Boing Boing

America's telcoms sector is hugely concentrated and corrupt, and systematically underinvests in maintenance and infrastructure even as it gouges customers, which it can get away with thanks to its monopoly power, leaving Americans with some of the world's worst, most expensive communications services.Everyone who's communicated electronically in any way in the USA knows this, except, apparently, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, a former Verizon lawyer who has spent the years since Donald Trump appointed him to the chair dismantling what few consumer protections existed in the sector.But reality has a well-known left wing bias, so when the FCC investigated the claims made by Verizon, T-Mbile and US Cellular about their 4G coverage, it discovered that they had lied to their regulator (again).Rather than punishing his former employer, Pai took the principled decision to let them off the hook, opting instead to send all carriers a sternly worded memo reminding them that he could punish them for lying, if he wanted to.And to ensure that this corporate ripoff of America got all the attention it deserved, Pai chose to announce the investigation's finding in the third paragraph of a press release about 5G (which is bullshit), in which he failed to mention any of the offending carriers by name.FCC officials didn't voluntarily bring up the topic of whether Verizon, T-Mobile, and US Cellular will be punished for exaggerating coverage. But FCC officials confirmed that Pai does not intend to take enforcement action in response to a question from a reporter during the press call, and in response to a question from Ars via email. Read the rest

After a long day at work, cooking a meal from scratch can seem like too much trouble. Unfortunately, the alternative is usually something unhealthy.Enter the Mellow Sous Vide Precision Cooker. This compact water bath uses cutting-edge technology to cook meat and veggies at the perfect temperature for exactly the right amount of time. It takes 30 seconds to set up, and you can control the cooker through your phone.The sous vide style of cooking involves sealing food inside a plastic pouch which is then placed in a water bath. The technique is used widely in professional kitchens, allowing chefs to produce tender meat and veggies with minimal input. Mellow lets you use the same trick in your home kitchen. The device connects wirelessly to your smartphone. You simply tell the app what you are cooking, and what time you want it to be ready. Mellow does the rest, weighing the ingredients automatically to work out the right settings. The cooker even has a built-in refrigeration system, which keeps food safe until you are ready to eat. Mellow will work well for anyone with a busy schedule who wants to eat better. This innovative cooker retails for $349, but you can currently get it for $169.99 when you use the 15% discount code MerrySave15. Read the rest

DC Fontana was a pioneering writer and editor for Star Trek who worked on shows like Babylon Five, the Six Million Dollar Man, He Man, and Buck Rogers, one of the most prominent women in the field. She died yesterday, aged 80, after a short illness. Science fiction mailing lists and websites have been flooded with remembrances for Fontana, but I'm especially fond of Diane Duane's. (Thanks, Kathy Padilla!) (Image: Larry Nemecek, CC BY-SA) Read the rest

“Officials are not currently calling the act a hate crime, referring to it instead as an act of vandalism and tagging.”“At least five” spray-painted swastikas were discovered on Tuesday morning in a residential area in Wrightwood, said the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department on Wednesday.From the Los Angeles Times:Deputies with the Victor Valley substation spotted the Nazi symbols spray-painted on three vehicles, a garage door and a stop sign in the mountainous area of Snowbird and Evergreen roads.Officials are not currently calling the act a hate crime, referring to it instead as an act of vandalism and tagging.According to the latest Census numbers, Wrightwood has a population of more than 4,200. The area is near Mountain High, a nearby ski and snow-activity destinatio Swastikas spray-painted on cars, homes in San Bernardino mountains [latimes.com] Read the rest

One of my favorite podcasts is Gravy, from the Southern Foodways Alliance, where highlight hidden and fascinating changes and progress in southern food -- from disappearing "community canneries" to Mahalia Jackson's once-booming chain of fried chicken restaurants to the strange story of the Tennessee hippie commune that pioneered vegan food in the USA to the Klan's Texas BBQ rallies of the 1920s.This week, Gravy devoted its episode (MP3) to food in southern prisons, noting that America leads the world in imprisonment and the south leads America in imprisonment -- and austerity-happy, punitive Red State governments have made southern prisons into food nightmares, with some prisons full of starving people on two meals a day, other gripped by obesity epidemics thanks to low-grade, high-carb food. Prisoners fed on rotting food are subject to waves of food poisoning, or on cattle feed in packaging that reads "NOT FIT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION."All this means that prisoners leave their incarceration sick, malnourished, and hobbled in their attempts to re-enter life after they have served their time.In the U.S. nearly 1.5 million people live in state and federal prisons. About a third of them are imprisoned in the South. As the population of incarcerated people has soared, budgets haven’t followed, leaving food managers to provide more meals with less money. Two formerly incarcerated people, Lupa Brandt and Zahara Green, tell us the results are often physically and mentally unsatisfying. Inmates end up feeling sick and devalued. Lupa and Zahara argue that’s a public health problem everyone should care about because 95% of inmates return to their communities. Read the rest

Oh boy. Here we go.AP via Haaretz:A Navy warship has seized a “significant cache” of suspected Iranian guided missile parts headed to rebels in Yemen, U.S. officials said Wednesday, marking the first time that such sophisticated components have been taken en route to the war there.The seizure from a small boat by the U.S. Navy and a U.S. Coast Guard boarding team happened last Wednesday in the northern Arabian Sea, and the weapons have been linked to Iran. Officials said the incident illustrates the continuing illegal smuggling of weapons to Houthi rebels and comes as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were meeting, with Iran as the main topic. All anonymous sources.IMAGE: USS Forrest Sherman, the US warship involved in today's international incident. Read the rest

700,000 may lose access to food stamps

How's it going, Royal Ugly Dudes? Read the rest

I was looking at photos of Chigasaki, Japan in Google Images when I saw a photo a smiling man with what looked to be a huge pink bump on his shoulder. I clicked for a closer look and learned that he is a katsugite, a person who helps carry one-ton Shinto shrines supported on wooden poles. The bump was a callus from bearing the load of the shrine.SoraNews24 has an article about katsugite and their mikoshi dako.There’s no mistaking what causes these shoulder calluses, given that they’re known in Japanese as “Mikoshi Dako“, or “Mikoshi Calluses“. Just as players of stringed instruments develop lumps of hard skin on their fingers from years of practice, these mikoshi carriers develop bulges on their shoulders, which actually help to reduce the pain of carrying the portable shrine due to the build-up of hardened skin.Rather than hide the large lumps on their shoulders, however, the men who have them wear them as a badge of pride; as a symbol of their unwavering dedication to the deity, the shrine and the larger community itself.Mikoshi Dako. Large callouses that people get from carrying portable shrines and festival floats. pic.twitter.com/1jFphb2Y7y— Kansai Photos (@KansaiPhotos) July 9, 2019 Read the rest

The Firefox extensions store removed four plugins from Avast/AVG, including two that are supposed to keep users safe from malicious activity because they appeared to be stealing browser histories and other user data.The four plugins are Avast Online Security and AVG Online Security (both billed as protection from malicious sites); and Avast Safeprice and AVG Safeprice (comparison shopping). They were analyzed by Adblock Plus creator Wladimir Palant late last month, who found them to be collecting "detailed user browsing history." Palant reported the plugins to Mozilla developers, who removed them within 24 hours (they are still available in the Chrome plugin store, which, Palast says, is less responsive to reports like his). Avast says it working "to resolve the issue" and claims that the data-collection is needed to make its plugins work. "The Avast Online Security extension is a security tool that protects users online, including from infected websites and phishing attacks," an Avast spokesperson told ZDNet. "It is necessary for this service to collect the URL history to deliver its expected functionality. Avast does this without collecting or storing a user's identification.Mozilla removes Avast and AVG extensions from add-on portal over snooping claims [Catalin Cimpanu/Zdnet](via /.) Read the rest

Even after I vanquished Calamity Gannon in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild over a year ago, I'm still playing it. I have tons of side quests to complete, a few more shrines to clear, and a bushel of Korok seeds to find. It is my favorite video game, and if you haven't played it yet, I'm envious of the experience in store for you. Right now, the digital version for the Switch is only , which is the lowest price I've seen for it. Read the rest

The Tony Martini Variety Hour rings in a swinging holiday season with an incredible line-up at Hollywood's Three Clubs!Three of my favorite comedic actors: Mark Fite, Renee Albert, and Jim Turner are back in The Tony Martini Variety Hour. Every month Mark and Renee share their hilariously broken-down lounge act and Turner tries to fire them! The fantastic performances of their variety acts save the show!Amazing contortionist Bonnie Morgan, charming puppeteer Pam Severns, and the bat-shit crazy Michael Rayner, who plays with his food, will be amongst the many wonderful performances comprising this holiday edition of the revue. They'll be accompanied by music man Ben Jaffe.Oh, and I've been told Fite's Tony Martini and Albert's Bananas Foster have a band new "holiday number" to share!Come join in all the fun! Read the rest

While a Los Angeles police officer is enjoying his paid leave (officially called "being assigned to home duty" lol) as he's being investigated for fondling a corpse, he's got time to wonder why simply turning off his body cam wasn't enough to prevent recording his actions. ABC 7 news in LA has the answer: "the cameras used by the department have a video buffering that saves footage going back for two minutes prior to the recording function being activated." Oops.From ABC 7:The officer with Central Division had gone with a partner to a death investigation at a home. During the investigation at one point, the officer's partner had left the room.Sources say the officer turned off the recording on his body camera and then lifted the sheet off the woman's body and allegedly began feeling her nipples and fondling her breasts.He later turned the body camera recording back on. But the cameras used by the department have a video buffering that saves footage going back for two minutes prior to the recording function being activated.Photo By Ryan Johnson - https://www.flickr.com/photos/northcharleston/25763393046, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52373022, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66137169 Read the rest

Hopefully you won't find yourself in a situation where you'll have to see if the "wipe away the flame" technique demonstrated here really works.Image: LiveLeak Read the rest

In Citrus County, Florida, a dizzy driver veered off the road, crossed the berm, and then launched into the air, flying over more than a dozen cars at a dealership. The vehicle eventually smashed into two other cars in the parking lot, but fortunately no bystanders were hit. According to Bay News 9, authorities report that the driver was sent to the hospital but is expected to be fine. From Bay News 9: In the video the flying car barely misses an employee on the ground. Crystal Ford Lincoln Sales Manager Bruce Azevedo was just feet away from the crashing Camry when it finally made a crash landing.“You could feel it. You could feel the, I don’t know, in your chest the compression when it hit,” he said. “And then as we spun around to see it, I saw it take out the Navigator. Which if the Navigator wasn’t there it probably would’ve went into the showroom.” Read the rest

Tom the Dancing Bug, IN WHICH the Martin Scorsese Cinematic Universe's IRISH-MAN must gather the other heroes to confront a grave and powerful threat!

A video promoting new Playstation games has disappeared from the web after fans noticed that its hand-drawn segues were nearly identical to scenes in other animated works. The swipes are unusually brazen, featuring not just individual frames or designs but entire sequences lifted from productions as widely-seen as Stephen Universe: The Movie. Here's an unofficial upload, which may not stay live long:Only the style changed, to match the rough, colorful aesthetic of one Kevin Bao, a Tokyo-based animator whose social media accounts and professional pages were locked today. Journalist Marc Aguesse, operator of the French animation website Catsuka, exposed the similaries in a series of videos. He credited Ian Jones-Quarterly, Carlo Monserrat, Oleg Kositsyn and Eduardo Adsuara—all professional or student animators—for "spotting the first rips."Latest Sony PS4 Lineup Music Video is a rip of many animations from all around the world ......(Steven Universe, FLCL, Gobelins, Souviens Ten-Zan ...).The video is now offline : https://t.co/LPWyFWzEEwBut you can still find it online : https://t.co/KfS79oRrs5 pic.twitter.com/6Q0hrFK2AT— Catsuka (@catsuka) December 4, 2019Even the cat at the very beginning of Kevin Bao's Sony PS4 video is a rip...https://t.co/EAcvQiL8JX— Catsuka (@catsuka) December 4, 2019Homages to iconic moments in animation history are commonplace--how many times have you seen a motorcycle skid sideways to a halt?--but the uncredited tracing of recent (and in some cases amateur work) in official Sony material is another thing entirely. Read the rest

This morning's installment of the House impeachment hearings against manifestly unfit and corrupt U.S. President Donald Trump have been something else, indeed.Don't miss history unfolding in front of you.Watch.LIVE: House Judiciary Committee Impeachment Inquiry HearingProfessor Pamela Karlan was absolutely on fire. Pamela Karlan *is not* messing around: "Here Mr. Collins I would like to say to you, sir, that I read transcripts of every one of the witnesses who appeared in the live hearings ... I'm insulted by the suggestion that as a law professor I don't care about those facts." pic.twitter.com/TXhmZXVWiM— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 4, 2019KARLAN: "Imagine living in a part of Texas that's prone to devastating flooding. What would you think if your governor asked for a meeting w/POTUS to discuss getting disaster aid that Congress has provided for [and POTUS] said, 'I would like you to do us a favor?'" pic.twitter.com/JGcXFQHUBO— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 4, 2019Professor testifying in impeachment hearing rebukes ranking Republican Rep. Doug Collins: "I read transcripts of every one of the witnesses … I'm insulted by the suggestion that as a law professor I don't care about those facts" https://t.co/fQ1AbBC9KG pic.twitter.com/tr0h4RAl3C— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) December 4, 2019NOAH FELDMAN: Here are some facts about impeachment. Some constitutional history. There was a convention many years ago. Here are a few names of long-dead colonial governors. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.PAM KARLAN: pic.twitter.com/6kVwScWNso— Jay Willis (@jaywillis) December 4, 2019 Read the rest

Writing in Marker, David Gauvey Herbert gives us an extended-play version of China's legendary bank-robber, Ren Xiaofeng, a bank official in a small industrial city who tried to make ends meet by stealing cash to buy lottery tickets, planning to return the money out of his winnings -- but instead lost, and kept on losing, until he'd stolen literal tons of cash.Ren's story is a snapshot of China in the early 2000s, when banking jobs were corrupt sinecures handed out via patronage and nepotism, allowing Ren to first suborn and then bypass the vault guards; it's also a portrait of China during the peak of its boom, when millions in cash were sloshing around, passing from business-people (many of them out-and-out crooks) to government officials to safe-deposit boxes in the vaults of banks like Ren's, the largest branch of the Agricultural Bank of China in the city of Hendan.Ren cycled through various confederates during his years of theft, and it was only due to the lax security and corruption in his bank that he continued to get away with it. But things came to a head when he got wind of a looming cash audit that would reveal his thefts, and he planned a final score with his accomplice and fellow vault guard, Ma Xiangjing.The two stole millions in a breathtaking daylight raid, brazenly carrying it out past the guards, and handed it over to crooked lottery ticket sellers who labored through the day, printing out hundreds of thousands of tickets -- which still didn't net the pair a jackpot. Read the rest

It's frankly shocking that in more than 40 years since Yoda first debuted on the big screen, no one has asked the anarcho-linguist Noam Chomsky to explain the Jedi's syntactical idiosyncrasies. But now that Baby Yoda has stolen everyone's heart, someone has finally taken him to task.Or, well, maybe.I’m thinking it, you’re thinking it, what will Baby Yoda sound like when he utters his first words? #babyyoda @Disney @jonfavs #noamchomsky pic.twitter.com/Z8MjztA86T— Jessica Yu (@jessicayutweets) December 3, 2019Given the fact that this is the first tweet from the account, I sadly suspect that this isn't real. I even messaged the woman who wrote it for verification, but she didn't respond. A quick Google search reveals that there is a Jessica Yu in Australia who is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne. If it is the same Jessica Yu from Australia, and this turns out to just be a fun creative writing experiment—well then hey, good on her. She captured Chomsky's voice here impressively well, along with his well-documented disdain for humans projecting linguistic meaning onto Koko the gorilla. If nothing else, I'm pretty sure that "'No thoughts on memes' — Noam Chomsky" is poised to become a meme now on its own.Image via Wikimedia Commons, altered. Read the rest

In the course of any day, we encounter many different audio environments. If you are wearing earbuds, the ambient noise level can affect your listening experience.The HUB wireless earbuds adapt to different surroundings using smart noise-cancellation technology. They can either block out distractions or enhance conversations. They are normally priced at $250, but you can get them now for $63.74 with the 15% discount code MerrySave15.Wearing regular earbuds throughout the day means living in a bubble. Talking with friends is virtually impossible unless you take out an earpiece. In contrast, the HUB earbuds allow you to control the volume of the outside world. Smart Ambient Sound mode lets you reduce background noise, amplify speech, or enhance conversations at will. In addition, the HUB earbuds work seamlessly with voice assistants such as Google and Siri.With the supplied wireless charging case, these earbuds offer 100 hours of battery life. The case also doubles as a power bank for your phone or tablet. Sound quality is excellent thanks to large 7mm drivers, and the HUB earbuds are water-resistant — ideal for sweaty workout sessions.No matter what your day looks like, the HUB earbuds will provide a great soundtrack. Worth $250, they are now only $63.74 with the festive discount code MerrySave15. Read the rest

Earlier today, Xeni posted the video of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Princess Anne yukking it up about what a twerp Trump is. Trump has left the NATO summit early, reports The Independent, after describing Trudeau as "two-faced" and cancelling a press event.Donald Trump has reacted furiously to footage of world leaders apparently making fun of him, calling Justin Trudeau “two-faced” then cancelling a press conference and cutting short his attendance at a Nato summit.The US president was asked whether he had seen the clip in which his international counterparts appeared to joke about his explosive press conference with Emmanuel Macron.“You just watched his team’s jaws drop to the floor!” Mr Trudeau apparently said of Mr Trump.NBC News elaborates:NBC News had not confirmed whom Trudeau was speaking about, although earlier in the day, Trump was involved in a 38-minute press event alongside Macron. Prior to that, the president spoke alongside NATO Sec. Gen. Jens Stoltenberg for about 53 minutes.Macron and Johnson's offices declined to comment on the video, and Canadian officials were not immediately available for a response."Well, he's two-faced," Trump said of Trudeau alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday. "And honestly with Trudeau he's a nice guy, but the truth is I called him out on the fact he's not paying 2 percent (in military spending) and I guess he's not happy about it."President Trump called Justin Trudeau "two-faced" after Canada's PM was caught on camera appearing to joke about Trump with other world leaders at an event Tuesday night. Read the rest

There's not really any dispute that the UK Liberal Democrats party sold voter data for £100,000 to the Remain campaign in 2016, though the Information Commissioner's Office tried to suppress that revelation until after the coming election; the Libdems say they did nothing wrong, but when Opendemocracy's Jim Cusick approached the party for a statement ahead of an article, he got no reply.What happened next is...weird.After Cusick's article went live, an aggrieved Libdem "senior official" wrote to Opendemocracy, demanding to know why their statement hadn't been included in the article. Cusick said it was because he'd never received a statement, but if they'd furnish one, he'd include it. But instead of a statement, Cusick got a legal threat from an expensive firm of solicitors, Goodman Derrick, demanding that the article be censored, either by removing "all derogatory and disparaging statements" (having read the article, I couldn't find any statements that qualified), or removal of the article altogether.Given that the Libdems style themselves "the party of liberty," that is indeed weird.But what happened next is weirder.Opendemocracy asked the lawyers to provide a statement from the Libdems to include in their article, pointing out that they'd made three such requests without a response. In the absence of any statement from the Libdems (apart from the legal threat conveyed by their lawyers), Opendemocracy made a "surmise" about what the Libdems didn't like about their coverage and amended the article. Then they heard from the lawyers again, stating that the Libdems had provided an "on the record" response to Cusick's article, on Nov 12, and they attached that email as proof. Read the rest

Various official Baby Yoda toys will be available in a few months, but anyone with access to a 3D printer can print their own right now. Christopher Frieze has posted one version for free download. It looks great as a tree topper:@chris_frieze: https://t.co/vzhhbKggg2 pic.twitter.com/lcCjEm9Yfl— KeithSpace™ (@thisiskeithb) December 1, 2019Please bless my coffee, BABY YODA 🙏😍🙌 pic.twitter.com/MHkrE1azvs— Erika Heidi (@erikaheidi) December 3, 2019And Chris is currently working on a version of Baby Yoda and soup:And we are back. I feel the shape language is much better now and more FDM friendly, at least in the robe. But to pick up all the little details SLA is going to be best. Zoom in if you can. pic.twitter.com/Pg4hjBuLjN— Inspyre 3D (@chris_frieze) December 4, 2019Download a design and support Chris here.(Via TheRPF.) Read the rest

Malaysian low-cost airline AirAsia has opened a food court restaurant at a mall in Kuala Lumpur. Called Santan, the restaurant serves the same food as what's on the airline's in-flight menu. Over the next five years, AirAsia expect to open more than 100 other Santan locations around the world. From WHDH:Entrees cost around $3 USD and include local delicacies such as chicken rice and the airline’s signature Pak Nasser’s Nasi Lemak dish, a rice dish with chilli sauce. Locally sourced coffee, teas and desserts are also on the menu.“We have seen a significant appetite for our in-flight menu offerings beyond our flights across the region and this is our answer to that demand,” the brand’s general manager Catherine Goh said in a press release. Read the rest

"Snowbrawl" is a high-energy 90-second David versus Goliath snowball fight directed by David Leitch for Apple.The commercial is nice, but the real magic is in this mini-documentary, which shows some of the simple tools used to achieve such kinetic shots:Kudos to Apple, the two videos really do a good job of making it seem like anyone who can afford an iPhone can create a great-looking movie. Read the rest

View this post on Instagram Now you can send a PERSONALIZED message from my good pal PAUL REUBENS...!! Have him wish someone you know a "Happy Birthday!" or "Merry Christmas!" or "Get Well Soon (and stop missing so much work!)!" through @Cameo! Link in bio! cameo.com/paulreubensA post shared by Pee-wee Herman (@peeweeherman) on Dec 3, 2019 at 8:51pm PSTHow cool is THIS? Paul Reubens (you know... the guy who plays Pee-wee Herman) will send a message to someone you know through a paid service called Cameo. You just fill out a short form that spells out your message request and pay up. Then your recipient will get a personalized video from a real legend. And no, he won't be dressed in a grey plaid suit and red bow-tie. Cameo is a lot of fun. I bought one of these videos for my brother last year. He loved CHiPs as a kid, so I got Larry Wilcox ("Jon Baker") to wish him a happy birthday. We both laughed a lot over the whole thing and he said it was the best gift ever. No lie. Preview videos are available ahead of time so you can get a feel for it. (Pee-wee Herman) Read the rest

This lovely cover was heard in the seventh episode of the new Watchmen TV show, titled "An Almost Religious Awe." The track will appear on Reznor and Ross's album "Watchmen: Vol. 3 (Music from the HBO Series)" due out December 16. Read the rest

Johnny Depp is producing a musical about Michael Jackson's sequined glove. Well, it's actually about Jackson's life but told from the perspective of the glove. Surprise, the Jackson estate has not authorized this production. Titled "For the Love of a Glove: An Unauthorized Musical Fable About the Life of Michael Jackson, As Told By His Glove," the musical opens in Los Angeles on January 25. From Broadway.com:The musical is described as a "look into the strange forces that shaped Michael and the scandals that bedeviled his reputation." (Playwright Julien) Nitzberg first collaborated with Depp's production group, Infinitum Nihil, on a biopic about 1960s singer Tiny Tim.For the Love of a Glove will open in advance of Broadway's new Michael Jackson musical, MJ, which will feature a book by two-time Pulitzer winner Lynn Nottage (crafted with the blessing of Jackson's estate) and direction/choreography by Christopher Wheeldon (and starring Ephraim Sykes). Read the rest

Uh-oh, someone's in trouble.

Oh boy. Donald's not going to like this one at all.In this video from a Buckingham Palace VIP reception earlier today, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Emmanuel Macron of France, and Boris Johnson of the Republic of Brexit appear to be discussing Donald Trump's wacky impromptu word salad speeches. .@JustinTrudeau, @EmmanuelMacron, @BorisJohnson and other VIPs shared a few words at a Buckingham Palace reception Tuesday. No one mentions @realDonaldTrump by name, but they seem to be discussing his lengthy impromptu press conferences from earlier in the day. (Video: Host Pool) pic.twitter.com/dVgj48rpOP— Power & Politics (@PnPCBC) December 3, 2019Trudeau, Macron, Johnson, and other VIPs are seen in the pool video sharing a few words among themselves at a Buckingham Palace event. No one in this clip mentions Donald Trump by name, but do they need to? This happens at every NATO summit with Trump. Every G7. Every G20. The US President is mocked by US allies behind his back. pic.twitter.com/FWncEM7jVs— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) December 4, 2019No sight of Prince Andrew, but Trump and Melania are said to have met with Prince Charles earlier in the day. And of course, Trump denies ever having known Prince Andrew. (Video: Host Pool) Read the rest

"So if you're poor, you're dead." That's what a woman in the U.K. said when she was told the price of health care services in the U.S.No doubt many people in the U.S. do die from the high price of health care, but the ones who survive but can't pay their bills are likely to be sued by the hospital.Ambulance call out? $2,500. Childbirth? $30,000. Our NHS is not for sale, @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/q9z4r6Ni6g— PoliticsJOE (@PoliticsJOE_UK) December 3, 2019 Read the rest

If you happen to have the 2009 or 2018 issues of The Best American Comics lying around like some of us do, flip to any excerpts in there by Ted Stearn. Hopefully the appeal is instant. But for those who are limited to search results and the attached images above and below, let's dive a little deeper. Reading "Fuzz and Pluck" is a bit like being stuck in a semi-lucid dream where you suspect something is a bit off but the world carries on as it was, indifferent to your suspicions. Flip to just about any page and you'll find speech bubbles caressing character's heads, panels cascading into each other and a cantankerous plucked chicken (Pluck) bullying his best friend (Fuzz) into doing mostly horrible favors for him. More often than not, these errands result in grievous, though by the next chapter, reversible cartoonish bodily harm to Fuzz.While Fuzz and Pluck is Stearn's best-known and most highly acclaimed work, the "The Forgotten Dream of a Melancholy Chef" from Zero Zero is also worth taking a long look at. All of Stearn's work is lovingly rendered in pen and ink and utilizes an impressive academic application of hatching, crosshatching, and masterful linework. The whimsical design of the characters provide a really funny, offbeat contrast to the absurd and sometimes disturbing storylines.Unfortunately, Stearn passed away earlier this year. He left behind a great body of work that was much loved by Matt Groening, Chris Ware, Gary Panter, and hopefully you, too. Read the rest

Obama brought McKinsey and Co, the giant management consulting firm, into ICE to effect an "organizational transformation," so they were already in place when Trump took office, and as Trump pivoted to concentration camps, McKinsey had some suggestions to save money: cut back on food, medicine and supervision.Propublica sued the US government and obtained 1,500 pages' worth of McKinsey/ICE memos thanks to the Freedom of Information Act. They document how McKinsey's sole focus was lowering costs and accellerating deportations, even if it meant inhumane conditions and gross miscarriages of justice, including some that certainly sent some asylum seekers to their deaths.One official Propublica spoke to said that ICE's senior management found the suggestions inhumane, and argued against them, only to be shouted down by the McKinsey people. McKinsey drafted its own federal consulting contract -- ghostwriting it for ICE -- and cut themselves in for an additional $2.2m (they made more than $20m off the contract).In 2018, Kevin Sneader -- McKinsey's global managing partner -- sent out a memo to all staff in which he lied about the work the firm had done with ICE, falsely claiming that the firm was not involved in developing immigration policies and that it would not "under any circumstances, engage in work, anywhere in the world, that advances or assists policies that are at odds with our values."The ICE gulags today still run on principles established by McKinsey, and the undertrained sadists who staff them were hired in McKinsey-designed "super one-stop hiring" centers. Read the rest

A 1967 acid trip during a hurricane at Ramrod Key, Florida, leads Abbie Hoffman, his wife Anita, and Paul Krassner to see the upcoming 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago as a hugely visible moment for political protest.When home from the vacation, the group has a celebratory smoke, leading to Paul's coining of the term Yippie, for politicized, radical, or activist hippies.From John Wilcock, New York Years, by Ethan Persoff and Scott Marshall.(See all Boing Boing installments) Read the rest

It’s no secret that web developers are in increasingly high-demand throughout multiple industries, but you don’t need to invest an exorbitant amount of time or money in a traditional tech education in order to get the skills you need to join this lucrative field.The Ultimate 2020 Web Designer & Developer Bundle will teach you everything you need to know in order to start building pro-level websites from scratch, and it’s currently available for $29.With six courses and over 90 hours of expert-led training, this bundle will introduce you to the most important and relied-upon programming languages and platforms in the world of web development.You’ll learn how to use Python in order to build dynamic UI experiences, how to work with MySQL and PHP in order to manage large data sets, how to implement languages like HTML and CSS in order to enhance the functionality of your sites, and more—all through instruction that uses easy-to-follow lessons and tutorials.Start building pro-level websites with the Ultimate 2020 Web Designer & Developer Bundle for just $29—over 95% off for a limited time.Prices are subject to change. Read the rest

Costing just on Amazon, this small sewing kit contains everything you need to make minor repairs to clothing. The only other thing you'll need is access to YouTube, so you can learn how to sew on a button, mend a tear, or repair a small hole. Read the rest

A woman was taken into protective custody for pretending she was experiencing a breathing problem in order to get a bigger seat on an American Airlines flight from Pensacola to Miami, reports NBC News.The pilot decided to turn the plan around and landed in Pensacola. When the plane landed, the woman refused to get off and admitted she'd lied. Everyone else on the plane deboarded, and the woman remained as the sole passenger. Authorities eventually talked her into leaving. Once she exited, she was taken into protective custody.From NBC News:"American Eagle 3508 returned to Pensacola due to a passenger who requested medical assistance," American Airlines said in a statement to NBC News on Friday. "The flight took off at 5:43 a.m. and landed back at Pensacola at 6:26 a.m. and taxied to the gate. All [passengers] deplaned normally at the gate through the main boarding door and onto the jet bridge. The passenger was subsequently removed by law enforcement and medical personnel, and the flight took off again at 7:41 a.m."Photo by Patrick Cardinal - originally posted to Flickr as American Airlines Boeing 737-800, CC BY 2.0, Link Read the rest

Last March, game devs Alex Schwartz and Ziba Scott gave a presentation at the Game Developers Conference called "1,500 Slot Machines Walk into a Bar: Adventures in Quantity Over Quality in which they described how their own dissatisfaction with falling revenues from mobile app stores led them to muse about bulk-creating crappy apps and seeing if they could get paid.They hit on the idea of churning out thousands of near-identical slot-machine apps, using a basic template they bought for $15; they then proceeded to automate the mass-production of more than 1,500 different slot machine games with every conceivable theme, from "tasteful sideboob" (removed from Google's app store) to "dolphins" and "canteloupe." Mining Google Trends for new themes, they began to target trends.The whole thing made an improbable amount of money and generated investment offers. Eventually they got ditched by their ad provider and decided to walk away, but leave the automated system running. They document how it took years to fail.The guys are very funny and clearly bemused and shocked by how well their crackpot idea worked. I love that they used nothing but terrible stock art for their slides. Quality is overrated. Disheartened by all of the noise in the mobile ecosystem, speakers Alex Schwartz and Ziba Scott set out to determine the lowest bar for success on App Stores. They flooded the market with over 1,500 auto-generated slot machine games, got 1.6 million installs, made money (!!), received some very strange emails, made it big in Iran, and garnered a stupefying number of good reviews on Google Play. Read the rest

3D printing is a dumpster fire of stupid, obvious patents, but thankfully many of these are expiring; this year, the stupid patent on putting sides on a 3D printer (extrusion printers are very sensitive to errant breezes and just a puff of wind can ruin a print that took hours, just minutes before it completes).Now that the stupid patent has expired, the 3D printing world is tinkering with many possible designs for cases for 3D printers. Among them is Jay Doscher, a 3D printing enthusiast who's trying to figure out how to do 3DP at scale. Doscher writes, "I was really inspired last year with Doctorow's book, Walkaway and it has had me thinking differently about making ever since. Part of that progression is this project- learning how to do small scale fabrication. I used waterjet parts, but many parts are 3D printed, and all of the designs are licensed under Creative Commons. I hope you like it!"Learning to Scale - Rapid Manufacturing with Enclosures [Jay Doscher/Back7](Thanks, Jay!) Read the rest

For years, rogue archivist Carl Malamud (previously) has been scanning and posting proprietary elements of the law, such as standard annotations or building and safety codes developed by outside parties and then incorporated into legislation, on the theory that if you are expected to follow the law, you must be able to read, write and share that law.Along the way, Malamud has attracted numerous lawsuits from standards development organizations, publishers, national governments and state governments. Notably, the State of Georgia sued Malamud over his free publication of "The Official Code of Georgia Annotated," which is, as the name implies, the state's official version of its own laws. Malamud won on appeal and when the case headed to the Supreme Court, legal scholars, lawyers and law students lined up to sign an amicus brief on his behalf.Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Malamud's case. Gorsuch was skeptical of Georgia's claim that paywalling the law was necessary or proportionate, and the justices overall were not overly generous to Georgia's arguments that Lexisnexis's unpaywalled, unannotated version of the law (which is not the official version and also warns readers that it might be out of date) can substitute for the state's official laws.The annotations in the annotated code summarize relevant judgments that are necessary to interpret the laws. Georgia does not publish an official, un-annotated version of its laws. However, it's not a slam dunk. Breyer, Sottomayor and Kavanaugh were all tough on Malamud's lawyer.The court is expected to rule by late June. Read the rest

New flash: Trump has been caught lying. Currently in the U.K., Trump (a pal of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein) was asked about Prince Andrew (another pal of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein), and he replied: “I don’t know Prince Andrew, but it’s a tough story, it’s a very tough story.”NY Magazine has three photos of Trump with Andrew dating back to 2000.The Washington Post reports that Trump and Prince Andrew had a breakfast meeting in June:Trump says he doesn’t know Britain’s Prince Andrew.They had a breakfast meeting in June. https://t.co/iuEsrHbUKx pic.twitter.com/Gxr2NdTB1x— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 3, 2019The Daily Beast also has numerous photos of Trump and the Prince:Trump denies knowing Prince Andrew, despite numerous photos of them together including with Jeffrey Epstein https://t.co/M2G02kJv7Q— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) December 3, 2019Trump just said "I don't know Prince Andrew, but that's a tough story, it's a very tough story, I don't know"Here he is not knowing him at Westminster Abbey, taking a nice stroll on a separate occasion he didn't know him and finally not knowing him whilst partying with Epstein. pic.twitter.com/wpVoVdfwBn— James Felton (@JimMFelton) December 3, 2019Image of Prince Andrew: By Northern Ireland Office - https://www.flickr.com/photos/niogovuk/14649728080/, CC BY 2.0, Link. Image of Trump: By Shealah Craighead - White House, Public Domain, Link Read the rest

When Yale research psyhcologist Irving Janis coined the term "groupthink" in 1972, he identified eight symptoms of the pathology: the "illusion of invulnerability"; a "belief in the inherent morality of the group"; "collective rationalization"; "out-group stereotypes"; "self-censorship"; the "illusion of unanimity"; "direct pressure on dissenters" and "self-appointed mindguards."The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster is one of the most studied disasters in history; University of Washington psych prof Jacob Leonesio uses it as a way to illustrate groupthink for his intro to psych course in a neat little explanation that shows how groupthink led the Challenger team to launch a spacecraft that many of them knew was not safe to launch.6. Illusion of Unanimity. NASA managers perpetuated the fiction that everyone was fully in accord on the launch recommendation. They admitted to the presidential commission that they didn’t report Thiokol’s on-again/off-again hesitancy with their superiors. As often happens in such cases, the flight readiness review team interpreted silence as agreement.7. Direct Pressure on Dissenters. Thiokol engineers felt pressure from two directions to reverse their ‘‘no-go" recommendation. NASA managers had already postponed the launch three times and were fearful the American public would regard the agency as inept. Undoubtedly that strain triggered Hardy’s retort that he was ‘‘appalled" at Thiokol’s recommendation. Similarly, the company’s management was fearful of losing future NASA contracts. When they went off-line for their caucus, Thiokol’s senior vice president urged Roger Lund, vice president of engineering, to ‘‘take off his engineering hat and put on his management hat."8. Read the rest

Retired journalist John Richard's founded the Apostrophe Protection Society in 2001, its mission to convince people that apostrophe's denote missing letter's and possession, but never plurals. Now Richard's is 96 and he's shutting down the society, saying that "fewer organisation's and individual's are now caring about the correct use of the apostrophe in the English Language...the ignorance and lazines's present in modern times have won."For clarity: all the extraneous apostrophes in this post are my own, not Richards's'."Instead, within a month of my plaint appearing in a national newspaper, I received over 500 letters of support, not only from all corners of the United Kingdom, but also from America, Australia, France, Sweden, Hong Kong and Canada." Apostrophe society shuts down because 'ignorance and laziness have won' [Tim Baker/Evening Standard](via Naked Capitalism)(Image: William Murphy, CC BY-SA, cropped) Read the rest

In 1951 the United States government passed a law requiring all men between the ages of 18 to 26 to register for the draft. During the Korean War (1950-1953) 80,000 men attempted to dodge the draft. During the Vietnam War (1955 - 1975) over 570,000 men dodged the draft, 210,000 of them were formally accused, and 3,250 were imprisoned. (Side note, 58,000 US soldiers died in the Vietnam War, over 1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters died, and an estimated 2 million civilians died.)This video looks at some of the ways men avoided the draft. They include moving to Canada, failing physical exams on purpose, becoming missionaries, or, as claimed in a 1977 interview with alt-right demigod Ted Nugent, taking drugs, acting insane, and urinating and defecating on himself before appearing for his examination (Nugent later said lied in the interview).Image by: Lance Cpl. Danielle Prentice. Public Domain Read the rest

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) (previously) is an alternative to neoclassical economics that holds that sovereign states that issue their own currency can't default on debts denominated in that currency (if you are the sole source of Canadian dollars and all your debts are in Canadian dollars, you can always pay those debts), and that deficit spending is normal (every dollar in circulation was "deficit spent," since the money to pay taxes enters the economy when the government spends it into existence), and that inflation isn't a mere function of government spending -- but rather, inflation occurs when governments and the private sector are bidding against each other for the same goods and services.A more nuanced take on MMT spending is that some government spending improves the ratio of debt to GDP -- because the spending increases overall economic growth -- and some of it worsens that ratio. Governments can also change that ratio through taxation -- raising and lowering taxes changes the purchasing power of the private sector (at the top brackets, taxation can reduce the power of the super-rich to buy lobbyists and make campaign contributions that would allow them to distort national policy to serve their narrow interests).Writing for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Michael Pettis describes the outcome of his informal Peking University debt seminar on MMT, which evaluated the effects of policies that give to the rich, policies that give to the poor, and policies that increase infrastructure investment. Pettis and his students classify the outcomes of different starting conditions as "MMT Hell" (runaway inflation) or "MMT Heaven" ("conditions under which there are no intrinsic constraints on government spending"). Read the rest

Breaking news; she's reportedly just told her staff on a campaign call-in: "Kamala Harris is dropping out of the presidential race, she told staff on a call Tuesday. She will release a video momentarily announcing her plans," reports Politico's Christopher Cadelago. Read the rest

Boing BoingHere's a guide to the charities the Boingers support in our own annual giving. Please add the causes and charities you give to in the forums!Friends of the Merril CollectionI'm on the board of the charity that fundraises for Toronto's Merril Collection, a part of the Toronto Public Library system that is also the world's largest public collection of science fiction, fantasy and related works (they archive my papers). Since its founding by Judith Merril, the Merril Collection has been a hub for creators, fans, and scholars. I wouldn't be a writer today if not for the guidance of its Writer in Residence when I was a kid. —CDThe Tor ProjectThe Tor anonymity and privacy tools are vital to resistance struggles around the world, a cooperative network that provides a high degree of security from scrutiny for people who have reasons to fear the powers that be. From our early hominid ancestors until about ten years ago, humans didn't leave behind an exhaust-trail of personally identifying information as they navigated the world -- Tor restores that balance. —CDPlanned ParenthoodBecause we deserve health care, including reproductive, gender, and sexual health care. Because access to birth control and safe abortion is a human right. Because Trump's regime wants to destroy all of this. —XJSoftware Freedom Conservancy Software Freedom Conservancy does the important, boring, esoteric work of keeping the internet from tearing itself to pieces, playing host organization to free software projects like Git, Selenium and Samba (to name just three). Read the rest

The Atlantic reviews the state of Tumblr, where adult material was banned by new corporate owners, traffic collapsed, and the remains were sold for a pittance to Automattic, the company behind WordPress. It is down but far from out, Kaitlin Tiffany reports, with vibrant communities still thriving. On one hand...The biggest thing that’s changed [this year] is an overall lack of content with diverse and mature themes,” Cat Frazier, creator of the popular Tumblr Animated Text, writes to me in an email. “I never followed porn accounts, but many of the people I followed were either deleted or left the platform out of frustration last year. That's left a noticeable gap. In fact a month ago I was scrolling through my followed accounts and about 100 of them hadn't uploaded since the ban.”... however ....In late January, the “Shaggy’s Power” meme boomed. A transplant from Reddit, it featured screenshots of Matthew Lillard, the actor who played Shaggy in the 2002 live-action adaptation of Scooby-Doo, and captions portraying him as a god-like figure with a range of mysterious powers, swinging wildly between indiscriminate violence and pure benevolence. “You are reading this now because I compel you to,” the edited subtitle text on one still of Lillard reads. “You are never free.” (“I have no idea what the heart of it is,” Brennan says. “I think it’s just absurdist.”) It eventually expanded to include other actors from the movie, also praising Shaggy’s powers, and then to include Tumblr itself, in a discussion of the meta horror of a divine meme springing forth from seemingly nowhere. Read the rest

The New York Post reports Indiana police are on the lookout for Donald Murray, 38, after he allegedly fled officers in his car when they tried to pull him over for driving without turning on the car's exterior lights at night. Read the rest