A judge banned Eric Schefflin, 20, of Lakewood, Colorado, and Ryan Goetz, 25, of Woodstock, New York from Yellowstone National Park for walking on the Old Faithful geyser cone, reports the Powell Tribune. The gents also received "10 days in jail, $540 in restitution each and five years of unsupervised probation," according to the paper.

“Law enforcement officers take this violation seriously,” Chief Ranger Sarah Davis said in the news release. “Yellowstone National Park also appreciates the court for recognizing the impact thermal trespass can have on these amazing features.”

Hydrothermal areas like Old Faithful are generally fragile, and the ground can often be thin, with scalding water just below.

About three weeks after Schefflin and Goetz got too close to Old Faithful, a 48-year-old man learned of the danger first-hand. Cade Siemers, a U.S. citizen who’d been living in India, fell into scalding thermal water near the geyser late on the night of Sept. 30. He suffered severe burns that required him to be flown to a burn center in Idaho.

Now is as good a time as any to remember the Boy Scout leader who deliberately toppled a 170 million year old rock formation in the Utah desert in 2013.

Photo by Emily Campbell on Unsplash Read the rest

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Citing Paris prosecutors, Reuters and other news outlets are reporting that the French movie director Christophe Ruggia was arrested and taken into custody for questioning today over allegations he sexually assaulted a teen girl who was cast in one of his films nearly two decades ago.

Through an attorney, the filmmaker denies this claim, and any other charges of misconduct.

Adele Haenel, an actress who is now 31 years of age, claimed that Christophe Ruggia assaulted and harassed her circa 2001-2004, after she landed a role in the Ruggia-directed project “Les Diables,” or The Devils.

From Reuters:

According to Haenel’s allegations, published in French media outlet Mediapart in November last year, when she was first harassed she was 12 years old and the abuse continued until she was 15.

The Paris prosecutor’s office in November opened a preliminary probe into “sexual assault of a minor under 15 by a person of authority, and sexual harassment”.

Ruggia’s arrest came days after French prosecutors opened a separate investigation into allegations of rape of a child that sent shockwaves through French cultural circles.

In a book published this month, Vanessa Springora, now 47 and head of France’s Julliard publishing house, alleged sexual abuse by Gabriel Matzneff, an 83-year-old prominent author, when she was 14.

READ MORE: French filmmaker detained over alleged sexual assault: prosecutors [reuters.com]

[INFO @LCI de @mclbel] Le r'ealisateur Christophe Ruggia a 'et'e interpell'e et plac'e en garde `a vue ce matin, apr`es les accusations d'attouchements et de harc`element sexuel par Ad`ele Haenel

 William Molini'e (@WilliamMolinie) January 14, 2020

[`A LA UNE `A MIDI] - Le r'ealisateur Christophe Ruggia, accus'e d'"attouchements" par l'actrice Ad`ele Haenel lorsqu'elle 'etait adolescente, a 'et'e plac'e en garde `a vue, a-t-on appris aupr`es du parquet de Paris confirmant une information de LCI et Mediapart #AFP (2/5) pic.twitter.com/XPxqQ0t0JG

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/_2lNuZw0IjQ/french-movie-director-christop.html

A bird rescue group in Las Vegas says one of three hat-wearing pigeons which gained popularity on social media has died.

Lofty Hopes pigeon rescue of Las Vegas tweeted the sad news this past Sunday.

Staff at the animal rescue organization say it's possible that fumes from the glue someone used to stick a hat on Bille the Pidge could have poisoned the little birb.

Photos of Cluck Norris and Billie the Pidge's hats. They were extensively handled before this photograph so no gloves were used. Given the age and type of material fingerprints were not taken. pic.twitter.com/tSieB0jOJF

 Lofty Hopes Pigeon Rescue (@Loftyhopespidge) December 18, 2019

We are saddened to announce that Billie the Pidge has passed away. She was weak when we caught her and had lost toes to stringfoot in addition to the hat being glued onto her head. pic.twitter.com/FR3vXGlMe1

 Lofty Hopes Pigeon Rescue (@Loftyhopespidge) January 13, 2020

The three pigeons were discovered last month in Las Vegas, with these miniature red cowboy hats glued on to their heads by who knows what jerk for who knows what nutty reasons.

Why do people do cruel and stupid things to animals?

From the Associated Press:

It wasn’t certain if the bird’s death was connected to the hat. It is still unknown who put the hats on the birds.

Billie is survived by two other former cowboy pigeons — Cluck Norris and Coolamity Jane.

Read more: Las Vegas animal rescue: Cowboy hat-wearing pigeon dies [associated press] Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/c8mjrxtP3Sw/pigeon-in-a-cowboy-hat-rip.html

In Sacramento today, a woman who is accused of tossing menstrual blood at California lawmakers was ordered by a judge to not go anywhere near the state Capitol while she waits for her trial.

Rebecca Dalelio, 43, did not enter a plea on Monday. She is scheduled to return to Sacramento County Superior Court in February to face charges of vandalism and assault on public officials.

From AP:

Senators had just finished taking a vote Sept. 13 when Dalelio allegedly tossed the blood onto the floor of the Senate from the public gallery, saying: “That’s for the dead babies.”

At least six state senators were hit by the cup or the blood and red splatters were visible on some desks and the carpeting. Tests showed the blood did not contain pathogens or infections. Senators had to move their proceedings to a committee room.

The Santa Cruz County resident was among a group protesting vaccination legislation.

Suspect in blood throwing banned from California Capitol

[via Adam Beam of the Associated Press] Read the rest

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I did not know how much joy ice fishing in Kazakhstan could possibly bring me until I watched this video of an amazing and talented fisherman in the icy-cold former Soviet republic fish through the ice like a damn boss.

Two goats follow him along on the ice fishing adventure.

I am so here for this I cannot even tell you. I am such a fan of this dude.

I know absolutely nothing about the video, other than the fact that it came from the Twitter account @Starshina73.

Зимняя рыбалка говоришь? Да что ты знаешь о ней?)) pic.twitter.com/BI2G5FY3mG

 Габит Рахимберлин (@Starshina73) January 12, 2020

Read the rest

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[IMAGE: @markknoller]

This is some real propaganda bullshit right here. Who thought it was okay?

During the LSU vs CLEM playoffs tonight, they brought President Trump and his wife Melania on the field for the singing of the national anthem.

So, keeping politics out of sports is the thing, huh.

Got it.

sure, man pic.twitter.com/31MAseoMlK

 Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) January 14, 2020

pic.twitter.com/ayZ24BRyqo

 Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) January 14, 2020

As when Trump attended 2017 college championship game, he stands on field for National Anthem. In ‘17, he did so amid controversy of his criticism of Colin Kaepernick’s protest; Trump left at halftime of that game and missed dramatic Tua-led comeback win for Alabama. pic.twitter.com/QwsE2pgtuP

 David Nakamura (@DavidNakamura) January 14, 2020

How is producing a campaign ad for Donald Trump consistent with ESPN 'sticking to sports'?

 David Gardner (@byDavidGardner) January 14, 2020

Trump and Melania on the football field. He knows what he's doing.

 James Oliphant (@jamesoliphant) January 14, 2020

We sticking to sports or nah?

 Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) January 14, 2020

Pres and Mrs Trump announced onto the field of the Superdome in New Orleans for the singing of the National Anthem pic.twitter.com/zdLYPUrvhG

 Mark Knoller (@markknoller) January 14, 2020

Pres and Mrs Trump arrive in New Orleans for tonight's Clemson/LSU championship game. pic.twitter.com/wByjA5jzLQ

 Mark Knoller (@markknoller) January 14, 2020

Chants of “USA!” as the President and First Lady take the field for the National Anthem at #CFBNationalChampionship. pic.twitter.com/QR5klNx0Fm

 Errin 2020 (@emarvelous) January 14, 2020

Trump emerges at college football championship game to big cheers of “USA!!”

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/TTg6shr26ko/trump-and-melania-on-the-footb.html

If my vagina smelled like "geranium, citrusy bergamot, and cedar absolutes juxtaposed with Damask rose and ambrette seed," I'd go see my doctor. But, then again, I'm also no Gwyneth Paltrow. Her shop Goop recently introduced a $75 candle named "This Smells Like My Vagina."

Described as having a "funny, gorgeous, sexy, and beautifully unexpected scent," the overpriced candle is not meant to actually smell like Paltrow's private parts (thank goodness). The original description, now removed, explains, "This candle started as a joke between perfumer Douglas Little and GP. The two were working on a fragrance, and she blurted out, 'Uhhh..this smells like a vagina'..." The rest is votive history.

If you were hoping to get a whiff of (this) vagina (candle), sorry weirdo, it's already sold out.

image via Goop Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/LXacKCWnacs/gwyneth-paltrows-got-a-75.html

In my latest podcast (MP3), I read my latest Locus column, Inaction is a Form of Action,, where I I discuss how the US government's unwillingness to enforce its own anti-monopoly laws has resulted in the dominance of a handful of giant tech companies who get to decide what kind of speech is and isn't allowed -- that is, how the USG's complicity in the creation of monopolies allows for a kind of government censorship that somehow does not violate the First Amendment.

We're often told that "it's not censorship when a private actor tells you to shut up on their own private platform" -- but when the government decides not to create any public spaces (say, by declining to create publicly owned internet infrastructure) and then allows a handful of private companies to dominate the privately owned world of online communications, then those companies' decisions about who may speak and what they may say become a form of government speech regulation -- albeit one at arm's length.

I don't think that the solution to this is regulating the tech platforms so they have better speech rules -- I think it's breaking them up and forcing them to allow interoperability, so that their speech rules no longer dictate what kind of discourse we're allowed to have.

Imagine two different restaurants: one prohibits any discussion of any subject the management deems “political” and the other has no such restriction. It’s easy to see that we’d say that you have more right to freely express yourself in the Anything Goes Bistro than in the No Politics at the Table Diner across the street.

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/GgmEFhxQwbM/podcast-inaction-is-a-form-of.html

1930 saw the quiet conclusion of a remarkable era. The tiny population of St. Kilda, an isolated Scottish archipelago, decided to end their thousand-year tenure as the most remote community in Britain and move to the mainland. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe the remarkable life they'd shared on the island and the reasons they chose to leave.

We'll also track a stork to Sudan and puzzle over the uses of tea trays.

Show notes

Please support us on Patreon! Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/bEOnxeROy88/britains-most-remote-communi.html

When it comes to safes, there's typically not a lot of features beyond extra security. Keypads, fingerprint or retina IDs are all in the service of keeping things under lock and key (even if there's no physical key).

Of course, that's the main concern. But what about those times you might need to open it for a guest or family member and you're not around?

The Motorola Smart Safe solves that problem elegantly, and it certainly doesn't sacrifice security to do it.

This rock-solid safe is perfect for holding passports, money, important documents, pills and more. It's equipped with a water-resistant keypad and an odor-controlled interior and comes with a mounting kit if you need to install it inside a wall or on one.

But what really sets it apart is the wireless connection to your smartphone. With the included app, you'll be able to tell if your safe has been opened or give yourself reminders about what to do with the contents. And most importantly, you'll be able to open it remotely in case of family emergencies while you're away.

The Motorola Smart Safe is now on sale for almost 10% off the original price. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/HfI_Vb970-A/the-motorola-smart-safe-lets-y.html

Dear Boing Boing readers --

Around 11:30 EST on January 10th, An unknown party logged into Boing Boing's CMS using the credentials of a member of the Boing Boing team.

They proceeded to install a widget into our theme that allowed them to redirect users to a malware page hosted at a third party.

Because of the nature of programmatic advertising, we first assumed this was a malicious adscript, and asked initial reporters to report this activity via our Ad Partner's "bad ad" reporting page.

While in this case, the malicious code did not originate from an ad, it *did* allow our ad partner to eventually notify us of the specifics of the attack. Once this was confirmed, we removed the offending code immediately from our servers and our CDN partners.

The BB team then proceeded to change passwords, access tokens, confirm access rights, and perform log analysis of the behavior of the user. As stated in our privacy policy, we only keep 72 hours worth of logs, but this was sufficient to track down the malicious activity and user account in question and react accordingly. We also took steps to modify our CMS to ensure a separate audit log (outside our 72-hour access logs) will be maintained in the future to help us track down administrative actions within our publishing software in the event of future breaches, so we are able to take action and determine the scope of a breach more thoroughly in the future.

From a systems security perspective, this is an excellent cautionary tale of the importance of individual user security. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/B1MvJKsa_ho/boing-boing-was-hacked.html

A water main went haywire in New York around 5am this morning, creating this wet scene in the Upper West Side.

According to CNN:

It caused significant delays on the 1, 2 and 3 subway lines and street closures on Broadway from 72nd Street to 61st Street. Emergency crews are on the scene working to repair the problem, officials said, and the water was shut off around 8 a.m.

It likely will take days to complete work and restore streets, said Vincent Sapienza, Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection.

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/Hp8e0ZbAhXk/a-broken-water-main-in-new-yor.html

Way before Steve Carell was a 40-Year-Old Virgin or a huge star as Michael Scott on The Office, he was a working actor just like everyone else, doing children's theater as well as this Brown's Chicken TV commercial. More surprising than how young he looked at age 27 is how olive and brown this commercial was – colors expected from 1970s television but not so much in 1989. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/1tdNfG9xAFk/watch-steve-carell-in-a-1980s.html

Aestetix writes, "HOPE 2020 [ed: Hackers on Planet Earth, the triennial, astoundingly great hacker con put on by 2600 Magazine] is in a brand new location and will be bigger and better than ever with lots more activities and space - all without leaving New York City! It will be held from July 31st to August 2nd at St. John's University in Queens. Get your tickets now for only $200, while supplies lasts. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/-eKToA4Ohr8/st-johns-u-queens.html

Property of the People (previously) used Freedom of Information Act requests to force the Department of Homeland Security to reveal that it tracks members of the Valve Turners -- a nonviolent environmental group that practices civil disobedience against oil pipelines -- alongside of white nationalist mass-murderers and killers like Dylan Roof (the mass murderer behind the 2015 shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston) and James Fields, who murdered Heather Heyer when he drove his car into an anti-Nazi counterprotest in Charlottesvilla.

The DHS classes "environmental themed ideologies" with "racial ideologies" as drivers of domestic terror attacks, despite the fact that white nationalist violence has resulted in repeated mass murders, while environmental direct action is generally nonviolent and does not harm people.

Sam Jessup, one of the activists named in the document, said the bulletin sheds light on the role law enforcement and intelligence agencies have played in suppressing dissent.

“Equating mass murder by white supremacists with what Michael and I did is totally obscene,” Jessup said in an email. “This whole infrastructure of so-called security has done little more than secure the future of the fossil fuel industry by terrorizing people into silence.”

Jessup, a 34-year-old who had served as a driver and videographer live-streaming the action in North Dakota. Michael Foster, a former family therapist who lives in Seattle, turned the valve.

Revealed: US listed climate activist group as ‘extremists’ alongside mass killers [Adam Federman/The Guardian]

(Thanks, Ryan!) Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/kSsPQv6bA_Y/category-errors.html

Prior to being acquired by Charter, the cable company Spectrum aggressively marketed home security systems to its customers, inducing them to spend hundreds of dollars on proprietary cameras and other equipment that integrated with their cable networks and offered them remote monitoring and other services.

Now, with only a few months' notice, Charter has announced that it will no longer support the cameras, touchscreens and other equipment its customers purchase. They will largely cease to operate (though some vestigial functionality will remain). Customers are not being offered refunds or credits on the equipment they purchased from the company.

Though Charter hasn't marketed the service since shortly after the 2016 merger, customers were never warned that the service would be discontinued and their equipment rendered useless.

Charter typically operates as a monopoly provider of cable and internet service. It has received tremendous regulatory gifts, courtesy of the Trump administration, including a fraudulent repeal of Net Neutrality and massive tax cuts; it has responded by slashing billions from its infrastructure budget, raising prices, and nickle-and-diming customers who cancel their service. The company has also received record fines for defrauding New Yorkers.

Charter told Gizmodo it plans to offer customers discounts on Ring and Nest surveillance equipment, should they wish to spend hundreds of dollars extra to replace the equipment that Charter has bricked.

Charter/Spectrum is the monopoly provider of internet service in Burbank, where I live. The service is terrible, subject to frequent outages and slowdowns, and the customer service is even worse. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/OY4algvT-HQ/bricked-and-dimed.html

Fifty one years ago today, the first incarnation of the prog rock band, King Crimson, gathered in a cramped basement space below the Fulham Palace Cafe in London. One of the instruments the band would use that would come to distinguish their early sound was that strange, iconic 60s instrument, the Mellotron.

Keyboardist Ian McDonald was taken by the sound of this instrument as it was employed by the Moody Blues (and on The Beatles' Strawberry Fields) and thought it would work well with the type of lush and orchestral sound the band was looking to create. Later in the year, in the summer of 1969, the instrument would again appear on David Bowie's Space Oddity (played by future Yes man, Rick Wakeman).

Of all of the strange instruments that've worked the edges of popular music (the Theremin also comes to mind), the Mellotron is probably the oddest. Basically an upright organ cabinet filled the tape heads and recorded tape strips that you trigger through the keyboard, the Mellotron is like some crazy one-off contraption that caught on and actually got manufactured.

In this video, Allison Stout, of Bell Tone Synth Works, a synthesizer repair shop in Philadelphia, PA, takes us under the hood of a Mellotron MK1 and how it works. One can only imagine how finicky and prone to breakage touring versions of these things must have been.

And here's one of King Crimson's Mellotrons in action during a performance in 1974 at the ORTFTV Studios in Paris. Read the rest

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The International Olympic Committee -- long a swirling cesspool of corruption, censorship, and reputation-laundering for repressive regimes -- has attained a new low, issuing guidance to athletes competing at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics that no political protests will be tolerated, specifically banning kneeling or raising fists.

Protests by Olympians -- particularly Black Americans -- have made political history, from John Carlos and Tommie Smith's raised fists at the 1968 Mexico City Games (with Peter Norman standing in solidarity) to Jesse Owens' thwarting of Hitler's propaganda dreams for the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Last year, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee censured and suspended Race Imboden and Gwen Berry for protesting racial injustice during the Pan Am games, warning that any athletes that followed in their footsteps in the future would face worse punishments.

“So the IOC is doubling down on the disgraceful treatment of athletes in 1968?” askedSherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Ifill was referring to the iconic moment at the Mexico City Olympics when black Americans Tommie Smith and John Carlos, as they were awarded their gold and bronze medals, respectively, wore black gloves, took off their shoes, and held their fists high to protest poverty and racism. The IOC responded by expelling Smith and Carlos. The IOC announced the guidelines for Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter Thursday. Among the specific actions (pdf) now banned are:

* Displaying any political messaging, including signs or armbands

* Gestures of a political nature, like a hand gesture or kneeling

* Refusal to follow the Ceremonies protocol.

‘Cowardice’: Olympics Committee Slammed for New Guidelines Barring Athletes From Kneeling, Raising Fists [Jerri-Lynn Scofield/Naked Capitalism] Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/eSvI1_Ytn1U/rule-50.html

The Uganda Revenue Authority recently nabbed a smuggler attempting to bring banned cosmetics into the country from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The cosmetics were stuffed inside footie pajamas to resemble a child. The cosmetics are illegal because they apparently contain hydroquinone and mercury. Police caught the smuggler on a bus at the Mpondwe border crossing.

(UPI)

Smugglers will do anything. This is a concealment of contraband cosmetics containing hydroquinone & mercury from DRC. The dummy baby with a human mum aboard a bus with dangerous cosmetics intercepted at Mpondwe Kasese border. Prosecution of offender next#TeamNoSleep @URAuganda pic.twitter.com/9FMwWjtKSh

 Ian Rumanyika (@irumanyika) January 8, 2020

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/IUixpmgarJc/smuggler-busted-carrying-fake.html

Tashonna Ward (25) was a day care teacher from Milwaukee. She went to the emergency room at Froedtert Hospital with chest pains and tightness of breath, reports USA Today. More than two hours later no one at the hospital had helped her so she left to seek help somewhere else. But she soon collapsed and died.

From USA Today:

Ward's family says she was kept in the waiting room and was not under any monitoring when she decided to leave.

A spokesperson for Froedtert Hospital provided a statement: "The family is in our thoughts and has our deepest sympathy. We cannot comment further at this time." Officials did not answer questions from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the death or general emergency department procedures.

Image: Fort Belvoir Community Hospital Emergency Room (U.S. Army photo by Reese Brown)

[via Fark] Read the rest

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