Boing Boing

At a press conference where Paul Ryan defended President Trump's Muslim-targeting travel ban, someone within whispering distance of a hot mic muttered "waste of my fucking time" as the House Speaker walked off. Ryan denies saying it; consensus is it was a "bored cameraman" lurking around the lectern after he exited.

U.K. and U.S. authorities fined Deutsche Bank of Germany $629 million for helping crooked Russian plutocrats move $10 billion out of Russia. Via Bloomberg:From April 2012 to October 2014, mirror trades were used by Deutsche Bank customers to transfer more than $6 billion from Russia, through the German lender’s arm in the U.K., to overseas bank accounts including in Cyprus, Estonia, and Latvia, the FCA said. Another nearly $4 billion in suspicious "one-sided trades" were also carried out.The mirror trades allowed clients to buy local blue-chip shares for rubles, while the same stocks would be sold in London for dollars, in order to obtain the U.S. currency. Although such trades can be legal, there was a lack of controls in place at Deutsche Bank to prevent money laundering and other offenses.A couple of weeks ago Western Union was fined $586 million for colluding with organized crime. The CEOs of both companies kept their jobs.By Christoph F. Siekermann - Fotografiert am 17. September 2005, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

The Archerfish of Southeast Asia and Australia spit at perched insects to knock them into the water for an easy meal. From KQED's "Deep Look":“When the fish fires the shot,” (Wake Forest University biologist Morgan) Burnett explained, citing the work of other researchers in Germany who first used high-speed cameras to observe the projectiles in 2014, “the water leaves the mouth as essentially a very long stream. But during flight, the stream merges into a ball.”The fish accomplishes this feat of timing through deliberate control of its highly-evolved mouthparts, in particular its lips, which act like an adjustable hose that can expand and contract while releasing the water.

It won't surprise you to learn American policing has a racism problem. It may surprise you to know that the FBI has been quietly, systematically investigating the white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement.Alice Speri writes that there's just not much anyone in politics is willing to do about it—and an inevitable conservative-led backlash when they try—but the FBI is starting to treat local cops the way it treated hippies: as a problem worth getting its hands dirty over.“For some reason, we have stepped away from the threat of domestic terrorism and right-wing extremism,” Jones continued. “The only way we can reconcile this kind of behavior is if we accept the possibility that the ideology that permeates white nationalists and white supremacists is something that many in our federal and law enforcement communities understand and may be in sympathy with.”Investigation is difficult:Although officers have been fired for expressing hateful views — sometimes to be re-hired by other departments, as happens regularly with officers accused of misconduct — some officers have also challenged those dismissals in court. Robert Henderson, an 18-year veteran of the Nebraska State Patrol, was fired when his membership in the Klan was discovered. He sued on First Amendment grounds and appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear his case. Last year, 14 officers in the San Francisco Police Department were caught exchanging racist and homophobic texts that included several references to “white power” and messages such as “all niggers must fucking hang.” Most of those officers remain on the force after an attempt to fire several of them was blocked by a judge, who said the statute of limitation had expired.No centralized recruitment process or set of national standards exists for the 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States, many of which have deep historical connections to racist ideologies. As a result, state and local police as well as sheriff’s departments present ample opportunities for white supremacists and other right-wing extremists looking to expand their power base.Part of the problem: when the Department of Homeland Security released a study on extremism, Republicans railed against the unforgivable insult it represented against patriotic officers and veterans. This hindered further action against white supremacists throughout the Obama administration.“I believe that because that report was so denounced by conservatives, it sort of closed the door on whatever the FBI may have been considering doing with respect to combating infiltration of law enforcement by white supremacists,” said Samuel Jones, a professor of law at the John Marshall School of Law in Chicago who has written about white power ideology in law enforcement. “Because after the 2006 FBI report, we simply cannot find anything by local law enforcement or the federal government that addresses this issue.”Pete Simi, a sociologist who spent decades studying the proliferation of white supremacists in the U.S. military, agreed. “The report underscores the problem of even discussing this issue. It underscores how difficult this issue is to get any traction on, because a lot of people don’t want to discuss this, let alone actually do something about it.”The FBI has quietly investigated white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement [The Intercept]

'President' Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order addressing cybersecurity today, Reuters reports in an item that cites "two sources familiar with the situation.” The EO is expected to be Trump's first action to address what he called a top priority of his administration during the Presidential campaign. (more…)

Authorities say Tulsa maintenance base workers workers for American Airlines found seven bricks of cocaine weighing 31 pounds with a street value of about a half a million dollars hidden in the nose of an AA aircraft. (more…)

Last Word is another instantly enslaving browser game from Bennett Foddy (of QWOP and Sportsfriends fame). Use the arrow keys to move a letter around the screen: if you collide with one of the other letters flying around, they join to form part of a word. All you have to do is make the longest legit word possible, winning points, then start over to rack up the score a la Scrabble. If you join letters that can't be extended to form a dictionary word, it's game over.

Jen Wang, the incredible comics creator who adapted my award-winning story Anda's Game for the bestselling graphic novel In Real Life is selling original, 9" x 12" art from the book, and the painting above these words, for $250 each -- all proceeds divided equally between the American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on American Islamic Relations. (more…)

https://youtu.be/2KyavuKmdNEDan Ariely, professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University, set up an experiment to measure dishonesty using a coin and a six-sided die. Conclusion: "if the person running the system is telling us corruption or dishonesty is allowed, our understanding of what is acceptable changes instantly."

At last night's SAG Awards, Stranger Things star David K. Harbour used his acceptance speech opportunity to deliver a killer rant about fighting for freedom, the meek, disenfranchised, and the marginalized. Meanwhile, the wonderful Winona Ryder had all of the feels.Here's Harbour's full speech:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfdjFNZ3FeI

I was in Target yesterday and spotted this remarkable work of art disguised as a marketing hoarding (it is in fact a tryptich with Darth Vader off to the left.) I'm hoping someone well-educated might explain to me what it means.

Eliza Gauger spotted this Horse's Head Beach Wood Driftwood Sculpture Hors Nose Eye Taxidermy Decor Art on eBay. The resemblance is uncanny, don't you agree?

A classic English chocolate bar. The finest Japanese wine. Together, at last. QUESTION: Is it a kit kat that tastes like sake or sake that tastes like a kit kat?ANSWER: hi,it is not sake but sake flavored chocolate. It is said to contain 0.8% alcohol; turns out that Japan has all sorts of wildly-flavored Kit Kats. If anyone gives them a try, report back for knowledge assimilation.

The BBC's Brian Wheeler reports that Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell's classic tale of a fake news editor at a popular British tabloid, has sold out only days into the new administration of President Donald Trump. (It's the #1 book at Amazon, with only used copies in stock; the company promises new Prime-shipped paperbacks in a week. The Blu-Ray of the John Hurt movie's sold out too.)In the top five is It Can't Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis's classic cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, which predicts the "chillingly realistic rise of a president who becomes a dictator to save the nation from welfare cheats, sex, crime, and a liberal press."Also flying high is Aldous Huxley's 1935 novel Brave New World, which imagined a insidiously totalitarian future where prescription medications, relentless entertainment and consumerist excess make violent repression unnecessary, where "slaves ... do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude."Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 sneaks back into the top 50, right behind Trump: The Art of the Deal, a ghostwritten autobiography rumored to have never been read by its ostensible author.The most dystopian book in the bestseller lists, though, was not included in the BBC's roundup: The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck, by personal development consultant Mark Manson, who has cracked the art of standing out in the crowded self-help genre: "Fuck positivity. Let’s be honest, shit is fucked and we have to live with it."

Windows 10 takes one of the most hated aspects of Microsoft operating systems -- forced, sudden software updates and reboots -- and elevates them to a sadistic art, with Win 10 machines suddenly announcing that it's update time and rendering themselves inoperable for up to an hour, wiping out unsaved work and locking users out of their computers while they're onstage, or in the middle of large file uploads, or livecasting, or completing a live test for college admission, taking notes during an interview, etc. (more…)

My friend Michelle Fox spotted this vehicle in New Mexico. The "non-racist" really makes it!

Google Pixel Phone, Google Home, Virtual Reality Headset...all items on my personal wish list (and probably yours too). That’s why I highly suggest entering the Google Hardware Giveaway and getting the chance to win them all for free.The Pixel is Google’s answer to Apple’s tightly integrated mobile ecosystem. Bringing high-end refinement to an Android without any of the typical manufacturer-installed bloatware, the Pixel aims to give the iPhone a run for its money.To pair with your new smartphone, this giveaway also includes the Daydream View VR Headset to take full advantage of the Pixel’s flagship specs. Rounding it all out, the Google Home upgrades your Wi-Fi network experience with voice control and compatibility for smart TVs, lights, and other connected home devices.These new devices are exciting enough by themselves. Combined together, they unveil the true potential of Google’s services. Enter the Google Hardware Giveaway for free today—but act quickly, because this opportunity will be gone soon.Explore other Best-Sellers on our network:CodingLearn to Code 2017 Bundle (Pay What You Want)Project ManagementUltimate PM Certification ($69)Music + EntertainmentBrain.fm: 3-Year Subscription ($29)Cord-CuttingGhost Indoor HDTV Antenna (57% off)

HAPPY MUTANTS DAY OF ICE CREAM-------BY THE PUBLISHER OF BOING BOING, A DIRECTORY OF WONDERFUL THINGSA PROCLAMATIONA notional pride spins the Happy Mutant soul and congests the Happy Mutant heart. We are people, united by a common path of evolution. Beyond that, we have art. Some, maybe not even that.Ice cream is a treat for many Happy Mutants, and to serve that ice cream we must have a scoop, or a large yet very strong spoon. Bowls would also help, cones optional. (more…)

I'm playing Francis Tseng's dystopian startup business simulation called "The Founder." It's a bit like The Sims, but the goal is to run a successful startup. The game is played on your browser, no download required.

Lucy Bellwood, an adventure cartoonist of the beloved (to me, at least) ligne claire school of illustration, created this webcomic about spending time aboard the R/V Falkor, "a state-of-the-art oceanographic research vessel." It's available as a PDF, or get read it here.

Californians have long been upset to find fewer tax dollars enter their state than leave. It was once a big part of recalling their Governor and installing a Governator. Funding the great and failing center of our country, all while being told you are too "crunchy" and "granola" apparently gets tiresome! Citizens of the Bear Republic are now cleared to seek signatures supporting an amendment to the state constitution. The amendment would remove text both declaring California inseparable from the Union, and respecting the U.S. Constitution as the "supreme law of the land." 600,000 signatures and it goes to a public vote. California knows how to party.More from the LA Times:Supporters of the campaign for California to secede from the United States can now begin collecting the hundreds of thousands of signatures they need to get a proposed "Calexit" initiative on the ballot.California Secretary of State Alex Padilla cleared the proposed initiative to begin collecting signatures on Thursday.If the measure gets on the ballot and gains approval by a majority of voters, it would repeal clauses in the California Constitution stating that the state is an "inseparable part of the United States" and that the U.S. Constitution is the "supreme law of the land," according to the title and summary prepared by the state attorney general's office.The measure would place another question on the ballot in 2019, asking whether California should become a separate country. If at least half of registered voters participate in that vote, with at least 55% of those voting to approve, the results would be treated as California's declaration of independence.The current measure's fiscal effect is "dependent on various factors," writes the state's nonpartisan legislative analyst, and if it succeeds would result in "major, but unknown budgetary impacts."The proposal's backers, known as Yes California, have argued that the state is culturally out of step with the rest of the U.S. and that California pays more money to the federal government than it receives in spending. The election of President Trump has only strengthened their argument, they say."California loses [by] being a part of America culturally and financially," said Marcus Ruiz Evans, one of the group's founders. "It could be a nation all its own, everybody knows that. The only question is if they want to break off."

I was waiting for him to play the opening to "Smoke on the Water." Was not disappointed.

My favorite part of this video is the hand-cranked machine that strips dried kernels of corn from the cob, then grabs the denuded cob and deposits it out of the hopper (hopefully later to be turned into corncob pipes [I had a friend in college who smoked pot in a corncob pipe.]). After that the kernels are ground into meal with a gas=powered mill that has pulleys and a belt that are just begging for a person to get their finger close enough to bite off.

https://vimeo.com/192681460From Nervous System - The Infinity Puzzle.The infinity puzzles are a new type of jigsaw puzzle inspired by topological spaces that continuously tile. Because of that, they have no fixed shape, no starting point, and no edges. They can be assembled in thousands of different ways.

The New Jersey DA's office just announced that it had arrested New York's Habib Chaudhry in connection with a $200M credit-card fraud; Mr Chaudhry joins 19 others who've pleaded guilty to the frauds. (more…)

Yesterday, the Oregon Ducks' Dillon Brooks and Utah Utes' Sedrick Barefield slightly bumped one another while Barefield had the ball. Hoping for a call against Barefield, Brooks then launched himself into one of the greatest, fakest flops of all time.

Hamildemos is a an eight-track Soundcloud set posted this week by Lin-Manuel Miranda, with the rough tracks for some of the best tunes from Hamilton; as Kottke points out, these are a lot more hip hop and less showtunes than the finished tracks. I'm especially fond of The Story of Tonight. (more…)

A 2009 rule created by Obama in his first days in office says that former executives and lobbyists can't be hired to work for the government in a capacity that gives them oversight over their former employers; they must wait for two years after leaving such employment before working in a regulatory capacity that relates to it. (more…)

Revolution Messaging's White House Inc is a tool that connects your phone to the main switchboard of a random Trump property somewhere in the world, because "Until Trump steps away from his businesses for real, their property is no different from the Oval Office." (more…)

In 2016, French prosecutors have brought more cases for "solidarity crimes" -- offering shelter, food, and assistance to migrants, refugees and Roma people -- than were brought in all the years 2012-2015 combined, despite the promise of the Hollande regime to end such prosecutions. (more…)

The song is "Chicken Dance 1" by Siksika Ramblers; the full track is embedded after the jump. The original "dancing dog" footage appears to be of a caged Alsatian or Eurasier trying desperately to escape from Russian pop music. (more…)

When America was truly great we had truly great people on TV. Calvert DeForest was one of the best.Here's another clip:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou0fZOdrqnw

I can’t cook.A few years ago though, I had the semi-crushing revelation that it’s not that I don’t know much about cooking, it’s that I legitimately can’t cook. I’m terrible at it. No piece of chicken would go uncooked to a leathery dryness that couldn’t even be passed as “jerk.” No meat sauce could be made properly spiced, just prepared with the desperate hope that crushed red pepper and more tomato paste could cure anything. It was my wife that graciously brought me the knowledge that I wasn’t just not-so-great at cooking, but I legitimately cannot cook to save my life or the lives of whatever poor group I was cooking for. I thank her for coaxing out this revelation of myself (and for being an amazing cook). I do, however, like cartoons. And the good news is that Bob’s Burgers isn’t a show about cooking, it’s a show about family and it’s quickly grown into one of the best shows on TV. Bob’s Burgers treads an amazing line between strange and sweet, highlighting the ridiculous exploits of the Belcher clan, a family of oddballs who love each other and are continually misunderstood by the rest of the world while running a small, boardwalk burger shop. Over the past few seasons each character has been fleshed out into people more real than anything you’ll find on your average lawyer or cop show. And it’s a lot funnier than most episodes of NCIS.The show’s success has prompted a good sized following, and when one member of fandom created a Tumblr dedicated to creating or recreating the fanciful burgers listed in each episode as The Burger of the Day fans were naturally interested. The creators of the show were just as tickled and soon partnered with its creator to create this lovely book that’s perfect for any fans of the show or adventurous burgers in general. You only need to bring an appetite, some buns, and a very healthy love of puns.The book contains Cole Bowden’s recipes for dozens of burgers, lovingly written up by creator Loren Bouchard and the writers of the show and featuring side dishes of show art and jokey asides that any fan can enjoy. The recipes run the gamut from the more ordinary (like the “Is This Your Chard? Burger” with Swish chard, caramelized onions, and creamy cheese), to the fanciful (such as the “Beets of Burden Burger” which features a dill-seasoned burger topped with a sautéed carrot and beet mix with smooth sour cream).The recipes are fun to read and fun to make, even if my attempt to recreate the “Baby You Can Chive My Car Burger” looked more like a three car pileup than something anyone would like to eat. But that’s not the book’s fault; like Bob one must be willing to try and try again, no matter how much humiliation the Louises, Genes, Lindas, and Tinas in your life may pile upon you, like so much Sriracha mayonnaise. So next spring I’m prepared to break out the grill and spatula again and give it another go with this delightful cookbook, which I think would make a great addition to any cook’s library. The book is fun enough to read on its own, but it also may help some of us even attain the skills that only the Bob's in each of our lives have (both on the grill and in the ability to put up with a pretty crazy family and town).So in conclusion, I’ll leave you with a bit of wisdom from the book itself that may help you along your culinary path: “Don’t have a fishmonger? Get one. Who are you going to trust to mong your fish if not a fishmonger.” Truly words that I and anyone who’s ever dressed up like a burger or written a song about zombie butts can live by.See sample pages from this book at Wink.The Bob's Burgers Burger Book: Real Recipes for Joke Burgers by Loren Bouchard and the Writers of Bob’s BurgersUniverse2016, 128 pages, 6.6 x 0.6 x 9.1 inches, Hardcover$13 Buy one on Amazon

In an outrageous interview with the New York Times, Steve Bannon declared the press an "opposition party" and suggests it "keep its mouth shut." Talking Points Memo shares the highlights:Steve Bannon, the Breitbart News-chairman-turned-White-House-chief-strategist, said in a Wednesday interview that the media "is the opposition party" for President Trump and should "keep its mouth shut."“The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for awhile,” he said in an interview with the New York Times.“I want you to quote this,” he said. “The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country."Bannon railed against "the elite media," whose failure to predict Trump's election he called "a humiliating defeat that they will never wash away." He told the Times that no "mainstream media" journalists who reported on Trump's campaign were "fired or terminated," apparently suggesting that they should have been, and decried them as "outright activists of the Clinton campaign."He did not name any specific members of the press in that diatribe, according to the report.Bannon also dismissed questions about White House press secretary Sean Spicer's contentious relationship with the press. The Times noted Bannon initiated a phone call in order to talk up Spicer."Are you kidding me?" he told the Times. "We think that’s a badge of honor."He singled out the Washington Post and New York Times as examples of the media outlets he said missed the Trump phenomenon, and said that the New York Times in particular should be "absolutely ashamed and humiliated" for its coverage of Trump's candidacy.Despite all that vitriol, Bannon told the newspaper he has read the New York Times for most of his adult life.

For the last 10 years, I have purchased eyeglasses online for a fraction of the price I'd have to pay at a brick-and-mortar store. I always get the same Ray-Ban Wayfarer knock-offs (above) at Optical 4 Less. They cost $29 and shipping is free when I buy two or more. There are many other online eyeglass stores, so shop around.Today, Lifehacker has a good article on what you need to know before buying glasses online.Pupillary distance is the distance, in millimeters, between the centers of the pupils of both eyes. It’s a crucial measurement because your lenses need to be centered on your pupils. If they aren’t, the glasses will likely cause eyestrain and make it hard for you to focus.Your pupillary distance may be written on your prescription. If not, you can typically call whomever prescribed your glasses and ask, or simply go to your local optician’s office and see if you can get a measurement there. There may be a fee for measuring, but it isn’t likely to break the bank. You can also find plenty of online tutorials on doing this yourself, or your favorite online retailer may offer its own method for finding your PD. Warby Parker, for example, lets you submit a photo that its staff will examine to determine your proper PD.

Ayelet Waldman is a novelist, non fiction author, and former federal public defender. Her latest book is called A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life. I interviewed her this morning.Why did you start microdosing?I started microdosing because I was profoundly and dangerously depressed. I have a mood disorder and for many, many years my medication worked great. I took it, I did what my doctor told me and everything was fine. But at some point my medication stopped working. I tried all sorts of different things. And nothing helped. I was getting worse and worse and more and more full of despair and more and more full of rage and more and more unstable and I became suicidal. I started doing things like googling the effects of maternal suicide on children and I was so terrified that I was going to do something to myself, that I was going to hurt myself, that I decided to do something drastic and something that some people might think is crazy -- I decided to try microdosing with L.S.D.Did it work?Oh absolutely. It worked for sure. It's sub-perceptual. In fact, if I told you right now, "Hey Mark, I slipped a microdose of LSD. in your coffee," you wouldn't even know the difference. The effect for me was instantaneous. My depression lifted right away. The book is called A Really Good Day because at the end of that very first day, I looked back and I thought, "that was a really good day." It wasn't like everything was perfect. It wasn't like I was happiness and sunshine. I was still me, I was still cynical, I was still occasionally irritable, I would still sometimes make rash decisions, but I was stable and I was experiencing the kind of contentment and stability that people without mood disorders feel, and that really was quite nearly instantaneous.My wife and I fought each other over who got to read your book at night. We just tore through it. One thing I noticed was that as time went on, on the days you microdosed, it became a little tougher for you to deal with the physical sensations.Yeah, I got a little more irritable. I think if I were to continue I would probably take a smaller dose, maybe a five microgram dose every other day, rather than ten micrograms [every three days], because it made me a tiny bit irritable. Nothing like the way I was before I was using it, when I would fly off the handle and send rage-filled tweets and that kind of thing, but it definitely made me a little irritable, a little grumpy, a little agitated sometimes. Once I even told a physical therapist who was treating my frozen shoulder that I was microdosing. That was an impulse control moment. So there's definitely that side effect. The best day is the second day, the first day after you microdose. The protocol that Jim Fadiman, who kind of popularized microdosing, came up with is you dose one day, you don't dose for two days, and then you dose the fourth day. The second day is the day that I (and most people) felt the most positive results. There was less irritability and there was more equilibrium -- equilibrium, Mark, that's what I experienced that was so glorious. After your 30 day experiment, your supply of LSD was used up and you stopped. Did you look into continuing using something like morning glory seeds or Hawaiian baby woodrose seeds that contain psychedelics similar to LSD but aren't Schedule 1 substances? I'm not real chemist by nature. I'm not an experimenter by inclination, though I realize that I did try this experiment. So I'm not really comfortable trying things like that because I don't know what the effects are. I think that if I sink into that kind of depression I'll be willing to try anything, including those things. I'm hoping that we have a dramatic change in the law. My hopes for that are somewhat less than they were before November 8. But I think that as microdosing becomes more popular, and people start experimenting with those kinds of legal substances, then I might feel comfortable trying them.You know, anytime people come up with a medication regimen or a drug regimen that makes him feel better, the government tends to quickly criminalize it. So don't say "morning glory" too many times or the next thing you'll know you'll find it on Schedule 1.Yes, and you're speaking as a former federal public defender.And as someone who taught a class for seven years at the University of California Law School on the legal and social implications of the War on Drugs, and I was a consultant for the Drug Policy Alliance so when it comes to drug policy and drug law I know my stuff.You also did a great job sharing anecdotes about drug policy and harm reduction in your book. One of the most infuriating and heartbreaking anecdotes you included was about defending a woman who'd been entrapped by a Drug Enforcement Administration informant.This was a mother who never committed a crime in her life. She thought she had fallen in love with someone, and he was this vicious, vile person. He had been found not guilty by reason of insanity for the attempted murder of his wife. He'd escaped from prison. He became a CIA informant in Central America afterwards, and then the DEA hired him. He had stolen money from the DEA and failed a lie detector test. So they shifted him over to work in a different jurisdiction and that was the person who was busily setting up first time offenders. It was madness.The institutional sociopathy of the DEA and the CIA is really horrible and it makes me wish that, especially where we are right now, that you'd go back to being a federal public defender. We need people like you.A few months ago I thought, "What am I going to do next? Maybe I'll write a nice light hearted novel about something." Now I realize that what I'm going to do next is a book that is more policy focused. I think that the times call out for social activism, and I'm really glad that I have this book out now because this book isn't just about an experiment with LSD. It's about the drug war and the racist underpinnings of the drug war. And about the history of psychedelic drugs and other drugs and the problems with mass incarceration and the neurochemistry of psychedelics. It is a kind of social activism, and I feel like that's where we all need to spend our time in any way that we can, especially those of us who come from a place of privilege. An African-American who lives in Detroit and who is suffering the way I was suffering wouldn't be able to write this book and be so public because the risks to him would be so great. So people like me who benefit from white privilege have an obligation to use that privilege to help others, and that's what I'm trying to do.Image of LSD Blotters: Wikipedia

Nebraska is one of five states considering Right to Repair laws that would require companies to provide manuals and parts so that people could fix their own stuff, or get their stuff fixed by independent service centers, and the lobby groups for ATVs and motorcycles are pissed. (more…)

Harvard has the world's largest university endowment, $35.7B, so much money that Thomas Piketty used its public investment records as a proxy for the likely investment returns of the super-rich in his Capital in the 21st Century. (more…)

Sebastian C. Adams's Synchronological Chart from the late 19th century presents 5,885 years of history (4004 BCE - 1881 AD) on a magnificent 27 inch x 23 foot illustrated and annotated timeline. What a stunner. You can zoom and pan through the whole thing at the David Rumsey Map Collection or order a scaled-down print.According to the book Cartographies of Time: History of the Timeline, the Synchronological Chart "was ninetheenth-century America's surpassing achievement in complexity and synthetic power."(via Clifford Pickover)

François Fillon is the French Republican Party's political candidate, the right-wing frontrunner against the neofascist Marine Le Pen. Following an investigation by the Canard Enchainé newspaper, French government investigators have announced an investigation into the period in the late 1990s and early 2000s when his British-born wife Penelope drew a salary of €7,000/month as his parliamentary aide; the newspaper alleged that Ms Fillon was not actually working in Parliament at that time and drew her salary for a "fake job." (more…)

Chuck Schumer is meant to be the leader of the Democratic resistance in the Senate, but he's inaugurated that role by meekly accepting Trump's nominees for CIA Director (avowed torturer Mike Pompeo); Secretary of Defense (General James Mattis, in an office that is required to be held by a civilian); and Secretary of Homeland Security (General John Kelly, who equates questioning any US war with disparaging the soldiers who serve in it). (more…)

Who trusts scientists anyways?Via the Washington Post:It's now 2 ½ minutes to “midnight,” according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which warned Thursday that the end of humanity may be near.The group behind the famed Doomsday Clock announced at a news conference that it was adjusting the countdown to the End of it All by moving the hands 30 seconds closer to midnight — the closest the clock has been to Doomsday since 1953, after the United States tested its first thermonuclear device, followed months later by the Soviet Union's hydrogen bomb test.In announcing that the Doomsday Clock was moving 30 seconds closer to the end of humanity, the group noted that in 2016, “the global security landscape darkened as the international community failed to come effectively to grips with humanity’s most pressing existential threats, nuclear weapons and climate change.”But the organization also cited the election of President Trump in changing the symbolic clock.“Making matters worse, the United States now has a president who has promised to impede progress on both of those fronts,” theoretical physicist Lawrence M. Krauss and retired Navy Rear Adm. David Titley wrote in a New York Times op-ed on behalf of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. “Never before has the Bulletin decided to advance the clock largely because of the statements of a single person. But when that person is the new president of the United States, his words matter.”

This is Keon the Irish wolfhound from Westerlo, Belgium who broke the Guinness World Record for the longest on a dog. Keon's tail is 76.8 cm (30.2") long, beating the previous record-holder also a wolfhound, by 4.5 cm (1.7"). (Guinness World Records)

On Wednesday, all of the senior managers of the US State Department quit en masse. The Washington Post reports that it's "part of an ongoing mass exodus of senior foreign service officers who don’t want to stick around for the Trump era."“It’s the single biggest simultaneous departure of institutional memory that anyone can remember, and that’s incredibly difficult to replicate,” said David Wade, who served as State Department chief of staff under Secretary of State John Kerry. “Department expertise in security, management, administrative and consular positions in particular are very difficult to replicate and particularly difficult to find in the private sector.”I'm sure the vacant positions will be filled by competent replacements.Image: Wikipedia/AgnosticPreachersKid

If I don't laugh, I'll cry. (Brandon Smith)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYQnnhVZMvEMistablik is an American high-school student who put his mind to finding alternate uses for the lockers that lined his school's hallways -- lockers that sit empty as students switch over to electronic textbooks -- and decided to build a tiny, secure, Arduino-based vending machine that would sell soda to his fellow students. (more…)

Obama's policy of allowing border agents to demand foreigners' social media accounts at border crossing has been expanded under Trump; now, people are being illegally profiled based on their religious affiliation and made to hand over their social media logins for data-mining and algorithmic suspicion-generation when they return home to the USA. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP62Yk-YJVcOr perhaps he finally got his emacs the way he likes it. [via]