BAKKACIMA BLOG

The New York State assembly has climbed to the top of the cage and drop-kicked its way into modernity with a new bill legalizing Mixed Martial Arts  as a full-fledged professional sport . Should the measure ultimately win Governor Cuomo's signature (either by K.O. or tap out), New York will become the last state in America to legalize MMA. The bill, which passed by a 113-25 vote, would allow for mixed martial artists to compete professionally in New York, and the CEO of  UFC , the "major leagues" of MMA, has already assured fans it will  host multiple events in the state before the end of 2016 , including a massive pay-per-view bout at Madison Square Garden. Opponents of the bill, and MMA itself, lodged a number of critiques against legalization, with multiple lawmakers claiming the sport is just  way too gay . Manhattan Assemblyman Daniel O'Donnell labeled the sport "gay porn with a different ending," during Tuesday's session, and ...

Y Combinator-backed Gecko Robotics is hoping to save a few human lives at our nation’s power plants with wall-climbing robots. Gecko’s proprietary magnetic adhesion technology works much like the sticky foot of a gecko, allowing its robots to crawl up walls to inspect for damage along the way. A human would normally be the checker, but that presents an often dangerous situation. According to Gecko, most plants must shut down at least once a year to check for damage to the boiler. To do these inspections crews install 150 foot tall scaffolds and climb up the walls in search of damaged areas in need of repair. On top of that, inspections can take up to seven days, with plants losing up to $1 million per day, says Gecko. But for $50,000 to $100,000 Gecko deploys robots to do the work of human inspectors, saving time and money in the process. The startup is currently working with several U.S. power plants and plans to be profitable by the end of the year. We spoke with co-founder J...

Wondering how you’re most likely to die? Skip the online quizzes and morbid daydreaming, and sate your curiosity with this grim government chart. The data comes from the  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  (CDC), which  tracks injuries  (fatal and otherwise) because, just like disease, they can kill you. The white squares above are diseases and health conditions; the colored squares are injury related.

A $200 dinner bill would typically generate a sizable tip, but a 13-foot-long python probably isn't what most restaurants have in mind. That's what one disgruntled diner, Hiroshi Motohashi, left behind at Iroha Sushi of Tokyo in Los Angeles Sunday night after showing customers a smaller snake and being asked by restaurant management to leavee, according to police. After paying for his dinner, Motohashi argued with an employee before leaving the restaurant and returning a short time later with the python, which he threw into the dining room after saying “[Expletive], you guys,” LAPD Officer Drake Madison told the Los Angeles Times. The python attempted to slither away, but became stuck inside a cashier booth and eventually had to be freed by the Los Angeles Fire Department and Los Angeles Animal Services. Both snakes are being cared for by animal services until they can be reclaimed by Motohashi, who was arrested on suspicion of making criminal threats, the Times reporte...

iOS 9 is officially available for download—go get it now! But while it may seem like a minor jump, there’s quite a bit of new stuff in Apple’s new OS. Here’s everything you need to know in only three minutes. Siri Gets Proactive One of the big new features with iOS is what Apple’s calling a more “proactive Siri.” Now, iOS will pay attention to your habits and change a little based on how you use it. A lot of this stuff is under the hood and dependent on how you use your device, but some features include automatic suggests for people in email messages, automatically suggesting events in from your email, traffic-based event notifications, showing different contacts and apps in Spotlight depending on the time of day, and more. Spotlight Can Search for More Stuff Spotlight is getting up to par with its OS X counterpart with iOS 9. You can now search for all kinds of stuff to get instant results, including sports scores, weather forecasts, stock prices, and even search within your...

Facebook is working on a new tool to help stem one source of harassment on its platform. The social network is testing a new feature that will automatically alert you if it detects another user is impersonating your account by using your name and profile photo. When Facebook detects that another user may be impersonating you, it will send an alert notifying you about the profile. You'll then be prompted to identify if the profile in question is impersonating you by using your personal information, or if it belongs to someone else who is not impersonating you. Though the notification process is automated, profiles that are flagged as impersonations are manually reviewed by Facebook's team. The feature, which the company began testing in November, is now live in about 75% of the world and Facebook plans to expand its availability in the near future, says Facebook's Head of Global Safety Antigone Davis. While impersonation isn't necessarily a widespread problem ...

A message purportedly sent to supporters of the Islamic State over the anonymous messaging app Telegram on Tuesday warned the group's "brothers in Belgium" to avoid social media, use "encryption" to communicate and to "keep [a] low profile until the heat dies down." That message and others like it were  first flagged  on Twitter by Michael S. Smith II, a principal at the counter-terrorism firm Kronos Advisory, who told  Mashable  he viewed it in an invite-only channel that is dedicated to discussing ISIS and information security. The Daily Dot   identified that channel  as one belonging to the Afaaq Electronic Foundation, an ISIS arm  established in January  dedicated to "raising security and technical awareness." The message viewed by  Mashable  is directed to "all our brothers in Belgium," and provides seven tips for jihadis there hoping to avoid the police crackdown in the wake of Tuesday morning's bombings. ...

BlackBerry-loving device clutchers are facing a tricky choice if they wish to continue to interact with their friends: WhatsApp, Facebook and Facebook Messenger all hit the “unfriend” button on the struggling phone maker’s latest operating system, BlackBerry 10. Facebook-owned WhatsApp made a hesitant and half-hearted debut on the BlackBerry platform three years ago, and announced at the tail-end of last month that it was rescinding that decision. “While these mobile devices have been an important part of our story, they don’t offer the kind of capabilities we need to expand our app’s features in the future,” the company announced. They are shutting down support for BlackBerry, along with operating systems like Symbian S60, S40 and ancient versions of Android. This week, Facebook and Facebook Messenger are following in WhatsApp’s footsteps, announcing that both will stop supporting BlackBerry’s own OS later this year. Of course, BlackBerry models running Android, such as the Bl...

Kim K's famous look-alike, Kamilla Osman has finally met her idol. The Dubai based makeup artist was invited by Kim to meet and they did an episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians. Kami shared the pic with Kim and wrote "Look who I ran into the other day - we can't wait for you guys to see our episode of #KUWK and see what we were up to xo Kim is such a sweet person and so so gorgeous, my god! -Kami" This is Kami and Kim's BFF Jonathan... she could easily be mistaken for Kim...

An iPhone 6 suddenly burst into flames aboard a flight to Hawaii last week, prompting an investigation from the Federal Aviation Administration. Anna Crail, a college student on the Alaska Airlines flight, was reportedly watching a movie on her iPhone when it suddenly caught fire. "All of the sudden there was like 8-inch flames coming out of my phone," Crail told KOMO-TV. "And I flipped it off onto the ground and it got under someone's seat, and the flames were just getting higher and a bunch of people stood up." "When it started I thought we were going down, and I was like, 'Oh my god, there's a fire on the plane,'" Crail said. Flight attendants quickly put out the fire. But it's still unclear as to how it started. According to ABC News, Apple is looking into the incident, along with the FAA. It's scary enough when we hear reports of hoverboards randomly exploding on the ground. We can only imagine how terrifying it...

 It’s time to hold companies to a higher standard when it comes to APIs. As software “eats the world,” it seems like it’s not enough for a business to just serve its customers and hopefully make a profit, they also have to be “platforms” — and, as any developer would respond, these days you just can’t be a platform without an API. Building APIs has never been easier. If you don’t have in-house developers who are API-savvy, there are a lot of great open-source frameworks to help with getting the code right — and there’s no shortage of vendors happy to sell you the tools you need (including my employer, Apigee, and others such as TIBCO, Computer Associates and 3Scale). The strategy is simple enough: build API, launch API, run hackathons, get free apps and profit. Launching an API program and adding a “platform strategy’’ slide to your investor deck seems like a no-brainer, but the history of API programs reads like a travelogue on the good intentions highway. There are many rea...

 Billionaire Elon Musk and actress Talulah Riley are making another attempt to end their second marriage. Riley filed to divorce Musk on Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court. Musk filed for divorce on New Year's Eve in 2014 but withdrew the petition seven months later. The divorce is amicable and the pair agreed that Riley would file the petition to end their latest marriage after roughly 2 ½ years. According to the statement, the Musk and Riley have been living separately for the past six months and plan to remain friends.                              Musk co-founded Paypal and has gone on to help start the electric car company Tesla Motors and the private space firm SpaceX. He is also a champion of building a hyperloop that would transport people and cargo at the speed of sound. Riley appeared in "Pride & Prejudice" and "Inception" and wrote and directed her first feature film, "Scottish Muss...

The pop star is raising some eyebrows Monday after sharing a steamy Instagram of herself in a bikini. Her followers immediately began questioning if the image was Photoshopped to make Spears appear thinner. Several fans pointed out that the pool-surrounding concrete, just below the small of Spears's back, seems to disappear, making it look as if she's floating on a mix of grass and water. Godney, amirite? @ britneyspears That skinny part of your back is so photoshoped, whoever did it forgot to put the path in. The singer has yet to confirm or deny the rumors. Spears is just the latest on a long list of celebrities — including the Kardashians and Beyoncé — whom the Internet has accused of editing their pictures. Celebrities like Demi Lovato, Ronda Rousey and Zendaya have famously spoke out against using Photoshop, whether on their social media pictures or in magazine photoshoots. Regardless, Spears has previously shared several crop-top and bikini photos on her Ins...

It's no secret that last summer's superhero flick  Fantastic Four  was a   bomb of epic proportions — even star   Kate Mara   hasn't seen it yet ! Not only did it have a reported budget of $120 million, but it only ended up earning $59 million total in the US! Well since the release, there has been a lot of talk about the comic book flick's failure like the director  Josh Trank   who blamed the studio  among other people. While we definitely took what Josh said with a grain of salt as there were a TON of rumored problems with production, another star of the film  Miles Teller  opened up about why the movie bombed so hard. The actor was a guest on the  Happy Sad Confused  podcast, where he said: "I think it was Clooney who said you can make a bad movie out of a good script, you can't make a good movie out of a bad script, and that's very true." Shots fired! Seeing as how Trank was the one who wrote the screenp...

Apple's press conference had an unusual start. Most of the time, the company starts by releasing a few vanity numbers — iOS devices sold, apps in the App Store, iOS adoption rate, etc. But today was different. Apple spent around a third of the keynote talking about  privacy ,   the environment , and  ResearchKit and CareKit . The message is clear — Apple is the good guy. In corporate social responsibility,  social enterprises  are for-profit companies that reinvest their profit to fulfill a mission that is tangentially related to the business world. Apple is far from a social enterprise as it is making billions in profits every year. And yet, Apple  doesn’t have to  reinvest a fraction of its profits in things like   ResearchKit . These three missions come at the right time for Apple as well. Many people don’t know if they should side with Apple of with the FBI in the   iPhone unlocking case . It might be the reason why the compan...