Mainstays Single Burner is a portable electric coil hotplate you can buy for $9 at Walmart (and Amazon). It has a 1m two-prong cord, an adjustable power control (temperatures are not marked) and rubber feet.I tested it with a steel stock pot with 8 quarts of water.After turning up the heat I watched it for a while. It got the water to about 160 degrees but it was only slowly rising and I doubt it would have gotten to a boil. Touching the steel to observe the element, I felt a strange tingling, rippling sensation in my arm.“That’s odd,” I thought, lifting the pot up to look at the element. The sensation left me. Part of the element glowed red but mostly it remained dark. I placed the pot back on the element and the moment it touched it that weird tingle shot up my arm again.“Oh, I’m being electrified,” I said, “because I bought a $9 electric burner from fucking Walmart.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClR9tcpKZecIn movies and television, Hitler's speaking voice is usually depicted as a dialed-back version of his public speaking performances: even in private he's either shrieking or muttering. The reality, captured only once in a secret recording made in Finland, is unnerving. It's deep and commanding, yet with the same maniacal rhythms. You almost forget that he's admitting, in 1942, that he underestimated Soviet productive capability and would have ignored anyone who told him.

We had a fabulous time last night at Portland's Powell's City of Books and now I'm on the runway to fly up to Seattle for tonight's event at the Neptune Theater with Neal Stephenson (it's not too late to get tickets!) -- then tomorrow I'll be at Bellingham's Village Books before heading to the Vancouver Writers' Festival. (more…)

The Press Democrat posted this video, shot by Tom Bond, of a crash on Highway 101 near Cloverdale, California: a car sheared clean in two lengthwise, the stunned driver still seated, unhurt, inches from the tear. The other driver was ejected but only suffered moderate injuries.According to the CHP, Apol Lansang, 26, of Sonoma, was driving her Malibu south on Highway 101, near Geysers Road when she was struck by the northbound Sequoia being driven by Kevin Fenty, 27, of Huntington Beach, that drifted across the highway into Lansang’s lane.The impact sliced Lansang’s car down the middle, sending the car’s entire passenger side onto the embankment. Fenty was ejected by the impact. Both drivers were taken to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital — Lansang with minor injuries and Fenty with moderate injuries, according to the CHP.“The scene was, it was pretty intense,” said Sgt. Jason Bahlman, who has been with the CHP for 16 years. “It was definitely one of the most severely damaged cars I’ve ever seen.”

Danah Boyd from Data & Society writes, "The report examines why the media was vulnerable to manipulation from radicalized groups that have emerged from a variety of internet subcultures. We're seeing an intentional and systematic attack on institutions and information intermediaries and most folks are unaware of the degree to which they are a pawn in others' gameplay. As a result, we are watching good intentions get twisted around and used to harm people, organizations, and democracy." (more…)

Akal Security Inc is the TSA contractor that screens passengers at Kansas City International Airport under a $108m/5 year contract; earlier this month they began abruptly scanning all paper products in carry on luggage, requiring passengers to pull out their books, papers, even post-it notes for secondary inspection. (more…)

Noncompete agreements have historically been the provision of highly-placed execs and critical "knowledge workers" (and even then, fast-growing economies like California have banned them in the interests of encouraging competition and growth) but now employers are routinely making the "agreements" a condition of unskilled waged labor, from making sandwiches to digging holes for $10/hour. (more…)

Louisiana has always been a backward place for criminal justice, the only state in the union that funds its public defenders' office with conviction fees, leaving a public defender's office that averages $238 spent on each accused. (more…)

Americans who know where North Korea is are more like to favor diplomacy over war in dealing with its regime. Unfortunately, few Americans know where North Korea is.

Keep your desktop clean and free of excess cables with a Charge & Sync dock, available now in the Boing Boing Store. This unassuming design features an s-shaped profile for maximum stability, non-slip feet, and a sturdy mounting point for your phone. With this dock, you can keep an eye on notifications while preventing damage from accidental drops and coffee spills. It comes in both USB-C Android and MFi-Certified iOS variations, ensuring safe charging and syncing for your devices.This charge & sync dock puts a rest to the phantom vibrations in your pocket, keeps lint out of your earpiece speaker, and conveniently charges your phone. You can get one here in the Boing Boing Store for 42% off retail at $19.99.

If you drive daily, especially to new destinations, it's wise to have a smartphone car mount. Aside from making map directions considerably easier to follow, they also keeps your phone in a central location so you can keep an eye on notifications without taking your eyes off the road. While most mounts attach to your dashboard via suction cup, the ExoMount CD inserts into your CD player which you probably aren't using all that much these days.Plugging into the CD drive assures a sturdy mount while the grip is compatible with any kind of smartphone. It can even be rotated 360 degrees, letting you orient your screen however you like.Until automakers start integrating smartphone mounts directly into the dashboard, this ExoMount CD is one of your best bets. You can get one here in the Boing Boing Store.

Yesterday's Walkaway event at San Diego's Mysterious Galaxy was terrific (there was birthday cake) and now I'm flying to Portland for an event at Powell's City of Books tonight with Andy "Waxy" Baio before heading to Seattle for an event with Neal Stephenson at the Neptune Theater, then a stop in Bellingham's Village Books. (more…)

Yesterday, the world got a temporary respite from the virulent Wcry ransomware worm, which used a leaked NSA cyberweapon to spread itself to computers all over the world, shutting down hospitals, financial institutions, power companies, business, and private individuals' computers, demanding $300 to reactivate them. (more…)

The Independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating a tip-off from a current or ex-London police officer that the London Metropolitan Police's National Domestic Extremism and Disorder Intelligence Unit asked Indian police to use their hacker contacts to break into the private communications of hundreds of British people and groups, from journalists to Greenpeace. (more…)

...is the wide range of choice it provides.

We had a great Walkaway tour stop last night in Scottsdale, AZ, and now I'm headed to San Diego to help the legendary Mysterious Galaxy store celebrate its birthday, closing out a fantastic day of speakers, readers and signings at 4PM. (more…)

As Donald Trump's FCC gets set to kill Net Neutrality, lobbyists for the country's telcos and cable operators are tucking in their napkins and picking up their cutlery, getting ready to feast. (more…)

Pay $7,500/year and $2,700/flight and you can use can use the new "private terminal" at LAX where you are waited on hand-and-foot, including a personal sit-down with the TSA guard who "searches" you before you're put in a BMW and driven across the tarmac to your flight -- best of all, you can watch a live video-feed of normal humans in the public terminal, captioned "Here is a glimpse of what you’re missing over at the main terminal right now," and featuring "travellers hauling bags through packed terminals, queuing in long lines, looking harassed and being swallowed into pushing, shoving paparazzi scrums – routine hazards for the 80 million people who pass through LAX each year." (more…)

Today, activists will gather in Cambridge, Mass to march to the offices of W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee to urge him to keep DRM out of the standards for the open web. (more…)

Ever since he became leader of the UK Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn has faced bitter attacks from the "left-wing" establishment, the press, and his own party, despite his repeated, unprecedented landslide victories in party leadership races. (more…)

Looking to break into the rapidly growing world of drone racing? Maybe? Just looking for a solid remote-controlled camera quadcopter to shoot aerial footage? Either way, the Aerix Black Talon 2.0's friendly controls and stable flight make it a great option for novice and intermediate flyers.The Aerix Black Talon drone is able to fly at 15 mph for up to 7 minutes straight. It streams real-time POV flight footage to its companion phone app in 720p HD, and is compatible with Google Cardboard to give you an immersive pilot experience. Operating the Aerix is easy with the included joypad controller; it provides a selection of pre-set maneuvers and an automatic return-to-pilot function.This drone includes a rechargeable lithium-ion battery and a 4GB SD card for saving footage and still shots. You can get the Aerix Black Talon 2.0 Micro FPV Beginner Racing Drone here in the Boing Boing Store.

I bought a pair of these magnetic clip lights a few years and they've proven to be incredibly useful when I have to do repair work. The light has 8 LEDs and it throws a pretty wide beam of bright light. It sticks securely to any ferrous metal surface and has a clip so you can attach it to your pocket. I used it when I was installing a new safety switch in a washing machine. I stuck it on the side of the washing machine cabinet and it gave me plenty of light to attach the ground wire and route the cable. I haven't had to change the batteries yet, either.I keep one on our fridge and the other in my toolbox.The price is right, too. A set of 2 costs $9 on Amazon.

The Loop-a-Lot is described by this YouTuber as a "crummy toy." Is it really crummy? Well, it probably didn't keep kids amused for more that 45 seconds. So, it probably is crummy. The purpose of the toy is to balance pennies on points inside cutouts of a paddle while you spin it around your finger. You could make one out of a piece of cardboard in a couple of minutes. The manufacturers knew this toy would be a hard sell, so they resorted to the desperate ploy of incorporating a suit-wearing, roller skating monkey into the commercial.

Much to the delight of sick and twisted people everywhere the Amazing Johnathan is touring again! Next weekend he'll be in Riverside, California at Beyond Brookledge!Magician Johnathan Szeles is one of the most talented, brilliantly funny, brutally ascerbic, fantastically creative people alive -- and boy are we glad he still is! In 2014 Johnathan retired from magic and gave up performing. Poor circulation led doctors to give him 18 months to live. Here we are 36 months later, and every time I've seen Johnathan over the last few years he looks better and better.Johnathan and his absolute rockstar wife Anastasia both love performing at Beyond Brookledge, which is perhaps the greatest 3 days of magic and variety planned in any calendar year. You'll be wowed by both their performances next weekend!

Rapper Bow Wow recently posted a photo a photo on Instagram of the private jet he was about to board. Unfortunately, someone spotted Bow Wow Wow sitting on his commercial plane:Very soon after, the #bowwowchallenge commenced![via]

25 NHS trusts and multiple doctors' practices in England and Scotland (but so far, not Northern Ireland or Wales) report that they have had to effectively shut down due to a massive Wcry ransomware infection that has stolen whole swathes of the English healthcare system in one go. The infection appears to exploit a bug that the NSA discovered and deliberately kept secret, only to have it revealed by the Shadow Brokers. (more…)

Mother Jones is taking donations "to get to the truth on the Trump team's connections to Russia." The magazine plans on raising $500,000 through a crowdfunding campaign "to make sure truth prevails over power."According to Mother Jones:To be clear: We can't, and shouldn't, assume that where there's smoke, there's fire. But at this point, that doesn't matter. What Trump or any of his associates did in 2016 may or may not have been a scandal, but blocking the public from finding out most definitely is. Trump may turn out to have overreached with the Comey firing, prompting the kind of independent inquiry he was so desperate to avoid. But it's evident that Republicans on Capitol Hill—terrified of what such a probe would do to their agenda and their electoral prospects—will do everything they can to avoid going there.That means it's up to the public—all of us—to make sure truth prevails over power. There are many ways of doing that, from showing up at town halls to calmly reasoning with friends or relatives. For us, as journalists, the call to action is an especially urgent one: We need to deploy every skill we've learned, from shoe-leather reporting to data dives. We need to go deep, stick with the story no matter where it leads, and resist getting tangled in conventional wisdom or distracted by sideshows.The campaign just started and they've already received a $200,000 grant from the Glaser Progress Foundation, who will donate an additional $50,000 once Mother Jones reaches their goal.Mother Jones admits that this digging up this story – if there is one – will be a time-consuming task. "It's going to require going down a lot of rabbit holes and spending quality time with stacks of documents—day after day, month after month. So please help send us down those rabbit holes." Image: FolsomNatural

In the spirit of 100 Year of Beauty, here's the "Evolution of Douchebag Style."[via]

Some New Yorkers had an entertaining Friday morning as Melissa McCarthy took to the streets of Manhattan impersonating Sean Spicer on a motorized podium. She ends up in front of cameras, perhaps taping for this weekend's Saturday Night Live?

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA)'s Instagram account is a real hoot, featuring weird, ridiculous, and sometimes helpful images of items that are prohibited and permitted to bring on flights. Apparently Jeremy Bentham's mummified head, above, "is allowed in carry-on as long as it's properly packaged, labeleled, and declared..." Also, who knew that Batarangs and Krull Glaives were so popular. From National Geographic:“It almost looks like we’re in the entertainment business at times,” says Bob Burns, lead social media specialist with the TSA Office of Public Affairs and the man behind the account’s cheeky posts. After leaving his rock band in 2002, Burns originally joined TSA as a screener and later started the Instagram account in 2013—his idea to educate the public in a more engaging way.“Everyone’s had that teacher where you’re afraid to ask questions because you’ll get criticized or yelled at. The human tone of our Instagram account makes us more approachable,” Burns says. “The majority of our photos are prohibited items and strange things … we try to use that as a teaching moment: A chainsaw is not allowed in your carry-on bag.” Talk about deadheading... This crusty ol' chap is actually a prop from the #TexasChainsawMassacre movie. He was brought through a checkpoint at the Atlanta (#ATL) International Airport, where as you can see, he was screened and sent on his jolly way. #TSAOnTheJob A post shared by TSA (@tsa) on May 15, 2016 at 3:41pm PDT Some might find this nanner knife appealing. I’m guessing you have a bunch of them? Yes, you can take bananas on the plane. This is a screenshot of a tweet sent to the @AskTSA account on Twitter. Have you ever wondered whether or not you can pack a certain item? Fret no more! Now you can simply snap a picture and tweet it to @AskTSA or send it via Facebook Messenger and our team will get back to you promptly with an answer. If you're a regular follower of this account, I'm sure you can think of many situations where it would have behooved somebody to send us a picture first. And that's not all. Contact us about any TSA related issue or question you might have. We can even help you with TSA Pre✓® issues. We look forward to answering your questions, 8am-10pm ET weekdays; 9am-7pm weekends/holidays. #AskTSA #TSATravelTips A post shared by TSA (@tsa) on May 10, 2017 at 5:00pm PDT #TSATravelTips - Don’t pack your homemade replica suicide vest. The traveler who packed this vest in his checked bag at Richmond (RIC) stated it was a prop intended for use in a live-action role-playing game (LARP). TSA explosives experts raced to the checked baggage room and the airport police were called immediately. Fortunately, the explosives experts determined the vest posed no danger. It has yet to be determined if the officer who searched the bag needed a change of clothing. A post shared by TSA (@tsa) on Oct 27, 2016 at 2:58pm PDT

Members of the San Francisco Giants are using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in an effort to improve their performance on the field. According to SF Giants sports scientist Geoff Head (real name!), "some big-name players" are using the Halo Sport device, resembling Beats headphones, to deliver a small amount of current to the wearer's motor cortex. From KQED:Head decided to try the headset, called Halo Sport, during spring training last year—he gave them to some minor leaguers to wear as they sprinted 20-yard dashes. After two weeks, Head analyzed the results and found that the players who wore the equipment had shaved off a few one-hundredths of a second compared to a control group....Even though a lot of the data is conflicting, the most positive results do support using tDCS to improve motor control. Hence the slew of startups targeting athletes.The Giants’ Head says even a tiny advantage can help win games at the major league level. An improvement of two-hundredths of a second can be “the difference between safe and out sometimes,” he says."The SF Giants Are Zapping Their Brains With Electricity. Will It Help?" (KQED)

Thanks to everyone who came out to last night's Walkaway tour-stop at Houston's Brazos Books; I'm just arriving at the airport to fly to Phoenix for tonight's event at Scottsdale's Poisoned Pen Books with Brian David Johnson. (more…)

The organizers of the disastrous Fyre Festival— which charged $12,000 a ticket, splurged the proceeds on celebrity endorsements and other bullshit, failed to prepare the site in time for the rich kids flying there, then delayed the event as they went feral at the half-finished event site in the Bahamas, then flew them all home—has informed staff they will not be paid. But if they want to, they can volunteer!On Friday, Billy McFarland, the 25-year-old founder of the disastrous Fyre Festival, told his shell-shocked employees that their paychecks covering the past two weeks would not be coming. Nor would he be firing them, a prerequisite for unemployment benefits in most states. Instead, McFarland offered to allow his dozen-or-so employees to stay on in unpaid roles, where they could work to grow the business to a place where they might get paid again.The meeting, audio of which was obtained by VICE News, wrapped up weeks of uncertainty for the employees of Fyre Media, the company behind Fyre Festival, whose primary job had been building a celebrity and talent booking app the festival was intended to promote. Rapper and Fyre Media co-founder Ja Rule was on the grim conference call, but his role was that of a listener.“I’m on the phone but I can barely hear you all because of this fucking hum,” Ja Rule said.The organizers are millionaires and can obviously afford to pay their staff, and the reputation immolation of Ja Rule and McFarland is already complete, so the obvious opinion to take is that they're at the fuck all of you stage, where every last penny represents a tiny fragment of their narcissistic egos and will be pinched.For anyone on the books, the "offer" of volunteer status would avoid layoffs and unemployment benefits. For any being paid in cash off the books, it perhaps offers a paperwork opportunity to save them from the brutal ministrations of the IRS.Previously: Already regretting assigning J.G. Ballard to cover the Fyre Festival, Fyre festival organizers hit with $100 million fraud and breach of contract lawsuit

Racist, perjuring Attorney General Jeff Sessions has issued guidance to federal prosecutors, ordering them to charge the people they will face in court with "the most serious offense you can prove," paving the way for a surge in America's already-shameful record of racially biased, family destroying, community-devastating, private-prison-enriching mass incarceration, which already outstrips the rates of incarceration in Apartheid-era South Africa, China and the USSR. (more…)

Buying a phone on Craigslist or eBay or some other shady venue? Get the device's ESN or IMEI number from the seller and post it to the Stolen Phone Checker, a single-serving website set up by industry trade group CTIA. If the seller won't give you the number, assume it's stolen. [via]

Vlad Savov went on a tour of the Band & Olufsen Museum in Struer, Denmark—a wonder closet of cool audio gear.The very earliest Bang & Olufsen product was actually a component rather than a full-fledged radio. The Eliminator, as it was called, made batteries unnecessary and allowed you to plug your radio directly into the mains. A couple of years after the Eliminator’s introduction, Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen moved their work out of the Olufsen family farm and into a factory in the nearby town of Struer in northwest Denmark. This is where the main B&O manufacturing facilities remain to this day.In terms of their design inspiration, these first B&O radios were like the original skeuomorphic iPhone OS of their time. They adapted the styling of familiar pieces of home furniture to their technological purposes.

From @LRO_NASA: "A huge payoff from the longevity of the LRO mission is the repeat coverage obtained by the LROC Wide Angle Camera (WAC). The WAC has a very wide field-of-view (FOV), 90° in monochrome mode and 60° in multispectral mode, hence its name. On the one hand, the wide FOV enables orbit-to-orbit stereo, which allowed LROC team members at the DLR to create the unprecedented 100 meter scale near-global (0° to 360° longitude and 80°S to 80°N latitude) topographic map of the Moon."See also NASA Goddard's Tour of the Moon, especially if your love for it was formed in the last century:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iSZMv64wuU

In McSweeney's, Dan Cluchey plumbs the depths of Poe's law with an indistinguishable-from-satire article analyzing the "winners and losers of the recent nuclear holocaust." (more…)

"Hm. That's kinda gross." [via]

In an interview with NBC News, president Donald Trump let slip the real reason he fired FBI Director James Comey – a reason all know and understand, but which was so far fig-leaved by various lurching cover stories.https://twitter.com/PhilipRucker/status/862799949196656640Why didn't Lester Holt follow-up on each gift of a response from Trump? Because Lester Holt is incapable of reacting to even the most revealingly stupid answers. He just moves on to the next question. Trump could have said "Putin told me to have him found in a ditch, but you know, we can be subtle," and Holt would have stared at him a moment, then asked "Were you angry with Comey?" Which leads us to an important reminder, the thing Trump knows that gives him the security to just blather out any answer he believes will make him look reasonable right now: nothing will happen.

The Logitech MK270 Wireless Keyboard and Mouse set was just twelve dollars and fifty cents!It's sometimes $16.99 or even a bit more, but that's still pretty damned cheap.I expected it to be about as bad as the Amazon Basics Keyboard, which is the same price, but wired, and you don't get a mouse. You know those nasty squidgy roll-up rubber portable keyboards? Imagine one of those in a rigid plastic case, and you have the Amazon Basics Keyboard.This, though, is a perfectly decent full-size rubber-dome keyboard, as good as most of the tat in, say, a Best Buy or Staples. The special keys worked, including a calculator key that actually brings up the system calculator. Fucking witchcraft! (more…)

In University of Pennsylvania psychiatrist Jody Foster's new book The Schmuck in My Office: How to Deal Effectively with Difficult People at Work, she shares sound advice on dealing with narcissistic co-workers. From an excerpt at Quartz:On a day-to-day basis, appealing to this person’s egocentricity can be very effective. The occasional recognition of the person’s achievement, strengths, or values may go a long way in avoiding anger or demeaning comments; in some instances, you may simply want to remark upon a person’s good efforts. Fanning the embers of narcissism is particularly effective in avoiding unwanted conflict. Particularly if the Narcissus is your boss, you have to let them think that you perceive them as important. No matter how difficult it may be to do this, the Narcissus boss can make the workplace a living hell for anyone who they think is not on board with their success. Give them compliments, and try to do so without mocking them.Remember that the only commentary that the Narcissus will be able to actually hear will contain some degree of praise in it. So when asking for a favor or for some type of change that could be perceived as an insult, definitely attempt the route of first praising him in some way. Even a simple statement like a reminder about a deadline might need some positive reinforcement embedded in it: “I can’t wait to see your draft of the proposal on Friday.” Remember that the Narcissus has special techniques for avoiding hearing criticism and can interpret even a simple suggestion or reminder as an insult if it doesn’t contain anything positive.Another strategy is paying attention to the Narcissus. If enough attention is not paid, he will perceive criticism. Even simple moves, like stopping by to say, “Have a good weekend” on the way out the door, can have positive effects on your workplace relationship.The Schmuck in My Office: How to Deal Effectively with Difficult People at Work (Amazon)

What could be dumber that a smart machine that empties an expensive DRM'd bag of juice into a glass? How about a smart salt shaker that plays music and blinks colored LEDs? It's called a Smalt. It's a joke, right?Quantified kitchen is the next wave of smart home tools and our company’s ambition is to be at the forefront. We will be bringing tools to the market that will be interactive and fun while enriching peoples’ lives. Our first innovation, “SMALT”, is the first of it’s kind to market and will transform an ordinary kitchen tools that people have been using for centuries into an experience for the senses.[via Lifehacker]

Anker makes good stuff, and this itty-bitty Bluetooth speaker has great reviews on Amazon. It's on sale today for $15.

Featuring simple, bold, and colorful illustrations, A Beginner's Guide to Immortality examines humanity's never-ending quest to discover the secret to eternal life. The book is categorized into five options on extending one's life: Elixirs, Meeting Immortals, Visiting Magical Places, Patience, and The Future. Starting with a look at historical figures such as Gilgamesh's search for youth-restoring seaweed and Qin She Huang's hunt for a fruit which grants eternal life, the book touches on the unsuccessful search for mythical life-extending tools like alchemical elixirs, the philosopher's stone, and the flesh of the ningyo fish. The folkloric Moon rabbit is shown is vibrant yellow, stirring its cauldron of the Elixir Of Life. The journey continues to mythical places where some form of a fountain of youth supposedly exists in Bimini, St. Brendan's Island, and Tir Na Nog. A dynamic full-page illustration of a maiden soaking in a mountain stream in bold aquamarine evokes an idyllic atmosphere. Real-life places such as those in Earth's Blue Zones occurring in Sardinia, Okinawa, and Loma Linda, California, where inhabitants regularly live to upwards of 90 years, are also investigated.Venturing into the realms of biology and other sciences, long lived animals such as naked mole rats, planarian worms, and a jellyfish known as turritopsis dohrnii are described. A gene that centenarians may possess known as FoxO is examined. Healthy routines like eating well, regular exercise, and flossing are suggested. A humorous full-page illustration of famous literary immortals is shown, featuring amazons, wizards, Pinocchio, and Dracula.Ending the book with options that might exist in the future, cryogenics, mummification, cloning, and inserting one's consciousness into a digital avatar are all represented. The theory of biomechanical immortality is vividly illustrated in emerald green with an enormous robot having its puny human brain installed as pleased scientists look on. Finally, the belief in an afterlife in world religions is presented.A Beginner's Guide to Immortality is a lively, quick read, exploring concepts in history, science, literature, and geography, and presented in an easily digested manner. Charmingly illustrated in a blocky, comic book style, with chunky images of futuristic robots with glowing brains, medieval alchemists mixing strange chemicals, and Ponce De Leon wielding a metal detector, it's an informative, humorous book.– SDA Beginner's Guide to Immortality: From Alchemy to Avatars by Maria Birmingham, Josh Holinaty (Illustrator)Owlkids2015, 48 pages, 7.4 x 0.6 x 9.7 inches, Hardcover$11 Buy on Amazon

I would rather not find out why this happened. It's better to appreciate out of context.

These beautiful Day of the Dead playing cards could be none more black.Poker sized and made of PVC plastic to allow for the throwing, these cards are absolutely beautiful.Black Playing Cards - Day of the Dead Edition by Gent Supply Co via Amazon

I recently upgraded my Drobo 5N to a new, much faster Drobo 5N2. (more…)

Bill Wurtz is the guy who made a fantastically entertaining video history of Japan last year. In this video, he's taken on the slightly more ambitious task of presenting the history of the universe, beginning before the formation of matter and quickly focusing on a rapid fire lesson in world history. A+ work!

On Hackaday, Alasdair Allan documents the ingenious techniques employed in the creation of the Beat the Boss Phone, a tiny, lozenge-shaped phone (with a voice-changer) that is designed to be smuggled past the BOSS metal detectors used in UK prisons in the rectums of prisoners. (more…)