I just found my Christmas present - the Moog Werkstatt-Ø1! It's about $200. (more…)

The Earth is round, and maps are flat. While we have may mapped nearly every inch of our world, figuring out how to translate that information from three dimensions to two remains a problem. (more…)

In 2009, Belgian photographer Anton Kusters went to Japan and gained the trust of high-ranking members Japan's organized crime families, known as the yakuza. He was allowed to photograph them for two years, giving Westerners a revealing glimpse into the secretive underworld syndicate. He published a book in 2011, called Odo Yakuza Tokyo. Earlier this month The Economist produced a short film about Kusters' project, called Japan's Yakuza: Inside the syndicate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umqvYhb3wf4This is Oliver at his best, using weaponized bathos that ricochets between rage-making clips of racist political figures trying to terrorize Syrians into staying away with sweet clips of the refugees themselves and an over-the-top, stone-brilliant, pop-culture-infused, heart-rending, laughter-convulsing finale.

At $170, the 10' long, 6' tall light-up Jabba inflatable isn't a cheap lawn decoration, but he'll certainly make an impression on the neighbors. I think he'd go well with my brand-new custom lawn-flag.

Evidence has been found of "two hidden chambers" behind the painted walls of King Tutankhamun's resting place, say experts—and one of them could be the tomb of Queen Nefertiti.Egypt's antiquities minister, Mamdouh Eldamaty, told Ahram Online that he and British archaologist Nicholas Reeves have found that the tomb's ceiling extends behind the northern and western walls. Radar scans are being made to confirm whether there are indeed voids behind the walls indicative of hidden chambers, and results are expected to be announced on November 4.In August Reeves published a paper suggesting the western and northern painted walls of Tutankhamun's tomb have secret passageways leading to two chambers, one of them containing the remains of Nefertiti — queen of Egypt and the chief consort and wife of the monotheistic King Akhenaten, Tutankhamun's father. … Eldamaty told Ahram Online he now thinks it very likely there are hidden chambers, but disagrees with Reeves when he says they could house the crypt of queen Nefertiti.This would be a great plot for another film in the The Mummy franchise: "You fool, Reeves! I warned you she must not be awoken!" shrieked Eldamaty.

I cheered the news that the Federal Trade Commission was suing Roca Labs, the sleazy "weight-loss" company that sold people industrial food thickeners as "non-surgical gastric bypasses" and made them sign contracts promising not to post about any negative experiences they after trying the scammy, high-priced "treatment."But as satisfying as it is to see the FTC visit ripoff artist bullies like Roca with their usual "these guys sold junk and lied about it" hammer, that's just the warmup act.In the FTC's complaint was something entirely novel for the FTC: a claim that non-disparagement clauses -- terms-of-sale in which customers are forced to promise not to talk about their bad experiences -- are themselves improper, a violation of the FTC Act. The FTC has never weighed in on this subject before, in part because they didn't need to. The practice was almost unheard of until a few years ago, when an unholy coalition of butthurt doctors and scammy Internet vendors started casting about for ways to keep unhappy customers from talking to their friends. Now it's fast becoming a normal part of the business landscape, and as a result, it's getting easier to get away with bad commercial activity. This step by the FTC was arguably overdue, but it's also most welcome.COUNT IIIUNFAIR USE OF NON-DISPARAGEMENT PROVISIONS64. As described in paragraphs 12-42 and 44-52, in numerous instances, Defendants have used in the sale of their products, and purported to bind purchasers to, contractual provisions that prohibit purchasers from speaking or publishing truthful or nondefamatory negative comments or reviews about the Defendants, their products, or their employees.65. Defendants’ practices as described in paragraph 64 have caused or are likely to cause substantial injury to consumers that is not reasonably avoidable by consumers and that is not outweighed by countervailing benefits to consumers or competition.66. Defendants’ practices as described in paragraph 64 therefore constitute unfair acts or practices in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. § 45(a) and (n).In Roca Labs Case, FTC Takes Novel Stand Against Non-Disparagement Clauses [Ken White/Popehat]

"They police us, and spy on us, and tell us it makes us safer," said Mulder. "We've never been in more danger."

Trick Decks: How to Hack Cards for Extraordinary Magic is my $2.99 Kindle e-book that will show you how to easily make different kinds of magic trick card decks. You can make the decks from ordinary playing cards and easy-to-find tools and materials. It contains full-color photos and illustrations and clear instructions, as well as links to helpful videos. No special skills are required and these cards are fun to make for beginners and experienced magicians.My 12-year-old daughter and I have been using these hand-made decks to delight friends and strangers with amazing tricks. Best of all, no one has ever guessed the secret to these tricks!For more information, watch the above video or visit my website, trickdecks.org.

Every time the Bureau wants to spy on someone whose communications are encrypted, they just hack them.The FBI has made a huge deal out of wanting back doors in encryption -- back doors that could be exploited by dirty cops, by crooks, by foreign spies -- to make their jobs easier. But in every single case where the FBI has wanted to eavesdrop on a suspect, they've just deployed one of their many dirty tricks to compromise their target's computer.Sometimes, they hack a website to serve malware to everyone who visits it. In one case, the Bureau publicly asked a judge for permission to sneak a rootkit onto a target's computer so that they could covertly operate its camera and mic. The judge turned them down, but they may have done it anyway through one of the many secret warrant processes available to them.They really like the idea of forcing tech companies to serve poisoned updates that contain malware, a measure that would reduce the rate at which people installed vital security updates. If this were to become common, responsible tech companies might adopt binary transparency to make it useless. And as the Washington Post recently reported, an Obama administration working group exploring possible approaches tech companies might use to let law enforcement unlock encrypted communications came up with one that involves the targeted installation of malware — through automatic updates.“Virtually all consumer devices include the capability to remotely download and install updates to their operating system and applications,” the task force wrote. Law enforcement would use a “lawful process” to force tech companies to “use their remote update capability to insert law enforcement software into a targeted device.” That malware would then “enable far-reaching access to and control of the targeted device.”The Post did not report who came up with that idea, or whether it was already in use.And little is known about how much access the agency has to the extensive hacking capabilities developed by other government agencies, especially the National Security Agency.THE BIG SECRET THAT MAKES THE FBI’S ANTI-ENCRYPTION CAMPAIGN A BIG LIE [Jenna McLaughlin/The Intercept](via /.)

Members of Jamaica's Parliament are threatening to turn their backs on David Cameron during an official visit unless he agrees to discuss reparations for slavery during the meeting.General Sir James Duff, Cameron's own ancestor, was an enslaver who grew wealthy on income from his Jamaican forced labor camp.Cameron has refused to allow discussions reparations or official apologies for slavery to be placed on the agenda for the upcoming meeting.In an open letter in the Jamaica Observer, the academic wrote: “You are a grandson of the Jamaican soil who has been privileged and enriched by your forebears’ sins of the enslavement of our ancestors ... You are, Sir, a prized product of this land and the bonanza benefits reaped by your family and inherited by you continue to bind us together like birds of a feather.“We ask not for handouts or any such acts of indecent submission. We merely ask that you acknowledge responsibility for your share of this situation and move to contribute in a joint programme of rehabilitation and renewal. The continuing suffering of our people, Sir, is as much your nation’s duty to alleviate as it is ours to resolve in steadfast acts of self-responsibility.”Professor Verene Shepherd, chair of the National Commission on Reparation, told the Jamaica Gleaner that nothing short of an unambiguous apology from Cameron would do, while a Jamaican MP, Mike Henry, called on fellow parliamentarians to turn their back on Cameron if reparations are not on the agenda, noting that the Jamaican parliament has approved a motion for the country to seek reparation from Britain.Jamaica calls for Britain to pay billions of pounds in reparations for slavery [Rowena Mason/The Guardian]

I'm considering this inflatable Stay Puft Marshmallow Man costume for Halloween. Every few years my Ghostbuster costume comes out of storage, but I feel like stepping on a church. A friend has this costume and it uses a clever battery operated fan to pump air into the suit, keeping it inflated. At $30 it is a bargain.Ghostbusters Inflatable Stay Puft Marshmallow Man Costume via Amazon

"Old Man" is a curious and compelling animation of phone chats between Charles Manson and Marlin Marynick, author of "Charles Manson Now." Directed and animated by Leah Shore. (via Devour)

Tinder is not happy about an LA billboard campaign urging users of popular dating and hookup apps to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases, for free. In a provocative LA area billboard campaign, The AIDS Healthcare Foundation takes aim at apps like Tinder and Grindr, and implies that people who use those services to connect with sexual partners are at a higher risk for diseases like chlamydia and gonorrhea.A KCAL9 LA TV reporter reported that one of the billboards was put up just a few blocks from Tinder’s Beverly Boulevard headquarters.Tinder sent a cease and desist letter to the AHF, demanding the billboards be taken down and arguing that they "falsely" associate the app "with the contraction of venereal diseases."In the lawyergram, Tinder attorney Jonathan D. Reichman says the AHF billboard's "accusations are made to irreparably harm Tinder's reputation in an attempt to encourage others to take an HIV test offered by your organization."Reichman says the campaign's "statements" are not based in science, and would not hold up to "critical analysis."Tinder "strongly supports such testing," he adds, accusing AHF of false advertising, disparagement, libel and interference with Tinder's business. And them's lawsuitin' words.The AHF sent out a press release today that links to various studies and an article in Vanity Fair to bolster their dubious claim of “rising STD rates found among users of popular dating or “hookup” mobile phone apps.” In their announcement, the AHF also detailed the responses by Tinder and Grinder: Within two hours of the billboard posting in Los Angeles (the only market where the boards are currently posted), Grindr, another of the apps highlighted in the campaign, cut off AHF’s paid advertising for its free STD testing services on the site. Within 24 hours, Tinder issued its cease and desist letter, claiming AHF’s public service ad, “…is responsible for…falsely associating Tinder with the contraction of venereal disease.”[via WeHoVille, LA Times]

When National Security Agency director Michael Hayden told then-CEO-of-HP/now-Republican-presidential-hopeful Carly Fiorina he needed servers to put the entire USA under unconstitutional surveillance, she leapt into action to supply him with the materiel he needed.Fiorina has proposed an increase in military spending as part of her platform: an additional $500B over the next decade. Fiorina, who had been named HP CEO in 1999 and is now running for president as a Republican, promptly redirected truckloads of HP servers that had been destined for retail stores into the custody of federal officials who took them to NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Md.The servers were needed for a massive new warrantless surveillance program codenamed “Stellar Wind” that had been approved by President George W. Bush.Fiorina acknowledged providing the HP servers to the NSA during an interview with Michael Isikoff in which she defended the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance programs and framed her collaboration with the NSA in patriotic terms.“I felt it was my duty to help, and so we did,” Fiorina said. “They were ramping up a whole set of programs and needed a lot of data crunching capability to try and monitor a whole set of threats... What I knew at the time was our nation had been attacked.”Carly Fiorina: I Supplied HP Servers for NSA Snooping [Sam Gustin/Vice]

[caption id="attachment_424275" align="alignnone" width="1650"] NASA says these streaks are proof that water flows on Mars. NASA[/caption]Well, this is big. NASA today revealed that new findings from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) provide “the strongest evidence yet that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars.” Here's the announcement: Using an imaging spectrometer on MRO, researchers detected signatures of hydrated minerals on slopes where mysterious streaks are seen on the Red Planet. These darkish streaks appear to ebb and flow over time. They darken and appear to flow down steep slopes during warm seasons, and then fade in cooler seasons. They appear in several locations on Mars when temperatures are above minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23 Celsius), and disappear at colder times. “Our quest on Mars has been to ‘follow the water,’ in our search for life in the universe, and now we have convincing science that validates what we’ve long suspected,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “This is a significant development, as it appears to confirm that water -- albeit briny -- is flowing today on the surface of Mars.” These downhill flows, known as recurring slope lineae (RSL), often have been described as possibly related to liquid water. The new findings of hydrated salts on the slopes point to what that relationship may be to these dark features. The hydrated salts would lower the freezing point of a liquid brine, just as salt on roads here on Earth causes ice and snow to melt more rapidly. Scientists say it’s likely a shallow subsurface flow, with enough water wicking to the surface to explain the darkening. "We found the hydrated salts only when the seasonal features were widest, which suggests that either the dark streaks themselves or a process that forms them is the source of the hydration. In either case, the detection of hydrated salts on these slopes means that water plays a vital role in the formation of these streaks," said Lujendra Ojha of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in Atlanta, lead author of a report on these findings published Sept. 28 by Nature Geoscience.Ojha first noticed these puzzling features as a University of Arizona undergraduate student in 2010, using images from the MRO's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE). HiRISE observations now have documented RSL at dozens of sites on Mars. The new study pairs HiRISE observations with mineral mapping by MRO’s Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM). The spectrometer observations show signatures of hydrated salts at multiple RSL locations, but only when the dark features were relatively wide. When the researchers looked at the same locations and RSL weren't as extensive, they detected no hydrated salt. Ojha and his co-authors interpret the spectral signatures as caused by hydrated minerals called perchlorates. The hydrated salts most consistent with the chemical signatures are likely a mixture of magnesium perchlorate, magnesium chlorate and sodium perchlorate. Some perchlorates have been shown to keep liquids from freezing even when conditions are as cold as minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 70 Celsius). On Earth, naturally produced perchlorates are concentrated in deserts, and some types of perchlorates can be used as rocket propellant. Perchlorates have previously been seen on Mars. NASA's Phoenix lander and Curiosity rover both found them in the planet's soil, and some scientists believe that the Viking missions in the 1970s measured signatures of these salts. However, this study of RSL detected perchlorates, now in hydrated form, in different areas than those explored by the landers. This also is the first time perchlorates have been identified from orbit. MRO has been examining Mars since 2006 with its six science instruments. "The ability of MRO to observe for multiple Mars years with a payload able to see the fine detail of these features has enabled findings such as these: first identifying the puzzling seasonal streaks and now making a big step towards explaining what they are," said Rich Zurek, MRO project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. For Ojha, the new findings are more proof that the mysterious lines he first saw darkening Martian slopes five years ago are, indeed, present-day water. "When most people talk about water on Mars, they're usually talking about ancient water or frozen water," he said. "Now we know there’s more to the story. This is the first spectral detection that unambiguously supports our liquid water-formation hypotheses for RSL." The discovery is the latest of many breakthroughs by NASA’s Mars missions. “It took multiple spacecraft over several years to solve this mystery, and now we know there is liquid water on the surface of this cold, desert planet,” said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “It seems that the more we study Mars, the more we learn how life could be supported and where there are resources to support life in the future.” There are eight co-authors of the Nature Geoscience paper, including Mary Beth Wilhelm at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California and Georgia Tech; CRISM Principal Investigator Scott Murchie of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland; and HiRISE Principal Investigator Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson, Arizona. Others are at Georgia Tech, the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and Laboratoire de Planétologie et Géodynamique in Nantes, France. The agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, a division of the California Institute of Technology, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin built the orbiter and collaborates with JPL to operate it. More information about NASA's journey to Mars is available online at nasa.gov/topics/journeytomars.

Felix von Luckner was a romantic hero in the Great War, a dashing nobleman who commanded an old-style sailing ship. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe Luckner's uniquely civilized approach to warfare, which won admiration even from his enemies.We'll also puzzle over how a product intended to prevent drug abuse ends up encouraging it.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2NG-MgHqEk&feature=youtu.beBanksy's brilliant piss-take on theme-parks has run its course and will now be dismantled, shipped to Calais and turned into temporary shelters for the refugees massed there.It's an inspired gesture, one that provides badly needed humanitarian aid while simultaneously giving two fingers up to the xenophobic UK right wing, which has made hatred, fear and demonization of Syrian refugees into a badge of cultural identity.

Deus Ex Machina is a custom motorcycle and lifestyle brand launched by Australian surfers. Seen here is their "Red Pill" bike, built by Jeremy Tagand. The bike is based on a Kawasaki W650 that's been re-engineered from the re-jetted carbs all the way to the quick-release surfboard racks. I wish I knew how to surf. And ride a motorcyle. Deux Ex Machina: The Red Pill (via Uncrate)

https://vine.co/v/exHYKIiQn5iActual GOP finds the deeper truth to be found in the roaring elocution of Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz.

Imagine you are playing the classic arcade game Snake against your friend, except the "snakes" are Solid Snake and Liquid Snake from Metal Gear Solid. Well, your imagination is real. Snake? Snake! has you competing with a friend or coworker or whoever else is in the room with you right now to crawl over as many snoozing soldiers (if you don't know anything about MGS just go with it) as you can while avoiding the other Snake. You don't need a player two to check it out, although it will probably be pretty easy for you to win. Maybe you can play against yourself using both hands. You're pretty good! Snake? Snake! was made for DUPLICADE, a game jam themed around arcade-style player versus player games that can be won in less than a minute, and that feel like barely-legal bootlegs of existing properties. See all the entries here; I'm partial to "KoolBert" and "Poutine Time", and we love the totally unofficial Twin Peaks dance-off Fire Dance With Me.

Concept artist Matt Rhodes gives the science fiction classic a look rarely imagined for it: the look of TV animation. Click through for a look at those sexy Harkonnens. [via MeFi]

I had exactly one complaint about this comic: Staples and Vaughan just took too damned long to publish new issues. The stupendous third collection took nearly a year to surface, and then the fourth came out six months later, along with a deluxe edition collecting the first three books between one set of hardcovers, accompanied by inspired excerpts from Staples' sketchbook.It's been nine months since, and at last, the fifth book is in hand.Staples gets top billing on this collection, and Vaughan told me that the current storyline was of her making. This makes her one of comics' most inspirational figures, because book five features such incredible art and such incredible storytelling that the idea that they both originated with one person beggars the imagination.You should be reading Saga. It's got that Mos Eisley/Transmetropolitan/Zita vibe of every conceivable alien race all jumbled together in a kind of bizaare bazaar, with all the colorful aesthetic business that this lets the visual artist go crazy with.When George Lucas filled Mos Eisley cantina with every manner of muppet, he implied a huge and weird universe with politics and trade and pervy sex and depravity. But when he actually sat down to flesh out all that interspatial politics, it turned into the minutes from a trade conference with a bit of racist stereotyping around the edges.The Saga universe is also a universe dominated by politics, war, and economics -- but it's anything but dull. With book five, Staples takes us deeper into futuristic politics than we've gone so far in the story, but in such a skilfull, even terrifying way that it's even more fun than all the fucking and killing that the first four books featured (though there's some awesomely dirty dragon sex stuff in this one, too).And of course it ends on a cliffhanger. Christmas is coming soon -- fingers crossed for another collection in time for the tree. In the meantime, go and read this and then re-read it and then give copies to all the best people you know. Damn.Saga Volume 5 [Fiona Staples & Brian K Vaughan/Image]

Paul Holdengraber, host of the New York Public Library's legendary literary interview series, has started a new podcast called "A phone call from Paul," which he has inaugurated with a two-part interview with Neil Gaiman.I've heard Neil interviewed a lot, and Holdengraber gets into some new and deep territory on literal life and death, birth and art, with some very touching and personal details. It's an excellent beginning to a great new must-hear podcast.A PHONE CALL FROM PAUL: NEIL GAIMAN

They wouldn't be much use if you were running away from a giant killer monster, but Irregular Choice's $250 Roarsum boots are pretty badass nevertheless. (Thanks, Alice!)

Thinkgeek's $30 AT-AT Walker dog costumes come in S-XL.Should you be a fan of dressing up your dog, we offer you this fine option from the Star Wars universe. This Star Wars AT-AT Walker Dog Costume is basically a doggie hat and jumpsuit. There's a head-wrap that has an elastic band. The body's all one piece, so you only have to fasten some hook-and-loop underneath your pet, sorta like a saddle girth. And it should be pretty easy to get to if your dog is anything like our cats, who fall over as if someone's just cranked up the local gravity the moment we put a costume piece on them. Speaking of which, we do not recommend this on cats. It's technically for "pets," but we like you with your blood on the inside. Star Wars AT-AT Walker Dog Costume [Thinkgeek](via Geeks are Sexy)

https://youtu.be/wu93UW0d__QWorks every time. “We've been monitoring our pup at home to get a sense of how much barking he's been doing,” Devon Meadows explains. “Chazz had just started barking after my wife and I left for work but luckily our cat, Greyscale, shuts that down.”

https://youtu.be/E6CcUj2mDbIMiki Kotevski, who shot this video, says: “This Shiba Inu has brought more people together from across the world than most politicians and other figures will ever be able to. Shiva's owner is the kindest owner and a great and kind person. Shiva is the Shiba's name and he is the best dog around.”[caption id="attachment_423923" align="alignnone" width="800"] どうなさいました[/caption]“To find Doge and the Store, enter the following address on google maps: 3 Chome-5-23 Nukui Kitamachi Koganei-shi, Tokyo-to,” says Miki. “Shiva is probably the best sales man in the whole world and will sell you the best things.”[YouTube]

https://youtu.be/gcTjS1mKMdYThis 110-year-old man says he managed to keep living for more than a hundred years in part by eating sensibly. Sensibly, to him, means including these 5 foods in your diet: garlic, honey, cinnamon, chocolate, and olive oil. In the video here, he explains why.Modernist cooks, I'm sure you'll find a way to combine all of those ingredients into some kind of futuristic foam we can enjoy. And if we get to 110, we probably won't be able to taste it anyway, so I'm sure it'll be fine.

Richard Colman opens a show of glorious new paintings at San Francisco's Chandran Gallery tonight! Above is my favorite Colman painting that I've seen so far, the mindblowingly beautiful "Figures, Faces and Candles." See more from the show and read an interview with Colman over at Juxtapoz.

While delightful on their own terms, the icing on the cake of the Portal games has always been the songs by Jonathan Coulton that play over their end credits. In the first game, Coulton gave us a tale of quiet, murderous determination with "Still Alive," and a few years later in Portal 2, the slightly less murderous but equally passive-aggressive "Want You Gone."Now, Coulton has written a third new Portal song for the deadly artificial intelligence GLaDOS (and voice actor Ellen McLain) to sing in the new LEGO Dimensions game, where you can purchase a Portal 2 level pack for $30. Titled "You Wouldn't Know," it finds GLaDOS in a much healthier and more well-adjusted place in her life, thanks in part to her new LEGO friends Batman and Gandalf. As Coulton told Mashable:"I would not have done just any third Portal song. When they described this game to me and this Portal level, and the way all these cultural icons get smushed together. I started to think about how she would feel about hanging out with Batman. Would she maybe fall in love with him a little?" Fair warning: There are apparently spoilers for LEGO Dimensions in the song, so hold off if that is something you care about.https://soundcloud.com/jonathancoulton/you-wouldnt-know

I knew the new Pluto images reminded me of something!The originals: Frank Frazetta's legendary painting "A Princess of Mars," and "The Rich Color Variations of Pluto," published by NASA.

Judge Sandra Ikuta wrote the opinion for the 9th Circuit panel that heard DC Comics vs Mark Towle, in which the comics company was suing a guy who sold expensive kits to make your car look like the Batmobile.The judge is clearly a giant Batman/comics nerd, and her opinion is full of delightful Batman references. Less delightful is the substance of that opinion. Characters are not normally copyrightable (characters are more commonly associated with trademarks -- trademark law having different flexibilities and exceptions from copyright). To be copyrightable, a character has to have "physical as well as conceptual qualities" and "contain some unique elements of expression" while being "sufficiently delineated" so that you can tell at a glance that any depiction of that character is that character.To make the Batmobile -- which has had numerous looks, capabilities, and versions over the years -- fit this description, Ikuta goes through all kinds of mental gymnastics, stating that even if all the details of the car changed from version to version and year to year, they were still the same, because it had a "bat themed front end" and a "bat-like appearance" "with sleek and powerful characteristics."The problem is that this describes lots of non-Batmobiles, too. The original Detective Comics in which the Batmobile first appeared competed with many other comics in which cars with exaggerated fenders and advanced crime-fighting capabilities featured. The Batmobile wasn't the first car to meet this description, but with this decision, it might be the last.That's the problem with this decision: it doesn't just protect the Batmobile, it does so at the expense of all the potential crime-fighting cars that might appear in new comics. It celebrates the inventiveness of the original Batman while closing the door on future inventors who want to do to Batman exactly what Batman did to all the other comics creators in the 1930s.In living memory, comics creator conceived of a flying hero; of a caped hero, of a team of heroes, of a science-hero who used gadgets rather than powers, of mutant heroes, of alien heroes, etc. If those creators had been able to assert the claims that DC is making today -- and that Judge Ikuta is buying -- there would be no DC today, and no comics for you and me and Judge Ikuta to nerd out over.Unfortunately, it's unlikely that this will go to the Supreme Court, so it's likely to be the binding precedent -- another piece of the creative landscape that's permanently owned by a multinational corporation, whom artists must subjugate themselves to if they want to use it. As the district court determined, the Batmobile has maintained distinct physical and conceptual qualities since its first appearance in the comic books in 1941. In addition to its status as “a highly-interactive vehicle, equipped with high-tech gadgets and weaponry used to aid Batman in fighting crime,” the Batmobile is almost always bat-like in appearance, with a bat-themed front end, bat wings extending from the top or back of the car, exaggerated fenders, a curved windshield, and bat emblems on the vehicle. This bat-like appearance has been a consistent theme throughout the comic books, television series, and motion picture, even though the precise nature of the bat-like characteristics have changed from time to time.The Batmobile also has consistent character traits and attributes. No matter its specific physical appearance, the Batmobile is a “crime-fighting” car with sleek and powerful characteristics that allow Batman to maneuver quickly while he fights villains. In the comic books, the Batmobile is described as waiting “[l]ike an impatient steed straining at the reins... shiver[ing] as its super-charged motor throbs with energy” before it “tears after the fleeing hoodlums” an instant later. Elsewhere, the Batmobile “leaps away and tears up the street like a cyclone,” and at one point “twin jets of flame flash out with thunderclap force, and the miracle car of the dynamic duo literally flies through the air!” Like its comic book counterpart, the Batmobile depicted in both the 1966 television series and the 1989 motion picture possesses “jet engine[s]” and flame-shooting tubes that undoubtedly give the Batmobile far more power than an ordinary car. Furthermore, the Batmobile has an ability to maneuver that far exceeds that of an ordinary car. In the 1966 television series, the Batmobile can perform an “emergency bat turn” via reverse thrust rockets. Likewise, in the 1989 motion picture, the Batmobile can enter “Batmissile” mode, in which the Batmobile sheds “all material outside [the] central fuselage” and reconfigures its “wheels and axles to fit through narrow openings.”Equally important, the Batmobile always contains the most up-to-date weaponry and technology. At various points in the comic book, the Batmobile contains a “hot-line phone... directly to Commissioner Gordon’s office” maintained within the dashboard compartment, a “special alarm” that foils the Joker’s attempt to steal the Batmobile, and even a complete “mobile crime lab” within the vehicle. Likewise, the Batmobile in the 1966 television series possesses a “Bing-Bong warning bell,” a mobile Bat-phone, a “Batscope, complete with [a] TV-like viewing screen on the dash,” and a “Bat-ray.” Similarly, the Batmobile in the 1989 motion picture is equipped with a “pair of forward-facing Browning machine guns,” “spherical bombs,” “chassis- mounted shinbreakers,” and “side-mounted disc launchers.”Pow! Appeals court assigns copyright to the Batmobile [David Kravets/Ars Technica]

See sample pages from this book at Wink.Pocket Imperium is a surprisingly big game in a very small box. The “Pocket” in its name refers to its microgame stature, while “Imperium” offers a clue to its galaxy-spanning scale and 4X game mechanic (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate), popular among galactic empire games. The first thing you notice about Pocket Imperium is the quality of its components. The box and art are lovely, as are the command cards and seven main “sector tiles” (the game board). The game also comes with 52 brightly colored wooden spaceship markers in four designs. There's a lot stuffed into this box, and with everything placed on the table, it really makes for a satisfying game spread. But at $40, you do pay for all this. The rules for Pocket Imperium are deceptively simple. Each player plays three cards (six if it's two players) that contain movement commands (Expand, Explore, Exterminate). These moves are “pre-programmed” before each turn with the cards turned over simultaneously and executed in the sequence of Expand, Explore, Exterminate. So, one player may want to expand first, another explore, and maybe another exterminate. If you're the only player commanding an expansion that turn, you get two bonus ships; if two players execute the same order, they each get one extra ship; if all of the players execute the same turn command, no one gets extra vessels to field. The turn sequence and bonuses are indicated on quick reference cards you can keep on the table.The game is played on a 7-tile galaxy of planetary systems that can be configured into different galactic shapes. The tiles are also two-sided and the flip sides contain more difficult star systems to conquer and new obstacles like a black hole.

 Playing the game basically consists of moving your ships from system to system, trying to exploit its resources and take over its planets. Each planet has point values and there are various bonuses (and limitations). This game may seem simple and not tremendously exciting on the surface, but it has some real depth and replayability to it. The command cards being locked in before the round begins, and then executed in a set order, creates a great psychological dimension to the game as you try and get inside the heads of your opponents to figure out what turn sequence they might program. And with the dual-sided tiles, and different galaxy configurations, there's a lot you can do to change up the game. For a 2-3 player game, the game ends in six rounds; eight rounds if four people are playing. A movement tracker printed on the back of the box keeps tabs of your turns. Players add up all of their victory point tiles at the end and there are some final-round bonuses. In the end, the galactic overlord with the most points wins. Praise Xenu!Pocket Imperium Card Game by Passport Game StudiosAges 12 and up, 2-4 players$40 Buy a copy on Amazon

The Treaty on the Right to Privacy, Protection AgainstImproper Surveillance and Protection of Whistleblowers [PDF] (AKA "The Snowden Treaty") was created by David Miranda, Glenn Greenwald's partner, who was detained by UK police under terrorism legislation while transiting through London's Heathrow airport with a encrypted thumbdrive containing some of the Snowden leaks.The treaty, which has Snowden's endorsement, is co-sponsored by the international NGO Avaaz, and will be the first instrument of its kind: an agreement among nations to protect people who expose official wrongdoing.The treaty arrives at an important moment: with the first tremors of the age of privacy breaches upon us, officialdom's response is to enable more spying and to immunize companies who rat out whistleblowers from liability for breaching their customers' privacy.Without a counternarrative about security that involves protecting populations rather than putting them under suspicion, we are headed down a very dangerous and scary path.Entitled the “The International Treaty on the Right to Privacy, Protection Against Improper Surveillance and Protection of Whistleblowers,” or, colloquially, the “Snowden Treaty,” an executive summary of the forthcoming treaty calls on signatories “to enact concrete changes to outlaw mass surveillance,” increase efforts to provide “oversight of state surveillance,” and “develop international protections for whistleblowers.”At the event launching the treaty, Snowden spoke via a video link to say that the treaty was “the beginning of work that will continue for many years,” aimed at building popular pressure to convince governments to recognize privacy as a fundamental human right, and to provide internationally-guaranteed protections to whistleblowers who come forward to expose government corruption. Snowden also cited the threat of pervasive surveillance in the United States, stating that “the same tactics that the NSA and the CIA collaborated on in places like Yemen are migrating home to be used in the United States against common criminals and people who pose no threat to national security.”“SNOWDEN TREATY” CALLS FOR END TO MASS SURVEILLANCE, PROTECTIONS FOR WHISTLEBLOWERS [Murtaza Hussain/The Intercept]

https://youtu.be/iQ52OkyNp8QCB Gitty is an online store that sells parts for people who like to make cigar box guitars. On of their new offerings is a Teisco Del Rey-style Gold Foil Clip-in Magnetic Pickup with Amp Cord. It's only $13.50 and sounds great! In the video above, Shane Speal demos the pickup on one of his handmade three-string license plate guitars.

David Stojcevski, 32, was sentenced to 30 days in Michigan's Macomb County jail for failing to pay a traffic fine. He was addicted to drugs but the jail refused to treat him so he died. Reason reports that over the "next 17 days of his incarceration in a brightly lit cell — where he was denied clothing — he lost 50 pounds, suffered convulsions, and eventually began to hallucinate. He died in agony, from a combination of obvious, untreated drug withdrawal and galling neglect." Jailers were able to see him on a security monitor the entire time, but they simply allowed him to suffer and die.Stojcevski’s parents are suing the county. A lawyer for Macomb county said the suit “lacks legal merit,” and the county has no plans to settle.

Whether it was Leland Palmer's grotesque waltzing or the silent shimmy of The Man From Another Place, dancing played a key role in the cult favorite mystery show Twin Peaks. Now you and a friend can play as different Twin Peaks characters (even a log), and join a sobbing Leland on the dance floor with Dance Dance Revolution-style controls. It's called Fire Dance With Me (of course), and it's awesome, free and quick to play. One of you plays with the arrow keys, the other with the WASD controls, as a surprisingly-compelling dance take on the Angelo Badalamenti sound plays. It was made for DUPLICADE, a jam for short player versus player games where one person can win within 30 seconds.This year's DUPLICADE is themed around games that feel like "outlaw flea" works, bizarre knockoffs and bootlegs mashed up from media properties real and imagined. See all the entries here.

Anil Dash is on fire in his editorial on all the ways that publishers, advertisers, brokers, readers, OS vendors, browser vendors, and users pass the buck when it comes to intrusive ads, ad-blocking, and sustaining ad-supported media.“I’m a publisher. I let the ad networks handle the inventory. I have to worry about the bottom line, and our brand. I can’t get in the weeds with all this stuff.”“We’re just an ad serving platform. We deliver the ads, and make sure they’re tracked. It’s not up to us what ads come through. Who are we to say?”“We’re an optimization platform. Sure, we make the algorithm that decides which ads are displayed. But the software is neutral, it just uses math to decide. We’re not responsible for what buyers put in the system. And publishers can say no to anything they want to.”“We’re buying ads because we’ve got something to sell. We have to use whatever techniques are gonna make us the most money. Don’t like it? Don’t take our money.”How we pass the buck [Anil Dash/Medium]

https://youtu.be/OKTR6kMs--8From Champion's creation of the hooded sweatshirt in the 1930s through Rocky Balboa to today's high-end cashmere designs to Trayvon Martin, writer Gary Warnett explores the cultural history of the hoodie.

Imperial Phase by Plastic AntsCincinnati's Plastic Ants, purveyors of lovely "maximum chamber pop," follow up this year's gorgeous full-length debut LP, "Falling to Rise," with a new track "Imperial Phase." Listen above! Plastic Ants' dreamy orchestrations come from the friendship and collaboration of four music scene veterans: John Curley, bassist for Afghan Whigs, Joe Klug, drummer for Wussy, Robert Cherry, singer/songwriter perhaps best known from his many years as top editor of Alternative Press magazine, and Guy Vanasse, a multi-instrumentalist and singer with deep classical training. Cellist Amy Gillingham and Lisa Walker, Wussy's stellar singer, guest on the Falling to Rise album as well. "I don’t even consider (Plastic Ants to be) rock music,” Cherry said in a recent interview. “It’s hard pop with timeless classical arrangements. We wanted to keep the instrumentation more acoustic because that’s where the songs originated and closer to how they were written. We like that instrumentation in terms of how timeless it can be. The collision of rock players and classical players made for some funny moments in the studio. At one point, John and I were trying to explain the appeal of AC/DC — a guitarist wearing a school boy’s outfit accompanied by a shirtless singer shouting sexual innuendos. They gave us this blank look and humored us.”I'm glad, because they sure make beautiful music together. Plastic Ants play a free show at Cincinnati's MOTR Pub on Monday, September 28. Plastic AntsTrailer for "Falling to Rise" below:https://youtu.be/LyaR4lDz13g(album cover photo at top by John Curley)

This is cracking me up, from Santa Monica College's 1989 course catalog:As a member of the Associated Student board of directors, Jason Weisberger “feels like part of a family.” He is one of a dozen student government leaders who oversee a $300,000 budget, providing funding for clubs, and such student activities as Homecoming, annual festivals, and free campus concerts.With the aid of Santa Monica College’s transfer center, Jason, a business management major with an eye on a legal career, plans to attend the University of Southern California. The overwhelming success of SMC’s transfer programs convinced the 17-year-old Santa Monica High School graduate that this was the community college for him.Working with the college’s counselors, Jason was able to arrange a class schedule that would accommodate both his student government responsibilities and his job at a Beverly Hills law firm. He is studying psychology, accounting, and cinema.While Jason has been away from his birthplace, Philadelphia, for most of his life, he still enjoys playing “lacrosse, a real East Coast game.” During his rare quiet moments he reads; he is fond of classics, Greek histories, and poetry, especially the work of Alfred Lord Tennyson.I'm actually working on a book of poetry, so while the last line makes me cringe I have to say I guess 17 year old me was dead on.

Rightscorp is the publicly traded extortion racket that tries to force/bribe ISPs into disconnecting their customers from the Internet unless those customers pay "settlements" for unproven allegations of copyright infringement.Cox, a major ISP, is locked in a legal battle with Rightscorp, who represent a bunch of music publishers -- companies that control the rights to musical compositions.Cox's lawyers have come up with a really interesting legal tactic. They say that Rightscorp only represents the composers in the songs they're suing over; they do not represent the performers. That means that when Rightscorp joined Bittorrent swarms to download the "evidence" they used to attack Cox, they were committing mass-scale copyright infringement against the recording artists in those songs.Cox lawyers don't stop there! Anticipating that Rightscorp will say that the company's downloading was fair use, they argue that this means that Rightscorp acknowledges that in some cases, Bittorrent downloading is fair use. If so, they should have taken that into account when they started threatening Cox's subscribers.The Cox motion is a thing of beauty, a wonderfully constructed argument that hoists the highest petard it's ever been my privilege to witness.“Rightscorp either committed massive infringements of the sound recording copyrights or must have relied on the fair use doctrine. If the latter, that fact is an admission that activity over BitTorrent may constitute fair use, but there is no evidence that Rightscorp considered the possibility of fair use in generating millions of notices of claimed infringement,” Cox lawyers add.Cox goes on to highlight that Rightscorp targets elderly and disabled consumers, instructing its employees to disregard protests from alleged infringers.“When a consumer denies infringement, the phone script instructs the enforcer to state that the consumer must obtain a police report, and that the police may ‘take your device and hold it for ~5 days to investigate the matter’.”Finally, Cox highlights that the copyright holders have failed to directly address the alleged damage downloaders are causing. Instead of sending takedown notices to torrent sites asking them to remove infringing content, Rightscorp relies on these torrents to conduct its business.COX ACCUSES RIGHTSCORP OF MASS COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT [Ernesto/Torrentfreak]

The Womanizer is a German-made sex toy looks like an ear thermometer or a vaporizer. It comes in a variety of garish, bejeweled, leopard-spotted, and tattooed designs. It's not a vibrator. It's a gadget that suckles the clitoris. Vanessa Marin, a licensed psychotherapist specializing in sex therapy, reviewed it for Lifehacker and said it "induces powerful orgasms in a shockingly short amount of time."After about ninety seconds of use, this bedazzled ear thermometer had completely won me over. The suction sensation feels unassuming at first, but catches up with you real quick and pushes you over the edge into powerful, throbbing orgasms that feel remarkably different (and better) than vibration-induced orgasms. If you hold the Womanizer in place, this little workhorse will make you come over and over again with ease. It’s pretty awesome.The Womanizer also offers a huge range of stimulation. The lowest level hardly feels like anything, and the highest feels like it could suck your clitoris straight off your body. All that variety means it can work well for a lot of women.This Ridiculous Toy Will Give You One of the Best Orgasms of Your Lifehttps://youtu.be/Xy0gKeZ879s

This kindly snapping turtle has been trained to open pineapples for his human companion.

https://youtu.be/ysCaqh38JVQLaser cutters are machines that cut and engrave flat material – such as plywood, acrylic, chocolate, leather, cardboard, seashells, glass, even sheets of dried seaweed. Today, Glowforge introduced a low-price laser cutter that blows away the competition at a much lower price.Glowforge is a game changer in many ways, and I haven't been this excited by a technology in a long time. The things you can make with one (see images below) are orders of magnitude better looking than things you can make with a 3D printer of the same price, and the Glowforge is much easier to learn how to use than a 3D printer. Dan Shapiro, the founder of Glowforge (he's the creator of the Robot Turtles game), gave me a Skype video demo of the machine in action earlier this week. He showed me how to make a votive candle holder out of two different materials. He placed one sheet of thin walnut and another sheet of frosted acrylic on the Glowforge's cutting bed (which has a 12-inch x 20-inch working area). He opened his iPad, which had a live image of the cutting bed displayed on it (the Glowforge has a camera and is conected to Wi-Fi). Dan then dragged the cutting patterns for the pieces of the candle holder onto the video image of the walnut and acrylic pieces. This neat software solution for aligning material was developed by Dean Putney, who was a contractor for many years at Boing Boing, and now works for Dan in Seattle. The software innovations in the Glowforge not only allows the company sell the machine at a lower cost than other laser cutters, is also enables the Glowforge to do things that other laser printers can't: • It automatically profiles a material by looking at an invisible bar code on the protective paper that covers the material. The user does not have to set the intensity or speed of the laser cuts. You can also use your own materials, and once you figure out the best settings, you can save them in a drop-down menu.• It has an autofocus system inside the cutting head, which measures the height of the material, so the head will move up and down as it traverses over bent or curved material.• Typical laser cutters have a red dot that shows you where it is going to cut. If you want to engrave the back of your iPhone, for instance, the laser cutter will draw rectangles around the phone to figure out where the engraving goes. Dan says that red dot system adds about $600 to the cost of a laser cutter. Glowforge did away with all that and just put a camera in the lid (which also takes a picture of you when you lift the lid to remove your creation from the cutting bed).• You can simple draw on the material (or paper on top of the material), and the Glowforge will cut or engrave the drawingAfter dragging the votive candle holder cutting patterns over the image of the two sheets of material, Dan hit the send button on the iPad. The data was sent via Wi-Fi to the cloud and then to the Glowforge machine. He pressed the print button on the Glowforge and it went to work, cutting the walnut first, and then the acrylic. While the Glowforge was cutting (it took about 15 minutes to cut all the pieces) he showed me some of the other things that he and his colleagues have made, including a beautiful leather wallet with a century-old map of Seattle engraved in it (image above). It was made from a single seamless piece of leather. The Glowforge cut the stitch holes with a 0.001 inch precision, and the lacing looks perfect. This laser cutter is going to change the world of leathercraft. I want a Glowforge for this reason alone. He also showed me a gorgeous Settlers of Catan gameboard with interlocking hexagons made from different kinds of colorful unpainted wood. When the Glowforge was finished cutting, Dan removed the cut pieces and assembled the candle holder. The pieces fit together perfectly and were designed to stay in place using friction. Dan dropped it in the mail and I took a photo of it:Glowforge cuts through a quarter-inch of wood with no problem. You can also cut one-half inch by cutting one one side, then flipping the material over and having the camera re-register the material. Pre-order prices: The base model is $2,000 and can handle material up to 20-inches x 12-inches. The pro model is $4,000 and has faster and better optics, a HEPA air filter so you don't have to vent the smoke outside, and includes a drawer that opens to allow you to feed longer pieces of material through it, so you can make furniture. Both models will ship in December 2015.Below, a gallery of things people have made with Glowforge prototypes.

“Proprietary software is an unsafe building material. You can’t inspect it.” Columbia University law professor Eben Moglen made that observation 5 years ago. It's timely today, as the Volkswagen emissions fraud scandal--enabled by proprietary software--worsens. Volkswagen admitted this week it altered proprietary software on 11 million VW diesel cars, so they'd pass emissions tests when they were actually belching more smog. “The breadth of the Volkswagen scandal should not obscure the broader question of how vulnerable we are to software code that is out of sight and beyond oversight,” writes Jim Dwyer at the New York Times today.Mr. Moglen, a lawyer, technologist and historian who founded the Software Freedom Law Center, has argued for decades that software ought to be transparent. That would best serve the public interest, he said in his 2010 speech.“Software is in everything,” he said, citing airplanes, medical devices and cars, much of it proprietary and thus invisible. “We shouldn’t use it for purposes that could conceivably cause harm, like running personal computers, let alone should we use it for things like anti-lock brakes or throttle control in automobiles.”On Tuesday, Mr. Moglen recalled the elevator in his hotel.“Intelligent public policy, as we all have learned since the early 20th century, is to require elevators to be inspectable, and to require manufacturers of elevators to build them so they can be inspected,” he said. “If Volkswagen knew that every customer who buys a vehicle would have a right to read the source code of all the software in the vehicle, they would never even consider the cheat, because the certainty of getting caught would terrify them.”“Volkswagen’s Diesel Fraud Makes Critic of Secret Code a Prophet”[caption id="attachment_401447" align="alignnone" width="644"]A VW Golf VII car is pictured in a production line at the plant of German carmaker Volkswagen in Wolfsburg, Germany, 2013. REUTERS[/caption]

This week, the "doomsday seed vault" (as it's known in headlines, anyway) made the news because scientists made the first "withdrawal" from the remote arctic store. But there's another reason to be excited about the underground vault on Norway's Svalbard archipelago. Weed! And when shit gets real, we're gonna need it. [caption id="attachment_423358" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Svalbard seed vault[/caption]Why did they take some seeds out? According to The Crop Trust, an affiliated seed bank in Syria couldn't provide needed seeds to researchers in the Middle East because of the war in Syria. It's kind of amazing that the Aleppo field station functioned through the war as long as it did. Now that it can't, the mothership in the ice cliffs takes over. [caption id="attachment_423038" align="alignnone" width="800"] Photo: The Crop Trust[/caption]But there's more to be amazed about with this crazy Norwegian hidey-hole! It contains tons of beautiful magical cannabis seeds, because cannabis is an important plant that humans have used for everything from medicine to food to architecture to fashion to--well, getting high--for many thousands of years.[caption id="attachment_423373" align="alignnone" width="1000"] Hemp (cannabis) seeds and leaves. Shutterstock[/caption]As this 17-minute Svalbard mini-documentary puts it, the vault is “built to withstand an extreme future.” That extreme future, thank heavens, will include marijuana. Can you even imagine an extreme future without pot? Perish the thought. But not the pot.https://vimeo.com/62688049From a story on Marijuana.com, written some time ago but worth a new look today:According to a Marijuana.com analysis of Svalbard’s database, there are 21,500 cannabis seeds being held for safekeeping in the vault. That’s more weed seeds than there are asparagus, blueberry or raspberry seeds stored at the facility. There are more marijuana genetics in the “Doomsday Seed Vault” than there are for artichoke, cranberry and pear combined.The stored cannabis seeds originate from at least 17 countries, some of which aren’t at all surprising, like The Netherlands. Five hundred of the marijuana seeds, however, come from North Korea. None originate from the United States.While the government of Norway owns and operates the Svalbard vault itself, with assistance from the Nordic Genetic Research Center and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded Global Crop Diversity Trust, the seeds are actually owned by the gene banks that stashed them there.Since the facility opened in 2008, there have been 39 deposits of cannabis seeds by three separate organizations: the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research in Germany and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center, based in Sweden and Norway.Most recently, on April 9 of this year the Austrian group deposited 1,000 seeds each from France, The Netherlands, Poland and its own country.[via Marijuana Majority][caption id="attachment_423360" align="alignnone" width="598"] Location, location, location.[/caption][caption id="attachment_423361" align="alignnone" width="990"] Svalbard seed vault exterior[/caption][caption id="attachment_423372" align="alignnone" width="1000"] Cannabis, sprouting. Shutterstock[/caption]