Boing Boing

The forthcoming album "Songs from the Bardo" is an exploration of the Tibetan Book of the Dead by beloved composer Laurie Anderson, Tibetan multi-instrumentalist Tenzin Choegyal, and composer/climate activist Jesse Paris Smith, daughter of Patti and Fred "Sonic" Smith. "Songs from the Bardo" will be released September 27 on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings:Like a guided meditation, this album suspends time, allowing listeners to fully lose themselves in the piece, as well as bringing to a new light the ideas expressed in the text, connecting the past and the present by illuminating death, the one constant in the impermanent human experience.The origins of the project lie in shared activist work. Smith and Choegyal met in 2008 at a benefit concert that raised money to preserve Tibetan culture and traditions. They began conceptualizing this album back in 2014, first performing a shortened version of it as a duo in 2015....Songs from the Bardo perfectly combines Anderson’s storytelling genius with Choegyal’s expression of traditional Tibetan music and Smith’s background in composition to create a piece that transcends genre and form, emblematic of the text, which speaks of the experience of beings as they transform from one life into the next. Read the rest

Americans mostly used to say "daa-ta", as Brent Spiner relates in an appearance at Big Apple Comic Con earlier this year. Now they mostly say "day-ta". It's all because Patrick Stewart won an argument at the first reading of the first episode of Star Trek, The Next Generation.Brent Spiner tells a funny story about the Data name from "Star Trek: The Next Generation", and how Patrick Stewart is responsible for the way the word is now pronounced. This panel was moderated by Larry Nemecek. For more information on Big Apple Comic Con, head to www.BigAppleCC.comBut I have prior art: 1985's The Goonies. Jump to 50s in for the daa-ta v. day-ta moment.Also, has anyone written about out how much ... weirder? creepier? offbeat? ... early TNG was? The first season has little of the cosy, formulaic rythyms and Flanderized characters we associate with late-century Star Trek stuff, but I feel we've forgotten how interesting it sometimes was because it was so rough (and mostly bad). I'm thinking a supercut of "weird early TNG" is needed. I'm certain I saw someone riffing on this on Twitter a while ago--who was it? Read the rest

I've been following the Modern Monetary Theory debate for about 18 months, and I'm largely a convert: governments spend money into existence and tax it out of existence, and government deficit spending is only inflationary if it's bidding against the private sector for goods or services, which means that the government could guarantee every unemployed person a job (say, working on the Green New Deal), and which also means that every unemployed person and every unfilled social services role is a political choice, not an economic necessity.I was delighted to be invited onto the MMT Podcast to discuss the ways that MMT dovetails with the fight against monopoly and inequality, and how science-fiction storytelling can bring complicated technical subjects (like adversarial interoperability) to life.We talked so long that they've split it into two episodes, the first of which is now live (MP3). Read the rest

"The Ohio State University" is apparently the full name of Ohio State, and to remind everyone of it, they're selling a line of clothing emblazoned with the stark word "THE," and so they've asked the US Patent and Trademark Office to give them the exclusive right to sell t-shirts, baseball hats and hats with the word "THE" on them. This is stupidly generic and unlikely to survive a challenge or even examination. Doesn't THE university have a law-school that could prevent this kind of public embarrassment? Read the rest

I've been playing a game called "Chess" lately. I'm not much good, but have found that a good way to get people mad is to use only the "Pawn" characters. Oftentimes players will end up snarled up on them and it's apparently quite humiliating. In this game the white player quit and msgd me "what the fuck are you doing?" Read the rest

Omni Calculator asks a few questions about your internet usage and tells you what else you might consider doing instead. And yet, for some reason, I find myself wary of completing an online questionnaire about my online habits. Thankfully it's a simple calculation, writes Emma Charlton: Cutting out three 10-minute social media checks a day means you could read as many as 30 more books a year. Many of us are spending more time on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram than ever before: 2 hours and 23 minutes per day, on average, if you accept GlobalWebIndex’s Flagship Report for 2019. Read the rest

Bloomberg reports that Facebook retains recordings of users' voice chats and paid contractors to transcribe them. Now that this has been exposed, the social media giant says it has "paused" the work.Facebook Inc. has been paying hundreds of outside contractors to transcribe clips of audio from users of its services, according to people with knowledge of the work.The work has rattled the contract employees, who are not told where the audio was recorded or how it was obtained -- only to transcribe it, said the people, who requested anonymity for fear of losing their jobs. They’re hearing Facebook users’ conversations, sometimes with vulgar content, but do not know why Facebook needs them transcribed, the people said.Facebook is a fast zombie, sprinting at the details of your life, and can't see beyond the next bite. It can pretend to be human for brief moments when it perceives a threat, remaining motionless while something in its hungry mind utters a few words that it has learned will mollify prey. But it lurches back into motion as soon as your attention drifts away. Attributing human motivations and concerns to it is pointless, and the only option that makes any sense at all is to destroy it. Read the rest

In 1934, two Englishwomen set out to do what no one had ever done before: travel the length of Africa on a motorcycle. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow Theresa Wallach and Florence Blenkiron from Algiers to Cape Town on a 14,000-mile adventure that many had told them was impossible.We'll also anticipate some earthquakes and puzzle over a daughter's age.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon! Read the rest

Big companies take on big projects. When they do that, they need a project manager to lay out a roadmap for the entire team - and they're typically willing to pay a big paycheck to the person who can fill those shoes.So what does it take to become a project manager? If you don't have a good handle on methodologies like Agile and Scrum, the Complete Project Management Bundle might be a good place to start.In this 11-part online master class, you'll get step-by-step examples of how to plot a workflow in Agile or Scrum, setting up "sprints" for teams of specialized workers that will result in fast goals and constant progress. To keep track of all this, you'll also get hands-on with Jira, a software package specifically designed to help you and your team visualize those goals. By the time you're done, you'll have all you need to get PMP certified and on the path to a new career.Right now, the Complete Project Management Bundle is $29, a full 98% off the original price. Read the rest

George Sink Sr. is well-known to South Carolina couch potatoes thanks to the endless rotation of ads pitching his personal injury firm. George Sink Jr. is his son, also a lawyer, and now forbidden from using his own name to market his own firm.A federal judge on Friday issued a temporary restraining order banning the younger Sink from using the “George Sink” name on his firm’s website, social media accounts and email address. The ban will stay in place until the case is heard by an arbitrator. The elder Sink’s corporation — George Sink P.A. Personal Injury Lawyers — sued Sink Jr. in April to stop him from using his birth name professionally, saying it violates trademark laws and confuses consumers.Sink the Younger used to work for his dad but was fired by him: first from the family firm, then from the family name. Read the rest

It lived some 60m years ago, but the giant penguins are still with us. Standing about 5ft 3in and weighing up to 176 pounds, the monster penguin roamed New Zealand's balmy waters and ruled the beaches for millions of years.It's not entirely clear why the giant penguins disappeared from the waters of the Southern Hemisphere. The most commonly held theory is that it's simply due to growing competition with marine mammals. "At the time giant penguins evolved, the large marine reptiles just had become extinct," Gerald Mayr, another author of the new study, told the BBC. "In Antarctica and New Zealand, there were no large marine competitors until the arrival of toothed whales and pinnipeds (seals) many million years later." Read the rest

Tom the Dancing Bug, IN WHICH the Trump Organization posts its Help Wanted advertisement, directed at citizens of Latino nations

Rule #1: Give the people what they want.Thank you to Jack Black, and Tenacious D's Kyle Gass, for joining forces with Jack White to bring the world the rock collab we've been wanting: Jack Gray. Vulture:Over on his Jablinski Games YouTube channel, Black posted a video of the pair’s recent visit to White’s predictably macabre Third Man Records studio in Nashville, as well as his equally Tim Burton–esque home. We don’t actually get to see the inside of White’s reportedly antique-filled house, which sucks, but Black does confirm that the trio recorded a single, the “legendary collab” you’ve been waiting for. It’s no Bobby Castro or band made entirely of Led Zeppelin moms, but still satisfying.Jack White invited us to party pic.twitter.com/0PLAqNnYqH— Jack Black (@jackblack) August 8, 2019 Read the rest

On Sunday morning in Henrico County, Virginia, dozens of residents woke to find old TV sets dumped on their lawns. One person reviewed their home security footage and reported the following:"It was a guy dressed in a jumpsuit with a TV for a head," said Adrian Garner. "It’s the weirdest thing. He squats down, puts the TV there and walks off. It’s really weird."From NBC12:“We have a team of officers out here working together, collecting the TVs. We’re upwards of 60 TVs so far," said Lt. Matt Pecka of Henrico Police Division.Pecka says the culprits could face charges of littering on private property or illegal dumping, but some residents recognize the absurdity in the situation. Read the rest

Meet Mia and Emilka.National Geographic photographer Ami Vitale captured this heartwarming video of a cat and rhino who are unlikely friends. View this post on Instagram Video by @amivitale. Back by popular demand! Here is more of Mia and Emilka. Mia, the kitty had her tail bitten off by a different rhino when she was a little thing. But she persisted, kept her heart open, and one day found true love with a rhino named Emilka at Dvur Kralove @safariparkdvurkralove in the Czech Republic. This is the same place where the last northern white rhinos came from and they have been instrumental in saving species from the brink of extinction. ️️️ @thephotosociety @natgeo #WorthMoreAlive #protectrhinos #DontLetThemDisappear #rhinos #saverhinos #stoppoaching #prague #czechrepublic #photojournalism #nikon #nikonambassador #natureisspeaking #catsofinstagram #catstagram #kitties #cat #amivitaleA post shared by Ami Vitale (@amivitale) on Mar 2, 2019 at 12:03am PST “Mia, the kitty, had her tail bitten off by a different rhino when she was a little thing. But she persisted, kept her heart open, and one day found true love with a rhino named Emilka at Dvur Kralove @safariparkdvurkralove in the Czech Republic,” Vitali wrote on Instagram.“This is the same place where the last northern white rhinos came from and they have been instrumental in saving species from the brink of extinction.”Here's more video below. View this post on Instagram Video by @amivitale. I am honored to be speaking as part of TEDx Bergamo (@tedxbergamo) in Italy on March 16. The topic is Wonder, the magic of a singular event. Read the rest

* FAA says some MacBook Pros are unsafe on airplanes• Apple recently recalled certain laptops over battery fire riskThe Federal Aviation Administration today banned people from bringing recalled MacBook Pros onto flights and carriers in Europe. The FAA is also going to start banning the MacBook Pro sold between 2015 and 2017.In today's statement, FAA says it was “aware of the recalled batteries that are used in some Apple MacBook Pro laptops,” and alerted U.S. airlines about the recall.From Mark Gurman and Alan Levin at Bloomberg:The watchdog also reminded airlines to follow 2016 safety instructions for goods with recalled batteries, which means that the affected Apple laptops should not be taken on flights as cargo or in carry-on baggage by passengers.The European Union Aviation Safety Agency issued a warning about these MacBook Pro models earlier this month, telling airlines in the region to follow 2017 rules that require devices with recalled lithium-ion batteries to be switched off and not used during flights.The Apple laptops in question are some 15-inch MacBook Pros sold between September 2015 and February 2017. Apple issued the recall in June, saying it had “determined that, in a limited number of older generation 15-inch MacBook Pro units, the battery may overheat and pose a fire safety risk.”This week, four airlines with cargo operations managed by Total Cargo Expertise -- TUI Group Airlines, Thomas Cook Airlines, Air Italy, and Air Transat -- implemented a ban, barring the laptops from being brought onto the carriers’ planes as cargo, according to an internal notice obtained by Bloomberg News. Read the rest

We've posted several times about blind people who have learned how to "see" and navigate the world using echolocation like bats, shrews, and whales. In the video above, YouTuber Molly Burke and echolocation educator Brian Bushway, who are both blind, try to teach It's Okay To Be Smart's Dr Joe Hanson, who is sighted, the fundamentals of this extraordinary skill. Read the rest

Amazon is a major federal contractor. AWS powers ICE raids and detention camps.

Dylan Sheridan circuit-bent some smoke alarms and posted the results of his sonorous experiments to Bandcamp. [via Metafilter]Circuit Bent Smoke Alarms - Ringtone Collection by Dylan SheridanUnprocessed sounds of circuit bent smoke alarms. If anybody uses these let me know I can't tell you how happy it would make meBig fan of the solid feet-on-the-floor beat of call_1 but its the intricate structures of call_5 that really speak to me. I am two glasses of sawbuck wine away from making a pounding EDM track that integrates these. Read the rest

I wrote a while back about why typing on old keyboards feels better: it's because they were simple, low-latency devices interacting with your computer's bare metal. Nowadays, many device instructions end up filtered through a zillion layers of microcontrollers, firmware, virtual machinery, applications, hardware abstraction layers and God knows what else before a byte gets to the screen. How annoying is too annoying? is a Glitch site by Monica Dinculescu that lets you simulate keyboard latency, to see exactly how much of it you can take.This is an experiment to see what amount of delay is too annoying for a user interaction like typing. Here are some presets; make sure to type a lot of characters at once for the full effect. Note that whatever you select in the app, it's added to the actual latency of your own keyboard and computer--probably 100ms or so for most of us. After about 50ms of extra wait, I start to get aggravated. Read the rest

This 15-minute explainer video might be the only video you'll need to learn as much about switches as you'll ever care to find out.Image: YouTube/Technology Connections[via Dooby Brain] Read the rest

Computational biologist Mike Inouye posted this video to Twitter, saying, "This zombie snail. A parasitic worm Leucochloridium has taken over its motor functions and eye stalks, making them into caterpillar mimics so birds will eat them. The worm can then reproduce in the bird's GI tract, eventually transmitting via its faeces."This zombie snail. A parasitic worm Leucochloridium has taken over its motor functions and eye stalks, making them into caterpillar mimics so birds will eat them. The worm can then reproduce in the bird's GI tract, eventually transmitting via its faeces 🤯 https://t.co/mP8IrGh21L pic.twitter.com/C2xc83oU54— Mike Inouye (@minouye271) August 12, 2019Image: Twitter/Mike Inouye Read the rest

Model train hobbyist James Risner creates mesmerizing spirals from HO Scale model trains. His creations remind me of kinetic art sculptures. All aboard!https://youtu.be/qUZVv0nr2rc(via The Kid Should See This) Read the rest

Ken "Popehat" White (previously) has expanded on his excellent Twitter thread about Jeffrey Epstein's suicide in jail, and just how (shamefully) normal it is for prisoners to die in custody due to indifference, overwork, malfeasance and sadism on the part of prison authorities.In the Atlantic, White tells the stories of 32 inmates who died (or nearly died) in US custody, under circumstances that are every bit as absurd and negligent as those surrounding Jeffrey Epstein's death.The point isn't that it's inconceivable that Epstein died as the result of a conspiracy, but the conspiracy theories that say that it has to be a setup because it's so implausible that prison authorities would be so totally useless are thoroughly disconnected from reality.The state of US prisons is a national shame, and the fact that America incarcerates more people than any other nation in world history in these gulags is a national horror.Andrew Holland died in a restraint chair in San Luis Obispo County, California. He was strapped to the chair, naked, for two days. If you like, you can watch video of the guards laughing as medics try fruitlessly to perform CPR, though I would not recommend it.The story of Shamieke Pugh and Maurice Lee has laughter, too, but I don’t think it’s funny. Maybe I’m humorless? Pugh and Lee were African American, and they were handcuffed, helpless, to a jail table when they were stabbed by a white supremacist. The guards laughed.Darren Rainey was an inmate in South Florida. Read the rest

This Wera slotted 0.5 mm x 3.0 mm x 80 mm screwdriver is on sale for just including shipping. Read the rest

The Duke Law and Technology Review has released a special edition dedicated to examining the legal and philosophical legacy of John Perry Barlow: co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; junior lyricist for the Grateful Dead; biofuel entrepreneur; philosopher; poet; hacker Zelig; and driven, delightful weirdo.Barlow died an untimely death in early 2018 after a lingering illness (septicemia from an infected toenail cuticle, seriously), and the breadth of the scholars in this journal are a testament to his wide reach. I was privileged to contribute an essay myself. Other contributors include the copyright scholar James Boyle (previously), who also edited this edition; EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn (previously); Yochai "Wealth of Networks" Benkler (previously); Julie Cohen (previously); Jonathan Zittrain (previously); Peter Jaszi (previously); Pam Samuelson (previously); Charlie Nesson (previously); Jessica Litman (previously) and other smart and insightful writers and scholars. The issue also includes some of Barlow's most influential essays like the Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace (previously) and "Selling Wine Without Bottles."I can't wait to dig into this! Here's some of Cindy Cohn's essay, "Inventing The Future: Barlow and Beyond":Barlow was trying to use the force of his will and mighty pen to bring a good future to pass in a world where it was far from certain. He was trying to get out ahead of what he knew would be the powerful forces against freedom online. Read the rest

Ken Landauer is an artist and woodworker who designs nice-slooking piece of furniture with two constraints. First, a piece or set can only use one standard 4 x 8 foot sheet of plywood, and second, it must use at least 94% of the sheet.From Core 77:Landauer's signature puzzle-piece style is made of CNC cut pieces that are finished with a UV-cured acrylic coating and can be customized with laminated or lacquered color options. Each piece is sanded, edged, and joined by hand.The angular designs have acquired a reputation for being more comfortable than they initially appear. As a trained yogi (Landauer's body was used to develop the male cartoon figure that appears in 108 Yoga Poses for Dummies) Landauer considered proper body alignment and support when deciding on the various angles and surfaces of his pieces.Image: Ken Landauer/Core 77 Read the rest

This seems bad. Buzzfeed:Almost 40 minutes before ABC News first reported Epstein’s death on Twitter, someone posted still-unverified details on 4chan, the anonymous message board popular with far-right trolls and white nationalists. “[D]ont ask me how I know, but Epstein died an hour ago from hanging, cardiac arrest. Screencap this,” read the post, which was published at 8:16 a.m. alongside an image of Pepe, the green frog that has become a mascot for right-wing internet trolls. ... the original poster added more information to the discussion thread, including a detailed breakdown of the procedures allegedly used to resuscitate Epstein, which suggest the poster may have been a first responder, medical worker, or otherwise privy to details about efforts to resuscitate the disgraced financier.The Fire Department of New York apparently suspects one of their own and is "reviewing" the posting, but insists it is not "investigating" it. Read the rest

David Howard, McSweeney's: "Let me tell you, it’s hard out here for an orc. We experience tremendous insecurity, not knowing whether we’ll have a job, or be able to raid peaceful villages, or if our friends will eat us. Sauron appeals to us economically challenged goblins because he offers us the chance of a decent wage, respect for our values, and renewed pride in being the corrupted spawn of Morgoth." (Image: Guise, CC BY-SA, modified; Chicago Costume Company) (via Bruce Sterling) Read the rest

Luke Curtis, the IT manager for Quartz, recently bought an iTunes gift card from a "popular discount website" and loaded into into his iTunes account. A few days later he received a message from Apple that read "You cannot login because your account has been locked." He called Apple's customer service and was told that the card he'd used had been stolen but that they understood that Luke was the victim, not the perpetrator, and that his account would be reactivated in 24 hours. After 24 hours had elapsed and Luke was still locked out he called back. This time, the customer service rep he was connected to was a less friendly. He told Luke, “Your account has been permanently disabled. There is nothing else you can do, there is no escalation path.” When Luke asked why, the agent said only, “See the terms and conditions.”It turned out that getting locked out of his Apple account made all of Luke's Apple hardware almost useless. From his article on Quartz:I started to realize just how far-reaching the effects of Apple disabling my account were. One of the things I love about Apple’s ecosystem is that I’ve built my media collection on iTunes, and can access it from any of my Apple devices. My partner and I have owned numerous iPods, iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, iMacs, Apple Watches, Apple TVs, and even a HomePod, over the years. Apple plays a big part in my professional life too: As the IT manager for Quartz, we use Apple hardware and publish on Apple platforms. Read the rest

Choices. https://t.co/o3bJPCDApG pic.twitter.com/uYrI6mype5— Cliff Pickover (@pickover) August 10, 2019 I can only hope that there was a second chance.(via Daily Grail) Read the rest

Julia Burnham tweeted, "I woke up in a cold sweat last night to create this content. I present: the Email Sign-off Alignment." It's excellent!I woke up in a cold sweat last night to create this content. I present: the Email Sign-off Alignment pic.twitter.com/SkNpXxrj5V— Julia Burnham (@juliarburnham) August 9, 2019See also:Connector Alignment ChartShopping Cart Alignment ChartImage: Twitter/Julia Burnham Read the rest

All the Democratic frontrunners outpoll Trump, but Bernie beats him 50-42 in a new Surveyusa poll; Biden has the same margin, while Warren and Harris have leads that are smaller than the margin of error. (via Naked Capitalism) Read the rest

Sometimes, it's hard to prove that your shitty boss violated federal labor law by threatening to fire you for talking to a union organizer. Sometimes, it's not. See you in court, Dave Portnoy. (via /r/LateStageCapitalism/) Read the rest

Wild About Houdini shares the details of Houdini's suspended straight jacket escape in Los Angeles.For years I've been trying to uncover details of Houdini's first suspended straitjacket escape in Los Angeles. While his 1923 escape is well represented in photos and newspaper clippings, his 1915 escape has proven strangely elusive. This would have been a major event with a massive crowd and snarled traffic, yet there's no mention of it in either the Los Angeles Times or the Herald. How could that be? If fact, the only clue that it ever happened at all is this short undated film clip:This has been especially vexing as L.A. is my home and I've tasked myself with uncovering all the Houdini connections I can. I've actually been entertaining the idea that the above film is misidentified and there never was a 1915 Los Angeles escape. Maybe this is Oakland? We know Houdini did an escape there before coming to L.A.But on a recent visit to the Magic Castle, librarian Joe Fox finally helped me crack the case. He showed me a flyer from the 1987 televised séance The Search For Houdini. Joe wondered if I had ever seen it. I told him had. In fact, I own one myself. But I haven't looked at it in years, so I popped it open anyway. There, much to my astonishment, was a paragraph about Houdini in Los Angeles with key details about the 1915 escape. As if to mock me, it referred to it as one of Houdini's "best documented" escapes. Read the rest

From an unbylined, slapdash item at CBS News:CBS News has learned that the morning of Jeffrey Epstein's death there was shouting and shrieking from his jail cell. Guards attempted to revive him while saying "breathe, Epstein, breathe." The rest of the story is all recap, offering no clarification at all about who was shrieking or even to make clear that it was after Epstein died. The only other new detail in it is that his brother was summoned to identify his body.This is obviously going to be everywhere today. Is the suggestion that it was a guard or other jail staffer upon discovering his body? That CBS News chose such an ambiguous headline, allowing that it might have been Epstein shrieking, is the stuff institutional regrets are made of. Read the rest

Sometimes, I play video games to get out of my head for an hour or two. A bit of gaming allows me to numb myself after a stressful day at work or to relax through a bout of insomnia once I become too damn tired to read but not sleepy enough to drift off. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: the Black Order for the Nintendo Switch offers just the right amount of a dumb plot, decent graphics and button mashing to scratch my escapist itch.For the past few years, everything in Marvel’s cinematic universe and many of their comics have revolved around the Infinity Stones. You’ll find no exception here. If you’ve seen a trailer for Avengers Endgame, you’ve got the broad strokes of this game’s story. Infinity Stones are powerful. Infinity Stones are bad. Bad people want them. It’s a plot that a wee kid could follow, which I suppose is Disney/Marvel’s plan. And why not? It’s a story that’s proven capable of printing its own money.As you progress through the game’s various levels, you’ll take on progressively tougher foes with a team of four heroes of your choosing. Your roster of potential teammates grows as you bop along. There’s no earning new members... it just kind of happens. I’m a few hours into the game. Disappointingly, the amount of customization allowed for your heroes by the last two iterations of the game appear to be largely absent. There’s no costumes to unlock. No accessories that your heroes can mix and match to enhance their power set: just points and drops that allow you to power up in one way or another. Read the rest

Uber -- a bezzle -- projected $8b in losses this year; but it lost more than $5b in a single quarter, and despite an initial stock price rise (dead cat bounce?) the company's shares have tumbled by more than 10% since, hitting an all-time low. Engineers who were scheduled to interview at Uber have had those interviews canceled by the company's HR department, who told them the company now has a tech-worker hiring freeze. (Image: Tarcil, CC BY-SA, modified) (via Naked Capitalism) Read the rest

I'm pretty sure that we can all agree that shit has been well out-of-hand in the United States of America for some time now. Children are being taken from their parents and held in deplorable conditions. Folks are murdered for the color of their skin. Gun violence... yeah. It's bullshit. So, it should come as no surprise that a number of nations including New Zealand, The Bahamas, Germany and Japan have all issued travel advisories to their citizens, warning them that traveling to the U.S.A. could result in very bad things. One could argue this away as politics. Amnesty International, however, hasn't got a nationalistic horse in this race. Today, they came out swinging with a statement as well, chatting up the fact that maybe visiting the 'States ain't such a great idea.From Amnesty International: Let's be honest: there's not a damn thing in there that isn't true.Images via Amnesty International Read the rest

Last summer, we published a comprehensive look at the ways that Facebook could and should open up its data so that users could control their experience on the service, and to make it easier for competing services to thrive.In the time since, Facebook has continued to be rocked by scandals: privacy breaches, livestreamed terrorist attacks, harassment, and more. At the same time, competition regulators, scholars and technologists have stepped up calls for Facebook to create and/or adopt interoperability standards to open up its messenger products (and others) to competitors.To make matters more complex, there is an increasing appetite in both the USA and Europe, to hold Facebook and other online services directly accountable for the actions of its users: both in terms of what those users make available (copyright infringement, political extremism, incitements to violence, etc) and in how they treat each other (harassment, stalking, etc).Fool me twice...Facebook execs have complained that these goals are in conflict: they say that for the company to detect and block undesirable user behaviors as well as interdicting future Cambridge Analytica-style data-hijacking, they need to be able to observe and analyze everything every user does, both to train automated filters and to allow them to block abusers. But by allowing third parties to both inject data into their network and pull data out of it--that is, allowing interoperability--the company's ability to monitor and control its users' bad behavior will be weakened.There is a good deal of truth to this, but buried in that truth is a critical (and highly debatable) assumption: "If you believe that Facebook has the will and ability to stop 2.3 billion people from abusing its systems and each other, then weakening Facebook's control over these 2.3 billion people might limit the company's ability to make that happen."But if there's one thing we've learned from more than a decade of Facebook scandals, it's that there's little reason to believe that Facebook possesses the requisite will and capabilities. Read the rest

In my latest podcast (MP3), I read my essay "Interoperability and Privacy: Squaring the Circle, published today on EFF's Deeplinks; it's another in the series of "adversarial interoperability" explainers, this one focused on how privacy and adversarial interoperability relate to each other. Even if we do manage to impose interoperability on Facebook in ways that allow for meaningful competition, in the absence of robust anti-monopoly rules, the ecosystem that grows up around that new standard is likely to view everything that's not a standard interoperable component as a competitive advantage, something that no competitor should be allowed to make incursions upon, on pain of a lawsuit for violating terms of service or infringing a patent or reverse-engineering a copyright lock or even more nebulous claims like "tortious interference with contract."In other words, the risk of trusting competition to an interoperability mandate is that it will create a new ecosystem where everything that's not forbidden is mandatory, freezing in place the current situation, in which Facebook and the other giants dominate and new entrants are faced with onerous compliance burdens that make it more difficult to start a new service, and limit those new services to interoperating in ways that are carefully designed to prevent any kind of competitive challenge.Standards should be the floor on interoperability, but adversarial interoperability should be the ceiling. Adversarial interoperability takes place when a new company designs a product or service that works with another company's existing products or services, without seeking permission to do so. Read the rest

Your phone doesn't have to be the only smart piece of tech in your pocket. We regularly take pens, lighters, and wallets for granted, but here are 10 portable items that improve on those everyday bits of gear and others just like them.TEC Accessories The Orbiterâ„¢ Pinstripe Magnetic Fidget DeviceTired of that same old fidget spinner? This two-piece sensory device involves a magnetic ball that rotates a grade 5 titanium hub, providing continuous, hypnotic movement that you can control and enjoy. And with a nano-composite microlayer, you can be sure it's more durable than typical spinners. TEC Accessories' The Orbiterâ„¢ Pinstripe Magnetic Fidget Device is now $29.99, a full 55% off the list price.Geekey Multi-ToolOpen and closed wrench, a screwdriver, bit driver, wire bender and even a smokeable pipe are just a few of the uses of this multi-tool. It's TSA-compliant, and it's roughly the size and shape of a regular key, so it goes with you wherever your keychain does. The Geekey Multi-Tool is now $22.99, down 58% from the original cost.EverRatchet Ratcheting Keychain Multi-ToolThe emergency fire flint kit makes this pint-sized multi-tool especially useful for the outdoors, but the wire stripper and 7(!) wrenches make it a lifesaver around the house as well. Get the EverRatchet Ratcheting Keychain Multi-Tool for $24.99, a 10% break off the MSRP.Pry.Me Bottle OpenersIt may be billed as the world's tiniest bottle opener, but this grade 5 titanium tool can hold 164,000 times its own weight. Read the rest

Jacob the parrot enjoys dancing to the theme music for the video game Super Mario Bros. Hope you enjoy the video as much as he clearly enjoys performing for it.“Jacob the blue and gold macaw dancing, he just loved the song that was playing.” —@Valyndris. [Link, via IMGUR] Read the rest

Cronch cronch cronch.No sound, unfortunately. Would have made for some very comforting ASMR.I Luv Ice Wow Read the rest

Automattic (beloved parent company of WordPress) is buying Tumblr from Verizon (loathesome parent company of Oath, a division named because its users are generally angry enough to swear at it), at a price "well below" $20m (which is well below the $1.1b Yahoo paid in 2013). No word as to whether Automattic will get rid of Tumblr's world-beatingly-terrible pornography filter. (via Bruce Sterling's Tumblr) Read the rest

I've written about Tom Gauld's wry and wistful books and comics a lot on Boing Boing over the years. One of his latest books is this cleverly bound collection of heavy stock postcards called The Snooty Bookshop. Almost all the postcards have something to do with books, and anyone who loves books will identify with the jokes and stories here. (The "Have you seen my Kindle anywhere?" is something I've said more than once.) If you are actually planning to tear out the cards and mail them to your friends, I suggest that you buy two copies, or just buy one copy and text photos of the cards. Read the rest

Sarah Krouse reports that Automattic, the company behind WordPress, is buying Tumblr from Verizon. WordPress is the software reportedly powering a third of the world's websites, and was itself originally focused on blogging. Tumblr was the blogging service of choice for millions of young people, but floundered after being sold to AOL Yahoo and subsequently cleansed of smut and other advertiser-unfriendly material when Yahoo was itself sold to Verizon. Verizon Communications Inc. has agreed to sell its blogging website Tumblr to the owner of popular online-publishing tool WordPress, unloading for a nominal amount a site that once fetched a purchase price of more than $1 billion. Automattic Inc. will buy Tumblr for an undisclosed sum and take on about 200 staffers, the companies said. Tumblr is a free service that hosts millions of blogs where users can upload photos, music and art, but it has been dwarfed by Facebook, Reddit and other services.Surprise news, and surely good news for those still using Tumblr. It still has plenty of life in it despite the damp carpets and stagnant air. Looking forward to seeing what happens next.But for one thing, the porn will not be back. Mr. Mullenweg said his company intends to maintain the existing policy that bans adult content. He said he has long been a Tumblr user and sees the site as complementary to WordPress.com. “It’s just fun,” he said of Tumblr. “We’re not going to change any of that.” Bought on a whim, for a song. Read the rest

Michael Gardi posted instructions for making a replica of the GENIAC ("GENIus Almost-automatic Computer") that was sold in kit form in the 1950s and 1960s for $20.GENIAC consisted of a Masonite back panel with six areas of concentric perforations, six similarly perforated Masonite disks, and some additional hardware listed in the supplies section below.Slotted brass bolts were positioned on the main back panel in such a way that brass "jumpers" inserted into the underside of the Masonite disks would create electrical connections when the disks were rotated over them. The bolts were wired together along with a battery and some lights to create "programs," basically single purpose "machines."Technically GENIAC was a collection of configurable N-pole by N-throw rotary switches, which could be set up to be cascaded and thus perform logical functions. As a result GENIAC could use combinational logic only, its outputs depending entirely on inputs manually set. However, projects outlined in the manual, which started with basic logic circuits, ultimately progressed to such things as a NIM machine and TIC-TAC-TOE machine.Michael Gardi previously on Boing Boing:Complete instructions for making a replica of the Minivac 601 educational computer kit3D printed replica of the Digi-Comp II marble computerHow to 3D print the Think a Dot, a nifty "computer" toy from 1965Make this scale model of the Dr. Nim digital gameAbove, a video by Brian Moriarty. "A description and simulation of 'The Uranium Shipment and the Space Pirates,' the first computerized interactive story, published in 1955 as Project 23 of the GENIAC hobby kit." Read the rest

In 2015 my friend, the fabulous artist Mitch O'Connell, created this excellent illustration of Donald Trump as one of the evil aliens from John Carpenter's 1988 science fiction film, They Live. Once Trump became president, Mitch tried to install a billboard with the illustration, but no one in the US would let him. He ended up displaying it in Mexico City, though.Well, Mitch recently found out that a Times Square billboard company will allow him to display his illustration on a billboard and he's started a gofundme campaign to make this dream a reality. Go, Mitch!It seems since 2017 New York billboard companies might have loosened up a bit, and as long as I sign one of those fancy lawyer letters that says everything is my fault, they’ll take our money and slap the art up on vinyl for the world to see!We have three billboard options starting at $7,892, then $14,112, and the huge supersized one at $45,000 (I'll be posting pics of the locations)!If we don’t reach the minimum, all money gets returned. I’m only raising the exact amount that we’re being charged, no extra cash goes in my pocket.The more we take in, the bigger and better the billboard, but the only way this is going to happen is if everyone chips in a bit, shares, promotes, and pesters their friends and family. Especially rich friends and family. Sadly, I mostly know artists, and they’re always broke.This time, instead of the “Make America Great Again” tagline on the illustration, I wanted to get a little more proactive, and switched it up to “VOTE!”. Read the rest