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Honest Trailers tackles Backrooms, the horror franchise where the monster is fear and the production designer apparently died in a 1990s office park.The creepiest place in America is not a haunted house or even the supermarket. Fear is a corporate office building devoid of cubicles. - Read the rest The post Honest Trailers gets lost in the beige hell of Backrooms appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Snag alifetime family license to VideoProc Converter AI for Windowsfor only $29.97 (MSRP $119.90) through tonight at midnight.It happens to the best of us -you capture something incredible on video, only to watch it back and realize your hands were shaky. - Read the rest The post This $30 AI tool can transform old, blurry videos in just a few clicks (MSRP $120) appeared first on Boing Boing.

Most invented languages try to say everything. Toki Pona tries to say just enough - with about 120 words and 14 sounds. The Canadian translator Sonja Lang built it in 2001, while she was struggling with depression, as a way to simplify her own thoughts. - Read the rest The post A whole language built from about 120 words appeared first on Boing Boing.

About a decade ago, Jia Tolentino argues in a New Yorker essay, famous faces on Instagram began converging on one look - plumper lips, catlike eyes, sharper cheekbones. People edited their faces in selfies, then had surgeons reshape the real thing to match. - Read the rest The post The new invisible facelift moves the face like a Halloween mask appeared first on Boing Boing.

There's hot, and then there's so-hot-you-have-to-stand-in-a-public-fountain-while-yodeling hot. According to the Associated Press, the heat in Basel, Switzerland, was so intense recently that contestants and performers at the nation's annual yodeling festival,Eidgenossisches Jodlerfest, had to take to public fountainsto make singing their lungs out tolerable. - Read the rest The post Swiss Yodelers retreat to fountains to beat brutal heat appeared first on Boing Boing.

Back in the Era of Twitter, comedian/improvisor/actor/writer/pop culture expert Connor Ratliff would do these GIANT threads, hundreds of tweets long, exhaustively covering a topic, like Elvis Costello or Goofy cartoons. He'd go through an entire oeuvre, offering his insightful written commentary, but also presenting videos of the music/film in each tweet so you could see the content as he explained it. - Read the rest The post Watch every Road Runner cartoon with pop culture expert (and comedian) Connor Ratliff appeared first on Boing Boing.

Another week, another Saul4Democracy video. For the uninitiated, this is a web series run by Better Call Saul co-creator Peter Gould, featuring actors Bob Odenkirk and Jonathan Banks back in their iconic characters. Rather than a continuation of BCS (which was itself kind of a continuation of Breaking Bad), Saul4Democracy is more of a disconnected series of PSAs covering various aspects of American politics, for better or worse. - Read the rest The post Mike Ehrmantraut gets his moment in the newest Saul4Democracy PSA appeared first on Boing Boing.

Most mountain documentaries build toward the summit. This one builds toward the last few meters climbers refuse to touch, out of respect for Mount Kangchenjunga, the third-tallest peak on Earth.This video follows the southwest Yalung Face route from base camp across the Yalung Glacier, through camps, seracs, and crevasses, over the Great Shelf, the Gangway, and along the exposed summit ridge. - Read the rest The post The mountain where climbers stop short of the summit on purpose appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR:TheAivolut AI Book Creatorcan turn your notes and ideas into full books, and a lifetime subscription is only $119 right now.Nobody tells you this, but most of the work of writing a book is not writing it. - Read the rest The post Turn your ideas into full-length books-Get a lifetime subscription on sale for $119 appeared first on Boing Boing.

TRMNL is a battery-powered e-ink display that sits on a desk, shelf or refrigerator and shows the information you choose-calendars, weather, sales pipelines, transit times, the latest church wall collapse news, etc.-without pinging, glowing, irradiating your genitals or otherwise demanding attention. - Read the rest The post TRMNL: hackable e-ink dashboard to put anywhere appeared first on Boing Boing.

In 1977, a special-education center opened in Managua with 50 deaf children. Enrollment reached 400 across two schools by 1983. Teachers drilled the students in spoken Spanish and lipreading, "with most pupils failing to grasp the concept of Spanish words," according to Wikipedia. - Read the rest The post Deaf kids in 1980s Nicaragua created a language from thin air appeared first on Boing Boing.

The Coso artifact, dug from a California hillside in 1961 and claimed to be prehistoric, was "actually a 1920s spark plug that had become encased in a concretion." It belongs to the category of the out-of-place artifact, or OOPArt - an object found where it seems to "challenge conventional historical chronology by its presence in that context," as Wikipedia puts it. - Read the rest The post The ancient spark plug and other "out-of-place artifacts" appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR:Get lifetime access to Microsoft Office 2024 Pro Plus for Windows for $54.99 (MSRP $249.99) withWord, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and more in a one-time license.Subscription fatigue is real. Between cloud storage, streaming services, and software tools, it can feel like everything you use is quietly becoming another monthly bill. - Read the rest The post This permanent $55 Microsoft Office deal was made for people who want stability over subscriptions appeared first on Boing Boing.

In 1913, the Strand Magazine invited contributors and readers to propose solutions to the mystery of the Mary Celeste, the ship found sailing crewless in 1872. One answer arrived from an apparently impeccable source: A. Howard Linford of Magdalen College, Oxford, headmaster of Hampstead's largest prep school, who claimed an old servant named Abel Fosdyk had left him papers on his deathbed. - Read the rest The post In 1872 a ship was found drifting, empty. The 1913 "solution" was absurd. appeared first on Boing Boing.

Dolphins, ducks, and fur seals can put half the brain into deep sleep while the other half stays awake and watching for predators. Chiara Cirelli's lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison wondered whether you could force that trick in an animal that doesn't do it naturally - and, as New Scientist reports, get some of sleep's benefits without the sleep. - Read the rest The post Scientists gave sleep-deprived mice a memory boost without letting them sleep appeared first on Boing Boing.

Police in Oban, Scotland, charged a man with assault after he allegedly grabbed two live seagulls and attacked someone in the street outside the railway station there. The incident took place in Queens Park Place on Saturday, June 27, but the circumstances of the assault haven't been reported. - Read the rest The post Scotsman dual-wielded live seagulls in assault appeared first on Boing Boing.

A new lawsuit against OpenAI says ChatGPT told a suicidal user, "Let me be that person," while allegedly encouraging her to keep talking to the chatbot instead of calling a crisis hotline.SFGATE reports that Carrier's lawsuit cites transcripts where ChatGPT allegedly responded to her daughter's suicidal thoughts with intimate, therapist-like language, including "Let me be that person." - Read the rest The post ChatGPT told a suicidal user, "let me be that person," lawsuit says appeared first on Boing Boing.

Trump used the presidency to boost a right-wing post targeting Muslim kindergartners in hijabs, because apparently five-year-old girls in graduation caps are now a national emergency.This was not a fight over curriculum or school policy. It was a video of children at a graduation ceremony, repackaged as a culture-war alarm bell because the girls were Muslim and visibly so. - Read the rest The post Trump sics his hate machine on kindergartners because hijabs appeared first on Boing Boing.

Email aliases have one job: to hide your actual email address. Having an alias that you can use to sign up for new online subscriptions, newsletters, or to give out to folks you want to keep at arm's length is a treat that helps to maintain your privacy and keep your legit contact information from being passed along to gods know how many different marketers and Nigerian princes. - Read the rest The post Apple's Hide My Email leaked real addresses for a year appeared first on Boing Boing.

There are few movies that have had a longer-lasting influence on our culture than Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. Its fingerprints are all over the video games we love, books we devour, and countless films that aspire to find its magic combination of dread, cheese, and homoeroticism but never seem to get it right. - Read the rest The post Lord Humungus actor Kjell Nilsson dead at 76 appeared first on Boing Boing.

It hasn't been easy to be a Plex user these past few years. I mean, yeah, setting up a Plex server on your computer or NAS? Easy as taking the nose off a leper. But friendo, you're gonna pay for the privilege. - Read the rest The post Plex's five-year plan costs what a lifetime pass used to appeared first on Boing Boing.

I can't say I didn't see this coming after Rockstar announced that GTA 6 wouldn't get a physical release. Or, to be honest, after the PS5 and Xbox Series consoles charged an extra fee for a disc drive.I at least thought that they'd wait until the next generation, though. - Read the rest The post The age of physical games begins to come to a close as PlayStation discontinues discs appeared first on Boing Boing.

"Weird Al" Yankovic pulled out of his participation in a commercial for a business software company when he found out it is an artificial intelligence company.In Syracuse, NY for his "Bigger and Weirder" tour, he told Geoff Herbert of Syracuse.com - Read the rest The post No AI for Al. "Weird Al" Yankovic yanks AI commercial appeared first on Boing Boing.

What does a city sound like when you turn its transit system into a musical instrument? This clever web project answers that question by transforming the live movements of Los Angeles Metro trains and buses into an evolving ambient soundtrack. Every note is triggered by a real vehicle arriving at a real station, so the composition is constantly changing throughout the day. - Read the rest The post This site turns LA Metro trains into ambient music appeared first on Boing Boing.

Nashville International Airport's control tower has 27 certified air traffic controllers, according to NPR's report on the U.S. air travel crunch - the FAA's target is 52. It's one symptom of a national bottleneck: airlines fly more passengers than ever on fewer flights than 20 years ago, and TSA expects to screen over 18 million travelers during Fourth of July week alone. - Read the rest The post Nashville's control tower has 27 controllers; the FAA wants 52 appeared first on Boing Boing.

This cute video from Australia shows a baby kangaroo reacting to a persistent magpie that keeps swooping and circling nearby. Instead of being scared, the joey starts batting at the air in quick, clumsy little motions, as if trying to join in the game. - Read the rest The post Baby kangaroo swats at swooping magpie in playful Australia video appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR:Learn piano through interactive lessons, AI feedback, and guided songs at your own pace with lifetime access to Skoove Premium for $104.99 (MSRP $299.99) with promo codeJULY30until July 5.Learning piano usually comes down to two options - traditional lessons or trying to figure it out alone. - Read the rest The post This app makes learning piano feel less like practice and more like progress - on sale for $104.99 for life appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Browse, stream, and download safely with the5-year AdGuard VPN subscriptionfor $34.99 (reg. $359.40) with code July30.If you're looking for a good VPN that provides solid security along with relief from geo-restrictions, why not choose the one created by a trusted developer renowned for its computer privacy and security? - Read the rest The post AdGuard VPN is now just $35 for 5 years of access appeared first on Boing Boing.

A newly described spider in North Queensland rainforest hunts exactly one prey species - the green tree ant, an insect so aggressive most predators avoid it - by building a silk trap that flings the ant into its web. Macquarie University researchers, writing in Current Biology, found the spider builds a cone of 15 to 60 bundled silk lines near the ground, coats it with a pheromone that lures worker ants into biting it, then retreats. - Read the rest The post This spider flings ants 30 centimeters into its trap appeared first on Boing Boing.

A synthetic cell built from scratch - no living components, just liposomes, DNA, and 36 commercial enzymes standing in for protein synthesis - grew, copied its own DNA, and split into two, according to Quanta's report on this synthetic-cell milestone: the first time researchers have watched an artificial cell complete a full division cycle. - Read the rest The post A synthetic cell grew, copied its DNA, and split in two appeared first on Boing Boing.

Starting in November 2000, a poster using the handle TimeTravel_0 showed up on an internet forum called the Time Travel Institute claiming to be an American soldier from the year 2036. He said he'd been sent back to 1975 to retrieve an IBM 5100 computer, needed in his time to debug legacy code, because his grandfather had helped build the machine. - Read the rest The post John Titor, the internet's most famous time traveler, vanished in 2001 appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: GetMS Office Pro Plus 2019 and Windows 11 Profor just $25.99 (reg. $428).If your PC is due for a system upgrade, why not also give your software a new look with The All-in-One Microsoft Office Pro 2019 for Windows: Lifetime License + Windows 11 Pro Bundle for just $25.99 (reg. - Read the rest The post Upgrade your PC with MS Office Pro Plus 2019 and Windows 11 Pro for just $26 appeared first on Boing Boing.

Henrico County, Virginia, has asked its schools and government offices to cut power use as the local grid struggles to meet the power demands of its 37 data centers and considers the impact of 17 more under proposal.Matthew Gault of 404 Media acquired email sent by County Manager John Vithoulkas to thousands of county employees on June 26, warning that the rate Henrico pays for electricity in all county and school facilities was about to rise by 25%, adding an estimated $5 million to costs in the coming fiscal year. - Read the rest The post County with 37 data centers tells schools to turn off lights to save electricity appeared first on Boing Boing.

In October 2015, a Swedish tech blogger named Johny Krahbichler opened a package mailed from Warsaw: a DVD with a long alphanumeric code written on it, no return address, no explanation. When he played it, he found a two-minute black-and-white video of a figure in a plague doctor costume, standing in a ruined building, holding up a hand with a blinking light - set to loud, discordant buzzing. - Read the rest The post A mystery DVD mailed from Poland hid coded threats in a plague doctor video appeared first on Boing Boing.

Before we had HowToBasic, there was Count Etienne Louis Philippe cibor-Rylski.Back in 1930, this tutorial trailblazer created what could very well be the first how-to video in history, asking the viewer one simple question: Would you like to wear a monocle? - Read the rest The post 1930 film may be the first how-to video in history appeared first on Boing Boing.

The Orange Menace says he "had a conversation with Theodore Roosevelt" about the Panama Canal, which is a neat trick since Roosevelt died in 1919 and Trump was not born until 1946.So, now we're at the President openly describing recent conversations with a 107-year-dead person yet remaining in command of the world's largest, yet quickly shrinking in effectiveness, military. - Read the rest The post Grandpa Pudding Brains describes recent chat with President Theodore Roosevelt, who died before he was born appeared first on Boing Boing.

Somatoparaphrenia is a rare delusion in which a person denies that one of their limbs, or an entire side of their body, belongs to them - even when shown direct proof. Patients don't just forget the limb is theirs; they invent an explanation for whose it actually is, sometimes elaborate enough that they'll treat the limb as if it belonged to a separate being. - Read the rest The post This neurological condition makes people deny their own limbs appeared first on Boing Boing.

In 2007, an Australian film collective called Alrugo Entertainment shot a trailer for a movie that didn't exist. Italian Spiderman, a parody of 1960s and '70s Italian action films, was filmed on a single roll of 16mm film in one day. - Read the rest The post Marvel wouldn't let Italian Spiderman into a real Spider-Man movie appeared first on Boing Boing.

Even if you fly business class, the mixers available on most flights are understandably limited. Flight attendants don't have the time and sure as hell aren't paid enough to be making Zombies, Old Fashioneds, and Kinky Pinkies at 30,000 feet. By the time everyone's drink orders were filled, it'd be time to land. - Read the rest The post Aged & Ore's bottle kit packs TSA-compliant cocktails for travel appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: The refurbishedLenovo ThinkPad L15 Gen 3features a Ryzen 5 Pro processor, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, a 15.6-inch touchscreen, and Windows 11 Pro for $439.99 (reg. $799).It's almost unheard of for business laptops to have a cult following, yet ThinkPads somehow managed it. - Read the rest The post This refurbished Lenovo ThinkPad is down to $440 appeared first on Boing Boing.

Do you have a petty grievance you'd like to broadcast across the globe? If so, PettyMillion is the website for you. You can type your own petty grievances and send them off for strangers to read here. You can also read other people's entries, and vote/react to them. - Read the rest The post PettyMillion lets you anonymously share your pettiest complaints appeared first on Boing Boing.

Jason Kottke designed the perfect tee shirt for an age of monsters: "Maybe it will happen today," tastefully typeset in Free Lunch on various dark shades of cotton in nine sizes.

Americans will lose about $250 billion gambling this year, reports Joey Politano, a number that's up 60% in half a decade. And that doesn't include "prediction markets" and cryptocurrencies, both mostly vehicles for more gambling. Politicians are well-greased by the industry lobbyists, personal debt is soaring out of sight, and there's no immediate prospect of anyone taking control. - Read the rest The post Americans now lose a quarter of a trillion dollars a year gambling appeared first on Boing Boing.

For years, Microsoft said you should have 16GB of RAM to run Windows 11. It's good advice, too, as that beached whale of an operating system is its most bloated yet, with default-on cloud syncing, background telemetry, and dozens of preinstalled apps. - Read the rest The post Microsoft says 8GB "great for everyday use" after years insisting on 16GB for Windows 11 appeared first on Boing Boing.

JD Vance has apparently reached the part of Catholic conversion where he sees a yard sign and hears the Council of Nicaea screaming."Love is love" is not a theological coup. It is a bumper sticker with aspirations of fellowship. Vance, seeing heresy in it, says less about the sign than about the man wandering through America looking for things to baptize into grievances. - Read the rest The post JD Vance discovers the Nicene Creed in a yard sign appeared first on Boing Boing.

In a mouse model of autism, a single injection of a designer drug re-grew a shrunken part of the neuron and, within an hour, the mice went from antisocial and compulsive to behaving like healthy controls. That's the finding of a new study in Cell Death & Disease, written up by Eric W. - Read the rest The post A single drug injection reversed autism-like behavior in mice appeared first on Boing Boing.

Apple keeps tinkering with the "Liquid Glass" look it introduced in macOS Tahoe, and designer BasicAppleGuy has lined up dozens of system app icons from the latest beta (codenamed Golden Gate) next to their Tahoe versions so you can see the changes. - Read the rest The post Side-by-side: how macOS app icons changed from Tahoe to the next beta appeared first on Boing Boing.

Most people who worry about ticks are thinking about Lyme disease, which generally needs the tick attached for a day or two before it can infect you. Powassan virus - rarer, but far nastier - can do it in about 15 minutes. - Read the rest The post A tick virus that needs only 15 minutes to infect you hit a record 76 US cases appeared first on Boing Boing.

The man accused of stealing the Sea Scouts' 30-foot sailboat, swapping its registration numbers onto a junker, and leaving the worse boat behind has reportedly been arrested, which means he may not get his old boat back either.This was already a beautiful little harbor-crime story: someone allegedly decided the Sea Scouts had a nicer boat than he did, performed the world's dumbest maritime trade-in, and hoped nobody would notice that the youth sailing program's vessel had been replaced by a floating downgrade in a fake mustache. - Read the rest The post Man accused of stealing Sea Scouts' boat probably doesn't get his old boat back appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR:Get a1-year Sam's Club Membership with Auto-Renew for just $15and enjoy member access to summer essentials, exclusive prices, free samples, travel savings, pharmacy perks, tire services, and more.Summer has a funny way of reminding people about all the things they need. - Read the rest The post The only thing hotter than summer? A $15 Sam's Club membership when it's usually $60. appeared first on Boing Boing.