For insightful geopolitical analysis of international affairs, where else would you turn but the ‘National Enquirer’?

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/27/the-man-who-knew-too-much-why.html

KontrolFreek's CleanFreek foaming cleaner keeps my monitor, controller and iPhone sparkling.

CleanFreek's foam leaves no residue or streaking on my cherished 1440p monitor. The grubby kid hand-stains left on my Xbox and Switch controllers easily wipe away. The layer of oil that constantly lives on my iPhone screen is gone.

I also use CleanFreek on my glasses and this very laptop. I hate it when my gear gets blech!

KontrolFreek CleanFreek Anti-bacterial Cleaner for Gaming Gear (2.7 fl oz) | Cleaner for Controllers, Mice, Smartphones, Tablets, Monitors and Glasses via Amazon Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/27/kontrolfreeks-gaming-gear-cl.html

In this video we see a woman hand her husband a folder with her pregnancy ultrasound results. The husband is in their car with his smiling adorable baby son in his lap. As the husband goes through the contents of the folder, he comes to the realization that his wife is pregnant with triplets. This comes as a surprise to him, and from his reaction, it's clear that the thinks it's a big deal. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/27/fathers-mind-is-blown-when-h.html

The Lego masters at The Brick Wall built this fantastic contraption to crank out tapas.

Technical details: 19 Lego PF motors 5 BuWizz Bricks 4 weeks of hard work

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/27/watch-this-impressive-lego-tap.html

Phone company LG Poland apologized for its TikTok video ad depicting a man taking photos of a woman in a skirt as she ascends a staircase.

From Android Authority:

LG Poland recently posted a video on TikTok, showing an elderly man apparently taking upskirt photos of a woman walking up stairs. The woman then turns around and grabs the LG V60 being used by the man, scrolling through the gallery app on the second screen. However, the woman only finds selfies of the man in question.

The woman then returns the LG V60 to the elderly man, who promptly scrolls in the opposite direction and reveals that, yes, he has indeed taken pseudo-upskirt shots.

After people complained about the video, LG Poland took it down and issued the following statement:

“A recent video posted by LG Poland failed to follow the proper approval process for social media content. It did not live up to the standards and policy of LG Electronics and was immediately removed. We apologize for any offense this ill-conceived video may have caused. We will strive to prevent such an occurrence from happening again in the future.”

Image: @lgpolska Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/27/lg-poland-ad-showcases-phone.html

Open Culture has a page with capsule reviews of The 135 Best Podcasts to Enrich Your Mind. The list includes "great podcasts on art, music, history, philosophy, plus captivating true and imagined stories."

Some are familiar to me and I already subscribe to them. Here a few that are new to me that I just subscribed to:

Last Seen - Apple - Spotify - Google - Web Site - RSS -  It remains the most valuable — and confounding — art heist in history: 13 artworks stolen from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Twenty-eight years later, not a single piece in a haul worth half a billion dollars has surfaced. The art, and the thieves who made off with it, remain at large. With first-ever interviews, unprecedented access, and more than a year of investigative reporting, "Last Seen" takes us into the biggest unsolved art heist in history. A joint production from WBUR and The Boston Globe. Read more here.

Blackout - Apple - Spotify - Google - Academy Award winner Rami Malek stars in this apocalyptic thriller as a small-town radio DJ fighting to protect his family and community after the power grid goes down nationwide, upending modern civilization.

The Walk - Apple - Spotify - "Dystopian thriller, The Walk, is a tale of mistaken identity, terrorism, and a life-or-death mission to walk across Scotland. But the format of this story is — unusual. The Walk is an immersive fiction podcast, and the creators want you to listen to it while walking.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/27/open-culture-has-a-new-directo.html

Boing Boing welcomes Real Tested CBD as a sponsor!

Real Tested CBD is known for efforts in bringing information about the CBD products for not only established brands, but the budding brands in the niche. We fuel our passion through the zest of our clients, asking us for updates on what is happening in the CBD universe. Thanks to the laws in the US that allow legal production of CBD products for health and research, there are some premier products on the market, but it's important to know what you are shopping for to ensure the best purchase.

We at Real Tested CBD run all the products through lab tests and present everything in black and white for our readers. This way, our consumers get to find out what product they are getting and if it is worth getting at all. Today, we review Charlotte’s Web and its CBD products that include balms, creams, tincture, edibles, and capsules. Here is a review of all the nine products of Charlotte’s Web that we tested.

This hemp-infused balm by Charlotte’s web comes with 150 mg of botanical blend hemp extract. It has a soothing scent, and we found no traces of pesticides and solvents in the mix. Moreover, it contains all the goodness of CBD at 107.2 mg per pack. It also contains THC at 4.69 mg and CBC at 4.48 mg per package. However, our test results indicate that the total CBD levels were lower than those claimed on the label.

This Canine hemp-infused balm is for adult dogs with 450 mg of hemp extract. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/27/real-tested-cbd-brand-spotligh.html

UPDATE: Launch scrubbed due to weather just a few minutes before launch. See you Saturday for another try!

Today, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule is scheduled to shuttle two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. This will be the first time humans will launch to space from the United States since 2011 and the first time a private company will take humans offworld. Intrepid science journalist Nadia Drake is at the launchpad reporting on the mission for National Geographic and ABC News. Tune in above for Nadia's live reporting. Liftoff is set for 4:33pm ET, weather and technology permitting. From Nadia's coverage at National Geographic:

The Demo-2 mission is slated to lift off from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A—the same pad in Florida that hosted Apollo 11 and STS-135, the last flight of a space shuttle. However, next week's mission represents a new way of getting humans to orbit, in which agencies including NASA purchase rides to space from private companies. For astronauts [Doug] Hurley, 53, and [Bob] Behnken, 49, the Demo-2 flight also presents a rare opportunity: to be the first people to fly in a new type of spacecraft. Behnken and Hurley were specially selected for NASA’s commercial crew program back in 2015. Both men are former military test pilots—Hurley in the Marines and Behnken in the Air Force. Both are married to fellow astronauts, and the two have been colleagues since joining NASA in 2000 as part of Astronaut Group 18.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/27/how-to-watch-the-historic-spac.html

Researchers hypothesize that the asteroid that gave the world over to mammals and birds hit Earth at a 60 degree angle, kicking up far more atmospheric dirt than a direct hit. The resulting climate change would be deadly for massive fauna and the ecosystems that depended on themas the fossil record shows.

Analysing the structure of the 200-kilometre-wide (125 mile) crater in southern Mexico where the asteroid hit, scientists ran a series of simulations. Lead author Gareth Collins of Imperial College London and colleagues at the University of Freiburg and the University of Texas at Austin looked at four possible impact angles - 90, 60, 45 and 30 degrees - and two impact speeds, 12 and 20 kilometres per second (7.5 and 12.4 miles per second). The best fit with the data from the crater was a 60 degree strike.

"Sixty degrees is a more lethal impact angle because it ejects a larger amount of material fast enough to engulf the planet," Collins told AFP.

Adds Collins: "a very bad day for the dinosaurs". Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/27/asfasf.html

Pop-Up Magazine is the beloved "live magazine" of eclectic spoken word pieces, storytelling, comedy, and musical performances that exists only on the stage. Tonight though, Pop-Up Magazine takes its show off the road and onto your screen with their first ever online event, "Spring Issue: At Home." It premieres tonight (May 27) at 6pm PT. Teaser above. Longtime Boing Boing pal and Pop-Up Magazine president/publisher Chas Edwards says, "Part of the fun (???) was figuring out how to produce a show when all of us -- contributors, band members, producers, et al -- are holed up in our respective homes. The end result is like a mashup of our live show with a graphic novel made for YouTube." Watch it on YouTube, for free. From the description:

In this issue, our storytellers and musicians perform from their homes across the country in an all-new lineup of true, never-before-told stories paired with an original score, art, animation, and film. It’s the Pop-Up Magazine you know and love, presented in a creative new split-screen experience (we like to think of it as a cross between a live performance, a video, and a graphic novel).

The stories are timely, surprising, and emotional — a medical student graduates early and becomes a doctor in the midst of the pandemic; a high school varsity mariachi band competes against 80 other teams to defend their elite title in South Texas; office comedy unfolds inside a giant corporate greeting-card company; legends of the stage and Instagram alike interpret social distancing in one minute of dance; and much more.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/27/watch-the-first-ever-online-po.html

Scroll through the carousel below, or check out Not Art on Instagram for more Sexy Facemask Photoshopping (if that's what you want to do).

View this post on Instagram

In better news it turns out that #SportsIllustrated was able to put out their swimsuit calendar on time for the #GlobalPandemic. The models were not at risk because the camera man was always at least 6 feet away and it was all shot on a Beach no one has heard of in #Madagascar So no one else was around. #SportsIllusrated

A post shared by NOTART (@notart) on Apr 26, 2020 at 10:49pm PDT

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/27/if-sports-illustrated-did-a-sw.html

Just Sketch Me is a character-posing tool on the web: an artist's manikin, essentially, with a few useful features and no extraneous ones. There are options for different proportions and animals, a library of preset poses, and you can even save your work as a 3D model. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/27/character-posing-tool-for-arti.html

At least 10 local TV stations ran a "news" report written and produced by Amazon, reports The Courier-News. The video was provided by Amazon, and only one station disclosed that the "reporter" was an Amazon spokesman. The report, as you have perhaps guessed, praises Amazon effusively.

While most TV news professionals have scoffed at the idea of running Amazon-provided content as news, at least 10 stations across the country ran some form of the package on their news broadcasts. The package—you can view the script Amazon provided to news stations here—was produced by Amazon spokesperson Todd Walker. Only one station, Toledo ABC affiliate WTVG, acknowledged that Walker was an Amazon employee, not a news reporter.

Bad as it is, TV (and especially radio) news has always been like this. They're studios, not newsrooms. They get content from newswires, parent companies, any old source that has it nicely packaged. When I was a smalltown reporter, you'd hear the newspaper rustling as they read it on air.

It's true that it's getting worse, perhaps because of consolidation: Watch countless American news anchors mindlessly intone the same propaganda script

UPDATE: Amazon's Alyssa Bronikowski emailed a statement, reproduced below:

Statement – “We welcome reporters into our buildings and it’s misleading to suggest otherwise. This type of video was created to share an inside look into the health and safety measures we’ve rolled out in our buildings and was intended for reporters who for a variety of reasons weren’t able to come tour one of our sites themselves.”

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/27/watch-all-these-local-tv-newsr.html

Game From Scratch reports a harrowing experience  an anonymous threat to pay bitcoin or have false claims made about their game dev tutorials to YouTube  and a horrifying one to go with it: YouTube's automatic cooperation with the fraudster, total lack of human recourse, and loss of access to his channel after refusing to pay off the scammer.

Please RT, this is broken!

Unfortunately GameFromScratch lost the ability to post to @YouTube because their systems can't defeat a script kiddy attack. Warned them after I was blackmailed, and now awaiting the long manual appeal process while locked out. Really @YTCreators? pic.twitter.com/j1hdE1tUYi

 Game From Scratch (@gamefromscratch) May 26, 2020

Each time it was taken down, I appealed and it would be restored. After I didn’t pay the $50 in bitcoin, I started getting Circumvention of Technology notices for 3 of my videos. That ultimately resulted in a community strike and loss of access to my channel for a week (or until appealed). Thankfully those three takedowns were reversed in about 2 hours and channel privileges were restored.

Today I was just waiting for YouTube to restore my 2 year old Animate CC video… then to my shock, it was reviewed and found to be in violation!

The scam isn't complex or daring. You can do it by following a sheet of simple, foolproof instructions. It's barely more complex than demanding money from a YouTuber, filing complaints if they don't pay up, and cackling as YouTube automatically takes down the YouTuber's videos or even suspends their account access. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/27/fraudsters-are-shaking-down-yo.html

“Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen.”

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/27/trump-threatens-gop-control-of.html

The Last of Us is a game about surviving in America after a pandemic. The sequel is out this summer, and as part of the marketing effort, Sony is offering a "The Last of Us Part II" skateboard with an attractive "post-pandemic distressing" effect. [via @ckunzelman]

Build a deck with some real character, complete with post-pandemic distressing. Made of 7-ply Canadian maple. Individually cold-pressed.

You wouldn't want the distressing to look pre-pandemic, would you? Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/26/sony-offers-the-last-of-us.html

Just as in almost any industry that seeks high-demand, well-trained workers, certification often becomes key. For project managers, that means anyone who’s serious about serving in that role with a respected company knows they’re going to need the seal of approval in one of the field’s most recognized methodologies before they stand much of a chance of getting on a payroll.

 Since the 1960s, the project management field has been dominated by its preeminent professional organization, the Project Management Institute (PMI). By the 1980s, they’d written the book on project management — literally — with the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK) and began certifying those who proved they understood that methodology.

As a benchmark among peers, the training in the Project Management Certifications Tests and Courses Bundle can help any new PM prospect earn the knowledge to get certified as a PMI-recognized and endorsed pro, ready to take on a business’ most critical initiatives.

It all starts with the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) Certification course, leading first-time students through 14 hours of training over the basics of project management, including all the terminology, the structure, and the step-by-step procedures they’ll need to know. Using the PMBOK as the core text, practitioners tackle 5 mock tests with 750 different questions to discover if they’re ready to move forward.

 But Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification status is what students truly covet. So this next course builds off those teachings, covering everything a PMP has to understand if they want to ace the all-important PMP test. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/26/take-the-fast-track-to-project.html

In 1981, Damaskas (Daniel E Hollomb) of The Dr. Demento Show recorded this wonderful parody of DEVO's "Mongoloid" about the arcade game Asteroids. According to Dr_Deirdre_Airlines who posted it in r/ObscureMedia, Damaskas has said "he never played the game, but instead watched people playing the game failing miserably at it."

Damaskas was most cult famous for his rollicking ditty "Making Love In A Subaru" (1977), below:

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/26/wonderful-parody-of-devos.html

What are Perler beads and why might you want to buy a big tub of 22,000 thousand? They are tiny colorful plastic cylinders. Each bead is a pixel that you place on a Perler pegboard to make a piece of art. Once you've placed all the beads down, you use a clothes iron to fuse the beads together, so your artwork doesn't fall apart.

The above video shows you a smart way to stack beads on a toothpick for faster beading.

Here are some great Perler bead drawings from around the world:

Perler Bead Majora's Mask by EP-380

Floppy disks by larrieking

Mario Perler beads by TheBeadLord

Mobile phone case by Lovely CraftsDIY

Perler beads Stormtrooper Star Wars by L000lz

Perler bead camera coasters by Maker Crate

Perler beads tree and mobile by Idee Creative

8-Bit Pixel Art Christmas Baubles by adamcrockett

Plus, imagine the fun of sorting 22,000 Perler beats by color! Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/26/gigantic-tub-of-22000-perler.html

Trump and Trump Junior are tweeting accusatory nonsense about the death of a woman, and her widower asked Twitter to delete the hurtful messages because the tweets are in violation of Twitter's terms of service. But Twitter has made it clear that Trump can tweet anything he wishes with impunity, so the best it can do is say “We are deeply sorry about the pain these statements, and the attention they are drawing, are causing the family.”

From AP:

[Timothy J. Klausutis called his wife's] death “the single most painful thing that I have ever had to deal with” and said he feels a marital obligation to protect her memory amid “a constant barrage of falsehoods, half-truths, innuendo and conspiracy theories since the day she died.”

Klausutis said Trump is among the conspiracy theorists spreading “bile and misinformation” on Twitter “disparaging the memory” of his wife and their marriage.

Trump’s tweets violate Twitter’s community rules and terms of service, he said.

“An ordinary user like me would be banished,” Klausutis wrote.

In a statement, Twitter said it was “deeply sorry about the pain these statements, and the attention they are drawing, are causing the family.”

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/26/twitter-says-its-deeply-so.html