What's not to love about this gallery of images from the 1966 World Science Fiction Convention in Cleveland, OH? The cameras may have acquired color and the cosplay may have become a bit more sophisticated, but the spirit of the players seems to have remained unchanged.These images were taken by the late photographer, and sci-fi mega-fan, Jay Kay Klein. You can see the massive collection of Klein's photos and papers of science fiction fandom on the Calisphere website.Image: Composite of images from the Jay Kay Klein collection, via Cosplay Central Read the rest
Always looking to put a new spin on a cup of joe, infusing your coffee with a blast of nitrogen produces a thicker, more full-bodied, naturally creamy, frothy variation on java that has been picking up steam with fans for the past decade. Of course, most of us don’t have nitrogen injectors just lying around, so if we want our burst of nitro-fueled beans, we have to head over to a coffe shop and plunk down $4 or $5 a cup.Fortunately, the Royal Brew Nitro Cold Brew Coffee Machine and Dispenser offers perfect cold brew with all the nitro effects done right from your own kitchen or office.By injecting those nitrogen gas bubbles, the coffee takes on a smoother, sweeter, foam-like texture that many often compare to the taste of a thick beer like Guinness Stout. The Royal Brew was the original home nitro system based on dispensers used for stouts, creating a special gas blend and pressurized faucet valve to produce the iced, rich, heady brew on your own.Just add your coffee, shake well, inject nitro cartridges, then put it back in the fridge for about 90 minutes and you’re all set -- just tap your keg and serve.In addition to the 64 oz. keg and nitrogen holders, the whole system also comes with its own carry bag so you can take it anywhere.Regular coffee gets diluted with water, milk, and sugar, which also cuts down on your beverage’s caffeine potency. But nitro brewing makes the coffee so tasty it eliminates the need for additives like cream or sugar. Read the rest
"Impotus Americanus is one of the heaviest leaders in the animal kingdom, and is famously known to be an orange, ruddy color not found in nature." Read the rest
Customer 1 at a Staples store in Hackensack New Jersey was told by Customer 2 that she should wear a mask. Apparently Customer 1 didn't like being told to wear a mask, so she grabbed Customer 2's walking cane and then threw her to the ground, breaking her leg. Customer 2 had a liver transplant 4 months ago. Now, police are on the lookout for Customer 1.Image: YouTube Read the rest
One of the greatest struggles of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the fact that the entire world has to watch the normal scientific process happen in realtime. Scientists don't have the space to hypothesize, experiment, and discover new things before it all goes public. Everyone wants certainty; they want immediate answers. But that's not how science works.This new feature from the UCSF Magazine offers the most comprehensive, detailed, and surprisingly accessible breakdown of the virus so far, including that whole process of discovery — what we knew when, why that led to certain conclusions that were correct, and so on.In late January, when hospitals in the United States confirmed the presence of the novel coronavirus, health workers knew to watch for precisely three symptoms: fever, cough, and shortness of breath. But as the number of infections climbed, the symptom list began to grow. Some patients lost their sense of smell and taste. Some had nausea or diarrhea. Some had arrhythmias or even heart attacks. Some had damaged kidneys or livers. Some had headaches, blood clots, rashes, swelling, or strokes. Many had no symptoms at all.By June, clinicians were swapping journal papers, news stories, and tweets describing more than three dozen ways that COVID-19, the disease the coronavirus causes, appears to manifest itself.This includes a succinct explanation of how it works as a vascular (as opposed to respiratory) virus, and why that was such a jarring realization:The novel coronavirus, an RNA virus named SARS-CoV-2, has become notorious for its skill at breaking and entering human cells. Read the rest
The entertaining and delightful host of Technology Connections convinced me that impact lawn sprinklers are a lot cooler than I had previously imagined. Read the rest
America's colossal mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic means US Passport holders have limited options when it comes to international travel. According to this CNN infographic, countries that remain open without restrictions include:AlbaniaDominican RepublicKosovoMaldivesMexicoNorth MacedoniaSerbiaTunisiaTurkeyTwenty-three other countries are open with restrictions, such as having a negative COVID-19 test result, going into quarantine once you arrive, or paying a cash deposit.Image: CNN Read the rest
Cool Tools · 237: Steven DubnerOn my Cool Tools podcast, which I co-host with Kevin Kelly, we interviewed Stephen Dubner. Stephen’s an award-winning author, journalist, and TV and radio personality. He’s co-author of the Freakonomics books, which have sold millions of copies in 40 languages, and he’s host of Freakonomics Radio, which gets 8 million global monthly downloads and is heard by millions more on N.P.R. stations and other radio outlets around the world. Here are the show notes. Read the rest
The Tiny Sorter is a device you can make from an Arduino, a remote control servo, and some cardboard to sort marshmallow bits from a box of breakfast cereal. It's a clever mechanism that uses a laptop webcam and Google's machine learning software to learn the difference between marshmallow bits and cereal bits. Read the rest
Cartoonist R. Sikoryak's talent for mimicking other cartoonists, from Krazy Kat's George Herriman to Nancy's Ernie Bushmiiler, is uncanny. He has a new book out, called Constitution Illustrated, published by Drawn & Quarterly and I have been marveling at the illustrations. The publisher kindly gave me permission to run some samples so you can see the versatility of Sikoryak's work.A gifted pastiche and parody artist as well as a New Yorker cartoonist, R. Sikoryak’s perhaps best known for his widely lauded graphic novel adaptation of the iTunes Terms and Conditions agreement, where each page referenced a different classic comic. It is a triumph of cartooning, one that demonstrated the power of the comics medium to make the unreadable into a text the average reader could engage with. While the Constitution is hardly so dense, Sikoryak transforms it by interpreting it within 100 years of American pop culture icons, all dressed in period attire, naturally!The 13th Amendment is brought to life by Billy Graham’s classic 1973 comic book cover for Luke Cage, Hero for Hire, drawn by one of the few Black cartoonists in the Marvel bullpen. The Boondock Saints explain the Fourth Amendment preventing seizure. Earlier on, Cathy reminds us that money drawn from the treasury must be appropriately accounted for publically. And it’s pretty satisfying to see the cast of Alison Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For assemble in Section 4, as the Constitution lays out what meetings of Congress look like. Read the rest
In this essay titled "How I Read Two Books a Week," Anthony Draper offers "surprising and practical steps you can take now to read more." My favorite tip is using the downtime feature on your iPhone’s screen time settings.I’ve also adjusted some of my daily habits to further encourage reading. I turned on the downtime feature on my iPhone’s screen time settings so that all of my apps lock after 10 p.m. — with the exception of the Books app, Wildfulness (nature noises), and the clock (to set my alarm for the morning).Usually, I’d spend around 30 minutes (or more) watching YouTube in bed before I went to sleep. I saw that as an easy area to convert to reading time. The downtime feature prevents me from just pulling down on the home screen and accessing my Siri suggested apps (my iPhone knows I use YouTube every night, so it’s always right there) because once the downtime schedule hits, YouTube no longer shows up on that menu.I often get stuck scrolling Flipboard for an hour or longer before falling asleep at night. I'm might try the downtime feature to limit my phone to WaniKani and the Kindle App.Image: Jumpstory / CC0 Read the rest
It’s Sunday. You wake up after a very pleasant sleep. You feel good. You decide to check your email. You have one new email in your inbox; and what d’you know, it’s from Elon Musk! It contains clear evidence that your entire universe is a simulation; and the words ‘Don’t show this to anyone’.Your whole reality is simulated – everything you know, everyone you love, and even yourself are all an intricate collection of ones and zeros! What now?In this entertaining essay in Philosophy Now, Harry Whitnall provides a "survival guide to life in the simulation." His first piece of advice: "[T]o maximize your chances of survival, perhaps you should not show anyone the simulation proof, while frequently considering the possibility of one day telling everyone.[via The Browser] Read the rest
Over at Vanity Fair, Katherine Eban goes behind the scenes of the Trump administration's abject failure at coordinating mass testing for coronavirus — and perhaps unsurprisingly, in all connects back to Jared Kushner empowering all his trustfund baby friends, and Donald Trump's precious ego crushing every opportunity just to make some political gains:The plan called for the federal government to coordinate distribution of test kits, so they could be surged to heavily affected areas, and oversee a national contact-tracing infrastructure. It also proposed lifting contract restrictions on where doctors and hospitals send tests, allowing any laboratory with capacity to test any sample. It proposed a massive scale-up of antibody testing to facilitate a return to work. It called for mandating that all COVID-19 test results from any kind of testing, taken anywhere, be reported to a national repository as well as to state and local health departments.And it proposed establishing “a national Sentinel Surveillance System” with “real-time intelligence capabilities to understand leading indicators where hot spots are arising and where the risks are high vs. where people can get back to work.”[…]But the effort ran headlong into shifting sentiment at the White House.[…]Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert. Read the rest
Earlier this year, the Pentagon confirmed that Tom Delonge had actually leaked some legit UFO videos; and just last week, The New York Times buried even more UFO revelations on the 17th page of the print edition.It's definitely weird that the former lead singer of Blink-182 emerged from a paranoid painkiller addiction to become a legitimate UFOlogist, in communication with John Podesta and Hillary Clinton. It's even weirder that his colleagues in the To The Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences include a former Defense Department employee who may be lying about his involvement with the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program; the former head of the CIA's "men who stare at goats" program, who also claimed to scientifically "confirm" that Russian magician Uri Geller had actual psychokinetic abilities, even though Geller himself admitted it was a trick; and a scion of the Gulf Oil fortune who also worked for the DOD and involved in a UFO interest group with the co-author of the NYT articles about the Pentagon's UFO program. Or that TTA purchased supposedly "alien" metals from the billionaire owner of Budget Suites for America.But what's even more ridiculous is that the Canadian government has had most of their UFO information easily available for decades. The info they have is no more damning or exciting than that blurry Pentagon footage of a pill-shaped aerial vehicle that's probably just an unmanned drone or satellite. But the truth, as they say, is out there, nonetheless. From Toronto Star:The Canadian government hosts a publicly searchable archive of government records about UFOs dating back to the 1950s. Read the rest
The fantastic Drew Friedman says: "My latest book project will be one hundred black and white portraits of underground comix icons presented as they were during that most fertile era of underground comix, 1967-1977, from Z to A, ZAP to ARCADE (with some stops before and after). Short biographies and samples of their work will also be included."To me, this is a natural followup to my two Heroes of the Comics books that both focused on the great creators of mainstream comics, from the mid- thirties to the mid-fifties, now jumping a decade to the dawn of the undergrounds.Underground comix was a counterculture movement that produced iconoclastic and wonderfully forbidden, no-holds-barred comic books and other small press publications focusing mainly on sex, violence and drugs, and featured comix and graphix produced by some of the greatest artistic talents and satiric minds of the day, most prominently the "father of underground comix," R. Crumb.All of the essential players from that ten year era of undergrounds will be included: Frank Stack, Gilbert Shelton, Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Bill Griffith, Diane Noomin, Denis Kitchen, Justin Green, Kim Deitch, Jay Lynch, Jim Osborne, Trina Robbins, Vaughn Bode, Howard Cruise, all the ZAP artists, the Bijou Funnies artists, the Air Pirates, etc, as well as several obscure, forgotten and black creators. This project should be completed by early to mid 2021 and published either later that year, or in 2022, depending on unforseen circumstances in the publishing world.I love everything Drew does, and I'm really looking forward to this one. Read the rest
Cops cannot search and arrest people just because they smell weed, Maryland's highest court ruled unanimously. Chief Judge Mary Ellen Barbera wrote, "The odour of marijuana, without more, does not provide law enforcement officers with the requisite probable cause to arrest and perform a warrantless search of that person incident to the arrest."From Growcola:This ruling builds on a previous one made last summer by the same court, which barred police officers from arresting and searching a person based on an observation of an amount of cannabis less than 10 grams, which is below the criminal threshold according to decriminalization policy made in 2014. Read the rest
"Wake Up," a short film by The Lincoln Project, depicts what it might be like for a republican to wake up after being in a coma for nearly four years and have his family tell him everything that's happened since Trump came into power. It was directed by Jon Turteltaub. Read the rest
Police charged this 30-year-old gentleman for allegedly trespassing at Australia's Sydney Zoo, stripping to his underwear, and diving into the big aquarium. His brilliant buddies recorded the hijinks and shared it on social media, helping police nab the suspect. According to 9News, "the Peakhurst man was issued a court attendance notice for behaving in an offensive manner, entering enclosed non-agricultural lands and interfering with business, and opening, entering or damaging an animal enclosure." Read the rest
The Twitter account of David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and failed gubernatorial and presidential candidate, was suspended early Friday. "FUCKING FINALLY!," tweeted Sleeping Giants, a campaign dedicated to deplatforming bigots. "... We’ve only been asking about this for THREE AND A HALF FUCKING YEARS!"Twitter confirmed to Newsweek that the suspension was permanent. Duke has received at least one temporary suspension in the past."The account has been permanently suspended for repeated violations of the Twitter Rules on hateful conduct," a Twitter spokesperson was quoted saying by Newsweek. "This enforcement action is in line with our recently-updated guidance on harmful links."It's not clear exactly which tweet finally did him in, but the reference to harmful links makes it likely the final straw was his posting of a viral coronavirus conspiracy video that exhorts people to take an unproven medication to fight the disease.Among America's most notorious living racists and antisemites, Duke advanced Neo-Nazi conspiracy theories, defrauded his supporters, and even joined the Republican Party in pursuit of his aims. Read the rest
I'm a big fan of the Pudding's clever approach to infographics, and this latest piece examining 90s music does not disappoint. They surveyed thousands of people, collecting millions of data points to find out how well they recognized charting songs from the 1990s, and analyzed the results according to birth year. Pretty cool!Sinatra, Elvis, and Chuck Berry are emblematic of ’50s music, but what’s the ’90s equivalent? Using the recognition data we collected, we can begin to define the canon. These will be the artists and songs that Gen Z and beyond seem to recognize (and value) among all the musical output from the decade.First, it’s important to understand the general trends in the data. “No Diggity” knowledge peaks among people born in 1983, who were 13 years old when the track debuted in 1996. We also see a slow drop off among people who were not fully sentient when “No Diggity” was in its prime, individuals who were 5 years old or younger (or not born yet) in 1996.That drop-off rate between generations—in this case, Millennials to Gen Z—is one indicator for whether “No Diggity” is surviving the test of timeThe Instagram post below is only a small piece of the results; check out the Pudding's website for the full analysis, with all your favorite (and/or totally forgotten) 90s pop gems. View this post on Instagram Part 1 of 2—New project: 1) Gen Z is far more likely to recognize "Wannabe" than "No Scrubs." 2) Will Smith is falling into obscurity. Read the rest
The One Love Machine band is the brainchild of German artist Kolja Kugler, whose work focuses largely on moving sculptures. As he explained to CNN:When I build a band member I start obviously with the music-making parts. The fingers, plugging or playing, and then I build the character behind it.The special thing about my robots is that they do actually play the music themselves. My robots play the bass guitar, the drum kit and they play the flute. They've got an affinity for punk rock.My robots perform all around the world. Tech events, festivals, university lectures or TED Talks.That's fucking metal. And also punk.There's a punk band made completely of robots [Briony Edwards / Louder Sound] Read the rest
Pee-wee Herman for president? SURE, WHY NOT?! Stranger things have happened. At least Pee-wee's slogan is honest: "In your guts, you know he's nuts." Go to Pee-wee's new store for the "Pee-wee for president" buttons (and tees and pins and stickers and hoodies) but stay for that terrific animated banner! Francis, his running opponent, is taking a different route with his campaign slogan, the familiar "I know you are, but what am I?" oneimages via Pee-wee Store Read the rest
Where would we be without Alexa? Without Amazon’s virtual assistant, who would we ask to play back our favorite songs or tell us the weather or beatbox? No, seriously...ask Alexa to beatbox.Of course, Alexa does have her limitations. The biggest one being that she’s tethered to an electrical outlet. For the vastness of her all-knowing powers, Alexa, and the Amazon Echo she’s working through, are dependent on staying plugged in, which means their range only extends as far as the power cord.The SkyTote Battery Sleeve seeks to change all that, taking your Amazon Echo off the chain so Alexa can freely roam anywhere within your WiFi range.The SkyTote works with all second-generation Amazon Echo units. All you have to do is slide the factory casing off your Echo, open the battery cover at the base, slip the SkyTote over the top -- and now, your Echo is cordless. The two sync right up, so rather than getting a new Echo for every room in your house, you can now just take one room-hopping with you.The SkyTote sports a rechargeable 8,800mAh lithium-ion battery that lasts up to eight hours on a single charge. Unencumbered, the SkyTote even lets you take Alexa out of the house, so long as you can keep her connected to your vehicle WiFi or a smartphone hotspot.A set of four LEDs on the base always keep you aware of its current power levels, and a power button lets you shut the speaker down to preserve your battery life when it isn't in use. Read the rest
I bought a USB rechargeable lighter last year and will never go back to using matches or a butane lighter. I've used it to light many charcoal barbecues, candles, and stove burners. It works by making a small electric arc across two electrodes. It makes a barely perceptible hissing sound, but one of my cats can hear it from across the room and she runs away. It must sound like another cat hissing at her. Read the rest
Kids under the age of 5 who show symptoms of COVID-19 have higher concentrations of the virus than any other age group, according to a study published today in the JAMA Pediatrics journal.From Fortune:"One of the things that’s come up in the whole school reopening discussion, is: since kids are less sick, is it because they have less of the virus?," said Taylor Heald-Sargent, the lead author and a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, and assistant professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine."And our data does not support that,” she told Fortune. As a result, "we can't assume that kids aren't able to spread the virus." Read the rest
I bought this wall-mounted magnetic strip in 2015 to have easy access to tools I need for simple household tasks: opening packages, hanging pictures, assembling furniture, tightening loose nuts, installing door locks, measuring things, simple plumbing repairs, etc. It's much better than keeping the tools in a kitchen drawer because I can instantly find the tool(s) I need. The magnet is very strong, so I don't have to worry about a tool falling off. The strips come in various lengths. The one I bought is 24 inches long. The shortest I've seen on Amazon is seven inches. Read the rest
Minnesota continues to be in the news for all the wrong reasons, this time thanks to a meme posted by the Wabasha County Republican Party comparing wearing a face mask to Jews forced to wear Stars of David under Hitler. Said official is no longer officially with the organization.Jewish Community Action led the local response, pointing out they support mask wearing:Given that Minnesota rabbis recently spoke out in favor of a mask mandate, comparing that mandate to the Holocaust feels especially disgusting. We ask the @MNGOP to tell Wabasha Republicans to stop using imagery like this. It betrays a total lack of both empathy and education. pic.twitter.com/xGMT3cUvvo— Jewish Community Action (@JCA_MN) July 27, 2020Earlier this month, a couple of Walmart patrons made the same analogy, which went over about as well.Image: City Pages Read the rest
Last week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) gave a stirring response to now-disgraced Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) calling her a "fucking bitch."Yesterday AOC posted "behind-the-scenes details" of how she decided how to respond. She included a page from her dot grid notebook with a rough outline of her speech. (What kind of notebook is it?)I want to thank everyone for your immense outpouring of personal stories and support for one another after last week’s speech on the violence of misogyny and abuse of power in the workplace. I figured I’d share some behind-the-scenes details of what went into that moment.Many have asked me if my speech was pre-written. The answer is no. But in some ways, yes. Yes because this speech was a recounting of thoughts that so many women and femme people have carried since the time we were children. It flowed because every single one of us has lived this silent script: stay silent (why?), keep your head down (for whom?), suck it up (to whose benefit?). But my chosen words were largely extemporaneous. I got to the House floor about ten minutes before my speech and scribbled down some quick notes after reflecting on what had transpired over the last few days. Pictured here are all the notes I had, and from there I improvised my composition and spoke live.The evening before my speech, I did not know what I was going to say. I wrestled with this question: what is there to say to a man who isn’t listening? Read the rest
Earlier this month the US Government built a fence in Portland, which is blocking a bike lane. Last week, the Portland Bureau of Transportation sent a cease-and-desist notice to the Fed Gov, demanding it removes the fence. So far, the Fed Gov has not responded, and now the City of Portland is fining Fed Gov $500 for every 15 minutes the fence remains. The fine is approaching $300,000.This website has a counter that shows how much the feds currently owe Portland. Read the rest
TEKOI was a Cold War era United States government installation in Utah that tested the solid-fuel rocket engines that powered Minutemen nuclear warheads. The site has long since been abandoned, and in this video, CGP Grey presents the history of TEKOI, which used footage from the video above. Read the rest
"Is the government watching you through your computer camera? Does Google read all your Gmail? Does a strong password protect you from hackers? Will encryption keep my data safe?" Wired asked these questions to Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Read the rest
Even mild cases of Coronavirus can result in lasting cardiovascular damage, according to a study published this week in JAMA Cardiology.From The Week:But a recent study of 100 recovered coronavirus patients reveals 78 of them now have lasting cardiovascular damage even though a vast majority of them had mild cases of COVID-19 in the first place.The study published Monday in JAMA Cardiology details the results of cardiac MRI exams of 100 recovered coronavirus patients. Twenty-eight of them required oxygen supplementation while fighting the virus, while just two were on ventilators. Read the rest
Kinetic artist Joseph Herscher, maker of impractical and wonderful Rube Goldberg machines, created this delightful series of machine puzzles. I only got two correct! Read the rest
In the late 1950s, a truck carrying a cement mixer crashed on E300 Road between Talala and Winganon, Oklahoma. Apparently too heavy for anyone to deal with, the mixer sat for decades where it was occasionally graffitied or whimsically decorated. In 2011, artists Heather and Barry Thomas celebrated their wedding anniversary by transforming the drum mixer into a space capsule. It's now a popular roadside attraction for curious travelers, terrestrial or otherwise.Winganon Space Capsule (via MAKE) Read the rest
Learning to Cartoonize Using White-box Cartoon Representations, by Xinrui Wang and Jinze Yu at the University of Tokyo, describes an AI trained to turn photographs into paintings reminiscent of cartoon backdrops.Landscapes become beautiful Ghibli-esque backdrops...... whereas portraits become rotoscoped 1980s ads, Patrick Nagel by way of Ralph Bakshi...The AI presumably cares nothing for whatever constellation of references we might pose it under. More examples and inference code at the github repo.Here's a video of an early version of the code in action: Read the rest
On January 16, 1985, BBC One was playing a classic Star Trek rerun when something weird and wonderful occurred. They might call it a "Temporary Fault" but Sulu knows it as... paradise.(ObscureMedia, thanks UPSO!) Read the rest
Emily Groves' Mew is an interactive furry slab. When you approach it, it begins to purr. When you stroke it, the purring intensifies and miaowing commences. If you stroke it too hard, the miaowing becomes wailing and hissing.Mew was part of a collaborative sound object project between Design Products, Information Experience Design and Visual Communication students at the RCA, London. Sensors and sounds were programmed with Arduino and Max MSP. Read the rest
This video illustrates "spherical geometry", the peculiar phenomena observed when you simulate a world by raycasting within a spherical manifold instead of Euclidean space. Beyond a certain distance from the viewer, things start to appear larger the further away they are.A quick look at spherical geometry in 2 and 3 dimensions and why it looks so unusual. This is part 2 of my Hyperbolica Devlog series, and both geometries will be in the game. I promise I'll get to some actual game development stuff in the next video!VR in this is gonna make me hurl. Read the rest
As the Wear OS revolution chugs on, we can expect to see more diversity in smartwatch design, including more stylish and elegant models for business or a night out; as well as those better suited to the rough and tumble of sports and workouts.The TicWatch Sport Smartwatch definitely fits into the later category, engineered by maker Mobvai as a one-stop home fitness center on your wrist powered by the entire Google app ecosystem.Sporting a clean, simple design, the TicWatch S is packed with all the features an active user would need. Integrated with the extensive Google Fit app, users have full access to all of its features, from a distance tracker and step counter for measuring walks and runs to a heart rate monitor for registering your heart rate in real-time with a built-in PPG sensor and even the ability to get personalized coaching tips. Of course, it’s still a smartwatch so in addition to its workout aids, the TicWatch also handles all the standard wearable OS tasks, allowing Android users to make and receive calls, reply to messages, get news notifications and even stream music right from your wrist.A Google-enabled device, TicWatch also works hand in hand with Google Assistant, so you can ask a question, text or call, or use one of the thousands of Google-compatible apps, all with the sound of your voice.Built for an active lifestyle, the TicWatch is also more than at home outside, despite its award-winning design. As well as its sporty bezel display and breathable watch band, this model also has an integrated GPS antenna for more accurate tracking as well as IP67 water-resistance to keep up with you, even on rainy days. Read the rest
In this video, a stonecutter demonstrates a traditional method for splitting an enormous slab of rock. Holes are drilled down the length, expansion sheaths inserted, and metal wedges carefully hammered in until the cracks join to form a neat split down the entire length of the stone. After hours of careful work, now he has two problems.Dennis Carter, founder and owner of Deer Isle Hostel in Maine uses a 2-pound hammer to cut a 26,000 pound block of lovely Deer Isle granite into two equal parts. This is the first of many cuts. When finished, the resulting smaller blocks will be used to make the foundation of a workshop that he is building at the Hostel.Here's a less sedative illustration of the same method, using sledgehammers to get the job done quickly and wads of grass (!) instead of metal sheaths. Read the rest
A recent investigation from the Public Accountability Initiative, a nonprofit corporate and government accountability research institute, and its LittleSis database partners breaks down some of the ways that oil producers such as Chevron, Shell, and Wells Fargo are closely intertwined with police departments in cities like Seattle, Chicago, Washington, New Orleans and Salt Lake City. None of this is particularly surprising — whether you've been paying to environmental justice and its disproportionate impact on Black and Brown Americans, or you're just generally aware of corporations who like to bend the laws to their will and enforce a hierarchical structure on the communities around them — but it's still interesting to see spelled out so clearly:Marathon Petroleum, the nation’s largest oil refining company, has a history of environmental pollution that disproportionately impacts the health of Black and Brown communities where their refineries are based. Sine 2000 Marathon has been fined over $1.4 billion for various environmental, consumer, and workplace violations.The company operates 16 refineries around the country, including a notorious 250-acre refinery in a Detroit, Michigan community that is 71% Black. Since 2013 Marathon’s Detroit refinery has received 15 violations from the state environmental regulator for surpassing state and federal emissions limits. In 2019 the refinery leaked a “gasoil” mixture that created a toxic vapor cloud that sent workers to the hospital.Marathon’s Security Coordinator sits on the board of the Detroit Public Safety Foundation, the city’s police foundation. Marathon is also listed as a “Commanding Sponsor” of the foundation’s fundraising event “Above & Beyond” and a “Bronze Sponsor” of their “Women in Blue” event. Read the rest
Do masks work? Uncle Rob investigates by simulating coughs with aerosol starter fluid, mannequin heads and a propane torch.Disclaimer: Uncle Rob is a "professional" Don't be a moron.Looks like they work pretty good. Read the rest
As long as prisons exist, I've generally been a fan of the idea behind work release programs like the one in the Maine State Prison system, where incarcerated people learn skills like woodworking that will help them get jobs upon release. Or at least, it's the least worst work-related prison program I've come across. Most people who spend time in prison are usually driven there through a series of events complicated by poverty, so it makes sense to provide them with rehabilitative opportunities that they can keep them from experiencing the same depths of desperation after they've served their sentences.That being said, there is nothing practical about this:among the things we (the people of Massachusetts) make state prisoner-laborers produce in our depraved state prison labor system pic.twitter.com/jMx66uXRVF— Bill Humphrey (@BillHumphreyMA) July 19, 2020Bill Humphrey is a city councillor in Newton, Massachusetts, and also hosts a podcast called Arsenal for Democracy. He came across this jarring tidbit while researching for a recent podcast episode on prison labor.According to the Daily Hampshire Gazette:More than 500 people participate in MassCor [the Massachusetts Department of Corrections production company], and compensation ranges between $.85 and 1.45 an hour. Around the country, in 2017, wages for inmates in state-owned businesses like MassCor averaged between $.33 and $1.41 per hour, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, a research nonprofit based in Easthampton that focuses on mass incarceration and advocates for reform.I received a cutting board from the Maine State Prison Showroom as a wedding gift. Read the rest
This short documentary explains how St. Louis, Los Angeles, and every other major US city were segregated by design, via decades of federal, state, and local actions.Via the filmmakers:Prejudice can be birthed from a lack of understanding the historically accurate details of the past. Without being aware of the unconstitutional residential policies the United States government enacted during the middle of the twentieth century, one might have a negative view today of neighborhoods where African Americans live or even of African Americans themselves.We can compensate for this unlawful segregation through a national political consensus that leads to legislation. And this will only happen if the majority of Americans understand how we got here. Like Jay-Z said in a recent New York Times interview, “you can't have a solution until you start dealing with the problem: What you reveal, you heal.” This is the major challenge at hand: to educate fellow citizens of the unconstitutional inequality that we’ve woven and, on behalf of our government, accept responsibility to fix it.Learn more at segregatedbydesign.comImage: Vimeo / Silkworm Read the rest
Back in the old days of the 20th century, practicality was the biggest reason most people wore a watch. If you didn’t have a clock face right on your wrist, how else would you know the time?Of course, in the age of smartphones and even smartwatches, the time is available virtually everywhere at any time at a glance. So watchmakers today have steered sharply into the other reason people have always worn watches -- because they look cool as hell.Fashion-forward watches are the mission statement for Zinvo, a luxury watch producer dedicated to crafting striking design pieces that instantly catch the eye. And each member of the Zinvo Blade collection reaches that lofty goal in true attention-grabbing style.Zinvo Blade watches feature their distinctive dial design that incorporates a spinning titanium disk that replaces the traditional second hand. It actually looks like a working turbine engine -- or quite possibly, like a sci-fi time-travel device. Either way, it’s bound to attract stares.Despite their hard eye for fashion, Zinvo doesn’t scrimp on function either. Constructed with a 44mm gunmetal stainless steel case, resilient scratch proof sapphire crystal, water resistance to 330 feet and a genuine leather strap, the Blade watches are built to last.These self winding timepieces are designed to gain power from the natural movements of the wrist, making winding unnecessary. The mechanical movement core of the Blade is so reliable, it will even continue running and keeping perfect time for up to 42 hours when it's left stationary. Read the rest
Researchers compared the sprays of droplets we spew out of our mouths when wearing a one-layered cloth mask, two-layered cloth mask, surgical mask, and no mask at all -- while talking, coughing, and sneezing. Mashable sums up the findings succinctly:The study's big takeaways are:• When talking, wearing even a single-layer mask significantly limits the exhalation of droplets. • For coughing and sneezing, a double-layer mask is much more effective than a single-layer mask.• Generally, the more layers a mask has the better. The researchers suggest "at least three layers" and found surgical masks performed best in this study — though not everyone has access to these masks.For more details read the published results in Thorax. Read the rest
Marooned in Florida in 1528, four Spanish colonists made an extraordinary journey across the unexplored continent. Their experiences changed their conception of the New World and its people. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe the remarkable odyssey of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and his reformed perspective on the Spanish conquest.We'll also copy the Mona Lisa and puzzle over a deficient pinball machine.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon! Read the rest
Lasts week, we lost iconic avant-garde fashion designer, Kansai Yamamoto. Yamamoto is best known for this long-term collaboration with David Bowie, especially the costumes for the Martian rocker's Ziggy Stardust tour.On the Fashion United website, there's a piece about the 2018 Brooklyn Museum evening with Yamamoto, done in support of the David Bowie Is exhibit. Here, Yamamoto describes his collaboration with Bowie:“Unlike me, Bowie was quiet, shy, but on stage he flips a switch and becomes David Bowie,” says Yamamoto. “Me, I’m always that way.” But they shared a love of what the designer calls “radical appearance,” and when asked what they learned from each other, he replies that through Bowie he developed his understanding of Western dress while he helped Bowie interpret Eastern clothing. He agrees that he sees a direct line between what he created in the 70s for Bowie and the current conversation on gender and dress. “I approached Bowie’s clothes as if I was designing for a female,” he admits. “Notice there is no zipper in front.” But he feels proud seeing how the younger generation attending the “David Bowie Is” exhibit can express themselves when compared to the societal restrictions he encountered in Japan 50 years ago, as a self-taught, broke, designer launching his career at the age of 21. A photographer had snapped a picture of him walking along London’s Kings Road and it was featured on the cover of Life magazine. “I felt every day I was the model in a fashion show and everyone around me were members of the audience,” he says. Read the rest