You can stop adding famous people's laughter to Joaquin Phoenix's Joker, 'cause we've got a winner: Pee-wee Herman. Sound up.That new #Joker movie sounds really funny! pic.twitter.com/5lMldCxw6J— Pee-wee Herman (@peeweeherman) October 11, 2019(Pee-wee Herman)screenshot and video by Rub my clips Read the rest

The House Judiciary Committee actually held a hearing about gun violence in late September. But you probably didn't hear about it—either because the rest of US politics are so overwhelmingly terrible right now, or because it lacked the dramatic oomph of mass shootings or the inevitable gun ban proposals that always seem to follow.Mass shootings only comprise about one percent of all gun deaths; we just hear about them more, because they're so damn horrific (though whether they're more frequent now is up for debate). Far more lives lost to suicides and gang-related violence every year. Overall, firearm injuries are the second leading cause of death for people under the age of 18. In other words, gun violence isn't a problem—it's (at least) 5 different problems, with different solutions.What makes this House Judiciary Committee hearing even more remarkable is that for once they actually spoke with people from communities that are directly affected by these problems. Community-based solutions like this have the potential to save even more lives if you include the right people in the conversations (which unfortunately doesn't happen very often). They also have greater potential to gain bipartisan support. No one's talking about taking guns away, and no one's talking about empowering a disciplinarian police state using fear to keep the local systems in line. They just need funding and support for resources like social work. And that might actually make a difference.(Thumbnail image via Flickr) Read the rest

In a brilliant move, the Washington Post convinced several Washington Capital players to draw self portraits, most-used emoji,favorite memory, first thing bought after signing their rookie contract,And whatever this is:Check out the rest of the gallery here. Read the rest

Molly Osberg and Dhruv Mehrotra at Splinter have done some great work tracing at least 150 Wikipedia edits back to IP addresses at the NRA headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia. Like the @CongressEdits Twitter account, which tracked edits from IP addresses on Capitol Hill, it's difficult to say for certain whether these were intentionally duplicitous acts under order from above, or just some bored administrative office worker with a comprehensive knowledge of crystal skulls and stinkbugs.Given the NRA's long history with the savvy PR firm Ackerman McQueen, however, it's hard to chalk up the selectively-edited articles on Holocaust Denialism, George Zimmerman, or the history of "stand your ground" laws as mere coincidence.In 2013, a few days after George Zimmerman was acquitted of murder charges after shooting the unarmed Trayvon Martin, and as “stand your ground” laws made national news, a Wikipedia user named SkippG created the first Wikipedia page for Brown v. United States, the 1921 case that set a precedent for Americans with no “duty to retreat” to legally kill someone in “self-defense.” SkippG also attempted some revisions to Marion Hammer’s page, insisting so thoroughly on their edits despite the protests of other editors that their account was later frozen. Coincidentally, a man named Skipp Galythly has been an assistant general counsel at the NRA for 20 years.It's too bad Splinter will be shutting down soon, the latest casualty of the various clueless finance bros who scooped up the former Gawker Media sites after the company's evisceration by Peter Thiel. Read the rest

There's movie merch and then there are artifacts - one-of-a-kind items for the true fans only. These 11 items definitely fall into the latter category. We've unearthed movie art, props and other fan touchstones from the major nerd franchises of the last 50 years. Gaze upon these Star Wars and Marvel collectibles and don't worry. You're not turning into the Hulk - that's just envy turning you green.Mark IV Iron Man Helmet Hand-Signed by Jon. Favreau, Mickey Rourke & Robert Downey, Jr.Fans of the Armored Avenger should love this one. It's a helmet for the Mark IV armor first worn by Iron Man in the 2010 blockbuster Iron Man 2. Cool heads-up display not included, but it is signed by three major stars from the film: Jon Favreau, Mickey Rourke and Tony Stark himself - Robert Downey Jr. The PSA/DNA verified helmet is now more than 40% off the original asking price.Signed & Framed Thor PhotoBring a little thunder to your den or office with a photo of Thor signed by actor Chris Hemsworth and certified by James Spence Authentication. It's triple-matted for extra protection and surrounded by an elegant wood frame with metallic trim. Get it now for a full 37% off the retail price.Return of the Jedi Certified Cast Hand-Signed Original Vintage PosterCommemorate the last of the original trilogy with this pristine "Return of the Jedi" movie poster numbered and signed by Darth Vader portrayers David Prowse and James Earl Jones, plus Jeremy "Boba Fett" Bulloch. Read the rest

This morning I posted that Facebook and Twitter have taken the position that they will accept political ads that contain lies because they don't feel it's in their best interest to fact check claims made in the ads.Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren put Facebook to the test by running an ad on Facebook falsely claiming that Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg have publicly announced their endorsement of Trump for president. Facebook said it will let the ad run. “If Senator Warren wants to say things she knows to be untrue, we believe Facebook should not be in the position of censoring that speech,” Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone told CNN."Either Facebook doesn't touch the ad and the ad is therefore noteworthy, or they touch the ad and it's noteworthy," Dave Karpf, an associate professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University, told CNN. "It's a smart tactical move."From CNN:Warren has become one of Facebook's key antagonists after first calling for it and other Silicon Valley giants — such as Amazon, Google and Apple — to be broken up. But her rift with Facebook deepened after leaked audio published by The Verge revealed Zuckerberg fretting about the potential consequences of a Warren presidency."If she gets elected president, then I would bet that we will have a legal challenge, and I would bet that we will win the legal challenge," Zuckerberg is heard saying at a companywide meeting. "And does that still suck for us? Read the rest

How can a single, ill-conceived law wreak havoc in so many ways? It prevents you from making remix videos. It blocks computer security research. It keeps those with print disabilities from reading ebooks. It makes it illegal to repair people's cars. It makes it harder to compete with tech companies by designing interoperable products. It's even been used in an attempt to block third-party ink cartridges for printers. It's hard to believe, but these are just some of the consequences of Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which gives legal teeth to "access controls" (like DRM). Courts have mostly interpreted the law as abandoning the traditional limitations on copyright's scope, such as fair use, in favor of a strict regime that penalizes any bypassing of access controls (such as DRM) on a copyrighted work regardless of your noninfringing purpose, regardless of the fact that you own that copy of the work. Since software can be copyrighted, companies have increasingly argued that you cannot even look at the code that controls a device you own, which would mean that you're not allowed to understand the technology on which you rely — let alone learn how to tinker with it or spot vulnerabilities or undisclosed features that violate your privacy, for instance. Given how terrible Section 1201 is, we sued the government on behalf of security researcher Matt Green and innovator Andrew "bunnie" Huang — and his company, Alphamax. Our clients want to engage in important speech and they want to empower others to do the same — even when access controls get in the way. Read the rest

Canada's Conservative Party is terrible, and it has terrible policies, and it will be terrible for Canada if they are elected. I already voted against them with my mail-in ballot. That said, the CBC is 100% wrong to sue the Tories for copyright infringement over the inclusion of short debate clips in Conservative campaign websites and tweets.As Michael Geist, a leading Canadian copyright expert notes, this kind of short clip usage is canonical fair dealing, and the same exemption that the Tories are relying on here is profoundly important to all newsgathering, including the reporting that the CBC itself produces.And, a Geist notes, the use of copyright to suppress political speech in an election season is incredibly troubling and antidemocratic. Shame on the CBC.The CBC obviously has rights as the copyright owner in its broadcast, but those rights are constrained by limitations and exceptions under the law that allow for use of its work without the need for further permission. The CBC itself (like all broadcasters) regularly relies upon those exceptions to use the work of others without permission. There are strong fair dealing arguments in favour reasonable usage. Moreover, the claim over short clips over debate footage is enormously troubling, considering both the importance of broad dissemination of the debate and the fact that the debate involves little specific contribution for any individual broadcaster. CBC has an unfortunate history of overzealous use of copyright to stifle freedom of expression and that approach appears to have reared its head yet again as the 2019 campaign hits the home stretch. Read the rest

Senator Warren gave this very clear answer at CNN's LBGTQ town hall.She 👏🏽 does 👏🏽 not 👏🏽 miss 👏🏽 a 👏🏽 beat 👏🏽#EqualityTownHall pic.twitter.com/7iYeMGlSuM— Leila Mohaideen (@leiitontheline) October 11, 2019 It is wonderful that candidates can now clearly answer questions about the right to marry and the legal protections it offers without the waffling of yesteryear. Read the rest

Pompeo refuses to say if he met with Giuliani on February Warsaw trip

This wonderful crafty person made their very own Game of Thrones 'Risk' game board out of a used wooden table they picked up for twenty bucks.IMGURian apachethehelicopter is an incredibly talented DIY-er.Excerpt:My girlfriend and I went out and bought a table at a yard sale for $20 and turned it into a custom Risk board! Throughout college my friends and I would get big groups of people together to play Risk on our nights off, and we really enjoyed the Game of Thrones version since it was a 7 person game and you know... Game of Thrones was still good at the time. Since then, I’ve had my eye out for a good sized table that I could turn into a map for a custom board. So one weekend browsing craigslist I found a good candidate, and this is how we transformed it over the following weeks:Note: this is a first-time project, I don’t do much wood-working at all. I just raided my dad’s garage for tools and watched videos on different methods. So if you have any suggestions—I’d actually appreciate it!Go check out the entire post, embedded below.“We did this all in about a month, it was a great challenge and I’m so proud of how it turned out. Let me know what you think!”Turned a $20 table into a custom Game of Thrones Risk board Read the rest

Spice-seller was second only to Trump in spending on impeachment ads

...but Giuliani says he is.

Gum Soft-Picks do a better job than toothpicks or floss for cleaning food and plaque from between my teeth. The rubbery green brush pushes out all the gunk without hurting. A pack of 100 will set you back on Amazon. Read the rest

After 23 years at Fox News, its chief news anchor Shep Smith is off to pastures new. "Recently I asked the company to allow me to leave Fox News and begin a new chapter," Smith said. "After requesting that I stay, they graciously obliged. The opportunities afforded this guy from small town Mississippi have been many. It’s been an honor and a privilege to report the news each day to our loyal audience in context and with perspective, without fear or favor. I’ve worked with the most talented, dedicated and focused professionals I know and I’m proud to have anchored their work each day — I will deeply miss them.”His contract was reportedly renewed only last year. Rumor is that he was told to stop being critical of all the pro-Trump rhetoric on the channel and abruptly quit rather than eat it. His instant departure comes hours after Secretary of State William Barr met privately with Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News, presumably to discuss wavering support for President Donald Trump among the channel's on-air personalities. Read the rest

Trump has been buying ads with false content that run on Facebook and Twitter, and the two social media platforms both say they will continue to accept paid ads that contain lies.From Technology Review:Last month, Facebook communications chief Nick Clegg said Facebook will not fact-check politicians’ ads, a stance the company has reiterated. In a letter to Biden’s campaign, Facebook’s head of global elections policy, Katie Harbath, said that “if a claim is made directly by a politician on their Page, in an ad or on their website, it is considered direct speech and ineligible for our third-party fact checking program.”The letter goes on to say: “These policies apply to organic and paid content from politicians—including the ad by President Trump you reference in your letter.”In other words, even if the content is false, the fact that it is being said by a politician, or a campaign on the politician’s behalf, means it is considered newsworthy, making it exempt from certain standards. (Facebook says that things like viral hoaxes that are shared by a politician would be demoted, displayed alongside fact-checking information, and banned from ads.) This disparity in the policy is confusing, to say the least.Meanwhile, Twitter told The Verge that the ad is “not in violation of our policies,” without clarifying further.Image: Mark Zuckerberg by Anthony Quintano, Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) / Jack Dorsey by JD Lasica, Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0). Read the rest

Vox made a clear and succinct video about the damning phone call Trump had with Ukraine's President Zelenskyy in July. Vox also made a video that describes the impeachment process: Read the rest

A white Arizona sheriff's deputy is under investigation and has been placed on administrative leave for pulling over a black driver because he had an air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror. The deputy, named Eli Max, made the driver get out of the car and began interrogating him for a half an hour about drugs and weapons. Deputy Max asked the driver where he was going. Deputy Max also accused the driver more than once of being "nervous" and asked to search the car since nervousness was a sign of "deception." He also gave the driver a sobriety test. Fortunately, the driver recorded the encounter.When the news department of ABC15, an Arizona TV station, asked La Paz County Sheriff's Office for a comment, the sheriff's office replied:"Yes, we obviously are looking into the complaint; we are taking this matter very seriously. Deputy Max has already been placed on administrative leave and our detectives are in the process of investigating the complaint. If we determine that the Deputy was at fault, we will look into the training methods to determine if this was a training issue or possibly an officer making up his own methods. When the investigation is complete, I plan on providing a press release that will detail our findings."Image: La Paz County Detention Facebook page Read the rest

The origin story of the most evil villain in my early media experience.I loved watching Felix, but I was certain Master Cylinder was going to get me.I also tried to jump into a filing cabinet, ala Hong Kong Phooey. That left a more visible scar. Read the rest

Tewksbury, Massachusetts is about 15 miles south of Salem, New Hampshire and 25 miles west of Salem, Massachusetts. It's also 25 miles north of Watertown, Massachusetts, where Eliza Dushku was born and raised, and 25 miles northwest of South Boston, where famed vampire slayer Faith Lehane (Dushku's character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer) was born and raised.Given that proximity, it's the logical place for a Hellmouth to open.😳⛲ pic.twitter.com/wz5stkdO09— Tewksbury Police (@TewksburyPD) October 9, 2019Authorities have officially blamed the problem on a "water main break." But anyone who's seen the third season of Buffy knows this is just a convenient excuse orchestrated by the ascendant demons who work at town hall. While there have not been any reported vampire sightings as of this time, Tewksbury is right next to Wilmington, where Massachusetts' sneakily-privatized and FOIA-immune NEMLEC SWAT Units are headquartered, which is kind of the same thing. Read the rest

Twitter has a setting that (nominally) allows you to turn off its default of showing you "top" tweets (as selected by its engagement-maximizing, conflict-seeking algorithm), but periodically, Twitter just ignores that setting and starts nonconsensually eyeball-fucking you with inflammatory headlines.Kent Brewster has created a free/open plugin for Chrome and Firefox that undoes this reversion and shows you the Twitter you've expressly asked for. Read the rest

I'm old enough to have watched Schoolhouse Rock educational cartoons when they premiered on television. This new video, with a song by Jonathan Coulton is a guide to the impeachment process. It's a loving tribute to Schoolhouse Rock.Image: YouTube Read the rest

And you can bid on the invention's intellectual property rights next week.Inventor/Artist (Inventist?) Ian Charnas has devised a way for windshield wipers to be in sync with the beat of the music you're listening to. Now, you can't just go out and buy his Dancing Wipers at the store. No, no. But you can bid to gain their IP rights on eBay next Wednesday. His thoroughly entertaining 15-minute-long pitch video explains it all. You get quite a bit of insight into the creation process which is valuable and fun!Know someone who has to have this? Is that someone you?Mark your calendars for that eBay auction:October 16, 2019Noon ESTBidding starts at $1.The Buy it Now price is $25,000.Thanks, Mark! Read the rest

At The Washington Post, Antonia Noori Farzan reports on an alleged zoophile who demanded farmers let him at the horses while conducting a terrifying stalking campaign against those who refused. For well over a year, two mysteries consumed a peaceful New Jersey community.The 31-year-old was arrested Oct. 3, according to the New Jersey Herald. Prosecutors said at a Wednesday detention hearing that since August 2018, he had been sending letters and emails detailing his request to farms, stables and horse boarding facilities throughout Sussex County, located in the northernmost point of the state. Unsurprisingly, many of the recipients were not thrilled to learn than an adult man was interested in having a sexual relationship with their livestockThe man used the nickname "TackyChaps". Read the rest

Lucy Sparrow is a felt artist, or as she likes to call herself, a "Feltist." You might remember that in 2017, she packed a NYC bodega full of her faux products in felt and that last year in Los Angeles, she opened the Sparrow Mart Supermarket at the Standard Hotel. Well, she's back! Her latest all-felt venture is a pop-up delicatessen in Rockefeller Center. The British artist created over 30,000 soft sculptures for this Delicatessen on 6th. This sixth installation in her felt shop series is a New York City upscale deli, with every single one of the items, from cheese to fish, chocolate to fruit handmade out of felt. All items in the fine food shop is available for purchase. This installation is part of the ‘Art in Focus’ public art program at Rockefeller Center presented in partnership with the non-profit Art Production Fund. Open 11am - 8pm, 7 days a week, October 1 - 20, 2019. photos by Heather Cromartie, via the Art Production Fund(artnet News) Read the rest

Greg from the Free Software Foundation writes, "Celebrate Saturday's International Day Against DRM with this shareable "dead tree" book dust jacket!"Available in English, German and Spanish.We have developed a dust jacket you can slip over any "dead tree" book that you are reading to warn others about the looming threat of DRM. Whether in school, in a coffee shop, or on the subway, it is an easy conversation starter about the insidious nature of DRM. We encourage all readers to use them, whether on the latest hardcover bestseller or the textbook you use in class (while you still have one).IDAD 2019 - Shareable Dust Jacket Design [Free Software Foundation/Defective by Design] Read the rest

Shown at top of fold: Cover to OTHER SCENES, Volume 1, Number 6, September 1968 — Additional items on the history of OTHER SCENES will be included in the comments section over the week.From John Wilcock, New York Years, by Ethan Persoff and Scott Marshall.(See all Boing Boing installments) Read the rest

Greta Thunberg's Joan of Arc-grade tongue-lashing to the world's leaders at the UN makes for some incredible mashup possibilities: it's not merely that her excellent delivery lent itself to death metal, but also her use of the phrase "right here, right now," was tailor-made for insertion into Fatboy Slim's track of the same name -- hence Fatboy Slim himself playing Twitter user David Scott's remix at a gig in Gateshead.Greta Thunberg's furious UN speech remixed by Fatboy Slim pic.twitter.com/XFpnm66ds2— The Independent (@Independent) October 9, 2019(via Naked Capitalism) Read the rest

Splinter was the news site at G/O Media (the successor to Gawker Media), housing left-leaning current affairs commentary and anchoring the groups' more advertiser-friendly tech, game and sports "verticals". The new owners have already demonstrated some unexpectedly poor judgment, and now they're shuttering Splinter and ordering other editors there not to write about it.In an email to staffers obtained by HuffPost, Paul Maidment, the media group’s editorial director, instructed editors not to publish posts about Splinter’s demise. “I see no compelling reason for any of our sites to be writing about the decision to cease publishing Splinter,” Maidment wrote. “There is already external coverage, LeadPR will handle our external communications, and this is a time to be respectful of colleagues who have just received difficult news and for whom we will be trying to find new positions.”He went on to issue a warning: “Any reference to Splinter in anything we publish needs my prior approval, as per our editorial policy. Please make sure all your staff are aware of that. You will be accountable if anything not approved by me gets published.”This is how you run a McDonalds franchise. The managerial talk here sounds alien to most journalists and like nails on a chalkboard to Gawker writers, whose "unsparing self-coverage" is merciless and traditional. The new CEO, Jim Spanfeller, formerly was at Forbes and Playboy, prestigious media brands that have faded in recent years: Forbes began publishing anything pumped into its database by unpaid bloggers and Playboy has fewer readers than we do. Read the rest

No matter what kind of office you work at, there's probably an Excel expert in it. And no wonder: Businesses are still discovering uses for one of Microsoft's flagship software suites beyond just bare-bones spreadsheets. Make October the month you become invaluable at work by taking one of these boot camps in Excel and its associated platforms. Why October? Because right now you can take 40% off the final price of any of these bundles by using the online code 40Learn40.The Complete Microsoft Excel & VBA BundleIf you're using Excel for a lot of minute tasks, this is the bundle for you - no matter what your level of experience. There are dedicated courses that cover the basics for 2013, 2016 and 2019 versions of Excel, and several others teach you how to use Visual Basic for Applications, an invaluable automation tool that will ramp up your productivity exponentially. Pick up all nine courses for 93% off the MSRP now, and take an additional 40% by using the online code 40Learn40.The Excel & Google Sheets Mastery Bundle: Lifetime AccessNot sure what spreadsheet program is the best for you? This two-course package is a perfect intro to both Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets, covering all the vital formulas and table shortcuts with a certification at the end to show your mastery. Get lifetime access to both for a full 97% off retail, and take an additional 40% by using the online code 40Learn40.The Complete Excel Bundle: MBA & Startup ToolboxBusiness professionals will get the most out of Microsoft Excel with this targeted master class that moves quickly from introductory exercises to advanced functions and data management tools that will help you detect and respond to changes in your market. Read the rest

Corinthian Colleges, Inc. was yet another for-profit university that screwed over hundreds of thousands of people with pyramid schemes that promised a higher education at the end of some labyrinthine maze. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2015, and the U.S. government ruled that any students with outstanding debts should have those debts cancelled.That was before Betsy DeVos became the U.S. Secretary of Education.DeVos, the wife of pyramid scheme pioneer Dick DeVos and brother of famed mercenary Blackwater founder Erik Prince, was unsurprisingly unforgiving of the students who were conned by Corinthian. She stonewalled more than 100,000 loan forgiveness applications and continued pursuing debt payments from screwed-over students who couldn't pay them back. In 2018, U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim finally told her to knock it off (legally).Spoiler alert: she didn't listen.So they landed back in court earlier this week on Monday, October 7, 2019. Judge Kim was (understandably) quite irate at having her court order violated sixteen thousand times by Devos's department. While the issue is still not completely resolved, the judge did threaten the possibility of tossing someone behind bars. From Bloomberg: "I’m not sure if this is contempt or sanctions," U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim told lawyers for the Education Department at a hearing Monday in San Francisco. "I'm not sending anyone to jail yet but it’s good to know I have that ability."[…]"At best it is gross negligence, at worst it’s an intentional flouting of my order."I'm not holding my breath for DeVos to actually spend any time in jail or prison, of course. Read the rest

In an effort to get more people reading, the New York Public Library set out to take advantage of Instagram's huge user base. Mother New York designed "Insta Novels" as a way to read entire novels in Instagram Stories. The books feature carefully selected fonts, beautiful animations, and some clever hacks to allow such an unorthodox use of the Instagram app:one challenge was that the pages would turn themselves after 10 seconds. But the solution of the Thumb Rest gave us a simple way-finding element and let us add illustrations to every page for a more engaging reading experience....Knowing the active story would only be live for 24-hours, we also launched a teaser post with each title to let readers know they could find a new title in our highlights. These posts served as mini-movie trailers for each book to bring the audience to the title.You can read Alice in Wonderland, A Christmas Carol, The Raven, and more now. Read the rest

Folio Society has produced a special illustrated edition of Philip K. Dick's novel Ubik, featuring several illustrations and a foreword by Kim Stanley Robinson: This video describes the creation of the edition, including hiding a secret in the slipcase: Read the rest

Four or more top U.S. national security officials were so upset by Donald Trump’s attempts to pressure Ukraine for Joe Biden dirt that they spoke to a White House lawyer with their concerns “both before and immediately after President Trump’s July 25 call with that country’s president,” the Washington Post reports tonight citing “U.S. officials and other people familiar with the matter.”“The nature and timing of the previously undisclosed discussions with National Security Council legal adviser John Eisenberg indicate that officials were delivering warnings through official White House channels earlier than previously understood — including before the call that precipitated a whistleblower complaint and the impeachment inquiry of the president,” report the WaPo's Greg Miller and Greg Jaffe late Thursday:Those concerns soared in the call’s aftermath, officials said. Within minutes, senior officials including national security adviser John Bolton were being pinged by subordinates about problems with what the president had said to his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky. Bolton and others scrambled to obtain a rough transcript that was already being “locked down” on a highly classified computer network.“When people were listening to this in real time there were significant concerns about what was going on — alarm bells were kind of ringing,” said one person familiar with the sequence of events inside the White House, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. “People were trying to figure out what to do, how to get a grasp on the situation.”It is unclear whether some or all of the officials who complained to Eisenberg are also the ones who later spoke to the whistleblower. Read the rest

Authorities say haul worth $600,000 or more

The owners of the copyright for the theme song to the “Charlie Brown Christmas” TV special are suing Dolly Parton's 'Dollywood' in federal court for copyright infringement.The complaint is reported to charge Dollywood with having used the song without permission in live Christmas performances at the Tennessee theme park since 2007.From the Associated Press:The lawsuit says Los Angeles-based Lee Mendelson Film Productions owns the copyright and is asking for $150,000 for every time the song has been used.According to the suit, “Christmas Time is Here” was written by Lee Mendelson and Vince Guaraldi for the 1965 television special “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”AP says Dollywood “is aware of the lawsuit,” no comment on pending litigation. Read the rest

In New Mexico, a football coach was fired and now faces criminal charges after authorities say a student captured the coach on cellphone video taking money from a student player’s wallet.Miyamura High School coach John D. Roanhaus was on Saturday by state police after reviewing the cellphone video that showed Mr. Roanhaus entering the locker room and removing $40 from the student's wallet, say the court documents.From AP:According to an arrest warrant, a police officer was contacted by a student’s mother who showed the officer the cellphone video. The video showed Roanhaus walking into the school’s locker area, taking two $20 bills from a black wallet and stuffing the money in his sock, Officer Nathaniel Renteria wrote in the arrest warrant.Roanhaus had been the head football coach at the high school in the small, New Mexico western city of Gallup since 2018. He is the youngest son of New Mexico Hall of Fame coach Eric Roanhaus, who retired in 2016 as head football coach at Clovis High School after recording 343 wins, the most in state history.The mother told Renteria it wasn’t the first time that players had experienced thefts in the locker room.Roanhaus, 42, has been charged with larceny and non-residential burglary and ordered held on $2,000 bail. Police: High school coach lifted $40 from player's wallet Read the rest

Could an arrest be imminent? Was he planning to fly to Vienna, too? So many questions.

Giuliani dealings with associates scrutinized in ongoing investigation

Democratic House committee leaders have issued a subpoena to Donald Trump's Energy Secretary Perry for "key documents" as part of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.Three House chairmen sent Perry the subpoena.Here's a copy.[via NBC News, image: shutterstock]Dems are asking for a host of documents by Oct. 18, including over communications he had with Rudy about Ukraine. CNN reported this earlier: https://t.co/6ug3RFWTos— Manu Raju (@mkraju) October 10, 2019Oh hell, one more time. https://t.co/pZ0d3m6kFh pic.twitter.com/nMheaG9CQG— Schooley (@Rschooley) October 10, 2019 Read the rest

A judge today approved a $1 million bond in property and business for two associates of President Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph Giuliani, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, along with mandatory home confinement and GPS monitoring.Parnas and Fruman remain in custody until those conditions are met.Their next hearing date is set for next Thursday afternoon in SDNY. They were been arrested on charges of conspiring to funnel money to U.S. politicians from overseas, and attempting to manipulate U.S.-Ukraine foreign relations, the just-unsealed indictment reveals.New filing in Fruman and Parnas case: Order to Unseal Indictmenthttps://t.co/96mTmqQKQH pic.twitter.com/VFxSKi4Lva— Big Cases Bot (@big_cases) October 10, 2019[Read the indictment: U.S. vs Lev Parnas et al.]Parnas and Fruman have reportedly been working with Giuliani to cook up opposition campaigns against Democratic presidential candidate and former VP Joe Biden, and The Washington Post reports the two men were arrested “Wednesday evening at Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, D.C., where they had one-way tickets on a flight out of the country.”Excerpt:The pair have been under investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan. At an initial court appearance Thursday afternoon in Alexandria, Va., prosecutors said they were concerned Parnas and Fruman were flight risks, but that they would negotiate with their lawyers about a possible bail package.Wednesday’s arrests mark the first criminal charges to emerge out of the U.S. government’s suddenly controversial relationship with Ukraine — tying discussions about diplomacy to alleged violations of campaign finance law. Read the rest

Law school grads routinely go to work for crusading nonprofits and even those in private practice do pro bono work, thanks to a widespread understanding that lawyers have a professional duty to work for the public interest -- after all, understanding and navigating the law is a necessary precondition for freedom and fairness.Technology is another form of law, and a failure to understand tech can get us into real problems, especially at the policy level, where politicians' failures to come to grips with tech (sometimes deliberately, and sometimes due to a lack of good advice) produces all kinds of terrible outcomes.Bruce Schneier (previously) wants us to think about becoming "public interest technologists," who work for the public good, by advising lawmakers and policymakers, and by pursuing public interest goals in our technical work. Schneier defines the term and collects resources on the subject on public-interest-tech.com. You can hear him discuss it in depth with Mike Masnick on the Techdirt podcast.Schneier gave a brief, stirring talk on the subject at the Royal Society last month: it's 15 minutes long and well worth your time. Read the rest

Early versions of the free/open Unix variant BSD came with password files that included hashed passwords for such Unix luminaries as Dennis Ritchie, Stephen R. Bourne, Eric Schmidt, Brian W. Kernighan and Stuart Feldman.Leah Neukirchen recovered an BSD version 3 source tree and posted about it on the Unix Heritage Society mailing list, revealing that she was able to crack many of the weak passwords used by the equally weak hashing algorithm from those bygone days.Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie's was "dmac", Bourne's was "bourne", Schmidt's was "wendy!!!" (his wife's name), Feldman's was "axlotl", and Kernighan's was "/.,/.,".Four more passwords were cracked by Arthur Krewat: Özalp Babaoğlu's was "12ucdort", Howard Katseff's was "graduat;", Tom London's was "..pnn521", Bob Fabry's was "561cml.." and Ken Thompson's was "p/q2-q4!" (chess notation for a common opening move).BSD 3 used Descrypt for password hashing, which limited passwords to eight characters, salted with 12 bits of entropy. Descrypt limits passwords to just eight characters, a constraint that makes it all but impossible for end users to choose truly strong credentials. And the salt Descrypt uses provides just 12 bits of entropy, the equivalent of two printable characters. That tiny salt space makes it likely that large databases will contain thousands of hash strings that attackers can crack simultaneously, since the hash strings use the same salt.Jeremi M. Gosney, a password security expert and CEO of the password-cracking firm Terahash, told Ars that Descrypt is so weak and antiquated that one of his company’s 10-GPU Inmanis appliances (price: almost $32,000) could besiege a Descrypt hash with 14.5 billion guesses per second (the rigs can be clustered to achieve faster results). Read the rest

Attending todays Trump Minneapolis rally sounds like a really scary time.City Pages:So Republicans will be escorted to and from their cars. That duty will fall to Oath Keepers, a “patriot” group whose members fancy themselves as “guardians of the republic.” Or as the Southern Poverty Law Center calls them, “one of the largest radical anti-government groups in the U.S. today.”They are not the kind of people you want entering your city. Especially since they tend to be heavily armed.The group was launched in 2009 after—not coincidentally—we elected a black president. Its beliefs roughly mirrored the conspiracy theories of the day: that the black guy was preparing to invoke martial law. That he would take away your guns. That he would relegate patriots to detention camps.A decade later, it appears Obama forgot to execute his plot, likely because he never entertained it in the first place. Yet the Oath Keepers carry on, raising “Citizen Preservation” militias to defend against “global elitists” and fight the imaginary forces arrayed against them.Local PD warns people to take care:In the meantime, Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo seems prepared for the worst. He’s urging residents to not just avoid bringing firearms, knives, and sharp objects, but such innocent items as backpacks, coolers, and strollers. Read the rest

Pence is trying as hard as he can not to go down with the ship. pic.twitter.com/jrA8aoQSfb— Matt Rogers 🎙🎃 (@Politidope) October 10, 2019 NBC's Vaughn Hillyard refuses to let Mike Pence offer non-answers. Pence cannot answer the questions asked of him. Read the rest

Our friends at Futility Closet wrote this post about the Speech-to-Song Illusion:In 1995 UCSD psychologist Diana Deutsch was fine-tuning the spoken commentary on a CD when she noticed something odd. When the phrase “sometimes behave so strangely” was repeated on a loop, it came to sound as though it were being sung rather than spoken. When the full surrounding passage was then played in its entirety, this phrase still sounded as though it were being sung (you can hear this here).The phenomenon is not completely understood, but “the present experiments show that for a phrase to be heard as spoken or as sung, it does not need to have a set of physical properties that are unique to speech, or a different set of physical properties that are unique to song,” the researchers write. “Rather, we must conclude that, assuming the neural circuitries underlying speech and song are at some point distinct and separate, they can accept the same input, but process the information in different ways so as to produce different outputs.”The first few times I heard the narrator say "sometimes behave so strangely," I heard it as speech. Now, it is impossible for me to hear it as anything other than singing. Read the rest

Chanel Miller wrote a book called Know My Name, about her life before and after being sexually assaulted by Brock Turner, the sex criminal who was portrayed by the trial judge as a victim. She was interviewed on The Daily Show to promote her book.Image: The Daily Show Read the rest

We'll find a cloud to hide usWe'll keep the moon beside us Read the rest

Unicode includes six "zero-width characters" that are not visibly rendered in browsers (U+FEFF, U+200C, U+200D, U+200E, U+2060, U+180E) -- they're used for some specialized cases in rendering non-Roman alphabets.Inzerosight's browser extension allows you to insert and detect hidden messages encoded in zero-width characters; absent the plugin or a source-code inspection, these do not show up at all, not even when the text is highlighted.‌‎­‍­­‍⁠⁠‌᠎­​‌​​⁠‍‍​​᠎​⁠‌‌᠎‍⁠⁠‌᠎⁠⁠​‍‌‌‌‌⁠⁠‌​‌⁠​‌⁠᠎­​​‍‍​​⁠‌­​‍​‌​​᠎‍⁠​​­I may or may not have included some of this text in this post.inØsight [Planetrenox](via Hackaday) Read the rest