Coraline Ehmke is a leading figure in the push to make Linux programming more welcoming and inclusiv, supplementing the project's famed Code of Conflict with an enforceable Code of Conduct project called CoC Beacon. (more…)

HAL is described as the "world's most advanced" Pediatric Patient Simulator. Hal simulates lifelike emotions through "dynamic facial expressions, movement and speech." Gaumard Scientific's video promises "amazed, transient pain, crying, and more." [via @3liza]

The fad for fire-and-forget retro consoles continues with Sony's PlayStation Classic. It's $100, has 20 games built-in, modern connectors, and the original 1995 design—albeit shrunk to the size of the original's controller.Five of the games were announced: Final Fantasy 7, Jumping Flash, R4: Ridge Racer Type 4, Tekken 3 and Wild Arms.

And you thought 2018 couldn't get more grimly, disgustingly, apocalyptically fucked up.There are roughly 4,000 “hog-waste lagoons,” that is the official term folks, in North Carolina. In the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality today says a number of these pork poo ponds are at risk of flooding and overflowing. (more…)

Dallas police officer Amber Guyger, who shot and killed Botham Shem Jean when she entered his apartment, using the excuse that she thought it was her apartment, is getting all the privileges that cops give fellow cops accused of committing crimes. She probably wouldn't have even been arrested had it not been for the public outcry. Two days later, Guyger was charged with mere manslaughter. She spent just a few hours in custody, which is highly unusual for a suspected killer. Then, her fellow cops got a warrant on the victim's apartment in a desperate attempt to find something to smear him with. They found a tiny bit of pot, and Fox News reported on it like it was the crime of the century. And now the news is out that Guyger's apartment has never been searched, which means she's had plenty of time to get rid of any incriminating evidence.From Newsone:

Want to be buried in a giant wooden coffin that looks like a Coke bottle?Coffin artist Paa Joe is the guy who can make that happen. He crafts fantasy wood "proverb coffins" (aka as abebuu adekai in his culture) out of his shop in Ghana. He's considered the grandfather of the fantasy coffin trade and his work is exhibited in museums worldwide. But hard times fell on his business. Paa Joe & The Lion is the 2017 documentary that tells the story of how he and his son are rebuilding the family legacy together. It's now available to stream on Amazon (free with Prime). It's really inspiring!

It's nearly the 21st night of September, so here's a video clip of three Filipino boys -- dressed as Earth, Wind, & Fire members -- performing a medley of their iconic songs to celebrate.Do you remember when these kids dressed up like mini Bee Gees to perform on the TV Show Your Face Sounds Familiar? Well, The TNT Boys, as they are known, returned to the stage to perform truncated versions of EWF hits "September," "Let's Groove," and "Boogie Wonderland." It's just as weird as the other video. You have been warned.Previously: Ba-de-ya, the 21st of September will always be special to songwriter Allee Willis

I decided to enter my first USA Memory Championship only a few months after I'd first learned it existed. This was two years before it entered the wider public consciousness after its portrayal in Joshua Foer's bestselling book Moonwalking with Einstein. Foer had written about the 2005 Championship for Slate Magazine, and in the process discovered that mastering the sport required no innate gift for memory. In 2006, he returned -- as a competitor-- and won the whole thing. I didn't know Foer's story at the time, and had yet to read his book, but I did know that anyone could win the Championship with enough practice.Then my grandmother passed away from Alzheimer's disease. She had been suffering from the disease for a number of years prior, but the shock and grief cut right through me as if I never knew the disease would eventually take her. In the midst of that troubling moment, I searched for, and found, a purpose to my own life. I thought to myself, could I beat back this disease that had taken my grandmother's mind and then the rest of her? Could I make my mind not only sharper but healthier?So, I trained. For hours a day, I practiced for each event in the memory championships. I hit plateaus and had to find ways to break through. My goal was to be the very best, and I knew I had to put in hard work to get there. That year (2010), I came in third. The next year, I trained even harder, and I finally became the USA Memory Champion. In 2012, 2014, and 2015, I won as well. Along the way, I also broke a number of U.S. memory records, achieved Grandmaster status, and was, at one point, ranked among the top 25 memory athletes in the world.Memory was something that quickly slipped away from my grandmother, but it was also something that grabbed hold of me just as quickly for the better. I had always thought that memory was static: something you either had or you didn't. After all these years of molding my memory into a machine of a recording device, I now know the ins and out of what make our working memories tick. Everyone has a memory, and everyone knows the frustration of forgetting something you really needed to remember. And now you know that memory is something that can be improved with a few techniques and a little bit of elbow grease.Remembering and storing information in your memory is like real estate: it's all about location, location, location. Let's put it this way: your mind is like a desk littered with all kinds of documents and supplies. Those things pile up over time, but no matter how messy the desk gets, it's never too hard to find the last thing you put on it - it's usually right on top. But that phone bill from last June? It's buried somewhere in the darkest depths of that ocean of paper, and it'll take a serious search operation to unearth it. Unless...you organize it in an appropriate (and accessible) way. So what if instead of piling up all that information on your cranial floor, so to speak, you filed everything away neatly in mental folders that were metaphorically color-coded and labeled, and as a result, made all those memories easier to find?There are a few ways to do this, but one of the ways is by using a technique called the Peg Method. The technique calls for you to use mental "pegs" (basically, other things you know on a pre-learned list) to "anchor" each item you want to memorize to. It sounds a little zany, but it's super simple and wildly effective for attaining true mnemonic mastery of any list -- you'll be able to jump around that list like a champ, backwards and forwards!What do I mean by "pre-learned list"? Literally any list of things you already know. If you're a baseball fan, for example, you already have a list of the different fielding positions (1 for pitcher, 2 for catcher, etc.) already memorized. If you happen to know the order of the planets in our solar system (Mercury, Venus, Earth, etc.), because it was ingrained in you at a young age, there's another peg list ready to go as well. Or numbers! We all know how to count from 1 to whatever number you want (1, 2, 3, etc.), right? There's another list! Or how about one of the most universal lists that we've all already memorized, though: the alphabet (A, B, C, etc.)? Basically, anything that is in the form of a list that you already have memorized and know well, can be used as your peg list. Once you have your peg list ready, the next step is to create an image for the things you want to memorize (something memorable, of course) and then anchor them, or imagine them interacting rather, to the things on the peg list. When it comes time to recall the list, you'll have the fixed order of your peg list to keep the order of your memorized list.Let's try an example.While using the alphabet or countable numbers as peg lists are great places to start when first applying the magnificent power of the Peg Method, there is another amazingly convenient peg list immediately ready at your disposal: your body. Choose as many body parts as you like, as long as they connect in some kind of order that is obvious and memorable (maybe start at your head and make your way down to your toes, or vice versa), and you've got a portable peg list! Let's jump right into an example that uses ten body parts to memorize ten things. How about the ten largest countries in the world by population?Our ten body parts, starting at the head, will be:

Oregon is known for breath-taking vistas, bat-shit crazy ranchers, roller derby, and beer. A new state-wide effort to reduce carbon emissions by using easily cleanable and refillable beer bottles will help preserve several of these things.Via KQED:

It's a question that's floated around forever: Are Bert and Ernie gay? Former Sesame Street writer Mark Saltzman says yes.In a recent Queerty interview, Saltzman (whose partner is Arnold "Arnie" Glassman) reveals that the Muppet duo were based on his own (gay) relationship:

If you’re not an academic or scientist, then you probably have no idea how off kilter research scholarship has become. (more…)

Edgar Allan Poe scholar Scott Peeples explains the black magic of Poe's work nearly 170 years after he died. From TED-Ed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EuFOZfRL4UNuuo is a leading vendor of "trusted video management" tools used in conjunction with CCTVs deployed in sensitive applications like surveillance of "transport, banking, government, and residential areas." (more…)

The gadgets of the past had gears, levers, clicky buttons, motors, and other noise-making components. Most of today's electronics have very few moving parts. The sounds they make are edited-in aural skeuomorphs. A website called Conserve the Sound has recordings of the sounds made by old phones, rubber stamps, pinball machines, cameras, typewriters, fans, video game consoles, and other products from 1910 onwards. They have an Instagram account, too.

On this International Day Against DRM, I've published an editorial for EFF Deeplinks setting out a theory of change for getting us to a world without Digital Rights Management, where all our devices obey us instead of betraying us. (more…)

Bert and Ernie made headlines today after Mark Saltzman, who wrote for the show for 14 years starting in 1984, said in Queerty interview: "I always felt that without a huge agenda, when I was writing Bert and Ernie, they were [gay]." (more…)

In 1970, JBL introduced the L-100 home hi-fi speakers based on the company's popular 4310 Pro Studio monitors. With their fantastic sound quality for the price, particularly for rock music, and their killer Quadrex foam grilles available in black, blue, or orange, the L-100 speakers became the best-selling loudspeaker of the era. And now JBL has revived them in modern form, the JBL L100 Classic. They're $4,000 a pair.I'd be curious to hear the JBL L100 Classics up against a pair of restored originals that can be had for a fourth of that price. If you have that opportunity, please roll a number, cue up David Crosby's "If I Could Only Remember My Name" on the turntable, and let us know how it goes.

For its 25th anniversary, Wired Magazine asked numerous luminaries to pick a figure from the digital world to celebrate; Edward Snowden chose EFF Pioneer Award Winner Malkia Cyril, executive director of the Center for Media Justice and cofounder of the Media Action Grassroots Network, who is one of the leaders in teaching grassroots activists to resist government surveillance. (more…)

I'm a big fan of BioLite products, because they're well-designed and the company develops low-cost lighting and cooking tools for low-income markets in regions that don't have access to clean affordable household energy. BioLite sent me an early release model of its new HeadLamp and it is radically different from the typical headlamps you've seen before. It is so lightweight that I hardly notice it on my head. It spreads a wide circle of bright light. It charges via USB. The Kickstarter campaign started today with a goal of $40k and it's already at $144k. You can pre-order one for $49.

Google's WWWBasic project allows you to write web-page interactivity using a BASIC-like syntax that will be recognizable to anyone who grew up with early personal computers in the late 1970s and 1980s (it can be imported within Node.js, too, so you can mix Javascript and BASIC). (more…)

Researchers from the University of Toronto's outstanding Citizen Lab (previously) have published their latest research on the notorious and prolific Israeli cyber-arms-dealer The NSO Group (previously), one of the world's go-to suppliers for tools used by despots to spy on dissidents and opposition figures, often as a prelude to their imprisonment, torture and murder. (more…)

When a man tried to enter his own house, his Nest doorbell got suspicious and locked him out. Nest's facial recognition feature confused the man, B.J. May, with the Batman T-shirt he was wearing, and apparently even Batman isn't allowed through the front door without the owner's consent.

King County Council was ambushed by a series of surprise amendments to its meeting on Monday that resulted in $135,000,000 being diverted from hotel lodging tax funds earmarked for affordable housing, arts, and tourism boosting, to effect repairs to the Mariners stadium, despite the team being valued at nearly $1.5 billion. (more…)

Woke up with this in my head. Wonderama was a wonderful show.

It's been a decade since Marvel launched their shared cinematic universe with the first Iron Man movie. In all that time, they've never had a film with a female lead. That's about to change. In 2019, Captain Marvel will be coming to theaters. While this trailer only gives a quick taste of what we can expect, it's enough for me to feel hopeful for a great movie.

People are so boring! A new study shows there are only four clusters of personality. Why bother talking to folks?Via Ars Technica:

With Canada's legalization of cannabis consumption quickly creeping up on the calendar, the nation's Armed Forces decided that it might be high time to figure out where and when those with access to small arms, artillery and combat aircraft should be allowed to take a toke. From The CBC:

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has been elbows-deep in the investigation of the Novichok nerve agent attack on Sergei and Yulia Skirpal. As part of their investigation into where the nerve agent may have originated, the OPCW sent samples of the chemical weapon to a number of independent labs. Using multiple labs provides a fail safe against false positive results and bias – two things you'd want to avoid considering the fact that the results of the tests could trigger a significant international incident. One of the labs that the OPCW may have used (I mean, they're not going to come right out and say that this is where they're sending dangerous shit) was Switzerland's Spiez Laboratory. Since Russia has denied that it had any role in the poisoning of the Skirpals and the other collateral victims of the Novichok attack, it's really really surprising to be surprised by the surprise expulsion of two Russian intelligence agents (surprise!) from The Hague, where OPCW is based. Apparently, they were trying to tinker with Spiez Laboratory's computers.From NPR:

Future Punk created retro logos and motion graphics for today's Internet companies if they existed decades ago. The artist was "inspired by great work of Sullivan & Marks, Robert Abel & Associates, Computer Image Corporation and various other early CG/Scanimate companies."And if you're not hip to Scanimate:

Punk, Algerian chaabi music, Rai, rock and techno: Rachid Taha had it all going on. He drew inspiration from the music of North Africa, New Orleans jazz, delta blues, The Clash and Elvis Presley. He cut his teeth spinning albums as a DJ and playing in a number of bands as he came of age in France. He worked with famed producers like Don Was and Steve Hillage and traveled in the same circles as David Bowie. In his later years, he was slowed down by muscular dystrophy, but he continued to rock, nonetheless. You've very likely enjoyed his music used in films and video games without ever knowing it. It's beautiful, fire-filled stuff.On September 12th, Rachid Taha passed away at the age of 59.

I am proud of me. My heart rate tracker, and my cadence sensor, both need their CR2032 batteries replaced from actual USE! (more…)

Obviously it won't do if you hand in work digitally, but old-school teachers will surely be fooled by Times Newer Roman, a clone of the default font that fills about 10% more space. A clever mix of wider letterforms and kerning is at hand, and you can be sure of getting away with it because if teacher knew enough about type to notice they wouldn't be insisting on Times New Roman and page counts in the first place. [via Lifehacker]

A group of women jobseekers, working with the Communications Workers of America and the American Civil Liberties Union, are "filing charges with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Tuesday against Facebook and 9 employers," reports the New York Times.It's a simple case, as least in abstraction: Facebook let job advertisers target users by gender, but it is a violation of federal law to discriminate on the basis of gender or to aid and abet such discrimination.

A unicorn of the sea somehow ended up separated from other narwhals. Luckily, the lost narwhal was welcomed into a pod of beluga whales, where they were spotted frolicking in the St. Lawrence River. (more…)

Great Whites travel months to visit what The San Francsico Chronicle describes as a "shark lair" in the Pacific Ocean. Mystified scientists took a deeper look.

FOLLOW @RubenBolling on the Twitters and a Face Book.YOU can get every Tom the Dancing Bug comic at least a day before it's published. Join the INNER HIVE for exclusive early access to comics, exclusive commentary, extra comics, and etc.!GET Ruben Bolling’s new hit book series for kids, The EMU Club Adventures. Book One here. Book Two here.More Tom the Dancing Bug comics on Boing Boing! (more…)

There are Rube Goldberg machines and then there's Sprice Machines' Lemonade Machine, an elaborate, nine-minute-long exercise in dispensing cold lemonade. It impressively winds through an entire house (even the toilet has a role) and out through the backyard before reaching its refreshing conclusion.

Bravo, Twitter! Something that users are asking for made it in: "Twitter will now let you completely turn off its algorithmic timeline. So now you can revert completely to a reverse-chronological feed of only people you follow."

The Daily Beast reports on the president's deformed horror cock, as described by Stormy Daniels.

Senator Orrin Hatch has never found an accusation of sexual misconduct by a Republican he couldn't wave away. When asked about Professor Christine Blasey Ford's accusations of sexual assault by SCOTUS nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Hatch told Bloomberg News' Laura Litvan, "If that were true, I think it would be hard for senators not to consider who he is today. He has denied this and I feel bad that this happened to him."In addition to that pile of bullshit, Hatch told NBC Capitol Hill reporter Leigh Ann Caldwell that after talking to Kavanaugh, he thinks Ford might be "mixed up."If this sounds vaguely familiar, you might be recalling Hatch's comments on Anita Hill. In a 2010 interview with CNN, Hatch said,

When Hurricane Ike hit 10 years ago, Anderson Cooper did a segment where he walked around in floodwaters while being filmed from higher ground, which he pointed out to viewers. Don Jr. tweeted a still photo taken from the segment and implied it depicted Anderson kneeling during last week's Hurricane Florence to make its floodwaters look deeper than they were. So Cooper did a whole new segment about what a lying idiot Don Jr. is.

Since 1987, Doonesbury has been pricking Trump's bubble, and Trump hates it; Trump even instructed the ghost writer on "his" "book" Surviving at the Top to devote several pages to denouncing Trudeau as unfunny (you can read all of Trudeau's Trump strips in last year's Trump retrospective collection, Yuge!). (more…)

Elon Musk's SpaceX revealed the name of the person who is set to become the first private space tourist to travel to the moon: Yusaku Maezawa. (more…)

During the 2018 Emmys, Director Glenn Weiss proposed to his girlfriend Jen. (more…)

Here's my reading (MP3) of Today, Europe Lost The Internet. Now, We Fight Back, written for EFF Deeplinks on the morning of the EU's catastrophic decision to vote in the new Copyright Directive with all its worst clauses intact.MP3

https://youtu.be/IehtMYlOuIkI've watched this video twice because it is fascinating, both for the subject and for the aesthetics. This young man is being interviewed about why he was admitted to a mental hospital. He says it is because of the way he stands and the way he plays piano. He is obviously suffering greatly. The colors of the film, and the lighting on his face are striking, too, which I know isn't the point of the film, but they sure did a great job producing it. I would like to see the other videos in the series.From YouTube

A very good dog directs its human companion to give treats to its friends.

All of Hong Kong was devastated by the violence of Super Typhoon Mangkhut this week, but there's something really striking about the damage to Hong King Disneyland -- a perfect little jewel of a themepark. It's in the contrast of the very carefully maintained surface veneer of the park and the damage from the storm. (more…)

Since 2011, Andy Gracie has been selectively breeding flies to thrive under the harsh environmental conditions on Titan, Saturn's largest moon: dark, cold (-179.2C), and with very low atmospheric pressure. (more…)

California's best-in-America Net Neutrality law goes a long way to restoring the protections that Trump's FCC Chairman Ajit Pai destroyed when he unilaterally and illegally repealed the FCC's national Net Neutrality rules. (more…)