Boing Boing

Sid Meier's Civilization, significantly refined in sequels by Brian Reynolds and others, is a true classic of computer gaming. And now you can play the elaborate historical strategy game as an Excel spreadsheet. Behold CELLivilization, by s0lly.This is my first game in Excel, with the first iteration (v1.0) created in just around a week for the OLC CODEJAM 2019The gamejam's theme is destruction, which is apt for this game's v1.0 iteration, given that the only way to win is to destroy the opposing team.The game is very light on features (basically just build units and attack the opposition), but I will add on additional features - DLC you could call it - if people are keen to see more!One is torn between two thoughts: (a) Excel has become a sprawling, shambling monster and will expand until everything is in it, and (b) Excel is a surprisingly accessible programming environment in a world where most game development platforms are horribly intimidating to beginners. Read the rest

Goatse straddles the internet like a colossus, a majesty of horrors half-forgotten amid the shifting sands of the web. Yet it retains its capacity to amuse and surprise. Good work, Swarovski, good work!Opt for subtle glamour, and touches of cool romance, with this dainty rose gold-plated bracelet. Featuring a swan motif with a full-cut crystal body in cool millennial pink and crisp clear pavé lines, it's a Swarovski design through and through. It also features our innovative magnetic closure, which will allow you to blend in strands from our Swarovski Remix Collection to create a bespoke look - be it double-wrap bracelet, necklace, or choker. Perfect for versatile styling, it will take pride of place in your collection. Matching items are available. It is $120 from Amazon or a Swarovsky store near you.Opt for subtle glamour.Tarot Magic Bracelet [Amazon] Read the rest

Wow, here's a situation that would be nearly impossible to replicate. Professional Fistballer Samuel Kempf was riding the Shambhala roller coaster at PortAventura Park in Spain and managed to catch a stranger’s falling iPhone X! And the amazing feat was captured on video.1 News Now:"Long story short I caught it. This roller coaster is moving at over 130kms and was once Europe’s tallest and fastest coaster"...Mr Kempf says he returned the phone to its owner once the ride was over."He was super surprised and happy at the same time. He gave me a big hug and said he was going to buy the on-ride video for me."Mr Kempf was in Spain after representing New Zealand at the Fistballing World Championships in Switzerland. Read the rest

Jeffsum generates placeholder text in the distinctive idiom of famed actor Jeff Goldblum. [via @littlenono]God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates Man. Man destroys God. Man creates Dinosaurs. Remind me to thank John for a lovely weekend. Yes, Yes, without the oops! Remind me to thank John for a lovely weekend. Hey, you know how I'm, like, always trying to save the planet? Here's my chance.You know what? It is beets. I've crashed into a beet truck. Yes, Yes, without the oops! Yes, Yes, without the oops! Forget the fat lady! You're obsessed with the fat lady! Drive us out of here! Must go faster... go, go, go, go, go! Jaguar shark! So tell me - does it really exist?You're a very talented young man, with your own clever thoughts and ideas. Do you need a manager? Life finds a way. This thing comes fully loaded. AM/FM radio, reclining bucket seats, and... power windows. I was part of something special. Eventually, you do plan to have dinosaurs on your dinosaur tour, right? Read the rest

Sure, tooling around in classic car is cool, but have you ever tried tooling around in a classic car with an engine that’s way less ecologically unsound than the one it originally rolled off the assembly line with? If you’re a Volkswagen Beetle owner, You’ll soon have the chance to give it a spin: Volkswagen’s come up with a standardized electric engine designed to power their classic Beetles down the highway.From Volkswagen:Volkswagen Group Components presents a holistic concept with its partner eClassics for the subsequent electrification of the historic Volkswagen Beetle. The conversion exclusively uses new parts they have mutually agreed on from the series production of Volkswagen Group Components. The electric drive, the 1-speed gearbox and the battery system are based on the new VW e-up!1. The conversion of the historic Beetle is being carried out by the specialist company eClassics.…The components from Kassel and Brunswick work together in the e-Beetle as an electric drive that reaches performance peaks of 60°kW /82°PS. The battery system is built into the underbody and consists of up to 14 modules, each with a capacity of 2.6 kWh. The lithium-ion battery modules cumulatively deliver energy of up to 36.8 kWh. The higher performance and the increased weight due to the extent of electrification require the adaptation and reinforcement of the chassis and the brakes.So, your Bug will be a little heavier, but the benefits of the conversion sound pretty sweet: Volkswagen claims the that a converted Beetle can accelerate from zero to 50 km/h in just under four seconds and up to 80 km/h in around eight seconds, with a top speed of 150 km/h. Read the rest

Which face is real? is one of those sites where it makes you choose between real and fake things to test your powers of acuity and perception. Though the face-generating AI offers occasional duds (such as the one embedded above), I quickly realized that the reason I beat it is because I've become familiar with the telltale indicators of a neural-net creator: the odd warping patterns in the backgrounds, the peculiar inconsistencies, the particular pixelated patterns that crop up again and again. It would often have fooled me a decade ago, just as the first phonograph, hidden behind a curtain, fooled an entire audience in the 1880s.Go home, generative adversarial network, you're drunk. pic.twitter.com/7IRAQ4H3N2— Rob Beschizza (@Beschizza) September 9, 2019 Read the rest

I know nothing about the quality of Allegheny Shredders' machines (though I do take some interest in field), but I'm certain that they have the greatest slogan in shredding company history: "The Future Is Here And Everything Needs To Be Destroyed." Read the rest

Dj BC (previously) writes, "I'm the producer behind Ghost Cave. You might know me from the mashup albums The Beastles, Ziggy Stardust Remixed, Wu Orleans, the Santastic Christmas Collections, and others. Up next is a glorious 7" vinyl record package, in a limited edition of 500 (100 purple, 400 black). And it's LEGAL!""The A side will be THE HAUNTED MANSION (aka Grim Grinning Ghosts) Ghost Cave’s electro-dance mix of The Haunted Mansion theme song. The B side will be the hip-house Ghostbusters rap song, 'We Are Ready To Believe You (ATOM Stay Puft Mix)' featuring nerdcore rapper Tribe One, ATOM's microhouse beats, and hype man Supercrunk. These are both 5-6 minute dance mixes. We’ll also have cool pins, art prints, shirts, stickers and tees available for some levels."I backed this! Holy cats!Haunted Mansion Vinyl 7" (limited to 500) by Ghost Cave [dj BC/Kickstarter] Read the rest

Steve Boyett writes, "HeadKnowles Hurricane Relief Foundation gofundme is raising funds to go to 'grassroots first responders, 1000's of volunteers providing meals, shelter and equipment to displaced persons.' They are on the Approved Dorian Donations list of organizations (more Hurricane Dorian relief organizations).That said, the road ahead to restoring and rebuilding our communities after Dorian, both short-term relief and sustainable relief in these islands is a great undertaking and we need your support to accomplish this. Victims need food, water and other essential supplies to survive during this time. We need building materials and gas for the planes and boats that are transporting supplies to the islands, in order to help put their lives back together. We cannot do any of this without monetary funds to support our efforts. The money we receive will go directly to purchasing these essential supplies and we will provide our donors with financial statements to account for every dollar donated. Donors will be able to see with all transparency that their money is being used to get our Northern Island communities what they need. Money will be withdrawn to Lia Head-Rigby's personal bank account and forwarded promptly to the HeadKnowles bank account for use.We have teams on the ground in these islands who will begin immediate assessments once the all clear is sounded. We do fully support the efforts of The Bahamas Red Cross and Nema, however, we are in the position to mobilize immediately and not await the lengthy time frame that government has in place. Read the rest

Driving near Pittsburgh, PA, my wife Heather noticed this excellent billboard featuring a woman saying "Scared of the dentist? No, I called and got SEDATED!". Read the rest

Essay-writing services have been around for a long time, but the maturation of the interwebs has allowed for increasingly customized operations. Schools and teachers are now well-equipped with plagiarism-busting tech that can spot a multiply-reused paper, so kids go the personalized route -- paying extra to have someone (usually abroad, in a lower-income country) write an essay just for them. This New York Times piece dives into the lives of Kenyans who write essays for students in the US, the UK and Australia. Me, I found the work ethic and intellectual curiosity of these essay-writers pretty impressive, and considerably superior to the lazy doofuses here in the US who are hiring them. If I ran a university, I'd instantly boot any kid caught buying a paper, then offer a full scholarship to the industrious writer who actually composed it.Consider the case of Mary Mbugua, a Kenyan university student who starts writing papers after her other jobs collapsed. “This is cheating, but do you have a choice? We have to make money," she says. "We have to make a living.”After a month of training, Ms. Mbugua began producing essays about everything from whether humans should colonize space (“it is not worth the struggle,” she wrote) to euthanasia (it amounts to taking “the place of God,” she wrote). During her best month, she earned $320, more money than she had ever made in her life. The New York Times is identifying Ms. Mbugua by only part of her name because she feared that the attention would prevent her from getting future work. Read the rest

After Suzanne Forbes graduated from art school, she worked as a penciller for DC and a courtroom artist for CBS and CNN; today, she lives in Berlin, where she is a prolific "documentary artist," rendering scenes from the U-bahn, sex parties, and other scenes around town. They're Creative Commons (NC-ND) licensed, and supported by donors on her Patreon. (Thanks, Pat Ketchum!) Read the rest

Got a favorite podcast? You're not alone. In fact, you're in the majority: According to a 2019 CBS poll, most Americans have listened to one, and nearly a quarter of them tune in on a regular basis.That's a lot of ears, and believe it or not, there's a lot of niches left to fill. But starting a podcast takes more than equipment and a voice. It takes experience, and there's currently an online boot camp that distills a ton of it from some preeminent talent behind the scenes. How To Start A Podcast Bundle Feat. Award-Winning Podcast Producers lives up to its name, with tips from none other than "This American Life" producer Alex Blumberg - and that's just for starters.The course gives a nuts-and-bolts primer on equipment and technique from "EntrepreneurOnFIre" host John Lee Dumas, and brand-building tips from "The School of Greatness" podcaster Lewis Howes. There are two invaluable courses on storytelling taught by none other than Blumberg along with NPR colleagues Anna Sussman and Julia DeWitt (of "Snap Judgement" fame). That's a lot of insight for a broadcasting course of any kind, much less an online bundle that clocks in at just over 20 hours.Individually, these courses sell for $266, but you can get lifetime access to the complete podcasting bundle for $19 - more than 90% off. Read the rest

[[Imagineer Chris Merritt (previously) was the protege of the Disney legend Marc Davis, the character designer whose work defined the look of such classic attractions as Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion. Merritt has written seminal books on southern California's themed attractions, including Knott's Berry Farm and Pacific Ocean Park. [[His latest book, Marc Davis in His Own Words: Imagineering the Disney Theme Parks, is his magnum opus: a gorgeous, two-volume, slipcased set on the life, philosophy, reminisces, career, and designs of Marc Davis, incorporating many never-seen rarities from Davis's own collection, as well as the Disney archives. Chris was kind enough to supply us with this excerpt from Chapter Nine, which tells the backstory of my beloved Haunted Mansion, largely through transcribed, verbatim quotes from Davis himself. -Cory]]With the success of the opening of Pirates of the Caribbean, the last attraction to truly be approved by Walt Disney, the team at WED turned their efforts back to a long-delayed and never fully developed show—the Haunted Mansion. After Walt’s untimely passing in late 1966 and the struggle to get Pirates open the following year, the team found difficulty in establishing the final designs needed to go into production.Disney’s “Spook House” had been long planned by WED, going back at least to 1956, when Marvin Davis and Sam McKim developed concept art of an abandoned haunted house for the then nascent development of New Orleans Square. It was conceived as a walk-through attraction—not unlike the Pirate Wax Museum—and in early 1957 Walt turned to Ken Anderson to develop the show. Read the rest

This is pretty incredible video. Make sure to unmute, and have your speakers or headphones on.These whale watchers definitely got their trip's worth.Near miss for whale watchers [Sound on][via IMGUR] Read the rest

The Arizona Republican Party's chairman said in a fundraising email today the GOP will stop astronaut and Democratic Senate candidate Mark Kelly “dead in his tracks.”Among the many things that are wrong with the GOP chair's email: Mark Kelly is married to Gabrielle Giffords, a former congresswoman who lives with traumatic brain injuries after surviving an assassination attempt in which the gunman killed six people.“Support the Republican Party of Arizona today and, together, we’ll stop gun-grabber Mark Kelly dead in his tracks,” Kelli Ward wrote in an email obtained by The Washington Post. Bloomberg News first reported the email:The stark wording from Arizona GOP chairman Kelli Ward was directed at former astronaut Kelly, whose wife, former Representative Gabby Giffords, was shot in the head and severely wounded in a mass shooting in 2011 while meeting with constituents. Six people were killed in the attack and more than a dozen others were wounded.The email cites Kelly’s statement in a 2015 CNN interview that “where there are more guns, people are less safe.”“Support the Republican Party of Arizona today and, together, we’ll stop gun-grabber Mark Kelly dead in his tracks,” Ward said.Arizona GOP says it will stop Democrat Mark Kelly, husband of shooting survivor Gabrielle Giffords, ‘dead in his tracks’ [washingtonpost.com, image: Shutterstock] Read the rest

This big cat enjoys a belly rub, but gives the camera a big eyeball.Aww, that little heart-nose!Don't touch the belly... It's too weird[via IMGUR] Read the rest

Apple and Google have been ordered by the U.S. government to hand over names, phone numbers and other identifying data of at least 10,000 users of a single gun scope app, Forbes reports Friday in an investigative feature. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is reportedly gathering information as part of a wider investigation into suspected breaches of weapons export regulations involving the scope this company makes, though the company itself isn’t under investigation, according to the federal order.“This pattern of unlawful, attempted exports of this rifle scope in combination with the manner in which the ATN Obsidian 4 application is paired with this scope manufactured by Company A supports the conclusion that the information requested herein will assist the government in identifying networks engaged in the unlawful export of this rifle scope through identifying end users located in countries to which export of this item is restricted,” the government order reads.“It’s an unprecedented move: Never before has a case been disclosed in which American investigators demanded personal data of users of a single app from Apple and Google,” writes Thomas Brewster, “And never has an order been made public where the feds have asked the Silicon Valley giants for info on so many thousands of people in one go.”From Forbes:According to a court order filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on September 5, investigators want information on users of Obsidian 4, a tool used to control rifle scopes made by night-vision specialist American Technologies Network Corp. Read the rest

Google announced Friday it will no longer accept ads for “unproven or experimental medical techniques,” including most stem cell therapy, cellular therapy and gene therapy.

A domestic rooster killed a 76-year-old woman on her rural property in Australia. The rooster pecked the woman, twice puncturing her skin, and she died. Unfortunately, she had preexisting conditions that caused her to bleed out very quickly. The physicians published the unusual case in the journal Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology. From the abstract:The decedent’s past medical history included treated hypertension, hyperlipidemia, non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus and varicose veins... Two small bleeding lacerations were present, one of which was located immediately over a perforated large varix. Death was therefore due to exsanguination from bleeding varicose veins following an attack by a rooster. This case demonstrates that even relatively small domestic animals may be able to inflict lethal injuries in individuals if there are specific vascular vulnerabilities present.image: Dgrady3 (CC BY-SA 4.0) Read the rest

I'm thrilled to report the release of The Family Acid: California, the book I published with Timothy Daly, my Ozma Records partner and co-producer of the Voyager Golden Record: 40th Anniversary Edition. Limited to just 1,500 clothbound copies, it's a far-out photo album from a very unconventional family.For more than 50 years, photographer Roger Steffens has explored the electric arteries of the counterculture, embracing mind-expanding experiences, deep social connection, and unadulterated fun at every turn. After serving in Vietnam at the end of the 1960s, Steffens immersed himself in California’s vibrant bohemia. Since then, with his wife Mary and children Kate and Devon, he has sought out the eccentric, the outlandish, and the transcendent. Just as often, it finds him, grinning, a camera in one hand and a joint in the other. Steffens took the spectacular snapshots in this new collection between 1968 and 2015 during his family's freewheeling adventures throughout the visionary state they call home.Steffens is an intrepid explorer of the fringe but he’s also a family man. He met his wife Mary under a lunar eclipse in a pygmy forest in Mendocino, California while on LSD. Soon after, they conjured up a daughter, Kate, and son, Devon. Family vacations took the foursome up and down the West Coast, from the gritty glam of Hollywood’s Sunset Strip to reggae festivals in Humboldt, fiery protests in Berkeley to the ancient redwoods of Big Sur and the wilds of Death Valley. Along the way, they’d rendezvous with likeminded freaks, artists, musicians, and writers, from Bob Marley and Timothy Leary to actor John Ritter and war photographer Tim Page, the inspiration for Dennis Hopper’s character in Apocalypse Now. Read the rest

An Oregon grand jury declined to indict Adebisi Okuneye (23) and Leopold Hauser (22), who were accused of assaulting a gentleman named Luke Lenzner (34) for wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat at a Portland bar.An article in Oregon Live makes it clear Lenzer was spoiling for a fight:Lenzner’s account came under scrutiny after video surfaced that appeared to show him threatening and picking fights with patrons at a different bar earlier in the evening. During that confrontation, Lenzner also said he served in the military — a claim he later admitted wasn’t true.Though Okuneye and Hauser were ultimately charged with third-degree assault in their encounter with Lenzner, court documents painted a convoluted scene.Lenzner’s wife, who isn’t named in the records, told police that she and her husband had been to several bars that night and that she was curious how people in Portland would react to his “Make America Great Again” hat.She had asked her husband to wear the hat so she could see how people would treat him, according to a probable cause affidavit.From Raw Story:At one point in the video, Lenzner can be heard yelling, “I served for you… f*ck you!” at patrons.But when asked by KATU about his military service, Lenzner admitted that he never served but pointed out that he had family members who did.“He said his comment in the video about serving was said in the heat of the moment and that it came out wrong,” reports KATU. Read the rest

Mitch Wagner writes, "Alice Sheldon, who wrote brilliant science fiction under the pseudonym James Tiptree Jr., killed her husband and herself in 1987. The volunteers who administer the Tiptree Award literary prize now face pressure to change its name."We on the Motherboard, those who remember Alice Sheldon and those who do not, have long known the story of how she and her husband, Huntington Sheldon (known as Ting), died.Friends and family — and the science fiction community at the time — viewed this tragedy as resulting from a suicide pact: the desperate and tragic result of a combination of physical and mental illness and the Sheldons’ desire to die on their own terms. He was 84 years old; she was 71.However, some who have read accounts of the Sheldon’s deaths more recently have pointed out a different interpretation. The story can also be seen as an act of caregiver murder: where a disabled person is killed by the person, usually a close family member, who is responsible for their support.Both narratives fit the story. We see how much of the discussion of the Sheldons’ deaths, including our own, reflects the rhetorical tendencies identified in David Perry’s report, specifically the centering of those who kill over those who are killed. In the world outside of science fiction, Huntington Denton “Ting” Sheldon would be considered the more significant member of the couple. “Ting” Sheldon was Director of the Office of Current Intelligence of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) under Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy and is credited with building that office of the CIA. Read the rest

I have always liked Marina Abramovic, from her earliest works to the latest ones. Many who knew her in the legendary early years of bitter struggle now resent her grand fame and success. They consider her commercialized, cosmopolitan, a celebrity artist recycling proven successes, but they're all wrong. This is mere snob activity. It's possible to be the cliched, true artist who is permanently poor, pure, and out of touch with the entire material world, but art snobs never notice or praise these people. They're too busy attacking Marina for not being like that. Oscar Wilde used to point out that snobs are a useful motor of society, propelling the fame machine by loudly including, excluding, over-praising and denouncing. Women artists might even get snobbishly confined to small pedestals and defined as muses rather than real artists. But snobs will always lack Marina's creativity and painful brilliance. I appreciate Marina’s direct and sharp attitude towards fame, glory, wealth, the female body and universal death. She confronts complex issues directly, in the world as it is, instead of accepting trends at face value. Her work will be noticed, disciples will follow her, but by that time she will already be elsewhere. The grandma of performance art, as she calls herself, will soon be playing Maria Callas, the diva of opera, in her most famous death scenes. At Maria's age, and with the portfolio and life-histories of Marina-and-Maria, I feel sure that is not only the best way, but the only way. Marina Abramovic and Yoko Ono are my role models for female living artists who have transcended the many threats of fame and glory, and prevailed over suffering. Read the rest

Steel-jaw leghold traps are extraordinarily cruel animal control devices. This guy risked grevious bodily injury rescuing a terrified wolf that was trapped in one.[via r/bemazed]Image: Reddit Read the rest

If you happen to be going to Tokyo Game Show next week, check out the playable demo of Ion Land's forthcoming game, Cloudpunk. I love the Bladerunner-meets-eBoy design aesthetic.From Steam:In the sprawling cyberpunk city of Nivalis, your first night as a delivery driver for Cloudpunk will see you meet and interact with a diverse cast of humans, AI and androids, each with their own story to tell.Image: YouTube Read the rest

When Jeanette Ng used her Campbell Awards speech at this year's Worldcon Hugo Awards ceremony to denounce the hugely influential science fiction editor John W Campbell for being a fascist, it kicked off a long-overdue reckoning within science fiction over the abusers, creeps, grifters, and out-and-out fascists (including Campbell) whose sins and transgressions had been systematically swept under the rug for decades.Within weeks, Dell Magazines, sponsors of the Campbell Award, announced they were renaming the award for Astounding, the magazine Campbell edited (now published under the weirdly retro name Analog).Now, the Campbell Conference at the University of Kansas at Lawrence -- who give out the other Campbell award -- have announced that both the conference and the award will be renamed. The center is conference over immediately, and will be called the Gunn Center Conference, for its founder, the sf writer, critic and scholar James Gunn. The award will be renamed shortly, though the new name hasn't been announced.I believe I'm the only winner of both Campbells. I endorse this decision wholeheartedly.As you might expect, Scalzi has some smart things to say about the announcement and what it means for Campbell's legacy:Campbell’s current reassessment doesn’t mean he stops being a part of the history of science fiction, or an influence on the field. I’ve noted before I write science fiction in a fashion that is essentially “Campbellian” in broad subject matter and tone, and it’s done pretty well for me, and I suspect will continue to for a while to come. Read the rest

Attorneys General from Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and the District of Columbia, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, have initiated an antitrust investigation into Facebook, seeking to determine whether the company "endangered consumer data, reduced the quality of consumers’ choices, or increased the price of advertising."The contours of the investigation hew closely to the framework laid out in Dina Srinivasan's seminal Berkeley Business Law Journal paper, The Antitrust Case Against Facebook, which does incredible, yeoman service into framing the obvious, manifest problems with Facebook in terms that even members of the bizarre Robert Bork antitrust inaction cult have to pay attention to.Facebook is under investigation by state attorneys general for antitrust violations [Colin Lecher/The Verge] Read the rest

For decades, Happy Mutants met one another and got seriously warped by the astounding books and other media of RE/Search Press (previously), now, after a long drought, RE/Search is publishing a new book, Underground Living (RE/Search #19), featuring the photos of V.Vale ("early Ramones shows, Henry Rollins, Lydia Lunch, John Waters, Genesis P-Orridge, William S. Burroughs, J.G. Ballard, Andy Warhol, Allen Ginsberg, Kathy Acker, Survival Research Labs, and many more!"). The book launches this Sunday at San Francisco's legendary City Lights Books, where V.Vale will be in conversation with that happiest of mutants, the magnificent Rudy Rucker (previously). (via Beyond the Beyond) Read the rest

An American Airlines mechanic who wanted overtime was arrested yesterday for deliberately damaging a plane ready to take 150 people from Miami to the Bahamas. According to CNN:Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani has been charged with "willfully damaging, destroying, disabling, or wrecking an aircraft, and attempting to do so," according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court.Alani allegedly tried to damage or disable the aircraft's air data module (ADM) system, which reports aircraft speed, pitch and other critical data, on July 17.On Thursday, investigators interviewed Alani and he "admitted that he accessed the ADM" and that he "inserted a piece of foam into the ADM's inlet where the line connects and that he applied super glue to the foam so as to prevent the foam from coming off," the complaint says.Alani told investigators that he meant no harm to the passengers — he was hoping the damage would allow him to work more hours and get overtime. The plane had actually started its flight, but after picking up speed on the runway, received an "error related to the ADM system," so the plane turned back to the concourse. None of the passengers were injured.Image: by Zidane hadeed - Taken with the Canon T3i by Tevin Belasco, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43686908 Read the rest

The latest turn in the Gamergate sage: Zoe Quinn (previously) outed their former partner, game dev Alec Holowka as a sexual and emotional abuser, which prompted others to come forward with their own stories of abuse at Holowka's hands, which led to Howalka being kicked out of his Night in the Woods game project -- and shortly thereafter, Howalka committed suicide.Though Howalka made a point of telling people not to blame Quinn or the other women who came forward for his death, the shitty men of Gamergate -- who already consider Quinn to be the living embodiment of the antichrist -- launched a campaign of terror and harassment so extreme that Quinn has resigned from Twitter.Central to Gamergate's indictment of Quinn is that she should have given more considerations to Howalka's emotional health before coming forward to reveal the ways he'd abused her. Laurie Penny (previously) reaffirms her status as a national treasure in her Wired op-ed on the matter, pointing out the asymmetry of this concern for male fragility, and how it never extends to an equivalent concern for the much more severe emotional, physical and economic toll born by women who survive the abuse doled out by these broken men.And the men are broken: toxic masculinity is a thing. Hurt people hurt people. Trauma, not contagion, is the source of radicalization. Any solution to sexism and misogyny will involve helping men as well as women, because men, not women, are the primary reservoirs of misogyny. Read the rest

If you know the name Robert Bork, it's probably in the context of his failure to secure Senate confirmation when Ronald Regan put him up for the Supreme Court (his sins from his days in the Nixon administration caught up to him).But Robert Bork's failure to attain a Supreme Court seat did nothing to erode his influence: indeed, Bork's work, more than anyone else's, is responsible for the new Gilded Age, with its inequality crisis, political instability, and looming environmental disaster. If the human race ends up extinct in a generation or two, Robert Bork will be high up in the list of people to blame for it.Bork was a liar, who invented a fictional history of US anti-monopoly law in which the lawmakers who authored, debated and passed those laws didn't actually mind monopolies at all -- all they cared about was "consumer harm" (that is, the prices paid by the public rising in the short term after a company or handful of companies cornered their markets); and "collusion" (especially trade unions, consumer groups, and other checks on corporate power).Bork's ideas were radioactively implausible, but they did have an important advantage in the "marketplace of ideas": they stood to make the richest people in America much, much richer, and so Bork found no shortage of corporate backers who helped him create a network of judicial "education" programs, political campaigns, think tankies, and intellectually dishonest academics who would line up behind his idea. Every president since Reagan has expanded Bork's doctrine, allowing for even more aggressive market concentration, producing a country (and a world) where a handful of firms dominate virtually every industry, from telcoms to talent agencies, wrestling to eyewear, to Big Tech. Read the rest

This Nelson-Rigg backpack crushes into a tiny stuff sack.Nelson-Rigg makes covers for bikes that last a long time. I thought I'd take a shot on their super-light backpack, designed to be stuck in tiny motorcycle storage compartments for all those times you realize you'd like to bring something home but can't possibly carry it on your bike.I used to keep a bungie net with hooks under my seat. The paint on my BMW is too precious for that. I wear a backpack when I need to bring my laptop places but mostly I motorcycle with a notebook jammed into my waistband and a pen in my pocket. This frequently leaves me saying "I'd stop by the market on the way home but..."No more. This backpack will certainly do for day trips and will come into play on trips where I'm traveling super light but may want a backpack somedays, or extra space on the way home.Nelson-Rigg CB-PK30 Black Compact Backpack via Amazon Read the rest

Yoga and videogames to see who can be the most serene. Read the rest

If Vladimir Putin didn't convince you that good pecs and hair do not qualify you to govern, I give you Justin Trudeau, Canada's prime ministerial princeling whose years in office have proven that there is no policy so progressive that he will not back it -- provided he never has to do anything to make it happen.This was obvious even before Trudeau was elected prime minister in 2015, when he whipped his MPs to vote in favour of a made-in-Canada version of the USA PATRIOT spying bill that he'd spoken out against, publicly admitting that he was abdicating his duty as leader of the loyal opposition and supporting a mass surveillance bill to avoid having "soft on terror" thrown at him during the upcoming election.Trudeau promised that he would reform the spying powers once he was PM, but he did no such thing. In this regard, Trudeau is indeed Canada's Obama: as a senator, Obama voted to immunize the telcos for their participation in illegal mass surveillance, promising he would still hold the NSA itself to account when he became president, but then he spent eight years expanding NSA spying powers and fighting those who sought to subject America's spies to Constitutional limits and democratic oversight.With one significant exception, the entire Trudeau administration has been a litany of broken promises: on trade (and NAFTA; on indigenous reconciliation and missing and murdered indigenous women; on selling arms to brutal dictatorships; on rooting out corruption and depoliticising the justice system; and even on refugees. Read the rest

Check out this lovely interactive version of an Enigma machine coded up by Tom MacWright!You can type in your plaintext message and then watch an animation simulate how the signal would travel through an Enigma, encrypting it. It's quite mesmerizing to observe; I almost want to set one of those up to translate a novel, and run it as a screensaver over several months.As MacWright notes, the joy of Enigma-style devices is how they span the worlds of both analog gear-turning and electronics:This notebook simulates an Enigma Machine and visualizes how it works. The Enigma Machine is an especially neat thing to visualize because it was electromechanical. As you used it, it moved. Instead of circuit traces, it had beautiful real wires connecting its pieces.To understand this model, first consider the design of the machine itself: as someone typed into it, electrical current flowed through rotors, which are essentially 1:1 mappings of one letter, represented as a signal from 0-26. Just one stationary rotor wouldn’t give much of a quality encryption, so the rotors also rotated.The main pieces were three rotors, a reflector - which was basically a rotor that connects to itself, and a plugboard, which swaps letters for each other on the way in & out. In order, a signal would go through the plugboard, each of the three rotors, the reflector, and then back through the rotors, and then back through the plugboard.Think of this view of the engima as looking 'through the barrel' of the machine: you're seeing wires snaking around the rotors and then looking at the rotors at the end. Read the rest

Robin Houston reports that 42 is the sum of three cubes. It's special in this regard not because it is alone, but because it was for an obvious reason the last remaining number under 100 where the sum was undiscovered.42 = (-80538738812075974)^3 + 80435758145817515^3 + 12602123297335631^3...This computational breakthrough was achieved in a collaboration between Andrew Sutherland (MIT) and Andrew Booker (Bristol). They announced the result by both replacing their homepages with the expression – with the page title Life, the Universe and Everything.Every cube of a whole number is within one of a multiple of nine, which means that a sum of three cubes must be within three of a multiple of nine. So numbers of the form 9𝑘+4 or 9𝑘+5 cannot be written as the sum of three cubes.In 1992, Roger Heath-Brown conjectured that every other whole number can be written as the sum of three cubes, in infinitely many different ways. Mathematicians on the whole seem to have been convinced by Heath-Brown’s argument that this ought to be true – but actually finding ways to write any particular number as a sum of three cubes remains a difficult problem. Read the rest

I remain convinced that Dr. Julius Strangepork was up to no good. It is entirely possible he is in league with Sir Topham Hatt.I am also rather certain that was a chicken lovin' Sith Lord. Read the rest

From "The One With the Theme That's Depressing As Hell."(Chase Holfelder) Read the rest

Sorry, I mean the "Inflatable Outdoor Color Dot Game." This Twister-like game by Hammacher Schlemmer can hold up to 1,500 pounds — meaning you and your posse can all play together. Want it? Prepare to cough up a mere $2000.This is the inflatable outdoor game that challenges up to 10 players to touch different colored dots on a playing surface using only their hands and feet. Based on the popular game that originated in the 1960s, and built by a company that only manufactures products for the amusement industry, the inflatable 18 oz., double-stitched vinyl 15' x 15' playing mat is comprised of 64 colored dots arranged in eight rows of eight dots each. An included 24" diameter, 3'-high wheel spun at the beginning of each turn indicates which hand or foot players are to use and what color dot to touch. Contortions and human pretzel poses aside, no other part of the body may touch the playing surface; the last player to remain "standing" wins.(POPSUGAR) Read the rest

The entries at the dumb-password-rules hall of shame are truly dreadful, especially the banks. My favorite ones are sites whose security measures run in the user's browser, which means it can be overridden by opening the web inspector and editing the rules. Why yes, javascript, 敗' OR 1=1 -- is a fine username. At Hacker News, turdnagel writes about one astonishing example of incompetence.My favorite dumb password experience involves EZPass, a system for paying tolls without cash, in New York.I signed up for EZPass using a relatively “long” password (20 chars). I then received a letter in the mail about a toll I had to pay, even though I’d had the EZPass at the the time. But, the letter said, I could pay the toll by logging in to their site and using my EZpass credentials. Didn’t use OAuth but I figured it would be OK. I input my username and password using my password manager but it didn’t work. Pretty strange, as I was able to log in to the “main” EZpass site using those same credentials. I tried logging in on the payment site again to no avail. Finally I realized that my password was being truncated by the password input field itself.The solution was to inspect the page and change the maxlen attribute of the password field. There are sites that block password managers! One site has you send three characters of your old password when picking a new one. American Express is apparently still on 8-character case-insentive alphanumeric passwords, which at this point suggests you might go to a public library to read about the security defects of its systems, in printed books written by people who have been dead for decades. Read the rest

LEGO announced the latest addition to its Ultimate Collectors Series today - a massive replica of the Imperial Star Destroyer from Star Wars: A New Hope. Coming in at almost 5000 pieces, the Destroyer is one of the largest sets in the Collectors Series with a large price tag ($700) to match.Here are the official stats from LEGO:Build and display an icon of the Galactic Empire – the Devastator. With over 4,700 LEGO® pieces, this Ultimate Collector Series 75252 Imperial Star Destroyer model captures all the authentic details of the starship as it appeared in the opening scene of Star Wars: A New Hope, including swiveling guns, a tilting radar dish, huge engine exhausts, intricate surface detailing and of course a buildable scale version of the Rebels' Tantive IV starship to chase down. This galactic civil war UCS set also includes a display stand with informational fact plaque and 2 Imperial minifigures, making it the perfect LEGO Star Wars collectible for discerning fans.-Includes Imperial Officer and Imperial Crewmember minifigures.-The Devastator Imperial Star Destroyer model features swiveling guns, a tilting radar dish, huge engine exhausts and intricate surface detailing.-Also includes an attachable, buildable scale version Tantive IV starship for added Star Wars: A New Hope authenticity.-With a display stand with informational fact plaque for the ultimate display piece.-Also comes with 2 blaster pistol weapons.-This Ultimate Collector Series set has 4,784 pieces.-Inspire unforgettable Star Wars: A New Hope moments.-The perfect LEGO® Star Wars™ collectible for fans of the Star Wars saga. Read the rest

If you don't have a pressure cooker, prepare for some tough love - because there is absolutely no reason not to own one. They can cook almost anything with little to no effort, they save space and they're super easy to clean.If you do have a pressure cooker, prepare to level up. There's a gadget that can actually add a ton of functionality onto that go-to device without any added space: The Mealthy CrispLid Pressure Cooker & Air Fryer.The concept is simple. The 1,000W unit replaces the lid on any 6- or 8-quart pressure cooker and circulates hot air evenly through the pot, instantly turning it into an air fryer. That means your recipe book just got a lot bigger. You can enjoy flaky french fries, crispy pork chops, rotisserie chicken - even a range of desserts if you get creative. It's got easy-to-use controls, and just like your pressure cooker, it wipes clean easily.Right now, you can get the Mealthy CrispLid Pressure Cooker & Air Fryer for more than 15% off the regular retail price of $59.95 - that's just $49.95. Read the rest

Yarn does one thing very well: return a brief video clip of a movie based on the dialog you type in.I especially like that if you paste in a URL, you get an automatic subtitled GIF that links to the video instead of the full embed. A real USDA grade A GIF image, not a bottom-quality mpeg hacked into its mime type or some other shenanigan that makes it effectively impossible to repost. Read the rest

On Tuesday of Burn week, a ragtag group of musically-minded Burners played a (truly) moving rendition of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," positioned in front of the massive art installation called "The Folly." Photographer Evan Halleck was there, capturing the performance on video from the sidelines. These performers are both amateur and pro musicians who are part of the Black Rock Philharmonic. There's no audition process to join this orchestra, applicants just have to fill out a form and be prepared to perform (mostly) classical music concerts at Burning Man. Rehearsals happen on the playa, as do the concerts. This year, they played four concerts on four different days at three different locations. Here is what they played at those concerts: Read the rest

Dan Bell's YouTube channel features explorations of moribund shopping malls, all set to vaporwave aesthetic moments and clips from 1980s and early-1990s television culture. #DillardsLife Read the rest

“The enormity of their flat brain; the enormity of their stupidity is just overwhelming. You have to do yourself a favor, when you’re out in the country: try to look a chicken in they eye, with great intensity and the intensity of stupidity that is looking back at you is just amazing”.Look, I've got no reason for posting this video other than the fact that I would follow this weird, talented, delightfully menacing man right into the sun, if he asked me to.Image via Flickr, courtesy of Raffi Asdourian Read the rest

The Frying Pan Tower is an old oil rig 34 miles off the Carolina coastline, now an adventurous and rather expensive bed and breakfast. I don't think anyone's staying at the moment, though, because it's in the middle of a hurricane, as evidenced by the live feed from a camera there. Warning: as of Sept. 5, 2019, it's loud!Here's footage of the tower in calmer seas: Read the rest

Like the Amazon seller says: "This Fashion bikini suits is both high quality and low price,make you charming and lively,cone and buy it quickly." Best of all, it's only Read the rest

No, we still don't know if 'Nessie' is real.But a New Zealand scientist who gathered and analyzed DNA from the fabled Loch Ness in Scotland says there's a possibility the so-called 'Loch Ness Monster' monster might be a very large eel. Or, maybe, lots of little eels.Neil Gemmell of the New Zealand University of Otago says the DNA material his project collected from the water at Loch Ness included a high count of eel DNA. Whether such a finding, if legitimate, might indicate one huge eel or many little eels, no one knows.Professor Gemmell, who is a geneticist, said at a news conference in Scotland on Thursday his findings make the notion of a giant eel more plausible.He told reporters, “People love a mystery, we've used science to add another chapter to Loch Ness' mystique.”Excerpt from the BBC's coverage of his pitch:"We can't find any evidence of a creature that's remotely related to that in our environmental-DNA sequence data. So, sorry, I don't think the plesiosaur idea holds up based on the data that we have obtained."He added: "So there's no shark DNA in Loch Ness based on our sampling. There is also no catfish DNA in Loch Ness based on our sampling. We can't find any evidence of sturgeon either,"There is a very significant amount of eel DNA. Eels are very plentiful in Loch Ness, with eel DNA found at pretty much every location sampled - there are a lot of them. Read the rest