In the new Looney Tunes Cartoons series on HBO Max, Elmer Fudd no longer carries his signature rifle.

“We’re not doing guns,” [series executive producer and showrunner Peter] Browngardt said in the New York Times. “But we can do cartoony violence — TNT, the Acme stuff. All that was kind of grandfathered in.”

From CBS News:

Yosemite Sam will also lose his iconic double pistols in the series. Neither Browngardt nor WarnerMedia, HBO Max's parent company, have explicitly stated the reason for the decision to drop guns from the series.

Last summer, Warner Bros. TV released a short on its YouTube channel titled, "Dynamite Dance," which appeared to be from the new series. (Video above.) The cartoon shows Fudd chasing his nemesis Bugs Bunny with a scythe before the rabbit puts a stick of lit dynamite in the hunter's mouth. The 90-second clip features many sticks of dynamite and a plethora of massive explosions as Bugs Bunny blows up Fudd in multiple creative ways, all set to Amilcare Ponchielli's "Dance of the Hours."

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/09/elmer-fudds-gun-gone-in-new.html

"New York Times Best-selling author" is a one of those highly treasured accolades to which most writers aspire. It's the kind of recognition that can make or break a writer's career — even though the numbers are not curated in a plain and simple way. Consider the way that Donald Trump Jr. hacked his way to the top of the list by buying up copies of his own book, in order to become a "New York Times Best-selling author," thus guaranteeing higher sales for his book.

(Full disclosure: I do work for a company that is owned by the New York Times, a fact which does not impact my perspectives either way.)

Over on Medium, a user calling themself "John the Correlator" has compiled all of the publicly-available data related to the Times' best-seller list, and crunched the numbers to analyze the demographic diversity of the authors represented by the list. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, it's not very representative of the US population:

There's a lot more specific data broken down in the blog post, titled, "We Need To Talk About The List." And I suspect that we'll be seeing more from John the Correlator soon. But needless to say, it all supports the thesis: we need to talk about the list.

We Need To Talk About The List [John the Correlator / Medium]

Image: Public Domain via U.S. Air Force photo/Airman 1st Class Hailey Haux Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/09/number-crunching-the-new-york.html

ABC offered a number of interesting messages under the guise of 'The Bod Squad.'

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/09/dont-be-a-yuck-mouth.html

Sometimes the smartest person in the room isn’t necessarily the smartest person in the room. Oh sure, the world is full of experts or even geniuses who revolutionize whole industries or schools of thought. But sometimes, the smartest person in a given situation is actually just the one with the sharpened mental skills to analyze a problem correctly, devise a solution, then implement that strategy. 

That’s the type of practical intelligence that many people wish they could have. And the reality is that with the right training, they can. 

The Mastering Thinking Skills Bundle Ft. Timothy Kenny helps train your brain to solve problems, make better decisions and organize your thoughts by following the same processes used by some of mankind’s greatest thinkers.

Your guide in this retraining of the mind is led by Harvard and Tufts instructor Timothy Kenny, author of Accelerated Learning for Entrepreneurs, a book about the process of thinking and how to harness good habits to produce better outcomes.

Over his four training courses, endorsed with a hearty 4.2 out of 5-star rating by former students, examines exactly how anyone can adjust their thinking to better handle problems, improve critical thinking, sharpen their perception and basically turn their brain into a logic-churning super-computer.

The introduction, Mastering Thinking Skills Vol 1: The 12 Fundamental Skills, goes over the basics for overhauling how you think, including assembling the mental tools to devise effective solutions as well as making sure you can spur yourself to action once you reach a final conclusion. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/08/train-your-brain-to-solve-prob.html

On Thursday night, punctuating the uprising against racial injustice, lightning struck the Washington Monument.

A separate lightning strike near the White House that evening severely injured two soldiers from the South Carolina Army National Guard.

(USA Today) Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/08/watch-lightning-hit-the-washin.html

Game engines aren’t just the lifeblood of the video game industry. They may soon be the lifeblood of Hollywood.

Since emerging in the late ’90s, the Unreal game engine has quickly become one of the world’s foremost tools for game creators. Now, Disney’s hit Star Wars spinoff series The Mandalorian is using Unreal as well.

Artists are generating digitally-created settings and worlds in real-time via Unreal, then projecting those images on giant LED screens in the background of live-action scenes. Saving production crews time, money, and resources, it’s a revolutionary advancement that could soon change the way big-budget film and TV shows are made -- all because of a game engine. 

You can find out why everyone is using Unreal right now with the training found in The Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Learning Unreal Engine for Game Design and Animation.

In this package, users get eight courses exploring every facet of creating with Unreal, from character design and game mechanics to generating a 3D world that can be just as compelling as the game action itself.

First-timers can get up to speed with The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Learning Unreal Engine 4, a comprehensive look at Unreal’s tools, commands, and capabilities. After understanding scene setup, importing assets, rendering and more, each additional course delves into more specialized areas offering different accent points to make your game world feel real.

Four of these courses focus in on your game characters, including in-depth explorations of how each of your characters live in a 3D world. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/08/learn-how-to-make-your-own-gam.html

A decade ago, Santa Fe author and antiques dealer Forrest Fenn, 89, hid a treasure chest containing $1 million in gold, diamonds, rubies, and emeralds somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. A poem in Fenn's memoir, titled "The Thrill of the Chase," contained clues to the treasure's location and he hoped hunting for it would inspire families to enjoy nature and the adventure. (For more, watch the 2016 video above.) Now, Fenn reports that someone from "back East" found the treasure but does not want to be named. It's a wonderful tale except for the deaths, lawsuits, and arrests. From the Santa Fe New Mexican:

An estimated 350,000 people have hunted for Fenn’s treasure. Some quit their jobs to do so. But it’s had deadly consequences. At least five people have died while searching for the chest.

Barbara Andersen, a Chicago real estate attorney, said she is filing an injunction in federal District Court alleging she solved the puzzle but was hacked by someone she doesn’t know.

“He stole my solve,” she said in an interview. “He followed and cheated me to get the chest."[...]

And still others believe the treasure never existed — or had already been given away.

“I think his announcement is at least a few years, and a few lives, too late. But he has to live with that. I believe this was over much earlier than today,” said treasure hunter Seth Wallack.

"Forrest Fenn confirms his treasure has been found" (Santa Fe New Mexican) Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/08/someone-found-the-1-million-t.html

In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his iconic "Letter from the Birmingham Jail," a profoundly important message that King's adviser and friend Dr. Clarence B. Jones called a "symphony of social justice." In 2018, Oakland composer Zachary Watkins (Black Spirituals) wrote Peace Be Till for the contemporary classical group Kronos Quartet, in honor of Dr. King's activism. The staggering excerpt above features Dr. Jones, currently director of the University of San Francisco Institute for Nonviolence and Social Justice, reads from the "Letter from the Birmingham Jail."

Film edited by Evan Neff.

Peace Be Till premiered on January 19, 2018, at New York City's Carnegie Hall during "The ’60s: The Years that Changed America" festival. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/08/this-is-dr-martin-luther-king.html

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- restoration videos are a balm these days -- at least for me (and I assume other weirdos like me). There is something particularly wholesome and hopeful about taking something exhausted and broken and giving it new life again.

And one of the best in the business is Eric of Hand Tool Rescue. I could watch these videos for hours.

In this episode, he restores an especially cool old machine, a 1965 "Flymo" hovering lawn mower. I want one of these bad, now.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/08/restoring-a-1965-flymo-hov.html

Alissa Skelton reports in the Omaha World Herald that a Nebraska woman, Sylvia Driskell, 66, who claims to be “an ambassador for God and his son, Jesus Christ,” has filed a lawsuit against “all homosexuals.” She is representing herself in the case.

“Citing Bible verses, Driskell contends ‘that homosexuality is a sin and that they the homosexuals know it is a sin to live a life of homosexuality. Why else would they have been hiding in the closet(?)’”

"Driskell wrote in a seven-page petition to the court that God has said homosexuality is an abomination. She challenged the court to not call God a liar," Skelton's story says. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/08/nebraska-woman-is-suing-every.html

Opinion Editor James Bennet is out at the New York Times, resigning after the backlash to Tom Cotton's column calling for a military crackdown on Americans protesting police brutality.

Mr. Bennet’s swift fall from one of the most powerful positions in American journalism comes as hundreds of thousands of people have marched in recent weeks in protest of racism in law enforcement and society. The protests were set in motion when George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis, died last month after being handcuffed and pinned to the ground by a white police officer’s knee.

The foment has reached other newsrooms. On Saturday night, Stan Wischnowski resigned as top editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer days after an article in the newspaper about the effects of protests on the urban landscape carried the headline “Buildings Matter, Too.” The headline prompted an apology published in The Inquirer, a heated staff meeting and a “sickout” by dozens of journalists at the paper.

The fascist politics of Cotton's column were revolting and inappropriate for promotion by the Times, but Bennet's resignation can be overthought. He jumped on Twitter to lecture readers about appreciating "counter-arguments" and "public scrutiny", but it turned out he hadn't even read it himself before it was published. Performing this level of sanctimonious incompetence in public would be humiliating even if the column were about Spongebob Squarepants.

the people rushing to defend an editor who only became known because of his multitude of fuck ups is astonishing but not as astonishing as those pretending he was fired for a bad take

 Arash Karami (@thekarami) June 8, 2020

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/08/new-york-times-opinion-editor.html

Biden soars to 55%-41% in the latest CNN poll of voters, with Trump's approval rating falling and less than a third of respondents approving of his handling of the George Floyd killing and subsequent protests.

In the race for the White House, among registered voters, Trump stands 14 points behind Biden, who officially secured enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination in CNN's delegate estimate on Saturday. The 41% who say they back the President is the lowest in CNN's tracking on this question back to April 2019, and Biden's 55% support is his highest mark yet.

Alex Burns summarizes similar polls from last week:

2020 polling over the last week: ABC/Post: Biden +10 Monmouth: Biden +11 NBC/WSJ: Biden +7 Fox: Biden +8

This can obviously change, but this is not currently a close race or one in which the Electoral College is a reasonably good insurance plan for Trump.

Here's the thing. About this time in 2016, Clinton led Trump in these polls thusly:

ABC/Post: Clinton +14 Monmouth: Clinton +8 NBC/WSJ: Clinton +14 Fox: Clinton +10

Things are looking good for the Democratic Party's candidate, but remember that whatever follows "This can obviously change, but..." will never be anyone's famous last words and no-one will ever have to eat them. We're all getting paid here. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/08/biden-leads-trump-14-points-in.html

Prosecutors in the U.S. have demanded an interview with Prince Andrew, pal of dead billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Andrew, himself accused of raping one of the then-girls Epstein trafficked, has no plans to subject himself to further scrutiny.

The request, made under a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, or MLAT, is similar to a subpoena in this case for Prince Andrew's testimony. It's a rare move to seek an interview like this through MLAT, officials say, and it's focused on making sure the investigation is as thorough as possible. U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman foreshadowed the move in March when he said he would consider legal action after Prince Andrew's representatives had closed the door to an interview. "Contrary to Prince Andrew's very public offer to cooperate with our investigation into Epstein's co-conspirators, an offer that was conveyed via press release, Prince Andrew has now completely shut the door on voluntary cooperation," Berman said, adding that his office is "considering its options."

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/08/u-s-prosecutors-demand-to-int.html

Randy Rainbow is burning Don down in "The Bunker Boy," his latest song parody!

YT Commenter:

Trump: holds up a bible in front of protestors Randy: He acts like he knows how to read. GO RAINBOW!!! screengrab via Randy Rainbow/YouTube Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/08/randy-rainbows-bunker-boy.html

Apple AirPods have become the default earbuds beloved by millions. Unfortunately, they also cost $159, so it’s no surprise that since they were first introduced in 2016, companies have battled to produce comparable headphones at a lower price.

The UK-designed and engineered Veho STIX true wireless earphones may have cracked that particular problem, striking a formidable balance between stellar sound quality and affordability that should make AirPod buyers reconsider. 

In a head-to-head competition with all the top flight earbuds on the market, the Veho STIX certainly hold their own, powered by premium audio drivers to deliver a high-end balanced sound. Easy connectable via Bluetooth 5.0, these earphones let you play music from your device at a range of up to 33 feet.

With a water-resistant body that makes the STIX ideal for sports or braving the great outdoors, these headphones also feature built-in smart touch technology, allowing you to easily control your music or hands-free calls.

Meanwhile, the Veho STIX also come with their own rechargeable docking case, offering on-the-go charging that can extend your battery life up to 2 hours before the case needs to be plugged in and recharged itself.

The ergonomically engineered earbuds fit comfortably in the ears, making them perfect gym companions while powering through sweaty, gritty workouts or rugged enough to serve on extended missions outside, even if there’s some weather in the forecast.

Even stacked against their premium audio quality and overall toughness, the strongest endorsement of the Veho STIX might just be their price, which on sale is a far cry from the list price of their Apple competitors. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/08/dont-want-to-spend-hundreds.html

Best known for his "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions" and the ever-ubiquitous MAD Fold-In, cartoonist Al Jaffee has retired today at the age of 99, making him the longest working cartoonist in history.

Jaffee began his career working for Marvel pre-cursors Timely and Atlas Comics in the early 1940s but settled into his lifelong position with the usual gang of idiots at Mad Magazine beginning in 1955. It 1964, he cultivated one of mankind's all-time greatest inventions: the fold-in. It was always a dilemma - how to fold it just enough to see the hidden image without ruining the entire back cover?

Jaffee talks about the origin of his other most enduring gag series, Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions, in this video from Heeb Magazine founder Jeff Newelt .

Let's honor his life's achievements by making our own Fold-In and Snappy Answer tributes today.

Q: Why did Al Jaffee retire?

A: He decided to pursue his actual lifelong dream and become a stuntman.

A: MAD Magazine reneged on his contract by neglecting to pick all of the green M&M's out of his backstage catering tray.

A: He felt like waiting until 100 was just showing off.

From The Washington Post:

Jaffee said in a 2016 Baltimore Comic-Con session that hardship sharpened his humor. He was born in Savannah, Ga., but life grew rough during the six years of childhood he spent on a shtetl in his mother’s Zarasai — what he called “the Siberia of Lithuania” — with food in short supply and no running waters or toys.

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/08/mad-magazine-legend-al-jaffee.html

A few months ago, I posted the video for Donald Fagen's 1992 now-classic track, "New Frontier." At the time, I said that I couldn't get this tune out of my head. It hasn't left.

Here is a group of quarantined musicians doing a wonderful cover of it.

[H/t Steve Silberman]

Image: YouTube Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/08/group-of-quarantined-musicians.html

A half-hour special episode on how police in America respond to protests against police brutality: with greater brutality, armed for war.

As nationwide protests over the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor are met with police brutality, John Oliver discusses how the histories of policing and white supremacy are intertwined, the roadblocks to fixing things, and some potential paths forward.

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/08/john-oliver-on-police-brutalit.html

Instagram isn’t just for tweens and foodies. In fact, the image-heavy platform not only wants to mint new Instagram influencers — it also wants to make them rich. 

In the last few weeks, the company announced ad revenue sharing on IGTV videos, special badges you can buy from your favorite accounts through Instagram Live, merchandise sales via Instagram Shopping, and more access to its new sponsorship program Brand Collabs Manager feature.

With IG usership still on the rise, marketers are increasingly taking notice of the financial gains to be had from a strong presence on the platform. Now, you can leverage the power of Instagram for your own merchandising or promotional campaigns with the training in The 2020 Ultimate Instagram Influencer and Marketing Bundle.

Over six courses, this training uses already proven tactics to help turn even IG agnostics into believers capable of harnessing Instagram’s increasing reach to cultivate followers, engage, build brand loyalty and create a culture of awareness around a product or business.

Training begins with the basics, including how you actually get started drawing attention. From creating fun content and finding potential fans, the Instagram Marketing 2020: Step-by-Step to 10,000+ Followers course is an easy-to-understand game plan for bringing over 10,000 Instagramers to your account in just a few days.

While Instagram Marketing For Newbies and Small Business tackles ways to help small business owners avoid common IG problems, 10 Instagram Growth Secrets From Celebrities and Influencers turns the attention to some of the public faces who have most benefited from an Instagram presence. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/07/learn-how-to-utilize-instagram.html

There’s a case to be made that animation might be the most labor-intensive storytelling method out there. For every second of finished film, animators have to create 12 different moving character images, each minutely adjusted to give the illusion of fluid motion. And that’s in addition to the background drawings and any other elements needed to bring a scene to life.

For most of us, our hands would be cramping before we’d finished a half-second of usable footage. But thanks to tech advantages, we’ve got some much more time-efficient means for rendering animation, including some that don’t really require you to be an animator or even much of an artist to produce some fantastic work. 

You can get a grasp on how to create cool animation for presentations, social media, or just an old-fashioned film with The Complete Cartoon Animator 4 Pro Bundle. 

With CCA4, you can add anything from basic motion all the way to highly intricate movements to almost any 2D image. With their motion capture innovations, you have the ability to turn basically any drawing, character, or creature into a live digital puppet with real-time animated movement. CCA4 even allows you to basically “play” your animated character yourself, shooting yourself on a smartphone, then integrating your movements directly into the physicality of your cartoon alter-ego. 

Using character templates and extensive motion libraries, you can make a cat talk with mouth movements that perfectly mimic human speech, help your company’s logo jump off the page and dance, or give a classic artwork a voice and personality all its own.  Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/07/bring-images-and-characters-to.html