Boing Boing

Trump spoke at the Economic Club of New York today and surprised attendees with the good news that his daughter Ivanka has created "created 14 million jobs" in the United States. That's almost 10% of the US workforce. Thanks, Ivanka!From The Intelligencer:At a speech to the Economic Club of New York today, President Trump declared that his daughter, Ivanka, has personally created 14 million new jobs. The president announced this figure — so astonishingly ludicrous it would embarrass a Stalin-era pronouncement — and then repeated it twice more as the crowd applauded politely.The entire U.S. economy has created fewer than 6 million new jobs since Trump took office. So Trump is crediting his daughter with having personally created more than 200 percent of all new jobs in the United States. This is like supply-side economics but for authoritarian nepotism.Image: Mark Frauenfelder. Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) Read the rest

This is perhaps not the best week for sycophants. Nikki Haley picked the wrong month to release a book. She's getting roasted by *everyone*. I wonder if she thought this was going to be a softball interview. Because it was *not*. #tuesdaymorning #todayshowpic.twitter.com/s596nOU5CQ— Holly Figueroa O'Reilly (@AynRandPaulRyan) November 12, 2019 Read the rest

The Google Translation of this Instagram post: "And you wake up in the morning to discover that Firulais entertains himself by biting your $250,000.00 Porsche in this house." View this post on Instagram Y te levantas en la mañana a descubrir que Firulais se entretiene mordiendo tu Porsche de $250,000.00 en esta casa hoy se come perro caliente 🌭 #malinois #facebook #chrispuls Que harían ustedes con Firulais luego de semejante muestra de afecto?A post shared by DON OMAR (@donomar) on Nov 7, 2019 at 3:31am PST [via Core77] Read the rest

On Tuesday, advocates for human rights for China's Uighur minority said they have documented 500 camps and prisons in China run by the government to detain people identified as belonging to that targeted ethnic group. The activists say that when you add up the number of detention facilities they've identified, it means China must be holding a total number of Uighur people that far exceeds the commonly cited figure of one million people.From AFP via Yahoo News:The East Turkistan National Awakening Movement, a Washington-based group that seeks independence for the mostly Muslim region known to China as Xinjiang, said it assessed images from Google Earth and found 182 suspected "concentration camps" which it listed by coordinates.The group, which said it matched its findings with on-the-ground information, said it also spotted 209 suspected prisons and 74 suspected labor camps which it would share later."In large part these have not been previously identified, so we could be talking about far greater numbers" of people detained, said Kyle Olbert, the director of operations for the movement."If anything, we are concerned that there may be more facilities that we have not been able to identify," he told a news conference in suburban Washington.Anders Corr, an analyst who formerly worked in US intelligence and who advised the group, said that around 40 percent of the sites had not been previously reported.China uses torture and sexual abuse to “forcibly integrate Uighurs into the Han majority, including pressuring Muslims to give up tenets of their faith such as praying and abstaining from pork and alcohol,” the report continues. Read the rest

One for the ages. Almost looks like one of those garage sale black velvet paintings with the dogs playing poker.THIS is an absolutely incredible new photo of former Donald Trump's personal lawyer and current investigation target Rudy Giuliani, along with his distinguished Russian gentlemen friends Lev Parnas, Igor Fruman, and a third 'unnamed associate.'Wow. Here's the full image.Read the ProPublica report, which is even more insane than the photo (and true): Giuliani Was Close to a Podcast Deal With the News Outlet That Spread His Ukraine ConspiraciesTo begin with, I'm not ruling out that the handbag is actually a European Men's Accessory— Tom Gara (@tomgara) November 12, 2019 Read the rest

We're number one. In the racist, eugenicist, genocidal theft of infants, toddlers, and tender-age children from undocumented and mostly indigenous migrants who are fleeing violence in Guatemala and other Central American failed states.An Associated Press investigation found that America held a record number of kids in 2019. An estimated 69,550 migrant children were held in U.S. government custody over the past year, which is enough infants, toddlers, kids and teens to overflow the typical NFL stadium. From the AP report:This month, new government data shows the little girl is one of an unprecedented 69,550 migrant children held in U.S. government custody over the past year, enough infants, toddlers, kids and teens to overflow the typical NFL stadium. That’s more children detained away from their parents than any other country, according to United Nations researchers. And it’s happening even though the U.S. government has acknowledged that being held in detention can be traumatic for children, putting them at risk of long-term physical and emotional damage.Some of these migrant children who were in government custody this year have already been deported. Some have reunited with family in the U.S., where they’re trying to go to school and piece their lives back together. About 4,000 are still in government custody, some in large, impersonal shelters. And more arrive every week.The video in this post is the trailer for KIDS CAUGHT IN THE CRACKDOWN, a new documentary series coming from this AP investigative reporting team and PBS FRONTLINE:This story is part of an ongoing joint investigation between The Associated Press and the PBS series FRONTLINE on the treatment of migrant children, which includes the film “Kids Caught in the Crackdown” premiering on PBS and online Nov. Read the rest

Rising tides and rain in Venice are flooding the city, and hotels are giving guests knee-high rubber boots so they can slosh their way from one tourist attraction to another.From Yahoo News:The high water, known locally as “acqua alta”, was amusing for tourists and a nuisance for residents going about their business, but levels were far lower than the 1.94 meters (6ft 4in) in the devastating November 1966 flood.But even lower levels of the salty high water over the years take their toll on the city, eroding foundations of homes, businesses and city buildings.Bad weather is continuing to dog Italy, with no real let-up forecast for several days.Image: YouTube Read the rest

Facebook says, oops, it's 'likely' a bug.

A new proprietary online payment system for WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook launches today, exactly two weeks after all the payment companies dropped out of Libra.The evil bastards at Facebook, to whom we're now supposed to refer as FACEBOOK, today unveiled Facebook Pay, which is not all caps, and which will work on Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp, to let users shop, donate to causes, and pay friends.Here's the official announcement at newsroom.fb.com.“The service will be separate from Facebook’s new Calibra wallet and the Libra network, and it’s 'built on existing financial infrastructure and partnerships,'” reports Tom Warren [@tomwarren] at The Verge:Facebook is planning to start rolling out Facebook Pay on Messenger and Facebook in the US this week. It will initially be available for fundraisers, person-to-person payments, event tickets, in-game purchases, and some purchases from pages and businesses that operate on Facebook’s Marketplace. “Over time, we plan to bring Facebook Pay to more people and places, including for use across Instagram and WhatsApp,” explains Deborah Liu, Facebook’s vice president of marketplace and commerce.Facebook Pay will be available in the settings section of the Facebook or Messenger apps, and it will support most debit and credit cards and PayPal. Facebook is using Stripe, PayPal, and others to process these payments.Facebook isn’t revealing exactly when this payment system will be available across all of its apps, nor when it will launch internationally. Facebook Pay comes just weeks after a large number of payment companies dropped out of Facebook’s Libra project. Read the rest

The Southern Poverty Law Center's HATEWATCH shares a number of leaked emails written by Trump Administration lackey Stephen Miller. Unsurprisingly, Miller expresses many racist ideas.Sadly, many have become administration policy.SPLC:In the run-up to the 2016 election, White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller promoted white nationalist literature, pushed racist immigration stories and obsessed over the loss of Confederate symbols after Dylann Roof’s murderous rampage, according to leaked emails reviewed by Hatewatch.The emails, which Miller sent to the conservative website Breitbart News in 2015 and 2016, showcase the extremist, anti-immigrant ideology that undergirds the policies he has helped create as an architect of Donald Trump’s presidency. These policies include reportedly setting arrest quotas for undocumented immigrants, an executive order effectively banning immigration from five Muslim-majority countries and a policy of family separation at refugee resettlement facilities that the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General said is causing “intense trauma” in children.Stephen Miller’s Affinity for White Nationalism Revealed in Leaked Emails via SPLC Read the rest

This is a silver-backed chevrotain, aka "mouse-deer," from Vietnam. Until this and other camera trap photographs were taken in the last two years, no scientific evidence of the rabbit-sized animal had been collected in three decades. From Nature:The animal was first described in 1910 from four specimens, but since then only one verifiable record exists, from the early 1990s. The Red List of Threatened Species maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies the silver-backed chevrotain (Tragulus versicolor) as ‘data deficient’.Indigenous people living in the Nha Trang forest suggested where the scientists should place their camera traps to get the animals on film.“To these local people our camera-trap evidence that the silver-backed chevrotain survives in Vietnam is not new,” says (Global Wildlife Conservation scientist Andrew) Tilker. “But to the wider scientific community, we are comfortable saying that our findings constitute a rediscovery.” Read the rest

During the early 20th century, Kutol Products was the world's biggest manufacturer of wallpaper cleaning products. But once coal heating in homes was replaced with oil, gas, and electricity, dirty wallpaper became less of a problem and Kutol was in trouble. So in 1956, they pivoted. From Smithsonian:Joseph McVicker was trying to turn around the struggling company when his sister-in-law read an article about how wallpaper cleaner could be used for modeling projects. Sister-in-law Kay Zufall, a nursery school teacher, tested the nontoxic material with children, who loved molding it into all kinds of shapes. She told McVicker of her discovery and even suggested a new name: Play-Doh...Originally available in white only in 1956, Play-Doh soon expanded to include basic colors red, blue and yellow. It is now sold in a panoply of hues, including Rose Red, Purple Paradise, Garden Green and Blue Lagoon. The Putty line includes metallic and glittery tints. The recipe has gone through minor modifications over time. At one point, the amount of salt was reduced so the product would not dry out so quickly. But, for the most part, the mixture has remained the same. Read the rest

Indlovu Gin is a new spirit infused with elephant dung. Gives new meaning to the term "shit-faced." It sells for about $32 per bottle. Creators Les and Paula Ansley of Mossel Bay, South Africa, came up with the concept on safari after learning that elephants have a varied diet of plants, fruits, and vegetables but less than half of it is actually digested. “As a consequence, in the elephant dung, you get the most amazing variety of these botanicals,” Les Ansley told the Associated Press. “(I recall my wife saying) Why don’t we let the elephants do the hard work of collecting all these botanicals and we will make gin from it?"From the AP:After about five sizeable bags of dung are collected for a batch of 3,000 to 4,000 bottles of the gin, the droppings are dried and crumbled, then washed to remove dirt and sand. Eventually only the remains of the fruits, flowers, leaves and bark eaten by the elephants are left behind.Those botanicals are then sterilized and dried again and placed in an airing cupboard. Think of it like a “spice cupboard,” Ansley said. Eventually, the remains are infused in the gin.(via Fark) Read the rest

The New York Times reports that girls as young as 12 have been stripped searched at music festival by Australian police eager to make drug arrests. Australia's zero-tolerance drug policy is “the only form of legislation that allows an adult to tell a young child to take off all their clothes,” Samantha Lee, the head of the Police Accountability Practice at the Redfern Legal Center, told the TimesFrom the article:“It’s highly likely the vast majority of strip searches are being conducted unlawfully,” said Vicki Sentas, a senior law lecturer at the University of New South Wales who has researched strip-searching statistics.In an inquiry conducted last month by the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission, a 16-year-old girl who attended a festival said she was asked to squat and cough in front of a police officer. She had no drugs.“I could not stop crying. I was completely humiliated,” she said, according to her complaint. An officer who worked at the festival admitted that some of the searches he conducted may have been unlawful.Mark Speakman, the state’s attorney general, said that strip searches in general were an “important investigative tool” but that the police needed to “get the balance right.”Image: Pixnio Read the rest

In a story that will surely captivate Fox News pundits for at least the next week, the student newspaper at Northwestern released a statement about their own reporting, following a visit to campus by Jeff Sessions.It's…not great.“We recognize that we contributed to the harm students experienced at the Sessions event, and we wanted to apologize for and address the mistakes that we made that night — along with how we plan to move forward.”https://t.co/RAjHSA349f— The Daily Northwestern (@thedailynu) November 12, 2019Essentially, the newspaper is apologizing for the way it covered the protest resulting from Sessions' presence. According to their statement, some students were upset that they were photographed, or contacted via the school directory, or texted for comments on the protest, mostly out of fear of retaliation by either the school administration, or the media at large, or really wrathful authority figures of any kind.This, of course, comes on the heels of the recent debacle at Harvard, where reporters at the Harvard Crimson reached out to ICE for a comment after another protest, which is also a…fairly standard journalistic practice. While the concerns of these individual students might be valid, the entire field of news reporting should not be expected to compromise itself and over-cautiously cater to needs of every possible individual. This doesn't mean that journalists—student, or professional—should not try to approach situations with empathy and sensitivity, particularly when dealing with subjects who might be placed at risk by their reporting. In the case of the Daily Northwestern, the paper's backpedaling response may be a prime example of over-correcting for such sensitivities. Read the rest

Do you love Christmas? Do you love dogs? How about dongs? Well then I have just the shirt for you!Uhhhhh pretty sure that's not a dog? https://t.co/r6S2Kjp2R3 pic.twitter.com/nb6UP9vjsP— Turkey Doom (@thomdunn) November 8, 2019I mean I guess I can see how that's supposed to be a dog with the — wait, nope, that's definitely a dick.It's also available in a holly pattern, if you're so interested. Read the rest

The Los Angeles Times has a harrowing new story about Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Japanese forces invaded the small Pacific nation and its residents during World War I, and the United States did the same during World War II under that classic guise of "liberation." But the US was hardly acting altruistically, at the time nor since then. The islands' location made it a prime strategic military base in the Pacific. It was also isolated enough to make it a convenient nuclear testing site—if you disregarded the 72,000 people who lived there, of course.Between 1946 and 1962, US military experiments produced 108 megatons of nuclear yield in the Marshall Islands— about 80% of the country's total radioactive waste output from nuclear testing. That's the equivalent 1.6 atomic bombs dropped every day for 12 years. And after the US decided to gradually cede control of the land back to the Marshallese people, we just kind of … left it all behind. We were kind enough to pour a bunch of concrete on top of the 22 million gallons of nuclear waste left behind on one specific island, creating the Runit Dome.But that dome is still there. And the concrete is starting to crack. And sea levels are rising rapidly, particularly in the Pacific, further accelerating that erosion process. Now the Dome—affectionately and appropriately called "The Tomb" by the locals—is threatening to leach all of that nuclear waste into the land and the ocean.I realize that an island-sized nuclear waste dump called "The Tomb" in the middle of the Pacific Ocean sounds like some straight-up Godzilla sci-fi shit. Read the rest

In 1822, Irish thief Alexander Pearce joined seven convicts fleeing a penal colony in western Tasmania. As they struggled eastward through some of the most inhospitable terrain on Earth, starvation pressed the party into a series of grim sacrifices. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the prisoners on their nightmarish bid for freedom.We'll also unearth another giant and puzzle over an eagle's itinerary.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon! Read the rest

The official Youtube video of Tom Holland's performance of Umbrella on Lip Sync Battle has over 28 million views:Alice Zhang has created several studies:You know how Degas did studies of ballerinas? Well I do studies of Tom Holland performing Rihanna’s Umbrella ayyyyy 😂 pic.twitter.com/t2uvLqnIoo— Alice X. Zhang (@alicexz) November 6, 2019Her webstore is currently featuring Blade Runner prints, but has no Tom Holland prints, yet. Read the rest

At the end of September, California enacted a new law that will allow college athletes to make money from endorsement deals starting in 2023:the law creates an unrestricted market for others who want to use the athlete's name, image or likeness. Money could come in the form of major brands like Nike or McDonald's using the athletes in commercials. It could also come from small businesses like car dealerships putting an athlete on a local billboard or memorabilia shops paying an athlete to show up for an autograph session for fans. Athletes could also make money themselves by monetizing social media feeds, selling T-shirts online or advertising to give lessons in their sport to younger kids. The new law allows athletes to hire an agent to help manage the process.Among the voices speaking out was Ohio State University's athletic director who cautioned the move would lead to California schools being excluded from the NCAA:if Newsom signs the bill, schools in California are "going to have a model where they can almost pay for play – not quite – but I think they’re going to be challenged to maintain their membership in the association because, as an association, we have the authority as a group to make our own rules and regulations, and they will be outside those rules and regulations. So, I’m not quite sure how they will stay in the association."As reported by USA Today, the athletic director specifically expressed concern California schools would have an unfair advantage:And how those schools will compete against those schools in California who have an unfair advantage because they’ll be able to offer student-athletes benefits that the other schools will not be able to offer. Read the rest

Teaser images of Sonic the Hedgehog offered an ominous glimpse, but the forthcoming movie's first trailer horrified viewers with is unnervingly human computer-graphics Sonic. So furious was the lashing that the filmmakers promised to go back to the drawing board. And here you are, watching the results, embedded above.It's fine!Still has an edge of that special Sonic-fandom unwholesomeness......but this is definitely what Gen X wanted out of 2020, and they're going to get it.Yaaay! Now all you have to worry about in the upcoming Sonic movie is *literally everything else*— Dan Marshall (@danthat) November 12, 2019 Read the rest

It's hard to believe, but the latest installment of McMansion Hell's (previously) tour through the architectural monstrosities of America's tastleless elites is even better than the previous ones -- possibly that's because in this edition, editor/critic Kate Wagner is visiting Virginia's Fairfax and Loudoun Counties, these being affluent DC suburbs where beltway bandits and other swamp-dwellers make their dens.If you combine all of the insipid elements of the other houses: mismatched windows; massive, chaotic rooflines; weird asphalt donut landscaping; pompous entrances, and tacked on masses; you’d get this house. The more one looks at this house the more upsetting it becomes. The turrets don’t match. The roofline is truly mountainous. The windows are either too small or too big for the walls they are housed in. The carhole is especially car hole-y. What sends this one over the top is its surroundings: lush trees and clear skies that have been desecrated in order to build absolute garbage. At least it doesn’t have shutters. 50 States of McMansion Hell: Fairfax and Loudoun County, Virginia [Kate Wagner/McMansion Hell] Read the rest

It's a preview of just how badly things could go in 2020: the Kentucky gubernatorial race was narrowly decided for the Democratic candidate Andy Beshear, but the monumentally unpopular Trumpist incumbent Matt Bevin will not concede, and instead, he is repeating the Trumpist lie that "voter fraud" caused him to lose his office.Supercharging this lie are obvious fake Twitter accounts, like the now-suspended @Overlordkraken1 account, which posted hours after the polls closed with "just shredded a box of Republican mail-in ballots" and "Bye-Bye Bevin." Though the account only had 19 followers and though it was swiftly shuttered, a screenshot of the tweet was retweeted by a botnet army, and then far-right commentators started to cite it as evidence of electoral fraud.The disinformation campaign has also featured bot armies retweeting claims of "rigged elections" and "voter intimidation" (blamed on George Soros, of course!). Mainstream Republican commentators have hinted that the voting machines in Kentucky were hacked (the Republican Senate majority, led by Mitch McConnell, has consistently blocked funding to secure electronic voting machines). The online campaign has been joined by a robocall campaign that urges people to "report suspected electoral fraud." Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes said, "Beyond the routine calls that we field, up to and on Election Day, there are no irregularities that would substantiate a 5,000-vote difference margin that now separates unofficially Governor-elect Beshear with Governor Bevin."Data compiled by VineSight, a start-up that detects disinformation on social media, showed that many of the accounts that tweeted the screenshot of @Overlordkraken1’s ballot-shredding claim appeared to be bots. Read the rest

Here's an ad from Hikvision, the worlds' largest security camera company, boasting of its products' utility in detecting people's ethnicity. James Vincent writes that it "speaks volumes about the brutal simplicity of the techno-surveillance state." [via @CharlesRollet1, who points to an archived webpage that details the "Uyghur detection" feature] Read the rest

If you’re hankering for an unusual outing in Los Angeles, look no further than the Velaslavasay Panorama. Home to the only panorama west of the Mississippi and the only one painted since the nineteenth century, the Velaslavasay is the art form’s newest entry in its long and illustrious history. Panorama paintings were antiquity’s preferred immersive medium, predating film, VR and a much cheaper sightseeing trip than hopping aboard a train.From the Velaslavasay Panorama website:The Velaslavasay Panorama panoramic exhibition encircles the spectator within a fully enveloping atmosphere; a vast painting of a continuous surrounding landscape, accompanied by sound stimulation and three-dimensional elements, affords the viewer an opportunity to experience a complete sensory phenomenon. Historically, the panorama was an immersive 360-degree painted environment, often including a three-dimensional faux terrain in the foreground of the painting to enhance the illusion of depth and simulated reality. An early ancestor of the motion picture, the captivated public would visit these paintings-in-the-round as an entertainment or novelty, much along the same lines as the cinema is seen today.Panoramas were widely accessible, extremely popular (and were lambasted for being so by art critics) and immensely entertaining. The decline in the proliferation of panoramas came about following the spread of cinema and became largely forgotten about, at least in the United States. Enter the Velaslavasay Panorama, first founded by Sara Velas in Hollywood and now located in West Adams. The Velaslavasay has both preserved and updated the medium, incorporating light and sound for a completely immersive panoramic experience. Read the rest

The Sakura Pigma Manga Basic Set comes with 5 pens: 4 Pigma Microns (sizes 005, 01, 05, 08) a black brush pen, and a white ink gel pen (for highlights and to correct mistakes). Amazon has a good prices for the set: Read the rest

Inspired by the way plants grow, MIT researchers designed a flexible robot appendage that can work in tight spaces but is rigid enough to support heavy parts or twist tight screws. From MIT News:The appendage design is inspired by the way plants grow, which involves the transport of nutrients, in a fluidized form, up to the plant’s tip. There, they are converted into solid material to produce, bit by bit, a supportive stem.Likewise, the robot consists of a “growing point,” or gearbox, that pulls a loose chain of interlocking blocks into the box. Gears in the box then lock the chain units together and feed the chain out, unit by unit, as a rigid appendage...“The realization of the robot is totally different from a real plant, but it exhibits the same kind of functionality, at a certain abstract level,” (mechanical engineer Harry) Asada says. Read the rest

The annual 'Thriller' performance at Abbington Senior Living is glorious pic.twitter.com/aEbru9qWA5— Giles Paley-Phillips (@eliistender10) November 10, 2019 Enjoy the funk of, er, 65+ years in this video of the annual Thriller dance at the Abbington Senior Living Mapleton center in Utah. For me, this clip has a similar charm as David Greenberger's eternally amazing Duplex Planet interviews with elderly people. Read the rest

Cop in California legit tried to arrest a black man bc he was “illegally eating.”😳My mind can’t even begin to comprehend the arrogance needed to justify this nonsense pic.twitter.com/cwlobWkRo2— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@QasimRashid) November 10, 2019"You're eating. It's against the law." That's what this white police officer told a black man who was eating a sandwich while waiting for a train in Contra Costa, California. The man purchased the sandwich in the station, and was eating it outside in the platform while waiting for a BART train. According to the person who shot the video, there are no signs stating that it is forbidden to eat food on train platforms.The officer grabbed the man's backpack and asked him for his identification. The man eating the sandwich calmly told the officer that he was doing nothing wrong and refused to show the cop his ID. The cop called for backup and four other officers arrived to handcuff the man and take him away.“Four cops for eating a sandwich?,” says the man.BART said it is investigating the incident, says The San Francisco Examiner. Read the rest

Myanmar is being sued the by 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Cooperation at the UN's International Court of Justice for allegedly conducting genocide against the Rohingya minority, reports ABC News. The lawsuit, filed by Gambia, alleges that:Starting in October 2016 and then again in August 2017, Myanmar’s security forces engaged in so-called “clearance operations” against the Rohingya, a distinct Muslim ethnic minority, in Rakhine State, Myanmar. The operations, in particular those that started in August 2017, were characterized by brutal violence and serious human rights violations on a mass scale. Survivors report indiscriminate killings, rape and sexual violence, arbitrary detention, torture, beatings, and forced displacement. Reports have also shown that security forces were systematically planning for such an operation against the Rohingya even before the purported reason for the violence — retaliation for small scale attacks committed by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) — occurred. As a result, an estimated 745,000 people — mostly ethnic Rohingya — were forced to flee to Bangladesh.Photo by Yang Jing on Unsplash Read the rest

Self-made entrepreneur and noted thought-leader Donald Trump Jr. disappointed fans at his UCLA book-signing event when he refused to answer questions from the audience. The event, organized by a conservative student organization called Turning Point USA, was meant to last two hours, but the young philanthropic genius left the stage after 20 minutes when it became clear that his girlfriend's angry scolding of the audience wasn't going to pacify them.Image: YouTube Read the rest

One of my family's favorite things to do is wander the neighborhoods of Tokyo. The narrow streets, filled with colorful visual, olfactory, and aural details, never fail to fill me with a sense of wonder. Yesterday one of my daughters showed me a YouTube Channel called Nippon Wandering TV. The person who runs the channel uses a high resolution GoPro (strapped to his chest or head, I guess) and walks through different Tokyo neighborhoods at different times of the day. He doesn't narrate the videos, and I'm glad he doesn't, because it's nice to hear the sounds of the streets -- talking, cars, music, etc. Each video is about 30 minutes long.Image: YouTube Read the rest

My kids and I like to draw. We sometimes go to the weekly figure drawings sessions at the Art Directors Guild in LA, or we just sit at the dining room table and draw. As an amateur sketcher, I'm in awe of illustrator Mark Crilley's skill with a pencil, and with his instructional books and videos. His videos are enjoyable and useful -- he explains what he is doing with a calm, soothing voice, and the tips he offers are often just what I need to gain new understanding about drawing. In his latest video, Mark shows how to add shading to faces.Image: YouTube Read the rest

The most recent episode of Last Week Tonight is John Oliver's celebratory victory lap over the end of coal giant Bob Murray's lawsuit against the show. Murray was suing for a 2017 episode calling Murray a "geriatric Dr. Evil" and for running a scene of a man in a squirrel costume holding a large bank check that said "Eat Shit Bob."Oliver said the lawsuit was a "bullshit effort to silence us" -- in other words, a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation), which is a way for rich creeps to abuse the legal system to silence anyone who says anything negative about them. (In 2010 Boing Boing was hit with a SLAPP and the plaintiff ended up having to pay us more than $50,000 in legal costs.) Read the rest

Bebop Stop-Motion made this terrific stop-motion cooking clip of a gooey, bubbling pizza from 3,300 photos and countless Lego bricks. And here's a bonus stop-motion cooking classic, "Western Spaghetti" by PES: Read the rest

In 1994, Apple's Mac OS 7 licensing program briefly enabled other companies to make and sell Macintosh computers. In response, Apple employees "Dave Garr & The Licensees" created this delightful parody of Tiffany's "I Think We're Alone Now."(via r/Apple) Read the rest

In 1996, Benjamin Schreiber, 66, was sentenced to life in prison for killing a man with an axe handle. A few years later in the Iowa State Penitentiary, Schreiber suffered from septic poisoning, briefly died, and was resuscitated. So he argued to an Iowa appeals court that he has served his sentence and should be set free. The court ruled with what might be called the "Schrödinger's convict" respsonse. From the New York Times: “Schreiber is either still alive, in which case he must remain in prison, or he is actually dead, in which case this appeal is moot,” Judge Amanda Potterfield wrote for the court....Judge Potterfield wrote in the ruling this week that because “life” is not defined by the state’s code, the judges had given the term “its plain meaning,” which they took to prescribe that Mr. Schreiber must spend the rest of his natural life incarcerated, regardless of whether he had been revived.“We do not find his argument persuasive,” Judge Potterfield wrote, adding that the judges found it unlikely the Legislature would have wanted “to set criminal defendants free whenever medical procedures during their incarceration lead to their resuscitation by medical professionals.”Image: TheCatalyst31 (CC0 1.0) Read the rest

Former Pittsburgh radio personality T.J. Lubinsky is selling his home, about a half-hour outside the city in Gibsonia, Pennsylvania.I'll be honest, I've never heard of this guy. But apparently he has quite a resume. Which I guess is how he and his wife Wenday were able to build this absurdly palatial estate with 14 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, a "waterfall poolside oasis" with a custom Lilliput playhouse for the kids, and—oh yeah, a two-story replica of the Heinz Chapel as well as a replica of the private study from the 1966 "Batman" show, complete with sliding bookcases, a red phone, and Batpoles.It also contains replica rooms based on "the Queen’s residence next to the Ritz London" and "the Hotel Del Coronado in California." Did I mention that the whole design is based on Newport's Seaview Terrace/Carey Mansion, which was used as the exterior shots for Collinwood Manor in the classic vampire soap opera "Dark Shadows?"While I personally couldn't afford the $3.5 million it would cost to buy this place, but all things considered, I think that's actually a pretty reasonable price for it.724 Bristlecone Drive, Gibsonia, Pennsylvania 15044, via Berkshire Hathaway Real EstateImage via Batman '66, duh Read the rest

The Mandalorian is the new Star Wars TV show premiering on Disney Plus+. Werner Herzog is the famous filmmaker who will also be appearing as an actor on the show.It was only a matter of time before someone mashed-up The Mandalorian’s trailer footage with Herzog’s iconic documentarian voiceover. It’s not Grizzly Man, but it’s close. Read the rest

🎶 Hot drinks! Really gets you going. Warm you up! When you feel you're slowing. ... Don’t think twice, give your guests a juicy slice! 🎶Here's cold: Read the rest

I'm amazed how recognizable some of the pop culture creatures are in Johan Vinet's 8x8 sprite sheet. Vinet's working on a game called Lunark but this particular work conforms to the pallette of the Pico-8 virtual console. [via Pixel Prospector] Read the rest

Uber CEO on Saudi Arabia's killing of Jamal Khashoggi: "It's a serious mistake. We've made mistakes too, right, with self-driving ... So I think that people make mistakes. It doesn't mean that they can never be forgiven" pic.twitter.com/EvinRrh3SE— BNO News (@BNONews) November 11, 2019Uber is significantly backed by Saudi investments and the country's sovereign wealth fund controls a seat on its board. In this video, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is asked by Axios's Dan Primack about the Saudi regime's murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S.-based journalist and dissident."It's a serious mistake," Khosrowshahi said. "We've made mistakes too, right? With self-driving, and we're recovering from that mistake ... So I think that people make mistakes. It doesn't mean that they can never be forgiven. I think they've taking is seriously."Primack challenged his comparison of a political assassination, as described in a CIA report, to the presumptively accidental killing of a pedestrian by a self-driving car."I didn't read that part of the CIA report," Khosrowshahi said. "You're obviously deeper in it."Khosrowshahi, however, is now very deep in something else.Khosrowshahi later backtracked, telling Axios after the interview had ended that he had misspoken. “I said something in the moment that I do not believe,” said the CEO in a statement. “When it comes to Jamal Khashoggi, his murder was reprehensible and should not be forgotten or excused.” Read the rest

La Machine's new creation is Le Dragon de Calais:From the 1st to 3rd of November, 2019, the City of Calais will discover Le Dragon de Calais during spectacular celebrations. Freed from the subterranean worlds, the Dragon of Calais is heading for the city. This new creation built by La Machine Company will roam the city, manipulated by 17 people who give him life. This big show in the streets of Calais will be the festive prologue to the dragon’s public introduction as a «City Machine» : La Compagnie du Dragon.Here it is in action:🐲🔥 Depuis #Nantes, le Dragon de Calais a rejoint sa ville d'accueil @CalaisOfficiel où il s'est réveillé ce week-end pour un fabuleux spectacle 😍Le dragon des mers a été construit par @lesMachinesNtes 🐉 Une belle réalisation 👏 https://t.co/fhij1rZoL4 pic.twitter.com/oKb8vmXiSY— Ville de Nantes (@nantesfr) November 4, 2019Un immense merci à tous les spectateurs qui ont suivi le périple du #DragondeCalais dans les rues et sur la toile. Merci à la @CalaisOfficiel.Dès le 17 décembre, la @CompagnieDragon vous invite à prendre place sur le dos du Dragon le long du front de mer. pic.twitter.com/IRYKrbzcot— Compagnie La Machine (@lamachinefr) November 4, 2019De Californie, de Belgique, d'Allemagne, d'Angleterre ... le Dragon a déplacé les foules. Près de 400 000 spectateurs étaient présents pour l'arrivée du #DragondeCalais. @CalaisOfficiel @lamachinefr #Calais #hautsdefrance pic.twitter.com/YLNvMMflLU— Compagnie du Dragon (@CompagnieDragon) November 4, 2019 Read the rest

In honor of Hideo Kojima's new game Death Stranding, Matthew "SpartanUruk" Lai created custom Norman Reedus and Mads Mikkelsen figures and various props:I'm excited to share that I'll be making a short Death Stranding film 😀I've been working on this for a few weeks now. Here's a few screenshots, hope yous like it! @HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN @KojiPro2015_EN @DeathStranding_ #DeathStranding #HideoKojima #NormanReedus pic.twitter.com/vcIj3jAAP1— SpartanUruk (@SpartanUruk) October 13, 2019Here's my completed #SamPorterBridges 1/6th custom figure for my upcoming #DeathStranding short film. This was a super tricky custom to make but I'm really happy with the outcome, he's got an LED BB Pod & Odarek. @HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN @Bigbaldhead @KojiPro2015_EN pic.twitter.com/1qxtZD72sd— SpartanUruk (@SpartanUruk) October 20, 2019My final completed #Cliff custom 1/6th figure for my upcoming #DeathStranding short film. Super fun and easy custom to make, I'm really pleased with the results! 😍💀🦀🌈 @theofficialmads @HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN @KojiPro2015_EN pic.twitter.com/3TvkYgS8Yn— SpartanUruk (@SpartanUruk) October 20, 2019Here's the process for Sam's BB Pod & Odarek (with LED's) I made in 1/6th scale for my #DeathStranding film. They're made from clay & plastic, then installed on the figure which you can see on the screenshots to the right. @HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN @KojiPro2015_EN @DeathStranding_ pic.twitter.com/HO7pmXjMfX— SpartanUruk (@SpartanUruk) October 16, 2019Here's the work in process for my #DeathStranding Tank. As you can see I made all the pouches out of fabric, and all the fleshy pieces out of clay which I then painted. 😜👍🌈💀 pic.twitter.com/ckPVq9wSTL— SpartanUruk (@SpartanUruk) October 22, 2019He used those creations to make this suitably weird stop motion short film:And speaking of Death Stranding, The Onion:Man Who Has Not Owned Console Since 2009 Thoughtfully Scans Fifth ‘Death Stranding’ Review Of Day https://t.co/bd1vcccazv pic.twitter.com/iz5xiSkHUK— The Onion (@TheOnion) November 1, 2019 Read the rest

I know the Trumps and their cronies are all a bunch of asshole con artists. I know they get off on saying egregious things for the lulz, as long as they can still turn a profit. I know that they have mastered the art of playing the victim card in order to turn said profits, deliberately framing the world in a hyper-partisan "Us-vs-the-Other" way that is nauseating and divisive and god dammit, still actually working for them.But even in that context, this excerpt from Donald Trump Jr's new book "Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us," is particularly maddening. As reported by Business Insider:Writing about a visit to Arlington National Cemetery the day before his father's inauguration, Trump said: "I rarely get emotional, if ever. I guess you'd call me hyper-rational, stoic. Yet as we drove past the rows of white grave markers, in the gravity of the moment, I had a deep sense of the importance of the presidency and a love of our country ... In that moment, I also thought of all the attacks we'd already suffered as a family, and about all the sacrifices we'd have to make to help my father succeed — voluntarily giving up a huge chunk of our business and all international deals to avoid the appearance that we were 'profiting off of the office.'"He goes on to say: "Frankly, it was a big sacrifice, costing us millions and millions of dollars annually ... Read the rest

Technically, it's illegal for Chinese merchants to refuse payment in cash, but this rule is hardly ever enforced, and China has been sprinting to a cashless society that requires mobile devices -- not credit-cards -- to effect payments, even to street hawkers.This has lots of implications for privacy, surveillance, taxation, and fairness, but in the short term, the biggest impact is on visitors to China, who are increasingly unable to buy anything because they lack Chinese payment apps like Wechat, and even when they install them, the apps' support for non-Chinese bank accounts and credit cards is spotty-to-nonexistent.This is also affecting Chinese people, of course: some elderly people who have been slow to embrace mobile devices are finding themselves frozen out of the system, offering cash to passersby to buy them goods from vending machines. There are also refuseniks who are equally locked out.Tourists are increasingly corralled into guided tours, with paid guides who make purchases on their behalf. The Wall Street Journal piece on the phenomenon quotes a Chinese executive who proposes that the unique Chinese obsession with QR codes (and mobile payments) is itself a reason to visit China, offering tourists a glimpse into another culture. Travelers have had more luck on Alipay, which introduced a seven-step process last week that requires visitors to submit passport and visa information to Alipay, before loading money using an overseas card onto a prepaid card.In a bathroom near the Great Wall recently, Catherine De Witte, a Belgian marketing consultant, was getting frustrated. Read the rest

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is campaigning with Bernie Sanders in Iowa, generally considered a conservative, red-state kind of place -- so much so that Iowa GOP operators made a series of public predictions that she would be laughed out of the state. The state party chairman Jeff Kaufmann called her "Doctor Ocasio-Cortez" and Sanders "Crazy Bernie": "She’s got a problem with our cows here!" while Iowa Senator Joni Ernst predicted that the pair would be booed offstage.Instead, AOC and Sanders played to packed houses who cheered them on as they held a three-hour climate summit, with a panel featuring Sunrise Movement organizer Zina Precht-Rodriguez, and Naomi Klein, whose Leap Manifesto was the precursor to the Green New Deal. The panelists focused on the threats to agriculture from climate change and discussed how a just climate transition would protect small farmers and other workers who had seen their share of the profits from their labor fall even as the wealthy bosses, monopolists and middlemen waxed fat enough that they could peel off vast fortunes to sow expensive doubt about climate change and still retain enough cash to get unimaginably wealthy.It turns out that the 99% of Iowa are just like the 99% of everyone: increasingly aware that they have been turkeys that were duped into voting for Christmas, and increasingly aware that the farmer is out there sharpening the axe.Ocasio-Cortez also just happens to be uncommonly good at this, adept at inverting the arguments that have traditionally been wielded against people with politics like hers. Read the rest

In 1992, the Federal Trade Commission opened an antitrust investigation against Microsoft; in 2001, the company settled the claims, making a slate of pro-competitive promises that were widely derided as too little, too late. The common account of the Microsoft antitrust inquiry is that the US government spent a decade in court and came away with nothing to show for it. This version of history is pervasive, and it's why Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and even the fearless EU antitrust enforcer Margrethe Vestager have all dismissed the idea of antitrust breakups for Big Tech.But there's another version of this story, that goes like this: being dragged through antitrust enforcement actions for a decade was deeply, profoundly traumatic for Microsoft and for Gates, personally. This trauma changed the corporate culture at Microsoft: while there had always been those who argued against monopolistic tactics, they had been dismissed as goody two-shoes who didn't understand how to maximize the company's growth. A decade of traumatic antitrust made prophets of those Chicken Littles, and whenever the monopolists in Microsoft's board rooms argued for bullying, anti-competitive actions, the anti-monopolists could say, "Are you fucking kidding me? You want them to put Bill back on the stand?!"This version has been repeated by many (generally anonymous) ex-Microsoft employees to explain how it was that Microsoft didn't crush Google with the kinds of tactics it used against Netscape and other competitors. This story has always been debatable, because we haven't heard it on the record from anyone who was actually in the company's top management echelon. Read the rest

Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire threatening to enter the Democratic primary race due to Joe Biden's supposedly weak showing for the center, scores only 4% in the first poll to include his name. This puts him in sixth place, behind not only Biden but other moderates who might benefit from his support. Interest in him is so low that it isn't even possible to see where he's getting the 4% from; all the front-runners' own numbers seem unaffected by his entry to the polling pool.Bloomberg’s initial entrance would do little to disrupt the current state of play, according to the national survey of 2,225 registered voters who indicated they may vote in the Democratic primary or caucus in their state, which had a margin of error of 2 percentage points. At 31 percent, former Vice President Joe Biden held his spot as the race’s front-runner, while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), with 20 percent and 18 percent, respectively, continue to vie for second. It's obviously a vanity candidacy, even assuming Biden is a sinking ship. I can't help but suspect that the only reason for a rich centrist to run instead of supporting Harris, Klobuchar, Buttigieg or Booker is what might generously be called "historical thinking" about the electability of minorities in general and women in particular. Read the rest

Former tech worker Kshama Sawant (previously) won an unprecedented victory in 2013 by running for Seattle city council as on the Socialist Alternative ticket, raising unprecedented sums in small-money donations, and then winning the election after a last-minute surge in the polls.Seattle is a city dominated by a handful of giant corporations (Starbucks, Microsoft, Boeing, and, of course, Amazon) and has historically had a municipal government that put those companies' interests first, so Sawant's victory (and her subsequent re-election) was a huge change in Seattle politics -- and Amazon was determined to change them back.Amazon funnelled $1.5m through a Chamber of Commerce PAC that worked with the "Civic Alliance For A Sound Economy PAC," to back Sawant's opponent and other "business-friendly" candidates -- an eye-popping sum that had climbed considerably since 2015, when Amazon only spent $130k on the city's elections.Once again, Sawant came from behind to win her seat, a phenomenon she attributes to 1,000 doorbell-ringing volunteers. Sawant's losing opponent, Egan Orion, said that the Amazon money was "unnecessary" and "a distraction."Four other candidates endorsed by the Civic Alliance For A Sound Economy also seemed set to lose. Phil Tavel, Heidi Wills, Mark Solomon and Jim Pugel trailed their opponents by at least 6%, with Solomon down by about 20%. Two candidates endorsed by the Pac, Alex Pedersen and Debora Juarez, had substantial leads.A win for Sawant would give her a third term. She has been a fierce critic of the influence of big business on Seattle, and helped lead the push last year for the head tax, a per-employee tax on large corporations that was repealed a month after passing unanimously. Read the rest