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I took a home blood test today, and it included a reusable heat pack. These things have been around since the 1970s, but this was the first time I've used one. It's a plastic pouch with liquid inside and a small metal disc stamped with many dents. - Read the rest The post How reusable heat packs work appeared first on Boing Boing.

You'll need the high-end reMarkable Paper Pro model (previously at Boing Boing), but now that Android's been ported to it, the color e-ink device can run third-party apps and connect to external peripherals.Chalid Raqami posted the feat to his YouTube channel, where he posts in-depth E-ink tablet reviews

Reputedly foul-smelling and held liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll by a federal jury in New York, Donald Trump has maintained a string of oddly dedicated aides during both his terms as United States President. Natalie Harp has been described as someone who "will jump highest" when Trump commands it. - Read the rest The post White House furious after Jon Ossoff mentions Trump's fawning aide Natalie Harp appeared first on Boing Boing.

The undeclared war with Iran is dragging on as the United States is running out of munitions, and the Orange Menace may have found his scapegoat. Rumors are that Diaper Don is gonna toss Whiskey Pete under the bus.Multiple unnamed sources have told the South China Morning Post that Hegseth's job is in danger. - Read the rest The post Trump may be ready to claim he doesn't know Pete Hegseth appeared first on Boing Boing.

Instagram has rebranded with a new logo, and it's gone in the direction so widely-disliked it had supposedly went out of fashion years ago: geometric sans-serifs. Instragram boss Adam Mosseri explains.

TL;DR: TheCheerble Ball is a self-rolling, LED-lit cat toydesigned to appeal to even the fussiest cat's senses. Get yours now for just $26.90 (reg. $27.99).The Cheerble Ball is a safe, self-rolling, interactive toy for cats. All it needs is a nudge from a paw or nose, and it'll move in unpredictable movements bound to keep even the most intelligent of pets entertained-grab one now for just $26.90 (reg. - Read the rest The post Keep your cats entertained with this $27 self-rolling LED cat toy appeared first on Boing Boing.

My incurable optimist friend, Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired and my partner at Cool Tools and the Recomendo newsletter, has been posting essays on Substack mainly about the future, artificial intelligence, and what it means for humanity. I am loving these essays. - Read the rest The post Kevin Kelly: AI will be a microscope we point at our own minds appeared first on Boing Boing.

Having finished The Tainted Cup, I immediately dove into the next Ana and Din novel by Robert Jackson Bennett. I also finished the third in the series. Now I must wait.This series fantasy worldbuilding inside of a detective novel is really a lot of fun. - Read the rest The post Unfortunately, there are only three Ana and Din mysteries appeared first on Boing Boing.

Brian Peek scanned and shared his collection of gaming promotional VHS cassettes, including five that Atari Games sent to arcade operators in the 1990s.Peek inherited the tapes from his dad, who ran a gaming center and received them from Atari Games' then-parent company Midway. - Read the rest The post Lost VHS promos from the twilight of the arcade era appeared first on Boing Boing.

Rock harder, rock out for longer. The biohacking community has found a new trend that's easy to jump on: erectile dysfunction medication for longevity.Tho studies show nothing conclusive, the biohackers are taking Viagra and Cialis to open their blood vessels, improve cardiovascular health, and live longer than the rest of the limp populace. - Read the rest The post Harder boners for a longer life appeared first on Boing Boing.

A fountain pen or gel pen is a superior way to write, says science fiction writer Neal Stephenson. He says handwriting is good for your brain. Fountain and gel pens are better than pencils or ballpoint pens because there is less friction when you write, so your hand doesn't get tired. - Read the rest The post The Pilot Kakuno Fountain costs under $20 and writes beautifully appeared first on Boing Boing.

In 1958, London's Daily Express newspaper started running a comic strip adapting Ian Fleming's James Bond novels. This was well before the first James Bond movie (Dr. No, 1962), so cartoonist John McLusky created the first non-literary published images of the fictional spy. - Read the rest The post The comic strip that may have cast Sean Connery as the first James Bond appeared first on Boing Boing.

The Digi-Comp I was a plastic and rubber band toy that sold for $5 in 1963. According to Chris Staecker, a Fairfield University math professor who posted a video about its operation, "This was the first digital computer."It didn't use electricity; instead, it required the user to push and pull a "clock" lever. - Read the rest The post The Digi-Comp I was a $5 plastic computer powered by rubber bands appeared first on Boing Boing.

Just today, I became a time traveler. Unfortunately, you'll need to put aside the images of a humble writer running from dinosaurs or flirting with Cleopatra running through your head right now, but the reality is still pretty cool. What I mean is that I checked out Merriam-Webster's "time traveler" tool, which lets one take a far less literal look into the past. - Read the rest The post Merriam-Webster's Time Traveler tool sorts English words by birth year appeared first on Boing Boing.

I knew I was going to like Lynx the moment I encountered the cybernetically-enhanced, be-goggled, crime-fighting talking cat. Sometimes you just know.Lynx, the new tech-noir manga from writer Samuel Sattin (Unico, Buzzing) and Tokyo-based artist tokitokoro (Jeff the Land Shark), is out now on VIZ Originals. - Read the rest The post In Lynx, a cybernetic cat solves murders next to killer angels appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR:SwiftScan VIPturns your iPhone, iPad, or Android device into a portable scanner, PDF editor, OCR tool, and fax machine for $47.97 (reg. $199.99) through August 16 at 11:59 p.m. PT.Scanners areweirdlycommitted to staying in our lives. - Read the rest The post Scanners are basically vintage now. SwiftScan VIP is just $50. appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR:End the cycle of frustration! Make peace with your PDFs with a subscription toPDF Reader Profor just $39.99 (Reg. $79.99) - that's 50% off.The definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. - Read the rest The post Control your PDFs, don't let them control you - even on Mac appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR:ALenovo Chromebookin near-mint condition can be yours for just $54.97 (MSRP $199.99) until Aug. 23 at 11:59 p.m. PST.Focus up with a Chromebook, free of the bells and whistles that cause distractions. This back-to-school season, students, teachers, and scholars of the world could enjoy the perks of aGrade A refurbished Lenovo 100E Gen 2 Chromebook (2019)for just $54.97. - Read the rest The post Lock in this back-to-school season with a Grade A refurbished Chromebook for only $55 appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR:Elevate your AI prompts to pro level, no complicated engineering required, with alifetime subscription to Prompting Systemsfor $29.99, a 91% price cut from the $360 regular price.Crafting the just-right prompts that generate relevant, tone-perfect images, social posts, and content you want is time consuming and tedious -if you don't have the tools. - Read the rest The post Elevate your prompt game with Prompting Systems for $29.99 appeared first on Boing Boing.

I love and still play Don Bluth's amazing video games. I never would have been able to finish them were it not for re-releases years later on several personal platforms.The animations, matched with a fantastic sense of humor, made Dragon's Lair an instant favorite. - Read the rest The post In 1983 I couldn't afford to beat Dragon's Lair appeared first on Boing Boing.

Grandpa Pudding Brains collected $166 billion in tariffs under a law the Supreme Court says does not authorize tariffs. The government has now returned $100 billion of it, but the refund doesn't reach the folks who paid higher prices.The Orange Menace claimed tariffs are a machine for restoring factories, winning trade wars and shrinking the federal deficit. - Read the rest The post Trump's $100 billion tariff refund skips the people who paid higher prices appeared first on Boing Boing.

A State Department slide that mislabeled every country on a map of Africa - Nigeria landlocked in the Sahara, Mozambique moved to the Horn - has drawn an apology, the Guardian reports. The department said it takes "full responsibility for the confusion and misrepresentation it caused for attendees, including our African partners." - Read the rest The post Every country was wrong on the State Department's map of Africa appeared first on Boing Boing.

While Los Angeles burned, betting site Polymarket offered nearly 20 ways to bet on what the flames would do next, including whether the Palisades fire would reach Santa Monica. The potential for a bettor to help their wager along is horrifying. - Read the rest The post Polymarket let gamblers bet on whether wildfire would reach Santa Monica appeared first on Boing Boing.

If you were moving diamonds across the Deccan Plateau in the 1830s, there were rules about when to set out. Leave on a Tuesday or a Thursday, on the 5th, 13th, or 28th day of the lunar month. Eat coriander seeds before a Tuesday departure and jaggery before a Thursday one. - Read the rest The post An 1832 book explains how to pick a lucky day to travel appeared first on Boing Boing.

The ad campaign for Lee Cronin's The Mummy, a gritty new take on the public domain monster, has been partially unraveled by advertising regulators in the U.K. In upholding a complaint about the movie's posters, the Advertising Standards Authority determined that those showing a "realistic impression of a dead child" were too horrid for public display. - Read the rest The post The Mummy poster banned from London Underground appeared first on Boing Boing.

The Orange Menace claims his administration restored the Endangered Species Act to the meaning Antonin Scalia "explained." Scalia explained it in a dissent. The Supreme Court's 6-3 majority upheld the definition Trump's administration just erased.For 50 years, the definition of "harm" included any significant habitat modification that killed or injured wildlife by disrupting their breeding, feeding, or sheltering grounds. - Read the rest The post Trump cites a Supreme Court dissent that lost 6-3 to gut endangered-species protections appeared first on Boing Boing.

Dietitian Josie Porter, author of How Not to Take Supplements, sized up ten popular supplements for the Guardian. One of the largest multivitamin trials found a memory improvement in older adults, but it came to "roughly a quarter of a word in a 20-word recall test." - Read the rest The post A dietitian's verdict: multivitamins are useless appeared first on Boing Boing.

Polyphonic music has two or more melodic lines running at the same time, and the earliest known written example is a short piece in praise of Saint Boniface, composed around the year 900. Giovanni Varelli found it in 2014, when he was a PhD student at St John's College, Cambridge. - Read the rest The post The oldest known two-part music was written around the year 900 appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR:GetMicrosoft Office 2024 Professional Plus for one Windows PCfor $54.99 instead of $249.99. It includes six familiar productivity apps with no recurring Microsoft 365 fee.It's true, software subscriptions have quietly become another household utility. Sad. But, hey. - Read the rest The post This $54.99 Microsoft Office deal makes your app subscriptions look needy appeared first on Boing Boing.

A cop in suburban New Jersey stood in a ghillie suit against foliage to catch unwary drivers fooling around on their phones. They found a perfectly leafy tree on the main street in Dunellen and caught 74 in just 6 hours. - Read the rest The post Cop dressed as shrub catches 74 texting drivers in 6 hours appeared first on Boing Boing.

Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive candidate running in Michigan's Democratic Primary, has defeated centrist Congresswoman Haley Stevens and will face Republican Mike Rogers this fall. Stevens, supported by the party's establishment, was beaten despite outspending El-Sayed by 11 to 1.

British writer Henry Oliver had his first slice of pecan pie in a Bethesda, Maryland diner, and came away amazed that Americans eat this well every day. In The Common Reader, he calls the pie part of "the ordinary sublime of American life," and says it "knocks English apple crumble into a cocked hat." - Read the rest The post An Englishman ate his first pecan pie and fell for American diners appeared first on Boing Boing.

Three Idaho National Guard troops entered Purple Heart veteran Anna King's Washington, D.C., front yard, wrestled her to the ground, and zip-tied her hands. She was later charged with assaulting them.King's lawyers believe the troops targeted her because she had spent months criticizing their deployment with signs reading "Occupation: Troops Out" and "National Guard Stop Being So Embarrassing." - Read the rest The post National Guard troops entered a Purple Heart veteran's yard, zip-tied her, then charged her with assaulting them appeared first on Boing Boing.

You'd think someone involved in The Rocky Horror Show couldn't get enough drama. But the musical director of a production in Vermont got so fed up with cast theatrics that he sent a series of threats to himself in a successful effort to shut the show down. - Read the rest The post Rocky Horror Show musical director sent threats to self to end production and avoid cast drama appeared first on Boing Boing.

The DOJ dropped its case against former Olympian David Hearn, citing the terrible work of Trump's handpicked contractor.Pirro's office said a Park Service engineer had documented peeling eight days before the accused vandal visited the pool, and a government witness could not connect him to the damage. - Read the rest The post "It was vandalism!" cried Grandpa Pudding Brains after his DOJ blamed his contractor's shoddy installation appeared first on Boing Boing.

A congressional candidate in Tennessee shot at four Flock cameras there, say authorities, and got four charges of felony vandalism in return.Adam Lee Heimerman, 37, of Lenoir City, shot out the cameras between in July and June while campaigning as an Independent in Tennessee's 2nd Congressional District. - Read the rest The post Congressional candidate arrested after Flock surveillance cameras shot at appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR:Get a1-year Autodesk AutoCAD subscriptionfor $399 instead of $2,095, with professional 2D drafting, 3D modeling, automation tools, and access across desktop, web, and mobile.Precision typically comes with a precise and mildly terrifying price. AutoCAD, the professional design software used to draft everything from floor plans to mechanical components, normally costs $2,095 for a one-year subscription. - Read the rest The post This $399 AutoCAD deal is suspiciously well drafted appeared first on Boing Boing.

Lokesh Dhakar's ASCII Today renders your text as big block letters made out of slashes, pipes, and underscores - the kind that head old README files and source-code comments. When you type a word at ascii.today, all 50 fonts appear at once in a grid, redrawing character by character. - Read the rest The post Type a word, get it back in 50 ASCII art fonts appeared first on Boing Boing.

Conspiracy theorist and roadkill enthusiast RFK Jr. told CNN's Dana Bash she probably could not understand his argument because she was not a scientist. "Well, you're not either," she replied.Kennedy had already accused Bash of talking nonsense, being fooled and repeating information "like a parrot." - Read the rest The post America's health secretary borrows scientific credentials he does not have appeared first on Boing Boing.

United States Senator for the state of Ohio Bernie Moreno says he lived in fear for his granddaughter's safety whenever Rep. Max Miller had custody of her. Moreno spent those same two years not telling the public that Miller was unfit for Congress. - Read the rest The post Bernie Moreno "held his breath" for two years before warning Congress about Max Miller appeared first on Boing Boing.

If you have functioning eyes and you've been on the Internet lately, you've no doubt stumbled across Jimothy, the pride of Seattle. It is a truth universally acknowledged that raccoons are cute as hell, but Jimothy - or so this feral Seattle raccoon has been dubbed - has managed to take a step beyond and go ultra-mega-viral thanks to his short spine syndrome, which is basically exactly what it sounds like. - Read the rest The post Infamous raccoon Jimothy can now accompany you in Skyrim appeared first on Boing Boing.

A former National Park Service ranger is touring visitor centers with flyers containing the history the Trump administration removed from the walls.Melissa Dalley quit the National Park Service in April. Now she visits Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Glacier as a civilian, telling strangers about exhibits, signs and brochures that have disappeared while the Trump administration reviews park history for material that "inappropriately disparage[s] Americans." - Read the rest The post Former NPS ranger shares the history Trump removed appeared first on Boing Boing.

Carved into the Hathor temple at Dendera in Egypt is a relief that looks a great deal like a lightbulb: an oval bubble with a snake curling inside it, held up by a pillar. A fringe theory holds that this is evidence of ancient Egyptian electric lighting, based on the resemblance to incandescent bulbs, cathode-ray tubes, and Crookes tubes. - Read the rest The post The Egyptian temple carving that looks like a giant lightbulb appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Thisrefurbished 13-inch MacBook Air (2018)is now just $199.97 (reg. $1,199).If you're looking for everyday battery life, portability, and the ability to retain your membership in the Apple ecosystem, thisrefurbished MacBook Air may be just what you're looking for-grab your 128GB one in Goldfor just $199.97 (reg. - Read the rest The post Pick up a refurbished 2018 MacBook Air for just $200 appeared first on Boing Boing.

Republican support for President Trump's war with Iran remained steady at 71% in June, but has fallen to 61% in July, according to a survey by the Associated Press's NORC Center for Public Affairs. Everyone else overwhelmingly disapproves of the conflict, with support among "independents" falling to 17% and support among Democrats falling from 8% to 4% in the last few weeks. - Read the rest The post At $4 a gallon again, even Republicans souring on Iran war appeared first on Boing Boing.

TSA staff found five Civil War-era cannonballs in a passenger's checked suitcase at Gulf Shores International Airport in Alabama. Investigators found that the munitions were missing from nearby Fort Morgan; a child supposedly pilfered them and sneaked them into grandma's luggage. - Read the rest The post Stolen Civil War cannonballs found in luggage appeared first on Boing Boing.

A Vermont pharmacy chain's new AI assistant led not to the efficiency improvements promised but to "delays, incorrect information and privacy concerns." The AI, named "Burt" after the chain's long-dead founder, is said to call excessively, get dosages wrong and suggest inappropriate refills, among other alarming problems. - Read the rest The post AI assistant named for long-dead pharmacy founder mutters incomprehensibly and "demands that you talk to him" appeared first on Boing Boing.

Picture a vast field of honeycombed polygonal rocks stretching to the horizon in an otherworldly valley. NASA's Curiosity rover did, and the Valle Grande, as NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is calling it, is the latest fascinating spot to be imaged by the rover, now in its 13th year of trundling across the Martian landscape. - Read the rest The post Curiosity rover finds field of honeycomb-textured "polygons" appeared first on Boing Boing.

A man accused of spray-painting "Nazi" and "Fascist" on 13 Teslas was apparently undone by the feature he neglected to vandalize: their cameras. The cars became stooges for the cops; his takeout order supplied the mailing address.

Half the sea lion pups born this season at La Jolla Cove have died, according to the Sierra Club Seal Society, compared with 10% in the nearby area closed to visitors. The group wants cones marking a 20-foot buffer. A local beach organization considers that essentially a closure. - Read the rest The post Half the sea lion pups died at La Jolla Cove. People are arguing about cones appeared first on Boing Boing.