Boing Boing

Writing in New York Magazine, Naked Capitalism's Yves Smith draws on Hubert Horan's outstanding series on the underlying economics of Uber to describe why the company's IPO will be a terrible bet for the investors who buy into it.It's only been a year since Softbank offered to buy out shareholders on a valuation of $48B (and had more takers than they were prepared to buy from!); and now Uber is hoping to float on a valuation of $120B, asking suckers to pay more than double what the company's top execs were willing to sell their shares for a year ago.Uber claims it's a tech company and can benefit from the economics of scale that tech companies enjoy. But it's not. It's "a taxi company with an app attached." Uber's spent billions of its investors' cash subsidizing rides in a largely successful bid to kill local taxi companies, but even if every other cab company goes out of business, Uber won't be able to jack up the prices, because starting another Uber to compete with it just isn't that hard.Uber has disadvantages of scale. Beyond a certain critical threshold, adding drivers to Uber's pool of employees (who it claims are not employees) just lowers everyone's wages, and individual drivers spend much more maintaining their cars than yellow cab companies do maintaining their fleets.Uber's data-richness doesn't confer much of an advantage, either: no amount of data will change the fact that commuters mostly go in one direction in the morning and the other direction at night, leaving drivers with empty cars half the time (it's even worse with airport runs). Read the rest

Spoonflower's gorgeous selection of Haunted Mansion patterns can be printed on demand on wallpaper, giftwrap, or fabric: from the green strips of the maids' uniforms to the purple and black stripes of the butler's vests, to motifs picked up from the characters and decor (tightrope walker girl's floral print, hitchhiking ghosts, Leota's seance room), the variety is amazing. (via Disney's Haunted Mansion) Read the rest

Argentine hacker [Roni Bandini] modded a 1998 Furby so that it responds to stimulus by rattling off a random quote from Jorge Luis Borges. He calls it "Borgy."[Roni] hacked the Furby to replace the speaker with a more powerful one, and built a base to hold the larger speaker and a switch which can activate Borgy. He also used an Arduino Nano and a Sparkfun MP3 player shield loaded with the samples of Borges.When the Furby speaks, it shares some wisdom from Borges. It’s a simple, but a surprisingly effective hack that could be very useful for someone seeking inspiration. Or, as Borges himself once said: “Don’t talk unless you can improve the silence.”Furby Plus Borges Equals Borgy [Richard Baguley/Hackaday] Read the rest

Every year, DJ Riko drops a longform "mixmas" of Christmas mashups; this year's mix is out (MP3 link), featuring everyone from Run DMC to Harry Belafonte to Eels (here's how to get all 16 installments in the series!). Read the rest

It's the 20th anniversary of Anchorhead, Michael Gentry's seminal horror text adventure; to commemorate the occasion, Ryan Veeder and Jenni Polodna worked with 84 developers to create Cragne Manor, a tribute, whose puzzles are ingenious, frustrating and amazing.Each of the developers was given one room to create, without any knowledge of the others developers' rooms, making "each location ... a different author's take on a tribute to Anchorhead, or an original work of Lovecraftian cosmic horror, or a deconstruction of cosmic horror, or a gonzo parody of cosmic horror, or a parody of some other thing, or a portrait of life in Vermont, or a pure experiment in writing with Inform 7, or something else entirely. There are tons of puzzles. The puzzles get very weird."Early reviews are very positive: Zarf updates says "It's glorious. It's a mess. It's a glorious mess... It's a grand collection of vignettes by the biggest collective of IF authors ever gathered in one fictional Vermont town. It's a demonstration of varied styles, varied approaches to puzzle design, and varied takes on the idea of 'Lovecraftian/Anchorheadian game'. It's creepy and funny and gross and poetic."Emily Short writes: "I can tell you already that if you like parser IF, you want to play this. It’s sometimes scary, sometimes disgusting, sometimes funny, sometimes weird, and sometimes all of those at once — but I’ll let you find the horse for yourself. And somehow all that surreal adds up to something greater than the sum of its parts."Your name is Naomi Cragne. Read the rest

Binding arbitration agreements were formalized in 1925, allowing two corporate entities of roughly equal size to resolve their disputes outside of a court, saving both parties a lot of money, but since then, the primary use of arbitration is to force employees, customers, patients and other comparatively weak parties to surrender their right to sue (or join class actions) as a condition of going to work, seeking care, or simply shopping.Instead, people who have been crammed into binding arbitration "agreements" are forced to argue their cases one at a time in a privatized courtroom, where the "judge" is often a contractor for the corporation whose conduct gave rise to the complaint.A notorious example of this is the gig economy, where employees are turned into "contractors" through a legal fiction and then deprived of their right to join class action suits over unfair treatment thanks to the arbitration clauses in the farcically long license agreement they click through when they sign up (Uber drivers can technically opt out within 30 days, but they'd have to read thousands of words of impenetrable legalese to discover this). As is so often the case, Uber is the granddaddy of the worst practices of the gig economy. When the company went to the court to argue that its employees weren't employees, it defended its binding arbitration, saying that the company would of course pay for the arbitration fees in the states that required it.12,501 Uber drivers took the company at its word and filed arbitration claims in California. Read the rest

Peter Leigh, known as the Nostalgia Nerd on his YouTube channel, has a cool new hardcover book out called The Nostalgia Nerd’s Retro Tech: Computers, Consoles and Games, which is exactly what it says it is - photos and descriptions of gear from the 1970s-1990s. Here are a few spreads from the book to give you an idea of what's in it and how the material is presented: Read the rest

Sometimes I blog about something and it goes nowhere, much like this girl's domino:Sometimes I blog about something and it continues to weave its way to the many corners of the internet, much like this:But, sometimes I blog about something and it starts a chain reaction that looks more like this (I looked for a domino video that featured fireworks and confetti but came up short):viaIn other words, it goes viral. Now, on November 11, I blogged about Tim Klein's "puzzle montages" and I believe it's the most-viral post I've written in my over-seven-year professional blogging career. While I don't have the exact numbers, I have been watching it quickly spread across the planet and I feel certain that it is. Today, I thought it would be fun to pull back the curtain a little to show you what "going viral" looks like from "backstage." [TL;DR version (and, warning, this post IS entirely TOO LONG): The post I wrote about Tim Klein's puzzle montages went nuts! Media outlets from around the globe picked up the story (digital, print, TV), some linked back to Boing Boing, some didn't. Tim got TONS of fan mail, all of his art sold, and now he's being offered gallery shows. Well... he and I talked and we plan to take it to the next level together (note: we didn't know each other before all of this). We first want to build a community of people who love puzzle mashups. Want to learn more? Read the rest

This unlucky guy tried hang gliding in Switzerland. His instructor failed to attach him to the glider. Watch this video and prepare to wet your pants. Read the rest

Vegemite has enough salt to be conductive, and is viscous enough to draw distinct traces with on suitable medium (say, toast that has been cooked such that most of the water has evaporated, making it a good insulator), as Luke Weston has ably demonstrated. Read the rest

The Japanese are extremely proud of their pottery, which is among the finest in the world. And with the special place the Tea Ceremony holds in Japanese culture, tea cups are finely wrought. Many of them look more like not-so-chunky mugs than the European teacups we see. Those known as Karatsu Ware are among the most highly regarded.While they look like teacups, these “karatsu-yaki” are actually edible rice cakes. They are made by master confectioner Osamu Tsurumaru in the city of Karatsu, Saga Prefecture, Japan and are sold at Nakazato Tarouemon Tobo, a 400-year old pottery studio.The price is a shockingly low $2.60 per cup, all of which are painted by Tsurumaru himself in traditional designs. He also makes rice-cake saucers, which perhaps look more realistic than the teacups! A set of one cup and saucer will set you back 12 bucks, but imagine serving it to guests for desert.Via Asahi Shimbum/Photos by Mahito Kaai. Read the rest

Ground House, a hip burger joint in Irvine, CA, has just gamified eating fried foods with their Fry Roulette. There's a spinning wheel, six types of deep-fried potato products, and 12 different dipping centers.Buzzfeed shows how it works: Fry Roulette Exists And We Know You Want To Playscreenshot via Ground House IG Read the rest

When scooter companies like Bird started illegally deploying their gadgets in city streets, there was intense interest in both the street value of the components to be found within each of these VC-backed ewaste-in-waiting devices, and tactics for hotwiring them.Now, with hundreds of these scooters abandoned and rotting in impound lots, likely never to be recovered, maybe now is a good time to invest in a $30 scooter "conversion kit", which ships direct from China, and plugs-and-plays to convert one of these scooters to a "personal scooter," with all recovery and payment components permanently disabled.The subject of this conversion are scooters deployed by Bird, which are in actuality Xiaomi MIJIA M365 scooters with a few added electronics to connect to the Internet. The ‘conversion kit’ for a Bird scooter comes directly from China, costs $30, and is apparently a plug-and-play sort of deal. The hardest part is finding a screwdriver with the right security bits, but that again is a problem eBay is more than willing to solve.Right now, [humanbeing21] is in contact with a towing company that has well over a hundred Bird scooters on their lot, each accruing daily storage fees. Since these scooters only cost about $400 new, we’re probably well past the time when it makes sense for Bird to pay to get them out of storage. This means they’ll probably be heading for an auction where anyone can pick them up — all of them — for a hundred bucks or so. Read the rest

Combine a paperclip, tin foil, a cereal box, and a print out to make the Die Hard John McClane Air Duct Christmas Ornament. PS: Die Hard is a Christmas movie. (via Kottke) Read the rest

Andrew Smith is Trump's chief of the FTC Consumer Protection Bureau, in charge of investigating companies that abuse Americans -- but he can't, because he has previously provided services for over 100 of America's largest companies, including Facebook, a whack of payday lenders, Amazon, American Airlines, Amex, BoA, Capital One, Citigroup, John Deere, Equifax, Expedia, Experian, Glaxosmithkline, Goldman Sachs, Jpmorgan, Linkedin, Microsoft, Paypal, Redbubble, Twitter, Sotheby's, Transunion, Uber, Verizon, Visa, Disney and Wells Fargo.Smith is required to recuse himself from any proceeding involving these companies. Luckily, none of these companies are in any position to abuse or rip off Americans. Smith insists that there are many other companies he can go after, and he is thus in no way too compromised to have the job Donald Trump gave him.“Andrew Smith is literally not able to do his job,” Remington A. Gregg, counsel for civil justice and consumer rights at Public Citizen said. “He has ties to a vast universe of financial predators that are likely to break the law — and he won’t be able to enforce the law against them. We need someone who can.”One of these high-profile cases could involve Facebook. At an oversight hearing in November before a Senate Commerce subcommittee, FTC Chairman Joseph Simons said that Facebook is currently under investigation by the agency, but would not provide details. The company entered into a consent decree with the agency in 2011, and is subject to a fine if it is proven to have deceived users as to how their data and privacy is handled on the platform. Read the rest

Emergency rooms at for-profit hospitals are notorious price-gougers, where an ice-pack and a bandage can cost $5,000, and where no one will tell you how much your care is costing until months after the fact.In a funny, serious, link-studded satirical essay on McSweeney's (Welcome to Our Modern Hospital Where If You Want to Know a Price You Can Go Fuck Yourself), Alex Baia makes explicit the submerged subtext of these sleazy, crooked tactics: "Well, you can’t do much about that now. Except of course to go fuck yourself. Yes, ma’am, as a matter of fact, we do have a special room where you can go fuck yourself. Yes, it does cost money to use the room, and no I cannot tell you how much. Want a hint? It’s between $1 and $35,000 per minute. Will you be reserving the go fuck yourself room?"Honestly, there’s no telling what you’ll pay today. Maybe $700. Maybe $70,000. It’s a fun surprise! Maybe you’ll go to the ER for five minutes, get no treatment, then we’ll charge you $5,000 for an ice pack and a bandage. Then your insurance company will be like, “This is nuts. We’re not paying this.” Who knows how hard you’ll get screwed? You will, in three months.Fun story: This one time we charged two parents $18,000 for some baby formula. LOL! We pull that shit all the time. Don’t like it? Don’t bring a baby, asshole.Oh, I get it: you’re used to knowing a clear price for products and services. Read the rest

At the rate the world is shrinking, you don't need to be a globetrotter for a second language to be a useful skill. And if you're looking to learn that second language (or a third, or fourth), uTalk Language Education is the learning program that makes progression not only easy but fun.If you can't be among native speakers, there's not much of an immediate reward to rote memorization of words and phrases. That's why uTalk "gamifies" the process by folding the learning process into fun challenges and exercises. You can "level up" your fluency as you go along, getting verification on your pronunciation from native voice artists. Before long, you'll be picking up full sentences you can use in real-world conversations.What's more, uTalk offers this learning structure for more than 130 languages, loads more than most other language apps. You can choose up to six with a lifetime subscription to uTalk Language Education for $24.99 - a drop from the previous sale price of $29.99. Read the rest

In 2019, we'll move out of Ultra Violet and into Living Coral, according to the Pantone Color Institute. Their color experts have determined that their Color of the Year will be the "vibrant, yet mellow" PANTONE 16-1546. Here's what they have to say about this "life-affirming" shade:In reaction to the onslaught of digital technology and social media increasingly embedding into daily life, we are seeking authentic and immersive experiences that enable connection and intimacy. Sociable and spirited, the engaging nature of PANTONE 16-1546 Living Coral welcomes and encourages lighthearted activity. Symbolizing our innate need for optimism and joyful pursuits, PANTONE 16-1546 Living Coral embodies our desire for playful expression.Representing the fusion of modern life, PANTONE Living Coral is a nurturing color that appears in our natural surroundings and at the same time, displays a lively presence within social media.How do they come to pick their Color of Year? Well, they write that "the selection process requires thoughtful consideration and trend analysis" and that their color experts "comb the world looking for new color influences."Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely color, but the cynic in me is screaming, "But climate change is bleaching the coral reefs!"(After I wrote this up, I found this searing Slate article that agrees with me, "Pantone might as well have named it 'The Rare Coral That Has Not Yet Been Bleached, as It Inevitably Someday Will in This Increasingly Toxic Toilet Bowl We Call Earth.'")images via Pantone(It's Nice That) Read the rest

Special counsel Robert Mueller says Paul Manafort told ‘discernible lies,’ including about contacts with his longtime translator and fixer, Konstantin Kilimnik, an employee who is believed to have Russian intelligence ties. “Manafort told multiple discernible lies -- these were not instances of mere memory lapses,” Mueller’s prosecutors wrote.Here is the Mueller filing on Paul Manafort: [PDF LINK].In the document, filed today by the Special Counsel's office in federal court in Washington, Mueller says the former Trump campaign manager lied about:• Konstantin Kilimnik interactions• Kilimnik's participation in count two of superseding information• Wire transfer of funds to firm working for Manafort• Info that relates to another DOJ investigation (???)• Contact Manafort had with Trump admin officialsManafort is accused of lying to federal investigators (never a wise idea) when he told prosecutors he never tried to communicate to anyone in the Trump administration. But actually, the prosecutors say here, Manafort authorized someone to speak to an administration official on his behalf on May 26, 2018.Trump's response, and that of journalists and lawyers who know better below.Totally clears the President. Thank you!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2018CNN nutshell: 1) Cohen & Trump criminal activity accusation by SDNY.2) More connection between Russia & Trumpworld than was known.3) Continued investigation of WH in 2017 & 2018.4) And Manafort lied about his contacts with the Trump administration. Which means they lied, too.— Karen DaltonBeninato (@kbeninato) December 7, 2018Mueller also says Manafort lied about his interactions with Konstantin Kilimnik, an associate who the FBI has said was connected to Russian intelligence. Read the rest

This year, I helped University of Chicago science fiction writer and renaissance scholar Ada Palmer and science historian Adrian Johns host a series of interdisciplinary seminars on "Censorship, Information Control, & Revolutions in Information Technology from the Printing Press to the Internet." Thanks to our generous Kickstarter backers, we were able to raise money to pay for high-quality videography and closed captioning to make the videos beautiful and accessible. The first session is now online, with more to follow soon (they'll be on the seminar's channel). Read the rest

Jury finds James Fields found guilty on all 10 charges, including first degree murder of Heather Heyer.Never forget: Trump said they were 'very fine people.'During the 2017 racist rally in Charlottesville, white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. deliberately drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, and killed two of the anti-racism demonstrators his vehicle slammed into. This is what a court ruled today, in finding Fields guilty on Friday of murdering one of those victims. Her name was Heather Heyer.BREAKING: James Fields found guilty on all 10 counts, including 1st-degree murder, for ramming car into a group of peaceful counter-protesters following Charlottesville white nationalist rally in 2017.— NBC News (@NBCNews) December 7, 2018From the Daily Beast:Fields, 21, an Ohio native, was charged with first-degree murder last year following the hit-and-run attack, which killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injured dozens other anti-racism protesters who ran counter to the “Unite the Right” rally. He was found guilty on that top charge.Fields was also found guilty on five counts of aggravated malicious wounding, three counts of malicious wounding, and one count of failing to stop at an accident involving a death.All of this on top of the 30-count hate crime indictment brought against him by the Department of Justice.More here.James Fields’s fate is in the jury’s hands now, so let’s have a quick recap of the alt-right conspiracy theories and how this trial has exposed them all as desperate shams.— Emily G (@EmilyGorcenski) December 7, 2018James Fields has been found guilty on all counts, including first degree murder. Read the rest

Federal prosecutors in New York request a "substantial" prison sentence for Michael Cohen, who pled guilty to violating campaign finance laws. Sentencing guidelines suggest that could mean 46 to 63 months.The Southern District of New York's sentencing memo for the President's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen has been filed, and it is 30 pages long. READ IT HERE: [DOCUMENT LINK].Things are not looking bright for Michael Cohen, despite having cooperated with the federal investigation into Trump's activities. 'A substantial term of imprisonment is warranted,' writes the Southern District of New York.The guidelines from Michael Cohen's plea agreement call for a prison term of between 46 and 63 months.The real news right now is not about Cohen’s sentence. It is about the conclusion by federal prosecutors that Donald J. Trump has committed a serious felony.— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) December 7, 2018SDNY really not holding back here when it comes to Michael Cohen's sentence. pic.twitter.com/TWjS0EcwuY— Shawna Thomas (@Shawna) December 7, 2018This is new. Federal prosecutors have said for the first time in a court filing that Cohen committed campaign finance crimes "in coordination with and at the direction of" President Trump. pic.twitter.com/mOYvdMqHS7— Brad Heath (@bradheath) December 7, 2018Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have filed their sentencing memo on Michael Cohen.— Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) December 7, 2018MUELLER says he "does not take a position with respect to a particular sentence to be imposed" for Cohen, says he has gone to "significant lengths" to assist the special counsel probe. Read the rest

Though he was also shot by the suspect in last month's attack at the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks, Ca., Sgt. Ron Helu was killed by friendly fire during the shootout."We believe that Sgt. Helus was clearly not the intended target of the CHP officer -- which further illustrates the extreme situation both men faced."According to the county's chief medical examiner, Helus' initial wounds were survivable, but the sixth bullet proved deadly when it struck his heart.Previously. Read the rest

King Size "Pro" Sharpies are my go-to Sharpie.Whenever I need to leave a message for a friend inside of a public restroom or cover up some light colored stitching on a black garment, I reach for a King Size Pro Sharpie! The familiar chisel tip, mated with a honking big cylinder that fits your grip like sidewalk-chalk or window-wax, smells like fresh street art.This set comes with two black, one red and one blue marker. I usually keep a black in my travel bag, and the other in my desk pen tray.There is no marker as trusted in the world of "I need to trust my marker" as a Sharpie.Sharpie Pro King Size Permanent Marker via Amazon Read the rest

The Facebook-fueled anti-government protests in Paris, which began three weeks ago, starting off with a protest against high fuel taxes, look like something out of an intense apocalyptic movie. I'd only read about the "yellow jacket" protests and riots – the worst in 50 years – but did not realize the extent of violence that has taken over the Champs Élysées and surrounding neighborhoods. According to the BBC, "Tourist sites in Paris are to close on Saturday amid fears of further street violence."Across France, 89,000 police officers will be on duty and armoured vehicles will be deployed in the capital, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced.Paris police have urged shops and restaurants on the Champs-Elysees to shut and some museums will also be closed.🇬🇧 Due to the demonstrations that will be taking place in #Paris, I will remain closed to the public on Saturday 8 December. ⚠ Tomorrow, a particularly long waiting time is anticipated for visitors planning to buy tickets on-the-spot.▶ Stay informed: https://t.co/7LsKivpsFK pic.twitter.com/sxj86CLep0— La tour Eiffel (@LaTourEiffel) December 6, 2018 Read the rest

For the first time, we can hear the "sounds" of wind on Mars as captured by the scientific instruments on NASA's InSight robotic lander. From NASA:"Capturing this audio was an unplanned treat," said Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California...Two very sensitive sensors on the spacecraft detected these wind vibrations: an air pressure sensor inside the lander and a seismometer sitting on the lander's deck, awaiting deployment by InSight’s robotic arm. The two instruments recorded the wind noise in different ways. The air pressure sensor, part of the Auxiliary Payload Sensor Subsystem (APSS), which will collect meteorological data, recorded these air vibrations directly. The seismometer recorded lander vibrations caused by the wind moving over the spacecraft's solar panels, which are each 7 feet (2.2 meters) in diameter and stick out from the sides of the lander like a giant pair of ears.image: "One of two Mars InSight's 7-foot (2.2 meter) wide solar panels was imaged by the lander's Instrument Deployment Camera, which is fixed to the elbow of its robotic arm." (NASA/JPL-Caltech) Read the rest

I'm heading to San Francisco next week for a launch party on December 11th celebrating the release of The End of Trust, a collaboration between EFF and McSweeney's on internet surveillance and the future of the net; the event is at 7:30PM at Manny’s at 3092 16th Street (RSVP here), and I'll be on a panel with EFF exec director Cindy Cohn, moderated by the amazing Annalee Newitz! Read the rest

Joel Bonasera liked my novel Walkaway so much that he made a 3D-printable bookmark based on Will Stahle's amazing cover art! Read the rest

Back when Livejournal purged its NSFW fanficcers and other text-based purveyors of delightful smut, users flocked to Dreamwidth, a small, indie, smut-tolerant community run as much as a labor of love as it is as a business.Both Dreamwidth and Pillowfort -- an Austin-based company that has some Tumblr-like features -- have seen massive influxes of users fleeing Tumblr in advance of the December 17 deadline for purging the Tumblr of smut.Both Dreamwidth and Pillowfort have far fewer resources than Tumblr, and sometimes experience outages or slowdowns. But there are other practical considerations that endanger these indie "lifeboat services." For example, they are reliant on payment processors like Paypal, content distribution networks like Cloudflare, and top-level domain administrators, all of whom operate in extremely concentrated environments where just a few companies dominate, and all of whom have shown themselves to be liable to cutting off customers in the face of widespread complaint campaigns. The far right has largely suffered as a result of this concentration, as the likes of Milo Yiannopoulos find themselves broke and excluded from any platform where they might find a voice or financial backing. But the right has figured out that this is a double-edged sword: gangs of right-wing creeps are outing sex workers to Paypal and the IRS to get their sources of payments cut off and then get them audited and financially ruined.The fragility of a service like Pillowfort or Dreamwidth makes them especially vulnerable to this kind of attack: when tens or hundreds of thousands of people depend on one or two people to keep their community online and thriving, any disruption to those two peoples' lives can take out the whole community. Read the rest

Elowan is a "plant-robot hybrid" that uses its own bio-electromechanical signaling to drive itself around toward light sources. From an explanation by researcher Harpreet Sareen and his colleagues at the MIT Media Lab: In this experimental setup, electrodes are inserted into the regions of interest (stems and ground, leaf and ground). The weak signals are then amplified and sent to the robot to trigger movements to respective directions.Such symbiotic interplay with the artificial could be extended further with exogenous extensions that provide nutrition, growth frameworks, and new defense mechanisms.Elowan: A plant-robot hybrid Read the rest

Kano is a Raspberry Pi based computer system. It comes with everything you need besides an HDMI monitor. I love the keyboard with the included trackpad. At this sale price, it's probably cheaper than separately buying a Raspberry Pi, a microSD card, a case, a keyboard and pointer, a power supply, and cables. Plus, Kano's Linux OS is packed with fun goodies. Read the rest

Yesterday, recreational marijuana became legal in Michigan. To celebrate, Lansing's weekly paper, City Pulse, handed out free joints in front of the capital. Spreading joy with such a simple gesture is a fun thing to watch. Read the rest

Watching this 1987 video of two Radio Shacks (one with Madonna music in the background) makes it clear that 30 years can be a long, long time ago. Prancing Skiltaire (the person who uploaded this video) said, "This was shot in Garden Grove, CA and Buena Park Mall, CA. The person who recorded was an employee working with a regional manager who was inspecting under performing Radio Shacks they were going to renovate." I was fascinated for all 15 minutes of this spellbinding video.Be sure to check out Prancing Skiltaire's other amazing videos, like the Equicon Costume Presentation (1988):And the first Furry Convention! (1989): Read the rest

What do you do if you want to complain about your job but your employer is the poster-child for surveillance capitalism? Buy a burner phone.As Facebook's internal tensions "boil over," Buzzfeed reports that the employees feel "under siege" after 600 days of bad news, and have resorted to using burner phones to talk to each other -- and the press.People are “hoping for a Sundar or Dara moment,” one former senior Facebook employee told BuzzFeed News, referring to past leadership changes at Google and Uber in which founding employees stepped aside from top jobs. A second senior employee echoed the view, suggesting that some inside the ranks are looking for a shakeup to come from the outside. The chatter has made its way outside of the company’s Menlo Park headquarters. “Senior people there know the only way out of this is by hiring a Dara,” a senior executive at a rival company told BuzzFeed News referring to Dara Khosrowshahi, the Uber CEO brought in to replace cofounder Travis Kalanick last year.Another former senior employee noted a growing sense of paranoia among current employees. “Now, people now have burner phones to talk shit about the company — not even to reporters, just to other employees,” they told BuzzFeed News.Mark Zuckerberg's Biggest Problem: Internal Tensions At Facebook Are Boiling Over [Ryan Mac and Charlie Warzel/Buzzfeed](via /.) Read the rest

In 2017, Pricewaterhousecooper published Using science fiction to explore business innovation, a guide for corporations that wanted to work with sf writers to think about the future of their businesses; it was part of a wave of corporate interest in the insights of sf writers, which also coincides with a parallel trend in academia (see, for example, ASU's Center for Science and the Imagination and UCSD's Clark Center for Human Imagination, both of which I have some involvement with). Some science fiction writers are now experiencing a small boom in consulting contracts, which often take the form of writing short stories (here's one I wrote for Intel) or participating in workshops. I've done a small amount of this work myself, and I've been getting more offers over the transom, including one this week, which I passed to my agent to negotiate; he told me that his other clients are also getting these gigs.I can't see any downside to this, to be honest. I recently spoke to a bunch of senior Audi people about the link between DRM and Dieselgate, and how a lack of competition in the corporate sector has led to market concentration, weak regulation, and a festering corruption problem. I don't know if the top management will take what I had to say to heart, but the people in the audience definitely connected, as I learned in speaking to them one to one afterwards.I don't think that science fiction is a very good way of predicting the future (I also don't think that the future can be predicted), but I do think that science fiction is a great way to influence the future. Read the rest

Sam and Simone realized they could build a house for the same amount they would have spent on a year's rent in Australia. So they did, in one of their parents' backyard. It looks great.From Living Big in a Tiny House:In this video, we discuss how they were able to construct their tiny house for such an affordable price and tips for building tiny houses for less. Especially in a country like Australia, where the material cost of building can be very high! As students of wildlife and environmental sciences, the couple now have plans to regenerate the property where the tiny house is parked. They are also using the tiny house as a base to launch a new online business. I hope you enjoy this full video tour of this stunning tiny home. Read the rest

I first learned about Liberator sex-furniture from the amazing sex-positive webcomic Oh Joy Sex Toy: the company makes foam wedges, half-spheres, pillows and even loungers that help couples (or more!) comfortably sustain sexual positions that might otherwise be difficult or impossible, whether due to a lack of athleticism or some kind of disability. What I didn't know was that Liberators are made by Luvu, the largest sex-furniture manufacturer in the USA, based in suburban Atlanta. Luvu is a fast-growing, profitable business that employs its workers full time and pays them three times what it would have to pay in China. Luvu works primarily with immigrants and recent graduates from addiction-recovery programs. They have an extensive in-house training program that gets new workers up to speed on CAD software and sewing technology.The company is committed to reducing manufacturing waste, and has launched a successful side-business that recycles offcuts of foam into bean bags and pool floats, and that business has grown so fast that it has absorbed all the waste from Luvu's own products, so the company now uses the waste of other furniture manufacturers as well.The company sources its materials locally, and enjoys a home-town advantage with US customers: shipping bulky items from China is less practical than shipping phones or other compact items. What's more, they have a discerning customer base who recognize the quality of Luvu's products and are willing to pay a premium for that quality.Not every company can operate like Luvu brands does. Read the rest

A British teenager, 19-year-old George Duke-Cohan, has been sent to jail for three years for emailing thousands of bomb hoaxes to schools. He had also called San Francisco Airport pretending to be the father of a girl on a United Airlines flight who contacted him to say her plane was being hijacked.According to NBC:George Duke-Cohan, 19, touched off panic in March 2018 when he emailed thousands of schools, warning about an explosive. The National Crime Agency says more than 400 schools were evacuated.He later caused a scare by telephoning San Francisco Airport and claiming his daughter had contacted him while on a United Airlines flight from Heathrow to say her plane had been hijacked.Here are more details, including audio of his convincing call to the San Francisco Airport, as well as bodycam footage of his arrest, by BBC. Read the rest

Qanon is an unbelievably stupid conspiracy theory whose underlying bullshittery is mathematically provable, and whose primary proponents are pallsy with the President, and whose adherents include mass-murderers whose crimes are linked to their belief in the Qanon conspiracy.Early on, person(s) behind Qanon made a bunch of very specific predictions that failed to come true, causing many to leave the cult. But Qanon learned from their mistake and has started to make much hazier, astrology-style pronouncements that leave sufficient leeway to allow virtually any event to be interpreted as proof of the prophetic insights of Qanon.An exception was a set of very detailed predictions for December 5, 2018, or #D5, which -- unsurprisingly -- also failed to come true. With the latest disappointment, many members of the Qanon cult are waking up to the fact that they got hoodwinked. Anthropologist Jennifer Raft, who writes about conspiracies, has addressed a set of remarks to these departing members, helping to ground them in what has happened to them while they were in the thrall of the cult.The short version: you got scammed, people gained both money and attention by scamming you, smart people are actually easy to scam because they form really good rationalizations and overestimate their own intelligence, and chances are, you helped scam other people.Not everyone will get out. Look at the Q Anon movement today. It’s still full of people—although less than there were at the beginning of the week—claiming that whatever hit the headlines proved his prophecies to be true, and demanding that everyone Trust the Plan and WWG1WGA, forever and ever, amen. Read the rest

Robbo writes, "Gerald Casale, founder of DEVO, has written an open letter in response to the band being inducted into the Rock 'N' Roll Hall Of Fame."Casale was an SDS activist who was present at the Kent State massacre and who was friends with the students who were murdered by the National Guard there. He describes how his hope for an society that evolved toward a better world soured with the conviction that the world was devolving, thanks to the "encroaching fusion of technological advances with the centralized, authoritarian power of the state."Casale describes a 40-year career on the sidelines of America where "the capacity for critical thought and reasoning were eroding fast" thanks to right-wing dumbing-down, and the commodification of rebellion, right up to the 2016 election, with "our vile, venal Mobster-in-Chief (who makes Idiocracy’s Macho Camacho look fit for office) and his corrupt minions rob the nation’s coffers in a shamelessly cruel, Grab-'Em-By-The-Pussy Kleptocracy."He proposes that Devo was inducted into the Hall of Fame "because Western society seems locked in a death wish" -- they're "the house band on the Titanic."This is amazing stuff, especially played against Capital in the 21st Century, which describes the same phenomena in terms of capital flows: during the years when Casale was cultivating his belief in human progress, power and wealth were broadly distributed. The capital destruction of the World Wars had weakened the grip of the rich on policy outcomes, letting everyone else get a turn, with the result being a massive surge of innovation, prosperity and social programs to ensure inclusion. Read the rest

Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who called Trump a "moron" while he was in office, from which he was later fired, has expressed some more choice thoughts on the president. Speaking to Bob Shieffer last night, which was aired on CBS, Tillerson said, "What was challenging for me coming from the disciplined, highly process-oriented Exxon Mobil corporation, to go work for a man who is pretty undisciplined, doesn't like to read, doesn't read briefing reports, doesn't like to get into the details of a lot of things..." He also said that Trump "acts on his instincts," which "in some respects looks like impulsiveness." WATCH: Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is speaking publicly about what led to his firing in March by President Trump.CBS News political contributor @bobschieffer interviewed Tillerson in Houston last night, at a dinner to benefit MD Anderson Cancer Center. pic.twitter.com/47qDqcsrMs— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) December 7, 2018Not seen in the clip above but mentioned in The Washington Post is that Tillerson then talked about "how Trump as president regularly attempted to do things that violated the law."“So often, the president would say, ‘Here’s what I want to do, and here’s how I want to do it,’ " Tillerson said, according to the Houston Chronicle, “and I would have to say to him, ‘Mr. President, I understand what you want to do, but you can’t do it that way. It violates the law.’ ”Tillerson also wasn't keen on Trump's use – and the American's love of – Twitter. Read the rest

Since the InSight robotic lander touched down on Mars last week, engineers have been putting its scientific instruments through their paces. This included extending the lander's 6 foot (2 meter) robotic arm that will be used to deploy instruments and take images of the Martian surface."Today we can see the first glimpses of our workspace," said mission principal investigator Bruce Banerdt of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.People, these images are from the surface of Mars! MARS! NASA's Mars InSight Flexes Its Arm (NASA) Read the rest

Hey, remember those cops who ate a cannabis-infused chocolate bar that was supposed have been taken as evidence during a raid? Do you recall that they snarfed down their stolen snack while on duty and then proceeded to trip balls? Maybe the fact that they freaked out and called for police assistance--the sort of thing that the police normally do when they're in a life threatening situation--might ring a bell? OK, how about this: when their fellow officers responded, one slipped on the ice and was pretty badly injured as he tried to get to his distressed comrades. No? This link will jog your memory. Good to go? OK, buckle in: there's an update on their story.This past November, Constable Vittorio Dominelli pleaded guilty to attempting to obstruct justice and wants everyone to know that he's very, very sorry.From The CBC:Justice Mary Misener says Dominelli is a "complete idiot" for tampering with evidence.Crown attorney Philip Perlmutter, who read out an agreed statement of facts in court, says Dominelli took three hazelnut chocolate bars infused with cannabis oil from the raid.Perlmutter says Dominelli and another officer later ate one chocolate bar and became intoxicated in about 20 minutes, and eventually radioed for help.Const. Jamie Young and Dominelli allegedly assisted in the execution of a search warrant at Community Cannabis Clinic, a marijuana dispensary in the city's west end, in the early evening of Jan. 27.As a result of their poor judgement and inopportune snacking, Dominelli and Young both wound up facing multiple misconduct charges under the Police Services Act. Read the rest

As we know, the absurdly long CVS receipts are due to the rise of data mining and target marketing. A fellow from Lakewood, Ohio recently Tweeted his ingenious upcycling of one of those ridiculous receipts. From News 5 Cleveland:Andrew said he got the idea quite on accident – he bought a few items (less than 10, he said) from the Rocky River CVS, then laid the receipt out on his bedroom floor to take a picture of it to send to his friends.He came back later and actually thought the receipt was one of the blinds that had fallen on the floor. “…they’re cheap blinds so they fall off pretty often,” he said in a chat with News 5.“…and when I realized it was actually the receipt, I thought it would be funny to see if it fit in the window, and it happened to fit perfectly,” he said. Read the rest

Neti pot brain-amoeba deaths are like shark week: an incredibly rare event that commands outsize attention due to reactionary schadenfreude and the sheer horror of the victim's demise. Fox News:When a 69-year old Seattle woman had a seizure earlier this year, doctors at Swedish Medical Center thought she may have had a brain tumor. However during surgery, they discovered it was something much more unusual. ... Dr. Cobb says she most likely became infected by the amoeba after treating a common sinus problem with tap water.“We believe that she was using a device to irrigate her sinuses that some people use called a neti pot. It’s extremely important to use sterile saline or sterile water. I think she was using water that had been through a water filter and had been doing that for about a year previously,” Dr. Cobb said.The FDA isn't quite so stern, saying you can use tapwater to irrigate your sinuses if you boil it for at least 3 minutes and, of course, let it cool first. The CDC says you can use filtered tapwater, but only if you're using filters that are explicitly designed to remove germs. Most fridge and store-bought filters do not remove germs. My local water department handed out this fancy Zerowater model to householders during a local water quality scare here and I can recommend it, though it's slow to filter and the replacement filters are pricey. It also removes dissolved minerals, unlike most store brands, resulting in all the pros and cons of drinking soft water. Read the rest

A patient suffering from heart failure reportedly coughed up a huge blood clot that somehow retained the shape of the lung passages it had blocked. The Atlantic's Haley Weiss reports that "Doctors Aren’t Sure How This Even Came Out of a Patient"In Wieselthaler’s case, blood eventually broke out of his patient’s pulmonary network into the lower right lung, heading directly for the bronchial tree. After days of coughing up much smaller clots, Wieselthaler’s patient bore down on a longer, deeper cough and, relieved, spit out a large, oddly shaped clot, folded in on itself. Once Wieselthaler and his team carefully unfurled the bundle and laid it out, they found that the architecture of the airways had been retained so perfectly that they were able to identify it as the right bronchial tree based solely on the number of branches and their alignment.He died a few days later. I looked it up. Sorry. Read the rest

A couple of years ago, I was asked if I'd like to review the reMarkable tablet. If you're unfamiliar with it, the reMarkable is an E Ink slate and pen solution that provides a digital note taking and sketching solution that feels eerily close to writing on paper. I was excited to take it for a spin: despite the fact that I type for a living, my note taking and a good chunk of my writing is decidedly old school. So far, I've had no luck in finding any hardware solution that serves me better than a piece of paper and a fountain pen can. Unfortunately, at its release, the reMarkable wasn't all that remarkable. While the latency of the tablet's E Ink display and pen were close to non-existent, the rest of its software felt under baked. The UI was far from intuitive. It functioned as an e-reader, but only barely. While you could export what you'd written to a smartphone or computer, there was no way to edit the text once it was there. It felt like a slog to use. I asked a colleague in Canada if he'd like to give it a try. I mailed it out to him and, a few weeks later, it came back to me, marked not "deliverable." I didn't have time to ship it out again as I was preparing to spend several months on the road. I threw it into the back of my workspace's storage cupboard. It lurked there until today. Read the rest

Smokers on the go can breathe a little easier. With an innovative, easy-loading spiral design, the Twisty Glass Blunt offered a smoother, more consistent draw than conventional pipes. Now the Twisty Glass Mini delivers the benefits of its heavy-duty sister pipe in a more discreet package.For those that haven't already made the Twisty Glass Blunt their new smoking buddy, the Mini loads just as effortlessly. Just pack up to .5 grams of the tobacco of your choice into the tube, twist the screw and light up. The smoke travels through five chambers into a cherry that's a particular highlight of this model. (It's 50% smaller and therefore a cleaner hit.) It all adds up to a smoking experience as smooth as it is compact, and it cleans just as easily - just twist the screw out. Want an even more comfortable hit? The mini is compatible with your favorite water pipe.Right now, the Twisty Glass Mini is $39.99, more than 20% off the MSRP of $50.99. Read the rest

Ok, if you're old enough, you'll remember those cute vintage Chalkware ceramics they used to make to hang in the bathroom. There were a bunch of designs like anthropomorphic seashorses and fish, and mermaids. Well, California artist Erin Tinney Halverson of Hell in a Handbag is bringing them back. Her mermaids are especially cool because she custom paints tattoos on them. They're $79 each which may seem steep, but for the right person it would make an amazing gift. Thanks, Erik! Read the rest