Insider attacks, cell-site simulators, SIM-swap attacks, thriving markets in super-cheap, fine-grained location data, robocalls, fictitious coverage maps, and more: does the fact that all this terrible shit keeps happening, and… Read the rest of the article: Your phone is a crimewave in your pocket, and it's all the fault of greedy carriers and complicit regulators
Victoria Hogan writes, "My fiancee and I made a short film about creativity, yearning, and the scary forces of technology that might interact with those desires. More than a few… Read the rest of the article: "Evermore": a short technohorror film about the struggle between gratification and equanimity
Super Mario Maker 2 is designed to let you create your own Mario platformer levels, but the tools are flexible enough that a sufficiently ingenious creator can make all kinds… Read the rest of the article: Creating a first-person adventure game with Super Mario Maker
There's a viral review of a southern plantation tour making the rounds in which a white person complains that the tour was "extremely disappointing" because of the "lecture on how… Read the rest of the article: The real meaning of plantation tours: American Downton Abbey vs American Horror Story
After NYC raised its minimum wage from $7.25/h to $15/h this year — the largest pay hike for low-waged workers in half a century — the city's restaurants boomed, posting… Read the rest of the article: New York City raised minimum wage to $15, and its restaurants outperformed the nation
Amazon is under fire over revelations that it did secret deals with local police departments to buzz-market its Internet of Things "Ring" brand surveillance doorbells, but Ring's shady history predates… Read the rest of the article: Prior to Amazon acquisition, Ring offered "swag" to customers who snitched on their neighbors
Atomik Grain Spirit is a (largely) (radiation-free) moonshine vodka distilled from grains grown in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone as part of an experiment to determine the transfer of radiation from… Read the rest of the article: Atomik Vodka: distilled from grains grown in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
New biohacking from the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective (previously): the Pegleg, a stripped-down Piratebox (previously) based on a Raspberry Pi 0 with needless components removed and an extra wifi card… Read the rest of the article: The Pegleg: an implanted, meshing, networked mass-storage device that you sew into your skin
Stephen Wolfram's podcast features a 90-minute lecture that he delivered at the 2019 Wolfram Summer School (MP3), recapitulating the history of mathematics from prehistory to the present day.
Flights in and out of Hong Kong's airport have halted as protesters filled the airport; many of the protesters at the airport are new to the protests, who have stepped… Read the rest of the article: All flights in and out of Hong Kong canceled as protesters flood the airport
In 2017, science fiction author Christopher Brown burst on the scene with Tropic of Kansas, an apocalyptic pageturner about martial law in climate-wracked America; now, with his second novel, Rule… Read the rest of the article: Rule of Capture: Inside the martial law tribunals that will come when climate deniers become climate looters and start rendering environmentalists for offshore torture
Security research Matt Wixey from PWC UK tried putting different kinds of consumer speakers — noise canceling headphones, smart speakers, parametric speakers — in an anechoic chamber after infecting them… Read the rest of the article: Compromised speakers can be forced to play tones so loud that the speakers start to melt
Imagineering In a Box is a free lecture series on Khan Academy that covers a broad swathe of elements involved in storytelling in built environments, from theming a land to… Read the rest of the article: Imagineering In a Box: free instructional video series from Disney and Khan Academy
After a massive trove of leaks revealed deep corruption in the Brazilian "anti-corruption" heroes who put the popular left-wing presidential candidate Lula in jail and paved the way for the… Read the rest of the article: Brazil's highest court rules that Bolsonaro cannot use criminal investigations to harass Glenn Greenwald and The Intercept
Bernie Sanders has raised more money than anyone else standing for the Democratic nomination; more importantly, he's raised that money from more people than anyone else in the race, and… Read the rest of the article: Donor maps show just how widespread Sanders' support is
Between 2010 and 2016, the FDA approved 210 new medicines and every single one was produced at public expense, part of a $1T US government investment project in medical research.… Read the rest of the article: Big Pharma's origin: how the Chicago School and private equity shifted medicine's focus from health to wealth
Adversarial Fashions have a line of clothes (jackets, tees, hoodies, dresses, skirts, etc) designed to confound automated license-plate readers; one line is tiled with fake license plates that spell out… Read the rest of the article: Adversarial Fashion: clothes designed to confuse license-plate readers
The Washington Post's Drew Harwell takes a deep look at the the use of facial recognition products like Bunk1 at summer camps, in a deliciously terrible piece that alternates between… Read the rest of the article: How facial recognition has turned summer camp into a dystopia for campers, parents, counsellors and photographers (but not facial recognition vendors)
Torture apologist/homophobe/racist Jair Bolsonaro — whose successful election to the Brazilian presidency was the result of a conspiracy among the wealthy and senior prosecutors and judges, who subverted the justice… Read the rest of the article: Pressed about Amazon deforestation, Bolsonaro proposes only shitting on alternate days to remediate climate change
In late July, FBI director Christopher Wray testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that his bureau had made 100 domestic terror arrests; later, an FBI spokesperson reduced that claim to… Read the rest of the article: The FBI keeps boasting about all its "domestic terror" arrests, but it can't name a single one
