A picture can be worth a heck of a lot more than just a thousand words. If you've squinted for ages trying to get just the right photo, you might have the right passion for a career behind the camera. You might even have the right equipment, but do you have the know-how? The Beginner-To-Expert Photography & Videography Bundle is a great start for amateur shutterbugs looking to turn pro.This inclusive series of courses has something for every niche. Starting you off with basics in photography that apply to any great image, moving or still, you'll drill down into a focus on DSLR photo and video production. At your own pace, you can move on to the master class courses in video or photography, and even explore the fundamentals in the tricky art of drone videography.The seven-course bundle has more than 34 hours of instruction, and it's up for grabs at $35 - a substantial discount off the price of the individual courses. Pick up the Beginner-To-Expert Photography & Videography Bundle today. Read the rest

The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) is investigating multiple reports of UFOs over the coast of Ireland on Friday. From the BBC:(A British Airways) pilot, flying from the Canadian city of Montreal to Heathrow, said there was a "very bright light" and the object had come up along the left side of the aircraft before it "rapidly veered to the north..."(Another Virgin pilot said) there were "multiple objects following the same sort of trajectory" and that they were very bright.The pilot said he saw "two bright lights" over to the right which climbed away at speed.One pilot said the speed was "astronomical, it was like Mach 2" - which is twice the speed of sound.According to the IAA, the matter will be "investigated under the normal confidential occurrence investigation process." Meanwhile, the BBC quotes an astronomer who suggests what the pilots saw could have been a meteoroid aka "shooting star."Very interesting report on Shannon high level Friday 9 November at 0630z with multiple aircraft with reported sightings of a UFO over County Kerry. Skip to 17 minutes to listen reports on @liveatc https://t.co/VP1p0hrScn #Aviation #UFO #Ireland— Trevor Buckley (@IrishAero) November 11, 2018image: not the actual UFO over Ireland Read the rest

It's a not-very-well-kept secret that elements of the libertarian right believe that democracy is incompatible with capitalism (tldr: if majorities get to vote, they'll vote to tax rich minorities and since rich people are in the minority they'll always lose that vote); and as this persuasive and fascinating lecture and Q&A with former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis (previously) shows, the feeling is mutual.Varoufakis traces the history of capitalism from the enclosure movement and the industrial revolution and demonstrates that the rise of capitalism is always attended by a weakening of the politics sphere, making it subservient to the economic sphere (he recounts being told by the German finance minister Gerhard Schauble that "financial arrangement cannot be changed by voting," and by Obama that he has been unable to act against the financial sector during the 2008 crisis). He claims that in this moment, 40 years after Reagan and his cohort of deregulators dismantled the New Deal, politics are at their weakest point, and finance at its strongest.The talk and Q&A range over nationalism and internationalism, organizing the precariat, migration and refugees, demographics and Chinese economic expansionism, and many other topics, with the kind of humor and erudition that is Varoufakis's trademark.It's a long block of time, but the visuals are pretty dull and you can get by with just the audio if you're going for a long walk, cleaning the house, or working out.(via Late Stage Capitalism) Read the rest

Life on Mars has always been a standard science fiction topic, but Season 2 of National Geographic’s “Mars,” which premieres tonight at 9pm EST, shows how real and attainable that focus has become. The first season of the docudrama series aired in 2016 and was notable for its blending of fiction and science-based documentary, a format the show has maintained and improved. Season 2 picks up several years into the development of Olympus Town, a colony of astronauts working with the International Mars Science Foundation (IMSF), a fictional group. Close quarters living and the extreme environment take clear tolls on characters and their relationships, especially as love interests are established and a number of astronauts fall victim to the perils of space. But for a show titled “Mars,” a significant amount of the footage is of tundras, deserts, and oceans on Earth, as well as people who are not astronauts, but who are currently working to one day put men and women on our neighboring planet, like Elon Musk, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and even Bill Nye. The choice to merge documentary and drama was pioneered in “Mars” Season 1 and continues, polished, in Season 2.Episode four of the series, titled “Contagion,” offers a balanced fusion of these filmmaking approaches using a dual storyline; a pathogen outbreak in the Mars colony parallels the recent emergence of anthrax in the thawing Siberian tundra. Scripted portions of the show are spliced seamlessly with iPhone footage from Yamal Peninsula natives, and the story of a Russian environmentalist whistleblower highlights our lack of knowledge and caution in new climates. Read the rest

With weed becoming welcome in more locales every week, a lot of folks may be considering partaking for the first time. If you count yourself among them, chances are that you already know what cannabis can do for you. However, it might also do you some good to understand exactly how it does what it does. This short video will see you sorted out. Read the rest

“I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”Douglas Rain, the actor who performed the voice of the computer Hal 9000 in Stanley Kubrick's film '2001: A Space Odyssey,' has died. He was 90 years old."Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye." Douglas Rain, 13 March, 1928 - 11 November, 2018. #HAL9000 pic.twitter.com/p742YU7VdT— Stanley Kubrick (@StanleyKubrick) November 12, 2018A transcript of the '2001' voice recording session in the Stanley Kubrick archives at the University of the Arts, London shows that Kubrick didn't give much direction to Rain, just a few brief notes like this:— “Sound a little more like it’s a peculiar request.”— “A little more concerned.”— “Just try it closer and more depressed.”From an archival New York Times article about the story that led to Rain being cast as the computer's voice in '2001' ---The “2001” historian David Larson said that “Kubrick came up with the final HAL voice very late in the process. It was determined during ‘2001’ planning that in the future the large majority of computer command and communication inputs would be via voice, rather than via typewriter.”But artificial intelligence was decades from a convincing facsimile of a human voice — and who was to say how a computer should sound anyway?To play HAL, Kubrick settled on Martin Balsam, who had won the best supporting actor Oscar for “A Thousand Clowns.” Perhaps there was a satisfying echo that appealed to Kubrick — both were from the Bronx and sounded like it. Read the rest

This gentleman objected to the presence of peaceful protestors on a street corner in Orange, Texas: "You don't deserve to be in this God-damn country. You don't like it, take your ass home."This man approached us yesterday (Saturday, November 10, 2018) during our protest of the Confederate Memorial of the Wind in Orange, Texas. We had been at the site for about 5 minutes with our signs before he first yelled at us from his car ("F*%# you!"). He then got on the freeway heading west, circled back, and parked his car at the gas station/convenience store across the street. The video is unedited.Note how "Democrats" works as a stand-in for other words, for people whose homes are in other countries. Read the rest

An American Airlines steward is suing the airline, claiming that a colleague assaulted her during a flight and that it refused to address her complaints. A lawyer representing the airline, as quoted by USA Today, says that she had it coming: it is "not liable because Plaintiff caused or contributed to cause the harm".An American Airlines flight attendant who says she was dragged down the aisle by her scarf by a fellow crew member has sued the Dallas-based carrier for failing to investigate the July 2016 brawl or take actions to ensure her safety.In her lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court and obtained by The Dallas Morning News, Kathy Ida Wolfe says another flight attendant, Laura Powers, "maliciously dug her fingernails into my arm, and slammed the door of a beverage cart on my arm" and later "grabbed my scarf, choking me, and dragged me in the aisle and in front of the passengers."Alas, there's no video of the "brawl." Dallas News has more:Wolfe, of Irving, said she followed American's procedures by reporting the attack to the captain, other flight attendants and the flight service manager."I also reported the assault and battery to legal authorities after American Airlines failed to investigate and/or take action to ensure my safety," she said in the lawsuit, which was initially filed in June in Tarrant County district court. Read the rest

Wells Fargo has asked a court to block a shareholder lawsuit that seeks to punish the company for lying when it promised to promptly and completely disclose any new scandals; Wells Fargo claims that the promise was obvious "puffery," a legal concept the FTC has allowed to develop in which companies can be excused for making false claims if it should be obvious that they are lying (as when a company promises that they make "the best-tasting juice in America).The lawsuit stems from Wells Fargo's crooked car-loan program that used deceptive tactics to defraud 800,000 customers, ultimately stealing 25,000 of their cars through fraudulent repossessions.The shareholders argue that when Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan misled investors in 2016, when he said that he was "not aware" of lurking sales scandals (this was four years after the company's internal investigations revealed the car ripoffs and a year before they were made public after a leak to the New York Times).The company argue that Sloan was making "generic statements...on which no reasonable investor could rely" and thus the shareholders should not be able to sue for the losses they suffered when the scandal became public.In other words, as the LA Times's Michael Hiltzik puts it, "We can’t be sued because no one believed us anyway."The shareholder lawsuit focuses on the efforts by Sloan and his fellow executives to conceal the auto-loan scandal from the public. While they were trying to clean up the splatter from the bank’s most prominent scandal, in which sales representatives secretly opened millions of accounts for consumers in order to meet punishing work quotas, the executives consistently stated that they were investigating high and low to make sure the bank was otherwise clean and would fully disclose anything they discovered. Read the rest

The US credit card industry was a very late adopter of security chips, lagging the EU by a decade or so; when they did roll out chips, it was a shambolic affair, with many payment terminals still not using the chips, and almost no terminals requiring a PIN (and some require a PIN and a signature, giving rise to the curiously American security protocol of chip-and-PIN-and-swipe-and-sign).The adoption of security chips has not slowed credit card fraud, either. 60,000,000 US credit cards were compromised in the past 12 months and 90% of those were chip-enabled. The majority of compromised cards were stolen by infected point-of-sale terminals. The US has the worst credit card security in the world.The findings come from a Gemini Advisory report, which blames a "lack of chip compliance" in merchants for the rise.Based on the proprietary Gemini Advisory telemetry data collected from various dark-web sources over several years, we have determined that in the past 12 months at least 60 million US cards were compromised. Of those, 75% or 45.8 million were CP records, likely compromised through card-sniffing and point-of-sale (POS) breaches of businesses such as Saks, Lord & Taylor, Jason’s Deli, Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, Forever 21, and Whole Foods. To break it down even further, 90% or 41.6 million of those records were EMV chip-enabled. Furthermore, the shift in Card-Not-Present (CNP) fraud is becoming more evident with a 14% increase in payment cards compromised through e-commerce breaches in the past 12 months. Payment card data that that was stolen from Orbitz, Ticketmaster, City of Goodyear, and British Airways represented only a small part of the 14.2 million CNP records posted for sale in the past 12 months. Read the rest

The CRTC has proposed a code of conduct for Canadian ISPs that would "easy to understand, and make it easier for Canadians to switch providers to take advantage of competitive offers" -- but the new plan doesn't address the epidemic of fraudulent promises made by Canadian ISPs (that's part of a separate, ongoing government inquiry). Canadians hate their ISPs, with complaints rising by 36% in 2017. Canada has one of the world's most concentrated telcoms sectors, with the big cable and phone companies routinely gobbling up each other (and many media companies) with nary a peep from Canada's asleep-at-the-wheel competition regulators.You can comment on the proposal here.(Thanks, Alex!)(Image: Coastal Elite, CC-BY-SA) Read the rest

Rench writes, "Relix magazine just premiered this live video of Gangstagrass (previoulsy), the pioneers of authentically mixed bluegrass and hip-hop. The energy crackles on this captivating stage performance. Can't decide which is hotter, the emcees dynamic flow or the banjo and dobro players going into overdrive on the solos. Read the rest

A popular UK grocery store – Iceland – became the first major supermarket to take palm oil out of all of its own products. The production of palm oil, which is used in everything from cooking oil to snacks and baked goods to cosmetics and shampoos, is contributing to mass deforestation in countries like Malaysia, and is responsible in part for the loss of 25 orangutans per day. The organutans are now classified as critically endangered.But Iceland took their environmental stance a step further and teamed up with Greenpeace to rebadge this Christmas ad in order to bring awareness to the issue. But, unfortunately, the ad was banned because Clearcast says "it doesn’t comply with the political rules of the BCAP code." According to The Guardian:Clearcast, the body responsible for vetting ads before they are broadcast to the public, said it was in breach of rules banning political advertising laid down by the 2003 Communications Act.One of the stipulations enshrined in the broadcast code for advertising practice (BCAP), is that an ad is prohibited if it is “directed towards a political end”.“Clearcast and the broadcasters have to date been unable to clear this Iceland ad because we concerned that it doesn’t comply with the political rules of the BCAP code,” said a spokeswoman for Clearcast. “The creative submitted to us is linked to another organisation who have not yet been able to demonstrate compliance in this area.”But an Iceland's spokesperson disagrees. “We wanted [the ad] to be our signature campaign...We have said repeatedly we are not anti-palm oil, we are anti-deforestation...We think this is a huge story that needs to be told. Read the rest

Talking Paper was oddly similar to CueCat. A recorded message up to 50 seconds long is printed onto a photo or postcard as matrix barcode. The recipient runs a handheld reader gadget over it, which plays the message. There doesn't seem to be much information to be found about it; the video was uploaded to Mimo's 808Crate on YouTube and shared on social media. Read the rest

Edited but not doctored.Here's Alex Jones, needing a doctor:Previously: Dune without words. Read the rest

Take it to the streets, America. The investigation into Trump's corruption and likely criminality must not be stopped. Thousands of Americans from Florida to California gathered to defend Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the system of justice he represents. Below, photos and video from the events, shared live.LIVE: Nationwide protests to #ProtectMueller are pushing back against Trump's authoritarian moves https://t.co/0wKOiHYGkT— MoveOn (@MoveOn) November 8, 2018I love that this is happening. Take to the streets, everyone. #ProtectMueller #WhittakerMustRecuse https://t.co/9Ov37aULsR— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) November 8, 2018#ProtectMueller"Hands off the press" chant pic.twitter.com/tVCSEIFSNs— Edmundo Bernardo T. (@Edmund_BT) November 8, 2018Thousands of #ProtectMueller protesters marching down Fifth Avenue in New York Thursday night pic.twitter.com/4AdDZmmvi8— Robert Mackey (@RobertMackey) November 9, 2018The @IndivisibleMN03 light brigade is here to protest in front of Rep Paulsen’s office tonight asking him to #ProtectMueller. #MN03 pic.twitter.com/4a7Q6kRnFa— Lana Fx (@somuchweirdness) November 8, 2018Catonsville, Maryland. Suburbs. #ProtectMueller pic.twitter.com/NbtGPUhXwf— Leah Lamb (@Nomadgirl10) November 8, 2018The #ProtectMueller crowd keeps growing! pic.twitter.com/7KvYY0fL5t— David Levy (@itsdlevy) November 8, 2018.@waltshaub: “Sessions was a terrible Attorney General, but he did one thing right: He recused himself from the investigation. Trump didn’t like that, so he fired him. Nixon tried to do that, and it ended his presidency. It should end THIS presidency, too.” #ProtectMueller pic.twitter.com/CkpMs7ggl6— Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) November 8, 2018Thousands of protesters in New York’s Times Square chant “Trump is not above the law.”pic.twitter.com/5wgCPpJyla— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) November 8, 2018LIVE NOW: Huge protest at White House to #ProtectMueller and defend our Constituon: https://t.co/mpr2idSB9w— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) November 8, 2018We stretch from 30th Street to 42nd Street! Read the rest

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog went to Texas to get close to the Democratic and Republican Senate race candidates. He first visited Beto O'Rourke's rally where he landed a short interview. Then he went to Ted Cruz's where he, amazingly, got some face time. Oh, the burn... Read the rest

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act -- tech's stupidest law -- turns 20 this year; I chatted with Molly Wood on Marketplace Tech about the law's history and how dismally little we've learned from it, repeating and even magnifying its mistakes today. (MP3) Read the rest

Each of those white dots is an octopus. Here’s a closer view of one of them.And here's the video and story behind it from NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries.Excerpt:What’s better than one octopus?A THOUSAND OF THEM🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙! While diving in the deep waters of Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, researchers aboard the E/V Nautilus came across more than a THOUSAND octopuses! These octopuses – Muusoctopus robustus – were in a likely brooding posture. They were tucked into nooks in the seafloor with their arms inverted, covering their bodies and white egg clusters.[GIF 1 description: Many white octopuses resting on the seafloor. GIF 2: An octopus rests on the seafloor and displays her siphon through her arms. GIFs/video credit: Ocean Exploration Trust/NOAA] Read the rest

Two days before the 1966 midterms, President Lyndon B. Johnson warned Americans about the danger of catering to "white backlash." His comments at a news conference are as important today as they were 53 years ago:"I can think of nothing more dangerous, more divisive, or more self-destructive than the effort to prey on what is called 'white backlash.' I thought it was a mistake to pump this issue up in the 1964 campaign, and I do not think it served the purpose of those who did. I think it is dangerous because it threatens to vest power in the hands of second-rate men whose only qualification is their ability to pander to other men's fears. I think it divides this nation at a very critical time -- and therefore it weakens us as a united country."I think that the so-called 'white backlash' is destructive, not only of the interests of Negro Americans, but of all those who stand to gain from humane and farsighted government. And those that stand to gain from humane and farsighted government is everybody. Nevertheless, there are those who try to stimulate suspicion into hatred, and to make fear and frustration their springboard into public office. Many of them do it openly. Some let their henchmen do it for them. Their responsibility is the same."Racism -- whether it comes packaged in the Nazi's brown shirt or a three-button suit -- destroys the moral fiber of a nation. It poisons public life. So I would urge every American to ask himself before he goes to the polls on Tuesday: Do I want to cast my vote on the basis of fear? Read the rest

A ton of criticism, anger and pain has come from the family separation policy being enforced on the southern border of the United States. Few pieces of commentary on the subject nail the fine points of the topic with such humor and sadness as John Oliver's passionate rant against the inhuman practice on Last Week Tonight. Read the rest

My daughter and I saw Bohemian Rhapsody this weekend and came straight home to listen to Queen real loud. As we were digging around YouTube, we came across this incredible "Bohemian Rhapsody" cover by Canadian artist Marc Martel. Turns out he's the guy the band's Brian May and Roger Taylor endorsed to travel the world singing as Freddie Mercury in the tribute show, The Ultimate Queen Celebration. He's also the guy whose vocals were mixed in with the isolated tracks from studio recordings of Mercury himself for use in the film. Watch the video and I think you'll see why they chose him. What talent!He told Noise11.com:"They hired me to do some of the singing in the movie and give the audience an immersive experience and not be able to tell where the singing is coming from. It is to make the audience believe they are really watching Freddie Mercury sing...The way it works in movies the actor will perform their part based on the music. All of the music was prepared before shooting..."And he told Metro:"It is an amalgamation of a few voices. But predominantly it is my hope and the hope of everyone that we will hear as much Freddie as possible. I think that is the goal for all of us." Read the rest

One of the things I've always really liked about Japan is that once you get out of the big cities, you start coming across these things called mujin hanbai, literally "unmanned selling." Mujin hanbais are simply small, open-faced huts with shelves and a roof. Owned by a nearby local farmer, more often than not, they're shoddily -- but cleverly! -- built, and stumbling across one is always a treat. You see, early every morning, a farmer will totter over and stock the shelves with freshly picked fruit, vegetables or even flowers. They'll set out a price tag (often just a propped up, torn piece of cardboard) and leave some kind of container for the passerby to drop in his or her coins. At the end of the day, they'll return to collect their profits and hurry home to get some sleep before they're up at dawn to pick more produce to once again stock their little unmanned shop. Some mujin hanbai are just people who have family gardens and grow too much to eat. Others are farmers with bigger fields, but have vegetables or fruit that, while perfectly delicious, might be blemished or oddly shaped and cannot be sold to a supermarket. All those misfit veggies find themselves on an outdoor shelf to be sold using the honor system.That is what is so endearing about this whole system. In my 28 years of living in Japan, I've never seen or heard about anyone taking advantage of these unmanned, self-serve, roadside stores. Read the rest

"They go low, we go high" has not been a good strategy for the United States. It's led to minority rule. This video by Innuendo Studios argues that "When one party can be counted on to do the exact opposite of your worst behavior, a good strategy is to do to them, as destructively as possible, whatever you don't want them to do to you. The new Republican norm is 'You go high, we go low.'" Read the rest

In the Siggraph 2018 paper Learning to Dress: Synthesizing Human Dressing Motion via Deep Reinforcement Learning, a Georgia Institute of Technology/Google Brain research team describe how they taught body-shame to an AI, leaving it with an unstoppable compulsion to clothe itself before the frowning mien of God.The AI uses machine learning tools to "automatically discover robust dressing techniques," and manages to train a robust get-dressed model despite the high computational expense of simulating cloth.The paper's fascinating: the secret to getting an AI to get dressed is haptics -- a sense of touch that is used to dynamically retune the AI's coordination to adjust to the rippling, slithering, treacherous textiles -- the model incorporates the ripping point of the cloth and penalizes AIs that rent their garments asunder while clothing themselves.In this task, a t-shirt is initialized on the character’s shoulders withthe character’s neck contained within the collar. To randomize theinitial garment state, we apply a random impulse force with fixedmagnitude to all the garment vertices at the beginning of the simu-lation. We allow the garment to settle for 1s before the characterbegins to move.The first control policy completes the task of moving the rightend effector into gripping range of the specified grip feature. Thepolicy attempts to match a given position and orientation targetin the garment feature space. Once the error threshold is reached,control transitions to an alignment policy designed to “tuck” theleft end effector and forearm under the waist feature of the garmentin preparation for dressing the arm. Read the rest

Famous for its toasted sandwiches, Quiznos once seemed unstoppable. But in the last ten years, over 90% of its restaurants shut down. This video looks into the reasons way: mainly, a greedy corporation that charged franchisees way too much for ingredients. Also weighing into the downfall: a "creepy sponge monkey" ad campaign that repulsed would-be diners. Read the rest

You've probably heard the expression, "the dose makes the poison." This is a shorter version of Paracelsus's basic rule of toxicology: "All things are poison, and nothing is without poison, the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison."This video starts with things requiring a large dose to kill a person: water (1.5 gallons), sugar (1.8 kg), MSG (1kg), vitamin C (738 grams), alcohol (25 shots of vodka), THC (79 grams), ibuprofen (40 grams), and coffee (60 Americanos). It then moves onto stronger stuff: cocaine (5.7 grams), methamphetamine (3.5 grams), and mercury (2.5 grams). Then come the truly powerful substances: Heroin and LSD (1 gram), nicotine (403 mg), deathstalker scorpion venom (267 mg), hydrogen cyanide (229 mg), pufferfish venom (21 milligrams), plutonium (20 mg), amatoxin (found in death cap mushrooms, 19 mg), sarin (11 mg), Brazilian wandering spider venom (8 mg), inland Taipan snake venom (2 mg), ricin (1 mg), black widow spider venom (267 micrograms), poison dart frog venom (124 micrograms, the weight of two human eyelashes), polonium-210 (620 nanograms, the weight of 2 or 3 grains of pollen), and the most lethal known substance: botox (62 nanograms).Image: Shutterstock/reptiles4all Read the rest

Starting a podcast is easier than ever — just scroll through the variety of voices that are out there today. Getting your podcast heard? That's a whole other level of expertise. Luckily, those trade secrets are fair game for all in the Podcasting 101 Bundle.Before you hit record, do yourself a favor and hit play on this exhaustive lesson series. In ten courses and 35 hours, you'll hear tips about every aspect of the art and business of podcasting from seasoned producers, talent and techs. The bundle preps you for your first broadcast with lessons that will train your voice and polish your storytelling. Then do that voice justice by getting the right gear, setting it up properly and navigating the crowded market of iTunes and other outlets. There are even dedicated courses on video production.No matter what your subject, it's worth doing right. Get the Podcasting 101 Bundle now for a discounted $29, all-inclusive. Read the rest

Tesla owner Shawn Kennedy works in downtown Janeville, Wisconsin. The city recently imposed a two-hour parking limit. Kennedy now uses the "summon" feature (meant to be used to have your car drive up to you when it is in a parking lot) of his Tesla to move his car every two hours from the convenience of his office.I was not sure when I would use this feature... till today. @elonmusk @tesla pic.twitter.com/bC6rFt2SuW— D Shawn Kennedy (@rarelyserious) October 31, 2018 Read the rest

Clothing brand Supreme and artist Richard Prince created "18 & Stormy," a new t-shirt design emblazoned with the composited face of Stormy Daniels and eighteen women who have accused Donald Trump of sexual misconduct. The proceeds from the t-shirt benefit Downtown for Democracy, "a political action committee founded by creative people to transform cultural influence into political power."(Hypebeast) Read the rest

I can't help but love the "Reese's Halloween Candy Converter." It's a vending machine where some fortunate trick-or-treaters can feed their unwanted Halloween candy (cough *Good & Plenty*) to get a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup in exchange. Now that's a clever marketing stunt!There's only one machine though and it's in New York City:Reese’s lovers can make an exchange from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. outside Washington Square Park on 5th Avenue between Washington Square North and East 8th Street in New York City on Halloween.Delish reports that the machine will make 10,000 candy exchanges. Read the rest

The key appears to be having something other than bare hands to crunch it against, such as concrete. But commenters insist this can be accomplished with just the palms of the hands by pushing against the shell's seam. Read the rest

I didn't know anything about NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) until I watched this short explainer video by Vox. Now I know a little bit about it. I also learned that model cars are no fun anymore because they snap together and are pre-painted. Read the rest

The funny folks at Squirrel Monkey created a very realistic video that imagines an Oculus Rift experience circa 1988. Read the rest

I've owned this Capresso Infinity Conical Burr for 10 years or more, and it still runs like a champ. If you're at all serious about grinding coffee at home, a burr grinder is the way to go, especially when making espresso. Blade grinders lacerate the beans, and the size of the grounds vary wildly. Burr grinders do a better job of crushing the beans evenly. This model is on sale on Amazon today for $79, which is quite a bit less than what I paid for it. Read the rest

When I need to futz with an Android device, OnePlus is the company that I typically turn to. For the money, you won't find a more capable handset in North America. The OnePlus 6, thanks largely to its zippy performance and Android Oreo's being a joy to use, was the first Android device I was able to live with as my daily driver. The OnePlus 6T is, with the exception of a few minor tweaks, very much the same handset as its predecessor. I'm very OK with this. Under the hood, there's not much to see: OnePlus has used the same Snapdragon 845 processor. The version of the 6T that I took for a spin comes packing 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. It's a speedy-feeling set of specs that served me well with the OnePlus 6 and now, the 6T. Apps, fly open, I've yet to see any interface lag and I've no complaints about how quickly either smartphone does anything. With the OnePlus 6T, users get a 3,700mAh battery. Given that I've grown accustomed to the low level of battery that my aging iPhone 7 Plus leaves me with at the end of the day, I was pretty pleased with how much juice was still left in the 6T when I set it down for the night. While it might not come with wireless charging baked into it, the OnePlus 6T's Dash quick charging technology more than made up for its absence. I'll take a rapid charge over the simplicity of not having to plug a cord into my hardware any day. Read the rest

Kyle Stetz, an engineer at Slack, made this nifty music sequencer inspired by Turtle, the kids' graphics programming language.Today I'm finally putting this project out into the world:🐢🎶 https://t.co/503zqpSFochttps://t.co/503zqpSFoc is a music sequencer inspired by turtle graphics programming. I have been working on this for 2 years (!!) and it's terrifying to finally show you. Please enjoy! 🔊 pic.twitter.com/oi5JujoHea— Kyle Stetz (@kylestetz) October 28, 2018 Read the rest

The U.S. will deploy an additional 5,200 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, said White House officials today. The deployment will more than triple the military presence there, and is presumably a Trump administration response to the so-called “Migrant Caravan,” about which white supremacists in the United States are currently fixated. BREAKING Pentagon will send 5200 troops to border, has 150 miles of concertina wire ready to use, Northcom says— Nick Miroff (@NickMiroff) October 29, 2018Earlier on Monday, before the announcement, President Donald Trump tweeted:“Many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan heading to our Southern Border.” This is a lie, by the way. “Please go back, you will not be admitted into the United States unless you go through the legal process,” Trump continued. “This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!”Even as pipe bombs are being discovered and the synagogue massacre dead are being buried, President Donald Trump continues to describe a non-violent caravan of Central American asylum seekers as “an invasion.” Again, he's calling it an “invasion.” But there is no invasion. It's a lie.This demonizing and dehumanizing language from Mr. Trump is what authorities say inspired a deranged man in Pittsburgh to murder 11 Jewish people two days ago, in their house of worship, as they prayed.5,200 troops. Are they gearing up for a bloodbath? If so, who's it for, the migrants, or us?The additional troops, when combined with the 2,000 National Guard already there, roughly equals the number of US forces currently deployed to Iraq & Syria. Read the rest

Earlier this year, a group of business school researchers from the University of Washington and NYU, as well as Amazon, published an influential paper claiming that the rising Seattle minimum wage had decreased take-home pay for workers by 6% due to cuts to work hours -- the paper was trumpeted by right-wing ideologues as examples of how "liberal policies" hurt the workers they are meant to help.But a new paper by the same authors (Sci-Hub mirror) shows that the rising minimum wage generated major increases for the workers who had the most hours, whose hours were only cut a little, but still came out ahead thanks to the wage increase; workers with fewer hours saw no financial harm from the rising minimum wage, working fewer hours and bringing home the same sum; and they found some harm to people who had the smallest number of hours) (which may actually reflect stronger demand for workers and fewer workers in this category of very-low-hour work).The study's authors explain that their findings are all consistent with one another, but people who found methodological flaws in the first study say that the reversal is inevitable. Here's Barry Ritholz (previously) in Bloomberg: When thinking about the impact of raising minimum wages, one can’t simply omit most of the biggest minimum-wage employers in the region, such as McDonald’s and other fast-food chains, or Wal-Mart and other major retailers. These are the very employers that were the main target of the minimum-wage law; indeed, the law established an even higher minimum wage of $15.45 an hour for companies with 500 or more employees. Read the rest

Banx sends us American Psychosis, a 15-minute short in which "Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, author and activist Chris Hedges (previously) discusses modern day consumerism, totalitarian corporate power and living in a culture dominated by pervasive illusion." Read the rest

Gwyneth Paltrow's insanely profitable empire of quack remedies has had some serious lowlights: it wasn't just squirting coffee up your asshole, or vaginal steaming and smoothie dust: really, the lowest of the lowlights was a concerted effort to convince women to insert $66 jade eggs into their vaginas because, supposedly, this was a widespread practice from "ancient China."Update: An earlier version of this article credited Ms Paltrow with inventing the fictitious ancient Chinese practice of keeping jade eggs in one's vagina; it turns out that this legend was plagiarized from other sources."This is at least three kinds of stupid:1. It's an appeal to antiquity: "the misconception that ancient practices or beliefs are superior to modern ones (related to appeal to authority and appeal to tradition)." 2. It's racist, casting "ancient Chinese" as a kind of mystical elf who could access all kinds of wisdom thanks to their fey bloodlines.3. It endangers women's lives: "Jade is porous so leaving the egg in one's vagina during sleep could allow bacteria to get inside and cause bacterial vaginosis or even Toxic Shock Syndrome, a life-threatening complication caused by bacterial infections."But now, we know about a fourth way in which it is stupid (which, honestly, I think everyone had guessed, but now we have proof): people in China didn't put jade eggs in anything, ever. Read the rest

For at least the third time, construction workers in Georgia have opened up the walls of a former dentist's office only to discover thousands of teeth in the wall cavity.The latest discovery was made at Valdosta, Georgia's TB Converse Building, built in 1900, in a dental office occupied by Dr Clarence Whittington and then Dr Lester G Youmans, from 1900 until the 1930s. Previous troves of entombed teeth have been discovered in old dentists' offices n Greensboro and Carrolton.“I’m not sure if it was a common practice between dentists at that time, but it’s very strange that there were two other people that said, ‘Hey, we’ve had that happen, too,’” she said.It’s been suggested that the Lowndes County Historical Society receive the teeth though Donald Davis, Historical Society executive director, couldn’t confirm this."The museum would be pleased to receive the teeth; however, it has not been officially confirmed to us that they would be offered," he said. VPD Lt. Adam Bembry said nothing has been reported to the police department as of press time.Hundreds of teeth found in Downtown Valdosta wall [Amanda M. Usher/Valdosta Daily Times](via JWZ) Read the rest

On October 5, the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology published a peer-reviewed article by Drs Sailesh Konda and Joseph Francis, enumerating the problems with the burgeoning field of "corporatized," private-equity-backed dermatology practices, often affiliated with private-equity-backed pathology labs, showing data to support the conclusion that private equity investment flowed to dermatology practices that were "outliers" in performing rare, high-cost procedures, including some that generated outsized Medicare billings.The article sparked a flood of complaints from private-equity-affiliated dermatologists, including legal threats. Journal editor Dr. Dirk Elston caved and removed the paper, citing "concerns about the accuracy of a few parts" of the article.The editors told the authors that they would have to correct "factual errors" to have the article reinstated, but the authors said that the requested corrections were not related to factual errors, but rather to true facts that put the leaders of the American Academy of Dermatology in a bad light.Dermatologists represent 1% of US medical practices and 15% of medical private-equity acquisitions.Among those who objected to the article was Dr. George Hruza, the incoming president of the American Academy of Dermatology. Dr. Hruza, whose one-year term as president begins in March, is a dermatologist in Chesterfield, Mo. In 2016 he sold his own dermatology practice to United Skin Specialists, a firm that manages dermatology practices and is backed by private equity. He currently serves on the board of directors of United Skin Specialists, which he said is an unpaid position.Dr. Hruza is not named in the journal article, but he said he is easily identified by the authors’ reference to his pending presidency of the academy, and to United Skin Specialists. Read the rest

In a new paper published in the journal Military Cyber Affairs researchers from the US Naval War College and Tel Aviv University document the use of BGP spoofing by China Telecom to redirect massive swathes of internet traffic through the company's routers as part of state military and commercial espionage efforts.BGP is a notoriously insecure protocol used to route internet traffic; by design it is dynamic and responsive, moving traffic away from congested routes and onto those with more capacity: this flexibility can be exploited to force traffic to route through surveillance chokepoints, as well as for censorship (publishing BGP routes to censorsed services that dead-end in nonexistent addresses are a common technique in repressive regimes).The researchers logged global BGP route announcements and discovered China Telecom publishing bogus routes that sucked up massive amounts of Canadian and US traffic and pushed it through Chinese listening posts. Much of today's internet traffic is still unencrypted, meaning that the entities monitoring these listening posts would have been able to read massive amounts of emails, instant messages and web-sessions.China Telecom's BGP attacks were also used to black-hole traffic in some instances (for example, traffic from an "Anglo-American bank's" branch in Milan was diverted wholesale to China, never arriving at its intended destination).After the traffic was copied by China Telecom for encyption breaking and analysis, it was delivered to the intended networks with only small delays. Demchak and Shavitt said.Such hijacking is difficult to detect as China Telecom has multiple points of presence (PoPs) in North America and Europe that are physically close to the attacked networks, causing almost unnoticeable traffic delivery delays despite the lengthened routes. Read the rest

Whether you're interested in pursuing design or professional photography, you'll likely build your career with Adobe's creative tools. From Photoshop and Lightroom to Premiere Pro and After Effects, Adobe provides designers, photographers, and video editors with the tools to do their jobs, and you can master them as well with help from the Complete Adobe Mastery Bundle.Packed with 11 courses on Photoshop, Lightroom, After Effects, and Premiere Pro, this collection will take you from beginner to expert with these programs. You'll start with essential editing tools and hacks in Photoshop. Then, you'll move on to editing videos in Premiere Pro, creating video intros in After Effects, and more. Plus, this collection even comes with insight for helping you launch your own freelance career, so you can take the next step toward working in this field right away.The Complete Adobe Mastery Bundle usually retails for $2,189, but you can get it today in the Boing Boing Store for only $39. Read the rest

This is an amazing story.Death Metal Grandma follows the story of 96 year old Holocaust survivor, former WW2 spy and famous songwriter Inge Ginsberg as she decides to pursue a new career: Death Metal.Its filmmaker, Leah Galant, writes:I found her story remarkable. Growing up in Austria, on the eve of World War II, Ms. Ginsberg fled the Holocaust and landed in a refugee camp in Switzerland. After the war she and her husband, Otto Kollmann, moved to Hollywood and built new lives, composing for some of the most popular singers of their generation, including Nat King Cole, Doris Day and Dean Martin. As Ms. Ginsberg grew older, she kept writing lyrics and poetry, and realized she needed to find new ways to reach an audience. How was she going to gain attention in a society where older women are neglected, silenced and often cast off? At age 93, she discovered a solution: death metal, where you can shout your lyrics instead of sing them. It offered a new opportunity for reinvention at an age where those chances can be elusive. So beyond the spectacle of her unlikely performances, Ms. Ginsberg’s story is really that of a woman who is finding new ways to be heard.I hope to be half as badass as Inge Ginsberg when I'm older. Read the rest

Blood is complicated: it changes texture, color and thickness depending on where it's flowing from and how fast. Though you can make a convincing fake blood with water, food coloring, flour and corn syrup, getting the proportions right depends on a scientific understanding of the context in which your fake blood is appearing.For example, if you want to simulate the blood of a geyser-flowing limb amputation, you want to go darker and less red than an old-fashioned blood spatter, and the drier the blood is, the more coagulated (and thus browny-black) it becomes.Robbie Gonzalez's guide to the science of fake blood is a great resource for adding much-needed verisimilitude to your costume, party, or haunt.Blood's creepy phase changes might be the hardest thing to reproduce in your blender at home, but thickening agents—like all-purpose flour and cornstarch—can help you dial in a more believable consistency. (Plus, they have the added benefit of making your homebrew blood less see-through and more opaque like the real thing.) If you're adding to the cup of corn syrup that you started with, try adding your thickening agent one teaspoon at a time.Continue varying your proportions of water, syrup, dye, and flour until you've produced a batch of blood in just the style you want. Don't be afraid to experiment: Try a few different formulations. Use dark corn syrup, or chocolate syrup, instead of the clear stuff, for a darker base mixture. Just remember: Like the real thing, fake blood has a tendency to stain. Read the rest

Anti-gay (and anti-fun) protestors have sued the Houston Public Library over the Drag Queen Storytime events. (Previously: different assholes, same bullshit in Louisiana.) From the Houston Chronicle:The library director and Mayor Sylvester Turner are named as defendants, accused of being recklessly entangled in “LGBT doctrine.” The lawsuit says the storytelling sessions advertised as appropriate for patrons of all ages at the Freed-Montrose Neighborhood branch should not be funded with taxpayer dollars since the library would not host a “man-woman marriage storytelling hour.”The group behind the lawsuit identify themselves as “Christ followers,” taxpayers and card-carrying library patrons.Another plaintiff is Chris Sevier, who has filed a number of lawsuits across the country, including one in Houston for the right to marry his laptop. If men can marry men, he has argued, why can’t he marry a computer. The plaintiffs also include an evangelical minister and a woman who says she got into a custody battle with her husband after he left her for a transgender woman.Check out the Drag Queen Story Hour Web site and organize your own event!image: Drag Queen Story Hour at Santa Ana Public Library via Instagram Read the rest

On October 3rd, two high-accuracy clocks were placed in Tokyo Skytree. One was installed on a ground floor meeting room, while the other went all the way to the observation deck, 634 meters up. They were put there by a group of scientists from The University of Tokyo. Why? To test Einstein's theory of relativity, of course. An engineering professor at the University of Tokyo, Hidetoshi Katori, made the time-keeping devices -- called optimal lattice clocks -- back in 2005. They're believed to be some of the most accurate in the world. According to Einstein's theory of relativity, time should move faster on the observation deck than at the bottom floor. Professor Katori is hoping to prove just that. His clocks will be left in place for two months before the data is to be analyzed. Theoretically, after a single month, the time difference between the two clocks should be 0.13 microseconds. To give you an idea of how tiny a microsecond is, if you wanted to create a lag of a single second, the clocks would have to stay in place for 700,000 years.If this experiment is a success, then next it will be tried on Mount Fuji. More on the experiment can be found here at Asahi Shimbun and this video (Japanese). Read the rest

Companies have always tried to corral their customers into behaving in ways that maximize the companies' profits, even if that's not best for the customers: forcing you to use "official" printer ink, to buy your printers and terminals from the same company that sold you your mainframe, to get your apps from the company that sold you your phone.One especially effective profit-maximization strategy is controlling repairs. If a company can force you to use its official repair services, they can set prices for parts and service, and force you to use original manufacturer's parts, rather than third-party parts or refurbished parts. And, of course, they can refuse to repair a product after a certain number of years: in the absence of a third-party repair option, this means that you have to throw away your product and buy another one from the company.Though the urge to control customers to maximize profits is as old as business, the digital era has seen an important shift in the tactics used to make business models mandatory. The abuse of laws like Section 1201 of the DMCA (which bans breaking DRM), the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (which lets companies treat their "license agreements" as though they had the force of law), as well as trade secrecy and monopolistic supply-chain control has literally criminalized many forms of independent repair, and it's getting worse.Last year, 18 state level Right to Repair bills were crushed by a big business coalition led by the tech industry. Read the rest