https://boingboing.net/2020/05/06/you-can-call-me-a-grandma-ki.html

Wizarding World has launched a new Harry Potter at Home hub with crafts, articles, quizzes, and other fun activities for witches, wizards, and muggles alike. As part of the fun, they've invited actors, musicians, athletes and other celebrities to read chapters of the 1997 book that started it all, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. See below for the teaser video. The first chapter is now available read by none other than Daniel Radcliffe who played Harry in the films. Listen on Spotify.

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“I put a mask on—yeah... I can’t help it if you didn’t see me.” — Trump

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/06/trump-lies-i-cant-help-i.html

In today's edition of impeached president Donald Trump's brain melting down on live television, fresh word salad featuring health care and the verb 'terminate.'

"What we are doing is we wanna terminate health care, for ... under Obamacare, because it's bad." --

Got it.

"What we are doing is we wanna terminate health care, for ... under Obamacare, because it's bad." -- Trump's latest word salad about health care featured some unfortunately phrasing pic.twitter.com/5Stf99SbMG

 Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 6, 2020

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https://boingboing.net/2020/05/06/trump-what-we-are-doing-is.html

The world of stock photography can be a frustrating place for anyone who's in need of images for their own use, for freelance purposes, or for their small business. Most professional services are incredibly expensive, can be hard to navigate, and include limitations. As for the free options, the actual image inventory can be lacking, particularly when you need photos for more commercial purposes. If all of this sounds familiar, you'll be glad to learn about the stock photography startup JumpStory.

JumpStory has reinvented the photo and video industry with its feature-packed service that allows access to the world's top imagery with ease. It boasts over 25 million (and counting) images, illustrations, vector icons, and videos that are perfect for your blog, website, portfolio, email signature, social media profiles, avatars, ASMR YouTube channel, and pretty much everything else. There's no limit to the number of downloads, no matter what you're using the images for.

In addition to the fact that JumpStory lets you manually edit images (cropping, text overlay, contrast adjustment, logo overlay, and more), which is already a particularly useful tool, it boasts an impressive AI that removes backgrounds in just seconds. But that's not all the AI is used for.

First, there's HighJumper AI, which predicts which images will have the most impact on your visitors, viewers, or customers. Second, there's TextMatch technology, which helps you find exactly what you're looking for. With TextMatch, instead of searching a basic keyword, you enter whatever copy you've already written, and the AI finds relevant images to match—this is a huge time saver especially for people who've found themselves somewhat unexpectedly performing image sourcing tasks at work (digital and content marketers—we see you). Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/06/get-unlimited-access-to-over-2-2.html

Land O’ Lakes recently removed the Indian woman from its butter packaging. The illustrations was created for the dairy in 1950s by Ojibwe artist Patrick DesJarlait. His son, Robert, a member of the Red Lake Ojibwe Nation, believes it was a mistake to remove the maiden.

From The Counter:

In an op-ed for The Washington Post, he explains that his father, Patrick DesJarlait, redesigned “Mia” in 1954 and established himself as one of the first modernists in American Indian fine art. DesJarlait argues that stereotypes communicate misinformation while Mia did not. From the beadwork designs on her dress to the lake depicted in the background, every detail was intentional. Removing Mia left behind a landscape voided of identity and history, one familiar for many American Indians.

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In 1984, pioneering street artist Keith Haring painted a mural in Collingwood, Melbourne at a school there. Today, that mural is only one of 31 Haring murals that still exist, but it was almost lost to time and controversy. Above is "Keith Haring Uncovered," a documentary telling the story of Haring's time down under and what happened after he was gone. From CityLab:

Collingwood was an industrial, blue-collar neighborhood when Haring arrived, but gentrification has swept through recently, filling it up with art galleries and expensive real estate. The school closed in 1987. In 2004, the mural was added to the Victorian Heritage Register but it continued to deteriorate. A concerned local stole the small wooden door that contained Haring’s signature to spare it from further decay. In 2010, Creative Victoria, a state agency that advocates for local creative industries, took over management of the site and an effort to conserve the mural began as part of a plan to make the former school into the new Collingwood Arts Precinct.

Today, the mural looks as fresh as it ever has, restored in 2014 by Antonio Rava, who is now responsible for the same task in Amsterdam. The anonymous door thief—one of the more rewarding interviews in Uncovered—returned the prized possession to its right place knowing that the mural’s fate appears to be in good hands now.

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https://boingboing.net/2020/05/06/fascinating-short-doc-about-ke.html

All you need to know before taking Google's Machine Learning Foundations course is "a little bit of Python." In this first episode, you'll learn what machine learning is and how it works.

Image: YouTube Read the rest

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It's not too difficult for anyone over the age of six or seven to figure out this magic trick, in which a nickel seemingly passes through the cardboard of a matchbox. But show it to a kid and let them have fun trying to learn how it works.

Image: YouTube Read the rest

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https://boingboing.net/2020/05/06/unsettling-oregon-house-listed.html

"What if beachgoers were as lax about sharks as they are about coronavirus?" asks Stephen Colbert's amusing shark-horror-movie meets spring-breakers-who-don't-give-a-fuck music video mashup. Of course, in real life, we're comparing apples to oranges. If when the shark bit into a beachgoer it was a painless affair while some random elderly person a mile away felt the bite as they bled to death, then we'd be comparing apples to apples. But what would be the fun in that? Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/06/what-would-happen-if-beachgoer.html

Florian Schneider, the co-founder of Kraftwerk, has died at age 73. Schneider's influence on all forms of electronic music, from disco to new wave, hip hop to techno, is his legacy. He moved culture. From The Guardian:

Born in 1947, Schneider was the son of Paul Schneider-Esbelen, a noted architect who designed Cologne’s airport. Schneider first played music in various groups while studying in D"usseldorf, beginning in a band called Pissoff. Operating in the experimental, open-minded rock scene dubbed “krautrock” in the British press, he formed the group Organisation with Ralf Hutter, the pair later forming Kraftwerk in 1970.

Schneider played the flute, violin and guitar, though often filtered through electronic processing. His interest in electronic music grew. “I found that the flute was too limiting,” he later said. “Soon I bought a microphone, then loudspeakers, then an echo, then a synthesiser. Much later I threw the flute away; it was a sort of process.”

After three albums with H"utter in the mid-70s, Kraftwerk released Autobahn and expanded to a quartet. The album was composed primarily on synthesisers, and its highly original sound and witty lyrics made it a hit, with the title track reaching No 11 in the UK and No 25 in the US.

top image: Daniele Dalledonne (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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The numbers are stark. The global cost of data breaches is expected to rise from $3 trillion this year to over $5 trillion by 2024. 

However, the numbers are just as eye-popping for those who want to defeat current unemployment trends and get hired as a cybersecurity expert. Cybersecurity job postings have nearly doubled since 2013, all while the average salary of an information security analyst is circling six figures.

Students who want to get a huge leg up on that vital cybersecurity training can get started for under $30 with a subscription to the CyberTraining 365 Online Academy. 

With over 3,800 up-to-date modules covering all the latest and most important information on cybersecurity technologies and procedures, learners can explore every facet of the industry at their own pace.

With over 660 hours of video content available (and growing), students will find coverage on virtually any topic that strikes their interest, including malware analysis, penetration testing, threat assessments, reverse engineering, and more. 

No matter where an Academy members wants to turn their focus, courses are all taught by industry-recognized cybersecurity specialists and infrastructure experts, each with years of teaching experience to help bring coursework to life.

All the training is created to align with the National Cybersecurity Workforce Framework developed by the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE). 

If you want to find out what it takes to be an ethical hacker, the training is here. If you want to study vulnerabilities to make sure they don’t find their way into your company’s data systems, you’ll find it here. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/05/this-massive-collection-of-cyb.html

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/05/trump-wears-goggles-but-no-mas.html

Twitter is reportedly testing a prompt for iOS users that will ask them to consider editing a tweet they are writing if the system detects that they are using “harmful” language.

When things get heated, you may say things you don't mean. To let you rethink a reply, we’re running a limited experiment on iOS with a prompt that gives you the option to revise your reply before it’s published if it uses language that could be harmful.

 Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) May 5, 2020

From reporting for Verge by Nick Statt:

Twitter describes it as a limited experiment, and it’s only going to show up for iOS users. The prompt that is now supposed to pop up in certain situations will give “you the option to revise your reply before it’s published if it uses language that could be harmful,” reads a message from the official Twitter Support channel.

Who asked for this?

No one.

Prove this is being applied to Donald and Elon or gtfo with this bs https://t.co/ohu90LqsEg

 wearing jeans is for outsiders. (@JGfromOC) May 5, 2020

Read more: Twitter tests a warning message that tells users to rethink offensive replies [via techmeme.com] Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/05/twitter-harmful.html

Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong recorded this rocking cover of Kim Wilde's "Kids in America" (1981). It was a birthday gift to Armstrong's bandmate, bassist Mike Dirnt, who turned 48 yesterday. It's the latest in Armstrong's "No Fun Mondays" series of cover songs that also includes his duet, below, with Susanna Hoffs on "Manic Monday," penned by Prince and made famous in 1986 by Hoff's band The Bangles.

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"We can't keep our country closed for the next 5 years" — Trump

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/05/trump-on-why-hes-ending-cor.html

Whistleblower says Trump White House ignored coronavirus warnings

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/05/dr-rick-bright-to-testify.html

Apparently this thing is called a Roebling device, and is used to calculate wire resistance per foot based on wire diameter.

A very interesting little engineering device, for a highly specialized use.

Just looks really cool, too.

From IMGURian @silvercatbob.

Roebling device used to calculate wire resistance per foot based on wire diameter

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https://boingboing.net/2020/05/05/an-interesting-little-engineer.html

The United Kingdom now has the most deaths in Europe from the coronavirus pandemic, recording more than 29,427. It surpassed early Covid-19 hotspot Italy on Tuesday, according to figures released by the government.

The latest total for Italy, previously the highest in Europe, now stands at 29,315.

Experts say it could be months before full global comparisons can be made... BBC head of statistics Robert Cuffe said Britain reached this figure faster in its epidemic than Italy. But he said there are caveats in making such a comparison, including the UK population being about 10% larger than Italy's.

The BBC is really hammering on this idea that the UK's larger population makes this somehow inevitable. It's such absolute horseshit. Germany's population is much higher than the UK's, and they've only recorded 8,000 deaths. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/05/uk-coronavirus-death-toll-now.html