"Shipworms" are a menace, devouring the wood in ships and docks. For a while, as the New York Times explains, the pollution in New York harbor actually had some benefit in fighting them:By the 1960s, the waters had become overrun with raw sewage and oil and chemicals discharged by factories. “Industries were using the harbor as a dumping ground,” Mr. Goldstein said. “You wouldn’t want to swim or eat the fish, and only the bravest would take out a kayak.”Indeed, there were stories of boats being taken into the polluted harbor just to clean off any marine borers from other waters.The good news is New York waterways are increasingly clean thanks to laws like the the 1972 Clean Water Act. But the bad news is the clean water has allowed marine borers to flourish:Marine borers took out a heavily used Brooklyn footbridge over Sheepshead Bay in 2015, requiring the city to close it for several months to repair a hole-ridden foundation. The borers have also weakened timber pilings under the Carroll Street Bridge over the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, and under the F.D.R. Drive in Manhattan.Along the New Jersey waterfront their handiwork led most notably to the partial collapse of a pier at Frank Sinatra Park in Hoboken.Now the city is spending massive amounts to fight the pests, including $114 million to coat the 11,000 timber pilings under Brooklyn Bridge Park with epoxy.(Image of Teredo navalis from Popular Science Monthly, September 1878 and Wikipedia.) Read the rest

Are you the driver in the lot who parks in the first spot you see? Or do you circle around and around looking for a spot by the door? Physicists Paul Krapivsky of Boston University and Sidney Redner of the Santa Fe Institute explored the mathematics of parking. The research required different equations and simulations to model the benefits of the various parking approaches. From EurkeAlert!:In their paper, Krapivsky and Redner map three simple parking strategies onto an idealized, single row parking lot. Drivers who grab the first space available follow what the authors call a "meek" strategy. They "waste no time looking for a parking spot," leaving spots near the entrance unfilled. Those who gamble on finding a space right next to the entrance are "optimistic." They drive all the way to the entrance, then backtrack to the closest vacancy. "Prudent" drivers take the middle path. They drive past the first available space, betting on the availability of at least one other space further in. When they find the closest space between cars, they take it. If no spaces exist between the furthest parked car and the entrance, prudent drivers backtrack to the space a meek driver would have claimed straightaway.So which strategy is best? As the name suggests, the prudent strategy. Overall, it costs drivers the least amount of time, followed closely by the optimistic strategy. The meek strategy was "risibly inefficient," to quote the paper, as the many spaces it left empty created a lengthy walk to the entrance. Read the rest

Mattel, makers of Barbie and many other toys, has launched "Creatable World," a line of $30 customizable dolls with "extensive wardrobe options, accessories and wigs allow kids to style the doll with short or long hair, or in a skirt, pants, or both."“Toys are a reflection of culture and as the world continues to celebrate the positive impact of inclusivity, we felt it was time to create a doll line free of labels,” Kim Culmone, Senior Vice President of Mattel Fashion Doll Design, said in a statement. “Through research, we heard that kids don’t want their toys dictated by gender norms. This line allows all kids to express themselves freely which is why it resonates so strongly with them. We’re hopeful Creatable World will encourage people to think more broadly about how all kids can benefit from doll play.”Creatable World dolls (Amazon) Read the rest

A Swiss tourist ate acid and disappeared into the vortex that is Disneyland Paris. He was spat out just under a mile away from the park, naked.Washington Post:For hours, worried Disneyland employees combed the park, but there was no sign of the Swiss engineer. He hadn’t climbed onto the pirate ship, or hopped on the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril ride, or hauled himself onto Pirates’ Beach. The search party came to include 10 divers, 10 policemen, 30 firefighters and 80 Disneyland Paris employees, Le Parisien reported. By then, it had grown dark, making it harder for them to peer into the lagoon circling Adventureland, and dogs and a police helicopter with a thermal camera were brought in for backup.Early the next morning, as the search continued, a 44-year-old man driving home from work came across an odd sight in the town of Chessy, a little more than a mile from Disneyland Paris.“I came face to face with a naked man,” the driver, who asked only to be identified as Benoit, told Le Parisien. “He was walking in the middle of the road. He did not have a centimeter of clothes on him and he was barefoot.” My late 20s may or may not have involved generous experimentation with psychedelics while visiting Disneyland. Read the rest

This security cam video was taken at night in a street in Argentina. We see a man press a doorbell when two people on a motorcycle arrive. The rider hops off, draws a pistol, and aims it at the man's head. It takes a couple of seconds for the robber to realize that his would-be victim is a friend. The pair share a warm embrace before the robber hops on the motorcycle and rides off. The commotion wakes a dog on the sidewalk.Only in Argentina.Robber realized that it was robbing his friend pic.twitter.com/AmUyRcgLLm— Mariano (@Mariandipietra) September 25, 2019 Image: Twitter Read the rest

Them dukes, them dukes.The Root:The city’s report reveals that Anderson told investigators that his love of artifacts related to the treacherous Confederacy and one of the nation’s first terrorist groups, the KKK, was completely tied to his fandom of the fictional, fast-driving, fun-loving Bo and Luke Duke of Hazzard fame.“I have a very, very large collection of The Dukes of Hazzard,” Anderson told investigators, the News reports. “I have gone to their meets. They call it a Duke’s Fest. It’s where you go Down South and you meet in a state, all Dukes of Hazzard fans get together.”“I love The Dukes of Hazzard. That’s the reason for the Confederate flags,” he continued. “They mean nothing other than it was just part of that collection.”Do not mess with Flash. Read the rest

Uhh what’s it like? pic.twitter.com/7G2jiwdMvO— Silvia Killingsworth (@silviakillings) September 25, 2019 "Shaking the champagne bottle." Read the rest

A woman in Austria was expecting a package of dresses she had ordered from a Dutch retailer. Two boxes from the Netherlands showed up at her door and while one of them contained her clothing, the other was packed with 25,000 tabs of MDMA worth a few hundred thousand dollars. From CNN:The unnamed Austrian woman, 58, mistook the purple pills for decorative stones, police said, but on closer inspection her husband, 59, realized they were probably stimulants and returned the package to their local post office in Linz, Upper Austria..."The (post) office was equally astonished, which is why the police, and subsequently the narcotics department of the City Police Command Linz, was informed."Following an investigation by Linz's drugs squad it transpired that the package was intended for Scotland. Police Scotland and the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) are jointly investigating the matter. Read the rest

A gentleman was arrested in Portsmouth, England after punching a police horse during a riot following a soccer game. He apparently was angry that Portsmouth lost to Southampton. It isn't clear why he blamed the horse though. From The Telegraph:In the footage of the aftermath of the first match in seven years between bitter rivals Southampton and Portsmouth, the supporter then attempts to run from the horse, but his path is blocked as he ends up in the arms of a group of police officers with riot shields.Hampshire Constabulary said a 52-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of animal cruelty and attempted criminal damage. He was later released but remains under investigation. Read the rest

After promising a transcript of a controversial call between Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, the White House today released a summary offering details of the conversation but specifically disclaimed as "not a verbatim transcript". The call was exposed by a still-secret whistleblower complaint, but it was understood Trump asked Zelensky to launch an investigation into Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. He repeatedly did so, according to the summary, which also implicates Attorney General William Barr and Trump gofer Rudy Giuliani in the plan. It's probably just there to show that Trump didn't finish his sentence, but what a spot to put ellipsis: Read the rest

In a blog post, Facebook executive Nick Clegg announced that Facebook will exempt politicians from rules that prohibit users from posting hate speech, encouraging criminal activity, inciting violence and, of course, posting fake news.Facebook has had a newsworthiness exemption since 2016. This means that if someone makes a statement or shares a post which breaks our community standards we will still allow it on our platform if we believe the public interest in seeing it outweighs the risk of harm. Today, I announced that from now on we will treat speech from politicians as newsworthy content that should, as a general rule, be seen and heard. However, in keeping with the principle that we apply different standards to content for which we receive payment, this will not apply to adsIn the same posting, Clegg disclosed that Facebook hasn't been fact-checking politicans' posts as indicated in the past:Also, just FTR, Facebook hasn't been fact-checking posts by politicians: pic.twitter.com/PLfEgpXZ2o— Natalie Martinez (@natijomartinez) September 24, 2019Facebook's approach to fake news and hate speech was always a gloss on its endless cowering before conservative politicians and pundits. This is another act of supplication to the right, Zuckerberg and co. whining but we gave you everything you wanted as congress and Trump set out to regulate them for good.Clegg was himself a politician, oddly enough, most famous for an ultimately humiliating stint as Britain's deputy prime minister that nearly destroyed his party. Read the rest

The U.S. military fears incels will commit acts of violence at screenings of the edgy new Joker movie, and has warned troops to keep an eye out for them at screenings. Gizmodo:In a September 18th email, service members were instructed to remain aware of their surroundings and “identify two escape routes” when entering theaters. In the event of a shooting, they were instructed to “run, hide, fight.”“Run if you can,” the safety notice said. “If you’re stuck, hide (also known as ‘sheltering in place’), and stay quiet. If a shooter finds you, fight with whatever you can.” It has no specific intelligence. Military officers just watched the trailers, like everyone else. They thought about comic book movies shot in a naturalistic style. They thought about the consequences of depicting the character as a lonely Nice Guy taking revenge on society. And they decided to put a marker down. Read the rest

And, they vibrate!Bay Area-based artivist collective Loud and Queer have developed a line of vibrating sex toys that are created to be gender inclusive.TechCrunch:Sex toys are oftentimes geared toward cisgender and heteronormative people. Cute Little Fuckers aims to do away with that and instead focuses on sex toys that are gender-inclusive. That means these toys are for everyone, including folks who are transgender, queer, intersex, non-binary, genderqueer, cisgender, male, female and more.“I am gender fluid and do a lot of sex-positive and queer activism,” CLF founder Step Tranovich told TechCrunch. “I felt like there weren’t a lot of toys that felt gender-inclusive. As someone who spends a lot of time helping people feel more sexually expressive, a lot of toys felt very stiff or foreboding.”...Each monster has its own name, pronouns and likes. They live out their lives in the Cute Little Fuckers webcomic series. The toys are silicone, vibrate at five different speeds and are USB rechargeable and waterproof. Read the rest

Want to build your own website? Even for a modest personal site, it was once assumed you might wait for days or weeks while a web designer hammered through arcane code on your behalf.That all sounds a little ridiculous today. And if you had to thank one company for that, it would probably be Wix. If you're looking to build a solid web presence, good news: Wix is still going strong, and subscriptions are super cheap.What does the Wix Editor do? It streamlines the process of building a website with a simple drag-and-drop interface that anyone can master, and it does all this without skimping on functionality. You can choose from hundreds of templates, then trick them out with animations, video backgrounds and more. Once it's up, you can take advantage of 10 GB of media storage, and widgets that allow you to track traffic or moderate ads.In short, it democratizes the web, prompting sites like Techradar to call it the best website builder of 2019. Right now, you can take your pick of subscription plans to Wix: 68% off for one month or a full 73% off for a whole year. Read the rest

After the roaring success of its butterfly keyboard design, Apple has an idea to make its laptops even thinnner: attach keys directly to a membrane on the printed circuit board. Apple Insider:In Apple's filing, the company suggests the use of a single membrane sheet adhered directly to the printed circuit board (PCB). A switch housing can optionally be affixed directly to the membrane layer or to the PCB, sandwiched between the two, and a dome switch coupled directly on top to the membrane layer.Generally the membrane is not typically attached to the PCB, but is used to help facilitate the closing of a connection, to trigger the key press. By attaching the membrane completely across the PCB, this eliminates any wasted space and brings the components closer together. Read the rest

The good folks at Choir! Choir! Choir! (previously) are still doing their thing, and now they've included both Patti Smith and Stewart Copeland to play along: On April 13, 2019, Patti Smith + Stewart Copeland (on percussion) joined Choir! Choir! Choir! at Onassis Festival 2019: Democracy Is Coming, co-presented by The Public Theatre and Onassis USA. Together, we sang Patti Smith's anthem "People Have The Power" with a sold-out crowd and Stewart Copeland played percussion, especially a Brazilian samba frying pan! Consequence of Sound:Choir! Choir! Choir! have shared the video of the collaboration ahead of their special concert along the US/Mexico border. Taking place October 13th at California’s Boarder Field State Park, the performance will find some 300 people on the Tijuana side and 500 on the San Diego side singing “With a Little Help from My Friends” together. Presented by University of California San Diego’s ArtPower, the border show is part of C!C!C!’s fall tour, tickets for which can be found here.screenshot via C!C!C! Read the rest

6'9" WNBA star Liz Cambage is featured in ESPN's 2019 body issue. She arrived at the arena for the Las Vegas Aces' playoff game wearing a shirt featuring the issues cover photo..@ecambage rocking the Body Issue shirt ahead of Game 4 🔥 (via @WNBA)#WNBAPlayoffspic.twitter.com/n9FJml5Ckq— espnW (@espnW) September 25, 2019Earlier this month, she went with the super villain look:.@ecambage showing up in all black with the face mask 😳#WNBAPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/jCf3FOEwB3— espnW (@espnW) September 15, 2019And here's a very sweet moment with a young fan:This interaction between Liz Cambage and a young fan will be the sweetest thing you see all day ❤️😭(via @LVAces)pic.twitter.com/66KdbAIttZ— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) July 22, 2019 Read the rest

Tom the Dancing Bug, IN WHICH we may wonder whether Li'l Don Trump's series of denials are truthful

Maybe you've seen the video that's gone viral on Twitter of a helicopter trimming the trees in a forest by dangling a massive chainsaw that's composed of ten spinning blades?If not, maybe take a minute to check it out; it is probably impossible to be disappointed by that minute of your life.Anyway, helicopter chainsaw-ing has been going on for some years; it's often used to efficiently trim greenery that's growing too close to power lines. Popular Mechanics hunted down a company that offers it as a service and got the 411 on what it's like to pilot one of these dread mechanisms:The 2-foot diameter blades turn at 4,000 rpm and are powered by a 28-horsepower engine controlled by the pilot, according to T&D World. It's challenging work, but plenty of additional safety measures are in place. If a saw catches on a branch, for instance, the pilot can release the entire saw and fly off.As you'd expect, it takes a lot of training to wield this wily air saw. The more than 30 Aerial Solutions pilots who conduct this work must have over 1,000 flying hours, and a dedicated crew of mechanics is tasked with maintaining the choppers. "One of the things that we focus on—and this was part of William Cox and the Rogers Family's agreement—is to make sure that we have a safe operation," Aerial Solutions Inc.'s general manager Ted McAllister tells Popular Mechanics.The air saw is best used in inaccessible mountainous regions and in tight spots, such as between a pipeline or power lines and the surrounding forest. Read the rest

Jen Wang (previously) is several kinds of excellent comics person: from her debut graphic novel Koko Be Good (a complex and heartfelt take on "manic pixie dream girls") to her award-winning, bestselling, brilliant genderqueer fairy tale The Prince and the Dressmaker, to In Real Life, the middle-grades comic she adapted from my story Anda's Game to the unmissably fantastic annual comics fair she started in LA, she is versatile, smart, compassionate and immensely talented. Now, in her latest, Stargazing, a semi-autobiographical graphic novel for young readers, she brings the action closer to home than ever, and yields up a tale of friendship, identity, talent and loyalty like no other.Christine is a Chinese-American kid struggling to live up to her parents' expectations for her achievements in school, Chinese classes, church, and violin. All that changes when her parents invite a poor single mother and her daughter, Moon, to come and live in their granny flat, and Christine discovers a whole new way of being in the world.Moon isn't like any of Christine's friends: obsessed with K-Pop, indifferent to her grades, consumed with drawing, and, it turns out, overtaken with the secret conviction that she is an alien being who is waiting to be summoned back to the cosmos by her real family. She's also a Buddhist and a vegetarian and is rumored to have been kicked out of her old school for fighting.Christine's growing friendship with Moon -- established through a series of largely wordless, brilliantly illustrated sequences that are Jen Wang's superpower -- triggers profound changes for Christine and her relationships with her family, friends, and her identity as an "Asian kid" with all the baggage that comes with it. Read the rest

That theme song rattles around my head. Read the rest

She thought it was an old Greek religious icon. It was a lost masterpiece worth $6 million or more.A painting that has now been attributed to the 13th century Italian master Cimabue was recently discovered in a French woman’s kitchen. The artwork is expected to sell for millions of euros at auction.The small painting on wood measures 10 inches by 8 inches (24 centimeters by 20 centimeters). Titled “Christ Mocked,” it shows Christ in a crowd, and is believed to be part of a diptych Cimabue painted circa 1280.From the Associated Press:Until recently, the painting hung on a wall between the kitchen and the dining room of a home in Compiègne. The woman considered it an icon of little importance until an auctioneer spotted the painting while going through her house and suggested bringing it to art experts, Pinta said.Cimabue, who taught Italian master Giotto, is widely considered the forefather of the Italian Renaissance. He broke from the Byzantine style popular in the Middle Ages and incorporated elements of movement and perspective that came to characterize Western painting.After examining the French kitchen find, Turquin gallery specialists concluded with “certitude” it bore hallmarks of Cimabue’s work, Pinta said.They noted clear similarities with the two panels of Cimabue’s diptych, one displayed at the Frick Collection in New York and the other at the National Gallery in London.Medieval masterpiece by Cimabue rediscovered in French house[PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK]A woman in France didn't realise that the painting hanging in her kitchen is a 13th-century masterpiece by Italian painter Cimabue. Read the rest

Officers in the Burlington, Massachusetts police department temporarily performed the work of Amazon drivers when a number of undelivered (misdelivered?) packages were found in a local cemetery.A diligent grounds keeper at the Chestnut Hill Cemetery came across something suspicious this morning and called us right away.It appears that a number of Amazon Packages were dumped in one of their garbage disposal bins.We are investigating to see how they wound up there. pic.twitter.com/cI11ewRoHc— Burlington Police MA (@burlingtonpd) September 23, 2019A “diligent groundskeeper” at the nearby cemetery discovered the Amazon packages on Monday in a trash bin, and got in touch with the Burlington MA PD.AP:Police did not say exactly how many packages there were, but photos posted on social media showed about 20.The packages were addressed to Burlington residents, so police took it upon themselves to deliver them.They are also investigating to determine how the packages ended up at the cemetery and have contacted Amazon.[image: shutterstock] Read the rest

This is an interesting move.An estimated 80 people who work at Google in Pittsburgh as contracted employees have voted to join the United Steelworkers trade union.“To my knowledge, there is not another all tech-local in the United States,” USW organizer Damon DiCicco told a reporter.“If you ask me, I would say in 10 years we’re going to see a lot more efforts like this.”“The workers voted in favor of unionization at the East Liberty Carnegie Library on Tuesday,” reports Pittsburgh's CBS TV News affiliate KDKA.The vote came in with 49 in favor and 24 against. Of the 80 employees, 73 took part in today’s vote.The workers are employed by Google contractor, HCL Technologies in the Bakery Square office.Google issued this statement:“We work with lots of partners, many of which have unionized workforces, and many of which don’t. As with all our partners, whether HCL’s employees unionize or not is between them and their employer.”About 80 Contracted Google employees are looking to unionize. They are having a vote until 2. Supporters are in East Liberty helping employees get out and vote. pic.twitter.com/7kvQMTSqbb— Chris Hoffman (@NewsmanChris) September 24, 2019 Read more: About 80 Contracted Google Employees To Join United Steelworkers UnionHere is the response by their company, HCL. pic.twitter.com/NVvGpXoUtY— Chris Hoffman (@NewsmanChris) September 24, 2019 Read the rest

When high school administrators asked wealthy California wastewater executive Devin Sloane (53) why his son got accepted to the University of Southern California as a water polo recruit even though he had never played the sport, Sloane "expressed outrage," reports NPR.Today in court, Sloane choked back sobs in front of the judge, saying "he was doing what he thought was best for his son," by paying consultant Rick Singer $250,000 to make fake water polo photos of his son and bribing a USC coach to accept him.On Tuesday, Prosecutor Eric Rosen explained how Sloane purchased water polo equipment, including a Speedo, water polo ball and Italy flag cap, and put his son in the family pool to stage water polo photos that were doctored to gain admission to the university.Sloane then sent the photos to William "Rick" Singer, the consultant who masterminded the fraud scandal, and wrote, "Hope this works."Rosen said Sloane used his dead mother as a prop for a fake donation and expressed outrage when high school counselors questioned why his son, who did not play water polo, was being recruited to play college water polo. Sloane's participation in the college bribery scheme, Rosen said, did not end "at the edges of his family's infinity pool."Sloane, the founder and general manager of the Los Angeles-based water company waterTALENT, was sentenced to four months in prison, "ordered to perform 500 hours of community service and pay a fine of $95,000," according to NPR. Read the rest

You need this.Unmute it and turn up the sound -- then prepare for your dogs to freak out.Has anyone remixed this yet?The kid gets it.Party hard!And here's another sweet Basset Hound who loved to sing.Bassett hound singing Read the rest

A U.S. judge today dismissed a lawsuit by an American journalist who sought to challenge his placement on a drone “kill list” by U.S. authorities in Syria.DC federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by a US citizen journalist who believes he may be on the US govt's "Kill List" (as a terrorist approved for targeting in Syria) — the judge dismissed it based on the govt invoking the state secrets privilege https://t.co/jkd3vPOnjd pic.twitter.com/OSOPdxQYdW— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) September 24, 2019 In fighting Bilal Abdul Kareem's lawsuit, the Trump administration successfully invoked the “state secrets” privilege to withhold sensitive national security information.In her 14-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of Washington, D.C. said she was bound to agree with the government, and said its right to withhold information in such instances is “absolute.”“What constitutional right is more essential than the right to due process before the government may take a life? While the answer may be none, federal courts possess limited authority to resolve questions presented in a lawsuit, even when they are alleged to involve constitutional rights. This is such a case,” Collyer wrote. “Despite the serious nature of Plaintiff’s allegations, this Court must dismiss the action pursuant to the government’s invocation of the state secrets privilege.”From Spencer S. Hsu at the Washington Post:[Judge Collyer] last year had opened the way for Bilal Abdul Kareem, a freelance journalist who grew up in New York, to seek answers in his civil case from the government and to try to clear his name after what he claims were five near-misses by U.S. Read the rest

Robert Hunter, who penned the lyrics to the majority of the Grateful Dead's songs, died last night at age 78. Hunter first met Jerry Garcia in 1961 and went on to write the words to such classics as Ripple, Dark Star, To Lay Me Down, Fire on the Mountain, Truckin', Touch of Grey, and nearly every other great Dead song. After Garcia's death, Hunter collaborated with Elvis Costello, Bruce Hornsby, and Bob Dylan. From Rolling Stone:While Hunter and Garcia played in a few bluegrass bands together, the former passed on an offer to join Garcia’s pre-Grateful Dead jug band to focus instead on writing. At Stanford, Hunter took part in an early LSD experiment (“I had a romping good time,” he recalled) and dabbled in Scientology, but eventually he began to struggle with speed and meth, prompting him to leave the Bay Area for New Mexico. There, Hunter began writing more songs — including future Dead classics “St. Stephen,” “China Cat Sunflower” and “Alligator — which he sent to Garcia, who encouraged him to return to San Francisco and join the Dead as their lyricist.Back in the Bay Area, Hunter would join the band at rehearsals and write lyrics. During one session, Hunter began writing lyrics to accompany an instrumental the band was working on; the result, “Dark Star,” was both a landmark for the band and also the official start of Hunter’s new role as the lyricist in residence.Hunter was even aware of the song’s significance at the time. Read the rest

Embattled office space startup founder Adam Neumann has been forced out of his position as the chief executive of WeWork (We Co), WSJ reports.The company is about to go public, and a nasty exposé in the press about drugs, drinking, and nutty behavior preceded his ouster.The Wall Street Journal (paywalled) broke the news just now.Excerpt:WeWork co-founder and Chief Executive Adam Neumann on Tuesday was forced to step down and cede control of the shared-office startup after its much-anticipated initial public offering was derailed, capping a swift fall from grace for the leader of one of the country’s most valuable startups.Mr. Neumann and his advisers have agreed that the best path forward is for him to relinquish the CEO role following a period of intense commotion inside the office-sharing startup, people familiar with the matter said.According the previous Wall Street Journal profile, Neumann has told people• He'd like to be Israel's Prime Minister• Interested in being “president of the world”• Wants to be the world's first trillionaire• He hopes to live forever.Good luck with that, bro.Previously: WeWork sounds like a real piece of workPHOTO, SHUTTERSTOCK - In this Jan. 16, 2018 file photo, Adam Neumann, center, co-founder and CEO of WeWork, attends the opening bell ceremony at Nasdaq in New York. WeWork's parent company is revealing more of its initial public offering plans, saying it expects to list shares on the Nasdaq. The company also announced corporate governance changes in response to market feedback, including limiting the role of the founder's family on its board of directors. Read the rest

"The President must be held accountable. No one is above the law" — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 9-24-2019

Hasbro's got a new foam dart gun, the $50 Nerf Ultra One blaster, and to make sure that owners of this toy arrange their affairs to the benefit of Hasbro's shareholders, the company has engineered a digital rights management system that detects and refuses to fire third-party darts, which sell by the hundreds for just a few bucks (the official darts are $10 for 20), which means that party organizers running Nerf wars will have to scale back their ambitions or shell out like crazy. Read the rest

I've been accused of being partial to Kewpie Mayonnaise because of its retro packaging, but that's only partially true. This is the best mayo I've ever had. Chalk it up to extra egg yolks and the MSG. It's made in Japan, but you can buy a 3-pack on Amazon for just . If you are making okonomiyaki (crepes with noodles, cabbage, pork, and egg), it's essential. Read the rest

Firefighters wanted to put on a good show for a school in Vic, Hungary. They also wanted to demonstrate how they could put out a staged car fire. But their performance doesn't go as planned when their zippy truck takes a turn that's a bit too fast, causing it to tip to one side and then to the other, crashing to the ground. According to Motor1:The Vaci Diary Online reported that five firefighters were in the truck. All of them were taken to the hospital with minor injuries but were out by the afternoon. There were bystanders nearby the incident but none of them were hurt.After the crash, a crane arrived at the scene to put the firetruck back on its wheels. The vehicle had to be towed away from the scene. The damage appears to be mostly cosmetic and looks to be repairable without going too long out of service. Read the rest

From Futility Closet:In John Cage’s 1952 composition 4’33”, the performer is instructed not to play his instrument.American music critic Kyle Gann discovered this 1932 cartoon in The Etude, a magazine for pianists.The cartoonist’s name, remarkably, is Hy Cage. Read the rest

A bellicose turkey displayed aggressive behavior towards a man astride a two-wheeled motor vehicle while stopped at an intersection. The man defended himself against the truculent bird's attacks by kicking it.Image: YouTube Read the rest

J. Michael Mendel, beloved producer of "Rick and Morty" and "The Simpsons," has died just two days before turning 55 years old. The cause of his death has not been made public. He is survived by his wife, casting director Juel Bestrop, and two children. From CNN:Mendel worked on Fox's The Tracey Ullman Show, on which "The Simpsons" began its life as a recurring segment, before moving to the independent series.He helped to create 207 episodes of "The Simpsons" over his time on the show, winning Emmys in 1995, 1997 and 1997. Mendel then produced 22 episodes of "Rick and Morty," winning a fourth Emmy for his work last year.My friend, partner, and line producer Mike Mendel passed away. I am devastated. My heart breaks for his family. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you by my side Mike. I’m destroyed.— Justin Roiland (@JustinRoiland) September 23, 2019 pic.twitter.com/htPBbqp4aT— [adult swim] (@adultswim) September 24, 2019 Read the rest

People rarely ask me for advice, but when they do I always recommend Mr. T's autobiography as the place for folks to start. Read the rest

Artist and animator Stephen Cunnane directed these wonderful videos to help artists animate bugs, birds, and other animals..embed-vimeo {text-align: center;position: relative;padding-bottom: 56.25%;height: 0;overflow: hidden;max-width: 100%;}.embed-vimeo iframe {position: absolute;top: 0;left: 0;width: 100%;height: 100%;} Read the rest

In this 1984 TV commercial for Coleco's failed Adam home computer, Lori Laughlin observes a young fellow able to power through his school assignment thanks to the magic of word processing. Laughlin asks, "Is that legal?" Ahem. Read the rest

Mental Floss put together a list of useful tips for everyday tasks like threading a needle, opening pistachios, and picking up bits of broken glass. My favorite is the tip for shredding a cooked chicken, which I plan to try soon.Shredding chicken with your fingers for a salad or taco is time consuming and can be tough on your fingers if you’re pulling it apart while the meat is hot. But if you have a stand mixer, there’s a better, faster way: Put the cooked chicken into the mixing bowl, add the paddle attachment, then put the device on the lowest setting and let it work its magic. In about a minute, you’ll have shredded chicken.Photo by Tim Bish on Unsplash Read the rest

Democrats wresting control of the US Senate from the Republicans will be immensely important in the coming election. Senator Elizabeth Warren's campaign for President is investing resources to help defeat Susan Collins of Maine, most recently famous for her support of putting an accused sexual abuser on the Supreme Court.Daily Beast:Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) presidential campaign is putting resources into Maine, where it hopes to help unseat Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) in one of the most high-profile Senate races of this cycle.A new memo sent to supporters on Tuesday from Warren’s campaign manager Roger Lau details a series of investments on state directors and organizers for states that vote and caucus in March. The campaign, Lau writes, is devoting these resources not just to boost Warren ahead of primary voting but to assist Democrats in marquee Senate, House, and state legislative contests in 2020. Among the target list Lau offered was Maine, where Collins is facing a number of potential Democratic challengers including Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon. Read the rest

When a man, Jon Bird, was volunteering for an event in Salt Lake City, he stepped away to have a smoke, and was confronted by an angry restaurant owner armed with a fire extinguisher. They argued about whether it's legal or not to smoke in what looks like a public area far enough away from any restaurant, but their disagreement ends with a puff and a spray. According to Vice:Bird was quickly confronted by a man in a striped sweater who carried a fire extinguisher outside with him. The man, later identified as local restaurateur Alex Jamison, told Bird and another man that they couldn't light up that close to his "customer area." The two smokers said that they were 25 feet away from the outdoor seating, in accordance with Utah law, but Jamison disagreed… strongly."He came out with energy of hostility, a fire extinguisher in his hands, and said ‘I told you, you can’t be here,’” Bird told the station. “I’m still in shock and awe. I feel dizzy, kind of shaken up that something like this could actually happen.” ...In a statement, Jamison said that, because he stands up for animal rights, he needs to apologize to Bird. "Well I’ll say that I’m not proud of my behavior, I let myself get egged on and I overreacted. I’m a protective small business owner who has asked hundreds of people not to smoke near our patio in the interest of our customers and our neighbors’ customer," he wrote. Read the rest

Australian billionaire Chris Palmer has earned a reputation for being...colourful.In addition to spending AUD60m promoting the far-right United Australia Party in the last election (a party that failed to win a single seat!), he also promoted the Trumpian slogan "Make Australia Great" from roadside billboards and created a videogame in which he starred as a character who was a literal walking meme.Enter Jordan "Friendly Jordies" Shanks, a satirical Australian Youtube vlogger who refers to Palmer with the regrettably fat-shamey "Fatty McFuckhead" and photoshops him as a baby being held aloft by Trump (Palmer is sometimes called "The Donald Trump from Down Under") while excoriating Palmer for his midadventures and political views (which are under his direct control) and his looks (which are not something he has nearly so much control over), memorably describing him as "the lovechild of Donald Trump and Big Kev" (an Australian cleaning products mascot who was popular in the 2000s).Palmer has served Shanks with a legal threat, demanding $500,000 in damages for alleged defamation and a permanent injunction on mentions of Palmer in Shanks's public work.Shanks has responded with admirable vigour and humour, pointing out that "for a defamation allegation to be successful, it has to be proven I lowered your standing in the eyes of the public" and describing himself as a penniless millennial with nothing to lose, who relies on his mother's laptop to post to Youtube and who has "been desensitized to the emotional needs of others, and as such I’m your worst nightmare. Read the rest

Our friend Jeri Ellsworth announced the Kickstarter campaign for her company's augmented reality system called Tilt Five, which takes tabletop gaming to a new level by giving players a shared 3D animated view of the action.We decided to take a different approach at Tilt Five. We focused on building an AR system that creates amazing tabletop gaming experiences, with glasses so lightweight and comfortable you can play all day. Our lenses are large and wide open, so the glasses don't block your vision. You can see your friends, pizza, and drinks, while you play true head to head games around the table. The patented 110° field of view optical system fills the entire game board, and everything is in focus whether you're leaning back in your chair or pressing your chin to the board to get a better look at the details on that dragon. To top it all off, the system had to be affordable. Read the rest

The Action Lab Man conducts a groundbreaking experiment to find out what happens when a large neodymium magnet meets a cube made of 1,000 small neodymium magnets. <em>Image: Action Lab/YouTube</em> Read the rest

Trying to get my day started with a favorite piece of music. Read the rest

In 2008, Cokie Roberts was promoting her book Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation, and described her favorite letter discovered during her research:It was the year of the Missouri Compromise, 1820 and Congress was in session muchlonger than it normally is. It stayed in session in that era until March, usually and becauseof hammering out the Compromise and having to do everything else they were here tillJune, which totally screwed up everything. They were running out of food. Nobody knewwhat to do about Washington with all these people in it until June. Finally, they go homeand Louisa Catherine Adams John Quincy Adams' wife -- He's Secretary of State at thispoint and running for President. Everybody is running for President which sounded familiarand so after the Congress finally goes home she goes to a meeting of the orphans' asylumtrustees.After the War of 1812, Dolley Madison had worked with the women in Washington toestablish an orphans' asylum because there had been many orphans left by the Britishinvasion and so Louisa goes to this meeting of the orphan asylum trustees and is told thatthey're soon going to need more space because "Congress had left many females in suchdifficulties as to make it probable they would beg our assistance" and Louisa says, "Whatare you talking about?" and the answer comes back from the trustee "The session hadbeen very long. The fathers of the nation had left 40 cases to be provided for by the publicand our institution was the most likely to be called upon to maintain this illicit progeny."There were 40 pregnant women left behind as Congress goes home to its wives andLouisa Adams is writing these letters to old John Adams, who's home in Quincy. Read the rest

The first story comes from Hong Kong where South China Morning Post reports that, according to sources, "police have used court orders to obtain digital fare payment details and CCTV camera footage of anti-government protesters from the city’s largest bus company." As ‎Maciej Cegłowski (who has been posting from Hong Kong for weeks) points out:Forget combing through records; police have had many opportunities this summer to arrest 500-1000 people in person. But they let them go. The real power comes from retrospectively being able to dangle a potential 5 year sentence over anyone they decide attended an illegal protestOf course, that process contemplates the police using the courts to get information. Buzzfeed explains you can track someone just using public webcams and Instagram:authorities could use publicly available webcams filming an area where a protest is taking place. By looking at Instagram stories that protesters post in real time at any particular location, authorities would be able to identify them and track their movements throughout a city using other cameras, including before they arrived at the protest, and what they did afterwards. Other people featured in the background of the Instagram posts could also be identified — by facial recognition technology, for example — and followed in this way.In our experiment identifying people using their Instagram stories, we started with camera footage from tourism and surveillance company EarthCam, which streams live footage online for free and also makes previous days’ footage available for anyone to access.Buzzfeed compared streaming footage from EarthCam to Instagram stories posted at the same time. Read the rest

Last week, free software developer Seth Vargo pulled the plug on tools he made to work with software developed by his former employer Chef, in protest of Chef's ongoing contracts with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a federal agency that has been implicated in crimes against humanity, including ethnic cleansing, family separation, and the deaths of children in its custody.Chef CEO Barry Crist initially defended his company's ongoing relationship with ICE ("I have made a principled decision, with the support of the Chef executive team, to work with the institutions of our government, regardless of whether or not we personally agree with their various policies... ") but later reversed himself, vowing not to renew the current contract, and pledging to donate the revenues from the contract "to charities that help vulnerable people impacted by the policy of family separation and detention."Other companies have taken internal and external heat for their relationships with ICE, including Microsoft, Google, Edelman PR, Amazon, Palantir, and Salesforce, but ICE's effectively unlimited budget and willingness to hand out no-bid, cost-plus contracts make it an irresistible target for Beltway Bandits, who are making bank from their contracts.Andy Bell has created an "open source" list of ICE contractors, presumably for the purposes of retaliation by employees, shareholders, and customers.Though, as Nat Torkington points out, there are plenty of other companies contracting with institutions that are unmitigated forces for evil in our world: "I wonder who contracts to RJ Reynolds, or Shell, and whether we’ll see lists of those companies too." Read the rest

A leaked document co-written by 45 googlers and reported on by Motherboard details how each was subjected to illegal workplace retaliation after reporting abuse by co-workers or superiors.Google's in/famous motto, "Don't be evil," is more than an idealistic aphorism: it's also been a key business advantage in recruiting top technical talent from among an incredibly in-demand labor pool. The motto is often understood as "do no wrong," but as the company's founders have always insisted, it's about not being evil, which, in their framework, is doing wrong, and then refusing to admit and rectify the mistake. Engineers and other in-demand workers who were in search of a more fulfilling work environment took this message to heart, and held their employer to account over it, in a series of walkouts, petitions and even resignations over AI/drone contracts with the Pentagon, a secret plan to launch a censored Chinese search engine, the coverup and impunity for Android founder and accused sexual predator Andy Rubin, the creation of an AI ethics board that included far-right, transphobic political hacks and more.The leaked document, dated May 8, 2019, has circulated widely within Google. Though the retaliation stories detail a variety of different interactions, three themes that run through them are: retaliation against the rare women who rise to senior technical and leadership roles; retaliation against people of color who speak out over racism, and retaliation against employees who raise ethical objections to business and technical plans.They also detail how employees who faced retaliation were threatened with legal reprisals if they spoke about their cases, and how the abusers they'd blown the whistle on were able to go on abusing other employees. Read the rest