Boing Boing

Everything old is new again (also see). Folks, there's going to be a Knight Rider feature film! (Sadly, I think we can assume David Hasselhoff will not star.)Deadline:Spyglass Media Group has teamed with Atomic Monster’s James Wan and Michael Clear to develop a film based on the 1980s classic action series Knight Rider. TJ Fixman, a former video game writer, is adapting the screenplay.Created by Glen A. Larson, Knight Rider first aired on NBC from 1982-1986 and boosted David Hasselhoff’s career. It’s about a high-tech car named KITT that assists the mysterious crime-fighting driver Michael Knight (Hasselhoff)....Plot details for this latest installment are being kept under wraps but we hear it will be a present-day take that will maintain the anti-establishment tone of the original."Anti-establishment tone"? Tell me more.Just for fun, here's the show's original intro:Now for a giggle, watch Michael Knight (played by the Hoff, of course) flip out when he hears KITT's voice for the first time:"There's no need for increased volume"Of course the Internet has already figured out the film locale for that scene.KNIGHT RIDER MOVIE, YES!screengrab via YouTube Read the rest

A Florida man was charged Thursday with battery after demanding a child remove his mask and spitting in his face when he refused to, police say. The incident happened at a restaurant in Treasure Island, Fla., and reportedly concluded with the man saying "You now have coronavirus" to the child and being subdued by staff.According to his arrest affidavit, Copenhaver was described as "intoxicated" and was not wearing shoes. They said he approached the worker in a "threatening manner and attempted to strike him twice."The same worker took "physical control" of Copenhaver, walked him outside the restaurant, and held him to the ground until officers arrived, police said. Read the rest

This is terrific. Dallas Taylor, the host of the podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz, learns the origin story of Netflix's "ta-dum" sound (aka "sonic logo") from its creators.Mashable:In an episode dedicated solely to this sound, Netflix VP of Product Todd Yellin starts out by revealing that it's actually called "ta-dum" internally. Yellin is a former filmmaker with an affinity for sound design, and he led the process of creating the ta-dum: Something immediately sonically tied to the experience of watching Netflix....Yellin enlisted Academy Award-winning sound designer Lon Bender for the project, giving him descriptors that conceptualize this sound: Tension, release, quirky, and more. Bender came up with 20-30 sound effects in different styles. For a long time, the frontrunner was close to the current ta-dum, but also included a goat noise.(Digg)image via Twenty Thousand Hertz Read the rest

If you’re a big fan of ink, but not such a big fan of the forever side to tattoo body art or the pain, the Prinker S Temporary Tattoo Printer might just be your favorite creation of the century.Winner of 2020 Red Dot and If Design awards, the Prinker S is kind of like those temporary tattoos you used to get in a Crackerjack box...only even easier and much, much cooler.With the Prinker app on your smartphone, you can choose from over 5,000 unique tattoo designs, including everything from shapes to cartoon characters to eye-catching designs of every kind. Or you can even upload or sketch your own individual tattoo art right into the database. Once you’ve sprayed a quick skin primer over the area and downloaded the chosen design to the printer, just sweep the printer over your body -- and within three seconds, your full-color tattoo is painlessly applied.The FDA-compliant cosmetic ink is completely safe, non-toxic, waterproof, kid-friendly, and lasts up to two days, even though you can wash it off with a little soap and water.From parties to sporting events to music festivals, from sleepovers to bridal showers and beyond, the Prinker S is a fun, non-invasive way of decorating yourself — without having to worry about work tomorrow or what your mom will say!Right now, you can get a Prinker S Temporary Tattoo Printer with black ink only for $259.99, a $20 savings. Or you can get the complete set of colored ink for full-color tattoos for just $379.99, a savings of almost $70. Read the rest

Reuters published this interactive article Why time feels so weird in 2020 in early July. That was about a month ago, as of this writing; it was also about halfway through the bizarro time vortex hell year known as 2020. Between social media and quarantine, our shared temporal existence has become increasingly warped and disproportionate, but I'm pretty sure that's how the timeline works, anyway. Or at least, for now.And that confusion is precisely the focus of the article:The global coronavirus pandemic has heightened our awareness that time is subjective. For some people who enjoy working from home, the days have whizzed by. For others desperate to travel or visit a loved one, time has slowed to a crawl.Clocks were invented to help us track the passage of time - and yet in some moments when staring at a clock, we’re made aware of just how long a second can feel.Click through for some cool visualizations that explore the gaps between our personal relativity and the actual demonstrable passage of time. It might not change the strangeness of our world, but it's kind of comforting to know that you're not crazy, that our human brains just don't know how to function in a linear temporal existence.Why time feels so weird in 2020 [Feilding Cage / Reuters]Image: Public Domain via NeedPix Read the rest

Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind writer Charlie Kaufman recently published his debut novel, an similarly metafictional tome called Antkind. And now the first trailer for his next protect is already available. Written and directed by Kaufman, I'm Thinking Of Ending Things is based on the novel of the same name by Iain Reid. The official synopsis reads simply:Nothing is as it seems when a woman experiencing misgivings about her new boyfriend joins him on a road trip to meet his parents at their remote farm."Nothing is as it seems" feels like an understatement after watching this trailer. "I don’t set out to do a mindfuck," Kaufman recently assured Entertainment Weekly. And clearly, mindfucking comes so naturally to him that he doesn't have to try.I'm Thinking of Ending Things will be available on Netflix on September 4. Read the rest

If you want to understand what it takes to keep a company’s computer network happy and healthy in the cloud, the training found in The Complete AWS eBook and Video Course Bundle can go a long way toward making sure you know the ins and outs of the AWS environment.This bundle brings together five ebooks and another five videos with more than 13 hours of content, all zeroed in on different aspects of planning, building, managing, and growing a thriving network using AWS tools.The ebooks like Serverless Programming Cookbook and Implementing Cloud Design Patterns for AWS can help get any student started, explaining how the cloud model works and best practices for forging a rock-solid hub that is efficient, scalable and protected from everything the future holds. After a segue into machine learning and building an artificial intelligence workflow with Mastering Machine Learning on AWS, the remaining ebooks (AWS Certified SysOps Administrator: Associate Guide and AWS Certified Developer: Associate Guide) can get a user ready to take and pass the AWS SysOps and Developer exams, two must-have certifications to show mastery for working in the AWS environment.As for the videos, they’re chock full of insightful AWS training as well. From building your own apps in the public cloud (Reliability & Resilience on AWS) to developing and deploying AWS Lambda functions (AWS Lambda & The Serverless Framework: Hands-On Learning!) to using AWS CloudFormation to keep your network running smoothly and intact (AWS CloudFormation Master Class), it’s all in-depth AWS instruction based on practical hands-on knowledge. Read the rest

“The Senate on Thursday unanimously passed legislation to ban the use of the social media app TikTok on federal devices, weeks after the House approved a similar measure,” reports The Hill:The legislation, sponsored primarily by Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.), would ban the app’s use on all federal government devices, following bans on the app already put in place by the Army and the Transportation Security Administration due to potential security threats. “In light of all we know, it is unthinkable to me that we should continue to permit federal employees, those workers entrusted with sensitive government data, to access this app on their work phones and computers,” Hawley said in a statement on Thursday. “I’m encouraged by the bipartisan support we have seen in this body to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable and that includes, by the way, holding accountable those corporations who would just do China’s bidding.”He added that, “if I have anything to say about it, we won’t be stopping here.”In addition to Hawley and Scott, Senate sponsors of the bill included Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), John Kennedy (R-La.), and Martha McSally (R-Ariz.).‘Untrusted’ Chinese apps like TikTok and WeChat must be banned from U.S. app stores, says Pompeo promoting 'Clean Network'China will not accept 'theft' of TikTok by Trump and the U.S, reports state-run China Daily Read the rest

Curious George unboxing a water bottle. from r/funnyGeorge the monkey is curious about his new water bottle. In this video you can see George remove a large metal water bottle from a cardboard box, unsuccessfully attempt to unscrew the lid, refer to the user manual (upside down), successfully unscrew the lid, peer into the bottle and sniff it, screw the lid back onto the bottle and immediately unscrew, and consult the user manual again.Image: Reddit Read the rest

This is a bit of a wormhole, so bear with me. But I think it illuminates some deeply concerning stuff about the right-wing Boomer propaganda machine.I saw a link on Twitter with the headline, "Colorado to strip its police force of qualified immunity: Countless officers discussing resigning." Naturally, I was intrigued at the suggestion of police officers throwing public tantrums over having the slightest accountability in their supposed duties to serve and protect their communities. So I saved the link to read later. When I opened it, I found a terribly cheap right-wing propaganda website called Law Enforcement Today, with a poorly written article that linked to a Denver Post article from a few weeks back about Colorado SB-217, which is supposed to restrict the use of tear gas and projectiles on civilians and introduce criminal charges for cops who don't intervene when they witness another officer exercising excessive force. The Law Enforcement Today coverage is long and meandering and doesn't even have an author listed; at the top of the article, however, there is an editor's note saying:Law Enforcement Today has received countless messages over the past few days from officers in Colorado. Many have asked for resources finding police jobs out of Colorado – many others have said they plan on leaving the field altogether.This is just the beginning. Here’s why.And that is the extent of information available at police threatening to resign over losing qualified immunity. So what was supposedly the main focus of the article — based on the headline — was just some hearsay tacked onto the top of it. Read the rest

A whistleblowing student at a Georgia high school was suspended after he posted a video of fellow students crammed into a hallway between classes, many of them without masks. After he was suspended, North Paulding County high school principal Gabe Carmona made an announcement over the school intercom, warning that "Anything that is going on on social media that is negative on our light... there will be consequences for both students or anyone who sends out those pictures, so please be careful." Read the rest

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