I bought this extension cord reel with 4 outlets last November, and it has come in handy many  times since then. It has a 25-foot power cord which rolls neatly onto a spool. Amazon has it on sale today at a good discount. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/good-deal-on-this-extension-co.html

A key challenge in building colonies on the moon is that it's incredibly expensive to transport construction materials to space from Earth. That's why researchers are exploring how moon bases could be mostly constructed from raw materials already there. A team of scientists working with the European Space Agency (ESA) are exploring how urine could be a key ingredient in lunar concrete. A 3D printer could then form the "mud" into structural components. From FEYCT - Spanish Foundation For Science And Technology:

Scientists from Norway, Spain, the Netherlands and Italy, in cooperation with ESA, have conducted several experiments to verify the potential of urine urea as a plasticizer, an additive that can be incorporated into concrete to soften the initial mixture and make it more pliable before it hardens. Details are published in the Journal of Cleaner Production.

"To make the geopolymer concrete that will be used on the moon, the idea is to use what is there: regolith (loose material from the moon's surface) and the water from the ice present in some areas," explains one of the authors, Ram'on Pamies, a professor at the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (Murcia), where various analyses of the samples have been carried out using X-ray diffraction.

"But moreover," he adds, "with this study we have seen that a waste product, such as the urine of the personnel who occupy the moon bases, could also be used. The two main components of this body fluid are water and urea, a molecule that allows the hydrogen bonds to be broken and, therefore, reduces the viscosities of many aqueous mixtures."

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/astronaut-urine-could-be-a-key.html

A good friend of mine is restoring a Scout now. He compares it to my Vanagon and I do not understand why.

Looks like this one wants to be driven!

Bring a trailer:

Features unique to Selective Edition included an SSII-style grille, gold side stripes, and matching wheels. This example received a repaint in its factory shade of dark brown with gold stripes under previous ownership. Numerous exterior images in the gallery below show the current condition of the finish.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/a-positively-beautiful-1979-in.html

If your pantry is dwindling down to the dregs, fear not. Host Alton Brown from the Food Network comes to the rescue with this Saltine crackers hack –– using just the crackers, along with butter, hot sauce, and mustard –– that looks easy and yes, even tasty.

And if your pantry is actually doing just fine but you want another Saltine cracker hack, here's one we posted in 2018 that uses "saltines, Ritz crackers, ramen, tomato sauce, cheese, pepperoni, Slim Jims, and pickles."

How to make prison pizza

Via Mashable Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/bare-pantry-watch-this-saltin.html

On March 16, Richard A. Epstein of the Hoover Institution wrote an article titled "Coronavirus Perspective," which stated that “public officials have gone overboard” in efforts to stop the spread of the virus, and that only about 500 people in the U.S. would die from coronavirus. The Washington Post reported that Epstein's article was widely circulated in the White House.

Isaac Chotiner interviewed Epstein for The New Yorker, and Epstein quickly lost his cool at the questions Chotiner was asking:

Epstein: Looking at the data thus far, both theories tend to predict a sharp rise at the beginning, mine less sharp than the one that’s coming out.

In the next week or so, we’ll see. I will be, shall we say, much more compromised if we start to see a continuing explosion of deaths going on for two or three weeks. But, if the numbers start to level off, the curves will start to go downward.

I was just asking about—

Epstein: I’m saying what I think to be the truth. I mean, I just find it incredible—

I know, but these are scientific issues here.

Epetein: You know nothing about the subject but are so confident that you’re going to say that I’m a crackpot.

No. Richard—

Epstein: That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? That’s what you’re saying?

I’m not saying anything of the sort.

Epstein: Admit to it. You’re saying I’m a crackpot.

I’m not saying anything of the—

Epstein: Well, what am I then? I’m an amateur?

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/read-this-contentious-new-york.html

Well, they're performing at the Capitol Theater in Passaic, New Jersey in 1980, but I'm watching it in my living room right now.

This killer lineup includes the great avant-garde axman Adrien Belew of King Crimson and The Bears and the late Parliament-Funkadelic legend Bernie Worrell on keyboards!

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/join-me-in-watching-talking-he.html

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/artist-audrey-kawasaki-made-a.html

I have been enjoying Killer Queen Black.

I started playing KQB in beta, on the recommendation of some friends who played the arcade version regularly in a bar. This game is a hoot!

In addition to a 'Military' win where you beat up the other team with flying creatures that operate a heck of a lot like the awesome ostrich riders in Joust, you can also win by collecting berries ("Economic") or racing a snail across a finish line ("Badass".)

Three-player teams take on three-player teams, or you can just play vs the AI.

Available for Xbox One, Switch and PC via Steam. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/killer-queen-black-like-m.html

If you have Netflix and you haven't seen Tiger King, you're missing a real treat. It covers a few years of the life of Joe Exotic, a narcissistic roadside zoo proprietor with one weird trick for attracting husbands, and his nemesis, Carol Baskin, an animal rights activist with one weird trick for losing them. This is what television was made for! Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/watch-the-tiger-king.html

If evidence were ever needed that the tabloids are making it up as they go along, this week’s coverage of Prince Harry and wife Meghan serves the purpose.

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/a-beheaded-tot-isolated-stars.html

As the death toll mounts...

After being asked a very important question about how his wild misstatements might impact his policy judgment, President Orange Julius ranted and raved. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/like-a-baby-trump-launches-in.html

During a call-in to 'Fox & Friends' that lasted an hour, Trump says next call is with Putin.

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/trump-and-putin-to-talk-of-end.html

Paralysis by analysis. It’s the phenomenon that happens when you’re so stuck on thinking through all the ramifications of your actions that you don’t actually take action in the first place.

That can happen with all this free time you’re spending stuck inside your house. With literally every home-bound option available to you, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by your choices and just watch Dr Pimple Popper from morning til night.

Resist that urge, people.  In fact, we’ve got three ways your time indoors could actually end up being time well spent -- and you can knock out all three with The Social Distancing Lifetime Subscription Bundle ft. Rosetta Stone.

Learn a language

Half the world is bilingual. Literally. So if you’re locked in on English and only English, you can broaden your communication horizons with a lifetime subscription learning up to 24 different languages at your own pace with Rosetta Stone. They’ve spent decades refining their intuitive learning method that’s been the online gold standard for language learning for 30 years. Their immersive system ramps up vocabulary, conversation, and writing skills naturally while their TruAccent speech recognition technology is there with instant feedback on how well your spoken language skills are progressing.

Read a book...or dozens of books

Since you can’t go to the library, you can bring the library to you with lifetime access to 12min Premium Micro Book Library. Just scroll through hundreds of different nonfiction titles in more than 20 different categories and make your choice. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/save-over-75-on-lifetime-subs.html

Colors.lol combines two things the web was made for: color scheme generators and uncanny generative text.

Created as a fun way to discover interesting color combinations. Palettes are hand-selected from the Twitter bot @colorschemez. The randomly generated palettes match each color with an adjective from a list of over 20,000 words.

Created by Adam Fuhrer.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/overly-descriptive-color-p.html

You need this. So do I. Ladies and gentlemutants, this is Daniel Matarazzo performing his ode to coronavirus, 'Super Bad Transmittable Contagious Awful Virus!.' It's a parody of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, from the 1964 musical 'Mary Poppins.'

I love this man and I love his song so very much.

Tom Lehrer, reincarnated, and stuck at home during a pandemic.

LYRICS:

Now when a virus comes along that’s spreading like a plague and POTUS and his lackeys have been nothing if not vague Well then you’ve got to trust the CDC and listen well Unless you want to bid our free society farewell

There is a... Super bad transmittable contagious awful virus And if we don’t act quick and social distance it will mire us In a stretch of quarantine that lasts until July, a Super bad transmittable contagious awful virus

(And if ya gotta better cough in your arm And if ya gotta better cough in your arm)

Now back in 1918 Influenza had its run But half their docs were busy overseas with World War I Today we have mass media and scientists to say If you don’t want this virus well then stay six feet away!

Super damn important that we practice isolation Cause we’re asymptomatic while it’s in incubation We’ll overwhelm our hospitals if there’s not mitigation Super damn important that we practice isolation

(If we don’t do it then we’re all gonna die If we don’t do it then we’re all gonna die)

And so I hope at last you take the lesson here to heart, cause it’s already scary and we’re only at the start If you get bored just think of the immunocompromised Who can’t go much of anywhere unless it’s sterilized

Super bad transmittable contagious awful virus And if we don’t act quick and social distance it will mire us In a stretch of quarantine that lasts until July, a Super bad transmittable

A super bad transmittable

A super bad transmittable contagious awful virus!

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/the-super-bad-transmittable.html

You do what you gotta do to get through this, people. Whatever it takes.

Respect, IMGURian @nitrochief.

Day 10 of isolation: feeding the ducks

[via] Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/duckies-yay-duckies.html

In this amusing video, a man deliberately attracts the attention of police so that he may ask them the same nosy questions they ask of motorists, etc, in hopes of finding probable cause.

I don't want to assume the videographer is white as the driven snow, but you know, I do assume that. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/man-asks-cops-the-same-nosey-q.html

My friend Dug North shared this video on YouTube at the request of another friend. It is unedited and a bit long, but it's a fascinating technique that requires only a knife and a segment of bamboo.

Like a lot of friction fire techniques, the prep is important (and a tad fussy) and it takes a while to get the hang of it, but it looks as though, once you learn it, it's really not that hard.

Image: YouTube Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/how-to-build-a-fire-with-a-kni.html

You might remember that when I'm not blogging for Boing Boing, I can usually be found at my other gig — Children's Fairyland. Of course, the Oakland, California kiddie theme park is closed now and will be until it's safe to reopen. But, we do have a skeleton crew of essential "elves" who are on site to care for the donkeys, miniature horses, and other animals. While there, they also water our plants and check our mail. That's when we got the idea to offer the children in our community a chance to became pen pals with these "elves." We already have stacks of super-fun, kid-sized stationery, so launching it was just a matter of announcing it on social media.

The offer:

Play with us! Have your child draw us a picture or write us a note, and then snail mail it to us. Our "elves" promise to write back (on special Fairyland stationery designed by Oakland artist Michael Wertz, no less).

Send to: 699 Bellevue Avenue, Oakland, CA 94610

Play with us! Have your child draw us a picture or write us a note, and then snail mail it to us. Our "elves" promise to write back (on special Fairyland stationery designed by Oakland artist Michael Wertz, no less).

Send to: 699 Bellevue Avenue, Oakland, CA 94610 pic.twitter.com/WppZHIVNug

 Children's Fairyland (@FairylandCA) March 23, 2020

Well, in just a week, the response has already been incredible. Local children, plus some as as far away as Texas and Utah, have been sending us snail mail like crazy. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/children-are-becoming-snail-ma.html

American drug maker Johnson & Johnson said Monday it plans to begin the human testing phase of its experimental coronavirus vaccine by September 2020, with plans to make it available for emergency use in early 2021.

In January, J&J said it was already working on a possible coronavirus vaccine, using the same technologies with which scientists there developed an experimental Ebola vaccine.

From Reuters:

J&J also committed more than $1 billion of investment along with U.S. agency Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to co-fund vaccine research, expanding a previous collaboration.

Global efforts are underway to develop a vaccine for the virus that has killed over 34,000 worldwide, but experts have cautioned it could take over a year to have a vaccine ready.

A patient was dosed with Moderna Inc’s (MRNA.O) vaccine in an early-stage trial earlier this month, making it the front-runner in the race to develop a viable vaccine.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/human-testing-of-johnson-joh.html