If you needed any further proof that Americans are finally beginning to accept the bidet movement, consider this: a bidet company has the money to buy naming rights for an NFL football stadium.

The company’s bid to rename the Buffalo Bills’ stadium in Orchard Park, New York may not end up happening, even though they’re offering $12.5 million for the rights. It may end up being a bridge too far for ownership to suffer through the “Toilet Bowl” jokes surrounding the often lackluster franchise should they suffer another rough season.

But whether it happens or not, bidets are now on the American map. Bidet sales surged in the wake of COVID-19 inspired toilet paper shortages, putting bidets like the Aim to Wash Smart Toilet Seat square in the minds of suddenly open-minded shoppers.

The Aim to Wash seat promises to eliminate up to 80 percent of a home’s toilet paper use as dual nozzles supply a warm water wash to clean you up without the use of TP. The patented tank-less design offers an endless supply of warm spray, followed by a warm air dryer that needs as little as 30 seconds to get a user fully dry.

The seat comes with easy to use dial knobs to adjust your cleaning routine to just what suits you. Even the dual nozzles come with their own self-cleaning regimen to keep the entire array super-clean after every usage.

You’ve also got control over the water temperature, the heat from the dryer, and even over the toastiness of the seat itself when you settle in during the cold weather months. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/23/the-aim-to-wash-smart-toilet-s.html

Usually, when you drop a plant into a glass vase full of water, you’re trying to prolong its life by a few extra days. By giving that freshly cut flower its longest possible bloom, you get to extend your appreciation of its beauty before the effects of its shearing settle in as it finally begins to wither away and die.

But what if a plant in your home could sit freely in that water and not just stave off death, but actually thrive and continue radiating its brilliance for months, even years to come?

That’s hydroponics, the science of growing plants without the use of soil. Now, that inventive means of sustaining life can be perched right there on your desk every day with an Ionian Hydroponics Water Garden.

Whether it’s a flower, a standard house plant or even an herb or a vegetable, your plant sits suspended in water in the glass enclosure centered in this vintage-inspired, wood-framed planter. You can watch its roots take in nutrients and power along all right in front of your eyes.

Best of all, the plant and its elevated holder look rustic, yet elegant, offering beauty and style to your space that will instantly catch the eye of any visitor to your office or inside your home.  With sufficient nutrient mix, the plant shouldn’t require any watering or fertilizing, so it might be just the perfect plant for anyone not gifted with a green thumb.

Whether you go for a delicate ivy, a spider plant, or a Chinese evergreen; a cooking-ready herb like tarragon or oregano; or a fruit or vegetable like tomatoes, peppers, or even strawberries, you’ll enjoy the opportunity to watch your plant grow each day in this unique display. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/23/this-hydroponics-water-garden.html

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A post shared by Jordan (@jordanmykelgipson) on Jul 21, 2020 at 6:21pm PDT

A black man attempted to make a Postmates delivery to an apartment when he was stopped at the front door by a woman who claimed to be a resident. The woman launched into a tirade and blocked him from entering, even after speaking on the intercom to the person who placed the order. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/23/woman-tries-out-for-title-of-w.html

We could have won, but our "wartime" president surrendered.#TrumpVirus pic.twitter.com/igAzBDX1i1

 The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) July 23, 2020

It's hard to pick the stupidest thing Trump has said during his deadly mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States, but I think, "We're losing a lot of lives by keeping things closed," belongs in the top 20. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/23/new-lincoln-project-highlights.html

In the face of a rising daily death count, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is hoping people will believe his claim that COVID-19's danger is exaggerated, reports Forbes.

Florida reported a new record Thursday morning with 173 deaths, after Texas set a daily record in its Wednesday evening update, adding 197 deaths... 56 ICUs across the state of Florida are now reporting 0% capacity, many of which are in the hard-hit southern part of the state.

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/23/as-florida-reports-all-time-hi.html

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/23/aoc-i-do-not-need-rep-yo.html

Electra loves carrots, and her play tunnel.

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Munch. Chomp. Crunch. #puppy #goldenretriever #dogsofinstagram #cute #noisyeater

A post shared by Electra (@electra___cute) on Jul 23, 2020 at 9:12am PDT

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/23/my-puppy-goes-cronch-cronch-cr.html

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/23/in-1990-barbara-walters-had-n.html

Taron Egerton will star in a forthcoming Tetris movie, reports Movieweb's Ryan Scott. Egerton will star as Henk Rogers, who commercialized the game in the west along with creator Alexei Pajitnov. No news on who will play the Russian game designer himself.

When the idea of a Tetris movie was floated several years back, it perplexed many onlookers. Granted, video game movies have come a long way in recent years, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of mileage one can get out of fitting blocks together to make lines disappear. But the idea of taking a look at the behind the scenes drama concerning one of the most enduring titles in the history of gaming seems appealing. The story was previously documented by author Brian "Box" Brown in his acclaimed 2016 book, Tetris: The Games People Play.

This is, presumably, not the previously-mooted Tetris sci-fi trilogy, one of the stranger game tie-ins to be proposed. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/23/cast-of-tetris-movie-falls-int.html

I look forward to the generation of strong women, like my daughter, inspired by Congressperson Ocasio-Cortez today.

Here’s the clip: pic.twitter.com/znmCYNYll4

 The Recount (@therecount) July 23, 2020

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/23/aoc-hands-rep-yohos-coward.html

Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to lying to Congress, campaign-finance violations, and other financial crimes, is being released from prison today on orders from a federal judge, who said Cohen's reinstallment to prison was a retaliatory move by the Trump administration to prevent Cohen from releasing a tell-all book.

From CNBC:

Judge Alvin Hellerstein at a hearing in Manhattan federal court found that Cohen was sent back to prison on July 10 in retaliation for failing to agree a day earlier to not to publish a book about Trump as one of multiple conditions for serving the remainder of his three-year prison term on home confinement.

Cohen, who has been in quarantine in the prison in Otisville, N.Y., since his arrival there, will be released by 2 p.m. after being tested for the coronavirus, and will be driven back to his home on Manhattan’s Upper East Side by his son, Hellerstein said.

Cohen had been furloughed from prison in late May due to concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/23/judge-orders-former-trump-fixe.html

History professor Albert Broussard, who also writes a history textbook commonly used in US middle and high schools, is pushing to capitalize the letter "b" in Black in future revisions of the text when referencing Black people. The publisher, McGraw Hill, told CNN that they are "strongly considering it." From CNN:

"I just personally would like to see it capitalized because I think African American and Black are used interchangeably by most people in the population," Broussard said. "If you start children out thinking about Black or White or any group that way, that's how they will think about them for the rest of their lives."

McGraw Hill, Pearson and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt are purveyors of the final drafts of history. While it is unclear how many textbooks each company sells each year, more than $209 million worth of K-12 social studies books were sold in the US in 2018, according to data provided to CNN by the Association of American Publishers.

All three education companies are reviewing whether to use Black capitalized in their K-12 textbooks and educational materials, according to comments they provided to CNN[...].

"It is very important, in my opinion, to use Black instead of black. In a very subtle way, black minimizes the importance of being Black. Because Black Americans were ruthlessly and abruptly cut off from their own national and ethnic identities, they don't have the privilege of attaching a homeland, spiritual or otherwise, to their American identity," [Denver Public Schools social studies teacher Gerardo] Mu~noz told CNN over email.

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/23/history-textbook-author-pushin.html

The Boston Red Sox have placed a new billboard on Fenway Park, facing the Mass Pike highway. It reads "Black Lives Matter" and uses the baseball team's familiar font and "red socks" logo.

WCVB:

The billboard appeared to have been recently installed.

Earlier this year, the Red Sox showed their support for the movement by spelling out Black Lives Matter on the scoreboard on the Green Monster at Fenway Park.

"Our anger and grief must translate to action,” the team wrote on its official Twitter account. “We have a responsibility to use our platform to amplify messages of truth and justice."

screengrab via CBS Boston/YouTube Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/23/boston-red-sox-put-up-black.html

In this fun episode of Mark Frauenfelder and Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools podcast, they talk with Lux Sparks-Pescovitz, 14, about his passion for GameBoys, cassettes, DIY sushi, and his new iFixit Pro Tech Toolkit. He's quite an interesting young man; I'd like to meet his parents someday. Listen here:

Cool Tools · 234: Lux Sparks-Pescovitz Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/23/cool-tools-14-year-old-maker.html

While visiting protests in Portland, Oregon, last night, the city's mayor Ted Wheeler was among those tear-gassed by federal officers sent in by Trump last week.

Mayor Ted Wheeler was tear gassed in downtown Portland early Thursday morning, according to video and posts on Twitter from a New York Times journalist. The video shows Wheeler, wearing goggles and a face mask amid a crowd of people, hold his nose and close his eyes in distress as a cloud of tear gas drifts by him.

"It stings. It's hard to breathe. I can tell you with 100% honesty I saw nothing that provoked this response," Wheeler said to the Times camera. "I'm not afraid but I am pissed off."

Footage via CBS News:

WATCH: Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and protesters were tear-gassed by federal officers at a fence guarding a downtown courthouse https://t.co/D3KlV694xv pic.twitter.com/esI3K9Cfku

 CBS News (@CBSNews) July 23, 2020

The New York Times describes him as "left coughing and wincing" in the street; Wheeler denounced the federal officers' actions shortly thereafter. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/23/portland-mayor-ted-wheeler-tea.html

Word to your mother. Vanilla Ice, the oft-mocked 1990s rapper best known for "Ice Ice Baby" (above), is getting his own biopic starring Dave Franco (Scrubs, The Disaster Artist) playing Ice, real name Rob Van Winkle. Franco spoke about the film for the first time in Insider:

"We have been in development for a while but we are inching closer and closer to preproduction," Franco said.

The news was quietly released in early 2019 through trade publication Production Weekly and included the longline: "From a high school dropout selling cars in Dallas to having the first hip-hop single to top the Billboard charts with 'Ice Ice Baby,' a young Vanilla Ice struggles with stardom, extortion attempts, and selling out as he makes music history."Franco said if the project is done right, it will very much be like "The Disaster Artist."

"With that movie, people expected us to make a broad comedy where we make fun of Tommy Wiseau, but the more real we played it, the funnier and heartfelt it was — that's the tone we want for this one as well," Franco said.[...]

"Rob is such a sweet and intelligent guy and he's been super helpful in the process of getting all the details correct and making us privy to information the public doesn't know," Franco said. "Just talking to him I can't help but think about the rabbit holes I'm going to go down to get ready for the role."

Bonus below, Vanilla Ice on MTV explaining that "Ice Ice Baby" does not use the same bassline as Queen/David Bowie's "Under Pressure." Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/23/vanilla-ice-to-get-his-own-bio.html

Three charming centenarians, Cliff Crozier (1915-2020), John Denerley (1914-2018), and Emelia Tereza Harper (1913), share life lessons in this video that's garnered over 18M views since it was first posted in 2016. Love this quote from Emelia: "The longer I stay, the more noisy I shall get."

(Nag on the Lake)

screengrab via LifeHunters/YouTube Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/23/wisdom-and-advice-from-100-yea.html

Signs posted around Southern California's Big Bear Lake read: ATTENTION CAMPERS: Due to increased Satanic Cult activity in this area, camping is not advised until further notice. SEVERAL PETS HAVE BEEN REPORTEDLY SACRIFICED IN SATANIC RITUALS.”

You guess it! The signs are fake. Well, they're real signs but they weren't posted by the US Forest Service.

According to Big Bear Lake officials, "no known threats of these types of visitors in the area."

Yeah, no KNOWN threats. !!!NATAS LIAH

(KCAL9 via Fark) Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/23/us-forest-service-posters-arou.html

There is a common link among the 500 fastest supercomputers in the world. There aren’t all in one country, there aren’t controlled by the same organizations and governments — and they certainly aren’t running Windows.

No, the fact is that the one thing that each and every one of the world’s most highly-tuned and masterfully equipped computers has in common is the Linux operating system.

It’s not a massive surprise if you understand Linux. With decades of open source development undertaken by scads of enthusiast groups, Linux is primed like a racecar to absolutely fly. Understanding that kind of versatility and power is just one of the reasons students can find a lot to consider and use from the Linux knowledge found in The Complete 2020 Learn Linux Bundle.

While Linux is incredibly streamlined, that doesn’t make it simple. So this collection gathers up 12 different courses, a package covering over 110 hours of training, just to help make sure students have the Linux system and all its nuance on lock.

Even if you’ve never touched a line of Linux code before, that’s OK. This curriculum starts off with three courses built specifically with the first time user in mind. Linux for Beginners, Getting Started with Linux and CompTIA Linux+ (XK0-004) are the perfect Linux primer, guiding new users through the basic commands and operations through how the Linux system works in practical application. This section even includes focused CompTIA training to pass their Linux+ exam, a benchmark certification that instantly makes you a Linux expert in the eyes of hiring managers. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/22/supercomputers-prefer-linux-a.html

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/22/trumps-description-of-cognit.html