Boing Boing

Jermaine Massey took a seat in a quiet section of the Doubletree hotel lobby he was staying at in Portland to take a call from his mother. But he says he was soon interrupted by a security guard – Earl – who asked if Massey was staying in the hotel. Massey showed him his key card but couldn't remember the room number off hand. This prompted Earl to call the police. Earl is white and Massey is black. Apparently, Massey was kicked out of the hotel for "trespassing," even though he had paid for a hotel room and already had his belongings in the room. In fact, it wasn't until after the police were called that the manager of the hotel came over to Massey and asked what happened."Tonight I was racially profiled and discriminated against for taking a phone call in the lobby of my hotel room at the @doubletreepdx @doubletree. The security guard “Earl” decided that he would call the police on me, the exact reason is still unclear to me..." Massey says in one of his Instagram posts. And later from his new room at the Sheraton by the airport: "It just goes to show you that racism is still alive and well man. This was a real incident where I could’ve gone to jail if I responded in a different way." View this post on Instagram Tonight I was racially profiled and discriminated against for taking a phone call in the lobby of my hotel room at the @doubletreepdx @doubletree. Read the rest

The dead leaf butterfly looks exactly like a decomposing brown leaf.Some of the best mimicry I've ever seen https://t.co/bMGhei6zj1 (from https://t.co/X5ZDxl2QZK) pic.twitter.com/DAto7SWR7H— Mike Inouye (@minouye271) December 26, 2018 Read the rest

An hour-and-a-half episode of Black Mirror, called "Bandersnatch," debuts on Netflix tomorrow. From the description: "In 1984, a young programmer begins to question reality as he adapts a sprawling fantasy novel into a video game and soon faces a mind-mangling challenge." Read the rest

Pyramid schemes are appealing if you don't understand how they work. This video explains how they work, why they are unsustainable, and the psychological tricks used to recruit victims. Read the rest

Until the early 2000s more people lived in villages and small towns than in cities. Population in large cities continues to rise, while the opposite is true in rural areas. This is especially true in Japan, where people are fleeing from their rural homes to live in Tokyo and Osaka. Today 92% of Japanese live in large cities. In this video, Greg Lam, the host of Life Where I'm From, went to Japan's smallest island, Shikoku, to learn what living outside a megalopolis is like. Read the rest

The Action Lab Man presented a video of cracking glass using a camera capable of filming 10 million frames per second. Glass cracks propagate faster than a bullet, so even at 10 millions frames a second the cracks move quickly.Image: The Action Lab Read the rest

A long-chewed-on mystery about Michael Cohen's activities in the Trump-Russia conspiracy may now be resolved, thanks to data leaked by Cohen's cellphone. Operational security will get you every time, dumb criminals.McClatchy reports that a mobile phone traced to Donald Trump’s former “fixer” and alleged lawyer Michael Cohen briefly sent some pings that ricocheted off cellular network towers around Prague, in late summer 2016, when Trump's presidential campaign was going bonkers. Cohen's cellphone left an electronic record to support claims he met secretly there with Russian officials, four people with knowledge of the matter tell McClatchy. This is a big deal.According to the dossier, Michael Cohen met with Russian agents in Prague to discuss election help. No one could verify this claim. Now, cell phone signals put Cohen in Prague around the time the alleged meeting took place. Plot = thicker https://t.co/4qokyupTbM— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) December 27, 2018From the story:During the same period of late August or early September, electronic eavesdropping by an Eastern European intelligence agency picked up a conversation among Russians, one of whom remarked that Cohen was in Prague, two people familiar with the incident said.The phone and surveillance data, which have not previously been disclosed, lend new credence to a key part of a former British spy’s dossier of Kremlin intelligence describing purported coordination between Trump’s campaign and Russia’s election meddling operation.The dossier, which Trump has dismissed as “a pile of garbage,” said Cohen and one or more Kremlin officials huddled in or around the Czech capital to plot ways to limit discovery of the close “liaison” between the Trump campaign and Russia. Read the rest

Eve (AKA Talismana Designs) carves these $32 bird skull rings out of slaughterhouse surplus cow-bones, custom carved to your size. (via Creepbay) Read the rest

Juul just handed out $2 billion in dividends, making 1,500 employees into overnight millionaires; the cash came from Altria-Marlboro's 35%, $12.8 billion buyout of the company -- and everything about the story stinks.As David Dayen from The Intercept explains, the vaping industry has gutted the smoking industry -- and the smoking industry's attempts to catch up with their own offerings have failed miserably. In a world of competitive markets, this would be pretty normal: a disruptive innovation breaks up an oligarchic, concentrated market, replacing it with a diverse, competitive market.But Juul owns nearly 75% of the e-smoking industry. Marlboro's buyout of the company -- which would have been prohibited in an era of robust anti-trust -- means that the out-innovated incumbents don't wither and die, they just buy up the upstart competitor (and that upstart competitor completely dominates its niche).Then there's Juul's product and marketing: while the company pitches itself as an alternative to smoking, it's fortunes are mostly gained through getting children hooked on nicotine, a carcinogenic, highly addictive substance that the company flavors with "mango, fruit, cucumber, and creme."As the Wall Street Journal notes, Marlboro's Juul buyout is a good deal for both companies: Marlboro gets to profit from a new generation of children who are hooked for life on a carcinogenic product, and Juul gets to leverage Marlboro's deep experience with lobbying governments to look the other way while it peddles addiction to children.Limited retail sales in storefronts could hold back Juul’s growth, however. Read the rest

This girl, trapped in a church, finds a way to escape the Sinners Prayer by doing the Macarena. Read the rest

After a successful phishing attack that captured over 50 accounts, hackers stole 500,000 records from the San Diego Unified School District, for staff, current students, and past students going all the way back to 2008; including SSNs, home addresses and phone numbers, disciplinary files, health information, emergency contact details, health benefits and payroll info, pay information, financial data for direct deposits.School district employees reported the wave of phishing emails, but the district opted to deliberately allow the hackers to continue operating in an effort to catch them; the district says it has identified the hacker. Details are sketchy, but boy this looks bad. It's hard to understand why all but a few employees would be able to access historical student records (for example, staffers who deal with providing transcripts for college applications, or who respond to court orders). It's also not clear how the district decided to allow a criminal to access their systems for 11 months, while stealing 500,000 records -- even if they have identified the criminal, have they caught them? And even if they caught them, do they know that the stolen records weren't sold or given away prior to the capture?In my experience, schools are incredibly cavalier about requesting student and visitor data, doing things like scanning driver's licenses and sending them to third party background checking services without being able to provide any information on what will happen to that data. "It was necessary for our investigation to not immediately tip off those responsible that we were aware of their activities," the district said in its letter. Read the rest

Lots of folks continue to build fabulous creations out of LEGO well into adulthood. Others tire of it, as they do many of their other childhood belongings, at an early age. Both are fine. What's not OK is being a kid who, because of their parent's financial situation, doesn't know the joy of having a box full of LEGO to call their own. Given the years of imagination-stretching enjoyment the wee plastic blocks can bring into a life, that's a damn shame.Here's what you can do to put a dent in this unfortunate state of affairs. Lifehacker had a recent post on what to do with old LEGO, if you're not able to pass it down to a younger member of your family or hand it off to friends for their kids to mess around with. They mention that you can sell the blocks online but, better than this, there's organizations out there that specialize in putting LEGO bricks in needy hands:Sites like Brick Recycler, The Giving Brick and Brick Dreams have launched in recent years in order to address the unique supply and demand problem presented by LEGOs. Each has its own requirements for donations, but in general they accept donations of LEGO bricks of all kinds: mixed up, all together, dirty or clean. Brick Recycler says it has “repurposed” more than 3 million LEGO pieces.The groups clean and sort bricks and then donate them to children’s support groups, hospitals, daycare facilities and more. Some sell cleaned sets that were donated in order to pay for operations. Read the rest

Techcrunch's Greg Kumparak started agitating for phones to have standard 3.5mm jacks in the 2000s, rejoicing when the original Iphone shipped with one; now, two years after Apple took away the phone jack (and after most of the major phone manufacturers followed suit), he's still lamenting the loss: my original Pixel finally died (I can no longer find charging cases to make up for its limping battery) and I've ordered a Pixel Three and the stupid dongle that lets you charge your phone while plugging in standard headphones -- it hasn't arrived yet and I already hate it. As a heavy traveler who is very reliant on a phone for translation, itinerary management, mobile hotspot, etc, the last thing I needed was another dongle to manage, another device-class to charge, another charger to carry, and another hard-to-source component to lose or break while I'm between cities. (Image: Bribass) Read the rest

Why install doors at the bottom of each coal cart when you can simply tip the entire train upside-down? Read the rest

For close to two thousand years, holy men from across the wide spectrum of the Christianity have rocked a completely or entirely shaved head--a hairstyle called a tonsure. A tonsure marked those that wore it as adherents to various monastic and priestly orders and, in some cases, were a symbol of controversy in the early Catholic church as opposing factions within it fought for legitimacy. This brief video from Vox outlines the history of the haircut, what it means and why it survived in a rapidly changing world for as long as it did. Even if you're not a religious sort, it's a fascinating bit of history. Read the rest

J Salmerón, a Netherlands-based concert photographer, took a fantastic shot of Arch Enemy singer Alissa White-Gluz at a festival gig in Nijmegen. He posted it to his Instagram, to White-Gluz and fans' general delight. A company named Thunderball Clothing, operated by Marta Gabriel, reposted Salmerón's photo to their own Instagram account. Thunderball created the leather vest White-Gluz wore in the post, and used the photo, without the photographer's permission, to market its services. Salmerón sent a request: give €100 euros to a charity, the normal licensing fee, and he wouldn't ding Thunderball with a €500 unauthorized use invoice.So Gabriel told the band that Salmerón threatened her. And the band itself told him that, as far as they were concorned, they could also use his photos however they please.Salmerón, who as luck would have it is also a lawyer, explains that this is a dangerous misunderstanding of copyright law:This made no sense since, although there are some restrictions (for example, I can’t use a photo of Alissa to promote a product, unless she expressly authorizes me to do so) I am the only one who gets to decide how and where my work is used. To put it in legal terms: I own the copyright over my photos.The message also sought to perpetuate the ridiculous system that some bands expect to have with photographers: They let them come into the pit, expect to have the absolute and perpetual right to use the photos in whatever way they want, and pay photographers in “exposure,” by using their work before a massive audience. Read the rest

Thailand's got a reputation with being less than cool with illegal drugs being brought into their country or used within their national borders. Which drugs are legal and which are disallowed changes up from time to time, however. Until the 1930s, medicinal cannabis use was hunky dory with the Thai government. Then it wasn't. Fast forward to 2019 and the wheel of acceptability will have spun around once more: on Christmas Day, the nation decided that, provided it was used for medicinal purposes, dope was dope once again. Given the stringent drug laws typically enforced in Thailand's Southeast Asian neighborhood (sentences of death over a trafficking charge aren't uncommon,) it's a surprising shift in policy.From The New York Times:By a vote of 166 to 0, the military-appointed National Legislative Assembly approved legislation this week that would allow the use of cannabis under medical supervision. Thirteen members abstained.The measure is expected to take effect next year.“This is a New Year’s gift from the National Legislative Assembly to the government and the Thai people,” the lawmaker who headed the drafting committee, Somchai Sawangkarn, said during a televised session on Tuesday.Before anyone goes making travel plans, you should know that saying that it's cleared only for prescribed medicinal use isn't just a suggestion. The penalty for recreational use of cannabis in Thailand is still very serious business: those found in possession of 10 kilograms of herb or less can expect to do up to five years in prison. Read the rest

Dale a tu cuerpo alegría. Read the rest

Here are six new lateral thinking puzzles to test your wits and stump your friends -- play along with us as we try to untangle some perplexing situations using yes-or-no questions.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon! Read the rest

Pink paper towels, a lampshade covered in hair-dye sample swatches, and a fake glass of white wine from Japan are just a few of the eclectic things you'll find in Amy Sedaris' rabbit-nibbled one-bedroom Greenwich Village apartment. New York Magazine's Design Editor Wendy Goodman got a tour of Sedaris' delightful home despite not bringing a gift. Read the rest

Welcome back to The Bureau. It's the ninth installment and it looks like that sandwich you found in your pocket contains a bossy talking slice of Brain. And man, it's feeding you some gab!

Bruce Sterling's two-hour talk/Q&A at The Interval, a club for members of the Long Now foundation, may seem like a daunting load for a holiday week, but honestly, it's worth every minute.Sterling delves into the true meaning of "futurism," as a performative, social act, embedded in a time and place and operating on one of several layers -- the pace-layers defined by Stewart Brand, which are: "Fashion/art, Commerce, Infrastructure, Governance, Culture and Nature. Sterling's performance style -- droll, dry, with some Groucho Marx mixed in with a kind of tragic poetry -- is perfectly suited to this material. Sterling is actually at his best when talking about why he does the things he does -- even better than he is when he's actually doing it. It's in these meta-talks that you get some insight into the gaps and out-of-focus areas where Sterling is really digging in, trying to find some new territory -- as opposed to when he's performing, and describing the territory he's already thoroughly mapped.In theory, this is going to appear on the Interval's podcast and I think that might be the best way to experience it -- it's great audio for thinking about while digesting your Christmas meals and tidying up the wrapping paper.(via Beyond the Beyond) Read the rest

Reddit user marc_urzz posted this photo of the fantastic sink in his step-uncle's bathroom. A little web searching then led me to the tenor horn urinals below. It would also be fun to use a trumpet as a shower head! What instrument would make a good toilet? Read the rest

Today I learned that using cannabis can lower a fella's sperm count: those looking to partake in parenthood should take note. But that's not the only thing that cannabis can do to your swimmers. According to scientists from Duke University, using marijuana can cause genetic changes to sperm cells--something that could have far-reaching consequences for any baby a dude might father.From The Verge:For a study published today in the journal Epigenetics, scientists at Duke University compared the sperm of two groups of rats: those who had been given tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, and those who had not. Then they compared the sperm of 24 human men who smoked marijuana weekly versus a control group who used marijuana no more than 10 times in their life and not at all in the past half-year. In both cases — rats and humans — marijuana changed how genes work in sperm cells.In both rats and humans, the cannabis affected many different genes involved in two different pathways. (Think of pathways as another set of instructions, this time for regulating various bodily functions.) One is important for organs to reach full size, and one plays a role in cancer and suppressing tumors. Before anyone loses their shit, this doesn't mean that any kid you conceive while THC is coursing through your body will be more likely to get cancer. A lot more research needs to be conducted before any firm conclusions can be drawn. As The Verge points out, there were no laboratory controls on how much THC was consumed by the test subjects. Read the rest

Fizz Buzz is the word-game in which players in a circle count from 1 up, substituting multiples of three with "fizz" and multiples of five with "buzz" ("1, 2, Fizz, 4, Buzz, Fizz, 7, 8, Fizz, Buzz, 11, Fizz, 13, 14, Fizz Buzz, 16, 17, Fizz, 19, Buzz, Fizz, 22, 23, Fizz, Buzz, 26, Fizz, 28, 29, Fizz Buzz, 31, 32, Fizz, 34, Buzz, Fizz, ...").Evil Fizz Buzz is Jason Gorman's exercise that uses Fizz Buzz to teach continuous integration and test-driven development, played with five or more software developers.The players divide into five groups, each tasked with a different component of writing a program to output correct Fizz Buzz sequences:1. Generate a list of integers from 1-1002. Numbers that are divisible by 3, replace with "Fizz"3. Numbers that are divisible by 5, replace with "Buzz"4. Numbers that are divisibele by 3 & 5, replace with "FizzBuzz"5. Output this list as a single comma-delimited stringTeams can whiteboard and discuss together, but teams can only contribute code related to their task, checking it into a source control repository. That's when it gets interesting:Once you have a working (green) build on a skeleton solution (i.e., one that compiles and runs at least one dummy test), the build must not go red. This is an exercise on delivering as a team WITHOUT BREAKING THE BUILD. OK? If the build goes red again, the exercise is over. The team has 1 hour to deliver a working solution they can demonstrate to the "customer"Lots of people asking about Evil FizzBuzz. Read the rest

When bots finally accounted for half the traffic on the internet, Media Experts speculated that algorithms would start identifying bots as a better advertising target than humans. Max Read points out that fear of "Inversion" is now quaint. Now everything is so fake online that no-one trusts numbers at all.In the future, when I look back from the high-tech gamer jail in which President PewDiePie will have imprisoned me, I will remember 2018 as the year the internet passed the Inversion, not in some strict numerical sense, since bots already outnumber humans online more years than not, but in the perceptual sense. Everything that once seemed definitively and unquestionably real now seems slightly fake; everything that once seemed slightly fake now has the power and presence of the real. The “fakeness” of the post-Inversion internet is less a calculable falsehood and more a particular quality of experience — the uncanny sense that what you encounter online is not “real” but is also undeniably not “fake,” and indeed may be both at once, or in succession, as you turn it over in your head. Read the rest

Retired Cambridge professor Peter Smith has distilled his experience in teaching philosophers and mathematicians about formal logic into a free, frequently updated (last updated: 2017) study guide to logic, constructed to be easily accessible, with quick-start guides for different kinds of learners, written on the assumption of very little education in either maths or philosophy.It is perhaps worth pausing to ask whether you, as a budding philosopher,reallydowant or need to pursue your logical studies much further if you havealready worked through a book like mine or Paul Teller’s or Nick Smith’s. Farbe it from me to put people off doing more logic: perish the thought! But formany philosophical purposes, you might well survive by just reading this:Eric Steinhart,More Precisely: The Math You Need to Do Philosophy*(Broadview 2009) The author writes: ‘The topics presented . . . include:basic set theory; relations and functions; machines; probability; formal semantics; utilitarianism; and infinity. The chapters on sets, relations, andfunctions provide you with all you need to know to apply set theory in anybranch of philosophy. The chapter of machines includes finite state machines, networks of machines, the game of life, and Turing machines. Thechapter on formal semantics includes both extensional semantics, Kripkean possible worlds semantics, and Lewisian counterpart theory. The chapter onprobability covers basic probability, conditional probability, Bayes theorem,and various applications of Bayes theorem in philosophy. The chapter onutilitarianism covers act utilitarianism, applications involving utility andprobability (expected utility), and applications involving possible worldsand utility. Read the rest

Got someone you need bumped off for the holidays? Better start baking.The Real Santa was directed by Robert O'Twomney who was inspired to create the short by a thread he started on reddit's r/WritingPrompts.He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He can bypass any security system in the world and escape. Santa sounds like the world’s most deadly assassin, if the kid can meet his price.Thanks, Marcia! Read the rest

The New York Times has published an investigation into infamous American mass shootings and found that a significant proportion of mass shooters go on credit-card fueled spending sprees prior to their acts of terror, and that these shooters worry (needlessly, as it turns out) that their unusual credit-card spending will be flagged by financial institutions, resulting in their cards being frozen.Even if you don't own one or more guns, the historic, incredible wealth of the NRA tells you something about the profitability of the industry -- and hence the high price of the bulk-killing weapons that mass-murderers prefer. This presents a problem for law-abiding hoarders of high-powered, high-speed, high-capacity firearms, who may lack the funds to amass the arsenal of their dreams. But mass killers, who plan on dying in a hail of bullets after they have done their work, can sidestep this problem thanks to the American dream of easy subprime credit, as the high interest rates and fees associated with the cards you can get on short notice pose no hardship to the intestate estates of notorious killers.Anyone who's ever used their cards in unusual ways knows all about the hair-trigger fraud-detection systems used by banks: I can say from recent experience that even if you call your bank and tell them, "I'm about to do all my annual charitable giving, so please expect a bunch of unusual transactions ranging from $100 to $3000, all to registered charities," that you will still have to call the fraud department and get your card unfrozen half a dozen times. Read the rest

Another child has died in the custody of U.S. immigration officials. Felipe Alonzo-Gomez was taken to a hospital in New Mexico on Monday and released after treatment for a cold and fever. He was given antibiotics and ibuprofen. He was brought back to the hospital Monday night and died a few hours later. This is the second Guatemalan child to die in U.S. custody in December. Jakelin Caal, a 7-year-old girl died earlier this month.Merry fucking Christmas.CBP: 8-year-old Guatemalan child apprehended by CBP dies Christmas Day (Kelsie Blazier/ABC15.com) (Photo: CBPPhotos/Flickr) Read the rest

Tom the Dancing Bug, IN WHICH the plot of Billy Dare, in "Octo-Danger" goes strangely astray.

Magnetic tape maestro Randall Taylor, aka Amulets, takes an old Mannheim Steamroller Christmas cassette in a totally different direction... a totally different dimension. Just when you thought you were going to listen to some sweet christmas music it turns into a weird 7 minute ambient drone rework that no one wants to hear at your family/work/friendmas/holiday party! Give the gift of your obscure musical taste and Mannheim Steamroll your loved ones today!GEAR USED:- Custom Tape Loops- Tascam Porta 02- Library of Congress Tape Player- Memorex Walkman- Behringer Micromix- AC Noises AMA- Strymon Blue Sky Support and follow Amulets on Patreon.Previously: "Spectacular 'Ambient Walkman Symphony' and other tape-loop, circuit bent performances" Read the rest

I don't know if there's a special term for videos that have had their audio swapped but Marci Robin has got it dialed in. She's taken snippets of popular movies and music videos and set them to new music. The results are impressive.... but it’s also pretty great with Starship’s “We Built This City.” pic.twitter.com/ja5dhGNVcx— Marci Robin (@MarciRobin) December 24, 2018Just FYI, I put The Doobie Brothers’ “What a Fool Believes” over @ladygaga’s “Bad Romance” video and I’m very pleased with the results. pic.twitter.com/lmwil8teEf— Marci Robin (@MarciRobin) December 23, 2018Oh — and Heart’s “Barracuda” over Psy’s “Gangnam Style” video. pic.twitter.com/XoWXlMGeq4— Marci Robin (@MarciRobin) December 23, 2018Please enjoy Christopher Walken dancing to both @tmbg’s “Birdhouse in Your Soul”... pic.twitter.com/twsF2f5iWi— Marci Robin (@MarciRobin) December 23, 2018OK fine, here’s another. I replaced Salt-n-Pepa’s “Push It” with Captain & Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together.” Let’s see if they notice. pic.twitter.com/I7kDwyvqxe— Marci Robin (@MarciRobin) December 23, 2018OK, folks, got a few more for you tonight, starting with this one because it’s @Ceejness’s favorite and it’s his birthday: “Mocking Bird” over the dance scene in Ex Machina. EX MACHINGBIRD??? pic.twitter.com/ZFQrow3vxX— Marci Robin (@MarciRobin) December 24, 2018Uh... @barrymanilow’s “Copacabana” over @vanillaice’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles rap? pic.twitter.com/xZPA1Cr64K— Marci Robin (@MarciRobin) December 23, 2018Behold: @peeweeherman dancing to @JamiroquaiHQ’s “Virtual Insanity.” pic.twitter.com/Jypbsg004A— Marci Robin (@MarciRobin) December 23, 2018And here’s @MIAuniverse’s “Paper Planes” in Guys & Dolls, because obviously. Read the rest

A video of Baltimore-based rapper and producer HAZMATCAZ impersonating Siri is making the rounds, and for good reason -- it's uncanny!Listen:So last night I met the human form of Siri😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/x3nC4XNile— єяıṅ (@Erinie_DaBest) December 22, 2018And for those of you who think it's faked, here's a video of her explaining her (no longer) hidden talent:🤦🏻‍♀️😂 pic.twitter.com/QHvGnqpgCV— ✨✨✨CAZ✨✨✨ (@HAZMATCAZZ) December 22, 2018 Read the rest

Donald Trump, answering a phone call about Santa Claus from a child, 7, on Christmas Eve: "Are you still a believer in Santa? Because at seven it's marginal, right?"Trump sat in front of a roaring fireplace with his wife Melania.Donald Trump, answering phone call from 7-year-old on Christmas Eve: "Are you still a believer in Santa? Because at seven it's marginal, right?" pic.twitter.com/VHexvFSbQ1— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) December 25, 2018America, you are welcome.Reuters:Every Christmas Eve, the North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado Springs, Colorado, claims to track Santa Claus’ flight across the globe, a tradition dating to 1955, when a department store printed the phone number of a NORAD colonel in a Christmas newspaper ad by mistake.This year, though, the NORAD calls came at a precarious time for the president, who is mired in crises, from a government shutdown that has affected a quarter of federal agencies and departments to a stock market selloff amid Trump’s public criticisms of the Federal Reserve.The NORAD calls were the first time Trump has been seen in public since the shutdown began. NORAD said on Friday it would continue the tradition in the event of a shutdown, adding in a tweet that military personnel would be supported by 1,500 volunteers. Read the rest

The New York City Council voted to rename streets after hip-hop artists Christopher Wallace (aka the Notorious BIG) and the Wu-Tang Clan and folk musician/activist Woodie Guthrie. If Mayor Bill de Blasio gives his final approval, a block in Brooklyn where Notorious B.I.G. was raised will be called Christopher Wallace Way, Staten Island will have a Wu-Tang Clan District, and part of Coney Island's Mermaid Avenue will be renamed Woody Guthrie Way to celebrate his 1940s home. From Rolling Stone:Cultural advocate LeRoy McCarthy spearheaded the efforts to rename the streets after the legendary hip-hop acts. “I’m happy that NYC officials are finally giving the city’s indigenous ‘Hip Hop’ music the respect and recognition that it deserves. It took a long time and lots of hard work to advance the Christopher Wallace Way & Wu-Tang Clan District street co-naming, but ya know what, Hip Hop Don’t Stop,” McCarthy told Gothamist.Additionally, Woody Guthrie Way located at Coney Island’s Mermaid Avenue between West 35th and West 36th marks the section of Brooklyn where the folk legend lived in the early 1940s. Read the rest

A Cincinnati gentleman, running from a police officer who spotted him shoplifting from Walmart, accidentally ran right to the rear entrance of the nearby police station. According to police, "(Jeremy) Roberts made what can only be described as a tactical error and ran directly to the rear of the Cincinnati Police Department ... District 3 station, which is located just south of Walmart... and where he was 'greeted by numerous officers.'"(WCPO, thanks Charles Pescovitz!) Read the rest

In 1976, German experimental group Can, pioneers of the krautrock sound, released "Silent Night" as a 7" single. Fröhliche Weihnachten! Read the rest

John Eldredge of St. Petersburg, Florida writes in a Facebook Marketplace listing that he made this lifesize Santa in Carbonite for a sci-fi Christmas party. But the party's over and Santa must go. $200. Light settings are adjustable to flash at different speeds or not at all. Made with wood, clothes and a lot of hot glue! It's basically a craft and not a precision model, but looks cool. Side panels are made with cosplay foam. Unit is pretty light and stands about 6.5 ft. tall.photo via John Eldredge/Facebook(Nerdcore) Read the rest

The Boston Globe is reporting Kevin Spacey has been charged with felony indecent assault and battery of a teenage boy. The alleged incident, which took place in a Nantucket, MA bar in 2016 was brought to law enforcement's attention by the boy's mother, Heather Unruh, a former news anchor for WCVB in Boston. From the Globe: In Nov. 2017, during an emotional news conference, Unruh publicly accused Spacey of sexually assaulting her son.Unruh said that in July 2016 her then 18-year-old son was at The Club Car, where the actor was among the late-night crowd in the dimly lit restaurant. Her son was mesmerized by Spacey and told him he was old enough to drink, Unruh said previously.Unruh said Spacey purchased alcohol for her son until he was drunk and then stuck his hand inside the man’s pants and grabbed his genitals. During the encounter, Unruh said, her son tried to shift his body away from Spacey but was “only momentarily successful.” The actor urged her son to accompany him to an after-hours party to drink more, she said.Unruh said her son fled the restaurant when Spacey excused himself to use the bathroom and a woman urged the youth to run. He sprinted to his grandmother’s house and told his sister what happened, Unruh said. The siblings then called Unruh, who traveled to Nantucket in the morning, she said.Shortly after the charges were revealed, Spacey posted a bizarre video on his official YouTube channel, seemingly in character as Frank Underwood from House of Cards. Read the rest

In 2009, Obama signed an executive order requiring the administrative branch to embrace the broadest, most liberal approach to the Freedom of Information Act, reversing John Ashcroft's 2001 memo that instructed government agencies to turn over as little information to the public as possible.At the time, I published a column in Make magazine lauding the decision: John Ashcroft, then Attorney General, issued a directive to governmentagencies on October 12, 2001 that gutted FOIA. Under the new directive,agencies were advised to deny all FOIA requests, unless there was a"sound legal basis" for complying with them. Prior to this, agencies haddefaulted to honoring *all* FOIA requests, unless there was some"foreseeable harm" that could come from them. Effectively Ashcroft'smemo changed FOIA policy to, "We'll honor your FOIA request -- after youwin a lawsuit against us."So it was a grand and exciting day for activists of all descriptionwhen, on January 21, 2009, Barack Obama issued a memo *reversing* thispolicy, directing government agencies to "adopt a presumption in favorof disclosure" -- that is, to change the government's default positionon revealing what it doing from "None of your business" to "Pull up aseat and let me tell you all about it.:"Make: magazine was founded on the principle that, "if you can't open it,you don't own it," the stirring opening lines to Mr Jalopy's infamousMaker's Manifesto. This is even more true of governments than it is ofgadgets. Governments do their business on our behalf, with our money, inour country. Read the rest

An annual tradition (MP3)! Poesy is now 10 -- nearly 11! -- and this year, she's decided to offer us a detailed makeup tutorial, with some bonus horseback riding advice. There's even a musical number! Read the rest

A seasonal Russian animation from 1966. Directed by Vladimir Degtyarev, it's 10 minutes long and you won't need subtitles 'cause there ain't no dialogue. [via Metafilter] Read the rest

An unidentified local news station celebrated the 50th wedding anniversary of couple "Max and Geraldine Bailey" during a "Birthdays & Anniversaries" segment, except that they showed a picture of actor Mickey Rourke and Guns N' Roses' Axl Rose instead. Twitter user @KatlynNoelle88 caught the prank on camera:WHO DID THIS?!?! 🤣🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/DW3tTMbtDs— Katlyn (@KatlynNoelle88) December 21, 2018That photo of Rourke and Rose was taken at a boxing match in Los Angeles earlier this month and garnered reactions like these: No, these are not two retired school teachers waiting for their grandkids dance recital to begin while their husbands find parking.This is Mickey Rourke and Axl Rose at a boxing match in LA over the weekend. pic.twitter.com/1cooQ4Fed9— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) December 11, 2018Mickey Rourke and Axl Rose look Katie Hopkins and Mama Fratelli from the Goonies pic.twitter.com/UIWuNDTem4— Jesse Cooper (@JesseRCooper) December 13, 2018Mickey Rourke and Axl Rose look like your Aunt and Uncle from Texas just showed up for Christmas dinner. pic.twitter.com/ShtwKiHSAU— VisuallyBetter (@Isuckatpicking) December 11, 2018(Consequence of Sound)screenshot via KatlynNoelle88 Read the rest

Political rabble-rouser and anti-Trump activist Claude Taylor wants to make sure that we don't forget the fact that the Saudi government, likely ordered by the crown prince, brutally tortured, murdered, and dismembered a U.S. resident and Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi. To that end, he has made street sign-styled bumper stickers that you can place over existing street signs to turn any road in America into Khashoggi Way. You can get one of your own, for free, by following the instructions below.Thanks to Claude, in his Mad Doc Pac "Rat Truck," Jared and Ivanka's street in DC is now Khashoggi Way. Claude tweets:I’m back from today’s delivery of #KhashoggiWay. I went to Jared. Or close. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that Jared Kushner assisted in the coverup of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder. #complicit @KarenAttiahIf you want to support Taylor's resistance projects, he has a Mad Dog Pac account on ShareBlue.[Images via Claude Taylor's Twitter feed] Read the rest

Artist Sara Sandoval must have practiced a long time to be able to scribble out a portrait like this of Eminem on name tags. It looks like random at first but then she puts them all together and voila! Hello, my name is... Slim Shady! Her latest portrait, done similarly, is of Post Malone done on priority mail stickers (Post on post, get it?):These remind me of those "draw by grid" puzzles.(The Awesomer) Read the rest

In 2017, Reality Winner, a 25-year-old Air Force veteran and intelligence contractor was arrested for leaking confirmation of 2016 Russian election meddling to The Intercept; Winner seems to have been motivated by the same outrage that had animated Ed Snowden four years earlier: watching her bosses lie about matters of national interest.Winner is a principled, brilliant patriot who was facing a long prison sentence when she pleaded guilty and got a five-year term, the longest ever term for an offense of the sort Winner was accused of committing.In the months since Winner's sentence, her alleged leak has been vindicated again and again, as members of Trump's inner circle have pleaded guilty, or been convicted, of acting as unregistered foreign agents, of secretly arranging Russian payouts, of lying to US law enforcement and Congress. But these swamp creatures aren't drawing five-year sentences like young Ms Winner. Instead, they're getting wrist-slaps (George Papadopoulos got 14 days and sought early release after 12).Winner's mother, Billie Winner-Davis, has written an impassioned editorial for The Intercept, describing the ways that Reality Winner is suffering for the crime of telling us something we desperately needed to know, and railing against the impunity of the men who committed the crimes she disclosed.You can sign a petition to free Winner here.Winner can receive letters and money for her commissary account, as well as books (only books sent direct by Amazon, due to prison rules):REALITY WINNER 22056-021FMC CARSWELL FEDERAL MEDICAL CENTERPO BOX 27137FORT WORTH, TX 76127 Then Manafort. Read the rest

For two decades, adolescent smoking has been on the decline, but thanks to vaping products like Juul (which has 75% of the market), teen smoking just jumped by levels not seen for 43 years.Almost all the kids who vape are vaping nicotine: a toxic and highly addictive substance (source: smoker for 17 years, ex-smoker for 18 years). Juul's income growth over the past year? 800%.Nearly all of the increase comes from an increase in vaping nicotine, and my skepticism about this disappeared when I looked up revenue figures for Juul, the top seller of vaping devices and pods. I knew that the Juul fad had practically taken over American high schools recently, but it turns out that Juul reported a monster revenue increase of nearly 800 percent between 2017 and 2018 (from $107 million to $942 million), and they control about 75 percent of the market. That’s enough all by itself to account for a huge single-year increase in vaping.The Juul Fad Is Far Bigger Than I Ever Would Have Guessed [Kevin Drum/Mother Jones](via JWZ) Read the rest

Hundreds of yellow vest protesters marched in Dublin yesterday; like the French gilets jaunes who inspired them, the Irish yellow vests marched for a wide variety of causes, with no unified set of demands: the 2008 banker bailout (arguably the worst in the world since the Irish government has explicitly warned the banks it wouldn't guarantee their reckless loans, but still paid them off when the bubble burst); the continuing and ghastly revelations of scandals in the Church (including the forced-labor camps that unwed mothers were condemned to, and the scandal that the of storage tanks contained secret mass graves filled with the remains of infants); the spiraling costs of housing in Ireland; and the heel-dragging by the Irish government on legalizing marijuana.Collectively, this could be called "anti-corruption." Occupy had a semi-serious rallying cry: "Stuff is fucked up and shit." The everybody knows feeling, that our states are held captive by oligarchs, that oligarchs see us as "surplus population," that wealth means impunity.When Occupy fizzled, many people said that the momentum had broken. But that's not how change works. Change is a scalloped growth curve:Each event -- Occupy, the Women's March, the Ferguson uprising, the Muslim Ban, family separation -- excites a massive public response, and then most of the new people who the event has incited go back to their lives, but some people remain committed activists, energized by the glimpse of a new possibility. Even the ones who went home are primed to go out again, excited by the possibilities they've glimpsed. Read the rest