Boing Boing

The Washington Post's Drew Harwell takes a deep look at the the use of facial recognition products like Bunk1 at summer camps, in a deliciously terrible piece that alternates between Bunk1's president Rob Burns and Waldo Photos's founder Rodney Rice explaining that everyone loves this and it makes everyone happy, and counsellors, parents, campers and photographers (as well as child development experts and civil libertarians) explaining how it is just fucking terrible, which Rice dismisses as "privacy hysteria."The facial recog summer camp drill goes like this: photographers follow you children around all the time, taking their photos. The facial recognition tool figures out which camper corresponds to which parent and sends the parents pocket-buzzes every time it senses a new photo of your kid, and then you can look at your kid. You can also call your kid if you think they look unhappy or if you are unsatisfied with them in any way and nag them.So kids mob photographers with big, fake smiles and beg to be photographed so their parents won't harass them. The companies have "privacy policies" that grossly overreach, giving them perpetual licenses to distribute all the photos they take forever, for any purpose. They claim to have super-secure data-centers, but won't describe what makes them so sure their data centers are more secure than, say, the NSA's, Equifax, or any of the other "super secure" data centers that have been breached and dumped in recent memory.And while parents enjoy all this looking at their kids while they're away in theory, they also report a kind of free-floating anxiety because they know just enough about their kids' lives at camp to worry, but not enough to assuage their worries. Read the rest

Jeffrey Epstein is dead. The convicted sexual predator committed suicide overnight at MCC Manhattan, the federal lockup where he had been held pending trial on federal sex trafficking charges, law enforcement officials told ABC News. He was on “suicide watch,” but the MCC jail failed, twice, to prevent attempts of suicide. The second time, his attempt to escape justice through death worked. The Miami Herald has confirmed that accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein has committed suicide in jail in Manhattan. Story to come. @MiamiHerald— julie k. brown (@jkbjournalist) August 10, 2019From ABC News:Billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein has died by suicide in his Manhattan jail early Saturday morning, three law enforcement officials told ABC News.He was being held without bail at the Metropolitan Correctional Center awaiting trial on charges of conspiracy and sex trafficking. He pleaded not guilty to the charges, and a judge said he wouldn't face trial before June 2020.He's accused of arranging to have sex with girls as young as age 14 in the early 2000s at Epstein's residences in Manhattan and Florida.The 66-year-old was also hospitalized in July after he was found unresponsive in what appeared to be a possible suicide attempt.Assistant U.S. Attorney Alison Moe urged a June trial date, saying there is "a public interest in bringing this case to trial as swiftly as possible." But Epstein's lawyer, Martin Weinberg, said the case is far from "ordinary," adding the defense team won't be ready before Labor Day 2020. Read the rest

When it comes to travel, Genius is one company that sweats the details. If you've never owned one of their suitcases or carry-on bags, they feature dedicated compartments for everything you could imagine and often incorporate compression technology to fit more of it in there. If you're planning for one last summer trip, here's a nice list of what to pick up for a total luggage upgrade.Genius Pack Aerial Hardside Carry On Spinner This carry-on bag squeaks in under the domestic and international carry-on size requirements, but it's scratch and stain-resistant material makes it lighter than bags half its size (6.2 pounds!). Inside, you'll find perfectly-sized compartments for all your necessities including socks and chargers, plus a separated area for dirty laundry. And with 360-degree spinning wheels, you'll be able to breeze through the airport with ease. Get the Genius Pack Aerial Hardside Carry On Spinner in a variety of styles for $159, a drop off the previous sale price of $199 and more than 45% off retail. You can get it in the below color options:Genius Pack Aerial Hardside Carry On Spinner (Jet Black)Genius Pack Aerial Hardside Carry On Spinner (Matte White)Genius Pack Aerial Hardside Carry On Spinner (Hunter Green)Genius Pack Aerial Hardside Carry On Spinner (Brushed Chrome)Genius Pack Compression Packing Cubes Set For a big trip, these packing cubes are a lifesaver in more ways than one. Not only does the stretch-top nylon mesh compress clothes and other items by as much as 60%, but they'll also keep those shirts wrinkle-free in the bargain. Read the rest

"Insurance doesn't usually cover this," said Snowmass, CO police.

“Gentle cromch.”From IMGURian @Lanabear110, who asks, “Anyone else have a dog obsessed with carrots?”Oh yeah. Our goldens love 'em, and they're fantastic treats for dogs.Those little bags of raw carrots are such special cromch nuggets.Gentle cromch Read the rest

🐱🌀🐈Hosico Cat lives in Russia with a woman and man who care for him very much. “I’m Hosico! Fluffy cheeks! Golden boy, Scottish straight. I like boxes, a bit shy.” Subscribe to their YouTube, or enjoy their Instagram. View this post on Instagram Good morning! 🌟A post shared by Hosico Cat (@hosico_cat) on Jul 28, 2019 at 12:17am PDT Read the rest

Banning Nazis from Twitter should be against the law: Trump, basically.

Gideon Irving's fantastic video, "Woke Up Looking" was made without computer graphics in just one take. The video below shows how he did it.Here's another wonderful one-take video of Gideon's. It only has 135 views! Read the rest

Election Systems & Software (ES&S) is America's leading voting machine vendor; they tell election officials (who are county-level officials who often have zero cybersecurity advice or expertise) not to connect their systems to the internet, except briefly to transmit unofficial tallies on election night.This is a stupid idea to begin with. These systems shouldn't have modems, and they shouldn't ever be connected to the internet, at all. But as it turns out, lots of election officials, including many in heavily contested districts that have determined the outcomes of national elections (cough Florida cough) just leave their machines connected to the internet all the time, while denying that this is the case, possibly because they don't know any better.A team of ten leading security experts, including some affiliated with NIST's election cybersecurity efforts, have used internet-wide scanning to locate dozens of these systems, live on the internet, and because it's the internet, they're not even sure who all of them belong to, and can't alert the relevant officials. Many of these systems have been online for months; some have likely been online for years. ES&S has downplayed the risk, using incredibly misleading definitions of "not connected to the internet" (for example, insisting that "behind a firewall" is the same thing as "airgapped"). The company's account of its security best practices, training and maintenance are belied by their own public documents as well as authenticated whistleblower's accounts. In one case -- Rhode Island -- it appears that every vote cast in the state is tallied on a single system that is often available on the internet. Read the rest

As protests in Hong Kong enter their seventh week, protest organizers are worried that the police might be infiltrating Telegram groups; instead, they've taken to organizing protests by sending messages over Tinder and Pokemon Go, and by using Apple's ad-hoc, serverless Airdrop protocol.This poster inviting people for a game of Pokémon Go appeared on Reddit-like forum LIHGK. Besides hunting Pokémon, people were also invited to participate in other activities such as sightseeing to defy the assembly ban. (Picture: lihkh.com)techhong kong protests [Masha Borak/Abacus](Thanks, Don!) Read the rest

King of King Court is "a memoir that is both devastating and restrained in detailing Travis Dandro's childhood growing up in Western Massachusetts with an addicted and unstable father and a mother incapable of keeping him at bay," Julia Pohl-Miranda Drawn and Quarterly says. "What's such a gut-punch about this book is how revealing it is about the everyday slog of having mentally ill or abusive family members, the seeming inevitability of intergenerational trauma repeating itself."Drawn and Quarterly kindly gave me several pages from King of King Court to run here: Read the rest

Here's what artist Ryan Heshka says about his show that opens tomorrow (August 10, 2019) at Corey Helford Gallery in Los Angeles:"The overall theme that weaves all the work together is the celebration of individuality, and celebrating our individual weirdness, quirks, the things that make us who we are. The political climate, the actual climate, and questions about privacy and reality have been heavy on my mind this year. I didn’t necessarily want to do a show that literally explored these themes, but rather have these themes drive my exploration of individual freedom and the evolution and shift of our relationships with each other as we continue to race forward. The show itself is split three ways: a) the original art from Mean Girls Club: Pink Dawn, b) the debut of my new comic book, Frog Wife (with a new print and a large oil painting and art from the comic book), and c) a series of new paintings. The narratives in all these works varies, but there is a thread of rebellion, of flipped or evolved stereotypes, and turning figures inside out to reveal an inner self. The show started as an excuse to exhibit my comic book art, but soon took on a life of its own." He adds, "The show is heavy on the comic book art (close to 60 spreads, or 120 pages), which I have never shown before. There are also two large oil paintings, one of the Mean Girls Club, and one of Frog Wife. Read the rest

Court documents unsealed in New York on Friday provide the first detailed look at how Jeffrey Epstein operated what appears to be a vast global sex trafficking racket with the help of alleged madam Ghislaine Maxwell, “and a number of other powerful business and world leaders,” reports the Miami Herald.The documents released Friday are part of thousands of pages in a 2015 federal defamation case involving one of Epstein's victims. The contents are graphic and disturbing, with details on how Epstein and accomplices trafficked teen girls mostly from the U.S. Russia and Sweden. They also detail Ghislaine Maxwell’s role as a co-abuser, and very effective recruiter of vulnerable girls.One accuser said a court deposition that Maxwell “recruited her under the guise of a legitimate assistant position, but asked her to perform sexual massages for Epstein, and punished her when she didn’t cause Epstein to orgasm”.Another deposed person “testified that [Maxwell] contacted him to recruit high school-aged girls for Epstein, and also testified that Maxwell and Epstein participated in multiple threesomes with Virginia Giuffre”.A man working as Epstein's butler “witnessed, firsthand, a 15-year-old Swedish girl crying and shaking because [Maxwell] was attempting to force her to have sex with Epstein and she refused”, the court documents claim. The 15-year-old girl said Maxwell “tried to force her to have sex with Epstein through threats and stealing her passport”.From the indefatigable Julie K. Brown, without whom Jeffrey Epstein would not be in jail today:Some of the testimony is difficult to read, as when one 15-year-old Swedish girl, shaking and crying in despair, tells a butler who worked for one of Epstein’s closest friends that she had been taken to Epstein’s island in the Caribbean and forced to have sex with him and others. Read the rest

Amazon has the 24-pack of Sylvania LED light bulbs on sale again for . That's cheaper than an incandescent bulb, which you don't need unless you're A) a climate science denier who wants to trigger the libtards or B) the owner of an Easy Bake Oven, which would make these bulbs of little use to you. Read the rest

Fifty years ago today, the Manson Family carried out the grisly Tate-Labianca murders that essentially crushed the hippie dream with a tragic nightmare starring failed songwriter and psychopath Charles Manson. At Manson's trial, prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi argued that the cult leader was inspired by his misreading of The Beatles' White Album. Indeed, "Healter Skelter” [sic] had been smeared in blood on the LaBiancas’ refrigerator. Over at Rolling Stone, Kory Grow does a track-by-track analysis of Manson's bizarre misinterpretation of The White Album. From Rolling Stone:Although he would deny being into the Beatles years later (“I am a Bing Crosby fan,” he declared in 1985 – despite inmates at a prison Manson stayed at in the early Sixties claiming he was obsessed with the Beatles), Manson discussed the group enough with his followers that his warped reading of the Fab Four’s most adventurous album resounded throughout the trial. Bugliosi interviewed several Manson Family members, including those who were not facing criminal charges, and found consistency in their descriptions of his mythology surrounding the White Album and the garbled connections he made between it and the Book of Revelations, which depict end-times.“This music is bringing on the revolution, the unorganized overthrow of the establishment,” Manson told Rolling Stone in 1970. “The Beatles know [what’s happening] in the sense that the subconscious knows.”“From the beginning, Charlie believed the Beatles’ music carried an important message – to us,” Manson Family member Paul Watkins wrote in his book, My Life With Charles Manson. Read the rest

In the 1930s photographer Dorothea Lange was hired by the U.S. government’s Farm Security Administration (FSA) to take photos of farm workers affected by the Great Depression. She took this photo of Florence Owens Thompson with her children in 1936 in Nipomo, California and titled it "Migrant Mother." “I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet," Lange said years later in an interview. "I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction... She and her children had been living on frozen vegetables from the field and wild birds the children caught. The pea crop had frozen; there was no work. Yet they could not move on, for she had just sold the tires from the car to buy food.”According to Moma, however, "Thompson later contested Lange’s account. When a reporter interviewed her in the 1970s, she insisted that she and Lange did not speak to each other, nor did she sell the tires of her car. Thompson said that Lange had either confused her for another farmer or embellished what she had understood of her situation in order to make a better story."Image: Dorothea Lange. Public Domain Read the rest

Amateur astrophotographer Ethan Chappel was using his telescope to look for Perseid meteors on Wednesday night when he happened to capture an image of something very large slamming into Jupiter. It was most likely a massive meteor. From Sky and Telescope:After running the camera data through a program designed to alert the user to just such transient events, Chappel spotted a flash of light in the planet's South Equatorial Belt (SEB). It expanded from a pinpoint to a small dot before fading away — telltale signs of a possible impact based on previous events observed at Jupiter....If confirmed this would be the 7th recorded impact at the solar system's biggest planet since July 1994, when 21 fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 slammed into the planet in succession to create a rosary of dark impact boils visible in amateur telescopes. Imaged Jupiter tonight. Looks awfully like an impact flash in the SEB. Happened on 2019-08-07 at 4:07 UTC. pic.twitter.com/KSis9RZrgP— Chappel Astro (@ChappelAstro) August 7, 2019 Read the rest

Actor-cum-philosopher/historian Jon Voight believes the "black community" and the "angered left" needn't worry about "words of racism," because this "has been solved long ago by our forefathers, for peace and love. It seems that the angered left and the angered minorities want to hold President Trump accountable for past lives. You see, we have been gifted with truth, and as I see it, anger is among the old chains that were binding the people of slavery. Old wounds that still seem fresh. Let me talk about old wounds. The Holocaust. That, my friends, are wounds that live among the Jewish and non-Jewish that lost lives. But this is not about color, race, religion. This is about the United States of America."Huh?Jon Voight’s message for America. pic.twitter.com/xCTOpLPDA4— Jon Voight (@jonvoight) August 4, 2019Image: Twitter Read the rest

One of the wonderful and terrible things about the internet is how it allows people seeking others with hard-to-find traits to find them: advertisers can find people thinking about buying a refrigerator; people who think they might be trans can find others in the same boat and make common cause; people with the same rare disease can form support groups, and Nazis can find sociopaths to march through the streets of Charlottesville carrying tiki torches and chanting "Jews will not replace us."This has been especially pronounced in human sexuality. Anonymous access to porn lets people explore different sexual activities. Online dating services lets people find those who share their kinks, interests, or special needs. Enter 3fun, an online dating service for those seeking group sex with others. While there is nothing wrong with this activity, and while it's one that dates back to antiquity and probably before, there is still substantial social stigma associated with it, so apps are a great way of finding partners without exposing yourself to retaliation from employers, family, peers and friends.That is, unless 3fun is designed with security as an afterthought in a way that exposes its users to snoops who could use the data it leaks to harass, blackmail, or expose its users.Guess what!Pen Test Partners's audit of 3fun revealed "probably the worst security for any dating app we’ve ever seen."The audit revealed vulnerabilities that would allow attackers to enumerate all 3fun users, including sexual orientation, preferred matches, usernames, ages, partners' usernames, full-rez profile photos, and some dates of birth. Read the rest

My friend, That Farmer Guy, send me the following news about soy sauce:Based on nothing but my empirical observation, the garden variety Kikkoman seems to dominate the international soya sauce market, but this other Kikkoman product (Shiboritate) is the nama-shoyu version (raw, fresh-pressed) and is packaged with an interesting hack that prevents oxidation and tastes different (fresher? better? you decide). The trick is a special cap that attaches to a bladder that holds the sauce inside the squeeze bottle, and prevents the sauce from air contact, at least until you use it.Image: That Farmer Guy Read the rest

Working with The Hamilton Project, the BBC has drawn six charts that serve as both a snapshot of the state of US immigration and provide historical context for migration today versus US immigration in both the recent and distant past.Immigrants also tend to have a positive impact on US finances - paying more in taxes than they receive in government services, when compared with native-born workers.It is particularly striking that among low-skilled workers, immigrants are more likely to be employed and less likely to receive government benefits than those born in the US.Since its founding, immigrants have been an integral part of the fabric weaving together the US economy and society writ large.Understanding who they are and what role they have in the US can help shape the debate around those who make it their home in years to come.Six charts on the immigrants who call the US home [Kriston McIntosh, Ryan Nunn & Jay Shambaugh/BBC and the Hamilton Project] Read the rest

Singapore would also be a fine call, buddy. Read the rest

The NRA's internal finances have come under close scrutiny this past year, after Oliver North launched a failed coup intended to unseat longtime CEO/cult leader Wayne LaPierre, triggering so much internal strife that the organization's dirtiest laundry ended up getting aired in retaliatory strategic leaks by each camp.The latest revelation to come from New York State's investigation into the NRA's abuse of its nonprofit status is that the NRA paid LaPierre's crony marketing firm, Ackerman McQueen (previously) $70,000 to consult on which mansion LaPierre should purchase.The transaction was booked in the most fraudulent, grifty way possible, with a "vague description, company didn’t exist and address of business was the home of the Chief Accounting Officer of [Ackerman McQueen]."LaPierre was reportedly looking to buy the mansion because he was afraid of getting shot and he wanted a secret bolt hole to hide in after the Parkland, Florida massacre. LaPierre's wife, Susan, led the mansion project, choosing the property and guiding renovations.The NRA says that LaPierre returned the funds. Ackerman and the NRA are suing each other over the former's billings to the latter.But a document obtained by ProPublica shows that NRA money was used to help facilitate the purchase of a 10,000-square-foot Texas mansion for LaPierre, setting off alarms within the nonprofit. In response to questions about the transaction, the NRA on Thursday did not provide a comment or say whether the funds were eventually returned.NRA accountants flagged a $70,000 payment to WBB Investments LLC in a document titled “List of Top Concerns for the Audit Committee.” They asked the audit committee to examine the payment, which they said was not properly documented. Read the rest

Mom put this lid over a glass bowl and nuked the shit out of that rice for 20 minutes. I'm pretty sure there was water in there.It was effortless and perfect.These are easy to clean, amazingly reusable, wonderful in place of plastic wrap over a bowl and all kinds of great as a frisbee.Agile-Shop Steam Ship Silicone Steamer Lid Food Covers, Pack of 3 via Amazon Read the rest

If a hacker targeting connected cars in Manhattan could randomly stall 20% of them during rush hour, total gridlock would ensue. “This isn't just bad traffic where you are an hour late. It becomes impossible to get from point A to point B,” says Georgia Institute of Technology researcher Peter Yunker who ran a study on the "cyberphysical risks of hacked internet-connected vehicles." From IEEE Spectrum:Not all cars on the road would need to be self-driving and Internet-connected for such paralysis to occur. For example, if 40 percent of all cars on the road in Manhattan were online and autonomous, hacking half of those would suffice....Cities without large grids—-Atlanta, Boston, and Los Angeles, to name a few—were more vulnerable to gridlock from such attacks.Yunker and his colleagues cautioned that they considered only static situations where roads were either blocked or not blocked. Future research with more dynamic models would likely show that blocked roads would spill traffic over into other roads. Given such effects, it might be possible to trigger gridlock by stalling much less than 20 percent of all cars, Yunker says.image: Shutterstock/View Apart Read the rest

@jonty_pressinger was unhappy that the live action/CGI remake of The Lion King was set in the Uncanny Valley so he "attempted to fix (it) by doing an AI style-transfer using @ellejart amazing fan art." Read the rest

You also really wanted to double-clutch my 1955 Speedster. Read the rest

Uber says it can be profitable someday: all it needs to do is corner the "total addressable market" for all transportation and food delivery, which will give it $12t in annual revenue, which is 15% of all global transactions.In the meantime, Uber continues to lead the global rideshare business, which does not have a single profitable company -- but Uber loses more money than any of them!The company booked $5.2b in losses in Q2 of 2019 -- which suggests that they will shoot past their projected $8b in losses for the year (by comparison, Lyft only lost $644m in Q2/19). Uber says it's OK because these are one-time losses related to paying giant bonuses to the execs who helped build such a fantastically money-hemorrhaging business.In Q2, Uber booked $867m in revenue, which is a lot of money (72% more than the year before!) until you remember that it spent more than $6b to make that $867m.Long before either Uber or Lyft can replace all transportation, public and private, with rideshares, they will have to contend with cities who are tired of having their streets, bike lanes and curbs crammed with inefficient, single-rider vehicles; and with nations, states and cities that are piercing the fiction that Uber and Lyft drivers are independent contractors and insisting that the companies extend waged employee protections and benefits to them.Uber's share price rose on the news of the loss.Len Sherman, adjunct professor of business at Columbia University, seems to think so. Read the rest

25 years after its founding, eight years after its last print edition, and two years after a near-death experience that was averted at the last minute by a bailout from the VPN company Private Internet Access, Linux Journal has laid off all employees, has no operating funds, and only plans to have its website online for a few weeks, or "hopefully longer for archival purposes if we can make it happen."In a final farewell op-ed, editor-in-chief Kyle Rankin writes that despite the bailout, "we didn't get healthy enough fast enough, and when we found out we needed to walk on our own strength, we simply couldn't." Rankin finishes with this melancholy note: "So yes, thank you for sticking by us. We truly did everything we could to make this a success, and I'm so sorry it didn't work out. On a personal note, thank you to the rest of the Linux Journal team. Not being able to work with all of you and chat with you is going to be the hardest part of all of this by far."Goodbye, Linux Journal, you will be missed.(via /.)(Image: Gert Dewit/Linux Journal) Read the rest

During a recent stopover in Portland, Oregon, it was delightful to once again hang out with the "Duchess of Felt," artist LeBrie Rich. Not only do I adore her, but I adore her work. The needle-felted and stitched sculptures of products she makes are what really capture my attention. Case in point: that Whitman's Sampler that looks good enough to eat! She told me creating it was a "mad undertaking" of over two months, "especially the logo with the flower basket."LeBrie is currently exhibiting 15 new pieces -- all of candy packaging -- at a show called Sugar Spin. If you're in the Portland, Oregon area, you can check it out until October 30 at COLAB Architecture + Urban Design. On Tuesday, September 17, you can also catch her Artist's Talk at the show's space from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.Her artist statement for the show:Why Candy?When I tell people my latest work is about candy, the memories pour out unsolicited. “I got a Whitman’s sampler box for my first valentines gift and kept all my love notes in it - I still have it!” “As a kid I once got Jujubes at the movies and was so disappointed with their soapy, flavorlessness that I spent the entire film regretting my choice.” “My brother had an appendectomy when I was 5 and someone brought him a carton of Whoppers at the hospital. I spent the drive home eating the whole carton of Whoppers in the back seat, hearing them clank around in the carton, opening and closing the paper spout. Read the rest

I like to take my Nintendo Switch with me when I travel for work—being able to game in my hotel room is lovely. You know what would be even better? Being able to play some Mario Kart or This is The Police on my hotel's television. Sadly, the Switch's ginormous TV dock takes up too much space in my carry-on for it to be practical.Happily, it looks like Human Things, the folks that brought us this neat bluetooth dongle for the Switch a while back, may have a solution. They've designed and are currently Kickstarting a wicked tiny combination HDMI/USB C charger that fits into a wall wart around the size of a 10-Watt iPad charger. Did I mention it has an additional USB port for charging your smartphone or a Pro Controller? Welp, it does.The only catch, as I pointed out earlier, is that it's only being offered as part of a Kickstarter campaign. Normally, that'd make picking one of these up a non-starter for me. I've been burned too many times in the past by hardware that took years to drop or simply disappeared into the mists of time. However, as Human Things has come through in the past with I'm willing to some cash at them. If you feel the same, you can do so, here. Read the rest

The tabloids are routinely filled with news you can’t use, but it’s intriguing to find that their pages are also filled with ads for products nobody needs.

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In 1920, Czech writer Karel Čapek penned a play titled R.U.R., a cautionary tale about technology's potential to dehumanize. R.U.R. stands for "Rossum’s Universal Robots" and it was this play that introduced the word "robot" to the world (apparently coined by Karel's brother Josef). At the MIT Press Reader, John Jordan, author of the book Robots, digs into the continued influence of R.U.R.:Like many of his peers, (Čapek) was appalled by the carnage wrought by the mechanical and chemical weapons that marked World War I as a departure from previous combat. He was also deeply skeptical of the utopian notions of science and technology. “The product of the human brain has escaped the control of human hands,” Čapek told the London Saturday Review following the play’s premiere. “This is the comedy of science.”In that same interview, Čapek reflected on the origin of one of the play’s characters:The old inventor, Mr. Rossum (whose name translated into English signifies “Mr. Intellectual” or “Mr. Brain”), is a typical representative of the scientific materialism of the last [nineteenth] century. His desire to create an artificial man — in the chemical and biological, not mechanical sense — is inspired by a foolish and obstinate wish to prove God to be unnecessary and absurd. Young Rossum is the modern scientist, untroubled by metaphysical ideas; scientific experiment is to him the road to industrial production. He is not concerned to prove, but to manufacture.Thus, “R.U.R.,” which gave birth to the robot, was a critique of mechanization and the ways it can dehumanize people. Read the rest

Reddit user penguinska9 posted that their library "keeps track of how much you save by not buying books and borrowing instead" and shows the dollar amount on the receipt when you check out a book. Genius! I don't know how common this practice is but the following is from a Wichita Public Library posting from last year:“While libraries offer tremendous benefits to their communities, sometimes the benefits are more abstract or require long term studies to show the value of their programs,” said Jennifer Lane, communication manager, Wichita Public Library. “Including this information is a way to easily quantify one of the ways the Library is a value to its users...."So far this year, the highest dollar amount saved by a customer's account is $64,734.12. And the highest dollar amount saved by a customer's account since this feature was implemented is $196,076.21. Read the rest

Earlier this year in Painesville, Ohio, police arrested a gentleman after he took out his pet iguana, named Copper, swung her around by her tail, and hurled her at the manager of a Perkins restaurant. Arnold Teeter, 49, pleaded guilty to animal cruelty, resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct. A judge has just sentenced Teeter to 90 days in jail with 77 days suspended, five years of probation, and he must also pay restitution to the Lake Humane Society that cared for Copper who lost part of her tail. But that's not all:The judge also entered a handful of other stipulations. Tetters is not allowed to publicize about what he did or why he did it. He’s not allowed to seek media attention about the case and he can’t brag about what happened."Judge tells man who threw iguana at fellow Painesville Perkins manager to stop bragging about it" (Cleveland.com) Read the rest

"A Busy Day in the Yard," superimposed security footage showing an entire day in two minutes.(via Geekologie) Read the rest

A woman from Washington State who was participating in a salmon fishing derby spotted a small octopus and decided to stick it on her face and have her photo taken. Unfortunately, the octopus wouldn't let go and it gave her a venomous bite on the chin, too, which resulted in a nasty infection. She had to go to the hospital for treatment.From Huffpost:“[My friends] noticed my face had changed,” she said. “We couldn’t get the beak to dislodge ― it was like a prong.”Although Bisceglia eventually freed herself from the octopus, she bled profusely for 30 minutes afterwards.“There’s still a pus pocket and there’s a spot under my chin,” she said.Image: Kiro 7 Read the rest

NASA has just released this incredible image of Jupiter taken by the Hubble Space Telescope on June 27, 2019. From NASA:This new Hubble Space Telescope view of Jupiter, taken on June 27, 2019, reveals the giant planet's trademark Great Red Spot, and a more intense color palette in the clouds swirling in Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere than seen in previous years. The colors, and their changes, provide important clues to ongoing processes in Jupiter's atmosphere. The new image was taken in visible light as part of the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy program, or OPAL. The program provides yearly Hubble global views of the outer planets to look for changes in their storms, winds and clouds. Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 observed Jupiter when the planet was 400 million miles from Earth, when Jupiter was near "opposition" or almost directly opposite the Sun in the sky....This animation (below) of a rotating Jupiter was assembled from a Hubble Space Telescope photographic mosaic of almost the entire planet. The resulting flat map was computer-projected onto a sphere to create a rotating globe (excluding the polar regions above 80 degrees latitude). Jupiter completes one rotation every 9.8 hours. The giant planet's trademark Great Red Spot is the orange-colored oval that is as big as Earth. Distinct parallel bands of roiling clouds dominate our view above Jupiter's deep hydrogen/helium atmosphere. The colorful cloud bands are confined by jet streams blowing in opposite directions at different latitudes. A characteristic string of white oval-shaped anticyclones appears along one latitude band in the planet’s southern hemisphere. Read the rest

I just ordered one of these 10-inch Mercer Chef's Knives because it has great reviews on Amazon, and it's only . I don't know how long it will be offered at a sale price. Read the rest

The Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook will offer corporate news outlets “millions of dollars for the rights to put their content in a news section that the company hopes to launch later this year,” citing unnamed sources familiar with the lawbreaking social media company and information warfare platform.Facebook reps are said to be offering news executives “as much as $3 million a year to license entire stories, headlines and previews of articles from news outlets,” reports WSJ.The executives pitched by Facebook include... people at Dow Jones, which publishes the Wall Street Journal. Also targeted by Facebook's reps: ABC News (owned by Disney), The Washington Post and Bloomberg.Excerpt:Facebook’s plans come as the company is facing growing criticism for its role in the news industry’s struggles by sucking up much of the advertising revenue that used to go to newspapers. Combined, Facebook and Alphabet Inc. ’s Google earned 60% of all digital advertising revenue in the U.S. last year, according to eMarketer.The news-licensing deals between Facebook and news outlets would run for three years, some of the people said. Facebook is planning to launch the section sometime in the fall, the people said. It is unclear whether any news outlets have formally agreed yet to license their content to Facebook.Facebook has proposed giving news outlets discretion over how their content will appear in the news tab, according to people familiar with the matter. News outlets would be allowed to choose between hosting their stories directly on Facebook or including headlines and previews in the tab that would send readers to their own websites, the people said—in which case the news tab would be a generator of web traffic for news outlets in addition to a source of licensing revenue. Read the rest

Wayne LaPierre, the embattled leader of the National Russian Asso— whups, typo there, the National Rifle Association, is opposed to new so-called 'red flag' gun restrictions being proposed by lawmakers after back-to-back gun massacres in Dayton and El Paso this week.That the NRA would oppose new gun laws is not a surprise. Putin wouldn't want that either.Here's the tweet, and below it, a screengrab of the copy.Donald Trump didn’t have time to speak to a Congresswoman from El Paso, but he did have time to talk to @NRA CEO and gun lobbyist Wayne LaPierre. Got it. https://t.co/wt1e00QR6c— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) August 8, 2019Besides call with NRA chief Wayne LaPierre Tuesday, Trump had several more calls with LaPierre yesterday while traveling, per White House aides. https://t.co/YillUqpaYp— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) August 8, 2019Pres. Trump spoke with NRA Chief Wayne LaPierre after expressing support for increased background checks https://t.co/aYIcGo5zvO pic.twitter.com/hmGciXFiGQ— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 8, 2019[via, image: shutterstock] Read the rest

Facebook has lost a procedural appeal related to a 2015 Illinois class-action lawsuit over the company's use of facial recognition data, and now it could be on the hook for billions in damages.Under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, companies planning to use biometric data applications must publish detailed data-handling policies prior to any collection or use. Facebook rolled out its "Tag Suggestions" facial recognition tool without taking this step. The law provides for $1k-$5k per violation in statutory damages, and there are millions of affected users. Facebook had sought to have the case dismissed, arguing that the class was improperly certified and that the plaintiffs had not demonstrated any real harms from its misconduct. The appeals court ruled against Facebook in a 3-0 decision.Facebook has hinted that it will take the case to the Supreme Court next.The stakes are potentially high for Facebook. The Illinois law allows for payments of $1,000 or $5,000 per violation, depending on the severity of the violation. As Reuters reports, the class could potentially include millions of Facebook users, meaning the company could one day be forced to pay billions of dollars in damages, if it ultimately loses the case.“We plan to seek further review of the decision,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. “We have always disclosed our use of face recognition technology and that people can turn it on or off at any time.” The company will seek further review from the full court of appeals, according to the spokesperson, and could take the case to the Supreme Court. Read the rest

Bernie Sanders' appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast was a gamble; the show has dabbled with some pretty reactionary politics in the past, but it has a vast audience (the Sanders episode has had nearly 5m views), and Rogan gave Sanders the space to expound both on policy specifics and wider "vision" questions, and Sanders nailed it.Presidential elections are largely a game of mobilizing stay-at-home voters to come out and vote for you, and discouraging your opponents' voters into refusing to hold their nose to vote for the other guy, convincing them to stay at home.The vast dark matter of the electorate is at the core of any political campaign, and that's who Sanders is speaking to in this hour-long interview, and judging from the comments, he's reaching them. As Luke Savage writes in Jacobin, those comments are full of undecided and even GOP-leaning voters who found Sanders' message compelling.I would still like to see more wonkiness from Sanders, a little more of Elizabeth Warren's detailed policy proposals, but that said, I was seriously impressed by this interview. Disclosure: I am a donor to both Sanders' and Warren's campaigns. “This was pretty great. Learned more about Bernie from this than any other source in the past 5+ years . . .” “I consider myself a Republican, but I actually agree with a lot of what Bernie said here.” “I have changed my mind on this man. Really great interview. This man needs to be heard.” “I’ve watched media tell me this guy was a nut for years. Read the rest

This week at B-Sides LV, security researcher Pavel Tsakalidis presented his work on security defects in the Electron framework, a cross-platform development framework that combines Javascript with Node.js: apps built with Electron include Skype, Slack, Whatsapp, Visual Studio Code and others.Tsakalidis showed how the lack of basic encryption for Electron code leaves users vulnerable to hackers who inject back-door code into their sessions, which exposes their communications, filesystem, and cameras and mics to third parties.These changes are harder to make in Macos or GNU/Linux systems (where admin access is required), but Windows systems are wide open.To make things worse, Electron's team had previously rejected a user request for encryption to protect its files, and when Tsakalidis presented his work to them, they ignored him. Tsakalidis has released a proof-of-concept tool called BEEMKA, a small Python program that can open Electron ASAR archive files and insert exploit code into them, exploiting apps and Chrome plugins built in the framework.Code inserted into the ASAR can run either within the application's context or within the context of the Electron framework itself. Application code is "plain old JavaScript," Tsakalidis explained, capable of calling Electron's operating-specific modules—including microphone and camera controls, as well as operating system interfaces. Code injected into Electron's internal Chrome extensions can allow attackers to bypass certificate checks, so that, while code may still force communications over HTTPS, an attacker can use a self-signed certificate on a remote system for exfiltration. And Web communications can be altered or completely blocked—including applications' updating features, which would prevent new versions from being automatically installed, displacing the backdoored application. Read the rest

One of the enduring mysteries of the super-wealthy pedophile Jeffrey Epstein is where, exactly, he got his money: a former math teacher, he styled himself a personal financial manager catering exclusively to billionaires, but had few-to-no clients, and did not own or trade assets that anyone could locate.That said, there is one client of record for Epstein's "money-management" business: Leslie Wexner, the billionaire CEO of the company that owns Victoria's Secret and Bed, Bath and Beyond, whose finances Epstein managed for many years.Wexner broke ties with Epstein after he was indicted on prostitution charges, but has said little since. Now, in a 564-word letter to the trustees of his family foundation, Wexner revealed that Epstein had power of attorney over his finances, and that he used that power to "misappropriate vast sums of money" from Wexner, only some of which Wexner was able to recover.Wexner says he had no knowledge of Epstein's sex-trafficking enterprise -- which was generally considered to be an open secret, with Epstein's wealthy friends calling his private jet the "Lolita Express" -- prior to the charges.Wexner detailed how Epstein transferred $21.2m from various Wexner family charities and to a charity that Epstein controlled called COUQ. Wexner said that Epstein eventually transferred $46m worth of securities and a property in the Virgin Islands to a charity controlled by Wexner's wife, which Wexner said was a way to repay funds misappropriated by Epstein from Wexner family foundation accounts.Epstein reportedly exploited his connection with Wexner to procure young girls for sex, representing himself as a Victoria's Secret modelling agent. Read the rest

Here's Free Game Planet on PacM̬̦̩̹̌͢a̪͓̮̼͍̗͑̿ͫn̛̥͈ͅ, an interesting variation on the classic created (or perhaps unearthed) by Berick Cook: "The PacM̬̦̩̹̌͢a̪͓̮̼͍̗͑̿ͫn̛̥͈ͅ ROM is said to have been taken from a damaged game board, found locked in a safe in an old abandoned arcade. It’s been linked to several tragic incidents and completing the game is said to cause psychological and physiological trauma. The effects of the ROM are said to be less dangerous than the original game board though, so you’ll probably be okay…probably…" Read the rest

In New Zealand, a dog walking with its human along the beach peed on $3 million worth of cocaine which washed up on the Auckland shores on Wednesday.Around 4:30 p.m. local time, an unidentified woman and her pissing pupper are reported to have encountered 19 bags of cocaine at Bethells Beach. The New Zealand Police’s Facebook page says they estimate the haul to be worth roughly $3 million in US dollars at street value.“The drugs appeared to have been in the ocean for quite some time, as they were covered in dirt and seashells and wrapped in netting.”The anonymous woman said she was walking two dogs when she encountered a “strange shaped thing” in the sands along the shoreline.She called police, they tested the packages, and it came back positive for cocaine.“They peed on $3-million worth of drugs,” she said. “They tried to mark it as theirs.”“It was not what I was expecting to find on the beach, that’s for sure. I was looking for seaweed,” she told a tabloid. She hopes no one comes searching for more drugs, which would disturb native birds in the area. Read the rest

Once again, Apple has demonstrated its disdain for people who want to do simple repairs on their equipment. This time, Apple has changed the iPhone's firmware so people who replace an old battery with a new Apple-branded battery will see a "Service" message on their phone that won't go away. The Service message says "Unable to verify this iPhone has a genuine Apple battery. Health information not available for this battery." The phone also will also refuse to show any diagnostic information about the health of the battery. The only way to avoid the message and be able to see the health of the battery is to have the battery replaced by an Apple Authorized Service Provider who has access to Apple's proprietary internal diagnostic software.From iFixit:Technically, it is possible to remove the microcontroller chip from the original battery and carefully solder it into the new battery you’re swapping in, restoring the Battery Health feature—but the procedure isn’t for the faint of heart, and it’s an unreasonable requirement for any repair, much less something as simple as a battery swap.Swapping in another genuine Apple battery into an iPhone XSFortunately, your replacement battery will continue to work perfectly fine, and you’ll get all of the benefits that come with a new battery—we’ve confirmed that this doesn’t throttle the iPhone’s performance on a healthy battery, for example. But you won’t be able to easily see your battery’s health and know when it’s time to replace it.Then again, this is a huge problem for iPhone owners who may not know about this new, sneaky lockdown, and it will undoubtedly cause confusion: they’ll replace their own battery and notice the “Service” message, then begin troubleshooting a problem that isn’t there. Read the rest

Researchers at Keio University built an "an artificial biomimicry-inspired anthropomorphic tail" with haptic feedback to help people walk, bend over, and do other things as they go about their business. The design inspired by the seahorse's tail.Image: YouTube Read the rest