Columbia University's Brown Institute is hosting me for a trio of lectures later this month in New York City: I kick off with a conversation with the Brown's Dennis Tenen about science fiction, copyright, and the arts on Sept 25, then a lecture on copyright and surveillance on Sept 26, and wrap up with an onstage conversation with Radiolab's Jad Abumrad about Big Tech, monopolies, and democratic technology on Sept 27. (I'm also dropping by Swarthmore for a lecture on Sept 28, details to follow).

A team from the University of Florida won a 2018 Usenix Security Distinguished Paper Award for Fear the Reaper: Characterization and Fast Detection of Card Skimmers, which presents their work on the "Skim Reaper," a fast, easy-to-use, reliable credit-card skimmer-detector. (more…)

Journalist Sarah Jeong (previously) was just appointed to the New York Times's editorial board, prompting garbage people to dig through her twitter for old posts that could be made to seem offensive out of context in the hopes of getting her fired. (more…)

I've been fighting with voting machine vendors since Bush v Gore, when companies like Diebold brazenly sought to subvert the Supreme Court's order to standardize a secure design for US voting machines, going so far as to send out thousands of fraudulent copyright notices in a failed attempt to silence whistleblowers who'd reported defects in their systems. (more…)

There will be a new Instagram app sometime soon that's all about shopping, reports The Verge. (more…)

Two new laws that allow California residents to officially change their gender identification went into effect this past Labor Day weekend. (more…)

Race-baiting internet blowhard and alternative medicine profiteer Alex Jones said getting banned by Facebook or YouTube would only increase the numbers of rabid fans willing to click on his rants and buy his bullshit. (more…)

Defense Secretary James N. Mattis denies the words attributed to him in Bob Woodward's new book, 'FEAR: Trump in the White House.' (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYQUsp-jxDQ&feature=youtu.beJon Cog writes, "On the 30th anniversary of IRC, David Cassel pulls together his favorite memories from the 1990s, 'when there were all kinds of fun things to do.' It was an unexplored world of freedom and fun, where even Monty Python's fish-slapping dance got a shout-out in a popular IRC client -- prompting one reporter to describe IRC as 'the kind of place that slaps you around a bit with a large trout.' But the article describes the humble origins of IRC (as a Swedish college student's summer project), as well as the many weird and wonderful moments that followed -- including an IRC-themed music video from Sweden in 2006. And best of all, IRC is still popular among open source developers today. (more…)

“I suggest that you call people you know in Thailand, find out what’s actually going on and stop defending child rapists, you fucking asshole.” — Elon Musk, September 4, 2018, to Buzzfeed News. (more…)

America, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and Australia are in a surveillance alliance called The Five Eyes, through which they share much of their illegally harvested surveillance data. (more…)

Kenny Shopsin was the proprietor of Shopsin's, an incredible, storied, secretive, boisterous, tiny restaurant and general store in Greenwich Village, whose cookbook/memoir is a masterclass in sloppy diner chef-craft in the mode of Daniel Pinkwater's Fat Guys From Outer Space. He died this week. (more…)

On September 12th, the European Parliament will vote on whether to include Article 13 with the new Copyright Directive, and if they do, they will destroy the internet. (more…)

Michael Froomkin writes, "We Robot, now heading into its 8th year, is lots of fun -- and it's also the leading North American conference on robotics law and policy. The 2019 edition will be held at the University of Miami on April 12-13, 2019, preceded by a day of special workshops on April 11. We just today opened the submissions portal for paper and demo proposals. Full details are in the Call for Papers.

Arduino is an electronics prototyping platform that makes it easy to build interactive projects without being an electrical engineer. Here's a $16 kit that has an Arduino Uno clone, a solderless breadboard, a charging cable, and lots of components to get you started.

Fred Guttenberg, father of 14-year-old Jamie, who was murdered during the Parkland school shooting, says he was snubbed today by Judge Brett Kavanaugh, nominee for the Supreme Court. (more…)

https://youtu.be/8yLXhUmEENQAndy of How To Make Everything decided to make his own bug spray by growing certain plants and extracting their essential oils. He put the oils into alcohol that he distilled from some foul-smelling crabgrass beer he'd made previously. Then he went to a wildlife preserve with some friends to test out the spray. He deemed the spray to be "moderately effective," but said he is going to order a batch of research mosquitoes and perform a more scientifically rigorous test in a couple of weeks.

The geniuses at Squirrel Monkey are back with another trip down alternate memory lane. This time, they imagine what the online game platform Steam would be like back in the days of modems and floppy disks. Their videos are a great reminder of what it was like to use computers in the 1980s.

These kinds of best-of lists are always highly personal, but this list of great horror novels include several that I love, including World War Z, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Exorcist.18. Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon (1987)

I would watch this show. From Funny Or Die:

The Beauty of Science's "Microworld Unseen" project reveals the hidden beauty and weirdness of everyday objects through the "eye" of a scanning electron microscopes (SEMS). Capable of imaging at 1 nanometer resolution (one billionth of a meter) or less, SEMS scan the sample surface with a focused electron beam to generate topographic data that's used to produce the image. The first specimen in the Microworld Unseen series is a butterfly called the pale grass blue (Pseudozizeeria maha). Below is the butterfly's genitalia.

Over the weekend, a shopper at Trader Joes spotted former Cosby Show actor Geoffrey Owens working at the grocery store. She took photos of Owens (who played the young doctor Elvin Tibideaux), which the Daily Mail and Fox News immediately pounced on, job-shaming the actor in before-and-after tabloid-style stories.Owens went on Good Morning America this morning, where he said, "There's no job better than another...every job is worthwhile..." He said he was devastated by the job-shaming at first, but then became overwhelmed by all of the support he received online.

"Clear alcohols are for rich women on diets." --Ron SwansonI really didn't want more of these in my home. My niece convinced me that having Ron Swanson in the house did actually make me cooler.Make the addiction stop.Funko Pop Television: Parks and Recreation - Ron Swanson via Amaozn

Brandon Presser managed the high-roller suites in Las Vegas's Cosmopolitan. They're reserved for players who front more than a million in the hotel's private casino. In Bloomberg, Presser reveals what happens behind closed doors:

Inspirational speaker and YouTuber Claire Wineland, who had cystic fibrosis, died Sunday night. The 21-year-old activist had a successful lung transplant on August 26, but days later she suffered a severe stroke.According to BBC:

London's Victoria and Albert Museum has digitized and posted two of Leonardo da Vinci's personal notebooks. From The Art Newspaper:

Earlier this year, we were treated to a brief taste of Cyberpunk 2077 – the latest game from the developer of The Witcher, Projekt RED. It had me looking forward to the game, despite the fact that I currently don't own a single piece of hardware capable of playing it. With the release of this 48 minute gameplay video, I'm having lusty thoughts about investing in a new console or gaming computer, for the sake of getting my game on as a cyborg.

In 1607, a 15-year-old girl fled her convent in the Basque country, dressed herself as a man, and set out on a series of unlikely adventures across Europe. In time she would distinguish herself fighting as a soldier in Spain's wars of conquest in the New World. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the story of Catalina de Erauso, the lieutenant nun of Renaissance Spain.We'll also hunt for some wallabies and puzzle over a quiet cat.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon!

In the decade that I've been using iPhones, iPods and iPads, I've never broken a cable, but holy shit am I ever good at losing them. Hotel guests around North America, China, Japan and a good chunk of Europe have all benefited from my slovenly cable tracking. I've lost at least 20 of the things on my travels. When you check into a hotel and have to ask the front desk for a loaner Lightning cable, there's a very good chance that it belonged to me. I don't however, typically lose track of batteries: they're bulky enough that if one's missing from the stuff sack I keep them in when I'm on the road, I'll notice. That's why this Battery Cable from Nomad has quickly become one of my favorite accessories. As its name suggests, the Nomad Battery Cable is an all-in-one battery and – are you ready for this – MFi-certified charging cable for iOS devices equipped with a Lightning port. Sporting a braided nylon sheath, the cable baked into the battery is tough and should stand up to all kinds of abuse. So too the battery itself: its aluminum body will stand up to the sort of casual abuse that mobile accessories often suffer while they're living their lives inside of a purse or backpack. Because cables come out of both ends of the battery – one to plug into your iPhone and the other to plug into a USB-A port to charge the battery, and, with pass-through power, your phone or tablet – its footprint is a little larger than many of the other battery packs I've used in the past. This is especially so when the battery is thick – braided cables are collected and secured with the Nomad Battery Cable's included rubber stay. That said, the cables do have a good deal of give to them, even while secured, and have yet to get tangled up in my bag. With its 2,800mAh capacity, the Nomad Battery Cable doesn't pack quite enough juice to give my iPhone 7 Plus' 2,900mAh battery a full charge, but, the chances of my completely depleting my battery while I'm out for the day are pretty low. For anyone rocking a smaller handset, you'll have power to spare. Given it's solid build quality, reasonable price and utility, I think this thing was a good investment. If I wind up "donating" it to a hotel or hostel in the next few years, I'll let you know.

Lana Sue Clayton allegedly poisoned her husband's drinking water with eye drops, rendering him dead.Via USA Today:

Dinner with pals!

It’s not like I need another reason to eat chocolate. But if I were looking for one, I think the South Korean company Lotte might have found it. Probiotic chocolate. Or more specifically, Lactic acid bacteria - (lactobacillales) fortified chocolate.In Japanese it’s called nyuusankin, and I’ve seen the characters written on all kinds of foods throughout the years. But it was just recently, while poking around the impulse item shelf of my local supermarket waiting to check out, I spotted this box. Of course, I bought it with very little internal debate, even less guilt. I mean, chocolate, right? Healthy chocolate.I went home and searched around online to see what I could find out about Sweets Days Nyusankin Chocola Almond. It only gets better folks. These little chocolate covered almond nuggets of goodness also contain polyphenols and fiber. Lotte, you don’t have to try so hard, you had me at lactic acid bacteria.Photo: Thersa Matsuura

VPNs are essential for browsing the web without your ISP looking over your shoulder. But too many providers deliver this privacy at the expense of your browsing speed, bogging down your connection and making it much more difficult to stream your favorite shows under the radar. Enter Surfshark VPN. Featuring high-end encryption and unlimited data, Surfshark gives you browsing privacy without compromise; and it extends this coverage to your entire family.https://www.youtube.com/embed/g_93KzDGmCIOffering unlimited simultaneous connections, Surfshark lets you and your family mask their online movements and steer clear of hackers on any device. It covers your browsing bases with AES-256-GCM encryption and IKEv2 and OpenVPN protocols while offering access to 500+ torrent-friendly servers and unlimited data. That way, you can sidestep the geo-restrictions that keep you from accessing sites like Netflix and Hulu abroad while streaming your favorite shows at lightning speed.One-year subscriptions to Surfshark VPN are on sale now in the Boing Boing shop for $39.

Why?

FOLLOW @RubenBolling on the Twitters and a Face Book.RESIST! ...the temptation to fail to JOIN Tom the Dancing Bug's subscription club, the Proud & Mighty INNER HIVE, for exclusive early access to comics, extra comics, extra words, and much more.AND, ALSO: 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…)

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Nike hired Kap for an ad campaign: a satisfying yet bathetic result of his de facto expulsion from professional football for protesting police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem. Conservatives are mad, obviously, and are expressing it by destroying the Nike-branded gear that they have already paid for.https://twitter.com/sclancy79/status/1036749717206691840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfwhttps://twitter.com/johnrich/status/1036751396002050050?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwLife is but a dream.

The latest trailer for Universal Pictures' First Man packs a whole lotta action and drama into a 2-minute 14-second package. The movie chronicles the life of astronaut Neil Armstrong, his first manned mission to the Moon, and the cost this mission took on Armstrong's family in the days leading up to the launch.I don't head to the theater often these days, but I'm down for this.

I've got a lot of pals that maintain a vegan diet. Some do it for ethical reasons. Others dig it simply because removing animal products from the menu has had a tremendous effect on their overall health. Hell, I recently started a diet where I've had to eliminate carbs, reduce my meat intake, and take the majority of my proteins from nuts and other sources that haven't mooed, clucked or swam at one point or another. In just a few weeks, I found that switching it up provided me with more energy, less trouble with my guts and a significant amount of weight loss, thanks to my body entering ketosis. Yet, as much as I respect veganism, and the various shades of vegetarianism out there, I have to agree with a recent op-ed from the aptly named Isabella Tree, published in The Guardian: eating plants isn't going to save us from global warming or other environmental disasters. From The Guardian:

https://youtu.be/0rJHC6nY4F8?t=17Jevh M and his mates noticed that there were no asians among the happy, smiling subjects of McDonald's corporate wall art. So he created a professional-looking fake with himself and one other, snuck it onto a blank wall at a local McDonald's, and reports that it is still there 51 days later.https://twitter.com/Jevholution/status/1036415320959930368I wonder how long my own fake McDonalds poster would stay up:

When Twitter was the only major social network not to boot the hateful, violence-advocating conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, the company struggled to explain that decision in terms of its already flexible policies. The Wall Street Journal reports that in fact Alex Jones was to be permanently banned, but CEO Jack Dorsey personally intervened and overruled the decision.

The B2 Spirit Stealth Bomber looks like one of Batman's rides. In service since the mid-1990s, the B2's distinctive flying wing shape, even after decades in service, still looks like the future – and an expensive future, at that. Each B2 costs $2.1 billion. As such, only 21 of the stealthy aircraft were ever made. Congress, even in the heyday of "what about potential war with Russia," refused to pay for any more. It's an aircraft with a mystique that comes both from its exotic design and how little information we have on the pilots who fly it, and their experience of flying one of them.Recently, journalist William Langewiesche was given the opportunity to become familiar with the bomber and those that pilot it. More intriguingly, given that the bomber scarcely has space in its cockpit to accommodate a pilot and co-pilot, Langewiesche, by the sound of things, was allowed to join a B2 flight crew on a mission that would take them all the way from the United States to a bombing run on an ISIS camp in Libya.From The Atlantic:

A grim reminder that in the upper echelons of journalism, white supremacists are at worst wayward tribesmates and at best very interesting men: Steve Bannon is to headline The New Yorker's October festival.From The New York Times:

If you've ever taken an extended vacation, you know all too well the hassle that is packing clothes for a trip. In an effort to avoid steep baggage fees, we cram our luggage to the limit, not only making it a nightmare to pack our clothes back up for the return flight, but also burdening ourselves with awkward, bulky bags to carry. Capable of shrinking your clothes by up to 70%, the Dr. Save Vacuum Travel Kit makes packing for trips much easier, and it's on sale for $39 today.Designed to be compact, but powerful, the Dr. Save Vacuum Pump removes air and compresses items placed inside the provided reusable bags, making it significantly easier to pack for your travels. The kit is also great for long-term storage at home, as you can take your bulky winter clothes—or last season's swimwear—and shrink them down for easier storage.You can get your hands on your own Dr. Save Vacuum Travel Kit today, available in the Boing Boing store for $39, 44% off the usual price. Plus, plug in the code LABORDAY15 to save an additional 15% off!

VoCore2 is a one square inch-size computer with support for USB, Ethernet and video. It has a 580 MHz CPU, 128MB of RAM and built-in Wifi, yet remains smaller than just about anything you might use it as a brain for.On the video below, you can see it running DOOM at the margins of playability with the VoCore2 Screen, one of several official add-ons.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9iKbsRa5EkMakes a great router, apparently! I imagine that the systems-on-a-chip inside WiFi SD cards are slightly smaller than this, but you sure as hell ain't running DOOM on one of those.

Kirin Sekai no Kitchen has recently started selling a product they call Melting Chaos Soup. It's sold beside the bottled water and teas. Now, I'm not a fan of tomato soup or juice, but I liked the label so picked one up. I noticed the small pictures of tomatoes, cheese, and what I thought was basil running around the bottle. But it wasn’t until I got home and read it and then really looked that I noticed the basil wasn’t basil, it was mint, and there was one item I missed. Peaches. Yes. Melting Chaos Soup boasts a brand new genre in drinks. It says it’s like a smoothie soup that changes flavor from moment to moment. Shake well, open and give it a sniff, then bottoms up. It’s a mix of tomato (55%) and peach juice (12%), cream cheese, and mint. After opening and tentatively smelling, it actually took me a few minutes to get up the nerve to take the first swig. It really did smell exactly as promised, like tomato mixed with peach juice then throw in a hint of mint. I did finally take a sip, and then another. Another. I'm not sure if chaos would be how I’d describe the taste, although it did changed from moment to moment. The surprising thing was I didn’t hate it. I kind of liked it. If I could change one thing, though, it might be they add more cream cheese. Photo: Thersa Matsuura

Brazil’s National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, opened in 1818 and home to over 20 million artifacts has been completely destroyed by fire. The three-story museum was closed when the fire quickly consumed the building. Founded by John VI, the King of Brazil and Portugal, the museum celebrated its 200th anniversary earlier this year. The cause of the fire is currently unknown. Brazil's President Michel Temer called it a tragic day for Brazil. "200 years of work and research and knowledge are lost." [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3wnkmCKcnw&w=560&h=315]Rio's 200-year old National Museum hit by massive fire [Bruno Federowski/Reuters][Photo: Twitter/@arielpalacios]

When we ran out of bullets the noise from "Rave Camp" became intolerable.After eating all my mushrooms I watched some dudes burn a poorly built mannequin thing.A half-naked woman,out of her head on MDMA,whom I'd never met before and never will again,snuggled up and fell asleep in my lap.I drank a huge rum and coke. There was no ice.A woman was carrying a live goldfish in a cup. The van I borrowed from motorcycle.com mysteriously acquired bullet holes.There were dogs....Burning Man, 1996.Image via Ryan Powers