Tuesday, 30 June 2020

'Bar Lives Matter' concert promoted by Texas bar owner to protest coronavirus restrictions

The coronavirus is thrilled to learn that a bar owner in Texas is organizing a 'Bar Lives Matter' concert to protest the state's restrictions to slow the COVID-19 outbreak.

It's pretty nuts in Texas, where coronavirus infections and deaths are accelerating.

There was apparently an organized protest by other bar owners today at the Texas Capitol.

From The Hill:

A Texas bar owner who is one of several currently suing Gov. Greg Abbott (R) over reimposed restrictions on bars organized a “Bar Lives Matter” concert and protest Sunday.

Tee Allen Parker, owner of The Machine Shed Bar & Grill in Kilgore, about two hours southeast of Dallas, hosted the gathering outside the bar Sunday. A second protest is planned on the steps of the capitol in Austin Tuesday, according to KLTV, a local ABC affiliate.

“You can’t tell me that my tiny little bar is the problem. He’s the problem,” Parker, who is one of multiple Texas bar owners who have banned the wearing of masks in their establishments, said of Abbott in an interview with The Washington Post. “He’s targeting us, and it’s discrimination.”

Jared Woodfill, a Houston attorney representing Parker and 21 other plaintiffs, said Abbott's order illegally bypasses the legislative process and unfairly singles out bars while allowing businesses like barber shops and hair salons to continue operating.

Read related news at The Washington Post:
‘We’re not the problem’: Texas bar owners sue over governor’s shutdown order

And KLTV, an East Texas news channel:
East Texas bar holds protest against governor’s shutdown



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Review / Among Trees

Among Trees is an exploration game set in woods abundant with life and light. The environment is so charming and mysterious it seems like a dream. Leaves tremble in the pink glow of dawn. Shadows crawl from the setting sun. Rabbits and deer prance in the mist. In early access, FJRD Interactive's first release is nonetheless yet to gain a narrative or meaningful goals. It's just a woman waking in the woods, chancing upon a ramshackle hut, and deciding to make a home of it.

The game's aesthetic is striking and fully realized. It plays well too, with an uncluttered UI for interaction and inventory management. It's like The Long Dark, but with the bleak, hardscrabble environment replaced by Arcadia's warm glow.

You can gather plants and materials, upgrade your dwelling with workshops, a kitchen and a greenhouse, and make some useful stuff. Item requirements are funny—do you have enough mulberries to make a map, enough dogsbane to make a backpack?—but it's all under active development. Trees creak and topple under the axe. Fishes strain on the line. Bees swarm when you steal their honey. Bears are the game's only dangerous fauna and will tear you up if you stray too close. Finding blueprints for the most useful items, scattered at random in debris fields and caverns, are the most interesting challenge.

The survival mechanisms are mild yet relentless, wedding a layer of nagging anxiety to fast-moving cycles of night and day. Five minutes in the wilds and the word STARVING flashes on-screen. Hunger and fatigue feel more like running out of oxygen than energy, sending me racing the sunset home. If were starting over, I'd either stick to the zen/easy mode that promises to mute these pressures entirely or dial it to survival mode and make them the whole point.

Among Woods is a gorgeous trip to a calm place deep in the woods, well-worth an early investment to anyone taken with its splendid looks. But be aware that its routines of exploration and creation are are as yet bare bone, with scarce meat to be found.



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Every tool box needs a pair of screw removal pliers

A screw with a stripped head can be difficult to remove.

There are a number of ways to remove screws with stripped heads. Lifehacker has a nice article on this subject.

My favorite method of removing a stuck/stripped screw is with a pair of screw removal pliers. They bite into the exposed sides of the screw head and you can twist the screw loose, then finish the job with a screwdriver. It's also a nice brute-force workaround for tamper-proof screw heads. This is the kind of tool you want to have in your toolbox now, instead of having to run out and buy one when it's needed.

If the screw is really stuck, you risk breaking the head off the screw. If that happens, all is not lost. You can try to drill a small hole into the center of the screw shaft and pull out the screw with a screw extractor.



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In a panic over fleeing advertisers, Facebook launches PR blitz to announce it is "a mirror to society"

In the last couple of weeks over 200 major advertisers, including Starbucks, Ford, GM, Clorox, Reebok, Adidas, Best Buy, Clif Bar, and Chobani have left Facebook, citing concerns over the social media platform's lack of meaningful action against voter suppression campaigns and hate speech that takes place there.

In a statement, Denny's said: "As America's diner, we offer an inclusive and welcoming environment where all people can enjoy a nice meal and we strongly oppose hate speech of any kind. It is our belief that Facebook has not done enough to address this important issue on its platform and we are calling on Facebook to make positive changes in its process for combatting hate speech and disinformation."

On Friday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced new policies he claimed would "crack down on voter suppression and fight hate speech." But according to Popular Information, critics said the policy was toothless and would do little to stop voter suppression and hate speech.

So now Facebook has enlisted the help of Nick Clegg, vice president for global affairs and communications (and former Deputy Prime Minister of the UK) to educate the media that Facebook is just a "mirror to society."

On CNN, host Brian Stelter asked Clegg what Facebook was doing to combat divisive speech on its platform. Clegg's response was there was nothing Facebook could do because the divisive content was merely a reflection of broader societal trends.

"Yes, and I'm afraid that in a highly polarized time in U.S. society, particularly in the run-up to this highly consequential election in November where, you know, people are shouting at each other from right and left, and where, of course, in some sense, Facebook is a mirror to society. We're a private company but we run the platform on which America democracy plays itself out in all of its -- in all of its sort of glory and ugliness."

As Popular Information reported last week, this is not true. Facebook is allowing sites that specialize in divisive content, like Mad World News and The Daily Wire, to manipulate Facebook's algorithm through undisclosed financial partnerships.

Ten or more times each day, a network of five large Facebook pages controlled by Mad World News publishes the same link to The Daily Wire. Although this appears to violate Facebook's prohibition on undisclosed sponsored content and coordinated inauthentic behavior, Facebook has refused to take action. This has made The Daily Wire — a cesspool of misogyny, bigotry, and misinformation — to outperform every other major publisher on Facebook.



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25% of gym-goers say they will never return to a fitness club

A survey of 2000 adults who exercise twice a week or more said they will never return to a gym. Only one-third said they will retain their gym membership, but said they will go less frequently than before the pandemic.

The covidiots among those surveyed were divided into two camps: 26% said that they will not go to any gym that requires face masks. Another 29% said they are against masks, but wear one if the gym requires it.

Image: Jumpstory / CC0



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Judge issues temporary restraining order against publication of Mary Trump's tell all book

A judge granted a temporary restraining order against the publication of Mary Trump's forthcoming book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man. Written by Donald Trump's niece, the book is a tell-all with unflattering details about Trump and his family. The book was due to be released on July 28th.

From The Daily Beast:

This decision is only preliminary, leaving the book’s ultimate fate up to a later decision on the merits of the lawsuit.

Mary Trump’s attorney, Theadore Boutrous Jr., told The Daily Beast in a statement, “The trial court’s temporary restraining order is only temporary but it still is a prior restraint on core political speech that flatly violates the First Amendment. We will immediately appeal.”

A person familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast the book, to be published by Simon and Schuster, is already on its third print run and the publishing giant are working to get the tome, which is currently Number Four on Amazon’s best-seller list, out to bookstores ahead of its July 28th release.



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Fox host Steve Doocy pushes the idea that Trump should wear a mask

Yesterday, Fox host Trace Gallagher questioned whether Trump would drop out of November's presidential race. And today, Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy has pushed for Trump to wear a mask in at least two different segments.

“More states every day are mandating people, their citizens to wear masks and I think that if the president wore one, it would just set a good example,” he said to RNC Chair and truth spinner Ronna McDaniel. “He would be a good role model. I don’t see any downside to the president wearing a mask in public.”

And when speaking to Rep. Kevin McCarthy, he asks, "What about the President? He's made it clear he doesn't want to wear a mask, but his Federal government says everyone should wear a mask. Don't you think it would be a powerful symbol would put on a mask...? and then adds, ""It's symbolic, obviously it's patriotic because you're not only protecting yourself, you're protecting other people. ... It would be a powerful symbol."

It's not that Doocy -- or any of the Fox puppets -- has suddenly grown a backbone. I think, rather, we can chalk it up to Sean Hannity, who seems to have more sway over Fox than Trump does. From Daily Beast:

Doocy’s remarks came the morning after Fox News host and Trump confidant Sean Hannity called on his viewers to wear masks in public.

“I was in the epicenter of this. I went to my grocery store every week. Guess what? They wore masks,” Hannity exclaimed on his Monday night show. “Nobody at my grocery store, thank God, got coronavirus. I think they work.”



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Covid cases are up but fewer patients are needing ventilators. 5 reasons why

Currently, the United States is seeing about 40,000 new COVID-19 cases a day. Today, Dr. Anthony Fauci said he "would not be surprised" if the US started getting 100,000 new cases a day. But what's curious is that even though more people are becoming infected with the Coronavirus, a lower percentage of them are requiring ventilators.

A Medium article by Elad Simchayoff explores five possible reasons why this could be happening.

  1. The least likely explanation is that the virus is becoming less lethal. A minority of experts think that Covid-19 is becoming weaker over time.
  2. It's also unlikely that hot weather and sunshine is causing the virus to decay. though some experts believe this is a reason.
  3. Testing has increased in recent weeks, which likely accounts for part of the reason why fewer people are requiring ventilators. "More people are reported sick, many of them in a very mild state, which makes the percentage of those in critical condition drop."
  4. Hospitals are starting to use treatments other than ventilators. "In some countries, the practice has now shifted considerably to no more early ventilating and efforts being made to avoid ventilators at almost any cost."
  5. Younger people are getting sick. For example, in Florida, the median age for infected people is 37, but in March it was 65. Younger people are less likely to become seriously ill from coronavirus, and as a result, do not require ventilators.

Photo by Javier Matheu on Unsplash



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Woman gored after approaching bison in Yellowstone National Park

The National Park Service reports that a 72-year-old woman repeatedly came within ten feet of a bison Yellowstone National Park to take a photo, and was gored by the animal.

From a Park Service Statement:

  • After a 72-year-old woman from California approached within 10 feet of a bison multiple times to take its photo, the animal gored her.
  • The incident occurred on the evening of June 25, 2020, at the female’s campsite at Bridge Bay Campground.
  • Rangers provided immediate medical care to the woman who sustained multiple goring wounds. She was then flown via helicopter to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center.
  • “The series of events that led to the goring suggest the bison was threatened by being repeatedly approached to within 10 feet,” said Yellowstone’s Senior Bison Biologist Chris Geremia. “Bison are wild animals that respond to threats by displaying aggressive behaviors like pawing the ground, snorting, bobbing their head, bellowing, and raising their tail. If that doesn’t make the threat (in this instance it was a person) move away, a threatened bison may charge. To be safe around bison, stay at least 25 yards away, move away if they approach, and run away or find cover if they charge.”

Image: NPS / Jacob W. Frank



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Massive star 100 times larger than the sun mysteriously disappears

A colossal star in the Kinman Dwarf galaxy (PHL 293B), estimated to be "100 times more massive than the sun," has "possibly" disappeared, according to a study published today. Ten years ago, when astronomers observed the star -- which was 75 million light years away -- it completely lit up its galaxy. But when astronomers looked for it last summer, it was nowhere to be found.

From Vice:

The head-scratching discovery was announced in a study published on Tuesday in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

“We were quite surprised when we couldn’t find the star,” said lead author Andrew Allan, a PhD student at Trinity College Dublin, in a call. “It is a very extreme star, and it has quite a strong wind, so we can distinguish it from the galaxy. That’s what we couldn’t see in the newer observations.”

...Allan and his colleagues considered several explanations for the observations, and eventually narrowed down the possibilities to two scenarios: Survival or death.

If the star lived, we could be witnessing the fallout of its huge senescent outbursts, which may have enshrouded it in dust clouds that dimmed its light. If the star died, it may have collapsed into a black hole without ever producing a supernova.

This second option seems bizarre, but it would not be the first potential “failed supernova” that has been detected by scientists. Another star appears to have fizzled out without any fireworks in a galaxy 22 million light years away, though it was only 25 times as massive as the Sun (which is still pretty huge).

This YouTube video starts in the constellation of Aquarius, and zooms in to the Kinman Dwarf galaxy, to an animation of the "luminous blue" massive star:

Read for more details on Vice.



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"Old rubber boots": Fetish video or performance art?

"Have fun at home with my old rubber boots," the creator writes.

Avant-garde performance art or fetish video? You decide.

One commenter's rave review: "Nice boots. Rubber seems to be very soft."

(via r/DeepIntoYouTube)

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Europe bans travelers from US over Covid fears

Europe is reopening its borders to travelers as the coronavirus pandemic subsides in most developed countries. But not to those coming from the U.S., where the virus's spread remains largely unchecked.

Most travelers from the United States will be barred from entering the European Union after it reopens its borders Wednesday because the coronavirus is still far too prevalent in the U.S., European officials announced Tuesday.

The E.U.'s 27 members have been drawing up a list of countries whose virus levels are deemed low enough to allow people from those places to travel into the bloc, which has been mostly sealed off since March.

Europe was a hotbed of coronavirus infection, with Italy hosting the earliest outbreaks in the west and the UK and Spain ending up suffering the worst per-capita numbers in the world. But infection rates there are now very low, compared the the U.S., which only briefly "flattened the curve" and is now experiencing its highest per-day infection rates since the pandemic began. The list of acceptable travel origins is only 15 countries and will be reviewed every two weeks, say officials.



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Every item scanned as "Mr Potato Head" in glitch at department stores

Yesterday, five large department stores in the towns of Lindsay and Whitby, Ontario, Canada had to temporarily stop ringing up customers because every item scanned at the register showed up as Mr. Potato Head.

"A point of sale downloading error caused item names to appear incorrectly," said Cathy Kurzbock, manager of external communications for department store chain Canadian Tire. "It has since been corrected and the stores are operating normally."

Apparently, they don't suspect this was a prank but, well, I wouldn't be so sure.

(MyKwartha.com)

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Legendary comedian Carl Reiner, RIP

Legendary comedian, actor, writer, and director Carl Reiner has died at age 98. Reiner is best known for performing with Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca on the 1950s TV variety program Your Show of Shows and later creating The Dick Van Dyke Show. He also directed George Burns in the classic "Oh God!" (1977), Steve Martin in "The Jerk" (1979) and acted in movies and TV shows like "Ocean's Eleven" (2001), "Parks and Recreation," and "House." From the New York Times:

As part of a stellar supporting cast that also included Imogene Coca and Howard Morris, Mr. Reiner proved his versatility week after week on “Your Show of Shows,” which ran from 1950 to 1954 on NBC and established the template for sketch comedy on television. He played everything from a harried commuter to a frenzied rock ’n’ roller to an unctuous quiz-show host. But he is probably best remembered as an interviewer, solemnly posing questions to a mad professor, a spaced-out jazz musician or some other over-the-top character played by Mr. Caesar, and adding to the humor simply by being serious.

Mr. Reiner contributed behind the scenes as well. He took part in the frenzied writing sessions that shaped the show, bouncing jokes off the walls of the writers’ room with the likes of Mr. Brooks and Neil Simon.

“I became a writer because of that room,” he recalled. “I’d say something and somebody would yell: ‘What do you know? You’re not a writer.’ So I became a writer.”

He characterized his later career moves with similar self-effacing humor in an NPR interview: “I acted like a director. I acted like a producer. I sat in front of a typewriter and acted like a novelist.”



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UK to allow electric scooters on roads, but only if you rent one

In a year of old-school dystopian catastrophes, here's one that's refreshingly futuristic: the UK is making it legal to use small electric scooters on Britain's roads, but not your small electric scooters. You must rent them, not own them.

It is expected to recommend that helmets be worn, although they will not be mandatory, and vehicles will be limited to a speed of 15mph.

Privately owned e-scooters will not be legalised.

Under the new rules to be set out by the Department for Transport, e-scooter companies could launch scooter-sharing schemes in UK towns and cities and it will be legal to ride one of these scooters on the road from Saturday.

The reality of rental scooters is that they become obstructions and annoyances, abandoned on pavements and in parking spots, with the companies running the schemes unable to track, recover or maintain them properly.

The UK government has an ongoing scandal over cash-for-contracts and no political bandwidth available to close the loopholes, so cynicism may be warranted as well as sighs. Making a particular vehicle road-legal in the same breath as mandating they be rented from hinky tech startups is going to make a lot of money for someone.



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Pop-up wearable tent for COVID-19 protection in offices, schools, and medical facilities

A few years back, my brother Rick Pescovitz came up with Under The Weather Pods, single-person pop-up shelters. (You may have caught Rick on Shark Tank.) Rick was sick of getting soaked at his kids' soccer games and was inspired by a portable toilet he saw by the field. Under The Weather Pods are designed for watching sports, fishing, and other outdoor events where it's raining, windy, or cold, but you are either obligated to watch or having so much fun you don't want to leave.

When the pandemic began, my brother quickly made two new designs for hospitals and healthcare workers: The IntubationPod is a pop-up shield for medical procedures involving the head and neck area. It's apparently much less expensive than the rigid plastic boxes that are commonly used during intubation. Meanwhile, the ShieldPod enhances protection for physicians and nurses as they move through medical facilities treating patients. Both devices are now in use at several hospitals around the country. I'm proud of my brother Rick and his wife Kelly who is president of Under the Weather!

Schools, businesses, and air travelers are now reaching out to Rick about the ShieldPod for use in classrooms, office settings, and on flights. Stay safe everyone.

ShieldPod (Under the Weather)



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Family finds pepperoni swastika on their Little Caesars pizza

Jason Laska stopped at a Little Caesars to grab a pre-made "Hot-N-Ready" pizza for his family. When he got home, he and his wife discovered a (reverse) swastika made from pepperoni on the pie.

Laska told CNN he tried to call the story but the number was constantly busy so he posted to social media.

According to Little Caesar Enterprises spokesperson Jill Proctor, the two ignorant dumbfucks who made the pizza admitted to it and were fired.

"This is an example of what needs to change in our world," Laska said. "And we hope that people start to realize that and use their time to make those changes and not blast us for trying to do it."

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Chart shows states where Covid is spiking

The Financial Times' latest chart of newly confirmed cases by state per capita, represented as a seven-day rolling average, suggests that the best place to go on vacation this summer is your own bed.

There are concerns, however, that reported Covid-19 deaths are not capturing the true impact of coronavirus on mortality around the world. The FT has gathered and analysed data on excess mortality — the numbers of deaths over and above the historical average — across the globe, and has found that death tolls in some countries are more than 50 per cent higher than usual. In many countries, these excess deaths exceed reported numbers of Covid-19 deaths by large margins.

US reporting appears excellent in general, notwithstanding the President's efforts to limit testing to work the numbers. You can't hide that many bodies for long. Florida is the obvious weak spot, with governor Ron DeSantis constantly in the news for statistical shenanigans.



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Top YouTube influencers canceled

Taylor Lorentz is chronicling internet drama brilliantly for the New York Times, and her latest report is on the quasi-downfall of two high-flying YouTubers, Shane Dawson and Jeffree Star. They exemplify the stereotype of YouTube influencers--vacuous narcissists, tireless producers, canny businessmen--facing ruin after years of attention-seeking at the borders of racism, sexism and general abuse. The internet is a permanent record and the ground is liquefying underfoot.

Dawson has racked up billions of views on YouTube, often by engaging in offensive humor. He has posted several videos in blackface, mocked those with disabilities, joked about bestiality, sexualized minors, and once spoke about “figuratively murdering someone.” On June 26, Mr. Dawson posted a teary apology to his channel, in which he tried to make amends for his past, declaring that he deserved to “lose everything.”

No sooner had his apology video posted than a clip of him pretending to sexually gratify himself to a photo of Willow Smith, then 11 years old, resurfaced and began to get shared widely.

That's just one of the most ostentatiously repulsive acts. The catalog of backstabbing, blackmail, and insider grossness is quite extensive and Lorentz packs in the links for anyone wanting to take a deep dive. What I like most about her work at the Times is how it illustrates a growing dissatisfaction at what social media companies actually did to the internet. They reinstituted the old hierarchies, then stocked them with all these perma-adolescent psychos.

YouTube's tolerance for abuse caused two knock-on problems: YouTube (especially its comment platform) was ignored by media except as a video hosting site, the culture growing there was ignored as a result, and the people emerging from that culture were (temporarily, it turns out) able to quietly ignore their own earlier work after gaining broader exposure. That they failed to remove the bad content is testament to the general phenomenon of young people having no sense of culture and history outside of their algorithmic feed bags. It simply never struck them that anyone might care what they were doing a few years ago or look it up.

Suddenly “Old YouTube” isn’t a noisy mess ignored by all. It’s a permanent record, as immanent as anything said today on twitter. It's context collapse on a geological scale.

It makes me wonder what the "mob" might unearth in Usenet. Many of your GenX techie faves were there! Google has the receipts but has made them very hard to find.



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AP: Trump aware of Russian price on U.S. troops' heads since 2019

The Associated Press reports that Trump was briefed on Russia's cash-for-corpses program in 2019. He kept it to himself then, and kept it to himself when he was briefed again earlier this year.

Top officials in the White House were aware in early 2019 of classified intelligence indicating Russia was secretly offering bounties to the Taliban for the deaths of Americans, a full year earlier than has been previously reported, according to U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the intelligence.

The assessment was included in at least one of President Donald Trump’s written daily intelligence briefings at the time, according to the officials. Then-national security adviser John Bolton also told colleagues he briefed Trump on the intelligence assessment in March 2019.



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Original "Ghostbusters" returns to drive-ins and theaters starting July 1

Entertainment providers have figured out that drive-in theaters are the perfect way to socially distance while having some retro-style summer fun. So, while we wait impatiently for Ghostbusters: Afterlife to hit theaters in March 2021, it's been announced that the original Ghostbusters (1984) will be showing at select U.S. and Canadian drive-ins (and a few movie theaters). The showings go from July 1 to July 8 and a special nine-minute message "for the fans" is promised at each one. Locations and showtimes here.

image via Ghostbusters.com

(/Film)



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How Trump really dealt with Russia's bounty on US soldiers

The two upcoming Tom the Dancing Bug books, Tom the Dancing Bug: Into the Trumpverse, and The Super-Fun-Pak Comix Reader, are now available for order, but will only be available by online pre-order.

Information about the books, including how to pre-order, and special offers here. The Boing Boing article about the book is here.

Tuesday, June 30, 2020 is the deadline to contribute to the Tom the Dancing Bug for Justice Fundraiser, benefiting the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and be eligible for invaluable (or unvaluable) prizes.

DID YOU KNOW THAT YOU CAN JOIN Tom the Dancing Bug's INNER HIVE? You can. Get exclusive access to comics before they are published, sneak peeks, insider scoops, and lots of other stuff. JOIN TODAY.

FOLLOW @RubenBolling on the Twitters and a Face Book perhaps some Insta-grams, and even my/our MeWe.

READ more Tom the Dancing Bug comics on Boing Boing.



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Monday, 29 June 2020

Learn how to utilize WordPress to its full potential with the help of these training classes

The saying goes that everyone is looking to build a better mousetrap. In the case of Elementor, they decided to take a swing at WordPress, the platform used to build a third of the world’s websites, and make it better. Four years later, there are already three million sites using Elementor, a WP plug-in which brings an additional level of drag and drop easy to the WordPress environment. 

Elementor has opened up a whole new world to the tried and true WordPress procedure -- and with the training in The Elementor and WordPress Master Class Certification Bundle, you can learn all the newest and most effective tactics for elevating a WordPress site into a truly special web experience.

The seven courses featured here not only go deep on Elementor but also offer specific guidance on using WordPress to craft some of the most frequently needed site types, so no matter what website template you need, you’ll have a leg up on getting it done and done well.

The Elementor Master Class 2020 gets the ball rolling as you learn how to build fantastic looking web pages without needing to know any code. The course lays out a full plan for using sections, columns and widgets to craft virtually any web page design, all without ever having to mess with any programming problems.

But Elementor is just the tip of the iceberg. If you need to Build a Full One Page Event Website with WordPress, you’ll get complete training in a plug-in called SiteOrigin to make it look stellar. If you want a knockout image presentation, Build a Photo Gallery with WordPress for a photo-optimized website with themed gallery options that make images really pop. 

Or if your website needs are all about business, Build a Complete Business Website with WordPress is your first stop, serving up the perfect template to get a company site off the ground. There’s even The Complete WooCommerce Master Class 2020 for adding a full-service eCommerce store to your site, complete with shopping carts, multiple payment methods, and more, all with a few simple additions.

All this WordPress expertise is available now for hundreds of dollars off its regular price, down to only $29.96 for the complete package.

Prices are subject to change.

Do you have your stay-at-home essentials? Here are some you may have missed.

 

The Word Press ft Elementor & WooCoomerce Master Class Bundle - $29.99

Learn it all for $29.99


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Los Angeles County beaches CLOSED for 4th of July weekend as coronavirus spikes

Officials in Los Angeles have ordered all beaches in the county closed over the Independence Day Holiday, in hopes of slowing the accelerating coronavirus pandemic in Southern California.

All beaches, piers, bike paths, and public access points to the Pacific coast in L.A. County will be closed to the public from July 3 to July 6.

IMAGE: Lost Hills Sheriff's Station.



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Free download of MagPi - Raspberry Pi project magazine

The latest issue of The MagPi is out, and you can get a free PDF. The projects in this issue look like fun!

  • Build a Raspberry Pi 4 games console. We’ve got the best cases, awesome controllers, and easy to use kit. Also a step-by-step guide to setting up RetroPie OS with Raspberry Pi 4, so you can run classic games. Plus! How to get games legally.
  • Learn Computing & ICT at home. It’s a lot of fun telling computers what to do, but getting started can be intimidating. Here’s a gentle introduction to getting serious with computing.
  • Build a DOS emulation system. Use the powerful DOSBox-X emulator to boot Raspberry Pi to DOS and run anything from Windows 3.11 to classic games
  • Upcycle a vintage radio. Fed up with boring black-box Bluetooth speakers? Hack Raspberry Pi into a vintage radio and give it a new lease of life.
  • Share your keyboard and mouse. Use Barrier to move your mouse seamlessly from Raspberry Pi to the screen of another computer, and control both machines at once.
  • Use an Inky wHAT display with Raspberry Pi. Make a great impression with a fancy e-ink name badge or custom display that subtly shows off your tech skills.
  • Piano-Playing Robot. Discover a robot that can play scales, chords, arpeggios, or totally new musical scores.
  • Singing Toilet. A trip to the washroom need no longer be boring. This musical instrument is played by pulling toilet paper from the roll. Migration Museum. How one museum comes to life when visitors linger near its artefacts.
  • Helene Virolan interview. Meet the social entrepreneur encouraging more girls to get involved in tech.


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Reddit finally kills The_Donald

Pro-Trump sub The_Donald was never a pleasant place, but the bubbling sewer of racism and toxic behaviour has become too disgusting even for Reddit. Today the site banned the forum. As summarized at The Verge:

In a blog post that cites the company’s new rules, Huffman said users of the r/The_Donald subreddit had violated the site’s policies for years. (The site has no official connection to President Donald Trump, although he did do an Ask Me Anything there as a candidate in 2016.) “The community has consistently hosted and upvoted more rule-breaking content than average (Rule 1), antagonized us and other communities (Rules 2 and 8), and its mods have refused to meet our most basic expectations,” Huffman said.

It also banned the Chapo Trap House subreddit and many others; a hamfisted attempt at political balance, not that any of them weren't cesspits of hatred and misery.



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Reddit shuts down The_Donald for hate speech, harassment, and targeting

The 790,000 subscribers to The_Donald have suddenly found themselves without a place to spread hate and harassment after Reddit shut down the subreddit earlier this morning, reports The New York Times. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman told reporters “Reddit is a place for community and belonging, not for attacking people. The_Donald has been in violation of that.”

From The New York Times:

Reddit said people in “The_Donald” consistently posted racist and vulgar messages that incited harassment and targeted people of different religious and ethnic groups on and off its site.

“The_Donald” has also heavily trafficked in conspiracy theories, including spreading the debunked “PizzaGate” conspiracy, in which Hillary Clinton and top Democrats were falsely accused of running a child sex trafficking ring from a pizza parlor in Washington.

Reddit said that as of Monday, it was introducing eight rules that laid out the terms people must abide by to use the site. Those include prohibiting targeted harassment, revealing the identities of others, posting sexually exploitative content related to underage children, or trafficking in illegal substances or other illicit transactions.

While the site had already banned many of these behaviors, the latest changes take a harder line on speech that “promotes hate based on identity or vulnerability.”

Image: Gage Skidmore - Flickr.com, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link



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Man learns tech support scammer's real name

Scambuster Jim Browning got access to a tech support scammer's computer and was able to find out his real name and monitor his communications with his boss and colleagues. He spooked them so much that it looks like they shut down operations, at least temporarily. I love Browning's laconic, bored-sounding voice as he talks to the increasingly panicked scammer.



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Two free or cheap alternatives to Adobe Illustrato

If you're a professional illustrator, podcaster, or filmmaker, a $53 a month subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud is a fair price to pay. But if you're just interested in having a good vector graphics application, you can probably get by using Inkscape (free) or Affinity Designer (one time cost $50). Inkscape even runs on Linux computers. This video runs through the key features of each application.



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For triggers, gates, clocks, and sociopaths alike, "Master/Slave" faces retirement

Spoken Word with Electronics is an audio series delivering to you a two side recording of unusual stories paired with vintage modular electronic sounds

Hello, everyone - Welcome back. Part of this week's show is on language. One great result of the recent protests is a reassessment of some of our worst phrases. "Master/Slave" is an ugly one, with a direct path to some of the world's most terrible history. Unfortunately, it's largely adopted into electronics as an example of one device maintaining control over countless other devices. It's been suggested a better phrase might be Leader/Follower, and in that way you realize "Master/Slave" also describes politics, too.

As language is finally being addressed on this shameful history of semantics, I offer one final discussion on "Master/Slave" as an EXPLANATION for how people are still following and supporting Trump. Electronic control can be their only defense. In sympathy, I call for us all to love Trump Supporters and seek to emancipate them from this mental prison.

Mind Control is an interesting subject. There's been an ongoing effort to control minds with technology, and some consider this to be happening right now. Today's episode discusses triggers in drum machines as an explanation for how Trump's very sharp signal clock controls his followers. He's a perfect drum sequencer. He keeps his messages monosyllabic and sharp. That's the best signal for opening up a drum to follow a controller. And the term for this in synthesis is, regrettably, "Master/Slave", in that the Master is the sequencer and the slave is the follower.

Jump aboard for a 45 minute exploration of Triggers, Gates, Clocks, and Sociopaths. We also get semi-local and discuss the murderous deeds of Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Identifying an April 28 order to open Texas and ban Texas Mayors from protecting their cities, I accuse Greg Abbott of every Covid death related to any unmasked transmission since. This is a significant number, and it's only gotten much worse:

It's only gotten much worse

Electronics are useful for describing humans. We operate the same way as many synthesizers. Our brains operate through subtractive synthesis, for example. The stimulus in the world is a constant blaring signal, and we are constantly filtering out noises and thoughts to develop a personal perspective. Otherwise we would go crazy, literally. Subtractive Synthesis keeps us sane. One opinion on psychedelics is it removes some of these filters, which allows us to see more of the world for a brief moment. It's a very vulnerable state, however, which is why psychedelics are temporary. We couldn't survive too long with those filters wide open and sensitive to every breeze.

This week's show is also about timekeeping, specifically analog clocks for drum machines. Analog drum machines are special things, especially, in that they mimic a lot of engines and other mechanical equipment. They are wired up with trigger cables that fire off each drum noise with electricity, which is very different than digital emulations of drums. They are literally drum MACHINES, and this week demonstrates exactly how that works.

For a little humor, or maybe a direct explanation for the madness going on in this world, this week's bonus link is on Soviet Mind Control machines from the 1980s. Enjoy: The State of Unclassified and Commercial Technology Capable of Some Electronic Mind Control Effects

SPOKEN WORD WITH ELECTRONICS #16: Analog Drum Machines and THE REPUBLICAN MIND

Connect with SWWE via buffered clock signal on Bandcamp, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Podcast Republic, and Google Play.

Thanks and good mind control to you all, Ethan



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Toy hot rod car restoration

It took a lot of time and tools to restore this corroded 1960s tin toy car into one that looks brand new.

Here's a hint for watching restoration videos like this: most of the restoration processes shown in the videos are shown in time-lapse, and you can speed them up even more by playing the videos at double speed. You won't miss out on anything and, in this case, you will save yourself 10 minutes.



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Los Angeles taco stand closes because maskless covidiots attacked workers

Hugo's is one of my favorite restaurants in Los Angeles. They have one on Santa Monica Blvd that Carla and I have been going to since the 1980s. There's also a Hugo's in Sherman Oaks that's been around for about 20 years, and we order takeout from it. About 15 years ago Hugo's opened two excellent taco stands, one near the Sherman Oaks restaurant. Today I read the sad news that both Hugo's taco stands had to shut down because of sociopaths who were so angry about the "no mask, no service" policy that they "screamed, cursed, and threw drinks," at employees, according to The Sacramento Bee.

Nabor Prado says Hugo’s Tacos employees have been on the front lines of the face mask controversy, KNBC reported. One man became so enraged he attacked workers.

“He got a cup of water and (threw) the water at my employee, which is unsafe and rude,” Prado said, according to the station. “It’s really sad to see grown up people doing childish things like that.”

Workers, who are mostly Latino, also have been called racial epithets by customers who have demanded refunds and thrown drinks through drive-up windows, the Los Angeles Times says.

“It’s just gotten more difficult to open every day in an environment where you’re treated with hostility and venom,” Kohne said, KTTV reported.



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Even Fox wonders if Trump might drop out of November's presidential election

Fox host Trace Gallagher questioned today whether, with Trump's miserable poll numbers (the national polls' average currently has Trump at 56.2 disapproval, 40.4 approval, according to FiveThirtyEight), he “might drop out” of the November presidential race.

Speaking to former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu, a Republican, Trace added that the “vast majority of Americans” are "not happy with the way the US is handling the coronavirus pandemic."

Sununu says there's "no chance" Trump will drop out, but that Trump is "going to be judged in November, not on how the pandemic was handled from January until now. They’re going to be judged on how it’s handled between now and the election.”

Sununu then has advice for Trump: “Stop saying the virus is going to go away -- let people know that this is a real second wave, let them know there may be a third wave.”

Via Raw Story



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Japanese railway melodies played on pocket calculators

Chiptune musician @atarimae_400 learned that the jingles played at some Japanese railway stations sound similar to the tones generated by a certain model of pocket calculator. So @atarimae_400 performed some of the melodies on his own adding machines.

As Kraftwerk sang, "I'm the operator with my pocket calculator."

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Topic is an international favorites streaming service that’s on sale for just $2.50 a month

When you sit down on your couch to watch TV, the volume of options is truly staggering. However, a strange thing happens once you start cycling through page after page of Netflix suggestions and Amazon options. You invariably find yourself constantly considering the same set of giant Hollywood blockbuster films and major US television network offerings that you’ve watched for decades.

But c’mon...how many times do you REALLY need to watch every episode of Friends or The Office?

Topic is a streaming service curated specifically for smart, discerning viewers who look to veer off the beaten and over-trod path. They traffic in hand-picked series and films from around the globe, skimming the cream of the international entertainment world so you can get a look at all the best from every corner of the planet.

These are the neighborhoods Netflix, Amazon, and the others too often ignore, but with Topic, you can explore critically acclaimed series like Pagan Peak (Germany), Lambs of God (Australia), Salamander (Belgium), Arctic Circle (Finland), Vernon Subutex (France), State of Happiness (Norway), Asako I & II (Japan), Columbus (United States), The Broken Circle Breakdown (Netherlands), and Wuthering Heights (United Kingdom). 

Meanwhile, Topic is also making a name for itself as home to a growing host of Topic exclusive original series, including Rough Draft With Reza Aslan, What’s Your Ailment?! from Maria Bamford, Soul City, The Virtues, and The Second City’s Last Show Left on Earth. Everywhere you turn, Topic is serving up new favorite dramas, laugh-out-loud comedies, festival-featured documentaries, critically acclaimed indie films, provocative talk shows, and stellar shorts that you won’t see on the other services.

You can watch Topic on all the major streaming platforms, including Apple TV, iOS, Roku, Android, Fire TV, and Prime Video. It’s all ad-free with 4K resolution and your subscription gives you access to stream to up to two screens at once.

This sale on a one-year Topic subscription also makes it ridiculously affordable, especially next to its streaming competitors. Regularly $59.99, you can get 12 months of Topic now for just $29.99, just $2.50 per month.

Prices are subject to change.

Do you have your stay-at-home essentials? Here are some you may have missed.

 

Topic Streaming Platform - $29.99

Get Topic for $59.99


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Mysterious group carrying suitcases spotted at UK reservoir

Police in West Sussex, England responded last week to reports that around 50 people carrying suitcases were spotted walking towards Ardingly Reservoir. Part of the reservoir is a nature reserve popular for organized watersports, fishing, and birding.

"“An area search carried out and the team could not locate anyone with suitcases…most bizarre," tweeted Inspector Darren Taylor.

I wonder if anyone saw Wilford Brimley in the area.

(Evening Express via Anomalist)

image: Antiquary (CC BY 4.0)

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Absolutely wonderful stop motion Super Mario with refrigerator magnets

Videogame developer Phil Compile and 4-year-old son Ollie made this absolutely wonderful Super Mario stop motion animation using refrigerator magnets.



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Randy Rainbow's delightful new ditty: Cover Your Freakin' Face!

Randy Rainbow is back at it with another fabulous show tune: "Cover Your Freakin' Face." Brilliant, as always.



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Watch: Family on a boat rescues a bear whose head is trapped in a container

This family was fishing on Marshmiller Lake in Wisconsin when they came across this bear cub swimming with a plastic container stuck on its head. Fortunately, this story has a happy ending.

Via EuroNews



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Supreme Court strikes down abortion restrictions in 5-4 ruling

The Supreme Court today struck down Louisiana's restrictions on abortion, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the liberals to form a 5-4 majority. Roberts wrote that the case is nearly identical to one decided recently that struck down Texas's restrictions. Though he dissented in that case, stare decisis.



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St Louis couple point guns at peaceful protestors on street by mansion

The photos show an angry white couple, barefoot on the lawn of their mansion, pointing guns at predominantly black protestors marching on the sidewalk and street nearby. In an age of reputation-ruining mistakes, this one – the man and woman are well-known in their community – might have more profound consequences.

The mansion is in a gated community, but the street is not the mansion owners' property. Moreover, people who threaten others with guns in Missouri, even trespassers, are often charged with crimes. The Black Lives Matter march took that route, according to reports, because protestors were calling upon the city's mayor to resign and she lives nearby.

Laurie Skrivan of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch covered the march and a small part of her definitive shot is cropped above. I think Laurie should win a Pulitzer: a crazed, bug-eyed white lady, saturday night special in-hand, shrieking at protesting black people getting too close to her mansion as her khaki-encased husband lurks in the background with a semi-automatic rifle. (It also takes real courage to point a long lens at people behaving like this.)

Truly (via Twitter) the stuff of nightmares:



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I repainted a zombie gnome to see what it would look like and now I have a cowering gnome

Our zombie gnome was completely faded gray by the sun. I decided to repaint him "normally" to see what it would look like, and was enchanted by the cowering, fearful result. I placed him at a prominent place in the front yard that makes it impossible for passers-by not to chance across him.



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Bank card makes it easier for trans and non-binary people to display their true names

You'll rarely find me singing the praises of any major financial institution, but the new True Name Card from Mastercard does seem like a thoughtful way to catch up with reality:

For many in the LGBTQIA+ community, the name on their credit, debit or prepaid card does not reflect their true identity. As a result, for the transgender and nonbinary community, the card in their pocket can serve as a source of sensitivity, misrepresenting their true identity when shopping and going about daily life.

Mastercard is making a commitment to address this challenge by introducing the True Name™ feature. We are working with partners to bring products to market that will allow for chosen names to appear on the front of cards, helping ease a major pain point for the transgender and nonbinary community.

BMO Harris Bank is the first partner to make this feature available on their consumer debit and credit cards as well as on their small business debit and credit cards.

That partner bank, BMO Harris, adds in its own statement that, "Research shows one-third of individuals whose ID has a name that doesn’t match their gender presentation experience harassment and denial of service."

While it's frustratingly remarkable that, "Respecting people by calling them whatever they'd like to be called" remains a controversial stance, it's still nice to see otherwise-amoral institutions putting in these small efforts to be more humanist and empathetic.

True Name™ by Mastercard

Inclusivity comes to credit cards: Mastercard creates ‘True Name’ for transgender, non-binary customers [Hannah Denman / The Washington Post]



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Trump tweets video of supporter yelling "white power"

To distract from news that he was sitting on intelligence that the Russian military had posted a bounty on U.S. and U.K. soldiers, Trump tweeted a video of one of this supporters yelling "white power". He left it up for several hours, then deleted the tweet, claiming that he "did not hear the one statement made on the video" while continuing to praise the "tremendous enthusiasm from his many supporters."



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Celebrate Emma Goldman's birthday (belatedly) with this radical song

Musician/activist Evan Greer has released a new single called "Emma Goldman Would Have Beat Your Ass," to mark what would have been the 151st birthday (June 27th) of noted anarchist and feminist activist Emma Goldman. Greer writes:

This tranarcho-punk song is inspired by the time Emma Goldman literally whipped her former mentor in front of a crowd of people because he snitched out and condemned her lover after he tried to assassinate a fascist robber baron. Look it up.

If you purchase the song via BandCamp, all proceeds go to the Marsha P. Johnson institute. If you're interested in learning more about Goldman's radical life and philosophy, check out this collection of her writing from the University of Chicago and Archive.org; or via Project Gutenberg, LibriVox, and Anarchy Archives. I can't even remember which specific Goldman essays I've read and which ones I haven't, but suffice to say, I recommend them all. She was sometimes referred to as "the most dangerous woman in America," for saying things like:

Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations.

Image: Public Domain via Library of Congress



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