In a first, an artificial intelligence named Libratus has bested top-tier players at no-limit Texas Hold 'em. This is especially notable because imperfect information games are notoriously challenging to program. (more…)

Milo as “Ivana Wall,” speaking at Louisiana State University on Sep. 21, 2016. Say the name out loud and you'll get the joke. “Right about now your dick is probably confused,” read one of the slides on stage during the performance. Image: Reddit.Pro-Trump and extremist right wing/white supremacist personality Milo Yiannopoulos was scheduled to deliver a speech at U.C. Berkeley, but his appearance was canceled by university officials tonight after big protests on campus that got out of hand with some people setting some objects on fire. No arrests or injuries reported.Yiannopoulos is doing a speaking tour on college campuses to promote his male "Privilege" scholarship fund.(more…)

The Associated Press reports that Donald Trump "threatened in a phone call with his Mexican counterpart to send U.S. troops to stop 'bad hombres down there' unless the Mexican military does more to control them itself."

Glamour Magazine has an interesting series where they ask a question of 70 people each representing an age from 5 to 75. The responses, presented in order by age, have a fascinating cumulative effect. What do you most regret? (more…)

Ever see a business that's housed in what was clearly a former Pizza Hut? Ho Hai Tran and Chloe Cahill spent a couple of years photographing repurposed Pizza Huts for their book Pizza Hunt. Following a successful Kickstarter, the book is now available. (more…)

Chinese social media has been blowing up this year with images of high speed trains that have passed through heavy smog on their routes. Here's the same train when it's clean: (more…)

Here's a reminder that you can pre-order a signed first edition hardcover of Walkaway, my first novel for adults since 2009, which William Gibson called "A wonderful novel" and Edward Snowden called "a reminder that the world we choose to build is the one we'll inhabit" and Kim Stanley Robinson called "a utopia both more thought-provoking and more fun than a dystopia" and Neal Stephenson called "the Bhagavad Gita of hacker/maker/ burner/open source/git/gnu/wiki/99%/adjunct faculty/Anonymous/shareware/thingiverse/cypherpunk/LGTBQIA*/squatter/upcycling culture, zipped down into a pretty damned tight techno-thriller with a lot of sex in it." (more…)

Even if you've taken a lesson or two, this brisk run through the basics of musical chords probably will remind you of something you've long forgotten. (more…)

GlobalXplorer is the latest crowdsourced science project, this time in the service of preserving archaeological sites that are being looted. Participants scan satellite images for signs of looting, and mark sites off a map. (more…)

Lake Silvaplana has breathtaking views year-round, but in the winter there's another delightful experience to be had: walking on transparent ice that allows visitors to see all the way to the lakebed. (more…)

O.J. Simpson's "murder knife" has been found, Barack Obama plans to "steal back" the White House, and James Dean "didn't die" in his 1955 car crash but went into hiding.It's yet another embarrassment of factually-challenged riches brought to us by this week's tabloids."O.J. Murder Knife Found!" scrams the 'National Enquirer,' which enterprisingly searched the grounds of Simpson's former Florida home with a metal detector, and claims to have dug up a blade "nearly 4 inches long" buried under two feet of earth near the perimeter of the two-acre property.The 'Enquirer' shouldn't need reminding that Los Angeles County chief medical examiner Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran told the trial jury that Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were killed in 1994 with a weapon believed to be "about six inches long." Not what the 'Enquirer' dug up. End of story. Put it back in the ground.Is Obama engaged in a "Secret Plot to Steal Back White House," as the grammatically-challenged 'Enquirer' claims? An "in-depth National Enquirer investigation" has found that Obama "is working with Dems to undermine Trump." Wow, that must have taken a lot of digging. Who would have thought it? "Obama is grooming Michelle to run for the Democratic Party nomination in 2020," claims the report. How does the 'Enquirer' know that's his aim? "The first step in Obama's plan was moving into a mansion just TWO MILES from the White House so he'd remain close to the D.C. political scene." Brilliant investigative work by the 'Enquirer.' What more proof is needed that Michelle Obama is running in 2020? Buying a home in D.C. is typically considered as good as forming an exploratory committee to run for president.Did James Dean survive his car crash and fake his own death because his face was horribly disfigured, as the 'National Examiner' claims? No, for two simple reasons: Its photo of the crash scene, showing a victim sprawled on his stomach beside the wreckage, is not of Dean as the 'Examiner' claims, but is clearly his friend Rolf Wutherich, who was a passenger in the Porsche 550 Spyder when it hit another vehicle. And the face in the photo is not "mangled" but looks perfectly intact, making nonsense of the 'Examiner' story even if it had been Dean - which it isn't.Among this week's dubious tabloid exclusives: "Brad Pitt forced into rehab," according to the 'Enquirer,' though five days at the Casa Del Mar resort in Santa Monica, California, doesn't count as rehab in anyone's book; Melissa McCarthy "regains 93 lbs!" claims the 'Enquirer,' which puts the stars on imaginary scales, while simultaneously declaring that celebrity chef Rachel Ray is "Too Fat For TV" at a reported 277 lbs. Meanwhile the 'Globe' alleges that Prince William's wife Kate at a reported 89 lb is being treated for an "eating disorder," because the British Royal Family religiously gives the tabloids daily updates on its members' fluctuating weights."Tom Jones and Priscilla Presley In Love!" screams a 'Globe' headline. Well, that's what happens to celebrities if they're careless enough to sit down for dinner together in Los Angeles. Dinner means romance, if you're a tabloid editor."Cocaine Bust Rocks Obama Farewell Bash!" reports the 'Enquirer.' Who was arrested in this bust? Nobody. Evidence of "rampant drug use" was allegedly found by 'Enquirer' reporters at Obama's recent soirée held at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. Not that they saw a single person popping a pill or snorting a line. No, they swabbed public bathroom surfaces with drug-detecting wipes, which tested positive - just as traces have been found in drinking water in major U.S. cities, and even in the air. Traces are just that - traces - and they're ubiquitous. Test the grubby dollar bills in the pockets of the grubby 'Enquirer' reporters and they'd most likely test positive for drugs too, since traces of drugs have been found on 90 per cent of US paper money. Traces of cocaine have even been found on toilets in Britain's Houses of Parliament. There's no evidence that anyone at the Obama party was indulging, and there was no "bust" as the 'Enquirer' claims.'Us' magazine devotes its cover to Melania & Donald Trump's "Separate Lives," promising to explain "why she may never move into the White House." But after delineating their emotionally and geographically distanced relationship, 'Us' fails to deliver on any explanation, other than Melania's statement that son "Barron is the priority for us now."' People' mag gives its cover and seven pages inside to celebrating the life of Mary Tyler Moore, "her triumphs and tragedies." At least Moore looks a darn sight happier on the cover than Melania, who always seems to have a pang of regret laying just beneath her flawless mask of a face.Fortunately we have the crack investigative team at 'Us' magazine to tell us that Jamie Chung (Who she, Ed?) wore it best, Reba McEntire carries a Sharpie for giving autographs, vitamins and an inspirational Bible verse in her Baggu backpack, and that the stars are just like us: they do yoga, bowl, paint, carry umbrellas, text, surf, and enjoy playground slides. My, haven't the stars been busy this week."Vampire skeletons" have been unearthed in Poland, reports the 'Examiner,' which concludes that corpses buried wrapped in chains, some with their heads cut off "to make sure they stayed dead," could only have been because they were the fabled blood-suckers. The bodies, believed buried in the 16th or 17th centuries, "suggest vampires once menaced terrified towns." Sure. What other explanation could possibly make sense? Or maybe their heads were cut off with O.J.'s knife?Onwards and downwards . . .

Ellen explains Finding Dory to the Orange Menace. This is just lovely.

[NSFW video above] The producers of Bullets Of Justice (described as dark satire) seeks $100,000 in funding. It's about a team of humans at war with their human-pig hybrid overlords.

After the one mosque in the small town of Victoria, Texas mysteriously burned to the ground on Saturday, representatives of the single Jewish synagogue gave keys to the mosque founders so their community could have another place to pray.“Jewish community members walked into my home and gave me a key to the synagogue,” mosque co-founder Shahid Hashmi told the New York Times.From The Forward:

We could all use a laugh right now.(more…)

Reuters Editor-in-Chief Steve Adler is proud of the way his news organization is able to provide high-quality, fact-based journalism in oppressive places like Turkey, the Philippines, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Thailand, China, Zimbabwe, and Russia, "nations in which we sometimes encounter some combination of censorship, legal prosecution, visa denials, and even physical threats to our journalists." Here's his list of dos and don'ts for staffers:

Andy Warner says:

Apple lives to make cables a problem. Here's the new iPhone 7 series adaptor you need at a price you can tolerate.I hate spending more energy managing my iPhone's battery levels than I do enjoying a road trip. This adaptor solves Apple's latest giant cabling fuck you.2 in 1 Lightning Adapter and Charger , Lightning to 3.5mm Aux Headphone Jack Audio Adapter for iphone 7 / 7 plus via Amazon

A hair trimmer attached to your vacuum cleaner. What could go wrong?I was sadly disappointed and did not find many Flowbee mishap videos on The YouTubes. Likely, the vacu-trimmer was never that popular in the first place!I had a friend named Bobby Magee who thought the Flowbee was an amazing thing to break out at a party. Those were weird parties.

FOLLOW @RubenBolling on the Twitters and a Face Book.JOIN Tom the Dancing Bug's subscription club, the INNER HIVE, this week, and more than double the sign-up charge will be donated to the ACLU. Info here.GET Ruben Bolling’s new hit book series for kids, The EMU Club Adventures. (”A book for the curious and adventurous!” -Cory Doctorow) Book One here. Book Two here.More Tom the Dancing Bug comics on Boing Boing! (more…)

John Dupuis, the web's leading chronicler of governmental wars on science, has made good on his promise to track trumpism's denialism, and judging from week one, there's going to be a gigantic rapsheet by the time Trump is impeached. (more…)

An article that went viral last week attributed Trump's Electoral College victory to the dark big data sorcery of Cambridge Analytica, a dirty, dementor-focused big data company that specializes in political campaigns. (more…)

3D printing reaches new heights with this ingenious robotic salad-tossing machine. This pre-programmed beauty has three modes of operation, one of which will surely match how you like getting your salad tossed. (more…)

Moog just unveiled a new showcase of artists using their instruments. Sonic Origins starts things off with Russell E.L. Butler of Black Jeans, who thinks of the sounds "as an initiator of dialogue." (more…)

"Check out what the backboard did to the shingles right behind it. Crazy, right?" Here's the uncropped picture: (more…)

Orlando News 6 reports that a Florida man shot a cat that shat in his yard, telling officers it "looked at him like he owned the place". The cat was paralyzed and had to be killed, reports Loren Korn.

In anticipation of the battle for the body, we can envision a conflict among competing interests in property located within a person's body and likely connected to externally controlled resources for storage, logging, and monitoring--for instance, a medical device--and we can imagine that someone's body may contain more than one such synthetic organ, life sustaining system, or other supportive technology--all of which having different owners with different interests and claims on a person's innards.It is the time to revisit the state of our rights, test our metaphors and precedents, and decide how to protects ourselves now that the battle has become more intimate and personal than ever before. Our process begins with a draft of proposed rights that are discussed thoroughly, adopted by convention, and then published to serve as model language for adoption and incorporation by NGOs, governments, and rights organizations.The Cyborg Bill of Rights v1.0:Freedom from DisassemblyA person shall enjoy the sanctity of bodily integrity and be free from unnecessary search, seizure, suspension or interruption of function, detachment, dismantling, or disassembly without due process.Freedom of MorphologyA person shall be free (speech clause) to express themselves through temporary or permanent adaptions, alterations, modifications, or augmentations to the shape or form of their bodies. Similarly, a person shall be free from coerced or otherwise involuntary morphological changes.Right to Organic NaturalizationA person shall be free from exploitive or injurious 3rd party ownerships of vital and supporting bodily systems. A person is entitled to the reasonable accrual of ownership interest in 3rd party properties affixed, attached, embedded, implanted, injected, infused, or otherwise permanently integrated with a person's body for a long-term purpose.Right to Bodily Sovereignty A person is entitled to dominion over intelligences and agents, and their activities, whether they are acting as permanent residents, visitors, registered aliens, trespassers, insurgents, or invaders within the person's body and its domain.Equality for Mutants A legally recognized mutant shall enjoy all the rights, benefits, and responsibilities extended to natural personsHeader image: Ryan O'SheaRich MacKinnon is past president of EFF-Austin, former board member of the ACLU of Texas, and founder of Borgfest Human Augmentation Expo and Cyborg Pride Festival.

We Are 52 USA—a spinoff of the French feminist group Noussommes 52—created this mock front page demonstrating what it would look like to live in a world where a group of women regularly passed legislation controlling men’s bodies.https://twitter.com/weare52usa/status/825001790970089472The image parodies photos of Donald Trump signing an order to block U.S. aid to foreign organizations that perform or discuss abortions, otherwise known as the "global gag rule."https://twitter.com/MartinBelam/status/823637000783798272?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwThe image went viral after it was shared by student and model Molly-Mae.https://twitter.com/xnicorn/status/824617379464441858

Dirk Loechel created this massive poster of starships from various universes, including our own: "I added the ISS. For scale. It's on top, with a yellow frame so it's relatively easy to find." It's visible in the detail below: (more…)

Kim Albrecht took on the herculean task of creating an interactive data visualization of Trump's business interests. Behold crony capitalism at its worst. (more…)

Rachel & Jun present a helpful introduction to Japanese apartment living. Includes tips on cleaning your tub every day, preparing for earthquakes, and caring for your easily-destroyed tatami mats. (more…)

Nick Bilton reports on the next round of fake news tools that allow users to manipulate audio and video to change what's being said, a sort of real-time Photoshop for moving images and audio. Want to make it look like a celebrity used a taboo word, or misquote a politician? No problem! (more…)

Where is Rudy? There's Rudy!(Thanks, UPSO!)

Radiolab brought to my attention this great five-part podcast series on poverty in America. Busted: America's Poverty Myths breaks down accepted wisdom about poverty to reveal the reality of what it’s actually like to be poor in America. The show takes familiar concepts like the social safety net and the rags-to-riches narrative and explores the ways in which they’re not quite what they seem. You can download the podcast on the On The Media iTunes feed or listen to it on the WNYC website. You can also get a taste of Busted by listening to the latest Radiolab episode, which offers a compilation of Busted stories.

From Leadnow.ca: "The most important thing you can do right now is take 5 minutes to call your MP demanding that the Canadian government:Make an immediate, public condemnation of the executive orders by President Trump that bans Muslims and refugees from entering the US, and;Rescind the Safe Third Country Agreement which bars most refugee claimants entering from the United States over land to claim asylum in Canada." (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoLCDrOJGV0Newsarama's George Marston reports on a HiloBrow interview with Hanna-Barbera writer Mark Russell: he is to reboot Snagglepuss as "a gay Southern Gothic playwright" in the tradition of Tennessee Williams.

As everyday discussions about prejudice and oppression get more nuanced, it can be hard to know how to dive into the conversation. This helpful guide by writer Saroful breaks down the basics of what intersectional feminism is and how not to make rookie mistakes when it comes to it. Here’s an excerpt:

Donald Trump had planned to head to Milwaukee to tour a Harley-Davidson factory and sign some executive orders there. But the company said it wasn't comfortable hosting him and called it off. CNN's Jeremy Diamond:

https://youtu.be/8MzzLsJEzR8?t=33sDo you like the idea of riding horses? Do you want to get fit? If so, check out "Horse Riding Fitness Ace Power!," a portable, flexible A-frame on wheels with a seat to allow the operator to sit on it like a horse—then perform squats, thrusts and pelvic oscillations, to whatever ends or purposes the operator intends. (more…)

The YouTube channel Life Noggin digs into this terrifying question and sings the praises of coral along the way.

Remember those bygone days when certain stores would decorate their walls with movie titles for us to pick through? Well, just imagine a magical place that cuts out the celluloid chaff and delivers only what we really want to see.Last weekend I stumbled upon the finest collection of cinema classics I‘ve witnessed since the early 2000s. It was stocked with everything I needed to scratch my entertainment itch for drama, romance, and even sports flicks.And the place I’m talking about ONLY carried the classic Jerry Maguire movie and get this… it was all on VHS tape! (more…)

When critics dismissed his paintings, Dutch artist Han van Meegeren decided to seek his revenge on the art world: He devoted himself to forgery and spent six years fabricating a Vermeer masterpiece. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast, we'll recount the career of a master forger and the surprising mistake that eventually brought him down.We'll also drop in on D.B. Cooper and puzzle over an eyeless fruit burglar.Show notesImage creditPlease support us on Patreon!

YouTuber Brainiac75 suffers for science by taking a viewer request to touch the spikes formed by exposing ferrofluid to an extremely powerful neodymium magnet. He also shares some history of the substance. (more…)

ProPublica puts a heartbreaking, human face on this weekend’s immigration ban with the story of Dr. Suha Abushamma. The 26-year-old is in her first year of an Internal Medicine residency program at the prestigious Cleveland Clinic and she had been visiting family in Saudi Arabia this week. When she heard rumblings of Donald Trump’s Muslim immigrant ban, she rushed to return to the United States. Although Saudi Arabia is not on Trump’s list of seven banned countries, Abushamma’s passport is from Sudan, which is.Abushamma landed in New York at 11 a.m. on Saturday, where she was directed into a holding area. ProPublica writes:

Here’s what you hear when you call the number:https://soundcloud.com/user-932995833/djtcommitteetodefendthepresidentAs Ellen Duffer uncovered, The Committee To Defend The President is a “project” of the Stop Hillary PAC run by former Colorado state legislator Ted Harvey.

The Reaction GIF generator takes a brief video of you and spits out a GIF, thereby meeting your need for a brief animation of your confusion, dismay and horror to post in blog comments or on social networking platforms.I don't have a webcam at the moment, but this particular GIF is uncannily like me every time I have the thought "I wonder what's going on on Twitter."

Enjoy this supercut of legendary snooker player and commentator John Virgo saying "Where's the cue ball going?," usually at a volume that pushes the envelope of the Snooker Commentator's Hush. (more…)

This dog is able to leap tall buildings (or at least medium-sized gates) in a single bound!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=cJzgiDgBpcwThe first iteration of Dial-a-Grue, in 2011, was to kit out an old rotary dial phone with an embedded computer and text-to-speech engine so that you could play Zork with nothing but the handset. The new, 2.0 version of the project, is "to port Zork I (via a z-code interpreter) to an embedded platform, and enclose that and an old modem inside a telephone, so that the game can be played from a teletype, TDD, or old computer with an acoustically coupled modem." (via JWZ)