Sam Makovech of Ars Technica reviews the 8Bitdo Zero 2 ( on Amazon), an adorable gamepad controller you can use with a Switch, PC, or Mac. His overall impression of the meant-for-travel gamepad is favorable.

From Ars Technica:

To my pleasant surprise, 8BitDo starts this gamepad off with a crucial emphasis on its D-pad. At roughly the size of an American dime, this small D-pad is comparable to some of Nintendo's smallest takes, like you'd find on a GameCube controller or a Nintendo 3DS console. But unlike those offerings, 8BitDo allows its Zero 2's D-pad to protrude ever so slightly farther from its body. Pressing down on any edge of the D-pad offers a full 2mm of action, and this has a satisfying sense of travel when a thumb is in its depressed, rounded center—built for the sake of neatly rocking from left to right or up to down.

The D-pad's quality was borne out by my own feverish Tetris testing, which worked whether I rapidly tap-tap-tapped in one direction or pivoted to a crucial "up to fast-drop" maneuver in newer Tetris games. When I imagine various times that I might rely on the Zero 2 as a controlling option, I think about how a good D-pad is the primary differentiator from other on-the-go options, whether that's a spare Joy-Con turned sideways, a weak laptop's keyboard, or a phone's on-screen buttons. I'd rather play Tetris or Super Mario Bros. with my thumb on this D-pad than relying on those other options.

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/4KfLcO0kJuc/review-of-an-ultra-tiny-but-us.html

About five years ago, I was trying to get a bunch of Big Tech companies to take the right side of an urgent online civil rights fight, and I called an old friend who was very senior at one of the biggest tech companies in the world; they told me that it wasn't going to work, in part because the kinds of people who were coming to tech were there because they wanted to get as rich as possible, no matter what they had to do. My friend contrasted this with earlier eras -- even the dotcom bubble -- when the financial motive was blended with a genuine excitement for the transformative potential of tech to make a fairer, more equitable world. Now, my friend said, the kind of kid who would have gotten an MBA was instead getting an electrical engineering or computer science degree -- not out of any innate love for the subject, but because that was a path to untold riches.

But things are changing. Not only are young people far more skeptical of capitalism and concerned that it will annihilate the human race, but the tech companies' masks have slipped, revealing their willingness to supply ICE and the Chinese government alike, to help the oil industry torch the planet, and to divert their fortunes to supporting white nationalist causes. Companies that tout their ethical center have harbored and even rewarded serial sexual predators and busted nascent union movements.

The tech worker uprisings of recent years have caught the attention of the best and brightest grads of America's elite universities. Read the rest

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There's a reason why most people do their jogging in the morning. Even though it might be muggy, foggy or warmer, there's a certain amount of safety that comes with daylight. I mean, it's not like you can just take a flashlight on your run.

Or can you? With a simple but innovative design tweak, the H2 Belt Light might have just changed the game for night runners, hikers or anyone who needs to move around in the dark.

After seeing it once, you kind of wonder why miners weren't wearing these instead of helmet lamps decades ago. Instead of a single, thin beam, the H2 casts a broad spectrum of light in front of you, right where you need it most: A 180-degree halo that lets you use your peripheral vision, even on the run.

The belt and lamp are light, with an IPX7 waterproof rating that keeps it safe even in heavy rain. There's high and low-intensity brightness modes or even a flash mode for extra safety. Even on the highest setting, you'll get three hours of life from the rechargeable battery.

Get your H2 Belt Light now from the Boing Boing shop for a full 25% off the retail price. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/CXKWHVnID70/the-h2-belt-light-lets-you-use.html

This 350 pound Warsaw grouper was caught with a hook and line off the coast of southwest Florida a couple weeks back. According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), the fish was caught in about 600 feet of water. From CNN:

"Biologists from (the FWC's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute) Age & Growth Lab estimated the age of this fish at 50 years old, making this the oldest sample collected for our ageing program," the FWC said. "Acquiring the otolith from this fish was extremely valuable as samples from larger and older fish are rare."

Otoliths are the hard structures located behind the brain of bony fishes, according to the FWC. They help fish hear, maintain balance and orient themselves. Scientists use the growth structure of otoliths to estimate a fish's age.

Warsaw groupers can grow to a length of 7.5 feet and weight of 580 pounds. The record for the largest one caught in Florida is nearly 440 pounds...

The FWC said it "does not encourage the targeting of Warsaw grouper," as the species' population in the Gulf of Mexico isn't known.

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/Ossz7Wur7ZQ/florida-man-catches-350-pound.html

The New South Wales Government is dropping thousands of pounds of carrots and sweet potato from helicopters to feed the endangered Brush-tailed Rock-wallabies that are starving as a result of the massive bushfires across Australia. From the NSW Government:

(According to Environment Minister Matt Kean,) "Initial fire assessments indicate the habitat of several important Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby populations was burnt in the recent bushfires. The wallabies typically survive the fire itself, but are then left stranded with limited natural food as the fire takes out the vegetation around their rocky habitat.

"The wallabies were already under stress from the ongoing drought, making survival challenging for the wallabies without assistance."

In the last week almost 1000 kilograms of sweet potato and carrot have been sent to 6 different colonies in the Capertee and Wolgan valleys; 1000 kilograms across 5 sites in Yengo National Park; almost 100 kilograms of food and water in the Kangaroo Valley, with similar drops having also taken place in Jenolan, Oxley Wild Rivers and Curracubundi national parks.

Mr Kean said this is the most widespread food drop we have ever done for Brush-tailed Rock-wallabies and will help maintain these colonies and allow them to recover.

"At this stage, we expect to continue providing supplementary food to rock-wallaby populations until sufficient natural food resources and water become available again in the landscape, during post-fire recovery."

image: "Brush-tailed rock-wallabies (Petrogale penicillata)"/NPWS/DPIE

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/2DMKYzkEq1Q/australia-fires-carrots-and-s.html

"I got all these doll heads from a scrap market in Cairo," says artist Dinaa Amin, "collected by sellers who collect them from garbage bins." She took out the eyes to make a stop motion movie.

[via Make:] Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/9vcDyAHt4KY/harvesting-eyeballs-from-disca.html

Drones are fairly ubiquitous these days. It doesn't take much to get a piece of plastic off the ground — and, as our smartphones have proven, decent cameras don't have to take up space. Attach one, and voila! You've got some fun, if shaky, footage.

The DJI Mavic 2 Pro Drone is a whole other ballgame. This piece of technology shows that the line between consumer tech and professional-grade movie-making equipment is growing thinner every day.

If you ever wanted to know what's available at the high end of the drone market, the Mavic 2 hits all the marks. Where to start?

First and foremost, there's the camera. It's Hasselblad L12-20c with an adjustable-aperture lens, capable of taking 20 MP photos. The range is impressive, thanks to the 10-bit Dlog-M color profile that begs to be used for sweeping, panoramic vistas. But even on foggy nights or in low light, the CMOS sensor compensates to deliver crisp images back to the viewer.

Those viewing options are just as impressive. You can watch the footage from your smartphone or fly along virtually in DJI goggles. With low latency transmission, it'll be just like you're in the very tiny cockpit.

Speaking of portability, the unit is 8.4" H x 3.6" L x 3.3" W when fully deployed, but it folds up to a fraction of that when dormant. The low-noise propellers make it fly like a whisper, and sensors on all sides of the drone can actively scan for obstacles and compensate in flight for remarkable maneuverability. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/P3UH8TPchg8/the-mavic-2-pro-is-the-newest.html

A doctor in Britain leveled a complaint against food company M"uller over its latest product, yoghurt flavored to taste like gin cocktails and containing a small amount of alcohol.

The yoghurts, which were launched last year, contain 0.5% gin.

A spokesperson for the yoghurt maker said the product was fat-free, high in protein and contained no added sugar.

Dr Wells, who practises in North Yorkshire, said: "Given the problems we have with alcohol as a society - which is very visible in our GP practices and A&E departments - the creation of alcohol inspired yoghurts seems unnecessary and counterproductive to public health.

Brexit Gin Yogurt is my new punk band name. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/HQ6INNdJXu0/gin-yogurt-criticized.html

I removed the last of the ancient wooden boards attached randomly to joists and walls in our basement and piled it all in the yard ready for disposal. A heap of split, splintered rusty-nailed junk caked in decades of paint and grime. So it stayed almost for a week, before Heather noticed some writing on one beneath the filth.

Naturally, it had to be saved: pulled from the pile, denailed, two lengthwise cracks woodglued, cut down to the interesting part, cleaned with detergent and oxalic acid, sealed and lacquered. Very proud of myself! I bet I could get $5 for it on Etsy.

The Delco Light company was well-known for electrifying farms back in the day and ended up a GM subsidiary, living on to this day as two syllables of an auto parts brand.

Our find was probably the side of a wooden box that the house's original 1920s-era electrics were delivered in.

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/XHgOKtbjojU/mildly-interesting-old-sign-fo.html

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/9ESPCu6EOuQ/genetic-attacks.html

There's no shortage of turn-based strategy games on the market. But few of them have the scope of Sid Meier's Civilization, whose title says it all. Your goal is nothing less than the shepherding of an entire nation from its first village to global dominance — and beyond.

The Civ series is now on its sixth iteration, and the latest is a literal world-beater. It's also one of the most expandable, and all those expansions have finally been collected in Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Platinum Edition.

If you're looking for a late Christmas gift for a sim fan, this one is hard to beat. The pack includes the core game Sid Meier's Civilization VI, with new tweaks that include a branching cultural improvement path and enhanced AI for computer opponents — a definite improvement over previous editions.

It also comes with six DLC packs that introduce new scenarios and allows you to play as entirely new civilizations. As the cherry on top, you get the major expansions "Rise and Fall" and "Gathering Storm" which introduce game-changing Global Eras and devastating natural disasters.

The entire set is now available for 58% off the original retail price. Read the rest

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Agency is the sequel to William Gibson's tour-de-force 2014 novel "The Peripheral"; as previously discussed, Gibson had to scrap large sections of the novel and rewrite it after Donald Trump won the 2016 US presidential election. Agency is out later this month (I have a review pending for publication date) and Gibson has conducted a long interview with Sam Leith about the process by which the book came to be -- and almost wasn't.

Gibson's had quite a year, being named a grandmaster by the Science Fiction Writers of America and winning EFF's Pioneer Award. The upcoming, long delayed publication of Agency has also prompted some outstanding, intimate profiles of his life and work (it's been more than 20 years since I profiled him for The Globe and Mail).

The Leith interview is a great warm-up for Agency, which is a remarkable book.

The lazy shorthand with which he’s sometimes described is as a prophet. How does he feel about that? An albatross around the neck, an encouraging compliment – or just part of the job? “It’s actually ... It seems to be a thing. But I’ve been discounting it actively throughout my entire career. I don’t think you could find a single interview with me in which I don’t make the point that I’ve got it wrong easily as often as I’ve got it sort of right.”

He certainly gets it right in one respect in Agency: the flashpoint crisis in the book’s contemporary timeline concerns a Turkish invasion of northern Syria, complicated by Russian interference, after the US pulls out.

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/zHdImTznv9s/bigend-to-end.html

Machine learning systems are notorious for cheating, and there's a whole menagerie of ways that these systems achieve their notional goals while subverting their own purpose, with names like "model stealing, rewarding hacking and poisoning attacks."

AI researcher Stuart Armstrong (author of 2014's Smarter Than Us: The Rise of Machine Intelligence) takes a stab at defining a specific kind of ML cheating, "wireheading" -- a term borrowed from Larry Niven's novels, where it refers to junkies who get "tasps" -- wires inserted directly into their brains' "pleasure centers" that drip feed them electrified ecstasy until they starve to death (these also appear in Spider Robinson's Hugo-winning book Mindkiller).

A rather dry definition of wireheading is this one: "a divergence between a true utility and a substitute utility (calculated with respect to a model of reality)." More accessibly, it's that "there is some property of the world that we want to optimise, and that there is some measuring system that estimates that property. If the AI doesn't optimise the property, but instead takes control of the measuring system, that's wireheading (bonus points if the measurements the AI manipulates go down an actual wire).

Suppose we have a weather-controlling AI whose task is to increase air pressure; it gets a reward for so doing.

What if the AI directly rewrites its internal reward counter? Clearly wireheading.

What if the AI modifies the input wire for that reward counter? Clearly wireheading.

What if the AI threatens the humans that decide on what to put on that wire?

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/RpYAezMgx38/optimizers-curse.html

Jim Spanfeller (previously) is the private equity monster whose mismanagement of various former Gizmodo sites (notably Gawker, Splinter and Deadspin) has generated endless bad press from his own employees, who have doggedly reported on every single demand that they shut up and suck it up, has now been publicly condemned in the pages of yet another of his publications -- this time, it's the gaming site Kotaku.

Joshua Rivera and Gita Jackson have both resigned from Kotaku. In a farewell post, the journalists interview one another about their careers at the site, with special disapprobation for Spanfeller, Great Hill Partners and G/O Media.

Gita: His outward and obvious hostility towards the writers here, his treatment of the Deadspin writers, his firing of Barry, the way that he talks about Deadspin and the way that he won’t take responsibility for its closure even though it comes from his really awful management decisions, have just made my faith in the ability of him being able to keep this company solvent, just completely obliterated. And it’s all him. It’s all his choices.

Josh: There’s no way I feel supported as a writer. I know Stephen Totilo, bless up, will go to the ends of the earth for us.

Gita: Hell yeah. He would fight an army. He cares so much about his writers.

Josh: It’s a shame that we don’t have owners that care for a fraction as much. You know, they don’t, they don’t shout out our work.

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/uJpoeNDynuc/deadspin-rip.html

Maryland's Larry Hogan -- a Republican who governs a blue state -- is the most popular governor in America, with a 73% approval among state Democrats. He is also a flagrant crook.

Hogan has booked $2.4m in personal income during his three years in office, most of it thanks to his cancellation of a desperately needed public transit expansion in Baltimore, the funds from which were diverted to building roads in the middle of nowhere that just happened to serve the suburban property developments his company owned. That company was nominally put in his brother's hands when Hogan took office, but as the Washington Monthly's Eric Cortellessa reports, that was a fiction, and Hogan has continued to oversee his company even as he made public policy that made his governorship the most profitable in Maryland history.

None of this is a secret: Hogan has bragged about it and his office has issued maps boasting about where his new roads were going in. Hogan claims to be "the Republican who believes in climate change," even as he's overseen a radical expansion in automobile use that was paid for by destroying an ambitious public transit scheme, which will benefit the state's suburban whites at the expense of the large Black population of Baltimore, who have been shat upon by their state for generations.

It's all probably legal, too, because Maryland has some of the weakest anti-corruption rules in America.

In the New Republic, Alex Pareene describes Hogan as the kind of "normal" Republican that centrist Democrats yearn to work with -- ordinarily corrupt and rapacious, with plausibly deniable policies of white supremacy, uncomplicated by explicit white nationalist rhetoric. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/FTCziaD5TpM/the-good-republicans.html

This 10" contour gauge makes measuring for detailed or difficult cuts easier.

Having seen ads for these all over Instagram and other websites I was intrigued. For less than $15 I had to give a contour gauge a try. They are as handy, and easy to use, as the videos suggest.

This Avide gauge is cheap and it works. The pins are held into the frame with enough pressure that a very moderate amount of force will shape the gauge, but the pins will not slide or move once you draw it away and go to work.

I am also interested in the 5" version as there are some tight spaces around a few pipes this one may not fit. We shall see.

10 Inch Contour Gauge Irregular Profile Gauge Duplicator Tiling Laminate Tiles Edge Shaping Wood Measure Ruler Plastic Woodworking Tools Profile Jig Guide via Amazon Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/n_fEPPC76-w/this-low-cost-contour-gauge-is.html

Thousands of businesses use Cisco as the platform for their network, and there's a good reason for that. As data and security needs evolve, Cisco evolves to keep up with them — but that means the administrators and IT professionals that implement it have to evolve, too.

That's not just a figure of speech. As of 2020, those with a Cisco Certified Network Associate title are going to have to update that certification. Luckily, there's a Complete 2020 Cisco CCNA Certification Prep Course to walk you through everything you need to know.

The whole course packs in more than 30 hours of lectures and exercises, all geared to allow you to set up and manage Cisco networks. It covers the latest changes in wireless connectivity, Software Defined Networking, automation and a host of other topics from the perspective of the experienced CCNA worker who needs to get up to speed.

By the end of it, you'll be able to breeze through the CCNA 200-301 exam, get your updated certification, then move on to any number of specialized fields.

Lifetime access to the course is now more than 85% off the list price. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/303XJQm5T0I/want-to-be-a-cisco-network-adm.html

For better or for worse, humans have been training dolphins as soldiers of war since at least the 1960s; even to this day, the Russian government in particular has been known to enlist them in subterfuge.

But twenty years ago, the cash-strapped and crumbling Soviet Union sold a group of highly-trained aquatic assets to the Iranian government. Military.com (a subsidiary of Monster, apparently) has a good breakdown of the history, pulling largely from a BBC article published in 2000:

In 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the dolphin unit was sent to the Crimean Peninsula from a base in the Russian Pacific area. There, the dolphins were trained to kill enemy frogmen using harpoons mounted on their backs. They would also swim at enemy ships in suicide attacks while carrying explosive sea mines, as they were able to distinguish between Russian and American submarines by the sounds their propulsion systems make underwater.

The highly trained killer dolphins were moved from the Black Sea to the Persian Gulf after Iran purchased them -- for reasons unknown. According to the Russian newspaper, Zhurid's work, which supposedly continued in Iran after the 2000 sale, was solely of a military nature.

It's a weird little factoid of military history. But here's the catch: dolphins can live for around 50 years. Which means that some of these dolphins could still be alive today. Which means it's not not impossible that a pod of these haggard soldiers is hanging around the coastal US, waiting for their retaliatory strike — though whether that would be against the country's foreign policy, or its oversights in regards to noise pollution from seismic testing, that's still up in the air. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/ArbdHQ-gaQs/theres-a-non-zero-possibilit.html

After Boing Boing and other sites wrote about the Squidmar Miniatures video where Emil challenged painters on Fivver to paint a mini for him, the video went viral. Others painters approached him about doing another video that they could participate in and even Fivver itself wanted in on the action.

So, Emil decided to issue another challenge. With $600 provided by Fivver, he sent one mini from the Zarbag's Gitz warband for Warhammer Underworlds to eight painters (I guess paying them $75 each?). This time, he didn't give them any directive beyond using their creativity. For some additional inspiration, he also provided them with a little animated story describing Zarbag's Gitz.

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/GlYsRZQWZDw/squidmar-issues-another-miniat.html

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that the country's air defenses mistakenly shot down a Ukranian passenger jet Wednesday, killing all 176 aboard. It was thought to be a cruise missile, he said, describing the crash as an "unforgivable mistake."

The downing of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 on Wednesday came just hours after Iran carried out missile strikes on two airbases housing US forces in Iraq.

The strikes were a response to the killing of senior Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Baghdad on 3 January.

Armed Forces’ internal investigation has concluded that regrettably missiles fired due to human error caused the horrific crash of the Ukrainian plane & death of 176 innocent people.Investigations continue to identify & prosecute this great tragedy & unforgivable mistake. #PS752

 Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) January 11, 2020

BBC analyst Lyse Doucet says such an admission of culpability is "highly unusual".

Iran has decided it has to own this disaster to avoid it triggering another war of words with the West or exacerbating further anger and anguish among its own people, who are reeling from one calamity after another. Make no mistake, this admission was an act of de-escalation. The repercussions at home may soon be clear. Iran's foreign minister has already sought to shift blame by saying it was "a crisis caused by US adventurism". But the big question now is: who took the decision to allow a civilian airliner to take off when Iran's airspace was shot through with such tension?

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/8-NMd2E6V1M/iran-admits-it-unintentionally.html