There I Ruined It: John Denver meets Black Sabbath
Jason Weisberger / 11:43 am PT Wed Sep 4, 2024
RIAA lawsuit
There I Ruined It provides a fantastic mashup of John Denver singing a Country Roads/War Pigs rendition.
In the early days, the internet was a series of tubes used to sell t-shirts, online banking and spread porn to the masses. Now, we share videos of AI singing. Progress has been made.
Previously:
• 'Mouth Sounds' is an hour-long mashup / performance art tribute to 'All-Star'
Simone Giertz makes an electric skateboard for Scraps the dog
Gail Sherman / 11:03 am PT Wed Sep 4, 2024
Is it a good idea to give a dog an electric skateboard?
Simone Giertz is a YouTuber and maker extraordinaire. Her ridiculously cute three-legged rescue dog, Scraps, appears in many of her videos, and she even built an exoskeleton to help Scraps get around. Scraps is an excellent workshop supervisor but has been unable to skateboard due to only having three legs. Simone set out to rectify this and built Scraps a motorized skateboard, with some help from Lego.
I love how she prioritizes Scraps' comfort, even if it means sending an entire film crew home because Scraps is tired. She is so adorkable and delightful that you can't even get mad when she works on designing the "pawls."
LEGO's video doesn't feature Simone, but the young makers get to show off their Technic skills.
By the way, the correct pronunciation of Giertz is sort of like Yetch, which I found impossible to remember until Simone opened an online shop named Yetch to sell things like a folding coat hanger she invented.
Previously: Building a confessions box with self-destructing messages
Whining Giuliani schooled by official: "I know you're no longer a licensed attorney because you made false statements about the election, so allow me to clarify Michigan law for you."
Mark Frauenfelder / 10:46 am PT Wed Sep 4, 2024
Chock full o'Nuttiness: Rudy Giuliani peddles coffee in a low-production value advertisement
Rudy Giuliani thought he could cash in big by using every dirty trick he could think of to get his pal Donald back in the White House. Instead, it has rendered him disgraced, disbarred, and destitute. He is crippled by hundreds of million of dollars in debt, including defamation damages, unpaid taxes to the IRS and New York government, and outstanding legal fees. His predicament is so dire that he even owes $9,530 in overdraft fees on his Citigold checking account, forcing him to pathetically hawk stuff like "Rudy Coffee."
You might think Rudy would want to back off and work on getting his life back together so he could live out his remaining years in relative peace. Instead, he's still making false claims and accusations about the upcoming election.
"URGENT NOTICE: Michigan's corrupt Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is already engaging in election interference by keeping RFK Jr.'s name on the ballot. This is just one of many examples of what they're doing to keep Trump out of the White House…" he posted on Xitter.
But Benson wasn't in the mood to put up with Rudy's foolishness.
"Hi @RudyGiuliani," she xitted. "I know you're no longer a licensed attorney because you made several "demonstrably false and misleading statements" about the 2020 election, so allow me to clarify Michigan law for you. MCL 168.686a(4): Candidates who are nominated and accept a minor party's nomination 'shall not be permitted to withdraw.'"
Keep peddling that coffee, Rudy!
·
Previously:
• Giuliani disbarred: From 9/11 hero to MAGA zero
• Rudy Giuliani loses bid to overturn $148 million defamation judgment to election workers he lied about
• Prosecutors try to serve Rudy Giuliani with summons — but the Trump toady is nowhere to be found
Anatomy-challenged surgeon in Florida allegedly removes wrong organ (again!) — his patient dies
Carla Sinclair / 10:38 am PT Wed Sep 4, 2024
Image: Peter Porrini / shutterstock.com
It's horrible when you get under the knife of a surgeon who doesn't know their body parts, but that is what allegedly happened to a man who needed his spleen removed — only to die losing his liver instead.
The horrific mixup reportedly occurred last month, when 70-year-old William Bryan from Alabama was visiting Florida. After feeling pains on the left side of his abdomen, he went to Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast hospital in Walton county, where doctors told him removing his spleen was the best course of action.
What the Florida doctors didn't tell him, however, is that the surgeon in charge, Dr Thomas Shaknovsky, had been accused in 2023 of mistaking body parts, or "wrong-site surgery," according to the victim's family attorney, Joe Zarzaur. Dr. Shaknovsy "accidentally took out a portion of someone's pancreas, intending to take out one of the their adrenal glands," he says in video (see below).
Nevertheless, the surgeon reportedly proceeded to cut into Bryan — seemingly on the wrong side of his abdomen. And then he removed what he thought was the spleen, even though, as he allegedly told the patient's wife of 33 years, it "was so diseased that it was four times bigger than usual."
The hospital now claims it takes "allegations like this very seriously," even though, according to the attorney via USA Today, it reportedly knew of the man's previous organ mixup. If the accusations against the surgeon are all accurate, why the doctor was allowed to step into an operating room is beyond imagination.
From The Guardian:
During the operation, the family's lawyer alleges that the doctor removed Bryan's liver and, in so doing, "transected the major vasculature supplying the liver, causing immediate and catastrophic blood loss resulting in death".
The surgeon, the family alleges, "proceeded with labeling the removed liver specimen as a 'spleen', and it wasn't until following the death that it was identified that the organ removed was actually Bryan's liver, as opposed to the spleen"…
"The family was informed that Bryan's spleen, the root of his original symptom profile upon presentation to the hospital, was still in his body and appeared with a small cyst on its surface." …
In a statement, Beverly said: "My husband died while helpless on the operating room table by Dr Shaknovsky. I don't want anyone else to die due to his incompetence at a hospital that should have known or knew he had previously made drastic, life-altering surgical mistakes."
"This doctor was still treating patients, and apparently still had access to hospitals and operating rooms, which I don't think he should," Zarzaur said in video posted four days ago. But in a newer video, he said one the hospitals the doctor works at, North Walton Doctor's hospital, "made an excellent decision to disassociate themselves" from Shaknovsky.
Previously: Surgeon punches patient during operation
Humans help baby puffins fly out to sea!
Jennifer Sandlin / 10:18 am PT Wed Sep 4, 2024
puffin. image from Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Puffin_%28Fratercula_arctica%29.jpg
It's puffling season in Iceland! A puffling is a young puffin, and puffling season is when these youngsters get help from humans—who toss them over cliffs—to successfully find their way out to the ocean instead of getting lost in town. The Atlantic recently published some beautiful photos from this year's rescue, explaining:
Residents of Iceland's Westman Islands are currently on puffin patrol. During the months of August and September, an annual tradition brings entire families out to the streets and harbor of Vestmannaeyjar late at night, where they work to find and rescue misdirected young puffins, called pufflings . . . Once they are rescued, the pufflings are brought to either a beach or a cliff to be released to the sea. The photographer Micah Garen recently followed some of these young rescuers on patrol on the island of Heimaey.
NPR explains that the pufflings need help because city lights confuse them:
This yearly tradition is what's known as "puffling season" and the practice is a crucial, life-saving endeavor. The chicks of Atlantic puffins, or pufflings, hatch in burrows on high sea cliffs. When they're ready to fledge, they fly from their colony and spend several years at sea until they return to land to breed, according to Audubon Project Puffin. Pufflings have historically found the ocean by following the light of the moon, digital creator Kyana Sue Powers told NPR over a video call from Iceland. Now, city lights lead the birds astray.
NPR also describes the process of getting the youngsters out to sea:
Many residents of Vestmannaeyjar spend a few weeks in August and September collecting wayward pufflings that have crashed into town after mistaking human lights for the moon. Releasing the fledglings at the cliffs the following day sets them on the correct path.
This human tradition has become vital to the survival of puffins, Rodrigo A. Martínez Catalán of Náttúrustofa Suðurlands [South Iceland Nature Research Center] told NPR. A pair of puffins – which mate for life – only incubate one egg per season and don't lay eggs every year.
"If you have one failed generation after another after another after another," Catalán said, "the population is through, pretty much."
Ása Steiners, a travel photographer who was born and raised in Iceland, recently posted a great video highlighting some of the adorable pufflings and the humans who gave them a helping hand. She explains:
It's Puffling season! I can't describe how excited Atlas was to get to join the Puffling season in Vestmannaeyjar. We stayed up late and joined the locals in the search of Pufflings. It felt like they were raining from the sky, few of them just dropped down right in front of us. Hopefully there's a strong Puffin population this year.
The Pufflings leave their nests late summer, when their parents have left out at sea. It's hunger that drives them to leave the nest (bless them). They use the moon to navigate out at sea, but they confuse the city lights with the moon and end up crashing into town where they don't have much chance to make it to the ocean on their own. They are at risk due to car traffic, cats or even just end up starving. So that's where the locals come to the rescue.
Then they store them in a box overnight and early in the morning they head to the seaside cliffs, allow the Pufflings to get air in their wings and then throw them off so that they can safely navigate out to the ocean where they will spend the next couple of years before returning as adults to Vestmannaeyjar islands.
This happens every year at the end of summer and has become an annual tradition for the locals of Vestmannaeyjar and friends and relatives. The Puffling season can last for a few weeks or as long as the adult Puffins are around.
Many people make their way to the islands to join in on the mission. My dad took me once and I have some childhood memories of releasing my first Pufflings and now I want to do the same for Atlas. I'm so thankful for all these adventures that my parents brought me along on.
This shared mission brings the community together and it helps the Puffin populations to safely begin their journey to the sea.
See more of Iceland through the beautiful photography of Ása Steiners on her Instagram or YouTube.
Previously:
• Puffle the sheep patiently waits to be welcomed into house
In 1983 daredevils in banana hammocks set an unbreakable world record
Jason Weisberger / 10:16 am PT Wed Sep 4, 2024
Image: YouTube
Many have tried, and they have all failed, mostly suffering horrible injuries as they try to break the world record for the highest dive.
Holy cow. This is incredibly dangerous, and I think people should just let the record stand. The rules of the 1982 challenge make it nearly impossible for anyone to break the record, but very easy to break their back, leg, or head. This short video covering the record, however, is a lot of fun.
Previously:
• In 1983, Dana Kunzemade dove into a pool from 172 feet up on live television
Suspect in custody, casualties reported in another school shooting
Jason Weisberger / 10:04 am PT Wed Sep 4, 2024
Image: goir / shutterstock
Heart-wrenching news from Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia. America's school shooting epidemic continues unchecked.
It is a horrific situation, and thinking of the children, parents, teachers, staff, and everyone else who has been subject to the nightmare brings me to tears. The United States does not have to tolerate this, other countries do not. There is no patriotic duty to allow school children to be slaughtered as the normal course of education. Kids are trained as to what to do when a shooting breaks out. Just that is traumatic enough — but as a parent in America, my child experienced several shelter-in-place orders due to shoots fired, bullets found, or bomb threats at school, and it has just become commonplace. We accept the deaths and I am clueless why. I don't think our gun culture is worth it.
A local hospital is receiving patients with gunshot wounds, a source at the hospital told CNN. Georgia State Patrol previously said it had responded to an active scene at the school.
At least five ambulances and a large active law enforcement presence were at the campus, according to video from outside the school. A least one medical helicopter could be seen airlifting a patient from the scene. Footage at the scene also showed people gathering on a football field near the school as students appeared to pray.
Special agents from the FBI have responded to assist local law enforcement, a bureau spokesperson said.
Previously:
• One-fifth of Americans believe every school shooting is a fake event filled with 'crisis actors'
World-record-holding stone skipper explains the physics
Jennifer Sandlin / 9:45 am PT Wed Sep 4, 2024
illustrative image: Juan Pablo Olaya Celis/Shutterstock
A couple of years ago we shared a story about Kurt Steiner, who still holds a Guinness World Record for "most skips of a skimming stone"—he skipped a rock a whopping 88 times at Red Bridge, near Kane, Pennsylvania, on September 6, 2013! Guinness World Record explains:
Kurt, being the previous record holder for this category from 2002-2007, has been practicing for the past few years to improve his skills. He has collected more than 10,000 "quality rocks" and has sorted each according to its type, to prepare for the best possible throw. He looks for stones "that weigh between 3 – 8 ounces… that are very smooth (they don't have to be perfectly round), flat bottoms and are between 1/4 – 5/16th of an inch thick."
I recently stumbled across a video posted by WIRED where Steiner explains the physics behind stone skipping, and it's one of the most fascinating and informative things I've ever watched. WIRED describes the video:
Kurt Steiner is record holding champion stone skipper—and a master of the physics that underpin the sport. A labor of love that's evolved into a world-class passion, see where Kurt harvests his preferred rocks, the qualities he seeks in them, and each factor he considers in order to throw like a pro.
In the video, Kurt discusses various aspects of the process of skipping a stone that he has to take into account—including the speed at which he'll throw it, the spin he'll give it, and the various angles he has to balance, including tilt angle, attack angle, and twist angle. He also talks about how he must be mindful of the direction of the wind, the water's surface, and his footing. He also describes the "makings of a really good rock," which include things like a flat surface and a little bit of a curved top edge that is a bit sharp but not too sharp (stone skipping is clearly both a science and an art). In the video, he demonstrates various rocks that are good choices and shows us some of his throwing techniques as he explains the physics of it all.
In addition to being a world-record-holding stone skipper, Steiner is also a pretty darn good philosopher, which is evident when he describes stone skipping as:
" . . . a simple thing [that], through a mastery, becomes a really visual, spiritual kind of art form. It's a way of making joy out of nothing. And that's can't be valueless, right?"
Previously:
• Meet the world's greatest stone skipper
Scientists create a robot controlled by living mushroom. See the fungus that learned to crawl
Mark Frauenfelder / 9:41 am PT Wed Sep 4, 2024
Robot guided by mushroom, reacting to light and computer signals (ScienceAlert/Robert Shepherd/YouTube Screenshot)
Researchers built two robots that are controlled by king oyster mushrooms.
"Through a series of experiments, the researchers showed it was possible to use the mushroom's electrophysiological activity as a means of translating environmental cues into directives, which could, in turn, be used to drive a mechanical device's movements," reports ScienceAlert.
The mushrooms took control of two robots — a tethered five-limbed soft robot and a four-wheeled untethered vehicle.
From ScienceAlert:
"This kind of project is not just about controlling a robot," says Cornell bioroboticist Anand Mishra."It is also about creating a true connection with the living system. Because once you hear the signal, you also understand what's going on. Maybe that signal is coming from some kind of stresses. So you're seeing the physical response, because those signals we can't visualize, but the robot is making a visualization."
Previously:
• How I learned to think like a mushroom
• Tracking down the infamous orgasm mushroom
• Police raid Oakland's psychedelic mushroom church
Asteroid alert: small space rock to crash into Earth's atmosphere in 30 minutes — September 4, 2024 at 16:46 UTC (9:46 AM PDT)
Mark Frauenfelder / 9:18 am PT Wed Sep 4, 2024
Asteroid CAQTDL2 moving through space within the purple circle (Catalina Sky Survey)
Asteroid CAQTDL2 will strike Earth's atmosphere on September 4, 2024 at 16:46 UTC (9:46 AM PDT).
Discovered just eight hours ago by research technologist Jacqueline Fazekas at the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona, the 1-meter long CAQTDL2 will slam into the Earth's atmosphere over the Philippines. "It's expected to create a bright fireball for anyone watching," reports EarthSky.
This is only the 9th time an asteroid has been spotted before striking Earth. The asteroid is not considered dangerous due to its small size and is expected to burn up harmlessly in the atmosphere.
I tried to learn how the asteroid was named CAQTDL2, but Google and Perplexity were of no help. Fortunately, Chatty G came to the rescue. CAQTDL2 stands for Cantankerous Astronauts Quench Their Donut Lust.
Previously:
• Would you kill to stop an asteroid panic? I asked the creators of Salvation
Minecraft movie teaser drops
Rob Beschizza / 9:03 am PT Wed Sep 4, 2024
👀
The first teaser trailer for the Minecraft movie, starring Jack Black and Jason Momoa, just dropped. It's going to be a "real people transported to the Game World" dealie and looks like one of those fancy shader packs that lipsticks the aesthetic so your video card has something to do. Everyone in it looks vaguely disgusted by it. Rounding off the voxels could be this year's Ugly Sonic, but I wouldn't count on it!
One unambigiously great thing is you can't be 100% certain that Momoa isn't Alex. That is Alex, isn't it? That is Alex.
A department store sales guy let Gen Z-ers write the script
Thom Dunn / 8:44 am PT Wed Sep 4, 2024
Marketing professionals are often desperate to mimic the seemingly natural virality of Regular Kids Using The Internet. So someone in the marketing department at Curry's department stores had the brilliant idea to just … let a younger person write the script for their next promotional video and then force an older worker to perform that script, as written, with complete sincerity.
I hate to admit it, but this little experiment paid off hilariously well.
Is the Gen Z Lingo script a little overdone? Sure. But I found that to be part of its charm. It may sound like utter nonsense, but—as best I understand—most of this is technically accurate to the current linguistic usage of Gen Z-ers (even if the slang doesn't always arrive in such rapid succession). It helps, too, that the worker performing the lines commits to the gag, delivering the words with such clueless confidence that the gag pays off.
That's good teamwork! I'm typically reluctant to commend any major retail chain for desperate attempts at viral marketing, but at least this one made me chuckle.
Previously:
• An old person's guide to 'skibidi' and other Gen Z slang
Couple kicked out of Disneyland's exclusive Club 33 lose legal fight for reinstatement
Rob Beschizza / 8:42 am PT Wed Sep 4, 2024
Photo: mxreb0 (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Scott and Diana Anderson were members of Disney's private and exclusive Club 33, visiting the legendary hidden bar up to 80 times a year, paying $31,500 in annual dues for the privilege after spending years on its waiting list. They were kicked out in 2017 after Scott was accused of being drunk and have since spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to force Disney to let them back in. The Los Angeles Times reports that they have lost their lawsuit.
The September 2017 incident was not the first time the Andersons had run afoul of Club 33 management. The year before, Diana had been briefly suspended for "using some salty language … a couple F-words," as Macias put it.
Macias told jurors that the Andersons filed suit against Disney to vindicate their reputation. "He doesn't want to be known as a drunk," Macias said. "They love that place. They took the fight to Disney because it's his name."
In their complaint, the Andersons asked to be reinstated to Club 33, with a $10,500 reimbursement for four months of unused membership in 2017. They also wanted $231,000 — the equivalent of seven years in the club.
What better way to avoid being known as a drunk than to spend fabulous sums of money suing Disney and cultivating media coverage of your crusade. They aren't done, either.
"I'll sell a kidney," Diana said. "I don't care."
This seems reasonable; I guess their livers aren't worth much.
'Insane': George Conway gaslights Donald Trump with new Psycho PAC ad (video)
Carla Sinclair / 8:34 am PT Wed Sep 4, 2024
Image: Donald Trump / Psycho PAC ad
Lifelong Republican George Conway gaslights Donald Trump with a new ad that takes advantage of a well-documented truth: All of Trump's make-believe friends think he's deranged. Or a "psychopath," as Conway more accurately puts it on his Psycho PAC site.
"Hey, Donald? All your friends, all the people that have worked with you, they all think you're nuts," Conway narrates, as a parade of conservatives — from Ted Cruz and John Bolton to Marco Rubio and Bill Barr — float around Trump's head in a distorted room (his mind) to prove his point.
And every one of his conservative chums and associates think the same thing: "Crazy" (Gov. Chris Sununu) … "Narcissist" (Ted Cruz) … "Erratic individual" (Marco Rubio)… "Wacky" (Nikki Haley) … "Literally insane!" (Adam Kinzinger) … "Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States" (John Bolton) … "He's not fit to be president of the United States" (Lindsey Graham). And that's just the half of it. (See video below.)
Although the ad is executed with humorous, cartoonish elements (a warped image of Trump's head with eyes that pivot from one bad thought bubble to another as we hear a ticking time bomb in the background), its message, obviously, is not so funny. As Conway says on his site: "Donald Trump is f**cking insane. … 'Sociopath' and 'narcissist' aren't just buzzwords—Trump's pathological lying, authoritarian tendencies, and his disregard for democratic norms will destroy our country if he gets reelected. He's that dangerous."
Previously: George Conway's 3 tips to liberal media on how to beat Donald Trump (video)
Outlaws has the best sidekick in Star Wars
Gail Sherman / 7:32 am PT Wed Sep 4, 2024
Screenshot: Ubisoft
With all due respect to BD-1, Cal Kestis' droid buddy from Jedi: Fallen Order and Survivor, Nix in Star Wars Outlaws, is the best companion ever in a Star Wars video game.
Nix is your partner as you try to level up in the Outer Rim crime syndicates. Nix is a merqaal, a new Star Wars species which looks like an armadillo, a dog, and an axolotl somehow had a baby. To paraphrase Rosa from Brooklyn 99, if anything ever happens to him, I will kill everyone in the room and then myself.
Nix is adorable. Just look at him.
But he's not just a pretty face. He is an outstanding sidekick. He can fetch (i.e., steal) things for you, unlock doors, detonate explosives, dramatically play dead to cause a distraction, and even help you cheat at Sabacc. His ability to be or cause a distraction is crucial in a game with so many stealth missions.
Anyone with a dog will appreciate Nix's devotion to his craft here.
Of course, you can pet Nix. You can also pet other animals in the game, but watch out. He gets a little jealous.
Previously: Star Wars but with cats
ReMarkable Paper Pro tablet feels more like the real thing—and is full-color
Rob Beschizza / 7:19 am PT Wed Sep 4, 2024
Image: ReMarkable
The ReMarkable Paper Pro has a full-color, paper-like 11.8" display finished to feel just like the real thing.
Bring paper into your digital workflow with reMarkable Paper Pro. Ultra-slim and portable, but with a full-size 11.8" color display, adjustable reading light, and an unmatched paper-like writing experience. The textured surface of the custom-built display is crafted to deliver realistic friction and even more natural writing feel. Lightning-fast responsiveness and a pen-to-ink distance of less than 1 mm make reMarkable Paper Pro the peak of paper realism.
The ReMarkable 2 is great. The new model is expensive, at $579, maybe inviting a more one-on-one functionality comparison to high-end gadgets such as the iPad Pro. But it's not as if the competition is cheaper. Earlier models were pricey, too, and are clearly popular among those wanting a more mindful and demure tablet experience.
The Verge got a look and liked it, but warns off artists. Though the color e-paper display has excellent color fidelity compared to Kaleido-based devices without suffering the lag of other Gallery-based devices, the compromise is that it refreshes the screen at the end of every stroke.
the Remarkable Paper Pro isn't a tool for artists (though it does support layers and shading). You're not supposed to unlock creativity. You're using these colors so slidedecks and PDFs of business reports look nice as you circle the changes you want made in red. You're using these colors to faithfully render a book's art or add pizzazz to a header you've written in a brainstorming notebook. You're using them to highlight all the numbers you have to remember for that Q4 presentation of profitability. In those cases a little flash is annoying, but not the end times.
I wonder how it compares to the Daylight DC-1.
Here's a review by YouTuber My Deep Guide.
Do not mistake Elon Musk's capitulation for compliance
Jason Weisberger / 7:13 am PT Wed Sep 4, 2024
Boing Boing/MidJourney
After having its assets frozen, Elon Musk's Starlink is complying with a Brazilian court's order to block Musk's shrinking social network in Brazil "regardless" of the frozen assets.
Elon's screwing around with Twitter is impacting his other businesses. He may have to dump a bunch of Tesla to pay the piper when the time comes for X's bond payments; and now Starlink Brazil finds its assets frozen due to being a part of the same "economic group," i.e. Musk's ownership.
Starlink said in a statement posted on X that it will heed Justice Alexandre de Moraes' order despite him having frozen the company's assets. Previously, it informally told the telecommunications regulator that it would not comply until de Moraes reversed course.
"Regardless of the illegal treatment of Starlink in freezing our assets, we are complying with the order to block access to X in Brazil," the company statement said. "We continue to pursue all legal avenues, as are others who agree that @alexandre's recent order violate the Brazilian constitution."
Previously:
• Musk boosts 4chan claim that women are incapable of critical thinking
Pinnacle Man, found dead in cave 47 years ago, finally identified as Nicholas Paul Grubb
Rob Beschizza / 6:55 am PT Wed Sep 4, 2024
A drawing of Pinnacle Man (left) and a photo of Grubb.
It took nearly five decades to identify him, but Pinnacle Man—a body found frozen in a Pennsylvania cave in 1977—now has a name. Berks County Coroner's Office identified the remains as Nicholas Paul Grubb, 27, from Fort Washington, Pennsylvania. They figured it out not with new technology, but by digging through files.
Grubb's body was exhumed in 2019 after dental records linked him to two missing person cases in Florida and Illinois. … Fast-forward to early August, when there was a major break in the cold case. Ian Keck of the Pennsylvania State Police found the lost fingerprint card from Grubb's 1977 autopsy. Keck submitted the fingerprint card to NamUs on August 12, according to Holmes, and within an hour an FBI fingerprint expert matched the Pinnacle Man's fingerprints to Grubb's. One of Grubb's family members was notified by the Berks County Coroner's Office, who confirmed Grubb's identity. The family member asked the office to place his remains in the family plot.
Buried in the details and hidden behind a word, an extremely serious 47-year-old procedural error.
Previously:
• The mysterious case of the dead hiker whose body can't be identified by anyone
• The three 'mummified' bodies found in Colorado were ID'd by stepsister who tried to stop them from camping
YouTuber believes squirrels are his friends
Jennifer Sandlin / 6:44 am PT Wed Sep 4, 2024
Image: Svet foto / shutterstock.com
YouTuber Derrick Downey Jr.—who describes himself as "A Squirrel's Best Friend"—is a bonafide squirrel whisperer!
It's so cool to watch him interacting with the furry little creatures through the videos he shares on his social media. One of his favorite squirrels is Maxine. Here he is chatting with Maxine as she's "living her best squirrel life." And here he is chilling with Maxine, who, in this video, even lets him rub her pregnant belly! And here's Maxine and her baby playing on his patio. Finally, here's a very cool video of Maxine filing her teeth!
You can tell he adores squirrels—I love how sweetly he talks to them and how interested he is in learning about them. The squirrels really seem to really dig him, too, and keep coming back to see him. In this video, he makes it very clear that he "doesn't train the squirrels" and explains that, instead, "they are wild squirrels that hang out with me."
I just love watching his videos—it's so cool to get to learn more about squirrels, to see their personalities, to view them up close, and to witness their very sweet friendships with Derrick.
To see more of these amazing squirrel and human interactions, visit Derrick's YouTube or Instagram. He's also written a children's book, Hand and Paw: Maxine's Tale of Compassion, which you can check out here. The book:
Is inspired by the author's real-life rescue of baby squirrels and his enduring friendship with their mother, Maxine, This adventurous tale is sure to spark the imagination and warm the hearts of children and adults alike. With beautiful illustrations and touching rhymes, this lovely story will foster compassion in children, guiding them to care for others, and appreciate the wonders of animals and their habitats.
Previously:
• Ferocious squirrel attacks man in his garage
Microwaves that are too high up
Rob Beschizza / 4:53 am PT Wed Sep 4, 2024
Screenshot from r/MicrowaveTooHigh
r/MicrowaveTooHigh is my new favorite subreddit, featuring examples of microwave ovens that are placed or installed too high up. There are only a few posts but they're all good ones, with a strong taste of cheapass landlord about them.
It was likely inspired by the TVs That Are Too High subreddit, an inevitable consequence of people mounting televisions over fireplaces because we want our homes to look like reality TV flip houses.
Previously:
• Landlord giant raided by FBI for algorithmic price fixing
• The government in Barcelona is seizing empty apartments from landlords who won't rent them out
• Berkeley landlords throw a cocktail party to celebrate the return of evictions
• 'Smart' doorlocks have policies that let landlords and third parties spy on you
• Landlord's security deposit scam beaten by savvy tenant who filmed their spotless apartment before leaving
Trump Media sinks to $18 a share, its lowest ebb yet
Rob Beschizza / 4:26 am PT Wed Sep 4, 2024
lev radin / Shutterstock.com
Trump Media, the company behind the former president's Truth Social Twitter clone, never made a cent in profits and somehow loses millions every month. That didn't stop his supporters plowing in money to give it an astonishing $6bn valuation at nearly $80 a share. It's now trading under $20 for the first time, about half the initial offering. Everyone who bought in is, to borrow a term from high finance, hosed. Except Trump, of course.
DJT shares dropped to $17.89 per share around midday Tuesday, The stock's prior low was set on Aug. 28, when it hit $19.38 per share. The stock price was down roughly 77% from its high of $79.38 per share on March 26, following Trump Media's merger with a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company.
After he dumps his stake it'll eventually end up a penny stock, but it could still make him a real cash billionaire when he does so later this month—as soon as he's legally able to. Even at $20 it's trading at some magical ratio in the low thousands. Election tulips for MAGA.
Trump stumbles through conspiracy-laden Fridman interview
Mark Frauenfelder / 4:37 pm PT Tue Sep 3, 2024
Image: Donald J. Trump for President
Podcaster Lex Fridman interviewed Donald Trump today. The 78-year-old criminal and adjudicated rapist seemed drained of energy, but had just enough gas in his reserve tank to whine about being a victim.
Here are some of the lowlights:
On Kamala Harris's candidacy:
I can't believe the whole thing is happening. We had a man in there that should have never been in there. They kept him in a basement. They used COVID. They cheated, but they used COVID to cheat. They cheated without COVID too. But you had somebody in there. And now we have a woman that is not, I mean, she couldn't do an interview. This was a really soft interview. This is an interview where they're given multiple choice, questions, multiple guess. I call it multiple guess. And I don't think she did well. I think she did very poorly.
On losing the 2020 election (even though Fridman asked him a different question):
I mean, I became president. Then the second time, I got millions more votes than I got the first time. I was told, if I got 63 million, which is what I got the first time, you would win. You can't not win. And I got millions of votes than that and lost by a whisker. And look what happened to the world with all of the wars and all of the problems. And look what happened with inflation, because inflation is just eating up our country, eating it up. So it's too bad. But there are a lot of things that could happen. We have to get those wars settled. We have to get, I'll tell you, you have to get Ukraine done. That could end up in a third world war.
On World War III and how Biden looks in a bathing suit:
There's a lot of danger in the war right now in the world. And there's a great possibility of World War III. And we better get this thing done fast because five months with people like her and him, he's checked out. He just goes to the beach and thinks he looks good in a bathing suit, which he doesn't.
On Biden dropping out of the race:
He sort of checked out. Hey, look, you can't blame him. That was a coup. They took it over. They took over the presidential deal. The whole presidential thing was taken over in a coup. He had 14 million votes. He had no votes, not one. And nobody thought it was going to be her. Nobody wanted it to be her. She was a joke until six weeks ago when they said, we're going to have to, politically, they felt they had to pick her. And if they didn't pick her, they thought there'd be a problem. I don't know if that's right or not. I actually don't think it's right, but they thought it was right. And now immediately the press comes to their aid.
On "the marijuana":
I just put out a paper and first of all, medical marijuana has been amazing. I've had friends and I've had others and doctors telling me that it's been absolutely amazing, the medical marijuana. And we put out a statement that we can live with the marijuana.
As for the rest of the interview, it was dull. Like a broken record stuck on a track of grievances, Donald griped about of stolen elections and impending doom. His vision for America's future is returning to a past that never existed.
Donald ended the interview by stressing the need for more religion in the country, oblivious to the fact that his own behavior is the opposite of traditional religious values:
I mean, you know, if you're religious, you have, I think, a better feeling toward it, you know, you're supposed to go to heaven. Ideally, not hell, which is supposed to go to heaven if you're good. I think our country is missing a lot of religion.
I think it really was a much better place with religion. It it was some it was almost a guide, you know, to a certain extent, it was a guide. You want to be good to people without religion. There's no real, there are no guardrails.
I'd love to see us get back to religion, more religion in this country.
For you, not for him, of course.
1 in 50 Democrats and 1 in 5 Republicans think Biden made wrong decision dropping out
Rob Beschizza / 4:06 pm PT Tue Sep 3, 2024
2 percent of Democrats think Joe Biden did the wrong thing by dropping out the race and handing the baton to Kamala Harris. 18% of Republicans agree. The amusing and revealing statistic is in the latest Suffolk University poll of likely voters. [via Aaron Blake on Twitter]
Harris leads Trump in the poll 48% to 43%.
Previously:
• Kamala Harris's excellent answer to a very stupid question
• Nick Offerman's 'Proud to Be a Kamala Man'
• Primary Sludge: 'close fiction' from German utopian writer Sina Kamala Kaufmann
• Politico grossly misrepresents Kamala Harris
The aerodynamics of Star Wars starfighters
Jason Weisberger / 3:17 pm PT Tue Sep 3, 2024
Star Wars
Star Wars starfighters are fictional and meant for fighting in space. However, they are often shown in the atmosphere. How would they perform? Poorly.
Star Wars starfighter design carefully blends World War 2 fighters, 1930 automobiles, and 1950s kitchen appliances. Most of what we saw flying around that far-away galaxy a long time ago seems like it should fall out of the sky. Now that'd be Pod Racing!
Bonus:
Previously:
• What it was really like to see Star Wars in 1977
Pence says he won't vote for Trump, not because he wanted Pence hanged, but because Trump's not conservative enough
Mark Frauenfelder / 3:03 pm PT Tue Sep 3, 2024
Image source for photocollage: mark reinstein/shutterstock
It took former Vice President Mike Pence years to finally join the rest of us in realizing that Trump is bad for America. After all, a president who incites a mob to storm the Capitol, overthrow the government, and chant for the hanging of the vice president for not helping him destroy democracy isn't exactly the ideal candidate for reelection in a representative democracy.
But Pence being Pence, it's not the fact that Donald Trump is a reprehensible, unhinged demagogue that makes him unfit to serve as president again. No, in Pence's view, Trump isn't conservative enough.
In an interview with Fox News' Martha MacCallum, Pence said:
"It will come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year. Look, I'm incredibly proud of the record of our administration. It was a conservative record that made America more prosperous, more secure, and saw conservatives appointed to our courts in a more peaceful world.
"But that being said, during my presidential campaign, I made it clear that there were profound differences between me and President Trump on a range of issues. And not just our difference on my constitutional duties that I exercised on January the 6th."I mean, as I have watched his candidacy unfold, I've seen him walking away from our commitment to confronting the national debt. I've seen him starting to shy away from a commitment to the sanctity of human life. And this last week, his reversal on getting tough on China and supporting our administration's effort to force a sale of ByteDance's TikTok application."
MacCallum pressed him on who he would vote for in November:
"Well, I can't speculate on it, but what I can tell you is, in each of these cases, Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years."
"And that's why I cannot, in good conscience, endorse Donald Trump in this campaign. But let me say one last thing. That being said, look, Republican primary voters have made it clear, Martha, who they're for in this election.""What I'm going to spend the rest of this year on is talking about what we should be for. And that is the broad, mainstream, conservative agenda that's defined our party and always made America strong and prosperous and free
MacCallum pressed him on who he would vote for in November:
"Well, like most Americans," he said, "I'm going to keep my vote to myself, but I would never vote for Joe Biden. But how I vote when that curtain closes, that'll be for me."
For a moment, it seemed like Pence might be edging towards sanity. Instead, his critique of Trump boils down to a complaint that the former president has drifted from hard-right orthodoxy—not that he's a threat to democracy. Pence's refusal to fully repudiate the man who endangered his life and imperils American democracy is another sad reminder that even those directly threatened by Trump's authoritarianism remain trapped by the obscene grifter's gravitational pull.
Previously:
• Trump forgets he tried to have Mike Pence killed
• Mike Pence pisses away $200K+ in taxpayer money at staged protest
• Lady Gaga interrupts her concert to scold Pence: 'You are the worst representation' of Christianity
First she turned Black. Now Fox's Peter Doocy says Kamala Harris turned Southern (video)
Carla Sinclair / 2:34 pm PT Tue Sep 3, 2024
Image: lev radin / shutterstock.com
Unbeknownst to Democrats but observed by Trumpers, Kamala Harris is a shapeshifter.
First, the Vice President "happened to turn Black," as cult leader Donald Trump explained in July. And then, weeks later, Harris happened to turn Southern, as Fox's MAGA minion, Peter Doocy, blurted out in the press room today.
"Since when does the vice president have what sounds like a southern accent?" Doocy asked with a straight face, startling level-headed Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who wasn't prepared for the tomfool question.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," she said, shaking her head and chuckling in disbelief. "…The question is just insane!"
But Doocy, no stranger to MAGA's widespread mass delirium, wouldn't take logic for an answer. "Is that how she talks in meetings?" he pressed. To which Jean-Pierre finally shut down with a simple, "I'm moving on. I'm so moving on."
(See video below, posted by Forbes.)
Previously: Watch Sarah Cooper "turn Trump" as she lip-syncs his bizarre "Harris turned black" comment (video)