Apparently this is real. God help us.If this tweet from right-wing disinformation jerk Tomi Lahren is to be believed, White House staff working for so-called “President” Donald Trump are printing out tweets from various awful hate-filled accounts for him to read, which he then signs and hands out to racist admirers who come to kiss his butt.And then the butt-kissers take photos of the signed sheets of tweets and post them on social media like they're fancy trophies.An infinite loop of neo-nazi fascist stupidity.It's MAGA Sycophant Inception.What a horrible time we live in, America.It appears that the White House prints out tweets for Trump to view on hard copy and that the accounts they are picking from are…. Amazing https://t.co/WIsOpUkvmR— Sam Stein (@samstein) October 23, 2019More evidence of how pathetically narcissistic and weak @realDonaldTrump is- his staff is reduced to making printouts of positive tweets to make him feel good about himself. Thanks for sharing this Tomi, we never would have known this particular indicator otherwise. https://t.co/20gr8Ty7Nr— Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) October 23, 2019Trump is getting printed-out tweets from the owner of the Gateway Pundit, the site that fell for a Jacob Wohl hoax and once claimed “Antifa super soldiers” were going to behead white parents. https://t.co/dWYnfmd3w5— Will Sommer (@willsommer) October 23, 2019 Read the rest

In 1996, AOL and Yahoo! were at the top. Things changed. They can change again.(Data Is Beautiful) Read the rest

Entomophthora muscae, the "fly destroyer," is a fungus that infects the insect and zombifies. Then, at dusk, "the fly points its wings straight up and dies in a gruesome pose so that a fungus can ooze out and fire hundreds of reproductive spores."“Oh, it’s a nightmare for the flies,” retired UC Riverside entomologist Brad Mullens told KQED's Deep Look. “If their little brains could comprehend it, they would live in fear.” Read the rest

In this recording, embedded below, Trump lawyer William Consovoy tells Judge Denny Chin that if President Donald Trump were to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, he could not be investigated for the murder while in office. The context is oral arguments in Trump v. Vance, one of the legal efforts to get Trump, a famously unscrupulous and bankruptcy-prone businessman, to publicly disclose his tax returns.Here is Trump's lawyer, William Consovoy, telling Judge Denny Chin that if Trump were to shoot someone on fifth avenue, he could not be criminally investigated while in office.Very normal argument. pic.twitter.com/xlDBwmCUnR— Erick Fernandez (@ErickFernandez) October 23, 2019To most Republicans, Trump is the country. The suggestion of him doing something "wrong" is already meaningless except as a threat to them. Working with him is possible, if you're not part of the in-group, but working with them is pointless. They're either in or they're out. Read the rest

Runa Sandvik (previously) is a legendary security researcher who spent many years as a lead on the Tor Project; in 2016, the New York Times hired her as "senior director of information security" where she was charged with protecting the information security of the Times's newsroom, sources and reporters. Yesterday, the Times fired her, eliminating her role altogether, because "there is no need for a dedicated focus on newsroom and journalistic security."This is a remarkably shortsighted move on the part of the Times; as state actors, political operatives, griefers, spies and guns-for-hire seek to dominate information landscapes, the integrity of the Times's information security is every bit as important as the fire-suppression systems in its shiny new building.In her farewell tweets, Sandvik writes, "I'm grateful for the 3.5 years of collaboration and helping support brilliant journalists; it's been amazing and exciting; I remain a fierce advocate for the mission of protecting reporters & sources, and I'm very disappointed to see this chapter brought to a sudden close."If you are a source contemplating going to the Times with a story that could land you in physical, economic, or legal jeopardy, this is really sobering news: can you trust a news entity with your safety when it has eliminated the only person charged with defending it?Today the @nytimes chose to eliminate my role, stating that there is no need for a dedicated focus on newsroom and journalistic security. I strongly believe in what I do (and what we did), and to say I’m disappointed would be an understatement. Read the rest

I had thought of repainting my 1987 VW Vanagon like BA's van, but the spoiler... Read the rest

Disneyland can be a hotbed of infectious disease. A single infected-with-the-measles fun seeker can launch a multi-county disease watch, endangering folks unable to be vaccinated.CNN:A Los Angeles County resident visited Disneyland last week while infectious with measles, health officials said late Tuesday, potentially exposing hundreds of other people to the highly contagious disease.The individual went to Starbucks at 3006 S. Spulveda Boulevard in West Los Angeles early on the morning on October 16 before going to Disneyland from 9.15 a.m. onwards, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said in a statement."Anyone who may have been at these locations on these dates during these timeframes may be at risk of developing measles for up to 21 days after being exposed," the statement said.Previously on Boing Boing: Disneyland: the most infectious place on Earth Read the rest

This wooden birthday card spells "HAPPY BIRTHDAY." You can remove the letters from the card and make a little robot that holds a tiny wooden greeting card that says "HAPPY BIRTHDAY." It's only , just a few bucks more than a boring paper card you'd find at one of those fancy greeting card shops at a mall. The same company makes robot greeting cards for other occasions, too. Read the rest

Song of the South is one of the most obscure and most popular of all the Disney movies: despite the fact that Disney has not made it available for a generation, the movie is the basis for the "Splash Mountain" flume rides at the Disney parks, and the movie's theme, "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" remains a familiar anthem.The movie's odd status is down to the racist themes it embodies, telling the story of a former slave who repeatedly feints towards his great satisfaction with life on a plantation, and who serves as a Magical Negro who comforts a young, affluent white boy whose parents are struggling with an unhappy marriage.Apologists for the racist themes in the film call it a product of its time, but its release in 1946 was hugely controversial (it was even controversial during its production, with civil rights campaigners writing to Walt Disney personally to ask him to halt production).How did Disney come to make this bizarre film, and how did they come to decide to simultaneously make it disappear and elevate it to a cultural touchstone? Karina Longworth is one of Hollywood's great historians. For many years, her You Must Remember This podcast was a must-listen feed of incredible tales from film's first century, digging into the truth behind scandals, skullduggery, triumph and tragedy, from the Manson Family to Marilyn Monroe.Last year, Longworth went on hiatus while she promoted her book, Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes's Hollywood, but a year later, she's back with a new series, delving into the secret, lost, shameful history of Song of the South. Read the rest

Inspired by Marx's aphorism that "Religion is the opium of the people," the USSR commissioned a wealth of anti-religious artwork, much of it very clever and striking. A new book called Godless Utopia: Soviet Anti-Religious Propaganda, edited by Roland Elliott Brown, Damon Murray and Stephen Sorrell collects the most striking examples of the form. The Guardian has a tremendous gallery of excerpts from the book.Godless Utopia: Soviet Anti-Religious Propaganda, [Roland Elliott Brown, Damon Murray and Stephen Sorrell/Fuse] Down with God! How the Soviet Union took on religion – in pictures [The Guardian] Read the rest

For Dragon Con, Laken Cappy cosplayed as the Haunted Mansion's psychic medium Madame Leota: View this post on Instagram Madame Leota is 99% done or dare I say...... 𝟗𝟗𝟗%......done. 👻🙃🔮🖤 #madameleotacosplay #disneycosplay #cosplay #dcon2019 #999ghostsA post shared by 🖤Laken Cappy💀 (@lakencappy) on Aug 26, 2019 at 5:31am PDT View this post on Instagram "Serpents, and spiders, tail of a rat… Call in the spirits, wherever they're at!” #disneycosplay #hauntedmansioncosplay #madameleotacosplay #dragoncon2019 #madameleota #disnerdA post shared by 🖤Laken Cappy💀 (@lakencappy) on Sep 2, 2019 at 6:34pm PDT View this post on Instagram #MadameLeota from the #HauntedMansion! Cosplayer: @lakenmo #cosplay #dragoncon #dragoncon2019 #disney #disneycosplay #hauntedmansioncosplayA post shared by David Ngo (@dtjaaaam) on Sep 11, 2019 at 8:41am PDTHer dog cosplays, too: View this post on Instagram #avengethefallen 💚A post shared by 🖤Laken Cappy💀 (@lakencappy) on Apr 25, 2019 at 1:56pm PDT Read the rest

Is UK Home Secretary Priti Patel laughing in this image? She was not, and both the BBC and interiewer Andrew Marr have apologized for his suggestion that she was. It is her normal facial expression, as Patel correctly pointed out, and not a response to Marr's discussion of people who would suffer under Brexit."Andrew Marr commented on Priti Patel laughing after he glanced up while reading a list of business leaders concerned about the impact of Brexit on their industries."He thought he saw the home secretary smile but now accepts this was in fact her natural expression and wasn't indicating amusement at his line of questioning."The statement concluded: "There was no intention to cause offence and we are sorry if viewers felt this to be the case."The top results for Patel on Google Image search (below) suggest to me that Patel's facial expressions are, perhaps unfairly, one of those British media things. It strikes me as what happens when you're trying to hold a benign, unexploitable facial expression in the presence of cameras, but don't have a lot of practice or training in such things, and end up with an unintentionally icy smirk. The context: Patel is as far right as mainstream UK conservatism gets, a former tobacco industry lobbyist who once suggested threatening the Irish Republic with the prospect of "food shortages". She was forced to resign from former PM Theresa May's government when it emerged she'd secretely met with Israel's prime minister a day before May's own official visit. Read the rest

Japan's Henn na Hotel chain, owned by the HIS Group, uses "bed-facing Tapia robots" in its rooms; these robots turn out to be incredibly insecure: you can update them by pairing with them using a NFC sensor at the backs of their heads. The robots do not check the new code for cryptographic signatures, meaning that malicious actors can install any code they want.Security researcher Lance R. Vick discovered the vulnerability and repeatedly informed HIS Group; after they failed to take any action over 90 days, Vick publicly disclosed the defect in his Twitter stream on Oct 13. The manufacturer has now apologized "for any uneasiness caused" but continued to minimize the privacy harms, stating that "the risks of unauthorized access were low." They say they have now updated the robots.According to Vick, the Tapia robot is slated to be widely deployed during the 2020 Olympics. The hotel chain received a separate security warning from a guest on July 6 and does not appear to have acted on it.In Vick's thread, he offers this advice: "Don't trust that random contract engineers working on tough deadines took the time to put your safety and security first. Stay curious, and take everything apart. You will find the security flaws. They are everywhere."On October 16, travel firm H.I.S. Hotel Group acknowledged that it had been possible for persons to gain unauthorized access to its 100 Tapia robots at Henn na Hotel Maihama Tokyo Bay, located near Tokyo Disney Resort.The pod-like Tapia robots, which provide guests with everything from the weather to the ability to shop online in their rooms, utilize a communication protocol that allows guests to connect their smartphone. Read the rest

49% of Bernie Sanders supporters are white; compare with Biden (56%) and Warren (71%). Sanders also leads in support from women under 45. Last quarter, Sanders outraised every other candidate, and he did it with small money donations averaging $18.07.Sanders is also the only candidate -- including Warren -- who has called for a ban on the DNC accepting corporate money. The DNC is currently seeking $70m in "sponsorship" for its upcoming convention in Milwaukee, and it is soliciting the bulk of that money from K Street lobbyists representing America's corrupt, planet-destroying, super-concentrated corporations.Sanders' platform also rejects corporate money for inaugurations (individual donations will be capped at $500), and imposes a lifetime lobbying ban for DNC chairs and co-chairs, as well as former Members of Congress and their staff. Sanders will ban advertising during presidential debates, and prohibit DNC chairs/co-chairs from working for any firm with federal contracts, those seeking government approval for mergers/projects, and any firm that "can reasonably be expected to have business before Congress in the future."I am a donor to both the Bernie Sanders campaign and the Elizabeth Warren campaign.In 2016, Alvarez, the school psychologist, said he was excited about the chance to support the first potential woman president. But when he examined both candidates’ policies, Sanders came to the forefront because of his consistency in promoting progressive policies. This round, Alvarez said he again examined all the candidates. “I’m always looking to support diversity and people of color in elections, and thought Bernie should maybe sit this one out, but when I looked at all the policies his really stood out again,” said Alvarez. Read the rest

The skull of a Medieval Scot was unearthed during the construction of an Aberdeen art gallery in 2015, along with the remains of 60 others. AOC Archaeology Group recreated the face of the man that the skull belonged t0. He was a 47-year old with bad teeth and who stood 5'3" tall.From Sky News:Dr Paula Milburn, from the archaeology group, said: "SK 125 has provided us with a first fascinating glimpse of one of the people buried on the site of Aberdeen Art Gallery over 600 years ago. "The ongoing post-excavation work is examining the remains in detail and will provide us with amazing information on the kind of people buried here, including their ages, gender, health and lifestyles."Dozens of other full skeletons were also found at the site, but have not been reconstructed like SK 125.Image: AOC Read the rest

Hirevue is an "AI" company that companies contract with to screen job applicants: it conducts an hour-long videoconference session with applicants, analyzing their facial expressions, word-choices and other factors (the company does not actually explain what these are, nor have they ever subjected their system to independent scrutiny) and makes recommendations about who should get the job.The system is one giant red flag, from the junk science of microexpressions to the deployment of discredited "personality tests" as a way to evaluate candidates. The company claims that it uses (nonspecific) internal tests to ensure that racial bias (and other forms of bias) are not creeping into its models, but it does not say that it ever follows up to determine whether the candidates it rejects go on to be successful employees somewhere else, nor whether the candidates it recommends perform well once they're hired. This lack of followup is a bright line test for distinguishing rigorous machine learning from "weapons of math destruction."Despite this, Hirevue has a ton of high-profile corporate customers, including Hilton, Unilever and Goldman Sachs.Hirevue's statements in defense of their products read like a palmist or tarot reader explaining the mystical basis for their certainty that they are able to know your future. And since the corporations that use their service have no way to know whether they rejected a superior candidate on the basis of the black-box machine judgments doled out by Hirevue, they give it glowing reviews.HireVue said its system dissects the tiniest details of candidates’ responses — their facial expressions, their eye contact and perceived “enthusiasm” — and compiles reports companies can use in deciding whom to hire or disregard. Read the rest

<div style="max-width:854px"><div style="position:relative;height:0;padding-bottom:56.25%"><iframe src="https://embed.ted.com/talks/janelle_shane_the_danger_of_ai_is_weirder_than_you_think" width="854" height="480" style="position:absolute;left:0;top:0;width:100%;height:100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div>Janelle Shane is an AI researcher. In this TED talk she explains that we should not be afraid that AIs are going to rebel against us. We should be afraid of AIs because they are going to do exactly what we tell them to do. "It's really easy to accidentally give AI the wrong problem to solve," she says, "and often we don't realize that until something has actually gone wrong." Read the rest

Tantacrul explains what corporate music is, exactly—"it is designed not to resonate emotionally"— and how to make it. You don't have to be up on your Adorno and Horkheimer, but it helps! The meat of the matter begins about 6 minutes in. In this video I explore how corporatism produces soulless music, some of which is amusingly awful! I also explore how tech and oil companies with dubious business practices use music as part of propaganda campaigns to convince the public that they support ecological activism. With some music theory thrown in along the way, I also compose a few kinds of different corporate styles to show the various tropes that exist. Some of it is blundering nonsense. Some of it is a little more sinister. All of it is garbage. Enjoy!I'm a big fan of corporate music that resonates emotionally by accident. This was always a thing (the Bruton catalog is full of great examples) but it's almost a norm nowadays because talented artists often go into library music from the outset because the touring/recording/starmaking industry is so hopelessly cooked."The most common and egregious isn't-life-just-awesome instrument is the ukulele." Read the rest

You can still buy an Ames Lettering Guide! They are cheap, too. I used one in college drafting classes and also when I drew comics for bOING bOING. I think I still have it around somewhere. In this video by our friends at Cartoonist Kayfabe, Jim Rugg uses an Ames Lettering Guide as part of his excellent comic book hand lettering guide. Jim is one of the best letterers around. Most cartoonists use computer fonts, so it's a treat to see Jim letter with an ink pen. Read the rest

In this video, Internet Shaquille explains why even downmarket restaurant burritos beat your homemade ones. In brief:• Supermarket-brand tortillas are too small and thick.• You fail to warm your tortilla first, or you overcook it.• Your fold is wrong or insufficiently tight.• You fail to sear the seam to seal it shut.• You fail to wrap the finished burrito in thin foil. Read the rest

Tiffany's little blue box just got bigger as the luxury brand has just introduced a four-foot-tall advent calendar. Town&Country:[It] features a stylish screen-printed rendering of the façade of the brand's New York Flagship store, but as the saying goes, "it's what's on the inside that counts." That's because each one of the calendar's compartments is filled with a blue box: There's a full-size sterling silver "paper" cup, an 18k gold Tiffany T True bracelet, an 18k rose gold Tiffany Smile pendant with diamonds, and 21 other treats.Want one? Contact veryverytiffany@Tiffany.com and be prepared to pony up at least $122,000.Me? I'll take that advent calendar for cats and pocket the roughly $111992.01 extra instead, thanks.(Town&Country) Read the rest

Kate Storey reports on the rise and fall of Gawker 2.0, this week's essential reading for new-media navelgazers. After the smoking remains of the site were auctioned off, the new owner (Bryan Goldberg, a frequent target of the original Gawker) had a plan to revive the site and its aggressive model of journalism. But two years on, the latest post is still founder Nick Denton's 2016 signoff. What went wrong?A year after he bought it, hired a pricey staff of media veterans, and announced big plans, Goldberg and Bustle Digital Group abruptly shut it down. Or, to be more precise, decided not to get it going again in the first place.The master plan of Bryan Goldberg, potential media mogul, was becoming increasingly difficult to decipher. But a close examination of what, exactly, happened at the new almost-Gawker reveals a great deal about a man who appears to know what he wants but isn’t exactly sure how to get it.Here's the new owner's cousin, also a subject of hostile Gawker reportage:“It was pretty satisfying to see [Gawker] destroyed by Peter Thiel,” Lodwick told me this spring. “My favorite thing about how the Gawker story ended for us was we got to own it. It wasn't even a big deal for Bryan; he just bought the brand for, relatively speaking, pocket change at an auction. It was kinda like Gawker was destroyed by the world, and then we got to have this little victory lap at the end.”Uh Oh. Read the rest

A woman was practicing her dance moves when an unwelcome visitor entered the room.Wait for itImage: Imgur Read the rest

Back in 2011, I signed up for a Zappos account so I could buy pants for a wedding I was in. Then I returned them because they didn't fit. I ended up buying them at the local Macy's instead (although I bought the wrong shade of grey, oops).That should have been the end of my relationship with Zappos. Until I received this email the other day:Zappos put me at risk by exposing my data. And the best mea culpa they can offer is "Here's a discount so you can help us to increase our Q4 revenue!" That might be even pathetic than the $125 offering from Equifax. Equifax may have exposed more personal information, but unless I plan on buying a $2,000 pair of John Lobb boots from Zappos—thus giving $1800 back to the company that just screwed over my data—then I'm basically getting nothing.To be clear, Zappos offer here has only been preliminarily approved by the court in charge of the settlement. If enough people say, "I'm not paying you to pay me financial damages," the judge may change their mind. But I wouldn't hold my breath. If the only consequence to expose customer data is increasing Q4 revenue, then there's never going to be any incentive for any company to give a shit about the personal information of the people who keep them in business. And that's not a healthy economy.Image: Patrick Kitely/Flickr Read the rest

Tom the Dancing Bug, IN WHICH Ukraine gets a visit from THE DON, with an offer it can't refuse.

Most people don't spare a lot of thought on the potting for their plants. Perhaps something with a color that matches the walls, but that's as far as it goes. After all, the plants don't care what they're wearing. Do they?Actually, they might. As eye-catching as the AIRSAI Floating Bonsai Plant Pot is, its main attraction is more than just a magic trick. It might even help your plant thrive.Yes, that's an actual levitating plant stand and pot, designed to transform an already tranquil plant into a downright transcendent piece of home art. The pot levitates on the base thanks to simple magnetic technology that will nonetheless mystify guests.What's more, the plant can easily be set to rotate continuously. That not only shows off the angles of your favorite plant but will actually nourish it. With 360 degrees of exposure to sunlight, each leaf will get all the light it needs.The wood and plastic AIRSAI Floating Bonsai Plant Pot is now half off the original price - plant not included. Read the rest

Two Proud Boys, members of the violent far-right street gang founded by Gavin McInnes, were jailed for four years Tuesday. Maxwell Hare, 27, and John Kinsman, 32, were convicted of gang assault and rioting for attacking protestors outside a speech given by McInnes to New York City's Metropolitan Republican Club. Judge Mark Dwyer called them McInnes' “soldiers” and compared them to Nazi Brownshirts: “I know enough about history to know what happened in Europe in the '30s when political street brawls were allowed to go ahead without any type of check from the criminal justice system.”The BBC:The Proud Boys describe themselves as "proud Western chauvinists" and advocate political violence. The group has chapters across North America and beyond - including in the UK and Australia.Hare and Kinsman were jailed in a case that centres of a fight that erupted after a speech by Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes at Manhattan's Metropolitan Republican Club in October 2018.CCTV footage showed the Proud Boys members beating up a group of four anti-fascist activists - known as "antifa" - who had come to protest against Mr McInnes' appearance.This incident was obscured by serious failures of journalism. The NYPD initially implied that the Proud Boys were the victims and some media thumbed the scales for days afterward, casting the beatings as acts of self-defense against Antifa. 4/6 The brand new footage shows what followed: two Proud Boys went east on 82nd Street, approaching protesters who were perhaps 100 feet away from Park Avenue. Read the rest

IVF had been available in Poland for years, but, as Anna Louie Sussman explains for The New Yorker, it became a wedge issue:Anti-IVF rhetoric takes a number of forms. Polish politicians and religious leaders have sometimes described IVF using nationalistic overtones that scholars have connected to a resurgent anti-Semitism. Catholic media routinely depict children conceived through IVF as unnatural and genetically suspect; in a survey of Polish articles about IVF children, Radkowska-Walkowicz found that they were often characterized as suffering from physical deformities, such as a protruding forehead or dangling tongue, or from mental illnesses, including “survivor syndrome” in relation to unused embryos. (There is no evidence for these claims.) These purported defects are said to go undetected—and so, Radkowska-Walkowicz writes, IVF children are imagined to lurk among the general population, their “biological otherness” polluting the Polish body politic.Other IVF opponents position themselves as protectors of frozen embryos. In Poland, the political scientist Janine P. Holc writes, the embryo is sometimes seen as “the purest citizen”—an unformed innocent in need of protection by the Polish constitution. Anna Krawczak, a doctoral candidate at the University of Warsaw and the former chairperson of the patient-advocacy group Nasz Bocian (the name means “Our Stork”), which has fought for a more inclusive IVF law, told me that IVF opponents have found inventive ways of linking the procedure to abortion. Protesters gather in front of IVF clinics holding posters that show images of human fetuses, icy blue against a black background....Some of the lawyers and doctors I spoke to believe that, although most media coverage of the IVF law focussed on how single women would be affected, its restrictions were actually designed with queer people in mind. Read the rest

Kaleb J. Cole (aka "Khimaere") is the 24-year-old leader of the Washington State cell of the Atomwaffen Division, an international network of violent Neo-Nazis. Aside from generally spewing hateful rhetoric, Cole had also been seen participating in Atomwaffen's "Hate Camps," sharpening his rifle skills for more extremist violence.Fortunately, he no longer has access to any guns. From The Daily Beast:[Cole] had his guns seized on Oct. 1st, according to King County Court records. The move came after the Seattle Police Department filed a 62-page “Extreme Risk Protection Order” petition against Cole on Sept. 26, according to electronic court records. Among the weapons that had been in Cole's possession were a pistol and an AK-47 variant with a high-capacity drum magazine.To be clear, Cole has not been charged on any specific crimes. As far as anyone's aware, he hasn't killed anyone—at least not yet, although there is arguably reason to believe that he plans to. In addition to the target-practice videos where he can be seen chanting "Race war now" with the rest of his buddies, Cole has openly admitted to his fascist beliefs, and support for armed insurrection.Again: not technically crimes. But valids cause for concern. That's where the "Red Flag" or "Extreme Risk" laws come in. They're basically restraining orders, but for guns.One of the biggest struggles with reducing gun violence in America is that a lot of the proposed legislation also infringes on civil liberties. For example: the various "No-Fly Lists" that the government maintains have no clear criteria or due process, which ends up punishing people innocent Muslims, government employees, and literal fucking babies. Read the rest

Trump said he was being "lynched" today, an appalling but somewhat successful attempt to distract the media from devastating House testimony that he demanded Ukraine's president publicly announce an investigation into Joe Biden in return for military aid. Even Republicans were united in condemnation of this comparison, but for one: the oleaginous lickspittle Lindsey Graham, who repeated the term in Trump's defense. Susan Rice, a former national security advisor, called Graham a "piece of shit" in response. Even by the hardening standards of 2019, things are getting sharp. Read the rest

Recomendo is weekly newsletter that gives you 6 brief personal recommendations of cool stuff. I write it with Kevin Kelly and Claudia Dawson (my colleagues at Cool Tools Lab). You can subscribe to it here. We also published a book with our favorite Recomendo tips. To give you an idea of what Recomendo is like, here's the latest issue of the newsletter:More Chinese science fictionA red-hot area in science fiction these days is China. Like many fans who enjoyed The Three Body Problem, I wanted more. So the translator of that mega hit, Ted Liu, has translated two volumes of Chinese short stories with a sci-fi/fantasy focus. The first anthology, Invisible Planets, is a sampler offering lots of magical realism, fantasy and a few hard-science pieces. The second, Broken Stars, has more speculative fiction, and feels more Chinese. As in any anthology, the quality is uneven, but a few stories are standouts and I got a solid feel for this embryonic movement. — KKCut out everything that’s not surprisingDerek Sivers was the founder of CD Baby and maintains an interesting essay blog. One of his recent posts offered good advice for writers and speakers: “People only really learn when they’re surprised. If they’re not surprised, then what you told them just fits in with what they already know. No minds were changed. No new perspective. Just more information. So my main advice to anyone preparing to give a talk on stage is to cut out everything from your talk that’s not surprising.” — MFShower with fresh EucalyptusI’ve been hanging fresh Eucalyptus in our shower because it’s said to reduce sinus inflammation, which I struggle with, but mostly because it makes showering feel like a spa experience with it’s soothing scent and how it looks so pretty. Read the rest

With the gains real estate has made over stocks in the past 25 years, it's easy to see why the rich constantly use it to expand their wealth. What's slightly less obvious is why only the rich seem to ever break into real estate investment.There are a lot of reasons, but a couple of big ones stand out. First, money. Most private equity real estate funds require their investors to be accredited, and that takes a pretty significant six-figure income. And if you want to buy and renovate properties, you need to deal with the hassle of being a landlord, or the additional expense of hiring a property manager.DiversyFund sidesteps both of those traps. It's a real estate investment trust with a vertically-integrated structure, meaning everything is in-house. Scouting, property management, renovation, sales and everything in between is essentially handled by the same team. That means a major cut in extraneous middleman fees, which in turn lowers the fees for the investor.Second, it's not a private equity fund. That allows investors in the door with as little as a $500 seed. That initial investment gets spread across several multi-family properties, which then start the process of renovation and resale - and since DiversyFund doesn't make gains unless you do, you can be confident that your money is working for you.Get all the details at DiversyFund now, and see how they're opening up a market that used to be an exclusive financial playground for the 1%. Read the rest

Next week, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) will host its inaugural Symposium on Computer Science and Law, whose sponsors include Palantir, Peter Thiel's notorious surveillance-tech company, which just renewed a $49m contract with ICE to provide technological aid for ICE's ethnic cleansing program, which has included mass family separations and the deaths of children in custody.A group of activist campaigners including Make the Road New York and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) are calling on ACM to cancel Palantir's sponsorship of this event. I am on the secretariat for the ACM's Technology Policy Committee, and I agree with the call, though I am not able to speak for the USTPC itself, so I have signed the petition in my personal capacity.Palantir sells two tools to ICE. The first, Investigative Case Management (ICM), is “mission critical” to ICE’s efforts, according to government documents, and was used at the border to investigate the families and sponsors of children who crossed the border alone. The operation, designed specifically to dissuade children from joining family in the United States, resulted in the arrests of at least 443 people over 90 days.Palantir’s second tool, FALCON, is used by agents that lead workplace raids, which increased by 650%during President Trump’s first year in office. It has led to the arrest of thousands of vulnerable workers every year just for being undocumented. During a raid in which ICE agents hit 7-11s nationwide, all agents were told to download Palantir’s FALCON mobile app for use during the raid. Read the rest

Sean Carroll is a physicist at JPL and the author of many popular, smart books about physics for a lay audience; his weekly Mindscape podcast is a treasure-trove of incredibly smart, fascinating discussions with people from a wide variety of backgrounds.The latest episode (MP3 is a 1h+ interview with me, on wide-ranging subjects from adversarial interoperability, inequality and market concentration; science fiction and its role in political discourse; and the power and peril of technological self-determination.For those of you who prefer to read, Carroll is kind enough to provide a full transcript.0:02:52 SC: So here’s an ambitious question to start us off then. We’re clearly not in equilibrium; the internet and the way that we use it is changing rapidly. Do you see us approaching a future internet equilibrium? Even if you can’t say exactly what it is, can you imagine various forms of steady states that we will eventually reach in terms of how we use the internet and how it affects our lives, stuff like that?0:03:16 CD: I think there’s actually a risk of that. I would not call that a good outcome. As other people have observed, the web has become five websites filled with screenshots from the other four, and that domination of the web by a small number of firms that continues to shrink, and who clearly carve out competitive niches for one another, and occasionally compete with each other, but mostly are content to just sit pat, that has been, I think, a net negative for the internet, and for human thriving, and for things like human rights. Read the rest

In 2017, Carroll, Iowa police officer Jacob Smith resigned from the force after a disciplinary investigation regarding sexual encounters between Smith and teenaged girls.The Carroll Times Herald, published by the local Burns family since 1929, revealed the circumstances of Smith's departure from the force, including a comment by Smith's ex-wife accusing the disgraced former cop of being a "pedophile" and revealing that Smith's previous employer, another Iowa police department, had fired him for inappropriate sexual behavior with a teen girl.Despite the fact that everything the Herald reported was true, Smith (who admitted his sexual conduct "wasn't right" and "looks like shit") was still able to launch a ruinous libel suit in retaliation, thanks to Iowa's failure to enact anti-SLAPP laws to prevent this kind of conduct. The judge found that the Herald's report was accurate and that Smith's wife's "pedophile" accusation was protected speech, and the Herald carried libel insurance, but they still ended up $140,000 in debt for the portion of the legal fees not covered by their insurer.Now, the paper is on the brink of bankruptcy, and begging for money on Gofundme. As Tim Cushing points out on Techdirt, the lawsuit arrives just as far-right figures like Devin Nunes and Donald Trump are promising to make it easier to sue the press, and also as wave after wave of ghastly revelations about sexual abuse by powerful men are coming to light. Not every defendant will be so lucky. Surviving a baseless lawsuit takes money and time. Read the rest

The Audubon Society's tribute to John James Audubon's Birds of America (originally published between 1827 and 1838) features all 435 of Audubon's vibrant, beautiful portraits of the birds he studied, along with his notes on their behaviors and other characteristics (the site also includes audio samples of each bird's call).The collection can be sliced in many ways: chronological, alphabetical or by state.The illustrations are gorgeous, and the hi-rez scans are enormous -- 11,000+ pixels wide!John J. Audubon’s Birds of America [Audubon Society](via Open Culture) Read the rest

Radical librarian (and warrant canary inventor) Jessamyn West (previously gave this year's Alice G Smith lecture at the University of South Florida's School of Information. It's called "Social Justice is a Library Issue; Libraries are a Social Justice Issue."The talk crib and slides are all online but the long and the short of it is that being a place devoted to universal access to all human knowledge is, and always has been, a radical act -- and putting that into practice requires specific skills and policies that librarians all over the world have spent generations creating, and are still inventing today. So my response to people asking why I am making things political is often just to restate that I am just trying to help people achieve equity which is not the same as equality. Equality always implies that we are all starting from the same place, so it's fine if we have, from today forward, equal opportunities. This ignores a great deal of history. But the awkward part is that sometimes getting at this equity can mean rebalancing things from where they are now. Doing this in response to social issues is considered social justice. OK then.As I said before, representation matters. Libraries are, nominally for everyone, but does everyone feel included, does everyone feel like the library is the place for them? My public library specialty is outreach. Basically (at least partly) figuring out who is in your community, subtracting everyone who is coming in to the library and figuring out if there is anything you can do about the ones who don't come in. Read the rest

In 1969, Jonny Cash wrote "Wanted Man" for Bob Dylan. That same year, Cash recorded it himself for his live record At San Quentin. Now though, Dylan has released this killer original demo of the tune as he played it in Nashville with Cash and Carl Perkins on drums. It's included on the forthcoming box set Bob Dylan (Featuring Johnny Cash) – Travelin’ Thru, 1967-1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 15.(Rolling Stone) Read the rest

Phil from Adafruit writes, "For a limited time, whenever you buy a Circuit Playground Express the regular price of $24.95 here, on this page, Adafruit will automatically donate one to Black Girls CODE. Black Girls CODE's goal is to empower young women of color ages 7-17 to embrace the current tech marketplace as builders + creators.Black Girls CODE's vision is to increase the number of women of color in the digital space by empowering girls of color ages 7 to 17 to become innovators in STEM fields, leaders in their communities, and builders of their own futures through exposure to computer science and technology. To provide African-American youth with the skills to occupy some of the 1.4 million computing job openings expected to be available in the U.S. by 2020, and to train 1 million girls by 2040.Circuit Playground Express - Black Girls CODE [Adafruit](Thanks, pt!) Read the rest

Sayragul Sauytbay is a Chinese Muslim of Kazakh descent who escaped en route to one of the notorious Xinjiang province concentration camps for Muslims in 2018, after she was sentenced to serve as a regular inmate following her release after more than a year's incarceration as a camp teacher; after she escaped into Kazakhstan, she was given asylum in Sweden.Sauytbay, a 43 year old teacher, says she was taken by armed guards to a concentration camp in November 2017, where she was forced to watch as other Muslim women were gang-raped by guards; she says that inmates who expressed disgust or outrage were led away and never seen again.Sauytbay says she was under constant video-surveillance, forced to sleep in overcrowded conditions with a bucket to use as a toilet, and with access to the bucket limited to a few minutes a day, and with the bucket only emptied once/day.Sauytbay says that inmates were also forced to serve as subjects in dangerous medical experiments, and that some victims of this treatment were "cognitively weakened" or stopped having their periods and became sterile.The "re-education" components of Sauytbay's incarceration included forced conscumption of pork and a requirement to chant pro-China, pro-Xi Jinping slogans. Inmates were forbidden to speak, laugh, cry or answer questions.Ms Sautybay said women were systematically raped and that she was forced to watch a woman be repeatedly assaulted.“The policemen ordered her to disrobe and simply raped her one after the other, in front of everyone,” she told Haaretz. Read the rest

The Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Service Switching” (ACCESS) Act was introduced by Senator Mark Warner [D-VA] and co-sponsored by Senator Josh Hawley [R-MO] and Senator Richard Blumenthal [D-CT]; it mandates the creation of "third party custodial services," regulated by the FTC, that will allow uses of Facebook and other Big Tech platforms to switch to smaller, direct competitors who would then act as an intermediary between these new entrants and the platforms.The requirement to open their systems to third parties would take effect 120 days after the bill's passage.This idea is fantastic in concept: as the bill's authors note, interoperability has always been a key to keeping tech markets competitive, and the creation of third-parties that act as conduits -- rather than as service providers themselves -- is a kind of structural separation that could keep everyone's incentives aligned. As intermediaries, rather than as service providers, the third party custodial services would be limited by FTC rules and thus (theoretically) not in the business of locking in or abusing their users.One important note is that mandated interoperability is not enough: there will be legal, legitimate, pro-competitive activities that aren't in the remit of the third-party custodians, activities that would fundamentally challenge the platforms. For this reason, it's vital that mandatory interoperability should be the floor, not the ceiling, on interop -- we must preserve adversarial interoperability as the upper bound on interoperability. If approved, the ACCESS Act would allow users to sign up for a third-party data management service that would work as an intermediary for managing their privacy and account settings across platforms. Read the rest

So THIS is how you do it.I never knew!“Step 1: Don’t cut off your hand with that ridiculously sharp knife.”It's probably also easier without the tree attached.How to effectively slice a pomegranateThis video isn't sourced, but it's making the viral rounds this week. Super satisfying fruit content.How to effectively slice a pomegranate pic.twitter.com/WdeQwvqeMF— Engineering (@engineeringvids) October 19, 2019Once you slice the thing open, remember the other trick to separate the arils from the white pith: put it all in a bowl of water. The pith and arils will separate, and you skim the floating pith off the water and eat your arils.We've been writing about pomegranates on Boing Boing for more than a decade. Here's a pomegranate appreciation post from 2008. There are other fruits you are probably slicing wrong.How to effectively slice a pomegranate [IMGUR, mysteriouscreation9] Read the rest

“Corgi’s first pumpkin patch.”What an adorable critter I mean a terrifying spider!Photo and video by the dog's human, @whynothmm.Check it out with sound.Corgi’s first pumpkin patch[IMGUR] Read the rest

This is a seriously impressive mechanical restoration project. IMGURian @gerleatherberman did a full restoration of an antique fan they say is a Westinghouse from 1919. Absolutely incredible.Here are some wonderful shots of the inner workings and outer details.And... ta-daaa....Here's a front angle shot after restoration.Go check out the entire gallery.Antique Fan Full Restoration - Westinghouse - Year 1919 164848G[via IMGUR] Read the rest

I have two Echo Dots, and I talk to them many times a day - to play news, podcasts, and audiobooks, get weather reports, control our security system and wifi power switches, set timers and alarms, and learn if old celebrities are still alive. If you're concerned about your privacy, don't get one of these and keep your phone in the refrigerator when you aren't using it. If you are as reckless as I am, now's your chance to get an Echo Dot for just . This includes a one-month auto-renew subscription to Amazon Music Unlimited (which you can cancel before it auto-renews). Read the rest

The problem with tipping is that employers pay employees less than they should. I much prefer the way things work in Japan, where there is no tipping and no uncertainty. That said, until restaurants, delivery services, and ride hailing apps in the US start paying their workers a fair wage, it's best to tip workers. This Vox video explains why tipping for ride-hailing services remains confusion and contentious.Image: Vox/YouTube Read the rest

I've come across antlion traps in Colorado. It's incredible to see the little legs of an antlion poking out from the bottom of a small pit, flicking dirt at any ants that come near, causing them to tumble down to the inclined sides of the pit into the jaws of the antlion. If you haven't seen an antlion trap in person, this BBC Earth video is the next best thing.Image: YouTube Read the rest

Miles Taylor as chief of staff to DHS undersecretary Kirstjen Nielsen, publicly defending his boss's implementation of the #MuslimBan ethnic cleansing policy and helping to implement the family separation #KidsInCages policy.Now he is a Google "government affairs and public policy manager" who styles himself the company's "head of national security policy engagement."Documents seen by BuzzFeed News show that Taylor has been on the job for a little more than a month. His boss is Johanna Shelton, a longtime Google public policy director and former Democratic congressional staffer. Further up the chain, Taylor is overseen by Mark Isakowitz, the public policy vice president, who's another recent hire and former top aide to Republican Sen. Rob Portman; Karan Bhatia, the vice president of global public policy who served for six years as a senior official in the George W. Bush administration; and Kent Walker, the senior vice president and chief legal officer.As a counselor to then–acting DHS secretary Elaine Duke, Taylor called the screening and vetting standards at the country’s borders “no longer adequate to combat terrorism” as the agency recommended an updated policy to replace expiring parts of Trump’s travel ban in September 2017. He went on to serve as the deputy chief of staff and then chief of staff to Nielsen, whom Trump appointed to the top DHS role in December 2017. Nielsen oversaw the administration’s family separation policy for immigrants at the southern border. She resigned in April.A Top DHS Staffer Who Defended The Muslim Travel Ban Now Works At Google [Ryan Mac/Buzzfeed](via Ernesto Falcon)(Image: Quinn Dombrowski, CC BY-SA, modified) Read the rest