A colossal star in the Kinman Dwarf galaxy (PHL 293B), estimated to be "100 times more massive than the sun," has "possibly" disappeared, according to a study published today. Ten years ago, when astronomers observed the star -- which was 75 million light years away -- it completely lit up its galaxy. But when astronomers looked for it last summer, it was nowhere to be found.

From Vice:

The head-scratching discovery was announced in a study published on Tuesday in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

“We were quite surprised when we couldn’t find the star,” said lead author Andrew Allan, a PhD student at Trinity College Dublin, in a call. “It is a very extreme star, and it has quite a strong wind, so we can distinguish it from the galaxy. That’s what we couldn’t see in the newer observations.”

...Allan and his colleagues considered several explanations for the observations, and eventually narrowed down the possibilities to two scenarios: Survival or death.

If the star lived, we could be witnessing the fallout of its huge senescent outbursts, which may have enshrouded it in dust clouds that dimmed its light. If the star died, it may have collapsed into a black hole without ever producing a supernova.

This second option seems bizarre, but it would not be the first potential “failed supernova” that has been detected by scientists. Another star appears to have fizzled out without any fireworks in a galaxy 22 million light years away, though it was only 25 times as massive as the Sun (which is still pretty huge).

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/30/massive-star-100-times-larger.html

"Have fun at home with my old rubber boots," the creator writes.

Avant-garde performance art or fetish video? You decide.

One commenter's rave review: "Nice boots. Rubber seems to be very soft."

(via r/DeepIntoYouTube) Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/30/curious-video-old-rubber-bo.html

Europe is reopening its borders to travelers as the coronavirus pandemic subsides in most developed countries. But not to those coming from the U.S., where the virus's spread remains largely unchecked.

Most travelers from the United States will be barred from entering the European Union after it reopens its borders Wednesday because the coronavirus is still far too prevalent in the U.S., European officials announced Tuesday.

The E.U.'s 27 members have been drawing up a list of countries whose virus levels are deemed low enough to allow people from those places to travel into the bloc, which has been mostly sealed off since March.

Europe was a hotbed of coronavirus infection, with Italy hosting the earliest outbreaks in the west and the UK and Spain ending up suffering the worst per-capita numbers in the world. But infection rates there are now very low, compared the the U.S., which only briefly "flattened the curve" and is now experiencing its highest per-day infection rates since the pandemic began. The list of acceptable travel origins is only 15 countries and will be reviewed every two weeks, say officials. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/30/europe-bans-travelers-from-us.html

Yesterday, five large department stores in the towns of Lindsay and Whitby, Ontario, Canada had to temporarily stop ringing up customers because every item scanned at the register showed up as Mr. Potato Head.

"A point of sale downloading error caused item names to appear incorrectly," said Cathy Kurzbock, manager of external communications for department store chain Canadian Tire. "It has since been corrected and the stores are operating normally."

Apparently, they don't suspect this was a prank but, well, I wouldn't be so sure.

(MyKwartha.com) Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/30/every-item-scanned-as-mr-pot.html

Legendary comedian, actor, writer, and director Carl Reiner has died at age 98. Reiner is best known for performing with Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca on the 1950s TV variety program Your Show of Shows and later creating The Dick Van Dyke Show. He also directed George Burns in the classic "Oh God!" (1977), Steve Martin in "The Jerk" (1979) and acted in movies and TV shows like "Ocean's Eleven" (2001), "Parks and Recreation," and "House." From the New York Times:

As part of a stellar supporting cast that also included Imogene Coca and Howard Morris, Mr. Reiner proved his versatility week after week on “Your Show of Shows,” which ran from 1950 to 1954 on NBC and established the template for sketch comedy on television. He played everything from a harried commuter to a frenzied rock ’n’ roller to an unctuous quiz-show host. But he is probably best remembered as an interviewer, solemnly posing questions to a mad professor, a spaced-out jazz musician or some other over-the-top character played by Mr. Caesar, and adding to the humor simply by being serious.

Mr. Reiner contributed behind the scenes as well. He took part in the frenzied writing sessions that shaped the show, bouncing jokes off the walls of the writers’ room with the likes of Mr. Brooks and Neil Simon.

“I became a writer because of that room,” he recalled. “I’d say something and somebody would yell: ‘What do you know? You’re not a writer.’ So I became a writer.”

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/30/legendary-comedian-carl-reiner.html

In a year of old-school dystopian catastrophes, here's one that's refreshingly futuristic: the UK is making it legal to use small electric scooters on Britain's roads, but not your small electric scooters. You must rent them, not own them.

It is expected to recommend that helmets be worn, although they will not be mandatory, and vehicles will be limited to a speed of 15mph.

Privately owned e-scooters will not be legalised.

Under the new rules to be set out by the Department for Transport, e-scooter companies could launch scooter-sharing schemes in UK towns and cities and it will be legal to ride one of these scooters on the road from Saturday.

The reality of rental scooters is that they become obstructions and annoyances, abandoned on pavements and in parking spots, with the companies running the schemes unable to track, recover or maintain them properly.

The UK government has an ongoing scandal over cash-for-contracts and no political bandwidth available to close the loopholes, so cynicism may be warranted as well as sighs. Making a particular vehicle road-legal in the same breath as mandating they be rented from hinky tech startups is going to make a lot of money for someone. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/30/uk-to-allow-electric-scooters.html

A few years back, my brother Rick Pescovitz came up with Under The Weather Pods, single-person pop-up shelters. (You may have caught Rick on Shark Tank.) Rick was sick of getting soaked at his kids' soccer games and was inspired by a portable toilet he saw by the field. Under The Weather Pods are designed for watching sports, fishing, and other outdoor events where it's raining, windy, or cold, but you are either obligated to watch or having so much fun you don't want to leave.

When the pandemic began, my brother quickly made two new designs for hospitals and healthcare workers: The IntubationPod is a pop-up shield for medical procedures involving the head and neck area. It's apparently much less expensive than the rigid plastic boxes that are commonly used during intubation. Meanwhile, the ShieldPod enhances protection for physicians and nurses as they move through medical facilities treating patients. Both devices are now in use at several hospitals around the country. I'm proud of my brother Rick and his wife Kelly who is president of Under the Weather!

Schools, businesses, and air travelers are now reaching out to Rick about the ShieldPod for use in classrooms, office settings, and on flights. Stay safe everyone.

ShieldPod (Under the Weather)

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/30/pop-up-wearable-tent-for-covid.html

Jason Laska stopped at a Little Caesars to grab a pre-made "Hot-N-Ready" pizza for his family. When he got home, he and his wife discovered a (reverse) swastika made from pepperoni on the pie.

Laska told CNN he tried to call the store but the number was constantly busy so he posted to social media.

According to Little Caesar Enterprises spokesperson Jill Proctor, the two ignorant dumbfucks who made the pizza admitted to it and were fired.

"This is an example of what needs to change in our world," Laska said. "And we hope that people start to realize that and use their time to make those changes and not blast us for trying to do it." Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/30/family-finds-pepperoni-swastik.html

The Financial Times' latest chart of newly confirmed cases by state per capita, represented as a seven-day rolling average, suggests that the best place to go on vacation this summer is your own bed.

There are concerns, however, that reported Covid-19 deaths are not capturing the true impact of coronavirus on mortality around the world. The FT has gathered and analysed data on excess mortality — the numbers of deaths over and above the historical average — across the globe, and has found that death tolls in some countries are more than 50 per cent higher than usual. In many countries, these excess deaths exceed reported numbers of Covid-19 deaths by large margins.

US reporting appears excellent in general, notwithstanding the President's efforts to limit testing to work the numbers. You can't hide that many bodies for long. Florida is the obvious weak spot, with governor Ron DeSantis constantly in the news for statistical shenanigans. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/30/chart-shows-states-where-covid.html

Taylor Lorentz is chronicling internet drama brilliantly for the New York Times, and her latest report is on the quasi-downfall of two high-flying YouTubers, Shane Dawson and Jeffree Star. They exemplify the stereotype of YouTube influencers--vacuous narcissists, tireless producers, canny businessmen--facing ruin after years of attention-seeking at the borders of racism, sexism and general abuse. The internet is a permanent record and the ground is liquefying underfoot.

Dawson has racked up billions of views on YouTube, often by engaging in offensive humor. He has posted several videos in blackface, mocked those with disabilities, joked about bestiality, sexualized minors, and once spoke about “figuratively murdering someone.” On June 26, Mr. Dawson posted a teary apology to his channel, in which he tried to make amends for his past, declaring that he deserved to “lose everything.”

No sooner had his apology video posted than a clip of him pretending to sexually gratify himself to a photo of Willow Smith, then 11 years old, resurfaced and began to get shared widely.

That's just one of the most ostentatiously repulsive acts. The catalog of backstabbing, blackmail, and insider grossness is quite extensive and Lorentz packs in the links for anyone wanting to take a deep dive. What I like most about her work at the Times is how it illustrates a growing dissatisfaction at what social media companies actually did to the internet. They reinstituted the old hierarchies, then stocked them with all these perma-adolescent psychos.

YouTube's tolerance for abuse caused two knock-on problems: YouTube (especially its comment platform) was ignored by media except as a video hosting site, the culture growing there was ignored as a result, and the people emerging from that culture were (temporarily, it turns out) able to quietly ignore their own earlier work after gaining broader exposure. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/30/top-youtube-influencers-cancel.html

The Associated Press reports that Trump was briefed on Russia's cash-for-corpses program in 2019. He kept it to himself then, and kept it to himself when he was briefed again earlier this year.

Top officials in the White House were aware in early 2019 of classified intelligence indicating Russia was secretly offering bounties to the Taliban for the deaths of Americans, a full year earlier than has been previously reported, according to U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the intelligence.

The assessment was included in at least one of President Donald Trump’s written daily intelligence briefings at the time, according to the officials. Then-national security adviser John Bolton also told colleagues he briefed Trump on the intelligence assessment in March 2019.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/30/ap-trump-aware-of-russian-pri.html

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/30/original-ghostbusters-retu.html

Tom the Dancing Bug, IN WHICH President Trump is told about Russia putting a bounty on US soldiers, and leaps into his usual action

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/30/how-trump-really-dealt-with-ru.html

Major League Baseball announced its new rules driven by COVID-19 health and safety requirements. Notably, spitting is banned! I'd imagine that this will be tough to enforce—spitting in baseball is as American as, well, baseball.

Here's the rule:

• Spitting is prohibited (including but not limited to, saliva, sunflower seeds or peanut shells, or tobacco) at all times in Club facilities (including on the field). Chewing gum is permitted.

It's also a good thing the spitball was outlawed in 1920.

That said, the new rules also state that, "Pitchers may carry a small wet rag in their back pocket to be used for moisture in lieu of licking their fingers." Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/29/no-more-spitting-in-major-leag.html

Whether you’re working from home or working from the office, a few elements of the grind are universal. Emails never stop. Meetings go on way too long. And a bad monitor makes your day monumentally more difficult to tolerate.

Staring at a screen that’s too small or isn’t bright or sharp enough can be enough to make you want to chuck the whole computer out the window. But before you start inflicting property damage and completely deep-six your productivity, check out a handful of monitors now on sale that might just soothe your nerves.

AOC E2070SWHN 19.5" HD Monitor (Certified Refurbished) - $79.99; originally $98.99

After stepping up to this 1600x900 HD resolution image with crisp detailing, sharp contrast and bright vivid colors, you’ll wonder why you waited so long. You also won’t have to deal with video blur or ghosting issues with this model’s speedy 5ms response time. AOC also allows you to feed in video playback from hundreds of other devices through its standard VGA and HDMI connections, offering top quality video and audio signal for your viewing. There’s even a LowBlue Mode that cuts down on potentially harmful blue light by controlling color temperature without compromising the monitor’s naturally vivid colors.

This certified refurbished monitor has also been thoroughly tested and vetted to look and run as good as new, which means you get a monitor that originally sold for a lot more at a fraction of the price.  

HP EliteDisplay E223d 21.5" Docking Monitor- $229.99; originally $269 HP EliteDisplay E243p 23.8" Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/29/these-new-monitors-can-bring-a.html

Some snakes have evolved the ability to glide through the air. For example, paradise tree snakes in southeastern Asia can launch off from a branch and fly as far as 10 meters. Scientists have known that the snakes flatten their bodies to gain lift but new research reveals that they also undulate their bodies as they're gliding in order to remain stable. Johns Hopkins University mechanical engineer Isaac Yeaton and colleagues from Virginia Tech put reflective tape on snakes' bodies and then used high-speed cameras to record their movements in the air. From Science News:

Gliding snakes undulate their bodies both side to side and up and down, the researchers found, and move their tails above and below the level of their heads.

Once the researchers had mapped out the snakes’ acrobatics, they created a computer simulation of gliding snakes. In the simulation, snakes that undulated flew similarly to the real-life snakes. But those that didn’t wriggle failed spectacularly, rotating to the side or falling head over tail, rather than maintaining a graceful, stable glide.

If confined to a single plane instead of wriggling in three dimensions, the snakes would tumble.

"Undulation enables gliding in flying snakes" (Nature Physics)

image: Sri Lanka Flying Snake by Gihan Jayaweera (CC BY-SA 3.0) Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/29/this-is-how-some-snakes-can-fl.html

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/29/karens-got-a-gun-the-song.html

On May 28, 1982, Joseph Billie Gwin, then 28, took four people hostage at the KOOL-TV station in Phoenix, Arizona. He eventually surrendered but not until news anchor Bill Close read Gwin's 20-minute statement on live television with a gun pointed at his stomach under the table. Gwin watched a portable TV to make sure they were on air.

From a 1982 New York Times report on the incident:

The message needed to be broadcast ''to prevent World War III,'' the police quoted Mr. Gwin as saying. In it were other predictions, such as that that Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, would become President, and that on July 4, 1984, atomic bombs would flatten cities in Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Nebraska, Idaho and New Mexico.

Station officials interrupted network programs at 9:30 P.M. to broadcast Mr. Gwin's statement. The statement called on Johnny Cash, the country-western singer, to notify Queen Elizabeth II to evacuate London before the Argentines could drop an atomic bomb on the city.[...]

Mr. Close, 61, took the gun after reading the statement and put the weapon on the table. He waved the police away and briefly shook the intruder's hand. Later, he said, ''I feel that I was in control most of the time, even when he fired a shot into the ceiling. I think I'll go home and kiss my wife.''

According to Wikipedia, Gwin was "charged with kidnapping, assault and burglary, and was later declared insane. Gwin was released from prison in 2005." Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/29/the-time-a-man-held-a-news-anc.html

The latest issue of The MagPi is out, and you can get a free PDF. The projects in this issue look like fun!

Build a Raspberry Pi 4 games console. We’ve got the best cases, awesome controllers, and easy to use kit. Also a step-by-step guide to setting up RetroPie OS with Raspberry Pi 4, so you can run classic games. Plus! How to get games legally. Learn Computing & ICT at home. It’s a lot of fun telling computers what to do, but getting started can be intimidating. Here’s a gentle introduction to getting serious with computing. Build a DOS emulation system. Use the powerful DOSBox-X emulator to boot Raspberry Pi to DOS and run anything from Windows 3.11 to classic games Upcycle a vintage radio. Fed up with boring black-box Bluetooth speakers? Hack Raspberry Pi into a vintage radio and give it a new lease of life. Share your keyboard and mouse. Use Barrier to move your mouse seamlessly from Raspberry Pi to the screen of another computer, and control both machines at once. Use an Inky wHAT display with Raspberry Pi. Make a great impression with a fancy e-ink name badge or custom display that subtly shows off your tech skills. Piano-Playing Robot. Discover a robot that can play scales, chords, arpeggios, or totally new musical scores. Singing Toilet. A trip to the washroom need no longer be boring. This musical instrument is played by pulling toilet paper from the roll. Migration Museum. How one museum comes to life when visitors linger near its artefacts. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/29/free-download-of-magpi-raspb.html

Pro-Trump sub The_Donald was never a pleasant place, but the bubbling sewer of racism and toxic behaviour has become too disgusting even for Reddit. Today the site banned the forum. As summarized at The Verge:

In a blog post that cites the company’s new rules, Huffman said users of the r/The_Donald subreddit had violated the site’s policies for years. (The site has no official connection to President Donald Trump, although he did do an Ask Me Anything there as a candidate in 2016.) “The community has consistently hosted and upvoted more rule-breaking content than average (Rule 1), antagonized us and other communities (Rules 2 and 8), and its mods have refused to meet our most basic expectations,” Huffman said.

It also banned the Chapo Trap House subreddit and many others; a hamfisted attempt at political balance, not that any of them weren't cesspits of hatred and misery.

I am obligated to call you out: You should have shut down the_donald instead of amplifying it and its hate, racism, and violence. So much of what is happening now lies at your feet. You don't get to say BLM when reddit nurtures and monetizes white supremacy and hate all day long https://t.co/VN5XCiYp5g

 Ellen K. Pao (@ekp) June 2, 2020

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/29/reddit-finally-kills-the_donal.html