Boing Boing

It's not great footage, being video of a video monitor recorded with a potato, but it's a quality bridge collapse with no apparent fatalities and one of the most cinematic escapes reality might provide: keep your eye on the person waiting for the train in the bottom right of the shot, next to the pillar.Machtrans of the Russian caption:On 09.10.2018 in the morning, there was a collapse of a CAR BRIDGE THROUGH A TRANSIB. A few more cars were miraculously managed to drive. The Russian Railways employee was born in a shirt! I almost died under this bridge! Angel keeps it! Read the rest

In 2015, Parker Kane's performance of dubstep on a McDonald's cup went viral (video below). On Sunday, Kane returned to the same McDonald's in Rexburg, Idaho for the above encore. Read the rest

Described as "a transient bazaar that is not publicly announced, where nothing is for sale, and very little trace can be found of it afterward," it's been nearly 10 years since the first Lost Horizon Night Market hit New York City. Since then, this quirky underground event has popped up in other cities worldwide.This past weekend it was back in Brooklyn.Gothamist's Oriana Leckert went: At a moment when the world seems to be going in a bleaker, more dangerous direction than at any point in our lifetimes, this is a night where New York’s most unusual spectacle-makers gather to share a few hours of pure weirdness and joy.The Night Market is a shadowy affair, a truly underground, immersive occasion at a time when both those words have been so overused as to be rendered nearly meaningless. There is no mailing list to sign up for or Facebook page to “like”; one only learns of the sporadic soirée through word of mouth, and the market’s location, different each time, is not revealed until the day of. The only instruction truck proprietors receive is to create an interactive art piece within the vehicle’s four walls...Saturday’s market, situated on two dimly lit blocks in industrial Bushwick, included 19 trucks, ranging from very simple to hilariously convoluted concepts. Each engendered its own atmosphere, engulfing visitors in a tiny world that was consuming enough to let people forget about the real one for a little while...Read more: Photos: A Secret Box Truck Art Carnival Materialized Briefly In Brooklynphotos by Alix Piorun for Gothamist, used with permissionGlitter gun fight Read the rest

The Internet Archive now offers in-browser emulation of more than 13,000 Commodore 64 floppy disks. The Sentinel, Paradroid, Oregon Trail, Wasteland... they're all there, waiting for you.Software Library: C64 (Internet Archive) Read the rest

On Sunday evening, SpaceX launched a satellite on a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Visual Burrito created this beautiful time-lapse, 4K video of the spectacle in the sky. Read the rest

UN Ambassador Nikki Haley might well be the only person in the Trump administration you actually like. Nikki Haley will no longer be part of the Trump administration, if Axios's sources are wise.President Trump has accepted Nikki Haley's resignation as UN Ambassador, according to two sources briefed on their conversation. The timing of her departure is still unclear, the president promised a "big announcement" with her at 10:30 a.m.Reuters:U.S. President Donald Trump has accepted the resignation of U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Axios news site reported on Tuesday, citing two sources familiar with the matter. Haley would not confirm the report to Reuters when asked.Photo: Shutterstock. Read the rest

The Telegraph-Journal is a newspaper in New Brunswick, Canada. It is owned by the Irvings, among Canada's richest industrialists. Yesterday, an oil refinery owned by the Irvings exploded. Here's how the Telegraph-Journal covered it. [via]Today I learned that yesterday was Thanksgiving in Canada. Read the rest

This looks great. For the San Francisco History Association, John Law is giving a presentation on "How Everything Started in San Francisco (While We All Thought We Were Just Fooling Around)" at Congregation Sherith Israel on Tuesday, October 30.Here are the details:John Law will discuss how the Free University movement and other pivotal former scenes, including the hippies, Beats, Situationists, Dada, adventure and pulp fiction, B-films, and a ton of other stuff prominently influenced San Francisco (and national) scenes. He will also examine related influences on the rise of Silicon Valley and its connection to the SF underground “art” scene.John Law has been involved in the S.F. underground art and pranks scene since 1977. He co-founded the Billboard Liberation Front and the Burning Man Festival, and has crewed for Survival Research Labs and S.F. Cyclecide. He was an original member of the infamous San Francisco Suicide Club, and helped to establish the Cacophony Society. He is the coauthor of Tales of the San Francisco Cacophony Society (out in paperback from Last Gasp in 2019), the definitive history of the group that birthed Burning Man and SantaCon (sorry 'bout that one!) and influenced underground culture worldwide. He is owner and steward of the Doggie Diner Dog Heads, the ten-foot-tall, six hundred pounds (each) fiberglass symbols of an iconic post-computer-age San Francisco. He lives in North Beach and has an office atop the signature Oakland Tribune Tower.Doors open at 7 p.m. with refreshments and a historical book sale; presentation begins at 7:30 p.m. Read the rest

Facebook's newest product is "Portal," a home camera intended to follow you from room to room while you videoconference.The product is presumably overseen by Consumer Hardware VP Andrew Bosworth, last seen telling female Facebook employees to shut the fuck up about the company's top lobbyist throwing a victory party for serial rapist Brett Kavanaugh on the eve of his lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.As Taylor Hatmaker writes on Techcrunch, there's a lot of tone-deafness in the launch of this product. It's not just the obvious creepiness of letting a company that can't go ten minutes without another privacy (or, you know, genocide) scandal breaking put cameras all over your house -- there's also the fact that the company has spent more than a decade making official pronouncements about the foolishness of making its own hardware.Of course, Facebook has made all kinds of promises about respecting user privacy with its new surveillance portals, but as the founders of Instagram and Whatsapp discovered Facebook's promises are all subject to change without notice (other people who discovered this: billions of users who trusted Facebook's promises).This stuff sounds okay, but it’s standard. And, like any Facebook product testing the waters before turning the ad hose on full-blast, it’s all subject to change. For example, Portal’s camera doesn’t identify who you are, but Facebook commands a powerful facial recognition engine and is known for blurring the boundaries between its major products, a habit that’s likely to worsen with some of the gatekeepers out of the way. Read the rest

When Facebook hired Joel Kaplan to serve as Vice President for US Public Policy, who could have predicted that he would turn out to be a far-right partisan who would embarrass the company by throwing a victory bash for a serial rapist on the occasion of his being handed a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court?After all, Kaplan's previous career -- serving as Deputy Chief of Staff in the George W Bush White House -- abetted an endless war (a war that's now older than some of the soldiers dying in it), cruel cuts to social services, funding religious cults to replace social programs, doubling down on mass incarceration, so much torture, even more mass surveillance, and innumerable other sins that can be loosely sorted into two piles, one labeled "war crimes" and the other, "crimes against humanity." But not appointing actual rapists to the Supreme Court, after all.Kaplan was a vocal supporter of Kavanaugh throughout the confirmation process (they both served in the Bush White House and might have enjoyed a beer or two hundred during their joint tenure); he prominently situated himself behind the judge during the hearings, as if to ensure that Facebook's officials were publicly seen to be supporting the rapist's bid for the highest judicial office in the land. After all, as Kaplan told his reports at Facebook, "I have known Brett and Ashley Kavanaugh for 20 years. They are my and my wife Laura’s closest friends in D.C. I was in their wedding; he was in ours. Read the rest

From the outset, folks suspected the self-shredding Banksy painting was a planned media stunt. After all, Sothebys hung it on the wall instead of the customary easel, allowing the shredder to function, and put it up at the end of the day, so the fuss didn't interrupt other auctions. But the devil is in the details. At Artnome, Jason Bailey sets about myth-busting the shred, right down to the technical challenges of creating such a device. If you thought batteries couldn't last long enough to do the deed, you lose! But if you realized that a row of flatside-up exacto blades aren't going to start clean cuts, pat yourself on the back. Yes, a battery can last for up to 10 years; there are also other plausible theories that do not implicate Sotheby’s Yes, there was a functional shredder (in the loosest sense of the word) Yes, the work was partially pre-shredded and spooled Yes, the device in the video is the one that was used to further shred the painted during the auctionAnd, of course:Had Sotheby’s actually been completely caught off guard by a man with a remote detonation device and large frame concealing electronics making a beeping noise, one would assume they would have jumped into action assuming the worst. Instead, the porters calmly shepherded the work out of the room and returned to the activities of the evening. I assume Sotheby’s was familiar with the person who had the triggering device (if not also familiar with the specifics of the plan). Read the rest

In honor of Indigenous Peoples' Day today, I suggest cranking up the following selections from Light in the Attic's essential Grammy-nominated box set "Native North America (Vol. 1): Aboriginal Folk, Rock, and Country 1966–1985, Morley Loon's "Northland, My Land," and Willie Thrasher's "Spirit Child." (top photo: Quebec’s Sugluk) Read the rest

Speaking informally to reporters today, President Donald Trump said he liked Taylor Swift's music “25% less” after she came out in favor of Democratic candidates in America's midterm elections next month. “Let’s just say I like Taylor’s music about 25% less now,” he said, after reporters told him Taylor Swift has come out in support of Democrats.Trump tells us upon arriving back at the White House he likes Taylor Swift’s music but maybe about “25 percent” less now that she has endorsed Bredesen— Kathryn Watson (@kathrynw5) October 8, 2018Below, Tay-Tay's instagram post that's making all the commotion. View this post on Instagram I’m writing this post about the upcoming midterm elections on November 6th, in which I’ll be voting in the state of Tennessee. In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now. I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country. I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG. I believe that the systemic racism we still see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent. I cannot vote for someone who will not be willing to fight for dignity for ALL Americans, no matter their skin color, gender or who they love. Read the rest

“I modified a standard Nintendo Switch game case to hold up to 24 games,” says IMGURian MrJspeed, who provides a killer step-by-step HOWTO for gamers who'd like to try this instead of buying a multi-game carrying case.“There are similar products online, but they're very bulky and don't have the game density that this has. This is a great way for us to get to our games at the house by only grabbing one case.” Here's the step-by-step.Modify your Nintendo Switch game case to hold up to 24 games[via] Read the rest

I'm coming to Chicago for this week's installment of the Censorship and Information Control During Information Revolutions seminar series, and while I'm in town, I'm appearing at Volumes Book Cafe (1474 N. Milwaukee) for the regular Deep Dish reading series, on November 11 at 7PM. Read the rest

There's no better way to beat the heat on your next beach vacation than to hold on for dear life while being blown around by the power of a jet engine. Read the rest

Last week, we warned you about a couple of ugly, low-rent bugs baked into Apple's decidedly high-falooting iPhone Xs and iPhone Xs Max. A number of users, including Lewis Hilsenteger of Unbox Therapy fame, have reported that the handset has a hella hard time, in certain circumstances, recharging. If you plug in a Lightning cable while the phone's in standby, there's a good chance that it's not going to be juiced up. Given the high price of ownership associated with Apple's latest smartphones, that's twelve different flavors of bullshit. Fortunately, Apple agrees and has come up with a software fix for the issue, as well as one for poor cellular connectivity reported by a whack of the new iPhone's owners. From The Verge:Apple has issued an update to iOS 12, which fixes several bugs that have plagued iPhone XS and XS Max users since the phones were released. The IOS 12.0.1 update is available to download now in Settings —> General —> Software Update on your iPhone or iPad.The update should fix one of the biggest issues on the iPhone XS and XS Max: users reported poor Wi-Fi reception compared to their previous iPhone X devices when used in their homes, but it doesn’t address the separate LTE issues. It also resolves the widespread issue of iPhone XS devices requiring to be unlocked before recognizing the Lightning cable charger.So, if you've got a handset giving you guff, get on it.Image: Apple Read the rest

These candies have been around for awhile in Japan, but I can't help but think that with the slime craze that's been all over Youtube for the last few years, kids in other countries might truly appreciate the ooey gooey goodness of Japanese Nerunerunerune candies.The company Kracie was established in Japan in 1887 as the Tokyo Cotton Trading Company. It produces everything from pharmaceuticals to cosmetics to -- you guessed it -- candy.But what is special about Kracie's super cute sweets is that they are actually do-it-yourself treats. The two I made are called Nerunerunerune (kneading, kneading, kneading). Powder is shaken into a plastic receptacle, water is measured and stirred in, beautiful colors are made (lavender and yellow in my case). Next, a second package is added and the vigorous kneading or stirring occurs. The goop changes colors again. It fluffs up and turns into very fragrant slime! Finally, the dollops of sticky goodness can be dipped into either rainbow-colored crushed pop rocks or tiny sweet tarts and eaten. It feels a bit like child alchemy. Yummy, yummy, sweet and sticky child alchemy. Read the rest

It's Columbus Day: a holiday slapped together to celebrate a raping, murdering, plunder-horny opportunist that's been dead for hundreds of years. Columbus, Ohio? It was named after the gold loving bastard. Despite this, for the first time since the city's founding in 1812, Columbus Day won't be celebrated there. Instead, the city's government has opted to throw the days off that are typically allotted to the holiday at something far more important: honoring the United States' veterans. From AP News:Ohio’s capital city, population 860,000, will be open for business Monday after observing Columbus Day probably “for as long as it had been in existence,” said Robin Davis, a spokeswoman for Democratic Mayor Andrew Ginther. City offices will close instead on Veterans Day, which falls on Nov. 12 this year.“We have a number of veterans who work for the city, and there are so many here in Columbus,” Davis said. “We thought it was important to honor them with that day off.” And, she said, the city doesn’t have the budget to give its 8,500 employees both days off, she said.The way that city of Columbus gave the shaft to Columbus Day is absolutely genius. According to the AP, instead of having a public vote over whether or not the city should abolish the observation of the holiday--something that has, in other locales, drawn protests, and a whack of political moaning--they opted to announce, late last week, that they were shifting the city's stock of holiday hours from the contentious holiday to be used on Veteran's Day in November. Read the rest

Passengers were robbed of jewelry and cash while they were sleeping during a 13-hour flight from Johannesburg to Hong Kong on South African Airways (SAA). Two of the passengers informed the flight attendants, and one passenger said they suspected a few passengers who had been rifling through the overhead bins while people slept. The attendants called the police.Once the plane landed, the police came onboard and the suspects were asked to remain while the other passengers were let off the plane. The suspects were searched, but none of the stolen items were found on them. However, after they left, the items mysteriously appeared on the suspects' and robbed passengers' seats. The suspects were not arrested since there was no direct evidence. Apparently, this isn't the first mid-flight robbery of its kind. According to International Business News:In a similar incident in January this year, several passengers onboard a flight bound for Prague from Beijing were robbed by another passenger mid-air. Money was stolen from the luggage stored in the overhead compartments and also from seat pockets.The cabin crew was alerted by one of the victims who discovered her money was missing half an hour before the flight was supposed to land. This prompted the co-passengers to check their luggage during which they discovered their cash was also robbed. And according to The Telegraph:Authorities have previously said how the thieves “scout” their prey before boarding and then place their own bags in the same overhead bins as their targets before rifling through them when the owner is asleep or in the toilet. Read the rest

My friend has a mouse problem and I'm helping her with it. I've been using humane traps to catch the mice, and I just found these highly rated ones on sale: $9 for 2.Here's a video review of how it works: Read the rest

Some guy threw a paper airplane from the nosebleed section of an arena, and the missile hit one of the players on the field far below. Read the rest

Meet Travis and take a tour of Larzland, his magical basement, which is an incredibly detailed recreation of Disneyland's Fantasyland – without the actual rides. He explains how he went to Disneyland by himself and took thousands of pictures so that he could get every little detail right, including cracks, chipped paint and all. Larzland looks like the happiest basement on earth!To see some of his Larzland how-to videos, check out his YouTube channel here. Read the rest

If I came across a sidewalk like this, I would do exactly as this guy did, including the part at the end where he snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.I cheered for him all the way... from r/Unexpected Read the rest

Huffington Post made good use of an old Spy magazine experiment: it called 16 of New York's most snobbish restaurants to find out if any of them would be willing to accommodate Harvey Weinstein and five guests for dinner at 8pm that evening, "something that, for those living outside of high society, is basically unheard of." Many of the restaurants said yes, and Huffington Post ran transcripts of the calls. Here are a couple:Masa: Yes.“I have to check with chef. I’m not 100 percent sure we have enough fish, as our fish is imported from Japan on a daily basis. Allow me a moment please.” [Calls back.] “We can accommodate six guests this evening. However, in order to assure the table will be ready in a timely manner, we can accommodate at 9 p.m.”Dinner for four at Masa could run you $3474.20Minetta Tavern: Hell yes.“We can do 8:30.” OK. “Can I have the last name you’d like on the reservation?” Weinstein. W-E-I-N-S-T-E-I-N. “And the first name please?” Harvey. H-A-R-V-E-Y. “And the telephone number you guys usually book with?” [NUMBER] “Do you guys usually book with the office number?” I’m a new assistant for him. “Oh, OK, OK, because we do see here that he’s one of our preferred guests ... And I do see here that we’re actually able to do that 8 o’clock for him. So he’s all set. Six at eight o’clock, tonight for dinner, at Minetta Tavern. Harvey Weinstein.”The lyrics from The Clash's "White Man in Hammersmith Palais" comes to mind: "If Adolf Hitler flew in today, they'd send a limousine anyway. Read the rest

In Chesapeake, VA, trick-or-treaters over 12 face fines of $25-100 and up to six months in jail (under-12s who trick-or-treat after 8PM face fines of $10-100 and up to 30 days in jail).In Newport News and Norfolk, over-12s who trick-or-treat are "guilty of a Class 4 misdemeanor." Suffolk merely makes over-12 trick-or-treating "against the law." York County requires 10- and 11-year-olds to be accompanied by an adult.These rules are turning a holiday that used to celebrate childhood independence -- out they went, on their own, in "grown-up" clothing, to get to know their neighbors, to get brave by facing the dark, to get goodies by being bold and ringing doorbells -- into an orgy of adult supervision and anxiety. The time frame gets shorter as the regulations grow, all seemingly based on the idea that anyone above age 13 is a potential hooligan, anyone under age 13 is a potential victim, and any semblance of fun must be thrown out faster than a slightly tampered Snickers bar.Any Child Over Age 12 Caught Trick or Treating Can Face 6 Months in Jail: Chesapeake, VA [Let Grow](via Free Range Kids)(Image: Dress Up America) Read the rest

Remember the photos of Shridhar Chillal and his insanely long fingernails that were featured in so many editions of the Guinness Book of World Records? After 66 years, Chillal has cut them off! At the time of the manicure earlier this year, the combined length was 29 feet, 10.1 inches. The nails are now on display at the Ripley's Believe It or Not! Times Square museum. From the always excellent Weird Historian:Now 82 years old, the man from Poona, India started growing out his nails when he was 14 years old. It all began after a teacher chastised him for breaking his long nail. The teacher said Chillal couldn’t understand the severity of the situation because the young student never been committed to anything.He took the challenge seriously.Naturally, Chillal’s nails caused a few issues for him along the way. It made his job as a photographer extra challenging, but a customized handle helped him operate his camera. He couldn’t type. And he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since the ‘50s.(top photo: Mark Hartzman) Read the rest

The latest data from Levada, an independent Russian pollster, finds that support for all Russian political figures, including Vladimir Putin, has plunged, following a shift in the pension system that raised the retirement age by five years.Russia is an economic and political basket case whose frail economy was shattered by declines in oil prices, and the systematic looting of the system by its oligarch class imbued the whole system with a brittleness that has left it struggling to recover.Russia's state really only excels at one thing: manipulating public opinion (which is why it was so easy for so many Americans to believe that Russian political manipulation changed the outcome of the 2016 election. Putin's inner circle is obsessed with opinion polls and has an extensive playbook for tweaking public perception of the Russian state.But the pension shock appears to have exceeded even Putin's capacity to steer the national conversation -- though Putin did manage to salvage something here, by convincing the public that the mismanagement of the Russian state was a sin committed by the entire political class, not just Putin, and thus the entire political system's star has fallen along with Putin's, leaving him the leader of the discredited pack (this is not dissimilar to the Republican tactic of claiming that the US Government is intrinsically corrupt and inept, which gives it cover for its own corruption and ineptitude).The demographics of the newly disenchanted are nevertheless promising: Russia's existing anti-Putin vanguard is young and fearless, while the elderly had lost the revolutionary fervor of 1989 and resigned themselves to living under a corrupt strongman. Read the rest

The Action Lab got a bottle of the much-hyped Black Water and tasted it. Turns out it tastes like plain water, but bitter. (Strike one against it.) It's not black, it's the color of "flat Coke." (Strike two.) It is advertised as "Premium Alkaline Water." According to the New York Times, "there’s no evidence that water marketed as alkaline is better for your health than tap water." (Strike three). The Action Lab then made some black water using the ingredients found in Black Water: humic acid, which is very black, and fulvic acid. According to Self, "neither fulvic acid or humic acid are required in humans." (Strike four.) Read the rest

Starting Thursday, Singapore Airlines will offer a nonstop flight between Singapore to New York, becoming the longest commercial non-stop route at 19 hours in the air. That's 3 hours longer than Quantas Airlines' Pert to London long haul. To handle the distance, Singapore Airlines ordered nearly 50 of Airbus's new A350-900 ULR (for Ultra Long-Range). From CNN:"The A350 is a clean-sheet design that has been designed for those long-range flights," Florent Petteni, Airbus' aircraft interiors marketing director for the A350, tells CNN Travel.All A350s share Airbus' design philosophy that makes the aircraft cabin feel more like a room, rather than a long tube. The plane has high ceilings, sophisticated LED lighting, almost vertical sidewalls and a low noise level.These features, along with a maximum in-cabin simulated altitude of just 6,000 feet, all combine to provide an improved passenger experience, according to Petteni. Read the rest

Tech workers are in demand: companies find it easier to raise cash than to hire engineers; this gives workers enormous bargaining power, and they're using it.From the Google uprisings over a Pentagon babykiller project and a Chinese surveillance project to the Microsoft uprising over ICE contracts, tech workers are emerging as part of the solution -- while their secretive, shareholder-haunted bosses are more and more the problem.It's part of a wider movement to formulate an ethical basis for technical work (here's a list of more than 200 university tech ethics syllabi) and a sense among established and new engineers that their work has an all-important ethical dimension.Such policies have rippled beyond tech companies. In June, more than 100 students at Stanford, M.I.T. and other top colleges signed a pledge saying they would turn down job interviews with Google unless the company dropped its Project Maven contract. (Google said that month that it would not renew the contract once it expired.)“We are students opposed to the weaponization of technology by companies like Google and Microsoft,” the pledge stated. “Our dream is to be a positive force in the world. We refuse to be complicit in this gross misuse of power.”Alex Ahmed, a doctoral candidate in computer science at Northeastern University in Boston, said she organized a student discussion on campus this month to debate whether they should work for tech companies that made decisions they believed to be unethical.“We’re not given an ethics course. Read the rest

Christopher Sadowski is, his lawyers submit, a most accomplished photographer of... Hitler admirer Heath Campbell? The New York-based shooter is threatening to sue the website Something Awful over a photo of the nazi spotted in its forums unless they pay $6750.The unauthorized use of my client's work threatens my client's livelihood. While Christopher Sadowski,[sic] does have the right to bring a lawsuit for damages, my client is willing to settle this in an amicable way, out of court and without a lawsuit. I was asked to contact you and see if we can negotiate a settlement and save everyone the stress and costs of going to court.It turns out, however, that the image isn't actually posted on Something Awful. It's hotlinked from another website, Imgur, which is the image's actual host and the one providing the embedding snippet. It's still there. Sadowski's lawyers, Higbee & Associates, haven't figured it out—or maybe they have, but removing the image isn't the business plan.Rich Kyanka (pictured above) explains:This garbage dicked law firm generates nearly $5 million a year by encouraging photographers to sign up with their company, then performing a reverse image search for anything matching their client's submitted photos. An automated system then flags the suspected offending site, spits out a super scary legal threat based off a template, and delivers it to the site owner. Upon receiving the notice of possible legal action, many victims freak out and pay these idiots the stated arbitrary amount of cash, under the looming threat of being taken to court for $150,000. Read the rest

Control Panel is a fantastic visual blog "in praise of dials, toggles, buttons, and bulbs," a companion to the Control Panel group on Flickr. Read the rest

Currently undergoing clinical trials, the Vibrant capsule is a tiny vibrator inside a capsule that you swallow to relieve constipation. Don't worry though because according to the web site, "the capsule is controlled by an algorithm." Whew. From Vibrant Ltd:Constipation relief is achieved by the capsule’s vibrations on the large intestinal wall, consequently inducing natural peristaltic activity, generating additional spontaneous bowel movements.The capsule is activated by a base unit that transfers the data to the capsule.The capsule operates inside the large intestine and is washed out of the body with the bowel movement. It meets the highest safety standards, using biocompatible materials. Read the rest

A packed strech limo blew a stop sign and crashed in upstate New York on Sunday, killing all 18 people in the car and 2 pedestrians. It's the worst U.S. road accident in a decade, reports the AP. The 2001 Ford Excursion limousine was traveling southwest on Route 30 in Schoharie, about 170 miles north of New York City, when it failed to stop at 2 p.m. Saturday at a T-junction with state Route 30A, State Police First Deputy Superintendent Christopher Fiore said at a news conference in Latham, New York.It went across the road and hit an unoccupied SUV parked at the Apple Barrel Country Store, killing the limousine driver, the 17 passengers, and two people outside the vehicle.The crash “sounded like an explosion,” said Linda Riley, of nearby Schenectady, who was on a shopping trip with her sisters. She had been in another car parked at the store, saw a body on the ground and heard people start screaming.Authorities "didn't comment on the limo’s speed, or whether the limo occupants were wearing seat belts." The answers will be fast and no, but it's also true that many stretch limos are chopshop deathtraps that cannot be made safe at any speed or at any cost.ABC News:The company which operated the vehicle, Prestige Limousine, has had vehicles inspected five times in the past five years and had four vehicles taken out of service, according to Department of Transportation records. The company had not had any crashes over the last two years, records show. Read the rest

At a concert last night, Insane Clown Posse rapper Shaggy 2 Dope tried and failed to dropkick Limp Bizkit singer Fred Durst in front of a large audience, then was dragged off by security guards. The Bellevue Intelligencer reports:The rockers were performing at the BB&T Pavilion in Camden for the Rock Allegiance festival on Saturday and while Durst was singing Faith ... 2 Dope, real name Joseph Utsler, only made light contact and ended up on his back.There's no word on what beef is at hand between the two men. Various angles of the attack were captured by attendees and posted to social media. Here's a second:(Dropkick is at 2:20)This truly is the worst timeline. Read the rest

There is no political issue more pressing than the official inaction on climate change. With time running out to avert hundreds of millions of deaths and global migration, food, disease, and water chaos, with 73% of US voters believing in climate change (albeit with a mere 57% Read the rest

Nick Shabazz, a knife reviewer with an amused taste for reviewing particularly bad knives, finds one that "really beats the cake." It's the worst knife he has ever seen, a "fractal of terrible knifemaking" whose terribleness is apparent at every point of inspection. The belt clip is in the wrong place. The screws are all different. It's been chamfered after the texture is applied, removing it from the edges. The bolt is chipped. The knife appears to be assymetrical along its length by design. And you wonder, "how can this get worse?" Then you open the knife.I have a thing for terrible knives, but today, we look at a knife which is not only terrible, but gets more terrible the closer you look at it. I present to you, the Master.I found it on Aliexpress, but I'm not linking to it. Just get something from Spyderco. [Amazon] Read the rest

The UN's International Panel on Climate Change is an interdisciplinary expert body comprised of leading scientists who study climate change; they issue periodic reports summarizing the best peer-reviewed science on climate change and making recommendations as to what must be done to avert the most catastrophic outcomes; their latest report is the gravest yet, where even the most optimistic projections of the panel predict disruption and hardship for tens of millions of people, within our lifetimes.That is the most optimistic projection, based on the assumption of an immediate, drastic retooling to reduce greenhouse gas emissions which will hold warming at 1.5' C. A median projection, with temperatures rising to 2' C, involves trillions more in damage and hundreds of millions more people having to migrate, facing extreme weather events and pandemics, and suffering through famines and water shortages.I have had stories about this report in my feed for days and haven't been able to bring myself to write about them, not even to read them in depth. It's hard not to read this and be gripped by despair. But something I heard recently made me feel hope. On the latest Intercepted podcast, NYU history professor Nikhil Pal Singh finishes an address on the history of American empire by saying that Trump -- and the looting, reckless, destructive ideology he embodies -- may not be the beginning of a new, bloodier era of American carnage, but the last blast of the dying regime, the turning point for a better world. Read the rest

Lothar Lenz videotaped Dionaea muscipula making short work of Vespula germanica. Read the rest

Russell M. Nelson, the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, issued a stern warning Sunday to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that under no circumstances was the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be known or described as anything but The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Other names for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are literally a victory of evil over The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.The church’s name “is not negotiable,” he said. “When the savior clearly states what the name of his church should be, and even precedes his declaration with, ‘Thus shall my church be called,' he is serious. And if we allow nicknames to be used and adopt or even sponsor those nicknames ourselves, he is offended.”Using common nicknames such as “Mormon church,” “LDS Church” or the “Church of the Latter-day Saints,” Nelson said, “ ... is a major victory for Satan.”You can read all about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at its official website, lds.org, also accessible at mormon.org.Photo: screenshot from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints media. Read the rest

The EU's wide-ranging plan for indiscriminate internet censorship has progressed from a vote in the European Parliament and now reps from the EU will meet with reps from the 28 countries that make up the EU to hammer out the final text that will be put to the Parliament for what might be the final vote before it becomes law.Normally this next phase -- the "trilogues" -- would be completely secret. But a European Court of Justice recently ruled that the public has a right to know what happens behind the trilogues' closed doors, and Julia Reda, the German Pirate Party MEP who led the fight over censorship in the new Copyright Directive, has promised to publish all the documents from the trilogues. It's a European first.On EFF's Deeplinks, I describe the bare minimum work the trilogues should do make the the Copyright Directive coherent (it will still be terrible, but at least we'll know what it actually means).As MEP Reda publishes the trilogue documents, we'll be able to see whether any of the people behind this proposal have any intention of limiting the damage these terrible proposals will do to the internet.Ultimately, this is unlikely to survive contact with the European Court of Justice: mass surveillance and mass censorship are just not legal under the EU's constitutional framework, but that won't stop the rules from being imposed and wreaking havoc while we wait for the court to act.The trilogues have it in their power to expand on the Directive's hollow feints toward due process and proportionality and produce real, concrete protections that will minimise the damage this terrible law wreaks while we work to have it invalidated by the courts. Read the rest

Tonight marks the world premiere of the first Doctor Who series in which the Doctor is portrayed by a woman. The limited-edition commemorative Barbie available for pre-order starting tomorrow, exclusively through Forbidden Planet. Read the rest

Lee Martin's clever online Banksy Shredder is hosted as an editable codepen page and does exactly as you would expect. Read the rest

Spreadsheet proficiency isn't just a box to check off on your resume. It's the number one time-saver for any data entry job, human resources manager, inventory specialist or countless other crucial office positions. Don't waste time tinkering with Excel or Google Sheets on your own. Learn both, backward and forwards, with The Excel & Google Sheets Mastery Bundle.Both sections of this comprehensive online course are designed for beginners, but they don't skimp on teaching expert-level tricks of the trade. Access more than 35 hours of lessons and examples, and you'll be guided through the basic functions of the two most popular spreadsheet tools in no time. Before long, you'll be automating tasks, customizing your own formats and writing macros and formulas that will cut your workflow exponentially. In short, you'll spend less time working on spreadsheets and learn how to put them to work for you.Grab The Excel & Google Sheets Mastery Bundle: Lifetime Access for a discounted $19 today. Read the rest