Boing Boing

A former TSA officer, Johnathon Lomeli (22), has been charged with ordering a woman at LAX to show him her breasts by telling her it was for security reasons, reports the Associated Press. Lomeli is alleged to have asked the woman to pull back the top of her shirt so could he look at her bra, and to pull the waist of her pants from her body. He then allegedly told the woman he had to take her to a private room for additional screening, but when they got into the elevator he told the woman he was going to search her there. The woman said Lomeli told her “to show me your full breasts” and looked down her pants. He then told the woman she had nice breasts and that she was free to go.Image: by U.S. Federal Government - http://www.tsa.gov/index.shtm, Public Domain, Link Read the rest

I like my BMW more than I like most people. This Dowco Guardian motorcycle cover keeps my classic bike looking nearly restored.Loving both the ocean and shiny things can be hard. A lot of work goes into keeping corrosion at bay on my old airhead. Fog and wind bring minute amounts of salt that go after the metal. Harsh temperature changes and direct sun bake the plastic bits. Keeping the bike covered when not in use is the only way to keep it alive.Cheap eBay covers were not doing it for me. I can find a number of $25-45 covers that fit and will last one or maybe two years. The salt and sun also destroy covers. They give at the seams, or holes wear thru around my mirrors. I decided to spend twice as much on a Dowco cover.I got 6 years of service out of the Dowco. It is not dead, but holes have started to appear. I will replace it with the same cover.When I was directly next to the ocean I also used a flip-over cover for a few years. The double layer of insulation helped until high winds would start whipping the shelter about and made me fear for the motorcycle's safety. I may try one again if I can find one small enough to co-exist in a parking space in front of a car.Dowco Guardian 50003-02 WeatherAll Plus Indoor/Outdoor Waterproof Motorcycle Cover via Amazon Read the rest

Ever since reading Gary Fine's Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds, in 1983, I have been keen on the idea of using RPGs as a learning tool, for sandboxing social interactions for the socially challenged, and as a potential therapeutic tool. This idea seems to really be gaining traction during the current D&D/RPG explosion that we are in the midst of.In this article on Kotaku, Cecilia D'Anastasio looks at several therapy groups employing D&D:Adam Davis, co-founder of the Dungeons & Dragons therapy group Wheelhouse Workshop, thinks kids with social issues aren’t being asked the right questions. In a dreary school counselor’s office, it can be hard to engage with “Why aren’t you doing your homework?” and “Have you tried joining clubs?” For Davis, more fruitful lines of inquiry start with “Who has the axe? Is it two-handed? What specialty of wizard to you want to be?”Davis, who runs Wheelhouse Workshop out of an office in a large, brick arts building in Seattle, is used to seeing sides of kids that don’t usually come out in school. He, along with co-founder Adam Johns, designs D&D games that are less like hack-and-slash dungeon-crawls and more like therapy with dragons. In D&D’s Forgotten Realms world, the kids’ psyches run amok.Image Credit: Wizards of the Coast. Read the rest

Actor, comedian, golfer. Bill Murray has style.Bill Murray with the best thing you’ll see today. Just wait for the club flip 😂 pic.twitter.com/eDobeAkyVH— 95.7 The Game (@957thegame) February 9, 2020 Read the rest

Accused professional shoplifter Twanna Trotter, 29, of East St. Louis, Illinois, was allegedly running an online clothing store out of her basement that was stocked with $20,000 in stolen merchandise. On Friday, she was sentenced to four years in the slammer for retail thefts along the Missouri-Illinois border. According to police still investigating the extent of her operation, Trotter used Facebook Live videos to market her hot commodities."I describe it as the QVC of stolen clothes. I mean, she had things set up and things she was planning on selling that day," (said Chesterfield Police Department Sgt. Keith Rider.)From WHNT:Rider said his detectives would actually watch Trotter's Facebook Live sessions to see what she was selling."The products that they observed she was selling we were able to track back to ... retail areas in Chesterfield as well as throughout St. Louis County, and also as far as Osage Beach," he said.Rider said Trotter has a history of arrests in Chesterfield for retail thefts. Rider referred to her as a "professional shoplifter" who treated the crimes as a business.(via FARK)image: @ChesterfieldPD/Twitter Read the rest

The night sky looked like day for a few moments at Colorado's Steamboat Springs Annual Carnival Saturday night with the world's largest firework on record. From The Denver Post:At 7:56 p.m., fireworks expert Tim Borden successfully captured the world record for the largest single firework when the 2,797-pound behemoth illuminated the crowd during the Night Extravaganza at the annual Steamboat Springs Winter Carnival.The 62-inch shell was launched from a 26-foot long mortar from atop Howelsen Hill, reaching nearly a mile in the air when it detonated, putting on quite the show. Read the rest

Flashpoint, by BlueMaxima, is a game launcher that comes with more than 30,000 flash games built-in to a single download. As getting Adobe Flash working moves from "troublesome" to "virtually impossible", it's a timely feat of internet preservation. Internet history is important, and content made on platforms such as Adobe Flash make up a significant portion of that culture doomed to obscurity. This project is dedicated to preserving as many games and animations from these platforms as possible, so that they aren't lost to time. Since early 2018, over a hundred contributors have helped Flashpoint save more than 38,000 games and 2,400 animations running on 13 different platforms."So much culture saved from the jaws of death," writes Bennett Foddy. Read the rest

College students have been majoring in cannabis for decades, but it's finally legit at Colorado State University-Pueblo. On Friday, the Colorado Department of Higher Education approved a new bachelor of science degree program in Cannabis Biology and Chemistry to launch in the fall. From CNN:Graduates could begin careers either in the cannabis and hemp industries or in the government. But they could also be competitive in a "wide variety of businesses outside of the cannabis industry," (the program proposal) said, such as agriculture, food science, biochemistry and environmental sciences."Educating students who are capable of understanding cannabis science is required for the industry in all its aspects to be effective and safe for the consumer," it said...CSU-Pueblo's program will not be the first of its kind. Its proposal cited Northern Michigan University's bachelor program in medicinal plant chemistry that it said was "primarily tailored to those wanting to enter the cannabis field." Read the rest

The new Motorola Razr looks like a perfect wedding of old and new: a cutting-edge (and very expensive) foldable smartphone reviving the sleek flip-phone designs of a more civilized age. The clever hinge even avoids creasing the display, a problem with other first-gen foldables. Alas, it's not very good, reports Joshua Topolsky.The prevailing reason I could see for having a phone that folds in half in this way is that it makes the phone smaller and easier to carry. That's nice, but a somewhat inessential problem for most people. Furthermore, the folding nature of the device and difficulty of opening it quickly and with a single hand made some things I normally do with my phone more difficult. To quickly reply to a message took more time. Glancing at Twitter became a two-handed affair. Taking a picture of something besides my own face couldn't be done single-handedly.CNET's Patrick Holland has concerns.Is the Razr durable? This one's tricky. Motorola released a video on how to care for the Razr that claims the "screen is made to bend; bumps and lumps are normal." I haven't encountered any bumps or lumps on the screen, but bumps and lumps are not normal. If you have a bump or lump on your body you should see a doctor.What could be a better example of show-off feature that will be obsolete if not broken in months than a rumply bumpy foldable phone screen? Read the rest

The incredible museum exhibition David Bowie Is included a list of 100 books that were not necessarily his favorites but rather those that influenced him the most. Author John O'Connell used that list as the basis of his own book, Bowie's Bookshelf: The Hundred Books that Changed David Bowie's Life, containing plot summaries, analysis, and his thoughts on how each text connects to Bowie. From John Quin's review at The Quietus:O’Connell rightly reminds us that Bowie was a Mod and that his literary taste was consistently modernist: Camus, Eliot, Lawrence and Kerouac all feature here amongst others....There are plenty of surprises here such as his love for true crime classics like Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood and travel narratives such as Bruce Chatwin’s The Songlines. We learn more about Bowie’s friendships with writers like Hanif Kureishi and William Boyd. It’s also good to be reminded that Bowie loved a laugh and rated Keith Waterhouse. Humour features strongly with Viz, Private Eye, and Spike Milligan’s Puckoon all making the cut...The singer’s Berlin years, the time of Low and ‘Heroes’, are linked with the inclusion of Berlin, Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin with its lowlife nightclubbing. There’s pleasure too in hearing that Bowie liked the revival of forgotten classics such as John Kennedy Toole’s wonderful A Confederacy of Dunces. And Bowie’s interest in modern art is underlined by the inclusion of Richard Cork’s book on David Bomberg and Arthur C. Danto’s thinking on Warhol in Beyond the Brillo box: The Visual Arts in Post-Historical Perspective. Read the rest

New York City is terribly cold in the winter, which doesn't exactly make it great weather for a picnic. But that's not stopping Shadow Traffic, a Brooklyn-based group of amusement makers that's putting on their second Competitive Winter Picnicking event.They write:Get your foodies, your burners, your hippies and ravers, your demonic worshippers, your builders and crafters, your grillers and bakers, your winter mamas and cuddly papas, your comicconners and renfair freaks and Picnic On! This year's picnic starts at noon on March 1 at Brooklyn's Fort Greene Park. RSVP now.Oh yeah, there are prizes to be won, for: Richest Picnic Meal, Tastiest Picnic Drink, Funnest Picnic Game, and/or Tightest Thematic Team ("Judges are bribeable"). photos by Walter Wlodarczyk/Shadow Traffic, used with permission Read the rest

The replacement of Lamp Cat's jaunty YouTube Music Library track with Era Ameno turns a stupid feline warming its head under a lightbulb into the seraphim Baraqiel, its ceaseless gaze bearing the eternal fire of God's light. Read the rest

Facebook is designed to make you anxious, depressed and dissatisfied, three states of mind that make you more vulnerable to advertising and other forms of behavioral manipulation. Small wonder, then, that people who quit using Facebook report higher levels of life satisfaction and lower levels of depression and anxiety [pdf]. Bloomberg's article about the study is a few months old but one that should be revisited regularly between now and November.People who deactivated Facebook as part of the experiment were happier afterward, reporting higher levels of life satisfaction and lower levels of depression and anxiety. The change was modest but significant — equal to about 25 to 40 percent of the beneficial effect typically reported for psychotherapy.Why are people willing to pay so much money for something that reduces their happiness? One possibility is that social media acts like an addictive drug — in fact, the people Allcott et al. paid to deactivate Facebook ended up using it less after the experiment was over. But another possibility is that people use services like Facebook because they’re compelled by motivations other than the pursuit of happiness. Read the rest

Isotope geochemist John Andrew Higgins asks a question, and answers it: "What does a 9 inch ice core sound like when dropped down a 450 foot hole? Like this!"What does a 9 inch ice core sound like when dropped down a 450 foot hole? Like this! Credit to @peter_neff for the idea and @Scripps_Polar, @sciencejenna, @GeosciencesPU, @US_IceDrilling, and @paleosurface for the execution! pic.twitter.com/pW7LxKdbUB— John Andrew Higgins (@blueicehiggins) February 7, 2020It reminded me of the sound of skating on thin ice. Here's another video explaining exactly what you're hearing:Here’s the story on this crazy sound (V1), plus the basic science @blueicehiggins, myself, & others do studying past climate with #Antarctic ice cores. 🇦🇶🧊❄️ pic.twitter.com/QAtjcxXXGh— Peter Neff (@peter_neff) February 8, 2020 Read the rest

The Rock-afire Explosion was a pre-cursor to the Chuck E. Cheese band that was originally created by Aaron Fechter, when the chain was still called ShowBiz Pizza Palace. In 2008, Fechter tried to revive the group as a YouTube cover band of sorts, and the results were…well, as you can see.Image: Ray or Jane Schumin / Wikimedia Commons (CC 3.0) Read the rest

This video depicts a cat comtemplating at considerable length whether to bop a dog on the head. Read the rest

A couple weeks back, I posted about the the Nepal government's new tourism campaign featuring 100 huge yeti statues designed by Ang Tsherin Sherpa to be painted by various artists and placed around Nepal and elsewhere. A delightful idea but as you can see in the video above from January 29, many people were unhappy with how their beloved yeti was depicted. As a result, the government has removed the existing statues and ended the yeti campaign. From Daijiworld:Some people complained that the mascot looked like a Japanese sumo wrestler and others believed that the statues represented Hindu and Buddhist deities.Some people even started praying in front of the statues that had religious pictures or symbols painted onto them. Pictures of women and children worshiping the mascot went viral on social media.The statue placed at the Basantapur Durbar Square had an image of goddess Kumari painted on its forehead and back. The deity is worshiped by Hindus as well as Buddhists."The yeti is a mystical beast (and) this (the statues) has damaged the religious feelings of the people," Ganapati Lal Shrestha, a heritage activist, told Efe news.(image: Visit Nepal 2020 news release) Read the rest

Most Western music is based on a twelve-tone octave with the smallest interval being a half step (or half tone, or "semitone") up or down. Microtonal music contains intervals smaller than a semitone. (Imagine playing notes between the keys on a traditional piano.) You can hear microtonal music compositions in the work of modernist and experimental composers, from Charles Ives and Claude Debussy to Wendy Carlos and Aphex Twin. Tolgahan CoÄŸulu is a Turkish musician known for designing an adjustable microtonal guitar and performing unique arrangements of Anatolian folk music and Ottoman maqam music. Most recently though, he took a cue from his young son and built a fantastic microtonal guitar from LEGO! Read the rest

Only 5 women have ever been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director — and only one of those nominations happened in the past decade.So this year, Natalie Portman decided to make a point. She wore a Dior-designed cape to the award show that was embroidered with the names of the women who were snubbed for Best Director nominations, including Lorene Scafaria (Hustlers); Greta Gerwig (Little Women); Lulu Wang (The Farewell); Melina Matsoukas (Queen & Slim); Alma Har'el (Honey Boy); and Céline Sciamma (Portrait of a Lady on Fire).As Portman explained to the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted to recognize the women who were not recognized for their incredible work this year in my subtle way."Natalie Portman embroidered her Dior cape with all of the female directors who weren't nominated for #Oscars. Check out her explanation here. pic.twitter.com/kyyo2wVMZf— Amy Kaufman (@AmyKinLA) February 10, 2020I don't normally pay much attention to the Oscars, in part because I know that it's always going to be a disappointing Old Boys Club showing of the exact same kinds of movies every time. And, well, that's exactly what Portman's pointing out here. There are plenty of cynical things I could say about celebrity gossip and performative protest and all. But right now, I think it's just important: fuck yeah Natalie. Good on you. Here's hoping that it makes even a little bit of difference.Image: Gage Skidmore (CC 2.0) Read the rest

We’re going to let you in on a little secret: You don’t need to dish out hundreds of dollars on a professional designer or spend an exorbitant amount of time learning the Adobe Suite in order to get pro-level designs for your company or project—regardless of whether you’re trying to build a website or create a viral video for your latest and greatest product.PixTeller PRO makes it easy to create your own engaging images and animated videos without any previous experience in design, and a 3-year subscription is available for over 80% off.This subscription grants you unlimited access to 134,000 templates, 1.5 million photos, and over 100,000 shapes with no red tape or royalty fees to worry about.You’ll be able to create and customize images for use on everything from websites and social media to print and YouTube, and it’s easy to quickly find what you’re looking for thanks to powerful search functions.It’s also easy to quickly customize your images and videos in order to match your brand’s unique style and message.Stop overpaying for professional designers and video producers and sign up for a 3-year subscription with PixTeller PRO for just $49.99. Read the rest

Why DO outhouses classically have crescent moons on their doors or their sides? Is is an ancient hold-over from when boys outhouses had suns on them and girls had moons? Is it a decorative way of bringing in ventilation and light? Is it an allusion to "mooning?" A cut-out to act as a handle for opening the door? Hah. The answer is far less interesting than any of that. But hey, did you hear about the time that a fart ended up getting 10,000 people killed?Image: YouTube Read the rest

To promote the new season of her show, the British comedy Sex Education (now streaming on Netflix), Gillian Anderson does a nearly four minute ASMR video. In her character of Dr. Jean Milburn, Anderson purrs and whispers, scratches and tickles the mics, open, pours, and sips wine, and does a number of other classic "braingasm" audio tricks. For X-Files fans and nerdy boys n' girls who've crushed on Anderson for decades, it might all be too much. Image: YouTube Read the rest

If you’re getting into home repair, woodworking or a whole bunch of those DIY dude-approved pastimes, you’ll soon find that the need to assemble a vast array of power tools can quickly turn into a mild addiction...and an expensive one at that.In most cases, each hyper-specialized tool can set you back $100, $200, $500 — or more. And once you’ve amassed this armada of tool power, you’ve still got to find space to house it all.The folks at Power8 decided to address that issue with the Create+, an award-winning, multi-function power tool kit that could best be described as what might happen if your favorite workbench got with a Transformer.Billed as the world’s smallest combo tool kit (clocking in at 2 feet x1.5 feet and less than a foot high), this space-saving collection uses its clever Unigrip system to handle a wide range of power tool needs from a handful of customized power batteries and tool heads.From its base configurations, your hammer drill, circular saw and orbital jigsaw Voltron up with the included bench-top to become a drill press, table saw and scroll saw. Heck, even your hands-free work light morphs into a lantern for smoother, more consistent lighting as you work.Everything here is multi-purpose, which streamlines your need for more tools while also clearing a whole bunch of room in your workspace.You can check out the feeling of owning a fully-stocked workshop with this eight-function garage helper, now $50 off its regular price, down to just $499. Read the rest

A huge collection of flora and fauna illustrations have just entered the public domain. Hyperalleric writes: Had he lived in our time, Thoreau would’ve been thrilled to know that the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), the world’s largest open-access digital archive dedicated to the natural world, is now offering more than 150,000 high-resolution illustrations for copyright-free download.These public domain images belong to an archive of more than 55 million pages of literature about earth’s species of flora and fauna. They include animal sketches, historical diagrams, botanical studies, and scientific research collected from hundreds of thousands of journals and libraries across the world. Some of the illustrations date back to the 15th century.The library sees the sharing of these documents as part of combating the climate crisis:“To document Earth’s species and understand the complexities of swiftly-changing ecosystems in the midst of a major extinction crisis and widespread climate change, researchers need something that no single library can provide — access to the world’s collective knowledge about biodiversity,” the library says on its website. Read the rest

Etsy has made it easier than ever to sell homemade crafts and vintage goods directly to your target demographic with practically zero overhead. With a community and vibe that’s similar to eBay, Etsy should be on your radar if you’re interested in earning either a passive or full-time income selling everything from artwork to artisan goods online, and here’s why:First, Etsy lets you organize your entire business and track sales online, through a series of tools that allow you to download customized inserts, create promotional materials with your logo on them, and more.Second, Etsy offers a distinct community of customers who are most likely to buy your hand-made and artisan products (as opposed to sites like eBay that sell virtually every type of object on the planet).Third, you’ll have access to a comprehensive eCommerce platform that will cut costs and allow you to focus more on keeping your customers happy.Fourth, Etsy makes it easy to set up an account and start reaching potential customers right away—as opposed to sites that force you to find individual customers through a series of obnoxious messages.Finally, the fees for setting up an account and selling your products are minuscule when compared to most online vendors—ranging from just 50 cents to 75 cents per item depending on size and category.If you’re interested in making money with your creative endeavors online with Etsy, check out the Launch Your Etsy Store: 3-Course Bundle, which offers a comprehensive overview of everything this platform has to offer—through instruction that teaches you how to set up an account, launch your store, market your products to your key demographic, and much more. Read the rest

While presenting the Oscar for live-action short film in 1988, Pee-wee Herman is interrupted by "giant robot mechanical monster," aka ED-209 from the 1987 film RoboCop. Then things get weird... in a good way. Just watch:(Pee-wee Herman) Read the rest

NASA is reporting on their Voyager Twitter feed that the Voyager 2 spacecraft is once again operational.Here's the skinny: My twin went to do a roll to calibrate the onboard magnetometer, overdrew power and tripped software designed to automatically protect the spacecraft.Voyager 2's power state is good and instruments are back on. Resuming science soon. https://t.co/4buDM32bap pic.twitter.com/4T856Lpxjm— NASA Voyager (@NASAVoyager) January 29, 2020Good vibes! Voyager 2 continues to be stable, and communications between Earth and the spacecraft are fine.My twin is back to taking science data, and the team at @NASAJPL is evaluating the health of the instruments following their brief shutoff. https://t.co/LmsWQ7wPat pic.twitter.com/xyhM1G8sTD— NASA Voyager (@NASAVoyager) February 6, 2020Kind of astonishing that 70s space tech that is 11.5 billion miles away from home is still talking to us. The Voyager 2 ran into trouble in late January and became unresponsive.Read more on JPL's website.Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Read the rest

MetalBallStudios, a YouTube channel that does 3D-rendered, animated size comparisons, has a new video comparing the sizes of buildings and other structures found in science fiction and fantasy media.Image: YouTube Read the rest

It should come as no surprise that videography professionals and digital marketing gurus are in high-demand these days, thanks to their ability to create content that promotes virtually every product and brand you see online.If you’re even remotely interested in joining this lucrative field, the Videography Editing & Marketing Certification Bundle will teach you about the latest methods, platforms, and techniques—all for $45.With 10 courses and over 300 lessons, this in-depth bundle will help you land a high-paying career in videography, regardless of whether you’re interested in working full-time or as a part-time freelancer.There’s a course that will teach you how to take advantage of iMovie’s most powerful editing tools, a course that walks you through how to use Adobe Spark in order to create presentations and social media content, a course that centers around webcam videography, and a course that teaches you how to professionally edit your content in order to make it pop in any digital medium online.You’ll also have unlimited access to content that focusses on color gradients and contrast, visual effects, and how to make the most of Facebook advertising campaigns that will help you gain exposure and increase the likelihood that your content goes viral.Start down the path toward becoming a professional videographer and content-creator with the Videography Editing & Marketing Certification Bundle while it’s available for over 95% off MSRP. Read the rest

"It's not uncommon to find black bears in the county. But to find bear cubs in a cardboard box in your property, wrapped up in sweatshirts to keep them warm, yeah, that's pretty strange." That's what North Carolina Sheriff Kevin Jones told CNN after his office got a call about a box of "puppies" from a man who discovered them on his front lawn last month.From the article:The North Carolina sheriff's office explained that they had responded to a man's call last month, who told them that someone left the puppies outside his house. The man explained he was gone for just a short amount time and the animals were there when he returned, the sheriff's office said.Sheriff Jones said the person who dropped off the cubs probably stumbled across them, put them in a box and simply left them at the man's house when they realized they couldn't keep them.The cubs were taken by the North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission, and will be released back into the wild when they are older.Image: Camden County Sheriff's Office Read the rest

⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩ returns to the White House from Charlotte, North Carolina. Photo by William Moon at the South Lawn of the White House on February 7, 2020 pic.twitter.com/n1a1Z93LrJ— White House Photos (@photowhitehouse) February 7, 2020This [possibly edited] photo of Trump is trending. But why? Is it his luxuriant swept back hair? His coy over-the-shoulder invitation to join him in a frolicsome adventure? The lush greenery of the White House south lawn? Please submit your best guess in the comments.Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash Read the rest

From the excellent "Two Minute Papers" YouTube channel, a discussion of a paper titled "DeepRemaster: Temporal Source-Reference Attention Networks for Comprehensive Video Enhancement," that demonstrates the results of a neural network that fixes and colorizes aged, blurry, scratchy films. Read the rest

Would you just look at the $295 Seletti Banana Lamp [Bergdorf Goodman]. Read the rest

Bill Nye struts his stuff for charity.please tell me what designer had bill nye walking im crying pic.twitter.com/3ZSyCxcBNv— big t (@miuyorker) February 7, 2020 Read the rest

Antarctica's hottest temperature ever was recorded this past Thursday: 65 degrees Fahrenheit, or 18.3 degrees Celsius.That is not good.Not good at all.#Antártida | Nuevo récord de temperaturas 🌡️Este mediodía la Base #Esperanza registró un nuevo récord histórico (desde 1961) de temperatura, con 18,3°C. Con este valor se supera el récord anterior de 17,5°C del 24 en marzo de 2015. Y no fue el único récord... pic.twitter.com/rhKsPFytCb— SMN Argentina (@SMN_Argentina) February 6, 2020Scientists took the measurement at a remote station on the continent's Northern tip: nearly 65 degrees Fahrenheit (18.3 Celsius) at Argentina's Esperanza research station.The climate crisis is real, and it affects every living thing on the planet.The Argentine research base Esperanza, on the northern tip of #Antarctic Peninsula, saw a new record temperature of 18.3°C today (old one 17.5°C on 24 March 2015), per @SMN_Argentina. Details of previous record at https://t.co/19Un83mmHn#ClimateChange pic.twitter.com/ZKvzr765Am— WMO | OMM (@WMO) February 6, 202018.3°C! - new highest temperature recorded for continental #Antarctica, yesterday at Esperanza Base, the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, 63°23′S; previous record was 17.5°C in 2015 also at Esperanza @SMN_Argentina; records began at the station in 1961, pic Nestor Franco pic.twitter.com/1qhbv0rDQj— The Antarctic Report (@AntarcticReport) February 7, 2020Antarctica recorded its hottest temperature ever on Thursday: 65 degrees Fahrenheit (18.3 degrees Celsius) https://t.co/Rq8KAFMfCd pic.twitter.com/h5AZNqxLga— Reuters (@Reuters) February 8, 202018,3°C in Antarctica. https://t.co/0VOSdLzXTy— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) February 7, 2020[IMAGE: Left, Adélie penguins in Antarctica photographed by Jason Auch via Wikipedia, CC BY 2.0 Read the rest

On Saturday, February 8, the United States Embassy in Beijing confirmed that a 60-year-old American national died of the new coronavirus last Thursday at Jinyintian Hospital in the Chinese city of Wuhan. A U.S. State Department spokesperson says this is the first known American death from Novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV.The Chinese government today offered condolences for the death of "a Chinese-American."Also on Saturday, a Japanese national suspected of being infected with the new coronavirus died in Wuhan.The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak rose to 700 in mainland China, with the death of a 60-year-old American man marking the first confirmed non-Chinese death from the illness https://t.co/nSF3SoNSAH pic.twitter.com/9n9P5Pss5V— Reuters (@Reuters) February 8, 2020More recent Boing Boing posts about the outbreak, which has claimed more than 700 lives, mostly in China:• Coronavirus exposes China's surveillance state• China blocks Apple supplier Foxconn from restarting factories as outbreak spreadsPHOTO: From China's Communist government's propaganda outlet, China Daily."Zhang Jixian, a respiratory physician from Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese & Western Medicine, wears protective gear before treating novel coronavirus patients at isolation wards, in Wuhan, Hubei province, on Jan 30, 2020." [Photo by Yuan Zheng/China Daily] • China mourns Li Wenliang, the Wuhan whistleblower doctor who warned of coronavirus outbreak Read the rest

A soldier in northeast Thailand has killed 'at least' 10 people in a mass shooting, Thai authorities say. Police said the suspect is still at large, at the time of this blog post. Before and during the rampage shooting, it appears the suspected gunman was posting on Facebook. On Saturday, Facebook says the account of the suspect has been removed, and the social media company says it will remove any content related to the attack that violates its policies.“Our hearts go out to the victims, their families and the community affected by this tragedy in Thailand. There is no place on Facebook for people who commit this kind of atrocity, nor do we allow people to praise or support this attack,” a Facebook rep said in a statement sent to news reporters on Saturday, as news of the mass shooting in Thailand spread online.“We have removed the gunman’s accounts from our services and will work around the clock to remove any violating content related to this attack as soon as we become aware of it.” [More at Reuters] Read the rest

The so-called Wuhan Coronavirus has killed more than 700 people, mostly in Mainland China, and the outbreak continues to spread with new cases on new continents. In China, Novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV is also exposing the surveillance state -- apps show locations of the infected, heat-sensing cameras spot feverish disease suspects, and identify them even with ubiquitous paper face masks on.From a Reuters story about a man who ignored the quarantine rules and “not only did the police contact him, so did his boss -- He had been spotted near Hangzhou’s West Lake by a camera with facial recognition technology, and the authorities had alerted his company as a warning.”“I was a bit shocked by the ability and efficiency of the mass surveillance network. They can basically trace our movements with the AI technology and big data at any time and any place,” said the man, who asked not to be identified for fear of repercussions.Chinese have long been aware that they are tracked by the world’s most sophisticated system of electronic surveillance. The coronavirus emergency has brought some of that technology out of the shadows, providing the authorities with a justification for sweeping methods of high tech social control.Artificial intelligence and security camera companies boast that their systems can scan the streets for people with even low-grade fevers, recognize their faces even if they are wearing masks and report them to the authorities. If a coronavirus patient boards a train, the railway’s “real name” system can provide a list of people sitting nearby. Read the rest

Japan's Nikkei business daily reported on Saturday that Chinese authorities have blocked a plan by Apple supplier Foxconn to resume production at China factories on Monday, as Novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV continues to spread. In mainland China, 86 more people died of the virus on Saturday, according to authorities, bringing the official number of dead to 722. From Reuters:Public health experts carried out inspections at Foxconn’s factories in the southern city of Shenzhen and told the company that its factories had a “high risk of coronavirus infection”, making them unsuitable for a production restart, the newspaper said, citing four people familiar with the matter without identifying them.Taiwan’s Foxconn, which makes smartphones for global vendors including Apple, will also not see one of its key iPhone plants based in the central city of Zhengzhou restart work on Monday, the report added.Foxconn could see a “big” production impact and shipments to customers including Apple face disruption if a Chinese factory halt due to the coronavirus outbreak extends into a second week, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters earlier this week.“Foxconn did not immediately respond to a request for comment,” the reporters add.The first American death was reported today, also, and the coronavirus is now in France.Read more:China blocks Foxconn plan to restart factories over virus worries: Nikkei[reuters.com]PREVIOUSLY AT BOING BOING:China virus outbreak may impact Apple iPhone if China extends Foxconn factory halt Read the rest

New car commercials do an excellent job of making you feel like your car is obsolete. And you bought your car in 2013. That may be a little dramatic, but it seems like every year car companies are adding fascinating, convenient new features and gadgets to their models that fully demonstrate that the future has arrived. Of course, you don't have to buy a new car to upgrade your current model. These cool gadgets can make you feel like you're driving a Cyber Truck without breaking the bank.CamerasFenSens Smart Wireless Solar Powered Backup CameraMSRP: $199Sale Price: $159 (20% off)Most new car models have backup cameras built-in to help you parallel park. If you don't have one, this backup camera is the next best thing. It clips on the back of your car and syncs with your smartphone so you can see what's behind you in real-time. myGEKOgear Orbit 530 1296p W-Fi Dashcam with Sony Night Vision SensorMSRP: $149.99Sale Price: $109.99 (26% off)You never know when you might need an expert witness, and this dashcam can be a lifeline. With night vision and a 150º wide-angle lens that eliminates many blindspots, this camera records in 1296p HD so you always have a crystal clear recording of what happened in a crash. myGEKOgear Orbit 110 Full HD DashcamMSRP: $99.99Sale Price: $49.99 (50% off)This dashcam stays stabilized to record a smooth 1080p HD video on the road with a 120º wide shooting angle. Read the rest

You don’t need to be a professional athlete in order to understand just how obnoxious sore muscles can be. Whether you spend too much time sitting in a chair at work or your intramural baseball league as finally taken its toll on your shoulders, having sore and overworked muscles can put a serious damper on your mood.The PowerDot 2.0 Smart Muscle Stimulator will help you recover from uncomfortable muscle pain and improve your overall muscle performance, and it’s on sale for 15% off its usual price.This kit comes with two pods and over 12 smart electric muscle stimulation programs for maximum recovery and comfort.Proprietary symmetrical biphasic waveforms deliver powerful yet pain-free muscle contraction, and magnetic snaps allow you to start stimulating your muscles 3x faster than competing brands.These comfortable pods are also compact and light enough to take with you on the go without worry.Keep your mind and body happy with a PowerDot 2.0 Smart Muscle Stimulator for just $296—15% off MSRP. Save an additional $17 off with code POWERDOTTWO17 for a limited time only. Read the rest

My guest this week on the Cool Tools Podcast is Meeno Peluce. Meeno grew up as a successful child actor in Hollywood, and his kid sister is Soleil Moon Frye of Punky Brewster fame. He then moved behind the camera and has spent his life photographing and filming the world around him, from the burning ghats in Varanasi to the luminous landscapes of Tinseltown. He’s a proud Papa and ask him his profession, and he’ll tell you he’s a Meeno, and all that might entail. He gave himself the name when he was two in Nepal. It’s been an adventure of individualism and a constant search for personal experience ever since. You can find him on Instagram @meeno_the_man.See show notes here Read the rest

According to a piece in The Telegraph, the UK's Ministry of Defence has announced plans to make available online over 50 years of UFO sightings reported to the RAF.The RAF discontinued its UFO reporting program in 2009 after claiming that nothing reported during the five decades of the program posed any sort of threat. UFO sightings are now reported to local police.The reports are said to be scheduled to show up online (on a dedicated gov.uk web page) sometime during the first part of 2020.Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash Read the rest

Geeks Worldwide is reporting that Mad Max director, George Miller, has resolved his legal issues with Warner Bros. which were holding him back from filming the follow-up to Mad Max: Fury Road. The GWW piece claims that Miller will begin filming in Australia in the fall. No word yet on theme or who might already be signed on to the project.Image: George Miller by Jasin Boland CC Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International Read the rest

Well-known YouTube makers, Evan and Katelyn, take on their weirdest project yet. They use some thermochromic liquid crystal ink left-over from another project to turn a toilet seat into a butt-sized mood ring.Image: YouTube screengrab. Read the rest

Last week, charter fishing boat captain David Stokes was fishing off the Daytona Beach coast when he reeled in a capsule door and two parachutes that were part of a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. On January 19, SpaceX conducted a successful in-flight abort test of their Crew Dragon that involved exploding the Falcon 9 rocket and releasing the capsule to carry the crew to safety. From UPI:Stokes said he has attempted to contact SpaceX and tagged Elon Musk in a tweet about the discovery in the hopes of bringing it to their attention."I'd like for SpaceX to come check it out to see what they think about it ... any damage to it," Stokes told WKMG-TV. "It would also be awesome to have Elon Musk autograph it." Read the rest

Florida Man strikes again. The dog is okay and is being cared for while his owner is booked into jail.In Hillsborough County, Florida, the Sheriff’s Office says a gentleman named Logan Wilson admitted to shoplifting $259 worth of items from Bass Pro Shops. Deputies say he was arrested during a traffic stop after he was seen departing the store with stolen goods.According to a Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office Facebook post, volunteers there will take care of him until his owner bonds out of jail, but the shelter’s website has the puppy listed as “pre-adoptable.”PHOTO: Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. THE CUTEST ACCOMPLICE: The owner of this small puppy was caught shoplifting at an area Bass Pro Shops with the puppy in hand! 🐾Our District 5 Street Crimes Unit arrested the person for Petit Theft and possession of meth. #TeamHCSO deputies took great care of the puppy before handing him over to Hillsborough County Animal Services who will care for him until his owner is released from jail.More:Canine accomplice taken into custody during shoplifting arrest [wtsp.com] Read the rest

A sheriff in suburban Detroit was not fooled by a suspicious gentleman driving what appeared to be a police car.[NARRATOR: It was not a police car.]Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard told reporters he was driving away from a meeting Thursday, and saw a vehicle with police-style bumpers, various lights on the rear end, and an “emergency response” decal.Sheriff Bouchard hit the emergency light switch on his car, and stopped the weird vehicle, which also had a fake radar on the dashboard and a 'police' computer.And he found a loaded .45 glock and a large Bowie knife.“He looks at me and says, ‘Who are you?’ And I said, ‘I’m the sheriff. Who are you?’” Bouchard told Detroit, Michigan news channel WDIV-TV.More:‘I’m the sheriff. Who are you?’: Mike Bouchard pulls over man posing as a cop[clickondetroit.com]Read more at the Associated Press:‘I’m the sheriff’: Detroit-area lawman stops phony cop car Read the rest

• NY lawsuit vs. Trump to challenge federal ban on New Yorkers from enrolling in programs that allow travelers to skip ahead at airport security linesBREAKING NEWS: Don't fuck with New York. New York is suing the Trump Administration because Trump just blocked state residents from enrolling in the Global Entry.Trump's Department of Homeland Security toadies announced on Wednesday that DHS was going to start blocking anyone who claims residency in New York from participating in Trusted Traveler Programs, which includes Global Entry.These programs function as ways to reduce the burden of security theater on individual travelers through screening and enrollment.Time and time again President Trump has gone out of his way to punish New York and other blue states for refusing to fall in line with their dangerous and divisive agenda.New York will sue over @DHSGov's decision to ban New Yorkers from the Trusted Traveler Program. https://t.co/D6Yy4dWRdH— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) February 7, 2020“We’re going to disclose this political intrusion into government, this ham-handed political tactic, that once again hurts New Yorkers to make their political point,” New York's Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo said at a Manhattan news conference on Friday.From the New York Times:The decision was a response to a recent New York law that lets undocumented immigrants who live in the state obtain driver’s licenses. The statute, known as the green light law, also prohibits federal immigration officials from gaining access to Department of Motor Vehicles databases without a court order. Read the rest

• Online tributes and expressions of grief for doctor who tried to sound alarm on NCoVOnline in China, where Novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV has now killed at least 630 as of today, one death seems to have affected the entire country profoundly.Li Wenliang was a medical doctor and a whistleblower who was reprimanded by authorities for warning of a fast-escalating and deadly outbreak of a strange new virus. He died yesterday, of the virus he warned others about. Hundreds have died, and yet this is the fatality that is shaking China. https://t.co/5gMrjoTCTg— Carlos Tejada (@CRTejada) February 7, 2020The tributes and memorials are -- wow. Wow. Wow.This one, below? the person in the snow? It says “Farewell Li Wenliang.”Their body forms an exclamation point.#FoundOnWeChat Shared from Weibo~ pic.twitter.com/brVw7U3PWf— RF Parsley (@sanverde) February 7, 2020Here are a few more, from China-based photojournalists, reporters, and others. Can’t confirm, but this is supposed to be the salute given to Li Wenliang tonight in Wuhan. If it’s real, it’s incredible. The physical version of what’s been happening on the Chinese Internet for the past 24 hours. https://t.co/I68qdqUtgs— Paul Mozur 孟建国 (@paulmozur) February 7, 2020Latest censored on Weibo:"Tonight, let me blow the whistle for Wuhan."This is an online call for people in Wuhan, Hubei and the rest of the world to mourn Li Wenliang's death & pay tribute8:55-9:00 Light off 9:00-9:05 Shine flashlight out the window & blow the whistle pic.twitter.com/gJHI8vSAHM— Nectar Gan (@Nectar_Gan) February 7, 2020In Hong Kong too, people are paying their respects and mourning the death of Dr Li Wenliang, who tried to alert China to the coronavirus but was reprimanded for it. Read the rest