Luke.stirling

Jobless people generally cannot earn additional income while collecting unemployment benefits or they risk losing that assistance. For laid-off workers from Nokia, simply collecting a guaranteed unemployment check often presents a better financial proposition than taking a leap with a start-up in Finland, where a shaky technology industry is trying to find its footing again.

Now, the Finnish government is exploring how to change that calculus, initiating an experiment in a form of social welfare: universal basic income. Early next year, the government plans to randomly select roughly 2,000 unemployed people — from white-collar coders to blue-collar construction workers. It will give them benefits automatically, absent bureaucratic hassle and minus penalties for amassing extra income...

The answers — to be determined over a two-year trial — could shape social welfare policy far beyond Nordic terrain. In communities around the world, officials are exploring basic income as a way to lessen the vulnerabilities of working people exposed to the vagaries of global trade and automation. While basic income is still an emerging idea, one far from being deployed on a large scale, the growing experimentation underscores the deep need to find effective means to alleviate the perils of globalization...

Universal basic income is a catchall phrase that describes a range of proposals, but they generally share one feature: All people in society get a regular check from the government — regardless of their income or whether they work. These funds are supposed to guarantee food and shelter, enabling people to pursue their own betterment while contributing to society...

A Silicon Valley start-up incubator, Y Combinator, is preparing a pilot project in Oakland, Calif., in which 100 families will receive unconditional cash grants ranging from $1,000 to $2,000 a month. Voters in Switzerland recently rejected a basic-income scheme, but the French Senate approved a trial. Experiments are being readied in Canada and the Netherlands. The Indian government has been studying basic income as a means of alleviating poverty...

Strikingly, basic income is being championed across the ideological spectrum...

“Some people think basic income will solve every problem under the sun, and some people think it’s from the hand of Satan and will destroy our work ethic,” says Olli Kangas, who oversees research at Kela, a Finnish government agency that administers many social welfare programs. “I’m hoping we can create some knowledge on this issue.”

We assembled data on elected and runner-up candidates for national elections occurring in Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States, using online sources including Wikipedia and national lists of leaders..

The sample included 540 candidates: 279 winners and 261 runners-up who never served. A total of 380 candidates were deceased by 9 September 2015. Candidates who served as a head of government lived 4.4 (95% confidence interval 2.1 to 6.6) fewer years after their last election than did candidates who never served (17.8 v 13.4 years after last election; adjusted difference 2.7 (0.6 to 4.8) years). In Cox proportional hazards analysis, which considered all candidates (alive or deceased), the mortality hazard for elected candidates relative to runners-up was 1.23 (1.00 to 1.52).

People buying computers in South Carolina would be limited in their access to porn online under newly proposed legislation.

A bill pre-filed this month by state Rep. Bill Chumley would require sellers to install digital blocking capabilities on computers and other devices that access the internet to prevent the viewing of obscene content...

Both sellers and buyers could get around the limitation, for a fee. The bill would fine manufacturers that sell a device without the blocking system, but they could opt out by paying $20 per device sold. Buyers could also verify their age and pay $20 to remove the filter...

Bongobert has created a retro looking classic space styled crawling command module rover whatsit. It’s caterpillar treads look like they could tear up whatever planet, moon or asteroid it was stationed on. This creature-like rover sits high allowing the pilots better visibility and better reception for the TV News-van’s worth of antennas and dishes on the roof. The DenWad has a crane apparatus capable of removing the command module, presumably allowing the vehicle itself to trek out in search of space things while the command module commands. Packed with tools to enable the astronauts to repair their monster in the field, this whatchamacallit looks like it could handle anything space could throw at it.

Modern part usage, subtle greebling and other newer techniques give it a futuristic feel while the exposed studs give the classic space feel that makes me (us?) nostalgic for the early 80s.

Check out what this marvelous little classic space machine creature is capable of.

One of the scenes I found most interesting in Star Wars: The Force Awakens was the sight of an Imperial star destroyer rusting into oblivion on Jakku. I imagined other relics of the fallen Empire scattered and forgotten on planets throughout the galaxy. Austrian builder sanellukovic does a fantastic job expanding this element of the story with his depiction of a derelict Imperial shuttle.

The builder has taken the UCS Imperial Shuttle design and turned it into an ugly, rusting pile of junk – and I mean that in high admiration. A lot of builders (including myself) would have felt just fine breaking the shuttle apart, scattering it across a landscape scene and calling it good. This builder, however, went so much further, creating a scene so full of character I wish it had been in the movie. Note the busted windshield, rust patterns and jungle overgrowth. The ship’s layout is spot-on, particularly the crumpled wings and the way the dorsal stabilizer leans forward as if it was just barely holding together.

The jungle looks wonderful too and adds a nice sense of mystery and abandonment to the creation. How exciting it would be to stumble upon this during a trek through the woods!

You may not be familiar with the 1998 animated television series Cowboy Bebop but that will not stop you admiring this spaceship built by Haeum Daddy. Cowboy Bebop was set in the year 2071, and follows the lives of a crew of bounty hunting cowboys travelling on their spaceship Bebop. This LEGO version of protagonist Spike Spiegel’s racing craft the Swordfish II is like an Ultimate Collector Series edition with all the greebled details and a stand. The smooth aerodynamic lines of the wings and the front of the ship are maintained with the use of curved slops and wedges …this ship is fast and swooshable.

The power all comes from the incredibly detailed engine and exhaust portion of the ship; definitely worth a closer look. So many great dark grey LEGO parts have been packed into this area that the bulbous shape of the animated ship is emulated despite being formed from lots of smaller pieces.

Canadians shopping at Lowe’s recently were surprised to learn that the decorative snow globes they were holding might trigger an allergic skin reaction, or even cause cancer. Or so said the warning labels.

“Is it the paint?” one shopper wondered, apparently aloud and where a reporter could hear him. “Is it the liquid? Is it all of the above? Which cancer is it? …. [I]t brings up so many questions ….” Luckily, however, none of those questions need to be answered, because—despite what the TSA apparently once believed—snow globes pose almost no risk at all.

According to the BBC, the snow globe was invented in 1900 by an Austrian, Erwin Perzy. The BBC was wrong, though, because snow globes were already around by the time of the Paris Universal Exposition in 1878. So although Perzy may have come up with it independently, a different genius developed snow-globe technology first. Perzy did start a company to make the things, though, and his descendants still run it today, turning out about 200,000 schneekugel every year. They made the one in Citizen Kane, in fact. Yes, that one broke, but that was Kane’s fault. Secure your globe before you croak, like any responsible person would, and this won’t be an issue.

And the labels now perplexing Canadians don’t say anything about direct physical risks like glass shards anyway; they’re warning about some kind of chemical exposure. According to Lowe’s, while the glass in its globes does contain some lead, the level isn’t high enough to be toxic. It isn’t clear that lead causes cancer anyway, apparently.

What about the liquid inside? Well, that could conceivably be trouble. It’s apparently mostly water, but not enough to kill you unless you have a really tiny head. But at least some manufacturers add chemicals to thicken the water and so that the water won’t freeze during transit, and that could be dangerous to children, pets, TSA agents, or anyone else not smart enough to avoid drinking snow-globe water. But again, this doesn’t involve any risk of cancer, as far as I can tell.

So how to explain the presence of a cancer warning on Canadian snow-globes? Well, the reason turns out to be simple and semi-understandable—it’s California’s fault:

Lowe’s Canada spokesperson Valerie Gonzalo told CTV Calgary the labels are there to satisfy a California law that requires manufacturers to put warnings on products containing any of 800 chemicals that state deems carcinogenic, even if they’re found at safe levels.

Ah yes—that would be Proposition 65, a California law that requires warnings to be posted anywhere chemicals may be found that California believes may cause cancer or birth defects. (Disclosure: my firm defends Prop 65 cases occasionally.) The state keeps a list of these chemicals, of course. The first list, created in 1987, had 29 chemicals on it. How many are on it now? “Approximately 800,” according to the relevant state agency (which apparently isn’t sure? I counted 828 here). Now, lots of these are really nasty—pesticides, heavy metals, etc. It was news to me that “salted fish, Chinese style” is dangerous, but maybe so. It’s on the list, anyway. But even assuming everything on the list is in fact super-deadly, Prop 65 does not ban any of these things or even limit the allowable levels. It only requires a warning.

This is a truly odd approach for at least a few of the things on the list. For example, “certain combined therapy for lymphomas” and many other chemotherapy drugs are on the list. It’s true some of these can raise the risk of cancer. But since you aren’t taking them unless you’ve already got cancer, I’m not sure what good the warning is supposed to do. Also on the list: alcohol, cocaine, and marijuana smoke. ALERT: none of that is good for you. Engine exhaust is also on the list. It’s also everywhere, so are they supposed to put a warning on the outdoors?

This is the main problem with Prop 65: there are 800 or so chemicals on the list, many of them very common, and if a business doesn’t have a warning posted, it’s likely to get sued (that’s how the law is enforced). And because there’s no penalty for posting a warning that isn’t necessary, the safest thing is to post one. This means the warnings are everywhere in California, and I mean everywhere. See, e.g., “Stupid Warning Shows Up on Leprechaun Hat” (Mar. 20, 2014). And that in turn means nobody in California pays any attention at all. Except lawyers looking for somebody to sue.

Why are the California warnings on Canadian snow-globes? Either it was just a mistake, or the manufacturer decided it was easier to stick the warnings on all the globes instead of just those going to California. (California is such a giant market, it’s easy for us to bring others down to our level this way.) The good news, though, is that there’s almost no chance your snow globe will give you cancer. And no, we don’t represent snow-globe manufacturers, as far as I know.

        

 

 

If 2016 was a bird.

Next time you go out for lunch and leave your computer unattended at the office, be careful. A new tool makes it almost trivial for criminals to log onto websites as if they were you... the new $5 tool called PoisonTap... can even break into password-protected computers, as long as there’s a browser open in the background...

“It’s entirely automated. You plug it in, you leave it there for a minute, then you pull it out and you walk away,” Kamkar told Motherboard in a phone call. “You don’t even need to know how to do anything.” 

Not all hope is lost though. To prevent someone from hijacking your accounts with PoisonTap, the best solution is to “fill your USB ports with cement,” Kamkar says laughing. 

The Old Republic’s Venator-class Star Destroyer is a surprisingly popular subject for LEGO Star Wars builders, given its huge dimensions — and the fact that it’s a Prequel Trilogy vehicle… Nevertheless, several brave builders have created this huge ship in LEGO, including a 6-foot LEGO Venator by Alec Doede and a recreation of Master Model Builder Erik Varszegi’s 8-foot Star Destroyer by iomedes. The latest LEGO Venator is brought to us by Philipp Neumann, who has spent the past 7 years designing, collecting over 45,000 parts, building, and rebuilding.

Philipp’s Venator measures over 7 feet long, nearly 4 feet wide, and over 2 feet tall (that’s 220 cm x 117 cm x 68 cm) and weighs over 143 pounds (65 kg).

Although a bit smaller than the earlier Venator-class Star Destroyers, Philipp says his aim was accuracy, such as the detailed turbolaser cannons along the side.

The lateral hangar bay sits below the bank of dorsal turbolasers.

Philipp rebuilt the ship three times, and this latest version took him about two years. The entire interior structure is built with a Technic frame.

The upper surface attaches to this frame.

You can see lots more photos of Philipp’s huge Venator, including design and build images, in his album on Flickr.

This hotel lobby, built as a 16×16 stud vignette by Sven Franic, is all ready for guests. You will be able to check in on arrival and have your suitcase taken up to your room by the smartly dressed porter pulling the luggage rack. There is everything a hotel lobby requires: tasteful wallpaper, a local map, comfy leather couch and a reception desk complete with bell to gain attention.  I particularly like the wooden display behind the reception desk with pigeon holes for guests’ room keys or messages.

If you fancy trying out some of these builds as inspiration for your own creations, Sven has even supplied an exploded view:

Between 26 and 27 Dorset Street in Spittalfields, London, was a passageway that led to the home of Mary Jane Kelly at 13 Miller Street. Dorset Street had the reputation of being the worst street in London, which is a fitting description for the location of the brutal murder of Ms Kelly by Jack the Ripper on 9 November 1888. Mark Hodgson has clearly being doing his research for this LEGO build as he has accurately captured some lovely details. The ‘sand green’ creeping mold and the good use of old and new light grey for the discoloured paving really gives that dirty old London feel. Mark’s brick-built windows are perfect when looking at the only contemporary photograph and those window arches – well they are simply awesome.

There are many more detailed photographs of the full build (as well as some research images) on Mark’s Flickr album. The entire Millers Court scene includes a street, additional buildings, and a fully furnished interior that includes the unfortunate Ms Kelly’s bedroom and even a grocery business that was located in the same building.

Some of my favorite new submissions this week:

They asked for cupcakes with the Batman logo:

Sing it with me!

Na na na na na na na nana na na...

NUH-UH.

Renee wanted a number 18 on each of her cupcakes:

Which, technically, she kind of got?

How To Tell Your Baker Has Never Played Tetris:

Step 1: Order a Tetris Cake Step
2: Get this:

Only a true prefessional can spot the oh-so-subtle signs of a bakery cleaning out their flotsam bin:

OH-SO-SUBTLE, I say.

And finally, I just found your new ice breaker for parties:

GUESS WHAT THIS IS:

If you guessed "a baby in a crib wearing a Christening gown" then, well, let's be honest: there's no way you guessed that.

Silvia, I'd say next time just order the pacifier design, but only because we all know how that'd end up, and I have some great puns lined up for it. [evil grin]

Thanks to Bridget L., Renee D., Emily B., Kida, & Silvia L. for rockin' the cradle of "you've-gotta-be-kidding-me." Now quick, everyone, go print out that cookie picture for your next holiday party!

*****

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Back in my childhood days a rich collection of LEGO road baseplates was the hallmark of wealth and loving grandparents. The more plates you have, the larger your playground becomes. Unfortunately, we don’t find road plates in official LEGO sets any longer, but Krešo Krejča brings them back with a vivid diorama that could easily fit into an official LEGO catalogue.

The builder brilliantly combines some classic City genres: farm, logistic services, construction site and a rural cottage. This diorama is not about advanced creations, but is amazingly full of life and motion. Go ahead and have a look at lots of perfectly executed shots revealing the everyday life of LEGO minifigures.

It's a fundamental fact of life that the more ridiculously off base a misspelling, the funnier it is.

So, "Congradulations?" Not particularly funny. "Controdulatior?" Funny.

And this?

HYSTERICAL.

Then there are the times when everything is technically spelled correctly, but...

(I don't know what's happening here, but I "like" it.)

I guess we can't judge this next wreckerator too harshly, since "Bon Voyage" isn't actually English; it's French. And we can't expect bakers to know French, now, can we? OF COURSE NOT. So don't even THINK about laughing. Seriously. It's a simple, honest-to-goodness mistake that ANYONE could easily ma...uh.

Oh, dear.

Never mind. 

("Have a nice trip! See you next fail!")

Thanks to Deb, Deborah A., & Terye B. for the stop, drop, and ROTFL.

*****

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New comic!

This comic was originally published on Everyday Feminism.

This was brutal to write because it kept fucking me up and making me sad. Anyways: intersectionality! One way to think of it is that it’s not (identityA)+(identityB), it’s (identityA) x (identityB).  The experience of being mentally ill and trans are not two separate experiences. Heck, the roots of intersectionality is illuminating the interactions of the experiences of Blackness and Woman, because those aren’t separate things.

Anyways, speaking of mental illness, I’m digging myself out of my own hole right now, but I hope to get back to my regular posting schedule soon enough.

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In June, French artist Mat Green amazed us with a pair of life-size LEGO minifigures made of steel. Those figures, named Hugo and Pablo, were a classic minifigure and a punk rock LEGO skeleton. Mat has now finished his next project — more classics you’ll surely recognize, the pirate Sparrow and his parrot Jacquot. We spoke with Mat about his work translating these iconic LEGO figures to life-size metal sculptures.

Mat’s sculptures are fully poseable, and they disassemble exactly like their tiny plastic counterparts.

Mat created this great video talking his process, and showing how he works on the pirate Sparrow. We also asked Mat some more questions, which you can read below.

The Brothers Brick: How did you decide on the names Jacquot and Sparrow for the new sculptures?

Mat Green: When it comes to the names of the sculptures, I was wondering how I was going to name the parrot, and then my grandpa told me that it should be named Jacquot. “All parrots are named Jacquot!” he said. Phonetically, it ends with O so it was perfect — it is kind of a small tribute to the Lego Brand. For Sparrow, my brother really loved the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and once again it was phonetically matching with O, so the name was adopted!

TBB: How tall is Jacquot? And how much does he weigh?

MG: Jacquot was built to the same scale as my three other minifigures! That’s to say, about 31 times bigger than the original ones! Which makes it about 95cm tall (about 37 inches)! I did not take the time to put the parrot on a scale, but I would say that its weight is about 8 kilos, so… about 17 pounds if I am not wrong!

TBB: Of the pirate, the classic figure, or the skeleton, which was the hardest to build, and why?

MG: Well the hardest one to build — it really is a tricky question. Because I could think it was Hugo, the original one. It might look like a really basic shape when you hold a minifigure in your hand, but it actually has a lot of details you have to take into account if you want the result to be nice. You have to solve a few technical problems. And since it was my first character, it really was an adventure to make everything work!

For Pablo (the skeleton), it really was a challenge — and I mean it — to respect every single detail of the torso, arms and legs. The character is a lot more complicated than the basic Lego minifigure. And you have to be a bit ingenious to make the arms wiggle the same way it does with the original skeleton. For the legs you have to make your brain work a bit too. I like the fact that each creation is a real new challenge.

For Sparrow, even though the torso, arms and legs are not perfectly identical to Hugo (I tried to improve all the sections with small details) I knew a bit what to expect. But I have to say the metal wooden leg wasn’t easy to make, and the hook and hat… these two parts drove me crazy! If I knew the amount of work it would represent, I don’t know if I would have chosen the pirate! All right, I probably would still have chosen the pirate. Because when I was a kid, the pirate really was a badass character to me.

It’s honestly hard to say which one between the three has been the hardest to build. But if we have to talk about time it would be the pirate.

TBB: How many plates of metal are in Jacquot?

MG: I honestly don’t know how many plates of metal are in Jacquot, but there are a few of them. I don’t have Jacquot in my apartment anymore, so I can’t really count them!

TBB: Will they rust?

MG: Hopefully not. They received a surface treatment, a transparent varnish, but eventually they will rust if you leave them outside. A lot of people are asking me if they could put it in their garden; the answer is no, you should not do that. If I had to make a new one, I think I would make in stainless steel so it could never rust. But the design of it would be different.

TBB: Do you build with plastic LEGO pieces at all? If so, what do you build?

MG: Do I build things with Lego plastic bricks? Yes, I love to! A friend of mine really has a lot of Legos and he loaned me a huge amount of pieces. Most of the time I am trying to build cars and helicopters with Technic Lego, so I can make my brain workout a bit with engines and stuff! But I am not really the kind of guy who could have a perfect collection of Legos. Every set of Lego has to be taken apart so you can have a big amount of pieces and create things with ideas flying in!

TBB: Will these be for sale?

MG: All the four figures are for sale! Hugo €9,000; Pablo €11,000; Sparrow €12,000; Jacquot €2,400.

For more details and photos of these models, visit Mat Green’s website, green-workshop.com

We're dealing with better tech these days—embrace it. (credit: Tony Young)

Ever since the HDTV standard emerged in the mid-'00s, screen producers have struggled to come up with new standards that feel anywhere as impressive. That's been a tough sell, as no baseline image standard has yet surpassed the quality jump from CRT sets to clearer panels with 1080p resolution support.

3D content came and went, with its unpopularity owing to a few factors (aversion to glasses, hard-to-find content). The higher-res 4K standard is holding up a little better, but its jump in quality just doesn't move the needle for average viewers—and certainly not those sticking to modestly sized screens.

But there's another standard that you may have heard about—high dynamic range, or HDR. It's a weird one. HDTV, 3D, and 4K have all been easy to quickly and accurately describe for newcomers ("more pixels," "one image per eye," etc.), but HDR's different. Ask an average TV salesperson what HDR is, and you'll usually get a vague response with adjectives like "brighter" and "more colorful." Brighter and more colorful than what, exactly?

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Last year we wrote about the "USB Killer"—a DIY USB stick that fried almost everything (laptops, smartphones, consoles, cars) that it was plugged into. Now the USB Killer has been mass produced—you can buy it online for about £50/$50. Now everyone can destroy just about every computer that has a USB port. Hooray.

The commercialised USB Killer looks like a fairly humdrum memory stick. You can even purchase a "Test Shield" for £15/$15, which lets you try out the kill stick—watch the spark of electricity arc between the two wires!—without actually frying the target device, though I'm not sure why you would want to spend £65 to do that. The website proudly states that the USB Killer is CE approved, meaning it has passed a number of EU electrical safety directives.

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Ben Andrews describes this large LEGO diorama as a labor of love, and it certainly is lovely. An enormous tree stands atop a hill, full of treehouses, its trunk surrounded by winding staircases. Across a pool into which drains a broad waterfall sits a beautiful red-roofed watermill.

Full of stunning details and interesting little scenes, you don’t want to miss a single picture of Ben’s Observer Tree. At the top of the tree, there’s a small structure with a telescope, which is presumably where the tree gets its name.

The watermill has a large round window, and a chairlift runs up to the Observer Tree.

Among the many scenes Ben has created around the diorama, brothers return home with a box full of fish as an elderly couple shares some wine.

The rear of the diorama includes a cave with a treasure chamber at the end, guarded by a genie. I suspect the four gentlemen exploring the cave will be more than capable of handling a blue ghost that lives in a dusty lamp.

You can see more photos of this diorama in the builder’s album on Flickr, and read more about it in the latest issue of Bricks Culture magazine.

"Bycatch, in the fishing industry, is a fish or other marine species that is caught unintentionally while catching certain target species and target sizes of fish, crabs etc. Bycatch is either of a different species, the wrong sex, or is undersized or juvenile individuals of the target species. The term "bycatch" is also sometimes used for untargeted catch in other forms of animal harvesting or collecting."

"... in his book, [Callum] Roberts gives a list of all the aquatic life incidentally killed - the bycatch, as it is known - by a fishing boat in the Pacific Ocean in the process of legally catching just 211 Mahi-mahi. Among the aquatic animals hauled aboard and tossed back dead in a single sweep were:

488 Turtles
455 Stingrays and devil Rays
460 sharks
68 Sailfish
34 Marlin
32 Tuna
11 Wahoo
8 Swordfish
4 giant sunfish.

This was legal under international protocols. The hooks on the longlines were certified "Turtle Friendly."  All this to give 211 people a dinner of Mahi Mahi.