Boing Boing

Itrack and Protrack are commercial devices for tracking fleets of commercial vehicles; they can be configured to allow for remote killswitching of the cars' engines, presumably as a theft-prevention measure.A hacker going by L&M used the fact that the Android apps for interacting with Itrack and Protrack have the same default password ("123456") that users are not forced to change to take control of thousands of cars equipped with the devices. L&M used a credential stuffing attack: using email addresses gleaned from massive breaches to gain access by repeatedly trying different email/password combinations.Once penetrated, the apps yield up great quantities of information on the compromised users and their vehicles: "name and model of the GPS tracking devices they use, the devices’ unique ID numbers (technically known as an IMEI number); usernames, real names, phone numbers, email addresses, and physical addresses."L&M was able to track the compromised vehicles in realtime, and they say they can also immobilize many of them ("I can absolutely make a big traffic problem all over the world. I have fully [sic] control hundred of thousands of vehicles, and by one touch, I can stop these vehicles engines.")The vulnerabilities reflect a lackadasical approach to security that we see across multiple industries: not only do the companies allow users to initialize their products without changing the default password, they compound this error by not detecting and preventing credential stuffing attacks. This negligence puts their users' property -- and lives -- at risk.Both Itrack and Protrack are now asking their users to change their default passwords. Read the rest

Back in 2017, Andrea wrote about Plane Industries gorgeous chairs made from the cowling of the (now notorious) Boeing 737's jets; now, the company has followed up with a smaller, more practical chair, this one fashioned from a BAe-146's jet cowling, still featuring the company's "high gloss shell and dark Alcantara interior." (Thanks, Benjamin!) Read the rest

If you're an American 65 or older, there's a 20% chance that you're working or looking for work (the chance jumps to 53% if you attained an undergrad or more advanced degree): that's double the rate in 1985. The last time it was this high was 57 years ago, in 1962.Americans are staying in work longer because the market-based 401(k) pensions that replaced defined-benefit pensions, combined with skyrocketing rents and healthcare costs, on top of higher level of debts to support your kids' education, rents, etc, have left older people with insufficient savings to survive their retirement.To make matters worse, the older Americans who most need additional income beyond retirement age are the least likely to be in work, because they lack the postsecondary degrees that would let them compete with their better-educated peers for jobs.The retirement math is ugly, even for those who are seemingly well-off. Teresa Ghilarducci, an economics professor at the New School for Social Research, has estimated that Social Security replaces about 40% to 50% of one's pre-retirement income. The general thinking is that people need around 80% of pre-retirement income to get by after they stop working. (Online retirement calculators can give a rough sense for what you need to save, and earn on savings, to get there.)The typical worker in the bottom 50% of the income distribution, earning less than $40,000 a year, has no retirement savings. Those in the middle 40% of income distribution, earning from $40,000 to $115,000, have a median amount of $60,000 saved, according to Ms. Read the rest

Mercedes has asked a court to verify that a commercial photo of one of its cars driving down a street in Detroit does not violate the copyright of the artists who painted a public mural visible in the background.The case comes after the mural artists -- Daniel Bombardier, James “Dabls” Lewis, Jeff Soto, and Maxx Gramajo -- made public statements accusing Mercedes of violating their copyrights a year after the photo's initial publication. Mercedes is seeking to affirm that photos that capture incidental images of public artworks are fair use (but Mercedes is not asking the court to rule on more traditional copyright infringement theories, such as whether commercial reproductions of a public artwork that feature the artwork are fair use).They say "hard cases make bad laws" and this is one of those cases. My natural inclination is to side with the Davids (the mural artists), not the Goliath (Mercedes), but if Mercedes is found to be infringing, that sets a precedent that can be wielded against everyone, not just giant corporations (who will always be able to afford lawyers to argue their case). I used to live on a street that backed onto a graffiti alley in San Francisco: should I be allowed to create an author photo of me standing on my fire-escape with the murals in the background without tracking down the street artists who made them? How about a news photographer who captures an image of a cop beating up a protester in a park that features a copyrighted sculpture? Read the rest

Researchers from KU Leuven have published a paper showing how they can create a 40cm x 40cm "patch" that fools a convoluted neural network classifier that is otherwise a good tool for identifying humans into thinking that a person is not a person -- something that could be used to defeat AI-based security camera systems. They theorize that the could just print the patch on a t-shirt and get the same result.The researchers' key point is that the training data for classifiers consists of humans who aren't trying to fool it -- that is, the training is non-adversarial -- while the applications for these systems are often adversarial (such as being used to evaluate security camera footage whose subjects might be trying to defeat the algorithm). It's like designing a lock always unlocks when you use the key -- but not testing to see if it unlocks if you don't have the key, too.The attack can reliably defeat YOLOv2, a popular machine-learning classifier, and they hypothesize that it could be applied to other classifiers as well.I've been writing about these adversarial examples for years, and universally, they represent devastating attacks on otherwise extremely effective classifiers. It's an important lesson about the difference between adversarial and non-adversarial design: the efficacy of a non-adversarial system is no guarantee of adversarial efficacy. In this paper, we presented a system to generate adversarial patches for person detectors that can be printed out andused in the real-world. We did this by optimising an image to minimise different probabilities related to the appearance of a person in the output of the detector. Read the rest

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control report today that the number of measles cases nationwide stands at 695. This is the highest total since the year 2000.Measles are a vaccine-preventable disease.Today, the U.S. secretary of Health and Human services spoke out for the first time on the U.S. measles outbreak, and said in a statement, “Vaccines are a safe, highly effective public health solution that can prevent this disease." In the CDC’s statement on measles outbreaks and the importance of vaccines, released today by HHS Secretary Alex Azar:“The United States is seeing a resurgence of measles, a disease that had once been effectively eliminated from our country. And today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed that ongoing measles outbreaks in 22 states has led to the highest number of cases reported nationwide since the disease was declared eliminated in this country in 2000. Measles is not a harmless childhood illness, but a highly contagious, potentially life-threatening disease. We have the ability to safely protect our children and our communities. Vaccines are a safe, highly effective public health solution that can prevent this disease. The measles vaccines are among the most extensively studied medical products we have, and their safety has been firmly established over many years in some of the largest vaccine studies ever undertaken."With a safe and effective vaccine that protects against measles, the suffering we are seeing is avoidable. The CDC is ready to support public health departments in monitoring and responding to outbreaks, and will continue to receive, review, and compile the latest reports of measles cases. Read the rest

$5 billion is about one month's revenue for Facebook.

Rudy Giuliani: “nothing wrong with taking information from Russians.”

Elon Musk's electric car company Tesla lost $700 million in 2019's first quarter, and said on an earnings call today it will become profitable in the third quarter as it cut costs and improves delivery “after facing issues ramping up shipments outside the United States.”Elon Musk said on today's Tesla's earnings conference call, 'I would prefer we were private, but that ship has sailed.' TESLA ELON MUSK SAYS "I WOULD PREFER WE WERE PRIVATE, BUT THAT SHIP HAS SAILED"- CONF CALL— Ben Klayman (@benklayman) April 24, 2019From Reuters: Read the rest

Police report finding 7 cigarette butts in the charred ashes.

Spread The Vote is a non-profit that works to help educate and empower voters on the voting and political process. Boing Boing invited the group to help everyone understand how primary elections work, and how you can participate in them if you are an eligible U.S. voter. Sign up for their state-specific voter education packages, which are really an amazing educational resource. —Xeni JardinUNDERSTANDING PRIMARY ELECTIONS,from SPREAD THE VOTE.When most voters think of election day, they likely imagine a general election where they vote to determine which candidate on the ballot will win the position of elected office. However, voters may be less familiar with primary elections. This may explain, in part, why voter turnout is so different for general and primary elections. That’s where Spread The Vote comes in. We want every eligible voter to understand and participate in primary elections because they are such an important element of our democracy. DID YOU KNOW...1. Turnout in primaries is notoriously low: in the 2016 presidential race, just over 28% of eligible voters voted in a Republican and Democratic presidential primary election.This number is shocking compared to the nearly 60% of Americans who were eligible to vote that turned out for the general election. Even though general elections get a lot of attention, primary elections are just as important and are a significant opportunity to make your voice heard.2. Primary elections, or primaries, are elections where voters choose who will be on the ballot for each specific office in the general election. Read the rest

Our friends at Futility Closet came upon this cruel form of punishment, called the finger pillory:Here’s a forgotten punishment. In the 17th century, in return for a minor offense such as not attending to a sermon, a wrongdoer might be required to place his finger into an L-shaped hole over which a block was fastened to keep the knuckle bent. “[T]he finger was confined, and it will easily be seen that it could not be withdrawn until the pillory was opened,” writes William Andrews in Medieval Punishments (1898). “If the offender were held long in this posture, the punishment must have been extremely painful.”In his 1686 history of Staffordshire, Robert Plot recalls a “finger-Stocks” “made for punishment of the disorders, that sometimes attend feasting at Christmas time.” Into this “the Lord of misrule, used formerly to put the fingers of all such persons as committed misdemeanors, or broke such rules, as by consent were agreed on for the time of keeping Christmas, among servants and others of promiscuous quality.” Read the rest

Tom the Dancing Bug, IN WHICH the Great and Powerful Special Counsel of OZ is revealed as... a man behind a curtain.

In a pioneering study, scientists have demonstrated that an implanted brain-computer interface (above) coupled with deep-learning algorithms can translate thought into computerized speech. From Scientific American:(University of California, San Francisco neurosurgeon Edward Chang) emphasized that his approach cannot be used to read someone’s mind—only to translate words the person wants to say into audible sounds....Chang and his colleagues devised a two-step method for translating thoughts into speech. First, in tests with epilepsy patients whose neural activity was being measured with electrodes on the surface of their brain, the researchers recorded signals from brain areas that control the tongue, lips and throat muscles. Later, using deep-learning computer algorithms trained on naturally spoken words, they translated those movements into audible sentences....The researchers asked native English speakers on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing marketplace to transcribe the sentences they heard. The listeners accurately heard the sentences 43 percent of the time when given a set of 25 possible words to choose from, and 21 percent of the time when given 50 words, the study found.Although the accuracy rate remains low, it would be good enough to make a meaningful difference to a “locked-in” person, who is almost completely paralyzed and unable to speak, the researchers say."Scientists Take a Step Toward Decoding Thoughts" (SciAm)"Speech synthesis from neural decoding of spoken sentences" (Nature) Read the rest

The Word of the Day is a daily guessing game in Slack. It's easy enough to play. Just go there and enter words. If you are the first to match the secret word of the day, you win $1,000. The most recent winner was Erika Y. who correctly guessed "inscrutable."FAQHow and when will I get paid?We will DM you on Slack for your Venmo handle, and you’ll get paid within 24 hours of winning.How do you know who said the first correct word?We built a slack bot to monitor the channel and notify everyone when someone wins.What happens if no one gets the word right?The slackbot will announce what the word was at 11:59PM EST. No one will get paid, and the $1000 will not roll over to the next day.How many guesses do I get?You can guess as many times as you want, but only in one word increments. Read the rest

Politico shares an investigation into why the GDPR's lead regulator Ireland has failed to bring a single enforcement action against the big tech companies it is supposed to watchdog.Politico:Last May, Europe imposed new data privacy guidelines that carry the hopes of hundreds of millions of people around the world — including in the United States — to rein in abuses by big tech companies.Almost a year later, it’s apparent that the new rules have a significant loophole: The designated lead regulator — the tiny nation of Ireland — has yet to bring an enforcement action against a big tech firm.That’s not entirely surprising. Despite its vows to beef up its threadbare regulatory apparatus, Ireland has a long history of catering to the very companies it is supposed to oversee, having wooed top Silicon Valley firms to the Emerald Isle with promises of low taxes, open access to top officials, and help securing funds to build glittering new headquarters.Now, data-privacy experts and regulators in other countries alike are questioning Ireland’s commitment to policing imminent privacy concerns like Facebook’s reintroduction of facial recognition software and data sharing with its recently purchased subsidiary WhatsApp, and Google’s sharing of information across its burgeoning number of platforms.(Thanks, Antoin!) Read the rest

Here's a woman who explained how she obtained a second citizenship. She already has a US citizenship and purchased a second citizenship to St. Kitts and Nevis. She hired a lawyer who lives in St. Kitts, took a physical exam, supplied college transcripts, her Social Security number, and a lot of other information. The fee was $150,000 not including legal fees and other fees. It took about 8 months for the citizenship, and another 4 months to get a passport for St. Kitts and Nevis. Read the rest

From the Muppet Wiki:Bernie und Ert was a recurring sketch on the show created by Attik Kargar, who performed the puppets and supplied the voice of Bernie. Bernie and Ert are an obscene parody of Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street, and especially as re-dubbed on Sesamstrasse. The pair are a same-sex couple, with no nose and one eye each. Each sketch focused on such topics as crime, drug abuse (Bernie is a cocaine addict), and S&M practices. In February 2003, Bernie and Ert were dropped from the series because of legal concerns; however, older episodes circulate on the Internet. The characters lived on and appeared in another recurring sketch called Popo Club in where they wear S&M gear and go by the names Unknown No. 1 and Unknown No. 2. These versions of the characters later appeared in the German adult puppet series Eye TV – Der durchgeknallte Puppensender and two spin-off web series.(via r/ObscureMedia) Read the rest

William Zabka and Ralph Macchio are back in season two of Youtube's Cobra Kai.I adore this wonderful buffet of Gen-X nostalgia. As a former Angeleno who grew up in the same era Danny and Johnny inhabit everything about this show makes me happy.I watched the first 6 episodes last night and am sure I'll have finished the season by dinner tonight. Read the rest

The Ramones promoting "Ramones Mania (The Best Of 1976-1988)" on "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee" in 1988. "Who writes these songs, 'I Wanna Be Sedated' and 'Teenage Lobotomy?' Do you guys write them? Can you give me the lyrics to 'Teenage Lobotomy?" Just talk them..." Read the rest

Republican Congressman Steve King was removed from committees and publicly rebuked by his own party after his history of racist remarks flowered into open white supremacy. The experience gave him insight into Jesus's crucifixion."For all that I've been through -- and it seems even strange for me to say it -- but I am at a certain peace, and it is because of a lot of prayers for me. And when I have to step down to the floor of the House of Representatives, and look up at those 400-and-some accusers, you know we just passed through Easter and Christ's passion, and I have better insight into what He went through for us partly because of that experience."He knows who the true believers are; they believe in him.Update: Christopher Matias points out that some outlets are falsely suggesting King was censured by congress; it did not go that far.Washington Post and NY Mag saying Steve King was censured. He was never censured. pic.twitter.com/NtttWMDcWd— Christopher Mathias (@letsgomathias) April 24, 2019 Read the rest

In spring 2016, barely weeks before GamerGate, 4chan trolls began masquerading as feminist women of color online. The targets were not fooled, obviously, and Shafiqah Hudson and others launched an education campaign against it. But conservative pundits were eager to play along, out of stupidity or malice, laundering the lies into their version of reality and engaging a supply chain of far-right bullshit that would soon be exploited at scale.Shafiqah Hudson remembers the moment she realized something was off. She saw a tweet from an account she had never seen before: “#EndFathersDay because I’m tired of all these white women stealing our good black mens.” Something about the grammar—not to mention the idea that black women wanted to abolish Father’s Day because of interracial dating—just felt too cartoonish to be real.... Hudson found herself horrified by how easily people on social media could be lured into believing a stereotype of black women. While she watched a credulous rage build online, not just against these fake Twitter accounts but against the black feminists she called friends, her own anger grew as well: “No one is going to come into my house and start breaking shit,” she said.The mockery #EndFathersDay made of an increasingly influential online feminist movement became predictable catnip to conservatives. Tucker Carlson devoted a segment to it. Ashe Schow in the Washington Examiner called it the latest “drivel” “from the feminist outrage machine.” Dan McLaughlin tweeted that the hashtag was “a neat illustration of the cultural trajectory of progressivism.” “#EndFathersDay Because it’s really just Second Caregiver of Unspecified Gender Identity Day, you cisnormative a**holes,” mocked Ben Shapiro. Read the rest

Dillon Cassidy and Kelly Kraft redubbed the classic Don Bluth animated feature "The Land Before Time" with "Scottish" voices. The whole movie! Enjoy it while it lasts. [via]Narrator - Trumane AlstonBryce - Spencer HawkCera - Michelle DaveyOld Rooter - Denver CollinsMother - Chris HanleyDucky - Liz AndersonPetri - Taylor JonesProduced by Dillon CassidyEdited by Kelly Kraft Read the rest

40 years ago, antitrust law put strict limits on mergers and acquisitions, but since the Reagan era, these firewalls have been dismantled, and now the biggest companies grow primarily by snapping up nascent competitors and merging with rivals; Google is a poster-child for this, having only ever created two successful products in-house (search and Gmail), with all other growth coming from acquisitions and mergers.When companies grow this way, they experience "diseconomies of scale" -- dysfunctions brought on by their inability to integrate the acquired companies into their culture and technology. Yahoo (more than Google) is the obvious poster-child for these diseconomies, a company that will go down in history as a voracious acquirer and murderer of the best technology startups of a generation (Flickr, Delicious, etc etc etc).One Google's most prominent acquisitions is the Internet of Things company Nest, whose "smart thermostats" were a beachhead for the company's "ecosystem" -- a group of surveillance devices and controllers that were bound to the Nest by DRM, meaning that independent security researchers who audited these actuators and sensors faced potential criminal and civil liability.This limited scrutiny, plus Nest's inability to integrate with Google's security systems, has proven to be a uniquely toxic mix. Today, for as little as $20, you can buy "credential stuffing" software that will take the massive dumps of billions of passwords that have accumulated over the years and try them on Nest devices that are discoverable on the internet. Once a working username/password combo is hit, the system is yours: you can listen in and watch the owner, and play audio through the devices' speakers (terrorizing toddlers with pornography on their baby monitors is an intruder's favorite), etc. Read the rest

Fran Blanche explains "the greatest effect ever created" in the recording studio: plate echo. Get out your good headphones and prepare to experience the awesome sound of plate echo through this 1980 vintage Ecoplate II! Thanks for watching and enjoy! Read the rest

For musicians, clubgoers or anyone in the thick of a loud environment, earplugs aren't just an option. If you plan on keeping your hearing through sustained exposure to levels over 85 decibels (roughly the sound of a blender), they're a must.The good news is, most earplugs will muffle the sound. The bad news is, that's exactly how it sounds: muffled. If you love music as much as you love your ears, Vibes Hi-Fidelity Earplugs are a high-tech alternative.Thanks to specially designed tubes in the casing, Vibes can filter sound selectively, lowering the volume by 22 dB across frequencies while keeping (and in some cases enhancing) clarity. They're made to be discreet, with a nearly invisible profile and three interchangeable, washable tips to fit any ear size. And they've got staying power in any environment too, thanks to a detachable cord that clips onto each earplug.Right now, you can pick up a pair of Vibes Hi-Fidelity Earplugs with Attachable Cord for $19.99 - a full 25% off the list price. Read the rest

It could happen to you.A new report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) says online theft, fraud, and exploitation caused losses of $2.7 billion dollars worldwide in 2018. This is up from $1.4 billion in 2017.[ Here's the full FBI report in PDF. ]“The 2018 report shows how prevalent these crimes are. It also shows that the financial toll is substantial and a victim can be anyone who uses a connected device.” said IC3 chief Donna Gregory in today's announcement.The FBI's advice to any unlucky person who realizes they have been scammed online?To improve the chances of a successful recovery, it is imperative that victims contact their bank immediately upon discovering a fraudulent transaction as well as report the crime to the IC3.From the FBI's report:In its annual Internet Crime Report, the FBI reports the IC3 received 351,936 complaints in 2018—an average of more than 900 every day. The most frequently reported complaints were for non-payment/non-delivery scams, extortion, and personal data breaches. The most financially costly complaints involved business email compromise, romance or confidence fraud, and investment scams, which can include Ponzi and pyramid schemes.Reports came in from every U.S. state and territory and involved victims of every age. There was a concentration of victims and financial losses, however, among individuals over the age of 50.“The 2018 report shows how prevalent these crimes are,” said Donna Gregory, chief of the IC3. “It also shows that the financial toll is substantial and a victim can be anyone who uses a connected device. Read the rest

The bot network repeatedly denounced the Mueller report as a 'RussiaGate hoax.'

“Big friendly potato boy thoroughly examining my canoe.”Another gem from the wonderful IMGURian SeeThroughCanoe, who sells these personal watercraft.“This overly friendly manatee spent a really long time thoroughly checking out the canoe and the camera attached to the bottom of it,” he says.Big friendly potato boy thoroughly examining my canoe Read the rest

I have a small collection of How and Why Wonder Books that were published in the 1960s and 1970s. The interior and cover art is great. According to Wikipedia, there were 74 titles in this series of illustrated kids science and nature books. Flickr user X Ray Delta One uploaded 10 covers from the series. Read the rest

Health officials say potential sites include UCLA, LAX

Rosa Golijan is a privacy engineer at Google. She snapped this photo of a seatback video display in a Japanese taxicab. The text says: This taxi tablet is using a face recognition system with an image received by the tablet's front camera. The image data is used to estimate gender in order to deliver the most optimized content. The gender estimation runs once at the beginning of the advertisement program and the image data is discarded immediately after the estimation processing. Neither the tablet nor the server records the data.🤨 pic.twitter.com/uXWOUXz25S— Rosa Golijan (@rosa) April 20, 2019 Read the rest

"Run, Daniel, run!"(via /u/TheNatureLover) Read the rest

GB Studio' looks like a cool way to quickly build retro-games using visual scripting. You can play the games on a mobile phone, a Raspberry Pi, Itch.io, the web, or even a Gameboy. It's free and runs on OS X. Read the rest

Tatsunori Iwamura, 61, professor of pharmaceutical sciences at Japan's Matsuyama University, was busted for teaching his students how to make MDMA (aka Molly/Ecstasy) and 5F-QUPIC, a cannabinoid agonist. At some point, Iwamura had a license to manufacture illegal drugs for academic purposes but it had expired. From The Guardian:Local drug enforcement authorities believe 11 students produced the drug (MDMA) under Iwamura’s instruction. Four students, along with an assistant professor, have also been referred to prosecutors, Kyodo said.The university said it would discipline Iwamura and the assistant professor once the investigation had ended.“We sincerely apologise for causing serious concern to students and their parents,” said Tatsuya Mizogami, the university’s president, according to Kyodo. Read the rest

Architecture hacker/maker Ben Uyeda of HomeMadeModern designed and built his house out of shipping containers in the high desert of Joshua Tree, California. And he documented the process in fascinating detail.How to Build A Shipping Container House (YouTube) Read the rest

"Your Face is Your Boarding Pass" is the headline from a jetBlue press release from November 15, 2018. "JetBlue continues to lead the industry as the first domestic airline to launch a fully-integrated biometric self-boarding gate for international flights..." Journalist MacKenzie Fegan had first-hand (first-face?) experience with the new procedure, and when she asked jetBlue about it on Twitter, the extraordinary correspondence resulted:I just boarded an international @JetBlue flight. Instead of scanning my boarding pass or handing over my passport, I looked into a camera before being allowed down the jet bridge. Did facial recognition replace boarding passes, unbeknownst to me? Did I consent to this?— MacKenzie Fegan (@mackenzief) April 17, 2019You're able to opt out of this procedure, MacKenzie. Sorry if this made you feel uncomfortable.— JetBlue Airways (@JetBlue) April 17, 2019Follow up question. Presumably these facial recognition scanners are matching my image to something in order to verify my identity. How does @JetBlue know what I look like?— MacKenzie Fegan (@mackenzief) April 17, 2019The information is provided by the United States Department of Homeland Security from existing holdings.— JetBlue Airways (@JetBlue) April 17, 2019So to be clear, the government provided my biometric data to a privately held company? Did I consent to this? How long is my data held by @JetBlue? And even if I opt out at the scanners...you already have my information, correct?— MacKenzie Fegan (@mackenzief) April 17, 2019We should clarify, these photos aren't provided to us, but are securely transmitted to the Customs and Border Protection database. Read the rest

Matt Carthy is a Sinn Fein MEP from Eire; he's standing for re-election in the upcoming EU elections and has had fliers prepared with his headshot.Carthy says that he noticed that his laptop battery seemed to be draining of its own accord. He solved the mystery when he realized "the kids have been using my election leaflets to get through the facial recognition lock..."So, I was wondering why the battery on my laptop was running down every time I left it at home.Turns out the kids have been using my election leaflets to get through the facial recognition lock...I’m not sure whether to be proud by the wit or concerned by the sneakiness? pic.twitter.com/rtDsuNRB8B— Matt Carthy MEP (@mattcarthy) April 23, 2019 Read the rest

In Anchorage, Alaska anyone with a public library card can visit the Alaska Resources Library and Information Services library and check out a taxidermy ring-necked pheasant, black rockfish, or hundreds of other mounted animals, skulls, and furs. From Smithsonian:While the majority of users are local teachers, who incorporate the pieces into their lectures and lesson plans, and biologists and researchers using items for studying, non-educators are also known to check out pieces too.“We have a snowy owl that has been used on several occasions as a decoration for a Harry Potter-themed party,” Rozen says. And filmmakers reportedly used a number of items during the making of the 2013 movie The Frozen Ground to design the basement lair where the film’s villain would keep hostages captive. Just like with library books, ARLIS expects that lendees take good care of any items checked out.Interestingly, ARLIS’s existence is largely known by word of mouth, both for patrons and locals who want to donate a piece of realia to the collection. The vast majority came from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game with a lesser amount from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, however the library does also take donations from the public.“Earlier today someone called me and offered us a raven that he found in the wild that had been killed,” she says. “Ravens are frequently requested, even by English students doing presentations on Edgar Allan Poe."This Library in Anchorage Lends Out Taxidermic Specimens" by Jennifer Nalewicki (Smithsonian)Learn more in my post from 2015: "Library where you can check out dead animals" Read the rest

Level Scapes' desktop microterrariums are matchbox-sized, stackable sealed boxes with miniature ferns and mosses that only require water and sunshine; they're $39 for a set of six (25% of with the coupon code yankodesign). (via Yanko Design) Read the rest

Parking enforcement officers who mark car tires with chalk are guilty of violating the 4th Amendment, according to a new ruling by a federal appeals court. The three-judge panel likened the practice to that of police attaching a GPS device to a car without the driver's consent.Orin Kerr, a law professor at the University of Southern California, offered his thoughts about the ruling on Twitter:Thread by @OrinKerr: "Fascinating CA6 opinion today holding that chalking a tire for parking enforcement -- to see if the car had been there a while in violation […]" #NImage: Shutterstock/Alex Millauer Read the rest

Back in September 2018, the state of New York ordered Charter to leave: the company had made a bunch of promises about investing in high-speed broadband for New Yorkers as a condition of approval for its acquisition of Time Warner Cable, and then it lied like crazy, defrauding the state and attracting a $172.4M penalty (the largest penalty ever paid by a US ISP); since then, the company has been begging New York state to commute its death sentence and give it another chance.Even as it was promising that it would do better, Charter spent all of 2018 systematically underinvesting in its network while raising prices and returning massive windfalls to its investors -- all tax-free, thanks to Trump's tax plan, and all permitted, thanks to the FCC's commitment to "self-policing" by the telcoms industry.Now, for some fucking reason, the state of New York has given Charter a reprieve. The company will continue to operate in New York State, will not have to divest itself of Time-Warner Cable, and will have to cough up an additional $12m, half of which can be distributed in grants to Charter's rivals to help them build out competing services. Charter is eligible to bid for the other $6m, to defray the cost of additional broadband rollouts.Charter also promises, for realsies this time, that it will bring high-speed broadband to 145,000 households in New York. The settlement does not include any admission of wrongdoing by Charter.New York's Public Service Commission will open a 60 day notice-and-comment proceeding soon, after which it will have the option to approve or strike down the deal. Read the rest

From the BBC's "Earth from Space" series. Read the rest

Behold The Pasta PC, a computer that has a nutrition label in addition to a spec sheet, because he used sheets of pasta as the case. It works, but between the build (consider the thermals) and the antiquity of the Atom-based computer he sacrificed to make it, it's pretty hinky. [via MeFi]My wife said something one day joking about making a PC out of Pasta... Never joke with me on such things because I may just do it... and do it I have. Behold... The LASAGNA PC V.1 Clickbait you say?! NAY! This is the real deal. The first ever crazy PC build on this Channel, and the first ever Pasta PC in the world. You're welcome.Beautiful as it is, I'll admit that I'm slightly disappointed he didn't actually bake a PC into a lasagne. You could get away with what, about 160° without melting stuff on the board? Tasty. Read the rest

Greta Thunberg is the Swedish teenager whose climate change school-strike spread around the world, leading to her addressing the COP24 conference, the World Economic Forum, and many other forums where she has distinguished herself with her brilliant oratory and leadership. In an interview with Great Big Planet, Thunberg attributes her ability to focus on climate change despite the crushing terror and the enormous forces arrayed against her on her autism, saying, "I think if I wouldn’t have had Asperger's I don’t think I would have started the school strike, I don’t think I would’ve cared about the climate at all… That allowed me to focus on one thing for a very long time." (Image: Anders Hellberg, CC-BY) (via Kottke) Read the rest

One thing that immediately struck me in Lauren Gambino's excellent analysis of the Democratic nomination campaigns in The Guardian: a quote from GOP never-Trump political consultant Rick Wilson, who counseled Democrats not to select Bernie Sanders and make the election about actual policies, "Democrats have two choices: make this a referendum on Donald Trump or lose. That’s it. There are no other options."I think every Democrat and Democratic voter loves it when lifelong Republican grandees offer advice on how to win elections, but this is especially rich given that this is exactly the strategy that Republicans used to get their base to vote against Trump during the 2016 primaries and it failed spectacularly.There is plenty to dislike about Trump, to be sure, but if there's one thing we've learned from the 2018 midterms -- the incredible outpouring of grassroots support, votes and small-money donations for progressive candidates (including longshots like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who unseated an establishment Democrat who thought running against Trump, rather than for a better future, would be enough), it's that the American people actually care about policies. They want reform. The much-vaunted polarization is a fiction of the political classes, while there is national, bipartisan consensus on issues of substance, from universal health-care to free tuition to Net Neutrality. These are all policies that progressive candidates support, and policies that Trump will lose debates on.Candidates like Bernie Sanders (and Elizabeth Warren) want to make the 2020 election a referendum on broadly popular progressive policies that will deliver shared prosperity and a better quality of life to hundreds of millions of Americans -- who are smart enough to understand that and vote for it. Read the rest

Douglas Preston's search for a boyhood friend led to a dark discovery. He fled from any hint of conflict, usually with a wiseass comment flung over his shoulder, and he could outrun any goofus who took up the chase. I couldn't begin to fathom the trajectory that brought him from an upper-upper-middle-class home in Wellesley to a cramped boarding house in New Jersey. Details of his life came flickering back into my memory: Petey singing songs to his hamster Gertrude; Petey cradling his dying dog after she'd been hit by a car, even though she was bleeding and peeing all over him; Petey writing silly stories about a magical valley where the animals talked like people; Petey and I burying a treasure.It's better to know, because you never know who might not. Read the rest

An overwhelming vote in the European Parliament last week means that the EU will merge a grab bag of existing biometric databases to create the Common Identity Repository (CIR), with biometric data on 350,000,000 people (both EU- and non-EU persons) that will be available for use by all EU police and border authorities.The database contains identity information (passports, biographical info like name and date of birth) linked to biometric identifiers (face scans, fingerprints).This will be the third largest identity repository in the world, behind the Chinese state's internal surveillance system and India's Aadhar system.The EU claims that the safeguards on CIR will be sufficient to protect its subjects' privacy.The vote passed just weeks before an EU election that is expected to deliver new powers to authoritarian, xenophobic ultra-nationalist parties, who have also been surging at the national level, and whose officials will be able to use the database to track and target migrants, people accused of crimes, etc. Its primary role will be to simplify the jobs of EU border and law enforcement officers who will be able to search a unified system much faster, rather than search through separate databases individually."The systems covered by the new rules would include the Schengen Information System, Eurodac, the Visa Information System (VIS) and three new systems: the European Criminal Records System for Third Country Nationals (ECRIS-TCN), the Entry/Exit System (EES) and the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS)," EU officials said last week.EU votes to create gigantic biometrics database[Catalin Cimpanu/Zdnet](via /. Read the rest

There are so many major annoyances that I fear we don't give the minor ones enough attention. [via] Read the rest