The 404 page on donaldjtrump.com is a re-work of his one from the last election but instead of trolling Clinton, it’s trolling Biden.
Meanwhile, on joebiden.com, the 404 page is the same error page used during the primaries.
To see the full gallery from all the primary candidates, you can view them here.
When Deadheads try to explain their appreciation for the Grateful Dead, they will probably point you to a concert at Cornell University in 1977, in particular the sequence from Scarlet Begonias to Fire on the Mountain.
YouTuber Michael Palmisano has built up his channel, Guitar Teacher REACTS around the deconstruction of live music jams. To celebrate his 100,000th subscriber, Michael deconstructed Scarlet > Fire from 5/8/77.
I’ve listened to this version many times but following the Guitar Teacher through his hour-long analysis revealed flourishes that I knew all along were there but never fully appreciated or had the vocabulary to explain. From Scarlet’s “mixolidian lick” to Keith’s arpeggiating progressions – he calls out all the shiny bits and holds each one up to the light like its own little gem.
At the transition into Fire at around 21 minutes, Michael breaks down how each musician transitions over “step-by-step” until the band collectively agree it’s time to jump over. Watching him walk you thru the magic, painted in real-time as only a band that plays together, night after night, can do is infectious.
Related:
If you’re interested in hearing the recording, straight thru, without interruption, here’s a link to the recording.
A COVID-19 testing swab factory said that they had to trash all swabs created during President Trump’s visit last week. The president flew to the factory in Maine to celebrate the factory’s increased production and insisted on touring the factory without a mask.
Band-Aid announced it will launch a new line of bandages in a range of different skin tone colors — from beige to dark brown — to “embrace the beauty of diverse skin.”
Engineers did not take into consideration the wind when designing new pedestrian railings on the Golden Gate Bridge. The barrier emits a high-pitch howl that is carries well across the water and can be heard all across the Bay.
Motortrend magazine is celebrating a rare, mint-condition Honda Civic Si that sold for $50,000.
350,000 people searched for it. Five people died trying. The search is over. The $2 million Forrest Fenn treasure has been found.
James Micioni, a 96-year old New Jersey man, passed away and left to his family a collection of baseball cards that is now known as The Uncle Jimmy Collection. A signed Babe Ruth card is a rare find, Uncle Jimmy had six. This treasure trove of vintage, baseball cards that is the single most incredible find in the history of the hobby.
After three months of Shelter in Place people are sharing how they’ve been keeping busy. One built the ultimate Rube Goldberg machine and another calculated the distance he walked since putting a treadmill in his home office.
What do you do when your country is overrun by locusts? Ask China to send in their ducks.
Mad Magazine’s Al Jaffee, the inventor of the iconic fold-in and the longest working cartoonist in history, retired at 99. His last issue will be one of the last issues of the print magazine.
Photo via @banksy
TWTW is a weekly collection of bits and pieces I run across each week while looking after things at SmartNews. Feel free to sign-up to get this via email, follow on Facebook, or forward to a friend.
So what did you do during the 2020 shelter in place? Check out this contraption that took two months to build and tune.
Side note: did you know Ruben Goldberg went to UC Berkeley where he studied at the College of Mining and Engineering. His first job was as an engineer with the San Francisco Water and Sewers Department which is where he probably got his ideas for all his crazy inventions.
Protestors in Oakland were joined by Brianna Noble, 25, who rode atop her massive gelding, Dapper Dan, fist held high, like a living Valkyrie.
In Portland, protesters were joined by Caesar, the No Drama Llama.
The hacktivist group Anonymous hacked Chicago Police radio frequencies to play NWA’s Fuck tha Police. Apple Music turned off browse on their radio streams and left a single playlist of black music in honor of #blackouttuesday ending with the same NWA song.
The police in Dallas were thwarted from crowdsourcing videos of illegal protest activity when their iWatch service was flooded with fancam videos of K-Pop bands.
Columbus and Cleveland declared racism a public health crisis.
The headline of the week award goes to the AFP which ran with Spain porn star held after man dies in toad venom ritual
Necco Wafers are back after a two-year hiatus. The 174-year old confectionery that got its start with Union troops in the Civil War re-started production with a minor adjustment to the less-popular chocolate flavor to appeal to the modern palate.
In Canada, the re-introduction of Cool-Ranch Doritos made headlines as deprived residents breathed a sigh of relief.
Alfa Romeo is planning on launching an electric SUV in 2022.
TWTW is a weekly collection of bits and pieces I run across each week while looking after things at SmartNews. Feel free to sign-up to get this via email, follow on Facebook, or forward to a friend.
Big stories sucked up much of the oxygen this week. Cities are on fire and two guys left earth in a rocket (some say they’re lucky). Other than that, here’s a few stories you may have missed.
In a tragic twist, we learned that George Floyd and Officer Derek Chauvin worked at the same night club in Minneapolis. If only they knew each other, maybe there might have been more empathy.
When the order to shelter in place came down, couples who were dating had to make a quick choice, stay apart or stay together. One couple in NYC has been together in an apartment after just one date, another has been stuck in Costa Rica after just three.
One silver lining resulting from the pandemic? Have you noticed that the volume of robocalls are down?
David Rush from Idaho drank a liter of lemon juice in under 17 seconds setting a new world record (they keep records for this?).
Microsoft decided to downsize the humans doing news curation in their newsroom and give the algorithm more work. Let’s hope it turns out better than it did with Tay, the racist chatbot.
A rare bottle of French Cognac from 1762 sold for almost $150k.
A Canadian man received an expedited delivery of a tube of Brylcreem that he ordered in 2012.
Two men were hired to sneak into a house to fulfill someone’s sexual fantasy, but got the address wrong.
A Texas high school principal drove over 1,500 miles to personally deliver diplomas to each of his graduating students. Closer to home, my daughter’s math teacher from Alameda High made the rounds to personally visit with each of her 100+ students and deliver a gift bag of hand-crafted goods.
Stay safe and take care of your neighbors everyone – see you next week.
Julia just graduated from high school. It was strangely anti-climactic. She put on her graduation regalia and headed out the door to meet a small group of classmates in Group 11 at the Alameda Theatre where they were ushered in, socially-distanced, and took the stage, one-by-one, to pick up a diploma and say a few words into a camera for a video that will be spliced together for family and friends. No pomp, just circumstance.
The Class of 2020 has been through a series of unique events as they made their way through the public school system here in Alameda. They grew up learning how to adapt.
Her class was the first seriously impacted at the local elementary school as overflow from the lottery system in San Francisco drove parents to the East Bay. In 2007 it was no longer sufficient to say you lived in the neighborhood to send your kids to the local school. For the first time, you had to get in line and spend the night in order to guarantee one of the coveted spots for your child in the kindergarten.
As Julia made her way to Lincoln Middle School, her class ended up being one of the last that took the trip out East to visit Washington DC as part of the Close-Up program. Julia took band where she played violin and was part of the color guard team with the marching band that took a trip to Disneyland where they marched down Main Street.
In high school, Julia’s interests turned to sports where she ramped up her passion for soccer. She had been playing club soccer for a couple of years and made the varsity team her freshman year. She also dug into leadership at the school where she served on the Spirit Committee and helped organize several school-wide events including a fund-raiser which raised thousands for families suffering after the fires in Paradise, California. She called the program Pennies for Paradise.
Alameda High School went through a number of physical upgrades while she attended. Seismic fences surrounded the old school building as the structure was deemed unsound. Over the four years Julia was there, major improvements were made and by her senior year, they finished with the classic structure you see in the photo below.
She took an interest in Psychology to the point where she convinced enough classmates to join her and put together an AP Psychology course. This interest served to focus her college search which brought her to Clark University which is known for its Psychology Department.
So Julia starts at Clark University in Massachusetts next year. Izumi and I sat in on a Q&A session and learned a little about the school’s plans to get started in the Fall. They will do everything they can to get everyone together for in-person instruction but are also planning on an extended Winter Break (Nov 20 – Feb 15) during which courses will be taught remotely should there be a second outbreak of the Coronavirus.
Izumi and I have been touched with the school’s inclusive approach. Their admissions package included not only the usual information and schwag for Julia but also a nice letter from the president, welcoming us to the community.
I think she’ll be in good hands. Congratulations Julia, I’m so excited to see what you do next!
My great-grandfather, Erlon H. Parker, flew bi-planes for the United States in World War I. As a Memorial Day project, I decided to pull on a few threads to see what else I could find about the man known in my family as “Skipper.”
The photo up top is Skipper in the cockpit of a biplane. Back then, planes were wood-framed and covered with canvas. When they first started flying they didn’t know how to synchronize machine guns with the prop so there was a danger of shooting the propeller off. Until they could work out the synchronization, the solution was too wrap the prop with bands of steel. Randomly ricocheted bullets was the solution which gives you an idea of how they did things in the early days.
Before that pilots went up with pistols which sounds quaintly like the Wild West. Other options included deploying a grappling hook on the end of some rope and try and cross your enemy’s path and tear up the their plane like some Afghan fighting kite.
This is what my great-grandfather signed up for.
Once the United States entered the war, the Army and Navy raced each other to see which service would get to Europe first. The Navy implemented a recruiting program to enlist men for aviation duty. 100 men were chosen, two from each state. Skipper, signing up from Maine, joined as a member of 1st Naval Aeronautic Detachment in Pensacola, Florida which eventually was winnowed down to 20 enlisted pilots.
On a family Zoom call, I learned that the fledgling unit left for Europe before any uniforms could be designed and made for them. Once they landed in France, (fun fact, they sailed to Europe on the USS Jupiter, the first aircraft carrier in the US Navy) they were instructed to go to a tailor and get a uniform made for themselves. Apparently everyone interpreted what a uniform of a naval airman should look like so the resulting uniforms were not very, um, uniform.
The group needed instruction as they had little practice flying. The French pilots agreed to train them but, because of the language barrier, they had to be creative.
One can only imagine how dodgy these early planes were. Nicknamed “flying eggcrates” there wasn’t much holding them together. These early engines were not very reliable some only good for 4-hours flying time. There was no radio so each plane went up with a carrier pigeon which was used to send home coordinates for a search party should they go down. There were also other uses for homing pigeons.
Skipper flew seaplanes (“flying boats”) that patrolled out over the ocean looking for enemy ships and submarines. They mostly would go out on reconnaissance but they also had some light bombs (basically hand grenades) that they could pitch over the side if they wanted to cause trouble.
I also learned from Skipper’s obituary that his squadron was credited with sinking two German submarines but that all he ever shot down were, “two seagulls.”
After the war, Skipper joined a fellow war pilot, Eddy Rickenbacker, as one of the first commercial pilots with Eastern Airlines where he flew the Ford Tri-motor “Tin Goose” on the route between Newark, NJ and Washington, DC. Captain Pete Parker, as he became known, became the Chief pilot with Eastern and flew the first flight out of North Beach, Long Island which is now known as La Guardia.
I have seen Captain Parker’s flight log at my parent’s house which records regular flights between Newark and Havana on a DC-3 back in the 1930’s. My great-grandmother used to tell of the time when they were passengers on a DC-3 going through choppy air. Everyone was getting ill from getting bounced around so Skipper asked his wife to excuse him and went up to the cockpit and politely asked if he could take over for a bit. The plane soon smoothed itself out to the delight of everyone on-board.
Skipper died before I was born but his stories and spirit last be on in my family. He is also the reason my middle name is Parker. I thank him for his service and hope you enjoyed this little celebration of his amazing life.
A California church invited its congregation for a Mother’s Day service in defiance of stay-at-home orders. A few days later, more than 180 people tested positive for Covid-19.
Protestors that drove hundreds of miles to Michigan for “Operation Gridlock” may have caught the virus and brought it back home. Anonymized location trails from cellphones show travelers returning home to neighboring states including Wyoming, Nebraska, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Utah.
A man who wrote on April 2nd, “my God is bigger than this Virus will ever be” is thinking twice after being struck down by Covid and passing it to his wife.
Maybe God’s plan is just to have us all pass the dutchie and chill. Researchers in Canada have discovered that cannabis sativa strains high in CDB reduce infection by 70 to 80 per cent.
Adding new irony to David Crosby’s song, Almost Cut My Hair, getting your hair cut is now an act of defiance.
A signed pair of Air Jordan’s worn by Michael Jordan during his 1984-85 rookie season was sold by Sotheby’s for $560,000, breaking a record for the most anyone paid for a pair of used sneakers.
Pandemic Fashion is here. For the beach we have the Trikini, a bikini with a matching mask.
The NFL is building in helmets with integrated masks.
The Oakland A’s missed their April rent payment on the Oakland Coliseum. Citing financial difficulty due to the pandemic, they owe $1.2 million or a little over two pair of Air Jordan sneaks. Then again, maybe they should ask Stripchat.com who wants to buy naming rights to the New Orleans Superdome from Mercedes-Benz.
The town of Fairfield, Alabama declared bankruptcy.
Everyone has tried their hand at baking sourdough bread. As expected, hacker types are extracting efficiencies with technology.
Zoom parodies. Zoom performances, Zoom reunions, Zoom weddings. Zoom adoptions and this week a trial by Zoom and broadcasted public confessions by Zoom.
Joe Exotic announced (from prison) a new fashion line. The Revenge line includes tiger-branded face masks.
Weather forecasting accuracy has been impacted by of the drop in air travel. Real-time data on temperature, wind and humidity from commercial airliners has been cut nearly 90 percent.
The Double-Rainbow guy passed away. Paul “Bear” Vasquez was 57.
Zoom conference calls are so common that they are now parodied. There are Zoom performances, Zoom reunions and Zoom weddings. And now you can adopt a dog over Zoom.
So far American Samoa has dodged the Covid pandemic. Zero deaths, zero cases. This week they announced their version of the state quarter, with a most unfortunate design.
Facebook spent $400 million for a collection of animated GIFs.
Americans spent $10.9 billion on video games in the first quarter of 2020, a new record. I’m pretty sure that record will be broken next quarter. It’s still impossible to buy a Nintendo Switch.
Taking a queue from a Chinese Elementary school, a cafe in Germany is asking customers to wear special hats to enforce social distancing.
Here in America, some restaurants are allowed to open for dining but require patrons to wear masks. Wondering how to eat with a mask? A woman in Florida is on the case.
A three-star restaurant is seating mannequins at tables to fill up the required empty space between diners.
Facial recognition technology providers are scrambling to recalibrate their software to a world where everyone is wearing a face mask. The next release of iOS will support a mask mode on Face ID.
Spotting an opportunity, DEVO has brushed off their stock of iconic red, energy dome caps and fitting them with face shields to make the perfect PPE.
Tune in today at 2pm Pacific to witness the graduation ceremony for the UC Berkeley Class of 2020 at which will take place entirely within the virtual Minecraft recreation of the campus.
Looking for some way to help those less fortunate? Check out the 1kproject and connect directly with families in need.
