GPT-2 is a language model that was trained on 40GB of text scraped from websites that Reddit linked to and that had a Karma score of at least two. As the developers at OpenAI describe it, GPT-2 is "a large-scale unsupervised language model which generates coherent paragraphs of text, achieves state-of-the-art performance on many language modeling benchmarks, and performs rudimentary reading comprehension, machine translation, question answering, and summarization—all without task-specific training." Because the model is probabilistic, it returns a different response every time you enter the same input.OpenAI decided not to release the 40GB-trained model, due to "concerns about malicious applications of the technology" but it released a 345MB-trained model which you can install as a Python program and run from a command line. (The installation instructions are in the DEVELOPERS.md file.) I installed it and was blown away by the human-quality outputs it gave to my text prompts. Here's an example - I prompted it with the first paragraph of Kafka's The Metamorphosis. And this is just with the tiny 345MB model. OpenAI published a story that the 40G GPT-2 wrote about unicorns, which shows how well the model performs.In this Computerphile video, Rob Miles of the University of Nottingham explains how GPT-2 works. Read the rest

Back in 2017, Chinese authorities in Xinjiang began stopping members of the Uyghur ethnic minority and forcing them to install spyware on their phones: it marked an intensification of the country's crackdown on Uyghur's and other ethnic/religious minorities, which acquired a new technological fervor: next came the nonconsensual collection of the DNA of every person in Xinjiang, then the creation of torture camps designed to brainwash Uyghurs out of their Islamic faith, and then a full blown surveillance smart-city rollout that turned the cities of the region into open-air prisons.Throughout the intensification of the racist war on Uyghurs, the cornerstone remained mobile surveillance, which fed data on every person's every action to the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP), which also spied on police and government officials, enforcing legal harassment quotas. Though this app was sporadically installed on foreigners' phones, these seemed to be isolated incidents.Now, though, the police in the region seem to have adopted a blanket policy of installing surveillance backdoors on the mobile devices of visitors to the region who use the Silk Road border crossing at Irkeshtam, whose phones have to be surrendered for an out-of-sight "inspection" at the borders to Xinjiang. There is no indication that these apps stop sending your personal information (including the contents of emails and texts) to Chinese authorities after you leave the region.About 100 million people visit Xinjiang every year. As with other countries, Chinese authorities have a history of using disfavored minorities to try out digital persecution tools, finding the rough edges and normalizing the tools' use until they are ready to be used on more privileged groups, so Xinjiang can be seen as a field-trial for measures that will be visited upon the rest of China in due time -- and also exported to Chinese Belt-and-Road client-states. Read the rest

It turns out piercing cloves of garlic with a paring knife is the worst of five different ways explored here to peel garlic, at least according to Adam Ragusea. Number four is microwaving the garlic for 20 seconds; number three is shaking the cloves between two bowls; number two is rolling the garlic between your hands, and number one is smashing the clove with the side of a knife. My favorite way is this floppy tube garlic peeler.Image: YouTube Read the rest

Phillips Pest Control out of Alabama reports that this is the largest yellowjacket nest they've ever had to deal with. I treat the nest with Permethrin. You will see the incredible size of the nest and the massive numbers of yellowjackets. Within a couple days after the treatment all yellowjackets were dead. Read the rest

John Park says: "I made this Keanu GIF player using an Adafruit PyGamer and SD card. It autoplays each GIF for 10 seconds before moving on to the next one. You can also use the L/R thumbstick controls to advance or go back."Image: YouTube Read the rest

Suggested marketing copy for the Breo iSee4 Eye and Temple Massager Temple:He is wearing shiny goggles that wrap halfway round his head; the bows of the goggles have little earphones that are plugged into his outer ears.The earphones have some built-in noise cancellation features. This sort of thing works best on steady noise...The goggles throw a light, smoky haze across his eyes, and reflect a distorted wide-angle view of a brilliantly lit boulevard that stretches off into an infinite blackness. This boulevard does not actually exist; it is a computer-generated view of an imaginary place. Actually, the eye massager does not immerse you into the Metaverse, but Snow Crash fans will want this anyway!Previously: Pain Box or Hand Massager? Read the rest

The Guardian's Julia Carrie Wong and Matthew Cantor put together a list of "53 essential tech-bro terms." Here are a few samples:dongle (n) A small, expensive and easily misplaced piece of computer gear. Usually required when a company revolutionizes its products by getting rid of all the ports that are compatible with the accessories you already own. See Apple.meritocracy (n) A system that rewards those who most deserve it, as long as they went to the right school. The tech industry is a meritocracy in much the same way that America is a meritocracy. See diversity and inclusion.microdosing (n) – Taking small amounts of illegal drugs while white. It may be possible to microdose without writing a book or personal essay about it, but the evidence suggests otherwise.smart (adj) – A product that is capable of being hooked up to the internet – thus rendering it capable of being hacked or abusing your data.thought leader (n) – An unemployed rich person.Image: achinthamb/Shutterstock Read the rest

Tricksy was hungry, so she ate half a polyurethane frog. The remains appear to be misteleported into the metal worktop, reaching out in desperate frozen horror like a hapless sailor from The Philadephia Experiment.Previously: Chew toys that last a giant dog multiple rainy days Read the rest

If you haven't seen this long commercial before, you'll never guess what it is advertising. The reveal is at the end.for the record, i trimmed out exactly 2 seconds of this: a full-frame ECU of the mother's nipple before the baby starts breastfeeding. subway! eat fresh— Ryan Simmons (@rysimmons) June 27, 2019FAQ:Q: Is this real?A: Real as you and me.Q: Who made it?A: A firm called Stink (!) out of their Brazil office with director Salsa (?)Q: Is that a little boy peeing?A: Yes.Q: I got it right on the first guess.A: That's not a question, and no you did not.— Ryan Simmons (@rysimmons) June 27, 2019MORE FAQ:Q: Is he peeping on his mom?A: I don't think so, but anything's possible.Q: Is the sandwich artist the girl he kissed?A: See above.Q: When he shaves his head after the heartbreak, is he becoming an incel?A: Without a doubt, 100% yes.— Ryan Simmons (@rysimmons) June 27, 2019 Read the rest

Last year Jerry from JerryRigEverything had no difficulty defeating a $100 fingerprint smart lock made by Tapplock. All he did was unscrew the back and remove a few screws inside. Well, Tapplock recently wrote Jerry and told him it had an improved design. Jerry bought four of the locks and looked for vulnerabilities. He learned that the new Tapplock is much more secure than the old one.Image: YouTube Read the rest

This month's #612strike uprising in Hong Kong achieved a provisional victory when the city's Beijing-friendly government shelved its plans to allow Hong Kongers to be extradited to the mainland to stand charges for political "crimes" -- but the protests, which are the largest in the island's history, are not over. In addition to marching for the resignation of the city's top administrator, Carrie Lam, the protesters have repeatedly blockaded the police HQ, for hours at a time, calling for the release of comrades who were arrested in the #612strike marches. They have graffitied the building ("Hong Kong police dog headquarters") and hung banners from it reading "Release the prisoners."Protesters are hoping to draw the attention of world leaders at the G20 summit in Osaka. The organizers of the demonstration from the Civil Human Rights Front have translated their materials into English, Japanese, Spanish, Mandarin, French, German, Indonesian, Korean and Italian.Freedom HK crowdfunded from Hong Kongers to run full-page ads in several international newspapers ahead of the event.During the rally, protesters chanted slogans such as “Withdraw evil extradition law”, “Free Hong Kong” and “We want genuine universal suffrage”, as guest speakers took turns on the stage to address the crowd.The rally was led by the Civil Human Rights Front, the pro-democracy group that organised two mass marches and other events this month against the bill which would allow the transfer of fugitives to mainland China and other jurisdictions with which Hong Kong has no extradition arrangement.Siege of Hong Kong police headquarters ends without clashes after 6-hour drama by extradition bill protesters [Sum Lok-kei, Victor Ting, Ng Kang-chung and Kanis Leung/South China Morning Post](via Naked Capitalism) Read the rest

Boeing must address the issue before grounded jets fly again.

One of the griftiest corners of late-stage capitalism is the "public safety" industry, in which military contractors realize they can expand their market by peddling overpriced garbage to schools, cities, public transit systems, hospitals, etc -- which is how the "aggression detection" industry emerged, selling microphones whose "machine learning" backends are supposed to be able to detect "aggressive voices" (as well as gunshots) and alert cops or security guards.Propublica and Wired teamed up to independently evaluate the industry-leading "aggression detectors" from Sound Intelligence and Louroe Electronics, and they're basically terrible. The "gunshot detectors" go off when kids slam their locker doors, the voice detection system trips when kids cough or sing "Happy Birthday" -- but don't go off when someone screams as loud as they can, or talks in a low, menacing voice. You can trip them by playing recordings of Gilbert Gottfried, but not "an agitated man who was screaming and pounding on a desk."These $1,000 mics are marketed to school as tools to prevent school shootings, but there's no evidence that school shooters shout or scream prior to opening fire (whereupon the situation is easy to detect without special apparatus) -- and the mics do nothing to pick up "cold anger."Meanwhile, every $1,000 a school spends on spy-mics is $1,000 they can't spend on counsellors, special services, classroom teachers, or other interventions. The vendors insist that their mics are not privacy invasive because they only analyze the sounds they pick up, rather than trying to analyze speech -- but school administrators can access recording made by the mics and listen in on their students. Read the rest

Rep. Matthew Hill [R-Jonesborough] is the proprietor of Dock Haley Gospel Magic, a business supplying "Christian-themed magic supplies and teaching aids to customers around the world who use magic shows as a form of evangelism."Hill -- who is hoping to be the next speaker of the Tennessee state legislature -- never registered Dock Haley with the state, and when he was called to account for it, he defended his lack of legal compliance on the basis that the business is wildly unprofitable.Hill neither registered the business with the state nor with the legislative ethics office, which maintains a list of businesses with ties to Tennessee lawmakers. When asked whether he paid taxes on the business, he declined to answer.Hill recently nearly lost a house to foreclosure but came up with the money at the last minute. When questioned about the source of the last-minute cash, Hill declined to go into detail, saying only that he "made the money" and "didn’t get it from any private sources." Hill is also part-owner of a political robo-call company.Hill said he has "never made a dime off" the company and that any money generated goes back to the individual from whom he and his wife bought the business two years ago."It's mine and my wife’s ministry is what it is," Hill said of the company, which sells products to "Christian magicians, church workers and missionaries."Drew Rawlins, executive director of the state Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance, said that a lawmaker should be required to disclose the business if it is producing income, even if it is being used to repay the previous business owner. Read the rest

It's been five years since Ta-Nehisi Coates's groundbreaking The Case for Reparations ran in The Atlantic; yesterday, Coates appeared before Congress to celebrate Juneteenth with a barn-burning statement that starts as a response to Mitch McConnell's dismissal of racial injustice in America, but quickly becomes more than that -- a Coatesian masterclass in understanding race, America, history and the present moment.Yesterday, when asked about reparations, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell offered a familiar reply: America should not be held liable for something that happened 150 years ago, since none of us currently alive are responsible. This rebuttal proffers a strange theory of governance, that American accounts are somehow bound by the lifetime of its generations. But well into this century, the United States was still paying out pensions to the heirs of Civil War soldiers. We honor treaties that date back some 200 years, despite no one being alive who signed those treaties. Many of us would love to be taxed for the things we are solely and individually responsible for. But we are American citizens, and thus bound to a collective enterprise that extends beyond our individual and personal reach. It would seem ridiculous to dispute invocations of the Founders, or the Greatest Generation, on the basis of a lack of membership in either group. We recognize our lineage as a generational trust, as inheritance, and the real dilemma posed by reparations is just that: a dilemma of inheritance. It is impossible to imagine America without the inheritance of slavery. Read the rest

Anita Sarkeesian (previously) is a brilliant media theorist and critic whose Feminist Frequency/Tropes vs. Women in Video Games projects revolutionized the way we talk about gender and games -- and also made her a target for a virulent misogynist hate-machine of harassing manbabies who threatened her life, doxed her, and did everything they could to intimidate her into silence. Polygon's 9,000 word profile of Sarkeesian contains a lot of color about her personality and approach (which is great stuff -- Sarkeesian is a fun and interesting person in real life as well as on-screen), but where it gets really good is in describing how Sarkeesian led a massive change in the way that games companies approach games, with "great women characters" appearing in "The Last of Us, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Dragon Age: Inquisition,The Walking Dead, Battlefield 5, Dishonored 2, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Overwatch"Sarkeesian's academic training is a combination of feminist theory and media studies, which made her the perfect person to bridge between the insidery, jargon-heavy world of gender studies and a popular, easily digested way of thinking through these issues for games practicioners; Polygon's Colin Campbell calls it "a toolkit that developers could use, to lever themselves out of the box they’d made for themselves."This was literally and figuratively "game changing" -- Sarkeesian wields "criticism so sharp that it cut the past from the future," making a new world of games, at real personal cost.That cost is also an important part of the story: Sarkeesian's harassers were unspeakably vile and vicious, and throughout, Sarkeesian made a point of never showing how it affected her, though it did (as it would anyone who was subjected to it). Read the rest

While throat singing, aka overtone singing, is a well known practice in the traditional music of Mongolian, Tibetan, and other indigenous people around the world, you can also hear it "Lonely Cowboy," a fantastic 78 RPM shellac record from 1927 by cowboy singer Arthur Miles that also features some lovely yodeling!(via Weird Universe) Read the rest

yo wtf hooman from r/funnyFrom r/funny Read the rest

#BREAKING: Confederate statue at Centennial Park vandalized. pic.twitter.com/4jzm3LIk8p— NewsChannel 5 (@NC5) June 17, 2019 This is what happens when you let the losers of an unjust war put up monuments to their heroes.CNN:A Confederate statue in Nashville's Centennial Park was vandalized late Sunday night with the words "They were racists" written on it in red paint.The statue, built almost 50 years after the Civil War ended, is meant to be a memorial to Tennessee soldiers who fought in the war. Paint was poured over the names of more than 500 soldiers inscribed on a plaque on the monument, according to CNN affiliate WZTV.Nashville's Metro Police Department said officers would be reviewing security footage, the affiliate said. Read the rest

The NSO Group (previously) is one of the world's most notorious cyber-arms dealers, linked to horrific human rights abuses, extrajudicial killing of human rights activists, and the dirtiest of dirty trick campaigns against its critics (and their lawyers) -- they're also accused of helping with the Saudi government's murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.The company has changed hands several times, and its ownership structure is predictably obscure. It's well understood, however, that a private equity firm called Novalpina own a controlling interest in the company; Novalpina's founder is Stephen Peel, and his wife, Yana Peel, was best known as the CEO for London's Serpentine Galley, which features many shows and exhibits devoted to human rights, and which she had declared that the Serpentine was a "safe space for unsafe ideas"; Ms Peel had burnished her credentials by serving "as a judge for international freedom-of-expression awards."On Friday, the Guardian published an expose accusing Yana Peel of being co-owner of Novalpina, and of taking ownership of her husband's stake in NSO Group's parent company. In her response to the Guardian article, Peel acknowledged her stake and defended NSO, calling critics of its products "quite misinformed." She also said that despite her financial interests, she had "no involvement in the operations or decisions of Novalpina, which is managed by my husband, Stephen Peel, and his partners."The report set off a firestorm in the art and human rights world over the weekend, and by Monday, Peel had resigned as CEO, while issuing a statement condemning her critics, characterising their concerns as "a concerted lobbying campaign against my husband’s recent investment." On Friday, Novalpina vowed to rein in NSO Group, promising "to ensure NSO’s technology is used only for its intended lawful purpose — the prevention of harm to our fundamental human rights to life, liberty and security."Peel warned that the pressure she faced would set a precedent that put "the treasures of the art community" at risk of "an erosion of private support" -- or, as I see her point of view, "if rich people are excluded from the philanthropic world because they attain and grow their fortunes through human rights abuses and crimes, there won't be any rich philanthropists left" (I think this is probably true, and it's a feature, not a bug, of chasing oligarchs and profteers out of genteel society). Read the rest

A platform is important, but nothing says more about a candidate than their dog.Quartz shared this list of 2020 Presidential candidates and their dogs.I can not imagine surviving this world without a dog.The Democratic field for the 2020 presidential election is already crowded, with 21 declared candidates, and several more waiting in the wings.Most are running on similar platforms, promising a reversal of Donald Trump’s climate change–denying policies, better wages for the middle class, expanded healthcare benefits, and electoral reform that would beat back the influence of dark money. But several also have a four-legged secret weapon—a dog.Trump is the first US president in more than 100 years not to have a dog in the White House, and Democratic candidates who do have one are flaunting their dog ownership, a crowd-pleasing way to put more distance between themselves and the president.Tapping into America’s deep and growing love of dogs is a politically savvy move. About 68% of all American homes have a pet, the American Pet Products Association reported last year, up from 56% three decades ago, and 62% of all homes have a dog. Dog culture is everywhere, from Twitter account Breitbark News (Home of the #AltBite) that pens dog-based parodies of political events to the televised Philadelphia’s National Dog Show, which drew some 20 million viewers in November. Read the rest

We've seen her art. Her face is instantly recognizable. But, we've never heard Frida Kahlo's voice before. Until now, that is. The National Sound Library of Mexico has shared (what they believe to be) the only known recording of Frida's voice to the world. The New York Times:In the recording, a woman’s voice describes Diego Rivera, Kahlo’s husband and fellow artist.“He is a huge, immense child, with a friendly face and a sad gaze,” the woman says. “His high, dark, extremely intelligent and big eyes rarely hold still. They almost pop out of their sockets because of their swollen and protuberant eyelids — like a toad’s.”Rivera’s eyes seem made for an artist, the woman adds, “built especially for a painter of spaces and crowds.”Admiration for Rivera is clear in the recording, which is said to be originally a text from an exhibition catalog. Rivera is said to have an “ironic, sweet smile,” “meaty lips” and “small, marvelous hands.” The voice concludes by calling Rivera’s unusual body shape, with its “childish, narrow, rounded shoulders,” as being like “an inscrutable monster.”The recording is from a pilot edition of “The Bachelor,” a 1950s radio show in Mexico, recorded for Televisa Radio, the National Sound Library said in a statement on Wednesday. In 2007, thousands of tapes from Televisa Radio’s archive were given to the library to be digitized and stored.The recording is thought to be of Kahlo partly because the voice is introduced as the female painter “who no longer exists.” Listen for yourself (she speaks in Spanish, of course): Read the rest

We presume it can tell by the pixels.

Fecal transplants are the hottest thing in emergent medicine, restoring balance to guts nuked by antibiotics and resistant infections, but there are risks. DIY is not the way to go...Two patients contracted severe infections, and one of them died, from fecal transplants that contained drug-resistant bacteria, the Food and Drug Administration reported on Thursday. As a result, the agency is halting a number of clinical trials until the researchers conducting them can demonstrate that they have procedures in place to screen donated stool for dangerous organisms, said Dr. Peter Marks, director of the agency’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. In an interview, he did not specify how many trials would be suspended, but said it was “not just a few.” Read the rest

Many states require criminals to make financial restitution to the victims of their crimes -- paying to replace the things the damaged or stole -- and this applies to juvenile offenders as well as adults.The result is that juvenile offenders who have served their time and are trying to rebuild their lives, re-establish their educations, and set themselves on the path to a future apart from the criminal justice system and imprisonment can find themselves saddled with massive debts -- and if they fail to make payments on those debts, they can end up back in prison for the new offense of failing to make restitution payments.In 30 states, kids can end up owing restitution payments to insurance companies -- fantastically profitable businesses that exist to absorb financial losses from events like crimes. Restitution is also sometimes offered as an alternative to incarceration, meaning that poor kids go to jail, and rich kids pay off their victims and go free.The Washington Post examines several instances in which juvenile offenders have been saddled with debts that they cannot afford, like Sophie McMullan a homeless teenaged abuse survivor with PTSD who once accompanied her boyfriend on one of several burglaries he committed; under the Maine's "accomplice liability" law she now has to make restitution for a share of all her (ex-)boyfriend's crimes -- she ended up being re-arrested when she fell behind on payments. When she got out, she kept up payments at $20/month, which meant that she couldn't afford a snowsuit for her baby. Read the rest

Kraft has launched "Salad Frosting" as part of a jokey marketing campaign about the lies that parents tell their kids. Because, y'know, deceit is funny and those kids who already like ranch dressing will be too dumb to recognize that this is the same thing while those who can't stand the stuff will suddenly develop a taste for it because of the "fun" packaging. From the press release:“Innocent lies parents tell their kids help alleviate the pressures of everyday parenting, and if it gets kids to eat their greens, so be it,” says Sergio Eleuterio Head of Marketing for Kraft, “Simple innocent lies are not only part of parenthood, but a true tactic used by parents everywhere. Kraft Salad 'Frosting' is one lie you won’t feel bad telling your kids.”According to a recent study, Ranch dressing is the most popular dressing in the United States*** and kids will eat anything with frosting, right? It’s a match made for dinnertime bliss. Now, convincing children to eat salad, broccoli and carrots may be a whole lot easier. Just add Kraft Salad “Frosting.” Read the rest

In 1982, Japanese avant-garde filmmaker Toshio Matsumoto used video cut-up techniques to deconstruct a single residential building into a disorienting architectural puzzle. The short film is titled Shift (シフト　断層). Music by Yasuke Inagaki.From a 1996 interview with Matsumoto:We have to do more to irritate and disturb modes of perception, thinking, or feeling that have become automatized in this way. I did several kinds of experiments from the 1970s to the 1980s that de-automatized the visual field. But when image technology progresses such that you can make any kind of image, people become visually used to that. That's why there's not much left today with a fresh impact. In this way, the problem is that the interpretive structure of narrating, giving meaning to, or interpreting the world has become so thoroughly systematized that one cannot conceive of anything else that is largely untouched. We have to de-systematize that. (via r/ObscureMedia) Read the rest

InfoWars settled a lawsuit by paying $15,000 to cartoonist Matt Furie for using his comic book character, Pepe the Frog, in a poster without permission. Pepe was an innocuous character who first appeared in Furie's 2005 comic Boy's Club, but was co-opted by neo-nazis, Trumpists, and fascists as a symbol for white nationalism and alt-right ideology.From The Daily Beast:The InfoWars lawsuit, filed last year, centered on a poster sold by InfoWars featuring Pepe alongside Trumpworld personalities like Roger Stone, InfoWars founder Alex Jones, and pundits “Diamond & Silk.”Before settling, InfoWars tried a novel legal strategy of suggesting, without evidence, that Furie had actually based Pepe on an Argentinian amphibian cartoon character named “El Sapo Pepe.” But on Tuesday, InfoWars agreed to destroy all remaining copies of the poster, and pay back the $14,000 it made from the poster sales—along with an additional $1,000.Images: Matt Furie's Boy's Club (l), InfoWars poster (r) Read the rest

Some 15 hours of Thom Yorke's demo recordings, dating back to the OK Computer era, were accessed and downloaded by a hacker who then attempted to extort $150,000. Rather than pay up or lose control of the media, Radiohead released it all online instead. Bandmate Jonny Greenwood wrote that the sessions were "only tangentially interesting" and would be offered for the next 18 days, with an optional $18 price tag that would be passed onto Extinction Rebellion, a climate change protest group. MINIDISCS [HACKED] by Radiohead Read the rest

In 2017, Christies auctioned off the painting "Savator Mundi" by Leonardo da Vinci (or by his workshop, at least) for $450 million. The buyer was a Saudi Arabian prince and Minister of Culture thought to be buying the art on behalf of Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS), the Crown Prince of the country, as a gift. The lucky recipient was reportedly Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi for display in his Louvre Abu Dhabi. But then it vanished. For two years, Savator Mundi's location has been unknown to the public. From Kenny Schachter's column on artnet:You won’t believe where I’m told the painting is today. Apparently, the work was whisked away in the middle of the night on MBS’s plane and relocated to his yacht, the Serene. ...My sources say (it) will remain onboard until MBS finishes transforming the ancient Saudi precinct of Al-Ula into a vast cultural hub—basically an art Disneyland—that will no doubt compete with Abu Dhabi’s Louvre and, more significantly, the Jean Nouvel-designed National Museum in Qatar, the sworn enemy of the Saudi crown prince. In the meantime, I'm sure the salty air will add a nice patina to the painting."Where In the World Is ‘Salvator Mundi’? Kenny Schachter Reveals the Location of the Lost $450 Million Leonardo" (artnet) Read the rest

This is nightmarish. On a dark freeway in Russia workers have left concrete repair materials in the middle of a freeway with no warning signs. Two cars hit them and go flying.Image: YouTube Read the rest

East West Market in Vancouver, B.C. had a terrific idea to get people to start bringing their own reusable shopping bags: design plastic bags with messages too embarrassing to carry. Unfortunately, while hilarious, it's backfiring. They made them too good and now everyone wants a set of them! Collect all three: the Colon Care Co-op, Into The Weird Adult Video Emporium, and Dr. Toews' Wart Ointment Wholesale.(Funny Or Die) Read the rest

I woke up this morning wondering something I hadn't in years. Why was Linux' BogoMip bogus?I first installed Slackware Linux from a huge stack of 3.5" floppy disks. My life was changed. This was in the 1.0.X kernel days.I stopped dicking around with Linux as my desktop OS when OS X bridged the gap. I have not made zlilo in over 2 decades, but this morning I woke up wondering about BogoMips!?BogoMips were the computing speed measurement of note at my first internet start-up, an ISP and datacenter, and every new Intel or Intel-compatible CPU was curiously investigated by our tech team. When we'd boot a Linux kernel, we would watch carefully to see "the number of million times per second a processor can do absolutely nothing".This morning I had to know! What the hell was so bogus about a BogoMip?Linux Journal's Wim van Dorst answered that question 23 years ago!Some device drivers in the Linux kernel need timing delays. Either they need a very short delay, or the delay must be very accurately determined. A simple non-busy loop cannot do this. Therefore, Linus Torvalds added a calibration in the boot procedure to predetermine how often a specific busy-loop algorithm can be calculated in one second. This predetermined value, called loops_per_second, is used in the device drivers to delay for precisely measured times.For fun, Linus also added a print statement presenting this predetermined value (divided by 500,000) as BogoMips. Linus apparently loves it when millions of Linux users are gazing at their computer, baffled by these bogus MIPS. Read the rest

It's debatable whether it's ok to wear sandals with socks but what about socks that look like you're wearing sandals? What's next, wearing sandal socks ($11/pair) with actual sandals? Whatever happens, can we please call these things "Birkensocks"?(Pee-wee Herman) Read the rest

Mr. Know-It-All: The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder, John Waters' new book, sounds like a demented must-have:It “serves it up raw: how to fail upward in Hollywood; how to develop musical taste from Nervous Norvus to Maria Callas; how to build a home so ugly and trendy that no one but you would dare live in it; more important, how to tell someone you love them without emotional risk; and yes, how to cheat death itself. Through it all, Waters swears by one undeniable truth: ‘Whatever you might have heard, there is absolutely no downside to being famous. None at all.'”He devotes an entire chapter in the book to dropping acid at age 70, which he describes in a recent interview with the Washington Blade:That’s something that I did that I thoroughly enjoyed. I think if there’s a sentimental chapter in the book about friendship, then maybe that is that. If I had known how strong the LSD was that I took, I probably would have been uptight. But I didn’t and it was great. I spent eight months getting the right acid from the purest source I could find, practically from Timothy Leary’s asshole... But the provenance of it was high and it was great. I don’t have to ever do it again. Just like I don’t have to ever hitchhike across the country again. Why would I? I did it...(RED) Read the rest

Federal convict and Trump crony Paul Manafort is to be held in solitary confinement at the notorious Riker's Island prison while he faces trial for fraud in a New York court (solitary confinement is standard procedure for high-profile prisoners); Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (whose district includes Riker's) publicly condemned the use of solitary confinement for any prisoner, including Manafort, adding that, "if people aren’t willing to apply principles evenly, no matter the person, then they aren’t fighting for criminal justice reform" and "a prison sentence is not a license for gov torture and human rights violations. That‘s what solitary confinement is." She concluded with "Manafort should be released, along with all people being held in solitary." Read the rest

A 1997 New Jersey law allows telcoms companies to stop paying taxes while continuing their access to municipal infrastructure (poles, land, lines, etc) if they serve fewer than 51% of the people in a city; in 2008, Verizon started to claim this exemption, by 2015, it was paying no municipal taxes to 150 of New Jersey's 565 cities.Verizon fraudulently claimed this exemption -- in some of the cities where it was claiming to provide dial-tone to less than 51% of the residents, it was actually commanding 90% of the market. Now, Assemblyman John Burzichelli's [D–Paulsboro] has introduced A5450, designed to "force Verizon to pay local taxes on telephone poles, lines, land, and other equipment that the telecom giant has refused to fork over in an increasing number of New Jersey municipalities, starving them of tens of millions of dollars a year in tax revenue." Burzichelli chairs the NJ Assembly's Appropriations Committee and rates the chances of his bill passing as "very good."The bill would be retroactive to 2007, forcing Verizon to pay a decade's worth of back taxes to many towns. The proposed law would also force companies like Verizon to reimburse towns for attorneys' fees if towns prevail in future court cases over the tax.Verizon avoided a decade’s worth of taxes—a new law could make it pay up [Jon Brodkin/Ars Technica](via /.) Read the rest

I asked the Youtubes to share Bob Dylan's "Silvio" with me this AM and was delivered this wonderful version I had neither seen, nor heard, before!The close-ups on Bob are fantastic fun to watch. Read the rest

NASA released this incredible image of the sky that depicts 22 months of X-ray data captured from the International Space Station using the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER). From NASA:“Even with minimal processing, this image reveals the Cygnus Loop, a supernova remnant about 90 light-years across and thought to be 5,000 to 8,000 years old,” said Keith Gendreau, the mission’s principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We’re gradually building up a new X-ray image of the whole sky, and it’s possible NICER’s nighttime sweeps will uncover previously unknown sources.”NICER’s primary mission is to determine the size of dense remains of dead stars called neutron stars — some of which we see as pulsars — to a precision of 5%. These measurements will finally allow physicists to solve the mystery of what form of matter exists in their incredibly compressed cores. Pulsars, rapidly spinning neutron stars that appear to “pulse” bright light, are ideally suited to this “mass-radius” research and are some of NICER’s regular targets.Other frequently visited pulsars are studied as part of NICER's Station Explorer for X-ray Timing and Navigation Technology (SEXTANT) experiment, which uses the precise timing of pulsar X-ray pulses to autonomously determine NICER’s position and speed in space. It’s essentially a galactic GPS system. When mature, this technology will enable spacecraft to navigate themselves throughout the solar system — and beyond. Read the rest

The Sentinelese are one of the world's last "uncontacted" indigenous peoples, a hunter-gatherer tribe who live on the remote North Sentinel Island in India's Andaman Islands chain. You may recall that last November, a missionary named John Allen Chau, 27, obsessed with trying to convert the tribe to Christianity, paid local fishermen to help him get near the island. As soon as he illegally landed his canoe on the shore and started preaching, the Sentinelese fired arrows. He escaped with injuries but returned twice later and was eventually killed. This footage above of the Sentinelese from 1991 was taken by anthropologist T N Pandit of India's Ministry of Tribal Affairs who attempted to visit them for several decades. Usually, the Sentinelese hid or fired arrows, but in 1991 they waded into the ocean to meet Pandit and his team peacefully."We were puzzled why they allowed us," he told the BBC last year. "It was their decision to meet us and the meeting took place on their terms.""We jumped out of the boat and stood in neck-deep water, distributing coconuts and other gifts. But we were not allowed to step onto their island."According to the BBC, "Mr Pandit says he does favour the re-establishment of friendly gift-dropping missions with the tribe, but says they should not be disturbed. 'We should respect their wish to be left alone, he said.'"Well, duh. Read the rest

Chernobyl, the five-part HBO/Sky dramatization of the 1986 nuclear disaster, is filled with more dread, tension and horror than any Hollywood movie I've seen in years. The most unsettling part of it is knowing that it adheres closely to the truth, right down to the details. Yet I'm still startled to see just how exacting the production design is, as demonstrated by this footage from one of the plant roofs where "liquidators" struggled to remove irradiated debris by hurling it back into the open core of the reactor. Jump to about 7:45 for the roof work.Compare to the "roof" scene from the show, which integrates the true footage so cleverly you wouldn't know it if you hadn't seen it for yourself:If you still need convincing that you should check out this amazing show, here's the scene from Ep. 1 where three young plant workers inspect the reactor hall after the explosion. They know what they're afraid of finding, but they don't know that it's going to be... well, you watch it and see for yourself.Embedded below, a hapless engineer is ordered onto the roof so that managers can debunk claims that the reactor is exposed to the open air. He knows he's dead as soon as he sees the satanic cloud of smoke billowing from the ruin. He knows the guard escorting him up there is dead, too—and that guy doesn't even have to go up to the edge and look down into it. The guard doesn't have to go back to the managers and get yelled at again, either. Read the rest

There isn't single county in the nation where a minimum-wage worker can afford to rent a two-bedroom home; and although LA has the worst homelessness crisis in the country, New York state is catching up, with homelessness growing by 46% since the financial crisis -- the fastest rate in the nation.Surging housing prices have a multitude of causes, but they mostly come down to increased inequality and the drive to put money into the pockets of the rich at the expense of working people: basically, it's one part post-2008 evictions, one part wage stagnation, and one part private equity buying-frenzy. Or, to put it another way: the banks destroyed the economy, their investors cut wages, working people lost their homes while banks got taxpayer bailouts, and then the rich used the tax subsidy to buy the houses that the working people who paid for it had lost, moved those people back into their old homes, and hiked rents while slashing maintenance.Shelter is a basic human need, right there on Maslow's hierarchy, one step above food and air. When shelter is captured by the finance sector and turned into "an ATM for Wall Street," everybody suffers.In New York State, things have reached a breaking point, at a statewide coalition stretching from Lake Ontario to the Bronx is promising a huge shakeup in the state's protection for tenants, with rent stabilization and rules prohibiting eviction without cause enshrined in a set of eight interlocking bills that are being carried forward by a slate of state Democratic legislators who won elections last year by refusing to take real-estate industry money. Read the rest

(PHOTO: Kim Hyok Chol, left, and Kim Yong Chol at Beijing airport on Jan. 17, 2019, KYODO NEWS)Donald Trump appears to believe it is fun to yuk around with North Korea, but North Korea does not yuk around.North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is believed to be carrying out a massive purge to divert attention away from internal turmoil and discontent, reports Korean paper Chosun. “Kim Hyok Chol was investigated and executed at Mirim Airport with four foreign ministry officials in March,” the paper reports. The reportedly deceased Kim Hyok Chol was the nation's special envoy to the United States. He would have been killed, then, very shortly after that February Trump-Kim summit that fell apart to the embarrassment of all concerned. The executed men were responsible for negotiations that led to that second U.S.-North Korea summit in February. Kim Jong Un's regime also held these people responsible for the collapse of talks with Trump. Shinhye Kang reporting for Bloomberg:Kim Hyok Chol, who led working-level negotiations for the summit in Hanoi between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump in February, was executed with four other North Korean foreign ministry officials in March, Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported, citing an unidentified source.Kim Jong Un’s top aide Kim Yong Chol is reportedly undergoing hard labor, according to the South Korean newspaper report.JUST IN: North Korea envoy executed over failed Trump-Kim summit (Chosun)— David Ingles (@DavidInglesTV) May 30, 2019More details from Chosun Ilbo newspaper which cited unidentified sources: Kim Hyok Chol, along with four other officials, were executed in March. Read the rest

Back in January, an Ontario court ruled that Uber's arbitration clause couldn't keep its drivers from suing it; Uber has appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, which has taken up the case and will hear arguments about whether arbitration clauses (through which the parties surrender the right to sue in court) are enforceable in "adhesion contracts" (contracts that are not negotiated, where one party has much less power than the other, such as in click-through agreements).The Supreme Court's ruling will have far-reaching implications, as mandatory arbitration is a common feature in adhesion contracts, and these contracts have become ubiquitous.The hearing of this matter will provide the Supreme Court with an opportunity to determine the breadth of application of its holdings in Douez. Additionally, the Supreme Court may choose to revisit the competing, though arguably consistent, tests for unconscionability from Titus v. William F. Cooke Enterprises Inc.[6] and Morrison v. Coast Finance Ltd.[7] Hopefully, this decision will bring much-needed clarity to all parties seeking to contract on the basis of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, such as arbitration clauses.Supreme Court to hear arguments about enforceability of arbitration clauses [Allan Wells, Steven Dickie, Laura Fric, Lauren Tomasich and Alexis Beale/Osler](Thanks, Bryan!) Read the rest

This is one of Screen Rant's best "Pitch Meeting" episodes ever. Now I don't want to and don't need to see the final season of Game of Thrones. [Contains spoilers.] Read the rest

This German police officer doesn't take kindly to drivers who slow down to photograph a fatal crash.Image: YouTube[via Digg] Read the rest

LuLaRoe, a multi-billion dollar maker of garishly patterned garments, has been hit with multiple lawsuits for being a pyramid scheme. Vice has a 30-minute documentary about the company. Read the rest

Sofar Sounds is an "uber for live music" startup that just closed a $25m round of investment for its product, which books house-shows -- where musicians show up and play in your living room for you and your friends -- at $1100-$1600/each.House shows are a staple of indie musicians and a way for people in communities to show their support for bands getting their start, but they are a labor of love that generally lose money for all concerned. How could a company like this ever be profitable enough to warrant a $25m investment?Simple: they keep nearly all the money you pay to book the house show, paying musicians only $100. You supply the venue, the refreshments, etc, and the musicians supply the entertainment -- Sofar Sounds supplies a website and a tiny amount of administrative work. JWZ -- who owns the DNA Lounge, one of San Francisco's best live music venues -- explains the exploitative economics of Sofar's business-model.There are several common ways that live show contracts work. Sometimes it's just a flat fee. But for small shows with up-and-coming acts, a typical structure would be: $X guarantee (the bands get that no matter what), then if the door takes in more than $X, the house gets the rest up to $Y (to cover costs: rent, insurance, sound tech, light tech, security, cashier, manager, and oh yeah promoting the show) and anything above $Y, the bands and the house split 80/20. For a really small show, $X is probably 0. Read the rest