Internet of Shit.

I’m busy laughing, and happy to be a semi-dinosaur on the technological front. The only thing I want wi-fi on is my computer and tablet. That’s it.

The Internet of Shit. Have fun!

Facebook: Stealing from Standing Rock.

https://www.facebook.com/ntvsclothing/photos/a.248774832000321.1073741828.245852668959204/527999037411231/?type=3

People being what they are, there are many who are more than willing to steal and scam from actual Native artists, and using the good-heartedness of people who want to do something to show their support for Standing Rock. Indigenous artists have a difficult enough time, there are always a host of people trying to rip off what they do, but this is not only out of control, but once again, FB won’t do shit about it. So, it’s up to you. The people doing the scamming are mostly based outside the U.S., and they have enough money to buy sponsored ads on FB, which are resulting in millions upon millions of views, and worse, shares. Most Native artists and small business owners cannot afford the same amount of sponsored ads, their attempts to alert people don’t get very far, and as Aaron Silva noted in comments in the above post, FB was not allowing him to boost it.

We all know how lax FB is about such matters, in spite of what they might say. If you’re someone who wants to support Standing Rock, and thinks doing a donation by way of getting a cool shirt is a good way to do things, then do that, but do everyone a big favor by putting on your thinking cap, and keeping those eyes sharp. Verify, verify, verify, because money you think is going to Standing Rock isn’t, it’s going into the pocket of a thief. Aaron Silva has some helpful tips on what to look for at NTVS Clothing.

BuzzFeed has an extensive article about the problem. If you see a fake site, please, report them. Warn others, all the things you do on FB when you know something is bad. Native artists and all those at Standing Rock thank you for doing whatever you can to combat this ongoing problem.

Edited to add: If you fell for one of these scams, don’t feel bad, but do get mad, and help take them down!

Reddit: “There’s A Disconnect There.”

CREDIT: ThinkProgress/Dylan Petrohilos.

CREDIT: ThinkProgress/Dylan Petrohilos.

Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman had something of a TIL moment[TIL: Today I Learned] after he tried to curb abusive behavior in the site’s top subreddit for Donald Trump supporters.

In an interview with Reuters, Huffman discussed how he discovered that Reddit’s anti-harassment policies were not being adequately enforced after he tried to moderate the r/The_Donald subreddit, which is known for promoting Hillary Clinton conspiracy theories and racist and misogynistic content.

“Personal message harassment is the most cut and dry,” he said. “Right now we are in an interesting position where my inbox is full of them, it’s easy to start with me.”

[…]

Starting, apparently, with Huffman’s inbox, Reddit is in the process of ramping up its anti-harassment enforcement, adding more employees to the site’s “trust and safety team” and tasking a team of “anti-evil” engineers to head the overall process. So far, the site has identified a list hundreds usernames’ long of Reddit’s worst users and plans to admonish, ban, or suspend them, Reuters reported.

I’m not sanguine about the attempts to clean up Reddit, it’s long been a mess, and a lot of people thought it would finally get cleaned up after former interim CEO Ellen Pao attempted to deal with the constant harassment on Reddit, and was drowned in it. That incident wasn’t enough, apparently, for Huffman to get the message about just how big of a problem Reddit is, and how he’s allowed it all to happen.

“The fact I was saying that combating harassment was important and then letting that openly happen to me, the CEO, there’s a disconnect there,” he said. Huffman apologized in a statement, saying he “will never risk your trust like this again.”

[…]

Huffman clearly sees that harassment is an issue, but it took a deluge of insults to recognize the problem is more complex than simply clear-cut personal attacks.

Nice words, but will any of it matter? I suppose we’ll see. Full story at Think Progress.

Tech: Stop Normalizing Alt Right.

altright3

As President-elect Donald Trump assembles his administration, one theme is becoming clear: he’s surrounding himself with white nationalists.

The media, as a result, has been fumbling with how to cover Trump and his transition team, often downplaying appointed individuals’ white nationalist ideological views as “controversial” or “outsider.” This tactic has drawn criticism from journalists and the public, who have condemned the use of “alt-right” as a sanitized term that obscures racism.

But one man is using technology to hold the media accountable. He created a Google Chrome browser extension “Stop Normalizing Alt Right” that replaces any mention of the term “alt-right” with “white supremacy.”

[…]

“No one’s going to tell Mark Zuckerberg what to do or the media what to do,” he said. And if the recent controversy over Facebook facilitating the spread of fake news teaches us anything, he said, it’s that “you can put something out that gets attention and potentially change outcomes, it shows the power of independent creators…If I’m not doing anything to fight this or push back beyond a retweet, then I am part of the problem.”

In addition to the Chrome browser extension, George is also working on a version for Firefox and a Twitter bot that “corrects” media organization’s tweets.

“We’re engaged in lots of little acts of defiance around this to help change things, change narratives, and help people realize what side they’re on,” George said.

Think Progress Story. * Stop Normalizing site.

Tattoo Tech. Or Tech Tattoos.

Taking a break from the bad news factory that is the U.S., there’s some fun stuff from Make, as always. Tattoo fun, and even people who would never dream of getting a permanent tat can have fun with some of these, and I expect sprogs would be delighted to do something like this. I’ll be delighted to do something like this!

Skintillates aren’t limited just to embedded LEDs. In their video they show a few other compelling examples of using temporary tattoos for computer input devices and sensors.

On the purely visual side, Sparkfun shared this project called ElectriCute last year. It is a tutorial on how to put an Electroluminescent Panel on your skin and cover most of it up with makeup to appear as though you have a bright, glowing, tattoo.

Chaotic Moon put together this great presentation on how they would use the technology. One thing that stuck out in my mind was the very first example showing how you can easily paint on your own circuits with conductive ink. They do a pretty decent job of mixing the circuits with some aesthetic bits.

DuoSkin really stands out with their designs. They have a few that only use the conductive material, but it is shaped in striking and pleasing ways. Then they go on to show a few other really cool examples, such as using material that changes colors when hit with heat.

Then there’s this, which I’m quite interested in at the moment:

Happy watching and making!

The Trump Investigative Fund.

Resist.

Resist.

There are journalists who are determined to report facts and make a constant effort to disclose the truth. That’s very important right now. Think Progress has started a fund, and if you are able to drop a few pennies, this is a good place to do so.

[Read more…]

Facebook America, Fuckin’ A.

CREDIT: ThinkProgress/Dylan Petrohilos.

CREDIT: ThinkProgress/Dylan Petrohilos.

Lauren C. Williams has a very good article up at Think Progress: The internet in Trump’s nation: White nationalist sentiments could force tech companies to finally decide how much unfettered free speech matters online. I highly recommend reading it.

There has been so much written about media lately, from mainstream to social, we’ve hit a saturation point, to say the least. Still, there are important areas to cover. PZ has a post on Pharyngula about the proliferation of fake and bad news sites; I’d like to focus on facebook. Two recent articles focused on Facebook’s problem with fake news, and their need to bow down to conservatives. Facebook has, in many ways, become the Fox News of social media.

[Read more…]

OUR Walmart.

Chicago, ILLINOIS - NOVEMBER 29, 2013: Striking Walmart workers and supporters protest outside a Walmart Neighborhood Market store on Black Friday (Shutterstock).

Chicago, ILLINOIS – NOVEMBER 29, 2013: Striking Walmart workers and supporters protest outside a Walmart Neighborhood Market store on Black Friday (Shutterstock).

Walmart has long been the toughest nut for labor organizers to crack, as the company’s brutally effective anti-union campaigns have regularly crushed unions’ efforts to get workers to sign up.

However, a labor group called OUR Walmart has come out with a new mobile application that Walmart workers can use on their phones to help them organize for better wages and benefits — and it seems that Walmart is not happy about it.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Walmart has sent out warnings to all of its employees that they should not download and install the WorkIt app onto their devices because it will allegedly swipe all their important personal information. In reality, the Journal notes, it only asks users to register and share their job titles and Walmart store numbers — and its permissions do not include location data, contacts or photos.

The purpose of the app is to help workers communicate with one another so they can learn about their rights as employees, as well as to develop strategies for improving workplace policies. While there are already a lot of online forums where Walmart employees gather to talk about issues at work, OUR Walmart wants to give employees a centralized hub to help them with all of their complaints and questions.

Full story here.

How Nice to Be Rich…

920x920

The rich are busy with survivalism, not only buying insanely expensive luxury bunkers, but a whole survivalist community is going up in Texas. (Where else?) Oh, pardon me, they refer to it as a long-term sustainability community, not a survival community. This is a country club based community, with capacity for about 1,600 people. I imagine we’d be talking rich white people here. I’m not in the least rich, and I’m not all the way white, but I’ve had a longstanding interest in sustainability, especially when it comes to Indigenous people having their land stolen over and over, and their ability to sustain themselves ripped away in order to give yet more to people who don’t give one shit about sustainable resources. Now it looks like sustainability and clean energy are really only for those who can afford it, and are allowed into the country club. I’d be willing to bet that every asshole who buys into this place has fought any initiative on climate change and clean energy tooth and fucking nail.

Trident Lakes is a 700-acre, $300 million development that’s billed as a “lavish country-club community” that’ developers say is “part private resort, part safe haven.” Trident Lakes CEO Jim O’Connor and spokesman Richie Whitt said the 400 planned condos will be able to house about 1,600 people total. The condos will range from 900 to 3,600 square feet in size and feature underground floors.

O’Connor understands there may be an inkling to look at Trident Lakes as a “doomsday survival community,” but said he doesn’t view his development in such terms. “We’ve evolved it into long-term sustainability instead of a survival community,” O’Connor said. “The concept is to build a community that will last two centuries or longer. That means we’re looking at designs that include earth structures that won’t be exposed to the elements.” Part of that longevity feature is building most of the condos underground.

O’Connor plans to make the community sustainable by including “off the grid” sources of food, water and energy. Communal greenhouses, an air purification system and even a DNA vault are also planned for the community.

On the upscale side of Trident Lakes, O’Connor plans on adding an equestrian center, polo fields, zip lines and gun ranges. Retail shops, restaurants and a row of helipads are also in the works. O’Connor and Whitt haven’t disclosed a set price to move into the community yet. Whitt said the condos will be comparable to owning a second home.

[…]

“We’re looking into using different energy sources and innovative amenities,” O’Connor said. “This is not only a place to go in an emergency, but also a place people can enjoy living in year round.”

Via Houston Chronicle.

Sunday Facepalm: Geofeedia.

geo

There is no denying how amazing internet access and social media has been for so many people who are marginalized and oppressed. Sites such as FB and Twitter have been empowering, and allowed for people to be able to stand together for social change. There’s also no denying the problems with social media, either. Both Facebook and Twitter are home to festering sewers of hate and abuse, and both have been reluctant, to say the least, to do anything about it. There’s plenty of talk from FB, all the time, but in reality, it seems the only thing FB is really serious about is not having any photo of a nipple anywhere, if that nipple is attached to a female body. The fairly new rollout of live streaming has already headed into problems, when a young man live streamed his suicide, and even though notified, FB took days before they finally managed to remove the video. That lack of action, and seeming lack of care earned a number of WTF, facebook! from users. Facebook is currently losing people to Snapchat, and even that hasn’t seemed to stir them to make seriously needed changes.

Now, social media is facing the problem of applications like Geofeedia, programs written for, and used by cops and homeland security. The Verge has a good story on this problem.

Yesterday, social media surveillance became a very real problem for Facebook and Twitter. An ACLU report revealed a CIA-funded tool called Geofeedia was being used by police to track data from Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to aid in investigations. Documents show Baltimore police used the tool, called Geofeedia, during protests after the death of Freddie Gray, even feeding Instagram posts through a facial recognition system to find protestors with outstanding warrants.

Facebook and Twitter were quick to revoke Geofeedia’s access to social feeds — effectively shutting down the current version of the tool — but its broader implications are harder to dismiss. Facebook and Twitter can control direct access to their data, but they have much less control where the information goes. Now that police departments are looking to tweets and Instagrams for clues, stopping them may be harder than shutting down a single app.

The center of the issue is how Geofeedia was getting the Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram posts it supplied to police. In each case, the company was drawing information directly from feeds supplied by the platforms: Facebook’s Topic Feed API, Instagram’s full API, and a feed supplied through Twitter’s social-data subsidiary GNIP. The feeds are meant to give developers direct, machine-friendly access to posts, making it easier to build software on top of the social networks. Typically, networks want developers building that software — it’s the same system that allows for third-party add-ons like VSCOCam and Tweetbot — but they control access with a Terms of Service and an API key that’s required to access the feeds.

After the ACLU report, Facebook and Twitter revoked those keys — but it’s worth considering how much that will set back similar tools in the future. Facebook and Twitter have complete control over their API keys, but both platforms have made it fairly easy to get one. Developers need to give a general description of the software they’re building and promise to abide by the Terms of Service, but there’s little enforcement and low-level terms of service violations are commonplace. Typically, that’s a good thing. The web was built on permissionless innovation, and heavy-handed enforcement efforts are often seen as bullying or arbitrary. But it also makes it hard for companies to ensure their data isn’t being used for anything controversial.

[…]

Geofeedia’s infractions are more subtle. Nominally, the company was violating Facebook’s provisions against reselling data and Twitter’s provisions against investigating and surveilling users. But the rise of big data has created countlessstartupsdevoted to mining insights from social media streams. People use that data for all sorts of things — trading stocks, spotting trends, or identifying influencers. When people start to get arrested because of that data, there’s an obvious chilling effect, but the distinction between selling data to police rather than a hedge fund is hard to pin down. The problem is with the clients rather than the behavior itself — and clients are easy to keep secret.

That ambiguity is a big part of why Geofeedia was able to stay on the platforms for so long. The company serves a wide range of clients — including “educational companies, cities, schools, sports teams, and the aviation sector,” in the CEO’s words. Absent a public shaming, there was no reason to think law enforcement clients would be any different. A similar case played out on Twitter earlier this year, when a company called Dataminr got in trouble for a contract selling Twitter analytics to the Department of Homeland Security. The company ultimately had to cancel the contract, faced with the prospect of losing access to Twitter’s data stream.

The full story is at The Verge.

The Senators Standing with Standing Rock.

Bernie Sanders (Good Morning America).

Bernie Sanders (Good Morning America).

Former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and four other senators on Thursday called on President Barack Obama to order a comprehensive environmental review of a pipeline project that has stirred widespread opposition from Native Americans and environmental activists.

After a U.S. appeals court on Sunday night denied a request to halt construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, the senators asked Obama to direct the Army Corps of Engineers to complete a full environmental impact statement for a contested part of the route that includes stronger tribal consultation.

“The project’s current permits should be suspended and all construction stopped until a complete environmental and cultural review has been completed for the entire project,” said the letter by Sanders and Democratic Senators Dianne Feinstein, Ed Markey, Patrick Leahy and Benjamin Cardin.

In recent weeks, protests against the Dakota Access pipeline led by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in North Dakota drew international attention, prompting the U.S. government to temporarily block its construction on federal land.

[…]

On Tuesday, anti-pipeline activists in four states closed pipeline valves to halt the flow of crude through arteries transporting 15 percent of U.S. oil consumption..

When fully connected, the 1,100-mile (1,770 km) pipeline would be the first to carry crude directly to the U.S. Gulf from the Bakken shale, a vast oil formation in North Dakota, Montana and parts of Canada.

The $3.7 billion project is being built by the Dakota Access subsidiary of Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners LP, which has vowed to complete construction.

“There must be a serious consideration of the full potential climate impacts of this pipeline prior to the Army Corps of Engineers approving any permits or easements for the Dakota Access pipeline,” the senators said.

Experts say that the full environmental review requested by the senators could take several months.

The U.S. appeal court’s ruling was the second time the federal judiciary rejected the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s request to halt construction of the pipeline. On Sept. 9, a U.S. judge rejected a similar request.

Oh, so scrutiny would take a couple of months, golly, the agony for those poor, poor billionaires. Cry me a river, oil wašichu, cry me a river of clean, untainted water. Once again, we see just how much, and how easily Indigenous concerns are brushed aside, and treaties broken, again. And again. And again. My thanks to Senators Sanders, Feinstein, Markey, Leahy, and Cardin. Please, please keep the pressure on. I think everyone should remind the President of his visit to Standing Rock two years ago. How can it possibly be, in any way, to turn away from people who keep asking for justice? How long for people to wake the fuck up to all the lies, all the crimes committed by DA and Energy Transfer Partners? Remember when they swore up and down that the oil running through this travesty of a pipeline was “sweet and light”? The only people pointing out that that was a lie were Indigenous people who live in the Dakotas. I posted about that, and heard arguments and “oh no, you’re wrong.” No, we aren’t wrong. Oil lies, and it would be great if people would wake up to that fact, and stay woke. This is a disaster waiting to happen, to all of us.

Via Raw Story.

Cool Stuff Friday.

On this episode of Monster Lab, Ed Edmunds shows you how to sculpt a very cool-looking alien zombie head to be cast as a 3/4 Halloween mask. A 3/4 mask fits farther over your head than a half-mask, so no elastic string or tie is needed.

First off, Ed goes over the sculpting tools you’ll need, most of which are basic things you likely already have around the house or shop (brushes, bucket, knife, spray bottle) and a few carving tools that are easily acquired. For the sculpting medium, he recommends WED clay. You can get 50 lbs of it for around $25 (minus shipping). After he runs through the basic tools, he goes over some nice-to-have tools if you enjoy your intro to sculpting and decide you want to dive in deeper.

Below is the only exotic tool he highly recommends that you may not be able to get at your local craft store, a serrated double wire sculpting tool that has a triangular wire on one end and a circular wire on the other. The steel wire is serrated and this tool is used for cutting, shaping, and digging out clay material around places like the eye sockets.

One thing I like about this video is that Ed tried to keep all of the tools required as minimal as possible so that newbies could try their hand at it. On that note, for the armature, rather than using a professional head/bust form for modeling, he made a crude one out of 2x4s and a piece of plywood. He also recommends a Lazy Susan, but it’s not required.

Another thing I love about this video, and all well-done instructional videos, is that it makes the process look approachable, very doable. Even if you have no sculpting experience or don’t see yourself as particularly artistic (stop that!), if you create a set-up like he has, gather the basic tools, and carefully follow along, I can almost guarantee that you’ll surprise yourself and end up with something that’s pretty darn impressive.

This is only Part 1 in the series. In the next installment, Ed promises to show us how to cast the alien zombie sculpt into a wearable mask. Monster Lab is hosted by the prop and F/X company, Distortions Unlimited. You can peruse their website here.

Also at Make: 8 Seriously Scary Halloween Costumes / 5-Minute Glowing Ghost Eyes – A ghost with glowing eyes hovers in the window. Watching. Always watching. /

The Octopod Interview:

octopod-beauty-shot

And, a whole slew of Rubber Band toys to make:

rb

All via Make Magazine. I’m a Maker, don’t you want to be a Maker too?

The Artful Science of Mending.

Mending tears with Japanese paper. Photos courtesy of Alvarez Fine Arts Services unless otherwise noted.

Mending tears with Japanese paper. Photos courtesy of Alvarez Fine Arts Services unless otherwise noted.

While conservators in a museum setting work towards exhibitions that are scheduled years in advance, private practitioners often have to work at a much faster clip, while still upholding the required methodological and ethical standards. “More and more, our schedule is governed by auction dates and major art fairs around the world,” notes Jason Marquis, the studio manager at Alvarez Fine Arts Services, a New York-based private paper conservation studio founded by Antonio Alvarez and Scott Krawitz in 1984. With Art Basel less than two months away, the Alvarez team, which includes four full-time conservators, is gearing up for a busy season.

On the plus side, those intensive turnaround times—along with a diverse client base—make for a rich variety of projects. In addition to taking on work for smaller museums that do not have an in-house paper conservation staff, the Alvarez studio primarily does business with auction houses, art dealers, and collectors, who are looking to treat artworks before they are exhibited or sold. Meanwhile, some projects are brought to them because of their personal, rather than cultural, importance—like letters and diplomas. “But we don’t think about value when things come through here,” explains Marquis. “We treat everything as though it’s priceless, whether it’s a sentimental drawing from someone’s grandmother, or a million-dollar work.”

Antique fishing lure boxes. Photo by the author.

Antique fishing lure boxes. Photo by the author.

“According to the collector,” says Skura, “the boxes are worth even more than the objects.” And while the client was hoping to have the labels removed, cleaned, then put back on, Skura is instead recommending a less aggressive approach that will leave the labels as is, and extract the dirt with dry sponges. “What is technically possible isn’t always ethically sound,” says Marquis—a magic phrase he often has to use with clients. “It’s like going to the doctor and asking for a treatment, and the doctor has to explain why it’s not such a good idea,” adds Skura.

I collect old medicines, and have many amazingly beautiful boxes full of various herbs, and yes, the boxes are so very important. The artwork, the information, there’s so much richness and history there. I had never even thought about having these restored. The full article is excellent, and there’s more to see at The Creators Project.