“El Chapo” ran a global narcotics crime ring and escaped two maximum security prisons before being captured, extradited to the United States in 2017, found guilty in 2019, and sentenced to life in prison. Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman's daughter Alejandrina Guzman just launched a beer branded with her dad's name, because nothing matters.Excerpt from Reuters:The beer is part of the “El Chapo 701” brand, which has already launched a clothing line, and gets its name from when Forbes named him the 701st richest person in the world in 2009. Forbes estimated his net worth at $1 billion at the time.“This is an artisanal beer, with 4% alcohol. This prototype is a lager, and it’s made up of malt, rice and honey so it’s good,” said Adriana Ituarte, a salesperson for the brand. “And the idea is for it to be sold at bars that stock craft beer.”A 355 ml bottle is due to be priced at 70.10 pesos ($3.73).Read more:Drink like a Mexican kingpin: 'El Chapo' beer launched by daughter [reuters.com, Jose Luis Osorio, 1-17-2020, image courtesy El chapo beer] Read the rest

“To the world leaders and those in power, I would like to say that you have not seen anything yet. You have not seen the last of us, we can assure you that. And that is the message that we will bring to the World Economic Forum in Davos next week.”In the Swiss city of Lausanne on Friday, Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and was joined by an estimated 10,000 others for a protest march, before many of them travel to Davos for next week's annual gathering of political and business elites. Their goal: Draw attention to the urgent need for world leaders to fight our worsening climate crisis. Thunberg is 17 years old, and founded the #FridaysforFuture climate crisis awareness campaign.From Reuters:“So, we are now in a new year and we have entered a new decade and so far, during this decade, we have seen no sign whatsoever that real climate action is coming and that has to change,” Thunberg said in a speech in Lausanne.“To the world leaders and those in power, I would like to say that you have not seen anything yet. You have not seen the last of us, we can assure you that. And that is the message that we will bring to the World Economic Forum in Davos next week.”Protestors held signs including “Wake up and Smell the Bushfires” and “It is late but it is not too late”.Hundreds of campaigners will take trains over the weekend and then march to Klosters near Davos, which Thunberg is attending for the second year in a row and will take part in two panel events. Read the rest

Not so dank, dudes. NBC News reports that “countless purveyors of illicit THC products” are selling illegal cannabis or fake cannabis products in plain sight on Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms. “They are facilitating a public health crisis,” said Timothy Mackey, a professor at the University of California San Diego. His team has done extensive research on how social media platforms are used to sell various illicit products.The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says “Dank Vapes” THC cartridges were the source of several illness outbreaks -- but until fairly recently, you could still search #dankvapesofficial on IG and get 49,000 tagged posts in return.Excerpt from the new NBC News investigative report:Shopping for illicit vape cartridges on Instagram is astonishingly simple. Open the app, plug in a hashtag such as #vapecartsforsale and — voilà — multiple posts appear with pictures of THC cartridges. In the comments or caption section, sellers advertise their products and post phone numbers for would-be buyers.“Shop here everything is good,” one seller wrote above a phone number.“Everything must go,” another wrote in a separate post.The CDC has identified a bootleg brand of THC cartridges called Dank Vapes as the source of several vape-related illnesses. NBC News has previously reported that the bogus brand’s cartridges contain contaminants such as hydrogen cyanide and vitamin E acetate, a cutting agent identified by the CDC as one of the likely culprits in the outbreak.But until recently, you could type #dankvapesofficial into Instagram, and more than 49,000 posts would pop up. Read the rest

Former Vice President and current 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden says U.S. Section 230 should be immediately revoked for Facebook and other social media platforms, and that Mark Zuckerberg should be submitted to civil liability. He made the comments in a question-and-answer sessions with the New York Times.Here's a long excerpt but a relevant one from the New York Times Q&A session with Biden, which is worth a read in entirety:Charlie Warzel: Sure. Mr. Vice President, in October, your campaign sent a letter to Facebook regarding an ad that falsely claimed that you blackmailed Ukrainian officials to not investigate your son. I’m curious, did that experience, dealing with Facebook and their power, did that change the way that you see the power of tech platforms right now?No, I’ve never been a fan of Facebook, as you probably know. I’ve never been a big Zuckerberg fan. I think he’s a real problem. I think ——CW: Can you elaborate?No, I can. He knows better. And you know, from my perspective, I’ve been in the view that not only should we be worrying about the concentration of power, we should be worried about the lack of privacy and them being exempt, which you’re not exempt. [The Times] can’t write something you know to be false and be exempt from being sued. But he can. The idea that it’s a tech company is that Section 230 should be revoked, immediately should be revoked, number one. For Zuckerberg and other platforms. Read the rest

The editors of Guardian Cities (previously) saw my Toronto Life blurb about how a "smart city" could be focused on enabling its residents, rather than tracking and manipulating them, and asked me to write a longer piece on the theme: The case for ... cities where you're the sensor, not the thing being sensed is the result.In it, I revisit my 2015 Locus column on the idea of an Internet of Things that treats people "as sensors, not things to be sensed" -- a world where your devices never share your data with anyone else to get recommendations or advice, but rather, where all the inanimate objects stream data about how busy they are and whether they're in good repair, and your device taps into those streams and makes private recommendations, without relaying anything about you or your choices to anyone else. As I've often written, the most important thing about technology isn't what it does, but who it does it to, and who it does it for. The sizzle-reels for "smart cities" always feature a control room where wise technocrats monitor the city and everyone in it -- all I'm asking is that we all get a seat in that control room.My editor tells me that this is the last piece that will be commissioned for Guardian Cities, and I'm sincerely honored to get to close out an outstanding, longrunning project on urban reporting and theory.It’s a safe bet that the people who make those videos imagine themselves as one of the controllers watching the monitors – not as one of the plebs whose movements are being fed to the cameras that feed the monitors. Read the rest

FBI needs to be able to hack into your iphone, Trump's sham AG William Barr says

I've been a paying member of Skillshare for a few years. It's $10 a month and I'm able to watch unlimited instructional videos on a wide range of topics - programming, data science, Photoshop, photography, and tons of others.The Adobe After Effects instructional classes were very helpful in teaching me how to make my first animated video (about blockchain technology). I'm not only a Skillshare student -- I also created two popular video courses on Skillshare. One is an introduction to the Arduino electronic prototyping platform and the other is a course on how to design and make things.Skillshare asked me to share this link that will get you 3 months of full access to Skillshare for 99 cents. This is a great deal and a good way for you to sample everything they have to offer. Read the rest

Ars Technica health reporter Beth Mole (previously) is a national treasure, and nowhere is her background in biology and science communications on better display than when she is puncturing the potentially lethal bullshit (vaginal jade egg -toxic shock -RIP) that Gwyneth Paltrow peddles through her Goop magazine and store (Mole was very good on Paltrow's advice to squirt coffee up your asshole).Now, Mole has watched all six episodes of "Goop Lab," Paltrow's abysmal new Netflix show, and has lived to tell the tale. Of course, Mole doesn't merely critique the incoherent, bumbling storytelling of the series -- she also digs into the scientific chaos of Paltrow's fully on-brand bad advice on subjects as varied as the therapeutic uses of psychedelics to energy healing to immersing yourself in ice-water under the supervision of a charlatan who claims he can cure cancer and whose "therapy" has killed some of his "patients."The thing that struck me about Mole's review is that some of Paltrow's guest-experts clearly made some kind of tradeoff where they agreed to tacitly endorse Paltrow's woo-profiteering in exchange for access to her audience, in the hopes of passing on some real, useful, scientific information -- and how Paltrow managed to neutralize most of the benefit that these legitimate experts might have had to offer to her viewers by bookending their advice with stupid stunts or foolish commentary.In fact, earlier in that same episode, we learn that the 47-year-old actor didn't even know what a vagina is. Read the rest

Approximately 170 people who recently visited Yosemite are suffering stomach pain, nausea and diaherria.CNN:About 170 people who've gone to Yosemite National Park this month are suffering from gastrointestinal illness, including visitors and employees.Two of the cases are confirmed as norovirus, and the majority of the others are consistent with the virus, the park said in a statement Thursday. Most of the incidents occurred around the first week of January, and there has been a decline of new cases in the past several days, it said.The park is investigating the circumstances surrounding the illness and is interviewing affected people. It has also enhanced sanitation protocols to prevent further spread of the disease. Read the rest

Last night, a lost horse was trotting around the busy A48 road in Cardiff, Wales. Police and passers-by weren't quite sure what to do but a kind Cardiff Bus driver stopped and offered to take the horse to meet its owners at a safe location. From BBC:"The police arrived and we were all a bit flummoxed of what to do because we couldn't get a horse box there in time," (said Harley Stephens, a citizen who assisted in the rescue).She said the Cardiff Bus driver suggested putting it on a bus, so they put the disabled ramp down and "it went on quite happily".Accompanied by Ms Stephens the horse was then taken to the hospital Park and Ride stop, with one other passenger sitting close by."He was quite chill about it," she said.Inc 900A loose horse on the 'mane' A48 Eastern Ave decided it wanted to 'stirrup' a little trouble but in doing so it risked falling 'foal' of the law.It then decided to alight an @Cardiffbus which was on it's way to the Heath Hostable!Road now re open.#team1east pic.twitter.com/z7YyMWO1x3— South Wales Police Roads Policing Unit (@SWP_Roads) January 16, 2020 Read the rest

If you're looking to build a career in web development, it starts with Javascript. This programming language was there at the golden age of the internet, and it's still the basis for millions of web pages and apps worldwide.Suffice to say, if you're a coder who doesn't know JS yet, you're not a coder. But short of an internship with a master in the language, the Complete Full-Stack JavaScript Course is the quickest way to get familiar with it.The online course encompasses 87 lectures, but they're far from static recitations of terms. The core of the curriculum will have you designing a calculator app, chat app and a weblog - all from scratch.Along the way, you'll use essential JavaScript tools like ReactJS, NodeJS, Redux and many more. Even if you don't use this course to land a high-paying web developer job (and they are out there), you'll be fully able to make your own apps and pull back the curtain on your favorite websites.All told, you get more than 20 hours of content in the Complete Full-Stack JavaScript Course, which is now available for 93% off the MSRP. Read the rest

"In the Realms of the Unreal [Henry Darger], 1998" by Joe Coleman"Outsider art" is generally defined as work created by untrained, self-taught, or "naïve" artists who aren't connected to or influenced by the traditional art world. Like most art labels, it's murky. But if anyone can help follow its historical threads, that person would be gallerist Andrew Edlin, owner of the influential Outsider Art Fair happening right now in New York City. In the below new episode of Juxtapoz Radio, Edlin looks at the history and present of the genre and its place in the art establishment: From Juxtapoz:From Jean Dubuffet coining the term Art Brut in the 1940s to Roger Cardinal in the 1970s bringing the term "Outsider Art" to prominence, there has been an enduring if not increasingly complicated relationship between the genre and the institutional art world. Can Outsider Art remain, well, Outsider, when shown in museums and placed into the history books? Read the rest

Y NAKAJIMA posted this fully functional "Assault Type Thomas" to YouTube. Check out more photos at Badland Models. I dig the postapocalyptic Chp 'n' Dale. Read the rest

Defacto Sound posted this short loop of audio, the sound of a tape being sped up then stopped abruptly. Each time you play it, they say, it will sound like it's getting higher in pitch. Did it do it for you? It worked for me about three times, then the effect – whatever it is – wore off. Some people report that it didn't work at all for them; others that it works every time and they feel they're going mad listening to it. Read the rest

Famed "Mother" crooner and former ex-lead-singer of the Misfits Glenn Danzig has finally directed his first film, and of course it's a horror anthology. The movie's called Verotika, and while I'm slightly disappointed he didn't name it Die Die My Darling, this absolutely bonkers minute-long trailer makes up for it.The trailer doesn't really tell you what the movies about, per se, but it definitely gives you some gorey, self-indulgent, eerily terrifying B-movie vibesâthough whether it's genuinely terrifying, or just terrifyingly bad, well, the reviews so far lean towards the latter. Alex McLevy at the AV Club caught the film last summer at the Cinepocalypse Film Festival in Chicago, and his review is a work of art in and of itself:Within the first 60 seconds, a narrator pokes out a womanâs eyes with her fingers, and it works all too well as a metaphor for what this movie puts the audience through.[â¦]This wasnât quite the willful misunderstanding of a Tommy Wiseau, but it wasnât far off.[â¦]Glenn Dan-zigged where he should have Dan-zagged, and for that we should all be profoundly grateful.Verotika will be available on Vimeo on-demand starting February 25, with a 3-disc collectorâs set to follow in March. Read the rest

A headline earlier today benefited from some creative obfuscation of the word "motherfucker", and there's no better method than grawlixes: a set of now-traditional characters used to suggest anger, confusion, obscenity, resentment and other likely emotions behind the language. Merriam Webster: What the #@*% Is a ‘Grawlix'? Sometimes the symbols used for a grawlix might be selected specifically for the word it's meant to represent. In the title $#*! My Dad Says, for example, the resemblance of the dollar sign and octothorpe to the first two letters of the word (you know the one) is probably not coincidental. The grawlix: it's some good $#*!.Tinwatchman created an open-source library that "makes the web swear like a cartoon" if you want full service, but software developer Sampo Juustila simply collected the best unicode characters and emojis in a nice, easily copied-from page. Advanced grawlixen might want to roll their own from the unicode miscellaneous symbols block.There's now an emoji called serious face with symbols on mouth - 🤬 - that fits a three-character grawlix into a single characer, but it's so tiny you can barely see the grawlix at standard type sizes.Blambot offers Potty Mouth, a free-of-charge font of perfectly-drawn grawlixes for use by artists and designers. (Its exemplar is the image on this post!)The grawlix originates in American comics, and was defined by Mort Walker in a 1964 article that was later collected in the 1980 book The Lexicon of Comicana [Amazon].Wikipedia collects a few other examples: Agitrons: wiggly lines around a shaking object or character Blurgits, swalloops: curved lines preceding or trailing after a character's moving limbs Briffits: clouds of dust that hang in the wake of a swiftly departing character or object (💨) Dites: diagonal, straight lines drawn across flat, clear and reflective surfaces, such as windows and mirrors Emanata: lines drawn around the head to indicate shock or surprise Grawlixes: typographical symbols standing in for profanities (🤬), appearing in dialogue balloons in place of actual dialogue.[2] Hites: horizontal straight lines trailing after something moving with great speed (🌠); or, drawn on something indicating reflectivity (puddle, glass, mirror) Indotherm: wavy, rising lines used to represent steam or heat (♨️, ☕) Lucaflect: a shiny spot on a surface of something, depicted as a four-paned window shape Plewds: flying sweat droplets that appear around a character's head when working hard, stressed, etc. Read the rest

I missed this earlier in the week, but Wednesday, January 15 was the 30th anniversary of They Might Be Giants' third album, Flood—their major label debut that brought Casio synths and drum machines and Triangle Man and Constantinople to the mainstream.SPIN Magazine has a great retrospective on the album, speaking with artists from Mike Doughty to Chris Carrabba to Open Mike Eagle about the impact that it had on their lives.My own exposure to TMBG came through their weird animated music videos on Tiny Toons. I started actively listening to them in high school because my friend Flood from Asbestos Records told Teenage Me that they had an album named after him. He was lying. But he did later convince me to start a They Might Be Giants tribute band. We played exactly one show, and we called ourselves Your Racist Friends, after a song from Flood.In hindsight, that name may not have come across as tongue-in-cheek as I thought at the time.They Might Be Giants’ Flood Turns 30: Musicians Extol the Landmark Album [Chris Harris / SPIN]Image via Wikimedia Commons Read the rest

Ed Lawson describes the scene of an accident in no uncertain words."I don't know where the fuck that came from! Read the rest

As an antidote to the madness and mayhem I subjected you all to with my idiots with chainsaws post, here is ten minutes of controlled demolition of decommissioned water towers.This is a great example of professionals knowing what they're doing as these demolition engineers land the towers between buildings, next to parked cars, etc. So many amazing things here: the crunching, booming sounds of the crashes, the great, billowing clouds of rust that plume from the tanks as they crack open, the grace (or not) of the descents. Read the rest

An undercover cop in Houston shot a man who he claims approached his car, made terroristic threats, then reached for a gun. The man, Keith Martin, 45, says he was simply offering to clean his car. Martin survived his injuries, but is stuck in jail.Martin, 45, survived the shooting and has since been charged with misdemeanor terroristic threat. His backpack did not contain a gun, but rather his car detailing equipment and cellphone, said his lawyer Andre Evans. Martin runs his own mobile car detailing service, Evans said.In the statement, Evans said the shooting was “unjustified” and that the officer’s actions displayed racial bias. Martin, who is black, remains in Harris County Jail in lieu of a $2,000 bond. Read the rest

I'm absolutely charmed by Fred & Friends' Pick-its, clever little picket signs made for boozy beverages. Unite with your fellow party-goers to take on the establishment and CHOOSE BOOZE! PICK ITS will mix it up and make a statement with 12 clever sayings fit for any picket line. This set of 24 cocktail picks is perfect for your next martini march or spritzer sit in.A pack of 24 (12 different sayings) is available for just $5.(RED) Read the rest

PigeonBot is a robotic bird outfitted with real pigeon feathers that move to reshape its wings like an actual bird. Developed by researchers in Stanford's LentinkLab, the remote-controlled PigeonBot demonstrates how morphing wings improves flying agility. (Video below.) Their resulting technical paper is the cover story in the current issue of the journal Science Robotics. From Science News:Birds can modify the shape of their wings by fanning out their feathers or shuffling them closer together. Those adjustments allow birds to cut through the sky more nimbly than rigid drones....Researchers bent and extended the wings of dead pigeons to investigate how the birds control their wing shape. Those experiments revealed that the angles of two wing joints, the wrist and the finger, most affect the alignment of a wing’s flight feathers. The orientations of those long, stiff feathers, which support the bird in flight, help determine the wing’s shape. Based on those findings, the team built a robot with real pigeon feathers, whose faux wrists and fingers can morph its wing shape as seen in the pigeon cadavers. Read the rest

From her groundbreaking first album Switched-On Bach (1968) to the unforgettable soundtracks for A Clockwork Orange (1971), The Shining (1980), and Tron (1982), Wendy Carlos is a living legend of electronic music. In March, Oxford University Press will publish Wendy Carlos: A Biography, written by musicologist Amanda Sewel, musical director of Interlochen Public Radio. From the book description:With her debut album Switched-On Bach, composer and electronic musician Wendy Carlos (b. 1939) brought the sound of the Moog synthesizer to a generation of listeners, helping to effect arguably one of the most substantial changes in popular music's sound since musicians began using amplifiers. Her story is not only one of a person who blazed new trails in electronic music for decades but is also the story of a person who intersected in many ways with American popular culture, medicine, and social trends during the second half of the 20th century and well into the 21st. There is much to tell about her life and about the ways in which her life reflects many dimensions of American culture.Carlos's identity as a transgender woman has shaped many aspects of her life, her career, how she relates to the public, and how the public has received her and her music. Cultural factors surrounding the treatment of transgender people affected many of the decisions that Carlos has made over the decades. Additionally, cultural reception and perception of transgender people has colored how journalists, scholars, and fans have written about Carlos and her music for decades. Read the rest

In Winter Haven, Florida, this gentleman rolled right into a Walmart, loaded up his cart with a TV, flowers, and other goods, and glided right out the door without paying."Back to the Future’s McFly he’s not! But his Hover Shoes, Voyagers, Moto Kicks, Space Shoes or whatever you want to call them makes him our first futuristic thief!” the Winter Haven Police Department police posted on Facebook.(<a href="https://www.wfla.com/news/polk-county/police-futuristic-thief-steals-television-flowers-from-winter-haven-walmart/">WFLA, thanks UPSO!) Read the rest

We've all got a perfect website in our minds. In the past, the problem has been the barrier of language - specifically, the computer languages used to create those glittering, animation-filled pages you flock to.Now, Mac users have an alternative. Blocs 3 is a website builder that can provide an easy visual interface for anyone to design a site without sacrificing clean code underneath it all.Anyone can pick up this software and have their first page in minutes. It boils down and translates the code you need into pre-determined sections that can be modified in any number of ways. Add your own text and images, adjust the background and effects, plug in your links and go. These sections can be "stacked" like the namesake blocks of the program, making it easy for you to understand and work with the hierarchy of your site.The end result will have CMS integration, server-side PHP functionality and all the user interactions you need for a business or personal site.You can pick up Blocs 3 for Mac now at 60% off the MSRP. Read the rest

You can do all the pre-workout stretching in the world, but that doesn’t mean you’ll escape stiff muscles and nagging pain after a particularly grueling gym session. When those knots and their accompanying aches and soreness start barking, your options usually boil down to either a deep tissue massage or just grinning and bearing it.Since no one wants to live with pain, we recommend option 1. And rather than spending up to $100 for a one-hour massage therapy session, the Evertone Prosage Thermo Percussion Massager ($149, currently 25% off) can work out all that tension and muscle ache on your schedule.Originally designed for professional athletes, this Kickstarter-funded massage gun tackles tight, sore muscles with a combination of high-impact percussion and Theralite heating that breaks up stiffness and knots while speeding up recovery after workouts.With variable speed settings and interchangeable heads, the Prosage Thermo penetrates muscle tissue with up to 3,200 percussions per minute, alleviating lactic acid buildup as it improves blood flow.Meanwhile, the Theralite heating can either be used to warm up and activate muscle fibers before your workout or soothe pain and reduce spasms in muscle, joints, tendons, and ligaments after strenuous sessions.The Prosage Thermo offers up a full body massage without keeping a professional massage therapist on staff. Right now, it’s also $50 off the regular price at $149. Read the rest

Christopher Tolkien, custodian and mastermind of his father's literary estate, is dead at 95. Tor.com's Andrew Liptak:In 2017, Tolkien stepped down as the director of the Tolkien Estate and Tolkien Trust, saying at the time that Beren and Lúthien would likely be his final book. Tolkien was a staunch critic of Peter Jackson’s adaptation of his father’s trilogy, telling Le Monde in 2012 that “They gutted the book, making it an action movie for 15-25 year-olds, and it looks like The Hobbit will be the same.” His death comes at a time when his father’s books are more popular than ever, and as Amazon works to create a massive TV series based on the works that he himself helped bring to the public.While Tolkien was the author behind the world of Middle-earth, Christopher Tolkien was the one responsible for ensuring that his father’s stories remained in the public view by continuing to publish develop the backstory of the world that has influenced and inspired fans around the world.Christopher drew the original map of Middle-Earth, excerpted above, with annotations from J.R.R. He was no mere editor; his Complete History of Middle Earth [Amazon] is a twelve-volume encylopedia-cum-biography that's both penetrating and impenetrable. Read the rest

South Dakota's HB 1057 ("The Vulnerable Child Protection Act") was introduced by Rep Fred Deutsch [R-04/605-882-3323/@freddeutsch/<a href="mailto:Fred.Deutsch@sdlegislature.govFred.Deutsch@sdlegislature.gov] on Tuesday with 40 cosponors, fast-tracked for a vote on Friday. It makes providing any gender-confirmation therapy to trans teens a Class 4 felony.“By blocking medical care supported by every major medical association, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association, the legislature is compromising the health of trans youth in dangerous and potentially life-threatening ways. Research shows that transgender youth whose families affirm their gender identity have a 52 percent decrease in suicidal thoughts, a 48 percent decrease in suicide attempts and significant increases in self-esteem and general health. No other state has passed a law like HB 1057. It is unconstitutional to single out one group of people and categorically ban all care, no matter how medically necessary.”“Every year, South Dakota lawmakers zero in on transgender youth and every year the transgender community is hurt while meaningful problems go unaddressed,” Skarin says. “The more we legislate solutions in search of problems, the more our communities suffer. It’s time we stop these attacks and focus on issues that matter to the people of South Dakota. Discrimination against a marginalized group is a distraction from the state’s real needs and hurts us all.”Republicans Introduce Bill To Make It Illegal For Doctors To Treat Transgender Children In North Dakota [Gaily Grind](Image: @freddeutsch) Read the rest

The "Barnacle" is a networked car-immobilizer that parking guards stick over the windshield of your illegally parked car; you pay the fine online and the Barnacle gets an over-the-air signal to release itself from your car so you can remove it and put it in a nearby deposit bin.Except that it turns out to be really easy to remove a Barnacle without paying -- some redditors say they can remove it just by running their car's windshield defroster until the suction cups give up. What's more, once it's been removed, the Barnacle can be opened with a simple Torx screwdriver and its SIM extracted. One user reported that they were able to use this SIM to get unlimited wireless broadband for several months before the Barnacle company terminated its service.The University of Oklahoma announced that it would begin using Barnacles for on-campus parking enforcement on Tuesday; later that day, it announced that it was canceling the project after student outcry.U Oklahoma student Sally Johnson published a viral tweet explaining how to defeat the Barnacle that fills me with delight. Read the rest

When businesses need a database, Microsoft Access is the tool they use to build it. Companies around the world have been using Access to set up, maintain and modify their systems for years now.Needless to say, knowing your way around that software is key if you want to do database or IT work today. And because you never know which edition you'll be working with, the Ultimate Microsoft Access Mastery Bundle is your best bet for learning it.Access is a multifaceted piece of software, so as you might imagine, there's a lot to cover. And not only does the course pack cover it all, but it also has a distinct curriculum that pertains to all the recent editions of the platform: Access 2013, 2016 and 2019.You'll learn how to utilize all the time-saving macros in the program, from simple ones like SetTempVar to AutoExec. And by the end of the course, you'll be able to build a database on any server and manage it through any set of changes.All told, the bundle contains more than 50 hours of training. Lifetime access to the courses is available for a full 94% off the retail price today. Read the rest

Please Hammer, don't hurt'em. Read the rest

Environmental writer Emma Marris (author of Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World) offers a five-step process in the New York Times for confronting the climate crisis without being overwhelmed by hopelessness.Marris's advice is to focus on climate as a systemic problem, with collective solutions -- rather than beating yourself up about your individual choices about how you travel or which things you recycle. You cannot recycle your way out of climate change -- you can only join and support mass movements to create deep, systemic changes.That's one of the reasons I'm supporting Bernie Sanders in the 2020 election and spending as much as I can to help him get elected.The five points Marris makes are: "Ditch the shame" (your car didn't cause climate change); "Focus on systems, not yourself" (go after electing the right people and making the right laws, not on greening your consumption habits); "Join an effective group"; "Define your role" (find a way to help that group) and "Know what you are fighting for, not just what you are fighting against" (imagine a better future, not just averting a worse one).As the climate essayist Mary Annaïse Heglar writes, “The belief that this enormous, existential problem could have been fixed if all of us had just tweaked our consumptive habits is not only preposterous; it’s dangerous.” It turns eco-saints against eco-sinners, who are really just fellow victims. It misleads us into thinking that we have agency only by dint of our consumption habits — that buying correctly is the only way we can fight climate change. Read the rest

A new study shares that dogs like to poop along magnetic north. Having frequently watched my dog scramble around looking for the perfect place to take a dump, I now understand.Poop on, little Pretzel.PBS:The study suggests that dogs are sensitive to small variations in Earth’s magnetic field. After examining 70 dogs — made up of 37 breeds — over two years, 1,893 defecations and 5,582 urinations, researchers found that under “calm magnetic field conditions,” dogs preferred to “excrete with the body being aligned along the north-south axis,” avoiding east-west altogether. Dogs were observed in a free-roaming environment, meaning they were not leashed and not influenced by walls or roads that would influence linear movement. Read the rest

Social media is here for social media.This is incredibly important please watch and share pic.twitter.com/eDtZmEp3ir— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) January 16, 2020 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Read the rest

Lee Steffen's glorious Twitter thread about "the ten types of movies" (as determined by similarities in their poster art is quite the little design project, building on similar work from the likes of Christophe Courtois and others. (via Kottke)There are only 10 types of movies. (A short thread)1. Orange and blue action pic.twitter.com/YwKABlrsSZ— 𝕃𝔼𝔼 (@leesteffen) January 14, 2020 Read the rest

“It is unclear who put the hat on the bird.”

Some American conspiracy theorists believe (incorrectly) that the US inherited the entire body of English common-law prior to the American Revolution, including the law allowing litigants to demand trial by combat (this law was struck down in England in 1819).This question was comprehensively resolved in the USA in 1892, when the Iowa Supreme Court's Pierson v. Lane decision held that "The principles of the common law have been adopted in this country only so far as applicable to the habits and condition of our society, and in harmony with the genius, spirit, and objects of our institutions."But there's a whole cottage industry of American amateur constitutionalists -- like the delusional sovereign citizen movement -- that believe that they have discovered secret deep meanings in America's founding documents that can be used as magical incantations to allow them to occupy federal lands, or ignore courts, or stop paying taxes...or challenge people to trial by combat.Most recently, David Ostrom, of Paola, Kansas asked a court in Iowa to use trial-by-combat to resolve a dispute with his ex-wife (he said he would allow her to choose a champion to fight her side, and asked for 12 weeks to source appropriate swords).The ex-wife’s attorney opposed the motion, saying that although he and his client “do have souls to be rended, they respectfully request that the court not order this done.” This gave Ostrom both a way out and an opportunity to claim victory, by saying that the other side had, legally speaking, chickened out: Historically, [Ostrom] said in court records [most likely a reply brief], trial by combat was not always won by way of death, but also when a party “cries craven,” yielding to the other. “Respondent and counsel have proven themselves to be cravens by refusing to answer the call to battle, thus they should lose this motion by default,” Ostrom wrote, adding that if the other party decided otherwise, he wants to proceed with a “blunted practice style” of sword play.Kansas Man Seeks Trial by Combat [Kevin Underhill/Lowering the Bar](Image: Sam / Olai Ose / Skjaervoy, CC BY-SA)) Read the rest

In Hong Kong, the protracted pro-democracy uprising has triggered a local economic recession, especially as businesses and Hong Kongers seek to boycott mainland Chinese businesses and products.However, some businesses are fighting the recession by explicitly identifying themselves as partisans for the pro-democracy movement; these "yellow businesses" attract customers who want to spend money with merchants whose political leaning match their own. Online services help Hong Kong people find "yellow businesses" so they can preferentially patronize them.By contrast "blue businesses" are not self-declared -- rather, the label is given to firms that are considered to be in thrall to the mainland Chinese government and opposed to the pro-democracy movement (for example, Maxim's, a catering firm that operates Hong Kong's Starbucks outlets, is considered "blue" because the owner's daughter made public statements calling protesters "rioters" and decrying Hong Kong's youth). Blue businesses are sometimes vandalized or postered.Weirdly, Pepe the Frog -- a cartoon character hijacked by western white nationalists -- has become a mascot for Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement. At Fu Kee Noodles in Wan Chai, diners slurp wonton under the watchful gaze of a gas mask-wearing Pepe the Frog, which has become a mascot of the pro-democracy movement."This is a yellow shop, the boss supports the protesters, so we decided to come," said a 47-year-old advertising employee calling himself Gilbert."The most important thing in Hong Kong now is that we need to help each other, especially when the government does not help us."Posters and post-it notes with pro-democracy messages cover the wall by the cashier. Read the rest

In Israel on Thursday, a court ordered closed-door hearings in the legal bid by Amnesty International to stop the global export of NSO Group surveillance software, which Amnesty and other human rights groups say is sold to autocratic regimes around the world to spy on journalists and dissidents, and target them more efficiently for imprisonment and assassination. We've written a lot previously about NSO Group here on Boing Boing..In Tel Aviv District Court, a judge on Thursday banned the public and media from court sessions, citing national security concerns. “It’s outrageous we have to be gagged,” Gil Naveh, an Amnesty spokesman, told reporters. Reports Steven Scheer for Reuters from Tel Aviv:NSO has said it only sells its technology to state and law enforcement agencies “to help them fight terrorism and serious crime”.Judge Rachel Barkai initially had said she would allow Amnesty’s arguments to be heard publicly but government lawyers argued it would then look as if the state was admitting to Amnesty’s accusations and Barkai changed her mind.NSO came under particular scrutiny when a Saudi dissident close to murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi filed a lawsuit alleging that NSO had helped the royal court to take over his smartphone and spy on his communications with Khashoggi. NSO has denied that its technology was used in Khashoggi’s murder.In October, WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook Inc, sued NSO in the U.S. federal court in San Francisco, accusing it of helping government spies break into the phones of about 1,400 users across four continents. Read the rest

China technologi firm Xiaomi says it has fully resolved the security issue that led to Google 'disabling' integration across its platforms. Xiaomi cameras connected to its security cameras were showing feeds from random homes . Now that the Chinese firm says it's all sorted out, Google integrations are now re-enabled.I'm sure everything is totally fine.Reports Ben Schoon [@NexusBen] at 9to5Google:A Xiaomi spokesperson speaking to 9to5Google has now confirmed that Xiaomi has fully resolved this issue. From today, January 16th, Xiaomi integration with Google Assistant should be fully working once again and “stronger measures” will be taken to prevent this from happening again. We now confirm that we have fully resolved the root cause of this issue, and Xiaomi’s Google integration service has resumed from 16, January. Users can now use Xiaomi’s Mi security camera services via Nest devices. At Xiaomi, we take user privacy and information security as top priority. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused for affected users. We will take even stronger measures to prevent such incidents in the future.Previously on Boing Boing:Google 'disabling Xiaomi integrations on our devices' after Nest Hub user picked up random pics from strangers' feeds[9to5Google via techmeme.com, 'shoop by author] Read the rest

Peruvian police are deporting five tourists from Chile, Brazil, France and Argentina for allegedly sneaking into the Macchu Picchu citadel, defacating among the Incan ruins and breaking the stonework inside the Temple of the Sun. According to The Guardian, "An Argentinian man will remain in the country to face charges of 'destroying Peru’s cultural heritage' after he acknowledged a lead role in the vandalism."In recent years, Peruvian authorities have also had to crack down on tourists stripping naked and streaking through the ruins for photos.image: Macchu Picchu by Martin St-Amant (CC BY-SA 3.0) Read the rest

In the United States, January 16 is National Nothing Day. San Francisco Examiner columnist Harold Pullman Coffin created the holiday in 1973 "to provide Americans with one national holiday when they can just sit without celebrating, observing, or honoring anything." From Checkiday.com:It is ironic that it was created "to protest the proliferation of special days," as another holiday was started by its creation. Although it is meant to be a day when people do nothing, there are various other holidays that are observed on January 16 which undermine its message. Additionally, new holidays continue to be added on any given day of the year. Coffin also created the National Nothing Foundation, although it appears this no longer exists. Coffin himself passed away in 1981, but his holiday of nothing has continued to be celebrated—we think. It's a little hard to measure the popularity of a holiday where you do nothing. Read the rest

In 2015 I installed this Delta Water-Amplifying showerhead in a shower that has low pressure. It really does deliver a nice spray with large droplets. It's got a little knob that lets you switch between 2.5 and 1.85 GPM, but I had a hard time telling the difference. Installation is simple.Here's a good video that shows how to change a showerhead: Read the rest

Now that many online services rely on sending SMSes to your phone to authenticate your identify, thieves and stalkers have created a whole "SIM swap" industry where they defraud your phone company or bribe employees to help them steal your phone account so they can break into all your other accounts. In the years since SIM swap attacks were first publicized, carriers have faced litigation and congressional scrutiny for the role their lax security played in the attacks. They have added a suite of security measures that are supposed to staunch the bleeding, but as a recent study found, these measures present no real impediment to identity thieves -- and after the study was completed, the carriers largely ignored it and its recommendations.The study -- conducted by Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy (previously) details how researchers were able to bypass carrier security measures such as requiring people to give date of birth and billing ZIP codes by stating that they had been careless during the signup period and couldn't recall what answers they'd given previously. What's more, the researchers found it simple to bypass the carriers' requirement that the subscriber dial two phone numbers to confirm the swap -- they just sent fraudulent texts to the real customers telling them they'd won a prize and asking them to dial a certain number to collect it, then followed up by saying they had sent the wrong number originally and asking the victim to dial the second number instead. Read the rest

Is that sleek new iPhone a little too sleek? There is not, as it turns out, an app for that. But if you need a classic arcade fix, there is a case for it.The GAMECASE is a retro gamer's dream: A functional iPhone case that also turns your screen into a battleground for the 8-bit games of yesteryear.The look of the case alone should make any hardcore gamer's thumbs twitch with anticipation. And yes, it's functional. Those buttons serve as real, workable controls for the games that are included and accessible whenever you snap on the case,And what a lineup of games they are. You get 36 games in all, drawn from the golden era when Nintendo consoles were just becoming a fixture in living rooms across the world. You've got stand-up arcade favorites like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Arkanoid, and Super Contra. Super Mario Bros., Tetris, Excitebike, and other console stalwarts are on the list. And you've got plenty of dark horse favorites like 1942, Road Fighter and Mappy - plenty to keep you occupied and your fellow commuters jealous.The GAMECASE: 36-in-1 Retro Gaming Case for iPhone is now a full 90% off the retail price. Read the rest

Under Missouri House Bill 2044 -- the "Parental Oversight of Public Libraries Act" -- each town will elect a committee of five local people (librarians are not permitted to serve) who will take local submission for books to ban. If they choose to ban a book, any librarian who allows a minor to check out or read that book will face up to a year in prison, and their libraries will be de-funded.The unconsitutional bill was proposed by Rep Ben Baker [R-160/573-751-9781/Ben.Baker@house.mo.gov/@benbakermo] who holds a BA in Biblical Literature from the Ozark Bible Institute where he is Dean of Students.Books that Missourians have tried to ban from public libraries in recent years include "Sherman Alexie’s award-winning The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak."Baker told a local news station that he didn't want to ban books, but that, "I just think that we need to be careful about funding something with our taxpayer dollars without parental consent."The Missouri Library Association said it was opposing the bill, because it “will always stand against censorship and for the freedom to read”.“Public libraries already have procedures in place to assist patrons in protecting their own children while not infringing on the rights of other patrons or restricting materials,” it added.Baker told Koam News that he was not trying to ban books. “I just think that there’s a line between what is open and available access for our children. Read the rest

It’s ’The Sound & The Fury' over at Buckingham Palace these days in more ways than one, as Britain’s royals all have differing perspectives on “Megxit,” while it’s Christmas and July 4th wrapped into one for this week's tabloids.

In the 1990s, Marc Newsom designed the Apple retail store concept as imagined in this presentation video by Me Company. While this design didn't get the go-ahead from Apple twenty-five years ago, today it would be perfect for a vaporwave record store.(r/ObscureMedia) Read the rest

Did teenagers use pagers in the 1990s? I don't know any who did. Nevertheless, here's an LA Times sidebar that shows the codes kids used to chat via pager back in the day.[via r/coolguides] Read the rest

A British woman has defiantly rejected criticism from Lincolnshire County Council, which has asked her to stop spraying paint bugs around potholes that it has failed to patch. Locals have nicknamed her "Bugsy" in honor of the crude but colorful roadway creations.Lincolnshire County Council said repair of the hole would be delayed due to the paint having to be removed."On Friday night I was going along and hit a pothole which burst my tyre," Ms Holland said. "I took it to the tyre place on Saturday and £53 later I decided I'd had enough. I went and bought some spray paint and I made it into a bug. If I can save people from getting a bill like I did then it's worth it."Sounds to me like Ms. Holland should be equipped with some sidewalk spray chalk [Amazon]: highlights the danger and puts a fire under the council, but washes away with water.Photos: Karan Holland. Read the rest