Blindsight is a strange phenomenon that sometimes occurs when people have lost sight due to visual cortex damage but still respond to visual stimuli outside of their conscious awareness. New research into blindsight is offering clues, and even more riddles, about how we can "pay attention" outside of what we historically have considered conscious thought. From David Robson's fascinating article in BBC Future:

Jen Yamoto of The Daily Beast describes Belladonna of Sadness (Kanashimi no Belladonna) from 1973 as a "long-forgotten X-rated psychedelic animation gem about one woman’s violation, persecution, and sexual awakening produced over four decades ago by the makers of Astro Boy." Read about the film here and watch the NSFW "psychedelic orgy of sexual liberation explode" in the clip above.

Want free VIP tickets to Boing Boing's favorite annual music event, the Treasure Island Music Festival taking place on the San Francisco Bay, October 17-18? This year, you will be thrilled by the unique musical stylings of The National, deadmau5, FKA Twigs, The War On Drugs, Chvrches, Father John Misty, Lower Dens, Jose Gonzalez, and more than a dozen other acts. Our pals at Noise Pop, co-promoters of the event with Another Planet Entertainment, have gifted us a pair of VIP 2-Day Tickets (a $630 value) to pass on to Boing Boing readers! VIP includes access to a nice viewing area beside the main stage, tented lounge with full bar, special VIP food sellers, and private restroom facilities (yay!). To win the passes, we are continuing our annual tradition of the Treasure Island Music Festival Haiku Contest!Here's what to do:Write a Haiku about why you want to attend the festival! The Haiku must consist of three lines, with the first line containing 5 syllables, the second containing 7 syllables, and the third line containing 5 syllables. Then post your Haiku to the Boing Boing forum right here. You have until 11:59pm PDT on Thursday (10/1) to enter. We'll pick our favorite Haikus and email you at the address you used to create your forum account. (Or you can list an alternate address in your entry.) On Friday (10/2), I'll post our three finalists who will each receive a Boing Boing t-shirt! On Tuesday (10/6), I'll announce the winner of the VIP tickets. Please only one entry per person. Good luck!!!And if you'd prefer just to purchase tickets to Treasure Island Music Festival, please step right this way...

Greetings, Offworlders! We're proud to team up with our friends at Critical Distance to bring you a special digest edition of their popular This Week in Videogame Blogging feature, showcasing games discussion from all around the web. This week, a therapist shares her successes getting through to young patients through Mario Kart, actor Wil Wheaton discusses a possible union strike by industry voice actors, and we explore Line Hollis's mixtape of games that break the fourth wall. — LeighFirst up, at Ontological Geek, therapist Kim Shashoua shares a couple of experiences where videogames became an essential tool for reaching young people in group therapy:

https://youtu.be/4vUYeQwUTZwDemocracy at work. (The Woodcreek Faction)

Inferno - Bullet Time Camera Array from Mitch Martinez.[via]

There was a gloomy scent to the phrase, one very characteristic of Akhmatova’s unique style, and it seems well suited to a cute blue robot who brings tidings of their own through the medium of a videogame. Turing, the protagonist of Midboss’ newly released Read Only Memories 2064, is a guest from an all-too-credible future— one as layered as Akhmatova’s own thoughts about her time.As with Akhmatova's poetry, there is a bright color to ROM2064 that conceals an essential sadness; a surface-level reading would mistake the game’s synth-bop portrayal of Neo San Francisco for an apolitical, overly optimistic RPG. But, just as with Turing themselves, there’s more than meets the eye.ROM2064 manages several delicate balancing acts: It eschews trendy cynicism without being naive, it remains accessible to new players without sacrificing the frisson of a good challenge, and, perhaps most importantly, it breathes life into queer characters without either tokenizing them or openly moralizing about them. This is a game that does not try to convince you of queer people’s humanity: instead, it models it.The game allows your character to pick gender neutral pronouns, and presents a variety of genders and sexualities in the its fun and diverse cast; altogether it feels like a story by us and for us as queer people, that can also speak fluently to those outside the community. That might’ve been the toughest balancing act of all.What ROM does with its cyberpunk setting is just as interesting, and while it sometimes fails to live up to its potential there, it beautifully illustrates its themes in a way that constitutes a breath of fresh air for the genre.You play a freelance technology journalist with a clogged sink and a broken window who wakes up to find Turing in your apartment, summoning you to adventure in their shy, if loquacious way. Their creator, Hayden, a star programmer at the Microsoft-cum-Google tech firm Parallax, has gone missing, apparently kidnapped by mysterious forces who he’d suspected of closing in on him. Your tenuous old friendship with the man and your job as a journalist has led Turing to determine that you were the most statistically likely to help find him.Most important of all: Turing is the first truly conscious, sapient robot in a world where most of their kind still slavishly obeys their programming.Thus begins a lengthy quest to discover what happened and, ultimately, why. This is not a brief game, for certain. If you know about classic "point and click" adventure games like Gabriel Knight or The Secret of Monkey Island, you'll be familiar with the structure here: You explore your environment, pick up and interact with objects, and speak to different characters, and ROM's Neo SF is a beautifully painted series of digital warrens, full of touchable things. The city makes a demand on your time that’s all too easy to give into; from start to finish it should take between six to ten hours, a remarkable length for a queer indie game.Thankfully, despite the intimidating length, one never feels like the pace plods on; you flit quickly from lead to lead across the six square miles of Neo SF, each new character and location drawing you deeper into the plot. You could almost picture your character’s apartment wall filling up with clippings, clues, photographs, and more as a Pulitzer-worthy story begins to emerge about Hayden’s work and why he disappeared.ROM’s thematic brushstrokes are brightly coloured and paint, at first, a seemingly optimistic vision of San Francisco’s future: heroic technologists, a diverse city where queer people live and party in the Castro. In the coming techno-neoliberal dystopia, our robots shall be cute, after all. It can almost, at first blush, seem wantonly ignorant of the current direction of the city. But look deeper and you realise that the brightness of the city is merely in service to the humanity of the characters. There are familiar nightmares in those pixels; android killing machines, privatised police forces, tech companies whose veneers of public service conceal terrifying aims, and rampant discrimination against people known as “hybrids”—genetically and technologically modified humans.Hybrids are seen as a threat to the “purity” of humanity, and the so-called “Human Revolution” organises against both them and the proliferation of robots like Turing, often protesting outside gene thereapy clinics where hybrids go for treatment. The optics a future where opposition to bodily choice and fear of technology merge anti-choice and anti-trans politics into a single reactionary force, should not be lost on the player.Earlier I called Turing the game's protagonist, however, and there’s a reason for that far beyond the fact that they’re the mascot of the game and your companion throughout. This is their story first and foremost, and it makes for an interesting displacement of player: you may make a lot of decisions that Turing depends on you for, but Turing is the catalyst of all action in the game. Ultimately you're following the story of theri growth into a position of self knowledge and responsibility. The first half of the game sees you searching both for Hayden and the truth about Turing’s history and development, of which the fairly young robot is ignorant. The second half’s arc cannot be described in detail without fear of spoiling, but suffice it to say, it is about Turing putting their newfound knowledge to use in a way that brings the title of the game to brillian life.I’ll give one more teaser: the final boss is not a battle, but a conversation.Your decisions and actions do certainly affect the game’s outcome, but that manifests as nudging Turing’s blossoming personality and self-direction in one way or the other. In one pivotal scene, you refer to Turing as an object that belongs to you while speaking to another human; afterwards Turing reprimands you for this, reminding you that they are sapient and never consented to being owned by you. Nothing you say changes that; the fact that you are shoehorned into making the inappropriate comment is a reminder of whose game this really is. You merely create the conditions in which Turing can grow, but that makes for a fascinating experience unto itself and serves as yet another reminder that one can create beautiful games without always giving the player godlike powers of choice.This is less a story about how an AI comes to its sentience than about what happens after. Our little blue guest from the future, then, has many possible stories to tell us about what they’ve learned, about family, gender, community, and how hope can still survive in an ambiguous cyberpunk dystopia.

https://vimeo.com/channels/staffpicks/139909203Luca Pozzi Statement's wireframe dreamworld illustrates the calm electronic music of Sarc:o, whose album, Manifesto, is out now.

Kevin Lee (proprietor of Fides Leather and a master with the knife), makes it look so easy! But the devil is in details that are easy to miss: perfect creases made with heated irons, carefully skiving panels to reduce their thickness at critical points, and a set of the right tools for the job.At Reddit's DIY community, he explains how he got into the premium artisanal leatherworking racket and shares the shopping list you'll need to join him.

A report on sedentary behavior among middle-aged Korean men links prolonged sitting to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.Published in the Journal of Hepatology, the research will increase attention to the effect of spending hours a day upon one's arse, working, watching TV or fooling around with phones and computers.Elsevier, via r/science

Herman from Colombia's Proyecto Liquido writes, "This is part of Medellín Steampunk a city project that resulted from a partnership between Fractal and the Secretary of Culture of the Medellín Mayor's Office.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56lFhpByO2sA foolish motorist was lucky to escape unharmed after trying to kill a spider in Center Line, Michigan, with fire. At a gas pump. While pumping gas.After spotting the terrifying creature and perhaps remembering the Internet's advice on how such things are best disposed of, he whipped out a lighter and promptly set ablaze everything in front of him. He put out the fire himself with a nearby extinguisher, but not before the pump was destroyed.Fox News Detroit reports that he later came back to say he was sorry.

The new agency's new stylebook entry advises against using "deniers" as well, but at least it acknowledges that the true skeptics are adherents to the scientific method.The change was made to "help our reporters and editors present the news accurately, concisely and clearly."

Distorted by the jargon and cultures of various disciplines, the concept of probability—and the terms we use around it—tend to be somewhat misleading. Math with Bad Drawings probably has your profession nailed with its set of what are, in fact, very good drawings. [via Flowing Data]

The scientists point out that RICO threats were critical to ending big tobacco's program of denying the link between cancer and smoking.

Earlier this month, a huge bundle of marijuana fell from the sky over Nogales, Arizona, crashing through the roof of a carport and destroying a dog house. Bill and Maya Donnelly turned the 23.8 pound of weed over to police who valued it at $9,500. From the Nogales International:

26 pounds of pot were found in the wreckage after a doghouse in Nogales, close to the US-Mexico border, was pulverized in the night by a package that fell from the sky.The bundle of joy, worth $10,000, was probably dropped by a smuggler's drone or jet. German Shepherd Hulk was unharmed, but his new doghouse and other damages will cost $500.

German automaker Audi has admitted that it fitted "defeat devices" to 2.1m vehicles to cheat on emissions tests. Audi is a subsidiary of Volkswagen, whose use of the gadgets on some 11m diesel engines was exposed by nonprofit investigators.The BBC reports that the Audi vehicles were sold worldwide: 1.4m in Europe, 577k of them in Germany, and 13k in the United States. The scandal threatens to destroy the group, but suspicions abound that other automakers are engaged in similar shenanigans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F8sPBsR9LoThey've already made up their minds about annoying buzzing noises we humans are in two minds about.

Loot Crate is the first ever subscription service for those that live and breathe the geek and gaming lifestyle. With this 3-month subscription, you will join a network of “looters” who have access to the best gear, collectibles, toys, apparel, art, and other goodies made just for them. From “Fantasy” to “Villains”, each month will feature an epic theme that’s sure to speak you in ways you never saw coming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uiTtt8JFZoFor anyone who has raised children: sing along, you know the words.

https://youtu.be/nhnKRg9SBQ4Simon Parkin has done an interesting profile at the Guardian of players with disabilities who have found a community—and a supplemental income—via online streaming service Twitch. He interviews Mackenzie, a young woman with severe epilepsy who plays games online for a select audience she is careful about getting to know.Like Mackenzie, who sees her work as partially a way to promote understanding of her condition, streamer Stacey Rebecca plays the competitive digital card game Hearthstone, and shares some of her challenges with her fans:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQKSPEO6TzY&feature=youtu.be&t=1m40sRude language abounds in this splendid confrontation on a dreary street somewhere north of Hull.

Rapper Young Thug has declared that almost all his clothes are womens' clothes.

Steven W Thrasher, a self-described "black burner" interviewed 20 burners of color on their experience at and motivations for attending Burning Man, where the population is 87% white and 1.3% black.

These demonic presences are angry—even angrier than usual!—because eagerly-awaited retro-style game Sword Coast Legends has been delayed.

Jen is the incredible artist who adapted my short story "Anda's Game" for last year's middle-grades graphic novel In Real Life.You might also know her from her 2010 debut graphic novel Koko Be Good (which I loved, loved, loved).She'll be appearing for free at the Felipe de Neve Branch Library on Oct 7, from 4-5:40.Meet Author / Illustrator Jen Wang! Teen Read Week Event! [LAPL]

Seelix set out to make an incredible costume that mashed up Imperator Furiosa from Mad Max Fury Road and Princess Peach from the Super Mario franchise -- she succeeded.She documented her process in a generous post that provides great insight into how you can take on a challenge like this yourself.

TruBrain is a cognitive enhancer that increases focus, attention, mental acuity, complex reasoning, productivity, and overall performance. Designed by top neuroscientists who’ve studied cognitive optimization for decades, truBrain aims to provide you with improved brain function without the negative side effects of other energy-enhancing alternatives.

https://youtu.be/QqqVSMLV5UkI hope you're having a better weekend than this couple, surreptitiously filmed here insulting their neighbor.Posted to YouTube and Reddit by "K," the claimed target of the taunts, the insulting duo lob classics such as "stupid says what", "she's so fat she can't hear," and "a durr durr, durr."The couple appears to be middle-aged. One can only hope that they do this sort of thing for a living.

The 'despicable' Saudi prince accused of sexually assaulting 'multiple women' over 3 days in a $37 million Beverly Hills compound has disappeared.Majed Abdulaziz Al-Saud, 29, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of forced oral copulation of an adult, but was soon out of jail on $300,000 bail--even as other women came forward to say they too were sexually assaulted by a globe-trotting predator, and held against their will.The U.S. State Department and the Los Angeles Police Department's special consul division have both said Al-Saud does not appear to have diplomatic immunity.Where is the prince now? The Los Angeles Times reporter who broke the story doesn't have an answer yet, and neither does anyone else who's talking. Best guess? He's long since out of Los Angeles, on a private jet headed back home to Riyadh. He has an October 19 court date in LA, and I'd agree that it's too early to tell what, if anything, will happen on that date.[caption id="attachment_424001" align="alignnone" width="590"] Aerial view of the mansion where Majed Abdulaziz Al-Saud was arrested[/caption]From Joe Serna's updated report today in the LA Times:

See sample pages from this book at Wink.Grids & Guides is an ideas book as suitable for engineers and makers as it is for visual artists and other artsy types. Rather than the usual lined pages, this notebook – or self-described journal – offers eight different repeating patterns, such as a dotted point grid, a triangular isometric grid, and a diamond pattern grid. Very similar to the first Grids & Guides notebook we reviewed last summer, this latest edition is updated in several ways: 1) Red cover instead of black; 2) Mostly new patterns on the pages; and 3) New interspersed infographics pages, including a unit equivalents table, a knot tying chart, a world map, a lesson on perspective projection, and lots more. This notebook works as both a repository for new ideas as well as a springboard that inspires out-of-the-box thinking. And it makes a great gift for anybody with a creative thought at their fingertips.Grids & Guides: A Notebook For Visual Thinkers

The new kid is Hilo, the titular boy who crashed to Earth, and now he lives in Daniel's bedroom -- and follows him to school, after reading the family's encyclopedia set and dictionary (in 20 minutes).Daniel is worried that Hilo will get him in trouble, but Hilo has it figured out. He releases a raccoon into the school office and, during the ensuing panic, manufactures an entire plausible history for himself and inserts it into the school records. He shows up in class next to Daniel, and alongside of Gina, Daniel's long-lost best friend, who has just moved back to their small town from New York City.Hilo, of course, is a robot, and he fights bad robots, and the very worst of those robots, Razorwark, has his sights set on Earth. As Hilo recalls more of his personal history, a terrifying mystery is revealed, but in the midst of some of the funniest action sequences and running gags you're likely to read this year.Every single thing about this first volume in a promising new series is terrific, from the character design to the plotting to the coloring and illustration. Creator Judd Winick (who was an early reality TV star on MTV's The Real World) is a massively accomplished comics creator and screenwriter who has written for Batman, Star Wars and a host of other major comics titles.It was immensely fun to read at bedtime -- many of the panels are wordless, save for sound effects, and that is the kind of bedtime reading that can get parents and kids hconvulsed with laughter. The only problem was that after I'd finish a chapter and go to bed myself, I'd get up and discover that my daughter had turned on the light and was reading ahead. Hilo Book 1: The Boy Who Crashed to Earth [Judd Winick/Random House]Hilo Book 2: Saving the Whole Wide World [Judd Winick/Random House] [Pre-order]

The illustrator collaborated with Syrian writer Marwan Hisham (a pseudonym), who sent her mobile-phone photos from Syria that she used as the basis for a striking and moving series of illustrations for a Vanity Fair feature.It's a continuation of Discordia, the work on riot-torn Greece that Crabapple did with Laurie Penny in 2012.In an excellent PBS interview, Crabapple reflects on the collaboration.

The modern business creates mountains of raw data—the challenge being the ability to effectively analyze it. Big data analytics is the ticket to uncovering hidden patterns, correlations, trends, and more, all of which can be the difference maker in your business’s success and competitive advantage. This bundle of more than 130 data and analytics courses will show you how to master data science techniques, and in turn become an invaluable (and highly paid) member of your team.

One UK police officer is arrested for criminal behaviour every day with the Metropolitan London Police accounting for the lion's share.The majority of police arrests are for sexual offenses.The Met isn't just a hive of scum and villainy -- they're also pretty bad at their jobs. They lead the UK in unsolved domestic burglaries.

The Catalan independence movement is a perennial factor in Spanish politics, but it's had a new lease on life since the financial crisis and the imposition of brutal austerity by the country's banker-friendly, authoritarian government.Last year's symbolic referendum was a sign of the region's displeasure with Madrid, and the annual independence marches grow bigger each year. Barcelona's election an anti-eviction activist to the mayor's chair is the surface expression of deep political discontent.Across the EU, national unity is fraying as regions seek to break free of the neoliberal consensus on austerity and privatisation. Of course, the leaders of those fragile nations have lined up to tell Catalonians that a vote for independence will mean an end to EU membership -- starting with David Cameron, who narrowly avoided losing Scotland to separatists last year. Cameron is merely returning a favor: the Scottish independence referendum was bollocked from the sidelines by Spain, whose national government made the same warning to Scots who wanted to break away from the banker-worshipping cult of Westminster.

The human figures are part of a series called Psychogeography, and each one contains thousands of painstakingly clipped and collaged images from National Geographic back-issues, augmented with painted elements that span the different layers of glass. The glass is glued together with an adhesive that has the same refractive index as the glass itself, so that there are no visible seams from the front or back -- but when seen from the side or in three-quarter view, the layered elements become vivid and obvious.I toured Yellin's studio, which is adjacent to Pioneer Works, and saw dozens of the Psychogeography figures, many of which are destined to be installed on Sunset Boulevard in LA. It's impossible to overstate the impact of these pieces. They are each endlessly detailed, and take on new aspects when viewed at different angles. Seen en masse, they are overwhelming in the very best way.Yellin generously provided me with the gallery below, which shows the Psychogeography figures at the New York Ballet in the Lincoln Center. I think you'll agree they're amazing. He told me he's planning to produce enough to replicate the terracotta army, and to arrange them in ranks in the big room at the Tate in London. That's a show I'd fly back to the UK to see.NEW YORK CITY BALLETLincoln Center, 2015

The Financial Times reports that U.S. President Barack Obama has negotiated a commitment from Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping that China will not conduct commercial cyber espionage. In what were reportedly tense, prolonged talks, Obama communicated to the Chinese leader that the United States was ready to impose sanctions on Chinese companies accused of profiting from stolen industrial secrets.Snip from the paywall-restricted Financial Times piece:

https://youtu.be/KXYpJupNLSA“Did I get one?” Um, yeah. Yeah you did, Avery! What a beautiful loving moment between a dad and his daughter. If this doesn't make you smile, you should probably go fishing because it would probably cheer you up. And if this video is later revealed to be deep stealth sponsored content for Barbie, fine, man. Barbie, you win.[Ram Mehta]

Today, Friday, until 11:59pm PT you can sign up for an Amazon Prime subscription for $67. I use the hell out of Amazon Prime's free two-day shipping on everything from huge boxes of toilet paper to books and records to holiday gifts shipped to family and friends. They should set up a distribution facility at the bottom of my driveway. My kids also take advantage of Prime Video streaming of movies and TV shows on our tablet. (Amazon Prime also includes unlimited photo storage, streaming music, and free Kindle books, but I've never tried those features.) For the usual $99/year, my family absolutely gets our money's worth. It's a steal for $67/year. Amazon Prime

Kmashi's Dual USB portable charger packs a beefy 10000mAh and is just $9.29 when you use coupon code MHLSNM2R at checkout in the Amazon store. It also includes a micro USB charger cable. I have one of these and I'm pretty sure Jason does too.

A baboon tarantula loose on a Delta plane caused a three hour flight delay in Baltimore on Wednesday that ended when the airline brought in another aircraft to fly passengers to Atlanta.According to Delta, the spider had escaped from a cargo container. The spider was eventually found and had never made it into the passenger cabin."Safety and security are our top priority," the Delta spokesperson told The Baltimore Sun.According to Wikipedia, "most baboon spiders are not considered dangerous to humans."

Grace Brett, 104, is part of a guerrilla crochet group called the Souter Stormers who yarn bombed landmarks in Selkirk, Ettrickbridge and Yarrow, Scotland. The installation was tied to an arts festival in the area. Video below. “I liked seeing my work showing with everyone else and thought the town looked lovely," Brett said.Her daughter Daphne, 74, added "She thinks it is funny to be called a street artist.”More at the Daily Record.https://youtu.be/sa5FCItlIzU

If you've got a few bucks and some time to burn this weekend, there's a bundle of worthwhile indie games that can help you pass the time for the affordable price of pay-what-you-want.Humble Bundle is currently offering six titles in its "Fantastic Arcade" collection, including Wheels of Aurelia, an interactive fiction racing game set in 1970s Italy, Risky Bison, where you must "secur[e] the financial future of a herd of buffaloes," the psychedelic forest simulator Alea and a minimalist hockey game called HokyYou have to pay at least a dollar in order to get Steam keys, though of course it might be nice if you paid more. If you contribute more than $8, you'll get six more games as well, including the 2D-meets-3D puzzler Fez, the space exploration game Mirrormoon and Hotline Miami.Your donation can also help support the Ablegamers Foundation and Worldreader. Time is limited, though, so if you want to get on board you've got to push the appropriate buttons before October 1st.

https://youtu.be/3I3maTRmiYUDaft Punk Unchained, a French documentary by Hervé Martin Delpierre about the mysterious robot musicians, has just premiered in the UK with English subtitles. It looks killer and I hope it screens in the US soon!Daft Punk Unchained (BBC Worldwide)

https://youtu.be/TXLKpLNGhVAThe latest Postmodern Jukebox cover features Sara Niemietz singing a great soulful rendition of Outkast's "Hey Ya!"

The KARMA POLICE program is detailed in newly released Snowden docs published on The Intercept; it began as a project to identify every listener to every Internet radio station (to find people listening to jihadi radio) and grew into an ambitious plan to identify every Web user and catalog their activities from porn habits to Skype contacts.The program began in 2007/8 and it mined BLACK HOLE, which is GCHQ's repository for all the data sucked up by its fiber taps (which it calls "probes"). It attempted to map IP addresses to peoples' identities, and cross reference users' identities on various systems and in various locations, collecting them into "a web browsing profile for every visible user on the Internet."Part of this was accomplished by looking at a users' cookies -- if you log into Google on your phone and your laptop, GCHQ use its surveillance views into that cookie to connect all the traffic from your laptop and phone with a single identity. The agency exploited cookies from a wide variety of popular websites that put like/share buttons, beacons, and other assets on a many other sites. The targeted cookies came from Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Reddit, the BBC, Amazon, Wordpress, Yahoo, and others.KARMA POLICE drew on a frankly bewildering array of other programs, which sucked up data from a variety of sources. These programs were given exotic codenames by GCHQ: SOCIAL ANTHROPOID, MEMORY HOLE, MARBLED GECKO, INFINITE MONKEYS, etc. These logged different kinds of Internet events -- search queries, Google Maps searches, and BBS/message-board posts.The UK spy agency had an extraordinary view into the world's Internet traffic thanks to the number of oceanic fiber links that make landfall in the UK.Like the NSA, GCHQ relied on secret interpretations of the laws on spying to paper over its activities, so that it could tell its governmental overseers that all its activities were lawful. It amassed records on people from all over the world, including Britons, and routinely allows its spying partners to search its databases. The US NSA, as well as spy agencies from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand all have access to its data on British citizens and people from all over the world.

VW's diesel firmware detected when it was undergoing emissions testing and changed the engine tuning to produce 1/40 of its normal toxic output, fooling regulators. But though they're the only ones who've been caught using firmware to game emissions testing, they're not the only ones with something to hide.It's an open secret that manufacturers who're conducting gas-mileage testing on new cars trick them out in ways that are totally unrepresentative of field conditions, in order to produce sticker-numbers that promise eye-popping (and unattainable) fuel efficiency. These kinds of shenanigans work great in the EU, where auto manufacturers self-certify their efficiency claims and face no real penalties for lying.Before a car's fuel efficiency is tested, manufacturers take such steps as removing all extra weight (including the stereo!), removing source of drag like side mirrors, adding special lube to the engine and filling the tires with exotic gases. The alternator is switched off so that the gas goes further (but the battery drains), and the petrol itself is replaced with special, expensive blends not available in the wild. There are even more dirty tricks -- taping the seams in the panels to reduce drag, running the cars in high gear and at high temperatures, for example.But when you add firmware to the mix, you open up whole new fields for cheating manufacturers. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it a felony (punishable by up to five years in prison and a $500K fine for a first offense) to break the DRM on car firmware, meaning that you can hide all sorts of dirty secrets in there. Laws like the DMCA are present all over the world, thanks to the efforts of the US Trade Representative, who has made adopting protection for DRM into a condition for trading with the USA. As the world's governments have volunteered to spend tax-money to protect the secrecy of proprietary software, companies have taken them up on the implicit offer: add DRM to your products, get away with murder (literally).Volkswagen has retained some well-known lawyers to help them with Dieselgate: the firm of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, best known for defending BP after the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Who killed the world?

I try to keep business travel as light, and fast as I can. The Henty Wingman is a bag that matches my style perfectly.The Henty Wingman fits two or three sport coats, or two suits, in its garment pocket. There are also pockets for shoes, clothes and a waterproof section for your toiletries. I have no trouble packing for 3-4 days in this bag, and using it as my sole carry on. Once the bag is fully packed, it rolls up to something not much larger than a yoga mat.Jackets, if carefully packed, come out pretty much as nice and crease free as they did from the dry cleaner. I suggest folding your shirts into a compressing packing envelope, and not hanging them with the jackets. Packing shirts in the garment bag does leave them with some light creases. Nothing hanging out in the bathroom while you shower won't fix, however.The outside storage pocket fits my Kindle, iPad or even Macbook Air. I keep my chargers in there too, and I do not need to carry any other bags with me on short trips!I've managed as much as a two week trip, living out of this bag, but it involved a lot of laundry at hotels. It is certainly light, easy to pack and the first bag I look for when I've got to run out of town. Like right now!Henty Wingman Suit Bag via Amazon