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by Rob Beschizza on (#21FNE)
Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee and the face of the party's insider establishment, is Donald Trump's pick as chief of staff.Live footage from the White House:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8mduTEvnU0Trump campaign mastermind and Breitbart chief Steve Bannon was also tipped for the position; he is named as a "Chief Strategist" instead, and gets top billing in the press release. The pairing is presumably contrived to please both the GOP establishment and Trump's "base," which is to say people who agree with Bannon when it comes to "renegade Jews" and the like.https://twitter.com/RyanLizza/status/797915846844837888
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| Updated | 2024-11-25 14:47 |
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by Rob Beschizza on (#21EVE)
AdultFriendFinder was hacked (again) in October 2016. According to LeakedSource, which acquired a copy of the dataset, this amounts to more than 400m accounts, many with plaintext passwords, from AdultFriendFinder and associated websites. The site was compromised with a local file inclusion exploit, which means the website's code allowed access to files on the server that aren't supposed to be public.Nearly a million accounts have the password "123456". More than 100,000 have the password "password". The non-plaintext passwords were easily cracked anyway, apparently due to some roll-your-own encryption that involved lowercasing everything, SHA1ing it and going back to bed. The longest passwords were "pussy.passwordLimitExceeded:07/1" and "gladiatoreetjaimelesexetjaimefum", with a Blackadder fan in #3 with "antidisestablishmentarianism" and a sybarite who reads XKCD in #4 with "pussypussymoneymoneyweedweed."Hotmail was the most common email provider, followed by Yahoo and gmail. These three accounted for the vast majority of registered addresses, with AOL and Live an order of magnitude down. Leaked Source isn't making the data set publicly available; but if they have it, others might too.
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by Rob Beschizza on (#21EQD)
Chili's advertised free Veterans Day meals for service members. But not for black U.S. Army veteran Ernest Walker, who shot video of a confrontation with a manager who refused to honor the deal. The man came up to his table and took his food from him.I ordered the waitress was wonderful. It took about 35 mins for meal to come. So when it attived I gave her a Tip as asjed for a take out. She said sure, at that point a old white guy wearing a Trump flag shirt walked buy me on hi way to the bath room. He came back and aked me what unit did i serve in the 24th. I said no the 25th. He said he was in world war 2 in Germany and we did not see people like you over there. They would no allow blacks. I just listened he left then came back to bathroom again and pet my dog. So waitress put foid in container. Then the managers comes and says a somes guest at the restaurant say that your not a real Soldier. I reply what are you serious what guest. The manager Wesly Patrick said can I see military ID. I felt that was reasonable I most people ask for that so I shoed him my ID it checked out. At that point all he should have said was 'Sir I am sorry Thank you for your service and I would have left. But instead ge says ' tbe guest also says that your service dog is not a service dog. Now that's when igot upset and started Recording so see for yourself what happened:https://www.facebook.com/100012925955468/videos/209710646136466/He elaborated in a follow-up post:I was approached by an old white guy, maybe in his 70s, with a Trump Shirt, at Chili's on Veteran's Day yesterday. He asked if I was in the 24th unit, and I said "no the 25th". TRICK QUESTION. He said he was in Germany, and that they did not let Blacks serve over there. He left to the back, and came back and rubbed my dog Barack, who is a service dog. I was seated and eating my food. The waitress packed the rest of my food in a to go box because I had to go pick up my wife. I got my food and tipped the waitress. Then the Manager, MR. Wesley Patrick, comes from the same area in the back, walked up, and rudly informs me that a guest said that I was not a real soldier because I had my hat on indoors. Other guests heard him. He asked for my military ID, I was calm, and provided it to him. I also provided him with my DD214 which is my discharge paperwork. At that point he should have just said "I am sorry Sir, thank you for your service' Instead he followed up with "the guest also said your dog is not a service dog." Barack had his Red Service Vest on, and his Certified Service Tags. I was sitting for 35 minutes prior with Barack beforehand. At this point I was grossly offended embarrassed dehumanized and started Recording...Mr. Wesley snatched my food away, made body contact"Emboldened" is the word they're using.On his Facebook page, Walker posted Chili's reply, which came after the video went viral.According to Fox 4, a local news affiliate, Chili's apologized in a public statement and a meeting is planned with Walker and his attorney.A company spokesperson released this statement: "Our goal is to make every guest feel special and, unfortunately, we fell short on a day where we serve free meals as a small token to honor our Veterans...We are taking this very seriously and the leaders in our company are actively involved with the goal of making it right."Walker's attorney, Kim Cole, says she is meeting with Chili's general counsel Monday, and one of the company's attorneys has apologized."She felt really bad that Mr. Walker had this experience," said Cole.Rob Beschizza is on Twitter at @beschizza
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by Cory Doctorow on (#21ENT)
Never let it be said that the crapgadget factories of the Pearl River Delta don't know how to recycle surplus/rejected material. (more…)
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by Cory Doctorow on (#21ENW)
The Obama administration asserted the power to raid the massive databases of peoples' private, sensitive information that ad-based tech companies have assembled; the Trump administration has promised to use Obama's powers to effect the surveillance and deportation of 11 millions undocumented migrants, and the ongoing, continuous surveillance of people of Muslim heritage. (more…)
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by Boing Boing's Store on (#21E5Y)
Leave it to the Boing Boing Store to always keep us guessing. This week's roundup ranges from a beer mitt to a travel organizer.#1 Rolo Travel BagThe Rolo Travel Bag is by far the best way I've found to stay organized while traveling. This New York Times-endorsed bag has four mesh pockets, and actually rolls and unrolls into a portable closet. When you get to your destination, unroll the bag, hook it, and easily access all your belongings. The Rolo Travel Bag is just $42.99 in the Boing Boing Store and well worth it for all the socks you won't lose.#2 Premium Knit Beer MittThe Premium Knit Beer Mitt is definitely the accessory I never knew I needed. To use: slip on this knitted mitt, place your beer in the opening, and drink up without even the smallest chill to your fingers. It comes in green and blue, fits on the right and left hands, and is one-size-fits-all. It may just be my go-to holiday gift this season, and it's 68% off retail, just $15.99. #3 Gemini DroneThe Gemini Drone comes packing 6-axis flight control, meaning it has stable flight patterns while still going super fast. This makes it pretty easy to fly for beginners, but still super fun as your improve. You can even record your flights with the built-in HD camera. For a limited time, the Gemini Drone is just $69.99.
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by Cory Doctorow on (#21BTN)
During Canada's nightmarish Stephen Harper years -- when an Arctic country with two oceanic coastlines and major freshwater reserves was ruled by a ruthless climate-denier -- science librarian John Dupuis did yeoman service documenting and rounding up the assault on science that was an essential part of Harper's payback to the oil interests he represented. (more…)
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by Rob Beschizza on (#21B9D)
Calvin Seibert makes modernist sandscastles on Coney Island. At Little Atoms, Caroline Christie interviewed him about his remarkable creations.I like making things and tend to work with whatever is at hand. Building sandcastles at a beach to me is a very natural thing to be doing. As a child, I saw photographs of the French ski resort of Flaine. I was very taken by the brutalist buildings, designed by Marcel Breuer. Since then I have always gone out of my way to see brutalist architecture and when I build sandcastles I have them in mind. Technique:A five-gallon paint bucket is essential. Paint buckets are particularly rigid and have a nice sharp edge for digging with. Then it is used for carrying water. Lots and lots of water. The tools are all made of plastic. I have a couple that are nothing more than a small rectangle of 1/8-inch plastic with a beveled edge and then a couple of trowels of different sizes.
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by Boing Boing's Store on (#21AZW)
ButcherBox is a unique subscription service that is offering an alternative to buying meat at the market. There's no shortage of subscription boxes out there, but ButcherBox is the first I've found that speaks to health-conscious carnivores in this way.Sign up for ButcherBox and they'll send a box of hand-picked meats straight to your door each month. All of the meats are raised on small, family-run farms and picked by experts. Most importantly, the meat is 100% grass-fed and humanely treated, meaning you get all the nutrients you need without any of the toxins.My immediate worry with this business model was freshness, but ButcherBox flash freezes their meat at the peak of freshness and delivers their boxes packed with dry ice. It's incredibly fresh and delicious.If you're looking to try out the service without committing, you can get a great deal on your first box for a limited time. There are several combinations of meat you can pick from like chicken and pork, steak and pork, etc. Each box is stocked with a hefty amount of meat that I use for multiple meals.If you love meat, I highly suggest you try it out for yourself or give it as a gift this holiday season.Also explore the Best-Sellers on our network right now:CodingLearn to Code 2016 Bundle (Pay What You Want)DronesCode Black Drone with HD Camera (82% off)SmartwatchesMartian Notifier Smartwatch (76% off)PythonPython Programming Bootcamp ($39) Cord-CuttingGhost Indoor HDTV Antenna (57% off)
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#219B7)
Our guest on the Cool Tools Podcast this week is our own David Pescovitz, co-editor and managing partner of Boing Boing and a research director at Institute for the Future. (Image: Ransom and Mitchell)Subscribe to the Cool Tools Show on iTunes | RSS | Transcript | Download MP3 | See all the Cool Tools Show posts on a single pageShow notes:Okki Nokki Record Cleaning Machine ($499)"It's built like a tank. It looks like a big, heavy record player without a tone arm. You put a record on it and squirt some cleaning solution on it. Then you turn it on and the record spins. You scrub it gently with a goat hair brush. Then, you turn on the vacuum feature and it sucks up all the fluid and dirt in a couple revolutions. It's amazing, really, how clean it makes the record."Polylined paper sleeves ($25)"My son and I always joke that we can take a record that he's dug out of the dollar or five dollar bin, give it a good cleaning, put a new inner sleeve to replace whatever moldy thing is in there ... and it would be for sale at one of the hipster record stores in San Francisco Mission District for $25. … I buy these in bulk."Zerodust Onzow stylus cleaner ($35)"This is a luxury, admittedly, because they're like $35 and it comes from Japan … It's this little square plastic container with this lump of solidified gel. It feels kind of like Jello, but a little firmer ... you basically dip the stylus into the gel and lift it back up, and whatever was on the needle is then held in suspension in the gel. ... I've had mine for three years and it's basically as good as new."Waring Kettle Popcorn maker ($80)"We got this because my daughter, who's seven, really digs popcorn. She would eat it all day long if she could. My wife actually came up with this idea as a Christmas gift for her. The way it works is you put in the kernels, and then you put in the oil. We use peanut oil, it tastes really good with it. You turn it on and it just starts popping. The popped corn pushes the lid of the kettle and falls into the hopper. It tastes good. And it's super easy to clean. There's this little tray at the bottom of the hopper and you just brush all of the unpopped kernels into that and take it out and dump it. Then you pour like a half a cup of water into the kettle and turn it on and it boils very quickly. It just gets rid of all the burned on stuff, if there's any, then you wipe it out with a cloth."Celestron NextStar 5SE Telescope ($599)"It's got a computer and motors so you don't even have to program anything. You turn it on, and use a handheld device, that looks like a phone handset, to steer the telescope to objects in the sky. You can pick an object out of the database and it'll move the telescope to point at that object. You can point the telescope yourself and it'll tell you what it is that you're looking at. It gives you a whole new relationship to the night sky."
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#2196S)
I drew this bOING bOING T-shirt design in 1991, when I was living in Boulder, Colorado. I gave one of the shirts to Evan Ravitz, a wonderfully talented tightrope walker, juggler, activist, and founder of the Voting By Phone Foundation in 1989 (if his idea would have been adopted and people could vote over the internet via their phone or gaming console, Hillary would have won).Anyway, Evan has managed to hang onto his T-shirt for 25 years, and it looks better than new! He posted this photo of it to Facebook. If you want to do some long-term planning and have a T-shirt in 2041 that looks this good, you can get started by buying a new one here.
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#2193Z)
This new Fab Four themed Moleskine is really gear. Each one is individually numbered (I have 8379 out of 9999 made). It's part of a series of Moleskine Beatles' themed notebooks.
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by Richard Kaufman on (#218SA)
If you wait another six weeks until Jack Skellington gets kicked out of The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland you’ll be able to see the original Mansion in all its lunatic glory. To tantalize you until then, watch this amazing video by VoicePlay, an a capella singing group based in Orlando, Florida (where Jack Skellington never intrudes on The Haunted Mansion at Walt Disney World). Just voices, no musical instruments, and it’s hard to believe when you watch this video.
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by Cory Doctorow on (#218SC)
If there's anyone qualified to recognize a genocidal strongman when they see one, it's the far-right Serbian and Macedonian ultra-nationalists who celebrate the Milosevic legacy of rape-camps, genocide and ethnic cleansing, and those guys love Donald Trump. (more…)
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by Cory Doctorow on (#218SE)
Machinist/sculptor Chris Bathgate (previously) teamed up with Richard Stadler, who machines beautiful spinning tops, to create "sculpture TP53335144462," a gorgeous piece of work. (more…)
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#218KM)
Here's another great bar trick from Brian Brushwood of Scam School. Here's the setup - balance a nickel on its edge. Then, put section of a wooden matchstick on the nickel. Cover the nickel and matchstick with a glass. The challenge: remove the matchstick from the nickel without touching the glass or shaking the table. The solution: watch the video!
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by Cory Doctorow on (#218KP)
Donald Trump's inaugural presidential tweet moaned that "Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!" was posted even as he was deleting his 2012 post-Obama election tweets repeatedly calling for a "revolution." (more…)
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#218GF)
This guy stopped his car on a snowy road to take a quick bio-break, when he noticed his car was rolling away from him. He tried his best to catch up with it as it went backwards down a hill. The whole thing was caught on the car's dashcam.
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by Cory Doctorow on (#218GH)
In 2002, a peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology claimed that men named "Dennis" were more likely to become dentists; people named "George" or "Georgina" were apt to become geologists; and people with surnames like "Diamond" and "Ricci" were more likely to become bankers. (more…)
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by Cory Doctorow on (#218D9)
Anil Dash says that once we finish grieving, we need to organize. Start by figuring out who's already fighting for racial justice, against climate change, and for civil rights (including LBGTQ rights and women's rights) in your community and commit to helping them. (more…)
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by Andrea James on (#21883)
Daniel Crooks' latest experimental work, The Subtle Knife, continues his exploration of urban spaces overlaid with windows of other spaces. The result is a slow, smooth, hypnotic meditation on time and space. (more…)
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by Cory Doctorow on (#21885)
The Democratic Party establishment's insistence on fronting a more-of-the-same establishment candidate cost them the election and cost America its sanity: now it's time to start planning for the 2018 midterms and a Congress that can roadblock Trump's mass deportations, torture, spying and censorship. (more…)
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by David Pescovitz on (#21887)
A GoPro Karma drops from the sky and lands at a surprised and confused bystander's feet. As this was not an isolated incident, GoPro recalled the Karma.
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by Cory Doctorow on (#2185S)
The Mac/Win/Lin versions of Spotify wrote hundreds of gigabytes of bad data per day to their 40,000,000 users, thrashing their drives. (more…)
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by Rob Beschizza on (#2183Y)
Following Brexit and the subsequent wave of racist abuses, Britons began to wear safety pins in public as an anti-racist statement. "This is meant to be more than just a symbolic gesture or a way for like-minded people to pat each other on the back.If people wear the pin and support the campaign they are saying they are prepared to be part of the solution. It could be by confronting racist behaviour, or if that is not possible at least documenting it.More generally it is about reaching out to people and letting them know they are safe and welcome," she says.Following "Trumpit" in the United States, racists are already feeling empowered, with many reports of abusive graffiti and plans afoot for a major Ku Klux Klan march. Yes, wearing a pin is cheap and easy--as easy as changing an avatar, and just as potentially facile. But the outside world carries risks that the internet doesn't. To signal one's intent to shield people from violence, as far as one is capable, has consequences. It's meaningful and, hopefully, reassuring. Instead of a tiny normal safety pin, though, I'm going to wear a jumbo-ass five-inch safety pin like the one above, because I'm American now and we do things big. 5" safety pins can be ordered by the box on Amazon for a few dollars, as can 2" ones. You can even get them in tactical black: perfect for a shirt collar or lab coat.
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by Cory Doctorow on (#2183M)
Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has published a heartfelt and defiant statement about the EFF's plans for the coming four years under a president who has demanded back-doors in crypto, promised mass surveillance and roundups of millions of people, and threatened the freedom of the press. (more…)
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by Cory Doctorow on (#21821)
If you're a Hamilton fan, you know that the Burr-Jefferson race of 1800 was such a shitshow that it ended up with the Vice President-elect murdering his most vocal critic after assuming office. (more…)
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by Caroline Siede on (#217ZQ)
The stars of Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, and Legends Of Tomorrow celebrated their upcoming multi-episode crossover with an Entertainment Weekly spread. And this behind-the-scenes video shows off the insane amount of charisma contained in the “Berlanti-verse.†You can see more photos from the shoot over on Entertainment Weekly. The crossover bonanza starts November 28 on Supergirl and continues on the other shows throughout the week.
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by Cory Doctorow on (#217XE)
Nadia Eghbal's Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital Infrastructure is a long, detailed report on the structural impediments to maintaining key pieces of free/open software that underpin the internet -- it reveals the startling fragility of tools that protect the integrity, safety, privacy and finances of billions of people, which are often maintained by tiny numbers of people (sometimes just one person). (more…)
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by Andrea James on (#217VC)
Jordan Bolton makes cool posters comprised of objects seen in famous movies, like this one for Amelie. (more…)
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by Patrick Ball, Human Rights Data Analysis Group on (#217QM)
At the Human Rights Data Analysis Group, we’ve been holding heads of state accountable for human rights violations for a quarter century. And now we're prepared to do the same in the United States.Our work is cut out for us: we’re showing how data is misused to reinforce racial discrimination in policing, in criminal justice determinations-—work that is more relevant and necessary than ever.We’ve provided critical evidence in the prosecution of dictators like Slobodan Milosevic for ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, EfrÃan RÃos Mott for genocide in Guatemala, Hissène Habré for crimes against humanity in Chad. And we are providing the most accurate counts of killings in Colombia and Syria, and homicides by police in the US. This evidence will be ready when these societies come to terms with their past.Facts do matter. And leaders need to be held to account. We need you to help us get this message out and support our work. Will you consider us in your end-of-year giving?
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by Caroline Siede on (#217PV)
Artist Maeril made this illustrated guide a few months ago, but it’s now more relevant than ever. You can find more of Maeril’s work on her Tumblr and Twitter.
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by Caroline Siede on (#217PZ)
Here’s the monologue from Full Frontal’s post-election special. As Samantha Bee puts it:I guess ruining Brooklyn was just a dry run. Caucasian nation showed up in droves to vote for Trump. So I don't want to hear a goddamn word about black voter turnout—how many times do we expect black people to build our country for us?Bee also adds:Don’t try to distance yourself from the bad apples and say, “It’s not my fault, I didn’t vote for him. Hashtag not all white people.†Shush. If Muslims have to take responsibility for every member of their community, so do we.She goes on to celebrate nasty women as well as the good things left in America like, “Shonda Rhimes shows and peanut butter and Beyoncé and Lin Manuel-Miranda rap-weeping at award shows.â€
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by Andrea James on (#217Q1)
UK-based artist Billy Bogiatzoglou creates intricate images of engraved insects and skulls. The Engraved Entomology series has especially detailed beetles, dragonflies, and arachnids. (more…)
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by Andrea James on (#217Q3)
SOFTlab creates handmade mesh sculptures that appear to melt and flow from ceilings, down stairwells, and from vaulted lobbies. Their most recent, Ventricle, evokes the human heart. (more…)
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by Caroline Siede on (#217Q5)
Known for his uplifting, energetic personality, former tennis pro Matsuoka Shuzo stars in a video reminding you to never to give up. Sounds like something we could all use right about now.
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by Rob Beschizza on (#217D7)
Jeff Bezos, founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Amazon and the proprietor of the Washington Post, is on president-elect Donald Trump's political hitlist.https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/796729498075099136Will this supplication save him? Is the "I, for one" reference to the classic Kent Brockman quote intentional?
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by Jason Weisberger on (#215B2)
The North Carolina Ku Klux Klan offers you "racial greetings" and invites you to celebrate the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States with a good old fashioned parade, dressed in sheets.Via Snopes:A spokeswoman for the group, who provided us with the name Amanda, said the parade would be "unannounced." She did not give us any further information, such as the event's time or specific location, other than to say it will take place in North Carolina.The KKK representative was responding to our inquiry as to whether the group had held a Trump victory rally on 9 November 2016 on a freeway overpass in the city of Mebane. She confirmed they had not, but she alerted us to the upcoming parade.We reached out to the press office for Trump's campaign for comment and have not heard back.
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by Cory Doctorow on (#2159A)
San Francisco students take to the streets to protest against Trump.pic.twitter.com/Re5YNf3GsW— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) November 10, 2016Go, kids, go!
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#214CM)
In 2014 Saara sang in 14 different genres. This month, she spoke in 14 different accents.
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#214B7)
This is one of the louder Polish carbide cannons I've heard.
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by Peter Sheridan on (#214AX)
Now that all that election nonsense is behind us, let’s get back to what really matters in the world: Prince Charles has seized the British throne in a palace coup, Michael Jackson is having his first grandchild, Tom Cruise has a "$1 billion Doomsday bunker,†and U.S. Special Forces have killed a 15-ft tall red-haired giant in Afghanistan.It’s business as usual in this week’s factually-challenged tabloids, getting back to the truly important world issues: the love lives of the stars. As the nation draws together in a spirit of post-electoral reconciliation, so the tabloids are hoping that shattered celebrity couples will reunite: The ‘National Enquirer’ claims that Gwyneth Paltrow wants to “get back with rocker ex†Chris Martin, and also that Drew Barrymore “pleads with her ex to come back.†Love is clearly in the air, as the ‘Enquirer’ reports that Madonna’s son Rocco is picking a new mate for his material mother, Prince Harry wants to show American actress girlfriend Meghan Markle his mother’s grave because it is his “most cherished place on Earth†(and what girl can resist a romantic trip to a cemetery?) and singer Mariah Carey is recovering after being dumped by fiancé James Packer by partying all over town with a “new boy toy†- though at 33 years old, dancer Bryan Tanaka may not take kindly to such a characterization.And let’s remember: The ‘Enquirer’ was one of the most vocal supporters of Donald Trump, so if they got that right then maybe the rest of their stories aren’t the vacuous drivel they at first appear.Has Prince Charles seized the throne, as the ‘Globe’ proclaims on its cover? If you missed the TV images of tanks rolling into Buckingham Palace and armed guards storming Windsor Castle, that’s because it never happened. Elizabeth is still Queen of the (unraveling and discordant yet still allegedly) United Kingdom. Amusingly, the ‘Globe’ reports that Charles has usurped his son in the race for the throne, claiming “Will & Kate stripped of power.†But for months the ‘Globe’ has been the only publication worldwide which has failed to understand that Charles is the Queen’s heir and will inherit the crown, and he needs no “palace coup†to remain as next in line for the monarchy. “Queen to be exiled,†adds the ‘Globe’ for good measure, suggesting that she is virtually under lock and key at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. While the Queen loves to holiday at Balmoral each summer, don’t expect her to endure a Scottish winter there - which means we can expect future ‘Globe’ headlines about the Queen overthrowing Prince Charles and escaping her gilded cage. Who writes this stuff?Is Michael Jackson having his first grandchild, eight years after his death? And who’s the proud parent: 19-year-old Prince? Paris, aged 18? Maybe 14-year-old Blanket? None of the above. The father is allegedly Brandon Howard, who claims to have DNA proof that he is the gloved one’s son. An unidentified pregnant woman claims that she is carrying Brandon’s child - though she still needs to undergo DNA testing to prove Brandon's paternity. Pending DNA testing, this story is the very definition of “half-baked."Not that the tabloids have forgotten politics in this crucial week. “Hillary’s brain is about to EXPLODE!†yells the ‘Globe,’ reporting that “shocking scans†reveal that “her skull contains a ticking time bomb that could kill her at any moment.†Has the ‘Globe’ team of highly trained medical reporters carefully scrutinized Hillary’s brain scans? Of course not. But they did show a doctor the brain scans of another patient “stricken with the same damage Hillary suffered after plunging down a flight of stairs and suffering a serious concussion in 2012.†Because that’s how the best doctors deliver a prognosis: by looking at the results of other patients’ tests. Hillary Clinton and aide Huma Abedin are “Going To Jail!†screams the ‘Enquirer’ cover, which proudly reports on Vladimir “Putin’s spy files†- which must surely be accurate and undoctored - allegedly showing evidence of a cover-up, and raising questions about Clinton’s health. Expect more Russian revelations in coming months as the Trump-loving ‘National Enquirer’ changes its name to the ‘National Pravda.’Has Tom Cruise built a $1 billion doomsday bunker, as the ‘Enquirer’ reports? Well, the alleged bunker (if it exists) is actually owned by the Church of Scientology, and Cruise has reportedly given the cult $10 million - not exactly $1 billion - in donations, claims the mag. As proof of the supposed bunker’s existence, the ‘Enquirer’ publishes a photo of a small group of houses in the New Mexico desert. Huh? The ‘Enquirer’ explains: “ . . . the vault is masked by houses designed to appear like a suburban neighborhood.†Great disguise. The giant nuclear fallout shelter looks just like suburban sprawl. It’s such a convincing cover, the story must be true.As must the ‘National Examiner’ story about the red-haired giant slain by Special Forces in Afghanistan, after reportedly killing a soldier. This allegedly occurred in 2002, when the 1,100-pound dead “creature†was flown to a U.S. base in Ohio. And there the mystery deepens, because the giant's death was apparently covered up, and there remains no official record of it ever existing. Thank goodness we have the ‘Examiner’ to preserve the historical record.'Us' magazine brings us the real-life horror of Kim Kardashian’s days living “in fear†following her recent Paris robbery, revealing her “daily therapy, intense security,†and the horror of a life in "social media silence.†Kim even evaded the paparazzi and entered her sister Kendall Jenner’s 21st birthday party by a side door. Oh, the humanity.Fortunately we have Us magazine’s crack investigative team to inform us that Hillary Duff wore it best, actress Italia Ricci carries dill-pickle sunflower seeds, cheap plastic reading glasses and pens stolen from hotels in her Louis Vuitton purse, and that the stars are just like us: they walk their dogs, buy ice, eat pickles and swim with dolphins. Wait, what? Do dolphins really like chilled pickle-eating celebrities? Enquiring minds want to know.Onwards and downwards . . .
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by Rob Beschizza on (#214AY)
The $10 "Compact Bags" offered by U-Shark come in dark blue, green, white, black, and rainbow. The rainbow one has an usual shape; can't quite figure out the utility of it, but I think it might be so you can have a stack of coins in your pouch without cash sloshing around inside the main compartment.
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#21491)
Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne have developed a neuroprosthetic interface that creates a wireless link between the brain and the spine. In a recent experiment, they used it to enable a paralyzed monkey to walk.Via Healthglu:The brain-spine interface overcomes a damaged connection by bridging the spinal cord injury — and it does so in real-time and via wireless technology. The neuroprosthetic device implanted in the monkey’s brain correctly interprets activity generated by the motor cortex, and relays this information to a system of electrodes placed over the surface of the spinal cord, just below the injury. A burst of just a few volts, delivered at the right location, triggers specific muscles in the legs. Monkeys implanted with the device were able to walk within six days of the spinal cord injury.
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by David Pescovitz on (#2145P)
Famed photographer Joseph Byron holds the camera for a few group selfies in 1920. No selfie stick. No duck face.More info on these shots here and here. (via r/OldSchoolCool)
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#2145R)
The Cannabist has a map showing the legal status of marijuana in the United States. In Tuesday's election, voters in California, Nevada, and Massachusetts made recreational pot legal, joining Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, and Washington D.C. Maine's measure to legalize weed pass very narrowly 50.2 to 49.8 percent. Opponents are calling for a recount.Several states also had medical marijuana measures on the ballot. After Tuesday's elections, there are now 28 states that allow people to use pot for medicinal purposes.Marijuana is illegal under federal law. President Elect Trump has said in interviews that states should be allowed to decide for themselves about pot, but if Chris Christie (an avowed marijuana foe) is appointed U.S. Attorney General, all bets are off.
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by Cory Doctorow on (#213CW)
Tom Ewing rails against the Clinton campaign's reliance on "micro-modelling preference at an individual voter level to tell [volunteers] who to turn out where with what message and where to allocate resources." (more…)
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by Rob Beschizza on (#213CY)
I feel like I've lost a year of my life expectancy just watching this. (more…)
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by Cory Doctorow on (#213AZ)
Train the Deep Learning Ahem Detector with two sets of audio files, "a negative sample with clean voice/sound" (minimum 3 minutes) and "a positive one with 'ahem' sounds concatenated" (minimum 10s) and it will detect "ahems" in any voice sample thereafter. (more…)
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by Cory Doctorow on (#2138Y)
Glenn Greenwald frames what I've been trying to articulate: as neoliberalism and its handmaiden, corruption, have swept the globe, making the rich richer, the poor poorer, and everyone in the middle more precarious; as elites demonized and dismissed the left-behinds who said something was wrong; as the social instability of inequality has been countered with increasingly invasive domestic "war on terror" policing, millions of people are ready to revolt, and will support anyone who promises no more business as usual. (more…)
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