EFF has run a full-page ad in this month's Wired, addressed to the technology industry, under the banner "Your threat model just changed," warning them that the incoming administration has vowed to spy on and deport millions of their fellow Americans on the basis of religion and race, and that they are in grave risk of having their services conscripted to help with this effort. (Trump is also an avowed opponent of net neutrality) (more…)

Jamie "JWZ" Zawinski was an early Netscape employee; observing that the dotcom bubble that enriched him had gutted the San Francisco arts scene with rising rents, he sank his money into opening the DNA Lounge, which has been a San Francisco institution for nearly 20 years, and has been the location of some of the best times I've ever had in the Bay Area (including numerous EFF fundraisers). (more…)

There is still enough time to buy cool tools as gifts and have them arrive before Christmas. Here's Cool Tools' complete list of gift ideas for 2016.

The great Richard Feynman said that if someone can’t explain something simply to a novice -- at the freshman lecture level -- it’s because they don’t actually understand it themselves. This is not only a true statement but it’s also passing indictment of most of academia. I would argue that it also happens to indict most of what’s described as of “philosophy” today. Something like physics is complicated by nature of that fact that it often requires the understandings of several other fields to get right. Feynman would have trouble explaining quantum physics without also explaining how probability theory works. But philosophy?It was never supposed to be that complicated. Philosophy is simply one thing: a guide to the good life. No more, no less. One philosophy that’s popular right now is Stoicism, an ancient school of philosophy which dates back to Greece in the 3rd Century BC. Today, football coaches like Pete Carroll of the Seattle Seahawks, baseball managers like Jeff Banister of the Texas Rangers and investors like Tim Ferriss have all talked about and used Stoicism (it’s been popular in the past too -- with fans like Theodore Roosevelt, Frederick the Great and Montaigne). In the last few weeks alone, there have been articles about Stoicism in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the Guardian, the New Yorker and ESPN.But, what is Stocism? Is it complicated and boring like most philosophy? Does it have any real application for ordinary people’s lives or is it just a bunch of big words and silly theories?Someone recently asked me to explain Stoicism to them like they were 5 years old. While this exceeds even Feynman’s standard, I think this is not only possible, but an essential task. So here it goes. First, if I was sitting down with a five year old, trying to teach them the ethos of an ancient philosophy, I don’t think I would explain it as Stoicism or as “philosophy.” What use does a five year old have for the concept of philosophy -- or really any “concept” at all? They don’t need to know the name, the dates or even the major figures like Seneca or Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus. Not only are these things confusing, they are inessential. In the same way, a kid doesn’t need you to explain how dinner was made to eat the food on their plate -- they just need your help getting it there.If I was trying to explain Stoicism to a five year old, I would simply try to convey the most essential piece of wisdom contained inside this robust, complex topic.*I’d tell them: “Look, you don’t control what happens to you in life, you only control how you respond.”They’d probably say, what do you mean?So I’d say: Remember when your friend was mean to you last week? Remember how that surprised and hurt you? What they did wasn’t nice of them, but there also wasn’t anything you could do about it. If someone wants to be mean, they’re going to be mean. But after they were mean, you had a choice. Remember? You got to decide whether you were going to be mean back, whether you were going to hit them, whether you were going to run to the teacher and tell on them, or whether you were going to just keep playing and forget about it. You have a choice about whether you’re going to forgive them or stay mad and hurt about it. The fact that you’ve let go? That was a great decision you made. Or I’d say: Remember how it was raining earlier and you couldn’t go outside. Remember how you were grouchy about it and just looked out the window because you didn’t get to go to park? That was a choice too. The weather -- that just happens. Sometimes it means we’re stuck indoors. But we choose what we do with that time. You could have cleaned up your room or played a game or helped your mom with some chores or you could have sat there and watched the rain on the windows without throwing yourself a pity party.I know that seems really simple, but it isn’t. That situation I just described -- when someone does something bad to you and you have to decide how to respond or when the rain comes and wrecks your plans -- well, that’s life. Adults struggle with it. Even your parents don’t always get it right. I’d tell them that many thousands of years ago, another famous guy struggled to get it right. That guy’s name was Marcus and he was the king of Rome. He had unlimited power -- he could do whatever he wanted -- but he still worked really hard to be a good person and tried to never get mad, do something unfair, to be selfish, or to think he was better than other people. I’d say: Isn’t that inspiring? Can we try to follow his example?If he was following along, I might share with him a little prayer that, while it wasn’t actually created by the Stoics, describes their way of thinking pretty well. I’d say, I want you to repeat after me, and then I’d say the Serenity Prayer:>God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.I’d ask, Do you know what all those words mean? I wouldn’t assume they would. But explaining would be really simple: Serenity means peace and acceptance -- like, you know, when you’re tucked into bed and you stay there, even if you want to stay up. Courage is bravery -- when you go do something even though you’re scared, because you know it’s the right thing to do. Wisdom -- you know what wisdom is -- that’s when you can see things clearly, not like a kid but like grandma or grandpa can, how they know just what to say or do in every situation. I’d point out that really what the Stoics were saying with that prayer is that we have to know the difference between what’s in our control and what isn’t. We have to focus all our energy on what we can control and be OK with the stuff that isn’t. You’re little right now, so you’re probably used to stuff not being in your control. Your parents tell you what to do. Your body gets tired. You can’t do a lot of stuff on your own. That might make you mad, but it’s also part of life. But there are also so many things that are in your control. Whether you smile -- that’s in your control. Whether you tell the truth -- that’s all you, buddy. Even a lot of the stuff your parents "make" you do, they aren’t physically forcing you do. It’s on you to either do it, or face a punishment. Yet there’s still a choice.What would be essential to explain to this little kid is that the better we can get understanding the difference between what’s in our control and what isn’t, the happier we’ll be and the more fun we’ll have and the less sad we’ll be. The better our life will be. I’d make sure they knew that I wasn’t trying to tell them that they have no control over their life. On the contrary, I’d want them to know they actually a lot. I’d say that I want you to know you’re really powerful. You’re as powerful at that king was and as powerful as soldiers and heroes and big strong adults are. Why? Because you get to choose how you respond to everything. You get to choose whether you’re mean or nice back to someone whose mean to you. You get to choose what you do when it’s raining—and how much fun you have whatever the weather happens to be.If you can learn that now and embrace it, you’ll have the best life ever and no one will ever be able to boss you around. Because you’ll be the real boss. The boss of your thoughts, feelings and decisions.At this point, I’d start to wrap up. I’d say that basically, that’s what Stoicism is -- and hopefully you can see why some of your sports heroes and the brave men and women we’ve read about in books have followed it. Of course, there’s a lot more to it and I can’t wait to tell you all of it as you get older. But for now? What I just gave you is a lot. Enough that even a lot of adults haven’t totally figured out. So if you can even start to get the hang of it now, at 5 years, old, everyone would be so proud of you. *Of course, if you’re an actual adult and you want to learn more about the Stoics, you can read the originals like Seneca or Epictetus. Or I’ve put together a seven day introduction to Stoicism which you can try as well.Ryan Holiday is the best-selling author of The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living. He is an editor-at-large for the Observer, and you can subscribe to his posts via email. He lives in Austin, Texas.

Bad Dads lets the art do the talking. This collection stems from an annual gallery exhibition of artworks paying homage to Wes Anderson films. There’s brief introductory text by Anderson himself, as well as from critic Matt Zoller Seitz and curator Ken Harman, but the book is almost entirely made up of images.My favorite pieces are the dioramas, which capture the caught-in-their-own-world quality of Wes Anderson’s movies. But there’s something here for everyone: Mr. and Mrs. Fox action figures? Yes. Nude paintings of Margot Tenenbaum? Check. Models of the ship from the Life Aquatic and the train from The Darjeeling Limited? This book has you covered. More portraits of Bill Murray than you can shake a stick at? They’re all here. The creativity on show is astonishing. – Christine RoBad Dads: Art Inspired by the Films of Wes Anderson by Spoke GalleryHarry N. Abrams2016, 256 pages, 9.0 x 0.8 x 10.8 inches, Hardcover$21 Buy one on Amazon

Just look at them. (more…)

We've all heard that Nazi soldiers were fueled by methamphetamine. (This isn't uncommon in military history. For example, see the US army's use of "pep bills" in Vietnam.) But new research gets way more specific about the history of drugs in Nazi Germany. From CNN:Now, meth, cocaine and even opiates have been referenced in association with German soldiers in a new book by German author Norman Ohler, "Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich," set to publish in the United States in March, but already released in other parts of the world, including the UK."Norman Ohler's Blitzed depicts the pervasive drug culture that allegedly developed in Germany's Third Reich," wrote Paul Weindling, a research professor at Oxford Brookes University, in an article in the journal Nature in October."Nazi officials took high-performance drugs such as methamphetamine hydrochloride (crystal meth) and cocaine. German military units and aviators were dosed with the patent methamphetamine-based drug Pervitin (manufactured in Germany from 1937) to improve operational efficiency. And drugs such as Pervitin and metabolic stimulants were tried out on students, military recruits and, eventually, in concentration camps," Weindling wrote. "Questions remain, however, over precisely how the drugs were tested, prescribed, distributed and used.""What drugs were the Nazis on, anyway?" (CNN)

There's many to choose from, but come on. Let me put you in the picture! (Thanks, Miles!) (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuSa3jEXEWw&feature=youtu.beJason Klamm from the Comedy on Vinyl podcast (previously) writes, "My comedy duo just set a world record with the world's smallest playable comedy album. People in A Position to Know made a custom turntable and plinth and we got it down to 1.5". It's a really dumb joke (set up on side A, punchline side B), but that was sort of the joy of having to put it together. Since Guinness doesn't want to accept a new world record by genre, they didn't include it, but there are no other contenders that any of us have been able to find."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnqMbc7jdEcElly from Microcosm Publishing (previously) writes, "We decided to try something different this time, and put up a project to help fund and spread the word about all six of the books we're putting out this coming spring. They're all very different on the surface, but the thread that runs through them is exactly what makes Microcosm work as a publishing company: Book-shaped tools that help people create the lives they want to live and the world they want to see." (more…)

For better or worse, video game designer/programmer Howard Scott Warshaw is perhaps best known for the Atari 2600 game "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" (1982). That game is considered by many to be the worst video game in history and blamed for driving the video game industry crash of 1983. (To be fair, it wasn't entirely Warshaw's fault. He was also the talented developer behind the classic Yars' Revenge and other fine titles.) Above is the Big Story of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Warshaw, now a psychotherapist in Silicon Valley.And in case you missed it, the film Atari: Game Over is a wonderful documentary about E.T. and the mass burial of unsold copies of the game.

An entire book of 80s themed cat photos. It is like someone has figured my generation out.Cats of 1986: The Book via Amazon

What will happen to Trump's promise to revive the coal industry as the price of solar energy continues to drop?From Computerworld:"Not only did solar create almost 2% of all new U.S. jobs last year, those hires were concentrated in the states where solar is booming primarily because of market-friendly policies," said Amit Ronen, director of the George Washington University's Solar Institute.Trump has also threatened to pull U.S. support for the Paris Agreement, which last year saw voluntary pledges by 195 nations to lower CO2 emissions. But the impact of such a move would be negligible at best in helping the coal industry, analysts said."Even if he did all those things..., which would require legislative hurdles, the economics still favor gas more as an energy generation source," said Colleen Kennedy, an oil and energy analyst with at Lux Research. "The economics just don't work out in favor of coal."

"Replicants are like any other machine. They're either a benefit or a hazard. If they're a benefit, it's not my problem."In theaters October 6, 2017.

Betsy DeVos is the self-described neo-Calvinist and wife of the heir to the Amway fortune who's devoted her life to fighting against public education through a system of vouchers that allow for public funding of religious schools; in accord with the trumpian maxim of "a fox for every henhouse," she has been selected to serve as Trump's Education Secretary. (more…)

The Tor Project's "Ten Principles for User Protection in Hostile States" is both thoughtful and thought-provoking -- it's a list that excites my interest as someone who cares about the use of technology in improving lives and organizing political movements (principle 1 is "Do not rely on the law to protect systems or users" -- a call to technologists -- while number 7 is aimed at companies, "Invest in cryptographic R&D to replace non-cryptographic systems" and principle 2 says "Prepare policy commentary for quick response to crisis," which suggests that the law, while not reliable, can't be ignored); and also as a science fiction writer (check out those tags! "Acausal trade," "Pluralistic singularity" and "Golden path"! Yowza!) (more…)

Come to see how far we have come since the crude ethnic stereotypes of the 1960s, stay for HAL 9000's explanation of chips. [via r/videos] (more…)

Microsoft Word might make an adequate typewriter, but it won’t save you from a chaotic writing process. Since its initial release in 2007, Scrivener has become the gold standard for writing and structuring long-form text.Scrivener combines a word processor with a robust project management tool designed for writing projects. By bundling a virtual corkboard, outliner, and multi-media research archive inside the same application, it helps manage complexity without forcing a distracting context switch.With snapshot version control and views of your in-progress work, Scrivener encourages frequent revision. Once your project is finished, it can be compiled into a variety of publication formats: ePub for ebooks, Final Draft for screenplays, LaTex for technical papers, or simple PDF.If you are serious about your writing, having the best professional tools will make a world of difference. For a limited time, Scrivener for Windows is on sale for 50% off in the Boing Boing Store.Bonus deal: if you're like me and only have a Mac computer, check out the Softorino YouTube Converter for Mac. With this converter, you can download and import YouTube videos directly into your iTunes, Mac or onto your iPhone quickly and easily for only $9.99.

I laboriously prepared the following accurate transcript of this video of an African Gray parrot.WOMAN: OK GoogleBIRD: Bloop!WOMAN: Good job (more…)

Actress and socialite Zsa Zsa Gabor is dead at 99, her publicist said Sunday. The Hungarian-born American actress appeared in more than 73 films and married nine times. Here she is ripping off Johnny Carson's pants in 1964.

Under the cruel austerity of Michigan governor Rick Snyder -- whose policies led to the mass-poisonings of children in Flint -- any claims for unemployment insurance were vigorously investigated, with the state operating on the assumption that any worker who claimed a benefit was probably committing fraud. (more…)

Let’s take a step back from all the holiday craziness, and talk about some of the ridiculously strange things you can buy this week. Here are 3 of my favorites, all up to 74% off in the Boing Boing Store.1. Octopus HatMade of 100% knitted cotton, this pullover hat is just as cozy as it is bizarre—not only will it keep your face warm, it’ll make you look like the ocean’s favorite alien-like creature. Buy Now: Get the Octopus Hat for just $12.99 in black, blue, or red (74% off)2. Very Happy KitThis kit is full of everything you could possibly need to inhale a little extra happiness into your life. Included are a smell and waterproof case, a 4pc aluminum grinder, a 4" thick glass pipe, king size rolling paper and filter tips, a doob tube, a wax container, a 1-hitter pipe, and a metal poker. Customers must be 21+ to purchase.Buy Now: Get the Very Happy Kit for just $49.99 (28% off)3. EcoQube C AquariumThe EcoQube C Aquarium never requires you to change the filter, and it uses 50% less energy and 90% less water than comparable aquariums by using plants like basil or mint to clean. This is big, for your potential future fish friends. Buy Now: Get the EcoQube C for just $114.99 (32% off)

Brilliant Games Studios wanted to show off its new crowd rendering system, so they created 15,000 virtual characters -- 11,000 penguins and 4,000 Santas -- and loosed them on each other in an "epic battle" -- "Units now navigate complex terrain, Bodies now pile up, movement and avoidance improved and smoothed." (via JWZ)

Madeline Ashby (previously) writes, "This is a protest song in the vein of Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger, written by the wonderful John McDaid (previously, and it's great."

We've followed the saga of Prenda Law for years year, documenting the bizarre, criminal conduct of the firm's principles, Paul Hansmeier and John Steele, who used shaky methodologies to identify people to accuse of pirating pornographic material, then demanding money to "settle the claim" on pain of having your name linked with the porn downloads in a court filing. (more…)

Ian Welsh says that the USSR collapsed because its promises -- "a cornucopia and a withering away of the state" -- conspicuously failed to materialize; now, neoliberalism's promises ("If the rich have more money, they will create more jobs; Lower taxes will lead to more prosperity; Increases in housing and stock market prices will increase prosperity for everyone; Trade deals and globalization will make everyone better off") are likewise being shown to be lies, and so we're in crisis. (more…)

The Neurological Institute at Montreal's McGill University is host to the "Tanenbaum Open Science Institute," endowed by a $20M contribution; since last spring, the unit has pursued an ambitious open science agenda that includes open access publication of all research data and findings, and an end to the practice of patenting the university's findings. Instead, they will all be patent-free and usable by anyone. (more…)

In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll explore some more curiosities and unanswered questions from Greg's research, including a pilot who saved Buckingham Palace, a ghost who confronted Arthur Conan Doyle, what Mark Twain learned from a palm reader, and a bedeviling superfluity of Norwegians.We'll also discover a language used only by women and puzzle over a gift that's best given sparingly.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon!

Predator-Elect Donald J. Trump has made it clear which American newspaper he likes the least: The Washington Post. (more…)

If you aren't following Clifford Pickover on Twitter, you are missing out.

The AmazonBasics line offer great quality gear at a low price. These felt laptop sleeves are $10 for 11- and 13-inch laptops and $14 for the 15.4-inch version.

The platform economy can have something for everyone. People needing goods or services get what they want, people who have the time and skills to provide the goods and services get paid, and people who built and invested in the platforms that connect customers with providers get a cut of the action. Win-win-win, right?Well, sometimes. But if you take a higher altitude look at the growing landscape of algorithmic matchmaking services, you’ll see some troubling aspects. For example, traditional workers can usually converse with human bosses, but on a platform, workers are told what to do by algorithmic “managers” that consider humans to simply be part of a pool of inputs to be allocated in response to changes in network conditions. To make things worse, workers in the gig economy are isolated from one another, making it extremely difficult for them to develop a collective voice to negotiate with platform owners and designers about issues that affect their livelihood.Without taking action, this lopsided relationship between platform workers and platform owners could get worse, becoming like a high tech version of the day laborers in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, standing at the gates of the Chicago slaughterhouses in hopes of being selected for a shift of low-paid labor.That’s why Institute for the Future (IFTF) had an open call for interested people to come to its offices in Palo Alto, California on November 30 and December 1, 2016 to participate in a two-day Positive Platforms Design Jam. The event was part of IFTF’s Workable Futures Initiative, established as a call-to-action for “policymakers, platform developers, and civic and labor leaders to blueprint positive platforms for people who work—platforms that not only maximize profits for their owners but also provide dignified and sustainable livelihoods for those who work on them." About 75 people attended, including technologists, historians, policy experts, software developers, and social inventors. Concurrent satellite design jams, set up by IFTF affiliates, took place in cities around the world.Read my report on the event over at IFTF's blog.

Lisa Hix of Collectors Weekly has just published a great interview with Sarah Archer, whose new book, Midcentury Christmas: Holiday Fads, Fancies, and Fun from 1945 to 1970, explains how companies like Alcoa Aluminum used Christmas to capitalize on the technologies it had developed for World War II.Here's a snip:The company that produced the most aluminum for the war effort was Alcoa, but there were also some smaller companies, too, many of which were based in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, of all places, which was one of the big aluminum capitals of North America. Like a lot of mid-century Christmas items, including the acrylic rubber that coats Christmas lights cords, aluminum trees came from thinking about repurposing a material produced for the military. The aluminum strips that were used to make the trees were originally designed for something called chaff, which was sprinkled over enemy territories to scramble radar because the little pieces of metal would diffuse the signal.Many 1950s aluminum tree producers used Alcoa branding. The exterior of the box would say, “We proudly use Alcoa aluminum.” You could put ornaments on these trees, but one of the challenges of decorating them was not getting electrocuted, which was mentioned prominently in the how-to pamphlet that came with the tree. Because it was not safe to put electric lights on the metal, the companies distributing the trees would sell a rotating lamp that would shine different-colored lights on the tree to bathe it in magenta or purple.

A couple of weeks ago I linked to an article Carla wrote at Tofugu about the Japanese word, tsujigiri, which means "to cut someone down to test out a new / newly sharpened katana." Today, Tofugu posted a video that goes into a bit more detail, with a real life demonstration of tsujigiri.

U.S. President Barack Obama met with reporters today for the final press conference of 2016, before the new administration is due to take over. Live tweets below. (more…)

Anyone who’s waded any distance into the murky waters of legend surrounding British occultist Aleister Crowley has likely heard the stories about his involvement with British intelligence in WWII. He helped interrogate Rudolf Hess after Hess flew a plane from Germany to Scotland to negotiate peace. He worked closely with Ian Fleming (and Fleming’s Dr. No is based on him). He falsified astrology charts to throw off Hitler’s soothsayers. Or, these are the apocryphal stories, anyway.In Aleister & Adolf, author, media theorist, and now comic book writer, Doug Rushkoff makes clever use of these and other tales about the self-proclaimed Beast 666 to make a deeper point about the profound manipulating powers of “charged” symbols in our modern world. It’s ultimately a book about how the manipulation of symbols and the effective use of propaganda can have deep consciousness-changing effects on a population, and can lead to fascism. Timely, eh?The book runs with one well-known story from the Crowley apocrypha, that he was responsible for creating the V for victory symbol to be used by Churchill as a counter-sigil (occult symbol) to neutralize the swastika. Rushkoff casts Crowley and Hitler as real-world superhero and supervillain (or maybe, supervillain working for the good guys and straight-up supervillain) in an intense war of symbols and psychic combat. Actually, we don’t see much of Adolf in this book, Aleister & Adolf is mainly about the Crowley side of the magical front lines, as seen through the eyes of a young American army newspaper photographer sent to spy on Crowley and possibly recruit him to work for the U.S. The Crowley story is bookended by a tale set in New York, 1995, of a young web designer for a big corporation who stumbles upon the Aleister and Adolf war story and its ominous relevance to advertising and the burgeoning web. While the subject-matter is certainly compelling enough, the whole project really becomes something special in the hands of artist Michael Avon Oeming (best known for the Powers comic book with Brian Michael Bendis). Oeming achieves some very intense and charged occult imagery within these pages. Using very vivid, bold, and black-saturated panels, Oeming’s graphic narrative creates a succession of dizzying, dark and shadowy corridors that you feel like you’re stumbling through in some opiated haze. This book feels like a trip through a haunted house. Or at least that’s where the visuals took me. I can’t think of an artist who could have done a better job of rendering Rushkoff’s story than Michael Oeming.[Perhaps even more magical to me than the art in the book is watching Mike Oeming ink up a panel of it in this YouTube video] Aleister & Adolf by Douglas Rushkoff, Michael Avon Oeming (Illustrator)Dark Horse Originals2016, 88 pages, 6.3 x 0.5 x 9.3 inches, Hardcover$16 Buy one on AmazonSee sample pages from this book at Wink.

Federal Bureau of Investigations chief James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper today indicated the FBI and ODNI support a recent CIA assessment that Russia committed internet attacks targeted at America's elections, with the intent in part being to help Donald Trump win. (more…)

NERVANA is an award-winning gadget aimed at helping people calm down and regain focus with just a generator and headphone set. By sending a gentle electrical wave through the left ear canal, NERVANA stimulates the body’s Vagus nerve—the nerve that triggers neurotransmitters that help us focus, feel relaxed, and cut out distractions. In short, NERVANA helps us calm down, and calm down fast.The gentle signal is emitted while you’re listening to music—thanks to NERVANA’s proprietary, patented circuitry. And if you’re feeling like relaxing sans music, you can also use NERVANA in formula mode.This technology is so effective that it won the TechStars Award in the "Lifestyle and Digital Health" category at CES 2016, and it was later featured in USA Today.You can get 21% off NERVANA in the Boing Boing Store and start improving your focus for just $249.99.

Temporarily embarrassed millionaires will be pleased to know that Donald Trump has filled his cabinet with people just like them: the "17 cabinet-level picks have more money than a third of American households combined," reports Quartz. The 17 people who US president-elect Donald Trump has selected for his cabinet or for posts with cabinet rank have well over $9.5 billion in combined wealth, with several positions still unfilled. This collection of wealth is greater than that of the 43 million least wealthy American households combined — over one third of the 126 million households total in the US.

The Cold Drone Wars have begun. In a first-of-its-kind military standoff, the Chinese Navy has taken possession of an underwater autonomous drone deployed by a U.S. oceanographic vessel in the South China Sea. (more…)

https://youtu.be/NpN9NzO4Mo8After Anthony van der Meer's phone was stolen, he installed spyware on a new phone and intentionally allowed someone to steal it. He then remotely recorded audio, photos, and videos from the phone and made a 20 minute film about the guy who stole it.After my phone got stolen, I quickly realized just how much of my personal information and data the thief had instantly obtained. So, I let another phone get stolen. This time my phone was pre-programmed with spyware so I could keep tabs on the thief in order to get to know him. However, to what extent is it possible to truly get to know someone by going through the content of their phone?In the Netherlands, 300 police reports a week are filed for smartphone-theft. Besides losing your expensive device, a stranger has access to all of your photos, videos, e-mails, messages and contacts.Yet, what kind of person steals a phone? And where do stolen phones eventually end up?The short documentary ‘Find My Phone’ follows a stolen phone’s second life by means of using spyware.Although you’ll meet the person behind the theft up close and personal, the question remains: how well can you actually get to know someone when you base yourself on the information retrieved from their phone?

Fred Couch, father of the drunk driving teenager who got his wrist slapped for killing four people in 2013, got his own wrist slapped yesterday for falsely identifying himself as a peace officer. From The Daily Beast:The elder Couch, 51, was charged in September of 2014 after falsely identifying himself as a reserve Lakeside police officer, showing a North Richland Hills police officer a shield-style badge and claiming to have his "Lakeside police stuff in the truck."He will serve a year's probation.

Wells Fargo didn't merely open 2,000,000 fraudulent accounts and bill its customers for them; it also tricked its customers into signing up for insurance policies, at mass-scale. (more…)

This fellow has zero fucks to give as THREE oshiya (pushers) try their hardest to get those doors to close.(via Marco Patella Photography)

My friends in Reboot and Partners In Crime opened a fantastically cool Reboot Hanukkah Pop-Up Shop on Union Street in San Francisco (and online too)! The physical shop is only open this weekend and there are terrific events for the whole family including a lunch concert today by blues guitarist Luther Dickinson, a reading/signing tomorrow afternoon by the inimitable Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket) and Lisa Brown, Lego Menorah Making, and a Sunday evening screening of Tiffany Shlain and Julie Hermelin's new film 50/50!Reboot Hanukkah Pop-Up Shop

Back in 2010, John Holbo created a beautiful, illustrated cthuhoid version of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas called "Mama in Her 'Kerchief and I in My Madness," and this curiousity has lurked on Flickr ever since -- until now, when it has emerged as an actual book that you can actually own and cower from -- with guaranteed delivery by Christmas. (more…)

Paul writes, "Embroidered in lovely Copperplate letters on a Democratic blue hat. I set the price as low as it allowed so there are unlikely to be much profits. But any there are will go to border collie rescues that I work with."

Singer Anohni released a striking song and video asking for Chelsea Manning to be released:"If you leave Chelsea Manning in prison for whistle blowingYou send the final message to our nationthat the Obama administration brutally punished moral couragein these unforgiving United States." (more…)

The $30, 4" x 3" die-cast zinc alloy tool includes four hexkeys, two screwdrivers and an adjustable wrench, with tool storage inside a magnetically sealed compartment. (more…)