Boing Boing

Immediately after a Federal judge dismissed President Trump's attempt to block a Grand Jury from reviewing his taxes, his lawyers appealed.CNN:A federal judge on Monday dismissed President Donald Trump's effort to prevent his tax returns from being turned over to a New York grand jury.The ruling raises the likelihood that Trump's tax returns will be provided in response to the subpoena, although any material obtained through a grand jury subpoena is covered by grand jury secrecy rules, meaning it would likely become public only if it were used as evidence at a trial.Dismissing Trump's "extraordinary" claim that any occupant of the White House enjoys "absolute immunity from criminal process of any kind," US District Court Judge Victor Marrero said in a 75-page opinion that such a position "would constitute an overreach of executive power."An attorney for Trump filed an emergency notice of appeal to the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals minutes after the district court judge filed his decision, and the appeals court immediately ordered a temporary stay of the subpoena. Read the rest

The ultimate holiday decoration: the inflatable Fortnite Battle Bus!Turn any party into a solo, duos or squads lobby. Lucky Landing and Happy Hamlet are my favorite drops. This 17.5' tall and 18' long replica of the Battle Bus will make any Fortnite player feel right at home!Thank the bus driver, you animals!Fortnite Battle Bus Inflatable via Amazon Read the rest

Seems a pro-poker player, Mike Postle, has achieved impossible-seeming results. Other players have put hours upon hours upon hours into analyzing his baffling play. It is like watching someone play with perfect information, they claim!While nothing definitive has been found, Stones Gambling Hall, a live poker site where the questionable Postle has spent a lot of time live streaming, has stopped using RFID chipped playing cards and hired an investigator.Spying isn't just for governments!CNBC:It’s not just that Postle is winning, it’s how he’s winning, that is drawing suspicion. Ingram, Berkey and others have spent hours reviewing hands Postle played and found several times where Postle made a fold or a call that wouldn’t seem “right” but happened to work out in his favor.Berkey said Postle made plays no pro would ever make, and he did them often, and they worked. Poker is a game of incomplete information. Berkey said Postle played “as if he had perfect information.”Stones Gambling Hall said it has hired an independent investigator to look into the accusations.In a statement Stones Gambling Hall said: “We temporarily halted all broadcasts from Stones. We have also, as a result, halted the use of RFID playing cards.” Read the rest

All Medina Hall wanted was to be told if the brownie had nuts in it. But staff at a Burger King in Folkestone, England, refused to read the ingredients list to her off the menu — she is blind — claiming that there were rules that forbade them from doing so. Burger King apologized to Hall.A Burger King spokesman said: "We would firstly like to apologise to Medina, her experience this week is not reflective of the high standards we would expect within any of our restaurants."Everyone should have an enjoyable experience when they visit us and we are looking into this matter further."He added: "I can also confirm that there is no such policy to refrain from reading allergen information to visually-impaired customers." Read the rest

As The Hood Internet, Chicago producers Aaron Brink (ABX) and Steve Reidell (STV SLV) have been cranking out compelling mash-ups since 2007. The clip above cuts up and recombines 50 songs from 1979. They intend to release several more single year mash-ups this month. This one features:ABBA, AC/DC, Anita Ward, Billy Joel, Blondie, Boomtown Rats, The Buggles, The Cars, Charlie Daniels Band, Cheap Trick, Chic, The Clash, The Cure, Donna Summer, Doobie Brothers, Earth Wind & Fire, Electric Light Orchestra, Fleetwood Mac, The Flying Lizards, Gang of Four, The Gap Band, Gary Numan, Joy Division, Kiss, The Knack, Kool & The Gang, Lipps Inc, M, Michael Jackson, Pat Benatar, Pink Floyd, The Police, The Pretenders, Prince, Queen, Rainbow, Rupert Holmes, Sister Sledge, The Specials, Squeeze, The Sugarhill Gang, Supertramp, Talking Heads, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Van Halen, The Whispers, Wire Read the rest

I'm 100% in favor of pro-competitive regulation of Big Tech, and that is because I'm 100% in favor of pro-competitive regulation of all our hyper-concentrated, monopolistic industries.I say this even though some of the campaign to subject Big Tech to anti-monopolistic regulation is being driven by America's rotten, spying, lying, hyper-competitive phone and cable companies, and I want to break those scumbags up, too.And though I'm no fan of Big Tech's bigness, not everything every Big Tech company does is in service to monopoly. Sometimes, it's in their interests -- or in their executives' or employees' moral sensibilities -- to stand by their users and do the right thing: Apple standing up to the FBI, say; or Facebook adding more end-to-end encryption to its products. When those companies stand up for their users, we need to stand up for them.The latest company to do the right thing is Google, who have backed a plan to move the web to DNS-over-HTTPS, which is to say, the unregarded, absolutely essential, creaking Domain Name Service infrastructure will get a much needed, long overdue cryptographic makeover that will make it much harder for companies and governments and hackers to spy on you, to inject traffic into your browser, and to otherwise shenaniganize your networks connections.Enter America's ISPs.Ever since Trump's FCC chairman Ajit Pai lifted the ban on your ISPs spying on your network activity, America's cable and phone companies have been busily creating new internal products based on selling your most private, technologically mediated activities to all comers. Read the rest

In this video, bodycam footage shows a young man in jeans and a vaguely authoritarian shirt leaning into a driver's window. The bodycam wearer quietly approaches on foot, as if acting as backup on a stop in progress. But it soon becomes clear the two "officers" don't know each other and, well, perhaps you can guess the rest.There's a fine comic moment not far in:"What's your name?""Brenden Wysynski.""How do you spell that?""B. R. E. N. D. E. N."Fire and Police Videos obtained lapel footage of an Albuquerque Police Department investigation and arrest of 18-year-old Brenden Wysynski for posing as a Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office deputy.Wysynski unlawfully pulled over a citizen for speeding and a passing Albuquerque Police Officer noticed something was off about the traffic stop.He had pulled over a citizen of Albuquerque in his personal vehicle that was outfitted with lights, sirens, and radio bought off the internet. APD and BCSO Officers determined he did not work for any police department and was placed under arrest.Wysynski is being charged with impersonating a peace officer. His trial is later this month.If you are not sure the person pulling you over is a law enforcement officer, call 911 or pull into a very public parking area and ask to speak to a supervisor.Some people who pretend to be cops in this manner are rapists or robbers, but there's a pattern of narcissistic people doing it for kicks. One man took it to Philip K. Read the rest

Meet Maria Elena Gimeno, facing felony charges after vandalizing a parked Tesla. Teslas have cameras on the wing mirrors (two of nine!) and Gimeno was filmed by them. She turned herself in after the footage went viral.The crime took place in the parking lot of Legacy High School on Saturday morning while Alan Tweedie was watching his daughter’s nearby soccer game. When Tweedie found his Tesla was damaged, he told CBS4 he’d try out a new feature on the vehicle. He looked back through the video captured by the car’s nine motion-activated cameras and eventually spotted a woman using a key to scratch the side of his car.No word on why she did it. The obvious and fun assumption is "inchoate hatred for electronic vehicles", but it was at a school ball game, so acts of inane violence and retribution are to be expected. Read the rest

Trumpetcake spotted a remarkable item on Amazon being sold as "The Goonies Sloth Mask", perfect for Halloween. The sole customer review awards it 5 stars, but people on Twitter seem unimpressed with its versimilitude. P.S. You can buy Babe Ruth bars on Amazon by the crate. Read the rest

In a late-night press release, the White House announced that Turkey "will soon be moving forward" with an invasion of northern Syria—areas currently occupied by Kurds.Mr. Trump’s decision goes against the recommendations of top officials in the Pentagon and the State Department who have sought to keep a small troop presence in northeast Syria to continue operations against the Islamic State, or ISIS, and to act as a critical counterweight to Iran and Russia. Administration officials said that Mr. Trump spoke directly with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey on the issue on Sunday. And the officials indicated that the 100 to 150 United States military personnel deployed to that area would be pulled back in advance of any Turkish operation but that they would not be completely withdrawn from Syria.The Kurds were key allies in the war on ISIS, and Trump is fully aware that withdrawing U.S. support for them could mean ethnic cleansing by the Turks, because he's boasted of stopping it in the past by not withdrawing.On Monday a spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - who occupy former IS territory in north-eastern Syria - strongly condemned the US move."There were assurances from the United States of America that it would not allow any Turkish military operations against the region," Kino Gabriel told Arabic TV station al-Hadath.He added: "The (US) statement was a surprise and we can say that it is a stab in the back for the SDF."Erdogan told Trump to do it, so he did it. Read the rest

At a zoo in Paris, ecologist Meredith Root-Bernstein noticed a Visayan warty pig pick up a piece of bark in its mouth and then use it to move soil. Over the following years, she and colleagues observed the adults pigs and offspring in the enclosure using bark to build their "nests":Although the behavior occurred in captivity, there is at least some evidence pigs have used tools in the wild:It’s very possible that wild Visayans use tools, too, she adds. Fernando “Dino” Gutierrez, president of the Philippine conservation nonprofit Talarak Foundation, Inc., which works to protect warty pigs, agrees.A few years ago, Gutierrez witnessed a group of wild Visayans pushing rocks toward an electric fence to test it. “As soon as they push and the rocks make contact, they would wait for the clicking sound or absence thereof,” he said by email. Read the rest

A lot of companies struggle with bias in the workplace, but for many big tech companies, the problem is a bit more extreme. Why, because it's not just the human beings that are racist, a lot of their algorithms are biased too. This is the problem that Google reportedly was trying to solve when they got themselves into their latest privacy scandal, tricking black and brown “volunteers” to submit to 3D face scans.According to the New York Daily News, Google contractors told these biometric test subjects that they were just going to play a “selfie game”, and they'd even get paid for it. Paid all of five bucks so that Google could use their identity to build more accurate facial recognition, holding onto their facial model forever. And it gets even worse, not only were contractors reportedly lying, but they also targeted the homeless and others in dire financial straits, hoping they were less likely to complain publicly.The whole reason Google did this to begin with is because facial recognition is more than a little bit biased. We think of software as objective, but the truth is that artificial intelligence tools like facial recognition depend on thousands of subjective choices made by human beings who build them. Those human choices can automate discrimination, as we see facial recognition products on the market that are dozens or even hundreds of times less accurate for women, trans, people of color, children, and other groups. In short, these tools often only work well for middle-aged white guys. Read the rest

This morning, we were out on our lawn, putting up our Halloween decorations, when this fellow jogged past and said something to me. I had my headphones in and so I just waved and smiled, but then he doubled back and so I took my headphones out and said, "Hi," whereupon he began to swear and shout: "How fucking dare you have a Warren sign on your lawn?"He continued in this vein for some time, with threats, shouts that "socialism" isn't welcome in Burbank, etc. I got this picture of him in which he may or may not be making a cute little white-power symbol (the jury's out on that one). To be honest, it's a little disturbing to be puttering around in your own front yard on a Sunday and have an unhinged neighbor stop by to scream obscenities and threats at you. I've got it documented and I've talked to the police and it's not going to be hard for a process server to find him if I need to get a restraining order, should he return or escalate things.However, the more I think about this, the better I feel about it. Though I actually lean more towards Bernie Sanders (I'm a donor to both campaigns), I'd be perfectly happy to fly to DC to cheer President Warren's inauguration.And in the meantime, this woman has incoherent, unhinged, mediocre men like this guy so pants-wettingly scared that just seeing a Warren sign on someone's lawn is enough to send them into incoherent, uncontrollable, shaking rages. Read the rest

This set of useful silicone kitchen tools includes my new favorite for mixing, spreading and stirring.I needed something that could stir sourdough starter inside a milk bottle. I wanted to be able to scrape the sides of said bottle clean as I did it. The 'scoop and spread' in this great set of Tovolo kitchen tools does the trick amazingly well.The 'scoop and spread' is the strange double-headed device pictured second from the left. Much like Darth Maul's lightsaber, this thing kicks ass.Strong enough to cut through sticky clumps of dough as I make batches of pretzels or a loaf of bread, the 'scoop and spread' also replaces my danish dough whisk. The tool is also wonderful at getting peanut butter out of a jar, or mixing up separated peanut butter in a jiffy.I also like the rest of the set, but holy cow! The 'scoop and spread' is my new hero. Read the rest

He calls his cat Number One.I also dig Riker's 'Stringfellow Hawk' dock on the lake. Read the rest

It gets harder and harder to tell parody from real life. Read the rest

Mini Cocottes of BB-8, C-3PO, and R2-D2 ($30 each)Just when you thought they had made all the Star Wars items we'd ever need in a lifetime, comes the Star Wars x Le Creuset Collection. Yep, the high-end cast-iron brand will soon release a line of Star Wars cookware, from a Han Solo frozen-in-carbonite roaster ($450)... To an extremely limited-edition, hand-painted Tatooine Round Dutch Oven ($900 and sold separately from the rest of the line)...Then there are these Death Star and Millennium Falcon trivets for $20 each...And this $395 Darth Vader dutch oven...But, perhaps the most adorable of the collection is a pie bird fashioned after The Last Jedi's Porg ($25). The pieces (except that Tatooine dutch oven) will be available November 1 online, at Le Creuset boutique and outlet stores, and at William-Sonoma stores. images via Le Creuset(Pee-wee Herman) Read the rest

In 2017, Brazil's "anti-corruption task force" secured a conviction against the incredibly popular former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who had enacted a series of reforms that addressed the country's longstanding issues of corruption, racial discrimination and inequality.The task force, and its "Operation Car Wash," convicted many prominent Brazilians, including some of the nation's untouchable oligarchs, as well as Lula's anointed protege Dilma Rouseff and her pro-austerity, pro-billionaire successor, Michael Temer.But two years later -- after the election of the far-right, murderous, ecocidal, racist, homophobic, misogynist, ultraviolent authoritarian Jair Bolsonaro -- the prosecutors behind Operation Car Wash were revealed by The Intercept to have secretly conspired with Sergio Moro, the world-famous judge who presided over the Lula case, to secure the conviction. Moro was subsequently elevated to a newly created position in Bolsonaro's regime, with oversight of both the police and the judiciary, but the revelations led to a collapse in public confidence in Moro from all quarters, including the more honorable elements in the country's pro-business lobby, who looked into their hearts and found that the rule of law was more important to them than sweetheart tax deals and the erosion of labor and environmental protections.Since then, the judiciary, the Brazilian establishment, and Brazilians themselves have made life increasingly difficult for Bolsonaro, Moro, and those who want to see Lula -- and his climate-friendly, racially inclusive, anti-oligarchic policies -- kept out of Brazilian politics.Two weeks ago, Brazil's Supreme Court nullified one of Moro's most celebrated "anti-corruption" convictions, citing the kind of corrupt conduct revealed in The Intercept's reporting. Read the rest

Disneyland rules typically forbid costumes and masks worn by guests 14 years of age or older. But the rules clearly do NOT prevent adults from dressing in stylish trash can cosplay:Why yes we are Disneyland trash pic.twitter.com/ftfLrX4BOK— Damfino ⍟⃝ (@LadyDamfino) October 3, 2019Really, Lady Damfino's feed is full of stylish, permissible cosplay ideas such as agent of the First Order or aspiring Egyptologist:The FIRST ORDER here is fashion, okay. pic.twitter.com/YmSt3p0fyB— Damfino ⍟⃝ (@LadyDamfino) September 9, 2019Hello, I’m here to look for a late 90’s Brendan Fraser pic.twitter.com/JCUXKyDAnZ— Damfino ⍟⃝ (@LadyDamfino) July 25, 2019 Read the rest

There are three baseline requirements for any graphic designer: Imagination, fluency with the Adobe Creative Cloud, and the ability to draw a straight line. As a matter of fact, the programs in Adobe CC are so intuitive these days that the last one is probably negotiable.Which is why if you're looking to land a job in graphic design, web design, or any artistic career, the Ultimate Adobe CC Training Bundle is a really good place to start.This 12-course online boot camp covers all the essential platforms in the Adobe CC suite. Most of the courses are well suited to beginners, but even veterans in the field might learn a thing or two from the up-to-date tutorials. And with lifetime access, you'll have plenty of time to unlock the full potential of this powerful graphics software.There's plenty of training on Photoshop, the flagship software of Adobe's fleet. You'll get separate courses on Essentials and Advanced training, as well as a market-driven lesson that teaches you the crucial skill of how to keep your visual messaging consistent across platforms.A pair of courses take the same approach to teaching Illustrator, allowing anyone to create seamless charts and presentations by way of hands-on projects.Web designers will want to dive into the classes on Adobe XD. The exercises in these modules will have you building actual websites and mobile apps and learning how to streamline your workflow as you go.Want to see your work move? There's plenty of training on both Adobe After Effects and Animate, geared toward animating and polishing everything from web banners to infographics. Read the rest

Boing Boing reader Pink Frankenstein is behind this stunning, high-resolution recreation of the 1968 Disneyland souvenir map, which he's generously licensed CC 0 (there's also a 700 DPI, 3.5GB Photoshop master file). Pink Frankenstein adds, "Any idea who the original artist is?" Read the rest

The great Drew Friedman took time to draw a portrait of every U.S. President. His work always blows me away (as you might guess, given the number of times I've posted about him). Below, a few samples from the book, which is called All the Presidents. It's published by Fantagraphics.Some of these portraits will be on display at a Drew Friedman exhibition being held at Friends of the Libraries Gallery, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, in Columbus Ohio, from November 2, 2019 - February 9, 2020. Read the rest

Steve McQueen, the King of Cool, famously wore a Tag Heuer Monaco in his epic 1971 racing film Le Mans.There are lots of debates about McQueen fashion items. The King of Cool is also frequently pictured wearing a Rolex Submariner. Let us not get into Belstaff vs Barbour. Read the rest

"Hear that Elizabeth? I'm coming to join you, honey!"Truly one of the most entertaining shows ever on television, Sanford and Son sports the TV theme song that taught me to appreciate theme songs!The incredible Redd Foxx played the wild and excitable Fred Sanford, while Demond Wilson played his more neutral son Lamont. The theme was by Quincy Jones.Redd Foxx was the stage name of John Elroy Sanford. Read the rest

Sahel Sounds is a record label, a recording project and artist collective focused on the culture in the West African Sahel. While based in Portland, Oregon, founder Christopher Kirkley frequently travels to West Africa to locate, record and work with musicians in that area. Sahel Sounds publishes a unique array of artists and genres including Tuareg guitarist Mdou Moctar, electronic synth composer Hama who plays modal, quarter tone “Arabic scales” on a Yamaha electronic keyboard, the sinuous singing and lilting melodies of Les Filles de Illighadad and a handful of other compelling artists.Kirkley also writes extensively on the artists, how he met and recorded them as well as illuminating what makes their musical approach so distinctive. Also, the record label’s YouTube Channel features over 450 videos of the Sahel Sounds artists. Founder Christopher Kirkley took time to speak with Boing Boing to share his insights on the Sahel Sounds project. How and when did you start the label?It was originally a blog that was kicked off in January of 2009. Simultaneously, I started the blog while I was traveling around West Africa to do this project of field recordings. But it was my own project and wasn’t financed by any external sources. What was the initial interest in this region of West Africa?I heard some music from that part of the world and was really fascinated by it. However, I couldn’t find out enough information on that particular West African music online. I felt like I really need to go there myself and find out about it. Read the rest

Just look at it.(Thanks Robbo!) Read the rest

Ben Watson is a reporter for Defenseone, a news site that covers "US defense and National Security" who formerly served in the US Army as a public affairs officer; last week, Watson returned to the USA after an assignment in Denmark, entering the country at Dulles Airport.When Watson was interviewed by a CBP officer, the officer asked him what his profession was, and when Watson answered "Journalism," the officer said, "So you write propaganda, right?" Watson denied that he wrote propaganda, and the CBP officer grew belligerent, refusing to allow Watson to pass the checkpoint until he repeatedly stated that being a journalist was the same thing as "writing propaganda."A CBP spokesperson told Defenseone that they are investigating the author's conduct.The CBP have been at the forefront of several scandals related to unethical, xenophobic and lawless behavior since Trump took office, from the agency's role in the unlawful detention and killings of migrant children to participation in a racist and violent Facebook group to unlawful searches of devices at the border to raping their fellow officers in a "hazing ritual" to raping migrants seeking entry to the USA.The agency is the largest law-enforcement force in America, and attracts more complaints per officer than any other force. The top figures in the Agency are implicated in its scandals, and its poor reputation has starved it of recruits, leaving it scraping the bottom of an unhinged, sadistic, violent, racist and sexist barrel.The rot goes all the way to the top, with the Agency's top lawyers involved in deeply unethical, secret guidelines that make a mockery of the Constitution. Read the rest

The Sackler family (previously) made more money than the Rockefellers when their family business, Purdue Pharma, misled the public about the addictiveness of its flagship opioid, Oxycontin, and induced doctors to overprescribe it, kicking off an epidemic that has killed more Americans than the Vietnam war, with the body count at 400,000 and still climbing.Until recently, the Sacklers were best known as "philanthropists," having perfected the reputation-washing playbook that corrupt oligarchs have used to rehabilitate their name since the gilded age robber-barons like Carnegie invented it.But the Sacklers have since been embroiled in a series of federal and state criminal proceedings, as well as numerous civil cases, and these have revealed the family's complicity in the death toll, which recently prompted to family to agree to bankrupt Purdue and hand control of it, as well as $3b in cash, to settle the suits against them.The family claimed that their total take from Purdue had amounted to $4b, and that the settlement would strip them of the gains from their illegal and unethical activities, but prosecutors have long argued that the Sacklers used shadowy money-laundering techniques to hide billions offshore, funnelling one billion dollars through a single bank.Now, 24 States' Attorneys General have objected to the settlement, joining forces with lawyers representing 500 cities, counties and tribal governments. They deposed a company advisor who put the figure at $12b, not $4b, and the attorneys argue that settling outstanding lawsuits for $3b would allow the Sacklers to retain the bulk of the profits they received from their company's participation in mass overdoses and immiseration. Read the rest

Troll Factory is an entertaining online edugame that shows you how disinformation merchants infiltrate social media and spread their corrosive anti-democracy propaganda.Yle's Troll Factory game asks you to imagine you are a professional troll who tries to amass influence in social media by spreading fear, bias and suspicion using botnets, paid marketing and internet memes. The game combines authentic social media content with game-like simulation that's personalised based on the user's choices.Fake news, hate speech and conspiracy theories spread in Facebook, Instagram and Youtube. The big internet behemoths can't stop this from happening. So it's becoming increasingly hard for people to notice when they share, comment or like something inaccurate online -- even unintentionally."We decided to turn the whole fake news problem upside down. What if you became an actual troll to understand the motives and intentions behind today's information wars?" says Jarno M. Koponen who's leading the project for the Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle's News Lab in Helsinki. Read the rest

Mitch "the World's Best Artist" McConnell (Not "Moscow" Mitch O'Connell, the sell-out senator) got enough money in his crowdfunding campaign to erect this terrific They Live homage featuring reality TV show host Donald Trump. The VOTE billboard is ready for selfies at 7th Ave and 48th St!Mitch said, "Mostly due to Boing Boing, it’s UP!" Yay!Mitch received enough funds to keep the billboard up for a month, but if he gets more money it'll stay up longer. Contribute here. Read the rest

Hong Kong joins the ranks of other autocratic nations that have banned face coverings in the name of national security: Sri Lanka, France, the Netherlands, Canada, etc (such bans have also been proposed in the UK, Australia, the USA).Wearing "any facial covering that is likely to prevent identification" during a protest makes you liable for a USD3,200 fine. Embattled Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam imposed the emergency order this week, and it took effect at 0:00 local time yesterday. In her press conference, Lam cited bans in other countries to defend the legitimacy of the order.A police inspector told the South China Morning Post that protesters who could show a doctor's note attesting to an infectious disease would be exempted from the rule.One 16 year old student protester told the SCMP that he would ignore the ban, saying: "Why should we follow the rules when the police – those who actually have power – do not act in accordance to the law?"Less than a day on, the police have already begun to target mask-wearing protesters for brutal arrests:1st day of #AntiMaskLaw, cue the abuse of power. Riot police came looking for ppl with masks in Central like a pack of wolves. They found 2, and rushed to push them to the ground. With the new law #HKPolice think the can use force simply bc ppl cover their face. #FreeHongKong pic.twitter.com/ez0RtAZQxD— Alex Lam 林偉聰 (@lwcalex) October 5, 2019A third chief inspector, who works in a police station that has been besieged by protesters, agreed that enforcing the new would be hard, but he said it would also deter some protesters from coming out. Read the rest

Your choices:* This is Just to Fucking Say* I have eaten // the fucking plums* that were in // the fucking icebox* you were probably// fucking saving* for fucking breakfast* they were fucking delicious* so fucking sweet* and so fucking cold* other(via Kottke) Read the rest

Hey hey, I'm fresh back from a short two-day excursion to Disneyland. I have a bunch of stuff to share with you but I'm going to start with my visit to Trader Sam's Enchanted Tiki Bar, that little cocktail oasis behind the pool at the Disneyland Hotel. And, if you haven't been, it really is small. You're looking at about 1/3 of the entire bar in the photo below.Now, while it's an intimate space, it's jam-packed with over 1600 artifacts, photos, and in-theme adornments. It's got your typical tiki bar elements mixed with real movie memorabilia (even Indiana Jones' iconic bullwhip). What it didn't have on a Monday at 6:30 p.m. was your typical tiki bar crowd, there were more sports tees and baseball caps than aloha shirts and more tourists than tiki lifestylers. But, I'm sure that changes as the evening goes on. Its Imagineering set decorator, Brandon Kleyla (who is now Manager of Props at Universal), describes the lounge as "Adventurers Club meets Jungle Cruise meets Tiki Room." (Oh, how I miss the Adventurers Club!) In a 2016 interview, Kleyla describes how the bar's inspiration took form:"We had to establish 'Who is Trader Sam?' Well, he’s a trader, he’s on the Jungle Cruise... we looked at the basics. And then we asked, 'what if he knew Indiana Jones, what if he knew Jack Sparrow, or Swiss Family Robinson,' you know, all those types of characters. Basically what it came down to is that he can know anyone live-action from pretty much anywhere in Disney’s 'Adventure' history. Read the rest

So, a gaggle of doctors discovered that I had an 80% blockage in one of my arteries: the result of bad genetics and my former attempts to kill myself with food and booze. There's a stent in me now and, although my mind is still right fucked up with all of the medical goings on, I'm still here. They found the issue without my having to have a heart attack first. I dodged a bullet.You can't kill me.Image via Wikipedia Read the rest

Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has been discharged from the hospital.Brief statement from Bernie’s treating physicians Arturo E. Marchand Jr., MD and Arjun Gururaj, MD: pic.twitter.com/6SEo89LSVK— Christopher Cadelago (@ccadelago) October 4, 2019[PHOTO: Shutterstock] Read the rest

A bit of good news for pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, and the app developers trying to help them not get injured or killed by police. Apple has reportedly reversed its decision to ban the app HKmap.live, which allows users to track protests and police activity in Hong Kong. The earlier move to ban the app was seen by many as acquiescence to China's foreign policy, over the urgent needs of Apple users.Thanks everyone, @Apple finally made the right decision. Will update later as things are going crazy in #HK now. pic.twitter.com/PsnNry0V21— HKmap.live 全港抗爭即時地圖 (@hkmaplive) October 4, 2019(Our Cory Doctorow has written about the app previously here at Boing Boing.)As Cory explained when Apple yanked HKMapLive:Hkmap Live is a crowdsourced app that uses reports from a Telegram group to track the locations of protesters, police, and traffic, as well as the use of antipersonnel weapons like tear gas, mass arrests of people wearing t-shirts associated with the protest movement, and mass transit closures in proximity to demonstrations (it's a bit like Sukey, the British anti-kettling app).The escalation of indiscriminate violence by Hong Kong's police has driven mainstream opposition to the Chinese state and the Hong Kong authorities. The protests continue to grow, the the police continue to attack families, elderly people, bystanders, and the main body of protesters, with no mercy or quarter -- including the on-camera, point-blank shooting of an unarmed, nonviolent protester. In this context, Hkmap isn't just a way for protesters to evade police, it's a survival lifeline for innocent people facing an occupying army of sadistic armed thugs. Read the rest

Lawmakers in Congress want Spotify to detail its allegations of abuses by digital rival Apple as part of a federal antitrust probe, reports Reuters late on Friday citing two anonymous sources.The investigation seeks to determine if Apple engages in anti-competitive behavior to give its own Apple apps an unfair advantage in the Apple Store marketplace.Spotify has been gunning for a federal antitrust probe into Apple for several years now.Excerpt from Reuters:The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee reached out to the music streaming service with broad requests for information, according to one source, who added the request to the company was narrowed in follow up telephone calls.Spotify Technology SA filed an antitrust complaint against Apple in the European Union in March, but the contact with the committee marks its first known participation in congressional inquiries into the iPhone maker, whose Apple Music streaming service is Spotify’s biggest rival.Spotify and other developers have alleged that Apple engages in anticompetitive behavior by imposing rules that hamper distribution via its App Store, the only way for third-party developers to reach more than 900 million iPhone users.At the same time, Apple sometimes copies the features of their apps for its own offerings, developers have said. Multiple apps in the App Store offered female cycle tracking before Apple added the same feature to its own health tracking app this fall, for example.Exclusive: Antitrust probers in Congress ask Spotify to detail alleged Apple abuses - sources [reuters.com, Diane Bartz, Stephen Nellis — PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK] Read the rest

'Dank' is definitely not dank.

Deandre Somerville, 21, of West Palm Beach, overslept and missed jury duty. Florida judge John S. Kastrenekes threw him in jail for 10 days."Now I have a record," he told local media. "I almost feel like a criminal now. Now, I have to explain this in every interview."Somerville was to be one of six jurors, and it was his first time serving on a jury. He told local media he slept though his alarm and woke up hours later, realising he had missed the trial. Kastrenakes also demanded a letter of apology, and went as far as to say how much of his time Somerville wasted: "almost an hour." After the media noticed, Kastrenakes reduced the sentence -- but Somerville had already served his 10 days.It's not the first time a questionable decision has made the case about Judge Kastrenakes. He threated a highway patrol trooper who gave him a ticket and ended up disqualified from a case involving another patrolman because of what he said to her.Kastrenakes called trooper Sandra Thompson a “liar” during the 12:30 a.m. traffic stop and said the tickets she wrote him would color his opinion of troopers in court, the highway patrol didn’t make a report of the incident until five months later.Even so, Kastrenakes this morning granted prosecutors’ motion for disqualification, stating “the public must have the perception of judicial fairness.”“At the time, I was upset about receiving a ticket which seemed to me to be unjustified by the circumstances,” Kastrenakes wrote in his order, filed separately this morning in each of seven cases made by the FHP. Read the rest

Weeks before the Trump Ukraine whistleblower's complaint was made public, a top CIA lawyer made what she said was a criminal referral to the Justice Department on the whistleblower's claim Trump abused the powers of the presidency in pressuring Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden. “The move by the CIA's general counsel, Trump appointee Courtney Simmons Elwood, meant she and other senior officials had concluded a potential crime had been committed, raising more questions about why the Justice Department later closed the case without conducting an investigation,” report Ken Dilanian and Julia Ainsley at NBC News:[A] timeline provided by U.S. officials familiar with the matter shows that multiple senior government officials appointed by Trump found the whistleblower's complaints credible, troubling, and worthy of further inquiry starting soon after the president's July phone call.While that timeline and the CIA general counsel's contact with the DOJ has been previously disclosed, it has not been reported that the CIA's top lawyer intended the call to be a criminal referral about the president's conduct, acting under rules set forth in a memo governing how intelligence agencies should report allegations of federal crimes.The fact that she and other top Trump administration political appointees saw potential misconduct in the whistleblower's early account of alleged presidential abuses puts a new spotlight on the Justice Department's later decision to decline to open a criminal investigation — a decision that the Justice Department said publicly was based purely on an analysis of whether the president committed a campaign finance law violation. Read the rest

Continuing to gain in the polls, Senator Elizabeth Warren raised $24.6 for Q3 fundraising, coming in slightly behind Senator Sanders and cruising past former Vice-President Biden in their campaigns for US President.CNBC:Sen. Elizabeth Warren finished the third quarter raising $24.6 million, her campaign announced Friday.The total haul puts her just behind Sen. Bernie Sanders, who brought in over $25 million, and ahead of former Vice President Joe Biden’s $15 million.For Warren, the successful quarter is the latest sign that she is surging, not just in the polls, but in the fundraising game, toward front runner Biden. In some of the recent voter surveys, she’s either tied or gone ahead of the former vice president. Biden’s fundraising also trailed that of South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who raked in $19.1 million in the quarter.Senator Warren's campaign also sent dinner to the Sanders organization on the evening their candidate was hospitalized with chest pain and underwent emergency heart surgery. Read the rest

In 2016, a Facebook user called the Austrian Green Party politician Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek "a corrupt oaf," a "traitor" and a member of a "fascist party." Glawischnig-Piesczek secured an Austrian court verdict that held these remarks to be libellous, and Facebook took them down for Austrian users.But Glawischnig-Piesczek was upset that these remarks were still visible outside of Austria, so she asked the EU's highest court, the CJEU, to order Facebook to block the post throughout the world, and to use some kind of technology to prevent other Facebook users from making "equivalent comments."This represented a new peak in extraterritorial theories of internet regulation. For years, we've had laws and rulings in which one jurisdiction orders the removal of content that is unlawful in its borders and insists that the material be removed everywhere in the world, even in places where the speech would be lawful (in the USA, the remarks directed at Glawischnig-Piesczek would be protected speech under the First Amendment). These efforts have had disturbing potential for kicking off a race to the bottom, in which each territory's speech rules are combined into a set of global prohibitions: the world's longest copyrights would obtain in every country (so Mexico's life-plus-100 rule would trump the EU's life-plus-50 rule), the world's most hair-trigger libel rules would govern globally (no insulting the King of Thailand, or the Saudi royals, or Attaturk, or Putin), and so on.But Glawischnig-Piesczek went further: she didn't just want Facebook to remove a libellous remark. She wanted Facebook to somehow screen every other remark, made by every other Facebook user, in every language, in every territory, and determine whether they were posting something "equivalent" to the remarks that offended her, and block those from being published. Read the rest

This L-type magsafe charger for pre-2013 MacBooks is already cheap at but if you use promo code NX72DAJR, you can get it for half that price. Read the rest

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion is Robert Cialdini's absolute classic book outlining six principles that you can use to convince people to do things and/or defend yourself against coercion. I hadn't seen this 2012 animated explainer video above narrated by Cialdini and Steve Martin, not the comedian but rather co-author of Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive.(via Laughing Squid) Read the rest

From Catlech's Center for Autonomous Systems and Technology, LEONARDO (LEg ON Aerial Robotic DrOne) is a bipedal robot that's uses dronelike propellers to balance and walk around. Eventually, the propellers will boost LEONARDO's ability to jump. The demo video above was just released. The following is from a February article by Evan Ackerman in IEEE Spectrum:IEEE Spectrum: Where did the idea for a robot like this come from?Mory Gharib: For many applications that we’re thinking about for the future, like a flying ambulance project that we have or missions to Mars, there is a huge need for I would say a third party—a robotic partner that can, in very extreme situations, conduct scouting or help people in ways that that either drones or bipedal robots can’t do. That was the whole idea—we need to have a system that basically can defy gravity to go places where other robots cannot. And because this machine is not going to fly in the way that drones do, because it has most of the time its legs are on the ground, it can carry a much heavier battery and payload...If everything works perfectly, what kinds of capabilities will the robot have?Soon-Jo Chung: Walking on flat terrain, walking, running, and jumping to overcome small obstacles by using the lift generated by the propellers. And it should be able to in a very soft and stable fashion land after it jumps or flies. The ultimate form of demonstration for us will be to build two of these Leonardo robots and then have them play tennis or badminton. Read the rest

Stephen Colbert explains why Trump keeps talking about his impeachable offenses in public:“Trump knows if something’s bad, you don’t admit it in public,” he said. “So, if he admits it in public it must not be bad. He’s trying to normalize it.” The host compared what Trump is doing to a husband saying, “Honey, I know you think it’s wrong for me to have sex with our neighbor, but if it were, why would I be doing it in the middle of your book club?” Image: YouTube Read the rest