Well played and certainly worth the effort:I like pranks which do not abuse or insult anyone pic.twitter.com/aiUSUDcC2H— Tyrantasorus (@tyrantasorus) November 2, 2018 Read the rest

Earlier this year, a 35-year-old gentleman speed-drove his car – a Nissan GT-R – down a public street in Osaka, Japan at 174 mph (280 kph) while filming himself. It's considered one of the worst speeding violations ever on a Japanese highway. He then bragged about it by posting it on YouTube, only to get arrested after the police tracked him down. When questioned by police, he said, "I wanted everyone to watch it." According to Digital Trends, "News outlets reported that the driver pushed the car to speeds faster than Japan’s famous bullet train, the high-speed rail service that runs almost the length of the entire country." But the news outlets aren't accurate, at least not according to Wikipedia, which says that bullet trains travel up to 200 mph. What's fascinating about this video is watching the speedometer almost hit its limit. Read the rest

Project Farm wanted to see if candle wax could be used as a penetrating lubricant to loosen rusty nuts, so he set up a rigorous test to find out. His conclusion - candle wax applied to a hot nut doesn't help loosen it. It just won't penetrate onto the bolt.He also tried special penetrating fluid designed to make it easier to loosen rusty nuts, called Seafoam Deep Creep, which really does do the job. Read the rest

Did you know you can buy many different kinds of animal urine on Amazon? Fox urine, bobcat urine, coyote urine, wolf urine, cat urine, peak estrus whitetail deer urine, and more. How is the urine harvested? This video doesn't answer that question. Instead it asks and answers the question, "Does predator urine repel rodents?"The guy who ran the test said the urine smells really awful, like a skunk. Even worse, after he tested the fox and wolf urine by squirting a circle of it around some grain, mice and rats didn't care one bit -- they walked right over the circle of urine to get to the food. Read the rest

Nothing says "What bullshit!" better than a perfect eye-roll. And 21-year-old student Harriet Ellis said just that to right-wing Nigel Farage, with a perfect roll of her eyes during a Brexit debate yesterday. She punctuated her eye-roll with a subtle "I can't believe this" shake of her head. Her tweet about it went viral, receiving 46,000 likes so far.How we ALL feel when cock head Nigel Farrage opens his mouth #c4brexit #brexit pic.twitter.com/UmCXd7WmJm— Kev (@kev1n1985) November 5, 2018There’s been a lot of competition this year, but this has to be the greatest eye-roll of 2018. pic.twitter.com/bB2stJh1Ku— Hannah Jane Parkinson (@ladyhaja) November 5, 2018Thanks for all the kind words, this is indeed me! pic.twitter.com/FsEfKo8LyF— Harriet (@harrietlucyel) November 5, 2018Via Mashable Read the rest

Californian vote-by-mail voters can check with their county to ensure their vote was received and counted. Read the rest

"Which is good," he added. "But it'll leave the bad parts behind."After the Republicans voted more than 60 times to repeal Obamacare, their president has a new lie to peddle: that they're its great defenders. It's a new variant of Poe's law: a position so ridiculous it's impossible to tell if it's comedy. Shame there's nothing funny about it: the truth is that for Republicans, killing Obamacare (and Medicare more generally) remains the first order of business. Read the rest

Author Haruki Murakami is donating a large collection of his personal materials -- original manuscripts, letters, foreign language editions of his books, and 10,000 vinyl records -- to his alma mater Waseda University. From the Japan Times:The donation “is a very important thing for me, so I thought I should explain clearly” by holding a news conference, said Murakami, 69. “I don’t have any children, and it would cause trouble for me if those materials became scattered or lost..."Using the donated materials, the university in Tokyo is considering setting up an international study center featuring the author’s works. It also plans to create a space that will resemble a study room with bookshelves and music records...In the envisioned facility to house his documents, Murakami said if possible he wants to organize a concert using his collection of vinyl records, which total more than 10,000 copies.Murakami, who opened a cafe for jazz enthusiasts in Tokyo while still a student at Waseda University, has said music is an essential component of his career in literature.Previously: "A Murakami playlist" Read the rest

First discovered a year ago, Oumuamua is the strange cigar-shaped object of interstellar origin that flew through our solar system at 196,000 mph. Since it was first spotted, scientists haven't decisively determined whether it's a mildly active comet or something else. Now, astronomers Shmuel Bialy and Abraham Loeb of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have released a scientific paper asking if Oumuamua could be a "lightsail of artificial origin," part of a space probe developed by an advanced extraterrestrial civilization. Of course this is not a statement of fact but rather a question, albeit a very very interesting one. From CNN:"'Oumuamua may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization," they wrote in the paper, which has been submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters.IThe theory is based on the object's "excess acceleration," or its unexpected boost in speed as it traveled through and ultimately out of our solar system in January 2018."Considering an artificial origin, one possibility is that 'Oumuamua is a light sail, floating in interstellar space as a debris from an advanced technological equipment," wrote the paper's authors, suggesting that the object could be propelled by solar radiation."COULD SOLAR RADIATION PRESSURE EXPLAIN ‘OUMUAMUA’S PECULIAR ACCELERATION?" (PDF)(image: artist's impression of Oumuamua, ESO/M. Kornmesser) Read the rest

Seventy-two people, many of them poor people of color, died in Grenfell Tower when the shoddily-maintained tower went up in flames last year. Five men were arrested today in Britain after putting a model of the building, complete with dark-skinned inhabitants, on a bonfire. A video shared on social media shows a cardboard model of the tower being set alight by a laughing crowd. The Metropolitan Police said the men - two aged 49 and the others aged 19, 46 and 55 - handed themselves in at a south London station on Monday night. Prime Minister Theresa May had called the video "utterly unacceptable". The footage shows a large model bearing a Grenfell Tower sign, complete with paper figures at the windows, being set on fire. Laughter can be heard off camera as the effigy is set alight, with onlookers shouting "Help me! Help me!" and "Jump out the window!". As the blaze takes hold, a voice can be heard to say "All the little ninjas getting it at the minute"Those "public order" offenses seem an English shame culture thing. The law is vague, so sometimes (as in the case of leering racist sociopaths burning effigies in public) an example must be made when shame fails in the absense of guilt. Read the rest

I want the new iPad Pro, which is in a league of its own but for one thing: iOS still can't be used for work unless your job has no workflow. Nilay Patel's review sums up why it remains a poor tool for professionals who have to deal with files....either you have to understand the limitations of iOS so well you can make use of these little hacks all over the place to get things done, or you just deal with it and accept that you have to go back to a real computer from time to time because it’s just easier. And in that case, you might as well just use a real computer.I had the last-gen iPad Pro and spent a lot of time trying to make it work for me, and eventually gave up. All the workflow problems seem to result from iOS's security model, where apps live in their own sandboxes and can't access the file system or other apps' boxes. The "Files" app acts as a bridge between apps but doesn't provide access to a shared set of genuinely-accessible local files and therefore leads inexorably to headaches. For me, this situation only got worse when I started adding third-party file system apps, because they were really just complicated clones of the "Files" app or cloud/network synching services masquerading as file systems. The more I squirmed, the more annoying and frustrating it got.If you want an iPad Pro, the sad fact is you probably need a Microsoft Surface, with its own mirror-world of compromises: complexity, slowness, pen latency, bloated OS features and general lack of fun. Read the rest

Evan Greer writes, "Hey Internet -- it's election time, and shills for Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T are going around telling our elected officials in Congress that no one cares about net neutrality anymore. They want our lawmakers to think they can just keep raking in campaign contributions and screwing over Internet users without any consequences. We need to prove them wrong. So we're flooding the Internet with short individual stories from voters who care about the free and open Internet. Can you add yours? Read the rest

It's election day. Your vote fucking counts. In. Every. Single. Race. Here's how to find your polling place. Remember this important phrase: "Give me a provisional ballot with a receipt as required by law when requested." (Image: Mrs. Gemstone, CC-BY-SA) Read the rest

My latest Locus Magazine column is What the Internet Is For: it describes the revolutionary principle (end-to-end communications) and technologies (general purpose computers, strong cryptography) that undergird the net, but also cautions that these are, themselves, not sufficient to revolutionize the world.All these tools are available to establishments just as much as they are available to insurgents: and given time, these technologies will eventually add to the advantage the establishment has over those who would change the established order.But that doesn't mean the internet is useless: because crypto, computers and communications can give us a private space where we can -- at least temporarily -- talk amongst ourselves, it is a tool that can be used to organize revolutions. We can't use the internet to walkaway from the world: but we can use it to organize a world where we want to stay. And that's why we need to defend the net: not because it is a parallel virtual place where we are free from surveillance and oppression, but because it is vital to creating real, physical places where we are free.If you live in a repressive, corrupt state where the reins of power are in the hands of ruthless, greedy elites, the mere use of the internet is insufficient to keep you safe from oppression and retaliation. Even if you escape and go into exile, the internet will not keep your family and friends safe as you communicate with them.You can’t use the internet to obviate the need to effect political change. Read the rest

0.5% of Americans given $200 or more in campaign contributions, accounting for 66% of all campaign funding, but that's nothing: only 0.0001% give $10,000 or more, and their donations are 38% of all the money sloshing around in US electoral campaign coffers.That means a mere 37,000 people account for more than a third of US campaign finance, out of a population of 325,700,00 people.But even these 37,000 are small fry compared to the 2,210 people who account for 25% of all campaign spending: $1.1 billion in total.And of course, that's just the money we know about. Thanks to Citizens United, which allowed for unlimited, anonymous campaign spending, there's billions more spent by "dark money groups" whose funders are a secret. Donors are older, whiter and wealthier than America as a whole. They hail disproportionately from certain places: So far this year, more money has come from the District of Columbia than from 28 states put together. And certain industries – finance, real estate, law, health care, oil and gas – are particularly big givers.Campaign Spending Isn’t The Problem – Where The Money Comes From Is [Richard Briffault/IB Times](via Naked Capitalism) Read the rest

Spot the Surveillance is the Electronic Frontier Foundation's first VR app: it's part of the organization's Street-Level Surveillance, which has tracked and resisted the spread of ubiquitous surveillance tools, from license-plate cameras to Stingrays and beyond.My EFF colleagues created the app so that it runs in a browser, even without a VR headset, but it works best with VR goggles, and is vendor-independent.Users are challenged to spot "a body-worn camera, automated license plate readers, a drone, a mobile biometric device, and pan-tilt-zoom cameras" and learn more about the capabilities of each.The current version is now being made publicly available for user testing, as part of the Aaron Swartz Day and International Hackathon festivities. EFF will be conducting live demonstrations of the project at the event on Nov. 10-11 at the Internet Archive in San Francisco. Swartz, the brilliant activist and Internet pioneer, was facing a myriad of federal charges for downloading scientific journals when he took his own life in 2013.EFF seeks user feedback and bug reports, which will be incorporated into an updated version scheduled for release in Spring 2019. The VR project was supported during its development through the XRstudio residency program at Mozilla. The project was also made possible with the support of a 2018 Journalism 360 Challenge grant. Journalism 360 is a global network of storytellers accelerating the understanding and production of immersive journalism. Its founding partners are the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Google News Initiative, and the Online News Association. Read the rest

I was one of the keynote speakers at last week's Ethereum Devcon in Prague, where I gave a talk called "Decentralize, Democratize, or Die," about the way that bad tech policy (crypto backdoors, the DMCA's ban on security disclosures, etc) come from weak states where the super-rich get to call the shots, and how things like money-laundering creates these weak states. The core message: if you don't figure out how to make more pluralistic, less plutocratic states, you will never get the kind of information security you need for your blockchain systems to thrive. Read the rest

In Towards Construction Based Data Hiding: From Secrets to Fingerprint Images, published in IEEE Transactions on Image Processing (Sci-Hub Mirror), two Fudan University computer scientists propose a fascinating method for hiding encrypted messages in fake fingerprints that are both visually and computationally difficult to distinguish from real ones, which could theoretically allow the use of fingerprint databases to convey secret messages.The researchers' method encodes the encrypted message using the ridge endings and bifurcations of the fingerprint, in a way that current statistical methods for spotting hidden messages does not reliably detect (the fingerprints also look like real fingerprints, even to skilled observers).Stegonography -- the science of hiding the existence of messages inside other files or works -- is a really fun technical field, full of skullduggery. But it's subject to a critical flaw, which is that analysis of a large number of source files without hidden messages yields up a statistical profile that can be compared to files that have stegonographically encoded messages hidden in them, and these comparisons usually spot the doctored files very quickly. For example, people have long proposed hiding an image by flipping the least-significant bit in each pixel of an image -- in a 16-bit image, changing this bit only alters the color of the corresponding image by 1/65536 of its original value, which is effectively imperceptible. But bitmap compression algorithms tend to smooth out this kind of minor variation (specifically because it is imperceptible, and so the compression algorithm can safely throw away the associated information without perceptibly degrading the image). Read the rest

No one knows who wrote this Unisyn optical vote-counting machine manual that has appeared in multiple sites served by the California-based vendor, but only because Unisyn won't comment on whether they wrote it.The manual instructs voting officials to circumvent federal voting guidelines by using weak passwords for voting machines, and then by cycling back and forth between passwords when the federally mandated password-change prompts come up. It also instructs them to create new passwords by incrementing a final digit (e.g. password1, password2, password3) or to use "unisyn" as the password.Unisyn machines are used in 3,629 precincts in 12 states, plus Puerto Rico. The manual indicates that the username to log into the election-management system is "administrator,” and the sysadmin password is a simple string of five letters with a number appended to it. The root password is the company's name with the same number appended to it.Once logged into the system the credentials needed to access the tabulation monitor or the system for creating reports of ballots and vote tallies are different. The username is again a simple word to log in. The password is the same word with "1" appended to it. Users are told that to change the password when prompted, they should simply change the number sequentially to 2, 3, 4, etc.The username for logging into the critical tabulator client where votes are tallied and stored is "supervisor.” According to the manual, the password is "election specific"—meaning officials create a different password for the tabulator client for each election. Read the rest

Why does Ivanka Trump need trademarks for nursing homes, sausage casing, and *voting machines* in China? Or do we not want to know.The fashion brand of Donald Trump's daughter and presidential adviser Ivanka Trump has received first trial approval from the government of China for 16 new trademarks. The approvals were granted in October, only a few months after Ivanka said she was shutting down the Ivanka Trump brand, which was selling poorly in department stores here in the United States. Read the trademarks here, courtesy of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).The is the largest number of new Chinese trademarks she has received in a single month since her father President Donald Trump took office.The trademarks represent a possible conflict of interest for the Presidential adviser, because she continues to work on policy in the White House and meet with foreign leaders, writes Caroline Zhang at CREW, who points out that the wide array of trademarks granted includes “nursing homes, sausage casing, and voting machines. Ivanka’s business applied for these trademarks in 2016.”Excerpt:Despite shutting down, Ivanka Trump’s brand will continue to seek new trademarks, according to public reports. This leaves open the possibility that she could resume her business after leaving her role in the White House. She retains ownership over all of her existing trademarks, and many of her trademarks will remain active as late as 2028.The newest Chinese trademarks cover fashion items including handbags, shoes, wedding dresses, and jewelry. Read the rest

Dischord is to punk and indie rock what Def Jam and Death Row Records are to rap. Dischord Records was formed in 1980 by Ian MacKaye and Jeff Nelson of Minor Threat fame. Nothing is more punk than figuring shit out for yourself and then owning it like a fucking champ. Dischord was and is all up in DIY's face: all of the label's albums were produced in-house and distributed without the help--let's be honest and call it interference--by any major labels. The label's roster of artists is a who's who of who was in constant rotation on my used-to-death Panasonic portable cassette player, back in the day: Fugazi, Govenment Issue, Jawbox, S.O.A, Minor Threat and Shudder to Think. I don't think it would be too over the top to say that Dischord was responsible for forming many of the political and ethical beliefs that I hold to be true to this day. And now, the label's whole damn back catalog is free to stream on Bandcamp. If you're looking to take a trip down hardcore punk memory lane, this is your chance. If you missed out on Dischord's seminal recordings the first go 'round and want to see what all of the fuss is about, this is also your chance. Listen, enjoy and, if want to keep a good thing going, throw some money at buying any of the tracks or albums that you wind up falling in love with. Image by Malco23 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link Read the rest

Massachusetts voter Question 3 is whether or not to maintain an existing anti-discrimination law. This ad explains why the freedom to just be whomever the heck you are is so important in Massachusetts. Read the rest

Darryl Cheng posted this fantastic video below on his Instagram account @houseplantjournal. The entrancing time-lapse video shows the light- and temperature-induced Nyctinastic movement ("sleep" movement) of his oxalis and maranta plants. View this post on Instagram I'm pleased to bring you this collab between HPJ and @angusandceleste - showing two of my favourite daily movers: oxalis and maranta. - The oxalis is wearing the latest from @angusandceleste - a Hand-thrown Boulder Pot, complete with matching wire stand. - I've teamed with Angus & Celeste to give you $10 off when you use the code: HOUSEPLANTJOURNAL at checkout ($50 minimum purchase) ~ ~ #angusandceleste #styleathome #oxalis #oxalistriangularis #plantdaddy #containerplants #plantsarefriends #plantdaddy #timelapse #livingwithplants #plantaddict #plantobsession #plantsathome #instaplant #planttherapy #houseplants #indoorplants #oddlysatisfying A post shared by Darryl Cheng (@houseplantjournal) on Oct 27, 2018 at 7:57am PDT Read the rest

A feasibility study in the Astrophysical Journal explains how a powerful laser on an Earth mountaintop, focused through a huge telescope, could shine a light of infrared radiation that would be detectable up to 20,000 light years away. While some scientists are concerned about alerting extraterrestrials to our presence, I agree with something said to me by Ann Druyan -- co-writer of Cosmos and many other works with her husband Carl Sagan -- when we were working on the Voyager Golden Record: 40th Anniversary Edition: It's rather cynical, she explained, to think that a extraterrestrial civilization advanced enough to notice us and make the long trip to Earth would be so emotionally stunted as to purposely destroy us upon arrival. From MIT News:The findings suggest that if a high-powered 1- to 2-megawatt laser were focused through a massive 30- to 45-meter telescope and aimed out into space, the combination would produce a beam of infrared radiation strong enough to stand out from the sun’s energy.Such a signal could be detectable by alien astronomers performing a cursory survey of our section of the Milky Way — especially if those astronomers live in nearby systems, such as around Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to Earth, or TRAPPIST-1, a star about 40 light-years away that hosts seven exoplanets, three of which are potentially habitable. If the signal is spotted from either of these nearby systems, the study finds, the same megawatt laser could be used to send a brief message in the form of pulses similar to Morse code. Read the rest

The schmaltzy opening for one of the worst TV shows ever is perfect for the worst administration ever. And you thought the TITANIC was a disaster...TURN SOUND ON! (this is great) pic.twitter.com/D8uYpydmBv— 💙Koko ✊🏻✊🏾✊🏿💙 (@Kokomothegreat) November 5, 2018 Read the rest

When Barack Obama made a pit stop in Miami to grab some tacos, the reaction from the customers is priceless. They sound like teenagers at a rock concert, with people covering their mouths with their hands as they shriek for joy. "All right guys, where's my tacos?" Obama jokes as he surprises everyone with his appearance. And later, "I want everyone to vote!" he shouts to cheers. "He ordered three tacos and left a $40 tip," according to the video below. Barack Obama stopped for tacos and people absolutely lost their sh*t with joy pic.twitter.com/BK9WcXURAH— NowThis (@nowthisnews) November 4, 2018What a refreshing change of atmosphere when it comes to a politician in the room. Read the rest

Social psychologist Amy Cuddy and her colleagues have developed a "theory of prejudice" that goes deeper than a simplistic us-versus-them mindset. According to her research, when the world feels volatile or the economy is tanking, groups that are stereotyped as both "cold" ("unfriendly" and "untrustworthy") and "competent" ("ambitious, intelligent and skillful") are more likely to be targeted for, um, extermination. According to Cuddy's op-ed in the the New York Times, "a widespread stereotype of Jewish people, like that of other socioeconomically successful minorities such as Asian-Americans, falls in the competent-but-cold quadrant."People assume that socioeconomically successful groups must be competent and that disadvantaged groups must be incompetent. Likewise, groups that are viewed as competitors — for status, for resources — get stereotyped as cold, whereas groups that are viewed as allies get stereotyped as warm...In-groups and “cultural reference” groups (the middle class and Christians are common examples in the United States) are stereotyped as warm and competent — a wholly positive category. In stark contrast, groups on society’s margins who are blamed for their plight and viewed as a drain on resources (common examples include homeless people and drug addicts) are stereotyped as cold and incompetent — a wholly negative category. Discrimination against groups stereotyped in this way is typically expressed through disregard, stigmatizing and ostracizing...But when times get tough, envious prejudices can ignite. Societal breakdown, harsh economies or political turmoil can activate resentment toward high-status minorities, who are seen as competitors for limited resources or even dangerous enemies. Read the rest

Player 'Rizart' eliminated 35% of a solos lobby! Blasting through the previous record of 32 players eliminated, this video shows amazing skill!The Dark Bomber skin with the creepy jack-o-lantern rocket launcher is great. Read the rest

Arthur C. Clarke forecasts the future in 1974. We've come a long way. Kinda.(via r/ObscureMedia) Read the rest

A Russian fighter jet intercepted a US Navy plane this morning over the Black Sea, an encounter that lasted for 25 minutes and put put the US crew in danger. Via CNN:...The Russian SU-27 jet passed directly in front of the US EP-3 aircraft at a high speed, the officials said. The US crew reported turbulence following that initial interaction in which the direct pass occurred.The SU-27 then made a second pass of the US plane and applied its afterburner while conducting a banking maneuver, which is believed to have caused a vibration that was experienced by the American crew.And according to the US Navy, "This interaction was determined to be unsafe due to the SU-27 conducting a high speed pass directly in front of the mission aircraft, which put our pilots and crew at risk. The intercepting SU-27 made an additional pass, closing with the EP-3 and applying its afterburner while conducting a banking turn away. The crew of the EP-3 reported turbulence following the first interaction, and vibrations from the second." WTF??Image: US Navy Read the rest

Psychology professor William Forde Thompson of Australia's Macquarie University and his colleagues have published a series of scientific papers about the appeal of death metal. The scientists were surprised to learn that death metal fans aren't particularly angry or violent people and actually in a happy place whilst head-banging to the likes of Morbid Angel (above) and Cannibal Corpse (below). The research reminds me of how my dad was always so surprised by my love for goth music even though I was a fairly happy teen. From Scientific American:“It’s the paradox of enjoying a negative emotion that I was interested in,” says Thompson, a professor at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. “Why are people interested in music that seems to induce a negative emotion, when in everyday life we tend to avoid situations that will induce a negative emotion?” A number of studies have explored the emotional appeal of sad music, Thompson notes. But relatively little research has examined the emotional effects of listening to music that is downright violent.Thompson’s work has produced some intriguing insights. The biggest surprise? “The ubiquitous stereotype of death metal fans—fans of music that contains violent themes and explicitly violent lyrics—[is] that they are angry people with violent tendencies,” Thompson says. “What we are finding is that they are not angry people. They’re not enjoying anger when they listen to the music, but they are in fact experiencing a range of positive emotions...."Chris Pervelis, a founding member and guitarist of the band Internal Bleeding (whose songs include Gutted Human Sacrifice [below] and The Pageantry of Savagery), is confident that the positive emotions he experiences when he plays and listens to Death Metal are the real thing. Read the rest

President Trump continues to scream his racist, anti-semitic, and homophobic slogans; Sarah Sanders says he didn't say that.From the NYT:Right-wing extremists — a catchall category for a messy constellation of neo-Nazis, white nationalists, crypto-fascists, nihilists and attention-seeking trolls — vary widely in style and ideology. Some congregate out in the open, on forums like 4chan and Reddit as well as public platforms like Gab, the Twitter-like social network used by the suspect in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. Others communicate in private channels on Discord, a chat platform, or over encrypted messaging apps like Telegram or Wire. Some are ardent supporters of Mr. Trump, while others oppose him on the grounds that he is not extreme enough.What they have in common is a feeling of empowerment — a sense that the boundaries of acceptable speech are widening in the Trump era, and a suspicion that when they talk, Mr. Trump, or those with access to him, may be listening.Even small phrases can set off speculation. Last month, when Mr. Trump tweeted an unfounded accusation that left-wing protesters outside the confirmation hearings for Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh were “paid for by Soros and others,” some extremists took it as evidence that the president shared their view of a global Jewish-led conspiracy led by Mr. Soros, a leading donor to many liberal causes.“Trump has officially named the Jew,” wrote one user on 4chan. “Trump knows,” wrote another, who said that the “others” Mr. Trump referred to in his tweet might be a sly reference to other shadowy Jewish benefactors. Read the rest

WTF? 😂 pic.twitter.com/9Ax3NAlZEi— You Had One Job (@_youhadonejob1) November 4, 2018 My daughter competes in the Jr Olympics gymnastics program and loves every minute of it. This video is the kind of shenanigans she can appreciate. Read the rest

Since September, Nick Cave has been thoughtfully answering fan's questions through his site The Red Hand Files. To answer the latest query, Cave shared his thoughts on death and how he and his wife Susie were mourning their son Arthur who died in 2015. Cynthia of Shelburne Falls, Vermont wrote that she had lost her father, sister, and first love over the past few years and said she communicated with them in her dreams. She wrote that it was helping her. She asked if Cave and his wife were communicating with Arthur in a similar way. Here's how he responded:Dear Cynthia,This is a very beautiful question and I am grateful that you have asked it. It seems to me, that if we love, we grieve. That’s the deal. That’s the pact. Grief and love are forever intertwined. Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable. There is a vastness to grief that overwhelms our minuscule selves. We are tiny, trembling clusters of atoms subsumed within grief’s awesome presence. It occupies the core of our being and extends through our fingers to the limits of the universe. Within that whirling gyre all manner of madnesses exist; ghosts and spirits and dream visitations, and everything else that we, in our anguish, will into existence. These are precious gifts that are as valid and as real as we need them to be. They are the spirit guides that lead us out of the darkness. Read the rest

I hope he got a good tip. Important reference material: Read the rest

The BBC reports on "Four secrets your Goldfish is hiding from you."4. Goldfish were originally kept for meat3. The goldfish bowl was a disruptive technology2. Goldfish are an invasive speciesNumber 1 will blow your mind, but not before it blows theirs. Read the rest

Former New York Times ombudsman Margaret Sullivan can't believe the media is making the same mistakes it made in the run up to the 2016 election: "Too many journalists allow Trump to lead them around by the nose, which is why you’ve heard so very much about that migrant caravan in recent weeks."With the president as their de facto assignment editor, too many seem to respond “how high?” when Trump says jump.Wide-eyed coverage of his politically driven pet issues — primarily the supposed horrors of immigration — has dominated the past few weeks of news, with a fixation on the refugees coming north through Mexico. ... Journalists too often parrot what the president says, and giddily follow his shiny-object distractions du jour.Singled out for brutal criticism are Axios's Jonathan Swan, The Hill, Fox News and other usual suspects who breathlessly convey Trump's wisdom without skepticism or journalistic acumen. But she also praises other outlets for getting over their squeamish indifference to lies and reporting them as such, and for the trend of sucessfully ignoring vacuous Trumpspeak.I made a picture for you (above) for use later this week on social media, when it really starts to sink in. Read the rest

The story of Santa Fe art collective Meow Wolf is being told in a new documentary. It's called Meow Wolf: Origin Story and it opens nationwide in theaters November 29th. Can't wait!When a group of young DIY artists in Santa Fe can’t find a door into the art world, they blow open an entirely new portal with their grit, passion, and tenacity. Within just a few short years – and with a little help from George R.R. Martin – this group called Meow Wolf ultimately hits a cultural nerve and garners massive, unexpected success with their exhibit, House of Eternal Return. Read the rest

They surely got hacked, but some of those guys are on the strong stuff and you just never know what happens when you mix high-proof conservatism with Jesus and give everyone unlimited access to the Twitter account.Update: The Examiner said their feed was hacked and a tweet was posted that did not come from our staff. Read the rest

I'm in Berlin today, promoting the German edition of my novel Walkaway: the kindly folks at Otherland Books are hosting me tonight at a free event at DTK Wasserturm, where I'll be presenting with Marcus Richter. Hope to see you there! Tell your friends! Read the rest

The Nairobi neighborhood of Kibera is Africa's largest slum, and it's home to an unlikely, Silicon-Valley-style tech park operated by Samasource (motto: "Artificial intelligence meets human dignity"), who serves clients from Google to Microsoft to Salesforce, using clickworkers who get paid $9/day, compared to the going wage of $2/day in the region's "informal economy" (the company believes that paying wages on par with rich-world clickworkers would "distort the local economy").One major project at Samasource's Kibera office is producing training data for self-driving cars: workers carefully trace pixel-accurate outlines around road-features like signs, cars, license plates, etc. There are many ways in which Samsource benefits Kibera: workers are paid a living wage and enjoy better working conditions than are standard in Kibera, and women make up about half of the workforce, and can take 90 days' maternity leave and use a lactation room when they return. Workers who leave Samasource continue to thrive, pursuing higher education and/or "more formal work."But the work is still unpleasant in ways that are familiar from other places where this kind of work is done, from the poor ergonomics to the worker metric tools that encourage workers to skip breaks in order to make quota (Samasource said it would re-evaluate the ergonomics).More problematic is that Kibera's residents are unlikely to benefit from self-driving cars at any time in the foreseeable future -- while they could benefit from much lower-tech interventions, like clean water and sanitation.Samasource is a really good example of both the possibilities and limitations of the economic development for "lifting people out of poverty." Kenya is a rich country with many natural resources that has struggled with the legacy of colonialism: much of the wealth of the former colonizers can be traced to extraction from Kenya, and today, those colonizing powers turn a blind eye to the laundering of the billions extracted from the region by corrupt officials and businesspeople. Read the rest

In 2015, the Malaysian government collapsed after a scandal involving embezzlement from the state-owned 1Malaysia Development Berhad fund; the scandal shows no sign of slowing down, with fresh accusations against the country's business and political leadership surfacing regularly and one prime suspect, the financier and "tabloid party boy" Jho Low going on the run, a fugitive believed to be in China.The latest turn in the scandal is criminal charges against two former Goldman Sachs bankers who are accused of helping Low launder $4.5 billion. One of the Goldman bankers, Tim Leissner, has pleaded guilty and been ordered to forfeit $43.7 million. The other Goldman banker, Roger Ng, was criminally indicted in the USA this week.Low and Roger Ng, a Malaysian banker at Goldman Sachs, were indicted on three counts of conspiracy to commit money laundering, bribery, and circumvention of accounting controls, in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Ng was arrested Thursday in Malaysia. Low, who is believed to be in China, remains at large.The government also unsealed a criminal complaint against Tim Leissner, Goldman's former Southeast Asia chairman. Leissner has pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit money laundering and violating the FCPA. He has been ordered to forfeit $43.7 million. Former Goldman Sachs bankers charged in multibillion-dollar money-laundering scandal [Reuters](via Reddit)(Image: Khairil Yusof, CC-BY-SA) Read the rest

In late 2013, the United States Postal Service entered into an agreement with Amazon to deliver its packages alongside the regular mail and, on Sundays, to deliver their packages exclusively. Because the USPS receives no federal funding and was operating in a multi-billion dollar loss, it was thought that this agreement would generate much-needed revenue for them, and it has. However, not surprisingly, it's the USPS workers that are taking the brunt of this agreement for it to work. They are now often working Sundays, holidays, and not getting consistent days off. In a new Medium article, writer Brendan O'Connor interviewed a rural New England mail carrier about their working conditions.There were a few quotes that jumped out at me:"It’s a network [Amazon] can tap into and just feed their packages through without having to establish their own network. It’s the dependability… There’s also just no limit to how much [USPS will] make us work. There’s no limit on days worked in a row with the Postal Service—for RCAs [rural carrier associates] and CCAs [city carrier assistants] at least."I don’t know if the tendency to overwork the employees [happened] before Amazon, but the Postal Service just refuses to treat their employees like humans, and we deliver Amazon packages until we drop dead."We have a lot of instances of heat stroke. Every morning, when it’s gonna be hot, the postmaster walks around, reads his little spiel like, 'Stay hydrated. If you need to take a break, take a break in shade. Read the rest

On Thursday, civil rights activist and journalist Shaun King announced that he will be bringing back North Star, the abolitionist newspaper started by Frederick Douglass and Martin Delany 171 years ago, after receiving full permission and blessing from Douglass' family. He writes:In 1847, with slavery still in full force, two brave men, Frederick Douglass and Martin Delany (both pictured above), started an abolitionist newspaper called The North Star — named for the star, Polaris, that was often used as a guide for those seeking freedom in the North.Douglass and Delany knew then, as we know now, that in order to fight back against injustice, their stories had to not only be well told — with the color and dimension and nuance that was frequently missing elsewhere, they knew they needed a newspaper that represented the cause of liberation with urgency, clarity, heart, and soul...While The North Star was originally a print newspaper, we will be launching a news app, a full news website, a collection of podcasts, and an online nightly news broadcast. We’re not just here to change the news — we aim to change the world.King, with his friend Ben Dixon, are first gathering 100,000 people to assist in their November 15 launch through BuildingTheNorthStar.com. Since the announcement yesterday, over 61,000 people have signed up to help. By the end of 2018, they hope to have 25,000 people signed up as members of the new North Star.Go get'em, gentlemen!Thanks, Kristen! Read the rest

This cute animated short looks at Pixar's in-house Halloween culture -- from the crazy costumes their employees wear to the unbelievably cool and completely unconventional prizes they receive for wowing the judges at the annual lunchtime contest.Pixar's Halloween Celebration emcee Michael Frederickson narrates the piece and says, "At Pixar, we take not being serious on Halloween pretty seriously. It feels like a bunch of kids playing in a place of work where, of course, you should be able to do that." Read the rest

Apple just had a really poor Q3 earnings report, with hardware sales falling off as people figure out that they just don't need to get a new phone every year or so; writing in Bloomberg, Leonid Bershidsky tries to soothe investors by pointing out that Apple is still seeing growth in "services" and that there's plenty more growth to be realized there.Bershidsky is refreshingly honest in his description of these services: he refers to repairs, sales through the App and Itunes stores, and cloud services as "collecting rent" on Apple customers and its suppliers. As Bershidsky points out, long-term Apple users are rather locked into its ecosystem by the tedious and potentially risky process of extracting their photos, music, etc to a rival platform. That means that the suppliers of things like music, ebooks, and videos are also locked into Apple's stores, unlikely to win a battle to establish rival stores that interoperate with Apple's Itunes and other apps, but which take a smaller commission on the sale of their products. Apple has inserted itself into the transactions for copyrighted works for the foreseeable future, passively creaming off a substantial portion of the profits from the sales not because their store is the best, but because they have used DRM and other proprietary tactics to lock out competitors.A Goldman Sachs report suggests that Apple aggressively turn the screw on the rent-collecting end of its business, using bundling and anti-competitive retail tactics to crush Dropbox and other cloud providers currently serving Iphone owners. Read the rest

Edward Gorey's "Gashlycrumb Tinies" is a much-beloved, macabre illustrated children's book that is a favorite of remixers of all kinds; but Mad Magazine's Ghastlygun Tinies dials up the "trenchant" knob to 11.The satire, written by Matt Cohen and drawn by Marc Palm, appears in Issue #4 of MAD (MAD rebooted earlier this year, and started numbering issues from 1 again), and, like Gorey's original, it depicts the proclivities of 26 children, one for each of the kids at Gashlycrumb Elementary.The gag in the Gashlycrumb Tinies is that each of them is obviously doomed -- "A is for Amy, who fell down the stairs" -- and that same menace hangs over Ghastlygun, but given that "gun" in the title, and as school shootings bifurcate America into the solemnly furious who want action, and grifters enabled by politicians deep in expensively purchased denial, the sense that there's something more going on with the Ghastlyguns gives it an air of ha-ha-only-serious menace.That menace pays off. As Patton Oswalt notes "The last panel of this will knock you down."He's right.There's a very interesting thing going on here with copyright and free expression that's worth noting. While US fair use is broad and "fact-intensive" (that is, it's hard to know what is and is not fair until a judge makes a ruling), there's a broad consensus that fair use protects "parody" (using a thing to make fun of itself) but not "satire" (using a thing to make fun of another thing). Read the rest

I've been researching looper pedals for my 12-year-old guitarist son and happened upon this video of Mick Bishop using his Boss RC-300 Loop Station to create a very fun cover of "Close To Me," perhaps my favorite song by The Cure. Read the rest

HGTV lined up all six Brady kids in front of their iconic television home (well, the LA property that served as the exterior shot) to kickoff the network's upcoming series, "A Very Brady Renovation." You may remember the network bought the Brady Bunch house earlier this year, outbidding N' Sync's Lance Bass. Now, it plans to restore the iconic home to its "full, resplendent, unabashedly ‘70s grandeur," according to a blog post.So, here’s the story. (Surely you didn’t think we’d pass up the opportunity to use that line.) Back in August, HGTV officially became the proud new owners of that quintessentially suburban split-level ranch seen in virtually every episode of The Brady Bunch. And you can rest assured that, with its penchant for magical, mind-blowing home makeovers, the network has some very special things in mind for this particular home transformation. It’s all part of — and will be documented in — a new series, A Very Brady Renovation (w.t.), scheduled to air on HGTV in September of 2019. And we suspect that even the most ardent Brady Bunch enthusiasts and purists will not be disappointed....For the first time in 14 years, all six siblings from the show’s original cast were reunited as they joined up with some of HGTV’s most well-known on-air talent. It was all part of an event to announce plans for the renovation and the accompanying series. TV siblings Barry Williams (Greg), Maureen McCormick (Marcia), Christopher Knight (Peter), Eve Plumb (Jan), Mike Lookinland (Bobby) and Susan Olsen (Cindy) gathered with Jonathan and Drew Scott (Property Brothers), Mina Starsiak and Karen E Laine (Good Bones), siblings Leanne and Steve Ford (Restored by the Fords), Jasmine Roth (Hidden Potential) and Lara Spencer (Flea Market Flip) for an on-camera walk-through of the home. Read the rest