Boing Boing

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…)

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has made a name for himself as a crypto warrior who promotes a murky idea called "responsible encryption," through which software would somehow be designed so that its security worked 100% of the time when criminals and foreign governments were trying to break it, but fail 100% of the time when the US government was trying to break it. (more…)

In March, Wikileaks published the Vault 7 leaks, a cache of CIA cyberweapons created under the doctrine of "NOBUS" ("No One But Us"), in which security agencies suppress the publication of bugs in widely used software, choosing instead to develop attack-tools that exploit these bugs, on the assumption that no one else will ever discover those bugs and use them to attack the people they're charged with defending. (more…)

Muhammad Sameer Khan is truly a marvel, mostly due to the fact that he can adjust his head to look behind his back — no exorcism needed. The 14-year-old from Karachi, Pakistan ditched his textbooks to pursue a dance career utilizing the unsettling skill, according to the Daily Pakistan. A Youtube video shows Sameer, known as the “Human Owl,” using his hands to easily twist his head 180 degrees, all while mall-goers stroll by. There’s a few other multi-jointed tricks in the video and original article that should also not be attempted without medical supervision.

Sure children are terrible restaurant patrons, but do they really deserve to be charged extra on their dining tabs?The Wayne Hills Diner and Restaurant in New Jersey seems to think so, and it’s done giving raucous scoundrels the chance to freely practice their fine-dining etiquette, according to CBS. A local mother is saying her 11-year-old daughter was unknowingly double tipping until she finally discovered the gratuity charge from ordering a milkshake. The charge was not given to the mother when she dined there the same day, the daughter told CBS. Bills from the restaurant also say “gratuities are appreciated.” The owner and staff declined to comment to CBS, but the restaurant’s lawyer told the station the restaurant reserves the to right to charge 18 percent gratuity — especially when groups of 20-30 kids show up for a couple of hours and don’t leave a tip. Via CBS New York: [The lawyer] says it’s not fair to the waiters and waitresses who earn a living based on tips, adding the menu clearly states “management reserves the right to add 18 percent gratuity.”Melissa Desch wonders whatever happened to tipping being optional. She says she’d like to see a consistent policy.“Make it for everybody,” she said. “Adults, children, everything.”Image: pxhere

The Corey Helford Gallery is currently showing an exhibit of fantastic new works by U.K. multimedia artist Ian Francis. Artificial Winter is Francis’ first solo exhibition in 10 years and will be on display until November 25th. “Francis makes socially conscious works that critique and celebrate a media-inundated age. He’s described his work as being ‘about pornography and news reports from warzones rather than sex and death,’” according to the gallery.Francis explains in the exhibit’s press release: “Looking back on my work, the focus has slowly shifted from media images of celebrities, to the curated images people create and maintain of themselves. I'm interested in the fragility of the construction of these images, the way they relate to each other, and their broader relationship with a pervasive feeling of a world falling apart. I'm amazed by the way people have transitioned from watching a world through screens, to being creators and participants of it, and the way they have become inextricably enmeshed within its structures and artifices.” Both the subject matter and materiality of Francis’ work are captivating. When I visited the gallery, I was immediately drawn in by the very interesting juxtaposition of delicacy and harshness in Francis’ work. Francis expresses his powerful insights about our world of technology through detailed, often transparent layers of paint using acrylic, oil, charcoal, and ink. Artificial Winter is beautiful and thought provoking – don’t miss your chance to see the exhibit.Check out more of his paintings from the exhibit here.

In case you missed it last night, or simply can't stay up late enough to watch the Late Late Show, four of the kids from Stranger Things – actors Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb Maclaughlin and Noah Schnapp – belted out Motown tunes with James Corden. Not too bad, and definitely very cute.

The 'I Love You, Daddy' screening was abruptly canceled just hours before it was scheduled to start. (more…)

The manufacturer of Nutella is in damage-control mode after the Hamburg Consumer Protection Center revealed the recipe had been changed. The new Nutella has more skimmed milk powder, more sugar, less cocoa, and less fat. It's also lighter in color. Fans of the hazelnut chocolate spread are shocked and confused by the change.Hi @spunky3825 our recipe underwent a fine-tuning and continues to deliver the Nutella fans know and love with high quality ingredients.— Nutella (@NutellaUSA) November 8, 2017OMG!! They are changing the recipe of #Nutella !!! NOOOOOOOO HOW DARE THEY!! Leave the sugar & coco alone!!! 😡😡😡😡😡😱😱😞😞😩😩😩 pic.twitter.com/TjN8Xeb60E— Gemma Byrne (@XGemma_ByrneX) November 7, 2017How dare they tamper with Nutella's recipe. Leave the chocolatey goodness alone— roshy ✖️ (@RoshhNosh) November 7, 2017From WaPo:Ferrero, the Italian company that makes Nutella, Tic Tacs and Ferrero Rocher chocolates, insisted that “the quality . . . and all other aspects of Nutella remain the same,” in a statement obtained by the BBC.The changes are to its milk and sugar content. The new recipe has 8.7 percent powdered skim milk, instead of 7.5 percent. It also contains 56.3 percent sugar, instead of the previous 55.9 percent, the Hamburg Consumer Protection Center said, according to Deutsche Welle.“As the color of the new Nutella is lighter, we are working on the assumption that skimmed milk powder was added at the expense of cacao,” the center said, although Ferrero did not confirm this.Image: Janine/Flickr

Las Vegas unleashed its first driverless shuttle packed with passengers yesterday, and within two hours it was hit by a delivery truck with a human driver. Apparently, the shuttle's sensors recognized the truck – which was backing up – so the shuttle stopped to avoid an accident. The truck, however, did not stop and it hit the shuttle. Luckily, it was minor and no one was hurt. According to the Huffington Post:“The shuttle just stayed still and we were like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s gonna hit us, it’s gonna hit us!’ and then, it hit us!” passenger Jenny Wong told KSNV. “And the shuttle didn’t have the ability to move back, either. Like, the shuttle just stayed still.”Fortunately, no humans were injured in the crash, the city said.The eight-passenger shuttle is currently offering free rides to people along a half-mile loop in the city’s Fremont East “Innovation District.” The operation is part of a 12-month pilot program, the city said.https://youtu.be/PcI5E980-UA

I've been using a Brother wireless laser printer for years. I paid close to $200 for it. Now you can get one for $60. I hate using an inkjet because they are slow and the always seem to have streaking issues. Laser printers are much faster and you can buy 3rd party toner cartridges for cheap (like this 3-pack for $26).

French-language broadcasters in Canada have been given the all-clear signal to freely use the word “fuck” on radio and television. The Canadian Broadcasting Standards Council (CBSC), which decides which words are safe and which ones will cause grievous damage to the nervous systems of people who hear them uttered, declared "fuck" to be “part of the common French spoken language” and that it doesn't have “the same vulgar connotations when used in French.”For now, English speakers in Canada will remain under the care and protection of the CBSC when it comes to the forbidden word.Image: Metropolico.org/Wikipedia

r/Incels was ostensibly a support group for the "involuntary celibate"—men who can't get laid—wrapped up in an internal mythology and glossary so bizarre that it seemed like an elaborate joke. But the nice guys' constant talk of hatred, murder, rape and other horrors finally woke Reddit up to the nastiness underfoot.The 40,000-strong community was nominally a “support group” for people who lack romantic relationships and sex. “They are involuntarily celibate or ‘incel’.” However, popular posts from the last few months include ones titled “all women are sluts”; “proof that girls are nothing but trash that use men” and “reasons why women are the embodiment of evil”.Members describe women as “femoids” and the men they have sex with as “chads”. There are many examples, documented on a watchdog subreddit called IncelTears, where incels have condoned or advocated rape, or described it as a made-up construct.Hypervigilance is going to destroy us, yes, but I'm staying away from the mall for the next few days all the same.

Sean Parker, famously portrayed as the Machiavellian mastermind behind Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, says that he's now appalled by the company's exploitative abuse of human psychology: "God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains.""The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them, ... was all about: 'How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?'""And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever. And that's going to get you to contribute more content, and that's going to get you ... more likes and comments.""It's a social-validation feedback loop ... exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you're exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.""The inventors, creators — it's me, it's Mark [Zuckerberg], it's Kevin Systrom on Instagram, it's all of these people — understood this consciously. And we did it anyway."

Oregon-based cannabis delivery company Briteside has just created a dope ad for its new weed subscription box service. The one-and-a-half minute long video takes a well-deserved shot at Big Pharma by parodying their formulaic TV commercials. Side effects may include euphoria, increased appetite, uncontrollable giggles, elevated sensitivity to musical dopeness, and reduced anxiety.(Mashable)

From a nature show on BBC 2, here's the story of a Honey Badger who cannot be confined! He’s smarter than Houdini.

The telcoms industry has aggressively lobbied state legislatures to pass laws banning cities from setting up their own internet infrastructure, even in places where there is no broadband, exacerbating the high prices and poor service that Americans pay for their internet. (more…)

Kelli Sullivan called the Evangeline Parish, Louisiana Sheriff's Department for help with a difficult neighbor who'd harassed her family; when the Sheriff's Deputy arrived, he shot their rat terrier in the head in front of her children, then griped about the expense of the valuable hollow-point bullet he'd squandered on killing their beloved pet. (more…)

The viral success of Max Lanman’s commercial to sell his fiancée’s 1996 Honda Accord forced eBay to shut down bidding for the car after offers reached $150,000.It was quite a surprise for the writer/director from Los Angeles, considering the car was initially posted with a selling price of $499. An advertisement filled with a series of sleek camera shots and a storyline establishing a lifelong relationship between the car and driver has the ability to attract consumers to pay more for things worth far less. Lanman says eBay’s fraud department couldn’t understand how a 1996 Honda could fetch such a price and canceled the auction, according to NBC. Ebay told the couple to restart the auction. As of around Wednesday afternoon, the top bid has reached $5,100 since making its second appearance two days ago. Watch as aerial views of a car with 141,095 miles hitting turns along scenic routes can transform an old Japanese piece of machinery into a luxury automobile. Via NBC Bay Area: Far from disappointed, though, the couple continues to marvel at how “surprising and overwhelmingly positive” their experience has been. “This was definitely an unexpected turn,” Lanman acknowledged, “but we have faith that everything will work itself out. Overall, we're just so grateful for all that has happened with the commercial and the story. It's been truly amazing.”

This wallet doesn't last forever. It eventually got a small tear on the side that holds credit cards. I fixed it with a small piece of duct tape and it's been good for months. Everything else about it is perfect. I put my driver's license in the clear window, fiat currency goes in the middle, and cards go in the outside pockets. It's very thin and everything is easy to get to. It's usually $7 or $8, but it's on sale today on Amazon for $5.

This week’s tabloids feel like a fact-free zone more than ever.Val Kilmer will be “dead before Christmas!” reveals the National Enquirer, whose team of psychic actuaries are never wrong. Let’s just try to forget the Enquirer headline in February 2015 warning that Kilmer “may have just months to live.” Or the June 2015 headline that Kilmer will be “Dead by the End of the Summer.” Or the December 2015 headline stating that Kilmer has “3 Months to Live.”Sooner or later they’ll be right, of course, and will congratulate themselves, just as the latest Enquirer cover brags “WE TOLD YOU terrorists would attack New York.” Well, three weeks ago they did predict that, along with attacks on Mt Rushmore, Hoover Dam, Disney World, Dollywood, The Grand Ole Opry, the Statue of Liberty, New Orleans, Wrigley Field and a host more sites. Sooner or later, they were bound to be right.This week the Enquirer cover gives us the identical story it gave us last month – a list of obvious potential terrorist targets – under the headline: “Where ISIS Will Strike Next!” It’s lazy, self-aggrandizing nonsense. “Destinations like Las Vegas and New Orleans are considered ‘dens of debauchery’ by fundamentalist terror cells and are also ‘hot targets,’” the Enquirer adds gleefully.Equally fact-challenged is the Globe cover story reporting that President Obama’s daughter Malia was “Questioned in FBI Probe!” after working as a summer intern for the sex-abuse-beleaguered Weinstein Company. But when you read the story, you learn that the FBI hasn’t questioned Malia at all. Rather, “agents want to grill Malia in a hush-hush deposition.” Why would the FBI want to interview an intern when they have dozens of former and current Weinstein employees they could interview? They don’t – it’s just an easy story to invent, and the only surprise is that it took the Enquirer more than a month to come up with this. Attorneys have been floating the idea of a class action suit against Weinstein that could depose Malia, but that’s just a fishing expedition, and certainly not the same as being grilled by the feds.Prince Charles is a “Cold Fish Killer!” according to a “blood-chilling psychological profile prepared by British MI6 intelligence officers,” reports the Globe. No, the Royal heir isn’t murdering chilled cod and mackerel. MI6, the people who brought you James Bond, compiled this psychological profile portraying Charles as “a cruel and ruthless pathological liar who will do anything to get what he wants,” reportedly for his coming trial for the 1997 murder of his wife Princess Diana. A couple of minor details worth noting: 1) There is no murder trial, and 2) Charles’ “cold fish” diagnosis comes not from MI6, but from the tabloids’ favorite psycho-babble enabler BioAccoustic, a company which claims to analyze personalities based on the sound of a person’s voice. Well, you can’t argue with science.JonBenet Ramsey’s “Real Killer” is exposed in the Globe by “America’s toughest homicide cop,” giving us two pages reiterating oft-reported mistakes made by the police who investigated the six year old’s 1996 slaying, without ever identifying the perpetrator. The story ends: “NEXT WEEK: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED!” I can’t wait. Yawn.There’s yet more fact-diffident nonsense in the Globe story proclaiming that singer Tom Jones has been “crippled for life" because he reportedly underwent secret hip replacement surgery. The Globe seems to be unclear on the concept of hip surgery: It usually radically improves patients’ mobility and eases hip pain, rather than crippling people for life.Us magazine gives us equally dubious reporting in its cover story that Ben Affleck is “Lucky to be Alive” as he faces his “addiction battle.” The headline above its four-page story screams: “How Jen Saved His Life.” And yet a close reading of the story makes it clear that Affleck was never near death, and if estranged wife Jennifer Garner “saved his life” it was only by supporting his decision to enter rehab. Affleck is “lucky to be alive” in the way that we’re all lucky to be alive – because it’s better than being dead. How near death was he? Not even close. Affleck reportedly spent just five days in rehab before checking himself out, and continued treatment as an out-patient. The actor’s drinking issues never had him on the verge of death. It’s just an exploitative series of overly dramatic headlines. People magazine gets in on the fact-deprived act with its cover story celebrating Queen Elizabeth’s 70th wedding anniversary with Prince Philip: “Her Untold Love Story.” Except it’s a story that’s been told and retold, in greater and better detail, over and over again, most recently in the TV series The Crown. Apparently the Queen, aged 91, and Philip, aged 96, are “keenly aware” that one of them will eventually die: “it won’t take them by surprise.” Well, no, it wouldn’t would it?Fortunately we have the crack investigative team at Us magazine to tell us that Jennifer Lawrence wore it best, Megyn Kelly “always wanted to be a cowboy” (not a cowgirl?), that Dancing With The Stars hoofer Witney Carson carries green tea, Advil and hair scrunchies in her Gigi New York Parker satchel, and that the stars are just like us: they have pedicures, ride ATVs, and photograph their kids (which seems plain wrong, because it’s putting hard-working honest paparazzi out of a job).Leave it to the National Examiner, the magazine that tells us that living with plants cuts stress, that 112-year-old Lucy Treccase still has “a taste for beer,” and brings us six full pages of horoscope predictions, to inform us that “You’ll Know When You’re Dead.” The mag accurately reports on a legitimate scientific study by New York University’s Langone School of Medicine, which found that human consciousness continues even after the body shows no sign of life. Despite what you’d think, this experiment was not run on tabloid reporters – they show signs of life, but no evidence of any consciousness.Onwards and downwards . . .

Journalist Gary Younge gives us a wonderful view of human garbage bag Richard Spencer, the Nazi-enthusiast and white supremacist. Spencer's statements are the stupidest things you'll ever hear. Younge does a brilliant job.

The Democrats took the governership of Virginia and wiped out Republican control of its House of Delegates tuesday. Among the winning candidates are Danica Roem, Virginia's first trans person to be elected, who thrashed the state's most outspoken enemy of LGBT people. After Republican Gillespie lost the governorship to Democrat Ralph Northam, President Trump immediately turned on his party's candidate.https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/928074747316928513Another reminder to Republicans that Trump knows no party but one that wins in his name.

On this anniversary of 2016 US presidential election, Russian punk activists Pussy Riot have released their rather provocative new video for the track "Police State." Directed by Matt Creed, the clip stars a police baton-wielding Chloë Sevigny. “What was in fact blown up on 8th of November 2016 was the social contract, the paradigm that says that you can live comfortably without getting your hands dirty with politics," says Pussy Riot's Nadya Tolokonnikova.

I killed them on the Apple ][. I stopped them in 3D. Now we have Nazis in America, both in real life and the latest installment of Wolfenstein. BJ Blazkowicz makes it clear, Nazis gonna die. (more…)

"Dü You Remember?" is a new five-part podcast telling the story of Hüsker Dü, the Minneapolis punk band that paved the way for Nirvana, The Pixies, Foo Fighters, and really the entire realm of alternative rock. The podcast features interviews with Bob Mould, Greg Norton, and, yes, Grant Hart, who died last month, and other punk peers like Henry Rollins and Babes in Toyland's Lori Barbero. The podcast is pegged on the Numero Group label's release of Savage Young Dü, a lavish box set documenting the band's early years. "We were huge music fans. We were students. We took everything in. We made it our own unique voice, and I think it changed the world for a select group of people. It certainly did not change the entire world of pop music, but I think for people who were affected by it, there was nothing before and after. It was that band."--Bob MouldListen to the rest of the series: "Dü You Remember? A podcast about Hüsker Dü"

Documentarian Ronni Thomas of the always-excellent Midnight Archive video series tours Calvin von Crush's creepy, interesting, and real collection of weird things. Welcome to the wunderkammer!

A newfound enthusiasm for aerial photography doesn’t have to mean dropping hundreds on a high-end quadcopter. The SKEYE Nano 2 FPV Drone streams gorgeous HD footage to your phone in real time, and is being offered in the Boing Boing Store for $64.https://youtu.be/BfugIjiIb5kThis pint-sized flyer is ready to go out of the box. It comes with a dedicated remote that provides superior handling, as well as a secure mount for your mobile device. Once you get used to maneuvering the SKEYE Nano 2, you can easily adjust the sensitivity of its controls to perform high-flying stunts or achieve precise camera movement up to 50 meters away. It flies for 5 minutes straight on a single charge, and the battery can be fully replenished in just a half hour.The SKEYE Nano 2 Drone is compatible with both iOS and Android. You can pick one up here for $64.

Gary Chynne's left shoulder is bigger than his right: "Medieval archers were sometimes said to look like hunchbacks, their back muscles were so big." [via]