Boing Boing

Mensa UK has invited Muhammad Haryz Nadzim, a 3-year-old Malaysian boy living in England, to join the self-described "High IQ Society." Haryz scored 142 on the Stanford-Binet intelligence test and was evaluated by an educational psychologist. From CNN:To become a member of British Mensa, an individual must "demonstrate an IQ in the top two per cent of the population," according to their website...Haryz mom, an engineer living in Durham, England, says her family knew that he was special even before Mensa. At Kumon, the after school math and reading program, he was named last September to the honor roll for advanced students in both subjects. Although she refers to him as her "mini brainbox," the little genius is a normal kid by all other standards..."He's very much your typical 3-year-old," (his mom Nur Anira) Asyikin said. "He really loves painting and reading books, really anything arts and crafts. He loves playing with Legos and Play-Doh especially ..."Mensa International aims "to identify and foster human intelligence for the benefit of humanity;to encourage research into the nature, characteristics, and uses of intelligence; andto provide a stimulating intellectual and social environment for its members."(top image: Nur Anira Asyikin/Facebook) Read the rest

Not all heroes wear capes; sometimes they wear fluffy, pink animal costumes. Outside San Jose's Further Confusion (FurCon) this weekend, a group of furries spotted a man abusing a woman in a car. So they intervened. From CNN:"We heard a woman's screams coming from inside and saw the passenger throwing full fists at whoever was driving," (FurCon DJ Robbie) Ryans told CNN. "We got up and ran towards the car, my friend pulled open the door and we both held onto the attacker. The girl driver was yelling for him to get out, as he started trying to fight us off."Four other people who were attending the convention joined in and helped grab the man, drag him out of the car, and restrain him until police arrived.Once he the felt the situation was under control, Ryans said he backed up and began filming the incident.When police arrived, they alleged that the suspect, 22-year-old Demetri Hardnett, assaulted his girlfriend in their car, according to the police report. Hardnett was arrested and booked into Santa Clara County Jail for domestic violence.pic.twitter.com/7QVA01UYO1— ROBBIE! 🏝️ (@robbiesets) January 18, 2020 Read the rest

Chinese health authorities said early Wednesday that the number of cases of a new virus has risen to 440 in China. The officially stated death toll from the so-called Wuhan coronavirus now stands at 9.And earlier today, we learned of patient number one in the United States, in Washington state. Excerpt from AP's early Wednesday report out of Beijing:Deputy Director of the National Health Commission Li Bin told reporters that the figures were current as of midnight Tuesday. All the deaths had been in Hubei province, home to Wuhan city where the first illnesses from coronavirus were reported in late December.Li said that marked an increase of 149 confirmed cases. He said Japan and South Korea had confirmed one case each and Thailand three. The U.S. and Taiwan also confirmed one case each on Tuesday.Concerned about a global outbreak similar to SARS, another coronavirus that spread from China to more than a dozen countries in 2002-2003, numerous nations have adopted screening measures for travelers from China, especially those arriving from Wuhan. Read more:Outbreak from new virus rises to 440 in China, with 9 dead [AP]More about what little is known of this new strain at CNN.Previously at Boing Boing:Coronavirus from China has made its way to the US Read the rest

Impeached phony president and utter turd of a man Donald Trump will attend a breakfast meeting on Wednesday at Davos with Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook, Reuters reports.Trump is meeting with with other business leaders on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, reports Reuters.On Tuesday, Trump and Ivanka and Jared Kushner hosted a dinner with executives from 25 multinational companies and organizations.Excerpt:Attendees discussed their business relationship with the United States, with several executives, including the chief executives of Nokia and Ericsson, focusing on the rollout of next-generation 5G telecommunications networks in the United States.Among other attendees of the Tuesday dinner were various Cabinet members and White House advisers, including acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, economic adviser Larry Kudlow and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.Other scheduled attendees included SoftBank Group Corp’s chief executive, Masayoshi Son, and LVMH Moët Hennessy Chairman Bernard Arnault.Trump to break bread with Apple's Cook and other CEOs: sources [reuters.com] Read the rest

No encrypted iCloud backups for you, citizen!

The iguanas are cold-blooded, you see.

Utah Judge Kara Pettit sided with prosecutors who said “lewdness” means women’s breasts.

Going to the beach is almost always an enjoyable experience, but trekking back through your house on the way to the shower can leave a trail of sand the quickly saps the day of its sunny fun. Thankfully this BeachBox: Portable Shower & Storage unit has you covered the next time you hit the beach.As the world’s first portable shower that doubles as a storage box, this intrepid cleaning combo is packed with features like an insulated shower tank, a non-slip changing lid, and a modular storage design that’s easy to take with you on the go.You’ll be able to keep your gear dry thanks to separated storage compartments and divider slides, and the tank can hold up to 1.5 gallons of insulated hot water at once.It’s also easy to refill the BeachBox in seconds, and you’ll be able to use the shower wand in order to douse your body with fresh water before you hit the road.Wash the beach off before you get to your car or house with this BeachBox: Portable Shower & Storage unit for just $169.99—10% off retail.You can't beat free! Get $70+ worth of premium Mac apps for free today!Prices are subject to change. Read the rest

Twenty years ago today, Boing Boing became a blog. Mark Frauenfelder's first post linked to Street Tech, a now-dormant gadget blog. Now there are 160,000 more posts just like it and the impossible task of summarizing the best of them in yet another.Founded as a print zine in 1988 by Mark and Carla Sinclair, Mark's personal retrospective posted earlier today is a must-read; following are a few of our greatest hits, proudest accomplishments, clickiest traffic monsters, and best features of all time.Despite the tens of millions of words in our database – mostly wonderful things – it's oftentimes the shortest posts that get the most attention. So it was with Xeni Jardin's Ralph Lauren opens new outlet store in the Uncanny Valley, a single-sentence reblog of a now-vanished post at another site highlighting the incompetently dysmorphic photomanipulations in one of the fashion house's ads. Ralph Lauren tried to force us to remove the post, to no avail.That wasn't our first rodeo, either. In 2008, were were sued by MagicJack, makers of a VoIP dongle, after criticizing its terms of service. We stood our ground and beat them in court. Ten years later, Playboy sued us for posting about someone else's uploaded cover collection, claiming that linking to things is a form of copyright infringement. We beat them too, with the help of able friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.It's not all law and chaos, though. Mark Frauenfelder says he's most proud of his two-part series on the fortified residential mailboxes of Los Angeles, Survival of the fittest mailbox and Fortified mailboxes, part 2. Read the rest

When it comes to immediately grabbing a reader’s attention in any medium, few things are more important than picking the perfect font—regardless of whether you’re advertising your brand online or in print.The MyFonts Monotype Fresh Font Bundle offers over 50 handcrafted fonts from one of the world’s most revered typeface companies, and it’s available for over 74% off at $49.99.How you write your content is undeniably important in a world of limited attention spans, and this collection of fonts that covers a wide range of typestyles will help you expand your existing collection with incredible sans serif, serif, script, and display options.Each font has been handmade and selected by the world-renowned experts at Monotype, and it’s easy to quickly find and select the font you’re looking for based on your individual project and needs.Gain unlimited access to a growing number of unique fonts for life with the MyFonts Monotype Fresh Font Bundle—available for just $49.99.You can't beat free! Get $70+ worth of premium Mac apps for free today!Prices are subject to change. Read the rest

Today is the twentieth anniversary of Boing Boing in its current incarnation. It looked like this in 2000.Here's a brief history of Boing Boing, which actually goes back 33 years.Carla and I conceived of it as a print zine in 1987. The first issue of bOING bOING came out in 1988. We printed 100 copies on a Xerox machine. I sent a copy to Factsheet Five, which was a zine that reviewed zines. Based on the review that ran in Factsheet Five, we sold all the copies. We also got an order from a newsstand distributor for 100 copies of the next issue. So we printed 200 copies of the second issue, sending 100 to the distributor and 100 to people sending $3 cash to us in the mail. We basically followed a Moore’s law style growth curve. The final issue of bOING bOING, number 15, had a print run of 17,500. Unfortunately it was our last print issue because our two major newsstand distributors went bankrupt, owing us tens of thousands of dollars.In 1995 I was an editor at Wired and one of my friends who worked at Hotwired, the magazine's online spinoff, registered boingboing.com for us and we started running occasional articles on the website.In 2000 I wrote an article for a magazine called the Industry Standard, about web logs. To learn about how web logs worked, I got a Blogger account and started posting things on boingboing.net (I forgot to register boingboing.com Read the rest

The new Coronavirus that is spreading in China, which has infected around 300 people and has killed at least six, has just shown up in the US (as well as Japan, Thailand, Taiwan and South Korea). A man who had traveled from Wuhan, China, where the virus first appeared, came down with pneumonia last week and has just been tested positive for the virus, which is in the SARS family (SARS was the virus in 2003 that killed around 800 people).From The New York Times:The man is a resident of Snohomish County, Wash., who experienced symptoms after returning from a trip to the region around Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began. He was hospitalized with pneumonia last week, and infection with the coronavirus was confirmed on Monday afternoon.The outbreak, which began in a seafood and poultry market in Wuhan, a city of 11 million, is spreading: Patients have been identified in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, as well as Taiwan, Japan, Thailand and South Korea.Major airports in the US started screening for the virus on Friday, and the World Health Organization will decide tomorrow "whether to declare the outbreak an international public health emergency," according to NYT. ADVERTISEImage: NIAID / Flickr Read the rest

At Detroit Metropolitan Airport, police removed two passengers from a GoJet/Delta Connection flight because they apparently wouldn't turn off a mobile phone that reportedly had a WiFi network name of "Remote Detonator." From the Detroit Free Press:...Flight attendants announced that they’d be calling police if personal WiFi wasn’t turned off, (passenger Aaron) Greenberg said.It was a nerve-racking moment when an estimated 10 emergency vehicles with flashing lights surrounded the plane, he said...A flight attendant told him there was a personal WiFi called “remote detonator” that was never turned off.(Wayne County Airport Authority spokesperson Lisa) Gass could not confirm the name of the WiFi hot spot, but said both removed passengers – a 42-year-old woman and a 31-year-old man, both from Quebec – were released following the incident, pending further investigation.image: Kai Hendry/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) Read the rest

CNN has the full 4-page organizing resolution for the Trump impeachment trial that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sent to the Senate on Monday.As CNN notes, the impeachment trial for President Bill Clinton gave the defense and the House prosecution committee each 24-hours — spread out over a maximum of 4 days — to make their opening statements. For the Trump trial, however, each side only gets 2 days to make their statements. But on any given day, the hearings don't begin until 1pm, and will thus drag on late into the night.After the opening statements, the Senate will have a total of 16 hours to question the House Committee or the White House Defense. Only then will the Senate vote on whether or not to subpoena witnesses or other evidence.The GOP's defense strategy becomes painfully clear in the structure set forward on those pages: make sure no one has a chance to say or reveal anything beyond what's already known by the public, then force a vote as soon as possible. Which is why I'm expecting the White House's opening statement to be a full-on Chewbacca Defense but with Bidens instead of Wookies.Impeachment resolution shortens trial's opening arguments to two days per side [Lauren Fox, Manu Raju and Jeremy Herb / CNN]Image via the White House / Flickr Read the rest

Vanity Fair just published a new excerpt from A Very Stable Genius, the new White House insider book from Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post staffers Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker. It explores the filming of the HBO documentary "The Words That Built America" at the White House, which took place shortly after the inauguration of President Donald Trump.The idea of this documentary was to unite the country by presenting the words of the country's founding documents, as read by all living presidents and vice presidents, as well as other politicians and actors. Interestingly enough, it was directed by Alexandra Pelosi, who is indeed the child of the US Speaker of the House and frequent Trump nemesis Nancy Pelosi.But according to the scene as relayed by Leonning and Rucker, Trump didn't know about or notice this familial connection:Pelosi moved in to thank Trump for participating in this special history project, but he appeared to have no idea who she was, apparently not briefed on her political lineage or her role as the director. The president asked for some water, and with no staff bringing any to him, Pelosi handed him a bottle of Aquafina from her purse. “I’ve been into the White House,” Pelosi later said of visits to see previous presidents. “There are always protocols. Here there were no rules, no protocol.” She added, “There’s so much wrong with the whole thing. I’m thinking, Isn’t there someone who’s supposed to guard what he’s eating and drinking?” Read the rest

Dik-diks are basically tiny African deer whose name comes from the chirping sounds they make. And if that's not adorable enough, then just wait until learn that they mark their territory with their tears (okay technically it's a secretion from the preobital gland but still).So here are some completely unsolicited dik-dik picks, courtesy of the UnsolicitedDiks Twitter page.pic.twitter.com/TNk5CboSs6— Unsolicited Dik-Diks (@UnsolicitedDiks) January 17, 2020pic.twitter.com/AOZuqxDI77— Unsolicited Dik-Diks (@UnsolicitedDiks) January 20, 2020pic.twitter.com/DAa3RVeBYE— Unsolicited Dik-Diks (@UnsolicitedDiks) January 13, 2020pic.twitter.com/LXLXYqq2oG— Unsolicited Dik-Diks (@UnsolicitedDiks) January 10, 2020Top image via Sharp Photography / Wikimedia Commons Read the rest

Insect populations around the world are plummeting. The latest indicator of the insect apocalypse is the sharp decline in the number of mayflies, reports National Geographic. The winged insects can form swarms of up to 80 billion and are an important source of food for fish, birds, and bats.According to a study published yesterday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, mayfly populations throughout northern Mississippi and Lake Erie have dropped by over 50%.NatGeo cites a number of possible reasons for the precipitous decline: an abundance of pesticide pollutants in freshwater systems, mayfly nymph-killing algae blooms caused from fertilizer runoff, and higher water temperatures brought on by climate change.From the article:Unfortunately, they’re not alone: Studies around the world have shown alarming declines of a wide variety of insects. A study published in the journal Biological Conservation in April suggested that 40 percent of all insect species are in decline and could die out in the coming decades. (Learn more: Why insect populations are plummeting, and why it matters.)Image by Michael Palmer - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link Read the rest

Yesterday in Kensginton, New Hampshire, Ian O’Reilly and his family were walking on a trail near a local pond when a coyote attacked his two-year-old son. After fighting with the animal for ten minutes, O'Reilly strangled it. According to police, the same coyote, likely sick, was responsible for other attacks earlier that day that apparently didn't result in injury. O'Reilly described the confrontation to Boston 25 News:“There was no interest in (the coyote) going away. [I] ultimately had to make the decision to become the aggressor and jumped on it, attacked it and [got] it to the ground," O’Reilly said. “When I was able to get on top of it, I put my hand on its snout so it wasn’t able to attack me. There was quite a bit of snow on the ground, so I shoved the face into the snow and then eventually was able [to] put my hand on its snout and expire it through suffocation. Ultimately one hand on its windpipe and one hand on its snout did the trick.”O’Reilly was apparently bitten in the arm and chest by the coyote. The child involved was also bitten, though the animal did not break the child’s skin due to the snowsuit he was wearing at the time. Since the incident, O’Reilly has already received his first round of rabies shots; he’ll have four more follow-up visits with doctors for more. Read the rest

On Good Morning America today, Ozzy Osbourne described 2019 as the "worst, longest, most painful, miserable year of my life" and revealed that he is suffering from a type of Parkinson's disease. From Gil Kaufman's report in Billboard:"It wasn't really a problem for a long while," Osbourne says of why he waited so long to share the news about a horrible fall at home that re-aggravated an old injury and sidelined him for much of 2019. But, he says, wife/manager Sharon Osbourne told her husband he seemed different after the tumble and wondered what was going on.“When I had the fall, it was pitch black. I went to the bathroom and I fell," explained Osbourne, 71, of a fall in his Los Angeles home that aggravated an old injury from a 2003 ATV accident that required surgery. "I just fell and landed like a slam on the floor and I remember lying there thinking, ‘Well, you’ve done it now,’ really calm. Sharon [called] an ambulance. After that, it was all downhill.” Read the rest

A new study argues that it's "ethically permissible" for dead men to "register their desire to donate their sperm after death for use by strangers." Dr. Nathan Hodson of the University of Leicester and Dr. Joshua Parker of Manchester's Wythenshawe Hospital conducted their research as a response to a shortage of sperm donors in the United Kingdom. From CNN:"If it is morally acceptable that individuals can donate their tissues to relieve the suffering of others in 'life-enhancing transplants' for diseases, we see no reason this cannot be extended to other forms of suffering like infertility, which may or may not also be considered a disease," the study says.The mechanics of donating, they say, are entirely feasible through either electroejaculation or surgical methods.Sperm would be cryopreserved following collection and thawed when chosen for reproduction, the authors said...The process would address the ongoing shortage of donor sperm in the UK, argue the authors, which has led to Britain importing commercially donated sperm to cope with demand from couples struggling to conceive.More: "The ethical case for non-directed postmortem sperm donation" (Journal of Medical Ethics)image: "Sperm and ovum fusing" (public domain) Read the rest

Whenever we go to Japan, we gorge on the fluffy souffle pancakes they serve in special pancake cafes there. Our favorite pancake cafe is Flipper's, but we also like Gram and Happy Pancake. We were recently in Singapore and I took a video of a stack of 3 jiggly Gram pancakes being served to Carla: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mark Frauenfelder (@frauenfelder) on Jan 4, 2020 at 10:38pm PSTWe've tried making these pancakes at home, but we can't achieve the same kind of bounciness and fluffiness. So when I saw this tweet about a guy who cooked a pancake in his rice cooker, I did a Google search for "pancake in a rice cooker" and learned that this is something people actually do and now I'm excited to try it myself.I had some trouble with cooking pancakes on the stove today so I thought of resorting to the rice cooker to cook the rest of the batter.Welp. pic.twitter.com/n9514f5EvZ— AK Lee 💕 Samoa Joe's braid (@aklee_writes) January 19, 2020Image: Flipper's Pancake by Mark Frauenfelder Read the rest

This PulseTech charger, and responsible behavior, has changed my life.I used to kill the batteries in my cars and motorcycles on an almost annual basis. I would intend to ride the bike more, but it'd be rainy. I would keep telling myself to take the Vanagon out but it was parked behind my daily driver. Sometimes I'd park the daily driver behind the Vanagon and just use it... and suddenly two, three or six months had gone by.I bought two of these PulseTech chargers and started rotating between three vehicles. Several times I have even resurrected nearly dead batteries and resurrected ones a battery tester showed as 'bad.'The automatic desulfation feature constantly varies the voltage of the float charge. I believe it works as I am well over 6 years old on both my car batteries and each one still reads 12.8v when I test them. My 44-year-old motorcycle with an 8-year-old battery starts right up on the first press of the button, assuming I remember to turn on the choke.Desulfation may be snake oil as just keeping the batteries topped up should extend their service life dramatically -- but I am bran-loyal to these chargers.I put those little charging pigtails on each battery and swap two chargers between my current fleet of three vehicles.XTREME CHARGE XC100-P - Charge 12V Battery Maintenance Charger Desulfator via Amazon Read the rest

a roast of the 50 state flags pic.twitter.com/syhV8G0Wgh— Matt Buechele (@mattbooshell) January 21, 2020Here's one of the 50 insults Matt Buechele hurled towards the US state flags: "Nevada started this project, meant to finish it later, then they just had to submit it at the last second."Image: Twitter video screengrab Read the rest

A man has been captured on video attempting to jump between platforms at a subway station in Nara City. He has been identified as a Nara City official and faces punishment. pic.twitter.com/hroNYgAxBQ— NHK WORLD News (@NHKWORLD_News) January 21, 2020NHK World News reports the man in a subway platform jumper video has been identified as a Nara City official and "faces punishment."Image: Twitter video screengrab Read the rest

KFC started running this TV and online ad in Australia a few weeks ago, but they're now apologizing. The ad shows a young woman adjusting her shorts and breasts while checking out her reflection in a car window, until the window rolls down and reveals two young shocked boys staring at her with their mouths open, along with a disapproving mom. After a few moments of silence, the young woman says, "Did someone say KFC?" Then we cut to her enjoying KFC's Zinger Popcorn Box with a bunch of friends.The KFC ad was criticized by The Collective Shout, a group based in Australia. Spokeswoman Melinda Liszewski said: “Ads like this reinforce the false idea that we can’t expect better from boys. It is another manifestation of the "boys will be boys" trope, hampering our ability to challenge sexist ideas which contribute to harmful behavior towards women and girls...The research is solid: attitudes shape behavior. A growing number of reports show how reinforcing of gender stereotypes – including in advertising – contributes to a lesser view of women, resulting in their mistreatment.”To which KFC responded: “We apologize if anyone was offended by our latest commercial. Our intention was not to stereotype women and young boys in a negative light.”Source: The Guardian Read the rest

We’re all guilty of constantly staring at a variety of screens throughout the day. The only problem is that the blue light that’s emitted by most electronics — and even energy-efficient lightbulbs — is notoriously bad for our eyes and, subsequently, our health. Here are three glasses that offer superior protection for your eyes both during the day and at night.1. Swanwick® Crystal Night Swannies: Blue Light Blocking GlassesMSRP: $89 | Sale Price: $75 (15% off)Featuring the latest CR-39 lenses, these prescription-grade glasses deliver unparalleled protection against harmful blue light without affecting the clarity of your vision—all within a supremely stylish and modern design.2. Swanwick® Crystal Day Swannies: Blue Light Blocking GlassesMSRP: $109 | Sale Price: $89 (18% off)Ideal for looking at screens during the day, these glasses block out the most harmful types of blue light while still letting bits of healthy blue light (roughly 450-500nm) in to help keep your regular circadian rhythm in check.3. Swanwick®Classic Night Swannies: Blue Light Blocking GlassesMSRP: $69 | Sale Price: $49 (28% off)With uniquely-tinted CR-39 lenses and a classic design, these glasses will help you optimize your sleep every night by eliminating harmful rays when you’re taking one last look at your devices before you go to sleep.You can't beat free! Get $70+ worth of premium Mac apps for free today!Prices are subject to change. Read the rest

YouTube pranksters are taking credit for interrupting the Snookers Masters Finals with loud farting noises. The group, Trollstation, claims it wasn't a whoopee cushion making the sounds of flatulence but a "fart box" they planted in the arena earlier in the week. The Guardian:Stuart Bingham won the Masters 10-8 but one of the biggest days in the snooker calendar was briefly disrupted by an electronic “whoopee cushion” in the crowd......the perpetrator, who was quickly removed from the venue – but not before a number of fart noises had caused much mirth inside Alexandra Palace."I think it could be someone with a whoopee cushion," Dennis Taylor said on the BBC’s commentary. “Not very funny at all.” View this post on Instagram “ Not very funny “ - he said.. whilst the entire audience was cracking up 😂😂😂 @endrit @bmwjarvoA post shared by Trollstation 🇦🇱🇽🇰🇬🇧 (@trollstation) on Jan 19, 2020 at 8:20am PST View this post on Instagram Full video out now link in @trollstation bio @bmwjarvo 😂A post shared by Trollstation 🇦🇱🇽🇰🇬🇧 (@trollstation) on Jan 19, 2020 at 1:21pm PSTscreengrab via BBC Read the rest

"Pirate", a man let out of jail after serving a four-year sentence, has settled in Redding, California. Police say he has fears for his safety."We are aware that Daniel Selovich (Pirate) is back in Redding," wrote the department on its Facebook page. "He was contacted by officers earlier in the day and is not currently wanted for any crimes."Court documents show Pirate sexually and physically assaulted K.B. up to six times a day from Sept. 26 until Nov. 8. He duct-taped her to him during the night to prevent escape. The woman wasn’t able to go to the bathroom unless Pirate was with her, according to investigators. Pirate tied her to a support beam so she could not move. Pirate told her he would “cut her face off” and at one point placed a knife to her neck, causing her to bleed, KTUU said. On Nov. 8, 2015, a medical group responded and rescued the woman. A grand jury indicted Pirate on four counts of sexual assault in the first degree, two counts of kidnapping, and multiple counts of assault. The case was proceeding to trial until the woman was found dead, at that point, it was dropped, the Associated Press said. Read the rest

I just happened upon this McSweeny's post, Dante’s Nine Circles of Hell, Reimagined for Linguistic Transgressions, by poet and software engineer, John Rauschenberg, that they published a few years ago. What did they miss? Which transgression would you move closer to Lake Cocytus?First Circle (Limbo):AutocorrectHere wander the otherwise virtuous souls who were forced into grievous errors by autocorrect programs. They sit in silent masturbation, only rising once every hour to chant eerie koans such as “ducking auto cat rectal.”Second Circle:The Serial CommaOne half of this circle is populated by souls who are cursed to make arguments that nobody cares about except their own mothers, howling gorgons and the infernal mistresses of hell. The other half are cursed to make arguments that nobody cares about except their own mothers, howling gorgons, and the infernal mistresses of hell. The difference between these two situations seems to matter a lot to both halves. Neither side will listen to you when you suggest that they could avoid this level entirely.And what does he have in the finally circle?Ninth Circle:Literally, the Ninth CircleIt is literally the worst circle ever.[Image: The Fifth Circle, by Stradanus, Public Domain] Read the rest

The China Law Blog (previously) is one of my favorite sources of insight into the secret workings of the businesses that produce the majority of the world's daily-use goods.The latest post, Forced Labor in China: Don’t trust AND verify, is a sobering example: Fred Rocafort describes how even cursory audits of labor practices turn up subcontracting arrangements with forced-labor prisons.The issue is of the moment in part because of the one million-plus prisoners in Xinjiang province who have reported forced labor in Muslim-reeducation concentration camps (they have also reported punitive rape, forced medical experimentation, etc). If Chinese forced labor sickens you -- and it should -- you should also turn your eye to the US prison system, where forced labor is the norm, especially in the private prison industry. A: We are here on behalf of our mutual client, Y Brands. As per the terms of the agreement between your company and Y Brands, we are here to perform an audit. Y Brands has given advance notice to your corporate office. P: Uh, okay. What kind of audit? A: A social compliance audit. Looking at workplace safety and things like that. P: Ah, I see. Please go ahead. Let me know if you have any questions. A: Well, to be honest, this doesn’t look like a factory. I only see a few products here and there, and none of them belong to our client. Where is the production line? P: Oh, we only handle quality control here. Read the rest

You may think you haven't heard The Typewriter, but I bet you have! Wikipedia:The typewriter was modified so that only two keys work to prevent the keys from jamming. According to the composer himself, as well as other musicians, the typewriter part is difficult because of how fast the typing speed is: even professional stenographers cannot do it, and only professional drummers have the necessary wrist flexibility. It has been called one of "the wittiest and most clever pieces in the orchestral repertoire". Author Steve Metcalf has written that "Despite the almost total disappearance of typewriters in everyday life, the statistics show that "The Typewriter" is still a favorite Anderson item." The typewriter is considered a percussion instrument, and the typewriter part is usually performed by a percussionist or drummer, or rarely by the conductorThe claim that the typing speed is too fast for typists is directly quoted here by NPR. Perhaps a reflection of the consistent force required to make loud, satisfying clacks in concert than speed per se? Anyway, I don't believe it.Here's Liberace: Read the rest

Boda Bodas are the ubiquitous motorbike taxis of Nairobi; Boda Boda drivers are in an arms-race to produce the most elaborately decorated motorbikes in order to differentiate themselves from the competition.The Ugandan-Kenyan fashion designer Bobbin Case and the photographer Jan Hoek created new fashion looks for seven Boda Boda drivers that matched their bikes, a venture that was so successful that the drivers kept their outfits and now wear them to work: "The nice thing is that because of their new outfits their income went up, so they really kept on using their costumes. Maybe if you by chance visit Nairobi one of them will be your taxi guy." Boda Boda Madness [Jan Hoek](via Kottke) Read the rest

Major cities in China will undertake a staged withdrawal of single-use plastics between now and 2022, with plastic cutlery and take-out containers going by the end of 2020; disposable plastics no longer offered in hotels by 2022; and postal outlets no longer providing plastic packaging/bags by the end of 2022.China stopped accepting the world's recycling in 2018, after a viral documentary on the living conditions of Chinese recycling workers sparked a mass movement; however, China still produces large amounts of its own plastic waste.As part of a plan to drastically reduce plastic pollution, China's government said the production and sale of disposable foam and plastic tableware, often used for takeout, and single-use plastic straws used in the catering industry will be banned by the end of the year.China to ban single-use plastic bags and straws [Deutsche Welle](via /.) Read the rest

Gordon took an episode of The Price is Right and edited it down to gameplay. The resulting video is an eleven-minutes long blast of pure Price is Right. Price is Right as an Olympic sport.I trimmed a few things like...-Long form product descriptions.-Pandering to the audience for answers.-Wheel spinning animations.-Unnecessary delays. The methodology seems overly aggressive — isn't pandering to the audience the point of the show? — but an interesting deconstruction all the same. Read the rest

This video shows a frisbee rolling—dancing, even—on a frozen lake in Maine. Shea Gunther: "I filmed this while out skating on Great Pond in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. The disc moved entirely due to the wind." Read the rest

Today on Oh Joy Sex Toy (previously) guest-artist Alex P Perkins offers us a graphic memoir of her breast reduction surgery in 10th grade, and the way it put her on a journey toward "loving my body for what it is: mine."Perkins's work is a powerful reminder that the graphic form is exceptionally well-suited to memoir and personal storytelling, from Maus to Fun House to Zahra's Paradise.My Breast Reduction [Alex P Perkins/Oh Joy Sex Toy] Read the rest

I’ve written extensively on gun violence, spoken on international TV and radio on the subject, and even pursued a gun license in the strictest city of one of the strictest states in the country. Despite my first-hand experience, the most ardent defenders of the Second Amendment — like those who marched on Richmond, Virginia this weekend to protest "Jim Crow" gun laws — will still tell me things like, “We don’t need more laws! We need to enforce the laws on the books!” or “We can’t stop every shooting because that’s just the price of freedom.” Those same #2A Avengers will of course acknowledge that yeah, okay, maybe NICS has some problems, or maybe those Parkland cops should have done something earlier, and then swiftly retreat back into the same tribalistic mindsets that always prevent human progress.So I wrote this essay, hoping to have a rational conversation. It was originally published on Medium in 2018, but it remains frustratingly relevant, so I'm posting it here.Naming something gives you power over it.That’s the basic idea behind all the magic in every folktale dating back for centuries, from “Rumpelstiltskin” to the Rolling Stones’ “Hope you guessed my name.” Ancient shamans didn’t practice “magic”; they just had knowledge, and names for things like “eye of newt” that no one else could understand. To name something is to know it, and knowledge is power.Think about the relationship between “spelling” and “spells” and you won’t be so surprised that Harry Potter has been all over the gun violence conversations lately, on both the Left and the Right—which makes sense, considering that they have a word you memorize and practice reciting in order to kill people. Read the rest

Writing in Wired, Boing Boing contributor Clive Thompson discusses the rise and rise of "Edge AI" startups that sell lightweight machine-learning classifiers that run on low-powered chips and don't talk to the cloud, meaning that they are privacy respecting and energy efficient.Thompson focuses on Picovoice, which makes a speech-recognition system that has a limited vocabulary and whose per-unit hardware costs are "a few bucks apiece" -- cheap enough that you can embed one in a coffee-maker or a music system so you can voice-control them. They won't banter with you like Alexa, but they can reliably, quickly and cheaply recognize the phrases needed to brew a cup of coffee or cue up a song.Other classifiers also operate on this model -- Xnor.ai, acquired by Apple, makes an image classifier that's so low-powered it can run on the minute voltages given off by houseplants.There are free, open source versions of this technology if you want to get started.But before you get too excited about the energy savings of running AI at the edge instead of in the cloud, remember that the process of generating those models is incredibly energy-intensive, equivalent to the lifetime carbon emissions of five automobiles. What's more, edge AI is speedy. There are no pauses in performance, no milliseconds lost while the device sends your voice request to play Smash Mouth's “All Star” halfway across the continent to Amazon's servers, or to the NSA's sucking maw of thoughtcrime data, or wherever the hell it winds up. Read the rest

French president Emmanuel Macron and impeached but not yet removed U.S. President Donald Trump declare a truce in digital tax dispute, and digital services firms get to breathe a sigh of relief.On Monday, Macron said he and Trump had a “great discussion” over a digital tax planned by Paris, that the two leaders agreed to work together to avoid a rise in tariffs. They're expected to continue negotiations at the OECD on the digital tax in the coming months, reports Reuters,“They agreed to give a chance to negotiations until the end of the year,” a source told the news organization. “During that time period, there won’t be successive tariffs.” Excerpt:France decided in July to apply a 3% levy on revenue from digital services earned in France by firms with revenues of more than 25 million euros ($28 million) in France and 750 million euros worldwide. Washington has threatened to impose taxes on French products in response.French authorities have repeatedly said that any international agreement on digital taxation reached within the OECD would immediately supersede the French tax. Macron and Trump declare a truce in digital tax dispute [reuters.com] Read the rest

Bruce Schneier writes in the New York Times that banning facial recognition (as cities like San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland, Brookline and Somerville have done) is not enough: there are plenty of other ways to automatically recognize people (gait detection, high-resolution photos of hands that reveal fingerprints, voiceprints, etc), and these will all be used for the same purpose that makes facial recognition bad for our world: to sort us into different categories and treat us different based on those categories.Some of these distinctions are easy to imagine: showing different ads on billboards based on who's looking at them, for example. Others are more sinister: targeting us for police interventions, raising the prices, or denying us entry to a place of business.Schneier says that we need to regulate more than facial recognition, we need to regulate recognition itself -- and the data-brokers whose data-sets are used to map recognition data to peoples' identities.Regulating this system means addressing all three steps of the process. A ban on facial recognition won’t make any difference if, in response, surveillance systems switch to identifying people by smartphone MAC addresses. The problem is that we are being identified without our knowledge or consent, and society needs rules about when that is permissible.Similarly, we need rules about how our data can be combined with other data, and then bought and sold without our knowledge or consent. The data broker industry is almost entirely unregulated; there’s only one law — passed in Vermont in 2018 — that requires data brokers to register and explain in broad terms what kind of data they collect. Read the rest

Petition demands recall of 500,000+ cars over alleged defectElectric car maker Tesla said on Monday there was no unintended acceleration in its vehicles, as petition signature-gatherers demanding a federal safety investigation have claimed.From Reuters:On Friday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it would review the petition and released a redacted version that said “Tesla vehicles experience unintended acceleration at rates far exceeding other cars on the roads.”The petition urged the agency to recall all Tesla vehicles, the Model S, Model X and Model 3, produced beginning in 2013. It cited media reports of crashes attributed to unintended acceleration and complaints filed with NHTSA.More at Reuters:Tesla rebuffs U.S. safety recall petition, says no unintended acceleration in vehicles Read the rest

Sweary historian Eleanor Janega writes on her Going Medieval blog (previously) that there was never a time in medieval Europe when bestiality was socially acceptable, and brings the receipts in the form of eyewatering details on the punishments for having sex with animals.Janega mentions that, of course, any non-procreative sex was doctrinally suspect in the Christian tradition of the day, because sex was what got humankind kicked out of Eden, so the only time you should be getting it on is to make babies, otherwise, you're just celebrating the stuff that makes God angriest.But sex with animals was especially bad for medieval theological authorities, because it was "against nature" in that it "humans are blurring the clear line between themselves, as beings with a consciousness, and animals who are a separate category without the faculties to reason."But here is the kicker – one of the reasons that bestiality is considered so terrible is because animals cannot reason and therefore cannot consent to it. Animals, famously, were not cursed by God for eating forbidden fruit. They are still therefore running around most nakedly. Because of their innocence, they also mostly just have sex for the purposes of procreation. Now, there are some notable exceptions to the whole sex for procreation thing in the animal kingdom, most notably our good friends and group sex enthusiasts the bonobos, but also dolphins and orcas, and all the gay animals, just off the top of my head. Everyone else though? Mostly having sex in order to have babies and not thinking about it at all. Read the rest

An unsecured facial recognition database that contained info on thousands of children from 20 schools in China, half of which are located in historically ethnic Tibetan areas, has been found online.This latest facial-recognition database leak raises new questions about ethnically targeted school surveillance and cybersecurity in China, writes Liza Lin in the Wall Street Journal:The cache was connected to a surveillance system labeled “Safe School Shield” and contained facial-identification and location data, according to Victor Gevers, a researcher at the Dutch nonprofit GDI Foundation, which scans the internet for vulnerabilities and flags them to owners for fixing.Found in the database were these frontal pictures of children in the schools, used to train algorithms to spot them as they passed the #surveillance cameras. pic.twitter.com/HoW2lSCG1H— Liza Lin (@Liz_in_Shanghai) January 20, 2020While gov­ern­ment surveillance is broadly ac­cepted, the use of fa­cial recog­ni­tion and other types of track­ing tech­nolo­gies in schools has proven a flashpoint. https://t.co/Vg5otN0U79— Paul D. Shinkman (@PDShinkman) January 19, 2020That thing where surveillance is invasive and also incompetent. https://t.co/9EuvRWXphZ— Eva (@evacide) January 17, 2020[Paywalled link] Thousands of Chinese Students’ Data Exposed on Internet [via techmeme] Read the rest

Frontier is the bottom-rung of the top-tier of US ISPs, serving customers in 29 states. Despite enjoying monopoly control over its customers' online lives, and despite massive government handouts and a lackadaisical approach to maintenance, and despite out-and-out theft from customers, the company is filing for bankruptcy, having accumulated $16.3b in debt through mismanagement.Ars Technica's Jon Brodkin plausible blames this situation on the increasing irrelevance of Frontier's copper-line infrastructure, massive underinvestment in fiber, and bottom-of-the-barrel customer service.Ideally, the cities whom Frontier will leave in the lurch will replace the company with municipal broadband, the best broadband in America.Frontier Communications failed to properly maintain its telecom network in Minnesota, leading to "frequent and lengthy" phone and Internet outages, an investigation by the state Commerce Department found in January 2019. The investigation led to a settlement. New York state officials are also investigating Frontier over its repeated outages and long repair times.Many Frontier customers in different states have been hit with giant overcharges and cancellation fees, or draconian policies like one requiring customers to pay for router rentals even when they have purchased their own router. (A new US law scheduled to take effect in June 2020 would ban that practice.)Windstream, a telco that offers service in 18 states, filed for bankruptcy in February 2019. Windstream in November 2019 said its latest quarterly revenue was "$1.27 billion compared to $1.38 billion in the same period a year ago."Frontier, an ISP in 29 states, plans to file for bankruptcy [Jon Brodkin/Ars Technica](Image: Evelyn Simak, CC BY-SA, modified) Read the rest

An Alaska family's home surveillance camera recorded a most remarkable video of a moose trapping a man inside the family shed.Curtis Phelps was just trying to take the garbage out, when -- as this video from his Ring home surveillance camera demonstrates -- he got trapped inside the shed by a moose who managed to push his way inside with one antler. “The moose eventually moved on and Phelps escaped after calling his wife, Amy, with his cellphone,” AP reports.“He’s like, let me know when I can get out of the shed,” Amy told a reporter. “I’m stuck in the shed.” She had placed a garbage sack on the front porch and Curtis decided to take it to their locked shed.“He said he walked out and he looked both ways as we always do and nothing was there,” she said. “All he wore was his hat. He had his cellphone, though.”Curtis unlocked the shed, deposited the garbage sack, stepped outside and spotted the moose moving his way — and picking up its pace. He ducked inside and the moose walked up to the door and gently pushed it.The rest of the story is actually super funny, go read the whole thing here:Bull-noser: Camera records moose trapping Alaska man in shed Read the rest

If you were in Idaho and wondering where to score some weed the answer is Oregon.KTVB7:It's no hidden secret that Oregon is seeing higher marijuana sales in counties along their borders with Idaho, but a new report from the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis found exactly how much more those counties are selling compared to the statewide average.Oregon counties along the Idaho border have a sales per adult that are 420% above the statewide average, which the report said was something "you cannot make up." Read the rest

Show'em what you got. Read the rest

Never out of my rotation, I love The Wild Tchoupitoulas.This video also serves as a fantastic guide to fashion. Read the rest

On Friday, Anchorage Superior Court Judge Michael Wolverton convicted dentist Seth Lookhart of 46 felonies and misdemeanors. You may recall that Lookhart infamously "performed a dental extraction procedure on a sedated patient while riding a hoverboard" and sent the video to his pals. In 2017, the state filed a suit charging Lookhart with "unlawful dental acts." His sentencing is in April. From CNN:In at least one conversation, Lookhart joked that performing oral surgery on a hoverboard was a "new standard of care," the lawsuit said, citing phone records.Lookhart was also charged with medical assistance fraud for billing Medicaid for procedures that were either unnecessary or not properly justified and theft of $25,000 or more by diverting funds from Alaska Dental Arts, among dozens of others.The evidence indicated Lookhart "believed that he could get away with his fraud indefinitely, and that he believed his scheme was foolproof," Judge Wolverton said, according to the Department of Law's news release. That evidence "was often supported, and often in excruciating detail, by Lookhart's own texts, photos and videos." Read the rest

Bull in a China shop? How about an elephant in a South Asian hotel?woke up to a text from my mom about how a wild elephant went into a Sri Lankan hotel and gently wandered around while poking stuff with his trunk pic.twitter.com/C2biQT8C30— Upuli 🇱🇰 (@upidaisy) January 19, 2020 Read the rest