Built in 1978, this 2,316 square foot home in Las Vegas was built underground with an artificial outdoors to make it feel like you are living above ground. From above it appears to be an empty lot. It is extremely claustrophobic, and reminds me of the movie adaptation of Harlan Ellison's "A Boy and His Dog."

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/20/this-18-million-end-times-und.html

If you've wondered what it must be like for employees working in stores and having to deal with mask-deniers while trying to enforce social distancing and mask-wearing, wonder no more.

This guy from Provo, UT has a Twitter thread of what his life has been like trying to implement a new mandatory mask-wearing policy in the grocery store he works in.

As my friend John Bergin commented: "This entire thread reads like a Thomas M. Disch novel with a dash of Kafka. Not even exaggerating."

This is a thread of fun times I had while enforcing the new company policy of required masks at the grocery store I work at

 the unbreakable thomas richins (@RichinsThomas) July 12, 2020

One woman came in with her husband, neither had masks. I offered them free masks. She turned around and waited outside in 101 degree heat (Fahrenheit) instead of just putting on a mask. She stood, arms folded, next to her idling motorcycle until her hubby was done shopping.

 the unbreakable thomas richins (@RichinsThomas) July 12, 2020

One man looked at the “masks required” sign and power-walked in. We asked him to wear a sign. His face flushed with anger, and he took the mask (which we handed him inside a paper bag) and held the paper bag over his face and continued into the store.

 the unbreakable thomas richins (@RichinsThomas) July 12, 2020

Image: Mika Baumeister on Unsplash Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/20/utah-grocery-employee-recounts.html

Swiss student Johan Link created an instructable for making a Ball Balancing PID System, and he posted a very nice video demonstration.

Via his instructable:

This system holds a ball in balance on a plate. A webcam films the system and a python program analyzes the images to find the position of the ball. The python program calculates the tilting of the tray to prevent the ball from falling.

A proportional-integral-derivative (PID) regulator is used to compensate the movements of the ball. The position and speed of the ball are measured by the camera and these measurements are used by the PID regulator in the python program.

Image: YouTube / Johan Link Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/20/this-robotic-plate-can-catch.html

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. Pictured above this week is my studio, or the main corner of it. A lot of wonderful noise makers in the room, and the stress of this year has finally started to hit me. A room of equipment like this is very good for moments like this. So this week is about making as loud a noise as possible.

Jump in for a fun ride as we turn the studio into the tornado of sound, with leading contributions from Metasonix, Soma Labs Lyra-8 and Pulsar 23, Moog, and Dave Smith and Tom Oberheim's collaboration, the OB-6. Lead vocals by the Landscape HC-TT, a manually controlled tape player.

I purposely decided to make these beautiful instruments into as noisy and obnoxious a set of sounds as possible. I think you'll enjoy the stress relieving sound of a thousand oscillators out of tune with one another, going off like 700 springs clanging out of a mattress. Or at least that was the working idea. Really, just a head-cleaner. I call it: My Tribute to July, 2020.

SPOKEN WORD WITH ELECTRONICS #19: Odd Times, Loud Noises

Connect with SWWE via Decibel Meter on Bandcamp, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play.

Thanks as always, and be well. Stay proud and keep it loud! Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/20/listen-to-an-hour-of-unusual-s.html

Perfect for weddings, Valentine's Day, anniversaries, bridal showers, funerals, etc., these "personalized cum and vag rags" arrive as a handsome set of two. Nonheteronormative couples will be delighted to know that both towels can be cum or vag or indeed anything they please, so long as it is a glib yet outr'e reference to wiping up genitourinary discharges. [h/t kthor] Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/20/personalized-cum-and-vag-rags.html

A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 36% of US adults believe false conspiracy theories about COVID-19, such as the one claiming Bill Gates wants to inject people with vaccine medication that contains microchips that will be activated by 5G cell towers.

MIT Technology Review interviewed various experts and moderators of Reddit's r/ChangeMyView to find out how you can talk to conspiracy theory believers without wanting to throttle them. The article presents the experts' advice in the form of 10 tips. The tips include treating the conspiracy theorist you are talking to with respect otherwise you will immediately shut down the conversation. Also, if you insist on speaking with a conspiracy theorist do it through a direct message rather than posting on their Facebook wall or publicly on Twitter. It's also good to agree on the kernel of truth that many conspiracy theories contain so you can build trust with your conversation partner.

Another tip is to use the "truth sandwich":

Use the fact-fallacy-fact approach, a method first proposed by linguist George Lakoff. “State what’s true, debunk the conspiracy theory, and state what’s true again,” Donovan says. For example, if you’re talking to someone who believes the 5G conspiracy theory, you could structure your argument as “Coronavirus is an airborne virus, which means it is passed by sneezing, coughing, or particles. Because viruses are not transmitted via radio waves, coronavirus, which is an airborne virus, can’t be carried by 5G.” It’s repetitive, but it reinforces facts and points out where the conspiracy theory doesn’t work.

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/20/how-to-talk-to-a-conspiracy-th.html

@parlor_sweets is a delectable Instagram account that curates pre-packaged desserts from konbini, or convenience stores, across Japan. American 7-Elevens aren’t known for their assortment of sweet treats, save for a Slurpee on a hot summer day, which is why this enticing convenience store content lured us in.

A gooey souffl'e pancake melts onto crumbs waiting to collect the overflow.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by BAKE (@parlor_sweets) on Jul 14, 2020 at 3:24am PDT

A cartoon cow rests on the froth of a creamy milk pudding that bounces as it’s scooped.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by BAKE (@parlor_sweets) on Jul 10, 2020 at 4:08am PDT

The thick middle of a glazed cookie cream puff feels glutinous to watch as it oozes from the rupture.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by BAKE (@parlor_sweets) on Jun 30, 2020 at 2:06am PDT

The members of @parlor_sweets’s curators -- who call their group BAKE -- are just as delightful as the desserts they share. Intrigued by the dizzying varieties of delectable treats, they document them through photos and videos on their Instagram account. We asked them to tell us more about their group, why they came together, and how their account “introduces the beauty of Japan overseas.”

Why convenience store desserts?

In konbini, there are wide varieties of desserts at decent prices. Among other things, these desserts catch the most attention from foreign travelers. The packaging is well-designed to appeal to customers and some are co-directed by famous patissiers or brands. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/20/these-dessert-fans-scour-japan.html

Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira, released in 1988, takes place in 2020. How closely does the 32-year-old depiction of today resemble today? In some ways, very close, says Sam Barsanti in the A.V. Club. One obvious example is that Tokyo was the host city for the 2020 Olympics. But there's more, especially in the "rising tensions in Neo-Tokyo between the haves and have-nots." From his essay:

As established over the course of the bike chase, there are rising tensions in Neo-Tokyo between the haves and have-nots—a conflict the film draws attention to with the bikers harassing a corporate office drone in a car and a wealthy couple who are literally sitting with their backs to what’s happening on the streets. There’s also a steadily growing protest happening at the same time as the biker duel, with a quick glimpse of a TV news report mentioning that a “skirmish has broken out between student protestors and riot police.” (Note the familiar lack of blame put on either party for starting the fight; TV news is apparently ineffectual in every reality.) In Akira, it’s legitimately unclear why the protest turns violent; one moment there’s a seemingly peaceful march, the next the protestors are flipping over militaristic police vehicles, while—in a moment of dark humor that is darker and less humorous now—a riot cop launches a tear gas canister directly into someone’s chest.

The scene is recognizable even if its causes don’t quite match our circumstances. In our world, protestors are marching against injustice and cops are jumping to lethal force.

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/20/how-1988s-akira-predicted-th.html

It's hard to imagine what an obscene amount of wealth $1 billion is, so Tom Scott demonstrates via travel times. Basically, a tall stack of a million $1 bills laid on its side would take about a minute to walk from end to end. A stack of a billion $1 bills would be a 75-minute car ride from end to end.

There are ways to make the visualization more comparable, like walking both distances or driving both distances at a consistent speed, but the basic idea that a billion is a LOT more than a million is pretty clear.

This one with rice that originally appeared on TikTok also shows a billion, as well as Jeff Bezos' billions:

Image: YouTube  / Tom Scott Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/20/1-million-vs-1-billion-comp.html

"COVID-19 has created a perfect storm for conspiracy theorists," said Joseph E. Uscinski and Adam M. Enders in an article for The Atlantic titled "The Coronavirus Conspiracy Boom." In the most recent episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver takes a look at some of these theories, the belief in which, is literally causing people to die.

Right-wing media personalities like Rush Limbaugh say that COVID-19 is "just the common cold" while other conspiracy theorists say COVID-19 is a complete fabrication concocted by the Deep State to brainwash people into becoming docile sheep. Another camp agrees with epidemiologists that the virus poses a grave danger to human health, but insists it is a bioweapon created by a shadowy network of secret government agencies, Deep State operatives, Bill Gates, George Soros, avaricious pharmaceutical companies, and Chinese financiers. And then there are the folks who think 5G cell phone towers actually transmit the virus.

These conspiracy theories would be funny if they didn't result in people dying. Unfortunately millions of people trained by Fox news and sham documentaries like Plandemic (with 8 million views so far, and which Oliver neatly debunks in this episode) to reject anything scientists say believe in this dangerous disinformation and happily spread it to the fellow ignoramuses on Facebook. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/20/john-oliver-examines-coronavir.html

Keanu Reeves co-wrote a new comic book series called BRZRKR with co-writer Matt Kindt (Folklords, Bang!) and artist Alessandro Vitti (Marvel’s Secret Warriors). It's apparently "for mature readers" because, y'know, it's "brutally violent," according to the Boom! Studios announcement:

The man known only as Berzerker is half-mortal and half-God, cursed and compelled to violence…even at the sacrifice of his sanity. But after wandering the world for centuries, Berzerker may have finally found a refuge – working for the U.S. government to fight the battles too violent and too dangerous for anyone else. In exchange, Berzerker will be granted the one thing he desires – the truth about his endless blood-soaked existence…and how to end it.

Unsurprisingly, Netflix has a first-look deal to develop a TV show based on the comic. Also unsurprisingly, Berzerker looks a lot like Keanu. “I’d love to play Berzerker!” Reeves told USA Today. “It's a really fun story so if it's not me, hopefully someone can play it.”

Image top, detail of main cover art by Rafael Gramp'a. Image below, interior art by Alessandro Vitti and variant cover art by Mark Brooks.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/20/keanu-reeves-now-writes-comic.html

I doomscroll for money, but you're doing it for free! If you want to stop paying the hidden costs, this handy guide might shake out out of the not-so-ludic loop

The recent onslaught of dystopian stories related to the coronavirus pandemic, combined with stay-at-home orders, have enabled our penchant for binging on bad news. But the habit is eroding our mental health, experts say.

Karen Ho, a finance reporter for Quartz, has been tweeting about doomscrolling every day over the past few months, often alongside a gentle nudge to stop and engage in healthier alternatives.

The three main tips are "Time yourself", "Remind yourself why you wanted to look at your phone" and "Create new habits that replace doomscrolling."

I can recommend pizza for the last one there! Just huge slabs of Detroit-style pizza shoveled in like VHS tapes into the slot. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/20/how-to-stop-doomscrolling.html

In this footage, a supercomputer's CPU cores -- nearly 900 of them -- are neatly lined up in the Task Manager. The Doom logo appears, generated by code that targets each core. Then Doom itself plays, each "pixel" generated by thrashing a core with just the right amount of busy work.

Max Holt:

Finally got it working and looking decent! But can it run Crysis?... Done by taking the original pixels, then parsing to black and white and scaling down to 56x32 pixels. I spent quite a lot of time finding a good function to scale the brightness to try to make the contrast good.

An amazing illustration of how much power modern computers have.

UPDATE: A redditeur makes a convincing claim this and other videos like it are fake:

Task manager cannot show this many cores at once. It shows a scroll bar instead. It says "Base Speed" while the real Task Manager has "Base speed". He has now fixed this in his latest video. There should be a blue border around the whole core display. You can see problems on the left edge part: a space missing before Kbps, a highlight missing behind the CPU tab, etc. The CPU usage text for each core is way too small. The resolution is too high compared to real Task Manager. The font isn't the usual Windows UI font. Font colors are also wrong in places. His first video had some weird spacing issues with the first few columns

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/20/doom-running-in-task-manager-w.html

Remember engineer Shane Wighton of Stuff Made Here who impressed the Internet with his robotic basketball backboard that helps the ball into the hoop? Now he's built a robot that cuts his hair. Using a combination of physical sensors and computer vision, it gave him a pretty great looking mullet! I also appreciate its Flowbee-like vacuum attachment that lifts the hair up for cutting while also keeping the process nice and tidy. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/20/this-man-built-a-robot-to-cut.html

This year marked the 75th birthday of the great Bob Marley (1945-1981). As part of the celebration, Bob Marley and Rita Marley's son Ziggy Marley, 51, just recorded a full concert of his father's music. Watch above! (The performance was recorded at a studio in Los Angeles with clear partitioners between the band members.)

According to Rolling Stone, Marley's platinum birthday year will be commemorated by numerous events and releases including "the 12-part documentary series Bob Marley: Righteousness as well as soccer doc Rhythm of the Game, new videos for “No Women, No Cry” and “Three Little Birds,” the unearthing of live performances and a SiriusXM station dedicated to the reggae legend." Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/20/watch-ziggy-marley-play-his-da.html

Enjoy the unique comedy stylings of Leonard Cohen! He's quite funny although I keep waiting for him to break into song or, at the very least, do an impression of Dustin Hoffman. The clip is included in the 1965 documentary Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen, which also included his reading of "The only tourist in Havana turns his thoughts homeward" that I posted about previously. You can watch the full documentary here:

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/20/watch-leonard-cohen-do-stand-u.html

COVID-19 has led to a coin shortage for businesses as customers are going cashless to avoid touching anything. To help bring more coins into circulation, Wisconsin's Community State Bank is offering a $5 bonus for every $100 in coins you turn in. The maximum bonus is $500. (As comparison, Coinstar takes 11.9% of the money you exchange unless you opt for a gift card.) From CNN:

"We knew we needed to figure something out. We hate the idea of telling our customers, 'No, we can't give you one of the services we're proud to provide,' so we came up with a creative way to get things done," Community State Bank Vice President Neil Buchanan told CNN. "Just because this hasn't been done before doesn't mean it isn't going to work -- and it has already made a huge difference."

Just days after launching the program, hundreds of people have dropped off their spare change, already resulting in an "incredible impact" on local businesses that were struggling because of the shortage, according to Buchanan.

image: Roman Oleinik (CC BY-SA 3.0) Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/20/bank-paying-a-bonus-for-cashin.html

"Ducks annihilate a bowl of peas" promises the title to this footage, and it is not an empty promise.

Previously in Ducks Eating Peas. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/20/ducks-eating-peas.html

Some pieces of tech aren’t really expected to have personality. They were created for function, compact black squares that do their duty, do it well, and do it in relative obscurity.

Then there are creations like the Tivoo-Max Smart Alarm Clock and Speaker. It’s the equivalent of the theater kid in high school — loud, dramatic, and constantly bouncing around in front of your face like Tigger on a caffeine high.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that for all its brashness and playful energy, the Tivoo-Max is also a formidable addition to anyone’s tech array, ready to blast out a song, wake you up or dazzle you visually with equal enthusiasm.

While Tivoo-Max is more than capable on the audio side, its standout feature is its 46 square inch LED screen, which serves as a constantly evolving canvass to display your pixel artwork or downloadable graphics, icons, animations and more that reflect your personality.

Armed with 256 programmable squares and a palette of up to 16 million colors, you can either create your own cool pixel drawings or go to the accompanying Divoom Smart app and download the creations of others. With your favorite music as a backdrop, the Tivoo-Max then goes into sparkle mode, cascading your images across the LED screen as the tunes roll on.

While the pixel explosion is the Tivoo-Max’s most overt feature, it’s still a powerful Bluetooth speaker with loads of functionality. Backed by 2.1 stereo drivers and an active subwoofer for thumping bass, this speaker’s output is formidable. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/19/the-tivoo-max-is-part-speaker.html

Spend a relaxing 20 minutes touring Toronto's zoo by car in a new vehicle-friendly route inspired by the pandemic. It's one of many zoos trying out drive-thru tours to allow for visitors while reducing health risks.

Via SOCA HUB:

NEW Zoo Safari - Toronto Zoo Scenic Safari Drive Through - Driving Tour of Toronto Zoo 4K video. Tour the Toronto Zoo drive thru from your Car. 2020 Toronto Zoo Scenic Safari Drive-Thru Things to do with your children during the pandemic lock down. Looking to get out of the house for a safe adventure? Now you can with our NEW Toronto Zoo Scenic Safari. Take a tour around the Zoo from the comfort of your own car with your very own Zoo Keeper commentary to learn about animals as you pass through the variety of Zoogeographic areas! Car Ride around the Zoo, Get your Toronto Zoo Safari Tickets Online. You’ll see the Zoo from a whole new perspective as you drive on staff-only roads, through the Zoo site, and even through the lion cave! Keep your eyes peeled at every turn, like you are on a real-life African safari – only this time, it’s with a variety of animals from around the world!

Image: YouTube / SOCA HUB Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/19/zoos-worldwide-are-improvising.html