Boing Boing

Back in 2014, David wrote up Jeremy Bell's prototype "ScrubBoard" that enabled a scratch-like effect with magnetic audiotape. Bell writes, "I've made a lot of progress on my device since then, and I have a much more sophisticated prototype that uses a motorized tape loop and can record live audio directly onto the tape while I'm scratching. Enjoy!" Read the rest

The 78-member Congressional Progressive Caucus is meant to be the democracy-friendly, corporate-hostile wing of the Democratic Party, which is why the caucus announced a year ago that it would stop accepting corporate money -- but a year later, nearly every member is still accepting corporate money in their individual capacity.The CPC co-chair is Mark Pocan [D-WI], and it was he who announced the no-corporate-money policy, saying, "“If we are going to end the influence of corporations and special interests in government, we have to start by not relying on their support. Only by being fully independent of their financial influence can we prioritize people over corporations."Pocan is one of the CPC members who has accepted corporate donations. Only three CPC members have refused all corporate money -- but 40 new members (including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) have all taken the pledge. While Jayapal is trying to coax her colleagues with carrots, the ballot box is acting as a stick. In September, Rep. Michael Capuano, a longtime progressive from Massachusetts, was bested in a primary contest by his opponent, Ayanna Pressley, who made Capuano’s acceptance of corporate money a key campaign issue.An analysis by The Intercept of the 2017-18 campaign cycle reveals that the vast majority of CPC members are similarly vulnerable, taking not just money from union and advocacy group PACs, but significant sums of corporate PAC cash as well. Not coincidentally, given the reliance on big money, hardly any members of the CPC rely on small individual donors. Nearly Every Member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Still Takes Corporate PAC Money [Rachel M. Read the rest

Umair Haque (previously) is in the unfortunate position of being both inarguably correct and horribly depressing when he says "catastrophic climate change is probably inevitable."Capitalism was incapable of dealing with climate change, treating damage to human lives and the planet we share as "unpriced negative externalities" rather than evidence that a system whose tenet was the we would achieve optimal outcomes only if we "exploit and abuse one another, not hold each other close, mortal and frail things that [we] are."But capitalism not only failed to come to grips with climate change: it also "ate through people’s towns and cities and communities, then through social systems, then through their savings, and finally, through their democracies," by making the one percent richer, and richer, and richer -- and everyone else poorer and more desperate.The result of that was the dizzying rise of fascism: in the Philippines, Hungary, Italy, America -- and, any day now, Brazil, where the fascist government-in-waiting stands ready to feed the entire Amazon rain forest into big business's wood-chipper. Fascism is arising at the worst possible moment: the moment when democratic accountability and decisive action are the only possible hope of averting millions of deaths and hundreds of millions of immiserated lives.A sense of frustration, of resignation, of pessimism came to sweep the world. People lost trust in their great systems and institutions. They turned away from democracy, and towards authoritarianism, in a great, thunderous wave, which tilted the globe on its very axis. Read the rest

When Obama took office, he took over from one of the least popular presidents in US history, 22% George Bush, a liar who tortured and spied his way through an illegitimate war that we're still fighting, and next year's deployment will include soldiers who weren't even born when the war started.Bush's crimes, high and low, were the subject of intense public interest and there was massive pressure on Obama to investigate and publish the details of the outgoing administration's misdeeds.Obama's position was that "We need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards." He refused any attempt to prosecute the GWB squad for their myriad of sins. This set the stage for the rehabilitation of America's first wave of 21st century looters: from GWB himself (now known as Michelle Obama's BFF -- a gentlemanly painter who is supposedly secretly part of the #resistance), the torturer who now runs the CIA, and now, Brett Kavanaugh: once GWB's White House Staff Secretary, whose memos and emails from that period were not investigated and published when Obama and the Dems owned the White House and Congress, and which were later suppressed by Trump during Kavanaugh's confirmatoin process.Meanwhile, Bush's "resistance" consisted of repeatedly calling up swing senators to lobby for Kavanaugh's confirmation. I tell you what: I never cared about Obama "palling around with Bill Ayers" (indeed, that's a mark in his favor), but it's pretty gross that Michelle Obama is palling around with GW Bush. And now it's more than gross: it's contributed to a generation's worth of toxic, anti-woman, racist class warfare from a Supreme Court packed with plutocrats, rapists and enablers of plutocrats and rapists. Read the rest

In a new essay, Douglas Rushkoff examines Universal Basic Income, writing that it's not a gift but a "scam" and a "tool for our further enslavement."Here's a snippet:To the rescue comes UBI. The policy was once thought of as a way of taking extreme poverty off the table. In this new incarnation, however, it merely serves as a way to keep the wealthiest people (and their loyal vassals, the software developers) entrenched at the very top of the economic operating system. Because of course, the cash doled out to citizens by the government will inevitably flow to them.Think of it: The government prints more money or perhaps — god forbid — it taxes some corporate profits, then it showers the cash down on the people so they can continue to spend. As a result, more and more capital accumulates at the top. And with that capital comes more power to dictate the terms governing human existence....As appealing as it may sound, UBI is nothing more than a way for corporations to increase their power over us, all under the pretense of putting us on the payroll. It’s the candy that a creep offers a kid to get into the car or the raise a sleazy employer gives a staff member who they’ve sexually harassed. It’s hush money.Read: Universal Basic Income Is Silicon Valley’s Latest Scamphoto by photosteve101 Read the rest

Speed reading isn't just an innate skill possessed by a lucky few. Anyone can learn to speed read, and the benefits are endless. The brain can process more information than most people have time to soak up, but you can make that time now with the 2018 Award-Winning Speed Reading Bundle.The first half of the bundle, 7 Speed Reading EX, does more than just show you how to become an effective speed reader. With video tutorials, eye/ body training exercises and progress reports, you'll be breezing through novels and documents alike more than 3 times faster - with no loss in comprehension. The platform even comes with access to 20,477 eBooks free.When you're ready, the Spreeder CX 2018 tool will allow you to put your newfound talent to practice, with a text-display app that will guide you at an increasing pace through any document you can upload or paste.Before you crack open another book, grab a lifetime subscription to the 2018 Award-Winning Speed Reading Bundle for a $19. Read the rest

The State of Maryland got a bit of a surprise when the FBI informed state officials the contractor responsible for much of Maryland's voting infrastructure was, unbeknownst to Maryland, purchased by a Russian oligarch in 2015.Via CBS News:"We were briefed late yesterday, along with Governor Hogan, by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that the software vendor who maintains portions of the State Board of Elections voter registration platform was purchased by a Russian investor in 2015, without the knowledge of state officials," Maryland State Senate President Thomas Mike Miller, Jr. and Maryland House Speaker Michael Busch, said in a joint statement Friday. State officials say they were told they were told their voter registration system, ByteGrid LLC, is financed by AltPoint Capital Partners, whose fund manager is "a Russian" and largest investor is Russian oligarch Vladimir Potanin. ByteGrid LLC performs a vast array of voting-related functions for the state, including voter registration, the state's online voter registration system, online ballot delivery and unofficial election night results. "While the FBI did not indicate that there was a breach, we were concerned enough to ask Attorney General [Brian] Frosh to review the existing contractual obligation of the state, as well as asked for a review of the system to ensure there have been no breaches," Miller and Busch said. We have also instructed the State Board of Elections to complete all due diligence to give the voters of Maryland confidence in the integrity of the election system. We are also asking the federal Department of Homeland Security Election Task Force to assist the State Board of Elections for any corrective action deemed necessary." Read the rest

An extremely funny prankster glued googly eyes to the statue of Revolutionary War commander Nathaniel Greene; the City of Savannah took to its Facebook page to insist that this was "not funny" but rather "vandalism" and saying that the police had been involved.Savannah Police are not impressed by the city's wrath. Noting that the eyes didn't do any damage, the police promised to review its CCTV footage to see if they could prosecute someone for trespassing."It may look funny but harming our historic monuments and public property is no laughing matter," the city wrote. "In fact, it's a crime."City officials urged anyone with information to contact local police. "We are hoping to find the person responsible!" they wrote.Someone Stuck Googly Eyes On This Savannah Statue And Now Police Are Involved [David Mack/Buzzfeed] Read the rest

Jared Kushner borrowed money to put down tiny down-payments on properties, paid himself millions from the rents generated by those properties, then used aggressive depreciation markdowns to declare an operating loss every year, meaning that he paid no tax at all from at least 2012 to 2016, and very little tax in the three years proceeding it.Someone gave the New York Times a 40-page dossier prepared by Kushner and his advisors as part of a loan application; the documents detail Kushner's tax situation from 2009-2016.The deductions mirror those used by Donald Trump -- whose own finances were the subject of a Times report based on leaked documents -- though, unlike Trump, Kushner did not engage in "outright fraud."Kushner is advisor to his father-in-law, the President of the United States, who is situated to substantially overhaul the tax system. This overhaul could close the loopholes that let real-estate developers pull in millions and pay nothing in tax, or expand them.Unlike typical wage earners, the owners of such companies can report losses for tax purposes. When a firm like Kushner Companies reports expenses in excess of its income, the result is a “net operating loss.” That loss can wipe out any taxes that the company’s owner otherwise would owe. Depending on the size of the loss, it can even be used to get refunds for taxes paid in prior years or eliminate tax bills in future years.Mr. Kushner’s losses, stemming in large part from the depreciation deduction, appeared to wipe out his taxable income in most years covered by the documents. Read the rest

Just look at it. (Thanks, Greg Cook!) Read the rest

A leaked police-training presentation from digital forensics company Elcomsoft (a company that made history due to its early run-in with the DMCA) advises officers not to look at Iphones seized from suspects in order to avoid tripping the phones' facial recognition systems -- if Iphones sense too many unlock attempts with faces other than those registered as trusted, they fall back to requiring additional unlock measures like passcodes or fingerprints. “iPhone X: don’t look at the screen, or else… The same thing will occur as happened on Apple’s event,” the slide, from forensics company Elcomsoft, reads. Motherboard obtained the presentation from a non-Elcomsoft source, and the company subsequently confirmed its veracity.“This is quite simple. Passcode is required after five unsuccessful attempts to match a face,” Vladimir Katalov, CEO of Elcomsoft, told Motherboard in an online chat, pointing to Apple’s own documentation on Face ID. “So by looking into suspect’s phone, [the] investigator immediately lose one of [the] attempts.”Cops Told ‘Don’t Look’ at New iPhones to Avoid Face ID Lock-Out [Joseph Cox/Motherboard] Read the rest

California is one of the hot-zones in the world's urban housing crisis, driven by a combination of opposition to highrise/high-density living and the mass purchase of foreclosed properties following the 2008 crisis by giant Wall Street landlords who have steadily ratcheted up rents and evictions in a big to safeguard the flow of payments to bondholders who get a share of the rents extracted from struggling tenants living in dangerous, substanding housing.California's cities have different policy levers they can yank on to address this: zoning changes, commuter rail, school spending. But one lever that cities have relied upon since the beginning of modern urban government is missing: rent control. California state law forbids rent control on single-family homes; and apartments build after 1995.A ballot measure, Prop 10, will allow cities to impose rent controls on all rental stock, allowing voters a say in the way that their cities are developed. But the giant hedge funds that own hundreds of thousands of California rental properties are pumping millions more into scare-campaigns intended to convince voters to oppose Prop 10.Blackstone, the largest private equity firm in the world, is California's biggest corporate landlord, with 127,000 single-family homes in its "portfolio." They're responsible for $6,859,747 in anti-Prop-10 spending, part of the $45m attack on the proposition.Landlords across California have sent eviction notices to their tenants giving them 60 days to leave; other have announced massive rent increases -- and tenants have been notified that these will be cancelled only if Prop 10 fails. Read the rest

The first wave of computerized automation caught trade unions flat-footed; already reeling from the Reagan-era attacks on labor, union leadership failed completely to come up with a coherent response to the automation of manufacturing industries (a notable exception was the longshoremans' union, which ensured that containerization led to massive pay raises and generous retirements for the workers whose work was largely eliminated by better shipping techniques).With a second wave of automation upon us, unions representing service workers and truck drivers are floating more nuanced responses to automation, calling for worker input into how their jobs are automated, "about how technology can assist the work we perform and ease the rigors of our work, how our members are trained, what happens to workers who would otherwise be tagged as redundant, how our members are repositioned to succeed or hired into other workplaces."It's exemplary of the new labor consciousness of protecting workers' interests in an era of technological abundance -- ensuring that as work disappears into automated systems, workers themselves share in the dividends of that automation.Unite Here is following a similar path. Mr. Singh listed the union’s goals for Marriott contracts: “We want to talk about how technology can assist the work we perform and ease the rigors of our work, how our members are trained, what happens to workers who would otherwise be tagged as redundant, how our members are repositioned to succeed or hired into other workplaces.”In June, the union managed for the first time to include protections from technological change in its contracts covering workers at the Las Vegas properties of MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment. Read the rest

Monday is the end of the comment period for a sweeping National Park Service proposal that will have a dramatic effect on the ability of Americans to protest in sight of their government.Under the proposed new rules, protests around the White House and the National Mall would require permits, protestors would be barred from the sidewalk north of the White House. The proposal also seeks public comment on charging protesters fees for permits to gather.You can and should comment. Here is what the ACLU submitted.The park service plans to close 20 feet of the 25-foot-wide White House sidewalk, limiting demonstrators to a 5-foot sliver along Pennsylvania Avenue. This is perhaps the most iconic public forum in America, allowing “We the People” to express our views directly to the chief executive, going back at least to the women’s suffrage movement 100 years ago.The closure would violate the earlier court order, which permits demonstrations by at least 750 people on the White House sidewalk and declares that any lower limit is “invalid and void as an unconstitutional infringement of plaintiffs’ rights to freedom of speech and to assemble peaceably and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The park service didn’t offer any justification for closing the sidewalk. Even if it were based on security grounds, that wouldn’t pass muster because the White House fence is about to be replaced with a new, taller fence with special anti-climbing features, approved last year specifically to “meet contemporary security standards” while allowing the sidewalk to remain open. Read the rest

Create your own version of "Smell-O-Vision" by watching one the first three Star Wars films and lighting these officially-licensed candles from Merchoid when the scene coincides with the smell.List of scents:A New Hope:Wookiee: Ever wondered what a walking carpet smells like?Bantha Milk [erroneously spelled 'Banther' on the candle]: Love the smell of bantha milk in the morning?Trash Compactor: Find out what was very nearly the last smell Luke, Leia and Han ever experiencedX-wing Cockpit: Perfect for playthroughs of Battlefront's aerial combatCantina: Eau de scum and villainyLightsaber Duel: Do you prefer the smell of the dark side or the light side?The Empire Strikes Back:Han Solo Carbonite: This smell is all Leia had to remember Han for a long timeMillenium Falcon: She may not look much, but she's got it where it counts (the smell)Inside of a Tauntaun: Thought it smelt bad on the outside? You've experienced nothing yet!Yoda's Cooking Pot: Yoda's legendary Force powers are only eclipsed by his cooking skills. Smell it for yourself!Return Of The Jedi:Rancor: The only way to smell a Rancor without ending up its lunchSarlaac Pit: Add a new dimension to your favourite ROTJ sceneJabba's Palace: Admit it, you've always wondered what Jabba smells likeEwok: Do they smell as cute as they look? Let's find out!Death Star Destroyed: The sweet smell of rebellionThe candles are available in sets, starting at $36.99 (one film) and going up to $127.99 (entire trilogy on display board). Read the rest

There's a plot of land in Vermont where ice cream flavors go when they die. Located next to the Waterbury home of Ben & Jerry's plant and headquarters, the Flavor Graveyard is the final resting place for the company's discontinued flavors such as Wavy Gravy, White Russian, and (32) more.Travel + Leisure:“Ben & Jerry’s is known for outrageous, chunky, funky flavors,” said Flavor Guru Eric Fredette in a company press release. “But experimentation comes with risk, and not everybody likes our edgier ideas. Like everything else, ice cream flavors have a beginning and an end.”This year, visitors who take a Ben & Jerry's factory tour, along with a visit to the Flavor Graveyard, between Oct. 29 and 31 will be treated to a sample of a limited edition pumpkin pie ice cream available only in Waterbury.You can also visit their virtual burial ground and, if you wish, submit a request to "resurrect" any of the dead flavors. Zombie Schweddy Balls, anyone? Read the rest

Sure, you could use the same old PowerPoint templates for your next business presentation. It's not like you have bosses or investors to impress. Oh wait, you do? Time to augment that slideshow with Slideshop - the presentation tool that can individualize your pitch while saving you time.Compatible with PowerPoint, Keynote and Google Slides, Slideshop makes the process of preparing your visual aids as easy and creative as it should be. Users can choose from a core library of more than 15,000 modern, eye-catching slide templates to tailor their show to the content. Creating and customizing charts and infographics are easier than ever with Slideshop's intuitive editing tools, allowing you to spend more time on your business and less time prepping for the pitch.Best of all, Slideshop is on sale now for $29.99. Read the rest

Now that's dedication.IMGURian Mike Matola is a wonderful weird genius. He hand-copied the entire Jurassic Park script, line by line, to create this line art of a scene from the Steven Spielberg dinosaur movie. You can buy his art! Find him at linebylineposters.com.[via] Read the rest

Tito the raccoon enjoys swimming at the pool. In this video, Tito gives his new friend Penny the dog a swimming lesson.Video Link: “Tito The Raccoon Spends The Day At The Pool Ft. Penny” Read the rest

It's so tiny and deadly!The Slow Mo Guys fire a 2 inch Gun at 12,500fps. Pew Pew!“Do not mess around with pinfire guns at home.You could get a tiny but very real owwie.Filmed on the Phantom v2640 at 12,500fps.”I love what these guys do.Full video below. Read the rest

This is completely insane. Trump's ICE squads are sending separated under-5 children back to countries of origin without telling the kids' families. This week, U.S. Immigration officials sent a 4-year-old separated child from the U.S. to Guatemala City, an extremely dangerous place, without even telling her relatives in Guatemala that she was coming home. Excerpt from Huffington Post's Angelina Chapin:On Tuesday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement sent a 4-year-old separated child from the U.S. to Guatemala City without telling her family she was coming home. When Karla, a pseudonym HuffPost is using to protect the child’s identity, arrived in Guatemala, no one came to pick her up at a reunification center near the airport. Instead of reuniting with her deported father, whom she hadn’t seen since they crossed the U.S. border together six months ago, the child spent yet another night in a government-run shelter, according to Kids In Need of Defense, an organization helping the U.S. government to reunify families. “Just imagining this 4-year-old going back [home] after months and months of separation ... and then her dad didn’t show up after all of this,” said Lisa Frydman, KIND’s director of regional and policy initiatives. “The trauma level is unimaginable.” Legal and immigration experts say ICE is sending children back to Central America without properly notifying parents of their travel plans. The Department of Justice recently said ICE is only handling only “a relatively small number” of repatriation cases, but advocates say even a handful of situations in which parents aren’t given the proper notice to pick up their children is a major cause for concern. Read the rest

Because of course they would. President Donald Trump's son Don Jr., along with pro-Trump extreme right wing media, are exploiting Washington Post contributing journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s interviews with Osama bin Laden to imply that he supported Islamic terror, reports The Daily Beast. Khashoggi is reported to have been abducted, tortured, killed, and dismembered by agents of the Saudi government, inside their embassy in Istanbul.Will Sommer, Daily Beast:The latest attack on Khashoggi’s reputation started Friday with Patrick Poole, a terrorism correspondent for conservative website PJ Media. Poole ran images from a 1988 article Khashoggi wrote showing Khashoggi holding a rocket-propelled grenade with fighters in Afghanistan opposing the Soviet Union.Khashoggi was among a number of journalists who interviewed Bin Laden in the 1980s and ’90s. But the picture and article, Poole claimed, was proof that Khashoggi was “tooling around Afghanistan with Osama bin Laden.”“He’s just a democrat reformer journalist holding a RPG with jihadists,” Poole tweeted.“Huh,” Davis wrote. “It’s almost like reality is quite different than the evidence-free narratives peddled by media with a long history of cooperating with or getting duped by Iran echo chamber architects.”Trump Jr. then boosted Davis’ post, retweeting for his 3 million Twitter followers the attack on Khashoggi. Read the rest

The good news: Facebook downgrades the number of accounts hit in the breach they disclosed two weeks ago to 29 million, down from 50 million. The bad news: Uh, that's still a LOT. And if you were one of those 29 million Facebook users, A LOT of your intimate personal data was stolen. Facebook disclosed this in a corporate blog post, “An Update on the Security Issue,” with more details on the massive privacy breach. Facebook Product Management VP Guy Rosen says:People can check whether they were affected by visiting our Help Center. In the coming days, we’ll send customized messages to the 30 million people affected to explain what information the attackers might have accessed, as well as steps they can take to help protect themselves, including from suspicious emails, text messages, or calls.This attack did not include Messenger, Messenger Kids, Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, Workplace, Pages, payments, third-party apps, or advertising or developer accounts. Naturally they published at the end of the day on Friday, when all bad news gets dumped to minimize impact.“For 15 million people, attackers accessed two sets of information — name and contact details (phone number, email, or both, depending on what people had on their profiles),” writes Rosen in the post.“For 14 million people, the attackers accessed the same two sets of information, as well as other details people had on their profiles.”Bu “other details,” he means your location, gender, relationship status, your recent search and personal physical location data. Read the rest

The WWE has a self-created Saudi Arabia problem on its hands.Crown Jewel, a pay-per-view event scheduled to take place on November 2nd in Riyadh, is under heavy scrutiny as we learn more about the Saudi government's role in the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. And now, members of Congress are calling for the event to be canceled. On April 25th, 2016, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman unveiled Saudi Vision 2030 – a plan to diversify Saudi Arabia’s economy and expand public service sectors, including entertainment. Remember when country singer Toby Keith headlined a concert in Riyadh and everyone was like, WTF? That was part of Saudi Vision 2030. Another central part of the expanded entertainment sector was announced on March 5th of this year, when WWE entered into a 10-year strategic partnership with the Saudi government through the General Sports Authority. 
The first event in this new partnership, the Greatest Royal Rumble, took place on April 27th in front of 60,000 fans at King Abdullah International Stadium in Jeddah. If you watched any of the pay-per-view, you know that it was essentially a five-hour infomercial for the House of Saud with some wrestling matches tossed in. None of those matches featured any of the WWE’s women wrestlers because Saudi Arabia is still emerging from the Dark Ages. Women were allowed to attend the event, but only if they were accompanied by a man. Again, Dark Ages.The second event in this partnership, Crown Jewel, is scheduled for November 2nd at King Saud University in Riyadh. Read the rest

Enjoy this delightful clip from Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color "Disneyland Showtime" that aired on March 22, 1970. From the IMDB page:The Osmond Brothers, accompanied by Kurt Russell and E.J. Peaker, come to Disneyland to perform at a show being held there. But Donny and Jay Osmond go off to explore the park. Worried that they will miss the performance, the rest of the cast go to try and retrieve them before it is too late. They also visit the then-newest Disneyland attraction at the time, the Haunted Mansion.(via r/ObscureMedia) Read the rest

Sean Kayode, a homeless person hustling to make ends meet in San Francisco unsurprisingly received a lot of parking tickets, in San Francisco. Naturally, the best way for San Francisco to secure payment was to seize his method of earning money. A federal judge has ordered the car be returned, for now.Via the SF Examiner:A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the city of San Francisco to return a towed car to a homeless man who couldn’t afford to pay the parking tickets he received while working as a food delivery driver.U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White said Sean Kayode had raised “serious questions” about whether the March 5 towing of his car because of unpaid parking tickets violated the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures.White wrote that in a situation in which a car owner can’t afford to pay overdue parking tickets, “it is not clear…that seizure is reasonable in an effort to secure repayment of the debt owed.”The judge issued a preliminary injunction requiring return of the car. The order will remain in effect until there is a full trial on a lawsuit filed by Kayode, 52, and James Smith, 64, whose car was towed on Dec. 28, 2017.Kayode’s car was towed from a street-cleaning zone outside a homeless shelter where he was staying. In the previous 10 months, he had received about 30 parking tickets and had paid some but not all of them.A state law allows local authorities to tow a car whose owner has five or more unpaid parking tickets for at least three weeks. Read the rest

Stephen Hawking's final paper that he and his colleagues completed just days before his death has now been published. It's titled "Black Hole Entropy and Soft Hair," co-authored with Sasha Haco, Malcolm J. Perry, and Andrew Strominger, about the black hole information paradox. Here is the abstract:A set of infinitesimal VirasoroL⊗VirasoroR diffeomorphisms are presented which act non-trivially on the horizon of a generic Kerr black hole with spin J. The covariant phase space formalism provides a formula for the Virasoro charges as surface integrals on the horizon. Integrability and associativity of the charge algebra are shown to require the inclusion of `Wald-Zoupas' counterterms. A counterterm satisfying the known consistency requirement is constructed and yields central charges cL=cR=12J. Assuming the existence of a quantum Hilbert space on which these charges generate the symmetries, as well as the applicability of the Cardy formula, the central charges reproduce the macroscopic area-entropy law for generic Kerr black holes.The Guardian has a translation:In the latest paper, Hawking and his colleagues show how some information (contained in an object that falls into a black hole) at least may be preserved. Toss an object into a black hole and the black hole’s temperature ought to change. So too will a property called entropy, a measure of an object’s internal disorder, which rises the hotter it gets.The physicists, including Sasha Haco at Cambridge and Andrew Strominger at Harvard, show that a black hole’s entropy may be recorded by photons that surround the black hole’s event horizon, the point at which light cannot escape the intense gravitational pull. Read the rest

"Investors are bailing" from Facebook, writes CNN Money. The share price for the disgraced social media firm has dropped 30% since July. Facebook has had a hard time shaking its image as a firm that happily violates users' privacy, manipulates users emotional well-being, doesn't take proper steps to secure users' data, courts advertisers interested in targeting white supremacists, and sells users' behavioral information to unscrupulous entities.Despite hours of testimony, a blitz of executive interviews and numerous tweaks to its privacy settings, Facebook has yet to put the Cambridge Analytica issue behind it. And now, Facebook faces the prospect of additional regulatory scrutiny after disclosing a new security breach affecting nearly 50 million users.The longer the privacy backlash continues, not to mention ongoing concerns about election meddling, the more potential for damage to Facebook's core business."For the first time, we've heard some grumblings from the advertiser community that the hot water that Facebook is in politically is creating some hesitation on budget allocations (for some)," Ross Sandler, an analyst with Barclays, wrote in an investor note this week. Read the rest

In an embarrassing video released today, the Republican candidate for Pennsylvania governor, Scott Wagner, thinks he's a tough guy when he threatens his opponent, Gov. Tom Wolf: "Well, Governor Wolf, let me tell you what, between now and Nov. 6, you better put a catcher’s mask on your face, because I’m going to stomp all over your face with golf spikes." Wolf's running mate tweets that Wagner has "lost it.".@realScottWagner has lost it.🤬🤪Warns my running mate he’s going to “stomp on his face with golf spikes” https://t.co/ocwBndREsC— Mayor John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) October 12, 2018No, he hasn't lost it. This is just what the devolution of the GOP looks like.Via the Daily Beast Read the rest

Science Alert claims this illusions mimics time travel in the brain. I think the illusion works, but I saw no dinosaurs.Via Science Alert:In the Illusory Rabbit, the middle flash never happens, but most people still think they saw three flashes to match three beeps.In the Invisible Rabbit, it's the middle beep that is missed – and the brain usually thinks there was no middle flash either.The fact that the middle beep or flash IS getting manipulated shows postdiction at work – it's actually the last flash and beep that causes the illusion to happen. They make our brain alter what it perceived in the past. Read the rest

A Russian hacker who calls himself "Alexey" is infiltrating insecure networks and adding security patches to Latvian-made MikroTik routers so they "can't be abused by cryptojackers, botnet herders, or other cyber-criminals," reports ZDNet. Alexey claims to have secured over 100,000 MikroTik routers so far. A security expert told ZDNet that over 420,000 MikroTik routers have been hijacked to mine cryptocurrency on the sly.Alexey has not been trying to hide his actions and has boasted about his hobby on a Russian blogging platform. He says he accesses routers and makes changes to their settings to prevent further abuse."I added firewall rules that blocked access to the router from outside the local network," Alexey said. "In the comments, I wrote information about the vulnerability and left the address of the @router_os Telegram channel, where it was possible for them to ask questions."But despite adjusting firewall settings for over 100,000 users, Alexey says that only 50 users reached out via Telegram. A few said "thanks," but most were outraged.The vigilante server administrator says he's been only fixing routers that have not been patched by their owners against a MikroTik vulnerability that came to light in late April. Read the rest

Kara Swisher is one of the best journalists working today, so it was fascinating to read about her experiences working for well-known editors as she rose through the ranks.My next boss after [Jack] Shafer was John McLaughlin, of the TV show The McLaughlin Group. I ghostwrote his column in the National Review -- he would add in the right-wing invective -- and then I worked on his show. That asshole of a human being. I got the sense he sort of respected me because I didn’t put up with his shit. Because I wasn’t a Republican. I was a liberal, obviously. All these people were weird acolytes to him because he was a big deal during the Reagan administration. That was his power. So he used that. These people would do everything to work for one of the top Republican people, and I was like, I don’t give a fuck. My whole history is not going to depend on this. He enjoyed a smart woman in a weird, sick way.He was awful and abusive and terrible -- and as it turned out, he was like Sexual Harasser 101. He was harassing a woman on the staff who was a friend of mine. But he was abusive to the whole staff. He would line people up by height and then make them look for a dust ball under his couch. Stuff like that. This was Captain Queeg kind of behavior. He was just super crazy. Everyone had a beeper -- he had to know where you were. Read the rest

The new record for most eliminations in a single match by a squad is now 61. Watch Fortitude_Fqrbes, Nexjs, tactjc, and TTV NadeXC take down most of the lobby.There is a lot of swearing, as there should be. Read the rest

When we spent 5 weeks in Japan this summer, we bought a lot of prepared meals from convenience stores. They were really good. In this video, we see how a family who moved from Canada to Japan makes great dinner spreads using frozen meals. Read the rest

Trump aide Stephen Miller "was a strange dude" and a "loner" who ate glue as a child, according to his third grade teacher Nikki Fiske. The 72-year-old teacher, who taught Miller in 1993, spoke to The Hollywood Reporter and, among other things, had this to say about Miller:"I was always trying to get him to clean up his desk — he always had stuff mashed up in there. He was a strange dude. I remember he would take a bottle of glue — we didn't have glue sticks in those days — and he would pour the glue on his arm, let it dry, peel it off and then eat it."I remember being concerned about him — not academically. He was OK with that, though I could never read his handwriting. But he had such strange personal habits. He was a loner and isolated and off by himself all the time."Fiske, who teaches in Southern California, has been suspended for her remarks. "The district says it's concerned about the public release of student information," according to NBC News. Image: DonkeyHotey/Flickr Read the rest

I've been doing a lot of Raspberry Pi retrogaming lately, and have tried a lot of different gamepad controllers. The best controllers, in my estimation, are the ones made by 8BitDo. They've introduced a new model, the SN30 ($30), and it comes in colors matching the old Game Boy Pockets. They pair with Raspberry Pi, Switch, OS X, iOS, Android, and Windows. You can also connect them to a device using the included USB cable. Read the rest

A high-speed train going from Cologne to Munich carrying 510 passengers caught fire early this morning (local time). At least two cars burned, but amazingly no one was hurt. From Reuters:Mass-selling daily Bild said a policeman traveling on the ICE train smelled smoke and activated the emergency braking system, “averting catastrophe”.Operator Deutsche Bahn [DBN.UL] said it had closed the high-speed line between Cologne and Frankfurt as a result of the fire and would divert trains traveling that route, adding 80 minutes to the journey time.The cause of the fire is unknown at this time. Read the rest

Today I learned that by placing a teal pumpkin out on Halloween, you are signaling that you are offering non-food (read: non-allergen) treats to children. It's a secret code that you have safe goodies like stickers, stencils, and glow sticks to give out instead of candy. Clever!The Teal Pumpkin Project was started in 2014 by non-profit advocacy group Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE). They write:The Teal Pumpkin Project encourages people to raise awareness of food allergies and promotes inclusion of all trick-or-treaters throughout the Halloween season. The nationwide movement offers an alternative for kids with food allergies, as well as other children for whom candy is not an option.The steps to participate are:Provide non-food treats for trick-or-treaters.Place a teal pumpkin – the color of food allergy awareness –in front of your home to indicate you have non-food treats available.Add your home to the Teal Pumpkin Project map.Spread the word! Share the Teal Pumpkin Project with your friends and family.Thanks, Phoebe!images via FARE Read the rest

Michael-Scott Earle, a self-publisher of "pulp harem fantasies" is seeking a trademark on the use of "Dragon Slayer" in connection with fantasy novels.Amazingly, the US Patent and Trademark Office thinks this has enough merit to proceed. Jason A Holt writes, "The USPTO, after receiving letters of protest containing over 100 pages of evidence that the phrase 'Dragon Slayer' is widely used in the book business, has decided to publish 'Dragon Slayer' for opposition. In other words, the examining attorney thinks it's A-OK as a trademark. Now everyone who wants to stop it will have to lawyer up."Earle is a serial trademark offender: he also sought a trademark on book covers featuring "one or more human or partially human figures underneath, at least one of the figures holding a weapon; and an author's name underneath the figures; wherein the title/series and author's name are depicted in the same or similar coloring." DRAGON SLAYER [USPTO] Read the rest

My new favorite subreddit is Accidental Maps, specializing in a pareidolia of places. Read the rest

Hirotakaster's instructions for combining magnets and fidget spinners are a one-way ticket to glorious, chaotic motion, as complex systems emerge from grids of obsolete, post-fad plastic waste. (via Beyond the Beyond) Read the rest

Stalin's pose and expression in the propaganda poster makes it look like he's just noticed there's a goose coming toward him and it's dawning on him that he has no idea how to deal with geese. Read the rest

A year ago, Chinese white-label CCTV/DVR vendor Xiongmai announced a recall and security update for its devices, whose weak security meant that they had been conscripted into a massive, unstoppable botnet.A year later, Xiongmai's promises have been broken: the company has invested precious little resource into keeping its security current, and as a result the cameras and recorders it sells are routinely compromised by voyeurs (who use them to spy on their owners), criminals (who use them to case businesses and plan crimes) and cybercriminals (who take over the devices and use them to run bot attacks of various kinds, from denial-of-service to simply disguising the location of another attack by using a hacked device as a proxy).To complicate the matter, Xiongmai is a white-label vendor whose products are sold under hundreds of brand-names, making it nearly impossible to tell whether you are about to buy (or already own) one of their defective products. It may not matter: Xionmai's major competitor, TVT, is another white label CCTV/DVR giant, and its products are incredibly insecure and it, too has failed to take action to fix things.The exploits used to take over these devices are not supervillainry: thanks to weak default passwords, deliberate backdoors, and bad design decisions (like not forcing a password change during setup), they are taken over in their thousands by clumsy, amateurish exploits.The latest Xiongmai vulnerability advisory comes from SEC Consult (who previously revealed similar defects in Shenzhen Gwelltimes Technology Co., Ltd's constellation of white-label internet of shit gadgets): they explored vulnerabilities in Xiongmai's cloud management system, called the "XMEye P2P Cloud."Logins for this system are easily guessed because they are derived from Xiongmai products' sequential MAC addresses; the passwords use weak default usernames ("admin" and no password!), and every device has a second, hidden backdoor account whose login/pass is "default/tluafed."Once an attacker gains access to a device, they have the ability to flash its firmware, and because Xiongmai doesn't practice firmware signing, an attacker can load anything onto its products. Read the rest

Multinational companies have used the no-nonsense methodologies of Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma to oil a smooth-running operation for years. What is it? Six Sigma (and its offshoot, Lean Six Sigma) apply the principles of science to business, teaching managers to methodically target waste, maximize output and streamline the flow from producer to consumer. In a nutshell, it's a universal process that can work for any size company.The Complete Six Sigma Training & Certification Bundle teaches those principles for managers both prospective and practicing. In more than 75 hours of engaging lectures, exams, and hands-on exercises, you'll learn to identify the eight types of waste and use the patented DMAIC method to confidently tackle any project with any team. Users will progress through the yellow, green and black belts in both Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma and earn certified credentials with the included exam. It's an accomplishment that will pay dividends in any office and qualify you for top management jobs in a myriad of fields.Pick up The Complete Six Sigma Training & Certification Bundle for $59 today. Read the rest

I never know where our conversations are going to go when I get together with my friend Mark of Cardhouse. His tastes are more esoteric than the average person and I'm always surprised and amused by what he shares with me. So, we had lunch Wednesday. Somehow Dunkin' Donuts came up. He asked me if I had remembered when he posted about Donkey Donald's (in 2013). I hadn't. He explained.He cited a Tumblr written by two NYC concierges in which they shared funny stories about their job. The blog is called how may we hate you? and their "Donkey Donald's" story is as follows:Then he tells me that, back in 2013, he reworked the Dunkin' Donuts logo to become, of course, the Donkey Donald's logo (lead image). Then he says when Dunkin' Donuts changed its name to simply Dunkin' recently, he updated his Donkey Donald's logo to simply Donkey (because, of course):pic.twitter.com/a5JcbYUCQp— Cardhouse (@cardhouse) September 27, 2018Talk about playing the logo long game! Read the rest

Buy a single item at CVS and you can end up with a 4'-6'-long ribbon of register tape, a kind of orgy of coupons and come-ons.The phenomenon of the farcically long CVS receipt goes back to 2008 or so, when the company started buying data-mining services to plumb its customer loyalty card data, generating coupons on the fly.This apparently worked -- for a while. But stimulus regresses to the mean (AKA: we get used to stuff) and so CVS needed to do more to get the same yield, and other companies started printing their own super-long receipts, poisoning the well by getting us all more adapted to (and thus unimpressed by) the phenomenon.Register coupons have a long and weird history. Getting a coupon into the hands of someone who is likely to use it is hard because most people won't use most coupons. Consumer packaged goods companies like Unilever and P&G have spent decades experimenting with getting grocers to hand coupons out to people who are cashing out, on the grounds that someone who is buying groceries has a high probability of being the kind of person who buys groceries. But the problem is, someone who has just bought groceries is also likely to be someone who won't need to buy groceries for a while.There are lots of complicating factors here: the richer you are, the more willing you might be to try a new product (if you're poor and you buy a laundry detergent you don't end up liking, you can't necessarily afford to throw it away and go back to your old brand) -- but rich people are also less coupon-clippy, meaning that register coupons (intended to entice the purchaser into trying something new, because you don't need to convince someone to buy a product that they already routinely purchase) are more likely to go into their garbage than an envelope that is put aside for the next shopping trip. Read the rest

London is increasingly a city on two wheels: it's huge, it's congested, and gasoline is comically expensive. Thieves are targeting bike couriers, taking their mopeds and scooters for single-time use in subsequent crimes (such as robberies), and this BBC investigation shows how violent they're getting with victims. We’ve all got used to having food delivered to our doorsteps at all hours of the day and night. But spare a thought for the delivery riders, because they’re frequently finding themselves the target of armed bike and moped gangs, who attempt to steal their delivery vehicles to use to commit further crimes. To reveal just how dangerous it can be out there, we armed some of these drivers with cameras. Chris Rogers has the story.As a former Londoner now living in America, I have to admit that I can't imagine this sort of casual, push-you-off-your-bike theft here. Americans call it a "polite society" but that's just their way of describing an "I will blow your head off if you come within 10 feet of my bike" society. The result is an insane yet normalized pandemic of gun violence, but hey, at least no-one is going to try and nick your motorcycle at the lights.Some of the scenes are so amazing it seems like fiction. The police are so useless that couriers themselves are forming gangs to retaliate against thieves. It's like the first scene of Akira, but on little scooters going "iiiiiiiiiiiiiii!" and all they want to do is deliver lunch. Read the rest

I've only scratched the surface of former NPR producer Ian Chillag's podcast Everything is Alive but I'm already tickled by it. The premise: serious interviews with inanimate objects. So far, Louis (a can of cola), Maeve (a lamppost), Dennis (a pillow), Tar (a bar of soap), Ana (an elevator), and Paul (a tooth), have had their time in the limelight. Listen in here.(Waxy) Read the rest

Someone checked in on Bing search and the results aren't pretty. At some point it became a sewer of racism, antisemitism, pedophilia and conspiracy theories—and that's just the recommendations.The BBC reports:In his investigation, Mr Hoffman looked up racially-themed terms and found that the majority of suggestions for further searches that accompanied results pointed people to racist sites or images.Racist memes and images were also returned for many of the words he tried."We all know this garbage exists on the web, but Bing shouldn't be leading people to it with their search suggestions," wrote Mr Hoffman.It is believed that the suggestions for further searches connected to these terms have emerged from a combination of user activity and concerted action by far-right groups to skew responses.Everyone's mad at Microsoft for not giving a shit (and it has promised to start giving a shit), but it is instructive to see such a huge-scale mirror image of what the algorithms think we want to see--and what we are are searching for.More fun Chris Hoffman found on Bing: Read the rest

Caltech researchers developed the illusion above to illustrate postdiction, a sensory phenomenon "in which a stimulus that occurs later can retroactively affect our perceptions of an earlier event." From Caltech Matters:"Illusions are a really interesting window into the brain," says first author Noelle Stiles (PhD '15), a visitor in biology and biological engineering and a postdoctoral scholar–research associate at USC. "By investigating illusions, we can study the brain's decision-making process. For example, how does the brain determine reality with information from multiple senses that is at times noisy and conflicting? The brain uses assumptions about the environment to solve this problem. When these assumptions happen to be wrong, illusions can occur as the brain tries to make the best sense of a confusing situation. We can use these illusions to unveil the underlying inferences that the brain makes...."Postdictive processing has been demonstrated within individual senses, but this work focuses on how the phenomenon can bridge multiple senses. The key to both of the new illusions is that the audio and visual stimuli occur rapidly, in under 200 milliseconds (one-fifth of a second). The brain, trying to make sense of this barrage of information, synthesizes the stimuli from both senses to determine the experience, using postdiction to do so. Read more in the researchers' scientific paper: "What you saw is what you will hear: Two new illusions with audiovisual postdictive effects" (PLoS ONE) Read the rest