♫ 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
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
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
Unemployment claims in the UK stand at 2.1m after rising 856k in April and 637k in the first quarter before that. The official total is not as proportionally bad as the US's 36m claimants, but a further 4.2m are receiving significant benefits under the Universal Credit scheme and the government is paying up to 80% of workers' wages to prevent furloughs and layoffs. The BBC reports the total as "bleak" news.But the labour market is set to worsen, according to politicians and analysts, with Therese Coffey, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, telling the BBC on Tuesday that the unemployment rate was likely "to increase significantly".According to separate research by the Resolution Foundation, young people are most likely to have lost work or seen their income drop because of the coronavirus pandemic.More than one in three 18 to 24-year-olds is earning less than before the outbreak, the research indicated.The UK's benefits system is complicated. As a result, its welfare statistics tend to have a vague, misdirecting quality to them. But quantity has a quality of its own. Read the rest
As much as we love our gadgets, the time-honored tradition of putting actual pen against real-life paper and organizing thoughts, jotting notes, or just plain sketching will likely never fully leave us.That’s especially true when items like the Rocketbook Fusion are regularly bringing those two worlds together.Designed for every classroom or office, the Rocketbook Fusion is a reusable pen and paper notebook with one big difference — the Fusion instantly shoots your finished notes, big ideas, and more right from your notebook to the cloud service of your choice for safekeeping.And yes, we said reusable — so as soon as you’ve filled your pages and filed all your results to the cloud, the synthetic pages covered in Pilot FriXion ink can be wiped clean with water and a cloth. No trees have to die for your great visions ever again.The most notable addition to the Fusion from earlier models is a big organizational boost in the form of an increased 42 pages, featuring seven different page templates like a task list, a weekly planner, a monthly calendar, an OKR template, and an idealist. And if your thoughts are a little more free-flowing, empty pages with either dot-grid or lined page guidelines can help bring some structure to whatever you write.From there, just use the free Rocketbook application for iOS or Android and save your handwritten notes to cloud services like Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, OneNote, Slack, iCloud, email, and more.The Fusion employs all the charm of old-school note-taking with the advantages of 2020 technology with a healthy dollop of eco-friendliness thrown in for good measure. Read the rest
A woman who called herself Shelley Lewis acted rude and arrogant toward Gelson's supermarket employees when they refused to let her into the store without a face mask. She claimed to have a health condition that prevented her from wearing a mask, and told the Gelson's manager that she was being discriminated against. It's perfect that this took place in the affluent town of Dana Point, California. Karen gets upset that a store won't let her shop without a protective facemask. She then tried to pretend like she's the victim, despite the store giving her options. This is pure arrogance. https://t.co/qgFLhKjgxd #COVIDIDIOTS #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/OXV4EQLOgD— Khary Penebaker (@kharyp) May 17, 2020 From Heavy: After posting the video, Lewis received backlash online and the video started trending on Twitter. Since the video became viral, Lewis deleted the video off her Facebook page and deactivated her account. Read the rest
CNN's Anderson Cooper interviewed radio show host Howard Stern about Donald Trump. Howard Stern knows a lot about Trump, having had him as a guest many times on his radio show over the years. In the interview, Stern says that Trump "despises" his supporters and would be "disgusted" by them. What a surprise!From The Independent:“The oddity in all of this is the people Trump despises most, love him the most,” said Mr Stern. “The people who are voting for Trump for the most part... he wouldn’t even let them in a f***ing hotel.”“He’d be disgusted by them. Go to Mar-a-Lago, see if there’s any people who look like you. I’m talking to you in the audience”, added the radio show host.Mr Stern then compared the dynamic between the president and his supporters as akin to an episode of “The Twilight Zone”, according to The Patriot News.“I don’t hate Donald,” the radio host said on Tuesday. “I hate you voting for him, for not having intelligence.” Read the rest
IMAGE: Health Insurance Coverage Before and After Job Loss Among People in a Family Experiencing Job Loss as of May 2, 2020, courtesy kff.orgAn estimated 27 million Americans may have lost employer-based health insurance because of pandemic layoffs, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report released Wednesday.From CNN:Not all of those people will be left uninsured, however. Some 12.7 million would be eligible for Medicaid and another 8.4 million could qualify for subsidies to buy coverage on the Affordable Care Act exchanges -- though Kaiser notes they would have to sign up for that coverage.But that would still leave about 5.7 million people who would have to shoulder the full cost of new policies, which could prove too expensive for newly unemployed people. They could continue their employer coverage through COBRA, but would have to pay the entire premium, which totals $7,188 for a single person and $20,576 for a family of four, on average -- putting that group at risk for becoming uninsured.The report is the latest in a series of dire projections of how the steep economic downturn has likely left millions of people without employer-based policies, which cover roughly 153 million non-elderly workers and their dependents.READ MORE:• Nearly 27 million Americans may have lost job-based health insurance, study shows[Tami Luhby, CNN, 8:26 AM ET, Wed May 13, 2020]• Eligibility for ACA Health Coverage Following Job Loss[KAISER FAMILY FOUNDATION, Rachel Garfield, Gary Claxton, Anthony Damico, and Larry Levitt, Published: May 13, 2020] Read the rest
Listening to people talk about their drug trips usually isn't very interesting but a new Netflix documentary proves that listening to FAMOUS people talk about theirs is. HAVE A GOOD TRIP: ADVENTURES IN PSYCHEDELICS is a documentary featuring comedic tripping stories from A-list actors, comedians, and musicians. Star-studded reenactments and trippy animations bring their surreal hallucinations to life. Mixing comedy with a thorough investigation of psychedelics, HAVE A GOOD TRIP explores the pros, cons, science, history, future, pop cultural impact, and cosmic possibilities of hallucinogens. The film tackles the big questions: Can psychedelics have a powerful role in treating depression, addiction, and helping us confront our own mortality? Are we all made of the same stuff? Is love really all we need? Can trees talk? Cast members include Adam Scott, Nick Offerman, Sarah Silverman, Ad-Rock, Rosie Perez, A$AP Rocky, Paul Scheer, Nick Kroll, and Rob Corddry to name a few. Written and directed by Donick Cary. Produced by Mike Rosenstein, Sunset Rose Pictures, and Sugarshack 2000.Watch for the celebrities talking about tripping and stay for the trippy animations! Read the rest
If you wanted to understand physics, you’d probably want to talk to Albert Einstein. If you were trying to unlock the art of filmmaking, you might want to chat with Martin Scorsese. And if you were interested in the inner workings of basketball, you’d enjoy a sit down with Michael Jordan.If you’re trying to understand something new, there’s a natural urge to talk with an undisputed master and find out everything they know. By delving into their secrets and following their process, then just maybe you can unlock some of that greatness inside yourself.That’s the theory behind Big Think Edge, a truly epic video series gathering some of the world’s greatest thinkers with the goal of presenting the keys to their greatness to you.The Big Think Edge library already includes over 1,000 video lectures, all aimed at inspiring you to take your career to new heights, sharpen your decision-making, and redefine how you reason and approach the world.And no matter what interests you, the Big Think Edge roster of experts, more than 150 in all, is stellar. Comedy legend John Cleese explains how to use your cognitive abilities to find creative solutions and opportunities. Best selling author Malcolm Gladwell covers ways to master your craft and produce your best work. Former Navy SEAL David Goggins reveals the self-motivation it takes to push past negative self-talk and attack the world on your terms.Bryan Cranston, Shane Battier, Bill Nye, Elon Musk, David Stern, Arianna Huffington, Richard Branson, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and former President Jimmy Carter are just some of the other big names found in the Big Think Edge archives. Read the rest
One positive upside of the past two months is how sheltering at home has all but emptied area animal shelters. It’s tough to get solid numbers nationally, but shelters in cities and regions all across America are reporting massive surges in animal adoptions. Even the steep increase in Google searches for “adopt a pet,” up a whopping 335 percent in April, proves what we probably all knew anyway — that in times of stress, having a furry friend is a huge comfort for millions.Unfortunately, one of the downsides of the past two months is there are no trainers available to help whip some of these new family pets, particularly puppies, into shape. From barking and jumping to house training and scratching, The Complete Guide to Puppy and Dog Training Bundle is a full plan for getting the newest member of your family integrated into the house safely and sanely all by yourself.The collection includes eight courses all geared toward getting a new dog or puppy behaving the right way. And if you’ve ever had any thoughts about starting a dog training business of your own, this coursework is a perfect starting spot.Puppies: A-Z Guide to Puppy & Dog Training kicks off the learning, explaining the best way to train, teach and socialize your puppy so they grow into a joyful, well balanced, and well-behaved dog. Of course, most puppies each have their particular issues, so a handful of courses look more closely at some of the tactics for helping your puppy overcome certain challenging behaviors. Read the rest
"Ugh, God, could you not say that?"Enjoy this irriguous parody of Terence Malick, Christopher Nolan, etc., written and directed by Eli & Andrew Rousso. Read the rest
Walker, Louisiana police are on the lookout for an "aggressive chicken" that's been harassing customers of a bank. The bird is described as 18" tall and weighing 6-8 pounds. Apparently the chicken has been hassling people all week, chasing them and attempting to jump in vehicles. From CNN:Officers responded to the bank on Walker South Road after receiving a call around 4 p.m. Friday regarding the suspect, which "apparently anticipated the imminent arrival of law enforcement and fled on foot from the scene," Walker police said in the [Facebook] post.image: Muhammad Mahdi Karim (GFDL) Read the rest
My family and I have been playing more games lately, and one of our favories is Zombie Dice, a "press your luck" game in which you play a zombie who wants to eat as many human brains as possible without getting shot in the head. We also have the expansion pack, called Zombie Dice 2 Double Feature, which adds good complexity to the game.You can add any one, any two, or all three dice to the game. The hunk dice adds greater risk and reward possibilities with the addition of a double-brain face and a double-shotgun blast face. The hottie evades capture more easily. Santa has three gifts: a double brain, an energy drink, and a football helmet that allows you to survive an extra shotgun blast to the head. These dice are a great addition to the game - we always include them whenever we play. Read the rest
In 1976, esteemed SoCal punk filmmaker David Markey, around 13-years-old at the time, captured this rad 8mm film footage of the skateboard, surf, and dirt bike scene in Santa Monica. Markey writes:The dawning of the Dogtown era; Road Rider 4's, Bennett Trucks, Logan Earth Ski's, 2 colored Vans. Shot at Bay Street, Kenter Elementary, McKinley Elementary, Harvard Street, and the former vacant lots of Santa Monica. Skaters include Paul Hoffman and Paul Cullen. Read the rest
I had seen Bowie and Cher's disco goofball Young Americans medley from her show, circa 1975 (where David still manages to rise about the cheese), but I can't believe that, until last night, I'd never encountered this rather singular performance of him singing "Fame" on the show. As the video description points out, this performance uses a different backing track for him to sing to than the one found on the record, also making it extra special.Fame, what you need is in the limoFame, what you get is no tomorrowIf this track, that Carlos Alomar guitar strut, and that rhythm section don't make you at least think about clucking around your hab unit like a funky chicken, you ain't doin' it right. Read the rest