Flutterby™! From 2020-10-01 to 2020-10-31

Fire and rock structures: A Shocking Find in a Neanderthal Cave in France

After drilling into the stalagmites and pulling out cylinders of rock, the team could see an obvious transition between two layers. On one side were old minerals that were part of the original stalagmites; on the other were newer layers that had been laid down after the fragments were broken off by the cave’s former users. By measuring uranium levels on either side of the divide, the team could accurately tell when each stalagmite had been snapped off for construction.

Their date? 176,500 years ago, give or take a few millennia.

[ related topics: Nature and environment Pyrotechnics Machinery Fabrication Model Building ]

US: New York Police Planned Assault on Bronx Protesters

About 10 minutes before an 8 p.m. curfew – imposed after looting elsewhere in the city – scores of police officers surrounded and trapped the protesters – a tactic known as “kettling” – as they marched peacefully through Mott Haven. Just after 8 p.m., the police, unprovoked and without warning, moved in on the protesters, wielding batons, beating people from car tops, shoving them to the ground, and firing pepper spray into their faces before rounding up more than 250 people for arrest

“The New York City police blocked people from leaving before the curfew and then used the curfew as an excuse to beat, abuse, and arrest people who were protesting peacefully,” said Ida Sawyer, acting crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch and co-author of the report. “It was a planned operation with no justification that could cost New York taxpayers millions of dollars.”

“Kettling” Protesters in the Bronx: Systemic Police Brutality and Its Costs in the United States

Video: NYPD Beat and Arrest Peaceful Protesters in Planned Assault

[ related topics: Movies Invention and Design Food Current Events Law Enforcement Civil Liberties Automobiles New York Video ]

New Body-Cam Footage Raises Questions About Breonna Taylor Death Investigation

Footage and documents obtained by VICE News depict Louisville police officers apparently violating department policies and cast doubt on the integrity of the crime scene and the investigation.

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Invention and Design Current Events Law Enforcement ]

RT Scott Feeney @graue

Sidewalks need to get more respect. What if we took traffic engineering concepts, but applied them to sidewalks?

Pedestrian level of service: a formula to know when a sidewalk is too crowded and needs widening.

Pedestrian delay: retime signals for more efficient walking.

What if we simply allowed pedestrians to assault drivers and utilities that block the sidewalk with deadly weapons?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Guns ]

Border Patrol Snipers Were Authorized to Use Deadly Force at George Floyd’s Burial

As a horse-drawn carriage took Floyd’s body to its final resting place in Pearland’s Houston Memorial Gardens cemetery, planning records show that at least six “sniper teams” were in place on rooftops and authorized to open fire if the situation spiraled out of control. The records, labeled highly confidential, also state that an FBI surveillance aircraft was flown over the burial, and that “overwatch units” were sent to monitor the crowd for violent “agitators.”

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Aviation Law Enforcement Pyrotechnics Gardening ]

Car Seats as Contraception, Jordan Nickerson, MIT - Sloan, David H. Solomon, Boston College - Carroll School of Management. July 31, 2020

Abstract

Since 1977, U.S. states have passed laws steadily raising the age for which a child must ride in a car safety seat. These laws significantly raise the cost of having a third child, as many regular-sized cars cannot fit three child seats in the back. Using census data and state-year variation in laws, we estimate that when women have two children of ages requiring mandated car seats, they have a lower annual probability of giving birth by 0.73 percentage points. Consistent with a causal channel, this effect is limited to third child births, is concentrated in households with access to a car, and is larger when a male is present (when both front seats are likely to be occupied). We estimate that these laws prevented only 57 car crash fatalities of children nationwide in 2017. Simultaneously, they led to a permanent reduction of approximately 8,000 births in the same year, and 145,000 fewer births since 1980, with 90% of this decline being since 2000.

Nickerson, Jordan and Solomon, David H., Car Seats as Contraception (July 31, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3665046 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3665046

[ related topics: Children and growing up Automobiles Education Government ]

Reason number 47,834 that I doubt ever want to hear someone excuse assault with a deadly weapon with the complaint that the pedestrians were blocking traffic.

[ related topics: Photography Guns ]

The picture is super cool: Flying dragon lizard a true gliding reptile. Way more wing (and less toe webbing) than a flying gecko.

[ related topics: Weblogs Aviation ]

Twitter thread of Lewis Hine's photographs of children working in dangerous environments in America taken for the Child Labor Committee in the first decades of the 20th century.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Photography Work, productivity and environment ]

Study: THC in marijuana could help avert fatal COVID-19 complications

The study, co-published by Prakash Nagarkatti, found that THC in mice could prevent a harmful immune response that causes Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) called Staphylococcus aureus and its enterotoxin, SEB, and could cause a significant increase in healthy lung bacteria.

Administration of Δ9‐Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) Post‐Staphylococcal Enterotoxin B Exposure Protects Mice From Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome and Toxicity

DOI: 10.3389/fphar.2020.00893

[ related topics: Drugs Health Current Events ]

People of Praise, a faith group, deletes mentions and photos of Barrett from its website — An analysis by the Associated Press was able to track the changes through the Internet Archive.

[ related topics: Politics Photography Net Culture ]

From the department of "about fucking time someone brought some charges against these assholes": Jack Burkman, Jacob Wohl Charged in Alleged Voter Suppression Scheme

Conservative operatives <ahref="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-we-busted-smear-artist-jacob-wohl">Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman were charged on Thursday for allegedly orchestrating a series of robocalls aimed at suppressing the vote in the November presidential election, Michigan authorities said.

[ related topics: Art & Culture ]

This thread on the possibilities unleashed by LinkedIn's new stickers is *mwah*.

[ related topics: Invention and Design ]

Random cat picture

Random cat picture (with picture)

[ related topics: Photography ]

Other random cat picture

[ related topics: Photography ]

It Sure Looks Like Daniel Cameron Lied About Breonna Taylor’s Killing

It also casts more doubt on his earlier accounts. Cameron’s claim that the officers clearly identified themselves — and therefore weren’t executing a no-knock warrant — is supported by the testimony of the officers themselves and one witness, a neighbor of Taylor’s. But roughly a dozen other neighbors claim not to have heard anything until the police battered in Taylor’s door. And investigative documents recently obtained by the Louisville Courier-Journal show that the AG’s lone nonpolice witness originally said they heard nothing, only changing their story months later when investigators circled back for another interview.

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Privacy Law Current Events Law Enforcement ]

RT Frank McGovern @FrankMcG

He is in several high-risk groups — elderly, obese, low-income.

A Game Designer's Analysis of QAnon.

Robert Anton Wilson also wrote well about these phenomena.

[ related topics: Games Conspiracy Robert Anton Wilson ]

Just Pete Woods @thatpetewoods

Cheer up, Mr. President. Herman Cain got Covid and he’s still managing to tweet.

RT Now, which witch want it? @bsaysthis

Girl, we gotta give it up to the 2020 writers... the way they wrote Miss Rona to go from most hated character to one you root for?! Whew character development!

[ related topics: Writing ]

Anyone have suggestions for a good music player for Mac? Apple's thing seems to want to copy my music all around. I just have directories of mp3s I want to be able to play...

[ related topics: Apple Computer Music Macintosh ]

RT jelani cobb @jelani9:

Asked why they refuse to mention Herman Cain’s death they fall back on the reflex answer “He should’ve stopped resisting the police.”

[ related topics: Law Enforcement ]

WATCH: Trump mocked Hillary Clinton’s pneumonia exactly four years before he caught COVID-19

The news came four years and a day after he imitated Clinton, then his Democratic presidential rival, during a rally in Manheim, Pennsylvania.

“She’s supposed to fight all these different things,” Trump said, pretending to stumble, “and she can’t make it 15 feet to her car.”

[ related topics: Politics Movies Current Events Automobiles ]

Judge says she is 'concerned' detective may have lied to get Breonna Taylor search warrant

The Courier Journal asked Shaw if she intended to demand that Detective Joshua Jaynes show why he shouldn’t be held in contempt for swearing in an affidavit that he “verified through a U.S. Postal Inspector that suspected drug dealer Jamarcus Glover has been receiving packages” at Taylor’s home.

A few other links from that article:

• FBI investigation into Breonna Taylor case continues even after grand jury indicts officer
• Internal investigation: Louisville police told no 'suspicious' packages sent to Breonna Taylor's home

And, yeah, there's still a lot of hinkiness happening with the Grand Jury recordings

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Privacy Health Law Current Events Law Enforcement ]

From way back in 2018, a deep dive: Rose City Antifa: The Pacific Northwest Proud Boys - White Nationalist Social Club

Via this Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/RoseCityAntifa/status/1004423346099023872

[ related topics: California Culture Flowers Race ]

We've been working on de-Amazon-ifying our lives, but we do still have the Ring systems. Despite having excess bandwidth, I'll be opting out, but the big problem is that if I want a camera system that takes privacy seriously, I'm back to having to build it myself.

Ring has always been questionable, and we definitely make sure the cameras aren't pointing anywhere that we want to be anything but completely public, but the creeping interface between what I own and what I hold in common with companies whose motivations and goals aren't necessarily my own is getting more and more worrisome.

Amazon quietly announces major expansion to neighborhood surveillance networks

Amazon, the powerhouse behind the Ring security camera network, is coming for your community. On Monday, the surveillance juggernaut announced a major expansion to its smart neighborhood effort dubbed Sidewalk. Notably, Amazon failed to highlight one crucial detailed specified in the accompanying white paper: If you already own one of 20 existing Amazon products, you'll automatically be participating unless you actively opt out.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Books Photography Privacy Weblogs broadband tolkien Invention and Design Journalism and Media Work, productivity and environment Community Maps and Mapping Race ]

Wow, they've got a lot of supporting equipment!

[ related topics: Photography ]

Supreme Court Monday October 5th 2020 Order List, case of Kim Davis v. David Ermold et al, in which Thomas, with Alito assenting, argue that Obergefell v. Hodges was an infringement on the religious liberty of state employees to discriminate against gay people.

It's pretty blatant how clearly they advocate for theocracy.

Edit: Summarized nicely by Peter @shadowfuzz

What Thomas and Alito are explicitly saying is that they believe the Constitution *mandates* that people with "traditional Christian values" are legally able to, in their official roles as government employees, impose those religious beliefs on the citizens they serve.

[ related topics: Religion Sexual Culture Law Work, productivity and environment ]

Scrap the Small-Block V-8 Swap and Sub in This Literal Tesla Crate Motor

Literally, that's what this wonderful creation is. A crated electric motor. Even better, it's a bolt-in setup gunning to replace one of the most common crate engine choices out there, GM's small-block V-8. That is because the EV West Tesla powertrain bolts up to small-block V-8 engine mounts and can be hooked up directly to a driveshaft, so you can fit it into your small-block V-8 project and keep your rear axle as-is.

It's a Model S motor with gearing and mounts. No pricing yet on the RevoltSystem web site, Motor Trend's guess is about $12k, and you've still gotta figure out your own batteries (and controllers? Not clear), but for revamping an old hot rod this looks like it could be a lot of fun.

[ related topics: Current Events Machinery Fabrication ]

FABIAN If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.

SIR TOBY BELCH His very genius hath taken the infection of the device, man.

(Shakespeare, Twelfth Night)

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Theater & Plays ]

Georgetown Law — Institution for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection — Addressing the Rise of Unlawful Private Paramilitaries: State Fact Sheets

ICAP has created fact sheets for all 50 states explaining the laws barring unauthorized private militia groups and what to do if groups of armed individuals are near a polling place or voter registration drive. Select a state from the menu below to view the corresponding fact sheet.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Work, productivity and environment Government ]

Facebook has tagged this as partly false information, which I guess means that November 3rd may or may not be coming?

[ related topics: Photography ]

There's something fundamentally wrong (a song from a student about online "learning" and school and whatnot): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3xwpvtMeWw

[ related topics: Children and growing up Movies Education ]

A few weeks ago, Charlene and I watched "The Aeronauts", a fictionalized account of James Glaisher and Henry Tracey Coxwell's balloon ascent on Sept. 5, 1862 to somewhere above 31,000' and possibly almost to 36,000'. The film was a thriller with, we learned on reading things later because it grabbed us pretty well, some parts that probably weren't as fictional and some bits that definitely were.

Among the fictionalizations, Coxwell was replaced with a fictional character who was allegedly based on, among others, one Sophie Blanchard, a French aeronaut with a reputation for the shows she gave around her balloon ascents, fireworks and parachuting dogs and whatnot.

In the "how much was fiction and how much wasn't", I was intrigued to run across this picture. The caption, from Twitter user @WikiVictorian says "“Aeronaut” from the Occupations of Women trading card series by the Old Judge and Dog’s Head Cigarette Company, 1887." https://twitter.com/wikivictorian/status/1313137380304584706

The origin is probably https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/400785

[ related topics: Movies Law Art & Culture Television Pyrotechnics Dogs ]

Short Twitter video of Korean retail entrance system which uses facial recognition and IR cameras to check temperature and presence of a mask before opening doors.

[ related topics: Photography Video ]

RT Josiah @BancroftJosiah

The English language is so crazy! I’m working on a list of words with silent K’s:

• One Silent K — “Knot”

• Two Silent K’s — “Knuckle”

• Three Silent K’s — “Republican-Led Senate”

• Four Silent K’s — “Knickknack”

[ related topics: Politics Work, productivity and environment ]

The Internet of Dongs Project: Locked In An Insecure Cage

QIUI is the company behind the CellMate chastity cage, a bluetooth enabled device that fits around the genitels and is controlled via mobile app.  Control can be local via the app or control can be given to another user who can control and lock/unlock the device via a back end API that the app interfaces with over the internet.  It should be noted that it was discovered that the device can only be unlocked by the app. There is no mechanical bypass or physical key.

Yeah, you can see where that went.

Pen Test Partners: Smart male chastity lock cock-up details the "can only get out with an angle grinder" problem, along with numerous other security flaws.

[ related topics: Wireless Weblogs Net Culture ]

Thousands Of D.C. Renters Are Evicted Every Year. Do They All Know To Show Up To Court?

A nine-month investigation—which included observing week after week of eviction proceedings in Superior Court, poring through more than 13,000 pages of court records, conducting nearly 60 interviews, and reviewing hours of security camera footage—turned up more than 600 cases in just two months where two process servers filed affidavits containing discrepancies that, if brought to a judge’s attention, would likely result in the eviction case being dismissed.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Photography Law ]

Sigh. White House based their strategy on COVID-19 tests which are for verifying the infection after the onset of symptoms. New York Times: The White House Bet on Abbott’s Rapid Tests. It Didn’t Work Out.

Other health experts noted that the tests deployed by the White House, manufactured by Abbott Laboratories, were given emergency clearance by the Food and Drug Administration only for people “within the first seven days of the onset of symptoms.” But they were used incorrectly, to screen people who were not showing any signs of illness. Such off-label use, experts said, further compromised a strategy that presumably was designed to keep leading officials safe from a pandemic that so far has killed more than 210,000 Americans.

[ related topics: Health Invention and Design Food Bay Area Journalism and Media Work, productivity and environment New York Race Real Estate ]

New York Times: ‘We Need to Take Away Children,’ No Matter How Young, Justice Dept. Officials Said — Top department officials were “a driving force” behind President Trump’s child separation policy, a draft investigation report said.

Rod J. Rosenstein, then the deputy attorney general, went even further in a second call about a week later, telling the five prosecutors that it did not matter how young the children were. He said that government lawyers should not have refused to prosecute two cases simply because the children were barely more than infants.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Politics Invention and Design moron Sociology Law Law Enforcement New York ]

Stars and Stripes: Years after they fought in Afghanistan, US troops watch as their children deploy to the same war

The Onion, 9 years ago: Newly Deployed Soldier Has Dreamed Of Fighting In Afghan War Since He Was Little Kid, and 3 years ago: Soldier Excited To Take Over Father’s Old Afghanistan Patrol Route.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Politics Movies Food History Current Events ]

Customs and Border Protection officer Alberto Almeida charged with sending “numerous” QAnon related menacing messages to a higher-up.

“Attention CBP Assistant Port Director Ed Fox in Newark,” Almeida posted to his own Facebook page.

“The next time I come to Newark Airport I am bringing Donald Trump and the U.S. Military down on your f****** head for your involvement in Hillary/Maxwell/Epstein’s child trafficking ring and 9/11. You f****** treasonous pedophile,” Almeida’s post continued. “Trump takes down Hillary, JFK JR (US MILITARY) takes down the Mossad, and I take you down b****, that’s how this worked. Tick Tock. #WWG1WGA”

[ related topics: Sexual Culture tolkien Aviation ]

Twitter thread of a TikTok duets creation of a grocery store musical

Twitter thread of a TikTok collaboration using the "duets" feature to cover the Cowboy Bebop theme

Next time I need a little inspiration for parodying inflencers, this thread...

RT lolly @lollyadefope

hi! my name’s arabella: i’m a size 4, my parents bought me a house in london fields and here’s my 17 minute video on why YOU need to stop buying fast fashion!!!!!!!!!!

[ related topics: Fashion Video Real Estate ]

Kentucky attorney general seeks to ban Breonna Taylor grand juror from discussing proceedings

The motion comes the same day as the city of Louisville released a trove of documents from the police department’s internal investigation into the fatal shooting of Taylor while officers carried out a search warrant in March. The documents show other Louisville officers criticizing the raid and cast doubt on the police department’s justifications for the warrant, a key question addressed only in passing in recently released audio of the grand jury proceedings.

[ related topics: Music Privacy Law Law Enforcement ]

We regret the error: https://dailysciencefiction.co...on/aliens/hal-maclean/correction

Remember when Donald Trump tweeted:

I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!

Bluff called. BuzzFeed News Is Going To Court For A Quick Release Of All Russia Investigation Documents Following Trump's Tweets

In response to Trump’s assertion, BuzzFeed News and CNN have asked the judge presiding over the case to order the government to remove the redactions and rerelease the FBI interview summaries by Oct. 28 and to set a hearing to discuss the matter as early as Friday afternoon

[ related topics: Politics History moron Law Current Events Law Enforcement Heinlein ]

Atlanta Journal Constitution: Police killings more likely in agencies that get military gear, data shows

A new AJC analysis of a decade of records across 651 Georgia police departments and sheriff’s offices found departments that took more than $1,000 in 1033 money, on average, fatally shot about four times as many people as those that didn’t. The newspaper’s analysis used the military’s database and paired it with a database of fatal police shootings from across the state, controlling for statistical variables like community income, rural-urban differences, racial makeup, and violent crime rates.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Law Current Events Journalism and Media Law Enforcement Television Civil Liberties Community Currency Databases ]

Trump’s Struggles Ripple Across the Sun Belt, Endangering G.O.P. Stronghold

On Thursday, in a conference call with a group of lobbyists, Mr. McConnell vented that the party’s Senate candidates are being financially overwhelmed because of small-dollar contributions to ActBlue, the online liberal fund-raising hub.

[ related topics: Politics Currency Fashion Conferences Java ]

Eddie Van Halen in Popular Mechanics about how he hacked his guitar

[ related topics: Music ]

ICE agents stopped a Black jogger in Boston. Authorities are demanding answers.

“They said that immigration isn’t the only thing that they investigate and proceeded to question me,” Apreala told WBUR.

Apreala gave the men his full name and address and then pulled out his phone to start recording the interaction. When they noticed him filming, Apreala said, they told him he was free to leave.

City Councilors Want Answers After Apparent 'Unlawful' Stop In West Roxbury

Boston City Councilor Matt O’Malley represents West Roxbury, where the incident occurred. In a tweet, O’Malley called the stop “unlawful” and said he would address the issue with federal representatives. City Councilor Michelle Wu, who recently announced her bid for Mayor of Boston, said in a tweet she’d also follow up with federal representatives to investigate the matter further.

[ related topics: Current Events ]

Priest recorded having group sex on altar of Pearl River church, police say; 3 arrested

New details, however, have emerged in court filings that paint a lurid picture of a priest recording himself engaged in sexual role play while desecrating a sacred place within the church. Public records additionally show that one of the women, Mindy Dixon, 41, is an adult film actor who also works for hire as a dominatrix. On a social media account associated with Dixon, a Sept. 29 post says she was on her way to the New Orleans area to meet another dominatrix "and defile a house of God."

#LifeGoals

[ related topics: Religion Erotic Sexual Culture Movies Invention and Design Current Events Journalism and Media Law Enforcement Hurricane Katrina Real Estate ]

"If only the geologists would leave me alone. After each Bible verse I hear the blows of their hammers." John Ruskin, quoted in Jostein Gaarder's novel "Sophie's World", about geology fucking with his theology.

[ related topics: Quotes Interactive Drama ]

A suggestion I've heard from Trump supporters is that I should at least be in favor of his troop draw-downs. I started trying to document this.

This Al Jazeera timeline of troops in Afghanistan, the number of US troops in Afghanistan was drawn down to about 8,400 by January 2017, when Trump took over, under the Trump administration that number went up to 14,400.

US News & World Report's graph suggests that there was a drawdown in Kuwait in 2017, but Stars & Stripes says that more than that were deployed to Kuwait in January this year.

Deployments to Germany have been in flux.

It seems like the only way there's actually been a draw-down is that the Pentagon stopped publishing deployment numbers in late 2017.

[ related topics: Current Events ]

I'm not sure where, exactly, that detour is supposed to go...

[ related topics: Photography ]

Dredging is almost up to the Balshaw Bridge....

[ related topics: Photography ]

Aha! I've always been upstream of the dredging operation. This answers how they get from the downtown turning basin to the spoils ponds at Schollenberger. Or it's a Christo installation.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Looks like a lunch break...

[ related topics: Photography ]

long before Megan Thee Stallion.... Bette Midler - Dr. Longjohn (YouTube video)

[ related topics: Movies Video ]

Institutionalizing Gender: Madness, the Family, and Psychiatric Power in Nineteenth-Century France is free on Kindle and various other digital platforms.

I ran across this because I saw RT @jessie_hewitt:

A student realized my husband and I were a couple after recognizing the same cats zoom bomb both our classes. I find this simultaneously adorable and a bit dystopian.

The metadata will reveal you

[ related topics: Books Sociology Education Marriage Woodworking ]

"This is a message from Sonoma County Registrar of Voters. Your ballot for the 2020 General Election was received and will be counted. Thank you for voting!"

RT Linda Tirado @KillerMartinis

It’s 2020 and y’all are still signing petitions? Do you just love data breaches that much?

Ooooh. Mapping the impact of Prop 13 on a neighborhood level: https://www.officialdata.org/ca-property-tax/

[ related topics: Politics Photography Maps and Mapping ]

In this era of virtual meetings and audio collaboration, it's really kind-of amazing how casually we poke holes into each other's living rooms. Sitting here listening to my voice teacher get ready for my lessons on Jamulus, but she hasn't let me into the Zoom room yet.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Music Pop Culture ]

RT Accidental CISO @AccidentalCISO

Sir, I can’t die on all these hills at once. I’m going to need you to prioritize.

Just a thread to hang all of that NY Post "Biden's emails" silliness.

RT Dan SIoan 🇺🇸🇨🇦🏳️‍🌈 @dantoujours

So just so I follow this story:

Hunter Biden, who lives in Los Angeles, decides to fly 3000 miles across country, to drop off 3 MacBook Pros at a repair shop run by a blind guy who charges the insanely low price of $85.

He gets off the plane and drunk drives to the repair shop

The rest of the thread lays out the facts as we know them so far. Yeah, the narrative is as stupid as it sounds.

Vice: We Are Collectively Losing Touch With Reality and It’s Extremely Obvious — The New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story is conspiracy candy, and it's the most bizarre story of a truly unbelievable year.

Salon: Experts dismiss "garbage fire" Hunter Biden exposé in NY Post: "Seems like a complete fabrication"

Errata Security: Yes, we can validate leaked emails

Thomas Rid's Twitter thread

I'm also a little confused, because OS/X has had FileVault since 2003, and has become progressively more aggressive in turning it on. So casually browsing through the user's files on a MacBook Pro circa 2015 involves a user who's given up their password to the repair shop. Which is super bad opsec.

I mean, the times I've taken a laptop internationally I've put a little effort into scrubbing it, and even taking the laptop through TSA checkpoints I have an account that I'm happy to let people look through to demonstrate that the laptop is indeed a working device without letting them access my actual files.

And I'm not a high flyer in international business deals.

[ related topics: Weblogs Invention and Design Current Events Work, productivity and environment Pyrotechnics Conspiracy New York Handicaps & Disabilities Woodworking Government hubris ]

From all the way back in 2017: "Alt-right" women are upset that "alt-right" men are treating them terribly.

It would be easy to snark, but the thing about abusive relationships is that the victims are often unable to see the framework in which they're being abused for what it is.

[ related topics: Salon magazine ]

Nevada Cop Block: Nevada D.A.R.E. Officer Died from Drug Overdose in Police Evidence Room

[ related topics: Health Law Enforcement ]

New York Times: ‘Straight to Gunshots’: How a U.S. Task Force Killed an Antifa Activist

New accounts from the scene raise questions about whether Michael Reinoehl, suspected of killing a far-right Trump supporter, pulled out a gun before officers fatally shot him.

Oregon Live: Officers fired more than 30 rounds at Michael Reinoehl, who was found with gun in pocket, investigation shows

[ related topics: Invention and Design Guns New York ]

Esquire: So a Would-Be Libertarian Utopia in New Hampshire Was Mauled by Bears

The New Republic: The Town That Went Feral (via Sensible Endowment)

Both are reviewing A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (and Some Bears) by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling

[ related topics: Politics Libertarian Books Invention and Design Current Events ]

Zeptoseconds: New world record in short time measurement

In the global race to measure ever shorter time spans, physicists from Goethe University Frankfurt have now taken the lead: together with colleagues at the accelerator facility DESY in Hamburg and the Fritz-Haber-Institute in Berlin, they have measured a process that lies within the realm of zeptoseconds for the first time: the propagation of light within a molecule. A zeptosecond is a trillionth of a billionth of a second (10-21 seconds).

and

Professor Reinhard Dörner adds: “We observed for the first time that the electron shell in a molecule does not react to light everywhere at the same time. The time delay occurs because information within the molecule only spreads at the speed of light. With this finding we have extended our COLTRIMS technology to another application."

[ related topics: Invention and Design Education Gambling ]

Wall Street Journal on Facebook's political leanings:

In late 2017, when Facebook tweaked its newsfeed algorithm to minimize the presence of political news, policy executives were concerned about the outsize impact of the changes on the right, including the Daily Wire, people familiar with the matter said. Engineers redesigned their intended changes so that left-leaning sites like Mother Jones were affected more than previously planned, the people said. Mr. Zuckerberg approved the plans. “We did not make changes with the intent of impacting individual publishers,” a Facebook spokesman said.

Via this Twitter thread about Facebook targeting journalism

[ related topics: Politics moron Current Events Journalism and Media Economics ]

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: FDA Issues Emergency Use Authorization to Yale School of Public Health for SalivaDirect, Which Uses a New Method of Saliva Sample Processing

Andy Slavitt on the test, which could cost $4/test (vs ca $100 for current COVID-19 tests) and thus may be usable for very frequent testing.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Health Invention and Design Current Events ]

Finish is still drying, so I put a piece of scrap plywood in place of my tablet, but I think this will make a better video conferencing setup when I have to use my laptop for audio and need a second device for the visuals

[ related topics: Music Photography Video ]

So if Bakersfield is the armpit of California, is that like an erogenous zone, or just ticklish?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama California Culture ]

Just a another picture of my tripod light and tablet stands

[ related topics: Photography ]

And yet another picture of my tripod light and tablet stands

[ related topics: Photography ]

Braille Institute — Atkinson Hyperlegible Font (free font download)

[ related topics: Typography Graphic Design ]

I was this many years old when I learned about the Ground Level Power Supply first developed for the Bordeaux tramway light rail system, that has now been implemented in other systems. An alternative to overhead catenary wires or an always-live third rail, it involves a third rail cut up into short segments, with a radio on the tram that tells the system when to energize the segments currently under the tram.

So the aesthetic advantages of an inconspicuous third rail (in fact, far less conspicuous), without the danger of it always being hot.

[ related topics: Theater & Plays Trains ]

Phone issues mean I'm declaring Podcast bankruptcy and starting over again from scratch. The only real PITA about this is that I have to go find all my Patreon RSS feeds again. On a mobile device. Sigh.

[ related topics: Content Management ]

Really good long read on the debacle that has been Foxconn's much vaunted leeching of public subsidies and destruction of local economies in Wisconsin: The 8th wonder of the world* *wonder not guaranteed:

In 2017, President Donald Trump and the Wisconsin GOP struck a deal with Foxconn that promised to turn Southeastern Wisconsin into a tech manufacturing powerhouse. In exchange for billions in tax subsidies, Foxconn was supposed to build an enormous LCD factory in the tiny village of Mount Pleasant, creating 13,000 jobs. Three years later, the factory — and the jobs — don’t exist, and they probably never will. Inside the empty promises and empty buildings of Wisconn Valley.

Via MeFi

[ related topics: Politics Architecture ]

Department of about freakin' time already: Germany issues international arrest warrants for the founders of Mossack Fonseca, the firm at the centre of the tax haven scandal exposed by the Panama Papers

The two men hold Panamanian passports and are currently in the Caribbean archipelago which does not have any extradition treaties, the newspaper said.

However investigators hope that Mossack, who has family in Germany, may surrender to officials in order to negotiate a reduced sentence and avoid US charges.

[ related topics: Politics Privacy History Sociology Current Events Journalism and Media ]

It's a rare feeling, but I'm very combobulated right now.

Thinking about all the people who've mocked me for the Post-it notes over my device cameras, and how easy it is to forget that devices are broadcasting, and... Post-its over cameras are like masks: I'm not wearing them for me, I'm wearing them for you.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Now the disinfo campaign gets really ugly: 'Proud Boys' Emails Threatening Florida Voters Appear to Use Spoofed Email Address:

The emails, which read 'Vote for Trump or else!' have been delivered to Democratic voters using Estonian internet infrastructure.

They're matching up voter rolls to email addresses....

[ related topics: Net Culture ]

Phil Collins wants to end ex wife’s ‘armed occupation’ of his mansion, suits says

[ related topics: Current Events Marriage ]

An author I really enjoy, Abigail Hilton, has her kids horror series, on the relationship between a rat and a snake, on sale for $.99 each for the Kindle version through October. https://www.amazon.com/Malachi...on-Eve-Book-ebook/dp/B08L1D8YBK/

[ related topics: Children and growing up Books ]

The street finds its own uses for technology, and covering badge numbers will no longer be enough: NY Times: Activists Turn Facial Recognition Tools Against the Police — “We’re now approaching the technological threshold where the little guys can do it to the big guys,” one researcher said.

“For a while now, everyone was aware the big guys could use this to identify and oppress the little guys, but we’re now approaching the technological threshold where the little guys can do it to the big guys,” Mr. Maximov, 30, said. “It’s not just the loss of anonymity. It’s the threat of infamy.”

[ related topics: Law Enforcement Gambling ]

Utah senator says people should ‘stay home’ if they don’t want police dogs to bite them

“I don’t have a lot of sympathy,” Sen. Don Ipson told his colleagues on the law enforcement and criminal justice committee. “We don’t want to harm the public. But if they don’t want to get bit, stay home.”

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Politics Current Events Law Enforcement Dogs ]

You've seen that animated GIF of a truck being pursued by police, skidding in a turn, bouncing off a car carrier, and driving away the other direction? Here's the making-of video: Explained | G Wagon Police Escape (YouTube video).

[ related topics: Animation Movies Law Enforcement Automobiles Machinery Video ]

Spectacular Tiny Sculptures Made of Recycled Watches

New Jersey-based artist Sue Beatrice, aka All Natural Arts, creates spectacular steampunk sculptures made out of old watch parts. With the environment in mind, her clever little creations are made entirely out of recycled materials that offer a bit of whimsy. The discarded and found objects (gears, sprockets, vintage pocket watches, etc.) are upcycled and repurposed into unique items that boast themes of nature.

[ related topics: Movies Nature and environment Invention and Design Art & Culture ]

The hilarious IT office politics with monsters podcast This Kaiju Life is on hiatus, which means it's a perfect time to catch up and tell all of your friends so that Grig and Nobilis have incentive to create more and more episodes! https://kaiju.libsyn.com/

[ related topics: Politics ]

Texas member of Boogaloo Bois charged with opening fire on Minneapolis police precinct during protests over George Floyd

Hunter had bragged about his role in the Minneapolis riots on Facebook, publicly proclaiming, “I helped the community burn down that police station” and “I didn’t’ [sic] protest peacefully Dude … Want something to change? Start risking felonies for what is good.”

[ related topics: Law Enforcement Civil Liberties Pyrotechnics Community ]

NYU Ad Observatory is data derived from a set of plug-ins that watch Facebook for political ads so they can reverse-engineer how Facebook is choosing to show which ads to whom.

[ related topics: Politics Movies moron Astronomy ]

New Study Points To Invisible Killer Of Infants

Now an international team of researchers have a better understanding of that answer. Air pollution, both inside and outside the home, contributed to the deaths of about 500,000 newborns in 2019, the team reports in the State of Global Air 2020.

"The number is just staggering," says epidemiologist Rakesh Ghosh at the University of California, San Francisco, who led the study. Each year about 2.42 million infants die within the first 27 days of life. The new study suggests air pollutions contribute to about 20% of those deaths

[ related topics: Invention and Design Bay Area California Culture Education ]

What Does Your Gaze Reveal About You? Onthe Privacy Implications of Eye Tracking Jacob Leon Kröger1, Otto Hans-Martin Lutz and Florian Müller

Abstract. Technologies to measure gaze direction and pupil reactivity havebecome efficient, cheap, and compact and are finding increasing use in many fields,including gaming, marketing, driver safety, military, and healthcare. Besides offeing numerous useful applications, the rapidly expanding technology raises serious privacy concerns. Through the lens of advanced data analytics, gaze patterns can reveal much more information than a user wishes and expects to give away. Drawing from a broad range of scientific disciplines, this paper provides a structured overview of personal data that can be inferred from recorded eye activities. Our analysis of the literature shows that eye tracking data may implicitly contain information about a user’s biometric identity, gender, age, ethnicity, body weight, personality traits, drug consumption habits, emotional state, skills and abilities, fears,interests, and sexual preferences. Certain eye tracking measures may even reveal specific cognitive processes and can be used to diagnose various physical and mental health conditions. By portraying the richness and sensitivity of gaze data,this paper provides an important basis for consumer education, privacy impact assessments, and further research into the societal implications of eye tracking.

Via RT Steve Stewart-Williams @SteveStuWill

Visual behaviour can reveal people's sex, age, ethnicity, personality traits, drug-consumption habits, emotions, fears, skills, interests, sexual preferences, and physical and mental health. Eye-tracking may be the closest thing we have to mind-reading. https://link.springer.com/cont....1007%2F978-3-030-42504-3_15.pdf

[ related topics: Erotic Privacy Games Sexual Culture Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Health Consumerism and advertising Television Marketing Education ]

The headline says Toronto Eaton Center owner found guilty of hiding facial recognition cameras in kiosks, but there's no mention of which laws they allegedly broke, or what punishment was imposed.

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada: Cadillac Fairview collected 5 million shoppers’ images

Customers not aware that their sensitive biometrics information was gathered

There's a lot of pearl clutching here, but it's not clear to me that this isn't in about the same part of the spectrum as the USPS mailing kiosks collecting your images.

Link dumping here, from 2018:

Directories at Cadillac Fairview malls have cameras inside

Company suspends use of mall directory cameras running facial recognition software

[ related topics: Photography Privacy Software Engineering Current Events Sports Automobiles Fashion Government ]

Video surfaces showing Philadelphia police bashing SUV windows, then beating driver while child was in backseat

Crowds of people throwing projectiles at police. Officers backing away, then advancing toward them. A slow-moving SUV navigating the scene, then being surrounded by police. Baton-wielding officers swarming the vehicle, smashing its windows, yanking its driver and a passenger from the car, throwing them to the ground, and then pulling a toddler from the backseat.

For Aapril Rice, a 30-year-old who works in digital media and recorded it from her rooftop, the entire scene was “surreal,” but none more so than seeing officers scoop up the child. That, she said, was “the most traumatic part for me.”

Witnesses suggest that the SUV was attempting to turn around and drive away from the unrest. But the kicker:

An Inquirer photographer captured an image of police holding a young boy at the scene at the same time, and a freelance photographer captured another image of police pulling that child out of the vehicle that was bashed.

On Wednesday, the National Fraternal Order of Police posted another image on Facebook and Twitter of a Philadelphia police officer holding the same child, writing in a caption: “This child was lost during the violent riots in Philadelphia, wandering around barefoot in an area that was experiencing complete lawlessness. The only thing this Philadelphia police officer cared about in that moment was protecting this child.”

Tear children from their parents, and then seek sympathy because you're taking care of orphans. Yeah.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Humor Microsoft Writing Current Events Journalism and Media Law Enforcement Automobiles Video ]

‘Bad Boys 4 Life.’ Cops lived Miami lifestyle, secretly protected cocaine load, feds say

Flowers and Edwards are scheduled to appear in federal court on Friday, one day after authorities arrested the two on allegations they agreed to act as muscle for a cocaine-trafficking operation set up by undercover agents. Also charged: a Miami money laundering suspect named Manuel Carlos Hernandez — who boasted Flowers was on his payroll, according to court documents.

And, of course:

Flowers and Edwards had both been members of Miami-Dade’s “Priority Response Team,” a unit created after the 2018 Parkland school massacre to respond to major incidents.

Via Ben Wieder @benbwieder who points out

Among the many amazing details from this story about two Miami cops who moonlighted as drug trafficking muscle is that someone with the name Rod Flowers felt he needed a nickname

[ related topics: Drugs Health Current Events Law Enforcement Heinlein Community Currency ]

I Hate Coordinate Systems, a guide to resolving problems in geographic and geospatial coodinate systems.

[ related topics: Douglas Adams ]

With Google Play Music going to the whole YouTube subscription model, how are people buying (pop) music these days without going through Amazon? Is there a way to buy MP3s any more?

(Yes, I know, Bandcamp, but most of what I want is music for creating dance remixes.)

[ related topics: Books Music ]

Does the installation of blue Lights on train platforms shift suicide to another station?: Evidence from Japan

Abstract

Background: Installing physical barriers at suicide hotspots is known as an effective strategy for suicide prevention. However, the effectiveness of physical barriers may be nullified by the substitution phenomenon, i.e., that restricting access to a particular place induces people at risk to look for a nearby place for suicide.

Methods: This study tests whether the substitution phenomenon exists in the case of railway and metro suicides. We focused on the prevention effort by a Japanese railway company that installed blue light-emitting-diode (LED) lamps on railway platforms to prevent people from diving to a running train. Using panel data of 71 train stations between 2000 and 2013, we compared the number of suicides before and after the installation of the blue lights at 14 stations where the lights were installed and at neighboring five stations on the same railway line, using the number of suicides at all other stations without the intervention as a control group.

Findings: Our regression analysis shows that the introduction of blue lights decreased the number suicides by 74% (CI: 48-87%) at stations where the blue lights were installed, while it did not result in a systematic increase in the number of suicides at the neighboring stations.

Interpretation: The installation of blue lights generated no systematic substitution phenomenon at nearby stations.

Keywords: Japan; Prevention; Railway and metro suicide.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2014.07.036

[ related topics: Law Television Sports Machinery Trains Public Transportation ]

Venezuela coup plotters met at Trump Doral. Central figure says U.S officials knew of plan. There are assertions that Erik Prince, of Blackwater fame, offered to provide 5,000 mercenary troops for half a billion dollars.

[ related topics: Current Events ]

A conversation with the cast of Woke (YouTube video)

Please join us for a virtual conversation with the actors from Hulu’s original comedy series Woke, moderated by NPR’s Eric Deggans. With Blake Anderson, Lamorne Morris, T. Murph, Rose McIver, JB Smoove</nblockquote>

[ related topics: Movies Flowers Video ]

I guided my last commercial trip, on the Ocoee, sometime in late June of 1995. I went as a customer sometime in 1988, I think, and in the spring of 1989 walked up to Chris at a table full of High Country flyers, and asked "how do you become a guide?" Several intense weekends later I "checked out", and started running commercial trips as the sole guide in the boat, and even up to a year or two later I'd wake up in a cold sweat with dreams of swimming in that area from Broken Nose down to Slice-n-Dice.

Polk County was a strange place then, but obviously in transition to modernity: You could still find flyers on the general store bulletin board for barter, moonshine for whatever of value you could bring, the locals had started to accept that the rafters and whitewater paddlers were bringing enough money to compensate for being long-haired freaks, the Benton fireworks disaster was 6 years past, and the fight over the flume line was further back than that. You could buy beer, although not on Sunday, but liquor required a trip back down to Chattanooga.

A few years ago I read Elizabeth Dulemba's "A Bird on Water Street", a fictional tale of that area in the mid '80s, and, of course, recognized all the quirks of the area in transition, but just recently picked up David Brown's "The Whitewater Wars: The Rafters and the River Trip that Saved the Ocoee & The Gauley River Battle" and was taken right back to it: An out-of-control Federal agency, TVA, taking land through eminent domain for a thousand or two an acre, and reselling it for hundreds of thousands an acre, a rural Sheriff who didn't think the law was that relevant, and the rough-and-tumble culture of the early rafters that was maturing out of the scene in the time I was guiding there.

This may be a book of limited interest, but it took me right back to those days of midnight runs, trying to sneak a bright yellow raft under the searchlight scanning across the river that we were sure was the Sheriff, going back and re-running the bottom half at 20k+CFS because there was no way we were gonna let a Ranger scare us off the river, and added new depth of what came before and made some of those shenanigans possible.

And I've run a couple of fun trips on the Gauley, back when it had that monster put-in with the huge eddy-line, screaming "all forward" over the earth-shaking rumble of the discharge pipes, an experience which apparently is no longer, and the read-through of the political maneuverings that made that possible was also entertaining.

An enjoyable quick read on the recent history of two amazing rivers.

[ related topics: Politics Books Invention and Design History moron Sociology Beer California Culture Chattanooga Sports Travel Pyrotechnics Boats Machinery Currency Douglas Adams Whitewater Birds Real Estate Furniture ]

Report: Kentucky Police Presentation Quoted Hitler To Encourage ‘Regular Employment Of Violence’

A presentation given to Kentucky State Police cadets contained quotes from Adolf Hitler encouraging the cadets to use violence, according to a Louisville high school newspaper, the Manual RedEye, while calling for the future police officers to have a “mindset void of emotion” in order to “meet violence with greater violence.”

[ related topics: Children and growing up Quotes Current Events Journalism and Media Law Enforcement Dictators ]

Oregon voters to decide on decriminalizing heroin, cocaine and LSD

If voters pass Measure 110, users found in low-level possession of the substances would have the option of paying $100 fines or attending new, free addiction recovery centers instead of being arrested and facing jail time, The Associated Press reported.

The recovery centers would be funded by tax revenue from retail marijuana sales in the state, which was the country’s first to decriminalize marijuana possession.

[ related topics: Drugs Interactive Drama Politics Movies Invention and Design ]

Closing off some tabs. I've been playing a bit with Sonic Pi, which is a layer on top of SuperCollider.

The SuperCollider Book is a textbook that several people have recommended.

Designing Sound is a book about the deeper underlying processes of modern sound design.

JUCE is a platform for building sound apps

[ related topics: Children and growing up Books Graphic Design ]