Not the greatest audio but a lot of fun to watch!
Friday 31 March 2017
Profile of Anthony Papa, the only person to have received clemency and a pardon in New York state
Socialist Worker has a profile of Anthony Papa of the Drug Policy Alliance. He has a book out about his experiences after being released from prison, where he served a sentence for a drug crime that he'd been entrapped into committing. The book is called This Side of Freedom: Life After Clemency.
Snip:
On January 24, 1985, Anthony Papa, a young radio and auto repair worker, was entrapped in a bust planned by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Papa, in his late 20s, was living in the Bronx with his wife and young daughter, and struggling to provide for his family. Down on his luck, he took a chance to make some quick cash by delivering a package of cocaine to nearby Westchester County. When Papa handed over the package to two undercover narcotics officers, he was arrested. Papa was found guilty and sentenced to two 15-years-to-life sentences under the Rockefeller Drug Laws, with their mandated minimum sentences for low-level, nonviolent drug crimes.
Steve Wozniak on how he became passionate about computers
Apple computers was founded on April 1, 1976. In this commercial for the Japanese human resources brand PERSOL, Steve Wozniak talks about how he "stumbled into a journal about digital computer topics" and how it changed his life.
I made my own ink for the apocalypse
Meg Elison is a high school dropout and a graduate of UC Berkeley. Her debut novel, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, won the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award. Its companion, The Book of Etta, is now available. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and writes like she’s running out of time.
As an author of apocalyptic fiction, I get letters from all over the globe from people who are more prepared for the end of the world than the average individual. Many of them focus on the more popular aspects of prepping: growing and/or storing food, conserving water and even building their own cisterns, and weapons training and storage to be ready for the worst. When I first started writing in this subgenre, I thought about my own odds of survival in the worst sort of worlds. Nobody really survives nuclear war, so I didn’t build a bomb shelter. I’m not the fastest of my friends, so I hope to provide means of escape for them by being tasty zombie food. But those slow apocalypses allow for me to examine what my own role might be in another kind of world. The question is: would writers still write? Could I, if I had the time?
In my second book, it’s been a century since Bic and Parker and Pilot shut down. There are no new pens and ink isn’t as simple as one might think. In most cases, it’s a complicated combination of pigments, fixatives, and preservatives. When imagining a post-industrial future, it helps to examine the pre-industrial past. What did people do before pens and ink were cheap?
In my research, I found that most inks start with a natural source of pigment. Many plants like berries and grasses have a little color, as anyone who’s ever stained the knees of their jeans can tell you. Better still are the inky secretions of deep sea creatures: octopodes, squids and cuttlefish. However, these are deep sea creatures and even though I live on the Pacific, I’m not sure how I would catch one. I dug deeper.
In a public library’s photo archive, I came across high-quality digital images of letters written in the nineteenth century in the U.S., many of them around the time of the Civil War. Their homely ink was brown, not quite opaque, and seemed handmade. A little more digging led me to fascinating descriptions of how walnut hulls (the fibrous material surrounding the shell of a walnut as it grows on a tree) could be boiled to produce this black-brown colored substance that was passable as ink and was commonly used to hastily dye clothes into mourning-dark hues. In isolated and rural places, where true black was costly or inaccessible, everything was rendered in this dark brown by careful work.
From the pages of a 250-year-old diary, I found instructions. Gather walnut hulls from a tree; even better if you can pick up slightly rotted ones from the ground, for these are darker. Boil in clean water for half a day, until liquid is reduced by half. Lit sit overnight. Strain, and add a dash of aged spirits, for preservation. In my case, I used 100-proof vodka.
On the website for my city, I found historical markers for walnut and oak trees that were over 200 years old. It wasn’t quite a walk back in time, but I did go out gathering after dark. That felt more like a dystopian adventure. I found the rottenest hulls I could, largely piled up in the gutter near the tree. I put them on the boil and left the stove on overnight.
In the morning, I strained it and added the vodka. When the slightly thickened mixture had cooled, I had two small bottles of brown, sour-smelling ink. I used a dip pen with a fine nib to test it out and found that it printed clearly and stayed visible even after drying. It didn’t clog my pen or bleed out into the paper. I could make it with what was lying around; I could even brew my own spirits if I had to. (That, too, is another common way to prepare for the apocalypse; scratch the surface of a home brewer or distiller and you’ll find paranoia running wild and deep.)
Writing is a luxury born of a leisure class. In most apocalyptic scenarios, people will need to scramble for food, shelter, and safety as life resumes it nasty, brutish, and short default settings. Any world’s end that offers us the time to brew ink to tell our stories is a good one. But like those preppers who write to me from their carefully cataloged canned-food empires, I am ready. I am prepared to keep telling stories long after the world that gave them to me is gone.
Great electronic soundtrack for award winning short documentary film "Little Potato"
My friend Robyn Miller (co-creator of the Myst series of computer games) is an accomplished musician. His soundtrack for the award winning short documentary film "Little Potato," is available on iTunes, and you can listen to a few tracks above.
From IndieWire:
Premiering at this year’s SXSW festival, “Little Potato” centers around the Seattle-based artist Wes Hurley and the obstacles he faced as a gay man growing up in Russia. Including an interview with his mother, “Little Potato” focuses on a mother and son wanting to find a better life for themselves outside the confines of an oppressive Russian regime.
5-pack of Wayfarer-style reading glasses for $7
I have a paid of +2.50 reading glasses, but they are not good for computer work. I needed some +1.00 glasses. I fund this 5-pack of 80s Reading Glasses for $6.70 on Amazon. One pair has shading. I got them and they are perfect for computer use, and they look good. They also have spring hinges so they don't fall down my nose. Other lens strengths are available, but they cost $13 for a 5-pack.
The Sounds of the Junk Yard, a 1964 vinyl record
Last week, I posted about The Sounds of the Office, a 1964 vinyl record released by Folkways Records of field recordings by Michael Siegel. This week, it's The Sounds of the Junk Yard, another 1964 Folkways collection of Siegel's field recordings, ranging from an Acetylene Torch to Alligator Shears to a Paper Baler.
As I wrote, in 1948, Moses Asch founded the incredibly influential Folkways Records label to record and share music and sounds from around the world. Along with bringing the music of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, and Elizabeth Cotten to wider audiences, Folkways, acquired in 1987 by Smithsonian, also issued incredible sound recordings from the Ituri rainforest, Navajo Nation, Peru, and many other locations and indigenous peoples across the globe. (In fact, the label provided several tracks for the Voyager Golden Record, now 12+ billion miles from Earth! Researching that project with my partner Tim Daly, a DIY musicologist himself, I've become absolutely enchanted by Folkways. If any of you dear readers have Folkways LPs collecting dust, I'd give them a wonderful home.) Along with music, Folkways released LPs with poetry, language instruction, nature sounds (frogs! insects), and other field recordings. The Sounds of the Junk Yard reminds me of an Einstürzende Neubauten album but was issued a decade before the birth of "Industrial Music" was born.
"Some junk yard equipment is common to all of them, some is more specialized," wrote Siegel in the album liner notes. "All these sounds were recorded in yards in Warren, Pennsylvania."
Hear more samples at the Smithsonian Folkways page here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wlaMRDTht0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcG-2Cyz_e8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTV15R6d1vc
Video of failed bank break-in in France
A gang of masked thieves attempted a late-night heist at a bank (or some other building) in Pernes-les-Fontaines (southeastern France). They succeeded in partially ramming through the wall with a large flatbed truck, but then the truck got stuck. They ended up lighting the truck cab on fire and taking off in two cars. Someone caught the whole thing on video and posted it to YouTube.
It's a scene out of one of Donald Westlake's Dortmunder novels.
Burt Ward's "Boy Wonder" song, a collaboration with Frank Zappa
In 1966, Burt "Robin" Ward recorded with the Mothers of Invention under the direction of Frank Zappa. The result is really something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjoLQbJCPTI
From Burt Ward's autobiography Boy Wonder: My Life in Tights:
The image of the Boy Wonder is all American and apple pie, while the image of the Mothers of Invention was so revolutionary that they made the Hell’s Angels look like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Even I had to laugh seeing a photo of myself with those animals.
Their fearless leader and king of grubbiness was the late Frank Zappa. (The full name of the band was Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.) After recording with me, Frank became an internationally recognized cult superstar, which was understandable; after working with me, the only place Frank could go was up.
Although he looked like the others, Frank had an intelligence and education that elevated him beyond brilliance to sheer genius. I spent a considerable amount of time talking with him, and his rough, abrupt exterior concealed an intellectual, creative and sensitive interior...
In an attempt at self-preservation, the record company had me just talk on the second two sides I recorded. That I could do very well! The material for the song was a group of fan letters that had been sent to me. Frank and I edited them together to make one letter, which became the lyrics for the recording. Frank wrote a melody and an arrangement, and we titled the song, “Boy Wonder, I Love You!”
Among the lyrics was an invitation for me to come and visit an adoring pubescent fan and stay with her for the entire summer. She wrote, “I will even fix you breakfast in bed. I love you so much that I want you to stay the whole summer with me!” The lyrics ended with “I hope you know that this is a girl writing.”
(via r/obscuremedia, more at Dangerous Minds)
How to make a coin sorting machine from cardboard
The Q made this nifty coin sorting machine from cardboard.
William Powell, author of The Anarchist Cookbook, RIP
William Powell, author of the iconic counterculture how-to guide The Anarchist Cookbook, died last year of a heart attack. His death was just made public. As a teen, I learned many important things from The Anarchist Cookbook: mixing tincture of iodine with ammonia is indeed explosive, smoking banana peels won't get you high (contrary to the book), and Rikers Island is to be avoided. Powell wrote the book when he was 19 and disavowed it later in life after becoming a Christian. The Anarchist Cookbook remained in print, much to his chagrin. “The central idea to the book was that violence is an acceptable means to bring about political change,” he wrote on the book's Amazon page. “I no longer agree with this.” From the Los Angeles Times:
“The Anarchist Cookbook,” which has sold at least 2 million copies — printed, downloaded or otherwise — and remains in publication, was originally a 160-page book that offered a nuts-and-bolts overview of weaponry, sabotage, explosives, booby traps, lethal poisons and drug making. Illustrated with crude drawings, it informed readers how to make TNT and Molotov cocktails, convert shotguns to rocket launchers, destroy bridges, behead someone with piano wire and brew LSD.
The book came with a warning: “Not for children or morons.”
In a foreword, Powell advised that he hadn’t written the book for fringe militant groups of the era like the Weathermen or Minutemen, but for the “silent majority” in America, those he said needed to learn the tools for survival in an uncertain time. Powell himself was worried about being drafted and was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War and President Nixon.
“This book is for anarchists — those who feel able to discipline themselves — on all subjects (from drugs to weapons to explosives) that are currently illegal or suppressed in this country,” he wrote.
The Anarchist Cookbook (Amazon)
Twitter replaces egg with genderless head and shoulders icon
The thinking behind Twitter's replacement for the troll-favorite egg profile photo is a vaguely human placeholder that is unpleasant enough to encourage people to replace it with a custom icon.
We noticed that some people kept the egg default profile photo because they thought it was fun and cute, but we want people to use this space to show us who they are! The new default image feels more like an empty state or placeholder, and we hope it encourages people to upload images that express themselves.
We’ve noticed patterns of behavior with accounts that are created only to harass others – often they don’t take the time to personalize their accounts. This has created an association between the default egg profile photo and negative behavior, which isn’t fair to people who are still new to Twitter and haven’t yet personalized their profile photo.
Will it work?
Notice sticker on a van: nothing "worth selling for heroin " in here
I hope this is effective. Full photo by flopiyt here.
Quiz: Was this painting made by a human artist or ape?
Which of the paintings above is by a respected abstract painter who is human and which was painted by an ape in the Congo?
The answer is in the comments.
Take the full quiz here: "An artist or an ape?"
(via @pickover)
Penis seat on Mexico City subway
A seat on the Mexico City subway has a protruding molded torso and cock. Part art project and part PSA, it's supposedly there to highlight the sexual harassment experienced by female passengers. It has proven controversial, reports the BBC.
Underneath a video of the stunt, which has been seen more than 700,000 times in the past 10 days, some viewers praised the idea, while others called it "sexist" and unfair to men.
Not quite sure how a penis everyone is forced to look at and may inadvertently sit on helps the cause, but, man, that video.
Animations showing the population of every U.S. county from the 18th century until now
The Death of the Exorcist
With the death of author William Peter Blatty on January 13 at 88, I could not help but be reminded that, exactly 43 years ago on that date, at age 15 I first saw The Exorcist, for which he had written the screenplay based on his earlier book. He also exerted strong control over the production.
It was a time when I was able to see many films due to a decent allowance from a generous father. The previous year, my mother had taken me to see The Godfather at the Loew’s Orpheum theater on 86th street just off Third Ave in Manhattan.
It was a big deal because at age 14, and at that time in 1972, there was a lot in The Godfather most kids my age had never seen (we still had only seven TV channels; no cable, no internet). To top it off, a friend of mine was an usher at what I hazily remember as a Trans-Lux Cinema on Third Avenue just off 57th street, and he offered to sneak me into a showing of Last Tango in Paris. I was a big Brando fan, and I definitely saw a lot in that film I had not seen before. (On the other hand, you’ve probably never seen an usher in a movie theater.)
I’d also watched about 10 zillion horror movies on WPIX’s Chiller Theater during the preceding decade, and was extremely curious about why people were so freaked out about The Exorcist. Instead of going on opening day, my usual habit, I decided to wait until the lines abated. The film had opened on December 26, but the usual one-hour lines were stretching to three hours. I could resist only a few weeks and on Sunday morning January 13, 1974, I took an early train into the city from Queens to see the 10:30 am show and arrived at 9 am, hoping to beat the crowd. To my dismay there were seemingly hundreds of people ahead of me.
Growing up in New York, for many years it was commonplace to wait in line an hour or more when a film opened. There were no reserved seats and for most films no way to purchase advance tickets—it was dog eat dog in the scrum outside the theater, regardless of the weather. Not sure what it’s like now. It was a shock when I moved to Washington, DC, in 1991 and could arrive at the movie theater five minutes before the film began.
Anyway, on that particular day it was damn bitter cold with a piercing wind. I just looked it up online to reconfirm my memory and the high was 27 degrees, with a low of 12 degrees. Damn freeze-your-ass-and-make-you-wish-you-were-dead cold. Hundreds of people shivering in what felt like sub-zero temperature, standing on a concrete sidewalk in Manhattan (the cold comes up through the bottoms of your shoes), with the wind slicing right though our coats, waiting to see a horror movie. Yeah, I know … crazy.
Because it was the first showing that day, we didn’t have the usual pleasure of watching the audience for the showing before ours leave the theater. In Manhattan this was always a huge part of the spectator sport of waiting in line for a film. Five years later, when we were in line for the first Alien film, the people leaving the showing before ours had pale white faces and open mouths. They looked seriously disturbed. Perhaps if I had seen the faces of those leaving The Exorcist on that cold day in 1974 I might not have gone inside and seen this.
Now you might be wondering what was I doing at age 15 going to see an R-rated film, particularly one as foul-mouthed, intensely disturbing, violent, and gory as The Exorcist. Well, I never saw a movie theater in Manhattan check an ID. If you waited on line and paid for your ticket, in you went (unless you were obviously 10 or 11).
It was freezing outside, and pretty chilly in the theater as well (Manhattan theater owners were always trying to save money by scrimping on the heating and air-conditioning). This made the scenes in the possessed Regan’s bedroom where everyone is cold and you can see their breath seem even more true to life. (The set was built on a refrigerated set just for that purpose—it seems the devil doesn’t like it hot.) Here’s director Bill Friedkin wearing a winter coat and hat on the set.
Last year I wrote about John Carpenter’s film The Thing, and the reactions it elicited from a crowd at an unannounced preview: people running from the theater, the smell of cookies tossed wafting through the air, and screaming. The reactions to The Exorcist were entirely different. No one vomited except on the screen. I didn’t hear any screams. Stunned silence is all. That, and people leaving. The first large batch fled during the scenes of the medical tests where a needle is inserted into Regan’s neck and blood spurts out. Health care as horror.
https://youtu.be/V3MG1178fB8Most people stayed in their seats after that, though some more folks hot-footed it out of the theater while Regan was doing you-know-what with the cross … yeah, and your mother knits socks that smell.
In case you think that I’m exaggerating about the crowds and people leaving the theater, watch this.
https://youtu.be/LpYhBqJLCcEMost people don’t realize how many actresses were involved in portraying Regan. Linda Blair, nominated for an Academy Award, is the one we readily see. For some scenes, however, the possessed Regan was performed by actress and stunt woman Ellen Dietz. Once you’ve seen the film a few times and get past your emotional reactions, it’s easy to see that Dietz looks quite different than Blair in the demon makeup. Dietz also portrays “Captain Howdy,” the flash frame image demon who pops up every now and then and makes you jump in your seat.
Dietz was interviewed on media mike’s website:
I did a play in New York and an agent saw me in it. He signed me and a casting notice came out looking for somebody who was 5’2”, strong and could act. They asked to see me. I read the book and did a few improvisations for the casting director. I then met Billy Friedkin (the director of the film) Dick Smith (the makeup genius behind the look of the film), Linda Blair and her mother. Then I went up to Dick Smith’s studio, which was amazing. They had to make me look like the demon. I didn’t have to look like Linda. I wasn’t her stand in, I wasn’t her stunt double. I wasn’t many of the things people think I was. I was an actress signed to play the part of the demon that possessed Regan. And once they found out I could handle the role physically I did a screen test. I was originally supposed to work on the film only during the masturbation scene but I ended up working on it for six months. The good news is that, as a principal actor in the film, I still get residuals. There were a total of six people who played Regan when she was possessed. There was a stunt double, a lighting double. There was Mercedes McCambridge, who did the voice. There was Linda Blair, there was me and there was another girl who did the spider walk. It was something they didn’t want known at the time. They wanted everybody to think that this 12 year old girl had done all the work. That’s why my name isn’t in the credits … they wanted to keep the illusion that it was all one performance. In retrospect I should have asked them to put my name in the credits as a different character … that would confuse everybody.
Here's Dietz with makeup artist Dick Smith setting up a method for the green-pea vomiting that ultimately was not used.
The rumors in Hollywood of how much or how little Linda Blair did were said to have sabotaged her shot at an Oscar for Best Actress, an honor she might otherwise have deservedly won.
Below is a snippet of Linda Blair’s performance recorded on set, followed by the same scenes dubbed by Mercedes McCambridge. From the Associated Press:
https://youtu.be/aHpFgjF6vvsMcCambridge was hired to portray The Demon in William Friedkin's 1973 smash hit The Exorcist. After weeks of what she called the hardest work she had done for a film, she had been promised prominent mention in the credits. But when she attended the preview, her name was missing. As she left the theater in tears, Friedkin tried to explain that there had been no time to insert her credit. The Screen Actors Guild intervened and forced her inclusion in the credits.
One could write books about The Exorcist (several have), but instead I’ll leave you with a few personal reminiscences.
I went to a sleepaway camp, Chipinaw, in the Catskills for over a decade. I was often in the camp show, and one year the drama counselor was Bill Forsythe. Since he had been in a touring version it was decided that we would do Grease. Bill was a great guy and we had a lot of fun putting on a bowdlerized version of the show. On Saturdays we would go into Monticello and do our laundry and hangout. At that time, when he was young, Bill had a round face and a slightly piggy nose. He told me that he would go to showings of The Exorcist and, during the scene where the possessed Regan’s head spins, he would puff his cheeks up and slowly turn his head around, spewing air in a scary way, much to the horror of the people who were sitting directly behind him. They screamed! Years later I was sitting in yet another movie theater watching Raising Arizona and there was Bill, now “William,” portraying a dumb-as-rocks kidnapper along with John Goodman.
My second story is about my friend, poor Mario Gonzalez, who worked at Lou Tannen’s Magic Shop on Broadway and later ran his own magic shop on Long Island. Lovely guy, he’d been raised in a very strict, devout Catholic household. After he saw The Exorcist he had nightmares for 20 years. He broke out in a sweat just talking about the film. After a while, he stopped talking about it … but he still carried the fear.
I carried no fear, but also had no idea that Max von Sydow, who played Father Lancaster Merrin, was not 75. This is perhaps the ultimate illusion created by makeup artist Dick Smith for the film: von Sydow was merely 40 at the time.
Tentaclebots have finally arrived
Biomimicry continues to make amazing strides. Festo just released footage of their OctopusGripper being put through the paces. (more…)
Watch a guy toss log chunks with a giant John Deere log loader
Tim O'Bryant, aka Cotontop3, is a logger in Mississippi who vlogs daily. In this episode, he uses the pincers on his log loader to toss leftovers from log bucking, which takes a surprising amount of dexterity. (more…)
Astonishing book tunnel entrance to bookstore
Check out this trippy stop-motion papercraft music video
This video for "Explosions in the Sky" by the Ecstatics perfectly captures the trippy electronica vibe by using thousands of papercraft sculptures in stop motion. (more…)
Patrick Bateman would totally carry his laptop in this bag
When you hear “laptop bag”, you probably think of a worn-out black padded pleather abomination carried by the world’s grumpiest IT guy. Since we all know that stereotypes are hurtful, let’s put the myth of unfashionable computer gear to rest. Not all workplace accessories are on the same aesthetic level as a cubicle farm, Dilbert.
Born in America’s biggest apple, this laptop-sized messenger bag has enough storage pockets to keep all your devices in order without looking like it belongs in the basement of Initech. On the outside, it features a subtle gray pattern that pairs just as well with jeans as it does with a suit.
With an adjustable strap and ample padding to keep everything inside safe, this bag is a perfect companion for your morning commute. Usually $89.99, you can get this Slim Laptop Carrier here for $24.99.
Explore other Best-Sellers in our store:
- Coding + Development
- Learn to Code 2017 Bundle (Pay What You Want)
- Accessories
- D-I-Y Course
Water-cooled 72,000 lumen LED flashlight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vgNh3fLxJc
Last spring, Samm Sheperd created this amazing overclocked, water-cooled LED flashlight that pumps out 72,000 lumens, using about $700 worth of parts. (more…)
The basic opsec failures that unmasked James Comey's Twitter show how hard this stuff is
Gizmodo's Ashley Feinberg (almost certainly) figured out that James Comey's secret Twitter handle was @ReinholdNiebuhr, because America's top G-man failed at some of the most basic elements of operational security. (more…)
Thursday 30 March 2017
Watch: Pampered cats ring call bell for treats
These two cats have trained their human servant well.
I have always assumed the "dinosaur" was a dance
I don't think this video got nearly enough play time.
How to make a gigantic Arduino
My friend John Edgar Park made a huge Arduino for demo purposes. He brought it to Maker Faire a few years ago and it was a big hit. He finally got around to writing a tutorial for building your own.
DJI proposing "electronic license plates" for drones
Drone manufacturer DJI published a white paper proposing a kind of license plate for drones in the form of a wireless identifier that the buzzing UAVs would be required to broadcast. The paper describes a possible way to balance the privacy of drone operators with perceived public concern about whose controlling the bots buzzing overhead. You can read the full paper as a PDF here. From David Schneider's column in IEEE Spectrum:
As the company points out in its whitepaper, drone operators might want to maintain anonymity even if there were people around to witness their flights. Suppose, for example, that a company were surveying land in anticipation of purchasing and developing it. That company might not want to clue in competitors. Or perhaps the drone is being flown for the purposes of investigative journalism, in which case the journalists involved might not want others to know about their investigations.
DJI proposes that drones be required to broadcast an identifying code by radio . . . That code would not include the name and address of the owner, but authorities would be able to use it to look that information up in a non-public database—a kind of electronic license plates for drones.
At the same time, it’s easy to understand why law-enforcement or regulatory authorities would sometimes want to identify the owner or operator of a drone, say, if somebody felt the drone were invading their privacy or if a drone were being flown close to a nuclear power plant. “Many people have concerns [about drone flights] that could be ameliorated if somebody could talk to [the operator],” says Adam Lisberg, DJI’s spokesman for the United States and Canada.
DJI’s proposed solution is to require drones to broadcast an identifying code by radio, perhaps with that code embedded in the telemetry or video transmissions. That code would not include the name and address of the owner, but authorities would be able to use it to look up that information in a non-public database.
With two weeks until the final vote, the Free Software Foundation wants you to call the W3C and say no to DRM
There's only two weeks left until members of the World Wide Web Consortium vote on whether the web's premier open standards organization will add DRM to the toolkit available to web developers, without effecting any protections for people who discover security vulnerabilities that affect billions of web users, let alone people who adapt web tools for those with disabilities and people who create legitimate, innovative new technologies to improve web video. (more…)
How new emojis are born, a comic
Over at The Nib, excellent historical cartoonist Andy Warner, author of the wonderful Brief Histories of Everyday Objects, tells the story of how the Unicode Consortium brings new emoji into our online lives. From The Nib:
Read the full comic: "Want a New Emoji? Good Luck."
The man who literally sniffed out the problems in NYC's subway
In the early 20th century, James "Smelly" Kelly used his legendary sense of smell and DIY inventions to find hazards, leaks, elephant poop, and eels that were causing problems in the New York City subway system. Atlas Obscura's Eric Grundhauser profiles the the man known as The Sniffer:
In addition to finding water leaks and plumbing issues, Kelly was also responsible for detecting dangerous gas and chemical leaks. From invisible gas fumes that could be ignited by a random spark, to gasoline draining into the system from above-ground garages, Kelly was there to find them out using his allegedly hypersensitive nose.
The most sensational tale of Kelly’s sense of smell was the time he was called to a 42nd Street station to suss out a stench that had overtaken the platforms. According to Kelly’s own account, the smell was so bad it almost bowled him over, but as he got his head back in the game, he pinpointed the source of the reek as… elephants. Amazingly, he was correct. The station in question had been built beneath the location of the old New York Hippodrome, which had been torn down in 1939. The Hippodrome had often featured a circus, and layers of elephant dung had ended up buried at the site. A broken water main had rehydrated the fossilized dung and subsequently leaked into the subway. Until, that is, Smelly Kelly was able to identify it.
"The Man Who Used His Nose to Keep New York’s Subways Safe" (Atlas Obscura)
Penn State trustee "running out of sympathy" for "so-called" victims raped by the college's coach
Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky was convicted of multiple counts of raping the children in his care. He's spending the rest of his life in jail. It was covered up for decades by his disgraced boss Joe Paterno, who croaked before he could get nailed in court. The college's president, Graham Spanier, was himself convicted last week for child endangerment. But now all that's dealt with, a Penn State trustee has harsh words for their victims.
Penn State trustee Albert L. Lord said he is “running out of sympathy” for the “so-called” victims of former Nittany Lions assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, according to an email sent to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
"Running out of sympathy for 35 yr old, so-called victims with 7 digit net worth," Lord said in the email sent Saturday. "Do not understand why they were so prominent in trial. As you learned, Graham Spanier never knew Sandusky abused anyone."
Last September, the college "honored" Paterno at a game.
The fuck-you attitude Penn State brass has towards the victims is breathtaking. They've had to pay out $93m, but I guess that's pocket change to a college with a $4bn endowment.
Mosquito bite relief for your keychain
I've been using one of these $10 mosquito bite zappers for years. It's like a little stun gun - you hold the business end against an itchy mosquito bite and pull the trigger. It sends a little spark of electricity (it feels like a static electricity shock you get from walking across a carpet). I usually give myself about eight zaps and it stops the itching for hours. The manufacturer says the zapper suppresses histamines responsible for itching.
When I first got it, my kids were scared of the little shock. But they soon came around to the point were they happily self-administered the treatment.
High-heeled shoes for your baby
It comes amid growing concern at what is seen as the sexualisation of children.
"This is not ok," wrote Melissa Balinski.
Another commenter, Jen, said that "promoting products for babies this way is just sick". ...
"I will definitely avoid this brand," wrote Barrow, commenting on a picture of a baby in "black pump classics". "This is horrid," added Flory.
But some users left positive comments, remarking how the shoes made the infants "look adorable". "Too cute," wrote Latoyia.
Reminds me of the classic Hemingway 6-word story: "For sale: baby shoes, wait, what?"
Top 1000 asked questions in Google and their cost per click value
This list of the most-frequently asked questions on Google reveals what people are curious about, and how much advertisers are willing to pay to get people who ask certain questions to click on their ads.
It's odd that "how to jump a car" (rank: 197) has a CPC (cost per click) if $14.85. Advertisers are willing to pay $2.88 for people who ask "how to kill yourself" (rank: 202) to click their ad. "How to make spaghetti" (rank: 726) has a CPC of just $0.01. "How to give a blow job" (rank: 192) is worth a paltry $0.07 but "how to give a good blow job" (rank: 680) is worth $0.43. Sadly, "how old is snoop dogg" (rank: 741) isn't worth anything at all to advertisers. (He's 45, by the way).
Image: @jampschi via Twenty20
North Carolina set to pass "compromise" bathroom bill that still leaves trans people without a pot to piss in
NC Republicans and Democrats have collaborated on a "compromise" version of HB2, the state's notorious job-killing, boycott-raising, shamefully discriminatory bathroom bill. The compromise makes some cosmetic changes at the margins, but it's still a piece of shit that will embarrass the state on the national stage, and does not address any of the concerns raised by those who've announced boycotts of NC, meaning it will still cost the state billions. (more…)
What is the fastest music that humans can play and appreciate?
Bass player/instructor Adam Neely explores the fastest "useful" music that humans can play. It's a fascinating topic, really, especially how he, and scientists/musicologists, frame the question around what's musically "useful." And yes, speed metal is considered "useful."
Wild orangutan figures out how to saw wood
This wild-born, free-living orangutan found a saw and quickly figured out how to cut wood with it.
Entertaining video series on how to ship things
My friend Jesse Genet, founder of Lumi, created this useful and fun video series on how to effectively ship things.
Hungary's ultra-right government wants to shut down its storied, amazing Central European University
CEU is an American university in the heart of Budapest, founded by George Soros, who is no friend of the far-right, xenophobic Prime Minister Viktor Orban -- which may be why a new law requiring all foreign universities in Hungary to have a branch in their home country uniquely endangers CEU. (more…)
Crimm Grunk Garlic Cleas - and other recipes created by a neural network
Research scientist Janelle Shane has been training a neural network to generate food recipes by giving it tens of thousands of cookbook recipes. The neural net's recipes are excellent:
Beef Soup With Swamp Peef And Cheese
Chocolate Chops & Chocolate Chips
Crimm Grunk Garlic Cleas
Beasy Mist
Export Bean Spoons In Pie-Shell, Top If Spoon and Whip The Mustard
Chocolate Pickle Sauce
Whole Chicken Cookies
Salmon Beef Style Chicken Bottom
Star *
Cover Meats
Out Of Meat
Completely Meat Circle
Completely Meat Chocolate Pie
Cabbage Pot Cookies
Artichoke Gelatin Dogs
Crockpot Cold Water
Social Security cards explained
The Social Security card has become the de facto national ID in the USA. What is the history of the Social Security system, how has the function of the Social Security number changed, and why is it so easy to steal your SSN? CGP Grey explains it in this video.
Are GMOs good or bad? Genetic engineering and our food
These folks (Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell) make the best explainer videos. This one, which explores GMOs and genetically engineering food, is no exception.
Seedship is an absorbing text game of stellar colonization
Seedship is a text-only game of interstellar exploration and settlement. You're the sentient AI of a generation ship containing 1000 humans fleeing a doomed Earth, and you must deal with threats in deep space and evaluate target worlds for suitability. There are always tradeoffs: a world with breathable air and charming wildlife may guarantee comfort, but without resources will end in a genteel return to the stone age. A barren world rich in minerals and alien ruins means advancing human technology and culture, but at the cost of being enslaved to whomever owns the water generation plants.
If the aim is to find the best world for mankind, the fun is found subjecting it to the most punishing hell planets the cosmos offers. When I came across this total nightmare, I knew we had found home:
Things didn't work out. Most colonists died and the rest descended to savagery.
I haven't found a perfect world, but the following one got me to 10,000 civilization points, which feels like the threshold for success:
Every compromise matters. Even with such a lush world, its ecologically exhaustion (presumably thanks to whatever left the monumental ruins) resulted in a technological collapse described as "bronze-age cosmic enlightenment." If it were an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, we would most certainly be wearing textured earth tones.
Each combination is worth exploring, to find what sort of environments get you to theocracies or into endless war with natives. When I spotted the following world, I immediately thought "cybyerpunk corporate dystopia!" and was not disappointed by the results:
Created by SF writer John Ayliff (Twitter, Patreon), it's incredibly addictive, and a great example of Twine's potential for offbeat games where generative elements combine with handwritten storytelling. I was up to 2 a.m. last night exploring!
Two criticisms. First, the perils of space, which limit your ability to scan worlds and your potential to successfully colonize them, create gameplay but cut the drug. (What if we assumed we get there in one piece, traveling on Battlestar Kishōtenketsu?)
Second, the stories generated, by their nature, become repetitive. Posed as historical footnotes, they create an appropriate atmosphere of clinical, encyclopedic distance, but it can only tickle the imagination for so long. Games like this often come down to Attribute Bingo: hunting for particular combinations in search of a story one expects to find there.
I understand a little about the use of grammars and madlibs in code, though, and appreciate just how skilfully Seedship embodies its own ambition. The next level—telling generative stories with characters and details that truly engage us—lies over a vast gulf of complexity and cost. We might need generations, and a powerful AI, to get there.
Prison sentence for Spanish woman who tweeted jokes about the assassination of Franco's fascist successor
Julio writes, "A Spanish woman was sentenced yesterday for tweeting jokes about the 1973 assassination of Carrero Blanco (the appointed successor or General Franco). She was 16 at the time of her tweeting." (more…)
When should web designers use modal overlays?
"This web page needs to be interrupted by a lightbox effect and a modal dialog asking me to sign up for a mailing list," said no one ever. (more…)
Self-study materials on the fundamentals of malware analysis
Amanda Rousseau's self-learning materials for her Malware Unicorn workshop are a fantastic introduction to understanding and analyzing malware, covering the techniques used by malware authors, reverse-engineering tools, and three kinds of analysis: triage, static and dynamic. (more…)
Verizon mandates pre-installed spyware for all its Android customers
"Appflash" will come pre-installed on all Verizon Android handsets; it's a Google search-bar replacement, but instead of feeding telemetry about your searches, handset, apps and activities to Google, it will send them to Verizon. (more…)
Chimeric china: plates, cups, dishes and vases that mashup Chinese and European bone china
Seletti's Hybrid Collection "reflects on the historical production of Chinese and European Bone China and its influences between Western and Eastern aesthetics" -- they're made in Italy and they ain't cheap, but they really tickle my aesthetic sense. (more…)
1,800 thread sheets are so soft you fall to sleep just making the bed
Thread count isn’t like one of those deceiving metrics like camera megapixels or Facebook friends—more threads are always better if you can afford them. If price was no object, we would all be snoozing soundly bundled up in 1.8 kilo-thread sheets every single night. Guess what? Price doesn't have to be an object with this Premium sheet set!
These sheets have an absurdly high 1800 thread count to give you an incredibly soft sleeping surface. Their insides are made from bamboo rayon to keep you cool during hot and humid nights, and their 100% microfiber exterior ensure that they won’t wrinkle throughout their long lifetime.
The set is available in King and Queen size and includes top and fitted sheets, as well as 4 pillowcases to make your bedroom feel like a royal chamber. Usually $299.99, you can grab this Premium Collection 1800 thread count sheet set for over 80% off—just $41.99.
Explore other Best-Sellers in our store:
- Coding + Development
- Learn to Code 2017 Bundle (Pay What You Want)
- Accessories
- D-I-Y Course
Australia leads the world in selling housing to money-launderers
A new Transparency International report ranks the world's most superheated urban property markets to find the most corrupt and finds that Australia is a playground for offshore criminals looking to launder their money, because "real estate agents are not subject to the provisions of the Anti-Money Laundering and CounterTerrorism Financing Act 2006," thus, "70 per cent of Chinese buyers pay in cash and they represent the largest proportion of foreign purchases in the country." (more…)
Laurie Penny blazes: Brexit is just the latest alibi for austerity
Laurie Penny's red pen of justice (previously) is gouting unstoppable fire today in her column on the relationship of cruel austerity to Brexit: the decade during which Conservative ideologues gutted the nation to make the banks whole again after the financial crisis, creating a lost generation, quietly murdering disabled people, leaving the poor standing in breadlines not seen since the Victorian era -- all the while invoking the spirit of the Blitz and insisting that "we're all in this together." (more…)
Trailer for Stephen King's It (2017)
Pennywise and his real-world imitators may be thanked for putting an early end to the Pokemon Go fad last year, but the real fruit of It's labor is the forthcoming TV version of Steven King's classic horror book. Here's the trailer.
There's a high bar to meet, but it's worth remembering that the original miniseries was pretty dull when Tim Curry wasn't on-screen.
Fascinating documentary on combat photojournalist Catherine LeRoy
"The Hill Fights" is a clip from Jacques Menasche's film on the life and work of Catherine LeRoy, best known for covering the Vietnam War in all its unvarnished horror. (more…)
Watch these tops spin at 12000+ rpm despite high centers of gravity
YouTuber Latheman fired up his lathe and made these tops with the weight at the top. It's remarkable how long they can spin on a surface like glass or tile. (more…)
Apple finally allowed drone strike alert app, then removed it again
Josh Begley doesn't give up easily. After 12 rejections, Apple finally allowed his app Metadata+ to be sold on iTunes. But what the App Store giveth, the App Store taketh away. (more…)
New Magic Club in LA!
You’re in LA, sniffing around for something to do, can’t get into The Magic Castle or looking for something less expensive? There’s a new place in town: Black Rabbit Rose.
LA Magazine writes:
An extraordinary new magic-themed nightclub called Black Rabbit Rose is … on Hollywood Boulevard, and it looks spectacular. The latest enterprise by the Houston Brothers (the twins behind La Descarga and numerous other theme bars) includes a 40-seat theater, a Thai-Chinese dinner menu, and a cocktail lounge featuring roaming magicians, exotic variety acts (think sword swallowing), and burlesque dancers. The club was custom built with rooms that might suddenly come to life during performances.
The rooms are filled with tributes to 19th century magicians and tucked into a century-old apartment house. The flamboyantly ornate interior, dripping with gilt and velvet, may even remind you of the Magic Castle, less than a mile away. In a genius move, the club secured the services of longtime Castle favorite Rob Zabrecky as entertainment director and occasional performer. Charles Addams could not have cast the role better. Zabrecky’s cadaverous pallor and aura of foreboding create the gravitas that his spellbinding performance deserves. If you see his name on the bill, hotfoot it over to the Boulevard immediately. Black Rabbit Rose [is] open Tuesday through Saturday with ticketed shows ($25-$40) on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights.
The Hollywood Reporter writes:
[Black Rabbit Rose] is a new-school twist on Hollywood's famed Magic Castle, catering to the fantasies of the A-list millennial crowd. … At Black Rabbit Rose, bartenders serve complicated cocktails with a side of sleight-of-hand tricks. A classic Zoltar machine is rigged for staffers to tell fortunes remotely. And in the back, a 40-seat theater has been engineered with shaking floors, false walls and trick lighting for performances ($25 to $40) booked by magician Rob Zabrecky, whose work hosting the live show Brookledge Follies inspired Ryan Gosling to cast him in his directorial debut, Lost River. "It's amazing, the trouble they went into with this space—the details permeate every beat," says Paul Reubens (he and friend David Arquette consulted on the project).
Black Rabbit Rose, 1719 N Hudson Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90028
Phone: (323) 461-1464
Web: blackrabbitrose.com
Photographs By Jakob Layman
Via LA Magazine and The Hollywood Reporter
Meet the self-taught coder exposing California politics to the sunlight
Watch this inspiring summary of Rob Pyers' journey from laid-off grocery bagger to major player in following the money in California politics. (more…)
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