Please Stop Using The 'Brown Country' Lens Filter
By Dan Duddy Published: May 06th, 2020
Stupid Cons That Actually Worked For A While
By Alex Hanton,E. Reid Ross,Julia Lange,Tee Ngin Rui,W.H. Thomas Published: May 06th, 2020
9/11 First Responders Got Screwed Over. Today's Frontline Workers Will Get Screwed Even Worse
By Dan Duddy Published: May 06th, 2020
Baller Move: Five Year Old Pulled Over En Route To Buy Lambo
By Isaac Cabe Published: May 06th, 2020
Imagining A New World on the Other Side of the Pandemic
At The Nation, Atossa Araxia Abrahamian has a provocative piece that imagines how future historians may come to write the story of the Covid-19 pandemic. The speculative history takes the form of a “best-case” scenario that serves as both a challenge and a salve, an inspirational fantasy to help balance out the more easily imagined […]
Senator Dumped Up to $1.7 Million of Stock After Reassuring Public About Coronavirus Preparedness
Soon after he offered public assurances that the government was ready to battle the coronavirus, the powerful chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, sold off a significant percentage of his stocks, unloading between $628,000 and $1.72 million of his holdings on Feb. 13 in 33 separate transactions. As the head of the intelligence […]
If Trump Declares Martial Law Due to Coronavirus, Can He Suspend the Election?
Following the criticism that he has mismanaged the nation’s response to the coronavirus epidemic, Trump has declared himself a “wartime president.” If martial law is next, what will happen to the November election?
Not Giving Up on Happiness: Care of the Self and Well-Being in a Plague Year
The specter of plague haunts our world, and it brings with it not only the ghouls of disease and death but vast economic and social uncertainty of a sort only the most elderly among us remembers (the Great Depression and World War II). My father is 90 and when I called him a child of […]
The Dem Primary is Over, and We Need Bernie Sanders to Lead on Health Care From the Senate
On Tuesday, I cast a joyless vote for the very much politically doomed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Illinois primary, in an elementary school where hushed whispers and fearful glances had replaced the normal din of an election day. There was no one standing just outside the perimeter hustling me to vote for this […]
These Are the 51 GOP Senators Who Just Voted Against Expanding Paid Sick Leave to Protect Americans
Republican senators on Wednesday teamed up to kill an amendment introduced by Democratic Sen. Patty Murray that would have expanded paid sick leave to millions of U.S. workers left out of a bipartisan coronavirus relief package. Every Republican present for the vote, 51 in total, voted against the amendment while every Senate Democrat voted in favor. […]
Elections May Have to Change During the Coronavirus Outbreak. Here’s How.
As the novel coronavirus spreads through the U.S. during presidential primaries, election and government officials are scrambling to figure out how to allow voters to cast their ballots safely ― or postpone primaries altogether. Managing in-person voting during an unprecedented pandemic has forced authorities to overcome new virus-related hurdles: providing sufficient cleaning supplies to polling […]
17 Years Later: The Consequences of Invading Iraq
While the world is consumed with the terrifying coronavirus pandemic, on March 19 the Trump administration will be marking the 17th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq by ramping up the conflict there. After an Iran-aligned militia allegedly struck a U.S. base near Baghdad on March 11, the U.S. military carried out retaliatory strikes against five […]
Trump Uses Coronavirus to Spread Racism
There is nothing like a global pandemic to unleash the forces of racism in society. Trump is now routinely calling the novel coronavirus strain “the Chinese virus.”
Here’s Why Americans Need a Basic Income During the Coronavirus Outbreak
Dramatic action is needed now to blunt the immediate pain of vulnerable workers.
When Will a Self-Published Book Win a Major Book Award?
The post When Will a Self-Published Book Win a Major Book Award? appeared first on Fiction Notes.
Dear Librarians who serve on one of the ALA Youth Media Awards committees (Newbery, Caldecott, Coretta Scott King, Michael L. Printz, Schneider Family, Alex, Mildred L. Batchelder, Odyssey, Pura Belpré, Robert F. Siebert, Excellence in Early Learning Digital Media, Stonewall, Theodor Seuss Geisel, William C. Morris, YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults, Continue Reading
The post When Will a Self-Published Book Win a Major Book Award? appeared first on Fiction Notes.
Indie Means Indie
The post Indie Means Indie appeared first on Fiction Notes.
Smashwords’ Mark Coker is sounding the alarm about indie publishers (those who write and publish their own works—let’s get the terminology right–it’s INDIE publishers, not the deprecating “self-published”) relying too much on Amazon. I agree with Coker. Two and half years ago, I started advertising on Amazon’s AMS platform. It doubled my sales. But then, Continue Reading
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Control Or Creativity?
The post Control Or Creativity? appeared first on Fiction Notes.
Who’s in control of the publishing process? Once the contract is signed, does the author have any say in what happens to the story? Traditional contracts specify that the publishing company will publish as they see fit. In other words, control is given to the publisher by the contract. One criticism of indie authors is Continue Reading
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The Wayfinder: YA Fantasy
The post The Wayfinder: YA Fantasy appeared first on Fiction Notes.
READ A FREE HEARTLAND TALES SHORT STORY: CLICK HERE The Wayfinder was my first published novel, 2000 Greenwillow/Harpercollins. I remember where I was when I heard the news that someone wanted to publish this manuscript. I was with my oldest daughter, Sara, at a local mall. I had to use a pay phone to call Continue Reading
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Dad: “Remind me again what you will do with a degree in conservation biology?”
This video is well-enhanced by the title. Bird Guy lives up to his name as he waits for his Evening Grosbeaks to come visit. Seems like a great life, but that hoodie will need laundering often. Worth it. -via Metafilter
Brian May Hospitalized
Brian May was admitted to a hospital earlier this week ...for a torn butt. The guitarist/astrophysicist injured himself while gardening, which is a bit reminiscent of the line from the movie This Is Spinal Tap in which one drummer's death is attributed to a "bizarre gardening accident." May is expected to recover, but it may take some time.
Writing on Instagram, the Queen guitarist said: “I managed to rip my gluteus maximus to shreds in a moment of overenthusiastic gardening. So suddenly I find myself in a hospital getting scanned to find out exactly how much I’ve actually damaged myself. Turns out I did a thorough job – this is a couple of days ago – and I won’t be able to walk for a while … or sleep, without a lot of assistance, because the pain is relentless.”
May is 72, and had been at his home after Queen was forced to cancel a tour due to the pandemic. Now he is recovering at home, and requests peace and quiet. -via reddit
Robert Mitchum was a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
Movie star Robert Mitchum is best known for his many roles that combined allure and menace, in movies such as Cape Fear and The Night of the Hunter. Oh yeah, and for his rowdiness that included being fired from at least one movie and that memorable arrest for marijuana possession. But his life before Hollywood would make a good movie in itself. When Mitchum was only 14 years old, he was sent to live with his sister, but he didn't stay there long.
Mitchum (1917-97) left his sister’s home in New York. He hopped a freight to who knows where. Life was an adventure to be gained and this was how it would start. He rode flatbeds, freight cars, refrigerated trains, teeth-chattering, knees-kocking, met old timers who knew no other life and gave him advice on what to do, and who to avoid, how to steal food and clothes, hunt squirrel, panhandle, and keep clear of the law.
This was an education. This was the hobo life Mitchum had read about and long-wanted to follow. He felt at home among these outsiders, though some of them thought him no more than a tourist, a “scenery-bum”, just along for the ride. Near train stops and train yards, he’d find hobo hideouts and sit by fire light listening to stories told by world-worn travellers.
It didn't take much time before the young teen was arrested for vagrancy in Savannah, Georgia. He was put on a chain gang doing hard labor, and soon knew that his life was in danger if he didn't escape. Read the exciting story of Robert Mitchum's jailbreak at Flashbak. -via Strange Company
Penguin Classics Cover Generator
Which classic novel would you like to read? Penguin Books makes many classics cheaply available with its iconic covers. You can make your own cover with Nicholas Love's easy web tool.
You can see many funny results in this Twitter thread. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an urgent need to find photos of my co-workers.
-via Aelfred the Great
Check Out This 5,000-Year-Old Energy Bar
In his book Secrets of Polar Travel, explorer Robert Peary speaks about a ration that he brought on his expeditions to the Arctic between 1886 and 1909. Among his supplies in his trips, he considers this ration as the “first in importance”. What’s more, he comments that this is one meal that “a man can eat twice a day for three hundred and sixty-five days in a year and have the last mouthful taste as good as the first.” What is this that Peary says is food that you won’t get tired of eating everyday?
Peary was talking about pemmican, a blend of rendered fat and powdered, dried meat that fueled exploration and expansion long before his attempts to reach the North Pole. Archaeological evidence suggests that as early as 2800 BC humans hunted the bison that roamed North America’s Great Plains and blended their meat, fat, and marrow into energy-dense patties with a serious shelf-life. A single pound of pemmican lasted for years and might’ve packed as many as 3,500 calories.
More details about pemmican and how to make it over at Atlas Obscura.
Yum!
(Image Credit: Sam O’Brien for Gastro Obscura)
Do Websites Really Look Similar Today?
When Sam Goree and his colleagues came across articles and blog posts that claim or ask that websites today look very similar to each other, they were intrigued. Unfortunately, since these articles didn’t have an empirical study to back them up, they ran a test to determine whether this claim had any truth to it, and if so, the reason behind it.
We ran a series of data mining studies that scrutinized nearly 200,000 images across 10,000 websites.
And what did they find out? Websites, indeed, were becoming very similar.
More details about this study over at Fast Company.
What are your thoughts about this one?
(Image Credit: 200degrees/ Pixabay)
Ace Attorney Zoom Backgrounds
TAKE THAT!
— Ace Attorney (@aceattorneygame) April 29, 2020
Spruce up your next teleconference meeting with Ace Attorney backgrounds!
Perfect for adding a touch of legal proceedings to anything your agency does, or for having arguments about what those metal things with steps on them are called. pic.twitter.com/98N89kzymo
As even lawyers now work from home, and trials are now held via Zoom, I guess it would only be appropriate if they had a background that’s related to their job. And what background would that be other than the courtroom? But even if you’re not a lawyer, you can still use these Zoom backgrounds released last week by Capcom’s Ace Attorney, via Twitter. You can use the 2D background from the original trilogy, or opt for the 3D one from the more recent games.
Take that! And no objections, please.
(Image Credit: Ace Attorney/ Twitter)
Zoom Will Finally Add End-To-End Encryption, But At A Cost
As there have been countless cases of Zoombombing in the recent weeks, the security in the video conferencing platform Zoom has been doubted by its users. In response to this, Zoom finally announced on Thursday that they will be implementing and offering end-to-end encryption.
With the acquisition of Keybase, a New York-based startup specializing in encrypted messaging and cloud services, Zoom will finally be able to make good on its claims of offering end-to-end encryption.
“We are excited to integrate Keybase’s team into the Zoom family to help us build end-to-end encryption that can reach current Zoom scalability,” CEO Eric Yuan said in a Zoom blog post on Thursday.
Unfortunately, not all Zoom users will benefit from the company’s new move, as the end-to-end encryption feature will only be available to users who have paid plans (which start at $14.99/month, by the way) on the video conferencing platform.
If a meeting’s host has enabled this feature, participants will be barred from joining by phone and cloud-based recording will be disabled. In Thursday’s blog post, Yuan emphasized that the feature will not store the encryption key on Zoom’s servers, so the company will not be able to see any part of the call.
What are your thoughts about this one?
(Image Credit: Zoom/ Wikimedia Commons)
Mr. Beast Gives Money To Random People Online
There’s nothing stopping Jimmy Donaldson aka Mr. Beast from giving away money, this time doing it via video calls. Watch as he and his friends pretend to be a news reporter, school professor, and many others as they interview people, and then surprise them by giving them thousands of dollars. Some recognize him and his team, however.
“A lot of people are going through a ruff time right now so I tried my best to do some good,” he said in the video description. He also posted this on his birthday, and said that liking or subscribing would be “a dope present.”
Very wholesome.
(Video Credit: MrBeast/ YouTube)
BepiColombo’s Flyby on Earth
What would it look like to approach Earth during a flyby mission? When it swung back past Earth last month as it journeyed to Mercury, ESA and JAXA’s robotic spacecraft BepiColombo captured its flyby of our planet in this nearly-10-hour-time-lapse video.
The Earth is so bright that no background stars are visible. Launched in 2018, the robotic BepiColombo used the gravity of Earth to adjust its course, the first of nine planetary flybys over the next seven years -- but the only one involving Earth.
Unfortunately, the video is only in black and white, and I wonder what it would look like if it was colored. Still, it is magnificent to look at.
(Video Credit: APOD Videos/ YouTube)
Black Hole Closest To Earth Found by ESO Astronomers
Astronomers from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and other institutes have found the black hole that is currently the closest to Earth. The aforementioned black hole lies just 1000-light years from our planet, and is closer to our Solar System compared to others found to date. What’s more, it is part of a triple system that can be seen with the naked eye.
They say this system could just be the tip of the iceberg, as many more similar black holes could be found in the future.
"We were totally surprised when we realised that this is the first stellar system with a black hole that can be seen with the unaided eye," says Petr Hadrava, Emeritus Scientist at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in Prague and co-author of the research.
More details about this finding over at ScienceDaily.
(Image Credit: JohnsonMartin/ Pixabay)
This Japanese Newspaper Has A Secret Message
なかなかアートなメッセージ
— 和田 賢治 @ TSUBAKI LAB.代表：木を科学していく (@simplife_plus) May 5, 2020
読めますか？ pic.twitter.com/swywHlwd3N
What seems to be just a page full of bubbles turns out to be a heartwarming message when viewed from a distance. This newspaper from Gifu Shimbun was issued on May 6.
Utilizing a form of bubbly negative space to render the text, the newspaper spelled out a message to its readers about social distancing. The magic is you have to maintain an appropriate social distance to read the letters.
The message reads, 離れていても 心はひとつ, which means even though we’re apart, our hearts are one.
Thanks, Japan!
(Image Credit: @simplife_plus/ Twitter)
Artists Make Murals At Their Own Homes
With all of her plans cancelled because of the crisis that’s hit our planet recently, Jacoba Niepoort decided to use her own home to create murals.
“I wanted to use the spaces we were in to create parallel individual works.”
Together with Miami-based artist Alex Void and the Void Projects’ creative team, Niepoort curated Home MuralFest, which inspired many artists around the world to paint on the walls of their living rooms, studios, and garden sheds.
Check out the various murals over at Colossal.
(Image Credit: David de la Mano/ Void Projects/ Colossal)
(Image Credit: Helen Bur and Erin Holly/ Void Projects/ Colossal)
Magical Moment: Butterfly Lands on Bulldog
This is Muffin. Today she received a belly rub from a butterfly. 13/10 absolutely magical pic.twitter.com/er9tu4Srzk
— WeRateDogs® (@dog_rates) April 28, 2020
When 9-month-old Muffin was at the park the other week with her hooman Ashley Schoon, Muffin was not her usual self. What usually was a calm bulldog was really hyper on this day. Suddenly, a butterfly decided to land itself on Muffin’s face, and Muffin became really confused and did not know what to do.
Muffin immediately calmed down and let the butterfly perch on her stomach. “I was scared she was going to try to eat it,” Schoon said. “But she decided to lay all the way flat on her back and just let the butterfly stay on her tummy.”
The little pup wasn’t quite sure what was happening, but she knew she had to be gentle with her delicate friend. Muffin sprawled in the grass, paws out, and completely vulnerable as she let the butterfly wander up her stomach and onto her chest.
Wholesome.
(Image Credit: @dog_rates/ Twitter)
1985: Fifty Songs in Three Minutes
The Hood Internet brought us gloriously nostalgic mashups of the songs of 1979 and 1980. But they kept at it with wonderfully-edited songs from other years, too. Now they've expanded their repertoire and announced that another year will be added every Thursday. You can keep up with them in this playlist. Meanwhile, enjoy their latest mashup, the music of 1985 presented in three minutes. -via Metafilter
