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Updated 2024-11-24 01:01
A 10-film trip through the "acid western"
BFI, the British film organization, has posted a list of ten "acid westerns." The term ‘acid western’ is an elusive one. First coined by Pauline Kael in her New Yorker review of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo (1970), it wasn’t until 2000 and the publication of his monograph on Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man (1995) for the BFI Modern Classics series that critic Jonathan Rosenbaum would expand upon the terminology more specifically.“What I partly mean by acid westerns,” wrote Rosenbaum, “are revisionist westerns in which American history is reinterpreted to make room for peyote visions and related hallucinogenic experiences, LSD trips in particular.” He distinguishes these from the “less radical… upheaval of generic norms” that colour “the influence of marijuana on the drifting, nonlinear aspects of the style of McCabe and Mrs Miller (1971),” setting the ‘acid western’ apart from what he calls the ‘pot western'.I guess it's really a "you know it when you see it" kind of deal. Read the rest
TV's Robin had to take pills to shrink his genitals while Batman stuffed his underwear
Burt Ward, who played Robin on the 1960s Batman TV series, claims that the ABC television network insisted he take pills to shrink his genitals so they wouldn't be so noticeable in his green underwear. However with Adam "Batman" West, he says, "they put Turkish towels in his undershorts." From a Page Six interview with Ward who last week scored a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame:The Caped Crusaders costumes were bright and tight-fitting to say the least, so snug that Ward incurred the wrath of the Catholic League of Decency...The problem grew so tumescent that the studio had Ward see a doctor who prescribed medication “to shrink me up.”Thankfully Ward quit taking the pills almost immediately.“I took them for three days and then I decided that they can probably keep me from having children,” he said. “I stopped doing that and I just used my cape to cover it.” Read the rest
Florida man catches 350 pound grouper with a hook and line
This 350 pound Warsaw grouper was caught with a hook and line off the coast of southwest Florida a couple weeks back. According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), the fish was caught in about 600 feet of water. From CNN:"Biologists from (the FWC's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute) Age & Growth Lab estimated the age of this fish at 50 years old, making this the oldest sample collected for our ageing program," the FWC said. "Acquiring the otolith from this fish was extremely valuable as samples from larger and older fish are rare."Otoliths are the hard structures located behind the brain of bony fishes, according to the FWC. They help fish hear, maintain balance and orient themselves. Scientists use the growth structure of otoliths to estimate a fish's age.Warsaw groupers can grow to a length of 7.5 feet and weight of 580 pounds. The record for the largest one caught in Florida is nearly 440 pounds...The FWC said it "does not encourage the targeting of Warsaw grouper," as the species' population in the Gulf of Mexico isn't known. Read the rest
Australia fires: Carrots and sweet potatoes dropped from the air to feed starving animals
The New South Wales Government is dropping thousands of pounds of carrots and sweet potato from helicopters to feed the endangered Brush-tailed Rock-wallabies that are starving as a result of the massive bushfires across Australia. From the NSW Government:(According to Environment Minister Matt Kean,) "Initial fire assessments indicate the habitat of several important Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby populations was burnt in the recent bushfires. The wallabies typically survive the fire itself, but are then left stranded with limited natural food as the fire takes out the vegetation around their rocky habitat."The wallabies were already under stress from the ongoing drought, making survival challenging for the wallabies without assistance."In the last week almost 1000 kilograms of sweet potato and carrot have been sent to 6 different colonies in the Capertee and Wolgan valleys; 1000 kilograms across 5 sites in Yengo National Park; almost 100 kilograms of food and water in the Kangaroo Valley, with similar drops having also taken place in Jenolan, Oxley Wild Rivers and Curracubundi national parks.Mr Kean said this is the most widespread food drop we have ever done for Brush-tailed Rock-wallabies and will help maintain these colonies and allow them to recover."At this stage, we expect to continue providing supplementary food to rock-wallaby populations until sufficient natural food resources and water become available again in the landscape, during post-fire recovery."image: "Brush-tailed rock-wallabies (Petrogale penicillata)"/NPWS/DPIE Read the rest
Harvesting eyeballs from discarded doll heads for a stop-motion film
"I got all these doll heads from a scrap market in Cairo," says artist Dinaa Amin, "collected by sellers who collect them from garbage bins." She took out the eyes to make a stop motion movie.[via Make:] Read the rest
Gin yogurt criticized
A doctor in Britain leveled a complaint against food company Müller over its latest product, yoghurt flavored to taste like gin cocktails and containing a small amount of alcohol.The yoghurts, which were launched last year, contain 0.5% gin.A spokesperson for the yoghurt maker said the product was fat-free, high in protein and contained no added sugar.Dr Wells, who practises in North Yorkshire, said: "Given the problems we have with alcohol as a society - which is very visible in our GP practices and A&E departments - the creation of alcohol inspired yoghurts seems unnecessary and counterproductive to public health.Brexit Gin Yogurt is my new punk band name. Read the rest
Mildly interesting old sign found in basement
I removed the last of the ancient wooden boards attached randomly to joists and walls in our basement and piled it all in the yard ready for disposal. A heap of split, splintered rusty-nailed junk caked in decades of paint and grime. So it stayed almost for a week, before Heather noticed some writing on one beneath the filth.Naturally, it had to be saved: pulled from the pile, denailed, two lengthwise cracks woodglued, cut down to the interesting part, cleaned with detergent and oxalic acid, sealed and lacquered. Very proud of myself! I bet I could get $5 for it on Etsy.The Delco Light company was well-known for electrifying farms back in the day and ended up a GM subsidiary, living on to this day as two syllables of an auto parts brand. Our find was probably the side of a wooden box that the house's original 1920s-era electrics were delivered in. Read the rest
Glossary: Chinese futurist military jargon
Via Bruce Sterling, the Chinese characters for "specific ethnic genetic attacks," "combat brain," "winning without fighting" and more.“biological dominance” (制生权)biological interdisciplinary (生物交叉)brain control (脑控)“brain-machine fusion” (脑机融合)Cognitive Science Basic Research Team (认知科学基础研究团队)“combat brain” (作战大脑)domain of consciousness (意识域)frontier/cutting-edge interdisciplinary (前沿交叉)“hybrid intelligence” (混合智能)human-machine coordination (人机协同)“human performance enhancement technologies” (人效能增强技术)“informatization” (信息化).information operations (信息作战)“intelligence dominance” (制智权).intelligent autonomy (智能自主)“intelligentized” (智能化)“keep pace with the times” (与时俱进)key points of struggle (制权争夺点)“mental/cognitive dominance” (制脑权)military cognitive capabilities (军事认知能力)multi-domain integration (多域一体)National Innovation Institute for Defense Technology (国防科技创新研究院)“specific ethnic genetic attacks” (特定种族基因攻击)“strategic commanding heights” (制高点)War for Biological Dominance (制生权战争)“winning without fighting” (不战而屈人之兵)(Image: Cryteria, CC-BY, modified) Read the rest
Save over 50% on the expanded edition of Sid Meier's Civilization VI
There's no shortage of turn-based strategy games on the market. But few of them have the scope of Sid Meier's Civilization, whose title says it all. Your goal is nothing less than the shepherding of an entire nation from its first village to global dominance — and beyond.The Civ series is now on its sixth iteration, and the latest is a literal world-beater. It's also one of the most expandable, and all those expansions have finally been collected in Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Platinum Edition.If you're looking for a late Christmas gift for a sim fan, this one is hard to beat. The pack includes the core game Sid Meier's Civilization VI, with new tweaks that include a branching cultural improvement path and enhanced AI for computer opponents — a definite improvement over previous editions.It also comes with six DLC packs that introduce new scenarios and allows you to play as entirely new civilizations. As the cherry on top, you get the major expansions "Rise and Fall" and "Gathering Storm" which introduce game-changing Global Eras and devastating natural disasters.The entire set is now available for 58% off the original retail price. Read the rest
William Gibson talks about scrapping and rewriting a novel after the 2016 Trump election
Agency is the sequel to William Gibson's tour-de-force 2014 novel "The Peripheral"; as previously discussed, Gibson had to scrap large sections of the novel and rewrite it after Donald Trump won the 2016 US presidential election. Agency is out later this month (I have a review pending for publication date) and Gibson has conducted a long interview with Sam Leith about the process by which the book came to be -- and almost wasn't.Gibson's had quite a year, being named a grandmaster by the Science Fiction Writers of America and winning EFF's Pioneer Award. The upcoming, long delayed publication of Agency has also prompted some outstanding, intimate profiles of his life and work (it's been more than 20 years since I profiled him for The Globe and Mail).The Leith interview is a great warm-up for Agency, which is a remarkable book.The lazy shorthand with which he’s sometimes described is as a prophet. How does he feel about that? An albatross around the neck, an encouraging compliment – or just part of the job? “It’s actually ... It seems to be a thing. But I’ve been discounting it actively throughout my entire career. I don’t think you could find a single interview with me in which I don’t make the point that I’ve got it wrong easily as often as I’ve got it sort of right.”He certainly gets it right in one respect in Agency: the flashpoint crisis in the book’s contemporary timeline concerns a Turkish invasion of northern Syria, complicated by Russian interference, after the US pulls out. Read the rest
Wireheading: when machine learning systems jolt their reward centers by cheating
Machine learning systems are notorious for cheating, and there's a whole menagerie of ways that these systems achieve their notional goals while subverting their own purpose, with names like "model stealing, rewarding hacking and poisoning attacks."AI researcher Stuart Armstrong (author of 2014's Smarter Than Us: The Rise of Machine Intelligence) takes a stab at defining a specific kind of ML cheating, "wireheading" -- a term borrowed from Larry Niven's novels, where it refers to junkies who get "tasps" -- wires inserted directly into their brains' "pleasure centers" that drip feed them electrified ecstasy until they starve to death (these also appear in Spider Robinson's Hugo-winning book Mindkiller).A rather dry definition of wireheading is this one: "a divergence between a true utility and a substitute utility (calculated with respect to a model of reality)." More accessibly, it's that "there is some property of the world that we want to optimise, and that there is some measuring system that estimates that property. If the AI doesn't optimise the property, but instead takes control of the measuring system, that's wireheading (bonus points if the measurements the AI manipulates go down an actual wire).Suppose we have a weather-controlling AI whose task is to increase air pressure; it gets a reward for so doing.What if the AI directly rewrites its internal reward counter? Clearly wireheading.What if the AI modifies the input wire for that reward counter? Clearly wireheading.What if the AI threatens the humans that decide on what to put on that wire? Read the rest
America's most popular governor: the lavishly corrupt Larry Hogan [R-MD]
Maryland's Larry Hogan -- a Republican who governs a blue state -- is the most popular governor in America, with a 73% approval among state Democrats. He is also a flagrant crook.Hogan has booked $2.4m in personal income during his three years in office, most of it thanks to his cancellation of a desperately needed public transit expansion in Baltimore, the funds from which were diverted to building roads in the middle of nowhere that just happened to serve the suburban property developments his company owned. That company was nominally put in his brother's hands when Hogan took office, but as the Washington Monthly's Eric Cortellessa reports, that was a fiction, and Hogan has continued to oversee his company even as he made public policy that made his governorship the most profitable in Maryland history.None of this is a secret: Hogan has bragged about it and his office has issued maps boasting about where his new roads were going in. Hogan claims to be "the Republican who believes in climate change," even as he's overseen a radical expansion in automobile use that was paid for by destroying an ambitious public transit scheme, which will benefit the state's suburban whites at the expense of the large Black population of Baltimore, who have been shat upon by their state for generations.It's all probably legal, too, because Maryland has some of the weakest anti-corruption rules in America.In the New Republic, Alex Pareene describes Hogan as the kind of "normal" Republican that centrist Democrats yearn to work with -- ordinarily corrupt and rapacious, with plausibly deniable policies of white supremacy, uncomplicated by explicit white nationalist rhetoric. Read the rest
This low-cost contour gauge is very useful
This 10" contour gauge makes measuring for detailed or difficult cuts easier.Having seen ads for these all over Instagram and other websites I was intrigued. For less than $15 I had to give a contour gauge a try. They are as handy, and easy to use, as the videos suggest.This Avide gauge is cheap and it works. The pins are held into the frame with enough pressure that a very moderate amount of force will shape the gauge, but the pins will not slide or move once you draw it away and go to work.I am also interested in the 5" version as there are some tight spaces around a few pipes this one may not fit. We shall see.10 Inch Contour Gauge Irregular Profile Gauge Duplicator Tiling Laminate Tiles Edge Shaping Wood Measure Ruler Plastic Woodworking Tools Profile Jig Guide via Amazon Read the rest
Want to be a Cisco network admin? Get CCNA certified for 2020
Thousands of businesses use Cisco as the platform for their network, and there's a good reason for that. As data and security needs evolve, Cisco evolves to keep up with them — but that means the administrators and IT professionals that implement it have to evolve, too.That's not just a figure of speech. As of 2020, those with a Cisco Certified Network Associate title are going to have to update that certification. Luckily, there's a Complete 2020 Cisco CCNA Certification Prep Course to walk you through everything you need to know.The whole course packs in more than 30 hours of lectures and exercises, all geared to allow you to set up and manage Cisco networks. It covers the latest changes in wireless connectivity, Software Defined Networking, automation and a host of other topics from the perspective of the experienced CCNA worker who needs to get up to speed.By the end of it, you'll be able to breeze through the CCNA 200-301 exam, get your updated certification, then move on to any number of specialized fields.Lifetime access to the course is now more than 85% off the list price. Read the rest
There's a non-zero possibility that Iran has a fleet of Communist assassin dolphins
For better or for worse, humans have been training dolphins as soldiers of war since at least the 1960s; even to this day, the Russian government in particular has been known to enlist them in subterfuge.But twenty years ago, the cash-strapped and crumbling Soviet Union sold a group of highly-trained aquatic assets to the Iranian government. Military.com (a subsidiary of Monster, apparently) has a good breakdown of the history, pulling largely from a BBC article published in 2000:In 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the dolphin unit was sent to the Crimean Peninsula from a base in the Russian Pacific area. There, the dolphins were trained to kill enemy frogmen using harpoons mounted on their backs. They would also swim at enemy ships in suicide attacks while carrying explosive sea mines, as they were able to distinguish between Russian and American submarines by the sounds their propulsion systems make underwater.The highly trained killer dolphins were moved from the Black Sea to the Persian Gulf after Iran purchased them -- for reasons unknown. According to the Russian newspaper, Zhurid's work, which supposedly continued in Iran after the 2000 sale, was solely of a military nature.It's a weird little factoid of military history. But here's the catch: dolphins can live for around 50 years. Which means that some of these dolphins could still be alive today. Which means it's not not impossible that a pod of these haggard soldiers is hanging around the coastal US, waiting for their retaliatory strike — though whether that would be against the country's foreign policy, or its oversights in regards to noise pollution from seismic testing, that's still up in the air. Read the rest
Squidmar issues another miniature painting challenge on Fivver
After Boing Boing and other sites wrote about the Squidmar Miniatures video where Emil challenged painters on Fivver to paint a mini for him, the video went viral. Others painters approached him about doing another video that they could participate in and even Fivver itself wanted in on the action. So, Emil decided to issue another challenge. With $600 provided by Fivver, he sent one mini from the Zarbag's Gitz warband for Warhammer Underworlds to eight painters (I guess paying them $75 each?). This time, he didn't give them any directive beyond using their creativity. For some additional inspiration, he also provided them with a little animated story describing Zarbag's Gitz. Read the rest
Iran admits it unintentionally shot down passenger jet
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that the country's air defenses mistakenly shot down a Ukranian passenger jet Wednesday, killing all 176 aboard. It was thought to be a cruise missile, he said, describing the crash as an "unforgivable mistake." The downing of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 on Wednesday came just hours after Iran carried out missile strikes on two airbases housing US forces in Iraq.The strikes were a response to the killing of senior Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Baghdad on 3 January.Armed Forces’ internal investigation has concluded that regrettably missiles fired due to human error caused the horrific crash of the Ukrainian plane & death of 176 innocent people.Investigations continue to identify & prosecute this great tragedy & unforgivable mistake. #PS752— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) January 11, 2020BBC analyst Lyse Doucet says such an admission of culpability is "highly unusual".Iran has decided it has to own this disaster to avoid it triggering another war of words with the West or exacerbating further anger and anguish among its own people, who are reeling from one calamity after another. Make no mistake, this admission was an act of de-escalation. The repercussions at home may soon be clear. Iran's foreign minister has already sought to shift blame by saying it was "a crisis caused by US adventurism". But the big question now is: who took the decision to allow a civilian airliner to take off when Iran's airspace was shot through with such tension? Read the rest
Family Feud contestant thinks she knows what Popeye's favorite food is, but she's wrong
Oh my gosh, this poor gal is never going to live this down. Eve, a contestant on Family Feud Canada**, screwed up her family's chance to play for $10,000 by incorrectly answering the world's easiest sudden-death question: "What's Popeye's favorite food?" Oof! Let's hope she's at least offered an endorsement deal from a certain fast food chain.Even crazier, watch these unaired outtakes:There's more to the #FamilyFeudCanada chicken story - What happens when contestants guess wrong on a sudden death round? Take a look at these behind-the-scenes bloopers and see what you'd never get to see on TV. #bloopers #chicken pic.twitter.com/K7x6V0hpSv— Family Feud Canada (@FamilyFeudCa) January 10, 2020**Am I the only one who didn't know there was a Canadian version of Family Feud?(Twitter) Read the rest
This ambient mix of a new sci-fi-themed Rentals song is a sonic trip to outer space
In my experience, most people haven't heard of the Rentals — and most of those who have heard of them only really know them as "that other band that Weezer's old bass player was in." Or the band who wrote "Elon Musk Is Making Me Sad."That is all technically accurate. The group was started by Matt Sharp while he was still Weezer's secret weapon. And Elon Musk does make him sad. Since leaving that other band, Sharp has continued to release orchestral synth-y power-pop with a rotating cast of musicians under the Rentals moniker over the last 20 years. The group has included performers like Maya Rudolph, the Haden Sisters, Joey Santiago from the Pixies, Patrick Carney from the Black Keys, and many others.The spaced-out track above is an instrumental mix of a tune from the band's upcoming sci-fi-themed album, Q36. The band has been releasing a new track every 2 weeks, along with a corresponding limited-edition t-shirt and hitRECORD project. And while I liked the regular version of "Invasion Night," I absolutely love this ambient version of it. Sharp cut out all the the vocals, drums, and bass in order to focus on his synthesizer sounds and the guitar work of Nick Zinner (most famously of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), and the result almost makes me feel like I'm in the head of Major Tom as he floats to his death.The video that goes along with it was actually part of the Rentals' 2009 album Songs About Time, which included 365 photographs, 52 short films, and 3 EPs, all created in real-time over the course of a year. Read the rest
New Jersey mom and dad open Amazon diaper order and discover poopy diapers
On Amazon, the box was described as “Used: like new.”In New Jersey, a mom and dad were unpleasantly surprised to discover that a box of diapers delivered by Amazon for changing their 19-month-old daughter.... was full of poopy diapers.Mom Nassly Sales noticed when she picked up the box that it seemed “heavier than usual,” and when she and her husband, Sid Mukherjee, opened it up -- the stinky truth revealed itself.From NJ.com:“I picked up the pack to kind of take a closer look (and) that’s when the stench hit me,” Mukherjee said, noting the pack of diapers smelled like urine before they realized they had been used. “Oh! This is not right ... one actually has poop in it.”Mukherjee, 50, said he found himself incredulously laughing at the situation, adding that they order diapers for their daughter off Amazon at least every two months.“I turned on the lights and that’s when I noticed that it was soiled,” Sales said. “I’m still in disbelief, to be honest.”Of the two boxes of diapers that were purchased, one box’s condition was described as “new” and the second was described as “Used: like new.” The description said the packaging was original, but that it was damaged.Amazon didn't respond to a reporter's request for comment. Read the full story:Online order of diapers arrives at Jersey City home -- but they were already soiled [nj.com] Read the rest
Russian warship 'aggressively approached' US Navy destroyer in Arabian Sea
The ships came within 60 yards of a collision
This Chrome extension lets you read without distractions
"Surfing the web," is one of those casual terms that actually says a lot about the way we use the internet. "Surfing," after all, sounds fun, almost passive. Just let the wave of information carry you, it seems to say.But what if we actually need to stay put for a while? Sadly, the layout of the modern internet page isn't designed for sustained, focused reading. Luckily, there's a fairly cheap hack for Chrome users in their Reader Mode Pro extension.The primary use of Reader Mode is going to be a boon to just about anyone, whether they're serious readers or not: It removes ads. It also removes unnecessary photos or icons, letting you focus on the text.Students can highlight that text, annotate it or even change the font to suit their needs. There's a handful of specific fonts that are designed to help dyslexic readers focus, as well as a "Dyslexia Ruler" that guides the eye at a customizable pace.Built-in text-to-speech and Google Translate capabilities are just a couple of the other bells and whistles that make this a game-changer for just about anyone who reads for information and not a distraction.You can get the Reader Mode Pro: Chrome Reading Extension for 60% off the retail price now. Read the rest
Boris the Babybot: a picture book about resisting surveillance
Privacy activst Murray Hunter's picture book Boris the Babybot tells the story of Boris, a robot whose job it is track all the babies and send their likenesses and preferences back to the factory so that its owners can make money by deciding who's a good baby and who's a bad baby.By and large, this is an easy task: Boris scans the babies' smiles and noses and eyes, but records whether they like peas or puppies. But some babies can't be scanned: they're in the bath, hidden by bubbles; or they're covered in so much food their faces can't be captured, or they're just having too much fun wearing a box on their heads, meaning Boris can't get a look at their faces.When Boris is fired from his factory job, he is initially distraught, but then he formulates a better plan: rather than scanning those babies, he joins them -- getting bubbles all over himself, smearing himself with food, and putting a box on his head.The book -- whose crowdfunder we supported last summer -- is a delight. A set of accompanying online resources help parents contextualize the story with their kids with fun games and discussion-starters.Alas, the book is hard to get outside of South Africa and the UK, but you can email murray.hunter@pm.me to buy it direct from the author.Boris the Babybot [Murray Hunter] Read the rest
An oral history of Rickrolling
In 2006, Erik Helwig created the Rickroll. Maybe. Over at MEL Magazine, Brian VanHooker's "An Oral History of Rickrolling" takes us back to a time when the worst of the weaponized Internet memes were those created by advertising agencies, not corrupt politicians and warmongers. And if you're curious what I mean by that, watch the rather shocking video above. From MEL:Erik Helwig, founder of Rickrolling (maybe): This was small-town, rural Michigan and there was this radio program called the Postgame Show that covered local sports. People would call in and say stuff like, “My son Christopher played on the team tonight, and he did a real great job!” Stuff like that, so my friends and I started pranking it and the calls started getting weirder and weirder. We’d call in and talk about our favorite Nicolas Cage movies and other weird stuff like that. Then one day I called them and just played “Never Gonna Give You Up” on the air. I didn’t say anything, I just played the song. The host had absolutely no reaction to it, he didn’t say, “I’m being Rickrolled” or anything like that because it was before all that.I don’t know if I want to call myself the “founder” of Rickrolling. That’s difficult for me because it was something that I did on a whim and later realized that I did this six months before anyone else, which I thought was cool, but that’s about it. I only picked that song because I really like the song — it’s a great 1980s song that’s fun to laugh at in the best way. Read the rest
Athletes at the Tokyo Olympics will sleep on cardboard beds
The 10,000+ athletes at the Tokyo Olympics will sleep on bed frames made of strong cardboard. According to the Athletes Village manager Takashi Kitajima, the frames can hold up to 200 kilograms (440 pounds). "They are stronger than wooden beds," Kitajima said... "Of course, wood and cardboard would each break if you jumped on them."From the Associated Press:The single bed frames will be recycled into paper products after the games. The mattress components—the mattresses are not made of cardboard—will be recycled into plastic products.The mattress is broken up into three distinct sections, and the firmness of each can be adjusted. Read the rest
Great deal on the Rotring 500 0.5mm Mechanical Pencil
Amazon has a good deal on the Rotring 500 0.5mm Mechanical Pencil. It's .Here's a video review of the 500: Read the rest
Incredible story of a successful in-flight surgery using fork, knife, coat hanger, and cognac
In June 1995, physicians Angus Wallace and Tom Wong were waiting for their flight to depart Hong Kong to London when they were asked to examine a woman complaining of arm pain caused by a "fall." After takeoff, the doctors returned to the woman to put a splint on her arm but they quickly realized that her injuries were much more serious than she had first reported. Not only did the woman have arm and rib fractures, her lung was punctured and air leaking between her lung and chest wall had caused a pneumothorax. The condition is life threatening if not treated and Wallace believed the change in air pressure upon landing would kill her. So Wallace and Wong had to improvise. From Wikipedia:The medical kit had lidocaine – a local anaesthetic – but the catheter in the kit was designed only for urinary catheterisation and was too soft for use as a chest tube. The doctors fashioned a trocar from a metal clothes hanger to stiffen the catheter, and a check valve from a bottle of water with holes poked in the cap. They sterilised their equipment in Courvoisier cognac, and began surgery by making an incision in the patient's chest, but with no surgical clamps available, Wong had to hold the incision open with a knife and fork while Wallace inserted the catheter. The whole surgery lasted about ten minutes; the doctors successfully released the trapped air from the patient's chest, and she passed the rest of the flight uneventfully, eating and watching in-flight movies. Read the rest
Pranksters produce enlistment ads featuring Trump Jr: "I'm not enlisting but YOU should"
The Good Liars -- the comedy duo of Davram Stiefler and Jason Selvig -- redecorated a Brooklyn armed forces recruiting center with posters featuring Donald Trump Jr and the slogan, "I'm not enlisting but you should" with the strapline, "There's weak, and then there's Trump weak."You can download a high-rez version of the poster to print and display here.The duo told HuffPost on Friday that “in the wake of Trump’s latest reckless foreign policy actions that could very easily result in more and more troops being sent to the Middle East, we thought the public deserved a reminder of who the Trumps are.”MoPranksters Unleash Spoof Army Recruitment Signs To Remind People ‘Who The Trumps Are’ [Lee Moran/Huffpost](via Christian Nightmares) Read the rest
"Piss poor design" and "supervised by monkeys": New documents show what Boeing employees really thought of 737 Max
A batch of internal emails and other communications by Boeing employees were released to Congress on Thursday as part of a 100-plus page document, according to CNN, and what these employees said about Boeing’s 737 Max back in 2017 and 2018 is terrifying. (It wasn’t even a year after these communications that two new 737 Max planes crashed within five months of each other, killing 346 people total.)For example, in April 2017, one employee said the Max was “designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys,” and referred to the plane as having a “piss poor design.”And in February 2018, from one employee to another: "Honesty is the only way in this job — integrity when lives are on the line on the aircraft and training programs shouldn't be taken with a pinch of salt. Would you put your family on a Max simulator trained aircraft? I wouldn't." To which the other employee said, “No.”Three months later, an employee wrote about some other mishap Boeing was dealing with: "I really would struggle to defend the [simulator] in front of the FAA next week,” while another employee wrote: “I still haven't been forgiven by god for the covering up I did last year." From CNN:The new jet was intended to be similar enough to require only the tablet-based training to bring pilots up to speed on the differences between the old model and the new one. One email included in Thursday's collection of documents from Boeing's chief technical pilot made it clear how crucial it was to the company that the simulator not be required. Read the rest
For the first time, you can search the database of money that publicly funded researchers in Illinois received from pharma companies
Researchers in Illinois who receive federal funding are required to file paperwork disclosing potential conflicts of interest, but these handwritten forms just moulder in the NIH's filing cabinets...until now.Dollars for Profs is a new project from Propublica and their news apps editor Sis Wei collects that data -- laboriously hand-typed by freelancers -- and makes it searchable.Propublica's first spelunk through the data found two profs who received more than $600,000 (how much more isn't known -- they're in the $600k-and-up category) in money that creates a potential conflict with their work. They also found numerous academics at the other end of the scale, unable to support themselves on their university wages and eking out an existence doing part-time work on the side.Some of the people in the database seem to have entirely separate careers -- a campus police chief who also owns dozens of apartments, or a registrar who also owned a company that built assisted living facilities. Now, Propublica is hoping that the public will search the database and do their own work to see what conflicts emerge.The app is useful for Illinois residents in particular, even those not interested in academic ethics. That’s because state law here requires all public employees with supervisory responsibilities, including faculty and administrators, to disclose any significant outside income or assets to the secretary of state. People who work at private universities are exempt from the rule. From 2016 through 2018, public university employees in Illinois filed disclosures detailing more than 12,000 outside financial relationships, giving people here more information than in any other state in our database. Read the rest
Play 'Star Wars Battlefront II' as a lightsaber swinging Pope John Paul II
Do not be afraid to take a chance on peace, to teach peace, to live peace…Peace will be the last word of history. --Pope John Paul IIThis may be the ONLY reason I've heard to consider buying Star Wars Battlefront II.The excellent mod by xD0IT turns Kylo Ren into a buffed out Pope John Paul II who is one with the Force... or Jesus, I'm not really sure how that stuff expresses in a religion not my own.During his time as pontiff, JPII was clearly a man of peace and love. As a Jedi decked out with a cruciform lightsaber? Try he will not.Alternatively, Star Wars: Fallen Order is a great game. Read the rest
You can watch over 270 episodes of the Dick Cavett show online
One of the treats of being sick as a kid was staying home from school and being able to watch The Dick Cavett Show. He was a talk show host unlike any other, with a gentle, intelligent demeanor free of snark, smugness, or sarcasm. Josh Jones of Open Culture wrote a nice piece about Cavett, and include links to selected episodes of his show.Born in Nebraska in 1937, “the only persona [Cavett] bothered to, or needed to, develop for working on camera was of a boy from Nebraska dazzled by the bright lights of New York,” as Clive James writes in an appreciation of the TV host. As he interviewed the biggest stars of late sixties, seventies, and eighties on the long-running Dick Cavett Show, Cavett’s easygoing Midwestern demeanor disarmed both his guests and audiences. He kept them engaged with his erudition, quick wit, and breadth of cultural knowledge.Watch Cavett handle a cagey, combative Marlon Brando in 1973, making him open up a bit: Read the rest
Watch these cool sphericons roll across a table
From our friends at Futility Closet:Fit two identical 90-degrees cones base to base, slice the resulting shape in half vertically, and give one of the halves a quarter turn. The result is a sphericon, a solid that rolls with a bemusing meander: Where the original double cone rolls only in circles, the sphericon puts first one conical sector and then the other in contact with a flat surface beneath it, giving it a smooth but undulating trajectory sustained by a fixed center of mass.And that’s just the start. “Two sphericons placed next to each other can roll on each other’s surfaces,” writes David Darling in The Universal Book of Mathematics. “Four sphericons arranged in a square block can all roll around one another simultaneously. And eight sphericons can fit on the surface of one sphericon so that any one of the outer solids can roll on the surface of the central one.” Read the rest
Adjectival overload, and the tabloids finally get one right, in this week’s round-up of the rags
Each celebrity has a tabloid quintessence as distinctive as a fingerprint: a pithy descriptor that distills their intrinsic scandal-value for those whose idea of journalism begins and ends at the supermarket check-out.
11 minutes of garbage, flesh, mastication, digestion, eructation, and decay
I found "Dimensions of Dialogue" (1983) on my favorite subreddit r/ObscureMedia. It's an 11-minute stop-motion orgy of garbage, flesh, mastication, digestion, eructation, and decay by Czech filmmaker Jan Å vankmajer. Read the rest
"People are idiots because they can't locate country X on a map" articles are idiotic
How often have you seen news stories and videos poking fun at people who have trouble locating where a certain country is on a world map? The latest iteration of this kind of lazy journalism comes from Morning Consult: Can You Locate Iran? Few Voters Can. "The polling experiment sheds light on voters’ geographical unfamiliarity with foreign countries, even those with which the United States has been engaged in sustained conflict," says the article.If Morning Consult wanted to shed some useful light, it could focus less on the geographic location of Iran and more on why the US and Iran have been at odds ever since the CIA and Britain's MI6 overthrew the democratically elected Iranian government in 1953 and installed a murderous and corrupt tyrant who was happy to let western petroleum concerns exploit Iran's natural resources in exchange for a dictatorship. This segment from a 2018 episode of The Daily Show has a good recap: Read the rest
Cops handcuff man and his 12-year-old granddaughter for trying to open a bank account while being indigenous
Maxwell Johnson (56) has been a customer at the Bank of Montreal (BMO) in Vancouver, Canada since 2014. On December 10 took his 12-year-old granddaughter to the bank to open an account for her there, reports CBC News. What started out as a fun and exciting event for a grandfather and young granddaughter turned into a nightmare when a bank teller decided the pair was suspicious after examining their identification, which included "government-issued Indian Status cards, his birth certificate and her medical card." The teller called the cops, who handcuffed the man and child. They were detained in handcuffs for an hour until "it was determined that there was no criminal activity and no fraudulent transactions," according to a spokesperson for the Vancouver Police Department.From CBC News:"They came over and grabbed me and my granddaughter, took us to a police vehicle and handcuffed both of us, told us we were being detained and read us our rights," Johnson said.Johnson says when he saw his granddaughter in handcuffs, crying, he was heartbroken."You can see how scared she was … It was really hard to see that," he said.Johnson says he believes he was racially profiled.When CBC News contacted Bank of Montreal for comment, they issued a statement that read: "We value our long and special relationship with Indigenous communities. Recently, an incident occurred that does not reflect us at our best. We deeply regret this and unequivocally apologize to all. We are reviewing what took place, how it was handled and will use this as a learning opportunity. Read the rest
How to enhance chunky soup
Chunky Soup is hearty and inexpensive, but rather bland. In this video, an older fellow demonstrates a few throw-it-in improvements that turn a can into a feast.I intend to try his chili recipe later today. Read the rest
New claim of YouTube copyright strike extortion
Jukin Media, one of several media companies that acquires rights to viral video clips, has managed unlicensed use of such clips by monetizing them through YouTube's contentID system. But Jukin has now reportedly threatened to use copyright strikes to shut down a channel while privately demanding money from its operator. It's extortion, says the target, hit with a $6000 "bill" over brief snippets of media.They email us with a bill and they charge us fifteen hundred dollars per clip that was in our videos. And so today we got hit with a huge bill of six thousand dollars. I think it's because in the past we've we've paid them this amount of money, so they just they're like hey this guy's willing to pay this money, let's keep you know charging him for it, he'll just pay us. So we've paid about two thousand dollars in total and now we have another six thousand dollars to pay and if you don't pay then basically they'll start striking your channel.To publish on YouTube, you agree to let YouTube define and enforce a private regime far more expansive than copyright law provides, with no effective provisions for fair use beyond a lengthy process likely to end with your channel shut down. YouTube claims not to arbitrate copyright, but no-one is fooled: it immediately enforces claims on the basis of a promiscuous algorithmic matching system designed from the ground up to serve claimants, while burdening targets with legal process and its own opaque policy-enforcement bureacracy. Read the rest
"Whatever lies behind the door" The night before Bowie died
The night before David Bowie died, I was listening to the newly released tracks from Blackstar on YouTube, in honor of his birthday the day before. I saw the Hammersmith Odeon performance for “Moonage Daydream” on the right rail and decided to open it full-screen on my large monitor and crank it to 11.I watch “Moonage Daydream” every few years and it never ceases to enchant me all over again. But that Sunday night, the performance hit me so hard, it actually startled me. I found myself shedding tears of joy. I was exclaiming things into the soundwaves as they crashed over me. I had no idea where any of this was coming from, but I was filled with such profound feelings of love and appreciation for what this extraordinary artist, this unique human being, had inspired in me and countless others. I felt as though I could fully feel the weight of him, his art, his cultural and historical import, and exactly how he had impressed himself upon my nervous system. It almost felt like a life flashing before my eyes moment.I decided to try and share this moment of epiphany with others. I sent a message to two friends who are also Bowie fanatics: "Is there a more perfect concert video than this? Every fucking frame of this thing blows my mind. Do yourself a favor, open it full-screen, crank it all the way up...and GO!"After “Moonage Daydream,” I watched “My Death,” another favorite from the Hammersmith show. Read the rest
Los Angeles art museum is now free to all starting Saturday: "Like a library, where you can just walk in"
A $10 million donation is allowing The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles to make art accessible to everyone. Beginning Saturday, they will offer free general admission going forward, only charging for special exhibitions. The massive financial gift is from Carolyn Clark Powers, MOCA's Board President. Klaus Biesenbach, MOCA's director since 2018, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times in May (when the program was initially announced), "We are not aiming at having more visitors or larger attendance, but we’re aiming at being more accessible, at having open doors. As a civic institution, we should be like a library, where you can just walk in."KCRW talked to Lindsay Preston Zappas of Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles magazine who says it will cost MOCA $2 million yearly to operate under the free program and that they will need to secure funding in the future to keep the program going. MOCA has two locations in Los Angeles, the one on Grand Avenue and the Geffen Contemporary in the Little Tokyo Historic District, and both will have public celebrations this Saturday, January 11, from 12 to 4. photo by Elon Schoenholz/The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles Read the rest
The Monsters Know What They're Doing: an RPG sourcebook for DMs who want to imbue monsters with deep, smart tactics
For years, Keith Ammann has maintained his blog, The Monsters Know What They're Doing, in which he carefully laid out the logical tactics that the monsters of Dungeons and Dragons would use in combat, based on their alignment, stats, and habitats, creating sophisticated advice for Dungeon Masters hoping to move their combat encounters from rote stab-stab-kill affairs into distinctive, memorable strategy-and-tactics affairs that created not just variety and challenges for players, but also depth and verisimilitude. Now, Ammann's work has been collected in the first of two planned volumes: The Monsters Know What They're Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters is one of the most interesting, thoughtful, smart RPG sourcebooks I've ever read.
Inventor brings Mario Kart to real life with HoloLens AR technology
Ian Charnas, the inventor of those amazing windshield wipers that "dance" to your car's music, is up to yes good again (the opposite of "no good"). He's made a real-life Mario Kart video game using electric go-karts and augmented reality (!).Ian explains:In this augmented reality racing game demo, players zoom around a track in real-life go-karts and pick up virtual power-ups to boost their kart’s speed or slow down the competition.The virtual power-ups are generated by a Microsoft HoloLens augmented reality headset on each player. The speed boosts (and reductions) are provided by some electronics I created that extend an existing go-kart system with this functionality.[If you want to know more about it works, he explains it further on Hackaday.]Ian is hoping that there's a demand for this real-life Mario Kart. He's got all the pieces, including a provisional patent, he just needs the right partner to get it off the ground in a bigger way.Thanks, Mark! Read the rest
Enjoy "iCthulhu," a free Lovecraftian cyberpunk webcomic
My buddy Dave Ganjamie and I have been collaborating on comics for a few years now. Not all of our brainstorm-and-sketch sessions end somewhere exciting, but we did have one fun idea that came to fruition. It was the fall of 2013, and Dave half-jokingly challenged me to write him a — his words, and I quote directly from our GChat — "cyber-craftian Eldritch-punk time travel" story.I assumed this was meant to be deliberately absurd. But I'm never one to back down from a challenge. So we pitched the idea to Grayhaven Comics for one of their sci-fi anthology collections — and much to our surprise, they gave us the greenlight. With only 3 pages to work with, we were fairly strapped with space to express our ridiculous concept. But we did the best we could, and ultimately came up with something pretty cool.Some day we'll get around to finishing our Evil Academy concept, or dramatize that time at New York Comic-Con when we found ourselves in an Abbot-&-Costello, Who's-On-First routine at a party with Kieron Gillen and Karen Gillan. In the meantime, Dave is probably still pissed that I made him draw all those suckers on the bottom of the tentacles (even though it was technically his idea in the first place). So enjoy the fruits of our labor: "iCthulhu!" "iCthulhu" — art by Dave Ganjamie, words by Thom Dunn. Originally published by Grayhaven Comics. Read the rest
JOHN WILCOCK: The End of Andy and Edie
From John Wilcock, New York Years, by Ethan Persoff and Scott Marshall.(See all Boing Boing installments) Read the rest
Save over 85% on this design bundle featuring graphics software, assets, and tutorials
There's art software for beginners, and there's art software that packs in all the bells and whistles. Usually, the two are mutually exclusive, but Clip Studio Paint DEBUT is one of the rare exceptions: A platform for budding artists that don't put a ceiling on their options once they've outgrown the fundamentals.Even if you've never tried digital art before, Clip Studio's new bundle makes it remarkably cheap to hop in. The Creativity Bundle Ft. Clip Studio DEBUT not only gives you the core software but oodles of compatible models and assets - and a webinar with one of the best artists in the biz to get you inspired.The software at the heart of this package already has a ton built-in. The interface is easy to learn, and features like line stabilization and intuitive color fill options take the drudgery out of getting the image you want. You can also import 3D models and backgrounds, or even .psd files if you'd like to draw on paper and tweak your images later.In other words, it's a full toybox already. The Creativity Bundle adds in:Clip Studio Paint Speech Bubbles Pack - Over 200 professionally-designed speech bubbles that you can customize for use in your own comics or manga epic.Clip Studio Paint 3D Poses Pack - An expansion of DEBUT's already vast library of poses, giving you a framework for almost any pose from any perspective.Clip Studio Paint Storyboard Assets Pack - Hundreds of .psd files that are ideal for use in storyboards or idea sketches, from food items to household items and decorations.All this is more than enough to not only get you started but creating for years. Read the rest
I really enjoy DJ R3X's 'Playlist #1' from Oga's Cantina at Disneyland
My daughter and I finally made it to Disneyland's Galaxy's Edge. It was wonderful. Read the rest
Retractable Apple certified Lightning-to-USB cable also comes with good advice
Always pull both ends at the same time.I absolutely hate it when my Amazon Basics retractable Lightning-to-USB cable disappears from my travel bag. These gadgets are small enough and neat enough they can just get jammed into a dark corner of your bag and will be there when you need a charging cable.I would have enjoyed using mine today, but I was recently traveling with my daughter and find I must order another.Watch what and how you pull.AmazonBasics Apple Certified Retractable Lightning to USB Cable - 2 Feet (0.6 Meters) - White Read the rest
Coming soon to a city near you: HUMP, Dan Savage's amateur smut fest, banned from Facebook!
Every year, veteran sex-advice columnist mounts (ahem) HUMP, an amateur, pornographic short film festival, which tours around Canada and the USA for a dazzling evening of smut, humor, tenderness, weirdness and delight. HUMP is now in its 15th year, and none of the videos from the festival have ever leaked online, which is a testament to the kinds of audiences it draws.We went last year for the first time and had a hell of an amazing date-night! I just bought tickets to this year's show.Last year, Facebook banned HUMP ads, which severely curtailed the festival's reach. The company blamed this on the terrible SESTA/FOSTA law.Tell your friends about HUMP! It's the sex-positive, queer-friendly, weird and amazing debauch we need to start the decade right!Check out this year's short features: WILDFIRE Inhibitions are burned to dust while this hedonistic group lusts around the fire. WHAT YOU WISH FOR A hypnotizing peek into the intimate boudoir of two lovers in the throes of a skilled and sensuous rope scene. THE PIZZA TOPPING Horny Pizza orders Hungry Boy. In an alternate reality where the pizzas order delivery, we find out what their favorite pies are and how they like them topped. PHOTURIS In the midst of darkness, this couple finds illumination by embracing their neon fantasies. RUBBER WORLD A lonely traveler takes us to a rubber convention, where we see the wildest and most creative toys that will make you want to slap and tickle. COCK TALES Gimps, piss, and boots, oh my! Read the rest
More than 800 Russian academic articles retracted after "bombshell" report reveals plagiarism and other misconduct
After Antiplagiat, a private plagiarism detection company, accused Russia's scientific and scholarly journals of being rife with plagiarism, self-plagiarism, duplication and other misconduct, the Russian Academy of Sciences chartered a committee to investigate the problem: their report confirmed the accusations, finding more instances of plagiarism/self-plagiarism, as well as instances in which the same paper was published in different journals under different authors' names.The committee called for 2528 papers to be retracted from 541 journals. Only some of the journals have fully cooperated; many have refused to retract some of the papers, and eight have refused to take any action.Russia has a distinct scientific/scholarly norm of preferentially publishing in domestic journals (other countries' academics are more likely to publish in international journals), and the scandal has rocked Russia's research community.Eight journals explicitly refused to address the problems; the report urges that five of them be removed from the Russian Science Citation Index, a database run by eLibrary. (Because publication in indexed journals is often a prerequisite for promotions and funding in Russia, delisted journals are thought to be less attractive to authors.) Victor Glukhov, eLibrary’s deputy director, says the group’s own expert council will look into the matter, but is likely to agree. Zayakin emphasizes that the exercise is a work in progress; he hopes the threat of being delisted will persuade journals that haven’t yet responded—or have refused to pull papers on flimsy grounds—to take the commission’s findings seriously.The same RAS commission caused a stir in September 2019, when it recommended not voting for 56 candidates—out of a total of more than 1800—during the academy’s membership elections, because of their alleged involvement in plagiarism and other types of misbehavior. Read the rest
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