Earlier today, Disney announced they are offering a free bedtime message, via a toll-free number, to help children to go to sleep. But I called it, and it's clear to me this was not created specifically for this shelter-in-place time. I started by listening to option 5, aka "Goofy." He talks about being tired from going fishing and having lunch with his pal Mickey. Then I rang "Daisy Duck." She had a picnic with Donald, and later hung out and played soccer with her nieces. And if you think she might be in the same germ pod with those members of her family, think again. She then brags about having dinner with Minnie Mouse! I guess characters in the Disney universe aren't affected by coronavirus? Seems a bit tone deaf, Disney! In any event, here's the info, so you can remind your little ones of all the fun they're missing:

Beginning today, fans can hear messages from favorite Disney characters before falling asleep – all from the comfort of home. Parents, simply call 1-877-7-MICKEY for one of five special messages for your little ones from Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck or Goofy.

The toll-free hotline will run for a limited time only, so be sure to make your call before the end of the month, Thursday, April 30 at midnight PT. Available in the United States only. Limit 1 message per call. If calling using a mobile phone, standard mobile charges may apply.

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/17/disneys-tone-deaf-bedtime-ho.html

The Washington Post reports that smugglers used cheap tools to saw through Trump's expensive wall 18 times in the San Diego area over a one-month period:

The records do not indicate whether the one-month span last year is a representative sample of how frequently people are trying to breach new sections of Trump’s border barrier, which are made of tall steel bollards partially filled with concrete and rebar. The Post reported last November that smuggling crews armed with common battery-operated power tools — including reciprocating saws that retail for as little as $100 at home improvement stores — can cut hack through the bollards using inexpensive blades designed for slicing through metal and stone.

The wall, which Trump lied that Mexico would pay for, is also easy to climb over:

Trump repeatedly touted the bollard fencing as impenetrable in rallies and speeches, until The Post reported that smugglers were climbing the 30-foot structure with improvised ladders and hacking at the bollards with “recip saws” and other commercially available power tools. The president has since backed down on those claims.

“You can cut through anything, in all fairness,” Trump acknowledged in a speech 24 hours later, on Nov. 3, insisting the barrier was designed to be easily repaired.

Image: By Shealah Craighead - White House, Public Domain, Link Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/17/smugglers-sawed-through-trump.html

The largest fan convention in the United States, Comi-Con has been canceled this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. It was scheduled to be held in San Diego in late July. This is the first time the Comic-Con was canceled in its 51-year history. People who purchased  tickets for this year's event have a choice of a refund or a pass for the 2021 Comic-Con.

From Variety:

Founded in 1970, and given the moniker San Diego Comic-Con (or SDCC) in 1973, the annual convention of comic book fans, writers, and sellers ballooned in size in the 2000s with the explosion of big-budget genre entertainment in Hollywood. The four-day convention has been a critical promotional tool for feature films and TV shows for over a decade.

But given the near-total suspension of work within the entertainment industry — not to mention widespread anxiety about the safety of mass public gatherings — it was unclear how many studios and networks were even going to participate in this year’s SDCC.

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/17/its-official-comi-con-is-ca.html

In 1969, astronaut Richard Gordon used this hand controller to steer the Apollo 12 command and service module Yankee Clipper around the moon while his colleagues frolicked on the lunar surface. The controller, complete with trigger switch, just sold at auction for $56,000. I hope the buyer is using it to mod a vintage Lunar Lander arcade machine. From the RR Auction "Space and Aviation Auction":

...Measuring 2.75'' x 4.75'' x 2.5'' overall, with affixed “Class III, Not For Flight” label and underside of base marked with part numbers: “S/N 16, 10022865-101, 94580.” The controller, with trigger switch, is secured to a walnut 4.75'' x 8'' x 1'' base with upper and lower plaques, “Apollo 12, Nov. 14-24, 1969” and “Rotational Hand Controller,” with handwritten notation to underside: “RG, 93-002b.” This spring-loaded hand controller was used to control pitch, roll, and yaw while Gordon navigated in lunar orbit. In fine condition.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/17/this-nasa-joystick-used-during.html

A kayaker was found early this morning after lighting a fire and spelling out the words HELP with sticks and twigs. An no, he wasn't on some speck of an island in the South Pacific, but rather, a remote island in Jamaica Bay, New York. NYPD Aviation rescued the man, in good condition, who had been missing for 12 hours. Here is their video.

A kayaker takes social distancing to the next level. #NYPD Aviation found the uninjured male stranded on a remote island in Jamaica Bay, Queens. Missing for over 12 hours the male signaled for help by starting a fire & spelling out help using nearby sticks before being found. pic.twitter.com/cqYqz8tLFG

 NYPD Special Ops (@NYPDSpecialops) April 17, 2020

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/17/kayaker-who-spelled-out-help-w.html

The New York Police Department released this video from their rescue of a kayaker who got stranded on a tiny island in the Jamaica Bay estuary off the western tip of Long Island, New York.

According to a tweet from NYPD Special Ops, the man, missing for 12 hours, "signaled for help by starting a fire & spelling out help using nearby sticks before being found."

A kayaker takes social distancing to the next level. #NYPD Aviation found the uninjured male stranded on a remote island in Jamaica Bay, Queens. Missing for over 12 hours the male signaled for help by starting a fire & spelling out help using nearby sticks before being found. pic.twitter.com/cqYqz8tLFG

 NYPD Special Ops (@NYPDSpecialops) April 17, 2020

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/17/rescue-video-of-stranded-kayak.html

Renowned mathematician and beloved Princeton University professor, John Horton Conway, died this week (April 11) of COVID-19. He was 82. Conway is best known as the inventor of the hugely influential and inspirational artificial life program, The Game of Life.

From the Princeton obit:

“John Conway was an amazing mathematician, game wizard, polymath and storyteller who left an indelible mark on everyone he encountered — colleagues, students and beyond — inspiring the popular imagination just as he unraveled some of the deepest mathematical mysteries,” said Igor Rodnianski, professor of mathematics and chair of the Department of Mathematics. “His childlike curiosity was perfectly complemented by his scientific originality and the depth of his thinking. It is a great loss for us and for the entire mathematical world.”

Over his long career, Conway made significant contributions to mathematics in the fields of group theory, number theory, algebra, geometric topology, theoretical physics, combinatorial game theory and geometry.

The jacket to Siobhan Roberts' biography of Conway describes him as:

"Archimedes, Mick Jagger, Salvador Dali, and Richard Feynman all rolled into one -- a singular mathematician, with a rock star's charisma, a sly sense of humor, a polymath's promiscuous curiosity, and a burning desire to explain everything about the world to everyone in it."

It is so sad to have lost him and doubly sad how little I've seen about his passing. I guess that's one of the many tragic dimensions of dying in the grim sweep of a pandemic.

Image: Thane Plambeck/Wikipedia Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/17/renowned-mathematician-and-g.html

Our friend, Lea Redmond, she of the World's Smallest Post Service, has a number of fun little Print + Play paper projects on her website. One of them is a set of printable inner-home post cards: "Greeting from the couch," "...from the yard," "...from the corner of the room," etc. Six cards in all.

These might keep your kids occupied for at least several precious minutes. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/17/send-inner-home-post-cards-to.html

Years ago, I published my unified theory on the secret shared universe of the works of Samuel Beckett and the character Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap. Since then, I've had a note in my ongoing list of Cool Story Ideas™ to make an absurdist buddy-cop graphic novel about a crotchety old Samuel Beckett teaming up with a teenage Andre the Giant.

Little did I know that someone had already played around with a similar idea.

This mashup video was put together by a Chicago-based playwright named Danny Thompson. From OpenCulture:

Some twenty five years after Beckett’s death, Thompson---whose credits includethe Complete Lost Works of Samuel Beckett as Found in a Dustbin in Paris in an Envelope (Partially Burned) Labeled: Never to Be Performed. Never. Ever. Ever! Or I'll Sue! I'll Sue From the Grave!!!---repurposed Rosa Veim and Daniel Schmid’s footage of the moody genius wandering around 1969 Berlin into the opening credits of a nonexistent, 70s era Quinn Martin police procedural.

In other words: it's perfect.

Watch the Opening Credits of an Imaginary 70s Cop Show Starring Samuel Beckett [Ayun Halliday / Open Culture]

Beckett's Last Tape; or, Waiting for Quantum Leap [Thom Dunn / Quirk Books]

  Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/17/if-samuel-beckett-was-the-star.html

I have watched Zabrecky's latest installment, a seance to connect rocker David Yow with the legendary Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, both backward and forward, yet I can not find a secret message. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/17/david-yow-takes-a-trip-on-the.html

If you write down passwords, use easily crackable passwords like your birthday or recycle the same ones over and over...you’re doing it all wrong.

We get it...because remembering several dozen passwords for all your personal and professional logins, accounts and websites is borderline madness. But trust us. You’re leaving yourself open to disaster.  And we aren’t telling you anything you didn’t already know.

If your password security could use an upgrade, it’s way past time to muscle up with the help of an industry-leading password protection app like Keeper Unlimited Password Manager.

With a Keeper subscription, you only need to remember one master password protected by two-factor authentication to access your account.

Otherwise, every time you go to a website that requires a login or password, Keeper will offer to create a new one up to 51 unbreakable characters long and save it. When you return, Keeper will automatically fill in the needed information so all you have to do is click enter or authenticate with a fingerprint. It’s just that easy.

Keeper also has your back for your other vital personal information. It can save credit card numbers, phone numbers, addresses and all the other identity details you need to fill in to complete online forms or purchases. And in the interests of security, all your personal data is fully encrypted and saved only on your personal devices, never on Keeper’s own servers. There’s no way your financial information can fall into the wrong hands — because all that info stays only with you. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/16/your-passwords-are-the-key-to.html

Super kawaii pink-and-green Sakura Matcha Oreos exist for a limited time. As do not-quite-as-kawaii Oolong Peach ones. The catch? They're only available in Hong Kong. Boo! They sure are cute though.

(localiiz)

images via localiiz Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/16/oreo-introduces-kawaii-cookies.html

For those who have spent years lamenting the fact that they never seem to have any time for simple pleasures like putting together a home-cooked meal...we introduce you to home quarantine.

Granted, this probably isn’t the way you wanted to find your way back to the kitchen, but while you’ve got this time, maybe you should invest in an appliance that can tackle about as many different cooking options as you can dream up.

The SOUS°V Pot Precision Sous Vide Multi-Cooker has the look and feel of an appliance you’d find a chef’s kitchen, yet with all its sneaky packed-in utility, it’s actually versatile enough to justify its counter space by handling a variety of culinary tasks.

In case you’ve never tried sous vide cooking, it’s the process of dropping vacuum-sealed food in a plastic bag into a very precisely heated water bath, usually for a long, slow cook. The process, a favorite in restaurants, helps retain the food’s natural flavors while ensuring consistent results every time. The SOUS°V handles those duties like a champ, including Dual Accutemp Technology, a top-mounted high precision temperature probe that automatically drops down in sous vide mode to take the water temperature directly and accurately.

With all the control options on the front panel, it’s easy to set the cooking temperature and time so your meal will be done when you want it -- and cooked your way.

But in case you always wanted to try sous vide cooking, but couldn’t justify the expense for a device that specialized, the SOUS°V lists sous vide as just one of its many talents. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/16/this-precision-multi-cooker-ha.html

This is a perfect popcorn machine to make for your next camping trip. Or a fun project to craft during yet another day at home, for which you might want to use Corona beer cans just for grins. One thing to possibly tweak is the size of the popcorn bowl. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/16/make-a-mini-popcorn-machine-wi.html

Last week, we lost famed music impresario, Hal Willner, likely to COVID-19. Willner was a beloved figure throughout the music community, and in the wake of his death, there have been many touching tributes and people have been resurfacing all sorts of obscure wonders that demonstrate Willner's tremendous range and his talent for putting together unique and inspiring productions.

Yesterday, American Songwriter posted this letter that Tom Waits wrote in tribute to Willner.

Hal. Dear Hal. Brother. Uncle. Father. Son. Husband. Godfather. Friend. Wise and reckless. Lamb and black sheep. Lover of the afflicted and the blessed. More than kin and more than kind, more than friend and more than fiendish in his daunting and devoted pursuit of the lost and the buried, long may his coattails run and long may we now ride, and those that follow us continue to ride upon them.

Hal was the wry and soulful and mysterious historical rememberer. He specialized in staging strange musical bedfellows like Betty Carter and the Replacements or The Residents backing up Conway Twitty. Oh, the wild seeds of Impresario Hal. He was drawn equally to the danger of a fiasco and the magical power of illumination that his legendary productions held.

Read the rest on American Songwriter.

Bonus tracks:

A couple of videos from the documentary film, September Songs: The Music of Kurt Weill. Hal Willner produced the soundtrack to the film.

Image: CC BY-SA 3.0 Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/16/tom-waits-pens-touching-letter.html

Janus is a darling goat born on April 5 at Nueske Farms in Wittenberg, Wisconsin. He was named after the Roman god with two faces for obvious reasons. Jocelyn Nuesks is posting updates about Janus on the farm's Facebook page. A vet examined Janus this week and apparently the kid is doing pretty well, all things considered.

"He's a normal goat," Nueske told Fox11 News. "We just have to help him. We try to help him as much as we can, and give him a break when he gets tired." Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/16/meet-janus-the-adorable-two-f.html

Paul McCartney is admittedly biased, but here he is on The Howard Stern Show on Tuesday explaining why he thinks The Beatles were a better band than the Rolling Stones.

"Their stuff is rooted in the blues. When they're kinda writing stuff, it's to do with the blues, y'know. We had a little more influences[...]

“We started to notice that whatever we did, the Stones sort of did it shortly thereafter. So, like we went to America and we had huge success.Then the Stones went to America. And then we did Sgt. Pepper, the Stones did a psychedelic album. There was a lot of that. But we were great friends, still are, kind of a thing. We admire each other." Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/16/paul-mccartney-tells-howard-st.html

In 1962, Andy Warhol exhibited his famous Campbell's Soup Cans paintings for the first time and cemented his place as a Pop Art powerhouse. Previously, Warhol had bridged his commercial and fine art efforts with paintings based on comic strips and advertisements, but he (rightly) felt that style had already been done by Lichtenstein and others. So why soup cans? Smithsonian has the story in an excerpt from Blake Gopnik's new book Warhol. From Smithsonian:

Warhol’s final breakthrough into ’60s Pop came through an accidental inspiration from a minor dealer on the New York scene named Muriel Latow. She was a flamboyant decorator, three years younger than Warhol, and had hopes of becoming a serious art dealer. Latow has gone down in history as Pop Art’s most important, if accidental, muse. As the story is told—in one of its many, mostly incompatible versions—Latow went to a dinner at Warhol’s house in the fall of ’61 to console him for having been one-upped by Oldenburg and Lichtenstein and others. “The cartoon paintings...it’s too late,” Warhol is supposed to have said. “I’ve got to do something that really will have a lot of impact, that will be different enough from Lichtenstein.” He begged his guests for ideas, and Latow came up with one, but wouldn’t deliver until Warhol handed over a check for $50. “You’ve got to find something that’s recognizable to almost everybody,” she said. “Something you see every day that everybody would recognize. Something like a can of Campbell’s Soup.”

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/16/why-warhol-painted-soup-cans.html

I'm currently re-discovering Jeff Van Der Meer's Area X / Southern Reach Trilogy via Audible, because I thought a familiar Weird Sci-Fi story about an invisible lifeform that kind of ambiently inhabits the world around us, changing things in imperceptible ways until it's too late, would be a relaxing respite from the chaotic news of COVID-19.

That may have been a bad decision. I'm even more terrified now. Then I learned about this in Newsweek:

A team aboard the RV Falkor—the flagship research vessel of the Schmidt Ocean Institute (SOI)—spotted the organism, a type of siphonophore known as Apolemia, using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) in a deep-sea environment known as the Ningaloo Canyons.

[…]

Resembling a long piece of string, siphonophores—a group of creatures related to jellyfish and corals—may look like one organism, but they are actually made up of many thousands of individual, specialized clones that come together to form a single entity.

With the help of lasers mounted onto their ROV—known as SuBastian—the Falkor scientists estimated that this siphonophore's outer ring measured 49 feet in diameter, suggesting that this section alone is 154 foot in length, or about as tall as an 11-story building.

Check out this beautiful *giant* siphonophore Apolemia recorded on #NingalooCanyons expedition. It seems likely that this specimen is the largest ever recorded, and in strange UFO-like feeding posture. Thanks @Caseywdunn for info @wamuseum @GeoscienceAus @CurtinUni @Scripps_Ocean pic.twitter.com/QirkIWDu6S

 Schmidt Ocean (@SchmidtOcean) April 6, 2020

As I've now learned, these things are in fact "colonial organisms," rather than individual beings. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/16/giant-string-like-creature-com.html

A few hours after a mayor in Australia told everyone via Facebook to keep washing their hands, social distancing, and staying at home, the gentleman was fined (USD) $1,043 for chatting with a group of people on a sidewalk. In other words, for not following his own rules on social distancing. Police also issued him a warning for drinking in public.

.@WarrnamboolCity mayor Tony Herbert has been fined by @VictoriaPolice for breaching COVID-19 laws. Was snapped drinking a beer on the city's main street last week. Herbert says he thought engaging with business owners as part of mayoral role was within law @abcmelbourne pic.twitter.com/pGbXn8TNM0

 Daniel Miles (@danielmiles) April 16, 2020

Oops. Mayor Tony Herbert apologized for his "mistake."

"I realize that I had inadvertently breached the new laws to keep the community safe. I am genuinely sorry for my actions."

Read the full story at BBC. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/16/australian-mayor-fined-for-dri.html