When Yale research psyhcologist Irving Janis coined the term "groupthink" in 1972, he identified eight symptoms of the pathology: the "illusion of invulnerability"; a "belief in the inherent morality of the group"; "collective rationalization"; "out-group stereotypes"; "self-censorship"; the "illusion of unanimity"; "direct pressure on dissenters" and "self-appointed mindguards."The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster is one of the most studied disasters in history; University of Washington psych prof Jacob Leonesio uses it as a way to illustrate groupthink for his intro to psych course in a neat little explanation that shows how groupthink led the Challenger team to launch a spacecraft that many of them knew was not safe to launch.6. Illusion of Unanimity. NASA managers perpetuated the fiction that everyone was fully in accord on the launch recommendation. They admitted to the presidential commission that they didn’t report Thiokol’s on-again/off-again hesitancy with their superiors. As often happens in such cases, the flight readiness review team interpreted silence as agreement.7. Direct Pressure on Dissenters. Thiokol engineers felt pressure from two directions to reverse their ‘‘no-go" recommendation. NASA managers had already postponed the launch three times and were fearful the American public would regard the agency as inept. Undoubtedly that strain triggered Hardy’s retort that he was ‘‘appalled" at Thiokol’s recommendation. Similarly, the company’s management was fearful of losing future NASA contracts. When they went off-line for their caucus, Thiokol’s senior vice president urged Roger Lund, vice president of engineering, to ‘‘take off his engineering hat and put on his management hat."8. Read the rest

Retired journalist John Richard's founded the Apostrophe Protection Society in 2001, its mission to convince people that apostrophe's denote missing letter's and possession, but never plurals. Now Richard's is 96 and he's shutting down the society, saying that "fewer organisation's and individual's are now caring about the correct use of the apostrophe in the English Language...the ignorance and lazines's present in modern times have won."For clarity: all the extraneous apostrophes in this post are my own, not Richards's'."Instead, within a month of my plaint appearing in a national newspaper, I received over 500 letters of support, not only from all corners of the United Kingdom, but also from America, Australia, France, Sweden, Hong Kong and Canada." Apostrophe society shuts down because 'ignorance and laziness have won' [Tim Baker/Evening Standard](via Naked Capitalism)(Image: William Murphy, CC BY-SA, cropped) Read the rest

In 1951 the United States government passed a law requiring all men between the ages of 18 to 26 to register for the draft. During the Korean War (1950-1953) 80,000 men attempted to dodge the draft. During the Vietnam War (1955 - 1975) over 570,000 men dodged the draft, 210,000 of them were formally accused, and 3,250 were imprisoned. (Side note, 58,000 US soldiers died in the Vietnam War, over 1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters died, and an estimated 2 million civilians died.)This video looks at some of the ways men avoided the draft. They include moving to Canada, failing physical exams on purpose, becoming missionaries, or, as claimed in a 1977 interview with alt-right demigod Ted Nugent, taking drugs, acting insane, and urinating and defecating on himself before appearing for his examination (Nugent later said lied in the interview).Image by: Lance Cpl. Danielle Prentice. Public Domain Read the rest

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) (previously) is an alternative to neoclassical economics that holds that sovereign states that issue their own currency can't default on debts denominated in that currency (if you are the sole source of Canadian dollars and all your debts are in Canadian dollars, you can always pay those debts), and that deficit spending is normal (every dollar in circulation was "deficit spent," since the money to pay taxes enters the economy when the government spends it into existence), and that inflation isn't a mere function of government spending -- but rather, inflation occurs when governments and the private sector are bidding against each other for the same goods and services.A more nuanced take on MMT spending is that some government spending improves the ratio of debt to GDP -- because the spending increases overall economic growth -- and some of it worsens that ratio. Governments can also change that ratio through taxation -- raising and lowering taxes changes the purchasing power of the private sector (at the top brackets, taxation can reduce the power of the super-rich to buy lobbyists and make campaign contributions that would allow them to distort national policy to serve their narrow interests).Writing for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Michael Pettis describes the outcome of his informal Peking University debt seminar on MMT, which evaluated the effects of policies that give to the rich, policies that give to the poor, and policies that increase infrastructure investment. Pettis and his students classify the outcomes of different starting conditions as "MMT Hell" (runaway inflation) or "MMT Heaven" ("conditions under which there are no intrinsic constraints on government spending"). Read the rest

Breaking news; she's reportedly just told her staff on a campaign call-in: "Kamala Harris is dropping out of the presidential race, she told staff on a call Tuesday. She will release a video momentarily announcing her plans," reports Politico's Christopher Cadelago. Read the rest

Boing BoingHere's a guide to the charities the Boingers support in our own annual giving. Please add the causes and charities you give to in the forums!Friends of the Merril CollectionI'm on the board of the charity that fundraises for Toronto's Merril Collection, a part of the Toronto Public Library system that is also the world's largest public collection of science fiction, fantasy and related works (they archive my papers). Since its founding by Judith Merril, the Merril Collection has been a hub for creators, fans, and scholars. I wouldn't be a writer today if not for the guidance of its Writer in Residence when I was a kid. —CDThe Tor ProjectThe Tor anonymity and privacy tools are vital to resistance struggles around the world, a cooperative network that provides a high degree of security from scrutiny for people who have reasons to fear the powers that be. From our early hominid ancestors until about ten years ago, humans didn't leave behind an exhaust-trail of personally identifying information as they navigated the world -- Tor restores that balance. —CDPlanned ParenthoodBecause we deserve health care, including reproductive, gender, and sexual health care. Because access to birth control and safe abortion is a human right. Because Trump's regime wants to destroy all of this. —XJSoftware Freedom Conservancy Software Freedom Conservancy does the important, boring, esoteric work of keeping the internet from tearing itself to pieces, playing host organization to free software projects like Git, Selenium and Samba (to name just three). Read the rest

The Atlantic reviews the state of Tumblr, where adult material was banned by new corporate owners, traffic collapsed, and the remains were sold for a pittance to Automattic, the company behind WordPress. It is down but far from out, Kaitlin Tiffany reports, with vibrant communities still thriving. On one hand...The biggest thing that’s changed [this year] is an overall lack of content with diverse and mature themes,” Cat Frazier, creator of the popular Tumblr Animated Text, writes to me in an email. “I never followed porn accounts, but many of the people I followed were either deleted or left the platform out of frustration last year. That's left a noticeable gap. In fact a month ago I was scrolling through my followed accounts and about 100 of them hadn't uploaded since the ban.”... however ....In late January, the “Shaggy’s Power” meme boomed. A transplant from Reddit, it featured screenshots of Matthew Lillard, the actor who played Shaggy in the 2002 live-action adaptation of Scooby-Doo, and captions portraying him as a god-like figure with a range of mysterious powers, swinging wildly between indiscriminate violence and pure benevolence. “You are reading this now because I compel you to,” the edited subtitle text on one still of Lillard reads. “You are never free.” (“I have no idea what the heart of it is,” Brennan says. “I think it’s just absurdist.”) It eventually expanded to include other actors from the movie, also praising Shaggy’s powers, and then to include Tumblr itself, in a discussion of the meta horror of a divine meme springing forth from seemingly nowhere. Read the rest

The New York Post reports Indiana police are on the lookout for Donald Murray, 38, after he allegedly fled officers in his car when they tried to pull him over for driving without turning on the car's exterior lights at night. Read the rest

Hubert Horan (previously) is a transport industry analyst who has written more than 20 essays for Naked Capitalism as well as two peer-reviewed scholarly articles explaining why Uber is a "bezzle" -- that is, a scam that can't possibly ever make money, no matter how much it preys on drivers, ignores passenger safety, and destroys safe, regulated taxi businesses. Harry "Mr Burns" Shearer interviewed Horan (MP3) on the latest episode of his radio show, Le Show. It's a fantastic interview that quickly gets to the meat of Horan's critique of Uber, and then digs into both the ridiculous defenses that Uber and its defenders mount of its possible sustainability, and the social circumstances that allowed Uber to bezzle $21b from its investors in just a few years, while still attracting more investors. (Image: Tarcil, CC BY-SA, modified) (via Naked Capitalism) Read the rest

Chrome's incognito mode is useful if you don't want your browsing history saved to your account, don't want websites to access your cookies, or if you want to troubleshoot your browser. But it doesn't do much to protect your privacy. Your ISP can see what websites you visit, and services like Twitter can figure out who you are even without cookies.From Tech Talks:The easiest way for web applications to track users is to use cookies. But it is not the only way they can track you. Other bits of information can point to your device. For instance, I’ve seen some users use the Incognito window to browse Twitter, thinking that it will preserve their privacy and hide their identity. The premise is, since Incognito doesn’t carry over their browser cookies, Twitter won’t be able to associate their activity to their account.But Twitter also keeps track of IP address, device type, device ID and browser type and version. Technically, it will be able to use all those factors to link your activity to your account. Facebook goes further and even tracks your activity across other websites when you’re not logged in to your account. Read the rest

Last week, just before everything shut down for Thanksgiving, the Republican-appointed Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina handed $2.5m to the white nationalist Sons of Confederate Veterans, claiming it would settle a lawsuit over the removal of a Confederate "Silent Sam" statue from campus -- but as local litigator T Greg Doucette sleuthed out, the lawsuit was filed after the governors voted the settlement, and the Sons of Confederate Veterans appeared to have no standing to sue, as it wasn't their statue, and even if it was, the university would not face legal liability for its students removing it.After the holiday weekend, Doucette went to the courthouse and scanned all the documents about the giveaway, including a "victory letter" sent by SOCV "commander" Kevin Stone to his followers, which Stone then had Dropbox remove from the internet by falsely claiming copyright infringement.Now, Doucette has published the letter to Twitter, and it's easy to see why Stone didn't want it in the public eye. In addition to being peevish, longwinded, petty and sectarian, the letter makes it clear that the Sons of Confederate Veterans and UNC's Board of Governors knew that they wouldn't have standing to sue the university over the Silent Sam statue. It also makes it clear that attempts to push legislation to allow SOCV to sue the university were dead on arrival, that the objective of the litigation was to hurt UNC to punish it for failing to defend white nationalism, and that UNC President Bill Roper and UNC General Counsel Tom Shanahan engineered the payout, greasing it through the Board of Governors. Read the rest

In The Surprising Breadth of Harbingers of Failure (Sci-Hub mirror), a trio of economists and business-school profs build on a 2015 Journal of Marketing Research paper that claimed that some households' purchasing preferences are a reliable indicator of which products will fail -- that is, if households in a certain ZIP code like a product, it will probably not succeed. The original paper calls these "harbinger households."In the new paper, the researchers consider very large data-sets on consumer goods and fashion purchasing, house-buying, and political donations, to examine whether being a "harbinger household" correlates to other predictors of failure, and find that these households are also likely to buy real-estate that makes lower profits (or generates larger losses) than nearby properties; they are likely to buy fashion and consumer goods that get discontinued due to lackluster sales; and they are more likely to donate to losing politicians' campaigns than winners.The researchers also claim that harbinger households voluntarily cluster: that when a harbinger household moves, it is likely that it will move to another habringer ZIP code (and nonhabringers move to nonhabringer households). Moreover, harbingers don't appear to learn their preferences from one another -- a nonhabringer household that locates in a harbinger ZIP code doesn't alter its purchasing and political contributions to "loser" products and candidates. Harbinger households tend to be white, suburban and headed by older, less-educated single parents. They tend to make above-average use of coupons, and the coupons they use have above-average values. The researchers don't claim a causal relationship between these different factors -- donating to losing political candidates doesn't make you prefer Crystal Pepsi, for example -- but rather speculate that there is an "unobserved intervening variable" that explains both factors. Read the rest

I enjoyed watching this video by a fellow, who goes by the name of Big Clive, which explains what basic electronic components (resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors) do and how they do it.Image: YouTube Read the rest

On November 13, noted vampire capitalist Peter Thiel gave a speech to donors at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research conservative think-tank on "The End of the Computer Age." Over the course of 40 minutes, he covered a lot of topics—some of which were at least provocative, some of them which sounded like they were ripped straight out of a Gavin Belson speech on Silicon Valley.There was a, um, interesting reflection on the shortcomings of Margaret Thatcher's regime:I sort of think of Margaret Thatcher's biggest mistake was she thought that in the late '70s that embracing the EU would be a way to crush the unions in the UK.An interesting (accidental?) critique of the Electoral College system:In a democracy if you have sort of majority vote, that's good. If you have a supermajority, that's even better. So if you got 51%, you're probably right. If you get 70%, you're even more right. On the other hand, if you get 99.99% of the voters, you're sort of in North Korea. [laughter]The "greatest lie" Obama ever told (which is, he notes, not about Iraq or healthcare):"Just because it's not some name-brand, famous, fancy school, doesn't mean that you're not going to get a great education there." So let's parse that two lies. First off, if it isn't a name-brand, famous, fancy school, you're not going to get a great education. You're just going to get a diploma that's a dunce hat in disguise. If it is a name-brand, famous, fancy school, you probably also won't get an education. Read the rest

The Literary Review in the UK has given out a Bad Sex in Fiction Award since 1993. It's a coveted literary recognition indeed; even Morrissey took the prize home in 2015. While there are some valid critiques about the very existence of the thing— TD Storm at LitHub has argued that the award tends to conflate the author with the narrator, making it "entirely deaf to intent and tone and a passage’s relation to the larger narrative—I find it to be a delightful thing to read aloud with friends and family, particularly after a night of drinking.(For some reason, my family disagrees, but whatever.)Twitter user Yves Peirsman had the brilliant idea to take this a step further. He ran this year's nominated passages through the Write with Transformer AI Neural Network, just to see what kind of steamy computer action it would come up with:@Lit_Review has published this year’s shortlist for its #BadSex in Fiction award. I used @huggingface's "write with transformer" app to find out if #artificialintelligence would do better. The results are sometimes delightful, sometimes disturbing, always original. #deeplearning pic.twitter.com/yBSZyFZTLt— Yves Peirsman (@yvespeirsman) November 29, 2019I'm genuinely impressed that the computer was able to parse the innuendo and come up with something like "His cock was so hard that it was touching her lips," even when there were no genitals explicitly mentioned in the source passage.This year's nominees were announced on Wednesday, November 27, with the final award given out on Monday, December 2—but when it comes to bad sex writing, we're all winners in the end. Read the rest

Stoner icon Snoop Dogg has teamed up with Rockabye Baby! to bring the world baby-friendly instrumental interpretations of his most popular hits, including "Gin and Juice" and "Drop It Like It's Hot." "Lullaby Renditions of Snoop Dogg" drops December 6 but you can listen to it now online.(Soap Plant WACKO) Read the rest

In Control clothing offeres these computer glitch overalls, perfect for a vaporwave Christmas. [h/t Jeff] Read the rest

Wired takes a long look at the rapid progress in oral health in the 20th century from this:In 1899, the British Army was recruiting troops to fight in the Boer War and recruiters were appalled at the health of the men who were turning up. They were stunted, malnourished and had appalling teeth. “It became a national scandal,” Bairsto says. “No one was cleaning their teeth. Many couldn’t chew their food.”to Philips selling a $270 electronic toothbrush (pictured above). Are electronic toothbrushes any better than a mundane brush? Put away your skepticism, Wired says:All that said, the Cochrane reviews are pretty clear. They looked at plaque buildup and gingivitis (gum disease), finding that electric toothbrushes were, on average, more effective than manual ones. The effects were real. An average 11 per cent reduction in the degree of plaque buildup, in the short term, and a 21 per cent over three months term; a six per cent or 11 per cent reduction in gingivitis, depending on how you measure it. Refreshing news! But there's still cause to be skeptical:The question is where to go next. Apps that track behaviour and sensors that check you’ve brushed every tooth are already in place; how much more high-tech can toothbrushes get? How much more advantage can be squeezed from them?One possibility is raising the stakes. There have been hints that periodontal disease is linked to wider health problems – sufferers are more susceptible to stroke, to heart attacks, to blocked arteries, to high blood pressure, and to cancer. Read the rest

I enjoyed Melania Trump's disquieting 2019 Christmas video, featuring her pacing alone around the symmetrical expanses of the executive mansion, inspecting its coldly festive ornaments. But it needed a certain je ne sais quoi; which is to say Jocelyn Pook's soundtrack to Eyes Wide Shut. Read the rest

It's gratifying to see the correct takes pouring in that Peloton's new bicycle advertisement is deeply disturbing. I think it looks like an ARG advertisement for HBO's Westworld series, where everyone in the house is a host.Vice:tell me this shit isn’t wildly sinister. Her grim motivation that pushes her to drag herself out of bed combined with exclaiming at the camera how blatantly, inexplicably nervous the Peloton makes her paint a bleak portrait of a woman in the thrall of a machine designed to erode her spirit as it sculpts her quads.AVClub:He smiles and she looks at him with the sort an expression that manages to convey duty and fear, mixed with a dash of Stockholm Syndrome, all at once.Decider:Here’s what I do know. This commercial is not the Peloton’s fault. Oh no, you may think this ad is about how a Peloton coaxed a woman into madness. I’m here to tell you this is a false read. As someone who jokes that she loved Midsommar so much she joined the cult of cycling clubs this year, I can tell you that cycling doesn’t make you crazy. Much like Captain America’s supersoldier serum, it just amplifies whatever crazy you already have. For me, that’s making jokes about Midsommar whenever possible. For this woman, that’s talking to no one on her iPhone, her eyes full of constant dread, and obsessively filming her every workout just so she and her husband can watch it together. Read the rest

As a way to promote a movies and other projects, Vanity Fair sometimes puts celebrities through a jokey lie detector test (see: Jennifer Lawrence). The polygraph itself is real but the questions are humorous. This time Big Bird is in the hot seat and he gets grilled on on all sort of things by the interviewer and a few of his Muppet pals. In short, we learn the 8-foot-tall Sesame Street icon cannot lie.Which Bird is better at basketball? Big Bird or Larry Bird? Does he ever Google himself? Is Oscar the Grouch a good neighbor? Who is Big Bird's best friend? Does Big Bird have it in him to tell a lie?Sesame Street is celebrating its 50th anniversary of helping kids everywhere grow up smarter, stronger and kinder. Sesame Street’s 50th season is currently running on HBO and will premiere on PBS in the summer of 2020.(The Awesomer)screengrab via Vanity Fair Read the rest

In 1961, Goya's famous portrait of the Duke of Wellington went missing from London's National Gallery. The case went unsolved for four years before someone unexpectedly came forward to confess to the heist. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe one of the greatest art thefts in British history and the surprising twists that followed.We'll also discover Seward's real folly and puzzle over a man's motherhood.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon! Read the rest

T. Greg Doucette is the North Carolina litigator who sleuthed out the incredible, bizarre details of the decision of the University of North Carolina's Republican-appointed governors to hand a group of white nationalists $2.5m to build a Confederacy museum.Doucette visited the Orange County Courthouse and scanned 123 pages' worth of documents related to the "lawsuit" that resulted in the UNC payout, including a "victory statement" by Kevin Stone, who styles himself "commander" of the white nationalist group Sons of Confederate Veterans, who received the $2.5m windfall from the university.But that victory statement is not available now, because Stone and the Sons of Confederate Veterans sent a DMCA notice to Dropbox, demanding that the document be removed on the grounds that it was a copyright violation, despite the document being part of a public court record.Doucette sounds like he's ready to fight.(I am a visiting professor of practice at UNC's School of Information and Library Science)Looks like the Grand Wizard of the Sons of Confederate Veterans *really* did not like me sharing his victory statementThey filed a DMCA complaint against me w/ Dropbox 🤣Any copyright attorneys willing to share with me how I can resolve this? Maybe a lawsuit against the SCV? pic.twitter.com/dENqCmPZMW— T. Greg "#SilentSham" Doucette (@greg_doucette) December 2, 2019 Read the rest

Many people turn to CBD as an all-natural remedy for aches, pains, anxiety, insomnia, and more. You can take the extract in many forms, but the products can be expensive. Now is a good time to stock up, with prices falling on a wide variety of CBD-infused products.. This Cyber Monday, you can save an extra 20% on everything below when you use the discount code CMSAVE20.Holiday CBD Premium GummiesEach containing 10mg of high-quality CBD from organic hemp, these gummies are delicious and powerful. Tested by a third-party lab, they contain no THC — so you won’t feel any psychoactive effects.MSRP: $39.99 Sale Price: $32Price with CMSAVE20 code: $25.60CBD Gummies 500mgAnother tasty option, these colorful gummies are made with CBD hemp isolate that is 99.99% grown in the USA. The pack contains sour strawberry, sour apple, sour tutti-frutti, and sour blue raspberry flavors, with 25mg of CBD per rainbow belt.MSRP: $40Sale Price: $29.99Price with CMSAVE20 code: $23.99FOCUS 750mg Broad Spectrum CBD Tincture + PeppermintThis tincture is made with hemp that is farmed, extracted, formulated and packaged in Colorado. Along with CBD, it delivers a refreshing hit of peppermint to provide an additional punch. MSRP: $90Sale Price: $71.99Price with CMSAVE20 code: $57.59FOMO Bones CBD Dog TreatsIf you experience good things with CBD, it's only natural to want the same for your pet. These tasty treats deliver a safe dose, along with passion flower, L-Tryptophan, valerian, and chamomile to keep your pupper calm and happy. Read the rest

In my latest podcast (MP3), I've started a serial reading of my novella Party Discipline, which I wrote while on a 35-city, 45-day tour for my novel Walkaway in 2017; Party Discipline is a story set in the world of Walkaway, about two high-school seniors who conspire to throw a "Communist Party" at a sheet metal factory whose owners are shutting down and stealing their workers' final paychecks. These parties are both literally parties -- music, dancing, intoxicants -- and "Communist" in that the partygoers take over the means of production and start them up, giving away the products they create to the attendees. Walkaway opens with a Communist Party and I wanted to dig into what might go into pulling one of those off.I don’t remember how we decided exactly to throw a Communist party. It had been a running joke all through senior year, whenever the obvious divisions between the semi-zottas and the rest of us came too close to the surface at Burbank High: “Have fun at Stanford, come drink with us at the Communist parties when you’re back on break.”The semi-zottas were mostly white, with some Asians—not the brown kind—for spice. The non-zottas were brown and black, and we were on our way out. Out of Burbank High, out of Burbank, too. Our parents had lucked into lottery tickets, buying houses in Burbank back when they were only ridiculously expensive. Now they were crazy. We’d be the last generation of brown kids to go to Burbank High because the instant we graduated, our parents were going to sell and use the money to go somewhere cheaper, and the leftovers would let us all take a couple of mid-range MOOCs from a Big Ten university to round out our community college distance-ed degrees. Read the rest

You may remember I recently blogged about Danny Elfman's new "music for film" MasterClass (which launched on Halloween, naturally). A day or so after it posted I got an email from someone on his team asking if I wanted to interview him. My response, "Uh, who could say no to that...?!" I soon found myself Skyping with the founder of Oingo Boingo, the father of the Simpsons' theme, and one of the most prolific film composers of all time — Happy Mutant extraordinaire, Mr. Danny Elfman.Here's what we chatted about:Rusty: Hi there, Danny. I'm thrilled to speak with you today.Danny: Hello, thank you.Rusty: I wanted to share a couple of things we have in common real quick before we get into it. One... we're both redheads.Danny: I was just going to say that. That's got to be the first thing.Rusty: Right? Well, it's obvious. Two... we both collect strange and unusual objects.Danny: Ooh...Rusty: Just saw an article about your strange and unusual collection and they shared a picture of you with your creepy ventriloquist dummy.Danny: Buddy!Rusty: Yeah, Buddy! Well, I wanted to tell you, you must know Archie McPhee...Danny: Yeah.Rusty: So, a couple of years ago, they made my likeness into a product. I'm a creepy ventriloquist dummy toy, a finger puppet.Danny: Really...?!Rusty: Yes.Danny: Wow... Oh my god, that's so cool. What an honor. You should be honored.Rusty: Oh I am.Danny: Wow. Well, you have to go look at my nine episodes of "Danny and Buddy."Rusty: Oh my gosh, yes, ok. Read the rest

From 2013, but new to me, Max Gladstone makes some close observations regarding the odd world of Episodes 1-6. The title card tells us that the story takes place long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. So the characters aren't actually human or even necessarily from a human-like society, they're just played by human actors. What can we learn about the creatures true nature from studying the first six movies?I think a few important context clues present a very different picture of the dominant race of the Original Trilogy.Gender is the most important clue. The Original Trilogy has a shortage of women when considered by the standards of a two-sexed mammalian species. Leia is the most prominent female, and the only one to feature in all three movies. Aunt Beru and Mon Mothma also have named speaking roles. Aside from these three, I can’t think of another definitely-female-definitely-‘human’ in the series. In RotJ Leia describes her mother, who is obviously a queen. These females all possess at least local political and social authority.Family is a second important clue—or, rather, the absence of family. With one notable exception, people in the series don’t talk much about parentage. No non-Force sensitive male ever describes his family, if I recall correctly. Han, Lando, Wedge, Biggs, Tarkin, Dodonna, and so forth, all might as well have sprung from the brows of their ships. In six+hours of film about war, I would expect to see someone to drop at least a single reference to parents of some sort. Read the rest

Way back in 1984, Christian rock band Prodigal hid a Commodore 64 program on their "Electric Eye" album. The 35-year-old Easter egg, which I won't spoil for you, was recently unlocked by YouTuber 8-Bit Show And Tell.The son of band's lead singer, Dan Boldman, left this fun comment, "Loyd Boldman, the lead singer of Prodigal, was my dad & I thank you so much for doing this! This is the first time I’ve ever actually seen somebody use this program! I’ve been hearing about it since I was a kid!"(Coudal Partners)screenshot via 8-Bit Show and Tell Read the rest

Jeremy O. Harris's Slave Play is meant to be provocative—certainly moreso than most other Broadway productions that transfer from Off Broadway theatres. The play itself is about a group of interracial couples who go to a kind of psychosexual couples' therapy that involves BDSM, reflecting Antebellum master-slave dynamics. During previews, the show even hosted a "Black Out," or a dedicated performance for black audiences, so they can enjoy and discuss the play without worrying about the reactions of white people around them.As such, it's not surprising that it might make some white people (and others) uncomfortable; that is, after all, the purpose of provocative art. But it reached a head after the Friday night performance on November 29 during a post-show talkback hosted by the playwright:Just saw the amazing @SlavePlayBway by @jeremyoharris after which a white audience member jumped up and accused him of being “racist against white people.” The confrontation proceeded from there. Clips in this thread. #slaveplay pic.twitter.com/KiXbo0rdcC— Adam B. Kushner (@AdamBKushner) November 30, 2019Imma tell my kids this was The Blind Side pic.twitter.com/lAbc9D8KuP— Jeremy O. Harris (@jeremyoharris) November 30, 2019Apparently, the unnamed woman missed the whole part of the play about white people taking up space and centering things around themselves. She yelled at Harris for—in her words—"being told as a single woman I'm not good enough to fucking raise [my own children]," and asked, "How the fuck am I not a fucking marginalized member of this goddamn society?"Yikes. Read the rest

A Star Wars fan in hospice is not expected to live long enough to see Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker when it is released in theaters on December. But a representative from Disney went to Rowans Hospice in England with a laptop containing the movie and showed it to the patient.The hospice staff also held a Star Wars themed party for the man and his family. "We were joined by Stormtroopers, wookies and droids and a brilliant time was had by all," tweeted a staffer.On Wednesday we threw a Star Wars themed party for the patient and his family. We were joined by Stormtroopers, wookies and droids and a brilliant time was had by all pic.twitter.com/SDAoUDIsXq— Rowans Hospice (@RowansHospice) November 29, 2019Image: Rowan's Hospice[via Neatorama] Read the rest

“Chinese technology companies are shaping new facial recognition and surveillance standards at the UN, according to leaked documents, as they try to open up new markets in the developing world for their cutting-edge technologies,” reports the Financial Times in a piece making the rounds on Monday.The FT article is unfortunately paywall-locked, but here's a post that builds on their reporting, from Engadget:The report details how Chinese companies including ZTE, Dahua and China Telecom are proposing standards for facial recognition to the UN's International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the body responsible for global technical standards in the telecommunication industry.Usually, the standards set by the ITU are technical in nature, but human rights campaigners say the proposals under discussion in this case are more like policy recommendations. The standards proposed include recommendations for use cases, suggesting that facial recognition can be used by police, by employers to monitor employees, and for spotting specific targets in crowds.The concern is that the technical standards will be adopted by developing nations, particularly those in Africa which lack the resources to develop their own standards. That puts China in a position of power to control the market for the technology.Read more about facial recognition in our Boing Boing archives.Exclusive: Leaked documents obtained by the Financial Times reveal that Chinese technology companies such as ZTE, Dahua and China Telecom are shaping new facial recognition and surveillance standards at the UN https://t.co/gLwcYqVxuN pic.twitter.com/KWR5bLJuGX— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) December 2, 2019You don’t say. Read the rest

Acting United States President Donald J. Trump just imposed some new metal tariffs against the South American nations of Brazil and Argentina. Trump told reporters that currency weakness in both countries was hurting U.S. farmers, and announced retaliatory tariffs on U.S. steel and aluminum imports.“Effective immediately, I will restore the Tariffs on all Steel & Aluminum that is shipped into the U.S. from those countries,” Mister Brain Worms tweeted early today. Brazil and Argentina were “presiding over a massive devaluation of their currencies,” the manifestly unfit president said, to the apparent surprise of officials from both countries who then sought explanations from the White House.From Reuters:In fact, the opposite is true: Both countries have actively been trying to strengthen their respective currencies against the dollar. The real and the peso have been buffeted by weakness partially linked to Trump’s trade battle with China. Read the rest

Can you imagine seeing this yourself, while you're wandering around, minding your own business, not expecting to see part of an airplane falling from the sky?Thank goodness nobody was injured when on Sunday in the Boston area, an evacuation slide dropped from a Delta jet and fell right into the yard of a suburban home.A Delta spokeswoman told The Boston Herald the slide, which was not inflated, fell from a plane that was en route from Paris to Boston around noon on Sunday.Here's a video from the Boston area ABC affiliate.From the AP roundup:The Federal Aviation Administration says the pilot reported a loud noise as the plane approached Logan Airport and landed safely.Police in Milton, south of Boston, alerted the agency that the slide had been found in a resident’s yard.Wenhan Huang tells The Patriot Ledger he was doing yard work when the slide took out several branches of his Japanese maple.More reporting and images: Read the rest

Singapore's Changi Airport is rated the #1 airport in the world by most entities that rate airports. It has theme parks, free movies, a retro video game arcade, hiking trails, and much more. Stephanie Rosenbloom took a 27-hour vacation there with her husband and wrote about it for The New York Times. I was in Singapore in 2018 but didn't spend much time at the airport. I'm headed there again soon and this time I plan to wander around.As with all wonderlands, though, there’s a fine line between fantasy and dystopia. Looking around, it isn’t hard to imagine a future in which everyone lives in domed cities in temperature-controlled, never-ending summers. Signs refer to “trails” that you can “hike,” as if Jewel’s smooth, clean floors are rugged arteries through the wilderness. The trees and shrubs around the waterfall have a corporate name: the Shiseido Forest Valley, after the Japanese beauty company. The waterfall is officially known as the HSBC Rain Vortex. And it’s surrounded by stores and restaurants, allowing a visitor to keep one eye on the jungle-scape and the other on the latest fashions at Calvin Klein — or the queue for Shake Shack. The result is a staggering display of artificiality and nature, with lights that can turn a waterfall crimson, or make it seem as if you’re dining al fresco under a starry sky.Image: Creative Commons Zero - CC0 Read the rest

If you haven't watched Ian Danskin's Alt-Right Playbook explainer video series, I highly recommend them. Ian recently posted a video of a talk he gave called " How the alt-right is like an abusive relationship." Read the rest

The pharma industry spends $2 on marketing for every $1 it spends on R&D: Shahram Ahari was a rep for Eli Lilly, so he knows how the money was spent: in a tell-all op-ed in the Washington Post, Ahari describes how he lavished spending over doctors, everything from dinners at "so many fancy Manhattan restaurants that the maitre d’s greeted me by name" to free ballgames and Broadway musical tickets to offering hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees to top prescribers.What's more, Ahari was able to access expensively assembled prescribing data -- purchased from pharmacies across the country -- to both identify doctors with a lot of chronic pain patients (or those who were "freer with their prescription pads") and to give him ammo for "guilt tripping" doctors who had taken freebies from him but hadn't rewarded him by writing a ton of prescriptions for his employers' drugs.In the years since Ahari left the industry (he's an MD now), it has adopted modest restrictions on how its reps deal with doctors, but as Ahari points out, any amount of freebies (or even plain sales calls) leads to increased prescribing. In part, that's down to the powerful arsenal of manipulation techniques that the salesforce is schooled in, including flat-out lying about the research on their products' efficacy and safety (this was endemic among opioid marketers like the Sackler family's Purdue Pharma, makers of Oxycontin). An unspoken bedrock principle guided my actions when I was in the pharmaceutical industry: It was not enough to grow our market share — we had to grow the market, too. Read the rest

Video doorbells are the perfect way to remotely issue instructions for delivery and check on your home from afar. These five smart video doorbells are already discounted, but you can take an extra 20% off the sale price for Cyber Monday using coupon code CMSAVE20.RemoBell® Black: Wireless Wi-Fi Video DoorbellSleek and sophisticated, RemoBell has motion detection, night vision, and full-duplex audio. The doorbell runs on AA batteries for four months, and you can view live HD video from your front door via the companion smartphone app.MSRP: $149Sale price: $89.99Price with CMSAVE20 code: $71.99Sinji WiFi Doorbell CameraA great budget option, Sinji is easy to install and entirely wireless. It has a built-in camera with night vision, and the anti-theft feature will alert you if someone tries to interfere with the doorbell.MSRP: $79Sale price: $25Price with CMSAVE20 code: $20RemoBell® W: Equipped Smart Video Doorbell Camera With ChimeThanks to a 160-degree lens, the RemoBell W covers a wide arc at the front of your property. Along with night vision and motion detection, this doorbell comes with a powerful chime (up to 90dB) that ensures you won’t miss a delivery.MSRP: $199Sale price: $159.99Price with CMSAVE20 code: $127.99LizaTech HD Doorbell CameraWith a 166-degree camera lens and a PIR motion sensor with an arc of 120 degrees, the LizaTech doorbell provides impressive coverage. It also has six powerful infrared LEDs, two-way audio and an IP65 waterproof outer shell.MSRP: $199.99Sale price: $149.99Price with CMSAVE20 code: $119.99RemoBell® S: Fast-Responding Smart Video Doorbell CameraThis feature-packed doorbell has an HD camera that captures 180 degrees, and you can define areas of special interest via the remo+ app. Read the rest

Back in 2016, it looked like the private prison industry would finally die, thanks to an Obama memo directing the DoJ to reduce their use for federal prisoners, but the sector retrenched, doubling down on the slave-labor camps it maintained for US immigration authorities, and aggressively lobbying states to jail their citizens in private prisons. It's hard to overstate how terrible the private prison sector is, but here's a couple of examples: a paralyzed prisoner chewed his own fingers off when his Arizona private prison (operated by Corizon Correctional) refused to treat his incredible pain. Corrections Corporation of America's Louisiana prisons are so violent and corrupt that prisoners are literally starving in violent, hellish cages. Management and Training Corporation's private prisons guards (who receive less than 3 weeks' training!) watched as prisoners beat a shackled man they were transporting.With the election of Donald Trump, things started looking up for America's gulag sector, with Core Civic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America) opening slave labor camps to house asylum seekers, torturing those who refused to work; these detention facilities were so violent that prisoners begged to be kept in solitary confinement, and Uncle Sugar started handing out $1b, no-bid contracts with 100% occupancy guarantees. As business boomed, the sector showered Republican lawmakers with cash Read the rest

I never enjoyed this game.Yahtzee is now a product of Hasbro, the owners of Death Row records. Read the rest

In 2017, Vanity Fair asked then-15-year-old rising star Billie Eilish a series of questions. A year later, they brought her back and asked the same questions. In that year, she had jumped from 257K Instagram followers to 6.3M. That interview revealed how fame had changed her life in just one short year. Well, in this new, much-anticipated interview, Billie is 17, has over 40M followers, has hosted and performed on SNL, and was just nominated for six Grammy awards. Same questions, same surprisingly self-reflective and humble young artist. As of this writing, she's now 18 and has over 43M IG followers. She's also since won two American Music Awards (New Artist and Alternative Artist). View this post on Instagram THANK YOU AMAS 😁A post shared by BILLIE EILISH (@billieeilish) on Nov 24, 2019 at 10:45pm PST Read the rest

Farmers in the Malnad region in South India are reportedly dying their dogs' fur with tiger stripes to scare off bands of marauding monkeys. Apparently the monkeys are wreaking havoc on their corn crops. According to the Deccan Herald, "Srikanta Gowda, a resident of Naluru village, Thirthahalli taluk, said he had seen a tiger-like doll used as a scarecrow near Bhatkal in Uttara Kannada district four years ago. He brought it to the village and placed it in his areca plantation. Surprisingly, monkeys were frightened after seeing the doll and did not return to his plantation."Based on that success, Gowda had the idea to enlist his dog as a kind of roving tiger-scarecrow. Read the rest

You can sell anything on Amazon, until you get noticed, and in the age of computer-generated copycats it can pretend not to even know what's for sale there. So it comes to pass that Amazon has now removed the Auschwitz-themed Christmas ornaments, which have been noticed. The Christmas merchandise featured images from Auschwitz including the railway line leading to its infamous gates, the barbed wire fences and the buildings where it housed victims - mainly Jews. The memorial and museum later posted an update to say the items had been removed and thanked social media users for their "activity and response" after the post attracted thousands of retweets.Sadly, Stephen Miller's christmas is not yet ruined. Similar products are still available to those who know what they're looking for.But later Auschwitz Memorial posted again to say "sadly, it's not over yet". It said it had found a "disturbing online product" from another seller - a computer mouse-pad bearing the image of a freight train used for deporting people to the concentration camps. It seems that @amazon has removed all of the "Christmas ornaments" with the images of the former Auschwitz camp. Thank you everyone for your activity and response. https://t.co/VGFnSDMWM9— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) December 1, 2019 Read the rest

John Barnett had a three-decade career as a Boeing quality manager, but after he was transferred to the Charleston, SC production facility for the Boeing 787 "Dreamliner," he became a whistleblower -- now he's been forced out of the company and is waiting for various federal agencies to rule on the complaints he brought against the company.Barnett says the 787 facility was run by a new leadership team that had been transferred in from St Louis, MO, with a background in overseeing military contracts, and that they prioritized production speed over airworthiness and safety.He says that the culture of poor safety began in 2011 or 2012, with top management ordering employees not to document defects, but that this graduated to "ignoring safety issues and the defective parts." Barnett pursued this internally, exhausting every internal process and facing workplace retaliation before going to federal regulators like the FAA and OSHA, which resulted in even more retaliation, and, eventually, blackballing across the aviation industry.Barnett's description of the safety issues is terrifying. For example, the process of tightening the titanium nuts on the floorboard-bolts caused 3"-long, razor sharp titanium slivers to cascade into the compartment where all the sensitive avionics wiring ran. Though the FAA eventually ordered Boeing to stop shipping planes whose wiring compartments were full of loose, razor-sharp metal shards, the company had already shipped 800 planes by that point and has not recalled any of them, so every Dreamliner in the sky today has this problem. Some of these shards have already caused fires in 787s. Read the rest

Great software can be the difference between a smooth workday and staying late at the office. If you want to improve your workflow without spending a fortune, the 2020 Limited Edition Mac Bundle is definitely worth a look. This collection of 13 award-winning apps brings together some of the best third-party Mac software available today, ranging from big names to hidden gems. The headliner is Aurora HDR 2019, which allows photographers to combine multiple exposures to create a perfectly balanced image. Parallels Desktop 15 is another big name — this app allows users to run Windows software, including Office and many games, without leaving macOS.PDF Expert makes it easy to edit, annotate and sign PDF documents. This former App of the Year and Editor’s Choice doubles as a speedy PDF reader. XMind 8 provides a powerful suite of tools for mind mapping, and TextExpander saves keystrokes by converting text shortcuts into full-length snippets. Meanwhile, iMazing 2 allows users to transfer files to and from any iOS device in seconds.The bundle also includes RapidWeaver 8, the popular web design app; Banktivity 7, an award-winning personal finance tracker; and iMazing 2, the intuitive iOS data manager. Live Home 3D Pro gives homeowners the chance to create a virtual mockup of interior design projects, while NetSpot Pro reveals the Wi-Fi deadspot in any home or office. The bundle even provides two years of online privacy protection with Windscribe VPN Pro. This subscription includes unlimited bandwidth on any number of devices.The apps in this bundle provide an instant upgrade for any Mac, no matter how you use your Apple machine. Read the rest

Given that by the time we see a new season of Stranger Things the kids will probably be in college, this will have to do! That's ok because, as Steve Harrington says, "Hair is here!"In this week's episode, Mike investigates a crime, while Nancy wonders about the gift Steve gave her. Read the rest

In 1997, Mikhail Gorbachev, the final leader of the Soviet Union, needed some cash. So he made a Pizza Hut commercial. Of course there was more to the story than that, but not really so much. He reportedly received $1 million for the spot. "I thought that it is a people' s matter -- food," Gorbachev told the New York Times after the filming. "This is why if my name works for the benefit of consumers, to hell with it -- I can risk it." Over at Foreign Policy, Paul Musgrave tells the tale:Gorbachev had suffered the same fate as many Soviet retirees, who had looked forward to generous pensions only to find themselves forced to hustle and scrape to get by as the Russian economy collapsed around them—shrinking by 30 percent between 1991 and 1998. The foundation, too, was tottering, with even Gorbachev’s significant lecture fees unable to sustain both his family and the foundation and its staff, let alone any projects he might want to pursue to leave a legacy. Even generous donations from Ted Turner only went so far.Gorbachev was determined to stay in Russia and fight for reform, not to take up a life of well-compensated exile abroad. To do that, he would need money to fund his center, his staff, and his activities—urgently. As Gorbachev later told France 24 when asked about the ad, “I needed to finish the building. The workers started to leave—I needed to pay them...”(After months of negotiations,) Gorbachev finally assented—with conditions. Read the rest

The Australian Acoustic Observatory project, described by its creators as a kind of "Google Street View of sound," is a new acoustic sensor network of hundreds of microphones and digital audio recorders distributed across multiple remote ecosystems on the continent. The solar-powered system will record animal and natural sounds continuously for 5 years. According to lead researcher Paul Roe of the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Ecoacoustics Research Group and colleagues, the observatory will enable scientists and the public to listen to "a galaxy of sounds — it is like the heartbeat of the environment." While scientists will use the data to better understand the ecosystems and how they are changing over time, I bet sound artists have a (ahem) field day with the recordings once the public can listen in. From ABC News:It was hoped citizen scientists would embrace the hidden animal world that was being captured, along with students and artists."For example, we will have citizen science projects where we can kind of search for a particular animal within the soundscape. People can use it to explore the environment to understand what is happening, how does the sound change," he said...Professor Roe said 400 sensors have been placed across 100 sites in seven distinct eco-regions covering desert, grassland, shrublands and temperate, subtropical and tropical forests.It might be then that we get birds arriving because there has been some water and trees are flowering, or there might be frogs which are going to call, they are going to come out of the desert and call after rain. Read the rest

Holiday memories are precious and should be remembered — but when you're in the moment, it can be difficult to remember to take photos. This Force Flyers Card Drone with Hi-Res Wi-Fi FPV Camera is a clever workaround to designating someone as the family reunion photographer: it's a follow-me style drone that zips around, capturing everything from selfies to group photos.Compact and lightweight, this handy drone folds into a package you can slip into your back pocket. It includes features like a selfie button that allows it to take off, fly for ten feet, and take three photos of you in rapid succession that you can then review and approve straight from your phone. There's also a visual identification feature that lets you "follow" anything/anyone you select.You can enjoy real-time recording for up to 12 minutes of your holiday festivities and capture any moment within a 164 to 230-foot range. Plus, it recharges in just about 60 minutes and is ready to go for the next party you're attending.Usually, this Force Flyers Card Drone with Hi-Res Wi-Fi FPV Camera is $69.99, but it's on sale now for $49.99 — but for a limited time, use coupon code BFSAVE20 for an extra 20% off the sale price, bringing the cost down to $39.99. Read the rest

On November 27, just as the courthouses were closing and newsrooms were going to a skeleton crew, the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina -- lately stuffed with GOP operatives and seemingly bent on destroying the university -- announced that it would settle a lawsuit with the Sons of Confederate Veterans -- a white nationalist organization devoted to installing the "traitors' flag" of the Confederacy across the south -- for $2.5m, diverting millions from educational purposes to building a Klan museum.But the story is much weirder than that. The lawsuit that the Board of Governors settled just before the lawsuit was actually filed. The Board met via closed teleconference, having scheduled the meeting days in advance, and approved the settlement an hour before they were served with notice of the filing of the suit.It gets worse. The issue over the lawsuit was that demonstrators had toppled a Confederate monument, "Silent Sam," in August 2018. But the Sons of Confederate Veterans don't own the Silent Sam statue, so it's difficult to understand how they'd even have standing to sue the university.The university agreed to to give the white nationalists custody of the statue -- a participation medal for the traitors who lost the battle to own their neighbors -- and to pay them $2.5m of "non-state funds" (donor money, royalty money from university patents, etc) to use to build and maintain a permanent home for the statue, on the condition that it not be located near campus. Read the rest

Sometimes you can capture more in a notebook than you ever could with a laptop or tablet, whether you're doodling dreams or developing intricate mind maps. This Rocketbook Wave Executive Smart Notebook with Pen Station helps you capture your most innovative thoughts and drawings forever by saving them to the cloud. You can find it here for $8 off the sale price for $27.99 — but if you use this early Cyber Monday discount code, CMSAVE20, you can save an additional 20% off the sale price.You can save paper (and stop repurchasing notebooks) with this Rocketbook Wave Executive Smart Notebook — you can upload your handwritten notes to the cloud instantaneously with the Rocketbook app. Choose between Google Docs, Dropbox, iCloud, Evernote, Slack and more, making it the perfect choice for business and creative use alike.When you've filled up the pages, all you need to do (after saving your notes first), is simply stick the Rocketbook into the microwave to erase all the pages and start over. You can reuse the notebook up to five times and leverage the sophisticated AI technology to create smart titles, smart search and email transcription.Rocketbook Wave Executive Smart Notebook with Pen Station is currently available for $27.99 — use coupon code CMSAVE20 to bring the price down to $22.39. Read the rest