Boing Boing

Dutch artist Germans Ermič crafted this lovely ombré glass chair, an update of the classic laminated glass chair created by Shiro Kuramata in 1976. (more…)

Ubitricity is a nifty little company that modifies existing electric street lamps into charging stations for electric cars. (more…)

Animalogic offers a beginner’s guide to the adorable pangolin. Maybe the best thing about them is that they walk on two legs like some sort of tiny, strange T-Rex:

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Starting July 10, you can bid on TRS-80 computers, dot matrix printers, Realistic speakers, shortwave receivers, old catalogs, and company "memorabilia" from the bowels of bankrupt RadioShack. From the auction site:From humble beginnings in Boston in 1921, over the past 95 years RadioShack established itself as a globally recognized leader and the go to retailer for consumer electronics. RadioShack has always been known as the place for answers to the American public's technology and electronics questions. "You've got questions, we've got answers." Over the years, RadioShack introduced consumers to exciting and affordable gadgets and electronics that have become household items. As we cleaned out our historic archives in Fort Worth, Texas, we uncovered a cache of iconic memorabilia in 12 huge safes, including: unused original TRS-80 Microcomputers, Realistic Transistor Radios, Tandy computer software games, original brick cell phones and so much more. We all remember coming into RadioShack whether it was for the battery-of-the-month, new walkie-talkies, or to check out the newest RC toy cars. Now we reintroduce many of those nostalgic items and more with our rolling online memorabilia auction.RadioShack Auction #1 (thanks, Charles Platt!)

The city of Hangzhou, China has more than 86,000 public bicycles. Unfortunately, when many people are done using them, they don't put them in the designated docking center but just drop them wherever. According to Wired, "police have rounded up 23,000 bikes so far this year and hauled them to 16 corrals around the city" like the one seen above. And that's not even the whole lot of 'em.

FoxWoolDesigns will make you a perfectly pink felt tardigrade, and has one in stock to fulfill your immediate felt tardigrade requirements.This felt tardigrade is made of coral wool and is about five inches long. That's about 250 times larger than a live tardigrade!My creatures are lovingly handcrafted from sheep's wool in a process called needle felting, which uses a special barbed needle to mesh fibers into felt. Because needle felted creatures can be delicate, this toy is not suitable for young children.Previously: Tardigrade plushies for unkillable cuddlingHow tardigrades survive extreme conditionsTardigrade is plump, loveable3D-printed tardigrades

Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced Wednesday that it plans to land an astronaut on the moon by 2030, joining China in a new manned race to space. It is the first time JAXA has revealed an intention to send Japanese astronauts beyond the International Space Station, and it will mostly likely be part of an international mission, the agency said.The announcement from Japan Wednesday is just the latest in a series of ambitious space exploration plans by Asian countries, with the increasing competition for space-related power and prestige in the region echoing that of the Cold War space race of the mid-20th century.In December 2016, China announced plans to land a rover on Mars by 2020 as well as a manned mission to the Moon at some point in the future.Pictured here is one of JAXA's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries rockets, via Danspace.

It pleases me to no end to learn that a woman who was once a "We Buy Ugly Houses" franchise owner was found guilty of wire fraud charges. Even though she was not affiliated with "We Buy Ugly Houses" when she committed her crimes, I feel that the "We Buy Ugly Houses" billboards I see everywhere are a stomach-churning eyesore and a crime against good taste. Whoever created the repellent Fred Flintstone knockoff mascot should be placed in a hermetically-sealed tungsten spheroid and catapulted outside the Oort Cloud.[via California Real Estate Fraud Report]

David Roseman, an employee at Alaska's Wood Tikchick State Park, spotted this big bear carrying her cubs across the river on her back. Sweet video below. From National Geographic:Wayne Kasworm, a grizzly bear biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, explained that bears' high fat content and oily coat helps them easily stay afloat. The bears, which he estimates to be about six months old, will likely start to swim on their own once they reach 30 pounds.

After decades of running a mock slave market inside Pirates of the Carribean, Disney has finally decided that Pirates selling women is not a good example for the kids.The scene also contains many elements which the fans no doubt love, but which are at odds with modern sensibilities. This is beyond a “Politically Correct” issue, it’s an issue about what Disney feels it may be inadvertently teaching its youngest guests when they see images of women being sexualized and sold at auction.Years ago, Disney took their first step at taming their pirates’ lusty desires when they changed the “chase” scene so instead of aggressively pursuing wenches (it was essentially a rape story), they were chasing after plates of food. One desire replaced with another – lust for gluttony.It’s the derogatory sexual nature of those two scenes which are problematic for modern Disney and to today’s guests. Theme park rides don’t have an MPAA rating in the way movies do. Pirates is the most tame of attractions and suitable for riders of all ages. Therefore, there is a need to make sure the subject matter is appropriate for those ages as well.It’s a catch 22 for Disney as the fans are likely to be outraged, at least at first. But not acting also continues to perpetuate themes which are unacceptable for many of today’s guests. Disney has clearly decided they need to act on the moral issue over sentimentality.Here’s some additional information we were able to obtain about this breaking news. Disney Imagineering bigwigs Marty Sklar and Kathy Mangum weigh in on the alterations:“To me, the Imagineers are simply reflecting what Walt started the day Disneyland opened – making changes that create exciting new experiences for our guests. I can’t think of a single attraction that has not been enhanced and improved, some over and over again. Change is a ‘tradition’ at Disneyland that today’s Imagineers practice – they learned it from their mentors, many of them Walt’s original team of storytellers and designers – the Disney Legends.” – Marty Sklar, Imagineer Legend. Marty continues, “Pirates of the Caribbean has always represented great Disney Park storytelling; it has set the standard for the theme park industry for half a century! But it’s a story you can continue to add fun to, with great characters in new ‘performances.’ That’s what the Imagineers have done with this new auction scene – it’s like a theatre show with a new act.”Kathy Mangum, Sr. VP Imagineering stated, “Our team thought long and hard about how to best update this scene. Given the redhead has long been a fan favorite, we wanted to keep her as a pivotal part of the story, so we made her a plundering pirate! We think this keeps to the original vision of the attraction as envisioned by Marc Davis, X Atencio and the other Disney legends who first brought this classic to life.”Via MiceChat

Data scientist Hillary Mason (previously) talks through her astoundingly useful collection of small shell scripts that automate all the choresome parts of her daily communications: processes that remind people when they owe her an email; that remind her when she accidentally drops her end of an exchange; that alert her when a likely important email arrives (freeing her up from having to check and check her email to make sure that nothing urgent is going on). It's a hilarious and enlightening talk that offers a glimpse into the kinds of functionality that users can provide for themselves when they run their own infrastructure and aren't at the mercy of giant webmail companies. (via Clive Thompson)

Simon Smith was walking beside a bus stop in Reading, Berkshire, on Saturday when he was hit from behind by a double-decker.The 53-year-old was thrown down the street when the vehicle careered onto the pavement and ploughed straight into him.The impact of his head hitting the windscreen shattered the glass, yet he got up from the pavement seconds later… and went to the pub.Via MetroUK

Yes, the guy should have looked where he was walking, but good design should take this kind of think into account.[via Twisted Sifter]

Looking for a gift for your crab or crustacean enthusiast best friend? Amazon has you covered.Even then, this chair is probably too ugly to be anywhere outside a children's discovery museum or aquarium.The folks at Design Toscano must really have interesting homes!Design Toscano Giant Red King Crab Sculptural Chair via Amazon

Perhaps you are tired of the terminology of online trashtalk, where words (such as snowflake and bro) form billowing epicycles of sincerity, appropriation and reclamation. Me too! Yet there is such a pure beauty to this morning's surprisingly viral portmanteau, Broflake. From the Urban Dictionary:Broflake: Straight white male offended by any feminist or ethnic activity which is not directly designed for him.Kyle: "How come there's no Straight Pride parade"?Me: OMG you're such a delicate little broflake.If anything, this definition is too precise, as the word perfectly captures the broader dynamic wherein a person adopts a posture of devil-may-care principled insensitivity to offense, only to collapse in a puddle of outrage and/or legal threats when they are offended. (For example, the NRA's Dana Loesch is an excellent candidate for Broflake of the Day for Friday, June 30, 2017. After pitching an insanely totalitarian NRA recruitment ad whose anti-violence fig leaf only drew attention to its naked thirst for bloodshed, she was apparently up all night shrieking legal threats on Twitter at random anonymous interlocutors, insisting that their mockery is not free speech.)https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/880800435019194368

The key component of a quality yard fire is ignorance, but you must remember to mix it with a sufficient quantity of flammable material and oxygen.BONUS: How to start a bonfire on a moor.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yig_zO8a35U&feature=youtu.be

It’s easy to forget about your phone’s dependency on modern infrastructure when you have free public WiFi and consistent access to electrical outlets. But for all their ubiquity in first-world urban spaces, smartphones become a lot more temperamental once they're out in the wilderness. To keep using your device’s offline abilities when you go off the grid, the Universal Waterproof Solar Charger can come through in a pinch.This portable battery pack will deliver a full recharge to your phone using nothing but sunlight. It has a second 2.1-amp port specifically for tablets and other more power-hungry devices, and includes handy adapters for iOS and Android compatibility. It’s also built like a tank; this charger is fully sealed from water and dust, and is shock-proof to protect from unexpected drops. And to keep it off the ground entirely, it features a handy loop that comes with a carabiner to attach to it your gear.You can get the Universal Waterproof Solar Charger in the Boing Boing Store for $13.99.

Authorities in St. Petersburg, Florida, are battling an onslaught of graffiti depicting a three-buttocked arse. NBC affiliate WFLA reports that the design has appeared at least twenty times across the city. It is thought to be the calling card of a single anonymous artist, who police stress is breaking the law.St. Pete is a city known for its beautiful art and stunning murals. Many people are upset by this new graffiti involving a tush trend. They don’t like the fact that the bold buttocks are suddenly everywhere.“This is not art. At all,” said one woman. “It’s vandalism.”“There should be consequences. You can’t just take it upon yourself to do whatever you want to do,” another man said.We shall speak in hushed tones, over the beachfires where the Suwannee meets the shore, of the great triple-arsed god worshiped by those who once lived in the sunken cities of the Florida sea.

Our guest this week on the Cool Tools Show is Donald Bell. Donald runs a great website called Maker Project Lab, and he also hosts a weekly YouTube show called Maker Update, which collects interesting projects, news, tips, tools, and other stuff for the Maker community. He was a Projects Editor at Make magazine, and he spent eight years as a Senior Editor at CNET.Subscribe to the Cool Tools Show on iTunes | RSS | Transcript | Download MP3 | See all the Cool Tools Show posts on a single pageShow notes:Hakko FX-901 ($32)"I've had inexpensive soldering irons for years now, but they've always been ones that plugged into a wall. I came across the Hakko when I was looking for a soldering iron I could buy multiples of to do a soldering workshop, and the idea of plugging in 30 soldering irons is like plugging in 30 hair dryers. It can become a nightmare if you really are trying to do it without tripping a breaker. …It’s become one of my new favorite things. It runs off of four AA batteries, and it heats up in about 30 seconds to a good soldering temperature for accomplishing just little PCB basic electronic projects, and it’s been great."Manfrotto 143 Magic Arm Kit ($154)"This one actually I learned about from Becky Stern, Make alumni. But before I started working at Make, when I was doing how-to projects for CNET, I was trying to figure out the easiest way to take those great shots of your work, like an overhead view of your workbench, while you're working on a project. And I’ve never been able to do that easily with a standard tripod. … the Magic Arm will clamp onto your table and then kind of cantilever out over the workspace so that you can position the camera looking straight down. It’s been a good tool for me to film project videos or be able to document projects as I go, for taking photos and putting them on Instructables and documenting projects."There Are No Electrons: Electronics for Earthlings ($13)"I think of it as like if Stephen Colbert wrote a book on electronics and describing how electronics work. It’s just a really funny whacked perspective on trying to understand how electricity and electronics work. … It’s not a lightweight text in terms of backing away from teaching you everything you would want to know about circuitry and hobby electronics. It covers all the bases, and more. I mean, there's actually stuff I learned from this on mutual inductance and other ideas that I didn't ... Either weren't taught to me in other books, or I just glazed over it at that point in other texts. But it made its impression from this perspective, and I’m grateful for it."USB Power Only Cable with Switch ($6)"This one is like micro-USB, but you can also find them in mini-USB, or barrel-jack connection, a couple different options. When I first looked for this, I was buying it for my son’s Amazon Alexa, or Echo Dot, because it's one of those devices where you plug it in, and you're just expected to keep it on all the time, and having this little inline power switch allows me to turn it off when it's not in use, which doesn't seem like it would be that radical a concept, but I feel like increasingly there are these always-on type devices that you want to be able to have a switch on, and they're just not baked into the design anymore."We have hired an editor to edit the Cool Tools podcast. It costs us $300 a month. So far, Cool Tools listeners have pledged $127 a month to the podcast. Please consider supporting us on Patreon. We have nice rewards for people who contribute!

I just checked in for my o-dark-hundred flight to Denver tomorrow morning for this weekend's Denver Comic-Con, where I'm appearing for several hours on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, including panels with some of my favorite writers, like John Scalzi, Richard Kadrey, Catherynne Valente and Scott Sigler: (more…)

America's right, the source of most terrorist acts in the country, loves to see violence from the left because it justifies its thirst for more. This instinct is on full show in this NRA recruitment ad, where spokesperson Dana Loesch seethes at political protesters and promises a "clenched fist of truth" for people screaming about "racism and sexism and xenophobia and homophobia." Hey, at least the NRA has a clear idea of its base, something you can't say about, say, the Democratic Party.What strikes me, though, is a shibboleth of the NRA's totalitarian character, one usually associated with the academic left: the idea that speech is violence ("the violence of lies") as a justification for silencing it. (Some differences remain: the left's weapon of choice is, per the NRA, "political correctness," whereas the NRA's weapon of choice is rifles.)As Black Lives Matter's Deray McKesson writes: "If I made a video like this, I'd be in jail."https://twitter.com/deray/status/880409739015766016

https://youtu.be/VWAIfjwJP74My DIY project book, Maker Dad is just $2 as a Kindle right now. (more…)

Atul Gawande (previously) is a highly respected expert on systems thinking, preventative medicine and dying with dignity has published an excellent editorial about the medical shortcomings of the Senate GOP's tax-break/health cut bill. (more…)

I love Jonathan Carroll's stories. Teaching the Dog to Read is a fantastic tale of magical realism!Tony Areal is living a pretty mundane life, when suddenly his greatest wishes start to come true. Offered the chance to live out his dreams, Tony switches places with his dream-land alternate self and then things get really surreal. Carroll writes relationships and change like no one else. I really enjoyed this short and fast read, and hope to read more in this world, where dreams and life interchange. Teaching the Dog to Read by Jonathan Carroll via Amazon

The reason other people's dreams are boring is because most people are bad at telling stories. This video from The School of Life offers suggestions on how to narrate your dreams (or tell any kind of story, factual or fictional) without boring your audience.These are some of the rules for storytelling: – firstly, we know what we mean far earlier than anyone else can and so we must understand a story at least five times as well when it is to be shared in company as when it is merely left to marinade in our own brains. – secondly, keeping a story brief takes far more effort than letting it expand. The philosopher Pascal once touchingly apologised to a friend for the length of a letter he had written him. As he admitted: ‘I’m sorry I didn’t have time to make it shorter.’ – thirdly, we need to simplify. The downfall of almost all anecdotes is an accumulation of incidental detail untethered to the underlying logic of the story. If one is explaining how it felt to see one’s grandmother, it is irrelevant (and a waste of someone else’s rather precious life) to say what time one left the house and what the weather happened to be like. We need a view of the branches, not of every leaf. – fourthly, factual events (dates, times, actions) are always less interesting (though far easier to remember) than feelings – and yet it’s the feelings that invariably contain the kernel of what can intrigue others. It’s how we feel about what happened, not merely what happened, that counts.

Described by the BBC as a "stunning attack on a female news anchor" as if such a thing were at all unusual for the president of the United States of America, Trump's latest twitter barrage concerns the allegedly "bleeding badly" facelift of MSNBC's "low I.Q. Crazy" Mika Brzezinski.Brzezinski tweeted back, to mock Trump's famously small body parts.Anthony Zurcher explains why he does this: because he is always politically rewarded for it.Mr Trump mocked people's looks (Rosie O'Donnell) as a businessman, and he was rewarded with reality television show stardom. He mocked people's looks (Carly Fiorina, Rand Paul) as a candidate, and he was rewarded with the presidency. Now he's mocking people's looks from his new home in the White House.

Kids truly do say the darndest, and brutally honest, things. In this video, Koji the Illustrator has children describe what their parents look like, so he can draw them. In fact, the title of the video is "Kids Describe Their Parents to an Illustrator." But, that's not all they do. As Koji starts asking for the physical traits of their parents, the children start sharing intimate details about their families as well.One kid describes his dad as a "big, sleepy bear" who "sits around all day" and "never brushes his teeth." Then, a girl shares with Koji that her mom used to slap her dad's butt (which he then depicts on paper). There are more gems. Watch the video.https://www.instagram.com/p/BV5B8zgDq1w/?taken-by=k0jiminamiKids: keeping us grownups honest since forever.(likecool)

Brazilian illustrator Leandro Franci shared this fantastic Wonder Woman gif on his Tumblr. It depicts Diana’s big “No Man’s Land” fight sequence, which is one of the best (if not the best) scenes in the film. Franci has a ton of other great, geeky art on his Tumblr, including a series featuring the women of the X-Men:http://leandrofranci.tumblr.com/post/157077351606/jean-grey-dhttp://leandrofranci.tumblr.com/post/156889137101/emma-frost-making-you-believe-she-can-levitatehttp://leandrofranci.tumblr.com/post/156465229446/jubilee-dont-really-like-her-original-costumehttp://leandrofranci.tumblr.com/post/156323922996/psylocke-gonna-try-to-make-a-series-of-heroineshttp://leandrofranci.tumblr.com/post/156191970606/rogue-from-the-x-men-in-a-cartoony-wayYou can see more of Franci’s work and hire him for freelance jobs through his Tumblr.

The Fresno, California Sheriff's Department raided a "beehive chop shop" and uncovered $1m worth of bees stolen in "great beehive heists" that have taken place across the bee-starved state. (more…)

On July 18, 1955, Michael Schwartner convinced his family to go to the general public's opening day of Disneyland, instead of golfing in Mexico. He was just seven years old at the time and he remembers it was crowded and hot waiting to get into the brand new park. He and his 5-year old cousin Christine Vess (now Kristina Graef) wanted to get in the shade and see everything that was going on, so they nudged their way to the front.While playing around at the turnstiles, a Disney rep plucked them out of the crowd and invited to them to "do a thing." The two children spent the next hour getting photos with Walt Disney himself. The Orange County Register reports that:Disney took the children by the hands, and they posed for pictures in front of the Mickey Mouse floral display. Then he invited the family aboard the Santa Fe & Disneyland Railroad for a tour of the new park. The family sat in front, listening to Disney describe his $17 million park in detail.Both children received lifetime passes to the park.

In what could be considered the modern-day equivalent of gargoyles, architect Changiz Tehrani of Dutch firm Attika Architekten has added ornamental emojis to the facade of a Vathorst apartment building. According to Wired, he pulled all 22 emojis, all faces, straight from the WhatsApp messaging app:He selected only faces emojis, for their expressiveness and consistency. “They are really strong, recognizable shapes,” he says. “You recognize them immediately.”Some architects aren't happy with Tehrani's design choices though. New York Institute of Technology architectural history and theory professor Sean Khorsandi is one of them. He told Wired, “We’re using copious materials, and we’re taking up land. There is a responsibility that goes along with that. If everything is a joke; reduced to this disposable ‘I like it in the moment’ fad, that’s a dangerous attitude to have.” photos by Bart van Hoek, Attika Architekten(Pee-wee Herman)

Watch Joshua John Russell of Man About Cake craft a truly impressive octopus wedding cake using copper wire and modeling chocolate.

Educator Delena D. Spann digs into the concept of money laundering a.k.a. “any process that ‘cleans’ illegally obtained funds of their ‘dirty’ criminal origins, allowing them to be used within the legal economy.”

https://www.facebook.com/Crunkster430/videos/10213320261704638/A 3-ton monument displaying the Ten Commandments was destroyed hours after being installed at Arkansas' State Capitol Wednesday, smashed by Michael T. Reed at the wheel of a 2016 Dodge Dart. Reed, 32, was arrested and charged with "defacing an object of public respect."Reed, evidently a vigorous supporter of the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution's implicit prohibition of state religion, posted vertical video of his manuever to Facebook under the caption "Freedom".Reed was arrested in 2014 for driving a car into the Ten Commandments monument at Oklahoma's state Capitol, Oklahoma County Sheriff's spokesman Mark Opgrande told The Associated Press. He was admitted to a hospital the next day for mental treatment and was not formally charged, the AP reports. In the 2014 incident, The Oklahoman reported that the U.S. Secret Service interviewed Reed and that he told agents that he has bipolar disorder and that Satan had directed him to destroy the monument.The ACLU had planned to sue to get the monument removed. Arkansas's plainly sectarian government plans to rebuilt it, presumably surrounded by concrete pilings.

I like John Heisz' way of getting things done:The U052 Canon printer error can be fixed in the following way:"To try and resolve the U052 error, please remove and then reseat all of the ink tanks and print head in the unit. Next, please turn off the printer, unplug the power cord from the back and leave it out for at least 10 minutes, then plug it back in and turn it back on."Or, when that doesn't work, there's always the stake maul fix.[via Core 77]

Scott Pruitt, the Trump administration’s top environmental official, privately met with the CEO of Dow Chemical just before reversing the EPA's efforts to ban a widely used Dow pesticide. Multiple scientific studies showed chlorpyrifos can damage the brains of children. Today's Associated Press story is a clear case for why the Environmental Protection Agency and its appointed leader matter to American lives.Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt’s schedule shows he met with Dow CEO Andrew Liveris on March 9 for about a half hour at a Houston hotel. Both men were featured speakers at an energy industry conference.Twenty days later Pruitt announced his decision to deny a petition to ban Dow’s chlorpyrifos pesticide from being sprayed on food, despite a review by his agency’s scientists that concluded ingesting even minuscule amounts of the chemical can interfere with the brain development of fetuses and infants.EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman said Tuesday that Pruitt was “briefly introduced” to Liveris at the conference.“They did not discuss chlorpyrifos,” Bowman said. “During the same trip he also met with the Canadian minister of natural resources, and CEOs and executives from other companies attending the trade show.”EPA released a copy of Pruitt’s March meeting schedule earlier this month following several Freedom of Information Act requests. Though his schedule for the intervening months has not yet been released, Bowman said Pruitt has had no other meetings with the Dow CEO. There was a larger group meeting that Pruitt attended which also included two other Dow executives, but she said that didn’t involve chlorpyrifos.Dow, which spent more than $13.6 million on lobbying in 2016, has long wielded substantial political power in the nation’s capital.When President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February mandating the creation of task forces at federal agencies to roll back government regulations, he handed the pen to Dow’s chief executive, who was standing at his side. Liveris heads a White House manufacturing working group. His company also wrote a $1 million check to help underwrite Trump’s inaugural festivities.In December, before he was even inaugurated, then President-elect Trump appointed Dow CEO Liveris to his Presidential Manufacturing Council. The two have close ties, it would appear.In a letter to Pruitt on Tuesday, The American Academy of Pediatrics urged the EPA chief to ban chlorpyrifos. The group representing more than 66,000 pediatricians and pediatric surgeons said it is “deeply alarmed” by Pruitt’s decision to allow the pesticide’s continued use.“There is a wealth of science demonstrating the detrimental effects of chlorpyrifos exposure to developing fetuses, infants, children, and pregnant women,” the academy said in a letter to Pruitt. “The risk to infant and children’s health and development is unambiguous.”The AP reported in April that Dow is also lobbying the Trump administration to “set aside” the findings of federal scientists that organophosphate pesticides, including chlorpyrifos, are harmful to about 1,800 critically threatened or endangered species.Read the full Associated Press report here.https://twitter.com/GlobalEcoGuy/status/880080345982423040PHOTO: U.S. President-elect Donald Trump greets Andrew Nicholas Liveris, Chairman and chief executive officer of The Dow Chemical Company to the stage at a ''Thank You USA'' tour rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S. December 9, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar

Timo Bingman created a demo program for sorting algorithms called "The Sound of Sorting, which both visualizes the algorithms internals and their operations, and generates sound effects from the values being compared." It's a visual and aural treat!

Phil Foglio (previously) writes, "Studio Foglio is kickstarting a new Girl Genius Collection! The Incorruptible Library covers the adventures of Agatha Heterodyne and her friends as they journey beneath the streets of Paris. There they encounter hidden subterranean civilizations, forgotten labyrinths filled with secrets, and a healthy dollop of Adventure, Romance, and Mad Science!" (more…)

Rep Jeb Hensarling [R-TX/+1 202 225-3484/@RepHensarling] is the sponsor of HR 10, the Financial CHOICE Act of 2017, which will ban investors from putting petitions to the shareholders and board of publicly traded companies, except when investors own more than 1% of the company for at least three years. (more…)

A fine example of factory porn: The International Table Tennis Federation paid a visit to Double Happiness, manufacturers of balls and other ping pong products.

https://youtu.be/a-uKrsQLS0cThis guy poured a little honey into a bottle, added some marbles and set it on its side on an inclined ramp. The result is that it rolls very slowly. This would be fun to show and have people guess how it's done.

Sir Jedi Panda gets it right in this mockup of a spaghetti western-styled poster for an Obi-Wan Kenobi movie. I think what I love about it is how completely un-western a character Kenobi is. [via]

FIFA is the scandal-haunted governing body for world soccer/football; their internal report on corruption has leaked and it reveals a widespread culture of bribery and other corrupt practices. (more…)

A hockey rink is the perfect surface for contemporary projection mapping imagery, which was not lost on Raduga Design. Their design for the Chicago Blackhawks' game-opening sequence gives an impressive 3D effect from the booth. (more…)

Maria Daison Ramos captured this lovely shot of rescue dog Yzma, titled "A Girl’s Best Friend." The Kennel Club named it their 2017 Overall Winner and 1st Place Winner in the "Man's Best Friend" category. The full gallery is aborbs. (more…)

For an America's Got Talent audition, digital artist collective Oskar and Gaspar used video mapping to cover judge Heidi Klum's body in trippy digital projections.

Mathematician Paul Erdős had no home, no job, and no hobbies. Instead, for 60 years he wandered the world, staying with each of hundreds of collaborators just long enough to finish a project, and then moving on. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll meet the "Mozart of mathematics," whose restless brilliance made him the most prolific mathematician of the 20th century.We'll also ponder Japanese cannibalism in World War II and puzzle over a senseless stabbing.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon!

"Everybody’s got an eye for something," David Sedaris told the Missouri Review. The only difference is that I carry around a notebook in my front pocket. I write everything down, and it helps me recall things." In this Open Culture article Colin Marshall takes a deep dive into the famous humorist's writing process. Sedaris' Latest book. Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977-2002), "is the story of how a drug-abusing dropout with a weakness for the International House of Pancakes and a chronic inability to hold down a real job became one of the funniest people on the planet."

The EU had been expected to fine Google a little over €1B for its anti-competitive practice of promoting its own shopping service over competitors' in search results: today's €2.42B comes as a surprise, as does the ongoing fine if it fails to change its behavior within 90 days -- up to €10.6m a day, or 5% of parent company Alphabet's total daily earnings. (more…)