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The year 2016, and a public vote, brought us Boaty McBoatface, followed by Horsey McHorseface. Then, earlier this year, Trainy McTrainface pulled into the station. Now, there's a Ferry McFerryface. Australia's largest city Sydney asked its citizens to name the new passenger ferry, and six others, in an online public poll. Over 15,000 entries came in. Boaty McBoatface was the number one choice, with Ferry McFerryface coming in second. Since there was already a Boaty, the transit service went with Ferry "for the kids."While it might appeal to children, the union workers, who are slated to work on the amusingly-named boat, are offended:Maritime Union of Australia Sydney branch assistant secretary Paul Garrett said ferry staff would boycott the new vessel, which is due to start service on November 26, saying the name was an “insult” that will last for decades.“Members don’t want to crew the vessel,” he said. “It’s an insult to the integrity and heritage of Sydney Ferries, it undermines the professionalism and pride of the fleet.“This is not a five-minute internet sensation — this name has to be around for 20, 30, 40 years. This vessel will be left alongside the wharf until further notice.”Mr Garrett said maritime staff would only crew the vessel if it was renamed.“Members will leave that vessel alone, we won’t work it,” he said.(Pee-wee Herman)

New York's Citicorp Tower was an architectural sensation when it opened in 1977. But then engineer William LeMessurier realized that its unique design left it dangerously vulnerable to high winds. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe the drama that followed as a small group of decision makers tried to ward off a catastrophe in midtown Manhattan.We'll also cringe at an apartment mixup and puzzle over a tolerant trooper.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon!

Dan of the Slow Mo Guys had never used a katana sword before, but he did a great job using it to slice 10 plastic bottles of water in half. He said it felt like he was slicing butter. (more…)

A new pill that tells your doctor whether you're swallowing it or not has just been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The pill – a new version of Abilify by Otsuka Pharmaceutical – will have a digestible sensor in it that will let a patch worn by the patient know when the pill is going down the hatch. The patch will then relay the message to the patient's mobile app, and, like a game of telephone, the mobile app will send the info over to the doctor. (Of course the mobile app will have already been given permission by the patient to send this personal information to the doctor.)According to Mashable:The FDA’s decision Monday comes a year and a half after the agency rejected the product. At the time, the agency said it needed more information about how the product is used and how human error could create risks. Monday’s hard-won approval could come as a big boost for Otsuka, which had lost market share after Abilify went generic but will now have a way to make the product stand out.No more forgetting to take your pills – or sneaking it under the mattress when no one is looking.Image: Jeshoots.com/Pexels

I've been using Aukey's Flush Fit Dual Port USB adapter since early 2016. Once you push it into the car's "cigarette lighter" hole, it's close to a flush fit. It could be a chore to pull it out, but I've never had a reason to.

Computational neuroscientist Anders Sanberg is a senior research fellow at Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute where he explores the ethics of future human enhancement through AI, genetic engineering, and brain implants. IEEE Spectrum's Eliza Strickland interviewed Sanberg about the ethics of augmenting your wetware with neurotech:Spectrum: Do you worry that neurotech brain enhancements will only be available to the wealthy, and will increase the disparities between the haves and have-nots?Sandberg: I’m not too worried about it. If the enhancement it is in the form of a device or pill, those things typically come down in price exponentially. We don’t have to worry so much about them being too expensive for the mass market. It’s more of a concern if there is a lot of service required—if you have to go to a special place and get your brain massaged, or you have to take a few weeks off work for training, the prices for those services won’t come down because they’re based on salaries.The real question is, how much benefit do you get from being enhanced? You have to consider positional benefits versus absolute benefits. For example, being tall is positionally good for men, tall men tend to get ahead in work and have better life outcomes. But if everyone becomes taller, no one is taller. You only get the benefit if you’re taller than everyone else. Many people who are against enhancement use this argument: Enhancement leads to this crazy race and we’re all worse off.Spectrum: So even if a cognition-enhancing device became available, you don’t think everyone should get one?Sandberg: Intellectual enhancement would be good for the lower half of the bell curve, for people who are generally hindered by their lack of intelligence, and make stupid mistakes that they make their lives worse.People with good life outcomes tend to be smart but not super geniuses. Giving these people more intelligence might allow them to solve problems that less intelligent people can’t solve, but that might not be an advantage unless you care about solving deep problems.Super geniuses tend to toil away at something very specialized. Everyone benefits from their work, and having more of those people would be a very good thing. Or if we could make them even smarter, they would come up with more interesting solutions to the hard problems facing our society."Q&A: The Ethics of Using Brain Implants to Upgrade Yourself" (IEEE Spectrum)Illustration: Rob Beschizza

Over at The Last Word on Nothing, esteemed science writer Rebecca Boyle wrote a lovely appreciation of trees. "Apart from humans, maybe, trees are the best form of life on this planet," she writes. From Boyle's essay, titled "Make Like A Tree and Get Outta Here": Trees remain in one place, but reach elsewhere always. They stretch down into the ground, and they constantly strain toward the sun. They are the embodiment of our shared presence on a rocky planet that orbits a star. Hedgehogs and helminths may be interesting, but they don’t constantly remind us, simply by existing, that we are in a solar system.Trees are also hosts for every other form of life. Their roots chew up the very crust, a process aided by microbes, and in doing so, trees remake continents. Their bark harbors fungus and lichen. Their branches and leaves shelter and feed insects, birds and mammals. Even now, when humans are capable of building machines that fly to Mars, we still use trees for shelter. We also cut them down and burn them for warmth. Some of us cut them down and bring them inside and festoon them, for a form of psychic warmth that lasts a few weeks and is the only reason I can tolerate December.Trees are strivers. My pin oak is one of the fastest-growing species of hardwood trees, according to the Arbor Day Foundation. It can grow two feet per year. Trees also bide their time. The oldest living thing on Earth is a tree in Arizona, a bristlecone pine that sprouted from a seed a few years before the invention of writing, in 3200 BCE."Make Like A Tree and Get Outta Here" (via Nadia Drake)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxMvzK2OQTwEvery Cards Against Humanity Christmas surprise box has been amazing, and this year, the company promises to do something that will save America and hints that it will annoy Trump voters. I gave 'em $15. (via Waxy)

Helix is a home DNA testing service. From its website: "Explore products powered by your DNA. With Helix, one saliva sample unlocks a lifetime of insights." (more…)

Barbie is going to sport a new fashion accessory in 2018 – the hijab. As part of Mattel's "Shero" line, which includes Barbies inspired by role models such as Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas and director Ava DuVernay, the hijab will be part of the wardrobe for the Barbie based on Olympic fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad. Muhammed was the first athlete to wear a hijab while competing in the Olympics, and she's proud to have inspired this new addition to the Barbie lineup.Thank you @Mattel for announcing me as the newest member of the @Barbie #Shero family! I’m proud to know that little girls everywhere can now play with a Barbie who chooses to wear hijab! This is a childhood dream come true 😭💘 #shero pic.twitter.com/py7nbtb2KD— Ibtihaj Muhammad (@IbtihajMuhammad) November 13, 2017According to CNN Money:Barbie has been working hard to make its collection of dolls more diverse in an effort to broaden the brand's appeal."Ibtihaj is an inspiration to countless girls who never saw themselves represented, and by honoring her story, we hope this doll reminds them that they can be and do anything," Sejal Shah Miller, Barbie's vice president of global marketing, said in a statement.Barbie's sales have slumped, down 6% in the most recent quarter compared to last year.https://youtu.be/Gp9yLgDVyko

Already facing severe medical and food shortages, Venezuela is out of money and out of credit. The country issued a statement that it was defaulting on its debt, having missed its 30-day grace period on bond payments. This means investors can start seizing Venezuela, including barrels of oil that are being stored out of the country. This will make the already awful conditions there worse.From CNN Money:Venezuela has no other meaningful income other than the oil it sells abroad. The government, meanwhile, has failed for years to ship in enough food and medicine for its citizens. As a result, Venezuelans are waiting hours in line to buy food and dying in hospitals that lack basic resources.If investors seize the country's oil shipments, the food and medical shortages would worsen quickly."Then it's pandemonium," says Fernando Freijedo, an analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, a research firm. "The humanitarian crisis is already pretty dire ... it boggles the mind what could happen next."It's not immediately clear what steps bondholders will take. Argentina went through a vaguely similar default, and its bondholders battled with the government for about 15 years until settling in 2016. Every case is different, though.By Jamez42 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

If you're still using Facebook (I don't), your data is being used to profile you in seriously creepy ways; the best thing you can do is delete your Facebook account, but second-best is locking down your account, using the deliberately confusing, overly complexified privacy dashboard. (more…)

In 2012, Courtney Allen was having a difficult time in her marriage and she struck up an online affair with a gamer in her alliance named Todd Zonis; when her husband Steven found out about it and she refused to break it off, he emailed her family, his family, and Zonis's family. (more…)

Believe it or not, the holiday season is just about here, and to help ease your gifting anxiety, we’ve selected some of our favorite tech products from the Boing Boing Store. And to sweeten the deal, you can take an extra 15% off any of these items when you use coupon code GIFTSHOP15 at checkout.Mighty: The First On-The-Go Spotify Music PlayerThis portable music player is like an iPod shuffle for Spotify. You can load it with up to 8GB of songs and playlists wirelessly from any mobile device to enjoy fully offline playback. It’s also water- and drop-resistant, making it perfect for enjoying your favorite tunes off the grid. Get the Mighty On-The-Go Spotify Music Player here for $85.99.VoCore2 Mini Linux Computer + Ultimate DockHardware hackers will love this VoCore2 Mini Computer. It packs a full Linux OS into a package smaller than a coin, and offers both wired and wireless connectivity to work with external cameras and microphones. With the included dock, you can also plug in a microSD card for persistent storage. Use it as a DIY security camera, private cloud, or anything else you can imagine. The VoCore2 Mini Linux Computer + Ultimate Dock usually costs $50, but you can pick one up for $42.99.RevolCam: Multi-Lens Camera for Smartphones Although smartphones have worthy cameras, there are still many of us in need of a handicap when it comes to taking quality photos. Rather than upgrading to the newest phone or dishing out for a DSLR, this small device packs in three lenses, an adjustable brightness LED, and selfie mirror. It's portable and takes great pictures in any condition. It normally costs $59.99, but you can grab it for $34.99. SKEYE Nano 2 FPV DroneIf you’d rather sacrifice quadcopter customizability in exchange for a first-person view, check out the SKEYE Nano 2 FPV Drone instead. It streams real-time camera footage to your iOs or Android phone via WiFi, and has a flight range of up 50 meters. This tiny flyer also fits inside of the bundled controller when not in use. It can be had for $64.SunFounder Raspberry Pi Robot KitsTinkering with a Raspberry Pi is a great way to learn how computers work, but you need a lot of extra supplies to make anything interesting. With a SunFounder Raspberry Pi Robot Kit, you can get introduced to the basics of robotics and the Linux operating system — and have a software-controlled RC car to show for it. It comes bundled with a Pi board and all the necessary parts for just $149.99.FRESHeBUDS Pro Magnetic Bluetooth EarbudsFree your workouts from annoying tangled wires with these FRESHeBUDS Pro Magnetic Bluetooth Earbuds. They resist sweat and water, and feature a novel pairing system: the buds snap together when not in use, and pair with your device automatically when you pull them apart. Usually $120, you can order them from our store for $29.95.Ticwatch 2 Active SmartwatchWearables have made it dead-simple to keep track of fitness and movement goals. But they usually require constant recharging and a companion device at all times to log your data. The Ticwatch 2 is different — it monitors your health stats and location without needing a smartphone, and gets up to 2 days of battery life on a single charge. It’s available in snow and gray for $169.99.Activeon CX 1080p WiFi Action CameraThe Activeon CX offers similar durability and video features as a GoPro without the premium price. This action cam has just two buttons for simplified control, but incorporates plenty of handy features like remote recording via smartphone and wireless video transfer. It can survive nearly 200 feet underwater, and costs $39.99.Universal Waterproof Solar Charger (Yellow)Keep all of your gadgets topped off when you’re far away from your desk with a Universal Waterproof Solar Charger. Built to survive the elements, this battery pack is rugged, waterproof, and able to charge two USB devices at once with its integrated solar panel. You can pick one up here for only $13.99.Treblab RF100 Magnetic HD Noise Cancelling Earphones These Bluetooth earbuds offer crystal-clear audio quality and stylish metal construction that you can take anywhere. They feature removable silicone ear hooks for a secure, comfortable fit during heavy activity, as well as several sizes of silicone and expanding foam earths for passive noise cancellation. To keep your soundtrack playing all day, the Treblab RF100s get up to 9 hours of playback and are available now for $39.99.

Compuserve's sprawling, paleolithic forums were acquired along with Compuserve itself by AOL in 1998, and their fossil remains were augmented, year after year, decade after decade, by die-hard users who continued to participate there. (more…)

Yesterday, The New Yorker reported that conservative Republican Roy Moore was once banned from the mall in his hometown of Gadsden, Alabama, such was his predilection for badgering teens there. But it's local media that has the full story, with named sources, exposing the full extent of Moore's reputation for hitting on little girls.From The Birmingham News:Roy Moore's penchant for flirting with teen girls was "common knowledge" and "not a big secret" around Gadsden, according to some area residents. ..."These stories have been going around this town for 30 years," said Blake Usry, who grew up in the area and lives in Gadsden. "Nobody could believe they hadn't come out yet."Usry, a traveling nurse, said he knew several of the girls that Moore tried to flirt with."It's not a big secret in this town about Roy Moore," he said. "That's why it's sort of frustrating to watch" the public disbelieve the women who have come forward, he said.

A group of NYU and University of Illinois at Chicago computer scientists have presented a paper at the 2017 ACM Internet Measurement Conference in London presenting their findings in a large-scale study of online doxings, with statistics on who gets doxed (the largest cohort being Americann, male, gamers, and in their early 20s), why they get doxed ("revenge" and "justice") and whether software can detect doxing automatically, so that human moderators can take down doxing posts quickly. (more…)

New Maine News [via Cat Valente] is that rare thing online: a local Onion-style satirical news site that is good. It's great! I feel almost like I live there. From the front page alone: • Over 80% of Maine Fathers’ Affection Is Directed at Their Wood Piles• Heroic Man Saved Dying Pit Party by Cranking Some AC/DC• This Innovative Chef Took the Traditional Maine Baked Bean Supper and Made it Cost $85• Expert Panel Concludes Maine Didn’t Used to Be Like This.Augusta — Experts presented their conclusion to a years-long study of how Maine is now, compared to how it once was, and the results are alarming.“Weren’t like this back in the ’70s,” lead researched Brian Richards said in a prepared statement.“Didn’t used to be like this at all. Terrible now. Don’t even hardly recognize it,” Richards said. Richards grew up in Thomaston, but has since moved north.“Time was, if you had a few beers and a cop pulled you over, he’d just follow you to make sure you got home alright,” he said.

This elegant pup from Boston Dynamics triggered in me, for just a moment, the uncanny recognition of computer graphics. But it isn't rendered: it's a real machine, meeting a new threshold of fluid movement that turns my skepticism in on itself. Instead of being almost fooled into thinking something fake is real, I'm almost fooled into thinking something real is fake.

The EarthWindMap not only animates our homeworld's air currents, but you can drag, zoom and warp the view to create unique projections of its surface.

Starting on January 18, Disneyland will be offering a series of after-hours events called Disneyland After Dark.The first one is called "Throwback Nite" and it taps into early Disney nostalgia:Step back in time to the ‘50s and ‘60s for a taste of the classic after-dark experience at Disneyland. Come dressed in your best to enjoy the Happiest Place on Earth under a million twinkling lights, swinging to the tune of the bands and enjoying your favorite rides in the cool moonlight ‘till the clock strikes 1 a.m.!Original attraction posters of Disneyland experiences from yesteryear welcome you as you commemorate the evening with special photo locations... Live music and dancing bring the bygone era to life throughout the park, and the sky lights up with an exclusive showing of “Fantasy in The Sky” fireworks. Guests will receive a commemorative lanyard and a vintage-inspired park map that will highlight the special experiences taking place throughout the evening.It sounds to me like a nighttime, sanctioned version of the popular Dapper Day, ie. it sounds like fun!Tickets go on sale at Disneyland.com to the general public on December 7 and on November 30 for annual passholders of the resort.

Jumping out of a plane from 12,500 feet is exhilarating fun, until that parachute of yours decides to jam. Don't panic, this instructional video will help you get to that book deal. You'll be shaking hands with Al Roker in no time.(TwistedSifter)

After swapping online dating disasters with friends for hours, writer and poet Erin Bealmear decided she didn't want to be the kind of woman who spends all her time "talking about boys." She joked with these friends that she was going to create an OkCupid profile for Emily Dickinson, to see how she'd "fare in the world of online dating." She pondered, “Would a lovelorn poet, obsessed with death and privacy, be able to woo a modern man?”Then Bealmear took it one step further and started humorously answering the dating site's questions, imagining how Dickinson herself would answer them. For an extra layer of authenticity, she included specific details from the 19th-century American poet's life:What I’m doing with my lifeBeing a hermit. Overusing the dash.I’m really good atBreaking rules, specifically capitalization and punctuation.Favorite books, movies, shows, music, and foodMovies: What is a movie?Books: Wordsworth, Browning, Keats, Emerson, Shakespeare (i.e. dead people)Music: Yes, I do enjoy playing the piano on occasion. Thank you for asking.Food: Baked goods, especially my famous gingerbread. I love making it for the neighborhood children, but I can’t leave the house. Instead, I stand at the window and lower it down to them in a basket. It’s so much easier that way.Then, she decided to publish it under the moniker "CertainSlantofLight." a reference to one of Dickinson's poems. Once she did, "Emily's" inbox started filling with messages. Some men were amused, others were not. Many were just confused. Some curious responses came from men that Bealmear calls, "'Hi' guys."Every woman who has participated in online dating knows them. A man sends you an email that reads, “Hi, I’m John” or “Hi, I’d like to get to know you.” The messages aren’t offensive. They’re just boring. A “Hi” message is equivalent to saying, “Hey, I didn’t read your profile and I don’t care about your brain or your personality, but we should go out sometime.”And then she started getting messages from guys who wanted to date her, the unknown puppeteer behind "Emily." That's when she started pondering, "Why was Emily Dickinson succeeding at online dating to a much higher degree than I ever had?"Read the full article on Electric Literature: I Pretended to Be Emily Dickinson on an Online Dating Site

Russian scientists revealed a 20,000 to 50,000-year-old cave lion cub Thursday capable of being cloned and brought back from the depths of extinction. The cave cub was found on the bank of the Tirekhtykh River by a local resident, according to The Siberian Times. Researchers believe the cub died when it was around 2 months old. One of the researchers told the Siberian paper its “perfect” condition makes it a potential candidate for cloning. Video (below) shows researchers taking the stiff furball out of a sinister-looking briefcase and presenting it to the press. There’s something both adorable and macabre when seeing the environmentally preserved cub in a state of eternal slumber. Russia should probably leave this little guy or girl alone and let its subspecies rest. Via The Siberian Times: Expert Dr Albert Protopopov said: 'It is a perfectly preserved lion cub, all the limbs have survived. There are no traces of external injuries on the skin.' The preservation is so good that it raises hopes of cloning the species back to life, he said. The discovery is seen as better preserved than two tiny cave lion cubs found in the same Siberian region in 2015.https://youtu.be/awuv-X9-iw4

Selectrics get all the hype, but I love the typefaces available on Smith-Corona typewriters from the 1960s. From the samples posted by munk, I think my favorites are the futuristic but legible "Classic Elite No. 86" and the handwriting-style Artistic Script (pictured).There are about 20 in the set. The only ones that seem to be available as fonts are Numode No. 61, and this set with Smith-Corona's Prestige, Mini gothic and the script, bu all in very roughly-scanned form.(Via this conversation between @hacklib and Marcin Wichary, who is writing a book about the typewriter and mechanical keyboard community.)

Time for some paid administrative leave and a stern talking to for these LA cops who didn't realize their bodycams were recording them as they appeared to plant cocaine in a suspect's wallet.From CBS2:[Officer Samuel] Lee is seen searching the suspect. He testified in court, as in the police report, that the cocaine was found in Shields' left front pocket. But the videos shows a different story.In video from another angle, LAPD Officer Gaxiola picks up Shields' wallet from the street and shows it to Lee, who points to the suspect as if to say it's his.He then puts it back down, steps to the street, bends over and picks up a small bag with white powder. It eventually tested positive for drugs.Gaxiola goes back onto the sidewalk, picks up the wallet, motions to Lee and appears to put the bag into the wallet.[via DiGG]

Even if you don't use Photoshop, this video is interesting to watch. It shows you how to add text to anything using Photoshop so it looks like the text was actually printed on the item. The trick is using something called a displacement map.

GOP leader Mitch McConnell believes Roy Moore's victims and says the former judge should step down as his party's candidate in this month's Alabama senate race. The AP reports that McConnell "believes the women who were quoted" in a Washington Post story about Moore’s relationships with then as teens.Moore, a conservative firebrand and longtime foe of LGBT rights, was accused last week of inappropriate contact with girls as young as 14. Republicans generally stuck by their man, however, with many going as far as to say sexual relationships with older children are morally acceptable.But Moore fell fast in the polls, losing a 10-point advantage over his Democratic rival and, in new numbers reported yesterday, sinking to a 4-point disadvantage.

Bernie Sanders writes in Politico in advance of the publication of the report of the Democratic Party's Unity Reform Commission -- set up jointly by Sanders and Clinton -- and sets out a trio of modest, vital reforms that will make the party more accountable to voters and less susceptible to corruption. (more…)

The Agent Gallery of Chicago has bought a large lot of vintage dental training manikins and other gorgeous, nightmarish gadgets from the Hellraiserverse. (via JWZ) (more…)

A pair of economists analyzed data aggregated from smartphone tracking apps to see how long Americans spent at Thanksgiving dinner and how far they traveled to get there, and compared it to precinct-level voting data and data on the intensity of election advertising spending targeted to the subjects, and concluded that "Cell-tracking shows that mixed-party families had shorter 2016 Thanksgivings, an effect exacerbated by political advertising." (more…)

Denying the Earth is round is still socially acceptable and is even capable of rounding up large groups of mentally defective “humans” to share their unnerving beliefs. I know many of you are thinking I just described any religious gathering ever, but the Flat Earth International Conference (FEIC) in Cary, North Carolina was sold out from Nov. 9-10, according to WRAL. Conference prices at the local Embassy Suites ranged from $27 to a $249 VIP package. The FEIC boasts the idea government space agencies have been lying to us with “misleading materials." Guest speakers and exhibitions were apparently available to suggest that for thousands of years a collaborative hoax is being pursued by those who somehow benefit from lying to the world population about the Earth’s true shape. The FEIC (no connection to the Flat Earth Society) says the stationary earth is a flat disk with Antarctica as a barrier to prevent people from falling off — a much more reasonable explanation than those other crazy flat earthers. No one who spends $249 to argue the Earth is flat should ever be considered very important, so here’s some “misleading” pictures of our round Earth from different international space programs. United States: NASARussia: RFSA European: ESA China: CNSA Bonus – NASA Live ISS feed of Earth from space:https://youtu.be/RtU_mdL2vBM

This reuseable silicone bricktape makes sure my kids LEGOs stay on the shelf. Our cat is now frustratedMy kid is building an entire fleet of Star Wars spacecraft and starfighters. I love every piece and we proudly display them with several dedicated shelves in our living room. Our Maine Coon Cat, Heart, however likes to knock them off the shelf. This is a giant pain in the ass. This bricktape solves that.This tape is made of silicone. You know the lovely self-adhesive sticky stuff that cleans up with some warm soapy water? That! Simply cut a strip to the size you want, stick it to your surface and then snap the LEGO on top. If you are displaying LEGO in your home, this secures the object in place, looks better and is far, far easier to remove than the putty I was using.Reusable Silicone Self-Adhesive Building Block Tape, Compatible With Lego Collection Construction, 4 studs (Red+Green+Black+Light Blue) via Amazon

Equifax's nation-destroying data-breach was subsequently revealed to be just the latest in a series of unbelievably careless IT blunders, and it eventually cost the company CEO his job; now his replacement has told Congress that he's not really sure if the company has finally started encrypting the detailed, compromising, sensitive data they nonconsensually harvest from every person in the USA. (more…)

A sleeping baby in a blue sweatsuit sculpted by Duane Hanson is concerning New Yorkers while it’s being displayed in an auction house’s storefront window. Passersby believe the work “Baby in a Carriage, 1983” is a real baby being left unattended, according to Reuters. Heritage Auctions tells Reuters people stop for a moment and question if it’s real all day long. Some even enter the building and notify the staff. What they don’t realize is that they can actually bid on it it until Nov. 30. The estimated price of the polyvinyl baby ranges from $80,000 to $120,000. Hanson, who died in 1996, was known for sculpting hyperrealistic people engaged in everyday life. This particular piece is said be sculpted after his son. The price seems a little steep for a synthetic baby, but considering the costs of hospital bills and raising a child till adulthood, it may be the safer financial investment.

Here’s a way to avoid a police investigation: fart till the officer becomes so disgusted with you that he or she has to walk away from the interrogation. It worked temporarily for a 24-year-old Kansas City man when he relieved himself of gas to the point that the detective investigating the drug and stolen gun accusations was forced to end the interview, according to The Kansas City Star. The detective wrote in a report that Sean A. Sykes Jr. leaned on his chair and released a “loud fart” when questioned about his address. The gas continued to be released. Sykes was pulled over by police almost a month later and officially charged. However, none of the charges stem from bioterrorism. Via The Kansas City Star: Sean A. Sykes Jr., is charged in U.S. District Court possession with intent to sell cocaine and being a felon in possession of three firearms, two of which were reported stolen.In his report about the interview, the detective wrote that when asked about his address, “Mr. Sykes leaned to one side of his chair and released a loud fart before answering with the address.”“Mr. Sykes continued to be flatulent and I ended the interview,” the detective wrote.Charges were not filed at that time.

We are all familiar with the marquee protests in American history: the 1963 March on Washington, the 1969 anti-Vietnam War protest, and the 2017 post-inaugural Women's March. This weekend in Los Angeles, the #MeTooMarch will be protesting the normalizing of rape culture. With the recent bizarre acceptance by many Republicans of Roy Moore, who has a well-sourced history of pedophilia, issue-responsive protests like this are growing more urgent, frequent, and necessary. With all of this renewed activism in the U.S. and recent Democratic victories in off-year elections, it's important to remember and learn from what has worked in the past. Brittany Shoot wrote a great piece in Atlas Obscura on an often overlooked but highly impactful protest that involved no marching at all. The fact that the protestors were disabled –some physically, some mentally – didn't stop them from conducting the longest non-violent occupation of a federal building in United States history, the 504 Sit-In. What they accomplished bettered millions of lives to this day. If you're interested in understanding what it takes to effect major changes in policy, or get inspired to do something, this well-written piece about the 26-day long sit-in is worth a few minutes of your time:(Read Brittany Shoot's full article here)The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 included the little-noticed Section 504, which was based on the 1964 Civil Rights Act and mandated integration of people with disabilities into mainstream institutions. But the language was broad, only noting that “no qualified individual with a disability should, only by reason of his or her disability, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” By 1977, disability rights activists weary of asking nicely for their civil rights, decided to move—into the HEW offices [Health, Education, and Welfare], that is. “At that time in history, there was simply no access—no right to an education, no public transit. You couldn’t get into a library or city hall, much less a courtroom,” says 504 Sit-In participant, author, and disability rights advocate Corbett Joan O’Toole. She notes that as late as the 1970s, there were no federally mandated social services or agencies for individuals living with disabilities. If an individual wanted to hire an in-home attendant or interpreter, it had to happen through pre-existing social networks.The interdependency of the group itself, along with the cooperation of other social justice groups, like The Black Panther Party, was significant and very relevant now:O’Toole notes that people with disabilities—as well as people who are also part of other marginalized populations such as the LGBT community—are accustomed to the type of cooperative interdependence that was necessary for 504. The 100-plus occupiers and their attendants made the building their own almost immediately, draping a window air conditioning unit with a plastic tarp to create a makeshift refrigerator for medications and using the pay phones to communicate with loved ones and news media on the outside until the FBI cut the lines. There were daily consensus-driven committee meetings about everything from media strategy to how to respond to a bomb scare false alarm, in the event the FBI employed tactics to evacuate the building. “Disabled people are incredibly resourceful,” O’Toole says. “That is a commonly misunderstood and overlooked part of our history, and it led to the success of 504.”“They [the Black Panther Party] understood what it meant to support a revolutionary movement that wasn’t just on the street with weapons,” O’Toole says, pointing to the Party’s groundbreaking Free Breakfast for Children initiative, which eventually served a reported 20,000 low-income children and influenced federal guidelines for free breakfast and lunch programs still vital in the nation’s public schools.Under 504, nondiscrimination became a legal, fundamental right. Within months of the sit-in, noticeable changes began to take place in urban landscapes, in university classrooms, in the workplace, and in public spaces including libraries, courtrooms, and public transit. Cities instituted curb cuts from street to sidewalk. Federal buildings made adjustments to become accessible to all, including installing ramps and wider restroom stalls. Regulations instituted as a result of the success of 504, ushered in a new era of accessibility that led to the passage of Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990.Image: Nathan Keirn

SpeechBoard is a new "coming soon" Web tool to edit your podcast audio by cutting up the text transcripts. Craig Cannon and Ramon Recuero posted a demo and briefly explain the project in this Medium post:SpeechBoard... will transcribe your podcasts and allow you to cut anything from the audio by deleting the text from the transcript....You can import your cuts into Adobe Audition or Audacity to fine-tune the edit. Try the demo here. (via Waxy)

Comedian Louis C.K. admitted today that he masturbated in front of women. His statement:I want to address the stories told to the New York Times by five women named Abby, Rebecca, Dana, Julia who felt able to name themselves and one who did not.These stories are true. At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my dick without asking first, which is also true. But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your dick isn’t a question. It’s a predicament for them. The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly.I have been remorseful of my actions. And I've tried to learn from them. And run from them. Now I’m aware of the extent of the impact of my actions. I learned yesterday the extent to which I left these women who admired me feeling badly about themselves and cautious around other men who would never have put them in that position.I also took advantage of the fact that I was widely admired in my and their community, which disabled them from sharing their story and brought hardship to them when they tried because people who look up to me didn't want to hear it. I didn't think that I was doing any of that because my position allowed me not to think about it.There is nothing about this that I forgive myself for. And I have to reconcile it with who I am. Which is nothing compared to the task I left them with.I wish I had reacted to their admiration of me by being a good example to them as a man and given them some guidance as a comedian, including because I admired their work.The hardest regret to live with is what you've done to hurt someone else. And I can hardly wrap my head around the scope of hurt I brought on them. I’d be remiss to exclude the hurt that I’ve brought on people who I work with and have worked with whose professional and personal lives have been impacted by all of this, including projects currently in production: the cast and crew of Better Things, Baskets, The Cops, One Mississippi, and I Love You, Daddy. I deeply regret that this has brought negative attention to my manager Dave Becky who only tried to mediate a situation that I caused. I’ve brought anguish and hardship to the people at FX who have given me so much The Orchard who took a chance on my movie and every other entity that has bet on me through the years.I’ve brought pain to my family, my friends, my children and their mother.I have spent my long and lucky career talking and saying anything I want. I will now step back and take a long time to listen.Thank you for reading.Image: ANDERS KRUSBERG / PEABODY AWARDS

The Wall Street Journal reports that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is looking into allegations that former White House National Security Adviser Mike Flynn and his #pizzagate-promulgating son Michael Flynn Jr. were planning to kidnap a Muslim cleric living in the U.S. and take him to Turkey in exchange for $15 million dollars. The FBI is investigating a meeting that took place in mid-December in New York City where "Mr. Flynn and representatives of the Turkish government discussed removing [Fethullah] Gulen, according to people with knowledge of the FBI’s inquiries." At the time of the meeting, Trump had already selected Flynn as national security adviser.The alleged plan was launched at a September 19 meeting, "where Turkish officials first raised the possibility of forcibly removing Mr. Gulen."From The Wall Street Journal:That September meeting, held in a hotel room and attended by former CIA Director James Woolsey, was reported earlier by the Journal. Mr. Gulen’s removal was discussed as “a covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy away,” according to Mr. Woolsey, who said he attended the meeting at the request of one of Mr. Flynn’s business associates.Also present at the September meeting were Mr. Erdogan’s son-in-law and Turkey’s foreign minister, foreign-lobbying disclosure documents show. The Turkish Embassy has previously acknowledged that Turkish officials met with Mr. Flynn but declined to discuss the conversation.A White House spokesman deferred all questions to a spokesman for the Trump transition process. “We don’t have any evidence that such a meeting took place,” that spokesman said, referring to the December meeting. “And if it did take place it happened not withstanding the transition.”Image: U.S. Air Force photo by Susan A. Romano

Boing Boing pal Howard Rheingold is an Internet culture visionary. In fact, he was probably the first Internet culture visionary. Since 1984, he's written about the intersection of technology, consciousness and media in foresight-filled books like Tools for Thought (1985), Virtual Reality (1991), The Virtual Community (1993), Smart Mobs (2002), Net Smart (2012), and researched the power of cooperation with Institute for the Future. Howard's paintings and sculptures are deeply psychedelic, beautiful, and weird. Howard's work has had a massive impact on my life since I first went online in the 1980s and I feel fortunate to call him my friend. Now, Howard has launched a Patreon to support his continued efforts to change minds and move culture. As Howard once said, "Openness and participation are antidotes to surveillance and control."Support Howard Rheingold on Patreon.

Stephen Colbert brilliantly highlights the obvious.Is it too much to hope that Alabamians, 90 percent of who say religion is "very important" or "somewhat important" (more than any other state), are as disgusted as everyone else by the credible allegations of Roy Moore's sexual misconduct against minors?

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is one of the few Republican politicians – besides Senator John McCain – who is publicly speaking out against Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore. Moore has been accused by four women of sexual misconduct that he initiated towards them when they were teenagers, including Leigh Corfman, who was 14 at the time.In a tweet this morning, Mitt Romeney says, "Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections. I believe Leigh Corfman. Her account is too serious to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside."Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections. I believe Leigh Corfman. Her account is too serious to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside.— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) November 10, 2017According to Time:The politician’s condemnation of Moore is a marked change from many of his Republican colleagues, who, though they have denounced Moore’s alleged actions, have couched calls for him to step down in language that casts doubt about the veracity of allegations.Image: Gage Skidmore

U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions keeps hinting that he's going to wage war against marijuana in states that have legalized it, and he probably would have started it by now if he wasn't so busy trying to weasel out of the Russia/perjury bind he got himself into. Meanwhile a 12-year-old girl, Alexis Bortell, who says her epileptic seizures have gone away since she started using cannabis oil, has filed a lawsuit against Sessions over the federal classification of marijuana as a Schedule One drug, which is reserved for drugs that have no medical value.From KDVR:"As the seizures got worse, we had to move to Colorado to get cannabis because it's illegal in Texas," said Bortell, who was diagnosed with epilepsy as a young child.The sixth-grader said traditional medicine wasn't helping her seizures and doctors in her home state were recommending invasive brain surgery.But a pediatrician did mention an out-of-state option: Medical marijuana.Shortly after moving to Larkspur [Colorado], Bortell's family began using a strain of cannabis oil called Haleigh's Hope.A drop of liquid THC in the morning and at night has kept her seizure-free for 2 1/2 years."I'd say it`s a lot better than brain surgery," Bortell said.Other people joining Bortell in the lawsuit include a former pro football player, another minor, and a military veteran. The federal government moved to have the case dismissed, but lost. Never give up! I won't! #alexisbortell A post shared by Alexis Bortell (@alexisbortell) on Sep 14, 2017 at 8:33am PDT Image: Wikipedia/Alexis Bortell

Transparency International found 766 dodgy companies registered to just 6 UK addresses, formed by Trust and Companies Service Providers (colloquially called "company factories") that took advantage of the drastic understaffing at Companies House (the primary oversight body for company formation) to launder over £80 billion in stolen money smuggled out of 13 countries. (more…)

Switzerland and Singapore are among the most expensive places in the world to grab a mug of coffee—overpriced as it already is in the United States. But there's more to the matter than mere inconvenience for tourists. The Wall Street Journal reports on Starbucks becoming an indicator of currency trouble.The financial community uses dozens of metrics to determine how much a currency should be worth—and which currencies to buy and sell. These often tell starkly different stories. One measure created by the Council on Foreign Relations shows the U.S. dollar is 11% overvalued. A rival to the Starbucks index is the Big Mac index, as devised by The Economist. Finding it inadequate, the Council on Foreign Relations came up with a Mini Mac index, with the international prices of Apple gadgets as the benchmark: "Minis are a global product that, unlike Big Macs, can move quickly and cheaply around the world."Photo: Camila Tamara Silva Sepúlveda (cc)

Buffalo?Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo. Buffalo!Thanks, Tyler!

Ray Moore is the ultra-conservative, racist, corrupt, homophobic, theocratic evangelical Christian Alabama Republican Senate nominee who was outed for repeatedly sexually assaulting girls as young as 14. (more…)

Five years ago, Benjamin Delpy was working for an unspecified French government agency and teaching himself to program in C, and had discovered a vital flaw in the way that Windows protected its users' passwords. (more…)

Propublica's Julia Angwin (previoulsy) is one of the most fearless, effective investigative journalists reporting on technology; last August, she was subjected to brutal, crude, devastating cyberattacks after the publication of an article she worked on that outed tech companies, ad brokers and payment processors for helping extremists "monetize hate," acting as paymasters for neo-Nazis, the alt-right, and genocidal racists. (more…)