In Germany, a court sentenced a 31-year-old Tunisian man to 10 years in prison for planning a biological bomb attack with the deadly poison ricin, which is isolated from the seeds of the castor bean plant.

He is said to have ordered the beans online. One can isolate a lethal amount of ricin from them, under the right circumstances.

The sentence was issued last Thursday, March 26, 2020. The arrests are believed to have prevented what would have been Germany's first biological attack, said police in Munich.

Sief Allah H., 31, was found guilty of producing a biological weapon and of planning a serious act of violent subversion.

From AFP:

An Islamic State sympathizer, the perpetrator had ordered castor seeds and explosives on the internet in order to build the toxic bomb, a spokesman for the higher regional court in Duesseldorf said.

(...) His German wife, 43, stands accused of helping him build the bomb, but she is now being tried separately after the court accused her defense lawyers of attempting to spin out the case with a 140-page statement on Thursday [26 Mar 2020]. Her trial will resume on 1 Apr 2020.

The couple "wanted to create a climate of fear and uncertainty among the German population," Judge Jan van Lessen was quoted by DPA as saying on Thursday [26 Mar 2020]. He added that they had produced enough ricin to potentially kill up to 13 500 people.

The couple have been on trial since June last year [2019] following their arrest in 2018 by an anti-terrorist squad that found 84 milligrams of the toxin in their Cologne apartment.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/man-who-tried-to-build-a-ricin.html

First of all: if you haven't watched Netflix's Tiger King documentary series yet, then what the hell are you waiting for? It's got everything: tiger, ligers, lions, and bears; gay polygamists who are also straight; murder cover-ups galore; lots and lots of meth; fucking tigers; straight polygamists who are really just harem cult leaders who also own tigers; mullets; tigers; country pop songs about tigers and the Deep State; more meth mouth; more tigers; more polyamory; more conspiracies; FBI entrapment schemes; strip club owners who are also narcs; that libertarian campaign manager who actually seems like a decent guy; the multiple employees with amputated limbs who also seem like decent people in spite of their tragic stories; more guns and explosions; and of course, tigers.

But one thing it doesn't go into enough in its already-overpacked-seven-episodes is the Tiger King's alleged music career. While the series shows some clips from Joe "Tiger King" Exotic's country music videos, it doesn't explain who actually wrote and produced those songs, or let you hear any of them in their full WTF glory.

Slate was fortunate enough to interview the songwriters involved in such hits as "I Saw A Tiger" — and if you've seen the show, you won't be surprised that they were kind of conned by Joe Exotic, too, just like everyone else around him.

But perhaps even more glorious is that people like BJ Barham (above), one of my favorite alt-country singer/songwriters and the frontman for American Aquarium, has already taken to covering Joe Exotic's Tiger songs. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/a-delightful-cover-of-i-saw.html

Donald Trump has insisted that Plaquenil/hydroxychloroquine will cure COVID-19. The drug is commonly used to malaria, as well as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. While there have been some successful results with drug after treating patients infected by the novel coronavirus, there's just not enough reliable information available right now.

But the President's endorsement of the drug has caused a bit of panic around it. First, there are people who have died after mistakenly taking related drugs. Now, according to Buzzfeed News, so healthcare providers are refusing to give the drug to people with conditions that it has been proven to treat:

A 45-year-old woman with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) said she received an online message from her health care provider stating it will no longer refill her vital hydroxychloroquine prescriptions because that drug is being used to treat the "critically ill with COVID-19," the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

It gets worse. Here's the kicker:

The letter thanked her for her "sacrifice."

A sacrifice, it should be noted, that she had no choice in making — if it's even a sacrifice that actually works.

Like Alabama denying treatment to people with "severe mental retardation," it seems that all the conservative fearmongering around the made-up "Obamacare Death Panels" is finally coming true under the Trump Administration's handling of the coronavirus epidemic.

A Woman With Lupus Said Her Health Care Provider Is Stopping Her Chloroquine Prescription And Thanked Her For The “Sacrifice” [Tanya Chen and Dan Vergano / Buzzfeed News]

What We Know — and Don’t Know — About Possible Coronavirus Treatments Promoted by Trump [Charles Ornstein / ProPublica]

Image via Public Domain Pictures Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/healthcare-providers-are-alleg.html

At this point, it's every single person's responsibility to reduce their own carbon footprint and transition to a more sustainable lifestyle. But if you consider the grim fact that the biggest culprit of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities in the U.S. is burning fossil fuels for electricity, things, like pivoting to metal straws and carpooling to work, seem painfully insignificant.

Studies have shown that choosing clean energy can reduce your carbon footprint by over 40 percent, but it's not an easy feat. Even if you're willing to consider renewable energy options, having large solar panels installed on your roof is probably the first thing that comes to mind, and frankly, it's not something that everyone can afford to do. Luckily, it's not the only alternative power source for your home.

What is Arcadia?

Enter: Arcadia. A service that allows you to have a sizeable green impact at home and on your community. It breaks down the barrier to entry to supporting clean energy sources and helps you significantly cut down on your carbon footprint. Whether you're a homeowner or a renter, Arcadia enables you to make better choices by providing easier access to clean energy sources in your area, as well as finding ways for you to save on energy where possible. That means not only does it offer a way to help you save the environment, it helps you find ways to save money on your bills, too.

How it works

When you join the platform, it asks you to connect your existing utility account to identify the clean energy plans available in your area. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/29/take-part-in-the-clean-energy.html

Trump on Sunday said he's extending COVID-19 social distancing guidelines until April 30.

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/29/now-trump-says-coronavirus-res.html

A registered sex offender hosting a coronavirus party despite Maryland's ban on gatherings during the outbreak refused to shut down his 60-person drunken bonfire, cops say. The party host did not win the argument with police officers.

Shawn Marshall Myers, 41, could face up to a year in prison and a $5,000 fine for violating the emergency order intended to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Fox 13 reported.

From Southern Maryland News:

On March 27, 2020, at approximately 10:55 p.m., officers from the Charles County Sheriff’s Office responded to the 15000 block of Lukes Lane in Hughesville for the report of a large group of people at a single location in violation of Governor Hogan’s emergency order which prohibits planned gatherings of more than 10 people in response to the COVID-19 emergency.

When officers arrived, they observed approximately 60 people at a bonfire.

This is the second time officers have responded to this house for a large gathering:

On March 22, 2020, officers were dispatched to the house for a similar complaint. At that time, the homeowner, Shawn Marshall Myers, 41, was advised of the emergency order and he agreed to disperse the crowd. During the second incident, Myers refused multiple requests to comply with the emergency order.

After conferring with the Charles County State’s Attorney’s Office, Myers was subsequently charged with two counts of failing to comply with an emergency order and is currently incarcerated at the Charles County Detention Center on a no bond status.

The CCSO is reminding citizens of the emergency order and urging everyone to comply for the safety, health and well-being of all communities.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/29/md-cops-say-sex-offender-refus.html

"When they keep drinking this, there’s going to be more people poisoned."

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/29/toxic-booze-in-iran-sold-as-co.html

Companies that don’t have their own in-house design teams (which means 99 percent of all companies these days) face lots of serious questions. Among those questions is how you keep up with all the design requirements of a 21st-century company without the personnel.

It isn’t just a website or an annual product catalog anymore. It’s promotional materials, both physical and digital. It’s a fundamental brand identity building. And that doesn’t even scratch the surface on the design needs of a company that wants a robust social media or app presence.

It can be a lot for the non-artist tasked with getting everything done. A Pro subscription to Canva is one of the tools that can help even graphically-challenged creators come up with beautiful, professional-grade work in a fraction of the time it would take otherwise.

Canva is a design and marketing service that lets creators assemble attractive materials like posters, logos, presentations, flyers, cards and social media art in a matter of minutes. From over 60,000 templates across a variety of categories, users maneuver the easy-to-access interface and can literally drag and drop customized fonts, images, and even video content right into their project.

With Canva, your library of available resources is truly massive. You can choose from over 4 million different photos and graphics to give your project the individual spark that it needs. Of course, if nothing grabs you, you can always upload your own images, fonts, and logos and import them right into your work. Meanwhile, Canva Pro’s nifty Magic Resize feature allows you to instantly crop, save and export your work or any part of your work to just the size and format you want for exporting. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/29/canva-pro-can-be-the-ultimate.html

Well I think I'm losing my mind, this time This time I'm losing my mind, that's right Said I think I'm losing my mind, this time This time, I'm losing my mind Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/29/start-your-sunday-the-beastie.html

In case you’re one of those computer shoppers who instinctively turns up their nose at the very mention of the word refurbished, here are a couple myths worth dispelling.

Refurbished equals junk somebody didn’t want. While desktops, laptops, notebooks, Chromebooks and tablets marked as refurbished may have been unboxed at some point, meaning they can never again be sold as new, that definitely doesn’t make them junk. Refurbished computers don’t work. In fact, the complete opposite is usually true. No matter why a computer ended up back at the manufacturer, each one was cleaned, assessed and had new components installed if needed to get the machine to meet or exceed original performance expectations. Unlike models that just rolled off an automated assembly line, a human actually checked out a refurbished computer and gave it the company’s seal of approval. Refurbished machines aren’t a deal. Well, take a look at the 22 good-as-new models served up here by some of the world’s top computer makers, each with discounts knocking as much as $1,300 off your final price and say that. Desktops and towers still pack a punch

With so many buyers focused on transportable tech, big savings are available on the workhorse of the computer industry: the trusty old desktop unit.

The HP EliteDesk 705-G1 Mini PC ($229.99; originally $599.99) is the very definition of dependable and a solid choice for anyone seeking a reliable model to handle everyday computing chores like emailing and web surfing. Mini PCs were mocked for years for being underpowered next to their bigger desktop brothers, but between performance upgrades and space requirements in tight conditions these days, who’s laughing at a mini’s svelte profile now? Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/29/upgrade-your-pc-with-this-sale.html

Electric bikes aren’t toys. And they aren’t a fad. In fact, more and more communities are starting to catch on that e-bikes are a lot more than an amusing gadget for the tech geek.

Following a six-month study, Johnson County, Kansas, home to many Kansas City suburbs, became just the latest U.S. community to allow electric bikes access to the county’s paved trails. E-bike advocates were able to show officials the health and ecological benefits of opening up access to e-bikers, a move that undoubtedly brings a smile to the face of Mike Radenbaugh.

Radenbaugh started Rad Power Bikes back in 2007 -- and over the past 13 years, he’s built the Seattle-based company into the largest and fastest-growing e-bike maker in North America.

And when you dig into exactly why Rad is watching more and more people adopt the e-biking lifestyle, there’s really one simple reason at its center: it just makes sense.

Practically speaking, bike riding gets users outside to enjoy the great outdoors -- all while the bike’s compact electrically-powered motor gives riders a little assist when they’re running out of stamina or need extra help on a hill or lengthy straightaway.

Opening up the throttle on your Rad Power Bike is as simple as a button press, offering some much-needed extra support to your pedaling when you most need it. Even if you’re totally spent, just open it all the way up and you can stop pedaling completely, cruising along at up to 20 miles an hour without an ounce of exertion. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/28/rad-power-bikes-want-to-get-th.html

Last month, I covered the unreal tabletop fantasy village that Real Terrain Hobbies and Goobertown Hobbies built using buildings from Tabletop World, two Croatian sculptors who pretty much make the best resin-cast fantasy buildings in the world.

Now, Neil of Real Terrain is building a gaming board and terrain features worthy of the Tabletop World buildings that he and Brent so meticulously painted.

Here are his first two videos documenting the process. The first is of him building the actual board, the second is him beginning to add paint, the ground cover, and vegetation. These videos are something of a masterclass in terrain making.

One thing that Neil shares in the second video is a great tip for all miniatures painters and terrain makers. As he begins to put the watered down paint onto his foam rock formations (in gray, brown, green, and black), he has to remind himself that it's going to look kind of awful, like it might not be working, before he's done. This is something that often frustrates and scares newbies. Often, basecoats and early layerings of paint can look bad and you can become fearful that you're on the wrong track. As you gain more experience painting and weathering, you realize that it takes time to build up your colors, and that, for things to look realistic, you need many different colors and sometimes some of those colors look wrong when first applied. Things in nature are not a single color. Your minis and terrain look best when they have a complex of color. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/28/creating-realistic-vegetation.html

Whether you're living in a city that has already taken measures to reduce plastic bag use, the small silver lining of the pandemic has inspired you to make changes, or you've already started living a greener lifestyle, reusable produce bags are a great addition to your shopping routine. And if you're going to invest in a product like this, why not do that with a brand that gives back, too?

Lotus Trolley Bag makes these reusable, washable, eco-friendly, multipurpose produce bags and is a member of 1% for the Planet, meaning that a percentage of their sales goes to high-impact non-profits that protect our oceans.

This set of 9 food-safe, BPA-free bags includes 3 different color-coordinated sizes (12" x 8", 12" x 14", and 12" x 17") that will cover all your fruit and vegetable shopping needs. The 120 GSM non-woven fabric they're made of is double stitched on the sides for strength—the large can support a watermelon!—yet they're so light you'll hardly notice them in your purse or pocket on your way to the store. And while you're at the store, they're super easy to use, too, thanks to their tare weight labels that make it a cinch to accurately weigh out your produce minus the weight of the bag itself. Speaking of cinches, the bags cinch closed with ease and then stay that way with the help of secure locks attached to the drawstring that work just like ones you'd find on a hooded coat.

But possibly the coolest thing of all about these bags is how reusable they are. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/28/do-double-the-good-with-eco-fr.html

Anyone who's ever gone to Burning Man is undoubtedly already familiar with the N95 mask, the particle filters that also protect from inhaling playa dust. And Burners are also familiar with "radical self expression." So, it comes as no surprise that the happy mutants over at Burner-friendly Grassy Knoll Industries have taken it upon themselves to make an otherwise plain-looking mask better — by turning it into a "Catface." Whiskers and all. They describe it as "Quarantine Couture." Even if you have no plans to "cattify" a mask, you should go read the instructions because parts of it are pretty funny. Cats not your thing? There are other fun mask ideas in their "Social Distancing Can Be Fun" Facebook page. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/28/diy-catface-n95-mask-cover-wh.html

Ben of Questing Beast has begun reading all of Gary Gygax's 1979 roleplaying game masterwork, the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, on YouTube, After the first two videos, at around four hours in, it look like he's up to page 33. He estimates it'll take some 40 hours to read the entire book.

Of all of the D&D books, spanning four decades, the DM Guide had the most profound impact on me and will always hold a special place in my nerdy little heart. I'm sure many other RPGers of my generation (and beyond) feel the same way.

Image: YouTube Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/28/questing-beast-reading-the-ent.html

On Friday, Sonic Youth uploaded 12 of their previously unreleased live shows to their Bandcamp archives. The concerts span the bands career, from the late 80s to their final US show in 2011.

Lee Ranaldo writes of the project:

We have a couple of engineers and archivist people that we work with. But we’re still all interested in it, we’ve been maintaining a massive archive that continues to grow. Steve Shelley has been really active in it, and the rest of us a little bit less so, but I’ve been pretty active in helping put together the last bunch of packages that come out. In this case, this guy from Russia just said: “Hey, I’ve got this tape of the show” that we had never heard before, and he wanted to put it out. We kind of batted the idea back and forth of whether we wanted to go that route, and in the end, we gave him our blessings to do it. We’re working on an archival project around Sister right now, which is a massive thing we’ve been working on for a while. And two or three other things as well, something around NYC Ghosts & Flowers, and something around a particular concert we did at the Pompidou Center in Paris with Brigitte Fontaine and Areski [Belkacem] that we’ve been trying to cut the legal tape on and release for like a decade.

Read more about the releases on Spin. H/t Red Cell

Image: Album cover art Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/28/sonic-youth-releases-12-of-the.html

Click here to see the first post in this series on baking sourdough started from nothing but flour and water

After starting a new sourdough starter not long after sheltering-in-place at my parent's place about 12 days ago, I have baked my second loaf of bread!

I've been baking with sourdough for well over a decade. My aged OG sourdough starter is currently in hibernation, however, at my brother's house in Northern California while I am in Southern California. I wanted to bake, but did not have a starter. I decided to make one.

View this post on Instagram

10 seconds of steam coming out of a fresh loaf of #sourdough from my 12 day old #sourdoughstarter #boingboing

A post shared by Jason Weisberger (@jlw) on Mar 28, 2020 at 9:58am PDT

The first loaf I tried with the starter showed that it was almost but not quite mature enough for me really enjoy what I was baking. It reminded me of a prior experience baking with my OG starter when it had not been treated well. Care of a starter is pretty easy, just feed it every day.

I gave the starter another 5 days or so of daily feedings.

I made some more sourdough pretzels while I waited.

Last night I put up a smaller sized loaf of bread. I want to conserve flour as it has been the only thing I've had a hard time finding. Hell, I am using some aged whole wheat...

I combined 1 1/4 cup of bread flour and 3/4 cup of 2015 expired Gold Medal whole wheat in the big blue bowl. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/28/pandemic-sourdough-baking-my.html

I have been loving Shieldwall, a strategy game where you and your Roman legion attempt to kick the crap out of other Roman legions!

This game reminds me of a 3D Starcraft, with (thus far) a lot less complexity. You start with one base and attempt to take others from other CG teams!

More bases result in more resources for you to spend, so get to work!

I bought it on Steam for less than $10.

Shieldwall on Steam Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/28/shieldwall-a-fun-video-game-w.html

Dr. Miguelito Loveless is my favorite TV villain of all time. He is the Hans Gruber of the small screen.

Dr. Loveless was portrayed by Michael Dunn.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/28/great-tv-villains-the-wild-wi.html

ProPublica:

Some state plans make clear that people with cognitive issues are a lower priority for lifesaving treatment. For instance, Alabama’s plan says that “persons with severe mental retardation, advanced dementia or severe traumatic brain injury may be poor candidates for ventilator support.” Another part says that “persons with severe or profound mental retardation, moderate to severe dementia, or catastrophic neurological complications such as persistent vegetative state are unlikely candidates for ventilator support.”

"Useless eaters," as the Nazis called them. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/28/alabama-disaster-plan-would-de.html