Earlier this spring, more than 20 members of Orquesta Experimental de Instrumentos Nativos pan flute orchestra left their homes in Bolivia and embarked on a European tour. They arrived in Germany on March 10, right as that country's government imposed a ban on large gatherings to fight the spread of coronavirus. Within days, their bus had broken down, and all of their performances had been cancelled, and their own government back home in Bolivia announced that it would close its own borders, leaving the orchestra stranded.And so they spent 73 days living and rehearsing in the Rheinsberg Palace, a 15th-century moated castle ninety minutes northwest of Berlin. Until this past Monday, they hadn't been allowed to travel beyond the woodlands that surround the castle. But that forest — and the land beyond — are inhabited by 23 packs of wild wolves.The palace itself is also rumored to be haunted by Frederick the Great, a former Prussian king and alleged idol of Adolf Hitler.The musicians have also reported encounters with a far more terrifying threat: German police in riot gear, intent on delivering punishment on the musicians for breaking social distancing rules, despite the fact that they technically qualify as a family unit.BBC has the more in-depth story, including interviews with the musicians, many of whom are dealing with other personal struggles amidst all this other chaos.Coronavirus: The Bolivian orchestra stranded in a German castle [Oliver Barnes / BBC]Image: ernstol / Wikimedia Commons (CC 3.0) Read the rest

Remember that guy who traded one red paperclip up to a house in Saskatchewan? Well, now there's an anonymous Bay Area woman on TikTok who is looking to trade a bobby pin to get one. Since May 18, the day she started the Trade Me Project, she's gone from a bobby pin to a pair of earrings to four margarita glasses to a vacuum. Her latest trade up? She cleaned up that Bissell and traded it for a snowboard.Follow the Trade Me Project on TikTok to see her next trade-ups and DM her on Instagram if you have something you want to trade with her. @trademeproject Trading my way from a bobby pin to a house #fyp ♬ original sound - trademeproject @trademeproject Trading a bobby pin for a house. Pt 4 #fyp #trademeproject ♬ original sound - trademeproject screengrabs via Trade Me Project/IG(RED) Read the rest

Earlier this month, New Yorkers were challenged by their governor's office to create a public service announcement to "help communicate why it is so important to wear a mask to stop the spread of coronavirus." Over 600 submissions were received and were voted on by more than 200,000 people. The winning ad, Bunny Lake Films' "We Love NY" captures just the right vibe: it's positive, inclusive, and very "New York." Gothamist reports:While the "We Love NY" PSA by Bunny Lake Films (from directors Celine Danhier and Aliya Naumoff) received the most votes and became the official winner, the state will actually run two ads. "You Can Still Smile" by Blue Slate Films/Natalia Bougadellis came in second, just around 500 votes behind first place.See a few more of the PSAs here. Read the rest

Tom the Dancing Bug, IN WHICH The Don's criminal reign becomes even more brazen, as he publicly extorts a state during a pandemic

As promised by the video title, this pooch just loves to chat.UPDATE: The conversation is over, sadly. The video was removed. Read the rest

In this footage, a workman traipses into a dark entryway only to be startled by a harmless bird. His epithets are not work-safe; the bird knew exactly what it was doing. Read the rest

We've been cleaning out and sorting through some stuff we had in storage, which I re-discovered this generous gift that someone (my mother-in-law?) bought me at some point in time. My sister picked it up, asking why I had a poop-shaped cookie cutter in the pile with my Star Wars cookie cutters. Normally, this would be a valid question to ask — it is certainly reasonable to think that I would own both poop and Star Wars cookie cutters. But then I had to remind her that, no, that was in fact, a Jawa, a member of the Tatooinian trader race that's also kind of uncomfortably anti-Semitic once you start to think about it.Now, I'm not sure why this particular cookie cutter set came with a Jawa. An Ewok would have probably made more sense (while still remaining slightly poop-like). I can't find this particularly set available anywhere else on the Internet; William-Sonoma sells an 8-pack of Star Wars cookie cutters with the exact same Chewbacca, R2-D2, and C-3pO molds — but alas, no Poop Jawa. Walmart sells a lone Poop Jawa cookie cutter for a whopping $18. I'm assuming that someone at Williams-Sonoma decided to discontinue the Poop Jawa — not because it looks like a poop, but because, who the hell wants a Jawa cookie cutter anyway?There is one link on Amazon for a Star Wars Press-and-Stamp Cookie Cutters, Set of 4 Droids and Aliens: R2-D2, C-3PO, Jawa and Chewbacca. Unfortunately, it has no pictures, and it's not available anyway. Read the rest

It's hard to imagine what places like ancient Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome might have looked like in all of their glory. New Historia tries to shed some light on what everyday life might have looked and felt like with their series of 3D "cinematic animations." Here is their five-minute fly-through over ancient Rome. No idea why they chose to not paint the statues. It's always been my understanding that the statuary was painted in bright, vivid colors. Image: YouTube Read the rest

“It’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.” - “Lonesome Dove,” Larry McMurtryIf the past few months have taught us anything, it’s that we need to be prepared now more than ever. Emergency situations can happen quickly and there’s no telling when you may need provisions to handle any manner of spur-of-the-moment event.And as with most emergencies, it’s always tough to know exactly when they’ll happen or exactly what you may need to get through it. That’s why The GoBox 3-Day Emergency Kit is such a smart, practical way of staying prepared for any eventuality.The sturdy box is about the size of a hardcover book -- and the whole box can fit unobtrusively on a bookshelf in your home or office for safe-keeping. But in the event of an emergency, it’s jam-packed full of useful items that could help you or someone else get through anything from a medical emergency to a power outage to a lockdown.For poor air quality, you’ve got a KN95 respirator mask. If anyone’s hurt, you’ve got a first-aid kit with dressings and medications. If it’s cold, you’ve got a Mylar emergency space blanket. If it’s wet, you’ve got a rain poncho. If it’s dark, you’ve got an LED flashlight and a glow stick. And if your emergency looks like it might not end anytime soon, you’ve got a deck of playing cards to help pass the time.The kit also comes with essential provisions, including a 3-day supply of water and food rations, all with a shelf life of up to five years. Read the rest

“Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!”Earlier today, Twitter for the first time ever added a factchecking feature to one of impeached U.S. President Donald Trump's false tweets about voter fraud. Within an hour or so, Trump lashed out at Twitter, on Twitter.Previously:Twitter fact-checks Trump tweet for first time Read the rest

This interview presents a conversation with Grammy-nominated comic book creator, cartoonist and the future of comics history, Benjamin Marra (TERROR ASSAULTER: O.M.W.O.T. (One Man War On Terror), NIGHT BUSINESS, AMERICAN BLOOD, BLADES & LAZERS) about his work, comics, and new daily strip, WHAT WE MEAN BY YESTERDAY.Jeffery Klaehn: For audiences new to you and your work, how might you describe your “brand” as a comic creator, Ben?Benjamin Marra: It’s difficult for me to self-assess my own brand. Probably easier for an external set of eyes to make a more accurate accounting. But I’d describe myself as a creator focused on genre and manipulating or subverting genre tropes. The themes of my work revolve around ideas of America and American Pop Culture. As a brand I’m a bit of a provocateur and permanently stationed on the underground side of comics. I’d say my comics are Gonzo comics that stem from the creative, subversive attitudes of the 60s and 70s.JK: When you think about your own passion for comics and comic art, what immediately comes to mind for you?Ben Marra: Drawing with ink and telling stories. Those are two things that I obsess over practically every minute of the day.JK: I was thinking today that mainstream comics should be available in magazine size format at 100-page each, on slick paper, maybe for a $7.99US or $8.99US price point. Some could perhaps be printed on lower quality paper and offered at cheaper prices. Read the rest

It's a mandala of crispy fried carbohydrates, and I want to worship every bite. A beautiful rainbow of french fries. Full size here.Photograph from Redditor @squid50s Read the rest

Apple says it is planning to reopen more than 100 US retail stores this week, and that because the COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing, most locations will only offer curbside or storefront service.By this week's end, Apple says, about 130 out of its 271 U.S. stores will be open. Certain locations, but not all, will be allowing customers to walk inside the store and conduct transactions on-site with staff.Excerpt from CNBC:Apple’s retail openings are being closely watched as both a key demand driver for Apple as well as a leading indicator for the health of the retail industry, where Apple’s locations often anchor important malls or shopping districts.The stores in the United States that have re-opened so far have focused on Apple’s Genius Bar, which enables customers to get service and support for broken iPhones and other Apple products. Some stores re-opening this week will be available for walk-in customers. “This week we’ll return to serving customers in many US locations,” an Apple representative said in a statement. “For customer safety and convenience, most stores will offer curbside or storefront service only, where we provide online order pick-up and Genius Bar appointments.”Apple’s head of retail Deidre O’Brien wrote an open letter earlier this month outlining the company’s retail re-opening strategy. In March, Apple closed its retail stores outside of China in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.Read more:Apple will open about 100 more stores in the U.S. this week, with focus on curbside serviceHistorically, #Apple has been a genius at retail. Read the rest

• “Our algorithms exploit the human brain's attraction to divisiveness.”• “64% of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools” • GOP operative turned Facebook policy VP Joel Kaplan, who threw a party for Brett Kavanaugh upon his Supreme Court confirmation, killed any action on Facebook's internal findings, reports WSJMark Zuckerberg and other top executives at Facebook shelved damning internal research into the social media platform's polarizing effect, which hampered efforts to apply its conclusions to products and minimize harm, reported the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.Facebook's own internal research discovered that most people who join extremist groups did so as a result of Facebook's recommendation algorithms. The company shelved the research, and pressed on, making money and radicalizing Americans.The Wall Street Journal report by Deepa Seetharaman and Jeff Horwitz is based on company sources and internal documents. One internal Facebook presentation slide from 2018 laid out the issue like this: “Our algorithms exploit the human brain's attraction to divisiveness.”“If left unchecked,” it warned, Facebook would feed users “more and more divisive content in an effort to gain user attention & increase time on the platform.”Excerpt:That presentation went to the heart of a question dogging Facebook almost since its founding: Does its platform aggravate polarization and tribal behavior?The answer it found, in some cases, was yes.Facebook had kicked off an internal effort to understand how its platform shaped user behavior and how the company might address potential harms. Read the rest

Twitter said Tuesday it's not taking any action on grotesquely abusive tweets by impeached U.S. President Donald Trump about the 2001 death of a woman who once worked as a congressional staff member for Joe Scarborough, after her husband asked the company to remove the false and personally harassing tweets.As Mark wrote earlier today on Boing Boing, “Twitter says it's "deeply sorry about the pain" Trump's tweets have caused,” and by day's end, it's now clear they are officially not doing anything at all to address the situation.In a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey that was also published by the New York Times, Timothy J. Klausutis asked Twitter to take down the Trump tweet “alluding to the repeatedly debunked falsehood that my wife was murdered by her boss, former U.S. Rep. Joe Scarborough.”“Lori Klausutis, who had an undiagnosed heart condition, fell and hit her head on her desk at work — Her death was ruled an accident,” Reuters reports:Trump said he had seen the family’s letter, but stood by his comments, telling White House reporters: “I’m sure that ultimately they want to get to the bottom of it ... It’s a very suspicious thing.”A Twitter spokeswoman said the tweets would remain.“We are deeply sorry about the pain these statements, and the attention they are drawing, are causing the family,” the spokeswoman said in a statement when asked about the president’s tweets on Scarborough, now an MSNBC television host with whom Trump has brawled. Read the rest

[Update: Shortly after this post, Trump lashed out at Twitter, on Twitter.]This is huge. Twitter today for the first time labeled a tweet by the President as misleading.On Tuesday, the social media company highlighted two of Trump's tweets that falsely claimed mail-in ballots would lead to widespread voter fraud.Twitter confirmed that two Trump tweets were flagged for “potentially misleading information about voting processes” and are labeled for context."Get the facts about mail-in ballots," read a message beneath each Trump tweet. This message links to a fact-checking page created by Twitter with news articles debunking the assertion.“Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud,” a headline at the top of that Twitter factchecking page reads. Twitter confirms to me that today is the first time any Trump tweets have been labeled as misleading by the platform.In these (two) cases, Twitter says, Trump’s tweets were flagged for "potentially misleading information about voting processes” and are labeled for context. pic.twitter.com/w0pd4qTjN7— Brian Fung (@b_fung) May 26, 2020Of course, this means Twitter will now face further questions about when and how it may apply this label to other Trump tweets, as the president has lobbed baseless allegations against @JoeNBC. More here: https://t.co/fYiuxuj0ml— Brian Fung (@b_fung) May 26, 2020Trump's Frodo-like failson Donald Trump Jr. had something to say about it:From CNN:Twitter said the move was aimed at providing "context" around Trump's remarks. But Twitter's unprecedented move is likely to raise further questions about its willingness to consistently apply the label to other Trump tweets that have been deemed misleading by third parties, particularly as the president has lobbed baseless allegations against former Rep. Read the rest

Game of Shrooms, that hide-and-seek/scavenger hunt for mushroom-themed art is happening again! It was started last year by Attaboy of Hi-Fructose and was such a huge success that he's doing it again. To play, simply make an art piece inspired by mushrooms and then hide it, leaving clues on its location through your Instagram feed with the hashtag #gameofshrooms. Or, on game day, just go find art other people have hidden. It was supposed to all go down on June 13, but COVID changed that. So now on that date, artists will reveal their intention and location and actually play the game on August 15. View this post on Instagram important announcement about this year’s #GameofShrooms! Because of the current crisis, it’s best to postpone the world wide art show and scavenger hunt a few months. so! On June 13th I’d like to invite all participating artists to Announce their intentions and location so that a global map can be created for all Shroom hunters. On August 15th: The Shroom Drop Happens (where it is safe to do so). It kills me to me the event date but it’s best to be on the safe side, right? Meanwhile, please keep posting preview photos of your creations, tagging #gameofshrooms so that we can follow along. Come august, the world may need a world wide art show and event to reset our perspective, no? Thank you to all and please keep sending me what you are working on. What I’ve seen is fantastic. Read the rest

You know how in movies where there's a mad genius tech-wizard/hacker (often a precocious teen) who can make the most fantastical creations with seemingly no effort? It's such a great fantasy with little analogue in the real world. Sam Battle, he of Look Mum No Computer strikes me as a character from one of those films, except he is very real. Sam has given us the Furby Organ, the Sega Mega Drive Synth, and the Circuit Bent Bible -- among many other jaw-dropping creations.Now, Sam has made mad magic again, this time with an old Nintendo Power Glove. First, he converted the glove so that it can control his home-built synth. That was ingenious enough, but he was finding it hard to isolate his finger movements. So, he decided to download the InMoov robot's 3D printable arm, print a copy, and use it to control the synth through the Power Glove. Welcome to the future, cyberpunks.Image: YouTube Read the rest

In a continuation from Trump's Do-As-I-Say-Don't-Say-As-I-Do approach to mail-in voter ballots, the Republican National Committee has sued the state of California in an effort to stop their vote-by-mail outreach ahead of November's election.From CNN:The suit comes after California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, announced this month that the state would move to encourage all voters to cast their ballots by mail in November -- the most widespread expansion of vote-by-mail that has been announced as a result of the pandemic and in the nation's most populous state.The RNC's lawsuit challenges that step, marking a significant escalation in the legal battles between Republicans and Democrats that are currently being waged in more than a dozen states."Democrats continue to use this pandemic as a ploy to implement their partisan election agenda, and Governor Newsom's executive order is the latest direct assault on the integrity of our elections," said RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel in a statement."Newsom's illegal power grab is a recipe for disaster that would destroy the confidence Californians deserve to have in the security of their vote."To be clear: encouraging people to vote is not a power grab. Nor is it illegal. It is, in fact, a core tenet upon which the foundation of a functioning democracy — even a Representative Democracy! — is built. Curiously, it's also one of the only issues that make Republicans err on the side of extreme caution, infringing on clearly-stated Constitutional rights just in case a single vote ever goes awry. Read the rest

The Last of Us is a game about surviving in America after a pandemic. The sequel is out this summer, and as part of the marketing effort, Sony is offering a "The Last of Us Part II" skateboard with an attractive "post-pandemic distressing" effect. [via @ckunzelman]Build a deck with some real character, complete with post-pandemic distressing. Made of 7-ply Canadian maple. Individually cold-pressed. You wouldn't want the distressing to look pre-pandemic, would you? Read the rest

Just as in almost any industry that seeks high-demand, well-trained workers, certification often becomes key. For project managers, that means anyone who’s serious about serving in that role with a respected company knows they’re going to need the seal of approval in one of the field’s most recognized methodologies before they stand much of a chance of getting on a payroll. Since the 1960s, the project management field has been dominated by its preeminent professional organization, the Project Management Institute (PMI). By the 1980s, they’d written the book on project management — literally — with the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK) and began certifying those who proved they understood that methodology.As a benchmark among peers, the training in the Project Management Certifications Tests and Courses Bundle can help any new PM prospect earn the knowledge to get certified as a PMI-recognized and endorsed pro, ready to take on a business’ most critical initiatives.It all starts with the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) Certification course, leading first-time students through 14 hours of training over the basics of project management, including all the terminology, the structure, and the step-by-step procedures they’ll need to know. Using the PMBOK as the core text, practitioners tackle 5 mock tests with 750 different questions to discover if they’re ready to move forward. But Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification status is what students truly covet. So this next course builds off those teachings, covering everything a PMP has to understand if they want to ace the all-important PMP test. Read the rest

Dr. Steven Levine is a renowned New York plastic surgeon, best known for his face-lifts and breast augmentation work. And apparently, as he told The Cut, he's received a lot of requests for in-home service during this pandemic:The volume of calls, and level of intensity, is probably higher during COVID than not COVID. Almost every virtual consult ends with “How quickly can you do this?” They want to take advantage of this perceived downtime. It seems like the perfect time to recover from a procedure like a face-lift, where you need at least two weeks to lay low (whereas for breast augmentation, you only need a few days to rest at home).[…]Extremely successful people are used to getting what they want, when they want it. That is the reality of their life. One very well-known entrepreneur wanted to come to my office on the Upper East Side and get her face done, like, yesterday. She offered me more than four times my usual fee, all cash, and told me she’d have her lawyer draft a nondisclosure that she wouldn’t tell anyone we did it. I told her, “I love you to death, but no.”Beyond the obvious arrogance of this whole scenario, it also sounds like a horror movie waiting to happen. More at the link.My Wealthiest Clients Are Begging for Plastic Surgery in Quarantine [Steven Levine as told to Alyssa Shelasky / The Cut]Image: April L. Sanders / Flickr (CC 2.0) Read the rest

In 1981, Damaskas (Daniel E Hollomb) of The Dr. Demento Show recorded this wonderful parody of DEVO's "Mongoloid" about the arcade game Asteroids. According to Dr_Deirdre_Airlines who posted it in r/ObscureMedia, Damaskas has said "he never played the game, but instead watched people playing the game failing miserably at it."Damaskas was most cult famous for his rollicking ditty "Making Love In A Subaru" (1977), below: Read the rest

What are Perler beads and why might you want to buy a big tub of 22,000 thousand? They are tiny colorful plastic cylinders. Each bead is a pixel that you place on a Perler pegboard to make a piece of art. Once you've placed all the beads down, you use a clothes iron to fuse the beads together, so your artwork doesn't fall apart.The above video shows you a smart way to stack beads on a toothpick for faster beading.Here are some great Perler bead drawings from around the world:Perler Bead Majora's Mask by EP-380Floppy disks by larriekingMario Perler beads by TheBeadLordMobile phone case by Lovely CraftsDIYPerler beads Stormtrooper Star Wars by L000lzPerler bead camera coasters by Maker CratePerler beads tree and mobile by Idee Creative8-Bit Pixel Art Christmas Baubles by adamcrockettPlus, imagine the fun of sorting 22,000 Perler beats by color! Read the rest

Trump and Trump Junior are tweeting accusatory nonsense about the death of a woman, and her widower asked Twitter to delete the hurtful messages because the tweets are in violation of Twitter's terms of service. But Twitter has made it clear that Trump can tweet anything he wishes with impunity, so the best it can do is say “We are deeply sorry about the pain these statements, and the attention they are drawing, are causing the family.”From AP:[Timothy J. Klausutis called his wife's] death “the single most painful thing that I have ever had to deal with” and said he feels a marital obligation to protect her memory amid “a constant barrage of falsehoods, half-truths, innuendo and conspiracy theories since the day she died.”Klausutis said Trump is among the conspiracy theorists spreading “bile and misinformation” on Twitter “disparaging the memory” of his wife and their marriage.Trump’s tweets violate Twitter’s community rules and terms of service, he said.“An ordinary user like me would be banished,” Klausutis wrote.In a statement, Twitter said it was “deeply sorry about the pain these statements, and the attention they are drawing, are causing the family.” Read the rest

From designer Nate Shirley, a "personal hygiene product intended for cleaning your ears. It uses disposable spiral cleaning heads that spin at a constant speed."I wish he would Kickstart it!Image: Nate Shirley Read the rest

A woman who was exercising her God-given right to release a miasma of aerosolized saliva in a confined space during a deadly pandemic was shouted at by other shoppers in a New York supermarket.Image: YouTube Read the rest

If you misplace something, say a pair of headphones, think about its surface texture and the way it feels rather than what it looks like. This will help you remember where you last left it, says Jason Fischer, Ph.D., a cognitive neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.From Well and Good:The study reached this conclusion by asking participants to identify items in a sea of clutter. Those who looked for a given object by remembering tactile traits—like hardness or softness—won at the impromptu game of I Spy about 20 percent faster than their counterparts who focused only on visual traits like color and shape. “What makes the finding particularly striking from a vision science standpoint is that simply knowing the latent physical properties of objects is enough to help guide your attention to them,” Dr. Fischer tells Medical Xpress. “It’s surprising because nearly all prior research in this area has focused on a host of visual properties that can facilitate search, but we find that what you know about objects can be as important as what you actually see.”Image: Jumpstory/CC0 Read the rest

Bill Gates has designed tiny location-tracking microchips that he plans to implant into hundreds of millions of people when they get the COVID-19 vaccine. Only 26% of Republicans surveyed believe the preceding sentence is false.From Cnet:A conspiracy theory that Gates is planning to use a future COVID-19 vaccine to implant microchips in billions of people in order to monitor their movements has gained supporters particularly among Fox News viewers and Republicans, the survey found.The representative survey of 1,640 US adults by YouGov for Yahoo News found that half of respondent Americans who say Fox News is their primary television news source believe the conspiracy theory. It's the largest group responding this way, followed by self-described Republicans and "Voted for Donald Trump in 2016" -- 44% of both those groups said they believed the conspiracy theory was true. Twenty-six percent of respondent Republicans said it was false, and 31% said they weren't sure.Image: Yahoo/YouGov Read the rest

In Cincinnati, Ohio, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection intercepted more than $250,000 in counterfeit US bills on its way from Shenzhen, China to Guthrie, Oklahoma. From Fox19:The money, which was not washed or bleached, was printed from a high-end printer on regular paper.Officers say the currency number was the same for every bill, and on the back of the bill there was foreign writing in the location where one of the security features would exist.Translated, the "foreign writing" read: Made in China. Just kidding on that last part. I think.(Thanks, Charles Pescovitz!) Read the rest

To my disappointment, North Korean state media stated that Kim Jong Un did not use his family's mastery of magic to teleport or time travel out of the public eye.“In fact, people can’t disappear and reappear by folding space," stated a report in the Rodong Shinmun, the newspaper of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea. From Mysterious Universe:Chukjibop, literally a “method of shrinking the earth,” is described as the ability to quickly move towards the blind spot of an enemy at a speed so fast that the attacker seems to temporarily disappear. The mythical version of a concept in East Asian martial arts has been attributed to several figures in Chinese and Japanese mythology, and more recently depicted in Japanese animation, or through the use of special effects in Chinese Kung Fu movies.According to myth, [Kim Jong Un's grandfather] Kim Il Sung was able to use the chukjibop technique to win a battle against imperial Japanese soldiers during the time when Korea was a colony of Japan (1910-1945), when he was purportedly leading Korean guerillas in exile[...][Last week's] report marked the first time that state media flatly denied that a Kim family myth was true, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said.“We need to pay attention to the current leader’s denial of the mythification of his predecessors, including his criticism of them in October, at Mt. Kumgang,” a ministry official told reporters. Read the rest

Dalton and Kanaan Dern turned their Apopka, Florida abode into a skatepark. Watch them shred the house. Don't tell mom.The brothers won the "Murder Your House" contest sponsored by Liquid Death and The Berrics. The prizes included six months of mortgage payments (up to $10,000) but not the new roof that they'll likely need sooner rather than later. Read the rest

From the stately and elegant Batmobile Cadillac seen in the 1943 movie serials to the latest militaristic models, this is the on-screen history of Batman's Batmobile. Of course the true high point was the 1955 Lincoln Futura tricked out by George Barris for the 1960s TV series. Read the rest

Popping a new battery in a smoke detector or adding salt to your water softener are easy fixes. But if you run into trouble or a necessary repair in a cramped, tight place, sometimes with no obvious fix or easy access, it can be a pretty frustrating exercise.Since flying blind is the absolute worst, having a solid, dependable borescope camera to see inside hard-to-reach places and spot problems you couldn’t see otherwise can be vitally important. Right now, you can add that piece to your toolkit with a versatile inspection camera like the Sinji Flexible Borescope Camera for Android and iOS. Whether you want to see under floorboards, assess what’s blocking a drain, or just poke around in the smallest nooks and crannies, this cam with nearly 6.5 feet of reach can do the job.Once you download the Sinji app to your phone, tablet, or laptop and sync up, you're all ready to go. The 2-meter cable can snake its way into the darkest of places, but equipped with six powerful adjustable LED lights, you’ll get a crystal clear, HD quality view on your device screen of exactly what you’re up against.With its WiFi compatibility, you can also snap pictures or capture video, then save the footage right to your device. The 8mm camera lens gives you a full look with a 70 degree viewing angle at the end of the MicroUSB to USB cable. And considering many of those pipes and drains are probably pretty nasty, wet places, the Sinji camera is IP67 waterproof certified. Read the rest

Snapdragon seeds have a famously macabre appearance; Karin Jones took a closer look. (CC BY-SA 2.0) Read the rest

Sweden didn't lock down much at all, whereas the UK seems consumed with lockdown theater. This chart, from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, paints a bleak picture either way. Read the rest

Matt Round created an AI-driven face generator specializing in UK Ministers of Parliament: This MP Does Not Exist. The results have the special look of British portrait photography, political culture and nutritional standards, and (unusually for neural-network driven generators) the small pool of source images only heightens the results' inbred luster.Using MPs’ official photos, we trained a neural network to generate a whole new UK Parliament Read the rest

All points of the controversy thoroughly and thoughtfully addressed. Read the rest

In the 1930s, Sinto boxer Johann Trollmann was reaching the peak of his career when the Nazis declared his ethnic inferiority. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe Trollmann's stand against an intolerant ideology and the price he paid for his fame.We'll also consider a British concentration camp and puzzle over some mysterious towers.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon! 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 soundsWelcome back to Spoken Word with Electronics. This week we're in a good David Wojnarowicz mood. Which I mean to say David is a strong energy force for when you are upset and want to focus it into making work. In this Covid era, David's message about government neglect and illness is especially profound. He died of AIDS in 1992, which is awful. And he was one of the coolest people to have ever walked the planet, which is wonderful.In this tribute episode, hear a discussion of his art, specifically a focus on his music, both the band 3 Teens Kill 4 and his amazing collaboration with Ben Neill, ITSOFOMO. A review of the book A Definitive History of Five or Six Years on the Lower East Side is also provided. Along the ride we discuss the late evening drive in highschool when our car was haunted by David Bowie's Suffragette City and play a track from The Cicadas. SPOKEN WORD WITH ELECTRONICS #11: A Tribute to David Wojnarowicz View this post on Instagram I’m sure we’ve posted this pic before, but it’s just too good. Happy belated bday to our dear friend Donovan Pierce. Thanks for all your help over the years at sb ❤️A post shared by Sacred Bones (@sacredbones) on Mar 24, 2020 at 1:28pm PDT Like what you're hearing? Tell others about the show. Read the rest

Firing up the engines each morning and attacking the day with gusto and purpose can feel like a mighty tall order sometimes. We’ve all been there. But on those sluggish, why-don’t-I-just-stay-here-in-bed-all-day kinda days, it might just take a rational, calming, reassuring nudge to make it happen. No matter what it takes to keep you motivated and on point, Quotely has your back. Holder of a solid 4.9 out of 5-star rating in the Apple App Store, Quotely Daily Motivational Quotes is all about cultivating good thoughts and sending them your way to brighten and broaden your universe, one life-affirming quotation at a time.With a subscription to Quotely, you decide when and how often you’d like to see inspiration reminders delivered as well as the look and feel you like. Assembled from a database of literally thousands of quotes, Quotely then serves up words of comfort, motivation, and self-determination right when you need them the most. You can set up Quotely to serve up a pick-me-up each morning as your daily mantra to help sharpen your resolve and focus on what’s ahead. When you’re not receiving quote notifications, you can also browse their 10,000-strong library of inspiring sayings from nearly 20 different categories, including everything from life lessons and sayings to depression beating quotes to philosophy from mankind’s greatest minds to stellar film lines.You can also use Quotely to find motivational books, customize your presentation, share great quotes with others, or to your social media pages and more.A lifetime subscription to Quotely usually comes with a $280 price tag, but with this offer, you can keep yourself feeling positive, focused, and ready to achieve your dreams each and every day forever for only $29.99 Read the rest

Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit failed on its first rocket launch attempt, which took place out of the Mojave Spaceport in Southern California. Here's a quick shot from takeoff. pic.twitter.com/7nt1u58ogs— Virgin Orbit (@Virgin_Orbit) May 25, 2020The small satellite launcher's first live launch test took place on Monday, May 25, the Memorial Day holiday in the United States.In a series of tweets, the company stated:In this first launch demo, we successfully completed all of our pre-launch procedures, captive carry flight out to the drop site, clean telemetry lock from multiple dishes, a smooth pass through the racetrack, terminal count, and a clean release from the aircraft.LauncherOne maintained stability after release, and we ignited our first stage engine, NewtonThree. An anomaly then occurred early in first stage flight. We'll learn more as our engineers analyze the mountain of data we collected today.As we said before the flight, our goals today were to work through the process of conducting a launch, learn as much as we could, and achieve ignition. We hoped we could have done more, but we accomplished those key objectives today.The team's already hard at work digging into the data, and we're eager to hop into our next big test ASAP. Thankfully, instead of waiting until after our 1st flight to tackle our 2nd rocket, we've already completed a ton of work to get us back in the air and keep moving forward.Here's our next rocket, built and ready for system-level testing in our final integration area as it waits for its turn to fly to space. Read the rest

The cruelty is the point.Impeached and manifestly unfit president Donald Trump spent Memorial Day 2020 doing what he does every other day. Tweeting disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic that has killed nearly 100,000 Americans and shows no sign of stopping, despite Trump's repeated lies.“Great reviews on our handling of Covid 19, sometimes referred to as the China Virus,” tweeted Trump on Monday, May 25, 2020. “Ventilators, Testing, Medical Supply Distribution, we made a lot of Governors look very good - And got no credit for so doing. Most importantly, we helped a lot of great people!”There is no bottom.This one from Trump last night sounded better in the original Russian, as noted by the experts:Schools in our country should be opened ASAP. Much very good information now available. @SteveHiltonx @FoxNews— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 25, 2020America nears the 100,000 deaths mark. Trump's just getting started. Read the rest

You may not realize it, but one of the fastest-growing employee benefits over the past several years is one that’s keeping thousands of workers feeling happier and healthier. Back in 2013, only 13 percent of employers were willing to provide or subsidize standing desks for their workers, but by 2019, that number had exploded to 60 percent.Part of that increase is directly tied to research that’s shown a standing desk that encourages workers to spend less time sitting can help attack a variety of health problems, including back, knee, shoulder and elbow pain, poor circulation, muscle fatigue, headaches, and even sexual performance issues.With endorsements like those, it may be worth picking up an item like the RiseUp Electrical Height Adjustable Standing Desk. This desk from Uncaged Ergonomics is all about finding each user’s sweet spot. From a standard sitting height, three-stage lifting columns can elevate this steel and wood product frame almost 4 feet with the push of a button. With that much range, it only takes a little work to determine exactly what elevation is the proper height for each person to optimize their sitting and standing postures.Once you’ve found the spot that sings for you, the memory keypad can lock it in, one of four positions the desk can memorize and serve up for immediate adjustment.The dual powerful motors raise and lower the desk quickly and smoothly, all while holding up to 250 pounds on your desktop, more than enough to hoist a computer monitor, phone, and other assorted desk bric-a-brac with no problem. Read the rest

White House adviser Kevin Hassett said the quiet part out loud just now: “Our human capital stock is ready to go back to work.”White House adviser Kevin Hassett: "Our human capital stock is ready to go back to work." #HumanCapitalStock pic.twitter.com/Yl9KwJf6KP— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 25, 2020[Captured by Vox media journalist Aaron Rupar] Read the rest

The World Health Organization said on Monday that parts of the world where coronavirus infection rates are declining may face an “immediate second peak” if they prematurely loosen restrictions to slow the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19.From Reuters:The world is still in the middle of the first wave of the coronavirus outbreak, WHO emergencies head Dr Mike Ryan told an online briefing, noting that while cases are declining in many countries they are still increasing in Central and South America, South Asia and Africa.Ryan said epidemics often come in waves, which means that outbreaks could come back later this year in places where the first wave has subsided. There was also a chance that infection rates could rise again more quickly if measures to halt the first wave were lifted too soon.“When we speak about a second wave classically what we often mean is there will be a first wave of the disease by itself, and then it recurs months later. And that may be a reality for many countries in a number of months’ time,” Ryan said.“But we need also to be cognizant of the fact that the disease can jump up at any time. We cannot make assumptions that just because the disease is on the way down now it is going to keep going down and we are get a number of months to get ready for a second wave. We may get a second peak in this wave.Read more at Reuters:WHO warns of 'second peak' in areas where COVID-19 declining Read the rest

The U.S. Department of Justice is reported to now be investigating the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery as a possible hate crime.White House reporter Yamiche Alcindor of PBS NewsHour tweeted:Confirmed: DOJ is officially investigating shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery as a possible hate crime, according to Arbery’s family’s attorney. US Attorney met w/ the parents Thurs & told them DOJ also investigating county & state response for possible equal protection violations.— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) May 25, 2020Previous Boing Boing posts on the killing of Ahmaud Arbury are here. Read the rest

This foldable step stool is 11 inches high, and is only 1.5 inches thick when folded up. It has replaced a non-folding plastic step stool that we'd kept in on the floor in the closet. It feels very sturdy when I stand on it. Read the rest

When ex-jewel thief Larry Lawton went to prison, he learned a lot of useful skills, which he is now sharing on YouTube. In this video, he teaches you how to boil water with a "stinger," made from two shower drain covers, an electrical cord, and a few other odds and ends.Image: YouTube Read the rest

The Universal Serial Bus specification was introduced by a consortium of large tech companies in 1996 to standardize the way peripherals connect to computers. In this episode of Nostalgia Nerd on YouTube, you can learn about the history of USB, and why the connector configurations change so frequently. This 20-minute video was more interesting than I thought it would be, mainly because not a single day in my life since 1998 has gone by that I haven't plugged in or unplugged a USB connector, and I really knew nothing about them until now. Now I know everything I want to know about them.Image: YouTube Read the rest