Boing Boing

Galveston County Republican Party Chairwoman Yolanda Waters says her use of the N-word in a text message about fellow party member J.T. Edwards was simply a typo. Edwards, by pure coincidence, is black. The Galveston Daily News reports that “Waters complained about personal loans she and her husband had made to Edwards, and then followed her complaint about the money by calling Edwards a ‘typical n**.’”“I usually type very fast, and in this case, I moved too fast to see that the word was there,” Waters told the paper. “I made the typo because I did not proofread my text.”The word was there. Like it spontaneously appeared in the text message without her typing it.Again, there is no reason, no excuse and no room in our party for racist comments. The Galveston GOP Chairwoman should apologize to the respected member of the Texas SREC for using a racial slur to describe him. And she should resign as county chairman. https://t.co/BG0omQFLnC— George P. Bush (@georgepbush) December 8, 2019[via Fark] Read the rest

University of Tokyo engineers have taught a robot how to repair itself. Well, they taught it to tighten its own screws. And with that skill, it also was able to self-install a hook for hanging a tote bag from its shoulder. From IEEE Spectrum:At the moment, the robot can’t directly detect on its own whether a particular screw needs tightening, although it can tell if its physical pose doesn’t match its digital model, which suggests that something has gone wonky. It can also check its screws autonomously from time to time, or rely on a human physically pointing out that it has a screw loose, using the human’s finger location to identify which screw it is. Another challenge is that most robots, like most humans, are limited in the areas on themselves that they can comfortably reach. So to tighten up everything, they might have to find themselves a robot friend to help, just like humans help each other put on sunblock.And here is their technical paper: "Self-Repair and Self-Extension by Tightening Screws based onPrecise Calculation of Screw Pose of Self-Body with CAD Dataand Graph Search with Regrasping a Driver" Read the rest

There's a lot of political will to regulate the Big Tech companies in both the US and the EU at the moment, which is a very welcome juncture to have arrived at after 40 years of antitrust inaction during which companies were permitted to grow by buying nascent competitors, merging with major competitors and cornering vertical markets -- all classic anticompetitive behaviors that Reagan and his successors legalized.But regulating Big Tech isn't enough: we have to regulate them effectively. The wrong rules (like the EU's Copyright Directive) can simply cement their dominance. And, of course, we want to take care to extinguish only bad, anticompetitive behaviors, not those that give rise to the parts of tech that we love and value.Veteran tech analyst Ben Thompson wrote an essay to accompany a talk he's giving at the Antitrust in Times of Upheaval conference, in which he tries to cleave tech monopolists into two different categories: "platforms" ("a foundation on which entire ecosystems are built") and "aggregators" ("collect a critical mass of users and leverage access to those users to extract value from suppliers"). Thompson proposes that platforms and aggregators have different failure modes when it comes to anticompetitive action, and that each should be regulated differently.Platforms (like Apple's App Store or Microsoft Windows), have enormous power over third parties. If you get kicked out of the App Store, you can no longer sell to Iphone owners, so Apple has lots of opportunities for rent-extraction from its software vendors, like forcing them to use its own payment processor. Read the rest

In 2000, Mayor Pete won the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum's Profiles in Courage Essay Contest with an excellent essay praising Bernie Sanders as a unique American politician, whom Buttigieg described as "a powerful force for conciliation and bipartisanship on Capitol Hill" who provides "an answer to those who say American young people see politics as a cesspool of corruption, beyond redemption."I am a donor to both Elizabeth Warren's and Bernie Sanders' campaigns.Sanders has used his unique position as the lone independent congressman to help Democrats and Republicans force hearings on the internal structure of the International Monetary Fund, which he sees as excessively powerful and unaccountable. He also succeeded in quietly persuading reluctant Republicans and President Clinton to ban the import of products made by underage workers. Sanders drew some criticism from the far left when he chose to grudgingly endorse President Clinton’s bids for election and reelection as president. Sanders explained that while he disagreed with many of Clinton’s centrist policies, he felt that he was the best option for America’s working class.Sanders’s positions on many difficult issues are commendable, but his real impact has been as a reaction to the cynical climate which threatens the effectiveness of the democratic system. His energy, candor, conviction, and ability to bring people together stand against the current of opportunism, moral compromise, and partisanship which runs rampant on the American political scene. He and a few others like him have the power to restore principle and leadership in Congress and to win back the faith of a voting public weary and wary of political opportunism. Read the rest

Evan from Fight for the Future writes, "A new investigation from Gizmodo just revealed that anyone, anywhere can get geographic coordinates of Ring devices from Amazon’s Neighbors App. Not only can someone find out where users live, they can use footage to track bystanders, locate children, and monitor people going into buildings, like clinics, for private appointments. Amazon sells these devices under the guise of keeping us safe. They’re lying. Their surveillance devices and network puts us all in danger. We need lawmakers to fully investigate the threats associated with Amazon’s dragnet and its impact on our privacy, security, and civil liberties. Fight for the Future has launched a campaign calling for Congress to investigate Amazon's surveillance practices. You can add your name here." (Image: Dan Calacci/MIT) Read the rest

Three gentleman who tried to liberate a 75-inch television from the wall of a real-estate office in Spain were outsmarted by the cords attached to the appliance, as well an uncooperative door framee and a less-than-desirable coefficient of friction between the soles of their shoes and the broken glass on the sidewalk the building. Image: LiveLeak Read the rest

Today is International Human Rights Day, and Storylab has arranged for a special free online screening of "The Crossing: Your Impact on Modern Day Slavery," via the interactive Hubhub platform, which lets viewers annotate and discuss videos, with comments linked to specific moments in the video. The video includes a special introduction by Emma Thompson, the project's patron.On the 10th of December we’re creating a hubub for Human Rights Day and convening a global conversation about modern day slavery. A video introduction by Patron Emma Thompson precedes the screening of the award winning film The Crossing, and following we’re inviting voices from across the world to join Tamara Barnett Human Trafficking Foundation, the film’s director Shreepali Patel, producer Colin Burrows and Rich Warren of Encounters Film Festival in an international conversation sparked by the film.UN Human Rights Day [Storylab](Thanks, Jonathan Worth!)Today on #UNHumanRightsDay, join us for a global screening of the film, The Crossing, and be a part of an urgent interactive conversation challenging #HumanTrafficking. Register here: https://t.co/2wfIkW0bYG #TheCrossing #ModernSlavery #StandUp4HumanRights pic.twitter.com/ngw4XQD3Jk— StoryLab Research (@StoryLab_ARU) December 10, 2019 Read the rest

Over at Medium, Kesh Anand has a crisp answer, or rather five possible five answers, to this questions: "Where are all the time travelers?" Of course, it's very possible that there just aren't any. And that's Anand's fifth answer. The others four are more fun to consider:1. They’re not visiting your time period.2. They’re hiding in plain sight.3. You think they’re crazy.4. People experience the past without leaving their own time.And for the last word, here is some old wisdom from Britney Spears and Kevin Federline:(via Daily Grail) Read the rest

Unicorn is a scooter company that launched with a lot of flash and hype. Unicorn's CEO Nick Evans is the co-creator of Tile, the GPS tracking app. The company spent a vast amount of money on Facebook ads but only got pre-orders for 350 scooters. Now Evans says they have no money left and no one is getting a scooter or a refund. From The Verge:Customers, as you can imagine, are pissed. “I am upset he basically robbed everyone of his customers and is closing without delivering any scooters,” Rebecca Buchholtz wrote in an email to The Verge. “This was my daughters Christmas gift and now I cannot get her any gift.”“I find it shocking that someone like Nick Evans who has name recognition and clout in the tech community due to Tile, would operate in such a fraudulent way,” wrote Matt Furhman. Another customer, who said he is now out $998 after ordering two Unicorn scooters, called Evans “a thief.”Customers are advised to contact their credit card companies and dispute the charges from Unicorn.In an email to The Verge, Evans said the company had received only around 350 orders. “I feel horribly guilty that we left people with no scooters and no refunds,” he said. “We are working on something, but, yes, this seems unlikely.”$699 X 650 = $244,650. Is that too much for the co-founder of a very successful company to give to people who put their faith in him?A tidbit from Wikipedia: "On November 7, 2013, Tile's founder Nick Evans his company Reveal Labs were sued for allegedly stealing the Tile idea while Evans was employed by Jonathan C. Read the rest

In the Las Vegas Valley, some pigeons are wearing cowboy hats. While the chapeaus may seem cute on first glance, and pigeons are annoying anyway, it's unlikely they are purposely making a fashion statement. A "pigeon positive" animal rescue group called Lofty Hopes is now trying to catch the pigeons and safely remove their hats. "Did they glue them? And what does that mean for them?” (Lofty Hopes head Mariah) Hillman told KVVU-TV. "Is it something that's going to impede their flight or attract predators?"“We drove up and down here yesterday for a good two hours just handing out business cards to any location where I saw pigeons and people," Hillman said. "If you see these birds, just feed them until I get here. I'm only 3 miles away and I'll come trap them." Read the rest

In the December 9, 2019 issue of The New Yorker, Joshua Rothman profiles one of the most influential authors in recent decades, William Gibson.Gibson doesn’t have a name for his method; he knows only that it isn’t about prediction. It proceeds, instead, from a deep engagement with the present. When Gibson was starting to write, in the late nineteen-seventies, he watched kids playing games in video arcades and noticed how they ducked and twisted, as though they were on the other side of the screen. The Sony Walkman had just been introduced, so he bought one; he lived in Vancouver, and when he explored the city at night, listening to Joy Division, he felt as though the music were being transmitted directly into his brain, where it could merge with his perceptions of skyscrapers and slums. His wife, Deborah, was a graduate student in linguistics who taught E.S.L. He listened to her young Japanese students talk about Vancouver as though it were a backwater; Tokyo must really be something, he thought. He remembered a weeping ambulance driver in a bar, saying, “She flatlined.” On a legal pad, Gibson tried inventing words to describe the space behind the screen; he crossed out “infospace” and “dataspace” before coming up with “cyberspace.” He didn’t know what it might be, but it sounded cool, like something a person might explore even though it was dangerous.(Image: William Gibson by Frédéric Poirot , CC-BY) Read the rest

Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele reveal the "deplorable conditions at Vincent Clortho Public School for Wizards." Read the rest

I'm not saying its aliens, and I figure it's for some mundane purpose such as trapping seafood, but I enjoyed watching this helicopter-shot video of mysterious beach circles near Isla Aguada in Mexico. Nothing similar is evident on Google Earth. I'm not saying it's aliens. Read the rest

Michael Epler, AKA Pilot Red Sun, (patreon) warps his digital smeartool paintings with glitchy audio and crude pseudo-3D datamoshed effects that highlight the claustrophobia and deepen the nightmare. The latest, embedded above, is titled "Not So Fast" and is about a traffic stop that ends badly for the well-luded driver.Below is "Ultimate Fuel". If you like this (or hate it in an interested way) check out the YouTube channel. Read the rest

Pigeons with hats have been spotted and filmed in Las Vegas, prompting a search for whoever is putting them there.Pigeons in Las Vegas have been spotted wearing tiny little cowboy hats. It's not clear how the pigeons got the hats on their heads. Some people found it funny, but other are wondering if this is a case of animal cruelty.As a commenter on YouTube puts it, "It's been cod in Vegas latel" [sic]. Read the rest

Princen Alice created a "password generator" that glues random Welsh-sounding words into a craggy landscape of letters. It's probably not very good, since it's three or four dictionary words and a number plus the fallacious ethnocentric belief that unpronouceability to English speakers reflects randomness, but what a delightful mess! Read the rest

Enjoy this compilation of 1990s-era sprite games extruded into lowpoly 2½D extravaganzas. These are works of static art, but I'm sure I've seen this done "live" in-game recently, in an automated, playable way. (Note that there are a number of 2½D Super Marios already--these replicas are hand-made, like this video). Read the rest

Writing at Metropole, Sarah Balakrishnan describes the development of cemeteries in a city in Ghana. As of the 1800's, the general practice in the seaside city of Accra was to bury the dead underneath the family's home. Around 1888, British colonists began forcing the populace to bury the dead in public cemeteries. The requirement served multiple purposes:Cemeteries were undoubtedly a part of British colonists’ bid to reorganize African societies according to Christian schematics of “civilization”—what has been called the “civilizing mission.” But they also had another, more insidious, ambition. Creating private property in Accra required cemeteries. Graveyards relocated ancestors to the public domain, making it possible for Gold Coasters to sell their property to interested buyers.British colonists had long understood that communities in Accra would never sell their land if it contained the remains of their elders. Public cemeteries thus transferred rituals of social reproduction—celebrating, mourning, and remembering the dead—into the domain of the state, so that private houses could be made fungible and sellable. Like elsewhere in the world, commemorations of death shaped the devolution of property. In colonial Accra, British colonists used cemeteries to enforce private property in land.Soon, large public cemeteries indeed grew, which led to various other problems. For one thing, once large public cemeteries came into existence, developers started scheming to use the land for a different purpose:While the state used cemeteries to enforce private property in land, this had come at a cost: the creation of massive “immovable properties.” Whereas chiefs and wealthy “big men” (abirempon) had built many cemeteries in the 20th century by buying expansive estates, the colonial government now wanted to build railroads and thoroughfares through these lands. Read the rest

State Snaps is a send-in-your-photos party wheeze aimed at fratboys. Spread amorphously over various social media platforms, it's too sleazy to go mainstream but too successful to stay in one place. But the wannabe operators failed to register a key domain name, doitforstate.com, that reflects the viral motto "Do it for State!" associated with The Brand. So a domain squatter got it. Usually, a call to a lawyer comes next. Not these guys.The gunman wore a baseball cap, had pantyhose pulled over his face, and sunglasses covered his eyes.Deyo briefly raised his arms in surrender — then bolted into his bedroom. He slammed the door behind him and braced for impact. Moments later, the intruder kicked through the doorway and grabbed Deyo by the neck.“Where’s your computer?” he demanded. According to Deyo’s courtroom testimony, he led the man across the hall and into his office with the gun now shoved into the small of his back. He sat down, the man opened up his MacBook Pro, and Deyo felt the gun move from his spine to the rear of his skull, the metal hard on his scalp.“Okay, motherfucker,” Deyo recalled him saying. “GoDaddy.com.”Why file a trademark and SLAPP your way to a domain name you want when you can just get a goon to force the squatter to turn it over at gunpoint? All time greatest domainer tip right here. Read the rest

There's much ado about coffee brewing methods these days, but most of us - at least on the busy weekdays - just want our morning joe to be consistent, easy, and most of all, fast.If that sounds like anyone on your Christmas list, they're going to get a lot of mileage out of the FrankOne Cold Brew & Coffee Maker.This maker is just the ticket for busy bees who need that jolt in the morning, and it's portable enough to be used at work. The operation is super easy: Just pour your grounds in the top, then water right after it. Press the button on top, and wait - but not that long. The system will filter cold brew into the carafe in four minutes, significantly faster than traditional cold brewing methods. If you pour hot water in, your regular hot coffee takes only seconds.The whole thing rinses clean, and it's fully rechargeable by USB cable.Take 15% off the FrankOne Cold Brew & Coffee Maker now by using our holiday discount code: MERRYSAVE15. Read the rest

Back in October, TV writer Liz Alper started posting on Twitter about her harrowing experience as a writer's assistant in LA, hoping to break into the industry. Alper had spent more than a decade being overworked and underpaid, and, well, rightly had enough. Over the course of several weeks, she got the #PayUpHollywood hashtag trending, inspiring other film and TV professionals to share the stories of the less-than-glamorous lives they led in order to maybe, finally "make it" (whatever that entails).Since then, Alper and her friend Deirdre Mangan, another TV writer, have surveyed more than 1500 support staff members from the LA entertainment industry about their incoming and working conditions. As they explain in a press release about the data they compiled:“Hollywood has created a paywall around the industry that keeps out anyone who doesn’t come from money or who won’t put up with absurd, unsafe and potentially illegal working conditions,” said #PayUpHollywood co-founder Liz Alper. “We need to move past the tired myth that ‘this is just how it’s always been’, because it’s not true. Hollywood did not always negligently add to the income inequality, housing and mental health crises our country is facing. We can and must do better.”Like the recent list of journalism salaries, the survey revealed a lot of people making $50,000 a year or less while struggling to survive in an expensive city where they're expected to live in order to do their jobs. And of course, there's racial and gender inequality a-plenty, and no clear path for upwards mobility for anyone, really. Read the rest

As the Civil War fractured Washington D.C., socialite Rose O'Neal Greenhow coordinated a vital spy ring to funnel information to her beloved Confederates. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe Greenhow's courage and resourcefulness, which won praise from Jefferson Davis and notoriety in the North.We'll also fragment the queen's birthday and puzzle over a paid game of pinball.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon! Read the rest

Online shopping is going to be through the roof this month, and you'd better believe that hackers know it. If you're going to invest in a virtual private network, now is the time. Especially when Windscribe VPN is offering its own holiday discount.At their current price point, it's well worth jumping on the paid version of this highly-rated VPN. It gives you unlimited downloads and data, all protected by one of the most secure networks around.How secure? Windscribe has all the usual safeguards you'd expect from a typical VPN: A firewall protects you if your connection drops out, while solid encryption of your logins masks your location and allows you to access sites regardless of geographical restrictions. You can use it on a range of devices, and Windscribe's R.O.B.E.R.T. system provides extra defense against malware and unwanted ads.But what really sets it apart is the Canadian company's commitment to anonymity. Their no-logging policy keeps your data a mystery even to Windscribe itself. And you don't even need an email to sign in.The service has already had a price drop of more than 80% off the MSRP of their 3-year subscription plan, but you can take another 20% off that final price by using the discount code GREENMONDAY20. Read the rest

The Kindle Unlimited program is $10 a month, and it gives you access to over a million books and comics on Amazon. Amazon is currently offering a deal: 3 months for 99 cents a month. I especially like that you can read tons of comic books and graphic novels this way. I'm currently reading Grant Morrison's The Invisibles on my iPhone. It works really well using the one-panel-at-a-time mode. I prefer reading comics this way over reading the print version. Read the rest

Google is reported to be under investigation by the United States National Labor Relations Board (NLRB.gov) for allegations of discouraging union organizing among workers, and for firing the so-called “Thanksgiving Four.” NLRB began an official investigation into Google after the recent firing of four employees, just months after the company reached a labor settlement with the federal agency.The investigation is expected to take roughly three months, Jennifer Elias at CNBC reports:An agency spokesperson confirmed to CNBC Monday that the probe, which will include whether Google violated labor laws when it recently fired four employees, has officially commenced. It will also look at whether Google discouraged employees from engaging in union activity. The investigation is expected to take roughly three months and be conducted by its regional staff based in Oakland.A Google spokesperson provided the same statement it’s been using since the firings of the four employees:“We dismissed four individuals who were engaged in intentional and often repeated violations of our longstanding data security policies, including systematically accessing and disseminating other employees’ materials and work,” the statement says. “No one has been dismissed for raising concerns or debating the company’s activities.”The latest investigation comes after four Google employees filed a federal complaint with the NLRB on Dec. 5, alleging unfair labor practices, which would violate a settlement made by Google. It also comes as Google’s parent company, Alphabet, just got a new leader in Sundar Pichai. Google now faces another federal investigation into its labor practice just months after a separate settlement with the NLRB. Read the rest

The 12 days of crustmas are upon us.

Cheap massage chairs are a common Christmas gift, but we're willing to bet they don't get a lot of actual use from the people who could really use a massage. We're talking about people with deep, chronic joint pain or anyone who does a serious workout on a regular basis.For that kind of soreness, there's nothing quite like a hand massager, and the ExoGun DreamPro Percussion Massage Device is one of the best.For one thing, it's the only unit of its kind that comes equipped with six speeds ranging from gentle pressure to deep tissue relief. There are attachments that allow it to really get in the contours of any muscle and deliver real therapy where your body needs it most - not just generalized comfort.And while the four-hour battery life is impressive, the exterior design is a real standout. The angle of the handle not only allows you to reach trouble spots, it lessens the vibrations from the motor so you can keep a firm grip.The ExoGun DreamPro is already on deep discount (almost 80% off retail), but you can take an additional 20% off that final price by using the holiday coupon code GREENMONDAY20. Read the rest

When you need tacos, you need tacos.

His name was not Santa Claus.

“Protip: If you’re gonna deliver 20 pounds of meth in an air fryer, make sure it gets to the dealer.”

Twin 4-year-old girls managed to survive a car crash that killed their father by unlocking themselves from their car seats and climbing an embankment to get help, say Washington state officials.The girls' dad Corey Simmons, 47, died at the scene after his car veered off a winding road on Friday evening and dropped off into a forest 200 feet away, reported KING-TV and CNN.The father sustained fatal head injuries. He wasn't wearing a seatbelt, USA TODAY confirmed.Police say the twins had non-life-threatening injuries, and were transported to a hospital after a woman who passed the crash in her car drove back to help and called 911. From king5.com:Family members told KING 5 the two 4-year-old girls in the backseat of the vehicle were Simmons’ twin daughters. The girls were able to free themselves from their car seats and climbed about 200 feet to the road for help after the crash.Trooper Axtman said a Good Samaritan passed the girls on the side of the road and turned around to help. The driver called 911 and the girls were transported to the hospital with minor injuries.Rebecah Crider is Esther Crider's daughter and Simmons' stepdaughter. She said her family searched for the Good Samaritan who helped her sisters after the crash.“We are so incredibly thankful, and we are desperately looking for who she is," Rebecah Crider said. "We would love to personally meet her and thank her.” On Sunday, Seattle authorities made contact with the Good Samaritan. Read the rest

I first met Bill Gibson in 1999 when I was profiling him for the Globe and Mail as part of a review of his book "All Tomorrow's Parties." Since then, we've become friends and colleagues, and I genuinely treasure every chance I get to sit down with him, because he's both fantastically clever and incredibly nice.Joshua Rothman's long, intimate insightful profile of Gibson was tied to the release of Agency, the forthcoming sequel to 2014's astounding The Peripheral -- a book that was repeatedly delayed when world events overtook its action (it was rewritten at least twice: once for Trump and once for Cambridge Analytica).Rothman digs deeper into Gibson's personal story than I've seen before -- getting him to talk about the deaths of his parents when he was young -- and into the racist Confederate revisionism that Gibson was spoon-fed as a child. He also connects deeply to Gibson's fascination with material culture -- fashion, technology, and ephemera, and devotes generous space to describing Gibson's library, basement and attic.All of this atmospheric and biographical material forms a spine for a fantastic bibliographic journey through Gibson's many modes -- young, poetic cyberpunk; contemporary war-on-terror chronicler; far-future dystopian. It's a fantastic build-up for Agency, which I offered some modest advice on during its drafting, and which is also Bill's best book since Neuromancer.Gibson has a bemused, gentle, curious vibe. He is not a dystopian writer; he aims to see change in a flat, even light. Read the rest

Shortly after Swati Runi Goyal (49) boarded an American Airlines flight from Florida to Nevada, a crew member told her she would either have to remove her shirt or get off the plane, reports Buzzfeed News.Goyal is a member of the non-theistic Satanic Temple, which is a recognized church.From Buzzfeed News:Goyal was shocked by the harsh response from the crew members, noting that she's worn the T-shirt many times in the past without incident, including on airplanes.Fortunately, her husband had two layers on, so he lent one to her. With the text of the shirt covered up, the crew allowed her to remain on the flight. Still, she said the crew avoided eye contact with her for the remainder of the flight, even ignoring her when the drink cart came around.American Airlines later apologized to Goyal and issued refunds to her and her husband.Image: Swati Runi Goyal Read the rest

Live. Eat. Shop. Reuse.“hey you’re bringing your briefcase today for your nationally televised impeachment hearing right?”“no no i’ll be fine with this.”pic.twitter.com/Uw27J337ra— j.d. durkin (@jiveDurkey) December 9, 2019 Read the rest

A team of researchers from Microsoft and Harvard's Berkman Center have published a taxonomy of "Failure Modes in Machine Learning," broken down into "Intentionally-Motivated Failures" and "Unintended Failures."Intentional failures are things like "Preturbation attacks" (previously), which make tiny changes to inputs that produce wildly inaccurate classifications; "Membership inference" (using a model to learn whether a given person's data was used to train it) and "Backdoor ML" (implanting a backdoor to the algorithm that attackers activate with specific triggers).Unintended failures include my personal favorite, "Reward hacking" (previously) (reinforcement learning systems discover a way to game the system and cheat their way to success); "Natural adversarial examples" ("Without attacker perturbations, the ML system fails owing to hard negative mining"); and that old favorite, "Incomplete testing" ("The ML system is not tested in the realistic conditions that it is meant to operate in").For engineers, we recommend browsing through the overview of possible failure modes and jumping into the threat modeling document. This way, engineers can identify threats, attacks, vulnerabilities and use the framework to plan for countermeasures where available. We then refer you to the bug bar that maps these new vulnerabilities in the taxonomy alongside traditional software vulnerabilities, and provides a rating for each ML vulnerability (such as critical, important). This bug bar is easily integrated into existing incident response processes/playbooks.For lawyers and policy makers, this document organizes ML failure modes and presents a framework to analyze key issues relevant for anyone exploring policy options, such as the work done here[5],[6]. Read the rest

Joseph "Smilin' Joe" Deluca (54) of Ohio will have to wait at three years before he gets another opportunity to throw hot McDonald's coffee in a person's face. That's because he's going to prison, where coffee doesn't come from McDonald's and it probably not very hot. Deluca was at a McDonald's drive-up window when a cashier asked to see his receipt because there was confusion as to whether he'd ordered one cup of coffee or two. Deluca got out of his car and tossed both cups of coffee at the employee, who suffered burns as a result.Newsweek reports that Deluca "has more than 20 prior convictions on charges including vandalism, intimidation, burglary, and grand theft... After his sentencing, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael C. O'Malley said: 'Deluca appears to have an inability to control his temper. Hopefully he uses the next three years to learn to correct that problem.'" Read the rest

America is one of the only developed countries in the world that pays people to donate blood, much of it sold abroad (70% of the world's plasma is of US origin), and as commercial blood donations have soared, blood now accounts for 2% of the country's exports -- more than corn or soya. There's more growth ahead for blood products, expected to "grow radiantly" according to an analyst who was cheering 13% growth between 2016-17. One study found that the typical blood-seller derives a third of their income from selling blood. Princeton's Kathryn Edin called the commercial blood industry "the lifeblood of the $2 a day poor."Mintpress's interviews with blood-sellers reveal "a mix of disabled, working poor, homeless, single parents, and college students," who describe a system of arbitrary and predatory payments, which fluxuate wildly from day to day. Chronic bloodletting produces lethargy and cognitive impairment.Respondents all agreed that they were indeed being exploited, but in more ways than one. Desperate Americans are allowed to donate twice per week (104 times per year). But losing that much plasma could have serious health consequences, most of which have not been studied Professor Schaefer warns, stressing that more research is necessary. Around 70 percent of donors experience health complications. Donors have a lower protein count in their blood, putting them at greater risk of infections and liver and kidney disorders. Many regulars suffer from near-permanent fatigue and are borderline anemic. All this for an average of $30 per visit. Rachel described the terrible Catch-22 many of the working poor find themselves in: I got turned away twice – once for being too dehydrated and once for being anemic. Read the rest

Officials at Logan County Detention Center inspected a pair of Nike shoes and found three tiny cell phones hidden the sole of each shoe, reports Fox News.If you covet such a phone, AliExpress is awash in them. Do you think they might have malware on them?Images: Logan County Sheriff's Office Read the rest

"Fight the Traitors Together" (motto: "Hong Kong is part of China and this can't be meddled with by outside power") is a web-game that has attained new popularity in mainland China; it invites players to locate with caricatures of real Hong Kong protest leaders and slap them or pelt them with rotten eggs.In the game, amid a crowd of black-clad rioters wearing yellow hats and face masks, Anson Chan Fang On-sang, another leading opposition figure, carries a bag with a US flag, clutches a stack of US dollars and holds a loudspeaker to incite violence in the streets. The game also features Western faces, including characters that appear to be Julie Eadeh, a political unit chief of the US consulate general in Hong Kong.Game targeting Hong Kong ‘traitors’ popular on mainland social media [Hu Yuwei/Global Times](via Naked Capitalism) Read the rest

You? Me? Them? Everybody! Read the rest

Who's driving @ElonMusk or the Auto-Pilot?$TSLA pic.twitter.com/xvmyHPG8Ol— GuruLeaks (@Guruleaks1) December 8, 2019 If at first you do not succeed just tell people you have.The truck reminds me of a Gobot, you know the toy that made everyone want a Transformer. Read the rest

Santa Claus holds a monopoly on Christmas spirit that prevents fair competition in the free market. The time has come to break up his oligarchical empire and free the reindeer from the shackles of slavery. Universal Elfcare now! View this post on InstagramA post shared by jeremybgg (@jeremybgg) on Dec 6, 2019 at 9:25pm PSTImage via Danny Howard / Flickr Read the rest

That's some dada right there. Read the rest

Bustin' makes me feel good. Here it is with Finnish subtitles, courtesy of Sony Pictures Finland's YouTube channel. Read the rest

In my latest podcast (MP3), I continue my serial reading of my novella Party Discipline, which I wrote while on a 35-city, 45-day tour for my novel Walkaway in 2017; Party Discipline is a story set in the world of Walkaway, about two high-school seniors who conspire to throw a "Communist Party" at a sheet metal factory whose owners are shutting down and stealing their workers' final paychecks. These parties are both literally parties -- music, dancing, intoxicants -- and "Communist" in that the partygoers take over the means of production and start them up, giving away the products they create to the attendees. Walkaway opens with a Communist Party and I wanted to dig into what might go into pulling one of those off.The cop pulled the vice principal’s chair out from behind the desk and sat down on it in front of us. He didn’t say anything. He was young, I saw, not much older than us, and still had some acne on one cheek. White dude. Not my type, but good looking, except that he was a cop and he was playing mind games with us.“Are we being detained?” Somewhere in my bag was a Black Lives Matter bust-card and while I’d forgotten almost everything written on it, I remembered that this was the first question I should ask.“You are here at the request of your school administration.” Oh. Even when there wasn’t a fresh lockdown, the administration had plenty of powers to search us, ask us all kinds of nosy questions. Read the rest

Last summer, MD/journalist Elisabeth Rosenthal's husband had a bike accident and was seriously injured and taken by ambulance to an emergency room.Rosenthal's description of what happened next is a compact and infuriating statement of how grifty and crooked America's health-care system is, based on a set of lobbyist-legalized billing practices (ushered in under cover of 9/11) that would be considered fraud in any other industry.Rosenthal isn't talking about being billed thousand-percent markups on slings or over-the-counter medicines, either. That's just price-gouging. She's talking about massive bills for services that were never delivered, in a way that is, again, totally legal (thanks to intensive lobbying by the emergency medicine industry).For example: her husband was given a neck-brace (billed at $319) but after it was determined that he didn't need it, the EMTs removed it and kept it. Nevertheless, he was billed for the full price, as though he had walked away with it (perhaps thrifty cyclists could keep these neck-braces in their panniers so that EMTs could use that, saving them money, if they get into an accident). The final bill for a one-hour loan of a piece of hard plastic was $215, with $24 passed on to the Rosenthals as a "patient responsibility."Then there's the "cover charge" -- the farcical fees levied for just setting foot in the ER -- $3,400 for the ER and another $1,030 for the trauma surgeon.Though Rosenthal's husband had a single CT scan, they were billed for five scans ($1,400-$3,300) because the radiologist looked at five different places on that scan after it was complete. Read the rest

The 35th anniversary of Pee-wee's Big Adventure is nigh. So, soon, you'll not only be able to see the 1985 hit film on the big screen, but you'll also get to hear never-before-shared stories about the movie from Pee-wee's creator, Paul Reubens. Yes, please, and thank you! Pee-wee's Big Adventure 35th Anniversary Tour with Paul Reubens is headed to 20 U.S. cities in early 2020.Pee-wee Herman himself hipped me to this, dude.Previously: Now you can send shout-outs from Paul Reubens, aka Pee-wee Herman, to people you know Read the rest

According to Chipotle Mexican Grill CEO Brian Niccol, when their restaurant workers call in sick, they might have to talk to a nurse to make sure they're not fibbing."We have nurses on call, so that if you say, 'Hey, I've been sick,' you get the call into the nurse," CEO Brian Niccol said last week. "The nurse validates that it's not a hangover — you're really sick — and then we pay for the day off to get healthy again."Later, a Chipotle spokesperson told the New York Post that Niccol's statement wasn't entirely accurate: “You don’t have to call a nurse if you’re taking a sick day... All employees who call off sick for any reason receive paid time off.”After all, it isn't too tough to feign an illness over the phone.From CBS News:The CEO detailed steps taken to recover the trust of customers after a slew of high-profile safety scares that battered Chipotle's brand and led Niccol's predecessor, Steve Ells, to step down in late 2017...Chipotle handles things differently these days in its 2,500 restaurants, acccording to Niccol. "We have a very different food-safety culture than we did two years ago," he said. "Nobody gets to the back of the restaurant without going through a wellness check."Image: "The first Chipotle, near the campus of the University of Denver" by CW221 (CC BY-SA 3.0) Read the rest

Oh tidings of madness and woe. Gather 'round the Necronomicon, little cultists, and let's all sing these beloved holiday odes to Elder Gods. All the classics are here: "I Saw Mommy Kissing Yog-Sothoth," "Freddy the Red-Brained Mi-Go," "All I Want for Solstice is my Sanity," and "Awake Ye Scary Old Ones." And who can ever forget that rubber-room holiday favorite "Away in a Madhouse?"These songs were all created by members of the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. You can hear more via this YouTube link. [H/t Geeks Are Sexy] Read the rest