Boing Boing

Bottled water is bullshit. Its production and transport to market are sucking the marrow out of our planet and the majority of the disposable bottles that it comes in wind up in landfills instead of recycling centers. What's more, in most parts of the world, when you buy bottled water it's pretty much the same shit that comes out of your tap that you've already paid your taxes (I assume: do what you feel and keep both knees on the wheel,) to get.Carrying a reusable bottle with you is a very small way to slow the pillaging of our planet and a big way to stick it to the water-for-money-grubbing corporations that are taking advantage of us all. There's just one problem: where to fill up. There's a good chance that you can trot into a coffee shop where you're known to top off your canteen. If you're feeling daring, you could even brave the sink of a public restroom for a bit of water. Things get more complicated, however, when you're out of town, say in a foreign country where you don't speak the language as well as you should. When I went hiking across Spain a few years back, there were days when I had no choice but to buy una botella de agua because I couldn't find the community faucet in the village I was passing through. That sucks. Fortunately, there's a new app out there to help you sort your hydration situation out:Tap is a simple, effective app that does one thing very well: points out the places in area around you where you're invited to fill up water bottle up. Read the rest

In this footage, Connecticut State Trooper First Class John Barone, Sgt. John Jacobi and Master Sgt. Patrick Torneo are recorded discussing how to justify ticketing Michael Picard, an activist who filmed them detaining him.According to a 2017 story in the Hartford Courant, they were exonerated by an internal investigation despite planning to falsify witness reports of the encounter. The ACLU filed a lawsuit in 2016, which remains active as of June 2019.A state police internal affairs investigator concluded there was "no evidence" to support an activist's claim that three troopers conspired to concoct charges against him during a contentious interaction at a DUI checkpoint in 2015.Michael Picard, who supports the open carrying of firearms and opposes random DUI checkpoints, was charged with two infractions while protesting at an I-84 ramp in West Hartford.Police seized Picard's camcorder during the confrontation, which, unbeknownst to the troopers involved, captured them discussing whether to file charges. In the audio, one trooper is heard stating that the officers "gotta cover our ass," while another adds they could "claim that, um, in the back-up, we had multiple people stop to report" a man with a gun.The best part is when trooper Barone claims that it's illegal to film him because state property isn't public property. The "oh shit!" when they realize the camera's still running is a close second.They do this day in and day out, which is why catching them once is addressed by internal investigators as an attack on law enforcement rather than a problem to solve. Read the rest

It helps that he's using a high-end hammer action keyboard, but Yohan's Kim's incredible skill cannot be denied. Perhaps Creative Labs needs a new spokesman:BONUS REMIX: Read the rest

Remember Polaroids? The tactile joy of waving around one of those little plastic pictures, the anticipation of waiting for it to develop: These have been pleasures that some of us thought we'd only be telling our confused children about. But think again. Polaroid's got a batch of great new bundles and special editions for its innovative OneStep 2 that are guaranteed to get you snapping and sharing pics all over again.Polaroid Originals OneStep 2 Camera: Stranger Things Edition + Film BundleCreated "in collaboration with Hawkins National Laboratory," this camera not only honors the popular Netflix show with red and blue colors and a clever "upside down" design, it boasts an extra powerful flash that'll send any extra-dimensional monsters packing. You'll also get an iType film pack that frames your photos in one of 16 Stranger Things logos and designs. The Polaroid Originals OneStep 2 Camera: Stranger Things Edition + Film Bundle is now $126.99, down 5% from the original price.Polaroid OneStep 2 Camera Graphite with PhotoboxAs fun as it is to share Polaroids with your friends, you're going to want to keep some of them. This bundle makes that easy with a premium cardstock photo box that holds up to 40 pictures. Pick up the Polaroid OneStep 2 Camera Graphite with Photobox for $99.99, more than 15% off the list price.Polaroid Originals OneStep 2 Camera: Summer Blue Edition + Film BundleThis Summer Blue edition of the OneStep 2 has great looks outside and in, with a film pack that gives you the choice of 8 different cool blue frames. Read the rest

It's pop art! It's furniture! It's a stack of plastic coat hangers! Yep, the frame of this chair stacks plastic coat hangers. And not just stack them, Designer Joey Zeldon's Coat Check Chair isn't a chair without them. By bringing the elements of the closet into the foreground of a person’s daily routine, the Coat Check Chair offers a unique design and a gentle encouragement to stay neat. The hangers’ flexible plastic makes the chair surprisingly comfortable, while its impermanent construction lets users customize in terms of hanger color and pattern. Timeless and practical, the Coat Check Chair can fit in your studio, home, boutique, hotel or gallery, letting your closet join the party. He reports that the chair can withstand at least 170 lbs., which is what he weighs:You can get the Coat Check Chair through Kickstarter for the early bird price of $449. (Apartment Therapy) Read the rest

An entire genre of Saturday Night Live-style skit humor--what if celebrity x were absurdly cast in role y?--is made obsolete by deepfakery. Read the rest

Using an Arduino, a bunch of code and a little machine learning, Benn Hamm created a cat door to keep his cat from bringing dead--and sometimes live--rats and birds into his home in the middle of the night. It's not often that I'm down with bringing surveillance technology into homes but, as a former cat owner who's had to clean bird shit off a flat-screen TV, I have nothing but love for this project.Image via Wikipedia Commons Read the rest

"Juicy Ghost" is a new tale from Rudy Rucker (previously), an explicitly politican sf story told from the point of view of a suicide-assassin who is getting ready to take out an illegitimate president during his inauguration; as Rucker describes, he really struggled with the story, and couldn't figure out where or if to publish (he even contemplated rebooting his late, great, much-lamented webzine Flurb with an "all-politics" issue as a means of giving the story a home).Ultimately, Rucker decided to publish the tale on his own site, in both text and audio formats.I listened to Rucker's reading of the story yesterday and it's quite an experience: all the whimsy and playfulness that is Rucker's signature, blended with a dark, almost frantic view of the moment we're living through today. Strong tonic for a Sunday.“A mob of Freals,” says Leeta. “I feel safe. For once.”She makes a knowing mm-hmm sound, with her gawky mouth pressed shut. She’s not one to think about looks. Lank-haired and fit. A fanatic. I’m a fanatic too. We’re feral freaks, free for real.Is Leeta is my girlfriend? No. I’ve never had a girlfriend or a boyfriend. I don’t get that close to people. My parents and brother and sister died when I was eight. A shoot-out at our house. I don’t talk about it.It’s nine in the morning on January 20, a cold, blue-sky day in Washington D.C. Inauguration Day for Ross Treadle, that lying sack of shit who’s acting as if he’s been legitimately re-elected. Read the rest

Locus Magazine announced the winners of its annual reader-voted awards last night, with top honors for Mary Robinette Kowal, who won Best SF Novel for The Calculating Stars (which also won a Nebula Award this year), as well as Brooke Bolander, who won Best Novelette for The Only Harmless Great Thing (also a Nebula winner); and Phenderson Djèlí Clark whose Nebula-winning short story The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington also won a Locus.Congrats to all the winners!Best SF Novel: The Calculating Stars, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)Best Fantasy Novel: Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik (Del Rey; Macmillan)Best Horror Novel: The Cabin at the End of the World, Paul Tremblay (Morrow; Titan UK)Best YA Novel: Dread Nation, Justina Ireland (Balzer + Bray)Best First Novel: Trail of Lightning, Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga)Best Novella: Artificial Condition, Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing)Best Novelette: The Only Harmless Great Thing, Brooke Bolander (Tor.com Publishing) Read the rest

The idea that you can detect lies by analyzing "microexpressions" has absorbed billions in spending by police forces and security services, despite the fact that it's junk science that performs worse than a coin-toss.What could be griftier than selling latter-day phrenology to law enforcement? Adding "machine learning" to the mix!The UK startup Facesoft used "a database of 300 million images of faces, some of which have been created by an AI system modeled on the human brain" (that is: "modeled" on the "human brain"), to "identify emotions like anger, fear and surprise based on micro-expressions which are often invisible to the casual observer."The problems with replicating and falsifying this proposition don't matter when you're building a Weapon of Math Destruction whose predictions aren't compared to objective truth once they're deployed (see also: automated sentencing, predictive policing, etc).The company was co-founded by a plastic surgeon named Allan Ponniah who claims that the police in Mumbai might use his product "for monitoring crowds to detect the evolving mob dynamics."You know why this won't work? Because they haven't put it on the blockchain. Everyone knows that machine learning junk science products can only be salvaged by putting them on the blockchain.“If someone smiles insincerely, their mouth may smile, but the smile doesn’t reach their eyes — micro-expressions are more subtle than that and quicker,” co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Allan Ponniah, who’s also a plastic and reconstructive surgeon in London, told the newspaper.Face-Reading AI Will Tell Police When Suspects Are Hiding Truth [Ellen Milligan/Bloomberg](via Naked Capitalism)(Image: Cryteria, CC-BY) Read the rest

Canada's Irving family is one of the richest in the world, owning more land than anyone except the British royals and the Catholic church; they also own virtually all the media in New Brunswick, as well as the industries that those newspapers cover, and they augment their media control over the public discourse with a ruthless approach to their critics.The Irvings are in the news today due to their role in a massive Canadian scandal that many believe could cost Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party its chance at re-election in October.Now, the Irvings' newspapers have all canceled Micheal de Adder's editorial strip, after the New Brunswick native drew a comic featuring Donald Trump playing golf over the corpses of Salvadoran asylum-seekers Oscar Alberto Martinez and his two year old daughter, Angie Valeria M, whose bodies were photographed after they washed up on the shores of the Rio Grande.According to de Adder, none of the Irvings' Brunswick News Inc outlets ran the strip. De Adder is Canada's most-read cartoonist.De Adder wrote that despite his sorrow at being cut from the papers in his home province, "I’m not a victim. I just finished a book, that will be out in September and I still freelance for some amazing newspapers. It’s a setback not a deathblow."In a statement, President Wes Tyrell of the Association of Canadian Cartoonists wrote, "The Irvings have considerable corporate interests in the United States, but why would they care about cartoons potentially offending the American president? Read the rest

What could be more zeigeisty and revealing of our present moment than John Carpenter's 1988 sci-fi/horror flick They Live? How about Rob Israel's They Live, We Look Back illustration, a mashup with Distracted Boyfriend meme, which you can pre-order today as a 12x12 print? (via JWZ) Read the rest

Microsoft is no stranger to the use of "Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt" in the pursuit of monopolistic goals; the company perfected the tactic in the early 1990s as a way of scaring enterprise customers away from GNU/Linux; today, the company shows off its mastery of FUD in its filings to the Federal Trade Commission condemning proposals for Right-to-Repair rules.In its comments, Microsoft argues that allowing third-party repairs of Microsoft products could compromise its DRM systems, including dual-purpose security systems like the "Trusted Platform Module" (TPM) that are used to lock out rival operating systems as well as malicious actors.Luckily, we have Securepairs, a coalition of security experts devoted to debunking claims from repair monopolists who claim that opening repair markets will pose a security threat.Microsoft submitted its comments ahead of the FTC's "Nixing the Fix" workshop on Right to Repair, arguing that "If the TPM or other hardware or software protections were compromised by a malicious or unqualified repair vendor, those security protections would be rendered ineffective and consumers’ data and control of the device would be at risk. Moreover, a security breach of one device can potentially compromise the security of a platform or other devices connected to the network."As Securepairs writes in rebuttal, this is undeniably true, as are the following: "If you invite someone into your home to repair your dishwasher they could, instead, pilfer your jewelry and credit cards," and "If you hire a managed service provider to do your network security they could, instead, compromise your network and steal your intellectual property."That is: "In other words: the provisioning of repair or any other commercial service – requires trust between the customer and the service provider. Read the rest

Back in 2011, I bought a new countertop made from "Curface," a composite material made from a mix of melted down used coffee cups and coffee grounds; we still have it and it's wearing beautifully -- you can treat it like solid wood, sanding off imperfections and oiling it back up to a shine; or you can treat it like a polymer and treat it with waxes like Turtle Wax for a durable finish.Unfortunately, Curface is no more, but the idea of using coffee grounds as a cellulosic base for aggregates lives on; a German company called Kaffeeform is making coffee cups out of grinds suspended in resin -- everything from go-cups to demitasses, espresso cups, and latte cups.Their marketing material notes that "The cups are very durable, light, and have a mild smell of coffee."Kaffeeform(via Red Ferret) Read the rest

Many tech entrepreneurs are self-starters. The secret is in knowing where and when to start. And if your career plan involves programming or IT skills, the answer might just be "right here, right now" - because these ten online course bundles aren't just packed with training and insight into essential work platforms. They're all priced on a "pay what you want" basis. That means any offer gets at least a partial course package, and beating the average price gets the entire thing. No matter what your specialty, there's the potential for hundreds of dollars saved.The Big Data eBook BundleNo matter what the size of your database, this bundle will allow you to make the most of it. You'll get overviews on how to funnel big data into artificial intelligence, plus specific lessons on how to use Python, MySQL, SAS and more for data analytics.CompTIA CSIS Prep BundleThis package gets you CompTIA certified in all the essential aspects of IT, giving you everything you need to set up, manage and protect the network infrastructure of any company.Cisco Networking & Cloud Computing Certification BundleThere's a wealth of resources in this one - more than 100 hours of training to be exact. It's everything you need to get you certified and confident as a cloud systems expert in Cisco, Microsoft Azure, and Windows Powershell.The Epic Excel 2019 Mastery BundleMastery in Excel means more than just being able to knock out some payroll spreadsheets. This bundle explores the popular platform's full potential in automation and data analysis, but it kicks off with overviews suitable for any beginner. Read the rest

Earlier this month, I reviewed Richard Kadrey's new novel "The Grand Dark" for the LA Times; as I wrote, "His latest is “The Grand Dark,” a noir, diesel punk book set in a Weimar world of war trauma, debauchery, cabaret and looming disaster — and it's superb."As part of his publicity for the book, Kadrey appeared on Rick Kleffel's (previously) podcast, "Narrative Species," for a wide-ranging, hour-long conversation about the various species of noir, what is and isn't horror, and the role of art during the buildup to a fascist takeover (MP3). It's a characteristically great interview with Kadrey, who is always fascinating, and Kleffel, who is a perspicacious literary thinker and critic.Kadrey’s urban creation knows no boundaries of genre. He crafts his world with the precise language of science fiction and the wild abandon of modern fantasy. Keeping it tightly focused and ever-immersive are his carefully crafted characters. Read a page or so of this book, and you won’t be thinking of genre. Instead, you’ll start to worry for and with Largo. He’s no naïve kid from the sticks. He’s a scrappy, yet caring underdog from a bad part of town with no plans to return.Richard Kadrey The Grand Dark [Rick Kleffel/Narrative Species](Thanks, Rick!) Read the rest

Looking for new tablets or other essential gear? Normally, you're out of luck in the summer - that no man's land for shoppers at the farthest point from the holidays. But here are ten examples where the prices have most definitely thawed out. Check out these deep discounts on Chromebooks and other refurbished gear, from chargers to robots.Rock Space WiFi Range ExtenderGot a big house that needs coverage? This booster is just the ticket, with a 2.4 and 5 GHz dual-band extender that will supercharge your wi-fi. The Rock Space WiFi Range Extender is $24.99, down 58% from the original price of $59.99.Samsung Chromebook 11.6" 16GB (Refurbished)Chromebooks make any web-based work easier, and this one comes pre-loaded with Chrome OS and the latest Google products plus Gmail and YouTube. Pick up the refurbished Samsung Chromebook 11.6" 16GB for $99.99, more than 80% off the MSRP.Samsung Galaxy View 18.4" 64GB WiFi + AT&T 4G LTE Black (Refurbished)Binge anywhere with this big-screen viewer, capable of bringing your favorite shows to life in 1080p HD. All that, plus the battery will outlast even the longest movies with 8 hours of life on a charge. The Samsung Galaxy View 18.4" 64GB WiFi + AT&T 4G LTE Black (Refurbished) is on sale for $449, down 43% from the list price.rero:micro Coding RobotEquipped with IR sensors and an LED matrix, this roving robot is perfect for teaching kids to code. Program it to follow a hand-drawn track, play music and more through the MakeCode editor or with simple JavaScript. Read the rest

The shame just keeps on coming, America.Illegitimate United States President Donald Trump just met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the G-20 in Japan. During their brief meetup, Trump referred to MBS “a friend of mine,” and said the prince blamed for the grisly assassination of Jamal Khashoggi has done “really a spectacular job” and that it's a “great honor” to meet with him.Bone saws, people.JUST IN: President Trump meets with Saudi Crown Prince bin Salman at G-20 in Japan, calls him "a friend of mine" and says that he's done "really a spectacular job" and that it's a "great honor" to meet with him. pic.twitter.com/cKvZ8qWFQc— MSNBC (@MSNBC) June 29, 2019Reactions from Twitter, below.Every journalist in America should cover Trump appropriately given the unequivocal knowledge that he would warmly greet someone who murdered you. This is no different than high-fiving Al Qaeda after they murdered Daniel Pearl. https://t.co/2Z9gkUE42S— Anil Dash 🥭 (@anildash) June 28, 2019Trump and MBS are meeting on a high floor of the Imperial Hotel in Osaka right now. Trump calls the Saudi crown prince “a friend of mine” and says it’s an “honor” to be with him. pic.twitter.com/4EMhkS4Mqj— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) June 28, 2019We’ve already had to sue the government over Jared Kushner’s meeting with the Saudi crown prince. https://t.co/rGIX9CDPzE— Citizens for Ethics (@CREWcrew) June 29, 2019Trump lavishes praise on MBS at breakfast, telling him he has done a "spectacular job." He makes no mention of Khashoggi murder, which the US has concluded the crown prince ordered. Read the rest

Holy crap this is the most ambitious 'hey I think I'll build a fishpond' project I've ever seen.IMGURian @jcardona1 shares this incredible step by step photo gallery, and starts with the finished product:You can't have a DIY post without showing the finished product first so here it is! This is the koi pond as of a few days ago. Still have a few projects to wrap up and some finish landscaping but it's mostly complete for now. Been running for almost 4 months now and the fish are doing great.About the photo below, they say: “In a few years these baby water cows will be full-on meat torpedoes.”Now, here are the first three steps of the project:Go check out the whole gallery, with shot-by-shot commentary. Hats off, this is a great HOWTO post, and it's a lot of fun to keep koi.I used to keep koi, in a suburban but wild-hills-adjacent part of the East Bay in the SF Bay Area. Coyotes were always finding a way to come in and eat them, though.How I built a 4,000 gallon Koi Pond Read the rest

Is this good boi eating... PUP-CORN?I'll see myself out.This bulldog is really enjoying his popcorn treat, eaten directly from the hoodie he's wearing.You gotta unmute for his om nom nom chompy chomper sounds.Right way to wear a hoodie[via imgur] Read the rest

Call me maybe

Today is the one year anniversary of the 2018 Capitol Gazette mass shooting, in which a gunman shot and killed 5 people, and injured more.At the G20 summit today on the other side of the world, illegitimate United States president Donald Trump shared a chuckle with his boss, Russian president Vladimir Putin, over their shared wish to “get rid of” of journalists. Trump expressed mocking disdain for “fake news,” and mockingly dismissed the seriousness of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. The Committee to Protect Journalists says 26 journalists have been murdered in Russia since Putin became president. Here are their names.At the G20 photo op in front of news photographers, Trump appeared to bond with Putin over their shared scorn for journalists and the press in general. “Get rid of them,” said Trump of journalists. “Fake news is a great term, isn't it? You don’t have this problem in Russia, but we do.”“We also have,” Putin replied to Trump, in English. “It’s the same.”Then they shared a laugh.Here is the bizarre video clip right before that of Trump telling Putin not to meddle in the 2020 elections. Trump wags his finger at Putin, appears to do it to appease the idiot journalists, mocking all of us.WATCH: President Trump can be heard telling Russia's Putin not to meddle in the upcoming U.S. election ▶ 🔊 https://t.co/THyCggUA5Z pic.twitter.com/EbfOcKBna6— Bloomberg Politics (@bpolitics) June 28, 2019More from journalists who were there, and who observed the pool footage of the Trump-Putin theatrics. Read the rest

GrubHub is buying up thousands of restaurant web addresses, and “also appears to publish shadow pages without owners' consent—sometimes in direct competition with real websites,” reports The New Food Economy. Why would the app-based restaurant delivery service do such a crazy thing? It looks like the reason may be -- shocking, I know! -- predatory greed.H. Claire Brown writes:The New Food Economy has found that GrubHub owns more than 23,000 web domains. Its subsidiary, Seamless, owns thousands. We’ve published the full list here. Most of them appear to correlate with the names of real restaurants. The company’s most recent purchase was in May of this year.Grubhub purchased three different domains containing versions of Shivane’s restaurant’s name—in 2012, 2013, and 2014. “I never gave them permission to do that,” she says. Shivane believes GrubHub purchased her restaurant’s web domain to prevent her from building her own online presence. She also believes the company may have had a special interest in owning her name because she processes a high volume of orders. She rattles off a list of names of local restaurants that she suspects may be in the same predicament. I find versions of about half those names on the list of GrubHub-owned domains. Additionally, it appears GrubHub has set up several generic, templated pages that look like real restaurant websites but in fact link only to GrubHub. These pages also display phone numbers that GrubHub controls. The calls are forwarded to the restaurant, but the platform records each one and charges the restaurant a commission fee for every order, according to testimony from GrubHub executives at a hearing at New York City Hall on Thursday. Read the rest

There are two days left to bid on this famous protest poster from 1968 at Heritage Auctions.Fuck the Draft by Kiyoshi Kuromiya (1968). Rolled, Very Fine. Protest Poster (20.25" X 29.75"). Offered in this lot is arguably one of the most iconic anti-Vietnam War posters ever created, depicting a young man burning his draft card in a symbolic act of defiance. Designed by famed activist Kiyoshi Kuromiya under the pseudonym Dirty Linen Corp, this poster was distributed via mail order, with suggestions to mail a copy to mothers, and even the White House. Eventually, the FBI arrested Kuromiya for using the US postal service to distribute 'lewd and indecent materials,' but this poster had already made its rounds and secured a place in anti-draft history.A good reminder that the FBI, in general, is not on the side of progress.From Wikipedia:Kiyoshi Kuromiya (May 9, 1943 – May 10, 2000) was a Japanese American author and civil rights activist. He was born in a Japanese American internment camp on May 9, 1943 in Heart Mountain, Wyoming. He was a committed civil rights and anti-war activist. He was also one of the founders of Gay Liberation Front - Philadelphia and served as an openly gay delegate to the Black Panther Convention that endorsed the gay liberation struggle. Kuromiya was an assistant of Martin Luther King Jr. and took care of King's children immediately following his assassination.To protest of the use of napalm in the Vietnam War in 1968, he announced that a dog would be burned alive in front of the University of Pennsylvania's Van Pelt Library. Read the rest

Jony Ive, who is leaving Apple after decades as its design chief, once designed a toilet. It looks very much like it could be an Apple toilet, but the thing is, of course, that everything Apple makes is simply the work of Jony Ive.His work was not well-received by his client Ideal Standard, however. In a 2014 interview with Time magazine, Sir Jonathan recalled how his client - sporting a Red Nose Day plastic nose - joked about how his work was overly modern and expensive.The photo is couretesy of Tangerine, the London-based agency where he then worked. Read the rest

BONUS: Man cutting cheese with a chainsaw: Read the rest

You are probably familiar with the tech support scam. You get a call from someone (usually from a call center in India) pretending to be from Apple or Microsoft. They tell you they have noticed a problem with your computer and ask you to open a web site that gives them remote access to your computer. Once they do that, they get you to log into your bank account so they can rob you blind.Here's one such scammer who thinks he's talking to a woman, but he's really talking to a bot programmed to act like a harried mother. The scammer quickly becomes frustrated, and at the 2:20 point he starts to become sexually abusive. Of course, the bot doesn't react as he expects, which frustrates him even more. In the end, the bot wastes 10 minutes of the scammer's time.Image: YouTube Read the rest

Wanna work for the Electronic Frontier Foundation? We're looking for "a confident, experienced, and energetic manager to oversee our donation processing team of three" -- "The Donor Operations Manager will manage a team whose job is to guarantee success in all steps of a supporter’s donation process: easy gift transaction, quick and friendly response to any questions, prompt acknowledgement, shipment of requested premiums, and meticulous record-keeping." Read the rest

Here's a tour of a 20-foot long house on wheels that Jessica, a social worker, set up in a British Columbia forest. It has a sleeping loft and plenty of clever storage space.Image: YouTube Read the rest

This footage of presidential contender Tulsi Gabbard appears to show a small blemish on her chin--a pimple or bug bite, perhaps--that suddenly disappears as she's talking. Conspiracy theorists suggest MSNBC (producers of the footage) added the pimple to make her look bad. But it's obviously more likely that they were using filters to smooth out everyone's meat on a live broadcast (see below) with limited time for makeup, and the pimple got through for a few seconds. Or maybe it's just a bug and it flew off...If it's a filter, the filter should go. The times are not amenable to even the most innocuous digital manipulation. Read the rest

Perfect👌🏾Meghan McCain: How dare you say open borders & no repercussions?@JulianCastro: Thats a Right Wing talking point. I say criminalize crime—not desperation. I clearly defend border security & deportation for criminals.MM: but...but..pic.twitter.com/NMiHJe7kl4— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@QasimRashid) June 28, 2019 Megan McCain gets a lesson on how talking points aren't actually real. Read the rest

In Hermann Hesse's novel Steppenwolf we visit a mysterious and strange magic theatre, where some pretty weird things happen. Meant for madmen and madwomen only, the price of admission is nothing less than one's mind. In High Weirdness, you are invited to enter another kind of magic theatre. It is a place of magic and madness, heaven and hell, beauty and terror. Luckily, the price of the ticket is not your sanity, but just the price of the book, High Weirdness, the latest literary exploration by Erik Davis.Erik Davis, PhDA long-time Boing Boing pal, Erik Davis is an intellectual of the highest caliber: a persuasive and provocative essayist, an erudite and unconventional scholar of religions, a charismatic and engaging speaker, an adventurous-minded tripster and all-around experienced explorer of the edges of our reality. Davis is one of the most admired and refined interpreters of all matters mystical, psychedelic and occult. His decades' long travels in hyper-reality—roaming seamlessly from musical festivals to Burning Man to academia—make him a uniquely qualified cyber-anthropologist, a keen observer of our contemporary and turbulent cross-cultural mazes of techno-mystical realms, fringe subcultures, neo-shamanic practices, pop mythologies, conspiracy theories, and spiritual impulses. For those who arrived late to Erik Davis' extensive body of work, let me single out three important contributions: his classic (and still relevant) read Techgnosis; his musical hermeneutic homage to the Led Zeppelin IV album; and his podcast, a cornucopia of weekly interviews with artists, intellectuals and all sorts of weirdos, all concerned with the cultures of consciousness. Read the rest

They are monsters looking for any loophole to torture children who came desperately seeking the America that claimed to be a haven. My family sought and received that refuge when we ran from pogroms and German National Socialists.In a fantastic piece by former Federal prosecutor Ken White The Atlantic shares the hows and whys of this inhumane argument:It was this sequence of events that brought Fabian before three judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last week to make her startling argument. The panel—which included Judge A. Wallace Tashima, who as a child in World War II was confined to an internment camp with other Japanese Americans—was perhaps not an ideal forum. The judges were openly hostile, incredulous that the government would argue that a facility is “safe and sanitary” even if the minors confined there have no soap, toothbrushes, or dark places to sleep. “I find that inconceivable that the government would say that that is safe and sanitary,” said Judge William Fletcher, in a representative comment. The judges ultimately suggested that the United States should consider whether it wanted to maintain the appeal—a signal that litigants ignore at their grave peril.The United States’s loathsome argument—that it is “safe and sanitary” to confine children without soap, toothbrushes, dry clothes, and on concrete under bright lights—is morally indefensible. It’s also a spectacularly foolish argument to raise in the famously liberal Ninth Circuit, where the United States should have expected exactly the reception that it got. Read the rest

In 2002, Lexmark was one of the leading printer companies in the world. A division of IBM—the original tech giant—Lexmark was also a pioneer in the now-familiar practice of locking customers in to expensive "consumables," like the carbon powder that laser-printers fuse to paper to produce printouts.Lexmark gave its customers the choice of paying extra for their cartridges (by buying refillable cartridges at a $50 premium), or paying extra for their toner (saving $50 on a cartridge whose "lock-out" chip prevented refilling, so that they would have to buy a whole cartridge when the non-refillable one ran dry). Customers, however, had a counteroffer for Lexmark: they wanted to save $50 on a "non-refillable" cartridge and then go ahead and refill it. After all, carbon is relatively abundant throughout the universe, and more locally, Earth has more carbon that it knows what to do with.Various competitors of Lexmark stepped up to help its customers with their counteroffer. One such company was Static Control Components, which reverse-engineered Lexmark's lock-out chip and found that its 55-byte program performed a relatively straightforward function that would be easy to duplicate: when a cartridge was newly filled, this chip signaled to the printer that the cartridge had available toner. Once the cartridge ran out, the chip would tell the printer that it had an empty cartridge. Refilling the cartridge did no good because the chip would still tell the printer that there was no toner available.After Static Control performed this bit of reverse engineering, it was able to manufacture its own chips, which it sold to remanufacturers, who would pour in fresh carbon, swap out the chip, and sell the cartridges. Read the rest

"The books will stop working": That's the substance of the reminder that Microsoft sent to customers for their ebook store, reminding them that, as announced in April, the company is getting out of the ebook business because it wasn't profitable enough for them, and when they do, they're going to shut off their DRM servers, which will make the books stop working.Almost exactly fifteen years ago, I gave an influential, widely cited talk at Microsoft Research where I predicted this exact outcome. I don't feel good about the fact that I got it right. This is a fucking travesty.As Rob Donoghue tweeted, "I keep saying it and it sounds worse each time...There will be refunds, and reasonable voice says to me it's just business, but the book voice wants to burn it all down. I'm kind of with the book voice on this one."Me too. Here's what I wrote back in April, when Microsoft announced the shutdown. Microsoft has a DRM-locked ebook store that isn't making enough money, so they're shutting it down and taking away every book that every one of its customers acquired effective July 1.Customers will receive refunds.This puts the difference between DRM-locked media and unencumbered media into sharp contrast. I have bought a lot of MP3s over the years, thousands of them, and many of the retailers I purchased from are long gone, but I still have the MP3s. Likewise, I have bought many books from long-defunct booksellers and even defunct publishers, but I still own those books. Read the rest

When I give a talk, it's often the case that the question period after is dominated by dudes, a substantial fraction of whom bloviate ("More of a comment than a question," "It's a two-part question") rather than ask questions.For the past couple years, my method for addressing this is to announced that I'll be calling alternately on people who identify as female or nonbinary and people who identify as male or nonbinary (and to remind people that a question is one sentence that goes up at the end, and that while a long rambling statement followed by "What do you think of that?" is a technical question, but not a very good one).Often there's a bit of a quiet period when I announce this policy, because (speaking as a dude), it's generally the case that the men in the audience have spent at least some of the time during the talk thinking of a cool question to ask that makes them look good, while the women have been actually paying attention, so it takes a moment for someone who identifies as female or nonbinary to come up with a question.Despite that, the process works really well, for the most part, and gets both a higher caliber and a greater variety of questions.But for all that this is a pretty good method, it pales in comparison to the method deployed by Eve Tuck, Associate Professor of Critical Race and Indigenous Studies at Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Read the rest

As our political betters are always there to remind us, civility is important, the key to getting things done -- that's why Gerning Joe was so pallsy wallsy with segregationists -- you wouldn't want to offend the eugenics movement, because there's good people on both sides.The Trump Administration's decision to spend millions paying Beltway Bandits to put kids in concentration camps is a real stain on the nation's character, because of all the incivility this has provoked, which has hurt the feelings of people who are sad about being criticized. With this in mind, our friends at The Onion have assembled a must-read guide to staying civil while debating child prisons, with tips like "Avoid unkind generalizations like equating the jailing of ethnic minorities with some malevolent form of fascism," "Consider that we all have different perspectives stemming from things like age, ethnicity, or level of racism," and "Recall that violently rejecting a tyrannical government goes against everything our forefathers believed in."Give your political opponents the benefit of the doubt by letting this play out for 20 years and seeing if it gets any better on its own.Realize that every pressing social issue is solved through civil discourse if you ignore virtually all of human history.Avoid painting with a broad brush. Not everyone in favor of zero-tolerance immigration wants to see children in cages—it’s more likely that they just don’t care.Tips For Staying Civil While Debating Child Prisons [The Onion](Image: Rueben Bolling) Read the rest

The Clarion workshops (Clarion at UCSD, Clarion West in Seattle) are key elements of the pipeline for producing excellent new science fiction and fantasy writers; I am a graduate of Clarion 92, and have taught both workshops, and volunteer on the board for The Clarion Foundation, which oversees the Clarion workshop at UCSD. Leaving your job and family for six weeks to attend a Clarion workshop is hard enough to manage, but adding in the tuition (which is kept as low as possible, but is still substantial) can put the Clarions out of reach for many very promising writers.So the Clarions are continuously in fundraising mode, raising money to give to promising students in scholarships to help defray tuition and other expenses. And the key to that fundraising are the annual write-a-thons.Every year, established and new writers sign up to write a certain number of words over the course of a couple of months, and ask the people who love and support their work to pledge to donate to one of the Clarions based on the number of words they write.I've participated every year for many years, though this year it'll be as a donor, not a writer (I just published a book, have two more in production, and just turned in yet another one, so I'm on a bit of a hiatus, though I do need to write a short story for the fall, so I just might end up on the roster after all).I hope you'll support the workshops, too. Read the rest

Five bucks will buy you the bumper sticker that lets people know you're voting for WHATEVER Democratic presidential candidate is on the ballot in 2020. Right now there are 24 in the running. The Democrat 2020 bumper sticker: Look, we're all gonna have favorites during the primary. That's what primaries are for. But once we have a Democratic nominee, we're gonna vote for them, because we're not morons. Announce your intent to end the madness by voting for the Democrat in 2020, whoever they are....Made with adhesive so it's easy to change when the time comes to replace this sticker with one from your new favorite nominee.Thanks, Steve Garfield! Read the rest

There's domesticated animals and then there's domesticated animals. Where most dogs have had the mean bred right out of them, this one's an evolutionary step further down the road: it's not just friendly, it's friendly enough to do its owner's laundry. Read the rest

Rose-colored glasses are out. Sunglasses filtered with a color palette reminiscent of a Wes Anderson movie are in, at least according to "filter sunglasses brand" Tens. Spectachrome is a new and limited edition lens filter inspired by the distinct colour palettes of Wes Anderson films such as “Moonrise Kingdom”, “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “Hotel Chevalier”... Experience a view that transports you to a whimsical world of vintage cinema and celluloid film, a place you’ll want to revisit time and time again. At first glance, the lens may appear to look primarily orange but whilst looking through it, it offers a far wider colour spectrum than what initially meets the eye. Wearing Spectachrome feels like walking into a scene of a sun-bleached 1970’s postcard.Tens is currently crowdfunding these Spectachrome sunglasses ($87/pair).(Nag on the Lake) Read the rest

The inside of my head is an absolute crap place for productivity. I tend to fixate on old horrors, recent regrets and small shames that swirl around the inside of my brain like greasy water bound down a drain. It makes for a lot of noise while I'm trying to write or focus on my day job--listening to music with lyrics or, on bad days, even a melody, can lead me to distraction. When I'm set up in a coffee shop or another noisy locale and need to churn out some words, I wind up getting nowhere. Last year, a friend turned me on to Lustmord: it's the working name of Welsh musician, sound engineer and, as near as I can tell, dark wizard, Brian Williams. Wikipedia notes that Williams is often credited with inventing Dark Ambient Music. I credit him with giving me the space I need in my skull to get work done. In turns, Lustmord's music has overwhelmed me with feelings of calm, dread and and well-being. Played late in the evening in concert with medicinal amounts of Jameson, it helps to distract me from the pain in my body and the dogs barking in my head.Image via Wikipedia Commons Read the rest

Jony Ive, Apple's longtime design chief and the creator of countless iconic designs, is leaving the firm to form his own agency. Apple will be his first client.“After nearly 30 years and countless projects, I am most proud of the lasting work we have done to create a design team, process and culture at Apple that is without peer. Today it is stronger, more vibrant and more talented than at any point in Apple’s history,” said Ive. “The team will certainly thrive under the excellent leadership of Evans, Alan and Jeff, who have been among my closest collaborators. I have the utmost confidence in my designer colleagues at Apple, who remain my closest friends, and I look forward to working with them for many years to come.” Read the rest

I'm coming to Houston on July 31 to appear with Hank Green at an event for the paperback launch of his outstanding debut novel An Absolutely Remarkable Thing: we're on a 7PM at Spring Forest Middle School (14240 Memorial Drive, Houston, TX 77079); it's a ticketed event and the ticket price includes a copy of Hank's book. Hope to see you there! (Images: Vlogbrothers, Jonathan Worth, CC-BY) Read the rest

If the British Royal Family is a reality TV show, the tabloids are their unseen scriptwriters.

Every now and again, a company will come up with a product "innovation" that seems to deprive people of their free will, driving great masses of internet users to look for Pokemon, or tend virtual farms, or buy now with one-click, or flock to Upworthy-style "You won't believe what happened next" stories, or be stampeded into buying something because there are "only two left" and "14 people have bought this item in the past 24 hours."These techniques, "nudges" drawn from behavioral economics, can exert a powerful pull on the public, driving unconsidered and even compulsive behavior.But marketing techniques don't age well: once you encounter a trick a few times, it starts to lose power, in the way that so many phenomena regress to the mean. Behavioral marketers know that they can prolong the efficacy of these techniques with "intermittent reinforcement" (that is, using each technique sparingly, at random intervals, which make them more resistant to our ability to grow accustomed to them), but marketers have a collective action problem, a little dark-side Tragedy of the Commons: it's in the advertising industry's overall interest to limit the use of techniques so that we don't get accustomed to them, but any given marketer knows that if they don't use the technique to exhaustion, some other marketer will, so each marketer "overgrazes" the land (that is, us), in order to beat the others.Shoshanna Zuboff's theory of "surveillance capitalism" is grounded in the idea that these interventions will gain effectiveness over time, and that marketers will discover powerful new persuasive tools with machine learning. Read the rest

Suggested marketing copy for the Breo iPalm520s Electric Acupressure Hand Palm Massager:"Put your right hand in the box," she said.Fear shot through Paul. He started to back away, but the old woman said: "Is this how you obey your mother?"He looked up into bird-bright eyes.Slowly, feeling the compulsions and unable to inhibit them, Paul put his hand into the box. He felt first a sense of cold as the blackness closed around his hand, then slick metal against his fingers and a prickling as though his hand were asleep.A predatory look filled the old woman's features. She lifted her right hand away from the box and poised the hand close to the side of Paul's neck. He saw a glint of metal there and started to turn toward it."Stop!" she snapped.Using the Voice again! He swung his attention back to her face."I hold at your neck the gom jabbar," she said. "The gom jabbar, the high-handed enemy. It's a needle with a drop of poison on its tip. Ah-ah! Don't pull away or you'll feel that poison."...He felt increased tingling in his hand, pressed his lips tightly together. How could this be a test? he wondered. The tingling became an itch... The itch became the faintest burning... It mounted slowly: heat upon heat upon heat... . The burning! The burning! He thought he could feel skin curling black on that agonized hand, the flesh crisping and dropping away until only charred bones remained. Read the rest

San Francisco passed a law requiring owners of multi-unit buildings to choose which ISP they use, ending the practice of landlords selling access to tenants to ISPs, locking in the tenants to ISPs who don't have to keep them happy to keep their business.Enter Trump's FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, a former Verizon exec who never met an anticompetitive telcom practice he didn't love. Pai says he'll use the FCC to block the city's rules, on the grounds that telcoms are a federal matter. This is the opposite position that Pai took during the Obama years, when the FCC tried to annul state-level rules banning cities from offering municipal broadband services; back then, he argued that the FCC's authority only extended to interstate lines, and that "states rights" meant that local governments could regulate telcoms in their borders.But then the Democratic Congress intervened, with Rep. Katie Porter's [D-CA] amendment to the budget bill, which "prohibits the Federal Communications Committee from finalizing a draft declaratory ruling that would overturn local ordinances that promote broadband competition." The amendment passed.Now it has to clear the Senate and get Trump's signoff. "The FCC's mission is to promote competition," Porter said in a statement her office provided to Ars. "We should be holding them accountable to fulfilling this mission, which is why I'm seeking to defund their declaratory draft ruling preempting San Francisco's local ordinance, effectively preventing competition."House votes to block Ajit Pai’s plan to kill San Francisco broadband law [Jon Brodkin/Ars Technica](Image: Noahnmf, CC-BY-SA) Read the rest

Bad News is a free webgame created by two Cambridge psych researchers; in a 15-minute session, it challenges players to learn about and deploy six tactics used in disinformation campaigns ("polarisation, invoking emotions, spreading conspiracy theories, trolling people online, deflecting blame, and impersonating fake accounts").The game was created to test the hypothesis that learning how these techniques worked would make players more discerning when they were encountered in the wild. To evaluate the proposition, players are quizzed before and after the game and asked to evaluate the credibility of a series of tweets. In their analysis of the results, the study authors make the case that the game is indeed capable of "vaccinating" players against disinformation. During the three months that the study ran, 43,687 subjects played the game. These subjects (a "convenience sample") were self-selecting and skewed older, educated, male and liberal, but "the sample size still allowed us to collect relatively large absolute numbers of respondents in each category."Based on the pre- and post-game quizzes, the authors conclude that learning the mechanics of disinformation teaches players to detect these techniques in the wild; however, the study does not explore whether these effects are persistent beyond the few moments after a fifteen minute intervention. It's a promising start, but -- as the old saying goes -- "more study is needed."Overall, despite these limitations, we highlight the potential of game-based psychological interventions to combat the problem of misinformation at the individual level. The participation rate and overall success of the game as a translational intervention (outside of the research context) further show that there is a high demand for evidence-based materials that help stem the flow of online misinformation. Read the rest