Boing Boing

The Daily Mail, a UK tabloid, ran a story accusing British athlete James Cracknell of breaking social distancing rules in a visit with his parents. It illustrated this with the above photograph, showing Cracknell sat inches from his father. The Daily Mail, however, fabricated this image by photoshopping what Cracknell actually posted, below. The real photo was, in fact, a humorous illustration of the social distancing measures the Daily Mail accused Cracknell of breaking.Here’s a game of spot the difference. 1) @dailymail ‘s pic of me & my dad 2) the actual picture. Socially distant, no physical contact & was bringing them food. Been a long month of no contact, my mum worked for the NHS her whole career so she was ruthless about distance. Thanks pic.twitter.com/4cWifBGzMa— James Cracknell (@jamescracknell) April 26, 2020The blatant, pervasive, smirking fakeness of UK newspaper reportage is one of those things that everyone accepts but never quite groks. It's not just the occasional photo, but the basic formula for content generation. Even editors who take it too far, such as Piers Morgan, tend to fail upward after a perfunctory moment of disgrace.In this case, the defense upon which the Mail depends is that Cracknell's visit was still against the rules. The fact of this isn't clear, as Cracknell claims he bought them food, but this defense works with Britons delighted to be thusly policed. Read the rest

Over the weekend, Trump railed about journalists on Twitter in a typo-strewn rant in which he repeatedly confused the Pulitzer Prize with the Nobel Prize (which lacks a journalism category) and spelled Nobel "Noble" throughout. Trump (or a handler) has deleted the tweets, but they live on in the archives. Read the rest

You probably heard that the U.S. Postal Service is tanking, expecting to run out of money by October 2020. Interestingly, it's not funded by taxpayers, but entirely through the sale of postage, gifts, and services. So, now there's a growing movement to help save them by purchasing postage stamps and other products from their online store. Like this Dog Mail Carrier Costume for $17.99. So, do your part, dog owners! P.S. I'll take one of these, please!Thanks, Carolee! Read the rest

Phil the enormous malamute hasn't taken a bath in months, is increasingly in need of a bath, and has no intention whatsoever of having a bath. SPOILER: Ultimately, Phil is bathed. Phil's vengeance begins at exactly 14:00. Read the rest

My friend Matt Dibble works for Voice of America and put together this little report about some streets in Oakland neighborhoods being designated as "soft streets." Through-traffic is not allowed and resident drivers using are warned that their neighbors may be out playing in the streets.I suspect we will see many more creative solutions like this as we move into the next phase of living with COVID-19 and figuring ways to be out of the house while maintaining social distance.Image: YouTube Read the rest

When you were 10 and your mom demanded you finish your vegetables or go to your room, you were mad. Even as kids, we hated it when we were ordered to do something. Car insurance is a federal mandate, yet that’s only one of the reasons why most Americans would rather do just about anything than deal with car insurance.Over a quarter (28%) of Americans — 28 percent — think they pay too much for car insurance, yet almost 40 percent say they haven’t checked their current rates against competitors in at least three years. 17 percent have never checked at all. Ever.The Zebra wants to change that car insurance aversion mindset. The nation’s leading car insurance comparison site, they’ve developed a free, safe, simple way to make sure users are getting the absolute best price on car insurance. And if they’re not, The Zebra paves the way for any driver to get the lowest rate available anywhere.Through The Zebra website, users identify their vehicle make and model as well as where they live. With that handful of data, The Zebra stretches its legs, tapping their relationships with over 200 different national and regional insurance providers to find out which will offer gives that user the best possible coverage plan.The Zebra checks in with providers like Farmers, Liberty Mutual, Allstate, and GEICO, crunching the numbers and offering all the best coverage offers in a matter of seconds.For users who find an option they like, The Zebra will facilitate the switch, working with the new provider to hammer out the policy details while all the user has to do is sign on the dotted line to make it official. Read the rest

The mark of true greatness in tech is longevity. Because if you’ve survived more than an 18-month product cycle and endured...well, you’re one of the lucky few. That’s part of why the continuing devotion and market dominance of Microsoft Excel is such a historic story.Today, 35 years after its introduction, this spreadsheet titan is arguably just as popular and vital to the daily health of American business as it was in the 80s. And considering how many competitors have come and gone in that time, it’s safe to say it’s an app you should know. Because hey, it could well be around for another 35 years.eLearnExcel has become one of the best-known sources for understanding everything that makes Excel special — and the eLearnExcel: The 2020 Excel Certification School Bundle can help make sure your Excel skills are deep, on point and worthy of a place on your resume.International Academy of Computer Training has trained over 800,000 users in the fine art of Excel over the past quarter-century. It’s even trusted by Microsoft itself to teach its employees how to manage Excel like a pro, which should be all the confidence in this training that you would need.The course takes more than 60 hours and is powered by nearly 300 video lessons, highlighting all the basic and advanced operations any Excel guru must understand.From step-by-step basics to everyday time-saving tips to more expert-level skills like must-know formulas, functions, pivot tables, and scalability, the course comes with a detailed presentation with example projects to help embed your learning. Read the rest

The number one rule for anyone wishing to be in Trump's good graces is to defend every lie and stupid thing he says. Defense tactics include: doubling down on the lie, blaming the fake media for twisting their god emperor's words, or wondering aloud why people can't understand that he was just kidding. In this case, Dr. Deborah Birx, U.S. Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy, used a combination of the first two tactics to evade the question. She did a pretty good job, meaning it's unlikely that Trump will issue a "Dumb Deborah" tweet in response.Image: YouTube Read the rest

From national and local news anchors to Ellen Degeneres, from Saturday Night Live to the all-star Together At Home concert, we’re learning another new reality of our 2020 entertainment world: everyone has their own home production equipment these days.Granted, it’s often just an iPhone, a mic and some extra lighting, but the shuttering of Hollywood and most television production has sparked a whole new DIY-driven aesthetic across our screens — and even now, it doesn’t take a lot anymore to make even your own home vlogs look right on par with Jimmy Fallon or Anderson Cooper.In fact, you can take a big step toward having all the pieces of a brilliant home video hub with the U-STREAM Home Streaming Studio with 10" Ring Light and Tripod package.It all begins with an adjustable tripod stand grips your phone to capture just the right shooting angle. The stand extends from 18 up to 52 inches, allowing you to maneuver into the position that best fits the physical demands of your environment. The phone holder also features a non-slip rubber grip, so your device stays locked in during streaming.Of course, no video looks good without the proper lighting, so your phone and stand are also haloed by an all-purpose 10-inch ring light. Equipped with three distinct lighting options — white, warm yellow, and warm white — you can fire up this ring light and get just the right amount of fill, shadow, and ambiance for a perfect shot. Read the rest

While all the gloom and doom of our COVID-19 quarantine realities can definitely put a damper on life as we know it, all this time spent at home doesn’t have to go to waste.As the world tries to slow the spread of the virus, this would also be a good time to slow down a bit yourself and take a little personal stock. Odds are, there’s some area, or possible, multiple areas of your pre-lockdown life that could use addressing — and you’ll find no better roadmap to getting all those deficiencies on track than the training in The Ultimate Life Hacker Master Class Bundle.This collection features 11 courses featuring 44 hours of instruction all aimed at striking the work-life-productivity-efficiency balance that we all seek.If your career could use some work, four courses here will help you bolster those professional aspirations. Create Your Dream Job: Hack the Job Search and Skip the Ladder teaches some of the most powerful, simple techniques used by some of the world’s most successful people, while The Complete Presentation and Public Speaking Course covers how to give great speeches for both business and personal presentations.Branding You: How to Build Your Multimedia Internet Empire examines the Branding You™ Strategy, a paradigm for creating and managing media that drives traffic; and The Complete Job Interviewing Skills Master Class Course prepares you to walk into the job interview of your dreams and absolutely crush it.If maybe your productivity and organizational skills need some attention, the Productivity Master Class: How to Powerfully Get Things Done can help you dig in on a 4-step framework for immediately getting more done towards your goals. Read the rest

Considering the human race’s utter dependence on coffee, it’s no surprise that more than 40 percent of American homes have a single-cup coffee brewing system. Unfortunately, most of those machines take pods made from various plastic and aluminum materials that aren’t easily recyclable. And while 39,000 of those pods are made every minute worldwide, about 29,000 of those pods will ultimately end up in landfills, where they’ll all sit for up to 500 years.Those are not numbers that’ll make you feel good about your obsession with the perfect cup of coffee. Thankfully, manufacturers are taking note and we’re beginning to see more and more coffee makers start producing compostable pods to combat the ill effects on our environment.For example, you can try out a collection of offerings from Australia’s tastiest sustainable and compostable coffee pod maker Pod and Parcel with a 60-pod sample pack.Pod and Parcel use specialty-grade Arabica beans roasted in the coffee mecca of Melbourne to create six of their most satisfying flavors: Mbeya, Huehuetenango, Bezzera, Florentino, Munro, and Bancroft. Matching blends originating from around the world, each flavor producing intensities from rich and balanced up to bold and assertive.The collection features 10 pods of each variety, with each ready to brew in its own biodegradable and compostable pod. The pod capsules engineered to work with all original style Nespresso coffee machines are made from plant-based materials that break down in just 90 days, shrinking your carbon footprint and assuring you’re part of the ecological solution, not the problem. Read the rest

Reuters reports that China dispatched medical experts to North Korea to "advise on leader Kim Jong-Un", suspected to be very ill after a heart operation. The trip by the Chinese doctors and officials comes amid conflicting reports about the health of the North Korean leader. Reuters was unable to immediately determine what the trip by the Chinese team signalled in terms of Kim’s health. A delegation led by a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party’s International Liaison Department left Beijing for North Korea on Thursday, two of the people said. The department is the main Chinese body dealing with neighbouring North Korea. Japanese weekly Shukan Gendai claims Kim is in a "vegetative state" and unlikely to recover.The Chinese expert told the magazine that Kim clutched his chest and fell to the ground on a visit to the countryside earlier this month. A doctor accompanying Kim performed CPR and took him to a nearby hospital.Kim, believed to be 36, needed a stent procedure, which calls for placing a tube into a congested blood vessel to allow blood to keep flowing to the heart, according to Shukan Gendai. Read the rest

Our reality has felt like a dystopian sci-fi movie for a while now, but at least now there's a positive plot twist. First, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson both survived a bout with COVID-19. Now Hanks tells Wait Wait … Don't Tell Me! that he and his wife both have coronavirus antibodies in their systems, and have donated their blood to science in case the plasma can be used for good:We have not only been approached, we have said, ‘Do you want our blood? Can we give plasma?’ And, in fact, we will be giving it now to the places that hope to work on what I would like to call the Hank-ccine.HANK-CCINE. In all of the stress and awfulness around us, at least we have that happy thought to carry us through.Rita Wilson had previously mentioned this on CBS:Well, that’s what they told us and that’s what the belief is. We recently have been part of a study where we’ve donated our blood, and we’re waiting to hear back if our antibodies will be helpful in developing a vaccine, but also if we are able to donate plasma that can be used as donation to other people who are suffering from the virus because we are immune.WATCH: In her first interview since her COVID-19 diagnosis, @RitaWilson says she's feeling great — and giving back.Wilson told @GayleKing about the story behind her #HipHopHooray remix benefiting @MusiCares, her journey to recovery, and her symptoms when she first got sick. Read the rest

As the line goes "you don't know what you've got til it's gone." The land and sea critters at the Texas State Aquarium were wondering where all of the loud and annoying 2-leggeds went. Figuring they might be missing the limelight, the staff decided to let the sea animals meet some of the land animals.The dolphins seemed to find Chico the sloth particularly amusing. Something tells me Chico may not have been super-excited to meet the inhabitants of the shark tank.Read more and see a video of Chico touring the aquarium on Bored Panda.The also let puppies from a local humane society have a day at the aquarium.Image: Screengrab Read the rest

Celebrated artist, Roger Dean, known for his iconic album cover art for Yes, Uriah Heep, and Asia (but mostly Yes), has been Facebook streaming the development and rendering of the cover for Yes' forthcoming record.Dean did the first session on Wednesday and the second today. Unfortunately, his feed has had bad audio and buffering issues, making it challenging to watch. Let's hope some of that can get sorted out by the next one.See future sessions on his Facebook page.Image: Screengrab Read the rest

I spent the first two weeks of my quarantine shitting in a portapotty in the parking lot of my building. It wasn't great — but hey, at least it was always stocked with hand sanitizer.The contractors I'd hired to renovate my bathroom were not so good on timeliness or communication before the pandemic started. And it only got worse from there. So I drove 300 miles in late March where I could at least be with my pregnant wife, and where at least I could shit indoors.I returned home the other day to find that the bathroom still wasn't finished (though at least I could shower and shit now). Disappointed, I began to unpack my things, and ended up listening to this new NPR Short Wave podcast, which strangely made me feel better. It traces the history of indoor plumbing — including the uphill battle of trying to get people to understand that no, actually, a centralized sewage system will be better for your sanitation, and you shouldn't worry about the shit from other peoples' shit infecting your home. It goes on to explain how things such as porcelain/tiling and first-floor "powder rooms" actually served utilitarian purposes, making it easier for people to distance themselves from potential disease carriers, or clean things off after hosting guests with uncertain medical histories.To be clear, I'm not sure why this made me feel better about my frustrating bathroom contracting experience. Or the deadly virus that continues to rage just outside my doors. Read the rest

While CBD is not a cure-all miracle drug, millions of users can be forgiven for feeling that way and singing its praises.CBD’s direct medical impact still remains to be fully researched and documented, but those who have become believers in the non-psychoactive cannabis extract say the drug is a godsend, alleviating the symptoms of everything from anxiety, depression, and insomnia to chronic pain, drug addiction, muscle spasms, and debilitating illnesses like Parkinson’s disease and cancer.With growing scientific evidence backed by reams of anecdotal findings, the market for CBD and CBD-infused products is exploding, expected to grow to over $2.1 billion in consumer sales this year.Unlike many products containing CBD or even CBD-based oils, capsules of the hemp extract help deliver a more even dosage through the body, which is why products like Common Ground Balance 900mg CBD capsules are a go-to conveyance system for those looking to maximize CBD effects.Common Ground CBD supplements are created with premium full-spectrum hemp extracts that are farmed, extracted, formulated, and packaged in Colorado in proprietary, small-batch processes. Each capsule contains a 30mg dose of that organically-created CBD, enough to offer the whole body the full effects of its soothing properties.Each 30 count bottle contains a month’s supply to work its healing, whether you need physical pain relief from nerve and muscle pain, arthritis, acne, or more; or biochemical support to combat Alzheimer’s symptoms, mental disorders, or high blood pressure.With none of the mind-altering effects of THC, these supplements from Common Ground contain no artificial flavors or additives and are GMO-free, gluten-free, and vegan. Read the rest

Wait... what? First Lucille Ball and Star Trek and now this?Dolly Parton secretly produced Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the unexpected crossover of cultural icons has left fans reeling.While Parton was not herself credited as a producer on the long-running fantasy series, a company she co-created and owned was responsible for it coming to television.Sandollar Entertainment, which is listed on the end credits of every episode of the show, was created by Parton and her friend and former business partner Sandy Gallin in 1986. It produced a number of films, including Father of the Bride (1991) and Fly Away Home (1996), as well as several Parton projects – most recently her Netflix anthology series Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings.Though it sounds like she had no direct involvement in the show, it's still kind of a cool association.Read the rest here. Read the rest

If it’s in this week’s tabloids, chances are it didn’t happen.

Despite the protestations of the White House Press Secretary and Breitbart — which are not, in fact, the same entity — the 45th President of the United State of America did indeed suggest that people should pump themselves full of toxic disinfectant chemicals and "UV light" to fight off coronavirus. And once again, The Onion proved itself to be not a satire site, but rather, a prophet of the apocalypse.That was Thursday evening. By Friday afternoon, Trump insisted that his public declaration in the middle of an official government press conference was obviously meant to be sarcastic:TRUMP TO REPORTER: "You know the way it was asked -- I was looking at you!"REPORTER: "Sir, I wasn't here yesterday" https://t.co/sJ8wT1pOUs— Joshua Green (@JoshuaGreen) April 24, 2020Even if this were true — which is clearly, embarrassingly not — it would still not make for good optics if the leader of a country where 50,000 people had died from COVID-19 in just over a month was making jokes about it, especially after he had already touted another false cure that ended up killing a group of military veterans.As The Guardian reports, Trump had actually received a message earlier this week from the leader of a religious group that worships cleansing the human body with poisonous chemicals like bleach:[Mark] Grenon styles himself as “archbishop” of Genesis II – a Florida-based outfit that claims to be a church but which in fact is the largest producer and distributor of chlorine dioxide bleach as a “miracle cure” in the US. Read the rest

We bought Crafting With Cat Hair in 2013 when my daughter was 10. She started brushing our three cats and saving their hair in a plastic bag. Her first cat hair project was this little cat. If you aren't allergic to cats, why not take a break from Netflix and crossword puzzles and make something from your cats fur? Read the rest

JAPAN: "Nowhere Man" by Lennon McCartneyRUSSIA: "She Loves You" by The Russian BeatlesCHINA: "Love Me Do" by The CheatlesAUSTRALIA: Medly by The Australian BeatlesPHILIPPINES: "Help" and others by the Tipong BeatlesINDONESIA: "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" by G-pluckIRELAND: "I Feel Fine" by The Classic BeatlesBRAZIL: "I Saw Her Standing There" by The Beetles OneHUNGARY: "Revolution" by The BlackbirdsTURKEY: "Hard Day's Night" and "Love Me Do" by D.E.F. OrchestraImage: YouTube Read the rest

“Mark Grenon wrote to Trump saying chlorine dioxide ‘can rid the body of Covid-19’ days before the president promoted disinfectant as treatment”

“The Postal Service is a joke,” said the President of the United States.

Your phone rings, and you get a little rush of excitement. Maybe it’s a friend. Maybe it’s a family member. Maybe it’s somebody you haven’t spoken to in a while looking to reconnect. It’s a split second surge of adrenaline, pregnant with the hope of infinite promise.Then, you look at your screen and...the spell is broken. It’s a damn telemarketer. Or a spammer. Or some other call you’ll wholeheartedly avoid. Now, you’re actively disappointed. Or annoyed. Or angry. Or all three. And that doesn’t even cover the time-wasting calls from unknown numbers.CallHero Spam Call Blocker is a digital secretary that weeds out all those unsolicited calls that not only burn time but can actually put your data security at risk.CallHero isn’t just a call blocker. It’s a smart, learning AI screening service that intelligently assesses, then deals with calls from numbers you don’t know, the first such AI-powered app in Apple’s App Store.When you see a number you don’t recognize, you can kick it to CallHero’s next-gen technology. CallHero will actually screen the call, determine if it’s legit, then dump scammers or put real callers through to your ringer. So even if a high-tech spammer or robocaller has spoofed a number, CallHero will catch it and deal with it accordingly.So far, CallHero has a solid track record, blocking nearly 100 percent of spam calls through traditional call filtering methods, then allowing the AI to correctly handle the rest with over 90 percent accuracy.You can even personalize your CallHero secretary’s voice from friendly and personable to strictly professional for business lines. Read the rest

The president says he was being sarcastic when he suggested during a White House coronavirus briefing that people should consider injecting bleach and consuming disinfectants as cure for COVID-19. He was not being sarcastic. He was being completely fucking nuts. We should expect more shockers like this as things get worse inside his deranged brain.From the Daily Beast:Inside the West Wing, it was clear that the president’s talk of studying bizarre injections was not something that Trump had put a whole lot of thought into, nor did it seem like something he’d spent much time dwelling on privately before blurting it out.Four senior administration officials and two sources close to the president each said on Friday that they had not previously heard Trump ever bring up disinfectant injections as something scientists should test as a coronavirus treatment. All were dumbfounded by what he had said during the televised briefing. Several official Trump surrogates reached by The Daily Beast on Friday morning had zero appetite to defend the president’s remarks, and were simply waiting for this bit of inconvenient news to slip out of the cable-news cycle.“I was just sitting there watching it [live] and thinking to myself, ‘I guess this is going to be the thing tomorrow,’” said one of the administration officials. In the halls of the White House, top aides went into a very familiar damage-control mode. A former senior White House official noted that in the West Wing, Trump’s lieutenants have a very simple standard operating procedure for when the president “says something dumb that he probably should not have said”: just claim he was taken out of context or misinterpreted, insist that his underlying point was valid or good, and then go on the offense, usually by complaining about mainstream-media outlets treating Trump unfairly or obsessing over insignificant detail. Read the rest

Israeli spy-tech firm used WhatsApp accounts to hack, Facebook claims

New York governor Andrew Cuomo on Friday tweeted what he identified as a letter he received from a farmer in northeast Kansas. Enclosed was an N95 mask the man had left over from his farming work, to be donated for use in the coronavirus crisis.It's a beautiful letter. Here's the tweet, below, and under that there's an embedded copy of the image.I received this letter from a farmer in northeast Kansas. His wife is ill and he is aging. He sent me 1 of 5 N95 masks he has from farming to pass on to a doctor or nurse in New York.This is humanity at its best. I share his letter as inspiration. pic.twitter.com/Fa4h5LH9rL— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) April 24, 2020 Read the rest

Wow, here's something you don't see every day! Here's a video of dolphins "glowing" from the high amount of bioluminescence in the water off of Newport Beach, California.Patrickc_la shot this gorgeous 4K video on a Sony a7Sii and writes:Last night was truly one of the most magical nights of my life. Capt. Ryan @lawofthelandnsea of @newportcoastaladventure invited me along to capture rare video of Dolphins swimming in bioluminescence. The first time I saw this actually filmed was a few months back while watching a Night on Earth documentary on Netflix. The second I saw that footage it became a dream of mine to one day capture something similar and that’s exactly what we did. This was by far the most challenging video I’ve shot for a number of reason. For starters the bioluminescence has sweet spots to where it shows up and then fades away so while on the water it’s impossible to just find it. Not only that but actually finding any type of animal in pitch black is just so ridiculously hard. Conditions have to be absolutely perfect the bioluminescence to show up and to have an animal swim through it so we can film it. On top of all that just trying to nail the focus at such a wide aperture with something moving in the water was a nightmare. We were out for a few hours and on our final stretch back we finally had 2 Dolphins pop up to start the incredible glowing show. Read the rest

It seems like odd timing for Architectural Digest to dig into its archival videos and make a supercut of celebrities' overlardered kitchens.Also, I'm showing my cluelessness here, but I don't know any of these people, with the exception of Cara Delevingne.[via Core77]Image: YouTube Read the rest

As Bruce Sterling says, "Impressive accuracy by whoever that is."Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash Read the rest

The fun "Everybody Must Stay Home" music video is a greatest hits of COVID-19 memes for a song not-by-Bob Dylan."We will get through [this] if we keep our sanity as well as our sense of humor," write the creators. "The only thing more contagious than Covid-19, as it turns out, is creativity. " Read the rest

Visit The Nib to read Gemma Correll's timely and accurate video conference call bingo comic. Read the rest

I recently bumped into this piece in The New York Times Style Magazine from a few years ago which chronicles a day in the life of New York City in the early 80s through the memories of dozens of well-known NY artists (of all stripes), gallerists, club owners, and activists.Kim Gordon, musicianWhen I first moved to the city, there was a garbage strike. I was hustling. I had a horrible graveyard shift at a coffee shop, one of the only places to eat in Chelsea, open 24 hours — super crickets, deserted. I worked part-time for gallerist Annina Nosei. She and Larry Gagosian had this space, it was a condo loft in a building on West Broadway. [By 1 a.m.] I’d be somewhere like [the TriBeCa No Wave club] Tier 3, seeing [the electronic Berlin band] Malaria!, and then walking over to Dave’s Luncheonette. A lot of the alternative spaces — Franklin Furnace, A-Space — had music, too. Hearing hip-hop on the street, minimalist new music, free jazz — it all added to this fabric that was a landscape.I was kind of tomboyish, but also pretty poor. I had glasses, so I put these flip-up sunglass visors on them. But I didn’t feel super cool or anything. The people who were chic, the downtowners, pretty much just wore black — that could instantly give you a look. Our first goal [as Sonic Youth] was getting a gig at CBGB. Then it was getting a good time slot at CBGB, so you weren’t on last and weren’t on first. Read the rest

In 1964 a bar band called The Ardells grew moptops and renamed themselves The American Beetles. According to the BBC, an Argentinian impresario saw them play in a club in Miami and decided to book them on a South American tour. He conveniently forgot to tell everyone that they weren't the English Beatles. And when they arrived in Buenos Aires, they received the full Hard Day's Night treatment of hysterical fans who mistook them for the genuine article -- until they got a good look at their faces.From Ed Prideaux's article in the BBC:They were the main act booked on a programme called The Laughter Festival, and an excited assembly of wide-eyed teenagers filed neatly into the stands. The American Beetles waited behind the camera, guitars and sticks at the ready, as the host issued his opening proclamation. Carlos Santino’s cousin was, again, "going nuts". Then the camera turned towards the band. "When she saw it wasn’t Paul McCartney who was coming out from behind the curtain, she started to cry inconsolably" he said. Roberto Monfort, the Channel 9 employee who had been amazed at the first announcement, recalls that disillusionment set in fast. "When they went on air, yes – the people realised that they were not the real Beatles, but the fake Beatles."When the band return to the United States, they had trouble getting airplay with the name the American Beetles, though they did make an appearance on American Bandstand:They changed their name to The Razor's Edge and cut one single called "Let's Call It A Day Girl." Read the rest

In the interest of reducing the chances of exposure to the coronavirus, Osaka, Japan mayor Ichiro Matsuimen thinks men should be entrusted with buying groceries, because women "take a long time as they browse around and hesitate about this and that," according to Channel News Asia. "Men can snap up things they are told (to buy) and go, so I think it's good that they go shopping, avoiding human contact."Photo by Cleyton Ewerton on Unsplash Read the rest

Astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy captured this amazing, rather alarming photograph of the International Space Station transiting the sun yesterday. Managed to catch the @Space_Station as it transited the sun today. #astrophotography #space #nasa #opteam pic.twitter.com/MMPKEXnk8O— Andrew McCarthy (@AJamesMcCarthy) April 24, 2020 Read the rest

KOSMusic performs Sylvester Levay's theme from 1980s's TV hit Airwolf on a 1990s Yamaha synth. His HD recreations of the show's animated video titles are a nice touch, too. KOS specializes in detailed, accurate yet evolutionary recreations of synthy classics, complete with perfect homages to titles, graphics and type.To recreate this version, I took inspiration from the original and the extended version of this fantastic track. I wanted to give a more "synthesized" impression compared to the original by replacing the "French Horn" with classic 80s synth brass and other typical sounds of those years.In the future, I will try to recreate the original version of the opening theme and maybe even the extended version of this MASTERPIECE.Here's his Terminator theme: Read the rest

Johns Hopkins' tracker of reported deaths from Covid-19 stands at 49,963; include Americans who died on cruise liners and the total stands at 50,451. The Wall Street Journal reports on the significance of numbers, with the U.S. now accounting for a third of the world's total.Confirmed coronavirus cases world-wide Friday exceeded 2.7 million, with more than 190,000 dead, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. accounted for nearly a third of the cases, exceeding 869,000, and more than a quarter of the deaths, at 49,963. The pandemic's true death toll is somewhat higher, and will be reavealed over time by the discounting of the normal number of deaths in the U.S. population from the actual number of deaths since the pandemic began. Conservatives insist, maliciously, that the death toll as it stands is in fact inflated, if not an outright hoax. Read the rest

PutterBall is the game America needs right now.NBA arenas are dark. Baseball stadiums remain locked tight. And there’s no way of knowing if your favorite NFL team’s pursuit of a Super Bowl will happen as scheduled this year. It may not be one of life’s biggest concerns right now, but American sports are just one facet of our lives left in utter disarray by the current global upheaval.All of which might just clear the way for PutterBall to become America’s new sport of choice.Ok, maybe that’s a stretch, but it’s hard not to agree that this goofy, unique combination of golf and beer pong is opening up a whole new realm of backyard sports. And if you’ve got 12 feet of space inside, it’s even a fun, entertaining way to burn an hour — or several hours — while you’re under quarantine.PutterBall plays much like the college perennial beer pong. Just roll out the board made of high-quality, high-density, durable, lightweight foam, grab a putter and be the first team to sink a shot into all six cups. Of course, there are some twists and turns along the way, but if you understand golf...or mini-golf...or just drinking and having some fun, the game should fall into place pretty easily.We’ll even let you in on a secret — you don’t need to be any good at golf to become a PutterBall king or queen. Of course, a short game doesn’t hurt, but whether you’re playing on the beach, in the park, in your backyard, at a tailgate or even at your workplace, enthusiasm, a little practice and some liquid courage could be all you need to unlock the heart of a champion. Read the rest

A project near and dear to me is back. Coming May 1 to 3 is The Deconstruction!From my pal Jason Naumoff, co-founder of New Creatures, the group hosting the event: The Deconstruction is open to artists, makers, creators, students, parents, and everyone, everywhere. Over the course of the event weekend, create something new that reimagines the idea of distance. The results can be a game, a piece of art, an invention, a song, a solution, a poem, a pizza. Really just about anything goes. It can be fun, it can be serious, it can be both those things.Just come up with an idea and give it a go. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, even better!He also shared that they're hoping middle and high school students, as well as parents and their younger kids, will get involved this year. And why not? Talk about a great teaching moment during this time of being sheltered in place.He writes, "It’s been a ton of work in not much time, as always, but it should be a lot of fun" and that the "un-competition mindset still stands, but this year the 'awards' winners will win a cash donation to a COVID-19 relief organization of their choosing." One of the projects from the last Deconstruction in 2016 was this complicated, multi-state Rube Goldberg machine. Read the rest

At a press conference yesterday afternoon, Trump suggested that injecting or consuming disinfectant might be an effective way to rid oneself of coronavirus. It isn't, and doing so will likely kill you. He added: "I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that."He didn't specify the kind of disinfectant.The company that makes Lysol hurriedly issued a warning not to put it inside a human being.Due to recent speculation and social media activity, RB (the makers of Lysol and Dettol) has been asked whether internal administration of disinfectants may be appropriate for investigation or use as a treatment for coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2).As a global leader in health and hygiene products, we must be clear that under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route). As with all products, our disinfectant and hygiene products should only be used as intended and in line with usage guidelines. Please read the label and safety information.We have a responsibility in providing consumers with access to accurate, up-to-date information as advised by leading public health experts. For this and other myth-busting facts, please visit Covid-19facts.com.Eager to see the New York Times headline.Here's Dr. Read the rest

It’s infuriating to think of how much of our important, often sensitive personal information we just casually give away online. When you’re unprotected as you surf, you’re volunteering your IP address, which can help an experienced cyber snoop or web criminal identify you, your home, your family and more. They can also mine those details to ultimately crack your whole system wide open, exposing your financial details and anything else you don’t want the world to know.VPN protection with a trusted provider like Surfshark is one of your first and best defenses against the efforts of bad actors on the web.As a long-time service provider with a 4.4 out of 5-star rating from more than 10,000 Apple App Store and Google Play consumers, Surfshark offers true browsing freedom as well as peace of mind.With more than 1,200 servers in over 60 countries worldwide, you can log in from virtually anywhere and receive ultra-fast, completely anonymous web surfing and downloading protection. All your traffic is shielded behind military-grade AES-256-GCM encryption and IKEv2 and OpenVPN protocols, even when you’re logged into often dodgy public WiFi networks.And whether you’re online shopping, downloading torrents or anything else, no one will be able to trace your activities, even Surfshark. Their no-logging policy assures you complete anonymity, 24/7/365. Of course, Surfshark also offers optimized online streaming and torrent-friendly servers, in case you’re into that sort of thing.While protection is always the key to VPN service, access is another major selling point — and Surfshark delivers, helping you get around global geo-restrictions that can block off content or your favorite streaming service in various locations. Read the rest

As the editor-in-chief of the Make: website, I got to help develop column ideas and work with some amazing contributors. One of these was the brilliant George Hart (father of Vi Hart) from the Museum of Mathematics. After George left the museum, Glen Whitney took over the column. They both did an amazing job at demonstrating mathematical concepts in the most entertaining ways, using everyday objects and maker-made creations. You can see all of the installments of the series here.Here is the briefest of samplings. The column ran (on and off) for eight years.Math Monday, September 26, 2011A mathematical haircut makes an unambiguous statement to the world that you love math. Here, Nick Sayers is sporting a rhombic coiffure with interesting geometric properties.The obtuse angles of each rhombus meet in groups of three, but the acute angles meet in groups of five, six, or seven, depending on the curvature. In the flatter areas, they meet in groups of six, like equilateral triangles, and in the areas of strong positive curvature they meet in groups of five, but in the negatively curved saddle at the back of the neck, there is a group of seven.To make your own, Nick suggests you use a rhombic paper template starting at the crown, work outwards, and make aesthetic decisions about the 5-, 6-, or 7-way joints depending on local curvature. This instance of the design was cut by Hannah Barker after a test version a couple of months earlier by Summer Makepeace. Read the rest

As a miniature modeler and painter, I am obsessed with any type of tiny world-building: model train boards, dioramas, dollhouses, and the like. So, naturally, I adore the work of "micro-mechanician" Bill Robertson. You can learn more about Bill and his amazing work in this piece on the TED Ideas blog and in his TED talk.When you look at a miniature, you can see so much more,” he says. “You can see the whole thing with one eye. When you look at a little desk in your hand, it’s all right there in front of your eyes. There’s a fascination with seeing it all at once.To give you a sense of the extremes to which Robertson goes, consider his reproduction of a microscope that had been made for King Louis XV. Robertson’s version consists of 125 infinitesimally small parts of metal, wood and glass. To match the microscope’s bronze shade, he melted Canadian gold coins and applied the metal to the frame. The original’s barrel was wrapped in shagreen, or sharkskin, and Robertson knew that he needed baby-shark skin for it to be more to scale, so the nodules and grain would be the correct size. He found the sharkskin at a shop outside Paris that had been serving cabinet makers for five generations. In the original text about the microscope, the builder said to polish the metal with the tooth of a wolf; Robertson got creative and used a puppy tooth instead.Oh, and this microscope is fully functional, something that is very important to Robertson. Read the rest

After The Markup revealed that Facebook users were being targeted with bad ads for garbage products, Facebook has now agreed to remove “pseudoscience” as an ad targeting option for advertisers.Yes, this was allowed during the coronavirus pandemic, until a news website shamed Facebook into eliminating it. “Pseudoscience” was available until this week, The Markup reported, even as Facebook vowed to curb COVID-19 disinformation.From The Markup:But at the very same time, The Markup found, Facebook was allowing advertisers to profit from ads targeting people that the company believes are interested in “pseudoscience.” According to Facebook’s ad portal, the pseudoscience interest category contained more than 78 million people.This week, The Markup paid to advertise a post targeting people interested in pseudoscience, and the ad was approved by Facebook. Using the same tool, The Markup boosted a post targeting people interested in pseudoscience on Instagram, the Facebook-owned platform that is incredibly popular with Americans under 30. The ad was approved in minutes.We reached out to Facebook asking about the targeting category on Monday morning. After asking for multiple extensions to formulate a response, company spokesperson Devon Kearns emailed The Markup on Wednesday evening to say that Facebook had eliminated the pseudoscience interest category. Read the rest:Want to Find a Misinformed Public? Facebook’s Already Done It[themarkup.orgMore at Reuters. Read the rest

In Russia, two human rights groups say Vladimir Putin's government has vastly expanded surveillance to enforce the nation's coronavirus lockdown, using facial recognition technology and collection of personal data. The groups say regulation is required to ensure that surveillance measures are both temporary and proportionate.From Reuters:Police say Moscow’s 178,000 facial recognition cameras had caught 200 people breaking coronavirus lockdown restrictions by mid-March. The cameras are capable of tracking individuals using just their silhouette and of detecting groups standing too close to each other, according to the firm which supplied them.The Russian capital has also introduced digital passes which are mandatory for anyone wanting to use public or private transport, a system that authorities say 21 of Russia’s more than 80 regions will soon copy in some form.Agora, a Moscow-based human rights group, and Roskomsvoboda, a digital rights campaign group, said the unprecedented nature of the pandemic meant some curbing of citizens’ rights and freedoms was justified.But in a joint appeal to regional governors they said the expanding surveillance measures had to be regulated to ensure they were legal, proportionate and temporary in nature.“The authorities ... are actively developing technologies to collect personal data including photographs, videos, geolocations, home addresses, car number plates and medical diagnoses,” said Pavel Chikov, a lawyer who heads Agora.Go read the rest of the piece. The quote in the last graf is a stunner.Russia's lockdown surveillance measures need regulating, rights groups say[reuters] Read the rest

Hope you like cats and cat hair.From the delightful Instagram account of @rojiman and their Scottish Fold Cats, a series of cat portraits in which these kitties are wearing hats made from their own cat hair.Go see the rest here, and they've been cross-posted on IMGUR as well.Cats wearing hats made from their own hair Read the rest

After a few weeks under the same roof all day long, your kids might be clamoring for something new to do. And while you’re probably loath to unleash more video game or YouTube time on their developing minds, you might have run out of fun, yet educational diversions to keep them busy.However, fun, yet educational is pretty much the calling card of the fascinating AstroReality EARTH Augmented Reality Earth Model. This 3D-printed globe and accompanying app make it incredibly easy for kids and adults alike to understand more about the state of our planet today, all with unique interactivity that teaches and expands minds without ever feeling like some dry lecture.The globe comes in 3.5 or 5-inch sizes, each intricately printed with polyresin density and hand-painted with precise paint pigment ratios to bring all the surface details of the planet’s oceans, mountains, and land masses to vivid life.While the globe is a work of art in itself, the true magic happens when you open the AstroReality AR app and point your smartphone camera at the globe. Through the app, you can then explore how our planet actually works in precise detail, tracking Earth’s geological changes, wildlife, weather patterns and more.You can follow exactly how humans have populated and transformed the globe, then shift to see how plants and animals create the biopersity and ecosystems that we depend on.You can examine how geography, climate, and weather drive the migration of animals and the distribution of those ecosystems; how rocks and heat drive volcanoes, mountains and rivers; how clouds, gases, storms, and other sky phenomena keep life on Earth possible; and even the ocean’s impactful role in keeping the planet stable. Read the rest

Researchers at a top Paris hospital examined 343 coronavirus patients, "Among these patients, only five percent were smokers"