https://boingboing.net/2020/07/07/suv-plows-into-blm-protest-in.html

The J.M. Smucker Company issued a voluntarily recall for a single lot of the company's 'Natural Balance' canned cat food, citing potentially deadly health side effects for cats.

On July 3, the FDA said the recall was issued “Due to elevated levels of choline chloride.”

From FDA.gov:

The J. M. Smucker Company today announced a voluntary recall of one lot of Natural Balance® Ultra Premium Chicken & Liver Pat'e Formula canned cat food due to health concerns likely associated with elevated levels of choline chloride.

Ingesting impacted product may cause nausea with excessive salivation, constricted pupils and poor vision, diarrhea or vomiting to more severe symptoms including difficulty walking, muscle shaking, tremors, irregular heartbeat, difficulty breathing, possible cardiac or respiratory failure and, in extreme situations, death. Pet parents are encouraged to contact their cat’s veterinarian immediately if their cat is displaying any of these symptoms.

If pet parents have any product matching the following description in their possession, they should stop feeding it to their cats and dispose of the product. This information can be found on the bottom of each can.

Product Name Retail UPC Code Lot Code Best If Used By Date Natural Balance® Ultra Premium Chicken & Liver Pat'e Formula canned cat food 5.5 oz can 2363353227 9217803 08 04 2021

These products are most commonly sold in pet specialty retailers and online throughout the United States and Canada. No other Natural Balance® products are impacted by this recall.

Read more: The J. M. Smucker Company Issues Voluntary Recall of One Lot of Natural Balance® Ultra Premium Chicken & Liver Pat'e Formula Canned Cat Food

And related reporting at Newsweek. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/07/cat-food-recall-natural-balan.html

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/07/u-s-is-investigating-claims-t.html

“We appeal to the medical community and to the relevant national and international bodies to recognize the potential for airborne spread of COVID-19,” 239 researchers in 32 countries wrote to WHO.

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/07/who-says-evidence-emerging.html

Other Side with Zabrecky is my favorite web series. I do not think Andy Rooney appreciates it much. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/07/zabrecky-and-mike-obrien-try.html

I'm looking forward to interviewing Yuko Kaifu, president of JAPAN HOUSE Los Angeles, for a live streaming event on July 17 about virtual meetings and how the rest of the world can learn from Japanese-style business culture. It's free and open to all, but you need to reserve a seat online in advance.

Join us for a live, online Q&A discussion on “How Japanese-Style Business Culture Applies to Today’s New ‘Business Normal’.” The pandemic has changed the way people conduct business. And even as cities open up, there still remains a new “business normal” whether working from home or in the office. Attendees will not only receive insights into Japanese culture through the lens of business communications and how Japanese etiquette practices can benefit today’s increasingly prevalent virtual meetings, but they can also interact with the hosts and ask their own questions.

The discussion will feature Yuko Kaifu, president of JAPAN HOUSE Los Angeles and a former foreign services officer, who honed her Japanese etiquette skills and knowledge through her work as an official interpreter for the Japanese Imperial Family, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister for their meetings with foreign dignitaries, including President Ronald Reagan and President George H.W. Bush. Event moderator Mark Frauenfelder, prolific writer and Wired.com founding editor, has extensive experience working with and for Japanese companies.

Discussion topics include how Japanese-style ways of doing business might apply to today’s virtual meetings – especially international meetings – including the best ways to convey controversial information, the importance of verbal agreements, and how to bow during an in-person meeting as well as a video conference call.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/07/how-japanese-style-business-cu.html

This footage was not recorded in a Costco, is not of a furious unmasked meathead berating and threatening other shoppers, is not the subject of an investigation or likely to lead to disciplinary action and/or charges, but it does feature oppossums chomping on bananas. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/07/opossums-enjoy-banana.html

Code Parade (also on itch.io) is developing a "hyperbolic" 3D game engine (download) where a line is not necessarily the shortest path between two places. I was impressed by the tunnels that are longer inside than outside, but the three-roomed house blew my mind. Can't wait for the unsettling haunted-house games to come.

See if you notice anything suspicious as I walk through it. Did you catch it? This four-room house actually only has three rooms, red, green, and blue. This demo surprised me a lot because I originally thought it would be super jarring but actually everyone I show this to doesn't notice it at all unless I tell them that something is off. I guess our brains just aren't used to thinking this way.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/07/non-euclidean-game-worlds.html

A string of articles posted at conservative media outlets were exposed last night as the work of an influence network of fake personas, reports Adam Rawnsley at The Daily Beast. Some 90 items under 17 fictional bylines, some using photos of real peoples, were placed at sites including the Washington Examiner, Newsmax, RealClearPolitics and elsewhere.

On Monday, Twitter suspended Badani’s account along with 15 others after The Daily Beast shared the results of its investigation into the network for violating the company’s “policies on platform manipulation and spam.”... “This vast influence operation highlights the ease with which malicious actors can exploit the identity of real people, dupe international news outlets, and have propaganda of unknown provenance legitimized through reputable media,” Marc Owen Jones, an assistant professor at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar who first noticed suspicious posts by members of the network, told The Daily Beast. “It’s not just fake news we need to be wary of, but fake journalists.”

Excellent work by the Beast. It uncovered a sprawling influence network of fake personas, fake social media accounts and even fake foreign news sites all crafted to sucker U.S. right wing media into publishing it. None of them, or their readers, would be any the wiser were it not for this expose.

The best part is the use of AI-generated avatars, though the network appears to have unraveled in part because one of the personas used the photo of San Diego startup founder.

A high-resolution profile photo of the Joseph Labba persona, posted for an article at The Post Millennial, shows some of the telltale glitches commonly found in AI-generated faces.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/07/right-wing-media-ran-dozens-of.html

A man at was filmed Monday yelling and threatening shoppers at a Costco in Fort Myers, Florida, reportedly after an elderly woman asked him why he wasn't wearing a mask. Clad in a "Running the world since 1776" tee shirt, the man puffs up his chest, balls his fists and yells "I FEEL THREATENED!" while belligerently advancing on the person filming.

Florida man at Fort Myers Costco in "Running the World Since 1776" shirt flips out on elderly woman who asked him to wear a mask and man who defended her #BecauseFlorida (via @profjaffar) pic.twitter.com/PDOvi33qHK

 Billy Corben (@BillyCorben) July 7, 2020

The clip posted to social media shows the man accusing the shoppers of "harassing" him at the Gulf Coast Town Center warehouse.

"I'm not harassing you," the person filming replies, "you're coming close to me."

"I feel threatened!" the man shouts, clenching his fists and advancing toward the camera. "Back up! Threaten me again! Back the fuck up, put your fucking phone down."

The person filming stops at this point. The man was "escorted out of the store" by Costco staff, according to the person who posted the video to Twitter.

Review / Logitech MX Keys

'To give Costco the credit, they escorted him out and made me wait inside and monitored him until he left and then they sent someone with me to the car to make sure I'm okay.'

Posters on social media speculated that the man yelling "I feel threatened!", despite being the aggressor, is an attempt to pre-emtively invoke Florida's "stand your ground" law. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/07/angry-man-screams-and-threaten.html

A guy on the Apple discussion forum started a thread titled, “Why do your Charger Cables have the lifespan of a housefly?” That question is probably enough to elicit a whole bunch of head nods from virtually everyone reading this, whether you’re an iPhone user, an Android owner or have virtually any device that needs charging.

Unfortunately, the guy made this astute observation back in the pre-Mesozoic era of 2014 — and the state of most charging and sync cables haven’t changed much since then. 

However, at least a few manufacturers are fighting the good fight and trying to create cables that aren’t circling the trash can within 30 days. One of those firms is Anchor Labs, maker of the Evercable ($15.95 for USB-C version; $18.95 for the Lightning version), which makes the bold declaration of being “the world’s strongest phone cable.”

We’re certainly not about to debate them, because the Evercable is built like a tank. Encased in tough, yet pliable stainless steel, the Evercable is non-magnetic and field-tested like a soldier in a hot battlefield. After more than 60,000 bends, the Evercable was still up for the job and serving up power.

Of course, its sturdiness doesn’t really matter if it doesn’t deliver the goods. However, the Evercable is more than up to the challenge, besting comparable cables from competitors for higher charging rates and data-read speeds between your devices.

Not to be outdone by three-foot cable, the Evercable even clocks in at a generous 4.35 Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/07/the-evercable-is-the-steel-rei.html

 

Chewbacca frolicking with Japanese toddlers and other delights await at EXP TV, a curated stream of found VHS footage, Star Wars rarities and other visual delights.

Via Happy:

EXP TV is a 24/7 stream of ephemeral found footage and mixtapes that we have been blessed with during the time of the world pandemic. So whether you’re sick of the tiresome YouTube scroll or can never decide what to watch on Netflix, EXP is here to take the monotony out of such choices and reward you with some offbeat clips to get you through isolation, broaden your horizons, and stimulate yo’ senses.

Shows include Bollyweird, Incredibly Strange Metal, Czech Your Head, and other evocative programming. Head to their site or YouTube channel. Get into it!

EXP TV (via Happy) Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/07/exp-tv-has-a-huge-lineup-of-re.html

The Marin County Fair in San Rafael, California is closed due to COVID restrictions but that isn't stopping them from offering deep-fried everything (and more!) at two special drive-thru events. On the weekends of July 10-12 and 17-19, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., they'll be serving "giant corndogs, three flavors of funnel cake, cotton candy, candy apples, caramel apples, churros, kettle corn, caramel corn, lemonade, strawberry lemonade, and more" to properly masked customers in vehicles.

The menu will be made available on the fair’s Instagram and Facebook pages.

The fair food booths will be in the parking lot of the Marin Veterans' Memorial Auditorium facing Civic Center Drive. To order food, customers will line up in their cars on Avenue of the Flags and be directed through the parking lot, where they will be greeted by an employee who will take their order and collect payment. To ensure the safety of guests and staff, customers will be asked to remain in their vehicles; the process will be much like a restaurant drive-through experience.

image via Marin County Fair Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/07/fair-food-fix-california-coun.html

In 1929 a German couple fled civilization to live on an uninhabited island in the Eastern Pacific. But other settlers soon followed, leading to strife, suspicion, and possibly murder. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the story of the Gal'apagos affair, a bizarre mystery that remains unsolved.

We'll also meet another deadly doctor and puzzle over a posthumous marriage.

Show notes

Please support us on Patreon! Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/07/two-settlers-disappeared-from.html

Smithsonian Magazine has an interesting article on how the Slip 'N Slide at-home water slide became an American institution. It started with some bored kids on a hot day:

It was the summer of 1960, and Robert Carrier had returned home from work to find his 10-year-old son, Mike, and his friends careening down their driveway in Lakewood, California. To escape the heat, the boys had turned the hose on the painted concrete, creating a cool, slippery surface to play on.

The next day, Carrier, who worked as an upholsterer with a boat-manufacturing company, brought home a 50-foot roll of Naugahyde, which he unraveled on the driveway. The vinyl-coated, waterproof fabric was a vast improvement—slicker and safer—over the perilous concrete. But Carrier’s son had given him an idea.

The fine folks at Wham-O soon got wind of the wet wonder, and a sale was made. And the rest is history. Now we have YouTube bros seeing who can make the longest one or add a loop.

The Accidental Invention of the Slip ‘N Slide (Smithsonian) Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/07/the-origin-story-of-that-all-a.html

For all their power and capabilities, image editing software isn’t like sitting down to play a video game. You aren’t there to have fun. You’re likely looking to make a few minor tweaks to an image to make it ready to be shared, then you move on with satisfaction in a job well done. 

If your image editing program is doing its job, your goal is to actually spend fewer hours using the software. That’s why it comes as good news when nature photography website NatureTTL calls the latest version of perennial image editing favorite Luminar 4 the future of photo editing and proclaims that “if you want to spend less time in front of a computer, then (Luminar 4) is a serious contender.”

In case you've been trapped under an Adobe-sized rock, Luminar 4 is the latest iteration of Skylum’s all-in-one photo editing and organizing software — and after its latest redesign, it’s chock full of smart features all aimed at helping you create the images you want faster.

Rather than hunting and pecking your way through editing tools, Luminar 4 is home to AI Accent, dubbed the world’s most intelligent photo enhancer. This filter automatically analyzes your image and instantly corrects it using over a dozen controls at once, yielding naturally beautiful results with the use of one simple intuitive slider. With Accent, artificial intelligence automatically optimizes shadows, highlights, contrast, tone, saturation, exposure, details and more.

Luminar also comes with over 60 powerful one-click Luminar Looks, which quickly enhance your image to match your specific taste. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/06/luminar-4-uses-ai-to-help-you.html

This bright meteor shot through the sky Thursday morning, which ended with an explosive bang according to some witnesses.

From The Japan Times:

Social media came alive after the 2:30 a.m. sightings, with many people saying they heard a large bang. Some said they mistook the sound for noise made by neighbors.

“I thought a person living (in the condo) above knocked down a shelf,” wrote one Twitter user, while another said, “I thought my child sleeping on the second floor fell out of bed.”

Others witnessed the sky suddenly light up.

Daichi Fujii, a curator at Hiratsuka City Museum in Kanagawa Prefecture, captured the fireball with a camera installed at his home in Hiratsuka. It crossed the northern sky from west to east, he said.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/06/video-massive-fireball-tearin.html

The never-not-good Randy Rainbow is on a roll. Last week, he rolled out "Cover Your Freakin' Face" and this week he's followed it up with "Poor Deplorable Troll," which parodies Ursula's song from The Little Mermaid, "Poor Unfortunate Souls." Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/06/randy-rainbow-sings-trump-is-a.html

Georgia State University student Julian Bass made a fun reel of his visual effects work on TikTok, showing him transforming into his favorite superheroes: a Jedi, Ben 10, and Spider-Man. He then posted the video on Twitter with the message, "if y’all can retweet this enough times that Disney calls, that’d be greatly appreciated." Well, on the very same day, Disney's Executive Chairman Bob Iger responded with, "The world’s gonna know your name!!!" No word on whether the two are talking but the video has been viewed over 22M times since July 2 when it was first posted. I'm guessing it won't be long before someone hires him.

The world’s gonna know your name!!!

 Robert Iger (@RobertIger) July 3, 2020

screengrab via Julian Bass/TikTok Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/06/vfx-students-tiktok-superher.html

Charlie Kaufman is the acclaimed screenwriter behind surrealist movies like Being John Malkovich; Adaptation; Synecdoche, New York; and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. My favorite bizarrely wonderful story about him — which, in a way, is kind of a synecdoche for his entire oeuvre of work, which is also something I learned about through his films — is that his Academy Award-winning screenplay for Adaptation is one of the few Oscars credited to a completely fictional person. Kaufman was hired to write an adaptation of The Orchid Thief, and seeing no way to write a dramatic narrative out of some meditative thoughts on flower poaching, he decided to write a screenplay about Charlie Kaufman struggling to write a screenplay about The Orchid Thief. Except, in the context of the movie, Fictional Charlie Kaufman also has an identical twin brother named Donald … who is credited as co-writer on the actual, real-life screenplay.

I thought of this as I read this New York Times Magazine profile on Charlie Kaufman, ahead of the July 7th release of Antkind, a 700-page novel that marks Kaufman's first foray into prose writing. Journalist Jon Mooallem had the article planned well before the pandemic hit, but quickly had to improvise when he realized he wouldn't be able to interview Kaufman in person. As the lockdown dragged on, their long weekly phone conversations became a surprising source of stability for both of them (as chronicled in the article). Moallem thought he had something — but right as he turned a draft into his editor, the political climate took an every starker turn with ongoing protests against racism and police brutality, making his quaint pandemic-focused profile seem out-of-touch. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/06/an-interview-with-charlie-kauf.html