In the digital age, it can seem as though the life of the physical notebook or diary has come and gone. But most serious writers will tell you that there’s a special connection that comes from putting pen to paper, and these Leather Notebooks & Journals will help you bring that magic back.

Relive the golden era of writing down your thoughts and ambitions using good old-fashioned pen and paper with these elegant, handmade notebooks and journals.

With unique designs and hand-stitched embossed leather patches, these notebooks are great gifts for lovers of the written word.

They come in a variety of styles, feature durable hardcover backings, and come loaded with 50 sheets of handmade, tree-free cotton paper that can be used to record anything your creative mind can dream up.

They’re also light and compact enough to take with you without weighing you down.

Embrace your inner storyteller with these Leather Notebooks & Journals, starting at just $35.10. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/498DdXgiB4I/relive-the-golden-age-of-writi.html

The Psychedelic Furs have just announced a spring release for their eight studio album entitled "Made of Rain." It's been a 29 year wait. The first single off of the record, "Don't Believe," has been posted to YouTube.

The album is now available for pre-order. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/01/31/psychedelic-furs-announce-firs.html

The Psychedelic Furs have just announced a spring release for their eight studio album entitled "Made of Rain." It's been a 29 year wait. The first single off of the record, "Don't Believe," has been posted to YouTube.

The album is now available for pre-order. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/ZOBsUrTLSGI/psychedelic-furs-announce-firs.html

In 2019, a 3-year-old Nubian goat named Lincoln was officially inaugurated as the first mayor of Fair Haven, Vermont. And then she pooped. As Town Manager Joe Gunter explained at the time, "Originally we did it as a fundraiser to replace the playground behind the school, but it really turned into a small civic lesson for the children. 'Come out and vote. Get involved in the town.'"

But that election only guaranteed a one-year term, and Lincoln only narrowly defeated Sammy, a K-9 cop. And now Sammy's taking another shot at the top seat in town. If elected, Sammy has promised to release her tax returns and recuse herself from all police business that might come before the town to avoid any conflicts of interest, according to her representative, Police Chief Bill Humphries. Humphries has also tried to soothe the concerns of Fair Haven's feline population, which has a long history of hostile relations with canine police officers.

In response to Sammy's campaign, Lincoln has released a budget proposal that includes $0 spending on grain, $0 spending on hay, and a promise that there will be no tax increases to fund the playground that formed the foundation of her historic run for the town's inaugural mayorship.

Fair Haven will hold the contentious election at their Town Meeting on March 3, 2020. And while I don't want to be partisan, I think it's only fair to point out that one candidate is literally a cop, and the other one is literally the GOAT, so I think we all know who deserves to be in charge. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/01/31/a-police-dog-is-running-agains.html

In 2019, a 3-year-old Nubian goat named Lincoln was officially inaugurated as the first mayor of Fair Haven, Vermont. And then she pooped. As Town Manager Joe Gunter explained at the time, "Originally we did it as a fundraiser to replace the playground behind the school, but it really turned into a small civic lesson for the children. 'Come out and vote. Get involved in the town.'"

But that election only guaranteed a one-year term, and Lincoln only narrowly defeated Sammy, a K-9 cop. And now Sammy's taking another shot at the top seat in town. If elected, Sammy has promised to release her tax returns and recuse herself from all police business that might come before the town to avoid any conflicts of interest, according to her representative, Police Chief Bill Humphries. Humphries has also tried to soothe the concerns of Fair Haven's feline population, which has a long history of hostile relations with canine police officers.

In response to Sammy's campaign, Lincoln has released a budget proposal that includes $0 spending on grain, $0 spending on hay, and a promise that there will be no tax increases to fund the playground that formed the foundation of her historic run for the town's inaugural mayorship.

Fair Haven will hold the contentious election at their Town Meeting on March 3, 2020. And while I don't want to be partisan, I think it's only fair to point out that one candidate is literally a cop, and the other one is literally the GOAT, so I think we all know who deserves to be in charge. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/cVdBHBJQN7Y/a-police-dog-is-running-agains.html

John Wilcock's foray into biography, documenting many of the Factory personas -- in what is largely considered the first critical assessment of Andy Warhol and his entourage -- From John Wilcock, New York Years, by Ethan Persoff and Scott Marshall. (See all Boing Boing installments)

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/ixvExxBTBNM/john-wilcock-writing-the-au.html

US to halt issuance of visas that can lead to permanent residency for nationals of Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar and Nigeria

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/J_AxlY93S9o/trump-expands-racist-travel-ba.html

Animals, including a bee, snake, eagle, and fish, all take a knee in PETA's animated Colin Kapernick-inspired ad created for the Super Bowl airwaves. The controversial commercial, which has voices gently humming the "Star Spangled Banner," calls for an end to "speciesism." But, the animal rights organization is reporting that it was blocked by the NFL and won't be showing on TV this Sunday, or ever.

The National Football League (NFL) apparently found our new Colin Kaepernick–inspired ad—with its message of inclusion and respect—too daring and pressured FOX to snub our commercial.

In 2016, Kaepernick put a national spotlight on the racial inequality that plagues the U.S.—and we applaud him for doing so with the simple yet powerful and peaceful act of taking a knee.

PETA worked with a talented group of advertisers and artists who came up with the idea for our beautiful ad. Positively acknowledged by Kaepernick himself, this project pays homage to all movements that remind us to open our hearts and minds and reject all forms of injustice, including sexism, ableism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and speciesism.

THIS is the PETA #SuperBowl ad the @NFL apparently didn’t want you to see and pressured @FOXSports to snub.

It envisions a world where respect is the right of every being and pays homage to Kaepernick and movements rejecting injustice. https://t.co/kD1osnKhuX #EndSpeciesism pic.twitter.com/clXzU79aZV

 PETA (@peta) January 31, 2020

screengrab via PETA/YouTube Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/9HkQsR-yTMY/peta-claims-patriotic-super-bo.html

Footage from George Lucas’ abandoned 2010 Star Wars TV series, "Star Wars: Underworld," has surfaced on YouTube.

Released test footage from 2010 of the cancelled Star Wars TV show "Underworld," which was to take place in the lower levels of Coruscant. The series was set after the events of Order 66. The video game "1313" was to be a tie-in of this series. Due to the immense cost of shooting the series, as well as the selling of Lucasfilm to Disney, "Underworld" was delayed and eventually cancelled.

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/nyTQGEsrhjc/test-footage-emerges-of-star.html

Nothing is worse than firing off an important email only to realize later on that it was riddled with typos and plagued with poor sentences. This WhiteSmoke Chrome Extension ensures that you’ll never have to endure such post-send woes ever again, and a 5-year subscription is available for over 90% off its usual price right now.

Whether you’re a professional writer or simply want to tighten up your grammar and spelling, this simple browser extension has your back.

WhiteSmoke uses a series of advanced algorithms in order to scan your writing for a wide variety of errors ranging from grammar and spelling mistakes to punctuation slips and overall sentence structure, and it includes a 50-language translator to boot.

Your subscription even grants you unlimited access to a huge database that you can use to check your work for inadvertent plagiarism.

Take your writing to the next level with a 5-year subscription to the WhiteSmoke Chrome Extension for just $39.99—over 90% off its usual price today. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/HFBY11mJ1dQ/fine-tune-your-spelling-and-gr.html

Douglas Rushkoff is one my oldest and dearest friends. He's also one of the sharpest media theorists and cultural critics I know. It's always a thrill to have a conversation with him because he makes me question my opinions and I alway end up with a changed brain. So it was great fun to have him on the Cool Tool podcast.

Douglas is named one of the "world's ten most influential intellectuals by MIT. He's an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. His twenty books include the just-published Team Human, based on his podcast, as well as the bestsellers Present Shock, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus, Program or Be Programmed, Life Inc., and Media Virus. He also made the PBS FRONTLINE documentaries, Generation Like, The Persuaders, and The Merchants of Cool. He's a professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics at Queens College, a columnist for Medium, and his novels and comics, Ecstasy Club, A.D.D., and Aleister & Adolf are all being developed for the screen. You can find him on Twitter @rushkoff and Youtube.

Subscribe to the Cool Tools Show on iTunes | RSS | Transcript | See all the Cool Tools Show posts on a single page

Show notes:

Written language Written language is definitely a tool. It's a medium. It's an environment. There's all these ways to think about it, but I love thinking about words as a tool. Because particularly, when I'm mad about something or I feel like there's something that people don't get, once I can put words around it, once I can articulate what's happening, what people are feeling, or the dysfunction, or the paradox, I feel like it empowers me and so many other people to then go do something about it. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/RRhpxo6pGqg/interview-with-douglas-rushkof.html

IEEE Spectrum's David Schneider participates in Quaker meetings where there are many elderly people who, even though they are wearing hearing aids, have a hard time catching comments from others around the room. One common solution to this problem is to provide headphones with FM receivers to pick up the sounds of the microphones. That approach isn't ideal, Schneider writes, because "a little awkward, in part because it makes you stand out. So Schneider and a friend bought a 1,000 feet (304 meters) roll of two-conductor, 20-gauge wire $125 and homebrewed an audio frequency induction loop that transmits the sound so it can picked up directly by hearing aids that contain a telecoil (T-coil). From IEEE Spectrum:

These hearing aids can be switched to a mode whereby they pick up audio-frequency signals electronically instead of using their built-in microphones. This system for passing the signal wirelessly doesn’t involve radio transmissions—it just uses magnetic induction. Suitable audio induction loops for energizing T-coils are found in all sorts of places, including museums and theaters; even some taxicabs are equipped with them...(S

I constructed an induction coil from a six-turn square loop of magnet wire that was about a half meter on a side (I taped the wire to a flattened cardboard box), using wire of the right diameter to make the loop resistance 8 ohms. I then attached it to the speaker terminals of an ordinary stereo receiver, one that was collecting dust in the back of my garage....

(Encouraged by initial tests and further refinements of the , another friend and I recently placed a similar wire loop in the attic of the building—which was a lot harder than laying it on the floor because we had to snake the wire around an obstacle course of roof trusses and HVAC ducting.

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/pLU3UMc8BaA/diy-method-for-transmitting-au.html

Watch this immediately.@CBSThisMorning’s @tonydokoupil using an epic pie analogy to show how the plutes own everything. pic.twitter.com/p4AShY04rA

 Anand Giridharadas (@AnandWrites) January 31, 2020

I knew the ultra rich own almost all the wealth, but this video really drives the point home in a powerful way. I was shocked all over again. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/WsuwiE2z7bM/watch-this-shocking-pumpkin-pi.html

This suture practice kit, which lets you stitch rubber wounds, comes with training videos created by a board-certified surgeon. What a fun gift idea. You can buy them on Amazon.

This suture kit that allows you to practice stitches: from r/Damnthatsinteresting

Image: Reddit video screenshot Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/gY0xI6jCXTs/this-suture-practice-kit-would.html

As predicted, via the Trump White House — the Pentagon is relaxing its policy on the use of landmines by U.S, forces, so that landmines can be used on the Korean peninsula.

A Friday afternoon statement by the Trump Press Secretary formally announced that Trump has canceled the Obama Administration’s policy to ban United States military forces from using anti-personnel landmines outside of the Korean Peninsula.

Said Stephanie Grisham to reporters: "The President is unwilling to accept this risk to our troops."

PREVIOUSLY ON BOING BOING: Landmines are actually good, says Defense Sec as Trump prepares to undo Obama-era landmine ban

President Trump formally cancels Obama-era restrictions on use of landmines, WH announces pic.twitter.com/Se1MBNwtcP

 Jordan Fabian (@Jordanfabian) January 31, 2020

Just in from the White House - Pentagon is relaxing its policy on use of landmines so that they can be used outside of South Korea/DMZ

 Josh Lederman (@JoshNBCNews) January 31, 2020

Trump has canceled the Obama Administration’s policy to prohibit United States military forces from employing anti-personnel landmines outside of the Korean Peninsula. pic.twitter.com/ExZlHr19Jl

 Jason Leopold (@JasonLeopold) January 31, 2020

From Afghanistan & Angola to Cambodia & Colombia, anti-personnel landmines have devasted soldiers & civilians alike.

For nearly 3 decades the US has limited their use, production & export — and for the past decade, used them only on the Korean Peninsula. https://t.co/Ey8KbUMaGe

 Rep. Jim McGovern (@RepMcGovern) January 31, 2020

The U.S. will now allow "advanced, non-persistent landmines specifically designed to reduce unintended harm to civilians and partner forces" to allow the military more "flexibility and capability."

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/46v3AnoaklI/trump-administration-ends-obam.html

What unreleased FSD Autopilot sees. Straight from Tesla Autopilot recruiting website. pic.twitter.com/EaI5DzKbYs

 The Tesla Show (@TheTeslaShow) January 31, 2020

From The Tesla Show Twitter feed: "What unreleased FSD Autopilot sees. Straight from Tesla Autopilot recruiting website."

From the job description:

Apply cutting-edge research to train deep neural networks on problems ranging from perception to control. Our per-camera networks analyze raw images to perform semantic segmentation, object detection and monocular depth estimation. Our birds-eye-view networks take video from all cameras to output the road layout, static infrastructure and 3D objects directly in the top-down view. Our networks learn from the most complicated and diverse scenarios in the world, iteratively sourced from our fleet of nearly 1M vehicles in real time. A full build of Autopilot neural networks involves 48 networks that take 70,000 GPU hours to train ?. Together, they output 1,000 distinct tensors (predictions) at each timestep.

Image: Twitter screengrab Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/aYLx3LlGOik/heres-what-full-self-driving.html

Some activists must have been heard, California's Attorney General has delayed the transaction wherein a private equity firm is buying the .ORG tld, seeking more information.

Mashable:

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra sent a letter to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) demanding more information about the private equity takeover of the .org domain registry. The attorney general is seeking answers to 35 questions concerning the sale as well as documents sent between ICANN, private equity firm Ethos Capital, and Public Interest Registry (PIR), which manages the .org domain.

Ethos Capital disclosed last year that it was acquiring PIR from its non-profit parent organization, the Internet Society, for $1.135 billion.

ICANN, the non-profit organization that oversees domain names, disclosed the letter on its website along with its own correspondence with PIR, informing it of the development. Previously, ICANN had until Feb. 17 to approve or deny the sale. According to ICANN, as a result of the California AG’s letter, it’s seeking to delay this deadline until April 20.

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/_FEyKnm8SeU/private-equity-take-over-of-o.html

• CDC issues federal quarantine orders for 195 Americans evacuated from China, who are being housed at March Air Reserve Base

• First CDC quarantine in 50 years. Last federal quarantine was issued in the 1960s for smallpox.

• The repatriated individuals will remain quarantined for 14 days, starting from when the flight left China.

FRIDAY, 1PM EASTERN, JAN 31 2020: The United States Centers for Disease Control, under the authority of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, says 195 American citizens are quarantined at a military base after having been evacuated from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of a growing global coronavirus outbreak.

The 195 quarantined persons arrived earlier this week at March Air Reserve Base in California.

Here is the CDC's tweet:

The CDC, under statutory authority of the Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, has issued federal quarantine orders to all 195 United States citizens who repatriated to the U.S. on January 29, 2020. The quarantine will last 14 days from when the plane left Wuhan, China.

 CDC (@CDCgov) January 31, 2020

From the Washington Post:

BREAKING: The quarantine authority, rarely used in the United States, would restrict the travelers’ movements for 14 days from when they left Wuhan, China, because officials say they’re still uncertain about how readily the virus spreads.

All American citizens returning to the United States from Wuhan, China, will be quarantined, according to the Friday announcement.

Last time the CDC imposed a quarantine order was in the 1960s, for a smallpox evaluation, the CDC official said on a Friday call with reporters. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/GGaZGAjX_aM/u-s-quarantines-195-evacuees.html

It's important to learn as much as you can about trick spoons. Fortunately, here's a brand new article by Philip Treece, "Stressful and Startling Sugar Spoons," that will get you up to speed on the basics.

If you require more information, you can sign up for "Stressful and Startling Sugar Spoons" mailing list. I suggest subscribing to the digest version to avoid clogging your inbox, as it is quite active. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/A1Hb1NsTYUo/the-history-of-bending-spoon-t.html

u/TikiTC asked on r/askreddit: "What’s a little-known but obvious fact that will immediately make all of us feel stupid?" Many of the 20,000+ replies are funny, useful, and fascinating. Here are a few:

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Photo by Andre Mouton on Unsplash Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/rZl5JcLWO-A/an-intriguing-list-of-little.html