In typical advergame fashion, a clever concept turns out to be a half-baked product tour with no gameplay to speak of that deviates from a too-specific brand narrative. Apparently you don't even get to fuck anime Colonel Sanders!Gita Jackson reviews the game for Kotaku.In order to romance the colonel, you have to choose the correct dialogue choices when the game presents them to you. There are wrong choices, and you can lose if you pick them. I got a game over after being too forward with Colonel Sanders after trying on one of his white jackets. I’d selected the option for making my “big move” in the outfit, which I guess was supposed to have a sexual undertone that I didn’t pick up on until afterward. The choices are mostly straightforward. The only thing that Colonel Sanders really cares about is chicken, and most chicken-related dialogue choices will take you pretty far. Read the rest

The latest podcast from the Canadaland network (previously) is Dynasties, wherein host Arshy Mann delves into the scandals, backroom deals, and secret string-pulling employed by the "great families" of Canada, where wealth and political power have been gathered into just a few hands, all clinging tight to that power.Mann starts by observing that his city councillor is a Layton, his mayor is a Tory, his premier is a Ford and his PM is a Trudeau, painting a picture of a nation in the grips of a hereditary political class, before pivoting to the other nexus of power: money.Episode one focuses on the Stronachs, whose dynasty was founded by Frank Stronach and his company, Magna, the world's largest auto-parts company. Frank's daughter, Belinda, dabbled in politics, made a bid to run the Conservative party, crossed the floor and joined the Liberals, took up with hockey bad-boy Tie Domy, and, according to her father (who sued her for half a billion [Canadian] dollars), stole the company out from under him.Frank Stronach, meanwhile, has embarked on a series of commercial and political misadventures, including the creation of a flaming bronze the size of the Statue of Liberty of a pegasus kicking the shit out of a dragon; he also founded a far-right party in his native Austria, modestly called "Team Stronach for Austria," which failed miserably. He's also the author of a risible book in which he proposes a method for making everyone in the world happy (spoiler: the secret is deferring to billionaires). Read the rest

Sure, Variety calls The Lighthouse a movie haunted by the "ghost of male loneliness," and the Hollywood Reporter says it's thick with "jolts of ever-intensifying insanity soaked in rum," but the official emoji are adorable. Spruce up your next text with the free download.Finally, an emoji that says, “Yer fond of me lobster, ain’t ye?” #TheLighthouse Emoji Pack — now available on the App Store 💦 pic.twitter.com/ZU0VqB94UJ— A24 (@A24) September 23, 2019(Via Ross Rosenberg.) Read the rest

You know that late-stage capitalism is upon us when a financial scandal targeting €60 billion in fraud against public treasuries is lost in the noise of other scandals.The scandal is called "cum/ex" ("with/without"), and it used a blunt tactic to defraud tax authorities by allowing multiple parties to claim to own the same shares in order to apply for tax credits. The accused -- "cowboy traders, seasoned tax lawyers and mathematical whizz kids" -- based in London's ground zero for financial crime, the City, are said to have already stolen €447m when they were caught.While the press accounts have been at pains to contextualize the breathtaking scale of the fraud ("Robbery of the century" - Le Monde; "Organised crime in pinstripe suits" -Follow the Money), those accounts have been sparse, drowned in the noise of a thousand other scandals.Moreover, the scandal implicates many of Europe's largest banks (of course). As the trial begins, the primary defense the accused are mounting is that they were engaged in tax "optimization" and that it was all perfectly legal.As Josh Quiggin writes, "crooked deals of this scale suffice for a complete explanation of the growth of the global financial sector since the 1970s. The point of the financial sector is not to allocate capital more efficiently, but to undermine the regulatory and tax systems that are supposed to make the economy work properly. Unsurprisingly the huge financial boom has been accompanied by miserable productivity growth, repeated business collapses and massive growth in inequality."Wearing a navy blue suit and an Apple Watch with a white strap, Shields on Wednesday used a Powerpoint presentation to talk the court through the “cum-ex ecosystem” of labyrinthine trade chains he helped conceive and control, which prosecutors say cost the German state €450m. Read the rest

Put poems on pressed pennies? Sure, why not?! Oakland-based artrepreneur Lea Redmond (previously) has a dream to crowdfund a Lucky Penny Press, a hand-cranked machine that will dole out pressed pennies with short poems on them. I wasted no time getting on this because a.) I adore squished pennies, and b.) I think everything Lea touches is magic.Lea recently spoke about her art practice at CreativeMornings in San Francisco: Read the rest

It's a long road from a song in your head to a song on the charts - especially if you're just learning to play. The good news is, anyone who's willing to practice can make music. These online classes can make that process painless, with methods that can teach anyone guitar, piano or even the latest music production software.Pianoforall: The New Way To Learn Piano & KeyboardHave you heard horror stories about the rote memorization that's usually involved in piano classes? Try this method instead. It's a hands-on and intuitive system that will have you playing rhythm-style modern hits right off the bat - and using them as the foundation for later learning. Pianoforall was recently sale priced at $29.99, but you can get it now for $19.99 - a full 90% off the original cost.Piano, Guitar, & Singing For Dummies® BundleThis six-pack of lessons is your quickest way to becoming a one-man-band. It contains basic and intermediate courses on singing, piano, and guitar with interactive media that allows you to absorb key concepts easily. Get the complete bundle now for $39.95, a 77% discount.The Ultimate Logic Pro X Music Production BundleIn 45 hours of training and resources, this boot camp gives you everything from a sound foundation in music theory to the nuts and bolts about plug-ins and sound design for this premier mixing and production tool. It's everything you need to start making your own hits, or just polishing up audio. The full bundle is available for $29. Read the rest

The British Royal soap opera continues with fantastic and implausible plot twists, if you believe this week’s fact-challenged tabloids.

I will never forget the moment on June 9, 2013, when I watched a video of a skinny, serious, unshaven man named Edward Snowden introduce himself to the world as the source of a series of blockbuster revelations about US spy agencies' illegal surveillance of the global internet. Please, I thought, be safe. And Please, don't turn out to be an asshole.The thing is, the decision to flush your life and turn your back on your life's work for a matter of principle is not normal. We like to think that every whistleblower takes action for the purest of motives, but whistleblowers, like every other human being, are mixed bags, with complex motives, and if we only listened to whistleblowers who were angry at their bosses over a missed promotion or a bad disciplinary report, we'd know a lot fewer vital truths about our life. Edward Snowden is, as far as I can tell, the rarest of whistleblowers: someone who was motivated purely by a commitment to principle. I have "met" Snowden a few times: I was the opening act for his first-ever public appearance, and we did a double-act together in New York City once where he appeared by video, and I was thrilled beyond words when I learned that he'd taken one of my books with him when he fled Hong Kong, and even more proud to have published and reported out some of the documents Snowden brought with him and turned over to the journalists he worked with to publicize his revelations. Read the rest

“The Gathering of the Juggalos is heaven for a photographer.” —Nate Igor Smith on finding freedom among killer clowns.

Evan from Fight for the Future writes, "We just launched a new scorecard showing where major music festivals stand when it comes to using invasive and racially biased facial recognition technology on fans. Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits, Electric Forest and others have committed to not using biometric surveillance, while Coachella, SXSW, and Riot Fest have refused to make the same promise. Headlining artists like Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Amanda Palmer are backing the campaign. Find out where your favorite event stands, and contact the ones who haven't responded." Read the rest

Time stood still when I heard the news that Daniel Johnston left us this month. There are only a few moments in one’s lifetime when time stands still. At the time I felt guilty for the sorrow I felt and for the tears that I cried, because if you’re a Johnston fan, you know he wouldn’t want that. It wasn’t simply the fact of death that caused my sorrow, but also the sudden understanding that I would never see an artist of this caliber in my lifetime again.The first time I heard Johnston’s music, I was thirteen, at an age when self-discovery seemed so crucial my mind and body felt like they were on fire. The year had not been a particularly good one for me and it felt like any daily event could change the course of who I was forever. I couldn’t put it into words myself, but I craved a sense of security — I craved a sense of identity, however strange it would be. I wanted a world where I could run away to escape everything going on around me, if only for a short while. Music was an obvious escape from reality, a place where I couldn't be bothered.After some time spent going to record stores, watching old bootlegs of musicians, and wandering into clothing shops, I began to notice one image that kept catching my attention: Jeremiah the Innocent, the little cartoon frog from the cover of Johnston’s Hi, How Are You. Read the rest

Since 2016, American and Canadian diplomats at an embassy in Havana, Cuba have suffered neurological problems thought to have been caused by mysterious "acoustic attacks" from some sort of sonic weapon. While several theories have been posited about the cause of the so-called Havana Syndrome, a new scientific study suggests that the sickness may be related to insecticides used in Cuba to combat mosquitos and stop the spread of the Zika virus. From CNN:Testing on 26 Canadian diplomats in the period from August 2018 to February 2019 raised the possibility of "overexposure to cholinesterase inhibitors," possibly through insecticides. Cholinesterase is an enzyme required for the proper functioning of the nervous systems."While the source of exposure to toxins of the cholinesterase inhibitor family is not yet confirmed in our study, the use of insecticides readily and evidentially suggests itself," the study said. "Importantly, certain chemical classes of pesticides, such as organophosphates and carbamates, work against insects by inhibiting the action of cholinesterase, but can also be poisonous to humans....The US Environmental Protection Agency canceled the use of Temephos in the United States in 2011, but the chemical is still used in Cuba and in some other countries.The researchers wrote that, at the time, Cuba had well-documented efforts underway to stop the spread of the Zika virus, including mass indoor and outdoor fumigations. Embassy records also confirmed an increase in the number of times people sprayed for mosquitoes at the Canadian office and at staff homes in January 2017, which coincided with the time when people were reporting symptoms. Read the rest

Seventeen homeless people live on a footbridge in Hong Kong. This video profiles several of them.From South China Morning Post:Nguyen Van Son and Eppie Yip were among the 17 homeless people who lived on a footbridge in Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong’s poorest district. After packing up their shelters in mid-July, some of them have moved to a nearby park. But the homeless problem still persists in the neighbourhood.Hong Kong property is the most expensive in the world. The monthly rent for low quality subdivided flats even smaller than a car park space can cost more than HK$4,000 or US$509, while public housing has a five and a half year long waiting list. Soaring rents, and inadequate public housing force the city’s poorest inhabitants to sleep rough. Read the rest

Fortnite is a highly competitive game. In order to make it more fun for more players Epic Games is introducing skill-based matchmaking.Commence the Streamers complaining.Verge:Epic is making a big change to the way matchmaking works in Fortnite. With the game’s next major update, v10.40, the developer will be introducing skill-based matchmaking to the battle royale. “Since battle royale launched, the matchmaking strategy for our core modes has remained mostly unchanged,” Epic explained in a blog post published today. “Over the past two years, however, the range of player skill has grown considerably.”It’s not clear exactly how this will work, but Epic says it is “introducing improved matchmaking logic to battle royale core modes to create fairer matches.” According to the developer, this means that “you will be more likely to match with players of similar skill, and as you get better, so should your opponents.” The new matchmaking system is expected to slowly roll out across all regions. Read the rest

A 21-year-old man flourishing a machete was deprived of his opportunity to steal money from a New Zealand convenience store after the owner activated a fog cannon. From Stuff:Police have since arrested and charged a 21-year-old man with assault with intent to rob in relation to the incident, which happened on September 13.The alleged offender was due to appear in the Kaikohe District Court."Fog cannons are great [crime] prevention tools," police said in the Facebook post. Read the rest

The video is titled "Veterinary Technician Training: Handling a Fractious Cat." After several viewings, it occurs to me that they mean "cat" as in "hepcat." Read the rest

No non-human animals were harmed in the making of this video. Read the rest

I use these little round magnets in my 3D printing and laser cutting projects in lieu of screws. They are strong for their size. A fair number have ended up on the refrigerator as well. They come in a clear plastic box. Read the rest

Glass arms are so much more magical than glass slippers. A woman whose daughter was born with one arm asked professional costume designer and cosplayer Mandy Pursley for a bit of photographic inspiration. Pursley, who also has one arm, sent photos shot her modeling a fantastic Cinderella costume she made that is leveled way up with an exquisite "glass" prosthetic arm by artist Gilbert Lozano and fabricators Cemrock. From Pursley's Facebook post:This costume is dedicated to all the little girls learning to navigate the world with their "lucky fins" or other challenges. I hope you know you are beautiful, and that you are UNSTOPPABLE!!! Write your own story, and be your own kind of princess. ❤ Read the rest

A police officer in Florida arrested a 6-year-old girl for having a tantrum at school. According to HuffPost, Dennis Turner, a cop with the Orlando Police Department who was charged with aggravated child abuse for injuring his own son in 1998, was for some reason allowed to work at an elementary charter school in Orlando as a school resource officer. When he saw a six-year-old child throwing a tantrum, which included kicking an adult at the school, the officer handcuffed the child, put her in the back of a police car, fingerprinted her, and took a mug shot of her. And he didn't stop there. He also arrested an 8-year-old boy, for reasons that are unclear. Via HuffPost:Turner was working as a school resource officer at the charter school, which serves grades K-5, when he arrested the two students without first obtaining a supervisor’s approval, Orlando Police Chief Orlando Rolón said in a statement... Turner, a veteran of the Orlando Police Department, was charged with aggravated child abuse in 1998 after officials found welts and bruises on his 7-year-old son, The Orlando Sentinel reported. He was suspended at the time pending the outcome of an internal investigation.Turner has a history of performance issues, including a 1996 citation for “substandard performance” after he lost a suspect’s wallet and an excessive force complaint for stunning a man five times with a Taser in 2016, according to the Sentinel.The arrests prompted outrage among parents and community activists, with many calling for Turner to lose his job. Read the rest

The 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar is here.Palpatine will rise!LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar 75245 Building Kit, New 2019 (280 Pieces) via Amazon Read the rest

Hooning around Los Angeles blasting the theme from SWAT is more fun than hooning around on, while playing 'The Streets of San Francisco.'Hawaii is third runner up. Read the rest

These days, my 13-year-old son and his friends are all about playing with their Tech Deck fingerboards during lunch at school. This 1999 video "Fingers of Fury!" is from 1999 yet two decades later, kids (and adults) are still fanatic about fingerboarding. From Consumer Time Capsule:Famous fingerboarders Darin Langhorst, Damien Bernadet and Tony Pauthex showcase their skills on a variety of obstacles, such as a mini railing, a wooden box and, well, more railings and boxes. After a two minute and thirty second compilation including all three athletes' arsenal, we're treated to a feature dubbed, "learning how to do what you want your fingers to do," featuring Darin Langhorst. In this section, Darin explains the succession of tricks that you should learn, each supported with slow motion illustrations. After covering the basics, Langhorst describes the importance of ollies: a lifting of the board, using the "g-forces" exerted by your fingers. Read the rest

Gilligan's Island creator Sherwood Schwartz named the ill-fated S.S. Minnow after the then-chair of the FCC who Schwartz said "ruined television." From Robert M. Jarvis's 1998 article in the Santa Clara Law Review:On May 9, 1961, Newton N. Minow, the recently-appointed Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), gave one of the most famous speeches in American history. Appearing at the 39th Annual Convention of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) in Washington, D.C., Minow decried the "vast wasteland" that television had become and demanded that the networks take more responsibility for the content of the shows they aired. Almost overnight, Minow's address caused every facet of television production to be rethought and reshaped. In Sherwood Schwartz's estimation, this retooling sounded a death knell for programming independence and integrity: "The year [that I began working on Gilligan's Island] was 1963, and the three networks were already beginning to use the dictatorial power Newton Minow, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, had handed to them." Mr. Minow's famous "vast wasteland" speech, in 1961, at the NAB convention, was brought on by the quiz show scandals, payola investigations and the general low esteem in which television was held. Unintentionally, probably, that speech had a far more devastating impact than the conditions he was criticizing.In effect, the chairman of the FCC, speaking for the government, took the position that the networks were responsible for everything they broadcast. The shocking aftermath of that designation of responsibility by Mr. Minow and the FCC gave ABC, CBS, and NBC absolute authority over everything that comes into your living room on network television. Read the rest

On the left is Josan Gonzalez's illustration of Case's headset for the Brazilian edition of Neuromancer, and on the right is a 3D-version created with Blender and Photoshop. Using this Instagram filter, you can wear the headset (with visor up or down).(via William Gibson and Vinicius Imbimbo.) Read the rest

Amtrack is flat out blaming Millennials for killing the dining car.Evidently my love of the Amtrak shared dining car experience is generational. I also thought Matt Dillon was awesome in Singles.WaPo:“It is part of an evolution,” said Peter Wilander, who oversees Amtrak’s customer experience. “The concept is to provide service the way our customers want rather than have everybody conform to one service delivery.“Some people really like [the dining car] and view it as sort of a nostalgic train experience,” Wilander said. “Some people, especially our new millennial customers, don’t like it so much. They want more privacy, they don’t want to feel uncomfortable sitting next to people” they don’t know.It’s that demographic, he said, that Amtrak wants to attract with more contemporary car designs and food options.I suppose I can chat with the Mennonites in the observation lounge, but it will not be the same. Read the rest

Raffi Cavoukian (AKA "Raffi") is best known as a beloved children's singer -- I vividly remember attending one of his concerts as a child -- and possibly secondarily as the brother of former Ontario Privacy Commissioner and excellent privacy advocate Ann Cavoukian, but in recent years, he's emerged as a smart, acerbic political activist whose anti-Trump and climate-oriented tweets are as much as source of uplift as his Baby Beluga was when I was a kid.His latest foray is a pair of songs honouring the Climate Strike, Extinction Rebellion, Greta Thunberg, and the millions of children around the world who have taken their futures into their own hands. They're golden Raffi originals, a delight to listen to, and perfect for kids and their grownups to use to strengthen their resolve for a just climate transition...NOW.Raffi’s Response to the Climate Emergency [Raffi Cavoukian/Raffi Foundation] Read the rest

Maybe you've heard the famous story of the Inuit elder who, when his family takes away his tools to keep him from living out on the ice, makes a knife out of his own frozen poop.The story was first popularized by anthropologist Wade Davis in a 1998 book, and even back then, even Davis admitted it miiiiiiiight be apocryphal. But the story has been repeated so often and so breathlessly that finally two anthropologists -- Metin Eren and Michelle Bebber of Kent State -- decided to test it. So they collected their poop for several days and used it to make knifes. As Jennifer Ouellette writes in Ars Technica ..."It's funny, because we've got this amazing lab," said Eren, but for that week, "I'm not in the lab—I'm in my house pooping in a bag, making knives out of my own feces. It was sort of depressing."They crafted the fecal knives using ceramic molds or simply using their hands to mold the feces into a rudimentary blade before sharpening them with a metal file after they were frozen solid. Then it was time to test them.There was no need to actually butcher a dog. Eren and Bebber used pig hide—cold and hairless—muscle, and tendons. The meat they used had been refrigerated, unlike a fresh kill, which would have been warm, and the knives were chilled in dry ice to -50 C (-58 F) prior to cutting. "We really wanted to give our knives the best possible chance to succeed," said Eren. Read the rest

Sports and media legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, as usual, makes more sense than anyone else who has spoken on the matter of SNL hiring and firing a comedian who relies on bullshit racism for laughs.Hollywood Reporter:...The weakest of all defenses in his case is that he’s a “comedian who pushes boundaries.” He’s right that artists push boundaries of cultural conventions. Lenny Bruce, Dick Gregory and Richard Pryor were all boundary pushers. The difference between an artist and an artisan is the artist’s willingness to poke at the audience’s comfort level in an effort to unveil weaknesses, discrepancies and hypocrisies. Not everyone appreciates having their values questioned. That’s why it’s important that we give artists plenty of leeway to sincerely explore their interpretation of humanity. The goal of the artist is to bring people together by showing us our similarities through our weaknesses, even when we are reluctant to acknowledge them. At the same time, we are under no obligation to financially support self-proclaimed “artists,” like Shane Gillis, whose work promotes hatred toward groups based on ethnicity, gender identity and religion. Gillis’s humor doesn’t so much expand boundaries as shrink them back to where they were in the 1950s.His failure does not mean subjects now should be taboo or that we should not have comedy that offends. Ricky Gervais is able to make comical fun of religion, Atlanta has poignant and hysterical observations about race, Sarah Silverman is riotous about sexual politics, Will and Grace and Tig Notaro are hilarious about the LGBTQ community. Read the rest

Bananas that are as ripe as depicted in this banana hammock do not ap-peel to me at all (yuk!), but I can't help but appreciate the effort nonetheless.As Cory would write, just look at it.(Dude I Want That) Read the rest

The Isle of Man 50p "Ram" coin features the head of a Manx Loaghtan, a breed of sheep native to the Isle of Man that sometimes sport as many as six horns. The smaller symbol with three armored-legs is part of the Isle of Mann's flag and dates back to the thirteenth century.(Via Fordsmender.) Read the rest

Recently a team of marine scientists were piloting a submersible when they had a super-rare encounter with a Deepstaria jellyfish. It starts off looking like a ghost and then turns inside out and spreads out into a crazy translucent film.It's gorgeous and eerie to watch, but make sure you turn the sound up -- the real fun is listening to the scientists talk. Half the time they're discussing the biology of the creature, and the other half they're just going whoooooah and oooooooooo and zooooommgg, so the whole event exists in the rapid quantum flipzone between "hardcore science" and "baked dormroom conversation".I would totally watch a 24/7 network that consisted of nothing but marine biologists flipping out while watching crazy undersea footage.From Popular Science:Deepstaria is as mysterious as it is rare, a shapeshifter whose body exists somewhere on a spectrum between enormous trash bag and ghostly lampshade. Last week, these researchers used a remotely operated vehicle to capture a video of the freaky jelly.The jellyfish in the video is roughly the size of a trash can. This deep-sea jelly lacks tentacles, and appears in the shape of a thin, membrane-like bell. Up close, you can see a geometric mesh pattern made up of canals that provide structural support and deliver nutrients to the body. In 2015, Wired referred to it as a “floating blanket.” [snip]The team watches as the animal swoops, undulates and puckers like a possessed plastic bag. But this mesmerizing movement isn’t what makes the video so valuable for scientists. Read the rest

Also applies to everyone else, as it happens. [via] Read the rest

The "Vader Down" crossover event in Marvel's 2015 Star Wars comics featured an absurdly-overpowered Darth Vader contending with seemingly the entire rebel force, as well as a cyborg rival for Palpatine's favor. John Stratman created this two-part 16-bit animated adaptation that does a great job of squeezing in all the highlights and slapstick moments:(Via Kieron Gillen.) Read the rest

From John Wilcock, New York Years, by Ethan Persoff and Scott Marshall.Greetings, Wilcock readers! The series will complete here on Boing Boing, in weekly installments, through the end of the year.(See all Boing Boing installments) Read the rest

After a still-withheld complaint from a whistleblower and mounting pressure from congress to see it, president Donald Trump admitted Sunday that he asked Ukraine's new premier to "look into" Joe Biden, a likely challenger in the 2020 U.S. presidential elections. Trump did not admit to tying the release of aid money to the demand, another component of the reported complaint.His admission about the phone call fuelled calls for Democrats to launch impeachment proceedings in Congress. Adam Schiff, a senior Democrat, said Mr Trump may have "crossed the Rubicon". Mr Schiff, the influential head of the House Intelligence Committee, had previously opposed impeachment. ... It emerged last week that the Trump administration was blocking the whistleblower complaint from being handed over to Congress, despite the intelligence inspector general judging it to be "urgent".Under US law, if a complaint is considered to be of "urgent concern", and if the inspector general considers the complaint to be "credible", then the department head is expected to share the information with Congress within seven days.Much of the media is reporting this as a "doubts raised about Biden" story already, for some reason. The irony is that, however grossly corrupt Trump's misbehavior was or how hard it gets both-sidesed in the press, this is the best thing to happen to Biden's campaign in weeks because it shows who Trump is most afraid of. Read the rest

Daniel Colin James thinks it's time to get rid of the CAPS LOCK key on physical keyboards.Why? Partly because it's a relic of history, created in the 60s by the Bell Labs engineer Doug Kerr, who noticed that people often wanted to type street addresses in all caps -- but there was no key in existence that would capitalize letters but not numbers.Colin James actually called up Kerr, who's still around, to get the story, which is quite interesting. As Colin James writes on Medium ...The QWERTY keyboard debuted in 1873 on a typewriter that could only produce capital letters. A few years later came the Shift key, which toggled the typewriter’s output between lowercase and uppercase letters.The Shift key physically shifted the internals of the typewriter, so it took some effort to press it down. Eventually, a Shift Lock key was created to hold it down. With Shift Lock engaged, letter keys produced their uppercase counterparts, but number keys produced symbols. That was a problem.Doug Kerr was a telephone engineer working at Bell Labs in the 1960s. He watched his boss’s secretary repeatedly get frustrated after accidentally typing things like “$%^&” instead of “4567” in addresses because of Shift Lock.So he did something about it. Doug Kerr invented the “CAP” key. CAP performed the same function as Shift Lock, except it only affected the letter keys.“CAP” became Caps Lock, which made its way onto the computer keyboard, where it has remained part of the standard layout ever since. Read the rest

The Mighty Carver electric knife ($59.95) might be the most badass way to rip into the holiday bird, besides using an actual chainsaw. Here's how it came to be, as told by its creator, Kimberly Burney:At Thanksgiving dinner as far back as I can remember, I would get out the electric carving knife for Grandpa. He would carefully carve the turkey to serve the family. This is a wonderful tradition shared by most Americans. But Grandpa’s been gone for a year now and at the last Thanksgiving dinner I asked, “Hey, who wants to carve the turkey this year?” No one looked up, no one said a word. I thought to myself, come on you guys, you all love power tools, what is the problem? Then it hit me. “If this were a chain saw, you boys would be fighting over who gets to carve the turkey.”It's also good for slicing up bread, fruit, and god-knows-what-else in the most glorious fashion ever!Thanks, Kent!image via The Grommet Read the rest

Eleni Antoniadou's reported accomplishments were so impressive that Mattel designed a Barbie doll based on her as part of its International Women’s Day celebration.But those "accomplishments" might all be nonexistent. Here's a partial list from the BBC as to suspicions raised:Claim: She worked on the world's first artificial trachea that was successfully transplanted to a patient.Counterclaim: She was a postgraduate student at UCL and was remotely involved with the surgery. The transplant ended with one of the biggest scandals in modern medicine, covered here by the BBC. The patient died after his body did not accept the transplant. Long after his death, Ms Antoniadou gave interviews in Greece saying how she had saved the patient's life and how the patient was living a normal life.Claim: She has been working for a number of years as a researcher at Nasa.Counterclaim: She attended a 10-week summer school there and took a lot of pictures around the US space agency's facilities wearing clothes with the Nasa logo. Nasa has denied she works directly for the agency, but has not excluded the possibility that she may be working as a sub-contractor.The Telegraph is also investigating:The NASA-ESA Outstanding Researcher Award does not appear to exist and Ms Antoniadou's name is not included in Nasa's record of its award winners.(Via Ben Collins.) Read the rest

I'm in the midst of couple of weeks' worth of lectures, public events and teaching, and you can catch me in Toronto (for Seeding Utopias and Resisting Dystopias and 6 Degrees); Newry, ME (Maine Library Association) and Portland, ME (in conversation with James Patrick Kelly).Here's the full itinerary:Toronto, September 23, 6PM-8PM: Cory Doctorow in Discussion: Seeding Utopias & Resisting Dystopias , with Jim Munroe, Madeline Ashby and Emily Macrae; Oakwood Village Library & Arts Centre, 341 Oakwood Avenue, Toronto, ON M6E 2W1 Toronto, September 24: 360: How to Make Sense at the 6 Degrees Conference, with Aude Favre, Ryan McMahon and Nanjala Nyabola, Art Gallery of Ontario.Newry, ME, September 30: Keynote for the Maine Library Association Annual Conference, Sunday River Resort, Newry, MEPortland, ME, September 30, 6:30PM-8PM: In Conversation With James Patrick Kelly, Main Library, Rines Auditorium.I hope you can make it! Read the rest

Bernie Sanders has pledged to eliminate the $81b in outstanding US medical debt if he is elected president in 2020.Sanders says that this debt forgiveness will benefit 79 million Americans who are currently laboring under medical debt (this debt being the leading kind of debt reported to credit bureaux) and eliminate the leading cause of bankruptcies in the USA.Sanders' program also puts limits on all forms of debt collection, including a limit on the collection of debts after the statute of limitations has passed on them, and making debt collectors liable for confirming the validity of debts before attempting collection. He will also amend the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, whose provisions disproportionately harm Black families. He will also force Equifax and other credit bureaux to compete with a "public credit registry" operated by the US government.The policy is complementary to both Sanders' Medicare for All promise, which will eliminate the creation of new medical debt, and his student debt forgiveness, which will eliminate outstanding debts that disproportionately burden poor and racialized people, and his free tertiary education promise, which will all but eliminate the issuance of new student debt.I am a donor to both Sanders' and Elizabeth Warrens' campaigns. Our current lending system relies on three major unsecure, for-profit credit registries to determine creditworthiness. In 2017, the credit reporting agency Equifax suffered a breach that exposed the personal information of more than 140 million Americans. Instead of material consequences, Equifax’s CEO retired with a $90 million pay day. Read the rest

The tech ethics movement has progressed to the point where various practitioners are trying to come up with a kind of oath of service, not unlike the fiduciary principle, or possibly the Hippocratic Oath that doctors and other medical professionals take.Scott Aaronson's stab at this, the "nerdocratic oath" is a pretty good first approximation; I like that he hedges his determination to be cognizant of the possible harms of the technology he builds, while still holding out the possibility that "that the good of the tools outweighs the bad" and, nevertheless, being alive to "the possibility of self-serving bias in such reflections."Obviously, this is a neat trick, if you can pull it off! But it's also admirably aware of the limitation of absolute principles, as are all such oaths. Even oaths as simple as Hippocrates's groans under this strain, from the question of whether assisted suicide is a violation of it, to whether participating in secret CIA torture projects can somehow be squared with it.9. To whatever extent I was gifted at birth with a greater-than-average ability to prove theorems or write code or whatever, I’ll treat it as just that—a gift, which I didn’t earn or deserve. It doesn’t make me inherently worthier than anyone else, but it does give me a moral obligation to use the gift for good. And whenever I’m tempted to be jealous of various non-nerds—of their ease in social or romantic situations, wealth, looks, power, athletic ability, or anything else about them—I’ll remember the gift, and that all in all, I made out better than I had a right to expect. Read the rest

Since her stories started appearing in 2013, Sarah Pinsker (previously) has been a writer to watch, winning prestigious awards from the Nebula to the Sturgeon; now, in her debut novel, A Song For a New Day, Pinsker shows that she can write long-form work that's every bit as compelling, wrenching, sweet and angry as the stories that launched her career.Luce Cannon is a rising music star whose unlikely hit single has garnered her a label deal, a touring band, and a succession of better and better gigs as she crisscrosses America in her band's van. It's a long way from busking in New York City, and even longer from orthodox Jewish family she left behind in Brooklyn when she realized, painfully, that neither her queerness nor her affinity for music could ever find a home among the closed-minded religious community she hailed from.But Luce's career -- and the careers of every other live entertainer -- is cut short when a wave of terrorist violence sweeps America, mass shootings and bombings that progress relentlessly from isolated events to threats that shut down whole cities, then whole states. Before America can come to grips with the chaos that has everyone cowering in their homes, the country is swept by a lethal pox pandemic that kills many and scars all.The America that emerges from the chaos is profoundly transformed. Unconstitutional, authoritarian anti-congregation and low-density laws -- passed under color of state of emergency -- are combined with widespread adoption of VR and drone delivery to reverse America's urbanization, turning the country into a nation of isolated shut-ins who live almost entirely virtual lives, from work to education to romance to entertainment. Read the rest

Elizabeth Warren, the United States Senator from Massachusets, is shown as leading the Iowa Democratic primary field in the most recent Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa poll.USA Today:Elizabeth Warren has surged in Iowa, narrowly overtaking Joe Biden and distancing herself from fellow progressive Bernie Sanders, the latest Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows.Warren, the U.S. senator from Massachusetts, now holds a 2-percentage-point lead, with 22% of likely Democratic caucusgoers saying she is their first choice for president. It is the first time she has led in the Register’s poll. Former Vice President Biden, who had led each of the Register’s three previous 2020 cycle polls, follows her at 20%. Sanders, the U.S. senator from Vermont, has fallen to third place with 11%. Read the rest

Studies have shown cannabidiol (more popularly known as CBD) to be effective in two main areas: Pain relief and stress relief. Both of those make the non-psychoactive, cannabis-derived compound a natural for topical creams. There's no shortage of CBD products out there, but here's eight of our favorites, all specifically designed for dermatological use - and most on deep discount this week.As with any medicinal product, make sure you ask your doctor before using and check the laws in your state regarding CBD before you buy.Medix 150 Mg CBD Topical Pain Relief CreamGet results right where you need them with this topical cream. Medix's 150 mg of CBD is derived from raw hemp oil and is mixed with a battery of natural ingredients to deliver fast-acting relief. A 1 oz container is now on sale for $24.99, a 58% discount.Curapure 500mg CBD Sports CreamThis cream combines CBD with proven ingredients like menthol and eucalyptus leaf to form a fast-acting balm that's perfect for active lifestyles. No parabens, no mineral oil, just natural care that dispenses easily from an airless pump. Get a 500 mg bottle for $33.95, down 15% from the list price.CBD Moisturizing LotionHere's a great addition to the morning beauty routine. This lotion packs a potent combo of CBD, Schisandra, Goji Berry and other herbs for a moisturizing effect like no other. It's fully vegan, compatible with any skin type, and you can get a 50 ml bottle now for $80. Read the rest

When I was a kid, my whole circle of D&D-playing, science-fiction reading pals was really into Roger Zelazny's ten-volume Chronicles of Amber, but somehow I never read it; for years, I'd intended to correct this oversight, but I never seemed to find the time -- after all, there's more amazing new stuff than I can possibly read, how could I justify looking backwards, especially over the course of ten books? But I do have some time in my day to read older books: I swim every day for my chronic pain, and when I do, I use an underwater MP3 player to listen to audiobooks that I generally get from Libro.fm, Downpour, or Google's DRM-free audiobook store (the market-leading Audible, a division of Amazon, mandatorily wraps audiobooks in its proprietary DRM without allowing publishers to opt out, which has the dual deal-breaking effect of locking me into Amazon's ecosystem and not working on my underwater MP3 player).A couple of months ago, I decided to go looking for DRM-free versions of the Amber books, which is how I found Speaking Volumes' editions of Roger Zelazny's own readings of the books, long believed to have been accidentally erased and lost forever, but which were recovered and remastered in the mid-2000s. Speaking Volumes sells these as MP3 downloads and MP3 CDs, and I bought the complete set of the former and listened to them over a couple of months' worth of laps in the pool.Zelazny's reading is pretty much fantastic. Read the rest

Last week, a drone video showing hundreds of people in China being shackled and blindfolded and made to kneel on a train platform went viral; a piece of amazing digital detective work by Nathan Ruser presents a compelling case that the video is real, and that it was recorded in August 2018 near the city of Korla in Xinjiang province, where the Chinese state has been prosecuting a vicious, genocidal ethnic cleansing campaign against the predominantly Muslim Uyghur people.Not only is this a vital piece of evidence for understanding the scope of crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, but it's also a masterclass in digital image forensics, combining mathematical techniques for reverse-engineering the time of day from the shadows cast by lamp-poles with comparisons of satellite photos and maps. 4 days ago a video showing 3-400 detainees handcuffed & blindfolded at a train station in Xinjiang was uploaded to YouTube (https://t.co/GpEaZ7YkIK)In this thread I'll share how I've verified that this video was filmed at 库尔勒西站 (41.8202, 86.0176) on or around August 18th. pic.twitter.com/hr5xd8nahM— Nathan Ruser (@Nrg8000) September 21, 2019(via Super Punch) Read the rest

In 2017, Banksy painted a giant mural on a wall in Dover, England depicting a worker chiseling a star off the EU flag, by way of a comment on the Brexit vote; now, parties unknown have painted over that mural, whitewashing it. Banksy is philosophical about this development: "Oh. I had planned that on the day of Brexit I was going to change the piece in Dover to this. But seems they've painted over it. Nevermind. I guess a big white flag says it just as well." (via Naked Capitalism) (Image: Dunk, CC BY) Read the rest

On the occasion of the publication of Permanent Record, a memoir of Edward Snowden's journey from gung-ho would-be special forces sergeant to CIA and NSA spy to whistleblower -- a memoir that the US government is suing to repress -- Snowden has given an interview with CBS where he expresses his desire to return to the USA and stand trial for his actions, even if that means going to prison.Snowden's only condition is that this not be a secret military tribunal, and that he be allowed to explain to the jury what motivated him to take the extraordinary step of handing a trove of state secrets to journalists, mounting a "public interest defense" for his actions.I'm three quarters of the way through the Snowden memoir and I'm looking forward to reviewing it this coming week (watch this space). I'm not asking for a parade. I'm not asking for a pardon. I'm not asking for a pass. What I'm asking for is a fair trial. And this is the bottom line that any American should require. We don't want people thrown in prison without the jury being able to decide that what they did was right or wrong. The government wants to have a different kind of trial. They want to use special procedures. They want to be able to close the court room. They want the public not to be able to know what's going on. And essentially, the most important fact to the government, and this is the thing we have a point of contention on, is that they do not want the jury to be able to consider the motivations — why I did what I did. Read the rest

The jellyfish shot combines a sickly sweet collection of liqueurs (blue curacao and sambuca) with vodka and a drop of cream to make a cocktail that is gorgeous to admire, even if you couldn't pay me enough to drink one.Jellyfish shot pic.twitter.com/Ifk4BjyTts— Universal Curiosity (@UniverCurious) September 20, 2019(via Super Punch) Read the rest