Boing Boing

Writing in Wired, frequent Boing Boing contributor Clive Thompson praises the rise of rural broadband co-operatives that are springing up to provide internet access to their far-flung, widespread communities, comparing them to the rural electrification co-ops that sprang up to provide power to farmers neglected by the monopolistic Edison trusts. Thompson is both onto something and somewhat off the mark here. The comparison between electrification and broadband is a very apt one: without electricity, farmers were being left behind by their century's march to progress; the same is true of internet access. And as with the Edison trusts' neglect of rural customers, the broadband monopolies have left communities in the lurch, failing their children, prompting the rise of these co-ops to fill the void.But here's where Thompson misses the mark. In his article, he asks, "What if, instead of kvetching and waiting for tech monopolies to reform, we set up more user-run co-ops to operate upstart services we actually want? Imagine co-op social networks that wouldn’t need to algorithmically lure users into endless feed-scrolling “engagement” to keep the ad dollars sluicing."The problem is that the incumbent Big Cable monopolists have created insurmountable regulatory hurdles to keep new entrants out of their markets; and Big Tech has erected unassailable walls around its businesses to stop us from "disrupting" the new digital empires (disruption for thee, but not for me, is Big Tech's rallying cry).Forming co-ops is an exciting idea, but remember that (for example) Facebook was only able to grow by making tools that scraped Myspace, to let new Facebook users talk to their friends still on Myspace, so they didn't have to choose between one and the other -- and then, Facebook sued and destroyed a competitor that tried to do the same thing for people ready to move on from Facebook. Read the rest

CIT computer scientist Milan Cvitkovic conducted 46 in-depth interviews with "scientists, engineers, and CEOs" and collated their machine learning research needs into an aptly named paper entitled "Some Requests for Machine Learning Research from the East African Tech Scene," which presents an illuminating look into the gaps in the current practice of machine learning, itself an example of how rich-world priorities shape our ability to understand, compute and predict the world.Some of the gaps are predictable enough (regional languages are underrepresented in speech-to-text models) and others are somewhat surprising (speech-to-text models are really bad at recognizing when speakers "code switch" between languages mid-sentence, which is a common practice in the region) and some are really thorny (due to regional "low trust" economies, "interviewees who use machine learning with surveys or customer interaction data reported spending significant effort fighting fraud or dishonesty").Reinforcement Learning - No interviewee reported using any reinforcement learning methods. However, interest was expressed in it, particularly regard ing machine teaching and using RL in simulations, e.g. using RL in epidemiological simulations to find worst case scenarios in outbreak planning. Machine Teaching - There is a shortage of good educational resources and teachers in East Africa. Several initiatives exist that use mobile phones as an education platform. Practitioners were interested in using ideas from machine teaching in their work to personalize content delivered. However, the author did not encounter anyone who had employed any results from the machine teaching literature at this point.Uncertainty Quantification - An important factor that keeps the wealth of rich regions from moving into poorer regions like East Africa, despite the fact that it should earn greater returns there, is risk [1]. Read the rest

Damien Noll sez, "My skulls and bones are all burned (like black line tattoo) using just a magnifying lens and sunshine."My latest work is solar pyrography on animal skulls and bones, boar, beaver, cat, cow, coyote, deer etc.Many of these skulls were processed by me from animals passed to me by local hunters in Southern France, Colorado, and Texas. In processing the animal skulls, one becomes intimate with these animals. I take them through the entire process, from life to death and back again. Sometimes along that way a hearty meal is the outcome.The final markings on their skull, like a tattoo, are individual to each one. The markings become a sort of outfit for passage onto the next, more ghostly realm. The immaterial rays of sunlight giving new context, new meaning, new life,, to what would otherwise be forgotten lives.Drawing with sunlight [Damien Noll] Read the rest

Cindy Hyde-Smith is a Mississipi GOP Senator is going into a runoff election against her Democratic opponent, Black man named Mike Espy who might end up the first Black Mississipi Senator since 1883; she made headlines last week with a joke about attending a "public hanging."The day after the lynching remark, the FEC recorded a $5,000 donation from Google to Hyde-Smith's campaign. Google insists that they made the donation earlier, with the discrepancy unexplained.Google attributed their support of Hyde-Smith's campaign to her "pro-growth policies for business and technology" but added that they "do not condone these remarks and would not have made such a contribution had we known about them." Google has not asked Hyde-Smith to return the funds.Hyde-Smith was endorsed by Donald Trump during her race (and well before Google donated to her campaign). Since Trump's election, Hyde-Smith "voted in line with Trump's position more often than any other Republican senator." She has a 0% approval rating from the ACLU and is a lifetime member of the NRA, and supports a total ban on legal abortion; she is on record as supporting Trump's Muslim ban. In her official capacity, she has opposed and attempted to block same-sex marriages.Hyde-Smith followed up her remarks about public lynchings with a "joke" about the desirability of using voter-suppression techniques to make it harder for "liberal folks" to vote.Hyde-Smith has insisted that her remarks are all intended in jest and attributes the controversy to humorlessness among her opponents. Read the rest

Amazon is already known for providing dangerous working conditions, anti-union activities and treating their blue collar workforce like a disposable commodity. Since they're already screwing folks at work, it must have seemed like a natural progression to screw them at home too.From Politico:Amazon’s plans to expand into Long Island City may cost Mayor Bill de Blasio — and New York City — approximately 1,500 units of affordable housing.Two sites that will house the future offices of the e-commerce giant were originally intended for residential development, before Amazon chose them in a nationwide contest for its new headquarters.Most — if not all — of that intended housing is now off the table.According to Politico, the 14.7 acres of land Amazon's plopping out of their grossly subsidized new headquarters complex in Long Island City is owned by a company called Plaxall. Before Amazon came along, Plaxall was gearing up to ask New York City administrators for permission to build close to 5,000 new homes on their property. 1,250 of these homes would have been earmarked for use by low and middle-income earning families. In addition to this, Amazon's NYC complex is also eating up turf from a second company, TF Cornerstone: they were ready to build a complex that would contain 250 low-income housing units on the dirt where Amazon is building their new HQ. That's not going to happen anymore, either.Greed is nothing, if not consistent. Image via Wikipedia Commons Read the rest

File with "I can change the 14th Amendment with an executive order" and "no collusion". [via] Read the rest

Running on a treadmill is my number one aerobic activity, and I've taken off my sweatshirt many times while treading. Never again after watching this! Read the rest

Here are some recent game releases of note and some of what I've been up to in hobby gaming over the past month or so.Strontium DogWarlord Games, $63, 2-4 players, Ages: 12+In this skirmish game from Warlord, you play the mutant search and destroy agents, the Strontium Dogs, from the pages of the venerable UK comic magazine, 2000 AD. Designed by the masterful Andy Chambers (Warhammer 40K, Battlefleet Gothic, Blood Red Skies), the game pits the Dogs and their mutant, pirate, and renegade bounty against each other as the two forces duke it out across the galaxy. The very well put-together two-player starter set includes a 122-page rule book, a scenario book, 8 metal miniatures, dice, cards, and other components. The set even includes some cool laser-cut MDF terrain. I love when games include terrain, but you don't often see it and rarely in a game that's not well over $100. Here's a video of Andy Chambers himself describing Strontium Dog.Terrain CrateMantic Games, Prices VaryAfter a very successful Kickstarter campaign (which I backed), Mantic has now released a broad range of affordable fantasy and sci-fi terrain pieces under the Terrain Crate name. Each crate is themed (Dungeon, Battle Field, Dark Lord's Tower, Starship Scenery, Industrial Zone) and includes a generous amount of highly-detailed plastic scenery. The pieces are designed to be used as-is and they also paint up like a charm. I love playing RPGs and tabletop games with lots of evocative scenery and terrain, so I have always wanted a terrain collection this extensive, this affordable, and this well done. Read the rest

The strongest news we've heard that Bill and Ted Face the Music will actually be made is that they are now auctioning off a walk on role for charity.There are three hours left to bid. The proceeds go to Homes for Our Troops. I hope you win!From SYFY.com:With Veteran's Day starting off the week, the charity group Homes For Our Troops kicked off a celebrity-fueled series of auctions to raise funds for their cause. While you can bid on everything from a Game of Thrones sweepstakes to George Clooney's motorcycle to help build accessible homes for injured veterans, a real standout gem is a walk-on role in Bill & Ted Face the Music.Writer Ed Solomon, who penned the first two installments with Chris Matheson, announced the auction via Twitter, which is going on for one day only. And that happens to be today. Read the rest

The Wall Street Journal ranked America's 20 largest airports. The rankings contain few surprises.The top three airports—Denver, Orlando and Phoenix—have one major factor in common: strong competition among airlines. Denver is one of the few airports with three major airlines connecting customers: United, Southwest and Frontier. In Phoenix, American and Southwest compete with connecting hubs. In Orlando, the largest airline, Delta, controls only 28% of passenger traffic. Read the rest

Michael Avenatti has been arrested in Los Angeles on suspicion of domestic violence.We can confirm that today LAPD Detectives arrested Michael Avenatti on suspicion of domestic violence. This is an ongoing investigation and we will provide more details as they become available.— LAPD HQ (@LAPDHQ) November 15, 2018Avenatti is best known as the spotlight-thirsty and Trump-baiting attorney for Stormy Daniels, in a matter involving President Donald Trump. Avenatti is a perennial cable news guest, and until today, an aspiring Presidential candidate making the political rounds. He is currently in Los Angeles police custody as of Wednesday afternoon. A report on the incident in the Century City area was taken on Tuesday, said Los Angeles police.News of Avenatti's arrest was first reported by TMZ.“Avenatti's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment” by BuzzFeed News.News: Michael Avenatti has been arrested for felony domestic violence and is currently in LAPD custody, @CJRosenbaum reports— Jon Passantino (@passantino) November 14, 2018LAPD officers in West Los Angeles have responded to an incident involving Michael Avenatti, where he is detained during the process of taking an incident report, sources tell @NBCNews - @anblanx— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 14, 2018Sorry, let me translate this Michael Avenatti tweet: What this means is he's been detained, but probably hasn't been formally booked yet, which is why they aren't officially confirming. He's not in sheriff's jail locator either. https://t.co/J2Ue8Q5DBV— James Queally (@JamesQueallyLAT) November 14, 2018From TMZ:Our sources say the alleged incident occurred Tuesday, but there was a confrontation Wednesday between the two at an exclusive apartment building in the Century City area of L.A. Read the rest

We are watching Facebook unravel in real time. I hope.From the New York Times, a story I can hardly believe -- had to read some grafs twice:Excerpt: When Facebook users learned last spring that the company had compromised their privacy in its rush to expand, allowing access to the personal information of tens of millions of people to a political data firm linked to President Trump, Facebook sought to deflect blame and mask the extent of the problem.And when that failed — as the company’s stock price plummeted and sparked a consumer backlash — Facebook went on the attack.While Mr. Zuckerberg conducted a public apology tour in the last year, Ms. Sandberg has overseen an aggressive lobbying campaign to combat Facebook’s critics, shift public anger toward rival companies and ward off damaging regulation. Facebook employed a Republican opposition-research firm to discredit activist protesters, in part by linking them to the liberal financier George Soros. It also tapped its business relationships, persuading a Jewish civil rights group to cast some criticism of the company as anti-Semitic.You're gonna want to read the whole thing.This story has been 6 months in the making. It started with a question: What happened inside Facebook over the last 3 years, and what did top executives, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, do in the wake of crisis after crisis battering the company? https://t.co/N6kaDNqfj6— Sheera Frenkel (@sheeraf) November 14, 2018As a guy who's been lied to and about by Facebook in the past, and remained fair and tried to give them credit when due anyway, I'm just aghast. Read the rest

The American Cable Association (ACA) represents 700+ small/medium US cable operators; they've written to the Assistant Attorney General calling for an "immediate" antitrust investigation into Comcast's business practices, a call that was supported by Donald Trump in a tweet.The ACA claims that Comcast's market dominance gives it the potential to get preferential treatment for "must have" channels, and that its past conduct (including violations of its consent decree) put it at a high risk of these abuses (Trump claimed that the abuses were already "routine," which is not what the ACA alleges).Comcast owns NBC, one of the many media companies that Trump has vocally denounced.The Justice Department is currently trying to stop a merger between AT&T and Time Warner, and the ACA strategically argues that Comcast is more dangerous than those companies combined. But the department may already have its sights on Comcast. In August, Delrahim warned Comcast that it would continue monitoring potential antitrust threats even after the consent decree expired. Last month, Delrahim also said the Justice Department would investigate whether Comcast was using its 30 percent share in Hulu to undermine the streaming video service, which competes with traditional cable.The ACA’s letter also raises concerns involving Hulu, suggesting that Comcast could effectively hold the service hostage. “We have heard from ACA members that they fear that ComcastNBCU may restrict, if it is not already restricting, their ability to access Hulu and make it available to their customers as an alternative to their cable offerings,” reads the letter. Read the rest

In case you hadn't noticed from the sleigh bell-heavy music and the hues on your Starbucks cup, the holiday season hasn't shown any more patience this year. But that doesn't need to be a bad thing, especially if you're hoping to get a jump on your shopping. Retailers aren't waiting til Black Friday to dish out the deals, and neither should you. Here are's six of the more notable bargains on the radar, from booze paraphernalia to tech-minded winter wear:Knit Touchscreen GlovesSo you're walking in frostbite weather and an urgent text pops up. It's an all-too-common annoyance with an easy solution: These fashionable knit gloves, equipped with a conductive fingertip surface that lets you swipe and send with comfort in any climate. They're currently 42% off the MSRP at $10.99.TREBLAB X11 Bluetooth In-Ear HeadphonesWith passive noise-cancellation tech and HD sound, these next-gen buds will be going straight from the stocking into your music-loving friend's ear. (And with the stabilizing ear fins, they'll stay there.) Equipped with Bluetooth 4.1 CSR and a built-in mic, they're equally well suited for taking calls on the go, at the gym - anywhere you need hands-free audio. Best of all, they're $29.99 - a significant drop from the already sale-priced $54.99.Eravino Whiskey Globe DecanterHere's one for the worldly tippler on your list. Mounted on a hardwood display, this decanter holds 30 ounces of whiskey or other spirits inside an etched globe map, complete with a blown glass ship-in-a-bottle. Great for Christmas, but just as well suited as a gift for newlyweds. Read the rest

Sothebys is to auction a diamond ring created by Apple design chief Jony Ive and Marc Newson.Theirs will be created by removing material rather than adding – an ambition made possible by the extraordinary scale of the stone which will enable the ring to be completely made of this material.Creating a ring-shaped diamond is no small feat; the diamond block will be faceted with several thousand facets, some of which are as small as several hundred micrometers. The interior ring will be cylindrically cut out for the desired smoothness using a micrometer thick water jet inside which a laser beam is cast. The finished ring will have between 2000-3000 facets which has never been seen before on a single piece.It'll be made from a cultured diamond and is expected to fetch $150-$250k. It looks great, but is difficult to upgrade and tends to overheat if you leave magazines on top. Read the rest

In the debate over "responsible disclosure," advocates for corporate power say that companies have to be able to decide who can reveal defects in their products and under which circumstances, lest bad actors reveal their bugs without giving them time to create and promulgate a patch.But over and over again, this theory of corporate responsibility and security researcher intransigence falls apart. The reality is that the kinds of security researchers who want to report bugs (rather than using them to attack people) are primarily interested in improving security, and corporations that offer good-faith promises (and live up to them) can easily tempt researchers into coordinating their disclosures. When corporations threaten researchers or fail to act on their warnings, the result isn't silence -- it's uncoordinated disclosure, when a security researcher simply publishes their findings without warning the company first.The latest example of this is Sergey Zelenyuk's publication of a "100% reliable" exploit against Virtualbox, Oracle's popular virtual machine software. The exploit allows attackers to puncture the virtual machine's sandbox and access the underlying system's files and processes.Zelenyuk published the zero-day bug because of Oracle's long history of mistreatment of security researchers (including threatening customers with legal retaliation if they hire auditors to examine the software Oracle sold them), and its cavalier handling of bugs, including a 15-month lag between learning of a similar bug and issuing a patch.It's a sobering reminder that the "responsible disclosure" debate isn't about under which circumstances researchers can go public; it's about whether they choose to trust a company before going public. Read the rest

Amanda Marcotte, author of Troll Nation: How The Right Became Trump-Worshipping Monsters Set On Rat-F*cking Liberals, America, and Truth Itself, explained why Trump's followers embrace his lies even when they know they are being lied to:Thread by @AmandaMarcotte: "No one actually believes Jim Acosta did anything wrong. This is one of those situations where conservatives collectively pretend to believe […]"Image: C-Span Read the rest

Glasgow-based Collins Dictionary has chosen their 2018 Word of the Year: single-use. The adjective meaning "made to be used once only" beat out the abbreviation VAR ("video assistant referee"), floss (the dance, not the dental product), gammon (a white, angry male who supports Brexit), and plogging (a Swedish activity that involves jogging and picking up litter).Selected as the #CollinsWOTY 2018, single-use encompasses a global movement to kick our addiction to disposable products. From plastic bags, bottles and straws to washable nappies, we have become more conscious of how our habits and behaviours can impact the environment...Our records show a four-fold increase in usage of this word since 2013, with news stories and the likes of the BBC’s Blue Planet II raising public awareness of this environmental issue."Single-use" also beat out other words on this year's shortlist: whitewash, vegan, MeToo, and backstop.image via Collins Dictionary Read the rest

Equipped only with handtools, this woman harvests bamboo from a grove and makes a beautiful furniture set. It is interesting to see how she heats the bamboo over a fire to make it bendable.[via Core77] Read the rest

This "Wacky Waving Inflatable Tube Guy" makes me so happy! For $13 (plus an annoyingly steep $9 to ship to the states), you get this inspired desk toy along with a little zine that tells the origin story of the wacky tube man, aka the "Tall Boy."Watch him flail about just like his granddaddy:In related news: Inflatable air dancer humorously synced to music Read the rest

In September, a consortium of 11 of Europe's largest science funders announced, "Plan S," whereby they would no longer fund research unless the grantees promised that the results would be published in an open access journal, which anyone could read and copy for free. Two more funders quickly signed up after the announcements, bringing the total to 13. Now, Europe's two largest science funders have joined the consortium: The Wellcome Trust and the Gates Foundation, and with these 15 funders backing Plan S, nearly all science research in Europe will be open access.Plan S does not allow "hybrid" journals which mix open access and paywalled science, though Wellcome will continue to fund research for hybrid publication until 22, but only if the journal has a "transformative OA agreement" promising to transition away from its paywall. Another exception to Plan S allows publication in paywalled journals provided this takes place simultaneous with deposit in an open repository such as PubMed Central.Some publishers have bifurcated their journals, making them partially open access, but only for research funded under an open access mandate.Open access has gone from a fringe issue to one of global import. In 2013, the young technologist and activist Aaron Swartz hanged himself while facing 13 felony counts for accessing scientific papers over MIT's network, and his death created a sense of urgency for the issue that has not faded.The open access portal Sci-Hub makes the entire corpus of scientific literature available for free, without permission, and has been the subject of widespread internet censorship orders, as giant science publishers like Elsevier seek to block it on the national level. Read the rest

James Corden is back with a new episode of Carpool Karaoke. On this drive, he rides, sings, and chats with living legend Barbra Streisand. The 76-year-old singer sat in the driver's seat and shared that she once phoned Apple CEO Tim Cook in the hopes he could get Siri to pronounce her last name correctly. It worked, Siri now pronounces it the right way, "Strei-sand."Ms. Streisand has a new album out. It's called "Walls" and she created it in response to "these difficult times:"screenshot via Read the rest

FTP -- the "file transfer protocol" -- is a long-supplanted Unix tool for transferring files between computers, once standard but now considered to be too insecure to use; so it's alarming that it's running on the voting machines that will be used in elections in Wisconsin and Kentucky tomorrow.The FBI has warned that "criminal actors" use FTP in targeting US voting machines. The Wisconsin Elections Commission and DHS have reported hacker attacks on Wisconsin voting machines in the 2016 elections.Propublica portscanned the voting machines in Kentucky and Wisconsin, which are connected to the fucking internet, and found FTP services being advertised by servers on the machines.Kentucky's voting machines did not require a password to access their FTP servers.As of late Wednesday, Kentucky’s voter-registration server still allowed users to browse a list of files without a password. Even the names of the files contained clues that could conceivably help an intruder. For example, they indicated that Kentucky may use driver’s licenses on file in its motor vehicle software to verify voters’ identities.Bradford Queen, a spokesman for Kentucky’s secretary of state, declined to say if running an FTP server was problematic. “We are constantly guarding against foreign and domestic bad actors and have confidence in the security measures deployed to protect our infrastructure,” he said.“ProPublica’s claims regarding Kentucky’s website lack a complete understanding of the commonwealth’s full approach to security, which is multi-layered. Defenses exist within each layer to determine and block offending traffic.”File-Sharing Software on State Election Servers Could Expose Them to Intruders [Jack Gillum and Jeff Kao/Propublica] Read the rest

Brian Kemp is the Secretary of State for Georgia, where is he also running for governor, meaning that he is overseeing his own election -- and in that capacity, he has purged thousands of Black voters from the rolls (the total purge runs to the millions) and distinguished himself as one of the last holdouts for replacing his state's worst-of-breed insecure voting machines with ones that produce a paper audit trail that can be consulted if they are suspected of malfunction.Kemp, who is running against Stacey Abrams (a Black woman with an "unapologetic progressive" platform) has a long history of voting machine shenanigans (one set of machines was wiped right after Georgia voters filed a lawsuit involving them) and his campaign has been a mix of (semi)coded racism and performative tough-guy stunts.His latest eleventh-hour salvo has reached a new low for absurdist tragicomedy: Kemp has accused the Democratic Party of hacking into the state's voter registration system in order to steal its records (these records are sold to anyone who asks, by the State of Georgia, for $250!).Besides the "the Demmycrats hacked us to save $250" weirdness, there's plenty more surrealism in Kemp's accusation: Kemp has accused the Democrats of two separate, mutually exclusive offenses: hacking into the voter registration system to steal its data, and hacking into it to expose its vulnerabilities (vulnerabilities, mind, which have been lavishly documented and demonstrated by independent security researchers).Kemp is a serial offender when it comes to false accusations of hacking voting systems: in 2016, he accused the Department of Homeland Security of hacking Georgia's vote (in reality, someone at the DHS had visited Kemp's Secretary of State website. Read the rest

A non-negotiable feature of Disneyland's 2008 contract with Unite Local 11 -- which represents the laundry workers who clean linens from the resort's hotels and restaurants -- was a new "work-tracking" system that used "gamification" to display realtime signals about each worker's productivity on public leaderboards, colorcoded with the slowest workers' names in red, as well as color-coding indicators on individual machines to indicate whether they were underperforming.The workers called this system "the electronic whip" and they say that it had the intended effect of speeding up their work -- at the expense of bitter fighting between workers (in a workplace that had a decades-long reputation for being a good and pleasant place to work) and a sharp increase in on-the-job injuries.Disneyland has been the site of intense union organizing, a pushback that was triggered by a decades-long ratcheting-down of real wages and working conditions.While this whip was cracking, the workers sped up. ‘We saw a higher incidence of injuries,’ Topete said. ‘Several people were injured on the job.’ The formerly collegial environment degenerated into a race. The laundry workers competed with each other, and got upset when coworkers couldn’t keep up. People started skipping bathroom breaks. Pregnant workers fell behind. ‘The scoreboard incentivises competition,’ said Topete. ‘Our human competitiveness, whatever makes us like games, whatever keeps us wanting to win, it’s a similar thing that was happening. Even if you didn’t want to.’The dark side of gamifying work [Vincent Gabrielle/Aeon](Thanks, Don!)(Image: Cryteria, CC-BY) Read the rest

This week's Saudi State-sactioned Murder Wheel of Misfortune has landed upon "acid bath."A top Turkish official, presidential adviser Yasin Aktay, has said he believes Jamal Khashoggi's body was dissolved in acid after being cut up. The "only logical conclusion", he said, was that those who had killed the Saudi journalist in Istanbul had destroyed his body "to leave no trace behind".Khashoggi, a critic of Saudi rulers, was killed inside the country's consulate on 2 October. No forensic evidence has been provided to prove his body was dissolved. What will the story be next week? Tktktktkttiktick tick tick tick... tick.... "eaten by angry raccoons." Read the rest

For more than a decade, Shipping and Transit LLC (AKA Arrivalstar) has been aggressively pursuing dubious patent claims against public transit companies, shippers, and other businesses whose practices overlapped with Arrivalstar's absurd, obvious patents on using GPSes to figure out where stuff was.Now, Shipping and Transit is bankrupt, and it has valued its portfolio of 34 patents at $1. It's the most honest moment in the company's shameful history.Shipping and Transit is the poster-child for sloppiness at the US Patent and Trademark Office. The company owns a suite of patents for using GPS exactly as it was designed to work: to figure out where stuff is, and then to log and/or transmit that location. The people who filed these patents didn't invent GPS: they just took someone else's widely used invention and patented the most obvious way to use it. The US Patent and Trademark Office granted the patent, Shipping and Transit bought it, and then used it to harass and soak people who were making products and providing services (including city bus services!), while Shipping and Transit made nothing (except lawsuits).Thankfully, there have been some changes in patent rules that have made it easier to get junk patents thrown out. After a couple of significant court losses in which Shipping and Transit was ordered to pay their victims' legal fees, and facing mounting debts, the company filed for bankruptcy.Though the company made millions in settlements and "licenses" for its patent portfolio, it valued the portfolio at $1 in the bankruptcy. Read the rest

Hey you know what happens when a superpower declares that it's going to take steps that will allow it to dictate the internal policies of other nations?I'll give you a hint: nothing good. From Vox.comNational Security Adviser John Bolton just gave a modern-day “Axis of Evil” speech, this one focused on three countries in Latin America.In a 30-minute address at Miami Dade College’s Freedom Tower, Bolton said the Trump administration will take a hard line against Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua by sanctioning the countries and cutting off diplomatic relations with them until they meet US demands.“This Troika of Tyranny, this triangle of terror stretching from Havana to Caracas to Managua, is the cause of immense human suffering, the impetus of enormous regional instability, and the genesis of a sordid cradle of communism in the Western Hemisphere,” Bolton said. “Under President Trump, the United States is taking direct action against all three regimes to defend the rule of law, liberty, and basic human decency in our region.”I guess that if Trump can't stop folks from migrating to the American border (totally legal) to request asylum (very legal as well), then he and his flying monkeys will throw cash and personnel at stopping the problem at what they perceive to be the source? This sounds pretty thin.According to Vox, US relations with Cuba will become more limited. Diplomats--apparently America still has those--will attempt to force the Venezuelan government to release hundreds of political prisoners and Nicaragua, which we've talked about here extensively, will get a talking to over the 300-plus civilians that have been killed so far this year in anti-government protests. Read the rest

Katie Notopoulos of Buzzfeed has found a new way to amuse herself -- looking at houses on Zillow that cost more than $10 million, yet still suck.So I moved the sliding toggle out of the price range that might, in theory, be realistic for me, to find houses in the area that cost more than $10 million — just out of curiosity. And what I found was pure, hideous, tacky, gilded-and-marble joy.I found mansions with suits of armor in the hallway, made to look like medieval castles. Mansions clearly built in the ’80s, with custom white metal railings, by a Miami Vice fan. A mansion in Connecticut that is literally a replica of Monticello, a Nashville mansion with a giant custom pirate ship bed that belongs to Big Kenny from Big & Rich (I googled the address), a ’90s purple explosion that belonged to Eddie Murphy (I learned that when I called the realtor to ask for permission to use the photos in this article; apparently his ex-wife sold it after their divorce). Mansions on Staten Island that, well, look like mansions on Staten Island.Image: Zillow Read the rest

A drunken baggage handler for Piedmont Airlines was in Kansas City when he took a snooze on the job. Just a bit later he woke up to find himself in Chicago. The gentleman had taken his lie down in the cargo hold on a Boeing 737 American Airlines flight.Although there were 80 passengers onboard, the heated, pressurized cargo hold was empty, making for a cozy napping nook. The man wasn't hurt. He was sent back to Kansas City with no charges pressed. It's one hell of a way to fly for free.Via The Kansas City StarImage: Colin Bowern/Flickr Read the rest

The bad news is that, due to the sheer tininess of certain components, iPhones are particularly vulnerable to going haywire in the presence of helium. The good news is that helium just isn't a problem you run into often.Sure enough, Apple’s user guide for the iPhone and Apple watch admits this is a problem: “Exposing iPhone to environments having high concentrations of industrial chemicals, including near evaporating liquified gasses such as helium, may damage or impair iPhone functionality. … If your device has been affected and shows signs of not powering on, the device can typically be recovered. Leave the unit unconnected from a charging cable and let it air out for approximately one week. The helium must fully dissipate from the device, and the device battery should fully discharge in the process. After a week, plug your device directly into a power adapter and let it charge for up to one hour. Then the device can be turned on again.” (Emphasis added.) Read the rest

Vice decided to test out Facebook's commitment to positively identifying the people and organizations behind political ads, so they applied for clearance to buy ads in the names of ever sitting US Senator, showing no proof, and Facebook granted permission in each case.They didn't go on to buy ads, but if they had, those ads would have run with Facebook's standard "paid for" disclosures, as in "Paid For By Chuck Schumer."It turns out that Facebook's new anti-fraudulent political ad measure operates on the honor system.To test it, VICE News applied to buy fake ads on behalf of all 100 sitting U.S. senators, including ads “Paid for by” by Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer. Facebook’s approvals were bipartisan: All 100 sailed through the system, indicating that just about anyone can buy an ad identified as “Paid for by” by a major U.S. politician.What’s more, all of these approvals were granted to be shared from pages for fake political groups such as “Cookies for Political Transparency” and “Ninja Turtles PAC.” VICE News did not buy any Facebook ads as part of the test; rather, we received approval to include "Paid for by" disclosures for potential ads.We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them. [William Turton/Vice](via JWZ) Read the rest

Since Halloween is nearly here, Norwegian musical artist Leo Moracchioli (previously on BB) made a metal cover of Danny Elfman's "This is Halloween" from Tim Burton's 1993 classic The Nightmare Before Christmas. Prepare to headbang with a devil puppet.(The Awesomer) Read the rest

Longreads posted an excerpt from from Alec Nevala-Lee’s new book, Astounding, recounting the events that led to L. Ron Hubbard creating a religion and its origins in the golden age of science fiction: Dawn of Dianetics: L. Ron Hubbard, John W. Campbell, and the Origins of Scientology.In the summer of 1949, Campbell was thirty-nine years old and living in New Jersey. For over a decade, he had been the single most influential figure in what would later be known as the golden age of science fiction, and he had worked extensively with Hubbard, who was popular with fans. The two men were personally close, and when Hubbard, who was a year younger, suffered from depression after World War II, Campbell became concerned for his friend’s mental state: “He was a quivering psychoneurotic wreck, practically ready to break down completely.”Hubbard had sought medical treatment for his psychological problems, which he also tried to address in unconventional ways. While living in Savannah, Georgia, he began to revise Excalibur, an unpublished manuscript on the human mind that he had written years earlier. In a letter to his agent, Hubbard said that the book had information on how to “rape women without their knowing it,” and that he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to use it to abolish the Catholic Church or found one of his own. He concluded, “Don’t know why I suddenly got the nerve to go into this again and let it loose. It’s probably either a great love or an enormous hatred of humanity.”The degree of Campbell's involvement in shaping early Scientology lore came as quite a surprise. Read the rest

Deon is a project to create automated "ethics checklists" for data science projects; by default, running the code creates a comprehensive checklist covering data collection and storage, modeling and deployment: the checklist items aren't specific actions, they're "meant to provoke discussion among good-faith actors who take their ethical responsibilities seriously. Because of this, most of the items are framed as prompts to discuss or consider. Teams will want to document these discussions and decisions for posterity."The lists can be customized for your own purposes, and if you think the default list needs revising, there's a democratic process for amending it.Checklists are a powerful way to ensure that important steps are not missed out; the rise of surgical checklists made an enormous positive change in patient outcomes -- hilariously, though surgeons often chafe at having to refer to checklists while doing a procedure they've done a hundred times, they overwhelmingly say that they would prefer to have checklists in the mix any time they are the patients.First and foremost, our goal is not to be arbitrators of what ethical concerns merit inclusion. We have a process for changing the default checklist, but we believe that many domain-specific concerns are not included and teams will benefit from developing custom checklists. Not every checklist item will be relevant. We encourage teams to remove items, sections, or mark items as N/A as the concerns of their projects dictate.Second, we built our initial list from a set of proposed items on multiple checklists that we referenced. Read the rest

Have you ever wondered if someone died in your house, or worse? Enter DiedInHouse.com. A simple $11.99 search through them will tell you everything you (probably don't) want to know.A query on this website will uncover if a specific address is "stigmatized," meaning that it's got issues beyond its physical condition. Sellers are generally not under legal obligation to share if something horrible -- like a murder, suicide, or, say, a meth lab -- has happened on a property. And they certainly aren't required to disclose "paranormal" activity.Software engineer Roy Condrey founded the site in 2013 after getting a strange text.Forbes:The website’s creation begins like a ghost story. ...Condrey received a text message in the middle of the night from one of his tenants that read: “Did you know that your house is haunted?” Condrey went down a cyber rabbit hole seeking, but not finding, an easy way to determine if his property had indeed seen a gruesome crime or fatality. “I went online to find a ‘Carfax’ of sorts for deaths in homes and I didn’t find anything, but I did find pages and pages of people asking if there’s a way to find out if their house is haunted,” says Condrey, who rents out several properties. He later learned through his data collection that, in fact, at least 4.5 million homes nationwide have had documented deaths take place on the premises. The number of homeowners that know about the history of their home, however, is unknown. Read the rest

This gorgeous 1960s aerodynamic test model of a NASA supersonic transport plane from the space agency's Langley Research Center can be yours for $5,685. On offer from Agent Gallery Chicago, it's approximately 51" long with a wingspan of 24" and "built of wood and composite materials." Unfortunately, one of the fins has snapped off but I'm sure the right person could work wonders with a little balsa wood, X-acto knife, and paint."RARE 1960'S NASA AERODYNAMICS SST MODEL" (via Uncrate) Read the rest

Set aside your feeble 3D printers, meatbags. The Grind Master demonstrates the supremacy of fully-automated robot milling of stone, wood and other sculptural materials. Here the Buddha's head is sculpted from foam:Previously: Epic glove ad explains benefits of gloves Read the rest

Whether you already have hearing loss or want to save what you have, it's time to look into bone conduction earphones. Well, guess what! These True Wireless Bone Conduction Earphones are on sale and a great introduction to the tech.If you're not familiar with bone conduction, you'll notice something different about these otherwise minimalist gadgets: No earbud. That's because the headphones sit outside of the ear, transmitting sound through the bones of the skull in a way that completely bypasses the eardrum while still delivering crisp stereo sound. Lightweight and unobtrusive, they're also equipped with 4.2 Bluetooth wireless technology and a one-touch home button that lets you answer calls or switch music tracks quickly and easily. They juice up in just two hours and can last up to 10 hours on a single charge, making them your new traveling companion no matter where you need sound.Pick up the True Wireless Bone Conduction Earphones today at a 20% discounted price of $39.99. Read the rest

Britain, like most of western Christendom, celebrates Christmas with ornamented trees. The British mark Remebrance Day for World War I on November 11 by wearing paper poppies. A shopping mall in Salisbury, England, has ingeniously combined the two events by making a giant Christmas tree out of paper poppies. One tweet described the red tree as an oddity, saying: "Christmas and Remembrance Sunday, together at last in one oddly conceived package."Another comment described it as "tasteless", while a further tweet said it was "disrespectful". But the Royal British Legion said it was "grateful to all individuals, as well as any shops, pubs and other commercial enterprises, which choose to show their support for the Armed Forces Community".There's something about the way monumental paganism remains an emergent property of the British condition, even (especially) when it's trying to do blithely inoffensive corporate promotional material. MARKETING CONSULTANT: George, something's come up about the sign by the poppy tree. It's Selfridges. They object to some of the text.GEORGE: What now?CONSULTANT: It's the line that reads "KNEEL BEFORE THE BLOOD TREE! FUCK BEFORE THE BLOOD GOD!" They're wondering if it could say "copulate" or "make love" instead of "fuck". GEORGE: (sighs angrily) There's always something. Read the rest

The U.S. Marine Corps is looking into allegations that one of its pilots drew a giant invisible dick in the sky, angering people who don't like giant invisible dicks.From USA Today:Maj. Josef Patterson, spokesman for 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, told the Marine Corps Times that the aircraft in question belongs to Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 101. Patterson could not say whether the pilot was an instructor or in training."Obscene or inappropriate actions, flight or not, do not reflect the core values we hold as Marines," Patterson told NBC 7 San Diego. Somebody needs to have a word with the crew of US Navy T-34C 160937 SHUTR91 out of MCAS Miramar 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/WgrgkKzRln— Aircraft Spots (@AircraftSpots) October 23, 2018 Read the rest

You know those super real-looking food samples on display – sampuru – in front of restaurants all over Japan? Now, imagine a mashup between those and your phone case. Here's Rakuten's nice line up of delicious-looking coverings for your phone. There is everything from sushi to pizza toast to curry and tacos, from bacon and eggs to shrimp tempura, and so much more. You can also set your phone into a stand shaped like a small bowl of ramen.If you would rather keep your old case but still want to be in on the food fun, watch this video till the end. Read the rest

To Whom It May Concern:I write today on behalf of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, to raise urgent issues related to Articles 11 and 13 of the upcoming Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive, currently under discussion in the Trilogues.The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development. We work to ensure that rights and freedoms are enhanced and protected as our use of technology grows. We are supported by over 37,000 donating members around the world, including around three thousand within the European Union.We believe that Articles 11 and 13 are ill-considered and should not be EU law, but even stipulating that systems like the ones contemplated by Articles 11 and 13 are desirable, the proposed text of the articles in both the Parliament and Council texts contain significant deficiencies that will subvert their stated purpose while endangering the fundamental human rights of Europeans to free expression, due process, and privacy.It is our hope that the detailed enumeration of these flaws, below, will cause you to reconsider Articles 11 and 13's inclusion in the Directive altogether, but even in the unfortunate event that Articles 11 and 13 appear in the final language that is presented to the Plenary, we hope that you will take steps to mitigate these risks, which will substantially affect the transposition of the Directive in member states, and its resilience to challenges in the European courts . Read the rest

The latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has proven a sumbitch to contain. Since this latest "oh shit" moment in the history of this infectious outbreak started on August 1st, the brave healthcare professionals and epidemiologists throwing their shoulders into the problem have reported 200 total cases of the disease, 117 confirmed Ebola-related deaths and 35 deaths that are probably related to the illness. This latest outbreak, the 10th to have cropped up in Congo since 1976, is proving more difficult, logistically, than past outbreaks have been. The epicenter of the outbreak is in North Kivu Province: chockablock with danger as government forces, local militias and regional warlords get their violence on. This makes getting folks in the region to the care that they need and, just as vital, containing the disease, far more difficult than it already is. From The New York Times:Congolese rebels have killed 15 civilians and abducted a dozen children in an attack in the center of the latest outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, Congo’s military said Sunday. The violence threatened to again force the suspension of efforts to contain the virus.Congo’s health ministry has reported “numerous aggressions” in the new outbreak against health workers, who have described hearing gunshots daily. Many are operating under the armed escort of United Nations peacekeepers or Congolese security forces, and ending work by sundown to lower the risk of attack.The World Health Organization hasn't classified the outbreak as a world health emergency, yet. Read the rest

Despite an uprising of Amazon employees over the use of the company's AI facial recognition program ("Rekognition") in law enforcement, the company is actively courting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the hopes that it will use the wildly inaccurate technology.Thanks to work by McKinsney, ICE and Amazon's sales team met over the summer to discuss how Amazon's facial recognition could help the agency, which has cemented its reputation for performative xenophobic cruelty with a program of stealing babies from immigrant parents, dooming thousands of babies and children to never see their parents again.ICE could use facial recognition as part of its illegal surveillance of medical facilities and houses of worship.Amazon founder Jeff Bezos recently described his pro-immigration views ("I’d let them in if it was me, I like ‘em, I want all of them in"). In an email to ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) office dated June 15, 2018, an Amazon “sales principal” described the meeting and spelled out follow-up “action items.” One was setting up a tech briefing for ICE officials about tools including the tagging and analysis capabilities of Amazon’s real-time facial matching system, dubbed “Rekognition.”“Thanks again for your interest in AWS [Amazon Web Service] to support ICE and the HSI mission,” the Amazon salesperson wrote.The email lists “actions items from our conversation,” starting with an “Innovation Workshop focused on a big HSI problem,” but does not describe the problem. Regarding that problem, the Amazon employee wrote, “I would be happy to arrange for a 1 day workshop. Read the rest

Today on ABC's The View, Senator Jeff Flake admits that he doesn't know if Brett Kavanaugh, accused by three women of sexual assault, was telling the truth or not during his hearing before being confirmed to the Supreme Court. It was Flake who had requested a delay in the confirmation process to make room for a week-long FBI-investigation into the sexual assault accusations against Kavanaugh. At about 5:20 in the video, he's asked if he believed Ford, and he answers, "She was very compelling. He was very persuasive. I don't know. I don't know. I wish I had the certitude that some of my colleagues expressed. But I said on the floor before that hearing, we’re likely to hear the hearing with as much doubt as certainty. And that’s how I felt afterwards.”Later, at 6:15, he's asked again, "So you didn't believe her?" And he answers, "I don't know. I don't know if I believed him, either."Via Daily Beast Read the rest

I love the ink in the Uni-Ball Signo Gel Pen. It's stark, smooth, and pure. If you've not tried one yet, you're in for a treat. Amazon has them on sale right now - a 3-pack for $3.72. Read the rest

Why did early humans form their tools into teardrop shapes? Why do so many human-made things have proportions that match the Golden Ratio? Why is symmetry appealing? Why is human made abstract art preferred over procedurally generated art? This new video by Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell explains that humans like the way certain things look because they are tied in some way to our survival.This explains why I like visiting r/cozyplaces. Read the rest

A man couldn't resist the urge to climb Len Lye's "Water Whirler" sculpture in Wellington, New Zealand earlier this month. To his surprise, the $1 million artwork snapped. In a final act of resistentialism, the sculpture fell on the man while he was in the water, and he was sent to the hospital.From The New Zealand Herald:Roger Horrocks, a trustee of The Len Lye Foundation and author of Len Lye's biography, said it was not the first time the iconic sculpture had been damaged.The foundation had no uptake when it previously recommended Wellington City Council block access to the sculpture. He hoped it would now reconsider."A sculpture like that has to be proofed against idiots - total idiots who want to destroy it."Image: YouTube screenshot Read the rest

If you're shopping for a camping lantern, you're looking for reliability, period. So it's nice to find something like the Revogi Convertible LED Lantern that jumps over that low bar and actually offers some versatility.Made of simple materials, the Revogi is high-tech in a refreshingly minimalist, eight-ounce package. Yes, it'll light up the campsite and then some with 25 LED bulbs delivering up to 2.5 watts, and it can do it for up to six hours on a charge at the highest of its three brightness settings. But it's also collapsible, which allows not only for added portability but functionality. Fold it out and it's a lantern, collapse it and it's a powerful spotlight. Thanks to the sleek design, it can even serve as an indoor lamp.In short, it can go just about anywhere. The Revogi Convertible LED Lantern is $32.99 now - 17% off the original MSRP. Read the rest