Tom the Dancing Bug, IN WHICH the Donald J. Trump Historical Players present the True Story of the Drafting of the U.S. Constitution!

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/X2GI9RRoFPA/the-trump-historical-players-p.html

I release music sometimes, under my own name, or with my rock band, the Roland High Life. And in order to get our songs onto all the major music services, I pay an annual fee to DistroKid. They're an affordable company, with an easy-to-use interface that handles all the licensing stuff and makes sure we're getting paid that one-one-bazillionth of a cent every time someone plays our songs on Spotify or YouTube or hell, even Tik-Tok, whatever that is.

And now, for some inexplicable reason, they've added a new feature: automated memes. Like this:

We use @distrokid for music distribution and I have no idea WHY they decided to add this automated option for our songs, but I'm damn sure glad they did: pic.twitter.com/hjNnWWacKt

 The Fantalorian (@thomdunn) December 9, 2019

And this:

I'm not sure I watched enough Seinfeld to totally get this, but anyway here's Elaine grooving to a tune about conspiracy theories pic.twitter.com/kSFIZNxx4h

 The Fantalorian (@thomdunn) December 10, 2019

And of course, this:

Anyway here's Baby Yoda grooving to a song I wrote about Spider-Man (you're welcome) pic.twitter.com/luAgaAKSlE

 The Fantalorian (@thomdunn) December 9, 2019

On one hand: why? Who really needs this feature? Will the commodification of memes push us that much further towards the brink of some disastrous culture climax?

On the other hand: this is stupidly delightful and I'm having too much with it so I really don't care. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/ewAnapcUAy8/my-music-distribution-service.html

Writing for the New York Times, Heather Murphy has a fascinating story about the unexpected results of a bone marrow transplant.

When a patient receives a bone marrow transplant, the patient's own cells are destroyed and replaced with cells from a donor. Thereafter, the patient is a "chimera," with two sets of DNA. It's believed that other than helping the recipient's immune system, the donor DNA has little impact on the recipient:

“Their brain and their personality should remain the same"

However, the duplicate DNA can cause confusion in criminal investigations.

Murphy's article recounts a multi-year experiment carried out by the Washoe County Sheriff’s Department when an employee received a bone marrow transplant. Realizing the opportunity to further scientific knowledge, they swabbed "the heck" out of the patient before and following the procedure. Four years later, they found surprising results:

Swabs of his lips and cheeks contained his DNA — but also that of his donor. Even more surprising to Mr. Long and other colleagues at the crime lab, all of the DNA in his semen belonged to his donor. “I thought that it was pretty incredible that I can disappear and someone else can appear,” he said.

Read the rest of the article here, including a discussion of whether the change to the recipient's DNA will have an impact on future offspring. And if you're interested in forensic uses of DNA, check out this story about "rapid DNA testing."

(Image via Wikipedia.) Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/pbu68c8I0TU/the-dna-in-his-semen-was-compl.html

Many folks have to submit themselves to a drug test, on a routine basis in order to stay gainfully employed. There's greasy ways around these tests of course: bringing someone else's urine into the lab to have tested in place of yours, increasing your intake and output pot fluids to dilute the amount of fun in your urine, or adding an adulterant to your sample to name a few.

There are, of course, bolder actions that can be taken.

Captain Joshua Bird (dig that name for pilot) of the United States Air Force's 99th Reconnaissance Squadron loves his cocaine. Apparently, in order to avoid testing positive when his mandatory drug test came around, Bird shaved his entire body—hair, eyebrows, tricky bit, you name it—to foil a follicle-based drug test. This of course, is the sort of brilliant, decisive plan that one thinks of when full to the gunsels with marching powder.

Needless to say, things didn't go as well for Bird as Bird had planned. As a matter of fact they went considerably worse than he could have imagined once other the Air Force learned of his other dabblings in drugs.

From Task & Purpose:

Bird was convicted at a general court-martial in October for using cocaine, distributing dextroamphetamine sulfate (also called "go-gel," a form of the medication used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD) to others for recreational use, and, most notably, for obstructing justice by "shaving his entire body to avoid a drug test," according to the notice.

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/UUlAMb_4_wM/psa-the-air-force-isnt-part.html

Looking for gifts for tabletop gamers? Here are some of my suggestions, based on games I've enjoyed this year... and games I would love to see under my Tannenbaum.

What were some of your favorite games this year? Let us know in the comments.

Dune

It's back! One of the most beloved and highly-regarded board games of all time, long out of print, has a new publisher (Gale Force Nine) and a new edition. This version has new art (based on the fan-created 2011 print and play edition) and some rules streamlining and clarifications, but is otherwise very close to the classic Avalon Hill edition.

BUY

Horrified

I reviewed this wonderful, medium-weight board game of classic monster mayhem in my Halloween gaming article. Easy to pick up, fun, cooperative play with a decent amount of replayability. Work together to get the hapless villagers to safety while fending off Dracula, the Frankenstein monster and his bride, the Wolfman, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Mummy, and the Invisible Man.

BUY

Black Angel

Here's one that's on my holiday list. I love the premise of this game. An ark ship, sent from a dying Earth, contains humanity's DNA and the genetic heritage of the entire planet. This precious cargo is all watched over by machines of loving grace. Actually, it's watched over by a committee of competing AIs. The global conflicts that destroyed the world meant that the nations of the Earth couldn't agree on a single AI to mother such an invaluable cargo. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/BR3qaNI2imM/tabletop-gamers-gift-guide-f-2.html

Watch Tehran-born artist Ali Akbar Beigi work on this gorgeous hyperrealistic portrait.

This amazing video is identified as “Oil on Canvas by Aliakbar Beigi,” from the Instagram account of the Beigi Academy Of Art.

View this post on Instagram

#oiloncanvas by Aliakbar Beigi #newyorkart #newyorkartist #unitedstates #unitedkingdom #californiaartists #californiaarts #spainart #russiaart #russiaartist #artuniversity #artistsuniversity #artvideo #videoarte #eyepainting #artrenewalcenter #academyofartuniversity

A post shared by Beigi Academy Of Art (@alibeigiart) on Nov 13, 2019 at 3:34am PST

About the artist, from artrenewal.org:

Ali Akbar Beigi was born on July 25, 1982 in an art-loving family in Tehran, Iran. He loved painting since childhood and he spent most of his time on learning this art with well-known art teachers. He developed an interest and a taste for art, when he was 14 years old. Beigi’s professional career as painter started after successfully achieved association degree in art. He established his own gallery and training institute called ‘’Beigi Academy” in 2001 and soon after opened his second branch as a result of high demand and students’ interests. Beigi’s Academy is one of the most prestigious and eminent art classes in Tehran, which is authorized by Ministry of culture in Iran. During the past years, Ali Akbar Beigi has attended 15 collective exhibitions and held 4 successful solo exhibitions in terms of high quality of exhibited artworks and high volume of visitors. He is currently studying Bachelor of fine art in Iran. In addition to that, he attended several workshops and academic courses such as Imperial Academy of Art classes in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/H3N2ATsjHdA/watch-iranian-artist-ali-akbar.html

With all the revolutionary tech that's out there, it's pretty sad that finding a simple stud in your wall can feel like dowsing for water. This can be equally true whether you're using a magnetic finder and it's reliance on "feel," or an electronic unit that can give fuzzy readings (especially when the batteries are low).

Sometimes a simple tweak is all that an old-school solution needs. That's the hook of the StudPop, a simple stud finder that vastly improves on the traditional magnetic model.

Just move the tiny gadget along the wall, and the magnet on the back gets a pull from the metal in the studs. The difference here is the indicator, a small bubble that pops out and stands straight when the magnet connects. From there, just mark the position and drill away.

The manufacturers sell the unit solo, but they also incorporate two of them into their On the LEVEL device - a real time saver when you're hanging large cabinets or paintings.

Both of them are on sale for well over 20% off the retail price, but you can take an additional 15% off by using the discount code MERRYSAVE15. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/8X60_39kYVE/these-innovative-stud-finders.html

Super neat video here that is identified as “Nuclear reactor starting up (TRIGA).”

Fairly sure there is science involved in this here stuff.

The blue light is from electrons moving through the water causing Cherenkov radiation.

Video: [Triga, Pulse operation, Nuclear reactor 240 MW, 7.12.2012]

“The reactor is brought to criticality and then the transient control rod is forced out. This causes a power pulse of about 500-1000 MW.”

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/mqwgJXRRCW8/heres-what-a-nuclear-reactor.html

Andy Moore writes, "My friend the marvelous Ms. Truelove Waits made a song containing election advice for anyone in the UK confused about who to vote for this Thursday." (I am a member of the Labour Party and a donor to the 2019 campaign). Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/oPIC85RG_Js/fuck-the-tories.html

Chris Knight recorded a video of the bees in his backyard and wanted to accompany it with a rendition of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's 1899 composition "The Flight of the Bumblebee."

Mindful of the copyright problems that plague Youtube creators who use professionally performed renditions of classical music, Knight made his own version, by feeding the sheet music to a MIDI synthesizer, noting that he'd done so on the page description: "The musical accompaniment is a computer generated audio track created from a MIDI file transcribed from the original score. As the score itself is long out of copyright, and this is not a human performance, you would be blatantly abusing the Youtube copyright system if you attempt to file a claim against this video."

You will never absolutely guess what happened next.

A company called "Adrev" filed an automated claim against Knight's video, through which they were able to force the video to have ads whose revenues were diverted to Adrev's coffers.

There are plenty of weird things about Adrev's act of copyfraud. First, they only claimed copyright on a three-minute chunk of the music (the entire composition is repeated 60 times in the video). Knight hypothesizes that this is a tactic that lets them file a new claim against him if he disputes this one.

Knight's well-versed on the obscure subject of Youtube copyright claims, so he was willing to dispute this one, despite Youtube's dire warning that if he did so and was found to have infringed copyright, he would face a strike against his account, which could lead to its permanent deletion. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/Gdp4bqMfdcI/asymmetrical-warfare-2.html

[If you thought your relatives' gift of a "smart speaker" was the worst way that a family member could compromise your privacy, think again: home genetic tests can opt your whole bloodline into mass-scale state genetic surveillance, and while there has been some progress into bringing the rule of law into the stuff of life, it's been halting -- and that's bad news, especially as companies that do genetics for spies and cops merge with consumer genomics companies, something that's just happened, as my EFF colleague Jennifer Lynch discusses below, in this crosspost from EFF's Deeplinks blog -Cory]

This week, GEDmatch, a genetic genealogy company that gained notoriety for giving law enforcement access to its customers’ DNA data, quietly informed its users it is now operated by Verogen, Inc., a company expressly formed two years ago to market “next-generation [DNA] sequencing” technology to crime labs.  

What this means for GEDmatch’s 1.3 million users—and for the 60% of white Americans who share DNA with those users—remains to be seen. 

GEDmatch allows users to upload an electronic file containing their raw genotyped DNA data so that they can compare it to other users’ data to find biological family relationships. It estimates how close or distant those relationships may be (e.g., a direct connection, like a parent, or a distant connection, like a third cousin), and it enables users to determine where, along each chromosome, their DNA may be similar to another user. It also predicts characteristics like ethnicity. 

An estimated 30 million people have used genetic genealogy databases like GEDmatch to identify biological relatives and build a family tree, and law enforcement officers have been capitalizing on all that freely available data in criminal investigations. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/hPR7WfadBBY/23-and-you.html

Heather sends us a notice of "a screening of Charlie Chaplin's masterpiece The Gold Rush, with live musical accompaniment at Hollywood's stunning new venue: The American Legion Theater on Highland Avenue."

For this one-of-a-kind screening, the Chaplin Office has waived their usual requirement that the film be accompanied by recorded music, and has given Retroformat Silent Films' resident Musical Director Cliff Retallick permission to improvise a live, grand piano score! The screening will be introduced by world renowned independent filmmaker and Retroformat Silent Films board member Allison Anders, whose films include Gas Food Lodging, Mi Vida Loca and Grace of My Heart.

In The Gold Rush, Chaplin's immortal Tramp is a lone prospector in the Alaskan Gold Rush, where he meets the beautiful dance hall girl Georgia Hale and becomes trapped in a snowbound cabin, hilariously boiling, carving and eating his own shoe and performing the famous dance-of-the-dinner-rolls, in two of the greatest scenes in movie history.

The Gold Rush was originally released by United Artists in 1925, but in 1942, Chaplin recut and re-released the film, adding a score that he recorded and composed himself, dubbing it the "official version." In 1993, internationally renowned film restorationists, historians and documentarians Kevin Brownlow and David Gill restored the original 1925 version, and it is this restoration that will screen in the beautiful Legion Theater. This event will kick off a series of tributes to the founders of United Artists by Retroformat Silent Films, with subsequent screenings of films by Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Mary Pickford and D.W.

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/6Pc9thDCSDw/american-legion-theater.html

Michael Epler, AKA Pilot Red Sun, (patreon) warps his digital smeartool paintings with glitchy audio and crude pseudo-3D datamoshed effects that highlight the claustrophobia and deepen the nightmare. The latest, embedded above, is titled "Not So Fast" and is about a traffic stop that ends badly for the well-luded driver.

Below is "Ultimate Fuel". If you like this (or hate it in an interested way) check out the YouTube channel.

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/k2p5aAEdmK0/the-surreal-glitchy-menacing.html

Pigeons with hats have been spotted and filmed in Las Vegas, prompting a search for whoever is putting them there.

Pigeons in Las Vegas have been spotted wearing tiny little cowboy hats. It's not clear how the pigeons got the hats on their heads. Some people found it funny, but other are wondering if this is a case of animal cruelty.

As a commenter on YouTube puts it, "It's been cod in Vegas latel" [sic]. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/ynpvCTtLcKo/someone-is-putting-hats-on-pig.html

Princen Alice created a "password generator" that glues random Welsh-sounding words into a craggy landscape of letters. It's probably not very good, since it's three or four dictionary words and a number plus the fallacious ethnocentric belief that unpronouceability to English speakers reflects randomness, but what a delightful mess! Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/BqWtm_4aCow/welsh-password-generator.html

Enjoy this compilation of 1990s-era sprite games extruded into lowpoly 2½D extravaganzas. These are works of static art, but I'm sure I've seen this done "live" in-game recently, in an automated, playable way. (Note that there are a number of 2½D Super Marios already--these replicas are hand-made, like this video). Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/CQaGrpCVYH4/classic-2d-games-reimagined-in.html

Writing at Metropole, Sarah Balakrishnan describes the development of cemeteries in a city in Ghana. As of the 1800's, the general practice in the seaside city of Accra was to bury the dead underneath the family's home.

Around 1888, British colonists began forcing the populace to bury the dead in public cemeteries. The requirement served multiple purposes:

Cemeteries were undoubtedly a part of British colonists’ bid to reorganize African societies according to Christian schematics of “civilization”—what has been called the “civilizing mission.” But they also had another, more insidious, ambition. Creating private property in Accra required cemeteries. Graveyards relocated ancestors to the public domain, making it possible for Gold Coasters to sell their property to interested buyers.

British colonists had long understood that communities in Accra would never sell their land if it contained the remains of their elders. Public cemeteries thus transferred rituals of social reproduction—celebrating, mourning, and remembering the dead—into the domain of the state, so that private houses could be made fungible and sellable. Like elsewhere in the world, commemorations of death shaped the devolution of property. In colonial Accra, British colonists used cemeteries to enforce private property in land.

Soon, large public cemeteries indeed grew, which led to various other problems. For one thing, once large public cemeteries came into existence, developers started scheming to use the land for a different purpose:

While the state used cemeteries to enforce private property in land, this had come at a cost: the creation of massive “immovable properties.” Whereas chiefs and wealthy “big men” (abirempon) had built many cemeteries in the 20th century by buying expansive estates, the colonial government now wanted to build railroads and thoroughfares through these lands.

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/S4Ed1P_zKEc/public-cemeteries-as-a-precond.html

State Snaps is a send-in-your-photos party wheeze aimed at fratboys. Spread amorphously over various social media platforms, it's too sleazy to go mainstream but too successful to stay in one place. But the wannabe operators failed to register a key domain name, doitforstate.com, that reflects the viral motto "Do it for State!" associated with The Brand. So a domain squatter got it. Usually, a call to a lawyer comes next. Not these guys.

The gunman wore a baseball cap, had pantyhose pulled over his face, and sunglasses covered his eyes.

Deyo briefly raised his arms in surrender — then bolted into his bedroom. He slammed the door behind him and braced for impact. Moments later, the intruder kicked through the doorway and grabbed Deyo by the neck.

“Where’s your computer?” he demanded. According to Deyo’s courtroom testimony, he led the man across the hall and into his office with the gun now shoved into the small of his back. He sat down, the man opened up his MacBook Pro, and Deyo felt the gun move from his spine to the rear of his skull, the metal hard on his scalp.

“Okay, motherfucker,” Deyo recalled him saying. “GoDaddy.com.”

Why file a trademark and SLAPP your way to a domain name you want when you can just get a goon to force the squatter to turn it over at gunpoint? All time greatest domainer tip right here. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/SJ7xyKMg2zc/do-it-for-state-epic-domain-n.html

There's much ado about coffee brewing methods these days, but most of us - at least on the busy weekdays - just want our morning joe to be consistent, easy, and most of all, fast.

If that sounds like anyone on your Christmas list, they're going to get a lot of mileage out of the FrankOne Cold Brew & Coffee Maker.

This maker is just the ticket for busy bees who need that jolt in the morning, and it's portable enough to be used at work. The operation is super easy: Just pour your grounds in the top, then water right after it. Press the button on top, and wait - but not that long. The system will filter cold brew into the carafe in four minutes, significantly faster than traditional cold brewing methods. If you pour hot water in, your regular hot coffee takes only seconds.

The whole thing rinses clean, and it's fully rechargeable by USB cable.

Take 15% off the FrankOne Cold Brew & Coffee Maker now by using our holiday discount code: MERRYSAVE15. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/91iNIO-moDo/have-cold-brew-or-hot-coffee-i.html

Storyscape is a freemium mobile app that offers several choose your own adventure-style stories. The vast majority of choices are free, and the choices made don't seem to have a meaningful impact on the story. So far, I've experimented with stories based on the X-Files, James Cameron's Titanic, and a snowbound post-apocalyptic scenario.

In the X-Files adventure, you meet the stars of the show and soon join the team. The first episode delivers the core elements of the X-Files--a gross monster, humor, and winks to the relationship between Mulder and Scully:

But there isn't an interesting monetized choice in the first episode of the X-Files story. On the other hand, the first monetized choice in the Titanic storyline is supremely well-crafted.

As the story opens, you're a gorgeous young orphaned immigrant suffragette who has found herself imprisoned in a jail in London. Over the ensuing episodes, you find yourself on the Titanic, choosing between various intrigues, suitors, and outfits (the diamond icon represents a choice requiring spending premium currency):

You encounter the occasional familiar face, as well:

However, that's all in the future. At the start of the story, you're in dank cell with little hope for release. Your younger sister is in the city, helpless without you. A guard enters with apparent ill intent. The game offers you this choice and explanation, since it's the first monetized choice I encountered:

I absolutely decided to know jujitsu:

That's the most I've ever enjoyed spending premium currency. You can try out the Storyscape app on your mobile device. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/mHnQVk5aKnk/check-out-the-deliciously-insi.html