This is good.

Created by @KevinBhall.

Otter Destruction !

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https://boingboing.net/2020/04/29/otter-destruction-funny-l.html

In 2009, Theodore Gray blew minds with his gorgeously photographed book, Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/29/molecules-the-elements-and-th.html

My kid enjoys this controller with the Nintendo Switch she has confiscated.

With the advent of Animal Crossing, the Nintendo Switch became sole property of my 13-year-old daughter. She immediately complained about the JoyCons and asked for this controller.

The BebonCool has dual shock and 6-axis gyro support, so it can be used in place of the Nintendo Pro controller. It also comes with a built in rechargeable battery that should out-last the battery in the Nintendo several times over.

She went with black and blue.

BEBONCOOL Wireless Controller for Nintendo Switch/Switch Lite, Switch Controller for Nintendo with Dual Shock, Motion Control for Nintendo Switch Controller via Amazon Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/29/a-third-party-nintendo-switch.html

The other day on Twitter, I asked people about their favorite weird 90s anthropomorphic animal-hero cartoons, for another project I'm working on. Someone skipped past the "animal" part of this question and shared this absolutely amazing gem of an opening credits sequence. Because this is a show about vans, that are also vampires, which live off of … gasoline, I guess?

I have no recollection of Van-pires. I was a pretty vociferous consumer of kids CGI sci-fi stuff, but maybe I was too old by the time it came out. The Wikipedia page claims it was a runaway hit that won "Sci-Fi Awards," although these claims come with no citations.

What is confirmable, however, is that the role of Tracula was played Jonathan Davis, the singer of the band Korn.

Do what you will with that information. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/29/check-your-fear-and-get-in-gea.html

I've successfully talked myself out of buying a hollow-body telecaster to add to my already-too-large collection of stringed instruments. As difficult as it's been at times, I have still managed to stand firm against my desires.

But I might have to give in and build myself a Legocaster. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/29/how-to-build-your-own-working.html

The US Patent and Trademark Office said an AI that invented a food container system and a warning light that flashes in a "hard to ignore rhythm" is in eligible to receive a patent, reports the BBC.

The creator of the artificial intelligence system, a researcher name Steven Thaler, said he cannot be considered the inventor because he did not help with the inventions. But the patent office said it would cause unwanted legal complications if non-human entities were allowed to be granted patents.

Photo by Rock'n Roll Monkey on Unsplash Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/29/an-ai-that-invented-two-things.html

This Weiman Stainless Steel Cleaner and Polish really works.

The contractors installing my new stainless steel kitchen appliances left greasy black fingerprints all over them, but I can't complain too much because my own follies were worse. I tried several different stainless cleaning products and the first one to actually work was the Weiman.

Spray it on! The fluid is oddly blue-ish, and it leaves the surfaces clean and new looking -- because they are! I mistakenly poured bong water down the front of my stove, which left a gross, sticky and smelly residue. The Weiman also cleaned that.

Weiman Stainless Steel Cleaner and Polish - Streak-Free Shine for Refrigerators, Dishwasher, Sinks, Range Hoods and BBQ grills - 22 fl. oz. via Amazon Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/29/this-stainless-steel-appliance.html

Last century, the Muzak company created custom mixes of soft music for locations ranging from doctor's office waiting rooms and restaurants to barber shops and, yes, elevators. Muzak were self-proclaimed "specialists in the physiological and psychological applications of music." Two decades before Brian Eno riffed on this environmental music concept with his phenomenal "Music for Airports" (below), Muzak provided music for airplanes in the form of reel-to-reel mix tapes played on United Airlines flights. Above is one such collection. Fly the friendly skies.

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https://boingboing.net/2020/04/29/muzak-for-airplanes-1960s.html

My friend and Cool Tools parter, Kevin Kelly, just turned 68. Happy Birthday, Kevin! To celebrate, he posted 68 pieces of advice. Kevin is one of the wisest people I know, and when he gives advice, I never dismiss it lightly. Here are the first 10:

Learn how to learn from those you disagree with, or even offend you. See if you can find the truth in what they believe. Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points. Always demand a deadline. A deadline weeds out the extraneous and the ordinary. It prevents you from trying to make it perfect, so you have to make it different. Different is better. Don’t be afraid to ask a question that may sound stupid because 99% of the time everyone else is thinking of the same question and is too embarrassed to ask it. Being able to listen well is a superpower. While listening to someone you love keep asking them “Is there more?”, until there is no more. A worthy goal for a year is to learn enough about a subject so that you can’t believe how ignorant you were a year earlier. Gratitude will unlock all other virtues and is something you can get better at. Treating a person to a meal never fails, and is so easy to do. It’s powerful with old friends and a great way to make new friends. Don’t trust all-purpose glue. Reading to your children regularly will bond you together and kickstart their imaginations.

Read the other 58 here. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/29/on-his-68th-birthday-kevin-ke.html

Bleach injections and tanning beds as treatments. The false link between 5G and COVID-19. This onslaught of bullshit claims and quackery around COVID-19 is an "infodemic," as the World Health Organization says. In the science journal Nature, University of Alberta law professor Timothy Caulfield, the Canada research chair in health law and policy, explains why "all scientists — not just a few of us — must stand up for quality information." From Nature:

There is some evidence that alternative treatments and placebo effects can relieve distress — a common justification for tolerating unproven alternative treatments. But it’s inappropriate to deceive people (even for their benefit) with magical thinking, and it is inappropriate for scientists to let such misinformation go unremarked.

Second, more researchers should become active participants in the public fight against misinformation. Those pushing unproven ideas use the language of real science — a phenomenon I call ‘scienceploitation’ — to legitimize their products. It is, alas, all too effective. Homeopathy and energy therapies, proponents argue, depend on quantum physics. Colonic hydrotherapy is justified using phrases borrowed from microbiome studies. And the language of stem-cell research is used to promote a spray claiming to have immune-boosting properties.

We need physicists, microbiologists, immunologists, gastroenterologists and all scientists from relevant disciplines to provide simple and shareable content explaining why this hijacking of real research is inaccurate and scientifically dishonest.

"Pseudoscience and COVID-19 — we’ve had enough already" (Nature) Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/29/why-all-scientists-must-fight.html

Our brains are wired so that when a situation is framed as something bad, it's "stickier" in our minds than if it's presented in a positive light. If you see a glass as half empty, it's really really hard to start thinking about it as half-full. That was very beneficial to our evolutionary ancestors but not so much today, although politicians and marketers take advantage of this all the time to manipulate us. UC Davis behavioral scientist Alison Ledgerwood studies the power of framing, and how we can learn to see the bright side of things.

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https://boingboing.net/2020/04/29/how-to-think-positively-and-wh.html

Maybe you’re frustrated about work. Maybe the kids have you climbing the walls. Or maybe the fact there’s a worldwide pandemic trapping you inside your home has you a little off your game.

In these scary, off-kilter times, anxiety in some form can be found on almost everyone’s doorstep. There’s no shame in admitting you could use a little help calming your mind and soothing daily concerns that can get any of us wound up.

Unplug Meditation is the world’s first drop-in meditation studio, offers relaxation and meditation guidance 24/7/365 to more than 250,000 online students in their full-service app. 

No matter what method works best for centering your thoughts and quieting the outside noise, Unplug’s library includes over 700 guided meditation sessions available, all tailored to virtually any situation. 

From mindfulness exercises to guided imagery, soundbaths, hypnosis, breathwork, and more, the expansive offerings from Unplug’s stable of experts are vast. Custom playlists and programs can be built around your specific issue, from destressing and work satisfaction to facilitating better sleep. And with sessions as short as one minute or as long as an hour, you can schedule accordingly to receive just the right level of emotional healing to satisfy your need.

Sessions that include daily positive quotes and 10-minute inspiration meditations can even be delivered right into your email box every day.

Unplug’s expert instructors conduct their courses from actual meditation studios in Los Angeles, giving each the authentic focus and experience of attending a real-life class.

With over 2,600 reviews in the Apple App Store, Unplug holds an astoundingly high 4.9 Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/28/decompress-with-the-worlds.html

Very cool and normal.

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/28/sean-hannity-says-we-should-gi.html

“We believe that the Blacks and the Jews are taking over America, and it’s our job to take America back for the White race,” Patton testified at trial, describing his beliefs while carrying out the crime — beliefs he said he no longer held.

Banjo CEO Damien Patton has admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth. But until today, the extent of his activity had not yet been reported, in part because of multiple spellings of his name used over the years.

At Medium.com's One Zero, a report claims that Patton, CEO of a Softbank-backed surveillance technology firm, has in the past identified as a Nazi, and was involved in a drive-by synagogue shooting with a KKK leader.

“Patton’s association with racist groups extended into adulthood; in testimony he provided against Brown, Patton admitted to fraternizing with skinheads while serving in the U.S. Navy.”

The Utah Attorney General’s Office will “fully review” a massive state contract with @Banjo after a news report showed its founder, Damien Patton, was once an active participant in a white supremacist group and was involved in the shooting of a synagogue.https://t.co/NnxAdA8t1g

 The Salt Lake Tribune (@sltrib) April 28, 2020

Clients including the state of Utah ditched Banjo today after the revelations were published.

Maybe we shouldn't have U.S. city, state, and federal law enforcement agencies entering into multimillion dollar contracts

with sketchy extreme right wing figures who run dystopian spyware and machine intelligence firms [AHEM CLEARVIEW AI] to built a vast panopticon and pandemic surveillance system? Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/28/damien-patton-ceo-of-tech-sur.html

VIDEO: RT'E News.

Singapore's Public Utilities Board is deploying a robot to encourage people wandering the outdoor parks of the densely populated Asian metropolis to social distance, and "stay safe, stay home".

The robot is named O-R3, and its task is to help Singapore curb the spread of Covid-19.

Oh yeah, it also shares data with public health officers through its on-board 360-degree always-on surveillance camera.

The Singapore PUB used the talking robot previously security surveillance at various reservoirs across the island state, but the coronavirus distancing surveillance and compliance role is new.

It is remotely-controlled, with a 1-kilometer battery life which authorities say they're expanding to 4 km.

READ MORE at RT'E News. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/28/watch-fightcovid19-robot-enf.html

I love the video interviews of composer and music educator, Samuel Andreyev. He shares an obsession with Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica and he has so far conducted one-to-two-hour interviews with Magic Band members John French (Drumbo), Bill Harkleroad (Zoot Horn Rollo), and Mark Boston (Rockette Morton), all specifically on the making of Trout Mask. He's also done a brilliant half-hour analysis of the Trout track, Frownland.

In this installment of the Beef series, he talks with Zappa and Beefheart drummer, Art Tripp, about working with the crazed Captain, Frank, John Cage, and other avant-garde composers.

Image: YouTube Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/28/avant-garde-drummer-art-tripp.html

Kelli Ward, Arizona's unsavory GOP chairperson, tweeted that covidiots who protest in public should dress like medical workers. reports CNN:

CNN spoke with ICU nurse Lauren Leander, who stood in scrubs and silently counter protested at the state capitol, where people gathered to urge Ducey to reopen Arizona.

Leander, a Banner Health nurse of five years, said if given the opportunity she would walk Ward through the ICU at her hospital to the bedside of some of her coronavirus patients to see firsthand the impacts of the virus.

"I wish she could be in my shoes for a day, I'd have her put on a pair of scrubs and walk with me," Leander told CNN.

Stolen valor is 100% on-brand for the GOP.

 Sanho Tree (@SanhoTree) April 28, 2020

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https://boingboing.net/2020/04/28/arizona-gop-chair-says-lockdow.html

The U.S. now has 1 million patients who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, with many more unreported or undetected people infected.

U.S. deaths from the respiratory virus passed 57,000 on Tuesday, equal to the upper end of estimated flu deaths for the 2019-2020 flu season, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The true death rate of COVID-19 is still unclear because of a lack of widespread testing, but current numbers suggest a rate much higher than the flu, which infects between 9 million and 45 million people in the U.S. each year, the CDC estimates.

Vice President Mike Pence celebrated the milestone today by refusing to wear a mask while touring the Mayo Clinic. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/28/u-s-now-has-1-million-coronav.html

Betabrand has just announced women's pants in "catstooth," a feline-tastic take on the classic houndstooth pattern. It's black and white like the original but you'd never know from afar that you were looking at little tiny cat faces. A straight-leg chino is the only product available so far in this fun pattern ($78/pair).

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/28/betabrands-catstooth-is.html

On a visit to the Mayo clinic today, Vice President Mike Pence was made aware of its policy that visitors wear masksa policy in place since April 13 as a measure to limit the spread of coronavirus during the pandemic. Pence refused to wear one, and was the only person in the building bare-faced during the photo op.

Pence was told of the new rules before he visited, the clinic said on Twitter, a post that was subsequently deleted.

"Mayo Clinic had informed @VP of the masking policy prior to his arrival today," they had written.

But as he visited a blood and plasma donation center inside the building, Pence was bare-faced. Others in the room -- including Dr. Stephen Hahn, the Food and Drug Administration head -- wore coverings.

A point is being made: that no-one can do anything about it. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/28/vice-president-pence-refuses-t.html