The Apple Watch has a function that drives out water trapped inside. This slow-motion video shows it in action. Image: YouTube Read the rest

In British Columbia, a driver behind a truck carrying an oversized load filmed the truck going under an overpass and scraping it. I wonder what was loaded on the truck? It's covered with a tarp, but I have a feeling it's expensive.Image: YouTube Read the rest

Just a few hours after juicy morsels from John Bolton's upcoming tell-all book, The Room Where It Happened, started seeping into the media yesterday, The Lincoln Project whipped up yet another anti-Trump ad. This one focuses on Bolton's claim that Trump begged China's Xi Jinping to help him win this November's election."China beats him every time. No matter what he says, China's got his number," the narrator says in the Republican anti-Trump group's ad. "Trump even begged Chinese leader Xi to help him win re-election, like a dog." Via The Week Read the rest

This original, 300-year-old pair of nerd eyeglasses were destined for a Wellington, New Zealand landfill. Fortunately, the operators of a Wellington City Council thrift shop pulled the frames, an ancestor of Le corbusier's classic specs, from the trash and listed them for auction. The frames, a style called Martin's Margins designed in 1756 by Benjamin Martin, sold for more than $5,282. I eagerly await an Oliver Peoples knock-off. From UPI:The winning bidder, Aaron Smylie, said he bought the glasses as a tribute to his partner, Helen Hammond, who died May 28 after a fight with cancer.Smylie said he and Hammond would often use FaceTime to video chat, and the glasses reminded him of a screenshot he kept showing Hammond using a filter that gave her round glasses and whiskers. Read the rest

Someone left a package of gold bars worth $190,000 on a Swiss Federal Railways train on its from St Gallen to Lucerne. Authorities have spent nine months trying to find the rightful owner to no avail. Now, the public prosecutors office is seeking the public's help in finding the absent-minded individual who left them behind. From CNN:In a bulletin dated June 2, officials said the owner has five years to make a claim for the treasure.A spokesperson for the prosecutor's office told CNN that several inquiries had been made about the gold and were being checked. Not details about the nature of the checks were given.image: Agnico-Eagle Mines Limited (CC0) Read the rest

Warwick Davis made a very brief cameo in The Rise of Skywalker, once again donning the visage of galactic champion Wicket W. Warrick. (Warwick's real-life son played the other Ewok.)But Lucasfilm creature concept artist Jake Lunt Davies shared a behind-the-scenes process photo of the re-fabricated Wicket costume, before all the fur was added back to that badass indigenous teddy bear … and it is fucking horrifying. View this post on Instagram Ewok sans fur. Scary stuff. Fabricating Warwick’s costume in the Creature shop. From BTS extras on TROS Blu-ray #starwars #theriseofskywalker #starwarstheriseofskywalker #ewok #ewoks #bts #fabrication #sleepwellA post shared by Jake Lunt Davies (@jakeluntdavies) on Jun 11, 2020 at 8:21am PDTI thought I wanted justice for Ewoks: The Battle For Endor — also known as the greatest Star Wars film ever — being officially removed from the new Star Wars continuity. But now I just want this horrifying sight surgically removed from my memory.Image: William Tung / Flickr (CC 2.0) Read the rest

To be fair, it would not be wholly inaccurate to describe the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone as an autonomous anarcho-syndicalist collective. But sadly, strange women in lakes and handing out swords might in fact be a better system of government than the one we tend to see promoted on Fox News. Read the rest

More than 64,000 endangered sea turtles are gathered in the world's largest nesting area near Raine Island, Australia, but who's counting? The Great Barrier Reef Foundation, that's who. Their researchers used harmless white paint to mark around 2,000 turtles and then flew a drone overhead. By determining the ratio of marked to unmarked turtles, they could then accurately estimate the total population. From BarrierReef.org:“We’re taking action to improve and rebuild the island’s nesting beaches and building fences to prevent turtle deaths, all working to strengthen the island’s resilience and ensure the survival of our northern green turtles and many other species," [said Great Barrier Reef Foundation Managing Director Anna Marsden...]The research paper’s lead author Dr Andrew Dunstan from the Queensland Department of Environment and Science is excited to share his work.“Trying to accurately count thousands of painted and unpainted turtles from a small boat in rough weather was difficult,” Dr Dunstan said.“Using a drone is easier, safer, much more accurate, and the data can be immediately and permanently stored[...]”“In the future, we will be able to automate these counts from video footage using artificial intelligence so the computer does the counting for us.”"Use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for mark-resight nesting population estimation of adult female green sea turtles at Raine Island" (PLOS ONE) Read the rest

Later this year, Studio Ghibli will release Aya to Majo (“Aya and the Witch"), a new feature film from Hayao Miyazaki. The animation auteur's son Goro Miyazaki directed the film, the first 3D-CG effort from the studio. The movie is based on the children's book Earwig and the Witch by British writer Diana Wynne Jones who also penned the novel Howl's Moving Castle upon which the 2004 Ghibli film was based. From Variety:In a statement Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki said he was worried as to whether “Aya to Majo” could hold up in the new post-corona environment. “I thought that a number of times while watching the rushes,” he said. “Then I realized that one stand-out feature of the film is Aya’s cleverness. And if you are clever you can survive in any period of history. Thinking that, I felt relieved.”image: detail of Japanese edition cover for "Aya to Majo" novel Read the rest

Old man threatens a delivery man for trespassing, and promptly discovers that he is trespassing himself. from r/instantkarmaHere's an old guy being mean to an Amazon delivery person, but then a boss-level old guy and old lady with a bat appear for a plot twist. I'm not sure where this is, but people in those parts don't take kindly to people stepping on their property. Read the rest

How to lobster pic.twitter.com/PZTlomCi5T— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) June 9, 2020Noted crustacean expert D. Trump, Ph.D., discusses lobsters, free trade, and car tariffs. Another piece of brilliant work by Sarah Cooper. Read the rest

In most approaches to convert light into electricity, shadows are a bummer. Now though, researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) devised a shadow-effect energy generator (SEG) that scavenges electricity from the contrast between light and shadow. “When the whole SEG cell is under illumination or in shadow, the amount of electricity generated is very low or none at all. When a part of the SEG cell is illuminated, a significant electrical output is detected. We also found that the optimum surface area for electricity generation is when half of the SEG cell is illuminated and the other half in shadow, as this gives enough area for charge generation and collection respectively,” says MUS physicist Andrew Wee in an NUS News article.From the researchers' technical paper in the journal Energy & Environmental Science:Our SEG performs 200% better than that of commercial silicon solar cells under the effects of shadows. The harvested energy from our generator in the presence of shadows arising at a very low intensity (0.0025 sun) can drive an electronic watch (1.2 V). In addition, the SEG can serve as a self-powered sensor for monitoring moving objects by tracking the movement of shadows. With its cost-efficiency, simplicity and stability, our SEG offers a promising architecture to generate green energy from ambient conditions to power electronics, and as a part of a smart sensor systems, especially in buildings. Read the rest

"Pass this tip on your friends too."(via r/ObscureMedia) Read the rest

♫ Can you tell me how to get, how to get to a more equitable society where unconscious biases don't play such an overwhelming role in structural inequalities and police brutality? ♪ For shorter clips and summaries:Watch the entire CNN/Sesame Street racism town hall [Alex Chaet / CNN] Read the rest

Spoken Word with Electronics is an audio series delivering to you a two side recording of unusual stories paired with vintage modular electronic soundsHi, everyone, welcome back to the show. This week, being in the human world is getting too painful, so we're taking a trip into the wonderful world of insects. Our civic responsibility to comment on the craziness of the world isn't ignored, however, so if insects aren't your bag, jump to the final track, advocating for a Police Reform Act to be enacted by Congress. Cicadas are the focus this week. If you're in a part of the world that doesn't have these incredible creatures, they are insects that emit a warm droning tone. The drone itself is a kind of clicking chirp, with hollers and other singing, and they fill trees happily during the summer. All cicadas in a tree syncopate with one another into doing this harmonic noise, and talk to other trees filled with cicadas, often pausing their drone while the other tree is talking. I love cicadas. Learn about red wasps truly terrible behavior turning cicadas into brain food, and you might be interested in some Cicada Facts, including Read the rest

Sometimes the smartest person in the room isn’t necessarily the smartest person in the room. Oh sure, the world is full of experts or even geniuses who revolutionize whole industries or schools of thought. But sometimes, the smartest person in a given situation is actually just the one with the sharpened mental skills to analyze a problem correctly, devise a solution, then implement that strategy. That’s the type of practical intelligence that many people wish they could have. And the reality is that with the right training, they can. The Mastering Thinking Skills Bundle Ft. Timothy Kenny helps train your brain to solve problems, make better decisions and organize your thoughts by following the same processes used by some of mankind’s greatest thinkers.Your guide in this retraining of the mind is led by Harvard and Tufts instructor Timothy Kenny, author of Accelerated Learning for Entrepreneurs, a book about the process of thinking and how to harness good habits to produce better outcomes.Over his four training courses, endorsed with a hearty 4.2 out of 5-star rating by former students, examines exactly how anyone can adjust their thinking to better handle problems, improve critical thinking, sharpen their perception and basically turn their brain into a logic-churning super-computer.The introduction, Mastering Thinking Skills Vol 1: The 12 Fundamental Skills, goes over the basics for overhauling how you think, including assembling the mental tools to devise effective solutions as well as making sure you can spur yourself to action once you reach a final conclusion. Read the rest

On Thursday night, punctuating the uprising against racial injustice, lightning struck the Washington Monument. A separate lightning strike near the White House that evening severely injured two soldiers from the South Carolina Army National Guard.(USA Today) Read the rest

Biden soars to 55%-41% in the latest CNN poll of voters, with Trump's approval rating falling and less than a third of respondents approving of his handling of the George Floyd killing and subsequent protests.In the race for the White House, among registered voters, Trump stands 14 points behind Biden, who officially secured enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination in CNN's delegate estimate on Saturday. The 41% who say they back the President is the lowest in CNN's tracking on this question back to April 2019, and Biden's 55% support is his highest mark yet.Alex Burns summarizes similar polls from last week:2020 polling over the last week:ABC/Post: Biden +10Monmouth: Biden +11NBC/WSJ: Biden +7Fox: Biden +8This can obviously change, but this is not currently a close race or one in which the Electoral College is a reasonably good insurance plan for Trump.Here's the thing. About this time in 2016, Clinton led Trump in these polls thusly:ABC/Post: Clinton +14Monmouth: Clinton +8NBC/WSJ: Clinton +14Fox: Clinton +10Things are looking good for the Democratic Party's candidate, but remember that whatever follows "This can obviously change, but..." will never be anyone's famous last words and no-one will ever have to eat them. We're all getting paid here. Read the rest

A few months ago, I posted the video for Donald Fagen's 1992 now-classic track, "New Frontier." At the time, I said that I couldn't get this tune out of my head. It hasn't left.Here is a group of quarantined musicians doing a wonderful cover of it.[H/t Steve Silberman]Image: YouTube Read the rest

University researchers from Hong Kong and China created an application called DeepFaceDrawing that "allows users with little training in drawing to produce high-quality images from rough or even incomplete freehand sketches."Image: YouTube Read the rest

Buffalo Bills quarterback Jake Fromm says he now regrets expressing his belief on social media that guns should be "very expensive so only elite white people can get them."He tweeted the apology to his Twitter account, which has over 200,00 followers.pic.twitter.com/UstiEM6DAu— JakefromStateFromm (@FrommJake) June 4, 2020 Read the rest

Right tool for the right job. You probably heard a parent or grandparent say it at least once at some point. And it’s true in so many cases.If you spot a small tear in your living room curtains or near to hem a pair of pants, you can always use the good old fashioned sewing machine. Of course, that means taking the curtains down off the rod or taking off your pants and trying to figure out the right hem. Rather than bringing material to the sewing machine, sometimes it’s a smarter move to just bring the sewing machine to the material. And since no one wants to lug a 20 or 30-pound sewing machine around anywhere, the Handy Dandy Portable Sewing Machine can handle lots of those quick fix assignments without all the hassle.This resourceful tool is about the size of a stapler, and at about a foot long, it’s supremely capable of covering simple sewing tasks on the spot, even while your item that needs mending remains in place or even stays on your body.From bedding to upholstery, this battery-operated mini portable mending machine works on most household fabrics but works especially well on lightweight materials. It’s cordless, so users can move around freely, attacking their projects from all angles. It also makes a great travel accessory to handle any clothing emergencies that might happen while you’re out on the road.The Handy Dandy machine comes with a thread starter kit and even its own tape measure for on-the-fly quick repairs or temporary basting. Read the rest

Over 25 years, eBay has carved out its space as the commerce hub of choice online. With 182 million users worldwide, that works out to about 35 percent of all US mobile users who shop those eBay storefronts. But did you know there are usually around 1.3 billion — with a B — active for-sale items on eBay at any given moment? When you do the math, that means there are about seven offers for every single one of those 182 million users. So the trick for any eBay retailer is making sure what they’re selling stands out enough to get noticed and turn browsers into customers.While it isn’t always easy, there are some critical steps to be found in The Essential eBay Sellers Blueprint Bundle that can help light the way.This collection of four courses only takes about 13 hours to complete, but once it’s completed, you’ll have a much deeper understanding of what works for sellers and what doesn’t in the world’s biggest online marketplace.For those whose experience with the platform doesn't extend beyond a casual bid or two, the Complete eBay Course: From Beginner to Advanced is a thorough primer on how eBay really works for a retailer. This introduction explains it all, with proven step-by-step tactics for everything from creating listings that draw customers to little known eBay “hacks” from a teaching system that’s helped 300,000 learn to sell their wares on eBay.Of course, many sellers would prefer to graduate from selling their household odds and ends into creating an ongoing eBay store with a consistent revenue stream. Read the rest

An autopsy of George Floyd, who was killed by police officers in Minneapolis, shows that he'd tested positive for COVID-19 in April, and had recovered -- only to have his life cut short by those who vow to “protect and serve.”You can read the autopsy here, on the Hennepin County government website.The autopsy release comes nine days after Floyd's death following police encounter, and nine days into protests demanding justice for Floyd and all Black Americans.Excerpt from the Star-Tribune:Also disclosed by the report was that Floyd tested positive for COVID-19 in early April, although the autopsy did not cite that as a factor in his death.“Since … positivity for [COVID-19] can persist for weeks after the onset and resolution of clinical disease, the autopsy result most likely reflects asymptomatic but persistent … positivity from previous infection,” the report said based on the autopsy performed by the medical examiner, Dr. Andrew Baker.Floyd repeatedly told officers that he was unable to breathe while he was restrained before he lost consciousness and died. A concern with SARS-CoV-2 infection is that it can cause scarring in the lungs that results in lingering respiratory problems and shortness of breath. However, doctors worry more about that long-term problem in severe COVID-19 cases that require hospitalization, and doctors expect that patients with asymptomatic cases will fully recover. It can take weeks in some cases, though, before X-rays show that lungs have recovered.The release of the 20-page report comes “with the consent and cooperation of Mr. Read the rest

The statue of Frank Rizzo, Philadephia's longtime and notoriously racist mayor, disappeared last night. Already damaged by protestors during national unrest over the police killing of George Floyd, even city officials wanted it gone. They finally confirmed they had removed it and that it would not be coming back.Workers removed a statue of Philadelphia's controversial former Mayor Frank Rizzo from its place of honor across from City Hall early Wednesday morning, finishing a job that protesters attempted to accomplish during recent demonstrations against police brutality.In the 1970s, Rizzo famously told Philadelphia voters to "vote white." But on Wednesday, the City of Brotherly Love took down a memorial to a man who exploited its divisions.The worst thing about the statue is it was only put up 20 years ago. View this post on Instagram ‪The Frank Rizzo statue represented bigotry, hatred, and oppression for too many people, for too long. It is finally gone.‬A post shared by Jim Kenney (@phillymayor) on Jun 3, 2020 at 3:28am PDTRIZZO REMOVED: After years of controversy, @PhillyMayor finally gets the Frank Rizzo statue removed from the plaza at the Municipal Services Building, ahead of his timeline of a month. Crews worked for almost 2 hours to get him down. @FOX29philly #Philly pic.twitter.com/PSfNVo0Syb— Lauren Dawn Johnson (@LaurenDawnFox29) June 3, 2020Photo: RegBarc (CC BY 2.5) Read the rest

President Trump enjoys a vaguely-defined but formal exemption from Twitter's policies on the grounds of his inherent newsworthiness. Recently, Twitter began putting warnings on his Tweets when they called for violent acts, which Trump considers censorship. A new Twitter account set out to see whether Twitter would simply suspend anyone else who posted what Trump does. It didn't last long before the hammer fell."Experiment Update," posted Bizarre Lazar. "Well it finally happened. Took longer than expected. 12 hour suspension and had to delete the offending tweet. Here’s the screenshots. Will post to the account when suspension is lifted."Since Trump obviously gets to Tweet as he pleases, this experiment might be better quietly applied to other accounts that appear to enjoy a similar special status but are not heads of state. Read the rest

Knowledge is power. And a company that knows who its customers are is far more likely to see those customers return. On the web, information gathering often comes in the shape of an online form. Whether it’s a registration, a contest, an order, or just a simple contact, those opportunities to engage with users and potential customers can prove vital in bolstering your contact lists, generating critical leads, and helping to advance your goods or services to an even broader audience.With 20,000 paying subscribers, more than 190 million forms submitted, and over 12 years of service, 123FormBuilder is a leader in online data collection. With their service, you get access to over 1,000 different no-code, drag-and-drop form templates you can incorporate into your website or app effortlessly. Even if you don’t want to go with one of their pre-prepared templates, 123FormBuilder’s web-based form builder makes assembling a new one incredibly easy. Just click and drag to extend or shrink boxes, add new info spaces, separate a form into multiple pages or reformat it any way you like.With the resources of 123FormBuilder, it’s incredibly simple to start a sign-up for your newsletter, build a mailing list, present surveys or quizzes to your visitors or receive files uploaded to your Dropbox. Each form also makes it easy to establish a workflow, so you can always decide exactly who gets notified of each new submission.If you’re already using other apps and digital tools in your organization, 123FormBuilder can easily join the team, integrating fully with services like Salesforce, Wix, WordPress, Shopify, Weebly, Hootsuite, PayPal, MailChimp, and more. Read the rest

“Silence Is Not an Option”

To celebrate Pride, Levis decided to make and sell denim chaps. They cost $98 and come in small, medium or large in stonewashed blue.No ordinary Pride collection. This year, we've banded together with artists and activists around the world to create space for one single message to prevail: USE YOUR VOICE! 100% of net proceeds from Levi’s® Pride 2020 collection go to OutRight Action International A classic Levi’s® silhouette, reimagined as a pair of unapologetically bold chaps Made with Water Read the rest

Every day, people from all over New York travel to the ATM at the East 22nd Street branch of KeyBank in Manhattan and wait more than two hours for their chance at the machine. Why? One reason is to avoid the fees they'd get hit with by withdrawing their unemployment benefits from many other banks' ATM. Unemployment benefits are distributed via KeyBank debit cards sent to residents; unfortunately, there are only two KeyBank branches in NYC and one of them is closed due to the pandemic. There are other fee-free options — including direct deposit or non-KeyBank ATMs with lower withdrawal limits — but apparently scores of people didn't read or understand the fine print, or the bank didn't clearly communicate. From the New York Post:Some said they endured the line and rolled the dice on their health to avoid getting gouged with surcharges at out-of-network banks. Others said the KeyBank machine was the only one where they could get a daily maximum withdrawal of $1,500. And some simply didn’t know that the bank was part of a network of 1,000 ATMs — because neither the state nor the bank told them when they sent the “Key2Benefits” cards.“It’s crazy, but we have to do it,” said May Adams, 73, who withdrew $500 for rent. She walked across town to the East 22nd Street branch from her home in Chelsea.Eric Kwan, 40, a former Food Network “Chopped” champion who is now out of work, said he biked from Chinatown to save $3[...] Read the rest

“I am outraged.”

We all know the drill. As the overlords of the smartphone and tablet markets, the braintrust at Apple very seldom hold sales on their signature devices. So rather than spending almost $1,000 on a brand-new iPad Pro, the folks in Cupertino are instead giving you the opportunity to score one for about a third of that price instead.Full disclosure: these factory refurbished, WiFi-enabled iPad Pros are returns that may come with some light scratches or other minor blemishes. But techs at Apple have certified that each and every unit has been fully tested and deemed 100 percent functional, perfectly matching all their original factory specs.And this iPad Pro with a 9.7-inch LED-backlit IPS LCD touchscreen stands more than ready to handle just about any assignment you’ve got to throw at it.The model sports an Apple A9X 64-bit SoC dual-core processor, powerful enough to rival those running most portable PCs. Along with 32GB of storage space, a four-speaker audio system, a 12-megapixel rear iSight camera for shooting images and even 4K video, a 5-megapixel forward-facing FaceTime HD camera, and faster wireless technologies, this tablet is more than up to your multi-tasking lifestyle.The iPad Pro's display doesn’t disappoint either. Using a DCI-P3 color space, the iPad Pro display presents a wider color gamut than standard sRGB displays. In fact, the Retina Display delivers greater contrast, more uniform brightness, and improved energy efficiency through photo alignment technology, an oxide TFT panel, display lamination, an anti-reflective coating, and a variable refresh rate. Read the rest

The Action Lab's James Orgill writes, "In this video I show you how it is possible to contain the fire from a burning ball of propane in a wire mesh." Yes, it is possible. But that doesn't mean you should do it. In fact, you shouldn't. The experiment demonstrates the phenomenon behind the Davy Lamp, a lamp that Sir Humphry Davy invented in 1812 for use in coal mines. From Wikipedia:The lamp consists of a wick lamp with the flame enclosed inside a mesh screen. The screen acts as a flame arrestor; air (and any firedamp present) can pass through the mesh freely enough to support combustion, but the holes are too fine to allow a flame to propagate through them and ignite any firedamp outside the mesh. It originally burned a heavy vegetable oil.The lamp also provided a test for the presence of gases. If flammable gas mixtures were present, the flame of the Davy lamp burned higher with a blue tinge. Lamps were equipped with a metal gauge to measure the height of the flame. Miners could place the safety lamp close to the ground to detect gases, such as carbon dioxide, that are denser than air and so could collect in depressions in the mine; if the mine air was oxygen-poor (asphyxiant gas), the lamp flame would be extinguished (black damp or chokedamp). A methane-air flame is extinguished at about 17% oxygen content (which will still support life), so the lamp gave an early indication of an unhealthy atmosphere, allowing the miners to get out before they died of asphyxiation. Read the rest

Linda Tirado is a photographer and the author of Hand to Mouth: The Truth About Being Poor in a Wealthy World.And as of Saturday afternoon, she's blind in one eye.Tirado had been covering the protests and riots in Minneapolis:Early pics: pic.twitter.com/XLq6lHspBd— Linda Tirado (@KillerMartinis) May 29, 2020But around 2:30am on Saturday, May 30, Tirado posted that she had been hospitalized. According to Twitter, the doctors believe she was hit in the eye with a tracer or a rubber bullet, which either exploded, or just hit her in the exact nerve spot to cause damage. While the blindness is likely permanent, Tirado did offer the cold comfort that it was not her photography eye.Click the links to read the tweets if you want more detail. You can also support her Patreon.Up side, I do not have the plague, they tested me for covid and that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.Fucked world where I’m like “well they might have exploded my eyeball but at least it got me basic medical care!”— Linda Tirado (@KillerMartinis) May 30, 2020Let this be your occasional tragic reminder that the "less than lethal" tactics used by riot police are indeed quite dangerous, and potentially deadly; when I was in college, a girl at my school was killed by a pepper spray canister to the face after the Red Sox beat the Yankees in the ALCS. The idea that pepper spray and rubber bullets and tracer shells might be "less lethal" just makes police use them more egregiously, which leads to more and more of these horrible scenarios. Read the rest

“If we fail the test case here, history will not judge us kindly.”Leaked internal Facebook posts reveal that Facebook employees are horrified that Mark Zuckerberg and C-suite executives refuse to remove impeached president Donald Trump’s threats of violence. Casey Newton at The Verge:“I have to say I am finding the contortions we have to go through incredibly hard to stomach,” one employee wrote in a comment about the shooting post. “All this points to a very high risk of a violent escalation and civil unrest in November and if we fail the test case here, history will not judge us kindly.”On Tuesday Twitter labeled two tweets about mail-in voting as “potentially misleading” for suggesting the practice would lead to a rigged election. Early Friday morning, Twitter placed another tweet behind an interstitial warning for “glorifying violence” because it included the sentence “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” In all cases, the tweets were cross-posted to Facebook. (...)But then Trump cross-posted to Facebook a tweet that seemed to suggest that violent action be taken against people protesting the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minnesota police. “Would it be possible to explain in more detail the interpretation of our community standards?” one employee asked. “Does this post violate them but get an exemption, or is it not violating?”But by mid-afternoon Pacific time on Friday, employees had not received a response — and they were beginning to grow frustrated. “It’s egregious that nobody from policy has chimed in or provided any sort of context here,” one employee said. Read the rest

Astronaut David Scott re-created, in 1971 during the Apollo 15 mission, Galileo's "falling bodies" experiment by dropping a hammer and feather on the moon at the same time. Simply, both fell at the same rate because there was no air resistance.screengrab via Wonders of Physics/YouTube(Digg) Read the rest

Enjoy Daniel de Bruin's wonderfully-produced video of a miniature marble machine being made from a) exactingly precise stuff from the workshop parts drawer, b) a Pruser Mini 3D printer, and c) a lot of patient work with soldering irons, glues and fiddly lengths of wire.In this video I'm using a ball bearing of only 5mm wide. The track is made of 0.6mm wire. It took me waaaay longer to construct than anticipated, because a small mistake and the ball wouldn't stay on the track. It took me 5 days to shoot, make and edit.Below, de Bruin offers a more general look at this incredible hobby. You don't need fancy equipment to get started, but you do need a wee soldering iron (I like the TS100 [Amazon] a lot), a variable-speed power drill for the wire-coiling magic, and precision calipers. Read the rest

The LA Times has observed that COVID-19 infection rates are falling in wealthier enclaves while gaining traction in poorer communities.Denser living conditions, higher populations of 'essential' workers, and historic difficulty accessing health care force folks in a position to be infected.LA Times:The Times compared neighborhoods in which more than 25% of the population was living below the poverty line — defined by the Census Bureau as a family of four making less than $26,000 a year — to those in which the poverty rate was lower than 5%.The shift shows the surge feared by public health officials did come to pass, but was largely concentrated in the poorest, most crowded neighborhoods — areas with a lot of essential workers, more crowded housing and higher rates of underlying health conditions such as asthma, diabetes and heart disease.Early in the outbreak, health officials and experts warned that numbers showing higher infection rates on the Westside in predominately white, affluent neighborhoods such as Bel-Air, Beverly Crest and Brentwood were skewed by uneven testing that masked the true spread of COVID-19. Those areas have seen their fortunes improve after months of social distancing and economic disruption. Read the rest

Seattle maker Brennen Johnston wanted his friends to play Animal Crossing with him but they couldn't get their hands on a Nintendo Switch, a scarce commodity amid COVID-19 lockdowns. Enraged by the prices scalpers were charging for a Switch, Brennen set out to build one himself from individual components. The Internet fell in love with the build notes he posted to Imgur and now he's released the above video documenting the project! Brennen writes:The support I received from my original Imgur post has been overwhelming. I never imagined so many people were interested in my project or had thought of doing something similar. I with I was able to answer everyone's questions but I just couldn't keep up with all the requests.Most of the private messages asked me to do a version for the Joy-cons so I went ahead and made you that you can find here: https://www.unorthodoxtech.com/#/blog/5ecc7e3157d93d0017683e23"How To Build A Nintendo Switch From Scratch - Building With Brennen" (YouTube)• Previously: "'How to build a Nintendo Switch' for coronavirus #StayAtHome gaming" Read the rest

Always an aggrieved victim, isn't he.Donald Trump got super mad when Twitter added a little fact-checking note on a couple of his bogus 'voter fraud' disinformation tweets. Next, Trump threatened tthreatened to shut down Twitter, one of the platforms he falsely accuses of stifling conservative voices. Now, he is said to be planning to sign some kind of social media executive order to express his outrage..@realDonaldTrump will sign an executive order shortly about social media and internet companies, @PressSec tells reporters on Air Force One. The president has been very critical of @Twitter in the last 24 hours.— Jeff Mason (@jeffmason1) May 27, 2020White House says Trump will sign an executive order "pertaining to social media" tomorrow, but provides no details on what it might say or do.— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) May 27, 2020From Reuters:The officials, who spoke to reporters traveling with Trump to Washington from Florida aboard Air Force One on Wednesday, gave no further details.Before leaving for Florida earlier in the day to observe a space launch that was postponed because of bad weather, Trump again accused Twitter Inc and other social media of bias without offering evidence.It was unclear how Trump could follow through on the threat of shutting down social media companies. (...) Separately, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington on Wednesday upheld the dismissal of a suit brought by a conservative group and right-wing YouTube personality against Google, Facebook, Twitter and Apple alleging they conspired to suppress conservative political views. Read the rest

In this video we see a woman hand her husband a folder with her pregnancy ultrasound results. The husband is in their car with his smiling adorable baby son in his lap. As the husband goes through the contents of the folder, he comes to the realization that his wife is pregnant with triplets. This comes as a surprise to him, and from his reaction, it's clear that the thinks it's a big deal. Read the rest

Open Culture has a page with capsule reviews of The 135 Best Podcasts to Enrich Your Mind. The list includes "great podcasts on art, music, history, philosophy, plus captivating true and imagined stories."Some are familiar to me and I already subscribe to them. Here a few that are new to me that I just subscribed to:Last Seen - Apple - Spotify - Google - Web Site - RSS - It remains the most valuable — and confounding — art heist in history: 13 artworks stolen from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Twenty-eight years later, not a single piece in a haul worth half a billion dollars has surfaced. The art, and the thieves who made off with it, remain at large. With first-ever interviews, unprecedented access, and more than a year of investigative reporting, "Last Seen" takes us into the biggest unsolved art heist in history. A joint production from WBUR and The Boston Globe. Read more here.Blackout - Apple - Spotify - Google - Academy Award winner Rami Malek stars in this apocalyptic thriller as a small-town radio DJ fighting to protect his family and community after the power grid goes down nationwide, upending modern civilization.The Walk - Apple - Spotify - "Dystopian thriller, The Walk, is a tale of mistaken identity, terrorism, and a life-or-death mission to walk across Scotland. But the format of this story is — unusual. The Walk is an immersive fiction podcast, and the creators want you to listen to it while walking. Read the rest

Pop-Up Magazine is the beloved "live magazine" of eclectic spoken word pieces, storytelling, comedy, and musical performances that exists only on the stage. Tonight though, Pop-Up Magazine takes its show off the road and onto your screen with their first ever online event, "Spring Issue: At Home." It premieres tonight (May 27) at 6pm PT. Teaser above. Longtime Boing Boing pal and Pop-Up Magazine president/publisher Chas Edwards says, "Part of the fun (???) was figuring out how to produce a show when all of us -- contributors, band members, producers, et al -- are holed up in our respective homes. The end result is like a mashup of our live show with a graphic novel made for YouTube." Watch it on YouTube, for free. From the description:In this issue, our storytellers and musicians perform from their homes across the country in an all-new lineup of true, never-before-told stories paired with an original score, art, animation, and film. It’s the Pop-Up Magazine you know and love, presented in a creative new split-screen experience (we like to think of it as a cross between a live performance, a video, and a graphic novel). The stories are timely, surprising, and emotional — a medical student graduates early and becomes a doctor in the midst of the pandemic; a high school varsity mariachi band competes against 80 other teams to defend their elite title in South Texas; office comedy unfolds inside a giant corporate greeting-card company; legends of the stage and Instagram alike interpret social distancing in one minute of dance; and much more. Read the rest

Game From Scratch reports a harrowing experience — an anonymous threat to pay bitcoin or have false claims made about their game dev tutorials to YouTube — and a horrifying one to go with it: YouTube's automatic cooperation with the fraudster, total lack of human recourse, and loss of access to his channel after refusing to pay off the scammer.Please RT, this is broken!Unfortunately GameFromScratch lost the ability to post to @YouTube because their systems can't defeat a script kiddy attack. Warned them after I was blackmailed, and now awaiting the long manual appeal process while locked out. Really @YTCreators? pic.twitter.com/j1hdE1tUYi— Game From Scratch (@gamefromscratch) May 26, 2020Each time it was taken down, I appealed and it would be restored. After I didn’t pay the $50 in bitcoin, I started getting Circumvention of Technology notices for 3 of my videos. That ultimately resulted in a community strike and loss of access to my channel for a week (or until appealed). Thankfully those three takedowns were reversed in about 2 hours and channel privileges were restored.Today I was just waiting for YouTube to restore my 2 year old Animate CC video… then to my shock, it was reviewed and found to be in violation!The scam isn't complex or daring. You can do it by following a sheet of simple, foolproof instructions. It's barely more complex than demanding money from a YouTuber, filing complaints if they don't pay up, and cackling as YouTube automatically takes down the YouTuber's videos or even suspends their account access. Read the rest

TitleMax says, "What are the best and worst TV finales of all time? To find out, we examined the most popular shows listed on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). We scanned the list to find the top TV shows that have ended, and out of that list of popular shows, we took a closer look at each TV show’s rankings both for the show overall and for its last episode."Created by TitleMax.com Read the rest

It's curious, isn't it. It's now 6 months after impeached President Donald Trump said he was starting his 2020 physical. He hasn't completed the routine medical examination he said he started in November. The White House won't say why. I wonder why.In November 2019, exactly six months ago this week, Trump began what the White House at the time described as “portions” of his third physical during a two-hour examination, report Geoff Bennett and Monica Alba at NBC News:Senior administration officials did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment about the delay — despite Trump announcing this week he was taking an unproven and potentially dangerous drug after being exposed to an aide who tested positive for coronavirus.Asked in early March about when he would complete his physical, the president told reporters, “I’m going probably over the next 90 days. I’m so busy, I can’t do it.”A month later, as the coronavirus pandemic hospitalized UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Trump said he would finish the exam “at the appropriate time” adding, “but I feel very good.”A president’s annual physical typically occurs at the beginning of a new year. Trump’s 2019 exam was conducted in February, and his 2018 physical was conducted in January. It is uncommon for a president to complete a routine physical exam months apart and in multiple stages.I'm sure it's a very cool and normal. A perfect physical. Great. Read more:6 months on, Trump hasn't completed his physical. Read the rest

Screenwriter Jack Barth wrote the original script for Yesterday, the movie about a world where only one man remembers The Beatles. Richard Curtis (of Love Actually fame) liked the script and bought it, but on the proviso that Barth would not be named as the screenwriter. Curtis rewrote it as a rom-com, gave it a happy ending, but kept some key scenes. When the film came out, however, he claimed to have never read Barth's script, saying instead that all Barth came up with was a "one-sentence" idea. Barth is sick of hearing it; Curtis's alleged behavior was exposed yesterday in an interview at Uproxx.“I didn’t realize Richard was going to do this to me until the week that the film was released,” Barth says. “Then all the publicity hit all at once and I could see that he was taking credit for everything. I think I could have done something then but I didn’t want to jeopardize the film. I got lawyers to contact Richard’s lawyers and they just dragged it out.”“By the time I realized I needed to get the story out there myself, it was really hard to pitch something that was for a film that had come out eight months earlier. Most of the media is concerned with just promoting the current films, they’re not interested in a story about the abuse of the powerless by the powerful.”Note that there is no claim here of copyright infringement. Curtis bought the rights to Barth's script and paid well for it. Read the rest

If the state of New York were a country, as of today it would have the world's fourth highest official Covid-19 death toll. Chinese officials are censoring or falsifying its reporting of deaths and cases, the BBC reports. The same is also true in Florida. Other countries, such as Russia, are simply failing to track and tally the pandemic.The Andrew Cuomo love in the media is drop-dead bonkers. Read the rest

UPDATE: He threatened Nevada, too.• Trump now threatening to punish the entire state of Michigan for the crime of sending out ballot applications to eligible voters. Michigan is having a rough month. The coronavirus outbreak led to a state-wide lockdown, which armed protesters defied at the state capital. Last night, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency for part of the state, after heavy rains broke two dams, displacing thousands of residents. Now, Trump is threatening (on Twitter, yes of course) to cut off all federal funding for the state, because he doesn't want anyone mail-in-voting during a pandemic, you see. He's falsely calling voting by mail voter fraud, because he believes anyone who votes against him in November is committing fraud. He's nuts.Here was the president's tweet this morning:Breaking: Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election. This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!..U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday called Michigan’s plan to send mail-in voting applications to all voters in the state illegal, without citing a specific law, and threatened to withhold funding to the state.“This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!” Trump wrote in a tweet. Read the rest

The next best thing to the satisfaction you get from cleaning your own messy house is watching someone else clean theirs. Read the rest