A man, woman, and what sounds like a kid are sitting in a car, parked along the side of the road in Windham, Maine, while the man films a high speed chase. Suddenly the speeding car swerves out of control, crosses the lane into oncoming traffic, and slams into them. Crazy! The people in the car were rushed to the hospital, with "serious but non life-threatening injuries," according to WMTW News. A truck was also hit, but the driver was not injured. Video: Tyler Bisson Read the rest

Over the weekend, firefighters in Conroe, Texas responded to a house fire caused by Christmas tree lights. When they arrived, they were faced with more than 100 snakes and numerous lizards. From CNN:The reptiles -- which, according to CNN affiliate KTRK included several five- to six-foot-long pythons and boa constrictors -- were in glass cases but still needed to be carried outside the house. With the help of the home's owners, fire crews ferried the snakes to safety..."The homeowner wasn't willing to give a lot of information on why they had so many snakes. In fact, they told us the snakes don't like people in uniform," Flannelly added. "But as firefighters, we will do anything to help anybody."Several reptiles died in the fire but the ones that were rescued were transferred to a local facility and are expected to be okay, KTRK reported. Read the rest

The host of Honest Guide conducted a sting operation against crooked convenience store employees who double the price of items, like food and water, for tourists. He recommends steering clear of stores that don't have price tags on the products. Read the rest

Google's Sidewalk Labs convinced Toronto to let it build an all-surveilling "smart city" on a small patch of lakefront and then promptly shenaniganized things, breaking all its privacy and transparency promises and prompting a mass exodus of its advisory board members and other watchdogs. But the shenanigans just keep coming: newly discovered documents reveal that the privatization and private surveillance of Toronto will extend far beyond the original site, capturing most of the waterfront, including Exhibition Place, Ontario Place, Fort York, Harbourfront, Rogers Centre, the CN Tower, the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and Union Station.The whole process remains shrouded in mystery, and it seems unlikely that the terrible provincial government will have the competence or moral force to do anything to check it.And on December 5, the Auditor General of Ontario issued a report on the project, stating it is being rushed forward without sufficient public disclosure. Auditor Bonnie Lysyk said Waterfront Toronto’s “new agreement with Sidewalk Labs raises concerns in areas such as consumer protection, data collection, security, privacy, governance, anti-trust and ownership of intellectual privacy.”The province responded to the report by saying it will work with the municipal and federal governments to determine whether any new legislation, bylaws or policies are needed to protect the public interest before the deal is finalized.The auditor’s report also noted: “We found internal Waterfront Toronto emails indicating that the (Waterfront Toronto) board felt it was being “urged – strongly --” by the federal and provincial governments to approve and authorize the framework agreement with Sidewalk Labs as soon as possible.”Plan to re-imagine Toronto’s waterfront: How much does public know about it? Read the rest

Kiwibots are autonomous transport robots that quickly deliver food, usually to hungry college students. But over the weekend, students at UC Berkeley found one of these robots rolling along in flames. Via The Verge:Kiwi, the startup that makes and manages the one hundred-strong fleet of robots, issued a statement to say that the fire was quickly extinguished by a passerby before the city’s fire department arrived and doused the machine in foam. No one was harmed as a result of the incident. Kiwi suspended its service until it was able to complete its investigation. It said that it believed the fire was caused by human error, when a faulty battery was manually inserted into the robot, eventually causing thermal runaway — the same issue that resulted in the recall of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 phones. Kiwi says that a new piece of software will “rigorously monitor the state of each battery” to prevent anything like this from happening again.Fortunately, the bot was not delivering at the time and no students went hungry. The students did mourn the little guy, however, with a candlelight vigil, as seen below.so a delivery robot caught fire on berkeley's campus and students set up a candlelight vigil for it pic.twitter.com/alen7vF7Ho— James Wenzel 🦊 (@ratherbright) December 15, 2018English textile worker destroying mechanized loom, c. 1820. (colorized) pic.twitter.com/HtxQgtUNHB— 🤔 (@brlohn) December 14, 2018 Read the rest

A roundup from Lithub of the best cover art on books from this year, with commentary. There's a strong trend toward in-camera or handmade graphics and natural media, with computers only showing up to do things that you don't need computers to do. I think this is a good thing, but it inspires me to pick out Joan Wong's art for Sam Munson's Dog Symphony, which is perfectly, surreally computerized. Read the rest

The Alien Chestburster Christmas Ornament is just the thing to finish your nerdmas tree; it's from Pittsburgh's Creature Replicas, who will also sell you a life-size 'burster, a fossil Tremors graboid, or some damned fine Aliens magnets.(via Creepbay) Read the rest

More outstanding paleocomputing Christmas cheer from Paleotronics (previously): a trove of 55 Christmas covers of classic computer magazines, include lamented bygones like Creative Computing. Read the rest

Wired Magazine has just published a package of eight sf writers visions of "The Future of Work," including some of our favorite authors like Laurie Penny (previously), Charlie Jane Anders (previously), (previously), Ken Liu (previously) and others -- eight in all.I've just read half of them and they're uniformly brilliant -- great short-short stories that pack a lot of emotional punch with their technofuturistic speculation.But charts and white papers only capture so much. Facts need feelings, and for that we turn to science fiction. Its authors are our most humane, necessary futurists, imagining not just what the future holds but how it might look, feel, even smell. In the following pages are stories from eight sci-fi specialists. Some are set in the near term; others, a bit farther out. All remind us that, no matter the inevitable upheavals, we don’t struggle alone—but with and for other people. And robots. —The Editors8 Sci-Fi Writers Imagine the Bold and New Future of Work [Wired] Read the rest

Saeb Erekat is a Palestinian negotiator. The Palestinians and Jared Kushner, Trump son-in-law and ostensibly the man charged with attaining middle-east peace, have apparently not been talking much lately. Erekat explains why: “This White House needs giant statesmen, not real estate agents."I told him ‘look: if you do this [move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem], you will have disqualified yourself from any role in the peace process.’He replied: ‘Don’t threaten me.’I said ‘read my lips: you will have disqualified yourself from any role in the peace process.’He said ‘you don’t know the changes that are happening around you in the Arab world.’I told him, ‘the best thing for me is to be a student — so teach me.’‘DON’T BE SARCASTIC,’ he shouted.I said ‘I’m not being sarcastic. What do you mean by changes? Do you think Arab countries will open embassies in Tel Aviv and accept Jerusalem, with the Al-Aqsa mosque, as Israel’s capital? Read the rest

Bahnhof is the Swedish free-speech-oriented ISP that was finally forced to block access to Sci-Hub (a site providing principled access to paywalled scientific literature) retaliated against science publishing giant Elsevier and the Swedish Patent and Market Court by blocking access to their sites for Bahnhof customers, redirecting requests to a page explaining why the block was in place.Now, the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS) has announced that it will investigate Bahnhof for violating Net Neutrality rules, which require that ISPs do not interfere to block users from accessing sites they want to visit (the rules carve out an exemption for blocks like the one Elsevier secured through the Patent and Market Court).“Bahnhof gets a legal threat to block sites out there somewhere on this huge computer network called the Internet. We block the sites because in reality there is no legal chance to win cases against the copyright mob, since the judge and court are corrupt, and it also comes with a package of astronomic fines,” he explains.Karlung says that the PTS appears most interested in the ‘counter-blocking’ of Elsevier, which he characterizes as a “fine opportunity” to tell people about the dangers of site-blocking which targets “the soul and core” of the Internet.“[Blocking] also jeopardizes the principle for ISP’s to be able to operate services. The ISP can never be responsible for content, or what people are doing somewhere out there on the Internet.”ISP Faces ‘Net Neutrality’ Investigation For Pirate Site Blocking Retaliation [Andy/Torrentfreak] Read the rest

Last week, Viktor Orban's authoritarian government rammed through a pair of massively unpopular laws: the "slave labor" law (employers can require up to 400 hours/year of overtime, and take up to three years to pay for it); and a law creating a parallel system of "administrative courts" dealing with "government issues" like voter fraud, overseen by political appointees from within Orban's regime.The protests that thronged the streets have not abated: thousands have continued to march, braving brutal police crackdowns, including kettling, gassing, and beatings. Recent protests focused on the state TV broadcaster.Opposition MPs were violently dragged from the state TV headquarters after they attempted to read a petition against the slave labor law over the air.Orban is part of the global wave of corrupt strong-man autocrats who have swept to power -- see also Trump, Erdogan (Turkey), Duterte (Philippines), Bolsonaro (Brazil), etc -- by targeting economically insecure victims of neoliberalism with racist messages and conspiracy theories about George Soros. Clashes with police began when protesters arrived at the headquarters of state-run television station MTVA and tried to storm the building, CNN affiliate ATV Hungary reports.Video and images show officers in riot gear firing tear gas into the crowd during the confrontation. Live-streamed video posted by ATV Hungary showed reporters trapped in a crowd of protesters unable to move, as well as people crouched on the ground temporarily blinded by the tear gas.'Slave law' protests turn violent in Budapest [Sheena McKenzie and Mallory Gafas/CNN]Hungarian MPs removed from offices of state-run TV station.Read more: https://t.co/4l0BbV8rS9 pic.twitter.com/2ii0Il10b3— euronews (@euronews) December 17, 2018 Read the rest

Scottish Limited Partnerships are notorious financial secrecy tools that have been used to launder an estimated $100 billion on behalf of ex-Soviet gangster-oligarchs.An explosive set of court rulings, regulatory warnings, official warnings from other nations (America, Canada, France, Belgium, Italy, Israel and Cyprus), a Council of Europe investigation and a UN blacklisting finally led the UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy to open an investigation, helmed by the now-disgraced, former Business Minister Andrew Griffiths, who, from the start, signaled that he did not take the allegations seriously.Nearly a year later, the department has published its proposed reforms, which will do virtually nothing to kerb money-laundering through SLPs.As Richard Smith explains, the investigation consisted entirely of responses to a "call for evidence," but did not take into account the vast amount of official documentation of money-laundering already in the record. The call for evidence drew 29 responses from people "the vast majority of which said that they could not offer evidence which definitively links LPs, in particular in their Scottish form, to criminal activity" (or, as Smith puts it, "the views of twenty-odd unnamed respondents, all of whom say they know absolutely nothing about the question they are answering"). Smith has rounded up a set of links to the voluminous reporting on SLP money-laundering, none of which were considered by the Department in preparing its report. Unless you are familiar with UK-Governmental evidence-gathering processes, you may find BEIS’s evidence-filtering strategy to be surprisingly aggressive. It would certainly have been helpful of BEIS to describe exactly what it meant by ‘evidence’, before soliciting it, and then ignoring the evidence that it did get, but that’s not how BEIS rolls. Read the rest

To quote Kashana Cauney, in the future everyone will be canceled for 15 minutes.Jared "Threatin" Eames is a mediocre singer-songwriter who booked a European tour by buying a fake following on social media, establishing fake promoters and labels, and hiring some cool kids to be his backing band. He fooled a bunch of places in the UK and Ireland into letting him rent their venues, but didn't count for the fact that they all talk to each other and have their own significant online platforms. It all unraveled spectacularly and horribly on the internet after Threatin played to a couple of empty halls, but now the media wants, for its own reasons, to help the faker make it. Cue extensive, fascinating profiles from the BBC and Rolling Stone.In my conversation with the couple, they quickly admitted the hoax. ... he had something he was eager to show me - a series of emails that he said he sent out under yet another alias, a Gmail account belonging to “E. Evieknowsit”.“URGENT: News tip,” the subject line read.“The musician going by the name Threatin is a total fake. He faked a record label, booking agent, facebook likes, and an online fanbase to book a European tour. ZERO people are coming to the shows and it is clear that his entire operation is fake,” he wrote, including links to all his phoney websites.“Please don’t let this man fake his way to fame... Please Expose him.” ...“I manufactured my own destruction,” he said proudly. Read the rest

People in Soho, Piccadilly Circus, and Leicester Square are being told by the London Metropolitan Police to submit to a trial of the force's notoriously inaccurate, racially biased facial recognition system, which clocks in an impressive error-rate of 98% (the system has been decried by Professor Paul Wiles, the British biometrics commissioner, as an unregulated mess).The cops are handing out notices telling people they can opt out without being treated as suspicious.UK industry already operates an unregulated, unaccountable facial recognition system tied to a blacklist of alleged undesirables. The pressure group Big Brother Watch is suing to end the practice, and crowfunding the suit -- they could use your donations.These real-time facial recognition cameras are biometric checkpoints, identifying members of the public without their knowledge. Police have begun feeding secret watchlists to the cameras, containing not only criminals but suspects, protesters, football fans and innocent people with mental health problems. Big Brother Watch has joined with Baroness Jenny Jones to demand an end to the police's use of real-time facial recognition cameras. Baroness Jones, a member of the House of Lords, fears that she could end up on a facial recognition watchlist when conducting her parliamentary and political duties. A photo of her was held on the Met's "domestic extremism" database and her political activities were monitored while she sat on an official committee scrutinising the Met and stood to be London's mayor.However, facial recognition cameras mean that even if you're not on a police database now, you could be soon. Read the rest

Saturday night was the tenth annual Mid-Century Supper Club's holiday potluck and, as is customary, photos from it have been flooding my feeds since it ended. Once again, there were lots of great creations (and costumes, whoa boy) but I was particularly gobsmacked by this gingerbread (and candy clay) house fashioned after the circa 1974 Fisher-Price A-Frame dollhouse. Its creators are pals of mine here in Alameda, Jo Anne Yada (aka art teacher Ms. Y) and Michael Fleming (aka illustrator Tweedlebop). Jo Anne shared on Facebook that they picked up an actual vintage Fisher-Price A-Frame toy this past summer at a yard sale and that's when inspiration struck, "We knew even waaay back then that we would be recreating it in gingerbread..."They estimate the edible A-Frame took over 20 hours to complete. Michael focused on the house itself (he jokingly shared, "There was a learning curve.") and Jo Anne worked on the Little People.The People were made of fondant, with the faces drawn with cake decorating marker; half a toothpick holds the heads on securely. We really wanted to diversify the People in our scene, so we made a rainbow of skin colors to include more people in addition to the classic yellow-and-red haired ones. And of course, we had to include the dog!For their efforts, they won the potluck's People's Choice award. And, they're already starting to think about what they'll create next year. Can't wait!images via Michael Fleming and Jo Anne Yada, used with permission Read the rest

This weekend's viral load was significantly boosted by the appearance of Trump senior advisor Steven Miller on a current affairs show. No-one knows what he said because: What's that on his normally-bald head? For those who have difficulty seeing what's wrong there, I have helpfully removed all the other horrible, weirdly distracting elements of his face: Finasteride and hair transplants, gentlemen. All else is lies, and the only lie that works is a very high-end "hair system". Read the rest

"Aw yeah it's time for cookies," writes AI ringmaster Janelle Shane (previously at BB).One neural network I use, called textgenrnn, tries its best to imitate any kind of text you give it. I’ve given them paint colors, band names, and even guinea pig names and in each case their results are somewhat… mixed. (Paint colors called Stanky Bean, Stargoon, and Turdly, for example) The problem is that it doesn’t know what any of these words mean - it’s just picking letter combinations that seem likely to it.This is what happened when I gave it all the cookies from a list of American recipes. This is what human cookies sound like to a neural network.Previously, previously. Read the rest

Previously: A bicycle snob takes on an e-bike; The great e-bike experiment: the data)We're moving along now, and are so close to wrapping this whole thing up. Last time, we saw that an e-bike could be an equalizer if you commute in a lot of traffic, or up and down a lot of hills, but less so if you don't. Our final part will explore all of those other things that could factor in to your potential e-bike decision.The IntangiblesA crazy thing happened over the course of my experiment. I started riding the e-bike. A lot. It became really easy to make the call in the morning to hop on it instead of into my car. I still felt a bit of guilt over not riding a "real" bike, but I tried to round things off by pedalling my meat powered version at least once a week. Or, once every two weeks. Or so. As hinted at above, a lot of things started to add up to the e-bike being a really awesome way to travel around a city.Load it upThe first nice thing is that you can load as much weight onto these things as you want and it doesn't really matter. Commuting on a regular bike is an exercise in advanced logistics, where everything is pared down to a minimum and then stuffed into a tiny bag. With the e-bike, it's like heading out on a two-week family vacation with children, and you start bringing things along that you might think about using maybe. Read the rest

Peter Sobot, an engineer at Spotify, noticed something unsettling about his Brother label maker. Though apparently high-tech, under the laptop-style case they still use old-timey printing ribbons that retain an image of everything they ever spit out. Don't discard: destroy!Thermal label makers solve this problem, but don't offer quite so attractive a result. So I use an old-timey Dymo embosser [Amazon] , with the type wheel and rigid tape: the letterpress of labelmakers. Read the rest

This clock (supposedly made for kids) cracks me up. To tell what time it is, you have to do some simple math. Here's its story:The Albert Clock is named after Albert Einstein and inspired by an apocryphal anecdote: that Einstein was bad at math. Designer Alex Schindlbeck, who conceived this clock for a small Paris-based company, set out to turn classroom boredom into mental calculation skills. He gave the standard alphanumeric segment font a makeover, with improved readibility of numbers and mathematical symbols. This engaging educational tool caters to children's natural play instincts, and the satifsying delight of problem-solving.The Albert Clock is only available at the MoMA Design Store (for $340!). (bookofjoe) Read the rest

Almost immediately after buying my first iPhone in 2009, I became hooked on jailbreaking. Despite the fact that my iPhone 3GS met all of my mobile computing needs, I couldn't resist the temptation to tweak my user experience: tethering my computer on the go, messing with the color and style of my onscreen keyboard--you name it. If it was available for download via Cydia app, I gave it a spin. Some apps and hacks were worth paying for. Many weren't. I never dabbled in pirated apps, but I could have! That's what was so wonderful about Cydia: it offered the possibility of wandering off the path of what was normally a walled garden. Sadly, after years of service to the homebrew and jailbreaking community, Cydia is shuttering its store.From Engadget:Service creator Jay Freeman (aka Saurik) has shut down the Cydia Store citing a combination of costs and security issues. It "loses [him] money" and, when there were multiple staffers, cost him a significant chunk of his "sanity." And while Freeman had already planned to close the store by the end of 2018, he bumped it up a week after learning of a security hole that let let someone buy apps through your account if you were logged in and browsing untrusted app repositories.The good news is that you’ll still be able to gain access to apps previously purchased in the Cydia store – at least for the time being. As sad as it is to see Cydia winding down, this isn’t the end of the road for jailbreaking. Read the rest

I've used the same fountain pen and Fisher Space Pen for years: I used to constantly lose disposable pens, costing me scads of money every year. The two refillable pens I own now cost enough that I'm always a little paranoid about their whereabouts, so I've yet to lose them. Filling the fountain pen costs pennies. To snag a refill for my Space Pen up in Canada, I can expect to spend around eight bucks, plus shipping. That's 12 different kinds of BS.Earlier today, I ran across this video. After watching it, I picked up the Zebra refills at Office Depot. It worked! With my ink budget sorted out, I can spend more money on fancy paper. Read the rest

I dig Moment's high quality smartphone camera lenses for the convenience that they offer. I don't always have my Sony RX100 III on me. It often isn't even charged and ready to use. But where ever I roam, I typically have my smartphone with me: thanks to Moment's lenses, I'm able to up my iPhone's photographic game to almost reach the heights that my pocket-sized Sony shooter affords. What's more, the money I've spent on their glass feels like a good investment. Should I ever pull together enough scratch to upgrade to a new iPhone, all I'll have to do in order to use the lenses I own is buy a new case for it. Currently, Moment makes cases for Apple, Samsung, and Google hardware and, as of earlier this week, OnePlus.The one Moment lens that I used more than any other was their 60mm tele lens. It provided 2x optical zoom over what my old iPhone SE could manage on its own. My dual lens iPhone 7 Plus? Same thing, only better: when paired with the iPhone's native optical zoom, you wound up with 4x optical magnification. A couple of years ago, it allowed me to shoot this:Not bad! But here's the thing: when you use the 60mm with a dual lens camera phone, like the iPhone X, which typically has a wider field of view, the images captured aren't as crisp at the edges as they are in the center. With the photo above, I was able to crop and correct for some of this in Lightroom, but it's a pain in the ass. Read the rest

Here's my reading (MP3) of my Locus column, "What is the Internet For?" (which asks, "Is the internet a revolutionary technology?") and my short story for the fiftieth anniversary of Reason Magazine, Sole and Despotic Dominion, which builds on my 2015 Guardian column, If Dishwashers Were iPhones.MP3 Read the rest

The first time I encountered Matteo Pizzolo, Amancay Nahuelpan and Tyler Boss's comic Calexit, I was skeptical: California separating from the USA is an incredibly stupid idea, predicated on innumerable misconceptions (including the idea that the state that gave us Nixon, Reagan, and Schwarzenegger is uniformly progressive, and also the idea that "the world's sixth largest economy" wouldn't radically contract the instant it lost access to the rest of the country, including the Atlantic Ocean). But when I found the first Calexit collection on the recommended table at the 100% reliable LA comic shop Secret Headquarters, I decided to give it a chance.Wow.First things first: this is not a wish-fulfillment fantasy about an ascendant California living in splendid isolation from the thick-fingered vulgarians of America. It is a story about an incredibly messy, violent "separation" sparked by all-too-plausible anti-immigrant policies enacted by a far-right demagogue President's Attorney General, in which California has splintered into many shifting and confusing pieces. It's not wish fulfillment: it's warning -- and a scarily imminent and salient warning at that.But that's not all: it's superb. The book is so fast moving, with such outstanding characters, such intense action -- like the second coming of Brian Wood's DMZ -- that I read it all in one sitting, at a coffee shop patio across the street from Secret Headquarters, using my phone's flashlight as the sun set around me.The book ends on a cliffhanger (of course), and then it continues -- with interviews by Pizzolo of figures from Bill Ayers to Lexi Alexander to David Sirota to the founders of Indivisible. Read the rest

In a deeply researched longread, New York Times investigative reporters Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe document in fine detail the role played by the ubiquitous McKinsey and Company in legitimizing, coordinating, and supercharging the world's most notorious human-rights-abusing regimes, from Saudi Arabia to China to Russia. In these countries, McKinsey consultants confer with ex-McKinsey consultants who ascend to high ranks in government ministries and para-governmental entities (such as Russia's VEB bank, which operates as a not-very-secret arm of the Kremlin), and the McKinsey company hires the scions of local power-brokers to work in their ranks. McKinsey worked alongside Paul Manafort to legitimize and guide Ukraine's Viktor Yanukovych; they were one of the few "Western" countries to attend the "Davos in the Desert" event thrown by the Saudis after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi; they had their fingers deep in the embezzlement scandal that brought down the Malaysian government.McKinsey insists that they are working to reform these countries from within, providing advice that uplifts the people living under the yoke of oppression and there's some truth to this, but they're also prolific rationalizers, according to insiders and former McKinseyites, who describe how this rubric is deployed to cover working for terrible people who want to do terrible things -- so long as they are profitable.Other consulting companies serve similar clients, but none have the stature to confer credibility quite like McKinsey, a confidant for 92 years to many of the world’s most admired companies.In China, it has advised at least 22 of the 100 biggest state-owned companies — the ones carrying out some of the government’s most strategic and divisive initiatives, according to a review of Chinese-language material by The Times. Read the rest

In San Francisco, property speculators have made a game out of tearing down historically protected homes, then retroactively applying for demolition permits, and using the now-empty lots to build massive mansions that sell for millions.Ross Johnstone says that he's not a speculator at all, and that the reason he knocked down modernist architect Richard Neutra's 1936 Twin Peaks Largent House at 49 Hopkins Ave. had nothing to do with the extra money he'd get from increasing the floor plan from 1,300 square feet to about 4,000 (he says he wanted to move his family into the larger house).The San Francisco City Planning Commission didn't buy this argument, nor the argument that the house had lost its historic character in earlier remodels and was therefore not worthy of preservation. Instead, they've ordered Johnstone to build an exact replica of the house he tore down, "executed beautifully in a way that would be consistent with the home’s original expression," and to post a plaque recounting the history of the house.The case attracted attention because Neutra is considered one of the most important modern architects and because it highlighted the trend of speculators illegally razing modest homes with the intention of replacing them with mega-homes. The new houses can fetch upward of $5 million, double or triple the price of an average house in already expensive San Francisco.Planning Commissioner Dennis Richards said he hopes the commission’s action in the 49 Hopkins case will send a message to speculators accustomed to ignoring city planning and building laws with few or no repercussions. Read the rest

For the true audio enthusiast, there's a lot of difference between putting on some songs "for background music" and a true listening experience. For the latter, there's nothing like a pair of sturdy headphones and the powerful speakers that come with them. And the wireless variety doesn't get much more powerful than the TREBLAB Z2 Wireless Noise-Cancelling Headphones.If you know TREBLAB's series of wireless earbuds, you've got the same 4.2 Bluetooth technology here. But these sturdier pieces of tech deliver the same connection with a thicker sound, thanks to the neodymium-backed 40mm speakers and Sound 2.0 tech. AptX and active noise cancellation ensure an immersive listening experience, and the impressive 35 hours of battery life make sure the beat doesn't stop from the first track on your playlist to the last.Thanks to a price drop, the TREBLAB Z2 Wireless Noise-Cancelling Headphones are $78.99. That's a markdown from the previous sale price of $149.99. Read the rest

Tim May was one of the founders of the cypherpunk movement, whose seminal Crypto Anarchist Manifesto is still startling relevant today, a quarter century after it was written. May's work was critical to the fight to legalize civilian access to strong cryptography, and to resist the Clinton administration's doomed and absurd attempt to ban working cryptography (this campaign is still alive and well, and gaining ground in Australia). May was featured in Steven Levey's Wired cover story Crypto Rebels, which was the issue I picked up a couple of weeks before dropping out of university to work in the tech industry (these are not unrelated facts).May has died of natural causes, at the age of 67. The famous cryptographer Lucky Green has written quite a remembrance of May that gives a very good sense of the man and his life. Read the rest

Cheap Old Houses is one of my favorite Instagram accounts. The folks behind it scour real estate listings around the U.S. to find and showcase cool old homes being sold at ridiculously inexpensive prices, i.e. real estate pR0n. Sure, most of the houses are in places I'd never move to or they are "major fixers" but they're all under $100K. Well, it seems that the feed is becoming too popular, as evidenced by this PSA they released on Friday:Here are some examples of these cheap old homes:screenshot via Instagram(Super Punch) Read the rest

When I was in Berlin last month, I stopped into the offices of Netzpolitik (previously), the outstanding German digital rights activist group, where I recorded an interview for their podcast (MP3), talking about science fiction, utopianism, dystopianism, how we can change the world, and why my kid has so many names. Read the rest

Jimmy Kimmel can be kind of a dick. You may remember that he's had parents lie to their kids, saying that they stole and ate all their Halloween candy -- all caught on camera, of course. That gag's been running for a few years now. Well, he's got a new prank. This time he's got parents unplugging the TV when their kids are playing the video game Fortnite. As you'll see, like with the "missing" candy bit, the kids don't take too kindly to it. Read the rest

Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke (previously) is leaving the cabinet at the end of the month.Zinke was one of Trump's most deplorable swamp-monsters: a man so loathed that even Scott Priutt couldn't stand him, and for good reason: this is the guy who handed a $300m government contract to fix power lines in hurricane-wracked Puerto Rico to a two-man shop run by old buddies; defrauded the taxpayer with bogus travel-expenses, removed endangered bears from the endangered species list, let oil companies drill in national parks and blanked out his whole calendar.It's not clear whether he was fired for being a gross liability, or quit ahead of the sinking of the Trump ship. Doubtless he will parachute into a sweet industry job to collect a payout from the corporations he benefited while suckling on the public's teat.Ryan Zinke: US interior secretary to leave administration [BBC] Read the rest

Mick Mulvaney (previously) is a terrible human being -- as Trump's head for the financial watchdog, he's gutted the agency and allowed crooked lenders and dirty banks to get away with ripping off Americans -- so he knows one when he sees one.Back when Mulvaney was running for a South Carolina Congressional seat in 2016, Mulvaney explained why he was supporting Trump: "Yes, I am supporting Donald Trump, but I’m doing so despite the fact that I think he’s a terrible human being."Mulvaney has been named Trump's acting Chief of Staff, standing in for John Kelly. Mulvaney is far from the first person in the administration to openly criticize Trump before signing on for a job in his administration, but he is certainly one of the most high-ranking.During the 2016 Republican presidential primary, Trump opponent Rick Perry called the future president’s campaign a “cancer on conservatism.” Perry now serves as President Trump’s Secretary of Energy. Before Kellyanne Conway became Trump’s 2016 campaign manager during the homestretch of the race, Conway had publicly criticized candidate Trump for refusing to release his tax returns and for his “vulgar” rhetoric. Conway currently serves as one of Trump’s most ardent defenders and as his White House counselor.Even if Mulvaney had never uttered a critical word about Trump, the chances he would last long in a chief of staff post would have likely been slim regardless. Two knowledgeable sources told The Daily Beast on Friday that Mulvaney has indicated in recent weeks that he definitely would not want the chief of staff position beyond a temporary, interim assignment. Read the rest

What the hell were they thinking? Luxury brand Prada is accused of selling $550 "blackface" figurines. They have charms in their Pradamalia line that are monkeys with dark faces and big red lips, i.e. blackface. The merchandise has now been removed for purchase, though the site still shows it. Thanks to #blackface @Prada, now you can take #sambo home with you for the holidays #StopRacism #StopBlackface #StopPrada pic.twitter.com/5t2cvosLIF— Chinyere Ezie (@lawyergrrl) December 13, 2018Here's Prada's response to the accusation:[1/2] #Prada Group abhors racist imagery. The Pradamalia are fantasy charms composed of elements of the Prada oeuvre. They are imaginary creatures not intended to have any reference to the real world and certainly not blackface.— PRADA (@Prada) December 14, 2018[2/] #Prada Group never had the intention of offending anyone and we abhor all forms of racism and racist imagery. In this interest we will withdraw the characters in question from display and circulation.— PRADA (@Prada) December 14, 2018On Friday morning, Gothamist's Jennifer Hsu got this video of the Prada store in NYC's SOHO district shuttering its blinds, as a way of hiding the offensive window display: screenshot via Gothamist/YouTube Read the rest

"From Morlocks to warlocks, nerds are passionate about a lot of things, but there's one thing they love above all else and that is correcting people*." So begins each intro to the CollegeHumor game show, "Um, Actually." Nimbly hosted by Mike Trapp, the rules for Um, Actually are simple. Mike reads a statement related to various fantasy and sci-fi universes and beloved nerd media (Lord of the Rings, Blade Runner, D&D, Dune, Warhammer, Harry Potter, anime, gaming, etc). The statement conceals a mistake. One of the three contestants buzzes in with their correction. And they must preface their correction with "Um, actually..." Many of the contestants on the show are familiar faces from Geek & Sundry, The Nerdist, CollegeHumor, and shows like Silicon Valley. When "Um, Actually" first showed up on YouTube a few years ago, as 6-12-minute shorts, I really enjoyed the 8 episodes they produced and thought it would make a fun full-length show. CollegeHumor obviously thought the same. They have launched a second season of full-length (24 minutes) episodes as part of their new Dropout.tv subscription comedy network. Here is one of the full-length episodes and several of the teasers from CollgeHumor's YouTube channel.The show also encourages its viewers to correct any of its mistakes, and as you might imagine, there are a lot of them @UmActuallyShow (some of which are read at the end of each episode).You can see all of the short YouTube segments for Season 2 here. Read the rest

Polish educator Janusz Korczak set out to remake the world just as it was falling apart. In the 1930s his Warsaw orphanage was an enlightened society run by the children themselves, but he struggled to keep that ideal alive as Europe descended into darkness. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the story of the children's champion and his sacrifices for the orphans he loved.We'll also visit an incoherent space station and puzzle over why one woman needs two cars.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon!Image: By Jolanta Dyr - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link Read the rest

Prior to 1976, the FDA did not regulate medical implants, and so shoddy and even deadly devices proliferated, inserted into Americans' body.When the FDA finally decided to regulate implants, they were reluctant to subject the devices already in the field to regulation -- after all, these were already in peoples' bodies. So they enacted rule 501(k), which grandfathered in any devices in the market, and any devices that were "substantially similar" to those devices.This is a loophole that eventually grew to consume the rule. Since 1976, medical implant makers like Johnson and Johnson have worked in a stepwise fashion: in 1977, make a device and argue that it's "similar" to a 1976 device. Then in 78, you make another device and argue that it's similar to the device you got approved in 1977. Flash forward to 2018, and practically all medical implants are approved through this process.Releasing the companies from regulatory oversight did not go well. From "metal on metal" joints that released deadly cobalt into patients' bloodstreams and dissolved their surrounding tissues into metal-studded slurry to vaginal mesh implants that caused incredible, life-threatening harm and could never be removed; to "Essure," a permanent female sterilization tool that also causes life-threatening harm, tens of thousands of Americans have been permanently disabled or killed by their medical implants, their lives turned upside-down, subjected to medical bankruptcy, collapsing marriages, even homelessness and loss of their children.But the FDA has not stepped up, and the companies routinely refuse to withdraw their products even when confronted with stories from injured and dying implantees. Read the rest

Digital or analog, there's a path of least resistance for any project. Finding that path is what the Agile methodology is all about, which is why proficiency in it is a must for any project management position - and the paycheck that comes with it. And the quickest path to learning Agile? The Agile Project Management Mastery Bundle.In these eight online courses, you'll get a thorough introduction to Agile and its ground-level project framework, Scrum. With copious examples, you'll find out how to break any job down into manageable tasks, and how to tackle them with precision. By the end of the bundle, you'll have used the Agile-friendly Jira software to tackle a real-world project of your own and be ready to join - or head up - any Agile-using team.The MSRP for all these resources is $1592, but you can get lifetime access to the Agile Project Management Mastery Bundle for $29 - a 98% discount off the cost of the individual courses. Read the rest

Topping the Electronic Frontier Foundation's don't-buy for Christmas list: Facebook's Portal in-home spycams, followed closely by Alexa/Google Home and other "home hubs"; Verizon's "AppFlash" spyware-equipped phones; and even the Elf on the Shelf gets a look in (normalizes surveillance!).There are many, many more products that we could talk about here: smart toys, baby monitors, fitness trackers and more. Overall, there are a few things to think about when you’re looking at buying a smart gift but trying to balance privacy.Consider carefully what features a product has, and what that means in terms of data collection. Anything with a microphone, for example, can record what you’re saying—and may record something you don’t expect it do, as was the case for one Amazon Echo owner this May. Opting for a smart vacuum also means letting a company like iRobot, maker of the Roomba, map out your house.Second, use your settings. A new smart device will probably have a lot of sharing options on by default, and set-up is a good time to go through the settings and figure out what you actually want to be exposing to companies and others.Finally, it’s always good to take a spin through a product’s privacy policy and attempt to understand what data it collects on you and how that information gets shared with others—that is, if a company has taken the advice of EFF and other privacy groups and bothered to write a policy that a normal person can understand. Mozilla, in a privacy-focused gift guide of its own, determined many tech products have policies that are at a college reading level or higher. Read the rest

A Lamborghini here, a Lamborghini there, sooner or later it starts to add up.A former pastor at the megachurch founded by “prosperity gospel” superstar Joel Osteen is having a hard time defending his purchase of a $200,000 Lamborghini for his wife Aventer Gray, to celebrate their anniversary. This Houston Chronicle article detailing John Gray's lavish taste in wedding anniversary gifts is funny, until you remember how people who are poor give their money to these churches and make these guys rich:At Lakewood Church, pastor Joel Osteen proclaims, "It's God's will for you to live in prosperity instead of poverty." Osteen, who lives in a $10.5 million mansion in River Oaks, practices what he preaches. Apparently. so does his former associate pastor, John Gray.While the traditional theme for an eight-year wedding anniversary present is pottery, on Sunday, Gray took it to a whole new level, gifting his wife, Aventer Gray, a $200,000 Lamborghini Urus.Mr. and Mrs. Gray were roasted on social media after they posted boast videos about the ultra-luxury Lamborghini Urus, which travels zero-to-62-mph in 3.6 seconds. The good pastor posted a video to Instagram capturing the the moment he handed The Missus keys to the bow-wrapped SUV.Aventer Gray posted this defense of her husband's purchase of new car on Instagram, and it's full of silliness. View this post on Instagram MY HUBBY IS A HARD-WORKER, HE WORKED HIS WHOLE LIFE AND HE SAVED TO BLESS HIS WIFE!!! REALJOHNGRAY AUTHOR X 2 SILENT ENDORSEMENTS (YOU KNOW BECAUSE EVERYONE DOESN’T HAVE TO BRAG ABOUT WHO THEY ARE SIGNED TO) 6 TV SHOWS MOVIE PRODUCER SONG WRITER TOURS Gives away cars, full houses of furniture, coats off his back... Read the rest

This is my new favorite holiday video, forever.The wonderful series of “Starrkeisha” videos you'll find on Random Structure TV are the creations of YouTuber and incredibly talented performer Cameron J Henderson.If you dig that, here's SANTA'S STOMP TEAM, as a VR180 Experience. [via @yesauntiecris] Read the rest

Rully Shabara and Wukir Suryadi are Jogjakarta, Indonesia-based musicians melding the ancient, traditional sounds of their region with a very contemporary mode of heavy experimentalism. The duo, known as Senyawa, have just released a new album, Sujud, on the always-compelling Sublime Frequencies label, distributed by Forced Exposure. This is music that is best enjoyed at night, in the darkness, where the expansive, transgenre magick can wash over and through you. Listen below. From Sublime Frequencies:The basic theme of the record can be summed up with one extremely powerful Bahasa Indonesian word, Tanah, which translates to "soil-ground-land-earth". Shabara's vocals are an expressive force, conjuring spirits from the soil with a deep humility and respect for the land and their existence in the universe. Suryadi has built a new guitar for these tracks and pushes the Senyawa sound into new territory, utilizing delay, loops, and other effects creating grounded backdrops of folk metal, punk attitudinal, and droning earthscapes - providing Shabara the perfect context to explore his whispering poetry and jagged, sharp-as-a-kris animistic powers.Sujud by Senyawa Read the rest

Firefighters rescued a 29-year-old California gentleman who was stuck for two days in the grease vent of a shuttered Chinese restaurant. Fortunately, the owner of a nearby business heard him yelling. According to the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, the fellow has been "less than truthful about his true intentions." From NPR:"He's all cleaned up and rehydrated," said (Sgt. Ray) Kelly, noting that it must have taken hours to rid the man of the "horrible smell.""We know sometimes suspects try to break into businesses to steal copper wire and plumbing and recycling for money. This appears to be something along those lines, but not every solution is jail," Kelly said, adding that a police report has been filed and that "he may be charged at a later time.""But we decided to be a little compassionate. We figured he's been through enough and it is in the holiday spirit," Kelly said.#DEVELOPING “Had he not been found today, we could be having a whole different conversation.” First responder says it was no joke for the man stuck in a restaurant grease vent. One more day, and he might not have made it. Instead he was rescued...with cuts and bruises. #ABC7now pic.twitter.com/bMNfdAcitc— Laura Anthony (@LauraAnthony7) December 12, 2018 Read the rest

K-Swiss and esports organization Immortals is releasing sneakers designed for playing videogames. Bloomberg reports that the "performance" version of the sneaker, called the Grandmaster, "will include the ability to quickly kick the shoes off hands-free. That should help provide comfort during long matches."(via NextDraft) Read the rest

Michael Nielsen was a Fulbright Scholar who got his Ph.D. in Physics at 24. He was already tenured when he decided just three years later to shift his attention to helping democratize Science. He’s published three books, most recently Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science. Currently, he’s a Research Fellow at YC Research in San Francisco. Michael’s a friend of mine, so I was happy to discover a new article by him in The Atlantic, authored with Patrick Collison, the CEO of Stripe. I decided to ask him why they’d done the research they describe, and what it meant. --KarlYou and Patrick Coliison recently published a piece in The Atlantic called Science is Getting Less Bang for its Buck. What's wrong with science? Aren't we continuing to make new discoveries?Patrick and I had been struck by two facts: (1) over the past hundred years, the amount humanity has spent on science has increased dramatically, much much faster than inflation; and (2) it didn't seem that we were getting really big breakthrough insights much (if any) faster than before.At some level that seems okay: science remains an amazing driver of human progress. But on the other hand, if you need to keep spending more and more money and effort on something, it's worth enquiring about what’s causing the cost to go up. And, talking to individual scientists, they're often quite disgruntled with how science is organized.So is the cliche about scientists chasing grant money and academic positions accurate, then? Read the rest

Facebook has notified 6.8 million users that, due to a bug, the company allowed its third-party developers to access all the users' photos, including those marked as private.Facebook says that the bug was active for two weeks in September, but it is only notifying users of this now (you can check if your photos were exposed here).The GDPR requires Facebook to notify users of breaches within 72 hours. Facebook waited three months. They say this doesn't violate the GDPR.Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation, which went into effect earlier this year, gives companies 72 hours to notify the authorities of a breach. It’s been well over 72 days since Facebook first spotted the Photos API issue.That doesn’t necessarily mean the company skirted the rules, though. Facebook argues that it needed that time to investigate whether the incident qualified as a breach under GDPR in the first place, and that it told the appropriate authorities within 72 hours of making that determination. Similarly, Facebook says it took so long to notify affected users because it needed time to identify and contact developers, and to build a “meaningful way” to notify users that they’d failed to protect their data. Given the number of times Facebook has had to do so this year, you’d think they’d have it down by now. Facebook Exposed 6.8 Million Users' Photos to Cap Off a Terrible 2018 [Brian Barrett/Wired](Image: JD Lasica, Cryteria CC-BY) Read the rest

Matthew Plummer Fernandez's Every Mickey is a 3D printable STL file consisting of "Every model of Mickey Mouse found online, compiled as one." Plummer Fernandez instantiated this one at 50.688 x 23.858 x 49.376 cm and enhanced it with acrylic paint. (via Waxy) Read the rest

The brilliant Polish artist Jakub "Mr Werewolf" Rozalski (previously) scores another hit with Rudolph's Revenge ("Now you know why they call him 'the red nosed'"). If you like this stuff, you can get more: Rozalski was the principal artist on the board game Scythe. (via Geeks Are Sexy) Read the rest