We've been closely following the plan by Google sister company Sidewalk Labs to build a surveilling "smart city" in Toronto; last week, I sat down with the Out of Left Field podcast (MP3) to discuss what's going on with Sidewalk Labs, how it fits into the story of Big Tech, and what the alternatives might be. Read the rest

A spokesperson for the Daimaru branch at Osaka Umeda department store says that badges given to women employees to let others know they are menstruating are not mandatory. But the store has received enough negative attention that it is rethinking the program.from BBC:Ms Higuchi said some staff "didn't see the point" in the badges or were "reluctant" to wear them."But others were positive," she added. "If you saw a colleague was having her period, you could offer to carry heavy things for her, or suggest she takes longer breaks, and this support would be mutual."She also said customers had phoned in with their support.Daimaru are not cancelling the policy, but they are rethinking it.Ms Higuchi said they would come up with a different way of sharing the information - without alerting the public.【オープン取材】大丸梅田店の「ミチカケ」が導入している“生理バッジ”は人気漫画「生理ちゃん」が目印。普段から付けている紙のプレートを裏返しにするだけで着用できます。着用の判断はスタッフに委ねているそう。https://t.co/uEaHqxYmm0#ミチカケ pic.twitter.com/eMJeysEiyu— WWD JAPAN (@wwd_jp) November 22, 2019 Read the rest

At first I thought this video used special effects to make it look like a tiny surfer was bugging a normal size surfer. It's actually a remote control scale model of a surfer. How to annoy a surfer 101 from funny Read the rest

Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle created The Game of Oligarchy, which "shows that the 'free market' leads inexorably to one person getting all the money and everyone else going broke. And fast."The game's rules are simple: everyone is assigned $100 in play money to begin with; they take it in turns to pick a player to have a coin-toss against, with the winner taking 50% of the lesser of pots of the pair (if both have $100, the winner takes $50 from the loser). Very quickly, the winners of the initial coin tosses wipe out the remaining players, and then each other, producing an outcome with a single winner with all the money. What's more interesting than the ability of small amounts of random chance to produce oligarchic outcomes is the psychological effect of playing the game: over the duration of the very short games, the winners arrive at a "feeling of righteous empowerment based on being successful" and players experience class divisions.Kahle based his game on an article in Scientific American: "Is Inequality Inevitable? Wealth naturally trickles up in free-market economies, model suggests. Neal Krawetz has implemented the game so it can run automatically in browsers. What is amazing is that even through each toss is “fair” in that it is a 50-50 chance to win a straight amount of money, the results shows one player wins all the money, and really quickly.Two nephews and their partners, Mary and I played 4 rounds in about an hour and we discovered social classes (we called the broke ones “organ sellers”), feeling of righteous empowerment based on being successful (even though it was completely random), but also that “free market” ended with all-but-one-of-us in a bad situation really quickly. Read the rest

The poster for "The Dark Knight Returns: The Golden Child" features Batman hurling a molotov cocktail in front of the words "The Future is Young," after DC Comics posted it to Instagram and Twitter, the image was copied into Chinese social media, where they sparked outrage among Chinese users who claimed that the subtext of the image was support for the Hong Kong protests.After the outcry spread, DC deleted the image. DC is highly dependent on China for movie revenues (Aquaman grossed $292m in China, and Shazam grossed $43.8m). At the time of the Chinese social media outrage storm, DC parent company Time Warner/AT&T was promoting its upcoming film "Birds of Prey," which stars Cathy Yan, who is Chinese-American.In the meantime, DC Comics’ Instagram has been flooded with criticism from people who support the Hong Kong protests or are angry that the company appears to have given in to Chinese political pressure.“So now Batman loves money more than justice?” asked one commenter.Another wrote: “Apparently China rules the world now. The future is young? No, the future is censorship.”DC Comics Comes Under Fire for Deleting Batman Poster That Sparked Chinese Backlash [Rebecca Davis/Variety] Read the rest

Pennsylvania has one-upped Ohio's lethal anti-abortion bill (which requires OB/GYNs to perform a non-existent operation to implant fertilized eggs from ectopic pregnancies in women's uteruses, on penalty of prison time), with anti-choice lawmakers introducing House Bill 1890, the Pennsylvania Final Disposition of Fetal Remains, which provides for prison sentences and fines for anyone disposing of a fertilized human egg without obtaining a death certificate and then holding a funeral for it.Only half of all fertilized eggs actually implant. In most cases, neither women nor their doctors know that she is pregnant when her fertilized egg passes through her in her menstrual flow. The eggs themselves are about the size of a pinhead.House Bill 1890 defines any fertilized egg as "an unborn child."This isn't the first time a bill of this type has been introduced: Mike Pence signed a very similar bill into law in 2016 when he was governor of Indiana. The part of that bill that requires funerals for fertilized eggs was upheld by the Supreme Court last May. The SCOTUS decision emboldened religious fanatic lawmakers to plan/introduce similar legislation in other states.“HB1890 is like a Russian doll,” she continued. “You have to keep unpacking it to see what’s really inside.”To continue Castro’s metaphor, the smallest doll, nested within all of the others, might be the bill’s new definition of fetal death. Currently, Pennsylvania defines fetal death as the “expulsion or extraction” of a product of conception after 16 weeks' gestation. Ryan’s legislation, however, gets rid of the 16-week threshold, proposing that fetal death be any “expulsion or extraction from its mother of a product of conception, which shows no evidence of life after the expulsion or extraction.” The absence of any time marker, Castro said, means that the legal definition of “fetal death” would include fertilized eggs that don't implant if HB 1890 passed into law. Read the rest

For many years, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was a newspaper columnist for the Telegraph, where he espoused some of the most reactionary, disqualifying garbage ever published by a mainstream UK publication, a trend that continued after he began his political career. Business Insider has rounded up a "greatest hits" reel of Bojo's most disgusting and awful rhetoric, as the old Etonian plute fights his first-ever election as a prime ministerial candidate.Behold!* 1998, The Telegraph: (Commenting on the resignation of Peter Mandelson from the Labour Party) "[It will lead to blubbing from] tank-topped bumboys at the Ministry of Sound" nightclub."* 2001, "Friends, Voters, Countrymen": "If gay marriage was OK – and I was uncertain on the issue – then I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men, or indeed three men and a dog."* 2005, The Telegraph: "[Voters on] run-down estates [support Labour in] the deluded hope of bigger hand-outs. [These] bottom fifth [of Britons] supplies us with the chavs, the losers, the burglars, the drug addicts and the 70,000 people who are lost in our prisons and learning nothing except how to become more effective criminals. [Labour MPs want to ban hitting children because of their] revulsion when they see a chav belting her kids in the supermarket."* 2005, The Spectator: [Children of single mothers are] ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate. [Their fathers are too] feeble to take control of [their] woman."* 2013, Centre for Policy Studies: "Whatever you may think of the value of IQ tests, it is surely relevant to a conversation about inequality that as many as 16 per cent of our species have an IQ below 85 while about 2 per cent have an IQ above 130... Read the rest

It can be hard to pick up on music lessons later on in life, even if the desire is there to learn how to play. In between finding the time for lessons and retaining the skills you do manage to pick up, it can feel like an uphill battle to learn to play an instrument. This Jamstik 7 Guitar Trainer helps you learn guitar on your own time, with user-friendly lessons you can take anywhere, at any time. It's available for $20 off the list price at $179.99 — plus, you can save an extra 20% off with coupon code CMSAVE20.This smart guitar works just like a real guitar when it comes to teaching you technique — but it's far more lightweight and comes bundled with apps and software to help the lessons stick. It comes with an all-new patented FretTouch™ Finger Sensing Technology and Infrasense™ Optical String Pickups, which provide an enhanced digitized guitar learning experience that mimics the real thing.You can see your fingers on the screen in real-time so you learn frets and chords properly — plus, it measures just over 18 inches, so you can practice anywhere. You can also play it fully wirelessly with the added option to connect via high-speed USB.This Jamstik 7 Guitar Trainer is currently available for $179.99 — and when you use coupon code CMSAVE20, you can get it here for $143.99. Read the rest

Reading is a great way to uncover new ideas. But for many of us, setting aside time for books can be a challenge. The 12min Micro Book Library provides the perfect solution. This mobile app offers condensed versions of important non-fiction books, meaning you can digest big ideas during your lunch break. Available on iOS and Android, the 12min library delivers 30 new micro books every month on a range of topics. On the virtual shelves, you'll find best-selling titles such as Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon and Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini.Each micro book takes just a few minutes to read, but it includes all the key ideas from the full-length book. The app can store micro books offline or send a copy to your Kindle. If you prefer, you can listen to an audio version of any micro book.The 12min app is a great way to squeeze inspiring books into a packed schedule. Normally worth $346.50, lifetime access is currently $17.40 when you use coupon code BFSAVE40 this Black Friday. Read the rest

When it comes to drone technology, one name stands out: DJI. The company makes some of the best quadcopters currently available, along with some ultra-cool video cameras. Over Black Friday weekend, there are some great deals available on DJI tech — here are five of the best:Ryze Tech Tello Quadcopter Iron Man Edition Powered by DJIPerfect for any Iron Man devotee, this palm-sized quadcopter has a 720p HD camera onboard. It also has several flight modes, and pilots can program the drone to perform tricks using Scratch or Python. This special edition Tello offers 13 minutes of flight time and a range of 100 meters.Sale Price: $129DJI Mavic Mini: The Everyday FlycamWeighing under 0.55 pounds, the Mavic Mini is no heavier than a smartphone. In spite of being a featherweight, this drone has a 3-axis gimbal and a camera that can send back live 2.7K quad-HD video to the supplied controller. Pilots can also set up cinematic shots with just a few taps.Sale Price: $399DJI RoboMaster S1 STEM Education RobotThis ground-based drone brings science and maths to life. Pilots can use custom code to guide the built-in artificial intelligence, and the S1 has 46 customizable components. It also has a camera for first-person piloting, and two-way audio for long-distance communication.Sale Price: $549Ryze Tech Tello Quadcopter Powered by DJIThe regular version of the Tello drone is an even better value. It has the same 720p camera with auto-stabilization and 13 minutes of flight time. Read the rest

Researchers fed extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) to mice that are genetically engineered to get dementia from the accumulation of toxic proteins (tau proteins) in the brain that lead to alzheimer's. After six months the researchers saw a "60% reduction in toxic tau deposits in the brains of the mice fed the EVOO-enriched diet compared to the mice eating a regular diet," reports Forbes.The article includes some caveats to this promising news:While this line of research is promising (along with the list of EVOO studies leading up to the latest), a few limitations apply. Mouse research can point to important directions for human research, but it’s not the same as human research and does not demonstrate a cause-and-effect relationship between EVOO and brain-health benefits for humans. The positive results found in this and related studies suggest potential benefits, but they are not “proof” of anything.Along with that limitation, it’s also important to note that the accumulation of tau in the human brain typically occurs over many years, for reasons we’re only starting to understand. The mice in this and related studies have been genetically altered to develop a similar condition in a matter of months. While this acceleration provides a useful model for research, it’s not nearly the same as what happens in humans over the course of decades.Photo by David Clode on Unsplash Read the rest

Masa is a 23-year-old game programmer at Bandai Namco Studios in Tokyo. In this 13-minute-video made by Paolo From Tokyo, we see what Masa's life is like, from the moment his alarm goes off in the morning until he is back at home making a Gundam model before he goes to sleep.From the YouTube description:We'll even interact with directors from popular Japanese video game titles such as Tekken and CodeVein. Plus we'll get to see what a Japanese programmer from one of the large Video Game companies in Japan does after work with friends. This look inside a Japanese game dev's life is pretty unique and should provide some insight for those people who want to work in Japan as a game developer or game programmer. Also, this day in the life of a Japanese programmer will show you what it takes to be a Japanese programmer. As you would expect, most of the work day is spent programming and coding, but there are other unique aspects of the Japanese programmers life we are able to see in this video.Image: YouTube Read the rest

The problem with being a slow reader is that it takes longer to wade through emails and study for exams. Thankfully, anyone can improve their reading speed. ZapReader is an online platform that offers coaching from world-leading speed reading experts with scientifically designed exercises. Many users report a three-fold increase in reading speed without losing comprehension.When kids first learn to read, they often pick up bad habits — such as speaking words aloud or reading sentences twice. These habits can stick with you for life, and they prevent faster reading.ZapReader helps users shrug off those bad reading habits. The platform combines six hours of video tutorials with reading exercises that are designed to correct flaws in your reading technique. In addition, ZapReader offers special reading software which helps you put speed reading into practice. The software works with 46 different file types, including Word documents, PDFs and even Photoshop files. ZapReader also creates detailed reading speed reports, so you can see the change over time.For anyone looking for a productivity boost, ZapReader holds the key. Worth $499, lifetime access is now $23.99 with 40% off coupon code BFSAVE40. Read the rest

Artist Coop's revival of the outstanding skulls of the Randotti Corporation (as seen at Disneyland and Walt Disney World!) continues with a line of tights featuring Haunted Skull, Voodoo Skull and Pirate Skull. Read the rest

Normally speaking, recording audio with your phone is a last resort. The built-in mic simply wasn’t designed for picking up guitar riffs and powerful vocals. However, the Shure MV88 Digital Stereo Condenser Microphone adds the necessary hardware for high-quality audio recordings. Made for iOS devices, this accessory is a must-have for any musician — and it's currently 19% off for Black Friday, priced at $149.With matched cardioid and bi-directional 0.4" (1cm) cartridges, the MV88 can capture speech and song with remarkable clarity. The all-metal mic plugs into the Lightning port of your iPhone or iPad, with a hinge that allows you to find the perfect recording angle.The MV88 is suitable for recording speech, singing, acoustic instruments, and many other sounds. The mic automatically optimizes EQ, compression, and limiting, and there are five different presets to choose from. The free ShurePlus MOTIV app offers fine control over these settings, along with 24-bit/48 kHz .wav (uncompressed) recording.The Shure MV88 is perfect for musicians, podcasters, and anyone who needs high-quality audio. It retails for $186, but you can get it now for $149 over Black Friday. Read the rest

As one year draws to a close and a new year is about to begin, it's common to assess what you've accomplished and start to set new goals. And whether you have the resolution to travel more, gain international work opportunities or strike up a conversation with your grandparents in their native tongue, there are many benefits to picking up a new language. Most people hit a point in learning a new language where progress comes to a screeching halt because it's difficult to maintain the consistency of practice — but Babbel was developed by expert linguists with a focus on making learning a new language both intuitive and accessible.Babbel is the top-grossing language learning app in the world because it not only gives users 24/7 access to learn, develop and practice speaking and reading skills at any time, but it also breaks the lessons down into digestible chunks. You can practice in 10-15 minute-long increments that can fit into the busiest schedule and keep your pronunciation on point with speech recognition technology.Go from a beginner to an advanced understanding of your pick of 14 languages ranging from Spanish and French, to Italian and German — and take your time learning, since this subscription gives you lifetime access to try your hand at all of them if you want to. The lessons cover a wide range of useful real-life topics that you can use to chat up locals, from travel to family, business to food and more.Reinforce your learning with personalized review sessions and the freedom to study wherever and whenever you want: Babbel synchronizes your progress across your devices and even lets you access courses offline. Read the rest

Between presents for your family and dedicating your free time to your friends, the best gift you can give yourself this holiday season is a reinvestment towards what fuels and nourishes you. We couldn't think of anything better than learning new skills or developing new hobbies for the new year, so we rounded up 15 eLearning bundles that not only offer a wide range of compelling content, they're on sale for an extra 60% off using coupon code BFSAVE60.Read more below.The Complete Python Certification Bootcamp BundleLearning to code can offer you impressive opportunities for career advancement, and the Complete Python Certification Bootcamp Bundle is an enormous resource that covers all things Python in 85 hours. You'll learn to manipulate data, derive business insights from raw data and more.MSRP: $2030Sale Price: $34.99Price with BFSAVE60: $14The Complete Tableau 10 Data Science BundleTableau 10 is a tool widely used by companies to inform their decision-making, and this Complete Tableau 10 Data Science Bundle shows you how to use the platform to break down raw information into clear, actionable insights. Visualize data with dashboards, create charts, set up advanced calculations and more.MSRP: $623.96Sale Price: $19Price with BFSAVE60: $7.60The Complete Digital Marketing Super BundleMarket yourself (or your company) like an expert with the Complete Digital Marketing Super Bundle: it covers everything from how to send effective email blasts with MailChimp to breaking down how to use Google AdWords to give your products and services more visibility. Read the rest

Cards Against Humanity asked Spencer Kelly to teach a computer to write mean, funny joke-cards for a new, AI-based expansion pack to the game; Kelly trained the popular GPT-2 generative language model (previously) on existing cards, and now the company is livestreaming a 16-hour competition between its AI and its human joke-writers, with a voting system to up/downvote the resulting jokes (at the end of the day, these votes will be "tallied up and thrown in the garbage"). You can choose to buy the resulting packs, and if the human team outsells the robots, it will receive a $5,000 bonus. If they fail, they will all be fired.Presumably, the last part is a joke (the CAH folks are extremely good eggs and they pull weird pranky stunts every Black Friday).CAH has also opened a board-game cafe in Chicago with two escape rooms, a full bar, and high-quality kitchen, which is pretty danged exciting.Cards Against Humanity's Black Friday A.I. Challenge Read the rest

Today is Black Friday Record Store Day and The National released a three-cassette box set titled The National: Juicy Sonic Magic, Live in Berkeley, September 24-25, 2018. But this isn't a typical soundboard recording. The National commissioned archivist Erik Flannigan to record their shows using techniques developed by famed bootlegger Mike "The Mic" Millard who died in 1994. Millard's recordings of concerts by the likes of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones -- which he never sold himself, although they were sometimes resold by others -- are considered some of the greatest concert bootlegs of all time. Above, a short documentary by Flannigan and filmmaker David DuBois about Mallard's life's work and The National's release. The illustrations are by my pal Jess Rotter, animated by Eben McCue. In the liner notes, Flannigan wrote:Millard’s legend is built in part on the cunning and subterfuge he used to get his nearly 15-pound cassette deck and microphones into venues like the The Forum, Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, and The Roxy. For years I have pondered what made Millard’s recordings so good, and eventually I had an idea: What if you recorded a concert today with the same equipment Millard used in 1977? Would it sound like his tapes? Would it tap into his Midas touch?The National was kind enough to let us test the Millard Method for two concerts at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, California last September. These live recordings were made with vintage AKG 451E microphones and a restored Nakamichi 550 cassette deck which are identical to those used by Millard circa 1975-81. Read the rest

With all the tea and coffee I drink, I use teeth whitening strips once a year or so. They work really well for me. I can see a noticeable difference after using them just once. Amazon has a good deal on the Crest 3D White Whitestrips Vivid Plus Teeth Whitening Kit, which has 12 treatments. Read the rest

In many countries you can buy inexpensive eyeglasses and contact lenses without a prescription. That's not the case in the United States. In 2016 the American Optometric Association (AOA) spent $1.8 million lobbying and another $1.4 million in campaign contributions to ensure corrective lenses are expensive for Americans, and therefore highly profitable. Yascha Mounk, a contributing writer at The Atlantic, writes in her article, "The Great American Eye-Exam Scam:"When I last went to an eye exam at a storefront optician in the United States, for example, the staff gave me the hard sell on glasses that would have cost hundreds of dollars, as well as on contact lenses that were much more expensive than identical ones sold by online retailers. Thankfully, I knew that two laws, one passed in 1997 and the other in 2003—which had, incidentally, been loudly opposed by the AOA—gave me the right to demand a copy of my prescription. I stood firm, and later went online to order perfectly fine glasses and contact lenses at a fraction of the price. But how many customers give in to heavy-handed sales tactics?After reading this article, I ordered one of these vision checkers for $35, so I can test my vision and order eyeglasses online for a fraction of what it costs at a brick and mortar store.Photo by nrd on Unsplash Read the rest

Finder reports that Americans waste $13 billion every year buying gifts that the recipients don't want. The most interesting part of the report was the section about "spiteful gifts," that is gifts that the giver knows the recipient will dislike:Interestingly, we found that 15% of Americans — roughly 38 million people — have deliberately bought a present knowing their recipient wouldn’t like it. Men are about four times more likely than women to intentionally gift a bad present, with 25% of men surveyed saying they’d done it in the past, versus about 6% of women.Of the generations, Gen Xers are most likely to knowingly give bad gifts, with 22% admitting they’ve done so. That’s only slightly higher than the rate for Gen Y (18%) but 11 times higher than the rate for boomers (2%).Those with money to burn — people earning $100,000 to $150,000 — are most likely to buy spiteful presents, with 28% saying they’d done so. That’s almost three times higher than those earning between $50,000 and $75,000 (11%) and almost five times higher than those earning between $25,000 and $50,000 (6%). Read the rest

Odeith is an artist in Portugal who paints ultra realistic murals. His portfolio has many examples of his work. His Instagram account also has lots of photos of his paintings. View this post on InstagramA post shared by ODEITH (@odeith) on Oct 14, 2019 at 9:36am PDT View this post on InstagramA post shared by ODEITH (@odeith) on Jun 12, 2019 at 10:06am PDT View this post on InstagramA post shared by ODEITH (@odeith) on Apr 15, 2019 at 9:28am PDT Read the rest

Jake Berman writes, "I've drawn a series of maps showing the lost streetcar and subway systems of North America." He's selling them as prints. Read the rest

An Italian police raid of 19 homes of members of the Italian National Socialist Workers' Party uncovered troves of weapons, Nazi literature, and books about Hitler and Mussolini. "The self-styled party aimed to form a pan-European alliance with other xenophobic and anti-Semitic groups, police said, without revealing how many people had joined it. Tne suspect allegedly had links with the 'Ndrangheta criminal network while another, a 50-year-old woman, called herself Hitler's sergeant-major." (Thanks, Kathy Padilla!) Read the rest

When I was a younger, much less experienced man, I bought a Steam controller. It cost me close to $100 in Canadian funds, but I thought it'd be well worth it. A controller that's great, according to the propaganda, for playing everything from point-and-click adventure games to the latest shooters? Who the hell wouldn't want that?As it turns out, I did not want that.I used it a few times before breaking down and buying an Xbox wireless controller to use instead. I dug that the Steam Controller allowed you to pretty much map PC game to it to allow for some epic couch gaming sessions. I loathed how cheap it felt and that, even when it was properly mapped to my PC games, It's poor accuracy made for a shitty gaming experience.From Engadget:Four years after Valve released its oddball Steam Controller, it's not making any more. The controller is on sale today for $5 -- that's 90 percent off its list price of $49.99 -- and a note in the Steam Store warns that there's a limited quantity remaining. Once those controllers are gone, Valve doesn't plan to make more, The Verge reports.While most reviewers originally wrote the Steam Controller off as too weird, Valve sold over 500,000 in the first six months. It became one of the most configurable gaming devices -- you could play Street Fighter V strictly with motion controls or Serious Rocket League with the grips programmed for acceleration/brake and drift/boost. Read the rest

Classified Pentagon spending is the fastest-growing part of the US military budget, rising to 11% of the total $716b proposed for 2020; this spending is not subject to oversight and House Armed Services Committee Chair Adam Smith [D-WA] says it leads to waste.Unsurprisingly, these black budgets are solid gold for defense contractors and other beltway bandits, whose shareholder disclosures include chortling celebrations of the record profits they're receiving for classified projects, with classified divisions growing than any other part of their businesses.Raytheon boasts of "record classified bookings of nearly $7 billion" (up 46% in one year!). Northrup Grumman says its extra $1b in profit this year is largely due to its contributions to secret weapons programs. But Lockheed is doing best of all, with its $600b "hypersonic weapon technology" contract mushrooming to $1b next year, and more in the pipeline. For example, an uptick in classified deals have Lockheed Martin’s missiles and Skunk Works Advanced Development Programs divisions “growing faster than the corporation,” CFO Ken Possenriede said on a Tuesday conference call with Wall Street analysts.This year, Lockheed received about $600 million for secret work to develop hypersonic weapon technology and prototypes. Next year, that’s expected to grow to “about $1 billion,” Possenriede said. And that’s just for weapons under development and not yet in serial production. Possenriede also touted the potential for counter-hypersonic weapon work.As Secret Pentagon Spending Rises, Defense Firms Cash in [Marcus Weisgerber/Defenseone](via Naked Capitalism)(Image: Tracy O, CC BY-SA, modified) Read the rest

South Carolina's system of appointed magistrates allows the state senate to appoint "judges" with no legal training, some of whom cannot pass a basic competency test on the first try, to hear over 800,000 cases a year; the magistrates are appointed and re-appointed without a background check (there's also a loophole that let some judges escape even that reappointment hearing, serving for 20 years without undergoing the process), allowing them to serve even after grave judicial misconduct.The Post and Courier's Joseph Cranney has rounded up the dismal record of some of the state's magistrates, with particular emphasis on former state rep and retired cop Mike Pitts, whose public statements in the state house and on social media include saying that Cory Booker "alway [sic] looks like he just hit crack real hard"; complaining about seeing "people from the middle east in Walmart...after being subject to this incident I now support shutting down all immigration until we stop the demise of our culture"; "[transgender people] aren’t sure what the hell they are."In office, Pitts tried to block the removal of the Confederate flag from the statehouse after the 2015 mass murder at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston; he proposed legislation to force journalists to register with the state; and he co-sponsored a 2018 bill "requiring South Carolina lawmakers to consider seceding from the Union if the federal government 'confiscates legally purchased firearms.'"When Pitts retired from political life, he complained that he was having trouble finding a job, and made an unsuccessful bid for a patronage appointment as head of the South Carolina land conservation agency -- but found the background check too onerous (he called it an "aggressive inquisition" and blamed it for his failure to recover from a heart attack, saying that thanks to the background checks, "I tired quickly and realized that my cognitive skills have been affected."). Read the rest

After producing the Voyager Golden Record: 40th Anniversary Edition, my buddy Tim Daly and I launched a record/publishing label, Ozma Records, to publish creative works at the intersection of science, art, music, and consciousness. Today through Monday, we're having a special holiday sale on all of our releases! This is a rare opportunity to save 15% on the Voyager Golden Record 3xLP Box Set, the Voyager Golden Record 2xCD-Book edition, and our new limited photobook The Family Acid: California!Voyager Golden Record 3xLP Box SetIn 1977, NASA launched two spacecraft, Voyager 1 and 2, on a grand tour of the solar system and into the mysteries of interstellar space. Attached to each of these probes is a golden phonograph record containing a message for any extraterrestrial intelligence that might encounter it, perhaps billions of years from now. Experience the Voyager Record the way it was meant to be played.• Three translucent gold 140 gram vinyl LPs, containing all of the original Voyager Record audio, in poly-lined paper sleeves• Three heavyweight jackets, gold ink on black• Full-color 96-page softcover book containing all images included on the original Voyager Interstellar Record, gallery of images transmitted back from the Voyager probes, and a new essay by Timothy Ferris, producer of the original golden record• Gold foil print of Voyager Golden Record cover diagram, archival paper, 12" x 12"• Voyager trajectories turntable slipmat, gold ink on black felt• Full-color plastic digital download card for all audio of the Voyager Golden Record (MP3 or FLAC formats)• Housed in a deluxe record box with pull-ribbon, gold ink on black• Includes free Voyager Golden Record diagram pin! Read the rest

It's kind of remarkable that the Guinness Book of Records has managed to secure such a prominent place in our culture, considering it was literally invented to encourage people to argue over inane shit at the pub (particularly when drinking Guinness).But here I am, in the Year of Our Lord Blade Runner, tearfully cheering on Amber VanHemel as she finally achieves her year-long dream of breaking the World Record for throwing a hot dog sausage over the longest distance while still nestled snugly in its bun.Hot dog! Another world record SHATTERED at #MIT! Phoebe Li & Amber VanHemel broke the world record for "longest throw & catch of a hot dog/sausage into a bun." Previous record = 32.106 meters. Phoebe and Amber threw for 36.9 meters! #thisismit #guinnessrecord #worldrecord pic.twitter.com/LbCoBcupTj— MIT CEE (@MIT_CEE) November 25, 2019I'm not sure why Guinness felt the need to specify hot dog sausage, though perhaps it's to differentiate from a hot dog sandwich, the existence of which continues to reign as the greatest controversy of the modern era. Guinness has tracked plenty of other hot dog-related records without this same linguistic clarification—in fact, this particular feat of Olympian athleticism is the only Guinness record accompanied by that sausage qualifier. Along with this specificity, Guinness also included a size requirement—the hot dog sausage must measure between 5.5 and 7 inches in length, and be fully cooked when thrown.According to the Boston Globe, VanHemel is currently a graduate student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT, where also pitched softball as an undergrad. Read the rest

In this video posted to instagram, a woman calls the cops on a UPS driver because "I don't understand why you're walking around with a bunch of packages". This woman legit called the cops on a Black UPS driver for working while Black.No seriously😳 She said he “looked suspicious,” & then finally seemed to back off when a white UPS driver told her she’s wrong.She looms up on him, variously keeps her hands in her pockets or waves them around in his face, rolls up her sleeves, grins, tells him where she lives, and says: you're making me nervous. The excuse that police use to justify killing people, cued up by a belligerent bigot who, when she realizes he's not going to react negatively to her provocations, calls the police.Also, now you know why your packages are late.This woman legit called the cops on a Black UPS driver for working while Black.No seriously😳 She said he “looked suspicious,” & then finally seemed to back off when a white UPS driver told her she’s wrong. 🤦🏽‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/7jaPiA5sWu— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@QasimRashid) November 27, 2019 Read the rest

Back in September, a rare print edition of Space Adventures #7—originally published by the new-defunct Charlton Comics in 1953—sold for $1,800.The comic book speculator market isn't normally the kind of cash cow that the 90s thought it was going to be. Unless you've got one of those very rare early superhero origin comics—or you happen to sell something random like Avengers #257 at the exact right time for a convenient movie tie-in—you're typically lucky to make even a dollar on an old comic.Space Adventures #7 has nothing to do with superheroes, or non-superhero movie adaptations. But it's still coveted, probably because it contains a pre-Comics Code story called "Transformation" that was illustrated by Dick Giordano, who went on to become the Executive Editor at DC Comics, and written by a curiously uncredited author.What's more interesting about the comic, however, is that it deals unexpectedly with transgender issues.Here's a basic synopsis of the 8-page story from Comic Book Plus:Anticipating nuclear war that would leave Earth barren of life, Lars Kranston convinces his colleagues to go to Mars. His paramour Betty Stone insists that she go as well. The ship crashes on Mars. Everyone but Lars and Betty are killed, but Lars thinks she died too. Betty wakes up suffering total amnesia. Lars decides to use the supplies that survived the wreck. He manages a complete sex change. The tumultuous situation on Earth dies down. The predicted war never occurs. Betty remembers the journey. Read the rest

The excellent first edition of Matthew Braga's new Secret World newsletter looks at exactly who you're calling when you use a satellite phone or Garmin emergency beacon to call for help:It turns out that, anytime someone calls 911 on a satellite phone, or presses the SOS button on a dedicated GPS tracker — anywhere in the world — those messages typically go to one place: The International Emergency Response Coordination Center, or IERCC, about an hour outside of Houston, Texas. The center has coordinated more than 10,000 rescues in 169 countries, and responds to anywhere from 30 to 60 requests each day. Whether you’re a hermit in the Scottish highlands in medical distress, or a kayaker in eastern Tajikistan with altitude sickness (true stories) the IERCC is your point of first contact. Every hour, every day of the year, a rotating team of six watchstanders determine the closest available search and rescue team and coordinate the response. The IERCC headquarters includes what sounds like a real-life vault from Fallout:The entrances were hidden within a pair of massive pagodas, with gunports for the armed guards to shoot at whoever who came near.Read the rest of the newsletter here, including a description of drone warfare involving tractor beams. Read the rest

This vaguely comports to the methods I saw and knew in 1990s London. The proper way was to start with oil and use a grill brick [Amazon], but the reality is you will still need lots of environmentally unsound liquids. The mystery degreaser is Swisher but Ecolab is exactly the same stuff and widely available. Wear gloves. Never eat out. Read the rest

Artist Allison Hoffman, aka Crafty is Cool, is an absolute master of pop culture amigurimi ("a portmanteau of the Japanese words ami, meaning 'crocheted or knitted,' and nuigurumi, meaning 'stuffed doll'"). She can crochet like nobody's business and each of her pieces are a work of art (previously). Now, she's taken to creating the real star of The Mandalorian, the new Star Wars series on Disney+, big-eyed Baby Yoda!But, she's only made one and you can't just buy it outright. If you want it, you'll have to bid on it on eBay. Allison writes, "I’ve gotten so many requests for the finished baby that this is really the only way I could fairly sell him! Thank you all! I have to make another for my husband so that he doesn’t buy this one..." As of this writing, the bidding is already up to $305. If that's too rich for your blood, well, hope you can crochet, because she's made its pattern available ($7) in her Etsy shop.We must protect the asset! Who even is he? Or she? Or what? Who cares? Its adorable. This pattern instructs you how to make a life-size stuffed baby inspired by Baby Yoda/Yiddle with easy to find supplies and simple techniques. Everything is photographed and explained in easy to follow step by step instructions. You should know basic crochet skills, but now is a good time to learn.The Baby is 14" tall and weighs 2 lbs. He's got a little removable robe. Read the rest

This. is. amazing. Purple Count singing Gogol Bordello's "Start Wearing Purple" — the entire song! Someone spent a long time making this mashup video but we don't know who exactly. Their YouTube account is anonymous, simply named Purple Count. Mystery mashup master, I bow to you. Read the rest

Whether you are looking for an upgrade or searching for a gift, Black Friday is always a good time to go shopping for new tech. Finding the best discounts can be a challenge, so we decided to do the hard work for you. Here are 15 of the best gadget deals you will find anywhere, now with an extra 20% off when you use the Black Friday coupon code BFSAVE20.iPM 3-in-1 Apple Watch, iPhone & AirPods Wireless Charging Dock Perfect for Apple fans, this classy charging dock has space for an iPhone, an Apple Watch and AirPods. It has a small enough footprint to live on your nightstand, and the upright design means you can check your phone easily throughout the night.MSRP: $119.99Sale Price: $44.99Price with BFSAVE20 code: $35.993-in-1 Apple Watch, AirPods & iPhone ChargerThis nifty cable can also charge an iPhone, an Apple Watch and AirPods at the same time. The 3.9-foot cable plugs into any USB power source and splits into three, providing two Lightning connectors and a wireless charger. MSRP: $34.99Sale Price: $14.99Price with BFSAVE20 code: $11.9910-Ft. MFi-Certified Braided Lightning Cable PacksThese Apple-approved Lightning cables provide better reach while your iPhone is charging. The braided outer shell is much more durable than Apple’s plastic sheath and much less prone to becoming tangled. In this three-pack, each cable is just $4.MSRP: $89.99Sale Price: $15Price with BFSAVE20 code: $12TREBLAB Z2 Wireless Noise-Cancelling HeadphonesWith neodymium-backed 40mm drivers and T-Quiet noise cancellation, the TREBLAB Z2 headphones provide a great listening experience. Read the rest

Whether we're on a long commute or marathon workout, the right soundtrack makes all the difference. And with all the thought we put into our playlists, the kind of earbuds we play it on is worth at least as much consideration. When it comes to sound, wearability, and durability, there are few models that hit all the marks like these HYPHEN Wireless Earbuds.The design is extremely ergonomic, with a selection of eartip sizes to fit nearly anyone. But the controls are a particular highlight here, with intuitive one-touch commands to answer calls, increase the volume, switch tracks and more.All that tech is well protected behind an IPX5 water-resistant case, so you won't have an issue from sweat or rain. Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity lets the earbuds pick up a signal from up to 15 meters away. Wireless charging? It's got that too and can pick up a full charge in 30 minutes.These HYPHEN Wireless Earbuds are sale-priced at more than 20% off retail, but you can knock an extra 20% off by using the Black Friday discount code BFSAVE20.Don't wait for Black Friday—you can get these top-sellers at deep discounts today! Read the rest

Many of us rely on a single hard drive to store precious files. This strategy is risky, but many alternative backup solutions are pretty expensive. Polar Cloud Backup breaks the mold, providing secure storage at a price that anyone can afford. The service runs on reliable Amazon architecture and gives users total control over their data.Available to download on PC and Mac, Polar Backup allows users to choose which files and folders to upload. All file types are supported, including videos, images, audio, documents, and more. The apps also have a scheduling feature, which ensures that the backup won’t disrupt your Netflix movie.Polar Backup provides enough space for thousands of files, and the storage is both secure and private. The data is protected by military-grade AES-256 encryption, while the servers meet with GDPR regulations.Along with files on your PC or Mac, Polar Backup covers any connected external drives. Even if you delete files locally, they won’t be removed from cloud storage.Ahead of Black Friday, the Polar Backup lifetime 5TB plan is just $69.99. You will struggle to find a cloud storage provider that offers more for this price.Don't wait for Black Friday—you can get these top-sellers at deep discounts today! Read the rest

Three separate, named women have independently accused Trump's EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland of repeated acts of sexual misconduct while he was in a position of physical, financial and professional power over them. Sondland denies the accusations.The three women's stories were jointly reported by Propublica and Portland Monthly, and one of the accusers is Portland Monthly cofounder Nicole Vogel (her story was reported by Propublica). Third parties confirmed that all three women told them about Sondland's attacks on them at the time. The women feared speaking publicly about Sondland's attacks because, they say, he wields enormous political and commercial influence over Portland, Oregon, where the women reside and where Sondland built his hotel empire, whose profits allowed him to donate $1,000,000 to the Trump inauguration.The stories the women tell share common elements. Sondland's lawyers accused Propublica of "witness tampering" in the Trump impeachment inquiry, and implied that the women had fabricated accounts of Sondland's sexual attacks -- groping, exposing himself, attempting to kiss them -- because he had turned down their bids to have him support them financially.According to Vogel, Sondland had presented himself as a potential investor in her magazine, but after she repeatedly rebuffed his sexual advances, he effectively pulled out of the deal. Sondland's lawyers accused Vogel of being an associate of Democratic Congressman Earl Blumenauer and implied that her accusation had been motivated as part of a supposed vendetta by Blumenauer against Sondland. Vogel denies any connection to Blumenauer.Jana Solis was a safety engineer who was pitching Sondland's hotel chain on behalf of her firm. Read the rest

In late September, the person who make the Nippon Wandering TV YouTube channel walked around Dotonbori, the entertainment district of Osaka Japan and shot a 40 minute 4K video with binaural sound. It's so lively there! Los Angeles is a real dud in comparison.Image: YouTube Read the rest

Andrew Hoyle has a terrific tutorial article on Cnet on how to take macro photos on your smartphone using a macro lens. The article includes tips on how to use Photoshop or other image editing software to improve the images. The lens Andrew recommends is pricey ($265), but he has links to cheaper lenses that would probably be good enough for a slacker dilettante like me.Andrew also recently posted a video tutorial on backyard macro photography using a SLR camera:Image: Copyright Andrew Hoyle, used with permission Read the rest

I love how into it this guy is.[via Laughing Squid] Read the rest

Union organizers don't have arguments with workers, they have "structured organizing conversations" -- conversations in which the organizer asks someone to think about what change they want to see, what the obstacles to that change are, and then asks them to think about whether that change will come about unless they form a union.There's a Thanksgiving political version of this, too. Your relations who are contemplating neoliberal or centrist Democrats -- or even Trump -- for president in 2020 are doubtless upset with how things are going in their lives. Maybe they're one of the 700,000 workers who went unpaid last January thanks to Trump's government shutdowns, or maybe they've seen their medical insurance costs skyrocket even as their coverage shrank, or maybe they despair of ever moving out of their parents' home or finding steady employment at a living wage. Or maybe they're terrified of the looming climate crisis.A structured organizing conversation with that person -- someone you're already on friendly terms with and are genuinely happy to see and vice-versa -- starts by drawing them out on these concerns, gently redirecting them away from glib answers ("I want a million dollars") and snarky responses ("Me too! Let's go rob the Koch brothers!"). Get them to repeat these concerns several times, going over them in detail.Next, ask how their issue relates to the platform of each of the candidates, and whether they're likely to get the things most important to them if they vote each one. Directly connect the facts of the person's life with the candidates' promises. Read the rest

Mariana Mazzucato (previously) came to prominence after the publication of her 2013 book The Entrepreneurial State, which described the way that robust state spending on large-scale R&D was critical to the kinds of commercial technological "breakthroughs" that the private sector liked to take credit for, and argued that the decades-long drawdown in public spending on the theory that governments were bloated and inefficient had stalled economic growth and technological progress because private firms systematically underinvest in research.Mazzucato is a left-wing economist, but she is critical of the left's framing of economic controversies, saying that leftists overemphasize "wealth redistribution" and ignore "wealth creation" -- the latter being something states are absolutely essential to. In Mazzucato's framing, redistribution attacks the problem of inequality too late, after a small number of people have been able to hoard the lion's share of benefits from state investment, and then seeks to claw some of that money back.But if economic critiques are focused on wealth creation, with the state assuming its rightful place at the center of this process, then it becomes natural to insist that (for example) governments receive royalties or other benefits from the use of publicly developed resources.It's a framing that's gained widespread support on both the left and the right, attracting supporters like both Elizabeth Warren and Marco Rubio. It part, the success of Mazzucato's framing is due to her emphasis on language, substituting words like "create" and "invest" to describe state spending, rather than neoliberal terms like "fix" and "spend."I am generally in favor of this framing, but also concerned that it spells the end of any idea of a "commons" arising from government work -- for example, in the USA, products of the federal government are all in the public domain, meaning that anyone can access US Geological Survey map data (as opposed to the UK, where the government-created ordinance survey maps can cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to license if you want to build a new service on them). Read the rest

Modern Monetary Theory (AKA MMT) is the latest incarnation of a long-running current in economic thought, once called Chartalism, which has gained prominence in recent years as an alternative to austerity economics, whose dictates have immiserated millions, destabilized world politics, and threaten the extinction of the human race thanks to climate inaction in the guise of "fiscal restraint."MMT's core precept is that governments first spend money into existence and then tax it out of existence (contrast this with the standard account that says that governments must tax citizens to pay for programs, which raises the question, "How did the citizens get the money to pay for their taxes unless the government first spent that money into existence, given that governments are the sole source of currency?").The implications for this are relatively easy to follow, but are profound in terms of where they lead you. MMTers hold that sovereign currency issuers (most countries, but not Eurozone countries like Greece, say) cannot default on their debts so long as those debts are denominated in the currency they issue (unlike Venezuela, say, which owed debts denominated in US dollars). And while government spending can lead to inflation, it's not deficits that cause inflation, it's government spending on things that the private sector is also seeking to buy -- if the government is procuring materials, labor or goods that the private sector is already using, it creates a bidding war that drives up the prices of these things. But if there is stuff that the private sector is not using -- notably, if there are unemployed people who want work that the private sector isn't delivering -- then the state can spend as much as it needs to mobilize that labor in service to public goals, like remediating climate change. Read the rest

Just look at them. (Thanks, Marion!)My son’s teacher has banned me from decorating my son’s bananas as they were causing too much of a ruckus in class & honestly... knowing my art caused a class of 6yos to riot is probably one of the best compliments I’ve ever recieved. I wish I took more photos before the ban. pic.twitter.com/FU1YKIdT0d— Rebecca Mills (@RebeccaMills) November 27, 2019 Read the rest

South Carolina's magistrate judge system is a holdover from aristocratic England, where landowners would appoint someone with "common sense" to hear legal cases, without any legal training or oversight -- which is how it works in South Carolina today, where 800,000+ criminal and civil cases are heard by magistrates who are not required to have a background in law, not required to divulge official sanctions for ethical violations, and not overseen in any meaningful way as they fine, jail and censure people who are often not represented by counsel nor permitted to speak in their own defense.The SC system nominally gives the governor final say in magistrate appointments, but a former governor told Propublica that the senate actually appoints the judges, and any governor who tried to thwart the senate's picks would have their administration sabotaged.The senate appointments are a litany of politically connected cronies, family members, and blundering fools (sometimes all three!). What's more, these magistrates sail through their reappointments when their terms are up, because the reappointment process does not require magistrates to disclose any sanctions they've received from the Office of Disciplinary Counsel (which sanctions magistrates, lawyers and judges) -- though they are required to disclose sanctions from the State Ethics Commission (which does not oversee magistrates and is not permitted to sanction them).If you're a magistrate whose conduct is so egregious that you would likely fail the rubberstamp reappointment process, you can still stay in office by claiming "holdover" status, which is supposed to allow magistrates to serve briefly after their terms expire while paperwork is processed or new delegations are seated. Read the rest

If you haven't switched to wireless charging for your devices yet, it's a pretty good bet that you're not using more than one device. Juicing up your iPhone doesn't require much planning, but once you add an Apple Watch or pair of AirPods into the mix, you've got a logistics problem.If you're in that fix, there are few charging systems as effective as this 3-in-1 Wireless Power Bank - especially if you're on the go.The shape of the thing is an innovation all by itself. You can wrap your Apple Watch around it conveniently, pop your AirPods into the slots on the end, and charge up your iPad or iPhone through the USB port.The best thing, though, is that you can charge them simultaneously. The 5200mAh capacity gives you more than enough juice, and the safety protocols ensure things don't overcharge or overheat.The 3-in-1 Wireless Power Bank is already on sale for 60% off the MSRP, but you can take an extra 20% off by using the Black Friday code BFSAVE20.Don't wait for Black Friday—you can get these top-sellers at deep discounts today! Read the rest

And in accordance with tradition, Uncle Bill will now lead us in "A Thanksgiving Prayer" (1986). Read the rest