I've had a busy few weeks of moving and renovating my home in the middle of a pandemic while also trying to work a full-time. So naturally, I decided to relax by … making a 4-song live EP of protest songs about unions and workers, to raise money for the Massachusetts COVID-19 Relief Fund for essential workers. Today in particular is not only International Worker's Day, but the music site BandCamp is also waiving their fees their day — so 100% of money you send my way for this pay-what-you-want album will go directly to workers in need.

There are worse ways to celebrate May Day, in my humble opinion.

Essential Songs for Essential Workers — Live From Quarantine [Thom Dunn / BandCamp]

Massachusetts COVID-19 Relief Fund

  Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/01/here-are-some-songs-about-unio.html

Nastaran Mohit is the organizing director of the NewsGuild of New York, which represents more than 24,000 journalists and media workers in the US and Canada. I've met her through her work with the Wirecutter Union, and she's also helped to organize workers at The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Buzzfeed, and more.

Teen Vogue recently published a great piece on Mohit, breaking down a day in her life — which is, as one might imagine, made even more complicated by the coronavirus pandemic. But Nas keeps fighting the good fight, doing crucial work at a time when media layoffs are more and more common. Solidarity matters, and there is power in a union.

Nastaran Mohit: A Day in the Life of a Union Organizer [Allegra Kirkland / Teen Vogue] Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/01/its-international-workers.html

Every time I go back and watch an episode of Dinosaurs, I realize just how far ahead of its time it was (See: "What Sexual Harris Meant." Also the series finale.)

Also Tim Curry voiced a bunch of parts, which has nothing to do with the show's cleverly subversive political nature, but is wonderful nonetheless.

Here he is as the Devil in the fourth season episode "Life In The Faust Lane," in which Earl sells his soul in exchange for a collectible mug. Curry also played the voice of a very sassy jacket on another episode. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/01/that-time-tim-curry-played-the.html

If you are looking for a way to quickly remove corn from corn cobs, grab yourself an old office chair and a drill and go to work.

[via Core77] Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/01/worlds-greatest-corncob-stri.html

From the Moving Beyond Earth exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC: a Pepsi can designed for astronauts!

In 1984, researchers for Coca Cola had an idea about dispensing carbonated beverages in space to give astronauts more choices to drink and also to create a stellar advertising opportunity. The company developed a can that would work in weightlessness to keep the cola fizzy without spewing out of the can. NASA agreed to let the astronauts try the Coke device on a Shuttle flight. When Pepsi learned of this project, it also wanted to participate and developed its own container. Both Coke and Pepsi products were flown on the STS 51-F mission in 1985 so crew members could evaluate the dispensers and do a taste test. Results were mixed and NASA did not add either company's product to the Shuttle food pantry; the mid-1980s "Cola Wars" continued on earth but not in space. NASA gave the Museum this extra Pepsi can that was modified for spaceflight.

Image: Moving Beyond Earth exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.

[via Bruce Sterling] Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/01/1985-design-for-pepsi-cola-can.html

Quibi is Hollywood's purest vision for how mobile entertainment should be consumed: short shows that "adapt" to the viewport, former Disney brass in charge, and a contempt for users that extends to preventing screenshots and threatening to sue one of the few prominent fans with a podcast -- for trademark infringement, of course.Two weeks after launch, it's already sinking off the App Store charts and out of the top ten on Google Play. If they can't pull it out, $2bn goes down the toilet with it.A big job for their head of marketing, then! Unfortunately for Quibi, she just quit. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/01/quibi-reportedly-tanking-withi.html

Today, the Boston Globe's investigative reporter Deirdre Fernandes reports that sex offender and accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein had his very own personal office at Harvard University, and visited dozens of times in the years after he was released from his 2008 prison sentence -- all the way through 2018.

Epstein died of suicide in his Manhattan jail cell in 2019. Investigations into his crimes are still pending.

According to the Boston Globe story, Jeffrey Epstein was given "his own office in a Harvard University department."

He "visited there more than 40 times after he was released from jail in 2010."

"The university received $9.2 million from Epstein between 1998 and 2007."

Seems perfectly normal.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe.

Jeffrey Epstein had his own office at Harvard, and visited more than 40 times after he was released from jail in 2010. Those are some of the details in a new report released today on his ties to the university. https://t.co/ujvCjPxekQ

 Jason Tuohey (@jtuohey21) May 1, 2020

Well, @harvard has finally released its report regarding its own (i.e. not an independent) investigation into its links to Jeffrey Epstein https://t.co/WMpotdjaLA

 Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) May 1, 2020

Jeffrey Epstein had his own office at Harvard and visited dozens of times in the years after he was released from his 2008 prison sentence — visits that continued until 2018https://t.co/kQk8AYln0m by @fernandesglobe

 Mike Baker (@ByMikeBaker) May 1, 2020

Jeffrey Epstein's Harvard ties were extensive, a new report reveals.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/01/harvard-jeffrey-epstein.html

On Thursday, NASA announced that it has selected commercial space technology firms firms SpaceX, Blue Origin and Dynetics to build lunar landing systems that can carry astronauts to the moon by 2024.

Elon Musk is the founder of SpaceX, and Jeff Bezos is behind Blue Origin.

The manned lunar mission is part of the Trump White House’s accelerated timeline for a NASA moon-to-Mars campaign.

“The three companies, which include firms of tech billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, will share $967 million from NASA, though specific amounts each company will receive were not immediately known,” reports Reuters.

Excerpt:

“This is the last piece that we need in order to get to the moon,” NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine told reporters on Thursday, calling the agency’s first lunar lander procurement since 1972 “historic”.

Unlike the Apollo program that put astronauts on the moon nearly 50 years ago, NASA is gearing up for a long-term presence on Earth’s satellite that the agency says will eventually enable humans to reach Mars, leaning heavily on private companies built around shared visions for space exploration.

Picking three providers allows NASA to have redundancy in case one company falls behind in development, Lisa Watson-Morgan, NASA’s human landing system program manager, told reporters on Thursday.

READ MORE:

Musk's SpaceX, Bezos' Blue Origin land contracts to build NASA's astronaut moon lander[Joey Rouelette, reuters] Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/01/nasa-picks-elon-musks-spacex.html

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/01/inventor-makes-device-to-escap.html

OpenAI · Rock, in the style of Elvis Presley - OpenAI Jukebox

Open AI, the same organization that created the GPT-2 language model (try it here) which generates coherent stories from a text prompt, just released a new application called Jukebox, "a neural net that generates music, including rudimentary singing, as raw audio in a variety of genres and artist styles."

Some of the songs are pretty good, and very strange as only neural nets are.

Photo by Spencer Imbrock on Unsplash Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/01/this-neural-net-generates-biza.html

Amazon.com is facing an antitrust investigation.

The House Judiciary Committee on Friday informed Jeff Bezos he needs to agree to testify at a hearing on Amazon's alleged misuse of third-party seller data, or the CEO faces a potential subpoena if he declines.

READ THE LETTER FROM HOUSE JUDICIARY HERE [PDF]

From the Washington Post:

The dramatic escalation between members of Congress and the e-commerce giant follows reports that Amazon employees tapped data from third-party sellers in its marketplace to make decisions about launching its own competing products, despite initially telling Democrats and Republicans it did not engage in such practices.

Lawmakers on the House’s top competition-focused panel specifically pointed to statements that Amazon made starting last July, when officials explicitly told Congress that “we do not use any seller data to compete with them." Lawmakers raised the potential that Amazon might have committed perjury during its earlier testimony on Capitol Hill.

“In light of our ongoing investigation, recent public reporting, and Amazon’s prior testimony before the Committee, we expect you, as chief executive officer of Amazon, to testify before the committee," said Rep. David N. Cicilline (D-R.I.), the chairman of the antitrust subcommittee. He was joined by Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the House Judiciary Committee’s Democratic chairman, and F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), the second most senior member of the House, indicating the early, wide support such a hearing has garnered in Congress.

“Although we expect that you will testify on a voluntary basis,” lawmakers continued, "we reserve the right to resort to compulsory process if necessary.”

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/01/house-judiciary-demands-jeff-b.html

So what the heck is a soft skill, anyway? Well, by contrast, hard skills are teachable, quantifiable abilities like the basics you learned in school — reading, writing, arithmetic, and the like. They may not always be easy, but hard skills are usually fairly simple to identify and measure.

Which means soft skills are the talents that are often a lot tougher to grade. It’s your emotional intelligence. It’s your leadership ability. It’s how well you listen and understand what co-workers are telling you. With a name like soft skills, these attributes sound...well, soft. And maybe not as critical as hard talents.

But these intangibles are often the real difference makers in any organization — or in the course of a career. The Ultimate 2020 Soft Skills Career Hacker Bundle not only can help you shore up those areas of your professional game, but it’s as comprehensive and deep a training package as you’ll find anywhere.

This collection brings together a massive 128 courses that dig into every facet of improving your shot at a successful career, regardless of the industry. It’s all here -- nearly 2,900 lectures covering more than 150 hours of instruction.  

Business ethics and etiquette? Covered. Attention management and anger management? Covered. Courses to develop your office support skills, likability, problem-solving and critical thinking are all included. So are goal setting, coaching, customer relations, and communication strategies. And once you’re through with all those courses, you’ve still got dozens and dozens more, enough to keep you busy for months....literally. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/30/this-training-includes-more-th.html

Too soon? By way of Donald Bell's Maker Update comes this game where you send a shopping cart into a market in search of TP.

The simulation was designed by Jelle Vermandere. You can either play the game in a browser or Jelle shows you how he used an Arduino Uno and motion sensing to create a shopping cart handle controller for that true invisible zombie apocalypse adrenaline rush.

Image: YouTube Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/30/latest-hoarding-sim-manic-toi.html

"because we come from nothing"

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/30/animated-short-with-the-words.html

Two of the largest U.S. airlines, American Airlines and Delta, said Thursday they will require travelers to wear face masks on U.S. flights, joining JetBlue to address coronavirus.

Excerpt:

Delta’s new rules start May 4, while Frontier’s start May 8 and American’s requirements begin May 11. The policies exempt young children from wearing masks or other facial coverings. Other airlines like United Airlines (UAL.O) are providing masks to travelers, but not requiring their use. Many U.S. airlines are also requiring pilots and flight attendants to use facial coverings while on board aircraft.

(...) Delta said the airline will require face coverings “starting in the check-in lobby” and at “Delta Sky Clubs, boarding gate areas, jet bridges and on board the aircraft for the duration of the flight – except during meal service.”

Delta added their use “is also strongly encouraged in high-traffic areas, including security lines and restrooms. People unable to keep a face covering in place, including children, are exempt.”

American said the rules will prioritize “customer and team member well-being.”

Read more:

American Airlines, Delta to require facial coverings on U.S. flights

[reporting by David Shepardson, Tracy Rucinski] Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/30/american-airlines-delta-join.html

The United Nations announced its app 1point5 to help people social distance this week.

Motherboard reporter Joseph Cox took a close look at the app, and found that “doesn’t perform the most basic of tasks.”

“We tested the app on multiple phones. It didn't detect them even when well within range. Literally does not do its one job.”

Excerpt:

When users download 1point5, the app is supposed to alert them when another Bluetooth device comes within 1.5 metres of their own phone, or a user can choose to increase the range slightly. The app is then supposed to display a message saying "Please keep your distance" if it detects other nearby devices.

But when Motherboard downloaded the app earlier this week before the UN's official announcement, the app didn't even successfully perform this most basic of actions. Motherboard tested the app on two separate Android devices, and held them next to other phones with Bluetooth enabled. The app did not detect any other devices in either test.

Multiple other users appear to have encountered the same issue, according to reviews left on the app's Google Play Store page.

"Waste of time.. This application is not working," one apparent user wrote.

"Waste app please don't download time wa[s]te," added another.

The app has another design flaw as well. Independent researcher and consultant Ashkan Soltani noticed the app's description says the software is designed to alert a user to the presence of any nearby Bluetooth device, rather than just phones. All sorts of gadgets use Bluetooth, from Playstations, to computers, to speakers, to smart home and internet of things devices.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/30/united-nations-app-to-help-soc.html

More than 8,500 U.S. Veterans Administration patients have been diagnosed with Covid-19 and nearly 500 have died.

The VA health network has ordered $300,000 worth of body bags, @ reports, as a growing number of veterans are hit by Covid-19, Betsy Woodruff Swan reports for POLITICO.

Here's the contracting document reviewed by POLITICO. [usaspending.gov]

“The department ordered the body bags from a major contractor called ISO Group because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the site. The contract was made on April 15.”

Excerpt:

The purchase came as the VA has seen a growing number of deaths due to the pandemic. More than 8,500 VA patients have been diagnosed with Covid-19 and nearly 500 have died, according to data on the department’s website Thursday morning. The number of confirmed cases has grown by 3,000 since the contract was inked on April 15.

The contract did not say how many body bags the department was buying, and it is unclear if the VA bought them because it expects a spike in patient deaths or because it plans to redistribute them to others who may need them. VA spokespersons did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The Federal Emergency Management Administration recently paid $5.1 million for 100,000 body bags, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal––coming out to a price of about $51 per bag. If the VA paid the same rate, it would have purchased nearly 6,000 bags––a number 12 times larger than the number of VA patients who have died from the disease.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/30/va-health-system-has-ordered.html

Well, this was inevitable.

Image: YouTube Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/30/shut-in-sounds-crowded-house.html

A friend of mine (who wishes to remain anonymous) shares my interest in finding swipes of famous illustrators and comic book artists. Neither of us begrudge these artists for swiping (that's the comics industry term for using reference material perhaps a bit too faithfully). After all, these artists worked under brutal deadlines and sometimes they had to cut corners to meet them. Here's a recent swipe he shared with me:

This swipe is by lesser known artist Ernie Chan. As you can see, he literally traced the scene from Jack Davis and EC Comics' Tales from the Crypt #31. He lived and worked in Oakland and I met him at a few conventions. This is a commission by a fan who wanted a sexy Black Canary.

Chan was a popular freelance artist who inked John and Sal Buscema in the early 70s before going on to solo runs with Conan the Barbarian for Marvel and Batman and Captain Marvel for DC.

I find it interesting that Chan did not even bother to alter the source image (reverse it, repose the actors, etc) but I guess no one in 1977 would believe the internet would exist which would make instant cross checking possible.

See other swipes here.

I look forward to the inevitable comment that comes with my posts about interesting swipes: "It's just a coincidence. There are only a limited number of poses a human body can make, and this is a common one." Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/30/heres-another-example-of-one.html

Tabloid reporters are very much like America’s Commander in Chief: They don’t need to get bogged down with research or trouble themselves with accurate information, because they simply know stuff. They have what the president, a self-confessed “stable genius," calls "a natural ability."

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/30/why-tabloids-reporters-are-lik.html