Oh my gosh, this poor gal is never going to live this down. Eve, a contestant on Family Feud Canada**, screwed up her family's chance to play for $10,000 by incorrectly answering the world's easiest sudden-death question: "What's Popeye's favorite food?" Oof! Let's hope she's at least offered an endorsement deal from a certain fast food chain.

Even crazier, watch these unaired outtakes:

There's more to the #FamilyFeudCanada chicken story - What happens when contestants guess wrong on a sudden death round? Take a look at these behind-the-scenes bloopers and see what you'd never get to see on TV. #bloopers #chicken pic.twitter.com/K7x6V0hpSv

 Family Feud Canada (@FamilyFeudCa) January 10, 2020

**Am I the only one who didn't know there was a Canadian version of Family Feud?

(Twitter) Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/0QuZXuXvX6c/family-feud-contestant-thinks.html

In my experience, most people haven't heard of the Rentals — and most of those who have heard of them only really know them as "that other band that Weezer's old bass player was in." Or the band who wrote "Elon Musk Is Making Me Sad."

That is all technically accurate. The group was started by Matt Sharp while he was still Weezer's secret weapon. And Elon Musk does make him sad. Since leaving that other band, Sharp has continued to release orchestral synth-y power-pop with a rotating cast of musicians under the Rentals moniker over the last 20 years. The group has included performers like Maya Rudolph, the Haden Sisters,  Joey Santiago from the Pixies, Patrick Carney from the Black Keys, and many others.

The spaced-out track above is an instrumental mix of a tune from the band's upcoming sci-fi-themed album, Q36. The band has been releasing a new track every 2 weeks, along with a corresponding limited-edition t-shirt and hitRECORD project. And while I liked the regular version of "Invasion Night," I absolutely love this ambient version of it. Sharp cut out all the the vocals, drums, and bass in order to focus on his synthesizer sounds and the guitar work of Nick Zinner (most famously of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), and the result almost makes me feel like I'm in the head of Major Tom as he floats to his death.

The video that goes along with it was actually part of the Rentals' 2009 album Songs About Time, which included 365 photographs, 52 short films, and 3 EPs, all created in real-time over the course of a year. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/gExotg0s2MU/this-ambient-mix-of-a-new-sci.html

NEW Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows 20% of likely Democratic caucusgoers name Sanders as their first choice for president.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is leading the Iowa Poll for the first time, and just 3 weeks remain before the Iowa caucuses.

Sanders took the lead in the Democratic field and narrowly overtook his closest competitors, Sanders, Biden, and Buttigieg, all in a tight scrum just behind Sanders.

Here are the top line numbers:

IOWA WH’2020 poll (DMR/CNN/Selzer, with trend from November): Sanders 20 (+5) Warren 17 (+1) Buttigieg 16 (-9) Biden 15 (+0) Klobuchar 6 (+0) Yang 5 (+2) Booker 3 (+0) Gabbard 2 (-1) Steyer 2 (-1)

Excerpt from the Des Moines Register:

After a surge of enthusiasm that pushed Pete Buttigieg to the top of the field in November, the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor has faded, falling 9 percentage points to land behind both Sanders and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Warren is at 17%; Buttigieg, 16%; and former Vice President Joe Biden, 15%.

“There’s no denying that this is a good poll for Bernie Sanders. He leads, but it’s not an uncontested lead,” said pollster J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co., which conducted the poll. “He’s got a firmer grip on his supporters than the rest of his compatriots.”

IOWA WH’2020 poll (DMR/CNN/Selzer, with trend from November):Sanders 20 (+5)Warren 17 (+1)Buttigieg 16 (-9)Biden 15 (+0)Klobuchar 6 (+0)Yang 5 (+2)Booker 3 (+0)Gabbard 2 (-1)Steyer 2 (-1)https://t.co/hcharuzx6M

 Reid Wilson (@PoliticsReid) January 10, 2020

First choice + second choice combined:Warren 33 (17+16)Sanders 32 (20+12)Buttigieg 31 (16+15)Biden 27 (15+12)Klobuchar 14 (6+8)Yang 11 (5+6)...no

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/h3C5AwGs1ac/bernie-sanders-leads-iowa-poll.html

On Amazon, the box was described as “Used: like new.”

In New Jersey, a mom and dad were unpleasantly surprised to discover that a box of diapers delivered by Amazon for changing their 19-month-old daughter.... was full of poopy diapers.

Mom Nassly Sales noticed when she picked up the box that it seemed “heavier than usual,” and when she and her husband, Sid Mukherjee, opened it up -- the stinky truth revealed itself.

From NJ.com:

“I picked up the pack to kind of take a closer look (and) that’s when the stench hit me,” Mukherjee said, noting the pack of diapers smelled like urine before they realized they had been used. “Oh! This is not right ... one actually has poop in it.”

Mukherjee, 50, said he found himself incredulously laughing at the situation, adding that they order diapers for their daughter off Amazon at least every two months.

“I turned on the lights and that’s when I noticed that it was soiled,” Sales said. “I’m still in disbelief, to be honest.”

Of the two boxes of diapers that were purchased, one box’s condition was described as “new” and the second was described as “Used: like new.” The description said the packaging was original, but that it was damaged.

Amazon didn't respond to a reporter's request for comment.

Read the full story: Online order of diapers arrives at Jersey City home -- but they were already soiled [nj.com] Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/RGNHIQLJhfc/new-jersey-mom-and-dad-open-am.html

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/kKGdTaapOZM/russianwarship.html

"Surfing the web," is one of those casual terms that actually says a lot about the way we use the internet. "Surfing," after all, sounds fun, almost passive. Just let the wave of information carry you, it seems to say.

But what if we actually need to stay put for a while? Sadly, the layout of the modern internet page isn't designed for sustained, focused reading. Luckily, there's a fairly cheap hack for Chrome users in their Reader Mode Pro extension.

The primary use of Reader Mode is going to be a boon to just about anyone, whether they're serious readers or not: It removes ads. It also removes unnecessary photos or icons, letting you focus on the text.

Students can highlight that text, annotate it or even change the font to suit their needs. There's a handful of specific fonts that are designed to help dyslexic readers focus, as well as a "Dyslexia Ruler" that guides the eye at a customizable pace.

Built-in text-to-speech and Google Translate capabilities are just a couple of the other bells and whistles that make this a game-changer for just about anyone who reads for information and not a distraction.

You can get the Reader Mode Pro: Chrome Reading Extension for 60% off the retail price now. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/m4BDM0W8Ty4/this-chrome-extension-lets-you-2.html

Privacy activst Murray Hunter's picture book Boris the Babybot tells the story of Boris, a robot whose job it is track all the babies and send their likenesses and preferences back to the factory so that its owners can make money by deciding who's a good baby and who's a bad baby.

By and large, this is an easy task: Boris scans the babies' smiles and noses and eyes, but records whether they like peas or puppies. But some babies can't be scanned: they're in the bath, hidden by bubbles; or they're covered in so much food their faces can't be captured, or they're just having too much fun wearing a box on their heads, meaning Boris can't get a look at their faces.

When Boris is fired from his factory job, he is initially distraught, but then he formulates a better plan: rather than scanning those babies, he joins them -- getting bubbles all over himself, smearing himself with food, and putting a box on his head.

The book -- whose crowdfunder we supported last summer -- is a delight. A set of accompanying online resources help parents contextualize the story with their kids with fun games and discussion-starters.

Alas, the book is hard to get outside of South Africa and the UK, but you can email murray.hunter@pm.me to buy it direct from the author.

Boris the Babybot [Murray Hunter] Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/35vUsFlUcyM/peas-puppies-boxes.html

In 2006, Erik Helwig created the Rickroll. Maybe. Over at MEL Magazine, Brian VanHooker's "An Oral History of Rickrolling" takes us back to a time when the worst of the weaponized Internet memes were those created by advertising agencies, not corrupt politicians and warmongers. And if you're curious what I mean by that, watch the rather shocking video above. From MEL:

Erik Helwig, founder of Rickrolling (maybe)

: This was small-town, rural Michigan and there was this radio program called the Postgame Show that covered local sports. People would call in and say stuff like, “My son Christopher played on the team tonight, and he did a real great job!” Stuff like that, so my friends and I started pranking it and the calls started getting weirder and weirder. We’d call in and talk about our favorite Nicolas Cage movies and other weird stuff like that. Then one day I called them and just played “Never Gonna Give You Up” on the air. I didn’t say anything, I just played the song. The host had absolutely no reaction to it, he didn’t say, “I’m being Rickrolled” or anything like that because it was before all that.

I don’t know if I want to call myself the “founder” of Rickrolling. That’s difficult for me because it was something that I did on a whim and later realized that I did this six months before anyone else, which I thought was cool, but that’s about it. I only picked that song because I really like the song — it’s a great 1980s song that’s fun to laugh at in the best way.

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/Knnkz7-u43U/an-oral-history-of-rickrolling.html

When the IRS proposed providing free, pre-completed tax-returns to US taxpayers, the big tax-prep companies like Intuit/Turbotax and HR Block lobbied like crazy to kill the plan, and instead proposed "Free File," through which they would provide free online tax-prep services for people with incomes of $69k or lower.

However, the tax-prep companies immediately set about creating a web of deceptive lookalike services with similar names that would trick people into thinking they were using the free services, then hit them with a surprise bill before they could submit their returns. At the same time, their lobbyists managed to ban the IRS from advertising the real Free File services.

Propublica has produced a guide to filing your taxes for free in 2020, with direct links.

As ProPublica reported last year, TurboTax purposefully hid its Free File product and directed taxpayers to a version where many had to pay, which is called the TurboTax Free Edition. If you clicked on this “FREE Guaranteed” option, you could input a lot of your information, only to be told toward the end of the process that you need to pay.

You can access TurboTax’s Free File version here. This version is offered through the Free File agreement.

TurboTax’s misleading advertising and website design directed users to more expensive versions of the software, even if they qualified to file for free. After our stories published, some people demanded and got refunds. Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, faces several investigations and lawsuits because of this.

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/cdp274oaNZY/unfuck-your-taxes.html

James O'Donoghue, a planetary scientist at JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), made this excellent clip comparing the rotations, tilts, and sidereal day lengths of the eight planets and two of the dwarf planets in our solar system.

There are many more dwarf planet candidates, but they aren't mapped so aren't included," O'Donoghue writes. "More space missions would be a good idea."

Agree!

Below, another one of O'Donoghue's fantastic videos:

Light Speed – fast, but slow #scicomm pic.twitter.com/LfoZ3g38DK

 Dr James O'Donoghue (@physicsJ) September 30, 2019

(via Cliff Pickover) Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/kbmEWValJNk/excellent-animation-comparing.html

The awesome LEGO Star Wars Boost Droid Commander set lets you build and program Star Wars droids.

A big hit over the holiday season was this LEGO droid building kit. Having started with LEGO Mindstorms decades ago, I am thrilled with how LEGO's learn to code using our toys program has come along.

This kit comes with 3 build-able droids and whole lot of coding challenges to help you and your children learn to manage R2D2.

LEGO Star Wars Boost Droid Commander Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/yCZCnDLauqk/teach-a-kid-to-code-with-the-l.html

The 10,000+ athletes at the Tokyo Olympics will sleep on bed frames made of strong cardboard. According to the Athletes Village manager Takashi Kitajima, the frames can hold up to 200 kilograms (440 pounds).

"They are stronger than wooden beds," Kitajima said... "Of course, wood and cardboard would each break if you jumped on them."

From the Associated Press:

The single bed frames will be recycled into paper products after the games. The mattress components—the mattresses are not made of cardboard—will be recycled into plastic products.

The mattress is broken up into three distinct sections, and the firmness of each can be adjusted.

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/fNHZQKNdRh4/athletes-at-the-tokyo-olympics.html

Amazon has a good deal on the Rotring 500 0.5mm Mechanical Pencil. It's .

Here's a video review of the 500:

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/O5LA5Zc3lNg/great-deal-on-the-rotring-500.html

In June 1995, physicians Angus Wallace and Tom Wong were waiting for their flight to depart Hong Kong to London when they were asked to examine a woman complaining of arm pain caused by a "fall." After takeoff, the doctors returned to the woman to put a splint on her arm but they quickly realized that her injuries were much more serious than she had first reported. Not only did the woman have arm and rib fractures, her lung was punctured and air leaking between her lung and chest wall had caused a pneumothorax. The condition is life threatening if not treated and Wallace believed the change in air pressure upon landing would kill her. So Wallace and Wong had to improvise. From Wikipedia:

The medical kit had lidocaine – a local anaesthetic – but the catheter in the kit was designed only for urinary catheterisation and was too soft for use as a chest tube. The doctors fashioned a trocar from a metal clothes hanger to stiffen the catheter, and a check valve from a bottle of water with holes poked in the cap. They sterilised their equipment in Courvoisier cognac, and began surgery by making an incision in the patient's chest, but with no surgical clamps available, Wong had to hold the incision open with a knife and fork while Wallace inserted the catheter. The whole surgery lasted about ten minutes; the doctors successfully released the trapped air from the patient's chest, and she passed the rest of the flight uneventfully, eating and watching in-flight movies.

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/1y8wiK8HPBo/incredible-story-of-a-successf.html

The Good Liars -- the comedy duo of Davram Stiefler and Jason Selvig -- redecorated a Brooklyn armed forces recruiting center with posters featuring Donald Trump Jr and the slogan, "I'm not enlisting but you should" with the strapline, "There's weak, and then there's Trump weak."

You can download a high-rez version of the poster to print and display here.

The duo told HuffPost on Friday that “in the wake of Trump’s latest reckless foreign policy actions that could very easily result in more and more troops being sent to the Middle East, we thought the public deserved a reminder of who the Trumps are.” Mo< “They’re a family that have avoided military service on a generational level,” they added. “Don Jr. loves to fire at helpless animals and pose for pictures with them, but he’d never go to war although he’d expect others to do it.”

Pranksters Unleash Spoof Army Recruitment Signs To Remind People ‘Who The Trumps Are’ [Lee Moran/Huffpost]

(via Christian Nightmares) Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/eEPNlPK9eCA/bonespurs-jr.html

A batch of internal emails and other communications by Boeing employees were released to Congress on Thursday as part of a 100-plus page document, according to CNN, and what these employees said about Boeing’s 737 Max back in 2017 and 2018 is terrifying. (It wasn’t even a year after these communications that two new 737 Max planes crashed within five months of each other, killing 346 people total.)

For example, in April 2017, one employee said the Max was “designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys,” and referred to the plane as having a “piss poor design.”

And in February 2018, from one employee to another: "Honesty is the only way in this job — integrity when lives are on the line on the aircraft and training programs shouldn't be taken with a pinch of salt. Would you put your family on a Max simulator trained aircraft? I wouldn't."

To which the other employee said, “No.”

Three months later, an employee wrote about some other mishap Boeing was dealing with: "I really would struggle to defend the [simulator] in front of the FAA next week,” while another employee wrote: “I still haven't been forgiven by god for the covering up I did last year."

From CNN:

The new jet was intended to be similar enough to require only the tablet-based training to bring pilots up to speed on the differences between the old model and the new one. One email included in Thursday's collection of documents from Boeing's chief technical pilot made it clear how crucial it was to the company that the simulator not be required.

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/138rsKlRcD0/piss-poor-design-and-sup.html

I found "Dimensions of Dialogue" (1983) on my favorite subreddit r/ObscureMedia. It's an 11-minute stop-motion orgy of garbage, flesh, mastication, digestion, eructation, and decay by Czech filmmaker Jan Svankmajer. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/wR-uNSXpSVo/11-minutes-of-garbage-flesh.html

How often have you seen news stories and videos poking fun at people who have trouble locating where a certain country is on a world map? The latest iteration of this kind of lazy journalism comes from Morning Consult: Can You Locate Iran? Few Voters Can. "The polling experiment sheds light on voters’ geographical unfamiliarity with foreign countries, even those with which the United States has been engaged in sustained conflict," says the article.

If Morning Consult wanted to shed some useful light, it could focus less on the geographic location of Iran and more on why the US and Iran have been at odds ever since the CIA and Britain's MI6 overthrew the democratically elected Iranian government in 1953 and installed a murderous and corrupt tyrant who was happy to let western petroleum concerns exploit Iran's natural resources in exchange for a dictatorship. This segment from a 2018 episode of The Daily Show has a good recap:

Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/7CQdG9fpBIQ/people-are-idiots-because-th.html

Maxwell Johnson (56) has been a customer at the Bank of Montreal (BMO) in Vancouver, Canada since 2014. On December 10 took his 12-year-old granddaughter to the bank to open an account for her there, reports CBC News. What started out as a fun and exciting event for a grandfather and young granddaughter turned into a nightmare when a bank teller decided the pair was suspicious after examining their identification, which included "government-issued Indian Status cards, his birth certificate and her medical card." The teller called the cops, who handcuffed the man and child. They were detained in handcuffs for an hour until "it was determined that there was no criminal activity and no fraudulent transactions," according to a spokesperson for the Vancouver Police Department.

From CBC News:

"They came over and grabbed me and my granddaughter, took us to a police vehicle and handcuffed both of us, told us we were being detained and read us our rights," Johnson said.

Johnson says when he saw his granddaughter in handcuffs, crying, he was heartbroken.

"You can see how scared she was … It was really hard to see that," he said.

Johnson says he believes he was racially profiled.

When CBC News contacted Bank of Montreal for comment, they issued a statement that read: "We value our long and special relationship with Indigenous communities. Recently, an incident occurred that does not reflect us at our best. We deeply regret this and unequivocally apologize to all. We are reviewing what took place, how it was handled and will use this as a learning opportunity. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/l3_FPlRWHtI/cops-handcuff-man-and-his-12-y.html

Commercials for grills, jeeps and hiking boots make the great outdoors seem like a magical place, and it is — until you have to clean all that grimy gear afterward.

There's no getting around it, but there is a better way than that hand towel or worn-out brush you've been using. The Brush Hero is a gadget that attaches to your garden hose and adds strong scrubbing power to the water pressure.

There's a lot of thought put into this deceptively simple cleaner. Clip it on to the end of your standard garden hose, and the force of the water is amplified into a surprising amount of torque. The spinning brush is tough enough to clean even caked-on outdoor grills, but gentle enough to use on your car and other painted surfaces.

The head is small enough to get in between tight crevices, and the deluxe Brush Hero set includes a Navigator attachment that lets you reach storm drains or other problem spots.

Get the Brush Hero®: Deluxe Set with two replacement brushes for more than 90% off the MSRP. Read the rest

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/pfGKBG6SmkQ/the-brush-hero-helps-blast-a.html