Tom the Dancing Bug, IN WHICH Donald Trump rates various Fine People throughout history.

There's a proposal in the works to replace Notre Dame's dome -- which was a relatively modern addition -- with a new, starchitect-designed "statement" dome, which will be copyrightable under the same French rules that prohibit commercial photos of the Eiffel Tower at night (and other French landmarks).The copyright would only prohibit "commercial" uses, but this is a very poorly defined term (is a personal photo shared on Twitter, which displays ads, "commercial" or "noncommercial?"), and in any event the new Copyright Directive mandates filters to block infringement, and those filters will not be able to tell whether you are a commercial or noncommercial photographer.The Copyright Directive initially had a proposal to create a "right of panorama" that would have made it legal to take photos in public places, even if those photos captured copyrighted works (including architecture, which, again, is copyrightable in France), but France blocked that proposal. A key proposal that the Pirate MEP Julia Reda put forward in her copyright evaluation report, which fed into the Copyright Directive, was to implement a full freedom of panorama right across the EU. The European Parliament backed the idea, as did all the EU nations except one -- France, as Politico later revealed -- so the idea was dropped. That lack of an EU-wide freedom of panorama is yet another example of how the Copyright Directive failed to throw even a tiny crumb to citizens, while handing out even more power for the copyright industry to use and abuse. Read the rest

Privacy International's blockbuster Digital Stop and Search report details how British police forces have quietly procured phone-searching tools (including mobile "kiosks" that let them probe devices in the field), often from companies with a track-record of abetting some of the world's worst human rights abusers, and they use these in secret to capture all the data they can from phones taken from suspects, victims and witnesses.The guidance on the use of these tools is patchwork and incomplete (and many forces wouldn't disclose whether they had any procedures in place for their use). Many services retain the data they harvest indefinitely, and some have been caught storing (and losing) the data without encryption: for example, in 2017 the Greater Manchester Police were found to have lost data from victims of violent and sexual crimes, which had been stored unencrypted on DVDs and sent through the post.Some of the tools they use have the capacity to crawl cloud accounts connected to mobile devices as well, bringing in data stored off the phone as well as the data stored on the phone. Some tools, like those provided by the notorious Israeli-founded, Japanese owned Cellebrite, can sometimes access encrypted data on devices.Police forces rarely if ever inform people that they've had their data taken, and they provide no information on which data they've taken nor on how it's being used nor on how it's being stored.Police do not obtain warrants before searching phones.Police in the UK have now told survivors of sex crimes that their cases will not be pursued unless they surrender their phones. Read the rest

The only noises to be heard are footsteps and video editing suites firing up. The nice ceremonies come later. Read the rest

You take your gadgets everywhere. You should able to power them up everywhere and do it easily. It doesn't seem like a lot to ask, but here you are with multiple cords littering the bottom of your commuter bag or laptop case.That's why our new traveling companion is the GOSPACE SuperCharger, and it might never leave our duffel bag. No matter what we need the juice for, it can supply it quickly, with ports to spare.This tiny box packs a 10,000 mAh battery and can use it to power up to four different devices at once via two USB ports, one quick-charging USB-C port and a Qi wireless charging pad. Thanks to that last one, you can charge up MacBooks, tablets, Nintendo Switches and more. And for world travelers, one essential perk: A set of interchangeable plugs, so you're covered for wall sockets in the EU, UK, or Australia just as easily as you are in the states.Pick up the GOSPACE SuperCharger for $44.99, more than 50% off the original MSRP of $99. Read the rest

I missed this NPR video when it first came out, but I came across it today on the delightful Doobybrain website. It's about the evolution of the supermarket apple from the "mealy and tough-skinned" Red Delicious to the mouth-watering Honeycrisp. (I really want apple slices with peanut butter right now.) Read the rest

Gildan crew T-shirts are very inexpensive and comfortable. Today's price is the lowest I can recall. If I didn't already have a shirt drawer bursting with Gildan tees, I'd buy another six pack. Read the rest

Mar is a vlogger who likes to visit LA's worst restaurants, nail and hair salons, massage parlors, and the like. Above, she visits the worst Yelp-rated buffet in her city. Read the rest

This will probably cheer you up.

It's so fluffy![faints of cute] Mirror, Mirror on the wall - Who has the fluffiest tail of all?[via] Read the rest

It's Gonna Be May. Read the rest

“There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.”— ROBERT MUELLER, in a letter to Trump attorney general Bill Barr.The WaPo reports tonight that Robert Mueller wrote a letter to Bill Barr, in which the special counsel told Trump's handpicked attorney general his charm offensive in advance of the redacted report's release failed to capture the true 'context, nature, and substance' of the report's contents.In his letter, Mueller made an important demand to Barr: release the 448-page report’s introductions and executive summaries. Mueller even offered suggested redactions, Justice Department officials told the Washington Post.Mueller is effectively saying he was betrayed by Barr. Barr lied.From the Washington Post's Devlin Barrett and Matt Zapotosky:Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III wrote a letter in late March complaining to Attorney General William P. Barr that a four-page memo to Congress describing the principal conclusions of the investigation into President Trump “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of Mueller’s work, according to a copy of the letter reviewed Tuesday by The Washington Post.At the time the letter was sent on March 27, Barr had announced that Mueller had not found a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian officials seeking to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. Barr also said Mueller had not reached a conclusion about whether Trump had tried to obstruct justice, but Barr reviewed the evidence and found it insufficient to support such a charge. Read the rest

Nickolas Peter Chelyapov, founder of Curious Sound Object, has launched a kickstarter for fun electronic musical instrument called the Bitty. You can get one for $78. Below, some music made with a Bitty. Read the rest

Two people were killed and four others were injured at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, the Mecklenburg Emergency Medical Services Agency confirmed in a post on Twitter on Tuesday evening.WASHINGTON POST:The University of North Carolina at Charlotte warned the campus on Tuesday evening of shots being fired and urged people to “Run, Hide, Fight.” Campus buildings were locked down.A university spokeswoman could not immediately confirm what had happened Tuesday, but on social media school officials warned people to take cover. They said shots had been reported near the Kennedy building, one of the first structures to be built on campus and now home to administrative offices.NinerAlert: Shots reported near kennedy. Run, Hide, Fight. Secure yourself immediately. Monitor email and https://t.co/LxOefV3rbf— UNCC OEM (@NinerAlerts) April 30, 2019NinerAlert: Buildings being swept by law enforcement. Law enforcement is individually sweeping buildings on campus. Follow officer commands.— UNCC OEM (@NinerAlerts) April 30, 2019NinerAlert: Campus lockdown continues. Remain in a safe location. Monitor email and UNCC homepage.— UNCC OEM (@NinerAlerts) April 30, 2019 Read the rest

Project Farm is an excellent YouTube channel about machinery. In this episode, they run a test to see if water is better than penetrating oils and diesel fuel for getting rusted nuts and bolts loose.Image: YouTube Read the rest

Charlie ("Charles N") Brown was the force behind Locus Magazine (previously) until his death in 2009; he hired me to be a columnist for the magazine in 2006 and I've been writing for them ever since.Charlie was such a prolific collector you could be forgiven for calling him a hoarder (the distinction is always hard to make!) and his archive contained some of the great rarities of science fiction.That collection is now in the hands of Duke University's David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, which has taken delivery of 1,000 boxes of paper ephemera, correspondence, books, and memoribilia. Duke instructors are encouraged to make use of the collection: English professor Michael D’Alessandro brought students enrolled in a class in "utopias and dystopias in American literature" to see the materials firsthand.I recently finished processing the manuscript portion of the collection, which includes seven boxes of files relating to more than 800 authors. My favorite part of these files is the correspondence, the bulk of which was written between 1960 and 2009. Many writers wrote to Locus to share news that could be included in the magazine or to quibble about inaccuracies and to suggest corrections. Overall, the correspondence creates a sense of community among a very diverse and spread-out group of writers; people wanted to know who was publishing what, who changed agents, who was involved with such-and-such scandal or lawsuit, who died, who got re-married, etc. Fans may swoon over the signatures of Octavia E. Read the rest

This Saturday, May 4, at 7:30PM, I'll be presenting at the Ottawa Writers Festival, talking about my novel Radicalized and how it ties into surveillance, monopoly, refugees, climate change, racism and oligarchy -- all the good stuff!From there, I'm heading to Berlin's Re:publica Festival, to give a keynote entitled "It's monopolies, not surveillance," on May 7 at 6:45PM on the main stage. I'm also doing an AMA about the EU Copyright Directive earlier that day, at 12:30PM in the International Space.Finally, I'm heading to Houston for Comicpalooza, where I'll be on a panel about copyright on May 10 at 12:30PM; presenting a keynote talk on May 11 at 12PM; and then another copyright panel on May 12 at 10:30AM. I hope to see you! Read the rest

Quite a tribute to a faded star. Read the rest

Last October, a startup called Helm announced a $500, plug-and-play home email server that was designed to be a secure, decentralized, privacy-oriented alternative to using one of Big Tech's email systems like Gmail, an option that was potentially even more robust than using email from a privacy-oriented provider like Riseup or Protonmail because your metadata would not be stored anywhere except in your home.Micah Lee is a computer security engineer who was formerly a staff technologist at EFF; now he works at The Intercept. For several months, he's been hosting his personal email on a Helm device in his living room. He's just published an excellent, in-depth review of Helm, including a preliminary security audit.His conclusion: largely positive. Helm's biggest security gap is the lack of an intrusion detection system that can warn you if someone is trying to hack it (this is in the works); but it has a "proximity-based authentication" setup that makes it much harder to phish an account (it also means that any time you set up a new account or a new mobile device to manage an existing account, you have to be within Bluetooth range of your Helm device, which might be a problem if your phone breaks while you're traveling).The service itself works just like you'd expect a traditional, POP-based email service to work. Using a program like Thunderbird, you fetch your email and it just shows up in your inbox. The Helm doesn't support server-side filtering (a feature that power-users who already run their own mail-servers might miss), but it otherwise functionally identical to a managed, data-center-based mail server, except that it lives in your house. Read the rest

Not the best quality recording of two longtime favorites, but satisfying nonetheless. Read the rest

Dozens of Right to Repair bills were introduced across the USA last year, only to be defeated by hardcore lobbying led by Apple and backed by a rogue's gallery of giant manufacturers of every description; one of the most effective anti-repair tactics is to spread FUD about the supposed security risks of independent repairs.Enter Securerepairs.org, a new nonprofit founded by Paul Roberts, whose experts (including "Harvard University’s Bruce Schneier, bug bounty expert Katie Moussouris, and ACLU technologist Jon Callas") will attend Right to Repair hearings to counter this industry bullshit and explain how "Fixable stuff is secure stuff."Securepairs.org believes instead in the notion that there’s no such thing as security through obscurity; a robust system will still be secure even if people know how it works. Releasing repair manuals and spare parts shouldn’t undermine an already sound smartphone. The group even takes the idea one step further, arguing that right to repair laws would make devices more safe, by allowing consumers to quickly replace failing parts or update buggy software. For example, John Deere tractors can often only be updated by licensed technicians. Farmers who can't afford to wait have resorted to hacking into their tractors with black market firmware, a far less safe option than, say, using diagnostic tools John Deere could release itself. Security Experts Unite Over the Right to Repair [Louise Matsakis/Wired] Read the rest

From the 2018 National Assessment of Educational Progress: "In 2018, fifty-three percent of eighth-grade students reported that they believed they could perform a variety of technology- and engineering-related tasks such as taking something apart to fix it or see how it works." Read the rest

Concentration in the tech sector has left us with just a few gigantic online platforms, and they have turned into playgrounds for some of the worst people on earth: Nazis, misogynists, grifters, ultranationalists, trolls, genocidal mobs and more. The platforms are so big and their moderation policies are so screwed up, and their use of "engagement" algorithms to increase pageviews, that it's making many of us choose between having a social life with the people we care about and being tormented by awful people. Even if you opt out of social media, you can't opt out of being terrorized by psychopathic trolls who have been poisoned by Alex Jones and the like.The platforms have completely failed to deal with this problem, and it's getting worse. But the "solutions" that many people I agree with on other issues are likely to make things worse, not better. Specifically, the platforms' inability to moderate bad speech will not be improved by making them do more of it -- it'll just make them more indiscriminate.Remember, before the platforms knocked Alex Jones offline, they took down "Moroccan atheists, trans models, drag performers, indigenous women" and many others whose speech threatened and discomfited the rich and powerful, who were able to use the platforms' moderation policies to deny their adversaries access to online organizing and communications tools.The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Jillian C York (an expert on moderation policies) and Corynne McSherry (EFF's legal director) have written the best article on content moderation I've read to date, in which they comprehensively identify the ways that current content moderation is broken, the ways that proposals to "fix moderation" (especially AI-based content filters) (uuuugghghghg) will make it worse, and then, finally, a set of proposals for genuinely improving moderation -- without sacrificing the speech and organizing capacity of marginalized and threatened people. Read the rest

A Virginia state judge ruled earlier this month that automated license plate data collection by police qualified as protected “personal information," and was illegal, because it included the following elements all combined: The license plate number, images of the vehicle and license plate and immediate surroundings, plus GPS location and time and date.The value of multiple types of data that can be interpolated is greater than one form alone.Here is the court's ruling [PDF Link]. EFF has done tons of work on this issue, and the EFF's Dave Maass wrote a great technology primer you should read if you're interested. Also, don't miss EFF's street-level surveillance FAQ.From PrivacySOS:The lawsuit dates back to 2015. That year, the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia sued the Fairfax County Police Department on behalf of Harrison Neal. Through a public records request, Neal discovered that the Fairfax police department had collected data on his whereabouts using license plate readers. The police collected and maintained these records on Neal—and millions of other Virginians—even though they never suspected him of involvement in any criminal activity. The ACLU filed suit representing Neal, arguing that the police department’s collection and retention of information on his whereabouts for nearly a year violated Virginia’s Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices Act, a state law controlling how government agencies in Virginia are allowed to collect, store, and share personal information about residents.License plate readers are surveillance devices mounted on police vehicles or stationary objects like light poles or bridges. Read the rest

Vodaphone discovered that the home routers that Huawei provided for its Italian residential broadband business had a "backdoor" -- an open telnet interface that could allow attackers to take over the router and surveil the user's network -- and after they complained to Huawei about it, Huawei released an update that they claimed removed the interface, but that this was a lie.Bloomberg's Daniele Lepido broke the story, and it's a little confusing. The term "backdoor" implies that Huawei left an interface open so that it could do something nefarious, like conducting surveillance on Vodaphone's customers, but Huawei's statements about the interface imply that it was a sloppy mistake -- they say that the telnet interface was used as part of the setup and configuration process, and that they couldn't remove it altogether without making it hard (or maybe impossible?) to set up their routers.If Huawei is to be believed, then they are guilty of terrible security practices (that's a really stupid way to design a router), but not necessarily guilty of a "backdoor" in the customary sense of the word. But as one expert quoted by Bloomberg notes, if you were going to design a deliberate backdoor, you'd be smart to disguise it as a programming error.Much more damning (and somewhat buried in the Bloomberg reporting) is the presence of telnet interfaces in "optical service nodes" (which are used for managing fiber optic traffic) and "broadband network gateways" (which bridge between customer equipment like home routers and internet backbones). Read the rest

The classic approach to the scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is to scan the skies for radio transmissions from intelligent civilizations. While we definitely won't hear anything if we don't listen, SETI Institute senior astronomer Seth Shostak urges us to also keep our eyes (and sensors) peeled for another kind of alien technosignature: alien megastructures, "massive engineering works that an advanced society has constructed somewhere in space." We haven't found one yet but the possibility made headlines several years ago when a team of astronomers led by Tabetha Boyajian described a star that periodically dims in a very odd way. Shostak writes:One explanation was that the star was surrounded by a Dyson sphere. The idea, proposed years ago by physicist Freeman Dyson, is that really advanced aliens would construct a gargantuan, spherical swarm of solar panels in orbit beyond their own planet — sort of the way you might cup your hands around a candle to collect the heat. The swarm would gather enough starlight to energize the aliens’ souped-up lifestyles, and could sometimes get in the way of light from the star, causing it to intermittently dim as seen from afar.That explanation for Tabby’s star seems less likely today. Astronomical measurements show that it gets redder when it dims, suggesting that it’s surrounded by naturally produced dust, not a gargantuan group of light collectors.But it’s reasonable to believe that Dyson spheres exist somewhere. In the past, astronomers looked for clues to such massive engineering projects by trawling star catalogs for systems that show an excess of infrared light — produced by the warm backside of the panels. Read the rest

Military coup supported by Trump admin appears under way in Venezuela.

The Indian Army tweeted photos of Yeti footprints spotted by its team of mountaineers near Makalu Base Camp between Nepal and Tibet. Based on the image, this particular Yeti has only one foot. No word yet on whether the Indian Army is, um, joking.The first Indian Army mountaineering expedition to Makalu in the Mahalangur Himalayas kicked off last month. (CNN)For the first time, an #IndianArmy Moutaineering Expedition Team has sited Mysterious Footprints of mythical beast 'Yeti' measuring 32x15 inches close to Makalu Base Camp on 09 April 2019. This elusive snowman has only been sighted at Makalu-Barun National Park in the past. pic.twitter.com/AMD4MYIgV7— ADG PI - INDIAN ARMY (@adgpi) April 29, 2019 Read the rest

The LA Public Library's Daryl M interviewed me about my new book, Radicalized, specifically, about how my Trump anxiety (created, in part, by the platforms' relentless use of "engagement" tools to nonconsensually eyeball-fuck me with Trump headlines) led to the book's germination, as well as the specific inspirations for each of the four novellas, and the delights of working in novella form.What was your inspiration for Radicalized as a collection?I call this my "Trump derangement syndrome therapy book." I didn't intend to write ANY of these—they got blurted out while I was working on another book—the third Little Brother book, working title Crypto Wars, which I turned in just before Xmas.We've spent 2+ years having Trump headlines nonconsensually crammed into our eyeballs by a media ecosystem dominated by "engagement" metrics—meaning that the longer you hang in there, the bigger the bonuses of the execs, engineers and designers behind the product. That's why Google added "trending searches" to the search bar in Android. No one EVER went to a search bar to find out what other people are searching for. People search to find out the answers to specific questions! But if a Google engineer can hijack your attempt to find out what's in an unfamiliar sauce on a restaurant menu by showing you a list reading "imminent nuclear armageddon/more kids in cages/trump supports torture" then you might actually do SEVERAL searches instead of the one you set out to do. Nevermind that this means dinner is ruined—the engineer who came up with that gimmick will get a great bonus for increasing "engagement" with their product. Read the rest

David Marby & Nijiko Yonskai's Lorem Picsum is an online service that generates placeholder images. All you have to do is write image URLs like so — https://picsum.photos/400/300 — with the folder names defining the image dimensions.Part of the utility of lorem ipsum, however, is that the text consists of real words and sentences, but jumbled up. This means it has the dimensions of real text, but no meaning to distract the typesetter or designer from its form. Latin having similar dimensions to English, lorem ipsum has only improved for this purpose with the decline of Latin.It seems to me, then, that the garbled reality of deep-dream images is more appropriate than the meaningful stock photos used here. Perhaps I'm just encouraging the world to be more completely filled with nightmares? Some of these AI-mediated works are quite lovely. Read the rest

Last July, a nine year old child named Oakley Yoder got bitten on the toe by a venomous snake while at summer camp in Jackson Falls, Illinois: the initial bill for her treatment came out to $142,938.A big chunk of that was for the air ambulance: $55,577.64. But the largest item on the bill was $67,957 for four vials of antivenin from the UK pharmaceutical monopolist BTG Plc, whose product, Crofab, retails for $3,198 in the USA (a Mexican rival that cannot be legally imported to the USA costs $200/dose).The St. Vincent Evansville hospital marked up the antivenin (already marked up by 16,000%, from $200 to $3,198) to $16,989.25, a further 500% -- that's 85 times the price that Yoder and her insurer would have paid in Mexico.The family's insurer, IU Health Plans, negotiated the overall price down to $107,863.33, and a supplemental insurance plan that the family took out for summer camp covered $7,286.34 in additional costs. The family didn't have to pay anything (but every insured person will end up paying a little more in future premiums to ensure that IU and its competitors remain wildly profitable).The FDA has since approved a different Mexican antivenin product called Anavip that will retail for $1,220; the product's entry to the US market was delayed by six years due to a patent claim by monopolist BTG Plc whose settlement has contributed to Anavip's high price, which now includes a royalty paid to BTG for every vial sold, until BTG's patent expires in 2028. Read the rest

I love when he kills the royal ugly dudes. Read the rest

NDAs were once used exclusively to protect bona fide trade secrets, but today's Big Tech companies force new hires to sign far-ranging NDAs that exceed the law in many ways (for example, by banning employees from discussing illegal workplace conditions), as a means of "terrorizing" employees into keeping their mouths shut, lest they face threats from the company's high-powered lawyers.A few companies have relaxed their NDA policies (Uber was forced to weaken its NDA to allow employees to report sexual harassment after a string of embarrassing revelations), but the majority of Big Tech firms are using NDAs that keep employees (and the public) in the dark about illegal wage-gaps (based on race or sex), sexual harassment, and dangerous workplace practices -- and to harass and intimidate ex-employees who go to work for competitors.And of course, while Big Tech may have pioneered these tactics, they've leaked out into many other industries, and even to the White House.The upshot is that, for now, any checks on the use of NDAs may have to come from political leaders. In the same way that state attorneys general have begun to target the misuse of noncompete agreements that limit employees when switching jobs, lawmakers theoretically could punish companies that use NDAs for anything other than protecting bona fide trade secrets.Why You Should Be Worried About Tech's Love Affair With NDAs [Jeff John Roberts/Fortune](Image: Akezone)(via Naked Capitalism) Read the rest

They've obviously refined the design since the suprisingly bad model sheet leaked. Now it is perfectly bad, launched on an orbital trajectory from the uncanny valley's curve. But perhaps that's the type of bad you've been looking for in a live-action Sonic the Hedgehog, fuzzy and naked in his Nikes.If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule? pic.twitter.com/7ihZ2SgFAL— Rob Beschizza (@Beschizza) April 30, 2019 Read the rest

Every Monday, some poor "brand ambassador" at Chase has to post a "Monday motivation" tweet aimed at convincing people that one of America's largest, most rapacious banks is actually a cuddly, responsible business whose $12 billion bailout from Uncle Sam was perfectly justifiable and sure to be put to excellent use.These are uniformly terrible, but they hit a new low yesterday with a since-deleted tweet that took the form of a dialog between "You" and "Bank account" in which "You" failed to grasp that your buying coffee in coffee shops, eating out, and taking taxis are why your balance is so low, to the enormous frustration of poor old "Bank account."But of course, this doesn't explain how Chase's balance reached $12,000,000,000 in the red (perhaps they ate a lot of takeout?), nor does it take account of factors like wage stagnation, increasing inequality, skyrocketing rents, unsustainable student debt, and other structural factors that have put most Americans just one missed paycheck or unexpected hospitalization away from real financial hardship.Luckily, Twitter's users were there to point this out to Chase in a series of brutal comebacks, from adding an additional party to the dialogue ("Bank: Charges ridiculous overdraft fees if you transfer one minute late. -$35.00"), to intensely personal responses ("When I was a high school student student you charged me a total of 700$ in fees in one year") to the political ("This is definitely motivating me...To seize the means of production").My favorite came from Anand Giridharadas (previously): "This is the ideology of our age captured in a single tweet. Read the rest

Opened in Vernon, New Jersey's in 1978, Action Park's biggest claim to fame was the number of injuries experienced by visitors to the amusement and water park. Apparently during Action Park's heyday, between 5 and 10 guests ended up in the emergency room every weekend. It was nicknamed "Traction Park," "Accident Park," and, my favorite, "Class Action Park." Lawsuits finally shut down Action Park in 1996.Learn more at Action Park's extensive Wikipedia page. Read the rest

Mark Lisseman asks: "Is that diagram… accurate??"‏I looked into it and it turns out that the book is called The Story of Life and is by chris (simpsons artist). I've just ordered a copy.Clear intent is but a small mercy. Read the rest

Having won the Fortnite nationals, co-champion Jack Stuttard is asked what's next: another season? More tournaments? The online circuit?Honestly, we don't like the game that much any more. Not gonna lie. We'll see what happens. The host smiles and turns to co-champion Ibrahim Diaz and literally requests "a better answer here."Well, we've decided we don't want to play competitive Fortnite, so we're going to move onto different games, do different stuff.Imagine being at the point where competition and compulsion has taken you to the point where you could have fun for a living, but instead, with cameras and lights on you, you decline and criticize the creators over game balance issues. Quite the movie moment! Read the rest

To an outsider, the world of computer programming can seem like it's rotating around the Tower of Babel at times. There are so many different languages, each one tailored to a different set of functionalities. You can be fluent at Javascript, but still won't be able to make heads or tails of Python. The problem is, your boss likely won't care about the difference. They'll just want the job to get done.That's why the best education for an aspiring coder is a broad one. And from what we've seen, the Complete Learn to Code Master Class Bonus Bundle is the broadest.We're talking 11 different courses covering the most essential computer languages in use today. Let's walk you through the platforms it teaches, and how you can use them:Google Go, also known as Golang. A layered language that's best for developing programs for CPUs with multiple cores.Javascript, still one of the most widely-used web development tools out there.Python, a language that started life as a time-saving automation tool but has evolved into the foundation for most machine learning.C++, a general-purpose language that can build anything from video games to space probe guidance systems from the ground up.Java, a versatile language that can still run on just about any platform.PHP and MySQL, two essential pieces of background for anyone working in database development.C# 7 and .NET Core 2.0, two beginner-friendly building blocks for games and apps.Rust, a newcomer to the programming fold that boasts high program safety features. Read the rest

New drone designs enable small UAVs to conserve battery life by taking breaks in unusual locations as opposed to landing back on the ground. For example, engineers from Yale University and their colleagues demonstrated novel landing gear for drones to perch like birds or hang like a bat. From Smithsonian:“We have a few different perching strategies,” says Yale researcher Kaiyu Hang, lead author of a study recently published in Science Robotics. “Where it is totally perched, where it is grasping around something, like a bat, we can stop all the rotors and the energy consumption would become zero.”Another option is what Hang calls “resting.” It involves using a landing device that enables a drone to balance on the edge of a surface, such as a box or a ledge. In that position, it would be able to shut down two of its four rotors, cutting consumption roughly in half. Another alternative makes it possible for a drone to sit on top of a small surface, such as a pole, a tactic that cuts energy use by about 70 percent, according to Hang."These Drones Can Perch and Dangle Like Birds and Bats" (Smithsonian)"Perching and resting—A paradigm for UAV maneuvering with modularized landing gears" (Science)image above: Kaiyu Hang/Yale University Read the rest

More than 200 Italian barbers and hair stylists visited the Vatican yesterday where they received a a solemn word of warning from Pope Francis:"Avoid falling into the temptation of gossip that is easily associated with your work," he said, and do your job "with Christian style, treating clients with gentleness and courtesy, offering them always a good word and encouragement."Francis also introduced the hairdressers to their patron saint St. Martin de Porres (d. 1639) who according to Catholic.org is the "patron of Mixed Race, Barbers, Public Health Workers, (and) Innkeepers."(Reuters) Read the rest

Wise little capybara.Not entirely sure what's going on in this video as I do not speak Japanese, but the title is:Capybara @ Izu Shaboten Animal Park [open-air bath of ancestral capybara] to put mandarin orange on headAnd to be honest, that is enough for me.I aspire to achieve the apparent serenity this capybara exudes, even when they haz a little orange on their head. Read the rest

🐮 Want to boop that beef snoot so bad.🐄Adorable grass puppy.🐮 12/10.Cows are just like dogs with bigger snoots[via] Read the rest

Ernie Smith has produced a spectacularly complete guide to making a "hackintosh" -- that is, a Mac OS computer running on PC hardware, giving users the option of more RAM, different screens and keyboards, and many other axes of freedom otherwise denied to Mac OS users. Apple doesn't make it easy, but the community's extensive work has put the seemingly impossible within your grasp. Read the rest

NBC (and the other broadcasters) provides copies of its shows to Youtube's Content ID filter, which is supposed to protect copyright by blocking uploads of videos that match ones in its database of claimed videos. That means that if you own the copyright to something that is aired on NBC, any subsequent attempts by you or your fans to upload your work will be blocked as copyright infringements, and could cost you your Youtube account.The latest casualty of this is the video game Beat Saber. Jimmy Fallon played part of one of Beat Saber's levels, and so no one else cold upload their own gameplay of that level to Youtube without being accused of copyright infringement and blocked. After a lot of fast work by Beat Saber, they managed to get the ban lifted.The EU just passed a new Copyright Directive that mandates Content ID-style filters for all kinds of expressive speech (video, audio, text, images, code, etc) for every service.Beat Saber Stream Blocked by Jimmy Fallon Show [Jimster71/Reddit] Read the rest

After ten years of making and sending custom tiny mail for people via her online transcription service, Postmaster/artist Lea Redmond is dreaming big. She is currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter to bring a magical brick-and-mortar World’s Smallest Post Service to a vintage storefront in downtown Oakland. Yes, you'll be able to experience the joy of tiny mail in person!The installation will feature an early 1900s oak post office counter (which she scored off of Craigslist), a bank of brass eagle P.O. boxes, and other delights such as dioramas and letter-writing nights. Back her Kickstarter project to send tiny mail and to get some gorgeous commemorative faux postage stamp sheets by Oakland artist Michael Wertz (shown above).The World’s Smallest Post Service started out as a quirky roaming postal office around the SF Bay Area, and since then Lea and her postal pals have crafted and sent tens of thousands of tiny letters and packages to loved ones all over the world. In addition to single custom tiny letters and packages, they offer DIY tiny mail stationery kits, tiny serial stories called “Keep Me Posted,” secret admirer Valentine’s chocolates, and other charming wee things.I'm a huge fan!(RED) Read the rest

As a person who drinks copious amounts of tea and coffee, I can attest to the efficacy of these teeth-whitening strips. You just attach the tape-like strips to your upper and lower teeth and wear them for an hour (I usually forget I have them on because I'm so engrossed in my work). I noticed a big difference after the first day (the full course runs seven days). Read the rest

Ryan Kulp teaches an online course that costs $2,100. Someone paid for the course, copied all the materials and offered them for sale on his own website, then demanded that Kulp refund the $2,100 he gave Kulp to get access to the materials. Kulp didn't take kindly to this so he plotted his revenge. He wrote this article about what transpired. Read the rest

Microsoft bought Minecraft in 2014 from Marcus “Notch” Persson for $2.5 billion, but it has no plans to invite the creator to participate in the game's 10-year anniversary festivities.A spokesperson for Microsoft told Variety, “His comments and opinions do not reflect those of Microsoft or Mojang and are not representative of Minecraft."Persson, once an involved member of the video game development community, has increasingly ostracized himself with his Twitter comments, including transphobic statements and comments about a “heterosexual pride day,” and that “it’s ok to be white.”Persson has about 3.7 million followers on Twitter. An update to the game last month removed loading screen text on Minecraft that referenced Persson. Microsoft didn’t comment about the decision to remove the reference last month.Notch, who purchased a swell bachelor pad in Los Angeles for $70 million after Micrsoft cut him a check, no longer works on Minecraft, but keeps himself busy posting on Twitter.What a fucking cunt— notch (@notch) June 12, 2017And you're a cunt.— notch (@notch) June 29, 2017Celebrating fucking body dysphoria.— notch (@notch) March 10, 2019High-IQ individuals are over-represented in positions of power, for benign reasons.Some populations have higher IQ on average, for benign reasons.Not being allowed to discuss this makes people distrust and come up with explanations like nepotism.— notch (@notch) December 6, 2018(protip: believing in race based privilege needing to be checked fits the literal definition of racism)— notch (@notch) November 30, 2017It's ok to be white. Read the rest

YouTube's recommendation algorithm decided that the Russian government-funded Russia Today channel had the best analysis of the Mueller report, according to an analysis by Guillaume Chaslot.The video had only 50,000 views, yet YouTube's algorithm overwhelmingly favored it over hundreds of other much more popular videos produced by independent news organizations.<div id="tttt_1121603845438590978" data-option="1"><strong><a href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1121603845438590978.html">Thread by @gchaslot: "THREAD One week after the release of the Mueller report, which analysis of it did YouTube recommend from the most channels among the 1000+ c […]"</a></strong></div><script async src="https://threadreaderapp.com/embed/1121603845438590978.js" charset="utf-8"></script>Image: @gchaslot/Twitter Read the rest