Thinkgeek's $40 Star Wars Admiral Ackbar Singing Bass plays the Cantina theme and wiggles its tail, then turns to face you and shouts, "It's a trap!" Comes with wall-mount or desk-stand, runs on C batteries or AC adapter, and operates on button-push or motion sensor (prediction: you will not leave it in motion-sensing mode for very long). Order today for Father's Day shipping. (more…)

This short documentary on the creative process behind Iris van Herpen's Spring/Summer 2017 line is really cool. So many possibilities! (more…)

You may want to jump on the next plane for Oahu after watching this fantastic footage of Chicagoan Brookelynn Bley demonstrating why she's called Queen of the Rings. (more…)

In this new video, John Green highlights his favorite quirky corners of Reddit, including Children Falling Over, Better Every Loop, Nature Is Fucking Lit, and the utterly delightful Birds With Arms:[Photo submitted by Revenginator239]Feel free to highlight your favorite joyful subreddits in the comments.

Director Arturo Bastón took the dance scene from the 1960 film Seishun zankoku monogatari by Nagisa Ôshima and repurposed it for this lovely animated sequence for "DVLD." (more…)

Monument Valley is one of the most beautiful and soothing mobile games I have ever played. At long last, the sequel is here! (more…)

Holy cow! A calf in Uttar Pradesh, India was born with a human face, leading some people to worship it as an incarnation of the god Vishnu. Unfortunately, the animal died an hour after birth. From India.com:Unfortunately, the deformed calf could not survive and died in an hour, but that did not stop the locals from celebrating the birth of the cow with a human face, which they believe is an incarnation of God. They believe the dead calf is the ‘Gokaran’, 24 incarnations of Lord Vishnu. In fact, the religious believers now plan to build a temple for him.Raja Bhaiya Mishra, 55, the manager of the cow shelter (where the animal was born), was quoted saying, ‘It’s a miracle that the calf was born in this shelter. Thousands of people have been here to see it. We will be cremating him in three days, and a temple will be built for him. This avatar has most definitely created a devotion feeling amongst the people.’

Vice compiled this terrific compilation of White House reporters' reactions as they listen to Sean Spicer. If you don't laugh, you'll cry.

This handheld, rocket-powered robot can leap about 30 meters and make a targeted landing. Once it's on the ground, it can then spin up and then abruptly brake its flywheel to jump forward or backward for a bit more mobility. Developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the rocketeer robot could someday liftoff from a planetary or lunar lander or rover. The 450-gram prototype uses an Estes C11 rocket engine like those used in model rocketry! From IEEE Spectrum:The robot is mounted on an angled rail and when it’s time to fly, it spins up its reaction wheel and sets off the primary rocket. The rocket launches the robot on a parabolic trajectory with a maximum range, in Earth gravity, of up to about 30 meters, which would increase to about 200 meters under lunar gravity.The reaction wheel minimizes the effect of the robot body tumbling during flight, keeping the robot going on a straight line: We held this little thing with the gyro wheel turned on during an interactive session at (the International Conference on Robotics and Automation), and it was impressively powerful: There was a significant amount of resistance to any kind of sideways rotation. Since solid-fuel rocket engines can’t be throttled, the opposing thrust motors are fired when necessary to alter the robot’s trajectory for a targeted landing. It’s a fairly effective technique, and in their tests the standard deviation of a series of launches decreased from 1.2 to 0.29 meters, or four times more precise than without the opposing rockets.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cse1tWrt6fI

His "prepared remarks" are already out, and tomorrow's the big show. (more…)

The fantastic light-up dance floor from Saturday Night Fever (1977) will go up for auction in a couple of weeks. The 24' x 36' floor, outfitted with more than 250 lights, was built and installed at Brooklyn's 2001 Odyssey nightclub specifically for the film. When the place closed in 2005, former employee Vito Bruno bought it. Auction house Profiles in History expects it to fetch $1 to $1.5 million. Can you dig it? I knew that you could.(Reuters)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNuknrly5Ao

Former FBI director James Comey will testify tomorrow before Congress on investigations involving Trump, Russia, and the U.S. elections. Highly awaited: Comey's testimony on interactions he had with President Donald Trump. This early copy of his remarks delivers a bombshell. (more…)

For $14, this is a really good starter kit for getting to know the Arduino electronics protyping platform. It has an Arduino Uno clone, a bunch of resistors, a capacitor, a photo resistor, a capacitor, pushbuttons, jumper wires, a speaker, a solderless breadboard, and a shift register integrated circuit (hand when you need more output pins than the Arduino supplies - see this tutorial)/

How does a clearly fake story about a Russian warplane and a United States Navy destroyer end up as a FoxNews.com story? The NY Times traces it, from its origin on a parody website, to Facebook, to Russian TV, to The Sun (British tabloid), to FoxNews.com.The Sun at least hinted at problems with the story, calling it a “bizarre propaganda report” and quoting the Pentagon denying that General Gorenc had commented. Another tabloid, The Daily Express, later posted an article suggesting World War III might be at hand.FoxNews.com soon picked up The Sun’s version of the story. Refet Kaplan, the managing editor of FoxNews.com, said the story was considered “not as a serious report on Russia’s military capability, but as another example of Russian media hyperbole.” That was not set out in the headline or the article, other than an oblique reference to the original as “propaganda.”After The New York Times asked about the article, it was deleted from the FoxNews.com website (archive.org copy).

During today's briefings with the Director of National Intelligence, and the head of the National Security Agency, Senate Democrats Mark Warner and Kamala Harris started to wear a little thin on the non-answers. Republican McCain got in a zinger too.Via NPR:Warner, along with several other senators, kept pressing and ultimately expressed frustration with the intelligence chiefs.There are "reports, that nobody has laid to rest here, that the president of the United States has intervened directly in an ongoing FBI investigation and we've got no answers from any of you," Warner said.The hearing was often contentious, particularly when Democratic senators questioned the intelligence officials.Committee Chairman Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, intervened at one point during a sharp exchange between California Democrat Kamala Harris and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein."The chair is going to exercise its right to allow the witnesses to answer the question, and committee is on notice to provide witnesses the courtesy, which has not been extended all the way across," Burr said.Republican John McCain of Arizona took a softer approach, drawing chuckles when he asked Coats, "Do you want to tell us any more about the Russian involvement in our election that we don't already know from reading The Washington Post?"Coats did not offer any details, but said, "Just because it's in The Washington Post doesn't mean it's declassified."The Senate Intelligence Committee is holding two days of closely watched hearings that might — or might not — shed new light on the state of the Russia investigation.The president has repeatedly called for an end to inquiries into Russian election meddling in his public remarks. But Democratic senators, in particular, want to know what he's told intelligence officials in private discussions.

Dashingly handsome young millionaire and renowned safari big game hunter Eric Trump took time off from ducking questions about ripping off his children's cancer charity funds to appear on Sean Hannity's state-run media channel and dehumanize Democrats. “I mean, to me, they’re not even people,” Trump said of congressional Democrats investigating Trumps campaign’s ties to the Russia. Saying that certain kinds of people are not in fact people is a classic technique of genocidal regimes through history. From the book, Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing, by James E. Waller:Image: Students for Trump

Ben Hannam designed these "decorative stamps" that you can put on your envelopes next to your actual postage to make a small, satisfying statement about 45's ineptitude. $16 for 56 self-adhesive stamps. (more…)

A key weakness in malicious software is the "Command and Control" (C&C) system: a central server that the malware-infected systems contact to receive updates and instructions, and to send stolen data. Anti-malware researchers like to reverse engineer malicious code, discover the C&C server's address, and then shut it down or blacklist it from corporate routers. (more…)

I've really been enjoying In Cold Blood by alt-J. When I heard it, I first assumed this was a mid-90s goth theme I'd missed, back in the days when I didn't like the gothy-ness.https://youtu.be/pBkHHoOIIn8Feel It Still by Portugal. The Man is a wonderful feel good song for driving around on a sunny day! It'll be a mash-up hit too.https://youtu.be/i7ChC3oZh8oFinally, while this is around a year old, I like just about anything by Juniore but Marabout is really wonderful.

Yennifer Correia was at Houston airport waiting for her United flight to a gig with the Missouri Symphony Orchestra when a United gate agent told her she'd have to check her precious, 17th century violin (federal law requires airlines to allow musicians to carry on such instruments). (more…)

A long plane ride at night will give you plenty of time to practice and perfect Jan Jasinski's technique for shooting starscapes from the comfort of your window seat: (more…)

Ori Toor created this delightful animation for "Little Bugs," a new single by Marias. (more…)

Soaring to a millions views in a matter of hours, this video (permalink) illustrates the trials and tribulations of science. Come for the experiment, stay for the peer review.

With no ropes, Alex Honnold conquered El Capitan's Freerider route over the weekend. Scaling the 5.12d/13a heartstopper in about four hours is widely considered the greatest feat in the history of the sport. Photographer Jimmy Chin was there to capture all the action:https://www.instagram.com/p/BU7HGGaDS9c/The ascent usually involves stopping overnight with gear. Honnold tried not to wake up some sleeping climbers he passed on the way up. Via NPR:"I woke up one guy and he sort of said, 'Oh, hey.' Then when I went by, I think he discreetly woke up his buddies because when I looked down they were all three standing there like 'What the f***?' "By conquering El Capitan, Honnold fulfilled a goal he had worked toward for years. He first wrote about the potential record-setting climb in his journal in 2009 — but he repeatedly found reasons to set it aside, as he said last year on the Basecamp podcast with Gripped editor Brandon Pullan."Obviously, that's like, the thing to do," Honnold said when discussing El Capitan with Pullan in 2016, adding, "it's always seemed really scary."Here's another shot he took, posted by NatGeo:https://www.instagram.com/p/BU443bgjWHz/• Alex Honnold Scales El Capitan Without Ropes, And The Climbing World Reels (NPR)

Simone Giertz—who previously made her own space program—has now moved on to inventing her own personal, portable mattress.

The Walkaway tour is in its literary festival phase now, and my next stop is an appearance this Sunday at the Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago, where I'll be talking Walkaway with the incredible Mary Robinette Kowal at 11:30 (free tickets here). (more…)

My daughter and I have set up a small maker space in our house and we are stocking it with components. Our latest acquisition: this 37-piece Arduino sensor and effector kit. It's a great deal at $24.Here's what's inside:Joystick ModuleRelay ModuleRotary Encoder ModuleDS-3231 RTC ModuleUltrasonic Sensor ModuleHC-SR501 PIR sensor Module Flame Sensor ModuleLinear Hall ModuleMetal Touch ModuleDigital Temperature ModuleBig Sound ModuleSmall Sound ModuleRGB LED ModuleSMD RGB ModuleTwo-tone Color Module7 Color Flash ModuleLaser Emit ModuleShack ModuleIR Receiver ModuleIR Emission ModuleTilt Switch ModuleButton ModuleActive Buzzer ModulePassive Buzzer Module18B20 temp ModulePhoto-resistor ModuleTemperature and Humidity ModuleGY-521 ModulePhoto-interrupter ModuleTap Module Membrane Switch ModuleAvoidance ModuleTracking ModuleMagnetic Spring ModuleWater Lever Sensor Power Supply ModuleLCD1602 Module (with pin header)

On Saturday, Alex Honnold became the first person to free solo climb the 3,000-foot wall of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, California. Look ma, no rope! "Honestly, I think this is the most satisfied I’ve ever been," he said afterwards. "It was exactly what I hoped for. I felt so good. It went pretty much perfectly.""Climber Completes the Most Dangerous Rope-Free Ascent Ever" (via @nadiamdrake)"First Interview With the Climber Who Scaled El Capitan Without a Rope" (Nat Geo)(photo by Jimmy Chin)

Ginsberg's HOWL isn't merely a masterwork of poetry, nor is it merely a classic; it is also an indelible part of American free speech jurisprudence: when US Customs seized copies of the poem on their way into New York from the British printer's presses, the resulting obscenity trial made history. (more…)

This can't be good for Fyre Media co-founders Billy McFarland and Ja Rule: leaked emails and documents show that organizers were not only grossly incompetent, they didn't seem to particularly care that the Fyre Festival was doomed.From Mic:In an urgent April 3 email with the subject line, "RED FLAG- BATHROOMS/ SHOWER SHIPPING," a mid-level Fyre Festival worker alerted senior staff, including 25-year-old co-founder Billy McFarland and Fyre Media president Conall Arora, of a growing crisis: the unexpectedly high costs (estimated to be at least $400,000) of shipping enough toilets and showers to the Bahamas to accommodate an anticipated 2,500 people on the island.This followed the news that its caterer, Starr Catering Group, had just pulled out of the festival. Those two events prompted one assistant on the email thread to joke, "No one is eating so therefore no ones pooping."Here's another snapshot from the train wreck:But there was one problem with Weinstein's plan: Those luxury villas — which Fyre Media marketed on its website and sold for thousands of dollars to attendees — don't seem to have existed.Two days later, on April 22, Weinstein sent an email to staff strongly suggesting a campaign begin to reach out to the influencers planning to attend — and prepare them for seriously reduced accommodations."It is my opinion based on conversations with influencers, that the majority of them are not going to receive what they were promised," Weinstein said in a note urging Fyre staff to be more transparent. "In speaking to even low level influencers, it was clear they expected their own rooms at private villas on the beach. Of course, these villas don't exist."After reading this, it's clear that the only way McFarland could avoid being sent to prison is if Trump appoints him to Secretary of HUD.Image of Mr. McFarland by Ian Moran. Image of Mr. Rule by Digo 015

Last month, a dozen young cows in Levron, Switzerland mysteriously leapt off a cliff and plummeted to their deaths 165 feet below. A thirteenth cow survived the jump by landing on the others. From Mysterious Universe:The calves, 13 Hérens aged 6-8 months, were found at the bottom of a 50 meter (165 foot) drop and all were dead except for the one on top, which was taken to an animal hospital in nearby Cern where it was treated for a broken jaw. The rest were cremated at a meat waste facility, to the dismay of a local animal warden who wanted to inspect them to help determine why they leaped to their deaths...Norbert Terrettaz, president of a local farming insurance company, suspects the cows were chased or spooked by a wolf, a lynx or a dog. However, that doesn’t explain the fact that there were no scratches or bites on the corpses, no tracks or spores on top of the cliff and no explanation for why the yaks didn’t run too – either off the cliff or, after hearing the splats, in the opposite direction.

Various sources this morning report that Uber had an all-hands meeting in which staff were told more than 20 employees are being fired as the result of a company investigation into claims of discrimination and sexual harassment. (more…)

It's been two years since the net came together to raise funds to support Werner Koch, who maintains the absolutely vital GnuPG email encryption system, used daily by millions to protect the privacy and integrity of their email. (more…)

What we already know is bad. But it's worse than we know.Senator Mark Warner, ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, says Russia's attacks on our election systems were more broad in scope, and targeted more states, than what the leaked NSA documents published yesterday by The Intercept indicate. (more…)

Watch as this bulldog is fascinated by this horror flick (does anyone know the name of the movie?), jumping up and barking at the scariest parts – especially when the girl seems to be in danger. I don't have a dog but this makes me want one!

And if you don't know, now you know. (The Hood Internet)Featuring:2 Pac, 50 Cent, A Tribe Called Quest, Afrika Bambaataa, Audio Two, AZ, Beastie Boys, BG, Big Pun, Biz Markie, Black Rob, Black Sheep, Blackstreet, Bobby Shmurda, Boogie Down Productions, Busta Rhymes, Cali Swag District, Cam'ron, Chamillionaire, Chance The Rapper, Clipse, Common, Craig Mack, Cypress Hill, David Banner, De La Soul, Dead Prez, Digable Planets, Digital Underground, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, DJ Kool, DJ Quik & Kurrupt, DMX, Doug E Fresh, Dr. Dre, Drake, Eazy-E, Eminem, Eric B. & Rakim, Funky 4+1, Gang Starr, Geto Boys, Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, GZA, House of Pain, Ice Cube, J-Kwon, Jadakiss, Jay Electronica, Jay-Z, JJ Fad, Juvenile, Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, Kid Cudi, KRS-One, Lauryn Hill, Lil Jon & The Eastside Boys, Lil Kim, Lil Troy, Lil Wayne, LL Cool J, Ludacris, Madvillain, MC Shan, Meek Mill, MF DOOM, Missy Elliott, Mobb Deep, Montell Jordan, MOP, Nas, Naughty By Nature, Nelly, Nicki Minaj, Notorious BIG, NWA, Ol Dirty Bastard, Outakst, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Petey Pablo, Pharaohe Monch, Public Enemy, Puff Daddy, Quad City DJs, Rich Boy, Rick Ross, Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock, Run-DMC, Salt N Pepa, Scarface, Schoolly D, Sir Mix-A-Lot, Skee-Lo, Slick Rick, Snoop Dogg, Soulja Boy, Sugarhill Gang, T La Rock, T-Wayne, T.I., Terror Squad, The Fat Boys, The Fatback Band, The Fugees, The Game, The Pack, The Pharcyde, The Roots, Three 6 Mafia, Tone Loc, Tyga, UGK, Usher, UTFO, Warren G, Whodini, Wreckx-N-Effect, Wu-Tang Clan, Ying Yang Twins, Young Gunz

The Nobel Foundation has the audio of Bob Dylan's Nobel Lecture.And somebody – somebody I’d never seen before – handed me a Leadbelly record with the song “Cottonfields” on it. And that record changed my life right then and there. Transported me into a world I’d never known. It was like an explosion went off. Like I’d been walking in darkness and all of the sudden the darkness was illuminated. It was like somebody laid hands on me. I must have played that record a hundred times.It was on a label I’d never heard of with a booklet inside with advertisements for other artists on the label: Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, the New Lost City Ramblers, Jean Ritchie, string bands. I’d never heard of any of them. But I reckoned if they were on this label with Leadbelly, they had to be good, so I needed to hear them. I wanted to know all about it and play that kind of music. I still had a feeling for the music I’d grown up with, but for right now, I forgot about it. Didn’t even think about it. For the time being, it was long gone.

We already know Uber's been investing millions of dollars in the future of self-driving. Now Lyft is making similar moves, including a partnership with Boston-based nuTonomy, a self-driving car startup founded by an MIT guy. (more…)

I once saw a driver in front of me whose body started shaking, but by the time I computed what was going on (noticing that the driver's car was starting to veer into oncoming traffic) a good samaritan jumped into the moving car, put it into park, and helped the person having the seizure. That was years ago, but yesterday another hero in Illinois was quick on his feet and helped out this driver in need.

Somehow having a 10-year-old around makes pens evaporate! These erasable gel ink pens are favorites.We seem to lose a lot of pens. These fine point Pilot gel pens have become the ones to order for replacement. The ink really does erase, even after a trip through the washing machine. Very cool for anyone who folks who make mistakes. Trust me, mistakes are made.Pilot FriXion Clicker Retractable Erasable Gel Pens, Fine Point, Assorted Color Inks, 7-Pack (31472) via Amazon

The US aviation industry is highly concentrated, with only four major airlines left in the country; for years, they've been lobbying to get rid of the FAA and take over their own safety oversight. (more…)

Beaker is a project from Dat, a "grant-funded, open-source, decentralized data sharing tool." It's a browser that lets you easily create websites using Markdown, or fork any existing website to make it suit your needs, and then share those sites peer-to-peer, without the need for servers in the middle. (more…)

Choi + Shine Architects created these beautiful knitted sea urchin sculptures for an outdoor installation in Singapore. (more…)

On his YouTube channel, filmmaker Peter McKinnon shares some simple but helpful tips on how to get smoother handheld footage without any special equipment. He also recorded a follow-up video on the basic tools amateur filmmakers can use to get a more cinematic look:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYBRfQY1Wqg

Food photographer Michael Zee uses his Instagram SymmetryBreakfast to document the beautifully symmetrical meals he makes for himself and his husband every morning. You can see some of my favorites below and even more gorgeous photos on Instagram.https://www.instagram.com/p/BUV69LYgltf/https://www.instagram.com/p/BU8EpOjgJaE/https://www.instagram.com/p/BUtFB_sAUJz/https://www.instagram.com/p/BR1x9PdgsWK/https://www.instagram.com/p/BUNvoSTgMKR/https://www.instagram.com/p/BTh94Q1ACN1/https://www.instagram.com/p/BTKw6S2Aw2e/https://www.instagram.com/p/BULJ7d3ABkW/https://www.instagram.com/p/BU5lIqpgyhC/[via My Modern Met]

This wonderful and freaky GIF comes from a competition hosted by B3ta. You can see the original GIF created by the user ? and you can also follow B3ta on Facebook. Here are the two Donalds for comparison:

Hank Green of the Vlogbrothers offers a simple intro to the Paris climate accord and why it matters that Donald Trump has withdrawn the U.S. from it.

Every time I imagine that Richard Kadrey has run out of ends-of-all-creation to torture his long-running, hard-boiled supernatural antihero Sandman Slim with, he surprises me with a bigger, badder, meaner, scarier end-of-days than the last, and with the eighth volume in the series, The Kill Society, Kadrey pulls out all the stops. (more…)

Disney fans here have been much preoccupied with the retheming of “Tower of Terror” to “Guardians of the Galaxy—Mission Breakout” at Disney California Adventure, and the opening of Pandora at Animal Kingdom in Walt Disney World. On the other side of the planet at Tokyo DisneySea (one of the best Disney parks in the world—ask anyone who’s been there, or just look at a photo below) the latest attraction to open is “Nemo and Friends SeaRider.” The new ride, which opened on May 12, replaces one of the park’s 2001 opening day attractions, “Stormrider.” That ride was kind of like a bigger version of “Star Tours,” but not nearly as good. You could see the seams all over the large screen, thus destroying the illusion that you were supposed to be looking out a large observation window at the front of a new type of plane. Said aircraft was designed to drop a “fuse” into the center of a hurricane which immediately dissipates it. The ride was not the best thing Walt Disney Imagineering has done, and it usually had the shortest line in Tokyo DisneySea, about 20 to 40 minutes in a park where two- and three-hour lines are the norm.They just fixed it by redoing the entire thing with an overlay from the film Finding Dory. There are many Disney park enthusiasts who bemoan the conversion of a ride with an original storyline and characters to that of an Intellectual Property (“IP”) which Disney owns. Personally, I don’t care as long as the ride is good. And from all reports “Nemo and Friends SeaRider” is good. As in the film Fantastic Voyage (or Disney’s own ride “Body Wars” which had a propensity to make its riders barf), you enter a vehicle, in this case the SeaRider, which is then magically reduced in size. Thus you are able to participate in the frolics with Nemo, Dory, and the other anthropomorphized undersea critters.What surprised everyone on opening day is that there are at least two, and likely more, different films and ride sequences, making subsequent visits a necessity (at least for the Disney-infected, such as myself),So take a looksee! https://youtu.be/oWyFr4jSBZ0https://youtu.be/U4zNQCDiSeUVia Disney and More.

Etsy seller Kooj of Northfield, NJ (everything is legal in New Jersey!) makes beautiful, well-reviewed handmade bathing suits, including a timely range of Wonder Woman suits: with skirts, bikinis, one-piece (closed back or peek-a-boo) and kids' sizes, handwash cold water, XS to XXL, made to your measurements. (See also: Captain America) (more…)