For years, I've followed Andy Greenberg's excellent reporting on "Sandworm," a set of infrastructure-targeted cyberattacks against Ukraine widely presumed to be of Russian origin, some of which escaped their targeted zone and damaged systems around the world.Greenberg has turned that work into a book-length cyber-whodunit, Sandworm, that comes out today. I reviewed it for the LA Times, where I described it as: "a tour through a realm that is both invisible and critical to the daily lives of every person alive in the 21st century."One of the weirdest conversations I ever had was about this matter. It was a decade ago, and I was on a holiday in the Caribbean and the only other guests at the hotel were a family of “State Department” people. Dad had been with USAID when the Soviet tanks rolled in Hungary, his sons worked for undisclosed agencies within State. Hereditary spooks.One day, one of these second-gen spooks and I were by the pool and we got to talking about cyberwar, which he was very bullish on. I spent about an hour trying to explain to him that cyberwar and cyberweapon were imperfect analogies, so imperfect as to be terribly misleading. It was clear that he thought a cyberweapon was like a digital bomb: a tool that somehow projected force over an adversary’s digital infrastructure.But a cyberweapon isn’t that at all. A cyberweapon, is, at root, a secret. Specifically, it’s a secret about a defect in a piece of software, preferably software that is in wide usage. Read the rest

Aw, and they only took one piece each despite being terrifying dinosaurs.Home surveillance cameras get a lot of criticism around here, but no matter what horrible civil liberties implications there be, you can't tell me this isn't quality content.“Our Nest subscription was worth every penny,” says @macbryce.Our Nest subscription was worth every pennyAbout the guy whose Nest caught the footage:Full-time professor and part-time indie game developer. Currently working on Brukel (brukelgame.com), a game about my grandmother's WW2 stories while growing up on a farm in Belgium. Read the rest

In Limestone County, Alabama, Christopher James Shock, 32, was arrested for counterfeiting after a garbage collector spotted bags filled with bills in Shock's trash cans and called police. A clue that the money was funny is that one of the $50 notes was printed on a the back of a receipt from Alabama Pardons and Paroles. From WHNT:Investigators estimate between 10 and 30 thousand dollars in Shock's counterfeit bills are already in circulation.If you have been passed a fake bill, Limestone County Sheriff's Office encourages you to turn it in to police. Read the rest

Wait for it.This is good candy karma.Not sure who the person was who recorded it on their li'l home security camera, but the video has gone viral and it's sweet.A kid trick-or-treating on Halloween goes up to a house in his costume with mom and sibling, encounters an empty candy bowl, and generously decides to put some of his candy haul in the neighbor's bowl for the next trick-or-treater.Refilling the candy bowlPaying it forward.How cool. Read the rest

Rice Krispies Meats is more like it.Food coloring and creativity makes them look like hamburger meat patties, raw and wrapped up in the meat section at a grocery store.Truly gross. I don't think I could eat one.But wow, serious dedication and cleverness here on the part of Michel Devon.Go check out the how-to gallery.Spooky Raw Meat Krispies[IMGUR] Read the rest

“You can wake her up at 5AM, she won't complain.”

With Siri and Alexa, the computer science of natural language processing (NLP) is finally ready for prime time. In IEEE Spectrum, Oscar Schwartz wrote a fascinating essay linking NLP, "linguistic interactions between humans and machines," with 13th century Jewish mysticism. I've always enjoyed smart writing that pulls threads between technology and occult practices, and Schwartz's short piece is a fine example of that. From IEEE Spectrum:In the late 1200s, a Jewish mystic by the name of Abraham Abulafia sat down at a table in his small house in Barcelona, picked up a quill, dipped it in ink, and began combining the letters of the Hebrew alphabet in strange and seemingly random ways. Aleph with Bet, Bet with Gimmel, Gimmel with Aleph and Bet, and so on.Abulafia called this practice “the science of the combination of letters.” He wasn’t actually combining letters at random; instead he was carefully following a secret set of rules that he had devised while studying an ancient Kabbalistic text called the Sefer Yetsirah. This book describes how God created “all that is formed and all that is spoken” by combining Hebrew letters according to sacred formulas. In one section, God exhausts all possible two-letter combinations of the 22 Hebrew letters.By studying the Sefer Yetsirah, Abulafia gained the insight that linguistic symbols can be manipulated with formal rules in order to create new, interesting, insightful sentences. To this end, he spent months generating thousands of combinations of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet and eventually emerged with a series of books that he claimed were endowed with prophetic wisdom. Read the rest

Want to send an obliquely grim message with prosciutto?Here's a fun idea of how to bring some surprise flair to your next office pot-luck.“Office Potluck is today. I signed up to bring the meat and cheese platter,” says IMGURian @Eatthedead.“Prosciutto, mozzarella, fresh bread, pepperoni, salami, melon...all the good stuff.”“Weird thing is...nobody's touched it. Huh. Just means more for me!”Made a charcuterie board for the office potluck today Read the rest

In 2017, a month after Trump named Rudy Giuliani to be his cybersecurity officer, Giuliani locked himself out of his iPhone. So he waited in line at a San Francisco Apple store to get the Genius Bar to unlock his phone. Last night when NBC broke the news of this, Giuliani idiotically compared what he did to the FBI asking Apple to unlock the phone of the San Bernardino mass shooter (which they refused to do). Also, given the sensitive information likely on Giuliani's phone, it's rather surprising that he'd hand it over to a random employee at a retail store. Or maybe it isn't surprising at all. Wonder if Giuliani tried "PASSWORD"? From NBC News:Giuliani’s handling of the situation calls into question his understanding of basic security measures and raises the prospect that, as someone in the president's inner circle, his electronic devices are especially vulnerable to hackers, two former FBI cyber experts told NBC News.“There’s no way he should be going to a commercial location to ask for that assistance,” said E.J. Hilbert, a former FBI agent for cybercrime and terrorism.Michael Anaya, a former FBI supervisory special agent who led a cyber squad for four years, reacted with astonishment when told about Giuliani’s Apple store visit.“That’s crazy,” he said.Hey @NBCNews, last I checked the FBI, last year, had to ask Apple to unlock an iPhone too! We’re all human, just maybe not tonight...🎃— Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) October 31, 2019 Read the rest

Sue-Lin Wong is the Financial Times's South China reporter; this week, she attended the China Public Security expo, the country's largest surveillance tech show, held biannually in Shenzhen.In a ghastly and fascinating Twitter thread, Wong provides a tour of a few of the most noteworthy elements of the expo (though she notes that "The expo was utterly overwhelming, I must have only seen a fraction of it").A major trend from the show is "emotion recognition" -- a junk-science infused buzzword that is heavily marketed by "AI" companies both inside and outside China.My other big takeaway from Wong's writeup is that surveillance tech has found niches in every domain of human life: from street-level surveillance to education to the electric grid to health to criminal justice.I was also fascinated by Wong's photos of tiny surveillance cameras, including some hidden in the bridges of glasses.I visited China’s largest surveillance tech expo with @QianerLiu this week held once every two years in Shenzhen - “the world security capital.” A thread & our story about China’s latest new surveillance craze: emotion recognition https://t.co/6hWTQlZONg 1/ pic.twitter.com/jrsqKfOysg— Sue-Lin Wong 黄淑琳 (@suelinwong) November 1, 2019 Read the rest

The Japan Cuts Hollywood film festival takes places this weekend at the Chinese Theatres in Hollywood. Carla and I will be there. Japan House Los Angeles is curating three movies on Saturday:37 SECONDS | Director HIKARI is an award-winning writer, producer and director.TEN YEARS JAPAN | The executive producer is Hirokazu Kore-eda. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with three female Japanese directors.NO LONGER HUMAN | The US Premiere of director Mika Ninagawa. Read the rest

Yesterday, Waterfront Toronto unanimously approved the continuation of Sidewalk Labs's plans for "Quayside," a privatised, surveillance-oriented "smart city" that has been mired in controversy since its earliest days, including secret bullying campaigns, mass resignations of privacy advisors, lies that drastically understated the scope of the project, civil liberties lawsuits, and denunciations by the indigenous elders who were consulted on the project.The vote came one day after the Globe and Mail reported on a leaked document that showed that the company had initially planned to build an autonomous corporate-owned city, with private taxation, private roads, charter schools, corporate cops and judges, and punishments for people who choose privacy.Sidewalk Labs is a division of Alphabet, Google's parent company.The approval came after Sidewalk Labs made some concessions, agreeing to scale back Quayside to the initial 4.8 hectare sight, not the 77-hectare site the company secretly secured permission to build on and then lied about. It also promised to follow Canadian data-protection laws, including storing data from the project in Canadian data-centres.Toronto Mayor John Tory released a statement welcoming news of the vote result."We all know that we must develop our waterfront in the right way — that's why we are moving through this process so carefully," Tory said."I believe this process has led to an exciting proposal for Quayside that has the potential to create new jobs and economic development opportunities, a carbon-neutral neighbourhood, and more affordable housing units. It is a real opportunity for Toronto."Waterfront Toronto board votes to keep Sidewalk Labs' Quayside project alive [CBC] Read the rest

After 11 days, Chicago's teacher's strike is at an end, with the city agreeing to the majority of the union's demands, including: higher pay, limits on class sizes, a nurse and social worker in each school, 120 new "equity positions" (librarians, counselors and restorative justice coordinators), bilingual/special ed educators, and five make-up days for teachers and students to compensate for part of the missed instructional calendar.The teachers did not win all their demands: most notably, the city did not address the 17,000 homeless students in the system, nor did it give elementary teachers their requested daily 30-minute morning prep period.The agreement has won tentative support from the rank-and-file, and a formal vote of all 25,000 members is expected to ratify the deal.In addition to guaranteeing all CTU members a 16% raise over the life of the five-year contract, the offer invests $35 million in reducing class sizes – up $10 million from the city's previous offer.On staffing, the city's offer guarantees that every school will have a nurse and social worker by 2023. The offer includes 120 new "equity positions" for highest-need schools – such as counselors, restorative justice coordinators and librarians – and additional staffing in bilingual and special education.Chicago teachers' strike ends after 11 days. CPS will have 5 make-up days of school [Grace Hauck and Erin Richards/USA Today](via Naked Capitalism) Read the rest

Our favorite truck-eating bridge is being lifted by 8-inches, which will effectively put it on a starvation diet, because many more trucks will be able to pass under it without getting their tops ripped off. In this video, we see how a crew is raising the bridge.From the 11foot8 bridge YouTube channel:On October 29, 2019, a crew hired by Norfolk Southern and the NC Railroad Company raised the 11foo8 bridge on Gregson St. in Durham, NC by 8 inches (20 cm) to increase the clearance over Gregson St to 12 foot 4 inches. The purpose of this $500,000 project was to improve traffic safety at this railroad trestle. We have documented 150 crashes of overheight vehicles at the old 11foot8 bridge since April 2008. This is the end of the old 11foot8 canopener ... welcome to the 11foot8 +8 bridge. Let's see what happens :)In the screenshot above, you can see that the bridge has already been raised by 8 inches. There's still much work to be done, including inclining the tracks on either side of the raised bridge.Image: YouTube Read the rest

Vice's Allie Conti got scammed by an Airbnb host who promised her a really nice place, then made up a story about its toilets being clogged and shifted her to a derelict, filthy wreck of a house. When she tried to get her money back, she discovered that Airbnb had no effective systems for following up on the kind of scam she'd encountered, so she began digging.She discovered that her scammer had multiple identities on the service (Airbnb has long struggled with scammers, including commercial real-estate companies, pretending to be just plain folks renting out a place they weren't using at the moment, but still gives these scammers "verified identity" badges on the service), and that they had been scamming people in multiple cities across the USA, and retaliating against victims who pressed their complaints by posting false reports of their victims' having thrown wild parties, leaving the properties in a dirty and damaged state.Through some pretty excellent sleuthing, Conti was able to identify her scammer with a pretty high degree of confidence, and she discovered that he knew all kind of tricks for laying low when his victims endangered his cushy con -- for example, he sometimes listed all his properties at $10,000/night, so they wouldn't show up on anyone's searches.Despite her extensive investigative work, no one at Airbnb would comment on the record about the scam, and five of the six identities she connected to her scammer are still live on the site.Even some of the positive reviews of Becky and Andrew’s Chicago rentals seemed odd, especially those left by other pairs of hosts. Read the rest

America is one of the only wealthy countries where you have to pay someone to prepare your tax return; in most other countries, the national tax office prepares a return for you and if it looks right to you, you just sign it and return it (you can always prepare your own return, too, or pay someone else to do it). This has created billions of dollars in annual revenue for the tax-prep industry, which is hyper-concentrated and dominated by a couple of giant firms, notably Intuit (Turbotax) and H&R Block. These companies have engaged in years of aggressive lobbying to prevent free tax filing in the USA, agreeing to a "bargain" in the form of "Free File," through which free tax prep is provided by the big companies, but in a way that is so deceptive, riddled with dark patterns, and obfuscated that almost no one uses it (they also lobbied successfully to ban the IRS from advertising Free File's existence).As part of its outstanding reporting on Free File, the IRS and the tax-prep industry, Propublica put in public records requests for emails between the IRS and the tax-prep industry's government relations people and lobbyists, only to have the IRS refuse to release them -- until Propublica successfully sued them and forced them to hand over the documents.It's easy to see why the IRS didn't want these emails released. They show a consistent pattern of tax industry shills "bargaining" to offer less and less to the American public, putting more and more limits on the usefulness of Free File, while the IRS -- charged with regulating and overseeing these companies -- rolls over and rubber-stamps each of these proposals, never making a counteroffer on behalf of the American people. Read the rest

The announcement of a UK General Election on Dec 12 -- the third in less than five years! -- was attended by predictable rises in the numbers of people registering to vote, but as official statistics show, the end of October saw a massive spike in voter registration among under 45s, led by under-25s and 25-34 year olds. It's a commonplace that Labour can't possibly win this election, but that's what they said in 2017, and that election was a bloodbath for the Tories and saw Labour come within a hairsbreadth of forming the government, despite dirty tricks, panicmongering, and a smear campaign that was backed by the Labour establishment itself.The reality is that Labour is the only party with policies that are supported by the vast majority of Britons, and while that support comes from all demographics, Labour's embrace of the Green New Deal makes it the only party on the British political stage that is aligned with the largest mass movement in recent memory, Climate Extinction, which skews younger.All election polling is primarily a guessing game about who just won't bother to vote, and models assume very low turnout among young voters. The massive influx of young voters means that the election is truly anyone's to win.I am a member of the British Labour Party and a donor to Jeremy Corbyn's election campaign.(via Naked Capitalism) Read the rest

I ain't afraid of no fuckin' like an animal.If this wasn't on your Halloween playlist, then what were you even doing?Image via Pat Loika/Flickr Read the rest

I noticed that it was that time of the century and made a mashup up the film's legendary intro, complete with Vangelis's soundtrack, with real contemporary footage of LA. The main difference is, of course, what's on fire. LA, November 2019: smoking hot, yes, flying cars, no. Read the rest

Quiet.js converts data to an audio signal--optionally beyond the range of human hearing--and plays it in the browser. If you can't imagine what this might be useful for, note that it can also receive such data. If you're still stumped, you might be a saint surely some tunes are obviously the devil's.This is a javascript binding for libquiet, a library for sending and receiving data via sound card. It can function either via speaker or cable (e.g., 3.5mm). Quiet comes included with a few transmissions profiles which can be selected for the intended use. For speaker transmission, there is a profile which transmits around the 19kHz range, which is essentially imperceptible to the human ear. Read the rest

When one man's screen cracked, our pal Doctor Popular saw an opportunity:After a cat knocked knocked over his tv, Timothy Ryan Mulroney took a photo of the cracked screen and shared it on the Glitch Artists Collective on Facebook.I thought it would make a great iPhone wallpaper… so I made it into one. You can download it here.Fun!Broken LCD screen mobile wallpaper Read the rest

The holidays are right around the corner, so here are some gems from Hammacher Schlemmer's current offerings.The Handcrafted Hippopotamine Sofa is listed at $95,000 and "requires over 400 hours to make due to the intricate design and the artist’s painstaking attention to detail."The Mini Monster Truck is listed at $125,000, promises a top speed of 25 MPH, and includes a "nitrous oxide system for immediate acceleration that enables easy jumps over obstacles."The Exotic Virtual Adventure Run is $8,000 features a concave monitor loaded with "the otherworldly landscapes" of California’s Joshua Tree National Park, the Pacific coastline, a rustic lakefront village, and Area 51.The Canine's Passive Solar Condominium is $37,000 and designed to evoke "the passive homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright."But perhaps the strangest item is the Marble Machine Orchestra, listed at $95,000:This is the mechanical musical apparatus made in Sweden that generates mellifluous melodies with a multitude of marbles. Constructed from birch plywood and steel, it is comprised of gears, pulleys, tracks, lifting fingers, and funnels that work in concert to generate the precisely timed release of marbles which strike instruments. The entire operation begins by turning the handcrank to set the 18" flywheel into motion, which stores rotational energy and provides the musician a way to keep even time. Working similarly to a music box, the machine's marbles strike the keys of the built-in vibraphone, the four strings of an electric bass guitar, a kick drum, snare drum, hi hat, one-stringed modulin, and a sizzle cymbal—the operator pushes/pulls a series of levers to activate/deactivate a particular instrument. Read the rest

There's nothing like snuggling up under a good blanket, especially when that blanket can snuggle you back. As the popularity of the Gravity Blanket testifies, there's more to a good bedcover than just soft material. These blankets incorporate subtle weights to create a swaddling effect that can ease you to sleep, and they're all on deep discount.Gravity Travel Blanket: Gravity On-the-GoThere are tiny glass beads woven into the fabric of this innovative covering, making it dangerously easy to fall asleep under. And while its 66" x 42" dimensions make it more than big enough to bunk up under, the included travel bag makes it super portable.MSRP: $185Sale Price: $125The Calm Embrace Weighted BlanketStrategically-sized pockets on the Calm Embrace keep its glass nanobeads evenly distributed, which makes for a subtle, comforting fit. And the breathable cotton/polyester duvet cover gives it an extra dose of coziness.MSRP: $249Sale Price: $139Bibb Home 10 Lb Weighted Blanket & Mink CoverThis versatile blanket features a mink cover that you can remove during hot summer nights and add back on for the winter chill. The well-distributed layer of non-toxic weighted beads makes this one suitable for sleepers between 100 and 140 pounds.MSRP: $139Sale Price: $95BlanQuilâ„¢ Chill Cooling Weighted Blanket with Removable CoverA lot went into the design of this one, from the baffling and weight distribution that delivers Deep Touch Stimulation therapy to the shift-resistant ties for the duvet cover. What's more, the special cotton-polyester blend disperses body heat to keep your temperature even throughout the night. Read the rest

AlphaStar is reportedly the first artificial intelligence to play the computer game StarCraft II at a "Grandmaster" level under standard competitive conditions.1. AlphaStar now has the same kind of constraints that humans play under – including viewing the world through a camera, and stronger limits on the frequency of its actions* (in collaboration with StarCraft professional Dario “TLO” Wünsch). 2. AlphaStar can now play in one-on-one matches as and against Protoss, Terran, and Zerg – the three races present in StarCraft II. Each of the Protoss, Terran, and Zerg agents is a single neural network.3. The League training is fully automated, and starts only with agents trained by supervised learning, rather than from previously trained agents from past experiments.4. AlphaStar played on the official game server, Battle.net, using the same maps and conditions as human players. All game replays are available here.It's all thanks to multi-agent reinforcement learning. *nods authoritatively* Read the rest

Do you have Mario Kart Wii and an interest in modifying it? Niment has created skins for playing Waluigi, Wario, and Luigi on foot. It looks so absurdly fun that Nintendo should consider making these skins a regular part of the game:Via Kotaku. Read the rest

If you’re in the mood for an intelligent, unconventional thriller of sorts, get out on the town and treat yourself to Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite. Come for the promise of nail biting class tension, struggle and all-out war, but stay for the interpersonal relationships, architectural allegories and shocking scares that emerge over the course of Bong Joon Ho’s latest film. The film is essentially about class relationships, yes, but unlike some recent (American) films that try to tackle the subject, the dynamic between the rich and poor isn’t cut-and-dried black and white. Parasite doesn’t just look at the poor as hopelessly depressed and the rich as cruel and greedy. The well-to-do in this film are moderately benevolent, living their own lives and oblivious to the destitute conditions of their hired help. Though we might cheer on the impoverished Kim family, they seem borderline sociopathic at times (most likely exacerbated by economic circumstances outside their control). We see the Kims pitted against a worse-off family and tensions escalate. That the Kims don’t register that they have common interests with the other family isn’t a flaw on their part. And that the Parks don’t understand their role in maintaining the cycle of poverty isn’t a damnable offense either. Parasite doesn’t proclaim individuals to be the root cause of inequality. Instead, Bong focuses on the individual members of the families as a metaphor for the larger, systemic problems that heighten economic disparity and keep the working class pitted against itself in a continual cycle of poverty. Read the rest

One of most most memorable Cool Tools podcast episodes was with rare book expert Rebecca Romney. She recently started a new rare book firm in Washington D.C. called Type Punch Matrix and she sent me a catalog (PDF here). A first edition of Food of the Gods (1904) by H.G. Wells, inscribed by him to his mother-in-law (who lived with him during the composition of War of the Worlds and his other major scientific romances)A first edition of Journeys to the Planet Mars (1904) by Sara Weiss, a Spiritualist who used remote viewing to visit Mars. The book includes original illustrations of Martian flora, and a Martian glossary!There's also a first American edition of Frankenstein next to an 1818 review of the true first edition (spoiler: it was not positive). The idea of the project was to pair books together in ways that created a dialogue.See more page samples from Journeys to the Planet Mars or Our Mission to Ento here. Read the rest

There are times when you don't have access to coffee or tea, but you still need a caffeine buzz. Or many you just don't like the taste of coffee or tea. That's what Verb Energy bars are for.Each 90-calorie bar contains core ingredients like almond butter and agave. They come in flavors like Coconut Chai, Maple Blueberry, Simply Cocoa, and Salted Peanut Butter. They are all gluten-free and vegan. Best of all, they contain green tea caffeine, which has L-theanine in it. Some studies have shown that L-theanine reduces anxiety.Want to try some? Good timing. Verb Energy is offering a trial pack of four bars for free - all you pay for is the $3.95 in shipping. Read the rest

This episode of Nate DiMeo's excellent Memory Palace podcast is about one-hit wonder Bobby "Boris" Pickett, who wrote and performed the Halloween favorite, "Monster Mash" in 1962."If you want to really dig in," says Nate, "you should read, Monster Mash: Half Dead in Hollywood, his autobiography. If you have $1,500 you can buy a copy on Amazon. Read the rest

In Episode 3, John and Eva go down the rabbit hole and question what is reality itself and whether or not we are in fact, as Nick Bostrom first theorized and Elon Musk and many others believe, in a large scale simulation. Possibly one made by aliens. Or indeed our future descendants. We are such stuff as dreams are made on - who is to say we aren’t? Featuring Joshua Tan, Ph.D. in Computer Science, Oxford, And Professor Stefan Sorgner, Professor of Philosophy at John Cabot University, Rome. (Listen to Episode 1 here, and Episode 2 here.)The Life Cycle is a production of Klang Games, creator of Seed, the planet colonization MMO -- watch the new trailer here. Subscribe to The Life Cycle on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify. Follow The Life Cycle on Twitter and Instagram. Read the rest

This is scary, but has nothing to do with Halloween, despite the date.The New York Times reports this evening that noted televangelist and “prosperity gospel” pastor Paula White has officially joined the Trump administration.Ms. White is a televangelist based in Florida who has served for some time as a “personal pastor” to Trump. They've been acquainted since 2002. She joins the administration in an official capacity starting today.Grifters love grifters.From the Times:Ms. White will work in the Office of Public Liaison, the official said, which is the division of the White House overseeing outreach to groups and coalitions organizing key parts of the president’s base. Her role will be to advise the administration’s Faith and Opportunity Initiative, which Mr. Trump established last year by executive order and which aims to give religious groups more of a voice in government programs devoted to issues like defending religious liberty and fighting poverty.As Mr. Trump campaigns for a second term, he cannot afford to lose support from the religious conservatives who voted for him in 2016 in significant numbers. Without their backing, his path to re-election would be significantly narrower.He has taken repeated steps to ensure they turn out for him again — by issuing executive orders, making cabinet appointments and nominating federal judges that pass muster with the religious right. On a range of issues from abortion rights to tax exemptions for churches, Mr. Trump has tried to grant Christian conservatives their policy wish lists whenever legally and politically feasible. Read the rest

He was growing this beard out for four years.Wait 'til you see what he transformed into for Halloween.But first, he had to cut that beard off.IMGURian @teekal “sacrificed four years of beard growth for Halloween 2019,” and all I can say is -- worth it. Well done, Super Mario, sir.Sacrificed Four years of Beard Growth for Halloween 2k19... No regrets.[via IMGUR] Read the rest

This is a genius Halloween costume idea.The Microsoft Windows 'Blue Screen of Death,' as the MS-DOS crash display has long been affectionately known.IMGURian @gnocchithesphynxcat really nailed it.“Yes, I take public transit to work, and yes, I wore my costume.”Today's Halloween costume at work: the Blue Screen of Death![via IMGUR] Read the rest

What was the traveler who carried this gun-shaped toilet paper roller thinking? On every level, seriously, what were they thinking.This photo from the Transportation Security Administration shows a gun-shaped toilet paper holder confiscated at Newark Liberty International Airport TSA checkpoint on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2019.TSA agents thought it was a gun when they put it through the X-ray machine. A closer look showed it was a toilet paper roller, inexplicably shaped like a gun. Replica firearms are prohibited, just like real ones are, at security checkpoints for carry-on luggage. From the Associated Press:TSA says it gave the man the option to place it in a checked bag, hand it off to a companion or surrender it. He decided to give it to TSA. Read the rest

Would you eat this gigantic burger?In Thailand's capital city Bangkok, a hamburger joint has become internet-famous for a nearly 13 pound burger patty with fried onion rings, bacon and mayonnaise. YouTube personalities started challenging one another to try and finish it. Among the poor fellows who managed to do it -- but not within the time limit -- was one guy who said, “I will eat a burger at some point (in the future), but not any time soon.” Reuters:Chris Steaks and Burgers is offering a 10,000 baht ($330) prize for anyone who can finish the mammoth snack in nine minutes - one baht for every calorie.Owner Komdech Kongsuwan, who says it is the country’s biggest burger, dreamed up the contest after three customers managed the feat. New challengers are coming through the door every day. Read the rest

This Kitchen IQ Edge Grip 2-Stage Knife Sharpener costs just on Amazon. I've been using one for years and it's my favorite knife sharpener. I like it because of the way you hold it with one hand along the edge of a kitchen counter and with the other hand you draw the knife through the slots. It's a safe way to sharpen a knife and I don't see how someone could make a mistake and hurt themselves. One slot is "coarse" and the other is "fine." I typically use the fine slot every week or so to restore the edge on a knife. I rarely use coarse because it removes quite a bit of steel from a knife, but sometimes that's just what's needed to sharpen a dull knife. Over 11 thousand people have reviewed this sharpener on Amazon, and has an average star rating of 4.3. Read the rest

This set of nylon spudgers is excellent.My Amazon Kindle Voyage is one of my most treasured pieces of electronica. The battery, after 5 years, started to give up the ghost. It is dying in a rapid and dramatic fashion. I really did not want a different model Kindle and the Voyage is discontinued.I was worried I could not open the Voyage without destroying it. Amazon famously glues things in place and I tend to break plastic bits.Instead of using a small eye-glass repair sized flathead screw driver, I decided I would try the right tool for the job. This set of spudgers matched with slow and steady movement did the trick. Amazon used double-sided sticky tape to make shit annoying. I was easily able to open the case.3 Non-Mar Nylon Spudger Pry Bar tools to Open and Repair iPhone, Smartphones, Laptop, and Electronic Plastic Cases via Amazon Read the rest

Physicians removed a balloon packed with marijuana from a fellow's nasal cavity 18 years after he smuggled it into prison. The 48-year-old man is now just fine. Physicians from Westmead Hospital in New South Wales, Australia, reported on the unusual case in the British Medical Journal. Apparently the man's girlfriend handed him the package that he shoved up his nose for safekeeping. The package made its way into his nasal cavity where he lost track of it. From CNN:"A 48-year-old man was referred to the Westmead ENT Department after a CT of the brain, originally performed for headaches, demonstrated an incidental 19x11mm calcified lesion in the right nasal cavity," the report states."On questioning, the patient confirmed a long history of unilateral right nasal obstruction and recurrent sinonasal infections."The rhinolith was removed from the man's nose under general anesthetic, and a subsequent study revealed that it contained a "rubber capsule containing degenerate vegetable/plant matter.""On follow-up and specific questioning, the patient was able to recall an incident that occurred 18 years prior, while he was incarcerated," the report states. "He remained unaware of the package's presence until presented with the unusual histopathology report.""A nose out of joint: first reported case of prison-acquired marijuana-based rhinolith" (British Medical Journal)image: Patrick J. Lynch, medical illustrator (CC BY 2.5) Read the rest

Our friends at iFixIt took apart the new AirPods Pro to see what's inside. An awful lot is stuffed into a very small package. Unfortunately, IFIxIt deems the AirPods Pro to be non-user-repairable: "While theoretically semi-serviceable, the non-modular, glued-together design and lack of replacement parts makes repair both impractical and uneconomical."Image: IFixIt Read the rest

The Family Acid: California is the new book of photographs by Roger Steffens that I published with Timothy Daly, my Ozma Records partner and co-producer of the Voyager Golden Record: 40th Anniversary Edition. Limited to just 1,500 clothbound copies, it's a far-out photo album from a very unconventional family. We hope you can come meet the whole Family Acid (and us) in Los Angeles next Thursday, November 7, at The Standard Hollywood for a photo show and reception from 7-11pm! And if you can't make it, we have some copies available directly from our site, Ozma Records, along with a limited-edition Family Acid photo print on perforated LSD blotter paper (undipped) signed by Roger himself! For more than 50 years, photographer Roger Steffens has explored the electric arteries of the counterculture, embracing mind-expanding experiences, deep social connection, and unadulterated fun at every turn. After serving in Vietnam at the end of the 1960s, Steffens immersed himself in California’s vibrant bohemia. Since then, with his wife Mary and children Kate and Devon, he has sought out the eccentric, the outlandish, and the transcendent. Just as often, it finds him, grinning, a camera in one hand and a joint in the other. Steffens took the spectacular snapshots in this new collection between 1968 and 2015 during his family's freewheeling adventures throughout the visionary state they call home.A full-color, 192-page hardcover with foil stamping and tipped-on cover photo, The Family Acid: California contains hundreds of stunning images curated by Kate Steffens along with detailed captions and original essays by Roger Steffens and Tim Page. Read the rest

My daughter finally got me to start playing Undertale (I'm playing on my Switch). The game has great music, which was all written and composed by Toby Fox, who created the game. In this video, Pickitup of the Ska Tune Network does a fantastic cover of one of the songs from the game, "Megalovania." Read the rest

Leo Lech's home was destroyed by Greenwood Village, Colorado cops in 2015 when they used explosives to blow off the walls and drove an armored truck through the front door to arrest a shoplifter who had barricaded himself in Lech's home. Lech has been trying to get the city to pay him so he can repair his home, but a court and an appeals court have told him that police are allowed to destroy innocent people's homes without having to pay for the damage they cause.From NPR:"Under no circumstances in this country should the government be able to blow up your house and render a family homeless," Leo Lech, the house's owner, told NPR. "This family was thrown out into the street without any recourse."Lawyers for Lech argued that the police's destruction of his home was a violation of the Constitution's Takings Clause, which says private property cannot be taken for public use without "just compensation." But the problem with that argument, the appeals court ruled, is that courts have long held that police cannot be on the hook for property damage caused in the process of trying to make an arrest.Image: CBS Denver/YouTube Read the rest

Loot is a Brooklyn comics "store" (463 Court St, Floor 2, 11231) that is oriented around encouraging local kids to become comics creators. Adults are only admitted if they're with kids, and the store sells $30/month memberships that entitle kids to use copious art supplies and meet with artist-mentors, as well as to borrow comics from the store's library.The library came from the personal collection of the store's founder, Joseph Einhorn, and has been supplemented by community donations of both comics and cash. Activities in the space include making costumes and 3D comics settings out of salvaged cardboard and fun junk, electronics experimentation, and, of course, making comics.Loot is located above a beloved local pizzeria, Franks.The Brooklyn business is geared toward young and middle school readers and has a monthly subscription model that allows its clientele to binge on comics and take daily classes in writing and drawing their own stories. Think of Loot as less of a store and more of a book club and artistic retreat.The space is the brainchild of Joseph Einhorn, a father of three and the founder of Fancy, a shopping and scrapbooking site. He had two goals: to get young readers interested in comics and to get them away from their screens.“I felt that if we didn’t do this, there would be a whole generation of young people that would miss this medium completely,” Mr. Einhorn said. But he’s not anti-tech. His sons, he said, were into Fortnite, and he wanted to bring some of its comic-style art and social networking into the analog world. Read the rest

In 1977, Nicholas Ridley, a Tory MP in Margaret Thatcher's government, wrote The Ridley Plan, a kind of shock doctrine manual that the Thatcher government followed in its program of mass-privatisations, attacks on trade unions, and the "stealth" privatisation of the NHS.The Ridley Plan counselled a staged and escalating set of attacks that would start with soft targets and work its way up to the deployment of "a large, mobile squad of police" to put down strikes that the escalations would eventually provoke.Writing in Opendemocracy, Christine Berry says that the left is on the brink of a similar opportunity to the one seized by Thatcher in 1977: if the coming elections put Labour in power this December, they will be assuming power in the midst of a crisis that is simply too good to waste, brought on by a decade of Tory austerity, oligarchic policies, and the Brexit debacle.Berry lays out a programme for taking on the UK's powerful finance sector, as a key stage in larger reforms that would otherwise be endangered by the lobbying might of the City of London. As she points out, the right time to do this was after the 2008 crisis, but the neoliberal wing of Labour refused to use that moment, instead handing out billions to finance without any kerbs or democratic oversight of the industry that had just blown up the world's economy. Ten years later, we are still waiting for Labour to do its job.When the next financial crisis arrives, Labour must demand bank breakups, stricter (and streamlined) capital reserves requirements, an end to financial secrecy, and a hard rule that any bank that takes a government bailout will have to subject itself to voluntary nationalisation. Read the rest

Tom Selleck was Steven Spielberg's pick to play Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. However, Selleck was under contract with CBS and they refused to release him to take the role. Fortunately for us. See what could have been in the deepfake above. Below, Selleck recounts his experience as almost being Indy: Read the rest

In 2004, Howard Hallis celebrated the devilishly wonderful crossover of Disney and Goth culture with the now-classic "Haunted Bela," a mash-up of Bauhaus's "Bela Lugosi's Dead" with the spooky narration heard in Disneyland's Haunted Mansion dark ride. Listen above! Howard also created the enchanting artwork, titled "Goth Princesses." Read the rest

From the days when Al Jourgensen cultivated an English accent, Ministry's underground club hit "(Everyday Is) Halloween" (1984). Above, a fan video cut up from horror films. And below, a bonus acoustic performance of the song from last year, the first time Ministry played it live in decades, with special guest guitarist Dave Navarro. Read the rest

Toronto's Andrea Addario lives next to one of the world's greatest Halloween haunters. As she tweeted, he exhibits "extreme genius" every year, and this year is no exception: he's studded his tree with giant measles viruses made out of pumpkins and carrots, along with a coffin-shaped sign reading "VACCINATE YOUR KIDS." (Thanks, Allen!)The Halloween decorations of my neighbour. Puts us all to shame, every year, with his extreme genius. pic.twitter.com/XFlxXZcuoX— Andrea Addario (@addarioandrea) October 30, 2019 Read the rest

The 1969 piece LEGO Apollo Saturn V rocket may be my favorite BIG set of all time.Build the entire three-stage rocket, the command module and the lunar lander! Amazon has a it for 25% off, get your holiday shopping done early!LEGO Ideas NASA Apollo Saturn V 21309 Outer Space Model Rocket for Kids and Adults, Science Building Kit (1900 pieces) via AmazonI checked and I have seen the set for $1 less. Read the rest