Boing Boing

Harun Mehmedinovic of the SKYGLOW project shares with Boing Boing this latest video from their project celebrating the beauty and importance of keeping the night skies dark.SKYGLOW's Harun tells Boing Boing:We just released this latest SKYGLOW video visiting North America's best petroglyph and ruins, including those of Paiute tribe in California and the Ancestral Puebloans of the Southwest.Scattered across the United States, from the Southwest, all the way to Hawai'i, ancient astronomy petroglyphs and archaeoastronomy structures sit weathering in the landscape. Carved and built by diverse group of tribes, from Native Hawaiians, to the Paiutes of Bishop, California, and the Ancestral Puebloans of the Southwest, these petroglyphs and structures reflect the long standing interest in Ancient Astronomy which grew stronger as many of the tribes went from the Hunter Gatherer to the Agrarian societal orders. From references to the Sun carved in the rock, and interest in using the Sun to predict seasons (entire buildings built to essentially serve as sundials and calendars, a critical element in the farming communities) to those of 13 moons (lunar annual calendar), to carvings of stars and constellations, interest in celestial bodies is ever present across the indigenous communities of the United States.The video also features 2018’s epic Lunar Eclipse, a.k.a. “Blood Moon,” seen at 1:03. You can view the video here, and see more high resolution photos from the film here. SKYGLOW (skyglowproject.com) is an “ongoing crowdfunded quest to explore the effects and dangers of urban light pollution in contrast with some of the most incredible dark sky areas in North America,” the founders tell BoingBoing. Read the rest

I don't know how long this deal will last, but I just bought a set of GHS Thin Core Boomers for . The strings on my Telecaster are at least 10 years old, so I think it's time. Read the rest

Brian Feldman of The Intelligencer interviewed New York Times reporter Mike Isaac about his new book, Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber.I haven’t read too many start-up histories but Super Pumped is the only one I’ve read that has a significant amount of violence. Uber drivers are pressured to keep driving in adversarial conditions and subsequently murdered. Medallion owners whose prices are undercut by Uber regularly commit suicide. On rare occasions, passengers are assaulted by drivers who slipped through Uber’s lax background checks. Do you think it’s fair to say that Travis Kalanick has a body count?I don’t know if I want to tag him with that, but what I will say is that Uber is one of the first start-ups that really crashed into the real world in a very different way than Facebook or Snapchat or whatever. That said, you know, you could argue Facebook has a body count, too: People spread anti-vaxx information, for instance. Uber literally changed how cities work and in a very short period of time. Deep, quick cultural change can often come with pushback, and violent pushback. Brazil is a key reflection of that. Uber parachuted into Brazil at one of the country’s worst economic points in its history. They’re in the middle of this deep recession, unemployment is skyrocketing, and folks would resort to committing violence in order to stay afloat. Add drivers in Uber cars with a bunch of cash, because it’s a cash-based economy, and in a lot of ways, you have a recipe for disaster. Read the rest

I am heartbroken. Every story I read about the loss of Truth Aquatic's Conception leaves me crying.I've been diving with Truth Aquatics since I was certified in the late 90s. When I was young they were the Cadillac of California's Live-Aboard fleet. My dive buddy, Bill, and I used to sit around debating if we would schlep all the way to Santa Barbara for the luxury of a several day live-aboard or just get on one of the cheaper, less lovingly cared for and less excellently staffed dive boats out of San Pedro or Oxnard.Later, having moved to Northern California and found a new dive buddy, Sean, he and a number of friends of ours would meet up annually on a Truth Aquatics boat. Usually the Vision but whenever scheduling didn't work out, the Conception was her near-identical twin with only a few differences to make it funky. The week-long trip from Santa Barabara to Catalina Island, once a year, was something I longed for.I have made many very dear friends diving with Truth Aquatics. You read about Marcus' work with Extra Life Gaming every year. Dan helps me maintain my BMW and my sanity. Former Boing Boing contributing weirdo Joel Johnson used to join me on those trips. Lisa, Sean, Gary, Dave, Adam, Eileen, Ken, Jamie, Eddie, Sal, Peter, Paddy, Carol. Wonderful people. Incredibly important experiences.Truth Aquatics has the very best people in the business working to make sure I had the safest and then most enjoyable time I possibly could. Read the rest

Confined in a Soviet prison camp in 1941, Polish painter Józef Czapski chose a unique way to cope: He lectured to the other prisoners on Marcel Proust's novel In Search of Lost Time. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe Czapski's ambitious project and the surprising importance of literature to the prisoners of oppressive regimes.We'll also race some lemons and puzzle over a woman's birthdays.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon! Read the rest

Vantablack -- the darkest, most light-absorbing pigment on the market -- is freaky stuff to behold (previously, previously, previously, previously, and previously). Vantablack reflects vanishingly little visible light, making anything in which it is coated appear to be void cut in the fabric of reality.Now BMW has painted a car with Vantablack, which, as Mark Wilson notes in Fast Company, is just about the most dangerous way you can paint a car in the history of ever: Black cars are notably more dangerous to drive than white cars for reasons of visibility already. A study by Monash University Accident Research Centre in Australia, which studied crash data across the country from 1987 to 2004, found that compared to white cars as a baseline, crash risk was higher for just about every other common color, including red, blue, silver, green, gray, and, yes, black. Black performed the worst by every measure: In daylight, the chance of crash is 12% higher than that of white cars. At dawn and dusk, that jumps to 47%—though your relative risk of getting into an accident at that time is lower at those hours, the authors point out. Monash’s study was consistent with at least one other, from the University of Granada, which determined that yellow was a safe alternative to white. The center is a respected resource in vehicle safety, also contributing to the annual Used Car Safety Ratings.In any case, if black is the least safe color for a car, making that black even blacker seems like an objectively terrible design decision. Read the rest

My daughter and I are watching A Game of Thrones on HBO (my second time, her first) and it reminded me that I read the first Martin novel and liked it but never got around to reading the others. I'm going to correct that by getting this five novel set for Amazon. Read the rest

This man's fear and exhilaration is palpable without understanding what he's saying. The subtitles amplify his terror. Read the rest

This short set of Amazon reviews had me laughing out loud! Check out Amazon's bulk Cheez Whiz offer.After the top rated review, the remarks purchasers make about their 39 POUNDS of Cheez Whiz are pretty great. I guess folks are surprised at just how much Cheez Whiz 39 pounds really is.Top rated reviewer is a humorist, however Amazon does list him as a verified purchaser so ENJOY YOUR WHIZ, SIR!Also, Cheez Whiz is not cheese, but it does include it. Read the rest

I spend a lot of time typing shit and talking smack about Apple's recent hardware shortcomings, greasy dealings with authoritarian governments and questionable labor practices. But you know what? The still make my favorite smartphone. I kind of hate myself for that, but here we are.It's looking like we'll soon have a whole new crop of iPhones to love/covet and loathe as the invitations for this fall's iPhone event have, it would seem, been dispatched on the chamfered wings of a lily white dove.From The Verge:Although Apple’s invitation doesn’t explicitly say what the company plans to announce at the event, the rumors suggest we’ll see three new iPhone models, and these will act as successors to the iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max. Two of these phones are expected to feature Apple’s first triple-camera system on the rear of the device, and the successor to the XS could also have a slightly bigger 6.1-inch display (up from 5.8 inches on the current model).Another rumor suggests that these iPhones could support bidirectional wireless charging, allowing them to charge AirPods when used with their new wireless charging case. Upgrades to battery life and Face ID biometric security, as well as the use of new shatter-resistance technology have also been suggested.I tend to ignore any talk of what Apple'll be releasing until it's been trotted out on stage—the world's on fire and careening off into space. So you know, things to do. But I know that lots of people dig playing what if with Cupertino-designed hardware. Read the rest

Two Canadians who tried to bring bottles of cannabidiol (CBD) oil into the Washington state have been banned from entering the US again, even though cannabis and CBD are legal in Washington and the US.From CTV News:When CTV News reached out to U.S. Customs & Border Protection for clarification about these cases, a CBP spokesperson reiterated that it remains illegal to import marijuana under U.S. federal law.When asked about specific marijuana-derived products like CBD oil, spokesperson Jason Givens directed CTV to a website related to hemp seed importation that read in part: "Products containing THC, the hallucinogenic substance in marijuana, are illegal to import. Products that do not cause THC to enter the human body are therefore legal products."Saunders couldn't say how much THC, if any, his clients' oils contained, or if the content was clearly labelled. CBD oils for sale vary from high THC concentrations to little-to-no THC content.When CTV News pressed the CBP's Givens on whether a Canadian carrying CBD oil that was labeled as containing "no THC" would be stopped at the border and subjected to a lifetime entry ban, he responded:"Items labeled 'THC free' sometimes contain detectable amounts of THC… every situation is unique and determinations about admissibility are made by an immigration officer based on the facts and circumstances known to the officer at the time, including responses to questions that are posed by CBP officers."Photo by CBD Infos on Unsplash Read the rest

Majestic Trinkets created a double-layered D20 that looks like something right out of a dingy pub in Waterdeep. It's $80, but think how quickly you'll win it back! This die is perfect for the most extra member of your adventuring party.This is the regular gaming D20 in my 'Advantage' design family of dice. It is mathematically balanced in CAD software design to ensure that the die is centered and fair.A 'clean' roll where the inner die settles with the outer die may not happen with every roll. When rolling on a flat surface, like a table or dice tray, it settles roughly 40% of the time. When rolling with a dice tower, it settles roughly 70% of the time. If it did not settle, give it a little shimmy on the surface it's laying and it should settle. Read the rest

When replacing a watchband, or fixing one where the spring bar has gone awry, this super cheap tool and set of springs will come to the rescue.Much like an eyeglasses repair kit, a watch spring bar tool is never around when you need one. Trying to push that tiny pin in and get the spring to engage, or disengage, is maddening. If I do not just break the spring bar and send bits a flying, I'll find some tool around the house to try that invariably scratches the lugs on my watch.This cheap box of springs and a removal tool can sit in my desk drawer and just always be there. The set comes with replacement tips for the tool, and 108 spring bars in the standard sizes.Watch Spring Bar Tool Set for Watch Wrist Strap Repair Kit, 108PCS Extra Watch Band Pins via Amazon Read the rest

Oh, this is too good. After Bowie died in 2016, YouTuber George Dillon made this video of Laurel and Hardy dancing to "The Jean Genie" to honor the late rockstar. It really works. He also did a similar treatment for "Rebel Rebel":Joy!(Soap Plant WACKO) Read the rest

I hear endless stories of grief from the friends I have who try to make ends meet working for these services.Jalopnik's Dhruv Mehrotra and Aaron Gordon share the terrible economics:But Dave, who was granted anonymity out of fear of being deactivated by the ride-hail giant for speaking to the press, had no real choice but to wait. The passenger had requested the stop through the app, so refusing to make it would have been contentious both with the customer and with Uber. The exact number varies by city, but drivers must maintain a high rating in order to work on their platform. And there’s widespread belief among drivers that the Uber algorithm punishes drivers for cancelling trips.Ultimately, the rider paid $65 for the half-hour trip, according to a receipt viewed by Jalopnik. But Dave made only $15 (the fares have been rounded to anonymize the transaction).Uber kept the rest, meaning the multibillion-dollar corporation kept more than 75 percent of the fare, more than triple the average so-called “take-rate” it claims in financial reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission.Had he known in advance how much he would have been paid for the ride relative to what the rider paid, Dave said he never would have accepted the fare.“This is robbery,” Dave told Jalopnik over email. “This business is out of control.” Read the rest

In an effort to fight cynicism, David Byrne has started a new online editorial project called Reasons to be Cheerful. It's described as a "self help magazine for people who hate self help magazines."He writes:It often seems as if the world is going straight to Hell. I wake up in the morning, I look at the paper, and I say to myself, 'Oh no!' Often I’m depressed for half the day. I imagine some of you feel the same.Recently, I realized this isn’t helping. Nothing changes when you’re numb. So, as a kind of remedy, and possibly as a kind of therapy, I started collecting good news. Not schmaltzy, feel-good news, but stuff that reminded me, Hey, there's positive stuff going on! People are solving problems and it’s making a difference!I began telling others about what I’d found. Their responses were encouraging, so I created a website called Reasons to be Cheerful and started writing. Later on, I realized I wanted to make the endeavor a bit more formal. So we got a team together and began commissioning stories from other writers and redesigned the website. Today, we’re relaunching Reasons to be Cheerful as an ongoing editorial project.We’re telling stories that reveal that there are, in fact, a surprising number of reasons to feel cheerful -- that provide a more optimistic and, we believe, more accurate depiction of the world. We hope to balance out some of the amplified negativity and show that things might not be as bad as we think. Read the rest

Give Analyze Words a Twitter handle—perhaps your Twitter handle!—and it will perform a personality analysis based on all the words it finds. My report is embedded above; I am a spacy, sensuous valley girl. Read the rest

PC gamers, choose your weapons. We've sniffed out summer discounts on a truckload of gear from Azio, a company that gets high marks from users for style as well as performance. Here are a few of our favorites from their diverse line of keyboards and mice.Azio Vision KB505U Backlight KeyboardWhen you're on a raid, you can't take time to hunt for keys. Azio's Vision is the perfect example of the company's trademark, gamer-friendly innovations. Extra-large print keys and backlighting (in your choice of three colors) combine to make things easy to find no matter what the lighting. There's also built-in multimedia controls and quick-access hotkeys to make things a breeze no matter what game you're playing. Pick up the Azio Vision KB505U Backlight Keyboard now for $24, nearly 20% off the list price.Azio GM2400 Gaming MouseThe GM2400 is built for speed, and that starts the moment you plug in the USB. The mouse is plug-and-play, with no software installation needed. From there, you can adjust the DPI setting with onboard controls and use the side buttons to turn on a dime in your most hectic firefights. Get the Azio GM2400 Gaming Mouse for $15, down 24% from the MSRP.Azio MK MAC USB KeyboardMac users will wonder what they did without this one. Bold, backlit keys convey authority, and you can access Mac features like Launchpad with the click of a single button. And if you have to press more than one, that's ok too: Like all Azio keyboards, this one comes equipped with 6-key rollover capability. Read the rest

[I ran a review of this in June when the UK edition came out -- this review coincides with the US edition's publication] Rob Smith is an eminent computer scientist and machine learning pioneer whose work on genetic algorithms has been influential in both industry and the academy; now, in his first book for a general audience, Rage Inside the Machine: The Prejudice of Algorithms, and How to Stop the Internet Making Bigots of Us All, Smith expertly draws connections between AI, neoliberalism, human bias, eugenics and far-right populism, and shows how the biases of computer science and the corporate paymasters have distorted our whole society.Smith's book weaves the history of science and mathematics' contribution to our understanding of probability and uncertainty, the philosophical quest for an understanding of the true nature of reality and its relationship to our perceptions and ruminations, the inextricable stories of evolutionary theory and eugenics, and the long project to design a thinking machine to show how the imperatives of neoliberalism and its way of valuing (and discounting) people combined with some of computer science's most ill-advised and habitual simplifications to produce a form of statistical tyranny, one that tries to force humans to simplify their behaviors to suit the models, rather than adapting the models to suit the humans.On the way, Smith shows how the parts of machine learning that do work refute some of the uglier philosophical ideas that have risen in currency as algorithms have taken over our society -- just as the Victorians had their "blind watchmaker," the rise of evolutionary algorithms has given a new lease on life to eugenic theories about survival of the fittest and the need to purify and protect the "best" among us. Read the rest

The U.S. government will launch a program about a month from now to help state officials prevent ransomware attacks on voter registration databases and systems, ahead of the 2020 presidential election. The Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency program is designed to teach state election officials how they can prevent ransomware infestations and other internet-based attacks that represent as an increasingly grave threat to election security. Voter registration databases are particularly ripe targets for ransomware, a type of attack in which the attacker sends a virus that can cripple entire city computer networks. Such incidents have already happened in major cities throughout the United States, most recently in Texas, Baltimore, MD, and Atlanta, GA.CISA won't be offering states “advice on whether a state should ultimately pay or refuse to pay ransom to a hacker if one of its systems is already infected,” Reuters reports:These systems, which are widely used to validate the eligibility of voters before they cast ballots, were compromised in 2016 by Russian hackers seeking to collect information. Intelligence officials are concerned that foreign hackers in 2020 not only will target the databases but attempt to manipulate, disrupt or destroy the data, according to current and former U.S. officials.“We assess these systems as high risk,” said a senior U.S. official, because they are one of the few pieces of election technology regularly connected to the Internet.(...) “Recent history has shown that state and county governments and those who support them are targets for ransomware attacks,” said Christopher Krebs, CISA’s director. Read the rest

Security at La Perla, a downtown bar in Los Angeles, aggressively forced out at least two transgender women and "several gay men," according to CBS.Cellphone video of the incident shows Jennifer Bianchi, one of the women, repeatedly saying, “Don’t touch me like that.”A friend of hers is shown being pulled off a chair and carried out the door.“I think it was really wrong and humiliating,” Bianchi says, “Hurtful.”The group at the bar was comprised of staff and volunteers from a local nonprofit, Bienestar Human Services who were there to support DTLA Proud, an annual two-day festival held in Pershing Square that celebrates the LGBTQ community.Image: Youtube Read the rest

Illegitimate US president Donald Trump and French president Emmanuel Macron’s respective governments have struck deal to end feud over France’s tax on tech giants.Trump still won't directly answer when asked if he'll abandon his threatened retaliatory tariffs on wine imports, joking "I can confirm the first lady loved your French wine.”“We have reached a very good agreement,” Macron said at a joint news conference with Trump as the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Biarritz, France, ended on Monday.From Bloomberg:The law Macron signed imposes a three per cent tax on the revenue of technology giants such as Facebook Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. Trump objected to France taxing U.S.-based companies.The tax, retroactive to January, affects companies with at least 750 million euros (US$845 million) in global revenue and digital sales of 25 million euros in France. While most of the roughly 30 businesses affected are American, the list also includes Chinese, German, British and French companies.“We are pushing for international rules on this,” Macron said. “It is not against any company in particular, it’s just to solve the problem.”PHOTO: Reuters Read the rest

Approximately once every ten minutes, the Bitcoin network issues one "miner" with a block reward of freshly minted bitcoins. When bitcoin launched in 2009, the block reward was 50 bitcoins. Every four years, the reward is cut in half. Currently the block reward is 12.5 BTC. In May 2020 it will go down to 6.25 BTC. (Here's an interesting page with live data about bitcoin and mining rewards.) The only other incentive besides block rewards are transaction fees miners require to add a transaction to a block.So what happens when the mining reward becomes so small as to be inconsequential (it will reach zero in about 120 years, and the reward we be on the order of 0.00000001 BTC, or about 1/100 of a penny at the current exchange rate). In this video Heidi of Crypto Tips describes of the scenarios that could play out.Image: YouTube Read the rest

Ross Ulbricht, the creator of The Silk Road darknet marketplace, is serving a double life sentence plus forty years with no possibility for parole for "money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic fraudulent identity documents, and conspiracy to traffic narcotics by means of the Internet." [Wikipedia] Above, a detail from his incredible drawing of his cell and cellmate at the MCC (Metropolitan Correctional Center).In a Medium essay titled Life in a Box, Ross writes:Try, if you can, to imagine being in this 65-square-foot cell, just you, your cellie and a pet mouse. Mail comes in and out. You get the occasion visit or phone call, but otherwise this and the prison is your universe. Now imagine living here day after day. You lay down in the bunk at night and wake up in it every morning. You eat here. Some days you weep here. Year after year, this is it. No breaks, no weekend off, and you are told you will never be let out, ever.What can one live for under these conditions?Surprisingly, there is much. At the very least, I know that rarefied states of mind, states of pure bliss that dedicated monks experience after many years of devotion, are available to me if I live a spiritual life in here. I know also that all the world’s knowledge is still available to me between the covers of books (some I was reading at the time I drew “Life in a Box” can be seen stacked on my bunk). Read the rest

Nepal is banning disposable plastic soda bottles and other single-use plastic items in Khumbu, the region where Mount Everest is located. In May, volunteers collected more than six thousand pounds of trash from the mountain. This new ban is meant to reduce the amount of garbage left by tourists and climbers on Everest and in the villages surrounding it. From CNN:Nepalese authorities said they will ban plastic soft drink bottles and single-use plastics under 30 microns thick (0.0012 inches, or 0.03 millimeter) in the Khumbu region... The ban will prevent hikers from bringing the plastic goods in -- and stop shops from selling them.The rules won't come into effect until January next year, and won't apply to plastic water bottles, said Ganesh Ghimire, the chief administrative officer of Khumbu Pasang Lhamu rural municipality."We are consulting with all sides about what can be done about plastic water bottles," he told CNN Thursday. "We will soon find a solution for that."image: "The sun rising on Everest in 2011" by Sebastian Werner (CC BY 2.0) Read the rest

Last year, Shanee Stopnitzky dropped her doctoral studies in marine biology for another soggy pursuit: submarines!Picking up a pair of used submarines (apparently they're not just for the Canadian Navy anymore), she and a team of volunteer enthusiasts set to repairing, upgrading and making the wee underwater vessels the bad ass exploratory monsters they were always meant to be. Read the rest

One of the greatest cartoon series of recent years, Adventure Time ran for ten seasons on Cartoon Network. Created by Pendleton Ward, the original short above was produced for Frederator Studios' Random! Cartoons show and aired on the Nicktoons network on January 11, 2007. Finn was named Pen.More at the Adventure Time Wiki. Read the rest

In the latest issue of the What's in my bag? newsletter (published by Cool Tools, which I edit), my friend AJ Jacobs talks about four things he keeps i his bag:A.J. Jacobs is a writer, lecturer and human guinea pig. He is the author of four New York Times bestselling books, including “The Year of Living Biblically” and “The Know-It-All.” He is a contributor to NPR, the New York Times and Esquire magazine and is a frequent TED speaker. His most recent book is “Thanks a Thousand.”Life Changing Questions ($24)My friend — the social scientist and mathematician Spencer Greenberg — developed a deck of cards he calls “Life Changing Questions.” And they are just what they sound like. Each card has a Big Question printed on it (e.g. “What have you changed your mind about?” or “What would you do if you had one week to live?”) Spencer’s research shows these questions are the ones his test subjects find most valuable in reassessing their lives. I like to break the cards out at dinner with my family and use them as conversation prompts. They are much better than arguing over screen time.ReMarkable ($499)This is an unusual tablet. Its main purpose is to allow you to take handwritten notes on the impressively paper-like interface. It’s too expensive for what it is, but I still recommend it because it’s helped reduce my habit of having dozens of spiral-bound notebooks strewn about my office. Read the rest

With all pretense having long been abandoned disinformation professional Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who shamelessly lied on behalf of the Trump Administration, will be joining the Fox News payroll.Wonder of wonders! Miracle of miracles!The Hill:Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is joining Fox News as a contributor, the network announced Thursday.Sanders, who left the Trump administration roughly two months ago, will appear on various Fox platforms to provide political commentary. She will make her first appearance on "Fox & Friends" during its Sept. 6 broadcast. Read the rest

This guy collected a gallon of seawater, some sand, and seaweed, poured it in a jar, and sealed the lid. He inadvertently collected a lot of tiny animals, too, and a year later the jar is a vibrant closed ecosystem, though it seems to be in a bit of decline due to a massive heat wave.From the YouTube description:A year ago I made this huge natural native saltwater ecosphere in a jar. It has had a lot of ups and downs, but to this day is still very successful. The ecosphere has housed crabs, starfish and a lot more and is currently still housing a lot of crustaceans, paramecium, worms, other invertebrates and even spionid worms. Image: YouTube/Life in Jars Read the rest

Thermochromic materials change color as they heat or cool. You know the mood ring? Like that!Now comes a much weirder and more delightful use of this technology: A seven-segment thermochromic display. Each segment is blackish in color when cool, but slowly changes from reddish to yellow to green as it heats up.Behind the scenes is some nifty hardware work by the physicist Moritz v. Sivers, as this post in Hackaday describes ...To achieve the effect, he first cut each segment out of copper. The crystal sheets were applied to the segments, thanks to their handy self-stick backing, and the excess was carefully trimmed away. Each segment was then mounted to a TES1-12704 Peltier module by way of thermally conductive epoxy. TB6612FNG motor controllers and a bevy of Arduino Nano’s are used to control the Peltier modules, raising and lowering their temperature as necessary to get the desired effect.It's pretty mesmerizing to watch in action, since the segments glow and recede so slowly --- a witty inversion of the snappy speed at which we normally expect digital readouts to move. I'm now dreaming of having an entire wall of these things as the output for the world's most glacial word processor, where you have to voluntarily ease your typing speed down to 5 WPM so the display can catch up. Read the rest

In an apparent attempt to soften criticism of its business practices under President Donald Trump, Amazon is offering lawmakers private tours of its giant warehouses.The Washington Post reports today that over 560 federal, state and local policymakers and their staffs have visited warehouses in 2019, as President Trump and several Democratic would-be rivals dunk on the retailer’s tactics.Each visit to a business in our state is a great reminder: Tennessee is a fantastic place to do business! It was great to tour the @amazon fulfillment center today in Chattanooga. #AmazonFCTours pic.twitter.com/PE58aDfc8m— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) August 15, 2019From The Washington Post -- which, by the way, is owned by Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos:For years, critics have accused the company of underpaying and overworking warehouse employees. In the United States, Amazon employs about 250,000 typically hourly workers, many of whom perform strenuous and mundane jobs such as walking many miles a day, picking items off shelves or packing up boxes. In response, the online retail giant has started a campaign to try to turn the tide — particularly as regulators take a closer look at the company for possible abuse of power.The efforts, though, haven’t seemed to tone down the political rhetoric.The company unleashed a squad of warehouse workers on Twitter about a year ago to rebut the narrative of harsh working conditions. “FC Ambassadors,” who have written that they tweet during their shifts, have opposed unionization efforts, and one even noted that he can “use a real bathroom when I want.” Some of the tweets have been ridiculed on social media for their bot-like responses. Read the rest

Google and Mozilla are making changes to their respective web browsers to try and thwart the notoriously corrupt government of Kazakhstan's efforts to launch a surveillance operation against its own citizens. Google (Chrome), Mozilla (Firefox), and now Apple (Safari) are all blocking a root certificate from the Kazakhstan government in their browsers which could be used to intercept encrypted traffic that goes to and Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, or any other news or communication app people might be using there.Google and Mozilla were first to take action. Later today, an Apple spokesperson began telling reporters that Safari is now also blocking the root certificate as well. “We have taken action to ensure the certificate is not trusted by Safari and our users are protected from this issue,” said the unnamed Apple spokesperson.Better late than never, but these moves by US-based tech companies are too late to protect all Kazakh users from harm. The Kazakhstan government launched the root certificate last month, and since then, the government has been able to monitor the encrypted internet activity of any users who installed it.From Engadget's Amrita Khalid:The nation forced ISPs to cooperate by making it mandatory for all customers to install the certificate in order to gain access to the internet.Turns out that the root certificate was a Trojan Horse. It allowed the Kazakhstan government to perform a "man-in-the-middle" or MitM attack against HTTPS connections to a list of 37 domains, including Facebook, Twitter, Google and more, according to a study published by University of Michigan's Censored Planet. Read the rest

Look at this cute kitty getting a little taste of ice cream on a spoon from her human. Not an every day thing, but it's okay as a fancy once-in-a-while.“This is Hallie,” says IMGURian DOWNVOTEALLEMOJIS, who adopted her. “Named because we found her abandoned on a Halliburton well site in the dead of winter.” “Kept her warm in the diesel truck and fed her cans of tuna.” “Had her almost 2 years now. She’s a lucky girl! And so are we.”What kind of ice cream?“Strawberry, my favorite.” Her first ice cream Read the rest

I've owned quite a few vegetable peelers, and the Kuhn Rikon model (3 for on Amazon) is my favorite. The blade is very sharp and it easily skins sweet potatoes, butternut squash, and even jicama. They are really cheap, too. Buy a 3-pack and share them with your friends. Every time they accidentally cut their finger using it, they'll think of you. Read the rest

In Derry, New Hampshire, a time capsule from 1969 was finally opened on its 50th anniversary yet it was completely empty. The time capsule was inside a small safe with the combination on the back. It was originally stored at the town's municipal building and then moved to the library. From WMUR:"We were a little horrified to find that there was nothing in it," library director (Cara) Potter said.Derry historians and town officials were notified, but no one holds a list of what was originally put inside....Potter said she was told the time capsule was kept at the old municipal building in town. When it was torn down, it was brought to the library, where it has been ever since."It could have (been opened) at any point," Potter said. "We have even speculated that nothing was actually put in there in the first place. We just don't know." Read the rest

Apparently, July 20, 2019 was that fellow's lucky day. Read the rest

Sam Trail says he and his wife boarded a United Airlines plane only to discover that their seats had been vomited on by a previous passenger. They say that when they alerted a crew member, they were given a wad of paper towels and warned that they would be blamed for a departure delay if they insisted on having the seats cleaned by a cleaning crew.From Click2Houston:Sam Trail, of Houston, said he and his wife were forced to sit in a seat with fresh vomit on the back, of the seat in front of them, the floor and the seat itself."The seat in front of me was covered with vomit," Trail said. "They kept boarding the people and so we couldn't move. We basically had our luggage in our laps trying to avoid contact with the vomit."Eventually a person came on board with a spray bottle and paper towels and cleaned up some of the vomit.Image: Click2Houston Read the rest

On the Under the Knife show, Dr Lindsey Fitzharris elucidates the weird history of "anthropodermic bibliopegy," the weird practice of binding books in human skin, including the doctor who bound case histories in the skins of his dead patients, and the murderer who asked to have his biography bound in his skin and presented to the lawman who caught him after his execution. Other common ways to procure human skins for the practice included grave-robbing (Andrea wrote about the Burke and Hare editions back in 2016). (Thanks, Allen) Read the rest

Mexico City judge Víctor Octavio Luna Escobedo gave two people permission to use 500 milligrams of cocaine per day, saying the drug conveys benefits such as "tension relief, the intensification of perceptions and the desire [to have] new personal and spiritual experiences." According to Newsweek, the two happy cokeheads musn't sniff the drug while "working, driving or operating heavy machinery ... they are also not allowed to take the drug in public, in the presence of children, or encourage others to consume it."Image: Pixabay. Public domain Read the rest

Amsterdam's Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica (AKA "The Ritman Library) houses more ths 25,000 occult texts, covering "Hermetics, Rosicrucians, Theosophy, alchemy, mysticism, Gnosis and Western Esotericism, Sufism, Kabbalah, Anthroposophy, Catharism, Freemasonry, Manichaeism, Judaica, the Grail, Esotericism, and comparative religion."The library has begun to scan and post its core collection to an online archive called The Hermetically Open Archive. The project was underwritten by Dan Brown in thanks for the library's contributions to his books "The Lost Symbol" and "Inferno" (the library houses the first illustrated edition of Dante's "Divine Comedy," from 1472).Though the scans are all in the public domain, the library uses Javascript tricks to try to block scraping, though, according to Maika at Haute Macabre, there are plans to enable downloading in the future.Haute Macabre has assembled a kind of highlight reel of the collection, which has some gorgeous illustrated texts in it. Hermetically Open [Ritman Library]Bury Us Beneath Occult Books: The Ritman Library Digitized [Maika/Haute Macabre] Read the rest

Air Canada flight 759's captain and co-pilot had been awake all day and were coming into San Francisco in the early hours of the morning, at the lowest point of their circadian cycle. A runway was closed for resurfacing, but they forgot or missed the note, and as a result almost landed on a taxiway full of planes getting ready to take off. It could well have been the worst airline disaster in American history. [via MeFi] At that point he noticed that the position of Air Canada flight 759 looked “very strange.” Flight 759 overflew United Airlines flight 1 at an altitude of 100 feet and kept descending, headed straight for the Philippine Airlines A340. But with its landing lights on, the huge A340 was almost impossible to miss from such a close vantage point. At an altitude of 84 feet, both pilots on flight 759 called for a go-around simultaneously, and the captain advanced the throttles to abandon the approach. While the engines spooled up, the A320 dropped to a low point of about 65 feet, coming a hair’s breadth from clipping the 55-foot-tall vertical stabilizer of Philippine Airlines flight 115. 10 feet from contact, but it would have been followed by a far worst collision with the next jet on the taxiway, with a similar result--and death toll--to the Tenerife disaster. Read the rest

The queue area at the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland features a row of changing portraits wherein paintings everyday scenes are revealed as sinister and haunted (originally the effect was done with crossfading slide-projectors; now it's done with an amazing, crisp electroluminiscent effect).There were a lot of potential gags designed for the hallway (for example, the miser who spontaneously combusts!), and while the paintings the Imagineers settled are part of the best queue in theme-park history, I can't help but wish a few of those nearly-was gags had made it into the ride.One example is "The Stab," based on a well-known Currier and Ives print, which Imagineer Marc Davis reimagined as a murder scene. As the Long Forgotten Blog writes: "So it's another example of Marc riffing off of a known image, in this case wickedly reading murderous intent in this dear lady's so seemingly innocent eyes. You know, her face does seem to me to have an utter blankness about it, despite the Mona Lisa smile, that allows the viewer to imagine virtually any thought lurking behind it."Long Forgotten also mentions that my friend (and sometime Boing Boing contributor, and former Imagineering colleague) Chris Merritt is just wrapping up an astounding, two-volume history of Marc Davis that comes out on Labor Day. Chris was Davis's protege, and the rarities, never-seen sketches, and insider dope he has on Davis are absolutely mind-blowing. I've pre-ordered my copy: it's a $105, slipcased, two-volume hardcover set. Read the rest

The Obamas released their first film with Netflix, which started streaming today — a documentary called American Factory.From Fast Company:Called American Factory, the documentary follows the events of when a Chinese billionaire opens a new factory in an abandoned General Motors plant in Ohio and hires 2,000 blue-collar American workers to work alongside Chinese immigrants. As France24 explains:In the new documentary’s early scenes, genuine attempts by the US and Chinese workers to bond with their new colleagues, including fishing and shooting lessons and shared Thanksgiving dinners, appear to bear some fruit.But as the new Chinese owners become alarmed by heavy financial losses, they fire the American middle managers and increasingly invoke their Chinese replacements’ sense of nationalistic pride to spur harder work, leaving the workforce ever-more divided.According to Fast Company, the reviews "have been off the charts." And the Obamas have four more films in the works.Image: YouTube Read the rest

Tom the Dancing Bug, IN WHICH it's a race against the clock, as Terrorism Detective must find the puzzling factor inspiring recent terrorism violence!

I'm a fan of Todd Thyberg's design work and when he told me he had a kickstarter for a project with a H.P. Lovecraft theme, I asked him to describe the project for Boing Boing. Here's what he wrote:Are you a fan of horror, expeditionary adventures from the days of old, or the tactile sensation of letterpress printed goods? Then have I got a book for you! This one, live on Kickstarter right now, is Angel Bomb's largest and most ambitious project to date!The Miskatonic Papers is an experiential book; you don’t just read it, you explore and experience the mystery assembling it from various pieces. It’s like breaking open a time capsule and then trying to figure out what happened over 100 years ago. Composed of 50 printed pieces including letters, telegrams, drawings, newspaper clippings, a broadside, burned tatters of found stationery, and a journal which was written by hand and printed by letterpress. All of these items, letterpress printed, hand stamped, aged and weathered, comprise this Stygian work of unnameable horrors. You'll even receive a cast resin fragment of the artifact that lies at the heart of the story; painted, aged and imbued with evil.This is my fourth book, inspired by early 20th century author and creator of cosmic horror, H.P. Lovecraft. Growing up reading Lovecraft’s stories, I fell in love with his dark horror and esoteric language. His creepy New England settings and monsters from beyond the furthest reaches of space and time inspired this young teenager, eager for an escape from his small North Dakota town. Read the rest

These air mattresses were set up in a grassy Denver area for a four-night "Bed Cinema" event last weekend, but began to charge across the park with the help of a wind gust. Some of them even hopped a fence and made a surprise visit to folks hanging out at a pool.Via: NBC NewsImage: Youtube Read the rest

Founded in 1623 in Turkey and now based in Norwell, Massachusetts, Zildjian has manufactured cymbals continuously for almost 400 years. This is how they do it now. Read the rest

Last weekend, Jeanette Ng won the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer at the 2019 Hugo Awards at the Dublin Worldcon; Ng's acceptance speech calls Campbell, one of the field's most influential editors, a "fascist" and expresses solidarity with the Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters.I am a past recipient of the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer (2000) as well as a recipient of the John W Campbell Memorial Award (2009). I believe I'm the only person to have won both of the Campbells, which, I think, gives me unique license to comment on Ng's remarks, which have been met with a mixed reception from the field.I think she was right -- and seemly -- to make her remarks. There's plenty of evidence that Campbell's views were odious and deplorable. For example, Heinlein apologists like to claim (probably correctly) that his terrible, racist, authoritarian, eugenics-inflected yellow peril novel Sixth Column was effectively a commission from Campbell (Heinlein based the novel on one of Campbell's stories). This seems to have been par for the course for JWC, who liked to micro-manage his writers: Campbell also leaned hard on Tom Godwin to kill the girl in "Cold Equations" in order to turn his story into a parable about the foolishness of women and the role of men in guiding them to accept the cold, hard facts of life.So when Ng held Campbell "responsible for setting a tone of science fiction that still haunts the genre to this day. Read the rest

I've been putting up with a heart murmur for a few decades now. It's never been a big deal. During my last physical, however, my doctor took a renewed interest in what's going on in my chest. I'll be going in for a stress test on my ticker, in a little under a month. Since I got the news, I haven't been able to get this song out of my head.Honestly, there's worse ear worms to suffer. Read the rest