Firearm manufacturing equipment was also found

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has denied an application by the Chinese telecommunications provider China Mobile to provide services in the U.S. over concerns about national security and risks to law enforcement.The decision comes amid growing trade tensions between the U.S. and China.[via techmeme.com]JUST IN: China Mobile has been barred from the U.S. market over espionage concerns. Watch LIVE via @BloombergTV ➡️ https://t.co/ZZV5sNmmuJ pic.twitter.com/wwQGeGA1SH— Bloomberg (@business) May 9, 2019JUST IN: FCC votes to ban China Mobile from providing telecom services in the United States; $CHL falls to session low https://t.co/6MDrxhdAwj pic.twitter.com/4Vu2MkmaQL— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) May 9, 2019FCC votes to deny China Mobile bid to operate in U.S. https://t.co/h3MIPvZ7NS pic.twitter.com/4PK1ADQIIW— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) May 9, 2019 Read the rest

The folks at Grind Hard Plumbing Co took their souped-up Barbie Jeep to a mudding event in Canada and had a great deal of fun.[via DIGG] Read the rest

From u/dozzinale, "The Downfall of Game of Thrones Ratings." I stopped watching after Season 6 because by the time Season 7 started, I couldn't remember much of what happened. I guess our family will have to binge watch the entire run like we did with the Walking Dead a few years ago. Read the rest

I've never been to Burning Man but this 700 Club report from 1996 really sells that year's festival theme of "The Inferno!" From the blog of Oliver Bonin, director of the Burning Man documentary Dust & Illusions:In 1996 a group under the name “The Sentinel Group” goes to Burning Man, right during the year themed as “HELL” [sic]. After gathering hours of footage during the event, they went to the TV show “The 700 Club” hosted by the wealthy, supposedly christian, Pat Robertson, one of those extremists that you can find only in America, preaching the bible and making millions at the same time.I found this incredible excerpt of the 700 Club during my search for archival footage about Burning Man. Read the rest

Published in 1986, the Watchmen comic book series by Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons is rightly regarded as a masterpiece. (It was the first DC comic book series I read after Jack Kirby's Kamandi folded in 1978 and I loved it.) Now, HBO is adapting the series for TV.From Damon Lindelof and set in an alternate history where “superheroes” are treated as outlaws, this drama series embraces the nostalgia of the original groundbreaking graphic novel of the same name while attempting to break new ground of its own. The cast includes Regina King, Jeremy Irons, Don Johnson, Jean Smart, Tim Blake Nelson, Louis Gossett Jr., Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Hong Chau, Andrew Howard, Tom Mison, Frances Fisher, Jacob Ming-Trent, Sara Vickers, Dylan Schombing, and James Wolk.Image HBO/YouTube Read the rest

Hurrah for Norwich, New York schoolbus driver Samantha Call and her astonishing reflexes! From Norwich City School District/Facebook:This is exactly why you should NEVER pass a school bus when the stop arm is out and the red lights are flashing!..."Samantha did an outstanding job," NCSD Transportation Supervisor William Loomis said. "All of our drivers undergo continuous training so they're prepared to handle situations like this. We hope this video helps everyone to realize the dangers of passing a stopped school bus." Read the rest

Adam King, a machine learning/AI engineer, built a web-based demonstration of a neural network that autocompletes a text prompt. I tried it with "Throw out this vegetable now." Here's the result.Throw out this vegetable now. It's nothing but a mess. And I don't need another salad. Just a little bit of broccoli!We could serve up this vegetable as a salad with roasted veggies, but I prefer to use it as an entrée. You can even garnish the salad with another vegetable (such as cabbage) to make a simple vegetable-salad bowl with, or use some extra salad mix.7-Minute Green Salad with Bruschetta, Sweet Potatoes, & CilantroINGREDIENTSYields 5-6 portions1/2 pound Brussels sprouts (2-3 bunches)2 ounces carrots, peeled and cut in half or quarters1 onion, cut into 1/4-inch pieces1 celery stalk, trimmed and deveined2 tablespoons olive oil2 large sweet potatoes, halved and peeled1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves, chopped1 pound broccoli, cut into wedgesJuice from 1 lemon1/4 cup Greek yogurtsalt and pepper, to tasteIn a large bowl, stir together the sweet potatoes, leek, and carrot Read the rest

Spoiler: Guess who's back! Twenty-seven years after the events of the summer of 1989, It (Bill Skarsgård) returns. The Losers' Club fulfill their promises and return to Derry to put an end to the evil being once and for all. Unbeknownst to them, It has returned, stronger and crueler than ever.In theaters September 6. Read the rest

AdaFruit recently announced the PyBadge and the PyBadge LC (Low Cost), a single board computer with a 1.8" 160x128 color display, buzzer-speaker, and 8 silicone-top buttons arrange for handheld gaming. The video above shows the PyBadge in a 3D printed case designed by Pedro Ruiz. Read the rest

This cheap adaptor allows you to use most popular USB windows and console controllers with the Nintendo Switch.Straight out of the box this COOV N-100 adaptor allowed my Xbox One controller to be instantly recognized and useable on our Nintendo Switch. I find there is no noticeable input lag when playing Switch on the tiny screen or a docked TV.Dollar for dollar you net out around the same between the adaptor + Xbox or PS3/PS4 controller vs Nintendo's native Switch Pro controller. The Nintendo controller, however, is too small for my hands and may have been sized towards a younger audience. My Xbox controller has KontrolFreak Grips and KontrolFreak 'performance' thumbsticks. Both these additions make the One handset an ergonomic fit for me.The tendons across the top of my hands ache just thinking about those teensy Nintendo Joycons.FastSnail includes the adaptor, a USB-C to USB-2 connector and some documentation if you find you need to update the firmware. I did not. FastSnail Controller Converter for Nintendo Switch via Amazon Read the rest

"Might delete later," adds The Fakening, creator of the abomination.Previously: Elon Musk but with Elizabeth Holmes' eyes. Read the rest

I grew up in the UK and moved to the United States after college. Two decades on, it's disarming to be reminded of UK celebrities who were wildly successful there but never made it in America. Sometimes forced efforts are be made to make UK stars "happen" in the US — Anne Robinson and Piers Morgan are good examples — and their suddenly-obvious mediocrity exposes much about the place they came from. Sometimes an obituary or where-are-they-now profile might impose upon my hazy recollections a disturbing contemporary reality. Fellow ex-pat Britons who grew up in the 90s, for example, should read this recent interview with once-pervasive TV star Tony Slattery, who has become in person the cold misery of British dark comedy.But most brit-celebs slipped into the depths of forgetting, the neurons assigned to them cold and free from the reigniting cycles of Britain's shabby light-entertainment monoculture. So it is with magnificent surge of nausea that my mediated self lurches awake today, bathed in sweat and haunted by the 90s, to the awareness that Danny Baker is still alive, has become physically and performatively indistinguishable from Alan Patridge, and was fired by the BBC for a racist tweet.Danny Baker tweeted Thursday that he has been fired after posting an image of a couple holding hands with a chimpanzee dressed in clothes and the caption: “Royal baby leaves hospital.”The tweet was seen as a racist reference to baby Archie’s heritage. His grandmother Doria Ragland is African American. Read the rest

Consider the place of knowledge and ideology in politics, how the open discussion of facts and ideas might throw light on complicated and difficult matters of policy and principle. How we might find paths to healing divisions while drawing new energy from our differences. Then consider the Texas republican who says that vaccines are "sorcery", and luxuriate in the liberating insight that negotiation, compromise and debate are in fact completely useless.When [Dr. Peter] Hotez replied that he doesn't take a dime from the vaccine industry and that as a Texas pediatrician-scientist who develops neglected disease vaccines for the world's poorest people, it is "most certainly my business," [Rep. Jonathan Stickland, R-Bedford] Stickland dug in even deeper."Make the case for your sorcery to consumers on your own dime," tweeted Stickland. "Like every other business. Quit using the heavy hand of government to make your business profitable through mandates and immunity. It's disgusting." Read the rest

There's a certain satisfaction to lightly-clattering flip-disc signs, once found on destination boards and stock exchanges the world over, and now you can experience it again with Tetris. Sinowin on YouTube implemented the game with a microcontroller and a 7x30 flipdot display.BONUS! Here's a Space Invader:Luminator and Annax seem to be the go-to brands, but they're not really consumer products and you'll have to put up with shifting availability on eBay; see Unboxing the ANNAX Flipdot display for an unboxing report and this Hackaday post about suppliers. Read the rest

David Klavens was told that pianos are made one way, all over the world, and that's that. But he wanted to make an enormously tall piano, "emanating the sound" to the audience instead of the ceiling, so he did.David Klavins is a pianist who, for years, could not find pianos that made the sounds he imagined in his head. So he began building pianos to his own specifications in a workshop in Vác, Hungary, and they are truly unique creations. To wit: Klavins’ vertical concert grand stands over 15-feet tall, and he actually has to climb a ladder to play it, which he does, beautifully, just for us. Read the rest

Bluetooth headphones have long been a compromise, delivering a lot of convenience at the cost of a noticeable loss in sound quality. It's a bandwidth issue that's tough to hack, even with the relatively recent rise of 5.0 Bluetooth tech.The Oomo 3D 5.1 Virtual Surround Sound Earphones may have just broken that low-quality sound barrier, becoming the world's first wireless earpieces to offer 3D 5.1 Surround Sound.That's thanks to a structure that effectively routes different frequencies into separate channels. When they come together, the result is crystal-clear sounds, augmented by aptX noise reduction and an internal cavity that absorbs feedback and allows for theater-caliber, infrasonic bass. The viscoelastic material is surprisingly durable too, as well as being sweat-resistant. You'll get approximately 8 hours of talk time out of them on a charge - enough for a couple of marathon jogs.Originally priced at $129.95, the Oomo 3D 5.1 Virtual Surround Sound Bluetooth Earphones are now on sale for $102.95. Read the rest

The price-gouger-driven skyrocketing prices for insulin have endangered the lives of Americans with diabetes, who are rationing their supplies and trying not to die.All of this is part of the story of how the for-profit US health care system is radicalizing Americans and driving them to desperate measures (this is the plot of the title story in my latest book). The latest expression of this desperation is the "Caravan to Canada," groups of Americans with diabetes who form caravans of automobiles and buy insulin at Canadian pharmacies (Canadian insulin costs 90% less than the clinically identical US version, because Canadian pharmaceutical prices are fixed by a government agency called the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board). America has about ten times as many people as Canada, a fact that worries some pharamceutical industry figures; the CBC quotes Barry Power, director of therapeutic content with the Canadian Pharmacists Association, saying "If you look at the disparity in the populations, a small percentage of Americans coming to Canada is a disproportionate increase for services and supplies that are earmarked for Canada."Lija Greenseid, who organized the Caravan to Canada, lives in St. Paul, Minn. Her 13-year-old daughter has Type 1 diabetes and she and her husband buy insurance through the Affordable Care Act.Last year, she said they spent $13,000 US just to obtain health insurance — and then $14,000 US out of pocket before her daughter's insulin was covered."It's a huge amount of money for us. Because of that, we didn't put any money into our kids' college savings accounts or put anything into retirement for the year. Read the rest

War crimes are among the most grisly and difficult-to-prosecute crimes; and yet, ironically, the criminals have made it easier for prosecutors, by uploading videos celebrating their atrocities to Big Tech platforms like Facebook and Youtube, where they can act as recruiting tools for terrorists and extremists.It's these very videos that human rights activists, atrocity survivors and armchair sleuths turn to in order to perform "open source intelligence" analysis on the perpetrators, effectively doxing them and handing overworked, under-resourced prosecutors the evidence they need to bring war criminals to justice.Against this trend, though, is Big Tech's zeal to remove "terrorist content," a kind of overreaction to years of indifference to complaints about all kinds of bad content that violated the platforms' own guidelines. The newly self-deputized platforms are playing content police and taking down "terrorist content" as fast as they can find it, using algorithmic dragnets that catch plenty of dolphins along with the tuna they're trawling for. To make things worse, Big Tech invents its own definitions of "terrorism," that barely overlap with internationally recognized definitions.It's about to get much worse: in the wake of the Christchurch white terror attacks, the Australian government rushed through legislation requiring platforms to remove "terror" content within an hour (a deadline so short that it guarantees that there will be no serious checks undertaken before content is removed) and now both the EU and the UK are poised to follow suit. And there's plentiful evidence that terror cops are incredibly sloppy when they wield the censor's pen: last month, a French intelligence agency gave the Internet Archive 24 hours to remove "terrorist" content, targeting the Archive's collections of 15,000,000 text files, its copy of Project Gutenberg, and its entire archive of Grateful Dead recordings. Read the rest

The Inverter is a kickstarted, sub-$500, 34mm automatic mechanical watch built around Citizen's Miyota Calibre 9000 movement, augmented with a custom module that makes the watch run backwards, so that it can be mounted so that the movement is exposed (beneath a sapphire crystal), with the back of the watch becoming its "face."It's the kind of high-end novelty watch that normally sells as a super-luxe item for $20K and the team behind it, the folks from Watchismo (previously) have a long track record of building excellent timepieces (and fulfilling previous wristwatch crowdfunders).This is a beautiful precision machine produced for no reason apart from the sheer aesthetic joy of exposing a complex and ingenious mechanism, and while $500 is a steep price for ornamentation, producing a watch to this spec at that price is actually a rather magnificent achievement.The watch has lots of nice gracenotes, like an easily-swapped band, 3ATM of water-resistance, a selection of colors and a super luminous dial. Watches ship in November.My grandfather was a watchmaker and I grew up playing with his movements, tools and workbench. Exposed movements are among my most favorite aesthetics, and I could watch them for hours.The Invertor | A $20K Inverted Automatic Design Under $500 [Xeric/Kickstarter] Read the rest

Uber is a wildly unprofitable company with no conceivable path to profitability in any universe, under any circumstances, but the company's founders and early investors (having already taken massive write-downs on their investments) are hoping to get at least some of their money back through the time-honored "greater fool" methodology. Specifically, they're floating the company on the stock market and hoping that naive investors hoping to wring above-inflation gains out of their 401(k)s and avoid being made into dog-food in their old age (we're waaaaay past the era in which impoverished old people get to eat dog-food) take their shares off their hands.The prospectus for the IPO is 300 grifty pages long, an entire spaghetti dinner of possible profitability strategies thrown at the wall in the hopes that a few strands will stick. Buried page 160, under the "Total Addressable Market," is a plan to eliminate the world's public transit systems and replace them with "Uber Bus" and "Express Pool." The company estimates that if the world's public transit riders all switch to Uber, they'll be able to serve an 11.9 trillion miles/year market.But they still won't be profitable.Which doesn't mean we shouldn't be worried! Uber has a lot of cash sloshing around (there are a lot of "greater fools" sitting on piles of unproductive capital, thanks to the global shift to the unproductive financial sector at the expense of the productive real economy) and they've demonstrated an unlimited appetite for pouring their investors' money into ambitious policy entrepreneurship aimed at destroying any potential impediment to total dominance of mobility (taxis, taxi unions, regulation, etc). Read the rest

Functional yet curiously suspect

This morning's news reported that Denver's ballot measure to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms had failed, but now that all the ballots have been fully counted we've learned that the Sunnies outvoted the Sadsters 51% to 49%.From Forbes:Its provisions prohibit the city government from using any resources to impose criminal penalties against adults over 21 years of age for personal use and possession of psilocybin, the active ingredient in so-called "magic mushrooms."Initiative 301 also specifies that going after people for the mushrooms is the city's “lowest law enforcement priority” and establishes a review panel to assess and report on the effects of the change by early 2021.The Denver measure doesn't trump federal law, however. Psilocybin and psilocin are on Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act and federal law states that "person convicted of illegally possessing any controlled substance face penalties of up to 1 year in prison and a minimum fine of $1,000, or both." Read the rest

The end of my yard is anually infiltrated by Japanese knotweed, encroaching from the overrun lot behind it, and anually beaten back with machete and glyphosphate (dutifully applied into the root). I know that it's futile, and so does anyone else confronted with the invasive menace.England and Wales are the most dramatic examples of knotweed’s spread in the West, but knotweed endures across the channel, too—as the most expensive invasive plant crisis on the continent, according to a 2009 study. And in recent decades, Japanese knotweed has colonized the Northeastern United States, the spine of the Appalachians, the Great Lakes states, and the Pacific Northwest. Infestation is “rapid and devastating,” one researcher wrote. “The plants are characterized by a strong will to live,” wrote another. In New Hampshire, a knotweed researcher told me he had found knotweed systems—almost certainly just one plant, connected underground—as large as 32,000 square feet, more than half the size of a football field. Photo: Angus MacAskill Read the rest

A famous chef tried to haul a duffel bag full of 40 vacuum-sealed, frozen piranhas into Los Angeles for a cooking competition. Agents there were not amused. Do not ever try this.“Customs officers do not like it when you try to bring a duffel bag full of 40 vacuum-sealed, frozen piranhas into Los Angeles,” reports the Los Angeles Times.Virgilio Martinez, a renowned Peruvian chef, was interrogated for five hours. Officials in Customs finally cleared him to bring the ill-conceived fish selection to a dinner at Somni in Los Angeles.Well, at least he brought them in frozen, rather than alive.[ via eater.com | Amazon Black Piranha with exposed teeth | Shutterstock] Read the rest

Here are six new lateral thinking puzzles to test your wits and stump your friends -- play along with us as we try to untangle some perplexing situations using yes-or-no questions.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon! Read the rest

Vote now goes before full House.

Members of the United States Federal Trade Commission (FCC) on Wednesday asked Congress to create a national privacy law that would regulate how technology giants like Facebook and Google gather, store, and share the personal data of users.“As we have learned from the concerning privacy issues surrounding Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, and from massive data breaches like the one at Equifax, there is little reason to believe that consumers can trust these companies with our personal data,” said Frank Pallone (D-NJ), who heads the energy and commerce committee.Cecilia Kang at the New York Times:In testimony before the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on consumer protection, commissioners also asked Congress to strengthen the agency’s ability to police violations, and for more resources and greater authority to impose penalties.Lawmakers are considering a national privacy law to regulate the collection and handling of user data, the most valuable currency of the internet economy.That debate is taking place while the F.T.C. is in settlement talks with Facebook after a 13-month investigation into privacy violations. The agency is expected to levy a $5 billion penalty on Facebook for violating a 2011 privacy settlement with the regulator.As part of that agreement, Facebook said it would overhaul its privacy practices. But in 2018, the F.T.C. opened a new case after it was reported that British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had used a vast trove of Facebook data to compile voter profiles as part of its work on the 2016 U.S. Read the rest

It finally happened. Junior got his very first congressional subpoena.The Republican-led Senate Intel Committee (SSCI) today subpoenaed Donald Trump Jr., the son of President Donald Trump, over matters related to Russia. It's the first congressional subpoena publicly reported that involves one of President Trump's children."The fact that they're subpoenaing Trump Jr. is a strong signal that he declined a request to appear before the committee again," reports @axios.Via Axios' Jonathan Swann.SCOOP: Republican-led Senate Intel Committee subpoenas Donald Trump Jr. over Russia matters. First congressional subpoena - we know of - for one of President Trump's children https://t.co/f8jQhkewPd— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) May 8, 2019 Read the rest

Instagram still has a serious anti-vax problem.

Last night in downtown San Diego, a gentleman was waving and pointing what appeared to be an assault rifle out of a window at the Palms Hotel. Witnesses called the police who, naturally, stopped all vehicle traffic around the hotel, locked down the surrounding neighborhood, and even deployed a chopper to the scene. When officers made it to the hotel room, they identified the "weapon" as a bong in the shape of a rifle. (Possibly like the one pictured above?) In video of officers escorting the fellow out, you can hear him say "I'm sorry." From the San Diego Union-Tribune:Both the man and woman were taken into custody, though the woman was released without being arrested.The man, who is in his early 20s, will be booked on suspicion of exhibiting a replica firearm in a threatening manner, police Capt. Mike Holden said.The alleged crime is a misdemeanor, according to (police Sgt. Joe) Ruvido. Read the rest

My DIY project book, Maker Dad is very cheap as a Kindle right now.As the editor in chief of MAKE magazine, Mark Frauenfelder has spent years combing through DIY books, but he’s never been able to find one with geeky projects he can share with his two daughters. Maker Dad is the first DIY book to use cutting-edge (and affordable) technology in appealing projects for fathers and daughters to do together. These crafts and gadgets are both rewarding to make and delightful to play with. What’s more, Maker Dad teaches girls lifelong skills—like computer programming, musicality, and how to use basic hand tools—as well as how to be creative problem solvers. The book’s twenty-four unique projects include:Drawbot, a lively contraption that draws abstract patterns all by itselfIce Cream Sandwich NecklaceFriendstrument, an electronic musical instrument girls can play with friendsLongboard skateboardAntigravity JarSilkscreened T-ShirtRetro Arcade Video GameHost a PodcastLunchbox GuitarKite Video CameraInnovative and groundbreaking, Maker Dad will inspire fathers to geek out with their daughters and help girls cultivate an early affinity for math, science, and technology. Read the rest

In 1983, Brian Eno with collaborators Roger Eno and Daniel Lanois released "Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks," a stunning ambient score for Al Reinert's glorious space documentary "For All Mankind." On July 19, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, Eno is reissuing that record accompanied by 11 new tracks -- five composed by Brian Eno, three from Lanois, and three from Roger Eno. The new collection is titled "For All Mankind." Above is a video for one of the new tracks, Brian Eno's "Like I Was a Spectator." More details in this announcement. Read the rest

Earlier this year, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) gave an award to a sex toy for women called the Osé. Then, in a spectacular PR blunder, it rescinded the award, pointing to a section in the terms and conditions that stated: "entries deemed by CTA in their sole discretion to be immoral, obscene, indecent, profane or not in keeping with CTA's image will be disqualified."After the award was grabbed back, the maker of the Osé issued a statement that read, in part:Putting aside for a moment the implication that women's sexual wellness products are somehow immoral or obscene — if we didn't fit their policy, how in the world did our application even get past the first round of vetting by CTA staff, let alone receive high marks across the board from their expert judges?It's also important to note that a literal sex doll for men launched on the floor at CES in 2018 and a VR porn company exhibits there every year, allowing men to watch pornography in public as consumers walk by. Clearly CTA has no issue allowing explicit male sexuality and pleasure to be ostentatiously on display. Other sex toys have exhibited at CES and some have even won awards, but apparently there is something different, something threatening about Osé, a product created by women to empower women.Today, four months after rescinding the award, CTA is giving it back. From Engadget:In a press release announcing the re-allocation of the award, CTA's senior vice president of marketing and communications Jean Foster commented: "CTA did not handle this award properly. Read the rest

Over at Root Simple, Mr. Homegrown takes a look at a technology that never took off: punch cards for phone numbers.What caught my eye with this oddball piece of transitional phone technology is the punch card, invented in the early 19th century to control looms. I’m tackling Thomas Pynchon’s novel Gravity’s Rainbow this spring after one failed attempt to read it in the 1990s. The book is full of loom metaphors such as this one, “While the great Loom of God works in darkness above,/And our trials here below are but threads of His Love.”The loom represents for Pynchon a way to evoke the sinister command and control of the punch card operated looms of the industrial revolution and, ultimately, the semi-autonomous V2 rockets of the Nazis. As novelist and (superb) podcaster Michael S. Judge has pointed out, Pynchon’s book is eerily prescient, seeming to foresee an era when we’re all monitored and controlled by a enormous electronic loom in the form of the interwebs. Read the rest

Elżbieta Podlesna could spend up to two years in prison for "offending religious feelings" after putting up posters in Poland showing the Mary and Jesus with LGBT rainbow halos.From CNNPolice claim that Podlesna, 51, put up the posters in the small city of Płock, Poland. And they say they found even more posters when they searched her car and home.Podlesna was detained by authorities as she returned from an Amnesty International advocacy tour.As a result of the searches, prosecutors are charging her with offending religious feelings. And those charges mean Podlesna faces up to two years in prison if found guilty.Image: Amnesty International Read the rest

This is a fun video! A guy restores an old, broken Super Soaker and makes a time-lapse video of the process so it looks like the Super Soaker is restoring itself.He wrote:This video took me around 50 hours to make and just over 4000 photos. I have been wanting to get to this item for a while now. It's a 1990 Super Soaker made by Larami Corp.This was the video I wanted to release on April 1st, but I ran out of time. This thing is almost entirely plastic and most parts are permanently glued together. Those features make it very hard to actually restore, but slightly easier to repair. I had to break off the orange plastic caps at the back of the Super Soaker in order to get it apart. Once apart, it was a simple glue up to fix the broken pieces. The HDPE plastic water containers cannot be revived to their original colour, so I just had to repaint them. I am "pumped" this works again as pressurized versions are not for sale anymore. Read the rest

The Apollo 11 Lunar Module Timeline Book was a key onboard reference for the heroic astronauts who made the first moon landing on July 20, 1969. Fifty years later, it'll go up for auction at Christies this summer as part of their sale "One Giant Leap: Celebrating Space Exploration 50 Years after Apollo 11." It's expected to fetch between $7 and $9 million. And yes, it really should be in the Smithsonian. According to Reuters, it's being sold someone who purchased it from astronaut Buzz Aldrin. From Christies:Aldrin had written Eagle’s coordinates in the Sea of Tranquility on page 10 of the book — the first writing by a human being on a celestial body other than Earth....The Timeline Book narrates the entire Eagle voyage from inspection, undocking, lunar surface descent and ascent, to the rendezvous with Michael Collins aboard the Command Module in lunar orbit. The book contains nearly 150 annotations and completion checkmarks made in real-time by Aldrin and Armstrong. Traces of what appears to be lunar dust are on the transfer list pages that detail the movement of lunar rock samples and equipment from Eagle to Columbia. Read the rest

Cue "Yakety Sax." Read the rest

Boing Boing is proud to welcome EST Gear as a sponsor!Finding great tools is difficult, but this awesome shovel from EST Gear is said to be the world’s most capable camping and adventure tool and we can see why because, wherever your journeys take you, it’s not going to let you down and it can get you out of a fix or two.With The EST Shovel Multi-Tool you’ll be prepared for anything. This packable lifesaving survival tool is ideal for any camping adventure. Plus, the EST shovel is easy to keep anywhere, such as your car, truck or your bug-out bag. Featuring 18 tools in one, it combines a shovel, ax, saw, spear, knife, fire starter, wire-cutter and nail puller. It also features a bottle opener, whistle, compass and more. Made of 420 hardened-steel, the reinforced shovel head is strong enough for any situation and the military-grade aluminum handle makes the multipurpose adventure tool lightweight and easy to use.You can save 50% off when you pre-order on indiegogo, the campaign is already over 250% funded and it ships in June. Read the rest

Florence Fang recently bought and renovated a unique concrete-dome house in California so it resembled the Flintstones' residence even more than it already did, adding giant dinosaurs in the yard and landscaping to match. The city of Hillsborough is suing her over the work, describing it as an "eyesore" and "public nuisance". In March, the town of Hillsborough filed a lawsuit against Mrs Fang, alleging that she failed to obtain the proper permits for her landscaping work, declaring her home a “public nuisance”, and seeking a court order to remove the various “improvements” that have turned the home into what the town’s lawyer describes as a “highly visible eye sore” that is not “in keeping with community standards”.The dispute has casted a pall over Mrs Fang’s enjoyment of the property, though I can attest that it is physically impossible not to smile while there. There are simply too many delightful surprises, from the lifesize Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys in the guest bedroom to the glass octopus on the wall in the foyer (“An octopus is always good company,” Mrs Fang points out). Within moments of welcoming me into her “conversation room”, she demonstrates the workings of a toy chicken that dances, shakes its rear end and then lays three (plastic) eggs.“Look at it! Look at it! Isn’t that cute?” she laughs. “This is a happy place.”It's clear from the article that Hillsborough's government has been obsessed with the dwelling for so long that significant elements of the city's laws are aimed exclusively at preventing anything like it from happening again. Read the rest

In this video from Brazil, a man orders an ice cream and quietly enjoys it as a brawl breaks out in the street behind him.BONUS CONTENT: Street brawl unfolds as ice cream truck music plays. Read the rest

Tom the Dancing Bug, IN WHICH The Avengers devise a plan to defeat Thanos by impeaching him (Avengers 4 Spoiler-Free!)

In the midst of social media encouraging us to increasingly overshare our lives, a curious thing has happened: Journaling is back. And while the practice of jotting down your thoughts and plans in a private, analog medium is therapeutic, it can also be pretty productive.We've tracked down a few decidedly modern notebooks that have seized on that latter benefit. With innovations like personality-guided planning and cloud sharing, these little books are just waiting to be filled up with big ideas.Sidekick NotebookTalk about form following function. This handy number won the 2019 Gold A'Design Award, and it's easy to see why. The curious rhombus-shaped book opens up to reveal pages that fit snugly into the corner of your computer workstation, allowing you to easily jot down notes as you study or brainstorm. A two-pack of black Sidekick Notebooks are available now for $41.99, 12% off the MSRP.EVO Flow Systemâ„¢ PlannerThere are daily planners that let you set goals and celebrate achievements, but nothing as personalized as the EVO Flow System. Before getting the book, you take a Brain Type Assessment that matches your personality into one of four archetypes: Oracle, Alchemist, Explorer, or Architect. From there, you can get a planner and accompanying app that nudges you onto your own personal path to inspiration - with success as the inevitable by-product. Take the test and get your own EVO Flow Systemâ„¢ Planner for 20% off at $39.99.Meditation Sidekick JournalHere's a daily journal that's not just a place to air out your anxieties. Read the rest

The first woman to circumnavigate the world did so dressed as a man. In 1766, 26-year-old Jeanne Baret joined a French expedition hoping to conceal her identity for three years. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the story of her historic journey around the globe.We'll also hear Mark Twain's shark story and puzzle over a foiled con artist.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon! Read the rest

Evolutionary psychology is the idea that we can explain peoples' behaviors by making reference to the imagined lives of early hominids and also by finding animals whose behavior explains why it's not tenured professors' fault that they tried to have sex with their undergrads.In Current Affairs, Lyta Gold presents a quick quiz that will test your knowledge of this important and in no-way-bullshit "science." Lobsters’ serotonin receptors are much like humans’, to the point where lobsters can be affected by anti-depressants. Lobster social structure is hierarchical. What does this tell us about human beings and our innate need for hierarchy?a. Human beings, like lobsters, desire to be ruled by a single Uberlobster, who reigns under the sea on a throne of barnacles and blood.b. Human beings, like lobsters, desire to be eaten by a larger, more intelligent, and more mobile species. That’s why I’ve set up radio beacons inviting alien gourmands to descend to our world and choose among us. Welcome, diners of the galaxy! I’m the meatiest!Evolutionary Psychology Quiz [Lyta Gold/Current Affairs](via @AdamRutherford)(Image: CM Duffy) Read the rest

For decades, programmers have talked about the tendency of software to become less reliable over time as "rot," but Konrad Hinsen makes a compelling case that the right metaphor is "collapse," because the reason software degrades is that the ground underneath it (hardware, operating systems, libraries, programming languages) has shifted, like the earth moving under your house.Building on this metaphor, Hinsen identifies strategies we use to keep our houses standing: building only on stable ground; building in reinforcements to counteract the expected degree of shaking; fixing the house after every quake, or giving up and rebuilding the house every time it falls down.These strategies are of limited use to software developers, though: building in a risk-free environment means using systems that don't change, which severely limits your options (some large fraction of ATM transactions today loop through a system running COBOL!); we don't really know how to make software that remains reliable when its underlying substrates change; and rebuilding software from scratch over and over again only works for very trivial code.Which really leaves us with only option 3: constant repairs.I love this analysis but I wonder where "technology debt" fits in (the idea that you shave a corner or ignore a problem, then have to devote ever-larger amounts of resources to shoring up this weak spot, until, eventually, the amount of work needed to keep the thing running exceeds all available resources and it collapses).As a first step, consider the time scale of change in your own project. Read the rest

I'm coming to Berlin's Otherland books tonight at 8PM for a talk about my latest, Radicalized and the German edition of the first novella from it, Wie man einen Toaster überlistet ("How to Outsmart a Toaster," AKA "Unauthorized Bread").From there, I'm heading to Houston, where I'll be a Guest of Honor at this weekend's Comicpalooza, with a keynote speech, a signing and panels on copyright, robots and AI, cyberpunk, copyright (again!).Looking forward to seeing you! Read the rest

China's Xinjiang province is home to the country's Uyghur ethnic minority and other people of Turkic Muslim descent; it has become a living laboratory for next-generation, electronically mediated totalitarianism; up to 1,000,000 people have been sent to concentration/torture camps in the region, and targets for rendition ot these camps come via compulsory mobile apps that spy on residents in every conceivable way (naturally, war criminal Eric "Blackwater" Prince, brother of billionaire heiress Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, is into this stuff up to his eyeballs, as are other American collaborators).Key to maintaining the Chinese control over the region is the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP, which authorities use to spy on the population and each other. IJOP was created by the Hebei Far East Communication System Engineering Company, a subsidiary of the state-owned China Electronics Technology Group Corporation. Authorities interact with IJOP using an app, and after Human Rights Watch acquired a copy of this app, they contracted with Berlin's Cure53 to reverse engineer it. Now, they have published a massive, comprehensive, chilling report that provides the most thorough look into the cutting edge of Chinese high-tech totalitarianism ever seen.This is significant because Xinjiang is a beta-test for the rest of China. Earlier surveillance techniques that were pioneered on Uyghurs have had their rough edges smoothed out and then were rolled out for all Chinese people. And, thanks to the Belt-and-Road initiative, the Chinese state is gradually exporting much of their high-tech totalitarianism to client states around the Pacific Rim, sub-Saharan Africa, and elsewhere. Read the rest