In case you weren't panicking enough about the way that ambient environmental factors might be surreptitiously destroying your body, the EPA decided that right now would be a great time to change the rules about how they calculate the risk associated with mercury and other toxic metal factory byproducts.

From The New York Times:

The new Environmental Protection Agency rule does not eliminate restrictions on the release of mercury, a heavy metal linked to brain damage. Instead, it creates a new method of calculating the costs and benefits of curbing mercury pollution that environmental lawyers said would fundamentally undermine the legal underpinnings of controls on mercury and many other pollutants.

By reducing the positive health effects of regulations on paper and raising their economic costs, the new method could be used to justify loosening restrictions on any pollutant that the fossil fuel industry has deemed too costly to control.

The real insult-to-injury here is that it would be easy for the EPA to turn a blind eye to these sort of regulations. Offices are closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, and with so much chaos in the world, shady actors in the EPA could deliberately let these rules slip by while still maintaining plausible deniability.

In fact, the EPA already did something like that earlier in this lockdown crisis. In late March, it announced that it was suspending  enforcement of environmental compliance — essentially leaving it up to private companies to decide for themselves if they're following pollution laws. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/18/a-pandemic-seems-like-a-great.html

On April 16, Marvel live streamed 10 hours of "footage" from outside Dr. Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum, which you can now watch in its entirety on YouTube. It's kind of like a Lovecraftian YuleLog, with spooky sounds and energy demons and ghastly spirits peeking through the windows.

It's also kind of like going outside, but without actually going outside, and somehow less terrifying (but still kind of eerie). Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/18/zone-out-with-10-hours-of-ambi.html

Trying to relieve your own muscle aches without medication is usually an exercise coupling maddening frustration with the contortionism of a Jim Carrey routine. Trying to reach ailing muscle groups in your back, shoulders or legs on your own is often just futility, never getting the right angle, pressure or motion to make any headway in breaking up tightness and trying to roll discomfort.

Sure, you could pay a massage therapist to knead your muscles the right way, but it’s usually expensive and difficult to schedule. And under our current conditions, it’s essentially impossible.

Instead, the makers of the Vertiball have come up with a novel way to essentially turn suction and your own body weight into all the equipment you need to help release tension and promote muscle recovery all by yourself.

The Vertiball uses a patented mounting system with industrial-grade suction to adhere to any flat surface. No matter whether you’re sticking it to painted drywall, metal or even plastic surfaces, the Vertiball locks into place and can even hold over 100 lbs. of weight without wavering.

Once you’ve got the Vertiball positioned, then just use your own motion and body weight to roll your muscles over the 360-degree rotating ball’s firm, yet pleasing touch. You have full control over how much pressure to use, angling the ball’s precision focal point right to the painful areas that need relief the most.

Users can fire up the Vertiball to combat headaches and neck pain, improve circulation, enhance sleep and relaxation and increase range of motion as it naturally cures muscle pain and promotes faster recovery. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/18/get-unparalleled-muscle-pain-r.html

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/18/do-kookaburras-like-pasta.html

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/18/as-beaches-reopen-watch-flori.html

A police officer in Lancashire, England, was filmed threatening to falsify charges when challenged on why he was detaining a man: "I'll lock you up.... We'll make something up… who are they going to believe, me or you?"

The BBC reports that the Lancashire force will apologize to the man and will investigate the unnamed officer.

"We are already aware of footage circulating on social media regarding an officer's actions during an incident in Accrington yesterday," it tweeted.

"It is clear from the footage the member of the public deserves an apology, which we will attempt to provide him with today."

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/18/uk-cop-filmed-threatening-to.html

Two high-school seniors in Carrollton, Georgia, were expelled from the school this week after posting a racist video to social media.

In a statement, Carrollton City Schools Superintendent Mark Albertus said the students’ behavior was unacceptable and “not representative of the district’s respect for all people.”

“The racist behavior observed in the video easily violates this standard,” he said. “They are no longer students at Carrollton High School.”

Just desserts for the racists, but the school's stated rationale for expelling them is meaningless officialese and could be (and will be) applied to any speech they don't like. The school should be made to explain what about the racist video goes beyond the diminishing free-speech protections students enjoy.

Another way of putting it: the authorities don't care about the racism, they care about not being held responsible for an environment where it thrives.

oh THAT’s why carrollton is trending? not surprised lol.

 kiana (@_kimojo) April 17, 2020

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/18/racist-high-school-students-ex.html

The gorgeous and enchanting Bran Castle in Bran, Romania has long been associated with Bram Stoker's Dracula. There is no evidence to support any association with the novel and the castle has no real connection to Vlad Tepes, either, the historical Wallachian ruler that Stoker used as inspiration. But the connections have persisted because Bran Castle just looks like it should be Drac's crib (and it's fabulous for tourism).

Now, thanks to Google Maps, you can tour some of the grounds and go from room to room inside of the 14th century stone castle.

If you could look up "Goth Barbie Dream House" in a dictionary, a picture of Bran Castle would come up.

Images: Screengrabs Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/18/more-virtual-tourism-take-a-t.html

Look, there’s a reason no one uses public restrooms outside of a serious emergency. That’s because they’re usually pretty disgusting.

I mean, we don’t expect a fast-food restaurant or retail store to have a bathroom you would want to spend any real length of time in, but a general level of basic sanitation would be nice. And if we could break up the odor left by the last guy in that far stall, that’d be great too.

Now with the surge in awareness of cleanliness and infectious disease protocol, even our own home bathrooms probably aren’t as hygienic as we’d like them to be. With all that in mind, there may be a day soon when we’re all carrying around sanitation go-bags like The Happy Sit Kit.

This ultimate kit is built to immediately deploy every weapon you need in the fight against a less-than-pristine restroom. Everything is compactly arranged inside the portable 8-inch-long leather bag from your own toilet paper to a toilet seat cover to an air freshener to mask...well, anything someone else did in there.

As for cleanup, the Sit Kit also includes sanitary wipes and hand sanitizer so any bacteria or other microscopic terrors creeping around never survive their contact with you.

There’s even a mirror, so if you’re in a porta-potty or camping out in the woods, you can still double-check that you look stellar after your gross brush with the call of nature.

The durable handle allows you to hook the Sit Kit anywhere so it never touches a counter or the ground and the whole thing packs back up easily to slide right into any purse or gym bag. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/18/nobodys-bathroom-is-great-e.html

These lockdowns are brutal on everybody. While many “essential” workers and locations remain in limited operation during this crisis, there are a few other places that many would argue should definitely be deemed essential.

Like the gym. Or your favorite yoga studio.

Sure, they might seem like luxuries, but considering the amount of tranquility and personal well-being that comes after a healthy yoga session, that time feels pretty darn necessary for lots of practitioners.

Even if your yoga guru is off the mat TFN, you can still experience the calming, spiritual nurturing effects of your daily yoga routine online with courses offered by Yogaia Interactive Yoga.

Launched in 2014, Yogaia is the world’s first live interactive online yoga studio, featuring a stockpile of over 1,000 classes and workouts tuned to enhance both mind and body.

And when we say interactive, we mean it. Most courses have the option of enabling two-way cameras, so not only can you follow along with an instructor’s course in real-time, that instructor can also see you, allowing them to assess your form or offer guidance when needed. If you feel like online courses often end up feeling detached and impersonal, a Yogaia class offers almost the same level of personal attention you’d receive at the studio down the street.

From yoga and meditation to pilates, stretching, foam rolling and more, courses range from 5-minute quickies to over an hour serving all skill levels from gentle beginners to advanced, rigorous pro sessions. Of course, even if you miss a class, you can catch up with a recording later to stay on track. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/17/yogaia-features-live-interacti.html

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/17/watch-this-fellows-incredibl.html

Hey, when life hands you virii, make cosplay. Zoidberg cosplay.

From IMGURian @celestialcosplay, a splendid use of time spent at home, saving lives.

Zoidberg is taking the trash out responsibly, and that's nice, but mostly this is about take-out dinner.

Futurama forever.

Here's my contribution to the Isolation Bin Outing group on Facebook. Except Zoidberg doesn't take bins out, only dinner.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/17/this-zoidberg-futurama-qua.html

All for the love of Animal Crossing in the coronavirus pandemic.

“My (relatively) young wife is in a nursing home with very aggressive [multiple sclerosis], writes her husband, IMGURian @KWIP.

“She LOVED the previous Animal Crossing games, but it broke her heart she was no longer able to work the controls of a gaming system because of her MS.”

So he built an accessible rig for her to use in the nursing home.

All the feels.

The setup was inspired by "My Mate Vince's" post on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZsaFPN0IrA. Powered by a Nintendo Switch, using an Xbox Adaptive Controller and the MAGIC-NS Controller Adapter for Nintendo Switch to allow the Controller to communicate with the Switch. My (relatively) young wife is in a nursing home with very aggressive MS. She LOVED the previous Animal Crossing games, but it broke her heart she was no longer able to work the controls of a gaming system because of her MS. On top of that, the nursing home has been on lockdown for several weeks now, so we haven't been able to see each other (other than every night on video chat, thank Gord!) and she's been bored out of her mind.

So I built this system to allow her (and other residents of the nursing home - provided she shares!) to be able to have something to do. The whole thing is placed on a wheeled, height-adjustable desk that can be moved into her room or any available area and adjusted to fit the wheelchair height of whoever is using it.

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/17/making-a-disability-accessible.html

A Reuters calculation published today shows that more than 150,000 have died of the novel coronavirus and COVID-19, the illness it causes.

From Reuters:

The first death came in the central Chinese city of Wuhan on Jan. 9. It took 83 days for the first 50,000 deaths to be recorded and just eight more for the toll to climb to 100,000. It took another eight days to go from 100,000 to 150,000.

The death toll is still far short of the so-called Spanish flu, which began in 1918 and is estimated to have killed more than 20 million people by the time it petered out in 1920.

Oh, give it time, and Trump. More here, and there's an interactive graphic here that shows how steep that hockey stick climbed in the United States. Every number was a human being, with family members and friends and others who loved and cared about them. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/17/coronavirus-has-killed-150000.html

The novel coronavirus is infecting and killing Black, Latinx, and Native American people in the U.S. at rates shockingly higher than whites, according to state public health data.

Mother Jones has a deep data dive into the racial disparities of COVID-19, which examines the many factors that have led to the outbreak hitting Americans of color hardest.

Excerpt:

In early April, Mother Jones began requesting racial and ethnic breakdowns of COVID-19 infections and deaths from health departments in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Of those, 21 states released no racial or ethnic breakdowns of those infected. Twenty-six states failed to release breakdowns of fatalities by race, and among the states that did, the information was inconsistently formatted. Some broke out data only by race, others only by ethnicity, and some by both. Some offered data for Latinx and Asian communities; others classified them as “Other.” Most states had little if any information about how Latinx, Asian, and Native American populations have been affected.

But a clear picture did emerge. Preliminary data analysis by Mother Jones finds that Black people overall have disproportionately contracted and died from the coronavirus. In 20 of the 28 states plus DC for which a usable racial breakdown of infection data was provided, Black people make up a larger share of coronavirus infections than they do of the general population.

In 18 of the 23 states plus DC for which a usable racial breakdown of fatality data was provided, Black people likewise make up a disproportionately large share of coronavirus fatalities.

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/17/data-shows-coronavirus-is-infe.html

Between Ancestry, 23 and Me and all the rest of the DNA testing companies out there today, you can uncover incredibly detailed genetic information about yourself, not to mention trace back familial connections potentially hundreds of years.

Yet unless pedigree was established at birth, it’s very likely that one member of the family not only didn’t make it into your family tree but doesn’t have a genetic history that extends much beyond mutt. Yes, we’re talking about your dog.

But just as with human DNA services, testing service DNA My Dog has started to offer up a lot more than anecdotal historical information about your four-legged pal.

Not only does DNA My Dog break down your dog’s exact breed, genetic composition, and personality traits, but a simple swab of your dog’s cheek can unlock all the details you need to help your pet live a long and happy life.

DNA My Dog screens each pooch for over 100 of the most common diseases for their particular breed. No matter how old your dog, this medical projection is an invaluable medical snapshot of your pet’s health, offering important tips about potential health risks and other methods for keeping your dog safe and happy.

Each set of results also comes with a custom photo certificate outlining your dog’s full genetic breed composition, so even if your pet was a rescue or a stray, you’ll have vivid test results with 99.97 percent accuracy on your dog’s complete genetic history.

Considering how much man’s best friend contributes to your life, this simple testing can go a long way to ensuring you’re able to repay the favor by giving your dog just the proper care they need as they get older. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/17/save-20-on-this-dog-dna-test.html

Wow, Dr. Phil is awful. Mister Phil, really. Gentle reminder than “Dr. Phil” is not a licensed doctor.

On Fox News, on Laura Ingraham's popular white supremacist TV show, “Dr. Phil” defended “opening up America,” as impeached president Donald Trump puts it.

Mister Phil also compared the coronavirus death rate to car and swimming pool accidents, which is not true.

Here's that original Fox News clip he's going on about in the YouTube clip at the top of this blog post:

Dr. Phil appears on Laura Ingraham and says we don’t shut the country down for automobile deaths, cigarette related deaths, and swimming pool deaths pic.twitter.com/q8KCgLLClY

 Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) April 17, 2020

Is there a vaccine to keep Dr. Phil from invading our lives? Someone go work on that.

Read the room, my man.

Maybe take a little quarantine time out.

—@DrPhil addresses comments he made on @IngrahamAngle's Fox show: "Last night I said we as a society have chosen to live with certain controllable deadly risks every day: smoking, autocracies, swimming. And yes, I know that those are not contagious. So probably bad examples."

 Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) April 17, 2020

"And I get they are not contagious so they are probably not good examples," @DrPhil adds. "I probably could have used better examples about that. And by the way, I misspoke about drowning deaths. I quoted a worldwide number, not a US number"

 Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) April 17, 2020

"If I offended people's sensibilities last night with my examples, then erase those," @DrPhil says.

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/17/dr-phil-said-some-dumb-things.html

It took this artist around 330 hours and 300,000 matches to make this coronavirus sculpture. In under five minutes you can watch its creation and then its satisfying destruction.

Mute until the burning starts (2:18) for a better viewing experience. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/17/watch-how-this-coronavirus-scu.html

Do you have more leftovers that usual? We sure do. We were running out of food storage containers so I bought a 9-pack of these 16-0unce twist-lock containers. The fact that they have leak-proof lids that won't come off when you drop them is key. They're also dishwasher safe.

  Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/17/if-you-are-cooking-at-home-th.html

Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli has released stunning free backgrounds for videoconferencing software like Zoom. Change your set and setting to Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke, Castle in the Sky, and four other enchanting film scenes. Download them here: "Studio Ghibli wallpaper that can be used for web conferences"

(via Open Culture)

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/17/studio-ghibli-released-magnifi.html