Boing Boing

See if you can guess how you would die if you walked up this completely innocuous staircase. Read the rest

Peak indifference is the moment at which a far-off problem becomes so obvious that the number of people alarmed about it begins to grow of its own accord; a new Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication survey finds that 46% of Americans believe that they are living through adverse effects from climate change right now (up 9% in a year) and 72% of Americans say climate change is '"extremely," "very," or "somewhat" important to them personally' (the highest figure ever recorded); 57% acknowledge the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change (also the highest level ever).After peak indifference, the activist's job changes: once people start self-converting to believers because they are experiencing undeniable negative consequences of inaction, the next job is to convince people who know there's a problem that it's not too late to do something about it. After peak indifference, you have to fight nihilism. (via Naked Capitalism) Read the rest

The "Amen Break" is a six-second drum sample from a 1969 song called "Amen, Brother" by a band called The Winstons. Over time it became used in over 3,000 songs.From Great Big Story: What do Skrillex, David Bowie, Salt-N-Pepa and basically every drum and bass track have in common? They've all used the Amen break, a four-bar drum solo that has become the most sampled loop in music history. Recorded in 1969, the six second sample originates from the song “Amen, Brother” by The Winstons, a funk and soul group from Washington, D.C. For many years, the solo was buried deep in musical archives—that is until hip-hop pioneer Lou Flores, aka “Breakbeat Lou,” featured it on his compilation, “The Ultimate Breaks and Beats.” Once producers caught wind of the solo, it took off, going on to change music forever.Image: Great Big Story/YouTube Read the rest

This kid is a star in the making. Feng E, from Taiwan, has been strumming ukulele for six years, but that doesn't seem like enough time to reach this level of playing. He's got it all – talent, charisma, and that look that only rock stars have – and in the above video he nails Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. Here he is at 10 years old in November 2017 on Asia's Got Talent – as amazing back then as he is now:And on The Ellen Show last September at 11 years old: Read the rest

The latest Secret Service challenge coin (previously) commemorates Trump's shutdown (which has nearly 1,000,000 people going without pay, and has undermined everything from air travel to the ability of poor people to eat and pay rent), bearing the legends "Essential Personnel" and "Don't Worry, You'll Get Backpay." Perhaps SS agents can pay their rent by flogging the coins on Ebay, where the rarest of SS challenge coins fetch up to $500. 6,000 Secret Service employees are working without pay around the world and another 1,222 have been furloughed. (Thanks, Fipi Lele!) Read the rest

Scott Alexander continues to delight with his works of short, sharp science fiction (previously): this time, it's "Sort by Controversial," a teachnolovecraftian story of training a machine learning system to recognize (and then produce) "controversial" stories by exploiting Reddit's "sort by controversial" feature to obtain training data.Alexander's mcguffin is something called "Shiri's Scissor," a machine learning system that produces polarizing statements whose deceptive obvious rightness (or, alternately, wrongness) pits people against one another so violently that once you've been scissored, your peace is forever fractured.It's a lovely tale in the tradition of Lexicon and Snow Crash, turning on the use of algorithms to locate "spells" whose utterances destroy our ability to think clearly -- and as such, it's a wonderful metaphor for the engagement-maximized political climate we find ourselves imprisoned by.Shiri’s English wasn’t great, so I thought this was a communication problem. I corrected her. The program was spitting out obviously false statements. She stuck to her guns. I still thought she was confused. I walked her through the meanings of the English words “true” and “false”. She looked offended. I tried to confirm. She thought this abysmal programming decision, this plan of combining every bad design technique together and making it impossible to ever fix, was the right way to build our codebase? She said it was. Worse, she was confused I didn’t think so. She thought this was more or less what we were already doing; it wasn’t. She thought that moving away from this would take a total rewrite and make the code much worse. Read the rest

When your return your unwanted Amazon purchases, they end up with discounters who sell them by the palletload at pennies on the dollar, and millions of "reverse supply chain" specialists bid on these pallets of miscellania, sort the usable from the useless, repackage it, and make it available for sale again.The largest of these companies is Liquidity Services/liquidation.com, with 3.35 million registered users. Some of these are bargain hunters, but others are resellers hope to pan gold from the river of rejected trash and put it back on sale.Predictably, there's a get-rich-quick cult that has sprung up around liquidation resellers, with a whole supply chain (geddit?) of hustlers who will sell you lessons on how to achieve financial independence through canny liquidation arbitrage.Alexis Madrigal finds lyricism in the liquidations, with the found poetry of a manifest for one of these palettes ("hiking crampons, shimmer fabric paint, a High Visibility Thermal Winter Trapper Hat, a Mr. Ellie Pooh Natural White Paper List Pad, a St. Patrick’s Pot O’ Gold Cupcake Decorating Kit, a Spoontiques Golf Thermometer, a Feliz Cumpleanos Candle Packaged Balloon, and five Caterpillar Hoodies for Pets") which he describes, beautifully, as "a core sample drilled through the digital crust of platform capitalism."A level-headed Flint, Michigan, liquidation reseller named Walter Blake Knoblock offered a more realistic assessment in a live video he posted last year. He proffered five rules for Amazon pallets. The first? “Don’t expect it all to be good.” “ Don’t get discouraged if you’re halfway through your pallet and it’s all trash,” he said. Read the rest

Though Facebook's lobbying associations spent the whole debate over the EU Copyright Directive arguing (correctly) that algorithmic filters to catch copyright infringement would end up blocking mountains of legitimate speech (while still letting through mountains of infringement), Facebook secretly told the EU Commission that it used filters all the time, had utmost confidence in them, and couldn't see any problems with their use.In particular, Facebook endorsed Audible Magic's audio filters. Audible Magic also secretly lobbied the EU to mandate the use of its products, like a private prison company lobbying for harsher sentences. Its lobbying materials were an Orwellian masterpiece of doublespeak and deception. Part of the entertainment industry's narrative about the Copyright Directive has been accusations that Big Tech was spending a fortune to lobby against regulation. And while there was an ocean of dark money spent over the Directive, it was mostly spent by proponents of the Directive, and far from objecting to being thrown in the copyright filter briar patch, Big Tech was secretly not all that upset with the idea that the EU would force every small competitor to shut down, leaving a wide open field for American companies to dominate the internet forever.The Facebook lobbying docs were uncovered by Corporate Europe Observatory, the same investigators who unravelled the lobbying spending over the Directive; they were then analysed and reported out by Laura Kayali for Politico.Referring to content protected by copyright, Facebook also told the Commission in April 2015 that “every content uploaded by users is filtered through Audible Magic software before actual upload. Read the rest

In a competitive business landscape, employers need to know that their management hires are going to produce results. And if there's one way to show that, it's with a certification in Lean Six Sigma, the logic-driven methodology that gets project managers and their team from point A to point B quickly, cleanly and under budget. If you're not up on the program, there's an easy way to learn: The Lean Six Sigma Project Manager Certification Bundle.The bundle is chock full of insights that any manager should value, prospective or practicing. Not only will you learn the focused project management principles of Lean Six Sigma, but you'll also have a bedrock of fundamentals that help you plan before that project is even at step one. A course on Lean Management gives an overarching view of what makes successful businesses tick, and a boot camp in Minitab software shows you how to utilize data analytics to improve your approach and spot trends. At completion, you'll receive a certificate that shows any prospective employers that you're ready to put the Lean Six Sigma system to good use.Don't waste time, though: Right now, the Lean Six Sigma Project Manager Certification Bundle is available now for $69. Read the rest

[Editor's note: I was utterly taken with the gorgeous photos in the new edition of Core Memory, photographer Mark Richards and writer John Alderman's lavish survey of the vintage computing hardware in Silicon Valley's gem, the Computer History Museum; below is senior curator Dag Spicer's introduction to the book, along with some photos, which the publisher was kind enough to supply -Cory]What computers mean to us depends largely on what we bring to them. Our expectations, our past experience, the dreams and myths that surround them, their physical characteristics—all these aspects resonate on multiple, often overlapping levels. One level is aesthetic. Many nonspecialists in the computer arts enjoy these machines for their visual appeal and curiosity. Nearly everyone, regardless of technical background, can appreciate the intricacies of a computer’s mechanical design, its rows of switches and blinking lights, its often ungainly proportions, and the personal con- nection they feel when they recognize the first computer they used. A second level is important for specialists. People trained in computer science or electrical engineering bring the additional dimension of how these objects illuminate abstract principles of computer architecture and the ideas immanent in their design—ideas that give us insight into the minds of their designers and the challenges they faced. A third level is the historical trajectory of these objects: how they were financed and why, what problems they were trying to solve, and the mistakes made and dead ends encountered by their designers. We learn a lot by understanding these human elements and how they shaped historical and technical factors into stable artifacts, in turn stitching together the fabric of today’s information-based society. Read the rest

Trump:As the Shutdown was going on, Nancy Pelosi asked me to give the State of the Union Address. I agreed. She then changed her mind because of the Shutdown, suggesting a later date. This is her prerogative - I will do the Address when the Shutdown is over. I am not looking for an.... ...alternative venue for the SOTU Address because there is no venue that can compete with the history, tradition and importance of the House Chamber. I look forward to giving a “great” State of the Union Address in the near future!I believe the word for this in conservative circles is "cucked." Mr. President, I hope by saying “near future” you mean you will support the House-passed package to #EndTheShutdown that the Senate will vote on tomorrow. Please accept this proposal so we can re-open government, repay our federal workers and then negotiate our differences. https://t.co/57KMATZZTO— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) January 24, 2019 Read the rest

The finished piece he makes is such a delight, but so is watching it come together from spare scraps of wood. A crappy stopmotion of my woodworkingShared on IMGUR by IMGUrian Basil123, who thought it was “crappy.” No way! We'll be the judge of that, and it ain't. Read the rest

Bada bing, bada banned. China has blocked Bing, Microsoft's search engine, tonight.Bing.com is not accessible inside China, per reports throughout the country. Microsoft says ‘we’ve confirmed that Bing is currently inaccessible in China and are engaged to determine next steps.’The FT's @YuanfenYang reports that Bing was blocked throughout China following a government order. She cites two sources familiar with the matter.“This kind of DNS corruption is usually the very literal way in which the Chinese govt tells foreign tech companies to 'go home',” tweeted Yuan Yang.This kind of DNS corruption is usually the very literal way in which the Chinese govt tells foreign tech companies to "go home" https://t.co/CPQyO8vmkD— Yuan Yang (@YuanfenYang) January 23, 2019From her report in the Financial Times:On Wednesday, mainland Chinese users wrote on social media that their attempts to access Bing’s China site, cn.bing.com, were failing. Cn.bing.com is still accessible from outside of China. Microsoft said that it was investigating the situation.Two sources familiar with the government order confirmed that Bing had been blocked. One of the sources explained that China Unicom, one of China’s major state-owned telecoms companies, had confirmed the government had ordered a block on Bing.Attempts to access cn.bing.com resulted in a connection error. The connection error was caused by an inability for the Chinese nameservers — address books that match up website names to their digital locations — to correctly retrieve the IP address of Bing’s China platform. This form of nameserver corruption has been often used by the Chinese government to block platforms. Read the rest

There are trace elements of facts in many of this week’s tabloids stories, but that hasn’t stopped the rags’ alchemists from spinning gold out of these barely-detectable sub-atomic particles.George Clooney and wife Amal have purchased an estate on the Italian isle of Sardinia, but because she’s there with their twins and George is away, the National Enquirer cover story proclaims: “Clooney Divorce Explodes – Amal Moves Out!” She has reportedly “fled their marital home in England” and “furious George has begged Amal to come back." Except Clooney isn’t in England. He has been working in Los Angeles, as the most cursory investigation would have told the Enquirer. But if Amal is in Sardinia and George isn’t there, they must be getting divorced. Right?"Glenn Miller Death Plane Found!” reports the Globe. Well, not exactly. The unidentified wreckage of a WWII-era plane was found off the south coast of England. So the Globe figures this must be the big band leader’s plane, because no other planes went down in the sea during WWII, did they?Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton is the target of terrorists as “ISIS Plants Poison in Kate’s Grocery Store,” claims the Globe. Or at least, a post on an extremist website suggested that someone should poison her groceries, which means it’s as good as happened.Jennifer Aniston is adopting a baby girl from a Mexican orphanage, the Globe reports under the happy headline: “Jen Aniston’s Mom At Last!" Apparently she has made a donation to a Mexican orphanage, so it stands to reason she must be taking one of the kids home. Read the rest

I've really been enjoying the new 'MythBusters Jr', Adam Savage's new science exploration show featuring... kids. Really smart awesome talented kids. Adam Savage will be Tweeting live during tonight's two premiere episodes, and they start airing an hour early (at 8 pm ET) for parents with wee ones.Watch it on Science Channel through your cable/satellite provider, or SCIGO, their online streaming service.I’ll be Tweeting LIVE tonight — including some BTS photos — during our TWO premieres of #MythBustersJr on @ScienceChannel! Tune in this evening at 5 pm PT/8 pm ET! pic.twitter.com/hJBHBJQPgO— Adam Savage (@donttrythis) January 23, 2019One of the episodes tonight is 'Demolition Dominoes.'BELOW: Here's an app for the episode, and a video clip preview: Can a single domino start a chain reaction that can crush a CAR? And is it possible to remove the solitary bottom block from a late-game Jenga tower without toppling it? Find out on #MythBustersJr: Demolition Dominos, premiering Wednesday at 8p on @ScienceChannel. pic.twitter.com/BueR1BreEv— MythBusters (@MythBusters) January 21, 2019This small-scale test bodes well! Well, the small-scale test bodes well. But can a domino crush a CAR? Tune in to #MythBustersJr: Demolition Dominoes TONIGHT at 8p on @ScienceChannel. pic.twitter.com/NFxFIsPAUF— MythBusters (@MythBusters) January 23, 2019Here's another show scene, with Adam helping his co-host Elijah test his concept of using bungee to remove the last Jenga piece. Can you remove the the solitary bottom block from a late-game Jenga tower without toppling it? Read the rest

When Trump FCC Chairman Ajit Pai cheated his way to a repeal of Net Neutrality, he justified allowing ISPs to decide to slow down the services you want to use by saying that doing so would encourage investment in network buildout, saving America from its sad status as one of the most expensive, slowest places to use the internet in the rich world.But after a full year of neutracide, Comcast has made a liar out of Ajit Pai, reducing infrastructure spending by 3% in 2018, according to the company's latest earnings report.Charter and Verizon are also expected to announce lowered capital expenditures for 2018.Comcast's network spending should have risen in 2018 if predictions from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and Comcast had been correct. Pai's net neutrality repeal took effect in June 2018. But the vote to repeal net neutrality rules was in December 2017, and Pai claimed in February 2018 that the repeal was already causing increased broadband investment.Broadband industry lobby group USTelecom also claimed that network investment grew in 2017 because of the anticipated net neutrality repeal and other deregulatory moves. In December 2017, Comcast said the net neutrality repeal would allow for "more competition in the marketplace and increased investment and innovation."Yet Comcast cable capital expenditures dropped year over year in each of the first three quarters of 2018. The expenditures did rise year over year in the fourth quarter, from $2.15 billion to $2.32 billion, but it wasn't enough to offset the full-year decline. Read the rest

Glass screen protectors have saved me $100s of dollars in repairs. I use them on our cellphones, tablets and now on the Nintendo Switch my daughter and I share.Simple to apply, these glass screen protectors ward off scratches, scuffs, and sometimes even direct hits. I never mind replacing one, as they are super cheap and the event also presents as an opportunity to clean the device needing service.This morning our Switch was smacked into the corner of the Hammond organ my kid uses as her charging station. The value of the screen protector was proven. It shattered, the screen did not. amFilm Tempered Glass Screen Protector for Nintendo Switch 2017 (2-Pack) via Amazon Read the rest

Robert Ray Shafer who played Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration on the US version of The Office apparently posted the below to his Facebook page confirming a documentary in production about the beloved show. Of course this will be a documentary about a mockumentary. According to this Facebook post, the documentary "That's What She Said (And They Said Too)" is expected to be premiere on the show's 15th anniversary in 2020. (via r/DunderMifflin) Read the rest

We have tacos about once a week, and every time I pull out these stainless steel taco holders, I'm glad I bought them. They make it easy to load your taco with cheese, tomatoes, avocado, and salsa, and they keep your tacos from tipping over and disgorging their contents before you've had a change to ingest them. Read the rest

These Rainbow Unicorn Foil Balloons are 32 inches long, ship uninflated as pairs, and we are promised that the "pretty design is on both sides". Finally. Read the rest

Continuing the quest to design robots that could travel through our bodies to deliver drugs and cure disease, researchers at EPFL and ETH Zurich demonstrated tiny shape-shifting microrobots that swim through blood vessels. Made from hydrogel nanocomposites, the microbots can fold into various shapes for easy travel through tight spaces and flowing with dense, viscous, or fast-moving liquids. The microbots are peppered with magnetic nanoparticles so that they can be "steered" with an external magnetic field. From EPFL:“Our robots have a special composition and structure that allow them to adapt to the characteristics of the fluid they are moving through. For instance, if they encounter a change in viscosity or osmotic concentration, they modify their shape to maintain their speed and maneuverability without losing control of the direction of motion,” says (EPFL researcher Selman) Sakar.These deformations can be “programmed” in advance so as to maximize performance without the use of cumbersome sensors or actuators. The robots can be either controlled using an electromagnetic field or left to navigate on their own through cavities by utilizing fluid flow. Either way, they will automatically morph into the most efficient shape."Smart microrobots that can adapt to their surroundings" (EPFL) Read the rest

These baby aliens, er, emus are hatching at the same time – a "simultaneous breakout," as the person behind the camera calls it. I only wish she would have kept the camera rolling until these babies made their full appearance.Here are what the emus look like after three days. Same batch, but different emus that hatched two days later: Read the rest

Susaki is a city in Japan. They have a cute otter named Shinjokun with nearly 500k Twitter followers, and who serves as an honorary tourism ambassador. But then someone created a Twitter account for Chiitan, a mascot based on the otter, and started posting short videos of the otter misbehaving -- tipping over a car, burgling a house, recklessly swinging a weed whacker in the air. Chiitan now has over twice as many followers as Shinjokun, and some people think Chiitan is a sanctioned mascot. They complained to Susaki officials, who, for some reason, decided the way to quell the controversy was to fire Shinjokun. That seems to have been a mistake. From the New York Times:After receiving more than 100 calls from around Japan about Chiitan’s behavior, the city declined last week to renew the real otter’s honorary tourism ambassador contract. But posts about Chiitan being “fired” (the mascot and the real otter have the same name) have since gone viral on social media, incorrectly implying that the city had officially sanctioned the rogue mascot’s cheeky antics....[Takashi Moritoki, a Susaki city official] said Susaki officials had initially turned a “blind eye” to Chiitan because they hoped the rogue mascot would help improve the city’s image. But the city is now consulting a lawyer, he said, because it worries that Charando, the design company — which still owns a copyright for Chiitan — is earning money from its viral antics that might otherwise have gone to city coffers. Read the rest

When Motherboard broke the story of a thriving underground in bounty-hunters and other unsavory sorts buying realtime location data from America's cellular carriers, many were outraged that the carriers had not lived up to their year-old promises to fix that massive hole in our location data.But it wasn't every carrier: AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile subscribers were vulnerable to these attacks, but Verizon customers weren't: that's because every time someone queries your location data through Verizon, the company warns you with a text-message (this is discussed in the latest Motherboard Cyber podcast).It turns out that one of the data-brokers that bounty-hunters use to source our locations from, Zumigo, lobbied the FCC back in 2017 to head off any requirements for consent for location-tracking. “As breaches become more prevalent and as consumers rely more on mobile phones, there is a tipping point where financial and personal protections begin to equal, or outweigh, privacy concerns,” one of the slides reads.Another slide titled “solutions” suggests that the FCC loosen current consent requirements that are included in cell phone providers’ terms of service, allowing carriers to use vaguer, “more flexible” language.“Remove the consent requirement of stating that information is being released by the ‘carrier.’ Instead, allow more flexible language, such as:—‘You authorize the bank and its service providers to use your mobile account for verifying your identity and protecting you from fraud,’” the slide reads. “Make the release of carrier data opt-out, rather than opt-in, when it is being used to prevent fraud and identity theft.”Data Broker That Sold Phone Locations Used by Bounty Hunters Lobbied FCC to Scrap User Consent [Joseph Cox and Jason Koebler/Motherboard] Read the rest

The BBC posted an amusing graphic that lets you flip between the original photo of Mr. Trump and the photoshopped version. But I've made a gif here that says it all. Here are the two source images. First, the shopped one on Facebook, then the White House feed original. Read the rest

An investigation by the health ministry in Guangdong, China determined that scientist He Jiankui broke national laws when he used the CRISPR gene-editing technique to engineer human embryos with resistance to HIV and then implanted the embryos into women who then birthed the babies. Based on the probe, the Southern University of Science and Technology has fired He from his position as a researcher and teacher there. According to an article in the Chinese state media outlet Xinhua, police may also explore charges against He and his colleagues. From Nature:The Xinhua article confirms many details of the case for the first time: starting in June 2016, it says, He put together a team that, from March 2017, recruited eight couples consisting of an HIV-positive father and an HIV-negative mother. He’s team edited the genes of embryos from at least two couples. (The Xinhua article does not specify what type of gene editing was done, although He claims that the embryos were edited to remove a gene that enables HIV to enter cells.) In addition to the woman who already gave birth, one other woman involved in the experiment is currently pregnant with a gene-edited embryo. Five other couples are not pregnant, the article reports, and one couple dropped out of the experiment.The article says that He’s gene-editing activities were “clearly prohibited by the state”, but it doesn’t mention which specific laws or regulations the researcher broke. Read the rest

This month, for the first time in a generation, America's public domain grew, as the 20-year freeze created by the 1998 changes to copyright law finally thawed.The remarkable Parker Higgins (previously) is celebrating with a new zine called 1923 (this being the year whose works just entered the public domain); every month, Higgins proposes to create a "a hand-made zine (think photocopied and stapled!), highlighting a work, an artist, a genre, or a medium" of "unusual and forgotten gems" from 1923, which will be made available to just 100 subscribers (sold out!); the PDF version is yours for $1/month.On January 1, 2019, the public domain resumed its march forward after a 20-year hiatus. Our cultural commons now includes a handful of very famous works. One of the most iconic images of the silent film era. The first book of poetry by e e cummings. A legendary novelty song that topped the charts for weeks. These well-known works got lots of well-deserved attention this month as they rose into the public domain, their copyright restrictions falling away after so many years.But for every creation that has had the popular and commercial appeal to sustain it through nearly a century of copyright restrictions, there are hundreds (or thousands!) of interesting and unusual pieces that risk being forgotten.If we don't engage with the public domain, we can't truly feel its value. And if we don't feel its value, we will lose it—to industry groups that benefit from lopsided policy, or to companies that would privatize our shared culture, or simply to history and irrelevance. Read the rest

While 57,000 TSA employees are expected to work without pay during the government shutdown, Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), a government worker himself, thinks it's just dandy to travel first class. While sitting in his plush seat on a flight from Chicago to Washinton, D.C., a fellow traveler confronted him.“Congressman, do you think it’s appropriate to fly first class while 57 TSA agents aren’t being paid?”"Davis is as silent as a church mouse.“Taking that as a yes...Taxpayers paid for this flight? Fair enough,” the passenger says. A GOP congressman flew first class today on a taxpayer-funded flight* on day 32 of the shutdown. A fellow passenger wasn't thrilled.*(The office bought him a coach ticket but he got upgraded for free because of how frequently he flies--on taxpayer dime)https://t.co/4UFdhVoUHP pic.twitter.com/Qmfi8dQpFE— Akbar Shahid Ahmed (@AkbarSAhmed) January 22, 2019Apparently, Davis bought a coach ticket and upgraded to first class using frequent flier points. But the optics are ugly, to say the least. Via Huffington Post, who first obtained the video from the unidentified passenger. Read the rest

During Monday's super wolf blood moon lunar eclipse, some observers noticed a tiny flash on the surface. Turns out that was a football-sized meteorite smashing into the western surface of the moon. This was the first time a meteorite impact was spotted during a total lunar eclipse. Now, scientists will study images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to hopefully find the new crater, perhaps as large as 33 feet across. From National Geographic: An eagle-eyed viewer on Reddit spotted the potential impact during the eclipse and reached out to the r/space community to see if others could weigh in. The news spread quickly on social media, as people from across the path of totality posted their images and video of this tiny flicker of light...“The Earth and the moon are in such close proximity that observing the impacts on the moon can help us learn a lot more about the frequency of impacts on Earth,” explains (University of Toronto planetary scientist Sara) Mazrouei, who recently authored a study detailing an ancient spike in large meteor bombardment on the moon, and thus on our planet....Seeing the aftermath of smaller impacts on airless worlds like the moon can help scientists learn about the effects of larger strikes on all kinds of worlds—including our own, Madiedo says.“By knowing what happens with smaller impacts, you could know what could happen with larger impacts without really studying a large impact on Earth.” Read the rest

After six school days on the picket line, more then 30,000 LA public school teachers voted to accept an offer from the nation's second-largest school district that amounted to a near-total capitulation by management in favor of the teachers' broad demands: smaller classes; more aides, librarians and counselors; better school maintenance; support for a statewide moratorium on new charter schools; and releasing the cost-of-living-allowances that the state had paid to the LA Unified School District, but which the district had not passed on to the workers for several years, giving every teacher a real-terms pay-cut every year.The teachers were joined on the picket line by supporters ranging from parents' and students' groups (the students had their own demands: an end to in-school stop-and-frisk, limits on police officers and military recruiters in schools, and an emphasis on their education over their incarceration), and firefighters. All in all, a strike by 30,000 teachers saw 60,000 people on the picket line, including teachers from LA's largest charter school.This week's Intercepted podcast features a long and informative conversation with teacher-organizers who have been on the lines; also noteworthy is Jacobin's interview with UTLA chief negotiator Arlene Inouye.Teachers in other "blue" cities and states, from Denver to Oakland, are looking to the LA teachers' example, defying the Democratic establishment and its longstanding affinity for school privatization through charter schools (see also, Cory Brooker's tone-deaf appearance this week in support of Louisiana's notoriously racist charter schools which were supercharged by the shock-doctrine looting that took place after Katrina). Read the rest

Get your head checked with the latest from the Floppotron, an electronic music instrument comprising floppy drives and other ingeniously abused computing peripherals. [Previously at BB] Read the rest

In 1978 two families hatched a daring plan to escape East Germany: They would build a hot-air balloon and sail it by night across the border. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow their struggles to evade the authorities and realize their dream of a new life in the West.We'll also shuffle some vehicles and puzzle over a perplexing worker.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon! Read the rest

Tom the Dancing Bug, IN WHICH Tariff Man takes money from Americans and courageously pretends that equals Mexico paying for the wall!

For the newbie, Python can seem like the most intimidating programming language. After all, it can be used to create everything from simple apps to vast networks of web crawlers. But there are fundamental principles that underlie all the uses of this versatile platform, and you can absorb them all with the Python Master Class Bundle - an online course that's currently available on a pay-what-you-wish basis.The full nine-course package contains everything you need to know to code on one of the world's most popular platforms. After an introduction to Python from a bird's-eye view, you'll get classes that drill down on its applications in web development and gaming. You'll receive invaluable training in Python's potential in the field of web scraping and machine learning, and get resume-building experience in data analytics by pairing it with apps like Madplotlib or the Pandas libraries.The entire bundle is typically $1066, but right now, you can essentially name your own price for the Python Master Class Bundle. Get the details below and get coding. Read the rest

Baby Ryan doing manly things. Yes, please.“Our son was born premature 9 weeks early weighing just under 3 lbs,” says IMGURian bonebowl. “I like to joke that he wasn't premature, he's just advanced.” “So I took some pictures of him doing some manly grown-up things.”You've gotta see the whole photo series. Read the rest

A really bad new law in Australia gives police the right to force companies like Apple to 'backdoor', or create encryption circumvention alternatives, in all their products. The issue has been controversial in the U.S. for a long time, and spiked in 2016 after the mass shooting in San Bernardino. It's unclear how the new Australian law will impact things outside of Australia, but it's possible that your phone security will soon be impacted by laws like this, wherever you are and whatever device or carrier you use.Nellie Bowles at the New York Times:The law, the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018, applies only to tech products used or sold in Australia. But its impact could be global: If Apple were to build a so-called back door for iPhones sold in Australia, the authorities in other countries, including the United States, could force the company to use that same tool to assist their investigations.The Australian law went into effect last month. It is one of the most assertive efforts by lawmakers to rein in tech companies, which have argued for decades that unbreakable encryption is an imperative part of protecting the private communications of their customers.Read the rest. Read the rest

'Bobs Burgers' fans and stitching crafters, get ready to flip out. “I made the entire Belcher family into embroidery hoops,” says IMGURian loveandasandwich, aka Chelsea Bloxsom.“All done on 8 inch embroidery hoops. Cotton fabric backing, felt details. I glued the excess fabric onto the back so they make great personalized wall art.”Here they are, and they're magnificent.“Yes I take custom orders and yes I sell my little guys!” Here is her Instagram. She's also behind Warewolf press on Etsy. View this post on Instagram I finally made the whole family! 🍔 Just finished a Bob Belcher hoop last night, with the most Bob quote I could think of. He’s currently available in my shop! Swipe through to see the other Belcher hoops I made in the past. I can remake any of those as well, simply use the ‘Custom Embroidery Hoop’ listing. Shop link in bio. . #crafts #bobsburgers #bobbelcher #lindabelcher #louisebelcher #tinabelcher #genebelcher #crafting #sewing #applique #crafter #sewing #embroidery #embroideryhoop #embroidering #artistsoninstagram #artistsofinstagram #fanartA post shared by Chelsea Bloxsom (@loveandasandwich) on Jan 10, 2019 at 2:05pm PST Read the rest

"A single suicide by an Uber investigator who posts that they could not 'take' the job demands any longer will be fodder for the national if not international news media," the memo said.

“A new Twitter is coming,” tweeted Twitter today.“Some of you got an opt-in to try it now. Check out the emoji button, quick keyboard shortcuts, upgraded trends, advanced search, and more. Let us know your thoughts!”It's simpler. No more three-column view. Two columns now. “It's thankfully about more than cosmetics, even if it doesn't have everything users might like,” writes Jon Fingas at Engadget.Snip:To begin with, some basic tasks are faster. Keyboard shortcuts help you navigate around without as much mouse clicking, and a dedicated emoji button can add some smilies or hand claps to your latest tweet. You'll also find an upgraded trend section for times when you want to track the planet's pulse, and search promises to be more sophisticated.This doesn't appear to include some of the big updates Twitter mentioned recently, such as status updates. And no, there's no edit button. Still, it's notable that Twitter is giving its web client an overhaul after focusing so much of its attention on mobile users.Just when you'll see it is another story. At the moment, it's limited to a portion of the audience through an opt-in button. You'll know if you have access, then. It could be a while before the makeover is broadly available.A new https://t.co/fHiPXozBdO is coming.Some of you got an opt-in to try it now. Check out the emoji button, quick keyboard shortcuts, upgraded trends, advanced search, and more. Let us know your thoughts! pic.twitter.com/G8gWvdHnzB— Twitter (@Twitter) January 22, 2019 Read the rest

The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday issued an “emergency” security alert urging federal civilian agencies to secure login credentials for their respective internet domain records. The alert follows up on a recent report of DNS attacks said to have originated in Iran.In today's statement, DHS says managers need to audit DNS records for unauthorized edits, update their passwords, and turn on multi-factor authentication for all accounts through which DNS records could be altered. Agencies have two weeks to implement the directives.Cyberscoop today reported that DHS is aware of at least six civilian agency domains that have been impacted by DNS hijacks. Read it in full at cyber.dhs.gov: Emergency Directive 19-01 [January 22, 2019], 'Mitigate DNS Infrastructure Tampering.' There's also a PDF link.Excerpt from the 'background' section of the document:In coordination with government and industry partners, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is tracking a series of incidents1 involving Domain Name System (DNS) infrastructure tampering. CISA is aware of multiple executive branch agency domains that were impacted by the tampering campaign and has notified the agencies that maintain them.Using the following techniques, attackers have redirected and intercepted web and mail traffic, and could do so for other networked services.The attacker begins by compromising user credentials, or obtaining them through alternate means, of an account that can make changes to DNS records.Next, the attacker alters DNS records, like Address (A), Mail Exchanger (MX), or Name Server (NS) records, replacing the legitimate address of a service with an address the attacker controls. Read the rest

Senator Mark Warner [D-VA] has introduced the Stop STUPIDITY (Shutdowns Transferring Unnecessary Pain and Inflicting Damage In The Coming Years) Act, which would "keep the government running in the case of a lapse in funding by automatically renewing government funding at the same levels as the previous year," while continuing to leave the the legislative branch and the Executive Office of the President unfunded, which "will force Congress and the White House to come to the negotiating table without putting at risk the economy or hurting the American public." Read the rest

Two drones flying near Newark Liberty International Airport led to a full stop on all flights. The airport, also known as EWR, serves the greater New York City area. Federal Aviation Administration officials said all flights bound to Newark were halted on Tuesday evening, after two UAVs were spotted flying nearby. Patrick McGeehan at the NYT:The drones were sighted about 3,500 feet over Teterboro Airport In New Jersey, a small airport about 17 miles north of Newark Liberty that handles private planes, the agency said. After the sighting, takeoffs from Newark were halted and inbound planes were held in the air.By 5:45 p.m., planes had resumed landing at Newark, but planes headed for the airport from other cities were blocked from taking off, the agency said. Newark is one of the three main airports serving New York City and the surrounding region.Brett Sosnik, a passenger on a flight headed for Newark, said his plane was forced to circle out over southern New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania during the halt in arrivals. He said the pilot said they were circling “due to drone activity.” Read the rest

Cherry Healey met with a scientist who taught her how to make a superior cup of tea. tl;dr: Don't use a styrofoam mug (it absorbs flavor), do use a red mug (it tricks your brain into making the tea taste better), and steep it for five minutes (again, it is more flavorful).[via Dooby Brain] Read the rest

I appreciate all the work Guy Jones puts into restoring old movies. He replaces the herky-jerky motion with a more natural looking motion and adds sound that matches the action. Here's a short film of High Street in Marseille, France as it looked on April 11, 1896. There's an advertisement on a horse-driven tram for "Chocolat Russe Du Bebe" but when I google it, the only results are for a "Polar Bear Milk Hat" and "Pregnant Dwarf Hamster Behavior." Read the rest

Recall the days of being a well-adjusted middle-schooler, free of pimples, bullies, authoritarian teachers, and self-doubt, by playing this dirt-cheap Oregon Trail handheld game. Learn about the realities of 19th-century pioneer life on The Oregon Trail - one of the most successful computer games of all time! Choose your profession and your traveling companions, then set out on the trek from Independence, Missouri to Oregon's WIllamette Valley circa 1848. Fill your covered wagon with supplies and prepare to cross rivers and mountain ranges along the way - hunting for food and trading for supplies as you go. Monitor your traveling pace, supplies and the health of your party closely to make sure everyone arrives safely and to avoid the dreaded message "You have died of dysentery."Oregon Trail handheld game via Amazon Read the rest

All we have to go on here is the YouTube description: "Unpaid contractor destroys travelodge" and some blow-by-blow comments from an excited witness. Read the rest

Fortnite Battle Royale is constantly adding new items, weapons, vehicles and locations. The latest? The Sneaky Snowman.The winter-themed map has a lot of Snowmen hanging around it. Now you can disguise yourself as one and sneak up on folks. Snowmen can't build or use weapons, but they can throw snowballs and act as a free 100 shield. When you switch to another item, the Snowman disguise will fall.Players who love disguising themselves as an in-game bush (aka Bushwookies) will likely have a ball! Read the rest

Zandrea Askew (28), a Marine Corps veteran, was detained by an Illinois sheriff's department on charges of driving under the influence and resisting arrest. She is now suing the department for forcibly stripping her naked, violently pulling her hair, and leaving her naked on the floor for 12 hours. (The charges against her were dismissed.)From ABC News:The lawsuit claims several officers then slammed Askew to the ground and physically restrained her, causing bodily harm. They "forcibly and maliciously stripped" all of her clothes and undergarments from her body and "violently pulled" her hair, causing further pain and injury, according to the complaint."There was no legitimate or necessary law enforcement, safety or penological objective to forcibly stripping [Askew] of her clothing. The only objective of the officers was to punish, harass, humiliate, degrade, and inflict physical and psychological pain," the lawsuit states. "The officers’ conduct in stripping [Askew] of her clothing was intentionally demeaning, dehumanizing, undignified, humiliating, terrifying, embarrassing and degrading."The department had previously settled lawsuits filed by women who say they were forcibly strip-searched. Read the rest

Lady Gaga interrupted her performance during her Enigma show in Las Vegas this weekend to chew out Mike Pence. While singing "Million Reasons," she stops mid-song to say, "If the fucking president of the United States could please put our government back in business. There are people who live paycheck to paycheck and need their money." She then moves on to Pence.“And to Mike Pence, who thinks it's acceptable that his wife work at a school that bans LGBTQ, you are wrong. You say we should not discriminate against Christianity. You are the worst representation of what it means to be a Christian. I am a Christian woman, and what I do know about Christianity is that we bear no prejudice, and everybody is welcome. So you can take all that disgrace, Mr. Pence, and you can look yourself in the mirror, and you'll find it right there." Via NBC Read the rest

I write a weekly newsletter with Kevin Kelly and Claudia Dawson called Recomendo (subscribe here). Here's the latest issue:Searchable RecomendoWe made a searchable, inexpensive version of our Recomendo book. This PDF (in glorious full-color!) is only $1.99, and available internationally. Download, browse, and search through 550 great recommendations. — KKNewsletter AppI’ve been using the Stoop app to discover and read new newsletters. It’s great to have them all in one place where I can let them pile up and read when I have the time. I’m really enjoying the Clearer Thinking newsletter, which offers tools for better decision-making. You can also find Recomendo on there! — CDIf You High (and even if you aren't)The ifyouhigh Instagram account has 3.4 million followers, but I recently stumbled on it and am hooked. It’s an endless scroll of strange and beautiful short videos of natural phenomena, machinery in motion, slo-mo, time-lapse, art, and other “Whoa dude!” moments that you don’t need to be high to appreciate. — MFTypeset in the FutureI’m spending hours studying this coffee-table book celebrating the typography and design used in science fiction movies. What do we see on screens “in the future”? More broadly, this dense picture book, Typeset in the Future, is a roundabout way to examine where the interface design of technology is headed. — KKThe Alien ExerciseIn Jen Sincero’s book, You Are a Badass, she describes the Alien Exercise for rebooting yourself and getting some clarity. Read the rest