On Legs McNeil's Please Kill Me, Michael Shelly interviews the legendary bass player, Carol Kaye. Unless you're a hardcore music nerd, you may not know who Carol Kaye is. You need to fix that.

Carol Kaye is the bassist on thousands of 20th century recordings, from The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds to Nancy Sinatra's These Boots are Made for Walkin', to Glen Campbell's Wichita Lineman. Oh, and she also played on the Mothers of Invention's Freak Out! and the Batman theme song. The list goes on and on and on.

Get this woman into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, stat!

PKM: When producers, like Brian Wilson with “Good Vibrations,” would do a single song in parts over many sessions was that frustrating or fun for you?

Carol Kaye: You know Brian was a nice young kid. We worked for a lot of those young guys back then and Brian had something special about him, and he grew with every date. You saw his talent getting better and better and better. He’d only do one song for a three-hour date and that does get boring after a while, but he would come in and he’d give you this handwritten, kind of funny sheet music with stems on the wrong side of the notes and sharps and flats everywhere. He would sit down at the piano and play the song, to kind of give us a feel for it, and then he’d go in the booth and take charge from there.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/13/an-interview-with-legendary-ba.html

Let the co-creator of Prime Climb explain how to play this fast-moving game of quickly changing fortunes. It's on sale today on Amazon. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/13/prime-climb-is-a-fun-tabletop.html

A federal civil rights lawsuit filed this week claims that severely intellectually and physically disabled patients at a state-operated home in Iowa were used as “guinea pigs” in sexual arousal research experiments.

A 38-page complaint was filed on Monday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa.

In it, former University of Kansas assistant professor and child psychologist, 63-year-old Jerry Rea, is charged with experimenting on the “highly vulnerable” patients at the Glenwood Resource Center.

The Des Moines Register reported that Jerry Rea's affiliation with the University of Kansas ended when Rea moved to Iowa. Rea was fired from Glenwood when the feds started looking into abuse allegations last December.

“The deeply disturbing allegations come after the same Iowa facility found itself in federal law enforcement crosshairs,” reports Olivia Messer at The Daily Beast:

The lawsuit claims that Rea, along with the facility’s other top administrators, used taxpayer money to purchase tools under the auspices of research, including silk sheets, boxer shorts, sexual lubricants, a computer, a software program, and pornographic images. The facility's administrators did not “obtain informed consent” from the patients’ guardians prior to beginning research and later “scramble[d]” to “get consent on behalf of patients that had been experimented on after receiving notice of a new Department of Justice investigation” in 2019, the suit claims.

The plans for Rea’s research allegedly included the use of a portable GPS device for measuring sexual arousal, and the plaintiffs note he and a partner received a federal patent in 1998 for a device designed to detect and monitor the sexual arousal of an individual while they are exposed to “real-life sexual stimuli.”

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/13/disabled-patients-in-iowa-stat.html

Researchers at MIT say the voting app Voatz, which is being used by at least 4 states in the 2020 elections, has major security flaws that could allow an attacker to intercept and alter votes, while making voters think their votes have been cast correctly, or trick the votes server into accepting connections from an attacker.

Here's the MIT research paper on Voatz.

Excerpt from Kim Zetter's reporting for VICE:

An attacker would also be able to alter the user’s vote and trick the user into believing their vote was transmitted accurately, researchers from the Massachusetts Technology Institute write in a paper released Thursday.

The app, called Voatz, also has problems with how it handles authentication between the voter’s mobile phone and the backend server, allowing an attacker to impersonate a user’s phone. Even more surprising, although the makers of Voatz have touted its use of blockchain technology to secure the transmission and storage of votes, the researchers found that the blockchain isn’t actually used in the way Voatz claims it is, thereby supplying no additional security to the system.

Read the full report at VICE NEWS: 'Sloppy' Mobile Voting App Used in Four States Has 'Elementary' Security Flaws [Kim Zetter Feb 13 2020]

Worth noting that in addition to today's MIT research warning of significant vulns in Voatz, we also have a DHS report that found no evidence of malicious activity but plenty of recs for improved security. Voatz hadn't previously made any reports public.https://t.co/4WEqslXXxp

 Kevin Collier (@kevincollier) February 13, 2020

Calling the app 'Voatz' didn't really inspire confidence to start with.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/13/researchers-say-voting-app-has.html

Aww, the sycophant is sick of it.

Today, impeached president Donald Trump's manifestly corrupt personal attorney general Bill Barr said in an interview with ABC News, “The president has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case,” but that Trump should stop tweeting about the Justice Department because the president's tweets “make it impossible for me to do my job.”

Donald Trump has been completely unhinged on Twitter lately, making obviously inappropriate and probably unlawful comments about Roger Stone's prison sentencing that indicate not only his likely involvement in obstruction of justice, but which also implicate Barr -- not something Barr wants, I'd imagine.

From the transcript:

"Well, I have a problem with some of, some of the tweets. As I said at my confirmation hearing, I think the essential role of the attorney general is to keep law enforcement, the criminal process sacrosanct to make sure there is no political interference in it."

“To have public statements and tweets made about the department, about people in the department, our men and women here, about cases pending in the department, and about judges when we have cases make it impossible for me to do my job.”

Mean tweets.

Hey, Bill?

Then, resign.

EXCLUSIVE: Attorney General Bill Barr tells @ABC News “the president has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case”—but should stop tweeting about the Justice Dept. because his tweets “make it impossible for me to do my job.” https://t.co/18O3rlUGIn

 ABC News (@ABC) February 13, 2020

EXCLUSIVE: Attorney Gen.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/13/ag-barr-to-abc-mean-tweets.html

The IRS removed language from their Web site that listed Fortnite V-Bucks and Roblox Robux as examples of convertible virtual currencies, like Bitcoin. They were included on a page about virtual currencies as they relate to a new question on IRS Form 1040 that asks whether the taxpayer, sold, exchanged, or acquired financial interest in any virtual currency. From Bloomberg:

The language was removed hours after Bloomberg Tax asked if gamers who purchased or earned in-game currencies would have to disclose that on their 2019 tax returns.

IRS Chief Counsel Michael Desmond indicated that the inclusion of the video game currencies was a mistake, though he offered no insight on how they ended up alongside Bitcoin on the list of examples.

“It was corrected and that was done quickly—as soon as it was brought to our attention,” Desmond told reporters Thursday at a Tax Council Policy Institute conference in Washington...

Desmond demurred when asked to confirm that gamers wouldn’t need to mark ‘yes’ to the new 1040 question, but said addressing gaming currencies in the virtual currency context isn’t a major focus for the agency right now.

image: Epic Games Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/13/irs-says-including-fortnite-v.html

Scientists say 20.75o C logged at Seymour Island is ‘incredible and abnormal’

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/13/antarctica-reaches-20o-c-68o.html

A court in Moscow today issued fines of 4 million rubles each against Twitter and Facebook for the social media companies' refusal to store data about Russian citizens inside Russia.

The fines of nearly $63,000 are, as the saying goes, barely a rounding error for either of those massive internet companies. But they're the largest fines Russia has levied against any tech company since president Vladimir Putin began tightening his grip on the internet starting around 2012, with a bunch of new laws that give his government greater powers to surveil citizens online.

From the Associated Press:

One provision required tech companies to keep servers in Russia for storing personal information they gather from Russian citizens. Russia’s internet regulator, Roskomnadzor, has tried unsuccessfully for several years to force large companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google to move Russian user data to Russia.

Commenting on Thursday’s court rulings, Roskomnadzor said Twitter and Facebook would be fined 18 million rubles ($283,000) each if they don’t comply this year.

Last year, Twitter and Facebook were fined the equivalent of $47 each for violating the same personal data regulation. The punishment had no effect on the two companies, so in December Russian authorities increased the fines.

More at AP:Twitter, Facebook fined for not moving user data to Russia Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/13/moscow-twitter-and-facebook-f.html

With the rise of the gig economy, it's easier than ever to either make extra money or work on something you're passionate about. If one of your passions happens to be photos—taking or editing them—you've got lots of options for jumping in, including starting your own business. Seriously. Even with no prior experience, you can follow your creative dreams with this 10-course Side Photography Business Bundle.

Most Americans have reported getting into the side hustle game, earning over $8000 a year on average. There's no better moment to dive in, especially since it's so easy to learn in your spare time with this 300-lesson course bundle that covers everything from how to start a business to shooting and editing photos to marketing yourself and more.

Leverage the information in this bundle, presented by professionals who are teachers, photo retouchers and editors, and Photoshop masters, and you'll learn essential skills for any budding photographer including camera basics like focus, white balance, flash, creative filters, and burst mode, plus deep dives for Canon and Nikon models.

Know your way around an f-stop already? You'll benefit from courses that cover advanced editing techniques in Lightroom and Photoshop, including insights on how to make your retouching more creative.

For anyone, the course on going pro with your own business is essential. It includes info on registration, licenses, taxes, creating a website, marketing, and more. As a really cool bonus, you'll learn about an app for shooting long exposure photos with an iPhone, and there's a whole course on travel photography, from prep to final editing, using any camera: DSLR, mirrorless, smartphone, or point-and-shoot. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/13/start-your-own-photography-sid.html

The Department of Justice on Thursday announced a 16-count superseding indictment against the Chinese technology company Huawei and its CFO Meng Wanzhou. Among the charges: racketeering and conspiracy to steal intellectual property.

Here is the full text of the DoJ announcement:

Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, February 13, 2020 Chinese Telecommunications Conglomerate Huawei and Subsidiaries Charged in Racketeering Conspiracy and Conspiracy to Steal Trade Secrets Charges also Reveal Huawei’s Business in North Korea and Assistance to the Government of Iran in Performing Domestic Surveillance

A superseding indictment was returned yesterday in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, charging Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. (Huawei), the world’s largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer, and two U.S. subsidiaries with conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).

Brian A. Benczkowski, Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; John C. Demers, Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s National Security Division; Richard P. Donoghue, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York and Christopher A. Wray, Director, FBI, announced the charges.

The 16-count superseding indictment also adds a charge of conspiracy to steal trade secrets stemming from the China-based company’s alleged long-running practice of using fraud and deception to misappropriate sophisticated technology from U.S. counterparts.

The indicted defendants include Huawei and four official and unofficial subsidiaries — Huawei Device Co. Ltd. (Huawei Device), Huawei Device USA Inc. (Huawei USA), Futurewei Technologies Inc. (Futurewei) and Skycom Tech Co. Ltd. (Skycom) — as well as Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Wanzhou Meng (Meng).

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/13/doj-charges-huawei-and-cfo-men.html

The fine folks at Boston Dynamics, busy building our future robotic overlords, have loaned Adam Savage a Spot robot for the Tested team to play with.

For his first project, Adam built a gorgeous steampunk/Victorian rickshaw for Spot to pull. The results are glorious.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/13/adam-savage-builds-a-steampunk.html

NBC5 Dallas/Fort Worth reporter Katy Blakey posted impressive video from a road in Southlake, Texas where thieves picked a Chevrolet Silverado clean, leaving not much more than the shell of the cab behind. There's been a rash of Silverado thefts in the area, possibly because the OnStar tracking systems are easily disabled, according to police. From NBC-DFW:

“Within 3 minutes [thieves] were able to pop the lock, pop the hood, change the computer, disable the OnStar and steal my truck,” (said Silverado theft victim Jarrod Hamlin, who reviewed surveillance footage of the crime.)

He tried to log on to his MyChevy app to use OnStar to track the vehicle, but it showed a failed connection and he realized OnStar had been disabled.

So he called police, filed a report, then turned to social media and started hearing similar stories from other Silverado owners in the area.

“They all said the same thing: no glass was broken, their keys weren’t used and the OnStar was disabled so fast that a lot of these people said OnStar’s last known location was in front of my house,” Hamlin said.

(via Geekologie) Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/13/impressive-video-of-truck-pick.html

WTF is even going on anymore.

Today, impeached president Donald John Trump did another bad thing right out in the open.

And I'm not even talking about the dumb 'The Godfather' joke.

On Twitter, he said New York “must stop all of its unnecessary lawsuits & harrassment” if state residents want the ability to apply for 'Global Entry' status with the Department of Homeland Security. The program, which costs $100 to apply for, enters you in a federal database and allows you to go through TSA airport screenings quickly and with a little shred of your dignity sort of intact.

This quid-pro-quo, this-for-that tweet is super wrong and seems against the law? But nothing matters.

Here's how the former director of the Office of Government Ethics responded.

Holy cow! He appears to be engaging in another quid pro quo right before our eyes. I don't know what to say but HOLY COW! NY must drop its lawsuits against him if New Yorkers want Global Entry status? HOLY COW!!! HOLY COW!!! https://t.co/4NPUgc9LNt

 Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) February 13, 2020

Again, here is what President Trump is demanding in the screenshotted tweet above: the governor and law enforcement entities of New York, a state which was his residence until very recently, must stop investigating Trump family crimes if New York residents want to receive federal services.

This is fine.

Also -- Trump appears to believe that Cuomo, the governor, is responsible for filing these lawsuits against Trump.

He's not.

The state attorney general is, you big dummy. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/13/trump-to-ny-stop-lawsuits.html

A U.S. judge on Thursday ordered the Pentagon to temporarily halt work on the cloud computing 'JEDI' contract, in what represents a major win for Amazon.com and Jeff Bezos.

In granting Amazon.com’s request for a preliminary injunction, the court has effectively paused the U.S. Department of Defense and Microsoft's up-to-$10 billion cloud computing deal.

Amazon.com claimed they were unfairly discriminated against in the federal contract granting process by the administration of Donald Trump.

Judge Patricia E. Campbell-Smith made public her order but did release a sealed opinion accompanying the decision. She also ordered Amazon to post $42 million in the event that the injunction was issued wrongfully.

Earlier this week, Amazon’s Amazon Web Services unit said it was seeking to depose President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Mark Esper in its lawsuit over whether the president was trying “to screw Amazon” over the contract.

NEW: A federal judge has temporarily blocked Microsoft from starting work on the Pentagon’s multibillion-dollar JEDI cloud contract until Amazon’s contracting protest can be resolved. pic.twitter.com/NzfXzMIbR2

 Brian Fung (@b_fung) February 13, 2020

Court orders Pentagon to halt work on Microsoft’s JEDI cloud contract after Amazon protestsvia @Post_AG https://t.co/DmSRDUVlpb

 Washington Post PR (@WashPostPR) February 13, 2020

A judge has approved Amazon’s request to temporarily halt Microsoft’s work on the $10 billion JEDI contract. https://t.co/62BdZfZOZJ pic.twitter.com/xzGIxa1ViU

 CNBC (@CNBC) February 13, 2020

Judge grants preliminary injunction barring @DeptofDefense from proceeding with #JEDI contract awarded to @Microsoft over @amazon.

 Steve Herman (@W7VOA) February 13, 2020

Judge grants preliminary injunction barring Pentagon from proceeding with JEDI contract awarded to Microsoft; orders Amazon to put up $42 million in event that the injunction was wrongfully issued pic.twitter.com/W9mb6oqCGG

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/13/amazon-and-bezos-victorious-c.html

Like sands through an hourglass are the days of Royal lives, as this week’s tabloids continue the gripping saga of the bold and the beautiful behind palace doors.

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/13/prince-harry-begs-forgiveness.html

White House plans to divert $3.8 billion from DoD to build Trump's long-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, for which he lied that Mexico would pay

“Trump is preparing to divert $3.8 Billion in total from programs across the Department of Defense,” tweeted Foreign Policy reporter Lara Seligman today, “including a controversial war account used to fund emergency requirements, as well as the procurement of ships, aircraft and Army vehicles, to build the wall.”

An excerpt from her scoop for FP:

For the second year in a row, Trump will raid the Department of Defense’s coffers for money for the U.S.-Mexico border wall, dipping into funds earmarked for counterdrug activities and military construction. But this year, a significant chunk of those dollars will be funneled from a controversial war, according to a Feb. 13 reprogramming action signed by acting Pentagon comptroller Elaine McCusker obtained by Foreign Policy.

The account, the Overseas Contingency Operations fund, was established after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 to fund emergency requirements. It has been criticized as a “slush fund” used to circumvent mandatory spending limits set by Congress.

As it did last year, the White House is planning to transfer funds from elsewhere in the Pentagon’s budget into the counterdrug account. From there, the White House has argued it can legally transfer that money to build additional miles of the wall under U.S. Code Section 284 (b).

In total, the department plans to divert $1.6 billion from the Overseas Contingency Operations account to the counterdrug account, according to the reprogramming.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/13/trump-to-divert-3-8b-from-def.html

Three female mountain gorillas -- one pregnant -- and one male infant were killed by lightning in Uganda's Mgahinga National Park. With just 1,000 or so left in the world, their deaths is a "big loss for the species," according to the Greater Virunga Transboundary Collaboration that works to conserve wildlife in the region. From the BBC News:

The four that died were part of a 17-member group, which has been called the Hirwa family by the authorities.

"The potential of the three females for their contribution to the population was immense," (GVTC executive secretary Andrew) Seguya said.

He added that the 13 surviving members of the Hirwa family have been found and are feeding well.

image: "Mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei), 10 month old baby, Titus Group, Rwanda" by Charles J Sharp (CC BY-SA 4.0) Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/13/four-endangered-mountain-goril.html

My old friend and favorite DJ, DF Tram, pulls threads from from far-out jazz, psych, experimental ambient, spoken word, downtempo EDM, and avant-garde classical to create transgenre ambient mixes. A crate digger of the highest order, he has turned me on to countless artists, tracks, and albums that I'd never hear anywhere else. A collaborator with Alex Patterson, Mixmaster Morris, and Youth, DF Tram has toured with The Orb and performed at the most prestigious electronic music festivals in the world including The Big Chill, Glastonbury, and OZORA. Above is his live set from the 2019 OZORA Festival. Lose yourself.

Artwork at top: Imaginary Foundation Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/13/marvelous-mix-of-chill-out-am.html

Remember back in 2017, when the entire Right Wing Propaganda Machine suddenly decided that Antifa — literally just some loose affiliations of scrappy anarchists in black bloc attire — were the single greatest threat that humanity had ever faced? (And were also somehow being funded by Hillary Clinton and the DNC and George Soros even though they're anarchists and not liberals?)

One such event, which threw the National Review into a tizzy, involved the Cedar Creek Battlefield Foundation, which had to cancel its annual re-enactment of the Battle of Cedar Creek for fear of violent attacks by "lib-terrorists" in balaclavas who are somehow also snowflakes. The group received a letter, in an envelope marked with a red-and-black flag, saying:

You need to cancel your coming up celebration of the Civil War on October 13, 14, 15, 2017…Many of us have dogs, so will bring dog feces to throw on people! We will also throw cups of human urine! We might resort to actually firing guns into the camps and at the re-enactors! We will put poison in the water, we will use noise to disrupt the battles and sleep! These events must stop! Our local organizer tells us he is ready to go! You have been warned, now if it is not called off, we will destroy you! You have less than 1 month to issue a cancellation notice, do it asap!

Then, during the actual event, an unexploded pipebomb was found on the premises — further proof of the Intolerant Left and their evil agenda. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/13/a-civil-war-reenactor-tried-to.html

Bret Michael Wilson (57) (aka the "Nighttime Nailer") received a 30-day sentence for criminal mischief and four counts of disorderly conduct after admitting that he had thrown roofing nails onto busy Oregon streets for two years, reports The Oregonian. He will also have to pay $2,000 in restitution and refrain from drinking alcohol.

From the article:

Oregon City police finally arrested Wilson in October after officers who were staking out The Nighttime Nailer saw him chuck fistfuls of nails from his car as he drove along South Center Street before dawn.

After he was nabbed, the suspect copped to scattering the metal spikes numerous times before.

“By Mr. Wilson’s recollection, he has thrown nails over 50 times onto our busy streets over the last couple of years,” police said in a news release at the time.

Wilson’s early morning ritual — always done before sunrise so as to avoid detection — was in response to drivers he felt were rude or had slighted him, Brock said.

“It was his form of anger management. It made him feel better,” Brock said.

Image: Clackamas County Sheriff's Office Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/13/gentleman-who-tossed-buckets-o.html