Boing Boing

TossingBot is a robot that teaches itself how to pick up and toss objects with great accuracy. Eventually, the robot -- designed by researchers from Google, Princeton, Columbia, and MIT -- could lead to more efficient pick-and-place (grab-and-toss?) robots for factory automation, debris clearing at disaster sites, or perhaps package delivery. Right now though, the TossingBot is quite good at throwing bananas into bins. From IEEE Spectrum:Part of what makes TossingBot so useful is that the tossing technique significantly decreases the time that the robot spends on the “place” part of a pick-and-place task. Rather than spending time putting an object down, objects are instead (as the researchers put it) “immediately passed to Newton,” and the toss also means that the robot’s effective reach is significantly longer than its physical workspace....The interesting bit of TossingBot itself is a deep neural network that starts with a depth image of objects in a bin, and goes all the way through from successful grasp to parameters for the throw itself. Since the throwing of an object (especially an unbalanced object) depends heavily on how it’s being held, grasping and throwing are learned at the same time. By measuring whether a grasp is successful by whether a throw is successful, TossingBot learns to favor grasps that result in accurate throws. As you can see from the video, the learning process itself is fairly clever, and the robot can be mostly just left alone to figure things out for itself, managing 10,000 grasp and throw attempts in 14 hours of training time. Read the rest

Sgaawaay K'uuna, or Edge of the Knife, is the first feature film to portray the Haida – a group of people from Haida Gwaii, aka the Queen Charlotte Islands (off the west coast of Canada's British Columbia). It's also the first film in which the characters speak entirely in Haida, a language which only 20 people in the world speak fluently (even though the Haida population is a few thousand, according to The Guardian). The actors had to learn the language in order to understand their lines.Via The Guardian:The film, set on Haida Gwaii in the 19th century, is based on an old Haida myth about a man who survives an accident at sea, only to become so weakened that he is taken over by supernatural beings.It is part of a wider push to preserve the Haida language, including a new dictionary and recordings of local voices.Edenshaw said Haida uses a lot of “guttural sounds and glottal stops” and that actors needed to learn it because it differs from English, let alone other languages: “When you upspeak to denote a question in English, that doesn’t exist in Haida. There is an upspeak, but the questioning portion … appears in the middle of the sentence.”That was among the details that his cast of non-Haida speakers had to learn over many months before the shoot.The film will be released in April. Read the rest

Now this is a bedroom suite. "But wait, there's more!" says mansion-explorer Erick Tseng. Even the panic room, which it took cops half an hour to find, is larger than most London apartments. Read the rest

No-one can make you sound quite as great as your enemies can. Here's Dr. Paul Nathanson, responding to conservative host Laura Ingraham's suggestion trans people are merely destroying traditional families:“I think that the trans people have taken it one step further because by abandoning gender altogether, not simply re-writing it, they're basically trying to use social engineering to create a new species. Which is what, in fact, the transhumanists have been doing for the past half century. Using medical and other technologies to develop a new species.“So the goal is really quite radical. We're not talking about people who want to simply do a bit of reform here and there, add a new category. They want, they must, in fact, destroy whatever is in order to replace it with what they think should be. We're talking about revolution, not reform.”Then:Ingraham asks: "And the new species will be looking like what? Will be part human part animal? I mean, will be human mostly…"Nathanson said, "I think human and part machine," to which Ingraham replies "part machine, hmm."Conservatives often see with a suprising clarity and openness before their political instincts kick in. Here they're noodling on 1985 or so in feminist posthumanism. If the enemy has long moved on, this still has the hauntological result of snapping everyone back to a long-ago moment that seems suddenly fresh again (yet weirdly rustic to those who were there). I've never met a trans-exclusionary feminist who has read Haraway, but now everyone will have to at least take a stab at it. Read the rest

Jordan Reeves, 13, was born with a left arm that doesn't extend past her elbow. Last year, Jordan dreamt up a curious prosthetic arm that resembles a unicorn horn and shoots glitter out of its tip. Then, working with her prosthetist and technical designers at Autodesk, she designed and built the magical contraption."I wanted show people that our differences don't necessarily hold us back, in fact, they can give us more opportunity," Reeves told WGN9.After receiving numerous awards for her ingenuity and founding a nonprofit, Born Just Right, Reeves was invited to display her prosthetic at the Chicago Musuem of Science and Industry's Wired to Wear exhibit. "I love that I can show people that our differences aren't a bad thing... just look at how much fun it can be" Reeves said.More on Jordan Reeves in Fast Company: "The Girl Behind The Sparkle-Shooting Prosthetic Arm Is Just Getting Started" Read the rest

Relaxing, and ever so slightly peculiar, is this footage of an American Freestyle Canoeing master at work. American Freestyle canoeing is the art of paddling a canoe on flat water with perfect control of its movements. The canoe is usually leaned over to the side to help the boat turn sharply and efficiently and paddle strokes are taken on either side of the canoe depending on the individual move. Balance, paddle placement and turn initiation are a few keys to this control. Since the movements seem dance-like, some practice this art timed to music, which is the ultimate in control.A redditor on Ornstein's unique abilities: His backstroke tilted side-turn is probably the best you'll ever see. Not to mention he pretty much invented the inverted wind-slide. He was the first one to ever do it in the late 90s. I know some people are going to laugh, but it really is the most dangerous trick in the sport. People have sustained serious arm injuries and muscle tears attempting it. Sven Englewood almost drowned trying to perform it in the 2009 World Championships.Anyway, guys like Ornstein are the reason Freestyle Canoeing has grown with such popularity in the last couple decades.Shhh. Whatever you're about to say: Shhhhhhhh.Also fits the sartorial-semiotic slot that the British and Chinese plug snooker into. Read the rest

We had a fantastic time on Tuesday at the Ft Vancouver Library Revolutionary Reads event for Radicalized, my latest sf book. Tonight, I'll be in Seattle, appearing at the the Central Library at 7PM. From there, I finish the tour with a weekend at Wondercon in Anaheim. See you there (tell your friends)! (Image: Fort Vancouver Library) Read the rest

The Wall Street Journal reports that robocallers go largely unpunished, with all those headline-grabbing fines virtually uncollected.As syndicated to Fox News:An FCC spokesman said his agency lacks the authority to enforce the forfeiture orders it issues and has passed all unpaid penalties to the Justice Department, which has the power to collect the fines. Many of the spoofers and robocallers the agency tries to punish are individuals and small operations, he added, which means they are at times unable to pay the full penalties.“Fines serve to penalize bad conduct and deter future misconduct,” the FCC spokesman said. A spokeswoman for the Justice Department, which can settle or drop cases, declined to comment.The dearth of financial penalties collected by the U.S. government for violations of telemarketing and auto-dialing rules shows the limits the sister regulators face in putting a stop to illegal robocalls. It also shows why the threat of large fines can fail to deter bad actors.I'd bet a dollar the only fines ever collected were from a tiny handful of otherwise legitimate callers who made stupid mistakes. Robocalls and the like will account for nearly half of all calls in 2019, according to the FCC. Read the rest

In 1869, two well diggers in Cardiff, N.Y., unearthed an enormous figure made of stone. More than 600,000 people flocked to see the mysterious giant, but even as its fame grew, its real origins were coming to light. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the story of the Cardiff giant, one of greatest hoaxes of the 19th century.We'll also ponder the effects of pink and puzzle over a potentially painful treatment.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon! Read the rest

A report from Bitwise -- an investment firm lobbying for FEC approval for a cryptocurrency based exchange-traded fund -- found that 95% of the trading volume in Bitcoin was fake, ginned up through techniques like "wash trading" where a person buys and sells an asset at the same time.The report analyzed 81 exchanges and concluded that the fake traffic was being generated by 71 of them, in order to lure in lucrative "initial coin offerings" and the associated fees, which can run to millions of (fiat) dollars.Bitwise's hope is that by demonstrating to regulators that there is $273m/day worth of real trades lost in the torrent of $6b/day worth of fakes, that there was the need for a regulated, high-quality product that could assure investors that they were not being defrauded.Note that while the study has been reported on by the Wall Street Journal and MIT Technology Review, it does not seem to be available on Bitwise's site, and I was unable to review its methodology.There are at least a two important takeaways here. First, the real Bitcoin trading market is an order of magnitude smaller than is broadly reported. If you are eager to see mainstream adoption, perhaps that’s disappointing. On the flipside, however, if zeroing in on the exchanges operating honestly can move the needle with regulators and finally get an ETF approved, this bleak analysis might help spur the kind of adoption you’re hoping for.#134: Fake Bitcoin trading [Mike Orcutt/Chain Letter](via Beyond the Beyond)(Image: Bitcoin.it, CC-BY-SA) Read the rest

Australian Al Jazeera reporter Rodger Muller infiltrated a meeting between the US National Rifle Association and Australia's far-right/white nationalist party One Nation, where the NRA gave party bosses advice on how to reverse Australia's tough anti-automatic/semi-automatic gun laws (passed after a 1996 mass shooting that killed 35 people) and what to do to deflect public calls for gun control when the next mass shooting happens.In the secret recording, two One Nation officials -- Chief of Staff James Ashby and Queensland party boss Steve Dickson -- seek up to $20 million from the NRA's US supporters to fund their gun lobbying in Australia. NRA PR team members Lars Dalseide and Catherine Mortensen gave the One Nation official extensive advice on managing crisis communications following mass shootings, advising them to "say nothing," and to plant stories that smear gun-control advocates by "shaming" them with statements like "how dare you use their deaths to push that forward. How dare you stand on the graves of those children to put forward your political agenda?"The NRA flaks also described how they encourage friendly reporters to publish stories about violent crimes that suggest the victims would have been able to defend themselves if they had guns; they also described how the NRA ghost wrote op-eds in favor of looser gun laws that were published under local cops' by-lines. The NRA also boasted about the viral "self-defense" videos they posted to social media.The real meat of the meeting started when One Nation's Dickson asked for advice on spinning his belief that "African gangs" were "coming into the house with baseball bats to steal your car" and the NRA's Dalseide replied that "Every time there's a story there about the African gangs coming in with baseball bats, a little thing you can put out there, maybe at the top of a tweet or Facebook post or whatever, like with 'not allowed to defend their home', 'not allowed to defend their home'. Read the rest

The New York Times asked youngsters what they liked and what they wanted. The results — perhaps as is to be expected — are unexpectedly insightful, uncannily familiar, and disturbingly unready for the consequences. [via Choire] Read the rest

It all seemed so innocent when architecture grad student Kate Wagner started pushing her charming brand of millennial snark on us with her acerbic critiques of gaudy, poorly executed monster homes, but architecture is no laughing matter.The Wall Street Journal has sounded the alarm that boomer-built McMansions in Arizona, Florida, and the Carolinas are selling at huge discounts relative to their asking prices, thanks to millennials' unwillingness to buy sprawling homes that need extensive electrical and plumbing work, come with many additional bedrooms for storing hoards of consumer junk, and tedious fripperies like "crown moldings, ornate details and Mediterranean or Tuscan-style architecture."Also, millennials -- saddled with student debt, and drowning in nondiscretionary avocado-toast-related expenditures -- are broke af.Millennials buying their first home today are likely to pay 39% more than baby boomers who bought their first home in the 1980s, Business Insider’s Hillary Hoffower previously reported.The generation is also facing record levels of student-loan debt, making it hard to take on a mortgage loan, as Business Insider’s Akin Oyedele reported.When millennials can finally afford to buy a home, it makes sense that they’d hold out for something that’s exactly to their taste.Millennials don't want to buy baby boomers' sprawling, multi-bedroom homes, and it's creating a major problem in the real-estate market [Katie Warren/Business Insider](Image: McManion Hell)(via Naked Capitalism) Read the rest

Toledo's WTOL 11 crew thought they were on fleek. Da fuq?(Thanks UPSO!) Read the rest

The Mueller Report is conspicuously absent from this week’s tabloids, despite landing with ample time for their deadlines. It’s a measure of how far the Trump-loving propaganda rags have publicly distanced themselves from the White House that their front covers aren’t screaming “Total Exoneration.” No doubt that has something to do with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York's continuing investigation into the National Enquirer catch-and-kill policy of buying incriminating stories about Trump and suppressing them, with Enquirer publisher and Trump pal David Pecker cooperating with prosecutors. As headlines go, “Total Exoneration” would be about as accurate as much of this week’s fact-challenged tabloid offerings.“Royal Family Disowns Harry & Meghan — Banished to Malta by Fed-up Queen,” proclaims the front page of the Enquirer. That’s doubtless news to the Royal couple, who have spent the past six months renovating Frognall Cottage in Windsor, England, where they plan to move in shortly. Perhaps they’ll turn it into an Airbnb rental once they’re in Malta?“Scott Peterson Death Row Pardon!” declares the Globe cover’s report on its favorite convicted killer. “Gloating killer dances with joy,” the rag reports, which seems unlikely since he hasn’t been granted a pardon, and is unlikely to ever receive one. The story is inspired by a wildly inaccurate reading of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s newly-issued moratorium on the death penalty, which affects Scott Peterson along with 736 others on the state’s Death Row. And while the moratorium is morally and judicially welcome, it has little practical effect in a state where the last execution was more than 13 years ago because of repeated legal challenges. Read the rest

My 16-year-old insists on buying cartridge versions for her Switch games, while I prefer the downloadables. To each their own, even though I'm right and she's wrong. And what better way to store my downloads than on this bright red SanDisk Official Nintendo Switch MicroSDXC card with 128GB? Even though you won't be able to admire the mushroom icon when the card is in your Switch, just knowing it's there is guaranteed to be a lasting source of contentment.If 128GB is overkill, they've got a 64GB Breath of the Wild themed card at a lower cost: Read the rest

For more than thirty years, the beaches of France's Iroise Marine Nature Park have been blighted by a seemingly endless stream of a highly specific form of washed-up plastic waste: part of a toy Garfield telephone -- more than 200 pieces in all.Finally, the mystery of the origins of this weird flotsam has been revealed: a cargo container of Garfield phone parts that fell off a container ship decades ago had been lodged in a nearby cliff-cave and it had been dribbling out bright orange pieces of plastic ever since. On Friday, five members of Ar Viltansoù and two journalists from Franceinfo have finally been able to visit the cave. "I saw garfield and container pieces all over the cave. But the bulk of the phones are already gone, the sea has done its job for thirty years. We arrive after the battle, "says Simonin-Le Meur in Ouest-France . L’affaire des échouages de téléphones Garfield en Bretagne enfin résolue [Le Monde] (Google Translate)(Thanks, Jason!) Read the rest

A Strange Harvest (1980) is a documentary about unexplained cattle mutilations that were widespread in the American West in the 1970s and 1980s. (From a Wikipedia article on cattle mutilation: "A 1979 FBI report indicated that, according to investigations by the New Mexico State Police, there had been an estimated 8,000 mutilations in Colorado, causing approximately $1,000,000 damage.") Many instances of cattle mutilations can be attributed to predation, but others appear to be the result of unexplained human activity.This well-made documentary, which runs about 1.5 hours, is a masterpiece of low-budget creepiness. The synthesizer soundtrack is ominous and weird, and the cinematography is hallucinatory. I don't buy the argument that space aliens are responsible, but it's still a compelling movie.[via Reddit's Obscure Media] Read the rest

Maryland attorney Rashad James, who happens to be black, was packing up his things after a day at Harford County District Court when he says a sheriff's deputy detained him, thinking James was just pretending to be a lawyer. The deputy called the attorney by his client's name, and when James informed the deputy that he was in fact the attorney, the deputy didn't believe him. Even after Rashad showed him ID, the deputy did not believe him. The deputy then called his supervisor.According to WBALTV:After successfully getting an expungement for a client who was not there, a sheriff's deputy stopped him in the courtroom and began questioning if he was really a lawyer or impersonating one."After the hearing, that's when I encountered the officer who incorrectly called me by the name of the client. I stated that I was not the client, that I was, in fact, the client's attorney," James said.The deputy then asked for identification, James says he showed his driver's license.The officer apparently wanted more verification since James didn't have his state bar card or business cards, which he is not required to carry. He had the officer call his supervisor."If Mr. James were white, this would not have happened," said Chelsea Crawford, James' second attorney.And via News Channel 5 :An attorney representing James believes that if he was white, the officer would not have doubted that he was an attorney, would not have questioned his identity and would not have detained him after seeing his driver’s license. Read the rest

At the Wall Street Journal, Joanna Stern reports that the ultra-thin butterfly keyboards on current MacBooks are still failing. The online version of her column is brilliantly funny, with options to rmv crtain lttrs or make itt so thatt certtain charactters repeatt — the characteristic failures of what Apple watcher John Gruber describes as the "worst products in Apple history."Stern recommends various remedies, from a beta app that kills double keystrokes to blasting your laptop with canned air. But there's a better solution: this $13 polyurethane keyboard protector [Amazon affiliate link]. Preventing disaster is that simple. I've had mine for 6 months and this is what worked. It protects my MacBook from microdust or sebaceous filaments or whatever it is that keeps murdering these butterfly keyboards, and it's nearly invisible—the photo at the top of this post shows it installed. It also protects the machine itself from spills, and the keys themselves have none of the wear, tear and shine they usually pick up after a few months of hammering.I got the UPPERCASE GhostCover brand protector and can vouch for these specific products: the 12" MacBook GhostCover [Amazon] and the13" and 15" MacBook Pro GhostCover [Amazon], which comes in Touchbar and F-key versions. (There are other cuts too for older models, but I haven't tried them.)If you're buying out in the wild, the important thing is to get a polyurethane cover, not silicone. Silicone is cheaper and dominates search results and algorithmic recommendations, but they're thicker and stretchier and don't stay put. Read the rest

“The authenticity of the following anonymous op-ed has been verified by Medium’s editorial staff.”A person identifying themselves as an anonymous Uber employee has written an essay that's getting a lot of attention today on Medium.com.If that's true, and I have no reason to doubt it -- this one's gonna hurt.Excerpt:I am an Uber employee and I support the drivers’ strikes.The strikes called on Monday by Rideshare Drivers United (RDU) in Southern California and Gig Workers Rising in San Francisco are a sign of the deep frustration many ride-share drivers feel — and which, amid ongoing conversations with colleagues, it is clear many internal Uber employees share — about the treatment of those workers that provide the services at the core of our business.As an employee at the world’s leading ride-share company, I see firsthand not only the often meager earnings of our drivers, but also the exploitative labor practices imposed on a systemically disempowered workforce. I, therefore, stand with the striking drivers in calling for the implementation of RDU’s Drivers’ Bill of Rights. While ride-share executives continue to receive vast remuneration packages, and internal employees look forward to an IPO windfall at both Uber and Lyft, my sympathetic colleagues and I will not remain silent as drivers are squeezed in order to shore up initial offerings to investors.Our drivers are the backbone of the platform. Without them — as these courageous strikes have demonstrated — our business would come to a standstill. For this reason, we will not stand by as those that work at the heart of our business are attacked and exploited. Read the rest

The FTC says the 4 companies made 'billions' of pre-recorded calls to phone numbers throughout America.

The kingdom of Brunei has instituted a law that will punish gay people for having sex by stoning them to death.From The Independent:New laws due to come into effect next Wednesday will see the tiny kingdom become the first nation in southeast Asia to impose the death penalty for those found engaging in same-sex intercourse.Homosexuality was already illegal and carried a long jail sentence in Brunei. However, the country is in the process of introducing a sharia law-style system for criminal punishment.Human rights groups have denounced the move, including Amnesty International, which described the new punishments as “heinous” and “inhumane”.Image of Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah: imagemaker/Shutterstock Read the rest

In El Paso, Texas, the U.S. Border Patrol has confirmed that it is holding asylum seekers in a "transitional" camp under the Paso Del Norte Port of Entry bridge. A photo was making the internet rounds yesterday, and it seemed impossible they'd be literally holding them in a tent under a bridge. But yes, that's what's happening in this image.“A photo obtained by ABC News shows what appears to be a couple hundred migrants in and around a tent set up under the bridge. A large fan is in front of the tent's entrance.”Photos by Saul Saenz.A Border Patrol spokesman told ABC-7 the camp is meant to "keep the migrants out of the elements" while they are transported to another facility to be processed. The migrants are not being processed at the camp, the spokesman said. Inside the tent, migrants are given water, food and a medical evaluation. “More than half of the migrants are families and the majority are from Central America, meaning their asylum requests and credible fear interviews must be heard,” ABC News reports. The facility in El Paso is reportedly at 395 percent capacity. Border Patrol told ABC news it expects to detain 95,000 individuals in March, up from 76,000 in February. [via] Read the rest

Caleb Clark of Make magazine found a shower curtain with a photo of the Moon on it, and turned it into illuminated wall art, using a minimum of tools. The end result is nice. Read the rest

A man drank a Power Natural High Energy Drink SX, a product made in Zambia, and got more energy than he bargained for. He ended up with a six-hour erection. Turns out the drink contained Viagra.Now the beverage is banned.According to The Guardian:The ban followed a complaint from the country’s medicine regulator in December suggesting the Power Natural High Energy Drink SX had been spiked with erectile dysfunction drug Viagra...The Uganda National Drug Authority said in a letter dated 28 December 2018 that it made similar findings after a customer complained of constant sweating and a nearly six-hour erection.Zambia ordered the manufacturer to withdraw the drink after tests showed it contained Sildenafil Citrate, which has the brand name Viagra, a Ndola local authority statement said.Needless to say, the Natural Power Energy Drink SX "is very popular among Zambian men," according to The Guardian. These fellows will now have to get their "energy" from another source.Image: by Audrey disse, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link Read the rest

Senator Elizabeth Warren is hoping to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2020; she distinguishes herself from other left-wing Democrats like Bernie Sanders in her belief that capitalism is a force for good, but must be reformed and subjected to democratic control, while Sanders and the DSA are skeptical of capitalism and its long-term future (Disclosure: I donated to both the Sanders and Warren 2020 campaigns).Warren's defense of a better capitalism distinguishes itself from the usual fare -- capitalism's apologists rarely have much detail to offer in terms of what a "good capitalism" would look like -- by setting out specific, actionable policies, often in the form of detailed legislative action, for a reforming capitalism and rendering it safe for human habitation.Whether that's ending the Electoral College, state-backed generic drug manufacturing, or a Thomas Piketty-style wealth tax, Warren sets out an extremely plausible case for a humane version of American capitalism.One of Warren's most welcome proposals is an antimonopolistic break-up of Big Tech, which, while laudable, did not go far enough -- for one thing, it was conspicuously silent on the question of breaking up related monopolies like Big Cable and Big Content, and it also spared one of tech's most voracious and abusive monopolists: Apple.Now, Warren has introduced another flagship proposal that has spared Apple while putting other abusive manufacturers square in its crosshairs: a national Right-to-Repair law as part of a family farmer's bill of rights.Warren's Right-to-Repair rules tick all the boxes in the blizzard of state-level Right to Repair bills that have been introduced and largely defeated, thanks to an alliance of big agribusiness companies like John Deere and consumer electronics companies led by Apple. Read the rest

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