This is one of these videos where it's cool, then kinda lulls in the center, but the pay-off at the end is totally worth it.

Ever since Rosetta Stone kickstarted the online language learning craze, there are now almost as many language learning services out there as there are languages to learn. Yet while many of their methods vary, most of these programs come back to the tried and true online learning model: instruction through an app and YouTube videos. […]

From The Independent: The Lindt & Spruengli company confirmed local reports on Tuesday that there was a minor defect in the cooling ventilation for a line for roasted "cocoa nibs" in its factory in Olten, between Zurich and Basel. […] Combined with strong winds on Friday morning, the powder spread around the immediate vicinity of the factory, […]

TMZ reports that a 3-foot-tall dildo, weighing in at 40 pounds, was stolen in the middle of the day from a sex shop in Las Vegas. The dildo, which is affectionately known as "The Moby," as in Dick, for reasons that I suppose are rather obvious, retails for $1250. However, it's also available on Amazon […]

SPOT (NYSE) Taking something boring and turning it into something beautiful is a real talent, and that's exactly what Gladys of Stoxart has done. She's turned stock charts into lovely illustrations of landscapes. It's easy to see why she calls herself a "data visual insights innovator." The stock market is a story worth telling so […]

As the name suggests, Kookslams is a curated collection of watersport noobs (aka kooks) getting slammed by waves, other kooks, immovable objects, and what-not. It may be the most apt metaphor for this year. Image: Instagram / Kookslams

Apple today became the first 2-trillion dollar American company, after becoming the first trillion dollar US company just two years ago. Microsoft ($1.59T) and Amazon ($1.65T) are in second and third place, respectively. Breaking News: Apple is now worth $2 trillion. It doubled its value since the pandemic-induced recession, cementing its dominance in the global […]

It's been a year since the last season of Stranger Things and production of season four has obviously been held up by the pandemic. According to the show's creators Ross and Matt Duffer, season four, when it finally does happen, won't be the forever finale. From the Hollywood Reporter: What's the status of shooting season […]

In response to Goodyear Tires corporate policy that allows folks to wear items that display their support of racial justice and other issues of equity, but not racist red baseball caps, Orange Julius rages forth on Twitter! The sitting President of the United States is calling for a boycott of an American company. I run […]

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer on a live feed just before her Democratic National Convention speech: "It's Shark Week, motherfuckers." I love it when politicians break character.

Jack White and Third Man Records are holding an online auction for all the crap (and some good stuff) they dug out of the recording studio, storage space, and personal collections. The showpiece is obviously the red drum kit used in The White Stripes' "Hardest Button" video but there are more than one hundred other […]

The dazzling new version of Microsoft Flight Simulator is finally out, and virtual pilots are exploring a realistic and detailed world generated algorithmically from mapping data. This procedural technique allows one to fly anywhere on planet Earth, but it results in oddities when the system misinterprets the data. Oddities such as an uncanny and vaguely […]

California governor Gavin Newsom ordered a statewide state of emergency Tuesday, as at least 30 separate wildfires blaze uncontrolled throughout the state. In the San Francisco Bay Area on Wednesday thousands of people in the potential path of wildfire are under orders to evacuate their homes. In San Francisco, and other California cities, the skies […]

Tay Zonday, your meme is ready! This week in Olten, Switzerland, cocoa powder fell from the sky. The strange and delicious phenomena was the result of a ventilation system malfunction at the Lindt & Spruengli confection factory. From UPI: The company said strong winds in recent days caused the powder to spread around the surrounding […]

Health-related disinformation content on Facebook received an estimated 3.8 billion views over the past year, and has surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, says advocacy group Avaaz in a new report released Wednesday. Read the Avaaz Report: "Facebook's Algorithm: A Major Threat to Public Health" From Reuters: The report found that content from 10 "superspreader" sites […]

"Look at the horizon glow." Created by Teo Domani. (YouTube, thanks Lux Sparks-Pescovitz!)

A German icebreaker ship carrying scientists on a year-long international expedition through the high Arctic finally reached the North Pole, after melting sea ice forced an emergency detour. From AP: Expedition leader Markus Rex said Wednesday the RV Polarstern was able to reach the geographic North Pole because of large openings in sea ice that […]

Martin Shkreli's ongoing jail term isn't the end of his legal troubles, and a federal judge rejected his latest effort to bring them to a close, allowing a lawsuit against him filed by New York's attorney general to proceed. The lawsuit accuses Shkreli, a former pharmaceutical executive, of illegally "trying to monopolize the lifesaving drug […]

Even a decade ago, creating your own video games took a monumental investment of time and attention. Now, the advent of insanely powerful game engines and creation environments like Unity have shaved considerable time off the average build. Yet make no mistake — making a game is still no minor effort. And it still requires […]

Yale University's doors are opening to incoming students despite the pandemic, and one administrator, Head of College and psychology professor Laurie Santos, plainly told them the disease may kill them there this semester and that life will look more like hospital than college. In a July 1 email to Silliman College residents when Yale first […]

This video shows a black smoke ring floating over Santa Clara, California. What do you think caused it? Perhaps more troubling for San Francisco football fans, it wafted over Levi Stadium, home of the seemingly doomed 49s. Here's another one from Denver, last year, attributed to "the pyrotechnics used during a Supercross event at Mile […]

Vice's Motherboard reports that the US Secret Service paid for a product called Locate X that collects location data from tons of shady cell phone apps. It's the kind of information that you might not even realize you're giving away — that the app might not even tell you that it's collecting. It's also the […]

As someone who spent years needing the assistance of a wheel chair, seeing these miniatures made me very happy. It's wonderful to think of special needs kids (and adults) being able to see characters they can relate to, whether they choose to roleplay that way or not. I love the attention to detail in the […]

Regarding the coronavirus pandemic that has killed at least 160,000 Americans, possibly more like 200,000 Americans, and counting, President Donald J. Trump tweeted tonight, Tuesday August 18: 'Tell the Dems that we have more Cases because we do FAR more Testing than any other Country! Tell the Dems that we have more Cases because we […]

Following a virtual roll call that spanned 50 states and 7 territories, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was formally nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate. It is the honor of my life to accept the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States of America. #DemConvention — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 19, 2020 […]

We all know global data is growing exponentially. But when you sit back and really look at the numbers, you might still be surprised at exactly how fast all that data is piling up. By next year, the accumulated world data is expected to reach 44 zettabytes, a tenfold increase over the 4.4 zettabytes we've […]

A cop allegedly flashed the "OK" sign, appropriated lately as plausibly-deniable symbol by white supremacists and right-wing provocateurs, at protestors. This does not mean the officer, named as Ryan Olthaus in an official complaint, is either of those things, and he is suing several bloggers who suggested that he is. In addition to this, however, […]

Massive lava tubes under the surface of the Moon and Mars could be prime real estate for future offworld habitats. "With heights that dwarf Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, and 'skylights' as big as football fields," the formations could contain small cities protected from solar radiation, reports LiveScience. According to a new study […]

In 1991, four developers created the original Mortal Kombat, a fighting game that upset adults because of its ultraviolence before growing into a massive media franchise. The characters were digitized sprites (two-dimensional bitmaps) based on the above video recordings of live actors kicking, punching, jumping around, and walking on a treadmill. It wasn't until Mortal […]

Night one of the Democratic National Convention closed out with this highly stylized and dead-on-for-our times rendition of Buffalo Springfield's 1966 protest anthem For What It's Worth.

What if Solo: A Star Wars Story starred a young Harrison Ford? It would make perfect sense in a timeline where Ewan McGregor played Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope:

Hardly exciting news in 2020! Someone has been diagnosed with the plague in South Lake Tahoe, CA. Last seen in nearby Yosemite National Park, bubonic plague is spread by fleas that ride on rats and mice. LA Times: Health officials have confirmed a case of plague at South Lake Tahoe — the first in California […]

Yello's "Out Of Sight" will give you Max Headroom flashbacks if you're of a certain age. Or maybe Right Said Fred, or maybe, if you are a total 80s kid, you will know the Swiss duo by name for their immortal contribution to Ferris Bueller's Day Off and many other soundtracks. Ohhhh yeah! Image: YouTube […]

Again, everything old** is new again. Now we've got a remake of John Hughes' Plane, Trains, and Automobiles which will pair Will Smith and Kevin Hart. The original 1987 road-buddy comedy starred Steve Martin and John Candy. Variety: The remake will be a modern update of the original, with Smith and Hart playing characters who […]

Something exciting is happening at the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers. Its massive Amorphophallus titanum, aka corpse flower, is in bloom! Catch "Terra the Titan," as they've named it, on their livestream while you can. The flower, which is known to bloom every seven to 10 years or so, will only be open for roughly […]

American DJs Harrison Mills and Clayton Knight from Odesza teamed up with Australian DJ Golden Features (aka Thomas George Stell) to form Bronson, and they are coming out of the gate with "Keep Moving," complete with a fabulous video by StyleWar. The video takes dreadful corporate stock footage tropes and turns them even more nightmarish […]

Instagrammer mimles does some impressive optical illusions on her own face, but this is impressive even by her high standards: she turned her own head upside down. Scroll through her post to see how she did it. Another post includes a video that shows how real it looked live: Image: Instagram / mimles

Just a few months ago, walking into a supermarket or convenience store with your head and face completely covered would have seemed…strange. Now, wandering aisles full of masked and hidden fellow shoppers is entirely commonplace. We're all in a brave new world — and while mask life appears like it will be a part of […]

Former First Lady Michelle Obama's necklace during her Democratic National Convention speech reads: V-O-T-E If you look closely, Michelle Obama's necklace reads V-O-T-E pic.twitter.com/5V5LfujLnW — philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) August 18, 2020 Michelle Obama on Trump: 'Clearly in over his head'

The Financial Times reports that Larry Ellison's Oracle has entered the race to acquire TikTok. The short video sharing social media app is Chinese-owned, under attack by Donald Trump, and is also being pursued by Microsoft. A group is reportedly working with investors on behalf of Oracle in an effort to outbid Microsoft after the […]

Impeached U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday he plans to pardon a "very, very important" person on Tuesday. He then added it would not be Edward Snowden or ex national security adviser Michael Flynn. "Doing a pardon tomorrow on someone who is very, very important," Trump told reporters on Air Force One. NEW: On the […]

For anyone with designs on understanding or even getting hired in a computer science field, instruction like the Discrete Mathematics Course offers a building block skill set that can be applied across all kinds of disciplines. In case you're worried that all sounds incredibly dry, you'll certainly feel better in the hands of instructor Miran […]

In the last few weeks, school administrators have sent letters to parents and guardians announcing their plans for starting school in the middle of a pandemic. In McSweeney's, Kara Baskin penned a perfect parody of those letters. As a very wise person once said, "it's funny 'cause it's true." Teachers, you have my sympathy and […]

In the 1980s, someone stashed some beer and gum behind books at the Walla Walla Library in Washington State. The library is closed due to COVID-19 and undergoing renovations. From CNN: During the demolition three weeks ago, five full cans of Hamm's beer and an opened pack of Godzilla Heads gum was found in a […]

The year 2020 has basically kicked down that door and dragged us all into the Zoom age, whether we like it or not. And now that we're basically inviting our boss, co-workers and other business associates into our homes via video, we've unwittingly stumbled into all kinds of new potential for embarrassment. Like when you're […]

Reading supermarket tabloids causes cancer and kills thousands each year, a shocking new study has revealed.

#lackrackNeed a network rack in a pinch? £5. IKEA LACK Rack. pic.twitter.com/Wn257GEqWr — Paul Curry (@cr3) August 14, 2020 I recently saw a Lack Rack—an inexpensive Ikea Lack table put to use rackmounting servers—and now I keep running into them. Pictured above is Paul Curry's £5 example, replete with vinyl wood texture. They need little […]

On Monday, August 10, the White House released a fact sheet about "President Trump's Historic Coronavirus Response." It is — perhaps unsurprisingly — full of shit. While I suppose one could argue that any action taken during a 21st century pandemic is inherently "historic" inasmuch as it has no historical precedent due to the unstoppable […]

President Donald Trump requested a mail-in ballot for Florida's Tuesday primary election, despite weeks of spewing hot lying garbage all over the place about how voting by mail means cats and dogs and zombies will get the vote. On Wednesday, ballots for POTUS and for FLOTUS Melania Trump were sent to the Trump Mar-a-Lago resort. […]

Epic Games has rejected Apple's 30% app tax. In the past Epic has owned every single partner or vendor and managed to hold on to all the value. Anyone remember Twitch? Or the streamers? Or organized eSports? Epic took the whole pie. Epic may be close to winning the next round of the entertainment advertising […]