Behold the turbulent seas of our sun, plasma waves rising and falling under the watchful gaze of the Inouye solar telescope in Hawaii. Science News:We have now seen the smallest details on the largest object in the solar system,” said Inouye telescope director Thomas Rimmele during a January 24 news teleconference.Covering an area 36,500 kilometers across — roughly three times the diameter of Earth — the images show familiar bubbles of plasma percolating up from the depths. In the dark lanes between the bubbles, newly resolved clusters of bright points appear at the roots of magnetic fields that stretch out into space. Read the rest

On Tuesday, January 28, 2020, the Trump Administration revealed its vision for an Israel-Palestine peace plan. The proposed two-state solution would leave the state of Palestine completely surrounded by Israel, with tunnels connecting different sections.The "deal" was brokered in part by Jared Kushner. I put "deal" in quotes because no actual Palestinian humans were included in the conversations. This, to me, seems like a poor approach to solving such a famously contentious issue. Of course, I did not have the fortune to luck into a diplomatic position by marrying to the daughter of a con artist president. So what do I know.Similarly, if you're going to leave half the people involved in the negotiations out of the negotiations, I wouldn't think it wise to go on CNN and make your disdain for them so abundantly clear, as Kushner did here:Jared Kushner, senior adviser to the President, says the White House's Middle East plan is "a great deal" and if Palestinians reject it, “they’re going to screw up another opportunity, like they’ve screwed up every other opportunity that they’ve ever had in their existence.” pic.twitter.com/ABAI3gKjig— CNN (@CNN) January 28, 2020I suppose one could argue that this is not explicitly racist. But it absolutely hints at racist notions of Arabs as inherently savage beasts who can't take care of themselves. In subsequent interviews, Kush basically made it clear that the Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory are going to keep growing and expanding anyway, so the Palestinians may as well take the deal because they're inevitably going to be pushed out anyway. Read the rest

Valentine’s Day is such a strange holiday. It seems as though we all collectively loath it, yet most of us still end up rushing to the florist and paying through the nose for a bouquet of flowers on February 14th. Perhaps we'd come to enjoy Valentine's Day a bit more if it wasn't so darn hectic to celebrate?Enter Florists.com, which takes all the hassle of out getting those flowers you're after, and it can even save you a pretty penny in the process, now that you can get $30 of credit for only $15 today as part of their Valentine's Day Special offer.Florists.com eliminates the hassle we've all come to associate Valentine's Day with by delivering gorgeous arrangements directly to your loved one's door. Plus, it’s also easy to add speciality balloons or chocolates to your order, in case you're really looking to impress this year.Once you sign up, you’ll be able to redeem your code at the Florists.com online store within 30 days of your purchase, and each order comes with a 100% smile guarantee—meaning that if your recipient isn’t completely satisfied with their gift you get a full refund.Embrace Valentine’s Day this year without all the hassle. The Florists.com Valentine's Day Special will make your life much easier for just $15. Read the rest

We have three cats. We bought this large heavy duty scratching post in December 2015 and all three cats used it countless times throughout the day. By February 2018 it was pretty thrashed so we bought a replacement. They never get tired of using it. They also like to jump onto the little platform at the top to survey the room. We bought a second one for the upstairs. Highly recommended. Read the rest

A 25-year-old Japanese woman was about to board a flight from Hong Kong to Saipan when a staff member of Hong Kong Express airlines said she would have to take a pregnancy test, reports Oddity Central. The woman had indicated on a check-in questionnaire that she was not pregnant, but the staff member didn't believe her and told her that she couldn't fly without proving she wasn't pregnant. She took the test and was found to be not pregnant.Saipan is a United States Territory and U.S. officials are concerned about birth tourism. According to U.S. law, babies born in the United States automatically become U.S. citizens.From Oddity Central:The island of Saipan has apparently become a popular destination for foreign women to give birth in, since under US law any child born on one of its territories is automatically granted American citizenship. Being admitted into the North Marian Islands commonwealth is much easier than entering the United States, so it’s not very surprising that 2018 saw more tourists giving birth on Saipan than there are residents on the island.Hong Kong Express Airways specified that Midori Nishida’s pregnancy test was meant “to help ensure US immigration laws were not being undermined”. The airline has since apologized and suspended the practice of forcing women to take pregnancy tests.[1/29/2020 6:20pm PT] An important correction from Doug Rand:Dear @Frauenfelder @BoingBoing,Today you mistakenly propagated an incendiary, uncorroborated, & easily debunked absurdity.Saipan: population 48k CDC data suggest <<<10k "birth tourists" per year across the entire US. Read the rest

Michael Bloomberg sure has a funny way of greeting a dog. Obviously he hasn't quite mastered this trick. Watch him shake this doggo's mouth before giving him a nice scratch on the head in this tweet by @chrisjollyhale:I regret to inform you that Mike Bloomberg attempted to shake a dog’s mouth. pic.twitter.com/hKsagJ4xAf— Christopher J. Hale (@chrisjollyhale) January 28, 2020 Read the rest

Darcin is a pheromone found in the urine of male mice. It's used to mark territory and signal mating availability, and was named after the character Mr. Darcy who appears in Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice. In the new issue of Nature, researchers at Columbia University report on how darcin "takes hold in the brains of female mice, giving cells in the brain's emotion center the power to assess the mouse's sexual readiness and help her select a mate."From the press release:Pheromones, such as darcin, are processed somewhat differently. They interact with a second, parallel olfactory system, which exists in animals like mice but not in people."Unlike people, mice have essentially two functional noses," said Dr. Demir. "The first nose works like ours: processing scents such as the stinky odor particles found in urine. But a second system, called the vomernasal nose, evolved specifically to perceive pheromones like darcin."For today's study, the research team, which also included Dr. Hurst, Dr. Beynon and co-senior author Adam Kepecs, PhD, of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, first exposed female mice to darcin-scented urine and monitored their behavior. Nearly all of the female mice showed an immediate attraction to darcin. Then, after about 50 minutes, some females began leaving their own urinary scent markings. They also started to sing, at ultrasonic frequencies too high for the human ear to hear. Both of these behaviors are an indicator of increased sexual drive.Image by Rama - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.0 Read the rest

Automated phone spam is a growing plague for anyone with a telephone, landline or cell.The U.S. Department of Justice today announced that they're trying to get court approval to take enforcement action against various telecommunications companies for their alleged role in facilitating robocalls. As far as I can tell, this is the first time DOJ has taken *any* enforcement action against telecoms over robocalls.About time. Go read the announcement.The filing accuses certain telecoms of “facilitating robocallls across their networks,” and says the losses to robocall scam victims total up to hundreds of millions of dollars.DOJ is focusing on a set of companies that includes two groups “originating in India, and operating out of residential addresses in New York and Arizona,” said Jody Hunt, Assistant Attorney General for the department’s civil division.From CNBC's reporting:The groups were responsible for hundreds of millions of calls per month, Hunt said. The Justice Department is seeking court approval to stop the organizations from making further calls, he said. The companies include two Arizona-based companies and three Long Island, N.Y.-based companies, all of which were operated out of residential addresses in those states, according to the press conference.The Arizona defendants are TollFreeDeals.com, SIP Retail and their owner-operators, Nicholas Palumbo and Natasha Palumbo of Scottsdale. The New York defendants are Global Voicecom Inc., Global Telecommunication Services Inc., KAT Telecom Inc. and their owner-operator Jon Kahen of Great Neck, N.Y. The defendant companies and individuals could not immediately be reached for comment. Read the rest

Last month, Bonhams auctioned off these two parts from "Little Boy," the first atomic bomb that the US dropped on Japan on August 6, 1945. An unidentified buyer paid $100,000 for the red arming and green safety plugs from the bomb. From Bonhams:ONE OF ONLY THREE SURVIVING SETS OF BOMB PLUGS, THE ONLY SURVIVING RELICS OF "LITTLE BOY," THE FIRST ATOMIC BOMB DETONATED OVER HIROSHIMA..This set was given by Weapons Test Officer Jeppson to his superior Edward Doll, the day after the flight. Jeppson's own set was sold in Butterfields Auctions in 2002, now privately owned, and there is a further set in the Naval Museum Washington D.C., a set that belonged to Deak Parsons, who also flew on the Enola Gay as Senior Military Technical Observer. This last set is presumed to have been given to Parsons by Jeppson.(Thanks, Bob Pescovitz!) Read the rest

“If there are no consequences for the [UN] agencies for failures like these … there will be more breaches.”

Who cares about the Tokyo Olympics, when a 60-foot walking RX-78-2 robot is going to be stomping around nearby Yokohama in October? It will have 24 degrees of motion and will weigh 25 tons, according to New Atlas. It sounds pretty impressive, and the video above makes it seem cool, but Yoshiyuki Tomino, who created Gundam in the late 1970s, has some harsh words for the project: "It's boring. It rubs me the wrong way ... It's just not interesting ... It feels like they're going backwards, trying to reproduce a 40-year-old original."Image: YouTube Read the rest

I've often wondered what kind of blackmail has got Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, et al running so scared that they now don't even try to hide their mindless, sycophantic kneeling before King Trump. But, according to Salon, the answer is much simpler than blackmail – it's about what it's almost always about: money, or in this case, campaign contributions.Apparently, Trump's lawyers donated thousands to the GOP senate puppets. For instance, in 2017, Kenneth Starr donated $2,700 to Lindsey Graham and $2,800 to Mitch McConnell in 2019.From Salon:Starr, who lamented that "we are living in … the age of impeachment" during the trial on Monday and accused Democrats of waging a "domestic war," gave $2,800 to McConnell in July 2019, according to CFPR.Ray, who wanted to indict Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair but now claims Trump has been vindicated by the transcript of his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, contributed the maximum $5,600 to McConnell in September 2019, according to the report.The contributions came months before McConnell bragged to Fox News host Sean Hannity that he would be in "total coordination with the White House counsel's office and the people who are representing the president in the well of the Senate.""Everything I do during this, I'm coordinating with the White House counsel," he said. "There will be no difference between the president's position and our position as to how to handle this."Read more details at Salon.Image: Liz West / Flickr Read the rest

And you thought you felt full. Check out this female tsetse fly push out a larva fat with its momma's milk. From Deep Look:Mammalian moms aren’t the only ones to deliver babies and feed them milk. Tsetse flies, the insects best known for transmitting sleeping sickness, do it too.(UC Davis medical entomologist Geoff Attardo) is trying to understand in detail the unusual way in which these flies reproduce in order to find new ways to combat the disease, which has a crippling effect on a huge swath of Africa.When it’s time to give birth, a female tsetse fly takes less than a minute to push out a squiggly yellowish larva almost as big as itself...“There’s too much coming out of it to be able to fit inside,” (Attardo) recalled thinking. “The fact that they can do it eight times in their lifetime is kind of amazing to me.” Read the rest

Order says data collected ‘could be valuable to foreign entities’The United States Interior Department today introduced a no-fly rule that covers pretty much all Chinese drones, and all unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) made with Chinese parts, with some narrow exceptions. The big fear is espionage. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said he decided to issue the order after investigating the potential security risks from drones manufactured in China, or with parts made in China.“In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said his department will grant exceptions for tracking wildfires by air and for emergencies where human safety or property damage are at risk, such as search-and-rescue operations,” reports Katy Stech Ferek at the Wall Street Journal. They're making exceptions for training flights and such, also.The new policy, which will be issued in an order Wednesday, follows the temporary grounding of the department’s drone fleet last year amid rising concerns that the devices could be used for espionage. Interior officials have acknowledged that all of the department’s roughly 800 drones are made in China or with Chinese parts.(...)The department order doesn’t mention China by name but instead directs department officials to favor domestically made drones out of concerns information collected by aerial drones could be “valuable to foreign entities, organizations and governments.”Since the temporary ban was imposed last year, some Interior workers have complained that it has weakened their ability to survey erosion, monitor endangered species and inspect dams.READ MORE: Interior Department Adopts Restrictions Aimed at Chinese Drones [wsj.com] Read the rest

The Kremlin says Russian president Putin "has no view" on a proposal to change his title to "Supreme Leader," reports US News and World Report. The title is one of a number being considered by a commission formed after Putin announced his desire to change the Russian constitution. From the article:"There are... some very curious proposals among those put forward. For instance, they proposed renaming the position of head of state to 'Supreme leader'," Pavel Krasheninnikov, the government commission's co-chair, told the Rossiiskaya Gazeta government newspaper.When asked about the idea on Wednesday, the Kremlin was non-committal, calling it a "new initiative" and one of various proposals that may or may not be implemented."Right now all this is at the discussion stage," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "President Putin has no view on this."Image by Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, Link Read the rest

Knewz has a stark spot-color design (I've decided to call it Drudge Custard, but I like it!) and a completely nauseating name. It's a pure aggregator, too -- just links to other people's sites -- even though it's from the News Corp stable. “Knewz is unique in that readers can, at a single glance, see multiple sources. It is not egregious aggregation but generous aggregation. There are mastheads from across the political and regional spectrum, and premium publishers will not be relegated in the rankings,” said Robert Thomson, chief executive of News Corp.Knewz.com works by combining cutting edge, proprietary artificial intelligence with experienced editors. The technology constantly scans hundreds of real news sources, and editors curate a selection of headlines that provide a broad perspective on stories of the day. Aggregation is a fundamentally good thing. I hope it does well and helps revive the web as a good place to go to find out what's in the kn... sorry, the news. Read the rest

Amazon is dumping Parker Jotters for only $8.99 today, less than half the usual price. It's a basic, good ballpoint pen in a sleek metal casing that will last forever and is something of a cult favorite among EDC types, not least because it's "tactical" without broadcasting itself as a pointy six-inch metal stabber. It's even Bond-approved: GoldenEye saw the superspy issued a weaponized example by Q. Q-Branch supplies Bond with a Parker Jotter pen that is a C4 grenade: three clicks arms the four-second fuse, another three disarms it. A classic pen, still widely available.The ones Amazon are selling don't come with plastic explosives.Parker Jotter [Amazon] Read the rest

The Food and Drug Administration sent an official warning letter to the makers of Purell hand sanitizer, ordering them to stop making unsupported claims about the goo's ability to fend off disease.In the letter, dated January 17, FDA compliance director Nicholas F. Lyons takes aim at marketing literature which says the product helps "eliminate" MRSA, VRE and other diseases and reduces student absenteeism.These statements, made in the context of the Frequently Asked Questions section, clearly indicate your suggestion that PURELL® Healthcare Advanced Hand Sanitizers are intended for reducing or preventing disease from the Ebola virus, norovirus, and influenza. As such, the statements are evidence of your products’ intended uses. However, FDA is currently not aware of any adequate and well-controlled studies demonstrating that killing or decreasing the number of bacteria or viruses on the skin by a certain magnitude produces a corresponding clinical reduction in infection or disease caused by such bacteria or virus.Based on the above claims, PURELL® Healthcare Advanced Hand Sanitizers are drugs as defined by section 201(g)(1)(B) of the FD&C Act, 21 U.S.C. 321(g)(1)(B), because they are intended for the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease, and/or under section 201(g)(1)(C) of the FD&C Act, 21 U.S.C. 321(g)(1)(C), because they are intended to affect the structure or any function of the body.Therefore, knock it off:The violations cited in this letter are not intended to be an all-inclusive list of deficiencies regarding your products. Please be aware that you are responsible for investigating and determining the causes of these violations and for preventing their recurrence and the occurrence of other violations. Read the rest

Danny Takacs (homepage) wrote and directed this four-minute jumper about a woman who "discovers a sinister secret hiding in her crawlspace".The buildup's good, you know it's coming, but it gets you all the same. Read the rest

Is this video of a pug, relaxing and barking at literally everything in site, doctored? Because I'm going to be spending the morning learning to perform a perfect impression of its unusual yap for the next time Microsoft Tech Support calls.#StrangePugBarksAtEverythingInSightSo heckin ferociousPreviously, in Australia: Read the rest

The dreaded tax season is nearly upon us, and that means it’s time to start the process of gathering all of the expenses that will give you the largest deduction possible.The Quickbooks Pro Desktop Certification Bonus Bundle will help take the headaches out of this miserable processes by teaching you how to use one of the world’s most popular and powerful pieces of accounting software, and right now it’s available for any price you want to pay.With 8 courses led by a certified CPA, this bundle will walk you through everything from the fundamentals to the more advanced elements of this award-winning numbers platform.After an introduction to the basics of the interface, you’ll learn how to manage all of your income and expenses by organizing entries based on category, how to practice sound data-entry and reporting methods, how to plan for your financial future, and more.There’s also a course dedicated to teaching small business owners how to keep track of every expense, through training that walks you through spreadsheet analysis, cost monitoring, and tax preparation.Do yourself a financial favor in 2020 and land the Quickbooks Pro Desktop Certification Bonus Bundle for any price you want to pay. Read the rest

I would like to have now whatever they served in McDonaldland in 1970, which clearly involved more than beef, bread and condiments. Read the rest

Jeremy of Black Magic Craft managed to get his hands on one of the prototype 3D printed full-color(!) miniatures that Hero Forge is currently offering in their Kickstarter campaign for Hero Forge 2.0. As you can see from the video, the results are pretty impressive, as are the other miniature design and digital painting tools coming in Hero Forge 2.0. Given all of this gamery goodness, it is perhaps no surprise that Hero Forge's Kickstarter campaign has already racked up over $2 million, with 15 days still to go. Read the rest

[[Chelsea Manning's support team sends us this update on Chelsea Manning and her courageous fight against Grand Juries, which has seen her imprisoned for months, effectively in solitary, a situation that the UN Rapporteur on Torture has deemed to be a form of torture. Our hearts are with Chelsea. -Cory]]We wanted to let everyone know about the new website that just went up at ReleaseChelsea.com, where people can learn more about Chelsea Manning's current situation.Chelsea has been incarcerated for more than 9 months for her principled refusal to give testimony before a grand jury convened to investigate and prosecute journalists whose work threatens to expose government misdeeds. She is also being fined $1,000 per day for every day she refuses to testify, and has accrued over $200,000 in fines so far.Chelsea has repeatedly explained her conscientious objection to Grand Jury proceedings, citing their secrecy, their susceptibility to prosecutorial abuse, and the long history of grand jury abuse to target and harass activist communities.To be clear: Chelsea has not been charged with, let alone convicted of a crime, but she can be imprisoned for up to 18 months, until either the term of the grand jury expires, or she agrees to cooperate with their investigation. While this kind of “coercive confinement” is legal in the United States, Nils Melzer, the UN Rapporteur on Torture, recently condemned Chelsea’s confinement, explaining the ways in which such confinement is a violation of international law, and calling for her immediate release. Read the rest

The logo for Denis Villeneuve's forthcoming Dune movie series was revealed at an event in France last night. It appears the movie's producers are rushing to remove it from the 'net, as photos of the logo are disappearing from popular Dune fan accounts with copyright enforcement notices left in their wake. But they can't get everything, and it's easy to find with a search.Perhaps they know it's futile, and the aggressive enforcement is itself a publicity stunt. Dune's fandom is old and intense, and a rich thread in the cultural fabric of the internet generation thanks to the sprawling novels, the magnificent badness of the 1982 David Lynch movie, and a conversely excellent series of computer games based on Frank Herbert's lets-not-get-started-trying-to-summarize-it epic. So every element of the production receives an unusual level of attention from mainstream journalists. Read the rest

I'd met Tyler of Mushrooms For My Friends a few times socially. I knew that he made a living as a mushroom forager, working for some guy who allegedly had the market cornered on toadstool distribution in the greater Boston area and beyond. But I didn't really understand anything else about the operation, other than that, well, people pay good money for a prime piece of a fungus.Thanks to a recent New England Cable News feature, I now know that Tyler works for a man named Ben Maleson, a sextuagenarian who has spent most of his adult life in the mushroom trade. Maleson is every bit as quirky and corny as one would hope an international mushroom dealer would be, delivering up plenty of "fun guy" puns as he tells the story of how he molded this career path for himself. Spoiler: it's pure happenstance and hustle, kind of like how tasty fungus grows.Also he plays the mushroom trumpet.Maleson (understandably) plays coy on the subject of magic mushrooms — "they're all special," he says. One would assume he at least knows how to identify the fun ones, though I couldn't tell you if he keeps tabs on where they do or don't grow.Anyway, it's a short, fun look at a very odd job.Image via Pexels Read the rest

You don’t need to be a climate scientist in order to know that the Earth is in serious trouble, but the good news is that you also don’t need to necessarily make any drastic changes to your lifestyle in order to do your part to help.This nOcean Wearable Reusable Silicone Straw will help you reduce your plastic usage so you can help save the planet a few sips at a time, and it’s currently available for 20% off its usual price.This reusable, medical-grade straw reduces single-use plastic pollution and doubles as a stylish bracelet to boot.Available in three unique color combinations, the nOcean straw is made from sanitary silicone and surgical steel—meaning it's made to last even after extended periods of use without degrading.Its smooth metal tip makes for a uniquely comfortable and satisfying drinking experience, and when you’re not using it you can simply transform the straw into a sleek bracelet in order to ensure that you have your go-to straw wherever you go.Do your part for the environment while rocking a stylish bracelet that doubles as an eco-friendly straw. The nOcean Wearable Reusable Silicone Straw is available for just $15.99 today. Read the rest

In 1979, construction concluded on the Awhatukee House of the Future, a $1.2m model home in the new Phoenix suburb of Ahwatukee Village, co-built with input from Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin Associated Architects and equipped with 10 networked Motorola processors that retailed for $30,000.The Awhatukee house was ambitious in both its architecture and automation, partially buried to adapt to the Phoenix climate, and striking in its exterior (The Haunted Closet says it "looks something like the star-child offspring of a mid-century modern church and an inter-dimensional spacecraft" -- it even had a conversation pit!The systems were very impressive too, beginning with passive solar water-heating but extending to "Tuke" (short for Awhatukee), the automation system that could actuate windows, doors and blinds, and optimize temperature by analyzing energy use. Terminals in the main rooms allowed access to local messages and recipes, and could fetch banking information from your bank.Tuke used a voice synth that made it sound like Wargames's WOPR, and could recite jokes and nursery rhymes.The house was filled with CCTVs and motion sensors and had a keyless entry system controlled by a numeric keypad. No one bought the house, though. From 1980-1984, it was a $3 tourist attraction, with 250,000 visitors over the years -- it finally sold and became a private residence in 1984.The Haunted Closet has fantastic photos and backstory on the Awhatukee House, including details of its appearance on the TV show "That's Incredible."It was conceived as a "shining home of dreams", an "experimental living laboratory and testing ground", a "magnificent prism of Man's dreams" where the ideas of tomorrow are experienced today. Read the rest

Burbank librarian Sarah McKinley Oakes (previously) also nannies for a six year old whose parents are French Stewart -- from Third Rock from the Sun -- and the actor Vanessa Claire Smith. Smith and Oakes have a friendly, normal relationship, but when it comes to French Stewart, things are awesomely weird.As Oakes describes it, her relationship with French Stewart is defined by "trash talk, sarcasm, and my (probably fake) attempts to steal his money" -- with a healthy dollop of pranking.Enter Stewart's unwise admission that he is frightened of dolls ("pediophobia"). Oakes seized on this and turned it to her advantage, slowly but surely terrorizing Stewart with a series of horror-doll-themed pranks, each more fiendish than the last, each demonstrating that when it comes to comprehensive, well-planned pranks, you should not fuck with a librarian.Then I started posting pictures to his Facebook page, almost every day.I had the doll study a map showing how to get from where I live in Burbank to his house in West Hollywood.I showed the doll reading a book about haunted dolls (I work at a library, when I’m not a nanny)This doll has a bloody stump where her hand should be, making it clear that she’s written this note in her own blood, that she got by cutting off her hand.To establish that there was not just one but several dolls, I had them gather to watch French on an episode of NCIS. For a week or so, the main doll (I elected her president of the dolls) worked at breaking into his house, eventually succeeding. Read the rest

Baycon is a large, regional science fiction convention that's been serving the Bay Area for 38 years; I attended several times when I lived in San Francisco and this year I was tickled to be invited to attend as Author Guest of Honor. The event is May 22-25 (Memorial Day Weekend) at the San Mateo Airport San Francisco Marriott (at Hwy 92 & 101 in San Mateo, CA). The convention is one of the best regional cons I've ever attended, with an outstanding mix of fannish activities (boffer swords! flint-knapping! multiple warring Klingon clades!), literary panels, and panels on tech, politics and other subjects salient to the Bay Area. I'm so pleased to be invited and I'm looking forward to seeing you there! Read the rest

Now in its second year, a UC Berkeley basic life skills class has become so popular that it's had to turn 200 wannabe adults away. The eight-week pass/no pass course teaches young people how to be more responsible and grown-up, ie. how to "adult." They learn how to budget for food, do taxes, manage relationships, and more.KTVU:Other areas include fitness, nutrition and mental health."Self-care, self-love and sleep," [instructor Belle] Lau continued.Many students admit they struggle making the transition to self-reliance in college."It's harder to budget when you're not living at home because you have a lot more expenses," said Lauren Frailey, 19, an economics major."I'm excited to learn how to manage my time better and that will definitely help me manage my stress as well."The class was launched by Lau and a fellow biology major Jenny Zhou.Now juniors, when they arrived at U.C. Berkeley from out-of-state, they felt lost without family nearby to rely on."We can only call them on the phone if we need help, but that only goes so far," said Lau.(Image: Eli Christman , CC-BY, unmodified) Read the rest

I'm a huge fan of the Song Exploder podcast, which brings musicians to talk about the process that went into writing and recording their hit songs. Even if you're not a fan of a particular artist or song, each episode is still a digestible and insightful look into different creative processes (and they're usually less than 30 minutes long, too).One of the more recent episodes features Dan Wilson of the band Semisonic discussing their hit "Closing Time," which helped rocket him to fame as a co-writer for songs by such as artists as Taylor Swift, Adele, John Legend, the Dixie Chicks, and others.But that song holds a special place in his heart for another reason: the birth of his daughter.I had heard part of this story previously on the Art of Process podcast with Aimee Mann and Ted Leo — how the song was not, in fact, about a bar, but was actually about a child being born. But for the Song Exploder segment, Wilson goes even more in-depth into the delightfully literal inspiration for the song; his deliberate attention towards double entendre in lyric-writing to let the listener to draw their own conclusions; and the various ways the song intertwined with the complicated first year of his daughter's life.Maybe the story behind the song just hit me different this time, as I'm both coming out of the recording studio with my own band, and looking ahead to starting to my own family. But it's an inspiring, tear-jerker of an episode. Read the rest

"Overlooked" is a series of belated obituaries in New York Times for people of note who were overlooked at the time of their passing. Their most recent "overlooked no more" subject is Judee Sill.Judee Sill was a 70s singer-songwriter, the first artist signed to David Geffen's Asylum Records. During her short-lived career in the early-to-mid 70s, Sill received little attention or airplay. While other singer-songwriters of the time sang about personal relationships and political protest, Sill's ethereal music explored themes of rapture, redemption, spiritual love, occult themes, and the deeper meanings of it all.Sill's life was as troubled as her work was complex and under the radar. She was a juvenile delinquent, a junkie, and a prostitute for a time. Judee Sill died in 1979 of a drug overdose which was likely a suicide.While she was not widely recognized during her lifetime, her music has had a significant impact on many modern artists and that influence only continues to grow. Liz Phair, Shawn Colvin, Greta Gerwig, XTC's Andy Partridge, and Warren Zevon have all cited her as an inspiration.Read the rest of the obit here.[H/t Jenny Hart]Image: YouTube Read the rest

I loved last year's All Tree from former Black Metalist Kvohst (aka Mat McNerney) and his folkier project, Hexvessel. The band has been described as "dark folk," "psychedelic forest folk," and "occult folk." Think of them as a somewhat more melodic and accessible Current 93.On "Demian," the first single and video from their forthcoming record, Kindred (coming in April), they build the video around clips from Jean Cocteau's groundbreaking 1930 surrealist film, Blood of a Poet.Bonus track: The hauntingly beautiful "Old Tree" from the band's 2019 release, All Tree.Image: YouTube Read the rest

Someone I know buys fake Rolex watches from a maker who shoots detailed videos of the fake watches and emails them to potential customers. The phonies sell for about $450. I'm not a watch expert nor a watch collector, so I can't vouch for the quality of the knock-offs, but the care that goes into the videos is impressive. Anyway, here's a video in which an expert compares a $4,000 Omega Seamaster Diver 300M with an incredibly impressive knock-off costing 1/10th the price. Only when you zoom way in to see the minute details do the differences become apparent.Image: YouTube Read the rest

When it comes to conquering that resolution list and hitting all of your goals in 2020, nothing is more important than getting a great night’s sleep every night so you can wake up feeling refreshed and extra productive.The CarbonIce: 7-in-1 Bacteria Protection & Cooling Pillow will help you do just that, and right now it’s available for over 20% off its usual price.This Kickstarter favorite gives you a supremely comfortable pillow that protects against bacteria while using Active-Air technology in order to keep you cool throughout the night.With an ergonomic design that aligns the spine and relieves pain in your neck and shoulders, this compact pillow is made from a combination of soft memory foam, firm memory foam, CarbonIce and Graphene—which naturally keeps you warm during cold nights and cool during hot nights.You’ll even be able to compress the pillow and cram it in your bag to ensure you get the best sleep possible when you’re away from your bed.Treat yourself to better sleep in 2020 with the best-selling CarbonIce: 7-in-1 Bacteria Protection & Cooling Pillow for just $99.99—over 20% off MSRP. Read the rest

Makeup artist John Chambers' work on Planet of the Apes (1968) is a high point in Hollywood prosthetics. The characters don't look like real apes, but they have an interesting mix of ape and human. Combined with costume designer Morton Haack's outfits, the overall effect is spectacular and unforgettable. I learned that photographer Dennis Stock took a bunch of behind-the-scenes photos during the shooting of the movie, and you can browse them at Magnum Photos.[via Flashbak] Read the rest

Around 70 passengers booked on a China Southern Airlines flight from Nagoya, Japan to Shanghai refused to get on the plane when they found out 16 passengers from Wuhan, China were getting on the same plane. Worried that the Wuhan passengers could be infected with the new coronavirus – which has now killed 106 people and infected more than 4,500 people (but those numbers will will certainly climb within the next 24 hours, as they've been doing since the epidemic started last month) – the fearful passengers became angry and hostile. It took five hours for the airline to convince them to board the plane.According to IBT:Reportedly, 70 passengers who live in Shanghai tried to prevent the 16 passengers from Wuhan to board the flight. After a five hour delay, the airline was able to finally convince the protesting passengers. The travellers from Wuhan were finally able to board the flight and fly to Shanghai.The Chinese government put the city of Wuhan under quarantine before the Chinese New Year. However, many residents of Wuhan remain locked out of the city. The passengers who were being disallowed from boarding the flight were heading to China even though they would not be able to enter Wuhan in the coming days.Since the coronavirus spreads even before an infected patient starts showing symptoms, there is mass panic in the country. The passengers from Wuhan might have left the city before lockdown and they might be infected by the virus. Based on this fear, the Shanghai residents turned on their fellow passengers. Read the rest

Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pens come in a 2-pack for on Amazon. They look like pens, but instead of a nib they have a brush, which allows you to draw lines of varying widths. They’re a lot of fun to use. Read the rest

When Trump FCC Chairman Ajit Pai used fraud and skullduggery to kill net neutrality, he promised that clearing away the allegedly burdensome regulation of delivering the data your customers request would finally spur investment in America's worst-of-bread, ancient network infrastructure.Comcast was one of the great beneficiaries of Pai's regulatory welfare check, and then got billions courtesy of Trump's #TaxScam. Other network operators used the tax money for buybacks while slashing jobs (Verizon killed 10,000 jobs, AT&T cut 23,000 jobs).Comcast, befitting its stature as America's most hated company, thanked Uncle Sugar for the handouts by slashing cable infrastructure investment by 10.5% in 2019, while its revenues rose by 3.7%, to $58.1b. It was the second year in a row for cuts to Comcast's infrastructure investment.But Comcast isn't the only major ISP cutting investment, as AT&T projects that it will reduce capital spending from $23 billion in 2019 to $20 billion in 2020. Charter Communications said in October that its capital expenditures excluding mobile services would total $7 billion in 2019, down from $8.9 billion in 2018. Verizon also reported a capital-expenditure decline in the first nine months of 2019. Comcast slashed capital spending in cable division by 10.5% in 2019 [Jon Brodkin/Ars Technica](Image: Joe Ross, CC BY-SA, modified) Read the rest

United Airlines announced it would be canceling scheduled flights to China beginning in February, citing a "significant decline in demand," reports CNBC.″We will continue to monitor the situation as it develops and will adjust our schedule as needed,” United said in a statement. United operates about 12 flights a day from the U.S. to mainland China and Hong Kong, and the changes will cut that number by three or four per day. The changes reduce flights to Hong Kong from San Francisco and Newark; to Beijing from Washington Dulles, Newark and Chicago; and Shanghai service from San Francisco, Newark and Chicago.Meanwhile 20 US airports will soon start screening for coronavirus symptoms, up from five airports currently checking.Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash Read the rest

Human speech averages 150 words/minute, but human thoughts run more like 400 words per minute. Steve Rousseau decided to try "podfasting" (listening to podcasts at faster-than-normal speed) at progressively higher speeds to see whether he could consume more of the internet-mattress-subsidized high-quality audio bubble as he could before that bubble burst.The upshot was 1.25x speed improved the pacing of many podcasts, while 1.5x was "initially jarring" but quickly "felt natural." But 2x was where things started to falter, requiring "an additional level of focus" at the outset of each program to adjust to the accent and cadence of the speakers, and the programs had "less emotional resonance" with Rousseau's thoughts primarily occupied by comprehension, not empathy.At 3x, things just melted down, becoming distracting and difficult to comprehend.Much of the work on high-speed audio has been done by testing visually impaired people and their uses of text-to-speech user-interfaces. I once listened in on a totally blind friend's experience of navigating through a web-page, skipping over UI elements much more quickly than 3x, and it was both daunting and incredible.I confess that I've done a little of this, but primarily with video, because the visual side provides context cues that might get lost in the sped-up audio, and because videos are much more prone to having ponderous, lengthy sequences ("More pauses than a Pinter play!" -MST3K) that are best skipped over (looking at you, Stranger Things Season 3!).Feeling competent in my base-level comprehension at 2x, I crossed the threshold into 3x. Read the rest

Yesterday, in Wilson County, Tennessee, Spencer Alan Boston, 20, was in court on a marijuana possession charge. Facing the judge, Boston made a comment supporting marijuana legalization, pulled a joint from his pocket, lit it, and took a puff. From News Channel 5:“One of the craziest things I’ve seen,” says (Wilson County sheriff Robert) Bryan.The sheriff said Boston was led out of the courtroom through a small cloud of smoke. He was booked on a second charge of simple possession and received ten days for contempt of court. Read the rest

Restaurant chain Chipotle was fined $1.3m by the state of Massachussets for 13,253 child labor law violations at 50 sites. Time reports that minors working past midnight, for more than 48 hours a week, and without work papers were among the problems found by investigators.The settlement total is closer to $2 million, including penalties for earned sick time violations in which managers granted employees paid time off only for certain illnesses. The violations also include failure to keep accurate records and pay timely wages. Lastly, the company was ordered a voluntary $500,000 payout to a state youth worker fund dedicated to education, enforcement and training. Read the rest

With their massive wingspans and high speed, albatrosses fly across the seas in search of food. That's why marine ornithologist Henri Weimerskirch of the French National Center for Scientific Research calls the birds the “sentinels of the sea" and is using them to survey the ocean for illegal fishing boats. Apparently, the operators of these vessels frequently turn off their automatic identification system (AIS) that broadcasts who they are and their location. From Katherine J. Wu's article in Smithsonian:(Weimerskirch) and his colleagues have outfitted nearly 200 albatrosses with tiny GPS trackers that detect radar emissions from suspicious ships, allowing the birds to transmit the locations of fishers in the midst of illicit acts...The range of these signals isn’t big enough to be reliably picked up by stations on shore, keeping the ships’ movements mostly discreet. Radar can be detected within a few miles of the vessel itself, however—as long as something, or someone, can get close enough...Over the course of six months, the team’s army of albatrosses surveyed over 20 million square miles of sea. Whenever the birds came within three or so miles of a boat, their trackers logged its coordinates, then beamed them via satellite to an online database that officials could access and cross-check with AIS data. Of the 353 fishing vessels detected, a whopping 28 percent had their AIS switched off—a finding that caught Weimerskirch totally off guard. "Ocean sentinel albatrosses locate illegal vessels and provide the first estimate of the extent of nondeclared fishing" (PNAS)image: "Wandering Albatross (Diomedea exulans) in flight, East of the Tasman Peninsula, Tasmania, Australia." Read the rest

In 2016 researchers created a variety of "dissuasive cigarettes" to find out which kind was the biggest turn-off. "A 'minutes of life lost' stick was the most aversive of the stimuli tested," reported the researchers.From Weird Universe (which has a photo of the cigarettes described below):One of these cigarettes had a “smoking kills” warning printed directly on it. Two others were unpleasant colors: "slimy green" and "faecal yellow-brown." The fourth was printed with a graphic depicting "15 minutes of life lost."Photo by Mathew MacQuarrie on Unsplash Read the rest

In the Aspen Institute's 1997 report on "Journalism and Society," PBS NewsHour co-founder Jim Lehrer, who died last week at 85-years-old, contributed the following wisdom:I practice journalism in accordance with the following guidelines:Do nothing I cannot defend.Do not distort, lie, slant, or hype.Do not falsify facts or make up quotes.Cover, write, and present every story with the care I would want if the story were about me.Assume there is at least one other side or version to every story.Assume the viewer is as smart and caring and good a person as I am.Assume the same about all people on whom I report.Assume everyone is innocent until proven guilty.Assume personal lives are a private matter until a legitimate turn in the story mandates otherwise.Carefully separate opinion and analysis from straight news stories and clearly label them as such.Do not use anonymous sources or blind quotes except on rare and monumental occasions. No one should ever be allowed to attack another anonymously.Do not broadcast profanity or the end result of violence unless it is an integral and necessary part of the story and/or crucial to understanding the story.Acknowledge that objectivity may be impossible but fairness never is.Journalists who are reckless with facts and reputations should be disciplined by their employers.My viewers have a right to know what principles guide my work and the process I use in their practice.I am not in the entertainment business. Read the rest

A man went on Antique Roadshow with a Rolex watch he'd purchased in the 1970s for $345 and never really wore. His reaction to be told it is worth $700,000 made me smile.Image: YouTube Read the rest

This cover of The Office theme song is played on three kalimbas by JustVaish.And here's his rendition of Interstellar: Read the rest