Boing Boing

United CEO Oscar Munoz said that passenger David Dao was "disruptive and belligerent" when he was told that he was going to be kicked off the plane after he bought a ticket and too his seat. But this newly released video shows Dao to be quite calm and reasonable given the circumstances. In the end, Dao was beaten senseless, his nose was broken, teeth were knocked out, and he suffered a concussion. United filled the empty seat with one of its employees.From Teen Vogue: New footage shows a United passenger and law enforcement arguing moments before he was violently dragged off a flight after it was overbooked. Tap the link in the bio to read more. A post shared by People Magazine (@people) on Apr 12, 2017 at 1:40pm PDTOn Monday, a video clip surfaced of Chicago Department of Aviation security officials brutally dragging Dao down the aisle of the plane on Sunday night for refusing to involuntarily give up his seat on a United flight went viral on social media. Shortly after the incident, United CEO Oscar Munoz told employees in an email that Dao had acted “disruptive and belligerent," which, in his words, left officers with no choice. However, passenger Joya Cummings uploaded new footage to Facebook showing the moments leading up to the officers' assault on Dao, and it shows a very different story.“I’m a physician. I have to work tomorrow at 8 o’clock,” he told officers calmly in the video. "No, I am not going. I am not going."Soon after, officers threatened to "drag [him]" off the plane if he didn't comply. “Then drag me down,” Dao told them. “I am staying right there.”Also, it looks like United didn't have the legal right to ask police to remove Dao. From Inc:A United Airlines spokesperson said that since Dr. Dao refused to give up his seat and leave the plane voluntarily, airline employees "had to" call upon airport security to force him to comply. However, since the flight was not overbooked, United Airlines had no legal right to give his seat to another passenger. In United Airline's Contract of Service, they list the reasons that a passenger may be refused service, many of which are reasonable, such as "failure to pay" or lacking "proof of identity." Nowhere in the terms of service does United Airlines claim to have unilateral authority to refuse service to anyone, for any reason (which would be illegal anyway).

Franchesca Ramsey of MTV’s Decoded breaks down America’s incredibly complex immigration process.

Portland activist Carlos Enrique demonstrated how Pepsi’s tone-deaf protest ad would actually play out in real life by handing Mayor Ted Wheeler a can of Pepsi during a City Council meeting. (more…)

Yandy introduced a new line of Disney princess-inspired lingerie sets. The company doesn't name the sets after the princesses, but it's pretty obvious who's who. Will Disney let this stand?Redbook asked four women to wear the lingerie to bed and report their experience:Usually, getting ready for bed means a bulky sweatshirt and pajama shorts, so he was absolutely thrilled and got right down to business."He had zero clue that Disney princesses were involved in any way, even when I gently asked him if the lingerie reminded him of anything. His answer: "Sexy things." I prodded a little more, asking if it seemed like a character. "Is it Disney?" I was so excited and said, "Yes! It's a princess – can you guess which one?" I should point out that I look nothing like Snow White, so I was pretty impressed that he guessed Snow White right off the bat. "The colors made it obvious," he said.

In Spending Blind:The Failure of Policy Planning in California Charter School Funding, Gordon Lafer -- a University of Oregon prof who also works for Oakland's The Public Interest -- finds "hundreds of millions of dollars ... spent each year without any meaningful strategy... on schools built in neighborhoods that have no need for additional classroom space, and which offer no improvement over the quality of education already available in nearby public schools. In the worst cases, public facilities funding has gone to schools that were found to have discriminatory enrollment policies and others that have engaged in unethical or corrupt practices." (more…)

Andrew Freeman from Immortal Masks (who make some beautiful masks indeed) and then wisely gave them to Adam Savage to play with on his Tested Youtube channel. Hubba hubba!(via Neatorama)

Without any forethought or preparation, Christopher Knight walked into the Maine woods in 1986 and lived there in complete solitude for the next 27 years, subsisting on what he was able to steal from local cabins. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the story of the North Pond hermit, one man's attempt to divorce himself completely from civilization.We'll also look for coded messages in crosswords and puzzle over an ineffective snake.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon!

Your brain does something weird when you imagine yourself in the future. FMRI scans reveal that your brain "stops acting as if you’re thinking about yourself," writes Jane McGonigal in Slate. "Instead, it starts acting as if you’re thinking about a completely different person... your brain acts as if your future self is someone you don’t know very well and, frankly, someone you don’t care about."Jane is my friend and colleague at Institute for the Future (IFTF), where we encourage people to think deeply, broadly, and creatively about their future selves. IFTF recently conducted the first major survey of future thinking in the United States, and the findings were surprising: The survey found 53 percent of Americans say they rarely or never think about the “far future,” or something that might happen 30 years from today. Twenty-one percent report imagining this future less than once a year, while the largest group of respondents, 32 percent, say it never crosses their mind at all.Likewise, 36 percent of Americans say they rarely or never think about something they might personally do 10 years from now. The largest group of respondents, 19 percent, think about this 10-year future less than once a year, while another 17 percent say they never think about it at all.If you'd like to get better at thinking about the future (so you can make better decisions today on how to shape it), Jane has tip:Make a list of things that you’re interested in — things like food, travel, cars, the city you live in, shoes, dogs, music, real estate. Then, at least once a week, do a google search for “the future of” one of the things on your list. Read an article, listen to a podcast, watch a video — and get some specific ideas of what the future of something you care about might be like.

If you're about to order a fine meal at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's fancy club-turned-winter-White-House, make sure to steer clear of the fish. And the meat. And you might want to offer the server some hand sanitizer while you're at it.Restaurant inspectors recently found 13 violations at the private Palm Beach, FL club. Among them, according to Miami Herald: ▪ Fish designed to be served raw or undercooked, the inspection report reads, had not undergone proper parasite destruction. Kitchen staffers were ordered to cook the fish immediately or throw it out.▪ In two of the club’s coolers, inspectors found that raw meats that should be stored at 41 degrees were much too warm and potentially dangerous: chicken was 49 degrees, duck clocked in a 50 degrees and raw beef was 50 degrees. The winner? Ham at 57 degrees.▪ The club was cited for not maintaining the coolers in proper working order and was ordered to have them emptied immediately and repaired.The other violations weren’t so serious. Water at the sink where employees wash their hands was too cold to sanitize hands. And Mar-a-Lago was also written up for keeping rusted shelves inside walk-in coolers.This is the most violations the kitchen has ever received. In the past, Trump used to check in on the kitchen to make sure things were running smoothly, and inspections came out pretty clean. But since he turned Mar-a-Lago into his political office (ethics conflict, but save that for another story), inspection results have soured. And this is a club that charges $200,000 just for initiation fees. Image by tommietheturtle

When the sun is directly overhead in Hawaii, it looks like a bad video game renderThe sun is exactly overhead twice a year in Lahaina, Hawaii, once in May and once in July. Poles don't cast shadows, giving the urban landscape an eerie appearance. Hawaii is the only state in the US where the sun's rays are perpendicular to the surface of Earth. It's called a subsolar point.Image: Flickr/Daniel RamirezCaelus5 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, LinkHere's Isamu Noguchi’s “Skygate” sculpture in Hawaii that makes a perfect ring during the Lahaina Noon:This is SkygateMore photos here and here.Here's a real-time map showing the current subsolar sublunar points.https://youtu.be/7J3E4wNDNZohttps://youtu.be/JCjEyITpRAI

In a new paper in International Studies Quarterly, John Quiggin and Henry Farrell argue that politicians get in trouble when they buck a consensus among economists, but when economists are divided, they can simply ignore the ones they disagree with -- so politicians spend a lot of time looking for economists who agree with their policies, then elevate them to the same status as their peers in order to create a safe, blame-free environment to operate in. (more…)

Watch it - if you're not beat up in a United Airlines seat, you might get stung. At least that's what happened to Richard Bell, a passenger flying from Houston to Calgary on Sunday, when a scorpion dropped from the overhead bin, landed in his hair, fell onto his tray table, and then zapped him.This mishap occurred on the same day United passenger David Dao was beaten up on another flight for not "volunteering" to give up the seat he paid for. He was then dragged off the plane while unconscious.Luckily, the scorpion did much less damage to Bell – he only suffered pain that "felt like a wasp sting." Other than that he was fine. And as for the scorpion? It was flushed down the toilet in the aircraft.Read the full story on The Washington Post.Image by Papypierre1

Aga is an iconic European over-maker famous for a longstanding, ostentatious design that required the owner to burn fuel around the clock to maintain temperature across the cooker's titanic thermal mass, so much so that owners of British country homes integrated them into their household heating systems. (more…)

These margarines are for people who really, really want to eat butter, but not enough to eat it:I refuse to believe that that is mainly emulsified vegetable oil and water.Move over butter! Make way for the cow rolling a big white sphere of grease across the pasture.If you spread this on your body, you will Taste Like Butter.Anger issues.And you are right -- it's "butter."Is it butter? We're not sure ourselves."Before our scientific magicians poisoned the water... polluted the soil. Decimated plant and animal life. Why, in my day, you could buy meat anywhere. Eggs. They had real butter. Fresh lettuce in the stores.""I know, Sol. You told me before.""How can anything survive in a climate like this? A heat wave all year long. A greenhouse effect. Everything is burning up."Okay, wise guy. Eat some Soylent Green and calm down."Could it be butter? We were drinking when we made it, so we can't remember.You'd think it was butter. But we know better.Finally, truth in advertising. Too bad this tub of fake butter is fake.[via]

CNN is reporting that President Trump is now implementing the “bomb the shit out of them” portion of his campaign promises. (more…)

I bought this string of 100 LEDs with a solar charger a couple of years ago to put on our front gate. I set it to blink and it was a nice way for people to find our house at night. But a couple of months ago we had some work done on the gate and the guy severed the wires. So I bought a new one. The solar panel has a built-in battery and I used Sugru to mount it to the gate. It works really well. Amazon has this on sale right now for $10.99.

When a new Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell explainer video comes out, I stop what I'm doing and watch it. The latest one, about the European Union, asks, "Should we double down or give up and go our separate ways?"This video will probably not make everybody happy. Probably for completely opposite reasons. Some people want less political and economic integration, some want more of it. Some want to stop immigration, others want better integration instead. Some want an EU army, others want to disband Nato. And most will have a collection of different opinions about all of that. It’s the same for our team, we don’t all share the same vision for Europe and the world. We tried our best to present different sides and view points, while being fair and as neutral as possible. But obviously we can’t go into too much detail in a video that is only 7 minutes long. We also clearly marked where we are stating our opinion. The sources we used are in the video description.The last year has taught us that we have to try our best to get everybody back to the table again and stop screaming at each other. We all could have done a better job at this in the past, Kurzgesagt too. Everybody comes from a different place and has different ideas of where the world should go and how to tackle our problems. And as long as we are trying to base our opinions on facts then that is completely fine. In the end we all have to share this planet with each other.

Before being put in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency, climate-denier Scott Pruitt sued the agency more than a dozen times. This has made him rather unpopular. (more…)

At a Houston apartment complex called Market Square Tower, residents can walk on air (in water) via a glass-bottomed pool suspended 500 feet in the air. (more…)

Simone Giertz is widely known online as the “queen of shitty robots.” As Boing Boing has previously noted, she's a contemporary Rube Goldberg who makes all sorts of weird and wacky inventions on her YouTube channel. But her biggest dream is to become an astronaut. (more…)

Dan Bell proves he's the Ken Burns of suburban decay with his beautifully shot and narrated Dead Mall Series. (more…)

This video from W Magazine shows off how much individual fashion sense can shape a look.

Gordon Ramsay’s 'ultimate vegetarian lunch' how-to video is perfect for those looking to switch up their go-to lunch choices. (more…)

I was listening to the latest Judge John Hodgman podcast today (as I do every week!) which was performed live in Washington DC; as with every live show, there was a musical guest, and this guest was so completely awesome I made a note to post about him when I got home. (more…)

If the supermarket tabloids truly have an inside track to Donald Trump's thoughts, should we be petrified by this week's tabloid promise that President Trump is poised to launch World War III?"Trump Declares War on Dictators!" screams the 'National Enquirer' cover, which also pictures the leaders of Russia, Syria and North Korea beneath the headline: "Dead Men Walking," alongside another bellicose headline: "Here We Come!"Inside, the 'Enquirer' reveals that "President Donald Trump has green-lighted a top-secret Pentagon plan to rid the Earth of ALL military madmen," promising that "the new administration will restore peace and wipe out the new axis of evil."Of course, that peace comes after more than a little bloodshed.Declaring that the world is on a "war footing," the 'Enquirer' promises that Trump's so-called Operation Clean Sweep "involves coordinated attacks on three continents."So America plans to launch attacks on three sovereign nations, according to the publication that claims to have a direct line to Trump, who wrote several articles for the magazine during the election campaign, and who is friends with 'Enquirer' chief executive David Pecker. Why would that be in the least bit disturbing?This comes as stable-mate the 'Globe' reports that "Crooked Hillary Is Putin's Spy," claiming that the erstwhile Democratic presidential hopeful was "bought and paid for by Kremlin blood money laundered through her sham foundation and a company with ties to her campaign manager!" Hillary Clinton and husband Bill allegedly "got mega-millions for engineering the sale of 20 per cent of America's uranium reserves to Russia - AND funneling key U.S. military technology to a 'Silicon Valley-like' research facility outside Moscow." The accusations come from Breitbart News senior editor at large Peter Schweizer, whose 2015 book and film 'Clinton Cash' claimed to expose the dark side of the Clinton Foundation. The 'New York Times' confirmed that companies expecting to profit from the uranium deal had donated millions to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary was Secretary of State - but that does not appear to have been illegal, and hardly makes her a Russian spy.The 'Globe' adds: "Trump blasted, 'She's a traitor!' says an insider, and insisted Clinton would be brought to justice!"Which would certainly detract from allegations of Russian collusion with Trump administration and campaign executives."Commander-in-Cheat" Bill Clinton has allegedly been "Caught With Young Hooker," reports the 'Enquirer,' showing a photo of the former president alongside a girl allegedly arrested for prostitution in Florida last month. It appears to be just one of the thousands of strangers Bill Clinton would have been photographed with while stumping for Hillary last year. There's no suggestion that the meeting was anything but innocent, but the 'Enquirer' captions its photo "Hot To Trot?" and quotes an unnamed source stating: "This is another sucker punch for Hillary." Right.Ever-vigilant to promote compassion and humanitarian causes with its mastery of global geo-politics, the 'Enquirer' devotes a two-page pictorial spread to the horrors of the alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria by President Bashar al-Assad, under the sensitive and balanced headline: "Obama's Shame!" Apparently Obama is to blame for the tragedy because of his "cowardly . . . refusal to battle evildoers . . . The past administration's weakness resulted in the death of at least 100 victims."Back in the world of show-biz, having repeatedly branded Britain's Prince Charles a "murderer" for allegedly masterminding the car crash death of Princess Diana, and predicting that Charles will be put on trial for the slaying, the 'Globe' now claims that a "bombshell psychological report" has been prepared "by experts who will testify at Charles' upcoming trial." What does this psychological profile reveal? That Charles "is a cruel, heartless murderous monster whose evil was created by his cold, distant and uncaring royal parents!" Which makes sense, except there is no trial, no psychological report, and no "experts" to quote. The 'Globe' claims that "top psychiatrists" examined Charles, and also "studied biographies of Charles" - which of course is all that the 'Globe' has done, delivering its headline: "Cold-Fish Queen Made Charles a Monster!"The 'Enquirer' also brings us Jennifer Aniston's "Secret Sex-Swap Shame!" Which amounts to her brother befriending a "transgender gal pal." Where's the shame in that? And why would Aniston even care who her brother befriends? No shame, no blame - unless we can blame Obama.Scarlett Johansson, going through a divorce, "Goes Back to Weed!" screams an 'Enquirer' headline - because the actress reportedly told a friend that she "wanted to break away and get over to Jamaica." Presumably because you can't buy marijuana anywhere in Los Angeles, and going to Jamaica is a blatant cry for good weed.The 'Enquirer' team of medically trained psychics is out in full force this week, intuiting the suicidal tendencies of celebrities based on photographs of their wrists. Actress Portia de Rossi is suffering a "Cutting Nightmare!" it reports, displaying a photo of her right wrist with what appears to be an astrological sign drawn in lipstick. "That's highly suspicious," says "noted physician Dr Stuart Fisher." I couldn't have put it better myself. Actress Amanda Bynes is also accused of "cutting herself" in another story where photos of her forearm "show signs of self-harm" . . . or maybe some skin ailment, or a kitchen accident, or one of a thousand innocent alternatives. Or you could just go with the 'Enquirer' headline: "Amanda Bynes Cutting Herself."The 'Globe' reports on rocker Eric Clapton's "tragic and lonely last days," because he used a wheelchair to navigate the long walk around the Los Angeles airport after cancelling two concerts due to severe bronchitis. Because as every tabloid reporter knows, if you're in a wheelchair that means you have just weeks left to live. And if you're dying, you must be lonely. Stands to reason.And let's not forget: It's been ten months since the tabloids gave Nick Nolte "four weeks to live." We're still waiting, Nick . . .Sometimes you just can't win with the tabloids. After devoting acres of newsprint to overweight stars supposedly ordered by their doctors to "Diet or Die!" the 'Globe' reports: "Health Fears For Skinny George!" after actor George Clooney reportedly lost 20 pounds. Actor Richard Dreyfuss is excoriated in the same publication for being "Fat, Broke & Miserable!" after reportedly becoming 40 pounds overweight. An unnamed "insider" tells the 'Globe': "Richard looks like a heart attack waiting to happen." That sounds like a trained medical opinion to me. Reality TV "star" Mama June, having reportedly lost 352 pounds thanks to gastric bypass surgery, is "now a skinnier dumbass!" reports the kind-hearted 'Enquirer.' which calls her "an inspiration to . . . NOBODY!" There's the compassion and understanding we've come to know and love in the tabloids.Fortunately we have the crack investigative team at 'Us' magazine to tell us that Duchess Kate wore it best, Kim Kardashian is selling a $98 pool float in the shape of her famous derriere, Jenna Elfman carries keys, sunglasses and lipstick in her Rebecca Minkoff tote, and that the stars as just like us: they drink water, take out the trash, and eat pasta. Makes me feel like I'm really living the celebrity lifestyle.'Us' also brings us two full pages boasting "25 Things You Don't Know About . . . HGTV's Property Brothers Jonathan and Drew Scott." Not only did I not know any of these 50 gems (they get 25 each: Jonathan is double-jointed and "can't stand the sound of brushing teeth," while Drew "can make a delicious lasagna" and loves board games) but I honestly don't care a damn about a single one of them. 'Us' continues its disconnect from reality by devoting its cover to the "reality TV hall-of-famers" Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag announcing their "Baby At Last!" After waiting ten years for a child, I can only marvel at 'Us' magazine still caring.'People' magazine waited only nine years to bring us its cover story this week: 'The Secret Life of Heath Ledger,' which merely rehashes everything that was written about this brilliant but troubled actor's life when he died in 2008, but which it hopes we've forgotten so that it can sound fresh again. Ledger "was like wildfire," says his childhood friend Kane Manera. "He couldn't be contained." But of course wildfire is routinely contained, extinguished, and burns itself out. Try another metaphor. Oprah Winfrey reveals that she has finally "learned to love the whole of me," which I'm pretty sure she's been preaching for decades. And "after weathering a cheating scandal" actress and reality starlet Toni Spelling welcomes "Baby No. 5," which she calls "a whole new beginning." I suspect her baby would agree.Leave it to the 'National Examiner' to tell us that the late NASA astronaut Lt Col Ellison Onizuka, who died in the Shuttle Challenger disaster, saw alien corpses on an autopsy table in a training film - though it may have been a "psychological test" and not real aliens. The "small, strange-looking creatures" were allegedly victims of the 1947 flying saucer crash at Roswell, New Mexico. Could that explain why the 'Examiner' and the 'Globe' this week carry full-page advertisements for your very own "Aliens" figurine of a "xenomorph" trapped in a glass display case, at 8 inches tall just the right size to burrow out of your stomach at family gatherings? "This Time It's War," says the ad. Apparently there's a lot of that going around in the tabloids these days.Onwards and downwards . . .

Here's a fascinating video made by a programmer from the US who decided to make an iPhone 6S practically from scratch. After thinking about this project for 9 months, he "dove in with both feet." He traveled to Shenzhen, China and went shopping in the bustling back alley markets of Huaqiangbei to find all of the many parts, having to return numerous times to exchange pieces that didn't work or to get even more parts.This project took him months, and it's a lot of fun to watch the process. He does have some help, from a friend of his who takes him around and translates when needed, to a cell phone repair shop that de-bubbles the screen and digitizer subassembly to a cell phone repair school that helps him with some of the parts he needs. He calls his video Strange Parts, and refers to it as "Adventures from the technological fringe." The amazing chaos of the city itself is worth the watch. A must-see for anyone interested in DIY and travel adventures.

Spoiler: a squid did it.

The owners of a massage parlor in an Austin, TX strip mall have been busted for offering more than just massages. The married couple, Juan Wang and her husband Joseph Emery, were arrested for "organized criminal activity and money laundering," after hundreds of condoms were found clogging a nearby drainpipe.Authorities were tipped off to the couple's prostitution business in February by a realty company who had just started running the property and discovered the rubber-laden pipe that connected the strip mall to the public sewer. They then discovered online ads that listed the parlor's special services, along with Wang's phone number.According to CBS News:Just two days before police got the tip from the property owner, Wang was stopped at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport on her way to China carrying $30,000 in cash. The station cited an arrest affidavit as saying she became nervous after telling police the money was for a medical procedure in her home country and that it came from her business, the Jade Massage Therapy parlor, where here stated income was just $20,000 per year. She was reportedly allowed to board the plane after providing authorities with a contact number.In the course of their investigation, police found a series of advertisements posted to the Backpage.com website -- featuring pictures of women and Wang’s phone number -- for the Jade parlor’s services.The moral of the story: Throw those dang condoms in the trash, not down the toilet. Seems like common sense.

United Airlines is already dealing with intense public backlash after a doctor was beaten, knocked out, and dragged off one of its plane for refusing to give up a seat he'd paid paid for because United wanted his seat for one of its employees. Now, the LA Times is reporting that another man, who'd purchased a full-fare first class ticket and was sitting is his seat on a United Flight, was threatened with handcuffs if he did't give up his seat for a "higher-priority" traveler.Snip:[Geoff Fearns] boarded the aircraft at Lihue Airport on the island of Kauai, took his seat and enjoyed a complimentary glass of orange juice while awaiting takeoff.Then, as Fearns tells it, a United employee rushed onto the aircraft and informed him that he had to get off the plane....“That’s when they told me they needed the seat for somebody more important who came at the last minute,” Fearns said. “They said they have a priority list and this other person was higher on the list than me.”“I understand you might bump people because a flight is full,” Fearns said. “But they didn’t say anything at the gate. I was already in the seat. And now they were telling me I had no choice. They said they’d put me in cuffs if they had to.”

Autodraw is a web app that looks at what you are drawing and offers up clip-art style images that resemble your sketch.

My friend Donald Bell produces and hosts a weekly video show called Maker Update.Each week in Maker Update, Donald will take a closer look at one of the tools the Cool Tools archive. This week, Donald checks out a plastic razor blade. It’s in the video above.Full show notes available on the Maker Project Lab blog.

Perhaps it's a rather dangerous idea but it is still creative and entertaining.(Gianco Whatever via Digg)

The MVP of last night's Miami Marlins-Atlanta Braves game was the cat who ran around the outfield before climbing a wall and watching the game from an animatronic home run sculpture. "He stayed up there for four innings," said (Marcell), the Marlins' left fielder. "Every time I went on defense, I looked up there and the cat was hiding its head. I said, `What are you doing up there?' In the last inning I didn't see it. I don't know where he went."(CBS News)

For years we've had silverfish darting around our guest bathroom. I bought some silverfish traps (little cardboard boxes with sticky goo to ensnare them) and they helped, but didn't stop them. A few weeks ago I read that lavender oil is a good silverfish repellent. It's only $5.59 for a small bottle on Amazon, so I decided to give it a try. I wetted the end of a Q-Tip with the oil and ran it around the perimeter of the bathroom floor, adding a little extra to a seam between the floor and the wall. It smelled nice and we have not seen a single silverfish since. I'm going to wait and see how long it takes for them to come back, and then create a maintenance schedule.Image: ACC1/Flickr

Tested visits sculptor Andrew Freeman who made these wonderfully creepy and hyperreal Ren and Stimpy masks!

Inmates in Ohio's Marion Correctional Institution smuggled computer parts out of an ewaste recycling workshop and built two working computers out of them, hiding them in the ceiling of a training room closet ceiling and covertly patching them into the prison's network. (more…)

Wordfence, a security research company, discovered that the reason Algeria is the country most often seen in attacks on Wordpress blogs is that the country's largest ISP distributes home routers that are locked in an insecure state, with an open port that lets attackers seize control of them and use them to stage attacks on higher-value targets. (more…)

As the scandal over a United passenger who was beaten unconscious and dragged off a plane when he refused to give up his seat for a deadheading crewmember unspools, there's a predictable torrent of bullshit about how United was in the right because something something private property, and let us not forget the great American sport of victim-blaming. (more…)

General the Great Pyreness decided he didn't want to stay in the Aquia-Garrisonville Animal Hospital, so he left. Opening serveral doors, all caught on security camera, on his way out. His family has him again.Via InsideNova:The dog’s amazing escape from the Garrisonville Road facility — opening several doors before exiting the building — screens like a jailbreak from the best Hollywood blockbusters.And the story has a Hollywood ending, too. The hospital reported late Monday that General was found safe and sound, resting in a neighbor’s yard.Hospital staff discovered Monday that the dog was missing, but how? Security video from the 4 a.m. escape was shared by WJLA.My Great Pyr, Nemo, does this an awful lot too.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations asked for and received a secret court order last summer to eavesdrop on communications between Carter Page, then a campaign adviser to candidate Donald Trump, as part of the FBI's investigation into connections between Team Trump and Russia. (more…)

Behold, Godzilla, King of the Monsters!https://youtu.be/EJp7tFGGRAwI was reading <a href="http://en.rocketnews24.com/2017/04/12/godzilla-speaks-interview-with-12-movie-veteran-kaiju-actor-haruo-nakajima%E3%80%90video%E3%80%91/">Rocket News</a> today and found a fascinating video from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCajXeitgFL-rb5-gXI-aG8Q">Great Big Stories</a> about the man who was inside the Godzilla suit for the first 12 films. Two things you might not know: the monster’s name was actually Gojira before it was Anglicized, and there are 29 (!) Godzilla movies.The video of actor Haruo Nakajima, now 87, is interesting and artfully done. I had never seen him before, and he looks back fondly on playing the monster.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oBNEG8kLfQThe original Japanese version of the film, Gojira (which few Americans saw until a decade and a half ago when it appeared on DVD), was produced in 1954, a mere nine years after the atomic bombs were dropped, and the Americanized version came out in 1956 titled, Godzilla, King of the Monsters!About the Japanese version, Gojira, film scholar Tim Lucas wrote [the film is a] “dark, melancholy, crushing, and relentless” rumination on the horrors of the atomic age, in his late lamented magazine <a href="http://www.videowatchdog.com/home/home.html">Video Watchdog</a> (Special Issue 2, 1995/96). Godzilla is a creature who comes to exist only because of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From Wikipedia: “Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka stated that, ‘The theme of the film, from the beginning, was the terror of the bomb. Mankind had created the bomb, and now nature was going to take revenge on mankind’.”The destruction Godzilla causes, though the special effects are primitive by today’s standards, is genuinely horrific. You might be one of those folks who chuckle at the marvelously-crafted miniature cities being destroyed, but if you think about what it really means, your laughter should catch in your throat. The film has a prominent anti-nuclear message and is one of the earlier films to shout it out loud.When an American distributor bought the rights to release the film in the U.S., the anti-nuclear message was mostly deleted and film was dubbed into English with dialogue being changed in the process. The original Japanese version runs 96 minutes; the American version approximately 81 minutes and is padded with scenes of Raymond Burr as a reporter filing dispatches throughout the film. So, if you remove all the scenes of Raymond Burr (many of them quite cleverly worked into the film with the use of doubles for the Japanese actors) even less of the original film exists in the English version.Both versions are worth experiencing, and quite different. The segments with Raymond Burr are surprisingly well integrated in the U.S. film, and his narration adds much. But it is the original Japanese film that fully reveals the insanity of using nuclear arms. If you haven’t seen the original Japanese film you’re in for a surprise, and as a warning against the use of nuclear weapons, it ranks with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After">The Day After</a>, a 1983 telefilm from which scared the hell out of most of America—43 million people watched its original broadcast.The best way to watch both versions of Godzilla is the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Godzilla-Criterion-Collection-Blu-ray-Takashi/dp/B005VU9LKE/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1491938022&sr=8-4&keywords=godzilla+blu+ray">Criterion blu-ray</a>, which has both versions and ample extra features.With North Korea engaged in a race to build and launch nuclear-armed Intercontinental Ballistic Misses, and world leaders with few ideas how to effectively prevent it, Godzilla is more timely than ever.

In her latest video, Luna Lee, master of the gayageum, plays a stunning version of the David Bowie classic.

German Member of the European Parliament Julia Reda (previously) has published an open-letter signed by UK MEP Lucy Anderson, raising alarm at the fact that the W3C is on the brink of finalising a DRM standard for web video, which -- thanks to crazy laws protecting DRM -- will leave users at risk of unreported security vulnerabilities, and also prevent third parties from adapting browsers for the needs of disabled people, archivists, and the wider public. (more…)

In a new meta-analysis published in PLOS One, researchers from Purdue, Stanford and the Canadian Council on Animal Care look at the different techniques used to induce laughter in rats in order to improve their wellbeing and capture their laughter, which is delightful. (more…)

Victor Pelevin's Omon Ra is an absurdist adventure in the Soviet space program. (more…)

The Kentucky Coal Museum in Benham, KY, spends $2,100 a month on electricity; to save money, they're putting in 80 solar panels, which will save them $8,000/year. (more…)

I bought the Dover edition The Moscow Puzzles in 2014, and it's still one of my all-time favorite puzzle books. Here are a few samples:Book description:This is, quite simply, the best and most popular puzzle book ever published in the Soviet Union. Since its first appearance in 1956 there have been eight editions as well as translations from the original Russian into Ukrainian, Estonian, Lettish, and Lithuanian. Almost a million copies of the Russian version alone have been sold.Part of the reason for the book's success is its marvelously varied assortment of brainteasers ranging from simple "catch" riddles to difficult problems (none, however, requiring advanced mathematics). Many of the puzzles will be new to Western readers, while some familiar problems have been clothed in new forms. Often the puzzles are presented in the form of charming stories that provide non-Russian readers with valuable insights into contemporary Russian life and customs. In addition, Martin Gardner, former editor of the Mathematical Games Department, Scientific American, has clarified and simplified the book to make it as easy as possible for an English-reading public to understand and enjoy. He has been careful, moreover, to retain nearly all the freshness, warmth, and humor of the original.Lavishly illustrated with over 400 clear diagrams and amusing sketches, this inexpensive edition of the first English translation will offer weeks or even months of stimulating entertainment. It belongs in the library of every puzzlist or lover of recreational mathematics.