What the hell is going on in Pennsylvania!!!!???? How is this sign even allowed??? pic.twitter.com/a3InZfiDP4— Alex Cole (@acnewsitics) March 26, 2019From the State that gave us Rick Santorum and Snapper Soup. Read the rest

This Masta Plasta textured faux-leather patch covered a nasty hole, and stopped a vinyl armchair from needed an immediate re-upholstery job. Read the rest

US federal law sets the national minimum wage at $7.25/hour, a number that hasn't budged for a decade and is in part responsible for the nation's wage stagnation, which has seen working peoples' earnings falling in real terms, while productivity grew, the stock market surged, and the richest grew much, much richer.The fundamental injustice of this system has buoyed movements like Fight for 15, which advocated a $15/hour minimum wage. But Fight for 15 has been thwarted by massive corporate lobbying by the likes of the US Chamber of Commerce and McDonald's restaurants, who have thrown everything they have at suppressing wage increases at both the national and state level (though some states have managed to overcome their resistance).McDonald's has now announced that it will drop its lobbying efforts against minimum wage hikes, after years of strikes and action that connected the struggle for a living wage to the #MeToo movement and widespread patterns of sexual harassment and assault in McDonald's restaurants. The move represents a break with the powerful National Restaurants Association lobby group, which fought against 30 state-level minimum wage bills.The Chamber of Commerce has also said that it will not block minimum wage increases on principal any longer, though it has said that it would lobby against a national $15/hour minimum wage.McDonald's is facing potentially costly action from a National Labor Relations Board suit that seeks to hold the company responsible for some of the labor abuses committed by its franchisees.Progressives in the new Democratic Congress are seeking to introduce legislation to increase the national minimum wage, but the Democratic caucus is split, with "red state" Democrats fighting against the measure. Read the rest

"How to speak Gen Z" is a new video from Carll. Facts. Read the rest

Contrary to the viral tip, setting your brithdate to 2007 in Twitter will not grant you access to an easter egg. It will get your account automatically suspended because you are too young to use Twitter.Please don't do this," the company said via a tweet.A spokesman for Twitter declined to confirm to the BBC how many people have succumbed to the hoax so far.Twitter has automatically prevented users under 13 from using the social network since May last year and its terms of use state that the social network is "not directed to children."A clever way to illustrate how dangerous automated account management systems are—but also also how gullible we are. Read the rest

ORGCON19 is the annual conference put on by the UK Open Rights Group (disclosure: I co-founded ORG and volunteer on its advisory board); it is "the UK’s largest human and digital rights conference," and this year's conference -- held on July 13 in central London -- is centred on "Data and Democracy, Digital Privacy, Online Censorship & the Role of Algorithms," so it only follows that the whistleblower Edward Snowden as its keynote speaker!Other speakers include leading human rights lawyer Ravi Naik, torture/surveillance/AI expert Cori Crider, AI and Robotics professor Noel Sharkey, and human rights activist Nighat Dad (and many more!).The event also features "Tactical Tech Digital Security Workshops," an IoT design challenge, and many other tracks for art, interaction, law, activism, and human rights. Early bird tickets are £20 (£10; for students and unwaged people). ORGCON19 Read the rest

Apple, in 2019, weds fantastic 5k displays—almost impossible to find anywhere else—with storage technology so obsolete you can listen to it in a quiet room. What people generally don't know, however, is that the hard drives themselves are of a radical new design that is completely silent. What you're hearing fizzling and popping away is actually a tiny carbon-fired auxiliary power supply. They come with enough coal to last 20 years and there's a tiny little hatch to shovel more in. The only hurdle is that to get to the boiler, you need to get past the machine's glued-on display. But Apple just announced the perfect tool for prizing it off.A 1TB m.2 SSD is now just $120 at retail. [Amazon]Photos: Apple; xpixel/Shutterstock Read the rest

It took me a while to realize the actors in Disney's "Wand" idents were supposed to be drawing Mickey Mouse's head.Previously: Disney deletes "Dead Inside" tweet. Read the rest

Rockland County in New York, in the midst of a measles outbreak that so far has 153 people infected with the disease, is declaring a state of emergency and banning unvaccinated kids from public spaces (i.e. schools).The ban went into effect at midnight, Wednesday, barring anyone younger than 18 who is unvaccinated against the measles from public places until they receive the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. The ban expires in 30 days.Those unable to be vaccinated for documented and confirmed medical reasons are exempt from the declaration. "We believe this to be the first such effort of this kind nationally and the circumstances we face here clearly call for that," said Rockland County Executive Ed Day at a Tuesday press conference. "Rockland will lead the way in service and safety to the people here."The disease was eradicated in the United States, but is returning, along with other easily-preventible deseases, as the antivaccination movement/cult grows. Read the rest

Tom the Dancing Bug, IN WHICH Super-Fun-Pak Comix features Emil the Bacterium Physicist, Actually-Man vs. Frankenstein, and much, MUCH more.

The title says it all, Ed Piskor, Jim Rugg, and Tom Scioli got their grubby hands on some Jack Kirby artwork (inked by Mike Royer) from his 1970s period at Marvel. No ink-line or artistic decision goes unnoticed once this classic page gets put under the microscope.---------------------SUPPLEMENTAL LINKS:Instagram #KirbyHandsJack Kirby MuseumJack Kirby CollectorJack Kirby Pencils and Inks (Note: any comic book store or book store can order this book for you)Subscribe to the Cartoonist Kayfabe youtube page.Get your Cartoonist Kayfabe merchandise at our Spreadshop storefront. Read the rest

Our friend Donald Bell put together an excellent little tour of some of the game designs from the alt.ctrl showcase at last week's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. And here's a handy link list that Donald provides to the game projects covered:HELLCOUCH: A Couch Co-op Game (Carol Mertz, Francesca Carletto-Leon)Continuum Bacterium (HNRY)Machinaria (Black Mamba Studio)HOT SWAP: All Hands On Deck (Peter Gyory, Clement Zheng)More details on MechamagnetsMore on Alt.CtrlGame highlights of Alt.Ctrl 2018Make: Coverage of Alt.Ctrl 2019 Read the rest

The DOJ argued that while Trump tweets in official capacity, blocking users is personal.

Now hold on there, pokey-boy. That's an ouch.Some observations:That cat has extremely cute white poofy paws.The hedgehog is proudly unperturbed. Brave little pokey-boy.Ouch!Lesson learned, kitteh: No touch spiky boi.[via] Read the rest

“My pupper thinks he’s a bunny,” says hauntedmarshmallow.“Puppy noticed bunny was getting treats every morning and started wanting a handful of lettuce too. Now they eat lettuce together every day.”“Kitty started getting curious about what the pupper and bunny are up to and has started to investigate the green leafy stuff.”“This has become a morning ritual for all 3 pets the past month.”“Pupper is 8 mos old, 120 lbs and named Darwin. Bunny is almost 3 yrs, 5 lbs and named Arthur. Kitty is Guin, 10 lbs and maybe 2 yrs.”Scroll through the wonderful IMGUR thread with lots of images of these three furry friends. Who says we can't all get along?My pupper thinks he’s a bunny Read the rest

Look at his little back leg twitch with delight.He's too cute.Brushy brushy[via] Read the rest

Accurate.The guy-on-fence-falling-into-water GIF joke has been made a number of times, as has the dude running into traffic and bumbling out. I'm not sure who was first. Here are a few others that made me laugh, below.UK trying to leave the EUThis sums up the UK trying to leave the EU #Brexit #BrexitVote pic.twitter.com/6hB9wdQCtz— Raj Popat (@MrRajPop) June 25, 2016UK Trying to leave the EU. #Brexit pic.twitter.com/uWn9It00Yr— Tyler Ryan (@TylerRJ_) August 6, 2017 Read the rest

Woof, woof, woof.With each bark, the most adorable flop of those fuzzy puppy ears.This is possibly the most adorable pup I've seen all week.[via] Read the rest

In the EU, if a Member of the Parliament presses the wrong button on a vote, they can have the record amended to show what their true intention was, but the vote is binding.Today, the European Parliament voted to pass the whole Copyright Directive without a debate on Articles 11 and 13 by a margin of five votes.But actually, a group of Swedish MEPs have revealed that they pressed the wrong button, and have asked to have the record corrected. They have issued a statement saying they'd intended to open a debate on amendments to the Directive so they could help vote down Articles 11 and 13.We lost on a technicality, and there is no recourse.This is the most significant piece of internet regulation ever undertaken by a democratic government (that is, excluding Russian and Chinese internet regulations). It will do untold damage to the whole internet. And it's because someone pushed the wrong button.It's the Edward Tufte apocalypse. It'd be funny, if it didn't make me want to smash my laptop.SD have now announced that they’ll add to the record that they intended to vote differently, but that doesn’t change the vote itself. When it comes to voting buttons in the European Parliament, what’s pressed is pressed.Thus, Parliament was stopped by only a single vote from voting on the decision to delete Articles 11 and 13 of the Directive. One wrongly-pushed button fewer, and the result for all of Europe could’ve been very different. Read the rest

"Unlocking your €100,000 car is now easier than ever," writes Álex Barredo.Unlocking your €100,000 car is now easier than ever pic.twitter.com/3hSs9pswoO— Alex+ 📉 (@somospostpc) March 26, 2019Not to worry: I hear they're developing a durable, solid-state device that weighs only grams and comes with a custom encryption profile. It's called a "Serrated Analog Authentication Interlock Disengagement and Reengagement Shard" and they're working out the kinks. Read the rest

After a few false starts and rumors, the classic 1996 teen witch film The Craft will be remade, according to a fresh listing in industry trade Production Weekly. Not a big shock as right now there's a witchcraft resurgence afoot, especially among millennials. (In fact, the directors should hire badass witch Pam Grossman to help them make real magick!) Blumhouse Productions (Paranormal Activity, Get Out, BlacKkKlansman) will produce the remake. Daniel Casey (Fast & Furious 9) and Zoe Lister-Jones (Band Aid) are writing it and Lister-Jones is directing. Here's the synopsis:A remake of the 1996 supernatural teen thriller. When starting at a new school, Hannah befriends Tabby, Lourdes, and Frankie & quickly becomes the fourth member of their Clique. Hannah soon learns that she somehow brings great power to the quartet.(via Jezebel) Read the rest

This enameled cast iron dutch oven should last longer than we do.I use a dutch oven for baking sourdough bread and cooking with my sous vide circulator. It is also wonderful for cassoulet, which I have been challenged to prepare by a young lady this week...Second or third in-line behind my cast iron skillet, the enameled Dutch oven is one of my most-used kitchen tools.The lid is only rated to 450F because of the button-style handle on top. Replace it with a stainless one and the whole deal is good to go at 500F.Vremi Enameled Cast Iron Dutch Oven Pot with Lid - 6 Quart Capacity Deep Large Ovenproof - Red via Amazon Read the rest

Yesterday, 12 adults in Cologne, Germany climbed into special beds where they will remain for 60 days to help scientists better understand the impact of longterm space flights on the human body. The Artificial Gravity Bed Rest Study is a joint program from European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. From the ESA:...They will be kept in beds with the head end tilted 6° below horizontal and must ensure one of their shoulders is touching the mattress at all times.As blood flows to their heads and muscle is lost from underuse, researchers will investigate changes and test techniques from diet to physical exercise. Artificial gravity is one of the techniques under the spotlight this time around and will see some of the participants sent spinning...A number of different experiments will be carried out over the course of the study, looking at cardiovascular function, balance and muscle strength, metabolism and cognitive performance among other factors...“To make these missions possible, various risks to astronaut health must be minimised," (says ESA team leader for research Jennifer Ngo-Anh). "This study allows us to address the issue of muscular atrophy caused by weightlessness, but also other stressors such as cosmic radiation, isolation and spatial restrictions.” Read the rest

A 23-year-old South Carolina man was arrested Saturday after being seen driving around the campus of Winthrop University without any pants.Campus police were called before 8 p.m. Saturday after two students in a dorm looking out of their window saw a man in a car without any pants on, Yearta said. Winthrop officers arrested him and issued a no trespass notice that bans him from being able to be anywhere on the college campus, Yearta said. Read the rest

In response to a spreading measles epidemic in NY State, Rockland County has banned unvaccinated minors from appearing in public.Failure to vaccinate an eligible child should be a crime.Daily Beast:Rockland County, New York, will declare a state of emergency Tuesday due to an ongoing measles outbreak, according to a county news release. Beginning at midnight, anyone who is under 18 and not vaccinated against the measles will be banned from public places, according to the release. It is unclear how the rule will be enforced. This ban will last until the declaration expires in 30 days, or until people are vaccinated. There are currently 151 confirmed reported cases of measles in the county, according to health officials. Health officials say the best way to help protect yourself and the community is to remain up-to-date with measles vaccinations. Rockland County Executive Ed Day will hold a press conference at 2 p.m. ET to discuss the state of emergency. Read the rest

Apologies in advance. Previously: Jan-Michael Vincent dead at 74 Read the rest

On January 8, 1997, David Bowie became quite emotional after hearing happy birthday message from the pioneering pop/experimental musician Scott Walker, who died yesterday. It was a touching moment then and even moreso now that both of these inimitable forces of avant-garde art/music are gone. Turns out that Walker's birthday was the following day:"I'll have a drink to you on the other side of midnight. How's that?" Read the rest

Nicole Dieker (who has written for Boing Boing) is a journalist from Iowa who lived in Minneapolis, DC, Los Angeles, and Seattle before moving back to Iowa. In this story for Vox she explains why she moved (mainly, big cities are very expensive) and why she is happy in Cedar Rapids.I’m paying $650 a month for a gorgeous studio with a view of the Cedar River and in-unit laundry. I’m the first tenant to occupy this apartment (and the first tenant to use its brand new appliances). Considering that my first Seattle apartment was a converted hotel room with no kitchen and a landlord who advised me to wash my dishes in a bus tub and dump the dishwater into the toilet — WHICH I DID, EVERY DAY — living in this apartment feels like living in another world.Also, there’s actually a pretty decent bus system. (I know, right? Everyone is surprised.) That, combined with a bike and the occasional Uber, meant I would be able to move back to the Midwest without having to buy a car...,I’m also not worried about money anymore. Part of that comes from having been able to take a well-paying freelance career — by which I mean $67K gross business income, $40K adjusted gross income — from a high-cost-of-living area to a lower-cost-of-living area, but the interesting thing is that my career has continued to grow, even after moving away from the contacts and clients I’d built in Seattle. I used to teach in-person writing classes at Seattle’s Hugo House, for example; now I teach online classes for Hugo House and in-person classes at the Iowa Writers’ House. Read the rest

With the help of my public library, books magically appear on my eReader.Libby is the app my local library uses to make it's ebook and audiobooks collections easily available to the public. Discovering it has improved my life.I have long since accepted that paper books are a quaint and funny affectation, like organized religious or dial-up modems, that will someday go away. I have a HUGE collection of physical books but try to limit purchases to books that truly benefit from being in physical form: magic and cooking.Everything else takes up space.The bulk of what I read is science fiction and other storytelling. I need a constant stream of stories, or I won't be able to sleep. The Libby app is the first place I check to see if I new book I've heard of is available.Libby indexes whatever my library, or libraries if you have cards at more than one participating organization, has to offer via the internets. Audiobooks, which are not really my bag, and ebooks are pretty easily searchable by the various criteria you'd expect. If what you desire is immediately available you can read or listen via the Libby app, or send the media to other players. I have Libby connected to my Kindle, and a simple click or two sends books directly to it.The hold system is a huge surprise benefit, imho!My library loans books for 21 days and if someone is waiting for the book I feel like a real heel holding on to it. Read the rest

Lots of crazy fun laws still on the books in Blighty, though I'd hazard a guess that many of them have in fact been formally overturned or superceded. Some, though, are new enough.The Salmon Act 1986 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom, passed in 1986, which regulates salmon fishery. It is frequently cited in lists of absurd or unusual laws, since it contains a provision making it illegal to "handle salmon in suspicious circumstances". ... It should only take a moment to realize that this refers to poaching; but why ruin a funny video? A part of the magic is the English fondness for vaguely- or obscurely-worded laws. It's a cultural thing that becomes harder to grasp the more you reach for it. One of putting it is that the purpose of law in England is not enforcement but prosecution. Read the rest

People don't procrastinate because they are lazy, says Dr. Piers Steel, author of The Procrastination Equation: How to Stop Putting Things Off and Start Getting Stuff Done. “It’s self-harm,” he told The New York Times.Dr. Fuschia Sirois, professor of psychology at the University of Sheffield, agrees. “This is why we say that procrastination is essentially irrational,” she told the Times “It doesn’t make sense to do something you know is going to have negative consequences... People engage in this irrational cycle of chronic procrastination because of an inability to manage negative moods around a task.”From the article:Procrastination isn’t a unique character flaw or a mysterious curse on your ability to manage time, but a way of coping with challenging emotions and negative moods induced by certain tasks — boredom, anxiety, insecurity, frustration, resentment, self-doubt and beyond....In fact, there’s an entire body of research dedicated to the ruminative, self-blaming thoughts many of us tend to have in the wake of procrastination, which are known as “procrastinatory cognitions.” The thoughts we have about procrastination typically exacerbate our distress and stress, which contribute to further procrastination, Dr. Sirois said.But the momentary relief we feel when procrastinating is actually what makes the cycle especially vicious. In the immediate present, putting off a task provides relief — “you’ve been rewarded for procrastinating,” Dr. Sirois said. And we know from basic behaviorism that when we’re rewarded for something, we tend to do it again. This is precisely why procrastination tends not to be a one-off behavior, but a cycle, one that easily becomes a chronic habit. Read the rest

My favorite blues singer Huddie William Ledbetter (1888-1949), aka Lead Belly, sung about traditional blues topics like relationships, prison, and poverty, but he also wrote about current events and newsmakers of the day, from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Jean Harlow to the Scottsboro Boys. In 1942, Lead Belly wrote this tune, "Mr. Hitler." Here are the lyrics:Hiltler started out in 1932Hiltler started out in 1932When he started out, he took the homes from the JewsWe're gonna tear Hitler downWe're gonna tear Hitler downWe're gonna tear Hitler down someday.We're gonna bring him to the groundWe're gonna bring him to the groundWe're gonna bring him to the ground someday.When Hitler started out, he took the Jews from their homesWhen Hitler started out, he took the Jews from their homesThat's one thing Mr. Hitler you know you done wrong.We're gonna tear Hitler downWe're gonna tear Hitler downWe're gonna tear Hitler down someday.We're gonna bring him to the groundWe're gonna bring him to the groundWe're gonna bring him to the ground someday.You ain't no iron, you ain't no solid rockYou ain't no iron, you ain't no solid rockbut we American people say "Mr. Hitler you is got to stop!"We're gonna tear Hitler downWe're gonna tear Hitler downWe're gonna tear Hitler down someday.We're gonna bring him to the groundWe're gonna bring him to the groundWe're gonna bring him to the ground someday. Read the rest

Solving 29 = x³+ y³+ z³ is easy (29 = 3³ + 1³ + 1³). Solving 33 = x³ + y³ + z³ has confounded number theorists for a very long time. As far back as 1955, they've been using computers to grind away at a solution. This week, University of Bristol mathematician Andrew Booker's computer program solved it after three weeks of number crunching. The answer: (8,866,128,975,287,528)³ + (–8,778,405,442,862,239)³ + (–2,736,111,468,807,040)³ = 33.From Quanta Magazine:Until Booker found his solution, it was one of only two integers left below 100 (excluding the ones for which solutions definitely don’t exist) that still couldn’t be expressed as a sum of three cubes. With 33 out of the way, the only one left is 42.The reason it took so long to find a solution for 33 is that searching far enough up the number line — all the way to 1016, or ten quadrillion, and just as far down into the negative integers — for the right numerical trio was computationally impractical until Booker devised his algorithm. “He has not just run this thing on a bigger computer compared to the computers 10 years ago — he has found a genuinely more efficient way of locating the solutions,” said Tim Browning, a number theorist at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria.Image: YouTube Read the rest

If you have young children, it's highly likely that at some point you will be sharing your home with lice. Best to know your enemy. From KQED:Head lice can move only by crawling on hair. They glue their eggs to individual strands, nice and close to the scalp, where the heat helps them hatch. They feed on blood several times a day. And even though head lice can spread by laying their eggs in sports helmets and baseball caps, the main way they get around is by simply crawling from one head to another using scythe-shaped claws.These claws, which are big relative to a louse’s body, work in unison with a small and spiky thumblike part called a spine. With the claw and spine at the end of each of its six legs, a louse grasps a hair strand to hold on tightly, or quickly crawl from hair to hair like a speedy acrobat. Read the rest

Rishiri Ramen Miraku is on one of Japan's northernmost remote islands, Rishiritō (pop. 5,000), and many people go out of their way to eat its famous charred-soy seaweed ramen. The restaurant, which takes 7 hours to get to from Tokyo by plane, train, and ferry, earned the Michelin Guide's Bib Gourmand award in 2012 and 2017.Image: YouTube Read the rest

I predict that fighting while racing motorcycles will become the next big thing in spectator sports.From Guardian Sport:Two motorcyclists have been suspended for two years following a fight that erupted when the pair clashed during a race last month. Jorge Martínez threw the first punch at competitor Marion Calvo after blaming the rider for causing him to lose his balance during the first stage of Costa Rica's National Motorbike Championship in February. Image: YouTube Read the rest

Thanks to everyone who came out to last night's book tour event with Richard Kadrey at Berkeley Arts and Letters; I'm in the final stretch of the tour now, with a keynote tonight at 7PM at the Ft Vancouver Library's Revolutionary Reads series, (Clark Community College’s Gaiser Hall, 1933 Fort Vancouver Way, Vancouver WA 98663) just across the river from Portland, OR. Thursday, I'm at the Seattle Public Library and I'm spending the weekend at Wondercon in Anaheim. Hope you can make it! (Image: Mike Westphal) Read the rest

A new complaint against Charter Communications filed on Friday by Sony, Universal and Warner asks for legal redress for Charter's alleged failure to disconnect people repeated accused of copyright infringement; the complaint specifically lists the provision of a higher-speed tier of internet service as evidence that Charter was profiting from infringement.Charter is one of America's bloated, corrupt, terrible telcoms monopolists; thanks to their lobbying and monopolistic practices, disconnecting someone from Charter's network often means disconnecting them from the internet altogether (remember, 100 million Americans live in areas where every single ISP has admitted to violating net neutrality).The record companies are seeking household-level disconnections from a service that is crucial for conducting life in the 21st century, on the basis that someone within wifi range of those homes might be listening to music the wrong way.This lawsuit is a wake up call: the monopolization of the telcoms sector combined with the corruption of copyright as a tool wielded by giant corporations against individuals (as opposed to a regulatory framework for the entertainment industry's internal negotiations) represent a kind of late-stage-capitalist existential threat to human thriving itself.We need to break up Big Telcoms, Big Tech, and Big Content. This is a ghastly slow-motion train wreck and we can't afford to ignore it. Many of Charter's customers are motivated to subscribe to Charter's service because it allows them to download music and other copyrighted content—including unauthorized content—as efficiently as possible. Accordingly, in its consumer marketing material, including material directed to Colorado customers, Charter has touted how its service enables subscribers to download and upload large amounts of content at "blazing-fast Internet speeds." Charter has told existing and prospective customers that its high-speed service enables subscribers to "download just about anything instantly," and subscribers have the ability to "download 8 songs in 3 seconds." Charter has further told subscribers that its Internet service "has the speed you need for everything you do online." In exchange for this service, Charter has charged its customers monthly fees ranging in price based on the speed of service. Read the rest

In a stunning rejection of the will five million online petitioners, and over 100,000 protestors this weekend, the European Parliament has abandoned common-sense and the advice of academics, technologists, and UN human rights experts, and approved the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive in its entirety.There’s now little that can stop these provisions from becoming the law of the land across Europe. It’s theoretically possible that the final text will fail to gain a majority of member states’ approval when the European Council meets later this month, but this would require at least one key country to change its mind. Toward that end, German and Polish activists are already re-doubling their efforts to shift their government’s key votes.If that attempt fails, the results will be drawn-out, and chaotic. Unlike EU Regulations like the GDPR, which become law on passage by the central EU institutions, EU Directives have to be transposed: written into each member country’s national law. Countries have until 2021 to transpose the Copyright Directive, but EU rarely keeps its members to that deadline, so it could take even longer.Unfortunately, it is likely that the first implementation of the Directive will come from the countries who have most enthusiastically supported its passage. France’s current batch of national politicians have consistently advocated for the worst parts of the Directive, and the Macron administration may seek to grab an early win for the country’s media establishment.Countries whose polity were more divided will no doubt take longer. Read the rest

If you're going to pursue a career in graphic design, videography or web development, there are some essential tools you need to have - and all of them are included in the Adobe Creative Cloud. And whether you need to brush up on Illustrator, Photoshop or InDesign - or are a beginner to them all - your new designer's bible will be the Adobe CC A-Z Lifetime Bundle.In 12 different courses, this series covers all the big software tentpoles of the Adobe CC suite. You'll get a rundown on how to fine-tune your images in Photoshop and bring your own graphics to life in Illustrator and Adobe After Effects. Comprehensive beginner and master classes for InDesign show you how to put those images on any page, web or print. Videographers will get the most out of walkthroughs for Premiere Pro, and a course on Adobe XD gives the foundation for UI/UX web design.The grand total for all these courses separately would be well over $2500, but there a new "pay what you want" offer for the Adobe CC A-Z Lifetime Bundle. Make a bid, and take home some or all of the package. Read the rest

TikTok is an app that makes it easy for people to make short lip-synching videos, which unsurprisingly makes it a goldmine of creativity and memes. TikTok recently got in hot water with the Federal Trade Commission because it failed to comply with Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). COPPA requires online services that are either “directed at” children under the age of 13 or have knowledge that they have users who are under 13 to arrange for parental permission before they start collecting personal information about those users.The FTC fined TikTok $5.7 million and ordered it to delete personal information of young users, with the option to transfer copies of the videos back to them. The FTC required TikTok to “destroy” the “personal information” of any account belonging to someone currently 13 or under, or who was under 13 when they joined. In other words, the account, its videos, the fans, everything that had been built up by the users, would be deleted. However, the FTC also gave TikTok the option to give users copies of their videos.TikTok’s attempt to comply was riddled with problems. Users logging in for the first time after the order were prompted to give their birthdate, but TikTok’s own interface defaulted to putting in the current date while also not making crystal clear to users why it needed that information and what could result. A number of users had trouble getting the date to change, giving the system the impression that they were zero years old and resulting in the deletion of their accounts and losing their videos. Read the rest

For some reason, Amazon won't ship these super-inexpensive Sylvania LED bulbs to California. I was able to get a box of 24 by having it delivered out of the state and picking it up on a road trip. They're excellent bulbs, and the soft-white style is nice and warm, the way I like my illumination. I haven't seen them at a lower price than this. Read the rest

The first line of Jon Lee Anderson's long-awaited profile of Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro in the New Yorker is a real killer. “The authoritarian leaders taking power around the world share a vocabulary of intolerance, insult, and menace...”As Anderson writes, in Bolsonaro's Brazil--and around the world--“A budding authoritarian borrows from the Trump playbook.”Excerpt:Like many autocrats, Bolsonaro came to power with a suddenness that alarmed the élites. He had run a low-budget campaign, consisting mostly of a social-media effort overseen by his son Carlos. At events with supporters, he posed for selfies making a gesture as if he were shooting a machine gun. He promised to “reconstruct the country”—and to return power to a political right that had been in eclipse for decades. In the inaugural ceremony, he vowed to “rescue the family, respect religions and our Judeo-Christian tradition, combat gender ideology, conserving our values.”Afterward, Bolsonaro received a procession of foreign dignitaries, and as they stepped up to pay their respects the crowd greeted them with cheers or boos. The Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán got perfunctory applause; the bolsonaristas seemed not to know who he was. The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is fending off charges of fraud and bribery, got a riotous cheer. Bolivia’s President, Evo Morales, the only left-wing leader to attend, was subjected to shouts of “Get out, communist,” and “índio de merda”—“fucking Indian.”Despite Bolsonaro’s divisive rhetoric, American conservatives were enthusiastic about his Presidency. He had expressed leeriness of China and hostility toward socialists in Cuba and Venezuela; he promised to move Brazil’s Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Read the rest

Sarah Sanders: "They literally accused the President of the United States of being an agent for a foreign government. That's equivalent to treason. Thats punishable by death in this country." pic.twitter.com/nz5fsKTW7F— The Hill (@thehill) March 25, 2019Emboldened by her bosses non-exoneration, Sarah Sanders seems to use lies to call for the death of her enemies. Read the rest

What are they hiding?

Made from laser-etched titanium, Apple's new credit card appears to use the company's San Francisco typeface, not Silian Rail.The Verge:Daily cash back of 2% on purchases with external vendors; and 3% cash back on purchases from Apple ... APR rates start at 13.24 percent, up to 24.24 percent.Also announced today was Apple Arcade, the company's new game service. The name's perfectly sweet; it's great that games are getting a place of their own outside the App Store, which is a terrible place to find them. Hopefully the payment incentives will change too to keep it out of the attention casino. All the games, at least at launch, are exclusive, with Apple reportedly investing directly (!) in development costs. Read the rest

A 19-year-old Enterprise Rent-A-Car employee from Missouri decided to unwittingly dose his c0-workers with LSD because they had "negative energy." The employees were hospitalized and the young man was arrested. He should have Timothy Leary's "Two Commandments for the Molecular Age" from his book The Politics of Ecstasy (1968):Thou shalt not alter the consciousness of thy fellow manThou shalt not prevent thy fellow man from altering his own consciousness.Image: Shamanska Kate/Shutterstock Read the rest

In the Savvy Pscychologist, clinician Ellen Hendriksen of Boston University’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, looks at the profound psychological and physiological impacts of feeling awe, whether it comes from looking up at the expansive night sky or hearing an incredible musical performance. She reflects on scientific evidence that awe makes us "feel small" and humble, nicer, and expands our worldview, all of which seem like fairly obvious effects. But Hendriksen also points to a recent curious study published in the journal Emotion showing that "awe is linked to decreased inflammation." The University of Toronto researchers had examined whether amusement, compassion, contentment, joy, love, pride, and awe resulted in "lower levels of a marker of inflammation called interleukin-6, or IL-6, which has been linked to diseases as diverse as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and diabetes." From the Savvy Psychologist:Why on earth might standing on a mountaintop connect with our levels of inflammation? One hypothesis is that proinflammatory cytokines like IL-6 lead to physical and social withdrawal—curling up in your den and resting speeds recovery from illness or injury more quickly than pushing through. By contrast, awe triggers the opposite: an urge to explore and experience more. It’s unclear whether awe reduces inflammation or reduced inflammation makes us seek out awe, but either way, the two seem to be linked."Awe: The Most Incredible Emotion and Its Spectacular Effects"Here's the scientific study: "Positive affect and markers of inflammation: discrete positive emotions predict lower levels of inflammatory cytokines" (Emotion) Read the rest

Rob Landes shows how to play the Mario theme as in noob, amateur, hardcore, and elite levels. Read the rest

This new 859 piece LEGO Pop-Up Book is at the top of my must-have LEGO list.This new for 2019 set comes complete with pieces to build two functional pop-up scenes from two different fairy tales.Little Red Riding Hood, and Jack and the Beanstalk associated minifigs are also included in this one of a kind LEGO set.LEGO Ideas 21315 Pop-up Book Building Kit , New 2019 (859 Piece) via Amazon Read the rest