From Ribot's album Songs Of Resistance 1942 - 2018.Waits is a national treasure.

Apple has always talked a good game where recycling and environmentalism are concerned. They're quick to point out that they recycle what they can and are always on the hunt for new, sustainable manufacturing practices to adopt. They've got robots named Liam that take old stuff apart to make new stuff! While the company's PR machine is spinning that it's Apple's dream to one day make all of their products out of completely recycled materials, they're presently shitting the bed on the most basic of sustainability practices.From Motherboard:

Pennsylvania's Department of Corrections is planning to ban free book donations to inmates by mail, claiming that this is a "primary avenue for drugs" to enter prisons. But the move coincides with a renewed push to get prisoners buying into a pricey prison eBook system that offers low-end tablets for $150 and eBooks no cheaper than $3 a read."Effective immediately, the DOC will begin to transition to ebooks coupled with bolstered DOC library system featuring centralized purchasing and ordering process," the DOC announced at its website. "No books or publications will be shipped directly to an inmate. ... [we] will no longer accept books donated directly to individual inmates.”Presented as evidence by the DOC was a letter from a prisoner it said "describes how to smuggle drugs through a popular book donation program." As the Prisoners Lit Project and others pointed out, though, the letter didn't say anything at all about drugs: "the poor guy just wanted a dictionary!"The project describes itself as an all-volunteer grassroots group that sends free books to prisoners in the United States. It sends 30-40 packages a week to prisoners—no drugs included—and plans to fight what it sees as an "unfair and shortsighted change" that will effectively end the program."Banning books from 'books to prisoners' organizations is inhumane," it wrote.Another similar organization, Book' Em, said it mails hundreds of book packages to prisoners and would push back against the policy.A third, Books to Prisoners, said that Pennsylvania prisons' libraries are underfunded and often inaccessible and challenged the DOC's claims otherwise. The Amistad Law Project described the new policy as "horrible" and "dehumanizing."The tablet devices hawked by the DOC are bulky and low-end, with tiny low-definition color displays not intended for reading at length, rudimentary hardware and translucent materials to prevent them being used to hide contraband. They cost $147 plus tax, about three times the price of the only extant consumer device, the $50 Amazon Fire, with similar specifications. There is no repair service: any problems with the device and you have to buy a new one.Then prisoners must pay a minimum of $3 each per eBook from the same state-contracted vendor, which offers a list of only 8,500 titles.The Philadephia Inquirer's Samantha Melamed writes that other states are embarking on similar plans, and they're likely to meet stiff court challenges.

Google's Project Dragonfly was a secret prototype search engine intended to pave the way for the company's return to China; it featured censored search results that complied with Chinese state rules banning searches for topics like "human rights," "student protest" and "Nobel prize." (more…)

“Hiding behind fake profiles, a group linked to Pyongyang solicited technology work to send hard currency back home.” (more…)

The first two deaths from Hurricane Florence are confirmed. A mother and her baby have died after a tree fell on their home in Wilmington, NC. (more…)

Care about your data privacy? Here's a good reason to stop using the Google Chrome browser, and use Firefox or Safari instead on your desktop, laptop, and mobile devices. (more…)

When Magic Erasers were introduced years ago, they cost a couple of dollars each, which was unfortunate because they don't last long. But they were worth it because they do a great job of removing scuffs and marks from walls, stovetops, tile grout, car bodies, vinyl upholstery, label residue from glass jars, and lots more. Today, you can buy knockoffs for as little as 5 cents apiece.I use them to keep my Native Jeffersons in tiptop condition (shoe on left has not yet been cleaned to show the difference):There's even a Magic Eraser ASMR video with 1.6 million views:https://youtu.be/OeI9YSejIKc

Dear Boing Boing readers,If you have an iPhone 6 or newer, and your battery is wearing thin, Apple will still replace it for a mere $29. You have til the end of December.My iPhone 7 plus was holding around 85% and had around 600 cycles on it. Apple replaced it no problem. My daughter's iPhone 6 was showing a max charge of around 88% possible, but her phone was dying over and over. Apple replaced her battery as well.We've yet to see any real features or reasons to upgrade phones. I only went 7 plus so as to give my daughter a perfectly fine 6, and to give my eyes a break with the bigger screen. Replacing the batteries gets us at least another year.Good luck!

Photographer Michelle Gerard created a fantastic series of photographs that recreate the favorite meals of famous artists and writers as if they were in their actual workspace. You can see F. Scott Fitzgerald's meal of canned meat and apples and oranges next to his typewriter in a cheap North Carolina hotel, David Lynch's preferred meal of a chocolate milkshake and "lots of coffee with lots of sugar at Bob's Big Boy at precisely 2:30pm," and more at Designboom.[via Nag on the Lake]

If you've ever seen what a poultry farm looks like you would not believe chicken that has been slaughtered, frozen, shipped to China for processing, and then shipped back to the US to be sold to consumers was still edible.I can believe it is cheap, or no one would have thought to put other people at risk to make it happen.Real Farmacy:

Earlier this year a young basketball enthusiast showed the Harlem Globetrotters how it is done!Worthy of the great Meadowlark Lemon himself.https://youtu.be/P9GMHk9Bh04

Over 41 years ago The Sex Pistols held a boat concert on the Thames in London to publicize their second single, "God Save the Queen." They got a few numbers in before the bobbies spoiled the fun.From Open Culture:

Get your red-blue 3D glasses out. NASA today shares a stunning stereo anaglyph 3-D image of Hurricane Florence, captured from the MISR instrument flying on-board the Terra satellite, which carries nine cameras that observe Earth at different angles. (more…)

One of Trump's border officials told Politico that the administration is planning to permanently bar Canadians who invest in or start legal cannabis businesses in the US or Canada from entering the USA. (more…)

Chicago's tourism sector is booming, with a record 55,000,000 visitors to the city last year, and revenue up this year by 10.4% to $1.45B: but workers aren't seeing those gains. (more…)

Nathan Matthias, 35, may have been inebriated when he fired a shotgun inside his apartment to defend himself against imaginary clowns who had illegally entered his residence. The Pennsylvanian gentleman will now spend five years in prison.From the police report:

Nobody covered the Wall Street collapse, bailout, and corrupt resurgence better than Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi, from giving Goldman Sachs its unforgettable epithet to covering the hearings on the bailouts to documenting the foreclosure mills, to deep dives into the sweetheart deals the banks got; to the revolving door between finance regulators and the finance sector to the rise of Occupy; to the consolidation of financial primacy after the collapse; to the double-standard for criminal justice revealed by the collapse; to the frauds that surfaced after the crash; to the tiny bright spots where bankers were brought to justice; all capped by an incandescent, outstanding book about the crisis and the systematic racial and economic justice it revealed. (more…)

Gabrielle Blair posted a long Twitter thread about abortion. Here are all her tweets presented as a single essay. She makes a good case that men are 100% to blame for all unwanted pregnancies, and that abortions could be eliminated without making them illegal if they would simply wear condoms (or at least pull out before ejaculating). The entire essay is worth reading. Here's an excerpt:

These old advertisements are creepy and as annoying as many of the online ads you'll find over at /r/assholedesign.[via Book Curious newsletter]

President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, is pleading guilty to two criminal charges under plea deal terms to include his cooperation as a witness in the investigation led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. (more…)

I wished this video had existed before my first (and, ahem, second) marriage. Live and learn, live and learn.

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the UK spy agency GCHQ acted illegally when it engaged in mass-scale domestic surveillance of every Briton's electronic communications, a programme that was revealed by documents supplied to journalists by the whistleblower Edward Snowden. (more…)

In the years during which the new EU Copyright Directive was being drafted, a variety of proposals were considered and rejected by the EU's own experts, and purged from the draft text, but two of these proposals were reintroduced, slipped back into the Directive on the day the GDPR came into effect, while everyone's attention was elsewhere. (more…)

Our tech collections are growing, and with most of us packing more than just our smartphone in our everyday carry, keeping your devices energized when you're out and about isn't easy. Therein lies the value of this PowerUP 11,000mAh Triple USB Battery, which can power up to three devices on the go.Boasting a massive 11,000mAh capacity, this portable battery packs enough juice to charge your devices several times over. It's engineered with grade-A cells for quick, reliable charging; and, thanks to its triple-USB port design, you can power up your phone while having enough room to charge a tablet and your friend's phone as well.With a PowerUP 11,000mAh Triple USB Battery on your person, you can stop hunting for outlets when you're out and juice your devices without skipping a beat. While it normally retails for $79.99, you can get it in the Boing Boing Store today for $27.99, saving more than 60% off the usual price.

An interesting to subplot to the drama at CBS and the firing/resignation of its president Les Moonves after more sexual misconduct allegations is how his wife, Julie Chen co-host of the CBS series The Talk and host of Big Brother would handle her on-air roles. After announcing that she'd be taking time off from her daily group talk show, she returned to the air tonight as the host of the long-running reality competition Big Brother. As the episode wrapped up, Chen said "...from outside the Big Brother House with Brent, I'm Julie Chen Moonves. Goodnight.” [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIcMgVik2GM&w=560&h=315]It is believed to be the first time Chen has used her married name on the show she's hosted since 2000. When allegations of Moonves' misconduct first surfaced, Chen released a statement saying, "I have known my husband, Leslie Moonves, since the late ’90s, and I have been married to him for almost 14 years. Leslie is a good man and a loving father, devoted husband and inspiring corporate leader. He has always been a kind, decent and moral human being. I fully support my husband and stand behind him and his statement.” The most recent allegations revealed in yet another blockbuster by Ronan Farrow include Moonves attempting to buy the silence of a woman accusing him of sexual misconduct by offering her a job at the network.The backlash to Chen's signoff was swift. Publicist Danny Deraney, whose clients include Illeana Douglas (one of Moonves' victims), Roseanna Arquette, and Laura Benanti said he would no longer book any of his clients on The Talk.

At least 1 person is dead and 80 homes and businesses burned across three Boston suburbs - Lawrence, North Andover, and Andover this afternoon after a high-pressure gas main explosion rocked the area shortly after 3:00 PM EST. (more…)

Angelenos! Bring your teens to the Pasadena Loves YA festival this Saturday; I'm chairing a panel on graphic novels with Mairghread Scott and Tillie Walden; other panels and events go on all day, from 11-4PM, at the Central Branch of Pasadena Public Library, 285 E Walnut St, Pasadena CA 91101. Admission is free!

In 2015, Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan and Deborah Biancotti published Zeroes, a wonderful, intricately plotted YA thriller about the discovery by a group of teens (all born in the year 2000) that they have a variety of extremely millennial supernatural powers, which grow in strength in social situations; in the years since, the authors have finished the trilogy with two more excellent volumes: 2016's Swarm, which introduces out-of-town powered teens and raises the stakes to life or death for the Zeroes' whole hometown; and 2018's Nexus, which sends the Zeroes off into conflict with the US government, and a massive army of not-exactly-but-sorta-evil powered teens who have all the crowd magic of Mardi Gras to work with, in a battle over the fate of the human race itself. (more…)

On the 170th anniversary of the publication of Karl Marx’s and Friedrich Engels’ The Communist Manifesto, British graphic novelist Martin Rowson has produced an illustrated adaptation. Apart from a few pages of prose, the whole work is presented in the style of a graphic novel.The preface describes how the middle-aged Rowson became smitten by Marx and Engels' exciting prose when he was only 16. Aside from expressing his great admiration for Marx’s writing, as well as his own critical stance, he furnishes the reader with some historical backdrop to the completion of The Manifesto. Marx had been commissioned to write it by a socialist group in the summer of 1847, but, under pressure, succeeded in producing it at the beginning of 1848. Significantly, that was before the outbreak of revolutionary movements in Europe later on in 1848. Rowson goes on to explain that the initial publication failed to attract the attention of many people. Only after the events of the Paris Commune in 1871 did the pamphlet receive a wide audience and a publication renewal.The illustrations create an atmospheric accompaniment to the Marx figures whose speaking balloons relay the text of The Manifesto. The graphics pair nicely with the text with dense images that impart the feeling of the clashes of historical forces (classes) or with the dramatic rendering of the first lines of The Manifesto in which a spectre appears, so Hamlet-like in two dark and foreboding images to haunt the reader’s mind. There is plenty of theatricality too: images of Marx interacting from a stage with a hostile audience (Rowson’s added flourishes added to enhance the exposition in a stimulating theatrical way).As a literary work, the illustrations do justice to the marvelously compressed, yet sweeping, literary quality of Marx’s verbal imagery and present readers. Though I had read The Manifesto years ago, I found the adaptation to be both a refresher and newly insightful.The Communist Manifesto: A Graphic Novel [Martin Rowson/SelfMadeHero]

Get a glimpse into Stephen Colbert's brilliant brain as he connects Chance the Rapper and Childish Gambino's "Favorite Song" to Lord of the Rings' "Song of Eärendil" via Gilbert and Sullivan's distinct rhythm. What a big ol' Tolkien nerd, he is!

When pianist James Rhodes uploaded a recording of his own performance of a Bach composition to Facebook, it was immediately blocked thanks to a match with a recording that Sony had claimed copyright in; Facebook uses an automated filter of the sort that the EU voted to make mandatory for all content types and services yesterday and it can't distinguish any competent rendition of Bach from any other competent rendition. (more…)

Sexual misconduct allegations today surfaced involving Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh. The FBI confirms receipt of “information” which Sen. Diane Feinstein spoke of earlier today. FBI tells reporters letter has been added to “Judge Kavanaugh's background file, as per the standard process.” The New York Times published a bombshell report today on allegations of sexual misconduct against President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh. (more…)

Brazilian tattoo studio Menace Tattoo shared this cool design of a week-old tattoo inspired by the work of Veks Van Hillik. Watch as artist Silvia Martins opens the wings of her new tattoo: (more…)

Wow, there's a shot-by-shot live-action remake of Toy Story 3 in the works. Brothers Morgan and Mason McGrew (who are self-proclaimed Disney/Pixar fanatics) are directing the piece which is due out in 2019. They've just released its trailer and it looks amazing!

On this day in 1993, Late Night with Conan O'Brien first aired on NBC. Twenty-five years later, the first episode has been released online in its entirety.It's quite a time capsule. His first guests were John Goodman, Drew Barrymore, and Tony Randall (with Goodman being the first-first guest -- see photo below). Something to look forward to: In January 2019, the complete online archive of the show will be made available. In the meantime, take a look at the audition that landed Conan the Late Night spot.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YM5Ftb2lTc

LED bulbs are now cheaper that incandescent bulbs. These 60W equivalent bulbs aren't dimmable, but are highly rated on Amazon. I just bought a pack of 25 soft white bulbs for $28 (they also come in daylight temperature, but that is too harsh for me).

John Wilcock has been the subject of an ongoing comic book biography here on Boing Boing. Scott Marshall and I have been working on the comic since 2012, or so, and it's been a nice goal to complete the book in John's lifetime. John lived many lives almost simultaneously, and it's been a massive research project effort to connect his experiences into one cohesive timeline. It's with some regret that while the book will likely complete in 2019, John passed away last night at the age of 91. But what a terrific life.As chronicled in the comic, much of today's subculture (and news culture, and drug culture, and positive-minded sex culture, and the syndication nature of the Internet) was largely influenced by John's interest in connecting like minds in the 1950s and 1960s. He cofounded The Village Voice, established the Underground Press Syndicate, and later worked with Andy Warhol to develop Interview.John was also a travel writer for both The New York Times and Frommer's, and published his own underground paper, Other Scenes, which is an unheralded masterpiece of weird optics, amazing design, and challenging subjects. (Part of the goal of the comic book biography is to highlight Other Scenes, which you'll see here on Boing Boing in 2019.)As we celebrate John's accomplished life, here's a few comics from the biography:Editing Norman Mailer

The median annual income for a person right after they are released from prison is $6,500, so it's understandable why 70% of them receive food assistance of about $200 a month. This summer the House passed a bill that will deny food stamps to people who have served their sentences for violent crimes.From Alex Busansky (founder of Impact Justice) and Gary Maynard (former president of the American Correctional Association) in the Washington Post:

Davit Masia, creator of Pixatool (previously), made another app for pixel artists with Manuel Jesus Bolanos Gomez—this time with the focus on movement. Pixel FX generates particle effects such as clouds, smoke, fire and fog.

Here's a good video recap of the new stuff Apple introduced yesterday: new phones, a new watch, and group Facetime.

The creators of the fantastic game Secret Hitler are kickstarting a new 5-minute game for two players, called Inhuman Conditions. Inspired by Blade Runner, it's Voight-Kampff and the Turing Test as entertainment. One player takes on the role of an investigator and the other player is either a human or a robot who tries to convince the interrogator that they are a person. It looks like fun! I am backing it.http://kck.st/2NC5r9m

Andy Hallinan owns a "Muslim-free" gun shop in Florida. He agreed to be interviewed for a new documentary about Trayvon Martin, Rest In Power. The interviewer asked Hallinan why he didn't think the Confederate flag is a racist symbol. What followed is one of the greatest self owns of all time. Watch below:

Jack Poulson was a senior research scientist at Google whose work on machine learning work was used to improve Google's search results; now he's quit the company over its Project Dragonfly, a once-secret plan to launch a censored Chinese search engine; Poulson called the move a "forfeiture of our values." (more…)

I put a new battery in my 2011 11" MacBook Air. I love the laptop more than I minded the frustration. It will probably be easier for you.I come from the time where we carried spare laptop batteries with us, and they were instantly swappable. I'd press a small button on the battery to light up some green LEDs to see how much juice was left in a spare. Those days are gone. We have now entered a dark age where batteries are sealed behind obscure pentalobe screws. After 7 years my treasured 11" Air was unable to hold a charge for longer than 75 minutes or so. I was fucked and going to have to open that case.I love that little 11" laptop. It is the device I carry for creative writing. Small enough to not be a bother, but functional enough computer to do anything I need in a pinch. I did not want to lose this laptop, but the short battery life was killing me. Most of the coffee shops and places I like to work no longer want to offer power outlets to folks drinking one cup of black coffee for 2 hours.I tried cycling the battery to restore some lost capacity. It did not help. I looked at the iPad Pro with a keyboard. I even looked at the Surface Pro. Then I researched batteries and the replacement looked like it should be no problem.Ha. Ha. Ha.I searched the internet's latest iteration of forums, Reddit and Youtube, for info on folks who'd replaced this model battery. I read a lot of Amazon reviews. The size of the replacement battery was supposedly a problem in varying degrees with all models, even Apple sourced batteries. The Temark I chose seemed to have a high probability of going in without a problem.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejwRqM3fpVkI used the included screwdrivers to remove the tiny, cruelly chosen screws. I kept the ones from the backplate separate from the battery screws, even tho they are different colors and sizes. When the backplate came off I saw that my battery had broken around one of the screws, damage from an apparent fall. I'd dented the case a bit too -- but the laptop never showed an issue. There were splintered bits of battery plastic all over. When I removed the battery, I noticed a thin metal bar had come loose in the area of the trackpad. It had been held in place by the battery pressure, I guessed, and needed replacement.I looked at images of trackpads for my model Air and saw that the bar appeared to sit across the bottom of the trackpad, in-between it and the battery. I felt some residual sticky adhesive where it appeared to go, and the bar stuck right back there. I put everything back together, feeling like I was going to have to take all those screws out again, and should have tried powering up before I had screwed them all in.The laptop turned right on.The sign-in screen came up.The battery showed about a 60% charge. I plugged it in and it started to charge right up.I moved the pointer to my name/icon on the sign in screen and clicked.No click.Pointer will frantically move around the screen. No click.Tapping at the very top gets me mouse click. I can login. Laptop is fine. Trackpad is not working. I realize it must be that damn bar, and that the adhesive hadn't held.Power it all down.Open it back up.Re-affix the bar with glue stick.One day later: repeat with electrical tape.Everything works perfectly here, now. No, really. No problems. When I am done working on the blog this am, I'll take my Air to a coffee shop and work on a short story. It now gets 4-5 hrs of power. More than when it was new.For $70 and maybe 2 hours of frustration I have a small-sized laptop I like a lot more than any of the new light-computer solutions out there. It was actually very easy, my old laptop was just beat to hell.Temark New A1495 A1406 Laptop Battery for MacBook Air 11'' A1465 A1370 (Mid 2011 2012 2013 Early 2014 2015 Version), fit MC968 MD223 MD711 020-7376-A 020-7377-A via Amazon

This summer, Charter Communications was ordered to leave New York State, reversing its acquisition of Time Warner Cable and selling off the assets; the move came after the cable company broke its promises to expand broadband access in the state to less-profitable markets and then repeated lied to state authorities about. (more…)

A study conducted by Douglas Elliman Real Estate found that one in five New York retail spaces is sitting vacant; these spaces are boarded up and attract vandalism, drug-dealing, and other unsavory activities. The rate has more than tripled since 2016. (more…)

After the Apollo 11 moon landing nearly 50 years ago, the White House gifted tiny samples of moon rocks to all the 50 states and 135 countries. They were encased in acrylic and mounted on a wooden plaque. In 2002, Joseph Gutheinz, then a NASA investigator, realized that nearly all of them had vanished. Thanks to his persistence since then, there are only two missing lunar souvenirs of the 50 distributed in the US. From the AP:

A road-rage video went viral on Chinese social media last month, showing a motorist from the northeastern province of Dongbei berating an e-bike rider from Beijing, deriding him for being a native-born Beijinger (the cyclist spoke in Beijing dialect) and lording it over him that migrants from outlying provinces are prosperous enough to drive cars while Beijingers are riding e-bikes ("F*ck you Beijingers! ...While us outsiders (外地人) are driving cars, you poor-ass Beijingers are still riding miserable e-bikes." (more…)

One of the most incredibly funny writers/directors around Mitch Rouse offers up a different take on Elvis.Without all the distracting music and vocal accompaniment, and a few minor audio adds, The King becomes something else entirely. Perhaps something more honest, certainly more hilarious.Experience the pure and unfiltered King of Rock and Roll! The longer this video goes on, the harder I laugh.