Until recently, Jackie Fielder was living in her van. At 25, the Stanford sociology grad couldn't afford rent in San Francisco.Now Fielder -- who is of Hidatsa, Lakota and Mandan heritage -- is primarying an establishment Democrat to represent District 11 in the California Senate. District 11 is a very safe seat, so winning the primary nomination is effectively the same thing as winning the seat.Fielder is running as a Democratic Socialist. Her opponent, Scott Weiner, has offered a string of solidly progressive initiatives while in office but whose record is marred by his support of pro-gentrification policies.Fielder backs transformative, left-wing policies, especially the creation of a public bank (previously) and with it, divestiture of public finance from institutions complicit in crimes against humanity, notably Wells Fargo, a major funder of the Dakota Access Pipeline.Fielder volunteered as a water protector at Standing Rock, and is also a #BlackLivesMatter activist. I donated to her campaign. I am a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.In February 2017, just as the last water protectors were forced from the camps at Standing Rock, Remle and the Seattle Defund DAPL movement succeeded in convincing the city of Seattle to divest $3 billion of the city’s funds from Wells Fargo due to their funding of the pipeline.The victory was short lived, however, when a little over a year later the city renewed its contract with Wells Fargo. It could find no other large bank willing to take on the high volume of depository services required by the city. Read the rest

In Las Cruces, New Mexico, police say they collected DNA from the spot where a suspect face-planted into a door while trying to escape. Police swabbed the door for possible DNA evidence, collected it, sent it to the New Mexico forensic laboratory in Santa Fe, where DNA was confirmed. That DNA profile was entered into CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) where it matched a known sample belonging to one Markell Deshaun Barnes, 19. The young man is now identified as the suspect responsible for two New Mexico armed robberies committed on the same day in June.Markell Deshaun Barnes, 19, of the 1800 block of Ash Avenue, is charged with one third-degree felony count of attempted armed robbery and one fourth-degree felony count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Both charges are for the attempted armed robbery June 25, 2019, at the Pizza Hut at 2205 Missouri Ave.Barnes is also the prime suspect in another armed robbery earlier that day.The first robbery, police say, was about 12:15 a.m. at the Giant gas station, 1865 University Ave. The second robbery was reported that evening, about 10:30 p.m., at the Pizza Hut restaurant. No injuries were reported in either case.In the Pizza Hut case, police reviewed surveillance images and noticed the suspect tried running out a door that had already been locked for the evening. The suspect face-planted into the door, police say, before reversing direction and running out another exit.More on CODIS — the Combined DNA Index System: FBI.gov Read the rest

In New Mexico, Joseph Allen, 40, is facing charges after authorities say he stole a car without realizing that another guy was still sleeping inside the vehicle at the time. Joseph Allen of Las Cruces, New Mexico, was arrested and charged with stealing the running car in Vado, New Mexico, on Wednesday, reports the Las Cruces Sun-News.The Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Office says the sleeping guy, Ignacio Baca of Las Cruces NM, said it all started after he fell asleep in the back seat of his girlfriend’s 2006 Toyota Corolla, as one does. Mr. Baca said he'd dropped off his lady friend for her shift working at a truck stop, and decided to park the car and fell asleep instead of venturing further home.From AP:Baca told Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Detective Ileana Adame that he’d left the vehicle running while he was sleeping, and later woke up and realized the car was traveling east on Interstate 10. Baca said he asked the man who the was, and proceeded to punch and choke the stranger.Court documents allege Allen regained control of the vehicle and pulled over.Allen then pulled out a knife and slashed Baca on the left side of his rib, and upper right arm, deputies said.Baca eventually took the triple-edged knife from Allen, who then fled.More:Deputies: Man stole car while another man slept inside [apnews.com] Read the rest

A 3-year-old boy shot his father in his rear end with a gun the toddler found in their Erie, Pennsylvania home, say police. The father survived.Erie police say the shooting took place at 6:30 PM Thursday. The boy encountered a loaded, small-caliber handgun, and fired it at his father, who was 26 years old. Neither name has been released.The dad is expected to survive, and is being treated at a hospital for wounds not considered life-threatening. More: Police: 3-year-old boy shoots sleeping father in buttocks [apnews.com] Read the rest

UPS driver Bruce Slette found a goat in the back of his UPS delivery truck, and the images he snapped and sent to his daughter have now gone very viral.They're really quite funny.My dad is a UPS driver in rural North Dakota & today he sent me these photos with no context pic.twitter.com/DkwwHM0vpG— Maria Helen (@maria_helen13) December 19, 2019 “My dad is a UPS driver in rural North Dakota & today he sent me these photos with no context,” wrote Maria Helen.Oh yes there's video.But wait there’s more pic.twitter.com/jaeTXDm8jj— Maria Helen (@maria_helen13) December 20, 2019Business Insider has some funny related content about animals sneaking on to delivery vehicles:A goat snuck onto a UPS truck in North Dakota, and photos of the encounter are going viral as delivery workers share their own hilarious animal sightings[Twitter/@maria_helen13 ] Read the rest

One Georgia family's viral owl Christmas saga started began on December 12, with this Facebook post: “No joke, we just found a live owl roosting in our Christmas tree.” In the photo, an owl tucked in to the tree branches among lights and ornaments.The local paper identified the critter as an Eastern screech owl, and the family says the bird was discovered when Katie McBride Newman's daughter was trimming the tree with owl ornaments. The girl “was both terrified and delighted,” the newspaper wrote.From the Associated Press:Katie McBride Newman said Friday that she and her daughter spotted the bird on Dec. 12. They had bought the 10-foot (3-meter) tall tree from a Home Depot, brought it back to their Atlanta area home and decorated it with lights and, coincidentally, owl ornaments.“It was surreal, but we weren’t really freaked out about it,” McBride Newman said. “We’re really outdoorsy people. We love the wilderness.”The family opened windows and doors near the tree hoping the owl would fly away, but it didn’t.“The owl seemed to be pretty comfortable, and I thought, ‘Hey buddy, it’s not going to go well if you just stay here. There’s no food, I’m sorry,’” said McBride Newman’s husband, Billy Newman. So the family called a nonprofit nature center for help. The Chattahoochee Nature Center caught the bird and helped the family release it.More: Family finds live owl while decorating indoor Christmas tree with owl ornaments in GA [star-telegram.com] Read the rest

When Americans get their paycheck every month, there are a ton of deductions from it -- some represent money taken by state governments, some by the feds, but one of the largest line-items is the amount taken to pay a private insurance company for some of the most expensive, least comprehensive medical insurance offered in any country on the planet.The fact that this isn't a government-levied fee means that formally, it's not a "tax" -- but it is money that gets creamed off of your pay, and you don't really have a choice in the matter. Buying "cheap insurance" isn't an option, because there isn't "cheap health care" to step in when you have a heart attack.Other rich countries pay half as much per-capita on healthcare (10% of GDP rather than 20%), making America's health system the least efficient in the world. The good news is that this means that are tons of savings to be realized by eliminating the useless intermediaries -- health insurers -- and the useless work they create (administrators) and the worse-than-useless asshole profiteers (the private-equity backed medical services and pharma companies) that gouge the sick and injured.As economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman (previously) explains in The Guardian, replacing America's failing, expensive, lethal boondoggle with a publicly administered system would result in nearly all Americans having more money at the end of the month, not less -- and in addition, we'd halt medical bankruptcies and ensure that every American would have access to world-quality care.As one illustration, it’s possible to see how the tax plans of the leading Democratic primary candidates would affect tax rates for each group of the population. Read the rest

The Canadian Energy Center (AKA "The War Room") is a taxpayer funded propaganda outlet that the Alberta government -- dependent on the tar sands, the world's filthiest oil -- funds to deny climate change. It receives CAD30m/year in public funding.The least deplorable thing about all of this is that they're also plagiarists, having stolen the logo of Progress, a US-based multinational tech firm.After a public shaming, the War Room has announced it will change its logo.To help it choose a new logo, Twitter users are suggesting new plagiarised logos under the #WarRoomLogoContest hashtag.Great One by somebody else. #WarRoomLogoContest #ableg #abpoli pic.twitter.com/oN3CINfUTP— kaiuoti (@_kaiuoti) December 20, 2019 I'm hoping there's no copyright issues with this one but I'm not going to check... #warroomlogocontest pic.twitter.com/FZOa9q9f3t— Max Amerongen (@MaxAmerongen) December 20, 2019 #WarRoomLogoContest #ableg (it’s a wordmark but ╮ (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) ╭ ) https://t.co/5JcridUIqN pic.twitter.com/jM7awde7c2— El Costello (@elcostello) December 20, 2019 #warroomlogocontest #WarRoomLogoChallenge https://t.co/X7Zoamoeu7— Clear Sight (@Huginzai) December 20, 2019 (Thanks, David Fingrut!) Read the rest

I must have this Baby Yoda!I want to see what happens when an incredibly powerful force user is raised by a person who disintegrates car thieves.Star Wars The Black Series The Child Toy 1.1-Inch The Mandalorian Collectible Action Figure, Toys for Kids Ages 4 and Up via Amazon Read the rest

If you have the right kind of drain TubShroom really works.My last home did not have a drain that'd accept a TubShroom. Every few months I'd have to run a slug of LiquidPlumbr to speed the drain back up. TubShroom returns a surprising amount of hair, for a bald guy, to the garbage rathen than my sewer lateral.TubShroom via Amazon Read the rest

In the journal Nature, University of Melbourne researcher Michele Acuto argues that what happens in our cities after dark has a tremendous impact on energy, sustainability, waste, and inequality "yet scholarship and policy often neglect these dark hours." According to Acuto, we need a coordinated and cross-disciplinary "science of the night" to gather data and build understanding if we hope to tackle societal-scale issues and build truly smart cities. From Nature:For instance, few analyses look to see whether policies exacerbate inequalities, which tend to be worse at night. The hospitality and entertainment sectors get most of the focus, even though more midnight workers are employed in logistics and health care. Work at University College London (UCL) demonstrated that night-time spaces for LGBT+ people (people from sexual and gender minorities) are important for community life, and are also at a higher risk of closing than other establishments. UCL also highlighted inequality in transport options: London’s celebrated 24-hour Night Tube serves bustling downtown and restaurant districts, and so does more to accommodate late-night revellers than low-income late-shift workers...Information about the night-time is also crucial for a sustainable planet. At the Connected Cities Lab, we are working with the Melbourne School of Design and the London-based design firm Arup to evaluate how cities are performing at night-time vis-à-vis the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This is no academic exercise. Evidence that late-night and shift workers have higher risks of conditions such as heart disease, mental-health disorders and cancer reinforce other analyses calling for a higher night-time wage. Read the rest

Every year, I record a short podcast with my daughter, Poesy. Originally, we'd just sing Christmas carols, but with Poesy being nearly 12, we've had a moratorium on singing. This year, I interviewed Poe about her favorite Youtubers, books, apps, and pass-times, as well as her feelings on data-retention (meh) and horses (love 'em). And we even manage to squeeze in a song! Read the rest

Every year, the nonprofit Neural Correlate Society, an organization "that promotes scientific research into the neural correlates of perception and cognition," holds a competition for the Best Illusion of the Year. This year's winner is the above "Dual Axis Illusion" created by Frank Force (USA). "This spinning shape appears to defy logic by rotating around both the horizontal and vertical axis at the same time!" reads the description. "To make things even more confusing, the direction of rotation is also ambiguous. Some visual cues in the video will help viewers change their perception."Below, second prize winner "Change the Color" by Haruaki Fukuda (Japan) and third prize winner "The Rotating Circles Illusion" by Ryan E.B. Mruczek and Gideon Paul Caplovitz (USA). Read the rest

We received the Charmin Forever Roll with Stand [Amazon] as a joke gift but it has improved the quality of our lives immeasurably due to the sheer enormity of the roll, its portability, and the general improvement in bathroom logistics thereby facilitated. It is the best toilet roll holder.Essentially, it's a nice metal stand designed to hold the commercial-size toilet rolls that usually go in the boxes mounted in public lavatory stalls. The up-front cost of the stand pays for itself over time because you can buy commercial rolls by the dozen, and in the meantime you won't have to worry about running out of toilet paper, yelling for replacing rolls, shuffling around looking for toilet paper with your pants around your ankles, etc. Charmin's own Forever Rolls do fit it best, as they have a small-sized tube. But larger-tubed commercial rolls work just fine; they're just not quite as well-balanced or elegant on the tug. It can also hold normal rolls, of course, or anything else you might want to drape over it, such as newspapers. Read the rest

Knives Out is currently sporting a well-deserved 97% fresh score at Rotten Tomatoes, and now there's a solid reason to see it again in the theater--Rian Johnson created a director's commentary track:I’m thrilled to announce the #KnivesOut in-theater commentary! Yes, now you can enjoy another round of whodunnit goodness with me squawking in your ear. Did this on Bloom & Looper, happy to try it again. Audio file and instructions here. Read the rest

You don't have to hunt Youtube for bootleg copies of the teaser for Christopher Nolan's new thriller Tenet anymore. The official trailer has been posted:It may or may not be a story about the incredible power of palindromes. The expected release date is July 17, 2020. Here's the poster: Read the rest

The Jankó keyboard, named for inventor Paul von Jankó, compresses the standard 88-key piano layout into a thinner, four-row field of 264 keys. If this sounds like a solution to a different problem than the one addressed, you wouldn't be alone, but...The Jankó Keyboard caused a stir at the time of its invention, in large part due to its unique look and the intelligent design behind the keyboard. American piano manufacturer Decker Brothers put the keyboard into production around 1891, and the Paul de Janko Conservatory of Music was established in New York around the same time. There was even a manual written by W. Bradley Keeler called How to Play the New Keyboard.Despite all this, the Jankó keyboard never achieved wide popularity. Music educators were not convinced that the benefits of the new keyboard were enough to challenge the traditional keyboard. Few performers were prepared to relearn their repertoire on a new keyboard with entirely different fingering. Both reasons left keyboard instrument manufacturers afraid to invest in a redesigned keyboard which promised to have only marginal commercial success.In the video embedded above, Paul Vandervoort demonstrates the Jankó. Read the rest

Writing for EGM, Alexis Ong looks at Neurocracy, SCP Foundation, and other gameful hypertexts. It reminded me of SCP-3308, which describes a disturbing Ikea. The location seems to be a typical Ikea, but once you enter, you're transported to an infinite space that looks like, but is not quite an Ikea:SCP-3008-1 is inhabited by an unknown number of civilians trapped within prior to containment. Gathered data suggests they have formed a rudimentary civilisation within SCP-3008-1, including the construction of settlements and fortifications for the purpose of defending against SCP-3008-2.SCP-3008-2 are humanoid entities that exist within SCP-3008-1. While superficially resembling humans they possess exaggerated and inconsistent bodily proportions, often described as being too short or too tall. They possess no facial features and in all observed cases wear a yellow shirt and blue trousers consistent with the IKEA employee uniform.SCP-3008-1 has a rudimentary day-night cycle, determined by the overhead lighting within the space activating and deactivating at times consistent with the opening and closing times of the original retail store. During the "night" instances of SCP-3008-2 will become violent towards all other lifeforms within SCP-3008-1. During these bouts of violence they have been heard to vocalise phrases in English that are typically variations of "The store is now closed, please exit the building". Once "day" begins SCP-3008-2 instances immediately become passive and begin moving throughout SCP-3008-1 seemingly at random. They are unresponsive to questioning or other verbal cues in this state, though will react violently if attacked. Read the rest

Watch Dual Axis and see if it you can make it move clockwise, counter-clockwise, and up and down in your head. Trippy, huh? This mind-boggling optical illusion was recently awarded "Best Illusion of the Year" by the Neural Correlate Society, a nonprofit that "promotes research into the neural bases of perception and cognition."Frank Force, a game developer in Austin, Texas is behind the visual trick which took him one day of coding in Javascript to complete. He told Motherboard, “I've worked on DOOM, Red Faction: Guerrilla, Psi-Ops, and Starhawk... Recently I have been doing a deep dive into tiny coding with JavaScript. It's a type of art where you write small programs that do interesting stuff... Think of it as a programming haiku."Force has uploaded the code to Github and created an interactive demo to play with. Read the rest

I've heard it said that criminals get caught becasue the majority of them are far from being masterminds. Welp:From USA Today:Indiana state troopers almost called a tow truck for Joshua Anthony Lewis-Brown, 20, before identifying him as a suspected car thief Friday.By checking the Toyota Corolla's vehicle identification number, the troopers determined the car's owner had reported it stolen from State College, Pennsylvania, about 400 miles away. The owner had left the car running to keep it warm while he shopped at a grocery store, the Indiana troopers said in a statement. The car was missing when he returned Thursday.If he'd just used card stock and a Sharpie, he might have gotten away from it. Always spend the money on the right materials for the job. Obviously once the troopers saw that the Brown's license plate was nothing more than a low-rent arts and crafts project (although, admittedly, he was able to drive 400 miles with his fake plates without anyone noticing) they arrested him on a felony charge of possessing stolen property.I come from one of the colder parts of the world. A lot of folks leave their vehicles running in the winter time, unattended, in an effort to keep them warm—that the oil and gas industry supporters leave their rides idling here, year-round is a whole different load of bullshit for us to talk about. But given how easily a running care can be jacked and hidden with fifty cents worth of art supplies, it might be worth turning off your engine and putting up with a bit of a chill. Read the rest

Here's a terrifying new game that's one of the most popular apps in the United States, Photo Roulette. Up to fifty players allow the app to access their photos. Each round, a random photo from one of the player's galleries pops up on everyone else's phone. Players then race to guess whose photo it is.Julie Jargon rounded up some horror storiesfor the Wall Street Journal. Here's one:“I was kind of freaked out by it so I went to my camera roll to make sure there wasn’t anything embarrassing and I didn’t see anything too bad,” she said.But when she joined the game, the app displayed a photo of her Social Security number.And another:Emma Romney, a 20-year-old college student from Spokane, Wash., was playing Photo Roulette with her cousins, uncle and father during a road trip recently when a selfie she had taken a few years ago came up in the game. Read the whole article here, including a look at what information is shared with the app developers. Read the rest

A delightful moment of "Frère Jacques" performed by composer Luke Thering and comedian Ricky Gervais. More of Luke and Ricky below: Read the rest

Lorena Ariana Marin, a 22-year-old Subway sandwich artist in Las Cruces, Mexico, and Angelo Rey Espinosa, 19, allegedly robbed the Subway where Marin works. Police caught them quickly and Marin apparently confessed, telling police "she wanted to teach one of the employees a lesson about what could happen late at night in that part of town." From Las Cruces Sun News:Espinosa allegedly stood near the counter while Marin allegedly verbally and physically threatened the employees after hopping behind the counter. They ushered the employees to the back of the store but one employee ran to her car and got away. Both robbers then fled on foot, police said. After police arrived, one of Marin's coworkers identified her by her voice. Marin and Espinosa were arrested within minutes of the robbery, police said.image: Google Maps Read the rest

Roomba: [AUGHHHHHHH!!!!]Do unmute this one for maximum enjoyment.The Roomba That Screams When it Bumps Into Stuff[ Michael Reeves, May 2019, via] Read the rest

“I can’t change my birth name for you?!” said one user.

Yep.Sounds about right.The leading evangelical Christian publication Christianity Today, which was founded by the media figure and former presidential advisor Billy Graham, endorses the impeachment of Donald J. Trump, calling him “a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.”Here's an excerpt from the Christianity Today editorial calling for the impeachment and removal of Trump:The reason many are not shocked about this is that this president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration. He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals. He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone—with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders—is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.Trump’s evangelical supporters have pointed to his Supreme Court nominees, his defense of religious liberty, and his stewardship of the economy, among other things, as achievements that justify their support of the president. We believe the impeachment hearings have made it absolutely clear, in a way the Mueller investigation did not, that President Trump has abused his authority for personal gain and betrayed his constitutional oath. The impeachment hearings have illuminated the president’s moral deficiencies for all to see. This damages the institution of the presidency, damages the reputation of our country, and damages both the spirit and the future of our people. None of the president’s positives can balance the moral and political danger we face under a leader of such grossly immoral character. Read the rest

Well, this is weird.Yet another woman from China was arrested on Wednesday and charged with trespassing on the property of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, the Palm Beach Police said. This is the second time in 2019 a Chinese national been arrested for unauthorized entry on the premises of Trump's Florida resort and residence.From CNN:Lu Jing, 56, allegedly trespassed on the Palm Beach resort and was asked to leave by security, Palm Beach Police spokesman Michael Ogrodnick said in a statement. Lu returned to Mar-a-Lago and began to take photos when Palm Beach Police Department responded and arrested her, according to Ogrodnick. Lu made an initial court appearance Thursday morning and plead not guilty to all charges.During their investigation, authorities figured out that Lu Jing was a Chinese national in the country on an expired visa. Lu Jing is the second Chinese national arrested for trespassing at Mar-a-Lago this year. The other Chinese woman was arrested in March for trespassing, and no connection is apparent between the two women.Again, from CNN:Yujing Zhang, a 33-year-old businesswoman from Shanghai, was found guilty last month of unlawfully entering a restricted zone and making false statements to a federal officer.At the time of her arrest, Zhang had in her possession four cellphones, a laptop, an external hard drive and a thumb drive, which a preliminary forensic exam showed contained malware, according to her criminal complaint. Prosecutors said they also discovered a trove of additional electronics -- including a signal detector to detect hidden cameras -- and thousands of dollars in cash in her hotel room. Read the rest

MATT BEVIN: “Her hymen was intact. There's no way that girl was raped. She made it up.”The former governor of Kentucky, Matt Bevin, is now defending his utterly disgusting pardon of a convicted child rapist (mugshot above) by claiming the rapist's nine year old victim couldn’t have been raped because the girl “had an intact hymen,” as Jessica Valenti pointed out today.Just when you really honest to God think these men cannot get any worse.Meiners: This is a really controversial pardon.Bevin: Which one?Meiners: The child rapist.Bevin: Which one?— Joe Sonka 😐 (@joesonka) December 19, 2019Bevin: Her hymen was intact. There's no way that girl was raped. She made it up.— Joe Sonka 😐 (@joesonka) December 19, 2019In my interview with Bevin on Saturday, he also expressed his belief that Micah Schoettle (who he pardoned) did not rape the nine year-old girl, telling me to go ask her mother what really happened: https://t.co/s2xEzC9OZh— Joe Sonka 😐 (@joesonka) December 19, 2019From my Q&A on his belief Schoettle is innocent:Bevin: I'm telling you, that was not a...Me: So did the young woman make it up? Bevin: Just go get the facts.Me: Well, I'm asking you what the facts are. Did she make it up?Bevin: Look into it.— Joe Sonka 😐 (@joesonka) December 20, 2019Really looking forward to hearing how #metoo has “over corrected”— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) December 20, 2019Outside of how disgusting this comment is, it’s just another reminder of what it means for girls and women to have men who don’t understand anything about our bodies legislating them— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) December 20, 2019 Read the rest

He chonkin'.Crumpet The Corgi sneaks up on a white strawberry, and it's pretty delightful.Crumpet The Corgi sneaking up on a white strawberryDefinitely follow crumpetandbutter on IMGUR.[via]Keep calm and keep smilingGoodnight Read the rest

[Amazon's surveillance doorbell company Ring sells "security" -- the sense that surveilling your porch or your driveway or your home can make you safe. But when the company experienced a grotesque and completely predictable breach that saw hackers breaking into Ring cameras and spying on and tormenting their owners, Amazon blamed their customers for recycling passwords. In this outstanding Deeplinks post, my EFF colleagues, Cooper Quintin and Bill Budington explain just how odious this victim-blaming really is. -Cory]Just a week after hackers broke into a Ring camera in a childs’ bedroom taunting the child and sparking serious concerns about the company’s security practices, Buzzfeed News is reporting that over 3,600 Ring owners’ email addresses, passwords, camera locations, and camera names were dumped online. This Includes cameras recording private spaces inside homes.This stunning new leak could potentially provide criminals and stalkers with access to view live video feeds from inside and around thousands of Ring customers’ homes, see archived videos, and get the precise location of all Ring devices attached to the compromised account by studying the orientation of the footage and location information attached to each camera.Ring has claimed that this attack was the result of credential stuffing, a technique where attackers gather usernames and passwords compromised in another data breach and try them on other websites. Ring claims that the incident is “in no way related to a breach or compromise of Ring’s security.” Ring is attempting to place the blame squarely at the feet of their customers for reusing passwords, using weak passwords, and not turning on two-factor authentication. Read the rest

The U.S. House of Representatives voted to impeach Donald J. Trump last night. The 45th President of the United States became the third ever to be impeached last night, on abuse of power, and obstruction of justice. What's next? The impeachment process goes to the Senate, where the President goes on trial.After last night's historic late-night impeachment vote along party lines, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she won't hand proceedings over to the Senate until Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-Moscow) defines the rules of a Senate impeachment trial.The holidays are upon us, however.No Senate votes until January 6, 2020. No House votes until January 7. Lawmakers are all heading home for the holidays. Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate is in limbo.And with it, America's fate.[via]WHITE HOUSE PHOTO. “First Lady Melania Trump looks at the ornaments on the Christmas tree in the Blue Room of the White House Sunday, Dec. 1, 2019, during a review of the Christmas decorations. (Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks, PUBLIC DOMAIN)” Read the rest

Columbia Journalism School's Tow Center has published the results of a longrunning investigation into a network of shadowy "local news" sites whose bulk content is composed of algorithmically generated stories about subjects like local rates of gas tax, or which bridges are most structurally sound.Suspended in this slurry of robot-content are kernels of hard-line, far-right talking points about eliminating public education, or the illegitimacy of the impeachment proceedings in Congress.The sites are not obviously linked with one another, but the Tow researchers were able to link them through a variety of techniques: IP addresses, shared analytics IDs, and other tells.The owners or operators of these sites are linked with firms that were previously sanctioned by the FEC for violating the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971. The parent organizations include LGIS, Franklin Archer, Metro Business Network, or Dan Proft’s PAC Liberty Principles. All told, there are at least 450 of these sites, with names like East Michigan News, Hickory Sun, and Grand Canyon Times.Writing for Tow, Priyanjana Bengani suggests that these sites are filling an "information vacuum" created by local newspaper closures, and that they're exploiting "the low cost of automating news stories" -- using funeral home announcements and local agency press releases as fodder for algorithmic remixers. This type of writing is sometimes called "pink slime" journalism (previously) a reference to the mysterious formed gelatinous meat-goop used in highly processed food products.The line between Locality Labs and Newsinator is blurry: Proft, in his own words, works with reporters at Locality Labs and “suggests stories and discusses what reporters should cover.” Read the rest

We live in an older house, and the plumbing gets clogged a lot. Whenever a sink, shower, or toilet backs up, I try to to unclog it myself before calling a plumber. Sometimes it's as easy as using a Drain Weasel and getting hair out of a drain. If that doesn't work, I'll try a water bladder. As a last resort, I'll use one of these hand-crank plumber snakes:The snake is a wrist-killer and a huge hassle. To insert the snake, you have to loosen a screw, pull out a few inches of snake, tighten the screw, turn the handle a bunch of times, then repeat the process. It takes forever.If none of these work, I call a plumber. He brings a giant snake that unclogs anything and gives me a well-deserved bill between $100 - $300 (depending on the time of day, or day of the week).After getting one of the higher bills for plumber's service on a Sunday evening, I looked around online for a motorized snake. This Ryobi P4001 18-Volt ONE+ Cordless 25 foot Drain Auger had good reviews and it fit my budget. I also needed to buy a battery and charger. When it arrived, I put the battery in the charger, almost looking forward to the next clog so I could try it out.A short while after, it happened. Carla noticed that one of the clean outs in the backyard had lost its cap and sludge was seeping out. Judging from the size of the puddle, it looked like it had been happening for a long time. Read the rest

If you snore, you know it can be infuriating for your partner. But did you know it can also be unhealthy for you? Yep, those sawing logs that you can't even hear can be a warning buzzer, increasing your risk for stroke.There are cures for snoring that involve everything from nose strips to full-on oxygen masks, but sometimes the simplest solution is best. Smart Nora caught the attention of tastemakers like Oprah and Good Morning America for exactly that reason.It's a small device that stops snoring without ever waking you up - or even touching your face. It consists of an egg-shaped, sound-detecting monitor and an inflatable pad that you place underneath whatever pillow you normally use.When the Smart Nora detects the first sounds of a snoring fit, it adjusts the size of the pad, gently raising or lowering your head. Just that small amount of movement can stimulate your throat muscles enough to open those narrowed air passageways. It's subtle enough that you won't even notice it, but your partner will - in the best way.Right now, you can get 15% off the retail price of the Smart Nora by using the coupon code MERRYSAVE15. Read the rest

Well, it's nothing if not on brand for New Jersey politics.Five politicians in New Jersey have been charged in a bribery case with taking thousands of dollars in cash that was delivered in envelopes, paper bags and a coffee cup.The revelations are the result of a state public-corruption investigation from Attorney General’s office.Here is the announcement of the charges from the New Jersey Attorney General’s office:AG Grewal Announces Criminal Charges Against Five Public Officials and Political Candidates in Major Corruption Investigation - Jersey City School Board President Sudhan Thomas and former Assemblyman Jason O’Donnell among those charged with taking bribes in investigation by Office of Public Integrity and Accountability And here are the names of the accused, who appear in the image in this post, a screenshot from the State of New Jersey's press release today about the criminal charges.The following five defendants were charged separately in criminal complaints with second-degree bribery in official and political matters:Sudhan Thomas – Jersey City School Board PresidentJason O’Donnell – Former State Assemblyman and Former Bayonne Mayoral CandidateJohn Cesaro – Former Morris County FreeholderJohn Windish – Former Mount Arlington Council MemberMary Dougherty – Former Morris County Freeholder CandidateThe defendants who held public office at the time of the alleged conduct – Thomas, Cesaro and Windish – also are charged with second-degree acceptance or receipt of unlawful benefit by a public servant for official behavior.The quoted dialogue is pretty rich. Can't make this stuff up. Read the rest

Andrew Taylor lives in Canterbury on New Zealand's South Island; when he grew frustrated with the local park's lack of good throwing sticks with which to amuse his dog, he created a "stick library" -- a engraved box with a dozen throwing sticks pruned from his home trees, smoothed down and readied for throwing.The box's engraving reads: "Stick Library - please return."About 50 local dogs and their humans make use of the library, and have been diligent about returning the sticks to their crate. ‘While trimming the trees, my dad found himself with a lot of dead branches, and knowing from experience how hard it can be to find a good stick, and that the new dog park was opening soon, he had the idea that he would save them and put them in some kind of box. ‘When the park opened on November 30, mum and dad took Bella and sure enough there were no good sticks. ‘Dad is the type of guy that is always thinking of things to make, so the next day he found a suitable crate and made the sign for the top. ‘He decided to call it the stick library because it implied that you return the stick once you’re finished with it.’Dad creates ‘stick library’ for dogs [Ellen Scott/Metro](Image: Ralf Roletschek, CC BY) Read the rest

Fudan University, one of China's elite centers of higher learning, has had its charter altered to remove "freedom of thought" from its values. In its place, the charter now promotes "arming the minds of teachers and students with Xi Jinping's new era of socialist ideology with Chinese characteristics." In response, students have launched a protest in the form of performances of the school song, which touts "academic independence and freedom of thought."The change comes along with a requirement to promote "core socialist values" and to ensure the campus is "harmonious" (a Chinese bureaucratic euphemism for purging anti-government sentiment).Similar charter changes have taken place in other Chinese universities including Nanjing University and Shaanxi Normal University.The Xi regime's emphasis on Marxist orthodoxy in China's universities has produced some unexpected outcomes: in 2018, Marxist students joined wildcat workers' strikes in solidarity with factory workers against the bourgeois ownership class. Even after student leaders were kidnapped by security forces the students continued their protests, leading to the forced closure of Peking University's Marxist Society.Fudan's charter change was announced by the Ministry of Education on its website late Tuesday and criticism quickly trended on social media before China's ever-vigilant online censors acted to delete posts and block discussion.Chinese students defiant as university charter cuts 'freedom of thought' [AFP](via Naked Capitalism) Read the rest

While NIST doesn't speculate as to why, it did find that the performance of 189 facial recognition algorithms from 89 different vendors varied by "race, sex and age" -- that is, the systems performed significantly worse when asked to recognize people who weren't young, white and male.Note that fixing this isn't necessarily a good thing. Chinese companies struggled to train accurate facial recognition for people of African ancestry, so they had an African state with a lot of policing and telecoms ties to large Chinese firms furnish them with the national driver's license photographic database, and now Chinese surveillance works really well on people of African descent. Success?1. For one-to-one matching, the team saw higher rates of false positives for Asian and African American faces relative to images of Caucasians. The differentials often ranged from a factor of 10 to 100 times, depending on the individual algorithm. False positives might present a security concern to the system owner, as they may allow access to impostors. 2. Among U.S.-developed algorithms, there were similar high rates of false positives in one-to-one matching for Asians, African Americans and native groups (which include Native American, American Indian, Alaskan Indian and Pacific Islanders). The American Indian demographic had the highest rates of false positives.3. However, a notable exception was for some algorithms developed in Asian countries. There was no such dramatic difference in false positives in one-to-one matching between Asian and Caucasian faces for algorithms developed in Asia. While Grother reiterated that the NIST study does not explore the relationship between cause and effect, one possible connection, and area for research, is the relationship between an algorithm’s performance and the data used to train it. Read the rest

The German taxi association scored a major victory by convincing the court to ban Uber in the country. Well, I guess people can still take an Uber if they are willing to €250,000 per ride.From Engadget:In addition to the license violation, the court found several issues with Uber's dispatching process, including the fact that drivers could accept a job within its app without their official employer first receiving it. Additionally, under German law hired cars are obligated to return to their firm's main office after dropping a passenger off.take"From a passenger's point of view, Uber provides the service itself and is therefore an entrepreneur," the court said, going on to add that Uber must comply with the country's passenger transport laws.The German taxi association that brought the legal challenge against Uber said it plans to seek immediate provisional enforcement of the ban. Uber could pay fines as high as €250,000 per ride if it doesn't comply with the court's decision. The company can appeal the ruling, however.Photo by Eric Nopanen on Unsplash Read the rest

If the forklift driver did something like this everyday, he could become a popular YouTuber.Image: YouTube Read the rest

A new thing flat earth idiots are doing is posting a photo of a rock with the caption, "How can the moon reflect light if it is a rock?" Unfortunately, the rock in the photo is reflecting light. Read the rest

Betsy DeVos is the religious fanatic whose access to two unearned fortunes -- one from the Amway Ponzi scheme, founded by her husband's father; the other from her own father's machining business -- has allowed her to project her ideas about eliminating secular public education in favor of Christian indoctrination schools over millions of peoples' lives, especially the lives of poor people.When Donald Trump made her his Education Secretary, he supercharged DeVos's project to create a theocratic education system that would help her turn her brand of hateful, bigoted Christianity into something like an official state religion in America.But DeVos is monumentally unpopular, and not just because her brother, Erik "Blackwater" Prince is a notorious war-criminal and beltway bandit. After all, this is the billionaire who brought unprecedented secrecy to her office, while slashing school funding, proposed buying teachers guns with federal funds, tried to defund the Special Olympics, and promoted charter schools that put profits before pupils.DeVos's personal and political work have always crossed over: her personal foundation spent lavishly to distribute anti-teacher talking points during the 2018 teachers' strikes; and her commitment to "education reform" has been an unmitigated disaster. And, of course, she was caught using her personal email for government business (which would allow her to avoid public records requests) and faced no consequences, though she may yet go to jail for her role in forcing students to pay loans taken out for tuition at a fraudulent, predatory "university" whose playbook is basically Trump University 2.0. Read the rest

Bernie Sanders commissioned the Government Accountability Office to study the consequences of the high degree of indebtedness borne by Millennials; the GAO's report concludes that Millennials dreams are being "crushed" by debts -- primarily student loans -- which have limited their abilities to seek good employment, good housing, and to save for retirement.Millennials -- a generation that's more racially diverse, more educated and more childless than any generation in American history -- are substantially financially worse off than their parents, with both lower earnings and lower savings than boomers or gen Xers had at the same age. They are less likely to own homes than earlier generations did at the same age.There are many factors contributing to the lower earnings and savings than other generations, but the single most dispositive one is student debt, with typical millennial-headed households carrying a debt-to-income ratio exceeding 100%. The GAO report also takes into account the additional factors that influence economic mobility, such as parental income. Between one-third and two-thirds of economic status is passed down from one generation to the next, according to the report, so parental income has a significant impact on wealth and earnings. Geographically, people living in counties in the southeastern United States have lower rates of economic mobility than those living in the rural Midwest. To get more specific, growing up in an affluent neighborhood can positively impact a child’s future earnings to nearly the same extent that a bachelor’s degree does. When it comes to race, Black men have lower adult income than white men who grew up in the same neighborhood as they did in 99% of census tracts, even when accounting for parental income. Read the rest

Denver's 710 KNUS radio host Chuck Bonniwell is out of a job after he announced that he wished for a "nice school shooting" to provide respite from "never-ending impeachment of Donald Trump," reports USA Today.Unsurprisingly, Bonniwell issued a classic fauxpology:On the show's Twitter page, Bonniwell issued a statement before deleting it Wednesday night. “I made an inappropriate comment meant as a joke," he said. "I’m sorry it was not received that way.”Image: 710 KNUS Read the rest

The Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office refused to comment on the news that surveillance camera video outside Jeffrey Epstein’s cell suddenly went missing.From Radar Online:News of the missing surveillance footage was exposed after Epstein’s cellmate at the time of his suicide attempt, Nick Tartaglione, formally requested that video be preserved as evidence.Tartaglione, a former cop who was awaiting trial for four counts of murder, was accused of attacking Epstein on July 23, but he denied the claims, saying he actually tried to stop the late financier from taking his own life.“We want to be sure that all the evidence is preserved to show that Nick behaved appropriately and even admirably that evening,” Barket said in court. “We asked for all the video and photographic evidence to be preserved, specifically this surveillance video. Now it’s gone.”Image: By State of Florida - https://offender.fdle.state.fl.us/offender/CallImage?imgID=1665905, retrieved July 12 2019. archive.org, Public Domain, Link Read the rest

Many may only know her voice from hearing The Pogues' Fairytale of New York, but beyond that timeless tune, Kirsty MacColl's career as a singer and songwriter was as full and respected as you're bound to hear of. She was lost to us, at the age of 41, close to two decades ago, this week.While on holiday in Mexico with her partner and children, MacColl was killed, and by some accounts murdered while on a diving excursion, off the coast of Cozumel. According to the Irish Post, a boat entered the warded-off area where MacColl was surfacing from a scuba dive, at high speed, striking her light out of this world. She'd still be with us if she hadn't, as a final act, pushed her 15-year old son out of the path of the speeding boat. The vessel belonged to a Mexican multimillionaire. When's there's money had, a coverup may be bought: It's rumored that the boat's owner was the one driving it when MacColl was killed. However, one of his employees was paid to take the fall for him.Fortunately, her music lives on. In this documentary, the BBC explores MacColl's career with insights from Shane MacGowan, Billy Bragg, Johnny Marr, Bono, French & Saunders and Steve Lillywhite. Read the rest

The New York Times' logo looks like it might be set in a classic blackletter typeface, but it is in fact hand-made. Enter Chomsky, a typeface designed by Fredrick Brennan (yes, the Fredrick Brennan) and derived from the NYT's distinctive old-timey nameplate.This font is not an exact copy of the New York Times masthead. Rather, it aims to be suitable for running text as well, so I used a larger stem size. The difference between some of the characters are shown below; the N.Y.T. logo is above, and Chomsky below... :I was quite surprised, that to my knowledge, I am the first to have undertaken this project. Many other famous brands, for example that of CNN, Sega, and Coca Cola have fonts in homage to them; indeed, most of these fonts were made in the pre-Unicode era and are branded in terms of metadata with the name of the defunct, but once prominent, Macromedia Fontographer; the CNN copy cat font is itself going on twenty years old.Perhaps it was the difficulty of creating the extra letters in a blackletter face that scared away would be font authors. Perhaps it was lack of knowledge about the law in this area. Either way, I do believe that I am the first. Read the rest

Richard Kadrey is a New York Times bestselling author and a friend of this website. His dark, horror-tinged urban fantasy books have been a fixture in bookstores and libraries since 2009. 11 books (and counting) into his Sandman Slim series, his novels have been optioned to become a film directed by John Wick’s Chad Stahelski. To say that he’s a success as a writer would be an understatement.Now, he’s looking to help you build the skills to hone your literary talent as well.Starting in March, Richard will be teaching a four-week online course on writing dark urban fantasy. Speaking to him from his digs in San Fransisco on Wednesday, he told me, “...during the class, I want to help students get a strong beginning to a story or novel. More importantly, I want give them the skills they need to keep creating new work.”In order to do that, he’s laid out a clear road map to help get the asses of potential authors into gear.From Richard’s Litreactor page:Week One: What is Dark Urban Fantasy?What is dark or noir urban fantasy and how does it differ from horror? Who lives there and why? And why do we want to bring the strange and the dark into the world?Week Two: Dark Urban Fantasy CharactersWho lives in these strange, invented worlds? How do you construct characters that walk the line between good and evil? Even in the most extreme world and stories, there must be some core of truth to it. Read the rest

We've all heard that Boy Scout motto, "be prepared." These days most everybody is, thanks to the most useful emergency device of all time: The smartphone.Except, of course, when they run out of power. Which is why if you really want to be prepared, get a power bank like the HyperCharger PRO V.2 All-in-One Charger.This Best of Innovation award winner at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show packs plenty of juice - 8,000mAh, to be exact. But it's really the connectivity that makes it unique.The PRO V.2 can output through Apple Lightning, micro USB or USB-C connectors, which means its suitable for iPhones, Androids, tablets of various types and generations - basically any device you come across. It can even charge up to three devices at the same time and do it quickly with 25W HyperCharging capability. You'll be able to come to the rescue of anyone who needs a quick jolt at the local coffee shop, not to mention backup for yourself.The charger is now half off the original retail price, but you can take an extra 15% off by using the holiday discount code MERRYSAVE15. Read the rest

Someone is going to get a bollocking at the U.S. State Department, because they added Wakanda—the fictional high-tech African kingdom from the marvel Black Panther movie—to an official list of trade partners.The fictional country was removed soon from the list after US media first queried it, prompting jokes that the countries had started a trade war.Wakanda first appeared in the Fantastic Four comic in 1966, and made a reappearance when Black Panther was adapted into an Oscar-winning film last year.The unusual listing was spotted by Francis Tseng, a New York-based software engineer who was looking up agricultural tariffs for a fellowship he was applying for.More furtive associations with Anglo-American imperialism from Wakanda's corrupt, complicit ruling elite! Killmonger was right. Read the rest