In this photo posted to Facebook, two police officers from Mobile, Alabama pose with a "quilt" made from cardboard signs confiscated from homeless people in the area over the Christmas break.

“Wanna wish everybody in the 4th precinct a Merry Christmas, especially our captain," says the caption to the posting. “Hope you enjoy our homeless quilt. Sincerely Panhandler patrol.”

Al.com names the two grinning officers as Preston McGraw and Alexandre Olivier, and points out that the photo was taken in a police department office. It was first posted to Officer McGraw's page, but has been shared widely since.

Mobile Police Department has not responded to a request for comment. AL.com also emailed every city council member for comment. No one has yet responded.

Since being posted online the image has been shared more than 10,000 times and has over 3,000 comments. Many comments claim the image to be in poor taste, especially during the holiday season.

God Bless. God Bless. God Bless. God Bless. God Bless. God Bless. God Bless. God Bless. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/AbMFX4HQVcI/alabama-cops-gloat-over-quil.html

Vaughan Oliver, the graphic designer whose work defined the 4AD record label, has died. He was 62. His ethereal, surreal, magnificent album art for The Pixies, Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil, and Clan of Xymox brought together design and music in a way that forever changed and elevated the design of music packaging. From The Guardian:

Oliver, born in 1957, grew up in County Durham and studied graphic design at Newcastle-upon-Tyne Polytechnic. “I was a working class lad from a dull town,” he said in 2014. “There was no real culture, my parents were not really interested in anything unusual – everything I was getting was through record sleeves. It was a democratic way of discovering art.”

He moved to London and in 1982 became the first employee for the record label 4AD. As their in-house designer, he created artwork that helped define them as purveyors of dark and complex alt-rock music; with their clashing fonts and boldly allusive but mysterious symbolism, his sleeves became some of the most revered in modern pop. “I like to elevate the banal through surrealism,” he said in 2014. “Mystery and ambiguity are important weapons in a designer’s arsenal.”

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/LVlBnc5UI6o/vaughan-oliver-graphic-desi.html

The X-Men are often cited as a pop culture metaphor for the struggles of persecuted peoples in the face of bigotry. But the allegory is far from perfect. It's barely even present in the foundational DNA of the earliest comics. The idea of "mutants" was initially just an excuse to skip over the origin stories and get straight to the super-powered superhero antics. These days, we commonly hear comparisons between Magneto and Professor X to Malcolm X and MLK. Even though it's, erm, not quite accurate. And even though Magneto started out by literally calling his team "The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants."

But Bob Proehl's new novel, The Nobody People, takes the opposite approach. Proehl is a friend of mine — I even wrote a song to help him promote the book, before I actually I read it — and he'll pretty openly admit that he envisioned it as a sort-of love letter to the X-Men. Whereas the X-Men began as pulpy superhero comics that eventually mutated into a political metaphor, The Nobody People starts with the metaphor, and mutates into a powerful personal drama. Here, the super-powered individuals are known as Resonants, and at the start of the novel, their presence is largely hidden from the modern world. The first part of the book mostly follows war correspondent Avi Hirsch, an amputee who learns that his biracial daughter is one of those powered Resonants; once they're outed, the book shifts into a sort of Bildungsroman, with a series of episodes that follow the logical progression of what always happens when a marginalized group tries to claim their own tiny corner in a world full of ignorance of hate. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/ZRQq6gYbUP4/review-the-nobody-people.html

The theme tune to classic 80s' cartoon Inspector Gadget performed by Riccardo Bonci at St Barnabas with Christ's Chapel in Dulwich, England.

Here's He-Man and the Masters of the Universe:

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/jpugwvCPNMk/inspector-gadget-and-he-man-th.html

A woman on a bus in Amherst, Ma., objects to young passengers not speaking English in a private conversation she was not party to. Other riders on the vehicle then object to her making a big racist fuss. The cops arrive and assure her that it is she who is in the wrong. Then she storms off.

Is it telling that a cop comes along and asks the victims for their IDs, but not the elderly white man defending them? He had clearly put himself at the center of events, after all. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/ZXOwfGsCeGo/racist-lady-educated.html

Generated Photos is the latest stupid startup that sounds like a joke from "Silicon Valley" that someone took too far. From their announcement on Medium:

Generated Photos is the free resource of 100k faces for you to use however you wish. But these aren’t just common faces. They were produced completely by artificial intelligence — none of these people are real! Generated photos are created from scratch by AI systems.

In other words, they're Deepfakes for other peoples' ad campaigns.

I've spent enough time around higher ed administration that I've seen firsthand how universities will recruit a perfect United-Colors-Of-Benetton rainbow of students for admissions ads. But this takes that to a whole new level. Why even bother trying to build relationships with non-white-dudes, when you can just generate some friendly colorful faces for promotional use and call it a day?

The company's website brags of "democratizing creative photography and video," which is some impressively nauseating PR speak. In their defense, "We aim to make creative works both more accessible and higher quality through generative processes" sounds a lot better than "Auto-diversify the avatars for your army of Twitter sockpuppets!"

But my favorite part is how openly they acknowledge the poor quality of their images. "A part of the process is training and refining the generative models," the company explains in a Medium post. "The iterations move fast although not everything is perfect yet. So you will also have some fun with the pack of AI-generated photos. When you see a face that is a bit ‘off’, just give it some slack." Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/Bh9pv7dkBtU/this-company-wants-to-use-ai-t.html

Krampus, Oh Krampus is a brand-new accordion-filled sing-along by my friends at Tight Pajamas. It's surprisingly chipper!

Susie Davis of the band wrote me:

My fascination with Krampus began after joining 'SF Krampus,' a street theater group that once a year dresses up as Krampus and prowls San Francisco’s infamous Union Square in search of naughty children. Krampus has been a part of Central European folklore for centuries. In early December children in the Alpine villages are visited not only by Saint Nicholas, who gives treats to deserving girls and boys, but also by his dreaded partner - Krampus, who comes to punish the naughty children or take them away in the basket on his back to the underworld. Its proven that children from countries who have Christmas demons do better on test scores…so maybe all we need to make the world a better place is just a little more Krampus!

The song is also available as an MP3.

Thanks, Susie! Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/2v8PvVNpkQA/a-happy-sing-along-song-about.html

Totally Accurate Battle Simulator [Landfall Games] plays out skirmishes between bands of fighters with a state-of-the-art physics engine. This engine is the "totally accurate" part, but if you know anything about physics in games, you'll know that its wobbly ragdoll fingers are crossed firmly behind its back. Instead of gravity and momentum being kept under tight slow cheaty control, as in Total War games, here everything flops wildly free: berserkers leap into the fray, trees block whirling broadswords, mammoths crush all underfoot, cannonballs neatly enfilade rows of infantry.

The cartoon madness of its physics is embraced in its attitude: bulging ragdoll eyes, lurching Foddyesque advances, and dozens of bizarre units to command and place in whatever anachronistic nightmare matchup pleases you. Battles tend to be over in seconds. Players compete to post the most bizarre set-pieces on YouTube.

TABS is still in early-access and has no framing or narrative elements. The campaign is a collection of arbitrary but often cunningly-designed battles; the harder and more specific they get, the more the game feels like a series of puzzles and less like a tactical sim. It is nonetheless hilarious, absorbing and shockingly habit-forming, hours disappearing into the promise of a single coffee-break battle.

It's well-worth the $15 price tag, and I've barely scratched the surface of the early-access version--you can make custom maps, units and campaigns, with more features to come. Players interested in customization, in creating ingenious set-pieces and mapping their minds to its demented combat mechanics, are already completely catered for. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/DcWZSpP711k/totally-accurate-battle-simula.html

Tooth decay is no joke. As dentists are fond of telling you, you've only got one set. (Unless you're, like, 5.)

If you're tired of hearing that, maybe it's time to minimize those dental visits. This AquaSonic Vibe Toothbrush kit will go a long way toward showing you're serious about your teeth.

The brush itself is an impressive piece of engineering, able to vibrate at 40,000 strokes per minute. It also has timers that make sure you know how much time to spend on each zone of your teeth. And don't neglect those gums: The AquaSonic has separate modes that are perfect for massaging them at the end.

The result is three times less plaque on your gums and teeth than you'll find with other electric toothbrushes.

The brush is waterproof and the entire kit is portable. It includes eight interchangeable heads, plus a case with wireless charger.

The full kit is already down to $35.99 from the original retail price of $169.99, but you can take an extra 20% off the final cost by entering the coupon code 20SAVE20. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/eZ0nKt8nxgA/this-electric-toothbrush-remov.html

CBD (or cannabidiol, if you've been living in a cave) has come a long way in a short while. It's gone from being a relatively unknown, non-psychoactive compound in the hemp plant to a highly-touted stress and pain reliever in just the last few years. You can now get CBD in just about every form: smokeables, vape cartridges, pills and tinctures.

But we say, if you're going to try it, why not satisfy your sweet tooth while you're at it? Holiday CBD Premium CBD Gummies may be fun to eat, but the CBD they're infused with works just as hard.

Each bottle has everything you need and nothing you don't. The ingredients are simple and each one packs 10 mg of CBD harvested from organically-grown Colorado hemp. There's no THC involved, and the product is tested at a third-party lab for an extra dose of security.

Do make sure, as with any health product, that you check with state laws and consult with your doctor before ordering.

These Holiday CBD Premium CBD Gummies are already 19% off the list price, but you can take an additional 20% off by using the coupon code 20SAVE20. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/FfOESVAtRv4/treat-yourself-to-delicious-cb.html

If you're at all serious about your cooking, eventually you're going to need a knife set. And not the one that got handed down to you by your parents, but a real chef's set that will make you notice the difference in every cut.

With that in mind, it's worth considering a set that will distinguish themselves before you even use them. And believe us, people who haven't seen Damascus steel before will definitely take notice of this set of 4 Damascus Steak Knives.

In a nutshell, Damascus steel was a legendary form of metal and metalworking that produced some of the most feared weapons in the Eastern hemisphere. While the source metal of wootz is lost to the ages, modern blacksmiths have learned how to replicate the process — with time and care.

The result is the watery pattern on the blades of these chef knives, a side effect of their hardness and ability to keep a keen edge. Each one is 8 1/2 inches and augmented with pakkawood, rosewood and walnut wood handles.

Pick up your set of four Damascus Steak Knives, currently on sale at 44% off retail but available for 20% off that final price by using the discount code 20SAVE20. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/5k7A2xxVyZA/save-over-60-on-these-damascu.html

No matter how much you love your tablet or laptop, some things demand a detour to the old school. When it comes to notes, brainstorming or creative scribbling, there's still no substitute for a good old analog notebook.

Or is there? The Rocketbook Wave Executive Smart Notebook aims to find out by offering a solution that allows you to write freehand while still saving paper — and your work.

The pages in this innovative book are made of a special material that you can write on with the particular Pilot FriXion pen (included). Once you've completed your notes / masterpiece / whatever, you can simply scan it with your smartphone and send the work to your favorite cloud service. You can even flag it with special "tiles" that route it to easy-to-find folders.

Best of all, once you've filled up the pages you can start again with a clean slate. Just pop the entire notebook in the microwave and the print disappears.

The Rocketbook Wave Executive Smart Notebook and pen station is already more than 20% off the MSRP, but you can take an extra 20% off that final price by using the coupon code 20SAVE20. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/sQcpna2_xhw/this-smart-notebook-lets-you-w.html

The editors of Canada's Globe and Mail asked me to reflect on what science fiction can tell us about the 2020s for their end-of-the-decade package; I wrote about how science fiction can't predict the future, but might inspire it, and how the dystopian malaise of science fiction can be turned into a inspiring tale of "adversity met and overcome – hard work and commitment wrenching a limping victory from the jaws of defeat."

I describe a scenario for a "Canadian miracle": "As the vast majority of Canadians come to realize the scale of the crisis, they are finally successful in their demand that their government address it unilaterally, without waiting for other countries to agree."

Canada goes on a war footing: Full employment is guaranteed to anyone who will work on the energy transition – building wind, tide and solar facilities; power storage systems; electrified transit systems; high-speed rail; and retrofits to existing housing stock for an order-of-magnitude increase in energy and thermal efficiency. All of these are entirely precedented – retrofitting the housing stock is not so different from the job we undertook to purge our homes of lead paint and asbestos, and the cause every bit as urgent.

How will we pay for it? The same way we paid for the Second World War: spending the money into existence (much easier now that we can do so with a keyboard rather than a printing press), then running a massive campaign to sequester all that money in war bonds so it doesn’t cause inflation.

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/Rzlyyi9Q9lA/jt-a-monster-of-history.html

None of us signed up for an Internet composed of "a group of five websites, each consisting of screenshots of text from the other four", but here we are, watching as hyper-concentrated industries rack up catastrophic victories against net neutrality, right to repair, security auditing, and a host of other issues.

These gains come at the expense of the public interest, and endanger the public interest Internet: the parts of the net that let anyone, anywhere collaborate with anyone, anywhere without permission from someone who has interposed themselves between them. They represent a triumph of lobbying over evidence, and such lobbying is only possible because the industries behind it are so fantastically concentrated that their top executives literally fit around a modest boardroom table.

In 2019, EFF became part of a global movement to restore competition to our markets. Our competition work cuts across so many of the issues that we've been committed to for three decades: privacy, the right to tinker, coders' rights, independent security research, the right to repair, and the right of users to technological self-determination.

It's a critical juncture: lawmakers are circulating pro-interoperability legislation and holding hearings, even as leaks reveal that the Big Tech companies grew through cheating and the Department of Justice is greenlighting disastrous mergers in the telecom sector.

EFF has a unique contribution to make in this new era of trustbusting: it's not enough to restore the historic commitment to antitrust (though that would be a start). Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/8Nrgoa79tSo/new-gilded-age-3.html

Jon Cog writes, "For Christmas, mathematician Donald Knuth shared some great geeky fun. He revealed how for the last 57 years, he's been incorporating the digits of pi into the exercises of his computer programming books -- a whopping 1,700 times. And before long his annual 'Christmas Tree' lecture 'had turned into a kind of intellectual funhouse,' sharing other mind-boggling pi-related miscellanies."

For example, one author wrote an entire book where each word has exactly the number of letters as its corresponding digit in pi. (Soon that book devolves into some bizarre poetry, a science-fiction screenplay called the Zompyr Chronicle, and then a crossword puzzle.) Knuth himself also created a Sudoku puzzle in which the filled-in 'clue' numbers are, in order, the first 32 digits of pi. Other mathematicians have worked the digits of pi into even more exotic KenKen, Kakuro, and Hidato puzzles. And pi even managed to work its way into the solution of one puzzle that was entirely visual, involving only lines that connect the dots on a grid.

The puzzle-maker had designed the puzzle so that the line connecting all the dots drew a lovely and unmistakable picture -- of the mathematical symbol for pi.

And after revealing it to his astonished audience, Knuth shouted out 'Merry Christmas!'

Donald Knuth’s 2019 ‘Christmas Tree Lecture’ Explores Pi in ‘The Art of Computer Programming’ [David Cassel/The New Stack]

(Thanks, Jon Cog!) Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/8yvVK42vMGY/pi-r-round-2.html

Paying for things is all too easy online these days, and that's why managing your money has gotten so hard. We've all done it: You sign up for a streaming subscription or gym membership, blow past the free trial date, and it becomes a part of your monthly expenses. Some of us juggle so many accounts, we may not even notice.

That's just one example of modern information overload bleeding into actual financial consequences. And as much as money management apps try to help, too often they're just one more account we have to deal with.

There are exceptions, however. Truebill is one notable example. It does all the things you come to expect from a money managing app, like tracking your spending, making a budget, and checking multiple bank accounts. Plus, with 256-bit SSL encryption, the security is rock-solid.

But, it also takes a more active role in your financial health, not just by showing you the drains on your income but plugging them up. Got a subscription you forgot you were paying for? Truebill will highlight it, and cancel it on your behalf. Got a cell service that's gouging you? Truebill will negotiate a lower rate for you. It really takes the petty stuff off your plate and allows you to focus on hitting those savings goals.

All this functionality, and it's free. Check it out now at truebill.com. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/GY0H_m5Pk5k/this-money-management-app-does.html

If you enjoy the outdoors, you know that it's not necessarily any scarier at night than it is during the day. But it sure can seem that way when you're using a traditional flashlight that effectively gives you tunnel vision: You see just the spot where you aim and nothing else.

That's why the H2 Headlamp should catch on quickly not just with hikers, but anyone who works, plays or runs in the dark.

Its main feature is the flexible LED light that stretches across the front brim of your head. This illuminates a 180-degree wide area around you rather than a narrow focus. It's an impressive 360 lumens on the highest setting, and the difference of being able to use your peripheral vision is quite literally eye-opening.

The light and strap are just four ounces, and runners can even wrap it around their waist for maximum visibility on nighttime roads. Spelunking, hiking, wee hours car repair — all of them just got a whole lot easier.

The H2 Headlamp has three settings, is fully rechargeable and even 100% waterproof. It's already on sale for more than 25% off the MSRP, but you can take an additional 20% off by using the coupon code 20SAVE20. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/2IqRmrFeRGw/this-180-degree-headlamp-is-a.html

Golf is a game that fosters an appreciation for nature. But like any sport, it's also about the stats — especially if you're trying to improve your game.

There are rangefinders out there, but most of them are either inaccurate or bulky, meaning you won't be able to properly focus on your game, much less nature.

Finally, there's a compact piece of tech that's custom-built for the game: The GoGolf GPS Accurate Rangefinder.

This tiny device clips right on to your hat or glasses and pairs with your smartphone, letting it do all the heavy lifting on GPS location. It's pre-loaded with info on 30,000 courses, and is incredibly easy to use. A single button click can tell you the distance of your last shot. Tap the tee button on top, and it resets for the next hole.

You can also find out the distance to the green on the fly, helping you size up your approach better on every fairway. And it lasts about five full rounds of golf on every charge, so it's always with you whenever you need the info.

You can take 20% off the GoGolf GPS now by using the coupon code 20SAVE20. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/A2nBIP_rM5c/instantly-upgrade-your-golf-ga.html

Sooner or later, everybody needs an umbrella. It's kind of the great equalizer that way.

That does not, however, mean they all have to look the same. It's pretty rare to find one that matches any outfit without looking bland, much less does its job well, but Certain Standard's line of umbrellas are definitely ones you'll want to keep.

Their Gramercy model is named for the effortlessly chic New York City 'hood, and it's easy to see why. The cork handle is as easy to grip as it is elegant, and the classic black hue and white accent let you play it cool in any weather.

And we mean that literally: its 41" diameter canopy offers ample protection on stormy days, but it's also treated with 40 UPF UV protection for when there's too much sun around. The fiberglass composite frame is fitted onto an anodized aluminum steel shaft that can stand up to plenty of surprise gusts.

The Certain Standard Gramercy Umbrella is now on sale for 10% off the original retail price of $65. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/RwNYVpNkGSA/this-durable-cork-handled-umbr.html

[The moral of this story is buy a Roomba, they last longer and have better software.]

A man and a woman in Forsyth County, North Carolina, called for help just after midnight when they awoke to loud noises and crashing downstairs, and hid in their closet to dial 911.

Deputies searched the home and found... a Eufy robotic vacuum running amok. As robot vacuums sometimes do, it “had somehow turned itself on, got stuck and began banging on a wall.”

The couple says they're embarrassed about what happened but also thankful it wasn't a real intruder.

"It definitely is better safe than sorry because having heard what we did, I still would have called the police and because you just never know," said Thomas Milam, the homeowner.

The couple just bought the Eufy robotic vacuum three days ago and even named it Harry.

Forsyth County couple mistakes robotic vacuum for home intruder [myfox8.com via AP] Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/1wfKmv-PqrA/north-carolina-couple-call-cop.html