I watch a lot of explaining videos, and Technology Connections makes some of the best. The host is knowledgeable, explains things clearly, and is funny, to boot. And this episode he talks about retroreflectors, which are reflective surfaces that send light back to its source with very little scattering. This is very useful for road […]

Paramecia are tiny near-animals that feed on algae, yeast, and bacteria. Journey to the Microcosmos put its new microscope to good use making a short film about one of paramecia's foes, a bacteria called Holospora, which infect paramecia and make their way to its nuclei.

After Trump's final speech at the Republican National Convention, Leonard Cohen's classic song "Hallelujah" was heard twice, albeit a cover recording by Tori Keller and live opera performance by Christopher Macchio. Leonard Cohen's estate did not, um, praise the use of the classic song. Now, they are "exploring their legal options." Meanwhile, Cohen's publisher, SONY/ATV, […]

Elon Musk confirmed last week that a Tesla employee reported a credible ransomware plot. The employee had been offered $1 million dollars to install the ransomware at their Giga Nevada facility, according to the FBI. Via Wired, which has excellent coverage of the details: Earlier this month, according to a recently unsealed criminal complaint, a […]

Blending all the colors of a seaside vista, Jukebox Print shared this lovely footage of their letterpress being inked. This overprint instructable with neon Pantone shades is really cool, too! Image: YouTube . Jukebox Printing

In 2019, climate scientists deliberately locked The Polarstern into an Arctic ice floe about 500 km from the North Pole, taking detailed and novel measurements. Scientist Gunnar Spreen of MOSAiC, aka the Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate, shared a grim report about the summer melt. Via Earther: But there should not […]

Boyce Langston from Living Big in a Tiny House visits Keith and Jen, who created a yellow submarine in their backyard. It started with a small grain silo that Keith bought for next to nothing, then they kept adding little flourishes. Now they use it as a bed and breakfast or a guest house. Boyce […]

Kraig Adams makes beautiful and soothing documentaries about his hiking alone on scenic trails, like this 70-mile hike on the Sawtooth Loop Trail in Idaho. With just a touch of quiet music underneath the nature sounds, and the occasional drone shot, these are a very relaxing way to spend an afternoon working. They're great for […]

Ohio-based Michael Dutko must be nuts about squirrels, or maybe he's just a little nuts. Either way, he's crafted an amazing "Nutty Bar" that offers seven kinds of nuts on tap for his backyard bushy-tailed critters. Hilarious! KDKA: Dutko said he built it to help his neighbor with her bird-watching hobby. "The whole reason I […]

Staring at the blank page is often the most intimidating moment of any writing project. Deciding exactly what to say and how to say it can be nerve-racking. If you're writing fiction, you've also got a whole separate set of questions that need answering. Have you worked out your story beats? Have you defined your […]

Police broke up an illegal all-night rave on Sunday in Thetford Forest in eastern England. The rave raid came days after the British government launched a crackdown on "serious breaches" of COVID-19 restrictions. Potential fines for breaking the rules are as much as 10,000 pounds ($13,000). From Reuters: Dozens of officers, some holding protective shields, […]

United Airlines on Sunday released a video saying they've listened to customer complaints and will end their standard $200 fee for changing a ticket for travel within the United States. "When we hear from customers about where we can improve, getting rid of fees is often the top request," United CEO Scott Kirby said in […]

Utah's KSL-TV reports a 55-year-old man from Syracuse, Utah, is dead after likely being gored by a bison. Utah State Parks issued this statement about the suspected bison attack: A 55-year-old man was critically injured today while trail running at Antelope Island State Park. Two women who were on the Antelope Island State Park Lakeside […]

Every week, Boing Boing inundates you with attention-worthy offers for cool stuff. And frankly, it's probably too much cool stuff — because there's no realistic way you could follow along and keep track of it all. Our bad. Enthusiasm can get the better of us all. But we can get pretty excited about these deals […]

YouTuber SG Yap got some great footage of the new Apple Marina Bay Sands location in Singapore. The landmark Apple Store is the first floating store in the world. Via Apple: We will soon open the doors to our new store by the Bay.Apple Marina Bay Sands will be at the heart of creativity, a place we've made for […]

I really enjoyed Stephen Colbert's live post-event coverage of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. By far, my favorite moment each night was the introduction to the coverage, with animated Avengers: Endgame parodies. For the DNC, Biden becomes Captain America, Kamala Harris Captain Marvel, and Elizabeth Warren as the Scarlet Witch, among others. Kasich is […]

Nobody thinks they're going to get into an accident, which is half the reason why bicycle riders often sneer at wearing a helmet. The other half of the reason is obvious — helmets usually make you look incredibly dorky. So the trick for any manufacturer is coming up with a helmet that's both cool as […]

YouTuber Seth Everman plays just four notes on his piano and asks, "What's the name of this song?" <clickbait voice>The answer may surprise you!</clickbait voice> (The Awesomer) screengrab via SethEverman

Leatherface with a chainsaw or Karen with a cell phone – who really strikes fear into the hearts of men in 2020? This latex mask sculpted by artist Jason Adcock captures the true horror underneath the haircut. Be sure to talk your partner into dressing up like the manager of Arby's for an unbeatable couple's […]

My first son was born in early June. As terrifying as it was to have a premature child during an outbreak of police violence in the middle of a pandemic, it was made worse by The Pout-Pout Fish. I don't know which of my mom's friends (presumably) bought us this book at the baby shower. […]

Twitter user Sean Kelly AKA StorySlug shared an insightful Twitter thread about the Dark Knight after the release of the new trailer for The Batman. He addresses some of the problematic elements of the Batman mythos — like the idea of a billionaire beating up petty criminals and working with the police — by looking […]

As if Reality2020 wasn't horrifying enough, George Davila fed the King James Bible into a Boltzmannian natural-language processing model. He then asked the AI to write in the King James style about three topics: the Plague, Caesar, and the End of Days. Let's take a look at one of those results: The End of Days.And […]

According to ISoldMyHouse.com, an online service for people who want to sell their homes without an agent, conducted a survey of 5,000 Americans to gauge their belief in ghosts and haunted houses. They claim that 55% of those surveyed admit to believing in the supernatural and 61% wouldn't buy a house they suspected was haunted. […]

Between 2000-2016 the U.S. government seized over 2 billion dollars from U.S. airport travelers. The vast majority of these people were not charged with a crime. The Institute for Justice highlights one such case involving a retired railroad engineer and his daughter: Retired railroad engineer Terry Rolin's life savings were seized by the government, but […]

On Wednesday, police in Cologne, Germany responded to multiple reports of gunfire at an apartment complex in the city's Ehrenfeld district. Multiple units surrounded two residences and searched the area. Eventually, the discovered the truth and order was restored. From Polizei NRW Köln: After an added lockdown service opened a locked door, the reason behind […]

AnimeGan2 is a neural network that converts photos into images that look like anime art. It was trained with a data set of anime feature films by Hayao Miyazaki (The Wind Rises). Makoto Shinkai (Your Name and Weathering with You), and Satoshi Kon (Paprika).

The world would be better off without gold mines, argues JP Koning. What would happen if mines (which are big polluters) stopped producing 3,000 tonnes of gold annually so we had to make do with what we already have (around 190,000 tonnes)? We already have enough to meet our needs for electronic circuitry and other […]

Endoculus is a miniature robotic that can drive through your intestines on treads, streaming video and grabbing tissue samples with its electromechanical forceps. Developed by University of Colorado engineers, Edoculus or its descendants could someday replace the tubular scopes that physicians snake up our rectums during a colonoscopy. Evan Ackerman writes in IEEE Spectrum: Endoculus […]

Japanese monkeys who try to eat crops in Japan's Fukui prefecture are the targets of the Monkey Busters, a team of three airsoft gun-toting women between the ages of 67 and 74. One of Monkey Busters told The Fukui Shimbun that her squad has no tolerance for monkeys who "damage the precious vegetables made by […]

Viral today is this brief but charming clip of an old Japanese landline phone ringing. It's adorable! Below, evidence that this is or was a normal ring in Japan, for any "Japanese phones had a nice ring" disbelievers out there.

A lot of things suck right now, but not this. Every night I would get an alert from my driveway security camera, and at first I was a bit annoyed, but then I found myself looking forward to the evening alert. And then inspiration struck, in the form of my wife giving me this great […]

My friend gave me a bass guitar she didn't want anymore because she was moving. It's a great bass but I didn't have a way to store it, or several of the other guitars, ukuleles, banjo ukes, and cigar box guitars around the house. I bought a few of these inexpensive guitar wall mount 2-packs […]

I subscribe to the excellent daily newsletter The Browser, which has recommendations of 5 interesting articles that I would otherwise miss. It recently linked to an article in Strelka Mag that makes it clear that pulling carbon out of the atmosphere to reduce global warming is a big undertaking: Keynesian thought-experiment in climate change. If […]

Someone on Reddit did a bit of sleuthing and discovered that an American kid with no knowledge of the Scots language wrote almost every single article on the Scots version of Wikipedia. He offered up the following examples: Blaise Pascal (19 Juin 1623 – 19 August 1662) wis a French mathematician, pheesicist, inventor, writer an […]

For the most part, we're all sticking close to home this summer. And that's not just international trips or jet setting across the country that are on hold. Even traditional car travel is expected to finish down at least 15 percent from last year's figures. It will be the first decline in U.S. summer travel […]

"I don't know much about the NBA protests. I know their ratings have been very bad." — Trump Impeached President Donald Trump says the @NBA has become like a political organization, and the corrupt wannabe-dictator says he doesn't think that's good for the country. "People are tired of the NBA," he says at a news […]

Junglefowl (aka wild chickens) are wisely fearful of humans. Researchers from Linköping University were able to catch some junglefowl and selectively breed the ones who showed the least fear of humans. After 10 generations, "the offspring acquired smaller brains and found it easier to become accustomed to frightening but non-hazardous events." "We believe that the ability […]

The Wonder Woman 1984 trailer gives us tantalizing glimpses at some of the villains, including Kristen Wiig as Cheetah and Pedro Pascal as Maxwell Lord, a "desperate, self-obsessed, fraudulent entrepreneur who runs a business selling the American Dream," according to Associate Producer Anna Obropta. Looks familiar! Images: YouTube / DC Comics

Sing along with members of Pantera, Slayer, Mastodon, and 97 other metal musicians performing the folk standard "99 Bottles of Beer!" Listen here: From Spin: The project was put together by Scour's Derek Engemann and Nest's John Jarvis. All proceeds from the song will benefit the Old Dog Haven, a charity that helps old dogs find homes. […]

Oakland's Zide Door "Church of Entheogenic Plants" began as a private club where you could purchase marijuana. Then last year, after the City of Oakland decriminalized entheogenic plants, Zide Door expanded to include psilocybin mushrooms. Last week though, police raided Zide Door and confiscated $200,000, weed, and shrooms. According to authorities, police had warned co-founder […]

Baidu offers a satellite map service much like Google's or Microsoft's. Based in China, it is subject to rigorous censorship. By comparing conspiciously blanked-out areas on Baidu Maps to the corresponding regions in western mapping services, Buzzfeed uncovered a network of prisons and internment camps in Xinjiang. But there's more: also concealed this way are […]

This gentleman made a wonderful Sleestak costume to wear around Portland because Sleestak are cool. Sleestak are very slow and kinda dumb, however, and I totally get Enik's depression. Having watched the RNC I too feel like our culture has lost something. Amazing theme songs.

While we don't have the stats in front of us, you know the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas has seen a whole lot of earbuds and earbud manufacturers make their way through the show over the years. Dozens? For sure. Hundreds? Likely. Yet after all those buds, the CES Innovation Awards still saw […]

The black ink in Sakura Pigma pens is very rich. I love sketching with them. This set of six has nibs ranging from 0.20mm in diameter up to 0.50mm. They're cheap, too!

On October 30, 1961, the USSR detonated RDS-220, aka the Tsar Bomba, the most powerful nuclear bomb ever tested. The hydrogen bomb blast yielded the explosive force of around 50 megatons of TNT. That's more than 3,000 times more destructive than the US bomb dropped on Hiroshima. From the New York Times: In an interview, Alex […]

Cory Doctorow's new short book, How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism, was just published in its entirety on OneZero. Below is Cory's Twitter thread that summarizes his argument that the problem with surveillance capitalism isn't that it big tech has AI-enhanced power to brainwash people, the problem is that big tech uses its monopoly power in […]

Michael Pick created a fully-functional miniature "iMac", slicing down a Raspberry Pi 4 (with a Dremel!) to fit inside his custom-printed case. He takes us through the process of designing the device and assembling it; the keyboard is the only retail item left unhacked. At that size, you'd never know it was running Twister OS, […]

From Rolling Stone: A new Trump administration rule relaxing guidelines that govern the transport of liquefied natural gas could create "bomb trains" with enough explosive power to level whole cities, environmental groups say. A coalition of organizations led by the nonprofit Earthjustice has sued the administration, challenging the rule, which is scheduled to go into effect on […]

Ron Fein has written a delightful new piece for McSweeney's imagining Arkham County Health Inspector Herbert West ní Re-Animator reviewing a proposal from Miskatonic University to safely re-open their campus in a way that will protect students from an outbreak of COVID-19. Coronavirus safety guidelines are difficult of course, though perhaps not as difficult as […]

My pal Hugh D'Andrade mocked up this "2020 Funpocalypse" bingo card in response to humorous social media posts he was seeing by artist Isabel Samaras. With each disaster, she's been joking, "OK, who had {insert terrible thing} on their 2020 Bingo card?" What is it missing? Oh, other terrible 2020 stuff like "police murder of […]