Boing Boing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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