Here’s Vic Berger‘s hilarious and disturbing edit of Melania Trump’s interview with Anderson Cooper on the Trump tapes. (more…)
Day: October 18, 2016
Vogue Endorses Hillary Clinton for President of the United States
Vogue today endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton as the first ever female president of the United States of America, and ran this gorgeous portrait of our future POTUS by photographer Annie Leibovitz for Vogue, in December 1993.
“Fear is the mind killer” Bene Gesserit Litany from "Dune," Cat Edition
A kitten interpretation of the Bene Gesserit Litany of Fear, from the David Lynch movie masterpiece “Dune,” based on the great Frank Herbert science fiction novel.
Michael Moore quietly made a Donald Trump movie. "TrumpLand" opens this week.
Filmmaker Michael Moore has an “October surprise” for America: A stealthily and quickly made movie about the presidential campaign of GOP nominee and accused serial sexual predator Donald Trump.
Half of all U.S. adults are in face-recognition databases, and Black people more likely to be targeted
“One in two American adults is in a law enforcement face recognition network.”
“The Perpetual Lineup” report out today from a Georgetown University thinktank makes a compelling case for greater oversight of police facial-recognition software that “makes the images of more than 117 million Americans — a disproportionate number of whom are black — searchable by law enforcement agencies across the nation,” as the New York Times account reads.
Hard work and lower standards raise our national high school graduation rate
Nationally the High School graduation rate has been on the rise. NPR reports the rise is due to a combination of hard work that benefits students, and some states simply lowering standards so they earn passing grades.
Via NPR:
While the graduation rate continues to climb, the improvement comes at a time when the scores of high school students on the test known as the “Nation’s Report Card,” are essentially flat, and average scores on the ACT and SAT are down.
As we’ve reported, the rising graduation rate reflects genuine progress, such as closing high schools termed “dropout factories,” but also questionable strategies by states and localities to increase their numbers.
“For many students, a high school diploma is not a passport to opportunity, it’s a ticket to nowhere,” says Michael Cohen, president of Achieve, a national nonprofit that’s long advocated for higher standards and graduation requirements.
Cohen points out that roughly half of states now offer multiple diplomas. Some of those credentials are rigorous, some aren’t. “You don’t know how many students who were in that graduation rate actually completed a rigorous course of study. We’re not transparent about that. We’re concealing a problem.”
In many places, the high school graduation exam is also a low bar, Cohen says, while some states have dropped it altogether.
Just last month, in a major school funding ruling, Connecticut Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher excoriated his state for watered down graduation standards that, he says, have already resulted “in unready children being sent to high school, handed degrees, and left, if they can scrape together the money, to buy basic skills at a community college.”
It’s difficult to know which states earned this uptick in graduation rates through high standards and hard work and which states achieved it through shortcuts and lowered expectations. In some cases, it’s all of the above.
Things I miss: Interplanet Janet
Compact laser measure
Measuring tapes can be a pain to use solo, and just wanted to measure some stuff around the house. This compact laser measure is perfect.
Honestly, I was sold at compact and laser, but the ability to measure stuff with one touch of a button is pretty handy. Good for measuring distances of 6 inches to 50 feet, or basically what you need around the house, this Bosch measure is accurate to 1/8 of an inch. Literally all it does is measure distance, and it only has one button. This unit is super simple to use.
If you just want to center a painting on a wall without begging a friend to come over this is a great tool!
Bosch GLM 15 Compact Laser Measure, 50-Feet via Amazon
Roundup of the dumbest Halloween costumes of 2016
Here’s a small sampling of the dozens of Halloween costumes posted for the purpose of ridicule on io9.
Drew Friedman's stupendous "More Heroes of the Comics" (Plus NYC EVENT 10/18/16)
I raved about Heroes of the Comics when it came out in 2014. Now I’m going to rave about More Heroes of the Comics, the new companion volume. This large book has 100 meticulous color paintings of people who were involved in the early days of comic books, painted by Drew Friedman, the great portraitist of our time. Each hero portrait is accompanied by an interesting one-page biography.
While Friedman’s first book covered the famous heavy hitters of comics (Kirby, Crumb, Barks, Kurtzberg, Wood), More Heroes digs deeper, profiling people who deserve recognition for their work, even though it was sometimes behind the scenes. I’d say about 75% of the names were familiar to me (Otto Binder, Ray Bradbury, Gene Colan, Dan DeCarlo, Jim Warren, John Buscema) while the other 25% were new, and, for that reason, even more interesting (Olive Bailey, Bob Haney, Louis Ferstadt – colorful characters!).
The two volume Heroes set, is scholarly and popular at the same time, and represents a milestone in the early history of comic books. Drew Friedman himself is a hero of comics for making it.
Also, there’s an event tonight about the book at the Museum of Illustration in NYC. Drew Friedman will be signing advance copies of the book and join in conversation with Karen Green, MAD’s Al Jaffee, and moderator Danny Fingeroth. Also, Jim Warren, the legendary publisher of Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella, and Famous Monsters of Filmland, will be there with Drew. I wish I could be there.
Sassy Trump vs. Little Girl
Natasha Stoynoff's account of Trump sexual assault now backed by 6 witnesses
Former People magazine contributor Natasha Stoynoff recently went public with her claim that she was sexually assaulted by the GOP Presidential Nominee, Donald Trump.
Dive into professional 'ethical' hacking with this certification package
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Let's Split! is an atlas of separatism, national identity, and fringe geopolitical movements
Let’s Split! causes me no end of joy and pain. It is my favorite Nietzsche quote come to life. (“Madness is rare in individuals – but in groups, parties, nations and ages it is the rule.”) It is also a 636-page atlas of separatism, national identity, fringe geopolitical movements, and a baleful cry from oppressed minority populations.
The book is put together with the obsessive care of an eccentric Victorian explorer documenting each step of his journey through uncharted lands, never stopping to discern between the observed real and the observed surreal. But Roth is no Victorian. He’s an anthropologist who’s worked with indigenous peoples in Canada and Alaska for governmental recognition and rights. Let’s Split! began life in 2011 as a blog that Roth maintains titled Springtime of Nations. (Full disclosure: by some trick in the time/space continuum, author Roth lives just a few miles from me and we have friends in common. I found this out after I discovered his blog and book.)
Conceptually, the idea of a nation-state is relatively new in the spectrum of development of human societies. People were once few on the earth and tended toward the homogeneity of tribal affiliation. As populations grew, coalitions, hegemony, and politics took shape both psychologically and politically.
Organized by continent, Let’s Split! leaves no territory behind. (Though Roth rightfully excludes “cybernations” and the giggling masses of “micronations” invented by bored teenagers declaring their basement lairs sovereign territory no longer oppressed by the evil overlords, Mom & Dad.) Included with each entry are pictures of the flags, potential population, geographic size, and finally, its likelihood for autonomy.
And this is where Let’s Split! transforms into something beyond a history, an atlas, or a dry-as-dust encyclopedia. Entries for the Eastern European region ripple with references to long-forgotten kingdoms and internecine rivalries. We follow the migrations of the Mongols and the surge of conquerors to the painful remnants of a peoples’ history written in blood. Understanding these thousand-year-old grudges makes the all-too-many modern skirmishes throughout the world profoundly real.
Let’s Split! is loaded with enough facts and minutiae to delight history geeks yet remains highly readable. Let the pages fall open and you’ll be immediately drawn into the conflict within. Make no mistake, a guide to breakaway states and freedom movements is rife with conflict and suffering. As Westerners, it’s all too easy for us to sit in judgment as chaotic events in other parts of the world are blipped onto our screens, then summarily dismissed. But please don’t let that, nor the high price dissuade you. (Though I would love to see a lower priced paperback edition.) Let’s Split! is a worthy addition to your library.
See sample pages from this book at Wink.
Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements and Aspirant Nations, from Abkhazia to Zanzibar
by Christopher F. Roth
Litwin Books
2015, 636 pages, 8.5 x 11 x 1.2 inches (hardcover)
Let’s Split! is an atlas of separatism, national identity, and fringe geopolitical movements
Let’s Split! causes me no end of joy and pain. It is my favorite Nietzsche quote come to life. (“Madness is rare in individuals – but in groups, parties, nations and ages it is the rule.”) It is also a 636-page atlas of separatism, national identity, fringe geopolitical movements, and a baleful cry from oppressed minority populations.
The book is put together with the obsessive care of an eccentric Victorian explorer documenting each step of his journey through uncharted lands, never stopping to discern between the observed real and the observed surreal. But Roth is no Victorian. He’s an anthropologist who’s worked with indigenous peoples in Canada and Alaska for governmental recognition and rights. Let’s Split! began life in 2011 as a blog that Roth maintains titled Springtime of Nations. (Full disclosure: by some trick in the time/space continuum, author Roth lives just a few miles from me and we have friends in common. I found this out after I discovered his blog and book.)
Conceptually, the idea of a nation-state is relatively new in the spectrum of development of human societies. People were once few on the earth and tended toward the homogeneity of tribal affiliation. As populations grew, coalitions, hegemony, and politics took shape both psychologically and politically.
Organized by continent, Let’s Split! leaves no territory behind. (Though Roth rightfully excludes “cybernations” and the giggling masses of “micronations” invented by bored teenagers declaring their basement lairs sovereign territory no longer oppressed by the evil overlords, Mom & Dad.) Included with each entry are pictures of the flags, potential population, geographic size, and finally, its likelihood for autonomy.
And this is where Let’s Split! transforms into something beyond a history, an atlas, or a dry-as-dust encyclopedia. Entries for the Eastern European region ripple with references to long-forgotten kingdoms and internecine rivalries. We follow the migrations of the Mongols and the surge of conquerors to the painful remnants of a peoples’ history written in blood. Understanding these thousand-year-old grudges makes the all-too-many modern skirmishes throughout the world profoundly real.
Let’s Split! is loaded with enough facts and minutiae to delight history geeks yet remains highly readable. Let the pages fall open and you’ll be immediately drawn into the conflict within. Make no mistake, a guide to breakaway states and freedom movements is rife with conflict and suffering. As Westerners, it’s all too easy for us to sit in judgment as chaotic events in other parts of the world are blipped onto our screens, then summarily dismissed. But please don’t let that, nor the high price dissuade you. (Though I would love to see a lower priced paperback edition.) Let’s Split! is a worthy addition to your library.
See sample pages from this book at Wink.
Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements and Aspirant Nations, from Abkhazia to Zanzibar
by Christopher F. Roth
Litwin Books
2015, 636 pages, 8.5 x 11 x 1.2 inches (hardcover)
Bose locks down central London to shoot commercial
https://youtu.be/YjNt_8qeLD8
In this commercial for headphones, a young woman dances in an eerily empty Piccadilly Circus, London’s famously crowded tourist attraction. The creative director of the ad explains how it was done:
“We never quite believed we would actually be able to lock down central London in such heavily populated and high security areas,” Grey London executive creative director Dominic Goldman tells AdFreak. “We used a helicopter for the ariel shots, which had understandably strict airspace rules. We held back traffic and people for a few minutes each take. This wasn’t easy to produce. Most of this was captured in camera with minimal clean-up in post.”
Man blind since birth asked if he knows what he looks like
Tommy Edison, the very funny “Blind Film Critic,” who has been without sight since birth, answers the question: “Does it bother you that you don’t know what you look like?”
What kind of electronics crap can you buy for $50 in Shenzhen?
A USB light (above) for $0.11. A USB fan for $0.45. A 32GB Micro SD card for $2.13. A Smart watch for $9.74. An iPhone-controllable camera drone for $9.74. These were just some of the things this guy bought in the Huaqiangbei electronics market area of Shenzhen.
While most vendors in the markets will (grudgingly) sell you one of something, that’s not really why they’re there. HQB is where you go to buy new products in volume. The price for one of something is…a little bit higher than the unit price if you’re buying a bunch of something.
Up until now, we’ve had only the vaguest sense of what volume purchase in the markets was really like. We, of course, were never going to be in the business of buying smartwatches, drones, or SD cards in volume. Or were we?
About a month back, Jesse asked friends on Twitter if they’d pay fifty bucks to get a box of random crap from Shenzhen. It quickly became clear that we weren’t going to have any trouble finding customers for this one.
Shahi Cauliflower Curry
Many years ago, I ran a vegetarian restaurant in Bloomington, Indiana. One of our Indian friends and customers gave me this recipe, which I’ve revised over the years. (Thank you, Santosh, wherever you are!)
This is a nice curry for a weeknight since it doesn’t involve too much heavy lifting. There are many versions in India, of course, but this one makes a substantial vegetarian meal.
The word shahi roughly translates as “royal,” and it is indeed a royal dish!
Sylvan Esso: folktronica you can dance to
At last weekend’s rainy and wonderful Treasure Island Music Festival on the San Francisco Bay, there were myriad sublime moments on and off the stages. My highlight was the evening set by Sylvan Esso, the indie pop/electronica/folk duo of Amelia Meath and producer Nick Sanborn. While Sylvan Esso’s self-titled 2014 release is still attracting new fans (like me), they’re prepping a new album for next year. The above track, “Radio,” released in August, is a fantastic glimpse of what’s to come.
Once again, Treasure Island served as a visceral stream of music discovery for me. It was the festival’s final year on the island and I look forward to wherever our friends who curate and produce the festival, Noise Pop and Another Planet Entertainment, drop their anchor next year.
Kickstarting a monthly open hardware maker-box for kids that funds a kids' makerspace
Noah Swartz writes, “Parts and Crafts, a youth and community makerspace in Somerville, MA, is kickstarting a series of Creative Commons/Open Hardware licensed educational kits and projects for kids. The project is called ‘Monthly Make-It’ and it’s a maker-kit subscription service where you sign up to get a box of cool DIY buildable projects sent to your house every month.”
Kickstarting a monthly open hardware maker-box for kids that funds a kids’ makerspace
Noah Swartz writes, “Parts and Crafts, a youth and community makerspace in Somerville, MA, is kickstarting a series of Creative Commons/Open Hardware licensed educational kits and projects for kids. The project is called ‘Monthly Make-It’ and it’s a maker-kit subscription service where you sign up to get a box of cool DIY buildable projects sent to your house every month.”
President Nixon's housekeeper hypnotized into shoplifting
In 1971, Shirley Cromartie, a housekeeper for President Richard Nixon at his Key Biscayne retreat, was arrested for shoplifting four dresses. According to Cromartie, she was hypnotically coerced into the theft by a young woman who approached her, “released a jasmine-like scent from her left hand” to told her “to take the dresses former children.”
Psychiatrist Dr. Albert Maslow who examined Cromartie said he “believed she was telling the truth.”
Clip below of a Philadelphia Inquirer article from October 23, 1971. More at Weird Universe.
Waitress receives tip: God wants you to go home and cook
A waitress employed at a Cracker Barrel in South Carolina sent this “tip” written on a napkin that she got to The Bitchy Waitress website.
Dear Renee, thank you for your excelent service today. Your a good waitress.
Heres your tip:
The womans place is in the home. You’re place is in the home. It even says so in the Bible. You may think that your contributing to your household by coming into work, but your not. While your in here “working” this is the reason your husband must see another women on his way home from a long day at his work. Because you should be home taking care of the household duties. You may think what you are doing “working” is right, it is really essentially a disgrace to his manhood and to the American family. So instead of coming to your “job” and looking for hand out’s to feed your family, hows about going home and cleaning your house and cooking a hot meal for your husband and children, the way you’re husband and God intended, and help make America great again. Praying for families and our nation.
Love,
The Watley’s
Waitress receives tip: God wants you to go home and cook
A waitress employed at a Cracker Barrel in South Carolina sent this “tip” written on a napkin that she got to The Bitchy Waitress website.
Dear Renee, thank you for your excelent service today. Your a good waitress.
Heres your tip:
The womans place is in the home. You’re place is in the home. It even says so in the Bible. You may think that your contributing to your household by coming into work, but your not. While your in here “working” this is the reason your husband must see another women on his way home from a long day at his work. Because you should be home taking care of the household duties. You may think what you are doing “working” is right, it is really essentially a disgrace to his manhood and to the American family. So instead of coming to your “job” and looking for hand out’s to feed your family, hows about going home and cleaning your house and cooking a hot meal for your husband and children, the way you’re husband and God intended, and help make America great again. Praying for families and our nation.
Love,
The Watley’s
Save the Ruby Slippers!
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History launched a Kickstarter project to save Dorothy’s Ruby Slippers in their collection from further deterioration. The museum is seeking $500,000 for “immediate conservation care and a new, state-of-the-art display case, in order to slow their deterioration and protect them from environmental harm.” Federal funds support the Smithsonian’s operating budget but don’t cover these kinds of efforts. From Smithsonian magazine:
Today, we know that the Smithsonian’s Ruby Slippers (from the 1939 film) are a mismatched pair, with a half-size difference. To the critical eye, they’re almost underwhelming. Under low lights and displayed on a mock yellow-brick road carpet, the roughly 2,400 cellulose nitrate sequins sewn onto the heels are a duller shade of red than you might expect, and the bows are slightly different…
Time Lapse: 52 thousand books reshelved at NYC Public Library
From the YouTube description: “In preparation for the reopening of the Rose Main Reading Room, watch 52,000 books being shelved…in just two minutes. Video credit: Max Touhey Photography. Music credit: As Colorful As Ever by Broke For Free
Utility knife reviewer loses his cool
The first few seconds of this video promises to be an insightful look at utility knives. It soon becomes clear that we will learn less about knives and more about the reviewer’s prejudices, grudges, and anger control issues.
UK government proposes issuing Britons with unique porn-viewing ID numbers
The UK government says it wants to stop people under 18 from looking at pornography, and so it’s going to make all the porn sites operating in Britain collect some kind of age-verification in order to make this happen, on pain of being blocked by the UK’s Great Firewall.
(more…)
Swim Through the Darkness: the strange story of a mysterious 60s psych songwriter
Swim Through the Darkness: My Search for Craig Smith and the Mystery of Maitreya Kali is the much-anticipated story of one of the more esoteric, fascinating casualties of the flower power generation. As told by Ugly Things magazine creator Mike Stax, the book tracks the odyssey of Craig Smith, a musician who evolved from clean-cut singer songwriter, landing gigs on the Andy Williams show and a Monkees-esque television pilot, to a post-institutionalized street messiah, Maitreya Kali. Smith wrote songs for The Monkees (and was nearly cast in the band) and Glen Campbell, headed the much fabled psych pop band The Penny Arkade, and released two of the most acid-drenched folk records of the early 70s before fading into obscurity. After his initial songwriting success, he used the money he earned to travel the world, only to return as a permanently damaged shell of his former self, complete with a spider tattoo on his forehead.
Until now, Smith’s life has mostly been told by the music he left behind. And even so, his Penny Arkade recordings were only made readily available within the last twenty years, while his psych folk records, self-released under the moniker Maitreya Kali, have only been experienced by extremely lucky record collectors or in varying quality online. Apache and Inca, those latter releases, include an early demo of the Monkees’ “Salesman” (from Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones Ltd.) as well as alternative versions of songs recorded by The Penny Arkade. But what the records are really known for is their otherworldly vibe that could only be made by someone whose mind was no longer on Earth. Stax’s new book piecees together the story of this lost musician, whose path is not dissimilar to those of Syd Barret and Roky Erickson. Swim Through The Darkness tells the tale of an artist who got lost between fame and discovery, until all that was left were musical echoes.
“Swim Through the Darkness: My Search for Craig Smith and the Mystery of Maitreya Kali” by Mike Stax (Amazon)
This beautiful rocket-shaped fountain pen is just $20,000
Swiss “writing instrument” manufacturer Caran d’Ache and watchmaker MB&F collaborated to create the Astrograph fountain pen, an otherworldly pen with the astronomical price of $20,000. There will only be 99 of them produced and each includes a small, magnetic astronaut. Do not chew the cap.
This writing instrument is fitted with an ink pump, but may also be used with cartridges.
The pen nib is made from rhodium-plated 18-carat gold, available in size M…The rocket-shaped pen body is rhodium-plated and either highly polished or sandblasted matt, or plated in ruthenium anthracite. The chequered pattern is made from anthracite lacquer…
The base of the “engine” is plated with ruthenium. The stabiliser legs, the joints and miniature ladder are polished, sandblasted, satin-finished and rhodium-plated.
The Astrograph (via Uncrate)
Spider-Man cartoon from 1967 reimagined by multiple animators
For Halifax, Nova Scotia’s Nocturne arts festival animators from the province recreated the 1967 Spiderman cartoon “Vulture’s Prey” in their very different personal styles.
To him, life is a great big bang up
Whenever there’s a hang up
You’ll find the Spider-Man
NMLC Ensures Life-Saving Breast Screening Equipment Reaches Military Treatment Facilities Globally
Many know October is Women’s Health and Breast Cancer Awareness Month. What might not be common knowledge is how Naval Medical Logistics Command (NMLC) supports women’s health and breast cancer prevention. …read more
Boars, Gore, and Swords podcast covers Westworld
This week, Boars, Gore, and Swords breaks from the ASOIAF book club to watch the first episode of HBO’s robot cowboy apocalypse series Westworld. Ivan and Red discuss the commentary on gaming woven throughout the show, how to successfully program a robot so that it won’t foment a revolution, and Ed Harris’s portrayal of the ultimate griefer. They also continue their Patreon-exclusive coverage of episodes seven and eight of the Great British Bake Off, so kick in a dollar or more to hear their excitement about cakes.
To catch up on previous television seasons, the A Song of Ice And Fire books, and other TV and movies, check out the BGaS archive. You can find them on Twitter @boarsgoreswords, like their Facebook fanpage, and email them. If you want access to extra episodes and content, you can donate to the Patreon.
Wrong things that programmers believe, a curated list
Kevin Deldycke has collected a “curated list” of “awesome falsehoods programmers believe in,” sorted by subject into meta, business, dates and time, emails, geography, human identity, networks, phone numbers, postal addresses and software engineering.
(more…)
Donald Trump's mail-servers are running Windows 2003
Security researcher Kevin Beaumont had a look at the mail servers operated by the Trump organization and found a veritable dumpster fire: systems running Windows 2003 (!), unpatched, badly configured.
Creepy clown heatmap: is your neighborhood next?
The creepy clown ebb and flow is currently in full flow, so Atlas Obscura has created the definitive creepy clown incident map, replete with dates, details, and outcome. (more…)
Data and Picard: Star Trek megamix medley
Not only is the song catchy, but this delightful homage by Pogo has fantastic production values, to boot! Warning: you may be singing this the rest of the day. (more…)
#SavePepe: creator Matt Furie seeks to take back Pepe the Frog
Can something be un-memed? Matt Furie hopes his creation Pepe the Frog can have a second metamorphosis back from being a go-to troll image of the alt-right. He’s teamed with ADL to #SavePepe. He even made a new cartoon about it. (more…)
#SavePepe: creator Matt Furie seeks to take back Pepe the Frog
Can something be un-memed? Matt Furie hopes his creation Pepe the Frog can have a second metamorphosis back from being a go-to troll image of the alt-right. He’s teamed with ADL to #SavePepe. He even made a new cartoon about it. (more…)
US unemployment timelapse highlights 2008 crisis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shqJR_0WdrI
It’s difficult to comprehend the onset and severity of the 2008 financial crisis, but this timelapse map of US unemployment data from 1990 through July 2016 helps put things in context. (more…)
The Cat Organ will haunt your nightmares, if you are a cat
How to get out your driveway when another car is blocking it
We’ve all experienced the frustration and delay caused by thoughtless motorists who block driveways and parking spots with their vehicles. The key thing is to remain calm, take a deep breath, and don’t lose your temper. In this video, a driver shows how easy it is to deal with a blocked driveway if you just stop to think a moment about the problem.
How to get out your driveway when another car is blocking it
We’ve all experienced the frustration and delay caused by thoughtless motorists who block driveways and parking spots with their vehicles. The key thing is to remain calm, take a deep breath, and don’t lose your temper. In this video, a driver shows how easy it is to deal with a blocked driveway if you just stop to think a moment about the problem.
Trump winning the robotweet war
When you conduct a poll of human beings and ask them who won each of the two presidential debates (the third is tomorrow) they mostly say Hillary Clinton. But millionaire Donald Trump overwhelmingly wins on web-based polls. Why? The fabled alt-right internet hordes crusading around the internet clicking the lot? Maybe. But his fandom is also winning the bot war, with automated robotweeting and online interaction efforts that far outstrip those of their adversaries.
Bots are social media accounts that automate interaction with other users, and political bots have been particularly active on public policy issues, political crises, and elections. We collected data on bot activity using the major hashtags related to the U.S. Presidential debate. In this brief analysis we find that (1) Twitter traffic on pro-Trump hashtags was roughly double that of the pro-Clinton hashtags, (2) about one third of the pro-Trump twitter traffic was driven by bots and highly automated accounts, compared to one fifth of the pro-Clinton twitter traffic, (3) the significant rise of Twitter traffic around debate time is mostly from real users who generate original tweets using the more neutral hashtags. In short, Twitter is much more actively pro-Trump than pro-Clinton and more of the pro-Trump twitter traffic is driven by bots, but a significant number of (human) users still use Twitter for relatively neutral political expression in critical moments.
Politicalbots.org is the source of the non-peer-reviewed report, which is available to download.
A key point is that there’s no evidence the campaigns are doing it. It’s a form of grassroots activism that exploits the unwillingness of social networks to do anything about their noise floor.
The BBC has some tips on How To Spot A Bot.
They often do not feature a profile image, and when they do it is often shared among multiple accounts – so watch out for duplicates.
Bots also tend to follow many more accounts than than they are followed by in turn – a sign that they do not have real friends or work colleagues.
They often have little to say apart from the topic of conversation they have been created to post about, and may tweet prolifically without apparent recourse to sleep.
Also watch out for accounts that reply to your messages in less time than was humanly possible to read what you wrote.
A final giveaway is if scrutiny of the bot’s account reveals it has sent the same response to you to dozens of others too.
Trump winning the robotweet war
When you conduct a poll of human beings and ask them who won each of the two presidential debates (the third is tomorrow) they mostly say Hillary Clinton. But millionaire Donald Trump overwhelmingly wins on web-based polls. Why? The fabled alt-right internet hordes crusading around the internet clicking the lot? Maybe. But his fandom is also winning the bot war, with automated robotweeting and online interaction efforts that far outstrip those of their adversaries.
Bots are social media accounts that automate interaction with other users, and political bots have been particularly active on public policy issues, political crises, and elections. We collected data on bot activity using the major hashtags related to the U.S. Presidential debate. In this brief analysis we find that (1) Twitter traffic on pro-Trump hashtags was roughly double that of the pro-Clinton hashtags, (2) about one third of the pro-Trump twitter traffic was driven by bots and highly automated accounts, compared to one fifth of the pro-Clinton twitter traffic, (3) the significant rise of Twitter traffic around debate time is mostly from real users who generate original tweets using the more neutral hashtags. In short, Twitter is much more actively pro-Trump than pro-Clinton and more of the pro-Trump twitter traffic is driven by bots, but a significant number of (human) users still use Twitter for relatively neutral political expression in critical moments.
Politicalbots.org is the source of the non-peer-reviewed report, which is available to download.
A key point is that there’s no evidence the campaigns are doing it. It’s a form of grassroots activism that exploits the unwillingness of social networks to do anything about their noise floor.
The BBC has some tips on How To Spot A Bot.
They often do not feature a profile image, and when they do it is often shared among multiple accounts – so watch out for duplicates.
Bots also tend to follow many more accounts than than they are followed by in turn – a sign that they do not have real friends or work colleagues.
They often have little to say apart from the topic of conversation they have been created to post about, and may tweet prolifically without apparent recourse to sleep.
Also watch out for accounts that reply to your messages in less time than was humanly possible to read what you wrote.
A final giveaway is if scrutiny of the bot’s account reveals it has sent the same response to you to dozens of others too.
Larry Flynt announces $1m bounty for more Trump tapes
It’s widely-suspected that there’s more out there of millionaire presidential candidate Donald Trump boasting about assaulting women, but the obvious sources—TV producers and radio hosts, say—aren’t going to shit where they eat just to give Hillary Clinton another point in the polls. Enter Larry Flynt and Hustler Magazine.
Attention Citizens! $1,000,000 Offer!
Beverly Hills, CA – October 17, 2016 – Larry Flynt announced today that his Hustler companies are offering up to $1 million dollars for verifiable video footage or audio recordings for use prior to the November 8 election clearly showing Donald Trump engaging in illegal activity or acting in a sexually demeaning or derogatory manner, if Hustler chooses to publish or otherwise use such materials.
Mr. Flynt states, “I have always celebrated women. Women in all shapes and sizes. To treat a woman like Mr. Trump himself has is both disappointing and unbelievable, especially coming from someone who wants to be our President.”
Mr. Flynt continues to be appalled by the hypocrisy of our elected officials who dictate how the American people should live their lives behind closed doors while themselves engaging in the variety of activities they publicly condemn. Mr. Trump claims that “nobody has more respect for women than me” despite tremendous amounts of evidence to the contrary. Mr. Flynt has made it his mission to call these hypocrites out and provide the public with as much information about their indiscretions as possible.
The last time Mr. Flynt made such an offer was in 2007 when he announced that he was willing to pay one million dollars for documented evidence of illicit sexual liaisons with a prominent member of public office. He also made similar offers in 1998 during the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair to root out hypocritical officials who had engaged in the same behavior they publicly condemned.
Please contact Minda Gowen with any questions about the offer, or issues regarding file transfers.
Contact: Minda Gowen | mgowen@lfp.com | 323-655-6942
Delft plates with images of nuclear power stations
The Atomteller plates update the Dutch tradition of plates that feature windmills with more up-to-date power-generation — nukes: “Monuments of error – hope of yesterday – folklore of tomorrow.” €39 each, 20cm in diameter. (via Crazy Abalone)
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Retired USS Drum Sailors Reunite in San Diego
Retired Sailors once assigned to former Sturgeon-class fast attack submarine USS Drum (SSN 677) gathered in San Diego for a reunion celebration, Oct. 13-16. …read more
Make: "Mad scientist test-tube rack"
John Park, the maker’s maker, explains in detail how to make this glowing mad scientist test-tube rack that you can use as a Hallowe’en decoration and/or household mood light.
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