Boing Boing

The median US med-school grad has $195,000 in loans; all 93 of NYU's freshman med-school class will have free tuition for their entire degree program, as will all future students (the 350 currently enrolled students will no longer pay tuition, same goes for the school's 9 grad students) (more…)

The Chinese state crackdown on the predominantly Muslim Uighur minority -- involving the imprisonment and torture of upwards of a million people in brainwashing camps -- isn't limited to China itself. (more…)

The CEO:worker wage ratio was stable in 2015/6, but some unnameable policy or policies, which we can only guess at, were at work in 2017, boosting the gap by 17.6% to 312:1. (more…)

The Adobe Creative Cloud suite is the foundation on which many creatives build their careers, but some of its programs, like Photoshop and InDesign, are notoriously complex, making it difficult for aspiring designers, photographers, and the like to break into their field. But, don't get discouraged. The Pay What You Want: Adobe CC A-Z Lifetime Bundle is packed with 100+ hours of training to get you working with the entire Adobe suite, and it can be yours for a price you pick.Here's how the deal works: Simply pay what you want, and you'll unlock one of the collection's 12 courses. Beat the average price paid, and you'll get the remaining 11 at no extra charge.From animating with After Effects to retouching images in Photoshop, this collection is perfect for beginners looking to develop a working knowledge of the Adobe suite. You'll foster tangible skills as you work your way through real-world projects and explore both the essential and advanced capabilities of each program.The Pay What You Want: Adobe CC A-Z Lifetime Bundle can be yours for a price you pick.

Here's just a few from my searches—in pursuit of the elusive red Canon Typemate—but there are many like them.

Economists like Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna reshaped the world when their theories of "expansionary austerity" were put into effect after the 2008 crisis: the idea that governments could "increase taxes, cut spending, and grow strongly" was powerfully tempting to the world's leaders, who saw in them a way to pull out of a recessionary spiral without limiting the number of yachts the oligarchs they depended on could afford. (more…)

This is really corny (Korny?). UK YouTuber Davie504 was challenged to play Korn with corn. Using popcorn as a guitar pick and corn on the cob on the bass and drums, he plays a memorable Korn medley.If this is your kind of thing, in the past he's played the Red Hot Chili Peppers with, you guessed it, a red hot chili pepper (and also Eminem with M&M's).(COS)

Twenty years ago, the US Patent and Trademark Office granted patent number 6,368,268: "Method and device for interactive virtual control of sexual aids using digital computer networks," a minor classic of a majorly fucked-up genre, the bullshit tech patent that simply adds "with a computer" to some absolutely obvious and existing technology or technique. (more…)

You can befriend crows and, apparently, also train them to pick up trash by rewarding them with food.The Guardian:

WATCH: The Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, honored by the people of New Orleans as only New Orleans can -- with a second line, near Treme. (more…)

An update on the children of migrants who were forcibly separated from their family members by federal agents, at the orders of Donald Trump. (more…)

The EpiPen is a widely used medical device that delivers emergency medication to prevent someone with a severe allergic reaction from going into anaphylactic shock. There's a shortage of EpiPens across the United States. Parents of kids with serious allergies are worried about sending their kids back to school without one. (more…)

An employee who was fired from Tesla's battery factory in Nevada has filed a whopper of a whistleblower complaint with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In it, the former employee accuses Elon Musk's company of spying on employees' cellphones, and failing to act after discovering that a Mexican drug cartel may be dealing meth at the 'Gigafactory'. (more…)

The New York Times reports that 'the Omarosa tapes' have the grifters occupying the White House absolutely terrified. (more…)

Emperor Donald will be super bummed. His $92 million parade is not happening. (more…)

Following the lead of the Boston Globe, close to 350 newspapers across the country ran editorials today in defense of a free press after President Trump declared the media was the "enemy of the state." This greatly displeased Emperor Trump, leading to a Twitter tirade this morning. (more…)

A few days ago, the AP, working with Princeton University, demonstrated that Google tracked the location of users even after they disabled location tracking on their devices. Today they admitted it, reports the AP.It has now "clarified" its tracking policy; pray they do not "clarify" it further.

You had one job, Fox News. ONE JOB. (more…)

Gatebox's Boku no Yome (“My Wife”) has been released in mass production for 150,000 yen (US$1,352). The holographic character stands about 8 inches tall and talks to her husband from behind a cylindrical plastic barrier. In addition to the upfront cost for Boku no Yome, husbands must pay a subscription fee of 1,500 yen (US$13.52) per month to keep their wife from getting outdated.Image: Gatebox

This video starts with the odd image of a hawk's body hanging from the front of a car. Apparently, it flew headfirst into the car's grille and got stuck. The driver and the passenger worked calmly to rescue the bird, which seemed dazed, but eventually flew away.

In 2009, after a successful public records lawsuit, the Invisible Institute received data on complaints against Chicago Police Department officers since 1988 -- the complaints often list multiple officers, and by tracing the social graph of dirty cops over time, The Intercept's Rob Arthur was able to show how corruption spread like a contagion, from senior officers to junior ones, teaching bad practices ranging from brutality to falsifying evidence to torture to racism to plotting to murder whistleblowing cops. (more…)

Polk County, Iowa—Des Moines—is 4.84% black and 88.34% white. But a community group there claims that of one police officer's 282 traffic stops and bookings, 100% of the drivers were black and 0 percent white. So this dashcam footage of one of his stops there was no surprise to the locals.

My grandmother used to make dandelion wine, which is probably why an 87-year-old woman named Martha Al-Bishara was in the lawn of a Boys and Girls Club in Georgia, cutting and collecting the dandelion plants. Police confronted Al-Bishara after an employee called police to complain that she was in the yard, "looking around for vegetation to cut down or something." Police arrived and told Al-Bishara to drop the knife, but she didn't speak English so she didn't drop the knife. One of the officers pulled out his own pocket knife and dropped it on the grass to show her what he wanted her to do. When she didn't comply to the pantomime, an officer shot her with a taser, even though she had remained calm the entire time and showed no signs of agitation. They charged her with criminal trespass and obstructing an officer. Watch video here."An 87-year-old woman with a knife still has the ability to hurt an officer," Chatsworth Police Chief Josh Etheridge told reporters.The incident feels just like an episode of Mayberry RFD, except Sheriff Talyor would have not used a taser and would have helped Al-Bishar collect dandelions before driving her to his place for lunch with Opie and Aunt Bea.[via NBC News]

Here's a montage of Trump's hateful, racist remarks through out the years."Maybe hate is what we need if we're going to get something done." "I have absolutely no compassion." "A well-educated black has a tremendous advantage over a well-educated white." "If I were starting off today, I'd love to be a well educated black because I believe they really do have an actual advantage." And that's just in the first part of the video. Nothing new here, but still shocking that he sits in the White House.Via ThinkProgress

Jeff Greene is a billionaire who made his fortune shorting subprime real-estate while Floridians were facing mass evictions; now he's hoping to be the Democratic candidate for Governor of Florida and his financial disclosures reveal a raft of extremely toxic investments, including millions in Puerto Rican debt (Florida is full of Puerto Rican refugees who had to flee their homes after debt-holders starved the state of infrastructure money so it could neither defend itself against hurricanes, nor rebuild in their wake), Argentinian debt (another go-to for vulture capitalists), and "oil and gas stocks Exxon, Hess, Kinder Morgan, and Apache." (more…)

Ady Barkan's Be a Hero campaign has made an offer to vulnerable Republican Senator Susan Collins [Maine]: confirm Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court and we'll give all of our fundraised dollars to your Democratic opponent in the 2018 election; block Kavanaugh and we'll give the money back to our donors. They're looking for $20.20 pledges (I gave). (Image: Joe Ravi, CC-BY-SA)

Game of War is a universally panned online "game" with a simple strategy -- the more money you spend, the better you do. Adam Winger (38), the director of the North Logan City library in Utah, was absolutely killing it in Game of War, but his reign of glorious virtual victory was overturned by real life adversaries, who put him on trial for stealing $89,000 in public funds to pay for in-game assets. He was found guilty, sentenced to 30 days in jail and 100 hours of community service, and ordered to pay restitution of $78,000.[via Kotaku]Image: Shutterstock/Alan Poulson Photography

Ken "Popehat" White (previously), a former Federal prosecutor turned criminal defense attorney, has some excellent advice for all you newbie law-students who are just starting your law school career. (more…)

President Elizabeth Warren (2020-2028) has proposed the Accountable Capitalism Act, which will subject US corporations with $1B/year or more in revenue to the "German model" of corporate governance, in which workers get board-seats and financial decisionmaking must take into consideration the impact that decisions will have on "stakeholders" including workers, investors, suppliers, retailers, and residents near plants or facilities. (more…)

America's infrastructure is close to hitting rock bottom. In fact, infrastructure as a whole in the US received an embarrassing D+ on the American Society of Civil Engineers latest Infrastructure Report Card. And when talking specifically about bridges, the grade was a C+. Way to go, Congress.According to Business Insider, "Every state has at least one structurally deficient bridge, which the US Department of Transportation (DOT) defines as when one or more key bridge components (e.g. the deck, superstructure, or substructure) is in 'poor' condition."And the Auto Insurance Center says that "tens of thousands of bridges across the country are currently falling apart." Great. So which of these over 10,000 crumbling US bridges are in the worst condition? The Auto Insurance Center put out a list, which includes the worst bridge in every state, including Washington D.C. Here is a sample from the list:• Arizona I-17 over 19th Avenue in Maricopa County• California I-110 over Dominguez Channel in Los Angeles• Colorado I-70 ML over Havana St Railroad in Denver • Florida Fuller Warren Bridge in Duval County• New York Route I-278 over Relief in Richmond County• Washington DC Anacostia Freeway over Suitland Parkway SoutheastFor an easy way to read the full list, check it out at Business Insider.Image by Payton Chung from Chicago, USA - 105 freeway @ Harbor?, CC BY 2.0, Link

TIL: the fabulous Lynda Barry teaches at the University of Wisconsin! In this lesson, called "Writing the Unthinkable," she shares a neat method to get started on a new piece. It begins by drawing a tight spiral as a meditation.

People who have good vision: Ever wonder what it's like to see the world as someone who is nearsighted?Well, Cape Town-based artist Philip Barlow has imagined this blurry world for you in a series of hyperrealistic oil paintings. See more of his work on his Instagram.https://www.instagram.com/p/BW1y2TCgKyO/?taken-by=philipbarlowhttps://www.instagram.com/p/BZ_8I5WALSd/?taken-by=philipbarlowhttps://www.instagram.com/p/BkQAOzWgGq4/?taken-by=philipbarlowhttps://www.instagram.com/p/Bh1LgIYg9J5/?taken-by=philipbarlowhttps://www.instagram.com/p/Bkm8LcUBsaH/?taken-by=philipbarlowhttps://www.instagram.com/p/Be8yTgXneu4/?taken-by=philipbarlowhttps://www.instagram.com/p/BlZx08lBC_V/?taken-by=philipbarlow(Bored Panda)

Who Left Open the Cookie Jar? A Comprehensive Evaluation of Third-Party Cookie Policies won the Distinguished Paper prize at this year's Usenix Security Conference; its authors, researchers at Belgium's Catholic University in Leuven, revealed a host of devastating, never-seen tracking techniques for identifying web-users who were using privacy tools supplied by browser-vendors and third-party tracking-blocking tools. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ9c_B4tVkEBack in 1972-3, Disney ran a short-lived variety show called The Mouse Factory that intercut classic animation with live action, framed by celebrity hosts that kind of threaded it all together into a mashed-up, loose storyline. (more…)

Brooklyn-based jewelry designer Matthew White, the creator of the sterling silver spork, has now fashioned this ladies' Full Finger Ring ($175). It's a sterling silver ring that is for, and looks like, an index finger (just don't call it a FingeRing).

https://youtu.be/Hbp3JxwH704?list=PL8a8cutYP7fruG3kwwADY5HZ_FN4A4jdkAretha Franklin, the queen of soul, died in Detroit today at the age of 76. She scored at least 112 singles on the Billboard charts, with 20 number ones. Sir Elton John: "she was one of my favourite pianists." Photo: Wikimedia (CC0 1.0)

Over at Woke Giant you'll find some seriously cool, retro-styled "political art for third century America." Don't miss the downloadable protest signs!Here's a taste:Stress is the enemy!Keep resisting!Flint still needs water!Thanks, Tricia!

It's OK to talk to the cops, just this once.

Filip Miucin wrote many game reviews, but it took until last week for the rampant plagiarism in his work to be identified by a victim.

Smartphone video footage of police brutality being exercised against black Americans and other ethnic minorities living their lives within the nation’s borders have become depressingly commonplace. While difficult to watch and, most likely for the videographer, difficult to stand by and film, such footage can be an important tool in bringing cops who abuse the power of their office to justice. The news, social media and water cooler talk here in North America often overflows with reports of abuses of power by law enforcement officials. It’s easy to forget that the very same brand of injustice and violence are served up in other parts of the world – a lot.According to The New York Times, in Australia, a country that’s been marred by institutional racism since its inception, “...aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are incarcerated at 13 times the rate of non-Indigenous Australians. They make up 27 percent of Australia’s prisoners, compared with 3 percent of the overall population.” Given the disproportionate representation of Indigenous Australians in the clink, it’s safe to say that there’s some greasy shit going on Down Under, of a similar sort to the greasy shit we see going on up here in places like New York City and Ferguson, Missouri. To help Australia aboriginals and Torres Strait Islander peoples to mitigate this prejudicial treatment at the hands of those meant to serve and protect them, human rights activists are teaching them how to respond to the threat of police violence and to record their interactions with law enforcement, just like we do up here:From The New York Times:

From self-driving cars to Siri, we've already gotten a taste of what AI can do, and now this groundbreaking technology is making its way to education and revolutionizing the way we learn new languages. Mondly uses state-of-the-art speech recognition to help you speak foreign languages like a true local. Lifetime subscriptions are on sale for $69.99 today.Leveraging the power of AI, Mondly knows how to listen to your words and phrases and only gives positive feedback if you speak clearly and correctly. That way, you'll sound much more convincing when you're ordering paella in Madrid or asking for directions to the Louvre. You can choose 5 of 33 languages to learn in your own native tongue and break down Mondly's curriculum into short, bite-sized lessons, so you can learn at your own pace.A lifetime subscription to Mondly would normally retail for $1,199, but you can sign up in the Boing Boing store for $69.99, saving more than 90% off.

All the pregnant ladies, this one is for you. This pink inflatable floatie has a hole for your baby bump which means, for once, you can lie on your front (if you're in the water, that is). It's like a massage table but instead of putting your head in the hole, you put in your swelled belly.The bad news? You can't buy it, not yet anyway. It's a promotional item you can win from the folks at the Peanut motherhood app.https://www.instagram.com/p/BmLFOOlAR65/?taken-by=stylish_bump(Cool Mom Picks)

Jason Kessler, the organizer of the failed “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally in Washington DC, recently suffered an additional humiliation.As Kessler was livestreaming a broadcast, Kessler's father walked in and yelled “get out of my room!”

Scheduled for release on October 9th, My Memory of Us is a game that tackles a game that tackles a difficult subject: the lives of Jewish children in Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War. Engadget recently spoke with Mikołaj Pawłowski, the CEO of Juggler Games, about how a video game with such a dark backdrop will be presented in a way that respects the grim period of human history in which it’s set, while still making it something that folks might actually want to play.From Engadget:

This week’s tabloids offer a fascinating glimpse inside the mind of their greatest fan: Donald Trump. The president, who has gone on the record saying that the National Enquirer deserves a Pulitzer Prize, and who is bffs with tabloid publisher David Pecker, can politely be said to view events in a different way than the rest of the world perceives them. So it’s instructive to see this week’s tabloids offer a view of events that offer a unique perspective that some might say, in the manner of Donald Trump, bears little relation to reality as the rest of us understand it.“Tom Gets Suri!” screams the cover of the National Enquirer, suggesting that Tom Cruise has won a battle with ex-wife Katie Holmes for custody of their daughter. But nothing has changed in their custody agreement. Cruise was long ago awarded ten days a month with his daughter. He simply hasn’t taken advantage of using all ten days monthly in the past. Now he’s seeking to have his daughter for the agreed ten days monthly, it’s no shock to anyone (except perhaps to Suri), and Cruise no more “Gets Suri” than before.Hollywood legend Robert Wagner “Loots Natalie’s Grave!” claims another Enquirer cover headline about the actor’s late wife Natalie Wood. “Wagner Vandalizes Natalie’s Grave” yells the headline above the story. The story is true, if by “Vandalizes Natalie’s Grave” you mean Wagner has asked the cemetery to remove decomposing flowers left by fans after a day on her grave.TV’s former Friends star Matthew Perry has only “six months to live,” claims the Enquirer, after his “intestines explode!" No, they didn’t. He suffered a “gastrointestinal perforation.” Painful, yes, and requiring surgery. But it’s not as if his gall bladder detonated, sending intestinal shrapnel throughout his abdomen.Brad Pitt’s divorce from Angelina Jolie has left the actress with a "$50 million legal bill” that “could leave Angie broke!” reads another imaginative Enquirer headline. Yes, Beverly Hills attorneys are expensive, but Jolie would need to employ a team of high-powered lawyers for a decade to run up that sort of a bill. To put it in perspective, the state of New Jersey amassed a $50 million legal bill in its 12-year lawsuit against ExxonMobil in an anti-pollution lawsuit that concluded in 2015. What’s more, even a $50 million legal bill would not “leave Angie broke,” as her net worth is estimated at more than three times that sum. It’s just Trumpian thinking.It gets worse in this week’s Globe, whose cover story about Royal newlyweds proclaims: “Meghan & Harry Adopt African Baby!” The “world exclusive” is capped by a photo of Prince Harry holding his new baby daughter, who the happy couple found in Botswana on their “secret honeymoon."Would it be churlish to point out that this photo was taken when Harry visited the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Bridgetown, Barbados, on January 30, 2010 – six years before meeting Meghan? The hospital nurse who stood beside Harry has been replaced in the Globe by a smiling Photoshopped Meghan. Should I point out that their “baby girl from Africa” is actually a seven-week-old boy named Jordan in the photograph? Why let the facts ruin a good story?Us magazine, which likes to think of itself as in a class above the supermarket tabloids, devotes its cover to Brad Pitt’s story: “Angie Is Putting Me Through HELL.” But nowhere in the story is there a single quote from Pitt about going through hell, or saying anything about how he is suffering in the divorce. Us throws in two quotes lifted from GQ magazine in May 2017, in which Pitt said he could outdrink a Russian, and had been reflecting on his “weakness and failures.” Not even an unnamed “friend” or “insider” or “source” says “Angie is putting Brad through hell.” It’s just more Trumpian thinking.“Jen & Ben Divorce Called Off” claims an Us headline about the Garner-Affleck marriage. Are they getting back together three years after filing for divorce? Of course not. It’s just a judge reminding them that if they can’t agree to terms in the split, the court can decide to chuck out the divorce and make them refile. Not quite the same thing.People magazine meanwhile devotes a mind-numbing 16 pages to its "Back to School" edition, featuring celebrity lunch box tips, the best backpack for your kids, advice from “mommy bloggers” on organizing your child’s room, kid fashions and foods, and celebrities you’ve never heard of with their children you care about even less.Fortunately we have the crack investigative team at Us magazine to tell us that Gwyneth Paltrow wore it best, that actress Jana Kramer loves “chips and dip,” that WWE wrestler Ronda Rousey carries Midol, Listerine, and Cortizone cream in her Henri Bendel leather backpack, and that the stars are just like us: they pick up dry cleaning, walk their dogs, feed parking meters, and eat food. Enlightening, as ever.The biggest mystery in this week’s tabloids comes in the shape of an advertisement for a limited-edition figurine of Maya Angelou, which “stands an impressive 11-inches tall!” The ad appears in both the Globe and the National Examiner, hidden amid ads for a musical Elvis Presley Christmas Tree statuette, a Toy Story cuckoo clock, and ads for Botox substitutes, erectile dysfunction pills and powered wheelchairs.Do these magazines, which have previously offered life-like figurines of President Trump and Elvis, hope to reach an entirely new demographic with the sale of Maya Angelou statuettes for only three installments of $33.33 (plus shipping and handling)? Are today’s tabloid readers secretly our unsung champions of freedom? Or perhaps Donald Trump might say there is poetry in every page of the tabloids?Onwards and downwards . . .

Matt Chapman used the Freedom of Information Act to get the City of Chicago's very mess parking ticket data; after enormous and heroic data normalization, Chapman was able to pinpoint one of the city's most confusing parking spots, between 1100-1166 N State St, which cycled between duty as a taxi-stand and a parking spot with a confusingly placed and semi-busted parking meter. (more…)

After a week of blockbuster security revelations from Defcon it's important to take a step back and address the ongoing battle by companies to seize a veto over who can reveal defects in their products. (more…)

I just returned home from a 5-week stay in Japan with my family. We spent the first 10 days in Kyoto and Koya-san, and the rest of the time we stayed in an apartment in Tokyo, where I worked on Boing Boing, Cool Tools, and Institute for the Future. Despite the high temperatures and humidity, we had a great time. I'll be writing about the trip here in the days to come.To start things off, here is something I bought at a chain store called Vanguard Village. There is nothing like Vanguard Village in the US as far as I know. It has CDs (Japanese still prefer CDs over MP3s), clothes, makeup, masturbatory aids, manga, books, and tons of other stuff. One shelf was devoted entirely to weird body cleaning products. I bought a few different products to try out. One of them was this nose hair removal kit called Gosso. It cost about $8 and contains enough materials to rip the hair out of six nostrils. (Amazon sells an identical looking kit that can clean out 20 nostrils for $12).To use it, you heat up waxy pellets in a microwave oven, apply the molten wax to a plastic stick, shove it into your nostril (twisting as you do so), waiting 90 seconds, then yanking the stick out and screaming "SHIT! THAT HURT!"I have heard removing nostril hairs is a bad idea because they act as filters. But I have 10 times more nostril hair than I did when I was young, and after I used this, I still had hairs farther in the back of my nose. I'm glad to have a nose that doesn't have hairs sprouting from the nostrils.

Grant Burningham interviewed me for his Bots and Ballots podcast (MP3), covering a bunch of extremely timely tech-politics issues: Facebook and the impact of commercial surveillance on democratic elections; Alex Jones, censorship and market concentration; and monopolism and the future of the internet.

Trou is an interactive sculpture from Valencia, Spain's Mireia Donat Melús: the nylon and silicon fiber blob invites viewers to don a surgical glove and insert their hands and arms into an elastic orifice in the sculpture's surface -- and watching their probing appendage from within via a live video-feed. (more…)