publish...

Is Hulu lost? Latest nixed sale shows owners have no clear plan | The Verge
Hulu's owners have clearly shown they don't know what to do with the web TV service. First they planned to take the company public. Then they explored a sale, only to pull out. Then they put Hulu...

North Korean missile material seized passing through Panama Canal, president tweets proof | The Verge
A ship carrying missile material headed for North Korea was stopped in Panama today, reports the AFP. President Ricardo Martinelli tweeted that the ship, which departed Cuba with a cargo of sugar,...

Make way for Huawei: can the Chinese smartphone company buy its way into America? | The Verge
The Jonas Brothers took the stage last week in Chicago to kick off their comeback in front of thousands of screaming fans. Though the audience probably didn’t notice, the brothers were also...

11-inch MacBook Air review: living with Apple's smallest laptop | The Verge
Note: be sure to read our 13-inch MacBook Air review for lots more on Apple's latest laptops. When my parents bought me my first laptop, I fought tooth and nail to spend the extra money and get...

Sony abandoned plans to measure gamer sweat on PS4 controllers | The Verge
Before Sony arrived at its final design for the DualShock 4 controller, the company trialled prototypes that measure skin conductivity to detect a player's emotions. In an interview with Stuff,...

Paramount's UltraViolet catalog of anytime, anywhere movies to feature DTS-HD audio later this year | The Verge
UltraViolet, the cloud-based platform that lets you watch purchased or redeemed digital movies from anywhere, remains a novel concept that's struggling in some key areas. One of those is...

Play Store redesign points to Google Glass support | The Verge
Google's updated Play Store includes mention of Glass, implying that the company's headset will be managed through the store soon. Users who have linked Glass with their Google account have been...

Leaked Verizon plan would let you upgrade phones after paying off half of your current one | The Verge
According to a leaked Verizon document posted by Droid Life, the company could be launching a new plan called VZ Edge to let people with an insatiable appetite for the newest phones upgrade...

Snake Bites Man's Penis in Israel | Geekosystem
The one room in the home that most people can count on for a little privacy has in recent weeks become a nightmare place. Animal attacks, once one of many good reasons to avoid going outside, have moved into bathrooms around the world. In Israel, the latest attack saw a man minding his own business at a toilet rudely interrupted when a snake bit his penis, which might be the only situation to occur in a men's room that is more awkward than that guy who tries to start a conversation while you're both taking a leak.

HBO Issues Takedown Request For VLC Player | Geekosystem
Ahh, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. How often are you a source of anger and confusion for all of us! Under this well-meaning but boneheaded law, copyright holders send literally millions of takedown requests to Google every single month -- 14,855,269 URLs during the past month alone, if you're counting. Predictably, that includes plenty of totally illegitimate claims requesting the removal of content that doesn't infringe anything. Take HBO's recent request, for example, for Google to take down a URL linking not to an HBO show, but to the perfectly legal open source VLC Player program. Yes, just the level of professionalism and attention to detail we've come to expect from copyright claims on the Internet!

Farm Robots Being Built to Harvest Crops | Geekosystem
Robots do a lot of things very well, but so far picking delicate fruits and vegetables hasn't been one of them. Researchers and roboticists are working to change that. They're combining the latest technologies to build robots capable of harvesting crops. The real question is, how soon before they turn against us and try to harvest people?

What Makes a Post Go Viral on Reddit | Geekosystem
After tireless analysis of reams of data, researchers at Stanford University think they've uncovered the formula for success on Reddit. With this weapon in their hands, we can fully expect Stanford scientists and students to conquer Reddit in short order, with the funny board becoming 100% devoted to jokes about UC-Berkeley science programs by 2014.

Man at Arms Tony Swatton Creates Steel Wolverine Claws | Geekosystem
Man at Arms is a delightful web series about a blacksmith who makes weapons from famous science fiction and fantasy franchises at the Internet's behest. This week, propmaster Tony Swatton indulged our insatiable need for badass weaponry by creating a set of replica Wolverine claws out of steel. No, they aren't retractable, but they can slice completely through milk cartons and upright cucumbers with basically no effort. Man, that is awesome. And they use CGI on the movies? That's really disappointing.

Thom Yorke Removes Music From Spotify Over Artist Payments | Geekosystem
Thom Yorke took to Twitter over the weekend to harangue music-streaming service Spotify over the low rates it pays musicians for the rights to stream their music. The Radiohead frontman -- who knows a thing or two about successful digital music distribution -- is responding to the low rates, which amount to fractions of a cent every time a song is played, by taking his ball and going home, removing his songs from the service. That means fans will not longer be able to listen to Yorke collaboration Atoms for Peace or his solo album The Eraser on Spotify.

Five-Dimensional Data Crystals Exist | Geekosystem
We see science fiction becoming reality all the time, but of all the sci-fi conceits around, societies that store all their information (and giant holograms of Marlon Brando) in glowing data crystals seemed to be especially kitschy and out there. Not anymore, as scientists at the UK's University of Southampton have successfully demonstrated the ability to record and retrieve optical data on glass using five-dimensional laser techniques, calling their project the 'Superman' memory crystal. What's more, this technology stands to provide a way for us to store data in massive quantities for a practically unlimited lifetime.

POLITICS

Rand Paul, Ted Cruz join Kirsten Gillibrand push on military sexual assault - Darren Samuelsohn - POLITICO.com
Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have joined an upstart effort to remove the chain of command from military sexual assault cases, POLITICO has learned. The tea party favorites give the bill’s lead sponsor, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, critical conservative cover as she battles the Pentagon and hawks in both parties on her proposal to create a new prosecution...

Kirsten Gillibrand builds support for sexual-assault bill - POLITICO.com
For weeks, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s staff has been keeping a large whiteboard whip chart to tally her uphill fight for a military sexual assault measure. On Friday, her staff made a big change to the chart – and to Gillibrand’s momentum: They moved Sen. Rand Paul’s name from the “maybe” category into the “yes”...

D.C. Wal-Mart battle goes national - Hadas Gold - POLITICO.com
The success — so far — of the anti-Wal-Mart effort that is unfolding just blocks from the Capitol is providing a legislative road map and psychological boost to opponents of big-box stores around the country. The battle over Wal-Mart in D.C. last week quickly rose to the national stage, with major media attention and national organizations...

PPP poll: Terry McAuliffe up 4 on Ken Cuccinelli - Emily Schultheis - POLITICO.com
Democrat Terry McAuliffe has a 4-point lead over Republican state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli in the Virginia governor’s race, according to a poll out Tuesday morning. The survey by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling has McAuliffe at 41 percent, compared with 37 percent for Cuccinelli and 7 percent for libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis....

Obama campaign still $3.5 million in debt - POLITICO.com
President Barack Obama's reelection campaign — or what's left of it — has about $3.5 million in debt, according to campaign reports filed Monday. Obama's primary campaign committee Obama for America remains significantly in debt to vendors, consultants and other service providers more than six months after election day. The...

Reports: NTSB intern out of a job - Tal Kopan - POLITICO.com
An intern at the National Transportation Safety Board who confirmed false offensive names of the pilots in the Asiana 214 crash in San Francisco has been let go, according to reports. NBC News and CNN both reported that the intern no longer works for the NTSB on Monday. CNN cited “a government official with knowledge of the situation.”...

FEDERAL CASE against Zimmerman called unlikely: ‘may not be possible’ – TWO TOP REPUBLICANS take on Pentagon over sexual-assault issues – JOINT CLINTON APPEARANCE in the Hamptons next month - POLITICO Playbook - POLITICO.com
After crawling on its belly for two dismal decades, the Texas Democratic Party has suddenly found a spring in its step -- and not just because of Davis’s performance. … The 2010 census found that the state’s population had increased by 4.3 million over the previous decade and that more than 3.3 million of the new inhabitants were minorities. … [A]n astounding 2.8 million were Hispanic, historically a reliable constituency for Democrats.