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The Miami Herald reports that a high-ranking officer in the Monroe County Sheriff's department instructed another officer to act like a "white supremacist" and a "Neo-Nazi cop" when detaining a black suspect. The officer, named as Capt. Penny Phelps, was recorded and "relieved of her command."Phelps was removed from her post as head of the major crimes and narcotics units on Wednesday, according to paperwork released to the Miami Herald Saturday. Ramsay said it is too early in the investigation to comment on whether Phelps could lose her job.“We have to have all the facts first,” he said Saturday, adding Phelps has been with the sheriff’s office about 18 years and makes about $110,000 a year.Reached by phone Saturday, Phelps said policy prohibits her from talking about the case.The Herald has the tapes. Photo: Monroe County Sheriff Read the rest

Radicalized, my collection of four novellas, is one of the Wall Street Journal's picks for best sf books of 2019! My thanks to Tom Shippey, who listed it alongside of David Walton's Three Laws Lethal, Daniel Suarez's Delta-v, Erin Craig's House of Salt and Sorrows and Michael Swanwick's The Iron Dragon's Mother! Read the rest

Facebook's decision to default to end-to-end encryption for Facebook Messenger prompted the governments of the UK, the USA and Australia to write to Mark Zuckerberg, urging him to delay implementation of the move, warning him that adding working encryption by default would make it harder for spies and cops to do their jobs.101 civil society groups have written back to the USA, UK and Australia to tell them that there is no such thing as encryption that protects good guys but lets cops spy on bad guys, so anything done to weaken security will put everyone at risk of surveillance -- from hostile foreign powers, criminal gangs, identity thieves, stalkers, domestic abusers, voyeurs, corporate espionage, and other bad actors.The letter was led by the New America Foundation, and while the signatories include some usual suspects (EFF, ACLU, Amnesty International), it also includes a roster of the world's top security experts, and several trade associations.Encryption is also essential to public safety and protecting vulnerable populations. A common, but problematic, argument law enforcement officials make in favor of encryption backdoors is that we must be willing to compromise the privacy and security protections offered by encryption in order to protect public safety. However, this argument fails to acknowledge that encryption, in fact, plays an essential role in protecting​ the public from crimes that cause physical injury and death. For instance, Cindy Southworth,the Executive Vice President at the U.S. National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV), recently cautioned against introducing an exceptional access mechanism for law enforcement, in part, because of how it could threaten the safety of victims of domestic and gender-based violence and stalking.Specifically, she explained that she is ​“a proponent of encryption because it allows victims to control when and how they seek help, and that it is critical for protecting sensitive digital records, which have been stolen by abusers.”​A recent fact sheet from LGBT Tech and the Internet Society states “without encryption, LGBTQ+ individuals living in or traveling to [countries where being LGBTQ+ is considered acriminal offense] may not be able to safely and comfortably find communities and outlets forself-expression and would be left vulnerable to prosecution and persecution.”Beyond protecting national security and physical safety, encryption is also essential to reduction of other types of crime. Read the rest

[We're delighted to have Rosemary Frei back with us, this time reporting on a global transformation: once, infrastructure was created efficiently cheap central bank funding and now it's done with public-private partnerships, at much higher price-tags, creating massive transfers from taxpayers to the biggest businesses and private equity funds in the world. As we get ready for huge infrastructure buildouts to address climate change, the super-rich stand to reap trillions – money we could be spending on saving our lives and even our planet. -Cory]Trillions of dollars are being plowed into high-tech hospitals, zero-emission public transit and other megaprojects around the globe. Shiny new infrastructure is popping up virtually everywhere, from Australia to Appalachia.Yet leaders aren’t disclosing what taxpayers’ bills will be for this in the coming years.They aren’t even determining the maximum affordable amount for the infrastructure projects, the majority of which are being delivered via public-private partnerships (‘P3s’).Nor are any of the major political parties in Canada or the U.S. calling for objective value-for-money analyses, including studies of what the best greenhouse-gas-reduction bang is for each scarce public buck spent on green projects.In addition, government agencies don’t always take such basic money-saving steps as offsetting the cost of new subway or LRT stations by finding developers that will build and pay for extensive retail, commercial and residential spaces on top of those stations.This is despite already-unprecedented levels of government debt. And there are many other budget pressures: just one example is the impending loss, due to the switch to electric cars and trucks, of the more than $16 billion of gas and diesel tax collected annually by the feds and provinces in Canada. Read the rest

We love our smartphones and tablets, but we also love to write. For a while now, there hasn't been a workable solution. Either hook it up to a keyboard (which defeats the purpose of a portable gadget) or resign ourselves to typing on tiny, unresponsive glass icons.Looks like technology has finally caught up to the dilemma with a decent roll-up keyboard.The Roller Wireless Rollable Keyboard pairs up quickly and easily by Bluetooth to a tablet or smartphone. There's a cradle built-in to the design that doesn't harm the portability an ounce but makes a great mount for whichever screen you're using.The layout for the keyboard is a full-size five-row QWERTY format, with a matte finish and raised keys that respond nicely. If you're pulling an all-nighter, never fear. The battery life can handle up to 288 hours of work. When you're done, a magnetic sensor turns the whole thing off as soon as you roll it up.The Roller Wireless Rollable Keyboard is currently on sale for 20% off, but you can knock another 15% off the final price by using our holiday discount code MERRYSAVE15. Read the rest

SpotHero is an app that lets you reserve parking in advance. It seemed like a cool idea, so I installed it and gave it a try when I had a business lunch on Tuesday. I entered the name of the restaurant in Hollywood and SpotHero showed me a map of parking spots near the restaurant. I found one on the corner of Argyle and Sunset for $6. When I arrived at the parking lot, I found that the entrance was barricaded. A worker standing by the entrance told me that the entire lot had been rented for the day. I showed her my SpotHero reservation, and she called for the lot attendant who came over told me the same thing. He said I could go to another lot at the corner of Hollywood and Vine and that I "might be able to work something out with them." He described the lot, but when I drove there I couldn't find the lot he was talking about, and I had my doubts that they would let me park there anyway. At this point, I was already late for my meeting. Fortunately, I found a metered spot in the street, which is rare for this area, and paid $8 for 2 hours. So I ended up being late and paying $14 for parking. After my meeting, I contacted SpotHero through Twitter to let them know about the problem with the lot. I received a reply on Wednesday morning:This is Emily from SpotHero, our Social Media Monitor passed your information along to me. Read the rest

For years we’ve had silverfish darting around our guest bathroom floor. I bought some silverfish traps (little cardboard boxes with sticky goo to ensnare them) and they helped, but didn’t stop them. In 2017 I read that lavender oil is a good silverfish repellent. It’s only for a small bottle on Amazon, so I decided to give it a try. I wetted the end of a Q-Tip with the oil and ran it around the perimeter of the bathroom floor, adding a little extra to a seam between the floor and the wall. It smelled nice and did not see a single silverfish for two weeks. I finally saw one, reapplied lavender oil on the perimeter of the floor, and it keep the little bastards aways for an even longer time. Now I hardly ever see them, and treat the floor every few months.Image of silverfish by Christian Fischer, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link Read the rest

In honor of today, please enjoy Harry Manfedini's "Overlay of Evil/Main Title" from the score to Friday the 13th (1980). And as a bonus, here is the evolution of Jason Vorhees's handsome mug: Read the rest

The Royal soap opera continues apace in this week’s tawdry tabloids, increasingly untethered from reality.

This adorable puma is willing to play a game with its human, as long as it receives the prize, win or lose.Puma reasoning skills on display, 3 cup shuffle from r/Magic Read the rest

Security officers at Lithuania's Vilnius Airport built a Christmas tree from "items that are prohibited to carry in hand luggage and which were taken away from passengers during screening.""With knives, scissors, lighters, blades and all other sorts of dangerous goods on it - this Christmas tree has it all," they wrote on LinkedIn. Read the rest

Fish farmers on Canada's Vancouver Island spotted an eagle in the clutches of a giant Pacific octopus. Realizing the eagle would soon drown, the men freed the raptor from the cephalopod's tentacles and set it free. “He deprived the poor octopus of a good meal,” University of Lethbridge octopus expert Jennifer Mather joked to The Guardian. “They’re quite wide in their prey choice. If something is on the surface of the water, and the octopus is close to the surface of the water, it’s food.” Read the rest

Dazed Beauty reports on a rising trend in Russia called devil lips, or octopus lips. "[T] he procedure is said to involve inserting filler in the outer lip to create a wave effect across both the lips," reports the site. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ana Cristina Ferreira (@draanacristinaferreira) on Dec 4, 2019 at 7:12pm PST View this post on Instagram A post shared by Skinsential Aesthetics (@skinsential_aesthetics) on Dec 4, 2019 at 11:32pm PSTImage: skinsential_aesthetics[via Oddity Central] Read the rest

In the above episode of the Museum of Modern Art's "The Way I See It," the patron saint of bad taste John Waters looks at Lee Lozano’s "Untitled" (1963). And below, legendary comedian and musician Steve Martin comments on work by American abstractionists Stanton Macdonald Wright and Morgan Russell. "I don't generally care about theories," he says. "They kind of get in the way of looking at the picture." Read the rest

PHOTO COURTESY Universal Pictures: Danny Aiello, second from left, with Spike Lee, John Turturro, and Richard Edson in a scene from “Do the Right Thing” (1989).Beloved blue collar tough-guy actor Danny Aiello has died. He was 86.Aiello will be remembered for his work in films including “Fort Apache, the Bronx,” “The Godfather, Part II,” “Once Upon a Time in America” and his Oscar-nominated role in Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing.” “The family asks for privacy at this time,” said Aiello's publicist Tracey Miller of Tracey Miller & Associates. She said he died Thursday night after a brief illness. Aiello once worked as a union president. He got his first acting break in his thirties, and kept working for decades.From AP's obituary:His breakthrough, ironically, was as the hapless lover dumped by Cher in Norman Jewison’s hit comedy “Moonstruck.” His disillusion contributed to the laughter, and although he wasn’t nominated for a supporting-role Oscar (Cher and Olympia Dukakis won in their categories), Aiello was inundated with movie offers.“Living in New York City gave me training for any role,” he said in a 1997 interview. “I’ve seen people killed, knifed. I’ve got scars on my face. I have emotional recall when I work; the idea is simply to recreate it. I’ve seen it and experienced it. I’ve played gangsters, teachers but most of my work has been in the police area. And for that I’m adored by the police in New York City.”From the New York Times:In Mr. Read the rest

A Democract-led U.S. House of Representatives committee on Friday approved charges of abuse of power and obstruction against manifestly unfit U.S. president and obvious Russian puppet Donald Trump. The Republican, Putin-aligned shitheel will almost certainly now become the third U.S. president in history to be impeached. The House Judiciary Committee voted 23 (Mostly Ds, yes) to 17 (Rs, no) along party lines to approve an article of impeachment that charges Donald Trump with abuse of power in the “drug deal” campaign to bully Ukraine into a phony investigation of Joe Biden and his son.The committee then voted on a second article, same margin of votes, that accuses Trump of obstructing Congress’ investigation of his hijinks in Ukraine by ordering White House officials not to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry. From Reuters:The full House, where the Democrats hold a majority, is likely to approve the charges next week, completing the impeachment process and sending Trump for trial in the Senate within weeks. But the Republican-led chamber is unlikely to vote to find the president guilty and remove him from office. Read the rest

Golden Face is back. This time, it's personal. Read the rest

“I still can't talk about what happened to me because of a non-disclosure agreement,” says Gretchen Carlson.In an op-ed today, former Fox News presenter Gretchen Carlson calls on Fox to release employees from the non-disclosure agreements they were forced to sign. “Buying silence instead of stopping harassment is immoral and unjust,” Carlson says.“I want my voice back. I want it back for me, and for all those silenced by forced arbitration and NDAs. ”It's a great piece. Here's an excerpt.Ironically, while most of the real women involved in the Fox News scandals remain muzzled by NDAs, two high profile Hollywood projects (Showtime’s limited series “The Loudest Voice” and Lionsgate’s upcoming feature “Bombshell”) can freely tell stories without our participation. While projects like these will certainly inspire more women to come forward, and while it’s certainly flattering (and surreal) to be depicted by such remarkable, empathetic actors as Naomi Watts and Nicole Kidman, my experience is yet another example of why the laws governing NDAs must change.In practical terms, my NDA means I am legally prohibited from discussing — in public and in private — what happened to me. It means I cannot consult with filmmakers, writers, journalists or anyone else telling my story — whether it’s about the depiction of me, my family, or the events themselves — nor can I comment on the accuracy of a final product. I don’t know precisely what Fox would do if I violated the agreement, but presumably they’d take legal and financial actions. Read the rest

Spin is a short-hire/e-scooter company -- one of those firms like Bird and Lime that fill city streets with future-ewaste vehicles that block wheelchairs. It's owned by Ford.On Dec 5, workers at Spin's San Francisco office, voted to unionize, organized under Teamsters Local 665. The workers in the union those who recover and charge Spin scooters, who are employees (unlike those who perform the same duties for Bird and Lime, who are treated as contractors, though many of them will be reclassified as W2 employees under AB5, California's law that closes the loophole that allows companies to pretend that its employees are contractors in order to deny them benefits and protections).Spin is one of four e-scooter companies authorized to operate in San Francisco, after the city cracked down on the thousands of rental scooters littering the early-adopter-packed streets earlier this year.Whether the move will inspire other e-scooter workforces, even those whose parent companies aren't the likes of Ford, which might be more used to dealing with unions than your average startup, remains to be seen.Spin's San Francisco staff becomes the first e-scooter workforce to unionize [Caitlin Welsh/Mashable] Read the rest

Punk AF music festival Burger Boogaloo has announced its initial 2020 lineup:DAY 1 /////////////////////// DAY 2 ...BIKINI KILL ///////////////// CIRCLE JERKSPLASTIC BERTRAND //// BLEACHEDPANSY DIVISION ///////// FLIPPERPANTY RAID ////////////// ALICE BAGCARBONAS /////////////// FEVERSYOUNGER LOVERS ////// MIDNITE SNAXXXTWOMPSAX ////////////// and MORE!!!John Waters is emceeing once again and tickets are available now.It all goes down Saturday July 11 and Sunday July 12, 2020 at Oakland, California's Mosswood Park. Read the rest

Nulledcast is a realtime podcast streamed on a Discord channel for the hacking forum Nulled: the hosts break into Ring and Nest cameras in realtime, blare sirens at the owners, then torment them with insults and racist slurs, livestreaming their responses to hundreds of listeners.Recent reporting on Ring hacking have spooked the hosts and forum members, who are scrambling to remove evidence of their activitiesThe NulledCast is a podcast livestreamed to Discord. It's a show in which hackers take over people's Ring and Nest smarthome cameras and use their speakers to talk to and harass their unsuspecting owners. In the example above, Chance blared noises and shouted racist comments at the Florida family."Sit back and relax to over 45 minutes of entertainment," an advertisement for the podcast posted to a hacking forum called Nulled reads. "Join us as we go on completely random tangents such as; Ring & Nest Trolling, telling shelter owners we killed a kitten, Nulled drama, and more ridiculous topics. Be sure to join our Discord to watch the shows live."Inside the Podcast that Hacks Ring Camera Owners Live on Air [Joseph Cox and Jason Koebler/Motherboard] Read the rest

Finally, a police union has identified a form of misconduct it will not defend: necrophilia.David Rojas is the LAPD cop who thought that turning off his bodycam would stop it from recording him as he fondled the breast of a dead woman. He has now been charged by the local DA, and, amazingly, his union has declined to defend him. Mind you, this is the same union that investigated 1,356 complaints of acts of racial bias committed by its members without upholding a single one. Police unions are a public enemy, defending running over protesters, sexual harassment, "get out of jail free" cards for cronies, beating up protesters who turn out to be undercover cops, purging the misconduct records of dirty cops, and perjury.But sexual assault on a corpse is a bridge too far -- as was feeding shit to a homeless person, way back in 2016."We hope that District Attorney Jackie Lacey charging Mr. Rojas for his vile alleged crime will bring some solace to the deceased woman's family during their time of grieving," the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union representing LAPD officers, said in a statement.The union also said it will not defend the officer during his proceedings."His alleged behavior is abhorrent and an affront to every law enforcement professional working the LAPD," it said. LAPD officer charged after allegedly fondling a dead woman's breast [Christina Maxouris and Margaret Shuttleworth/CNN](Image: North Charleston, CC BY-SA) Read the rest

One can buy, at considerable expense, a set of Imperial keycaps themed on Star Wars' galactic empire. Insert "you don't know the power of the Dark Side" joke here.DSA Galactic Empire commemorates the peak of Emperor Palpatine’s grand machinations with Imperial symbols and Aurebesh letters. Two keycap set variants are available. One features Full Aurebesh lettering and the other offers Aurebesh with English Sublegends.BONUS: Here's a CNC-carved aluminum stormtroooper keycap to go with it. Read the rest

Styropyro plays with fire on his YouTube channel, and the latest video shows him playing with a ridiculously dangerous laser, intended for tattoo removal, that he bought on eBay.I was searching for a Nd:YAG laser cavity for a future project when I came across a bunch of tattoo removal devices on eBay. They claimed to contain a Nd:YAG laser but at a small fraction of the cost of buying the parts separately. Skeptical, I bought one anyway since I had the option to return it if it didn't live up to the seller's claims.Much to my surprise my unit turned out to be INSANELY powerful. Read the rest

There are 40 college football bowl games this season. Sporting News ranked each matchup (picking the Arizona Bowl as the worst), and also took a detailed look at all the freebies players will get for participating.In addition to items like sunglasses, headphones, and $400 gift cards, some of the bowls will be giving away more exotic gifts. Cowboy hats will be given to players in the Tropical Smoothie Cafe Frisco Bowl. Players in the Quick Lane Bowl will each receive a life-sized PhotoSlap decal featuring his own likeness. And players in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl will go on a Bass Pro Shops shopping trip.You can read the full list here. Just about every bowl responded, except for the Military Bowl Presented by Northrop Grumman. Read the rest

Converse's line of basketball shoes is the All Star Pro BB. The latest model is the "Nocturnal," available December 15 in North America. They glow in the dark, but will absolutely burn your eyes in sunlight:Converse has put out some wild designs lately. One recent model is called "Flames," but is absolutely cheese pizza: Read the rest

Unshort unshortens short links for you, revealing the true URL. This lets you visit a page without being tracked by the URL shortening service. There are add-ons for all major browsers to automatically unshorten all shortened links; source code is available if you don't even want Unshort knowing where you're headed. Read the rest

Exit polls show a clear win for UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party, report Reuters and other media outlets at this hour.Boris Johnson lied in his victory speech.He also boasted of a "historic" election result, saying the Conservative government "has been given a powerful new mandate to get Brexit done."Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party will win a resounding victory in Britain’s election with a parliamentary majority of 86 seats, an exit poll showed https://t.co/O9JZ4vawGc #GE2019 pic.twitter.com/SOPU4CHJYC— Reuters (@Reuters) December 13, 2019Truly extraordinary #UKElection as Labour heartland seats tumble to Tories. A huge victory for Boris Johnson who is vindicated with a #Brexit mandate. A terrible result for Jeremy Corbyn who has, unsurprisingly, led his party to near oblivion. @australian https://t.co/ZC0OjC9AWc— Troy Bramston (@TroyBramston) December 13, 2019Boris Johnson hails huge Tory victory as election result puts him on track for SIXTY-FOUR majority #GE2019 https://t.co/HjNUT7hj0B— Daily Mail U.K. (@DailyMailUK) December 13, 2019Boris Johnson uses first speech after election win to repeat NHS campaign lies https://t.co/2LPrfEADQp— The Independent (@Independent) December 13, 2019"It's turned out to be a historic election that gives us now, in this new government, the chance to respect the democratic will of the British people," says Boris Johnson https://t.co/iqGncV1I7a #UKElection pic.twitter.com/C1qFZUEDZN— Bloomberg TV (@BloombergTV) December 13, 2019Our live results map is getting more colourful. Over half of constituencies have now declared and the Conservatives are projected to gain a majority of 80 https://t.co/wpZq4jVeZE pic.twitter.com/UQBdL42Bao— The Economist Data Team (@ECONdailycharts) December 13, 2019These are the MPs who lost their seats in the 2019 UK general election https://t.co/srY5DTzcgO— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) December 13, 2019K we now have a new leader for strongest correlation, and I think this is narratively significant:The share of workers in low-skilled jobs was a bigger predictor of swing than either Brexit vote or graduates. Read the rest

UK ELECTION RESULTS: Jeremy Corbyn says he will not lead the UK's Labour party in the next general election, as voting results come in and add up to a crushing defeat for Labour at nationwide polls.Yes, it looks like Boris Johnson is on track for a landslide victory, and that Brexit will proceed.***U.K.'s Jeremy Corbyn to Step Down as Labour Party Leader***— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) December 13, 2019Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn: "I will not lead the party in any future general election campaign." pic.twitter.com/C8edpNuO4a— BuzzFeed News UK (@BuzzFeedNewsUK) December 13, 2019Jeremy Corbyn says he will not lead Labour in any future #GeneralElection campaign, after a "very disappointing" night for the party https://t.co/qmXslwpJ6J— The Economist (@TheEconomist) December 13, 2019JUST IN: The leader of the Liberal Democrats, which campaigned on a strongly anti-Brexit platform, has lost her seat in UK Parliament https://t.co/qf9UF2NCVb— CNN International (@cnni) December 13, 2019Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party will win a resounding victory in Britain’s election with a parliamentary majority of 86 seats, an exit poll showed https://t.co/O9JZ4vawGc #GE2019 pic.twitter.com/SOPU4CHJYC— Reuters (@Reuters) December 13, 2019 Read the rest

A man in Maine realized one of his female ducks was heartbroken after a bobcat “snatched her two fellow ducks from owner Chris Morris’ yard on Dry Moon Lane about two weeks ago.”So Mr. Morris, who is a special ed teacher, created this little lovelorn duck wanted ad and posted it in the local co-op.“Duck seeking duck,” the ad read. “Lonesome runner duck seeks companion. Partner recently deceased. Serious replies only.”“We wanted to post about this to try to find a duck, and that just seemed like the best fit,” Morris told the Bangor Daily News, which reports that the ad led to something new:Sadie Greene knew exactly what Morris was looking for when she saw the bulletin board posting.The 32-year-old Dedham resident, a guest attendant at Woodlawn Museum of Ellsworth, also co-owns what she calls “an uncertified organic farm,” the 30-acre Mountain Foot Farm in Dedham. She raises ducks, geese, turkeys, chickens, cows, pigs and sheep as livestock, Greene said.“We have a slew of male ducks, so [Morris] will be able to take his pick,” Greene said. “Ducks are one of the few species that mate for life, so when they lose their partners, they tend to mourn, but they can replace their partners pretty quickly, so it will be interesting to see what happens.”AP reports:Greene and Morris are arranging a meeting for the ducks on Sunday. Yellow Duck’s favorite food is slugs, and they might be on the menu for the big date, Morris said. Read the rest

Abbott Labs makes a continuous glucose monitor -- used by people with diabetes to monitor their blood-sugar levels -- called (ironically, as you'll see below) the Freestyle Libre.Diabettech is a hub for helping people with diabetes manage their health, including by building "artificial pancreases," through which a glucose monitor is connected to an insulin pump, with software in between that measures out small insulin doses that respond in real time (or even predictively) to changes in blood sugar. These can be significantly better than manual interventions for managing blood-sugar for people with diabetes, and can avert life-endangering, life-shortening, and/or quality-of-life reducing blood-sugar spikes and troughs.The admin of Diabettech posted technical instructions and code for extracting your blood-sugar data from the Librelink so that you could use a different "listener" app with your data, or even connect it to an insulin pump to create an artificial pancreas loop. In particular, it allowed the free/open Xdrip diabetes-management tool to access Freestyle Libre data.In response, Abbott Labs used US copyright law to have the project deleted from Github, censoring Diabettech's code and instructions. In its takedown notice, Abbot's lawfirm Kirkland & Ellis LLP (a huge corporate firm) advances several alarming arguments about projects like this.First, they say that creating a tool that interoperates with the Freestyle Libre's data is a copyright infringement, because the new code is a derivative work of Abbott's existing product. But code that can operate on another program's data is not a derivative work of the first program -- just because Apple's Pages can read Word docs, it doesn't mean that Pages is a derivative of MS Office. Read the rest

According to a new exhibition titled "Your Stonehenge -- 150 years of personal photos," this image of was taken at the Wiltshire, England's magical megalithic structure in 1875 and depicts the family of Isabel, Maud and Robert Routh. Personally, I wouldn't be so sure those aren't Zippies on their way to a rave in 1994."People have been visiting Stonehenge for centuries, for all sorts of reasons, and taking photos of themselves and their loved ones in front of the stones since the very earliest days of photography," Susan Greaney, a historian at English Heritage, the organization that manages Stonehenge, told CNN. Read the rest

The Nikon Museum in Tokyo issued this handsome wristwatch commemorating the 60th anniversary of the revolutionary Nikon F camera. Apparently the company only made 100 of the watches for sale in their museum gift shop for around US$180. From PetaPixel:The understated silver watch face is complimented by a black leather band and features an “actual-size shutter-speed dial as featured in the Nikon F” as its centerpiece. The back of the watch has the Nikon F logo emblazoned into the stainless steel. Read the rest

There are a lot of high-tech drones and RC planes flooding the market lately, and the innovations are coming so fast on each new iteration, most of them forget one crucial thing: Flying these is supposed to be fun.Here's an alternative that keeps that ethic firmly in mind: The Moskito Smartphone-Controlled Plane.This thing glides effortlessly and has an effective range of nearly 200 feet from any Bluetooth controller. The EPP foam construction makes it super-light and impressively durable, able to bounce back from any number of head-on collisions. A set of programmable LED lights makes it easy to fly at night, and there are tutorials included that let you improve your pilot skills.But what really makes it cool is the smartphone control interface. Thanks to the included app, you can maneuver it by intuitively tilting the phone, or attach a special joystick by suction cup and get a little more hands-on.The Moskito is currently almost 15% off the MSRP, but you can take off an extra 15% by using the holiday discount code MERRYSAVE15. Read the rest

Anytime I fry something that requires more than a few drops of oil, I cover the pan with a splatter screen. It keeps drops of hot oil from shooting out of the pan while at the same time allowing steam to escape. It also works as a colander. The one I use is excellent and it costs Read the rest

In 1920, the great Nikola Tesla patented this ingenious valve that allows fluid or gas to flow in one direction but not the other. And it does it based entirely on its geometry without any moving parts. Here is the US patent, number 1,329,559. Read the rest

As pranksters target skeezy t-shirt sellers that mine Twitter for replies containing "I want that on a t-shirt" and then put the original Tweet on a t-shirt and shame online t-shirt sellers for underpolicing copyright, let's not lose sight of what happens when they overpolice copyright.For many years, Techdirt has sold a handsome "Copying is Not Theft" tee through Teespring -- but last week, Teespring emailed Techdirt to tell them that the shirt had been removed from its store for "copyright infringement."When Techdirt emailed to ask for an explanation, they got an autoreply from "Team Teespring": "We apologize if you disagree with our decision and for any inconvenience this matter has caused. Please understand that we are not in a position to debate our policies or discuss this issue further; however, your feedback has been noted and we truly appreciate your time today."On Techdirt, Leigh Beadon wonders if this was Teespring overreacting to the "I want that on a t-shirt" scandal, embarking on "a not-too-discerning copyright sweep of existing products." If you want a "Copying is Not Theft" shirt, badge, tote or phone case, you'll have to but it at Threadless (for now?). I told them I wasn't seeking a debate, and just wanted to know what policy we violated, and... You've been advised three times that the content has violated our acceptable use policy. You have been provided with the links to this policy for further information. This policy and choice to remove the content are not up for discussion. Read the rest

Uri Rafaeli (83) a retired engineer, underpaid his property tax bill by making a mistake calculating the interest. He paid $8.41 less than he owed. As a result Michigan's Oakland County seized the property, sold it for $24,500, and kept the overage from the auction ($24,215), reports Forbes. Rafaeli has tried to get the house, or at least the overage back, but he keeps losing in court. The house is currently valued at $129,245 on Zillow.From Forbes:He didn’t argue that he didn’t owe tax, penalties, interest and fees. But he did object to the County taking the excess. The County argued that Rafaeli had no rights to the equity because the General Property Tax Act does not expressly protect it. And that’s the reason that Rafaeli keeps losing: The courts have sympathy for his plight but have found that the law does not prevent the County from keeping it.He’s not alone. Tens of thousands of properties in Detroit have been subject to the same kind of treatment. Many of those who owe taxes understand that they have a debt, but they don’t necessarily understand how to navigate the process or what the failure to pay on time can mean. As with Rafaeli, even something as simple as miscalculating the interest due, can have serious consequences.Image: Zillow Read the rest

Rewound is a free iPhone app that simulates the iPod Classic click wheel interface. How did its creator Louis Anslow manage to get it approved for the App Store? From 9to5Mac:The app used some tricks to get through the App Store review process, which generally prohibits the use of images from Apple products or interfaces. It works just like any other third-party player created for Apple Music and you probably won’t find it in the store as an “iPod Classic simulator”.That’s because the app comes with normal control buttons by default. The secret is in a function that allows users to add any type of image as a player skin. When you add the iPod Classic theme, which is not included in the app, it hides the buttons so it can be controlled by the virtual Click Wheel.Download Rewound from the App Store and then grab the skin from 9to5Mac or elsewhere. Read the rest

In Uniontown, Pennsylvania, Walmart was hosting a "shop with a cop" event where police officers take young people from low-income backgrounds on shopping sprees to buy gifts for their families. According to PA State Police Troop B, that was probably not the best day for Sunny Ray Firestone, 32, to "try and walk out of the store with a shopping cart full of merchandise that you did not pay for."From KDKA:According to a complaint Firestone told police her sick mother needed new clothesFirestone has a history of retail theft.Thank you to Mike Kelly Toyota, Fayette County Community Action Agency and Uniontown WalMart for hosting the shop with a cop program. Law Enforcement from the Pa State Police, Masontown Borough and The Fayette County Sheriff’s Department met some happy kids. pic.twitter.com/waa4fK985q— TroopB (@PSPTroopBPIO) December 11, 2019 Read the rest

On Twitter, David Wahl (Archie McPhee's Director of Awesome) shared his latest discovery: the Drawstring Piglet Electric Luminous Concert Walking Doll Crystal Pig. This incredible creature is my new ShorDurPerSav.Electric music pig has everything you want in a pig.· Running· Having traction rope· Good music· can emit light pic.twitter.com/RLDrICVHRv— David Wahl (@zoomar) December 12, 2019Gets along well with emoji baby. Has grown wings. What is happening? pic.twitter.com/tepQMEGLD9— David Wahl (@zoomar) December 12, 2019Love shapeCrystal ears, shining well pic.twitter.com/4Utv0oWQoI— David Wahl (@zoomar) December 12, 2019Don't F with "Walking Singing Musical Light Pig Electric Toy with Leash Interactive Plastic with Electronic Components Toy for Boys Girls Kids Random Color" or it will kill you. pic.twitter.com/j9SiS81LZv— David Wahl (@zoomar) December 12, 2019I am a running pig.Babies grow up to be playmates pic.twitter.com/ylKM1nmkDm— David Wahl (@zoomar) December 12, 2019Interesting tieFunny and fun pic.twitter.com/w0OtpoeAHw— David Wahl (@zoomar) December 12, 2019 Read the rest

[Omoyele Sowore is a Nigerian journalist and owner of the independent media outlet Saraha Reporters; shortly after the election of President Buhari, Sowore was arrested under the country's anti-cyberstalking laws for "causing insult, enmity, hatred and ill-will on the person of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria." He's still in jail, where he has been tortured. His case has attracted condemnation from US senators and solidarity from PEN. My EFF colleague Cindy Cohn, who met Sowore through her work on the Bowoto case, prosecuting Chevron for a mass murder in service to oil exploration, wrote a post, crossposted below, about how overbroad, sloppy harassment and stalking bills can be weaponized. -Cory]EFF has long been concerned that—unless carefully drafted and limited—cyberstalking laws can be misused to criminalize political speech. In fact, earlier this year we celebrated a federal court decision in Washington State in the United States that tossed out an overbroad cyberstalking law. In the case, the law had been used to silence a protester who used strong language and persistence in criticizing a public official. EFF filed anamicus brief in that case where we cautioned that such laws could be easily misused and the court agreed with us. Now the problem has occurred in a high-profile political case in Nigeria. Just this week the Nigerian government formally filed “cyberstalking” charges against Omoyele Sowore, a longtime political activist and publisher of the respected Sahara Reporters online news agency. Sowore had organized political protests in Nigeria under the hashtag #RevolutionNow and conducted media interviews in support of his protest. Read the rest

The Chinese Supreme People’s Court has just released a report on a "mobile court" pilot program that's been running since March to manage procedures in civil legal disputes through the Wechat social media platform, through which litigants are prompted by an AI chatbot "judge" (with a judicial avatar) to state their cases; the evidence is entered into the blockchain. The cases are actually adjudicated by a human judge, with the automated system used to manage all the procedures to gather evidence and testimony prior to the judgment. A separate "cybercourt" program has been running in Hangzhou since 2017 to settle online trade disputes, copyright claims, and product liability claims.The Chinese Supreme Court touts the system as a means of streamlining justice by automating routine processes, which allows judges to focus on adjudicating cases, ensuring that litigants get their disputes resolved in timely fashion.The AFP article on the measure is incredibly confusing, calling the chatbot an AI and blending descriptions of several programs; I had to read it three times before I realized that this was primarily a document collection assistant to make it easier for judges to review evidence, and not an "AI" that was rendering judgments. Also, they accept at face value the seemingly entirely superfluous inclusion of blockchain technology, which appears to exist solely for purposes of buzzword-compliance.The digitization push is partly to help courts keep up with a growing caseload created by mobile payments and e-commerce in China, which has the world’s largest number of mobile internet users at around 850 million. Read the rest

Over at Cool Tools (I site I co-run) Sean Michael Ragan made a video about 9 volt snap lights. These are small cubes containing and array of bright LEDs that snap onto a 9 volt battery, giving you a compact flashlight. Read the rest

Social Science One is an academic consortium that was created to conduct "independent scientific research into potentially consequential phenomena such as online disinformation, polarization, and echo chambers" after the Big Tech platforms made changes to their policies that made this kind of research effectively impossible without cooperation from the platforms themselves. Facebook was the most enthusiastic partner of the consortium, but 18 months later, it has failed to live up to its promises to provide access and now the leaders of the consortium have published an open letter shaming Facebook for its failures, saying that the entire project is now in jeopardy as its funders have begun to withdraw due to a lack of progress.The open letter also calls on the other big platforms to open their data, or, when that's not possible, to "offer formal, written analyses of any legal barriers they claim prevent them from providing access for academic research, including with regards to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation." We recognize the responsibility of researchers to ethically receive and analyze any data. All appropriate steps should be taken to preserve platform users’ privacy and other digital rights. With this in mind, we call for support from both the platforms and public officials to create so-called research safe harbors, i.e., spaces within which scholars would directly access and analyze sensitive personally identifiable data. Modeled on certain research using public administration, health and medical data, such safe harbors would place clear and robust limits on the type and amount of data researchers could access, as well as the means of analysis researchers could undertake. Read the rest

We love DJ Rijo's annual Merry Mixmas albums, and for the 18th consecutive year, the legendary mashup DJ has released an album-length mashup of Christmas rarities (MP3), just in time for your holiday parties!Dram – LitmasJD McPherson – Every Single ChristmasMargo Guyen – I Don’t Intend to Spend Christmas Without YouJosh Rouse – Sleigh Brother BillSufjan Stevens – Put the Lights on the TreeBailen – Christmas is All AroundHoodoo Gurus – TojoThe Magnetic Fields – Everything is One Big Christmas TreeSia – Santa’s Coming for UsNew Order – Rocking CarolThe Regrettes – Marshmallow WorldJames Brown – Santa Claus go Straight to the GhettoJustine Skye – Eyes for YouSatan’s Pilgrims – Feliz NavidadLivingmore – Show me Light and LoveJagged Jaw – Pink Xmas TreeBeach Boys – Little Saint Nick (Alternate Version)Tralala – Holiday HeartsCocteau Twins – Winter WonderlandRedtenbacher’s Funkestra – Deck the HallsThe Duke Spirit – Melt by the MorningThe Grip Weeds – God Rest Ye Merry GentlemenThe Silhouettes – Under the MistletoeThe Oh Hellos – Every Bell on Earth Will RingChristmas Mixes [DJ Riko](Thanks, DJ Riko!) Read the rest

The United Kingdom's general election is underway today, with voters headed to the polls across the nation. After years of single-issue deadlock and minority government, Conservative Party leader and lame-duck Prime Minister Boris Johnson hopes to win enough seats to form an effective government and "get Brexit done." Despite his obvious shortcomings -- he's a liar, a racist buffoon and notoriously incompetent -- pollsters think he's got it in the can.The Conservatives have recovered the populist vote that drifted to the flash-in-the-pan Brexit Party, while the opposition Labour Party has been slower to recover from its summer slump. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's indifference to claims of antisemitism (fair and otherwise) and his "neutrality" over Brexit itself make him cheap meat for Britain's psychopathic tabloids. And the Liberal Democrats have withered once again, as they always do when its right-leaning prefects are in charge and the party's crunchier base turns off.The Greens, which seemed poised to break out after a strong showing in the European elections, evaporated in the polls as the election heated up. So too has the Brexit Party, which all but stood down to enable a Conservative majority and, with it, a quick and hard Brexit.For Remainers (and anyone else who dislikes the idea of five full years of Boris) the last hope might be the Scottish National Party, whose domination of Scotland might deny him a parliamentary majority.Even less likely, but fractionally less unlikely than normal and the most perfectly outrageous possible result: "Sinn Fein takes their seats at Westminster to give make Jeremy Corbyn PM." Read the rest

A family in DeSoto County, Mississippi, bought a Ring security camera so they could keep an eye on their three young girls in their bedroom. Four days later, they learned that a hacker had broken into the camera and subjected their children to continuous bedroom surveillance, taunting the children through the camera's built-in speaker.Ring blamed the break-in on the failure of the family to turn on two-factor authentication, using a weak password, and failing to change passwords (these are all good ideas, except for frequently changing passwords, which just leads to weaker password quality -- but they're also things that almost no one does).Motherboard identified several crime-forums where hackers were trading automated tools to break into Ring cameras, using credential-stuffing attacks (previously), which involve trying a succession of leaked username/password combos until you find one that has been recycled on the service you're trying to break into. These tools sell for as little as $6.Other Ring camera owners have faced similar privacy invasions, including a family in Florida that was subjected to a string of racial abuse through their cameras' speakers.Using good passwords and 2FA is good advice, but better advice is to never put networked cameras or microphones in your home, ever. Ever.In a video obtained by WMC5 courtesy of the family, you can see what the hacker would have seen: A viewpoint that looms over the entire room from where the camera is installed in a far corner, looking down on their beds and dressers while they play. Read the rest

2019 was the "I Told You So" year for privacy advocates and voice assistants: the year in which every company that wanted you to trust them to put an always-on mic in the most intimate places in your home was revealed to have allowed thousands of low-waged contractors to listen in on millions of clips, many of them accidentally recorded: first it was Amazon (and again!), then Google, then Apple, then Microsoft.What's more, these arms-length contractors who were getting your stolen audio were working under terrible conditions, in sweatshops where they were worked long hours, listening to potentially traumatizing audio, subjected to wage theft. And when the tech giants cut them off, they got shafted again. And despite the companies' protests that they're the only ones stealing your data, voice assistants have proven to be no more secure than any of Big Tech's other products (cue "Dumpster Fires R Us").In a long, end-of-year wrapup of the state-of-the-leaky-smart-speaker, Bloomberg pieces together a coherent narrative from all of these fragmentary accounts, trying to assess how we got here. The story goes like this: true believers in voice computing (often inspired by science fiction, such as Jeff Bezos, whose enthusiasm for Alexa is attributed to his ardent Star Trek fandom) start to build voice assistants in full knowledge that these will not only be perceived as creepy, they will be creepy. They mislead the contractors who transcribe samples of commands into thinking that they're listening to fully informed beta-testers, but it's totally obvious that these are real customers who have no idea they're being listened in on. Read the rest

With the holiday season upon us, folks will soon be flying to see folks. Some people are able to breeze through airport security lines with nothing more than a removal of their shoes. Others? Not so much: they're seemingly chosen at 'random' for 'additional screening' every time they step foot in an airport. I'm one of those people. I know what it is about me that gives the TSA, CATSA and other Five Eyes nations aviation security professionals the no feeling when I travel internationally. While it slows my partner and I down when we're trying to get on with getting to our gate, I appreciate the effort that the security personnel at the airports I fly out of put into making sure that everyone has a safe flight.I can only imagine that not everyone chosen for additional screening on a regular basis feels the same. If you're looking for an explanation for why you might be getting that extra pat-down and bag search Lifehacker's got your back.From Lifehacker:What then might influence whether you’re chosen for enhanced screening? Well, we’ll preface this by stating the obvious: The TSA isn’t forthcoming about its selection process. According to the Department of Homeland Security’s website, the details that make up its algorithm cannot be made public for “security reasons.” (What we do know is that TSA uses Secure Flight, a pre-screening process that involves identifying “low and high-risk passengers before they arrive at the airport by matching their names against trusted traveler lists and watch lists.”) In other words, if you share your name with someone on the “No Fly” list, you will likely be stopped. Read the rest