Chief of Staff John Kelly is said to have referred to President Trump as an idiot. Accurate.
Monday 30 April 2018
When cleaning slides, film or just my lenses, I use PecPads
When cleaning off slides for scanning, or the lenses on cameras that haven't been made for decades, I use PecPads.
I used to ruin positives when trying to ready them for scanning. Then I was told about PecPads. I have not ruined a slide in years and years. I also use the non-abrasive gauze-like pads to clean the lenses on my treasured Rolleis.
I use microfiber clothes on my glasses, but superstition keeps me using PecPads on photographic equipment.
PEC-PAD Lint Free Wipes 4"x4" 100per/Pkg via Amazon
Good deal on a box of nitrile gloves
Nitrile gloves are a cheap way to keep your hands clean. I've used them for bike and car work, clearing rat traps, wiping cat puke, cleaning grills, and countless other tasks. Amazon has a good deal on these textured nitrile gloves: 100 for $14.
For $4k/year, Moscow cyber-arms-dealer Gleg will sell you 25 0-day bugs for attacking hospitals
https://vimeo.com/105542404
Gleg is a cyber-arms-dealer based in Moscow, selling zero-day vulnerabilities it has uncovered in widely used systems to companies that want to weaponize them. (more…)
A LaTeX mod to draw coffee cup rings on your technical papers
LaTeX is the venerable, gold-standard layout package favored for scholarly papers, especially technical papers; back in 2009, Hanno Rein released LaTeX Coffee Stains, an extension to draw a variety of coffee-cup rings on your paper; the code has been improved by community contributions over the years and is very robust and full-featured! (via Evil Mad Scientist Labs)
Congressional candidate Brianna Wu explains Net Neutrality with cookies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iApE28eq7I4
Frank Wu writes, "Brianna Wu, progressive Democrat and cybersecurity expert, is running for Congress in Massachusetts District 8. She has just released a set of three short videos to explain three complex technical issues." (more…)
US military unveils experimental HERF gun that can immobilize cars, boats
The Defense Department’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program has demonstrated the Radio Frequency Vehicle Stopper, an experimental "direct energy weapon" that causes car and boats' electronic engine control units to enter into an endless cycle of rebooting, immobilizing the vehicles until the weapon is switched off. (more…)
Social Media ads are a bad deal for small businesses an individuals
Journalist and advertising consultant B.J. Mendelson (author of Social Media is Bullshit) was interviewed in the C-Realm podcast about the ineffectiveness of using social media to promote your book or small business. Root Simple has a summary of Mendelson's findings:
Any of you who administrate a Facebook page for a business or non-profit will know that unless you pay, Facebook’s algorithm will bury your posts. Some other points Mendelson makes in the interview:
- A 1% click through rate on a paid post is often as good as it gets.
- Eighty percent of Facebook users are outside of the U.S. If you’re a local business, like say a plant nursery, what good is paying to reach someone in Latvia?
- Bots equal 60% of internet traffic (something to think about when looking at your stats).
- What happens if you rely on Facebook as a platform for your business and, like so many other internet companies of the past, Facebook goes out of business?
To illustrate how social media companies exaggerate their advertising power Mendelson offers a personal example. He has 700,000 Twitter followers. When he sent out a tweet about his new book he sold, not hundreds or thousands of copies, but exactly 28. A tweet to his 700,000 Twitter followers asking for a donation to a breast cancer charity netted just $1. While acknowledging that social media can, occasionally, be an effective advertising medium, for most of us it’s probably a big waste of time.
Debullshitifying Microsoft's smear campaign against the recycler it helped send to prison
Eric Lundgren is the PC recycler who is going to jail for 18 months for having a Chinese factory duplicate the obsolete Windows restore CDs Microsoft lets you download for free and authorizes recyclers to distribute. (more…)
Stormy Daniels sues Donald Trump for defamation
Stormy Daniels has filed a lawsuit against US President Donald Trump for his defamatory comments on Twitter.
Trump: Singapore and DMZ possible sites for North Korea Summit with Kim Jong-Un
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In just 7 months, the US public domain will get its first infusion since 1998
In 1998, the US Congress retroactively extended the copyright on US works, placing public domain works back into copyright and forestalling the entry into the public domain of a great mass of works that were soon to become public domain; now, 20 years later with no copyright term extension in sight, the US public domain is about to receive the first of many annual infusions to come, a great mass of works that will be free for all to use. (more…)
Cool animated examples of the Muller-Lyer illusion
German sociologist Franz Carl MĂ¼ller-Lyer (1857-1916) created an optical illusion that showed how changing the direction of angle brackets on line segments can make the segments look longer or shorter than they actually are. Artist Gianni A. Sarcone made a animated versions of the illusion and the effect is even more pronounced.
Kickstarting a metal, reusable, self-extracting straw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4TaVt7R7vk
The "Last Straw" is a cleverly named, cleverly engineered reusable drinking straw that folds down into a package small enough to use as a keyfob (including a little squeegee for cleaning the straw after use). (more…)
The French Republic claims France.com as its own
Long held by French ex-patriot Jean-Noel Frydman, France.com has been taken from his control. Emails are bouncing and the URL has been forwarded to the government tourism site. Frydman is suing his ISP, domain registrars and the Republic of France to get his domain back.
Via the Verge:
Frydman first registered the domain in 1994, less than three years after the World Wide Web became publicly available. “I was at a crossroads professionally, and I wanted to discover something new,” Frydman says. He found his way to BBS boards and the still-young web, recognizing the possibilities immediately. “I could see it was a new frontier. And like the frontier, if you went in early, you could stake a claim.” A French expat, he was drawn to France.com.
The site went through a number of incarnations, briefly offering France-based news (including Le Monde) for paying subscribers before eventually settling on a travel agency model. For most of its history, the site has offered travel tips alongside packaged vacation deals. With roughly 100,000 visitors a month, Frydman could easily support the site on commissions. He had registered other domain names, too. But over the years, he sold them off, and France.com became his only project.
The French tourism bureau was friendly with Frydman, even giving him a “Best Website” award in 2009. But in 2016, the foreign ministry seemed to have a change of heart. He says they made no effort to buy the domain from Frydman (although he would have been unlikely to sell), but argued in court that the domain was rightful property of the government. Who should France.com belong to, if not France? In July 2016, the High Court of Paris agreed, ordering Frydman to transfer the domain or face a fine. The ruling that was upheld by an appeals court in September 2017, and it’s currently being appealed to France’s highest court.
Frydman still expected to maintain control of the domain while the case was going forward, even if he faces a fine for holding out. But sometime between September and March, France served an order directly to Frydman’s registrar, Web.com, which was enough to convince them to transfer the domain. Making matters worse, the transfer shifted the registration from Web.com to OVH, a French registrar that may be less responsive to US courts. (Web.com did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
"The Biology of Disinformation," a paper by Rushkoff, Pescovitz, and Dunagan
My Institute for the Future colleagues Douglas Rushkoff, Jake Dunagan, and I wrote a research paper on the "Biology of Disinformation" and how media viruses, bots and computational propaganda have redefined how information is weaponized for propaganda campaigns. While technological solutions may seem like the most practical and effective remedy, fortifying social relationships that define human communication may be the best way to combat “ideological warfare” that is designed to push us toward isolation. As Rushkoff says, "adding more AI's and algorithms to protect users from bad social media is counterproductive: how about increasing our cultural immune response to destructively virulent memes, instead?" From The Biology of Disinformation:
The specter of widespread computational propaganda that leverages memetics through persuasive technologies looms large. Already, artificially intelligent software can evolve false political and social constructs highly targeted to sway specific audiences. Users find themselves in highly individualized, algorithmically determined news and information feeds, intentionally designed to: isolate them from conflicting evidence or opinions, create self-reinforcing feedback loops of confirmation, and untether them from fact-based reality. And these are just early days. If memes and disinformation have been weaponized on social media, it is still in the musket stage. Sam Woolley, director of the Institute for the Future’s (IFTF) Digital Intelligence Lab, has concluded that defenders of anything approaching “objective” truth are woefully behind in dealing with computational propaganda. This is the case in both technological responses and neuro-cultural defenses. Moreover, the 2018 and 2020 US election cycles are going to see this kind of cognitive warfare on an unprecedented scale and reach.
But these mechanisms, however powerful, are only as much a threat to human reason as the memetic material they transmit, and the impact of weaponized memetics itself on the social and political landscape. Memes serve as both probes of collective cultural conflicts, and ways of inflaming social divisions. Virulent ideas and imagery only take hold if they effectively trigger a cultural immune response, leading to widespread contagion. This is less a question of technological delivery systems and more a question of human vulnerability. The urgent question we all face is not how to disengage from the modern social media landscape, but rather how do we immunize ourselves against media viruses, fake news, and propaganda?
"The Biology OfDisinformation: Memes, Media Viruses, And Cultural Inoculation" (IFTF.org)
Learn how to move one eye with moving the other
Steve Mould made a video to teach you the essential skill of moving one eye independently of the other. You'll also learn interesting things about the mechanics and neurology of eye movement.
The UK's surveillance regulator changed names and dropped its domain, which is now squatted by a premature ejaculation scammer
The Interception of Communications Commissioner was a watchdog created by the UK government to produce annual reports on the government's use of its surveillance powers; in September 2017 that function was folded into the Investigatory Powers Commissioner Office (IPCO) as part of the Snoopers Charter, and the UK government let the iocco-uk.info domain lapse. (more…)
Enjoy a tarantula burger in Durham, North Carolina
When I was in elementary school, one of my classmates liked yanking the legs off Daddy longlegs spiders and popping the body into his mouth. He would likely enjoy the tarantula-topped cheesburger available on a limited basis at Durham, North Carolina's Bull City Burger and Brewery. Apparently the arachnid adds a pleasant crunch to the burger. Proprietor Seth Gross (yes, that's his last name), says his restaurants exotic meat offerings have "always been about diversity and teaching people about different types of cuisines and maybe other diets around the world." From Fox13:
Normally in the U.S. people keep spiders as a pets, but overseas, they are hunted and eaten. The creatures can be found in the forests of Cambodia and adult males can grow up to six inches - or the size of a human hand.
"There's something thrilling about eating your fear. So a lot of folks who are afraid of spiders, this is like the big one," Gross said.
(via Weird Universe)
The UK is finally cracking down on its Russian money-laundry, but hasn't hired people to do the job
Scottish Limited Partnerships are a preferred money-laundering tool of the world's criminals, looters and oligarchs, especially favored by criminals from the former USSR, who have pumped an estimated $80B through them in the past four years alone. (more…)
Watch the back-story of the Han Solo back-story
Director Ron Howard and the stars of Solo: A Star Wars Story tease us with more context and scenes from the forthcoming film out on May 25.
Watch a dolphin knock a stand-up paddleboarder right off his board
Andrew Hill was stand-up paddleboarding off Gracetown, Western Australia when a pod of dolphins interrupted his fun.
“Eight or nine of them decided to catch that wave and surf straight at me, which has happened lots of times in the past to me and generally they just take off to one side left or right,” Hill told PerthNow. “It's good to see dolphins. Surfers like seeing dolphins, but obviously I'd prefer them to stay a little bit further away than they did yesterday.”
I'm sure they'd prefer the same of Mr. Hill.
Neurobollocks with Chinese characteristics: Chinese employers use "brain wave sensors" to tune workforces
Giant Chinese companies are outfitting millions of employees -- everyone from factory workers to military personnel to pilots and train drivers -- with special uniform hats containing an unspecified neurological sensor package claimed to be capable of detecting "depression, anxiety or rage" as well as "fatigue and attention loss with an accuracy of more than 90 per cent"; the practice is largely unregulated. (more…)
Surfer sets record for riding the biggest wave ever
Brazilian surfer Rodrigo Koxa set a new Guinness World Record for riding the biggest wave ever sufed, an 80-footer in Nazaré, Portugal.
“I try to surf big waves all my life, and I had a huge experience in 2014 where I almost died at NazarĂ©,” Koxa said. “Four months later, I had bad dreams, I didn’t travel, I got scared, and my wife helped me psychologically. Now, I’m just so happy, and this is the best day of my life."
Now he and Mick are planning to wing on over to London and jam with the Stones.
Gun ban at Pence-featured NRA convention has Parkland students baffled. Why more guns at schools, but zero at conventions?
As you recall, after the Parkland school shooting in February that killed 17 people including 14 students, the NRA was adamant that schools would be safer if it were staffed with gun-toting faculty members. “To stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun,” is the mantra of NRA CEO Wayne La Pierre. So it's pretty incredulous that when Mike Pence speaks at the NRA's forum this weekend, all guns will be banned from the event.
According to Politico:
The NRA posted a disclaimer on the NRA-ILA Leadership Forum event page, saying that due to Pence’s attendance, Secret Service will be responsible for event security. Therefore, “firearms and firearm accessories, knives or weapons of any kind will be prohibited in the forum prior to and during his attendance."
Needless to say, the Parkland survivors are taken aback.
"The NRA has evolved into such a hilarious parody of itself," Parkland survivor Cameron Kasky tweeted.
The NRA has evolved into such a hilarious parody of itself. pic.twitter.com/6Pw6NTQAe6
— Cameron Kasky (@cameron_kasky) April 28, 2018
Others responded to the tweet with the same astonishment over the NRA's hypocrisy:
Wait wait wait wait wait wait you’re telling me to make the VP safe there aren’t any weapons around but when it comes to children they want guns everywhere? Can someone explain this to me? Because it sounds like the NRA wants to protect people who help them sell guns, not kids.
— Matt Deitsch (@MattxRed) April 28, 2018
With a convention full of so many “good guys with guns” wouldn’t this be the safest place on earth?
— Peaches #trumpophobe (@fingerbobs) April 28, 2018
The Secret Service is in control of security. The NRA is yeilding to them. That said, the NRA should uninvite Pence. My point being, too bad the NRA isn't as concerned about the safety of students as they are about the Veep's. Longtime former NRA member.
— Ken (@kemios) April 28, 2018
And from one of the victim's father:
On so many levels, this is enlightening. According to the NRA, we should want everyone to have weapons when we are in public. But when they put on a convention, the weapons are a concern? I thought giving everyone a gun was to enhance safety. Am I missing something? https://t.co/f4wgNhJ7RI
— Fred Guttenberg (@fred_guttenberg) April 28, 2018
According to NRA/Secret Service logic, more guns equals safer schools, but no guns equals safer conventions. Makes about as much sense as everyday politics in America.
Via Sacramento Bee
Image: Gage Skidmore/Flickr
Koch is abundant and low value: how the super-rich are buying American politics
In Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century, he advances a theory that as the rich acquire a critical mass of the national wealth, they are able to influence policy in ways that diverts even more of the national wealth to their benefit, getting even richer, and giving them more opportunities to buy policies that increase inequality. (more…)
Most paintings in French art museum turn out to be forgeries
The Etienne Terrus Museum in France learned that 60 percent its collection was forged. Etienne Terrus worked a century ago and died in 1922; it's not clear how the local gallery dedicated to his memory came to such a bizarre end, only that the acquisitions were recent: "It’s a catastrophe for the municipality,” writes one expert.
Eric Forcada, the art historian who uncovered the counterfeits, said that he had seen straight away that most of the works were fake.
“On one painting, the ink signature was wiped away when I passed my white glove over it.”
He alerted the region’s cultural attache and requested a meeting of a panel experts to confirm his findings.
“At a stylistic level, it’s crude. The cotton supports do not match the canvas used by Terrus. And there are some anachronisms,” Forcada said.
In all, out of the 140 works that make up the collection, 82 were fake.
I guess that the suddenly-available pile of art by the late Victorian artist whose hometown museum was being renovated with an unlimited budget should probably have been examined by a pro first.
The most common words in movie titles
The Simpsons overtakes Gunsmoke as America's longest-running scripted TV show
With episode 636 on Sunday, The Simpsons finally outran Gunsmoke as America's longest-running TV show, as counted by scripted episodes. It overtook it about a decade ago in terms of how many seasons it's been on TV. That said...
“Gunsmoke,” however, was an hourlong program for about half its run, while “The Simpsons” is half-hour, and so the former retains the record for most hours of television. As well, the Western series had begun on radio in 1952.
The closest other scripted prime-time series, the family drama “Lassie,” about an ingenious collie, ran on network and then in first-run syndication from 1954 to 1974, for 591 episodes.
In a welcome coda to the Apu imbroglio, Hank Azaria (who also voices other characters on the show) is planning to let a South Asian actor take over the role and help transition the character to a less stereotypical portrayal.
Revengers: Intentional knockoffs of Avengers action figures
Previously: 'Walmart yodeling kid' becomes a one-up action figure
What airplane cabin depressurization looks like
I was expecting to see an explosive worst-case scenario, a can-opener at 30,000 feet. But this simulation of a less explosive leak has a nightmare quality all of its own.
Watch cops mock a driver they pulled over after the cops ran a red light
Here's yet another reason to install a dashcam. Joshua was rolling through Brooklyn around midnight when an undercover cop car ran a red light as he was turning left from the opposite direction. He's then treated to a lot of lip by the officers as he protests his innocence while pulled over. (more…)
This cat is even grumpier than Grumpy Cat
Loki the Sphynx is eight years old, but he looks like a grumpy old man. His resting grump face is quite possibly grumpier than his furrier and more famous rival Grumpy Cat. (more…)
With these smartphone 'swinging cradles,' people are cheating to get to 10K steps
Apparently in China people can get discounts on their health insurance (and avoid punishment) if their phone hits 10K steps a day. That's nearly five miles of exercise they're expected to get every day.
Well, if there's a way to cheat something, someone will figure it out. And someone did.
Canadian-born Mark Rowswell, aka Chinese comedian Dashan, tweeted that a restaurant in China is offering a "swinging cradle" for its patrons to hit their daily steps quota while dining, drinking, and smoking. https://twitter.com/akaDashan/status/990054109855141888
I dug around a bit. It seems these clever devices (called "摇æ¥å™¨") have been around since at least 2016, as evidenced by this video: https://youtu.be/gNAIUzN7PJI
Previously: Is China's social credit system becoming a Black Mirror episode?
Sunday 29 April 2018
Facebook warns investors to expect bigger and worse scandals than Cambridge Analytica
The Cambridge Analytica affair wiped billions off of Facebook's valuation and prompted millions of users to #DeleteFacebook, but inevitably, the company bounced back, reporting high earnings in its quarterly investor disclosures. (more…)
100 US Mayors sign a pledge to boycott ISPs that commit Net Neutrality violations
As states pass a wave of laws barred non-neutral ISPs from providing services to state agencies, more than 100 US mayors have pledged to disqualify non-neutral ISPs from getting city contracts as well. (more…)
The teachers' strikes are spreading
From Labor Notes, a weekly report-card of teachers' strikes, which are spreading from state to state, with North Carolina -- the laboratory for gerrymander-fueled Republican takeover -- next in line for a wave of school closures. (more…)
The US gave its client states hundreds of millions for anti-terrorism, then crooked UK military contractors ripped it all off
Defense Secretary James Mattis has announced a criminal investigation into the misuse of $458,000,000 that the US government gave to Iraq and Afghanistan to build out mass-scale domestic surveillance apparatus and other "anti-terrorism" capabilities. (more…)
In a time of "driving while black," the Negro Motorist Green Book gets a new edition
The Negro Motorist Green Book was a series of annual guides for African-American drivers and holiday-makers who wanted to know where they could find gas-stations, restaurants and hotels that would serve them and which "sunset towns" they should avoid on pain of violence from corrupt, racist law-enforcement. (more…)
Start making your own games with this 120-hour training
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With the School of Game Design, you'll have access to more than 120-hours of step-by-step training videos covering everything from the absolute design basics to performing advanced techniques with Unity3D. You'll foster both coding and computer artistry skills and also have unlimited access to thousands of dollars in royalty-free game art and textures to bring your own 2D and 3D games to life.
Now, you can get in on the School of Game Design on sale for $59, in the Boing Boing Store.
Saturday 28 April 2018
RIP Larry Harvey, Burning Man founder
Marian Goodell, Burning Man's CEO, made the announcement:
Our founder, friend, and original instigator, Larry Harvey has passed away. Larry suffered a massive stroke at his home on the morning of April 4. We resolutely held out for a miracle. If there was anyone tenacious, strong-willed and stubborn enough to come back from this challenge, it was Larry. Though we all hoped he would recover, he passed peacefully this morning at 8:24am in San Francisco, with members of his family at his side...
Read Marian's announcement in its entirety here: The Man in the Hat, Larry Harvey, Passes
Larry's friend of some 25 years and a director of the Project, Stuart Mangrum, penned a tribute that detailed Harvey's life:
...As a denizen of San Francisco in the 1980s, Larry found himself drawn to the sorts of Bohemian scenes that are often the breeding grounds for serendipitous collaborations. And when he started hosting his own happenings on Baker Beach, he lit a flame that in turn drew these free spirits to him. He joined forces with the San Francisco Cacophony Society, and its members became some of the first Burners. When San Francisco authorities shut down the Baker Beach Burn in 1990, it was these Cacophonist colleagues who helped orchestrate the event’s relocation to Nevada’s Black Rock Desert.
Over the next three decades, Harvey fought tirelessly to keep the event going, through dark days of organizational strife, government opposition, and financial uncertainty, as well as through boom times of community growth and unbridled creativity. Through it all he pursued his vision with a single-minded determination. In the words of his contemporary Stewart Brand, he created something that has “surpassed in every way” all other offspring of the San Francisco counterculture. Burning Man is now a global, year-round community, with 85 official regional events on six continents, and hundreds of thousands of passionate participants...
Read all of Stuart's words here: In Memoriam: Larry Harvey, 1948–2018
The Project offers these ways to share memories and offer financial gifts in his memory:
In lieu of flowers, you are invited to share memories of Larry at larry.burningman.org. We’ve also received inquiries about financial gifts. At the request of friends of Burning Man, Burning Man Project has established the Larry Harvey Art and Philosophy Fund to support art projects, philosophical endeavors, and other work that reflects Larry’s passion for the playful and the profound. Please see donate.burningman.org/art-and-philosophy-fund/ for more information.
In addition, his brother Stewart Harvey has created a photo essay in his honor.
I'm still in shock but I'd like to share this: This is my community and I'm truly saddened by the news. I fell into Burning Man in 1995, shortly after arriving to California, and was soon pulled into the greater shenanigans of the San Francisco Cacophony Society a month later. That was when I was reborn as "Rusty Blazenhoff" (I arrived to the Bay Area with a birth name). I have Larry and all the early playa pioneers to thank for giving me a space to be me. Without Burning Man, I feel certain that I would not be the "professional free spirit" I am today, and that includes being a blogger for Boing Boing. So, thank you, Larry. You are missed already.
As my longtime friend Juke, who I met through the Burning Man community oh-so-many years ago, writes, "We're gonna need a bigger temple..."
screenshot via larry.burningman.org
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What's new in tabletop gaming? (April edition)
Last month, I posted the first of what I hope will be a series of Boing Boing articles looking at the latest tabletop miniature, board, card, and roleplaying games, and some of what's going on in tabletop gaming culture. Here is some of what's been holding my attention this month.
Mythic Battles: Pantheon
Monolith Games, 1-4 Players, Ages 14+
I was bummed when I thought I wouldn't have an opportunity to plug this game here on Boing Boing. Mythic Battles: Pantheon was a Kickstarter exclusive game in 2016, a campaign in which Monolith/Mythic Games raked in nearly US$2.7 million. I was lucky enough to be one of the backers. The rewards for the base game and stretch goals amounted to two gigantic doorstop boxes filled with some of the most gorgeous, detailed minis, boards, cards, and other components I've ever seen. There are few recent games (see Rising Sun below) that are lovelier than Mythic Battles. A board game/miniatures hybrid, the Mythic Battles pits (usually) 2 players and their hosts of Greek gods, titans, monsters, and heroes against each other.
I cannot tell you how much I love this game. Besides the beautiful miniatures and components, which are all highly evocative of the setting, Mythic Battles: Pantheon has some really unique and interesting game mechanics, mostly driven through an activation deck and special "Art of War" cards, which serve as wild cards that allow you to perform a number of special actions. This really is ultimately a deck management game. Once you get the hang of how to work your deck to your advantage, and the timing and the dramatic turn-arounds triggered by the deck, the game becomes very epic-feeling, quite exciting, and strategically and tactically fulfilling.
The reason that I'm mentioning Mythic Battles: Pantheon here is that, in June, Monolith will be launching a second Kickstarter campaign. If you love beautiful, not overly complicated, fun, and very re-playable miniatures and board games, card management games, and Greek mythology, start saving your couch-crack money now and follow the Mythic Battles Facebook page so you'll be ready when they relaunch.
Badgers & Burrows
Osprey Games, US$30, 2 Players, Ages 10+
To be honest, I kind of wanted to hate this game. Osprey has been cranking out the miniature skirmish game rule books of late, covering every imaginable genre. When I opened the package for Badgers & Burrows, I thought they might have finally jumped the shark. 
But when I started thumbing through it, seeing the charming photos of the gaming minis, and reading the rules, I stopped rolling my eyes. I think, hot on the heels of the amazing Stuffed Fables, I am also more open to the idea of kiddie wargames. 
This really does seem like a fun and engaging gateway game to get tweens, and even younger kids, into fantasy wargaming. And it appears to be engaging enough to hold the attention of adults, too. Like Stuffed Fables, this would be a fantastic family gaming experience. I can only imagine how much fun it would be to help your child put together and paint a warband of bunnies, badgers, mice, rats, and the like.
Miniature Wargames magazine
After I wrote a review of Tabletop Gaming magazine here on Boing Boing, the publisher sent me some copies of their companion magazine, Miniature Wargames. Where Tabletop Gaming covers every flavor of game, from wargames to card games, to RPGs and boardgames, Miniature Wargames exclusively covers all manner of miniature-based wargames, from historicals to miniature games in the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror genres. The mag is heavy on historical games (my least favorite genre) and the design is less sophisticated and engaging than Tabletop. It's a well-done magazine, but if I were ponying up for an exclusive wargaming magazine, I would subscribe to Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy (I have before) or Wargames Illustrated. Actually, what I recommend (to save yourself the exorbitant shipping costs of these European magazines) is to convince your FLGS (Friendly Local Gaming Store) to carry copies of all three and then you can purchase the issues that have the game coverage you're most interested in.
Dungeon Degenerates: Hand of Doom
GOBLINKO, $70, 1-4 players, Ages 10+ (Not Suitable for Squares)
The popularity of tabletop gaming is not only at an all-time high, but so is the quality of the games being produced. High-quality on-demand printing, crowdfunding, 3D design and printing, and the availability of custom component manufacturing at affordable prices have allowed for a new market of small-run indie game producers. If you design it, they will come. Now an indie designer/artist can have a great idea for a game, crowdfund it, and if it's good, s/he will get the needed money and support to produce their game. One game designing/artist couple that is taking full advantage of this current environment is Sean and Kate Ă„aberg of GOBLINKO. Their crowdfunded game, Dungeon Degenerates, has been a surprise hit, even showing up on popular game programs like Geek & Sundry's Game the Game.
The first thing you notice about Dungeon Degenerates is that Sean's psychedelic nightmare artwork wants to melt your eyeballs and make steam shoot out of your ears. If you're already familiar with underground, metal-flecked games like Cave Evil or the eyeball-seering art of Skinner, then you know the aesthetic here. In this context, Sean calls it "dark fantasy medieval punk." The next thing you notice is how many components are in this thing. The gamebox groans with the weight of hundreds of Loot, Encounter, Monster, and other cards, character standies and dash boards, and oodles of other tokens. Managing all of this cardboard crack can become a real job (players have even taken to creating custom organizing inserts), but much of the game is run through these various card decks. Once you have everything set up, these cards actually help with ease of play.
Even though Dungeon Degenerates is a board game, it has a distinctly old school D&D feel (OK, if D&D had been co-designed by Gwar). But it also does a cool inverse of classic D&D dungeon delving. In most fantasy games, the party goes into a dungeon in search of adventure and booty. In Dungeon Degenerates, your unsavory band of lowlifes (characters with names like the Corpse Burner, the Witch Smeller, and the Void Witch) are prisoners who have escaped from a dungeon and now run roughshod through the nightmarish kingdom of WĂ¼rstreich, in search of adventure, loot, and freedom. The core game comes with a Missions book with 20 individual adventures for you and your degenerate friends to go on. You can also link missions together to create an extended campaign. GOBLINKO is also cranking out tons of support materials for the game like extra character packs, miniatures, books detailing the various regions of WĂ¼rstreich, and more.
Not part of the game, but from the same...uh... Degenerate Universe, Sean has just launched a new Kickstarter campaign for a dark fantasy medieval punk tarot deck. Why immerse yourself in all of this psychedelic degeneracy? As the game's back cover copy puts it: "In a land where rot rules, only the degenerates survive." Pearls of wisdom for our time?
Rising Sun
CMON, $85, 3-5 Players, Ages 13+
Game designer Eric M. Lang has been on a tremendous roll for a while. He is responsible for such games as Bloodborne, The Others, Blood Rage, Star Wars: The Card Game, Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game, and many more. And game artist Adrian Smith has similarly risen to the top of gameworld conceptualizing, doing a ton of iconic artwork for Games Workshop and teaming up with Eric Lang on such games as The Others and Blood Rage. It is no wonder that hot game company, CMON, has scooped this dynamic duo up as head designer and lead artist, respectively.
After the phenomenal success of Blood Rage, the duo has done it again with Rising Sun. Where Blood Rage took place in a mythologized Viking world where warring clans seek power and glory as Ragnarok swiftly approaches, Rising Sun transports players to feudal Japan. I cannot adequately express how beautiful and cool this game is. I had a near religious experience just opening the box and inspecting all of the minis, board, and game components. Digital sculpting and 3D printing have revolutionized miniature production. These miniatures are ridiculously detailed and beautiful (and some, gruesome) to behold. You can even see the textures and patterns on fabric, the weaving on wooden armor, the texture of skin. There are 58 of these jaw-dropping minis in the game.
Rising Sun is an area control game for 3-5 players. In a very balanced and clever game mechanic, each player operates a clan (with special abilities specific to each clan) and competes against up to 4 other clans for the highest honor while expanding across the land, building strongholds, and collecting harvests. The game is designed so that you have to form alliances during a very theme-appropriate Tea Ceremony phase (you cannot win without at least allying for a time). But this is a game where you have to "know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em." You can also appeal to the gods of feudal Japan for favors and increased honor (the most important currency in the game). You can appeal to monsters for favors, too, at the expense of honor. Eric Lang always does such an amazing job of distilling the essence of a concept, a culture, a mythology, and creates a game that evokes that essence to an extent that is, quite frankly, magical. Rising Sun is him at the height of that wizardry. And Adrian Smith and the CMON mini and component designers are equally sorcerous in creating impressively lovely and immersive game environments.
Gaslands Dashboard
Osprey's Gaslands, their post-apocalyptic vehicular combat game, continues to be a runaway hit among gaming nerds. We covered the game itself in last month's "What's new in tabletop gaming?" One of the beauties of this and many other rule sets that Osprey has been releasing, is that you have to finish the game yourself. In this case, you have to convert your own Matchbox cars into Mad Max-style combat vehicles and scan, print, and cut out the various dashboards, markers, and templates. This all helps insire people to make cool, custom accessories for their games. And with 3D printing and CNC these days, it doesn't take long for game accessories to show up on sites like Thingiverse. An excellent case in point is this 3D printable Gaslands dashboard to replace to dull little dashboard templates that are available in the back of the rule book. Come on, it has a stick-shifter. You know you want that!
Kingdom Death Monster Gear Grid
Another game that gets a lovely and useful 3D printable organizing grid for your components is Kingdom Death: Monster. This intense, extremely beautiful game, a two-time Kickstarter darling, is known for being a little overly fussy to play, with a card-driven AI that requires a lot of component management. This grid is designed to help you better organize your Gear Cards while playing. Also, check out Alex A's character Survival Board on Thingiverse. It even incorporates LEDs that light up to track your survival actions.
Star Wars: Legion Painting Tutorial
[youtube=https://youtu.be/CWOashnOpvA] Star Wars: Legion is all the rage in tabletop gaming. Even gamers who are stretched thin with too many unpainted mini games in their collections are buying and fielding Legion. Maybe because Stormtroopers have such a simple, mainly white, color scheme, a ton of tutorials have sprung up online for speed-painting the squad in the box. Since the Rebels are a bit more colorful, they take much longer to paint. But there are some excellent speed painting tuts for them, too. This one is my favorite. Inks and washes have been a real game changer in the miniatures hobby. This tutorial shows how you can use them almost exclusively over a single color basecoat to achieve some impressive results. Jarrett claims it only took him two hours to paint the entire squad, including filming the process.
Unbroken
Altema Games, $23, 1 Player, Ages 13+
I found out about this game through my friend, Jim Kelly's game column on Geek Dad. Both Jim and I suffer from the same problem where our game obsession far outstrips our ability to find people to play with us. So we're always on the lookout for well-done solo games. In Unbroken, now in its late pledge stage on Kickstarter, you are the sole survivor of a dungeon delve gone horribly wrong. You have to try and make your way to the surface while overcoming monsters and traps. It's rare enough to have a game that includes solo play. It's rarer still to have a fantasy game like this that is exclusively solo. And it's only US$23!
Emotional labor watch: "Closers" flirt on behalf of men who use Tinder
Closers are paid $1.45/session to log into (usually) men's dating-app accounts and flirt with the women in their queue for 10 minute stretches, as part of a gig-economy company called Vida (Virtual Dating Assistants). (more…)
Friday 27 April 2018
Bill Cosby explains why people go to prison
"Somewhere along the way, they did something wrong, something dumb... Maybe they even got away with it first and thought they'd never get caught."
Hey, hey, hey?
The world's oldest known spider has died
This female trapdoor spider, named Number 16, was the world's oldest known spider. A lifelong resident of the Australian outback, she has just died at age 43. From Curtin University:
The research, published in the Pacific Conservation Biology Journal, suggests the 43-year-old Giaus Villosus trapdoor matriarch, who recently died during a long-term population study, had outlived the previous world record holder, a 28-year old tarantula found in Mexico.
Lead author PhD student Leanda Mason from the School of Molecular and Life Sciences at Curtin University said the ongoing research has led to new discoveries about the longevity of the trapdoor spider.
“To our knowledge this is the oldest spider ever recorded, and her significant life has allowed us to further investigate the trapdoor spider’s behaviour and population dynamics,” Ms Mason said.
“The research project was first initiated by Barbara York Main in 1974, who monitored the long-term spider population for over 42 years in the Central Wheatbelt region of Western Australia.
“Through Barbara’s detailed research, we were able to determine that the extensive life span of the trapdoor spider is due to their life-history traits, including how they live in uncleared, native bushland, their sedentary nature and low metabolisms.”
Stressed-out students can now break down in the Cry Closet at the University of Utah
School isn't always fun. In fact, during the weeks of back-to-back midterms and finals it can make you want to scream – or break down and have a good ol' fashioned cry. Enter the Cry Closet, Utah University's therapeutic stand-alone tiny room complete with cute plushies you can cuddle with while you let it all out.
Rules posted on the Cry Closet include:
Knock before entering
Only one person in the closet at a time
Limit your time in the closet to no more than 10 minutes
Turn lights and timer off before leaving
Use #cryclosetuofu if posting on social media
The Cry Closet wasn't built or funded by the university, but instead is a student project. According to Oddity Central:
Created by University of Utah student and visual artist Nemo Miller in woodshop class, the cry closet is lined with a black interior, and features plush stuffed animals inside that students can hug and squeeze as they cry. Whether it’s midterm exams, getting dumped via text message or just having a bad day, students can cry in peace, at least for 10 minutes.
Check out these photos tweeted by @aJackieLarsen:
so my school installed a cry closet in the library LMFAOOOOOOOOO what is higher education pic.twitter.com/6rGcJv9qjr
— jacks (@aJackieLarsen) April 24, 2018
Image: pxhere
How Amazonian drum communication sounds (and acts) like human speech
In the forests of the Amazon, West Africa, and Asia, villagers often beat on large drums to send messages miles away. While you may think that the patterns are similar to Morse Code, they're actually simplified versions of the villagers' spoken languages, "without consonants or vowels but with enough connection to the original language that speakers can reliably interpret what they mean." In newly published research, University of Cologne linguist Frank Seifart and his colleagues reveal how it's done. From Science:
"If you listen closely, the drumbeats of Amazonian tribes sound like human speech" (Science)All but one of the 20 or so drummed speech systems come from tonal languages, including Yoruba in Nigeria, Banda-Linda in the Central African Republic, and Chin in Myanmar. Spoken Bora has two tones, which are recreated using two different drums made from hollowed logs, called manguarĂ©. The thinner “male” has a higher tone, and the thicker “female” has a lower one.
But tone alone isn’t enough to distinguish all the words a drummer might want to say. So Seifart and his colleagues looked at what he calls a “neglected” quality in linguistics—-rhythm...
The intervals between beats changed in length depending on the sounds that followed each vowel. If a sound segment consisted of just one vowel, the time after the beat was quite short. But if that vowel was followed by a consonant, the time after the beat went up an average of 80 milliseconds. Two vowels followed by a consonant added another 40 milliseconds. And a vowel followed by two consonants added a final 30 milliseconds.
These short durations are enough to distinguish the drummed messages for “go fishing” and “bring firewood,” which are identical in tone, but not in their ordering of consonants and vowels. That means, the researchers write, that rhythm plays a crucial expressive role in drummed languages.
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