Snow Crash blew my mind when I read it in 1992. It wasn't just Stephenson's fantastic depiction of a global shared virtual reality universe (the Metaverse) that enthralled me, it was his detailed, often-funny world-building -- the United States government shrunken to a useless, paralyzed knot of red tape, Mafia-owned pizza delivery service, America broken up into corporate franchises, paranoid suburban enclaves (burbclaves), skateboard couriers with electromagnetic harpoons to latch onto cars for free rides, hyperinflated trillion-dollar bills being replaced with quadrillion dollar bills (billion dollar bills are cheaper than buying toilet paper)... The novel is a combination of sharp cultural commentary and old fashioned scifi adventure that's as fresh now (I re-read it a few years ago) as it was when it came out over 25 years ago. If you haven't read it, do yourself a favor and pick up the Kindle edition for $2.Background image: Dario Rigon/Shutterstock

In this difficult economy, it's worth doing everything you can to keep from having to visit a doctor or dentist. This gorilla gets it: Instead of booking an appointment, which would cost its troop a boatload of money, it goes on ahead and extracts its own tooth, like a furry boss.

A number of Bank of America customers have reported that their safe deposit boxes have gone missing. Bank of America doesn't have an answer for them.From CBS Sacramento:

Billionaire Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is busy making sure student debt destroys the future of millions of young people. The last thing she needs to worry about is ordering her servants to retrieve one of her family's 10 yachts that some bad person set adrift.

The listing description for this "beautiful top floor 3-level loft condominium located on the border of Western SOMA and Mission District" neglects to mention the best thing about it: the giant fucking beam running through the kitchen.

The Chinese slang term jingfen means "spiritually Finnish." It was coined thanks to the popularity of an online comic called Finnish Nightmares. Liang Chenyu speculates why so many Chinese millennials identify with the comic. (more…)

YouTube pulled four Alex Jones' Infowars videos because they contained hate speech and other content that violated its policies. Infowars was also temporarily prevented from live streaming its content on YouTube. The violation constitutes a "strike." If Infowars gets two more strikes during its 90-day probationary period, YouTube could kick Jones off it platform. It's unlikely that this will happen, though. Jones has almost 2.4 million followers and is therefore an advertising cash cow for YouTube's parent company, Google.From Yahoo

When I’m in Calgary, there’s a coffee shop that I like to work at, located in the Chinook Centre Mall. It’s part of a local chain that knows how to make a great iced latte. I’m not in often, but they know me. They know my face.Apparently, they’re not the only ones. According to the CBC, the management company that tends to Chinook Center Mall, Cadillac Fairview, has been using facial recognition software to track the sex and age of visitors on the down low.From The CBC:

As Kevin Poulsen tweeted, “Tired: Russia's 2016 interference in the presidential election. Wired: Russia's 2018 interference in the midterms.” (more…)

The Signals Network is a nonprofit that supports independent investigative journalism; they're financially supporting a consortium of five international media groups Die Zeit (Germany), Mediapart (France), The Daily Telegraph (UK), The Intercept (US) and WikiTtribune (Global) as they investigate misuse of "big data." (more…)

The U.S. indictment for accused Russian secret foreign agent Maria Butina refers to one of her American contacts as “U.S. Person 2.” Like others having serious legal troubles this week, they shared a love for the NRA. (more…)

Prepare to go to battle... with your whiskers!Stubble doesn't stand a chance against this super-sharp handcrafted warrior axe straight razor by Ukranian company Magic Ethnics. It sells for $125 and comes with a rustic wooden box:(Dude I Want That)

The fine folks who created the world's blackest black now have a sprayable version that adheres to most stable surfaces. To demonstrate, they sprayed two bronze masks, one on the inside and one on the outside, producing an interesting optical illusion. (more…)

This Bear Butt camping hammock saved my Fourth of July.(more…)

Thwarting Darwinism, or, more likely, a pair of earbuds, a cop from the Perth Amboy Police Department in New Jersey, hauled ass to save a man from being smooshed by a train--and it was all caught on the officer's body camera. Why anyone, unless they were in some emotional distress, would decide that walking down a set of train tracks oblivious to an oncoming locomotive was a good idea is beyond me. Fortunate for the fella in the video, the police officer that came to his rescue was in good enough physical shape that he was able to sprint with the 20 pounds of gear that most cops wear, without slowing him down.

All televisions on Air Farce One may only be tuned to FOX News! ONLY FOX NEWS!!!!Via The Week:

Farhad Manjoo (previously) writes in the New York Times about his cautious optimism that the big platforms are finally taking some steps to prevent harassment, but he also worries that this is setting the stage for a new era in tech, one in which the rules guarantee that Big Tech never has to worry about being challenged by upstarts. (more…)

Last month, while I was in Boston on assignment, my EIC took me out for lunch. Impossible Foods’ Impossible Burger was on the menu at the joint we went to. I had my doubts, as I ordered the thing, but it seemed like a rare opportunity to try the hard-to-find lab-grown burger that I shouldn’t pass up. It was absolutely delicious. Thanks to the FDA’s declaration that all of the ingredients in the Impossible patty are safe to consume, for most everyone, we might start seeing the plant-based meat in the wild a whole lot more often. It’s not that there was anything poisonous or specifically dangerous in an Impossible Burger patty. Rather, to make their ‘meat,’ Impossible Foods used a part of the soybean plant that no one’s every really thought to eat before: the root. From Engadget:

College football rivalries are taken seriously in the South. But, you'd think when fans of two rival teams wed, they'd come to a truce. This is not what happened with newlyweds Bekka and Johnny.The bride, Bekka, roots for LSU but the groom, Johnny, is an Alabama fan. At their wedding, Bekka gifted Johnny with a special "A" for Alabama cake, except that when he cut it Johnny realized he had been trolled by his new wife. Crazy sportsballers! The full story is here.(Neatorama)

Analysts predicted that Facebook would average 1.48B daily users, but their latest quarterly figures showed only 1.47B dailies; their projected earnings were $1.33B, but they only turned in $1.32B, and they were expected to earn $5.97/user but only earned $5.95/user -- and so their shares dropped 24% (they're slightly up from that, but still down 20%). (more…)

Two New Jersey radio hosts were suspended by their station today after directing racist remarks at the state's attorney general, Gurbir Grewa.Dennis Malloy and Judi Franco of WKXW-FM called Grewa "turban man" for the length of a segment about the nation's first Sikh to hold the position, because Malloy "couldn't remember" his name."I'm just going to say the guy with the turban,” Malloy said. "Listen, and if that offends you then don't wear the turban and maybe I'll remember your name."

Redditor cobalt_brightside posted this giant, novelty on/off switch lamp that has a hilarious, tiny, functional on/off switch to control the lamp.

HOPE -- Hackers on Planet Earth -- is 2600 Magazine's venerable, much-loved hacker conference in NYC, a bastion of progressive politics whose 2018 installment was slated to be the most progressive yet, with discussions scheduled on countering alt-right trolling, consent, sexual harrassment, and the rights of sex-workers. (more…)

Ain't nothing keeping these two from playing together, not even a fence.ABC News:

Contrary to what you might think, learning how to code isn't the only way to boost your salary. While demand for hard tech skills, like coding and data science, is through the roof, there are far easier—and less expensive—ways to enhance your pay. Learning Excel can give you the pay bump you're looking for, and you won't have to sit through a pricey bootcamp to certify your skills (more on that later).Learning Excel and other basic programs can qualify you a myriad of positions opening in today's digital workforce. According to a report from Burning Glass, more than 8 out of 10 positions require core digital skills like using Microsoft Excel; and they average payouts of more than $20/hour. What's more, taking the time to learn these digital skills can put you on the pathway to higher-paying middle and high-skill jobs.https://www.youtube.com/embed/mU8gWSbWT-cHow to start learning ExcelSimply going through some tutorials and putting "proficient in Microsoft Excel" on your resume isn't going to necessarily qualify you for these positions, however. In addition, to understanding Excel's functions and applications, having the right certifications makes you a much more appealing candidate. To this end, eLearnExcel: The Microsoft Excel Master Certification Bundle is your greatest asset.Ideal for those looking to get past Microsoft Excel's infamous learning curve, this 9-course collection features more than 28 hours of actionable content that will take you from the essentials to more nuanced concepts. You'll start with the fundamentals, like navigating the Excel interface and formatting cells. Then, you'll tackle more advanced applications, like visualizing your data with charts and tables and even automating your spreadsheets with powerful macros.You'll also earn a number of CPD certifications upon completing the collection, giving you powerful bargaining chips that you can add to your resume and get an edge over the competition.The eLearnExcel: The Microsoft Excel Master Certification Bundle was on sale for $39, but it's available at a new price drop this week. You can pick up the collection this week and start learning Excel for only $29.

Ross Edgley is swimming all the way around Britain, which is being followed both above and below the ocean's surface. A large minke whale visited him the other day. (more…)

Big Toast is an anthropomorphic slice of toast who like to slather himself with butter and pines for his ex-girlfriend, a fried egg. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur-K0sCHcSkAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez (previously) stunned the Democratic establishment when she comprehensively kicked the ass of finance-friendly, seemingly untouchable Democrat-in-name-only incumbent Joe Crowley in a New York City primary race that she won on a Democratic Socialist platform of abolishing ICE, Medicare for all, a jobs guarantee, a housing guarantee, gun control, relief for Puerto Rico, and gun control. (more…)

Based on their 2018 Global Slavery Index, the Walk Free Foundation estimates there are about 403,000 humans living in the United States under conditions that meet the definition of slavery. (more…)

Lala Abaddon takes her lovely photos and cuts them into long strips, then weaves them with another set of strips to create striking geometric patterns. (more…)

Deadwood fans have been teased by rumors and malarkey about a final season or a movie that would tie up the loose ends of the series, for years. Back in 2015, the whispers about a Deadwood movie going into production grew from whispers to a quiet mumble. Then, in 2017, Deadwood creator David Milch said that he'd completed a script that'd appeal to the show's followers and new viewers alike. Fast forward one more year to 2018: a whole twelve years after the last episode of season three went to air. According to The Hollywood Reporter, HBO has finally announced that production on a Deadwood movie will start this October. Tell your God to prepare for blood!If you're not familiar with the show, love blood, excellent writing, complex characters and dark humor, you need to get on it. During its three-season run, Deadwood chalked up eight Emmy Awards for its portrayal of the life and drama surrounding the citizens of Deadwood, South Dakota in the 1870s. While the show's roots are rooted in the Old West, at a time when outlaws and gunfighters still held sway, the story lines covered over the series' 36 episodes are more Shakespearean in scope than Spaghetti Western. If Deadwood sounds like your thing, you're in luck: it's currently streaming on HBO Go, Amazon Prime Video, and can be bought outright on iTunes, Google Play or as a DVD or Blu-ray box set from Amazon for under $50.Image via HBO

A new twist on an old email scam making the rounds addresses its recipients by name and uses an actual password (hopefully deprecated). They attempt to blackmail victims, and it's definitely a little anxiety-inducing to see an old password written out. (more…)

Godzilla 2: King of the Monsters continues the trend of making classical music EPIC by turning Claude Debussy's "Clair de Lune" into a spine-tingling blast of EPICness. Here's just the track as a standalone: (more…)

Just because books are lauded today, doesn't mean they weren't, in their own time, received with anger, fear, and disdain. Some of the most valuable works of literature we have got their start amidst disgrace and outrage, though in the long run at least, they didn't seem to suffer too much for it.

This summer, I have been working as an intern at a company called Switch Science in Tokyo, Japan. I am writing about my experience here in the form of blog posts, and you can find my first post here.On Thursday last week, I was given a thermal camera to work with along with my M5Stack. My goal was to connect them together and display the thermal data in the form of a picture on the M5Stack’s screen. The thermal camera was called the MLX90640 by Melexis. After briefly reading about it, I was confident that I knew where to connect the wires and which I2C address to use, but I quickly realized that the size of the pins on the thermal camera were too small to connect to the wires’ pins. Although I could plug them into each other, the connection would only work properly half of the time. So my coworker Kazunori helped me by cutting the end of the wires and soldering them straight to the camera’s pins. It seemed to connect well, and I continued trying to figure out how to display the data from it.Then, Monday morning, the camera suddenly stopped connecting. I spent a few hours trying to figure this out on my own before I asked Kazu for help. He suggested we try to connect a different camera, but no cigar. We also tried a different Arduino sketch made by a different person, but it also didn’t work. Eventually, we tried using a different, brand new M5Stack, and it connected!But then a few minutes later it stopped connecting again.Due to this issue having already taken a full work day and being pretty inconsistent, I decided to quit the project and start something new.On Tuesday, I got to the office wondering what to work on. I opened my backpack to grab my stuff, and saw both my old M5Stack and my new one from Monday. This gave me the idea to make a game involving both M5Stacks. I decided to create a simple Rock Paper Scissors game where players would each select their option on their M5Stack and then the screen would display who won. Truth be told, I was a bit cocky and thought I could finish this project in just one work day, but this was not the case.I worked with my M5Stack and my computer’s serial port in order to simulate the other player’s M5Stack because it was easier than continuously uploading new code, unplugging the M5Stack, uploading it to the second M5Stack, unplugging that one, and then plugging them to each other. I’d rather just run it while it was still connected to my computer and then simulate the other M5Stack manually on Arduino’s serial port. Therefore, at the end of the day, when I thought my game was working great, I was a bit surprised to see that when I uploaded the code to both devices and played them against each other, it was an absolute mess.I honestly cannot describe what the error was that prevented my game from working, as I think there were many. I was overwhelmed to say the least, and the next day I was not very motivated to figure this out. I got a bit of work done, but I was tired and it went slowly. At least I got it from looking like a meme of sorts to being coherent, although still not what I wanted. Some values would persist even after the round ended and all variables were supposed to be reset, but nothing was consistent. For example, sometimes you could choose rock, paper, or scissors, and it would tell you if you won or lost without the opponent even picking their choice yet. Other times, the opponent’s status would read as “READY” from the beginning of the round (it should only turn to “READY” after the opponent makes their choice), and then when you picked your choice it would just continue saying “READY” instead of revealing the opponent’s choice.Then, this morning, I decided I was going to finish making this game before lunchtime. I did quite a bit of stuff, but by the end, the trick was to make a “value monitor” and add it to my reset function that ran before / after each round.I was finally able to see that the “oppChoice” integer (if the other player chose rock, paper, or scissors) would continue switching values between your choice and the other players choice after the first round, even when the reset function played. This was because the serial input (“mailbox[0]”) kept on reading these values off when it should not have. I was finally able to acknowledge and fix this issue (it would take another few paragraphs to explain, and I’ll save you that catastrophe) and the game finally WORKED! (See photo at top of this post.)I am not saying it is perfect, as the player must hold down their choice for a second for it to register and the results are not well centered, but I will continue to fix these issues and get my project to the best state that it can be in, even if it is just Rock Paper Scissors.I will continue to post about my internship in the near future! Thanks for sticking around.

For years, I’ve kept a tomahawk on hand. It accompanies me into the bush, lives next to my side of the bed when we’re staying in sketchy areas for protection, and has traveled with me to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Spain, across Canada and the United States. As I live in a 40-foot RV, I consider it to be as vital a piece of safety gear as the fire extinguishers we keep in the front and rear of the vehicle. A good tomahawk can be used to quickly breach walls, doors or windows – an important ability to have, if we ever find ourselves trapped in our rig in a way that keeps us from its only door and two escape windows. I tell anyone who asks me about it to keep one in their emergency preparedness kit or buyout bag: during Hurricane Harvey, some folks were only able to avoid flood waters by getting to their roof through a hole cut in it with an axe. Others weren’t so lucky. What I’m getting at is while a tomahawk or axe is often seen as a weapon – some are, by design – they can also be used as a safety tool which, once you have one, you’ll find countless uses for. So, today for show and tell, I want to talk about my new tomahawk. Last month, Daniel Winkler of Winkler Knives gifted me a Medic Axe—one of the new designs that he’s recently churned out. It’s a simple piece of cutlery, but damned if it isn’t a piece of art. First, let me get this out of the way. There is no way I could afford to buy one of Daniel’s tomahawks or axes. Each one is crafted by hand and takes a few weeks to make. They’re priced accordingly. Winkler Knives sells the Medic Axe for $650. I would be skinned alive for spending that much money on a tool in the life that I have now. 20 years ago? Different story. But the quality of the tool that you get for the asking price is exceptional. I’ve owned a lot of blades, axes and tomahawks over the years. Some were lost. Some were left behind. A number of them broke while being used. This tomahawk has a different feel and heft than anything I’ve ever handled. It smells different than anything else I’ve ever used. While there’ll be hundreds of other Medic Axes made in the coming years, there’s something very fine in the knowledge that this one was made just for me. Being as the goods I use are seldom bespoke, I don’t know if this is a typical reaction to owning such an object. If you’ve got thoughts on this let me know.The Medic Axe has a 6" head length with a blade thickness of 3/8". Overall, it’s 13-3/4" long. It’d be a heavy carry, were it not for the fact that its full tang is both tapered and Skeletonzied: a design choice that maintains strength while reducing the tool’s weight. The end of the handle comes with a ‘can opener,’ designed for punching holes in materials and manhandling them into bigger holes. Just underneath its head, the handle is wrapped in paracord. It’s a smart design decision in that, when you’re chopping away at a door, wall, tree or whatever, there’s a chance that the area underneath the head is going to see some wear and tear. Should the paracord section of the handle get messed up, the tool isn’t ruined – you just swap the old paracord out for some new stuff. The paracord and the contours of the tang underneath it make holding the Medic Axe just underneath its head comfortable to do. This makes doing fine cutting work a whole lot easier, especially if you’re using a tomahawk in place of a knife. As for the rest of the handle, there’s a number of different scale materials that you could go with. Mine came with Maple scales. The wood’s smooth, but not so smooth that it’ll slip out of your hand while using it. When I asked Daniel about how he finds a balance between functionality and aesthetics when he’s designing something like the Medic Axe, he told me, “over the past 30 or so years I have found that if you follow function, form will easily follow. Also unnecessary embellishment that effects functionality can distract from the overall design flow.” It’s a philosophy that oozes through the axe’s design. I’ve had the opportunity to use it out in the bush a number of times since it came to me. Nothing dramatic: firewood collection, bushwhacking and the like. It hangs on my belt next to my bear spray. When I need it, the quick draw sheath (although it took some working in, initially) makes it easy to ready it for use. I’ll be taking it with me on a very sketchy trip later this year (more on that once the details are firmed up), where I hope it won’t find much use. Even if all I end up doing is rubbing gun oil on its 80CrV2 steel to keep it from rusting, for the rest of my life, I’m so pleased to own this thing.

A whistleblower inside the Columbus, Ohio Police Department forwarded a series of smoking-gun emails between high-ranking Columbus police detectives and vice officers that reveal Stormy Daniels arrest for allowing undercover vice squad members to touch her in a strip club was premeditated. (more…)

https://youtu.be/9_X6ebPIzE0From Fresno to all over the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond, three women have been sauntering into Lululemon stores, stuffing large tote bags with as much clothing as they can, and taking off with up to $17,000 worth of merch. And they do this right in front of the store's employees and customers, including kids.It's not clear whether the thieves in Fresno are the same people who are stealing in Berkeley (at least 3 times at the same store), Stanford, Walnut Creek, San Mateo, and other locations, but in all cases they've made it out of the store without a hitch. Why so easy? One reason is because at Lululemon, "Employees are not allowed to confront or chase thieves due to a company policy," according to CNN.So far no one has been arrested.Via CNN and San Francisco Chronicle

Oksana Shachko (right in photo) the 31 year old Ukrainian co-founder of a feminist Putin protest movement was found dead her Paris apartment. She and other members of her group, Femen, often protested against Putin by appearing nude in public. A suicide note was found next to her body, but foul play can't yet be ruled out, given the history of incidents in which she's been harassed and threatened by pro-Putin groups.From The Guardian:

Facebook's stock price dropped 20% in after hours trading today after it reported disappointing revenue and user growth numbers for the second-quarter. The rest of the year looks gloomy, too. "We expect our revenue growth rates to decline by high single digit percentages from prior quarters sequentially in both Q3 and Q4," said Facebook CFO David Wehner."It turns out there is indeed a direct correlation between data privacy scandals and daily active users on Facebook," Venkat Ramasamy, chief operating officer of FileCloud, told US News and World Report.The question is, will Facebook's newly announced policy to embrace Holocaust deniers on its platform boost user acquisition?

After three months and 33 deaths, the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been declared by the World Health Organization to have come to an end. The loss of 33 lives to the disease is absolutely tragic, but comes close to a miracle when you stop to consider the fact that the last time Ebola broke in West Africa, more than 11,000 people died. The high number of deaths in that instance was due to the fact that The WHO (not the one with Roger Daltrey,) was slow to react to the epidemic last time around, moving slowly to deploy medical resources to the regions that needed it the most. Additionally, no vaccine designed to fight the Ebola virus was put into play until near the end of the outbreak. That wasn’t the case this time.After being tongue lashed for dragging their ass during the last outbreak, The WHO sent specialists to Congo as soon as a handful of cases of Ebola were confirmed, back in May. From the New York Times:

This excellent pizza cutter is not as clumsy or random as our old one.What can I say? We needed a new pizza cutter. This one is modeled on the iconic Darth Vader lightsaber.Underground Toys Star Wars Home Kitchen Pizza Cutter Lightsaber via Amazon

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If you're a dominant near-monopolist like Facebook, your first preference is to have no regulation at all -- but your close second choice is to have lots of regulation that you can afford, but that potential competitors can't, sparing you the tedious exercise of buying and killing any company that might grow up to compete with you some day. (more…)

https://youtu.be/62nDLA_A8gsMIT's How to Win at Texas Hold 'Em is a CC-licensed open course taught by Will Ma in 2016 and now free to watch online; the game is the perfect combination of psych and stats, and learning to play is a great way to improve your basic reasoning skills. (via Kottke)

Matt Webb (previously) is a "weeknoter." That means that once a week, he sits down and sums up all the things he's seen, done, learned and taken note of in the previous week, and makes the result public. (more…)

It's been a year since Equifax doxed the nation of America through carelessness, deception and greed, lying about it and stalling while the problem got worse and worse. (more…)

In a hearing on Capitol Hill today, Former CIA director and Trump's replacement Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says Trump remains upbeat about the prospect of North Korea denuclearization, and that the United States will not recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea. (more…)

Patagonia has long given its employees election day off, but now they're calling on other employers to follow suit. The good eggs at Adafruit heard the message: they're giving all their employees a day off to go and vote.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSJ7du-EC9wElin Ersson is a 21 year old Swedish social work student who boarded a plane at Gothenburg airport yesterday and refused to sit down until an Afghan asylum-seeker who was to be deported that day was offloaded and allowed to remain in Sweden. (more…)