According to astronomer Seth Shostak, the alien intelligences we'll likely encounter someday won't be "little grey guys with big eyeballs but machines." As senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, Seth has dedicated his scientific career to seeking out evidence of ET transmissions and using that research to educate the public about our place in the universe. Mark Frauenfelder and I interviewed Seth about hunting for aliens in this episode of For Future Reference, a new podcast from Institute for the Future: Please subscribe to For Future Reference: iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud

A team of six quietly surround their victim, who is walking down the sidewalk with his phone held up to his ear. He is oblivious. One team member deftly reaches out and snatches the phone from behind the victim. At the same time, another team member shoves the victim in the back, startling and disorienting him. By the time the victim turns around, the phone-snatcher is lost in the crowd, and everyone on the team walks along as if nothing happened.[via]

Superman always left me cold. Virtually omnipotent, unerringly virtuous, and slightly boring, Superman is capable of rescuing kittens from trees, leaping over buildings with a single bound, and routinely saving the entire planet from certain cataclysm. He always wins. Sure, he was sort of killed once, he's been naughty on occasion (usually due to some form of Kryptonite or an alternate reality), and he certainly has a fascist streak in the current movies, but his most recent controversy is whether he's wearing the red trunks or not. Yawn. I was always fascinated by the C-squad heroes, the not-quite-ready-for-prime-time group just below Aquaman and Elongated Man in name recognition. Red Tornado, the 1940's heroine who fought crime while wearing a bucket on her head, utilizing only her fists and wit. Mr. Terrific, the Golden Age 'Man of 1000 Talents', who rarely used any of them. Phantom Stranger, a mage with omnipotent powers who was merely a narrator in his own book, generally only appearing in the first and last panels. And then there's The Legion Of Superheroes, whose members included Bouncing Boy, who had the ability to inflate himself and bounce around, Ferro Lad, who could turn himself to solid iron, and Matter Eater Lad, who could eat anything, which inspired the indie rock group Guided By Voices to write a song about him. Don't even get me started on the League Of Substitute Heroes, the minor leaguers with questionable abilities not quite up to snuff to join the Legion. The League Of Regrettable Superheroes examines the careers of a few of the comic book history's least likely heroes. Snarky and humorous, the book pokes good-natured fun at the heroes who couldn't quite make the big Leagues. Beginning in the Golden Age and working right up to the modern age, it features full page images of the comic's front cover, a page from the interior of the book highlighting some of their less-than-spectacular exploits, and a sidebar gives important statistics. Some of the characters presented include: Bozo The Iron Man, a Nazi-slugging robot with a inexplicably menacing grin on its face. Doctor Vampire, a caped physician who is actually not a vampire, but battles them. Fantomah, the beautiful heroine who transforms into a hideous skull once angered. Kangaroo Man, a daredevil explorer fighting fascism with his trained kangaroo sidekick. Mad Hatter, the rhyming crime-fighter whose fighting togs do not include a chapeau. And finally, The Puppeteer, whose day job as a puppet maker has almost nothing to do with his powers or origin.With its gorgeous full page images of the comics and humorous descriptions of the heroes, each second-stringer gets a few pages of glory. Zipping along through 70 years of comic book history, The League Of Regrettable Superheroes is a fun, quick read. - SDThe League of Regrettable Superheroes: Half-Baked Heroes from Comic Book History by Jon MorrisQuirk Books2015, 256 pages, 7.3 x 1.0 x 9.3 inches, Hardcover$18 Buy on AmazonSee sample pages from this book at Wink.

Yup. Dad jokes.

The Q's latest contraption reminds me of that classic A-Team episode when they hacked a wood chipper into a cabbage bazooka! You need - 4 coca cola cans - 8 syringes- 8 lighters- 16 small nails- rubbing alcohol- 16 wires at least 25 cm each(via Laughing Squid)

Universal Basic Income isn't just one proposal: it's a whole spectrum of ideas, with different glosses and nuances coming from the right and the left, from libertarians and those of a more paternalistic bent. (more…)

The City of Seattle voted to allow Uber drivers to form a union, and Uber says that if its court challenge to the rule is unsuccessful, it might leave Seattle. (more…)

Is there a visual equivalent to the audio tingles people report in ASMR? Because I get a special kinda o' feeling deep down inside whenever I watch videos like woodworker Paul Seller's gorgeous Fibonacci Spiral Shaving. It even sounds like some sort of a fussy sexual proclivity: Fibonacci spiral shaving.Given the video's comments, where people are talking about how meditative, relaxing, and therapeutic Fibonacci spiral shaving is, I don't think I'm alone. And I second the request to loop it. I could watch this thing all day.Oh, and by the way, if you're into this sort of eyeball massaging, watching videos of repetitive activity, close-ups of craftwork, strange materials and chemical intereactions, and the like, check out the Oddly Satisfying tag on Instagram.

Last year, Jeep2003 decided to frankenstein a new lawnmower using parts from an old snowblower, a smoker grille, and retro motorcycle-style fenders, detailing the build process on the Old Mini Bikes forums. The results are gorgeous: tail-lights, hood ornament, and all! (more…)

The President likes long ties, so long he has to scotch-tape 'em to keep them from flying apart; the @trumpsties account reveals the ties Trump would wear, if he could get away with it. (Thanks, Fipi Lele!) (more…)

The Republican Congressjerks who passed legislation allowing your ISP to spy on your online activity and sell the data from it without your permission will be firmly reminded of their calumny in the 2018 election cycle, as the Center for Media Justice and its privacy allies plan "street-level tactics" to hold them accountable for their sellout. (more…)

Vulnerabilities in the Broadcom system-on-a-chip that provides wifi for many Android devices mean that simply lighting up a malicious wifi access point can allow an attacker to compromise every vulnerable device in range, without the users having to take any action -- they don't have to try to connect to the malicious network. (more…)

Perhaps your pockets might be the easiest place to store cash and other loose objects. But unless you're a big fan of cargo pants, keeping your personal items, especially little ones, organized without some kind of bag is a tough task. This Key Safe keeps important odds-and-ends separate from lint and wadded-up receipts.With its screw-top design, you can get quick access to paper bills, valet tickets, medication, and whatever other small items you want to put in there. It’s totally waterproof too, so you don’t have to worry about anything getting ruined in the rain (other than your phone and your clothes). Made of sand-blasted stainless steel, this pocket-sized vessel will likely outlive you.This minimalist container is also perfect protection from pickpockets while traveling. Get the Key Safe here for 10% off—just $17.95.

Upholding a £120 fine levied against a parent who took their child on vacation mid-semester, England's Supreme Court—backed by the Prime Minister—ruled that parents should not be allowed to remove children from school without "authorization."In her judgement, Lady Hale said it would cause unacceptable disruption if parents were able to withdraw children whenever they wanted."Unauthorised absences have a disruptive effect, not only on the education of the individual child, but also on the work of other pupils, and of their teachers," she said.Allowing parents to decide when they took their children away would be a "slap in the face" to parents who kept the rules, said Lady Hale.Punishment for disobedience justified by the presumed insult to the obedient. So very English!A Department for Education spokeswoman said: "We are pleased the Supreme Court unanimously agreed with our position - that no child should be taken out of school without good reason.(You can home-school kids in the UK, but the authorities can serve mandatory school attendance orders if they don't like the look of your curriculum)

A coloring book featuring Hitler among landscapes and other historical personages was removed this week from sale in the Netherlands. The book "was produced in India and it is remains unclear why Hitler was included," reports the BBC.The Dutch retailer was only alerted after the book had gone on sale and shocked parents began posting comments on social media.One parent posted an image of the page with the caption: "Nice, your colouring book!"Another customer called it a "disgrace" on the company's Facebook page.Enjoy with a nice pint of Hitler Ice Cream.

I stumbled upon this strange but delightful YouTube channel that uses two Lin-Manuel Miranda face cutouts to reimagine the Hamilton cast recording in a whole new light. Though at first it seems like just a so-dumb-its-fun gimmick, it’s remarkable how much emotion the two creators are able to call forth from just one Miranda expression. And their choreography, costuming, and use of location (not to mention random bananas) is pitch perfect weirdo comedy. You can check out some highlights below and the full collection of the Spamilton YouTube page.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvM6gQUpH-Uhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1bBZY2P0kQhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYruzJEqUpAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uV-vwmSA8Mk

In this fascinating new video, BuzzFeed offers a guide to the seven living generations of Americans, starting with The Greatest Generation (born 1901-1927). The video then compares and contrasts formative events, behavioral traits, and statistics of The Silent Generation (born 1928-1945), Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964), Generation X (born 1965-1980), Millennials (born 1981-1997), Generation Z (born 1998-2010), and the just barely forming Generation Alpha (born 2011-2025).

If you are of a certain age, you may remember the thrill of those fleeting moments of crystal clear video broadcast in a scrambled cable signal. If you're not of a certain age, now you can get a sense of the sufferings of your elders. Here's the scrambled pool scene from Fast Times at Ridgemont High from Tele1st in Chicago, but it could be from any 1980s motel. (more…)

This Tasty video turns the art of making grilled cheese into, well, art.

Seth Meyers has quietly become one of the stronger political voices on late night TV. In this “Closer Look” segment from his Monday show, Meyers digs into short-lived national security advisor Michael Flynn’s offer to testify in exchange for immunity. He uses Flynn and Trump’s own words about immunity to put Flynn’s situation in perspective. And he highlights some truly terrifying footage of Trump forgetting to sign executive orders at an executive order signing ceremony.

From Sunriver Nature Centre. (more…)

Ben the dog, looking adorable. (more…)

'Alto and Apache vs Gravity,' from Alto's YouTube channel. (more…)

Nailed it. (more…)

This image of Russian leader and purported Donald Trump kingmaker Vladimir Putin as a gay clown is now illegal in Russia. Whatever you do, do not share this far and wide so that everyone sees it. (more…)

GMUNK has done a lot of cool video work, but he says his trip to Alaska to shoot infrared stills was one of his most inspiring projects of all. Below are a couple of examples. (more…)

A poster talk at last year's European Conference on Computer Vision introduced "Deep Warp," a machine-learning based technique for "photorealistic image resynthesis for gaze manipulation" -- that is, you hand the algorithm an image of a face, and tell it where you want the person in the face to look, and it moves the gaze realistically to have the person look in your desired location. (more…)

When the old Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante stepped down from the Library of Congress, it was an open secret that she'd been forced out and there was a lot of Big Content conspiracy theories that Google had gotten her canned because she was too friendly to the movie studios and record labels. (more…)

The Onion poses a mystifying question of evolutionary biology: wouldn't it be better if animals had more eyes?https://twitter.com/TheOnion/status/849670240082419712I rather think more mouths would be preferable.

Given how much I loved Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage (and tolerated Iron Fist), I’m super pumped for the shows' respective heroes to team-up in The Defenders. You can check out the first quick teaser for the superhero crossover series above. As the security camera footage timestamp (and this accompanying website) indicates, the show is set to debut on Netflix on August 18th.

UFO sightings are on the rise, and America has 300 times the number of E.T. reports than the global median, claims the ‘National Examiner,’ which has done the math so that you don’t have to.That may explain why this week’s tabloids seem even more divorced from reality than usual.Has President Trump’s tenuous affiliation with facts given the tabloids carte blanche to engage in flights of fantasy? Enquiring minds want to know.Just like the “New York Times’ has its venerable motto “All the news that’s fit to print,” so the ‘National Enquirer’ has begun stamping across the bottom of almost every other page its blustering credo: “The only publication with the guts to tell it like it is.” If only. (more…)

In the 50 years between 1955 and 2005, 47.5% of artists who had a song make the sales charts never made it again. HighSnobiety looks at the reasons why. (more…)

With Easter just a few weeks away, it’s the perfect time to revisit this adorable video from 2013. This baby really wasn’t expecting her sister’s toy Easter hen to have an extra surprise in store for her.

I decided I needed to start exercising again, and spinning--cycling on a stationary bike--is the best choice for me. Peloton looked awesome, but too expensive. I figured out a way to enjoy the features of Peloton I care about, without spending the big bucks. Here's how you can do it, too. (more…)

Insurance agent William Herbert Wallace had a terrible night in January 1931 -- summoned to a nonexistent address in Liverpool, he returned home to find that his wife had been murdered in his absence. An investigation seemed to show a senseless crime with no weapon, no motive, and no likely suspects. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll revisit the slaying of Julia Wallace, which Raymond Chandler called "the impossible murder."We'll also recount some wobbly oaths and puzzle over an eccentric golfer.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon!

Box with a Secret (Шкатулка с секретом) is a Yellow Submarine-inspired children's fairy tale about a child who discovers how to fix a magical box that stopped working. You don't have to know Russian to enjoy its Communist-era message about aristocracy. (more…)

FOLLOW @RubenBolling on the Twitters and a Face Book.JOIN Tom the Dancing Bug's subscription club, the Proud & Mighty INNER HIVE, for exclusive early access to comics, extra comics, secrets, codes, and much more. GET Ruben Bolling’s new hit book series for kids, The EMU Club Adventures. (”A book for the curious and adventurous!” -Cory Doctorow) Book One here. Book Two here. More Tom the Dancing Bug comics on Boing Boing! (more…)

Over April Fool's weekend, Reddit introduced r/place, a blank canvas where users could add pixels of any color. It quickly emerged into an astonishing piece of collaborative digital art with several hard-fought battles to keep and erase certain elements. (more…)

Vimeo recently highlighted this stunning minute-long art collaboration called “INORI (prayer).” It comes from creative and technical director Nobumichi Asai and stars Japanese performance duo AyaBambi. According to the description: First, the soundtrack was composed according along the theme “Life.” Nobumichi Asai and Shingo Abe was inspired by the music and then made face mapping work. Aya Sato designed choreography. TOKYO completed the project by making the video work.The music brought Asai the image of “the radioactive.” The destructive force of the radioactive could cause “death,” “suffering,” and “sorrow.” And “prayers” could overcome them. These subjects infuse AyaBambi’s powerful performance. Their performance crushes and conquer black tears, skulls and the Heart Sutra. We built up the concept during the production and Abe designed animation for face mapping.There was a big challenge in technical aspects. We realized the new mapping system that allows us to follow intense performances by using the latest 1,000 fps projector, DynaFlash and a super speed sensor. It is very new and it had not been done before. Projected images become part of their skin and they transform their faces.At the beginning of our development, there was an issue, AyaBambi would loose freedom of performances if we accelerated the tracking speed. Asai, Yoshimura (WOW), Lecturer Watanabe and Teshima (EXVISION) explored how we could keep the tracking speed securing the freedom of performances, taking three months of trial and error to reduce a few milliseconds. And we finally developed this system.Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the video:https://vimeo.com/210565827

According to the guy who shot this with a Brazilian potato-cam, the boa constrictor attacked a porcupine, which managed to escape after leaving a few hundred spines in its attacker.(more…)

Adam Hillman is a 22-year-old artist and “object arranger” from New Jersey. He uses his Instagram to showcase everyday objects in satisfying patterns.https://www.instagram.com/p/BSBZ60Ehq8z/https://www.instagram.com/p/BSEKQtiBEag/https://www.instagram.com/p/BR061jCBHIb/Hillman spoke to Insider Art about his work in this short video:https://www.instagram.com/p/BSZAKMzhXcS/You can purchase prints of his work on his Society6 page. Here are some more of my favorite of his photos and videos:https://www.instagram.com/p/BRjSp7lhJoQ/https://www.instagram.com/p/BQF9i_ZDT9f/https://www.instagram.com/p/BRdbHAPBgU4/https://www.instagram.com/p/BR5rK1AhMc2/https://www.instagram.com/p/BQLENvdD1ef/https://www.instagram.com/p/BPIfS3KjY0O/

Sarah Jeong of Motherboard says Mastodon is a "kinder, nicer, decentralized open source version of Twitter." I hope she's right! (I'm frauenfelder at Mastodon.cloud.)Snip:Privacy settings are more flexible than they are on Twitter—privacy is set on a per-post basis, a little similar to how it is on Facebook.I could make it so all of my posts are private by default, but I don't have to choose between having a public or a private account.The really interesting nuance here is between "Public" and "Unlisted." An unlisted post is viewable to the public, but it doesn't post to the local or federated timelines.

Chris Notap likes to make humane mousetraps. He's a recreational trapper, I guess. This is the fifth one in his series of homemade traps.Another of my best and easiest homemade humane mouse traps! The 5th in a series! Easy to build, easy to bait, easy to release and best of all, it's humane and there's no springs or levers to wind up or load! The mouse or vole cannot escape or chew his way out of this mouse trap. Mice are not harmed in any way during capture. As a matter of fact, the mouse or vole remains very calm since there is no snapping latches to scare him! Mice can be released calmly and easily without fear of getting bitten even by the most "fearful of mice" person!! Simple operation makes this diy homemade vole mouse trap fun and easy to build and adjust for easy trapping and best of all easy release. Just use a dab of peanut butter to bait the trap. It's the best do it yourself homemade humane live release vole mouse trap you'll find! A few common items is all you'll need. I'll be building a humane squirrel trap next so you can capture and release squirrels easily too so subscribe and don't miss my upcoming "diy humane squirrel trap". Thanks for watching. I also have a "diy humane rat trap" coming soon too!

My friend Donald Bell produces and hosts a weekly video show called The Maker Update. Each week in Maker Update, Donald will take a closer look at one of the tools from the archive of Cool Tools (a tool review site I run with Kevin Kelly. This week, Donald checks out a nifty plastic glue bottle. It's in the video above, and here is Donald's companion post for this episode so you can find out more about all the things Donald talks about.

Amazon will soon fork out up to $70 million to parents whose kids bought in-app purchases without their consent. Although the apps themselves might be free, young players can then easily buy tokens, upgrades, and other goodies for a better gameplay without their parents' permission. After a year of battling it out, the FTC and Amazon agreed yesterday to drop their appeals, and Amazon will soon start the refund process.According to TechCrunch:The FTC’s original complaint said that Amazon should be liable for millions of dollars it charged customers, because of the way its Appstore software was designed – that is, it allowed kids to spend unlimited amounts of money in games and other apps without requiring parental consent.The FTC had previously settled with both Apple and Google on similar charges, before turning its sights to Amazon.The issue had to do with the way the Amazon Appstore’s in-app purchasing system worked. The Amazon Appstore is the store that comes preloaded on Amazon mobile devices, like Kindle Fire tablets, for example, though there is a way to load it onto other Android devices, too.Of course, many kids’ game developers notoriously try to blur the lines between what’s free and paid. They also often design games in a way that they only fully function when kids use in-game items, which can be sometimes earned through gameplay or other times purchased through the app itself. Kids are pushed to buy these things regularly – as any parent can tell you, having experienced their kids’ begging for these items.Read the full story here.

In 2012, Vi Hart made this video giving "9.999... reasons that .999... = 1" She also made a video of bad proofs why .999... does not equal 1.https://youtu.be/wsOXvQn3JuEThere's some interesting discussion about it at TYWKIWDBI.

A person in a dinosaur suit does a good job of pretending to be clumsy while chasing people around.

Research scientist Janelle Shane writes: "I’ve been training a neural network (based on this open-source neural network framework from Andrej Karpathy) on datasets from recipes, to lists of Pokemon, to superhero names. I decided to see if it could invent names for new fruit varieties - I fed it a list of apple, peach, pear, plum, and cherry varieties, and asked it to generate more."SunbrownStankerPork GalaHorspestShivercellHencoughMoregallBrown SoftenRuby WallyRuckNagtortBlee RedRedcellsZuby GlongZeelcherHacker GalaSoften FujiKlunk 134Horking

My friend Kent Barnes recommended this simple, fast-moving dice game called Tenzi. I bought it and my wife, 11-year-old daughter, and I had fun playing it. The rules are simple - everyone starts out with 10 dice and the goal is to roll your dice as fast as you can until all of them show the same number. Every time you roll, you are allowed to set aside any dice that match your desired number. When all ten of the dice show the same number, you shout "Tenzi!," throw your hands in the air, and gloat while the other players gnash their teeth. The game rules included a couple of variations on the basic rule set, which we also played and liked.A few days later Kent told me about a $10 deck of cards called 77 Ways to Play Tenzi. I ordered the deck and last night my wife, 11-year-old, 16-year-old daughter (who doesn't like games and joined us reluctantly), and I tested the deck out. Ninety minutes later we decided that this deck takes Tenzi to a new level. The deck adds variety, surprise, and humor to Tenzi. It makes Tenzi so much more fun that I think the company shouldn't sell the dice without the cards. My 16-year-old daughter was surprised that she had such a good time.Each Tenzi card has a variation of the basic rules. The rules for the variants are simple enough that they can be described in one or two sentences. Here are a few examples:To win the above game, you start with nine dice and roll until you get nine threes. Then you have to arrange the dice as shown on the card, and then roll the tenth dice until you get a six.

No, she's not dead. But over at Neatorama, actor Eddie Deezen wrote a delightful tribute to Dawn Wells who from 1964 to 1967 famously played Mary Ann, one of seven stranded castaways there on Gilligan's Island. Of course during the first season of the show, she (and the professor) weren't even named in the theme song, having been unfairly lumped in under "and the rest." But for the many young people who didn't dig the movie star, Mary Ann was the down-to-earth object of their affection. From Neatorama:In 1964, Dawn auditioned for a new show on the CBS schedule called Gilligan's Island. She met with the show's creator, Sherwood Schwartz, where the two chatted about the character she was up for- Mary Ann Summers, a farm girl from Kansas (based on Judy Garland's "Dorothy" character in The Wizard of Oz.) Before officially testing for the role, her agent/husband Larry called and asked how Sherwood liked her. He was told, "She's too smart to play Mary Ann," to which he replied, "She can play dumb."When Dawn heard of this conversation, she quickly disagreed. "Mary Ann's not dumb," she declared, "She's not very experienced, she's kind of naive, but she's not dumb." It was as if she already fully understood the character she was to make immortal, before she even had the role. Trivia: Another young, beautiful actress named Raquel Welch was also up for for the Mary Ann role....And here's Wells on a couple of her castmates:Jim Backus (Mr. Howell): "He was cheap... cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap." Dawn recalled how she, Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer, who played Mrs. Howell, would go out to lunch together every day, and each day, at the end of their meal, Backus would claim "I forgot my wallet," forcing Natalie to pick up his tab. At the end of the year's filming, Natalie went over to Backus and presented him with a bill for $340 to cover his "freebies."Russell Johnson (the Professor): "He had the best sense of humor. He was the funniest and he was a hunk." She added about her special friend: "He was a very handsome, good man. I miss him.… If [during the show's run] either of us had been single or both of us had been single, there would have been some chemistry.""Dawn Wells: Forever Mary Ann"