Ajit Pai called it "illegal." EFF called it "the strongest Net Neutrality measure in the country." The telcoms companies got their employees to demand that California Governor Jerry Brown veto it. Jerry Brown just signed it.
Sunday 30 September 2018
California's Net Neutrality bill is now law
Sarah Palin's kid Track arrested for domestic violence, again
Police reported to the home of Track Palin, son of Sarah, due to new reports of domestic violence. This is not his first offense. Perhaps he refrained from calling the troopers names, this time.
Via CNN:
Sarah Palin's oldest son, Track Palin, was arrested Friday on domestic violence charges, Alaska State Troopers said.
Palin allegedly assaulted an acquaintance, then prevented her from calling police by taking away her phone, troopers said in a statement.
He then physically resisted troopers while being placed under arrest, authorities said.
Palin, 29, was charged with domestic violence, interfering with report of domestic violence, resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct.He appeared in court in Palmer on Saturday. He said he was "not guilty, for sure," CNN affiliate KTUU reported.
Troopers said he was being held at the Mat-Su Pretrial facility in Palmer without bond. He doesn't have an attorney listed on the facility's website.
The incident is not his first arrest related to domestic violence. He was arrested in early 2016 and charged with domestic violence assault involving a female, interfering with a report of domestic violence, and possession of a weapon while intoxicated. At the time, Sarah Palin attributed her son's actions to post-traumatic stress disorder he suffered after returning from 2008 combat mission in Iraq.
Video of a zamboni as I understand his dad likes 'em.
Mailstrom declutters your inbox with smart sorting tools
Right up there with your Twitter feed and Mr. Coffee machine, our email inboxes are among the first things we check in the morning. And, no matter how diligent we are about managing them, there's always a mountain of clutter waiting for us when we start our day. We could all use some organizational help, and Mailstrom Pro might be the solution. Lifetime subscriptions are on sale for $59.99 today.
Mailstrom is the email management app that identifies and organizes bundles of related mail, allowing you to easily sort, manage, and delete massive swathes of emails at a time. You can unblock unwanted senders and unsubscribe from old lists with a single click, and Mailstrom's lifetime subscription extends to up to 20 of your email accounts giving you plenty of coverage.
A lifetime subscription to Mailstrom Pro normally retails for $999.75, but you can sign up today for $59.99.
Curtains Up, a short film on movies and meditation featuring David Lynch
Stella McCartney profiles David Lynch in this moody piece on the joys of cinema and transcendental meditation.
Via Nowness:
Having both reflected and refracted the modern world—from the provincial eeriness of Blue Velvet to the urban grime of Mulholland Drive—Lynch's work has consistently probed the magical and often dreamlike qualities of film. The LA-based director puts it simply: "Cinema is its own language." For Lynch, watching film—waiting for the curtains to rise, before descending into another world—shares many qualities with the inward reflection of meditation. This is especially relevant at a time when the subject matter of many films dips anxiously into modern darkness. But, as Lynch points out, "the filmmaker doesn’t have to be suffering to show suffering."
Throughout the film, an eclectic cast of cameos and creative talents make appearances (including McCartney herself) in order to highlight the benefits of transcendental meditation in addressing trauma and the epidemic of toxic stress. The collaboration was created in support of the works of the David Lynch Foundation, whose aim is to prevent these issues from further spreading.
• David Lynch in "Curtain's Up", from Stella McCartney (YouTube / Nowness)
Matt Damon's eerily good Kavanaugh SNL sketch
Say what you will about the Trump era: it has ushered in a SNL renaissance. Between Baldwin's eerily good Trump and McKinnon's Sessions, Melissa McCarthy's Spicer and Bill Murray's Bannon, SNL is proving Garry Trudeau's point that satire isn't supposed to change minds, it's supposed to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.
Kavanaugh embodies "comfortable" which is why his decidedly uncomfortable performance before the Senate was so singular; Matt Damon's SNL cold open skewers Kavanaugh through-and-through.
A Bad Lip Reading of Hillary Clinton's stories
These aren't the stories I'd expect to hear from Hillary Clinton... they're a bit more revealing than she's ever shared before.
Affinity Photo is an awesome low cost Photoshop alternative
I pay for a monthly subscription to Adobe's suite of photo editing apps. They streamline my workflow on my Mac, iPad and iPhone. What's more, they allow me to make my mediocre photos almost look like they were taken by someone who knows what they're doing. I'll be the first to admit, however, that subscription-based software is bullshit. Yes, you'll always have access to the latest updates that the application developers have to offer, but for all of the money you're paying over the course of months, or even years, you never end up with a product that you can say you own. Stop paying that monthly fee and you're left with bupkis. I don't much care for how that feels. I'm also not crazy about how much horsepower Adobe's software needs to perform well. Photoshop and Lightroom work great on my 2015 MacBook Pro. The same goes for Adobe's mobile apps on my iOS devices and Android smartphones. Unfortunately, the pixels flow like mud if I attempt to do any image editing in Lightroom on my Microsoft Surface Go. It's just not powerful enough. Happily, I discovered Affinty Photo a few years ago. It's a low cost Photoshop alternative for iOS, Mac OS and Windows that, for many image editing tasks, is just powerful enough to get shit done.
On my low-powered Surface Go, Affinty loads in half the time that Photoshop does, allowing me to get in and out of working on a photo quickly before uploading it to go along with a story. For more complex editorial tasks, it's able, for the most part, to go blow for blow with Adobe's image tweaking darling. However, Affinity will make you work for the results that its capable of--Photoshop has it beat, hands-down, in the area of task automation. I don't find Affinity's interface to be as intuitive as what you get with an Adobe product, either. As such, it could be a little intimidating for anyone who's new to image editing software. Fortunately, Affinity offers a number of online tutorials to take the sting out of the application's learning curve. I also appreciate that, on the rare occasions when I do turn to my iPad Pro (which, since grabbing the Surface Go, has become my wife's iPad Pro), the iOS version of the app ape's the desktop's UI. If you can use one, you can most certainly use the other. Doing so with a fingertip isn't as easy as it is with a mouse, but you'll get there. I've worked for weeks away from home on my iPad without a hiccup in my productivity, thanks to Affinity Photo. For well under one hundred bucks, it offers robust, full-featured image editing tools, cross platform compatibility.
While Mac users have no choice but to buy it from the App Store, those rocking a Windows machine can download a free, fully functional version of the application from Affinity's website. Give it a spin, for the low, low price of free.
Image & Photograph contained within via Seamus Bellamy
$100 bills outnumber $1s, and they're stuffed in our mattresses
For the first time, the most common US bill in circulation is the $100: these benjamins aren't being used to transact our daily business -- they're the preferred form of savings after a long spell of low inflation and nonexistent interest rates, when there are so many obvious reasons to distrust the banks. (via Naked Capitalism)
Saturday 29 September 2018
Bill Cosby's new prison digs are known for racism, violence and systematic abuse
Bill Cosby has justly been whisked away to prison for the next three to ten years. Cosby--let's just go ahead and assume his prison name will be Puddin'--is being shipped off to the Phoenix State Correctional Institution (SCI Phoenix) to serve his time. It's not a nice place: according to The Root, the clink where Puddin' will be spending his twilight years is rife with racism. Racial slurs, religious discrimination and other demeaning personal attacks are purportedly inflicted upon the prison's population by the facility's staff on a routine basis. Mind you, the staff aren't one hell of a lot safer. It's a high caliber shitshow.
From The Inquirer:
In letters and phone calls to family and reporters, and in official grievances, they've reported a raft of complaints about the conditions in the new prison and, especially, about loss, vandalism, or destruction of their personal property during the move. Several described racial slurs and graphic imagery drawn on photographs of their loved ones — acts the inmates describe as "hate crimes."
One man, Malik Gilmore, provided copies of photographs he said were defaced by the DOC's specially trained Corrections Emergency Response Team, which managed the move: one with a swastika inked on his brother's forehead, another with a penis drawn over his son's mouth. Another, Eugene Myrick, found "squeeze cheese" poured into a box containing the legal documents for his case, which is active in Philadelphia courts. And Carmen Calvanese said that during the move, he had inconsistent access to the insulin needed to regulate his Type 1 diabetes, and that he ended up in a hospital intensive-care unit as a result.
The story, which is worth a read, I assure you, continues by pointing out that sex offenders sent to the prison are often found, within days or weeks of their incarceration often die of "suicide." As it's the warden's plan to eventually integrate Puddin' into the general population of the prison, the prospects of his being able to fulfill all the days in the clink that the justice system says he has coming to him look pretty grim.
Image: by The World Affairs Council of Philadelphia - The World Affairs Council and Girard College present Bill Cosby, CC BY 2.0, Link
Bunny comes to the rescue of his kitty pal
Cats have a tendency to fit themselves into places that they have a hard time getting out of: behind refrigerators, the highest branches of a tree or, in this case, underneath a shed. Fortunately, for this kitteh, a bunny was on standby to help extricate it from its self-imposed prison.
Elon Musk agrees to pay $20 million and quit as Tesla chairman in deal with SEC
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has agreed to pay $20 million and quit the company he founded, in a deal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
From CNN:
Under the settlement, which requires court approval, Musk will be allowed to say as CEO but must leave his role as chairman of the board within 45 days. He cannot seek reelection for three years, according to court filings.
He accepted the deal with the SEC "without admitting or denying the allegations of the complaint," according to a court document.
The SEC alleged on Thursday that Musk misled investors when he tweeted on August 7 that he had secured funding to take Tesla private at $420 a share, causing Tesla's stock to soar. He had not secured the funding, the SEC said.
Separately, Tesla agreed Saturday to pay $20 million to settle claims it failed to adequately police Musk's tweet.
Tesla did not immediately reply to CNN's request for comment.
Twitter suspends academic who quoted feminist STEM research
MIT Comparative Media Studies researcher/instructor Chris Peterson is an adrent supporter of the Math Prize for Girls, and as part of his work with the organization, he's learned about the way that STEM fields were once considered inherently feminine, while the higher-status humanities were dominated by men -- it's the subject of some outstanding feminist scholarship by Professor Maria Charles.
Peterson tweeted a quote from Maria Charles's work on the subject in a discussion of the upcoming Math Prize for Girls, and then found that his Twitter account had been suspension, without any explanation (he was given a chance to appeal the suspension, but has been told he might have to wait for days to find out what Twitter thought he did wrong).
Peterson thinks he tripped over Twitter's new ban on "dehumanizing speech," which is meant to improve the quality of Twitter discourse by prohibiting Tweets that attack whole groups of people (formerly, Twitter banned attacking individuals on the basis of things like race or gender or sexual preferences, but not generalized racism, sexism, homophobia, etc).
Peterson's explanation seems plausible: although his tweet was a condemnation of sexism, it did discuss gender norms through a critical lens, and an overbusy Twitter moderator might well have mistaken its meaning. One of the great ironies of moderation -- etiher human or algorithmic -- is that criticism of bad speech often contains examples of bad speech that can trip up moderators (for example, a complaint about being the subject of a racial slur might repeat the slur).
Peterson is on the board of the nonprofit National Coalition Against Censorship, a charity that fights for free expression (NCAC helped me when one of my books was censored by a high school principal in Florida). He has recently argued for a relaxation of NCAC's "historic hard-line stance against social media intermediaries implementing any kind of steps to make their speech environments less toxic." because he is "deeply sympathetic to the arguments made by people, particularly members of historically subaltern groups, that a space where 'anything goes' reproduces preexisting power dynamics, and prevents members of these groups from participating on equal terms."
But, Peterson writes, he also believes "that the implementation of these policies and processes can’t be this dumb."
However, I also believe that the implementation of these policies and processes can’t be this dumb. I get that this is a really, really hard social and technical problem to solve. But any system that (apparently) flags feminist academic research about the social construction of scientific privilege as being abusive of women as a class is just not ready for production. And any such system, especially one as poorly designed as this, that keeps the reasons for disciplinary actions opaque, and obscures/delays the process of appealing an account to invisible moderators often working rapidly in inhumane conditions, does not meet the standard we must demand for the most powerful speech intermediaries in the world.
Look: I won’t be harmed by a few hours or days without a Twitter account. In fact, in the current political environment, it might be an unexpected benefit, in the same way getting sick before my race forced me to taper more kept me from hurting myself. But I’m posting this because, as someone (again) who is super-sympathetic to what Twitter is trying to do, this is completely bonkers.
And, in the long run, we have to hold our speech intermediaries to a high standard, even (especially) as we try to give them the space to design and cultivate more equitable environments for everyone to tell their stories. If we don’t, then we’re going to face the impossible choice between the free speech nihilism of “anything goes” or the capricious censorship of arbitrary algorithms. We can’t afford to accept either outcome.
Twitter suspended me for tweeting feminist academic research. Here’s why that’s a problem. [Chris Peterson/MIT]
App for UK Conservative Party conference exposes all attendees' private info
The UK Conservative Party's annual conference is about to kick off in Birmingham, and the Tories have distributed an app ahead of time to all attendees: senior ministers, government officials, members of the press, party members, and others.
The app has a fatal design-flaw: anyone could login as any attendee, provided that you knew that person's email address. As Guardian columnist and Jacobin writer Dawn Foster explained in a tweet, you could effect this login "just with their email address, no emailed security links, and post comments as them."
Once logged in, you could see the user's private mobile phone number, change that person's profile, and, as noted, post comments under their name (the app has been updated to close the vulnerability).
Twitter users are speculating about which UK data-protection laws this violates and what sort of penalties the party may face as a result of the breach.
More trenchantly, this undermines the Conservatives' signature technological promises, including its insistence that a post-Brexit Irish border can be solved with technology, and the plans to make EU citizens register their presence in the UK with an app.
FFS, the Tory conference app allows you to login as other people and view their contact details just with their email address, no emailed security links, and post comments as them.
— Dawn Foster (@DawnHFoster) September 29, 2018
Visualizing the relative evasiveness of Kavanaugh and Ford
Kavanaugh didn't just DARVO his way through yesterday's hearing: his bluster, tears, rage, and blame-shifting also allowed him to dodge a remarkable number of questions raised by the senators.
Ford, by contrast, answered virtually every question put to her.
Vox went through the transcript and painstakingly logged whether each question raised was addressed. They confirmed the impression that Kavanaugh was dodging the questions and Ford wasn't, and produced an excellent interactive graphic that allows us to visualize the both witnesses' forthrightness and drill down on each question and statement.
Incel, a disturbing short film about an "involuntary celibate"
This NSFW film examines a fictional incel named Sam, starting with his agonizingly tense interaction with a young woman and reaching a disturbing culmination.
Via the Vimeo blog:
The term “incel” is short for “involuntarily celibate.” It was originally coined in the early ‘90s by a website created for people to share their experiences of sexual inactivity. Since then, “incel” has evolved into an internet subculture of men who unwillingly remain sexually inactive and often employ hateful ideas of misogyny and racism to justify their plight. Merizalde first became interested in the subject after the 2014 mass shooting in Isla Vista, California in which 22-year-old Elliot Rodger targeted a nearby college sorority, killing six people and injuring fourteen others before committing suicide. Rodger was posthumously heralded a hero among incel communities for these actions and according to Merizalde, the event was uniquely disturbing due to the ability to track “the trail of vlogs that [Rodger] left online leading up to the attack. His descent into violent, misogynistic beliefs with a plan for “retribution” was chronicled over time, which eventually culminated in a manifesto video.”
Those interested in an in-depth and entertaining explainer about incels should check out the Contrapoints video on the topic:
• INCEL (Vimeo / John Merizalde)
Why you should add an ITIL certification to your resume
As today's businesses grow, so too do their IT needs. That's why demand (and pay) is high for experts who can keep these businesses online. Now, demand alone won't get your foot in the door, as employers expect you to bring some certifications to the table that validate your skills. There are plenty of certifications out there, but choosing ITIL could take you further in your career. The Ultimate ITIL Certification Training Bundle can help you get certified, and it's on sale for $49.
ITIL is a set of detailed practices for IT service management that focuses on merging IT services with the needs of business. By introducing ITIL practices into a workplace, you can better help a business create cost-effective practices, manage risk, and ultimately build a more stable yet scalable operation. This collection features 14 courses on the IT service lifecycle, operational support, and other ITIL concepts. In addition to getting valuable ITIL knowledge, each course will reward you with PDUs that you can then use to qualify to take the necessary certification exams.
The Ultimate ITIL Certification Training Bundle usually retails for $3,499, but you can get it through the Boing Boing shop for $49.
A detailed anatomy of the hack that compromised Facebook's 50 million user breach
Yesterday, at least 90,000,000 Facebook users were forced to log back into the service without any explanation; later, the company revealed that at least 50,000,000 of them had been hacked, but wouldn't say how.
In a detailed anatomy of the hack based on an explanation provided by Facebook vice president of product management Guy Rosen, Motherboard's Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai and Jason Koebler provide insight into the mechanics of the breach.
The vulnerability was in Facebook's somewhat esoteric "View as" feature. This feature allows Facebook users to assure themselves that the privacy settings they've chosen for their posts are working as intended. If you make a post that you want your parents to be able to see, but not your boss, "View as" will let you preview the post as if you were your boss, and then as if you were your parents, and confirm that you've got the confusing welter of Facebook privacy options right.
The attackers were able to exploit a bug in this feature to capture "access tokens" when they used "View as." By viewing a post as your boss, they could trick the system into generating an "access token" that they could use to actually login to Facebook as your boss. These access tokens are used to spare users the inconvenience of being prompted to log in to Facebook every time an app or window tries to connect them to their Facebook data.
Logging out of Facebook cancels outstanding access tokens, which is why Facebook logged 90,000,000 users out yesterday.
Rosen did not discuss the identity of the attackers, nor which data they were able to steal from the affected Facebook users.
The first bug, Rosen explained, caused a video uploader to show up on View As pages “on certain kinds of posts encouraging people to post happy birthday greetings.” Normally, the video uploader should not have showed up. The second bug caused this video uploader to generate an access token that had permission to log into the Facebook mobile app, which is not how this feature “is intended to be used,” according to Rosen.
The final bug, Rosen explained, was that when the video uploader showed up as part of the View As feature, it generated a new access token not for the user, but for the person who they were pretending to be—essentially giving the person using the View As feature the keys to access the account of the person they were simulating. In the example we gave above, this would not only have allowed you to look at John’s profile using the View As John feature, but it also would have generated an access token allowing you to login to and take over John’s account.
“It was the combination of those three bugs that became a vulnerability. Now, this was discovered by attackers,” Rosen said. “Those attackers, in order to run the attack, needed not just to find this vulnerability, but they needed to get an access token and then to pivot that access token to other accounts and then look up other users in order to get further access tokens.”
How 50 Million Facebook Users Were Hacked [Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai and Jason Koebler/Motherboard]
Facebook's spam filter blocked the most popular articles about its 50m user breach
When news broke yesterday that Facebook had suffered a breach affecting at least 50,000,000 stories, Facebook users (understandably) began to widely share links to articles about the breach.
The articles were so widely and quickly shared that they triggered Facebook's spam filters, which blocked the most popular stories about the breach, including an AP story and a Guardian story.
There's no reason to think that Facebook intentionally suppressed embarrassing news about its own business. Rather, this is a cautionary tale about the consequences of content filtering on big platforms.
Facebook's spam filter is concerned primarily with stopping spam, not with allowing through storm-of-the-century breaking news headlines that everyone wants to share. On a daily basis, Facebook gets millions of spams and (statistically) zero stories so salient that every Facebook user shares them at once. Any kind of sanity-check on a spam filter that allowed through things that appeared to be breaking news would represent a crack in Facebook's spam defenses that would let through much more spam than legitimate everywhere-at-once stories, because those stories almost never occur, while spam happens every second of every minute of every hour of every day.
And yet, storm-of-the-century stories are incredibly important (by definition) and losing our ability to discuss them -- or having that ability compromised by having to wait hours for Facebook to discover, diagnose and repair the problem -- is a very high price to pay.
It's a problem with the same underlying mechanics as the incident in which a man was sent an image of his mother's grave decorated with dancing cartoon characters and party balloons on the anniversary of her funeral. Facebook sends you these annual reminders a year after you post an image that attracts a lot of "likes" and images that attract a lot of likes are far more likely to be happy news than they are to be your mother's tombstone. You only bury your mother once, while you celebrate personal victories repeatedly.
So cartoon characters on your mother's grave is a corner-case; an outlier, just like a spam filter suppressing a story about a breach of 50,000,000 Facebook accounts. But they are incredibly important outliers, outliers that the system should never, ever miss.
It may not ever be possible to design a system with two billion users that doesn't involve these kinds of outliers: a one-in-a-billion outlier in a system with two billion users will happen twice a day, on average. We don't really know how to design a system that can address the majority of cases and also every one-in-a-billion corner-case.
But the answer shouldn't be to shrug our shoulders and give up. If it's impossible to run a system for two billion users without committing grave, unforgivable sins on a daily basis, then we shouldn't have systems with two billion users.
Unfortunately, the rising chorus of calls for the platforms to filter their users are trapped in the idea that the platforms can fix their problems -- not that the platforms are the problems. Filtering for harassment will inevitably end up filtering out many discussions of harassment itself, in which survivors of harassment are telling their stories and getting support. Same goes for filtering for copyright infringement, libel, "extremist content" and other "bad speech" (including a lot of speech that I personally find distasteful and never want to see in my own online sessions).
It's totally true that filtering doesn't scale up to billion-user platforms -- which isn't to say that we should abandon our attempts to have civil and civilized online discussions, but that the problem may never be solved until we cut the platforms down to manageable scales.
When going to share the story to their news feed, some users, including members of the staff here at TechCrunch who were able to replicate the bug, were met with the following error message which prevented them from sharing the story.
According to the message, Facebook is flagging the stories as spam due to how widely they are being shared or as the message puts it, the system’s observation that “a lot of people are posting the same content.”
Facebook blocked users from posting some stories about its security breach [Taylor Hatmaker/Techcrunch]
Friday 28 September 2018
Hillary Clinton on the first new "Murphy Brown" in 2 decades
This scene between Candace Bergen and Hillary Clinton is just one of the many reasons I am very much looking forward to new episodes of Murphy Brown.
Marty Balin, co-founder of Jefferson Airplane, RIP
Marty Balin, co-founder in 1965 of the pioneering psychedelic band Jefferson Airplane, has died at age 76. Balin wrote or co-wrote nearly half of the tunes on the band's seminal 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow that was the de facto soundtrack for San Francisco's Summer of Love. From Rolling Stone:
Born Martyn Jerel Buchwald, Balin was a struggling folk guitarist on the San Francisco scene when he formed a band with Paul Kantner after meeting the 12-string guitarist at a hootenanny. They met up with guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, bassist Jack Casady, drummer Skip Spence and singer Signe Toly Anderson and cut their 1966 debut LP Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. They developed a strong following around the budding San Francisco rock scene, but became nationwide superstars in 1967 when Anderson left the group and was replaced by Grace Slick.
Reddit 'quarantines' white supremacist, incel, holocaust denier, and other gross subreddits
Women-hating MRAs and Incels, Holocaust Deniers, 9/11 Truthers, and snuff video fetishists on Reddit got harder to find today. An update of Reddit's “quarantine” policy was announced on Thursday, and by Friday new content disclaimers appeared a number of the sketchier “subreddits,” including four with over 100,000 subscribers each.
“This is another step in how we’re thinking about enforcement on Reddit and how we can best incentivize positive behavior,” landoflobsters writes on the Reddit thread announcing the news.
The quarantine affected an extremist Left group, R/FullCommunism, and grossout subreddits where you can find video, images, and audio of human beings dying.
Here's an excerpt from the official post where Reddit announced the updated policy and a new implementation that wiped out access to a bunch of hate content:
While Reddit has had a quarantine function for almost three years now, we have learned in the process. Today, we are updating our quarantining policy to reflect those learnings, including adding an appeals process where none existed before.
On a platform as open and diverse as Reddit, there will sometimes be communities that, while not prohibited by the Content Policy, average redditors may nevertheless find highly offensive or upsetting. In other cases, communities may be dedicated to promoting hoaxes (yes we used that word) that warrant additional scrutiny, as there are some things that are either verifiable or falsifiable and not seriously up for debate (eg, the Holocaust did happen and the number of people who died is well documented). In these circumstances, Reddit administrators may apply a quarantine.
The purpose of quarantining a community is to prevent its content from being accidentally viewed by those who do not knowingly wish to do so, or viewed without appropriate context. We’ve also learned that quarantining a community may have a positive effect on the behavior of its subscribers by publicly signaling that there is a problem. This both forces subscribers to reconsider their behavior and incentivizes moderators to make changes.
Quarantined communities display a warning that requires users to explicitly opt-in to viewing the content (similar to how the NSFW community warning works). Quarantined communities generate no revenue, do not appear in non-subscription-based feeds (eg Popular), and are not included in search or recommendations. Other restrictions, such as limits on community styling, crossposting, the share function, etc. may also be applied. Quarantined subreddits and their subscribers are still fully obliged to abide by Reddit’s Content Policy and remain subject to enforcement measures in cases of violation.
Moderators will be notified via modmail if their community has been placed in quarantine. To be removed from quarantine, subreddit moderators may present an appeal here. The appeal should include a detailed accounting of changes to community moderation practices. (Appropriate changes may vary from community to community and could include techniques such as adding more moderators, creating new rules, employing more aggressive auto-moderation tools, adjusting community styling, etc.) The appeal should also offer evidence of sustained, consistent enforcement of these changes over a period of at least one month, demonstrating meaningful reform of the community.
You can find more detailed information on the quarantine appeal and review process here.
Related coverage at The Daily Beast.
[PHOTO: Reddit mascots are displayed at the company's headquarters in San Francisco, California in this April 15, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith]
Photographer travels the globe documenting remarkable libraries
The World's Most Beautiful Libraries is a lovely collection of some of the most awe-inspiring libraries ever built.
Via the publisher:
In this new photographic journey, Massimo Listri travels to some of the oldest and finest libraries to reveal their architectural, historical, and imaginative wonder. Through great wooden doors, up spiraling staircases, and along exquisite, shelf-lined corridors, he leads us through outstanding private, public, educational, and monastic libraries, dating as far back as 766. Between them, these medieval, classical, baroque, rococo, and 19th-century institutions hold some of the most precious records of human thought and deed, inscribed and printed in manuscripts, volumes, papyrus scrolls, and incunabula. In each, Listri’s poised images capture the library’s unique atmosphere, as much as their most prized holdings and design details.
Check out his Instagram for just a few of the examples:
The coffee table book isn't cheap, so maybe suggest it as an acquisition for your local library!
• The World's Most Beautiful Libraries (via Taschen)
Judge rules Dems can sue Trump for doing business with foreign governments while in office
Donald Trump, meet the U.S. Constitution's 'emoluments clause.'
A federal judge ruled today that 200 congressional Democrats do have standing to sue Donald Trump for violating the Constitution by doing business with foreign governments while he holds the office of President, according to the Washington Post.
The lawsuit is based on the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which bars presidents from taking payments from foreign states. Trump’s business, which he still owns, has hosted foreign embassy events and visiting foreign officials at its downtown D.C. hotel.
The decision opens up yet another legal front for the president, who is now facing an array of inquiries into his business, his campaign and his charity.
Trump is already facing a separate emoluments suit filed by the attorneys general of Washington, D.C. and Maryland that is moving forward. In addition, he is contending with the ongoing special counsel investigation into Russian interference, a lawsuit from the New York Attorney General that alleged “persistently illegal conduct” at his charitable foundation and a defamation lawsuit brought by former “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos.
In his ruling, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan wrote that the members of Congress “appropriate seek relief in federal court” because they have no way to address their concern about Trump’s alleged violation of the emoluments clause with legislation.
“The Clause requires the President to ask Congress before accepting a prohibited foreign emolument,” Sullivan wrote. If the allegations made by Democrats are true, he said, then “the President is accepting prohibited foreign emoluments without asking and without receiving a favorable reply from Congress.”
By not asking Congress, Sullivan said, Trump could have effectively “nullified their votes” — which, he said, meant legislators could seek the unusual remedy of filing a lawsuit against the president.
Watch a very brave biker zip along a lakeside cliff
Nothing like a relaxing bike ride where the slightest mistake will send you careening down jagged rocks and into a lake far below. The only thing less relaxing would be focusing on filming the whole thing while riding.
Fun fact: the reason Phoksundo Lake in Nepal is such a vibrant color is because of the low levels of nutrients and organic matter in the water.
The same biker has summited some spectacular mountains, too:
• Phoksundo Lake (YouTube / Michele Ferro)
Dishtowel hanging solution for $3.69
We don't have a good place to hang dishtowels in our kitchen. This cupboard door hanger was just what we needed and the price is right at just $3.69.
Pixel room generator
The Pixel Room Generator lets you create charming little pixel-art rooms with all sorts of furniture, such as the one above designed by Itch.io user mogibear.
Here's mine:
Account aggregates thematically similar Instagram travel pics
Platforms like Instagram reward users who post specific kinds of content, in some cases leading to travel largely for the photo op. Insta Repeat examines how stylistic themes have emerged in the genre of of Instagram travel photos by aggregating shots that are similar in theme, location, and type of person.
What's always interesting to me is that behind many of these photos is an "Instagram boyfriend," the generic term for any spouse, friend, or intimate companion who documents the life of an Instagram influencer.
• Insta Repeat (Instagram)
Performer plays flute from wrong end
Is it even possible to play a flute from the wrong end? I suspect Milli Vanillism here.
From the YouTube description:
A woman played a cucurbit flute from the wrong end during the Mid-Autumn Festival performance.
The funny clip, shot in Qiqihar City in Heilongjiang Province on September 23, shows the woman named Yang Shurong playing the cucurbit flute upside-down while performing the pop song ‘Moonlight Over the Lotus Pond’ with several others (playing correctly) on stage.
The male performer standing beside her tries to help her turn the cucurbit flute around but she refuses.
According to reports, Yang was the organizer of the performance.
Reportedly Yang was playing that way because staff had passed the cucurbit flute to her backward, and she did not want to affect the performance by turning it around.
Yang held the flute in the incorrect position for the rest of the performance.
She has since been temporarily banned from future performances, reports said.
Feminist Frequency Radio's Anita Sarkeesian tells us her favorite tools
Our guest on the Cool Tools podcast this week is Anita Sarkeesian. Anita is a media critic and the host of Feminist Frequency Radio. She has a new book called History vs Women, which she wrote with Ebony Adams.
Subscribe to the Cool Tools Show on iTunes | RSS | Transcript | Download MP3 | See all the Cool Tools Show posts on a single page
Show notes:
"You know when you're trying to schedule a time to meet with someone, and you do 20 back and forth emails to find the date and time that works for everybody? It is the most annoying thing especially for those of us who are just in meetings all the time. So earlier this year, I found this app called Calend
ly and what it is, is you just send a link and then the other person finds the time on your calendar and just automatically schedules it. It's like heaven. The way it works is you put in your calendar constraints. So, if you want to have availability open from nine to five, Monday through Friday, you do that. You can also change it and be like, 'Oh, I'm not available from one to five or whatever might be.' It's very customizable, and then it only shows the other people the dates and times that you are available. It's awesome. ... I think there's premium versions where you can have more people, but in my experience I'm just using it one-to-one. So, it definitely works that way. I've also seen people use it who work in a customer service scenario where they're scheduling meetings to introduce new clients to their product or what have you, and so they set it up and then they're just like, 'Here, pick your time that works.’ I've seen people use it for events. So, if you're at a conference and you're scheduling a bunch of meetings, you can use it that way for that week to make sure that everyone can just schedule in and it's not all these back and forths.”
“The Instant Pot is a slow cooker, pressure cooker, rice cooker. It's a multi-tool thing in your kitchen that lets you cook kind of everything. It is remarkable. I actually had the instant pot sitting in my house for a couple of years and never used it, and I finally pulled it out earlier this year, and I don't know why I waited so long. You can make so much with it so quickly. You can sauté in it. You can do roasts in it. You can make soups. I boil eggs in it. I make the most perfect soft-boiled eggs every time. I love it. .. You could put 20 eggs in it and it will be absolutely perfect every time, because it's the exact same pressure and there's no juggling when did the water start boiling and all of that stuff. I come from a family where my mother has every single kitchen gadget known to humankind. I somehow end up with all of these kitchen gadgets, and this is a one-stop shop. You don't need a rice cooker, and a pressure cooker, and a slow cooker, and all of these different things because it literally does everything. I actually just heard from a friend who for some reason her building isn't going to have gas for a while. So, she's switching to the instant pot as her primary tool for cooking. I'm seeing more and more cookbooks coming out. I just got one that was this 25 Affordable Easy Instant Pot Recipes. So, this is becoming kind of a craze and a thing that people are using. We're seeing more and more experimentation and more and more options of how to use it."
"I am a little bit neurotically obsessed with packing efficiency. I will sometimes go through YouTube rabbit holes of the best way to pack things. It's kind of a problem but also I travel so much, and I hate checking in luggage. I don't like to bring a lot of stuff, so I am constantly looking for more efficient ways of bringing the least amount of things especially when I'm going on month long multi-city trips. So, packing cubes are one of the things that I started introducing into my travels. They're basically like little bags, and instead of just folding your clothes up and throwing it in the suitcase, you fold your clothes up and you stick them in these little bags, and it lets you pack in more, more efficiently. …You can make them sit in whatever ways, which is this nice tidy collection. So, if you do have to pack a little bit more and don't want it sort of popping out everywhere, these bags help contain it. I particularly like a brand or rather a style, and the brand that I use is Eagle Creek. They're a little more stable and structured in size as opposed to once that are more flimsy. You can pack them, you can just fold your clothes as you would and stuff them in or you can roll your clothes. There are lots of different ways to use them."
The Gender Knot: Unraveling our Patriarchal Legacy by Allan G. Johnson
"This is a book that I always have. Once I read it for the first time, I was like, 'This is foundational and instrumental to my feminism, to my activism work,' and the reason I love it so much is because it takes these very big concepts of systems of oppression. In this case specifically, talking about patriarchy and distills it down into very easy to understand language. It takes it out of the theoretical academic realm and explains it in ways that's really easy for folks to understand, and I found it to be so instrumental in my understanding, or the early days of understanding feminism that I highly recommend it to everyone who wants to get a better sense of what is patriarchy. What are systems of oppression? How do they affect you? How do they affect our world, and what do we do about it? .. It doesn't make it any simpler. It just makes it more accessible. It uses language that we can understand. It makes it more available to more people instead of keeping it trapped in these academic spaces."
Also mentioned:
History vs Women: The Defiant Lives that THEY Don’t Want You To Know
"We profiled 25 women who have been erased from history. The book actually came out of a series that we did at Feminist Frequency called the Ordinary Women where we told the stories of five women that we thought were very interesting and that we wanted other people to learn about. So, with History Vs. Women, we obviously got to tell more stories and dive in a little deeper. I think one of the things that this book does is we're trying to root the fact that women have been written out of history and the erasure of women's experiences, women's lives, women's contributions to our contemporary time and the way women are treated today. So, we write in the book about why you should care about these women. Why you should care about these forgotten stories and how it affects us today and in the future. It was really important to us to be intersectional in the way that we approach the women that we chose. It is intergenerational, so we tried to do a very wide span of history, and we tried to look globally as we could."
We have hired professional editors to help create our weekly podcasts and video reviews. So far, Cool Tools listeners have pledged $383 a month. Please consider supporting us on Patreon. We have great rewards for people who contribute! – MF
Modern Monetary Theory: why government spending isn't like household checkbooks
You know the drill: someone proposes something utterly commonsense, that has been done all over the world (say, universal healthcare) and the next thing you know, someone's shown up to shout "Who will pay for it?!"
Or, more toxically, a discussion of immigration or refugees or asylum seekers ends up being derailed by the state's inability to pay for basic services for the people in the country today -- how can we afford immigrants?
Or, worst of all, someone tells you that they voted for a shambling pile of human garbage because he's promised to "fix the debt" and to do less would be immoral, burdening the generations to come (see also: the fucking Democrats buying into this).
Governments aren't households, and governments borrowing money in a currency that they themselves issue isn't the same thing as you getting a bank loan. For more than a century, there has been a group of economists who've pointed this out: called "chartalists," then "neo-chartalists" and now, "modern monetary theorists" and they know exactly how to fund universal healthcare.
Modern Monetary Theory is the key to the economic prescriptions of Bernie Sanders and it underpins the platform of the Democratic Socialists of America. It's an idea that is having something of a moment!
This week's Planet Money podcast does an excellent job of describing MMT in terms that are literally designed to be understood by an eight-year-old (so I was able to follow along, too!).
Once you've given that a listen, try The Nation's potted history of MMT and the groundswell of support for it.
And remember: governments are not businesses, CEOs make shitty presidents, and government debt is not a bank-loan.
To a layperson, MMT can seem dizzyingly complex, but at its core is the belief that most of us have the economy backward. Conventional wisdom holds that the government taxes individuals and companies in order to fund its own spending. But the government—which is ultimately the source of all dollars, taxed or untaxed—pays or spends first and taxes later. When it funds programs, it literally spends money into existence, injecting cash into the economy. Taxes exist in order to control inflation by reducing the money supply, and to ensure that dollars, as the only currency accepted for tax payments, remain in demand.
It follows that currency-issuing governments could (and, depending on how you lean politically, should) spend as much as they need to in order to guarantee full employment and other social goods. MMT’s adherents like to point out that the federal government never “runs out” of money to fund the military, but routinely invokes budget constraints to justify defunding social programs. Money, in other words, isn’t a scarce commodity like silver or gold. “To people who’ve worked in financial markets, who work at the Fed, this isn’t controversial at all,” says Galbraith, who, while not an adherent, can certainly be described as “MMT-friendly.”
The decisions about how to issue, lend, and spend money come down to politics, values, and convention, whether the goal is reducing inequality or boosting entrepreneurship. Inflation, MMT’s proponents contend, can be controlled through taxation, and only becomes a problem at full employment—and we’re a long way off from that, particularly if we include people who have given up looking for jobs or aren’t working as much as they’d like to among the officially “unemployed.” The point is that, once you shake off notions of artificial scarcity, MMT’s possibilities are endless. The state can guarantee a job to anyone who wants one, lowering unemployment and competing with the private sector for workers, raising standards and wages across the board.
Support abortion access with 'Broadway Acts For Women' and 'A is For'
Kavanaugh got you pissed off about the future of Roe v. Wade? Support this awesome event, and this awesome nonprofit.—The Editors.
In 2012, A is For was launched as a response to the ever-escalating legislative attacks on access to safe reproductive healthcare. I'm proud to be one of the co-founders and its vice president.
One of our most successful events is our annual Broadway Acts for Women show at 54 Below in New York City.
Each year, and in the only event of its kind, Broadway performers who support access to reproductive health care show up to sing something they’ve never rehearsed, while the audience bids for a fantastic prize AND the chance to choose the song.
It's a madcap night of music and mayhem featuring some of Broadway's biggest stars. This year's show takes place this Sunday, September 30th and our lineup is absolutely amazing.
Hosted by A is For's president Martha Plimpton and Saturday Night Live's Cecily Strong, our performers include Sara Bareilles, Deborah Cox, Brandon Victor Dixon, Ariana DeBose, Judy Kuhn, Lesli Margherita, Bonnie Milligan, Jeremy Kushnier, Rashida Olayiwola, and Jessica Vosk.
Our auction host for this year is comedian Amanda Duarte, and this year's beneficiaries are National Advocates for Pregnant Women, Access Reproductive Care, and the National Network of Abortion Funds.
Abortion rights in this country are in serious jeopardy.
We've seen what Republicans are willing to sacrifice in order to overturn Roe v. Wade.
And life without Roe would be a nightmare for women.
If you're in the New York area, come join us Sunday night. There are a few tickets left for what's guaranteed to be a sellout. And if you can't make it but would like to support A is For's work (fully tax deductible!), please visit our website.
LAX is cool with weed
Los Angeles International Airport announced its policy regarding pot - you can carry it and fly with it. If the TSA finds your stash, they might turn you over to the local fuzz, but since marijuana is legal in California, they won't bust you.
LAX Marijuana Policy
While federal law prohibits the possession of marijuana (inclusive of federal airspace,) California’s passage of proposition 64, effective January 1, 2018, allows for individuals 21 years of age or older to possess up to 28.5 grams of marijuana and 8 grams of concentrated marijuana for personal consumption. In accordance with Proposition 64, the Los Angeles Airport Police Department will allow passengers to travel through LAX with up to 28.5 grams of marijuana and 8 grams of concentrated marijuana. However, passengers should be aware that marijuana laws vary state by state and they are encouraged to check the laws of the states in which they plan to travel.
Image: PO11/Shutterstock
An astronomer's beautiful pastel drawings of the cosmos from the 19th century
In the late 19th century, artist/astronomer Étienne Léopold Trouvelot (1827-1895) painted thousands of stunning works illustrating the beauty and science of the known planets, comets, and celestial phenomena. The Huntington Library near Los Angeles holds 15 of Trouvelot's chromolithographs that were published in 1882 in two portfolios, the Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings:
Initially, the Astronomical Drawings portfolios were sold to astronomy libraries and observatories as reference tools, but as early 20th-century advances in photographic technology allowed for more accurate and detailed depictions of the stars, planets, and phenomena, Trouvelot’s prints were discarded or sold to collectors.
Radiant Beauty: E. L. Trouvelot’s Astronomical Drawings (The Huntington)
Kavanaugh's weeping, shouting, and blaming is classic DARVO behavior
Churlish Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh put on quite a show yesterday. He yelled, he gnashed his teeth, he blamed the Clintons and liberals, he warned that the world would end, he got choked up recalling his days as an untouchable prep-school beer guzzler, and he told demonstrable whoppers. There's an acronym that sums up his petulant, aggressive behavior: DARVO. It stands for "Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender."
From University of Oregon psychology professor Jennifer J. Freyd:
The perpetrator or offender may Deny the behavior, Attack the individual doing the confronting, and Reverse the roles of Victim and Offender such that the perpetrator assumes the victim role and turns the true victim -- or the whistle blower -- into an alleged offender. This occurs, for instance, when an actually guilty perpetrator assumes the role of "falsely accused" and attacks the accuser's credibility and blames the accuser of being the perpetrator of a false accusation.
Institutional DARVO occurs when the DARVO is committed by an institution (or with institutional complicity) as when police charge rape victims with lying. Institutional DARVO is a pernicious form of institutional betrayal.
Here's a Daily Kos article, "Kavanaugh's opening remarks are a master class in a common sexual abuser defense tactic", that shows how Kavanaugh used the DARVO strategy to win over the judiciary committee.
“YOU’LL BE SORRY, PEE-WEE HERMAN!” pic.twitter.com/Hys99RKS7F
— Christopher Cooper (@ARTofCOOP) September 27, 2018
Incredible images from the rovers on asteroid Ryugu
Last week, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency landed two tiny rovers on the asteroid Ryugu where they'll "hop" across the rock as part of a mission to collect samples that the Hayabusa2 mothership will return to Earth. Here are new images from the asteroid that's 289 million kilometers (180 million miles) away from Earth. Far fucking out.
Stubby multi-bit screw and nut driver fits in tight spaces
This stubby screwdriver fits into tight spaces.
It took longer to find a screwdriver that fits than to remove the screen from my espresso machine, and clean the whole thing out. All the "short" screwdrivers I found have tiny blades or heads, mostly they are for glasses or tiny electronics repair. I broke two. A short wide bladed flathead screwdriver evaded me.
This model lets me switch tips and will work for nuts as well as screws. Stubby made my day work out.
Included are tips for 3/16-Inch and 1/4-Inch slotted, #1 and #2 Phillips, 1/4-Inch and 5/16-Inch nut drivers, and I am sure many of the tips from multiple other sets will fit.
Stubby Screwdriver and Nut Driver 6-in-1 Multi-Bit, 2 Philips, 2 Flat Heads, 2 Nut Drivers Klein Tools 32561 via Amazon
Trying out China's girlfriend rental service
For about $50, you can hire a woman for a few hours to pretend to be your girlfriend in China. Kei, one of the hosts of Asian Boss, tried out the app-based service. He and his "girlfriend" went to a park and tried some exercise equipment, then he sat down and interviewed her about what it is like to be a pretend girlfriend. She told him that she had been working as a pretend girlfriend for two or three years and she is doing it to pay down debt. She says there are 7 or 8 similar apps and she is registered on each one of them.
Image: YouTube screenshot
American Bar Association asks the US Senate to slow down and call the FBI
The American Bar Association, implied by apoplectic US Senator Lindsay Graham as offering their "gold standard" rating to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, has asked the US Senate to investigate said nominee. Seems the ABA also had problems with Kavanaugh in the past, which the Senate also ignored.
Via NPR:
The American Bar Association says the Senate should not hold a confirmation vote on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court until the FBI has investigated sexual assault allegations against him that were made by Christine Blasey Ford and other women.
Citing the ABA's "respect for the rule of law and due process," ABA President Robert Carlson wrote in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, "The basic principles that underscore the Senate's constitutional duty of advice and consent on federal judicial nominees require nothing less than a careful examination of the accusations and facts by the FBI."
Carlson sent the letter after the committee heard testimony from both Kavanaugh and Ford — a hearing that gripped the nation on Thursday. The ABA had previously given a rating of "well qualified" to Kavanaugh when he was nominated in July.
"Each appointment to our nation's highest court (as with all others) is simply too important to rush to a vote," Carlson told the committee, which was expected to vote on the nomination Friday.
Facebook: 50 million users personal information exposed in mega breach
Facebook says an attack on its network left the personal information of some 50 million users&emdashperhaps you?&emdashexposed to hackers. Who were the hackers, and what did they want? Facebook doesn't know, or won't say.
“We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you,” Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement regarding Cambridge Analytica earlier this year.
Well. You heard the man.
Mike Isaac and Sheera Frankel in the New York Times:
The company discovered the breach earlier this week, finding that attackers had exploited a feature in Facebook’s code that allowed them to take over user accounts. Facebook fixed the vulnerability and notified law enforcement officials.
More than 90 million of Facebook’s users were forced to log out of their accounts Friday morning, a common safety measure for compromised accounts.
Facebook said it did not know the origin or identity of the attackers, nor had it fully assessed the scope of the attack. The company is in the beginning stages of its investigation.
The discovery of the hack comes at one of the most difficult times in Facebook’s history. The company has dealt with fallout over its role in a widespread Russian disinformation campaign around the 2016 presidential election.
(...) Even before Friday’s disclosure, Facebook was facing multiple Federal investigations into the company’s broader data sharing and privacy practices. The Securities and Exchange Commission has opened an investigation into Facebook’s statements on Cambridge Analytica.
Facebook faces likely government regulation over monopoly and influence concerns, and it faces consequences for its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, from EU, UK, and US legal forces.
This major news will not help Mark Zuckerberg and his company in their struggles.
Most 80s thing I've seen today: Swedish Metal Aid (1985)
There is a dream, and they all spread the word that they can save this world.
(Thanks, Jeff Ahern!)
7 tools to upgrade your productivity
Between your work, emails, family, and friends, you've got a lot of responsibilities on your plate and hardly any time to tend to them all. Thankfully, you don't have to go at them alone. From task managers to smart calendars, we've found 8 of the best productivity tools to help you stay on top of your to-dos, and they're all on sale for a limited time.
MSRP: $50
Sale Price: $19 (62% off)
Pagico is a one-stop app that helps turn all of your tasks, notes, and projects into beautiful interactive flowcharts, making it easy to see what's on your plate and schedule accordingly. You can focus on current to-dos with the today view, search hundreds of projects using the powerful tag browser, and much more in Pagico's streamlined interface.
MSRP: $49.99
Sale Price: $19.99 (60% off)
When your default calendar app won't cut it, BusyCal is there to keep you on track. This smart calendar is loaded with time-saving features, like smart filters and custom views, and integrates with all the leading cloud services, including iCloud, Google, Exchange, and more.
3. Timelinr Personal Plan: Lifetime Subscription
MSRP: $1,710
Sale Price: $49.99 (97% off)
With the ability to create high-level roadmaps and track tasks for any project, Timelinr lets you organize your ideas and turn them into calculated plans fast. Timelinr's SimulCollab
feature makes it easy to keep your team in the loop with any changes you make along the way, and you can enjoy unlimited timelines and sharing as well.
4. Fleeq Premium: Lifetime Subscription
MSRP: $720
Sale Price: $39.99 (94% off)
With Fleeq, you won't need a full-on production team to create engaging customer-facing videos. Even if you have zero video experience, Fleeq boasts intuitive tools that let you create, share, and track your own videos in minutes.
5. Throttle Pro: Lifetime Subscription
MSRP: $495
Sale Price: $99 (80% off)
From online shopping to subscription services, you're required to give out your email virtually everywhere these days. With Throttle, you can avoid the inevitable mountain of spam and control who can send you emails by automatically generating a unique email every time you're required to fill out a form. From there, you can combine all mass mailings into a single daily digest email and block any sender with a single click.
6. Windscribe VPN: 3-Yr Pro Subscription
MSRP: $324
Sale Price: $24 (92% off)
As you would probably expect, getting hacked online is pretty bad for productivity. Windscribe is a VPN/browser extension combo that delivers online privacy, unblocks websites, and removes ads and trackers from your everyday browsing, and it does so without the confusing settings and options you would expect to find with a VPN. Simply turn it on once, and it's good to run in the background forever.
MSRP: $79.99
Sale Price: $24.99 (68% off)
PDFs are still very much the most popular format for sharing files online, but they're not that easy to work with on a Mac, especially if you need to edit text or images. PDF Expert gives your Mac the ability to edit PDF text, images, links, and outlines quickly and easily.
Defcon Voting Village report shows that hacking voting machines takes less time than voting
Every year, security researchers gather at Defcon's Voting Village to probe voting machines and report on the longstanding, systematic security problems with them, in order to give secure voting advocates the ammunition they need to convince Congress and local officials to take action into improve America's voting security.
Whether it's showing that "secure" firmware can be dumped with a $15 electronic component or that voting systems can be hacked in minutes, the Voting Village researchers do yeoman duty, compiling comprehensive reports on the dismal state of America's voting machines, nearly 20 years after Bush v Gore put the country on notice about the defective systems behind our elections.
This year's report is the most alarming yet: it singles out the ES&S M650 tabulating machine, manufactured by Election Systems & Software of Omaha, Nebraska, which still has outstanding defects that were reported to the manufacturer a decade ago. The M650's manifest unsuitability is so terrible that it would be funny if it wasn't so serious: this is a machine that uses an operating system developed for the Blackberry phone (!) and then uses Zip cartridges (!!) to move data around.
The M650 is one of the most widespread pieces of equipment in American election systems, used to count in-person and absentee ballots by optically scanning ballot papers whose bubble-in forms have been filled in by voters. The system -- connected to the internet by default -- is used for county-wide tabulations in 23 states. As the report states: "Hacking just one of these machines could enable an attacker to flip the Electoral College and determine the outcome of a presidential election."
The researchers identified defects in other systems, too: one could be compromised in two minutes, less time than it takes the average voter to cast a ballot on it. Another could be wirelessly hacked with a nearby mobile device and made to register an arbitrary number of votes. The report goes on to warn about attacks on voting machine supply chains, which could compromise whole batches of machines before they even reached the polling place.
As always, this year's Voting Village report closes with a set of clear, sensible recommendations, focusing on legislative and regulatory action as well as technical advice for manufacturers and electoral officials making purchase decisions.
This summer, Senate Republicans killed bipartisan legislation to fund additional cybersecurity funding for American election systems.
The machine in question, the ES&S M650, is used for counting both regular and absentee ballots. The device from Election Systems & Software of Omaha, Nebraska, is essentially a networked high-speed scanner like those used for scanning standardized-test sheets, usually run on a network at the county clerk's office. Based on the QNX 4.2 operating system—a real-time operating system developed and marketed by BlackBerry, currently up to version 7.0—the M650 uses Iomega Zip drives to move election data to and from a Windows-based management system. It also stores results on a 128-megabyte SanDisk Flash storage device directly mounted on the system board. The results of tabulation are output as printed reports on an attached pin-feed printer.
The report authors—Matt Blaze of the University of Pennsylvania, Jake Braun of the University of Chicago, David Jefferson of the Verified Voting Foundation, Harri Hursti and Margaret MacAlpine of Nordic Innovation Labs, and DEF CON founder Jeff Moss—documented dozens of other severe vulnerabilities found in voting systems. They found that four major areas of "grave and undeniable" concern need to be addressed urgently. One of the most critical is the lack of any sort of supply-chain security for voting machines—there is no way to test the machines to see if they are trustworthy or if their components have been modified.
Defcon 26 Voting Village [Matt Blaze, Jake Braun, Harri Hursti, David Jefferson, Margaret MacAlpine and Jeff Moss]
Defcon Voting Village report: bug in one system could “flip Electoral College” [Sean Gallagher/Ars Technica]
Old lady calls cops on hispanic mom because her "baby is in pain"
In this video, posted to Facebook by Darla Jeny, an elderly woman is seen calling the cops. It soon becomed apparent that the woman spotted a baby in a parked car, but didn't spot mom in there with her. When mom got out the car to object to her making fuss, however, instead of saying "oh, my bad" and proceeding with her day, the older woman decided to call the cops and get nasty. At least until until a man came along, that is, at which point she became nice and respectful—to him, the hispanic mom's white husband.
She keeps up a charade of being a concerned citizen for a while, but the smile drops after she gets called out on the claim that Darla had threatened to beat her up.
"You deserve that child to be injured, and you probably do injure it," she says.
"Oh yeah, that's what we do."
"Yeah you do. Look at you."
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