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This "biohybrid" robotic finger melds a robotic skeleton with living rat muscle. The device is inside a container of water to keep the muscles from withering. The research is on the cover of this week's issue of the journal Science Robotics. Video below. From National Geographic:“If we can combine more of these muscles into a single device, we should be able to reproduce the complex muscular interplay that allows hands, arms, and other parts of the body to function,” says study author Shoji Takeuchi, a mechanical engineer at the University of Tokyo. “Although this is just a preliminary result, our approach might be a great step toward the construction of a more complex biohybrid system.”The research group began looking at living muscle tissue because plastic and metal provided a limited range of movement and flexibility. To grow their robot's muscles, they layered hydrogel sheets filled with myoblasts—rat muscle cells—on a robotic skeleton. The grown muscle is then stimulated with an electric current that forces it to contract."Biohybrid robot powered by an antagonistic pair of skeletal muscle tissues" (Science Robotics)Japanese engineers integrate living muscles into robots.The robots can mimic actions of human finger https://t.co/r5CeluR0Ss(Video courtesy of 2018 Shoji Takeuchi, Institute of Industrial Science, the University of Tokyo) pic.twitter.com/gmCizoYwFh— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) May 30, 2018

That crunching sound you hear is hundreds of thousands of dollars in repair bills. The person who shot the video says: "The larger ship, which had a prom on it, first rammed into the second cruise ship, then backed up, then struck it again with full force pushing it into the street knocking down a street lamp and causing damage to both ships."

"The temptation to pose as an impartial reviewer of one’s own work will be familiar to many authors across history, writes Simon Parkin. "But the Internet has, as with all vices, smoothed the transition from temptation to action."Such self-fluffing is at least supposed to be secret. But the review systems are so crude and easily-gamed that it enables nakedly public manipulation. When The Gamers want to waltz around Amazon's useless "verified purchase" wall to punish a developer for offending them, it's easy...“People would buy our game, not play it, leave the terrible review, and instantly request a refund,” Sean Vanaman, Campo Santo’s co-founder, told me. “It’s a well-worn tactic.” In his estimation, user-review systems such as those used by Valve, Steam’s developer, are so vulnerable to exploitation that they require as much moderation as social-media platforms.Worse, without fake positive reviews, your thing -- your book, your restaurant, your startup -- is at a disadvantage in the apps and platforms that potential customers use to scan for new stuff. Once the medium is corrupt, everyone has to follow suit to survive. Get a load of this wonderful nonsense at TripAdvisor:For the recent test, he created his own fake business, which he called the Shed at Dulwich. (It was named for his garden shed, in Dulwich, London.) He photographed plates of carefully arranged food (created using household products such as shaving cream and dishwasher tablets), bought a burner phone, and added the Shed to the site. Within four weeks, he had posted enough fake reviews to move the spectral establishment into the top two thousand restaurants in London. Eventually, it became the highest-rated restaurant in the city, and Butler was fielding scores of calls from people hoping to book a table. Such was the nonexistent restaurant’s success that it even attracted a one-star review, from what Butler assumes was a rival. “TripAdvisor removed the review on the grounds that it was fake,” he said.

In 1835, Davy Crockett reportedly wrote a letter to his brother-in-law Abner Burgin telling him of a rather strange experience in the Mexican province of Texas just six months before Crockett was killed at the Battle of the Alamo. From the letter:“William and I were pushing through some thicket, clearing the way, when I sat down to mop my brow. I sat for a spell, watching as William made his good and fine progress. I removed my boots and sat with my rations, thinking the afternoon a fine time to lunch. As the birds whistled and chirped, and I ate my small and meager ration, I tapped my axe upon the opposite end of the felled tree I rested upon.“Whether it was the axe’s disturbance or possibly the heat of the sun which caused an apparition to slowly form in front of my eyes, I know not. As a Christian man, I swear to you, Abe, that what spirit came upon me was the shape and shade of a large ape man, the likes we might expect among the more bellicose and hostile Indian tribes in the Territories. The shade formed into the most deformed and ugly countenance. Covered in wild hair, with small and needling eyes, large broken rows of teeth, and the height of three foundlings, I spit upon the ground the bread I was eating.“The monster then addressed a warning to me. Abner, it told me to return from Texas, to flee this Fort and to abandon this lost cause. When I began to question this, the creature spread upon the wind like the morning steam swirls off a frog pond. I swear to you, Abner, that whatever meat or sausage disagreed with me that afternoon, I swore off all beef and hog for a day or so afterward.”"Sasquatch Classics: The Davy Crockett Incident" (Texas Cryptid Hunter via The Anomalist)

Fudgie the Whale is back. But this time it's not just a "whale of a cake," it's a whale of a beer. On Wednesday, Carvel announced a stout brewed with chocolate crunchies and fudge, aptly named Fudgie the Beer. The stout is a limited-edition Father's Day collaboration with craft microbrewery Captain Lawrence Brewing Company in Elmsford, New York. The novelty brew is said to have "smooth cocoa notes with a roasted crunchies finish" and would pair well with "roasted or smoked foods as well as chocolate or espresso desserts." If you have a "whale of a dad" and need to get your hands on this special beer, you'll have to head to New York state, as it's only available at the Captain Lawrence Beer Hall. (If you want some for real, be sure to check when it will be available again. The first batch sold out yesterday evening.)I have just one question: Why, oh why isn't this an ale? It could have been a whALE of a beer. https://youtu.be/3Hr9sjpekp4For old times' sake, here's the original ad for the Fudgie the Whale cake narrated by Tom Carvel himself:https://youtu.be/rS6ki8D7zQA

Cosmic saxophonist, composer, and spiritual jazz revivalist Kamasi Washington has released a new jam inspired by his teenage experiences at the videogame arcade. "Street Fighter Mas" will appear on Washington's forthcoming album "Heaven and Earth" out June 22. Listen:Washington says:When I was younger, I was in between the end of the arcade generation and the beginning of the console generation. We used to go to this place called Rexall to play Street Fighter. At Rexall, there would be different people from different hoods there playing the game. It was the one place that was like an equalizer. It was just about how good you were at Street Fighter...for the most part. In other places, you were afraid of these dudes; there, you would just play the game and it was what it was, you know? I was really good at Street Fighter, so where the song really came from was me jokingly saying I was going to have my own theme song so that when I showed up to play Street Fighter they’d play my theme song before I came in, like a boxer. In the context of the album, it was the connection that we got with those guys in our neighborhood. We used to call them OGs, the older guys that we looked up to.In a lot of ways, for me, video games was the way I connected with them because I was never affiliated with any gangs, but I knew them and I was cool with them and that was mainly through the video games. At an older age I thought how amazing would it be if the OGs could just play the game and solve their problems that way. The meaning within the scope of the record is a connection to the past and all of the many ways we can connect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfnVvptL-8ESenator Ron Wyden [D-OR] has sent a letter to the DHS with his view that "nefarious actors may have exploited" the cellular phone system "to target the communications of American citizens." (more…)

Australian retailers are required to collect 10% Value Added Tax on every sale; Amazon's Australia store collects this tax, but the company has rejected any suggestion that its non-Australian stores should collect the tax on shipments bound for Australia. (more…)

36 Days of Type is a long-running collaborative design project where different artists render letters and numbers in a unique style. This year's entries are as delightful as always. (more…)

In this video, a dead fish is used to tease a Bobbit worm (Eunice aphroditois) into revealing its vicious skill as an ambush predator. Fortunately, it's all happening underwater, far away from me.

In many markets, 20th-century TV stations ran PSAs right before the local evening news reminding parents that they should probably know where their children are. This 1979 gem from Grace Jones may be the best one. (more…)

Naked Prosthetics creates custom-fitted hand and finger prostheses that allow an impressive range of fine motor skills to be done by the wearer, like holding and striking a match or unscrewing a tiny cap.Matt Finney lost parts of two fingers and his thumb from gangrene stemming from a blood clot. It's cool to hear him talk about how this changed his life. Here's some of the many other demonstrations on their channel:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu1s2EW26E0• Naked Prosthetics Matt Finney (YouTube / Naked Prosthetics)

Stevedore Comedy talks about climate change as if it were real in "News From a World Where People Aren't Complete Idiots." Wake up America!

To call Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn [R-TN] a shill for Big Cable is to insult honest, hardworking shills everywhere: she is so deep in hock to Verizon that she has toshill for new subscribers on weekends at a folding table on the sidewalk in front of the Grand Old Opry. (more…)

In "design fiction" and "speculative design," designers and science fiction writers create fictional products and services, which go on to inform real engineering and product design processes. (more…)

Four men with a pickup try to move a boat engine. A woman videotapes it. The engine is suspended on a chain attached to a small crane in the back of the pickup. For some reason, the woman says, "Hit the gas, Doug." For some reason, Doug does as he's told, with disastrous consequences. The woman thinks it's funny. Maybe that's why she told Doug to hit the gas. She knows he'll do anything she tells him to do, and when it leads to trouble, it amuses her.Image: YouTube screenshot

These compostable sacks for poo are better than the ones I was previously using. They are made .Walking my dogs, and general yard clean-up at home, tends to consume 2-4 dog poop bags a day! Ever since supermarkets started charging for bags, I have been buying my own. I started to wonder about how much plastic I was sending to the dump. Quick reading online suggested that cornstarch based bags was the way to go. Internet forums are the one source of truth.These work for picking up poop. They are not terribly hard to open once ripped off the roll and poop stays in them until I have dropped the whole load in the trash. The bags meet US and European compostable standards: ASTM D6400 and EN13432, so they'll breakdown. You do not want to throw these into your home compost pile, however, as dog poo doesn't do well there.PET N PET Compostable Poop Bags Dog Waste Bags Pet Clean up Bags Green Eco-Friendly, Certified By US BPI And EUR VINCOTTE.Meet ASTM 6400, EN13432, 240 Counts Certified via Amazon

Dr. Joon Song, a gynecologist in New York, has filed a $1 million lawsuit against Michelle Levine for leaving bad reviews on Yelp and other review sites.From CBS:“After I got a bill for an ultrasound and a new patient visit, whatever that means, and it was not billed as an annual I wrote a review about it,” she told CBS2’s Lisa Rozner.She says she complained to the doctor’s office, but nothing happened. The lengthy critical review, among other things, complained of “very poor and crooked” business practices and was posted on sites like Yelp, Zocdoc, and Healthgrades.“And I gave them one star on Facebook, which they also put in their complaint,” Levine said.After getting sued, Levine says she took down all her reviews but Dr. Song still wants her to pay around $1 million in damages plus legal fees.Levine has so far spent $20,000 defending herself against the lawsuit. Dr. Song's attorney told CBS: "While everyone is entitled to their opinion, outright lies masquerading as reviews can inflict serious damage to a medical practice or small business."

In a world that all too often heaps accolades on those who claw and manipulate their way to the top with cruelty and hate, it feels so good to chase a story about someone being praised for being a decent human being.Earlier this week, our Rusty Blazenhoff shared the story of Mamoudou Gassama: a 22-year old Malian living in Paris, France, who climbed four floors, on the outside of an apartment building, to save a young child from falling. Gassama was in France as an undocumented immigrant – a fact that quickly changed after saving the child’s life. He was called to meet with the French President who immediately fast-tracked his application for citizenship. Amidst all the hubbub of his good deed, Gassama mentioned two things: That he loves children and that he wants to be a firefighter. The first, because of his selfless deed, is pretty obvious. The second is being taken care of by the people of the city he lives in.From The Guardian:After Gassama’s immigration papers were fast-tracked on Tuesday morning, he visited a fire station to sign up for a 10-month internship with the fire and rescue services, which is expected to pay around €600 (£525) a month. He will receive French citizenship within around three months.Is France perfect? No. Are they seizing on the opportunity for some great optics in light of their less-than-stellar treatment of migrants who come to their nation looking for a better life? Maybe. In any case, I don’t care.It could be the new meds that I’m on making me feel more open to emotions that I haven’t had to handle in decades, or that I’m getting older and can finally appreciate beauty when I see it. When I read about what Gassama had done, breaking cover as an undocumented immigrant to save a life, it tugged at my coat, just a little. Seeing this in The Guardian today, however, moved me to tears. Apparently I'm a huge suck, now.More of this sort of thing, please. The world is far too dark. More light is needed to drive it back.Image: © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5, Link

Robert F Kennedy Jr. is calling for a new investigation into the 1968 assassination of his presidential candidate father. "I didn't feel it was something I could dismiss," said RFJ Jr. who recently met with Sirhan and looked over his father's autopsy report. "I was disturbed that the wrong person might have been convicted of killing my father."Sirhan Sirhan is serving a life sentence for the murder that he confessed to but claims to not remember. From CBS News:On the night of June 5, 1968, Kennedy was celebrating his victory in California's Democratic presidential primary. As he was leaving, he was shot three times...Sirhan was standing in front of Kennedy at the time of the shooting, but an autopsy report found Kennedy was shot at point blank range from behind. Over the years new evidence reportedly shows as many as 13 shots were fired that night. But Sirhan's gun held only eight bullets. That's one reason why many now question Sirhan's guilt – including Robert Kennedy Jr."There were too many bullets. You can't fire 13 shots out of an eight-shot gun," RFK Jr told the Post.

Scotty of the Strange Parts Youtube channel says, "today we're exploring the Industrial Production Materials Market in Yiwu, China, which is filled with all sorts of amazing factory machines and tons of other strange parts of all shapes and sizes. We see injection molding machines, plastic bottle machines, looms of all shapes and sizes, zipper machines - even a machine that makes face masks!"

"I can't be the only person who saw the sparks and thought this," writes Barry Dennen, "so apologies if it's been done already."It has not only been done, but it will be done again forever!

Hawaii's Kilauea volcano has been spewing hypnotic blue flames thanks to the burning brimstone (aka sulfur). (more…)

I’ve used an Apple Magic Trackpad for the past eight years – basically since they became available in Canada. I love them for the fact that all of the muscle memory that I’ve developed using trackpad-based shortcut gestures with my MacBook Pro work exactly the same with the Magic Trackpad while I’m hooked up to an external monitor. What I don’t like is the price. Apple products typically cost more than their Windows or Linux-powered equivalents do. I remember telling myself as I bought my first Cupertino-designed trackpad that the +$100 price was cool because it was an investment in gear that I use, daily, for work. And besides, it’s made by Apple – it’ll last for ever!Five years into owning my first Magic Trackpad, I found myself routinely tearing it apart in order to fix the wee button inside of it that registers clicks. It was a pain in the ass, but I couldn’t afford to buy a replacement. At the time, my wife was finishing her degree – what I pulled in was pretty much it for income. What I’d spend on a new trackpad would buy us groceries for a couple of weeks. My friend Susie found out that I was doing this and told me to cut it out: She had a new Magic Trackpad for me, still in the box, never opened. A week later and my first Magic Trackpad was out with the recycling.Fast forward to 2018.My second Magic Trackpad, which I had been so happy to receive, was on the fritz. On a regular basis, it loses Bluetooth connectivity with my laptop. I put up with it for months, looking for a way to sort the problem out. Frustrated, unable to reliably do work on the large display in my office and facing a tsunami-sized wall of deadlines, I finally broke down and bought a cheap-ass $40 mouse (I checked out less expensive ones too, but they didn't feel right in my hand) so that I could get on with my life. I knew that it would mean that I would have to forgo all of the gestures shortcuts that I used on a regular basis, but with so much work to do, and so little time to do it, it was an accommodation that I was willing to make. I told myself that, when I could afford it, I’d buy a new trackpad.But here’s the thing: A month into using the mouse and I don’t miss my Magic Trackpad at all.Mouse technology (I instantly thought of a critter in a white lab coat building itself an exoskeleton as I typed that) has apparently come a long way in the eight years since I used anything but a trackpad to do my computing with. It's gotten a lot less expensive, too! You can get a good mouse, full of features, for a pretty reasonable price. The Logitech M510 that I picked up at my local big box store is programmable, runs off a pair of AA batteries for a whole stinking year, and can be programmed with, yes, all of the shortcuts I thought I’d miss out on if I wasn’t rocking an Apple-branded trackpad. What’s more, I’ve found that after hours in front of the computer, my wrist doesn’t feel as inflamed as it did when I was using a trackpad to navigate my computer.For close to a decade, I had become so fixed in my ways that I couldn’t see that there were less expensive, just as effective means to achieving my goals. I’ve thought about my attachment to the trackpad I once insisted upon using a lot of late: what else, in my life, do I mistake as being necessary?Anyway, damn good mouse.Image via Logitech

Today I learned that Donald Glover got his rapper name Childish Gambino from this online Wu-Tang Clan name generator. It's not new news (though the info was new to me, and perhaps to you as well), as he mentions it in this 2016 Hollywood Reporter roundtable discussion. He says, "If I had known it was going to be something for real, I wouldn't have used it."Thanks, Robin!

France created a national mechanical telegraph system in the 1790s; in 1834, a pair of crooked bankers named François and Joseph Blanc launched the first cyberattack, poisoning the data that went over the system in order to get a trading advantage in the bond market. (more…)

Dolan Darker (YouTube) welcomes the world to the web of 2018. https://twitter.com/fr3ino/status/1000166112615714816

Smishing: phishing with SMSes. Vishing: phishing with voice-response systems. A pair of Romanian hackers have been extradited to the U.S. after allegedly bilking unwitting victims out of more than $18 million in an elaborate voice- and SMS-phishing (i.e., vishing/smishing) scheme. [Tara Seals/Threatpost] (via Beyond the Beyond)

We can all take some comfort that even Disney, with all its money and creative resources, can fail. Take for instance, Disney's epic failure, a long-gone ride called Superstar Limo. The dark ride, that was once in California Adventure's Hollywood Pictures Backlot area, took guests in a sparkly purple limousine through a distorted version of Hollywood and Los Angeles. It was open just under a year and was later (and as you'll see in the video, hilariously) repurposed as the Monsters, Inc. ride.Kevin Perjurer of the YouTube channel Defunctland describes it as their "worst attraction ever" and offers this critical history of it. His video is 20 minutes long but worth a watch, as his research goes deep and this "Superstar Limo" truly has to be seen to be believed. Be sure to stay to the end to see the reactions of the cast of The Drew Carey Show and Rosie O'Donnell when they all took a whirl in it together.Also, in case you're curious, here's a look at the ride without commentary:https://youtu.be/-R6opiYy1HA

Russian speed-cuber Evgeny Bondarenko decided to tackle the biggest challenge on the market today: solving the 17x17x17 Rubik's Cube. Talk about concentration! (more…)

Transgender model and activist Munroe Bergdorf hosts the new Channel 4 documentary What Makes a Woman? Science and society are grappling with the complex and contentious topics of sex, sexuality, and gender. New research and evidence demonstrate that simplistic binaries are more complicated than previously believed. (more…)

Clifford Burgoni wanted to sell his system for cleaning 86,000 solar panels, so he made a cool drone video of the gear in operation. (more…)

This is Fred. Fred is free again.They may not be from space, but octopuses are still incredible, intelligent creatures. One California fishmonger in Morro Bay certainly thinks so.Earlier this month, Giovanni "Gio" DeGarimore, owner of Giovanni's Fish Market, bought a 70-pound octopus -- who has been named "Fred" -- for "a couple hundred dollars" just to release it back into the wild. And he says he'd do it again. The San Luis Obispo Tribune reports:DeGarimore said he didn't intend for his action to get as much fanfare as it has, but said he would be happy "if my little contribution can make a bigger difference in the world."That contribution includes no longer selling any octopus-related products on his website, which serves customers across the country, he said."It'll hit me in the pocket, but I'd rather stand for something," he said.(SFGate)image via Giovanni's Fish Market Facebook page Thanks, Laura!

Edwin Olding hacked together a Barbie Power Wheels Ford Mustang chassis with an old go-kart frame and a customized Honda dirt bike engine. This hot pink whip now races at 70 mph. From The Drive:Olding told The Drive, "I wanted to find the cutest Barbie Power Wheels car online and turn it into a drift kart." With the miniature Mustang's tiny electric motor and plastic tires, that would not be an easy task. Instead of trying to boost the Power Wheels' weak performance, Olding decided to chop out everything that wasn't the car's outer shell and drop that onto a pre-built go-kart found on Craigslist. That, however, presented its own problems. The kart's frame couldn't fit into the Mustang's 36-inch wheelbase, so it had to be cut down and welded back together.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists teamed up with the Norbert Zongo Cell for Investigative Journalism (Cenozo) to delve deep into 27.5 million files from the Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, Panama Papers and Paradise Papers to investigate how the super-rich in 15 West African countries have looted their countries' wealth and then smuggled it offshore through a network of tax-havens, even as their countries starve. (more…)

The 2016 elections were fraught and game-changing on many axes, but one important one that is still playing out is the split between the "left" (universal healthcare, steeply progressive taxation, no more wars of aggression, free higher education, and measures to remediate historical injustices on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc) and "liberals" (more representation in corporate board-rooms, responsible business practices, limiting profits from private healthcare companies, etc). (more…)

Businesses big and small use Microsoft Excel for everything from data visualization to bookkeeping, and chances are you've already had some exposure to this ubiquitous tool. Whether you're looking to improve your hiring potential or boost your Excel efficiency, the Ultimate All-Level Excel Bootcamp can get you Excel-savvy with nearly 70 hours of training, and it's available now in the Boing Boing Store for $29.Delivering four comprehensive courses, this collection will start you off mastering the Excel essentials, like sorting and filtering and configuring graphs and charts. Then, you'll advance on to more nuanced Excel concepts and dive into business analytics and data management using Pivot Tables. Make your way through the entire bootcamp, and you'll emerge with a new skillset to boost your employment prospects and efficiency.The Ultimate All-Level Excel Bootcamp was on sale for $35, but it's available for a limited time in the Boing Boing Store for $29.

This is adorable. Bill, Robert, and Mick -- three elderly gay gentlemen -- try on young people's gay words and phrases on for size in this video by INTO.Thanks, Moe!

Damjanski, a really witty digital artist, has released his latest work -- "The Age Gate".I won't give any spoilers, but it's pretty funny.

In 2003 Bill Gates tried to download Microsoft Movie Maker from Microsoft.com. His confusing, frustrating, futile experience prompted him to write a terrifically scorching email to the managers in charge of the project. It starts off pretty mild, with just a hint of the brutally funny sarcasm to come. ("I typed in movie maker. Nothing. So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying – where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist? So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.") It gets better from there. The best way to experience Bill's rant is by listening to Dave Ross of KIRO-AM/710 in Seattle give a dramatic reading:https://youtu.be/mhLikb6VPWUAnd if you read the finger-pointing, ass-covering, wheel-spinning internal email conversation between the people Bill flamed, you will understand why the product sucked so hard. Hey, Bill, welcome to the Windows user experience! It reminds me of what I still have to go though every time I try to connect my kid's Windows machine to a new hotspot.

Solenoids are common electromechanical devices. They're used in pinball machines to make the ball shoot away when they hit a bumper. If you've ever have the opportunity to touch an energized pinball bumper, you will immediately gain an appreciation for its explosive power.In this video, famous hardware hacker Jeri Ellsworth takes apart a pinball machine solenoid to show how it works.[via Hackaday]Image: Youtube screenshot

Sioo:x Wood Protection is a boring company. That doesn't mean its products aren't important. It's just hard to jump up and down with glee over wood protection. Nevertheless, the "world's most boring billboard" that Sioo:x installed in Malmö, Sweden is pretty cool. It's a triple sided outdoor display made of wood that's been treated with preservative. The billboard will remain outdoors for 12 years as a way to demonstrate the effectiveness of Sioo:x's treatment against long term exposure to the harsh environmental insults handed out by Sweden's unforgiving weather.

In 1969 Andy Warhol and John Wilcock launched Interview, "The Crystal Ball of Pop." True to its name, the magazine ran interviews of artists, actors, musicians, and celebrities.From The New York Times:Ezra Marcus, an associate editor at the magazine, said by email that the staff was notified in an all-hands meeting earlier in the morning that Interview, which was founded in 1969, was closing and filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.Phone calls to Brant Publications, which acquired Interview magazine in 1989, two years after Andy Warhol died, went unanswered.With its striking style, Interview had long wielded outsize influence in the industry, inspiring the look and feel of many other publications. But questions about the magazine’s fortunes have lingered for years, as it faced ever-thinning ranks and churned through staff.

Yeast has brought a lot of joy into the world, but its evolutionary origins were unclear until scientists did a worldwide genomic survey of the humble organism. Based on the genetic diversity of strains found in China, they concluded that its origin is almost certainly in that part of the world. (more…)

The White House Communications Agency, staffed with military information security experts, is in charge of making sure that the President's cellular phone isn't getting hacked by adversaries who might otherwise be able to listen in on his calls, capture his messages, intercept his search history, and remotely operate his camera and microphone. Donald Trump routinely ignores their advice. (more…)

A couple in Syracuse, New York have a 30-year-old son, Michael Rotondo, who is an unwanted guest in their house. He doesn't pay rent or any house expenses, he doesn't help out with the house chores, and he won't respond to five written requests from his parents to please move the fuck out already. They've even offered to help him out as he gets his new start, but he won't budge. So, at their wits' end, the parents are suing the boy.And it sounds like the millennial isn't just stubborn, he's a snot about it too. According to Mashable, he responded to the parents' reasons for suing (not doing chores or paying rent) with: "Under this legal reasoning, my parents probably should have sued me when I was a kid."They will all go to court later this month, about seven weeks before Mikey's 31st birthday.Image: Martin Taras. - DVD "Super Clásicos Infantiles"., Public Domain, Link

The ADL has sorted, sifted and studied a mass of English-language anti-Semitic tweets from last year. They dropped any that might be just ironic or meant in jest, not actually hating on us Jews, and came up with a mere 4.2 million statements of hate! The study and the collection of angry tweets will be made available to tech companies in hopes of improving automated systems for identifying hate speech online.

Politifact ran the math on Gwen Graham's Washington Post story comparing numbers of 2018 US school shooting deaths vs 2018 US armed service combat deaths to-date. Schools have seen more deaths than combat this year. Politifact, however, reminds us that combat-zones should be be more dangerous than public school.Combat zones should be more dangerous, but are not. How incredibly we are failing.Poltifact:Graham wrote, "So far this year, more students have been killed in schools than soldiers in combat zones."On the numbers, she is right. This year at least, within Graham’s stated parameters, exactly twice as many students have died in school shootings than military personnel have died in combat zones.It is important to know, however, the likelihood of being killed in a combat zone is still vastly higher than it is in a school.The statement is accurate but needs additional information. That meets our definition of Mostly True.Earlier this month my daughter, aged 11, spent an afternoon sheltering-in-place at her school. There was an unrelated-to-school incident of domestic violence a block or two away. The sound of shots appropriately sent the school into 'save the kids' mode. My daughter huddled in a corner for 3.5 hours. This is not the school experience our kids should have: wondering when it will be their turn to die.

Every three years, the US Copyright Office asks America about the problems with Section 1201 of the DMCA, which bans breaking DRM even for legal reasons, and America gets to answer with requests for exemptions to this rule. (more…)

From the late 1970s on, the Chicago School economists worked with the likes of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Augusto Pinochet and Brian Mulroney to dismantle antitrust enforcement, declaring that the only time government should intervene is when monopolists conspired to raise prices -- everything else was fair game. (more…)