Boing Boing

No doubt the unofficial "Gay Days" at Disneyland and Walt Disney World inspired the resorts' new retro "Wear it Proud" line of clothing, accessories, and platform Crocs. I spotted the following pieces from the collection in Downtown Disney on my recent trip to Disneyland. As I sat down to write this post, I found Disney's official announcement, which is amusing:Are you a dancing queen or a disco king? This new Disney Parks Wear It Proud Collection will take you right back to the ’70s, whether you were around in that decade or not! The wide assortment of apparel in fun, vibrant colors has something for every hippie at heart!Wait, "hippie at heart.."? None of this looks "hippie" to me. LOL. Whatever. The collection is fun — love the contrasting red/blue colorway in this one shirt:And the striped trim on this tank top (better image here):THIS BAG!!But these platform Crocs though -- wuht.See more of the collection at shopDisney.com. Styles are available in both Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World patterns.photos by Rusty Blazenhoff Read the rest

There's no shortage of CRMs out there for large corporations, e-commerce companies, and booming startups to utilize. Think Salesforce, for example. But if you're running a small business of ten employees max, there's no way it makes sense to invest in an expensive, robust option like that. You're better off using your old system of spreadsheets, emails, and Post-its.Or instead, you can turn to a solution like Daylite. Not only is the pricing structure more small business-friendly, but it's actually designed for small teams, especially those just starting out. Use PCs and Android? It's probably not for you. Daylite is a native solution for Mac and iOS only. It's designed for companies that work with clients, like law firms, consulting firms, financial firms, and real estate brokers, but not for traditional e-commerce companies.At its core, Daylite is a CRM, meaning it organizes all the client details and communications, deals, leads, and information that make your business run. It keeps all of the above organized, and incorporates project management tools to keep you on track. You can set automated reminders, delegate tasks, and link your calendar so that you never let anything fall through the cracks. And most importantly, it can be used by your entire team, so everyone has access to all of the information from anywhere (with permission controls to help you determine who's allowed to have access, of course.)It's worth saying that Daylite is more focused on efficiency and project management than your average CRM. Read the rest

Attention bookworms and rare book nerds. The Booksellers, opening in March, is a documentary celebrating bookstores and the peculiar business of collecting and selling rare books.Literary Hub writes:Have you ever dreamed of becoming an antiquarian bookseller? Or just wanted to get to know one better? Or maybe you just like old books a lot. Either way, this is the documentary for you. Directed by D.W. Young and executive produced by Parker Posey, the film features interviews with rare book dealers of all stripes, as well as collectors, auctioneers, and writers like Fran Lebowitz, Susan Orlean, Kevin Young, and Gay Talese—-true book believers all.Read the rest on Literary Hub. Read the rest

Currently on heavy rotation at Chez Branwyn: Fiona Apple's cover of The Waterboys' brilliant "The Whole of the Moon." She covered the 1985 classic for the season finale of the Showtime series, The Affair.Apple had written the show's theme song five years earlier and came back to close out the series. The trademark "big music" sweep of the track and Apple's intense performance are perfect for a curtain-closing ending.And the lyrics to this song are among my all-time favorites:I pictured a rainbowYou held it in your handsI had flashesBut you saw the planI wandered out in the world for yearsWhile you just stayed in your roomI saw the crescentYou saw the whole of the moonThe whole of the moonHere's The Waterboys doing their original version.Image: YouTube Read the rest

Have you seen Snowpiercer yet? My family watched it a few years ago and loved it. Like Bong Joon-ho's Parasite, it's a genre-defying thriller that explores class roles. If you have a Blu-ray player, Amazon has it on sale right now. Read the rest

The East Coast has Camp John Waters and now, over Easter weekend, folks on the West Coast will get their own John Waters (live! in person!) event. On Saturday, April 11, fans of the filth elder can flock to the Madonna Inn, the famous pink palace in San Luis Obispo with over-the-top themed rooms, for Lethal Amounts' John Waters Easter. Talk about two mints in one!Celebrating the 30th Anniversary screening of the classic film "Cry Baby" with live commentary by John Waters himself. Followed by Q&A with surprise special guests.There will also be the first annual " Edith Massey Memorial Easter Egghunt" in the Madonna Inn enchanted gardens.Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. on February 7 on Dice (an events app) for $96.05 each. Sadly, rooms at the Madonna Inn are already sold out, I checked. But don't let that stop you, there are other hotels in the area that are just a short drive away. Read the rest

politics is a journy pic.twitter.com/Tt6zkfAOvG— L Ron Mexico (@LRonMexico) February 3, 2020I know this is supposed to be a joke, but it accurately captures the political journeys of people I know in real life.Image: University of Illinois Library (CC 2.0) Read the rest

When I was writing my book, Jamming the Media (1997), while working on a chapter about pirate radio, I went deep down the rabbit hole of hunting down pirate stations, shortwave stations, police and military radio, and number stations. The latter are mysterious radio broadcasts of unknown origin where a series of numbers are read over the air. These are widely believed to be coded messages to spies in the field from the world's intelligence agencies.I was surprised to run into this video on Curiosity Droid and to discover that number stations are still a thing. I would have thought that, in the age of encrypted digital communications, number stations would be archaic and unnecessary, but maybe entrenched government infrastructures are hard to dismantle, even when they're obsolete?Image: YouTube Read the rest

The linked article has a fairly long list of places in West Los Angeles that unimmunized area folk might want to review.NBC Los Angeles:Los Angeles County health officials Wednesday confirmed five new cases of measles and warned of possible exposure at a series of locations over the past week.According to the county Department of Public Health, the new patients are four county residents who were "exposed to an unimmunized, international visitor who was infectious with measles while in Los Angeles County." Read the rest

Why is the average human body temperature falling by 0.05°F per decade? The short answer, is no one really knows! But Catherine Ley, a Stanford researcher who led a study to look into the curious phenomenon, has some hunches, which are laid out in this Vox article:Healthier bodies have less inflammation, which can lead to increased body temperatures. Plus, we’ve eliminated some diseases that used to be common in the United States, and sources of fevers. “Getting rid of tuberculosis as a common infection in a population affects the overall population temperature,” Ley offers as an example. (Though the study did not directly compare average temperatures obtained in the US to areas where infections like tuberculosis are still common.)But there could be other reasons for the change. Maybe it has to do with how we heat and cool our indoor spaces. In a well-heated home in the winter, the body may not have to work as hard to maintain a steady temperature, for instance. The proliferation of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (like ibuprofen), which reduce inflammation and can reduce body temperature, could play a role.Photo by Manki Kim on Unsplash Read the rest

It should come as no surprise that more and more IT professionals are scrambling to earn Microsoft Azure certifications. With the average Azure developer earning around $130,000 a year, these in-demand certifications drastically increase your earning potential and career flexibility, open up opportunities for advancement, and provide a greater understanding of some of the world’s most popular and powerful cloud computing infrastructures.And the good news is that you don’t have to dish out an absurd about of money in order to prepare for these valuable certifications since the Complete 2020 Microsoft Azure Certification Prep Bundle will get you to where you need to be for just $43.With eleven courses that are structured to help you ace the exams for the most important Azure certifications, this bundle is your one-stop resource for becoming an in-demand cloud computing pro.You’ll prepare for the Azure Fundamentals, Administrator, Architecture, Developing Solutions, and Architect Design certifications through training that focuses on everything from the basics of cloud computing to the more advanced elements of network implementation, coding, cybersecurity, and more.You’ll also be able to take advantage of a variety of test-prep materials that ensure you’ll be ready for the actual exams.Start earning six-figure salaries as a cloud computing professional with the Complete 2020 Microsoft Azure Certification Prep Bundle for just $43—over 95% off MSRP today. Read the rest

“They identify an issue that they know that the American people feel passionately about on both sides and then they take both sides and spin them up so they pit us against each other. And then they combine that with an effort to weaken our confidence in our elections and our democratic institutions which has been a pernicious and asymmetric way of engaging in affect information warfare.”— FBI Director Chris Wray, Feb. 5, 2020On Wednesday, FBI Director Chris Wray said Russia is targeting Americans with an ongoing “information warfare” campaign that is likely to intensify as the nation heads into the 2020 presidential election. Wray said FBI has not yet spotted election infrastructure attacks by Russia as happened in 2016, but that Russia has greatly intensified its campaign of online disinformation and psychological operations against US voters.Speaking before the House Judiciary Committee, Wray said just like Russia did in 2016, they're again relying on covert social media campaigns that intend to divide American public opinion and sow discord and distrust. Even if Russia does not end up targeting our election systems, Wray said, efforts by Vladimir Putin to interfere in the democratic process through disinformation and “fake news” hasn't slowed down since 2016, but rather increased. Wray said social media injected “steroids” into the ability for Russia to wage information warfare on the U.S.From the Associated Press's coverage of his remarks on Capitol Hill today, by AP reporter Eric Tucker:That effort, which involves fictional personas, bots, social media postings and disinformation, may have an election-year uptick but is also a round-the-clock threat that is in some ways harder to combat than an election system hack, Wray said. Read the rest

Reuters today published a report about an email hacking operation targeting journalists and their connected sources, and the scam appears to be associated with Iran.The scam is this: send cleverly disguised emails that impersonate prominent journalists, in an effort to get the recipient to give up valuable data and access.Here is an example.IMAGE: Screenshot by researchers at the London-based Certfa Lab shows a bogus, Farsi-language interview request that appears to have been sent by journalist Farnaz Fassihi. The message was one of several malicious emails sent in the name of real journalists working for CNN, Deutsche Welle, and others. The reporters had nothing to do with the messages, which Certfa says were sent by Iran-linked hacking group 'Charming Kitten'. [Certfa/Handout via REUTERS]“The incidents come to light at a time when the U.S. government has warned of Iranian cyber threats in the wake of the U.S. air strike that killed Iran’s second most powerful official, Major-General Qassem Soleimani,” report Raphael Satter and Christopher Bing at Reuters:In a report published Wednesday, London-based cybersecurity company Certfa tied the impersonation of Fassihi to a hacking group nicknamed Charming Kitten, which has long been associated with Iran. Israeli firm ClearSky Cyber Security provided Reuters with documentation of similar impersonations of two media figures at CNN and Deutsche Welle, a German public broadcaster. ClearSky also linked the hacking attempts to Charming Kitten, describing the individuals targeted as Israeli academics or researchers who study Iran. ClearSky declined to give the specific number of people targeted or to name them, citing client confidentiality. Read the rest

Shares of Tesla Motors were down 19% on Wednesday after a senior executive with the electric vehicle company warned of delivery delays for Model 3 cars made at its Shanghai plant, because of the ever-worsening coronavirus outbreak in China.Novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV has disrupted life and commerce throughout China. The Chinese government says 65 more people died of the virus as of Tuesday, the highest daily total yet. From Reuters: Tesla Vice President Tao Lin said on the Weibo social media platform that car deliveries from its new Shanghai plant would be temporarily delayed and that the company planned to restart production on Feb 10.The $2 billion factory is a key part of Chief Executive Elon Musk’s plan to make more than half a million automobiles this year.Tesla last week said it expected a delay of up to a week and a half in the ramp-up of Model 3 production at the plant after the government ordered it to shut the factory due to the outbreak.Read More:Tesla tumbles as coronavirus weighs on Shanghai factory[reuters.com, Noel Randewich, February 5, 2020 / 11:27 AM] Read the rest

Zamira Hajiyeva has 28 days to appeal a court order to seize her $20 million London mansion after she was unable reveal the source of her wealth, reports The Telegraph.Hajiyeva's husband was sentenced to 15 years in jail in 2016 after he was found guilty of stealing almost $3 billion from the International Bank of Azerbaijan, where he had served as chairman.From the article:As well as spending more than £16 million in Harrods over a ten-year period, Mrs Hajiyeva also bought the Mill Ride golf and country club in Ascot for £10.5 million. She is also said to have owned a £35 million private jet and had a wine cellar stocked with some of the world’s most expensive vintages.Image: by Diliff - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link Read the rest

More Americans fleeing the coronavirus outbreak are being evacuated from Wuhan, China, to the U.S. On Wednesday, 2 State Department-chartered jetliners carried an estimated 350 U.S. citizens from Wuhan, China, to a U.S. military base in California.All of the recent arrivals will be quarantined for 14 days, said the U.S. Defense Department.First, the two planes landed at Travis Air Force Base, which sits about half way between San Francisco and Sacramento. Then, one of the two planes continued on to Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego, after refueling.The still-spreading Novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV outbreak has killed 490 people in China, most in and around Wuhan, and has infected more than 23,000. Two deaths outside of mainland China have been reported, and at least 11 confirmed cases have been reported in the US.From Reuters:KGO television in the San Francisco Bay area showed video of people in white coverall suits getting off the plane in the predawn darkness at Travis Air Force Base. San Diego television stations showed video of the second plane landing at Miramar.The evacuees at Travis will be housed in a hotel on the base, the base said in a statement on its Facebook page. As in other places, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will take charge of the care, transportation and security of the evacuees.“A safety cordon will be established, away from residential housing, to ensure the Travis mission can safely continue,” the statement said.The Pentagon said it also preparing Camp Ashland, an Army National Guard base in Nebraska, to receive up to 75 people for quarantine. Read the rest

Remember the 1991 episode of The Simpsons, called "Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington," in which a tearful Lisa tears up an essay she wrote after she witnesses government officials engaged in corrupt behavior? Well, U.S. Secretary of State remembers that episode, too, and he cleverly chose it to show his solidarity with Senator Pelosi for ripping up Trump's State of the Union address. Trump and his delusional followers will think Pompeo is making fun of Pelosi, but everyone else is in on the sly message of support from inside the walls of Trumpistan. Well played, Mike!pic.twitter.com/AaopLt8f9f— Mike Pompeo (@mikepompeo) February 5, 2020 Read the rest

Wow. A single Republican senator has a spine after all.Utah Senator Mitt Romney says he will vote in favor of the article of impeachment on abuse of power against President Donald John Trump.“The president is guilty of a flagrant abuse of public trust,” said Romney just now. “Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one's oath of office that I can imagine.”FULL REMARKS -- @SenatorRomney: "The grave question the Constitution tasks senators to answer is whether the president committed an act so extreme and egregious that it rises to the level of a high crime and misdemeanor. Yes, he did." pic.twitter.com/fbIhPG12IO— CSPAN (@cspan) February 5, 2020Romney: "Were I to ignore the evidence that has been presented & disregard what I believe my oath & the Constitution demands of me for the sake of a partisan end, it would, I fear, expose my character to history’s rebuke & the censure of my own conscience.”"The grave question the Constitution tasks senators to answer is whether the president committed an act so extreme and egregious that it rises to the level of a high crime and misdemeanor. Yes, he did."Heck yeah.FULL SPEECH: Sen. Romney says he will vote in favor of the article of impeachment on abuse of power against President Trump."With my vote, I will tell my children and their children that I did my duty to the best of my ability, believing that my country expected it of me." Read the rest

Astronomers captured this incredible image of a double-star system where a red giant star appears to have "engulfed the other (star) which, in turn, spiraled towards its partner provoking it into shedding its outer layers." The scientists spotted this astounding event using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope in the Chilean Andes. From the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) announcement:Thanks to new observations with ALMA, complemented by data from the ESO-operated Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment (APEX), Olofsson and his team now know that what happened in the double-star system HD101584 was akin to a stellar fight. As the main star puffed up into a red giant, it grew large enough to swallow its lower-mass partner. In response, the smaller star spiralled in towards the giant’s core but didn’t collide with it. Rather, this manoeuvre triggered the larger star into an outburst, leaving its gas layers dramatically scattered and its core exposed.The team says the complex structure of the gas in the HD101584 nebula is due to the smaller star’s spiralling towards the red giant, as well as to the jets of gas that formed in this process. As a deadly blow to the already defeated gas layers, these jets blasted through the previously ejected material, forming the rings of gas and the bright bluish and reddish blobs seen in the nebula.A silver lining of a stellar fight is that it helps astronomers to better understand the final evolution of stars like the Sun.Here's the scientific paper: HD 101584: circumstellar characteristics and evolutionary status (Astronomy Astrophysics) Read the rest

Chinese acrobat Li Longlong holds the Guinness World Record for the "most consecutive stairs climbed on the head," a total of 36 steps. Guinness World Records states that "the strict rules for this gruelling challenge insist that the participant must not pause for more than five seconds between steps, and that no part of the body other than the head may touch them."I respect how Li used his unique talent to get ahead in life. Read the rest

Coyotes in my neighborhood usually kill unsupervised smaller animals like cats and dogs (or in my case, chickens), so it's fascinating to see this frisky coyote buddy up with a badger. It looks genuinely excited as it waits for its friend to catch up so that they could trot through a pipe together. Apparently badgers and coyotes have been known to hunt together. From Peninsula Open Space Trust on YouTube:We know from scientific studies and Native American records that coyotes and badgers have been known to hunt together. But this is the first documentation (that we know of) where a coyote and badger use a human-made structure to travel together safely. This video was captured recently as part of our research to better understand how wildlife moves across the southern Santa Cruz Mountains. We have more than 50-remote sensor cameras helping us capture scenes like this which we use to inform our land conservation work. Read the rest

Cubicall, makers of contemporary telephone booths like those you might see in the offices of momentarily flush startups, have created an official replica of the time machine phone booth from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989). It is $8,495. For that price, perhaps it provides the same functionality as the one in the film. From Cubicall:The limited-run phone booth features a design inspired by the original film, including an authentic payphone retrofitted for VOIP/landline service, an umbrella antenna, and all of the same stellar features of Cubicall phone booths. Made in USA. Excellent! Read the rest

Last night, Trump snubbed Nancy Pelosi by ignoring her gesture to shake his hand before his State of the Union address. At the end of the address, she snubbed him back by ripping up her copy of the speech. "It was the courteous thing to do considering the alternative," she later told reporters. And then later added, “It was a manifesto of mistruths.” Read the rest

CesarMP is a commercial pilot from Colombia who posted a recent video about a UFO he saw while flying a plane. Is it a weather balloon?Image: YouTube Read the rest

A Michigan State University gift shop displayed a collection of miniature dolls of black leaders like Michelle Obama and Harriet Tubman by hanging them from a small tree. Upset by this extreme insensitivity, grad student Krystal Rose Davis-Dunn says she asked the staff if they noticed anything wrong with the display but they apparently did not. After Davis-Dunn posted a photo of the display to Facebook, the university apologized. From CNN:"We were made aware of an inappropriate and insensitive display at the Wharton Center gift shop which used a tree-like rack to hold historical black figures," Michigan State University spokeswoman Emily Gerkin Guerrant said. "Regardless of the intent of the display, its impact cannot be ignored -- people were hurt and offended."Davis-Dunn told CNN she had initially asked the gift shop's employees if they thought anything was wrong with them, but they said no. "They're black people hanging from trees," she said. "I mean, lynching? It was just not registering with them."The incident is the latest in a string of racial insensitivities on Michigan State University's campus in the 2019-2020 school year. Read the rest

I recently needed to glue wood together in a real hurry and tried a product called RapidFuse that didn't do too well. Annoyed, I decided to look for tests of the zillion wood glues now available so I could find something with a 15-minute set that works. It turns out I'm asking too much, really, but I did find Wood by Wright's incredibly exhaustive series of tests on dozens of different products. The overview video is embedded above; with more details for the thirsty and the 64-brand follow-up.The data collected is presented in a single enormous spreadsheet at Google Docs.The absolute best product depends on grain and exposure to the elements, but Elmer's Wood Glue Max [Amazon] is a clear winner for standard indoor woodworking projects with DAP Plastic Resin Glue [Amazon] winning if you're outdoors. Read the rest

We may never know the truth about the border crisis, writes Matthew Connelly, because the National Archives is letting millions of documents be destroyed.President Trump has long made it a practice to tear up his papers and throw them away. It is a clear violation of the Presidential Records Act, which is supposed to prevent another Watergate-style cover-up. When the National Archives sent staff members to tape these records together, the White House fired them.In 2017, a normally routine document released by the archives, a records retention schedule, revealed that archivists had agreed that officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement could delete or destroy documents detailing the sexual abuse and death of undocumented immigrants. Tens of thousands of people posted critical comments, and dozens of senators and representatives objected. The National Archives made some changes to the plan, but last month it announced that ICE could go ahead and start destroying records from Mr. Trump’s first year, including detainees’ complaints about civil rights violations and shoddy medical care. These documents include reports of detainee deaths and sexual abuse. "Wherever books burn, human beings will also burn." – Heinrich Heine Read the rest

I took a Shared Lyft home the other night, rather than waiting for the bus. There were two other passengers in the car when I got in — a woman in the backseat, and a man in the front. The man was dropped off first, about a mile from my own place. And as soon as he got out of the car, the inside filled up with one of the worst-smelling farts I've ever experienced in my life. I looked around the car, but neither the woman, nor the man driving, seemed to respond to this wretched scent.So I tweeted about it.Hi @Lyft how do I report the shared passenger on this ride who just let rip the hugest grossest fart right as he got out of the car— This Is Not A Thom Dunn T-Shirt (@thomdunn) January 31, 2020To be clear, I wasn't trying to be a narc; I was just a little buzzed, and I thought it was funny. But as the saying goes, "The road to Hell is paved with jokes on Twitter."To their credit, Lyft responded. And to my surprise, they were surprisingly helpful.Thank you for letting us know. We're still happy to look into this with the date and time of the ride and a description of the other rider. Please send us a DM with the phone number, email address, and full name associated with your Lyft account. We're happy to help! https://t.co/SXpdictw1A— Ask Lyft (@AskLyft) January 31, 2020We moved the conversation to DMs, and I shared some details on the ride. Read the rest

Ever wondered where tartan comes from? Now you know: the tartan sheep of Auchingarrich. Glenn Check:A Scottish farmer at Auchingarrich Wildlife Centre fools tourists into believing that her flock produce tartan wool with the help of some harmless sheep marking spray. The visiting Americans were told that the animals were being raised on a diet of Irn Bru and shortbread"More from The Scotsman:Maxine Scott, 62, used her skills with a spray-can to brighten up ewes April and Daisy. She puts up a sign pretending the sheep turn that colour naturally and the wool then used to make tartan wool for kilts and blankets. Maxine said: “When we got the park, they always had tartan sheep. It was just for the tourists. “We just continued the tradition. The public do like it - Americans are really impressed by them. Read the rest

The Thin Blue Line Pint Glass [Benshot] and the .308 Authentic Solid Copper Projectile Whiskey Rocks Glass Engraved with Blue Line American Flag [Amazon] are items apparently intended to support the authoritarian mode of policing that imagines itself part of the U.S. flag while dividing it in two. But the addition of a bullet embedded into the design looks more like a violent suggestion than -- whatever it is they think it's saying. It works so well as a sharp anti-police statement that it's the perfect gift for the most adamant antifascist in your love circle. Read the rest

With more and more people working at the office, at home, and on the go, virtually everyone needs a laptop these days. But the truth is that most of us simply don't require the type of processing power that the incredibly awesome but super-expensive Apple laptops have to offer when it comes to making it through the day.The best-selling laptops below allow you to browse, email, and even game for a tiny fraction of what you'd pay for a MacBook, and each one is available at an additional discount right now.Under $1001. Samsung Chromebook 11.6" 16GB (Refurbished)MSRP: $599 | Sale Price: $99.99 (83% off)Perfect for students or commuters who mostly need to browse the web and respond to emails, this super-compact Chromebook sports 16GB of storage space and boots up in seconds. You also get the full Chrome OS, along with your favorite Chrome apps and utilities for added convenience.2. Dell Chromebook 11-3120 2.16GHz Intel Celeron 16GB SSD - Black (Refurbished)MSRP: $250 | Sale Price: $84.99 (66% off)Dell makes some of the most popular and powerful Chromebooks around, and this 16GB SSD laptop lives up to the hype by offering a 2.16GHz Intel processor along with a crystal-clear 11.6” display and 10 hours of battery life.3. Lenovo N21 11" Chromebook 2.1GHz, 4GB RAM, 16GB Drive (Refurbished)MSRP: $599 | Sale Price: $89.99 (84% off)If you’re looking for a powerful Chromebook that’s extra compact and lightweight, look no further than this best-selling Lenovo laptop, which comes loaded with a 2.1GHz Read the rest

Is it real, or is it Memorex?screengrabs via CuteVN Animals Read the rest

GANField is the result (nightmarish, grotesque, occasionally comical) of a generative adversarial network trying to find its way through a corpus of Garfield strips.Watch as an AI struggles to seam together hundreds of Garfield comics.Created by Daniel Hanley. https://twitter.com/calamardhMusic is '4 All Hail the Fishmen' from LISA: The PainfulYou have no idea how ... unlonely you are, Garfield! See also: Will Burke's creepy Garfield drawings. Read the rest

I've linked to Michael Gardi's retrocomputing replicas and recreations quite a few times. Here's a list:How to make a "computer on a card" from the 1960sHow to make a replica of the GENIAC Electric Brain from 1955Complete instructions for making a replica of the Minivac 601 educational computer kit3D printed replica of the Digi-Comp II marble computerMake this scale model of the Dr. Nim digital gameMichael just finished a new project! He wrote to me and said:Well it's a new year and I have a new project to share, something a little different. Rather than a straight replica, this time I have created a version of the computer described in the book How to Build a Working Digital Computer, by Edward Alcosser, James P. Phillips, and Allen M. Wolk, and published in 1967. In it they show how to construct such a computer using "simple inexpensive components usually found around the house or in a neighborhood electrical parts store." A very cool book.Now completed, my version is one of only a few known implementations. I tried to limit myself to technologies that would have been available in the late '60s, but used modern fabrication techniques like 3D printing and cheap PCB manufacturing to build it.Details are posted on Hackaday Read the rest

We all have at least one in our homes. We spend an inordinate amount of time with it. And we’d be lost without it. Yet the less we think about it, the better.Yes, we’re talking about your toilet. And while you’d rather just ignore it, give it a moment of your time right now. And maybe even throw a dollar or two it's way. Because seriously...your throne needs some love.Below, you’ll find 10 different items designed to make your time in the WC a little more pleasant. Just consider it for a second. It’s the least you can do for the porcelain god that does so much for you.GlowBowl Motion Activated Toilet Nightlight: 2-Pack - $23.99 (Originally $32.50)The GlowBowl helps you avoid the shock of turning on bathroom lights in the middle of the night. In addition to a rainbow of color options, this motion-activated LED light that hooks just inside your bowl also has 5 different dimmer settings, so you’ll never end up blinded by your 2 a.m. bathroom excursions. And since most houses have at least two bathrooms, this 2-pack means you’re set.Original IllumiBowl Toilet Night Light - $10.99 (Originally $15)If dimmer settings don’t matter, but size does, the illumniBowl might be your toilet nightlight of choice. As seen on Shark Tank, this bowl light clocks in about half the size of the GlowBowl has eight different light colors and an improved motion sensor.Motion-Activated LED Toilet Light - $10.99 (Originally $19.99) Read the rest

There are some genuine LOL moments on this Late Show with Stephen Colbert segment where he dispatches Triumph the Insult Comic Dog to the Senate to find out what the hell is going on with the impeachment trial.Image: YouTube Read the rest

With only 62% of precincts reporting in, Bernie Sanders has 28,220 votes in the Iowa Democratic Party caucus, followed closely by Pete Buttigieg on 27,030 and then Elizabeth Warren with 22,254. Joe Biden trails a distant fourth on 14,176 votes, only a little ahead of Amy Klobuchar.Buttigieg, however, has more delegates pledged in the complicated and suddenly very controversial caucus, according to CNN.After a long night and full day of rancor, confusion and anger over delayed caucus results, the Iowa Democratic Party offered the first round of official results at 5 p.m. EST. With more than a third of precincts still to report in, the winner is still anyone's guess. But Sanders and especially Buttigieg can be happy with the result. With the vote so divided, Warren's strong third will be a relief to her supporters.Biden's dismal fourth, however, is the first real sign of trouble for his campaign, otherwise atop opinion polls nationwide in the race to become the Democratic challenger to Trump in the 2020 general election.Most of the problems stemmed from a caucus reporting app that failed catastrophically on the night. Read the rest

I have an earlier version of this Anker PowerCore charger and it's the one I use most frequently. It's small and light and will charge my Nintendo Switch as well as my iPhone. Amazon has it on sale right now. Read the rest

Content creator and filmmaker Ani Acopian says: "I wasn’t having much luck with dating apps so I partnered with @amazon to make a better one."This is Amazon Dating!(No, it isn't real. Yet.)(Thanks, UPSO!) Read the rest

“The blessing of military weapons is not reflected in the tradition of the Orthodox Church and does not correspond to the content of the Rite,” reads a new document on the website of the Moscow patriarchate of the the Russian Orthodox Church.Russian priests should stop blessing nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction that can inflict indiscriminate loss of life, according to new guidelines being discussed. It's an unusual display of independence by the church.From Reuters:During two decades in power, President Vladimir Putin has aligned himself with the Orthodox Church, which has also developed closer ties with the ministry of defense. Russian priests have long appeared in images sprinkling holy water on submarines, ballistic missiles, Soyuz space rockets and other pieces of hardware as part of rituals to bless them. But some of that is set to stop if the church approves a document drawn up by an Orthodox Church commission.“The blessing of military weapons is not reflected in the tradition of the Orthodox Church and does not correspond to the content of the Rite,” the document, on the Moscow patriarchate’s website, says.Blessing or sanctifying weapons that can kill an “indefinite number of people” must be excluded from pastoral practice, it says. The proposals will be discussed until June 1 and the public should also take part in the debate, the church’s Moscow branch said. Read more:Russian priests should stop blessing nukes: church proposal[Tom Balmforth, reuters.com/]IMAGE: mospat.ru. “On 1st February 2020, the 11th anniversary of his enthronement, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia officiated at the Divine Liturgy in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. Read the rest

Until the latter part of the 1900s, vibrators were big industrial-looking objects that might have scared off many a humans back in the day. Sexologist and curator of the Good Vibrations Antique Vibrator Museum Dr. Carol Queen shows us some of these beauties as she answers questions from Atlas Obscura about vibrators of the late 1800s to the 1970s. Read the rest

In Connecticut, police are trying to identify a man captured on surveillance camera stealing about $17,000 worth of merchandise from a gas station. Cops say the guy got a job there, then proceeded to steal tens of thousands of dollars worth of stolen lottery tickets, cigarettes, and cash on his very first, and only, solo overnight shift. Then, the suspect disappeared.From AP:The man also stole his employment folder, which contained his personal information, so the store’s owner does not even know the worker’s name, Hamden police said in a statement Tuesday.Police responded to the Go On Gas store late last month.The owner told investigators he used an app on his cellphone to view the store security cameras and noticed that the new employee had left.MORE: Hamden Gas Station Employee Accused of Stealing Items Worth $17k on First Day [nbcconnecticut.com —PHOTO: Hamden, CT police] Read the rest

Reporter Natalie Allison, who covers state politics for The Tennessean in Nashville, tweeted a photo Monday (the photo was shot by photojournalist George Walker IV) of TN state Rep. Kent Calfee drinking from a Hershey’s chocolate syrup bottle.Weird. Or -- not weird, if you ask TN state Rep. Kent Calfee, and others who've observed him doing this before.Allison tweeted that Calfee “often does” this during the legislative session.But not so fast, reports the Tennessean! The rep says it's water, not syrup or alcohol.“It’s a repurposed syrup bottle that I drink my water out of,” Calfee said Tuesday, according to the newspaper. “I’m not going to buy a $25 or $35 or $45 water bottle that’s not worth what it costs because I’ll probably put it down and leave it somewhere.”He added that he and his wife “recycle everything,” per The Tennessean, saying “I was fixing to put it in the plastic recycling one day at home, and I thought, shoot, I can put water in that.” Read more:‘It happens a lot:’ Tennessee lawmaker sipping chocolate syrup bottle makes waves [sacbee.com]As he waits for the State of the State to begin, Rep. Kent Calfee takes a swig of from his Hershey’s chocolate syrup bottle, as he often does during #tnleg session. Photo by @Tennessean’s @GeorgeWalkerIV. pic.twitter.com/TWPZ8yxbM9— Natalie Allison (@natalie_allison) February 3, 2020Whiskey flask, most likely— Kᴇᴠɪɴ Bᴀɪʀᴅ ᶠʳⁱᴺᵍᴵⁿᵉᴱʳ 🌚🌞 (@KevinBaird) February 4, 2020 Read the rest

I first learned of Philadelphia Printworks because of a sweatshirt they designed for the Brooklyn Museum's showing of Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963–1983, an absolutely essential exhibition of black artists' work at the intersection of activism, empowerment, and cultural pride. (The exhibition is currently on view at San Francisco's de Young Museum.) Philadelphia Printworks describes itself as "a social justice heritage brand and screen printing workshop." I've bought two of their hoodies -- the "Soul of a Nation" design and also their "People's Free Food Program design" celebrating the Black Panthers' influential community program launched in 1969 that fed thousands of children every day."Soul of a Nation""Octavia Butler" by Nick James"Freedom Trail/Freedom Summer" Read the rest

A college student loan processing company sent thousands of copies of the same statement to an Ohio family. An estimated 55,000 copies, to be precise.Dan Cain said he was suspicious when a postal worker in Twinsburg, Ohio said he couldn't retrieve his mail the normal way, and soon he saw two USPS workers wheeling out two huge bins of mail, all addressed to his Twinsburg address.“I was shocked, are you kidding me, who makes that kind of mistake,” Cain told local TV newsThe College Avenue Student Loan Company made a mistake, and says they used the wrong interest rate to calculate the payment. So, all 55,000 of them were incorrect. Excerpt from cleveland19.com:Cain counted 79 plastic bins of mail each containing roughly 700 letters, all exactly the same, a statement for the student loan, he and his wife Dee, had taken for his daughters college tuition.Thinking he was out of options, it took 2 trips in his truck to get all the letters to his home where they are now sitting in his garage.The student loan company apologized for the mistake, blaming a glitch in a new outgoing mail system, and his postal carrier later told him he may have been able to tell the clerk at the post office to return the mail.“I just may start a fire, a bonfire, and burn it all,” Cain said with a chuckle.“We are working with Dan directly on a remedy, including picking up the mail from him if possible and a statement credit for the inconvenience,” the company’s chief operating officer, Tim Staley, said in an email sent to reporters today. Read the rest

Update: Nevada Dem. Party abandons the app, 1025AM Pacific time/125PM Eastern.An Iowa Caucus disaster in 3 bullets:• Precinct captains were first allowed to test the app 16 days before the caucus• And they only got detailed instructions at 1pm yesterday,• Then the two-factor verification broke.“We have the name and screenshots of the Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night, it is worse than you could possibly imagine,” tweets Jason Koebler of VICE News. Get a load of this:Wow. "On the ground, it went great," Green, the chair of the Democractic presidential primary caucuses in Iowa's Fremont Township and Lone Tree precincts and an IT systems administrator for a financial services firm, told Vice News:"I got pissed off four years ago at how my precinct was run, which is why I volunteered to do it this time around," he said. "We had 113 people and everyone was pleasant. I had to recruit a secretary once we were going—I couldn't find one ahead of time. Everyone was patient and in good cheer. I know that's not likely the case today. My girlfriend, especially, is distraught. She has poured her life and soul into this thing, and for naught."Green, like many other precinct chairs, faced problems reporting the results of the caucus to Iowa's Democratic Party using the app. Due to a coding error, the app, created by a company called Shadow Inc., wasn't reporting the correct data, according to the Iowa Democratic Party. Read the rest

Today, Twitter released a statement that says the platform has suspended “a large network of fake accounts,” as well as many others “located in a wide range of countries,” for abusing an API feature that allowed them to match phone numbers to usernames.Here's the official tweet.We recently discovered an issue that allowed bad actors to match a specific phone number with the corresponding accounts on Twitter. We quickly corrected this issue and are sorry this happened. You can learn more about our investigation here: https://t.co/Z6Q4geQ8jo— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) February 3, 2020“We observed a particularly high volume of requests coming from individual IP addresses located within Iran, Israel, and Malaysia,” the Twitter security bulletin says. “It is possible that some of these IP addresses may have ties to state-sponsored actors,” the post continued.TechCrunch previously reported this same issue on December 24, which is also the day Twitter says that it “became aware” that the abuse was taking place, writes Devin Coldewey at TechCrunch. Security researcher Ibrahim Balic found that a bug in Twitter’s Android app let him submit millions of phone numbers through an official API, which returned any associated user account.Excerpt from today's TechCrunch report:The feature is intended, if you have enabled it, to let friends who have your number look up your Twitter handle. But obviously submitting millions of numbers goes “beyond its intended use case.”If you had turned this feature off, you weren’t affected by this bug. Fortunately for users in the EU this was opt-in there. Read the rest

I've watched Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time In Hollywood twice, and I appreciated more even the second time. So I enjoyed this "making of" documentary that Sony released to YouTube last week. It has interviews with all the principle actors and Tarantino himself, along with behind-the-scenes footage.<em>Image: YouTube</em> Read the rest

If you use Google Photos, and you used the Google Takeout data download/backup service, you may want to pay attention closely to this warning sent by email today from Google to users.Whoa, what? @googlephotos? pic.twitter.com/2cZsABz1xb— Jon Oberheide (@jonoberheide) February 4, 2020From 9to5google.com:With Google Takeout, you can download your data from Google apps as a backup or for use with another service. Unfortunately, a brief issue with the tool last November saw your videos in Google Photos possibly get exported to strangers’ archives.Google this evening began alerting Takeout users about the “technical issue.” From November 21-25, 2019, those that requested backups could have had videos in Google Photos “incorrectly exported to unrelated users’ archives.”In requesting a backup, some of your videos — but not pictures — might be visible to random users that were also downloading their data through Google Takeout. The company did not specify what media was affected beyond “one or more videos in your Google Photos account was affected by this issue.”Read more:Some Google Photos videos in ‘Takeout’ backups were sent to strangers last November[Abner Li, 9to5google.com, via techmeme.com] Still think that dumb Google superbowl ad is great? The company sent private videos stored in Google Photos to strangers. https://t.co/h2DIvseyFs— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) February 4, 2020This seems wildly insufficient, Google. At minimum, people should be informed exactly what videos of theirs were accidently provided to other users. https://t.co/wuDrsSJDrB— Dieter Bohn (@backlon) February 4, 2020Google has revealed it accidentally sent private videos in Google Photos to strangers. Read the rest

"Rubik Mona Lisa" (2005) by legendary French street artist Invader, is expected to sell for around $166,000 at a forthcoming auction. Made from more than 300 Rubik's Cubes, it's the centerpiece of Artcurial's "Urban Art" sale taking place on February 23. Invader first experimented with what he calls Rubikcubism in 2004 and has since created many other works including iconic videogame characters and representations of classical paintings by Alain Jacquet and Gustave Courbet. Invader writes:Rubikcubism is similar to Op Art. To view a piece, you have to stand back from it. Close up, the image is nothing but a mass of cubes and colours, it’s only when you stand back that the face emerges. The further away you stand, the clearer it becomes. Two years ago, I displayed a Mona Lisa in the window of a gallery in Lyon. From the gallery entrance, the image was invisible. Overly pixelated. It was only when you stood on the pavement opposite that Mona Lisa’s features appeared. Faces become recognisable or amorphous, depending on the position of the viewer. Read the rest