Michael from Muckrock writes, “Watch what you say: That next taxi you hail could be driven by New York’s Finest. A MuckRock FOIA request has found that the NYPD has at least three undercover cop cars posing as taxis … and quite possibly many more.” (more…)
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Cop Cabs: The NYPD has at least three fake taxis on NYC’s streets
The BBC reports on China’s use of a “digital camo” —a pixelated look believed to offer superior concealment than traditional patterns—so exaggerated it resembles the video game Minecraft. (The United States deployed a less aggressive digital camo , but is phasing it out. )
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China’s military camo looks like Minecraft
You can’t walk up to the Treasures in the Trash collection in the New York City Sanitation Department’s east Harlem warehouse, but if you’re lucky enough to get an in, you’ll find retired sanitation worker Nelson Molina’s meticulously organized displays of the wonders he rescued from the landfill. (more…)
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East Harlem’s secret museum of gorgeous junk rescued from NYC’s trash
Anti-Vaxxers are responsible for the rise in two infectious diseases we’d nearly eliminated from the United States. Researchers at Emory and Johns Hopkins Universities have determined, through a National Institute of Health review , that the rise in measles is directly attributable to vaccine refusal, and that it is certainly helping whooping cough out as well. From the NIH study’s abstract: Findings We identified 18 published measles studies (9 annual summaries and 9 outbreak reports), which described 1416 measles cases (individual age range, 2 weeks-84 years; 178 cases younger than 12 months) and more than half (56.8%) had no history of measles vaccination. Of the 970 measles cases with detailed vaccination data, 574 cases were unvaccinated despite being vaccine eligible and 405 (70.6%) of these had nonmedical exemptions (eg, exemptions for religious or philosophical reasons, as opposed to medical contraindications; 41.8% of total). Among 32 reports of pertussis outbreaks, which included 10 609 individuals for whom vaccination status was reported (age range, 10 days-87 years), the 5 largest statewide epidemics had substantial proportions (range, 24%-45%) of unvaccinated or undervaccinated individuals. However, several pertussis outbreaks also occurred in highly vaccinated populations, indicating waning immunity. Nine reports (describing 12 outbreaks) provided detailed vaccination data on unimmunized cases; among 8 of these outbreaks from 59% through 93% of unvaccinated individuals were intentionally unvaccinated. Conclusions and Relevance A substantial proportion of the US measles cases in the era after elimination were intentionally unvaccinated. The phenomenon of vaccine refusal was associated with an increased risk for measles among people who refuse vaccines and among fully vaccinated individuals. Although pertussis resurgence has been attributed to waning immunity and other factors, vaccine refusal was still associated with an increased risk for pertussis in some populations. We all pay for anti-vaxx ignorance.
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Anti-Vaxxers successfully bring back measles and whooping cough
The Cancer of Superstition , a non-fiction treatise commissioned from author H.P. Lovecraft, was found in a memorabilia collection in a defunct magic shop . Magician Harry Houdini asked Lovecraft to ghostwrite the text for a book project, but died shortly thereafter. Now it goes to auction. The collection bounced around after Beatrice Houdini’s death in 1943 and was never truly catalogued or ‘mined’ in all that time. The papers were never researched or inventoried,” said Potter & Potter president Gabe Fajuri. “In all that time, no one seemed to realise the significance of the manuscript.” Fajuri said the collection was recently bought privately, and when “the new owner began sorting through the mountain of paperwork, he began putting the pieces together, and in the process discovered the manuscript and its significance” From the excerpts, it sounds exactly as you’d imagine a Lovecraft text about superstition to sound (‘superstition is an “inborn inclination” that “persists only through mental indolence”’ etc). There is some debate over the authorship, with S.T. Joshi identifying CM Eddy. If you want it, expect to pay $25,000-$40,000 for it.
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Long-lost H.P. Lovecraft manuscrupt found
Matthew Garrett checked into a London hotel and discovered that the proprietors had decided that “light switches are unfashionable and replaced them with a series of Android tablets.” (more…)
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Hotel’s Android-based lightswitches are predictably, horribly insecure
Attention crackers – his Micronet password is 1234. “How to send an e mail 1980’s style. Electronic message writing down the phone line. First shown on Thames TV’s computer programme ‘Database’ in 1984”
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TV program shows to send an email in 1984
Abu Hamed is a former Free Syrian Army fighter who defected to ISIS, where he served in their internal security forces; after a split with the organization, he stole a thumb-drive containing the induction questionnaires and personnel files of over 22,000 jihadi fighters who travelled from 51 countries to fight with ISIS. He has turned the files over to Sky News correspondent Stuart Ramsay. (more…)
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Disgruntled IS defector dumps full details of tens of thousands of jihadis
https://youtu.be/KDc-M4dHr0s?list=PLSKUhDnoJjYmeW6nNasZSaVAGh4u91pEk I’m enjoying James Veitch’s weekly video series where he has fun with email scammers. In this episode, James has an exchange with a US soldier named Mary Gary who discovered a buried safe while on a routine patrol and wants to share the $15 million booty with James.
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Man has fun pranking email scammers
The New York Public Library’s spectacular Digital Public Library challenged designers to create new covers for some of the public domain’s greatest books, which had been previously doomed to an undeserved dullness thanks to the auto-generated covers that book-scanning projects stuck them with. (more…)