We’ve all had those nights where we’re working on a laptop or scrolling through our phone before glancing at the time to find it’s actually a lot later than we thought. Most nights, you’d be fast asleep or at least dead tired at midnight or 1 or 3 a.m. But after staring at a screen, you’re somehow just as awake as during the heart of your day.

That’s probably not a coincidence. Circadian rhythms drive your internal body urges to wake up each morning and start getting tired each night. That process is spearheaded by the hormone melatonin, which your body creates during the night. But researchers believe blue light like the kind emitted from laptop, tablet and smartphone screens confuse that process, acting as a melatonin suppressor that throws off your body’s internal mechanisms and can potentially mess with sleep patterns.

The Ocushield Anti-Blue Light Screen Protector was created to cut down on those blue light emissions, their detrimental effect on your sleep as well as the impacts of blue light exposure, including headaches, eye irritation, fatigue and more.

The Ocushield is a super-strong tempered glass screen that can block up to 90 percent of all harmful blue light from your retinas. The screen is removable and coated with a scratch-resistant oleophobic layer that assures its durability and better protects your device from the rigors of daily life.

Created by a team of optometrists, eye care experts and sleep therapists, the Ocushield is officially recognized as a MHRA Class 1 Medical Device, the world’s first and only medical rating for blue light screen protection. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/10/the-ocushield-is-more-than-a-s.html

At the 23:15 mark, John Edgar Park shows you how to add a coil to USB cables so they look like the cables between the handset and base station of old-fashioned landline phones.The process involves winding the cable around dowel and then heating it with a heat gun. The end result looks terrific. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/10/how-to-coil-your-cables.html

The folks at Watchfinder had the opportunity to take a close look at the Patek Philippe Grand Complications 5270/1R, a wristwatch costing $200,000. The way it handles days of the months and leap years is impressive.

I don't own an expensive collectors watch (unless the Apple Watch counts as one), but if I had to choose one I'd go with an Accutron Spaceview. At 1/100 the price of this Patek Philippe, it's still pretty expensive!

Image: YouTube Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/10/in-depth-look-at-a-200000-wr.html

Lucy Knisley is one of my favorite cartoonists (here are past posts about Lucy). She's written a number of excellent autobiographical comix, and her newest work is a graphic novel memoir for young adults called Stepping Stones. Cory Doctorow reviewed it on his blog, Pluralistic:

Graphic novelist Lucy Knisley's memoirs are classics of the field – drawn with the straightforward lines and character designs of Raina Telgemeier, told with the wrenching pathos, nuance, comedy and complexity of Lynda Barry.

In Stepping Stones, her first foray into YA literature, Knisley fictionalizes her own girlhood, when, following her parents' divorce, she and her mother moved from NYC to a remote farm, accompanied by her mother's tone-deaf, bossy boyfriend.

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/10/cory-reviews-stepping-stones-b.html

Looks like the dogs are getting along just fine, however.

View this post on Instagram

I am fitting right into this family @zuzupoos #puppy #snuggles #cute #dogsofinstagram #cavalierkingcharlesspaniel #goldenretriever #adorbs

A post shared by Electra (@electra___cute) on Jul 10, 2020 at 9:00am PDT

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/10/my-cavalier-king-charles-is-ha.html

Michael Cohen, the president's former lawyer and convicted criminal, was spotted dining in Manhattan the other day. Cohen is supposed to be serving his sentence at home to keep him safe from Covid, though, not eagerly munching down coronavirus salad on the Upper East Side. So off he goes back to the slammer.

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal attorney who has been under house arrest completing a three-year prison sentence, has been taken into custody again, the Bureau of Prisons told Business Insider.

"Today, Michael Cohen refused the conditions of his home confinement and as a result, has been returned to a BOP facility," the agency said in a statement.

The New York Times reports that the reason for his reincarceration is more complicated and related to his refusal to cooperate with rules on criminals publishing memoirs before their sentence is up.

Either way, this man is stupid in ways beyond easy comprehension.

Photo: ABC News interview, screenshot Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/10/michael-cohen-sent-back-to-jai.html

Jonathan Frakes, the actor and director associated most strongly with his Star Trek role as bearded lothario William Riker but with many other feathers in his cap, here informs you that you are right for a solid 41 seconds.

Previously: Jonathan Frakes telling you you're wrong for 47 seconds Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/10/jonathan-frakes-telling-you-yo-2.html

Technology writer Faine Greenwood has a great piece in Slate about the expansion of police drone surveillance fleets. While there are still many, many reasons to worry about abuses of drone technology and mass surveillance in general, Greenwood takes a look at the legal, technical, and practical limitations of these policing methods. Greenwood essentially argues that, as much as American police officers love to think of themselves as special military tactical forces (often treating normal-ass citizens like enemy combatants), they're really just cosplaying, and their use of drones is part of that:

Unlike a Predator—which is capable of staying aloft for more than a day—these small drones usually have short battery lives, from as little as 16 minutes, when carrying a very heavy camera, to 35 minutes when carrying a lighter sensor. (Drone evasion tip: If you think you’re being followed, duck under a shelter or a convenient tree. You can probably wait the drone’s battery out.)

Police drone users are largely not exempt from the same rules that other drone users must abide by, which include restrictions on flight over people, at night, and beyond the pilot’s “visual line of sight.”

[…]

While a police drone can certainly chase someone for a bit, that doesn’t mean police can readily use drone-collected imagery to identify who that person is. In my research for this piece, I couldn’t find a single example of U.S. law enforcement using facial recognition technology and drone imagery to identify someone in the real world. This almost certainly isn’t because police don’t want to, or because they’ve been legally barred from doing so.

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/10/what-you-need-to-know-about-po.html

Kaito Suiju, a master swordsman and descendant of Samurai, here reviews and rates movie scenes depicting the usage of Japanese swords and techniques.

He also debunks some of the commonly-accepted myths and legends around samurai history and culture, and points out where Hollywood gets it wrong. During the video Master Suiju demonstrates the correct method of how to grip and move with a katana sword, as well as talking us through the different parts of the sword.

1968's Harakiri wins top marks, of course, and turns out to be the master's own inspiration. Tom Cruise is a perhaps-predictable "surprise", showing evidence of meticulous training and preparation for an otherwise Cruise-tastic role and scoring a solid 8/10. Some anime, however, earns only impassive praise of its depiction of fabric and comes in last at 5/10. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/10/japanese-sword-master-reviews.html

If you’re a fan of ABC’s entrepreneurial feeding frenzy “Shark Tank,” then you know complete buyout offers from the expert Sharks don’t happen all that often.

But back in 2017, that’s exactly what happened when inventor Logan Riley debuted his instantly eye-catching creation the RokBlok to the agog Sharks.

Part of the reason that happened is because even the untrained observer will register it’s a brilliant idea at first glance. It also has the benefit of being insanely cute and working like a demon. But don’t take our word for it...watch the video below to see the RokBlok, the world’s smallest wireless record player in action to understand why you’re going to need to have one of these instantly.

At just over 4 inches long and only 2 inches wide, the RokBlok clearly earns its world’s smallest distinction, obviously, a heck of a lot smaller than that monster turntable or wall-sized stereo setup your parents (or grandparents) rocked back in the day.

But with the RokBlok, all you’ve got to do is lay your LP or 45 RPM single on a flat surface, let the RokBlok on top of the vinyl and let ‘er go. The bamboo and circuitry bundled in this tight little package start spinning around your disk just like an old-style record player needle, reading the grooves in the wax and converting them to music from its tiny, yet mighty built-in speaker.

Of course, one 2 inch speaker may not do your music the full justice, which is why the RokBlok is also wireless and capable of connecting to any Bluetooth-enabled device like any speaker within a range of up to 30 feet to blow up your sound big time. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/10/rokblok-is-the-worlds-tinies.html

Am I the only one who found the Disney Parks re-open announce video a little creepy? pic.twitter.com/o8VV4GRjW2

 vegan sofrito (@pobrecito) July 9, 2020

Reopening the Walt Disney World theme parks during a global pandemic is scary, which is why this gloomier sounding version of Disney's announcement video by Twitter user @pobrecito just makes a lot of sense.

Here's the same video with its original sound:

screengrab via Disney/YouTube Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/10/disneys-phased-reopening-vid.html

Capcom's Street Fighter is one of the most famous and expansively franchised games in history, rolling mercilessly on since 1987. RAE compiled an exhaustive collection of miscellaneous details, from hidden inspirations to the importance of Bill Cravens to game history.

Bill Cravens, whose name and image is grafittied on the Block Heads pub in Birdie's stage in Street Fighter, was vice-president of sales and marketing at Capcom USA and, as a distributor, was a key figure in reviving the arcade business following the crash in 1983. He is also said to have sold one of the very first Pong machines at the dawn of arcade gaming in the early '70s. Bill Cravens passed away in 2007 but a kind of immortality is assured by being one of only a very few 'real-life' individuals to appear in the Street Fighter universe, with Mikhail Gorbachev's cameo in Zangief's Street Fighter II endings being the most egregious

From SF2:

The flags in Ryu's stage of World Warrior are the Furinkazan, the battle standard of 16th century daimyo Takeda Shingen. The standard is quoting chapter seven of Sun Tzu's The Art of War and the full translation is:

Let your rapidity be that of the wind, your compactness that of the forest. In raiding and plundering be like fire, be immovable like a mountain.

There are hundreds if not thousands of entries in the list. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/10/peculiarities-and-miscellanea.html

What did I just watch?!

British YouTuber/Madman/Inventor Colin Furze has developed a super powerful potato gun. Wait, scratch that... a semi-automatic potato CANNON. Yes, he's invented a way to power-shoot spuds. Why? Because he needs a "defense system" for his screw tank. Ok, sure!

(Digg)

Colin Furze, previously on BB Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/10/this-is-one-crazy-ass-potato-g.html

My favorite performances are probably Priscilla as Angelica and Animal as King George. No disrespect to Gonzo Aaron Burr, but he's the weakest leak. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/10/the-muppets-perform-the-entire.html

Sasha Trubetskoy made a set of maps of Roman roads depicted in the style of Harry Beck's famous London Underground map.

It’s finally done. A subway-style diagram of the major Roman roads, based on the Empire of ca. 125 AD. Creating this required far more research than I had expected—there is not a single consistent source that was particularly good for this. ... The biggest creative element was choosing which roads and cities to include, and which to exclude. There is no way I could include every Roman road, these are only the main ones. I tried to include cities with larger populations, or cities that were provincial capitals around the 2nd century.

Obviously to travel from Petra to Gaza you would take a more or less direct road, rather than going to Damascus and “transferring” to the Via Maris. The way we travel on roads is very different from rail, which is a slight flaw in the concept of the map. But I think it’s still aesthetically pleasing and informative.

There's maps for the empire at its height, and also more detailed local ones for Britain, Hispania, Gaul. All available as posters. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/10/roman-road-maps-in-the-style-o.html

The entire Rotten Tomatoes interview (above) with Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda is terrific and insightful. But I was especially struck by the part where he shares the songwriting process for "My Shot." His influences were hip hop and the AOL dialup chime:

Lin-Manuel Miranda breaks down his process of writing the song, 'My Shot' for #Hamilton. pic.twitter.com/YjoYGk7qq7

 Rotten Tomatoes (@RottenTomatoes) July 7, 2020

"I'm grabbing from the influences and paying homage to those influences."

screengrab via Rotten Tomatoes Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/10/hip-hop-aol-lin-manuel-mira.html

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/10/modern-porcelain-sculpture-abo.html

I've known Literary Agent/author Eric Smith as an editor and friend for about a decade now; I even wrote a review of his most recent novel, the delightful Don't Read the Comments, right here on BoingBoing.

Sadly, Smith recently had to put down his beloved corgi, Augie, after five and a half sweet years together. And while losing a dog is always hard, Smith penned a beautiful tribute to his short-legged companion — in the form of writing advice. It begins thus:

When it comes to crafting the perfect story, advice tends to be fairly subjective. What might work for some writers, won’t necessarily work for others.

But these specific rules… they worked for me.

Let’s discuss.

First and foremost, at the very start of your story, you want to make the introduction of your character memorable. After-all, the beginning sets the tone for the entire narrative. Readers are going to remember two major things when they walk away. The beginning and the end. And we’ll revisit this idea later.

Basically, you should find a way to surprise us.

Yes, that video is part of it. So you get the idea. It continues like that, all the way through the end of the storytelling process. The final result is not only a clear and succinct collection of good advice for good storytelling, but also an absolutely tear-jerking tribute to who was clearly a very sweet pup who lived a life full of love.

If you love dogs, or storytelling, or crying, or any combination thereof, I suggest you read it. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/10/an-author-wrote-a-beautiful-tr.html

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/09/after-6-other-senators-mitch.html

DAIN is an AI-powered method for adding "missing" frames of footage. Standard interpolation treats the existing frames as flat fields of color and contrast, but the AI models the depth of regions in the scene, resulting in a more convincing and less "smeary" results. Let's go for a ride on the moon!

Apollo 16 Rover Traverse to Station 4 16mm footage interpolated from 12fps to 60fps with DAIN-AI. Colour corrected and synchronized with audio.

Raw 16mm film & Audio: NASAVideo & Audio Processing: Dutchsteammachine

Here's Apollo 14:

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/09/apollo-16-footage-interpolated.html