Boing Boing

It shouldn't surprise anyone to learn that there's a species of nerd for everything. Food, film, ragtime nostalgia, astronomy - you name it. Well, if there are any design nerds out there, we have a gadget for you.As a matter of fact, we know there are design nerds out there because every year they congregate in a number of northwest cities to judge the Hot New Next design competition. And in Seattle, this miniature bit of gear took top honors in 2018 by packing a stunning amount of features into a tiny metal package: The Geekey Multi-Tool.It looks like a key, and is roughly the size of one - small enough to fit on your keychain and hide its many uses in plain sight. And while it may not unlock any doors in your home, there's not much else this tool won't open.We're talking a closed wrench that fits a number of metric and imperial sizes, plus a 1/4" open wrench and a bike spoke wrench for good measure. The head is a screwdriver that can fit Phillips, slotted or square heads, while also incorporating a scoring tool and can opener. In the middle, there's a 1/4" hex pocket bit driver, while the serrated edge serves as a file and a 1-inch ruler. As if that weren't enough, there's also a wire stripper, the requisite bottle opener, and the whole thing is just thick enough to serve as a discreet smoking pipe. And don't sell it short for any of these tasks due to its size: It's made of injection molded stainless steel, heat-treated to H900, which means it can work without blunting. Read the rest

David Kaye (previously) has served as the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression since 2014 -- a critical half-decade in the evolution of free speech both online and offline; in Speech Police: The Global Struggle to Govern the Internet a new, short book from Columbia Special Reports, Kaye provides a snapshot of the global state of play for expression, as governments, platforms, and activists act out of a mix of both noble and corrupt motives to control online discourse.Kaye's work is informed by his compassion for the real problems of harassment and incitements to violence; his skepticism for the ways that profit, self-serving rationalization, and a desire to avoid political embarrassment all animate the drive to control online expression; and a sense of the real technical and procedural problems emerging from the drive to deputize the platforms to decide who may speak and what they may say.Speech Police documents the emergence of a system of shadow governance, in which our civics and politics have moved online, onto platforms that -- thanks to decades of antitrust malpractice -- control the ability of billions of people to discuss their views and mobilize to create change. And while governments are often critical of the failings of platforms to address all kinds of bad speech, from the glorification of terrorist atrocities to the spread of conspiracy theories to the enabling of campaigns of harassment and even genocide, these same governments are only too happy to entrust these platforms with even more public duties to police our speech, despite their incompetence to date. Read the rest

Writer Nicole Tersigni posted this amazing meme thread on Twitter where she juxtaposed well-known classic art images with the sort of common and clichéd sexism that modern women are all too familiar with."Calm down""There probably just weren't any qualified women for the job.""Thanks, I'm gay now" by Norman Rockwell."Let me explain your lived experience to you."See the entire thread here. Read the rest

We all have a favorite room, the one we spend more than half our waking hours in. Typically that's the living room. If you work from home, it might be the den or wherever you've set up a desk. If that's the case, doesn't it seem wasteful to make sure the entire house is the same temperature?Clearly, this question was on the minds of whoever made the Evapolar 2 - a smart, compact air conditioner that cheaply and efficiently keeps the room you like feeling the way you like it.And they're not alone: As we write this, the Evapolar's Indiegogo page has raised more than $1,119,000 - more than enough to put the innovative unit into production.That's good news for frugal homebodies. The Evapolar 2 uses a special nanofiber filter and proprietary tech to humidify the air as it cools, keeping an even temperature throughout any room. It's fully compatible with virtual assistants like Google Home and Amazon Alexa and best of all, it only uses 12.5 watts of power.You can grab the new Evapolar 2: Smart Personal Air Conditioner for $199, more than 25% off the list price. Take your pick of white, black, or gray Read the rest

If we were to pick one game out of the classic arcade pantheon that truly represented the anxiety and energy of the '80s, it would have to be Tempest. The neon vector graphics. The jackhammer pulse of the sound effects. And of course, the faceless, unstoppable enemies crawling up that tunnel to meet you. If you're old enough to remember it, you've probably lost several weeks worth of allowance money trying to beat it. This was the era when games did not care about your ego one bit, and if you think about Tempest at all, you might be harboring thoughts of revenge. Of taking that old machine down a peg or two.If so, the guys at Replicade are on your wavelength. Their latest arcade tribute is a working, fully playable 1:6 scale Tempest machine.These are the same guys that gave the shrink-ray treatment to Centipede a while back, and they're on a roll. All the features are here from the classic edition: Original art on the wood cabinet and the iconic spinner knob controller. (Replicade throws in replacement spinner caps for when your temper gets the best of you.) It's an officially licensed product by Atari, so it sports the same authenticity under the hood - original arcade ROM, including that level-select feature you remember from the opening screen. It even saves your high scores, and there's a special storage compartment hidden behind the coin slot. The Tempest x Replicade runs on an internal lithium-ion battery, easily rechargeable by USB. Read the rest

Roky Erickson, the pioneering psychedelic musician behind the 13th Floor Elevators, has died at age 71. A brilliant legend of Texas garage rock who struggled with schizophrenia and drug abuse, Erickson's far out lyrics, songs, and life had a tremendous influence on countless punk, psych, experimental, and avant-garde bands. Erickson moved culture. In 1966, Erickson unleashed the quintessential psych classic "You're Gonna Miss Me." He was right. RIP, Roky.(Variety) Read the rest

Multiple injuries in shooting at a municipal center in Virginia Beach, police say; shooter in custody.

You can't trust tech companies' word that the privacy controls they say they're implementing will protect you and your children. A Wall Street Journal study of 80 apps in Apple’s App Store shows that most apps, including ones selected and featured by Apple editors, are tracking you in ways you would not expect, and cannot avoid.The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern found apps that track kids, including *her* kid, and send their data to companies including Facebook and Google.Excerpt:Uhhh, Curious George? You got a little too curious this time.There’s a kids’ iOS app called Curious World that, not surprisingly, stars the cute little pants-less monkey. Turns out, the app was collecting my son’s age, name and every book he tapped, and sending that data to Facebook Inc.The company’s response? Whoopsies!Apple is reported to be planning to limit third-party tracking in kids' apps beginning next week. The company hasn't announced the change, but an unnamed source who knows told the WSJ it's happening: In fact, Apple will limit third-party tracking in apps in the Kids category of the App Store, according to a person familiar with the matter. Apple declined to comment on this, but a spokeswoman provided a statement: "For privacy and security reasons, Apple does not see what data users choose to share with developers and we can't see what developers do on their servers."More: iPhone Privacy Is Broken…and Apps Are to BlameYou know those “Apps We Love” in the App Store? Read the rest

Not THAT Mueller, the furry one. He has two Deputy Dawgs helping out.

In the realm of rocket geeks and space nerds, filmmakers MaryLiz Bender and Ryan Chylinski have dream jobs. The pair have the equivalent of "backstage passes" to SpaceX, NASA and ULA rocket launches where they capture and share breathtaking videos that convey the power, risk, and thrill of space exploration. The work of their studio, called Cosmic Perspective, is visceral, wondrous, and inspiring. Now Bender and Chylinski are creating a fascinating art book enhanced with augmented reality along with a companion short film "documenting humanity's grand adventure to space." Titled "Guidance Internal: Lessons from Astronauts," the book, film, and their touring Cosmic Perspective show lies at the intersection of science and art "to inspire hope, elevate empathy, and bring people together." They've launched a Kickstarter to support the project and it looks, well, stellar.From Kickstarter:The art and the pages in this book come to life immediately teleporting you to rocket launch pads, directly to our intimate interviews with astronauts and the people sending missions to space. We fuse art with science blending our love of high-dynamic range photography with compelling video to capture the emotion, excitement, and gravity of these events. We also give you a front-row seat to transformative performances by artists inspired by these experiences.We place autonomous high-resolution and ultra-high speed video cameras at the launchpads of SpaceX, NASA, and ULA. These are cameras we place well ahead of the liftoff, design to survive the elements and, since no humans can be anywhere near the rockets, trigger without any human interaction. Read the rest

Arrivederci, asshole. In Italy, authorities are reportedly evicting alt-right self-promoter Steve Bannon from the medieval monastery he'd planned to transform into a white supremacist radicalization academy, “after reports of fraud in the competitive tender process.”Being evicted from his fancy Italian gladiator castle is a big setback for Bannon, who's trying to grow an alt-right empire in Europe.Italy's La Repubblica newspaper reports today that the Italian government is saying “uh, no, grazie” to the Trump consigliere and global grifter's plans to turn a monastery near Rome into a training academy for would-be 21st-century Wehrmachters.Here's the official announcement from Italy’s cultural heritage ministry, Friday, May 31, saying the lease granted to Bannon has been revoked after reports of “fraud in the competitive tender process.” “The former Breitbart chief and aide to US president Donald Trump was reportedly paying €100,000 ($110,000) per year to rent the 13th Century Carthusian monastery, but now will have to search for another spot,” writes Luiz Romero, reporting for QZ.com:The Italian state allowed the conservative Catholic organization Dignitatis Humanae Institute (DHI) to use the building early last year. Bannon happens to be a trustee of the institute, and planned to convert the space into a “gladiator school for cultural warriors,” where students would learn philosophy, theology, history, and economics, and receive political training from the former Trump aide himself.But earlier this month, Italian newspaper Repubblica reported that a letter used to guarantee the lease was forged. The letter had the signature of an employee of Danish bank Jyske, but the bank said that employee hadn’t worked there for years, and called the letter fraudulent. Read the rest

I chanced upon Sheldon Ebbeler's hand-drawn fractals, and now plan on tattooing my entire torso, leaving only a tattered self-similar void around the navel. Read the rest

Dan Smith of Seattle contacted Car2Go (a short term car rental company that allows people to pick up and drop off cars anywhere) about one of their cars parked in his driveway. Car2Go didn't give him a satisfactory answer so he built a fence around the car and told Car2Go it would now have to pay him storage fees, a nuisance fee, and fence-building fees before they can get the car. Smith told the Q13 news station in Seattle that Car2Go is accusing him of stealing the car.Image: Q13 Fox/YouTube[via Digg] Read the rest

Texas governor Greg Abbott signed a bill into law "relating to the criminal consequences of engaging in certain conduct with respect certain instruments designed, made, or adapted for use in striking a person with a fist." The law strikes "knuckles" from a list of prohibited weapons that a person can't "intentionally or knowingly possesses, manufactures, transports, repairs, or sells." The Texas Penal Code defines "knuckles" in this context as "any instrument that consists of finger rings or guards made of a hard substance and that is designed, made, or adapted for the purpose of inflicting serious bodily injury or death by striking a person with a fist enclosed in the knuckles."From CNN:Rep. Joe Moody, a Democratic legislator from El Paso who sponsored the bill told the Texas Standard... "A young woman who has a keychain for self defense, certainly fits the statute of knuckles. And she was arrested for that."Supporters of the bill argued "knuckles are primarily a defensive tool," the summary says, and shouldn't be associated with "explosive weapons, machine guns, and other prohibited weapons."The law comes after lawmakers previously removed switchblades from that same banned list in 2013."Law abiding Texans who carry knuckles, perhaps as part of a novelty key chain, should not be vulnerable to jail time for possessing a legitimate self defense tool," the summary says."It's now legal to carry brass knuckles in Texas. Because, 'self-defense'" (CNN)image: uncredited via Wikipedia Read the rest

Wild Earth is a dog food start-up in Berkeley, California. It specializes in dog food made from the Aspergillus oryzae fungus, known as koji in Japan. Koji is used to make "soy sauce and fermented bean paste (including miso), and also to saccharify rice, other grains, and potatoes in the making of alcoholic beverages such as sake and shōchū." [Wikipedia]. Chemical & Engineering News reports that Wild Earth recently secured $11 million in VC funding from "VegInvest, Mars Petcare, and other backers." This looks like a great snack for people, too.Image: Wild Earth Read the rest

Again with the military and the sky penises. Last time I posted about this, it was Navy pilots pulling a prank over the state of Washington. This week, it was Air Force fighter jets over Arizona's Luke Air Force Base and the official statement is that it was an "accident." From CNN:"We've seen the photos that have been circulating online from Tuesday afternoon. 56th Fighter Wing senior leadership reviewed the training tapes from the flight and confirmed that F-35s conducting standard fighter training maneuvers ... resulted in the creation of the contrails," an Air Force spokesperson told CNN. "There was no nefarious or inappropriate behavior during the training flight." Read the rest

Friends, don't eat slugs and snails you find on trails in Hawaii. And while you're at it, make sure to wash lettuce leaves thoroughly to get rid of slug and snail excretions. Failure to heed these warnings could result in rat lungworms that dig into your brain and cause "neurological problems, severe pain and long-term disability."From Ars Technica:The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed three new cases in unrelated adults visiting Hawaii Island from the US mainland, the health department announced. The latest known victims—who became infected at different times—bring the state’s 2018 case total to 10 and the 2019 total to five.While there were 17 confirmed cases in 2017, the state counted only two cases total in the prior decade. The new case counts indicate a sustained boom in the parasite’s population and spread.The parasitic worm in these cases is the rat lungworm, aka Angiostrongylus cantonensis. As its common name suggests, the wandering worm primarily takes up residence in rats’ lungs, where female worms lay their eggs. Young worms leave the nest early to find their own windy homes, though. Larvae get coughed up into rats’ throats then swallowed. The hosting rat eventually poops out the young parasites, which then get gobbled up by feces-feasting snails and slugs (intermediate hosts). When other rodents come along and eat those infected mollusks, the prepubescent parasites migrate to the rats’ brains to mature before settling into the lungs and reproducing. The cycle then starts again. Read the rest

Who needs V'ger? This scene of Kirk and Scotty made the entire movie for me. Read the rest

In 1965, two years before Nico made the Warhol/Factory scene with the Velvet Underground and released her first solo LP "Chelsea Girl," she recorded this cover of Gordon Lightfoot's "I'm Not Sayin'." According to Wikipedia, "This version of the song features Jimmy Page, then a studio musician, on the 12-string guitar. Nico's version was produced by Rolling Stones multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones and the promo film was shot at West India Docks in London." Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham released the track as a 7" backed with "The Last Mile," written by Oldham and Page. Read the rest

I put a collar emblazoned with owls on my Cavalier King Charles spaniel, thus combining two things I love.I can't get a good shot of said owl collar on Zuul, cause she is too fuzzy. They come in sizes for many, if not all, dogs.The Pyrenees got some gingham bs my kid choose, but it looks good on him.dogsBuckle-Down Plastic Clip Collar - Owls Striped w/Swirls Purple via Amazon Read the rest

This 1950s era Wonder lamp was purchased at a flea market in France. It's fun to watch this guy restore it to sparkling condition, but now I really want a sandblaster.Image: my mechanics/YouTube Read the rest

This fantastic documentary must be watched. I love these guys. Read the rest

Ken Cuccinelli is probably going to be confirmed soon as Donald Trump's new head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. He once praised and amplified a racist rant attacking Muslims by Brigitte Tudor, aka Brigitte Gabriel, a prominent anti-Muslim organizer based in the United States. That's not good.Cuccinelli was a former Attorney General in my home state of Virginia. Progressive voters in Virginia know all about him.Brigitte Tudor — aka Brigitte Gabriel — is the founder of ACT for America, the largest grassroots anti-Muslim group in the country. Cuccinelli's a big fan.From MMFA:Cuccinelli is a right-wing commentator and former Virginia attorney general who will reportedly be appointed as the new director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is part of DHS. Cuccinelli has a history of anti-LGBTQ and anti-immigrant rhetoric and positions.Gabriel is the head of the anti-Muslim group ACT for America. Media outlets have called her “the most influential leader in America’s increasingly influential anti-Islam lobby” and “America's most prominent anti-Muslim activist.” Gabriel has a long history of anti-Muslim statements, including claiming that “a practicing Muslim … cannot be a loyal citizen to the United States,” and saying that Muslims in Europe “started multiplying” after World War II and did not assimilate and that Europe is now “paying the price” because it “ignored the cancer growing within its body when it was at Stage Two.”The Heritage Foundation hosted a June 16, 2014, panel event about the 2012 Benghazi attacks featuring Gabriel and fellow anti-Muslim commentators Frank Gaffney and Clare Lopez. Read the rest

On May 21, the American Law Institute -- a kind of star chamber of 4,000 judges, law professors, and lawyers -- was scheduled to pass a "restatement" of the law of consumer contracts, with the plan being to codify case-law to ensure that terms of service would be treated as enforceable obligations by US courts.This would have led to a virtual ban on class action suits, and would have severely curtailed the role of courts in hearing legal complaints brought by members of the public who had been harmed or lied to by corporations, replacing them with binding arbitration kangaroo courts where the "judge" is working for the company that wronged you.The normally obscure workings of the ALI drew unprecedented attention over the move, with a bipartisan coalition of 23 states' Attorneys General publicly denouncing the plan, along with consumer rights groups and other campaigners. The pressure worked! When the ALI sat down to finalize it at their meeting on the 21st, virtually the entire four-hour debate slot was taken up with a debate over the first of nine sections; debate began on the second section but time ran out before it could come to a vote.A year from now, the ALI will sit again and could take up the matter once more. Although the meeting agenda had assigned a four-hour session for consideration of the Restatement, only the first of the Restatement’s nine sections reached a vote. Section One contains the Restatement’s definitions and describes its scope. Read the rest

If Donald Trump's bag man Bill Barr weren't such a malevolent son of a bitch, this wild quote of his from a CBS News interview would sound something like wisdom.“Everyone dies and I am not, you know, I don't believe in the Homeric idea that you know, immortality comes by, you know, having odes sung about you over the centuries, you know?"They're some soul-less bastards, these Trump administration slimeballs.From CBS News:Asked by CBS News' Jan Crawford about concerns over his reputation for defending the president amid ongoing probes into the administration's alleged ties to the Russian government and claims that Mr. Trump obstructed justice, Barr appeared indifferent."I am at the end of my career," Barr said. "Everyone dies and I am not, you know, I don't believe in the Homeric idea that you know, immortality comes by, you know, having odes sung about you over the centuries, you know?" Barr, who previously served in the George H.W. Bush administration, is only the second attorney general in history who's served in that capacity twice. The first was back in 1850. He said he knew it would "only be a matter of time" that he would be attacked for what he considers is "behaving responsibly and calling them as I see them." He argued "nowadays, people don't care about the merits and the substance.""They only care about who it helps, who benefits, whether my side benefits or the other side benefits, everything is gauged by politics. Read the rest

Joe Stiglitz (previously) holds a Nobel Prize in Economics (not an actual Nobel Prize), and has been an outspoken critic of the rigged economy and austerity.Now, in a new editorial for Common Dreams, Stiglitz calls neoliberalism "an ideology that has clearly failed" and goes on to try to rescue capitalism from neoliberalism, calling for support for "progressive capitalism...which prescribes a radically different economic agenda,"Stiglitz's progressive capitalism calls for a stronger role for the state in subjecting markets to democratic oversight; an emphasis on science-led, evidence-based policies that favor benefits for the many over enriching the few; breaking up monopolies; and shielding politics from financial corruption. It's a platform very similar to Elizabeth Warren's 2020 election playbook, and can be seen as an attempt to establish a new centrism that's far to the left of the likes of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, sitting between their positions and the positions of Sanders, AOC, and other socialists who are skeptical of markets entirely.A comprehensive agenda must focus on education, research, and the other true sources of wealth. It must protect the environment and fight climate change with the same vigilance as the Green New Dealers in the US and Extinction Rebellion in the United Kingdom. And it must provide public programs to ensure that no citizen is denied the basic requisites of a decent life. These include economic security, access to work and a living wage, health care and adequate housing, a secure retirement, and a quality education for one’s children. Read the rest

Since January, Google has been pushing for a change to its extensions handling in Chrome; one casualty of that change is ability to block unwanted content before its loads, something that would effectively kill privacy tools and ad-blockers.After a public outcry, Google has tweaked the change, but only for enterprise customers, who will have access to an API that will allow this kind of blocking. That means that corporations will be able to develop internal-use plugins that do the kind of screening that adblockers do for the rest of us today.Google has warned investors that "New and existing technologies could affect our ability to customize ads and/or could block ads online, which would harm our business," and ad blocker developers like Raymond Hill of Ublock Origin have speculated that "Google’s primary business is incompatible with unimpeded content blocking. Now that Google Chrome product has achieve high market share, the content blocking concerns as stated in its 10K filing are being tackled."Google denies this, and says "We’re actively working with the developer community to get feedback and iterate on the design of a privacy-preserving content filtering system that limits the amount of sensitive browser data shared with third parties."Chrome is the dominant browser on the web today, and even though it is nominally open source, Google has used a suite of tricks to ensure that it gets to decide who can adapt it and what features those adaptations can have.Firefox is available for virtually every OS -- mobile and desktop -- and supports full ad-blocking. Read the rest

Just look at it.(Thanks, Seth!) Read the rest

Binding arbitration is a way for corporations to force you to surrender your legal rights as a condition of doing business, relegating you to seeking redress for breaches and harms by going before a paid arbitrator who is in the employ of the company that harmed you, and who almost always sides with their employer.Ten years ago, Chase did away with binding arbitration in its credit-card agreements (after settling a class action suit accusing the company of conspiring with its competitors to force customers into binding arbitration), but two days ago, the company sent customers holding Chase Slate cards a notice informing them that their new contract includes arbitration: "This arbitration agreement provides that all disputes between you and Chase must be resolved by BINDING ARBITRATION whenever you or we choose to submit or refer a dispute to arbitration. By accepting this arbitration agreement you GIVE UP YOUR RIGHT TO GO TO COURT (except for matters that may be taken to a small claims court). Arbitration will proceed on an INDIVIDUAL BASIS, so class actions and similar proceedings will NOT be available to you."Chase Slate customers have until August 7 to opt out, but they must do so in writing by postal mail.This should send shivers down consumers’ spines. It’s unclear if Chase plans to extend binding arbitration to all of its cards, but that wouldn’t be surprising. And Chase is not alone. A 2016 study from the Pew Charitable Trusts found that forced arbitration clauses are on the rise among financial institutions. Read the rest

"In this video I'm restoring an old French Wonder lamp," writes MyMechanics (Patreon). "My good friend TysyTube Restoration bought this Wonder lamp on a flea market in Paris. He asked me if I want to restore it and obviously I said yes. He already restored two of them himself, I link his videos and channel below. These Wonder lamps are very well known in France, they're used on railroads mostly as far as I know."I want to put a Raspberry Pi in one of these and I don't know why. Read the rest

Last year, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez successfully challenged establishment Dem Joe Crowley for his seat in the Bronx; now Crowley works as a lobbyist, skirting the restrictions on lobbying by Congress by styling himself a "strategic consultant."AOC publicly proposed a lifetime ban on any Congressman ever lobbying, under any guise, and, when Ted Cruz endorsed her proposal, she seized the opportunity, tweeting ".@tedcruz if you’re serious about a clean bill, then I’m down. Let’s make a deal. If we can agree on a bill with no partisan snuck-in clauses, no poison pills, etc - just a straight, clean ban on members of Congress becoming paid lobbyists - then I’ll co-lead the bill with you."The Democratic Congress has already passed an omnibus bill, HR1, the "For the People Act," that bans former members of the executive branch as well as former Congresspeople from lobbying or serving as "strategic consultants" to lobbyists.But, as Ocasio-Cortez pointed out in a series of tweets, there’s more to consider than just banning—or at the least delaying—lawmaker entrance into lobbying firms. The nature of congressional pay and the necessities of the work, Ocasio-Cortez said, make the easy money of lobbying very attractive to members of Congress.“Keeping it real,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, “the elephant in the room with passing a lobbying ban on members requires a nearly-impossible discussion about congressional pay.”AOC Calls for Ban on Revolving Door as Study Shows 2/3 of Recently Departed Lawmakers Now Lobbyists [Jerri-Lynn Scofield/Naked Capitalism] Read the rest

There's no one way to solve the plastic waste problem, but in the packaged goods sector, an enormous amount of plastic is used in order to surround and protect simple solutions of some agent dissolved in water, from toothpaste to window cleaner to shampoo.Treehugger's Katherine Martinko surveys a slate of companies that are shipping dehydrated, solid products that outperform their pre-mixed cousins, while costing less and using far less plastic, like Blueland, whose Windex-beating window cleaner ships as a $2 tablet that you add to a spray-bottle (the bottle comes in a starter kit and you only have to buy one). Obviously, this won't solve the problem, but it represents a substantial advance on the status quo. When you stop to think about it, much of what we're shipping around the world is water. Whether it's cleaning products or personal care products, these are mostly made up of water, with ingredients mixed in to clean, moisturize, color, or do whatever task you need.Now imagine if we could remove the water and only ship the additive. It could come in dry tablet or bar form and, depending on its use, could be dissolved in water to create a product just as strong as anything you'd buy at the store, or used in bar form directly on your body. This would save money, hassle (who loves lugging heavy jugs of detergent home from the store?), and environmental impact (think of the carbon emissions required to get that jug from its manufacturer to your home). Read the rest

The ClockworkPi Gameshell is a portable game console you make yourself, coming as a modular kit and assembling to form a GameBoy-like gadget with a quad-core CPU, 2.7-inch color display, WiFi and Bluetooth, 1GB of RAM, HDMI output and a 16GB MicroSD card holding its Linux-based OS: "a powerful computing platform that lets you begin creating immediately."It smoothly runs various dev environments/engines (including PICO 8, LOVE2D, PyGame and Phaser), comes with Cave Story, Doom and RetroArch for folks who just want to dive in, and clearly has its stuff together both as a creative tool and entertainment device. Mike Fahey reports that it runs 16-bit classics perfectly.Looks like a very serious effort to create a hackable-from-the-ground-up handheld, and a perfect competitor to the recently-announced PlayDate. Yellow is in!The GameShell is available on Amazon for $159 in red or white; yellow is exclusive to the official website, at the same price. Read the rest

Passwords are necessary. Passwords are also a pain - especially when you've got multiple ones to remember for your email, subscriptions, bills and work sites.The problem is keeping all those passwords stored and ready, yet still secure from hackers and malware. The solution? A subscription to the RememBear Password Manager.Brought to you by the same company that built the TunnelBear VPN, RememBear already comes with a pedigree of security. The seconds you spend entering your info into the app will likely be the last time you have to do it anywhere. RememBear saves your passwords, ID and credit card info and can autofill the appropriate websites, letting you log in with a single click. And since this is this most sensitive information you have, it's all protected with AES256 encryption. It can even store notes, and you can retreieve all this data on a number of devices.Pick up a two-year subscription to RememBear for $39.99, a full 33% off the original price of $60. Read the rest

The inimitable Patti Smith will release a new memoir, Year of the Monkey, on September 24. A blend of reality and dreams, illustrated with Smith's Polaroids, the book captures her experience of a single year, 2016. From the publisher:Following a run of New Year’s concerts at San Francisco’s legendary Fillmore, Patti Smith finds herself tramping the coast of Santa Cruz, about to embark on a year of solitary wandering. Unfettered by logic or time, she draws us into her private wonderland with no design, yet heeding signs–including a talking sign that looms above her, prodding and sparring like the Cheshire Cat. In February, a surreal lunar year begins, bringing with it unexpected turns, heightened mischief, and inescapable sorrow. In a stranger’s words, “Anything is possible: after all, it’s the Year of the Monkey.” For Smith – inveterately curious, always exploring, tracking thoughts, writing – the year evolves as one of reckoning with the changes in life’s gyre: with loss, aging, and a dramatic shift in the political landscape of America. Smith melds the western landscape with her own dreamscape. Taking us from California to the Arizona desert; to a Kentucky farm as the amanuensis of a friend in crisis; to the hospital room of a valued mentor; and by turns to remembered and imagined places, this haunting memoir blends fact and fiction with poetic mastery. The unexpected happens; grief and disillusionment set in. But as Smith heads toward a new decade in her own life, she offers this balm to the reader: her wisdom, wit, gimlet eye, and above all, a rugged hope for a better world. Read the rest

China, Mexico -- He's gonna wreck the economy one way or another.President Trump tweeted today:On June 10th, the United States will impose a 5% Tariff on all goods coming into our Country from Mexico, until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP. The Tariff will gradually increase until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied,......at which time the Tariffs will be removed. Details from the White House to follow.Screengrab below. He was under pressure not to announce this today, so he announced it today, per White House reporters.The president, under pressure from some in White House not to announce them tomorrow, announces them today. https://t.co/DmHOYEEc8T https://t.co/zqp7vud567— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) May 30, 2019INBOX: @realDonaldTrump is raising taxes on Americans because Mexico isn’t closing its southern borders or taking East Germanyesque measures to keep people from leaving the country. pic.twitter.com/x4HjJAACoK— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) May 30, 2019Making Arizona and Texas into swing states to own the Mexicans? https://t.co/pp6s2jgSTU— Nick Riccardi (@NickRiccardi) May 30, 2019The announcement the President’s advisors were trying to convince him not to make https://t.co/WtsW2YzJr3— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) May 30, 2019 Read the rest

Researchers report that a number of white supremacist/white nationalist/violent racist crackpot groups like the 'Proud Boys' and 'Soldiers of Odin' (gag) are doing just fine and being very active on Facebook -- all they had to do is ever so slightly modify their names.Facebook's not-very-effective ban was a kludgy response to the mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, the prelude to which was live-streamed on Facebook by the killer.“Over a month after Facebook announced a ban of a number of white nationalist, white supremacist, and other hate groups, they are still on the platform and continue to use it for recruitment,” reports Buzzfeed News:“Facebook likes to make a PR move and say that they’re doing something but they don’t always follow up on that,” Megan Squire, an Elon University computer science professor who researches online extremism, told a joint BuzzFeed News–Toronto Star investigation.Kevin Chan, one of Facebook’s global policy directors, said while they proactively removed some hate groups, the company also relies on users, journalists, and other sources to report when banned personalities make it back on the platform.Chan said that sometimes it may feel like whack-a-mole, but he considers it more of an arms race — with Facebook trying to get better at keeping listed hate groups off its platform, and those banned users figuring out new ways to find their way back online.“Every time we are learning. Now, we presume they’re also learning … I think it’s really more of an arms race,” Chan said. Read the rest

Deadwood: The Movie airs on HBO in the US on Friday, May 31.Can't wait for Swearingen's swears. “Thirteen years after it was abruptly cancelled, David Milch’s grimy, glorious western finally gets the ending it deserves.”From James Donaghy's tease in The Guardian: Set in the historic lawless mining camp in the Black Hills gold rush of the 1870s, Deadwood melded profanity and poetry like no TV show before, reimagining the historic figures of the town in a bloody, grimy revisionist western that felt resolutely arthouse from its first shot to its last. It deserved better and now Deadwood: The Movie is a bold attempt to right that wrong, 13 years after its cancellation.It does the trick. While it isn’t quite Deadwood at its jaw-dropping best – few things in TV history are – there is enough of the old magic left to deliver a satisfying ending. We find Deadwood well on its way to gentrification, a far cry from the rough-as-guts encampment that greeted us in 2004, caked in shit and blood. Trains not wagons now deliver newcomers, the thoroughfare looks more like a street, less like a pigpen, and there’s even a public phone. We are 10 years down the line from the final action of the TV show, with the town coming together to celebrate South Dakota becoming the 40th state of the Union. Philosopher king Al Swearengen is in still in situ at The Gem, perma-angry marshall Seth Bullock still inhales and expels pure righteousness and malevolent robber baron George Hearst is back in town. Read the rest

Anar writes, "Writer and scholar Rubén Gallo sheds light on a fascinating, obscure bit of history: After the press reported Freud’s troubles in Nazi Austria — his daughter was briefly detained by the Gestapo and he was under pressure by friends to flee — several activists and Mexican labor unions (including the Union of Workers in the Graphic Arts, the Union of Education Workers, the Union of Metal Miners, and the Union of Mexican Electricians) urged then-Mexican president Lázaro Cárdenas to bring Freud to Mexico."Though the campaign to bring Freud to Mexico came to nothing, Cárdenas expressed his outrage at Germany’s takeover of Austria: he instructed his representative at the Society of Nations in Geneva to file a formal protest against the Anschluss. Mexico was the only country to do so — an expression of solidarity postwar Austria recognized by naming a small plaza by the Danube canal “Mexikoplatz.”The Red Aid campaign was not the last time Mexico would be considered a potential haven for Austrian Jews. In November 1938, after Freud had finally left Vienna and settled in London, Princess Marie Bonaparte came up with a plan to save European Jews. She wrote to Bullitt and proposed that the United States government purchase Baja California from Mexico and establish a Jewish state on that territory. Freud, she added, liked the idea. Bullitt sent her a polite, evasive reply, but the princess — accustomed to having the last word — wrote directly to Roosevelt, urging him to consider her proposal. Read the rest

There's a wealth of psychological research that correlates wealthy people in the real world with negative traits like rudeness (people driving fancier cars are less considerate of pedestrians and their likelihood of cutting off another driver is correlated to the cost of the driver's car); greed (rich people take more candies out of dishes set aside for kids than poor people); generalized unethical behavior; cheating at games of chance; and overall stinginess.One possible explanation for all this is that getting rich is easier if you're dishonest, lack empathy, and cheat whenever you think you can get away with it.But consider that in a rigged Monopoly game, players who won due to an obviously unfair advantage (being given twice as much starting money and twice as many dice-rolls) acted like dicks throughout the whole game, and then boasted about their "brilliant tactics, their finesse at the game of monopoly and their daring moves."So maybe the causation goes the other way: maybe getting rich is mostly a matter of dumb luck, which we justify for ourselves by convincing ourselves of our superiority, which leads to us treating others as inferiors.But why are they more likely to cheat, lie and to cut off pedestrians? And why are they less likely to give to charity?It may be in part because they are cut off from the reality of poverty – living in an upper-class bubble. But primarily the researchers found that greed is actually viewed more favourably in upper-class communities. Read the rest

You know what's better than a smartwatch? Literally everything else. But especially: the centuries' worth of wrist-mounted paint palettes worn by some artists.Some of these are humble affairs (a bit of masonite with a thumb-hole) while others are super-elaborate, mounted on watch-straps, with hinged bodies, unfolding trays, and even high-end, $1225 brass or silver Sketcher boxes with foldaway thumb-rings, water reservoirs, and up to 14 paint wells.As Rain Noe notes on Core 77 these things are at the nexus of DIY and design, relentlessly functional, and extremely beautiful. They would make for great design school projects: - The object has clear utility for the end user, and very specific practical requirements - It requires some human factors work for the interface (i.e. how do you securely hold it?) - It's small enough that a student could manufacture a prototype in the school's shop - The extant examples of this object span from $15 plastic Wal-Mart objects up to $1,000-plus luxury items, giving the students a wide range in how they want to execute - At most design schools, there are nearby Painting majors who could be interviewed and used for testing different designs, providing important feedbackUnusual Product Design: Functional, Technology-Free Wearables for Fine Artists [Rain Noe/Core 77](Image: House of Hoffman) Read the rest

When you talk to Alexa and other voice assistants, you have to phrase your requests by starting with their "wakeword" ("Alexa" "OK Google" "Siri" etc). This means that if you issue an instruction like "Order me a 55 gallon drum of Clearglide lubricant, Alexa," it will fail and you will have to repeat yourself in the form of "Alexa, order me a 55 gallon drum of Clearglide lubricant."Amazon has applied for a patent to resolve this problem by the simple (and obvious and thus unpatentable) measure of having Alexa record everything, all the time, and when it hears its wakeword, it can wind back its buffer and figure out what it just missed.What could possibly go wrong?"The [proposed] system is configured to capture speech that precedes and/or follows a wakeword," the application explains, "such that the speech associated with the command and wakeword can be included together and considered part of a single utterance that may be processed by a system." Newly Released Amazon Patent Shows Just How Much Creepier Alexa Can Get [Peter Dockrill/Science Alert](via /.)(Image: Cryteria, CC-BY) Read the rest

Veteran transportation economics Hubert Horan has consistently published the best-informed, deepest critiques of Uber and Lyft, explaining how the companies can never, ever be profitable, and warning investors away from becoming the "greater fools" that allow Uber/Lyft's early investors to cash out at their expenses, while cataloging the many ways that Uber and Lyft's legislative strategy, coupled with predatory pricing, is destroying the cities they operate in.Now, three weeks after Uber's disastrous IPO, which has left more than 80% of the $25.9B pumped in by Uber's pre-IPO investors underwater (over a period when the S&P 500 rose by 50%!), Horan is back with a sobering reckoning for the sector's future profits.As Horan writes, there's no way that Uber and Lyft "can produce their service at costs consumers are willing to pay" and there's "no evidence that they can ever profitably expand to any other markets (food delivery, driverless cars, etc.)." Uber and Lyft are losing money faster than any Silicon Valley startup in history, and they have "none of the economic characteristics that allowed companies like Amazon or Facebook to quickly grow into profitability and drive strong public equity appreciation."But that's not to say that the company failed its (early) investors. The company currently has a market cap of $80B, "corporate value [created] out of thin air," and Horan's educated guess is that the investors in Uber forced founder Travis Kalanick out not over sexual assault scandals, but because Kalanick wanted to remain a private company for as long as possible, keeping the company's finances shrouded in mystery so that critics couldn't see what was really going on behind the closed doors. Read the rest

Abby Smith, a graduating senior at West Virginia's Parkersburg High School, claims that her principal, Kenneth DeMoss, plagiarized his commencement speech from Ashton Kutcher's monologue at the 2013 Teen Choice Awards. She originally posted the video above on her Facebook page. According to Yahoo Lifestyle, "the principal directed Yahoo Lifestyle to the district's superintendent, who did not immediately respond to requests for comment, A Google search for "best motivational speech for teens" yields Kutcher's 2013 speech as the second video result."From Yahoo:"So first, the opportunity," principal DeMoss said in the graduation ceremony video. "I believe that opportunity looks a lot like hard work. When I was a kid growing up, I didn't get paid to do chores. I had to do 'em. I had to run the vacuum cleaner, dust the house, clean my room, cut the grass. When I became 15, I had to get my first paid job working as a busboy, so I could pay for my own insurance to help drive my family car. I didn't have my own car, nor was I given one; the family had to share it. Then I got a job working as a waiter; then I got a job selling shoes at the mall, then I got a job being a laborer for a construction company carrying shingles up and down a ladder to a roof and cleaning up job sites. Sometimes I even did two jobs at once. At one point, I was juggling four part-time jobs, like going to college.""And the greatest thing about that is that I never had a job, in my life that I was better than, that I was too good for," the principal continued in the speech delivered to graduates. Read the rest

This dual-set (US and metric) set of Bondhus ball-end allen wrenches are on sale for . They have a lifetime warrantee and are highly rated on Amazon. Read the rest

The 1990s nanotechnology dream of tiny robots swimming through our blood stream to treat disease is moving (verrrry) slowly but surely toward reality. In a new milestone, researchers used an external magnetic field to steer microbots through a live mouse's body carrying therapeutic stem cells. From IEEE Spectrum:..Delivering stem cells typically requires an injection with a needle, which lowers the survival rate of the stem cells, and limits their reach in the body. Microrobots, however, have the potential to deliver stem cells to precise, hard-to-reach areas, with less damage to surrounding tissue, and better survival rates, says Jin-young Kim, a principle investigator at DGIST-ETH Microrobotics Research Center, and an author on the paper....The team fabricated the robots with 3D laser lithography, and designed them in two shapes: spherical and helical. Using a rotating magnetic field, the scientists navigated the spherical-shaped bots with a rolling motion, and the helical bots with a corkscrew motion. These styles of locomotion proved more efficient than that from a simple pulling force, and were more suitable for use in biological fluids, the scientists reported....Kim says he and his colleagues are developing imaging systems that will enable them to view in real time the locomotion of their microrobots in live animals. Read the rest

From The Pudding: a zoomable people map that shows the name of the person with the most Wikipedia traffic for any given city. I looked at Golden, CO (where I lived as a kid) and learned that actor Greg Germann is the Wikipedia champ of that little town. Read the rest

Last night, The Cure celebrated the 30th anniversary of their Disintegration LP by playing the entire album at the Sydney Opera House. They opened with an array of b-sides and demo tracks, moved into Disintegration, and encored with "Burn" from The Crow soundtrack, "Three Imaginary Boys" from their 1979 debut album, and a cover of Wendy Waldman's "Pirate Ships." Here's the full setlist. Read the rest

Those rascal corpuscles!This empty bag of blood at the hospital looks like a snowy mountain scene Read the rest