By Robinson Meyer, about whom the NSA gives not one fuck.
More: Anti-Surveillance Camouflage for Your Face - the Atlantic

The NSA made me slather my face in make-up.

Or, it didn’t make me, exactly. But last spring, I found myself wandering around D.C., wearing dazzle camouflage for the first time. It was a sunny Saturday, the capital swamp neither frigid nor muggy-oppressive—perfect for walking. It took me 45 minutes to get all the makeup on, to get the pencil right and the hair dangled just so.

I spent the day hanging out with some friends around Adams Morgan, a neighborhood seemingly developed by former hippies who had gone into non-profit C-suites or opened boutique restaurant-bars. I told my friends why my face had splotches of dark makeup on it but didn’t say much to anyone else, and that’s when the looks began.

I should step back. I had slathered the paint on my face in order to hide from computers. The patterns in which I applied the paint were important: To the pixel-calculating machinations of facial recognition algorithms, they transformed my face into a mess of unremarkable pixels. In the computer’s vision, my face caused a momentary burst of confusion.

That’s why the patterns are called computer vision dazzle (or CV dazzle). When it works, CV dazzle keeps facial-recognition algorithms from seeing a face. The technique takes its name from the dazzle camouflage of the two World Wars: The Great Power navies sought to protect their ships not by hiding them among the waves but by obscuring their size and movement. CV dazzle was developed by the artist, designer, and entrepreneur, Adam Harvey, who created the patterns as a student at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program.

The idea behind CV dazzle is simple. Facial recognition algorithms look for certain patterns when they analyze images: patterns of light and dark in the cheekbones, or the way color is distributed on the nose bridge—a baseline amount of symmetry. These hallmarks all betray the uniqueness of a human visage. If you obstruct them, the algorithm can’t separate a face from any other swath of pixels.

CV dazzle is ostentatious and kind of rad-looking, in a joyful, dystopic way. The first time I saw it, three years ago, I found it charismatic and captivating. Here was a technology that confounded computers with light and color. Since then, more and more people have learned about the technology. Harvey has contributed op-art about dazzle to The New York Times and enthusiasts have held facial dazzle parties. After documents from the Snowden tranche revealed the NSA had harvested an enormous database of faces from images on the web, CV dazzle seemed all the more urgent.

More self-important vapors at The Atlantic.

This reminds me of that movie (which title I can’t remember) with Robin Williams, of a dystopian future where everybody gets little cameras implanted in their eyeballs, and some dudebros get these facial tattoos to foil the cameras.

I guess these guys all want to be Robin Williams.

Also: I put this in the “Moonbats” category, which I think should be renamed to “Dudebros” since we don’t post many articles about Code Pink & PETA.

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Official Comic Con Footage for Mad Max: Fury Road - In UK Cinemas May 15 2015

Oscar-winning filmmaker George Miller’s “Mad Max: Fury Road” revisits his own post-apocalyptic trilogy featuring the anti-hero known as Mad Max. Tom Hardy stars in the role of Max Rockatansky, alongside Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Zoe Kravitz, Riley Keough, Hugh Keays-Byrne and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.

Miller directed from a screenplay he wrote with Brendan McCarthy and Nico Lathouris. Miller also produces, along with Doug Mitchell and P.J. Voeten. Iain Smith, Graham Burke and Bruce Berman serve as executive producers.

Scheduled for release on May 15, 2015

The state of Minnesota is not exactly known as a hotbed of racism; in fact, as far as the United States goes, it has a fairly decent record of progressivism and is home to a sizable enclave of Somali refugees. That being said, police tried to pull a Rodney King the other night in South Minneapolis. I’ll let the article do the rest of the talking:

Al Flowers, a Minneapolis activist who spoke out last week against increasing violence in north Minneapolis, was arrested after an altercation with police officers at his home early Saturday.

Flowers, 55, was treated at Hennepin County Medical Center and then booked at 4:30 a.m. in the Hennepin County jail on pending charges of assaulting a police officer, according to Minneapolis Police.

His family and friends say that Flowers suffered injuries to his head and torso during the arrest, and by late Saturday, leaders of the black community were demanding a meeting with the mayor and chief of police

Read more.

I’m normally very supportive of the police, but this is one of those times where their actions appear to be indefensible.

I agree. Bans are not an option. Jurisdictions like DC will just have to deal with the fact that regulation is the path. Bans don’t work. Bans are illegal and unwise. It’s simple. we as a society have chosen to have an effective means of self defense available to the at risk.

A federal judge has found a Washington, D.C., ban on carrying handguns unconstitutional, according to court filings made public Saturday.

In a 19-page order, Judge Frederick Scullin ruled in favor of four plaintiffs and the Second Amendment Foundation, a gun-rights advocacy group, which had sued the District of Columbia and Police Chief Cathy Lanier. The plaintiffs claimed the city’s refusal to issue carry permits restricted their right to self-defense.

“There is no longer any basis on which this court can conclude that the District of Columbia’s total ban on the public carrying of ready-to-use handguns outside the home is constitutional under any level of scrutiny,” Scullin wrote.

The plaintiffs, three of whom are D.C. residents, filed suit after the police department deemed self-defense an “unacceptable” reason for requesting a permit to carry a firearm in public. A fourth plaintiff had been arrested in D.C. and sentenced to probation on a weapons charge for carrying his firearm, which was licensed in several other states.

More: Washington, D.C., Handgun Ban Is Unconstitutional, Federal Judge Rules - LA Times

and of course Michelle Malkin, the most consistent foe of public education on the right, is involved.

Tuesday evening, in movie theaters around the country, right-wing radio host Glenn Beck spent about two hours broadcasting his live anti-Common Core event, “We Will Not Conform.” Beck has been heavily involved in the battle against Common Core from the far right. The people he assembled for the broadcast included some of the heavy hitters in the current right-wing war against Common Core and public education in general.

The Common Core State Standards for schools were developed by the National Governors Association and an association of state school superintendents. They were conceived as a way to promote U.S. competitiveness in an increasingly globalized world, increase educational equity and resolve issues resulting from No Child Left Behind (implemented during the George W. Bush administration). The standards, which are currently being implemented in some forty states, do not mandate the use of any particular text or course of study. Rather, they are designed to identify the literacy and math skills that children in every public school should master at each grade level.

To be fair, Common Core has received its fair share of criticism from across the political spectrum, and from leading education experts. Critics have raised legitimate issues that need to be debated, such as whether the standards were adequately tested, whether we have an education system that doesn’t just “teach to the test” and whether there has been ample time for teacher training and implementation. But these legitimate issues are being obscured by a cloud of fear-mongering and extremist propaganda, often pushed by the far right, and these attacks stand apart from legitimate criticism because of incendiary language, apocalyptic warnings, distortions, falsehoods, and antigovernment conspiracy theories.

More: Glenn Beck’s Anti-Common Core Event Offers Dire Warnings but No Reforms

This clearly demonstrates why you have to watch closely at local levels when it comes to ISP service and cable providers. The local cable commission or board and your state legislators have much more power over your cable services at present than the FCC does.

The cable company announced the open house in a recent news release that paired Republican Sen. Julia Lynn, of Olathe, and promotional language about its home security service.

After queries from The Kansas City Star about an elected official endorsing a commercial service, Comcast moved the event to another home. Comcast spokeswoman Mary Beth Schubert said Comcast didn’t provide Lynn with any free products, equipment or services.

Earlier this year, a Senate committee that Lynn chairs introduced a bill to keep cities from starting their own TV or broadband services. The measure died in the committee.

More: Comcast Cancels Event at Kansas State Senator’s Home

A man left profanity-filled voicemails with Tennessee’s homeland security office threatening to kill President Barack Obama and other officials, saying in one that he would “light Nashville up,” according to court documents.

Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney and former vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan were also mentioned as targets in the four voicemails left by Jimmie Johnson Jr. on July 11 and 12, according to an affidavit filed by prosecutors Friday in Nashville.

The affidavit says the messages include threats against Obama and others saying that Johnson will “blow them all up” at an airport and come with an assault rifle “and kill all you.” One message refers to Obama by a racial slur.

More: Tennessee Man Accused of Threatening to Kill Obama, Other Politicians