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Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey was exposed last week backing a pro-Trump "meme factory" that churns out Nazi-themed images and anti-Hillary Clinton propaganda—then spotted at a Trump rally wearing one of the nativist candidate's T-shirts. He at first walked back his involvement, but Luckey now has the backing of top colleagues at the Facebook-owned virtual reality startup."Everyone at Oculus is free to support the issues or causes that matter to them, whether or not we agree with those views," Oculus CEO Brendan Trexler Iribe wrote on Facebook. "It is important to remember that Palmer acted independently in a personal capacity, and was in no way representing the company."Another executive, Jason Rubin, said that the company did not "condone, or spread hate.""I take him at his word. Those of you who have known me before I joined Oculus know that I would not work in a place that I thought condoned, or spread hate. Nor would I remain silent if I saw it raise its head. I have always believed that games, and now especially VR, have the potential to bring people together. My view is unwavering. I continue to believe that Oculus can make the world a better place."However, the company itself has remained silent on the matter, reports Ars Technica, offering no response to their inquiries.Luckey, a near-billionaire thanks to the Facebook buyout, used some of the cash to juice Nimble America, an organization dedicated to shitposting memes that generally involve offensive stereotypes of politicians, pundits, racial minorities, Jews and other typical targets of the far right. (For their part, outspoken white supremacists seem divided between those who appreciate a wealthy ally and those who count "Cuckey" as an opportunist trying to co-opt the "Alt Right" movement.)https://twitter.com/radiatoryang/status/780424113798152196

A Reddit user took this photo of his girlfriend getting her watch stolen by some kids in Thailand. They didn't know what had happened to the missing watch until they saw this photo. I obscured the kids' faces because they aren't criminals - they are being abused by an adult who is making them do this.

Part of an ongoing series by weird chart-maker Scott Bateman; link to today's edition.

I've written an open letter to HP CEO Dion Weisler on behalf of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, asking him to make amends for his company's bizarre decision to hide a self-destruct sequence in a printer update that went off earlier this month, breaking them so that they would no longer use third-party ink cartridges. (more…)

I did an interview with the Changelog podcast (MP3) about my upcoming talk at the O'Reilly Open Source conference in London, explaining how it is that the free and open web became so closed and unfree, but free and open software stayed so very free, and came to dominate the software landscape. (more…)

I've been writing "design fiction" for years (see, for example, Knights of the Rainbow Table), and when people ask me to explain it, I say something like, "An engineer might make a prototype to give you a sense of how something works; an architect will do a fly-through to give you a sense of its spatial properties; fiction writers produce design fiction to give you a sense of how a technology might feel." (more…)

Sweden's ruling coalition of Social Democrat and Green parties has a tax plan that will make it cheaper to fix broken things and more expensive to buy things that can't be fixed after they break.From FastCo:The proposed legislation would cut regular tax on repairs of bikes, clothes, and shoes from 25% to 12%. Swedes would also be able to claim half the labor cost of appliance repairs (refrigerators, washing machines and other white goods) from their income tax. Together, these tax cuts are expected to cost the country around $54 million per year. This will be more than paid for by the estimated $233 million brought in by a new "chemical tax," which would tax the resources that go into making new goods and computers.

In "A Letter to My Allies on the Left," Rebecca Solnit -- one of my literary and political heroes -- asks the left to give up the practice of reflexively dismissing the good that politicians do, because those politicians also do terrible things. (more…)

Sailorhg's Glitchy website is a drag-and-drop way to glitchify photos.

Tools like Etherpad and Google Docs are transformative ways to collaborate on text (including code); I've used them in contexts as varied as making unofficial transcripts of statements at UN agencies to liveblogging conference presentations -- but they all share a weakness, which is that whomever owns the document server can see everything you're typing. (more…)

Weird twitterbot herder Shardcore writes, "@everytrumpette draws from the large corpus of photographs of the attendees of Trump rallies. A face detection algorithm identifies a member of the crowd, and then zooms in. Who are these people? How can they not only accept, but openly embrace an ideology of hate? This bot examines them, one by one, to try and see the humanity." (more…)

In Sweden a legislative proposal will let repair shops will charge lower sales-tax, and allow people who repair their appliances and bicycles be to write off their expenditures. (more…)

Researchers from the Norwegian Veterinary Institute developed and tested a system for horses and people to communicate using a symbolic language. From the Daily Grail:...Twenty three horses learned to tell trainers if they wanted to wear a blanket or not. Subjects were shown three symbols: a horizontal bar to say "I want a blanket", a blank square for "No change", and a vertical bar for "I don't need a blanket". They learned the meanings in a day or two and using them to convey if they were too warm or too cold, building the case for self-awareness...(In the scientific paper, the researchers write that,) "When horses realized that they were able to communicate with the trainers, i.e. to signal their wishes regarding blanketing, many became very eager in the training or testing situation. Some even tried to attract the attention of the trainers prior to the test sit- uation, by vocalizing and running towards the trainers, and follow their movements. On a number of such occasions the horses were taken out and allowed to make a choice before its regular turn, and signalled that they wanted the blanket to be removed. It turned out that the horses were sweaty underneath the blanket.""Horses can learn to use symbols to communicate their preferences" (Applied Animal Behaviour Science)

A trio of scholars who study the psychology and philosophy of science have written a fantastic paper for Springer's Sythese looking at the way that climate change conspiracy theorists construct their view of the world, and how these conspiracy theories contain self-contradictory theses (like the idea that climate change can't be predicted and the idea that the data shows we're actually headed for an ice-age). (more…)

CloudPress is a responsive WordPress theme builder that allows you to create a whole site in less than 30 minutes. CloudPress comes with tools like pre-built headers, content blocks, and footers—all you have to do is pick what you like, and drag and drop. With your subscription, you get access to 13 professionally designed WordPress themes, over 80 content blocks, 50 elements and widgets, responsive grid-based layouts, and more—everything you need to build a website that's fully functional and that looks great.Plus, you get 10 PRO sites, 3 GB of workspace, and email and priority phone support, for when you just need some help. We think CloudPress is one the best tools for building great sites without extensive developer experience or assistance.You can try it out for yourself with the CloudPress Professional Plan: Lifetime Subscription for 95% off. You could have your website up and running today.

Thank you to the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, for recognizing the greatness of French food and imported macaroni and cheese where it has (d)evolved into its own food group.

A 1989 documentary covering the birth of Batman through to the best on-screen Batman ever, Mr. Adam West.

wxs.ca/iso/ presents a simple "isometric" field of cubes, Q*Bert-style. Click and drag across it and the cubes will rise and fall in series of waves. They also start to flash wild colors... or do they? Yes, they do! (more…)

There are a handful of states that keep records of police force, but they are incomplete records, and they're maintained on paper; contrast that with URSUS, California's new tool that collects every single use of force, storing it in open, transparent free software maintained by Bayes Impact, a nonprofit. (more…)

Donald Trump said Lester Holt, tonight's debate moderator, was a Democrat. Holt is in fact a Republican. Leaving aside why Trump assumed he was a Democrat, when called on this mistake, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway gave this response: (more…)

Joey Alexander picked up jazz at six, dedicated his childhood to jazz at 8, and won a major international competition at 9. Here he is playing City Lights from his latest album. (more…)

Want to get Cool Tools' Recomendo a week early in your inbox? Sign up for the Sunday newsletter here.Game:Google Feud is a game that challenges you to guess the top ten Google autocompletes for a particular word or term. For instance, the game might prompt you with “my friend is addicted to” and you have to fill in the rest of the query. (FYI, the top ten autocompletes for this example are weed, her phone, drugs, coke, pills, drama, oxycodone, crack, anime, and alcohol.) — Mark Frauenfelder Stuff:Over the years, I’ve had to buy a variety of bras for different types of dresses and tops (racerback, backless, strapless, etc.), but the most useful purchase I’ve made has been Nippies. I’ve had these for a couple years now. They are washable, reusable and so comfortable I forget I have them on. — Claudia LamarTip:Before buying something on Amazon, enter the URL for the product at fakespot.com. This free service will analyze how many shill reviewers have rated a product, and award a “Fakespot Grade” from A to F. A low grade doesn’t necessarily mean a product is bad, it just means you shouldn’t take the reviews and user ratings into consideration when making your decision to buy something. — MF Tool:I’m trying out Splash, a cool free experimental photo search engine from 500Pixels. You sketch the rough contours of a photo you seek in color, and it will display two dozen images that “match” your sketch. The match is mostly in color, mood, and rough shapes, but it does present you with some interesting images, all licensable. — Kevin KellyReadables:A long time ago, after a bad breakup I read If the Buddha Dated by Charlotte Kasi. By the time I had finished the book, it was covered in notes and dog-eared pages, and I felt healed and ready to move on. Now, as a newlywed, I am enjoying listening to If the Buddha Married on Audible. So many great insights and communication tips. — CLStuff:All my dress shirts are now “Non-Iron” cotton material. I don’t know how this stuff works, but the ones I clumsily fold into my luggage, will unwrinkle shortly after I put them on. I use Non-Iron Oxford shirts from Land’s End and L.L. Bean, but most clothing brands seem to carry them. Eagle brand Non-Iron shirts are popular on Amazon. — KK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8os-nKuoM3o&feature=youtu.beRobbo sez, "Jonathan Pie, preeminent UK political satirist, takes on British media and their role in declaring newly re-elected Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn 'unelectable'. Pie destroys the outrageous un-democratic media bias that has hounded Corbyn throughout his time as Labour leader and does so with his usual outstanding, hilarious, enraged and profane style."

When Wells Fargo fired 5,300 employees for opening 2,000,000 accounts in its customers name (stealing their cash and trashing their credit scores in the process), it wanted us all to know that it had cleaned house, because this was just 5,300 people who, without any help from senior management, all happened to coincidentally engage in the same fraud. (more…)

The National Economic Council convened a symposium at NYU's Information Law Institute in July, and they've released their report: 25 crisp (if slightly wonky) pages on how AI could increase inequality, erode accountability, and lead us into temptation -- along with recommendations for how to prevent this, from involving marginalized and displaced people in AI oversight; to increasing the diversity of AI researchers; to modifying the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and Digital Millennium Copyright Act to clarify that neither stands in the way of independent auditing of AI systems. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI0V3MNAXQUThe cast of Hamilton joined with the New York Deaf theater in a video that is pure amazeballs. (more…)

I have just replaced my first set of Envelop AA batteries, ten years after I bought them. Around 10-12 years ago I was I doing a lot of underwater photography. High capacity, low-static-discharge AA batteries were pretty new, but an absolute must for digital strobes. I'd swap 2 sets of 4 in each one of my UW strobes almost every other dive, as blasting tons of light around the bottom of the sea takes a lot of juice. Sanyo's Eneloop batteries were the only really choice. Low Self-Discharge batteries are pretty amazing. Not only do Eneloops hold their charge if not used for up to 10 years, but the fact that they discharge while not in use so incredibly slowly means the batteries also stay healthy much, much longer. Whenever one starts to get a bit flakey, I run a refresh cycle on my charger. After a decade, finally, a few have shorted out.Over time I stopped diving as much, and Panasonic bought Sanyo. My batteries started to be used for everything around the house. I've had them in remote controlled cars, planes, head-sets, remote controls, flash-lights... you name it. These AA's were in constant service for nearly 10 years. Of the 16 I originally purchased, 8 are still in service and charge up to 1988 mAh. Eneloops are pretty amazing!Panasonic BK-3MCCA8BA Eneloop AA 2100 Cycle Ni-MH Pre-Charged Rechargeable Batteries (Pack of 8) via Amazon

If you own a dog, you've most likely heard of BarkBox - the monthly subscription box for dogs. What started as a simple idea to try out the subscription model on pet owners has since developed a cult following of dog lovers. If you haven't given it a try yet, this one month free deal is the perfect excuse to treat your dog.Here's how it works: each month, BarkBox ships a box full of goods straight to your front door—all you have to do is tell them the size of your dog, and they’ll do the rest. Each box comes packed with five or more products ranging from toys and all-natural treats to hygiene products to specially designed stuffed animals. Some of the boxes we've received have included Bully Flakes from Barkworthies, Herban Essential Pet Towelettes, and Primal Freeze-Dried Liver Munchies, to name a few.But the best part is, BarkBox supports the nearly 7 million animals entering shelters every year by donating a portion of all their proceeds to animals in need. With this special deal from the Boing Boing Store, you’ll get a full month free with a 6-month or 12-month membership.

D10D3 built this "cyberdeck" on a C64c (a modern recreation of the Commmodore 64) with a Raspberry Pi CPU, VGA port, and all the I/O you could ask for (USB/Bluetooth/wifi/Ethernet). (more…)

Beth Jacobson was a Wells Fargo loan officer who blew the whistle on the bank's predatory, racist loan-fraud in the runup to the 2008 financial crisis, which tanked the world's economy and nearly wiped out Wells Fargo (they were rescued with a $36B taxpayer-funded bailout). (more…)

Eli Livingston's $23 viynl Big Chap bank is a beaut (I bought one last week when I saw it in person in a store): the whole sculpt is awesome, but the tinted/clear-plastic brain-casing is just the best. (more…)

Writer/artist Ingrid Burrington has published a book called Networks of New York: An Illustrated Field Guide to Urban Internet Infrastructure, which sketches the physical extrusions of the internet into New York City's streets and buildings, and makes especial note of how much of that infrastructure has been built as part of the post 9/11 surveillance network that NYC has erected over the past 15 years. (more…)

Pteryxx writes, "Writer who has spent 30+ years in solitary has his own published writing censored from reaching him - and his unpublished manuscript was destroyed in moving him to a different facility. " (more…)

This wonderful little video by Randy Olson lays out one argument for why as a public political speaker, Donald Trump is perceived to be such a crowd-pleaser, and Hillary Clinton gets weaker scores. It's all about narrative design. (more…)

A team working with our video director genius friend Joe Sabia created this video for Glamour, that calculates the difference in total time that men and women spend, on average, on a variety of everyday activities. (more…)

Part of an ongoing series by weird chart-maker Scott Bateman; link to today's edition.

$3.98 gets you this flexible, grippy camera tripod plus bluetooth remote, GoPro adapter, and smartphone holder. Use code ADJ758YT on Amazon. I just ordered one and Amazon says it'll arrive on September 25.

See sample pages from this book at Wink.The Pet Dragon by Christopher NiemannGreenwillow Books2008, 40 pages, 9 x 11.8 x 0.4 inches (hardcover)$16 Buy a copy on AmazonChinese characters are wonderfully expressive, straddling the fine line between the written word and illustration. Esteemed graphic designer and picture book creator Christoph Niemann realized as much with The Pet Dragon, a whimsical story about a Chinese girl who raises a baby dragon to adulthood. In his introduction to the book, Niemann states that he had fun imagining connections between the calligraphic characters and their meanings. Reading the book, it’s clear that the author has a love of his subject and was very much enjoying himself.The story is straightforward. A young Chinese girl named Lin receives a baby dragon who grows too quickly to stay in her home. After breaking a vase, Lin’s father condemns the baby dragon to its cage. The wily dragon escapes, leading Lin on a quest to find her beloved pet. Niemann enriches his tale by transposing Chinese characters on top of his illustrations to demonstrate the relationship between each symbol and what it represents. A forest is shown as a series of trees with the symbol for tree superimposed on them, the curving lines below indicating the roots and the extended lines at the top stretching outward for the branches. The upraised slashes and crossed lines in the symbol for father become the raised eyebrows and nose on his face, while the character denoting mountain has its three upward prongs displayed over a towering mountain range. The story concludes with the twin calligraphic symbols denoting the word friend displayed atop the reunited Lin and the titular dragon.Niemann’s artwork is clean and modernist in style, and his novel approach to integrating expressive, ebullient images with the sparse, minimalist strokes of traditional calligraphy proves both endearing and effective. Although this is a book that can be read quickly, the reader should also take time to examine and enjoy the interplay between pictures and meaning that the author meticulously constructs.– Lee Hollman

My friend, Mrs. Homegrown of Root Simple, looks at sleep mattresses filled with sand.Recently a friend and frequent Root Simple commenter who goes by the handle “P” here, sent us an intriguing note. Like us, she lives in the Los Angeles area, and like us, she’s been obsessed with the idea of a mattress alternative for a while. Then she got a lead on an exciting bed option, and she shared it with us, saying basically, “I know this couple that you have to meet. They’ve made a bed out of sand!”So we went to meet Michael Garcia and Stephanie Wing-Garcia and their sand mattress. They live just a few minutes from our house, in a big, sunny apartment full of beautiful things–and they sleep on a king sized bed which consists of a low wooden platform, a pair of twin-sized canvas mattress casings filled with ground white marble sand, which in turn are topped by an inch thick natural latex mat and a layer of sheepskin.They love their bed. The idea for it came them in a flash of inspiration, and it has changed their lives. Stephanie credits the bed with healing the excruciating chronic back pain which she’d been suffering from for seven years.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/183848557Timeshares are so awful that there are companies that you get you can hire to help you get out of the timeshare you were intimidated into buying. This video is an ad for timeshareexitteam, which compares the cost of a timeshare to just taking a vacation in a hotel.

Rakeyia Scott, the wife of recent police shooting victim Keith L. Scott, recorded a video on her cell phone just before and after the fatal shooting of her husband by police in Charlotte, N.C. The New York Times obtained the video from attorneys for the Scott family. It includes graphic violence of a man being killed by police, and strong language. (more…)

Rarely do I hear "Oh, awesome!" when I hand my daughter a book. David Scarfe's Geeky LEGO Crafts also elected squeals of delight. Packed with projects like building your own Space Invaders, and a cassette tape, Geeky LEGO Crafts immediately led us to dragging out a few tubs of LEGO and to get snapping! The directions are great, and easy to follow. We especially enjoy the Tetrix fridge magnets!Geeky LEGO Crafts by David Scarfe via Amazon

Google is downranking websites that use pejorative, racist terms like n*gger, so the awful people of 4chan and /pol/ are replacing that word with "google." (more…)

Three gentleman were allowed to resign from their jobs after they were accused of forcing a 19-year-old man to eat marijuana. The gentlemen's names are Richard G. Pina, Jason E. McFadden, and Michael J. Carnicle, and they were all Phoenix Police Department officers. The officers' superior, Lt. Jeff Farrior, was told about the incident but chose not to investigate. For this, he was demoted to the position of sergeant. From USA Today:All three officers had been wearing body cameras but they were turned off at the time, he said.The 19-year-old, a Phoenix resident, brought the matter to the department's attention, Yahner said. The man reported that several officers stopped him for a traffic violation at about 3:30 a.m. Sept. 13. The officers were reported to have found marijuana in his vehicle during the stop, [Phoenix Police Chief Joe] Yahner said.When the marijuana was found, the man told police, officers demanded he eat the marijuana to avoid being taken to jail, Yahner said. The man said he ate about a gram of marijuana, was issued traffic tickets and then released. He reported being sick as a result.

A 12-year-old Australian boy accused of twice raping a six-year-old girl in a school restroom has had his bail conditions amended so he can take a vacation with his family.Via The Independent:The boy is accused of raping the girl twice in separate attacks and is further accused of indecently assaulting her three further times with the other 12-year-old boy.The boys were arrested at Chatswood Police Station on 30 August and suspended from school when police were alerted by the girl’s parents to the incident after it took place.The boy has been charged with three counts of aggravated indecency in company, two counts of sexual intercourse with a child under the age of 10 and one count of indecent assault.

Princeton University psych prof Susan Fiske published an open letter denouncing the practice of using social media to call out statistical errors in psychology research, describing the people who do this as "terrorists" and arguing that this was toxic because of the structure of social science scholarship, having an outsized effect on careers. (more…)

Star Citizen is an epic game development project, crowdfunded to the tune of $124m (million!) and directed by industry legend Chris Roberts. But whether it'll end up an epic game remains unclear, as endless feature creep, ambition and internal rancor see the project enter its fifth year. While Roberts was bothering his devs to add multiple layers of clothing to the game, each with different fabric properties, David Braben was shipping Elite 4 to hungry star pilots. (more…)

Robert Croucher owns Hatton & Berkeley, a firm that sent "speculative invoices" to people it accused of illegally downloading the Robert Redford movie "The Company You Keep" -- letters so egregious that Lord Lucas described the company as "scammers" and the letters as "extortion," urging Britons to "put them in the bin." (more…)

Yesterday's disciplinary board hearing for imprisoned whistleblower Chelsea Manning ended with Manning being sentenced to 14 days' worth of solitary confinement, with 7 of the days "suspended" unless there is another infraction. (more…)