(Image: ccPixs.com) I’m not a medical expert. My science career ended in Mr. Maciel’s high school biology class. I remember the basics, we’re all made of cells and whales eat krill, but world governments aren’t calling me to consult when the next outbreak of Ebola occurs. I don’t purport to know what I’m talking about, but I did just watch a Grey’s Anatomy marathon, so I feel confident I can handle a discussion on the complexities of our healthcare system. Matthew B.J. Delaney's Black Rain is available from Amazon.Here’s my medical prediction: whatever you may be sick from, human beings will figure out a cure. Of course you might be dead by the time we do, but we’ll figure out something. We’re good at that. And by ‘we’ I mean people much smarter than I am who actually went to school for science and stuff. For thousands of years humans have been figuring things out. Fire. Space travel. Tinder. And our figuring has been increasing exponentially. We’ve got more human brains on the job now than ever before thinking about things from toilet bowl night lights to artificial synapses. So whatever you’re sick from, we’ll get you that cure. I just hope you have the money to pay for it. I may not know fancy doctoring, but twelve years as a police officer in New York City has taught me about human nature. And humans are motivated by incentives. The incentive to avoid death and suffering is called fear. The incentive to gather resources is called survival. When we gather more than our fair share of resources it’s called greed. Humans are pretty good about restraining greed. We learn at an early age the value of sharing. Stable societies exist on principles of individual fairness, but individuals don’t control pharmaceuticals. Corporations do. The days of Jonas Salk are over, modern medicines are researched and developed not by selfless individuals, but by selfish giant corporations. And corporations are incentivized by profits and motivated by greed. At the risk of alienating a generation of Wall Street fans, greed isn’t always good. Greed can be good. Greed is part of human nature. You’re greedy. I’m greedy. We may show our greed in different ways, but its still present to some extent in all of us. Corporate greed propels invention, and invention works great for society. It brought us lots of fun things like railroads and Facebook and the Pet Rock. Usually the pricing of these new and exciting products is held in place by consumer demand. No matter how good a product might be, people will only pay a certain price. This is true with Big Macs and Mach 3 razors and Buicks; raise the price too much, people stop buying. But when it comes to healthcare, those primal incentives of fear and survival take over and normal consumer behavior no longer applies. The healthcare industry is like the Zombie apocalypse…it’s the perfect storm of fear and greed. The greed produces the supply. The desire to make profits is the incentive to invest in the development of new medicines. The fear produces the demand. People will pay limitless amounts to avoid suffering. This creates a totally inelastic demand curve. “Drugs are typically non-discretionary and consumers are relatively price-insensitive.” I didn’t write this little gem. This came from a Pharma Bro slide presentation to investors. You’re Snow White and you’ve just taken a bite of the poisoned apple. How much will you pay for the antidote? The wicked Step Queen knew the power of control over life and death. So too does the Pharma Bro. That’s why he raised the price of HIV medicine by five thousand percent and got away with it. Greed can be good, but unchecked greed is always terrible. Unchecked greed leads to more Ferraris and beach houses for Pharma bros (yay!), but it also means increased pricing for the sick and dying (boo!) and the general commodification of the American healthcare system (super boo!).Thank God that we live in the United States where we’re protected by strict price controls on drug pricing. Wrong. There are no drug price controls in the United States, which means we have to rely on the generous nature of big pharma to set pricing, and we all know how generous large pharmaceutical companies can be. But this is not a shared problem. This is an American problem. Dig out that shoebox under your bed and take a look at your passport. If it says United States of America on it, congratulations, you are subsidizing the rest of the world’s health care industry. The research and development of most major pharmaceutical companies is funded by overcharging sick American consumers in an American market with no price controls and then releasing the same medicines to overseas price controlled markets at significantly cheaper prices. Does that mean Americans are more afraid of death than the rest of the world? Is that why we’re willing to pay more in America for life saving drugs? That’s insanity. We stormed the beach of Normandy! We sent up a bunch of guys to divert that asteroid in Armageddon and beat the alien invasion in Independence Day and War of the Worlds. We’re the home of the brave. We pay more in America because we don’t have a choice. Lack of a price controls allows big pharma to set pricing, and with inelastic demand, we’ll pay whatever they tell us to pay. So too would anyone. There was a popular documentary a few years ago about how awesome the French healthcare system was. In France, the government set the prices of medicines. In the United States, large pharmaceutical companies set drug prices. Which do you think will be lower? Cancer will kill you just as fast in Pittsburgh as it will in Paris, but the sucker in Pittsburgh has to pay four times more to buy the medicine he needs to stop it from doing so. Of course the French healthcare system is awesome, someone else is paying for it. When you swallow that pill, you’re not paying for the 47 cents of ingredients that actually go into your body, you’re paying for the hundreds of millions of dollars of research and development that went into that pill’s creation. If you’re swallowing that pill in France, you’re doing it cheaper because of America. America has opened a tab at the pharma bar and everyone else is drinking for free, but setting price controls isn’t entirely the answer. It works for other countries, because American consumers pick up the research tab. Consider, though, if we all had limited pricing: profits would decrease, but so too would the rate of new innovation. I like being alive. And I want those pharmaceutical companies to be as motivated as possible to keep coming up with better ways to keep me and my friends going. Jonas Salk took no patents for his polio vaccine. He believed public health to be a moral commitment. It is a moral commitment. And morally, we should all pay our fair share. It’s an entirely complicated issue, but understanding the basic inequities of the international healthcare market is a great first step to developing a new system which spreads the costs fairly amongst us all and de-commodifies the American market.Matthew B.J. Delaney published his first novel, Jinn, in 2003. Winner of the International Horror Guild Award, the novel was optioned for film by Touchstone Pictures, was featured as People magazine’s Page-Turner of the Week, and received a Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Delaney received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Dartmouth College and a master’s in public administration from Harvard.Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, he left a career in finance and moved from Boston to New York City to join the New York City Police Department. He has been a member of the NYPD for twelve years and has been assigned to precincts throughout Manhattan and the Bronx as well as within Police Headquarters and the Intelligence Division. He is currently a decorated special operations lieutenant serving in a Brooklyn violent crime suppression unit. He continues to write in his spare time.

Twenty-nine years ago I photographed people at play for a series in my portfolio. I wanted to shoot Tom Hayden, who I knew as the right fielder on a team in the men’s baseball league I played in. He agreed to pose for me at a batting cage in mid-town, and we made some good images. I gave him a print, and figured that was the end of our business. The next year I was looking for a new team, and called him to get his manager’s number. And that’s how I joined the Hollywood Stars in 1988. Over the next two years Tom and I became friends, first through baseball, then through politics, and then just because. We had midweek work-outs and rode to games together on Sunday. We went to movies. I volunteered on some of his campaigns, and he kept me involved between elections. He debriefed me after my first date with my wife, and we attended each other’s wedding receptions. He gave our son a tour of the State Senate. Mostly, though, we had baseball. That version of the Hollywood Stars eventually disbanded, and the bond between us weakened. It’s always that way in baseball; the ties forged on the field decay at a constant rate away from it. We last spoke about 13 years ago. We played catch in Culver City, and talked about his young son and about my teenage son. Then we parted and got on with our lives.

This 20-minute explainer video lays down three rules for becoming a dictator:1. Get the key supporters on your side.2. Control the treasure.3. Minimize key supporters.The video is based on a book called, The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good PoliticsFor eighteen years, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith have been part of a team revolutionizing the study of politics by turning conventional wisdom on its head. They start from a single assertion: Leaders do whatever keeps them in power. They don’t care about the “national interest” — or even their subjects—unless they have to.This clever and accessible book shows that the difference between tyrants and democrats is just a convenient fiction. Governments do not differ in kind but only in the number of essential supporters, or backs that need scratching. The size of this group determines almost everything about politics: what leaders can get away with, and the quality of life or misery under them. The picture the authors paint is not pretty. But it just may be the truth, which is a good starting point for anyone seeking to improve human governance.

Geek Fuel is a subscription delivery service that caters to those of us that love comics, gaming, and general geek culture. Every month, Geek Fuel will assemble a box of goodies with a value of $50 or over. The specific items are a mystery, but you’ll always get an exclusive t-shirt not found anywhere else, a full downloadable game, the latest issue of Geek Fuel Magazine, and 5-8 items like toys, comics, collectibles, and more.They say each box delivers a $50 value (minimum), and we've found each box to be truly worth it. Plus, with this deal you get a welcome box and three additional boxes for just $79.99. Past products include paraphernalia from titles like Doctor Who, Super Mario Bros, and The Avengers. One of our favorite finds was a Stormtrooper Bobblehead.Geek Fuel is a great pick me up in the mailbox every month, for yourself or for a friend. Act fast if you want your own Geek Fuel Mega Pack: this 64% off deal is for a limited time only.Also explore the Best-Sellers from different categories on our network right now:Online CoursesGear + GadgetsLifestyleDesign

In acknowledgement of evangelical comic artist Jack Chick's death yesterday, please enjoy this classic animation of the Chick tract "Somebody Goofed," created in 1998 by longtime Boing Boing pals Syd Garon and Rodney Ascher.

Things Jack Chick hated (a partial list): Dungeons and Dragons, Roman Catholics, Freemasons, Muslims, Jews and Satan. (more…)

Police are investigating a Canadian man in a British Columbia border town after a video went viral that shows the man yelling racial slurs at another person, apparently over a parking ticket. (more…)

The world's most sophisticated security experts have been bombarded with recruiting offers from UAE-based company Darkmatter, which bills itself as a major state security contractor -- but people who've taken the bait say they were then told that they were being hired to weaponize huge arsenals of zero-day vulnerabilities so that the UAE can subject its own population to fine-grained, continuous surveillance. (more…)

A China-based maker of surveillance cameras said Monday it will recall some products sold in the United States after a massive "Internet of Things" malware attack took down a major DNS provider in a massive DDOS attack. The stunningly broad attack brought much internet activity to a halt last Friday. (more…)

The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2), funded by billionaire Paul Allen's, is developing projects like an AI-based search engine for scientific papers and a system to extract "visual knowledge" from images and videos. According to Scientific American, another goal of AI2 is "to counter messages perpetuated by Hollywood and even other researchers that AI could menace the human race." SciAm's Larry Greenemeier interviewed AI2 CEO and computer scientist Oren Etzioni:Why do so many well-respected scientists and engineers warn that AI is out to get us?It’s hard for me to speculate about what motivates somebody like Stephen Hawking or Elon Musk to talk so extensively about AI. I’d have to guess that talking about black holes gets boring after awhile—it’s a slowly developing topic. The one thing that I would say is that when they and Bill Gates—someone I respect enormously—talk about AI turning evil or potential cataclysmic consequences, they always insert a qualifier that says “eventually” or this “could” happen. And I agree with that. If we talk about a thousand-year horizon or the indefinite future, is it possible that AI could spell out doom for the human race? Absolutely it’s possible, but I don’t think this long-term discussion should distract us from the real issues like AI and jobs and AI and weapons systems. And that qualifier about “eventually” or “conceptually” is what gets lost in translation...How do you ensure that an AI program will behave legally and ethically?If you’re a bank and you have a software program that’s processing loans, for example, you can’t hide behind it. Saying that my computer did it is not an excuse. A computer program could be engaged in discriminatory behavior even if it doesn’t use race or gender as an explicit variable. Because a program has access to a lot of variables and a lot of statistics it may find correlations between zip codes and other variables that come to constitute a surrogate race or gender variable. If it’s using the surrogate variable to affect decisions, that’s really problematic and would be very, very hard for a person to detect or track. So the approach that we suggest is this idea of AI guardians—AI systems that monitor and analyze the behavior of, say, an AI-based loan-processing program to make sure that it’s obeying the law and to make sure it’s being ethical as it evolves over time.Do AI guardians exist today?We issued a call to the community to start researching and building these things. I think there might be some trivial ones out there but this is very much a vision at this point. We want the idea of AI guardians out there to counter the pervasive image of AI—promulgated in Hollywood movies like The Terminator—that the technology is an evil and monolithic force."AI Is Not out to Get Us" (SciAm)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbelhLT5veE"With the right tension, and the right distance of "travel" it doesn't even hurt your hand...much." (Essential Craftsman)

A woman walking around Sacramento with a skull on a stick led police to a homeless encampment where she found the cranium. Apparently someone spotted the woman marching around with the skull and called police. After police found the woman at an abandoned house, she took them to the area where they located the body."A call like this is not something that happens every day," Sacramento police Sgt. Bryce Heinlein told Fox 40. "We hope we can get down to the bottom of what caused this person to become deceased."

People are dying for a ride in Ellena Funeral Car's Maserati Hearse: Multifunctional steering wheel- Dual-zone automatic climate control- Windshield wiper with rain sensor- Body in fiberglass- Hydraulic Alzabara- Interior lighting LED- Stainless steel cladding and imitation leather boating- Cross removable stainless steel- Hooks door wreaths- Audio engineer- Metallic paint choiceOptional accessories:- Opening the tailgate automatic- Platform Automatic- Parking sensors- Tinted windowsMaserati Hearse (via Uncrate)

Sadly, ElectricTrousers' binary mechanical keyboard has off-brand switches, making it less useful that it might otherwise have been.It has multiple modes and type in ones and zeroes, or in ASCII text! ... Controller is an Arduino Pro Micro powered by horribly inefficient homemade code.https://i.imgur.com/QqwFS8t

Trump wants to end criticism of Trump. But more than that, he wants to silence the women he boasted about groping.Specifically, he wants America to be more like England, where "they actually have a system where you can sue if someone says something wrong." (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxvOMHoLRBY&feature=youtu.beThis video depicts craftsman Tanegi Zukuri making extraordinarily beautiful and precise examples of Japanese marquetry.

There’s the stuff about science, and ranking, and surveys, and strata, we say that every year. There’s the extra layer about experimental proof, rigorous data analysis, metrics of repeatability. Got it, we got it. So we’re here are again.Yes, indeed, let me take the survey at onceLast year was a kind of game changer in the candy ranking industry. We split the survey results between those who were actually planning to trick-or-treat and those basing their answers on memories of childhoods long lost to time. We added this whole other layer of survey questions to gauge the character of survey takers. We promised we would find a legit reason for doing so, but we’d figure it out post facto. Which we did. We contrived a reason post facto. Like, did you know people who like black licorice prefer Sundays over Fridays? No wonder they suck (Sundays and black licorice). Also, did you know that people who ranked peanut butter and chocolate combo candies higher than mint and chocolate combos are wrong to do so? Why? Because it’s just wrong. Because Mint + Chocolate always goes first. Then Caramel + Chocolate. Then, if you must, Peanut Butter + Chocolate. Stuff like that, that’s what we got. No bias or rigging here.Also, what about that 5000+ people voted with over 500,000 individual preferences? God, imagine if we could harness that energy for something that actually made things better on this crazy blue dot of ours.Now we return in trying times. We were tempted to focus this survey on Tic Tac and Skittles-heavy asides and sly references. You’d all be like, Oh damn, they just did that. But Halloween is still some time away, and we know by now that campaign references only have a shelf life of about ten days, two weeks tops, so that even today, we bet half of you don’t know what we’re referencing with deplorable Tic Tacs and Skittles. (Unlike Mint + Chocolate candies, which can keep in the pantry for months and still best Peanut Butter + Chocolate in a straight up two-way race.) With sophisticated survey tools at our disposal and genuine statistical analysis to follow, here is our third annual Candy Hierarchy survey (that makes this a longitudinal study folks!) and, overall, the preparation for our tenth annual Candy Hierarchy. Please fill it out to the best of your ability, and we’ll report back, as always, on Halloween. The Third Annual Candy Hierarchy SurveyLoading...

Centron Corp. was good enough to prepare this helpful safety video for pre-helicopter parenting days. Oh, for the days when you'd send your kids out for a night of trick-or-treating at strangers' houses with nary an adult in sight, all the time wearing sight-restricting masks and dark clothes. (more…)

Italian makeup artist Lucia Pittalis transforms herself into Han Solo and others in this charming video. It's a follow-up on her remarkable self-transformations into The Blues Brothers, Iggy Pop and more: (more…)

San Francisco's 419-apartment, 58-story luxury Millennium Tower has been sinking since at it opened in 2009, and now it's begun to lean alarmingly. (more…)

Veracrypt was created to fill the vacuum left by the implosion of disk-encryption tool Truecrypt, which mysteriously vanished in 2014, along with a "suicide note" (possibly containing a hidden message) that many interpreted as a warning that an intelligence agency had inserted a backdoor into the code, or was attempting to force Truecrypt's anonymous creators to do so. (more…)

This week's top deals from the Boing Boing Store range from lobster to wine to desk organization. 1. Get Maine Lobster (50% Off)With these discounted packages from Get Maine Lobster, you can experience the sweet, fresh flavor of world-renowned Maine lobster right at your own dinner table. There are four options to choose from, each at least 50% off: 4 hand-picked live lobsters, 5 lbs of crab claws, and more. No matter your choice, you’re guaranteed a delicious meal—just ask Rachel Ray, USA Today, or The Wall Street Journal. 2. Stainless Steel Wine Chilling Stick, Aerator & Pourer (60% Off)The Stainless Steel Wine Chilling Stick ($17.98) is an iceless chilled stick that cools your vino from right inside the bottle. Just stick it in your freezer for at least two hours, then pop it into the bottle of your choice to quickly chill the wine down to the perfect drinking temperature. The best part is that the wine chilling stick is also an aerator and pourer, so you get the perfect amount of crisp wine in your glass, every time. 3. Spacebar Monitor Stand & 6-Port USB Hub (69% Off)The Spacebar ($37.99) is more than just a sleek monitor stand. It comes packing four USB 3.0 ports for high speed syncing and two USB charging ports that will power up all your devices in no time. There’s even a handy designated space for your keyboard. Plus, the Spacebar can hold any monitor up to 30 lbs, so you don’t have to worry about whether it’ll be able to handle what you throw at it.Also explore the Internationally Shipped Best-Sellers on our network right now.

The Nightmare Machine is an MIT project to use machine learning image-processing to make imagery for Hallowe'en. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esdU-l2ckS4I wouldn't vote for either of these jokers.

The long awaited Star Wars: Ahsoka offers a glimpse into the time between the fall of the Republic and the beginning of the rebellion against the Empire. Ashoka Tano, dedicated padawan Jedi and apprentice to Anakin Skywalker, was tossed from the Jedi order on trumped up charges. After clearing herself, the Togrutan force user declined to rejoin the order and disappeared, conveniently allowing her to survive 'Order 66.' We know that in time Ahsoka will aid the budding rebellion and face off against her dreaded former master, but what happened in between? Star Wars: Ahsoka not only picks up with the story of WHAT HAPPENED??!? after the Jedi fell, it shares a few excellent tidbits about her past well, like where those white lightsabers come from! Ashoka is aided by old friends, and new, as well as enemies. See the Inquisitors begin to rise, and the Jedi light fades from the galaxy. I'm a huge Ahsoka fan, and this one of the best pieces of Star Wars fiction I've read in a long while!Star Wars: Ahsoka by E.K. Johnston

When estimating his net worth, Pepe the Cheeto is apt to include a multibillion dollar valuation for the "Trump" brand-name; but new Trump Hotels will be called "Scion" hotels, "a nod to the Trump family and to the tremendous success it has had with its businesses, including Trump Hotels, while allowing for a clear distinction between our luxury and lifestyle brands." (more…)

I made a generator to provide images from Twitter after The Fourth Debate. It picks random frames from TV footage and draws conspiracies on them. Reload the page for another set! (more…)

Facebook -- which accounts for as much as 75% of the traffic to popular websites -- tweaked its algorithm to downrank those same publishers, who had been engaged in an arms-race to dominate Facebook users' feeds through techniques intended to gain high rank in Facebook's secret scoring system. (more…)

The billboard went up in Dearborn, MI, which has a large number of Arabic speakers, and reads "Donald Trump, he can't read this, but he is afraid of it" (a riff on the bags printed with "This text has no other purpose than to terrify those who are afraid of the Arabic language"). (more…)

The Stormtrooper Decanter is on back-order, but you can pre-order one from the next batch for £22 -- it's based on Andrew Ainsworth's original movie helmet moulds from 1976, and will provide endless opportunities to point to lowball glasses and say things like "aren't you a little short for a Stormtrooper drink?" (via Bonnie Burton)

Some of the internet's most popular, well-defended services -- including Twitter -- were knocked offline yesterday by a massive denial-of-service attack that security experts are blaming on botnets made from thousands of hacked embedded systems in Internet of Things devices like home security cameras and video recorders. (more…)

I didn't think an IoT voice assistant was for me, but at $50 I couldn't resist the Amazon Echo Dot. I'm finding Alexa to be handy for lots of little things. Amazon's hockey puck like Echo Dot gives you all the utility of their personal assistant Alexa at pretty low price. I felt it wouldn't be too much of a disaster if the thing never got used. Thus far it is proving to be pretty handy. Echo Dot pairs with bluetooth speakers pretty well, and I enjoy being able to voice control my radio. Switching between news, music and podcasts is easy. I've found that this alone makes Echo Dot useful to me. Being able to occasionally stop the sound and ask Alexa for time time, weather in San Francisco or other simple, frequent searches one may perform is strangely satisfying, and temporarily provides an 'I live in the future' feeling.Next up will be syncing it with my Fitbit, tho I'm not sure what that is really going to do for me.Echo Dot (2nd Generation) - Black via Amazon

In previous books, like the strange and cinematic Big Questions, Anders Nilsen has used his gorgeous pen and ink, stipple, and hatch technique, amidst generous white space, to create surprisingly dense and dreamy worlds. In A Walk in Eden, he builds a wonderful narrative backdrop, an abandoned Eden, and invites us in to finish it with “magic markers” and our undivided attention. But this isn’t any Eden you’ve imagined or heard of, this is a tripped-out surrealist dream-Eden if drawn by Dali, Ernst Haeckel, and kiddie-show cartoonists (maybe after a little bump of ether). Over the pages, the scale of what you’re looking at, from the seemingly diatomic to full-size flora and fauna, changes until you feel as though you’re really examining this world in a unique and thorough way. The book is really engaging and wants to tell you its stories, as-is, but I can only image how much richer it becomes after coloring it in yourself. The adult coloring book is all of the rage these days and I, for one, am a fan of this perhaps shortlived, gimmicky genre. A Walk in Eden takes the genre for a stroll in a very fun and promising direction. And like any coloring book worth its bold outlines, it was hard to get through this without wanting to grab my Crayolas, stick my tongue out like a five year old, and start coloring. See sample pages from this book at Wink.A Walk in Eden: A Coloring Book by Anders Nilsen by Anders NilsenDrawn and Quarterly9.8 x 9.9 x 0.4 inches (softcover)$17 Buy a copy on Amazon

Skateboarder Rick McCrank hosts Abandoned, a series from Vice where he explores abandoned malls, amusement parks, racetracks, and even nuclear missile silos. Many of these are excellent places to skate. (more…)

This gentleman didn't want a tow truck to take his car away, so he tried to drive off the truck's bed. You will believe what happened next.

This patient police officer does not take much stock in the legitimacy of the sovereign citizen movement.Best part:Cop: "You're under arrest."Sovereign citizen: "NO I'M NOT!"From Wikipedia: "The sovereign citizen movement is a loose grouping of American and Canadian litigants, commentators, tax protesters, and financial-scheme promoters. Self-described sovereign citizens take the position that they are answerable only to their particular interpretation of the common law and are not subject to any government statutes or proceedings."

You can really see the dogs adjusting their balance and controlling the boards! Haole and Hanzo are both awesome!

Dangit human. put some muscle in itThis little monkey is trying her hardest to train a limp-limbed human how to crack open a nut with a rock. When she realizes the human isn't making much of an effort, she looks up with an expression that says, "Wtf‽ Help me out here, hairless ape covered in fibers!"Similarly: Monkey teaches human how to crush leaves

At the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation white-tie event in New York last night, presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton sat within groping distance of one another—and delivered speeches for a largely-Catholic audience. A traditional and restrained roasting of oneself and one's opponent, the dinner speeches mark the final public event where the two will tangle before election day. And, as you may already have predicted, Donald Trump managed to get himself booed at a charity dinner.Here's the Washington Post's cut of the best moments:He joked about the size of his hands and the size of his rival Hillary Clinton's rally crowds, then compared himself to Jesus. ...“Hillary is so corrupt, she got kicked off the Watergate Commission,” Trump said, citing a false Internet rumor as the crowd turned on him and started to boo, something that simply doesn't happen at lavish charity dinners at the Waldorf Astoria hotel. The face of one the guests sitting on the stage behind him was suddenly struck with horror.“Hillary believes that it's vital to deceive the people by having one public policy and a totally different policy in private,” Trump said, as the booing intensified.Trump would go on to accuse Clinton of “pretending not to hate Catholics” and mock the Clinton Foundation's work in Haiti. At one point, he wondered aloud if the crowd was booing him or Clinton, to which someone in the crowd answered: “You!”He screwed it up because he could not restrain his spite toward his opponent, had little himself at all, and wasn't very funny. Trump, though, to his credit, made a good show of taking Clinton's jabs with good humor, laughing and grinning along with everyone else (in contrast to his infamously sullen demeanor at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner.)The real loser of the night? Rudy Guliani, who sat simmering like a dollar store Mussolini while Hillary dumped on him with her best line of the night.https://twitter.com/MaddowBlog/status/789283241190535169?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

2013's Kool for the Holidays didn't really serve as the comeback I was hoping for.

Ezra Klein has a wonderful piece on Vox, "Hillary Clinton’s 3 debate performances left the Trump campaign in ruins," that well describes the master class in managing a bully into hanging himself these general election debates have been. Klein points out how Clinton pushed all Trump's buttons and practically had him performing tricks on command. Via Vox:Trump’s meltdown wasn’t an accident. The Clinton campaign coolly analyzed his weaknesses and then sprung trap after trap to take advantage of them.Clinton’s successful execution of this strategy has been, fittingly, the product of traits that she’s often criticized for: her caution, her overpreparation, her blandness. And her particular ability to goad Trump and blunt the effectiveness of his political style has been inextricable from her gender. The result has been a political achievement of awesome dimensions, but one that Clinton gets scarce credit for because it looks like something Trump is doing, rather than something she is doing — which is, of course, the point.It began in the first debate. "Donald," she kept saying. No one quite knows why Trump so loathes the sound of his first name, but he does. He quickly tried to shame Clinton into showing him more respect. "Secretary Clinton -- yes, is that okay?" he said, after she once again called him Donald. "Good. I want you to be very happy. It's very important to me."Clinton’s next answer: "In fact, Donald was one of the people who rooted for the housing crisis..."Each debate has followed the same pattern. Trump begins calm, but as Clinton needles him, he falls apart, gets angrier, launches bizarre personal attacks, offers rambling justifications for his own behavior, and loses the thread of whatever question was actually asked of him.Clinton, meanwhile, crisply summarizes the binders full of policy information she absorbed before the debate. The gap in preparation, knowledge, and basic competence has been evident in every contest, and it’s led to polls showing that even voters who loathe Clinton recognize she’s far more qualified and capable than Trump. Nor does Clinton make mistakes — she’s often criticized for being careful and bland in her answers, but here it’s helped her, as she’s never taken the headlines away from Trump’s own gaffes.The Republican primary field were incapable of managing this overgrown orange child. Secretary Clinton put him away with grace and dignity.

A former Booz Allen Hamilton contractor who worked with the National Security Agency will face charges of espionage in a case involving 50 terabytes or more of highly sensitive NSA data the government says were stolen. (more…)

My friend Rachel shot this great video of a cute spider making her web. Anyone know what kind it is?

This Python Mega Course will help you learn to code by teaching you to build 10 real-world apps that each highlight a unique use of Python.Job prospects for coders are still growing steadily—and with Python being one of the most popular coding languages out there today, it’s important for job seekers to demonstrate a widespread understanding of the language. That's why we recommend this course. It goes beyond the basics to give you real-world skills.You’ll have access to 172 lectures and 21.5 hours of content designed to help you build web applications, database applications, web visualizations, and much more.At the end of the course, you’ll have built 10 apps you can be proud of—and show off to potential employers. Some of the specific apps you’ll build include a webcam motion detector, a desktop application, and an interactive web-based financial chart.For a limited time, we've dropped the price of the Python Mega Course to 78% off retail, selling for just $42.Also explore the Best-Sellers on our network right now:VaporizersFEZ (28% off)Lightning CablesApple 10ft MFi-Certified: 3 Pack (83% off)DIY KitPiper Computer Kit (6% off)PhotographyLytro Illum Camera (73% off)DesignThe Giant Design Asset & Vector Bundle (97% off)

These notebooks are all blank, calm, and satisfying. All three have attached ribbon bookmarks, elastic bands to hold them shut, and pockets in the inside back cover to tuck ephemera into.SketchyNotebook (bottom left photo above) comes with thin sheets of printed plastic to place behind the page you’re writing on, as a guide for navigating the blank space. It starts with the templates intended for graphic designers (squares, triangles) and journalists (horizontal lines, vertical lines; not sure what this has to do with journalism), which is cool, but where it really dorks out is all the other templates they make: filmmakers get storyboards, mobile app developers get iPhones, interior designers get perspective grids, fashion designers get shoes, and so on. Sketchy opens completely flat, so you can write all the way to the gutter, and the perforated edges let you neatly remove the finished page. SketchyNotebook, from Taiwan, is offered in a variety of sizes, as the prize of a Kickstarter campaign, which ends November 5, 2016. The planned ship date is February, 2017. What is it about the Quo Vadis Habana notebook (bottom right photo above) that makes it so pleasurable to use? Maybe it’s the paper, cream-colored and thick, the smoothest paper I’ve felt in a notebook. The rounded corners give it dignity, and the sewn binding suggests durability. The Habana is made in the USA, with certified sustainable paper. The paper in the Flexible Notebook (middle photo above), from the Spanish company Miquelrius, is thin and white, so white, the whitest of white. The cover of mine is in a eye-soothing subtly mottled blue. Unlike the heftier Sketchy and Habana, the Flexible’s cover is, as you might guess, flexible, and the binding is sewn; you can bend the front cover out of the way while you write on the right-hand side (or the other way around, for lefties).You may wonder about ghosting, bleeding, and other inkly topics; there are so many variables when it comes to pens and writing that there isn’t room to go into them in this review. I prioritize notebooks over pens; I recommend getting any of these that catches your eye, then finding the pen that works with it.See sample pages from this book at Wink.Quo Vadis Habana Journal9 x 6.2 x 0.6 inches$27 Buy a copy on AmazonFlexible NotebookMiquelrius, 5.25 x 8.25$14 Buy a copy on MiquelriusSketchyNotebook Series: Creative's All-In-One NotebookKickstarter$18-$28 Buy a copy on Kickstarter

Oscar Owen has a nice tutorial for doing three different tricks with a standard Sharpie pen.[via]

My colleagues at Institute for the Future are hosting a "Positive Platform Design Jam" November 30-December 1 at our Palo Alto, California gallery and offices. The goal is to hack on software or conceptual frameworks for on-demand platforms that not only maximize profits for their owners but also provide dignified and sustainable livelihoods for those who work on them. Are you a creative technologist, social inventor, policy expert, labor activist? IFTF hopes you'll apply to participate! From IFTF:Why are we doing this?A host of technologies—from automation to digital platforms for coordination of tasks — are reinventing not just what people do to earn a living but at a much deeper level how we organize to create value. The landscape of labor economics is in upheaval. In the process, new platforms, algorithms, and attitudes are undermining many established institutions, regulatory regimes, and work practices, challenging some of the basic tenets of the social safety net established in the 20th century. But what of the workers? How can we ensure dignified and sustainable livelihoods for everyone?Solutions won’t come from any one agency, discipline, or company. It will take collaboration, broad public engagement, smart policy, and an openness to reinventing old economic models. And while we can’t put the technologies enabling on-demand platforms back in the box, the algorithms we embed in them, the platform design choices we make, the policy and regulatory solutions we create can be shaped by all of us. It is one of the more urgent tasks that we face today. And we need your helpApply to join the IFTF Positive Platforms Design Jam: 11/30 – 12/1Learn more about Positive Platforms in the IFTF report: “10 Strategies for a Workable Future”

Yes, Starbucks coffee IS that good(story in comments)(x-WTF)Come hell or high water, this gentleman is going to have his Starbucks.

I'm not going to spoil the fun by telling you what this guy found in a dusty old lunchbox hidden in the basement of a 1940a house he was remodeling. Just go here and enjoy each of the photos that slowly reveal the treasure he discovered inside. Don't miss part 2, here. Geraldo Rivera is gnashing his teeth.As a bonus, there's a singing girl wrestler in the story.

The Radiotopia podcasting collective is home to most of my absolute favorite podcasts: 99% Invisible, The Memory Palace, and Song Exploder. Roman Mars, founder of Radiotopia and 99% Invisible, and the other podcasters have created something truly wonderful with this network. And once every year they ask for our support to keep the network going. Count me in. From their fundraising page:Back in the day, homemade mixtapes helped convey feelings words could not. Songs were meticulously arranged in a particular order, and each track told a different story. Decorating the tape case was as important as curating the content. Every detail counted, and sharing a mixtape with someone meant the world.Radiotopia embodies the mixtape tradition. Our shows explore life, society and culture through illuminating and unforgettable stories. We focus on craft, value process, and champion good design—from the sounds in every episode, to each show’s logo and custom artwork. And we’re big fans of sharing what we love with you.Once a year, we ask you to think about how much Radiotopia podcasts mean to you, and to make a donation to help keep the network strong. Here’s your chance to support the original, independent and wildly creative Radiotopians you love, so they can continue to create amazing audio experiences for you.Support Radiotopia!https://vimeo.com/186283607