The Daily Mail ran leaked a March 2015 audio recording' of medics looking for Johnny Depp's severed fingertip. In a 2018 deposition Depp says his wife at the time, Amber Heard, threw a vodka bottle at him and it shattered, cutting off his finger.

From Vanity Fair:

Heard’s story, which she told in her own deposition at the time, differs dramatically. She said that the fight was sparked over her former co-star Billy Bob Thornton. While she alleged that Depp hit her with one hand, he was “slamming a hard plastic phone against a wall with his other until it was smashed into smithereens. While he was smashing the phone, Johnny severely injured his finger, cutting off the tip of it.” At some point later that night, Depp had written on the walls with a mixture of paint and the bloody finger, “Billy Bob” and “Easy Amber.” (Depp reportedly denies all of her account, except for the writing on the wall).

Image: By gdcgraphics, CC BY 2.0, Link Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/08/listen-to-recording-of-medics.html

A gentleman racing his very "rare Gemballa-tuned Porsche Carrera GT" through the streets of New York yesterday morning collided into a parked van, then tried to get away. But the car, now blinking its tail lights, sounds like a sick animal as it leaves the van, hits a few more cars, and finally stalls down the road. Turns out the hot shot was car collector and Gold Rush Rally founder Ben Chen, 33, who was charged with "with drugged driving."

Via The Drive. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/08/drug-addled-gentleman-crashes.html

"When the #coronavirus lockdown is lifted, we'll be closer to living in the world envisioned in the 1990s by the likes of @EFF, @WIRED, @stewartbrand, @rossetto, @janemetcalfe, @kevin2kelly, @2000_mondo, and others," says Nick Gillespie of Reason. Here's a video he made to explore the idea that "we may realize that life is mostly better in the cloud, where it's possible to learn faster, work better, and generally get what you really want delivered directly to your door, and for less money."

I definitely agree with learning faster online part. For me, video learning is the best thing to come out of the Internet. My 16-year-old daughter devours coding, math, and science videos, and when I watch some of them with her, I realize they quality of the teaching is superior to any class I took in high school.

Image: YouTube Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/08/how-coronavirus-is-kickstartin.html

Translating abstract scientific data into sound can give researchers new insight into the complexities of the phenomena they are studying. MIT materials science professor and musician Markus Buehler, who has employed this technique to understand biological materials and develop new proteins, has now transformed the novel coronavirus into music. For the recording above, Buehler selected a synthesized Japanese koto as the primary instrument. This beautiful intersection of science and art could someday help inform new pathways to prevent viral infection. From Science:

[Buehler and his colleagues] assigned each amino acid a unique note in a musical scale, converting the entire protein into a preliminary musical score... The new format can help scientists find sites on the protein where antibodies or drugs might be able to bind—simply by searching for specific musical sequences that correspond to these sites. This, the researchers say, is faster and more intuitive than conventional methods used to study proteins, such as molecular modeling. They add that by comparing the musical sequence of the spike protein to a large database of other sonified proteins, it might be possible to one day find one that can stick to the spike—preventing the virus from infecting a cell.

From MIT News:

Q: What’s the benefit of translating proteins into sound?

[Buehler]: Our brains are great at processing sound! In one sweep, our ears pick up all of its hierarchical features: pitch, timbre, volume, melody, rhythm, and chords. We would need a high-powered microscope to see the equivalent detail in an image, and we could never see it all at once.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/08/scientists-translates-the-nove.html

Cory posted about 15 different public domain backgrounds you can use in conference calls. I like the space colony one (above).

I use a number of different backgrounds when I do video calls. One that I frequently use is a photo I took of Arcadia Cafe on a rainy day in Melbourne:

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/08/public-domain-zoom-backgrounds.html

The people who are under the impression that 5G towers are bathing the planet in death rays will says this video is part of the Conspiracy, but everyone else will find it interesting. In short, 5G uses very low power. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/08/5g-radio-waves-are-a-poor-choi.html

What started out as some 'adults' looking for other 'adults' to play Fortnite with has turned into a fairly large and active community of age-appropriate Gen X video game enthusiasts.

Killer Queen Black, Pummel Party, World War Z, Fortnite and Overwatch are a few of the games I've enjoyed since the pandemic shut me in! Still largely focused on Fortnite, this group helped me build a gaming PC and pick a BBQ.

The people are nice. In almost 2 years of hanging out online with this ever-growing gang of senior players, I have never heard anyone be discouraging.

You can join the discord here. Chat at anyone with a FOF in their handle, they'll help you find the games you are looking for!

Fortnite over Forty Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/08/a-gen-x-online-video-gaming-co.html

We are sad to report that, according to John Prine's family, he has finally succumbed to the COVID-19 virus that he'd been battling for the past nine days. Rolling Stone writes of Prine's career:

As a songwriter, Prine was admired by Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, and others, known for his ability to mine seemingly ordinary experiences — he wrote many of his classics as a mailman in Maywood, Illinois — for revelatory songs that covered the full spectrum of the human experience. There’s “Hello in There,” about the devastating loneliness of an elderly couple; “Sam Stone,” a portrait of a drug-addicted Vietnam soldier suffering from PTSD; and “Paradise,” an ode to his parents’ strip-mined hometown of Paradise, Kentucky, which became an environmental anthem. Prine tackled these subjects with empathy and humor, with an eye for “the in-between spaces,” the moments people don’t talk about, he told Rolling Stone in 2017. “Prine’s stuff is pure Proustian existentialism,” Dylan said in 2009. “Midwestern mind-trips to the nth degree.”

We say goodbye to this great American songwriter with this performance of "Angel from Montgomery," recorded for Austin City Limits, in 2018.

Fly, Mr. Prine. Fly.

Image: YouTube Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/07/legendary-singer-songwriter-j.html

While all the downsides of stay-at-home orders and social distancing are evident, there are at least a few small silver linings to come out of all this. For many, this time spent indoors has meant a happy reintroduction to your very own kitchen.

You know your kitchen. It’s usually the place that holds all your leftovers. And it’s where the oven lives, the appliance that handles all your one-step frozen dinner heat-ups.

Of course, that’s not really cooking, is it? But for as long as we’re sticking close to home, it’s a great opportunity to try some culinary explorations we may never have attempted overwise. Cooking for real means ingredients and measurements and likely a cascade of spoons and measuring cups to get it right.

However, reinvigorated cooks can now ditch all of those extra utensils and containers for simplified ease of The Kitchen Cube All-in-One Measuring Device.

At first glance, it almost looks like a basic toddler toy, just a 3.5-inch plastic block. But this single instrument is actually an all-purpose gadget to handle up to 19 different US and metric measurements in seconds. From cups to tablespoons to milliliters of virtually all cooking sizes, the Kitchen Cube’s got you covered.

Just flip the cube to your preferred measurement, pour in your ingredient to the fill point, and dump. It’s stunningly simple, yet this basic cube just eliminated the need for all those other measuring spoons and cups that clutter your drawers and countertops and seem to end up everywhere while you’re trying to cook. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/07/the-kitchen-cube-might-just-br.html

While people talk a lot about what they see in their dreams, and the visual language of dreams is well-studied by psychologists, what we hear when dreaming is rarely discussed or scientifically explored. Recently though, researchers at Norway's Vestre Viken Hospital Trust and the University of Bergen conducted a small study to quantify the auditory experience of dreamers. Why? Because they wanted to "assess the relevance of dreaming as a model for psychosis." Throughout history, they write, psychologists have considered dreamstates to be a model for psychosis, yet people experiencing psychosis usually suffer from auditory hallucinations far more than visual ones. Basically, what the researchers determined is that the reason so little is known about auditory sensations while dreaming is because, well, nobody asks what people's dreams sound like. From their scientific paper in PLOS ONE:

The participants reported auditory impressions in 93.9% of their dreams on average. The most prevalent auditory type was other people speaking (83.9% of participants’ dreams), followed by the dreamer speaking (60.0%), and other types of sounds (e.g. music, 33.1%). Of altogether 407 instances of auditory impressions in the 130 dreams, auditory quality was judged comparable to waking in 46.4%, indeterminate in 50.6%, and absent or only thought-like in 2.9%....

The internal generation of auditory sensations, most notably of speech, may be a typical, integrated characteristic of dreaming. The findings on auditory impressions in dreams contribute to making clear the comparative phenomenology that models of common underlying mechanisms in dreaming and psychosis must account for.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/07/what-do-we-hear-when-we-dream.html

I’m glad this silly bike took what it deserved from r/IdiotsFightingThings

This grim fellow has no patience for machines that aim to make sport of him. As a bonus, he almost removes a pedestrian's ear with the trusty machete he keeps in a sheath to inflict well-deserved punishment on his disobedient velocipede. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/07/gentleman-punishes-recalcitran.html

DC has made images of a number of iconic comic book locations available for use as virtual backgrounds for Zoom and other video conferencing services.

"Whether it's for work, school or just keeping in touch with your friends, you've likely found yourself video chatting with a lot of people over the past couple of weeks. After all, it's a great way to stay connected in this time of social distancing," the DC press release reads. "But why take video calls from your living room or bedroom when you could take them from the Batcave, the Fortress of Solitude, Themyscira, or the Hall of Justice?"

Read the rest on Bleeding Cool.

[H/t Bruce Dykes]

Image: Foretess of Solitude virtual backdrop from DC Comics Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/07/dc-comics-offers-free-virtual.html

Jimmy DiResta was sitting on a plane, looking at his clasped hands, when he wondered if he could possibly create a joint that worked on a similar principle of interleaving fingers clasping two pieces of material together. The result of that inspiration is this steel stool connected together by CNC-cut finger joints.

Image: YouTube Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/07/jimmy-diresta-builds-a-stool-w.html

EraseCOVID is what happens when creative folks join forces for the greater good. A fantastic gang of artists and designers (including Ruben Bolling) have joined forces to create some really terrific "Public Safety Art," which is all available to purchase as posters, greeting cards, and more! Proceeds benefit chosen charity MusiCares, the artists, and the ongoing work of EraseCOVID.

The art is aces — I've already spent $50 there today. One awesome thing to note: If you buy a "single poster set" ($30), you actually get TEN posters! They encourage you to share.

Thanks, Tweedlebop! Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/07/with-erasecovid-artists-and-d.html

I've been enjoying this new YouTube series that Dan Shapiro (Glowforge founder) and Ari Shapiro (NPR) have created to help kids learn at home. In this episode, we hear from Dr. Philip Costanzo, Duke Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, who teaches Dan's twins "about social psychology, peer pressure, how kids' attitudes develop, and psychology experiments you'd never believe." Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/07/watch-social-psychology-for-k.html

Tonight's full Moon is a "Pink Moon" aka "Passover Moon" aka "Paschal Moon" aka "Hanuman Jayanti" aka supermoon, the largest full moon of 2020. From NASA:

The term "supermoon" was coined by the astrologer Richard Nolle in 1979 and refers to either a new or full Moon that occurs within 90% of perigee, its closest approach to Earth in a given orbit. Under this definition, in a typical year there can be 3 or 4 full Supermoons in a row and (about half a year apart) 3 or 4 new Supermoons in a row. In practice, what catches the public's attention are the full Moons that appear biggest and brightest each year. For 2020, the four full Moons from February to May meet this 90% threshold, with the full Moons in March and April nearly tied in size and brightness. This full Moon will be slightly closer to the Earth (about 0.1%) than the March full Moon was, so this will be the "most super" of the full supermoons this year.

image: NASA/Bill Dunford Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/07/tonight-is-a-supermoon-the-la.html

“Big Brother, it turned out, was wearing a MAGA cap”

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/07/more-reporting-links-clearview.html

A federal judge in New York on Tuesday denied a request that accused serial sexual abuser R. Kelly be released from jail, rejecting claims by his lawyers that he is at high risk of contracting COVID-19.

READ THE DECISION: [PDF]

In her opinion, Ann M. Donnelly, United States District Judge in Brooklyn, NY, wrote that lawyers for R. Kelly failed to prove their client is no longer “a flight risk or a danger to the community.”

News reports say 'at least 2' workers at the Chicago jail where R. Kelly is housed have tested positive for coronavirus.

Judge rejects R Kelly's request to be released due to COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak pic.twitter.com/b0sftq9fY9

 Charlie De Mar (@CharlieDeMar) April 7, 2020

From reporting by Marina Fang for HuffPo:

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly rejected the attempt, pointing out that Kelly, 53, is younger than the age group that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention consider to be at high risk. His alleged history of abuse means that he continues to be “a flight risk or a danger to the community,” she wrote in a court filing, and his lawyers have failed to prove that has not changed.

In addition, Donnelly said his surgery in January, which was reportedly to repair a hernia, has been completed, and he “does not explain how his surgical history places him at a higher risk of severe illness.”

“While I am sympathetic to the defendant’s understandable anxiety about COVID-19, he has not established compelling reasons warranting his release,” she wrote Tuesday.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/07/federal-judge-rejects-r-kelly.html

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, will be staying in a London hospital's intensive care unit for the second night in a row, officials tell various news reporters late Tuesday U.S. time.

Johnson is receiving oxygen support but is in 'stable' medical condition, in good spirits, and is not on a ventilator, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told a daily news conference.

Raab is standing in for Johnson.

From Reuters:

Johnson, 55, was admitted to St Thomas’ Hospital, across the River Thames from parliament, late on Sunday after suffering symptoms including a fever and a cough for more than 10 days.

His condition deteriorated, and he was moved on Monday to an intensive care unit in case he needed to be put on a ventilator.

In an update on Tuesday evening, his Downing Street office said he would remain there for close monitoring and no further update was expected before Wednesday.

Read more: UK PM Johnson, battling coronavirus, set for second night in intensive care

[Reuters, William James, Costas Pitas] Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/07/boris-johnson-stays-in-intensi.html

She did not.

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/07/trump-lies-that-ivanka-creat.html