The traditional explanation for the retail apocalypse is that Walmart and Amazon killed malls and big-box stores, but that account is incomplete -- the real story includes massive asset-stripping by debt-financed private equity vultures who paid themselves lavishly to run beloved businesses into the ground. (more…)

Jakiw Palij is a convicted Nazi war-criminal who helped train the force charged with murdering every Jew in Poland, guarded the Trawniki forced labor camp -- where 6,000 prisoners were murdered in a single day -- and was present at the "liquidation" of the Warsaw Ghetto. He's lived in the USA since 1949, when he entered the country and lied about his Nazi past. (more…)

Palantir is the surveillance company founded by authoritarian "libertarian" Peter Thiel; their business-development employee Alfredas Chmieliauskas was part of a cohort of Palantir employees who worked closely -- if informally -- with Cambridge Analytica as they hatched their plan to harvest 50,000,000 Facebook profiles with a deceptive "personality quiz" app. (more…)

Check out these groovy turntable sinks. The collection is called "Vinyl" and it's the creation of Italian designer Gianluca Paludi for Olympia Ceramica. It appears, appropriately, that speakers are an available attachment.(Design Milk)Thanks, Doug!

In 1981, the four To Tell the Truth panelists -- Soupy Sales, Pat Collins, Henry Morgan, and Peggy Cass-- weren't yet familiar with Larry King. Watch as they try to figure out who is the man behind the growing D.C.-based talk radio show. King was 47 years old when he appeared on the game show and he didn't start TV career on CNN until 1985.

Walmart has been advertising to my friend Terry in his Facebook feed. He showed me screenshots of the ads. They were all strange (octopus, anyone?) but the first one was particularly odd, one neither one of us had ever heard of before: funeral potatoes.The name made me curious, of course. I needed to learn more.The first thing I discovered is that they're are a Utah thing, usually served after Mormon funerals (hence the name).But what are they exactly? Well, Food & Wine describes them as "one of the greatest American triumphs" and offers this description of their ingredients:

A few years ago Vicki Momberg launched into a racist rant as a black police officer attemtped to help her. Shockingly, the video went viral. For verbal racist abuse a South African court has given Momberg a 3 year sentence, of which she will spend at least two in prison.Via The Guardian:

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Monday Night Rock. [cue heavy metal theme music] Hosted by Asad Vlogs.”(more…)

The first contact with the nerve agent novichok for former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter was right at home, say British police -- literally at the front door.(more…)

An exhibition game between the California Angels and the Los Angeles Dodgers was cancelled mid-game due to sewage on the field.Via SF Gate:

Sharpshooter Kirsten Joy Weiss got a brand new .22 and hit an egg three football fields away while standing. The hit happens at 8:15 for the impatient. (more…)

As if the Elf on a Shelf wasn't creepy enough, now they've put Peeps in the faux-surveillance game.A new book and plush Peep sold together as Peep on a Perch is encouraging parents to start a new "Easter family tradition":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=hFWaEdXjvlwLaunched in 2011, Tiangong-1 was China's first space station. In the past seven years, it hasn't gotten a lot of use – only two crews of astronauts have spent time on it, in 2012 and 2013. Despite this, Tiangong-1 remained fully operational until, in 2016, China's space agency, the China National Space Administration, lost contact with it. As you read this, Tiangong-1 is falling towards earth. Each orbit it takes brings it closer to our atmosphere. Soon, gravity will finish the job it started, pulling Tiangong-1 back to earth.No one's quite sure where the eight-ton piece of space junk is going to land yet, but thanks to the Virtual Telescope Project, it's possible to watch it as it comes down.From Space.com:

Now that is not a headline I thought I'd type when I got up this morning.Nonetheless, science! So, here are the grisly details: Black-footed and Laysan albatrosses have thrived for decades on Midway Atoll in the north Pacific. Then in 2015, scientists began noticing birds with open, bloody wounds on their heads, necks and backs. What was going on? Were predatory owls or hawks attacking them?Nope. Video footage uncovered the culprits – common house mice that were climbing onto the albatrosses and "eating them alive."House mice aren't native to the island, but they'd been introduced 75 years ago and had coexisted without incident. The scientists eventually figured out what was going on: A drought on the island had made the mice desperately thirsty.As the Washington Post reports:

A mural quoting a sexual assault comment made by the President of the United States led to a threat of jail time from the city of New Orleans. Neal Morris, owner of the property and commissioner of the work, got the ACLU involved. (more…)

Behold, The Great Wall of VaginaI Heart Guts has a long history (since 2005!) of making super-cute anthropomorphic plushies in the shape of body parts (organs, glands, joints, etc.).Well, they've just announced their new "Hooray For The Va-Jay-Jay!" line of pink vulva + vagina combo products. There's a plush, lapel pin, keychain, and a special "Vadge of Honor" patch. All of them are adorable.Even the plushies' hang tag is darling:Get them all at I Heart Guts. Prices start at $4.

While police dogs are typically treated well by their handlers, they don't have the best life a doggo could imagine. While much of their training is framed as play and through task/reward, stuff pups live for, they're all too often exposed to loud, stressful situations and violence. The Spanish city of Madrid has 22 dogs serving on its police force. While nothing can be done to keep their dogs away from the stresses of police work, the city is going through a whole lot of trouble to ensure that their downtime will be as enjoyable as possible.According to The Guardian, the city of Madrid has taken the time to figure out how to de-stress their police dogs at the end of their shift and has spent three months modifying their kennels to increase the animals' quality of life.At the end of a long day of police work, the dogs can now return home to heated beds, toys and a play area. What's more, all of the dogs will be exposed to music therapy in order to bring down their stress levels:

As our Cory Doctorow points out, the tools to protect yourself from non-consensual online tracking are already out there. He uses and recommends the EFF's free Privacy Badger browser plug-in to keep his online data to himself and out of the hands of creeps like Facebook, Google and Cambridge Analytica.If you're a Firefox user who wants to keep using Facebook, but worried about the sort of nonsense that the service has been getting up to of late, Mozilla has launched a new browser extension that's designed to provide users with more control of what sort of personal data everyone's favorite social media problem child is capable of getting its hands on. It's called the Facebook Container Extension.From Mozilla:

A 19-year-old named Paul Williams discovered someone named "LisaJames419419" had started following him on Instagram. He idly checked her account and found ... she was following dozens and dozens of other people named Paul Williams. And only following people named Paul Williams! (Or ones with that name as a stem, as with "Williamsen".)A bot, right? Except the original Williams messaged "LisaJames419419" and the account blocked him a few minutes later, which seems like unbotlike, human behavior.Buzzfeed reports on the story and the theories that are now raging as to what the heck is going on, including:

Paul is a VERY good pig. Watch as, at his owner's behest, he cleans the heck out of his belongings, putting them back in his toy box, where they belong. I'd give so much if I could teach my dog to do this.

Mediasmarts (previously), a Canadian media literacy nonprofit, has just released Data Defenders, a timely video game about data collection and targeting aimed at kids in grades 4-6. (more…)

It's been ten years since the financial crisis, when barely regulated banks destroyed the world's economy, kicked off wars, and directly and indirectly killed millions. (more…)

Superstar and master of many forms of art Corey Feldman believes he was stabbed. Admitted to the hospital in stable condition, law enforcement claims no physical wound was observed.https://youtu.be/fOrZq1XpVY4Feldman blames a cackle of hyena or something.Via TMZ:

Robbie Barrat is generating warped, surreal paintings using artificial intelligence and the results are really something.

Social media has always had a real-names problem. Social media companies want their users to use their real names because it makes it easier to advertise to them. Users want to be able to show different facets of their identities to different people, because only a sociopath interacts with their boss, their kids, and their spouse in the same way. (more…)

Here's a chart of social media usage from Pew Research. YouTube and Facebook are by far and away ahead of the pack, but Facebook's been stagnant for a few years, at least in the U.S.

Last April, the industrial capital of Shenzhen installed anti-jaywalking cameras that use facial recognition to automatically identify people crossing without a green pedestrian light; jaywalkers are shamed on a public website and their photos are displayed on large screens at the intersection, (more…)

A team from Italy recently broke the Guinness World Record for the "most robots dancing simultaneously." At an event in Rome, 1,372 Alpha 1S robots danced and dabbed in unison earning Team TIM S.p.A. the title.Video: Watch more than 1,300 robots dance simultaneously to break a world record

Learning a second language is no easy feat, but taking the time to do so not only opens up opportunities for travel and tourism but can also produce a host of positive benefits for your mental health. In fact, recent studies show that learning a second language can lead to higher mental agility as well as enhanced multitasking abilities. That said, uTalk Language Education utilizes a practical curriculum to help you overcome the language barrier, and lifetime plans are on sale starting at $19.99 in the Boing Boing Store.uTalk helps you learn real, practical vocabulary in a wide variety of languages from any device that you choose. Its programs let you understand how native speakers actually talk and use independently verified translations to get you conversing like a local. You can choose from one of over 130 languages and enhance your education by playing a host of language games.You can sign up for a lifetime plan with uTalk Language Education for $19.99 today.

Jonathan Spalter is the CEO of Ustelecom, a telcoms lobby group funded by AT&T and Verizon; in an op-ed on the lobbyists' site, he threatened to "aggressively" sue any state that passes net neutrality rules. (more…)

Halimah Marcus and Benjamin Samuel's "Handy Chart Automatically Generates a Pitch for Your New Novel"

"It's definitely art. I would say... I think." -- Joel McHaleNo, it's not a museum of hammers. That's in Alaska.What UCLA's Hammer Museum does have is an exhibit called “Stories of Almost Everyone” that is "about the willingness to believe the stories that are conveyed by works of contemporary art."Will Ferrell and Joel McHale try to unravel the art's meaning in a private tour with its curator, Aram Moshayedi.The exhibit is open until May 6, 2018. https://youtu.be/oE_ace3uskw

FOLLOW @RubenBolling on the Twitters and a Face Book.ACTUALLY, you can join Tom the Dancing Bug's subscription club, the Proud & Mighty INNER HIVE, for exclusive early access to comics, extra comics, inside info, and much more.AND GET Ruben Bolling’s new hit book series for kids, The EMU Club Adventures. (”Filled with wild twists and funny dialogue” -Publishers Weekly) Book One here. Book Two here.More Tom the Dancing Bug comics on Boing Boing! (more…)

Autonomous weapon bans (previously) are currently being debated, but in the meantime, the US Department of Defense continues work with its Perdix Micro-Drone project. Ostensibly for surveillance, it's clear these could easily be modded with lethal weaponry. (more…)

Protecting your noggin from undesired electromagnetic fields and thought control requires something reflective, yet fashionable. Everyone knows that the tin foil hat has been the go-to choice for years (since at least 1926).But it's 2018 now and only fools would craft their own headgear, because you can now just buy (a mylar) one from Archie McPhee. It even has a chin strap to keep it on your head.Wait there's more! You can also protect your cat's head with its own miniature tin foil hat:I'm guessing the cat version will also fit on the heads of American Girl dolls too. You can't be too safe.Previously: Tiny finger hands for your finger hands

Kim Jong Un secretly met with China's Xi Jinping in Beijing, an historic first visit by North Korea's leader.(more…)

The state of California filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its decision to add a question about citizenship status to the 2020 U.S. Census form.(more…)

Robot law pioneer Ryan Calo (previously) teamed up with U Washington computer science and law-school colleagues to write Is Tricking a Robot Hacking? -- a University of Washington School of Law Research Paper. (more…)

EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow died last month, and though his death had been long coming, it's left a hole in the hearts of the people who loved him and whom he inspired. (more…)

Since 2016, when an FBI agent first used a dead suspect's finger to unlock his phone, police forces across the USA have made a routine practice of unlocking phones using suspects and victims' dead fingers, saving big on buying cyberwar tools like Cellebrite's $1500-$3000 unlocker, or Grayshift's $30k/year Graykey. (more…)

As a child in 1942, Mireille Knoll escaped the capture of Jews by police in occupied France during The Vélodrome d'Hiver roundup. The majority of those arrested during the roundup were sent to Auschwitz, where they were killed. Her evasion of France's Nazi puppet police force during the second world war allowed her to survive the horrors of the Holocaust, unlike so many of her neighbors and relations. But she couldn't escape racism. Her time on earth came to an end this past week after she was stabbed 11 times and left to die in her burning apartment, in Paris, France. She was 85 years old.According to the The Washington Post, Knoll's murder has French journalists and Jewish advocacy groups concerned that, given the area and brutality in which her life was ended, there could be reasonable grounds for the murder to be considered a hate crime. As in North America, Anti-Semitic hate crimes have been on the rise in France. In the past year, bigots and fascists who were once too afraid to show their hate in public have made their way into the mainstream, emboldened by the politics of our times.From the Washington Post:

Apple doesn't give a shit about your child's education. But then, neither does any other tech company: they only care about what they can sell to schools and parents.This likely isn't news to anyone reading this, but I feel like it needs to be said.This morning Apple held an education-centric event at a high school in Chicago. They released a new iPad. With the exception of a processor bump and the fact that it supports Apple Pencil, it's very much like the last iteration of the iPad. They're selling it for $329 or, if you're a student or educator, it can be had for $299. Need an Apple Pencil? That'll be an additional $99. Let me reframe this for you: One of the most lucrative companies in the world thinks it's a grand gesture to knock $30 off the price of their hardware for anyone involved in book learnin'. But, if they want to make full use of the iPad's capabilities, it'll cost them another $99 to do so.This, at a time when when parents are running crowdsourcing campaigns for classroom supplies and to keep schools heated during the cold months of the year.The real reason that they've shaved a sliver of fat off their pricing is because they're getting bled to death in the education sector by companies churning out less expensive Chrome OS hardware. Google's Chrome OS might not be able to boast the wide assortment of quality apps that an iOS device does, but the operating system doesn't need high-end specs to run on. Cheaper hardware makes for more compelling shopping for schools to buy hardware on a tight budget. It's possible to fill a classroom with Chrome OS devices for a fraction of what it'd cost to get up and running with Apple slabs. Hell, you can even throw an iteration of Chrome OS on to old PC hardware and breath new life into an aging school computer lab. This scares the shit out of Apple's money people. As they see it, other companies are drinking their milkshake. But they just can't bring themselves to allow a dip in their bottom line that'd be low enough to make the cost of adopting their hardware accessible to school boards or families who don't have the privilege of being able to afford premium computing hardware. It's a shame: Apple and the software developers who choose to work on their platforms make wonderful educational software. As many children have grown up with tapping and swiping away at their parent's smartphones and tablets, using it in the classroom would be second nature.[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=38&v=IprmiOa2zH8[/embed]By the time this post goes live, Apple's education event will have been over for some time. The Internet will likely be full of lauding stories from tech outlets about how much Apple is re-investing in education. But I don't feel it's the case. I've been using Apple computers for close to 20 years and I've reported on the company's products for a number of major outlets for close to a decade: Apple doesn't care about educating kids. They care about maintaining Scrooge McDuck-levels of cash in their coffers – just like any other business. Don't buy into the hype.Image via pixabay

After close to a decade of preparation, University of Victoria is preparing a law program that will incorporate the laws, customs and traditions of indigenous cultures from around Canada with a traditional legal education. It's an important step towards reconciliation between Canada's mainstream and the native communities in our country that the government has marginalized and brutalized up until very recent times.This isn't the University of Victoria's first indigenous law rodeo, either. According to the Globe and Mail, the institution ran a law school in Canada's far north between 2001 and 2005. The school, called Akitsiraq, featured heavily on Inuit law and tradition.This inclusion of the laws and customs of Canada's indigenous people in a law school's curriculum is a big deal. Canada's white establishment (of which I include myself in) is used to seeing its legal show ran on a framework of laws and traditions that feature heavily on our British colonial legacy. Currently, Canadian lawyers are only trained to interpret and operate within this framework. By throwing the laws and views of Canada's indigenous nations into the mix, a new, truly Canadian legal system could form – one that gives all of the nation's citizens a fair shake. From the Globe and Mail:

An asshole with a spray can vandalized a bronze David Bowie statue just two days after it was unveiled in Aylesbury, England. The individual wrote "Feed the homeless first," "RIP DB," and made a general mess of the statue. Artist Andrew Sinclair created the sculpture that shows Bowie and several of his personas including Ziggy Stardust, who made his live debut in Aylesbury. Fortunately, the paint is coming off and the vandal was recorded on video (below).(BBC)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDuhX0Gv0zk

Surprise!

In An Empirical Analysis of Traceability in the Monero Blockchain, a group of eminent computer scientists analyze a longstanding privacy defect in the Monero cryptocurrency, and reveal a new, subtle flaw, both of which can be used to potentially reveal the details of transactions and identify their parties. (more…)

In 2017, Great Big Story talked to the creator of the Seinfeld theme, composer Jonathan Wolff (whose URL is amusingly https://seinfeldmusicguy.com), to tell the story behind the iconic song.He says, "I have no idea how many themes we did for Seinfeld."Every single episode had a new version of the music that Wolff improvised based on the rhythm of Jerry's opening monologue.Here's an older interview with the now-retired musician:https://youtu.be/oVldNNHQWVwimage via TBS