Binaryjesus

glassyeyedliving:

moonstruckfox:

helicoils:

Love

i just lol’ed so hard 

always reblog.

huskyway:

potter-who-locked:

oldfuckingsport:

I just saw this ad playing before a youtube video and I had to stop and watch the whole thing. Incredible.

Watch this. Now

Also posting this on my facebook…

Watch this. Please.

fairytalemood:

photo by Anka Zhuravleva

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Update: We've got it identified. It's a gown that Taiwanese singer Mei wore to a New Japan Philharmonic Performance by Joe Hisaishi. Well done to Jasonjayr for sleuthing this one out!

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Here's one of those frustratingly amazing, but impossible to identify Tumblr finds: a gown with a long train, decorated with the skeleton of a mighty dragon with a barbed tail. My Tineye and Google Image reverse searches just turned up a bunch of people saying, "Hey, that's great, who made it?" and NO ANSWERS.

Do you know? Post in the comments.

I'd also be interested in hearing whether you-all would be interested in participating in a weekly "Figure out who made this amazing, identifier-free thing I found on Tumblr" post? It'd be nice to get some attribution for all that unattributed awesome out there.

Welcome to the Source of Insanity (via Black is Cheerful)

Oklahoma City's state capitol is home to a controversial monument to the Ten Commandments, donated by Broken Arrow Republican Rep. Mike Ritze. The state legislature has been adamant that a religious monument on the lawn somehow didn't violate the principle of separation of church and state. Taking them at their word, NYC's Satanic Temple would like to see a monument to Satanic principles placed on the lawn alongside of it. They're raising funds for monument on Indiegogo, and insist that it will be "in good taste and consistent with community standards." Naturally, the state lawmakers are satisfyingly incandescent at the prospect. The ACLU is suing to abolish religious monuments on the state capital grounds altogether.

"This is a faith-based nation and a faith-based state," said Rep. Earl Sears, R-Bartlesville. "I think it is very offensive they would contemplate or even have this kind of conversation."

"It is not something the people of Oklahoma would support, and the people of Oklahoma support the Ten Commandments monument," said Rep. Eric Proctor, D-Tulsa.

"It is not going to get approved here without a court battle," said Rep. Doug Cox, R-Grove. "I can assure you."

The Ten Commandments monument was paid for with $10,000 donated by Broken Arrow Republican Rep. Mike Ritze and his family plus $10,000 raised privately.

State lawmakers slam proposed Satanist monument [Barbara Hoberock/Tulsa World]

(via /.)

Amy L. Rawson continues her tradition of creating felted cthulhoid Santas for the holiday season (see last year's); the current iteration is $595 on Etsy, and includes a 4lb epoxy/wire "octisleigh" pulled by a "rapidly morphing, protoplasmic vision of a Shoggoth." It's 13" long, 7" high, not including the Shoggoth. From her post on the piece:

Santa is needle felted entirely from wool. Oddly, this is the first year we've given the Santa Cthulhu wings. I have no real reason for that. In previous years I think we just got close to the finish line and thought, "Wings? Nah, that'd be more work ..."

The shoggoth is a writhing, amoeba-like mass of needle felted pustules, eyes, appendages and teeth. A shoggoth is a constantly changing creature. As such, it's somewhat difficult to put a yoke or harness on it. Santa just hitches his sleigh up to a large metal ring that he has to trust the shoggoth to keep incorporated into its fluctuating body. Chains hitch the shoggoth's ring to the sleigh, and Santa holds leather straps as reins. The eyes are glass cabochons that we painted specifically for the shoggoth. The teeth are epoxy clay.

The Octi-Sleigh is a substantial sculpture I made specifically for this project. It has a wire armature covered with nearly 4 lbs of epoxy clay. It is painted with acrylics, and I'd just like to point out that this was my very first attempt at painting with an airbrush! If you look back at the last several journal entries, you can see lots of work-in-progress photos of the sleigh.

Needle Felted Santa Cthulhu with Shoggoth and Octi-Sleigh [Etsy]

Santa Cthulhu 2013: Final! [Thirdroar]

(via Neatorama)

In July, Koush announced that CyanogenMod would be seeing integrated, system-wide secure messaging integration with compatibility with TextSecure. For those unfamiliar, TextSecure is an open-source cross-platform (iOS and Android) client that encrypts your SMS messages both locally, and over the air when sending to other TextSecure users. The application is maintained by Open WhisperSystems, and lead engineer Moxie Marlinspike.

Moxie is a veteran of open source software, cryptography and good encryption practices, and a privacy advocate. To learn more about him and his accomplishments check out his personal site and Wikipedia page. He’s also spent time as a speaker at DEFCON on multiple occasions.

Moxie has been the lead engineer on the CyanogenMod implementation of TextSecure, making sure the CM version is both secure and compatible with his existing services. Unique to the CM implementation is our SMS middleware functionality. This is the same code that allows for our Google Voice integration into any messaging application.

By leveraging this for our TextSecure implementation, we can extend the encrypted messaging functionality to nearly any SMS application you decide to use. Your messages to other CM or TextSecure users (regardless of iOS or Android) will automatically be encrypted and secured. In the event your receiving party isn’t on CM or using TextSecure, the implementation will silently fall back to a normal SMS message (unencrypted).

Today, we are launching our version initially into the CM 10.2 nightly stream to test the server load and make sure things are working at scale. Once things are dialed in, we’ll also enable this for CM 11 builds moving forward.

The source for this code is also being made public, and similar to what we did with CMAccount, we welcome outside audits of the cryptography. (1, 2)

Read more at the Open WhisperSystems blog!

A group of top Democratic lawmakers live in a squalorous group house in DC. The house was once the family home of Dick Durbin, but when his wife and family relocated to his California district. Now, three decades later, Durbin shares the house with Chuck Shumer and George Miller, amid dusty, filthy and disused furnishings dating back to the 1980s. The lawmakers only spend three nights a week at the house, and come and go at odd hours between meetings, fundraisers, and appearances. They use the Congressional gyms and other facilities for the majority of their needs, and boast about the holes in the stovetop and the dumpster-dived furniture, as well as Durbin's comfort-food of choice: raisin bran.

The furniture is a hodgepodge of what the lawmakers salvaged from various relatives and other parts of their lives.

Durbin took one of the couches from his son, who was about to throw it out.

"He put it out in the trash -- it had to be 12, 14 years ago -- and I said it's better than anything we have. So we reclaimed it," Durbin recalled.

He said the coffee table is 46 years old -- the first piece of furniture Durbin and his wife bought when they were married.

"We're not afraid of the burglars," Miller said, "because we've been burgled twice and they took nothing."

The living room, virtually the only room on the first floor of the house, also serves as Schumer's bedroom. But "bedroom" is a generous term.

He sleeps on a mattress next to the kitchen. He half-made his bed for our visit, which Durbin said was a lot more effort than Schumer usually makes.

The real 'Alpha House': Yes, this is where some Senators actually live [Dana Bash/CNN]

Ever since I saw this video, I’ve had to draw the Krampus come Krampusnacht.

The all-nighter. It’s kind of a rite of passage for college students, especially during finals. But even older adults sometimes need to pull one — finishing up a work project or driving through the night. Even I’ve pulled a good number of all-nighters these last six years, writing up a blog post for the next day. Given the fact that I’m my own boss and don’t technically have any set “deadlines,” I don’t know if this makes me crazy, or dedicated, or maybe crazy dedicated. Probably just crazy.

Pulling an all-nighter isn’t the most healthy or desirable thing in the world (although it can actually produce feelings of euphoria), and doing so should be avoided whenever possible. But even the most organized student sometimes comes face-to-face with the fact that their paper is going to require more hours to complete than there are hours left in the day.

To get a unique perspective on the ins and outs of pulling a successful all-nighter, we asked a group of former Soldiers, Marines, and Special Forces veterans to share the methods that got them through combat and a host of night-ops. These men – who are all currently on staff at the BluCore Shooting Center in Denver, CO — served in the Navy SEALS, Green Berets, and the Army and Marine Infantries. (They’ve asked that we only use their first names for purposes of anonymity). For these vets, staying awake through the night was a matter of life and death, but their tips apply equally well to the civilian who needs to plow through a work or school project. In addition to their advice, we’ve provided tips from sleep experts and researchers.

All-Nighters: Avoid Them Whenever Possible

The first tip in pulling an all-nighter is actually to avoid doing it whenever you can! Depriving yourself of sleep has all sorts of deleterious effects on your body and mind, including:

• Decreases concentration. Sleep deprivation slows down the area of the brain responsible for concentration. Not good for focused study sessions.
• Hurts working and long-term memory. Your working memory is called upon for complex tasks where you have to pay attention to one thing while holding a bunch of other things at the forefront of your mind. Not only does sleep-deprivation impair this mental “scratchpad,” it diminishes your long-term memory as well. It’s during sleep that our recent memories are transferred to the neocortex to be solidified and stored. So all those facts you memorized through the night might not even be there come test time in the morning.
• Weakens immune system. While pulling an all-nighter may help you get that term paper done, you do so at the risk of getting sick right before your American History final later in the week.
• Cortisol increases. Pulling an all-nighter will probably make you feel stressed and on edge. That’s because your body’s level of cortisol (a hormone released in reaction to stress) increases whenever you’re sleep deprived. Elevated stress levels are no bueno for Spanish exams.
• Testosterone decreases. As we discussed in our series on increasing testosterone, our bodies make nearly all the testosterone they need for the day while we’re sleeping. Add the increased cortisol levels (another testosterone killer) and you’ve got a recipe for feeling like less of a man. Keep in mind, testosterone isn’t just for building huge muscles. Men with optimal levels of T have sharper minds and are more confident than their low-T brethren, two things that come in handy for all sorts of tasks.

Due to these mind-melting effects, my suggestion for students is to not pull an all-nighter when you can avoid it, and when you can’t, try to reserve it for writing papers. If you’re cramming for an exam, you’re probably better off putting in several hours of intense study, and then getting some shut-eye — maybe you won’t cover as much material, but you’ll have a better chance of remembering what you did study. With a paper, sleep deprivation will still cause your writing to suffer, but there’s no getting around the fact that finishing it will require a certain number of hours — your paper won’t magically finish itself if you leave it half-done to hit the sack.

How to Pull an All-Nighter When You Must

Alright, so pulling an all-nighter isn’t an effective or sustainable study or work strategy. But sometimes our best-laid plans go awry and an all-nighter becomes necessary. When it does, here’s how to stay awake for the duration and get the most out of your round-the-clock push.

Get Some Sleep in the Tank

“Make sure you don’t get behind on sleep. When you know an all-nighter is coming, see if you can bank a few extra hours in advance. That makes the well deeper when you have to dip into sleep reserves. This really works.” –Eric, former Navy SEAL

If you know in advance you’ll be pulling all-nighter, try to go to bed earlier and/or wake up later in the days leading up to it.

If you didn’t see your all-nighter coming, you can still fill up your sleep tank with what researchers call the “prophylactic nap.” Taking a nap of any kind boosts your memory, creativity, mood, alertness, and cognitive performance, and preventive naps have been found to be more effective at staving off the negative effects of sleep deprivation than multiple doses of caffeine.

When it comes to naps, longer is usually better, but in the short-term, a 180-minute nap (which gives you two cycles that include all the valuable stages of sleep) has been found to be no more effective in increasing cognitive performance than a 90-minute nap (just one full cycle). According to nap expert Dr. Sara C. Mednick, an hour and a half is the preventive nap sweet spot because “it will take you through a full cycle of sleep and bring you out in REM or Stage 2 Sleep, allowing you to avoid sleep inertia” (the grogginess you experience when waking up from a deep slumber). Mednick recommends taking your nap between 1-3 pm or 1-3 am, as these are “’perfect nap’ zones, where nap cycles will be ideally balanced between REM and SWS” (Slow Wave Sleep).

Keep in mind that the effects of a prophylactic nap have an expiration date — they only last 8-10 hours.

For more on what these sleep terms mean, the amazing benefits of napping, and how to optimize your naps for different situations, check out this post.

The All-Nighter Classic: Caffeine

“Caffeine works best when you are not already abusing it. If you drink only a couple cups a day you don’t need to worry. If you drink a LOT of coffee throughout the day, don’t expect the coffee at night to work quite as well.” -Eric

All of the SPEC-OPS guys we talked to unsurprisingly recommended consuming some sort of caffeine throughout the night. The trick, according to all of them, is to lay off the caffeine the day before and the day leading up to your all-nighter. Your body and mind build up a tolerance to caffeine, so if you’ve been ceaselessly pounding back the coffee all week long, it won’t have as strong of an effect during your round-the-clock vigil.

Eric also recommended mixing some sort of fat into your coffee, like grass-fed butter (which contains more healthy Omega-3 fatty acids than the grain-fed variety) or coconut oil. He says it “helps prolong the caffeine buzz.” When you add some sort of fat to your coffee, you’re adding in medium-chain triglycerides, or MCT. MCT may provide an extra shot of lasting energy. This coffee + butter concoction can also satisfy your hunger for a few hours without having to eat anything else.

Besides coffee, there are of course a wide variety of energy shots and drinks available. Whichever you choose, go sugar-free to avoid a crash. Hunter, a former Marine infantryman, recommended Rip Its — “a sort of energy drink that was ALL over, over there!”

I’ve used Military Energy Gum (formerly Stay Alert Gum) with success. Designed by Wrigley for the U.S. military, each piece of gum contains 100 mg of caffeine (for comparison, a 12 oz Starbucks coffee is about 260 mg), and through oral absorption it gets into your system faster than pills or liquids. It starts working right away and keeps you going through the long night.

No matter what caffeine-delivery system you choose, employ it discriminately. Instead of ingesting one big dose less often, which will lead to energy crashes, take smaller doses more frequently. Shoot for about 100-150 milligrams every 2-3 hours.

Not Surgeon General Approved: Nicotine

“Is it healthy? No. But neither is pulling an all-nighter. Nicotine has been used by Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines for DECADES. It keeps you busy and keeps you awake, to a degree. But, as with coffee, if you are used to dipping a can a day, then that late night dip won’t have much of an effect on you. If you are only an occasional ‘dipper’ and have a dip or two during the night to finish a project by a deadline, it can really help.” –Jeff, former Green Beret

The dip tip came up a lot from the Spec-Ops guys we talked to and I’m passing it along simply because it’s interesting. If you’re staying awake to potentially dodge a bullet, than nicotine might be the lesser of two evils. But if the only danger you’re facing is getting a C in Calculus, then I’d personally avoid the dip and cigarettes. Sleep experts and doctors would agree.

Eat Light and Lay Off the Carbs

“A large, carb-heavy meal leads to a crash. Sometimes, even eating at all leads to a crash. You need to fuel for combat operations, so missing meals isn’t a great option. But, pulling an all-nighter to finish a project at work or to drive through the night really doesn’t require any ‘fuel.’” -Eric

Sleep experts concur with this advice. When staying up all night, avoid carbs and focus on eating protein and fats (nuts, beef jerky, etc.). Keeps you full and provides sustained energy without the crash.

Get Moving

“Work out, walking or even working while standing. There is a proven physiological response that follows a workout. Just don’t work out too hard right before your all-nighter as this could make you tired.” –Jeff

“If I was on some type of outdoor guard duty — TCP, gate guard, fire guard, or motor pool guard — I would walk around. If I couldn’t walk around I did push-ups, sit-ups, squats or some other quick exercise. The ability to keep the blood flowing was the easiest way to stay awake for long periods of time.” –Rob, former Army Infantry

I’ve found physical activity to be one of the most effective ways of getting through an all-nighter. I typically try to take breaks every 30 minutes to get up and walk. And I alternate sitting with using a standing desk.

Make Yourself Uncomfortable

Jeff recommends pinching your thigh: “A little bit of stimulation to the pain receptors!” Matt, a former Air Force mechanic and Army infantryman, prefers to pinch his eyebrow.

Besides pinching, another way you can give yourself a dose of discomfort is to use cold water. When you’re feeling drowsy, go to the bathroom and splash some on your face. If you really need a pick-me-up, you can even take a cold shower. Try turning down the thermostat too – keeping your car or study area chilly will help you stay alert.

Misery Loves Company

“It can also be very helpful to have some company. In the military, you could find yourself in a situation that required you to be ‘on-watch’ while others were sleeping. Often, this would happen after a strenuous day’s work. If you did the watch alone, it could get boring. This could lead to sleep if you were not careful. Sometimes staying awake with someone else really helps.” -Eric

Having someone else around to occasionally chat and joke with can do wonders in waking up your brain. They can also keep you accountable about not dozing off.

Over-the-Counter “Speed”

“We were once given some form of legal/militarized ‘speed’ but it was only used in testing. They gave it to us on base (while in Iraq I believe) and then monitored our vitals throughout the evening. We never were actually issued it for an op. I know the Air Force has been giving this to pilots on long flights for a long time (or used to). The funniest part about being on the ‘legal speed’ — EVERYONE had a PR (personal record) of one form or another while working out that night!” -Eric

File this one was under the “really interesting if not (yet) practical for the civilian” category.

The drug Eric is referring to was most likely something called Modafinil (also known as Provigil). Militaries around the world have been experimenting with it as a way to extend soldiers’ ability to function without sleep. Modafinil was originally developed to treat narcolepsy, but researchers have found that it allows normal folks to go without sleep and not suffer any of the detrimental effects. In fact, many Modafinil users feel it gives them an almost superhuman focus. And unlike other stimulants like caffeine, nicotine, or amphetamines, Modafinil is less addictive, doesn’t interrupt normal sleeping patterns, and doesn’t cause jitters or post-use crashes. For the reasons above, the U.S. Air Force has been giving Modafinil to their flight crews on overnight missions.

There’s a small but growing group of high-achieving civilians (Wall Street bankers, entrepreneurs, athletes) who are turning to Modafinil to give themselves a mental edge and to help them power through their busy schedules.

Modafinil is available by prescription only, so if you wanted to try it, you’d have to talk to your doctor. But because it’s primarily used to treat narcolepsy or to help those who work irregular hours, he or she will probably be leery about writing you a script just so you can sarge through a night of studying.

While the research doesn’t show any short-term detrimental side effects from using the drug, there’s very little research on its effects long-term. Scientists also aren’t exactly sure how Modafinil works. They just know that it does. For those reasons, researchers don’t recommend Modafinil for off-prescription use. But if you’re like me, and find the subject of cognitive enhancing drugs — so-called nootropics — quite fascinating, you’ll want to keep a close eye on the coming research.

Recovering from an All-Nighter and Paying Back Your Sleep Debt

When you accumulate a sleep debt – the deficit created when you sleep fewer hours than your body needs – you get hit with the myriad of negative effects mentioned above. Fortunately, paying back your sleep debt can erase these harmful consequences.

Staying Alert the Day After

Eric said that he and his fellow Navy SEALs would have periods where they’d work every night, and then sleep during the day; he admires the infantrymen “who didn’t have the luxury of sleeping all day like a lot of us SEALs did!”

You won’t always have the luxury of going right into recovery mode after you’ve been up all night either, as in times when you finish a final in the morning, but still have another one slotted for the afternoon. So let’s first talk about how to make it through the day after your all-nighter. In addition to continuing the tips mentioned above – consuming caffeine wisely, keeping moving, avoiding carbs – try these tactics as well:

• Nap strategically. Even a very short mid-day nap will take some of the edge off your sleep deprivation. But you have to do it strategically. When you’re tired, you’ll enter more quickly into deep, REM sleep once you nod off. If you awaken from this stage you’ll suffer from sleep inertia and feel even more tired than before. So limit your naps to just 20 minutes or less. Consider making it a “caffeine nap” too. You down a cup of coffee or other caffeinated beverage and then immediately hunker down for a 15-20 minute nap. The caffeine clears your body of adenosine, a chemical which makes you sleepy. It takes a while for the caffeine to circulate through your system, so it doesn’t affect the quality of the nap. Instead, it works in tandem with the refreshment you would feel upon awakening from a normal power nap – making it easier to get up and get going.
• Stay hydrated. Keeping your system flushed with water will make you feel much better.
• Stay under the lights. Work in the brightest light possible; dim light will make you drowsy. What’s even better is exposing yourself to blue light. Mark’s Daily Apple recently had a great post on how blue light has been proven to “improve our cognitive abilities, including memory, alertness, reaction time, and executive function.” Definitely benefits you’ll need after (or during) an all-nighter!

You’re going to feel your absolute worst about 24 hours after your usual wake-up time. But your body may naturally give you a second-wind around 10 am and again between 6-7 pm, so if you have anything particularly difficult to tackle that day, try to save it for those windows.

Avoid driving the day after an all-nighter; driving sleep deprived is just as bad as driving drunk. And just like being drunk, you usually don’t realize how truly impaired you are.

The Road to Recovery

Once you’re able to knock off for the day, it’s time to start recovering from your all-nighter and recouping your sleep debt so you can get back to being your sharp, healthy, energetic self as quickly as possible.

Fortunately, a one-to-one repayment is not necessary. That is, if you skipped your usual 8 hours of sleep, you don’t need to sleep 16 hours the next night in order to erase your sleep debt. When you’re sleep deprived, a reflex kicks in that allows you to sleep longer and more deeply in order to accelerate the recovery process.

There’s no strict calculator for how much extra sleep you’ll need to make up your deficit, so the best thing to do is to simply let your body tell you what it needs. Go to bed whenever you feel tired (but stay up until at least 9 pm so you don’t awake in the middle of the night), and then allow yourself to wake up naturally – don’t set your alarm clock. Keep this up until you’re back to feeling well-rested. College students often have the luxury of this approach, but if you have more of a regular schedule to keep, the best way to recover is to tack on an extra 1-2 hours of sleep each night until you feel bright-eyed and bushy-tailed again.

The most important thing is to return to a regular sleep schedule as soon as possible. One all-nighter won’t kill you, but chronic sleep deprivation can lead to serious health problems like obesity, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.

Bottom line: use the all-nighter only when necessary and don’t make it a habit!

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A big thank you to BluCore Shooting Center for rounding up these tips for us from their experienced, veteran staff. BluCore was founded by two Navy SEALs and features a shooting range and training courses. Check out their online store and if you’re in the Denver area, go pay them a visit!

Phil writes, "Edward Hasbrouck of the Identity Project is doing a fantastic job of reporting on-site from Ibrahim v. DHS, the first legal challenge of United States government's no-fly list that has ever seen a courtroom. On the first day of trial, the judge learned that the plaintiff's daughter, scheduled to testify, was delayed because she had been denied boarding of her flight because she was put a Department of Homeland Security no-fly list. DHS staff deny this. The government's lawyers told the judge that the daughter is lying. The airline provided documentation of the DHS no-fly order. The subject matter of this trial is intense---restriction of movement based on blacklists---but there's no sign of an end to the jaw-dropping entertainment."

“None of that was true,” Ms. Pipkin told the court this morning. “She didn’t miss the flight. She was there in time to check in. She has not been rebooked on another flight.” And most importantly, it was because of actions by the DHS — one of the defendants in Dr. Ibrahim’s lawsuit — that Ms. Mustafa Kamal, was not allowed to board her flight to SFO to attend and testify at her mother’s trial.

Ms. Pipkin said that Ms. Mustafa Kamal had sent her a copy of the “no-board” instructions which the DHS gave to Malaysia Airlines, and which the airline gave to Ms. Mustafa Kamal to explain as much as it knew about why it was not being allowed to transport her. Ms. Pipkin handed Judge William Alsup a copy of the DHS “no-board” instructions to Malaysia Airlines regarding Ms. Mustafa Kamal.

Major props to Malaysia Airlines for providing a copy of the DHS instructions to Ms. Mustafa Kamal. Other airlines receiving similar instructions have acquiesced to DHS orders to keep the instructions from the DHS, and the reasons for the airlines’ actions, secret from the would-be travelers whose rights are affected. So far as we know, this is the first time an actual no-fly order has been disclosed to a would-be traveler or potentially to the public.

Archive of Dr. Rahinah Ibrahim posts (Thanks, Phil!)

Math With Bad Drawing's "Headlines from a Mathematically Literate World" is a rather good -- and awfully funny -- compendium of comparisons between attention-grabbing, math-abusing headlines, and their math-literate equivalents.

Our World: After Switch in Standardized Tests, Scores Drop
Mathematically Literate World: After Switch in Standardized Tests, Scores No Longer Directly Comparable

Our World: Proposal Would Tax $250,000-Earners at 40%
Mathematically Literate World: Proposal Would Tax $250,000-Earners’ Very Last Dollar, and That Dollar Alone, at 40%

Our World: Still No Scientific Consensus on Global Warming
Mathematically Literate World: Still 90% Scientific Consensus on Global Warming

Our World: Hollywood Breaks Box Office Records with Explosions, Rising Stars
Mathematically Literate World: Hollywood Breaks Box Office Records with Inflation, Rising Population

Our World: Illegal Downloaders Would Have Spent $300 Million to Obtain Same Music Legally
Mathematically Literate World: Illegal Downloaders Would Never Have Bothered to Obtain Same Music Legally

Headlines from a Mathematically Literate World

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MxKbpCpf3I

Researchers at Malwarebytes have discovered that some programs covertly install Bitcoin-mining software on users' computers, papering over the practice by including sneaky language in their license agreements allowing for "computer calculations, security."

The malicious programs include YourFreeProxy from Mutual Public, AKA We Build Toolbars, LLC, AKA WBT. YourFreeProxy comes with a program called Monitor.exe, which repeatedly phones home to WBT, eventually silently downloading and installing a Bitcoin mining program called "jhProtominer."

So now that we have proof that a PUP is installing miners on users systems, do they do it without ever letting the user know? Well not exactly, their EULA specifically covers a section on Computer Calculations:

COMPUTER CALCULATIONS, SECURITY: as part of downloading a Mutual Public, your computer may do mathematical calculations for our affiliated networks to confirm transactions and increase security. Any rewards or fees collected by WBT or our affiliates are the sole property of WBT and our affiliates.

Their explanation is basically the purpose of Bitcoin Miners and that they will install this software on the system, run it, use up your system resources and finally keep all rewards from the effort YOUR system puts in. Talk about sneaky.

In my opinion, PUPs have gone to a new low with the inclusion of this type of scheme, they already collected information on your browsing and purchasing habits with search toolbars and redirectors. They assault users with pop-up ads and unnecessary software to make a buck from their affiliates. Now they are just putting the nails in the coffin by stealing resources and driving user systems to the grave.

Potentially Unwanted Miners – Toolbar Peddlers Use Your System To Make BTC [Adam Kujawa/Malwarebytes]

(via /.)

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Robert Steven Connett shares this painting, "SEAPODS," in the Boing Boing Flickr pool, and says, "It will be exhibited and available for sale, at the "Espionage Miami 2013" group art exhibition in Miami Beach Florida, during the Art Basil USA exhibitions, (December 6, 2013 – January 31, 2014), Harold Golen Gallery, 2294 N.W 2nd Avenue, Miami, Florida 33127, Wynwood Arts District."

Check out more of his fantastic psychedelic, inspired-by-nature art in his Flickr feed or his website, grotesque.com.

Chopping Block comic for Friday, November 22, 2013

Sandra from the ACLU writes, "As the scope and depth of the NSA's spying continues to grow, we cannot forget about similar privacy violations committed by state and local police. The primary law protecting against such violations -- The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) -- was passed in 1986. Technology has evolved quite a bit since then, as you may have noticed. ECPA, unfortunately, has not, allowing local, state, and federal law enforcement to access our sensitive data in the cloud without a warrant."

There are currently several bills moving through the U.S. Congress that would update the law to require law enforcement to obtain a warrant before accessing any electronic communications stored on service providers' servers. Although the bills enjoy wide, bipartisan support, the process has been stalled by several powerful federal agencies interested in expanding their surveillance powers. I hope to get 100,000 signatures on this petition to the Obama Administration to force them to address ECPA reform.

Reform ECPA: Tell the Government to Get a Warrant (Thanks, Sandra!)

A pastor noticed that The Bible was labeled as "fiction" in a Los Angeles area Costco last week. He Tweeted the above photo of the book spurring Costco to publicly apologize. (KTLA)

There are many ways that teams 'cheat' in F1 in order to get ahead. Like ordering your driver into a wall, or blocking a corner "by accident." The best 'cheats' don't break the rules, but bend them using technological loopholes. These were the ten most brilliant efforts.

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There's lots of fascinating stuff in these old American-market ads for the Subaru 360 — the car itself tooling around, the proper way to hold a snifter of gasoline, watching that woman get in a tiny car with suicide doors — but maybe the most interesting is how "Subaru" is pronounced.

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I used to take it as a given that an interest in vehicles inherently made sense. People were either into cars or they were not. I assumed that even someone who wasn't into cars understood the fascination, even if they didn't share it. When I took the time to really look at the world around me, I had a realization. I. WAS. WRONG.

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There's an optical illusion where a small, enclosed area appears larger when surrounded by a larger area. This visual anomaly, called the Delboef illusion, is making the holes that dentists cut in preparation for fillings appear smaller than they really are.

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Beth Pratt writes, "Being poor is different than being middle class. Killer Martinis explains just how different in this post she calls 'Why I Make Terrible Decisions, or, poverty thoughts'. She begins by telling us that 'rest is a luxury for the rich' and goes on from there."

Convenience food is just that. And we are not allowed many conveniences. Especially since the Patriot Act passed, it's hard to get a bank account. But without one, you spend a lot of time figuring out where to cash a check and get money orders to pay bills. Most motels now have a no-credit-card-no-room policy. I wandered around SF for five hours in the rain once with nearly a thousand dollars on me and could not rent a room even if I gave them a $500 cash deposit and surrendered my cell phone to the desk to hold as surety.

Nobody gives enough thought to depression. You have to understand that we know that we will never not feel tired. We will never feel hopeful. We will never get a vacation. Ever. We know that the very act of being poor guarantees that we will never not be poor. It doesn't give us much reason to improve ourselves. We don't apply for jobs because we know we can't afford to look nice enough to hold them. I would make a super legal secretary, but I've been turned down more than once because I "don't fit the image of the firm," which is a nice way of saying "gtfo, pov." I am good enough to cook the food, hidden away in the kitchen, but my boss won't make me a server because I don't "fit the corporate image." I am not beautiful. I have missing teeth and skin that looks like it will when you live on b12 and coffee and nicotine and no sleep. Beauty is a thing you get when you can afford it, and that's how you get the job that you need in order to be beautiful. There isn't much point trying.

Why I Make Terrible Decisions, or, poverty thoughts (Thanks, Beth!)

Click the photo to see it at full size.

Tara McGinley of Dangerous Minds says: "There’s something oddly soothing about this can of Chef Boyardee ravioli being swallowed up by lava still I can’t help wonder how dangerous getting this footage must’ve been?"

This is the sort of thing that happens when I try to write fan fiction.

Hey! Did I mention here that the new Goats and Megagamerz websites are live? I’ll be adding content in chunks to each site just about every day until we’re caught up.

Are you shopping in our Holiday Store for presents for your loved ones yet? Today is a good day to check out what we have available. Books, t-shirts, toys and more!

Milos "Sholim" Rajkovic is like a Belgradian anti-war Terry Gilliam, who produces the most remarkable surreal animations made from decomposed heads -- authority figures like generals and ranking clerics are a favorite -- filled with weird gears, fleshy pulsing puckers, crazy clocks, tiny frantic people, and more. I could watch this stuff all day long.

His Youtube channel is fun (the little squeaky noises add a surprising amount to the animation), but really, this is animation whose native format is the GIF, so be sure you check out his Tumblr.

He's pretty articulate, too, despite the language barrier: "its irresponsible to leave for future generations internet full of cute animals."

(via JWZ)

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Skinner Box Head

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Monday