This video for Elvis Costello's new song, No Flag, is like a blast from the 1980s, and yet it's also tailor made for 2020.

From Rolling Stone:

Although he recorded the track in February, according to a statement, the song is fitting for the current frustrations plaguing the world. “No time for this kind of love/No flag waving high above,” Costello sings. “No sign for the dark place that I live/No God for the damn that I don’t give.”

He recorded the track in three days in Helsinki, Finland at Suomenlinnan Studio, which is about a 20-minute ferry ride away from downtown. “I wanted to go somewhere nobody knew me,” Costello said in a statement. “So, this is ‘The Helsinki Sound.'”

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/05/video-its-as-if-elvis-coste.html

Why is it that, according to WHO, 80% of the population have mild or no symptoms from Covid-19, while another 15% are so severe they need oxygen, and the last 5% require ventilators? Scientists think it might have to do with genetics, including your blood type.

According to a new study published in medRxiv, people with Type A blood who have Covid-19 are linked with having a 50% higher chance of ending up on oxygen or a ventilator.

From The New York Times:

Variations at two spots in the human genome are associated with an increased risk of respiratory failure in patients with Covid-19, the researchers found. One of these spots includes the gene that determines blood types.

Having Type A blood was linked to a 50 percent increase in the likelihood that a patient would need to get oxygen or to go on a ventilator, according to the new study.

The findings suggest that relatively unexplored factors may be playing a large role in who develops life-threatening Covid-19. The new study is currently going through peer review.

Image: By Zappy's Technology Solutions / Flickr Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/05/your-chances-of-having-severe.html

From Hamilton, Ontario, it's The Vaudevillian, an old-timey ragtimey troupe! Below, a clip from last week with the band now as a duo. They say that "as well as performing at festivals and theaters around Canada, they host interactive Washboard Workshops and interactive Musical Spoon Workshops all across the country and to date have taught over 1400+ participants in this past year alone."

(Thanks, Bob Pescovitz!) Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/05/enjoy-some-old-timey-ragtimey.html

University researchers from Hong Kong and China created an application called DeepFaceDrawing that "allows users with little training in drawing to produce high-quality images from rough or even incomplete freehand sketches."

Image: YouTube Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/05/machine-learning-app-turns-fac.html

“I will use future gains on my Reddit stock to serve the black community, chiefly to curb racial hate”

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/05/alexis-ohanian-exits-reddit-bo.html

“Hopefully George is looking down right now and saying this is a great thing that’s happening for our country.”

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/05/trump-imagines-george-floyd.html

At least two of the three men charged this week with plotting violence at a Las Vegas anti-racism protest participated in “Boogaloo” groups on Facebook, an FBI criminal complaint says.

In response, Facebook is making it harder to find user groups associated with the term “Boogaloo,” the company said on Friday. The term has been appropriated by white supremacist accelerationists who want to stoke a “race war” or the collapse of society and government, or some combination of both.

Facebook will no longer recommend such groups to members of similar associations, a spokeswoman for the world’s largest social media network said told Joseph Menn at Reuters:

Facebook appeared to have been an important factor for organization. According to the federal complaint, all three indicted men were part of a Nevada Boogaloo Facebook group and met at ReOpen rallies, which were organized on Facebook

 Jay Hart (@JayHart909) June 4, 2020

A series of reports this year by researchers and media have drawn attention to the loose movement and its propagation on social media. In April, an advocacy group called the Tech Transparency Project warned that Boogaloo followers were discussing taking up arms while promoting protests to “liberate” states from coronavirus restrictions.

On May 1, Facebook banned the use of Boogaloo and related terms when they accompany pictures of weapons and calls to action, such as preparing for conflict.

The specific terms Facebook is was acting against are evolving, it said on Thursday. To evade the scrutiny, many have switched to terms such as “Big Igloo” or “Big Luau” while maintaining the same discussions about weaponry, future wars and conspiracy theories.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/05/facebook-makes-boogaloo-gr.html

Director Stanley Kubrick wanted a transparent monolith for 2001: A Space Odyssey. He asked a UK plastics company to cast one from clear acrylic, but he didn't like the way it looked in a screen test. Instead, he used a monolith made of wood and painted black.

According to Amusing Planet, the unused acrylic monolith [sat unused] in a warehouse for a number of years until an artist acquired it to make a carving for the Queen of England.

The rejected Monolith sat in the Boreham Wood film studios for several years, gathering dust, until famed Slovak-born, London-based sculptor Arthur Fleischmann acquired it. Fleischmann, who pioneered the use of acrylic in sculpture, had received a commission to make glittering crown sculpture for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Celebrations in 1977. At two tons, it was the largest block of acrylic ever cast. For three months, Fleischmann patiently chiseled away at the block inside a polythene tent near St. Katherine's Docks, in London. In June the same year, the Queen herself unveiled the sculpture.

The recycled prop has been on public display ever since at St Katherine Docks.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/05/kubrick-wanted-a-clear-monolit.html

Buffalo Bills quarterback Jake Fromm says he now regrets expressing his belief on social media that guns should be "very expensive so only elite white people can get them."

He tweeted the apology to his Twitter account, which has over 200,00 followers.

pic.twitter.com/UstiEM6DAu

 JakefromStateFromm (@FrommJake) June 4, 2020

  Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/05/buffalo-bills-quarterback-says.html

A man on a bike accosts a group of activists who are putting up flyers asking for justice for George Floyd. He grabs a young girl's arm and takes something out of her hand. “She has nothing, do not touch her, sir!” a woman shouts. He then rams his bike into the person shooting the video. Police are supposedly searching for him.

Read more details at The Baltimore Sun. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/05/watch-man-on-bike-assaults-a.html

In mid-March, 33-year-old Daniel Thorson checked himself into a silent Buddhist meditation retreat in a remote part of Vermont. On May 23, two-and-a-half months later, he left the retreat and tweeted, "Did I miss anything?"

After leaving the retreat, he stopped at a market, and that's when he realized things were amiss. “I would turn a corner in the grocery store, and someone would be there, and they would recoil,” he said. “...At first, I was, like, ‘Whoa, what did I do?’”

From The New York Times:

It stunned him to discover that the many and various topics that interested him — global warming, electoral politics, the health care system — had been subsumed by a single topic of conversation, the coronavirus. That feeling of confusion deepened when, during his first week back, American cities erupted in protests over the death of George Floyd.

“While I was on retreat, there was a collective traumatic emotional experience that I was not a part of,” he said, on the second day. “To what degree do I have to piece it back together?”

...He had looked forward to plunging back into his online world, a setting he had always found “nourishing.”

But when he reviewed two and a half months of posts from people he admires, he found, to his shock, that they were only talking about one thing. “Everything else is gone,” he said. “There’s nothing about the election! It’s amazing! The Australian wildfires, what happened there? Didn’t Brexit happen?”

His story is like the real-life version of Julie Nolke's Explaining the Pandemic to My Past Self videos. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/05/oblivious-man-walks-out-of-75.html

Schadenfreude fuels the tabloids.

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/05/meghan-runs-off-with-princess.html

Boing Boing welcomes Real Tested CBD as a sponsor!

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At Real Tested CBD, we run thorough lab tests on each brand and product on our platform, and it includes checking the authenticity of their claim to be a CBD product. Plus, we also test these products for any traces of industrial pesticides and solvents. Today, we bring you another review of one of the most popular brands in the CBD industry.

CBDfx is a manufacturer of CBD products and oils from Chatsworth, California. They carry a wide variety of CBD products extracted from full-spectrum, broad-spectrum, and isolate hemp plants.  These products include CBD oils, CBD vape juice, CBD capsules, CBD products for pets, and more. Here are our reviews of six of their products. It’s always better to review before you buy!

CBDfx’s Hemp Gummies 40 Mg

Image Source: RealTestedCBD

Our top choice to review a CBDfx product is their Mixed Berry Hemp Gummies. It is an excellent CBD product that comes from broad-spectrum hemp extract. It is a non-GMO product that is 100 percent vegan and gluten-free.

These yummy gummies contain 40 mg of hemp-based cannabinoids, and our lab results found this claim to be spot on – kudos to CBDfx. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/05/real-tested-cbd-brand-spotligh-2.html

Walmart is removing guns from shop floors, according to Fox News and CNN. The move was prompted by nationwide protests over the killing of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, by cops in Minneapolis.

The company has faced criticism over its decision to continue selling guns after 22 people were killed in a mass shooting at Texas Walmart and two store managers were fatally shot at a Mississippi Walmart in August.

The retailer amended its policy in September, asking customers to not openly carry firearms in its stores. It stopped selling assault-style rifles in 2015 and in 2018 stopped selling firearms to anyone younger than 21.

If you've been wondering all these years what it would take for big box stores to stop selling guns, the answer is "lots of black people suddenly interested in guns." Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/05/walmart-suspends-gun-sales-in.html

Experimental fashion designer Anouk Wipprecht—most famous for her Robotic Spider Dress from a few years ago—has now created the Proximity Dress to help with physical distancing during the pandemic. The 3D-printed electromechanical dress poofs out when triggered by proximity and thermal sensors detecting someone getting too close to the wearer. From 3D Printing Media Network:

Each dress extends itself using a robotic 3D printed hip mechanism, built into the dress, and a resin 3D printed transparent collar with integrated sensors. The dress also works as a perfect application case study for 3D printing. The hip mechanisms that are holding the servos to the mechanic hip parts are 3D printed using SLS (Selective Laser Sintering) nylon PA-11 to endure more stresses. The 3D printed transparent collar, which has a more aesthetic use, is 3D printed using an Objet Connex 500 multimaterial polyjet 3D printer and the VeroClear material from Stratasys.

“I haven’t made dresses for myself in a long time,” Anouk posted, “and I got a bit fed up with people in public not considering the current distancing suggestions, so this one I’m keeping…”

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/05/robotic-proximity-dress-ro.html

The world is holding its collective breath. As states begin cautiously reopening, no one is sure exactly what to expect. But one thing is clear: most Americans are worried about their bank accounts.

By the end of March, the average American household was spending 40 percent less on their credit cards than they were one year before. No one is sure what’s to come, so in the meantime, almost everyone is hanging on to every dollar and finding every means possible to save money.

While everyone knows they can phase out trips to Starbucks or cut back on services like yard work or the cable bill to save cash, far fewer people living in states with competitive electricity markets realize they actually have the ability to shop around for a less expensive energy supplier. By taking advantage of that, you can lower your power bill. 

Arcadia does that shopping around for you, offering a free online platform to potentially save money on your monthly power bill while also supporting renewable energy.

Users open a free, no-strings, and no-fees Arcadia account, link it to their existing power company, then let Arcadia get to work. Using their relationships and the aggregate buying power of their members, Arcadia negotiates exclusively low rates from energy suppliers, saving their members up to hundreds of dollars per year. Depending on what they paid for energy previously, some members in competitive states save 20% on their electricity bills through Arcadia.

Arcadia also matches each member with clean energy projects. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/04/arcadia-could-help-you-save-on.html

Over 25 years, eBay has carved out its space as the commerce hub of choice online. With 182 million users worldwide, that works out to about 35 percent of all US mobile users who shop those eBay storefronts. 

But did you know there are usually around 1.3 billion — with a B — active for-sale items on eBay at any given moment? When you do the math, that means there are about seven offers for every single one of those 182 million users. So the trick for any eBay retailer is making sure what they’re selling stands out enough to get noticed and turn browsers into customers.

While it isn’t always easy, there are some critical steps to be found in The Essential eBay Sellers Blueprint Bundle that can help light the way.

This collection of four courses only takes about 13 hours to complete, but once it’s completed, you’ll have a much deeper understanding of what works for sellers and what doesn’t in the world’s biggest online marketplace.

For those whose experience with the platform doesn't extend beyond a casual bid or two, the Complete eBay Course: From Beginner to Advanced is a thorough primer on how eBay really works for a retailer. This introduction explains it all, with proven step-by-step tactics for everything from creating listings that draw customers to little known eBay “hacks” from a teaching system that’s helped 300,000 learn to sell their wares on eBay.

Of course, many sellers would prefer to graduate from selling their household odds and ends into creating an ongoing eBay store with a consistent revenue stream. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/04/learn-how-you-can-effectively.html

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/04/wearable-robotic-third-arm.html

Time heals all wounds? Marvel at this 33-day time-lapse of a wound healing. The human body is magic.

(Thanks, Harlow Sparks-Pescovitz!) Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/04/watch-this-time-lapse-video-of.html

Lars says: "Have a look at this guy's youtube feed. He's often live in the evenings. It's an "only in the internet age" kind of thing. He streams video of chases, unrest, whatever, feeds audio from police scanners, and periodically tokes up. Gives commentary (non-political as far as I can tell). Also gets attacked by his kitten 'Stinky' periodically. Answers his fans' messages. I've seen him with 10k live followers." Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/04/smoke-n-scan-guy-gets-ston.html