Boing Boing

The Labour Party's 2020 Election Manifesto is out, and it promises a comprehensive reworking of the British state to benefit the vast majority of Britons, not the tiny minority who have waxed ever-richer through decades of neoliberalism and ten years of cruel Tory austerity.The manifesto's pledges include:* Scapping the Department of Work and Pensions and replacing it with a Department for Social Security, charged with a mission to "support people, not punish and police them." The new Department would scrap the "Work Capability and PIP Assessments, which repeatedly and falsely find ill or disabled people fit to work" as well as the practice of witholding benefits to sanction poor people who fail to comply with bureaucratic requirements. Labour will end the bedroom tax, lift the benefit cap and end the two-child limit.* Support for parents of children with disabilities will be improved: disability benefits will be made level with the child tax credit, and the Carer's Allowance will be the same as the Jobseeker's Allowance* Labour will ban zero-hours contracts and institute a minimum wage of £10/h. Firms will not be able to class their workers as independent contractors to evade these requirements, though the genuinely self-employed will still be able to enter into contractor relationships with their customers.* Workers whose shifts are canceled at the last minute will be entitled to compensation; they will also be guaranteed breaks during their shifts. * Labour will ban union-busting, scrap anti-union laws, and ensure that all workers have the right to join a union and participate in collective bargaining. Read the rest

Once upon a time, people had so much free time that they needed a place to go that wasn't work or home. A third place. Sony was one of the companies competing for that space, and created an entire campaign around the concept. They hired David Lynch to direct a commercial for the Playstation 2 because "He's been living in The Third Place for quite a few years."The commercial is predictably surreal, makes no detectable reference to video games, and could easily be reused for other products with equal success:Lynch received some pushback on choosing black and white, but artistic version prevailed over the color version:There is also a short documentary on the making of the commercial that feels suitably Lynchian--moments of levity amidst a murky, ominous set:You can see more commercials in the campaign here. Read the rest

Things break, and even in this disposable world, there's a need to fix them. Up until recently, that's been the crusty bottle of glue in your junk drawer, which is just as liable to coat your fingers as the thing you actually want to repair.Looks like there's finally a Star Trek-level solution on the market: The BONDIC® Pocket 3D Liquid Plastic Welding Kit.The term "welding kit" isn't just puffery, either. The BONDIC® tube puts out not glue but a liquid plastic that stays fluid for as long as you need it to. As soon as you've made a seal, just hit it with the UV light that accompanies the applicator. Instantly, the light breaks down the liquid solution and within seconds, you've got a seal of firm plastic that holds as well or better than household glue that's been drying overnight. You can even file or shave it down to fit whatever shape you need.The BONDIC® Pocket 3D Liquid Plastic Welding Kit is already 40% off the MSRP, but you can take an extra 15% off that final price by using the early Black Friday code BFSAVE15, lowering the final cost to only $12.74. Read the rest

Amnesty International has had just about all that it cares to take of Google and Facebook's profiting off of our personal information. In a recent report, the international human rights charity stated that they were deeply concerned that the two companies mass surveillance ventures were making large scale human rights violations an easy go for anyone with access to the information and ill-intent.From TechCrunch:“[D]espite the real value of the services they provide, Google and Facebook’s platforms come at a systemic cost,” Amnesty warns. “The companies’ surveillance-based business model forces people to make a Faustian bargain, whereby they are only able to enjoy their human rights online by submitting to a system predicated on human rights abuse. Firstly, an assault on the right to privacy on an unprecedented scale, and then a series of knock-on effects that pose a serious risk to a range of other rights, from freedom of expression and opinion, to freedom of thought and the right to non-discrimination.”If this argument sounds vaguely familiar to you, then you've been paying attention to this nonsense. As TechCrunch points out, the points that Amnesty International makes have been brought before by the United Nations, Zeynep Tufekci and Shoshana Zuboff—an organization and pair of noted scholars anyone would do well to listen to.This feels like a topic better left to Cory Doctorow to explain than a chump like me, but let's have a go at it anyway.By agreeing to Facebook or Google's terms of service, you're agreeing to allowing them to use and abuse your private information. Read the rest

The Tesla truck is here. Its stainless steel hide can withstand sledgehammer blows, but its windows are not quite so impervious to enemy action. It's not clear how long it takes to go from 0-88 MPH, but I'm certain we'll find out. Jalopnik:Tesla chose to unveil this here and now because Musk loves Blade Runner. And to date, he’s made some wild claims about what it can do: out-truck a Ford F-150, outperform a Porsche 911, be “literally bulletproof” and ideally start under $50,000. It’s also “the official truck of Mars.”The man’s a lot of things, but modest isn’t one of them. ...a 14,000-pound tow claim, a 3,500-pound payload claim, three ranges (200 miles, 300 miles and 500 miles), adaptive air suspension and a base price of $39,900 for the rear-wheel drive single-motor version. The max range version, with all-wheel drive and three electric motors, is said to be $69,900.Production is said to be coming in late 2021, and the tri-motor version is happening in 2022, Musk said.This is absolutely a survivalist fantasy vehicle. Magical. Read the rest

Created by Twitter user Betty Cam, this is a really clear and simple way to wrap your around the nearly-unfathomable wealth of a hundred billionaire. Because somehow there are still people who think a person could actually need, deserve, or morally earn that kind of money.Image from DuckTales Read the rest

Above, a video posted by a passenger on a Philippine Airlines flight that headed out of LAX and then headed right back in again. KTLA reports: Passengers and people on the ground videotaped repeated blasts of flame coming from the right engine of the Boeing 777 minutes after takeoff.“I could see, like, flashes of light. I thought it was ... just from the sunlight and then I just started hearing, like ‘boom, boom, boom,’” passenger Walter Baumann told KABC-TV. “And then I look out of the window and these balls of fire are just shooting out of the engine.”Andrew Ames was a passenger in a car speeding down a freeway near the airport when he got a video of the plane.“The back was spewing fire bolts,” he said. “It looked like when you see a backfire from a motorcycle. Then I thought, ‘I don’t think a plane is supposed to do that.’” Read the rest

In a move that is so bombastic yet embarrassing that it sounds like something straight out This is Spinal Tap—ya know what, let's just let ABC Australia fill us in:[KISS] cancelled its other [Australian] concerts after lead singer Paul Stanley pulled out due to illness.But a line-up featuring bass guitarist Gene Simmons, lead guitarist Tommy Thayer, and drummer Eric Singer took to the seas as part of an Airbnb promotion designed to promote tourism locations around the world.The concert was billed as KISS playing to great white sharks — although no sharks actually turned up.That's it. That's what actually happened. In Australia, of all places. There were reportedly eight people who paid actual currency to watch this stunt on the boat, along with some media people and stray boaters, for a total estimated crowd of maybe 50 people. Watching 3/4 of KISS perform with a terrible sound system. Okay.The event was hosted by Adventure Bay Charters, a company that apparently promises "shark cage diving" adventures in the waters around Australia. Hence, the concert was supposed to demonstrate the company's ability to attract sharks for the experience using sound waves instead of blood…except that the whole thing failed in that regard."KISS cancel Australian tour but show must go on for great white sharks" [Jodie Hamilton, Emma Pedler and Paul Turton / ABC]Image via Wikimedia Commons Read the rest

It's been more than twelve years since the release of Half Life 2: Episode 2, and fans of the Half Life series have long been left out in the cold waiting for the story to conclude. Enter Half Life: Alyx, described as a "full" VR game featuring one of Dr. Freeman's sidekicks. You'll need a powerful PC (recommended is an Nvidia 1070 GPU and mandatory is a VR headset) and about 20 hours to spare. It's scheduled for release in March 2020. Read the rest

The project starts with finding the exact right jacket:The jacket I picked is the adidas Originals Superstar Track Jacket. I wanted this one because it features the iconic trefoil logo and calls back to the 80’s b-boy b-girl era. What we’re really looking for is how the stripes are attached. The white stripes are sewn on top of the black base jacket using two parallel rows of stitches 8mm apart. This creates a fabric tube that we can insert our LEDs into.Click through for instructions on creating your own robust glowing jacket.I just posted about how-to build your own awesome glowing @adidasoriginals jacket https://t.co/nWLLqn0ItY pic.twitter.com/cG44cqHLuj— Dr. Rogopnik (@eliot) November 16, 2019The group looked great at the Neotropolis Bar in Los Angeles:(Via John Wiseman.) Read the rest

Obviously, there's a glitch in the political matrix. Read the rest

The meme machinery has been working overtime riffing on the Obstructor-in-Chief's latest cartoonish attempt to save himself, his hastily Sharpie'd "I want nothing" memo. First it was the above Ramones-like track. Then came the Morrissey version, courtesy of the awesomely Twitter-handled RuPaul Giamatti:.@pattonoswalt made a tweet that showed Trump’s handwritten notes and the caption was simply “Morrissey voice:”. Needless to say, I got inspired and put WAY to much effort into this. pic.twitter.com/heOiOhl90P— RuPaul Giamatti (@BenJamminAsh) November 21, 2019And another Morrissey version:Inspired by @pattonoswalt , here's Trump's notes as if Morrissey wrote them into song, performed by me pic.twitter.com/Emka5wVwzM— Appa the Flying 🅱ison (@victoryrhoad) November 20, 2019And just for the record, mister presidink, it's spelled "Zelensky." It's kind of a good idea to spell the names of other world leaders correctly in your stunt memos.Update: Awesome emo version. [H/t John Ülaszek]Emo Trump recites poem on White House lawn pic.twitter.com/rAD3xRjX4L— Nick Lutsko (@NickLutsko) November 20, 2019 Read the rest

Caroline McCarthy is a journalist and ex-googler who now works as an ad-tech exec for a startup that Fox bought and they transfered to Disney when the two companies merged; in this great, impassioned Tedx talk, she lays out the case for being a "tech policy activist" and explains how the field of tech policy, though neglected by politicians and pollsters, is vital to many aspects of our daily lives, and how it fails to decompose neatly on left-right lines and nevertheless demands our close attention lest it be formulated in ways that disappoint or even harm us. It's a great talk, akin in some ways to Schneier's plea for "public interest technologists." Read the rest

Outdoor advertising companies are tapping location data brokers like Placeiq (which aggregates location data leaked by the spying dumpster-fire that is your phone's app ecosystem) and covertly siting Bluetooth and wifi sniffers in public space to gather data on the people who pass near to billboards: "gender, age, race, income, interests, and purchasing habits."This data is used to modify digital billboards, both in realtime (changing the ads based on who is currently present), and in aggregate (changing which ads run when, based on the typical profile of people near a location at a given time).The outdoor ad brokers also sell your data to online ad brokers, who chase you around the internet with the ads you've walked past that morning, and they buy your purchase data to see whether you've bought the things that were advertised to you.The good news is that opting out is easy! Just stop ever leaving your house, never use the internet, and stop buying things.Five Tier’s Frank O’Brien says that, just like every other industry, the out-of-home advertising business should be regulated. But for now, if you’re not comfortable with how out-of-home advertising uses your information, you don’t have much recourse. “I don't think there’s anything you can do about it,” he says.In the meantime, out-of-home advertising is charging ahead. Last summer, Adomni ran a campaign for the Ultimate Fighting Championship based on the daily travel patterns of consumers singled out as potential fans. Over the past year in Buffalo, N.Y., Lamar targeted consumers exposed to out-of-home advertising for Tim Hortons restaurants with additional ads on their mobile devices. Read the rest

I've been semi-seriously joking about "AK-3DPs" (3D printed assault rifles) for years, and while the attempts to limit the spread of 3D printed guns have been sloppy and poorly formulated (as have the Trump admin's attempt to roll them back) the state of the art is still progressing.That said, Ivan the Troll 12's design for a 3D printed AK receiver is not making me lose any sleep, given how many times it has basically shattered cracked up while he was firing it.Note: Mr The Troll 12 took umbrage at my use of the word "shattered" above, saying "it's failure mode is gradual (fatigue related) and not sudden (improper design)." I have made an edit, above. We regret the error.This is front receiver v5 mated to rear receiver v10. The rounds counts are as follows:Front receiver v5: 568 (and counting)Rear receiver v10: 120 (and counting)Previous rear receivers failed:Rear receiver v9: 200 (failure imminent)Rear receiver v8: 120 (failure)Rear receiver v7: 128 (failure)Rear receiver v10 features a fiberglass patch heat welded to the rear of the receiver (just smushed into it with a soldering iron but heat welding sounds cool), as well as a 45 degree print angle (other receivers were upright). I'm hoping these updates will get the rear receiver over 250 rounds. The v11 rear receiver will remove the top rear trunnion pin hole (that's where the cracks were starting for the rear receivers that failed), and reinforce the printed rear trunnion support to take up the slack. Read the rest

Princeton computer scientist Arvind Narayanan (previously) has posted slides and notes from a recent MIT talk on "How to recognize AI snake oil" in which he divides AI applications into three (nonexhaustive) categories and rates how difficult they are, and thus whether you should believe vendors who claim that their machine learning models can perform as advertised.Narayanan's categories are: * Perception, such as facial recognition and song identification, where there is a definitive correct answer, which is making "genuine, rapid progress."* Automating judgment, such as spam detection, copyright violation, essay grading, where humans routinely make judgments that can be used to train a model, which is "far from perfect, but improving," albeit with limits, because "reasonable people can disagree about the correct decision."* Predicting social outcomes, such as predictive policing, predicting terrorist risk, predicting which kids are at risk, which is "fundamentally dubious" because regression analysis and other statistical tools do not work better than "manual scoring using just a few features" -- and this doesn't work very well (and that's before you get into areas like training data bias, etc).Moreover, the use of AI to predict social outcomes doesn't just produce bad predictions, it also drives demand for more surveillance to feed the machine-learning models, and uses up energy that could be deployed on better-performing techniques for mitigating these harms.This is a great, compact presentation, but I feel the need to weigh in critically on Narayanan's claim that ML can be used for judging "copyright violation": this is a common misconception among computer scientists who lack a nuanced understanding of copyright law and its limitations and exceptions. Read the rest

Dynaflash is a projector that maps a moving, deforming surface at 1000 frames per second, meaning that it can cast a stable image on it no matter how wild its gyrations. One caveat: it requires the target surface to have an invisible infrared grid on it.Our method can obtain the deformation robustly at 1,000 fps by using an originally proposed marker "Deformable Dot Cluster Marker", even when the target causes large deformation and occlusions. Using these base technologies including DynaFlash and Deformable Dot Cluster Marker, we realize a new dynamic projection mapping onto deforming non-rigid surface. In this demonstration, by drawing the marker on the target with IR ink, we allow the marker to be invisible to human and enable robust sensing independently of the projected images. In our technology, both the projection and sensing are operated at a speed of 1,000 fps. Therefore, it is possible to keep the projection consistent with the deformation and extend the real world as if the projected image is printed or existed as an original (digital) texture on the target. Read the rest

Only you can make the Imp Bottle lie on its side. When spectators try, they will discover that the bottle stubbornly refuses to stay down. This trick has driven many people insane throughout the years. The secret is a tiny imp inside the bottle that is loyal to you alone. It requires no feeding or care.The Imp Bottle is on Amazon with free Prime shipping. Performance video below. Read the rest

Facebook today confirmed what has long been rumored: Donald Trump hosted a dinner which was not disclosed to the public in October 2019 with Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel, at the White House.The secret White House dinner with Trump, Thiel, and Zuckerberg happened around the time when Zuck testified before Congress about the Libra cryptocurrency project, which failed.From Dylan Byers and Ben Collins reporting for NBC News:“As is normal for a CEO of a major U.S. company, Mark accepted an invitation to have dinner with the President and First Lady at the White House,” a Facebook spokesperson said in an emailed statement.A source familiar with the dinner told NBC News that Thiel was also present. It is unclear why the meeting was not made public or what Trump, Zuckerberg and Thiel discussed.The White House declined to comment.The dinner was the second meeting between Zuckerberg and Trump in a month. Zuckerberg also met with the president in the Oval Office during a September visit to the capital.Zuckerberg, Trump, Melania, and Thiel had a secret dinner at the White House last month. Facebook has been preaching political transparency. Yet it didn't disclose this. https://t.co/zVqYC0O4np— Alex Kantrowitz (@Kantrowitz) November 21, 2019I genuinely don't understand why @Facebook would issue such a smarmy response here. The "As is normal" phrasing does them no favors. If it's so utterly normal and banal, why not announce it? Why is it going viral, if it is so normal? Made it worse. Read the rest

Business Ryokan Asahi is a hotel in Fukuoka, Japan. They will let you stay in a room for 130 yen ($1.20) if you agree to be livestreamed on its YouTube channel.From Oddity Central:It’s not as bad as it sounds, though. While the camera covers the entire tiny room, leaving occupants no place to hide, it doesn’t come with a microphone. The lack of audio coverage is designed to avoid copyright infringement complaints for music that could be heard from the in-room TV, but guarantees that no one will hear you talking to yourself or others, snoring, or making other embarrassing sounds.Photo: Business Ryokan AsahiImage: YouTube Read the rest

This sure is curious!Tweets New York Times investigative reporter Nick Confessore today:New FEC disclosures show a single large RNC payment of $94,800 to Books-a-Million in October, a few days before "Triggered" was released. An RNC spokesman confirmed that the expenditure was connected to their promotion of Don Trump Jr.'s book.Oh boy.Purpose of disbursement: donor memos. lol.New FEC disclosures show a single large RNC payment of $94,800 to Books-a-Million in October, a few days before "Triggered" was released. An RNC spokesman confirmed that the expenditure was connected to their promotion of Don Trump Jr.'s book. pic.twitter.com/vsmmsgrYCp— Nick Confessore (@nickconfessore) November 21, 2019 Read the rest

A single Trump golf outing brought Trump's club $28,800 in Secret Service spending.The U.S. Secret Service spent over $250,000 taxpayer bucks at Trump golf courses and hotels just in the first half of 2017 alone, reveal new FOIA docs obtained by Property of The People.From Natasha Bertrand's coverage at Politico:The expenditures -- amounting to $254,020.94 in total -- raise new questions about the extent to which Trump is personally profiting from the federal government, which is prohibited by the Constitution’s Domestic Emoluments Clause. The president has called the provision “phony,” and his lawyers have argued that it only bars him from receiving compensation as part of “an employment-type relationship” with a foreign or domestic government.Trump refused to divest from his businesses upon taking office, choosing instead to hand off control of his organization to his two oldest sons, Donald Jr. and Eric. Ethics advocates warned at the time that the arrangement raised conflict of interest and Emoluments Clause concerns. This stunned me. A single golf outing by @realdonaldtrump in April 2017 appears to have brought Trump's club $28,800 in spending by the Secret Service agents who protect Trump.Thanks to @propotp for obtaining these documents. https://t.co/TpzSeLcdqv— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) November 21, 2019Trump golf cart rentals have now cost US taxpayers more than half a million dollars -- and rising. Trump has spent about 20% of his work days on the golf course, and almost always his own golf courses. @JustinRohrlich https://t.co/oxef9ufnTP via @qz— Craig Holman (@CBHolman) November 21, 2019Just terrific #FOIA work and reporting from @PropOTP @_rshapiro and @NatashaBertrand. Read the rest

A Colorado school district has closed 40 schools to stem the spread of two unidentified viruses that cause vomiting and fever, reports CNN. "Onset of symptoms for both types of viruses, including vomiting, is incredibly fast. The second version also causes fever in several cases," Mesa County Valley School District 51 said in a statement. From the article:It's the first time the Mesa County Valley School District 51 has had to close all schools due to illness, the district said Wednesday."We are taking this highly unusual action because this virus is extremely contagious and spreading quickly across our schools," Nursing Coordinator Tanya Marvin said in the statement.More than a dozen schools in the state's 14th largest district reported increased absences "due to illness and several incidences of vomiting in public areas of the schools," according to the Mesa County Public Health Department.Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay Read the rest

Pretty amazing pull quote from this New York Times profile of Dr. Fiona Hill, former top US diplomat in Ukraine, who testified today in the impeachment hearings against Donald Trump.Excerpt:Dr. Hill, 54, had an unusual path to academia. The daughter of a coal miner and a midwife, she had a hardscrabble childhood in northeast England — a childhood that bred toughness, her friends say. Once, when she was 11, a boy in her class set one of her pigtails on fire while she was taking a test. She put the fire out with her hands, and finished the test. And she confirmed it today, live in the hearings!Sheryl Stohlberg's @nytimesworld profile of Dr. Hill is quoted by Rep. Jackie Spier. Yes, confirms Dr. Hill, it is true that a boy lit my hair on fire while I was taking a test at the age of 11, and that my response was to swat the fire out and finish taking the test.— Lisa Goldman (@lisang) November 21, 2019And it resulted in a BOWL HAIRCUT which still traumatizes her!Upon questioning from Speier, Hill confirms that at 11 years old, a boy set her pigtails on fire. She put out the fire and finished her test. She said she tells the story sometimes because: “It had some very unfortunate circumstances, my mother gave me a bowl haircut.”— Tal Kopan (@TalKopan) November 21, 2019More:Fiona Hill Viewed Serving Trump as Risky. Now She’s an Impeachment Witness. Read the rest

Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh today pled guilty to conspiracy charges and tax evasion in federal court.“She surrendered her passport, under terms that would allow her to go free pending her sentencing,” the Baltimore Sun reports:She pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and two counts of tax evasion. The counts entail much of the sweeping allegations against Pugh in the initial indictment — that she knowingly sought to defraud purchasers of her books, reap the financial and political benefits, and pay little or no taxes on the windfall.After Pugh’s plea, Chasanow instructed Assistant U.S. Attorneys Martin Clarke and Leo Wise to read through the facts pertaining to those four counts, which Pugh would be stipulating as true under the terms of her plea agreement.“Ms. Pugh, you need to listen carefully,” Chasanow said.The four counts to which Pugh pleaded guilty collectively carry a maximum sentence of decades in prison, though she could receive far less than the guidelines allow at sentencing.Under the terms of the plea, Pugh did not acknowledge guilt in relation to seven individual counts of wire fraud.Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh pleads guilty to conspiracy, tax evasion in ‘Healthy Holly’ book scheme [baltimoresun.co] Read the rest

A truck drove down a street in Flores da Cunha, Brasil, opening a large sinkhole as it passed, reports Gauchazh. A few seconds later, a car drove over it and was swallowed. The driver broke bones in her face and was hospitalized.[via r/WTF] Read the rest

This dog didn't mind at all that his human companion did something weird and unnecessary to his playground.The driveway is done, now we can relax from r/Wellthatsucks[via r/Wellthatsucks] Read the rest

Mark Davis designed a font for BuzzFeed News based on Trump's distinctive handwriting (as seen on the I WANT NOTHING script he hand wrote yesterday). It's called Tiny Hand and you can download it for free. Read the rest

There’s breaking news, fake news, a news flash, even news you can use, but they all supposedly share one attribute: their information is new.

On Slate Star Codex, psychiatrist Scott Alexander offers a "book review of "All Therapy Books", which is a jumping-off point for asking how it is that psychotherapy is periodically rocked by new therapies that seem to perform incredibly well, but whose confirmed efficacy shelves off over time.He proposes four different possibilities to explain this: maybe the first people to practice a new therapy are the most plugged-in, best psychotherapists, and then, as mediocre therapists adopt the practice, it dilutes the findings; maybe once the therapy is more familiar, the placebo effect (driven by excitement at trying something new) fades; maybe the underlying ideas in the new therapy get widespread attention so patients show up already having received much of the benefit the therapeutic perspective brings; or, maybe the inventors of the therapy are "true believers" who do quick studies that are countered by wider follow-on studies.Here's the question: does therapy actually work? That is, do patients undergo lasting transformations that reduce their unhappiness from interacting with therapists? I believe I had such an experience -- after a very traumatic period in my life, I had serious depression, and I saw a therapist who introduced me to cognitive behavioral therapy. Not only did my depression recede as I started practicing CBT, but subsequent bouts of depression (some situational, some seemingly random) were much easier to deal with thanks to application of CBT principles (with one exception, about 18 months after the Trump election, when I saw another therapist who helped me understand that my social isolation was contributing to my lack of equilibrium and whose encouragement to carve out explicit time to socialize with friends has been seriously helpful since). Read the rest

Perfect material for a pretentious video game trailer, or the closing montage of a movie where everyone dies.The official audio for Never Gonna Give You Up (Pianoforte).From the new album The Best Of Me. Buy/Listen: https://RickAstley.lnk.to/BestIDLimited edition formats available on Rick's store: https://RickAstley.lnk.to/storeIDIt's still not as good as the legendary cover that Slayer performed in 2011. Read the rest

We all know those gifts we get "for the kids," the ones that parents are secretly more excited to open. Drones are a perfect example, but there's a model out there that really doubles down on that appeal.Introducing the Space Fighter Building Block Drones, a series of space fighter drones that are a blast to fly and teach some pretty vital STEM skills.Straight out of the box, any kid who's familiar with interlocking building blocks will be able to assemble their own flyer from the ground up.From there, they're airborne with the press of a button. The 6-axis gyro and auto-stabilization keep the learning curve low for young pilots while allowing for fancy maneuvers like 360-degree flips.The included controller gives pilots an effective range of nearly 250 feet, while the battery allows for flight time of up to 12 minutes. The best part about the ABS plastic materials is that they're resistant to high impacts, like all building blocks. That's especially relevant for rookie pilots, but it also helps them learn. Since the blocks are compatible with other leading brands, they can customize the build and find out about weight distribution and other engineering concepts while they're at it.The Space Fighter Building Block Drone is available in four different styles—Sidewinder, Snow Shooter, Destroyer, and Shuttle. They're on sale for $39.99, but you can take an additional 15% off using the early Black Friday discount code of BFSAVE15, making the final price just $33.99. Read the rest

In this video, an astoundingly dedicated player demonstrates how to complete Minecraft without ever picking up an item. It requires an example of unbelievable luck -- an End Portal which already has 12 eyes in it -- and some save scumming to beat the Ender Dragon with one's fists.Here's the embed, via Reddit:Beating Minecraft with no items from r/nextfuckinglevel Read the rest

Though the wonderful wizard of Northampton may strike me down, I must confess: HBO's new Watchmen series is really, really good. I would argue that it actually has more in common with Moore's adaptive approach to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen—alluding to some established literary canon, but remixing the elements into a story all its own.Just as the original comic featured news clips and other articles at the end of every issue, the TV show has an online "Peteypedia," a collection of supporting text documents that exist within the world of the series. For example: a social work pamphlet about "Extra-dimensional Anxiety and You." This is, of course, supposed to be a reference to the climactic events of the 30-year-old graphic novel, where a (fake) squid-like alien is sent through an extra-dimensional portal into the middle of Manhattan, killing millions of people, traumatizing millions more with telepathic psychological damage, and, ultimately ending the Cold War by uniting USA and USSR against a common enemy.But honestly it…just kind of sounds like living in the United States in 2019 in our own reality. The pamphlet warns of the common PTSD-like symptoms of EDA such as flashbacks and obsessive rumination; hyperavoidance and hypervigilance; negative changes in identity, relationships, or worldview; and paranoia, thrill-seeking, or suicidal thoughts. While, yes, it is supposed to be a somewhat-satirical riff on the generic language of support groups, it also feels like an accurate and relatable description of social media in the Trump years. Read the rest

Meet the Claire's Accessories gom jabbar! Insert a finger into the box and it will print the image of your choice on the nail. Though intended for use by professionals, you can get them on Amazon for just shy of a grand and a few consumer reviews have turned up.It takes just 30 seconds to print a design, according to this reviewer 👇It's the "hottest trend" in nail salons this year, reports Art Insider 👇Here a nail artist jokingly complains of being replaced by robots 👇In this video, Natalie of Natalie's Outlet explains how it works: by "going left and right and bbrrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrb!" 👇O'2nails Digital Mobile Nail Art Printer [Amazon] Read the rest

It's a little corny but William-Sonoma's R2-D2 Popcorn Maker will probably appeal to most fans of POP culture, even at its $100 price tag. Something fun: Its head doubles as a serving bowl. Give snack time the intergalactic edge with this popcorn maker shaped like everyone's favorite Star Warsâ„¢ droid. Simply plug him in, add corn kernels and watch as R2-D2 makes quick work of air-popping a healthy snack for movie night.(I'm still nostalgic for the Joe Namath "Butter-Up Popper" we had in the seventies!)Previously: Wrap makes your Instant Pot look like R2-D2(The Awesomer) Read the rest

Portal Icosahedron is a sculpture by Anthony James, "famous for setting fire to a Ferrari in a birch forest." Created with steel, glass and LED lights, the mirrors within generate an incredible repeating view of its own structure without including the observer or the exterior. It reminded me at one of William Chyr's new game, Manifold Garden.Here's the gallery langue de bois:Anthony James’ work takes up the concepts of the universal and transcendental in order to demonstrate the impossibility of their representation. The historical cosmology of Plato is a primary inspiration, both for the sculptures of icosahedrons and for the silhouette of Baroque architect Francesco Borromini’s dome for Sant’Ivo in Rome. Colorful rings of neon nod to the ancient concept of the universe as a set of concentric planetary orbits. The effect is both esoteric and industrial, orphic and distinctly concrete. Modern art historical references abound as well – Bruce Nauman, Ellsworth Kelly, Minimalism – but the artist’s attention is on the wonderment and possibility presented by distant ideals.Portal Icosahedron, 2017Steel, glass, LED lights60 × 60 × 60 in152.4 × 152.4 × 152.4 cmContact for price Read the rest

iSongs is a YouTube channel that shows popular songs being recreated from scratch with the music-making app that comes with the iPhone. It's an excellent and incredibly dense tutorial, too, for those with the "observe and copy" learning style. Read the rest

It's not impossible for an emerald to be valued at $280 million. In 2017, a 794-pound emerald was found in Brazil and valued at $309 million:However, in the ongoing litigation over the 2018 Camp Fire, PG&E has asked for proof that a married couple really lost a $280 million emerald when their home burned down. Their "Beleza Emerald" was described in court documents as a 500-pound "solid block of black schist and quartz with green crystals."Aside from the immense value of the emerald, Market Watch notes a few suspicious factors:While the Camp fire burned hot enough to melt aluminum — which has a melting point of 1,221 degrees Fahrenheit — emeralds start to degrade at temperatures around 1,800 degrees FahrenheitA Google search found no record of a "Beleza Emerald."According to Realtor.com, the house in question was an 8-bedroom, 4,400-square-foot home in Paradise with an estimated value of $586,000 — raising further doubts that it contained a gem worth more than 477 times the price of the house.In an effort to verify the claim, PG&E has requested proof of ownership such as photos of the emerald, or receipts for security precautions such as temperature control or employment of security personnel. Read the rest

The hardest part of web design can be nailing down the look. These days, even non-designers can easily spot a stale stock photo or lazily-made icon.What's the solution? No matter what kind of artist you are, it's always a good idea to widen your palette. And with more than a million vector images to choose from, VectorGrove is the quickest and easiest way to do just that.This service is a treasure trove for graphic designers who need quick, original images. The interface makes it easy to browse and pick images in a variety of formats (.SVG, .EPS and .JPG), which is good because there is a ton to choose from - 1.2 million, actually. They run the gamut from simple icons, shapes, and fonts to characters and backgrounds.Best of all, it's all worry-free. Download each image as many times as needed and resize to fit your brochure or web page without a drop in quality. No royalties, no license fees.You can sign up for VectorGrove for $39 today and take an extra 15% off that final price by using the early Black Friday discount code BFSAVE15, lowering it to $33.15.Don't wait for Black Friday—you can get these top-sellers at deep discounts today! Read the rest

Consumer Reports' Digital Lab does groundbreaking privacy research: they're hiring for eight positions including technologists ("resident hacker," "digital standard manager," "information security researcher," "program manager, security and testing," and "privacy testing project leader"); journalists ("digital content manager"); policy and comms ("senior researcher, digital competition" and "associate director, strategic communications — technology and privacy"). Most of the positions are NYC or SF or DC based, several allow for remote workers. (Thanks, Ben)!) Read the rest

Here's a spicy take! South Bend, Indiana Mayor and would-be Democratic presidential nominee Pete Buttigieg told CBS that he was "troubled" that Obama extended clemency to the whistleblower Chelsea Manning, freeing her from the prison where she had been tortured and incarcerated for upholding her oath to defend the Constitution by revealing evidence of US war crimes.He also dislikes Ed Snowden.Buttigieg told CBS News Radio on the sidelines of the South by Southwest Festival where he spoke over the weekend that he was "troubled" by former President Obama's decision to commute the 35-year prison sentence for Chelsea Manning days before he left office in 2017. 2020 candidate Pete Buttigieg "troubled" by clemency for Chelsea Manning [Steve Dorsey/CBS](Thanks, Kathy Padilla!) Read the rest

Chloe Haines, 26, received a £85,000 (US$105,000) bill from Jet2 airlines after she was charged with beating a crew member and trying to open the plane door while in flight. As a result of her alleged antics, the pilot made an emergency landing while being escorted by two RAF fighter jets. In addition to the bill, Jet2 banned Haines for life.The Sun has photos of Haines looking unhappy at her court appearance.Image: NY Post video screenshot Read the rest

[Rosemary Frei is an independent journalist who broke the story that Google's Sidewalk Labs had quietly sewn up the rights to turn most of Toronto's lakeshore into a surveilling "smart city" (Google/Sidewalk lied about this at first, were cornered, admitted it, and rolled back the plan). Now she's back with a report on last night's "Public Update on Quayside" meeting, where any hope anyone nursed that Google would be pursuing humane urbanism, rather than surveillance and extraction, were firmly dashed. -Cory]At Waterfront Toronto’s first meeting for the public after its board of directors voted Oct. 31 to continue negotiating with Sidewalk Labs on the parameters of a 12-acre surveillance district, officials from the public agency made it clear they’re already wedded to the Google sister company.The hundreds of attendees of last night’s ‘Public Update on Quayside’ were each given a package that included a copy of an Oct. 29 letter from Waterfront Toronto President and CEO George Zegarac to Sidewalk Labs’s Chief Development Officer Josh Sirefman. Zegarac lays out in the letter how the two bodies will work closely together -- with Waterfront Toronto taking the lead in on such things as negotiations with all three levels of government – to "develop an ‘Innovation Plan’ to advance and achieve Waterfront Toronto’s priority outcomes." Based on this newly arrived at ‘realignment of Master Innovation and Development Plan threshold issues,’ Waterfront Toronto’s final decision on whether to proceed with the plan will be taken by its board by March 31, 2020. Read the rest

The past couple years has seen a rise in prison profiteers who strike deals with state corrections departments to provide "free" tablets to prisoners (these being the flimsiest, cheapest, least reliable hardware imaginable), and then profiting by charging exorbitant sums for prisoners to send emails (selling "digital postage stamps" that have to be affixed to each "page" of email), videoconference with family members, and provide media, charging prisoners for music that they lose every time a prison changes suppliers.At the same time, these companies lobby prisons to eliminate in-person visits, paper mail, and even libraries in the name of safety, contraband interdiction, and cost-savings. This replaces the prison-administered systems that encourage rehabilitation and smooth re-entry with private systems designed to extract large sums from prisoners' families. As bad as prison-administered systems are, the private systems can be worse -- and when you combine them, you get the worst of both worlds: prisoners who violate the vendors' terms of service get sent to solitary.A recent presentation by Katy Ryan from the Appalachian Book Project describes in gruesome detail how this affects in-prison reading. In West Virginia, a company called Global Tel Link has the contract to provide prisoners in ten prisons with "free" tablets, for which they charge $0.05/minute for reading ebooks, primarily drawn from Project Gutenberg, a free online service of volunteer-produced, public domain and CC-licensed ebooks.Not only does this deprive prisoners of more recent titles, including "how-to guides (carpentry, starting a business, repairing small engines, etc.), contemporary fiction, popular mysteries and sci-fi, African American literature, Native studies, recent autobiographies" -- it also makes prison reading fantastically expensive: they estimate that a quick read of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four would clock in at $19.80, while a used paperback would cost the prisoner less than a dollar (and a copy checked out of the prison library would be free). Read the rest

Is your brain a machine? Are your thoughts and feelings just malware of the mind? (And what "really" is a machine, anyway?) John and Eva referee the transhumanist fight of the century. In the blue corner, we have Eva meeting founder and Bryan Johnson, CEO of Kernel, straight from his office in LA. And in the red corner, John meets with To Be a Machine author Mark O'Connell in a cafe in Dublin. Time to get out the popcorn! Round One, ding-ding...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

“I’m excited to hold him. I get to rub the belly – the fuzzy belly. When I last saw him, he was maybe the size of a large burrito and now I’m assuming he’s the size of four large burritos.” — Sasha's human, Viktor Usov. Portland resident Viktor Usov’s cat went missing five years ago. The black, long-haired catboi was found in New Mexico, recently, and returned to his loving owner.Sasha the cat was flown from Santa Fe NM to Portland International Airport, with help from the Santa Fe Animal Shelter and Humane Society and American Airlines.Don't miss the wonderful reunion video at the Shelter's website -- and consider donating!FOX 12 spoke with Usov as he waited for Sasha to land. This, folks, is the best quote of forever.Excerpt:“I’m excited to hold him,” Usov said. “I get to rub the belly – the fuzzy belly.”“When I last saw him, he was maybe the size of a large burrito and now I’m assuming he’s the size of four large burritos,” Usov added.And from the story in the Santa Fe New Mexican today:Officers from the city’s Animal Services Division picked him up on a south-side street and delivered him to the Santa Fe Animal Shelter & Humane Society, where staff scanned for a microchip to determine if he had a human. A phone call shortly after revealed the extent of Sasha’s expedition across the American West.“I let him out one night and he never came home,” said Viktor Usov of Portland, Ore., who had been Sasha’s owner and was expecting to be reunited with the feline Tuesday. Read the rest

For all that tech that gets squeezed into them, the best wireless earbuds are ones we barely have to think about. That's the whole point, right? We get wireless because we just want to hit play and have a hands-free, cordless soundtrack for the rest of the commute.If that's your philosophy, definitely give these Kharbon IP67 Wireless Earbuds a listen. With nearly a week's worth of continuous playtime capability, their battery puts comparable buds to shame.That's no typo. The Kharbon's IPV6 low energy protocol allows for 150 hours of battery life, and with that kind of juice, you can even use the charging case as a 2,000 mAh power bank for your phone or other devices.As far as durability goes, the aluminum casing is solid and coated for an IP67 waterproof rating. The ergonomic design hugs the ear canal for a firm fit even on long runs, and the Bluetooth 5.0 capability ensures a smooth connection. The sound is balanced all the way through thanks to ambient noise cancellation.You can get a set with charging case and manufacturer's warranty for 60% off the list price now - but use the online code BFSAVE15 to knock an extra 15% off that final price, lowering the price down to $67.15. Read the rest

A startup based in Seattle says they plan to offer an alternative to human burial and cremation in Washington state, now that it's finally legal. Yep, human composting.Won't take it personally if you don't read the rest of this blog post.Seriously.The Seattle Times was among the first to report of the human composting service Recompose last week, when founder Katrina Spade hosted a launch event in Seattle’s Sodo district.Officials say Spade partnered with a soil scientist who led a successful research trial and convinced legislators to change state law effective May 2020 about the disposition of the dead.Company officials say Recompose is expected to open in 2021 and cost $5,500 each customer, more than basic cremation, but less than most funerals.Officials say each body would produce about 1 cubic yard of soil.Officials say excess soil is expected to be sent to land intended to become an ecologically sustainable village.More at AP via Oregon Live. Read the rest

Unsend, unsend, dammit.