United Nations: too many women are being killed by their loved ones at home

Despite gains over the past century in the area of equal rights, equal pay and, in some regions, not having some assclown with a penis dictate what they do with their bodies, women, on the whole, still hold the short end of a very shitty stick. While men might feel safest and most comfortable inside the walls of their home, a new report from The United Nations has reiterated what far too many woman already know: the place that women call home is more dangerous than anywhere else they might roam.

From The New York Times:

About one in five homicides is carried out by an intimate partner or family member, and women and girls make up the vast majority of those deaths, the report concluded after analyzing the available data.

Of the approximately 87,000 women who were victims of intentional homicide last year around the world, about 34 percent were murdered by an intimate partner and 24 percent by a relative.

The rate of women killed by a partner or relative was highest in countries in Africa, followed by the Americas. The lowest rate was in Europe.

The New York Times points out that the U.N.'s report comes with a few caveats. First, it's worth mentioning that the vast majority of those murdered every year are men. But they're far less likely to be killed by an intimate partner or family member than a woman is. Second, women are just as capable of killing a family member or intimate partner as men are. But researchers found that the motivating factor for most men who murdered in the home tended to be alcoholism, jealousy, raging over a victim's sexual orientation or fear of being abandoned by their partners, while woman most often killed those who share a home with them because they're fed up with having the shit beaten out of them on a routine basis.

Finally, the researchers who sorted out the report admit that there's no good way to verify who committed gender-related murders or what the motivations for a killing in areas where armed conflicts are ongoing.

Image by Wilfried Huss / Anonymous - Flag of the United Nations from the Open Clip Art website. Modifications by Denelson83, Zscout370 and Madden. Official construction sheet here.United Nations (1962) The United Nations flag code and regulations, as amended November 11, 1952, New York OCLC: 7548838., Public Domain, Link

Zombie Dancing Squid!

I hate to yuck you out before the holidays …

… and I really love Japan …

… but this is just gross.

It’s a Japanese delicacy called “Katsu ika odori-don.”

The squid is deceased when the dish is served. A little soy sauce and he appears to return to life; in other words, a zombie.

Yuki, one of my friends in Japan, assures me that "dancing sashimi" such as this is delicious, and one of the reasons food is eaten this way is to ensure its freshness. Varieties including shrimp and octopus, in addition to squid. But if I saw this in a restaurant, I would run screaming out the door.

And here it is with lobster.

And this is the one that will give you nightmares!

Happy Nuke Year! U.S. Strategic Command tweets nuclear war joke on New Year's Eve

Man, the Trump administration's recklessness really makes people feel like they can just say whatever they want with no consequences.

Apparently, that now extends to the United States military agency tasked with the grim responsibility of overseeing America's stockpile of nuclear weapons.

“#TimesSquare tradition rings in the #NewYear by dropping the big ball...if ever needed, we are #ready to drop something much, much bigger,” tweeted US Strategic Command.

Yes, StratCom.

Hashtag “#Deterrence #Assurance #CombatReadyForce #PeaceIsOurProfession.”

Watch the funny video. It's hilarious.

#TimesSquare tradition rings in the #NewYear by dropping the big ball...if ever needed, we are #ready to drop something much, much bigger.

Watch to the end! @AFGlobalStrike @Whiteman_AFB #Deterrence #Assurance #CombatReadyForce #PeaceIsOurProfession... pic.twitter.com/Aw6vzzTONg

— US Strategic Command (@US_Stratcom) December 31, 2018

The military men who have the power to launch nuclear weapons at the command of a Potemkin President's tweeted impulse are making jokes about dropping nukes for New Year's, just because they can.

I'm sure Putin thinks it's all hilarious.

PHOTO, TOP: Slim Pickens rides the bomb in Stanley Kubrick's classic film, Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

Detaining immigrants is big business

Here's who is getting rich off Trump's immigrant detention camps.

A new Daily Beast investigation reveals new details about just how lucrative the business of detaining immigrant asylum-seekers in the United States has become.

“In 2018 alone, for-profit immigration detention was a nearly $1 billion industry underwritten by taxpayers and beset by problems that include suicide, minimal oversight, and what immigration advocates say uncomfortably resembles slave labor,” write the Beast's Spencer Ackerman and Adam Rawnsley.

Excerpt from '$800 Million in Taxpayer Money Went to Private Prisons Where Migrants Work for Pennies' --

Being in the U.S. illegally is a misdemeanor offense, and immigration detention is technically a civil matter, not a criminal process. But the reality looks much different. The Daily Beast reported last month that as of Oct. 20, ICE was detaining an average of 44,631 people every day, an all-time high. Now ICE has told The Daily Beast that its latest detention numbers are even higher: 44,892 people as of Dec. 8. Its budget request for the current fiscal year anticipates detaining 52,000 people daily.

Expanding the number of immigrants rounded up into jails isn’t just policy; it’s big business. Yesica’s employer and jailer, the private prisons giant GEO Group, expects its earnings to grow to $2.3 billion this year. Like other private prison companies, it made large donations to President Trump’s campaign and inaugural.

Pinning down the size and scope of the immigration prison industry is obscured by government secrecy. But the Daily Beast combed through ICE budget submissions and other public records to compile as comprehensive a list as possible of what for-profit prisons charge taxpayers to lock up a growing population, and how many people those facilities detain on average. The result: For 19 privately owned or operated detention centers for which The Daily Beast could find recent pricing data, ICE paid an estimated $807 million in fiscal year 2018.

Those 19 prisons hold 18,000 people—meaning that for-profit prisons currently lock up about 41 percent of the 44,000 people detained by ICE. But that’s not a comprehensive total, and the true figures are likely significantly higher.

Arizona: People are violently attacking driverless cars from Google/Alphabet's Waymo

People in Arizona are attacking self-driving cars rocks, knives, guns and their own vehicles, with a message to the automated car companies like Waymo, which is owned by Alphabet (Google's parent company). The message is, please go experiment with artificial intelligence in somebody else’s neighborhood.

In the video above, a pissed off guy in Chandler waves a gun at a passing Waymo van. There have been numerous accidents involving the autonomous vans.

The New York Times reports on the tire-slashing of a driverless vehicle that once happily roamed the streets of Chandler, which isn't far from Phoenix. There have been 21 violent attacks on driverless cars there in the last few years.

Waymo started testing self-driving vehicles in Chandler in 2016.

Waymo did not ask the human residents if they were cool with it.

They're not cool with it.

Excerpt from the NYT report:

In ways large and small, the city has had an early look at public misgivings over the rise of artificial intelligence, with city officials hearing complaints about everything from safety to possible job losses.

Some people have pelted Waymo vans with rocks, according to police reports. Others have repeatedly tried to run the vehicles off the road. One woman screamed at one of the vans, telling it to get out of her suburban neighborhood. A man pulled up alongside a Waymo vehicle and threatened the employee riding inside with a piece of PVC pipe.

In one of the more harrowing episodes, a man waved a .22-caliber revolver at a Waymo vehicle and the emergency backup driver at the wheel. He told the police that he “despises” driverless cars, referencing the killing of a female pedestrian in March in nearby Tempe by a self-driving Uber car.

“There are other places they can test,” said Erik O’Polka, 37, who was issued a warning by the police in November after multiple reports that his Jeep Wrangler had tried to run Waymo vans off the road — in one case, driving head-on toward one of the self-driving vehicles until it was forced to come to an abrupt stop.

Sounds like human interactions with driverless cars are Waymo challenging than the tech company foresaw.

I'll go get my coat and be outta here now.

Go read the rest here.

You can also go read all the original reporting on this 'attacking driverless cars in Arizona' phenomenon in the Arizona Republic.

Excerpt:

A Waymo self-driving van cruised through a Chandler neighborhood Aug. 1 when test driver Michael Palos saw something startling as he sat behind the wheel — a bearded man in shorts aiming a handgun at him as he passed the man's driveway.

The incident is one of at least 21 interactions documented by Chandler police during the past two years where people have harassed the autonomous vehicles and their human test drivers.

People have thrown rocks at Waymos. The tire on one was slashed while it was stopped in traffic. The vehicles have been yelled at, chased and one Jeep was responsible for forcing the vans off roads six times.

Many of the people harassing the van drivers appear to hold a grudge against the company, a division of Mountain View, California-based Alphabet Inc., which has tested self-driving technology in the Chandler area since 2016.

[via @kimmurphy]

Man with knife makes bomb threat at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport - suspect 'overpowered'

A man with knife a who made a bomb threat at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam has been 'overpowered' by Dutch police forces, per reports.

Man threatens with a bomb in Departure hall 3 at Schiphol. Currently Departure hall 3 is being evacuated. More information will follow as soon as possible. https://t.co/DDQJuZa9Zn

— Schiphol (@Schiphol) December 31, 2018

Amsterdam Schiphol Airport departure hall 3 was evacuated earlier, when the bomb threat occurred. It has since reopened.

@Schiphol any updates on Departures 3 being closed off..? pic.twitter.com/uJn81I6AbV

— Shola (@piousonn) December 31, 2018

Departures and Arrivals 3 were evacuated due to a bomb threat. The police (@Marechaussee) arrested the suspect. Departures and Arrivals 3 are now being opened again for operation.

— Schiphol (@Schiphol) December 31, 2018

From International Flight Network news:

Departure area 3 at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport was evacuated on Monday evening following a bomb threat.

The airport confirmed that a “man threatens with a bomb in departure hall 3” and that the area was closed off.

A short time later, it was confirmed that the man, who was reportedly armed with a knife, was arrested by the Royal Military Police.

Amsterdam Schiphol Airport is the third busiest airport in Europe and serves as the main hub for Dutch flag-carrier KLM.

[Photo: © Schiphol Airport, via IFN]

Texas: Large Infant Son breaks hospital newborn weight record at 15 pounds

This baby set a hospital weight record at birth. Of course it happened in Texas.

Mother and child are reported by CNN to be healthy.

CNN reports on the ginormous human baby born in Arlington, Texas, weighing in at nearly 15 pounds.

Video: Red Rose Tattoo offers to cover up racist ink at no charge in a stand against hate

Billy Joe White, the owner of Red Rose Tattoo in Zanesville, Ohio is taking a stand against hate.

Red Rose Tattoos has an open door policy to anyone who chose to adorn their flesh with swastikas, white power symbols and other racist bullshit: visit the shop and you'll receive a beautiful piece of body art to cover up your hateful ink, for no charge. It's a small, important gesture that can change the lives of formerly hateful folks in a powerful way.

Iran sacks state TV chief after uncensored broadcast of Jackie Chan sex scene

A broadcast of the 2009 crime drama The Shinjuku Incident cost an Iranian TV chief his job last week, reports the BBC. He forgot to censor a sex scene featuring star Jackie Chan.

Iranian media said the "immoral" scene was aired by Kish TV in "total violation of Irib's regulations".

Physical contact between men and women is not permitted on screen in Iran.

Censors are also said to be required to remove men and women exchanging "tender words or jokes", unveiled women, close-ups of women's faces and exposed necklines, as well as negative portrayals of police and bearded men.

I only have more questions after reading this.

San Diego is America's safest city, but Republicans keep claiming that the US-Mexican border is responsible for "gangs, drugs, human trafficking and massive crime"

San Diego and Tijuana are practically a single city, separated by a border, which Donald Trump wants to close, claiming that "The most important way to stop gangs, drugs, human trafficking and massive crime is at our Southern Border."

White supremacist Tucker Carlson, who grew up near the San Diego/Tijuana border-crossing at San Ysidro, blames immigration for making America "poorer and dirtier and more divided."

San Diego is America's safest large city.

And it's not an exception: other safer-than-average US cities include the border towns of El Paso, San Antonio, and Phoenix.

Reality has such a left-wing bias.

San Diego is poised to end 2018 with 1.9 murders per 100,000 residents, compared to 23.1 per 100,000 in Indianapolis and 51.7 per 100,000 in Baltimore. That means a resident of Indianapolis is 12 times more likely to be murdered, a resident of Baltimore 27 times.

If the border crisis is real, wouldn’t the crime rate in San Diego reflect that? If illegal immigration is the existential threat that President Trump and conservative Republicans say it is, wouldn’t there be evidence in San Diego? Wouldn’t MS-13 gang members and drug traffickers be shooting people in downtown San Diego? Slashing hard working citizens in San Ysidro? Terrorizing the streets of La Jolla?

Opinion: If There’s a Crisis on The Border, Why Is San Diego So Safe? [Chris Jennewein/Times of San Diego]

(via Mitch Wagner)

(Image: CBP)

In the future we might paint our homes with dead Christmas trees

Lots of folks celebrate Christmas by stashing their presents under the same reusable plastic and aluminum wire Christmas tree every winter: it's a thoughtful, cost-efficient way to cut down on the amount of post holiday garbage that winds up in wood chippers or the local dump every year.

However, a lot of people still like to kick it old school with a cut-from-its-roots-and-left-to-slowly-die-in-a-pot-of-water conifer. They smell and look amazing...for a while. Once the presents have been unwrapped and the tree begins to brown, out the door it goes. Upwards of 30 million Americans wind up tossing out these Yuletide corpses every year. Happily, it looks like a scientist has sorted out a the means for making better use of these discarded trees once folks are finished getting their holly-jolly on with them.

The process involves breaking down a chemical called lignocellulose in needles of dead pine trees into a useful substance that could be used to make paint or artificial sweeteners and other wicked useful products.

From Futurism:

Lignocellulose is ugly. No, really. Its chemical structure makes it difficult to use for biomass energy, and it serves little industrial purpose. Sheffield PhD student Cynthia Kartey’s work has focused on examining ways to make use of this material, and now she may be on to something.

Using heat and glycerol, Kartey was able to break down the pine needles into two components, one of which was made mostly of materials like glucose, acetic acid and phenol. All three have uses in other industries — glucose is used to make food sweeteners, phenol is used in products like mouthwash, and acetic acid for making adhesives, vinegar, and even paint.

Image: by Mattsenate - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Video from the launch of the EFF/McSweeney's "End of Trust" project launch with Cindy Cohn, Annalee Newitz, and me!

The End of Trust is the first-ever nonfiction issue of McSweeney's, co-edited by McSweeney's editors and the staff of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; on December 11, we held a sold-out launch event in San Francisco with EFF executive director Cindy Cohn, science fiction writer and EFF alumna Annalee Newitz, and me.

Lisa Rein recorded the event for Mondo 2000, producing a partial transcript, an audio recording (MP3) and a video.

Cindy Cohn: “The first reason is that there’s a fundamental constitutional question at the centerpiece regarding how we are going to interact with our technology, that can make all the other questions easier.

The second reason is that all of the direct actions that you might want to take in order to exercise your self-governance and have your voice heard, requires some kind of legal protection, right? And when we talk about “direct action,” the reason that you can do direct action and not end up with a very long jail sentence is because, in the United States, compared to other places around the world, is because the Constitution says you can. All the hackers who EFF represents, who tell us all the things about the security problems and the surveillance – if we don’t get the law right, they’re not going to be able to do that. So, I often say that about EFF that we’re kind of the plumbers of freedom. We’re trying to get the obstacles out of the way, so that all the other things you can do to exercise your rights in the digital world can really flow freely.

And so, I think for both of those reasons, EFF was grounded in the law. But also, at this point, we build technology. We have an action center. We support a lot of people that do a lot of direct action. We support a lot of people that need to protect themselves, that do direct action, and all sorts of other things. So although we are firmly grounded in the law, and that’s my background, the organization has really trying to grown to build a lot of different tools in our toolbox to deal with these problems.

Cindy Cohn & Cory Doctorow & Annalee Newitz Discuss “The End of Trust” [Lisa Rein/Mondo 2000]

White Mirror: How did Microsofts 2009 predictions for the world of 2019 hold up?

In 2009, Microsoft produced a video imagining the world of 2019. They did well with the software aspects of touchscreen interfaces and machine vision, but overshot the runway on bezel-less devices and the general ubiquity of touchscreens themselves. There's a touchscreen coffee mug! All the depicted applications (such as flexible high-FPS color e-ink) are shown without a batteries or other power sources. This is a mandatory omission in all such future fantasies.

The clip is a general reminder of how predictable developments in basic consumer technology were over this time period. Microsoft was on solid ground exaggerating what were already, in 2009, obvious and entrenched trends, and then imagining what the rich would be doing with touchscreens on everything. Consider that a 2009 iMac is virtually identical, from the front, to a 2018 model. The evolution is in the details: thinness, high-DPI panels, faster hardware, software refinement, and so on. Still no touchscreen Macs, mind you...

Yet everything has changed with how we use this technology, and Microsoft didn't imagine any of that. Check out the Harry Potter newspaper: they went for blandly positive business headlines. This safe bet (also constrained by having to avoid controvertial predictions) turns out to be the most ironically inaccurate prognostication of them all.

The overall impression is of a "white mirror" -- a dreamy, pleasant, cannily short step into the near-future.

But it's not as if they're going to show all their wealthy business travelers weeping before their crypto investments, glumly cycling through the same algorithm-selected tweets again and again, or explaining on YouTube that racial slurs are just gamer talk. Microsoft wasn't thinking of the "beige basement" crowd, after all.

Happy Public Domain day: for real, for the first time in 20 years!

Every year, Jennifer Jenkins and Jamie Boyle from the Duke Center for the Public Domain compile a "Public Domain Day" list (previously) that highlights the works that are not entering the public domain in America, thanks to the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which hit the pause button on Americans' ability to freely use their artistic treasures for two decades -- a list that also included the notable works entering the public domain in more sensible countries of the Anglophere, like Canada and the UK, where copyright "only" lasted for 50 years after the author's death.

But this year, it's different.

This is the year that America unpauses its public domain; it's also the year that Canadian PM Justin Trudeau capitulated to Donald Trump and retroactively extended copyright on works in Canada for an extra 20 years, ripping works out of Canada's public domain, making new works based on them into illegal art (more proof that good hair and good pecs don't qualify you to be a good leader -- see also: V. Putin -- not even when paired with high-flying, cheap rhetoric).

Even as Canada's public domain has radically contracted, America's has, for the first, time, opened.

So this year's American Public Domain Day List is, for the first time in 20 years, not a work melancholy alternate history, but rather a celebration of works that Americans are newly given access to without restriction or payment, for free re-use and adaptation, in the spirit of such classics as Snow White, West Side Story, My Fair Lady, All You Need is Love, and more.

Films
* Safety Last!, directed by Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor, featuring Harold Lloyd
* The Ten Commandments, directed by Cecil B. DeMille
* The Pilgrim, directed by Charlie Chaplin
* Our Hospitality, directed by Buster Keaton and John G. Blystone
* The Covered Wagon, directed by James Cruze
* Scaramouche, directed by Rex Ingram

Books
* Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan and the Golden Lion
* Agatha Christie, The Murder on the Links
* Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis
* e.e. cummings, Tulips and Chimneys
* Robert Frost, New Hampshire
* Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
* Aldous Huxley, Antic Hay
* D.H. Lawrence, Kangaroo
* Bertrand and Dora Russell, The Prospects of Industrial Civilization
* Carl Sandberg, Rootabaga Pigeons
* Edith Wharton, A Son at the Front
* P.G. Wodehouse, works including The Inimitable Jeeves and Leave it to Psmith
* Viginia Woolf, Jacob's Room

Music
* Yes! We Have No Bananas, w.&m. Frank Silver & Irving Cohn
* Charleston, w.&m. Cecil Mack & James P. Johnson
* London Calling! (musical), by Noel Coward
* Who’s Sorry Now, w. Bert Kalmar & Harry Ruby, m. Ted Snyder
* Songs by “Jelly Roll” Morton including Grandpa’s Spells, The Pearls, and Wolverine Blues (w. Benjamin F. Spikes & John C. Spikes; m. Ferd “Jelly Roll” Morton)
* Works by Bela Bartok including the Violin Sonata No. 1 and the Violin Sonata No. 2
* Tin Roof Blues, m. Leon Roppolo, Paul Mares, George Brunies, Mel Stitzel, & Benny Pollack (There were also compositions from 1923 by other well-known artists including Louis Armstrong, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, WC Handy, Oscar Hammerstein, Gustav Holst, Al Jolson, Jerome Kern, and John Phillip Sousa; though their most famous works were from other years.)

And as great as that list is, it's hardly a patch on the amazing works we'd be inheriting if the Sonny Bono law hadn't been passed and the 1978 law was still on the books -- works whose authors fully expected them to be in the public domain as of tomorrow:

Books
* Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time
* Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
* Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August
* Katherine Anne Porter, Ship of Fools
* James Baldwin, Another Country
* Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle
* Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
* Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire
* Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
* Michael Harrington, The Other America
* Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom
* J.G. Ballard, The Drowned World
* Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes
* Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
* Edward Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
* Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
* Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook
* Helen Gurley Brown, Sex and the Single Girl
* Ingri d’Aulaire and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire, D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths

Movies
* Lawrence of Arabia
* The Longest Day
* The Manchurian Candidate
* Dr. No
* Jules and Jim
* Sanjuro
* Birdman of Alcatraz
* Mutiny on the Bounty
* Days of Wine and Roses
* How the West Was Won

Music
* Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream), by Cindy Walker, performed by Roy Orbison
* Blowin’ in the Wind, Bob Dylan
* Watermelon Man, Herbie Hancock (from his first album, Takin’ Off)
* Twistin’ the Night Away, Sam Cooke
* You Can’t Judge a Book by the Cover and You Shook Me, Willie Dixon
* Surfin’ Safari, The Beach Boys
* Songs from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Stephen Sondheim
* Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream), Cindy Walker
* Big Girls Don’t Cry, Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio
* Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield
* Little Boxes, Malvina Reynolds
* The Loco-Motion, Gerry Goffin and Carole King
* Soldier Boy, Luther Dixon and Florence Greenberg

And, as Jenkins and Boyle point out, the largely hidden casualty of copyright term extension is the scholarship and research published in academic journals, who paid nothing for these works, and who have locked them up for decades to come:

1962 was another exciting year for science. John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth. The muon neutrino subatomic particle was discovered by Leon Lederman, Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger. The “father of the Internet,” J. C. R. Licklider, began discussing an “Intergalactic Computer Network,” and co-authored (with Welden E. Clark) an article entitled “On-line man-computer communication.” But if you want to read Licklider’s 1962 article on the journal website, and you do not have a subscription or institutional access, you will encounter a paywall.

A distressing number of scientific articles from 1962 require payment, or a subscription or account. Want to download “Unconscious Mental Imagery in Art and Science” in the journal Nature? Here’s the paywall—the pdf is $32. Science and JAMA 5 both charge $30 to view a single article from 1962 for 24 hours. Want to read about experiences from “The Obesity-Diabetes Clinic” in JAMA? Here’s the payment page. Want to read about a report on elevations and ice thickness in “Oversnow Traverse from McMurdo to the South Pole”? If you go to Science’s page to purchase digital access, you will see that you can purchase access for 1 day for $30 US—but that’s not all. You also have to agree to the following restrictions and conditions: “You may view, download, and/or print the article for your personal scholarly, research, and educational use” but may not distribute or post it, and you must agree both to accept cookies and be contacted from time to time about the publisher’s products. Of course, many scientists will have institutional access to these journals, but this access is not guaranteed—even institutions such as Harvard have considered canceling their subscriptions because they could no longer afford the escalating prices of major journal subscriptions.

It’s remarkable to find scientific research from 1962 hidden behind publisher paywalls. Thankfully, some publishers have made older articles available in full online, so that you can read them, even though it may still be illegal to copy and distribute them. In addition, some older articles have been made available on third party websites, but this is not a stable solution for providing reliable access to science. Third party postings can be difficult to find or taken down, links can get broken, and would-be posters may be deterred by the risk of a lawsuit. Under the pre-1978 copyright term, all of this history would be free to scholars, students, and enthusiasts.

Not all scientific publishers work under this kind of copyright scheme. “Open Access” scientific publications, like those of the Public Library of Science, are under Creative Commons licenses, meaning that they can be copied freely from the day they are published.

January 1, 2019 is (finally) Public Domain Day: Works from 1923 are open to all! [Jennifer Jenkins and Jamie Boyle/Duke Center for the Public Domain]

What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2019? [Jennifer Jenkins and Jamie Boyle/Duke Center for the Public Domain]

The Chinese government is putting tracking chips into school uniforms to watch every move kids make

Just when you thought that the Chinese government's extensive surveillance of the country's citizens couldn't get any creepier or more intrusive, Xi Jingping slyly raises an eyebrow and asks the west to hold his Tsingtao:

From The Epoch Times:

In China’s latest quest to build an all-seeing surveillance state, schools have become part of the state’s monitoring apparatus.

Students at more than 10 schools in Guizhou Province, one of China’s poorest provinces, and the neighboring Guangxi region are now required to wear “intelligent uniforms,” which are embedded with electronic chips that track their movements.

The uniforms allow school officials, teachers, and parents to keep track of the exact times that students leave or enter the school, Lin Zongwu, principal of the No. 11 School of Renhuai in Guizhou Province, told the state-run newspaper Global Times on Dec. 20.

If students skip school without permission, an alarm will be triggered.

If students try to game the system by swapping uniforms, an alarm also will sound, as facial-recognition equipment stationed at the school entrance can match a student’s face with the chip embedded in the uniform.

Each of the "intelligent uniforms" contain two tracking chips which, according to the company that makes them, can withstand temperatures of up to 150 degrees Celsius and at least 500 runs through a washing machine -- so much for accidentally destroying the hardware. In addition to keeping track of the whereabouts of the kids that wear them for every moment of their school day, the uniforms' chip set can also tell when a child is nodding off during the school day and be used to make cashless purchases of school lunches and other educational necessities.

Obviously, not everyone is down with this sort of tech being used in schools or, well, anywhere. According to the Epoch Times, users of Sina Weibo (sort of a Chinese iteration of Twitter) expressed concern that the tech further eroded privacy and tracking people to such an extensive extent could be considered a human rights violation.

The big question here is how long will it be until similar tech is employed in other facets of Chinese society: school campuses offer a small, easily studied group of test subjects in a predictable setting. Once the kinks in the smart uniforms are ironed out, the tracking hardware could be used in factories or, in a far more Orwellian scenario, be forced upon every citizen to use as they go about their lives.

Image: by Greenhall1 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Fallen officer honored

Detective Deirdre Mengedoht was killed when a truck crashed into her police cruiser on Christmas Eve. Some local news outlets experienced difficulties covering the story.

Weekend Tunes: DeVotchKa – Straight Shot

DeVotchKa's latest album, This Night Falls Forever, has been on near constant rotation in our home since I picked it up a few weeks ago. As usual, the band's music is heartrendingly beautiful. Straight Shot is the first track on the album and the one that, for me at least, has been the band's biggest ear worm this time around.

Pipes under Portland produce power while they deliver water to homes and businesses

Apparently, this story popped up back in 2015, but it's so cool that it's still worth reading about now: the city of Portland, Oregon has water pipes buried underneath of it that not only carry clean drinking water to the locals, but also generate hydroelectric power at the same time!

From Fast Company:

In Portland, one of the city's main pipelines now uses Lucid's pipes to make power that's sent into the grid. Though the system can't generate enough energy for an entire city, the pipes can power individual buildings like a school or library, or help offset a city's total energy bill. Unlike wind or solar power, the system can generate electricity at any time of day, regardless of weather, since the pipes always have water flowing through them.

The pipes can't generate power in every location; they only work in places where water is naturally flowing downward with gravity (if water is being pumped, the system would waste energy). But they have another feature that can be used anywhere: The pipes have sensors that can monitor water, something that utilities couldn't do in the past.

Providing power to partially operate water treatment and pump facilities during the day and then juice up streetlights at night: what's not to love about that?

Prominent newspapers across the United States come under cyberattack

2018 has been a dangerous year for those who bring us the news: according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 129 journalists were killed this year. For the first time in history, the United States has been listed as one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists to ply their trade. The President of the United States has been calling the media industry an "enemy of the people" for the past two years. Many of his acolytes have bought into his bullshit: news rooms have come under assault by gunmen. Bomb threats against TV stations have been made on a number of occasions. Nicaragua's government has hamstrung the nation's independent press. Jamal Khashoggi of The Washington Post was strangled and sawed to pieces by Saudi operatives. President Trump pretty much shrugged his shoulders and got on with his life. The hate and distrust showered on those working to cast light on the dark secrets that our governments would rather not be known are a budding fascist's wet dream.

And now, many of the nation's newspapers of record have suffered a cyberattack.

From The Los Angeles Times:

A cyberattack that appears to have originated from outside the United States caused major printing and delivery disruptions at several newspapers across the country on Saturday including the Los Angeles Times, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.

The attack led to distribution delays in the Saturday edition of The Times, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun and several other major newspapers that operate on a shared production platform. It also stymied distribution of the West Coast editions of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, which are all printed at the Los Angeles Times’ Olympic printing plant in downtown Los Angeles.

“We believe the intention of the attack was to disable infrastructure, more specifically servers, as opposed to looking to steal information,” said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly.

According to the LA Times, which is owned by billionaire Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the attack also clipped publications owned by the paper's owners, Tribune Publishing, and Gannett--the parent company of USA Today.

At the time that this story was first reported upon, the FBI wasn't aware that the cyberattack had taken place. I'm betting that the incident has a good chunk of their attention, by now. Right now, if anyone knows about who launched the attack, their keeping their mouths shut. The best that anyone seems able to manage is that the attack came from outside of the country.

Image via Wikipedia Commons

Protests after violent seizure of Peking University's Marxist Society

The Marxist Society of Peking University were getting ready to celebrate Mao's 125th birthday when the university administration abruptly deposed its leader, Qui Zhanxuan, and replaced the Society's leadership and upper cadres with 32 ringers largely drawn from the Communist Youth League or the Chinese Communist Party.

The ensuing student protests ("Give us back our Marxist student society, resist violence on campus") were violently suppressed, with protesters beaten and dragged away, and at least nine arrests, including Qui.

The takeover follows an earlier, unsuccessful attempt to shut down the society: in September, the revelation of a secret plan to de-charter the Society sparked protests that scuttled the plan.

It's part of a mounting internal struggle in China between Marxist student groups who object to the concentration of power and wealth into the hands of Party-connected oligarchs who run exploitative factories and other concerns, and the CCP, which -- despite recent anti-corruption purges -- is primarily a vehicle for ensuring political stability while China's plutocrats consolidate ever-larger shares of the nation's wealth into their hands, even as wildcat strikes sweep the nation.

The national crackdown on student organizers has been designed to terrorize Communist student movements who are too young to be held in line by memories of the massacre of student activists in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

The CCP regime, which has all but abandoned its socialistic phrase-mongering, is terrified at the prospect of students politicizing the struggles of workers. The CCP represents the interests the super-wealthy oligarchs who have been profiting from the processes of capitalist restoration since 1978 and is well aware that it is sitting on top of a social time bomb. Over the past 40 years, the social gulf between rich and poor has widened immensely, generating huge social tensions that now threaten to erupt as the country’s economy slows markedly.

The CCP is determined to prevent a recurrence of the nation-wide protests that erupted in 1989 after students demonstrated in Tiananmen Square. The turning point in the protests came after they were joined by workers voicing their own class grievances. The regime violently suppressed the protest in Beijing and other cities. The repression was a signal to foreign investors that the CCP use all means to police the working class and capital flooded into the country.

University authorities suppress student protest in China [Peter Symonds/WSWS]

Guillotine Watch: weighing the pros and cons of keeping your art collection on your super-yacht

Writing in The Art Newspaper, Andrea Marechal Watson enumerates the up- and down-sides of keeping your millions in art treasures aboard your super-yacht: on the one hand, the full-time crew of up to 50 will certainly ensure that the art is well looked-after and kept in climate controlled stasis; but then there's the problem that international looters like Jho Low have had their collections seized after their complicity in multi-billion-dollar frauds were discovered. Super-yachts with many millions in art aboard might be excellent "floating signifiers of their owners’ wealth," but on balance you might be better off warehousing your "assets" in anonymous shipping containers in the Freeport of Basel. (Images: Ed g2s, MrPanyGoff, CC-BY-SA) (via JWZ)

Scratch is hiring an executive director

Scratch creator Mitchel Resnick -- head of the MIT Media Lab's Lifelong Kindgergarten Group -- writes, "Until now, Scratch has been developed by my research group at the MIT Media Lab. In the coming year, the Scratch Team will be moving out of MIT into a separate nonprofit organization (the Scratch Foundation). We’re looking to hire a new Executive Director to help build this organization and develop strategies to sustain Scratch as a free, creative platform."

At this important stage in its growth, the Scratch Foundation is looking to hire a creative and entrepreneurial Executive Director to lead the organization into the future. Reporting to the Scratch Foundation’s Board of Directors, the Executive Director will work collaboratively with others on the Scratch team to build the Scratch Foundation into a well-run, sustainable organization capable of realizing its ambitious vision, mission, and goals. The Executive Director will also work closely with the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab, which will continue to pursue educational research and innovation related to Scratch.

The Executive Director will be a proven organizational leader with experience building and managing through a period of growth. This individual will be responsible for execution of the overall strategy and ensuring that all staff, operations, and systems are working in support of the overall mission. The ideal candidate will inspire continued growth in fundraising, stakeholder engagement, and brand awareness. With a deep belief in the power of creativity and a genuine commitment to the values of Scratch, the Executive Director will also support, sustain, and grow a creative, caring, collaborative work environment that attracts and retains a motivated, diverse, mission-driven staff.

Organization: Scratch Foundation

Barack Obama lists his favorite books, music, and movies of 2018

President Barack Obama released his annual list of favorite books, movies, and songs on his Facebook page yesterday. Remember when we had an intellectually and culturally curious president who did things like reading books? It seems so long ago...

From Facebook:

As 2018 draws to a close, I’m continuing a favorite tradition of mine and sharing my year-end lists. It gives me a moment to pause and reflect on the year through the books, movies, and music that I found most thought-provoking, inspiring, or just plain loved. It also gives me a chance to highlight talented authors, artists, and storytellers – some who are household names and others who you may not have heard of before. Here’s my best of 2018 list - I hope you enjoy reading, watching, and listening.

Here’s a reminder of the books that I read this year that appeared on earlier lists:
Becoming by Michelle Obama (obviously my favorite!)
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die by Keith Payne
Educated by Tara Westover
Factfulness by Hans Rosling
Futureface: A Family Mystery, an Epic Quest, and the Secret to Belonging by Alex Wagner
A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thiong’o
A House for Mr Biswas by V.S. Naipaul
How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History by Mitch Landrieu
Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
The New Geography of Jobs by Enrico Moretti
The Return by Hisham Matar
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick Deneen
The World As It Is by Ben Rhodes

Here are my other favorite books of 2018:
American Prison by Shane Bauer
Arthur Ashe: A Life by Raymond Arsenault
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday
Feel Free by Zadie Smith
Florida by Lauren Groff
Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight
Immigrant, Montana by Amitava Kumar
The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson
Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark
There There by Tommy Orange
Washington Black by Esi Edugyan

My favorite movies of 2018:
Annihilation
Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman
Blindspotting
Burning
The Death of Stalin
Eighth Grade
If Beale Street Could Talk
Leave No Trace
Minding the Gap
The Rider
Roma
Shoplifters
Support the Girls
Won’t You Be My Neighbor

And finally, my favorite songs of 2018:
Apes••t by The Carters
Bad Bad News by Leon Bridges
Could’ve Been by H.E.R. (feat. Bryson Tiller)
Disco Yes by Tom Misch (feat. Poppy Ajudha)
Ekombe by Jupiter & Okwess
Every Time I Hear That Song by Brandi Carlile
Girl Goin’ Nowhere by Ashley McBryde
Historia De Un Amor by Tonina (feat. Javier Limón and Tali Rubinstein)
I Like It by Cardi B (feat. Bad Bunny and J Balvin)
Kevin’s Heart by J. Cole
King For A Day by Anderson East
Love Lies by Khalid & Normani
Make Me Feel by Janelle Monáe
Mary Don’t You Weep (Piano & A Microphone 1983 Version) by Prince
My Own Thing by Chance the Rapper (feat. Joey Purp)
Need a Little Time by Courtney Barnett
Nina Cried Power by Hozier (feat. Mavis Staples)
Nterini by Fatoumata Diawara
One Trick Ponies by Kurt Vile
Turnin’ Me Up by BJ the Chicago Kid
Wait by the River by Lord Huron
Wow Freestyle by Jay Rock (feat. Kendrick Lamar)

And in honor of one of the great jazz singers of all time, who died this year, a classic album: The Great American Songbook by Nancy Wilson

(Photo: Pete Souza/White House Archives)

Doctor says 'selfie wrist' injuries are on the rise

I'm feeling sad for humanity. "Selfie wrist" is a thing.

According to CBSNewYork, San Francisco doctor Levi Harrison is seeing a rise in an injury caused by "hyper-flexing your wrist inwards to capture the perfect selfie angle."

“Selfie wrist” can reportedly cause numbness and a tingling sensation that people feel in their fingers and wrists.

(DesignTaxi)

photo by Susanne Nilsson/Flickr

Teddy Ruxpin won't leave my tortured brain alone

Just now, I tried to recall what I had for lunch the other day. I had to wrestle with it for a few moments before I was able to pin a chicken chimichanga at Espi & T's to the mat for a ten-count.

I don't remember the face of the the woman who broke my heart while I was in my early 20s nor what happened to the boxes of the comic books I used to own. But my head absolutely refuses to let go of the theme song to The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin -- a cartoon that I watched MAYBE twice in my life. It's been slowly driving me insane for the past few days.

Share in my pain.

Tesla adds farting mode and other Easter eggs in latest firmware update

Teslas now have built-in "whoopie cushions" thanks to a new firmware update. The vehicles can now make farting noises on demand or by use of a turn signal with what they're cheekily calling, "Emissions Testing Mode." Jalopnik reports there are seven flatulence sounds to choose from -- "Not a Fart, Short Shorts Rapper, Falcon Heavy, Ludicrous Fart, Neurastink, Boring Fart, and what seems to be a fart randomizer."

There are two other bizarre Easter eggs in this update: Romance Mode and Pole Position. The former provides a virtual fireplace and the latter is a retro-modern version of the old school racing video game.

Hopped in my @Tesla this morning and was delighted to find “romance mode” and a drop-down list of juicy, on demand fart noises, that can be triggered with a wheel click or turn signal.

The best keeps getting better.

Thanks @elonmusk and team! pic.twitter.com/L6HGX8w2cs

— Kevin Pereira (@Attack) December 19, 2018

Jalopnik: Tesla Introduces 'Romance Mode' and On-Demand Fart Noises Because Tesla Is About Making the World Better

(Geekologie)

screenshot via RM Videos/YouTube

Kevin Spacey's creepy Frank Underwood video: now with Director's Commentary

This director's commentary of the bizarre Kevin Spacey video that heralded his being charged with felony indecent assault and battery this week doesn't explain what in the hell Spacey was thinking when he filmed it. It is, however, an absolute improvement over having to listen to the cornered megalomaniac blather in that tired, far from endearing Frank Underwood drawl.

Thanks to James Urbaniak (AKA Skip Sullivan) for bringing us all a little holiday cheer.

More videos from our University of Chicago interdisciplinary seminar series: "Censorship and Information Control"

Between September and December, I collaborated with science fiction writer and Renaissance historian Ada Palmer and science historian Adrian Johns on a series of interdisciplinary seminars on "Censorship and Information Control" with a rotating crew of academics and practitioners from several fields.

Thanks to generous Kickstarter backers, we were able to pay for professional videography and ADA-compliant subtitling for the whole series, and there are now five of the seminars online for your viewing pleasure (podcasts, including an edited highlight series, are still to come).

I'm so pleased with how these turned out. Every one of these seminars was a delight, as fascinating experts from disciplines that rarely interact with one another engaged in dialog about the history, present and future of censorship and information control, with discussions ranging over privacy, totalitarianism, human liberty, the limits of tolerance, and more -- we even had a theater troupe from the UK come and perform bawdy, banned plays from the Interregnum (these included someone getting waterboarded with a gallon of milk!).

How a millionaire slumlord got sweetheart government deals to maintain armed forces housing and then left them to rot

John Picerne is a hereditary one-percenter whose contribution to his family legacy of "real estate development" was to spend millions on lobbying, which landed him millions more in government loans earmarked for taking over the maintenance of 26,000 units of on-base military housing in 13 locations, with the repayment of the loans coming straight out of enlisted personnel's paychecks.

Despite all that public largesse, Picerne's company, Corvias Group, did not live up to its promises: instead, it let the houses to rot, filling up with vermin and toxic mold, in buildings so ramshackle that soldiers' children have had their bedroom ceilings collapse on them while they slept. Critical infrastructure -- like pedestrian overpasses to help kids cross busy roads safely -- were never built.

All along, Corvias's profits soared, with Picerne's payday heading toward the billion-dollar mark -- even as they scaled back maintenance. Meanwhile Picerne has bought a 100-acre Irish estate with two mansions, a Palm Beach mansion, a six-bedroom neo-Georgian in Providence, a second Rhode Island home at the beach, and a luxury yacht, and had them redecorated by the Kardashian's celebrity designer, whose flourishes include exotic taxidermy (an alligator wrestling with a snake), custom marble black-and-white floors, and other tasteful elements for the discerning looter capitalist.

Picerne's fixer is Senator Jack Reed [D-RI], who is now the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Thousands of military families have signed petitions begging to have their homes brought up to a decent, livable standard -- meanwhile, some have become disabled by the poor air quality and other hazards in their Corvias homes.

Reuters has deeply reported Picerne/Corvias's negligence, drawing on primary source documents from the US government.

Corvias had promised Wade a home equipped for her wheelchair, but there was no ramp or bathroom handrails when she moved in, leaving her dependent on her husband, an Army sergeant. “It was pretty degrading,” Wade said.

It took Corvias four months to install the fixtures, she said. Wade’s husband and two small children soon developed breathing problems, which their doctors attributed to mold. The doctors submitted three reports to Corvias, recommending it clean the air ducts and replace the carpet. Corvias let months go by before cleaning the ducts and declined to replace the carpet, according to notes a maintenance employee marked on Wade’s work request.

Wade’s husband now requires inhalers and wears a breathing device to assist him when he sleeps, his medical records show. He no longer meets Army fitness requirements, and is in the process of obtaining a medical discharge. Last month, an Army board recommended him for disability, citing his recent asthma, Army records reviewed by Reuters show.

Corvias and the Army declined to comment about the petition and other tenant complaints.

As U.S. soldiers battle landlord, confidential records shine light on his lucrative business [Joshua Schneyer and Andrea Januta/Reuters]

Find the cuss words in these delightfully subversive 'swearing patterns'

This week, on the same day, I had not one but two friends tell me about designer Sonia Harris' "swearing patterns." Of course, I instantly became a fan. Her hidden-in-plain-sight patterns are subversive yet perfectly understated.

For example, this t-shirt's design appears to be a fancy mandala at first glance. But look closer and you'll see the words "Insufferable Wanker" cleverly incorporated into the pattern. (Ms. Harris, you get me.)

She got started drawing the patterns (using an iOS app called Amaziograph) while she was going through treatment for breast cancer, writing that swearing is a meditation for her:

Despite my desire to create and soothe myself with art, I was also very angry at the bad luck of having spent decades dealing with pain from endometriosis only to get breast cancer just as I thought there was an end to it. The disgusting effects of the treatment, the frightening and painful experiences kept on coming... Hence my patterns contained a lot of profanity. I wanted to swear and I needed to swear. If I could have, I’d have been shouting those profanities from the rooftops! But I had no strength to raise my voice or even stomp around, so that left my drawings. I could write down an exclamation of disgust, carefully and lovingly so that seeing it gave me strength, reminded me that I have a voice and I am still alive. Seeing the repetition of my words and patterns calmed me, the inherent beauty of them made me feel in harmony with life again and able to rest.

Her Etsy shop secretbean stocks all kinds of merch with these "swearing patterns" -- bags, scarves, prints, mugs, throw pillows, clothing, and more (even swimsuits!). You can also find her on Spoonflower where you can buy wallpaper, fabric, and wrapping paper with her patterns. On Roostery, you can get "swearing pattern" tablecloths, curtains, table runners, and the like. And, on Paom, you can get premium clothing with "all over prints."

Finally, go follow her on Instagram!

Thanks, Marcia and Kristen!

Rug pattern looks like Pennywise

Reddit user Sneegles spotted the unpleasant clown, Pennywise, from Stephen King's It hiding in a rug pattern.

Pattern in rug looks like Pennywise from r/mildlyinteresting

'Metal from the Dirt' - Cool profile of Navajo metalheads, and Diné metal shows on the rez

There's a not-to-be missed profile in High Country News on Diné heavy metal bands on and around the Navajo Nation in Arizona, with incredible photos by Clarke Tolton, who also directed the video above.

Snip:

On the drive through the Navajo Nation, twirling the radio dial yields country station after country station. The genre warbles about the American Dream, life’s struggles paying off, and frustration, loss and regret. Scan long enough though, and you might stumble upon Laydi Rayne’s weekly metal show on KSHI out of Zuni, New Mexico. It’s one of the only shows in the area that caters to the genre, which is popular on the nation.

Metalheads on the nation have long been making the style their own through “rez metal,” short for reservation metal. Bands record in abandoned houses, and host shows in backyards and empty parking lots. The musicians have embraced ingenuity and teamwork to create a scene reflective of their identities. And now, a generation of Diné youth who grew up listening to metal are shaping the scene themselves.

The heavy metal genre was born in 1980s England, but has translated easily to the Navajo Nation, said Jerold Cecil, band manager of I Don’t Konform. “Metal is disenchantment with everything,” said Cecil, a Navajo citizen. “Establishment, society, the frustrations you have in your life, socio-economic problems, family problems, not being provided the resources or the opportunities that most people are given everyday, just because you’re on the rez.”

Cecil jokes that the only difference between rez metal bands and other metal groups is that even if they’re not getting paid, rez metal bands will drive five hours or more to a show. “They do it for the adrenaline from being on stage, being able to hear your music loud in front of a lot of people that are like you,” Cecil said. That camaraderie extends to the competition inherent in the music industry: When one band is “discovered,” fame comes to the whole scene. “If one of us makes it, then we all make it,” said Cecil.

More on the bands at Revolver Magazine.

From the description for the REVOLVER feature video above, directed by Clarke Tolton:

"There's a lot of bands, heavy-metal bands, on the Navajo reservation. And for some reason this music, this subculture, seems to permeate with the youth," says Jerold Cecil, manager of Arizona act I Dont Konform. "What Rez Metal is — 'rez' is sort of an inside word for 'reservation.' Our brand of metal is different than anybody else … it's blowing up." For one week this summer the Everything Is Stories creative team traveled to the Southwest United States, and Navajo Nation territory, to document the originators of the DIY Rez Metal scene, and the bands that are now carrying the torch, including I Dont Konform, Mutilated Tyrant and Born of Winter. From a generator-powered show in the Arizona desert to a band practicing in a traditional Navajo dwelling called a Hogan, this story — told by Navajo ("Diné") bands and individuals involved in the scene — explores the creation of Rez Metal in the Eighties, the juxtaposition of old and new Navajo traditions and the link between heavy metal and native pride.

Below, one of the live multi-band shows.

Doubletree Portland apologizes to racially harassed guest Jermaine Massey, manager will investigate

Paul Peralta, the general manager of the Portland Doubletree where Jermaine Massey, 34, was racially harassed, apologized today.

In a statement released on Friday, Peralta said, “we sincerely apologize to Mr. Massey for his treatment this past weekend, and deeply regret the experience he endured,” and added, “It was unacceptable and contrary to our values, beliefs and how we seek to treat all people who visit our hotel.”

You can read more about what happened to Jermaine Massey at the Portland Doubletree in this previous Boing Boing post.

Peralta wrote that the hotel will ask a third party to “conduct a full investigation into the incident — reviewing our internal processes, protocols and trainings to ensure we are creating and maintaining a safe space for everyone.”

Jermaine Massey, Courtesy Law Offices of Kafoury & McDougal

Doubletree is part of Hilton Worldwide, and the Portland Doubletree is independently owned and operated, Hilton told the New York Times. A spokeswoman said Hilton had “zero tolerance” for racism, and is working with the Portland hotel management.

From the New York Times:

On the afternoon of Dec. 22, Mr. Massey checked into the Doubletree hotel, then went out to dinner and to a Travis Scott concert before returning around 11 p.m., he says in the videos.

He saw that he had missed a call from his mother and called her back from his cellphone in a secluded spot in the lobby. After a few minutes of discussing what he described as a private “family matter” with her, a security guard, who is white and has not been publicly identified beyond his name plate, which read “Earl,” walked up to Mr. Massey and asked what room he was in, Mr. Massey said.

“I said: ‘I don’t know, I’m having a conversation right now. Can you leave me alone right now?’” Mr. Massey recalls in the Instagram videos.

The guard then said that Mr. Massey was trespassing and that he was going to call the police, according to Mr. Massey.

At this point, the videos that Mr. Massey recorded of the encounter begin, showing the security guard standing over him and telling him that the police will arrive soon to escort him off the property. Mr. Massey points out that he is a guest at the hotel.

“Not anymore,” the security guard responds.

Another hotel employee — whose position is not clear in the video — walks over, and says the guard “wouldn’t ask me to call 911 without any cause.”

The second employee tells Mr. Massey to calm down and asks him what the problem is.

Mr. Massey then shows the guard and the other employee the envelope containing his room key.

The videos of the encounter end with a Portland Police Bureau officer telling Mr. Massey that the security guard is “in control of the property.”

Mr. Massey says in his later videos that he left the hotel after collecting his things from his room so as “not to make a bad situation worse.” The encounter with the police was not hostile, said Greg Kafoury, a lawyer for Mr. Massey.

Trump's shutdown will close Smithsonian Museums, National Zoo, and more

If the government shutdown extends beyond New Year's Day, Donald Trump's political tantrum will close the Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo in Washington, DC, among many other sites important to Americans.

After January 1, the museum network will be forced to close all its doors along the National Mall and at the National Zoo. The closures would go into effect on January 2, and continue until lawmakers reach a deal to fund the government.

This is just one of many ways people are feeling the shutdown, writes Dave Jamieson of the Huffington Post:

Because the museums have so far remained open, many people assumed the Smithsonian Institution was among the roughly three-quarters of government functions that Congress had already appropriated money for before the partial shutdown began on Dec. 22.

But Smithsonian spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas explained that it had been running on last year’s funds to get through the week between Christmas and New Year’s ― typically one of the busiest times of the year. The Smithsonian Institution receives its federal dollars through the Interior Department, which is among the unfunded agencies.

“We used prior-year funding, and we can’t continue to do that,” St. Thomas said. “I think it was a great service to tourists, but on Jan. 2 and beyond we will be closed” until a deal is reached.

Affected institutions would include the American History Museum, the Air and Space Museum, the African American Museum and the Portrait Gallery, as well as more than a dozen others.

Sad Panda Is Sad.

Medieval peasant food was frigging delicious

Hollywood would have you believe that if you lived during medieval times and didn't have the good fortune to be born into a noble family, you were forced to survive by eating thin soup, gruel and the occasional rabbit. In this video, the good folks at Modern History TV set the record straight.

Mark Zuckerberg thinks Facebook's horrible year was actually pretty good

In a year-in-review post, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg said on Friday he is “proud of the progress we've made.”

Yes, he really is that deluded.

Zuckerberg said some of Facebook's problems with misinformation and protecting users’ personal data will take years to solve.

I'll say.

“We've fundamentally altered our DNA to focus more on preventing harm in all our services, and we've systematically shifted a large portion of our company to work on preventing harm,” he wrote.

Zuck claims Facebook now has 30,000 workers focused on safety, or roughly one Facebook safety employee per every 75,600 monthly active users.

“Mark Zuckerberg used the word 'progress' six times in his year-end self-assessment,” notes Ryan Mac. “That's one way of looking at Facebook's 2018.”

From Ryan's Buzzfeed post:

Though much of what Zuckerberg wrote on Friday is not new — it is mostly rehashed from previous talking points — the Facebook chief’s note underscored the notion that Facebook will never be perfect. Zuckerberg acknowledges that election interference and harmful speech “can never be fully solved”

“That doesn't mean we'll catch every bad actor or piece of bad content, or that people won't find more examples of past mistakes before we improved our systems,” he notes.

As if to prove his point, one of the final scandals the company faced in 2018? An admission on Wednesday from one of its early investors, Reid Hoffman, who said he financed a misinformation campaign in the during the 2017 special election for an Alabama Senate seat. Facebook has not taken action against Hoffman’s account and said an investigation remains ongoing.

A reminder of the power and reach of Facebook. Given all that has transpired, it’s still the platform for speaking to the masses. https://t.co/ywZEityupM

— Brian Fitzgerald (@BryFitz) December 28, 2018

A BuzzFeed News analysis found that 50 of the biggest fake stories of 2018 generated roughly 22 million total shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook. https://t.co/1pfzmy8s4W

— Lisa Tozzi (@lisatozzi) December 28, 2018

White House tells furloughed workers to exchange manual labor for their rent

Nearly 800,000 people are hurting financially because of the government shutdown, according to NBC: 420,000 federal employees must continue to work without a paycheck until the shutdown ends, and another 380,000 are simply furloughed, or sent home without pay (and will, hopefully, be reimbursed after the Trumpian mess over the ridiculous wall is sorted out).

So how does the government advise these out-of-paycheck employees? The solution is simple: "Consult with your personal attorney." (Yeah, right.)

"Unfortunately, we cannot provide you with personal legal advice. If you need legal advice to assist you in any response to creditors, landlords or the like, consult with your personal attorney..." says the Office of Personnel Management, which acts as the federal government's human resources agency.

Or better yet, do some work for your landlord, such as painting or carpentry, in exchange for rent. (Even though not everyone has a landlord, and not everyone is able to perform manual labor.) Just ask your landlord like this:

"I will keep in touch with you to keep you informed about my income status and I would like to discuss with you the possibility of trading my services to perform maintenance (e.g. painting, carpentry work) in exchange for partial rent payments."

In a tweet posted yesterday, the OPM offered advice and template letters that out-of-paycheck employees could use when asking their landlords for some (temporarily) free rent and understanding.

Feds, here are sample letters you may use as a guide when working with your creditors during this furlough. If you need legal advice please consult with your personal attorney. https://t.co/t6h6OzALsS

— OPM (@USOPM) December 27, 2018

No, this is not an Andy Borowitz post.

Via Vice

Image: nd Lt. Jake BaileyReleased/Yokota Air Base

Trump admin to unpaid federal workers who can't make rent: beg, barter, and get a lawyer.

The Trump administration is advising people who work for the federal government, who are not getting paid due to Trump's stupid government shutdown tantrum, to literally *barter with their landlords* and offer to paint or do labor in exchange for partial rent.

Yes, really.

Feds, here are sample letters you may use as a guide when working with your creditors during this furlough. If you need legal advice please consult with your personal attorney. https://t.co/t6h6OzALsS

— OPM (@USOPM) December 27, 2018

OPM is the federal agency that oversees federal workers.

Their advice for the 800,000 furloughed workers who are on day 7 with no pay: Try bartering for your rent.

The link in the tweet above provides sample letters in *.doc form (super insecure!) that furloughed workers are advised to mail to their landlords, if they can't make their rent payments.

One of these sample letter templates suggests barting handyman services in exchange for rent money.

"I would like to discuss with you the possibility of trading my services to perform maintenance (e.g. painting, carpentry work) in exchange for partial rent payments," the letter states.

No word on whether trading sex or other illicit services is off the table, because honestly, we all gotta sleep somewhere right?

The letter also asks landlords if they would consider reducing rent because of the government shutdown.

OPM also tells furloughed workers to "consult with your personal attorney" if they need legal advice when dealing with creditors.

More at CBS News.

[IMAGE: Two men with children, being evicted, stand with their possessions on the sidewalk, circa 1910, on the Lower East Side of New York City. George Grantham Bain, BAIN NEWS SERVICE, via LOC. About]

The best maker YouTube channels

Over at Cool Tools, Kevin Kelly reviews over 40 YouTube video channels by makers, experimenters, and explainers. It's a great list. I'm subscribing to all the ones I haven't already subscribed to.

I have descending into the YouTube click hole. Forget TV, movies, Netflix; I spend most of my discretionary media time watching YouTube tutorials. I go to them whenever I need to learn anything, and in particular when I need to make or repair anything. Nothing appears missing in the YouTubeverse. The most obscure esoteric subject, item, skill, technique, problem will have five videos dedicated to it. At least one will be good. Against this very uneven quality of the average random YouTube episode, I have discover a good shelfful of dependable high-quality YouTube channels dispensing amazing information on a regular basis. Below are the YouTube channels I currently subscribe and return to often. They are informational, rather than entertaining, and they are biased to makers and do-ers. I have divided them into four groups: Experimenters, Makers, Explainers, and Nichers -- esoteric interests that probably won’t appeal to many. Don’t take the categories too seriously; there is much overlap. I emphasize that these are the channels I personally subscribe to, and so reflect my interests, and do not include such obvious other maker-type channels like food, cooking, travel, makeup simply because those are not my interests. But I for sure have missed some great channels. So in the comments please tell me what channels you subscribe to. To be most useful, state what they are about, and why you think they should be included. I’ll check them out, and if they resonate with me, I’ll add them to the list.

EXPERIMENTERS

Cody’s Lab
This is my all around favorite at the moment. Cody specializes in chemistry. He’ll make frozen solid oxygen in his kitchen, or try to walk on a pool of mercury, or purify gold from jewelry he bought on ebay. He famously made gunpowder from a year’s worth of his own urine. Whenever he needs a chemical, he’ll just make it from other cheaper chemicals. He imitates the crude materials of the original alchemists who first made the compounds. It’s inspirational because his stuff is so jury rigged you realize you can do this too. He is a good explainer and is also seriously into other stuff like bees, astronomy,and unusual garden plants. He likes to recreate classic science discoveries.

How to Make Everything
Very cool site. This guy attempts to remake crucial materials like glass and iron from elemental materials, or less essential things like fireworks, candle wax or sunscreen. In a classic video he documents how he made a sandwich from scratch, growing his own wheat, and raising his own turkey meat. The sandwich only cost him $1,500.

Why Do Birds: Damon Knight's amazing, underappreciated science fiction novel about putting all of humanity in a box

In 2002, a mysterious man is arrested for illegally occupying a hotel room: he says his name is Ed Stone, and that he was kidnapped by aliens from the same hotel room in 1931 and has just been returned to Earth, not having aged a day; the aliens have told him that Earth will be destroyed in 12 years and that before then, the entire human race has to put itself in a giant box (presumably for transport to somewhere else, though Ed is a little shaky on the details), and to help Ed with this task, the aliens have given him a ring that makes anyone who touches it fill with overwhelming good feelings for him and a desire to help him.

So begins science fiction grand master Damon Knight's great, underappreciated 1992 novel Why Do Birds, which I re-read in a single sitting yesterday after discovering a mint first-edition hardcover at the dangerously fantastic Iliad Books near my home in Burbank.

Knight was one of the field's great pioneers: the founder of the Science Fiction Writers of America, husband to the incredible sf author Kate Wilhelm, co-founder of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop, mentor to hundreds of writers (including me!), and author of innumerable short stories, novels and teleplays, including the classic Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man" (spoiler: it's a cookbook!).

He was an absurdist of the first order, a gifted author whose economy and humor rival the likes of Kurt Vonnegut. Why Do Birds was his penultimate novel, and I haven't rad it in more than 20 years, but I have never forgotten key details (there's a great scene straight out of The Space Merchants where marketing executives for The Cube Project discuss how they will float rumors that poor people will not be allowed in The Cube, in order to spark a mass movement demanding entry into the giant box -- and then there's the scene where they figure out the rate at which humanity will be reproducing itself as it is marshalled into great loading docks for suspended animation and insertion into The Cube).

There are more laugh aloud* moments galore in this, but also some really fantastic, first-rate technical speculation, and wry political commentary, and satirical pokes at the "golden age" of science fiction pulps. It's not like any novel you've ever read, and it blends much of what was wonderful about the early years of science fiction with a literary sophistication that came from a distinguished writer at the peak of his powers.

It's an absolute shame that this book isn't better known -- and it's a tribute to Tor Books's commitment to the field that they've kept it in print all these years despite its obscurity.

Why Do Birds [Damon Knight/Tor Books]

*Knight had a longstanding crusade to replace LOL with LA, on the grounds that "laughing aloud" was more grammatically correct than "laughing out loud"