Boing Boing

A pickup truck was blocked in by a wall and three cars. Amazingly, the driver was able to maneuver the truck out of the tight spot.Caption this .... from r/ThatsInsane[via r/ThatsInsane] Read the rest

LEGO offers us the opportunity to build Harry Potter's Knight Bus.Generally a wild time for Harry, the triple-level Knight Bus comes with Stan Shunpike, Ernie Prang and Harry minifigs.With Ernie at the wheel, how can things go wrong?LEGO Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban Knight Bus 75957 Building Kit, New 2019 (403 Pieces) via Amazon Read the rest

Donald is throwing Gordon Sondland under the Trump bus.You knew this was inevitable.Remember that time Sondland gave him a million dollars?Speaking to reporters on Friday at the White House, Donald Trump went into denial mode on Gordon Sondland.“I hardly know the gentleman”, said Trump of Gordon Sondland, whom Donald appointed as Ambassador to the European Union, and who donated $1 million to his inauguration.Here's the video.Trump on Sondland: "I hardly know the gentleman." pic.twitter.com/gz7v2DaSoP— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) November 8, 2019And observations from reporters.At least 3 other people Trump did this “I barely knew him” thing to, were convicted of felonies & served time in prison - Papadapolous, Manafort, Cohen. Take note Mr. Sondland (& Rudy). https://t.co/k9mKShxzbc— Mimi Rocah (@Mimirocah1) November 8, 2019Trump on Gordon Sondland: “I hardly knew the gentleman.”!!!— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) November 8, 2019There it is. @POTUS on Ambassador Gordon Sondland, the political appointee who gave $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee and whose revised testimony lays out a quid pro quo: “I hardly know the gentleman.”— Willie Geist (@WillieGeist) November 8, 2019According to his closed door testimony, Sondland had the ability to call Trump directly, and he did so multiple times as Amb. to the EU. https://t.co/cS8pwzvStJ— Shelby Holliday (@shelbyholliday) November 8, 2019Alas, poor Sondland, I hardly knew thee.— 𝐎. 𝐀𝐥𝐚𝐧 𝐍𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞 (@TheAlanNoble) November 8, 2019Trump says of his ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland: “I hardly know the gentleman.” When he thought Sondland’s testimony would be good for him, he called him a “really good man and great American.”— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 8, 2019Gordon Sondland, a major donor and now ambassador to European Union and who spoke to Trump multiple times in recent months. Read the rest

Mary Cain, a champion middle-distance runner, reports that her male coaches' constant demands she get “thinner, and thinner, and thinner” hurt her health and career. The crux of the problem: she joined a program operated by Nike, whose priority is selling shoes, not training athletes.The New York Times:The problem is so widespread it affected the only other female athlete featured in the last Nike video ad Cain appeared in, the figure skater Gracie Gold. When the ad came out in 2014, like Cain, Gold was a prodigy considered talented enough to win a gold medal at the next Olympics. And, like Cain, Gold got caught in a system where she was compelled to become thinner and thinner. She developed disordered eating to the point of imagining her own death.“America loves a good child prodigy story, and business is ready and waiting to exploit that story, especially when it comes to girls,” said Lauren Fleshman, who ran for Nike until 2012. “When you have these kinds of good girls, girls who are good at following directions to the point of excelling, you’ll find a system that’s happy to take them. And it’s rife with abuse.”It's a big warning to young athletes: if Nike comes calling, you're being selected as a mannequin, not a champion. The head coach, Alberto Salazar, would weigh her in front of her teammates and humiliate her if she failed to reach his arbitrary targets.Consider how even after years of constant scandals, this sort of abuse, and this sort of man, still thrive at the place two opposed goals meet. Read the rest

“They shouldn’t be having public hearings,” said acting president of the united states Donald J. Trump today, about a week after he demanded public hearings.Trump today said Democrats should NOT be holding public hearings, which contradicts what he and his Republican toadies were pushing for last week -- they were complaining that the hearings should NOT be done behind closed doors.Okay, Boomer. Whatever.In the same mouth-diarrhea spew today, Trump also said he's thinking of visiting Russia soon for state ceremonies honoring Soviet heroes at May Day. More on that below, from the poor journalists covering this spectacle live in Washington.After weeks of Republicans demanding that Schiff open up the doors and allow the public to see the impeachment proceedings, Trump says this morning: “They shouldn’t be having public hearings.”— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 8, 2019Trump tells reporters this morning that he’s considering visiting Russia in May. Putin invited him to the May Day parade; Trump is thinking about going— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 8, 2019Trump says Democrats should not have public hearings, which is odd because I thought the Republicans were pushing for hearings to NOT be done behind closed doors?— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) November 8, 2019Trump calls people who testified against him “Never Trumpers”; there’s no evidence for this (he seems to be redefining the word to mean anyone who criticizes him). He says nobody has firsthand knowledge here (wrong). He calls the phone call “perfect.”— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 8, 2019One rock-solid consistency of Trump is deference to Russia: expressing admiration for Putin, taking his word over that of US intel, delaying Russian sanctions, downplaying Russian aggression, echoing Kremlin talking points. Read the rest

Grab your headphones.Haven't had a chance to read the entire Mueller Report on foreign interference in America's 2016 presidential elections? It matters even more now that the impeachment of Donald Trump is proceeding.Now the report has been adapted to podcast form, by Lawfare, featuring a special group of journalists. Really worth a listen, whether or not you've read any of it.“Here it all is,” tweeted Lawfare Executive Editor Susan Hennessy. “The entire Mueller Report adapted into a podcast narrative, told by the journalists who broke the stories and experts providing legal context.” “15 episodes, 13.5 hours. Give it a listen. It matters now more than ever.” From the show's tease:On April 18th 2019, the Justice Department released the redacted Mueller Report to the public. The 448 page document details a story that has captured America's attention. From Russian plots to interfere in our election to constitutional questions of executive power, the Mueller Report is potentially one of the most important and consequential documents of our time. But there's a problem. Very few people have read it.There is still so much confusion about the Report. What it says, who it implicates, and what it means for our country. At Lawfare, we are distilling the report into a multi part audio narrative series, telling you the story of what is in this document, the story Mueller wants you to understand.Produced by Goat Rodeo for/with Lawfare. They did a great job on the production! Read the rest

No touchie snek.Snek no like Lil Pump.Photos here. They're yucky.Rapper and noted idiot Lil Pump was shooting a music video on Thursday night, with, for no good reason, a live snake. Snakes aren't props. They're living creatures. TMZ (I know, I know) reports that the attack “left him a bloody mess.”From TMZ:The rapper was shooting a music video Thursday night and the crew was handing off a snake to Lil Pump, who was sitting on some sort of stair-like throne. Then, it happened.The snake, out of nowhere, whipped around and sunk its fangs into Pump's left hand. The scary moment was captured by podcast host Adam Grandmaison -- aka Adam22. You can see Pump flail as he extricates himself from the reptile. He then shows off the gnarly injury.LP's left hand is covered in blood. And, if you look closely near the end of the vid ... it appears as if the snake's setting its sights on a second victim.Good news for Lil Pump ... he doesn't seem that hurt, saying, "I just got bit by a snake WTF." He threw in a snake emoji on the caption and a few laughing ones before adding, "I can't f**k [with] no snakes. I hope I don't die."Totally deserved it. Team snek. Read the rest

It's on.The 'Baby Trump' political art protest balloon has followed Trump around the world, mocking him mercilessly. Baby Trump is reportedly headed to the site of this weekend's football game between University of Alabama and Louisiana State University, at which Trump is expected to be booed loudly again.WE DID IT!!! Baby Trump is coming to Tuscaloosa! Thanks for making this endeavor a thing. All extra funds will he donated to the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery. Will update once we have a location. He needs a lot a space seeing as he is a big baby. https://t.co/3Ygh44Aw5r— Ñic Gulas (@Nic_Gulas) November 7, 2019From The Hill:Organizers raised more than $4,000 in about 12 hours on a GoFundMe page to bring the “VIP (very important protestor)” to an area near Bryant-Denny Stadium on the Alabama campus, which is hosting the game that President Trump is expected to attend.Nic Gulas, who organized the effort, told The Hill the fundraiser had already brought in $700 more than the needed funds to transport and set up the “Baby Trump” balloon.As of 11 a.m. the fundraiser had exceeded its goal by $1,045.The fundraiser will remain open until 5 p.m. CST, and all additional funds will be donated to the Equal Justice Initiative, he said.'Baby Trump' balloon heading to LSU-Alabama game [thehill.com]PHOTO: Michael Reeve, 'Trump Baby blimp rises over London’s Parliament Square.' July 13, 2018, CC by-sa/2.0/ Read the rest

An unknown number of mobile phone users in America received weird texts on their phone on Wednesday. Nobody's sure where they came from, but the problem seems to have been that a bunch of texts sent months ago were suddenly delivered months later. In some cases, long after a bad breakup.“Friends who hadn’t talked to each other in months were jolted into chatting. Others briefly panicked,” the AP reports:The best explanation seems to be that old texts sent in the spring suddenly went through. Two people said they figured out the original messages were never received. It’s not clear why this months-long delay happened. Phone companies blamed others and offered no further explanations.Stephanie Bovee, a 28-year-old from Portland, woke up at 5 a.m. to a text from her sister that said just “omg.” She immediately thought something had happened to her newborn nephew at the hospital.She started calling everyone. Her sister and her sister’s husband didn’t answer. She woke up her mom, freaking her out. It was three hours before she learned that everything was fine and the text was an odd anomaly.“Now it’s funny,” she said. “But out of context, it was not cool.”A Sprint spokeswoman told a reporter a “maintenance update” for messaging platforms at multiple U.S. carriers was to blame, and T-Mobile called it a “third party vendor issue.” Verizon and AT&T would not respond to the reporter's questions.People puzzled by peculiar texts, and no one can say why [apnews.com, photo: pexels] Read the rest

Gfycat is a site that people upload GIFs to so they can share them with other people reliably. Used most conspicuously to host memes, clips from other media, and animated porn, it announced Wednesday that it was planning to permanently delete old, anonymously-posted images within days. Archive Team, a web preservation initiative coordinated by Jason Scott, set about archiving the site's soon-to-vanish content. So Gfycat's CEO, Dan McEleney, threatened it with a lawsuit, describing archival of the memes it hosts as a "denial of service attack" and demanding compensation.The fallout is ongoing on Twitter, with users of the site panicking about their old content and the company asking for (and being refused) private negotiations with Internet Archive, which Scott points out is not the same entity as the legally-threatened Archive Team. Read the rest

We all knew that 3D printing was too cool of an innovation to stay out of the hands of the masses for long. Sure, there are makers out there who are willing to save up for a decent SLR printer, but when will we have something that hits the trifecta: Easy to use, affordable and a quality end product?Looks like that leap is happening sooner than we thought. The SparkMaker Original SLA 3D Printer Starter Bundle is on the market, and it definitely lives up to the crowdfunding hype.The SparkMaker guys promised plenty when they raked in over $500,000 in Kickstarter pledges in 2018, and they seem to have delivered. Their starter bundle boasts a max molding size of 3.9" x 2.2" x 0.5" and it makes the most of it. Designs can be rendered in 100µm XY resolution and up to 20µm Z layer thickness with no fuss. In other words, it's packed with some incredible tech that produces amazingly sharp designs. Just press the button and watch as an LED light keeps tabs on your progress.Designs are fed to the SparkMaker via a simple SD card, which means you can print offline. Best of all, the whole package is available for well under the $500 you might expect. Even the UV LCD resins it uses are affordable.The SparkMaker Original SLA 3D Printer Starter Bundle is now available for nearly 25% off the MSRP. Read the rest

Mac Pierce created a simple wearable to challenge facial recognition: do a little munging to an image of a face, print it on heat transfer paper, iron it onto see-through mosquito netting, slice, and affix to a billed cap -- deploy it in the presence of facial recognition cameras and you'll be someone else. It's the kind of "adversarial example" countermeasure that fools computers pretty reliably but wouldn't work on a human. (via JWZ) Read the rest

This Sunday, November 10th, see the wonderful science fiction writers Charlie Jane Anders (previously) and Annalee Newitz (previously) in conversation with Terry Bisson at the always-great SF in SF lecture series; doors open at 6PM at the American Bookbinders Museum (366 Clementina Alley) ($10/$8 students) with a post-show podcast from Somafm, and books on sale from our friends at Borderlands Books. Read the rest

Tech-wise, the modern office employee has never had so much freedom. More and more businesses are kicking away from the desk and getting work done remotely on tablets, laptops, and phones.That's great for the worker. But for management — and especially IT — it can be a real hassle configuring settings, installing security protocols and keeping up with updates.For Apple users, there's an easy fix with Jamf Now. For those out of the loop, Jamf Now is a mobile device management solution that's perfect for businesses of all shapes and sizes. It works specifically with Apple products and can deploy company apps directly onto your team's devices with minimal fuss. After it's installed and settings are tweaked to management specifications, Jamf Now keeps everyone on the same page by automatically taking care of updates and license changes.All of this gets done remotely, taking a ton off the plate of management and the IT team. Need to make a major change or switch out team members? Jamf Now ensures you're still in the driver's seat with the ability to lock devices or set restrictions.It adds up to huge savings in time and money. And with a new deal that allows companies to manage three devices for free, Jamf Now is definitely worth checking out. Read the rest

Billionaire and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is expected to designate himself as a Democratic candidate in the 2020 Presidential election, according to The New York Times. Bloomberg, a 77-year-old centrist, "would present a grave and instantaneous threat to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has been struggling to raise money and assemble a ideologically moderate coalition," says the Times.Image: by Bloomberg Philanthropies - https://www.flickr.com/photos/bloombergphilanthropies/29828795984/, CC0, Link Read the rest

Once when I was on a train in Tokyo, I saw a sumo wrestler board and take a seat. He looked like a real life superhero and moved with grace that defied his massiveness. One of the things that made him look otherworldly was his topknot hairstyle. In this video, we meet Kato Akira, who had been the hairdresser for elite sumo wrestlers for over 50 years. He uses both hands and his mouth to tie knots in the wrestlers' hair, and uses a number of beautiful wooden combs.Image: YouTube Read the rest

The Avontuur's cook, Lasse Scharz, is accustomed to making food under less-than-ideal conditions. In this video, the camera is fixed to the ship, so we don't see it rock. Instead we see Scharz comically leaning as plates fly off the counter as if enchanted.[via Neatorama]Image: YouTube Read the rest

The New York Police Department should be commended for keeping 106 pounds of psychoactively inert hemp off the streets, where it might have fallen into the hands of unsuspecting weed smokers simply wanting to get high. Even though the hemp had been tested and certified to contain less than the legal limit of THC and had been legally FedExed with the proper documentation by a licensed hemp grower to New York, the NTPD couldn't resist the thought of a big drug bust to brag about, so they set up a trap and arrested the recipient.After the arrest, the police officers set up an forced perspective photo that made the 106 pounds of innocuous plant material look like it was a major haul.From the NYPD 75th Precinct FaceBook account: "Great job by Day Tour Sector E yesterday. Working with FedEx and other local law enforcement, they were able to confiscate 106 Lbs. of marijuana, and arrest the individual associated with the intended delivery."The man who was arrested in the bust replied in the comments: "These officers tossed out all the legal documents that was in each box. They were emailed by the farm that is registered by the dept of agriculture food and market. They have no clue about the new laws and if that was the case then every corner store and deli should be locked up too. They messed up bad this time."[via Reason] Read the rest

Karen Wang launched a Kickstarter campaign yesterday for custom gaming dice with a modest funding goal of $20,000. Twenty-four hours later she's raised $1.66 million and the number continues to go up. I am especially enamored of the enamel pins she made: Read the rest

I enjoy r/delusionalcraigslist, where people post ads for overpriced crap they found on Craigslist. Here's one where something is hoping to sell 8 bite-size Snickers bars, "including the elusive 'C' and 'K.'" Read the rest

The Chinese government is concerned that children are spending too much time playing computer games, reports The New York Times. It has issued new regulations forbidding young people from playing games after 10pm, and limiting playtime to 90 minutes on weekdays. Spending on in-game merchandise is capped at $28 - $57 a month. To ensure compliance, players must use real names and identification numbers.From the article:Chinese officials said the regulations were meant to combat addiction.“These problems affect the physical and mental health of minors, as well as their normal learning and living,” the National Press and Publication Administration said in a statement that was published by Xinhua, the official news agency.Analysts said the regulations had been largely anticipated by the industry and were unlikely to hurt revenue. Many of the biggest technology companies, including Tencent and Netease, have already imposed limits on younger users.Young gamers are also likely to find ways around the regulations, such as using a parent’s phone and identification number.“There are always going to be loopholes,” said Daniel Ahmad, a senior analyst at Niko Partners, a research and consulting firm. Read the rest

I bought a few of these touch sensor lights years ago to put in closets without lights, and we use them all the time. To turn the light off, you just touch the contacts on the light. They are battery-powered and have an adhesive backing to stick them to walls and under shelves. They cost on Amazon. Read the rest

The Associated Press reports that a New York judge today ordered President Donald Trump to pay $2m for misusing the Trump Foundation, supposedly a charity but evidently an extension of his political and business interests.Judge Saliann Scarpulla also signed off on an agreement Thursday to close the Trump Foundation and distribute about $1.7 million in remaining funds to other nonprofit groups. A request for comment was emailed to Trump’s lawyer. New York’s attorney general filed a lawsuit last year alleging Trump and his family illegally operated the foundation as an extension of his businesses and his presidential campaign. Read the rest

The Swiss are the richest people on Earth, with median wealth per adult os $227,891. Haiti is the worst ($214). Howmuch.net created a map of the world that shows the median net worth per adult in different countries. The United States ranks 22nd, at $65,904. The world median wealth per adult is $7,087. Read the rest

This DYMO Xpress embossing label gun is the boss. Read the rest

Rats flee sinking ships?The president is speaking and you can see folks streaming out of the arena. It’s just unusual for his rally events. Those who remain are fired up. pic.twitter.com/nfxm1NVXeO— Kelly O'Donnell (@KellyO) November 7, 2019 Read the rest

A restaurant in Singapore is under fire for putting live crabs in a claw game vending machine. After social media backlash, the restaurant owner has apologized and removed the crabs.From Oddity Central:The restaurant had posted a video of clients using its controversial claw machine to catch live crabs in early October, and then lifestyle website Shout posted its own video on it as well, which drew a lot of attention on social media. Apparently, for a $5 token, clients could try their luck at the claw machine, only instead of a plush animal, they could catch a live Sri Lankan crab. If they were lucky enough to catch one of the 500 to 800 gram crustaceans the restaurant would cook it for them for free.Image: YouTube Read the rest

Watch two of the world's greatest living actors play the role of Donald Trump in his now infamous extortion phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky. Read the rest

According to the Louvre museum, 80 percent of 10 million people who visit the famed Paris art museum come to see the Mona Lisa. "[A]nd most of them leave unhappy," writes Jason Farago, art critic for The New York Times. He recently went to the Louvre and described the dreadful experience:[Y]ou must line up in a hideous, T.S.A.-style snake of retractable barriers that ends about 12 feet from the Leonardo — which, for a painting that’s just two and a half feet tall, is too far for looking and way too far for a good selfie.Apparently the painting is beneath some nifty new nonreflective glass, but at this distance how could I tell? My fellow visitors and I could hardly see the thing, and we were shunted off in less than a minute. All this for a painting that (as the Louvre’s current show confirms) is hardly Leonardo’s most interesting, and that has drowned out the Venetian masterpieces in the Salle des États, such as Titian’s “Woman With a Mirror,” or Veronese’s “Wedding at Cana,” which Beyoncé was smart enough not to neglect. The museum is admitting as much with the pathetic new signs in the Salle des États: “The Mona Lisa is surrounded by other masterpieces — take a look around the room.”Image: by Victor Grigas - Own work, , CC BY-SA 4.0, Link Read the rest

This was just explained to him.THIS was just explained to the President of the United States.His tweet: It was just explained to me that for next weeks Fake Hearing (trial) in the House, as they interview Never Trumpers and others, I get NO LAWYER & NO DUE PROCESS. It is a Pelosi, Schiff, Scam against the Republican Party and me. This Witch Hunt should not be allowed to proceed!I keep thinking it can't get any more surreal and weird, and it does.Every.God.Damned.Day.Lots of this today. The walls are closing in.The degenerate Washington Post MADE UP the story about me asking Bill Barr to hold a news conference. Never happened, and there were no sources!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2019Bill Barr did not decline my request to talk about Ukraine. The story was a Fake Washington Post con job with an “anonymous” source that doesn’t exist. Just read the Transcript. The Justice Department already ruled that the call was good. We don’t have freedom of the press!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2019The Amazon Washington Post and three lowlife reporters, Matt Zapotosky, Josh Dawsey, and Carol Leonnig, wrote another Fake News story, without any sources (pure fiction), about Bill Barr & myself. We both deny this story, which they knew before they wrote it. A garbage newspaper!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2019PHOTO: At Donald Trump's 'Keep America Great' hate rally in Monroe, Louisiana, Trump hammered the whistleblower attorney, Mark Zaid, based on a Fox News article earlier in the day. Read the rest

A young Massachusetts woman who recently graduated from Tufts University is convinced that she has found a 'secret' encoded message in “Paradise Lost,” the poem by John Milton.The Boston Globe reports that Miranda Phaal, who is 23, discovered what she believes is an acrostic, a coded message one sees when scanning the first character in multiple lines, while she was re-reading the poem when she was a senior at Tufts University last year."Paradise Lost" is about the story of Adam and Eve from the Christian bible.The first letters of eight lines in one section spell “fall” three times, Phaal says, and she believes this refers to the 'falls from grace' of Adam, Eve, and Satan. Phaal also says it could be a coincidence, but Milton is known to have enjoyed secret messages.Read the full story:Tufts student may have found secret message in ‘Paradise Lost’ [image: WIKIPEDIA] Read the rest

Police in a Phoenix, Arizona suburb received a 911 emergency call recently from a 5-year-old boy who just wanted to order a Happy Meal from McDonald’s, and who, other than this, didn't have an actual emergency.The City of Mesa Police Department published the call audio on their Facebook page. In the recording, Charlie Skabelund, who is five, asks if he's speaking with McDonald's.“Do you have an emergency?” dispatcher Anthony Bonilla replies. There's a pause. Then, the kindergartener says he would like “One Mc-Happy Meal.” The child then hangs up the phone.Fifteen minutes later, Mesa police officer Randolph “Scott” Valdez arrived at the Skabelund’s driveway to deliver the Happy Meal in person to Charlie.Officer Valdez also spoke to the child about how 911 is to be used properly.The boy's dad, Randy Skabelund, spoke to the dispatcher in a follow-up call later to apologize and explain that there was not an emergency, but that little Charlie probably got a hold of dad's cellphone.Kim Skabelund, Charlie's mom, says officer Valdez handled the situation with “love and kindness.”[More: Today.com, PHOTO: City of Mesa Police Department] Read the rest

If you have any unpaid parking fines at the University of Alaska Anchorage campus, and you have a loaf of bread and some peanut butter and jelly, you can now reduce or cover the cost of your tickets by making a PB&J sandwich.Anchorage local NBC news affiliate KTUU-TV reports the university will take donations for their annual payment bartering tradition until November 8, to help combat student hunger. From KTUU-TV, ktuu.com:The food goes to the university's emergency food cache, which provides food to students who face hunger on a regular basis. The drive typically runs for two weeks. This year, through a partnership with the on-campus dining facilities, week two will focus on collecting canned soup for the emergency cache program.Parking fees can be offset by different amounts depending on the size of any donation, but there is a limit to how far you can spread that peanut butter. Parking services capped the number of PB&J payments at two citations per individual. Two 16 oz. jars will be good for a $10 credit, three jars will cover a $35 citation, and five jars will cover a $60 ticket. Tickets must have been issued within the past 45 days, or be within the 60-day "late status" window.According to the UAA Parking Service's webpage: "Any nut butter-almond, cashew, peanut butter- or any flavor jam, jelly, marmalade, preserves, etc. will be accepted. All donations must be commercially produced (no home canning), unopened and not expired."This week only: UAA Parking Services will take PB&J as payment for citations [ktuu.com]PHOTO: “A peanut butter and jelly sandwich, made with Skippy peanut butter and Welch's grape jelly on white bread.” WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, PUBLIC DOMAIN Read the rest

In Northern California, sheriff's deputies helped a large bear get out of a locked trash bin, which the bear somehow managed to get stuck inside while dumpster diving for dinner.The bear was discovered Monday in a locked trash bin in Kings Beach, on Lake Tahoe’s northern shore, by Placer County sheriff’s deputies.From AP:Video the agency posted to Facebook shows a deputy shining a flashlight on the dumpster and the bear suddenly popping its head out. As the startled deputy jumps back, others laugh and say “whoa!”They recognize it as the bear they’ve dubbed “T-Shirt” for a patch of white fur on its chest. The agency says the animal has had run-ins with deputies before.They unlock the dumpster from a distance and fling open one of the doors. The bear is stuck in a smaller opening in the top of one of the doors, but eventually drops down, pushes it open and lumbers out.California deputies help dumpster-diving bear escape [associated press] Read the rest

H.P. Lovecraft's only good short story is now a movie starring Nicolas Cage. Here's the trailer; it's out January 24, 2020. They've updated the setting to the present day and it's looks like they've gone all in for contemporary cosmic horror, a la Annihilation, over the original's disquieting radioactive miseries. Can't wait! Read the rest

In 1902, scam artist Cassie Chadwick convinced an Ohio lawyer that she was the illegitimate daughter of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. She parlayed this reputation into a life of unthinkable extravagance -- until her debts came due. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe Chadwick's efforts to maintain the ruse -- and how she hoped to get away with it.We'll also encounter a haunted tomb and puzzle over an exonerated merchant.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon! Read the rest

Tyler Russo: "Let's eat raw chicken now/Drown me in chicken now/Please eat raw chicken with me."Previously: Keep fucking that chicken. Read the rest

His first mistake was driving his front-wheel-drive compact onto the loose sands of Tynemouth, England. His second mistake was calling the police instead of a tow truck.Northumbria Police:"At about 7am this morning we received a call from a man who had been fishing on Tynemouth Longsands. He reported that he had got his car stuck in the sand after driving it on to the beach. Emergency services attended and the car was brought to safety ... The 32-year-old man who made the call has also been reported to court for the offences of driving with no insurance and driving without a licence." Read the rest

The reputation of Damascus steel goes back as far as the 3rd century, to ancient Syria. Without getting into the nerdier aspects of metallurgy, there's a good reason it was highly prized by the weaponsmiths of old.These days, you can still get a taste of its distinctive look in this Hand-Forged Damascus Steel Chef Knife Set.That telltale wavy pattern isn't just for show, either. It's the result of layering high-carbon steel over lower-carbon steel as much as 200 times. The result is a blade with a hardness rating of 55 HRC, suitable for display in any serious chef's kitchen.This particular set of three knives comes with pakka wood handles that only increase its pedigree as an heirloom. This kind of performance requires a little extra TLC, and a wipe with vegetable oil will keep it rust-free. But with proper care, it'll be in your kitchen for many expertly-cut meals.You can now get the full set of three for more than 20% off the retail cost - just in time for Thanksgiving. Read the rest

This video, apparently depicting teens driving around and yelling mostly non-problematic compliments at pedestrians through a bullhorn, recalls the halcyon days of 2014. Read the rest

This video shows a firefighting helicopter pilot refilling its bucket in a backyard swimming pool in Portugal, to tackle a nearby blaze. João Guimarães, the next-door neighbor, writes that the fire was brought under control in 20 minutes.I woke up this morning to this show. A loaded helo (Eurocopter AS350) from the portuguese firefighters landed in front of my house, droped 5 men in full gear, hooked up a bucket and started waterbombing a fire that broke out (or someone started, most likely) right next to a neighbor's house. After 20 mins the fire was controlled by a 6 men team :).Many thanks to the unseen team on the ground, for risking their lives to save other's property.Here's a closer angle, apparently shot by the pool's owner:More from Guimarães:I became friends with the pilot flying on the video, he has a very nice onboard video from another mission ... filling at swimming pools is only done as a last resort (but not illegal in Portugal) because of the risks involved (children playing, damage to property, flying debris such as garden furniture, etc), but he did so on this case because there were houses in danger and the water source was so convenient. ... He also detailed the operation a little bit more: he was returning to the airfield from another bushfire when he saw the initial smoke column. He took the initiative to land and start the attack on his own since the fire was so close to houses. Read the rest

A remarkably effective example of the "minor key" genre, where software is used to shift the chords and notes of an uplifting song to give it it a downcast mood (or vice versa). Read the rest

It's not uncommon for the White House (under any administration) to make multiple overlapping "proclamations" for any given month. Many of these celebrations date back years—Black History Month and Women's History Month, for example, which both fall in March. But this year, the Trump administration has continued in its proud tradition of surreptitiously erasing non-white-dudes from the narrative in favor of some revisionist history of American Exceptionalism that prides itself on the many glorious accomplishments of violent Christian colonialism.That's why November has now been proclaimed as the inaugural "National American History and Founders Month," with a press release full of the most painfully generic platitudes of 1st graders naive vision of American history. It focuses largely on those classic conservatives go-to's of revering the Founding Fathers and the Constitution, and even quotes from every Republican's favorite Founding Father: Ronald Reagan.Yes, I'm serious.But the anachronistic Reagan quote is hardly the most egregious offense here. No, that would be the fact the White House neglected to proclaim November as National Native American Heritage Month, which it has done every year since 1990. It ignored the original inhabitants of our country—who helped colonists settle here, perhaps against their wills—in lieu of celebrating the men who immortalized them as "merciless savages" in the Declaration of Independence.If you check the White House archives of Presidential Actions right now, you will see that National Native American Heritage Month is there, with a date of October 31, 2019—as if it was proclaimed on the same day as National American History and Founders Month. Read the rest

Disney has always been a problematic company, from its crypto-minstrelsy (and not-so-crypto-minstrelsy) to its perpetual copyright extensions to its censorship activities to its gender stereotyping to its anti-union work and so on, but, as anti-monopoly activist Matt Stoller (previously) writes, under CEO Bob Iger the company has changed into an entirely different kind of corporate menace: a monopolist committed to crushing competition, rather than an entertainment company that -- whatever its other sins -- was ferociously committed to making movies, TV shows, theme parks, art and toys.Stoller points to Iger's acquisition spree -- ABC, ESPN, Marvel, Lucas, Pixar, Fox, Maker Media (and licenses for Muppets, Avatar, etc) -- as the key to understanding the change in the company's nature. Where once Disney was a powerhouse of proprietary, studio-created stories and characters (albeit many of them based on public domain fairy tales), under Iger the main sources of new Disney products and stories has been other companies that it purchased. And of course, none of those purchases would have been permitted under the version of antitrust law that led to the founding and growth Disney -- it wasn't until Ronald Reagan, Robert Bork, and every US president since systematically dismantled antitrust that these kind of acquisitions became possible.This growth strategy warps the competitive landscape in all kinds of ways (not just would would-be animation studio founders, who are now gasping for market oxygen in a monopolized marketplace). Disney is now reportedly insisting on "block booking" from cinema owners -- that's the (once) illegal practice whereby a movie studio only permits cinemas to exhibit its top films if they also agree to take its turkeys -- while simultaneously clawing back all of its (and now, Fox's) old films from exhibition in the nation's 600 struggling independent cinemas. Read the rest

If you have €7,000,000 you want to spend before capitalism collapses, you can scoop up Château du Bouilh, built for Louis XVI on the eve of the French Revolution, never occupied by royalty, and lovingly preserved to this day, with period interiors to match.It's a perfect pied-a-terre for the discerning oligarch to cower in, pissing one's drawers while inequality, corruption and climate change trigger the collapse of the rotten system that elevated one to one's exalted position. It has 30 bedrooms, so you can go from bed to bed, night after night, tossing and turning, unable to sleep. It has seven hectares of wine-caves in which to hide from the truth and reconciliation commission's bailiffs. It has a series of outbuildings ("follies") that will made picturesque backdrops for your war-crimes trial. Everything was right on track for the Neoclassical castle until the Revolution got under way. In fact, there should be another house to bookend the demi-moon gallery, but building came to a screeching halt during the trial of Marie-Antoinette, Linda tells us, when Jean-Frédéric was arrested as a suspect in assisting the monarch. Even before the jury, he insisted on calling Marie Antoinette “Your Majesty.” Sadly, it cost him his powdered little head in 1794. A Sleeping Chateau, Untouched since the Revolution, is For Sale [Francky Knapp/Messy Nessy Chic](via Kottke) Read the rest

7,000 pages of leaked documents from the Six4Three lawsuit against Facebook reveal how the company provides or restricts access to user data as part of its overall strategy to crush potential competitors who rely on its platform, and deliberately manufactures cynical explanations about "protecting users" to justify the actions.Within the trove are extensive internal communications that reveal Facebook giving special user-data access to Amazon based on Amazon's massive advertising spending, then choking off data to a company called Messageme because its products had become too successful and represented a potential competitive threat to Facebook. Facebook execs candidly discussed how they could justify anticompetitive action against Messageme by saying that they were protecting their users' privacy.Six4Three made a disgusting Facebook app that let shitty men search for photos of their female contacts in bikinis, then sued Facebook for kicking them off the platform. When the company's CEO visited the UK, Parliament tried to summon him along with sealed court documents, and when he refused, they sent Parliament's sergeant-at-arms to drag him -- and the documents -- from his hotel to Westminster. Some of the documents were published immediately, even as redacted US versions of the documents were un-redacted thanks to laughable redaction errors made by Six4Three (errors so basic that many speculated that they were deliberate).4,000 pages of of Six4Three/Facebook leaks first came to light last April when Olivia Solon and Cyrus Farivar reported on them for NBC. Now, the team is back with another 7,000 pages. Read the rest

[We've been covering the grimy, sleazy stalkerware industry for years, and so it's nice to see that the FTC is finally taking action against the worst of the worst actors -- pity that they're still getting it wrong, as EFF's Gennie Gephart and Eva Galperin explain in this Deeplinks post that I've mirrored below. -Cory] The FTC recently took action against stalkerware developer Retina-X, the company behind apps Flexispy, PhoneSheriff, and Teenspy. The FTC settlement bars Retina-X from distributing its mobile apps until it can adequately secure user information and ensure its apps will only be used for “legitimate purposes.” But here’s the problem: there are simply no legitimate purposes for secret stalking apps.Retina-X, and its own James N. Johns Jr., seem to have come to the FTC’s attention not necessarily for making stalkerware, but for making stalkerware poorly. The company has suffered multiple security breaches over the past several years, including attacks from “vigilante hackers” who deleted petabytes of the company’s data—essentially, data that stalking app users had collected through spying on spouses, children, employees, and other targets. The FTC alleged that the poor security was a deceptive practice, which the FTC has authority to regulate under Section V of the FTC Act.In addition to requiring Retina X to demonstrate tighter security overall, the FTC alleged that the company violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which requires companies like Retina X to secure information—especially the kind of sensitive information Retina-X’s apps collect, like physical location and online activities—from children under 13. Read the rest

Even Bill Barr knew it was dumb

Twitter has some very serious security explaining to do.The Department of Justice is charging former Twitter employees with espionage on allegations of improperly accessing the accounts of people who were critical of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including specifically Saudi Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. One of the suspects has been arrested.The charges were unveiled Wednesday. You can read the U.S. charges here.MBS and the KSA are believed to have murdered Washington Post journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi by cutting off his head and dismembering him alive.“One of those implicated in the scheme, according to court papers, is an associate of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who the CIA has concluded likely ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul last year.” Greg Bensinger and Ellen Nakashima for the Washington Post report:The charges, unveiled Wednesday in San Francisco, came a day after the arrest of one of the former Twitter employees, Ahmad Abouammo, a U.S. citizen who is alleged to have spied on the accounts of three users — including one whose posts discussed the inner workings of the Saudi leadership — on behalf of the government in Riyadh.Abouammo is also charged with falsifying an invoice to obstruct an FBI investigation.The second former Twitter employee — Ali Alzabarah, a Saudi citizen — was accused of accessing the personal information of more than 6,000 Twitter accounts in 2015 on behalf of Saudi Arabia. One of those accounts belonged to a prominent dissident, Omar Abdulaziz, who later became close to Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who advocated for free expression in the Arab world. Read the rest

Being home for the holidays is great, but it's nice to know you've got a vacation waiting just around the corner. Impossible with all those gift expenses? Not so. Right now, you can enter for a chance to win a $1000 gift certificate to the airline of your choice. Entry is free, so you've got nothing to lose.And hey, now that we've got you excited about impending travel plans, here are a few other deals that are the next best thing to free: Deep discounts on some innovative and essential vacation gear, from carry-on bags to support pillows.Twist Memory Foam Travel PillowGot neck or back problems that keep you from sleeping on flights or buses? This pillow can target them no matter where they are. The memory foam cushion bends into whatever shape you need to support your head, spine or shoulders.Sale Price: $19.99MSRP: $24.99ALPAKA Shift PackWhether you're an urban commuter or mountaineer, the ALPAKA aims to be your go-to bag. It's got dedicated compartments for smartphones and laptops, plus quick-access pockets for cash or cards built into the straps. And with a waterproof, rolltop configuration, they'll all be well protected even on the longest hikes.Sale Price: $189.00MSRP:$249.00Dr. Save Vacuum Travel KitThis kit includes an air pump and four bags that will do more than just save you space. Pop in your clothes or other soft goods and the vacuum seal will reduce their volume by as much as 70%, allowing you to even take that bulky comforter on your next trip. Read the rest