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I didn't quite realize these were a thing. Something like this would be nice to replace a family member's old projector (it has 3 VGA inputs but no HDMI), but I'm sure this specific model will be priced out the ass. It might make a lot of sense for some people though since it's much more compact than a large TV and you won't have people blocking the image when they stand up.

LG is also planning to sell roll-up OLED TVs in 2019. I don't see how that approach is better than this short throw projector. Maybe the projector makes some fan noise, or maybe the roll-up has better brightness/HDR.

I bought the humble bundle hacking books on sale for myself for Christmas because I'm tired of knowing enough to possibly get myself in trouble but not enough to stay out of trouble.

Some interesting reading, so far.

About 15 books total...DRM free and charitable giving. Nice.

Statement festival: 'Man-free' event found guilty of discrimination

Statement, a women-only festival in Sweden, has been found guilty of discrimination by Sweden's Discrimination Ombudsman (DO).

The DO said that describing an event as "male-free" breached the country's anti-discrimination laws.

The publicity issued in the run up to the event "discouraged a certain group from attending", the regulator added.

The event's organisers said in a Facebook post that they are "too busy changing the world" to respond.

"It's sad that what 5,000 women, non-binaries and transgender experienced as a life-changing festival made a few cis [cisgender] men lose it completely," the post added.

[...] The DO's ruling acknowledged the man-free rule was not enforced at the festival, held earlier this year, adding that "no differentiation based on sex was made between visitors at entry".

As nobody suffered damage from the festival's restrictions, it added, no financial penalties would be imposed.

Journal for K.

She lost her school job after refusing to sign a pro-Israel pledge. Now, she’s filing a lawsuit. (archive)

Bahia Amawi, a speech pathologist who has worked as a contractor in a Texas school district for nine years, received a new contract agreement to sign in September for the upcoming school year. The agreement asked her to affirm that she did not boycott Israel and assert that she would not while working for the school. She declined to sign it. Amawi, an American citizen of Palestinian descent who was born in Austria, said the statements infringed on her principles: her stance on Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and her belief in the First Amendment. So she was forced to stop working with the district.

The contract, which stems from a 2017 law passed by the state’s Republican-held legislature and governor that prohibited state agencies from contracting with companies boycotting Israel, is the subject of a lawsuit filed this week by Amawi in federal district court in Austin.

Amawi says the state’s enforcement of the law violates her right to free speech. “My first reaction was shock,” Amawi told reporters Monday. “Why is the government restricting me from boycotting a certain entity?”

Amawi started working for the Pflugerville Independent School District outside Austin in 2009. Her work entails doing evaluations of Arabic-speaking children, according to the complaint she filed. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and the school district are named in the lawsuit. [...] Glenn Greenwald, a columnist and co-founding editor of the Intercept who writes frequently about Israeli politics as they intersect with those of the United States, wrote harshly of the contract. “The language of the affirmation Amawi was told she must sign reads like Orwellian — or McCarthyite — self-parody, the classic political loyalty oath that every American should instinctively shudder upon reading,” he wrote. “In order to continue to work, Amawi would be perfectly free to engage in any political activism against her own country, participate in an economic boycott of any state or city within the U.S., or work against the policies of any other government in the world — except Israel.”

Also at The Hill and The Daily Beast.

Meanwhile, Congresstards are trying to add Israel anti-boycott legislation into a spending bill that prevents a government shutdown:

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is scrambling at the eleventh hour to include controversial language in a year-end spending bill prohibiting U.S. companies from joining boycotts of Israel launched by the United Nations or similar groups.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and other members are pressing congressional leaders to attach his Israel anti-boycott legislation to a sweeping omnibus spending package — a move that could complicate efforts to prevent a government shutdown.

“There is bipartisan interest in this issue, but everything is still being negotiated and nothing has been decided,” said one senior House Republican aide.

[...] “This bill sets a precedent for penalizing First Amendment actions because they’re unpopular or because the government doesn’t agree with them,” said Manar Waheed, senior legislative and advocacy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). “This is a step on a road to the erosion of First Amendment rights in a way that will impact movements and viewpoints for the future.”

See also: How Democrats are helping the right stifle debate on Israel

President Trump has agreed to shut down his embattled personal charity and give away its remaining funds amid allegations that he used it for his personal and political benefit, the New York attorney general announced Tuesday.

New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood announced that the Donald J. Trump Foundation is dissolving as her office pursues its lawsuit against the charity, Trump and his three eldest children.

The attorney general’s suit, filed in June, alleged “persistently illegal conduct” at the charity and sought to have the foundation shut down. Underwood is continuing to seek more than $2.8 million in restitution and has asked a judge to ban the Trumps temporarily from serving on the boards of other New York nonprofits.

Underwood said Tuesday that her investigation found “a shocking pattern of illegality involving the Trump Foundation — including unlawful coordination with the Trump presidential campaign, repeated and willful self-dealing, and much more.”

“This is an important victory for the rule of law, making clear that there is one set of rules for everyone,” she added in a statement.

Trump agrees to shut down his charity amid allegations he used it for personal and political benefit

World's First 'Performance Enhancing Gaming Glove' Funded on Kickstarter

As gaming becomes increasingly mainstream through the younger generations, entirely new lines of accessories are being designed and produced for this ever-growing audience.

The latest one is the Flashe Gaming Glove, which according to the makers will enhance your gaming performance on PC. It will also reduce your potential for injuries and increase your comfort while generally using a mouse. Oskar "Dodde" Ödmark came with the original concept, after suffering a shoulder injury in 2014. Being a mechanical engineer, he eventually came up with a solution that has been patented in Sweden earlier this year.

The Flashe gaming glove is now on a Kickstarter campaign for crowdfunding. With thirteen days to go, it already got over four times the minimum goal. The estimated delivery for backers is February 2019.

I say: remove the arms. Then you won't feel arm discomfort during gameplay.

America's perfect blonde überwaifu for the Trump Age:

Miss USA accused of mocking Asian contestants' English: 'Miss Universe should not be an ambassador of bullying'

In a now-expired Instagram Live video, Miss USA Sarah Rose Summers can be heard joking to Miss Australia and Miss Colombia about how Miss Vietnam speaks.

“What do you think about Miss Vietnam?” she asks her friends, before laughing, “… and she pretends to know so much English, and you ask her a question after having a whole conversation with her and she … [smiles and nods].”

Popular Instagram page Diet Prada posted the footage with another two videos of Miss USA, this time speaking about Miss Cambodia.

In the first she showers her fellow contestant with praise while thanking her own Cambodian fans for their support.

But in the second, she’s seen pitying Miss Cambodia to the same two friends.

“Miss Cambodia is here and doesn’t speak any English, and not a single other person speaks her language,” she says, adding, “Poor Cambodia.”

Y u no speak American tho?

Also at People.com.

I have nothing against capitalism: what we seem to have nowadays is Corruptism.

Corruptism is the collecting of wealth no matter who or what.
Need another dollar? Bribe a politician to make the laws favour corporations over people.
Need ANOTHER dollar? Cut wages and hours.
Need ANOTHER dollar? Layoffs.

It use to be that employers made, what, 400X what their employees made? Now an employee has to work 2-3 jobs just to live while the 'boss' feeds the pork to make ONE MORE DOLLAR!

A little more kindness would see us in a better world.
I'd like to see politicians start thinking of the people who voted for them.

Lets get back to basic Capitalism: Corruptism is not working.

A federal judge sentenced Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen to three years in prison on Wednesday following Cohen's guilty pleas to a number of political and finance crimes.

Those three years would be followed by three years of supervised release, and Cohen also is subject to forfeiture of $500,000, restitution of $1.4 million and a $50,000 fine.

...Cohen told authorities that Trump had directed him to arrange payments to two women ahead of Election Day in 2016 to keep them quiet about sexual relationships they said they had had with Trump — allegations Trump denies.

Federal authorities call that a violation of campaign finance law — one for which Trump also may be culpable.

Later, Cohen admitted that he and other Trump aides continued negotiations with powerful Russians about a potential real estate project in Moscow well into the 2016 presidential campaign.

Cohen had told Congress in 2017 that the talks ended in January, but his subsequent admission meant that Trump's aides had a channel open with Russia even as Trump was becoming the GOP front-runner and was denying he had any ties to Russia.

Michael Cohen Sentenced To 3 Years In Prison Following Plea That Implicated Trump

James A. Fields Jr., an avowed neo-Nazi who rammed his car into a group of counterprotesters at a white-supremacist rally, was sentenced to life in prison by a jury Tuesday after a trial that offered an unsparing view of the physical and emotional ruin he caused in this city with a burst of vehicular rage 16 month ago.

As he had throughout his two-week trial, Fields, 21, sat impassively at the defendant’s table, clad in a powder blue sweater, as the jury delivered its verdict at 12:20 p.m. after about four hours of deliberations that began Monday: life for first-degree murder; 70 years for each of five counts of aggravated malicious wounding; 20 years for each of three counts of malicious wounding; and nine years for leaving the scene of a fatal crash.

His overall sentence: life plus 419 years and $480,000 in fines.

Fields also faces a separate federal trial for alleged hate crimes related to the incident, including one offense that carries a possible death sentence. No trial date has been set, and the Justice Department has not said whether it will seek capital punishment.

Turns out that backing up first to give yourself more room to accelerate doesn't look so great when you are claiming self defense.

James A. Fields Jr. sentenced to life in prison in Charlottesville car attack