The Federal Trade Commission has announced a settlement with Lenovo over the 2015 revelation that the company pre-installed malware called "Superfish" on its low-end models, which allowed the company to spy on its customers, and also left those customers vulnerable to attacks from third parties, who could exploit Superfish's weakened security. (more…)

Grady Judd (@PolkCoSheriff, 1-800-226-0344) is the Sheriff of Polk County, FL, in the path of Hurricane Irma; his emergency communications have included repeated warnings to Floridians with outstanding warrants that they will not be welcomed at the state's shelters, and can expect to have their warrant status checked before admission to a shelter, and to be taken to jail if they have warrants outstanding. (more…)

Logan Rimel is parish administrator at University Lutheran Chapel of Berkeley, and identifies as a pacifist; when Rimel traveled to Charlottesville to protest the gathering of white supremacists there, he realized that it was only the willingness of antifa to confront violent Nazis that kept the racists from beating and possibly killing him and his fellow counterprotesters. (more…)

In DolphinAttack: Inaudible Voice Commands, researchers from Zhejiang University demonstrate an attack on popular voice assistants in laptops and mobile devices from Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Samsung, and Huawei: by commanding these assistants using speech that has been shifted to ultrasonic ranges, they are able to hijack devices in public places without their owners' knowledge. (more…)

The North Carolina Republican Party has rebuked one of its mayoral candidates, Kimberley Paige Barnette, after she wrote “VOTE FOR ME! REPUBLICAN & SMART, WHITE, TRADITIONAL.” on her Facebook page. Barnette, a former magistrate, has since removed and apologized for her remark, reports Jim Morrill with The Charlotte Observer. However, she then defended herself with this gem:"There is a group called Congressional Black Caucus. I'm sorry if I described myself as white and it offended others."If you're a person of color and you ever wondered why things didn't go your way in Mecklenburg County magistrate court, well, now you know why.

"A guy pulling a car with no-one in it. No-one's in the car. Now they lost their tailgate. Ha." I tried this once with an office chair that wouldn't fit in the car. It went well.

Has Angelina Jolie’s face collapsed or is it preternaturally super-smooth? Have Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell split or are they living together? Does Hillary Clinton tell all in her new memoir, or reveal nothing?It’s an Alice Through the Looking Glass kind of week in the tabloids, where little is as it seems, and we’re all plunging down a rabbit hole where logic disappears.Let’s start with Angelina. The ‘National Enquirer’ reports that “Angie’s face collapses” as the magazine “learns" she is suffering from Bell’s palsy. They’re discovering this rather late, however, since Jolie publicly announced her medical condition back in July, but perhaps the ‘Enquirer’ has only now belatedly looked up “Bell’s palsy” in a medical dictionary. In the mirror world of stable-mate the ‘Globe,’ however, Jolie is on a “botox binge” making her face “smooth,” while a cosmetic surgeon comments on every aspect of her facial features without once mentioning its collapse. If a cosmetic surgeon can’t spot a disfiguring case of Bell’s palsy, how bad can it really be?“Goldie Hawn & Kurt Russell Split!” screams the ‘Enquirer’ cover, repeating a story it’s told for months. But the report inside explains that the couple are actually still living in the same home - a new house they recently built and moved into. That’s an unusual split, to be sure.And the tabloids can’t agree on what Hillary Clinton reveals in her coming new memoir, ‘What Happened.’ The ‘Enquirer,’ having obtained an advance copy of her book, reports that Hillary believes that she was the best candidate for the presidency, that the email scandal was “not her fault,” and that FBI director James Comey stabbed her in the back. Nothing surprising there. But the ‘Globe’ devotes its cover to “Crooked Hillary’s $25m Tell-All” and expounds at length about what’s not in the book: her alleged "suicidal collapse following her loss,” boozing to numb the pain, her “horndog hubby,” and her supposed stint in rehab. The ‘Enquirer’ says that Hillary also fails to write about her feelings for Donald Trump, claiming “she secretly admires the business mogul and his incredible skills as a politician.” Lewis Carroll would be impressed by such imaginative writing.Prince Charles has finally confessed: “I killed Diana,” reports the ‘National Examiner,’ evidently forced into this admission after a recent autopsy on the late princess. Except there has been no autopsy, no incriminating new evidence, and Prince Charles never “confessed he murdered Princess Diana.” Details, details.Meanwhile the ‘Enquirer’ writes that fatherhood is “killing” George Clooney (he’s lost a few pounds, which qualifies him as a “withered husk of his former self”), and former Ally McBeal star Calista Flockhart has new surgically-enhanced “chipmunk cheeks” (she looks the same as ever, just caught in unflattering lighting), while the ‘Globe’ reveals that the Queen survived a “murder plot” after police arrested a sword-wielding man outside Buckingham Palace, which doesn’t amount to a plot so much as a quick way of getting yourself arrested.‘Us’ magazine jumps down the rabbit hole with its cover story in which Melania Trump gives “my side of the story” and “faces her critics.” Except she doesn’t. ‘Us’ simply regurgitates bits of its interview with Melania from 2015, in a blatantly sycophantic attempt to curry favor and persuade Melania to sit down for a real interview in the future.Aging pop queen Madonna dominates the cover of ‘People’ magazine, discussing “life with my kids,” an enervating interview in which she reveals why she loves her brood, bans them from using cell phones, and hopes to save the nation of Malawi, a nation dedicated to producing children for Madonna to adopt. Elsewhere in the magazine an ad for the singer’s MDNA line of skincare features a photograph so heavily Photoshopped, airbrushed, retouched and digitally enhanced that you’d be forgiven for believing that Madonna was a 15-year-old with flawless skin.Fortunately we have the crack investigative team at ‘Us’ to tell us that Jenna Dewan Tatum wore it best, model Tess Holliday’s neighborhood ice-cream man knows her by her first name, chef and author Daphne Oz keeps sunglasses, lipstick and gum in her Louis Vuitton tote, and that the stars are just like us: they pump gas, shop at the drugstore, catch cabs and scoop dog poop. What glamorous lives they do lead.As ever, it’s the ‘Examiner’ that offers the most chilling headlines above a story that is alarmingly close to accurate: “America’s Killer Volcano,” focusing on Yellowstone’s super volcano, and NASA’s plan to build a five-mile hole into the beast to help defuse its destructive power. “Scientists scramble to relieve pressure and cool down lava bomb that could wipe out country,” raves the ‘Examiner,’ with a cheery coda: “If there is a miscalculation and the drillers strike the magma area itself, it could trigger a doomsday blast through catastrophic human error!” That’s a rabbit hole I’d rather not dive into.Onwards and downwards . . . Images for collage: Wikipedia

In Song of the Sausage Creature Hunter Thompson captured everything that is wonderful about cafe racers.This review of Ducati's legendary 900 Supersport is perfect:...When Cycle World called me to ask if I would road-test the new Harley Road King, I got uppity and said I'd rather have a Ducati superbike. It seemed like a chic decision at the time, and my friends on the superbike circuit got very excited. "Hot damn," they said. "We will take it to the track and blow the bastards away.""Balls," I said. "Never mind the track. The track is for punks. We are Road People. We are Cafe Racers."The Cafe Racer is a different breed, and we have our own situations. Pure speed in sixth gear on a 5000-foot straightaway is one thing, but pure speed in third gear on a gravel-strewn downhill ess-turn is quite another.But we like it. A thoroughbred Cafe Racer will ride all night through a fog storm in freeway traffic to put himself into what somebody told him was the ugliest and tightest decreasing-radius turn since Genghis Khan invented the corkscrew.Cafe Racing is mainly a matter of taste. It is an atavistic mentality, a peculiar mix of low style, high speed, pure dumbness, and overweening commitment to the Cafe Life and all its dangerous pleasures... I am a Cafe Racer myself, on some days - and it is one of my finest addictions.I am not without scars on my brain and my body, but I can live with them. I still feel a shudder in my spine every time I see a picture of a Vincent Black Shadow, or when I walk into a public restroom and hear crippled men whispering about the terrifying Kawasaki Triple... I have visions of compound femur-fractures and large black men in white hospital suits holding me down on a gurney while a nurse called "Bess" sews the flaps of my scalp together with a stitching drill.Ho, ho. Thank God for these flashbacks. The brain is such a wonderful instrument (until God sinks his teeth into it). Some people hear Tiny Tim singing when they go under, and some others hear the song of the Sausage Creature.When the Ducati turned up in my driveway, nobody knew what to do with it. I was in New York, covering a polo tournament, and people had threatened my life. My lawyer said I should give myself up and enroll in the Federal Witness Protection Program. Other people said it had something to do with the polo crowd.The motorcycle business was the last straw. It had to be the work of my enemies, or people who wanted to hurt me. It was the vilest kind of bait, and they knew I would go for it.Of course. You want to cripple the bastard? Send him a 130-mph cafe-racer. And include some license plates, he'll think it's a streetbike. He's queer for anything fast...READ THE REST

This week, microblogging platform Gab became the latest canary in a coal mine over the limits of free speech on the internet, acquiescing to their registrar's demand regarding a post deemed obscene. (more…)

Liam Smith, 24, of Bristol, England, was on a dinner date with a woman he met on Tinder when they returned to his flat. She took a poop in his bathroom but it wouldn't flush, so she decided to toss the feces out the window. From there, things became a bit crazy. Here is his story which apparently has been confirmed to be true:"We had a lovely evening, and enjoyed each other's company very much."After our meal, we repaired back to my house for a bottle of wine and a scientology documentary."About an hour in to Louis Theroux and chill, my date got up to use the toilet. She returned with a panicked look in her eye, and told me she had something to tell me."'I went for a poo in your toilet', she told me 'and it would not flush."She continued, I don't know why I did this, but I panicked. I reached into the toilet bowl, wrapped it in tissue paper, and threw it out of the window'.""I was understandably concerned, and told her we would go outside, bag up the offending poo in the garden, bin it, and pretend the whole sorry affair had never happened."Unfortunately, owing to a design quirk of my house, the toilet window does not in fact open to the garden."Instead, it opens into a narrow gap of about a foot and a half, separated from the outside world by another (non-opening) double glazed window."It was into this twilight zone that my date had thrown her poo."As can be seen in the picture, the inside window opens at the top, into the gap that is separated from the garden by a non-opening double-glazed window pane."Seeing only one solution, I messaged our house group-chat, and went upstairs to find a hammer and chisel to smash open the window.""Being an amateur gymnast, she was convinced that she could reach into the window and pull the poo out, using the tried and tested 'inside out bag as glove' technique."Unfortunately she couldn't reach. She climbed further in and had the same problem. Eventually I agreed to give her a boost up and into the window."She climbed in head first after her own turd, reached deeper into the window, bagged it up, and passed it out, over the top and back into the toilet from whence it came."She called out to me to help her climb out from the window, I grabbed her waist and I pulled. But she was stuck. Stuck fast."Try as we might, we could not remove her from the window. She was stuck fast, upside down in the gap."Unfortunately for my date, at this stage I could see only one way out of our predicament."She had been upside down in the window for around 15 minutes at this point, and I was starting to grow concerned for her health. I called the fire brigade."Bristol's finest were on scene sirens blaring in a matter of minutes."Once they had composed themselves after surveying the scene in front of them, they set to work removing my date from the window using all of their special firemen hammers and tools."It took them about 15 minutes."Unfortunately, although they rescued my date unharmed from what must have been a rather unpleasant confined space to find yourself in, in the process they had to completely destroy the window with their special fire tools."I'm not complaining, they did what they had to do. Problem is, I've been quoted north of £300 to replace the window.Smith launched a GoFundMe campaign to pay for the broken window.(The Telegraph)

Hacker takeovers of power infrastructure have been seen in Ukraine (where they are reliably attributed to Russian state actors), but now the US power-grid has been compromised by hackers of unknown origin, who have "switch-flipping" control -- that is, they can just turn it all off. (more…)

"In celebration of Voyagers' Interstellar voyage, we've added these Posters and Infographics for you to download, print, and share." (more…)

Police from Beaverton, Oregon are striking down what they say are bogus claims on social media about a missing baby giraffe, according to their twitter account. Concerns grew after a Craigslist post emerged Saturday claiming a giraffe calf named Raffi disappeared during what was likely a quest for some grapes from a nearby vineyard, according to the Oregonian. Beaverton PD says it never received any calls from the alleged owner and is not searching for a missing giraffe, but would, should such an incident arise. The posting has since been flagged for removal. Despite social media reports we are not serching for a baby giraffe. They are cute and we would search for one if they were missing. JMS pic.twitter.com/BylDyKPm7X— Beaverton Police (@BeavertonPolice) September 2, 2017

Droplr is a streamlined tool for sending files and sharing screenshots with teammates. It makes collaboration between teams and organizations seamlessly easy.Instead of keeping track of email attachments or syncing cloud services with your team, Droplr gives you simple drag-and-drop file uploads for a quick way to share stuff. When you need to explain something quickly, just record a quick video of your screen and send it off as an animated GIF. You can annotate screen grabs, shorten unruly URLs, and even send password-protected notes for sharing logins, credit cards, and other private data. Droplr also integrates with design software like Photoshop and Sketch, as well as a host of chat apps like Slack and Hipchat for painless collaboration. Capture a screenshot and it will automatically copy to your clipboard: 2. See how many times your drops have been viewed: 3. Make a self-destructing file: A 4-year subscription to Droplr for three users is available in the Boing Boing Store for $39.99.

The Fire TV Stick is the only streaming media player we use. We should recycle our TiVo and Apple TV. The best thing about Fire TV Stick is the voice control. I press a button on the remote and tell it what I want to watch (lately it's been HBO's The Night Of) and I'm taken straight to the show. Amazon has the Fire TV Stick on sale today for $35.

Facebook has taken a step closer to the border between between human and AI interactions. According to New Scientist, the social network’s AI lab directed a bot to watch hundreds of Skype conversations from Youtube to analyze subtle facial expressions—then try to respond to them. The bot is said to be able to “tilt its head” or “open its mouth” while viewing video of a human laughing. A volunteer panel judged the bot and deemed it “qualitatively realistic,” presumably while their mouths hung open.

A handy glossary for parents.

Skycool Systems is a Stanford spin-out that uses panels composed of "layers of silicon dioxide and hafnium oxide on top of a thin layer of silver" to convert the waste-heat from air-conditioners' heat exchangers into 8-13 micrometer radiation, which passes through the atmosphere and radiates into space. (more…)

I just read Krystal D'Costa's article about Why Don't People Return Their Shopping Carts and was astounded to learn that no-one had created a shopping cart alignment chart. I have rectified this failure.

15-year-old Patrick Ponce just set a staggering new world record for solving a Rubik's cube. (more…)

The soothing crunch, the rhythmic chewing... is there anything better than the tingly sound of panda mastication? Watch this cutie make quick work of a large bamboo shoot.Here's another one, but not that doors slam now and then, which might scare the heck out of you.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R08TLFXwRjMThese guys are more my style.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr7lspUbwXc• Adorable Giant Panda Eating Bamboo Shoots (true ASMR video) (YouTube / Panpy Pie)

People are tying red balloons to sewer grates and it's getting on the cops' nerves because no-one wants to untie them and they end up having to do it.Police are asking the “local prankster” not to continue placing the balloons on the grates, similar to the movie “It” which comes out on Friday.In a post on Facebook, the Lititz Borough Police Department say they know the movie is coming to theaters in a couple days and give the prankster creativity for promoting the movie.“We want the local prankster to know that we were completely terrified as we removed these balloons and respectfully request they do not do that again,” the post read.From their Facebook page:

In my latest Locus column, "Demon-Haunted World," I propose that the Internet of Cheating Things -- gadgets that try to trick us into arranging our affairs to the benefit of corporate shareholders, to our own detriment -- is bringing us back to the Dark Ages, when alchemists believed that the universe rearranged itself to prevent them from knowing the divine secrets of its workings. (more…)

Micki Myers paints very realistic vegetables and fruit. Just one item in each case, floating in a pure existential realm of nutritious plant life. Pictured above is an apple. Here's a pickle:Also, an obligatory banana.

In June, China started vigorously enforcing its ban on VPNs, ordering mobile app stores to end access to VPN services that hadn't left a set of man-in-the-middle keys with the Chinese police. (more…)

According to the product description at Amazon, these fluorescent unicorn stickers will apply to any flat surface, can be removed and replaced, and "need to absorb light in daytime" if they are to glow in darkness. So be warned: just as fans left on at night slowly remove all the oxygen from the air, throttling the life from young and old alike, too many unicorns may result in Dyatlov-like irradiated corpses strewn around the bedroom.Each unicorn is 7cm x 10cm and you get 10 for $6.15.

Club Jäger was a popular Minneapolis night spot until Citypages revealed that its owner, Julius Jaeger De Roma, donated $500 to the senatorial campaign of David Duke, a former KKK Grand Wizard and ardent Donald Trump supporter. (more…)

I used to pretend to cry, whenever I was down, just so my dog Lucy would run up and comfort me. This worked well for a little over 16 years.I have lived my entire life with dogs. I have been lucky enough to know several really special ones. Lucy Patterson was, from the very first day we got her, up until the minute she left, a dog that opened up every heart around her -- and then stole their food.Lucy was a glutton. She once ate an entire 3lb bag of "Bit o' Honey" off my kitchen table. Lu proceeded to crap corn syrup and wax paper for days. I doubt she regretted it.Lucy took a point blank shot in the face from a skunk, and in her suffering somehow decided to run back into the house and roll around in the clean laundry to try and get the stink off. She, and the house smelled for months.Lu chewed the gear shift lever in every car she could.When Lucy was 12 her cardiologist told us she had 3 to 6 months to live. Lucy did not hear this.Mad at a member of our family, Lucy once took a dump at their spot on the dinner table.Lucy would sleep on my feet, and I'd call her 'LuLu Shoes' -- when she'd sleep on my head it was known as a 'PatsPats Hat.'Lucy trained Calliope to be a near perfect dog, but Zuul really became her mini-me.Lucy spent too much time with the vet. Once she ate rat poison at a park in San Francisco and spent 5 days intubated at doggie critical care units all over the bay. There were too many incidents.Once the congestive heart failure was in full swing, and she was on a ton of diuretics, we started calling her Leaky Lu.Lucy's heart condition and her desire to be an alpha dog did not work out well with Nemo. For the last few years I didn't see as much of Lu as I'd like. My ex-wife Carolyn took amazing care of her. The regimen of pills and care were a constant thing. Dogs do not make it to 16 without a lot of love. Lu was always quick to show up if you cried out in alarm. She once came barreling around a corner, all Han Solo, just to run directly into the raccoon I was yelling at.Patty Lu once trapped herself on a kitchen island. After finding a way to climb up and eat a large pizza, she could not get down!On a flight overbooked with dogs, Lucy got taken into the cockpit to fly with the pilot. Reputedly there were snacks.After 16 years it seems Lucy decided to move on. Her first 12 years were spent in close partnership with Mollie, and I think she just wanted to see her again. It was clearly time and Lucy simply stopped eating and taking her meds a week or so ago. Regardless what we or her vets would try, she was no longer interested in food. She seemed in good spirits, spent a lot of time in our laps getting pet and winding down. Last Friday it was clear she'd soon become uncomfortable and we all said goodbye.Rarely a moment of her life wasn't filled with love, luxury, or reckless and wild doggy adventure, Lucy went out on her terms.I've often told my daughter that everyone needs a friend like Lu. Our time with her has passed, but 16 years was a good long time.For the first time in nearly two decades, Lucy will not try to fix these tears. Hopefully these scattered thoughts pay her tribute enough.

There are two kinds of magic tricks. One kind makes the spectator think: "That magician must have a lot of skill to pull off such a difficult trick." The other kind makes the spectator think: "That was impossible." I saw Pascali perform at the Magic Castle in Hollywood last year, and he does impossible magic. Enjoy this brief film about Pascali, directed by Jacob Rosenberg.When I met Franco Pascali, I was struck by how much I felt like I was meeting and hanging out with a young street skater. However, instead of witnessing skate tricks he destroyed me by his usage of cards. Much like the world of skateboarding that I was raised in, magic and cardistry are intensely personal and individually orientated in terms of the endless practice that is required to master them. Tricks are performed with decks and each person embodies a style that is distinctly their own. That style is reflective of the influences they devoured when they were coming up and their intrinsic sensibility that they develop as they mature. As I spent time with Franco I immediately wanted to point my camera at him to capture the way he dressed, the way he talked, the breathtaking way he moved cards and the feeling I had in encountering such raw talent. This is our first film.Franco Pascali is 19 years-old and lives in Los Angeles. He is a director of magic at Theory11. Photos by Stephen Vanasco

I started a Cool Tools video channel on YouTube a couple of months ago. Each video is usually less than two minutes long and has a hands-on review of a tool, such as a USB powered soldering iron, clippers that cut anything, and a self-centering drill bit. Here's a video for a spokeshave, which rounds off wood edges:https://youtu.be/5Jnzx8Mkakk

Described as "perfect for those spooky and intellectual alike," this cardboard skull is laser-cut and flat-packed, and "can be decorated with paint, glitter, wrapping paper or other craft materials." The $40 small model is teenier than you might expect—about the size of a baseball—but comes in fabulous colors, whereas the $100 large model is more appropriate for paeans and rites to the god of cellulose and metaphor.

Hanover Police are warning residents of the Chicago-area suburb that the mangy dogs they've been seeing roaming around are in fact "infected coyotes." Also, be sure to avoid the infected coyotes.There is unfortunately an increase in sarcoptic mange in the urban coyote populations which has caused these normally noctural animals to become more active during the day. Infected animals will often appear "mangy" - which looks just like it sounds. They suffer hairloss and develop secondary infections, eventually looking like some sort of "zombie" dog. The infections affect their vision, causing them to look for food during the daylight hours.https://www.facebook.com/HanoverParkPoliceDepartment/posts/1381501561971270

Shopping tip of the day! If you need to end an argument over who gets to buy the last item on the shelf, try whipping out your concealed-carry firearm and threatening other shoppers with it. According to reports, it worked a treat in this example from Walmart, where a gun-toting woman won her prize and was free to check it out after the confrontation.1. Tip recommended only for white shoppers.Here's video from another shopper, apparently showing the aftermath:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ39Ey6LgtE

Singer Sierra Hull performs mandolin, backed by her washing machine: "how to practice your bluegrass chops while doing the laundry."

Before you pile on more student loans for grad school, consider getting certified from one of the many Information Technology industry associations. Even if your future ultimately lies in academia, certifications like CompTIA A+ provide valuable professional experience — and are often the quickest way to get a job in IT. To help you decide which areas to study, the Comprehensive IT Career Kickstarter Bundle comes with study materials for 11 different exams.Here’s what’s included:CompTIA Security+ SY0-401: Explore the fundamentals of software installation and PC hardware CompTIA A+ 220-902: Get familiar with configuring iOS and Android devicesCompTIA Network+ N10-006: Manage and troubleshoot network hardwareCompTIA Cloud+: Understand cloud infrastructure, resource management, and business continuityCompTIA Project+ PK0-003: Get introduced to project managementCompTIA Security+ SY0-401: Discover essential concepts of information securityMicrosoft 70-410: Configure file servers, and manage organizations through Active DirectoryMicrosoft 70-411: Learn how to deploy and maintain server imagesMicrosoft 70-412: Optimize remote backups, and implement network load balancingCisco 100-105: ICND1: Take a crash-course in network supportCisco 200-105: ICND2: Get proficient in a variety of advanced networking protocolsEverything in this IT course bundle normally costs hundreds when bought separately, but you can get them all for $49 in the Boing Boing Store.

Parker Wiseman ran for student office in high school with photocopied flyers. He debated the public school system in social studies class. In college he took the courses and shook the hands that would help him join that peculiar Southern subculture of the embattled Mississippi Democrat, a pugnacious sort who plays darts and drinks whiskey while wearing penny loafers and forces smiles meant to fool no one. People close to Parker Wiseman were not surprised when, at the age of 28, he became the youngest mayor in Starkville history.When I met him, he was deep into his second term, 34-years-old with bright blue eyes neatly obscured by thin-framed spectacles hugging a cleanly shaved head. I had to wait for the person before me to finish a meeting before I could take up time in his schedule, but when the door opened he traded off quickly and was all laughs and smirks as I unpacked my bag. In conversation, he moved between two poses, leaning forward with shoulders high and elbows planted wide so he could clasp his hands and focus when I was talking, and reclined in an unwound ease when he was answering, one arm propping him up so he could lean into the back the chair with his rear scooted to the forward edge of the seat and his feet as far apart as could be achieved with manners in dress slacks. I wanted to meet Wiseman because he had concluded a long, difficult battle to bring social change to a city in the Deep South, to Mississippi, one that made national headlines.In January of 2013, under Wiseman’s leadership, the Starkville Board of Alderman proposed a 208-word “Resolution Supporting Equality.” It stated the city would henceforth make it public policy to prevent discrimination in Starkville. In the text, the Resolution established that the City, as a whole, believed diversity was critical to the success of its community. It deepened the bonds between neighbors, they said, in addition to stimulating job growth. Despite this, the Resolution continued, the city realized that discrimination on the basis of “race, color, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity and expression, age, marital status, sexual orientation, familial status, veteran’s status, disability, and source of income” persisted, not just in Starkville, but across the world, and with that in mind, the City declared such behavior was “anathema to the public policy of the City.” Wiseman recalled it seemed like a simple and uncontroversial idea at the time, and it passed without much discussion. The Board didn’t linger on its implications and soon moved on the tedium of sewer lines and traffic lights and the usual business required to keep a small city running and its residents happy. No city in Mississippi had ever included sexual orientation or gender identity in such a resolution, a fact that the Human Rights Campaign pointed out in its blitz of publicity after the measure passed. In one release, they wrote, “This is the first time any municipality in Mississippi has recognized the dignity of its LGBT residents,” and the president of the HRC, Chad Griffin, personally thanked the city.A flurry of media attention followed with TV stations, newspapers, and LGBT organizations producing state and national headlines, some entertaining the notion that Mississippi might be changing its mind faster than other parts of the country usually thought of as being considerably more progressive, and others expressing awe at a declaration of tolerance within a state synonymous with bigotry. Within a month, a town to the south, Hattiesburg, passed a similar resolution, and seven more cities would follow. Each time, Wiseman recalled, Starkville was mentioned. “Of course,” Wiseman told me, “things went sideways later in the year.”The pushback started with one of the more conservative aldermen who proposed repealing the resolution once the glow of the publicity began to fade. At first, the alderman couldn’t get get any traction, and the backlash may have ended there, but Wiseman decided he wanted to push for more change by proposing a measure that would allow employees of the city to extend their insurance coverage to domestic partners, including partners of the same sex. For many in the community, especially those who had bit their tongues concerning the anti-discrimination resolution, this crossed the line. Wiseman told me that when the HRC publicized the fact that this would potentially allow insurance coverage for gay couples within the city it became an explosive political event.“I wish I could tell you exactly why that’s when everything exploded,” said Wiseman. “I can’t. We could probably spend the next couple of hours analyzing all the different reasons, but that was the point that I would say communication in the public square about LGBT issues began in earnest.”In this episode, you’ll hear that debate unfold as we spend time in Starkville exploring the value of argumentation and conversation in the process of change, progress, and understanding our basic humanity. (more…)

Juz Alvarado captured this footage of a street artist painting a "Zen" keychain using paint-filled syringes. (more…)

In 1997, ecologists Daniel Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs convinced a Costa Rican orange juice maker to to dump their waste peels in a clear-cut abandoned pasture that was in a national park. Twenty years later, the enriched soil nourishes tropical forest again, according to a new report. (more…)

https://youtu.be/mb_PcsivvYQBruce Sterling posted this astonishing video of the flood in Simonton, Texas. It was shot by drone and posted to YouTube by the Fort Bend County Office of Emergency Management. It's going to take a long time and a lot of money to return to the way things were.Here's how to donate to food banks in the affected area.

These guys got a bottle of Coke from 1956, and drank it. There wasn't a lot of carbonation remaining, but they said it didn't taste too bad. The finish was a bit musty, though: "Have you ever licked an old couch?"[via Kottke]From the same series: "Vomit and Booger Flavored Jellybeans":https://vimeo.com/223190738

Australian personal care company Aesop recently released a toothpaste infused with sea buckthorn, cardamom, and wasabi. At $17 a tube (60ml) and no promise of dramatically whiter teeth or immunity from cavities, what's the draw? Does it work, and is it worth the price?While some find coffee to be the perk of the morning, fancy soaps, shampoos, or lotions are what get others ready for the day. Like any of the others products from Aesop, the natural and unconventional ingredients, which include jojoba, rosehip, or parsley seed, really do freshen up the time spent washing hands or brushing teeth. The wasabi in this toothpaste leaves the mouth feeling fresh in a way that other toothpastes don’t (you can try it in stores; they are also very generous with samples). There is no intense minty aftertaste, but that doesn’t mean you don’t feel fresh all morning after using this product. It is fluoride-free, which may or may not be a deal-breaker. This should not replace regular visits to the dentist, but for $17 it's a relatively inexpensive way to add some luxury to your day. Whether you want to make a switch to novel products, ritualize the morning at-sink routine, or are shopping for gifts, the new Aesop toothpaste is something enjoyable and very unique.

Cinemaps: An Atlas of 35 Great Movies is the latest project from artist Andrew DeGraff and is available for pre-order now. DeGraff has illustrated for The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Slate, and many other publications, and in 2015 compiled a book of painted maps inspired by famous novels titled Plotted: A Literary Atlas. In his most recent work DeGraff draws from the silver screen, exhibiting on paper the fantastical geographies from 35 of cinema's most acclaimed titles. Each map includes the pathways that main characters follow throughout the film, so you can track Dorothy’s journey along the Yellow Brick Road, the Ghostbusters through New York City, or Vincent Vega in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. Below is a map of Middle-Earth; the printed book has close-up images detailing certain areas of the map.

If you want to escape the real world for a bit, escape into the vivid, satirical artwork of illustrator/cartoonist Alex Gamsu Jenkins. Jenkins is from the suburbs of London and graduated from Camberwell College of Arts in 2015. He describes his work as an exploration of "satirical and critical subject matter through a distinctive and vivid style.” He also tries to “avoid the pretence but wallow in humour, whilst touching on the absurd and surreal."Jenkins' work has appeared in Juxtapoz, The New York Times, Vice, Society Magazine, and many other notable publications. Much of his work is disturbing and creepy, but in a fun way by creating an entire reality of its own -- one that feels like a chaotic and absurd dream. Juxtapoz recently posted some wildly cool pieces by Jenkins on its website. You can check all of them out here.

Eric Judkins, 42, failed to return to his halfway house Monday night, but was soon found and arrested. No word on how they were able to spot him so quickly.

The next afternoon the phone rang.“Hello?” came the unmistakable voice. “This is Jerry Lewis and I would be honored to write a foreword for your book.”Only hours before; with zero expectations, we had dropped our (then-slender) draft into a Fed-Ex envelope with a brief query. Might Mr. Lewis kindly consider writing a Foreword for How To Read Nancy?And now, here was the King of Comedy, enthusiastically consenting.The snappy talking-point for How To Read Nancy (due this fall from Fantagraphics Books) is that “everything that you need to know about reading, making, and understanding comics can be found in a single Nancy strip by Ernie Bushmiller from August 8, 1959.”Our backgrounds are as cartoonists and educators, and our short 1988 essay on this topic took on an extended second-life in comics curriculums around the globe. When it was time for a book-length expansion, we naturally sought an introduction by a serious scholar to lend credence to our book’s seriously improbable conceit. Luckily art historian and critic, James Elkins, the author of such books as How to Use Your Eyes and The Object Stares Back was intrigued. Professor Elkins has devoted a lot of serious thinking to the benefits of deep-reading visual texts and helped frame How To Read Nancy in a thoughtful, scholarly and substantive Introduction, replete with footnotes, photographs, and maps.While our book is, in part, a serious reflection on some serious things, it is also a serious reflection on some funny things, particularly Nancy.When it came to the perfect counter-weight to provide a foreword we looked no further than that original essay. In it we compared the skill-set of our subject to such venerable 20th century funsters as Mack Sennett, Jacques Tati and... Jerry Lewis.Our mission seemed clear, though fraught with peril. With any number of show-biz friends who had survived close encounters (and semi-sustained relationships) over the years with the late, great Mr. Lewis, we were aware of the inherent risks. Pussycat one day, tiger shark the next.Illustrator Drew Friedman, “the Vermeer of the Borscht Belt”, who managed to perpetually remain on Lewis’s good side, provided us with a Las Vegas office address and a terse warning; “Don’t expect a reply. Jerry is a busy man and gets this kind of request all the time.”But his call confirmed it: Jerry Lewis was a long-time Ernie Bushmiller fan. Exhale. Of course he was. Our suspicions had been validated. Both Lewis and Bushmiller were famously demanding, obsessive experts on the complex structures and hidden mechanics behind the production of the most seemingly “simple” kind of visual humor. In other words, they were both serious gagmen. Lewis enjoyed a celebrated collaboration with cartoonist/director Frank Tashlin. Cartoonist Bushmiller crafted gags for Harold Lloyd, one of Hollywood’s golden triumvirate of silent clowns. And the icing on the cake: both men had become “love-them or hate-them” 20th century icons in their own lifetimes. Our choice was clearly kismet.Halfway through that fateful conversation, we admitted that we still could not believe that we were speaking with the REAL Jerry Lewis. “Oh, believe me, I’m real,” said Lewis, “This morning I got outta bed and looked in the mirror and there was Jerry Lewis. And he said, “Call those guys and tell them you’ll write that foreword to How To Read Nancy!”We were floored. Not only was Jerry Lewis going to write the foreword to our book, but he promised to deliver it by the end of the week!Jerry, however, neglected to specify the end of which week. In the months of waiting that ensued, we gradually, sickeningly, began to despair that a foreword from Jerry Lewis would ever materialize. Drew had warned us that Lewis was a very busy man. His secretary, Penny, had told us that “JL” (what he evidently was called around the office) was a very busy man. Lewis, himself, had implied that we were lucky to get this foreword because Jerry Lewis was a very busy man.We ruminated further for weeks, shooting emails back and forth under the subject line of “NOW WHAT?” Should we suck it up, thrust out our chests, bravely phone Jerry Lewis and politely request delivery of his overdue How To Read Nancy foreword? No. No. Not in one million years, no. We eventually opted to do what any desperate supplicants would do in such a dire situation: butter-up Penny.On the phone, Penny, sounded as though she might be Lewis’ senior. Evidently, she had been at Jerry Lewis Productions in Las Vegas for decades. She was the guard at the gate to the Great Man and the keeper of the key. Perhaps Penny recognized a certain agony in our voices and gave us a solid “I’ll see what I can do.”“NOW WHAT?” became our new part-time job within a job, within a job. This included strategizing the intervals between calls to Penny, friendly Penny nudges and ritual offerings of local artisanal chocolates and elaborate handmade thank-you-Penny cards.The plain yellow envelope from Vegas arrived roughly six months after that first phone call. Inside was a signed photograph of Jerry Lewis and a single paragraph, typed in all-caps.In part, it read:“... “HOW TO READ NANCY” I SUSPECT, IS QUALITY READING...I WOULDN’T KNOW SINCE I HAVE NOT READ IT...YET!... “HOW TO READ NANCY” APPEARS TO BE A BOOK THAT HAD INFINATE (sic) CARES AND CONCERNS...FOR THE READER. ANYTHING AFTER THAT...I WON’T KNOW TILL (sic) I READ IT, AND GOOD NEWS!!!...I DO READ FAST!! I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO “HOW TO READ NANCY”.”This was Jerry at his Jerry-est, turning the foreword to a book into a joke. Unfortunately, this was our foreword, our book, and the joke was on us. What we needed was Jerry Lewis, the Total Film-Maker, the master craftsman and incisive connoisseur of “le gag” — and instead we got Jerry Lewis, The Nutty Professor.The reality of being so close, with so much spent effort and still without a single usable word for our long past due Foreword felt utterly inconceivable. Further delays were certain to test our publisher’s already well-tested patience.But...how does one ask Jerry Lewis for a rewrite?Again, we turned to Penny. We thanked her profusely for typing up and forwarding the (utterly useless) foreword. We sent her notes. We sent her flowers. We sent her a homemade jar of beach plum jam from beach plums that Paul had personally picked and personally jammed. And THEN we called her once, twice, thrice, and begged. Might she be willing to sidle up to Le Roi du Crazy on our behalf and whisper in the royal ear a special request for one thing, just one nice, specific thing about Nancy, Ernie Bushmiller or our book?And then we waited. And waited.A rewrite came. It was even shorter than the first, but the Gods of Humor Theory smiled down on us that day. We finally got Coherent (if not Serious) Jerry and as such, it appears in our book...all three sentences of it.We forwarded more gifts to both Jerry and Penny and called to thank him, personally. We got Penny on the phone. “I’ll tell him you liked it,” she said, “JL’s a very busy man.”Thanks Jerry, and rest in peace.Enjoy this sample from How to Read Nancy: The Elements of Comics in Three Easy Panels, by Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden. Foreword by Jerry Lewis. Published by Fantagraphics.

The Elegoo UNO R3 Board is on sale on Amazon today for $9.34. I've used this board in a couple of projects, like my peanut butter mixer, and it has worked flawlessly. And if you need a kit of parts to go along with it, here's one for $18.

Behold the most amazing arcade hack in existence: Matt Brailsford, AKA Circuitbeard, crammed Sega's OutRun into a Tomy Turnin' Turbo dashboard. [via]Some key features are an integrated 3.5” TFT screen, fully usable steering wheel and gear shifter (dashboard turbo light comes on when in high gear), working ignition key for power, true MPH speed and rev counter displays, and a fuel gauge to represent the stage time remaining.The project itself was quite a big one for me, filled with several moments of frustration, from burnt out potentiometers, to soldering LEDs backwards, multiple TFT screen purchases and more than one change in direction as approaches to problems were found to be inadequate.All the toy's hardware is hooked up to the game, running on a Raspberry Pi with a PiCade board and Kookye 3.5" display. He worked around the lack of pedals by using the gearshift to accelerate and brake. How he made a physical LED dashboard to show the in-game speed completely escapes me. Genius!Here's the original mechanical toy, for reference:https://youtu.be/1aCeg-EbOAI?t=3m32s

A man in Russia is hitchhiking from Vladimir (near Moscow) to the Kursk region to attend his mother's funeral when he is overcome with grief. He decides to jump off an overpass on the Minsk highway, and as he stands over the passing cars below him, a man on a motorcycle spots him. The driver has to turn around and drive against traffic to get back under the suicidal man. He shouts over the traffic in Russian, from the highway to the overpass, and talks the man into stepping away from the ledge. He then rides up to the overpass to talk to the man face to face. But that isn't the end of it. Although on YouTube the description of what happened, even after what you see in the video, is written in Russian, I put it through Google's translator. It's a bit rough but clear enough: "Suicide attempt on the viaduct of the Minsk highway""I saw him from the corner of my eye, but it was clear that a person was already ready to take a step. Forgive me, I knew that I was breaking the rules, and I did it as carefully as possible, since I understood that there was no time for another solution.""He could jump just under the car. So I decided to stop the flow of cars. After the end of this video, he tried to escape from us, we ran after him. He lied that he was going to the Smolensk region.Thank you not indifferent motorists, who also saw and stopped, they also called for help.""The story is simple. According to the guy, he hitch-hiked from Vladimir to the Kursk region for the funeral of his mother and, as you can understand, morally broke.""We waited for everyone, the police, the police and the ambulance arrived quickly. From the moment we drove up to Alexei, it took no more than 10 minutes. All this time we talked to him on abstract topics and caught him twice, as he tried to escape. As a result, everyone calmly agreed that he would sit in the Inspectors' car and go with them."

Ágnes Herczeg developed her artistic style through the practice of traditional lacemaking. The results combine found items like coconut shells and wood with delicate lace forms. (more…)

Poor William C. Bradford. The Trump-appointed head of the DOE's Office of Indian Energy said he was the victim of a bad person who used his social media accounts "over the past several years" to say crazy things like Obama is from Kenya, it was right to put Japanese-Americans into concentration camps in WWII, and that "Obama is the son of a fourth-rate p&*n actress and w@!re."Soon after Mr. Bradford (he prefers to be called "Brute") was given his plum DOE job he deleted his Twitter account, but The Washington Post found the tweets that the bad person posted to Brute's account without his permission. Here's a sample:Surprise twist: It turns out that that bad person was "Brute" himself. "Brute" issued an apology to The Washington Post:“As a minority and member of the Jewish faith, I sincerely apologize for my disrespectful and offensive comments. These comments are inexcusable and I do not stand by them. Now, as a public servant, I hold myself to a higher standard, and I will work every day to better the lives of all Americans.”To add insult to injury, "Brute" was forced to tender his resignation yesterday from his plum job at the DOE. So long, "Brute!"