Boing Boing

If you shoot videos for your business or just for fun, it’s practically inevitable that you’ll eventually start wanting to up the production values. For most vlog style videos, it’s not like you need Star Wars-level special effects or anything. But even trying to change out your background digitally with a simple green-screen effect requires extra space, precise lighting and...yeah, a really big green screen.Instead, XSplit VCam has packed in green screen capabilities and other simple effects to instantly up the quality of your videos with their easy to use app.And we definitely mean easy to use. Just choose your camera source, pick one of the assorted possible backgrounds, and in seconds, your video is transported to any locale with a professional-grade appearance that can often look seamless to the untrained eye.XSplit VCam also gives you loads of options for getting that background just so. You can insert a GIF, JPEG, a website or even a YouTube video as your background, so your video can take on virtually any feel you want to project. Or if you like the look of your current cam shot, but maybe would like to hide some of the clutter and mess going on in your office or living space, you can add a subtle blur effect to give your video the look of a DSLR style portrait effect that draws viewer attention to you and not your background.No matter whether you’re recording videos or live streaming, XSplit VCam is compatible with a full assortment of services like Open Broadcaster Software (OBS), Steamlabs, and XSplit Broadcaster. Read the rest

In December of 2019, Ahmet Zappa and longtime Zappa “vaultmeister” Joe Travers released a 6-CD collection of the Hot Rats Sessions to celebrate the 50th anniversary of this ground-breaking, now classic Frank Zappa solo record. This LA Times piece chronicles the enduring impact of this recording and how it inspired the entire genre of jazz-rock fusion.Long before novelty hits like “Valley Girl” and his televised jousting with the would-be music censors of Tipper Gore and the Parents Resource Music Center, Zappa was already a musical force to be reckoned with. “Freak Out!,” his 1966 doo-wop-meets-dada-rock debut with the Mothers of Invention, was cited by Paul McCartney as inspiration for “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” Zappa repaid the compliment in 1968 with “We’re Only In It for the Money,” which pilloried “Sgt. Pepper’s” with its cover and all things Summer of Love with its music.“Hot Rats,” however, was completely different. Raw yet refined, accessible yet sophisticated, “Hot Rats” introduced what would come to be known as jazz-rock fusion, but with the added allure of Zappa’s intriguingly idiosyncratic take on classical music. Its beautifully layered textures were the result of previous experiments with variable-speed recording. For all its organic innovation, though, it was both a critical and commercial failure, topping out at No. 173 on the Billboard album chart. It did well in Europe, however, and eventually became one of the Zappa catalog’s most consistent sellers.Listening to Hot Rats today, you have to remind yourself that this was 19-freakin'-69. Read the rest

In February 2002, Yoko Ono took the stage with the B-52's during a New York performance of "Rock Lobster." The story about how she got there is fascinating and I'm surprised this is the first time I'm hearing of it. It begins in June 1980 when John Lennon heard the song and was inspired to start making music again after a long creative lull. The song's unusual backing vocals reminded him of Yoko Ono's style.John Lennon, in a 1980 Rolling Stone interview: "I was at a dance club one night in Bermuda... Upstairs, they were playing disco, and downstairs, I suddenly heard 'Rock Lobster' by the B-52's for the first time. Do you know it? It sounds just like Yoko's music, so I said to meself, 'It's time to get out the old axe and wake the wife up!' We wrote about twenty-five songs during those three weeks, and we've recorded enough for another album."Writer Brian Scott MacKenzie:"Rock Lobster" lit a fuse of inspiration that flared into Lennon’s 2-LP set Double Fantasy (1980), plus a posthumous release, Milk and Honey (1984). Without the B-52's, our world might lack "Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)," "Watching the Wheels," "Woman," "(Just Like) Starting Over," and "Nobody Told Me."Atlanta Magazine (2013):"I said, 'That’s Yoko!,'" Lennon recalled that fall in an interview with the BBC. "I thought there were two records going at once or something. Because it was so her. I mean, this person had studied her... I called her and I said, 'You won’t believe this, but I was in a disco and there was somebody doing your voice. Read the rest

Philip Roth's 2004 alternate history novel about a Charles Lindbergh -ed Nazi takeover of the United States, The Plot Against America, has been adapted as a 6-part HBO miniseries. Created by David Simon and Ed Burns (the duo behind The Wire), it debuts on Monday, March 16, 2020 and stars Winona Ryder and John Turturro.BBC has a review, giving it 3 out of 5 stars. Conclusion: "The Plot Against America has high, half-realised ambitions. Preaching to its audience didn’t have to be one of them." I'm going to watch it anyway. Read the rest

A hit movie with a trailer that is comically horrible. I guess the trailer doesn't matter.This movie was a huge thing during my childhood. I was never into slasher flicks. RomComs are scary enough. Read the rest

On the planet Wasp-76b, it rains iron. Researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and colleagues observed the planet, 650 light years from Earth, using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in northern Chile. On the planet's "hot side" that faces it star, temperatures can be above 2,400°C. It's a good thing the residents of Wasp-76b carry tungsten umbrellas. From ESO:“One could say that this planet gets rainy in the evening, except it rains iron,” says David Ehrenreich, a professor at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. He led a study, published today in the journal Nature, of this exotic exoplanet. Known as WASP-76b, it is located some 640 light-years away in the constellation of Pisces.This strange phenomenon happens because the 'iron rain' planet only ever shows one face, its day side, to its parent star, its cooler night side remaining in perpetual darkness. Like the Moon on its orbit around the Earth, WASP-76b is ‘tidally locked’: it takes as long to rotate around its axis as it does to go around the star.On its day side, it receives thousands of times more radiation from its parent star than the Earth does from the Sun. It’s so hot that molecules separate into atoms, and metals like iron evaporate into the atmosphere. The extreme temperature difference between the day and night sides results in vigorous winds that bring the iron vapour from the ultra-hot day side to the cooler night side, where temperatures decrease to around 1500 degrees Celsius. Read the rest

A Toronto Star article profiles married couple Manny Ranga and Violeta Perez, who drive around to Costcos and load their pickup with hand sanitizer bottles and disinfectant wipes, then resell the items on Amazon at quadruple the purchase price. They claim to have made over $100,000 so far by gouging.From the article:The couple say they’ve made a bundle in the past three weeks hitting up every Costco store in the region each day, buying up as many Lysol wipes and liquid cleaners as they can — spending thousands of dollars at a time — and then reselling them, mostly on Amazon, to private individuals and companies....Ranga, 38, said one six-pack of wipes that goes for $20 at Costco can fetch four times that online. (A check of Amazon on Thursday showed that a six-pack was going for $89 under their seller name “Violeta & Sons Trading Ltd.”) Read the rest

The Drive reports that "the stars of Discovery Channel's Diesel Brothers television show are being ordered to pay $851,451 for their role in producing and selling modified diesel pickups that wreaked environmental havoc in the state of Utah."They were found guilty of stripping emissions equipment from diesel pickups. The trial was initiated by Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, which purchased a modified truck from the Diesel Brothers and tested it for emissions. The "results showed it emitted 36 times more pollution and 21 times more particulate matter than if it was equipped with proper emissions systems," reports The Drive.The federal judge in the case also said the gentleman, known as "Heavy D" and "Diesel Dave," are also on the hook for the plaintiffs' $1.2 million legal fees and that the fines can't be avoided through bankruptcy. Read the rest

At r/Seinfeld, MrJonLott writes:At the Raynham flea market 2 years ago I found a DVD with 80 minutes of previously unseen Seinfeld bloopers. These are different from the official DVD bloopers, which are already on YouTube. This DVD was in a bootleg case with a bootleg design, and a simple unvarnished disc inside. I ripped the footage from the DVD and uploaded it raw to YouTube. Forgive the video quality; the DVD has low-grade video.The DVD was produced in 2000, which makes me think it's a bootleg of a blooper DVD made for the cast and crew of Seinfeld in 1998 or 1999, to be shared in the days before internet. There is nothing else on the disc. Read the rest

In this segment of Curiosity Show we are presented with an illusion involving two playing cards. In just a couple of minutes we get an entertaining lesson in art history, perspective, and vision. Read the rest

Netflix just released the third season of its anime Castlevania adaptation, and I certainly never expected to be so excited such a thing. Sure, I played the games a little bit as a kid. But I don't usually go in for that much anime, or that many video games adaptations.This one, however, is written by Warren Ellis and directed by Adi Shankar, and it was been a consistently enjoyable ride. Ellis himself acknowledges that he's never played the "vampire jump game" at all, and just used Wikipedia to figure out the relationships worth mining to tell a good story. And at that, he succeeded. The dialogue is hilarious and crass; the bloody, brutal action sequences often make me squee with delight; and the characters are all complex enough to make you want to spend time with them, even when they're absolutely awful people. Hell, this show might have the most empathetic and sympathetic depiction of Dracula I've ever seen — which is impressive for a dude who starts a global war to feast on humans.I'm only halfway through season 3 — which adds Bill Nighy and Lance Reddick to an already-excellent cast that includes Richard Armitage, James Callis, Alejandra Reynoso, and Jamie Murray — and I'm eager to finish the rest.If you're looking for something to keep you occupied during your self-quarantine, and you don't mind a lot of blood and cursing, I highly recommend it. If the plot-based trailer above doesn't intrigue you, then perhaps this will: Read the rest

In 1997, The Notorious B.I.G. (aka Biggie Smalls) visited the Manhattan offices of The Source, then the most influential hip hop publication in the world. Biggie was there for a photo shoot and took off his size 52 pleather belt to change clothes. He told Source writer Rigo “Riggs” Morales to hold on to the belt and he'd grab it later. Biggie forgot. A couple weeks later, Biggie was killed in a drive-by shooting. A few years later on his last day at the magazine, Riggs instructed the office's incoming resident, writer Aliya S. King, that Biggie's belt was never to leave that room. Over two decades, none people were charged with keeping the belt safe. Over at Level, King tells the tale of Biggie's belt and why it matters so much to her:It didn’t feel like a monumental relic or symbol of hip-hop history. It wasn’t one of Big’s infamous Coogi sweaters or the Versace sunglasses that he wore or shouted out in his rhymes. It was a no-name brand size 52 belt. And yet, Riggs decided it needed to stay in that spot.“That belt doesn’t leave this office,” Riggs said to me.I nodded.“Not under any circumstances,” he continued. “It stays right there. Right on that hook. Unless Big himself comes here to get it, it doesn’t move.”“I got it.”“If you move offices or if you leave The Source, the belt stays here. You can tell the next person who moves in here.” Read the rest

“Pornhub is donating its March proceeds from Modelhub to support Italy during this unfortunate time," the company said on Twitter:Model earnings will remain untouched, this is coming straight from Pornhub's share. Italy will also have free access to Pornhub Premium throughout the month. Forza Italia, we love you!pic.twitter.com/8ckeikKKnv— Pornhub ARIA (@Pornhub) March 12, 2020It's kind of wild that a porn site has already done more to fight coronavirus than the US President Who Has Sex With Porn Stars, but here we are.Pornhub offers free premium service in Italy to ease coronavirus pains [Joe Tacopino / NY Post]Image: Public Domain via Pexels Read the rest

From Politico:The U.S. government proclamation initiating the ban targets 26 European countries that comprise a visa-free travel zone known as the Schengen Area.The United Kingdom, which is home to Trump Turnberry and Trump International Golf Links, and Ireland, which is home to another Trump-branded hotel and golf course at Doonbeg, do not participate in the Schengen Area. Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania are also not part of the Schengen Area. All three of the resorts are struggling financially.To be fair, this is probably not a deliberate gerrymandering scheme; the Trump Organization simply doesn't have any property in the designated area. Presumably, the argument in favor of blocking travel to that part of Europe has to do more with open borders; while Ireland might still be part of the EU, at least the water keeps things separate.Trump’s travel ban sidesteps his own European resorts [Ryan Heath / Politico]Image: Whoisjohngalt/Wikimedia Commons (CC 4.0) Read the rest

And we're done! We (along with John, who loved that this was serialized) would like to thank everyone on Boing Boing, and all readers, for following this story over the pace of a page or two every month. The obvious question: What's next? Answer: There will be a Kickstarter -- likely around June -- to fund a complete volume, along with extensive notes and extras. Why, it's the perfect addition to any academic library, hip comic book shelf, counterculture gift, or journalism course syllabus worth its Real News salt, naturally! You can follow on Twitter for info (Scott or Ethan) -- You can also follow this project's Kickstarter profile. Additionally, we're aware of the many of you who have purchased a Book One of the series. Your patience and support will not be ignored! We'll have a Book Two available in the Kickstarter, along with a Complete Volume (Books One and Two together). In the meantime, here's an ad for Book One - Get one before it's gone - Genuine thanks, Ethan and Scott. Read the rest

The video below shows a customer in a vehicle at a Burger King drive-through window. The restaurant is clearly ablaze, with smoke billowing from the roof and fire alarms shrieking. Staff, who have evacuated the building, call for her to move away from the burning structure. The customer demands a refund.MAN EMPLOYEE: "Is anyone still inside?"WOMAN EMPLOYEE: "Move! It's on fire!"CUSTOMER (emerging from car): "I don't give a fuck! I just moved! Now give me my money! That's what I'm asking for!"MAN EMPLOYEE: *Incoherent anguish*CUSTOMER: "Y'all were just laughing in there. Now you come out here and act all serious? You're fucking stupid!"MAN EMPLOYEE: [*further incoherent anguish*] stupid motherfucker.CUSTOMER: You ... this is why you work at Burger King. That's why you work at Burger King making $13 an hour homes! Exeunt right. Read the rest

Ever since their debut in 2016, the audio world has been chasing Apple’s AirPods. Launched with all the cache of a major Apple product along with its obvious integration with iPhones and iPads and these earbuds were essentially the tech equivalent of a rich kid born with a silver spoon in his mouth.But the thing about rich kids is that they don’t come cheap. And at $160 a pair, neither do AirPods. But sometimes, you just want earbuds that’ll be great in the sweaty confines of the gym. Or sturdy enough to survive a daily commute. Or capable of delivering quality audio even after they’ve been floating around at the bottom of your bag for a while.You need reliable, knock-around earbuds that still provide quality sound at preferably a much cheaper price. That’s the sweet spot in the market staked out by AirSounds — and their Pro True wireless earbuds are just the ticket for shoppers who don’t need a studio-level experience, but do demand trustworthy performance at an affordable price. Right now, with their added price cut, a pair are only $34.99, less than 25 percent of the cost of new AirPods.This latest version of the AirSounds pack in all the latest new innovations into this constantly improving earbud favorite. On top of the quality sound, wireless charging, voice assistant capabilities, and advanced Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity, the new Pros are also sporting a new and improved, more ergonomic design, a more seamless connection to your device and even battery life status indicators that update you every time you connect. Read the rest

Supposedly driven by the virus crisis, On-nomi (オン飲み, "Drinking on[line]") is the practice of getting together with friends on the internet and having a drink together. It's the touchless, pathogen-free gathering of the immediate future. As machine-translated from Asahi:7:00 pm, Friday in early March. Eight people gathered in front of a PC or smartphone at home or in a shared working space raised corona beer bottles at each screen. It is said that it was triggered by the planning of on-drinking due to the spread of the new infection ... women in their forties living in and around Zushi City, Kanagawa Prefecture. Ayumi Nonaka (42), a web creator who has settled down on raising children, has held regular drinking parties and other events with women of the same generation in the area to deepen exchanges. Ayumi-san made a homepage such as "Remote work and haven't gone out of the house for about 3 weeks" "I'm fat because I didn't go out of school because I didn't go out of school" "Then, let's talk about Corona's worries online." Using "Zoom", which is used in corporate online meetings, it was spread out on SNS and other places to make it a place where anyone can participate.The reliability of the Zoom teleconferencing app is making it suddenly ubiquitous in the news. Read the rest

I will be spending my entire day on the Talking Animals YouTube collection. Read the rest

Cats belong on the right side of the room, thank you very much. I don't know about you, but with all the shit flying around in the news, this week, I find this video of a pooch quietly repositioning a kitty to be strangely soothing.Image via Wikipedia Commons Read the rest

"Somebody is going to get hurt!" a worker yells over and over, to no avail.When the tribunals commence, teenage judges on their charmin thrones, the court will rise and be seated to the revolutionary cry merde sans frontières. Read the rest

It's been suggested by experts for some time now that the COVID-19 situation is far more dire in Iran than the nation's government has been willing to admit. According to Iran, 10,000 of its citizens have been infected with the novel coronavirus, of which 429 have died. However, satellite images that appear to show mass graves being dug outside of the city of Qom are a bad sign that the number of dead may be far higher.From The Guardian:The pictures, first published by the New York Times, show the excavation of a new section in a cemetery on the northern fringe of Iran’s holy city in late February, and two long trenches dug, of a total length of 100 yards, by the end of the month.They confirm the worst fears about the extent of the epidemic and the government’s subsequent cover-up. On 24 February, at the time the trenches were being dug, a legislator from Qom, 75 miles (120 km) south of Tehran, accused the health ministry of lying about the scale of the outbreak, saying there had already been 50 deaths in the city, at a time when the ministry was claiming only 12 people had died from the virus nationwide.According to The Guardian, it's believed that, as China is Iran's primary trade partner, the Iranian government wasn't thrilled with the idea of halting travel to one of the few big international players who will still do business with them. This, combined with the Iranian government's reluctance to order social distancing or quarantine measures for its nation's citizens allowed the virus to spread faster than shit through a goose. Read the rest

Today I got a message from my friend and former Make: colleague, Matt Stultz. Matt now works for Prusa Research, the award-winning Czech 3D printer company created by force-of-nature, Josef Prusa. Matt forwarded me this tweet from Josef:#goodnews Did you know you can make your own sanitizing products eg. hand gels? @WHO published an easy guide https://t.co/dxZUdACOd7! We are making 1000l for everyone to use here at work and to take home. Big thumbs up to Prusa Polymers team to finding it and making it happen 💪 pic.twitter.com/koEkXr3lOS— Josef Prusa (@josefprusa) March 12, 2020And Matt writes:We have converted over some of the equipment we use to make 3D Printers into the production of hand sanitizer for our employees and the office. Kind of an interesting sign of the times and a show of what a flexible company who cares can do.As Josef's tweet links to, the WHO has instructions [PDF] on how to DIY brew hand-sanitizer in large batches. Of course, you need to make sure you know what you're doing and that you have the right concentrations of ingredients. Also, a humectant (moisturizer) must be in the formulation as a skin care agent. Glycerol is used for this purpose in the WHO recipe. As is all things: Attempt at your own risk and use common sense. It goes without saying that hand sanitizer is no substitute for 20 seconds of washing with soap. But if you don't have access to soap and water, it beats doing nothing. Read the rest

If numbers and data science are all just a big mystery to you, think of today’s data scientists as modern-day versions of the old California gold rush prospectors panning the water. They’d sift through virtual mountains of soil, gravel and loads of various river debris, all in search of the tiniest fleck of valuable gold material.Data science is a similar pursuit, sifting through volumes of raw and processed data, seeking patterns and conclusions that can give you an edge. With the training found in The Dynamic Data Scientist Bundle ft. Power BI, Python, and MATLAB, you can learn the methods and tools to become a digital prospector, plucking extreme value from all that data chaos.This seven-course, 33-hour collection spotlights some of the most important tactics for organizing and analyzing large data sets to find meaningful takeaways that can inform important decision making in business or scientific endeavors.Applying structure to all that data is a key first step — and the Easy to Advanced Data Structures course will have students creating efficient algorithms to bring a workable form to all that information. Power BI Desktop: Data Analytics for Everyone introduces new users to Microsoft Power Business Intelligence (BI), a program that allows small businesses to use data analytics, modeling and more just like companies with big internal IT departments.Python is one of the most versatile programming languages for data science, so a pair of courses — Data Visualization with Python for Beginners and Master Data Visualization with Python — get users familiar with Matplotlib, a Python-based program used to plot data to create visually compelling representations that drive home the meaning of all your numbers. Read the rest

Stock investors who are reeling after today's disaster on Wall Street can take comfort in the fact that people hodling Bitcoin fared even worse. The price of a bitcoin dropped from $7900 to $4900 in less than a day.From CoindeskNearly $63 billion has been wiped from the markets as the total market capitalization of all crypto fell from $223 billion to $161 billion, with BTC falling more than 39 percent over the past 24 hours to levels not seen since April 2019.Balances containing 100 or more bitcoin have fallen to their lowest point since Dec. 31, 2019 signaling a flight to cash as other supposed safe-haven assets like gold fell 3.5 percent.Drawdowns from Recent Highs: Oil: -53%Bitcoin: -46%Delta Airlines: -46%Tesla: -42%Goldman: -40%JP Morgan: -38%Transports: -36%Russell 2000: -35%FANGs: -28%S&P 500: -27%Nasdaq 100: -25%Amazon: -23%Consumer Staples: -19%Gold: -7%Cash: 0%via: @BearTrapsReport— Lawrence McDonald (@Convertbond) March 12, 2020Image: Trading View Read the rest

California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order that will allow the state to take over hotels to house coronavirus patients in case hospitals are overloaded.From The Los Angeles Times:Under the order, the California Health and Human Services Agency and the Office of Emergency Services will be able to execute agreements to commandeer hotels, or medical facilities that are not in use, to quarantine, isolate and treat COVID-19 patients or those with a high risk of exposure, the order states.The order also allows trained laboratory personnel to perform COVID-19 tests, which are ordinarily completed only by microbiologists.I hope the Beverly Hills Hotel, owned by a gentleman who has expressed his desire to kill gay people, is the first place the state takes over. Read the rest

In the face of a pandemic of facts, tabloid reporters appear to be self-quarantining to avoid all contact with reality.

Not enough money in the world. View this post on Instagram Follow 👉🏼 @electricalgram Follow 👉🏼 @electricalgram Follow 👉🏼 @electricalgram - ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ 🔗 All rights and credits reserved to the respective owner(s). ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ 💡DM for credit/removal💡 ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ - #electricals #electrical_engineering #electricalwork #electrical_engineer #electricalhacks #electricalwires #electricalstorm #electricallife #electricalengineers #electricalengineer #electricalparade #electricalcontractors #mechanicaleducation #electricalporn #engineeringpost #electricaltower #electronics #electrician #electro #electricians #engineering #engenharias #engineer #electrics #electricity #electrical #electric #electricalgram #electricsA post shared by Electrical Engineering (@electricalgram) on Feb 28, 2020 at 3:00am PST Read the rest

Disneyland Park and California Adventures in Anaheim, California today said it will close on March 14 through at least the end of the month due to the coronavirus pandemic.This is only the fourth time in Disneyland's history that park operations have been fully suspended. No word on Walt Disney World in Florida yet.The three previous times Disneyland Park closed were on 9/11, after the Northridge earthquake, and on a national day of mourning following the assassination of U.S. president John F. Kennedy.Disney stock fell 1.6% in late trading.pic.twitter.com/P9Xg2ee5Ly— Disney Parks News (@DisneyParksNews) March 12, 2020JUST IN: Disneyland in CA closing as of Friday because of coronavirus. Only 4th time in history that operations have been fully suspended: 9/11, Northridge quake, nat'l day of mourning after JFK assassination— Brooks Barnes (@brooksbarnesNYT) March 12, 2020Disneyland in California is closing for only the fourth time in history https://t.co/YDkvOVFIZb— Rebecca Rubin (@rebeccaarubin) March 12, 2020 Read the rest

Citing “the COVID-19 public health threat,” the NCAA is canceling March Madness and all other winter and spring men's and women's college basketball tournaments amid a growing coronavirus pandemic.MARCH MADNESS has been cancelled due to coronavirus pic.twitter.com/rEOyQsynHt— Scott Wong (@scottwongDC) March 12, 2020NCAA cancels March Madness men's and women's basketball tournaments due to coronavirus concerns https://t.co/0mOwHSQtBz— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) March 12, 2020BREAKING: NCAA cancels March Madness amid coronavirus fearshttps://t.co/pdrbkUa8uD— VirginianPilotSports (@PilotSportsNow) March 12, 2020NCAA has just canceled the men's and women's basketball tournaments altogether. Seemed inevitable. Hard to imagine such a tournament without Kansas and Duke. https://t.co/ppKP54pAvL— JamesVGrimaldi (@JamesVGrimaldi) March 12, 2020THE 2020 NCAA MEN’S & WOMEN’S TOURNAMENTS HAVE BEEN CANCELED pic.twitter.com/SV3vMqCyXE— kelly cohen (@ByKellyCohen) March 12, 2020Breaking News: The NCAA has canceled its March Madness tournaments because of the coronavirus. Follow live updates on how the pandemic is affecting the U.S.https://t.co/jmTJTSHFZx— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 12, 2020 Read the rest

NYC mayor: 95 confirmed coronavirus cases, 42 just since yesterday

Dow's 4th-worst loss in history

Let’s face it — Microsoft has held a hammerlock on the presentation software market for years. In fact, rough guesses estimate PowerPoint has been used for about 95 percent of all digital presentations ever since the late 90s. So to say upstarts like SlideHeap are fighting their way upstream is a colossal understatement. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not a trip worth taking, because sometimes it takes a challenger like SlideHeap to challenge that dominance and raise the presentation game. You can check all that SlideHeap Slide Templates are bringing to the table right now at over 90 percent off for a professional plan at just $29.99.SlideHeap wants to shave hours off the prep time you spend putting a digital presentation together with unlimited access to over 600 attractive, professional-grade infographics and other design elements that can be customized to just your specifications.These templates all fit into 25 different categories, so whether you’re doing a sales pitch, an organizational breakdown, a SWOT analysis or just trying to impart the right information, SlideHeap gives you a full graphics set tailored to just your needs. In case you don’t have the artistic chops to craft your own stylistic flourishes of a particular graphic, SlideHeap still has you covered with more than 1,000 different icons, images and more to give every graphic just the right professional touch.And once you’ve got those slides just the way you want them, you probably won’t have to think twice about how to present them either. Read the rest

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) won the California Democratic Primary, multiple news organizations are now projecting based on incoming results. Yes, it really did take this long to count all those California primary votes.Of all 50 U.S. states, California is the one with the largest number of delegates.Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden are scheduled to debate on Sunday, and the location of that debate was today changed to Washington, DC instead of Arizona because of the coronavirus outbreak. It's possible that by Sunday, the event will be canceled altogether. The pandemic situation is worsening quickly. Some observations and early news tweets, below.BREAKING: Sen. Sanders wins California Democratic Primary, @NBCNews projects. pic.twitter.com/KeB9TsGbMX— MSNBC (@MSNBC) March 12, 2020BREAKING: Sen. Sanders wins California Democratic Primary, @NBCNews projects. https://t.co/EOqBWxksL1 pic.twitter.com/idAwuzOvga— NBC News (@NBCNews) March 12, 2020NBC News projects Bernie Sanders wins the California Democratic Primaryhttps://t.co/S5pOP7CfS3— Beth Fouhy (@bfouhy) March 12, 2020NEW: NBC News projects that Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., wins the Democratic primary in California, the state with the largest amount of Super Tuesday delegates. https://t.co/Zacq1j7IRC— Gary Grumbach (@GaryGrumbach) March 12, 2020Bernie Sanders has won the California Democratic primary, @ABC News can now project. (Yes, it's taken this long for enough votes to be in.)— Rick Klein (@rickklein) March 12, 2020I wouldn't be surprised to see Sanders suspend his campaign between Sunday's debate and the next round of primaries on Tuesday. His chances at the nomination are already fading, and he's expected to have a monumentally bad night in the Florida primary. Read the rest

Now you can drink your way directly to diabetes with a newly announced line of Hostess brand bottled iced lattes -- yes, that means they're flavored like snack cakes. Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Honey Bun, and Sno Balls to be exact.Bevnet:Twinkies Iced Latte bottles up the magic of the classic golden sponge cake flavor combined with creamy notes. Ding Dongs⢠Iced Latte is full of rich chocolate flavors with wonderful vanilla tones. Honey Bun Iced Latte has a delightful honey flavor, finished with hints of glazed icing. Sno Balls Iced Latte combines flavors of coconut and sweet chocolate cake.âThis partnership checks all the boxes in our continued efforts to innovate for our beloved core brands, as well as bring consumers more ways to enjoy our products,â said Chad Lusk, Chief Marketing Officer, Hostess Brands. âWhether oneâs 2pm-slump antidote is a sweet snack or a coffee run, they no longer need to choose.âThese will appear in the market come April but their similarly flavored "single serve brew cups" are available now.(Oddity Mall)image via Oddity Mall Read the rest

If you want to be able to open and close your garage door from your phone, and receive alerts on your phone when the door is opened or closed, this Meross Smart Wi-Fi Garage Door Opener is a good choice. It's about the size of a bar of soap, and attaches to terminals on your garage door motor. (It requires wi-fi reception in your garage, obviously!)I paid full price for it in November but Amazon currently has it on double discount: a checkbox coupon on the product page and a promo code: ZLUINGM5. Read the rest

I had this Old Maid deck when I was a kid. I liked the oversize cards and the Paul Coker Jr-esque illustrations, but I share Steve Banes dread of Thermo Thelma, who "is looking at me with that over-sized rectal thermometer in her cruel clutches!" Read the rest

Ad agency Ogilvy Hong Kong teamed up with Ikea and Pizza Hut to create a life-size table, the Säva, that looks just like the little plastic "tables" inside pizza boxes. (Those little tables are officially called "pizza savers.") From Hypebeast:Each table arrives in a humorous package that resembles a pizza box and, like other products, comes with details on how to assemble the product. IKEA illustrates a step-by-step process on unpacking the different parts, assembling the legs, calling Pizza Hut, receiving the pizza and placing it on the perfectly-sized table. Read the rest

This lengthy New York Times piece by Jon Mooallem is subtitled, "The Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964 surprised everyone by showing that natural disasters can bring out more kindness than selfishness." The piece is worth reading just for the stunning photos of the devastation that occurred in Anchorage on the evening of March 27, 1964 when the state was struck by "the most powerful earthquake in American history, and the second most powerful ever measured in the world."Mooallem's piece packs a powerful punch, too. In the aftermath of the earthquake, Alaskans were sharing and cooperative, and it turns out that unselfish behavior during a disaster is the rule rather than the exception:In the 56 years since the Great Alaska Earthquake, an entire field of sociology, disaster studies, blossomed around the Disaster Research Center, with sociologists parachuting into scores of other communities after natural disasters around the world, and it’s stunning to look back and recognize how much of the resilience, levelheadedness, kindness and cooperation those sociologists saw in Anchorage turned out to be characteristic of disasters everywhere.The one thing that interferes with the tendency towards altruism in a disaster is something scholars call "elite panic."Many of our ugliest assumptions about human behavior have been refuted by their observations of how actual humans behave — though we seem tragically slow to shed those old myths. (In some cases, disaster studies teaches us, those in power are so overcome with worry about mass panic and looting that they overreact and clamp down on a public that isn’t actually panicked at all. Read the rest

Over and over and over again my friend... Read the rest

@gloriagaynor It only takes :20 seconds to “SURVIVE!”👏💕🎶 ##iWillSurviveChallenge ##fyp ##coronavirus ##handwashing ♬ I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor Disco diva Gloria Gaynor picked her own 1978 jam for 20 seconds of handwashing. (And you are correct, the video doesn't show the full 20 seconds.)Oh no, not I, I will surviveOh, as long as I know how to love, I know I'll stay aliveI've got all my life to liveAnd I've got all my love to give and I'll surviveI will survive, hey, hey Read the rest

This is the way to get a Baby Yoda minifig.The 1000+ piece LEGO Razor Crest can be ordered in advance of its September debut.Baby Yoda!LEGO Star Wars: The Mandalorian The Razor Crest 75292 Building Kit, New 2020, Amazon Exclusive (1,023 Pieces) via Amazon Read the rest

10 Years Of Progress In The Boston Dynamics Robotics from r/nextfuckinglevelOn the left, a tethered robot from 2009 hobbles on a treadmill. On the right, an untethered 2019 version agiley bounds over a pyramid of crates.Image: Reddit Read the rest

Canada's prime minister Justin Trudeau is self-isolating at home after his wife Sophie Gregoire Trudeau began displaying flu-like symptoms, and took a test for coronavirus.They are awaiting results from COVID-19 tests, which are free in Canada, and widely available, unlike the United States.Here is the official statement from the government of Canada [via]. Read the rest

“There’s normally a lot of tourists here to feed the monkeys but now there are not as many, because of the coronavirus,” a person in Lopburi, Thailand told a News Parliament reporter. As a results hundreds of the ravenous animals are "terrorising" the city "in search of food."From the article:Even locals who’re used to the animals’ behaviour appear stunned through their ferocity.Onlooker Sasaluk Rattanachai, who captured the scene from out of doors a store the place she works, mentioned: ”They seemed extra like wild canines than monkeys.“They went loopy for the one piece of food. I’ve by no means noticed them this competitive.”I believe the monkeys had been very, very hungry.Photo by Audronė Locaitytė on Unsplash Read the rest

Check out this collection of 30 PDF templates for cut-and-fold paper mechanisms and 3D optical illusions. Some of these will be familiar to readers of pop-up books, but many look like new innovations.[via @kellianderson] Read the rest

📷 Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s communications secretary, Fabio Wajngarten [RIGHT] instagrammed this selfie of himself hanging out with Trump and Pence before he tested positive for coronavirus.Bolsonaro's press secretary hung out with Trump and Pence on Saturday and today tested positive for coronavirus.U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence both met this week with a government official from Brazil who has since tested positive for coronavirus. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s communications secretary, Fabio Wajngarten, was at an official meeting with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Saturday. Wajngarten also attended Kimberly Guilfoyle's birthday party and dinner at Mar-a-Lago, and had dinner with Trump.This means they had plenty of time within one meter of each other. The Estado de S.Paulo newspaper said on Thursday Wajngarten has tested positive for coronavirus, and is now awaiting the results of a second confirmation test.If confirmed, this means the president of the United States was exposed to a coronavirus carrier, almost certainly. We do not know Trump's true health status or his coronavirus testing status.The office of Brazil’s president Bolsonaro did not respond to requests for comment. More at Reuters.WATCH: @jairbolsonaro’s Press Secretary, Fabio Wajngarten, who has tested positive for #coronavirus was very close to Trump on Saturday. How close? He took this video of the President at @kimguilfoyle’s bday party at Mar a Lago. Trump just said he “isn’t concerned” about it. pic.twitter.com/62nutphdRW— Weijia Jiang (@weijia) March 12, 2020 Read the rest

The New York Stock Exchange suspended trading shortly after opening today as markets fell hard and fast over the European travel ban announced last night by President Donald Trump. The Dow Jones fell 1700 points (7%), a drop matched by the S&P 500 and NASDAQ indexes.US stocks sold off sharply for the second straight day after President Donald Trump banned European travel to the United States. Wall Street investors are worried about the scale of the coronavirus pandemic and its economic consequences. ...Trading is halted for 15 minutes when when the index hits first two circuit breakers: a drop of 7% and again when it falls 13%. A circuit breaker can be triggered only once per day, so if the S&P drops 7% upon the re-open, the market doesn't close again.If the index falls 20%, trading is suspended for the rest of the day.Trump announced the 30-day ban on travel from Europe in a televised address to the nation as a response to the coronavirus pandemic, but he seems to have been confused on some of the details and exemptions as described in the formal announcement. Chaos reigns.Let this sink in. During a worldwide pandemic creating ongoing economic shock Trump ACCIDENTALLY ANNOUNCED A BAN OF CARGO SHIPMENTS FROM EUROPE This is an absolute circus.https://t.co/syU1XhJHYf— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) March 12, 2020 Read the rest

Kaci the Homicidal Homemaker made this deliciously sinister cake inspired by the carpet at the Overlook Hotel. [via Marshall Julius]Also, Hellraiser brownies: Read the rest

Spring may not officially start for a few more days in the northern hemisphere, but Microsoft has been getting a jump on spring cleaning in recent weeks. The tech giant has been blowing out truckloads of factory recertified products at big discounts off their regular price, so it’s a great way to bolster your device arsenal while keeping more dollars in your pocket.This time around, Seattle’s own is offering up a true gem, a fully certified Microsoft Surface Pro 4 tablet that’s actually even got enough juice to potentially replace your trusty old laptop. And at $912.99, it’s almost 50 percent off its retail price of $1,699.99.TechRadar just called the Surface Pro 4 an influential device that, despite its elder statesmen status in the Surface family, is still an “excellent device” when placed shoulder-to-shoulder with Microsoft’s latest releases and “a brilliant first choice for creative professionals on the go.”A look at the specs makes that claim understandable, with a powerful 6th gen Intel Core i7 processor that’s more than capable of sizzling through projects even with multiple apps in use.Probably the Surface Pro 4’s most distinctive feature is its crystal clear 12.3-inch PixelSense display offering ultra HD resolution and a super-responsive touch screen that still blows away many newer tablets. Couple that screen with the stereo front-firing speakers and it’s a fabulous alternative for those who love to devour movies and other web content for hours.With a spacious 512GB hard drive and up to 9 hours of battery life, this is a top-quality tablet-laptop hybrid that will have you looking pretty smart, especially if someone knows how much you paid. Read the rest