Since Trump's standout flub during his Tulsa rally debacle, in which he said, “When you do testing to that extent, you’re gonna find more people, you’re gonna find more cases. So I said to my people, 'slow the testing down, please,'” his handlers have been trying to cover it up by saying he was "obviously kidding."

But today, when Trump was interviewed by Scripps reporter Joe St. George, he did not confirm he was kidding. In fact, he did the opposite and reiterated the same nonsense comments in all seriousness.

Scripps White House reporter Joe St. George asked Trump if he actually ordered testing to be slowed down. He said in his Saturday speech he did. He didn't answer the direct question.https://t.co/4yRwsx22qN

 Brody Levesque (@BrodyLevesque) June 22, 2020

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I forgot about Standard Ebooks until this morning, and when I checked it out I discovered they have a bunch of new novels available, including Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape, PG Wodehouse's School Stories, and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, among others. Lots of good reading ahead! Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/22/standard-ebooks-is-still-creat.html

Studio Ghibli is releasing its first CGI movie, called Aya and the Witch. It's an adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones' children's book Earwig and the Witch. (The late Jones was also the author of Howl's Moving Castle, which was released as a Studio Ghibli movie in 2004.) Aya and the Witch is the first Studio Ghibli film in 6 years and will be directed by Hayao Miyazaki's son, Goro.

Here are some stills from the upcoming film, provided by Studio Ghibli.

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Outdoor apparel brand Patagonia said it is joining the #StopHateForProfit boycott against Facebook (and Instagram, owned by Facebook) because Facebook continues to promote "hateful lies and dangerous propaganda." Last week three other major brands, The North Face, REI, and Upwork, joined the boycott and suspended all advertising on Facebook.

On Sunday, Patagonia tweeted, "Patagonia is proud to join the Stop Hate for Profit campaign. We will pull all ads on Facebook and Instagram, effective immediately, through at least the end of July, pending meaningful action from the social media giant."

From CNN:

The coalition launched the #StopHateforProfit campaign last week with a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times.

The group said that Facebook has allowed incitement against protesters fighting for racial injustice in America, refused to adequately protect users from online threats, failed to recognize and remove Holocaust denial as a form of hate, and allowed its platform to be used in voter suppression efforts that targeted Black voters.

"We have long seen how Facebook has allowed some of the worst elements of society into our homes and our lives," ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. "When this hate spreads online it causes tremendous harm and also becomes permissible offline." He said the organizations had tried to "push Facebook to make their platforms safer," but said the company "repeatedly failed to take meaningful action." "We hope this campaign finally shows Facebook how much their users and their advertisers want them to make serious changes for the better," Greenblatt wrote.

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Sixty-nine cents a month gets you a subscription to a bye.fyi email address. You will never see any email sent to the address, but anyone who sends you email gets an automated insult as a reply. "Enterprise features: Automatically CC a congressperson on every email. Send follow-ups by SMS and Voicemail to touch base." Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/22/bye-is-the-first-email-service.html

Somewhere between discovering The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Hellblazer, I fell deeply into love with early-to-mid 20th-century detective fiction. It was a world of smart men who mean well, knife-sharp banter, romance, the end of ropes and of, so much violence. I loved Dashiell Hammett, Jim Thompson, and Patricia Highsmith. But the writer that kept me up late at night, without fail, has always been Raymond Chandler.

Chandler had a knack for getting his hooks into his readers, from the get-go of page one. Through hard work, talent and, no small amount of booze, he managed to find the perfect balance of descriptive prose, heartache, and humor. I’m certainly not the only reader out there to feel this way about Chandler’s work. A while back, I happened upon an outstanding, ordered list of Chandler’s best opening hooks, compiled by Dwyer Murphy, over at Crime Reads. My all-time favorite? This chunk of Chandler’s Red Wind (which originally appeared in the Saturday Evening Post before being collected into a book of short stories with the same name).

From Red Wind:

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.

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Spoken Word with Electronics is an audio series delivering to you a two side recording of unusual stories paired with vintage modular electronic sounds

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the show. This week we sing the praises of portable headphone amplifiers, specifically The SPAMP and the ROCKMAN — This leads to a discussion on the good work of Tom Scholz, who designed and built the entire sound of the band Boston in a home studio in the basement of his apartment in Watertown MA, and the likelihood that many of you were conceived to More Than A Feeling. With grief, the sad ending of Brad Delp's life is also briefly discussed .

Tom Scholz went to MIT and was offered a good job at Polaroid right out of school. This earned him a salary that funded much of Boston's burgeoning sound. So this episode also discusses how to spend money. Lots of people are very boring about how they spend their money, and the chance that you might not be born if Tom Scholz had opted to cash out and not build a home studio is explored. Good guy, that Tom. But why did Scholz need money in the first place to pursue this great dream? Money is a problem.

Track two for this week solves money entirely. Presenting SPIT-COIN, A new economic platform based on points and saliva. You can opt to transfer your money to a shared resource for every human, or you can have your cash liquidated into saliva that you carry in your mouth perpetually, your choice. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/22/in-praise-of-the-spamp-and-sp.html

This curious rock fell from the sky above Sanchore, Rajasthan, northern India on Friday, alarming residents with a huge explosive sound and leaving a one-foot crater where it fell. The object is palm-sized and weighs 2.7kg. According to police, it was very hot. They've since turned it over to the Geographical Survey of India. From The Tribune:

"We have inspected the site where the object had fallen from the sky with a loud sound. Prime facie, it appears to be a piece of meteorite, which has been seized and kept safe as it shall be sent to the lab for further examination."

The officials concerned also got it tested in a private lab located at the jeweller's shop in Sanchore who confirmed that the piece had metallic properties of Germanium, Platinium, Nickel and Iron (10.23 per cent of nickel, 85.86 per cent of iron, platinum 0.5 per cent, cobbit 0.78 per cent, geranium 0.02 per cent, antimony 0.01 per cent niobium 0.01 and other 3.02 per cent).

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The English language is full of weird, unofficial rules that dictate certain grammatical changes for seemingly arbitrary reasons other than "it just feels right."

Consider: inserting the word "fuck" into another word for emphasis.

The Language Nerds have a great new blog post, where they look into this phenomenon that they call "expletive infixation."

One of these precise and fine-tuned rules is one called expletive infixation. How often do you hear people say un-fucking-believable, or abso-bloody-lutely? How about Phila-fucking-delphia? As you can see, this is a process whereby a profane word, such as fucking, bloody, freaking, etc, is shoved into another word for intensification. You'd think at first glance that this is probably random; you just go ahead and insert the word somewhere. Well, no! It turns out that this process is not random and is incredibly rule-governed, systematic, and precise.

Take a look at the following examples: Fantastic: *fanta-fucking-stick. Absolutely: *Ab-fucking-solutely Independent: *Indep-fucking-endent.

Something sounds horribly wrong about the examples above, right?

It's a short post, with a succinct explanation, but it is also sufficiently de-fucking-lightful.

F***ing Insertion is Systematic, And This Is How It Works. [The Language Nerds]

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, 2.6 billion people were under a mandate to stay at home. According to psychologist Elke Van Hoof of Free University of Brussels-VUB, [the lockdown] "is arguably the largest psychological experiment ever conducted." What impact will COVID-19 have on the planet's mental health? The scientific study of psychological resilience is not a new field. But COVID-19 is fairly unique in the range of stressors it triggers, from the death of loved ones to isolation, devastating financial loss, and uncertainty about what comes next. Meanwhile, we actually aren't all "in the same boat." In Scientific American, Lydia Denworth surveys the real-time research on what we can learn from all this about resilience and how to increase it for the next time. From Scientific American:

Individual resilience is further complicated by the fact that this pandemic has not affected each person in the same way. For all that is shared--the coronavirus has struck every level of society and left few lives unchanged--there has been tremendous variation in the disruption and devastation experienced. Consider Brooklyn, just one borough in hard-hit New York City. Residents who started the year living or working within a few miles of one another have very different stories of illness, loss and navigating the challenges of social distancing. How quickly and how well individuals, businesses and organizations recover will depend on the jobs, insurance and health they had when this started, on whether they have endured hassle or heartbreak, and on whether they can tap financial resources and social support.

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If HBO's upcoming Lovecraft Country is even 20% as great as its source material—Matt Ruff's novel bearing the same name—We're in for a fun, terrifying treat. I suppose we'll know, soon enough: the series is set to debut on HBO, this August Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/22/hbolovecraft.html

Since 1940, a statue of President Theodore Roosevelt on a horse flanked by a Native American man and an African man on foot has stood outside New York City's American Museum of Natural History. After years of protests against the statue's composition, the museum has now decided to remove it. This decision follows a special exhibition last year, titled "Addressing the Statue," about the disturbing monument and its historical context. (See exhibition video below.) From the New York Times:

“The American Museum of Natural History has asked to remove the Theodore Roosevelt statue because it explicitly depicts Black and Indigenous people as subjugated and racially inferior,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement. “The City supports the Museum’s request. It is the right decision and the right time to remove this problematic statue." [...]

A Roosevelt family member released a statement approving the removal.

“The world does not need statues, relics of another age, that reflect neither the values of the person they intend to honor nor the values of equality and justice,” said Theodore Roosevelt IV, age 77, a great-grandson of the 26th president and a museum trustee. “The composition of the Equestrian Statue does not reflect Theodore Roosevelt’s legacy. It is time to move the statue and move forward.” [...] Critics, though, have pointed to President Roosevelt’s opinions about racial hierarchy, his support of eugenics theories and his pivotal role in the Spanish-American War. Some see Roosevelt as an imperialist who led fighting in the Caribbean that ultimately resulted in American expansion into colonies there and in the Pacific including Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Guam, Cuba and the Philippines.

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Every year, adventurous (and oft-unprepared) hikers who are fans of Jon Krakauer's book "Into the Wild" (1996) or the move based upon it have attempted the treacherous 20 mile trek on Alaska's Stampede Trail to the abandoned bus where Chris McCandless found refuge (until his death) in 1992. And frequently, hikers making the pilgrimage have had to be rescued. Two people have died during their trips to see the bus. From the New York Times:

The tourist trap is now gone though. Last week, the Alaska Army National Guard used a Chinook helicopter to airlift the bus out of its remote resting spot to an undisclosed location. State officials say they are considering putting it on public display.

The crew also removed a suitcase from the bus that held sentimental value to the McCandless family, according to the Alaska Army National Guard.

Carine McCandless, Mr. McCandless’s youngest sister, said the suitcase did not belong to her brother, but may have contained journals she and others had left behind on their own journeys to the bus.[...]

“Though I am saddened by the news, the decision made by Alaska D.N.R. was with good intentions toward public safety, and it was certainly their decision to make,” Ms. McCandless wrote in an email. “Bus 142 did not belong to Chris, and it doesn’t belong to his family. As for those that followed in his footsteps to where it rested, at the end of the day, their journey wasn’t about a bus.”

More from US Army: "Alaska Guard airlifts 'Into the Wild' bus from Stampede Trail"

image: Alaska National Guard Read the rest

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Colin Kaepernick is joining Medium's board of directors. He'll also develop editorial content for Medium's Level magazine for black and brown men and their new anti-racism blog Momentum. According to Medium founder/CEO Ev Williams, the company has been in talks with Kaepernick for several months. From Ev's statement at Medium:

I met Colin a couple years ago and have been wanting to work with him ever since. When he launched Kaepernick Publishing in February, we started a conversation and quickly realized how closely our ideals and sensibilities align. I know he will bring valuable insights and leadership to Medium, especially in this moment when the world is finally catching up to his vision on racial justice.

Kaepernick Publishing’s mission is to uplift and elevate voices for Black and Brown communities, something that has been desperately needed in the publishing space. Through this partnership, Colin will be publishing across Medium’s platform, including a collaboration with Medium’s editorial team leading Level and Momentum. He will be sharing his thoughts on anti-Black racism in our society, and Medium and Kaepernick Publishing will co-publish thought-provoking feature stories from diverse writers of color.

Disclosure: I hold shares in Medium from working there years ago.

image: Erik Drost (CC BY 2.0)

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https://boingboing.net/2020/06/22/man-removes-wet-clay-blob-on-h.html

Powerful stuff.

Wait for it at the end. https://t.co/nDnhTFxDIN

 Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) June 21, 2020

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How productive are you in the new work from homeworld? Well, we can’t specifically gauge your specific performance and level of engagement, but according to recent reports, workers throughout the world are generating some mixed reviews overall.

One California firm reported that 30,000 remote workers they recorded showed a 47 percent increase in worker productivity last month, answering more phone calls and emails while engaging more with their daily tasks. However, a global study discovered that despite spending an additional three hours on their computers, employee productivity was actually down.

Either way, you may still likely be spending more time working from home in the coming months — and the training found in The Essential WFH Productivity Bundle can go a long way to helping you stay focused while still generating results remotely.

The package includes five courses aimed at making sure you stay locked in on your professional targets and remain centered while avoiding distractions.

The Learn How to Work from Home Successfully course is your primer for being a remote worker, whether you have a current employer or not. The jobs are out there from respected companies that can afford you the work from home lifestyle — and this course explains how.

Then, the Productivity: Be Hyper Productive When Working From Home shifts focus to how, explaining why some workers struggle with being productive when working from home while offering secrets to be highly productive and highly profitable in your own home-based business or job.

Next, Time Management: Prioritization and Productivity gets down to the actual hours and minutes of your day as you actually employ prioritization hacks, planning techniques, and other methods to stay on top of your work and feel like you accomplished something.  Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/21/become-your-most-productive-se.html

If the price is right, you’ll consider any deal. But when the price is free...well, that’s right in your price range, isn’t it?

That’s what we thought. So here are 10 of the best offers or giveaways going on right now. You can jump in on all of these, pick up some really cool stuff, possibly win even more cool stuff — and it'll cost you no more than a couple of minutes of your time to click send.

The Learn to Code for Free Course (Originally $199)

You’ve never coded before. Your assignment: build Cookie Monster a website that’ll land him a job. Over this 7-day course guided by instructor Chris Castiglione, you’ll learn exactly the basics of HTML and CSS to do exactly that through fun videos, step-by-step tutorials and more.

1-Month Trial to Shutterstock (Originally $29)

Getting images you can use on your website or digital projects without getting sued can be difficult and expensive. But with this free one-month trial with Shutterstock, you can download royalty-free, high definition images, video clips, music tracks, and more from their stockpile of over 1 billion assets.

The Mobile and Web Developer Training Course Bundle (Originally $693)

Seven courses, 136 hours of content, all geared toward making you into a well-rounded full-stack web developer with training in HTML, CSS and Java. You’ll get hands-on experience using app-building tools like Firebase, Swift, Kotlin and more as you tackle Apple and Android projects like creating your own music streaming app and a fully functional weather widget app. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/21/here-are-10-of-the-best-free-o.html

You’ve spent a lot of time staring at your own four walls the past few months. And one of your conclusions is probably that your walls are looking a little...drab. Familiarity breeds contempt -- and all this familiarity is likely breeding a desire to shake things up a bit with your home decor.

Rather than framing a movie poster or getting one of those torchiere floor lamps from Target that everyone has, you’ve got options for changing up the look of any room in your home in a uber-functional, artistic, ultra-cool way. 

Helios Touch Modular Wall Lighting covers all those bases with a singular style.

Individually, each Helios Touch unit is a hexagonal magnetic tile about 4.5 inches across with a touch-sensitive LED light inside. One on its own may not look like much, but when gathered together on any wall in your home, they can be marshaled to create any number of fun patterns that can be activated with just a swipe.

One part wall art, one part room lighting, these Helios Touch tiles can be configured in a host of different ways to suit either your aesthetics, your lighting needs, or both. 

Each unit puts out a cool white light that can be adjusted to your preferred levels. And when collected, you can swipe on as many or as few as you like, generating both the right light level for your room as well as leaving different fun light pattern configurations on your wall.

Each module locks to each other via magnetic edges and can be wall-mounted using the provided sticky pads or hung cleanly on nails to create a sleek, polished look that will definitely draw attention. Read the rest

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