Boing Boing

In the early days of the web, everyone wanted a .com domain for their site. As a result, all the good ones got snapped up. But .com no longer has the cachet it once did. In fact, many new businesses and individuals are opting for other top-level domain extensions. One of the most memorable is the .tech extension. It's short, it's memorable, and most importantly, it resonates very well with the field of technology. For example, a website on .tech clearly calls out that the website is about technology There are tons of great names on .tech available now, and you owe it to your company to at least check for your dream brand. Right now, you can save on your next domain for your next big idea with $7.99 for 1 year (down from $49.99), $24.99 for 3 years (down from $149.97) and $39.99 for 5 years (down from $249.95).Start searching for the perfect domain extension here and get your .tech site online today. Read the rest

[UPDATE: CNN reports "Harvey Weinstein was taken to New York's Bellevue Hospital Monday night after feeling chest pains and having heart palpitations and high blood pressure on his way to Rikers Island, his attorney Donna Rotunno said."]Serial rapist Harvey Weinstein is behind bars, according to this NBC News report. The rapist did not take his walker with him. The rapist will be sentenced on March 11.Image: YouTube Read the rest

This morning, I launched a new series of posts that I'm going to be writing on Adafruit on the history of cyberpunk science fiction and how it has evolved, how it has influenced culture and technology, what it got right (and wrong) about the near future in its fictional speculations.In 1992, I wrote a post on The Well BBS entitled “Is there a cyberpunk movement?” The post was an attempt at summarizing what cyberpunk was, both as a literary genre, and how its depictions of near-future worlds were imploding onto the present of early 90s high-tech nerd culture (hackers, gamers, industrial/electronic music, tech artists, and cyberpunk zine publishers).Apparently, the post struck a nerve as it quickly spread beyond the confines of The Well, was dubbed a “cyberpunk manifesto,” and ended up in the pages of Mondo 2000 magazine, Rudy Rucker and Mondo 2000’s book The User’s Guide to the New Edge, and as lyrics on Billy Idol’s 1993 record, Cyberpunk (but those are all stories to be told here later in the series).The text of my post is a little dated, but here’s the gist of what I was trying to encapsulate:* In a cyberpunk world, global megacorporations are more powerful than governments.* Individual hackers and “high-tech low lifes” can wield disproportionate amounts of power within cyberspace and beyond.* The new “stage” for the human drama has shifted from the “real world” to a virtual one, one inside our networks and our minds. The new frontiers for human society–technology, art, culture, and warfare– have moved into cyberspace. Read the rest

12,000 years of civilisation and humanity has only just invented the spaghetti bolognese scissorspic.twitter.com/QNQsswQ944— James Felton (@JimMFelton) February 21, 2020While the fellow above has impressive technique, we must recognize the great Buster Keaton who blazed the trail for all of us 100 years ago. From The Cook (1918): Read the rest

Lawyers have their legalese. Academics have their own intra-academialogical post-linguistic theories. And it was only before the MBAs joined the fray with their own self-important syntax. If you've ever been in the sleek office setting of a start-up or some tech-savvy corporation, you've heard it. You may have even picked up on its tics to help you sound smarter, too; after all, that's how it works.Molly Young has a great new piece at Vulture about this phenomenon, which she has coined "Garbage Language." Her article is full of insight not only into the ways that we do and don't communicate, but also how that reflects the other issues inherent in these kinds of office cultures:[G]arbage language works because garbage is what we produce mindlessly in the course of our days and because it smells horrible and looks ugly and we don’t think about it except when we’re saying that it’s bad, as I am right now.But unlike garbage, which we contain in wastebaskets and landfills, the hideous nature of these words — their facility to warp and impede communication — is also their purpose. Garbage language permeates the ways we think of our jobs and shapes our identities as workers. It is obvious that the point is concealment; it is less obvious what so many of us are trying to hide.[…]When we adopt words that connect us to a larger project — that simultaneously fold us into an institutional organism and insist on that institution’s worthiness — it is easier to pretend that our jobs are more interesting than they seem. Read the rest

Back in November, I shared a piece about the "Real Media Salaries Spreadsheet" that was started by one of my colleagues and publicized the incomes of more than a thousand people working in media.Now the New York Times has published a great new piece about this movement, on the breakdown of the taboos around pay transparency:Open discussions of pay lay bare some of the basic contradictions that govern so many workplaces, which claim to embrace their workers like family while insisting, all the while, on professionalism and discretion. They are communities whose members care about one another and yet also know that their respective right to belong is based on their utility, perceived or actual. To ask a co-worker her salary — especially one who has worked at an institution for years — opens up deeper, unsettling questions. How valued are you in this community? Are you more valued than I am, or beyond what I perceive as your worth? Or have you undervalued yourself, been timid, clueless, exploited?The article does a fair job of approaching the issue from different differences, including the social and professional comfort involved with even trying to change the expectations around salary secrecy, and the actual data that reveals what happens when money matters are aired out in the open:[U]sing data from a happiness survey that has been conducted in Norway since 1985 … Perez-Truglia found that the newfound accessibility of other people’s pay led to a significant increase in the happiness gap: Higher-income earners were happier than they were before the information was widely available, and lower-income workers were less happy. Read the rest

In some weird alternate fantasy universe, this song would to taught to school children so that they could memorize their Hermetic fundamentals.Image: YouTube Read the rest

My friend Mark Casale and I were talking about Captain Beefheart last night (as we are often want to do) and were yucking it up over the surreal late-night TV commercial for the Beef's 1970 record, Lick My Decals Off, Baby (which I posted about last month).This prompted Mark to ask me if I'd ever seen the bizarre promo video for Cat Steven's 1976 song, Banapple Gas. I'd never even heard of the song. It was a track on Steven's ninth studio record, Numbers. Numbers was composed as a concept album, subtitled "A Pythagorean Theory Tale."[Numbers] was based on a fictional planet in a far-off galaxy named Polygor. The album included a booklet with excerpts from a planned book of the same name written by Chris Bryant and Allan Scott. The booklet features pen-and-ink illustrations drawn by Stevens.The concept of the album is a fantastic spiritual musical which is set on the planet Polygor. In the story there is a castle with a number machine. This machine exists to fulfill the sole purpose of the planet – to disperse numbers to the rest of the universe: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 (but notably not 0). The nine inhabitants of Polygor, the Polygons, are Monad, Dupey, Trezlar, Cubis, Qizlo, Hexidor, Septo, Octav, and Novim. As the last lines of the book say, they "followed a life of routine that had existed for as long as any could remember. ... It was, therefore, all the more shocking when on an ordinary day things first started to go wrong." Read the rest

Well, that's good. We can all rest easy now.Tweeted impeached and manifestly unfit U.S. President Donald Trump just now:The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!Yeah. No.Previously today:The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummetted more than 1,000 points as news of a spreading coronavirus outbreak suggests wider coming damage to the global economy. These are literally the people in charge of our government’s response to #COVID19. This is a verified account, not a parody. He is the Acting Deputy Secretary of DHS. #TheBestPeople https://t.co/YxVlH5a9Em— David Hobby (@strobist) February 24, 2020Dow fell 1,032 points on Monday; worst day in 2 years. https://t.co/qOP7f0zQGF— Dan Berman (@DHBerman) February 24, 2020Trump eliminated a position called Senior Director of Global Health Security. That person used to work in the NSC to coordinate responses to global health emergencies and potential pandemics.— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) February 24, 2020FYI: This map from ⁦⁦@JHUSystems⁩ is 100% free to use to track the spread of #NovelCoronavirus #COVIDー19 worldwide. Just in case that comes up... https://t.co/9j6o2X7ToD— Laura Santhanam (@LauraSanthanam) February 24, 2020For weeks I’ve been saying that WH “happy talk” on #COVIDー19 #Coronarivus would keep up the markets for only so long; happy tweets can’t stop the virus: only a well run and sharp response can https://t.co/Tgu25muwbo Read the rest

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummetted more than 1,000 points as news of a spreading coronavirus outbreak suggests wider coming damage to the global economy. Today's stock market drop was the worst for the Dow in two years, and wiped out all gains so far in 2020. From AP:Nervous investors scrambled for safety, loading up on gold, U.S. government bonds and other safe-harbor assets. The price of oil fell sharply on expectations that demand for energy would tumble. The Dow lost 1,031 points, or 3.6%, to 27,960. The S&P 500 fell 111, or 3.4%, to 3,225. The Nasdaq fell 355, or 3.7%, to 9,221. (...) Technology companies were among the worst hit by the sell-off. Apple, which depends on China for a lot of business, slid 3.4%. Microsoft dropped 2.6%. Banks were also big losers. JPMorgan Chase fell 2.1% and Bank of America slid 4.4%. Related Boing Boing posts from earlier today:• How coronavirus impacts climate change and the US housing market• The stock market is plunging today, but two things are up: the price of gold, and weed use among seniors Read the rest

Italy today confirmed over 150 cases of the disease.

Italy coronavirus deaths now stand at 7, with 220 people infected. Italian villages are now on lockdown in Europe's worst flare-up of COVID-19.WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus today says word “pandemic” does not yet fit the facts.“We must focus on containment while preparing for a potential pandemic,” he told reporters in Geneva, and says the world is not yet seeing an uncontained spread or large-scale deaths.The epidemic in China peaked between Jan. 23 and Feb. 2 and has been declining since, the WHO said.Dr. Mike Ryan, head of WHO’s emergencies program, told reporters it was still possible to contain the virus and that it might appear each year like the flu.“The virus may settle down into an endemic pattern of transmission, into a seasonal pattern of transmission, or it could accelerate into a full-blown global pandemic,” he said in Geneva on Monday. “And at this point, it is not possible to say which of those realities is going to happen.” The outbreak has spread beyond China's Hubei province to at least 29 countries or territories, with two dozen confirmed deaths, according to a Reuters tally.Read more:Coronavirus kills seventh person in Italy, pandemic fears grip Wall Street [reuters]If true, this revelation by Conte ("mismanagement of security 'protocols' in one hospital") can maybe justify the astonishing outbreak and rapid death toll of #Coronavirus in Northern Italy. Hospitals and GPs surgeries are the perfect scenarios for the virus to spread (and kill).— Antonello Guerrera (@antoguerrera) February 24, 2020Coronavirus halts 'Mission: Impossible 7' filming in Venice, Italy https://t.co/pSw8XUC4dH Read the rest

Twentieth Century Flicks is the world's oldest surviving video rental store. The offer 20,000 films (yes, many on VHS too) and even have screening rooms. This shop embodies much of what I miss about how I experienced media growing up before the dark times... Before the modern Web. Be kind, rewind.Directed by Arthur Cauty.Previously on Boing Boing:• "Only one Blockbuster Video Store left standing" Read the rest

Gerald Corrigan, 74, went outside his house at midnight to check his satellite dish after the TV signal failed. It was a trap: he was shot in the dark with a crossbow bolt, which punctured internal organs and led to his death three weeks later from sepsis. His killer was Terence Whall, 39, convicted today of Corrigan's murder.Police suspected Whall, a local with a crossbow collection, but had no evidence to tie him to the crime. How was he caught? His partner's car was mysteriously torched, which led police to contact its manufacturer, Jaguar Land Rover, which sent them its backed-up telematics records.The vehicle was driven to Corrigan's house the day before the killing, then to a nearby beach, then back to Whall's residence. On the day itself, the car was driven to the beach an hour before the attack. It was next started about 12 minutes after it.The system recorded the trunk being opened and closed twice, before and after Corrigan was shot.Image: Family photo (handout) / Crown Prosecution Service Read the rest

Researchers discover a potential new way in which diet influences aging-related diseases.

A lot of roleplaying gamers who are used to playing in "theater of the mind" mode (with nothing more than pencil, paper, dice, and vivid imaginations) are often intimidated by the idea of switching over to miniatures and terrain-based gaming. The idea of acquiring and painting the minis, building a gaming board, and making a bunch of terrain and props can be an overwhelming prospect. All of this "dungeon crafting" really is a hobby unto itself for many of us [raises hand].So, I really like these projects on Dungeon Craft. Basically, you build a stone floor on top of a lazy Susan using insulation foam and some simple walls, doors, and other dungeon furnishings (also out of foam). Your main tool is a gel pen that you use to simply draw/carve the stones into the foam.You don't need to create a complete dungeons and all of the furnishings to do mini-based RPGs. All you need is this little, moveable theater-in-the-round stage that you can change up with each encounter you're looking to represent to your players. Image: YouTube Read the rest

How does an owl's tail help it fly? To better see the role of the tail in raptor aerodynamics, researchers at the UK's Royal Veterinary College recorded birds of prey flying through clouds of tiny helium bubbles. According to the science journal Nature, analyzing the swirling motion of the bubbles enabled the scientists to discover "a new way in which birds use their tail to provide lift and so reduce drag while gliding... Their findings could provide a new way to improve the efficiency of small gliding aircraft."More: "High aerodynamic lift from the tail reduces drag in gliding raptors" (Journal of Experimental Biology) Read the rest

Baby Yoda brought the internet together, its adorableness somehow overpowering the divisive animosity that has otherwise ruled over this pre-post-apocalyptic era.And now the Army's branded the Child onto the cannon of an M1 Abrams tank.https://twitter.com/USArmy/status/1230357926289846272/photo/1You can re-appropriate the Punisher all you'd like, but please leave our sweet Baby Yoda out of it. In the famous words of Baby Yoda's older counterpart, "Wars not make one great."We salute the Army crew that named their tank 'Baby Yoda' [Jared Keller / Task and Purpose]Image: U.S. Army by PFC. Daniel Alkana Read the rest

The great Katherine Johnson, one of the legendary African-American mathematicians who were essential to the Apollo 11 moon landing, has died at age 101. You'll recall that Johnson, who worked at NASA’s Flight Research Division for more than three decades, was the central character in the film Hidden Figures. From the New York Times:Mrs. Johnson was one of several hundred rigorously educated, supremely capable yet largely unheralded women who, well before the modern feminist movement, worked as NASA mathematicians.But it was not only her sex that kept her long marginalized and long unsung: Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson, a West Virginia native who began her scientific career in the age of Jim Crow, was also African-American.In old age, Mrs. Johnson became the most celebrated of the small cadre of black women — perhaps three dozen — who at midcentury served as mathematicians for the space agency and its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, proclaiming, “Katherine G. Johnson refused to be limited by society’s expectations of her gender and race while expanding the boundaries of humanity’s reach.”In 2017, NASA dedicated a building in her honor, the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility, at its Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.More: Katherine Johnson (NASA) Read the rest

In balmy Edmonton, a woman was arrested for liberating a package from a front porch. Watch the exciting police action on YouTube!Image: YouTube Read the rest

Back in September, a Hyundai Glovis cargo ship capsized off the coast of Georgia. The 665-foot ship, called the Golden Ray, tipped over in St. Simons Sound, Georgia but fortunately every crew member was rescued. The ship was holding around 4,000 US-made automobiles that are now quite waterlogged. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources and other organizations are orchestrating environmental protection measures and disassembling the vessel to remove it in pieces via barge. This week, the St. Simons Sound Incident Response Unified Company will begin constructing an "environmental protection barrier" that includes "large floating containment barrier to help contain surface pollutants, as well as large netting to contain subsurface debris."The Unified Command used LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology to create 3D images of inaccessible areas inside the vessel.Follow the situation here: St. Simons Sound Responseimage: Georgia Department of Natural Resources (photo release) Read the rest

The Manhattan Institute issued a report that reveals that a year of middle class wages no longer pays for major household expenditures.From The Washington Post:Lead author Oren Cass distills it as follows: “In 1985, the typical male worker could cover a family of four’s major expenditures (housing, health care, transportation, education) on 30 weeks of salary,” he wrote on Twitter last week. “By 2018 it took 53 weeks. Which is a problem, there being 52 weeks in a year.”Image: Washington Post Read the rest

Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood mogul accused of sexual misconduct by dozens of women, was today convicted of of assaulting two women in New York. After six weeks of testimony, Weinstein was convicted of forcing oral sex on Miriam Haley in his New York City apartment in 2006 and raping Jessica Mann at a Manhattan hotel in 2013. But he was acquitted on two counts of predatory sexual assault in connection to Annabella Sciorra's claim he attacked her in her apartment in 1993. Jurors were deadlocked over the weekend on those more serious charges and returned the mixed verdict after 26 hours of deliberation.Weinstein, who presented himself in court using a walker for the duration of the trial, was immediately surrounded by court officers as the guilty counts were announced, according to wire reports. Weinstein maintained that the encounters were consensual. Read the rest

Earlier this month, the United States Copyright Office and the World Intellectual Property Organization co-sponsored a symposium titled Copyright in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. The purpose of the symposium was to examine "how the creative community currently is using artificial intelligence (AI) to create original works," and "what level of human input is sufficient for the resulting work to be eligible for copyright protection," among other topics.In his article for The Scholarly Kitchen, Todd A Carpenter read the discussion threads in WIPO's public consultation and learned that the court decision regarding the famous monkey selfie of 2011 could steer copyright law regarding works created by artificial intelligence.In 2011, a nature photographer left his camera on a tripod and an endangered Celebes crested macaques, intrigued by its reflection in the lens snapped perhaps hundreds of pictures of itself. One of those photos ended up promoted by the photographer and it ended up in the British press. Other sites, such as Wikipedia and Techdirt reproduced the photo on their sites, that the photographer and PETA eventually perused in court to seek compensation as violation of copyright. Whether the photographer could assert copyright in the photograph was eventually dismissed by the Ninth Circuit court of appeals in 2018.In the Copyright Office’s Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices, released on 22 December, 2014, the Office stated that, “only works created by a human can be copyrighted under United States law, which excludes photographs and artwork created by animals or by machines without human intervention” and furthermore, “Because copyright law is limited to ‘original intellectual conceptions of the author,’ the [copyright] office will refuse to register a claim if it determines that a human being did not create the work. Read the rest

Laura Kampf made this cool looking plywood chair with a storage space for books. She says she'll upload plans for making one of your own soon.If you like videos of people making things, I highly recommend Laura's YouTube channel. She makes a new thing every week, such as a cargo bike, a bike trailer for her dog, and a solar food dehydrator. I don't know how she does it!Image: YouTube Read the rest

Trail runner Joseph Oldendorf badly injured himself on the Duckabush River Trail in the Olympic National Park, Washington. His tibia detached, Oldendorf was unable to walk. He was wearing lightweight running clothes and it was literally freezing outside. He had a cell phone but there was no service. So he crawled. For eight hours. From CNN:At 12:45 a.m. on Saturday, he realized his phone had a signal because he received a text message.He called 911 and kept crawling, (a Jefferson County Search and Rescue) release said.Oldendorf told the station that he tried lying down to wait, but he was too cold and believed that if he didn't keep moving he could die. Thoughts of his family kept him going, he said...A crew from the Brinnon Fire Department along with Jefferson Search and Rescue volunteers responded and started up the trail to find the injured runner. A Jefferson County Sheriff's deputy managed coordination and communication at the trailhead, said.The runner was located by his voice five to six miles from the spot where he was injured, the release said. image: "View from the helicopter as the basket was lowered to retrieve the subject" (courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard) Read the rest

In 1981, Tony Hawk, age 13, appeared on the Captain Kangaroo TV program shredding at the legendary Del Mar Skate Ranch in Southern California.(via r/ObscureMedia) Read the rest

Despite legalization in 11 states and decriminalization in 15 more, marijuana-based products are still an often tough sell with many Americans. While the psychoactive THC portion of the plant remains controversial, the medicinal impact of the non-altering component of cannibis, CBD, is widely hailed.Many portions of those claims still await medical verification, but for those who swear by CBD, you can try it for yourself with these Holiday CBD Premium CBD Gummies. Right now, a bottle is available for just $32.99, almost 20 percent off the retail price.Made from sustainable and organically grown hemp and containing absolutely zero THC, each of these 20 tasty gummies pack 10 mg of CBD and all its benefits without any of marijuana’s mood-altering side-effects.As a warning, you should be aware that these gummies are only available to those 18 or older; are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease; and should only be used as a dietary supplement after consultation with a doctor.Regularly $39.99, a bottle of Holiday CBD Premium CBD Gummies are now $8 off, just $32. Read the rest

Japan is increasingly obsessed with capybaras, the best rodent and very likely the best animal of all time. Accordingly, there's a plush toy craze to go with it: behold Kapibara-san. No animal is complete without its own cute character in Japan—and capybaras have Kapibara-san (link in Japanese). By one estimate, over 5,000 items (link in Japanese) now bear the face of the character, which was launched in 2005. According to Kapibara-san’s owner, toy giant Bandai, capybaras are known for their ”happy, natural, and easygoing lifestyle” and loved for their healing effect on humans.The photo above was posted by Tryworks. Kapibara-San are available on Amazon, but eBay has better deals.【TRYWORKSより】春ですね～カピバラさんたちもお花見を楽しんでいるようです♪ pic.twitter.com/d9ICZc6QjO— カピバラさん【公式】 (@FROM_TRYWORKS) April 7, 2017かわいい〜💓うちのカピバラさんもお花見楽しんでます🌸✨ pic.twitter.com/OqxXNNES61— 🎀風間りぃ🎀 (@kazamarii) April 7, 2017If you like flying capybaras, you’ll love capybaras taking a yuzu hot bath. (Very popular in Japan.) pic.twitter.com/lu0Mtn5TZL— 🩸Hirondelle🦷 (@realHirondelle) February 24, 2020 Read the rest

This image, posted by the 1912 Progressive Party, offers a stark illustration of how commonplace universal healthcare -- i.e. "Medicare for All" -- is in the developed world and even beyond it. It struck me that not having effective healthcare is seen as an aspect of American Exceptionalism, where the lack of something other people enjoy becomes a uniquely American virtue: faith in the generosity of insurance companies. Read the rest

Clint Eastwood, the actor, director and famous conservative interlocutor with empty chairs, has denounced President Trump's lack of gentility and offered his support to Mike Bloomberg in the 2020 elections. The casual endorsement came at the end of a wide-ranging interview for the Wall Street Journal.As for the domestic political scene, Mr. Eastwood seems disheartened. “The politics has gotten so ornery,” he says, hunching his shoulders in resignation. He approves of “certain things that Trump’s done” but wishes the president would act “in a more genteel way, without tweeting and calling people names. I would personally like for him to not bring himself to that level.” As he drives me back to my hotel, he expresses an affinity for another former mayor: “The best thing we could do is just get Mike Bloomberg in there.”Amazing that people think the story here is "Clintwood becomes a Democrat" not "Bloomberg still a Republican" Read the rest

Thanks to TripAdvisor reviews for a hole in a wall, the architectural feature has become the fourth-most popular tourist destination in Ilkeston, a town in Derbyshire, England.The hole reassures users of a nearby NatWest bank ATM that no-one is hiding behind the wall to rob them, but its absurdity and questionable utility resulted in dozens of spoof write-ups on the site, which has temporarily suspended reviews for what one visitor described as a 'national treasure.'Tongue-in-cheek comments for the "NatWest hole" first started appearing in December 2018. By awarding the wall top marks, users were able to propel it above well-known locations in and around Ilkeston, including Bennerley Viaduct. Among 40 new comments added this weekend, one said: "Made my sixth visit to this attraction last week, always worth the nine-hour drive, every time has felt like the first." Read the rest

Mad Mike Hughes just launched himself in a self-made steam-powered rocket and crash landed. Very likely did not survive. #MadMike #MadMikeHughes pic.twitter.com/svtviTEi8f— Justin Chapman (@justindchapman) February 22, 2020Daredevil and flat-earther "Mad" Mike Hughes, 64, died Saturday when his steam-powered rocket crashed after a short flight over the Californian desert. Footage of the self-made craft shows its parachute deploying immediately after lift-off and being destroyed by its wake, leaving it with nothing to slow its descent.A flat-earther, Hughes planned to go high enough to see the curvature of the earth with his own eyes. The launch was being filmed for the so-called "Science Channel", which has come in for heavy criticism for encouraging Hughes' risky stunts.With the help of his partner Waldo Stakes, Hughes was trying to reach an altitude of 5,000ft (1,525m) while riding his steam-powered rocket, according to Space.com. In the video of the launch, a parachute can be seen trailing behind the rocket, apparently deployed too early, seconds after take-off. In a tweet, the Science Channel said Hughes had died pursuing his dream. Read the rest

Anderson Cooper hasn't been this pissed off since Hurricane Katrina.On Friday, Cooper interviewed newly-sprung Rod Blagojevich, the former governor of Illinois who had a 14-year prison sentence commuted by Celebrity Apprentice host Donald Trump. In 2011, Blago was found guilty of federal corruption charges related to then-President Obama's vacant senate seat.During his time in prison, Blago got woke. Comparing himself to fellow "political prisoner" Nelson Mandela, he railed against criminal injustice and the thousands of Americans waiting for clemency.Cooper was NOT having it.In which @AndersonCooper calls actual "bullshit" on Blagojevich in fiery interview pic.twitter.com/8oorGogs7s— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) February 22, 2020Oh, and here's proof that we're living in the worst timeline. One of these people is now the leader of the free world and the other is the new Mandela.Thinking about the time Donald Trump scolded Rod Blagojevich on the Celebrity Apprentice over inaccurate Harry Potter facts and inadequate Harry Potter research pic.twitter.com/rx7PH7qP4I— Josh Billinson (@jbillinson) August 8, 2019Image by United States Marshals Service - http://www.thesmokinggun.com/mugshots/celebrity/politics/rod-blagojevich, Public Domain, Link Read the rest

“Why is Chris Matthews on this air talking about the victory [of] Bernie Sanders, who had kin murdered in the Holocaust, analogizing it to the Nazi conquest of France?” asked Anand Giridharadas of his fellow MSNBC colleague when he appeared on MSNBC’s AM Joy.From The Daily Beast:Matthews’ latest remarks have led to progressives calling on MSNBC to fire the veteran host. The Hardball anchor isn’t the only one who has found himself in hot water over his anti-Bernie rhetoric. MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson faced swift and loud backlash after he dismissed the “island of misfit black girls” who supported Sanders. Read the rest

When I was a teen devourer of sci-fi, I was obsessed with the spaceship designs on paperback book covers. I would buy any novel or short story collection, however sketchy the contents seemed, if I dug the ship on the cover. Conversely, I would pass over well-regarded books if I thought the spaceship art was crappy. Sometimes, the covers would make a more lasting impression on me than the contents.I can't imagine how high over the moon teenage me would be for YouTube channels like Spacedock. This excellently-produced channel is a collection of deep-nerdings over the minutia of spaceship designs found in sci-fi media. Episodes look at categories of ships across different sci-fi universes or they are deep dives into a specific class of ship from a world, or a single, iconic ship from a series. The opinions are definitely those of the creator of the channel, and I don't always agree with them, but current me and teenage me are in love with the nerdiness of it all. Read the rest

If you remember your Norse mythology (or just watched Marvel’s Thor movies), you’re probably familiar with Heimdal, the god whose ever-watchful eye was entrusted with protecting the home of the gods in Asgard.Back on Earth, Heimdal Thor is also the name of a security package from Heimdal Security, that’s actually dedicated to much the same principle: protecting your home or business computer systems from viruses, malware, and other potentially crippling online security threats. Right now, they’re offering some of their most powerful cyberattack preventative tools at up to 87 percent off.First, Heimdal Thor Vigilance: Next-Gen Antivirus ($39.99; originally $249.75) is available as a first line of defense against online threats. Vigilance Home is lightweight, hassle-free software that uses both traditional and next-gen antivirus engines to root out cybercriminals, black malware, and stop viruses, APTs, ransomware, data leakage and a host of concerning digital problems that may infect your systems.But sometimes, that may not be enough. Since the newest, most deceitful malware is created specifically to bypass most antivirus detection methods, Heimdal Thor Foresight Home: Malware Prevention Software ($49.99, originally $349.75) increases your protection.Foresight Home gets proactive in the fight, assuring your systems are protected before they can ever be infected. It filters all internet traffic, blocks dicey sources that may distribute ransomware, throws another layer of security on your bank account and automatically spots and blocks any security holes found in your favorite apps.Finally, Heimdal Thor Premium: All-in-One Security Suite ($59.99; originally $499.75) brings both Vigilance and Foresight’s reactive and proactive measures together in one package, along with some unique threat prevention features that will have your computer and all its valuable information protected at all times. Read the rest

Everyone's got their nose in a phone these days, and that doesn't seem like it's going to change anytime soon. With the increase in mobile device and e-commerce reliance comes increased need for developers who can build the apps we're all so glued to. In fact, employment of devs is expected to grow up to 13% by 2028, quite a bit faster than other occupations. Milk that for all its worth by snapping up the 2020 Mobile App Developers Bundle and teaching yourself these in-demand technologies.With over 20 hours of beginner-friendly training, this bundle will teach you the skills you need to help market yourself for a $70K-ish salary, thanks to 7 courses presented by world-class e-learning platform Zenva Academy.Across 265 lessons, you'll use simple text color selecting and input/output apps plus more complex weather forecasting, pet activity, and contacts apps projects as hands-on teaching tools. You'll learn how to build apps for both Android and iOS using Swift & Apple's integrated development environment XCode, Android Studio, XML, Kotlin, SQL database integration, RESTful APIs, Flutter open-source framework, Java, and Firebase (Google's cloud-based platform that allows you to build mobile applications without needing to write the back-end code).The 2020 Mobile App Developers Bundle is available now for only $29.99, 91% off MSRP. Read the rest

Here's a little public service announcement with a lot to unpack. Fatbergs are horrifying agglomerations of grease, excrement and fiber clogging the waterworks beneath our cities. Britain's ancient sewers seem especially vulnerable, providing an endless stream of "thousand-foot fatberg removed" stories, complete with nightmarish footage of yet another London lard shoggoth. Flushed wet-wipes are a key cause of the problem, as they do not break down and instead become fatberg rebar.Hence the need for Andy Serkis to play a talking anus in an anti-fatberg PSA, begging Britons to stop flushing wet-wipes. Read the rest

Canada's privacy authorities on Friday said they are investigating New York-based Clearview AI over concerns the facial recognition technology may not comply with Canadian privacy law. “Clearview AI bills itself as a tool for law enforcement, scraping the internet for publicly available photos and using facial recognition to identify potential suspects,” reports Moira Warburton at Reuters, “Critics in both Canada and the United States have raised concerns about the lack of consent of those searched, and the potential for misuse of the service.” Snip:Several police forces in Ontario have publicly acknowledged they have used Clearview’s services, including the police force in Toronto, Canada’s most populous city.The privacy commissioners of Canada and of the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Québec will jointly investigate whether the company’s practices are in compliance with Canadian privacy legislation.The investigation was initiated as a result of media reports that “raised questions and concerns about whether the company is collecting and using personal information without consent,” said a joint statement from the commissioners’ offices. Read more at Reuters:• Facial recognition company Clearview AI probed by Canada privacy agenciesPreviously at Boing Boing:• Clearview AI founder linked to Trump world and Far-Right, NYPD denies facial recognition firm's boast that it helped catch terrorist suspect• Twitter tells facial-recognition app maker to stop scraping photos, Clearview AI used by 600+ US law enforcement agencies• The answer to the Clearview AI scandal is better privacy laws, not anti-scraping laws Read the rest

In the days leading up to the U.S. presidential election and on Election Day, YouTube's homepage will reportedly be advertising only one candidate: Donald Trump.The impeached president’s re-election campaign bought out YouTube's costly advertising space for early November, and the deal ensures Trump will be all anyone sees on Google's YouTube during the critical days when voters get ready to head to the polls on November 3, reports Bloomberg News:While the bulk of digital ad spending typically focuses on targeting specific messages to certain audiences, the top spot on YouTube is more akin to a Super Bowl TV ad. About three-quarters of U.S. adults say they use YouTube, exceeding the reach of even Facebook, according to the Pew Research Center.Ads on the YouTube masthead—as the video on the top of the homepage is known—generally run for an entire day. The exact duration of Trump’s ad buy and financial details were unclear, but estimates for the space range from hundreds of thousands of dollars to more than $1 million a day.YouTube, owned by Alphabet Inc.’s Google, lets advertisers target users based on a variety of factors, though it recently limited those options for political content. The Trump campaign bought the digital real estate nationwide, one of the people familiar with the deal said, both of whom asked not to be identified.Read more at Bloomberg News, Business Insider, and CJR. [via MediaGazer]Donald Trump’s re-election committee will take over YouTube’s homepage in early November in the immediate run up to Election Day through advertising space it has purchased from the Google streaming video website. Read the rest

Ethos, the private equity firm owned by Republican billionaires that is trying to buy the rights to operate the internet’s .org domain range, said on Friday it will cap price hikes, and will agree to create an advisory board with veto powers to partly address some of the concerns of the nonprofit community.Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow and Jason Weisberger wrote previously about this story on Boing Boing, for those catching up:• ICANN hits pause on the sale of .ORG to Republican billionaires' private equity fund [12/2019]• We need to save .ORG from arbitrary censorship by halting the private equity buy-out [12/2019]• Private equity take-over of .ORG domain delayed [1/2020]Here's what happened today, from AP:Ethos Capital has offered $1.1 billion to buy the Public Interest Registry, the nonprofit corporation that runs the databases containing more than 10 million .org names registered worldwide. Organizations ranging from the Girl Scouts of the USA and Consumer Reports to the American Bible Society have opposed the sale, warning of potential price gouging and censorship. California’s attorney general has also requested information to evaluate a deal’s potential impact to nonprofits.It wasn’t immediately clear whether the concessions are enough to satisfy critics. The cap on price hikes, for instance, will expire in eight years, and most of the advisory board’s initial members will be appointed by the Public Interest Registry’s board.Domain names such as apnews.com have historically been used by computers to find websites and send email, and their value grew as companies and groups adopted them for branding. Read the rest

Reporting at the WSJ today says Alphabet/Google hasn't met the demands of state investigators to surrender emails, texts, and other documents in an ongoing anticompetitive digital-ad practices investigation.Google is reluctant to surrender documents in the investigation of alleged anticompetitive practices, reports John D. McKinnon at The Wall Street Journal:Google is resisting efforts to surrender emails, text messages and other documents sought by state investigators probing possible anticompetitive practices, according to records and interviews.Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., also hasn’t agreed to a waiver that would give the coalition of state attorneys general access to documents obtained by the Justice Department for its own probe, according to a person familiar with the situation.... Read more at the WSJ: Google Resists Demands From States in Digital-Ad Probe Responses from Twitter, below.Without a whiff of irony, Google is concerned that by handing over its personal information, it could end up in the hands of other companies @WSJ @johndmckinnon https://t.co/V1IvHf7XYE pic.twitter.com/HLIEpqU1rC— 𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚐 𝚋𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛. (@GregBensinger) February 21, 2020Can’t they just Google them? https://t.co/CgY8ftFii6— Joe Flint (@JBFlint) February 21, 2020Text messages and chats and emails are not the sort of documents that contain trade secrets about Google’s proprietary algorithms.They are the sort of documents that show intent, motivation and schemes — and ⁦@KenPaxtonTX⁩ is right to push for them https://t.co/U5jJwSF90F— Dave Yost (@Yost4Ohio) February 21, 2020New: Google reports to be defying efforts of 48 state AGs to investigate its anticompetitive behavior. “It’s the Google playbook—stall, stonewall, deflect and deny, because they are afraid the public will finally get the truth.” Read the rest

Drug dealer Clifton Collins, 49, invested his earnings in bitcoin, eventually racking up $60 million. For safekeeping, he printed the PIN codes to access his accounts and stored them in a fishing rod case at his house. But after Collins was busted on a weed charge and sent to jail, his landlord had all of Collins's stuff hauled to the dump. From The Guardian:According to the Irish Times, which first reported the story, workers at the dump told the Irish police force, the gardaí, they remembered seeing discarded fishing gear. Waste from the dump goes to Germany and China to be incinerated. The fishing rod case has never been found.Collins, 49, has apparently told the gardaí he has come to terms with the loss of the fortune and considers it punishment for his own stupidity.The high court in Dublin ruled this week that Collins had forfeited the accounts because they were proceeds from crime...The Criminal Assets Bureau thought it had hit the jackpot when it confiscated the accounts. Authorities hope they may some day access them."Irish drug dealer loses £46m bitcoin codes he hid in fishing rod case" (The Guardian)And in case you missed this excellent tale:• "‘I Forgot My PIN’: An Epic Tale of Losing $30,000 in Bitcoin" by Mark Frauenfelder Read the rest

This iron-on three-inch patch, inspired by Untitled Goose Game, features an angry or perhaps merely determined goose preparing to commit crimes. It's on the etsy store of Roamin Bison Workshop, which specializes in cool animal pins. [via]Be Goose Do Crime design!3x3 inch circleIron-on backing Read the rest

Portland Laser Co. offers a puzzle based on Joy Division's famous cover to Unknown Pleasures, a plot of signals emitted by pulsar CP 1919. Yours for $50.One of the most iconic album covers of all time, made into a puzzle. Read the rest

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission was founded in 1972 with the purpose of "protecting the public from unreasonable risks of injury or death associated with the use of the thousands of types of consumer products." And since they brought on Joseph Galbo as a social media specialist in 2016, the department has grown increasingly infamous for its delightfully weird Twitter account.You know, things like this.As the Squirrel Realm believes pic.twitter.com/9HQr0HcqRi— US Consumer Product Safety Commission (@USCPSC) February 21, 2020At least there's one part of the federal government that's still improving the quality of our lives. And now I'm going to subscribe to these recall emails.How a Government Bureaucrat Became the King of Internet Memes [Taylor Lorenz / The Daily Beast]The U.S. Government's Weirdest Twitter Account Is Postmodern Internet Art [Emma Roller / Splinter]Why a government agency is spreading memes about dogs riding pigeons [Rachel Becker / The Verge] Read the rest

Whether you love cooking at home or you swore this was going to be the year you curbed your DoorDash addiction, you know you can't get the job done well without the proper tools on hand. For all your recipe and meal prep needs, this 3-piece Sukasu Osami Chef's Knife set will do you right and look pretty sweet in your Insta stories to boot.Forged from ultra-durable 3CR13 stainless steel with a cool-as-heck wavy pattern etched into the blades and set in gorgeous pakka wood handles, the 8" chef's knife, 5" utility knife, and 3.5" paring knife will have you slicing, dicing, chopping, peeling, cubing, and julienning even the toughest fruits, veggies, and meats.This cutlery set is built to last with better-grip 18/0 bolster handles and blades from 2 to 2.5mm thick. Plus, it comes in a sleek storage box, making it great for gifting to that friend who just got his first roommate-free apartment.Iron Chef your way through your next meal! The Sukasu Osami 3-Pc Chef's Knife Set is available for 60% off at $39.99. Read the rest

In recent years, the high-margin world of mattress shops has been heavily disrupted by mail-order alternatives. To get customers to buy vacuum-shrunk mattresses they haven't seen, let alone bounced on, these companies have generous return policies. But what happens to these big, heavy, unmailable items when someone comes to pick them up? Maggie Koerth (formerly at Boing Boing) explains over at FiveThirtyEight.At the other end of those eerily identical ads I found a single seller — an independent agent for a new kind of company that’s aiming to solve the mattress companies’ problems and reduce landfill waste. Called Sharetown, it works kind of like Uber and Lyft: A mattress company contracts with Sharetown to handle returns and, when one pops up, Sharetown connects the customer with an nearby agent who takes the mattress off their hands, cleans it up, and markets it for sale on local community sites like Facebook and Craigslist. When the mattress sells, everybody gets a cut — the agent, Sharetown and the company that originally sold the mattress. Read the rest

If you're not already familiar with what it takes to gather semen from an elephant, this video of the process will serve as the ultimate "I'm not sure what I expected" experience. The scene is from the Extinctions documentary released in 2011.Artificial stimulation of the animal does not produce large quantities of sperm. Each drop must be retrieved quickly. The sample is immediately sent to the neighboring laboratory. Read the rest