Like a dog chasing a stick thrown a great distance by a trebuchet, this week’s tabloid stories are far-fetched. Did the Queen catch her left hand in a closing door? Not if you believe this week’s National Enquirer, which interprets her purple paw as a diagnosis of leukemia, prompting its “world exclusive” cover story: “Queen, 92, Dying.” Predictably, the “secret diagnosis has Charles and William competing for the crown,” reports the Enquirer, which views the Royal succession like a reality TV show competition, in which whoever wins the immunity challenge gets to be King. You’d think by now that someone would have told the Royals that The Act of Settlement of 1701 mandates the monarch’s next in line as heir, regardless of who gets voted out by the palace tribe.Equally beggaring belief is the Globe cover story about former husband and wife duo Aniston and Pitt, under the headline: “Jen & Brad Elope!” When they reunited briefly and awkwardly at Jennifer Aniston’s 50th birthday party last month, the Globe reports: “They knew it was destiny and they belonged together.” Because how else do you explain them both turning up at the same party she invited him to, if not destiny? So when Jen jetted to Mexico recently with friends (because why elope alone?) she sneaked away to tie the knot with Pitt in a secret ceremony. But wait – Brad's divorce from Angelina Jolie has not been finalized yet, so that would make him a bigamist if the story is true. Read the rest

On November 14, 1980, John Lennon recorded three rough songs at the apartment he shared with Yoko Ono in New York City's The Dakota apartments. "You Saved My Soul (With Your True Love)" was the last demo he recorded before he was murdered on December 8, 1980 outside his home. Listen above. Read the rest

Ever wondered why that cute cat Lil Bub is so cute? These scientists discovered a rare genetic disorder that basically gives the beast 'kawaii.'Inforum:First, they compared her genome with that of a reference cat, then they focused on genes that control bodily functions. Finally, they asked a colleague who specializes in bone disorders which of those are known to cause osteopetrosis.That led them to a mutation in a gene called RANK/TNFRSF11A, which has been found in about 15 humans and one mouse - all of whom, the researchers said, share physical similarities with Lil Bub. In X-rays, their bones look deformed and bright white, with little to no marrow cavity. The mouse, like Lil Bub, also was missing teeth, because they can't erupt through bone that hardens too quickly. (Bub can eat just fine, and she runs and jumps thanks to a pulsed electromagnetic field therapy.)What it all adds up to, the researchers said, is a new case study for an extremely rare disorder - another example of how it can manifest itself and progress. Which means that Lil Bub, viral internet cat, could help doctors better treat human patients whose osteopetrosis stems from the same gene mutation. Read the rest

Recently, I noticed Becky Chambers' runaway hit The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet was available via Kindle Unlimited. I regret having waited so long to read this widely acclaimed novel.A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is every 'meet the crew of a special spaceship' space opera you've read. The phenomenal world-building and super-fantastic characters are perfect for the genre. Chambers, however, addresses issues of race, gender and civil rights in such a straight-forward 'Welcome to a galaxy full of everything and everyone!' manner, with such sensitivity, honesty and insight, that I immediately recommended this book to my sci-fi loving, but very mid-teenaged niece.Chambers shifts storytelling point-of-view every chapter, and the novel begins with Rosemary Harper. Rosemary is fleeing her wealthy family, and safe planet-side existence, out of some sort of shame-to-be-disclosed-later. She is joining the crew of the Wayfarer, a slapped together spacecraft that helps tunnel worm-holes for interstellar travel. Chambers has named the series after the ship, so you know Wayfarer is special. There are a Human captain and a multi-species crew that does the space family cooped together in a not-actually-that-small-sounding-box.Who they all are is actually far less interesting than how they regard one another and interact, and they are some interesting people. Chambers excels at describing interspecies relations, methods and mannerisms that allow their society, both onboard the ship and across the galaxy, to work.I immediately dove into the second book in ther series, A Closed and Common Orbit. Read the rest

As a high school student, I would have enjoyed learning to use ruled paper to draw anamorphic illusions instead of (not) taking notes. (via The Kid Should See This) Read the rest

A room at a Universal Studios Florida hotel tonight will cost you $197-$536 (plus admission tickets to the park), but make sure that you do all your soda drinking in one compact session, because Universal has deployed the creepily named Validfill RFID system, which limits your self-service (that is, you do the labor) soda refills to two hours after purchase, and after the time window expires, "you are denied soda by a robot voice."It's hard to be on any kind of resort/theme park vacation and not feel totally nickle and dimed but this Universal Studios hotel has chipped their paper soda fountain cups and a clock starts on the first fill and you have two hours before you are denied soda by a robot voice.— Daniel Danger (@tinymediaempire) March 5, 2019(via Super Punch) Read the rest

Bullets.tech takes important technical news stories and reduces them to a few salient bullet points that provide a really (really!) good overview of the story; it's very similar to what I try to do here on Boing Boing: extract the salient points from a study or news story, summarize them and add context from other stories I'm following, and then provide a link to the full report for people who have read the summary and want to dig deeper. I just subscribed to their RSS. (via Four Short Links) Read the rest

[Editor's note: We're happy to help our public record ninja friends at Muckrock celebrate Sunshine Week with this tribute to the censor's heavy hand -Cory]After nine years and over 60,000 requests, MuckRock has been witness to some pretty impressive efforts to keep public information from the public. In the spirit of Sunshine Week, we’ve compiled some of the weirdest, wildest, and downright hilarious redactions we’ve received. This looks like a job for ████████! In a release of records related to Scientology, the FBI included a short, fictionalized dialogue between a former member of the Church and "the star reporter of The Daily Planet. Though the Bureau redacted the reporter’s name, citing their right to privacy, it’s not that hard to guess that our intrepid interviewer is Clark Kent - better known as the alter-ego of Superman. The ever-vigilant FBI, keeping us safe from sunlight-seeking supervillains, yet again. Office Politics In response to a request for emails related to a now-infamous video showing FCC Chairman doing the Harlem Shake to downplay the importance Net Neutrality, the agency at first rejected the request in its entirety, saying that releasing that information would have a "chilling effect" on the FCC’s ability to perform its duties. After an appeal, the agency released redacted versions of the emails citing the same exemption. After that was appealed, the FCC, likely fearing a lawsuit, finally released unredacted copies revealing that it had spent the last year trying to prevent the release of an email that simply stated “Ok.” Perhaps there were concerns that the period came off as passive-aggressive. Read the rest

Trump's former campaign chief faced up to 25 years in prison, was sentenced to less than four.

I've yet to find a hinged garlic press that I love. The ones I've tried are inefficient, fragile (especially the hinge, which inevitably fails), and not that easy to clean. I end up having to peel the unused garlic from the inside of the press, and my fingers stink for days. Everyone has their opinion about crushing garlic - my top choice is this Joseph Joseph Rocker Garlic Crusher, Press, and Mincer.It's made from a single piece of stainless steel. No moving parts, which means it won't wear out and break. To use it, first remove the skin from a clove of garlic.Then, put your hands on the ends of the rocker and rock back and forth, putting your weight into it. The garlic will break apart and get forced through the holes. Keep going to make sure you force as much garlic through the holes as possible.Scoop the crushed garlic out with a spoon. Then, rinse the rocker under the faucet, while rubbing the holes with your fingers to remove the stuck garlic. They come out easily. Once the rocker is clean, keep the water running and rub your fingertips against the stainless steel. It will remove the garlic odor from your fingers. I was surprised at how well it gets rid of the smell! I love using this kitchen tool. Read the rest

Barb Noren, of the highly-recommended YouTube maker channel, Barb Makes Things, has a fun and easy new project video. In it, she turns a Rainbow Dash My Little Pony toy into Rainbow Flux, the soldering unicorn. This is the third soldering unicorn Barb has made. The first, Sparkles, the soldering unicorn at CRASH Space, has become something of a mascot for that venerable hackerspace. Barb also made one at the request of her mom. In this video, Barb does some serious trepantion on Rainbow Dash's head to accept the soldering iron and she cuts down an iron to fit inside the body of the toy. It all looks very easy and doable for anyone with even the most basic soldering and rotary tooling skills. All fun and frivolity aside, I'm kind of intrigued by the idea of a soldering iron that can be stationary and that you bring the work to. Not sure how useful this could be, but then, I never would've thought of a soldering iron unicorn, either. Read the rest

Having a rough day? Relax! These adorable sharks are on the other side of the glass. Watch them float around being shark-y, at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.[via montereybayaquarium.tumblr.com] Read the rest

These cheap grips make playing Mario Kart against my kid easier.For less than $12 delivered these have improved my Switch experience. JoyCons firmly pop into these ABS grips, and while the firmness of the buttons takes a game or two to get used to, these fit my hand far better than the stand-alone JoyCon.The button tops also help my CTS prone hands from tiring as quickly.I find JoyCons miserably small, these grips help.AmazonBasics Grip Kit for Nintendo Switch Joy-Con Controllers via Amazon Read the rest

Interesting how these two things managed to find their way into the same Season of Fortnite Battle Royale.Bananas. Read the rest

My friend Craig Yoe edited a great anthology of old, forgotten comic book stories, called The Unknown Anti-War Comics. Here's a three-page story from the anthology about a group of intergalactic migrants who seek refuge on Earth and are told they are too different from Earthlings to stay.Here's a video about The Unknown Anti-War Comics: Read the rest

Brooklyn's LES Ecology Center maintains an incredible library of vintage consumer electronics cherry-picked from the relentless flow of e-waste streaming through their facility. From hulking videocassette decks to curious CRTs, classic video game systems to iconic landline telephones, the E-Waste Warehouse Prop Library provides prop rentals for film, television, and theatrical productions. They should also host birthday parties. Read the rest

64 percent of American voters think President Trump committed crimes before becoming President, according to a Quinnipac poll. "When two-thirds of voters think you have committed a crime in your past life, and almost half of voters say it's a toss-up over whether you committed a crime while in the Oval Office, confidence in your overall integrity is very shaky," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. "Add to that, Michael Cohen, a known liar headed to the big house, has more credibility than the leader of the free world." Yet at least 40% of American voters would vote for him again over any Democratic opponent. We talk a lot about Trump, but media types can't really bring themselves to accept how committed most conservatives are to destroying the country as it is. We can conceive of the idea of Trump's presidency as a device to this end, but our thoughts are forced away, like magnets being repelled, as soon as we start taking it seriously. The implications are just too horrible to deal with. Read the rest

All Systems Red is the fantastic story of a self-aware security robot, protecting a team of scientists on a scary planet, that really just wants to watch some crappy cable tv.Martha Well's 'Murderbot Diaries' are a series of novellas about an anti-social security construct having a mild existential crisis. Referring to itself as a "Murderbot" and pretty much hating the job it was designed to do, Murderbot has a large library of downloaded media to work through and just wants to hang out in the equipment closet.In All Systems Red, the first in Wells' series, the crew of scientists Murderbot has been rented to protect have no idea the rogue SecUnit has overridden his governor, and gone rogue. Murderbot just wants to keep its secret and watch some videos, but those humans keep dragging it into dangerous situations and trying to treat it like a person. Murderbot doesn't feel comfortable around actual humans.All Systems Red (Kindle Single): The Murderbot Diaries via Amazon Read the rest

Mitch Wagner writes, "Omniverse CEO Jason DeMeo says a piracy lawsuit against his streaming TV service is full of crap. Omniverse faces piracy litigation from an alliance of content companies. But DeMeo says his company has a mind-blowing 100-year deal that allows it to stream TV channels over the Internet. Looks like somebody more than 25 years ago may have traded the crown jewels for a handful of beans, and Omniverse is enjoying the benefit today." According to DeMeo, Hovsat and Hughes signed the original deal in the early 1990s, and the length of the deal was for the incredible duration of 100 years, and allowed for national distribution rights, given that the home-builder operated in multiple states and wanted to provide video services to those communities. Knowing that their operations cross state lines, Hovnanian Enterprises, he said, decided the best option was to pursue the development of a private cable business."They can't live with a short-term contract; they needed a long-term contract," DeMeo said per his understanding of how the deal originated decades ago. "They are potentially on the hook to serve neighborhoods for potentially 100 years... Having a five-year agreement doesn't work if you're going to be a supplier of cable for an entire community."The contract, he said, "will blow your mind." "It's not a normal agreement, it's extremely unique... 80% of our contract is about protecting intellectual property... We're just distributors and marketers, that's all we are." Omniverse CEO: 'I'm Doing Everything Literally by the Book' [Mitch Wagner/Light Reading] Read the rest

Directed by Dome Karukoski, Tolkien is the new biopic about the author's childhood where, of course, it all began. The film, written by David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford and starring Nicholas Hoult as John Ronald Reuel Tolkien and Lily Collins as his wife and inspiration, will be released May 10. From the trailer description:TOLKIEN explores the formative years of the orphaned author as he finds friendship, love and artistic inspiration among a group of fellow outcasts at school. This takes him into the outbreak of World War I, which threatens to tear the “fellowship” apart. All of these experiences would inspire Tolkien to write his famous Middle-Earth novels. Read the rest

Washington State is contemplating HB 1742, legislation that would end the practice of charging children who exchange consensual sexts with child porn offenses that can lead to prison and a lifetime on the sex-offender registry. The bill is very carefully crafted: it gives prosecutors the power to charge children who transmit sexualized images of other children aged 13-17 with misdemeanors, and continues to felonize any transmission of sexual pictures of children 12 and under. The statute is designed to make it easier for kids to come forward with reports of harassment and other malicious conduct, which can still be charged under existing malicious distribution and harassment laws.Naturally, the bill has afforded an excellent opportunity for bad-faith, hysterical moralizing by far-right, sex-phobic politicians, which is where state rep Brad Klippert (@bradklippert, Bradklippert.com, brad.klippert@leg.wa.gov, (360) 786-7882) comes in: Klippert is a school cop, a pentacostalist preacher, and the elected rep from South Central Washington. Klippert prposed an amendment that would have gutted the bill, making it a misdemeanor or gross misdemeanor for two teens to consensually exchange images depicting sexual acts.In a grandstanding, bizarre speech from the floor, Klippert read out a long, salacious list of sexual acts that teens might engage in, slavering as he ranted about anal sex, bestiality (!), gay sex, S&M, and more.Strangely, Klippert's speech did not sway the legislature, and the bill is proceeding without his amendment.In order to express his disgust with the many varieties of sex that teens might be having, which I guess he thinks the underlying bill would somehow cosign, Klippert read off the list of acts that fall into the state's definition of "sexually explicit conduct." These acts include (emphasis his): "Actual or simulated sexual intercourse including genital to genital, oral to genital, anal genital [sic], oral, anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex or between humans and animals. Read the rest

This Vox video shows the incredible amount of extreme wealth held by a tiny handful of people. Taxing the top 0.05% of Americans between 2% to 3% of their wealth would pay for many public services, including free public college. Read the rest

Some people will nick anything. The sole comment on YouTube: "maybe he has a dog that looks just like it?" Read the rest

In 1898, two lions descended on a company of railway workers in British East Africa. For nine months they terrorized the camp, carrying off a new victim every few days, as engineer John Patterson struggled to stop them. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll track the "man-eaters of Tsavo" and learn what modern science has discovered about their motivations.We'll also consider more uses for two cars and puzzle over some prolific penguins.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon! Read the rest

Science writer Leigh Phillips's 2016 book Austerity Ecology and the Collapse-Porn Addicts was one of the most important, angry and inspiring books I read that year, a passionate argument for a high-tech just and sustainable world that celebrated materialism and comfort, rather than calling for a return to a world of three billion people scratching potatoes in the dirt; so when Phillips sent me a manuscript for his new book, The People's Republic of Walmart: How the World's Biggest Corporations are Laying the Foundation for Socialism last year, I dropped everything and read it, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since.Phillips and his co-author, Canadian labour organiser Michal Rozworski, have outdone themselves with this volume.The two are addressing themselves to the socialist calculation debate, which raged through Austrian economic circles a century ago, with market-focused economists like Ludwig von Mises arguing that it was technically impossible to calculate an efficient allocation of goods in a large, industrial society, and that markets alone -- as a kind of distributed calculation engine -- could solve the problem of getting goods to the people who could make best use of them.Von Mises won the argument in the 1920s, but a funny thing happened on the way to the 2020s: we are now surrounded by companies and organisations that are as large or larger than the USSR at its apex, which undertake breathtakingly efficient allocations of goods and resources, and all without markets, running as command economies.You've heard of these bigger-than-the-Soviet-Union command economies: Amazon. Read the rest

After suffering a massive stroke on Wednesday actor Luke Perry passed away today, surrounded by his children and other family members. He played the role of the troubled yet soulful rich kid Dylan McKay in Beverly Hills 90210, which ran from 1990 to 2000, and appeared in many movies and television shows in the years that followed, most notably in the role of Archie Andrews' dad in Riverdale.Sadly, Perry's stroke happened on the same day a 90210 reboot had been announced, which is reuniting the original characters. Read the rest

Whistleblower and torture-survivor Chelsea Manning (previously) has been summoned before a Grand Jury, seemingly to testify about her "2010 disclosures of information about the nature of asymmetric warfare to the public."Like many activists before her, Manning is challenging the subpoena and faces the risk of up to 18 months in prison if she does not prevail in her legal battle. She believes that "since testimony before grand juries is secret, grand juries can create fear by suggesting that some members of a political community may be secretly cooperating with the government. In this way, grand juries can seed suspicion and fear in activist communities."I agree. I've donated $50 to her legal defense fund.By serving Chelsea Manning with a grand jury subpoena, the government is attempting once again to punish an outspoken whistleblower for her historic disclosures. We stand with Chelsea in support of her refusal to participate in this repressive and undemocratic process.Grand juries are notoriously mired in secrecy, and have historically been used to silence and retaliate against political activists. The indiscriminate nature of grand juries means the government can attempt to artificially coerce a witness into perjury or contempt. Chelsea gave voluminous testimony during her court martial. She has stood by the truth of her prior statements, and there is no legitimate purpose to having her rehash them before a hostile grand jury.Statement from the Chelsea Resists support committee [Xychelsea] Read the rest

Forced arbitration "agreements" are how corporate America gets workers, tenants and customers to sign away their legal rights, substituting kangaroo courts where the "judge" is a lawyer paid by the corporation that abused you, and where the rules are whatever the corporation says they should be; The FAIR Act invalidates the use of arbitration to settle disputes over employment, consumer rights, antitrust and civil rights; it has 147 co-sponsors in the House and 34 in the Senate (all Democrats -- Republicans love forced arbitration!), and its only hope of passing is if Democrats nuke the filibuster rule the next time they control the House, Senate and Presidency (that is, in 2020). Read the rest

The fun is contagious. "I'll try to remember, John, and if I don't it's just too bad INNIT!?" Read the rest

Weequay pirate Hondo Ohnaka, tho largely unknown to non-animated Star Wars fans, wins my vote for Star Wars universe most loveable, loveable scoundrel. I am glad to see he'll play a role in the new Star Wars area of Disneyland.I am hopeful this will also bring us audio-animatronic Melch.I'd take a Cad Bane feature too. Read the rest

Police in Jordan, Minnesota, rushed to the scene after locals reported a "deranged person" standing motionless in the cold, hugging a pillow. It was in fact a cardboard advertising cutout of Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow.“Those cardboard cutouts sure can look real from a distance and the caller certainly was not wanting to get too close thinking who is this deranged person standing outside in the cold hugging a pillow,” the Jordan Police Department shared in a Facebook post. “Always better to call the police.” Read the rest

Semi-identical twins -- a boy and girl who are identical on their mother's side but share only 78% of their father's genome -- have been identified in Brisbane, Australia. This is only the second known case, ever. From the BBC:"The mother's ultrasound at six weeks showed a single placenta and positioning of amniotic sacs that indicated she was expecting identical twins," (said Prof Nicholas Fisk whose team at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospita cared for the children when they were born in 2014). "However, an ultrasound at 14 weeks showed the twins were male and female, which is not possible for identical twins."If one egg is fertilised by two sperm, it results in three sets of chromosomes, rather than the standard two - one from the mother and two from the father.And, according to researchers, three sets of chromosomes are "typically incompatible with life and embryos do not usually survive".The identity of the twins has not been revealed.A scientific paper about these rare humans was published the New England Journal of Medicine: "Molecular Support for Heterogonesis Resulting in Sesquizygotic Twinning" Read the rest

As an experiment to see how it affected her mood, Megan E. Holstein made her phone's display grayscale. It took her a while to get used to it, but now she likes it that way because the world around her seems more attractive.She wrote about the experience in Better Humans:Spontaneously, the colors in the room around me became brighter. I felt an urge to go outside and enjoy the world — even though it was 8 PM on an Ohio winter night, pitch black and cold out.Text messages felt constraining in a way they never did before. I texted a few people on the black and white screen. It felt like trying to talk to my loved ones through a paper towel tube. People say that texting is not meaningful in the same way in-person interaction is, but I never felt that way until now.Suddenly, the idea of scrolling through Instagram photos seemed preposterous. Of course looking at a picture isn’t like the real thing. In my head, I’ve always known that. But the muted black and white screen made it feel real. It suddenly seemed that much more important to travel while I’m young and I can.Image: Better Humans Read the rest

The Portmanteau and Rhyme Generator accepts two input words and produces weird coinages that are often surprisingly funny. "Rhino" and "Hospital", for example, produces "Boarphanage" and "hotelephant" among other things.I tried "chaste caravaggio" and got "Vermeerotic". "Moist carpet" yielded "flavorniture". "Lube barrel" turned into "bluebrication". Magic. Read the rest

The Yonhap News Agency reports that a 6,000 ton cargo ship under the command of a drunk Russian captain ran into the Gwangan Bridge in Busan today before "turning back to head in the opposite direction."The lower part of the bridge sustained damage, but no injuries were reported.The captain had a blood alcohol content of 0.086 percent. The legal limit is 0.03 percent."Authorities were also trying to determine why the ship was heading toward the bridge in the first place, when it should have been going in the opposite direction," reports the paper.Image: YouTube Read the rest

This is my favorite Baby Shark remix by default. I do like it a lot tho.Pretty active driving song.Rollingstone:You’d think a song that is everywhere on the Internet — exploding on music charts, racking up billions of streams and downloads and YouTube plays, and even making it into the celebrity zeitgeist as it did this week on Cardi B’s Instagram — would be making its creator filthy rich. But “Baby Shark,” the viral children’s song that’s taken 2019 by storm, isn’t paying out piles of cash to anyone, because no single songwriter has been able to claim ownership over it.The tune first started bubbling up among U.S. music fans on YouTube a few years ago, when Pinkfong, a South Korean educational band, posted it in 2015 and then remixed it with an absurdly catchy new beat and melody in 2016. But the core song in both versions — the second of which was quickly popularized by K-pop stars and an American social media challenge, and has now been adapted into more than 100 versions in 11 different languages, according to SmartStudy, the company behind Pinkfong — stems from an old singalong chant that seems to date back dozens of years to multiple sources.A number of parties are currently embroiled in copyright disputes, in court or otherwise, over who first created the song. Johnny Only, a kids’ musician who uploaded the song to his YouTube channel in 2011, filed a complaint in a Seoul court saying that the latest version of the Pinkfong song is too close to his own. Read the rest

Chester Bolingbroke on the three elements that must be well-balanced to make a good computer role-playing game: breadth, depth and immersion. Breadth refers primarily to the physical size of the game. It can be measured in dungeon squares or tiles, or in modern games the length of time it takes to travel from one end to the other. It also refers to the length of time it takes to play and win the game ...Depth refers to the things that you find and to the things that happen within that game world. The specific elements depend on the game's genre, but for RPGs it includes things like the backstory, lore, NPCs, quests, and character development. ...Immersion deals with the game's capacity to make you feel like you are truly "occupying" its world, and it's primarily a function of graphics and sound--although we must allow for skilled developers who can engage the player's imagination in the absence of these things, as a good author does.This is a great way to understand the limits of modern open-world games like Skyrim and RDR. Objectively they are deep compared to older games, but their vast annd realistic breadth creates a sense of relative shallowness that limits immersion and gives the uncanny sense of being stuck in a theme park full of robots.Pictured is the map of Fate: Gates of Dawn, a 1991 Amiga RPG that exemplifies the problem with excessive breadth. Every pixel is its own square, and you can explore it all—but every step of the way, you're trapped in a 1991 Amiga RPG. Read the rest

Topher Grace, creator of the famed Star Wars: Episode III.5: The Editor Strikes Back that recut the prequels into a single film, has now released a trailer that combines material from all ten Star Wars films. I'm going to send this to the two people I know who have never seen a single Star Wars movie. Not that they will bother to watch it, of course. Read the rest

On twitter, gravislizard takes us on a tour of the wild world of unorthodox golf putters marketed to a certain kind of player. Previously: Golf club hunts mystery man who keeps shitting in the holes Read the rest

Goodwill Industries, purveyors of thrift-stores, are currently the second largest provider of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), and on track to become the leader, through their GCF Global Online Portal, which provides free courses in English, Spanish and Portuguese with an emphasis on job skills: "reading, math and understanding money and personal finance to computer, email and Internet basics to digital skills and mastering widely-used tools such as Microsoft Office and QuickBooks," which then dovetail into a job-placement service the charity runs. (via Naked Capitalism) Read the rest

The Yellow Vest movement, like a lot of anti-establishment movements, is a complex phenomenon, filled with both right- and left-wing elements, changing character from place to place and even day to day.You have German Yellow Vests decorating their outfits with neofascist slogans and Qanon memes, Irish Yellow Vests protesting corruption and demanding legal weed; and more, from Baghdad to Alberta (the largest Yellow Group protest to date was in Taipei!).On Opendemocracy, Rob May, a doctoral candidate from Sheffield University who studies the far right, chronicles the right wing elements of the Yellow Vest movement, and analyzes how existing far right movements are colonizing and co-opting Yellow Vests, and just how contested the Yellow Vest symbol has become.Supporters of the English Defence League (EDL), an Islamophobic organisation founded by Robinson, have also made themselves visible at rallies. Speakers have addressed crowds to call for Britons to fight for Christianity against foreign cultures and religions. Some demonstrators have decorated their yellow vests with aggressive and offensive slogans or messages. For example, ‘F**k the Police F**k the Government F**k the EU’, ‘Left-wing scum: Merkel, May Macron, Corbyn Go To Hell’ and – presumably in reference to Asian grooming gangs – ‘protecting our children does not make us far right. It makes us just right.’ At present, each rally is attracting numbers in the low hundreds. Unsurprisingly, clashes have occurred between the radical right ‘yellow vests’ and both the police and the left-wing ‘yellow vests’.The future of the ‘yellow vest’ movements is difficult to predict. Read the rest

Many companies use private APIs to manage their A/B tests of experimental products and approaches; by grabbing the calls that mobile apps make to these APIs, Jon Luca was able to figure out all kinds of sensitive information about companies' future plans, from the way Lyft steers customers towards credit cards that are cheaper to process and its use of "Tactical Price Adjustments" to fight customers who price-compare with Uber; to Airbnb's future China plans; to Pintrest's gendered content differentiation and so on.There's lots more: Amazon's upcoming augmented reality offerings; to Tinder's incomplete erasure of a now-deprecated feature that let you view a prospect's Instagram. Luca has promised a followup in the months to come.Most companies aren’t obfuscating or minimizing their experiment names, which leads to information leakage. This could prove dangerous in the future - if a company is slowly rolling out a new feature, it could give their competitors an advantage.This is a common occurrence in the industry - nearly every company is siloing off their growth engineering department, which leads to siloed off experiment routes. This in turn makes it almost trivial to figure out what they’re working on, and make educated guesses at the 6 month roadmap of most tech services.Some future companies I’d like to try and check out are Snapchat, Ebay, all the Google products and services, and LinkedIn.There’s a lot more apps and services that this methodology works with. Feel free to reach out if you’re interested in finding any given companies experimentation campaigns. Read the rest

Asian Boss hit the streets of Tokyo to ask people what they think of Marie Kondo's tidying method. Interestingly, Kondo seems to be more known in the US than in Japan. Image: Asian Boss/YouTube Read the rest

"I met a gin soaked bar-room queen" in... Budapest?Australian personality Greg Grainger is backed up by the Graingerettes, a group of women all decked out in traditional Hungarian dress, in this rousing cover of the Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Women." It was recorded sometime in 1990 and was downloaded from on old VHS tape.(Everlasting Blort, Miss Cellania) Read the rest

Grab some tissues. Here's a heartwarming story of neighbors coming together for a young girl, as told by CBS Sunday Morning:On Islington Road in Newton, Mass., lives two-year-old Samantha Savitz, who is deaf, but boy, does she love to talk to anyone who knows sign language. And if someone doesn't, that makes Sam just a little sad. Which led her neighbors to undertake what can only be described as a most generous community project: hiring an instructor, and fully immersing themselves in an American Sign Language class. Steve Hartman reports.Faith in humanity temporarily restored. Read the rest

One genre of 19th Cen illustrated pamphlet was the "Cries of London" (previously), which celebrated the market traders' characteristic sales patter, which were catalogued as a kind of urban birdsong.Aunt Busy Bee’s New London Cries (1852) is a lovely example of the genre, both for its lively illustrations and the wonderful pitches it records (and also for the reminder of all the professions that have been so thoroughly superannuated that even their existence is long forgotten).As Spitalfield Life's "Gentle Author" points out, London's market hawkers are still on the scene, and still calling out: the birdsongs have changed, but the singing never stopped.The Lavender Girl walked into London carrying the lavender she picked that morning in the fields. The Band Box Man is selling the hat boxes that are product of his cottage industry, manufactured at home and sold on the streets, while. The Vegetable Seller is a Costermonger, buying his fruit at the wholesale market and hawking it around the street, as many did at Covent Garden and Spitalfields Markets. We are reminded that the Knife Grinder provides a public service in the home and workplace, while the Mackerel Girl has no choice but to carry her basket of fish around the city from Billingsgate, which she herself may not get to eat. The mishap of the Image Seller, in comic form, even illustrates the vulnerability of the street seller who relies upon trading to earn a crust and the responsibility of the customer to permit them a living. Read the rest

You may have seen the Dutch historian Rutger Bregman in a viral video last month, in which he appeared on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos and berated the attendees for their tax-evasion and insisted that no amount of philanthropy can make up for starving the state of the money it needs to provide for everyone under democratic guidance.The net-fame earned Bregman an invitation to appear on Tucker Carlson's show, presumably as part of the wave of extremely selective right-wing interest in trustbusting and railing against elites.But Bregman was capable of understanding that just because Carlson thought he was on Bregman's side, it didn't follow that Bregman should be on Carlson's side, especially not after Carlson's years of carrying water for sinister, manipulative, pro-monopoly billionaires like Rupert Murdoch and David Koch.So Bregman lit into Carlson, calling him a "millionaire funded by billionaires" who was "part of the problem."Carlson lost his shit, flipped out, called Bregman a "moron" and a "tiny brain" and told him to "go fuck yourself," adding that he "tried to give you a hearing but you were too fucking annoying."Predictably, Carlson never aired the segment, but thankfully Bregman made his own recording and leaked it to Now This news, and it's online for all to see.Bregman then accuses Carlson of being bought by the Murdoch family and the Cato Institute, a rightwing thinktank of which Carlson was a fellow until 2015. Bregman says Tucker took the “dirty money” of the institute, which is funded in large part by the Koch brothers and opposes higher taxes. Read the rest

This soap commercial is more creepy than I remembered.This AM I was marveling at how I only use Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Castille Soap and have for almost 20 years. Before Dr. Bronner's I was brand loyal to Irish Spring.I still occasionally enjoy reading a bit of the Chick-esque marketing on a Dr. B's bottle but today in the shower I was wondering if the Irish Spring ads were the forgotten treasure trove of weird I remembered them to be.Yup. Read the rest

'They said we could never win. And then we started winning.' — Young people around the U.S. are taking legal action in the fight against climate change. #JoinJuliana