Boing Boing, January 31, 2025
All our posts from the past 24 hours
Good morning, Boing Boingers! From drone strikes on firefighters to Riki Lindhome's viral hit "Don't Google Mommy," we've got a curious mix of stories for you today. We'll dive into how The Onion's dark humor resonates in these turbulent times and explore both the good and bad of scratching an itch. Witness RFK Jr.'s antics with addictive pouches and the heartwarming tale of a Beverly Hills racist's downfall. We'll take you back to the 19th century with moralistic tree lithographs and intricate pufferfish art. Join us for a musical journey with the Nirvana reunion and uncover the history of beautiful snowflake illustrations. Plus, don't miss the latest in tech blunders, from the Commodore Amiga's glory days to the buggy PS5 port.
Thanks for being part of our curious community. Your support helps us continue delivering these fascinating stories from across the spectrum of culture.
Man pleads guilty to drone strike on firefighting airplane
Jason Weisberger / 10:59 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
The man responsible for a drone strike against one of the Canadian super scoopers fighting the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles had pleaded guilty.
Federal agents tracked down fifty-six-year-old Peter Tripp Akemann for irresponsibly flying his drone into an active firefight. Ackermann knocked out one of only two super scoopers fighting the blaze. On loan from Canada, the drone-sized hole Ackermann put into the aircraft wing will cost him an estimated $65,000 to repair. Fines and jail time are to be determined by a judge.
Peter Tripp Akemann, 56, agreed to plead guilty to one count of unsafe operation of an unmanned aircraft, according to the Justice Department. Prosecutors filed an indictment charging Akemann with the misdemeanor offense that carries a prison sentence of up to one year in federal prison, a news release said.
According to officials, the plane collided with a privately-owned drone, causing significant damage to it. The drone put a football-sized hole hole in the aircraft.
It managed to safely land, but the Super Scooper was left out of commission for several days while the fire burned. It was only one of two Super Scoopers available.
Riki Lindhome sings "Don't Google Mommy" (video)
Jason Weisberger / 10:22 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
One-half of the legendary YouTube musical act Garfunkle and Oates, actress Riki Lindhome wants her kid to be a little more mature before they discover her Reels.
Bonus:
The Onion shares dark humor in these dark times
Jason Weisberger / 10:07 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
This Onion article on ICE workers appreciating the love and dedication of families they are destroying is dead on and painful.
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The Onion today portrayed an ICE agent who desired the love he saw in victims during Trump's deportation debacle: "I mean, how many times have you heard a mother say she'd take a bullet to protect her kid? But until you see it happen, you don't understand how powerful family can be. I want the kind of loving relationship they used to have."
Scratching an itch is both bad and good for you
Allan Rose Hill / 9:19 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
Itch-scratching is a paradox. It can be both bad and good for you, a new scientific study suggests.
According to the University of Pittsburgh scientists, poison ivy and other allergens trigger mast cells in your body that release chemicals that can result in itching and inflammation. Scratching the itch makes it worse.
"The act of scratching is actually triggering the inflammation by synergizing with mast cells to make them more effective," says dermatologist/immunologist Daniel Kaplan. For example, consider a mosquito bite.
"Most of the time, it'll go away in five, 10 minutes," Kaplan says. "But if you start scratching it, now, you get a really big, inflamed, itchy lesion on your skin that can stick around for several days. It's a lot worse. And I think this could be a mechanism that explains why."
From Science News:
Now onto the good news: Scratching lessened the amount of potentially harmful bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus) on mice's skin, perhaps through the heightened immune reaction it prompts.
"That was a clear demonstration that scratching can have a benefit in the context of an acute infection," Kaplan says. But too much scratching can rip the skin and usher in more bacteria, he cautions. "In that sense, scratching, through a different mechanism, also makes things even worse."
Eventually, he adds, this line of research into the chemical mechanisms of itching could lead to new treatments for itching disorders.
RFK Jr. seems to sneak addictive Zyn pouch in mouth during hearing to Make America Healthy Again (video)
Carla Sinclair / 9:16 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
Trump-pick Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tries to convince the Senate that he will Make America Healthy Again — all while appearing to sneak a highly addictive nicotine pouch into his mouth.
Watch as Kennedy, the nominee for health and human services secretary, first cups his hand over his mouth, seeming to spit something into his palm. Moments later, he pops something back into his mouth, which then seems to settle into his protruding, pouch-shaped cheek. (See video of his crafty maneuver, posted by the New York Post.)
Social media users pounced on the move as the telltale sign of a man taking a stealthy dose of Zyn, a small pouch of crystallized nicotine powder that dissolves and gets absorbed directly into the bloodstream through gum tissue.
"RFK Jr. slips in a Zyn in the middle of his confirmation hearing… give him the job," the country music site Whiskey Riff wrote in a post on X.
In October, Kennedy was spotted carrying a pack of Zyn pouches in Los Angeles amid reports that he was having a cyber affair with journalist Olivia Nuzzi.
— Daily Beast:
Not that there's anything shameful about satisfying a nicotine fix. Except in this case, the alleged Zyn popper is the same kook who has proposed "reparenting" any kind of "addict" by having them attend government-sponsored, phone, screen, and tech-free "wellness farms" for up to "three to four years," including folks who take prescription meds such as antidepressants, or Adderall for ADHD.
Perhaps this MAHA nominee should do time at his own wellness camp before telling others how to be healthy.
Previously: RFK Jr. wants to ship Adderall users to labor camps
Internet response makes a Beverly Hills racist cry
Jason Weisberger / 9:11 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
After her racist tirade went public on the internet, Florence Mirsky cried a lot and attempted to blame the incident on her victim. Internet sleuths did not let her get away with it.
Florence Mirsky went apeshit racist bigot on some valet parking attendants. Her behavior was awful, but once identified and called out on the series of tubes colloquially known as "the internet," Mirsky doubled down and accused one of the attendants of unwanted touching. Mirsky attempted to get the lot manager to admit this touching happened, but after a lot of pressure, she admitted she made the assault up, but rapidly took that post down.
"An Evil Tree" lithograph: a 19th-century moral warning
Popkin / 9:06 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
This hand-colored lithograph print is part of Harry T. Peters "America on Stone" Lithography Collection. The striking and visually dense piece, titled "An Evil Tree" or "the Natural Heart" is a symbolic moral and religious warning from the 19th century. It seems to portray the consequences of sin and spiritual corruption (the fruits) and how actions can affect our inner state (the trunk).
The Fruits on this tree all have a different variety of "evil" written on them. They say things such as "love of money", "hatred", "murder", "anger", and "prejudice". The trunk has phrases such as "self will", "pride", and "lust of the flesh". Although many things about this piece make feel like an outdated scare tactic, there is something mesmerizing about its layout and in reading all the text throughout the piece.
From The Smithsonian. "No artist or lithographer is listed on the print; however this print may be an earlier version in reverse or mirror image of the 1830-1840 print by Daniel Wright Kellogg. It appears to be based on the composition by John Hagerty. A reverse or mirror image print is in the collections at the Connecticut Historical Society with the exact same placement of the letters and words but minus the serpent in the center lower branches of the tree."
See also: REM's 'Losing My Religion' shifted into a major scale
Watch the Nirvana reunion from last night's Fire Aid LA concert
Allan Rose Hill / 8:50 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
Last night, the surviving members of Nirvana—Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, and Pat Smear—reunited at the Fire Aid LA benefit concert.
On vox: St. Vincent ("Breed"), Kim Gordon ("School"), Joan Jett ("Territorial Pissings"), and Dave Grohl's daughter Violet Grohl ("All Apologies"). Guess who sang "Smells Like Teen Spirit"!? Nobody, because they didn't play that one.
The reunion surprised everyone. Unsurprisingly though, they sounded ferocious.
The 19th century pufferfish art of Joseph Drayton and Alfred Agate
Popkin / 8:33 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
Artists Joseph Drayton and Alfred Agate drew these images of pufferfish and balloonfish in the 19th century as part of a scientific study. The drawings are part of the collection called "Drawings of Tetradons and Diodons (ca. 1838–42)."
From the PDR " According to the Smithsonian Institution Archives, which house the works, this particular set of images didn't quite make the grade (as illustrative plates for the work on ichthyology), however, as they were found in envelopes marked as "rejected" or "rejected for publication".
I'm glad these fish drawings were preserved, despite being rejected. Pufferfish are so much fun to look at with all their spikes and cartoonish faces. I love how it looks like they have little smiles in some of the drawings.
See also: China legalizes eating a puffer fish bred to be nonpoisonous
Better air quality "the easiest way not to die"
Rob Beschizza / 8:15 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
If you can improve the quality of the air you breathe, do it. Better air quality is the easiest way not to die, writes Dynomight. The essay is fascinating reading: "While most things that clearly improve health are well known, one is insanely underrated: Fixing your air. I suspect this is often the most effective health intervention, period. Nothing else is so important while also being so easy to address."
1. If you have an ultrasonic humidifier, kill it.
2. Monitor local air quality like the weather.
3. No incense.
4. Extinguish candles with a lid.
5. Be careful about smoke when cooking.
6. Get a particle counter.
7. Use an air purifier at home all the time. (Move this to #1 if the outdoor air has high particulate levels 8. where you live.)
8. Install a HEPA cabin air filter in your car.
9. Avoid aerosols.
10. Use a mask very carefully when in dirty air.
I spent far too long researching things like CADR when I decided to get air purifiers, but had no idea how bad it was to blow out candles—or that ultrasonic humidifiers are bad news. It's the hardness in the water being turned into fine, airborne dust.
Humidifiers: You're not going to like this, but ultrasonic humidifiers produce huge numbers of particles. They turn any minerals in the water into airborne particles. They do this almost by design! Park (2020) tested different types of water in a small chamber with a carefully controlled air exchange rate and got the following steady-state increases over background levels. … Using a humidifier at night is almost as bad as smoking 5 cigarettes!? I was skeptical such large numbers could be real.
Steam humidifiers are fine.
Better air quality is the easiest way not to die [Dynomight]
Hubris and incompetence continue to stymie Trump's plans
Jason Weisberger / 7:56 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
Trump Administration press secretary Karoline Leavitt bragged on social media about backroom plans to continue the federal funds freeze. The tweet was immediately used to continue the lawsuit against it.
Trump's rescission of the executive order freezing Federal spending was a plot to get rid of lawsuits holding it up. Trump's new frontline liar, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, leaked the actual plans to continue the skullduggery in secret, thus making them not secret anymore. Immediately, the State Attorneys General updated their lawsuit and kept the case from being dismissed.
The Commodore Amiga was perfect
Rob Beschizza / 7:49 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
I think of the Commodore Amiga as the first psychedelic computer. Celso Martinho, though, is willing to go a step further: he thinks it was the first perfect computer.
I consider the A1000 a significant piece of home computing history. Arguably one of the most important machines of the 16-bit revolution period, considered by many to be the first multimedia computer, it marked the beginning of Commodore's last cycle, after the huge success of the C64, in the history of personal computing.
I tried to learn coding on the Commodore Amiga and didn't get far; my problem was I wanted to make games that looked as good as stuff like Shadow of the Beast and it got difficult quickly thanks to all the powerful parts that weren't a Motorola 68000.
Below, the classic promo vid of Andy and Debbie showing it off, back in the day. You can find Celso on Bluesky.
Man fixes broken Atari 2600 Jr with glue, random stuff
Rob Beschizza / 7:36 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
Mike, author of the Leaded Solder blog, fixed a decrepit Atari 2600 Jr—the final revision of the classic game console—with whatever he could get his hands on: "this 2600 Jr is sad, and it needs our help," he wrote.
Although I was happy the system worked, I was disappointed to find that the power switch was really hard to move. To fix this, I decided to take it apart once again and see if I could extract the switch sliders for a more thorough cleaning. This was easier if I was willing to twist the top case quite a bit to force them out, and they popped out.
Computer keycaps are cleaned easily using denture cleaning tablets. Since these are basically the same thing, I mixed up a batch of Polident for retainers and chucked these suckers in with it. I can't wait to see the great blue colour that it made. Hooray, man!
He is successful, despite the extremely poor condition of the machine and the seller's indifferent shipping provisions. Sometimes those "parts only" auctions are worth it, if you're handy!
Trump's new email system blasts 13,000 workers with vulgar message: "Tired of working for a complete c*nt?"
Carla Sinclair / 5:07 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
In Donald Trump's rush to dismantle the United States, his administration implemented a controversial communications system that sent 13,000 federal employees a vulgar message.
With a heading that said, "Resign," 13,000 workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration opened up a message that read, "Aren't you tired of working for a complete cunt?"
Apparently, the shoddy email system, which allows Trump to "message the federal government's more than 2 million civilian employees," according to ABC, can be easily hacked. "Goes to show you how fast this [new comms system] was cobbled together – no security or screening on this address," an NOAA told journalist Ken Klippenstein, via Mediaite.
To test the system's failures for himself, Klippenstein successfully blasted an email with a link to his own newsletter through the propaganda machine, and voilà! 13,000 NOAA employees now know who he is. "I just sent this email to all 13,000 federal employees of the NOAA lol," he posted on social media. "The Trump administration's changes to their communications system made it so literally anyone can blast messages out to the entire agency."
"I'm sorry this happened to us," responded NOAA Deputy Director of Communications Scott Smullen in a memo to staff. "I will report it."
The incident demonstrated just how easy it is to exploit a new broadcast system set up by the Trump administration this month.
— Mediaite
Previously: For some Trump supporters, regret is already setting in
Explore beautiful snowflake illustrations from 1863
Popkin / 4:59 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
I like these selections of snowflake illustrations from the book Snowflakes: A Chapter from the Book of Nature by Israel Perkins Warren. These pages have the same appeal to me that a tattoo flash sheet does. I loved looking at each page of snowflake imagery and choosing my favorite. These would actually make for cool and delicate looking tattoos.
There is a range of shapes in these snowflake drawings, from organic snowflake shapes to more geometric, sharp snowflakes. Some of them even look like mysterious symbols. The whole book is published here online if you want to read the text.
From PDR: "Unlike previous books that categorized snowflakes, Warren's focus is on inspiring admiration for their beauty and divine origin. He acknowledges that the exact science behind snowflake formation is unknown, emphasizing that they are part of a larger, mysterious design. Warren's book blends scientific curiosity with poetry, highlighting snowflakes as symbols of purity and grace. Later studies, like Wilson Bentley's photographs and a 2013 Japanese research project, would explore snowflake diversity in greater detail."
From The Public Domain Review: "In the early twentieth-century, Wilson Bentley's microscopic photographs of snowflakes would popularize the idea that no two ice crystals are alike. Warren's beautifully-illuminated volume, in its resistance to dissection, inadvertently swung closer to the present-day consensus. In 2013, researchers in Japan divided snowflakes into thirty-nine categories, further divisible by 121 subtypes. Flakes are indeed, it seems, of a flock."
See also: Snowflake artist at Maker Faire Detroit
PC port of one of PS5's top titles is another buggy mess
Grant St. Clair / 4:46 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
With how many excellent games have come out over the past year, one could be forgiven for forgetting about Marvel's Spider-Man 2. The sequel to Insomniac's truly special original game was one of the PS5's major system sellers for over a year, but as seems to be the trend with exclusive games recently, finally makes the jump to PC today. For superhero fans without $700 to burn, this doubtlessly comes as welcome news, but things aren't exactly peachy in New York, even putting aside the alien symbiote invasion.
Unfortunately, Spider-Man 2 seems to have followed in the footsteps of fellow PlayStation exclusive The Last of Us by launching as a buggy, unoptimized mess on PC. The game's Steam rating currently sits firmly at Mixed, with only 58% of user reviews recommending the game (and falling fast – it was 61 when I started writing this article).
The complaints are the same: bugs ranging from hair freaking out to cutscenes taking place in pitch darkness, tanking framerates, and, of course, crashes everywhere. Spider-Man is known for his perseverance, but his game doesn't seem to have inherited this quality, booting users back to the desktop at the slightest amount of stress. It's a shame – the PS5 version is one of the most fun games you can play on that console, and PC gamers are being shut out by a shoddy port. Insomniac Games has yet to comment, making their plans to remedy these issues – if they have one – unclear.
RFK Jr. wants to ship Adderall users to labor camps
Ellsworth Toohey / 4:36 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
Nothing says "I care about mental health" quite like sending people with psychiatric prescriptions to government farm camps for four years.
Vaccine-truther and entitled shitheel Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has cooked up a fine plan to cure America's mental health woes when he starts running the Department of Health and Human Services: shipping Adderall users off to "organic farming communes" to endure forced agricultural labor, as reported in Futurism.
During a recent "Latino Town Hall" podcast, Kennedy laid out his masterplan to create government-funded "wellness farms" where people can get "reparented" (his actual word) while kicking their pesky prescribed medications. We're talking Adderall, antidepressants, anxiety meds — you name it, Bobby Jr. wants you off it and elbow-deep in compost.
Kennedy claims that "a lot of the behavioral issues are food related." Hear that, folks? Your ADHD isn't a neurodevelopmental disorder — you just need more organic rutabagas!
"I'm going to create these wellness farms where they can go to get off of illegal drugs, off of opiates, but also illegal drugs, other psychiatric drugs, if they want to, to get off of SSRIs, to get off of benzos, to get off of Adderall, and to spend time as much time as they need — three or four years if they need it — to learn to get reparented, to reconnect with communities," he said. Funny, I don't remember him getting shipped off to a gulag when he was zonked on heroin while living the high life as a wastrel of the Kennedy dynasty.
This is the same guy who thinks vaccines contain tracking devices and 5G causes brain fog. At this point, suggesting labor camps for people with prescriptions is a on-brand move for America's leading Dunning-Kruger exemplar. Welcome to organic gulag, comrades!
Robert Martinez shines a light on the best of America's local cuisine
Grant St. Clair / 4:34 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
I know, I know – when you hear YouTube and food in the same sentence, you immediately think of caffeinated ramen or Logan Paul's horrific Lunchly boxed meals, and rightly so. Robert Martinez' 'I Like This Place' series, however, is something entirely different. Each bite-sized episode focuses on a different cornerstone local restaurant in the places Martinez travels to, and though their locations, cuisines, and methods differ, there's one constant commonality: they're all really good at what they do. Martinez isn't a domineering presence behind the camera, letting each chef describe what they do – and more importantly, why they do it – in their own words.
Martinez' focus on the human element – rather than simply running down a list of everything he orders – makes the videos heartwarming as well as mouthwatering. More than anything, it reminds me of Anthony Bourdain compressed into minute-long form, which is the highest compliment I can give any food-centric series. If you need something to scratch that itch, take a look through Martinez' back catalogue… just make sure you're not too hungry first.
Scientists discover sniffing menthol protects mice from Alzheimer's disease
Ellsworth Toohey / 4:01 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
Guess its time to time to start huffing Vicks VapoRub — scientists just discovered that menthol might help keep your brain from turning into Swiss cheese.
Researchers at Spain's Center for Applied Medical Research decided to let mice with mouse-Alzheimer's sniff menthol for six months and the dotty little fuzzballs actually got better. Not only did the menthol snffers keep their marbles, but even the healthy mice turned into tiny rodent Einsteins. Peppermint for Algernon!
"We observed that short exposures to this substance prevented cognitive decline," said immunologist Juan José Lasarte. But how? Turns out menthol kicks down levels of an inflammation-causing protein that's the brain's party crasher.
But remember, this only worked on mice so far. Researcher Noelia Casares says they need to do way more research before you can start down downing shots of Crème de menth to make yourself smarter.
Therapy from a man in a gecko suit
Grant St. Clair / 3:55 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
Mental health care takes many forms – but Lyle the Therapy Gecko is a particularly unique one. If you need a shoulder to cry on, Owings Mills, Maryland native Lyle Drescher is there for you… just not as himself. As his viral character Lyle the Therapy Gecko, Drescher runs a regular live show that anyone can call into to vent about their problems and be soothed by a non-judgmental presence… that just so happens to be a giant lizard.
How? Why? In Drescher's own words from a previous interview:
"It has been a great opportunity to travel the world talking to people. I've been all over Europe and America and Australia interviewing different people as a gecko and getting to experience all of these things and talk to all of these people and do all of these live shows," Drescher said. "I think what I do now is a really great cross-section of all the things that have interested me throughout my life, so it's comedy and traveling and having deep conversations with people, so I'm really grateful that I was able to find this weird thing that ended up being sort of perfect for me and my interests."
In finding this perfect fit, Drescher is also sending a message.
"It is much more fun to walk through the world being curious and attempting to understand the things around you as opposed to trying to consistently judge them," Drescher said.
Silly gecko suit or not, that's a message I can get behind. May all of your worries be solved by anthropomorphic reptiles.
Understaffed airport — rather than absurd DEI excuse — to blame for crash, says early findings
Carla Sinclair / 3:17 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
Preliminary findings by the Federal Aviation Administration do not point to DEI as the cause of the deadly American Airlines crash on Wednesday, but rather to understaffing at the Ronald Reagan Airport.
"The internal report, released on Thursday and reviewed by The New York Times, said due to understaffing the controller was working the jobs of two people the night of the crash: handling helicopters in the airport's vicinity while also instructing planes that were landing and departing from its runways," reports The Independent.
Making matters worse, "One worker clocked off early with staffing levels already 'not normal,'" added the report. Not to mention that Donald Trump had not yet filled the vacant position of FAA administrator — he only appointed an acting administrator to run the FAA one day after the crash, according to CBS News.
At a time when the Trump administration is trying to slash 2 million federal employees from the workforce, these findings are not a good look. Time for MAGA to whip up another batch of alternative facts.
Previously: President Trump's approval rating already underwater
Watch teenage Marianne Faithfull sing "As Tears Go By" a cappella in long-lost film scene
Ellsworth Toohey / 3:08 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
A two-minute clip captures 19-year-old Marianne Faithfull singing "As Tears Go By" a cappella in Jean-Luc Godard's 1966 film Made in U.S.A. — a performance that remained largely unseen by American audiences for decades.
Faithfull, who passed away yesterday at 78, appears in a café scene that New Yorker film critic Richard Brody calls a perfect snapshot of "styles of the day." The scene represents a intersection of 1960s cultural icons— Godard, then at the height of his creative powers, filming Faithfull performing a song that had been hits for both her and the Rolling Stones.
The film itself has an intriguing backstory. Based on Donald E. Westlake's novel The Jugger, but made without securing adaptation rights, Made in U.S.A. remained in legal limbo until 2009. As Brody recounts, he managed to see it in the 1980s under less-than-ideal conditions: "The Mudd Club got hold of a 16-mm print and showed it — with the projector in the room — to a crowd of heavy smokers. It was like watching a movie outdoors in London by night, or as if through the shrouding mists of time."
Open Culture has more about the film.
Bonus: "It's All over Now Baby Blue," sung by Marianne Faithfull, from The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968):
California cops got caught being naughty with their database privileges 7,000+ times in one year
Ellsworth Toohey / 2:33 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
California's finest just can't keep their grubby little fingers off those sweet, sweet database keys! The Electronic Frontier Foundation just dropped a bombshell report showing our boys and girls in blue went full creeper mode over 7,000 times in 2023.
The grand prize for most enthusiastic privacy violator goes to the famously corrupt Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department — which has been operating as an untouchable organized crime gang for decades — with a whopping 6,789 violations.
These uniformed crooks basically turned CLETS (that's the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System) into their personal Facebook stalking tool, except with way more sensitive info. They were doing everything from stalking ex-lovers to running illegal background checks for concealed carry permits. One particularly creative officer in Redding allegedly used the database to set up a traffic stop for his fiancée's ex-husband, getting the poor schmuck's car towed. A rather odd way to "protect and serve" if you ask me, but I'm one of those delusional naifs who thinks abusing authority shouldn't be a built-in perk of having a badge and a login password.
Then there's this enterprising California Highway Patrol officer who "was charged with improperly accessing CLETS to investigate vehicles his friend was interested in purchasing as part of his automotive business." Because, why pay for CarFax when you can just commit a felony and get it for free?
As the EFF notes with delicious understatement: "The sheer amount of misuse should serve as a warning that other systems police use, such as automated license plate reader and face recognition databases, are likely also being abused at a high rate–or even higher, since they are not subject to the same scrutiny as CLETS."
At this point, maybe we should just rename CLETS to "Corrupt Lawmen Enjoying Their Surveillance" and be done with it.
A sarcastic Trump refuses to visit Potomac River crash site: "You want me to go swimming?" (video)
Carla Sinclair / 1:45 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
Donald Trump will not visit the site of the deadly American Airlines crash, which happened over the Potomac River Wednesday night, sarcastically responding to a reporter, "You tell me, what's the site? The water?"
"You want me to go swimming?" he added during a press conference yesterday. (See the Washington Post's video.)
Trump, who is blaming the crash on DEI — code for anyone other than straight white men — did say he would visit "some" of the families of the victims. Let's just hope these family members speak English, "look like" Americans, and answer the door wearing a red MAGA cap.
Previously: Donald Trump's expensive, chaotic, no good, very bad deportation debacle
Scientists track massive asteroid with rare 1.3% chance of hitting Earth in 2032
Ellsworth Toohey / 1:21 am PT Fri Jan 31, 2025
A newly discovered 100-meter-wide asteroid has triggered Earth's planetary defense systems for the first time, with a 1.3% chance of colliding with our planet in December 2032.
Designated as asteroid 2024 YR4, the space rock was first spotted by a Chilean telescope in late December and quickly rose to the top of NASA and European Space Agency impact risk lists. It's now rated as a level three on the Torino Impact Hazard Scale — the second-highest rating ever given to a near-Earth object, as reported by The Guardian. (The 340-meter asteroid Apophis was categorized at level four in 2004, but ow scientists say there's no chance it will collide with Earth in the next century).
While the odds heavily favor the asteroid missing Earth, its size demands attention. "Most likely this one will pass by harmlessly," says Colin Snodgrass, professor of planetary astronomy at the University of Edinburgh. "It just deserves a little more attention with telescopes until we can confirm that." Though not civilization-threatening like the dinosaur-killing asteroid, an impact could still cause catastrophic local damage.
The detection has activated two UN-endorsed response groups: the International Asteroid Warning Network is conducting additional observations, while the Space Mission Planning Advisory Group stands ready to propose intervention strategies if needed. One option could be deflecting the asteroid using techniques tested in NASA's recent DART mission.
"If these observations don't rule out an impact, the next steps will be more detailed characterisation measurements using telescopes, and discussion of what space agencies could do in terms of more detailed reconnaissance and eventually mitigation missions," Snodgrass explains. Astronomers will closely track the asteroid until it fades from view, with the next observation window coming in 2028.
1996 Pokemon prototype cards have 2024 printer dots
Rob Beschizza / 12:34 pm PT Thu Jan 30, 2025
Pokemon cards from a set purportedly produced to playtest the game in the 1990s have distinctive patterns of dots added by modern printers. The dots come in various patterns (such as the famed Eurion Constellation) and may identify specific models of printer and include timestamps. Though developed to identify counterfeit currency, they don't care who they snitch on—as can be seen here. Forensic Pokemon masters decoded the Pokédots and found the cards to be only a year old.
pfm, an admin at the Elite Forum Pokémon site, explains the context:
A slew of cards that were originally believed to be early prototype and cards used for playtesting have been appearing in public auction starting in 2024. Most are believed to trace back to Takumi Akabane – someone who was involved in the early development of the TCG. Because these cards are printed from a home/office printer, many of them have tracking dots. And many have a dot patter that suggest a print date in 2024. Note the decoding result. We see this serial number reoccur across many cards. Date: 2024-6-29 at 8:17 — Printer Serial Number: 704641508
Fugazi! Someone is definitely getting in trouble, obviously, but this also exposes a chain of problems in the collectible card business. What do these "grading" companies do, exactly? They validate authenticity as well as condition. From the discussion at Elite Forum, it's clear that the dots would be detectable with a magnifying glass operated by experts and detectable with a scanner operated by anyone.
That said, these forgeries display a level of sophistication beyond the norm. Most attempts are more obvious. After Calibri became the new default typeface in Microsoft Word, for example, it immediately began exposing clueless forgers who didn't know to change their fake documents to Times New Roman.
Telltale repetitions of distressing expose typewriter fonts. Inkjet printers spit tiny flecks of ink everywhere that date a document to no earlier than 1984. Hyperspectral imaging and spectrometry can identify the chemical composition of ink. Forgers have a lot to think about!