Boing Boing

Wil Wheaton has publicly discussed his anxiety and depression before; I know several people whose lives were improved by reading what he had to say. (more…)

I survive spring allergies by rinsing out my sinuses. (more…)

The Washington Post created some interesting maps that show levels of diversification in various American cities. They categorize cities like Chicago as examples of legacy segregation, where cities like Houston indicate rapid diversification. (more…)

By way of the Daily Grail comes this fascinating bit of Pioneer spacecraft history. Kirby was among the artist asked to submit ideas for the plaques to be flown on the Pioneer 10 and 11 space probes, launched in the early 1970s. Kirby's submission was vastly different than the very literal pictogram designed by Frank Drake, Carl Sagan, and Linda Salzman-Sagan and flown on the missions. Jack was not comfortable with the idea of giving some future Galactus GPS directions to our house. I would have included no further information than a rough image of the Earth and its one moon. I see no wisdom in the eagerness to be found and approached by any intelligence with the ability to accomplish it from any sector of space. In the meetings between ‘discoverers’ and ‘discoverees,’ history has always given the advantage to the finders. In the case of the Jupiter (Pioneer) plaque, I feel that a tremendous issue was thoughtlessly taken out of the world forum by a few individuals who have marked a clear trail to our door.My point is, who will come a-knocking – the trader or the tiger?In describing his approach to the art he submitted, he wrote:It appears to me that man’s self image has always spoken far more about him than does his reality-figure. My vision of the plaque would have revealed the exuberant, self-confident super visions with which we’ve clothed ourselves since time immemorial. The comic strip super-heroes and heroines, in my belief, personify humanity’s innate idealism and drivePersonally, I don't think we want "underwear perverts" (as Warren Ellis has called spandex supers) representing us, but you've got to love the idea of communicating "exuberant, self-confident super visions" of ourselves.

I used eight small disc magnets in this Raspberry Pi computer case that my daughter and I designed for playing the early 1980s game Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, and I have 112 magnets left over. The pack of 120 costs $10. I don't know if they're neodymium, but they're strong for their size. I'm planning to use them, whenever feasible, as a superior substitute to screws in every 3D project I make. If you're attending Maker Faire this year, come to our talk and say hi. I'll give you a magnet, if I remember to bring them with me.

The Truck Surf Hotel is a modded Mercedes Actros outfitted with a hydraulically-expanding two-story inn. Inside is a living room, kitchen, four double rooms with bunk bed, one double room with a single larger bed, bathroom, and shower. Over the course of a week vacation package, the hotel travels to surf destinations in Portugal and Morocco. The trip is around $700-$900 depending on the destination and season; airfare not included. Truck Surf Hotel (via Uncrate)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB5TneZwY2s

Multiple Facebookers and ex-Facebookers risked lawsuits by revealing the company's longstanding problem with employees who abuse their access to Facebook's databases to stalk Facebook users, and its longstanding practice of binding all concerned to nondisclosure, keeping it a secret from the people who were stalked by its employees. (more…)

Diana A. Smith is a user interface engineer, and to show off her skills, she creates art using hand-coded HTML and CSS. The results are stunning.

I'm always afraid of getting cut off at the last minute by lane-changers who aren't paying attention. It's happened to me more than once when I'm in the car pool lane and some idiot stuck in a traffic jam decides to change lanes without looking, forcing me to slam on the brakes. Here's a guy who got cut off so harshly his car rolled on two wheels for a second. Glad he caught it on his dashcam.

It took maker Eli Peterson several weeks to make this silver and "nowhere near perfect" diamond engagement ring, making mistakes along the way that forced him to melt the ring back down and start over a bunch of times. But he's condensed his process into about three-and-a-half minutes to show us how he did it.

Deep brain stimulators -- pacemaker-like implants that deliver electrical impulses to specific regions in the brain -- are common treatments for Parkinson's and other neurological disorders. It's known that strong electromagnetic fields from the likes of ham radio antennae and arc welders can damage the devices. Now, researchers report the case of a 66-year-old woman whose deep brain stimulator was knocked out when lightning hit her apartment. Fortunately, the lightning shut off the device without damaging her brain. “The patient was not charging the battery of her IPG (implantable pulse generator) during the event, and the recharger for the IPG was disconnected from the power supply during the storm," the researchers wrote. "The recharger and IPG were therefore not destroyed. The patient realized that something was wrong only 1 hour after the storm subsided, when the dystonic tremor in her neck reappeared.”"Lightning may pose a danger to patients receiving deep brain stimulation: case report" (Journal of Neuroscience via Mysterious Universe)

Vsauce3's Jake Roper reveals the wondrous perceptual paradoxes of "impossible objects" from Escher's cube to the Penrose triangle.(via Laughing Squid)

The BBC reports on the deluge of spelling errors in official White House communications, from amusements such as "Air Force Once" to dangerous mistakes such as this week's accidentally-on-purpose suggestion that Iran still has a nuclear weapons program.Less than a month after taking office, the White House misspelled the name of British Prime Minister Theresa May three times in a press release announcing her visit.Her first name was spelled repeatedly with no "h" which, the Independent noted, is the name of a pornographic actress who starred in films including "Whitehouse: The Sex Video" and "Leather Lust".Mr Trump later made a similar mistake in a tweet, when he tagged a Sussex woman (whose Twitter account had only six followers) with a similar name to the politician.They are countless—there's simply no-one there in possession of both literacy and authority. My favorite is "lasting peach."

Comcast has found a new way to stem "cord-cutting" (cutting off your cable TV subscription in favor of subscription services like Netflix, or, as in my case, in favor of giving up on watching TV altogether); in markets where they are a monopoly or duopoly, they will reserve their highest-speed internet offerings for customers who agree to pay extra for cable channels that they don't want or need -- if all you want is internet access, Comcast will relegate you to its slow lanes. (more…)

In 1932 a quartet of Bronx gangsters set out to murder a friend of theirs in order to collect his life insurance. But Michael Malloy proved to be almost comically difficult to kill. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll review what one observer called "the most clumsily executed insurance scam in New York City history."We'll also burrow into hoarding and puzzle over the value of silence.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon!

Four sources tell the Washington Post that special counsel Robert Mueller told Donald Trump's lawyers that he could issue a subpoena for the president to appear before a grand jury, if Trump didn't voluntarily come in for an interview to tell what he knows about Russia, collusion, obstruction, and whatever else investigators want to know. (more…)

This 115 piece first aid kit is perfect for keeping in your car. It's small but has sterile eye wash, conforming bandages in assorted sizes and shapes, adhesive plasters, first aid tape, wound dressings, crepe bandaging, an instant ice pack, a thermal blanket, a non-adherent pad, knuckle and fingertip fabric strips, elbow and knee bandages, safety pins, gloves, tweezers and scissors, all in a long-wearing green nylon bag. You have to be a Prime member to get it at the sale price of $7.

Kernit is a font inspired by the work of Jim Henson. [h/t Akimbo_NOT].It's Nice That:Full of curves, with the counters and eyes of the letters appearing squished, Kernit is full of energy, as if it could spring off the page. “Our goal was to build a voice that is both unique and true to Henson’s work and visual style,” they explain. “Each letter and character is meant to capture the same imagination, fun and whimsy which we came to love in his creations.”As well as its obvious influences in its name and the colour palette of its specimen, Kernit was inspired by a host of Henson’s characters as well as the bold typography of the 1970s: an era of rounded edges. For example, Milton Glaser’s iconic “I love New York” logo with its curved serifs debuted in 1973.

After publicly admitting he prescribed hair loss drugs to the wildly maned US President, Doctor Harold Bornstein claims his office was raided by White House aides.Via NBC News:In February 2017, a top White House aide who was Trump's longtime personal bodyguard, along with the top lawyer at the Trump Organization and a third man, showed up at the office of Trump's New York doctor without notice and took all the president's medical records.The incident, which Dr. Harold Bornstein described as a "raid," took place two days after Bornstein told a newspaper that he had prescribed a hair growth medicine for the president for years.In an exclusive interview in his Park Avenue office, Bornstein told NBC News that he felt "raped, frightened and sad" when Keith Schiller and another "large man" came to his office to collect the president's records on the morning of Feb. 3, 2017. At the time, Schiller, who had long worked as Trump's bodyguard, was serving as director of Oval Office operations at the White House.

40-year-old Raji Afife Azar ran a LEGO theft and fencing operation in Portland, Oregon. Aided by the Fred Meyer market's Retail Theft Unit, Portland PD put a stop to this brick bandit.Via the Portland PD's statement on the arrest:This investigation began in early 2018 when Fred Meyer's Organized Retail Theft Unit Investigators learned Azar was the leader of a fencing operation that involved the theft and sale of merchandise from multiple stores in the Portland metropolitan area. During the investigation, the Fred Meyer's Organized Retail Theft Unit worked with the Northwest Organized Retail Crime Alliance and learned Azar had solicited multiple people to steal from various business throughout the area.During this investigation, undercover investigators were contacted by Azar on multiple occasions. The undercover investigators posed as theft suspects that would sell stolen merchandise to Azar at a fraction of the manufacturer's retail suggested price. On Thursday, April 26, 2018, Azar requested undercover investigators, who he believed were theft suspects, sell him approximately $13,000 in stolen merchandise. The undercover investigators met Azar in the 10300 block of Southeast Washington Street with the supposed stolen merchandise. After Azar purchased the stolen merchandise from undercover officers, he was taken into custody without incident.Once Azar was taken into custody, a search warrant was served at his family's residence in the 2000 block of Southeast 102nd Avenue. During a search of the residence, investigators located a large quantity of stolen Legos and other stolen merchandise (photograph provided with press release). Investigators with the Fred Meyer's Organized Retail Theft Unit estimate the recovered stolen value of the Legos and other toys taken from Portland area Fred Meyer stores to be approximately $50,000 -- this estimate does not include merchandise that was recovered at the residence that came from other retail stores.Based on information learned during the investigation, detectives believe Azar would solicit the theft of items from stores through websites such as Craigslist and OfferUp. Azar would meet with individuals who stole items, purchase the stolen merchandise for pennies on the dollar of what the item was worth, then advertise and sell the stolen merchandise on Craigslist, EBay, and OfferUp. As part of Azar's fencing operation, people who often times suffered from addiction to opioids and other drugs would enter stores and steal items to sell to Azar. Azar would in turn buy the stolen merchandise for a small percentage of the items' actual worth and sell the stolen merchandise at a large profit for himself.Image via Portland PD

When the Cambridge Analytica scandal first broke -- and along with it, the news that the company had boasted of using deceptive and illegal tactics to sell Brexit -- Parliament asked Mark Zuckerberg to show up and account for himself. He told them to go fuck themselves. (more…)

The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) goes into effect this month and will completely overturn the way that businesses gather and circulate data about internet users. (more…)

Apple products are fairly intuitive, but when it comes to moving data from one device to another, the process isn't quite as easy as it should be. Whether you're upgrading to a new device or trying to move some media from your phone to your Mac, iMazing 2 gives you the tools to seamlessly wrangle your iOS data. You can get it in the Boing Boing Store for $24.99.This all-purpose tool lets you browse and manage your backups, extract and print your text messages, and drag and drop songs to your iPhone without jailbreaking your device. You can quickly update a new iPhone with your old data by copying everything or selecting the content to transfer and copy your music back and forth between iPhone, iPad, iPod, and your computer. What's more iMazing 2 lets you export media, like photos and video, without having to go through iCloud or iTunes.Universal licenses iMazing 2 are on sale in the Boing Boing Store for $24.99.

I tried to quit Facebook, but couldn't, not really, not yet. We know that in some respects we can't quit, because it keeps profiles on everyone anyway, but there's more to it than that. It's got its hooks deep into our relationships with friends and families. As Sarah Jeong writes, it performs work for us.Facebook had replaced much of the emotional labor of social networking that consumed previous generations. We have forgotten (or perhaps never noticed) how many hours our parents spent keeping their address books up to date, knocking on doors to make sure everyone in the neighborhood was invited to the weekend BBQ, doing the rounds of phone calls with relatives, clipping out interesting newspaper articles and mailing them to a friend, putting together the cards for Valentine’s Day, Easter, Christmas, and more. We don’t think about what it’s like to carefully file business cards alphabetically in a Rolodex. People spent a lot of time on these sorts of things, once, because the less of that work you did, the less of a social network you had. ...It’s hard to pin down what Facebook is because the platform replaces labor that was previously invisible. We have a hard time figuring out what Facebook actually is because we have a hard time admitting that at least part of what it supplanted is emotional labor — hard and valuable work that no one wants to admit was work to begin with. To leave Facebook is to create work for friends and family. However easy you think you can make it for them by doing labor yourself, they'll no longer be able to depend on Facebook to make reciprocation easy and thoughtless. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. I tried leaving Facebook. I couldn’t [The Verge]

"PC Building Simulator" is ... kind of what the name suggests, yes? A sim in which one builds PCs.I admit I'm intrigued. Sort of? As this review at Motherboard notes, the game has a "career" mode where you play the role of someone who inherits your uncle's PC-repair business, and is given increasingly complicated tasks ...As you can see, my idiot uncle sold this poor guy a PC but forgot to apply thermal paste to the CPU. For this job, I had to open the PC, unplug the CPU fan, apply thermal paste, and then put the CPU fan back in. To make sure that the computer is working properly, I also had to install and run 3DMark, a real-life piece of software that tests a computer's performance by running 3D graphics demos.One of the cooler things about PC Building Simulator is that it uses a lot of real brands. Some parts are fake, I'm assuming, because the developers couldn't get the necessary licensing deals. For example, PC Building Simulator seems to take place in some kind of utopian alternate dimension where everyone uses an operating system called Omega, which I'm assuming is a Linux distro that magically runs all PC games. But there are also a lot of real parts. I installed real EVGA GPUs and even worked on the Master Cooler brand PC case I have at home.This is all fine, but I realized that PC Building Simulator really wasn't fucking around when it actually demanded I sit through the entire 3DMark test before I could finish the job. Poor DR Waterman only got an average 8 frames per second, but the PC was working now so it's not my problem. Besides, since this job is the repair shop's fuckup, I'm not even going to get paid for my time here. Thanks a lot, uncle Tim.The only question I have is: Can you play a simulated version of "PC Building Simulator" on one of the PCs you build inside the game?

Did Paul Manafort reach out to Russia to ask for help? Did Donald Trump offer Mike Flynn a pardon?Special counsel Robert Mueller has dozens of questions for President Donald Trump about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and obstruction of the investigation led by Mueller. They include questions on “any efforts made to reach out to Mr. Flynn about seeking immunity or possible pardon.” Another question will make headlines tonight: “What knowledge did you have of any outreach by your campaign, including by Paul Manafort, to Russia about potential assistance to the campaign?” As the Times notes, “No such outreach has been revealed publicly.” (more…)

When cleaning off slides for scanning, or the lenses on cameras that haven't been made for decades, I use PecPads.I used to ruin positives when trying to ready them for scanning. Then I was told about PecPads. I have not ruined a slide in years and years. I also use the non-abrasive gauze-like pads to clean the lenses on my treasured Rolleis.I use microfiber clothes on my glasses, but superstition keeps me using PecPads on photographic equipment.PEC-PAD Lint Free Wipes 4"x4" 100per/Pkg via Amazon

Nitrile gloves are a cheap way to keep your hands clean. I've used them for bike and car work, clearing rat traps, wiping cat puke, cleaning grills, and countless other tasks. Amazon has a good deal on these textured nitrile gloves: 100 for $14.

https://vimeo.com/105542404Gleg is a cyber-arms-dealer based in Moscow, selling zero-day vulnerabilities it has uncovered in widely used systems to companies that want to weaponize them. (more…)

LaTeX is the venerable, gold-standard layout package favored for scholarly papers, especially technical papers; back in 2009, Hanno Rein released LaTeX Coffee Stains, an extension to draw a variety of coffee-cup rings on your paper; the code has been improved by community contributions over the years and is very robust and full-featured! (via Evil Mad Scientist Labs)

In a White House press briefing with Nigeria's president Muhammadu Buhari at his side, U.S. President Donald Trump said he believes a summit with North Korean president Kim Jong-Un will happen, and that Singapore and the Korean DMZ are possible sites for the historic summit. (more…)

Long held by French ex-patriot Jean-Noel Frydman, France.com has been taken from his control. Emails are bouncing and the URL has been forwarded to the government tourism site. Frydman is suing his ISP, domain registrars and the Republic of France to get his domain back.Via the Verge:Frydman first registered the domain in 1994, less than three years after the World Wide Web became publicly available. “I was at a crossroads professionally, and I wanted to discover something new,” Frydman says. He found his way to BBS boards and the still-young web, recognizing the possibilities immediately. “I could see it was a new frontier. And like the frontier, if you went in early, you could stake a claim.” A French expat, he was drawn to France.com.The site went through a number of incarnations, briefly offering France-based news (including Le Monde) for paying subscribers before eventually settling on a travel agency model. For most of its history, the site has offered travel tips alongside packaged vacation deals. With roughly 100,000 visitors a month, Frydman could easily support the site on commissions. He had registered other domain names, too. But over the years, he sold them off, and France.com became his only project.The French tourism bureau was friendly with Frydman, even giving him a “Best Website” award in 2009. But in 2016, the foreign ministry seemed to have a change of heart. He says they made no effort to buy the domain from Frydman (although he would have been unlikely to sell), but argued in court that the domain was rightful property of the government. Who should France.com belong to, if not France? In July 2016, the High Court of Paris agreed, ordering Frydman to transfer the domain or face a fine. The ruling that was upheld by an appeals court in September 2017, and it’s currently being appealed to France’s highest court.Frydman still expected to maintain control of the domain while the case was going forward, even if he faces a fine for holding out. But sometime between September and March, France served an order directly to Frydman’s registrar, Web.com, which was enough to convince them to transfer the domain. Making matters worse, the transfer shifted the registration from Web.com to OVH, a French registrar that may be less responsive to US courts. (Web.com did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)

Director Ron Howard and the stars of Solo: A Star Wars Story tease us with more context and scenes from the forthcoming film out on May 25.

Andrew Hill was stand-up paddleboarding off Gracetown, Western Australia when a pod of dolphins interrupted his fun. “Eight or nine of them decided to catch that wave and surf straight at me, which has happened lots of times in the past to me and generally they just take off to one side left or right,” Hill told PerthNow. “It's good to see dolphins. Surfers like seeing dolphins, but obviously I'd prefer them to stay a little bit further away than they did yesterday.”I'm sure they'd prefer the same of Mr. Hill.

Giant Chinese companies are outfitting millions of employees -- everyone from factory workers to military personnel to pilots and train drivers -- with special uniform hats containing an unspecified neurological sensor package claimed to be capable of detecting "depression, anxiety or rage" as well as "fatigue and attention loss with an accuracy of more than 90 per cent"; the practice is largely unregulated. (more…)

As you recall, after the Parkland school shooting in February that killed 17 people including 14 students, the NRA was adamant that schools would be safer if it were staffed with gun-toting faculty members. “To stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun,” is the mantra of NRA CEO Wayne La Pierre. So it's pretty incredulous that when Mike Pence speaks at the NRA's forum this weekend, all guns will be banned from the event. According to Politico:The NRA posted a disclaimer on the NRA-ILA Leadership Forum event page, saying that due to Pence’s attendance, Secret Service will be responsible for event security. Therefore, “firearms and firearm accessories, knives or weapons of any kind will be prohibited in the forum prior to and during his attendance."Needless to say, the Parkland survivors are taken aback. "The NRA has evolved into such a hilarious parody of itself," Parkland survivor Cameron Kasky tweeted.The NRA has evolved into such a hilarious parody of itself. pic.twitter.com/6Pw6NTQAe6— Cameron Kasky (@cameron_kasky) April 28, 2018Others responded to the tweet with the same astonishment over the NRA's hypocrisy:Wait wait wait wait wait wait you’re telling me to make the VP safe there aren’t any weapons around but when it comes to children they want guns everywhere? Can someone explain this to me? Because it sounds like the NRA wants to protect people who help them sell guns, not kids.— Matt Deitsch (@MattxRed) April 28, 2018With a convention full of so many “good guys with guns” wouldn’t this be the safest place on earth?— Peaches #trumpophobe (@fingerbobs) April 28, 2018The Secret Service is in control of security. The NRA is yeilding to them. That said, the NRA should uninvite Pence. My point being, too bad the NRA isn't as concerned about the safety of students as they are about the Veep's. Longtime former NRA member.— Ken (@kemios) April 28, 2018And from one of the victim's father:On so many levels, this is enlightening. According to the NRA, we should want everyone to have weapons when we are in public. But when they put on a convention, the weapons are a concern? I thought giving everyone a gun was to enhance safety. Am I missing something? https://t.co/f4wgNhJ7RI— Fred Guttenberg (@fred_guttenberg) April 28, 2018According to NRA/Secret Service logic, more guns equals safer schools, but no guns equals safer conventions. Makes about as much sense as everyday politics in America.Via Sacramento BeeImage: Gage Skidmore/Flickr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ODTAhD8rOoWith episode 636 on Sunday, The Simpsons finally outran Gunsmoke as America's longest-running TV show, as counted by scripted episodes. It overtook it about a decade ago in terms of how many seasons it's been on TV. That said...“Gunsmoke,” however, was an hourlong program for about half its run, while “The Simpsons” is half-hour, and so the former retains the record for most hours of television. As well, the Western series had begun on radio in 1952.The closest other scripted prime-time series, the family drama “Lassie,” about an ingenious collie, ran on network and then in first-run syndication from 1954 to 1974, for 591 episodes.In a welcome coda to the Apu imbroglio, Hank Azaria (who also voices other characters on the show) is planning to let a South Asian actor take over the role and help transition the character to a less stereotypical portrayal.

From Labor Notes, a weekly report-card of teachers' strikes, which are spreading from state to state, with North Carolina -- the laboratory for gerrymander-fueled Republican takeover -- next in line for a wave of school closures. (more…)

Defense Secretary James Mattis has announced a criminal investigation into the misuse of $458,000,000 that the US government gave to Iraq and Afghanistan to build out mass-scale domestic surveillance apparatus and other "anti-terrorism" capabilities. (more…)

Here's something from the department of "You can't buy this kind of publicity."At a movie theater in Perth, Australia, a group of kids and parents got more than they bargained for when a scary trailer for the horror flick Hereditary (above) played ahead of the PG-rated Peter Rabbit. The audience of 40 got a taste of what critics are calling the "scariest horror film of 2018." The clip of the film starring Toni Collette shows a pigeon's neck being snipped with a pair of scissors by a demonic child, a young man's head being smashed into a desk, a person covered in flames, and other scenes definitely not meant for little eyes. Oops!One of the moms in the theater told The Sydney Morning Herald:"It was dreadful. Very quickly you could tell this was not a kid's film. Parents were yelling at the projectionist to stop, covering their kids' eyes and ears," she said."A few went out to get a staff member but she was overwhelmed and didn't really know what to do. Some parents fled the cinema with their kids in tow."Eventually a senior staff member came in with a walkie talkie and he shut the screen off. To his credit he apologised and offered us complimentary movie passes to make up for it."The A.V. Club reviewed the film in January calling it, "the most traumatically terrifying horror movie in ages":I don’t scare easily. As much as I love horror movies, and have since I was young, they don’t usually shake me in any real, lasting way: “It’s only a movie” is always there for me like a security blanket, smothering any genuine panic. So it’s a special kind of awful, a rare treat of sorts, when something comes along that actually gets past my defenses, that does more than make me jolt upright in my seat occasionally or instill with me a vague, temporary unease. That happened last night, in a crowded Park City theater, during the second public screening of Ari Aster’s blood-curdling Hereditary (Grade: A-), most of which I spent in a state of deep distress, palms soaked, breath shallow. This isn’t a scary movie. It’s pure emotional terrorism, gripping you with real horror, the unspeakable kind, and then imbuing the supernatural stuff with those feelings. It didn’t play me like a fiddle. It slammed on my insides like a grand piano.The upcoming thriller has a U.S. release date of June 8, 2018.

Being medicated is the best and the absolute worst.I take a cocktail of anti-anxiety and anti-depressive drugs on a daily basis to help me deal with the symptoms that come with my PTSD. Most of the time, I'm grateful for them: They've helped to numb me, just enough so that I can use the techniques I've learned in therapy to help ground myself during a flashback or panic attack. Now that I'm medicated – I refused treatment for years – I'm able to maintain a healthy relationship. The rage and detachment I've experienced these past 20 years have been tamped down far enough that I can empathize, fully, with my wife, friends and colleagues. It's hard work, sometimes! But I feel healthier than I have in years. A lot of the time, I'm even able to sleep through the night. The paranoia I deal with and the thoughts that refuse to stop tumbling around in my head give way to slumber, most evenings. It's still a frequent thing for me to wake up, sweat-drenched and alert in the dead of night, but it feels manageable. Before, it was just exhausting and sad.But then, on occasion, a doctor decides that maybe I should be on something new; something different. This happened two days ago. I'm not digging it.I was warned: when starting on these new pills (no, I'm not going to tell you what they are) I'd experience more anxiety for the next few weeks as the old drugs leave my system and my new pharmaceutical hotness takes hold. He wasn't kidding. The first morning I took the new pills, I felt great. I had tons of energy. Shit was getting done.For about three hours.My enthusiasm for everything I turned my hand to quickly grew dark. I'm currently living in the woods near the Canadian Rockies. It's an isolated location. The sway of the trees felt like a veiled threat to me yesterday. No birds have sang here in weeks. But this week, their silent bullshit feels ominous. I laid in bed last night, sleepless, thinking on topics that I have no control over, pondering backup plans for when my life, inevitably, implodes. Today, sitting down to write, I've told myself, repeatedly, that this is just a phase. Things will get better with the dope I'm currently on. I'll level out. I'll be sound again.Such thoughts breed their own problems: will I always be at the mercy of chemicals and memories that I'd sooner not have? Is the control I've felt in my life these past few years nothing more than an illusion? The dogs in my head are kept on a short leash when my meds work. Nothing these past few days has kept them from roaming free. It's been hard to write today. Despite the energy that I have, it was hard to get out of bed.For those of you self-medicating or prescribed uppers, downers, and everything else in between, do you look at your meds as a blessing or a curse? What makes you keep taking them every day? As for you folks who don't partake – how do you see your friends or family members who do?Let's talk it out.Image via Pixabay, courtesy of Pexels

A measles outbreak in Kansas continues to spread. Health officials warn folks who are potentially contagious to call ahead and find locations where they can safely be treated.Vaccinate your kids.Via the Kansas City Star:With two doses, the measles-mumps-rubella, or MMR vaccine, is about 97 percent effective at preventing measles.But the illness is highly contagious and can be spread several days before the telltale red rash that follows the other, more ambiguous symptoms.That has made it difficult to keep it out of hospitals and doctors' offices during the two outbreaks that have hit the Kansas City metro area in the last two months.In addition to St. Joseph Medical Center, the University of Kansas Hospital, Children's Mercy Hospital in Overland Park and Olathe Health clinics in La Cygne and Mound City have also been potential exposure sites.Robyn Livingston, a Children's Mercy doctor who specializes in infectious disease, said it's particularly concerning when measles shows up in medical settings unannounced, because hospitals often serve patients who can't be vaccinated for medical reasons.“If you think your child has measles, don’t just show up to one of our locations," Livingston said. "Which has happened.”Livingston said it's imperative that people who suspect measles call ahead, so doctors and hospitals can arrange to segregate them from others.Though most people who get measles fully recover, it can cause potentially fatal complications like pneumonia and, more rarely, encephalitis.

Analyzing decades of data from more than 7,000 surgical patients, researchers have determined once and for all that music helps patients calm their anxiety before an operation and also reduces pain following the procedure. “Besides individual music preference, specific features of the music intervention such as rhythm and harmony, and the use of specific instruments like string instruments, also seem important features in anxiety and pain reduction,” the authors wrote in the British Journal of Surgery. " placebo effect cannot be ruled out as the studies relied on self‐reporting. It could be argued that a placebo effect is beneficial anyway, in this instance reducing anxiety and pain. My brother, a transplant surgeon, used to enjoy listening to classical music (loudly) during long operations so it seems like this is a win for everyone."Although most of the music interventions used in the studies were bound by restrictions, such as slow, soft, relaxing music, the effect does not seem to be related to one specific type of music," the researchers wrote. "Moreover, it has been suggested that individual music preference is important to the effect of a music intervention."According to lead author Dr. Rosalie Kühlmann, of Erasmus MC-Sophia Children's Hospital, in The Netherlands, "This result makes it now possible to create guidelines for the implementation of music interventions around surgical procedures."And here's a previous study on the matter: "Scientists: Music makes surgery patients feel better"(image source: Scope)

Photographer and pianist Romain Thiery accompanied his own remarkable images of abandoned pianos for his Requiem for Pianos series. (more…)

While it should come as no surprise to anyone that follows the news or gets depressed by Twitter on a regular basis, freedom of the press – an important check against corruption and the misuse of power in a democracy – is on the decline.We've been seeing it daily of late: political leaders spewing targeted hate at particular journalists or the outlets they work for. Pundits calling the facts uncovered during deep-dive investigative reporting lies, or alternate versions of the truth, instead of trying to defend their viewpoints or confessing to their bullshit once they've been caught. Hell, Trump went so far as to call journalists "enemies of the people." That's a term that Stalin was fond of. The assault on the media doesn't stop there, either. With increasing frequency, journalists around the world are facing charges and incarceration for nothing more than doing their jobs. As insane as it is, those are the lucky ones. In some locales, being a journalist can get you killed. It's been common, in recent years, for reporters in Mexico to vanish or to wind up dead – their work to bring the truth to light displeasing to drug cartels and corrupt local officials. And then there's this, from Reporters Without Borders:The line separating verbal violence from physical violence is dissolving. In the Philippines (down six at 133rd), President Rodrigo Duterte not only constantly insults reporters but has also warned them that they “are not exempted from assassination.” In India (down two at 138th), hate speech targeting journalists is shared and amplified on social networks, often by troll armies in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pay. In each of these countries, at least four journalists were gunned down in cold blood in the space of a year.If you're interested in taking a read of how your country rates on the RSF index of press freedoms, Reporters Without Borders has all the information you need. Head on over to their website, have a stiff drink and gain a better understanding of how, in many countries, the hard-won freedoms we cherish are being pulled out from under us.Image via Flickr, courtesy of Brent Payne

I'm no armed robbery expert, but pointing a gun at a man with a mustache so mighty that it can be seen from behind him and the swagger to pull off an unironic straw cowboy hat seems like a solid formula for a bad day.Case in point: despite being tooled up with what appears to be a wheel gun, the bad dude in this video who's out to rob a butcher shop in Monterrey, Mexico has his ass handed to him by, yes, a man with a giant mustache in a cowboy hat. Even before anything happens, you know it's gonna happen: As the hooded hoodlum points his pistol at the man, he takes his glasses off. Mustachioed shit's gonna go down. While the man had things well in hand, a pair of butchers working in the back of the shop sprung into action. Sadly, without cleavers. Cleavers make any video better.In the end, the butchers and their bad ass pal in the hat were able to subdue the gunman and hold him for the police.

A man was kicked out of a bar in New York City last year for wearing a red "Make America Great Again" cap. Philadelphia accountant Greg Piatek and his friends were at the Happiest Hour bar, where he says a bar employee told him, “Anyone who supports Trump—or believes in what you believe—is not welcome here! And you need to leave right now because we won’t serve you!” He sued the bar, and yesterday a New York City judge ruled that it is legal for a private business to refuse service if you are a Trump supporter. They can also refuse to serve someone for being a Democrat. According to the Miami Herald:Barring state or local laws, private businesses generally have the right to refuse service to anyone as long as they aren't discriminating based on race, color, religion or national origin. Politics is not on the list. When Piatek heard this, he tried to convince the judge that being a Trump supporter did fall into the religion category. According to Fortune:Following the incident, Piatek sued the bar for offending “his sense of being American.” When The Happiest Hour’s lawyer noted that only religious beliefs are protected under city and state discrimination laws, Piatek attempted to pivot, suggesting that his hat reflected a “spiritual belief” and argued that he had donned the hat in “spiritual tribute” while visiting the 9/11 memorial prior to going to the bar.It's hard for me to understand how anyone can be a Trump supporter, but it's also hard for me to understand how a person minding their own business in a bar (if that's indeed what he was doing) can be ordered to leave because of a hat they are wearing. Maybe they could have just asked him to take it off? Discrimination against political views might be legal, but it's also unsettling.Image: Gage Skidmore - https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/25858555481/, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

Raspberry Pi is a credit card sized (or smaller) Linux computer that costs about $35 (you also need a monitor, a keyboard, SD card, and power source). The organization that developed it is called the Raspberry Pi foundation and they publish an excellent project magazine called MagPi. The PDF version is free to download. Issue 69 just came out and it has some good projects:Affordable 3D printing. Buy your first 3D printer and use a Raspberry Pi with OctoPrint to control it.Set up Bluetooth on a Raspberry Pi and use it to stream music to your speakers.New Google AIY kits. Discover the latest Voice and Vision kits. Now with Pi Zero WH included!Transform a retro cam. Turn a classic Kodak Brownie camera into a modern digicam using a Camera Module.Make a Pi Zero TV Stick. Upgrade any TV into a PC with a modified Pi Zero W.

As VR headsets and controllers become readily available it is only a matter of time before we are all wearing haptic underoos and doing VR yogas.Now I can feel my heartbreak as I get shot down in Fortnite.Via Disney:Immersive experiences seek to engage the full sensory system in ways that words, pictures, or touch alone cannot. With respect to the haptic system, however, physical feedback has been provided primarily with handheld tactile experiences or vibration-based designs, largely ignoring both pressure receptors and the full upper-body area as conduits for expressing meaning that is consistent with sight and sound. We extend the potential for immersion along these dimensions with the Force Jacket, a novel array of pneumatically-actuated airbags and force sensors that provide precisely directed force and high frequency vibrations to the upper body. We describe the pneumatic hardware and force control algorithms, user studies to verify perception of airbag location and pressure magnitude, and subsequent studies to define full-torso, pressure and vibration-based feel effects such as punch, hug, and snake moving across the body. We also discuss the use of those effects in prototype virtual reality applications.