Boing Boing

The 11'8" bridge in Durham, N.C., which has brought so much misery to unobservant truck drivers and so much joy to the internet, will be raised to 12'4" this week. Is nothing sacred in the age of Trump?On October 26, I spent the afternoon at the 11foot8 bridge as the crew was working on preparing the structure for raising it next week. They cut off the rusty steel supports of the old walkway on the southern side of the trestle, and they removed the battered, bent crash beam that was the canopener's "teeth" for taking bites out of many a hapless, overheight truck on Gregson St. I hope you all enjoy the video.It's only a few inches, but it's the difference between life and death for the standard 12ft high rental trucks that comprise the bridge's normal diet.Here's a compilation featuring many of the Can Opener's victims: Read the rest

Stop, collaborate, and listen: Amazon's complicit in ICE's extraditions (plus other abuses of human rights enabled by that agency's authoritarian agenda)That's why hundreds of musicians—nearly 500, at the time of this writing, though it was just over 100 when news broke Thursday morning—have signed onto an open letter pledging to boycott Amazon festivals, events, and other exclusive deals until the tech giant stops enabling the systematic abuses of Immigration Customs Enforcement. The list of signatories includes Guy Picciotto of Fugazi, as well as Ted Leo, Immortal Technique, Downtown Boys, Thursday, WHY?, Jeff Rosenstock, the Mowglis, War on Women, Diet Cig, Tim Kasher (of Cursive/The Good Life), and many more.These are the demands for Amazon, directly from that open letter:Terminate existing contracts with military, law enforcement, and government agencies (ICE, CBP, ORR) that commit human rights abusesStop providing Cloud services & tools to organizations (such as Palantir) that power the US government's deportation machineEnd projects that encourage racial profiling and discrimination, such as Amazon's facial recognition productReject future engagements w/ aforementioned bad actors.I signed my own band onto the list earlier this week, after catching wind of the movement on Twitter. (I tried to pull our songs from all Amazon-affiliated services, but our distro service makes that difficult to do.) My friends in the Kominas mentioned something about it, and then I noticed Deerhoof interacting with Sadie Dupois of Speedy Ortiz and Sad13, following up on the recent op-ed by Tom Morello and Evan Greer of Fight For The Future (both musicians and activists in their own rights). Read the rest

Carrion is a forthcoming "reverse horror" game from Devolver Digital where you get to play an amorphous monster, slopping around a remote facility eating the screaming, terrified scientists and guards. A free demo came out this weekend and it's great fun. At heart it's a traditional, lavishly pixelated 2D platformer, but normality ends at the outset. Instead of running about, solving puzzles and shooting enemies, you're a slimy lump of pixels with an insatiable hunger for human flesh. Holding down one button sends out meaty feelers to grab surfaces, flop and slide your way toward the pointer, whereas another sends out the eating tentacles and drags in anything they latch onto. There's about 20 minutes of action in the demo, I've played it through twice for good measure, and will most certainly be buying it when it comes out. Thlupllplplplplpl! *muffled screams* *crunching noises* thluplplplplp! Read the rest

The first meeting of editors from around the country, merged together as The Underground Press Syndicate — and the early gestation for what will become the protests at the Pentagon building. From John Wilcock, New York Years, by Ethan Persoff and Scott Marshall. (See all Boing Boing installments) Read the rest

Rep Rashida Tlaib [D-MI] has joined Reps Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar in endorsing Bernie Sanders' bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.Three of the four members of "The Squad" -- four freshman Democratic Congresswomen who are members of the Democratic Socialists of America -- have endorsed Sanders; the remaining member, Ayanna Pressley [D-MA], is a representative from Elizabeth Warren's state and has not made any endorsements.I am a donor to both the Sanders and Warren campaigns."I am endorsing Amo Bernie Sanders because he's not gonna sell us out. He understands that it's not just about policies and about words, but it's going to be also about completely transforming the structures in place." -@RashidaTlaib pic.twitter.com/3SaGZeOUT7— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) October 27, 2019"I am endorsing Amo Bernie Sanders because he's not gonna sell us out," Tlaib says in the pre-recorded clip, noting her nickname for the senator. "He understands that it's not just about policies and about words, but it's going to be also about completely transforming the structures in place."When Sanders took the stage, he was quick to compliment his newest endorser."Congresswoman Tlaib has been a leader," Sanders told the crowd in Detroit. "Rashida has been a leader in the fight for decent jobs, a leader in the fight for affordable housing, a leader in the fight for a clean border and she has shown that she is prepared to take on corporate greed and corruption and stand with the working class of this country.""I will look to her for her leadership in Congress under a Sanders' administration," Sanders added. Read the rest

As long as there are light switches in the house (or voice-activated prompts, or whatever the future brings), people are going to need an electrician. Ask any electrician the next time they come around for repairs, and they'll tell you how much they're in demand, no matter what size the community (or hey, just look at their invoice.)Maybe you're considering saving money by doing those repairs yourself, or maybe you're wondering how to rake in that paycheck yourself. Either way, the Ultimate Electrical Engineering Master Class Bundle is a great resource.You'll learn how to complete any home project safely and cheaply with the insights in the electric circuits course. But that class is just the tip of the iceberg.Later courses take you inside the humming veins of an electrical substation, teaching you not only how to maintain but design one. The design engineering course will let you use Autocad to blueprint the power grid for an entire factory floor, while a focus on machinery lets you see the principles behind high-functioning transformers and generators. There's even a course on solar energy for those wanting to build and implement a PV cell grid.All in all, it's more than 40 hours of hands-on education. The entire bundle is now on sale for 97% off the MSRP. Read the rest

Mark Taaffe is a Toronto institution, whose Fort York Auctions were the best junk auctions I've ever seen (they inspired my short story Craphound, which was the first story I ever sold to a professional market); Mark has moved online and is now selling his finds through a social media account. Though these listings lack his charming patter and colourful auctioneering, his eye is as good as ever and his prices are still amazeballs. (Thanks, Paul Mercer!) Read the rest

Nancy Mumby-Welke lives in rural Saginaw County, MI; yesterday morning she was about to let her horses out when she discovered the crashed, humming remains of a Samsung satellite on her property.The satellite may have been launched for Samsung's "Spaceselfie" marketing gimmick, and the company has agreed to remove it from Mumby-Welke's property.The details of the story are thin and confusing. The satellite was in remarkably good shape for something that fell from space -- satellites are typically flimsy in construction, because mass is prohibitively expensive to lift into space, and because there are few hazards in orbit, except for orbiting space debris, which is so fast-moving that it's effectively impossible to stop. But I'm loathe to attribute this to some kind of marketing hoax: it's hard to see how "our satellites might crash in your yard!" would be beneficial to Samsung's image in any way.Nancy Mumby-Welke shared the video on Facebook, walking up to a satellite lying on its side. "You never know what's going to happen," Welke says in the video."This baby fell out of the sky and landed in our yard," she went on to say. ,pAccording to the Gratiot County Herald, Welke heard the crash around 8:45 a.m. just before they were going to let their horses out. "Thank God none of the horses were out and it didn't land on the house," Welke explained in the video. 'You never know what's going to happen' | Michigan family surprised when satellite crashes onto their property [13 On Your Side](Thanks, Lou Cabron! Read the rest

The gilets jaunes/yellow vests protest movement mobilized in France over a slate of grievances, led by President Macron's plan to meet emissions targets by punishing poor and a rural people, while dealing out massive favors to the country's wealthy elites. As the movement spread around the world, it took on different characters: sometimes lefty, sometimes right-wing, sometimes explicitly racist.A new French movement, les gilet noirs (the black vests), makes racial justice the center of its protests, arguing for the rights of migrants, especially African migrants, who have long struggled with discrimination in France. Many of these migrants are from countries that were looted by French colonialists and are descended from colonial subjects who were pressed in French military service, only to be rejected by French society and the French state.The gilets noirs number 1,500 so far, and are mostly black (one of their slogans is that they are "black with anger" at the treatment of African migrants). They were incubated by the activist collective La Chapelle Debout, in the foyers: communal residences for migrant workers. They have staged several occupations, most notably an occupation of the Panthéon in July, where the police lied and told protesters that if they dispersed peacefully they would not face identity checks or arrests, only to stage a series of violent rushes with batons when the protesters agreed to disperse, while shouting racial epithets. 50 protesters were hospitalized by the police, and 21 were arrested. Like the yellow vests, the gilets noirs are concerned with rising inequality and official favoritism for wealthy elites; unlike the yellow vests, the gilets noirs refuse to allow racialized people to be scapegoated for inequality, pushing back against Macron's racist rhetoric, which attempts to neutralize "soft on immigration" claims from the white nationalist parties in France. Read the rest

When Salem, NJ's Fred C. Arena applied for a job at Philadelphia's Navy Yard, he underwent an FBI background check in which he falsely claimed that he was not a member of the Vanguard America, a white nationalist group that was part of the lethal far-right "Unite the Right" 2017 gathering in Charlottesville; whose members posed with the murderer James Alex Fields Jr for a photo hours before he killed Heather Heyer. The activist group Unicorn Riot (previously) published leaked chat logs linking Arena to several online identities: McCormick H. Foley, John S. Mosby and Fritz Coon Heydrich. Under these pseudonyms, Arena boasted of plans to bring 15 "paramilitary" friends to Unite the Right, and vowed to fight with antifa activists and federal law-enforcement officers "til one of us are not moving." He had shared far-right/white supremacist memes, photos of himself with a cache of semiautomatic weapons, and claimed membership in the white nationalist Three Percenters militia group.Membership in these groups and publication of violent memes are protected under the First Amendment, which safeguards the right to free expression and free association. However, lying to the FBI is a serious crime, especially in order to falsely obtain a security clearance.The FBI arrested Arena last week and he had a brief hearing before a magistrate judge before he was jailed pending trial.Jason Kessler, the man behind the 2017 rally, was hoping to rebrand the follow-up as a nonviolent demonstration for “white civil rights” after the first protest provoked a national conversation about the rise of hate groups in the United States. Read the rest

Sidewalk Labs (previously) is a "smart city" company that was spun out of Google, though it remains owned by Alphabet, Google's parent company; Sidewalk Labs's first major outing is a planned "experimental city" on Toronto's lakeshore, and it's been a disaster, from the bullying it used to get the project's initial approval to being outed for sneaking a massive expansion into the agreement and then lying about it, to mass resignations by its privacy advisors, who denounced the project as a corporate surveillance city whose "privacy protections" were mere figleafs for unfettered, nonconsensual collection and exploitation of residents' data.Now, as the plan struggles with court challenges, it is spinning for its life, and one of the oft-repeated claims it makes to justify its existence is that the company conducted deep consultation with indigenous leaders as part of Canada's ongoing (and totally inadequate) truth and reconciliation with the country's First Nations.But Duke Redbird and Calvin Brook, two of the indigenous leaders who took part in that consultation, have published an open letter to Waterfront Toronto's board of directors, accusing Sidewalk Labs of discarding all their input to the new city's plans, while touting the consultation as evidence of the company's goodwill and sincerity.Redbird and Brook describe the consultation with phrases like "hollow and tokenistic," and remind us that the indigenous consultation came up with 14 recommendations for Sidewalk Labs, and that the company has taken up exactly zero of these in its 1500 page, four-volume master plan for the city. Read the rest

Remedy Entertainment's Control is a masterpiece of weird architecture and bold design, but a tiring shooter.

Every artist, budding or established, has a sketchbook. They're great for practice and portable, so you can follow your muse anywhere. But if you're just starting off, let's face it: Those blank pages don't offer much guidance. The How to Draw series of sketchbooks are a well-designed alternative to rote linework or idle doodling, incorporating art lessons that let you fill up that white space more productively.Think of these as art textbooks that you can actually draw inside of. Each one fills the front and back with a series of basic tips and reference materials, such as a list of art schools and the best types of art equipment for a particular style. The meat of the book, though, is a series of lessons that are crafted in an ingenious way. Initial lessons will have shading that you can rely on to trace a drawing. As the book progresses, those guidelines will begin to fade, letting you take the reins and draw more confidently.The How to Draw series has books in a variety of art styles, and they're all 20% off the retail price.How to Draw Sketchbook: Super Heroes focuses on the four-color style, with guidance by industry pro Andy Smith. The How to Draw Sketchbook: Drawing Basics covers abstracts, shading and other essential techniques with Mark Kokavec.The How to Draw Sketchbook: Athletic Shoes is another book taught by Mark Kokavec that's crucial for graphic or advertising artists. How to Draw Sketchbook: Figures makes figure drawing easy with guidance by Joshua Fraser. Read the rest

The world is shrinking, That's just one of the reasons to get on that bit of self-improvement that many people resolve to do but too few actually accomplish: learning a new language.And why aren't more of us multilingual? It's actually easier than you might think. Almost all tongues have commonalities, and if a bit of practice doesn't at least get you conversational, well - that might be the fault of the teacher, not the student. There's a lot of language apps that miss the mark when it comes to methodology, but let's focus on one that works - and why it works.The Babbel app is a language-learning system that's drawn raves for a personal approach that tailors lessons to the language of the user. That means an English speaker learning German might begin by learning a different set of phrases than a German speaker would when they're learning English. That's because while their parts of speech and sentence structure might be similar, the two languages have distinctly different idioms and common terms. It seems like a no-brainer, but it's an approach that Babbel really gets like no other.That approach results in a quicker route to the words and phrases that you can actually form a conversation with, and less chaff like "How ripe is this cantaloupe?" And to ensure you'll follow through, the curriculum is broken up into bite-sized lessons you can finish in 10-15 minutes. Just right for a commute or lunch break.Sound doable? Right now, Babbel is offering 25% off select subscriptions. Read the rest

"Affordances" is my new science fiction story for Slate/ASU's Future Tense project; it's a tale exploring my theory of "the shitty technology adoption curve," in which terrible technological ideas are first imposed on poor and powerless people, and then refined and normalized until they are spread over all the rest of us.The story makes the point by exploring all the people in a facial recognition ecosystem, from low-waged climate refugees who are paid to monitor facial recognition errors in an overseas boiler room, to cops whose facial recognition systems and risk-assessment scoring institutionalize algorithmic racism, to activists whose videos of human rights abuses on the US border are disappeared by copyright enforcement bots deployed by shadowy astroturf organizations, to the executives at the companies who make the facial recognition tools whose decisions are constrained by automated high-speed trading bots.It also explores methods of technological resistance, solidarity, and activism, and how the flip-side of automated systems' inaccuracy is their fragility.The story is accompanied by a response essay by Nettrice Gaskins (previously), "an artist-educator who collaborates with AI," who discusses it in the context of the "afrocentric counter-surveillance aesthetic," which is my new all-time favorite phrase. There were different kinds of anxiety: the anxiety she’d felt when she was recording the people massing for their rush, clammy under the thermal blanket with its layer of retroreflective paint that would confound drones and cameras; she walked among the people, their faces shining, their few things on their backs, their children in their arms, the smell of too many bodies and too much fear. Read the rest

Pants//Off is a mobile escape room based on the concept that you're a secret agent who tried on cutting edge pants only to discover they've been sabotaged and rigged to explode. Can you get them off within 10 minutes?After getting locked into the pants, the player has to solve all sorts of puzzles using the odd array of tools stuffed in their pockets.Imagine a mobile escape room experience, but not on a phone 🤔 #SpookyGameJam2019 pic.twitter.com/d8x0qXrthD— Justin Sales (@Junstix) October 19, 2019Here's a glimpse of the action:We made a Pants Escape Room this weekend! Here's a peak of the experience! 👖🗝️🔒Developed by: @john_scovic, @donherweg, @Junstix, @Daniel__Song pic.twitter.com/rnQQzYHlEu— Josh Delson (@JoshDelson) October 21, 2019(Via Max Temkin.) Read the rest

Halloween, like many modern American holidays, is a kind of mashup of different cultural traditional traditions rooted in the autumnal harvest, and some kind of celebration or connection with the spirit world. You see it in Mexico with Dia de los Muertos; and in pre-Christian Ireland, it was Oíche Shamhna ("Shamna" being the genitive form of "Samhain," which is pronounced kind of like "SOW-un," and actually just means "November").An episode of The Irish Passport podcast takes a close look at the roots of those Gaelic traditions, and the kind of generation loss that happened when it was exported to the United States, and then re-imported back to Ireland. The result is kind of fun-house-mirror reflection of itself—modern Irish imitating a mutated American imitation of older Irish traditions. You'll also get to learn a bit about how the faeryfolk in Ireland, the Aos Sídhe, still play an active role in modern real estate development in the Republic (yes really).Just below the surface of modern Ireland, a parallel world exists with its roots in pre-Christian belief. Irish fairies aren’t like Tinkerbell—they’re more like a supernatural mafia. So be careful what you say, because as the story goes, they’re probably listening. Tim talks to one of Ireland’s last seanchaí or story-teller historians, who once managed to get a highway diverted to prevent the felling of a fairy bush. We also hear about modern traditions from the streets of Galway as the Celtic New Year Samhain festival is underway.You can download the mp3, or find the episode on iTunes/Stitcher/Google Play/Spotify/etc. Read the rest

Elizabeth Warren fumbled at the latest Democratic leadership debate when she was pressed on the question of whether Medicare for All would raise taxes, and she refused to answer, creating a soundbite that made her look like a sneaky, evasive politician, to the delight of right wingers who've struggled with her image as a straight-shooting, super-competent, quick-witted daughter of the soil.But the question actually has a simple answer: under Medicare for All, most Americans will pay much lower taxes -- but the tax that will be lowered is the invisible payroll tax exacted by employers and remitted to giant, super-profitable health insurers. Writing in the Guardian, Gabriel Zucman (previously) and Emmanuel Saez (co-authors of the new book The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay) demolish the argument that health insurance isn't a "tax" because you can choose a cheaper option: "There are cheap meals, there are cheap clothes, but there is no cheap way to treat your heart attack, to cure your cancer, or to give birth."I am a donor to both Elizabeth Warren's and Bernie Sanders' campaigns.The health insurance poll tax hammers the working class and the middle class. At the bottom of the distribution, it’s not as onerous as sales and payroll taxes. But that’s because many low-income Americans rely on a family member to cover them, enroll into Medicaid, or go uninsured. For the middle-class, the burden is enormous. Take a secretary earning $50,000 a year, who has employer-sponsored health insurance at a total cost of $15,000. Read the rest

From 1977 to 1981 we were treated to Sha Na Na.Oh, Bowser!Sha Na Na has an official website. Read the rest

Volunteers at Novosibirsk's Wild Animal Rehabilitation Centre put trackers on 13 wild eagles to track their migration patterns; the trackers connected to cellular towers and message the researchers with the birds' location.However, some of the eagles flew into territories with extremely high roaming charges -- notably Iran and Pakistan -- and the automated text-messages ran up a bill that exhausted the researchers' budget.After a crowdfunding effort to "Top up the eagle's mobile" raised 100,000 roubles, the team's mobile carrier, Megafon, offered to wipe out the remaining debt and switch the team's SIMs to a cheaper plan.20 years ago, at the dawn of wifi, I spent a week at a hotel in Walt Disney World (I was attending a training seminar and finishing my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom). The hotel charged $0.25 for local calls, but my ISP, Earthlink, offered unlimited dialup. I came up with a clever solution: I brought along my Apple Airport device (which had a dialup modem) and set it to connect to Earthlink when we checked in, with the plan that it would stay connected for the next seven days and only incur a charge of $0.25 for the whole week's service.But when I went to check out, the clerk had to go and fetch two extra reams of paper to print my bill. It turned out that the call to Earthlink had been dropped every 2-3 minutes for a week, and the modem in the Airport just kept on redialing. Read the rest

New Hampshire's Digital Fair Repair Act -- based on model Right to Repair legislation circulated by the Repair Coalition -- died this week after the state House of Reps voted it down, with Rep John Potucek [R-Derry] telling a reporter that he voted against the bill because "In the near future, cellphones are throwaways. Everyone will just get a new one."Potucek -- a retired teacher and engineer -- has a long record of being on the wrong side of the right issues, opposing legislation to increase the state minimum wage, against greenhouse gas reduction measures, against rail expansions, against solar energy, against investigating sexual harassment in the legislature, against funding job training, against rules prohibiting discrimination in public schools, against a death penalty repeal, against providing tampons and napkins in public schools, against banning carcinogenic flame-retardants in carpets and furniture, against recreational marijuana, against allowing undocumented people to obtain driving licenses, against stiffer penalties for dog-fighting, against state medical and family leave, against diaper-changing stations in public washrooms and against the repeal of voter ID laws.He is beloved of the state's House Republican Alliance, the Liberty Alliance, the NRA, the Americans for Prosperity and the American Conservative Union.These organizations are nominally opposed to burdensome government regulation and intervention in the market, but Potucek's vote means that out-of-state monopolists like Apple and Samsung will get to tell New Hampshire's small business people whether and when they can repair property belonging to the people of New Hampshire.Potucek's characterization of $1,000 phones as "disposable" paints a picture of a man who is either totally out-of-touch with his constituents' daily lives, or so beholden to his ideology and the corporate dark money that comes with it that he refuses to consider that reality. Read the rest

Chelsea Miller is a knife maker, and in this video she shows how she makes six kinds of knives, ranging from a simple wood knife that is cut, sanded, and oiled, up to a chef's knife that's made from raw materials and requires many steps including heat treating the metal and making a wood handle. Read the rest

In Tel Aviv, a man protesting circumcision was threatened by a man with a knife. The protestor sprayed the attacker with pepper spray, and the attacker ran away. It is interesting to see how effective pepper spray is against someone with bad intentions.Anti circumcise activist gets knife threatened by religious guy in Tel Aviv from r/PublicFreakoutImage: Reddit Read the rest

The Crap Hound Big Book of Unhappiness is a 544-page compendium of vintage ads and archival ephemera selected and arranged by designer Sean Tejaratchi, publisher of the Crap Hound zine. I've been a huge fan of Sean's work for many years, and have every issue of Crap Hound. I made the video above to give you a taste of just how astounding this book is - it will provide a lifetime of browsing enjoyment.Sean and the publisher Feral House, kindly gave me permission to several spreads from the book. Read the rest

This time-lapse video of a sportsball player getting covered in sweat is a classic in the annals of time-lapse videos of sportsball players getting covered in sweat. Read the rest

In the market for a tablet or laptop? Last year's tech is this year's bargain, especially when it comes to Apple technology. Here are 11 refurbished Apple products on deep discount from retail, including iPads, MacBooks and more.Apple iPad Pro 10.5" 64GB - Space Grey (Certified Refurbished)With a 12 MP rear camera and 7 MP capability in the front, this 2017 model is the pad you want for next-level vacation footage. it comes fully equipped with wi-fi connectivity and 64GB of memory storage. Take a full 27% off the retail price today.Apple iPad Mini 2 Retina Display 32GB - Space Grey (Certified Refurbished)With its A7 chip, this Mini still delivers some of the fastest performance you can hold in one hand. The 10-hour battery life is also a highlight, allowing you to get plenty of work - or play - done on the go. This Mini 2 is currently on sale for 6% off the MSRP.Apple MacBook Air 11" 1.6GHz Intel Core i5 128GB - Black (Refurbished)The Intel Turbo Boost tech on the MacBook Air means you can count on extra power when you need it, no matter the connection. And with 128 GB of flash storage, this is a great repository for all your games and videos. Pick yours up for more than 42% off the original cost.Apple MacBook Air 11" 1.3GHz Intel Core i5 128GB - Original Silver (Refurbished)Sporting great resolution and an Intel® HD Graphics 5000 card, this is the way to view your favorite streams. Read the rest

There's no shortage of stories about the benefits of cannabidiol, that benign (and non-psychoactive) cousin of THC. Some have been using it for years to deal with pain, stress, and sleeplessness. And the more people use it, the more discussion there is about how to use it.While there's no shortage of quality edibles on the market, oils and tinctures are emerging as a quicker way to get the effects, and an easier way to manage the dosage. Here are three of our favorites, but remember: Check your local laws before you buy. And as with any medicinal product, consult your doctor to find out if it's right for you.Medix CBD Oil 100MG (15ML)Made with a blend of hemp seed oil and 99.9% pure CBD isolate, this remedy is fully vegan and gluten-free. While you can take a drop under the tongue, this one is especially ideal for mixing in your favorite foods or drinks. It won't affect the taste and delivers the same salvation from insomnia or stress. Get this 15ml bottle of Medix CBD Oil 100MG for $21.99, down 18% from the retail price.Sunday Scaries 500mg CBD Tincture Sunday Scaries products have been around since the dawn of the CBD explosion, and for good reason. Their tincture is fortified with full-spectrum CBD, plus vitamins B12 and B3 for an extra boost to the immune system. The whole cocktail is carried along in a coconut oil solution for a bit of an energy kick, and there are no GMOs in any of the ingredients. Read the rest

Earlier this year a tree fell on a power line in our neighborhood and we lost power. Fortunately I had one of these 12V to 110V AC Car Inverters to power our computers and charge our phones. It has two USB ports and two standard AC outlets. We have a plug-in hybrid so we didn't have to keep the car's gas engine running all the time, but even if you do have a gas-powered car, you can use this inverter for a short while to power appliances on an as-needed basis. It's on sale right now on Amazon. Read the rest

Enjoy these demonstrations of figure skating elements and moves that the International Skating Union ISU) has apparently banned from competition. Examples include a one-foot backflip, spinning your partner by their ankles, and even lying down on the ice. Here are the ISU's official rule books. Read the rest

David Crosby's "If I Could Only Remember My Name" (1971) is one of my favorite records of all time. I'm excited to watch Cameron Crow's documentary about him, "Remember My Name," especially after seeing this delightful clip of Croz recounting the time he was so high while at a jazz club during a John Coltrane gig that he had to hide in the bathroom. And then -- surprise -- Coltrane himself burst into the bathroom playing his horn. In the video above, Crosby beautifully expresses what it sounded like.(Spin) Read the rest

Vorkuta, Russia is the fourth largest city north of the Arctic Circle. This coal-mining town has a population of 70,000 (it's been declining every year since the late 1980s). If you wish to live there, you can buy this 3-bedroom apartment for the price of an iPhone. The plush lion toy may not be included in the price.It looks like an interesting place! Image: by f-Lars, CC BY 3.0, LinkThe palm trees are a nice touch:Top Image: Avito[via Peter from Texas] Read the rest

A promotional company asked people to draw famous logos from memory and arranged the results on a graph, from least accurate to most accurate. I would do terrible at most of these. Some people were able to draw logos that looked exactly like the official ones.[via Core 77]See also: Drawing Mickey Mouse from memory Read the rest

Olmsted County, Minnesota's History Center are sharing portraits of the creepiest dolls in their antiques collection. Folks can vote online for their favorite and the winner will be on display next week for Halloween. From MPR News:"The doll I disdain handling is the one with human hair,” said curator Dan Nowakowski as he holds up a doll from the 1800s with an impressive braid and a dead-eye stare...One creepshow contender was made with cloth for the head and limbs. "And then it was painted with a facial tone color, but the paint has chipped away,” Nowakowski said. “And now, unfortunately with the paint chipping, it looks like a mummy."Nowakowski said that for a lot of the collection's dolls, the unsettling freakiness is all in the eyes. Read the rest

Frank Wu writes, "Brianna Wu (US Congressional candidate in MA-8 and cybersecurity expert) has a brand new article in The Boston Globe about election security. People think electronic voting machines are the biggest problem. They're wrong. The electronic VOTER ROLLS are the largest attack surface for hackers. 2% of all ballots cast (enough to sway many elections) are provisional and that number is growing."So, how are our voter rolls compromised? The movies might have you believe that it’s shadowy hackers writing custom malware to target high-level officials, but the truth is often a lot simpler. It’s the same way everything else is hacked: phishing schemes, recycled passwords, and unsuspecting election workers clicking on attachments that end up being malware. These concerns are far from theoretical. In 2016, election workers in San Mateo fell for spear-phishing attacks and had their email systems, as well as the website publishing voter eligibility and poll locations, compromised.With the 2002 Help America Vote Act, congress allocated $3.8 billion to strengthen our election systems. While this might sound like a generous amount of funding, consider that we spent over $100 billion preparing for Y2K, a far less complex technical problem. According to a 2019 report commissioned by Homeland Security, this funding “was not enough to have a significant impact.” In September, Congress allocated a mere $250 million dollars for election security.All of this is a strong argument for federal investment in a national electronic voter registration system. We can’t feasibly secure every machine in every office for 56 separate systems across our country, but we can build a world-class database with top-of-the-line security. Read the rest

Snopes looked into this viral video of a very young kid (some people are saying she is 10 months old) drawing excellent cat cartoons. Snopes found several "small oddities" suggesting subterfuge: "For instance, the child turns its head around the 7-second mark after apparently hearing a noise, but the baby’s hands continue to draw on the paper. And at the end of the video, the tail on the third character simply appears on the paper out-of-sync with the child’s hand movements."Snopes found other videos of the same child demonstrating remarkable talent:Snopes concludes:If we presume that the Peppa Pig backpack in the background of the viral video belongs to this child (in other clips the child can be seen drawing Peppa Pig and wearing clothes featuring the cartoon character), it may be reasoned that this child was at least old enough to attend school and likely 4-5 years old. If that’s the case, while this child’s artistic abilities were impressive, such skills would be plausible. The child in this video seems much younger that 4-5 years old. I'd say 2 years old is more likely. Read the rest

A family visited the Bragg Funeral Home in Paterson, New Jersey for a private viewing of their deceased relative Doris Chapman. When they opened the casket though, it wasn't Champman inside but someone else wearing Chapman's clothing. And the funeral home employees didn't believe them. They plan to sue. The family says that no matter how many times they told the workers that the body was not Chapman’s, they were told otherwise."They kept on insisting that was my grandmother, that things do happen, the body does change…we couldn’t believe it, but we had no choice but to believe it for the moment,” (Geralyn) McNeal says.“We thought that the funeral home knew best. They were telling us that she was not ready, ‘She won't look like this when we're done,’” says Chapman’s niece Valencia Coney.The family says that Chapman’s body was in the casket the next day for the service. They say that at least one funeral home employee admitted to the mistake. Read the rest

When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez grilled Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in Congress this week, she asked him about his "ongoing dinner parties with far-right figures" -- that is to say, the meals where he listens to Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, Hugh Hewitt and other Nazi- and Nazi-adjacent figures whine about "leftist social media bias."The criticism wounded the beleaguered billionaire, who used his own Facebook account to complain about it and to clarify that he eats with these would-be ethnic cleaners because he throws dinners where he can hear from "lots of people across the spectrum on lots of different issues all the time."Facebook's spokespeople could not name anyone from any part of "the spectrum" who wasn't to the right of Fox News, however, so The Intercept's Jon Schwarz canvassed the editors of The Nation, Mother Jones, Black Agenda Report, Jacobin, Current Affairs, FAIR, Democracy Now, and other members of the sweeping left-wing media cabal, and, surprisingly enough, not one of them has ever been invited to one of Zuck's dinners.Look, we all know why Zuck is masticating the far-right's most prominent grifter thinkfluencers: it's because he's fallen for the right's most tiresome rhetorical gimmick, in which they claim that because the press refuses to pretend that (say) climate change isn't real, or that (say) tax breaks for the rich don't create jobs, or that (say) Sandy Hook wasn't a false-flag masterminded by gun-grabbers, that there is "bias" in the system.And they're right: it's totally true that reality has a well-known leftist bias, which is why any moderation effort that prohibited literal Nazis would block "mainstream Conservatives" in the bargain. Read the rest

In Yelville, Arkansas, a 66-year-old experienced hunter died after he was gored by a buck he shot. From CNN:When his nephew found him, the hunter was alert and talking, and was even able to call his wife. But he stopped breathing by the time paramedics could get him to the hospital, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said.Officials are not certain that the antler wounds are the official cause of his death, the commission said in a statement. He may have died from other medical issues such as a heart attack, the statement said, but there will be no autopsy.Injuries resulting from wounded deer are not uncommon, said Joe Dale Purdom from the Game and Fish Commission. Read the rest

Earlier this week alleged serial rapist Harvey Weinstein attended a event called Actors Hour at Downtime Bar in New York city. Weinstein and his entourage were seated at a prime table, which was allegedly reserved for him by Actors Hour producer Alexandra Laliberte. When several women complained about Weinstein being there, they were scolded and removed from the bar.One woman in attendance, Amber Rollo, posted a thread about it on Twitter. She said she approached Weinstein's table and "called him a fucking monster and told him he should disappear. His friend/body guard/goon/family member called me a cunt and I really really wanted to lunge over the table and strangle him."Keep getting new followers today is it because my tweets are so fire? lol fuck Weinstein and thanks @ambercrollo ILY #mysecondtweet pic.twitter.com/hLjWn5VM8Y— Kelly Bachman (@bellykachman) October 24, 2019Kelly Bachman, one of the performers at the event, talked in stage about being in the same room as "Freddy Krueger" and remarked "I didn't know we had to bring our own mace and rape whistles to Actors Hour." One or two men loudly booed and told her to "shut up."Another woman, actor Zoe Stuckless, approached Weinstein's table and expressed outrage that he was at the bar:Hey all, I know I’m late to the conversation here. I don’t usually use twitter but it seems like that’s where a lot of this conversation is happening. Last night I confronted Harvey Weinstein in a bar along with a number of other artists. Read the rest

I miss living in that world where a giant pitcher of Kool-Aid could have reasonably come busting through a wall at any moment. Things are a lot worse now.OH YEAH!Funko knows. This is the Koolest.Funko Pop! AD Icons: Kool-Aid - Kool-Aid Man via Amazon Read the rest

For those times when you are short a nickle, it's nice to know you have one stashed away.The replies to the tweet are amusing, because more than a few people seem to think this is a joke and not a valuable life hack.at no point in this video did i know what was coming next pic.twitter.com/XXaIlfc4bk— ً₂₄ (@ELMXRIACHI) October 24, 2019Image: Twitter Read the rest

As Joe Biden cruises towards his latest (and final?) humiliating defeat in a Democratic primary, The Senator from MNBA is talking a big game about how he will reverse his decades-long dependence on massive cash infusions from America's richest, worst people to sustain his political career.And it true that his (anemic, underfunded) campaign isn't directly taking money from big corporations. But since Citizens United, campaigns no longer have to climb into bed with the ultra-wealthy and their terrible corporations in order to become beholden to them: thanks to PACs and Super PACs, a literally unlimited amount of money can get behind a candidate like Tailgunner Joe in a bid to propel a corporate-friendly "centrist" to the presidency.Enter Larry Rasky, a key figure in the creation of the Biden Super PAC, and also founder of Rasky Partners, lobbyists for Raytheon, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, and the Republic of Azerbaijan (as well as former clients like the Education Finance Council). Rasky is joined by fellow lobbyist Steve Schale, whose clients include the Florida Hospital Association, JetBlue Airways, State Farm Insurance, Walt Disney Parks, AT&T, and the Associated Industries of Florida. The Biden campaign has been in bed with America's most notorious lobbyists literally since day one, when the campaign launched at a private party held at the stately mansion of Comcast's chief lobbyist.Biden has articulated the problem with big-money donations in the past, noting that privately financed elections allow those donors greater access to politicians than ordinary Americans. Read the rest

The Really Online Lefty League has a wonderful ad running on Facebook. Using archival footage of Republican leaders speaking up for the environment, to prove AOC's point about Facebook being untrustworthy and duplicitous, the ad shows Lindsay Graham backing the Green New Deal.Facebook approves Green New Deal ad featuring endorsement by Sen. Lindsey Graham pic.twitter.com/3GHOvK5akQ— Adriel Hampton 🦇 (@adrielhampton) October 25, 2019 Video Link Read the rest

It is unsurprising that anyone in America would snub Mitch McConnell, however, the look on Chuck Schumer's face is priceless.The look between McConnell and Schumer when the brother doesn’t shake Mitch’s hand 💀💀💀👀 pic.twitter.com/UbRXLhtW36— chris evans (@notcapnamerica) October 24, 2019 Read the rest

The brilliant optical illusions of stop motion animator Kevin Parry. Read the rest

For Inktober, Sabtastic has been drawing birds that have earned notoriety for their criminal behavior.Are you online enough to recognize these crooked birds?Day 14 of #inktober involves pigeon ESPIONAGE! More #birdcrimes!This little bird was arrested in Pakistan for spying when a message was found stamped onto its wing feathers!Source below! 👇👀 pic.twitter.com/cIYy4dohfn— Sabtastic @ Halcon 520 (@Sabtastique) October 15, 2019Telegraph:A suspected Pakistani 'spy pigeon' seized just inside India's border faces X-ray by security officials to ensure the bird is not carrying hidden messages, or spy gadgets.Made it to #inktober Day 23! This Arabian Green Parrot was arrested for helping its drug dealer owners. When police came near the house for a drug raid, it screamed "MOM! The POLICE!" 🚔 #birdcrimes pic.twitter.com/GHEmx9Zhjf— Sabtastic @ Halcon 520 (@Sabtastique) October 24, 2019Guardian:A parrot has been taken into custody in northern Brazil following a police raid targeting crack dealers.According to reports in the Brazilian press, the bird had been taught to alert criminals to police operations in Vila Irmã Dulce, a low-income community in the sun-scorched capital of Piauí state, by shouting: “Mum, the police!”My favourite #birdcrimes story of all time features Canuck the Crow! 🍁🔪 This little troublemaker got his infamous reputation for stealing a KNIFE from an active CRIME SCENE! This also marks day 20 of #inktober! pic.twitter.com/6qVBZjZeAV— Sabtastic @ Halcon 520 (@Sabtastique) October 22, 2019CBC:Canuck became a media celebrity in 2016 after he stole a knife from a Vancouver crime scene. Read the rest

From the Kino Library comes this set of film clips shot on the London Underground in the 1960s and 1970s. View at end of tube platform looking up at crowded platform and tube train, Victoria, pulling in. Men and women passengers board train, pushing on. POV from front of train through tunnel and past passengers waiting on platform as it comes to a halt. Shot on board tube carriage, sun streams through windows as it rides through London suburbs. Men in bowler hats reading newspapers. One woman in 1960s outfit sits in FG. Commuters. Passengers bounce around as train moves. Scene gets darker as train goes through tunnel. INT dark tube carriage. Men and women sit reading, quiet. INT tube station great shot at base of escalator, people coming down. Lots of miniskirts. Late 1960s fashions. 1960s passengers out of tube and up stairs, poster just seen ‘Heals Sale Now On’. People walking up stairs. People coming down escalator. I lived in London in the late 1970s, when it was as depicted here but more run down, and the late 1990s, when it was all being renovated into a clean new sci-fi set. Different worlds! (Except for the Northern Line, which for some reason was not being upgraded and I guess is still exactly like this video.) Read the rest

Disney is making it very tempting to join Disney+, their new entertainment streaming service, by offering a docuseries that puts a spotlight on its Imagineers. Entertainment Weekly:The Imagineering Story, a docuseries from The Pixar Story filmmaker Leslie Iwerks, pulls back the curtain on the work of the brilliant artist-engineers who have made real-life magic at the Disney Parks for decades. Narrated by Angela Bassett, the six-hour series chronicles the history of the Imagineers, beginning with the inception of Disneyland and tracing the development of all the of the Disney parks and all of the fantastical lands within them (yes, including Galaxy’s Edge) to the present day.The trailer for it promises a look behind the scenes of the Matterhorn and other restricted areas of Disney parks:The Imagineering Story will premiere November 12, the same day the new service launches. To be clear: the series will only be available on Disney+, which is $6.99/month or $69.99/year. I'm personally thinking it might be worth checking out.image via EW Read the rest

"Heard you say I'm not the saddest clown, you lied"You haven't heard Lizzo's "Juice" until you've heard a sad 6'8"-tall clown sing it. Puddles does this one "Quiet Storm Style."Our friend, Rebekah Del Rio, asked me how I would feel about doing Lizzo's song. I said I'd give it a go. I like saying yes first. This is how it turned out. I don't understand some of the references in it but I love me some Lizzo. Jonathan Burns helped me transcribe the lyrics. I especially like the David Copperfield lyric. And yes, that's really my voice. I didn't know I could do that before. Read the rest