Boing Boing

A driver from Orange County Florida was dinged by the cops for using a very slick-looking device to obscure his license plate while using a toll road. It would have been the perfect crime, except for one thing: when the driver worked his license plate magic, he failed to notice that there was a police car rolling right up on his back bumper. Read the rest

Despite gains over the past century in the area of equal rights, equal pay and, in some regions, not having some assclown with a penis dictate what they do with their bodies, women, on the whole, still hold the short end of a very shitty stick. While men might feel safest and most comfortable inside the walls of their home, a new report from The United Nations has reiterated what far too many woman already know: the place that women call home is more dangerous than anywhere else they might roam.From The New York Times:About one in five homicides is carried out by an intimate partner or family member, and women and girls make up the vast majority of those deaths, the report concluded after analyzing the available data.Of the approximately 87,000 women who were victims of intentional homicide last year around the world, about 34 percent were murdered by an intimate partner and 24 percent by a relative.The rate of women killed by a partner or relative was highest in countries in Africa, followed by the Americas. The lowest rate was in Europe.The New York Times points out that the U.N.'s report comes with a few caveats. First, it's worth mentioning that the vast majority of those murdered every year are men. But they're far less likely to be killed by an intimate partner or family member than a woman is. Second, women are just as capable of killing a family member or intimate partner as men are. Read the rest

Writing in The Art Newspaper, Andrea Marechal Watson enumerates the up- and down-sides of keeping your millions in art treasures aboard your super-yacht: on the one hand, the full-time crew of up to 50 will certainly ensure that the art is well looked-after and kept in climate controlled stasis; but then there's the problem that international looters like Jho Low have had their collections seized after their complicity in multi-billion-dollar frauds were discovered. Super-yachts with many millions in art aboard might be excellent "floating signifiers of their owners’ wealth," but on balance you might be better off warehousing your "assets" in anonymous shipping containers in the Freeport of Basel. (Images: Ed g2s, MrPanyGoff, CC-BY-SA) (via JWZ) Read the rest

Reddit user Sneegles spotted the unpleasant clown, Pennywise, from Stephen King's It hiding in a rug pattern. Pattern in rug looks like Pennywise from r/mildlyinteresting Read the rest

At considerable expense, Christian Friedrich Johannes Büttner, the man behind successful YouTube channel TheFatRat, recorded and posted an original music video. It ran up 47m views, helping to place him among the higher echeleons of YouTube's hitmakers. But then a scammer—someone with no posted videos, no working contact info and no significant internet presence—claimed ownership of it through YouTube's ContentID system.Büttner appealed and was denied. Worse, it was clear that YouTube had simply allowed the scam account to wait until the last possible moment to respond, then to decide for itself whether it was a legitimate appeal. Büttner, being a serious channel operator with millions of subs, tried to get relief from his liaison at YouTube. He was told he had to work it out with the scammer (who was still being paid the revenue the video was generating) through the scammer's fake email address. YouTube gave him no other recourse and refused to provide more information.It got sorted out only after he went public and got lawyers involved.In this enraging video, Büttner explains what happened with remarkable calmness and professionalism, exposing in detail just how awful and broken ContentID is -- and how grossly vulnerable it is to bad-faith exploitation by frauds, scammers and wannabe censors.One trick that Büttner misses, however, is that ContentID isn't copyright law. The scammer probably didn't issue a fraudulent DMCA takedown, so won't end in trouble for that. ContentID is exactly the thing YouTube claims it doesn't do: it privately mediating ownership of content without involving the law. Read the rest

David Miscavige leads the Church of Scientology, the cultlike sci-fi religion notorious for its hostility to members, apostates and critics alike. His wife, Shelly, hasn't been seen in public in many years, and few trust the LAPD's proforma assurances that she is safe, let alone those of the church. Jezebel posted a long story about her alleged captivity, and Scientology is asking them to remove the post.The [church's lawyers'] letter makes some specific claims about both Shelly and Remini, which are as follows:1. Mrs. Miscavige is not “missing.” Remini previously filed a “missing person” report about Mrs. Miscavige with the Los Angeles Police Department (“LAPD”). LAPD investigated. It then immediately concluded that Remini’s report was “unfounded,” which means the report was false and meritless. Mrs. Miscavige has no interest in appearing in public merely because Remini – who is no friend to Mrs. Miscavige, her husband or her religion (see below) – wants to use that as some cheap publicity stunt to get ratings.The LAPD hasn’t said that Remini’s report was “false” or charged her with filing a false report, which would be a misdemeanor under California law, but they did, as far as we know, close the investigation in 2015.Seems like it would be easy to clear all this up with an interview.Photo: Scientology Newsroom Read the rest

YouTube commenter Steve Kurtics-Lentinello: "They get more depressing over time.. poor Yoda :("Hmmmm.Video by Jason Scanlon. (via Laughing Squid) Read the rest

So, get this. For many years now, NASA has been putting out some really fun posters to bring awareness to their space missions. They reference everything from Star Trek to Star Wars and lots in-between.Bored Panda writes:Since the very first International Space Station mission in 2000, NASA has been creating expedition posters usually featuring a group photo of the crew. These posters were used to advertise expeditions and were also hung in NASA facilities and other government organizations. However, when astronauts got bored of the standard group photos they decided to spice things up a bit.They call them "cringy" but I love them. I think they're fun and creative. Here's a few of them (more here):images via NASA, lead image cropped to fit Read the rest

In 1950, four patriotic Scots broke in to Westminster Abbey to steal the Stone of Scone, a symbol of Scottish independence that had lain there for 600 years. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the memorable events of that evening and their meaning for the participants, their nation, and the United Kingdom.We'll also evade a death ray and puzzle over Santa's correspondence.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon! Read the rest

Some communities across California are suing to ban cannabis operations in their vicinity because they claim the smell from the crops is nauseating. I mean, they don't call it skunk for nothing. From the New York Times:As a result of the stench, residents in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco, are suing to ban cannabis operations from their neighborhoods. Mendocino County, farther north, recently created zones banning cannabis cultivation — the sheriff’s deputy there says the stink is the No. 1 complaint...“It’s as if a skunk, or multiple skunks in a family, were living under our house,” said Grace Guthrie, whose home sits on the site of a former apple orchard outside the town of Sebastopol. Her neighbors grow pot commercially. “It doesn’t dissipate,” Ms. Guthrie said. “It’s beyond anything you would imagine.”When cannabis odors are at their peak, she and her husband, Robert, sometimes wear respirators, the kind one might put on to handle dangerous chemicals. During Labor Day weekend, relatives came to stay at the house, but cut short their visit because they couldn’t stand the smell...“Just because you like bacon doesn’t mean you want to live next to a pig farm,” said Lynda Hopkins, a member of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, whose office has been inundated with complaints about the smell...image: Wikipedia/Cannabis Training University Read the rest

It's easy to "jailbreak" an Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K, so you can run 3rd party apps. This ETA Prime video walks you through it what you need to do so you can sideload Android games as well as Kodi, an open-source media player. Read the rest

Tom the Dancing Bug, IN WHICH, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan conducts a rigorously scientific fiscal experiment.

This funny South African ad depicts an African explorer discovering Europe in the 1650s, a counterfactual to the 1652 arrival in South Africa of the Dutch. But it's upsetting people there and fast food chain Chicken Licken has withdrawn it due to the complaints.South African Sandile Cele lodged a complaint with the Advertising Regulatory Board, arguing that the commercial made a "mockery of the struggles of the African people against the colonisation by the Europeans in general, and the persecutions suffered at the hands of the Dutch in particular".Upholding the complaint, the board said: "While the commercial seeks to turn the colonisation story on its head with Big John travelling to Europe, it is well-known that many Africans were in fact forced to travel to Europe in the course of the colonisation of Africa."They did not leave their countries and villages wilfully. They starved to death during those trips to Europe and arrived there under harsh and inhumane conditions."Chicken Licken said it wanted to show that South Africa had "all the potential to conquer the world and rewrite history from an African perspective". Read the rest

Flynn pleaded guilty to multiple federal charges, and is set to be sentenced on Tuesday.On the eve of former Trump aide Michael Flynn's sentencing on felony charges, special counsel Robert Mueller has released a January 2017 FBI memo that details an interview with Flynn by agent Peter Strzok and another FBI agent.Here is a PDF copy shared by USA Today.In the interview described in the SCO memo, Flynn --President Donald Trump's national security adviser at the time -- lied about his contact with Russia's Ambassador to the United States at that time, Sergey Kislyak.Flynn, writes Mueller, “does not need to be warned it is a crime to lie to federal agents to know the importance of telling them the truth.”This will be big. Judge in Flynn case says that the memo, written by FBI agents following their interview with Michael Flynn at the White House, should be made public, with some redactions allowed, and will be relevant at his sentencing. This memo had only been filed under seal.— Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) December 17, 2018From the Daily Beast's synopsis:The document, dated February 2017, recounts Flynn’s conversation with FBI agents at the White House in January of that year. The notes state that agents asked Flynn if he remembered asking Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to refrain from retaliating against President Obama’s expulsion of Russian diplomats for meddling in the 2016 election. Flynn responded by saying, “Not really. I don't remember. It wasn’t ‘Don’t do anything.’” Agents also asked Flynn if he asked Russia and other countries to vote down a pending U.N. Read the rest

Researchers at Nvidia are creating interactive 3D virtual environments using videos of real cities. Read the rest

Popcorn is the delightful synth instrumental penned by Gershon Kingsley in 1969 for his classic LP "Music to Moog By." It was later covered by countless other artists including this gentleman, Jacques Perrot, who performs it on his face. (via Popcorn Song) Read the rest

The fight against surveillance capitalism and mass state surveillance has reached a tipping point, the peak-indifference moment, when new privacy advocates are self-radicalizing as they witness firsthand the undeniable risks of overcollection, over-retention, and secret manipulation of personal data.A natural response to this awakening is to declare personal data to be personal property and to use property-rights to manage our relationship to the surveillance machine. The response is natural for many reasons, but mostly because, after 40 years of neoliberalism, we have all but lost the ability to think of things as "valuable" unless they are owned.But the most valuable things in the world can never be owned (e.g. people, ideas). Making people into property makes them less valuable, not more.Instead, we have a whole vocabulary, and with it, a whole set of norms and laws, for describing the "interests" that accumulate around people: familial ties, state and police interests, interests the people have in themselves.Using property as the framework for managing our privacy will do us no good. Your phone number is an integer. It's sensitive and private, but you can't own it, and if you tried to, the cure would be worse than the disease.As Martin Tisney points out in an excellent essay in MIT Tech Review, property rights aren't just a dysfunctional way to make sense of privacy -- they're also ineffective. Even if you never share your data, corporations and governments can still make potentially compromising inferences about you by analyzing other peoples' data. Read the rest

No one bothered to tell this honey badger that the garbage can it's digging was designed to be baboon-proof. Not that it would matter: A honey badger isn't a baboon. In just a few minutes, it manages to yoink out a brag-worthy late night feast. Read the rest

Magician David Kwong moonlights (er, daylights?) as a crossword puzzle creator for the New York Times. In the parlance of the craft, he is a "cruciverbalist," one who is adept at making, or solving, crossword puzzles. (Wired) Read the rest

No one has been reported harmed. No bomb reported found.Police in Menlo Park, CA are at the Facebook and Instagram campus near the 200 block of Jefferson Avenue. According to multiple local news reports, NYPD forwarded an anonymous tip to local authorities.NBC Bay Area:A building on Facebook's campus in Menlo Park was evacuated Tuesday evening after a bomb threat, police said.Menlo Park police said the threat was called into the New York Police Department's Crimestopper unit, which in turn notified local authorities.According to Menlo Park police, the bomb threat was made to a Facebook building at 200 Jefferson Drive.Bomb squads from allied agencies across San Mateo County are on scene and going through the building. The NBC Bay Area chopper spotted several police patrol cars on the campus.Here's KRON's early report:Police are investigating a bomb threat at Facebook's campus in Menlo Park Tuesday evening.The Menlo Park Police Department says they were alerted by the New York Police Department of an anonymous tip regarding a bomb threat to Facebook. Menlo Park police then issued an alert at 5:22 p.m. asking residents to avoid the area of the 200 block of Jefferson Drive near Constitution Drive as they investigate. Facebook's campus has been evacuated. San Mateo County allied agencies bomb units are currently checking the building.Law enforcement officials did not provide any further details on the threat. BREAKING: Facebook confirms company is looking into a bomb threat on its headquarter campus in Menlo Park - spokesman pic.twitter.com/93PE9h3X0T— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) December 12, 2018 Read the rest

Barcelona-based Eclectic Method is most known for his remix songs that are based on pop culture (previously). Now he's trying something new, an experiment that's a little risky. He writes:Here's a video remix made from samples no longer than 0.5 seconds from 107 different artists. Madonna won her court case over the use of a 0.23 second horn stab in "Vogue". Sabrina Setlur won her courtcase for unauthorized use of 2 seconds of Kraftwerk. So I have been wondering how long is too long when it comes to sampling. This video remix is to test out the algorithm. Will YouTube's copyright ID system take offence at Taylor Swifts voice appearing for 0.14 seconds and her face occupying 18% of the screen... Who knows?If you're seeing the video, congrats, it hasn't been shut down yet. Read the rest

Equifax doxed 145 million Americans, dumping their most sensitive financial data into the world forever, with repercussions that will be felt for decades to come. A Congressional panel convened to evaluate the causes of the breach has published its majority report, endorsed by the Republicans on the committee: Equifax, in a drive to attain fast growth, acquired companies at a rate that exceeded its ability to securely integrate them; it neglected its IT, resulting in a critical vulnerability remaining unpatched for 145 days; it did not engage in basic preparation like a breach notification procedure. In other words, this catastrophe was the result of greed triumphing over good management, and was thus "entirely preventable."However, the Committee's Republican members refused to sign onto the very modest recommendations proposed by Democrats on the committee. These recommendations included "';requiring federal financial regulatory agencies to report their efforts to protect consumers from cybertheft and identify areas Congress could enhance agencies' authorities to achieve that goal,' guidelines for federal contractors to comply with established cybersecurity standards, a comprehensive notification law that dictates how victims of a victim breach must be notified and an amended Federal Trade Commission Act to 'strengthen civil penalties for private sector violations of consumer data security requirements.'"Equifax released a statement complaining that they weren't given enough time prior to the committee report to prepare their spin. "We are deeply disappointed that the Committee chose not to provide us with adequate time to review and respond to a 100-page report consisting of highly technical and important information. Read the rest

An archaeologist is studying a 4,000-year-old game board carved into the floor of a rock shelter in Azerbaijan. According to American Museum of Natural History researcher Walter Crist, the board was used to play an ancient game called "58 Holes" or "Hounds and Jackals." From Live Science:(Previously), British archaeologist Howard Carter found a game set with playing pieces fashioned like those animals in the tomb of the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Amenemhat IV, who lived in the 18th century B.C.The distinctive pattern of round pits scored in the rock of the shelter in Azerbaijan came from that same game, Crist told Live Science. But the Azerbaijan version may be even older than the game set found in the pharaoh's tomb...Though the rules of 58 Holes are unknown, many think it was played a bit like modern backgammon, with counters, such as seeds or stones, moved around the board until they reached a goal."It is two rows in the middle and holes that arch around outside, and it's always the fifth, 10th, 15th and 20th holes that are marked in some way," Crist said of the pattern cut into the rock shelter. "And the hole on the top is a little bit larger than the other ones, and that's usually what people think of as the goal or the endpoint of the game."Players may have used dice or casting sticks to regulate the movement of counters on the board, but so far, no dice have been found with any ancient game set of 58 Holes or Hounds and Jackals, he said... Read the rest

Meeting Queen Elizabeth II was a little too real for 9-year-old Nathan Grant. As she approached him and his parents during her visit to The Thomas Coram Foundation for Children last Wednesday, he bowed out of the whole thing by dropping down to the floor and crawling towards the nearest exit. Once he was through the door, he turned around to say, "Bye!" Read the rest

Apparently, sitting on the floor in Brooklyn is against the law and, if you've got a baby in your arms, watch out! A 23-year-old woman, Jazmine Headley, was at the Human Resources Administration building waiting in line for hours to receive daycare vouchers for her baby so that she could work. There weren't any seats left in the waiting room, and as anyone who has had to care for a 1-year-old knows, it's exhausting to stand for a long period of time holding a baby. So Headley sat on the floor. Security told her sitting on the floor was not permitted, but Headley said without any available chairs she would continue to sit on the floor. She was not blocking any doorways or passageways, but that didn't matter. According to Daily Dot (and as you can see in the video), police jumped all over her, tried to pry her baby away from her, and pandemonium broke out.The video shows Headley laying on her back on the ground desperately trying to keep a hold of her son, while screaming, “They’re grabbing my child!” Multiple police officers violently yank on the infant, at the same time, in different directions. People in the office are crowded around the group of officers, screaming at them to stop. People can be heard yelling, “That’s a baby!” and “Look at what they’re doing to her!” Some bystanders even try to get their bodies between the police and Headley. At one point an officer points a stun gun at the people, and then at the Headley, who is on her back on the ground. Read the rest

Take a scroll through any app marketplace and you'll see that the doors are wide open for any game these days - and any game developer. Like any creation, virtual or analog, it all starts with an idea. And if you've got one of those, the Complete Unity Game Developer Bundle can walk you the rest of the way.One of the most user-friendly, versatile tools for game developers out there, the Unity platform lets developers work equally well through any design, from simple platform to open-world. Each of the seven courses in this bundle spotlights a different functionality in Unity. You'll learn to utilize Cinemachine to set the stage with animated cutscenes, then fold them into massive open-world adventures. You'll find time-saving tips on even the newest mobile features like Augmented Reality, then learn how to package and publish your finished product in the Google Play store.Get started on your game with the Complete Unity Game Developer Bundle, now $39. Read the rest

Researchers at Flinders University knocked out a gene known as RCAN1 in mice, hypothesizing that this would increase "non-shivering thermogenesis," which "expends calories as heat rather than storing them as fat" -- the mice were fed a high-calorie diet and did not gain weight.In particular, the modified mice did not store fat around their middles -- a phenomenon associated with many health risks, including cardiac problems -- and their resting muscles burned more calories.I wrote this into my 2009 novel Makers, and described a generation of formerly obese people who at first delighted in gorging on enormous meals, then realized that they were in danger of going broke paying for all the calories they needed to survive.The study’s authors point out that there’s a time and place for RCAN1’s role in preventing calories from being burned: namely, back when food was scarce and calories weren’t so readily available. In the modern world of “caloric abundance”, however, too much fat is being stored and real health problems are ensuing as a result. The researchers suggest that “These adaptive avenues of energy expenditure [such as RCAN1] may now contribute to the growing epidemic of obesity.”"We looked at a variety of different diets with various time spans from eight weeks up to six months,” said Damien, “and in every case we saw health improvements in the absence of the RCAN1 gene.“Mice on a high-fat diet that lacked this gene gained no weight.” A New Drug Could Let Us Eat Anything Without Gaining Weight [Gavin Butler/Vice] Regulator of Calcineurin 1 helps coordinate whole‐body metabolism and thermogenesis [David Rotter, Heshan Peiris, D Bennett Grinsfelder, Alyce M Martin, Jana Burchfield, Valentina Parra, Christi Hull, Cyndi R Morales, Claire F Jessup, Dusan Matusica, Brian W Parks, Aldons J Lusis, Ngoc Uyen Nhi Nguyen, Misook Oh, Israel Iyoke, Tanvi Jakkampudi, D Randy McMillan, Hesham A Sadek, Matthew J Watt, Rana K Gupta, Melanie A Pritchard Damien J Keating and Beverly A Rothermel/Embo Reports] (Sci-Hub mirror)Gene that lets you eat as much as you want holds promise against obesity [Flinders University/Science Daily] Read the rest

Every year, NYU's nonprofit, critical activist group AI Now releases a report on the state of AI, with ten recommendations for making machine learning systems equitable, transparent and fail-safe (2016, 2017); this year's report just published, written by a fantastic panel, including Meredith Whittaker (previously -- one of the leaders of the successful googler uprising over the company's contract to supply AI tools to the Pentagon's drone project); Kate Crawford (previously -- one of the most incisive critics of AI); Jason Schultz (previously -- a former EFF attorney now at NYU) and many others.This year's recommendations come in the wake of a string of worsening scandals for AI tools, including their implication in genocidal violence in Myanmar. They include: sector-by-sector regulation of AI by appropriate regulators; strong regulation of facial recognition; broad, accountable oversight for AI development incorporating a cross-section of stakeholders; limits on trade secrecy and other barriers to auditability and transparency for AI systems that impact public service provision; corporate whistleblower protection for AI researchers in the tech sector; a "truth-in-advertising" standard for AI products; a much deeper approach to inclusivity and diversity in the tech sector; "full stack" evaluations of AI that incorporate everything from labor displacement to energy consumption and beyond; funding for community litigation for AI accountability; and an expansion of university AI programs beyond Computer Science departments. 4. AI companies should waive trade secrecy and other legal claims that stand in the way of accountability in the public sector. Read the rest

I bought a second Contigo Autoseal Chill Stainless Steel Water Bottle (24 ounces) because it's on sale today (plus there's a 5% off coupon) and I really like the one we have. Note that this will arrive after Christmas if you order it now. Read the rest

My daughter was actually convinced to take a bath, upon learning her new Kindle Paperwhite is waterproof.I think we have a photo of every member of our extended family, from grandparents to cousins, looking angrily at the camera as they are disrupted from reading upon their Kindle! This holiday season it became time for my 11-year-old to join our club. When she asked for a Kindle for the holidays my parents jumped at the opportunity to provide. Members of our family are rarely separated from their Kindle.Earlier this year I mistakenly left my Kindle in a hotel room someplace. The drama over my Kindle's return faded my feelings for my, now former, traveling companion but I have my Voyage back! Lucky for me, too, as Amazon has end-of-life'd my favorite reader.The new Paperwhite is a pretty complete replacement for both the Paperwhite and the Voyage. The screen is identical, and now flush mounted with no annoying bezel. The lack of haptic "buttons" won't bother many users, and the new backlighting is really, really even! Device weight, battery life and other features are so similar as to not merit discussion.Waterproof is the 'big deal.' Paperwhite can take being submerged for up to two minutes at 2 meters, in fresh water. The ocean is not your friend.We have started family book club. It was very easy to share a single checked out book from the library across both our devices. We discussed the first two chapters of Chris Colfer's Land of Stories on the way to school this morning. Read the rest

Brace yourself. President Trump and others in the image above are facing an imminent criminal prosecution showdown, but tomorrow Donald is due to give 'Hanukkah remarks' again. Have some popcorn handy, this should be bonkers.:Remember last year, when Trump blessed “The Jewish People” with an “especially special” Hanukkah at the White House a day after declaring Jerusalem Israel's capital and lighting the entire world's butt's on fire? No? Watch it again.If Melania reads out the Holocaust death statistics again in that godawful repressed eastern european drawl, I swear I'm gonna hurl. This could be Kushner's last Hanukkah outside of prison. One hopes.Watch Trump trump the stupidity of his 2017 Hanukkah remarks tomorrow. (via Daniel Dale) Read the rest

Timothy from Creative Commons writes, "In the US beginning Jan 1, 2019–after a devastating 20 year drought brought on by the infamous 1998 'Mickey Mouse Protection Act.' Creators, commons advocates, librarians, legal activists and others are celebrating in San Francisco at the Internet Archive on January 25, 2019 to mark the 'Grand Re-Opening of the Public Domain.' There will be keynotes (including from Cory Doctorow and Larry Lessig), panels with legal experts like Pam Samuelson and EFF, and lightning talks to showcase the important, weird, and wonderful public domain." Read the rest

From 1955 to 2015, John D. Dingell served in the US House of Representatives, making him the longest-serving Congressman in the country's history: now, in the Atlantic, he warns that at the 2016 election "put the future of our country in mortal peril," and he proposes four measures to bring it back from the brink.1. Automatically register every US citizen to vote on their 18th birthday; allow voting with "no photo ID, no residency tests, no impediments of any kind."2. Eliminate all campaign contributions, without exception. Publicly fund elections.3. Abolish the Senate or incorporate it into the House of Reps to head off the "demographic crisis" that will see 70% of Americans in just 15 states, with 30 Senators between them; the 30% of the US that lives in the depopulated 35 states will get 70 Senators. Also: abolish the Electoral College.4. Protect the independent press: "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." -T. JeffersonNow I am an old man. My age bears with it a responsibility to share what I’ve witnessed so that future generations avoid making the same mistakes. My advice always begins with the truth, which is why would-be despots and demagogues try so hard to discredit it. They hate it like the devil hates holy water.The conduct and outcome of the 2016 presidential election have put the future of our country in mortal peril. Read the rest

They're burying George HW Bush today and even before they planted him, the whitewashing began: we've heard an awful lot about how kind he was to his service dog and his love of colorful socks and a lot less about his role in running an onshore terrorist training camp for Latin America's death squads, his role in toppling democratic governments on two continents, his role in arming and supporting Saddam Hussein, then turning on him and kicking off a genocidal war in Iraq whose goal was to bomb an advanced, heavily populated nation "to the pre-industrial era."As Jeremy Scahill (previously) puts it in this week's Intercepted podcast (an 84-minute documentary on the humanitarian legacy of Bush I): the US state religion is American Exceptionalism, and today they will saint George Herbert Walker Bush.The Bush family are not your friends, not even when they're cuddling with Michelle Obama. They are the scions of war profiteers whose fortune grew through helping the Nazis tool up during Hitler's rise to power. They are war-mongers themselves. They have deliberately and coldly planned the murder of civilians: babies, children, women, the elderly. They killed, and the policies they created were carried on and the antes murderously upped by Clinton, by Obama. Rest in Peace, St Bush, and may your millions of victims find you in the afterlife.The United States is now in the midst of a grotesque canonization of one of its imperial saints, George Herbert Walker Bush. This week on Intercepted: an honest memorial service for an unrepentant warmonger who dedicated his life to militarism, war, coups, regime change, and the lies of “American exceptionalism.” Jeremy Scahill details the crimes of Bush, the sick propaganda of the corporate media memorials, and the trail of blood, death, and tears Bush leaves behind. Read the rest

Forbes's Steven Salzberg rejects the claims of those who say that the House of Representatives will be made more responsive by increasing the number of reps to 593 (or so), this being the cube-root of the number of Americans, and this ratio being considered desirable by some political scientists.The cube-root guideline may or may not work in less populous countries, but in the US, it yields a ratio of one rep per 550,000 represented people (the framers envisioned a 1 rep:30,000 people ratio, which would produce a gigantic Congress.Instead, Salzberg proposes that each Congressional district should send two members to Congress, each casting a fractional vote proportional to the fraction of the electorate whose votes they won: if Rep Dingleberry (R) gets 20% of the votes, and Rep Cheetham (D) gets 80%, then Dingleberry casts 20% of an Aye vote, and Cheetham casts 80% of a Nay (or vice-versa).This has a certain attractiveness to it: if you're one of the voters who casts a ballot for a loser who garners 30% of the vote, you still get represented in Congress.But there are some obvious problems with this. Salzberg handwaves the idea of third-party candidates ("We could divide the single House vote proportionally among the top two vote-getters, ignoring the third parties" and possibly "States could also use ranked-choice voting to re-apportion the votes of the losing candidates"). The idea that there are only two possible political "sides" is viewed by many (including me) as a problem as great as the number of seats in Congress. Read the rest

You may remember that, in Japan, you can rent fake family members to fight loneliness (or for other reasons, like you want your kid to have a "dad"). Well, Conan O'Brien has been filming in Japan and, while in Tokyo, he hired a new wife, daughter, and father. He told them right from the start that they must laugh at his jokes (his real wife is "tired" of them, he says) and they do, even when it's inappropriate. It's funny, as are the other "Conan Without Borders" videos he and his crew shot in Japan. You can watch them all at the Team Coco website. If you love vending machines like I do, don't miss the one labeled "Tokyo." Read the rest

DJ Khaled and Floyd Mayweather both pitched deals to their followers, but did not disclose or admit they were paid to do so. Both are being fined as a result of the undisclosed sponsorships, which were, of course, for sleazy cryptocurrencies.Both took money to promote Centra Tech, an ICO that eventually led to fraud charges for several of its masterminds. The SEC found that Mayweather took $100,000 to promote the Centra token, as well as $200,000 to promote two other ICOs, in posts like an Instagram message where he told his millions of followers "You can call me Floyd Crypto Mayweather from now on." DJ Khaled was paid $50,000 to promote Centra Tech -- facts neither mentioned in their social media posts. While they avoided admitting any wrongdoing, both will have to give up the money they were paid, along with an additional $300,000 penalty for Mayweather to go with a $100,000 fine for DJ Khaled (plus interest). A phenomenon of the Twitter era is celebrities not really bothering with professional financial and business help beyond accountants. The dumb ones are easier marks than ever.Here's the SEC press release on the Centra coin shenanigan. It peaked at a $240m market cap but quickly deflated and is now nearly worthless; the founders were arrested in April. Read the rest

Sheryl Sandberg asked Facebook staff to research George Soros because he gave a speech boldly critical of the social media giant as a “menace,” reports the New York Times tonight.After Davos, "in an email in January to senior communications and policy executives," Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg "asked Facebook's communications staff to research George Soros's financial interests in the wake of his high-profile attacks on tech companies."If she was willing to do this over a mere billionaire, imagine what Facebook might have done in researching news organizations and reporters who are critical of Facebook?Fb has defended the research into Soros as normal and prudent due diligence for a large public company under attack by a onetime activist investor.They note the later Definers research -- which they say Sandberg did *not* personally order -- was based on public records.— Nick Confessore (@nickconfessore) November 30, 2018We'll add to this story as night goes. Sandberg email to Facebook executives came very soon after Soros's scathing speech at Davos attacking Facebook and Google.But company says other Fb employees had already begun the research when Sandberg wrote.— Nick Confessore (@nickconfessore) November 30, 2018EXCLUSIVE: Sheryl Sandberg asked Facebook staff to research George Soros, said people with knowledge of her request, indicating she was directly involved in the company’s response to the liberal billionaire's attacks @nickconfessore @AllMattNYT https://t.co/p6MMad4zUM— Matthew Rosenberg (@AllMattNYT) November 30, 2018By Nicholas Confessore and Matthew Rosenberg at the New York Times:Sheryl Sandberg asked Facebook’s communications staff to research George Soros’s financial interests in the wake of his high-profile attacks on tech companies, according to three people with knowledge of her request, indicating that Facebook’s second in command was directly involved in the social network’s response to the liberal billionaire. Read the rest

We're just a few Congressional signatures short of triggering the Congressional Review Act on Net Neutrality (we've already got the Senate); and that will push Trump to have to publicly reject Net Neutrality (which 87% of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, support) or override the FCC and restore Net Neutrality to America.But time is running out. Today is the National Day of Action for Net Neutrality, the last big push before this Congress dissolves. There are some Congressjerks who are on their way out of office who might sign on as a big F-U to Trump; others who might sign on in hopes of keeping their jobs the next time around.Either way, this is it, the big one. Tell your friends. Add your name. Read the rest

The Proud Boys suck at redaction: as the white nationalist extremist organization struggles with a succession crisis following founder Gavin McInnes's departure (precipitated by a Freedom of Information Act request that revealed that the FBI called them "white nationalist extremists) have published a new set of bylaws for the organization with the names of the new leaders blacked out.But the redactions were accomplished by drawing black rectangles over the text, which can still be copied and pasted to read it. This is a stupid mistake that most people stopped making a decade ago (with notable exceptions).So we can read the blacked out names the document claims are the Proud Boys' new leaders. They are: Harry Fox, Heath Hair, Enrique Tarrio, Patrick William Roberts, Joshua Hall, Timothy Kelly, Luke Rofhling and Rufio Panman.Official leadership, at least as far as the vaguely administrative wing of the group and its website goes, seems to have fallen to an “Elders Chapter,” who, in conjunction with an extremely racist lawyer named Jason Lee Van Dyke, released a new set of bylaws for the organization, which they provided to the media “with member names and exhibits redacted for public release.”The new bylaws are more of the same weird Proud Boy shit, with some changes: no head punches on their weird beat-in ritual where they sock each other while chanting cereal brands; you can only jerk off once per month; and some new rulings on the “fourth degree of initiation,” which involves getting in a fight on behalf of the club and is usually achieved during shit-stirring brawls like the one outside the Metropolitan Republican Club in NYC last month, which got several Proud Boys arrested, contributing to the leadership chaos. Read the rest

“A lawyer for Paul Manafort, the president’s onetime campaign chairman, repeatedly briefed President Trump’s lawyers on his client’s discussions with federal investigators after Mr. Manafort agreed to cooperate with the special counsel.” There it is.Attorneys for Donald Trump are said to have been briefed on what Paul Manafort told federal investigators, which further ratcheted up tensions with special counsel Robert Mueller, reports the New York Times this evening.Michael Schmidt, Sharon LaFraniere and Maggie Haberman report:A lawyer for Paul Manafort, the president’s onetime campaign chairman, repeatedly briefed President Trump’s lawyers on his client’s discussions with federal investigators after Mr. Manafort agreed to cooperate with the special counsel, according to one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers and two other people familiar with the conversations.The arrangement was highly unusual and inflamed tensions with Mr. Mueller’s office when prosecutors discovered it after Mr. Manafort began cooperating two months ago, the people said. Some legal experts speculated that it was a bid by Mr. Manafort for a presidential pardon even as he worked with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, in hopes of a lighter sentence.Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of the president’s personal lawyers, acknowledged the arrangement on Tuesday and defended it as a source of valuable insights into the special counsel’s inquiry and where it was headed. Such information could help shape a legal defense strategy, and it also appeared to give Mr. Trump and his legal advisers ammunition in their public relations campaign against the special counsel’s office.For example, Mr. Read the rest

For the second year now, the MIT Media Lab has awarded a "Disobedience Prize" of $250,000, no strings attached, awarded to people whose disobedient work has benefitted society; this year's prize is share among three leaders of the #MeToo and #MeTooSTEM movements: BethAnn McLaughlin, Sherry Marts, and Tarana Burke.Five finalists were awarded $10K each: Katie Endicott (West Virginia teacher's strike organizer); Sarah Mardini and Yusra Mardini (refugee activists and Olympians); Tara Parrish (led and defended the Springfield Interfaith Sanctuary Coalition) and Deborah Swackhamer (led the EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors and was pressured to change her testimony to whitewash Trump policies).The prize is funded by Linkedin founder Reid Hoffman.“This year’s winners embody the highest ideals of what the Disobedience Award is intended to honor: speaking truth to power, empowering the voiceless, accepting personal responsibility and fallout without a view to personal gain,” says Joi Ito, director of the Media Lab and co-founder of the award. “The #MeToo movement represents a sea change in American culture, in our institutions, in every professional, academic, and political arena. These three women are on the front lines of this movement, and their refusal to back down or be silenced is what will continue propelling the movement forward in the face of every kind of opposition. We have to support that kind of heroism.”Announcing the winners of the 2018 MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award [Janine Liberty/MIT Media Lab](Disclosure: I am an MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate) Read the rest

P Is for Pterodactyl: The Worst Alphabet Book Ever is a fun new alphabet book written by rapper Lushlife that shows kids just how nutty the English language really is (rules schmules!): Turning the traditional idea of an alphabet book on its head, P is for Pterodactyl is perfect for anyone who has ever been stumped by silent letters or confused by absurd homophones. This whimsical, unique book takes silent letter entries like “K is for Knight” a step further with “The noble knight’s knife nicked the knave’s knee.” Lively illustrations provide context clues, and alliterative words help readers navigate text like “a bright white gnat is gnawing on my gnocchi” with ease. Everyone from early learners to grown-up grammarians will love this wacky book where “A is for Aisle” but “Y is definitely not for Why.”This week has been so surreal. My picture book #pisforpterodactyl comes out today and hit the top 5 bestselling books on all of Amazon — between @michelleobama and #diaryofawimpykid. We just hit the front page of @reddit, too. https://t.co/7rqAjyHIVi pic.twitter.com/zvfJq9fq5S— Lushlife (@lushlifemedia) November 13, 2018(Blame it on the Voices) Read the rest

Do you remember when Barney parade balloon ate it during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1997? The internet sure does. Footage of the schadenfraude-inducing incident is making the rounds again, proving that hating on the annoying purple dinosaur is timeless. The day after it happened, The New York Times reported the accident was due to high winds and that Barney wasn't the only damaged float:...For a while, the balloons seemed to be falling like flies. Barney suffered extensive damage and had to be removed at 51st Street. The Pink Panther succumbed at 42d Street. Quik Bunny and the Cat in the Hat limped away at 36th Street...The crash of Barney, the purple dinosaur beloved by preschoolers and loathed by some parents, was heart-stopping for those at the end of its ropes. ''Everything turned purple,'' said Antonella Laggiano of Mamaroneck, N.Y.''Barney attacked us,'' said a still-stunned Isabella Fasciano of Hoboken, N.J. After it fell, police officers rushed to puncture it with knives and relieve the danger.Thanks, Andy! Read the rest

Every week for the past two years, Mark Frauenfelder, Claudia Dawson, and I briefly recommend 6 things to our friends. Sometimes we suggest tools, but most items aren’t tools. Rather we recommend stuff such as our favorite places to visit, things to watch or listen to, favorite stuff to eat, as well as tips for work or home, and techniques we’ve learned, quotes we like to remember, and so on. We email these 6 brief reviews in a free newsletter called Recomendo, and by now this one-pager is sent out every Sunday morning to almost 20,000 subscribers. If you want to get a feel for what we recommend, all the back issues are available here.This autumn we collected, filtered and organized 550 of the best recommendations and put them into a book, called naturally enough, Recomendo. The book is 95 jam-packed pages. We’ve categorized the recommendations, grouping like with like. Having all the workflow tips, or household suggestions, or workshop tools, or travel recommendations all in one place is super handy. There’s an index and subject guide. Many of the items have an illustration. To make up for the fact that a book can’t have links, we’ve added QR codes, so you can instantly get a link with your phone. Everyone who has picked the book up has found something cool for them on the first page and they keep turning the pages for more. I think it’s the happiest book I’ve ever worked on.Recomendo is available now from Amazon. Read the rest

China's "invisible poor" are poor people who successfully project a facade of affluence through consumer goods, clothing, etc: a research report from Shanghai's MobData found that Iphone ownership is strongly correlated with membership in the "invisible poor," with the median Iphone owner being an unmarried woman aged 18-34, with no post-secondary education and a monthly income of less than RMB3,000 (USD430).Made-in-China brands like Huawei are correlated with affluence (Huawei owners are more likely to own their own flats, hold post-secondary qualifications, and earn RMB5,000-20,000/month).Huawei, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi – the four largest smartphone vendors in China, own a combined market share of nearly 80 per cent, while Apple holds 9 per cent, according to a Counterpoint research note released late October.Research highlights class divide between ‘poor’ Apple iPhone and ‘rich’ Huawei users in China [Li Tao/South China Morning Post](via Four Short Links) Read the rest

The Sentinelese are one of the world's last "uncontacted" indigenous peoples, a hunter-gatherer tribe who live on the remote North Sentinel Island in India's Andaman Islands chain. This week, John Allen Chau, 27, eager to meet the tribe and hopefully convert them to Christianity, paid local fishermen to help him get near the island. As soon as he illegally landed his canoe on the shore, the Sentinelese fired arrows. He escaped with injuries but returned twice later and was eventually killed. From CNN:"We refuse to call him a tourist. Yes, he came on a tourist visa but he came with a specific purpose to preach on a prohibited island," said (Dependra Pathak, Director General of Police of the Andaman and Nicobar islands).Chau did not inform the police of his intentions to travel to the island to attempt to convert its inhabitants..."According to the fishermen, they used a wooden boat fitted with motors to travel to the island on November 15," Pathak said."The boat stopped 500-700 meters (1,640 - 2,300 ft) away from the island and (the American missionary) used a canoe to reach the shore of the island. He came back later that day with arrow injuries. On the 16th, the (tribespeople) broke his canoe."So he came back to the boat swimming. He did not come back on the 17th; the fishermen later saw the tribespeople dragging his body around."(A) 2011 survey only spotted 15 Sentinelese on their island -- the count was done from a distance due to the danger in approaching the tribe. Read the rest