GOP Presidential nominee Donald Trump made a grotesque little cameo appearance in a Playboy softcore porn video released back in 2000. Do not worry, the appearance was very brief and he kept his clothes on. Because Jesus loves you.
“Beauty is beauty, and let's see what happens with New York,” Trump says in the Playboy video.
You can watch it right here.
Former Escambia County, Florida deputy Michael Wohlers visited Stephanie Byron in June 2015 at the apartment building where she worked, where he stole her glass of sweet tea and refused to return it. When Byron approached Wohlers to get her drink back, he tased her in the chest and throat, then jumped on her supine body, knelt on her chest, and removed the taser prods, apparently to try to cover up his wrongdoing.
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If you thought soccer's world cup being awarded to baking-hot Qatar marked the zenith of sporting corruption, give FIDE a chance: the international chess federation's forthcoming world championship is headed to Iran, and women players must wear the hijab to compete. UK tabloids quote leading women chess players as threatening to quit the tournament rather than obey.
US women's champion Nazi Paikidze said: 'It is absolutely unacceptable to host one of the most important women's tournaments in a venue where, to this day, women are forced to cover up with a hijab.
'I understand and respect cultural differences. But, failing to comply can lead to imprisonment and women's rights are being severely restricted in general. It does not feel safe for women from around the world to play here.'
She added: 'If the situation remains unchanged, I will most certainly not participate in this event.'
It's insane, but entirely in keeping with FIDE's brainier-than-thou shiftiness, to think that Tehran is a good place to host the key event on their highly-politicized mind game's calendar. For starters, there's a current U.S. government travel warning telling citizens not to go there at all.
(I would go, but wear a Burka)
The world's greatest living tennis player wrote something on Facebook today about police killings of unarmed black Americans.
A friend in France sent me an email one day and wrote, "You have to watch this Japanese movie 'Ring.' It's very special." Since he likes horror films as much as I do, his words carried weight. But in 1998 it wasn't easy to find a copy, and I had to nose around a bit before finally locating a DVD on amazon.co.uk.
As you can see from the photo above, it's one creepy-ass film. There's a moment at the end which, if watched in blissful ignorance of what's going to happen, and in a dark room, the hair on the back of your neck will stand up. If for some reason you haven't seen the movie, then watch it without reading anything about it in advance.
Like all good horror in the past few decades, it was recently turned into a parody where Sadako (the creepy lady with pale skin and long black hair in Ring ) eventually faces off against the Kayako (the creepy lady with pale skin and long black hair from another excellent Japanese horror film, Ju-on [The Grudge]) and her son, who is seen below. The new film is supposedly funny (in a good way), though I haven't see it yet, so who knows.
The new film is supposedly funny (in a good way), though I haven't see it yet, so who knows. I guess it's the Japanese version of Freddie vs. Jason, which sucked. Or Alien vs. Predator, which sucked even more. (Frankenstin Meets The Wolfman still remains good fun.) But those films weren't supposedly to be intentionally funny. Shall we next see Michael Myers as a stand-up comedian?
But if you're into that sort of thing, then this self-referential Japanese TV commercial has Sadako doing battle with a Snickers candy bar! I prefer Milky Way Dark, but if Sadako insists I eat a Snickers bar, who am I to say no?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KgUUBFJgQc
Via Rocket News
One of the great political leaders of Israel, Nobel peace prize laureate Shimon Peres, has died. He was 93 years old. He suffered a stroke two weeks ago.
You, too, can now have Donald Trump's hair. On a t-shirt. IMGURian Jakob Brask is crowdsourcing these Donald Trump 3D t-shirt with "natural windblown hair" effect.
As with each and every episode of his genius 'Sassy Trump' voicedub series, actor-director-comedienne Peter Serafinowicz is using 100% actual Donald Trump's own words here. He's just voicing them differently. More authentically, perhaps.
“We've secretly replaced the fine smartphones they usually serve with sticks of butter. Let's see if anyone can tell the difference!”
The fellow who posted this video said, "I wanted to get medicated, so I asked the driver if I could smoke. He clearly said 'yes,' so I did. In New Orleans, marijuana has been decriminalized, so I didn't see the problem. But he did, so I got ejected."
Travel writer Ben Schlappig uses something called "mileage running" to accumulate lots of travel miles.
Mileage running works by collecting miles on cheap flights and spending them on expensive ones. Over a week, Ben might take over 30 discounted flights. They only cost him $800 and he'll earn over 62500 air miles. He then uses those miles to buy a first class ticket to Japan, which would have cost him $13,000.
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Game:
Google Feud is a game that challenges you to guess the top ten Google autocompletes for a particular word or term. For instance, the game might prompt you with “my friend is addicted to” and you have to fill in the rest of the query. (FYI, the top ten autocompletes for this example are weed, her phone, drugs, coke, pills, drama, oxycodone, crack, anime, and alcohol.) - Mark Frauenfelder
Stuff:
Over the years, I've had to buy a variety of bras for different types of dresses and tops (racerback, backless, strapless, etc.), but the most useful purchase I've made has been Nippies. I've had these for a couple years now. They are washable, reusable and so comfortable I forget I have them on. - Claudia Lamar
Tip:
Before buying something on Amazon, enter the URL for the product at fakespot.com. This free service will analyze how many shill reviewers have rated a product, and award a “Fakespot Grade” from A to F. A low grade doesn't necessarily mean a product is bad, it just means you shouldn't take the reviews and user ratings into consideration when making your decision to buy something. - MF
Tool:
I'm trying out Splash, a cool free experimental photo search engine from 500Pixels. You sketch the rough contours of a photo you seek in color, and it will display two dozen images that “match” your sketch. The match is mostly in color, mood, and rough shapes, but it does present you with some interesting images, all licensable. - Kevin Kelly
Readables:
A long time ago, after a bad breakup I read If the Buddha Dated by Charlotte Kasi. By the time I had finished the book, it was covered in notes and dog-eared pages, and I felt healed and ready to move on. Now, as a newlywed, I am enjoying listening to If the Buddha Married on Audible. So many great insights and communication tips. - CL
Stuff:
All my dress shirts are now “Non-Iron” cotton material. I don't know how this stuff works, but the ones I clumsily fold into my luggage, will unwrinkle shortly after I put them on. I use Non-Iron Oxford shirts from Land's End and L.L. Bean, but most clothing brands seem to carry them. Eagle brand Non-Iron shirts are popular on Amazon. - KK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8os-nKuoM3o&feature=youtu.be
Robbo sez, "Jonathan Pie, preeminent UK political satirist, takes on British media and their role in declaring newly re-elected Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn 'unelectable'. Pie destroys the outrageous un-democratic media bias that has hounded Corbyn throughout his time as Labour leader and does so with his usual outstanding, hilarious, enraged and profane style."
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Economic Council convened a symposium at NYU's Information Law Institute in July, and they've released their report: 25 crisp (if slightly wonky) pages on how AI could increase inequality, erode accountability, and lead us into temptation -- along with recommendations for how to prevent this, from involving marginalized and displaced people in AI oversight; to increasing the diversity of AI researchers; to modifying the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and Digital Millennium Copyright Act to clarify that neither stands in the way of independent auditing of AI systems.
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Everyone thought it was some kind of mass kid-hysteria inspired by marketing for the new version of Stephen King's IT, but guess what! There was an evil clown after all!
Kentucky police have arrested a man dressed as a clown lurking in a wooded area amid a wave of clown reports in at least six US states.
Jonathan Martin, 20, was charged with wearing a mask in a public place and disorderly conduct in Middlesboro.
He was found at about 0100 EST (0600 GMT) on Friday in "full clown costume" and mask crouching among trees by an apartment complex, according to police.
"Wearing a mask" is a crime, eh?
"I'm going to do something I haven't done the entire campaign. I'm going to tell you what I really think of Donald Trump. This man is a pathological liar. He doesn't know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth. And in a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology text book, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying. ... Donald Trump is such a narcissist that Barack Obama looks at him and says, 'Dude, what's your problem?' The man is utterlly amoral. ... Whatever lie he's telling, in that minute he believes it. But the man is utterly amoral. Morality does not exist for him. It's why he went after Heidi [Cruz] directly, attacked her and smeared her. Heidi isn't pretty enough for him. ... Donald is a bully. ... Bullies don't come from strength, they come from weakness. ... There's a reason Donald builds giant buildings and puts his name on them everywhere he goes. ...Donald has a real problem with women"
Ted Cruz plans to back Donald Trump for the presidency as early as Friday, according to multiple sources familiar with the Texas senator's decision
Then, no-one felt Trump could win. Now, though, things are looking likely. Cruz was always the biggest coward in team #NeverTrump, and now he hears the guillotines being sharpened. God does love a cheerful giver.
The World Wide Web Consortium has embarked upon an ill-advised project to standardize Digital Rights Management (DRM) for video at the behest of companies like Netflix; in so doing, they are, for the first time, making a standard whose implementations will be covered under anti-circumvention laws like Section 1201 of the DMCA, which makes it a potential felony to reveal defects in products without the manufacturer's permission.
The governor of North Carolina has declared a State of Emergency after violence erupted on the second night of protests in Charlotte, over the police killing of a black man. The governor called for support from the U.S. National Guard, and Highway Patrol officers.
The protest tonight escalated into chaos, and what was at first reported as a death of a man in the crowds.
An employee of the Royal Canadian Mint stands accused of smuggling $180,000-worth of gold out of the institution in his rectum, reports Kelley Egan of the Ottawa Citizen, "evading multiple levels of detection with a time-honoured prison trick."
“Appalling,” was the conclusion of defence lawyer Gary Barnes, who described the Crown's case as an underwhelming collection of circumstantial evidence.
“This is the Royal Canadian Mint, your Honour, and one would think they should have the highest security measures imaginable,” Barnes said in his closing submission.
“And here the gold is left sitting around in open buckets.”
Some crimes have a smoking gun. But this one had a coating gunge.
Investigators also found a container of vaseline in his locker and the trial was presented with the prospect that a puck could be concealed in an anal cavity and not be detected by the wand. In preparation for these proceedings, in fact, a security employee actually tested the idea, Barnes said. Lawrence did not take the stand - as is his legal right - and the Crown was not able to definitively establish how the gold pucks made their way out of the facility.
Share this inspiring video with every kid or teen you know who dreams of space. John Streeter of NASA Television has sent us some wonderful NASA TV videos over the years. I love this new one with Vermont-born rock and roll star Grace Potter, about some of the amazing women in the history of the American space program. I hope it inspires a little girl out there to become an astronaut.
In 2013, Mike Zuckerman, a self-described culture hacker, attended the White House's National Day of Civic Hacking. Inspired by what he'd learned there, Mike returned to San Francisco and founded [freespace], an organization that focuses on sustainability and urban tactical development. In the spring of 2016, Mike went to Greece where he spent four months rehabilitating an abandoned clothing factory in the industrial sector of Thessaloniki, turning it into a humane shelter that he and his colleagues named Elpida. Unlike the official migrant camps in Greece, where refugees have little say in the day-to-day operations of the camp, Elpida put its 140 residents in charge, and the results were remarkable. Not only is Elpida much less expensive to run on a per person basis than official camps in Greece, the residents don't suffer from boredom, restlessness, and disengagement like they do at NGO-run camps.
As a pilot model, Elpida offers hope and improved living conditions for refugees in a place where no other NGO was able to provide in this kind of support.
Mike has been working with Institute for the Future (where I'm on staff) as an affiliate since 2014 and recently accepted an IFTF fellowship to help uncover and study new paradigms for restoring vulnerable places and space, such as post-disaster sites, informal refugee settlements, and decaying urban neighborhoods.
I spoke to Mike about his work at Elpida in August, 2016, just days after he returned from Greece.
Listen to the audio podcast interview with Mike Zuckerman here. Subscribe to the IFTF podcast on iTunes | RSS | Soundcloud | Download MP3
I spent a few days in beautiful Victoria, Canada last week. What a fantastic city! One of the highlights of my trip was spending some time with Andrew and Christina, two of the principles at Robazzo, a one-stop-shop eco design studio. They do everything from logos to large architectural installations:
On the flight home, the guy sitting next to me had a small pouch in his lap. Before the plane took off, he unfolded it and blew on a valve a few times to inflate what turned out to be a travel pillow. He slept the entire time. I have a travel pillow, but it is bulky so I don't usually bring it with me. This inflatable pillow looks perfect. After looking around I think I found the one the guy was using. It's $6 if you use coupon code QZJWYQLF. I bought two (one for my wife), and the discount worked for just one pillow.
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Readables:
Books related to my new book The Inevitable that I have found useful:
Magic and Loss by Virginia Heffernan: Treats the digital world as a great work of art. The Master Algorithm by Pedro Domingos: Best book to date on artificial intelligence. Machines of Loving Grace by John Markoff: Best book to date on robots. Superforecasting by Philip Tetlock: Why predicting is hard and how to get better at it. Pogue's Basics by David Pogue: Extremely practical tips for techno-literacy. - Kevin Kelly
Follow:
I'm a big Welcome to Night Vale fan, a community news podcast about a fictional town plagued by paranormal and spooky events. Besides listening to the podcast, I prioritized my Facebook feed to see their absurd status updates first. They always make me smile. Example: “Scientists discover a new species of spider on the back of your shirt. 'Oh wow. It's crazy big. Good luck,' their press release reads.” - Claudia Lamar
Edible:
When it comes to airplane food, I agree with Anthony Bourdain: it's better to go hungry. But I don't like going hungry so I pack snacks with me. One of my favorites is the Graze Bar. It's a tasty, chewy stick of grass fed beef containing no sugar, gluten, or MSG. - Mark Frauenfelder
Travel tip:
Hopper is a smartphone app that predicts when airfare to a desired destination will be the cheapest. I've set up an alert for Chiang Mai, Thailand. About once a month Hopper sends me a message with the best price it can find, telling me to “wait” or “buy.” The price recently dropped from the $900s to the $500s and Hopper said “buy.” - MF
Stuff:
We bought this heated Shiatsu Massager more than a year ago, and it has definitely been put to good use. We keep it plugged in right next to the couch and use it every night. The arm handles allows you to adjust and place the massage nodes directly on hard to reach muscles. - CL
Things:
Amazon now has a section where they sell originally Kickstarted projects. Bottom up retailing. - KK
The Chelsea Manning Support Network contacted us by email to inform us that:
1) The date of Chelsea's disciplinary board hearing has been changed to Thursday, September 22 at 9:30 am CST.
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Jasmina Tesanovic (previously) and Bruce Sterling did a residency at The Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at UCSD, working with the students on design fiction and futurism.
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Noah writes, "This weekend a group of roguelike enthusiasts and developers are getting together for the first ever Roguelike Celebration. It'll feature talks from developers of the game that spawned the genre - rogue - as well as the creators of Dwarf Fortress, Kingdom of Loathing, ADOM, Tracery and lots more.
It'll take place all day on the 17th and will be streamed live on Twitch.tv for those who can't make it in person." (Image: Deon-23, Mike Mayday, public domain)
It is fun to watch a bullet shot from a 44 go through a block of ballistic gel.
"Sonoluminescence is a a phenomenon that occurs when gas bubbles are suspended and driven in a liquid at ultrasonic frequencies. This results in bubble collapse, cavitation, and light emission." -- Guns.com
Are we alone in the universe? Is time travel possible? If you have sex with a robot, does it count as cheating?
The European Commission's "copyright modernisation" plan is an unmitigated disaster, but there's one particularly insane section of it that I want to call your attention to: the "link tax," which entitles publishers to payment when people link to them on the internet.
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An all-new episode of the spectacular SASSY TRUMP voicedub series, from British male actor and comedienne Peter Serafinowicz.
A giant model moon, part of the Mid-Autumn Festival decorations in Fuzhou, China was blown from its display by Super Typhoon Meranti winds and rolled through traffic today.
BB pal Ariel "Spacehack" Waldman has curated a stellar program for the big DENT: SPACE conference next week (9/21-9/22) in San Francisco! I'm honored to be on the schedule with such amazing people as SETI Institute's Seth Shostak, science writer Mary Roach, The Planetary Society's Emily Lakdawalla, Ars Technica's Annalee Newitz, UC Berkeley planet hunter Alex Filippenko, and so many more fascinating folks! I'll be joining Ariel on stage Thursday at 2:50pm to talk about space history and the intersection of science and art to instill a sense of wonder about the universe, and a far out new project that I'll announce soon. See below on how to get a free ticket! Ariel writes:
On September 21-22, 2016, Dent:Space takes place at the Innovation Hangar at the Palace of Fine Arts (formerly the Exploratorium museum) with two stages of fascinating speakers spanning the technological, artistic, commercial, scientific, educational, and DIY aspects of space exploration. We're also putting together an exhibit hall for the conference - kind of a World's Fair-like set of interactive demos that illustrate the future of space exploration and its many possibilities. We were able to give away 3,000 free tickets to the talks and exhibits, but we've run out of room for that. In the interest of keeping it all accessible for as many as possible, tickets are still only $49. But, as a (Boing Boing reader), you can still grab a free ticket here
Dent:Space is a celebration of humans breaking the status quo of who can be involved and what can be achieved in space exploration. This event is for anyone interested in the future of space exploration and how they might be able to contribute their skills to it through software, design, hardware, entrepreneurship and collaborative efforts. The event is tailored for people from all backgrounds/industries to attend (if you work with space stuff already, great! but not needed to enjoy the event). We promise to fill you with ideas and send you home and back to work with a take-out box full of inspiration.
Space colony painting above by Rick Guidice courtesy of NASA.
This chain reaction kit is on sale at Amazon for just $10 right now. It has parts and instructions to build a bunch of different Rube Goldbergian machines.
Design and build 10 amazing moving machines - teach your bricks new tricks. Comes with 80 page instructions, 33 LEGO pieces, instructions for 10 modules, 6 plastic balls, string, paper ramps and other components.
Cocolab created this cool music-synched array of spotlights that visitors can walk through, sit in, and lose themselves in. It is part of this summer's TagCDMX event in Mexico, the theme of which was #BeMoreNerd. (more…)
From clay to handI don't know anything about the sculptor, but it is fascinating to watch them make a block of clay look like a human hand.
Obama's inaugural White House staff was drawn from his campaign staff, who were mostly dudes, and the women among the newcomers felt that they were getting ignored or talked over in meetings.
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See sample pages from this book at Wink.
Nimona
by Noelle Stevenson
HarperTeen
2015, 272 pages, 6 x 9 x 0.7 inches (softcover)
From $8 Buy a copy on Amazon
A few years ago, I had the good fortune of discovering Noelle Stevenson's comics through an interview she did with Danielle Coresetto of the webcomic Girls with Slingshots. I read Nimona when it was available in full online and fell absolutely head over heels in love with the comic, blasting through it from start to finish in one sitting. When I revisited the site a few months later to show it to a friend, I was delighted to find out that it had been picked up by HarperTeen and was to be published later that year – no one deserved a publishing deal more than this incredibly talented illustrator and writer.
The graphic novel is set in a fresh fictional world of Stevenson's imagining, inspired by the medieval fantasy scene but infused with science and technology. The titular character, Nimona, is a shape-shifting young girl who has foisted herself upon her favorite super-villain, Ballister Blackheart, as his sidekick and general mischief-maker. In a Despicable Me-esque fashion, the moral and big-hearted Blackheart has dedicated his life to grand (and mostly failed) schemes against the Institution of Law Enforcement & Heroics, a shadowy corporation with shadowy motives that ousted Blackheart years before. Nimona herself is brash, mischievous, and reckless – and in a split second, can turn into a rhino to smash through a steel door, or into a dragon to fly off with a massive chest of gold.
The characters are clever, snarky and lovable; the plot is filled with adventure and, at turns, heartbreak. Stevenson's art is wonderfully stylized, colorful and expressive with charming and memorable character design. It's a tricky thing to make a cast of characters this likable without it feeling cheap or like pandering, but don't worry, there are no Mary Sues here. Every character has depth and pain and plenty of flaws, but they wiggle into your heart a little deeper for it. Their bickering and bantering give them a real family feel.
What I love most about Nimona is the delightful subverting of expectations and conventions: the collision of the modern and the medieval; a world where science and magic and technology all work side by side. The bad guys are good guys and the good guys often aren't. Our hero is a super-villain, and the strongest characters are the most vulnerable. The contrasts don't feel like stark juxtapositions – they feel like a harmonious blend of swords and science in the loveliest way possible.
– Michelle Kaatz
I have been taking a lot of flights of late, and so I have garnered a few tips to offer re: how to make things *slightly* less horrid when doing so. But holy horses, this one changed my life on this last go-round. When I tried it - and it worked! - it was all I could do to keep from leaping to my feet and crowing about it to my fellow passengers like some sort of zealous banshee.
Oh, not secrets. Just silly little tips. Here are a few more: 1. TSA Pre-Check is highly worth it and makes everything so much better. 2. Buying a carry-on wheelie bag with 4 wheels that go in all directions is worth it 3. Wear the same outfit every time you travel, and it should have multiple layers, and a hood 4. Order the tomato juice, no ice (with a squeeze of lime if possible) and pretzels for a free meal 5. Buy the Tapas Snack Box on Delta. It has good hummus and enough snacks you can take with you for future meals 6. Though if they have 2 services, space them out. So snack box during 1st service, tomato juice during 2nd service or vice-versa 7. If, when you board, the overhead bins are getting full, put your bag on as soon as you find a spot before your seat, not after, otherwise it's a pain to have to swim upstream and get your stuff when you deplane 8. If the airline messes up (and they often do), definitely send a firm but polite note to them about it and tell them you want to be compensated somehow, which in my experience usually results in bonus mileage points. OH MAN, so much more, but that's a good start.
By pairing classic pictures of George Washington with contemporary captions, the Tumblr LadyHistory turns one of our greatest Founding Fathers into an utterly relatable dude. Only Hamilton has done more to humanize our Colonial icons. (more…)
Donald Trump Jr. says his father can't release his tax returns "because he's got a 12,000-page tax return that would create ... financial auditors out of every person in the country asking questions that would detract from (his father's) main message."
We can't have people asking questions! Meanwhile, according to CNN, "Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has released nearly four decades of tax returns."
What i think of when someone says starcraft balance“The name given to that one dramatic moment ...
when everything can change all at once is the tipping point.” -- The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell
Robert Morin worked for 50 years as a cataloger at the University of New Hampshire library (he was also a UNH alum); he was thrifty, ate microwave dinners and drove a 1992 Plymouth, and saved $4M, which he gave to the university as an unrestricted gift, and so the university is giving $100K to the library he worked in and $1M to the football team to pay for a new scoreboard.
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The predatory payday lending industry -- "'legalized loan sharks collect 75 percent of their fees from people stuck in more than 10 loans a year by charging 300 percent APR" -- is lobbying hard to kill the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's proposed "debt trap" rule, "that would require lenders to determine whether borrowers can afford to pay back their loans and cut off repeated debit attempts that rack up fees and make it harder for consumers to get out of debt."
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In 2014, an Indian company called Aglaya brought a 20-page brochure to ISS World (AKA the Wiretappers' Ball -- the annual trade fair where governments shop for surveillance technology): the brochure laid out the company's offerings, which ranged from mobile malware for Ios and Android to a unique "Weaponized Information" selection that combined denial-of-service with disinformation to "discredit a target" online.
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In my late teens and early 20s the Penguin was an amazing spot to hang out. The restaurant was an absolute time machine, right down to their 'eat this giant hamburger and win a t-shirt' challenge. After spending around two decades as an orthodontists office, LA Eater reports that Mel's Diner is trying to move in!
Per planning commission reports in Santa Monica, it appears Mel's is looking to re-open the location as a 24x7 diner.
Via the Eater:
A tipster points to this Planning Commission report for Santa Monica, which points towards a meeting to be held in just one week's time that will (hopefully) establish a conditional use permit for one Mel's Drive in right in Lincoln Boulevard. It's a nice replacement of sorts for Norm's, which had to close to make way for some development.
The 5,352 square foot property sits right off the freeway on Lincoln in a former orthodontics business, but carries the peaked roof and wide frontage of a Googie restaurant - making it perfect for Mel's to arrive. Originally built in 1959 as the Penguin Coffee Shop, the spot could once again be hosting diners twenty-four hours a day if Mel's gets their way.
Every time I'd be exiting the 10 at Lincon, westbound, the Dr. Beauchamp's sign would break my heart a bit. Mel's isn't my favorite diner but it is wonderful to think of that space being used as a restaurant again. I remain confident there are plenty of orthodontists in West L.A.
From Exploding Kittens to the Coolest Cooler, Kickstarter has changed my life with some ridiculously cool products in the past. They just did it again with the BASICS Wallet.
When FBI Director James Comey released detailed notes on the Bureau's investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server, they broke with precedent, specifically, their refusal to release documents explaining why they totally failed to prosecute any of the bankers responsible for tanking the US economy in 2008 and destroying the lives of millions of Americans.
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This cartoony character is considered the most accurate model of a real dinosaur ever created. Paleoartist Bob Nicholls based his reconstruction of Psittacosaurus on an incredibly well-preserved fossil from China (image below) studied by University of Bristol paleontologist Jakob Vinther and colleagues. From The Guardian:
Psittacosaurus fossils are commonly found across most of Asia. The bipedal adults used their distinctive beaks to nibble through the vegetation of the Cretaceous, more than 100m years ago. The relatively large brain of Psittacosaurus leads scientists to suspect it may have been a relatively smart dinosaur, with complex behaviours. The large eyes hint that it had good vision....
The reconstruction is the culmination of around three months' work, from detailed drawings to finished fibreglass model. Nicholls created a steel frame and bulked it out using polystyrene and wire mesh, before sculpting the surface in clay:.“This is where the subject finally comes to life,” he explains, “by adding all the skin details such as scales and wrinkles, and beaks and horns.” A master mould was made from this sculpture, allowing Nicholls to make fibreglass models ready to be painted.
I asked Nicholls what makes this Psittacosaurus so special? “The most surprising features include an unusually large and wide head, highly pigmented clusters of scales on the shoulders, robust limbs, patagiums (skin flaps) behind the hind limbs, and a highly pigmented cloaca.” These features make him confident this is the most accurate reconstruction ever produced: “When the anatomy surprises me – it confirms that I've followed the fossil evidence rather than any preconceived ideas of my own.”
Newsweek is expected to publish on Wednesday a bombshell Kurt Eichenwald report that reveals some of Donald Trump's financial conflicts of interest, and other unflattering information the reporter says could change the 2016 US presidential election.
Harnaam Kaur, 24, hails from Slough, England. She has a full beard and has been recognized as the youngest woman to have one by Guinness World Records. Ms. Kaur has a hormonal condition known as polycystic ovary syndrome. One of the symptoms is hirsuteness.
She called the honor "absolutely humbling" and said she hope it would help empower her message that women can be and look how they want.
Speaking previously, she said: “I would never ever go back now and remove my facial hair because it's the way God made me and I'm happy with the way I am.."
This inexpensive remote control electrical outlet switch was just the thing we needed to completely turn off our electric garage door (we have reasons). It's pretty bulky, and gets in the way of the second socket on a standard wall outlet, but it gets the job done. It's RF not IR, so it doesn't need line-of-sight to work. It's $10 on Amazon.
Instead of kegging, I wanted to set up a batch of beer that I could more easily share with friends. I decided to bottle a barleywine with these O2 absorbing bottlecaps.
The idea is these caps will draw what little oxygen is in your bottle out. This should help preserve the beer by keep things from using that o2 to grow bad flavors. Can't be a bad idea, and at $6.42 for 144 I do not like I'm just wasting money.
Cellaring a barleywine should help mellow its boozy flavor. The high alcohol content of a barleywine should make visiting with friends better for everyone.
The caps went on easily. I used this simple capper.
1 X Beer Bottle Caps - Oxygen Absorbing for Homebrew 144 count via Amazon
Steven Levy, author of Hackers and one of the best tech writers in the field (previously), has profiled Carl Malamud (previously), the prolific, tireless freedom fighter who has risked everything to publish the world's laws on the internet, even those claimed to be owned by "nonprofit" standards organizations whose million-dollar execs say that you should have to pay to read the law.
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Orange cheeses have been on my mind. I absolutely love aged gouda!
Three plus year aged gouda completely loses the rubbery, bland, 'this is congealed milk' texture and taste of young goudas. It is crumbly, and delicious with hints of butterscotch, and lined with incredible sugar crystals.
For the best aged gouda experience slice off the thinnest possible pieces with a cheese plane, and let them melt on your tongue.
Aged gouda is amazing with beer and hard salami. A good dubbel would be my choice.
The Reluctant Gourmet has all the details:
Most of us have enjoyed some form of Gouda cheese in our lives. It is a yellow cheese made from cow's milk and is often found with the red or yellow paraffin wax coating in the supermarket. It gets its name from the city of Gouda in the Netherlands where it originated.
Gouda as a young cheese is easy to slice and may be great to serve to the kids in their lunch packs but just doesn't have that much flavor. It's great if you enjoy a mild, mellow flavored cheese but if you want a much more distinct flavor, you'll want to try aged Gouda.
Aged Gouda has a wonderful distinctive flavor that can be both sharp and sweet – think of butterscotch. It is a hard cheese that doesn't come in the red wax covering, but a natural buff colored rind. The cheese itself has an amber color that Jack explained to me comes from a coloring agent called annatto that gives it the pale orange color.
I read in one of my favorite cheese books, Cheese Primer, that some cheeses “once had a natural orange hue caused by the vitamin D that cows ingested from grazing on green plants. But winter milk comes from cows that are fed silage, and the cheeses that result from this milk are white.”
So the cheese makers started adding food coloring like annatto to the milk so they would look the same year round. Jack explained to me “all cheese are naturally cream colored and many use coloring for eye appeal.”
In a 1968 episode of Get Smart, Maxwell Smart and Agent 99 are ordered to stop a cartoonish beatnik hippy guru with a plot to brainwash the youth of America and command them to "attack all the squares in the establishment, you dig?"
The episode features the infamous song, "Kill Kill Kill," by The Sacred Cows:
Kill, kill, kill
Thrill, thrill, thrill
Make a scene
Bump off the Dean
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Knock off the squares
Take to the street
Kill everyone you meet
Just kill, kill, kill
Full episode, if you can stomach it, here.
See sample pages from this book at Wink.
Dear Data
by Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec
Princeton Architectural Press
2016, 288 pages, 8.4 x 11.2 x 1 inches (softcover)
$32 Buy a copy on Amazon
I have always had a deep fascination with the graphical representation of data. Being mildly dyslexic, numbers make my head hurt. Being extremely visual, numbers only come alive for me when they take color, shape, or are otherwise rendered in some visual way. Show me numbers and they will have little impact. Show me a beautiful graphical representation of those numbers and I will remember them forever. Dear Data is a rich and inspiring teasure-trove of creatively rendereded data, giving visual shape to the more mundane aspects of the two authors' lives.
Dear Data is the result of a year-long project that two designer friends undertook. For one year, Giorgia Lupi, an Italian living in New York, and Stefanie Posavec, an American in London, gathered data around a theme each week, things like the number of times they said “Thank you,” the numbers of people they met (and how they connected), the numbers (and types) of doorways they walked through, the number of times they each looked at a clock, etc. With this data in hand, they would render a postcard with an artful, graphical presentation of their week and send it to the other. This book collects all 52 weeks, along with lots of additional art, insight, and asides.
The result is a very lovely book and a very unique way of exploring a friendship while more deeply exploring oneself in the process. Reading through Dear Data and pouring over all of the curious and clever charts, graphs, and diagrams they created, you really feel both women making unique discoveries about themselves, identifying previously unseen patterns in their behavior, and in the very woodwork of their lives.
This book will likely be an inspiration to anyone who works in rendering data, who is interested in mail art or art journaling, and anyone who simply enjoys exploring the creatively examined life.
A woman has filed a lawsuit against the manufacturer of a sex toy that sends data back to the company.
From Vocativ:
In the suit, N.P. says she bought a We-Vibe in May and used it “several times” until she realized that it was sending data about her usage practices back to Standard Innovation's servers, including when she used it, which vibration settings she used, and her email address.
The company that makes the We-Vibe, Standard Innovation, says it will do a better job of letting its customers know that the device can transmit data, which is “mostly anonymized” and used only for “market research.”
Movie trailer for The Cat from Outer Space (1978), directed by Norman Tokar and starring Ken Berry, Sandy Duncan, Harry Morgan, and Roddy McDowall. I predict a remake in 3... 2... 1....
If you're, er, curious, you can watch it on Amazon Video: The Cat from Outer Space
