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Located in Potomac, Maryland, this 7 bedroom home with 8 full baths and 3 half baths comes with 4 acres of property including a tennis court, a heated pool, and a miniature town in the basement. And it could all be yours for just $4.5 million!Looks nice, right?Here's the official listing:A unique, first time offering of a magnificent, gated estate on four acres featuring 7 bedrooms/8 baths in the Main house, a two bedroom/1 bath guest house with full kitchen, and a pool house with full kitchen and bath. Also on the property is a lighted, newly resurfaced tennis court and heated pool. The four acres is already divided into two separate parcels. A driveway can be added to access the guest house for a private entrance. Opportunity to purchase 2 acre parcel next door for a total of 6 acres.But once you've scrolled through 54 photos (talk about burying the lede), you come across this:The listing boasts 15 storefront facades, though it doesn't mention this creepy Stan Lee wannabe on the motorcylce:The town also comes with "real working parked cars." I'm not sure if that means they "work" at being parked, or if you can drive them out of the town, or if there's even an escape route from this strange place.11610 Highland Farm Road, Potomac Maryland Read the rest

According to researchers, stay-at-home orders in the US and around the globe are helping those working from home grab an extra 15 minutes of sleep per night. For college students, it’s even up to 30 extra minutes each night.Meeting your quality sleep threshold is actually one of the greatest indicators of your overall health. For those who find themselves struggling, the Restflix Restful Sleep Streaming Service might just present a path for solving those problems.Restflix is just what it sounds like — it’s Netflix for sleep. They offer over 20 personalized video channels full of meditative music, bedtime stories, soothing sounds, and restful images to help users fall asleep faster and get a deeper, more restful sleep.The Restflix formula centers on using binaural beats, an approach that brings together two slightly different sound frequencies that your brain interprets as a single new frequency tone.The Restflix videos utilizing the binaural beat method can then alter the brain’s degree of arousal, with almost three out of four subjects experiencing higher levels of melatonin, the brain chemical that regulates your sleep.Through guided meditations, bedtime stories, and peaceful and serene natural views and sounds, Restflix can reshape your sleep habits and stave off insomnia, ill-effects of sleep disorders like weight gain, memory and cognition issues, a weakened immune system, and heart disease, among others. Just launched last month, you can watch Restflix now on bedroom TV or mobile device via Google Play, Roku, Apple TV, and other streaming options. Read the rest

Businesses used to thrive on the instincts of entrepreneurs. Guile, moxie, and a conviction to trust the gut was often the driving force behind a business’s biggest successes.Today, there’s too much on the line to leave anything to chance, including betting your future on a whim. Instead, the stat-heads have taken over, data analysts who can break down every scrap of available information, tell you what it means and give you the clearest path to success. They can’t make business a sure thing, but data analytics might just be the closest thing to a sure thing most businesses ever see.The Exclusive Business Analysis Certification Bundle with Jeremy Achenbrenner is the training that just might help data analytics make sense to you and even put you in a position to get hired as a highly paid statistical mastermind.This eight-course, 38-hour package of training is led by Jerry Aschenbrenner, a business analyst who’s plied his craft in a variety of industries, including everything from health care and communications to financial services, and food and beverages. Holder of a 4.5 out of 5-star rating from reviews offered by nearly 166,000 of his students, Aschenbrenner is the guide who can make the numbers clear and examine to you what to do with them to drive our business forward.Your introduction begins with Business Analysis Fundamentals, a beginner-friendly guide to basic elements that drive any business analyst’s career. Learn what a Business Analyst does, understand the project methodology, and make the case to properly launch an impactful business project. Read the rest

We’ve all dealt with paint cans — and keeping all those metal buckets full of sloshing paint from turning into a giant mess is pretty close to impossible. But you stand a better chance of finishing your project without the entire room looking like a Jackson Pollock painting with the help of the ingeniously simple Grip Drips Paint Can Rim Cover.The Grip Drips is a low-density polyethylene ring that easily slips over the rim of any standard open U.S. one gallon paint can.The ring’s primary job is a simple one, keeping the rim of the can from filling with paint. That protection not only helps keep paint from dripping around the edges of the can, but more importantly, maintains a clean-edged seal when the lid is replaced, ensuring your paint remains fresh, secure, and untainted until the can is reopened.With the Grip Drips in place, you can get a better handle on a full can while still being able to easily pour paint from the can into a pan or use it as a firm edge to help scrape excess paint off your brush. And while figuring out where to set your brush down always turns into an issue when it’s loaded with paint, the Grip Drips also features a magnetic brush holder that snaps on and holds your brush in place for a moment without leaving a mess behind.Once you’re done painting, the Grip Drips slips right off and the acetone-free ring can be washed with simple soap and water so it’s always ready for your next painting project. Read the rest

According to the World Energy Council, the typical American home slurps down about 11,700 kWh of electricity per year. That’s over three times the average global household consumption, far outdistancing from France (6,400 kWh), the UK (4,600 kWh), and China (1,300 kWh).Somebody’s gotta pay for all that power -- and often, it’s you, our dear American Homeowner. And with summer here, economic uncertainty, and the need to cut costs more critical than ever, those monthly power bills can be pricey.But what many homeowners and renters don’t realize is that in several states, you actually have some real control over how much you spend for energy -- and even how that power is produced.Arcadia is your weapon for leveling the playing field. It's a technology platform that matches your energy use to renewable energy sources like solar and wind. It even helps those states with open power markets look for better energy rates that can save you money on your monthly power costs while helping to save the planet. And unlike solar installation or other green energy routes, no one needs to come to your home. It all works through your existing power bill, so you don’t even need to call your power company.After opening your free Arcadia account and linking your current power provider, just enter your ZIP code and Arcadia will show you what clean energy options are available in your area. That could include matching your power usage with wind energy, looking for a better energy rate, or joining a nearby community solar project. Read the rest

The "chef" making rice in this BBC video should probably appear before The Hague for crimes against food. Luckily, Uncle Roger (aka comedian Nigel Ng of Rice To Meet You) is here to set her straight.In his most recent video, the 50-year-old goes on Tinder to fill the hole in his heart. HIYA!Image: YouTube / mrnigelng Read the rest

The tree sets some much-needed boundaries with the boy in this spot-on alternate ending to Shel Silverstein's kid's book, The Giving Tree. The Tree Who Set Healthy Boundaries is the work of playwright/screenwriter Topher Payne and it's part of his "fixed it" series:Just read "The Giving Tree" as usual, right up to the point where the Boy comes hustling for a house. Then feel free to print these pages and paste them over everything that follows.(Also look at how he hilariously fixed The Rainbow Fish.)images via Topher Payne(Digg) Read the rest

This parody ad from Juice Media might as well be the real thing. Read the rest

A Florida minor was charged Friday with 30 felonies relating to last month's Twitter "hack" that got top Twitter accounts blurting out a crude bitcoin scam.Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren filed 30 felony charges against the teen this week for “scamming people across America” in connection with the Twitter hack that happened on July 15. The charges he’s facing include one count of organized fraud, 17 counts of communications fraud, one count of fraudulent use of personal information with over $100,000 or 30 or more victims, 10 counts of fraudulent use of personal information and one count of access to computer or electronic device without authority.Hillsborough County Jail records show Clark was booked into jail shortly after 6:30 a.m. Friday.Warren’s office says the scheme to defraud “stole the identities of prominent people” and “posted messages in their names directing victims to send Bitcoin” to accounts that were associated with the Tampa teen. According to the state attorney, the scheme reaped more than $100,000 in Bitcoin in just one day. President Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Elon Musk were among the accounts taken over in the heist. Twitter reported that the intrusion was accomplished by social engineering and access to employee accounts with administrative credentials. Two accomplices were named as 22-year-old Nima “Rolex” Fazeli, of Orlando, Florida, and 19-year-old Mason “Chaewon” Sheppard of Bognor Regis, England, both also in custody but as yet uncharged. Read the rest

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump last night declared that he would ban the social media site Tik Tok. “As far as TikTok is concerned we’re banning them from the United States,” Trump said, calling the action a “severance.”Trump did not specify whether he will act through an executive order, or another method. such as a designation, according to NBC News.“Well, I have that authority. I can do it with an executive order or that,” Trump said.Microsoft is negotiating to buy Chinese-owned Tik Tok, which would fill a social-media hole in the tech giant's lineup of consumer offerings. But commentators think Trump is mostly just upset that the platform is an explosively-growing social media platform that will not supplicate to him as Twitter and Facebook have.does anyone really think this has to do with china and isn’t because of the stories about the “tik tok kids” supposedly sabotaging trump’s tulsa rally https://t.co/yEuPVfbrNC— my pal andy (@andylevy) August 1, 2020Vox recently gamed out how Trump might accomplish a "ban" on Tik Tok, but the experts consulted found it an unlikely scenario. To really take TikTok off Americans’ phones, the government would have to do something like make Apple and Google sever their ties with ByteDance (along with any other Chinese app makers). Getting removed from the iOS App Store and Google Play Store would vastly reduce TikTok’s appeal, even if you could still access it through a sideloaded app or website. Apple, in particular, keeps tight control over iOS devices; its App Store policy is so restrictive that it’s spurred antitrust lawsuits. Read the rest

If you ever dropped a quarter into a Space Invaders game, you’ve likely fantasized about having your own arcade cabinet in your house. Of course, you likely thought better of it for several reasons, including the idea that a giant cabinet dedicated to just one game isn’t very practical. Polycade understands the urge though very, very well. So what if they could make you a home arcade machine that played all of your favorite classics, plus the biggest hits of today? And what if it was packed with top-of-the-line equipment and controls? And it was less than half the size of a bulky old cabinet?At a sticker price of $3,899, the Polycade Home Plug and Play Mounted Arcade is definitely pricey, but once you factor in the cost of modern gaming platforms and games as well as the Polycade’s versatility, the economics don’t feel quite so impossible anymore.Professionally mounted in your home, it actually feels like having an ATM on the wall of your house -- except this super-slim gaming system can play literally thousands of your favorite arcade and home platform games right out of the box.With a 27-inch screen running a gaming-grade PC using a customized, optimized version of Steam as its interface, you can download new games from the 80s, 90s, and 2000s with ease and start playing. From Pac Man to Street Fighter and thousands more, all your favorite games for the NES, SNES, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, TurboGrafx16, and more are all here. Read the rest

Transparency about police disciplinary investigations has been hard to achieve, often blocked by powerful unions. ProPublica has sped up the process in New York by circumventing a judge's order and publishing thousands of formerly secret discipline records.A federal judge barred The City of New York and its Civilian Complaint Review Board from releasing the data, issue similar restrictions to the New York Civil Liberties Union. Since ProPublica was not named, they published what others could not. Via their announcement:The database lists active-duty officers who’ve had at least one allegation against them substantiated by the CCRB: That’s about 4,000 officers out of the NYPD’s 36,000-member force.Unions for city police officers, firefighters and corrections officers have sued New York City to stop the disclosure of most of these and other disciplinary records. The unions objected to the release of any cases other than “proven and final disciplinary matters.” That would exclude the vast majority of complaints against officers.Photo by Jiarong Deng from Pexels Read the rest

Most of us have a love-hate relationship with banks. Okay, it’s actually probably more like a tolerate-hate relationship. We understand their role in holding and securing our money so we don’t have to stuff it in a mattress somewhere. But we don’t trust the bank not to gouge us on fees whenever they can. And we certainly don’t trust MegaCorp X to be a responsible steward of our funds to make the world a better place.For example, the four biggest global backers of fossil fuels are all U.S banks. So if you have money with any of those institutions, you’re tacitly endorsing those practices, whether you agree with them or not.If that doesn’t sit well with you, you may want to consider an alternative, like Aspiration's Spend and Save account. Aspiration isn’t a bank. They’re a hybrid check and save cash management account that offers you an alternative to traditional banking services and protections of one of those institutions, but with a conscience you can feel good about backing.When you open an Aspiration Spend and Save account and deposit money, you get a debit card linked to your new FDIC-insured cash accounts with all the buying power of a financial/cash account -- but you decide how much their services should cost you. Their policy is that they trust customers to “Pay What is Fair,” even if that means zero on their basic monthly banking services. Of course, if fair to you is $7 a month for their Aspiration Plus service, you get features like up to 1.00% APY interest on your savings and no fees at over 55,000+ free in-network Allpoint ATMs, and carbon offsets for when you drive. Read the rest

WATCH THE SPLASHDOWN EVENT LIVE HERE, the SpaceX video embed in this post will go live with pre-event content sometime before 7pm EDT on Saturday August 1.NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken are about to make the first splashdown return in 45 years. “SpaceX and NASA are targeting 7:34 p.m. EDT on Saturday, August 1 for Crew Dragon and the two astronauts to depart the orbiting laboratory and return to Earth,” tweeted SpaceX late Friday evening.From SpaceX, here is the timeline for NASA and SpaceX to return Crew Dragon Endeavour this weekend.From the SpaceX announcement about the highly anticipated space event:On Saturday, May 30, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launched Crew Dragon’s second demonstration (Demo-2) mission from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and the next day Crew Dragon autonomously docked to the International Space Station. This test flight with NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley on board the Dragon spacecraft returned human spaceflight to the United States.SpaceX and NASA are now targeting 7:34 p.m. EDT on Saturday, August 1 for Crew Dragon to autonomously undock from the Space Station, with the two astronauts aboard the spacecraft, and return to Earth. Approximately 19 hours later, after jettisoning its trunk and re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, Dragon will splash down at one of seven targeted water landing sites off the coast of Florida at 2:42 p.m. EDT on Sunday, August 2.The Demo-2 mission is the final major milestone for SpaceX’s human spaceflight system to be certified by NASA for operational crew missions to and from the International Space Station. Read the rest

'My resignation is due to disagreements over certain editorial content published by the Company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions.'

Alanis, I feel ya, mama. You're trying to get some work done and your kiddo wants your attention. Though trying to hold your cutie while performing a song from your new album on the Fallon show maybe wasn't the greatest idea... or was it?!(Digg) Read the rest

A Boing Boing reader said this video by Juice Media is better than what The Lincoln Project is doing. I agree -- it's scarier and more entertaining than the Lincoln Project's videos. However, I think Juice Media's videos and the Lincoln Project videos are geared toward different audiences. The video above is designed to convert unlikely voters into Biden voters, while the Lincoln Project videos are for an audience of one, with a goal to demoralize and destabilize him.Juice media is an Australian organization, and here's what they had to say about this video:We've had so many Americans begging us to make an Honest Government Ad for their government. So we decided to give it a go. I hope we did your shit government justice. It almost makes ours feel benign by comparison. Despite the levity, we're genuinely concerned about what's happening in your country and we hope you and your loved ones are keeping safe. I hope this doesn’t come across as “FoReIgN InTeRfeReNcE!” If it does, well… let’s call it even... the US Government has been interfering with our shit here ever since 1975, when it helped to oust our Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam. But on a more serious note: even though we're all the way down here in Australia, the result of this election will impact everyone on earth. In terms of climate action alone, this could be the most important election of our lifetimes. So I figure it's one of those all hands on deck, let's lend a hand to our friends in the USA - kind of thing. Read the rest

If you’ve ever worked on a video project or engineered a podcast and thought you’d make your own sound effects... how'd that go for ya? We assume it was a bigger undertaking than you’d probably bargained for.From using stalks of celery to replicate breaking tree limbs to frying bacon to reproduce the sound of rain, foley artists are just that — artists. And it’s no small feat to properly create, record, and mix all that sound into a realistic, balanced soundscape.Instead of going DIY, you can leave all of your sound effect worries up to the professionals with a one-year subscription to Soundsnap Stock Audio and Sounds.Soundsnap is 0ne of the most popular sound effects library online, offering more than 280,000 separate sound clips for unlimited downloading. That’s an archive more than twice as large as almost all the other major sfx options available. With clients like Disney, HBO, CBS, Pixar, and more using Soundsnap, you can feel confident they’ll have what you’re looking for.And these are not lukewarm, poorly recorded files recorded off YouTube. All of Soundsnap’s audio is recorded by professional sound designers and engineers, including a collection of working Hollywood pros responsible for working on films like “The Dark Knight,” “Tron Legacy,” “Baby Driver” and more. All it takes is a quick spin through Soundsnap’s library to understand the scope of their offerings. If your work needs a crack of thunder, they’ve got over 800 different variations to choose from. If you need the sounds of a restaurant to create ambiance in your production, there are over 650 to try. Read the rest

I posted this on Adafruit yesterday, but I've been digging it so much, I wanted to share it here on Boing Boing, too. This is eight hours of "perpetual rain" and Vangelis' "Blade Runner Blues," taken from the soundtrack to the film.It's gorgeous and relaxing music to work to, sleep to, or continuously wafting through the rooms and hallways of your under-quarantine hab unit.The channel this video is from has dozens of other ambient Blade Runner offerings (“’I’ve seen things …’ – Tears in Rain ambiance (1 hour),” “The ambient sounds of the city, 2019,” “Deckard’s apartment sounds (12 hours),” and many more.)Image: YouTube Read the rest

A 17-year-old boy from Tampa, Florida was arrested by the FBI, IRS, US Secret Service, and Florida law enforcement, who accuse the teenager of being the "mastermind" behind the Bitcoin scam Twitter hack that compromised the accounts of over a dozen famous people including Elon Musk, Joe Biden, Bill Gates, and President Obama.Here's the press release from Andrew H Warren, in the Office of the State Attorney 13th judicial circuit:Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office tapped to prosecute worldwide “Bit-Con” hack of prominent Twitter usersTampa, FL (July 31, 2020) — Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren has filed 30 felony charges against a Tampa resident for scamming people across America, perpetrating the “Bit-Con” hack of prominent Twitter accounts including Bill Gates, Barack Obama, and Elon Musk on July 15, 2020.The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice conducted a complex nationwide investigation, locating and apprehending the suspect in Hillsborough County.“These crimes were perpetrated using the names of famous people and celebrities, but they’re not the primary victims here. This ‘Bit-Con’ was designed to steal money from regular Americans from all over the country, including here in Florida. This massive fraud was orchestrated right here in our backyard, and we will not stand for that,” State Attorney Warren said.The investigation revealed REDACTED, 17, was the mastermind of the recent hack of Twitter. He was arrested in Tampa early on July 31. REDACTED’s scheme to defraud stole the identities of prominent people, posted messages in their names directing victims to send Bitcoin to accounts associated with REDACTED, and reaped more than $100,000 in Bitcoin in just one day. Read the rest

Three years ago, Ian Davis was diagnosed with a cancer that weakens the bones. Shortly after, the engineer had an accident in his machine shop that resulted in physicians amputating four fingers on his dominant hand. “When I was still in the hospital I started designing a prosthetic hand," Davis told KOBI News last year. "It was kind of my day job. That’s what I used to maintain my sanity.”Davis's work-in-progress is an elegant feat of engineering. Coincidentally though, this isn't new maker territory for him. Long before he lost his fingers; he built a prosthetic arm as a high school science project. You can follow the project's development on Davis's YouTube channel and Instagram. View this post on Instagram Out in the wild, figuring out different hand gestures. A post shared by Ian Davis (@acmeworksfab) on Jul 23, 2020 at 9:52pm PDT View this post on Instagram After many weeks of designing and prototyping, I finally have the splay feature pretty well dialed! There were points during this process that I was getting concerned I was chasing a frivolous function, but after using it for half a day so far, I have no doubt that it was completely worth the time and effort. A post shared by Ian Davis (@acmeworksfab) on Jul 1, 2020 at 10:52am PDT Read the rest

Astoria Bowl is a something of landmark in the Queens borough of New York City, a struggling business inside a massive building where time has seemingly stopped. Turtle Down Films created this lovely short documentary (shot before COVID-19) about this "anachronism, a vestige of the sport's mid-century heyday era... an oasis in the truest sense of the word, a place of pure recreation and levity in a city where life tends to be serious and weighty."This is A Place To Bowl. Read the rest

BetterBook is a notebook/sketchbook designed to match widescreen displays. The idea is you can take photos of it on your phone and it will do a better job of fitting on a screen. It comes in one of three types of paper -- dotted grid, standard grid, or blank. The notebook had a successful run on Indiegogo and is now available for pre-order. Read the rest

EndeavorRx is a first-person racing videogame designed to help children with ADHD and this summer, the FDA approved it as a "prescription treatment." Meanwhile, other researchers are developing videogames that can help lift depression and reduce anxiety by interrupting the feedback loops of negativity and fear. “It’s a well-known fact that so many mobile games use all sorts of psychological tricks to get people to give them money,” Harvard psychology postdoc Chelsey Wilks told IEEE Spectrum. “So we wanted to use the same exact psychological tricks, but to trick [users] into doing something that’s good for them.”From IEEE Spectrum:Boston-based Akili Interactive Labs, maker of [EndeavorRx], says its racer was originally licensed from the lab of Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco. The company touts four peer-reviewed studies (in PLOS One, The Lancet Digital Health, The Journal of Autism, and Developmental Disorders) as well as one paper in process as support for its claims that EndeavorRx significantly improves clinical markers of attention in patients with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder).“EndeavorRx looks and feels like a traditional game, but it’s very different,” says Matt Omernick, Akili cofounder and the company’s chief creative officer. “EndeavorRx uses a video-game experience to present specific sensory stimuli and simultaneous motor challenges designed to target and activate the prefrontal cortex of the brain.... As a child progresses in game play, the technology is continuously measuring their performance and using adaptive algorithms to adjust the difficulty and personalize the treatment experience for each individual.” Read the rest

Cape sundews live in bogs and other locations lacking nutritious soil so they supplement their diet with insects. Watch the Deep Look video above to see how "they exude sweet, shimmering droplets from their tentacles to lure in unsuspecting insects. Once their prey is hopelessly stuck, they wrap it up and dissolve it for a tasty meal."More at Deep Look: "Cape Sundews Trap Bugs In A Sticky Situation" Read the rest

It’s summer. And this year, Europe and Disney World just aren’t really all that feasible as part of your travel plans.Yet especially with the last few months we’ve all endured, the need to get away and experience something new is like a raging fire in many of us. So if you can’t be around too many people these days, how about going where people ain’t?Camping in the great — and vast — outdoors might be just what you need to decompress a bit, so stock up on these 10 tents, hammock and camping essentials, all at savings up to 60 percent, to make your time away as fulfilling as you need it to be.Nylon Mesh Hammock - $17.99; originally $29Sleeping on the ground is never comfortable, so this premium nylon and mesh hammock is ideal for sleeping under the stars without grimacing your way through the whole night. Portable and lightweight at less than 8 ounces, it holds up to 220 pounds comfortably for a relaxing afternoon swing or a full night’s slumber.Foldable Nylon Hammock - $34.99; originally $49With durable nylon construction and anchored by twin metal carabiners, this beast can support up to 485 pounds of weight. It’s also extremely versatile, foldable into a carrying back that even includes a strap for improved portability when you’re hiking to your campsite.Natural Cotton Rope Hammock - $79.99; originally $199Hand-dyed and woven from 100 percent natural cotton with soft to the touch materials, the Yellow Leaf hammock comes from a thicker weaving yarn, so you can hang with no flipping or even those waffle print markings all over your body. Read the rest

This video starts by helping you visualize 1 million. A thick book has about 1 million alphanumeric characters. It moves to 1 billion -- it would take 32 years to count to 1 billion. A trillion bacteria can fit in a single cube of sugar. About 1 quadrillion ants live on earth. The diameter of the Milky Way is about 1 quintillion kilometers. A glass of water contains about 10 septillion water molecules. A googol is 1 with 100 zeros following it. There are a googol possible hypothetical chess games. The video then shows a machine created by an artist that has a 100 of 10-to-1 reduction gears. The first gear needs to be rotated a googol number of times for the last gear to rotate once. Read the rest

The stock market hasn't crashed yet, but a Bloomberg headline reveals what's really happening in the United States: "Almost 30 Million in U.S. Didn’t Have Enough to Eat Last Week. The US GDP fell by 9.5% in the second quarter. The New York Times says "The percentage decrease in GDP is by far the biggest on record."The chart below, which shows the rise and fall of the GDP since the late 1940s reveals the enormity of the decline:Trump responded to the news by giving people something else to talk about:With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020 Read the rest

Spoken Word with Electronics is an audio series delivering to you a two side recording of unusual stories paired with vintage modular electronic soundsGreetings, all. This is the final set of SWWE for a few weeks. This has been a crazy experience to put together an hour-long show every week for around twenty episodes, and I need a little time off to regroup, record some new music, and write out a few other pieces. This final episode catches me up, personally, with posting a bunch of work, too. Much of this show originated as a proposed album series on writers I love. It became a weekly show, partly out of Covid changing my focus and time. But there have been a number of writers I love included here from those earliest recordings: from David Berman, Henry Miller, Kathy Acker, e.e. cummings, Paul Krassner, and even performers like Mel Blanc or Belle Barth.The final piece from those original set of music are two tracks I'm posting today. It's a tribute to Anne Sexton, and I suppose a subheading could be "Romancing our worst intentions". — I think about Anne Sexton a lot. I think about her from her work, which has an indelible effect on anyone who ever reads it, to the final beautiful book title, "The Awful Rowing Toward God", and to her poised and amazing speaking voice. Few poets speak their work as well as Anne Sexton, which I think you'll hear in the two tribute pieces in the playlist. Read the rest

Thomas Renoldner's polarizing short film DON'T KNOW WHAT has been on the festival circuit, but since all that has moved online during the pandemic, you can now watch it on Vimeo. Those with sensitivity to strobing or flashing should use caution.There's probably not much middle ground, as it's kind of a love-it or hate-it sort of work. Via the artist:Employing the method of single frame editing, primarily focused on sound, the realistic film image transforms into a surreal, structuralist and finally even abstract film. It creates a musical composition while experimenting with the human voice and transforming language into sound and music. DONT KNOW WHAT questions classical rules of different film genres by combining elements of avant-garde film / video art and entertainment cinema.Image: Vimeo / Thomas Renoldner Read the rest

Every company needs to have a firm grasp on their bottom line. But while every company used to have their official ledger books or one of those old-school physical world accountings of a company’s every asset and expenditure, many firms don’t work that way anymore. Oh, they all still balance their “books” (if they want to survive, that is), but many of those full accountancies are now solely housed on the web.With a one-year subscription to QuickBooks Essential Plan, you’ll not only be able to turn your business into a paperless environment, but you’ll also get all the tools needed to make all of your business financials accessible 24/7/365 from anywhere.For the past three decades, QuickBooks has been the gold standard for small business accounting -- and now, this package will help any company, especially those who do plenty of invoicing, get all their business affairs in perfect order, all online.QuickBooks allows you and up to two others full access to everything, including all the features and streamlined processes to help turn your organization into a machine of efficiency without dominating your time.With QuickBooks, you can track income and expenses, send invoices, accept payments, send estimates, organize receipts, manage bills and perform all the tasks it takes for a full up-to-the-minute understanding of your company’s fiscal health.In addition to features like the ability to fire off multiple payments to multiple vendors all at once or creating your own digital checks, QuickBooks is also full of reporting modes so you can get a look at every aspect of your company’s performance. Read the rest

For all its downsides, you have to admit all this extra time spent at home has to have boosted your creativity. More time to sit and think means more time to develop new original ideas. Trust us, you wouldn’t be the first to find that a global emergency has fueled the need to start a great new creative project.A book. You need to write a book. However, just the thought of taking on a project like that is enough to make you break out in hives. First, the process of bringing your thoughts and concepts together into an actual written manuscript is daunting, to say the least. Then once it’s finished...well, then what?It’s no cause for alarm. In fact, the training in a package like The Creative Writing eBook Self-Publishing Bundle can efficiently lead you by the hand through the entire book writing process, from ideation and writing to publication to bringing that work to the public.This collection features 10 courses that should help you get a strong idea of some of the most popular and profitable routes for authoring your own eBook.If your work is non-fiction, you’ve got plenty of work to do before you even write word no. 1. In Novel Writing 101, students examine the essential phases of writing a novel, from research through starting your draft to the ongoing editing and polishing phases. The Scrivener Simplified course can help with that, showing how one published author creates a path for you to follow to use the popular writing software to gather notes, outline, write, rewrite and edit your work. Read the rest

US government officials told the Associated Press today that three different English-language websites are spreading disinformation about the novel coronavirus directly from Russia.Is one of them white house dot gov?No names given yet.WASHINGTON (AP) — US government officials tell AP that Russia is using 3 English-language websites to spread coronavirus disinformation.— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) July 28, 2020 Read the rest

The document says “Defendant Shall Not Attend Protests.” In Portland, getting out of jail now means relinquishing constitutionally protected rights.“This is what it looks like when you're released from jail on federal charges...on the condition that you stop showing up to protest,” writes Dara Lind at ProPublica.A dozen protesters facing federal charges are barred from going to “public gatherings” as a condition of release from jail — a tactic one expert describes in Dara's reporting as “sort of hilariously unconstitutional.”This is what it looks like when you're released from jail on federal charges...on the condition that you stop showing up to protests. https://t.co/PZ1d4pr7x5 pic.twitter.com/6oi4LggnLD— Dara Lind (@DLind) July 28, 2020Alternatively: This is what it looks like when the magistrate judge _handwrites an addition to your conditions of release_ so that you can't attend protests. pic.twitter.com/tEyi1HLcVi— Dara Lind (@DLind) July 28, 2020Excerpt:Federal authorities are using a new tactic in their battle against protesters in Portland, Oregon: arrest them on offenses as minor as “failing to obey” an order to get off a sidewalk on federal property — and then tell them they can’t protest anymore as a condition for release from jail.Legal experts describe the move as a blatant violation of the constitutional right to free assembly, but at least 12 protesters arrested in recent weeks have been specifically barred from attending protests or demonstrations as they await trials on federal misdemeanor charges.“Defendant may not attend any other protests, rallies, assemblies or public gathering in the state of Oregon,” states one “Order Setting Conditions of Release” for an accused protester, alongside other conditions such as appearing for court dates. Read the rest

WATCH: During Bill Barr's hearing on Capitol Hill today, Rep. Pramila Jayapal tore him a new one.“When White men with swastikas storm a government building with guns, there is no need for the president to activate you, because they're getting the president's personal agenda done.” Watch.From PBS NewsHour:Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., asked Attorney General William Barr about what she characterized as the unequal treatment of protesters against the excessive use of force by police versus "right-wing extremists threatening to lynch a governor.""Apparently the president believes you can be activated to implement the president's agenda and dominate American people exercising First Amendment rights if they are protesting against him. But let's look at how you respond when the protesters are supporters of the president," she said.“Are you aware that these [stay-at-home] protesters called for the [Michigan] governor to be lynched, shot and beheaded?” Jayapal asked.Saying he did not know about the Michigan protests, Barr added that "there are a lot of protests around the United States."Jayapal questioned Barr during a committee hearing examining whether the attorney general has inappropriately politicized the Justice Department. Democrats launched the investigation earlier this year over Barr’s handling of the case against Roger Stone, a close ally of President Donald Trump, whose 40-month prison sentence was commuted by the president this month. Democrats have since expanded their probe to several subsequent episodes in which they believe Barr is working for Trump’s own benefit.Rep. Pramila Jayapal eviscerated Barr for his unequal response to BLM vs Michigan protesters: "When White men with swastikas storm a government building with guns, there is no need for the president to activate you, because they're getting the president's personal agenda done." Read the rest

"I turned Nirvana's "Come As You Are" into an old-fashioned swing tune and now I hate myself," writes the creator. Don't beat yourself up too much; old-timey Nirvana is kinda catchy! Read the rest

View this post on InstagramA post shared by Iskander Utebayev (@bat.not.bad) on Jul 25, 2020 at 5:11pm PDT Designer Iskander Utebayev did a fantastic job making a concept video that imagines what Apple's forthcoming alternate reality eyeglasses might look like. You put them on, and a monitor-like interface appears before you. This would do away with the need for an LCD display. Utebayev even included a virtual keyboard, which would probably be hard to use for writing a lot of text, but adequate for inserting emoticons, as shown in this short video.Image: Instagram Read the rest

Twitter today blocked Donald Trump Jr. from tweeting for 12 hours after he posted quack conspiracy theories about the Covid crisis. Trump Jr. posted a video encouraging people to take hydroxyquinone, a potentially dangerous drug the FDA says does nothing to improve Covid outcomes, and accusing virus chief Dr. Anthony Fauci of suppressing proof it works.Trump Jr. was not suspended from Twitter, as some on the right are falsely claiming.Donald Trump Jr will still be able to browse Twitter and send direct messages in the interim.Twitter told the BBC: "We are taking action in line with our policy."The main US social media sites have all taken measures to crack down on misinformation about the coronavirus. Read the rest

Trump and Junior are urging their social media followers to heed the Covid-19 advice of Dr. Stella Immanuel, a Houston pediatrician who has determined that many diseases are caused by sex with demons and/or alien DNA. The Daily Beast reported that Dr. Immanuel "praises hydroxychloroquine and says that face masks aren’t necessary to stop transmission of the highly contagious coronavirus."From The Daily Beast:In sermons posted on YouTube and articles on her website, Immanuel claims that medical issues like endometriosis, cysts, infertility, and impotence are caused by sex with “spirit husbands” and “spirit wives”—a phenomenon Immanuel describes essentially as witches and demons having sex with people in a dreamworld.“They are responsible for serious gynecological problems,” Immanuel said. “We call them all kinds of names—endometriosis, we call them molar pregnancies, we call them fibroids, we call them cysts, but most of them are evil deposits from the spirit husband,” Immanuel said of the medical issues in a 2013 sermon. “They are responsible for miscarriages, impotence—men that can’t get it up.”In related news, Twitter penalized Junior for posting hydroxychloroquine misinformation. From The Washington Post:Twitter said it ordered the president’s son to delete the misleading tweet and said it would “limit some account functionality for 12 hours.”The tweet, which featured a viral video showing a group of doctors making misleading and false claims about the coronavirus pandemic, was directly tweeted by Trump Jr.‘s account. That contrasts with his father, who retweeted multiple clips of the same video to his 84.2 million followers Monday night. Read the rest

SOUND GUY: Didnt mean nothin by it.BARDEM: Didn't mean nothing by it. Read the rest

Comedian and filmmaker Matthew Highton recreates classic TV show title sequences using only stock footage. The results remind me of the Seinfeld episode "The Bizarro Jerry." Above, Highton's take on Friends. Below, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and, yes, Ducktales.(via Kottke) Read the rest

David Hines, 29, received $3.9 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans, a COVID-19 relief program for businesses. So naturally he spent $300,000 on a 2020 Lamborghini Huracán. According to WFTS news, police charged Hines with "one count of bank fraud, one count of making false statements to a financial institution and one count of engaging in transactions in unlawful proceeds." Sweet ride, dude. From WFTS:The complaints allege that Hines asked for around $13.5 million in PPP loans through applications to an insured financial institution for different companies. He received $3.9 million in PPP loans.[...]The complaint says Hines submitted fraudulent loan applications that made numerous false and misleading statements about the companies' payroll expenses.(Thanks to our Florida bureau chief, Charles Pescovitz!)image: Jakub Halun (CC BY-SA 4.0) Read the rest

This grim yet amusing description of the statistical realities of flight safety might save more lives than the usual snoozefest. To quote YouTube commenter Alan Macphail: "100% of accidents happen within the last 8 minutes of the flight." Read the rest

Senator David Perdue (R-GA) posted a campaign ad featuring an image of his Jewish opponent, Jon Ossoff, digitally manipulated to have a larger nose. Once the timeworn antisemitic stereotype was noticed, he was forced to retract the ad, but Perdue is refusing to apologize for it. Matt Novak summarizes the imbroglio:The photoshopped ad, first reported by Forward, featured photos of Ossoff along with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who’s also Jewish, and included text that reads “Democrats are trying to buy Georgia!” along with “Schumer’s SUPER PAC is spending $3 million in Georgia for Jon Ossoff!”The original unedited photo was taken for Reuters by photojournalist Chris Aluka Berry in 2017 after Ossoff lost an election for Georgia’s 6th Congressional District. Perdue’s campaign denied that the edit had been intentional and sought to distance itself from the unnamed designer who made the ad.Purdue claims it was an "accident" caused by a filter, but was unable to explain exactly how that happened.https://twitter.com/ossoff/status/1287907702660829186 Read the rest

Twitter removed two rule-breaking Trump tweets last night. One touted the conspiracy theory that hydroxychloroquine "cures" Covid19 and that Dr. Anthony Fauci suppressed it, whereas the other promoted a story that falsely claimed that a protestor shot dead at a BLM rally had fired the first shots. Beyond the automated notifications at the top of Trump's Twitter feed, the company did not release a statement on the deletions: a new normal, perhaps, as their regularity increases. Read the rest

NBC News has a recent piece on, "the hidden hand that uses money to reform troubled police departments" — essentially, looking at the private industry solutions to public law enforcement problems. It's a worthwhile read if you're interested in police reform like me. While it doesn't go too in-depth, it does provide a glimpse at the ways that the existence (read: threat) of private insurers have helped to mitigate some potential police misconduct … and also how that can totally backfire and end up sapping resources away from a town — especially when the lawsuit and insurance coverage means that offending cops still keep their jobs..For insurers, police reform is about money, not morality. Just as State Farm wants to prevent car crashes, a liability insurer wants to prevent lawsuits.When the customers are police departments, "loss prevention" means teaching police departments how to reduce risk. In the first in-depth study of how insurers affect police, Rappaport surveyed the industry's carrots and sticks, from policy audits to virtual reality use-of-force simulators. Often, insurers educate departments about risky topics like vehicle pursuits and strip searches. Many do site visits and go on ride-alongs, keeping "watch lists" for departments with histories of costly lawsuits, according to the study. Rappaport's favorite example is the insurer that sends representatives incognito to hang out at "cop bars" to observe the police culture."Insurers are clearly affecting the behavior of police departments they insure, for better or for worse," Rappaport said. "They are capable of doing it for the better and sometimes more efficiently than governmental agencies and prosecutors." Read the rest

Everything is awful in this hellscape reality so you may as well enjoy some mustard, relish, and processed meatstuff with your marshmallow-lathered cereal.https://thevulgarchef.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Automatic.mp4Hot Dog Rice Krispies Treat, Hellooooooooo Summer [The Vulgar Chef] Read the rest

YouTuber Greg Stone has an in-depth interview with ocean explorer Fabien Cousteau, who just unveiled his design for his next long-term undersea habitat called Proteus.Greg is a longtime friend of Cousteau, grandson of the famed environmentalist and explorer Jacques Cousteau. Via Greg:Greg Stone spends time with aquanaut Fabien Cousteau, an old friend and dive partner, about his passion for the exploration of the undersea world. From his next underwater habitat Proteus to memories of his previous underwater immersion, Mission 31, Fabien engages us with his unique history being part of the Cousteau legacy. Join us with a candid and interesting conversation between two of the ocean’s biggest advocates.This isn't just some pipe dream. Cousteau lived for 31 days underwater in 2014, breaking his grandfather's 1963 record of 30 days.Image: YouTube / The Sea Has Many Voices Read the rest

This is a pretty cool — and historically important — project from the Boston Public Library!The Boston Public Library's Anti-Slavery collection—one of the largest and most important collections of abolitionist material in the United States—contains roughly 40,000 pieces of correspondence, broadsides, newspapers, pamphlets, books, and memorabilia from the 1830s through the 1870s.[…]We need your help to turn our collection of handwritten correspondence between anti-slavery activists in the 19th century into texts that can be more easily read and researched by students, teachers, historians, and big data applications.It's not paid work, but if you're historically curious, they welcome volunteers to comb through their online archives to help digitize everything line-by-line. It looks like a pretty straight-forward process, although it doesn't work on mobile devices or tablets.Anti-Slavery Manuscripts [Boston Public Library] Read the rest

YouTuber Macrofying zooms in on common objects to the microscopic level. It's fun to guess what each one is before the camera zooms out.Here's a zoom in on a coin, which includes some VFX enhancements:The channel owner made a tongue-in-cheek "making of" video:Image: YouTube / Macrofying Read the rest