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by Cory Doctorow on (#4S3ZN)
In 2018, for the first time in recorded US history, the 400 richest American households paid a lower rate of tax than any other group of American taxpayers: 23%, down from 70% in 1950 and 47% in 1980.The data come from a new book, The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay, co authored by Gabriel Zucman (previously), the Piketty-trained "wealth detective" who is one of the world's leading experts on tax evasion by the wealthy, and on strategies for forcing them to pay their share. In their book, Saez and Zucman sketch out a modern progressive tax code. The overall tax rate on the richest 1 percent would roughly double, to about 60 percent. The tax increases would bring in about $750 billion a year, or 4 percent of G.D.P., enough to pay for universal pre-K, an infrastructure program, medical research, clean energy and more. Those are the kinds of policies that do lift economic growth.One crucial part of the agenda is a minimum global corporate tax of at least 25 percent. A company would have to pay the tax on its profits in the United States even if it set up headquarters in Ireland or Bermuda. Saez and Zucman also favor a wealth tax; Elizabeth Warren’s version is based on their work. And they call for the creation of a Public Protection Bureau, to help the I.R.S. crack down on tax dodging.I already know what some critics will say about these arguments — that the rich will always figure out a way to avoid taxes. Read the rest
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by Cory Doctorow on (#4S1HZ)
The trillions that the global looter class has stashed in offshore financial secrecy jurisdictions are protected by the joint tactics of absurd complexity and stultifying dullness, which have been created by a separate group of global looter-enablers, working for big accounting and audit firms, banks, law firms, even private schools.Writing for the Global Investigative Journalism Network to summarize a recent panel at the 11th Global Investigative Journalism Conference, Megan Clement distills the role that each species of enabler plays in hiding ill-gotten millions, and the techniques that can be used to pierce the veil of secrecy and reveal the stolen treasure.Here are five suggestions from the panel on where to find important information on legitimate businesses that mask criminal activity:1. Retired Officials: Johnston says former regulators of the industry you’re investigating are “the most helpful people you could ever develop as a source in trying to trace money and criminal enterprises.†They can show you where to look for wrongdoing by pointing out specific laws and bylaws that might have been contravened, he said. 2. Land Registries: “If you’re looking for assets, check the Land Registry for England and Wales,†Garside said. The website publishes a searchable Excel file that lists all the property owned by shell companies outside the UK. “If you’re looking for hidden multi-million-pound houses, that that’s where you find them,†she said. 3. Conferences: Patrucic spoke of a journalist she knows who now spends his time on the circuit of accounting conferences. He wants to make sure that everyone in that sector has his business card, in case they hear of any wrongdoing or want to hand over important documentation. Read the rest
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#4S1DV)
I'm attracted to the idea of tiny houses, but after reading Adele Peters' essay about how much she hates living in one, my enthusiasm is diminished. She lives in a 240-square foot house (which is large, by tiny house standards) in Oakland and says that getting a vacuum cleaner out of the closet or even something out of a kitchen drawer "often involves a Tetris-like game of moving multiple other things out of the way." She says her experience often reminds her of the Portlandia episode about tiny houses:I can relate to a moment in a Portlandia episode about a tiny house village when Fred Armisen tries to open the fridge and the door bangs into a ladder from the loft. (Armisen’s character, like me, works from home, and in another scene he sits on the toilet with a fold-down desk and his laptop, explaining that the bathroom doubles as a home office as he hands Carrie Brownstein shower gel.) My bathroom, a 3-by-6-foot “wet room†with a walk-in shower, is so small that it doesn’t have a sink, and I have to use the nearby kitchen sink to brush my teeth. Though the apartment is fast to clean, it gets messy equally quickly. Invariably, I meet friends elsewhere, since there aren’t enough places to sit. Even as a minimalist who once happily lived with an ex-boyfriend in a space that was only a little larger, I think it’s too small. Image: Vimeo/Portlandia Read the rest
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by Jason Weisberger on (#4S0YC)
Nevada's chief game warden, Tyler Turnipseed knows they will loose the battle against 'zombie deer.' Deer infected with chronic wasting disease are infecting the Western United States.NY Post:Tyler Turnipseed, chief Nevada game warden, suggested in testimony about the proposed law that local populations could be infected if a hunter passing through the state from elsewhere dumps butchered waste.Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming have all reported cases of animals with the disease — heightening concerns that the disease could spread into Nebraska, Utah, Idaho and ultimately Nevada, J.J. Goicoechea, a state Department of Agriculture veterinarian, told lawmakers.“It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when,†Wolff said. “We know that we can’t wrap Nevada in a bubble.â€Maybe we can just extend the southern border wall to surround the entire state? Read the rest
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by Boing Boing's Shop on (#4RWN7)
Even an hour a day is a good chunk of time to spend in your car. Why not make it feel a little bit more like home? Luckily, we've got a roundup of gadgets that can do just that and more - everything from high-tech air freshener alternatives to live-saving heads up displays.Spinning Car Aromatherapy DiffuserDitch that tree dangling from your rearview mirror. The calming double-ring rotation on this diffuser adds a lot more feng shui to your dashboard while emitting one of five scents that will melt away your anxiety on the road. You can get the ring with five scent plates for 18% off the MSRP todayCar Cup HumidifierHead off that musty car smell with this triple-duty gadget that fits snugly into your cupholder. With 35 ml per hour output, it dehumidifies and can serve as an aroma diffuser while the embedded LED light provides a calming glow. Pick one up for $19, more than 50% off the list price.Autowit Fresh 1 True HEPA Air Purifier & Aroma DiffuserNo matter who's in your ride or what they've been doing, you can maintain that new car smell with this air purifier and diffuser. You can even adjust the filtration level to deal with heavy odors. Grab the Autowit Fresh 1 for $58.99 now, a full 26% off the retail price.TripWipes Anti-Bacterial WipesIdeally packaged for the road, these citrus-scented wipes can take care of spills or stains while killing germs on the surface. Read the rest
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by Rob Beschizza on (#4RWK3)
John Brownlee traces the rise and fall of steampunk, a genre and aesthetic I know is close to many hearts 'round these parts. (Some of my own thoughts on the matter are quoted.) The arrival of smartphones was a key moment, he writes, putting technology permanently within reach -- and beyond it.Divorced of their gear-cog trappings, the best parts of steampunk live on as a wide-scale design and political movement known as Right to Repair. This movement, which is picking up steam among state legislatures (and vehemently opposed by major tech companies like Apple), is ostensibly about combating forced obsolescence and breaking the modern consumer electronic upgrade cycle, through legislation that forces companies to make their products repairable by the end user. In other words, it’s about empowerment and transparency: the right to understand the technology you depend upon.From that perspective, steampunk never died at all. It just lost the “Jules Verne goth†aesthetic and went mainstream. Read the rest
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by Xeni Jardin on (#4RRRX)
A confession, or a command to a foreign power for 2020 assistance?Doesn't matter. The psyops will continue until polling results improve.'Election Interference,' tweeted the manifestly unfit, popular-vote-losing, about-to-be-impeached, Putin-backed, Ukraine-meddling, illegitimate U.S. President Donald J. Trump today. He cited no evidence, because that's not what this is.Here's what's really going on.PELOSI responds to MCCARTHY’s letter ...“I received your letter this morning shortly after the world witnessed President Trump on national television asking yet another foreign power to interfere in the upcoming 2020 elections.†pic.twitter.com/2ECMQpBmU0— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) October 3, 2019The President cannot use the power of his office to pressure foreign leaders to investigate his political opponents.His rant this morning reinforces the urgency of our work.America is a Republic, if we can keep it. https://t.co/9KDCx1hVjs— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) October 3, 2019Even if Trump tweets one of the crimes he's committing, that's not the most serious reason he's being impeached. He's being impeached because he's harming American in support of efforts to extort election help.https://t.co/qOOBujXS3G pic.twitter.com/qaHbtcAKdj— emptywheel (@emptywheel) October 3, 2019After today, you either do or don't believe we can tolerate POTUS and VPOTUS soliciting attacks on our election by an authoritarian superpower and a country that's dependent on the U.S. government for its survival. You either love this republic or you don't. It's that simple.— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) October 3, 2019Roses are RedViolets on Clearance We're all reporting on https://t.co/GBM2JxAPiN— Jackie Kucinich (@JFKucinich) October 3, 2019NEW: @SpeakerPelosi hits back at @GOPLeader for his insistence that Dems drop impeachment proceedings-- right as Trump asks CHINA to go after Biden. Read the rest
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by Cory Doctorow on (#4RRRY)
Aestetix writes, "On Tuesday, October 8th, for the very first time ever, the new issue of 2600 will be released digitally in non-DRM PDF format. We know there are many of you who have been unable to secure copies of 2600 in recent years. With high distribution costs and a declining bookstore landscape, it's become much harder to publish a paper magazine and get it to all the places our readers are. This digital version can help solve that problem once and for all - and help restore the funding we need to survive." Read the rest
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by Cory Doctorow on (#4RRS0)
Tiktok bills itself as apolitical, despite the fact that is both a de facto arm of Chinese political propaganda (and, weirdly, for Uyghur human rights activists).Tiktok's internal moderation policies are an unknowable mess (as you'd expect from any for-profit entity that hopes to establish physical sales offices in authoritarian states around the world and doesn't want their in-country execs to be marched off to jail at gunpoint). Leaks have shown how the guidelines in China are used to suppress political dissidence, and also how the company has weird and nonsensical definitions of the sexual exploitation of children, and how the company avoids controversy by banning criticism of world leaders, or mentions of sectarian or religious conflicts.But fresh leaks reveal that Tiktok's national guidelines outside of China are also bizarre and terrible: in Turkey, the company banned LGBT-related content, as well as cleavage, discussions of sanitary pads, and (naturally) pro-Kurdish material -- as well as criticism of the ruling party, depictions of alcohol, or non-Islamic religious content.Contradictory, secretive, overbroad moderation rules are par for the course in the online world -- Tiktok's rules are different, but not necessarily worse, than the rules used by Facebook or Apple. However, Tiktok is different from most other services in one respect: it is atemporal. Posts do not have timestamps, and it's nearly impossible to figure out how old a post is. On the plus side, this means that older, dormant posts can go suddenly viral (Tiktok is also unique in that its recommendation algorithms can elevate material posted from accounts with very few followers, making overnight sensations out of obscure users. Read the rest
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by Xeni Jardin on (#4RRKW)
"We are writing to request that Facebook does not proceed with its plan to implement end-to-end encryption across its messaging services without ensuring that there is no reduction to user safety."
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by Xeni Jardin on (#4RRM2)
Political ads to be banned on short-form video app
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#4RRM3)
In 1968 78% of 26-year-olds in the U.S. lived with a spouse, and 12% lived with their parents. By 2018 30% lived with parents and only 24% lived with a spouse.From Apartment List:Starting with 2007 – the year before the collapse of the housing market bubble – we see the beginning of a steady divergence in young adult housing composition that has continued to the present-day. This is a period characterized by economic recession, ballooning student debt, and even as the economy recovered, a dearth of affordable housing options in the cities with the best job opportunities. All of these factors put downward pressure on young adults who, in previous generations, would have been ready to start their own households. Instead, 25-34-year-olds2 today are 46 percent more likely to live with a parent than in 2007, 32 percent more likely to move in with a partner before getting married, and 19 percent more likely to have a non-family roommate. In contrast, the likelihood of living with a spouse or a child have declined steadily, as cultural norms around marriage and education have encouraged millennials to start families later in life. Read the rest
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by Xeni Jardin on (#4RRM5)
A Snapchat knockoff for 'close friends' that shares your location data with Mark Zuckerberg? Sign me up!Facebook-owned Instagram today launched a messaging app that automatically shares your status with your friends based on location, accelerometer, and battery level. The app is available on iOS and Android, is owned by Facebook, and wants to track your location and movement all the time. What could go wrong?From the Instagram announcement:Over the last few years, we’ve introduced several new ways to share visually on Instagram and connect with people you care about – from sharing everyday moments on Stories to visual messages on Direct. But for your smaller circle of friends, we saw the need to stay more connected throughout the day, so you can communicate what you’re doing and how you’re feeling through photos and videos. That’s why we built Threads, a new way to message with close friends in a dedicated, private space.Threads is a standalone app designed with privacy, speed, and your close connections in mind. You can share photos, videos, messages, Stories, and more with your Instagram close friends list. You are in control of who can reach you on Threads, and you can customize the experience around the people who matter most. There's a story at Techcrunch. More from Twitter, below.I get the appeal. There are people who share Instagram Stories only with close friends. But how many of you will give away location to Instagram (technically Facebook)? https://t.co/l1VJ1SlEUh— Karthekayan Iyer (@kkiyer90) October 3, 2019I get the point of this. Read the rest
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by David Pescovitz on (#4RRM6)
I love it when the name of a musical genre gives you an instantaneous understanding of what it is. (See "Mallwave.") Until today, I hadn't heard of the Dungeon Synth microgenre but instantly had a visceral understanding of it. From The B-Side:A microgenre found at the mysterious intersection of old-school electronic music, synthesizer-based movie and video game soundtracks, and second-wave black metal, dungeon synth is quite a strange place to be. Melancholy, lo-fidelity, synthesizer albums recorded by artists like Mortiis, Depressive Silence, and Lamentation in the 1990s set the template for the genre, but never really circulated that far out of the black metal underground world. More recently, dungeon synth has made quite the comeback on platforms like Bandcamp, lurking in the weirder corners of the digital realm, and you should be listening."On Dangerous Paths: An Introduction to Dungeon Synth" (The B-Side via Metafilter) Read the rest
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by David Pescovitz on (#4RRF2)
Perhaps Cleveland preacher Perry Stone is expecting an urgent text from the holy spirit. Read the rest
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by Rusty Blazenhoff on (#4RQJ0)
With a little bit of TV trickery, Billie Eilish was able to perform her hit "bad guy" upside down on Saturday Night Live.This behind-the-scenes video shows how it was done: View this post on Instagram Get a behind-the-scenes look at “Bad Guy†in our latest #CreatingSNL!A post shared by Saturday Night Live (@nbcsnl) on Oct 1, 2019 at 11:58am PDTDuh.Ms. Eilish isn't the only talent to perform upside down live on SNL. You may remember that Penn & Teller did it first in 1986. Read the rest
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by Cory Doctorow on (#4RP8Z)
Nine years ago, Republican lawmakers gutted the IRS's budget, but didn't relax its requirement to conduct random audits: in response, the IRS has shifted its focus from auditing rich people (who can afford fancy accountants to use dirty tricks to avoid paying taxes) to auditing poor people (who can't afford professional help and might make minor mistakes filling in the highly technical and complex tax forms), until today, an IRS audit is just as likely to target low-income earner whose meager pay entitles them to a tax credit is as it is to target a filer from the top one percent of US earners.Propublica pointed this out in an excellent tax-season report last April, and Senator Ron Wyden [D-OR] took up the issue with the IRS. Now, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig has provided a report to Senator Wyden admitting that his agency targets poor people because they can't afford to appeal the audits, making them cost-effective notches on the IRS's bedpost.Rettig's report admits that auditing rich people would turn up more fraud and bring in more money for the US government, but says that he can't afford to do so unless Congress restores the IRS's funding. There's bipartisan support for such a measure, but with Sen Mitch McConnell blocking any Senate action, there may not be any more appropriations bills in 2019.On the one hand, the IRS said, auditing poor taxpayers is a lot easier: The agency uses relatively low-level employees to audit returns for low-income taxpayers who claim the earned income tax credit. Read the rest
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#4RP91)
Steve Hines designed this 5-oz. shirt-pocket sound movie camera for Kodak Research Laboratories in 1976. His website has photos and information about the device, which was far ahead of its time.Image: Hineslab[via Evil Mad Scientist] Read the rest
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by Cory Doctorow on (#4RP93)
Elizabeth Warren has already proposed strict limits on lobbyists' activities, but in her latest policy proposal, she offers a way of hitting the most aggressive lobbyists in their pocketbooks, and using the revenue to strengthen Congress and the administrative agencies' independence from corporate influence while empowering members of the public to be heard by their government and its agencies.Under Warren's new proposal, corporations and trade organizations that spend over $500,000/year lobbying the government would have the excess expenditures taxed at rates that rise steeply from 35% (for the first $500k in excess) to 75% (for expenditures over $5m). The revenues from this tax will be used to establish the "Lobbying Defense Trust Fund" which will pay independent expert bodies to advise Congress, such as the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, killed by Newt Gingrich in 1995. It will also fund outside experts for the administrative agencies, which have been starved of funding for expert advice, making them reliant on corporate lobbyists.The Fund will also pay for an "Office of the Public Advocate," which "will help the American people engage with federal agencies and fight for the public interest in the rule-making process."Warren estimates that this tax would have raised $10b over the past decade, primarily from America's most prolific lobbyists: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Koch Industries, Pfizer, Boeing, Microsoft, Walmart, and Exxon. Of course, the purpose of the tax is to curb this activity, so one hopes that Warren is prepared to advocate to fund the outside experts and public advocate's office from the general treasury if it achieves that goal. Read the rest
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by David Pescovitz on (#4RH0C)
On Saturday night in Auburn Hills, Michigan, someone hacked an electronic billboard on the I-75 highway to play a porn video. It ran for at least 30 minutes before police were able to get the billboard owner to shut it off. No word on who was behind the porn prank but that is definitely one way to deter speeding.Video evidence below. And here's a NSFW tweet with more.(WDIV Local 4)So apparently someone was playing porn on a billboard off I-75............nice pic.twitter.com/HuwZkXiLmI— Chris Robertson (@needaproject) September 30, 2019 Read the rest
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by David Pescovitz on (#4RGWV)
Last Thursday, a young black bear broke into Fretz Middle School in Bradford, Pennsylvania. As it was evening, the only humans inside were the custodians. The bear eventually left of its own accord. I'm positive that this was the plot of an (ahem) Berenstein Bears book I read as a child. Read the rest
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by Cory Doctorow on (#4REWD)
For years, I've been covering the career of Patrick Costello (previously) a deaf, copyfighting, open access banjo player and teacher who is responsible for a bounty of instructional books, videos, and meetups for would-be banjo players. Now, Patrick has finished a new book called Just This Banjo and made it open access, in the name of fighting the malaise and terror of our precarious moment. As Steve Martin has proved: you can't be sad while playing the banjo.Patrick writes:As I was finishing up this book, the launching of impeachment hearings against President Trump was the breaking news headline. Every channel seemed to have angry people yelling at other angry people. Seeking a reprieve, I went online and found more of the same anger everywhere I looked. A directionless cloud of rage that was eerily reminiscent of the Day of the Dove episode of Star Trek.My father and I always advise our students, “if you see a need, fill it.†So, in defiance of the negative emotions of the day, I am making Just This Banjo freely available online. Maybe, just maybe, the encouragement, support, and love I experienced will come through the pages and inspire even one person to stop being angry.I was the least likely music student to ever fret a string. I was able to learn my craft because there were kind and decent people in the world – and that has not changed. Hopefully, my adventures will inspire you to, as Woody Guthrie put it, 'vaccinate yourself right into the big streams and blood of the people.' If you like the book, the eBook edition will be available for purchase. Read the rest
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by Cory Doctorow on (#4RBYS)
Phil Torrone from Adafruit writes, "Why roam around with a boring pumpkin bucket when you collect delicious candy with a robotic Xenomorph head? This robotic candy bucket shoots out a small receptacle to retrieve candy and bring it back into the bucket. Some 3D printing is required to create the linear actuator. Two servo motors controlled by a Circuit Playground Express, coded with MakeCode, power this project." Read the rest
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by Cory Doctorow on (#4RB6M)
I sat down for an interview for Reason's short feature, The Decentralized Web Is Coming, which documents the surging Decentralized Web movement, whose goal is to restore the internet's early, decentralized era, before it turned into five giant services filled with screenshots from the other four. Read the rest
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#4RB6P)
Officers of Spain's famous Guardia Civil encountered a door that put up a stronger fight than usual. It's interesting to observe the sense of surprise the officers reveal through their behavior when the door doesn't immediately splinter the first time the battering ram slams into it.Una buena puerta, pa mi la querria. pic.twitter.com/lpSyE33c11— Alfredo Perdiguero M. 🇪🇸 (@PerdigueroSIPEp) September 23, 2019 Read the rest
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by Cory Doctorow on (#4RAWP)
The last five years have seen a renaissance of merchandise related to Disney's Haunted Mansion, hearkening back to the glory days of amazing fright masks, magic tricks, and novelties from Randotti (my personal faves).The new Mansion merch has a decidedly different valence (dog costumes, Christmas ornaments, metal puzzle-models, etc), but there are some really inventive and outstanding pieces (I'm honored to have played a small role there!).Now, Her Universe (previously) has released a characteristically great, thoughtful and good-looking line of Haunted Mansion clothes, with all the flourishes we expect from the company, including plus sized versions.Some of these are terrific, like the dip-dye hoodie flannel button-up and the low woven button up.Haunted Mansion [Her Universe](Thanks, Cecil!) Read the rest
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by Xeni Jardin on (#4R8PS)
Happy Chonker Cat Fall! This is a good one. If you have to fall, have a happy Fall, everyone.UNMUTE THIS ONE!Happy Fall![IMGUR] Read the rest
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by David Pescovitz on (#4R8FH)
Plain water isn't the most hydrating drink around, according to a new study from health researchers at the UK's Loughborough University. Better are beverages with some fat, protein, or sugar. But not TOO much sugar. From CNN:For example, milk was found to be even more hydrating than plain water because it contains the sugar lactose, some protein and some fat, all of which help to slow the emptying of fluid from the stomach and keep hydration happening over a longer period of time.Milk also has sodium, which acts like a sponge and holds onto water in the body and results in less urine produced.The same can be said for oral rehydration solutions that are used to treat diarrhea. Those contain small amounts of sugar, as well as sodium and potassium, which can also help promote water retention in the body."A randomized trial to assess the potential of different beverages to affect hydration status: development of a beverage hydration index" (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition)(image: Rido/Shutterstock) Read the rest
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by Cory Doctorow on (#4R7PW)
This week's bizarre speech to the UN by the UK's clownish, authoritarian Prime Minister pro tem Boris Johnson has sparked a lot of talk, especially among science fiction readers who recognise the difference between cautionary tales about hi-tech dystopias and suggestions for public technology policy (unlike PM Johnson).Especially trenchant is Bruce Sterling's commentary, which correctly points out that Boris Johnson could easily be a character from Sterling's 1998 novel Distraction, which remains one of the all-time great political satire novels (along with Neal Stephenson's Interface): "I could have written this speech as a fictional speech by a politician in one of my novels, for instance, 'Green Huey' in the novel 'Distraction.' And Boris Johnson’s speech would have passed muster in one of my novels: readers would have been entertained by it, in the standard science-fictional fashion: 'of course a politician in a cyberpunk sci-fi novel is gonna dwell on the killer robots and the mutant chickens.'"*If he’d delivered this rant from a podium at South by South West in Austin instead of the floor of the UN, people would have just nodded thoughtfully, and even been rather pleased that a major G-7 politician was so up to speed with the mutant chickens.*In terms of cultural sensibility, this must be the most cyberpunk intervention that I’ve ever seen from any major politician (as opposed to say, elected officials of the Pirate Party, who are commonly actual counterculture punks obsessed with computers). BoJo is trying to conjure up a transgressive cyberpunk atmosphere of ecstasy and dread here, he’s trying to put the previous world order on the back-foot and make it feel old and out of touch. Read the rest
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by Xeni Jardin on (#4R6ED)
Gavin and Alice Munro are serious about sustainability. On a two-acre field in England's Midlands, they're growing trees that are trained into forming the shape of furniture, including chairs. A complete dining room set takes about a decade to grow, but they'll sell you items that are pre-grown in an online shop.Here's a video:“The couple have a furniture farm in Derbyshire where they are nurturing 250 chairs, 100 lamps and 50 tables,†Reuters reports. “ It is their answer to what they see as the inefficient and carbon-heavy process of cutting down mature trees to create furniture.â€â€œInstead of force-growing a tree for 50 years and then cutting it down and making it into smaller and smaller bits ... the idea is to grow the tree into the shape that you want directly. It’s a kind of zen 3D printing,†says Gavin.Gavin and Alice are at fullgrown.co.uk, and they're on Facebook and Twitter.There's a shop for pre-grown items. Shut up and take my money. Read more:From tree to chair without the carpentry: UK couple grows furniture [Reuters, reporting by George Sargent, images courtesy of full grown furniture] Read the rest
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#4R5YK)
iFixit took apart a Nintendo Switch Lite to see what was inside. It looks pretty easy to take apart, but it uses more adhesives than the original switch making it less repairable. iFixit gave the original switch a 8/10 for repairability, and the Lite gets a 6/10.Image: iFixit/YouTube Read the rest
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by Clive Thompson on (#4R5YN)
Christopher Herwig is a photographer who previously did a fantastic series of photos of Soviet-era bus stops. Now he's back with a book of photos of Soviet subway stops -- and they are, if anything, even more mesmerizingly gorgeous. The USSR really went in for epic geometric patterns receding into the infinite distance. The book's available here, and his Instagram is here.Some more photos of stops are below, but here's a bit from a Colossal post talking about how he got exposed to the subject:Herwig explains that he became interested in the underground architecture of the stations while visiting Moscow and Tashkent. Because many of the metro stations were used as nuclear bomb shelters, they were considered military sites and photographing them was prohibited. “Although I likely could have gotten away with a few images I really wanted to do the series properly and cover all the cities in the former USSR with metro lines not just a few flashy ones in Moscow,†he told Colossal. “With restriction being lifted in many of the cities it meant I could have a go at it.â€Herwig’s images take viewers on a journey through the architectural and political influences of decades pasts. Soviet-era symbols, relief sculptures of significant events and figures, and displays of opulence cover every square meter of the well-maintained subterranean spaces. Often making early morning and late night trips into the stations, Herwig says that many of the otherwise busy hubs appear to be abandoned because of his goal to “use people with purpose and not to distract from the space and design of the stations.â€The pix ... Read the rest
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by Jason Weisberger on (#4R5K1)
I guess the late 70s hadn't totally been forgotten by 1981 and someone needed a two-tone 'Vette to go with their shag carpeting.I like it, tho I would not want to own it! I am a bit shocked it hasn't vibrated itself to pieces. That much power into an American made car over 38 years? The fit and finish should rattle nonpareil!Bring a Trailer:This 1981 Chevrolet Corvette is powered by an aluminum-block ZL1 427ci V8 Anniversary Edition 427 crate engine from GM Performance Parts that is mated to a four-speed manual transmission. Additional modifications include an L88-style hood, March Performance pulleys, and custom exhaust. The car was sold new at Bob Eriksen Chevrolet in Milan, Illinois and is finished in two-tone Beige and Dark Bronze over a Camel leather interior. Factory equipment includes glass roof panels, a rear defroster, Gymkhana suspension, power antenna, and air conditioning. Now showing just over 15k miles, this modified C3 Corvette is offered by the selling dealer with its window sticker, factory literature, a certificate of authenticity for the crate engine, service records, and a clean Florida title. Read the rest
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by Jason Weisberger on (#4R5K3)
Putting the wood chunks under the charcoal before lighting it works really, really well.Here's the deal. I love slow and low cooking. After spending years on slow cooker and sous vide recipes smoking food was clearly going to happen. I bought a really cheap bullet smoker earlier this summer and wrote a few pieces about using it while camping. The food was amazing, however, the cheap bullet smoker pretty much fell apart after 4 uses.I bought the Weber. The Weber Smokey Mountain really is wonderful and I wish I'd not bothered with the cheap smoker. Construction and materials quality are 1000x better.My brother is a chef and runs several restaurants. When he relaxes with cooking he makes bbq on an offset smoker. While he was teaching me about smoking vegetables, fruit and meat that offset smoker would eat tons of wood. I was under the impression you needed to keep adding wood to get stuff to have that smokey flavor.The bullet smoker is a very different animal. You do not need that much wood. You do not need to adjust or dick with the fire very often, and if you put in enough coals at the start you can pretty much get through 12-16 hours of smoking a brisket without adding fuel.If you keep adding chunks of wood like it is my brother's offset smoker you end up with over smoked food.I still ate it, but luckily didn't have to share with anyone.Reading online there is a lot of advice. Read the rest
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by Cory Doctorow on (#4R29X)
Holy shit. I don't watch a lot of videos; I prefer transcripts. When I absolutely have to get through a video, I usually put it in a background window and listen. Don't do that with Thunberg's four-minute address to the UN. Instead, watch it. I understand and agree with her that we should be listening to scientists, not her, but if anyone can get us to listen to scientists, it's her. Now I know why the people followed Joan of Arc. Read the rest
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by Rob Beschizza on (#4R29Z)
In a unanimous 11-0 decision, the UK's Supreme Court today ruled that Prime Minister Boris Johnson's supension of parliament was unlawful. Parliament is therefore still in session as Brexit looms and BoJo has to deal with it.Mr Johnson suspended - or prorogued - Parliament for five weeks earlier this month, but the court said it was wrong to stop MPs carrying out duties in the run-up to Brexit on 31 October. Commons Speaker John Bercow confirmed MPs would now return on Wednesday. Supreme Court president Lady Hale said "the effect on the fundamentals of democracy was extreme."A raft of MPs have now called for the prime minister to resign - Downing Street said it was "currently processing the verdict". Breakout star today is Lady Hale, the court's chief justice, and her House Baenre spider brooch. Read the rest
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by Rob Beschizza on (#4R0PJ)
Yahoo has a new logo (above) and Brand Identity Narrative to go with it. Read the rest
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#4R0DN)
In May 2019 Dillon Shane Webb bought a sticker that read "I EAT ASS" and affixed it to the back window of his truck. A cop didn't like it, and pulled Webb over. Webb argued with the cop and was arrested. Vice has a video of how the arrest turned Webb into an unlikely free speech icon. Read the rest
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by Rob Beschizza on (#4QZV2)
Get your angry hat on, someone's made a list of the best video games of the 21st Century. What are The Guardian's picks?3. Dark Souls (2011)You are dead, which comes with few advantages, but at least you can’t die again – not for good, anyway. Plunging you into a never-ending cycle of death and rebirth in a world where almost nothing still breathes, Dark Souls sets you off with nothing and lets its horror-tinged dark fantasy unfold as you flail and struggle to survive. Invigoratingly uncompromising and influential, it was the breakthrough game of FromSoftware and visionary director Hidetaka Miyazaki. Despite two more Dark Souls games and a raft of imitators, there is still nothing like it.2. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)Doing for the open-world game what Half-Life 2 did for the first-person shooter, Breath of the Wild tears up and throws away all the things that make exploration a chore – checklists, objective markers, forests of icons – to make way for true adventure. Breath of the Wild counts on your curiosity, intelligence, self-determination and ingenuity, giving you a thousand ways to apply them. Its thrillingly open wilderness makes other games feel like a quaint miniature train ride by comparison.Number one is, I dare say it, obvious. Read the rest
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by Rob Beschizza on (#4QZNH)
Profiled By Maureen Dowd at The New York Times, Disney CEO Bob Iger says that the company almost bought Twitter in 2017, but decided against it because "the nastiness is extraordinary.""I like looking at my Twitter newsfeed because I want to follow 15, 20 different subjects. Then you turn and look at your notifications and you’re immediately saying, why am I doing this? Why do I endure this pain? Like a lot of these platforms, they have the ability to do a lot of good in our world. They also have an ability to do a lot of bad. I didn’t want to take that on.â€He makes a point of liking David Portnoy's feed, though. It's always important to remember that guys like Iger don't really have any public beliefs about anything, just presentations for different audiences.I liked the phrase the Hollywood Reporter attributed to Iger regarding Twitter -- that it gave him an unshakeable "feeling of dread" -- but it's not in the actual profile and I'm pretty sure he didn't say it. Iger's memoirs, The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned From 15 Years as CEO Of The Walt Disney Company [Amazon link], are out and reportedly contain a lot more about why Social Media, Especially Twitter, is Bad. Read the rest
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by Cory Doctorow on (#4QVYW)
Anna Merlan has made a distinguished journalistic career out of covering conspiracy theories, particularly far-right ones, for Gizmodo Media; her book-length account of conspiratorial thinking, Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power, is a superb tour not just through the conspiracies that have taken hold in American public discourse, but also in the real, often traumatic conspiracies that give these false beliefs a terrible ring of plausibility. Merlan's thesis is that the "contagion" model of conspiracy thinking -- the idea that some people are just so danged convincing that merely hearing them will make you a conspiracy theorist -- is at best incomplete, and at worst, totally overblown.After all, the arguments for the flat Earth, or anti-vax, or eugenics, have not gotten better since they emerged decades or even centuries ago, and to an objective ear, the people who advocate these ideas sound ridiculous. Some people argue that the rise in conspiratorial thinking is about contagion, but that patient zero is the internet, where Big Tech's almighty algorithms can use machine learning to systematically explore its targets' cognitive defenses, finding and exploiting their weak spots and winning converts, with fully automated proselytizing tools that allow even the most fumbletongued conspiracy peddler to amass a following and found a cult.This theory is supported by Big Tech's own commercial communications: if you want to find testimonies to the devastating power of Big Tech's persuasion tools, you need look no further than their own sales literature, in which they boast that potential advertisers can expect endless returns from their machine-learning mind control rays. Read the rest
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#4QQJ8)
When I got an iPhone 8, I was amazed at how much better the camera was than the one on my iPhone 7. I didn't buy an iPhone XS, but its camera was a lot better than the iPhone 8's. Austin Mann's review of the iPhone 11's camera makes it clear that its camera is much improved over the XS. Above: "iPhone XS vs iPhone 11 Pro w/ Night mode, tripod mounted. Guilin, China." Read the rest
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by Boing Boing's Shop on (#4QPWX)
When it comes to data analytics or deep learning, there's one language behind the apps and algorithms that power the biggest companies of today: Python. The best part about this tool is that as versatile as it is, it's actually fairly easy to learn. But mastery? For that, you need more than just a beginners' manual.Enter the Complete Python Certification Bootcamp Bundle, a mammoth trove of resources that really opens up the potential of this epoch-defining language.No matter what level of programming experience you have, you'll find multiple points of entry here. There are starter courses that will have you writing code within an hour or so, or even creating your own game. From there, you can dive into more advanced tutorials that focus on Python's uses in cybersecurity, deep learning and image processing. From the basic concepts of Python itself to the way it meshes with tools like Keras and Tensorflow, you'll have everything you need to build your resume as a full-stack programmer.The 12-course bundle sells for $2030 separately, but you can get the entire set for $34.99 today. Read the rest
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by Xeni Jardin on (#4QP1A)
He was performing 'Day-O,' the Afro-Jamaican chant made famous by Black civil rights activist Harry Belafonte.
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by Jason Weisberger on (#4QN14)
Louis Armstrong and Danny Kaye repeat their performance of 'The Saints Go Marching In' from the Five Pennies. Read the rest
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by Clive Thompson on (#4QJGJ)
Earlier this summer I stopped by the office of Joel Spolsky, CEO of Stack Overflow, the mammoth forum for software developers, to talk about my new book Coders, which is all about the subculture of programmers and their impact on reality. (And which you can acquire right here folks, step right up.)We were supposed to talk about coding but at first got totally sidetracked when I noticed Joel had a huge archive of issues of OMNI, so we spent 15 minutes excitedly babbling about the role that magazine played in our nerd youths. (They even hunted down some of the original ads for Heathkit robots.)When we finally got around to talking about the culture of software creation, it was pretty fun, and they transcribed parts of our talk. Here's Joel talking about how he originally got into coding:Clive: What was your original pathway into coding?Joel: My parents were professors at the University of New Mexico, and the University bought a mainframe and didn’t know what do with it. They gave every professor an account. And the professors gave those to their kids.So I was part of a group of teenage kids just hanging around the computer center trying to figure stuff out.Clive: So what was it, FORTRAN? Joel: It had an interactive operating system because those had gotten trendy at universities. They had an interactive terminal system that had BASIC, FORTRAN, and PL1. Many, many years later I realized there was no way they had enough memory for three compilers and in fact what they had was a very simple pre-processsor that made Basic, Fortan, and PL1 all look like the same mush. Read the rest
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by Rob Beschizza on (#4QFHJ)
Tetronimo Slide is an unusually annoying variant of Tetris which adds a sliding mechanism similar to the game Threes. You no longer have to think and thumb quickly in the face of falling blocks, but have you thought about what happens if they can slide about after they land? You will, if you click that cursed link. Read the rest
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by Boing Boing's Shop on (#4QBBD)
The field of data analytics can get intimidating, even for business professionals who constantly rely on it. But at its heart, its purpose is to simplify. To take mounds of information and distill their insights into a single clear picture.Currently, the go-to software for painting that picture is Tableau. And if you want to use it to its fullest potential, there's no quicker way than the Mastering Tableau Certification Bundle.Even if you're just diving into Tableau - or data analytics in general - this five-course package will have you wrangling datasets in no time. It focuses primarily on Tableau Desktop 10 and its ability to easily handle multiple streams of data, rendering them into intuitive (even interactive) charts and dashboards. In under 20 total hours, you'll learn how to create your own dashboards with practice sets, design effective visualizations and execute cross-database joins and other data prep essentials,Right now, you can get lifetime access to the complete Mastering Tableau Certification Bundle for $25 today. Read the rest
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#4QB0G)
If you live in Los Angeles, I highly recommend paying a visit to Japan House in Hollywood. It's an event and cultural center created by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and features art exhibits, lectures, architecture and technology exhibits, and more. Its upcoming "Movie & Bites" event is a perfect reason to visit:Sunday, September 224:00 PM - 7:00 PM | $20JAPAN HOUSE Salon | Level 5A meal brings people together in more ways than one. As well as nourishing the body with sustenance, a meal can evoke forgotten memories and renew bonds that have weakened over time and distance. In this installment of “Movie & Bites,†a combined screening and culinary event featuring acclaimed works in Japanese film and television, these themes will be explored in The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952) by legendary filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu.Taking place in 1950s Tokyo, a wealthy middle-aged couple find themselves growing apart and their marriage slowly disintegrating. Taeko, a sophisticated, city-bred housewife, is bored and resentful of her marriage to Mokichi, a humble and provincial businessman whose simple pleasures include cheap cigarettes and a taste for the unassuming, eponymous dish: green tea over rice (ochazuke). The couple’s marital woes are heightened by the arrival of Taeko’s vivacious niece, Setsuko, whose modernizing ways come into conflict with Taeko and Mokichi’s traditional views. Ozu, a master of observational storytelling, crafts an emotionally powerful yet austere film that shows the gentle unraveling of a marriage, the growing pains of acceptance, and the timorous, hesitant first steps at reconciliation over a mutual understanding of each other’s flaws and humanity. Read the rest
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by Sean Bonner on (#4QAYJ)
I touch down at Narita Airport on schedule and feel lucky to have just missed Typhoon Faxai, a category 3 storm which had passed through the area hours earlier. I’d received a note from the airline that, depending on how fast the typhoon was moving, my flight (which was scheduled to land just after 3 pm) could be canceled or delayed, but we left on time and the updates during the flight suggested all was clear.As a resident of Japan, I get to use the special “reentry permit holder†lines at immigration which tend to take about 5 minutes to get through, which is incredible compared against the sometimes hour-long queue for visiting foreigners. Once through customs, I have to decide how to get home. Some airports offer no transportation, Narita for all its faults (mostly that it’s so far from Tokyo) offers many. I bounce between taking the Narita Express train or the Airport Limousine bus. Both options will get me to Shinjuku for about $40 and take roughly an hour and a half. From Shinjuku station, I can transfer to a local line and I’m walking in the door of my house about 15 minutes later. I tend to prefer the train because I’m tall and the reserved seats have more legroom, but it runs only once an hour, while there tends to be a bus leaving every 10-15 minutes so the bus is often more convenient. Anyway, my point is as I was walking off the plane at 3 pm I expect to be home by 5pm. Read the rest
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