In 2017, climate activists Roger Hallam and David Durant painted the words "divest from oil and gas" on a wall at King’s College London in chalk paint; they were facing £7,000 in fines and up to 18 months in prison, and did not qualify for a legal aid lawyer.The pair represented themselves in front of a jury at Southwark Crown Court in London, arguing the rarely used "necessity defense," that their actions were justified by the urgency of climate change. During the trial, Judge Michael Gledhill QC frequently interrupted the pair to instruct the jury to ignore the defense, telling them that climate change was "irrelevant" to the charge.Despite this, the jury exonerated the pair after deliberating for just two hours, the mandatory minimum for such a deliberation.Recently, more than 1000 activists from Extinction Rebellion were arrested in the UK following a week of climate-change-related civil disobedience (Extinction Rebellion has also put forward a slate of independent UK candidates for the upcoming European Parliamentary Elections, and I have instructed my proxy voter to cast my ballot for them).“We were shut down quite a lot,” Durant said. “We’d try to read out case law and we were shut down.” He said he and Hallam snuck climate arguments into their defense and were helped when the prosecution showed clips of their filmed divestment campaign. “That was really handy,” he said. “That was making the case for us.”Durant, 25, said the 2017 campaign was successful because King’s College London subsequently announced it would divest £14 million from fossil fuels and pledged to become carbon neutral by 2025. Read the rest

Back in 1995, Newt Gingrich defunded the Office of Technology Assessment, a low-cost, high-yield body that provided neutral, evidence-based assessments of technology to lawmakers so they could avoid making stupid blunders when it came to tech.The OTA needs a $6m appropriate to get running again. For perspective, each one of Trump's golf holidays at Mar-a-Lago cost the taxpayers $3.4m, so for the cost of less than two of Trump's fun weekend breaks, we could inform the entirety of Congress and the Senate about the technical dimensions of their policy choices, at a moment in which the technical details have never mattered more than they do now.A vast coalition of bipartisan and neutral groups have penned an open letter to the Senate asking it to appropriate $6m to reopen the OTA, joined by a long list of tech luminaries, executives, academics, veterans of former administrations, etc. As Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has pointed out, lawmakers are shockingly ill-informed on the issues that they vote upon, largely because they pay sub-starvation wages to their staffers, requiring each to take on second and third jobs, leaving them without the time to research and prepare lawmakers ahead of key hearings and debates.This vacuum has (of course) largely been filled by industry lobbyists who brief lawmakers with stilted accounts of the world (though AOC's answer, paying a living wage to every staffer, is obviously superior). Re-established the OTA would go a long way to filling in some of the gaps with neutral facts instead of parochial propaganda, and at $6m/year, it's a fucking steal. Read the rest

The New Yorker's Mia Mercado asks: What Is Writing and Does This Count as It?• Writing is when you sit—fingertips hovering over your keyboard, cursor blinking on a fresh blank document—and open Twitter for the twenty-eighth time.• You can tell that someone is a writer because she’ll have a pencil behind her ear, a Moleskine notebook in her hand, a pen behind her other ear, coffee on her breath and shirt, eyes that beg for your approval, and a Sharpie she’s somehow hidden in her hair.I have only one laptop sticker, and am therefore not truly a writer. Read the rest

Mark reported earlier this week that a Florida man was charged with a crime over the "I EAT ASS" window sticker on his truck, and with resisting arrest for refusing to remove it; here's the dashcam video. I EAT ASS window sticker [you bet your ass that's an Amazon link] Read the rest

Jeff Berman's got a new job! The former Obama/Clinton staffer is now Beto O'Rourke's senior advisor, having moved laterally from his post-Obama-campaign career working for the DC lobbyists Bryan Cave, where he lobbied on behalf of Seaworld, the Keystone XL pileline and the private prison industry.But definitely this is all OK because purity tests will rip the Democratic Party apart. How can we possibly defeat Trump in 2020 unless we're willing to form broad coalitions with people who want to render the planet unfit for human habitation, lock up an infinite number of brown people to enrich wealthy human rights criminals, and torture intelligent sea creatures on behalf of Seaworld owner Blackstone, the world's largest hedge fund?!Also: lest you fear that Berman will feel isolated in O'Rourke's staff, consider that he's got lots of allies around the office, like O'Rourke chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon, cofounder of Precision Strategies, whose client roster includes Pfizer, Bank of America and Facebook,Many of these clients are ostensibly on the opposite side of many of the issues that O’Rourke is campaigning on. Take, for example, immigration, a central theme of O’Rourke’s presidential run: He launched his campaign in the border town of El Paso, Texas, railing against Donald Trump’s immigration policies and stating, “For more than 100 years, this community has welcomed generations of immigrants from across the Rio Grande.” Yet the GEO Group, for which Berman’s work (along with other lobbyists) made Bryan Cave $60,000 in 2010, has profited handily from its business of running private prisons, including immigrant detention centers. Read the rest

From the Palm Beach Post: "an unusual bolt of lightning up to 10 times stronger than a typical flash that was caught on video by Boynton Beach resident Erica Hite on Sunday. The so-called continuous current, or positive lighting, which was identified by the National Weather Service in Miami after seeing the video, hit outside Hite’s apartment when she was taking video to show her family how bad the weather was." Read the rest

Facebook isn't very good at selling you things on behalf of its advertisers, so the company has to gather as much data as possible on you and use it keep you clicking as much as possible in the hopes of eventually scoring a hit with its targeting system, and that means that it often commits unwitting -- but utterly predictable -- acts of algorithmic cruelty.The best example of this is Facebook's "memories" and "celebration" tools, which memorialize the anniversaries of content that attracted a lot of attention from the people in your social graph. Often this is stuff that's legitimately good news, like graduations and other moments of personal triumph, but inevitably, it also includes the most tragic moments in your life. In 2014, Eric Meyer described how Facebook greeted him on the anniversary of his young daughter's tragic death with a picture of her surrounded by dancing figures. Facebook promised to fix it, and never did: last year, Facebook woke up Patrick Gerard on the anniversary of his mother's funeral with an animation of cartoon characters literally dancing on his mother's grave.But it's not just grief that inappropriately triggers Facebook's celebration/memories algorithms. Terror recruiting groups who have scored major PR wins (often because they've won a key battle by murdering their enemies, or because they've posted a particularly grisly atrocity videos) are getting extra mileage out of their victories, courtesy of Facebook's algorithms. According to a five-month-long, 3,000-page National Whistleblowers Center study of terror groups on Facebook, the celebration/memories algorithm is auto-generating anthology pages that celebrate and frame the most effective terror messages created by extremists, giving them much-needed help in promoting their message to their base. Read the rest

To improve the quality of the water, 96 million balls now float upon the Los Angeles reservoir. Here they are going in, like a deranged live-action performance of one of those cheapo cgi educational videos on YouTube with vast oceans of balls and 100 million views. All it needs now is a text-to-speech bot announcing "BLACK COLORED BALLS".The first time I heard about shade balls the claim was they reduce evaporation. But it turns out this isn't the reason they were introduced. Huge thanks to LADWP for arranging this special tour for me. Next time let's put the GoPro on the submersible! The balls are made of high density polyethylene (HDPE) which is less dense than water so they float on the surface of the reservoir even if they break apart. They are 10cm (4 inches) in diameter and contain about 210ml of water. So the main reason they are on the reservoir is to block sunlight from entering the water and triggering a chemical reaction that turns harmless bromide into carcinogenic bromate. This effect occurs with prolonged exposure to bromate so regulators insist that levels be kept below 10 microgram per liter on average over a 12 month period. Read the rest

For those who use a virtual private network, it's typically a trade-off: Security and anonymity at the price of connection speed. Luckily, there are a few sturdy VPNs that are starting to crack that problem, and TigerVPN's solution is one of the most complete.First of all, the security is sound - as it should be with any VPN. With a subscription, TigerVPN offers military-grade encryption across all your devices, augmented with a NAT firewall that even protects you against other VPN users. You'll connect with shared IPs over your choice of 15 server nodes spread across 11 countries (and that's just on the Lite subscription - a full-priced sign-up has 62 nodes). You can use your choice of protocols, and best of all, keep your connection speedy thanks to their 10 Gbps low-latency servers. No wonder the service has been racking up kudos from the likes of Engadget, CNET and Geekwire.Right now, a three-year subscription to TigerVPN is $69.99, more than 80% off the list price. Read the rest

Burbank librarian Sarah McKinley Oakes (proprietor of the excellent Remains of LA blog, which reviews all of LA's surviving grand old restaurants and dives) uses her excellent librarian skills to take a deep dive into the tragic tale of Diana Jean Heaney, whose first mention in print was in a 1947 article on the notorious "Black Dahlia" murder, but only to mention that Heaney was definitely not a victim of the same murderer.From there, Oakes traces Heaney's -- frankly awful -- life story: seduced at 15 by a 26-year-old WWII Air Force veteran, eloped with him, pimped out, then witness to his murder of one of the men he trafficked her to, only to have her name smeared in the national press as a slut who cheated on her innocent husband, driving him into a killing rage.It's a terrible story, but made all the more so by the way the press handled it at the time, focusing blame on a child bride who had been victimized by an adult who was exonerated by the media and treated as the wronged party. Oakes's writeup is part historical sleuthing, part media/gender studies investigation.But the crux of his story was that Diana had cheated on him, so naturally he was compelled to kill the man.The prosecution argued that the motive was theft; the couple took the car and a great deal of cash from Tex’s wallet. It’s hard to say whether they suggested that Tex had paid Evald in order to have sex with Diana. Read the rest

Transcript:Good evening.Two months ago, the federal government summoned me before a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia.As a general principle, I object to grand juries.Prosecutors run grand juries behind closed doors and in secret, without a judge present.Therefore, I declined to cooperate or answer any questions.Based on my refusal to answer questions, District Court Judge Hilton ordered me held in contempt until the grand jury ended.Yesterday, the grand jury expired, and I left the Alexandria Detention Center.Throughout this ordeal, an incredible spring of solidarity and love boiled over. I received thousands of letters, including dozens to hundreds of them a day.This means the world to me, and keeps me going.Jail and prisons exist as a dark stain on our society, with more people confined in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world.During my time, I spent 28 days in solitary confinement–a traumatic experience I already endured for a year in prison before.Only a few months before reincarceration, I recieved gender confirmation surgery.This left my body vulnerable to injury and infection, leading to possible complications that I am now seeking treatment for.My absence severely hampers both my public and private life.The law requires that civil contempt only be used to coerce witnesses to testify.As I cannot be coerced, it instead exists as an additional punishment on top of the seven years I served.Last week, I handwrote a statement outlining the fact I will never agree to testify before this or any other grand jury. Read the rest

Oakland, California is home to a real gem of a storybook theme park. Located next to Lake Merritt, Children's Fairyland has been delighting families of young children since 1950. As the story goes, Walt Disney himself visited Fairyland in 1955 and soon after built Disneyland, incorporating ideas he learned at the park. He also hired Fairyland's first director, as well as one of its puppeteers, to work at his new amusement park in Anaheim. While Disney's parks went the commercial route, Fairyland turned into a nonprofit after many years of being managed by the city. It remains the charming, lakeside mid-century park where no adult is allowed in the park without a child** and no child is allowed without an adult.How do I know all of this? Well, I'm excited to share that I've started working with Fairyland. When I first moved to the Bay Area in the mid-1990s, I lived across the street from Lake Merritt and, as a childless young person, I often wondered what was going behind the giant (Old Lady in the) shoe. I remember devising ways to get in, eventually waiting until I had a baby to pass through its gates for the first time. When my daughter (who's now a teenager) was little, she and I visited many times together. Believe me when I say that it's a great thrill for me to be on the "inside" of this Bay Area institution. Bert, Fairyland Master Puppeteer Lewis Mahlmann, and Frank Oz in August of 1970. Read the rest

Let’s give praise where it’s due: the ‘Globe’ has one of the great Royal exclusives of all time with its cover story about Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan’s newborn son Archie: “Harry’s NOT The Daddy! Baby’s DNA Test Triggers Palace Crisis.”But just hold on a second - the two-page story inside reveals “. . . new findings show he IS the infant’s biological father.”Seriously? Was that ever in question?This “special report,” dubiously emanating from the tabloid’s purported team of spies within Harry and Meghan's Frogmore Cottage home on the grounds of Windsor Castle claims that initial DNA tests on Meghan’s amniotic fluid found that Harry could not be the father - but further tests confirmed that he was indeed Archie’s dad.I can understand precautionary medical tests and genetic screening being run before a child’s birth, but a DNA paternity test?Even in the improbable event that the story of a mistaken test diagnosis was true, surely the headline should be: “Harry IS The Daddy!” But evidently that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as “Harry’s NOT The Daddy!”At least the ‘Globe’ is fictionalizing supposedly recent events with this story, whereas its other big stories this week are all rehashed ancient news.“Gay Elton Jilted Me Days Before Our Wedding!” claims Elton John’s former fiancé, revealing her “heartbreak” . . . 49 years ago. Just to prove it’s an antique story, the Rocket Man’s old flame Linda Hannon is pictured in the ‘Globe’ holding a copy of Britain's Sunday Mirror newspaper dated February 19, 1984, bearing the headline: “Elton Jilted Me.” Worse yet, the Sunday Mirror evidently had a line from Hannon that is better than anything she tells the’Globe’: "He was a lousy lover.” Or maybe he just wasn’t that into her? Read the rest

Uber's future prospects depend on doubling fares and halving drivers' pay, or replacing them all with self-driving cars that won't exist for years. What could go wrong?Experts are hitting the brakes on Uber's trading debut. The ride-hailing company's highly anticipated initial public offering failed to impress investors on Friday, with the stock pricing at the low end of its previously stated range and shedding more than 7% near the end of the session. Market watchers were largely bearish on the IPO, citing Uber's past issues with its culture and corporate governance. Read the rest

The Lockpicking Lawyer saw a report about an illegal car-booting outfit in Chicago (embedded below), and decided to see how hard it is to remove the Amazon-bought car boots that scammers use. It is easily defeated in a few seconds... so long as you have a screwdriver and a lock impressioning tool.Looks like an angle grinder would make short work of it, too! Read the rest

Here's a good riddle from Brian Brushwood of Scam Nation. He found it in Book of Riddles by Fabrice Mazza and Sylvain LhullierImagine that you're making a magic potion. You're a wizard with a long beard. But -- the potion only works if you wait exactly 45 minutes before you stir it. If you stir it before or after the potion's totally ruined. You don't have a smartphone. You don't have a watch. You don't have any kind of time measuring device. What you have is two fuses of irregular consistency. The one thing you know for a fact is that it takes an hour for each of these fuses to burn from one end to the other. How do you use these to measure exactly 45 minutes?Image: Scam Nation/YouTubeI'm still trying to figure this one out, so I'm not looking at the comments yet! Read the rest

Perfect for those who dread coiling their patch cables. (r/interestingasfuck) Read the rest

Thomas Romer of the excellent Chop Shop Studio in collaboration with the nonprofit Planetary Society designed these delightful solar system toy blocks to teach kids (and adults) about the wonders of outer space! He's launched a Kickstarter to fund the manufacturing of the wood blocks with debossed typography. They're $75/set. Thomas says:We worked on the project for over a year and while I did the graphics, etc — they made sure all the data was accurate and totally up to date. It is a set of 20 blocks featuring the most interesting worlds of the Solar System. Notice I didn’t say “planets”. One of my main objectives is to show children (and adults) that planet or not doesn’t matter. There are worlds like Io and Europa that most have never heard of. Two moons are bigger than Mercury, never mind Pluto (also included). Then each side is loaded with data like size, distance, interior, name, appearance and the missions we have sent to explore them. When they are shipped to our (Kickstarter) backers they will be sold in the Planetary Society store and profits will be sent to support their overall mission."Planetary Blocks: Our Solar System" (Kickstarter) Read the rest

Find the bright spots, not just the problems, if you want to make change. That’s an idea expressed in the book “Switch: How to Make Change When Change is Hard” by Chip and Dan Heath. The authors point out that we can be easily overwhelmed by the many problems all around us, but we should look for the bright spots that are also there. Those bright spots might hold a key for understanding and solving the larger problems.Maker Faire is one of those bright spots, and it offers us hope and inspiration for the future. Maker Faire Bay Area takes place on May 17-19 at the San Mateo Event Center its theme is “The Future We Make.” The best and the brightest future just might come from engaging the creative and experimental minds that you find playing freely at Maker Faire. Each maker is a “bright spot” standing out in a culture in which consumerism is dominant.As I reflect back on the 15 years of Make: (and 14 years of Maker Faire), I am most grateful that we find makers of all stripes everywhere all over the world. The launch of this magazine in 2005 (which launched with Mark Frauenfelder at the helm) and Maker Faire in 2006 laid the groundwork for the global maker movement to emerge. Now there are over 200 Maker Faires around the world in 44 countries. Maker Faire Bay Area is the mothership for all of those Faires.Where but Maker Faire would you expect to find two makers, Alessandra Nölting and Shanee Stopnitzky, sharing their 32-foot submarine, which they are making ready for others to use as part of the Community Submersibles Project? Read the rest

Party City, the brick-and-mortar retailer that's a one-stop-shop for single-use, brightly-colored plastic crap and other festive decorations, is closing 45 of its 900 stores across the country. Store profits are down due to the shortage of helium on the planet; Party City historically makes big money from filling balloons. From CNN:The Earth holds pockets of helium buried under rock, but it's notoriously hard to capture because it, well, floats. When drilling or fracking for natural gas, energy companies capture some helium and sell it. But helium makes up a tiny percentage of the gasses trapped under rock formations.Over the past few years, some drillers have claimed to find troves of helium buried underground, but those haven't always panned out. Party City said it really started feeling the pinch in August 2018...The good news for Party City is it signed an agreement with a new helium supplier. Party City believes the new supplier can help it return its balloon business back to normal starting in the summer, and it hopes the supplies will last for the next two-and-a-half years...(Party City CEO) Harrison cautioned, however, that the additional helium wasn't a sure thing. Party City's new supplier might believe it is sitting on a lot of helium, but it can't know for sure until it bottles and sells it. Read the rest

Big Think asked Shane Parrish of Farnam Street to offer advice for getting the most out of a book. From the video (slightly edited for clarity):Before you read a book, take a blank sheet of paper and write down what you know about that subject. You can mindmap it, or you can write bullet points. Then read a chapter of that book. Now go back to that sheet and use a different color pen and fill in the gaps: what did I learn?, did I learn a different terminology?, can I connect it to what I've already read?Before you pick up the book for the next chapter skim this sheet. It primes your brain for what you're going to read. I think that's a really effective way to not only build on the knowledge you have but to connect what you're reading to the existing knowledge. It's going to show you what you've learned because it's going to be a very visual distinction. It's going to be a different color of ink, and I think that allows you to connect to the book.I often do this in the jacket of the book if I don't have a physical piece of paper.Image: Big Think/YouTube Read the rest

Conservative thinkeur Ben Shapiro was interviewed by BBC host and UK conservative luminary Andrew Neil. It didn't go well for Ben at all. Facing straightforward questions about his beliefs, he had a tantrum, accusing Neil—chairman of The Spectator!—of being a leftist and finally storming off.From The Spectator itself:Ben Shapiro is the famous, fast-talking pundit who regularly ‘owns’ aggressive campus students with his quick wit and rapid repartee. Alas, Shapiro isn’t so ‘crazy smart’ when he comes up against difficult questions from a real interviewer. Yesterday he just couldn’t cope with an interrogation from the BBC’s Andrew Neil. He decided that Neil must be a typical BBC leftist and had an epic tantrum.As soon as you take right-wingers out of the U.S. cable news environment or their creationist-style YouTube "debates", they fall completely to pieces under even the most impartial and disinterested questioning. With due respect to Andrew Neil, it's amazing how deferential mainstream U.S. media are to conservatives—and as a result inconceivable to an American conservative that a foreign counterpart might issue them challenging questions. So it's no surprise that Neil would humiliate Shapiro, or that Shapiro would do all the work himself given the barest length of rope.Here's the full 16 minutes:Here's @afneil interviewing @benshapiro - this is the full, unedited version. it is not Fox News or an unmediated YouTube video but a tough interrogation. https://t.co/9hn6MtdSJx— Rob Burley (@RobBurl) May 10, 2019Neil is absolutely no friend of the left: an HIV/AIDS denialist, climate-change critic and 9/11 conspiracy theorist. Read the rest

In 1986 David Lee Roth quit Van Halen and Sammy Hagar took his place as lead singer. This 1986 MTV rockumentary covers the transition. In the Radiolab newsletter, producer Matthew Kielty says the rockumentary "capture[s], and mostly relishes in, the mythology of Rock ’n’ Roll, which is really just sexual conquest and objectification, alcoholism, greed, jealousy and a bunch of men’s stubborn refusal to grow-up."Image: YouTube Read the rest

Toni and Peter Thompson were building a new house in Sonoma, California. They removed three trees, including a 180-year-old oak, from a nearby piece of property they owned with plans to relocate them next to the house. But the trees were damaged in the removal process and they died. The surrounding area around the trees was also damaged. The land was protected by the state, and now the couple has been ordered to pay about $600,000 in damages.From The Washington Post:“I was not prepared,” Bob Neale, the trust’s stewardship director, told the Press Democrat. “It was really the most willful, egregious violation of a conservation easement I’ve ever seen.”Portions of the area that had once been blanketed by untouched native plants were reduced to mounds of loose dirt, and others were scraped down to bedrock, according to court documents. Some photos showed a massive oak tree in a trench with its roots bound and surrounded by yellow construction equipment. A dirt road stretching for about a third of a mile was also carved through the land, destroying 12 smaller trees and other vegetation in the way, the ruling said....Over the course of the trial, the Thompsons offered a dozen defenses, none of which the court found had any merit. The pair were “further undermined by their persistent failure to tell the truth,” Broderick wrote.Image: Large oak tree providing shade, Sugarloaf Ridge State park, Sonoma County, California, by Sundry Photography/Shutterstock Read the rest

Several years ago Twitter funnyman Alex Kaseberg accused Conan O'Brien of stealing several jokes from him and filed a lawsuit. The case was about to go to trial, but O'Brien decided to settle instead. He explained why in a funny essay in Variety. The entire thing is worth reading but here's an excerpt:The fact of the matter is that with over 321 million monthly users on Twitter, and seemingly 60% of them budding comedy writers, the creation of the same jokes based on the day’s news is reaching staggering numbers. Two years ago one of our writers came up with a joke referencing Kendall Jenner’s ill-fated Pepsi commercial, and so did 111 Twitter users. This “parallel creation” of jokes is now so commonplace that Caroline Moss of CNBC and Melissa Radzimiski of the Huffington Post have given it a name: “tweet-saming.” And, by the way, the person who sued me also tweeted the same Pepsi joke, but only after our show and 24 other tweeters beat him to it.So why am I telling you all of this? Because I believe that the vast majority of people writing comedy are honorable, and they don’t want to steal anyone’s material because there is no joy, and ultimately no profit, in doing so. However, when you add the internet and an easily triggered legal system, the potential for endless time-wasting lawsuits over who was the first to tweet that William Barr looks like a toad with a gluten allergy becomes very real. Read the rest

Aviation is one of America's most concentrated industries, and workers have steadily lost ground to shareholders and execs, who have enriched themselves with tactics like flying planes to South America for maintenance by non-union technicians who do not speak the language that the maintenance manuals are written in.Delta's workers are part of a unionization drive by the Machinists' Union, and Delta management has responded by pushing out a pair of apps that push an endless stream of deceptive anti-union messages to its workers: Don't Risk It Don't Sign It and Be Delta Be Different are pathetic attempts to convince Delta employees that their best interests are served by relying on an industry that has cut pay, undermined safety and subjected workers to increasingly hazardous conditions, rather than banding together to demand better conditions through unionization.Some of the messages are genuinely pathetic, like an infographic that proposes that workers can repuporse the $700 the company says they'll owe in union dues to pay for video-game systems. Naturally, these are ripe for remixing.Something to think about, @Delta. pic.twitter.com/AIlmUwK0cF— Superman4Revolution🏴🚩🕊🌹🌻🐦🍉🛠✊⚒🌏🌍🌎 Ⓐ (@Superman4Bernie) May 9, 2019(via Late Stage Capitalism) Read the rest

Ever is an app that promises that you can "capture your memories" with unlimited photo storage, with sample albums featuring sentimental photos of grandparents and their grandkids; but Ever's parent company has another product, Ever AI, a facial recognition system pitched at military agencies to conduct population-scale surveillance. Though Ever's users' photos were used to train Ever AI, Ever AI's sales material omits this fact -- and the only way for Ever users to discover that their photos have become AI training data is to plough through a 2,500 "privacy policy."Ever AI launched after the company realized that photo hosting "wasn’t going to be a venture-scale business," and the switch to Ever AI brought in $16 million in venture capital.Ever says that it has not deceived its users because the facial recognition disclosure is in its privacy policy; the company also told NBC that it would revise the policy to make the facial recognition applications clearer, while insisting that it was already clear enough. NBC spoke to mulitple Ever users who had no idea their photos had been used to train a facial recognition system, and who strenuously objected to this use.Despite targeting Ever AI at the military, the company has only managed to sign private customers to date, including the makers of Pepper, the creepy "customer service robot."Cities across America are debating a ban on the use of facial recognition for law enforcement; recognizing that these systems are both inaccurate and unconstitutional, subjecting whole populations to surveillance without particularized suspicion, in defiance of the presumption of innocence. Read the rest

This FunkoPop figure of Ghost, Jon Snow's albino dire wolf, comes without Jon Snow, which is how Ghost spent most of his time on the show.The only characters I've cared about on Game of Throne's are Tyrion and the dire wolves. Ghost is played by an arctic wolf, but when I walk my Great Pyrenees we hear an awful lot of "Ghost!!!"There is no Falcor Funko, yet. Which is whom my dog most resembles, evidently.Neverending Story is on our wish list!— Funko (@OriginalFunko) November 16, 2017 Funko POP! Game of Thrones Ghost Vinyl Figure via Amazon Read the rest

Thanks to the college admissions scandal the issue of inequality and access to postsecondary education is now in our national conversation, but despite the glitz of the bribery scandal, the real issue is a much more mundane form of reverse affirmative action that allows wealthy Americans to dominate college admissions, muscling out better candidates from poorer backgrounds, especially Black students.In an excellent and comprehensive article for Vox, Jason England -- a former admissions dean for an elite liberal arts college -- maps the many ways that the system is tilted in favor of wealthy, white applicants, especially men, and puts the lie to the idea that education is a "meritocracy" where the best people are admitted.For example, the majority of applicants are women, but admissions committees seek to establish a gender balance, which means that men face much lower standards than women. On top of that, the low academic standards for admitting students with exceptional athletic ability favor men, as men's teams are more valued than women's teams.But not all men are created equal. According to England, admissions committees routinely refuse to consider admitting Black athletes under the athletic programs; instead, these candidates are deferred to the colleges' "diversity programs," ensuring that mediocre white men can be admitted even if they're less academically qualified than their female counterparts, and even if they're less athletically qualified than Black athletes applying at the same time. It's quite an affirmative action program for mediocre white dudes!That's just the icing on the favoritism cake. Read the rest

Yesterday, Senator Bernie Sanders and Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez jointly introduced The Loan Shark Prevention Act, which will cap credit card interest rates at 15% (and closes the loopholes that lets credit card issuers exceed their stated APRs with the use of hidden fees) and which re-establishes American post-office banking.Critics of the bill say that it will put the payday lending industry out of business and that this will harm poor people, who struggle to get credit elsewhere. It's a position that has been carefully cultivated by the wildly profitable predatory lending industry, who spent lavishly on academic research to support the position, then used bots to flood regulatory proceedings that might have produced evidence to counter it. This has allowed for a modern return of usury, targeting the poorest and most desperate Americans, with out-and-out swindles going unpunished (naturally, Trump has dismantled any protections victims of the debt industry might have sought).But capping interest rates at 15% won't just benefit the desperate and poor. Today, banks charge an average of 17% on their loans, but -- thanks to generous federal monetary policies and low fed interest rates -- they only pay 2.5% to access capital. That massive spread means that banks are guaranteed massive profits -- at taxpayer expense, and with taxpayers pickup up the pieces when the banks' usury destroys Americans' lives.America does have a problem with underserved and underbanked poor households, and this has indeed created a thriving alternative finance industry to serve these peopel. Read the rest

The chumbox — the weird clickbaity news "recommendations" hanging under blog posts and news stories across the web — so often cites a mysterious "gut doctor" that Vox's Kaitlyn Tiffany tracked him down. THROW OUT THIS VEGETABLE NOW.The gut doctor, to me, is elusive. I have refreshed every website he has been seen on dozens of times, and for me, he will not materialize. Yet, luckily, all of these screenshots contain a visible link to a website for a company called United Naturals. Here, I am greeted by the smiling face of Dr. Vincent Pedre, whose bio describes him as “a Certified Medical Doctor, a Functional Medicine Certified Practitioner, and Chief Wellness Officer at United Naturals.” He apparently went to my alma mater for his undergraduate degree. (Go Big Red! Also: Oh, no!) He then attended the University of Miami for medical school, before founding Pedre Integrative Health, “where he takes a largely holistic approach to medicine.” Following below is my favorite variant of the "throw out this vegetable" ad, as the vegetable in question is clearly the God Emperor of Dune at the point of His death, glistening sandtrout exploding from His appalling body, joining Hwi Noree in the banquet of the Gods. Read the rest

Frontier Communications is a telcoms company so naturally they're a terrible company (a telcoms company is just a collection of regulatory subsidies wrapped up in a layer of greed and malpractice); the company is one of the nation's leaders in the use of fraudulent accounting to evade taxes, and it takes in $283.4 million every year in tax-funded subsidies to provide services to rural Americans, while ripping them off like crazy and cutting corners by neglecting its network and allowing it to fall into dangerous disrepair.In Minnesota, the situation is so bad that state senators have petitioned the FCC to follow up on the state Attorney General's investigation of Frontier's systematic fraud and lack of maintenance, which found that the company charges customers for services it never delivered and refuses them refunds, while subjecting them to long outages (some lasting months!) without compensation. The AG found that Minnesotans were being left without 911 services for prolonged periods, and that the outages were disconnecting medical devices like pacemakers from remote-monitoring services.Ajit Pai, a garbage person, is a former Verizon exec whom Trump made FCC Chairman. He has made a career out of campaigning against government waste and the abuse of taxpayer dollars, but he has vetoed any FCC participation in Minnesota's investigations against Frontier, despite the literal billions the company receives at public expense.Pai insists that Frontier is doing great and does not need investigating. As evidence for this, he cites Frontier's own filings to the FCC. Read the rest

I want to thank @mikejonesfl for bringing BIGTIME TOMMIE into my life. He's right, this is the best Instagram.Let's take a look at BIGTIME TOMMIE's Instagram bio.🔥REALITY TV STAR CARFELLAS🔥,🌏INTERNATIONAL🌍🎤 RADIOSHOW VOICEOVERS🎤🎥MOVIES/ACTOR🎥⭐️AMERICAS GOT TALENT⭐️🤣FACEBOOK LIVE SHOW 🤪🇮🇹 💯% ITALIAN🇮🇹I'm down.Let's get to business. Here is a smattering of what makes this guy Tommie Romola bananas fantastic.His words of wisdom for today? “An ugly personality destroys a pretty face. Remember. Don't cost nothin to be nice.” View this post on InstagramA post shared by BIGTIME TOMMIE 💎 (@tommieromola1) on May 8, 2019 at 10:21pm PDT View this post on Instagram 🇮🇹🇮🇹🕶🇮🇹🇮🇹 ****THOUGHTOFTHEDAY**** LIVE THE BEST LIFE YOU CAN !!! #LIVE #LOVE #LAUGH #LIVELOVELAUGH #DREAM #BELIEVE #SUCCEED #SUCCESS #WIN #TAKENOPRISONERS #NOREGRETS #FUCKTHEHATERS #LADOLCEVITA #LIKEABOSS #TOMMIECANNOLI #TCANNOLI #CIGARFATHER #CIGAR #TORCHITUP 🔥#BIGTIMETOMMIE 🇮🇹🕶🇮🇹 #SOMUCHLARGERTHENLIFE TAGTWOFRIENDS ❤️ #TAKEITEASSSA post shared by BIGTIME TOMMIE 💎 (@tommieromola1) on Apr 17, 2019 at 2:01pm PDT pic.twitter.com/iEdW0KqPY2— 🇲🇮🇰🇴 (@mikejonesfl) May 10, 2019alright y’all it’s been fun, if you see Tommie tell him i love him, i’m going to bed. remember! keep it old school pic.twitter.com/QMg22k6yBb— 🇲🇮🇰🇴 (@mikejonesfl) May 10, 2019if you got it at 5, you got it at 50, and Tommie’s got it pic.twitter.com/725ahVdYYW— 🇲🇮🇰🇴 (@mikejonesfl) May 10, 2019thinking about how yearly service fees for renewed vanity plates in New York are $15 per plate, times 21 Cadillacs, $315 a year. worth every penny if you ask me pic.twitter.com/rtGqynXbpf— 🇲🇮🇰🇴 (@mikejonesfl) May 10, 2019Tommie with the classic LL Cool J pic.twitter.com/F5SGFGQKmj— 🇲🇮🇰🇴 (@mikejonesfl) May 10, 2019having a hard time getting over the cannoli in the toilet pic.twitter.com/VxD4WRQu2I— 🇲🇮🇰🇴 (@mikejonesfl) May 10, 2019thanks @MitchfromOhio this one is eggcellent pic.twitter.com/cFsOrlzarG— 🇲🇮🇰🇴 (@mikejonesfl) May 10, 2019#NOTAHANDJOB pic.twitter.com/a6QtUM1jgR— 🇲🇮🇰🇴 (@mikejonesfl) May 10, 2019 View this post on Instagram 🇮🇹🇮🇹🕶🇮🇹🇮🇹 THOUGHT OF THE DAY #DREAM #BELIEVE #NEVERQUIT #STRENGTH #LIVE #LOVE #LAUGH #LIVELOVELAUGH #NOLIMITS #POWER #OLDSKOOL #OS #OS4LIFE #LADOLCEVITA #LIKEABOSS #CIGARFATHER #CIGAR #CADILLAC #ELDORADO #BIARRITZ #VOGUE #VOGUES #CONVERTIBLE #DROPTOP #LIVINGLIFE #INSPIRE #BIGTIMETOMMIE 🇮🇹🕶🇮🇹 #SOMUCHLARGERTHENLIFE #TAKEITEASS ❤️❤️❤️ TAGTWOFRIENDS / SHARE 🙏A post shared by BIGTIME TOMMIE 💎 (@tommieromola1) on Mar 24, 2019 at 2:41pm PDT Read the rest

If Facebook is broken for you in some way large or small, you can't call them to complain -- the company doesn't have a customer service number, it has a "support portal" for people suffering with the service, which combines the worst of autoresponders with the worst of underpaid, three-ring-binder constrained support staff to make a system that runs like a cost-conscious version of Kafka's "The Trial."This means that literally millions of people are constantly searching for a support phone number for Facebook, and that's created chaos. On the one hand, you have the "Facebook tech support" scammers: we get hundreds of scammy Facebook support phone number submissions to our suggest-a-link form, and most of them seem to originate in India and to be meticulously, repeatedly hand-typed (based on our anti-fraud metrics that have totally, utterly failed to reduce the unstoppable flood of these submissions -- we also get floods of "Microsoft tech support" and "Amazon tech support" etc scam submissions).Google gets lots of these queries, too (that's why the scammers are relentlessly trying to get posted here, so that Google will send these frustrated searchers to their fraudulent phone numbers). When Google gets lots of phone number queries, it tries to come up with an algorithmic solution: it looks for high-rated pages for the search term that also have recognizable phone numbers in their bodies, extracts the phone number and puts it in a "search box" at the top of the results page.Enter Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai (previously), a top security reporter for Motherboard. Read the rest

“We must return to the Moon—this time to stay.”

Tenants in New York City have reached a settlement with their landlord requiring the landlord to install actual locks with actual keys on demand, rather than insisting that all tenants use locks from Latch, the leading Internet of Things "smart lock" vendor, whose products conduct fine-grained surviellance on their users, which the company reserves the right to share with third parties.The suit was brought by Mary Beth McKenzie, Tony Mysak, and a group of their fellow tenants against their Hell's Kitchen landlord after the landlord summarily swapped out their apartment building's locks and replaced them with Latch products. Mysak, a 93-year-old longtime resident of the building, was unable to operate the lock on his home and found himself locked in.The settlement gives the tenants a cause of action to sue their landlord in the event that the landlord deprives them of a physical key option in the future. Lisa Gallaudet, an attorney representing the landlords, insists that this is not a "victory" for the tenants, and says her client only settled because litigation would have been an expensive nuisance.More than 1,000 NYC buildings have Latch products installed in them.Unauthorized Bread, the first story in my new book Radicalized, is about tenants whose landlords use nonconsensual Internet of Things devices to extract additional revenues from them, with toaster ovens that only toast "authorized bread," dishwashers that only wash "authorized dishes" etc. Mary Beth McKenzie, her husband, Tony Mysak, and a group of tenants sued their landlords after the landlords installed the smart locks last year, arguing that there were privacy concerns with the Latch smart lock and the app required to get into their own building. Read the rest

Freddie Starr, a stalwart of British light entertainment most famous for a fabricated news story alleging he ate a hamster and lately implicated in historical sexual abuse scandals, was reportedly found dead today at his apartment in Spain. He is "definitely" dead, according to a person who has seen the body. The Guardian reports:At the height of his fame, Starr was known by fans for his eccentric and often unpredictable behaviour.In 1986 he was famously at the centre of one of the best-known newspaper headlines when The Sun splashed with: “Freddie Starr ate my hamster.”The story claimed Starr placed the creature between two slices of bread and ate it at a friend’s home after returning from a performance in Manchester. But in his 2001 autobiography Unwrapped, Starr said the incident never took place. Read the rest

The administration of Donald Trump is sending Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi, Russia, on May 12-14, says the U.S. State Department.What could they possibly be planning to discuss? Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and winning the 2020 election, my top guesses.Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will be present, too.The meeting represents the highest-level formal talks between the powers in 10 months, the State Department says.Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani is in Ukraine drumming up support for Trump's mandatory re-election.At least they're being transparent about it this time, no?If this is what Rudy is doing in Ukraine this week what is Pompeo doing in Russia next week? https://t.co/eS1jlL74DJ— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) May 10, 2019Pompeo to meet with Putin and Lavrov next Tuesday in Sochi, Russia. https://t.co/CcUWHDLUra— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) May 10, 2019New: State Dept confirms Secretary of State Pompeo will travel to Russia next week and meet with Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov. pic.twitter.com/8Lng5Gtpks— Conor Finnegan (@cjf39) May 10, 2019It will be interesting to see whether Pompeo stops in Kyiv after Russia, or whether Trump has left Ukraine brief to Giuliani to kick around as a political football.— Lucian Kim (@Lucian_Kim) May 10, 2019 Read the rest

No surprises here. Facebook does not support the co-founder Chris Hughes' proposal to split the world’s largest social media company into three parts. Here's how Facebook responded to the social network's co-founder Chris Hughes calling for a government-mandated breakup of Facebook: Nick Clegg, former UK Deputy Prime Minister, who once advocated for the breakup of monopolies in the UK. “Facebook accepts that with success comes accountability. But you don’t enforce accountability by calling for the break up of a successful American company,” Facebook spokesman Nick Clegg said in a statement.“Accountability of tech companies can only be achieved through the painstaking introduction of new rules for the internet. That is exactly what Mark Zuckerberg has called for.”New rules for the internet.Oh, that sounds just great. Zephyr Teachout translated this flaming pile of PR garbage the best.Zuckerberg: To rebut the claim I am too powerful, I will have the former UK Deputy Prime Minister publicly disavow his prior anti-monopoly stance (now that he is paid by me) and promise to meet with other world leaders to painstakingly tell them what regulation suits me best.U.S. lawmakers continue to urge the Justice Department to launch an antitrust investigation. Read the rest

There's a number of benefits to bamboo fiber in general, and Bamboo Comfort sheets in particular. To start with, it actually repels moisture, which reduces the number of allergens in your bed. These same hypoallergenic properties make a dream to sleep on since it will stay cool and breathable through the night. In the morning, you'll find the sheets wrinkle far less easily, and it won't yellow or fade with use since it doesn't absorb the oils from your body.The set includes a flat sheet, fitted sheet and four pillowcases in a variety of colors, all on sale. The queen-size Bamboo Comfort 6-Piece Luxury Sheet Set is $38.99 today, more than 65% off the MSRP.Bamboo Comfort 6-Piece Luxury Sheet Set (Grey/Queen) - $38.99Bamboo Comfort 6-Piece Luxury Sheet Set (Taupe/Queen) - $38.99Bamboo Comfort 6-Piece Luxury Sheet Set (Sage/King) - $38.99Bamboo Comfort 6-Piece Luxury Sheet Set (Ivory/Queen) - $38.99Bamboo Comfort 6-Piece Luxury Sheet Set (White/Queen) - $38.99 Read the rest

Chelsea Manning was released from jail today after 62 days' refusing to testify to a grand jury in the Wikileaks case. Manning did not wish to provide secret testimony; the grand jury ultimately disbanded.But Manning could soon return to jail, as her lawyers indicated that she would again refuse to testify in response to a separate subpoena received while she was detained. Manning, who served about seven years in prison for the massive leak, objected to the questioning in a grand jury appearance in March that was apparently part of a continued effort by federal prosecutors investigating WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. She was subsequently held in contempt... Read the rest

Ian Curtis experiences the, er, known pleasures of a thrill ride with much more restraint than Billy Corgan. Read the rest

In response to Georgia's new law that says women who get illegal abortions are murderers and therefore subject to life imprisonment or execution, Sex Object author Jessica Valenti tweeted, "It's fascinating to see people argue that women won't really be punished if abortion is illegal. Here are some things that have *already* happened to women despite Roe:"Thread by @JessicaValenti: "It's fascinating to see people argue that women won't really be punished if abortion is illegal. Here are some things that have *already* ha […]"Image: Vic Hinterlang/Shutterstock Read the rest

Flatland is a novel by Edwin Abbott Abbott, published in 1884. It's written as a biography by "A. Square," a two-dimensional creature who is literally a living square, thinner than a sheet of paper. He lives with other two-dimensional creatures on a surface called Flatland. In the book, Mr. Square tells of his adventures in worlds of different dimensions: Pointland (zero dimensions), Lineland (one dimension), and Spaceland (three dimensions) all inhabited with creatures suited for their respective worlds. Abbott does a wonderful job of world building, explain how the society (a satire of the Victorian society) and infrastructure of Flatland works. Even though the book was written 135 years ago, I found it very easy to read. Amazon is selling the Dover edition of Flatland for less than the price of a cup of coffee. I just bought it for my daughter. Read the rest

The CIA and security services of one or more foreign governments have recently warned at least three friends and colleagues of the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi that their pro-democracy work “has made them and their families the targets of potential retaliation from Saudi Arabia,” reports TIME.It wasn't only me. CIA sent warnings about at least three activists who were close to Jamal Khashoggi, one of whom was also taken into protection. Great work on this piece from @JoshMeyerDC. https://t.co/1FTl20Cu2a— İyad el-Baghdadi | إياد البغدادي (@iyad_elbaghdadi) May 9, 2019Josh Meyer's report at TIME identifies the three individuals as Norway-based İyad el-Baghdadi, Canada-based Omar Abdulaziz, and a third person who is said to be based in the US.Three of those who were given security briefings in recent weeks––democracy advocates Iyad El-Baghdadi of Oslo, Norway; Omar Abdulaziz of Montreal, Canada; and a person in the U.S. who asked not to be named––were working closely with Khashoggi on politically sensitive media and human rights projects at the time of his killing inside a Saudi diplomatic facility in Turkey last October. Based on the security briefings, the advocates say they have been targeted because they have become especially vocal and influential critics of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, accusing him of ordering Khashoggi’s murder as part of a broader crackdown on Saudi dissidents worldwide.The CIA was the source of the threat warning, according to an overseas intelligence official, Baghdadi and others involved with the briefings. A CIA spokesperson declined to comment, but the agency has a legal “duty to warn” potential victims of specific threats including murder, kidnapping and serious bodily harm, according to a 2015 directive signed by the Director of National Intelligence. Read the rest

Sucks to be Paul Manafort.

Anyone else getting Iraq déjà vu?

After police have proven unable to dissuade drug dealers from congregating in Berlin's Görlitzer Park, the manager of the park spray painted pink lines around designated areas for them to hang out and hawk their wares. The hope is that the dealers will no longer intimidate visitors throughout the park. From The Guardian:“This method has purely practical reasoning behind it,” (park manager Cengiz) Demirci told local radio station RBB. “It’s not that we’re legalising the selling of drugs.”Demirci said a much more effective solution would be if authorities gave the dealers work permits. The majority of them are asylum seekers who are not allowed to work while waiting for their claims to be processed. He added: “If they did that then 90% of them would stop what they’re doing immediately.”Police chiefs criticised the move. “What is needed to ensure that the park is drug and crime free, is a constant police presence and judicial resolve,” Benjamin Jendro from the Berlin branch of the police trade union GdP told Bild...The sharpest remarks came from Germany’s national anti-drugs tsar, Marlene Mortler, of the conservative Christian Social Union, who told the Funke Mediengruppe: “If this is true then it marks the capitulation of our constitutional state. We should not be issuing the dealers with a licence to deal.” Read the rest