The driver of a large truck put many people's lives in jeopardy when he swerved multiple times to keep the driver of a pickup truck from passing him on a multi-lane freeway. The pickup driver is also a jerk for not backing off.It's hard to tell what happens at the end of the video but it looks like the large truck runs the pickup truck off the road.Click To Expand

Cash bail has turned American jails into debtors' prisons, where the wealthy can go about their business while awaiting trial, and the poor can languish for months or even years in jail because they can't make bail (in practice, they generally plead guilty, regardless of their innocence). (more…)

Trend Micro makes popular apps for cleaning up systems and guarding against malware infection. At least one of its offerings in the Mac App Store uploads user data for reasons unknown, including web browsing history. This is very much like last week's Adware Doctor case, and suggests that the practice is widespread.

[Warning: Post contains graphic images.] Mexican investigators said Thursday they have discovered 166 human skulls in a clandestine burial pit in a central area of the Gulf state of Veracruz. (more…)

Every year, security researchers, hardware hackers and other deep geeks from around the world converge on an English nature reserve for Electromagnetic Field, a hacker campout where participants show off and discuss their research and creations. (more…)

The last year has been a dumpster fire for the norms of international relations. Many of the foundations of the modern international order have been brought into question, from the UN to the WTO to free trade in general. Although occasionally good results have come of this, for the most part it’s been extremely bad news, dominated by two terms in particular: Trump and Brexit.An endless supply of analysis has been thrown around, but one particularly informative sequence of events happened in response to Donald Trump’s unilateral declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in late 2017. Immediately thereafter, a UN Security Council vote was called to affirm the invalidity of Trump’s declaration, which the US promptly vetoed.Subsequently, the crackpot US Jerusalem policy was taken apart in the UN General Assembly in December 2017 with a humiliating 128 to 9 vote. Not that it changed much, since the US moved its embassy to West Jerusalem in May, deepening the longstanding conflict by resetting all talk of a peaceful solution to zero.If there’s any lesson to be drawn from this kerfuffle, it is that the UN itself is an absolutely necessary body for guaranteeing international law, but that it is simultaneously a body hobbled by a structure that implicitly assumes that the global superpowers are generally worthy of the veto power they wield. In practice, nobody takes the UN seriously, and therefore there is no real backbone to international law.The problem, of course, is that the UN General Assembly is a one-country-one-vote affair, giving China the same number of votes as Vanuatu, and putting the United States on par with Liechtenstein. The larger countries therefore have every reason to want veto power, the diplomatic nuclear option. But their veto is a little bit too much firepower most of the time, and it is frequently abused as a form of geopolitical bullying.There is an alternative. The establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly, which would be democratically elected by the general public in each UN member state, with seats allocated in a reasonable proportion to the population of each country and based on rules guaranteeing representativeness within each country’s delegation, would give larger countries like China, India, the US and Indonesia a size-appropriate level of power in the affairs of the UN, with the current General Assembly being made into something like a senate. This model would bring a balance to the forces at work within the UN, and hopefully eliminate the need for Security Council vetos; leaving the Security Council itself better off for it.While there are other possible approaches, this is one that resolves many of the valid criticisms of the UN as it stands, be it the unrepresentativeness, the lack of proportionality in the weighting of each nation, the substantial overkill involved in the current power structure of the security council, and the tendency of numerous smaller countries to be able to band together against the larger ones. It also furthers the goal of increasing public awareness of the work of the UN, which currently is residual at best.This is not a new proposal. A Campaign for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly has been going on for many years, and has been endorsed by myself and more than 1500 other elected representatives in 122 countries. It’s not even a particularly radical notion. It’s simply a proposal to reduce the nuclear nations' reliance on the veto while giving the general public a much needed voice in the affairs of the UN. A soft power mechanism for global politics. Imagine!But so far there hasn’t been a great deal of support for this kind of proposal. This is partially because the UN is an organization largely left to fend for itself. After Trump’s embarrassing defeat in the General Assembly, he further embarrassed himself and his office by petulantly defunding the UN to the tune of 258 million dollars a year. This nearly 5% budget cut for the international organization is a blow to global efforts to deal with humanitarian crises, international development challenges, and more generally the 17 Sustainable Development Goals which focus the global agenda. Trump’s most recent decision to defund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) deepens the problem even further.Some increase of enthusiasm is showing though. The European Parliament resolved in July to encourage the EU governments to support "the establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly”, and more generally support a "UN 2020 summit" that will consider "comprehensive reform measures for a renewal and strengthening of the United Nations." This should absolutely be done, and I will be calling on the Icelandic parliament to pass a similar resolution in September.Because, let’s face it: The UN is hardly anybody’s favourite organization and it has relatively few champions outside of its own ranks. Even core people understand the problems. The bureaucracy, the distance from the public, and the widespread (but entirely wrong) sense that it doesn’t accomplish anything do little to earn it public or political support. The political class in most countries treat it with something between disinterested reverence and confused fascination, and as a result it has become a refuge primarily for die-hard internationalists, romantic humanitarians, and ambitious careerists ─ all of whom are fighting the good fight, regardless of their reasons.But the UN should be a favourite organization of a great many more people. The idea it was founded on, of upholding universal human rights and providing a platform for the world’s people to peacefully resolve their differences and move humanity towards a better future, is as lofty as any idea can be. And if Donald Trump’s misguided approach to diplomacy can be a rallying cry for greater support for that idea and the organization that upholds it, then make it so.Either way, the UN needs to evolve. Its importance is clear, but it needs to become more human, less bureaucratic, more effective and less distant. The same is true of a great many international organizations, from the Council of Europe to the World Trade Organization. That Trump and others in the new wave of populist nationalism can so easily snipe at these organizations shows that they’ve done a poor job of engaging with the public and remaining relevant. They’re barely representative and largely misunderstood. To anybody who understands what these organizations are supposed to do, their importance is clear, but reform and modernization is long overdue.This type of reform can be achieved, and now is the time to achieve it, before some petty despot does some real damage.Smári McCarthy is a member of the Icelandic parliament, where he works on foreign affairs, international trade, and economic policy.Image: Kremlin.ru

The northwestern Mexican state of Guerrero’s ocean side vistas, Mayan and Zapotec heritage and mountainous terrain would make it a postcard-pretty place to be—if it weren’t for all the murder and financial destitution. Because of the extreme poverty in the region, the state has one of the lowest life expectancy rates in the nation. According to the Guardian, close to 70% of the people who call Guerrero home, live in poverty. This misery experienced on a daily basis by those living in Guerrero is compounded by an ongoing turf war between cartels and the Mexican military resulting in one of the highest murder rates per capita, in the world. The violence is so extreme that most professionals who can afford to pick up and relocate, have done so. The loss of lawyers? Meh. However, having no Doctors or other medical staff to care for a population trapped in an already untenable situation is nightmare.Thankfully, with little fanfare, Médecins Sans Frontières is on the scene, trying to make a difference.From The Guardian:

When Boston 25 news reporter Kathryn Burcham was at the scene of a plane crash in Hanson, Massachusetts, she reported live that, according to the pilot, "the issue was with a defective flux capacitator."Assuming the plane was not a Back to the Future-style time machine, Burcham's mistake made for a fun real-time blooper moment. It's not clear whether the pilot, 20-year-old Jacob Haselden, was just pulling a light-hearted prank, or if he actually said "a fluxgate compass" and the reporter just got it wrong.

I own a Nintendo Switch. I deeply Enjoy my Nintendo Switch. I am not, however, thrilled to discover that I am paying more games for my Nintendo Switch than folks playing on other platforms are.From Ars Technica:

https://youtu.be/bUXj2aZPXrAIn 1965 David Bowie was in a band called The Manish Boys. Getty just found photos of a long-haired 18-year-old David Bowie (who called himself Davie Jones at the time).Two interesting things to note: the guy on the left in the top photo is a dead ringer for The Pretenders drummer Martin Chambers, and the guy in the second and third photos adjusting Bowie's jacket looks like a young Al Gore.

If an attacker takes control of a device inside your network -- by exploiting a defect in it or a mistake you made in configuring it or by tricking you somehow -- then they can do all kinds of bad things, like scanning your local network for other vulnerable devices, attacking them and taking control over them. (more…)

Julia Reda is the Member of the European Parliament who has led the fight against Article 13, a proposal to force all online services to create automatic filters that block anything claimed as a copyrighted work. (more…)

Hotel safes with keypad combinations have become a staple in a certain level of hotel room, but if the administrative override code was not changed from the factory settings, it's incredibly easy to open one. (more…)

In her new book "Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House," Omarosa Manigault-Newman claims she was offered $15,000 a month to stay quiet about all things Trump after she was fired from her position as Director of Communications for the White House Public Liaison Office. The person who allegedly offered her the money if she agreed to sign an NDA? The President's daughter-in-law Lara Trump.

McDonald's advertising has been baffling before, but this one is all kinds of weird.The breakfasts are pretty good.

Artist and copyright shero Ali Spagnola (previously) released Freewheeling, where she plays sax while riding her bike, which doules as all the percussion instruments. (more…)

After NYPD Sgt. Richard Blake shot Thavone Santana in the face during a confrontation, we were told a terrifying story of being threatened and mugged early Thursday on the mean streets of Brooklyn. Unfortunately for Blake, a nearby video camera captured him drawing his gun, shooting someone who was trying to move away from him, then dropping a knife near his unconscious body.

I can not read or understand very much of Hiroshi Unno's The Art of Fantasy, Sci-fi and Steampunk, but it is a visual treat!This tome collects images and art from novels, early fantasy and romance to steampunk. Unno catalogs the incredible maturation of fantasy art work from the 19th century today.I spent a couple hours leafing through this book, and it will live on my coffee table for quite a while.The Art of Fantasy, Sci-fi and Steampunk by Hiroshi Unno via Amaozn

Forty years ago, investigative journalists in Chicago hatched an audacious plan to create a fake tavern packed with hidden microphones, cameras, and reporters everywhere working as bar staff and customers. Their goal was to document local corruption. Topic has a great oral history of the project. (more…)

So you like Trello but like your terminal even more? Taskwarrior and Taskbook are apps for task management and note-taking that live in the dark space of pure text. From Taskbook's homepage:

It's rare for Amazon to sell Apple's wireless AirPods let alone have them on sale. I bought a pair in March and I really like how convenient and easy to use they are. Right now Amazon is selling them for $145 with free Prime shipping, which is $14 less than the price at the Apple store.

Leonardo Da Vinci kept a to-do list. The thing that struck me was his interest in seeking out experts to teach him and show him how to do things. This list is from 1490 or so.

Police officers in King’s Lynn, Norfolk pulled over a car that was missing a bumper, a side panel, and headlights. It also had a flat tire. When they walked over to the car they noticed that the driver was using pliers as a steering wheel and was sitting on a partially collapsed plastic bucket in place of a seat. They told the gentleman to not do this any more. Oddity Central has more photos of the remarkable horseless carriage.

The UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal has ruled that GCHQ (the UK's domestic surveillance apparatus) illegally engaged in mass surveillance for more than a decade (starting after 9/11), during which time the foreign secretaries who were supposed to be overseeing their activities "delegated powers without oversight," allowing the spies to police their own activities. (Images: Defense Images, CC-BY-SA; Cryteria, CC-BY)

With single-family home in the Bay Area averaging $935,000, families there making $117,000 are considered low income. The run-up on house prices is blamed on tech workers who can pay top dollar for houses. From CBS News:

Bruce Rauner is a millionaire hedge-fundie who currently serves as governor of Illinois, a position he attained by campaigning as an "anti-corruption" candidate. (more…)

Josh writes, "Imagine the Belters of the Expanse watching as Earth and Mars shape their lives, the civilians in Battlestar Galactica living with the decisions made by the military and the folk of Downbelow in Babylon 5, abandoned to destitution and squalor by those who built the station. Flotsam is a game is about characters like that. In Flotsam you play outcasts, renegades and misfits trying to make their way in a world where poverty and gang conflict sit alongside alien technology and supernatural weirdness. You play through their lives, their interpersonal relationships and small-scale drama against the epic backdrop of space." (more…)

Chances are you've heard C418's music, even if you've never heard of him: he scored Minecraft. Now the Berlin-based producer and composer, aka Daniel Rosenfeld, has his first solo album on the way. Here's a single from it, titled Beton. [via Variety]

Curlicuecal has a PhD in entomology and did graduate work on ant behavior. Recently Curlicuecal rated ant emojis from Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and other companies on their Tumblr. Apple has the best ant, and Mozilla had the worst (they use a termite).Beautiful big almond eye, realistic and full of expression as she gazes gently at you. Elbowed antennae and delicately segmented legs and body. Gorgeous pearlescent sheen like she is glowing. This ant moisturizes. This ant is round and huggable. This ant is a star. 11/10.Beautifully detailed, lifelike pose but with an unexpected neck and odd antennae, perhaps scared straight. Her eyes suggest she has seen things. Her expression confirms she has seen too much. She is haunted and I want to know more. 7/10.

"Today's Republican Party is the most dangerous organization in human history," intones Noam Chomsky as methodically describes "a level of criminality that is almost hard to find words to describe." (more…)

The always entertaining and inspiring YouTuber Code Bullet decided to build a 2048-playing AI from scratch. It's really interesting to see him also build 2048 as part of the process. (more…)

Fortnite Season Five is off to a blazingly ridiculous start! The beginning of a new season is the best time to buy your Battle Pass! Get to work!Fortnite is fantastic fun. The 100 player Battle Royale mode sports fantastic gameplay physics and mechanics on Xbox, PS4, Nintendo, PC, and Apple iOS. The game is packed with hilarious animations, dances, actions, weapons, and locations. Backstory and Easter eggs are ludicrously sprinkled all over the map in a manner that is only additive and addictive, but doesn't impact gameplay at all. There is deep strategy to be learned, skill to be developed, and a massive eSports prize pool to aim for, or players can just build a crazy ramp and try jump a shopping cart across half the map.Fortnite has it all. I have been frequently asked if folks should buy the available-in-game Battle Pass. For $10 the Battle Pass is a bargain! You will immediately get a character skin and a few other items of bling, but the real value is the series of challenges and rewards that are super fun and fulfilling over the next 10 weeks. Adding some 'progression' and goals to a game this is otherwise just a constant repetition. 'Drop on the island, find loot, try to survive' gets a corollary "I need to blow 3 people up with plunger grenades" or "I have to dive through 20 hoops as I skydive down to the island." Occasionally the challenges are crazy fun, or just plain weird. The seasonal appearance of Island Gnomes and their chittering creepy voices makes me want to complete that task quick.Completing whole sets of weekly tasks also gets you bonus loot. You do not need any of this loot to win at Fortnite. While the game plays exactly the same without decorative loot, the challenge/reward system adds a lot of fun!Keep at it and sooner or later you'll be racking up wins and 'dancing the L' on pools of loot left by eliminated opponents.

Oh, I adore this. My whole living room is decorated in vintage/retro western kitsch. For this Sonora ceramic cactus juicer, I'd be willing to extend the decor into the kitchen. Squeezing out the roughly $31.70 (plus $29.30 for shipping) is the only thing holding me back.image via DOIY Design of Barcelona(Foodiggity)

Videogame commercials are practically a lost art. The 1980s was the peak of videogame advertising, especially on television. Above, a one hour collection of those fantastic commercials. No matter how silly and crazy they may be, they're still a vital part of videogame history. Don't miss: The Toys R Us (RIP) commercial featuring Atari's Pac-Man and a classic Atari rap. Have fun!

As someone born with a penis, I can’t imagine how uncomfortable and intrusive a Pap test must be. If you’re a fella that’s unfamiliar with what a Pap test is, ask a gal pal or allow me to give you the gist: A Pap test, also called a Pap smear, is a test that screens a woman for cervical cancer. To conduct the test, a doctor scrapes tissue from a woman’s cervix to screen it for abnormal growth that could be indicate that cancer could be in her cards. Given the stakes, I can see why someone would subject themselves to this. According to the CBC, a recent study has determined that being tested for human papillomavirus (HPV,) instead of simply screening for abnormal cells, can be a whole lot more effective at determining whether a woman is at risk of developing cervical cancer. The real kicker here is that, for woman, being tested for HPV can be an almost identical procedure to getting a pap smear. That means a whole lot more gain for the same amount of pain.From the CBC:

Bill Wurtz is back, this time with sexy pants. (more…)

In this video, three reputable Italian chefs are subjected to severe moral injury by being forced to watch the top five 'how to cook carbonara' videos on YouTube. Their emotions range between outrage, disappointment, dour amusement and absolute horror in under 13 minutes. Be sure to turn subtitles on for this one before settling in.The most interesting thing for me was how disappointed they were in the final video that they watched, which features Jamie Oliver showing off his carbonara chops. According to the chefs, they ain't great. Their chief complaint was that he failed to show the meat being properly sanitized before chopping it up and throwing it in a hot pan to fry. I'm sure the pig processing poop adds flavor, but Yuck.Image via Wikipedia

Dev Tube delivers exactly as promised: a selection of high-quality videos for developers. And it's not just about code, but craftsmanship and career.

For Dancing in Movies, Casper Langbak took dancing scenes from over 300 movies and set them to some great retro hits.YouTube gave it an instablock because of the music used, but he does have a channel over there with cool stuff like this tribute to cinematic evil:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOnc6l7hu-0• Dancing in Movies (Vimeo / CLS Videos)

In times of trouble, people want to do something, but as activist Kat Calvin points out, make sure your time and resources are spent wisely. Otherwise you end up enriching grifters: (more…)

Mike Prichinello co-founded Classic Car Club in Manhattan, which recently moved into a beautiful new space. Mauricio Mochon shot some of the gorgeous cars on display. (more…)

It's been a year since the Asian-American band The slants won their court case against the US Patent and Trademark office, which had refused to allow them to trademark their band-name because it was a racial slur. (more…)

The Wildbook project conducts wild animal population censuses by combining photos of animals taken by tourists, scientists, and volunteers and then using their distinctive features (zebra stripes, whale fluke shapes, leopard spots, etc) to identify individuals and produces unprecedented data that uses creepy facial recognition tools for non-creepy purposes. (more…)

Patrick Costello (previously) writes, "I had to go through a 25 hr EEG, but I didn't let the wires glued to my head stop me from posting my weekly frailing banjo workshop."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Rs1B8V4vx0When Yale psych professor Laurie Santos offered a course in how to be happy -- based on the latest peer-reviewed science -- she hoped that a reasonable number of students would sign up (after all, the literature suggested that there is an epidemic of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation among US college students); the course was the most successful in Yale's history, with one in four students enrolling (more…)

People who help domestic abuse survivors say that they are facing an epidemic of women whose abusers are torturing them by breaking into their home smart devices, gaslighting them by changing their thermostat settings, locking them out of their homes, spying on them through their cameras. (more…)

While it's fun to watch Hollywood action heroes hack into cameras to spy on their targets, the thought of an actual cybercriminal using our own security devices against us is chilling for most. That's what makes the iPM World HD 360 Degree 1080p Wireless IP Camera essential for anyone looking to deter digital and physical intruders alike, and it's available today for $44.99.Completely encrypted and capable of rotating 360 degrees, the IPM World Wireless Camera lets you monitor your living space while keeping your feed under lock and key. You can view footage from your smartphone via the WiFi client and rotate it remotely to get the perfect angle. Plus, with infrared night vision built in, you can keep tabs when the lights are off.The iPM World HD 360 Degree 1080p Wireless IP Camera is available in the Boing Boing Store today for $44.99.

'Disease outbreaks and a lack of medical personnel await those imprisoned in Victorville, California.' Prison staff in Victorville say immigrant detainees are treated like 'cockroaches.' There's already an outbreak of scabies and a case of chicken pox among the detainees.(more…)

It was 1997 when Simon Jansen started his remake of the first Star Wars film -- Episode IV - A New Hope -- as an ASCII animation (or "asciimation," as he coined it). (more…)

Shenzhen Gwelltimes Technology Co., Ltd is the white-label vendor behind a whole constellation of Internet of Things networked home cameras sold as security cameras, baby monitors, pet monitors, and similar technologies; these cameras are designed to be monitored by their owners using an app, and because of farcically bad default passwords ("123") and other foolish security practices (such as sequentially numbering each camera, allowing attackers to enumerate vulnerable devices), the devices are trivial to locate and hijack over the internet. (more…)