Are your deposits quietly funding fossil fuels? Not with this new type of account.

Most of us have a love-hate relationship with banks. Okay, it’s actually probably more like a tolerate-hate relationship. We understand their role in holding and securing our money so we don’t have to stuff it in a mattress somewhere. But we don’t trust the bank not to gouge us on fees whenever they can. And we certainly don’t trust MegaCorp X to be a responsible steward of our funds to make the world a better place.

For example, the four biggest global backers of fossil fuels are all U.S banks^1.. So if you have money with any of those institutions, you’re tacitly endorsing those practices, whether you agree with them or not.

If that doesn’t sit well with you, you may want to consider an alternative, like Aspiration's Spend and Save account.

Aspiration isn’t a bank. They’re a hybrid check and save cash management account that offers you an alternative to traditional banking services and protections of one of those institutions, but with a conscience you can feel good about backing.

When you open an Aspiration Spend and Save account and deposit money, you get a debit card linked to your new FDIC-insured² cash accounts with all the buying power of a financial/cash account -- but you decide how much their services should cost you. Their policy is that they trust customers to “Pay What is Fair,” even if that means zero on their basic monthly banking services. 

Of course, if fair to you is $7 a month for their Aspiration Plus service, you get features like up to 1.00% APY interest³ on your savings and no fees at over 55,000+ free in-network Allpoint ATMs, and carbon offsets for when you drive.

But Aspiration’s greatest selling point is their dedication to socially-conscious green services. As part of your app account, you’ll get access to your own Personal Impact Score, which shows you how the companies you spend with score for their treatment of their workers and the environment. With those stats, you can start spending with companies that best match your personal values.

Meanwhile, when you use your Aspiration card, you’ll earn up to 10% cashback at mission-focused merchants like TOMS, Warby Parker, and more⁴. You even have the option to have a tree planted for every purchase you make. And Aspiration promises your deposits will never go towards funding fossil fuel projects or firearm manufacturers. 

You can sign up for an Aspiration account, name your own price and help save the planet, all at the same time. 

 

¹ https://www.ran.org/bankingonclimatechange2020/ 

²Deposits are FDIC-insured up to $2.46 million per depositor by being swept to FDIC Member Institutions. Visit fdic.gov. Aspiration’s Program Banks.

³The Aspiration Save Account’s up to 1.00% Annual Percentage Yield (“APY”) is variable, subject to change, and is only available to customers enrolled in Aspiration Plus after conditions are met. Terms & FAQ.

⁴Aspiration’s Cash Back program is subject to change at any time and without notice, including reversal of rewards for abuse, fraud, and other illicit activity. Cash Back rewards are generally credited on the first day of each calendar month. For additional Cash Back details, click here & here.

WATCH: Astronauts prepare for rare splashdown in SpaceX capsule, target is 7:34 p.m. EDT on Saturday, August 1

WATCH THE SPLASHDOWN EVENT LIVE HERE, the SpaceX video embed in this post will go live with pre-event content sometime before 7pm EDT on Saturday August 1.

---

NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken are about to make the first splashdown return in 45 years.

“SpaceX and NASA are targeting 7:34 p.m. EDT on Saturday, August 1 for Crew Dragon and the two astronauts to depart the orbiting laboratory and return to Earth,” tweeted SpaceX late Friday evening.

From SpaceX, here is the timeline for NASA and SpaceX to return Crew Dragon Endeavour this weekend.

From the SpaceX announcement about the highly anticipated space event:

On Saturday, May 30, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launched Crew Dragon’s second demonstration (Demo-2) mission from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and the next day Crew Dragon autonomously docked to the International Space Station. This test flight with NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley on board the Dragon spacecraft returned human spaceflight to the United States.

SpaceX and NASA are now targeting 7:34 p.m. EDT on Saturday, August 1 for Crew Dragon to autonomously undock from the Space Station, with the two astronauts aboard the spacecraft, and return to Earth.

Approximately 19 hours later, after jettisoning its trunk and re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, Dragon will splash down at one of seven targeted water landing sites off the coast of Florida at 2:42 p.m. EDT on Sunday, August 2.

The Demo-2 mission is the final major milestone for SpaceX’s human spaceflight system to be certified by NASA for operational crew missions to and from the International Space Station. Once the Demo-2 mission is complete, and the SpaceX and NASA teams have reviewed all the data for certification, NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Mike Hopkins, Shannon Walker, and JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi will fly on Dragon’s first six-month operational mission (Crew-1) targeted for late September.

And don't miss the AP story about the two U.S. astronauts who are about to make the first splashdown return in 45 years. These heroes say they’ll absolutely have barf bags at hand, water landings can be nausea-inducing.

SpaceX and NASA plan to bring Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken back Sunday afternoon in the company’s Dragon capsule, aiming for the Gulf of Mexico just off the Florida Panhandle. Flight controllers are keeping close watch on Hurricane Isaias, expected to stick to Florida’s east coast.

Hurley said if he and Behnken get sick while bobbing in the waves awaiting recovery, it won’t be the first time for a crew. Astronauts returning in the early 1970s from Skylab, NASA’s first space station, did not feel well following splashdown, Hurley noted. Feeling sick “is the way it is with a water landing,” he said during the crew’s final news conference from the International Space Station.

This will be SpaceX’s first splashdown with astronauts on board, ending a two-month test flight that began May 30 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center — the first launch of a crew from the U.S. in nearly a decade. The capsule has been docked at the space station since May 31, allowing Hurley and Behnken to chip in with spacewalks and experiments.

Read the rest of the piece by Marcia Dunn at AP:US astronauts pack up for rare splashdown in SpaceX capsule

SpaceX and @NASA are targeting 7:34 p.m. EDT on Saturday, August 1 for Crew Dragon and the two astronauts to depart the orbiting laboratory and return to Earth →https://t.co/bJFjLCzWdK pic.twitter.com/9udiNyZpQM

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 1, 2020

IMAGE COURTESY SPACEX

Black Michigan teen detained for not doing homework to be released 'IMMEDIATELY'

“Grace,” the Black teen girl in Michigan who was detained because the school said she was not doing her online coursework, is to be released from detention “IMMEDIATELY.”

The Michigan Court of Appeals issued the order late on Friday, and mom picked Grace up shortly thereafter.

“We are elated. We are so happy for Grace to be going home. It is amazing that she is going to be able to sleep at home tonight.”

-- Grace's attorney, commenting on the Court of Appeals decision today.

BREAKING: “Grace,” the Michigan teen who was detained for not doing her online coursework, is to be released from detention “IMMEDIATELY,” according to an order from the Michigan Court of Appeals that I just received. pic.twitter.com/R3WdkK1tVp

— Jodi Cohen (@Jodiscohen) July 31, 2020

Wow, that was fast! Within two hours of the court order, Grace's mother arrived at Children's Village to get Grace. The teenager had her bags packed and was ready to go. They quickly left and were emotional and happy, according to her lawyers.

— Jodi Cohen (@Jodiscohen) July 31, 2020

Go read the full story at ProPublica by Jodi S. Cohen.

And here's her original report at ProPublica: A Teenager Didn’t Do Her Online Schoolwork. So a Judge Sent Her to Juvenile Detention.

Michigan mom sentenced to 7 days in jail for not following court order to vaccinate her children

'Sovereign citizen' tenant decapitated landlord with sword over rent dispute, say Hartford, CT police

Well, this is both grim and bizarre.

A man in Connecticut is charged with having decapitated his landlord with a sword after the man was told he had to move out because he owed back rent, say Hartford police.

After they got a search warrant was obtained, police found papers showing Thompson believes he is a "sovereign citizen," meaning he is not subject to any statutes and interprets the laws in their own way, the detectives wrote.

CNN:

The Hartford Police Department responded to a 911 call Saturday morning from the landlord, Victor King, who said that his roommate Jerry Thompson, 42, had been "waving a sword at him in a threatening and terrorizing manner" amid a rent dispute, according to an arrest warrant filed by Hartford detectives.

King gave officers Thompson's cell phone number, according to the warrant. It did not say if police spoke to Thompson Saturday. The next day, police received calls from a neighbor and then a separate friend of King's who were concerned about his safety, the warrant said.

Police entered the residence Sunday afternoon to find a grisly crime scene and King's body "covered by numerous articles of bedding" on the floor, according to the warrant.

A medical examiner investigator's preliminary observations suggested King's injuries were consistent with a large edged weapon, noting "lacerations to the landlord's right arm, upper chest and across the neck causing decapitation."

Surveillance video also caught a male exiting a white Jeep, carrying a "long skinny white object in his right hand," walking into the residence Saturday afternoon, and exiting about 30 minutes later with the same object, the warrant said.

More at the Hartford Courant:
Roommate arrested in deadly Hartford attack on Travelers retiree, a top-ranked bridge player

Boston Marathon bomber’s death sentence overturned

On Friday, July 31, 2020, a federal appeals court overturned 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence.

The court today ruled that the judge who oversaw the case did not adequately screen jurors for potential biases.

From the Associated Press:

A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new penalty-phase trial on whether the 27-year-old Tsarnaev should be executed for the attack that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others.

“But make no mistake: Dzhokhar will spend his remaining days locked up in prison, with the only matter remaining being whether he will die by execution,” Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson wrote in the ruling, more than six months after arguments were heard in the case.

An attorney for Tsarnaev said they are grateful for the court’s “straightforward and fair decision: if the government wishes to put someone to death, it must make its case to a fairly selected jury that is provided all relevant information.”

“It is now up to the government to determine whether to put the victims and Boston through a second trial, or to allow closure to this terrible tragedy by permitting a sentence of life without the possibility of release,” David Patton said in an email.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Boston said they were reviewing the opinion and had no immediate comment. Prosecutors could ask the full appeals court to hear the case or go straight to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Read more at the AP.

PHOTO - This photo released April 19, 2013, by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted and sentenced to death for carrying out the April 15, 2013, Boston Marathon bombing attack that killed three people and injured more than 260.

James Murdoch resigns from News Corp board, 'editorial differences' cited

This is a big one.

Former 21st Century Fox CEO James Murdoch has resigned from the board of News Corp., the parent company of the Wall Street Journal.

In a letter of resignation filed Friday afternoon, Murdoch wrote: "My resignation is due to disagreements over certain editorial content published by the Company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions."

James Murdoch Steps Down from News Corp Board Over 'Disagreements' - Variety. PEOPLE ARE GOING TO TRY TO GET THEIR SOULS BACK NOW- WHICH IS EASIER WHEN YOU HAVE ALREADY TAKEN YOUR BILLIONS OUT OF THE FOX POT. https://t.co/bHNhf1Xeg0

— Judd Apatow (@JuddApatow) July 31, 2020

Source indicates to @brianstelter that James Murdoch's resignation letter was not the result of any abrupt action, but that tensions had been building for months. https://t.co/s5KXXHKiWf

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) July 31, 2020

From Alex Weprin at the Hollywood Reporter:

James Murdoch had been on News Corp.'s board of directors since 2013.

News Corp. is one of two media companies controlled by James' father Rupert Murdoch and the Murdoch family. The other is Fox Corp., the parent company of Fox News and the Fox broadcast network, which was created after 21st Century Fox sold its entertainment assets to The Walt Disney Company.

Murdoch stepped down as Fox CEO following the sale, with his brother Lachlan Murdoch becoming CEO, and father Rupert becoming co-chairman. News Corp., which owns the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, New York Post, News U.K. and newspaper and TV assets in Australia, is run by CEO Robert Thomson.

After leaving the Fox fold, Murdoch started his own company, Lupa Systems, which has invested in technology companies and other firms. Lupa Systems has acquired stakes in Vice Media, tech startup Betalab, and is pursuing a stake in MCH Group, the parent company of the Art Basel fair. Lupa Systems and Joe Marchese's Attention Capital also acquired a majority stake in Tribeca Enterprises last year, the parent organization of the Tribeca Film Festival.

Doesn’t want to be associated with white nationalism and spreading death. Understandable. https://t.co/8XyeWc8tBO

— Kim Masters (@kimmasters) July 31, 2020

More:
James Murdoch Resigns From News Corp. Board, Citing "Disagreements" Over Editorial Content

Making arrowheads, knives, and stone tools out of slate

I found this video absolutely mesmerizing. It in, a primitive tech enthusiast from the Pacific Northwest fashions some beautiful and lethal- and effective-looking arrowheads, knives, and tools using ground and polished slate.

As he points out in the lengthy video description, he doesn't have access to the more superior, knappable flint in his area, so he learned the technique for grinding and polishing slate which has been used by indigenous people in that area and around the world for ages. It is astounding what you can make with a piece of slate, water and grinding sand, and a world of patience and time.

Trigger warning: A skinned chicken was shot through with arrows and cut up with slate knives in the making of this video.

Image: YouTube

Alanis Morissette's daughter adorably interrupts her 'Fallon' performance

Alanis, I feel ya, mama. You're trying to get some work done and your kiddo wants your attention. Though trying to hold your cutie while performing a song from your new album on the Fallon show maybe wasn't the greatest idea... or was it?!

(Digg)

Cosplay at a 1966 Science Fiction Convention

What's not to love about this gallery of images from the 1966 World Science Fiction Convention in Cleveland, OH? The cameras may have acquired color and the cosplay may have become a bit more sophisticated, but the spirit of the players seems to have remained unchanged.

These images were taken by the late photographer, and sci-fi mega-fan, Jay Kay Klein. You can see the massive collection of Klein's photos and papers of science fiction fandom on the Calisphere website.

Image: Composite of images from the Jay Kay Klein collection, via Cosplay Central

The most comprehensive and accessible explanation of how COVID-19 works (so far)

One of the greatest struggles of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the fact that the entire world has to watch the normal scientific process happen in realtime. Scientists don't have the space to hypothesize, experiment, and discover new things before it all goes public. Everyone wants certainty; they want immediate answers. But that's not how science works.

This new feature from the UCSF Magazine offers the most comprehensive, detailed, and surprisingly accessible breakdown of the virus so far, including that whole process of discovery — what we knew when, why that led to certain conclusions that were correct, and so on.

In late January, when hospitals in the United States confirmed the presence of the novel coronavirus, health workers knew to watch for precisely three symptoms: fever, cough, and shortness of breath. But as the number of infections climbed, the symptom list began to grow. Some patients lost their sense of smell and taste. Some had nausea or diarrhea. Some had arrhythmias or even heart attacks. Some had damaged kidneys or livers. Some had headaches, blood clots, rashes, swelling, or strokes. Many had no symptoms at all.

By June, clinicians were swapping journal papers, news stories, and tweets describing more than three dozen ways that COVID-19, the disease the coronavirus causes, appears to manifest itself.

This includes a succinct explanation of how it works as a vascular (as opposed to respiratory) virus, and why that was such a jarring realization:

The novel coronavirus, an RNA virus named SARS-CoV-2, has become notorious for its skill at breaking and entering human cells. Its tools of choice are the protein spikes protruding from its surface – a feature that distinguishes all coronaviruses. The spikes of SARS-CoV-2 are the crème de la crème: By the luck of the evolutionary draw, they are able to easily grab hold of protein gates on human cells known as ACE2 receptors and, like jackknives, pry these gates open.

[…]

But Conklin doesn’t think SARS-CoV-2 necessarily kills heart cells outright. Rather, in the process of copying itself, the virus steals pieces of the genetic instructions that tell the heart cells how to do their job. “It’s hauling away and hijacking stuff that’s necessary for the heart to beat,” he says. He is currently testing this hypothesis using human heart cells grown in cup-sized vessels in the lab of Todd McDevitt, PhD, a bioengineer at UCSF and the Gladstone Institutes.

It’s also possible, however, that an infected person’s own immune system may do the majority of the damage in the heart, as it appears to do in the lungs. “The heart probably gets infected by a lot of other viruses, and they don’t have a lethal effect,” Conklin says. “What makes this one different?”

Essentially, the article argues, the SARS-CoV-2 doesn't kill cells the way that, say, the flu does. Instead, it hijacks the genetic makeup in these AC2 receptors, and weaponizes your immune system against you.

Okay, so it's not exactly comforting. But it's nice to be able to comprehend the full picture of the pandemic so far.

We Thought It Was Just a Respiratory Virus [Ariel Bleicher and Katherine Conrad / UCSF Magazine]

Image: Public Domain via PxHere

Why impact lawn sprinklers are so amazing

The entertaining and delightful host of Technology Connections convinced me that impact lawn sprinklers are a lot cooler than I had previously imagined.

Here are the places you can travel with a US passport

America's colossal mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic means US Passport holders have limited options when it comes to international travel. According to this CNN infographic, countries that remain open without restrictions include:

• Albania
• Dominican Republic
• Kosovo
• Maldives
• Mexico
• North Macedonia
• Serbia
• Tunisia
• Turkey

Twenty-three other countries are open with restrictions, such as having a negative COVID-19 test result, going into quarantine once you arrive, or paying a cash deposit.

Image: CNN

I interviewed Freakonomics' Stephen Dubner about his favorite shoes, anchovy paste, and why he likes Microsoft Word

Cool Tools · 237: Steven Dubner

On my Cool Tools podcast, which I co-host with Kevin Kelly, we interviewed Stephen Dubner. Stephen’s an award-winning author, journalist, and TV and radio personality. He’s co-author of the Freakonomics books, which have sold millions of copies in 40 languages, and he’s host of Freakonomics Radio, which gets 8 million global monthly downloads and is heard by millions more on N.P.R. stations and other radio outlets around the world. Here are the show notes.

This Queens bowling alley is an anachronism and an oasis

Astoria Bowl is a something of landmark in the Queens borough of New York City, a struggling business inside a massive building where time has seemingly stopped. Turtle Down Films created this lovely short documentary (shot before COVID-19) about this "anachronism, a vestige of the sport's mid-century heyday era... an oasis in the truest sense of the word, a place of pure recreation and levity in a city where life tends to be serious and weighty."

This is A Place To Bowl.

Make a cute little device that uses machine learning to separate marshmallow bits from breakfast cereal

The Tiny Sorter is a device you can make from an Arduino, a remote control servo, and some cardboard to sort marshmallow bits from a box of breakfast cereal. It's a clever mechanism that uses a laptop webcam and Google's machine learning software to learn the difference between marshmallow bits and cereal bits.

R Sikoryak’s latest project is a word-for-word adaptation of the U.S. Constitution

Cartoonist R. Sikoryak's talent for mimicking other cartoonists, from Krazy Kat's George Herriman to Nancy's Ernie Bushmiiler, is uncanny. He has a new book out, called Constitution Illustrated, published by Drawn & Quarterly and I have been marveling at the illustrations. The publisher kindly gave me permission to run some samples so you can see the versatility of Sikoryak's work.

A gifted pastiche and parody artist as well as a New Yorker cartoonist, R. Sikoryak’s perhaps best known for his widely lauded graphic novel adaptation of the iTunes Terms and Conditions agreement, where each page referenced a different classic comic. It is a triumph of cartooning, one that demonstrated the power of the comics medium to make the unreadable into a text the average reader could engage with. While the Constitution is hardly so dense, Sikoryak transforms it by interpreting it within 100 years of American pop culture icons, all dressed in period attire, naturally!

The 13th Amendment is brought to life by Billy Graham’s classic 1973 comic book cover for Luke Cage, Hero for Hire, drawn by one of the few Black cartoonists in the Marvel bullpen. The Boondock Saints explain the Fourth Amendment preventing seizure. Earlier on, Cathy reminds us that money drawn from the treasury must be appropriately accounted for publically. And it’s pretty satisfying to see the cast of Alison Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For assemble in Section 4, as the Constitution lays out what meetings of Congress look like.

Read more books by using the downtime feature on your iPhone’s screen time settings

In this essay titled "How I Read Two Books a Week," Anthony Draper offers "surprising and practical steps you can take now to read more." My favorite tip is using the downtime feature on your iPhone’s screen time settings.

I’ve also adjusted some of my daily habits to further encourage reading. I turned on the downtime feature on my iPhone’s screen time settings so that all of my apps lock after 10 p.m. — with the exception of the Books app, Wildfulness (nature noises), and the clock (to set my alarm for the morning).

Usually, I’d spend around 30 minutes (or more) watching YouTube in bed before I went to sleep. I saw that as an easy area to convert to reading time. The downtime feature prevents me from just pulling down on the home screen and accessing my Siri suggested apps (my iPhone knows I use YouTube every night, so it’s always right there) because once the downtime schedule hits, YouTube no longer shows up on that menu.

I often get stuck scrolling Flipboard for an hour or longer before falling asleep at night. I'm might try the downtime feature to limit my phone to WaniKani and the Kindle App.

Image: Jumpstory / CC0

A survival guide for living in The Simulation

It’s Sunday. You wake up after a very pleasant sleep. You feel good. You decide to check your email. You have one new email in your inbox; and what d’you know, it’s from Elon Musk! It contains clear evidence that your entire universe is a simulation; and the words ‘Don’t show this to anyone’.

Your whole reality is simulated – everything you know, everyone you love, and even yourself are all an intricate collection of ones and zeros! What now?

In this entertaining essay in Philosophy Now, Harry Whitnall provides a "survival guide to life in the simulation." His first piece of advice: "[T]o maximize your chances of survival, perhaps you should not show anyone the simulation proof, while frequently considering the possibility of one day telling everyone.

[via The Browser]

This notebook has pages proportioned for phone and computer displays

BetterBook is a notebook/sketchbook designed to match widescreen displays. The idea is you can take photos of it on your phone and it will do a better job of fitting on a screen. It comes in one of three types of paper -- dotted grid, standard grid, or blank. The notebook had a successful run on Indiegogo and is now available for pre-order.

Videogame to treat ADHD available by prescription

EndeavorRx is a first-person racing videogame designed to help children with ADHD and this summer, the FDA approved it as a "prescription treatment." Meanwhile, other researchers are developing videogames that can help lift depression and reduce anxiety by interrupting the feedback loops of negativity and fear.

“It’s a well-known fact that so many mobile games use all sorts of psychological tricks to get people to give them money,” Harvard psychology postdoc Chelsey Wilks told IEEE Spectrum. “So we wanted to use the same exact psychological tricks, but to trick [users] into doing something that’s good for them.”

From IEEE Spectrum:

Boston-based Akili Interactive Labs, maker of [EndeavorRx], says its racer was originally licensed from the lab of Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco. The company touts four peer-reviewed studies (in PLOS One, The Lancet Digital Health, The Journal of Autism, and Developmental Disorders) as well as one paper in process as support for its claims that EndeavorRx significantly improves clinical markers of attention in patients with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder).

“EndeavorRx looks and feels like a traditional game, but it’s very different,” says Matt Omernick, Akili cofounder and the company’s chief creative officer. “EndeavorRx uses a video-game experience to present specific sensory stimuli and simultaneous motor challenges designed to target and activate the prefrontal cortex of the brain.... As a child progresses in game play, the technology is continuously measuring their performance and using adaptive algorithms to adjust the difficulty and personalize the treatment experience for each individual.”

A frustrating look inside the White House's utter failure at coronavirus testing, led by Jared Kushner

Over at Vanity Fair, Katherine Eban goes behind the scenes of the Trump administration's abject failure at coordinating mass testing for coronavirus — and perhaps unsurprisingly, in all connects back to Jared Kushner empowering all his trustfund baby friends, and Donald Trump's precious ego crushing every opportunity just to make some political gains:

The plan called for the federal government to coordinate distribution of test kits, so they could be surged to heavily affected areas, and oversee a national contact-tracing infrastructure. It also proposed lifting contract restrictions on where doctors and hospitals send tests, allowing any laboratory with capacity to test any sample. It proposed a massive scale-up of antibody testing to facilitate a return to work. It called for mandating that all COVID-19 test results from any kind of testing, taken anywhere, be reported to a national repository as well as to state and local health departments.

And it proposed establishing “a national Sentinel Surveillance System” with “real-time intelligence capabilities to understand leading indicators where hot spots are arising and where the risks are high vs. where people can get back to work.”

[…]

But the effort ran headlong into shifting sentiment at the White House.

[…]

Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert.

There's also the little detail of the 2.5 million testing kits that were ordered through some White House representative through unofficial channels, and showed up contaminated at the UAE embassy — and for which no money has actually been exchanged, because none of these people understand how invoicing works.

It's a harrowing but necessary read. And I'm cranky now, so you are, too.

How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan “Went Poof Into Thin Air” [Katherine Eban / Vanity Fair]

Image: Gage Skidmore / Flickr (CC 2.0)

The Pentagon has made more UFO revelations, but Canada's had a public UFO database for decades

Earlier this year, the Pentagon confirmed that Tom Delonge had actually leaked some legit UFO videos; and just last week, The New York Times buried even more UFO revelations on the 17th page of the print edition.

It's definitely weird that the former lead singer of Blink-182 emerged from a paranoid painkiller addiction to become a legitimate UFOlogist, in communication with John Podesta and Hillary Clinton. It's even weirder that his colleagues in the To The Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences include a former Defense Department employee who may be lying about his involvement with the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program; the former head of the CIA's "men who stare at goats" program, who also claimed to scientifically "confirm" that Russian magician Uri Geller had actual psychokinetic abilities, even though Geller himself admitted it was a trick; and a scion of the Gulf Oil fortune who also worked for the DOD and involved in a UFO interest group with the co-author of the NYT articles about the Pentagon's UFO program. Or that TTA purchased supposedly "alien" metals from the billionaire owner of Budget Suites for America.

But what's even more ridiculous is that the Canadian government has had most of their UFO information easily available for decades. The info they have is no more damning or exciting than that blurry Pentagon footage of a pill-shaped aerial vehicle that's probably just an unmanned drone or satellite. But the truth, as they say, is out there, nonetheless. From Toronto Star:

The Canadian government hosts a publicly searchable archive of government records about UFOs dating back to the 1950s.

About 9,000 government documents — ranging from defence department memos about “flying saucers” to RCMP reports by officers who investigated UFO sightings across the country — are available on the Library and Archives Canada website.

[…]

Transport Canada compiles aviation reports from NAV Canada as well as other sources and enters them into a publicly searchable database called the Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System.

Though synonymous with aliens, thanks in part to Hollywood, the term UFO can refer to many things, noted a spokesperson for Transport Canada — including “sightings of unmanned air vehicles (UAVs or drones), balloons, meteors, weather phenomena and birds,” adding that the term UFO “should not be interpreted to mean something of extraterrestrial origin.”

[…]

In 2019, 849 UFO reports were filed, following a pattern of decline in the number of UFO reports in the past decade.

These takeaways tend to be the same about the United States' publicly available UFO knowledge: they are likely just flying objects that have yet to be identified, and there's no indication that any of it involves extraterrestrial life.

The biggest difference, the article notes, is that US documentation on UFOs tends to take on a more militaristic tone — either because they're actually classified military test flights, or they're assuming that they're test flights or spying initiatives by foreign governments. The Canadian government, true to their Canadian character, is apparently less inclined to assume hostile intentions about, err, everything.

Secret UFO files? In Canada the truth is out there — online and searchable [Wanyee Li / Toronto Star]

Image: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

A sneak preview of Drew Friedman's book of portraits of underground comix icons

The fantastic Drew Friedman says: "My latest book project will be one hundred black and white portraits of underground comix icons presented as they were during that most fertile era of underground comix, 1967-1977, from Z to A, ZAP to ARCADE (with some stops before and after). Short biographies and samples of their work will also be included."

To me, this is a natural followup to my two Heroes of the Comics books that both focused on the great creators of mainstream comics, from the mid- thirties to the mid-fifties, now jumping a decade to the dawn of the undergrounds.

Underground comix was a counterculture movement that produced iconoclastic and wonderfully forbidden, no-holds-barred comic books and other small press publications focusing mainly on sex, violence and drugs, and featured comix and graphix produced by some of the greatest artistic talents and satiric minds of the day, most prominently the "father of underground comix," R. Crumb.

All of the essential players from that ten year era of undergrounds will be included: Frank Stack, Gilbert Shelton, Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Bill Griffith, Diane Noomin, Denis Kitchen, Justin Green, Kim Deitch, Jay Lynch, Jim Osborne, Trina Robbins, Vaughn Bode, Howard Cruise, all the ZAP artists, the Bijou Funnies artists, the Air Pirates, etc, as well as several obscure, forgotten and black creators. This project should be completed by early to mid 2021 and published either later that year, or in 2022, depending on unforseen circumstances in the publishing world.

I love everything Drew does, and I'm really looking forward to this one. He will be published by Fantagraphics.

Below, R. Crumb, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Howard Cruise, Jay Lynch, S. Clay Wilson, Spain Rodriguez:

Scent of pot is insufficient cause for cops to search and arrest people, court rules

Cops cannot search and arrest people just because they smell weed, Maryland's highest court ruled unanimously. Chief Judge Mary Ellen Barbera wrote, "The odour of marijuana, without more, does not provide law enforcement officers with the requisite probable cause to arrest and perform a warrantless search of that person incident to the arrest."

From Growcola:

This ruling builds on a previous one made last summer by the same court, which barred police officers from arresting and searching a person based on an observation of an amount of cannabis less than 10 grams, which is below the criminal threshold according to decriminalization policy made in 2014.

This carnivorous plant wraps up bugs into a tasty morsel

Cape sundews live in bogs and other locations lacking nutritious soil so they supplement their diet with insects. Watch the Deep Look video above to see how "they exude sweet, shimmering droplets from their tentacles to lure in unsuspecting insects. Once their prey is hopelessly stuck, they wrap it up and dissolve it for a tasty meal."

More at Deep Look: "Cape Sundews Trap Bugs In A Sticky Situation"

Wake Up: a short film from The Lincoln Project

"Wake Up," a short film by The Lincoln Project, depicts what it might be like for a republican to wake up after being in a coma for nearly four years and have his family tell him everything that's happened since Trump came into power. It was directed by Jon Turteltaub.

Gentleman busted for swimming in zoo aquarium

Police charged this 30-year-old gentleman for allegedly trespassing at Australia's Sydney Zoo, stripping to his underwear, and diving into the big aquarium. His brilliant buddies recorded the hijinks and shared it on social media, helping police nab the suspect.

According to 9News, "the Peakhurst man was issued a court attendance notice for behaving in an offensive manner, entering enclosed non-agricultural lands and interfering with business, and opening, entering or damaging an animal enclosure."

David Duke banned from Twitter

The Twitter account of David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and failed gubernatorial and presidential candidate, was suspended early Friday.

"FUCKING FINALLY!," tweeted Sleeping Giants, a campaign dedicated to deplatforming bigots. "... We’ve only been asking about this for THREE AND A HALF FUCKING YEARS!"

Twitter confirmed to Newsweek that the suspension was permanent. Duke has received at least one temporary suspension in the past.

"The account has been permanently suspended for repeated violations of the Twitter Rules on hateful conduct," a Twitter spokesperson was quoted saying by Newsweek. "This enforcement action is in line with our recently-updated guidance on harmful links."

It's not clear exactly which tweet finally did him in, but the reference to harmful links makes it likely the final straw was his posting of a viral coronavirus conspiracy video that exhorts people to take an unproven medication to fight the disease.

Among America's most notorious living racists and antisemites, Duke advanced Neo-Nazi conspiracy theories, defrauded his supporters, and even joined the Republican Party in pursuit of his aims.

Using data to define the official canon of 90s music

I'm a big fan of the Pudding's clever approach to infographics, and this latest piece examining 90s music does not disappoint. They surveyed thousands of people, collecting millions of data points to find out how well they recognized charting songs from the 1990s, and analyzed the results according to birth year. Pretty cool!

Sinatra, Elvis, and Chuck Berry are emblematic of ’50s music, but what’s the ’90s equivalent? Using the recognition data we collected, we can begin to define the canon. These will be the artists and songs that Gen Z and beyond seem to recognize (and value) among all the musical output from the decade.

First, it’s important to understand the general trends in the data. “No Diggity” knowledge peaks among people born in 1983, who were 13 years old when the track debuted in 1996. We also see a slow drop off among people who were not fully sentient when “No Diggity” was in its prime, individuals who were 5 years old or younger (or not born yet) in 1996.

That drop-off rate between generations—in this case, Millennials to Gen Z—is one indicator for whether “No Diggity” is surviving the test of time

The Instagram post below is only a small piece of the results; check out the Pudding's website for the full analysis, with all your favorite (and/or totally forgotten) 90s pop gems.

View this post on Instagram

Part 1 of 2—New project: 1) Gen Z is far more likely to recognize "Wannabe" than "No Scrubs." 2) Will Smith is falling into obscurity. These are two realizations from a new project about how future generations will recognize '90s music.

A post shared by The Pudding (@the.pudding) on Jul 23, 2020 at 2:39pm PDT

Defining the ’90s Music Canon [Matt Daniels and Ilia Blinderman / The Pudding]

Check out this Berlin punk band made up entirely of scrap metal robots

The One Love Machine band is the brainchild of German artist Kolja Kugler, whose work focuses largely on moving sculptures. As he explained to CNN:

When I build a band member I start obviously with the music-making parts. The fingers, plugging or playing, and then I build the character behind it.

The special thing about my robots is that they do actually play the music themselves. My robots play the bass guitar, the drum kit and they play the flute. They've got an affinity for punk rock.

My robots perform all around the world. Tech events, festivals, university lectures or TED Talks.

That's fucking metal. And also punk.

There's a punk band made completely of robots [Briony Edwards / Louder Sound]

 

Pee-wee for President: 'In your guts, you know he's nuts'

Pee-wee Herman for president? SURE, WHY NOT?! Stranger things have happened. At least Pee-wee's slogan is honest: "In your guts, you know he's nuts."

Go to Pee-wee's new store for the "Pee-wee for president" buttons (and tees and pins and stickers and hoodies) but stay for that terrific animated banner!

Francis, his running opponent, is taking a different route with his campaign slogan, the familiar "I know you are, but what am I?" one

images via Pee-wee Store

From tree tents to headlamps, these 10 camping essentials will improve your summer

It’s summer. And this year, Europe and  Disney World just aren’t really all that feasible as part of your travel plans.

Yet especially with the last few months we’ve all endured, the need to get away and experience something new is like a raging fire in many of us. So if you can’t be around too many people these days, how about going where people ain’t?

Camping in the great — and vast — outdoors might be just what you need to decompress a bit, so stock up on these 10 tents, hammock and camping essentials, all at savings up to 60 percent, to make your time away as fulfilling as you need it to be.

Nylon Mesh Hammock - $17.99; originally $29

Sleeping on the ground is never comfortable, so this premium nylon and mesh hammock is ideal for sleeping under the stars without grimacing your way through the whole night. Portable and lightweight at less than 8 ounces, it holds up to 220 pounds comfortably for a relaxing afternoon swing or a full night’s slumber.

Foldable Nylon Hammock - $34.99; originally $49

With durable nylon construction and anchored by twin metal carabiners, this beast can support up to 485 pounds of weight. It’s also extremely versatile, foldable into a carrying back that even includes a strap for improved portability when you’re hiking to your campsite.

Natural Cotton Rope Hammock - $79.99; originally $199

Hand-dyed and woven from 100 percent natural cotton with soft to the touch materials, the Yellow Leaf hammock comes from a thicker weaving yarn, so you can hang with no flipping or even those waffle print markings all over your body. And each Yellow Leaf hammock is signed by its weaver, with a unique pattern and color sequence all its own.

Tentsile UNA 1-Person Tree Tent - $199; originally $250

Speaking of life off the ground, the Tentsile is like having an entire campsite off the ground. With a patented 3-point anchor system, waterproof rainfly, insect mesh, and more, you can raise your completely protected and secure sleeping zone up over steep, uneven terrain, or even water in about 10 minutes.

nCamp Camp Coffee Kit - $62.99; originally $82

Since coffee and camping go hand-in-hand, this water bottle-sized brewer can turn out 12 ounces of espresso-style coffee. With its compact design, accompanying 24-ounce water bottle, and four insulated cups all inside the easy drawstring carrying bag, you’ll enjoy your morning with ease and convenience.

Outdoor Collapsible Cooler & Camp Table Set - $64.99; originally $89

This 18x18-inch cooler to store and chill drinks, as well as a 34-inch table for four, are like bringing a kitchen with you while you camp. It’s all super portable and foldable, so you can set up camp, eat a meal, and relax in comfort.

QuickFire 50-Piece Canister - $27.99; originally $34

You don’t want to be without a campfire, so this 50-pack of all-purpose fire starters can get your blaze going quickly and reliably. Pop a pouch under your wood, light the pouch and you’ll get 10 minutes of robust flames to get your logs burning fast. These QuickFire pouches are not only waterproof, but they’re also good for up to 30 years.

FLÎKR Fire2 Personal Fireplace - $79.99; originally $95

In case you don’t need a big bonfire, the FLIKR Fire2 can give you almost an hour of burn from just 5 ounces of rubbing alcohol. And it’s small enough to fit into your hand. The open flame will help you cook s’mores, tell scary stories and enjoy the night, all without the hassle of a true campfire.

Vega 200 COB LED Ultralight Headlamps 3-Pack - $10.99; originally $14

A strong, dependable light while camping is vital. So the Vega’s ultra-bright 200-lumen lamp can light the way for up to 50 feet ahead of you, all hands-free. With its adjustable elastic headband and full water and weather-resistance, it’s ideal for the great outdoors.

Stinger 1000 Lumen Tactical Flashlight - $25.99; originally $29

Pumping out a blistering 1,000 lumens of light, this tactical security flashlight is practically half flamethrower. With a beam that can be seen up to two miles and three illumination settings inside its virtually indestructible aircraft aluminum casing, the Stinger can be a virtual lifesaver when you need it most.

Prices are subject to change.

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

Running Minecraft on a working virtual PC inside of Minecraft

it works. pic.twitter.com/cMCJgenfSH

— naku (@miskeeping) July 27, 2020

Yes, you can use a mod for open-source virtual machine software VirtualBox to build a working virtual PC running Windows 95 inside of Minecraft to play Doom. "Within Minecraft you simply place a PC case block and then use it to create virtual hard drives to install operating systems from ISO files," writes Tom Warren at The Verge.

The natural next step was to use VirtualBox to run Minecraft inside of Minecraft, as demonstrated by "vm nerd" @Naku.

Of course, this all begs the question: Are we a simulation running on a virtual machine inside Minecraft that itself is running on a virtual machine inside Minecraft? And who is simulating the simulators?

The UK's "pilot program" for socially distanced indoor concerts sounds terrible

The last thing I did before the coronavirus lockdown really take off was a single one of my scheduled St. Patrick's Day music gigs. My rock band just released the first single off our upcoming album, and we know that we won't be able to play any shows to promote it for at least another year. Meanwhile, my wife has spent the last twenty years working exclusively in live theatre.

Performing arts are a central part of our lives, but we both know that they won't be coming back for a while — at least, not in the way we're used to.

So I do commend the UK for at least trying to come up with safety guidelines for indoor performances. But, like with restaurants re-opening here in the US, I, personally, do not plan on indulging in these activities for a long time. This is both for my personal safety, and because I am ethically incapable of sitting there passively while heavily-armored hazmat suits serve me.

Still, I watched with morbid fascination as Frank Turner, one of my favorite songwriters, prepped for one the UK's pilot programs at the Clapham Grand musical hall in London in order to test out the country's socially distanced concert guidelines. Asking Turner to participate in this test drive was a particular curious choice — his charismatic performances are built on communal experience, on crowd participation and singalongs and forcing you to interact with strangers (with courtesy and consent). But all of that had to be stripped away in order to adhere to the coronavirus rules. And Turner knew that going into. Over on his blog, he describes the awkward experience:

Among many other things (reduced capacity, track and trace, one-way systems, table service, temperature checks and more), there was a requirement that the audience were not allowed to sing. That brought me up short, and nearly made me change my mind about the show. Getting the crowd involved in the performance is at the heart of what I do on stage, and the shows I play work towards a moment of unification, where the barrier between performer and audience breaks down. That wouldn’t now be possible (or at the very least would be much harder). The reason, of course, is to to with aerosol diffusion from people’s voices – and as part of that I had to be 3 metres back from the front of the stage. I get that, but it was still galling to hear on the phone.

[…]

In a weird way, we wanted to show that this specific set-up doesn’t work. The Grand was at less than 20% of capacity (around 200 people), but Ally had to double the number of staff working, to meet all the guidelines. There was no talent spend (I didn’t get paid), and no advertising spend (the show sold out pretty much straight away), and yet it still lost money. And the Grand is a versatile space, as an old music hall, in a way that many independent venues are not. We needed to show that this isn’t a complete solution or a workable model, that either restrictions need to change or more funding is required; essentially that fight is far from over.

I commend Turner and his friends for trying to make this work. But it breaks my heart to hear how infeasible the whole venture is, and will continue to be, until we have a vaccine.

The First Gig Back [Frank Turner]

England to Allow Indoor Concerts Beginning Next Month [Lake Schatz / Consequence of Sound]

Image via Facebook

"Hygiene Theater" doesn't reduce the risk of COVID-19

My family stopped wiping down all our groceries to "disinfect" them a couple months ago, mostly because of hygiene exhaustion. Then in May, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention clarified its own Web page about how COVID-19 spreads to state that "based on data from lab studies on COVID-19 and what we know about similar respiratory diseases, it may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes, but this isn’t thought to be the main way the virus spreads."

Still, many of us are still embracing "hygiene theater," activities that might make us feel better but, according to microbiologist Emanuel Goldman's article in medical journal The Lancet, those tactics don't have much to do with how COVID-19 is actually transmitted. (Wear a fucking mask.) Derek Thompson writes in The Atlantic:

All those studies that made COVID-19 seem likely to live for days on metal and paper bags were based on unrealistically strong concentrations of the virus. As he explained to me, as many as 100 people would need to sneeze on the same area of a table to mimic some of their experimental conditions. The studies “stacked the deck to get a result that bears no resemblance to the real world," Goldman said[...]

A good case study of how the coronavirus spreads, and does not spread, is the famous March outbreak in a mixed-use skyscraper in Seoul, South Korea. On one side of the 11th floor of the building, about half the members of a chatty call center got sick. But less than 1 percent of the remainder of the building contracted COVID-19, even though more than 1,000 workers and residents shared elevators and were surely touching the same buttons within minutes of one another. “The call-center case is a great example,” says Donald Schaffner, a food-microbiology professor who studies disease contamination at Rutgers University. “You had clear airborne transmission with many, many opportunities for mass fomite transmission in the same place. But we just didn’t see it.” Schaffner told me, “In the entire peer-reviewed COVID-19 literature, I’ve found maybe one truly plausible report, in Singapore, of fomite transmission. And even there, it is not a slam-dunk case.”

The scientists I spoke with emphasized that people should still wash their hands, avoid touching their face when they’ve recently been in public areas, and even use gloves in certain high-contact jobs. They also said deep cleans were perfectly justified in hospitals. But they pointed out that the excesses of hygiene theater have negative consequences.

For one thing, an obsession with contaminated surfaces distracts from more effective ways to combat COVID-19. “People have prevention fatigue,” Goldman told me. “They’re exhausted by all the information we’re throwing at them. We have to communicate priorities clearly; otherwise, they’ll be overloaded.”

Read this great graphic novel about how to un-rig our democracy

I recently received a galley copy of Unrig: How to Fix Our Broken Democracy, a new graphic novel from Macmillan's World Citizen Comics imprint. Here's the blurb:

Despite our immense political divisions, Americans are nearly united in our belief that something is wrong with our government: It works for the wealthy and powerful, but not for anyone else. Unrig exposes the twisted roots of our broken democracy and highlights the heroic efforts of those unrigging the system to return power to We the People.​

This stirring nonfiction graphic novel by democracy reform leader Daniel G. Newman and artist George O’Connor takes readers behind the scenes—from the sweaty cubicles where senators dial corporate CEOs for dollars, to lavish retreats where billionaires boost their favored candidates, to the map rooms where lawmakers scheme to handpick their voters. Unrig also highlights surprising solutions that limit the influence of big money and redraw the lines of political power.

​If you're overwhelmed by negative news and despairing for the direction of our country, Unrig is a tonic that will restore your faith and reveal the path forward to fix our broken democracy.

In truth, it's less of a graphic narrative and more of a narrated textbook. And while I consider someone who's pretty in touch with both graphic novels and political processes, I was utterly delighted by Unrig, and swiftly devoured all 290 pages. I was familiar with a lot of the information, sure, but the book presented it all in a digestible, accessible way — I'm excited to share it with both my father and my newborn son (when he's old enough to understand). Unrig carefully breaks down complicated political processes with just enough detail to make them feel actionable, and then explains how to actually take action in your community. There are some moments where it might too simplistic or fantastical, but, well, unfortunately, the Kochs and their network really are that diabolical, and it's hard to paint them with nuance when they refuse to exist in a normal nuanced world.

Unrig also boasts a comprehensive index, so you can fact-check all the claims within the book. I'm sure there are some people who will read this and cry "fake news" because the footnotes aren't right there interrupting the narrative; but by using an index instead, it actually makes the whole book flow more smoothly. The point of the book is not to bog you down with details; it's to inspire you to action by teaching you about ranked choice voting, clean elections, and more. And if those are things you're interested in — or interested in sharing with others — I highly recommend it.

Unrig: How to Fix Our Broken Democracy [Daniel G. Newman and George O’Connor]

FunEasyLearn can help you learn your favorite foreign language your way

Learning a new language is like stepping up to the base of Mount Everest. You know you’ve got one heck of a climb ahead of you. 

But while the sheer magnitude of the task ahead scares away many climbers, the real trick is finding the path up that best fits with your skills and capabilities.

FunEasyLearn thinks they’ve locked in on some effective methods that can get learners to that language summit of full proficiency in a foreign tongue, no matter how they learn best.

With millions of worldwide teaching success stories already, not to mention a rock solid 4.5 out of 5 star rating from Google Play and Apple App Store users, FunEasy Learn offers a full package of language training in any of 34 different languages. They can train up students in  popular options like Spanish, French, German, Russian or Japanese or with more specialized possibilities like Bulgarian, Turkish or Indonesian.

Whether you’re a visual learner, an auditory learner, or a verbal learner, the FunEasyLearn app uses science and game-based methods to build your vocabulary, syntax, and speaking skills naturally. 

Created by a team of certified linguists and acting teachers, the learning experience adjusts to the personal interests, knowledge level, and learning abilities of each user. With massive vocabulary training in over 11,000 different words and phrases, FunEasyLearn combines proven memorization techniques and gamification tools. 

If you learn best by seeing, you’ll appreciate the hand-drawn illustrations and GIFs that accompany your words collected into over 300 different topics. If you learn best by hearing, you can listen to their high-quality audio files recorded by native-speaking voice actors. Of if you learn best through speaking, you can improve your pronunciation with FunEasyLearn’s advanced speech recognition technology.

Play 30 different vocabulary games to improve your reading, writing, listening and speaking skills as you build up through 10 difficulty levels, from complete beginner to language pro.

With their Smart Review Manager to help keep learning fresh, synchronized progress across all devices and even offline lessons, FunEasyLearn says you’ll see measured growth in your skills after less than a month of regular sessions.

To learn any one of FunEasyLearn’s languages would usually cost $249, but right now, access to all those training tools is just $39. Or you can level up to take on their entire 34-language catalog for only $69.