Learn from the world's best.

Written and directed by Kathleen Cameron; starring Jim Cameron; original music by Bensound.com.

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https://boingboing.net/2020/05/19/masterclass-your-dad-teaches.html

Look, we get it. Animal Crossing is about as destressifying as any game could possibly be these days. But, c’mon… There are only so many bugs you can put in a museum and so many seashells you can sell while still maintaining any level of gaming edge.

If you’ve already played through everything else in your house and you’ve maxed out on frolicking with anthropomorphic animals, we’ve got a handful of top-shelf games available on Steam at some big discounts to help keep you busy.

The Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic Bundle - $4.99; originally $19.98

In addition to being part of the fabled Star Wars franchise, Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel also stand as two of the most revered, critically-acclaimed games of the past 20 years.

Set 4,000 years before the events of the films, you play the galaxy’s lone surviving Jedi, leading a ragtag band of freedom fighters as the Galactic Republic’s last hope to stop rampaging Sith Lords...but can you hold out from succumbing to the Dark Side? In this collection, you get both blockbuster games, Knights of the Old Republic and Knights of the Old Republic II, for under $5.

Borderlands: The Handsome Collection - $9.99; originally $59.99

Another one of gaming’s biggest hits, Borderlands is all about treasure hunting, lunacy and guns, guns, guns! In this award-winning collection, players shoot and loot as they explore the mayhem-filled world of Pandora in Borderlands 2, then go back and explore how Pandora and main villain Handsome Jack got that way in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/19/from-star-wars-to-borderlands.html

NASA is looking to pay US citizens to spend eight months in social isolation inside a Russian laboratory. The goal is to simulate the longterm social distancing that astronauts will endure on future missions to Mars. The location is "a unique multi-compartment facility used as an analog for isolation, confinement, and remote conditions" located in the Russian Academy of Science's Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow. From NASA's announcement of the opportunity:

NASA is looking for highly motivated U.S. citizens who are 30-55 years old and are proficient in both Russian and English languages. Requirements are: M.S., PhD., M.D. or completion of military officer training. Participants with a Bachelor’s degree and other certain qualifications (e.g., relevant additional education, military, or professional experience) may be acceptable candidates as well.

Participants will experience environmental aspects similar to those astronauts are expected to experience on future missions to Mars. A small international crew will live together in isolation for eight months conducting scientific research, using virtual reality and performing robotic operations among a number of other tasks during the lunar mission. The research will be conducted to study the effects of isolation and confinement as participants work to successfully complete their simulated space mission. Results from ground-based missions like this help NASA prepare for the real-life challenges of space exploration and provide important scientific data to solve some of these problems and to develop countermeasures.

Compensation is available for participating in the mission. There are different levels of compensation depending upon whether or not you are associated with NASA or if you are a NASA employee or contractor.

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https://boingboing.net/2020/05/19/help-wanted-participants-for.html

Norma McCorvey was famous as the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade, the case that led the Supreme Court of the United States of America to rule abortion a constitutional right. In later life, McCorvey became an anti-abortion campaigner. Shortly before her death, she admitted it was a paid performance: “It was all an act. I did it well too. I am a good actress.”

When Norma McCorvey, the anonymous plaintiff in the landmark Roe vs. Wade case, came out against abortion in 1995, it stunned the world and represented a huge symbolic victory for abortion opponents: “Jane Roe” had gone to the other side. For the remainder of her life, McCorvey worked to overturn the law that bore her name.

But it was all a lie, McCorvey says in a documentary filmed in the months before her death in 2017, claiming she only did it because she was paid by antiabortion groups including Operation Rescue.

"Pro-life" was never an honest political stance, but the coronavirus pandemic has blasted away whatever remains of it as a position or ethic. This doesn't mean the anti-abortion movement will wither, or that the right to an abortion will prevail. On the contrary, it just means that the rhetoric will blister and peel to reveal raw misogyny, bigotry and religious fundamentalism. The best you'll get from them is a more honest picture of how precarious your life is in their world.

The woman behind ‘Roe vs. Wade’ didn’t change her mind on abortion. She was paid [L.A. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/19/norma-roe-v-wade-mccorvey.html

The great Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto—whose work has spanned the electronic pop of Yellow Magic Orchestra and numerous film scores to experimental ambient and contemporary classical—has released this magnificent live performance: "Playing the Piano for the Isolated." His special guest is Shamisen master Hidejiro Honjoh.

“Music, work, and life all have a beginning and an ending,” Sakamoto has said. “What I want to make now is music freed from the constraints of time.”

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https://boingboing.net/2020/05/19/watch-ryuichi-sakamoto-playi.html

Every year around June 21, masses of people gather at Stonehenge to bask in the beautiful summer solstice sunrise above the iconic stones and hang with hundreds of modern day druids and pagans making the scene. However, due to the COVID-19 mandates prohibiting mass gatherings, Stonehenge will be "closed for a while," according to the charity English Heritage that manages the site. Instead, they'll stream the solstice live from the prehistoric monument. (Above is a recording of last year's solstice.)

"We hope that our live stream offers an alternative opportunity for people near and far to connect with this spiritual place at such a special time of year and we look forward to welcoming everyone back next year," said Stonehenge director Nichola Tasker.

"We know how strong the draw to come is for some people, but I would take this opportunity to say please do not travel to Stonehenge this summer solstice, but watch it online instead.”

(Salisbury Journal)

For everyone's safety and wellbeing, we've had to cancel this year's summer solstice celebrations at Stonehenge.We know how special this occasion is to so many of you, and we'll be live streaming it for free online. pic.twitter.com/zMi0NzCmbO

 English Heritage (@EnglishHeritage) May 12, 2020

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https://boingboing.net/2020/05/19/summer-solstice-at-stonehenge.html

Here's a puzzle from Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games column, which ran for many years in Scientific American. I found it in his low-priced Dover edition anthology, My Best Mathematical and Logic Puzzles.

Imagine that you have three boxes, one containing two black marbles, one containing two white marbles, and the third, one black marble and one white marble. The boxes were labeled for their contents – BB, BW, WW – but someone switched the labels so that every box is now incorrectly labeled. You are allowed to take one marble at a time out of any box, without looking inside, and by this process of sampling you are to determine the contents of all three boxes. What is the smallest number of drawings needed to do this?

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https://boingboing.net/2020/05/19/can-you-solve-the-scrambled.html

*UPDATED* Earth to the Moon, then Mars, at the speed of light (equidistant pulses version) [OC] from r/dataisbeautiful

From the Data is Beautiful subreddit, a visualization of how long it takes for light to travel from Earth to the Moon, and then from Earth to Mars. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/19/this-animated-video-of-light-p.html

Simon Anthony is cohost of a sudoku YouTube channel called Cracking the Cryptic. In this video he solves a difficult sudoku puzzle with extra constraints. It's really fun to watch him solve it and get more excited as his sense of wonder grows ("This is like the universe is singing to us," he says as he begins to realize that it is solvable). I watching the whole 25-minute video.

You're about to spend the next 25 minutes watching a guy solve a Sudoku.

Not only that, but it's going to be the highlight of your day.https://t.co/gnuI31x0PT

 Ben Orlin (@benorlin) May 17, 2020

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https://boingboing.net/2020/05/19/watching-this-guy-solve-a-sudo.html

Listed at $159,900 this 1,075 square-foot home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is bland on the outside but features rooms with outer space, submarine, tropical island, and moonbase motifs. The owners put a lot of work into it!

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https://boingboing.net/2020/05/19/this-house-for-sale-in-pittsbu.html

Wow, this cop is unhinged. He pulls a guy over for flipping him off and gets more and more incensed as he handcuffs the guy, kicks at the ground, searches his car, and screams about how he hates his job. Yet another reminder of how scary cops like this are running loose in America. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/19/watch-raging-mad-cop-goes-ber.html

You've probably seen a biosphere ecosystem before. It's a glass orb filled with water, some aquatic plants, and some small animals like freshwater shrimp. The only input to the otherwise closed system is sunlight, and the goal is to keep the lifeforms inside the glass sphere going as long as possible. When I was at Make magazine we made a biosphere and it remained healthy for over five years.

Orb Farm is a web-based biosphere simulator. You are given an empty glass sphere, and you can fill it with glass, sand, stone, wood, water, algae, Daphnia, grass, bacteria, fish, goldfish, and, er, donuts. The game was created by Max Bittker. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/19/play-this-fun-web-based-biosph.html

The next best thing to the satisfaction you get from cleaning your own messy house is watching someone else clean theirs. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/19/watching-this-guy-clean-up-his.html

ETA Prime reviewed a Raspberry Pi retro gaming kit that contains a Raspberry Pi 3B+, a case for the Pi, USB gamepad, power supply, 32GB Micro SD with 100+ licensed Atari Games, and an HDMI cable to connect to your television set or computer display. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/19/this-raspberry-pi-retro-gaming.html

Graham Dunning replaced all of the Half-Life in-game sounds with clips of 90s EDM tracks and rave music sample CDs. He basically turned the entire game into a Launchpad so he can play Half-Life like it's a techno orchestra.

(via Waxy) Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/19/half-life-with-all-sounds-repl.html

A 69-year-old tai chi master ends up flat on his back, unconscious, after just 30 seconds into a competition (the action starts around 2 minutes into the video). His younger opponent, a former martial arts coach and amateur fighter, looks a little confused when he sees the master lying motionless on the ground. This embarrassing knockout might be what the master deserved.

According to The South China Morning Post this was a “'kung foolery' moment." "Ma had made a name for himself on social media as he promoted what many observers called 'kung fu fakery.'"

Ma had made a name for himself on social media as he promoted what many observers called “kung fu fakery”. And not long ago, he created a stir when he teased “stupid” mainland UFC strawweight champion Zhang Weili and even challenged her to a fight.

Many observers have questioned Ma’s ability and the “fake kung fu going around” with “Mad Dog” MMA fighter Xu Xiaodong last year calling a tai chi “grandmaster” a fraud while vowing to expose “fake” martial arts.

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https://boingboing.net/2020/05/19/amateur-fighter-knocks-the-lig.html

What do we have here? Why, it's the 73rd Communique of the CPSUZOeD (May 2020), a rare video release from Soviet Unterzoegersdorf, with an important message about the coronavirus pandemic.

Sent to Boing Boing by way of art-prankster Johannes Grenzfurthner, who informs us that the video was originally recorded for "Der Standard Corona-Stage."

If you don't know about Soviet Unterzoegersdorf, there's a Wikipedia page about them here.

[WATCH: DailyMotion, Vimeo] Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/19/and-now-a-coronavirus-message.html

Annie Glenn, the wife of the late astronaut and U.S. Sen. John Glenn and a communication disorders advocate, is reported to have died at age 100.

The cause of death was COVID-19 complications.

The Glenns were married for 73 years when John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, died in 2016 at age 95.

Annie Glenn died early Tuesday morning at a nursing home near family in St. Paul, Minnesota. She was 100.

“She lived her entire life with a man who became universally revered, but to millions across the globe, Annie Glenn was her own kind of hero,” begins the Cincinnati Enquirer obituary for Annie Glenn:

Annie, as everyone knew her, lived in the shadow of fame, but emerged in mid-life to become an inspiration for people with disabilities around the world by overcoming the chronic stuttering that afflicted and limited her during the years her husband was becoming a household name.

She was born Anna Margaret Castor in Columbus on Feb. 17, 1920, and her father, a dentist, moved the family to New Concord, Ohio, when she was 3. Her parents joined a monthly card club called “Twice 5 Club,” which included John Glenn’s parents. She and John, who was 17 months younger, shared a playpen from whence a quintessential love story would take root.

Despite her speech impediment – she stuttered 85% of the time – Annie was a top student and readily was accepted in the close-knit college town 70 miles east of Columbus in rural Muskingum County.

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https://boingboing.net/2020/05/19/annie-glenn-widow-of-astronau.html

How many of your passwords contain something personal about you? From an important date to a hobby to some memory from your past, those keywords, phrases or moments are indelibly imprinted inside us and instantly come to mind, which is why we invariably use them as part of a password.

Even though a security professional would tell you that’s a bad idea, we do it because passwords are intensely personal. That’s why most password management systems are built around securing passwords for just one person: you. 

But if you need to manage a secure password for business, providing access to sensitive information to multiple employees, yet trying to maintain the tightest possible security, you’ll find many password managers aren’t entirely up to the task. But unlike many of those services, PassCamp Password Manager was built with a focus on team functionality, not individual users.

Using that framework, PassCamp spent three years doing extensive user research and reworking interface architecture to create a password system that put security first with a laser focus of efficiency and ease of use for everyone on a given team.

With PassCamp, managers can create strong new passwords, then store them in one highly-protected and hacker-proof location. Passwords are zero-knowledge proof, feature end-to-end encryption, and can be shared with customized permissions that can easily add new team members, manage their access, and reset passwords, all with just a few clicks.

PassCamp keeps updates from the passwords you’ve shared with others, including edits, shares, and dates of modification, as well as all versions of passwords. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/18/passcamp-is-the-password-manag.html

I like cooking and have always made most of the family's meals from scratch. Now I'm making even more meals from scratch and recipes sometimes call for ingredients by weight. The absence of protruding buttons on the surface of this digital kitchen scale makes it easy to wipe down. The graduation is 0.1oz/1g, and can weigh things up to 13 lbs. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/18/easy-to-clean-minimalist-kitch-2.html