Vice President Mike Pence is taking aim at Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, calling him a "disappointment to conservatives" after failing to vote as expected in recent high-profile cases. "We have great respect for the institution of the Supreme Court of the United States but Chief Justice Roberts has been a disappointment to conservatives," Pence told CBN's David Brody in Florida on Wednesday. ... Vice President Pence also mentioned a case in Louisiana in which the Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana pro-life law that said doctors from abortion clinics would have to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. Once again, Roberts sided with the four liberals on the court.The superficial conservative pretense that courts should remain non-partisan and judges non-activist is evaporating as a general election approaches.Roberts was nominated to the court by George W. Bush in 2005. Though undoubtedly conservative in his outlook and votes, he has angered Trump-era Republicans and has sided more often with liberal justices as cases trended toward right wing culture war bullshit. Read the rest

If you’re a photographer, videographer, or graphic designer, you’ve got a lot of competition charging up behind you. Because while you’ve been trained as a content creator, the task of snapping brilliant images, capturing well-composed video, and posting effective social media is now part of literally everyone’s skill set.For years, Adobe and their ubiquitous Creative Cloud suite of software have been the ultimate content creation tech for making pretty much anything. But while an estimated 15 million users have access to Adobe’s powerful stable of options, very few really know how to get the most out of all that creative magic.With the training in The Essential 2020 Adobe CC Mastery Bundle, you can vault yourself out of the clueless camp, earning mastery-level command over four of Adobe’s most popular and most versatile apps.Over 25 hours of instruction starts right at the pinnacle of Adobe’s dominance with their crown jewel app Photoshop. In Introduction to Adobe Photoshop 2020, even students who have never done any image editing can get up and running with the heritage app as they learn the interface and tools, start basic editing jobs and ultimately prepare images for printing or online posting before advancing to trickier works like masking, curves, and difficult skin and lighting adjustments.In Introduction to Adobe Illustrator 2020, the training shifts to learning about the design, scalability, and versatility of building your own vector graphics as you take your first steps into creating sketches, logos, typography, and illustrations for print, web, video, and more. Read the rest

California AG office reviewing DoJ filing, “[We] look forward to defending California’s state net neutrality protections.”

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo today announced a five-part “Clean Network” effort from the Trump administration which Pompeo says is to limit potential national security risks from China.Pompeo’s comments are just about one week after Donald Trump told reporters on Air Force One the government will soon act ban the Chinese-owned video app TikTok from the United States.From CNBC:The Trump administration wants to remove “untrusted” Chinese tech apps like TikTok and WeChat from U.S. app stores, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Wednesday, detailing a new five-pronged “Clean Network” effort aimed at curbing potential national security risks.“With parent companies based in China, apps like TikTok and WeChat and others, are significant threats to personal data of American citizens, not to mention tools for Chinese Communist Party content censorship,” Pompeo said during a press briefing.The nation’s top diplomat also added that the State Department would work with the Commerce Department as well as the Defense Department to limit the ability of Chinese cloud service providers to collect, store, and process data in the United States.Read more:Trump administration wants to see ‘untrusted’ Chinese apps like TikTok and WeChat removed from U.S. app stores, Pompeo saysChina will not accept 'theft' of TikTok by Trump and the U.S, reports state-run China Daily Read the rest

An explosion yesterday in Beirut killed more than 135 people and hospitalized thousands. Reportedly caused by 3000 tons of ammonium nitrate neglected for years in a warehouse, the blast left a creater so large that it filled with seawater. Satellite imagery released by Planet Labs, Inc. shows the extent of the devastation. Massive grain silos that sit in the middle of the peninsula are still standing. A large, water-filled crater has replaced the ground where two port buildings stood.Every building to the immediate south of the port appears to have sustained significant damage. Some barely have their framework still standing and others have been reduced to rubble.The aftermath gallery at CNN is shocking: the city is in ruins. Read the rest

About 135 died and 5,000 people were wounded in the explosion in Beirut yesterday. The Guardian is maintaining a frequently updated page of the event and the aftermath. This video shows the devastation of the horrific blast.Image: YouTube Read the rest

A gentleman at the Gipsoteca Museum in Possagno, Italy reclined on a 200-year-old statue to pose for a photo and accidentally broke three toes off the figure. He walked away but police nabbed him because museum visitors are required to provide their personal information for COVID-19 contact tracing if necessary. The statue is a plaster model of Paolina Bonaparte sculpted by Antonio Canova (1757-1822). Antonio Canova Foundation president Vittorio Sgarbi says that the fellow, an Austrian tourist, must not "remain unpunished and return to his homeland. The scarring of a Canova is unacceptable."The court hasn't yet determined if they will press charges. From CNN:When police contacted a woman who signed in on behalf of herself and her husband, she burst into tears and admitted her husband was the toe breaker, according to a press release from Treviso Carabinieri.The husband, who was also upset, then confessed and repented for the "stupid move," according to the release. Read the rest

Mainstream social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook say they are trying to delete posts about QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory that grew out of another conspiracy theory, Pizzagate. Of course, attempts to scrub QAnon from social media only add fuel to the fire. According to this Axios catch-up article, interest in the movement is growing faster than ever:There was more than 10 times as much Google search interest in QAnon in mid-July than in mid-January, according to Google Trends data.QAnon pages and groups on Facebook had nearly 10 times more likes at the end of last month than they did last July, according to data tracked by the Atlantic Council and shared with Axios.There has been a 190% increase in the daily average number of tweets with popular QAnon hashtags since March as compared to the seven months prior, according to data from GroupSense provided to Axios.Parts of the mainstream Republican party have latched on, helping drive its conspiracy theories mainstream.11 QAnon supporters are now 2020 Republican Congressional nominees.President Trump himself has retweeted QAnon followers at least 90 times since the pandemic began, and others in Trump's inner circle have also shared Q content.Why is QAnon growing in popularity? Ethan Zuckerman, director of MIT's Center for Civic Media has an explanation: "The idea that pedophile alien lizard people led by Hillary Clinton are running everything is more comfortable than the truth that no one has their hand firmly on the tiller.” Read the rest

Longtime Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is among America's most plainly racist politicians, convicted of criminal contempt after disobeying a federal judge's order to stop racial profiling. He only avoided jail after a pardon from President Trump. Arpaio ran again this year in the GOP Primary election for Sheriff, and the count puts him only 500 votes behind Jerry Sheridan, his former deputy. The winner now faces the current Sheriff, Democrat Paul Penzone, in November; as of early Wednesday morning, Arpaio has not conceded.Sheridan tallied 122,785 votes to Arpaio's 122,207 votes, giving them 36.7% and 36.5% of the total respectively, with a strong third-place run from Mike Crawford on 88,677, 22% of the total. Read the rest

I'm SURE this law firm didn't mean to use award-winning actor Hal Holbrook's image to be the poster boy of an abusive Scoutmaster. Yes, this is a real ad for a real class-action campaign for Boy Scout survivors to get compensation for being abused. I got this image directly from a trusted blogger pal (who wishes to remain anonymous). I messaged him, "someone young maybe didn't know it was a famous actor???" and he joked back, "Maybe they googled 'pervy looking old guy.'" (Readers, do you know why this image is being used?!)You can see the original photo of Mr. Holbrook, Emmy- and Tony-award winning actor, here on NPR.screengrab via Facebook Read the rest

Aurora PD handcuff and held family at gunpoint. pic.twitter.com/GkTWKFZqkI— Joshua Rodriguez (@Joshuajered) August 3, 2020On Sunday, police in Aurora, Colorado spotted a car with a license plate number that matched a stolen motorcycle, so they sprang into action. Guns drawn, the white cops forced the occupants -- a young black mother and four girls (one just 6 years old) -- to lie on their stomachs in a parking lot. Two of the girls were handcuffed. In a video shot by a bystander, the children, clearly in terror, can be heard crying and screaming.Aurora’s police chief said the incident was a "misunderstanding."From The Washington Post:The department’s interim chief, Vanessa Wilson, said police officers must be allowed to deviate from the written procedure depending on the different scenarios they face in the field.In a statement on Twitter Monday, she publicly apologized to the Gilliam family and offered age-appropriate therapy to the children involved in the incident. Her agency would examine new practices and training around high-risk stops, she added.Yet Teriana Thomas, Gilliam’s 14-year-old niece and one of the girls who had been pinned down, said there was little the police could do to regain her trust.“It’s like they don’t care,” she told KUSA. “Who am I going to call when my life is in danger?” Read the rest

مشهد مروع..لحظة حدوث انفجار ضخم في مرفأ #بيروت خلف اضرار كبيرة وإصابات pic.twitter.com/wCRR258wYY— وكالة شهاب (@ShehabAgency) August 4, 2020A massive explosion rocked Beirut today, obliterating much of a grain silo in the city's port district. The BBC reports that the blast came as locals awaited the verdict in a trial over the killing of ex-prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005. The cause of the blasts remains unclear; Video posted to Twitter by the Shehab news agency based in Palestine shows a column of smoke already rising from the building when the second and more destructive explosion occurs.A UN tribunal is due to issue its verdict in the trial of four suspects in the murder by car bomb of Hariri.All four are members of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group, which has consistently denied any role in Hariri's death. The verdict is due on Friday.The possible second explosion was reported to be at the Hariri residence in the city.Lebanon's health minister has spoken of many injuries and extensive damage. The building in the footage immediately by the explosion is the Harbor Grain Silo. Silo dust can be a spectacular explosive. This doesn't mean the explosion was an accident, but it suggests it was caused by the existing fire, itself reported as an explosion in some reports.More footage from a different angle:i thinks this is one of the scariest things I’ve seen in a while, can’t possibly imagine how terrifying it is to be in Beirut right now pic.twitter.com/qLw1zkJWa1 Read the rest

Lego has a two-stud brick with a 45° slope that's used as a control panel on various vehicle kits, from automobiles to underwater craft to extraterrestrial shuttles. George Cave, a senior interaction technologist at KISKA in Salzburg Austria, collected 52 different Lego control panels and use them in a terrific mini-course in physical interface design.Here's an excerpt:Differentiating inputsWhat could cause 400 WWII pilots to raise the landing gear on their B-17 bomber just before touchdown? Catastrophic pilot error, or something more fundamental?It was the psychologist Alphonsis Chapanis who first suggested that the high rate of crash landings might be the fault of poor interface design. The adjacent landing gear and flap control knobs were identically shaped. The pilots never stood a chance.B-17 belly landing, and the shape coding that helped to irradiate the problem. Source: WikipediaHis temporary solution was to glue differently shaped strips of rubber to each switch, enabling blind operation by touch alone. This gave rise to the idea of shape coding and a system of differentiation still being followed in aircraft cockpits today.We can compare the three interfaces [at the top] to see this in action. Ignore the overall layout, it’s the differences between individual switches that matter here. Imagine trying to feel for one of these buttons without looking. The left panel (“Slope 45 2 x 2 with 12 Buttons”) would require careful hand-eye co-ordination. The right panel (“Aircraft Multiple Flight Controls”) clearly distinguishes between the throttle (large, linear vertical movement), toggle switches (round vertical flick) and the push buttons (square push-in). Read the rest

After making landfall in North Carolina last night, storm Isaias is set to rake the northeast megalopolis from D.C. to N.Y.C. today before heading to Quebec. With it comes the threat of tornados, a rare sight up east: "At least one person was killed after a tornado touched down in Bertie County, N.C., and caused significant damage to a neighborhood there."The city will experience sustained 45-55 mph, which is up 10 mph from predictions Monday, and there are still gusts up to 70 mph expected between noon and 5 p.m. ET today.While a tornado watch has been issued until 4 p.m. ET, Criswell said it’s likely tornado warnings will be issued and people should seek immediate cover away from window and move to lower floors. If you are in a high rise, which are common in parts of the city, go towards the inside of a building. People should not use elevators.Live in a building with cellular masts or other shit on the roof? Maybe not much longer! Read the rest

The Verge reports:Netflix is letting people choose the speed at which they want to watch something on their phone or tablet with new playback controls.Netflix will allow anyone on an Android mobile device to stream at either 0.5x or 0.75x speeds for slowed-down viewing and 1.25x or 1.5x speeds for faster watching. Those are slightly fewer options than YouTube, which allows people to slow all the way down to 0.25x speeds, and speed up by twice the normal playback speed. Playback speed options are also available on downloaded titles that people have saved for offline viewing.Netflix had previously announced this plan back in October 2019, which promptly pissed some people off.No @Netflix no. Don’t make me have to call every director and show creator on Earth to fight you on this. Save me the time. I will win but it will take a ton of time. Don’t fuck with our timing. We give you nice things. Leave them as they were intended to be seen. https://t.co/xkprLM44oC— Judd Apatow (@JuddApatow) October 28, 2019No. That’s not how it works. Distributors don’t get to change the way the content is presented. Doing so is a breaking of trust and won’t be tolerated by the people who provide it. Let the people who don’t care put it in their contracts that they don’t care. Most all do. https://t.co/ZPQPpgTXOc— Judd Apatow (@JuddApatow) October 28, 2019A spokesperson for Netflix assured The Verge that they've "been mindful of the concerns of some creators," which is why they've "capped the range of playback speeds and require members to vary the speed each time they watch something new — versus fixing their settings based on the last speed they used." Read the rest

Five years ago, Ricardas Puisys, then 35, didn't show up for his job at a fruit and vegetable producer in Cambridgeshire, England. He was never seen again. Police suspected Puisys had been murdered but what actually happened was a "complete mystery," they said. Yesterday though, police announced they had found Puisys hiding in a dense forest near the town of Wisbech. "Following a search of wooded area in Harecroft Road, Ricardas was eventually found living in undergrowth, very well concealed after having deliberately hidden and having not spoken with anyone for some time," Detective Chief Inspector Rob Hall said in a statement."We now believe Ricardas made the decision to run away as he had been a victim of crime, having previously been subject to exploitation."From CNN:In December last year, Cambridgeshire Constabulary issued an update to say that they had received reports of sightings of Puisys, two weeks after a fresh appeal was launched.In last year's update, they said that the investigation had changed direction after a Facebook account was set up in the missing man's name with images that they believed to be of him.Hall said: "A team of investigators worked tirelessly following up a number of inquiries, none leading to the discovery of Ricardas. That was until we received information that Ricardas may have been alive and still in the Wisbech area." Read the rest

The internet is still wonderful, a fact exemplified by The UX of LEGO Interface Panels, an article by George Cave col0lecting the tiny computer screens, keyboads and dials found on Lego bricks.All of our approaches so far: organisation by features, operation or technology, have been grounded in properties of the system, not of the user. Organisation by use-case is the antidote to this, a clustering based on the daily routines and tasks of the user.Imagine arriving for work each day at the LEGO body scanner factory. Grouping the switches by task (prepare machine, load body, process scan…) would mean splitting up the radiation and scanner buttons into many different regions. More complex for the computer, but more streamlined for the operator. As the designer, only you and your users will be the judge of what works best. Read the rest

Over the weekend, SpaceX successfully completed its first manned mission carrying NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. The thrilling coverage by the Los Angeles Times is a reminder of how amazing this feat is.Via LA Times:A SpaceX capsule carrying NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken has splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday after a more than two-month mission to the International Space Station, drawing to a close the first mission of the privately owned craft.Image: NASA / Los Angeles Times YouTube Read the rest

[AXIOS on HBO: President Trump Exclusive Interview (Full Episode) | HBO]“We're last...meaning we're first.”Trump pathetically fumbles with charts when pressed on the U.S. coronavirus death rate. In this absolutely not fake or comedy and very much real video, the President of the United States says some mind-boggling things.Axios on HBO's Jonathan Swan: “Oh, you’re doing death as a proportion of cases. I’m talking about death as a proportion of population. That’s where the U.S. is really bad. Much worse than South Korea, Germany, etc.”Donald Trump: “You can’t do that.”Swan: “Why can’t I do that?.@jonathanvswan: “Oh, you’re doing death as a proportion of cases. I’m talking about death as a proportion of population. That’s where the U.S. is really bad. Much worse than South Korea, Germany, etc.”@realdonaldtrump: “You can’t do that.”Swan: “Why can’t I do that?” pic.twitter.com/MStySfkV39— Axios (@axios) August 4, 2020In the interview, Donald Trump also says he stands by his comments wishing alleged child sex trafficker and Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell well. “I wish her well. I'd wish you well. I'd wish a lot of people well.”Then he does a racism..@jonathanvswan: "How do you think history will remember John Lewis?"President Trump to #AxiosOnHBO: "I don't know...I don't know John Lewis. He chose not to come to my inauguration." pic.twitter.com/LDv76rrIFc— Axios (@axios) August 4, 2020The obviously unfit president says in the interview he believes his administration has the coronavirus pandemic “under control.” Read the rest

On July 22, Marion County, Texas resident David W. Nagy, 79 died of COVID-19. His wife Stacey Nagy wrote an obituary for her husband that ran in the Jefferson Jimplecute newspaper. The newspaper has no Web site but someone snapped the photo above and it went viral. While some have questioned its authenticity, Snopes confirms that it's all too real. From Snopes:[Stacey] Nagy said she has seen a lot people around her town failing to wear face masks, from drugstore employees to deputies at the Marion County Sheriff’s Department, even though Marion County is now under Abbott’s mask mandate.“It gets me so angry that people are aren’t taking this seriously,” Nagy told us by phone. “The people who are dying are the older people especially — a lot of younger people are dying too — but it’s almost like they’re saying, ‘Who cares about the older people?’ I’ve been with my husband for 20 years and all of a sudden he’s gone. People should know how this makes others feel.”She also expressed anger that the pandemic has been politicized. “It’s not political,” she said. “It’s life and death.[...]”“I miss my husband dearly,” Nagy told us. “I’m taking one day at a time to just try to keep going. When I wrote that thing it was because of him. I don’t want his death just to disappear. I wrote that and partially, it keeps him alive for me.” Read the rest

A group of scientists diagnosed advanced cancer in a dinosaur that lived more than 75 million years ago. The Centrosaurus suffered from a bone cancer that also afflicts humans. The researchers from the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) and McMaster University used high-resolution medical imaging and microscopy to analyze cells from a bone. While the cancer was advanced, the scientists believe that the location of the fossils indicate it was killed by a flood rather than the disease. From the journal Science:Paleontologists initially thought the bone’s strange shape was due to a fracture that hadn’t healed cleanly. But a new study, published today in The Lancet Oncology, compares the internal structure of the fossil (above) with a bone tumor from a human patient to seek a diagnosis. The conclusion: The dinosaur suffered from osteosarcoma, a cancer that, in humans, primarily attacks teens and young adults. The disease causes tumors of immature bone tissue, frequently in the long bones of the leg.More: "Rare Malignant Cancer Diagnosed in a Dinosaur" (Royal Ontario Museum)images: bone, Royal Ontario Museum/McMaster University, Centrosaurus, Fred Wierum (CC BY-SA 4.0) Read the rest

I haven't had a proper drink since last year, for medical reasons. I can't think of anything worth buying in a store that's worth dying for. Once in constant motion, the pandemic has seen my feet nailed to the floor.No loot. No Booze. No fun.Image via Wikipedia Read the rest

Warped Perception managed to mount a small videocamera inside a car tire, fill it up with air, and go for a spin. The view is not unlike what you might see on screen during a colonoscopy. Is that a polyp or a nail?Don't miss the ending when the tire is deflated. Read the rest

Form has met function in a new piece created for Japanese luxury leather brand Tsuchiya Kaban. Designer Yusuke Kadoi made the Watermelon Bag — a playful handbag that holds one single solitary watermelon perfectly — as part of the brand's "The Fun of Carrying" initiative.Watch how it's made — beautiful:See more photos here.(Spoon & Tamago)image via Spoon & Tamago Read the rest

Behind the sensationalist headlines about the largest pullback in US history, there's a lot of nuance and complexity, but the overall message is clear: the US economy is in big big trouble, especially the services sector. Economics Explained takes a deep dive and asks the question: is this the end of an empire?.Via thei video:Last Thursday on the 30th of July 2020, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis released its 2nd quarter Gross Domestic Product report. The report noted a 32.9% contraction in annual GDP growth in the months of April, May, and June. For reference, the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis of 2008 saw an 8% drop in annualized GDP figures at its peak.The drop edged out the 1929 events that started the Great Depression.Image: YouTube / Economics Explained Read the rest

Two people working on Kanye West's presidential campaign are Republican party men, reports New York Magazine.One of West’s electors in the state of Vermont will also be a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Charlotte. Chuck Wilton, one of the three electors West’s presidential campaign named in a filing submitted with the Vermont secretary of State on Monday, was also elected by the Vermont Republican Party in May to serve as a delegate for President Trump at this year’s RNC. ... A prominent Republican operative, Gregg Keller, was listed as the campaign’s point of contact in a filing with the Arkansas secretary of StateThe whole point is to get him on swing state ballots to peel off votes from Biden. It's not a likely strategy—West was a Trump supporter before he announced his run and a national poll including him suggested he will only hurt Trump's chances—but nothing in politics is rational. Kanye West is suffering from bipolar disorder, according to wife Kim Kardashian, who called for compassion in how his statements and his campaign are covered. Read the rest

Even after months of working from home, you’d be forgiven for thinking the whole experience still doesn’t quite feel...well, normal. In addition to all the obvious environmental changes of handling your 9 to 5 from your den or dining room table, the technological aids you didn’t realize you loved back at the office probably don’t exist for you now...and as the song goes, you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.Like that sweet double monitor setup. Expanding to a second monitor and opening up your virtual desktop can boost your productivity by up to 50 percent. But while that second monitor is gathering dust back at your office, you can bring that feeling home to your laptop with double the impact with the Mobile Pixels Trio Portable Laptop Monitor. After earning rave reviews for their original Duex monitor, the Mobile Pixel team upped the ante for their next-generation device, turning the Duex’s second screen array into the Trio’s three-screen setup.Either one or two Trio screens attach to your laptop magnetically, then slide out to form a two-screen or super-expansive three-screen monitor surface allowing you to truly spread out and work — or just play video games on a seriously expanded scale.With 1080p HD resolution and a full 270-degree range of rotation, you can configure your extra screen or screens in virtually any setup you like, even flipping them around to use as a standalone presentation screen when you’re trying to persuade a client or co-worker. The array plugs in via a simple USB connection, with one just one cable handling the screen’s power and data needs. Read the rest

As my refrigerator and freezer are both designed to run off of 12v, 120v (supplied by a diesel generator, if needs be) or propane, Having my food spoil during a power outage isn't at the top of my list of worries. However, having rented whole lotta apartments before moving into my current digs, I understand the stress that can come from fretting over having hundreds of dollars worth of food ruined, thanks to a blackout.Growing up in a tornado-prone region of Canada, I was taught that, once the lights go out, the fridge and freezer stayed closed: every time you open either of them when there's no juice to run the refrigerator's or chest freezer's compressors, you're allowing heat in, making it more probable that your food will be borked before power's restored. Of course, no one ever knew when the lights would be coming back on, in the aftermath of a storm. Nor did they have any idea of how long the food being chilled could stay cold once the fridge or freezer were no longer being powered.For his work on sorting out an estimate of how long your frozen shit will stay frozen, the gentleman in this video deserves a medal. Depending on what type of refrigerator or freezer you own, your chilly mileage may vary. But the data-driven estimate that this video provides is the best resource on the topic that I've encountered. Read the rest

Dandelion Chocolate in San Francisco doesn't offer chocolate "chips," they offer artisanal chocolate "facets." This chocolate redesign is a three-year-long side project of Tesla senior industrial designer, Remy Labesque, who says the "80-year-old teardrop shape" is "ill-suited to its function."Dallas News:“The chip isn’t a designed shape,” Labesque said. “It’s a product of an industrial manufacturing process.”The baking standby is optimized for mass production, not for baking in cookies, whose broad surface area is better suited to maximize taste and melt-in-your-mouth texture. Labesque’s redesign for artisanal Dandelion Chocolate is a square, faceted pyramid, kind of like a flattened diamond. Two edges are thick, and two exceedingly thin, for even more textural pleasure...Dandelion currently sells its “facets” in three distinct, 70% single-origin, types: from Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Madagascar. Additional single-origin styles are planned for the future. The lengthy research and development and ingredient sourcing comes at a cost: a 17.6 oz. bag of the chips goes for $30.Chips available now through the Dandelion store.(Neatorama)image via Dallas News/Dandelion Chocolate Read the rest

Hitting newsstands August 11 is the first Oprah-less O magazine cover. Oprah Winfrey gave up her cover spot for the first time in the magazine's 20-year history to honor Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old who was killed this past March by Louisville police officers.Here is part of her explanation on why she put an illustration of the young murder victim on the cover:Breonna Taylor was 26 years old. Breonna Taylor loved cars and treated her 2019 Dodge Charger like a trusted friend. Breonna Taylor loved chicken any way you could cook it. Breonna Taylor put hot sauce on everything, especially eggs. Breonna Taylor appreciated every kind of music and the dances that went along. Breonna Taylor treated all her friends like besties. Breonna Taylor was a force in the life of her 20-year-old sister. Breonna Taylor felt meaning and purpose in her work as an emergency room technician. Breonna Taylor was saving to buy a house. Breonna Taylor had plans. Breonna Taylor had dreams. They all died with her the night five bullets shattered her body and her future.I think about Breonna Taylor often. She was the same age as the two daughter-girls from my school in South Africa who’ve been quarantining with Stedman and me since March. In all their conversations I feel the promise of possibilities.Their whole lives shine with the light of hopefulness. That was taken away from Breonna in such a horrifying manner.Imagine if three unidentified men burst into your home while you were sleeping. Read the rest

Dylan Louis Monroe is a former fashion designer whose career spans from Marc Jacobs to, uhh, the Deep State Mapping Project, which is a sort of graphic hub for those who are concerned that QAnon is right about 5G causing COVID-19. Here's his official artist bio:Dylan Louis Monroe is an American artist currently based in Cincinnati, Ohio. He studied fashion design at Parsons School of Design in New York City, where he later collaborated with several fashion houses including Marc Jacobs, Hugo Boss, Derek Lam, and Coach. Since 2014, Dylan has been focused on fine art and its application to his own vision of fashion. In 2017, Dylan began the "Deep State Mapping Project" in response to the changing political climate in America. His "Q-Web" diagram spread virally across the dark web in 2018, becoming a worldwide phenomenon. It was published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the exhibit “Everything is Connected” in September 2018.​Dylan is currently the administrator of www.deepstatemappingproject.com, and the Instagram account @dsmp.official. Lately he has been touring through truth & metaphysical related conventions, speaking and exhibiting the Deep State Mapping Project.Sam Jaffe Goldstein of the End of the World Review newsletter recently spoke with Monroe about conspiracies and graphic design, and their conversation is genuinely fascinating. Goldstein is careful to note at the top of the interview that he, "disavows all the opinions expressed here; I view this conversation as a fascinating document of our time." And I agree — it's absolutely worth reading, just for the opportunity to take Monroe at his word and try to wrap your head around his perspective. Read the rest

Running a small business drops a lot on to the plate of just one person. And between juggling a dozen tasks that need to get handled daily, it’s no surprise that there are a dozen more equally vital tasks that can just as easily go overlooked.While posting to social channels and making web posts may not seem like top of the list action items, any entrepreneur who doesn’t have a sound and reasoned digital marketing plan is not only shortsighted but may even be dooming their business to failure.With the training in The SEO and Social Media Ads Certification Bundle, you’ll learn all the most important factors in getting your message out and boosting contact with your most receptive audience members via the web.You’ll get six courses offering a 360-degree look at all the most popular methods for reaching customers online covering everything from the most traditional forms of online marketing all the way up to best practices for selling via social media platforms.The training starts with a focus on how search engine optimization (SEO) works in Introduction to SEO Split Testing and Optimization. This course also digs into the tools used to do split testing, otherwise known as A/B testing, which can quickly help identify which of your SEO solutions are effective and which ones aren’t.Next, the How to Start an Online Store Using WordPress and WooCommerce training lays out a step-by-step guide for getting an attractive, web-friendly digital storefront up and running that leverages the power of WordPress and the popular business-focused WooCommerce plugin. Read the rest

China isn't prepared to accept the “theft” of Chinese technology company TikTok, and has the capability to respond to Trump's move to push ByteDance to sell short-video app TikTok’s U.S. operations to Microsoft, state-controlled China Daily newspaper said on Tuesday. From Reuters:The United States’ “bullying” of Chinese tech companies was a consequence of Washington’s zero-sum vision of “American first” and left China no choice but “submission or mortal combat in the tech realm”, the state-backed paper said in an editorial.China had “plenty of ways to respond if the administration carries out its planned smash and grab”, it added.Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) said on Monday it was in talks with ByteDance to buy parts of TikTok after U.S. President Donald Trump reversed course on a plan to ban the app on national security grounds and gave the firms 45 days to strike a deal.U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said over the weekend that Trump would take action shortly against Chinese software companies that shared user data with the Chinese government.More at Reuters.Microsoft says it has Trump's permission to buy Tik Tok Read the rest

You love to see it.

“We will be suing in Nevada. And that’s already been taken care of, we’ll probably file something tomorrow,” he said during a White House briefing.

Twitter disclosed in a regulatory filing it faces up to $250 million FTC fine over use of your phone # & email data to target advertisements

The importance of reading is well documented. About half of America’s unemployed between 16 and 21 years old are functionally illiterate. And there’s an almost direct line between how much you read and your earning potential, with the richest Americans three times more likely to read than those with a household income below $30,000. However, picking up a book and diving in isn’t always so simple. Between work, family, and the rest of our crazy lives, many of us have a tough time finding the hours in the day to do any serious reading. Then there are the approximately 14 percent of adults and children who suffer from learning or reading difficulties like dyslexia or ADD, disorders that make reading and learning so much harder.For those who have trouble carving out reading time as well as those who face reading problems, the Speechify Audio Reader is a powerful tool for clearing away those obstacles. Speechify takes virtually any text and turns it into an audio file, allowing you to effectively read or learn everything you want, but while listening at your leisure in the car, at the gym, or pretty much anywhere.If you’ve got a PDF or another file format of the book or article you want to read, Speechify can translate it into spoken word almost instantly. If you’ve got a physical book, document, or worksheet in front of you, just take pictures of each page with your smartphone. Speechify will use its whip-smart artificial intelligence technology to analyze your images and turn them into listenable audio. Read the rest

As the world has shifted the last few months, it’s very likely your assortment of EDC items has changed too. While you’re still looking to slim down the number of items you have to tote around every day, there’s a good chance you’re keeping an even tighter focus on how safe those items are and how much protection they offer against COVID and everything else out there in the world right now.KeySmart has been thinking about the same thing, so they’ve assembled a package of items that they think nobody should be without with their KeySmart Pro with Tile/CleanTray/CleanKey collection.This collection gathers up three of KeySmart’s best-selling items, all uniquely positioned to help streamline your day and keep you healthy no matter where your travels take you.The centerpiece of the bundle is their KeySmart Pro, dubbed the world’s smartest key organizer. At its most basic level, the KeySmart Pro is a ridiculously efficient sleeve to keep up to 10 keys from jangling around in your pocket all the time. Crafted from stainless steel, the KeySmart Pro is compact, lightweight, and a perfect method for keeping all those rogue keys in line.But the KeySmart Pro truly separates itself with its smart capabilities. When synced with the Tile app on your smartphone, your keys are now fully trackable online. If you lose your keys in your home, the app can locate them and sound a tone so you can find them, no matter where they’re hiding. If you left them 200 miles back on your road trip, the map can geo-locate the keys so you’ll know exactly where to circle back. Read the rest

Here's an item from the latest issue of my weekly Recomendo newsletter:One of my favorite things about Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood was listening to clips of 93 KHJ, a radio station that pioneered the “boss radio” sound in the 1960s. The DJs were all vocal virtuosos, and the most talented of the bunch was a guy by the name of “The Real Don Steele.” Almost all of these broadcasts have been lost to time, but fortunately, some people recorded KHJ on their tape recorders in the 1960s, and the recordings found their way to the Internet. The Internet Archive has a couple of recordings from the 1960s of Steele’s show on KHJ. Here’s another, and another (with other KHJ DJs, too). If this kind of thing interests you, you can dig up more by searching “khj airchecks.” Read the rest

A lot of people need help right now with food and housing. The musician Superstar and Star are two such people, and they are facing eviction from their home. Superstar starred in King Baby, a movie directed by Case Esparros that my daughter appeared in, and everyone in the cast and crew became Superstar's friend because he's a warm and caring person. I met him during the screening of the film and was struck by his kindness.Superstar's friends have set up a crowdfunding effort to help support Star him and keep them from being evicted from their home in Omaha, Nebraska. Read the rest

When you first hear "emojis can be racist," it might sound like the kind of reductive hyperbole of progressive discourse that you'd find on Hannity as he tries to make a big deal out of a single stupid tweet that some intern dug up in order to further prove that the Culture War is real.But when you actually break it down — as seen in this presentation by Sara Mei Ling Goldstein and Megan E. Glavin — emojis can reveal some surprisingly complex levels about "default whiteness" and the ways that we pretend that certain things are "colorblind."This is something I've noticed myself in the past, but was never able to articulate as well as this 10-page presentation does. For example: you're on Slack, and a Black colleague uses a Black thumbs-up emoji to react to someone's comment. Is it weird as a white person to also tap that Black thumbs-up, to show your support and solidarity? If you're a white person, is it better to use the Simpsons-neutral-but-actually-white yellow thumbs-up? If you use a lighter-skinned emoji, it might look like a white power move. So what do you do?The answers aren't easy. But, as this presentation shows, they're worth considering.If emojis can be flirty, they can also be racist: a guide to understanding the "unbearable whiteness" of emoji [Sara Mei Ling Goldstein and Megan E. Glavin] Read the rest

Recently, a new directive was issued to the CAF, detailing, in no uncertain terms that racism, sexism, and most definitely, extremism, had no place in the Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Navy or the Royal Canadian Airforce. Hate isn't tolerated. Hate and violence are considered to be performance deficiencies. According to the Defence Administrative Order and Directive, if you're a commissioned or non-commissioned member of the Canadian Armed Forces and are caught doing any evil unto society, "...including the display or communication of words, symbols or images, by a CAF member, that they knew or ought reasonably to have known would constitute, encourage, justify or promote violence or hatred against a person or persons of an identifiable group, based on their national or ethnic origin, race, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, genetic characteristics or disability," you're supposed to be held to account for your bullshit.Except for when you're not.In November of 2019, Unicorn Riot, identified Boris Mihajlovic, a 29-year Leading Seaman in the Royal Canadian Navy, who claimed affiliation to Atomwaffen and the Calgary, Alberta chapter of Blood and Honour—you know, Nazis. Better still, Unicorn Riot uncovered that Mihajlovic had been farting around under the handle MOOONLORD, attempting to sell military-grade munitions to another user on the neo-Nazi Iron March web forum:In an exchange held over Iron March forum comments, ‘MOONLORD’ agreed to arrange to sell handguns to ‘FrenchSoldier’. He also offered to sell an AK-47 (€500), a rocket-propelled grenade launcher (€2500) and hand grenades (€50 each). Read the rest

Kim Driver was wading chest-deep in the Winnipeg River with her husband and friends when she suddenly screamed "Someone's got my leg," before being pulled underwater. Vice reports that the "someone" was a muskie, a fish that "can grow up to 6 feet long and weigh more than 50 pounds." it also has very respectable teeth.Kim fought her way to shore, and Terry and his friends shifted from disbelief to panic mode as they saw the extent of the damage along her right calf.“It completely engulfed her calf from pretty much knee to ankle,” Terry said.“As soon as we saw the wound and the blood we knew it was a muskie, because we’re all fishermen out there. Nobody’s ever seen one do that before. Nobody’s ever seen one T-bone someone’s calves.”Thankfully, the couple’s beach crew included nurses and Ontario Provincial Police officers, who administered first aid while they told Terry to get his truck and rush her to a hospital in Kenora. Read the rest

This surprisingly funky Muzak version of "Funkytown" (1979) by Lipps Inc. turned up on r/ObscureMedia. Steven Greenberg wrote the original while living in Minneapolis with aspirations of moving to New York City, a scene that would "keep me movin', keep me groovin' with some energy." Following the Reddit posting, a commenter alerted us that in recent years, Greenberg redid his jam in "15 different shades of sound" available for licensing and also curated a collection of fan covers from around the globe. Below, Greenberg's own folk, reggae, and metal versions:https://youtu.be/HbwHySKAKmwimage above: album art Read the rest

GNS Foods of Arlington, TX supplies nuts to airlines. Now that Airline traffic has taken a nosedive, the company is stuck with 42 access tons of cashews, pistachios, pecans, and almonds. They've taken to selling them at their retail store for $6 a 1.25 lb bag, "selling for less than they cost GNS wholesale, even though the company has to roast, season and bag the nuts," says U.S. News and World Report. Read the rest

What do people around the world think of Trump's response to the coronavirus in the United States? The New York Times showed a video of the things Trump has said about how the United States is handling the pandemic to people in other countries and asked them for their opinion. Most of the viewers were aghast, bemused, sad, or angry at Trump's boastful lies about how well he was dealing with the disease. Read the rest

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