Digging through vinyl is for the patient. It can take years, if ever, for a record collector to come across a "Holy Grail" album in his/her travels.In this TEDx Montreal talk from November 2016, Quebec-based collector Alexis Charpentier (aka DJ Lexis) talks about how obsessed record diggers get while looking for their "needle in a haystack" and how their efforts can reap bigger cultural rewards.He shares a wonderful story of how a collector named Kobal found a nearly-forgotten 1-in-2000 vinyl album recorded by Haitian musician Henri-Pierre Noël in the late seventies.Henri-Pierre NoëlTurns out it was quite the find.

1816 is famous for being the year that Mary Shelley began to write Frankenstein. But it's also infamous for being "The Year Without A Summer". One of the hugest volcanic eruptions in recorded history emitted a sun-obscuring ash cloud, and temperatures worldwide plummeted -- destroying crops and ushering in several years of brutal famine.It provoked massive social disorder. So while Shelley was writing her novel, she may have had her mind on the hordes of starving Europeans desperately migrating across the nearby countryside in search of food, and being utterly rejected by the elites well-off enough to feed themselves.In a terrific essay, Gillen D’Arcy Wood argues that we could read Frankenstein as an allegory not just of technology run amok, but a climate spun out of control:

Well, this is damn impressive. Outdoorsman Shawn James built a log cabin in the Canadian woods all by himself -- without power tools --and created this timelapse video to prove it.He writes:

YouTuber Dani Ochoa says she's a "girl with too much time on her hands," but I disagree. I think figuring out the math formula to play the Star Wars "Cantina Band" song with just a paper and pencil is exactly what she should be doing with her time.Listen to this and compare:https://youtu.be/kCGPt3XFxJk(reddit)

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been living in the Ecuadoran embassy to the United Kingdom in London for more than 5 years, believing that if he were taken into custody by the UK police, he would face extradition to the USA where he would be tried for publishing details of war crimes committed by the US military. (more…)

Scottish Limited Partnerships (previously) are notorious corporate entities whose true owners are easily disguised, making them perfect vehicles for money laundry. (more…)

HMRC, the British tax authority, is 'struggling to deal with fallout of Paradise Papers leak,' according to Parliament's public accounts committee, whose new report describes an already understaffed agency whose workload has been increased by the preparations for Brexit. (more…)

Barry Ritholz maintains two stock indices: the Oligarch Index contains "companies that Trump liked" in his public communications; the Drain the Swamp index has "companies that Trump trashed." (more…)

The web is vast, but it's not exactly private. In fact, if you find yourself surfing on an unsecured network, there's a strong chance that someone could be peeking in on your browsing movements, or worse, accessing your personal information. That's why it's essential to arm yourself with a top-tier VPN to keep your online movements under the radar, and with Private Internet Access, you can do so for three years for $89.95.Rated 4.5/5 Stars by PC Mag, Private Internet Access utilizes high-level encryption and IP cloaking to keep your movements private and your browsing location anonymous. That way, you can navigate past trackers and geo-restrictions and enjoy restricted content, like Netflix and Hulu, no matter where you're browsing from.What's more, Private Internet Access features a traffic killswitch that engages if you lose connection. That way, you can shut any windows of opportunity for hackers to attack. Plus, Private Internet Access is compatible with up to 5 devices simultaneously, so you can secure your entire tech arsenal.Normally retailing for $250, you can get a 3-year subscription to Private Internet Access for $89.95 in the Boing Boing Store.

Donald Trump today boasted of the United States' sale of 'F52' aircraft to Norway. They don't exist, other than elements in the popular video game 'Call of Duty.'(more…)

This is not a joke. This is a real thing that the President of the United States did today.President Trump on Wednesday blurted out something shocking about the pending immigration deal which protects people from Haiti and some African countries. At a White House meeting, he demanded to know why he should accept immigrants who come from “shithole countries,” rather than (white) people from places like Norway. The New York Times and other credible news organizations posted this news just now, citing people with direct knowledge of the conversation.(more…)

https://youtu.be/Jcghl0lbDSkDani Ochoa, a self-described " girl with too much time on her hands," writes, "I spent way too much time figuring this out."

The short, weird political career of Eric Greitens -- a former Navy Seal and onetime Democrat turned secrecy-cloaked Republican and the youngest Governor ever elected in Missouri -- may be at its end.(more…)

It's $18 from Gamiss, perfect for your next BBQ. (via Crazy Abalone)

In 2015, a black software developer named Jacky Alciné revealed that the image classifier used by Google Photos was labeling black people as "gorillas."(more…)

A Ninth Circuit Appellate Court has rejected Oracle's attempt to treat violating its website terms of service as a felony under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, (more…)

Apple was the last major holdout on proprietary video codecs, the only major industry player that hadn't signed onto the Alliance for Open Media, home of the AV1 video format, a successor to On2's groundbreaking open formats of the early web years, which led to the company's acquisition by Google in 2010. (more…)

Adversarial examples have torn into the robustness of machine-vision systems: it turns out that changing even a single well-placed pixel can confound otherwise reliable classifiers, and with the right tricks they can be made to reliably misclassify one thing as another or fail to notice an object altogether. But even as vision systems were falling to adversarial examples, audio systems remained stubbornly hard to fool, until now. (more…)

Stunning script by Santa Rosa Tattoo. See more on their Instagram: @santarosatattoo. (via r/PenmanshipPorn)

A year ago I decided to piece together my own Peloton-compatible stationary spinning cycle, I still love it. I never have to go to a gym full of PEOPLE. (more…)

Sacha Lauri makes clothing and jewelry out of kombucha, more specifically the SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast) floating on the surface of the fermented tea. Her company is called Kombucha Couture. From an interview with Lauri in MAKE:

'Fast' Eddie Clarke, guitarist for Motörhead during their best years, has died at 67 while in the hospital with pneumonia. With his death preceded in 2015 by Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor and Lemmy Kilmister, the classic Motörhead lineup is now gone. From Rolling Stone:

If you only watch one childbirth video in your life, consider this popular one. It’s completely safe for work (and for the faint of heart), featuring ping pong balls and a balloon. I’ve already given birth, and I learned a lot.

Be the dangerous bad boy with a deck of Skull cards!My second favorite deck of cards is this Skull deck by the US Playing Card Company.I flip back and forth between carrying a deck of Arch Angels, and these Skulls. The Skulls backs are just lovely, with mostly standard Bicycle 808 poker faces. The black and white cards look fantastic in flourishes and are made with the usual USPCC stock and finish, so they fan and glide beautifully.Bicycle Skull Playing Cards via Amazon

Vermont is the ninth state to legalize marijuana, and the first state to do so through a legislative act rather than a ballot initiative. Vermont's Republican governor Phil Scott said he'll sign the bill into law.The measure was passed despite Attorney General Jeff Sessions' letter to federal prosecutors telling them they were free to resume the disastrous, racist war on weed, despite the fact a majority of Trump voters are in favor of legalization. Sessions' move also goes against Trump's promise to let states decide what to do about weed without federal interference.At this point, the only people who want to crack down on people (mainly minorities) who use weed again are very old white conservatives and Patrick "I-was-addicted-to-heroin-therefore-people-must-be-punished-for-smoking-pot" Kennedy (whose latest stunt is trying to equate weed with "big tobacco.")

Last month, Renee Thole, a white middle school teacher in Mason, Ohio, told 13-year-old black student Nathan Agee-Bell, in front of the entire class, that if he didn't pay more attention to his work, his friends would form a mob and lynch him. Apparently Nathan told the teacher the comment was racist and she questioned why he would think such a thing. Nathan waited a month to report the incident to his mother because of fear of retribution. From Cincinnati.com:

North Carolina is one of several Republican-held states whose legislatures have created bizarre, misshapen and fundamentally, provably unfair electoral maps that ensure that the votes of Democrats in their states almost never result in representation by Democratic lawmakers. (more…)

Wednesdbury Oak Academy in the West Midlands is an "academy school," similar to a US charter school -- a publicly funded, privately operated school, which, theory goes, is able to "experiment" with new educational techniques, by deviating from the standard curriculum, rejecting students on the basis of selection criteria, and hiring teachers without formal qualifications. (more…)

That rock you see above? It's 620 tons, over 2.5 times the weight of the Statue of Liberty.Yet some powerful wave in the North Atlantic was mighty enough to lift it out of the sea and plop it onto land.Everyday ocean waves are way more powerful than we ever thought: This is the conclusion of a fascinating paper by geoscientist Ronadh Cox and her research group. Scientists long knew there were unusually huge rocks hurled ashore around the world, but generally they assumed they'd been tossed up by tsunamis, rare tectonic events.Nope. It looks like regular 'ol storm-waves can manage these sorts of feats. Cox and her group took a bunch of before-and-after photos of the northwest coast of Ireland around the time of a 2013-2014 storm cluster, and identified several boulders that the storms had thrown ashore. They were huuuuuuuge!No wonder Homer called Poseidon the "earth-shaker".The paper is here online in full, and is both layperson-parsable and seriously gripping.Given that global warming is pouring evermore energy into the oceans, we're going to need to reassess just how powerful coastal waves can get, as Cox points out in this story about her work:

This man forgot to put on his skates when he stepped onto his driveway, which was covered in black ice. Poor fellow did a pretty great job keeping his balance as he slipped and slid down towards the street. It wasn't until the bottom of the driveway that he finally crashed. The whole journey was caught on his home security camera.Via Mashable

Are you pregnant and in need of a $995 crib? Not sure? Grab the latest Ikea catalog, pee on it, and if you're expecting, a new price of $495 will appear right before your very eyes (in lieu of the plus and minus sign that shows up on a home pregnancy test). The ad's slogan at the top of the page says, "Peeing on this ad may change your life," and they ain't kidding.

In northern Russia, a man who really wanted some booze drove an armored personnel carrier through a shop window, crashing into the store, then exited his vehicle and climbed through the wreckage to steal a bottle of wine. I know this will shock you, but he was drunk.(more…)

Project management is one of the fastest-growing fields in business today as companies look for more ways to cut costs and boost efficiency. But demand alone won't get you position as a highly-paid project manager. You need to prove that you're skilled in the methodologies these experts use to help projects arrive on time and on budget, and the Ultimate Project Management Certification Bundle will help you do just that.Delivering 9 comprehensive courses, this collection is designed to get you familiar with the leading methodologies project managers use on a daily basis and prepare you to ace their certification exams. You'll explore a structured approach to project management and dive into core concepts, like stakeholder engagement, service strategy process, and risk management.Once you make your way through the entire training, you'll be ready to take on the certification exams for PMI Risk Management Professional, Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM), and more.Available in the Boing Boing Store, you can get the Ultimate Project Management Certification Bundle on sale for $79.

More than a week after Logan Paul made an obnoxious, racist video in Tokyo and another video showing the body of a man who commited suicide in a forest in Japan, YouTube has kicked the 22-year-old millionaire out of its prefered ad network and canceled plans to make movies and shows with him.From Kotaku:

Not sure what inspired Mav Vasquez to craft this miniature fireworks stand but I'm glad he did. He not only took the time to make each tiny papercraft firework look realistic, he also made them fully functional. Yes, each one is packed with powder and blows up!Want to make your own? See his behind-the-scene photos over at Imgur.Though, for $155, he'll make a replica of the stand for you (although its fireworks won't be functional). (MAKE)

Silicon Valley fans, it's here! No, sorry, not season 5 – that doesn't start streaming until March 25. I mean the trailer, which was just released today, and what a tease it is.

Oprah has already said she won't run for president but clothing brand HLZBLZ wants everyone to know they support the idea of a future President Winfrey with their new "Oprah 2020" long-sleeve tee ($48) and hoodie ($85). (PAPER)

In the department of "You can't make this stuff up," the president's second son, Eric, blew out the candles of his 34th birthday cake -- a Carvel "Fudgie the Whale" ice cream cake, no less -- on Saturday.Watch this video posted on Facebook by Lynne Patton for proof. He's the one wearing a giant black sombrero: https://www.facebook.com/lynne.patton/videos/10156181909092904/(The Daily Meal)

O’Naturel is a nudist restaurant in Paris. The New Yorker's Henry Alford had a bite and an eyeful:(more…)

In the 1920s, young Americans kindled a new craze: Stowing away on ships bound for overseas adventures. The goal? To get famous and, in predigital media, go viral.My friend Laurie Gwen Shapiro has just published a book about one famous stowaway who went all the way to Antarctica, and in this New Yorker piece she describes the rapid growth of the trend ...

Let's harken back to a time when golf pants fit uncomfortably snug and white guys peer pressured each other to keep up appearances by driving the "right car," which in this sales training video is some model (any model) of the 1989 Chevy Celebrity. "It looks like a successful businessman's car," exclaims the plaid-panted boss man.If you can sit through the nauseating good ol' boy banter and drum riffs, you'll be "rewarded" when you can finally feast your eyes on the premium stereo radio with cassette deck that comes with the Preferred Equipment Group #3 in the Eurosport model. And don't even get me started on that sweet, sweet heavy duty battery."Eddie," I fear it's too late but you should try to get your 1976 Fury back and steer clear of these bozos.

Jeroen Boeye is a data scientist who was parsing the power output of his panels, and noticed that they were influenced -- as you'd expect -- by the trees near his house, which got in the way of direct sunlight.That made him wonder: Could you use the solar panels' output as an imaging signal? Or rather, can you use your panels to effectively take a photograph of the world around it?Turns out you can! After some very clever crunching of his data using R, Boeye produced this dataviz ...... and then he took this panoramic picture of the landscape around his panels ... ... which, when he overlaid them, produces the image at the top of this post: A nice mirroring of the data to the trees.I'd love to see this technique tried with big industrial arrays, or maybe with the combined data from a collection of urban solar rooftop arrays that are near each other. It makes you wonder what other interesting observations might be teased out of really big solar-array data sets.BTW, Boeye has also written a few other posts about how he's parsed the data from his arrays (here and here), which are similarly fun and useful; and he's put all the code he used online so any R-wielding folks with their own solar panels could try their hand at it too.(Images used with permission of Jeroen Boeye)(Via Hackaday)

A recent contestant on Jeopardy! got dinged for pronouncing "gangsta" incorrectly, which prompted this bit on Jimmy Kimmel Live. It imagines Coolio hosting a Golf Channel TV show called Pronunciation Station that teaches "Anglo-Saxons" how to say popular hip-hop words, phrases, and names.

Reminiscent of last year's viral video of a BBC interview with a professor whose toddler crashed the scene, here's another child happy to get on camera with Daddy. This time it's Al Jazeera doing a Skype interview about the Golden Globe Awards with a Berkeley film historian, whose adorable kid seems very excited to be in front of the camera. He waves, smiles, and at one point rolls a toy car over his dad's shoulder. The dad – and interviewer – take it in stride with amazingly good humor.

The #MeToo movement seems to have made some actors a bit jumpy. At least in the case of Michael Douglas, who is defending himself against sexual misconduct accusations that haven't yet been publicly made. No, he never masturbated in front of an employee who used to work for him! And if he used "colorful language" in front of said employee, he already told her he's sorry about that. And for the record, he didn't blackball her from the industry. He only fired her.Douglas might sound paranoid, but he's actually responding to possible stories coming out by The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, both who contacted him with questions about sexual misconduct allegations.Douglas reached out to Deadline to give his side of the story. According to Deadline:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cDzzoXmTCMAndy Savage is one of the powerful, wealthy evangelical clerics implicated in the #churchtoo movement, in which congregants are disclosing the sexual assaults and harassment they experienced at the hands of faith leaders. (more…)

Robohub is creating a series of "robotics and AI ethics" posts, starting with a roundup of all the rules for AIs and robots of note, starting with Asimov's Three Laws and moving through rules published by scholarly and technical groups like ACM and IEEE, trade union groups like UNI, and multistakeholder groups like the Montréal Declaration for Responsible AI draft principles. (more…)

You can now watch all 13 episodes of Carl Sagan's mind-expanding, life-changing 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage for free on Twitch! Written by Sagan, Ann Druyan, and Steven Soter, Cosmos is a profoundly important scientific head-trip that sparks the imagination and instills that sense of wonder and hope that we all desperately need right now.Watch live video from COSMOS on www.twitch.tv

I have often thought that you can divide up the risks of the big internet platforms by plotting a 2X2 grid; on one axis is "wants to spy on everything you do" and on the other is "wants to control everything you do" -- Apple scores low on the first axis (they don't much want to spy on you), and high on the second (they want to control you in intimate and pervasive ways); Google is the reverse (wants to spy on you, but is so capable of following you wherever you go that it doesn't need to control you to do it), while Facebook gets top marks on both (they spy on everything you do and they want to control you from start to finish). (more…)

I'm fresh back from Florida where my daughter and I stopped in Orlando to for a side trip to Walt Disney World and the Disney Springs shopping complex. At the latter, I spotted these monorail socks. Now, I rarely see Disney merch that I really like but I kind of went nuts for these. If you'd like to slip your feet into some futuristic transportation too, you can get yourself a pair at the online Disney Store for $13.99.