"I turned Nirvana's "Come As You Are" into an old-fashioned swing tune and now I hate myself," writes the creator. Don't beat yourself up too much; old-timey Nirvana is kinda catchy! Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/28/nirvanas-come-as-you-are.html

Twitter today blocked Donald Trump Jr. from tweeting for 12 hours after he posted quack conspiracy theories about the Covid crisis. Trump Jr. posted a video encouraging people to take hydroxyquinone, a potentially dangerous drug the FDA says does nothing to improve Covid outcomes, and accusing virus chief Dr. Anthony Fauci of suppressing proof it works.

Trump Jr. was not suspended from Twitter, as some on the right are falsely claiming.

Donald Trump Jr will still be able to browse Twitter and send direct messages in the interim.

Twitter told the BBC: "We are taking action in line with our policy."

The main US social media sites have all taken measures to crack down on misinformation about the coronavirus.

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/28/trump-jr-blocked-from-tweetin.html

Trump and Junior are urging their social media followers to heed the Covid-19 advice of Dr. Stella Immanuel, a Houston pediatrician who has determined that many diseases are caused by sex with demons and/or alien DNA. The Daily Beast reported that Dr. Immanuel "praises hydroxychloroquine and says that face masks aren’t necessary to stop transmission of the highly contagious coronavirus."

From The Daily Beast:

In sermons posted on YouTube and articles on her website, Immanuel claims that medical issues like endometriosis, cysts, infertility, and impotence are caused by sex with “spirit husbands” and “spirit wives”—a phenomenon Immanuel describes essentially as witches and demons having sex with people in a dreamworld.

“They are responsible for serious gynecological problems,” Immanuel said. “We call them all kinds of names—endometriosis, we call them molar pregnancies, we call them fibroids, we call them cysts, but most of them are evil deposits from the spirit husband,” Immanuel said of the medical issues in a 2013 sermon. “They are responsible for miscarriages, impotence—men that can’t get it up.”

In related news, Twitter penalized Junior for posting hydroxychloroquine misinformation. From The Washington Post:

Twitter said it ordered the president’s son to delete the misleading tweet and said it would “limit some account functionality for 12 hours.”

The tweet, which featured a viral video showing a group of doctors making misleading and false claims about the coronavirus pandemic, was directly tweeted by Trump Jr.‘s account. That contrasts with his father, who retweeted multiple clips of the same video to his 84.2 million followers Monday night.

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/28/trump-and-trump-jr-praise-doc.html

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/28/you-can-support-portlands-st.html

Watch freestyle skateboarding master Isamu Yamamoto, 17, performs a hypnotic and magical routine using one and then two boards. Yamamoto won the World Freestyle Round-Up Skateboarding Championships when he was just 14 years old. The above routine is from this year's professional division World Round-Up Online Showdown.

(Thanks, Gil Kaufman!) Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/28/incredible-and-hypnotic-freest.html

SOUND GUY: Didnt mean nothin by it.

BARDEM: Didn't mean nothing by it. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/28/sound-guy-offers-to-help-javie.html

Comedian and filmmaker Matthew Highton recreates classic TV show title sequences using only stock footage. The results remind me of the Seinfeld episode "The Bizarro Jerry." Above, Highton's take on Friends. Below, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and, yes, Ducktales.

(via Kottke) Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/28/these-classic-tv-title-sequenc.html

David Hines, 29, received $3.9 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans, a COVID-19 relief program for businesses. So naturally he spent $300,000 on a 2020 Lamborghini Hurac'an. According to WFTS news, police charged Hines with "one count of bank fraud, one count of making false statements to a financial institution and one count of engaging in transactions in unlawful proceeds." Sweet ride, dude. From WFTS:

The complaints allege that Hines asked for around $13.5 million in PPP loans through applications to an insured financial institution for different companies. He received $3.9 million in PPP loans.[...]

The complaint says Hines submitted fraudulent loan applications that made numerous false and misleading statements about the companies' payroll expenses.

(Thanks to our Florida bureau chief, Charles Pescovitz!)

image: Jakub Halun (CC BY-SA 4.0) Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/28/florida-man-bought-lamborghini.html

This grim yet amusing description of the statistical realities of flight safety might save more lives than the usual snoozefest.

To quote YouTube commenter Alan Macphail: "100% of accidents happen within the last 8 minutes of the flight." Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/28/honest-pre-flight-safety-v.html

Senator David Perdue (R-GA) posted a campaign ad featuring an image of his Jewish opponent, Jon Ossoff, digitally manipulated to have a larger nose. Once the timeworn antisemitic stereotype was noticed, he was forced to retract the ad, but Perdue is refusing to apologize for it. Matt Novak summarizes the imbroglio:

The photoshopped ad, first reported by Forward, featured photos of Ossoff along with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who’s also Jewish, and included text that reads “Democrats are trying to buy Georgia!” along with “Schumer’s SUPER PAC is spending $3 million in Georgia for Jon Ossoff!”

The original unedited photo was taken for Reuters by photojournalist Chris Aluka Berry in 2017 after Ossoff lost an election for Georgia’s 6th Congressional District. Perdue’s campaign denied that the edit had been intentional and sought to distance itself from the unnamed designer who made the ad.

https://twitter.com/ossoff/status/1287907702660829186

Purdue claims it was an "accident" caused by a filter, but was unable to explain exactly how that happened. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/28/republican-senator-refuses-to.html

Twitter removed two rule-breaking Trump tweets last night. One touted the conspiracy theory that hydroxychloroquine "cures" Covid19 and that Dr. Anthony Fauci suppressed it, whereas the other promoted a story that falsely claimed that a protestor shot dead at a BLM rally had fired the first shots.

Beyond the automated notifications at the top of Trump's Twitter feed, the company did not release a statement on the deletions: a new normal, perhaps, as their regularity increases. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/28/twitter-deletes-trump-tweets-p.html

Rus Khasanov (previously) has created a clean, iridescent, and mesmerizing abstract video called "beyond the horizon," set to the music of Dmitry Evgrafov.

Rus says:

As with all my art projects, in «beyond the horizon» I used simple materials to create a new visual experiment. Behind this project there are dozens of shooting days, during which hundreds of gigabytes of photos and videos were filmed with Sony a7RII and Sony a7RIV. There were 5 final versions of this video, which I reworked adding new footage again and again. While working on this project, I was faced with the constant following of the ideal shot, which is so close and distinct, but constantly disappears beyond the horizon.

Image: Vimeo / Rus Khasanov Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/28/take-a-relaxing-and-trippy-exc.html

NBC News has a recent piece on, "the hidden hand that uses money to reform troubled police departments" — essentially, looking at the private industry solutions to public law enforcement problems. It's a worthwhile read if you're interested in police reform like me. While it doesn't go too in-depth, it does provide a glimpse at the ways that the existence (read: threat) of private insurers have helped to mitigate some potential police misconduct … and also how that can totally backfire and end up sapping resources away from a town — especially when the lawsuit and insurance coverage means that offending cops still keep their jobs..

For insurers, police reform is about money, not morality. Just as State Farm wants to prevent car crashes, a liability insurer wants to prevent lawsuits.

When the customers are police departments, "loss prevention" means teaching police departments how to reduce risk. In the first in-depth study of how insurers affect police, Rappaport surveyed the industry's carrots and sticks, from policy audits to virtual reality use-of-force simulators. Often, insurers educate departments about risky topics like vehicle pursuits and strip searches. Many do site visits and go on ride-alongs, keeping "watch lists" for departments with histories of costly lawsuits, according to the study. Rappaport's favorite example is the insurer that sends representatives incognito to hang out at "cop bars" to observe the police culture.

"Insurers are clearly affecting the behavior of police departments they insure, for better or for worse," Rappaport said. "They are capable of doing it for the better and sometimes more efficiently than governmental agencies and prosecutors."

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/28/can-insurance-be-used-to-reign.html

Everything is awful in this hellscape reality so you may as well enjoy some mustard, relish, and processed meatstuff with your marshmallow-lathered cereal.

Hot Dog Rice Krispies Treat, Hellooooooooo Summer [The Vulgar Chef] Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/28/hot-dog-rice-krispie-treats-ar.html

YouTuber Greg Stone has an in-depth interview with ocean explorer Fabien Cousteau, who just unveiled his design for his next long-term undersea habitat called Proteus.

Greg is a longtime friend of Cousteau, grandson of the famed environmentalist and explorer Jacques Cousteau. Via Greg:

Greg Stone spends time with aquanaut Fabien Cousteau, an old friend and dive partner, about his passion for the exploration of the undersea world. From his next underwater habitat Proteus to memories of his previous underwater immersion, Mission 31, Fabien engages us with his unique history being part of the Cousteau legacy. Join us with a candid and interesting conversation between two of the ocean’s biggest advocates.

This isn't just some pipe dream. Cousteau lived for 31 days underwater in 2014, breaking his grandfather's 1963 record of 30 days.

Image: YouTube / The Sea Has Many Voices Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/28/fabien-cousteau-unveils-design.html

This is a pretty cool — and historically important — project from the Boston Public Library!

The Boston Public Library's Anti-Slavery collection—one of the largest and most important collections of abolitionist material in the United States—contains roughly 40,000 pieces of correspondence, broadsides, newspapers, pamphlets, books, and memorabilia from the 1830s through the 1870s.

[…]

We need your help to turn our collection of handwritten correspondence between anti-slavery activists in the 19th century into texts that can be more easily read and researched by students, teachers, historians, and big data applications.

It's not paid work, but if you're historically curious, they welcome volunteers to comb through their online archives to help digitize everything line-by-line. It looks like a pretty straight-forward process, although it doesn't work on mobile devices or tablets.

Anti-Slavery Manuscripts [Boston Public Library] Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/28/the-boston-public-library-need.html

YouTuber Macrofying zooms in on common objects to the microscopic level. It's fun to guess what each one is before the camera zooms out.

Here's a zoom in on a coin, which includes some VFX enhancements:

The channel owner made a tongue-in-cheek "making of" video:

Image: YouTube / Macrofying Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/28/guess-these-everyday-objects-i.html

It’s bad enough when regular food stuff gets stale after a couple days sitting on your kitchen counter. But when infused edibles start losing their freshness...well, heck, edibles aren’t cheap!

If you’re going to do edibles, you may as well do them right, which means having the equipment to make sure your product remains both tasty and appealing while also staying out of the hands of anybody in your household who shouldn’t be partaking.

The Herbal Infuser came up with a smart, practical answer to the freshness question with their Mighty Safe Vacuum Vault.

Just like a vault stores and protects your valuables, so does the Mighty Safe stand guard over the quality and longevity of your food or herbs. Crafted from stainless steel, this food-grade storage container employs a reusable vacuum seal system that locks in odors and seals in freshness.

Just put your product inside this 0.7-liter container, lock on your lid, hit the pump about 20 or 30 times to suck out all the air, and your edibles and herbs will stay fresh for up to 15 days. There’s even a color indicating nipple that lets you know when you’ve got a secure vacuum seal. 

The Mighty Safe makes it possible to pace yourself without feeling the need to scarf down the whole edible in one sitting so it doesn’t go bad. It also keeps your product safely encased, protected from sunlight and completely out of the way of potentially curious animals or children who might be enticed by unattended cookie or brownie. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/27/the-mighty-safe-vacuum-vault-k.html

Impeached president Donald Trump today tweeted an imaginary law that does not exist.

Anarchists, Agitators or Protestors who vandalize or damage our Federal Courthouse in Portland, or any Federal Buildings in any of our Cities or States, will be prosecuted under our recently re-enacted Statues & Monuments Act. MINIMUM TEN YEARS IN PRISON. Don’t do it! @DHSgov

There is no such law.

It doesn't exist.

Complete fiction.

Here's the original tweet.

Anarchists, Agitators or Protestors who vandalize or damage our Federal Courthouse in Portland, or any Federal Buildings in any of our Cities or States, will be prosecuted under our recently re-enacted Statues & Monuments Act. MINIMUM TEN YEARS IN PRISON. Don’t do it! @DHSgov

 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 27, 2020

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/27/trump-tweets-imaginary-law-tha.html

The president of the United States, folks.

So disgusting to watch Twitter’s so-called “Trending”, where sooo many trends are about me, and never a good one. They look for anything they can find, make it as bad as possible, and blow it up, trying to make it trend. Really ridiculous, illegal, and, of course, very unfair!

Here's the original.

So disgusting to watch Twitter’s so-called “Trending”, where sooo many trends are about me, and never a good one. They look for anything they can find, make it as bad as possible, and blow it up, trying to make it trend. Really ridiculous, illegal, and, of course, very unfair!

 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 27, 2020

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/07/27/trump-tweets-that-twitters-t.html