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by David Pescovitz on (#1N693)
Researchers from Germany's University of Bielefeld presented their OUROBOT, a "Self-Propelled Continuous-Track-Robot for Rugged Terrain," at the recent IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. From their technical paper:Adapting the concept of continuous tracks that are propelled and guided by wheels, a self-propelled continuous-track-robot has been designed and built. The robot consists of actuated chain segments, thus enabling it to change its form, independent of guiding mechanisms. Using integrated sensors, the robot is able to adapt to the terrain and to overcome obstacles. This allows the robot to “roll†and climb in two dimensions. Possible extensions of the concept to three-dimensional navigation are presented as an outlook.
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Boing Boing
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| Updated | 2026-07-03 18:31 |
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by David Pescovitz on (#1N67Q)
Boing Boing comic artist Ed Piskor, creator of the stupendous Hip Hop Family Tree, designed this set of Public Enemy Action Figures! They're sculpted by Tomohiro Yasui and stand around 4" tall. They're articulated at the neck, shoulders, hips, elbows, and knees.Pre-order them from Presspop Toy for $60/set: PUBLIC ENEMY Action Figure Set (via Dangerous Minds)
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by Ben Marks on (#1N673)
See sample pages from this book at Wink.Chihuly on Fire by Henry Adams (author) and Dale Chihuly (artist)Chihuly Workshop2016, 212 pages, 9.3 x 12.1 x 0.9 inches $40 Buy a copy on AmazonFor several decades now, art critics and casual admirers alike have talked about Dale Chihuly’s art in terms of its forms. Indeed, the artist himself organizes his work largely by their physical shapes, as does his latest self-published coffee-table book, Chihuly on Fire, whose chapter titles range from “Baskets†and “Sea Forms†to “Jerusalem Cylinders†and “Rotolo.†But thumbing the pages of this sumptuous, hardcover volume, and reading the biographical essay by art-history professor Henry Adams, one is struck by the importance of color to Chihuly’s work.The shift to color began in 1981, when Chihuly and his team of gaffers and assistants produced the first of what would become known as the Macchia series. These often enormous vessels, whose sides were usually folded and deformed, featured solid-color interiors, lip wraps in contrasting hues, and thousands of “jimmies†of pure crushed colored glass, usually set against a background of white glass “clouds.†Even in his early days, Chihuly’s ambitions for his chosen medium seemed larger than the modest network of glass-art galleries around the country would have the wherewithal to support. By the time his Macchia pieces came along, the so-called craft arts, of which glass art was but one, were allowed to be exuberant and even a bit zany, but they were ultimately expected to exhibit good table manners, to sit uncomplainingly at the kid’s table of the art world. Gloriously and unapologetically garish, Chihuly’s Macchia pieces were a grinning, joyful, and emphatic “fuck you†to all of that. With the Macchia, Chihuly finally shook off the cobwebs of craft, not so much because the pieces pushed the boundaries of technique to ludicrous places – although they certainly did that – but because they pushed what was possible, and politic, with color.Today, technique remains central to Chihuly’s work, while his teams of artisans have become ever-more adept, as the 2013 photo in Chihuly on Fire of two assistants in helmeted, fireproof space suits preparing to catch a still-glowing piece dramatically shows. To be clear, it’s okay to be impressed by that sort of thing, to get sucked into the spectacle that is Chihuly. After all, lots of artists have made careers of astounding viewers with physical spectacle, as anyone who has walked within the rusty, leaning walls of a curving Richard Serra can attest. In a way, though, Chihuly takes the greater aesthetic risk by being brash enough to demand that his creations are also, well, beautiful. For that, color rather than form has been his most capable collaborator.
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by David Pescovitz on (#1N675)
The Amherst, Mass. fire department evacuated an apartment complex on Wednesday due to a nasty smell coming from one of the units. They saw what appeared to be chemicals cooking on the stove and called in the Hazardous Materials Response and bomb squad. Turns out, the tenant was actually cooking up urine. According to police, it was distilled urine the tenant was using for unspecified medical purposes. From Wikipedia: "In alternative medicine urine therapy or urotherapy, (also urinotherapy or uropathy or auto-urine therapy) refers to various applications of human urine for medicinal or cosmetic purposes, including drinking of one's own urine and massaging one's skin, or gums, with one's own urine."Police aren't charging the tenant with anything, but the building is still locked down until health inspections are complete.(MassLive)
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by David Pescovitz on (#1N64J)
I'm loving it. McDonald's New Zealand created a site for people to "build your own unique burger" and name their creations. Problem is, the submissions appeared on the site without moderation. (more…)
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by Rob Beschizza on (#1N64M)
Purvi Patel was the first woman in America to be convicted of "feticide"—a euphemism for abortion—and jailed 20 years after suffering a miscarriage that prosecutors claim was induced by illegally-procured drugs. The feticide conviction was quashed today by an appeals court, but it affirmed the felony conviction for "neglect of a dependent."The appeals court ruled that the state Legislature didn't intend for the feticide law "to be used to prosecute women for their own abortions."As for the neglect conviction, we hold that the State presented sufficient evidence for a jury to find that Patel was subjectively aware that the baby was born alive and that she knowingly endangered the baby by failing to provide medical care, but that the State failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the baby would not have died but for Patel’s failure to provide medical care. Therefore, we vacate Patel’s class A felony conviction and remand to the trial court with instructions to enter judgment of conviction for class D felony neglect of a dependent and resentence her accordingly.The neglect charge (Patel claimed stillbirth, prosecutors argued that the fetus was alive for a period of seconds after birth) is still serious; the statute book allows for six months to three years, though news reports suggest lenience is not unheard of.From the original story:According to Sue Ellen Braunlin, doctor and co-president of the Indiana Religious Coalition for Reproductive Justice, Purvi was most likely 23-24 weeks pregnant, although prosecutors argued Patel was 25 weeks along in the state's opening argument. The prosecution confirmed on Monday that the baby died within seconds of being born.Patel's lawyers argued that she panicked when she realized she was in labor. Patel comes from a conservative Hindu family that looks down on sex outside marriage, and the pregnancy was a result of an affair Patel had with her co-worker."Purvi Patel's conviction amounts to punishment for having a miscarriage and then seeking medical care, something that no woman should worry would lead to jail time," said Deepa Iyer, Activist-in-Residence at the University of Maryland's Asian American Studies Program and former director of South Asian Americans Leading Together.
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by Carla Sinclair on (#1N5ZW)
Apparently it's now perfectly legal to sneak a camera or a video up a woman's skirt, as long as she is in a public place. After a gentleman in Perry, Georgia was found guilty of "criminal invasion of privacy" for shooting "upskirt" videos of a woman in a grocery store, he appealed and won over a technical glitch. The Georgia Court of Appeals decided 6-3 that because of the wording of the law, upskirting in public was legal. According to Georgia law, it's illegal for "[a]ny person, through the use of any device, without the consent of all persons observed, to observe, photograph or record the activities of another which occur in any private place and out of public view." But read the last part closely — the defendant acted in a public place, so the law didn't apply. And unfortunately, the appeals court agreed.In other words, if you plan to point your camera up a woman's skirt, just make sure to do it on the street or in a public building and not in a private setting like a bathroom stall. Lawmakers do plan to change the wording of the law to make crotch shot photography (without permission) illegal anywhere in the Peach State, but that won't be until next spring. Read the full story here. Image: Flickr/ptxdview
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by David Pescovitz on (#1N5ZY)
Remember Billy Mitchell, the star of excellent videogame documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters? In 1999, the Donkey Kong champ was also the first person confirmed to attain a perfect score on Pac-Man.
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by Xeni Jardin on (#1N5YT)
Reports of yet another mass shooting, this one at a shopping center in Germany. In Munich late Friday afternoon, a man with a gun shot people at mall in Munich. Local news reports that several people were killed, and several more wounded. (more…)
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by Rob Beschizza on (#1N5D5)
A day after an expensive, multinational police effort to remove KickAssTorrents from the net culminated in the arrest of its founder and the confiscation of its domains, the inevitable happened. It's back online.This morning the founder of kat.cr was arrested in Poland. It is another attack on freedom of rights of internet users globally. We think it's our duty not to stand aside but to fight back supporting our rights. In the world of regular terrorist attacks where global corporations are flooded with money while millions are dying of diseases and hunger, do you really think that torrents deserve so much attention? Do you really think this fight worth the money and resources spent on it? Do you really think it's the real issue to care of right now? We don’t!You don't have to believe the rhetoric to understand how futile it is trying to push cybertoothpaste back in the cyberbottle. Effectively, all the attempt did here was turn an underground piracy site into a mainstream phenomenon, its mirrors linked to by every major news site on the internet.
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by Cory Doctorow on (#1N57D)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksw2UqTyhhcIn 2007, Singaporean blogfather Mr Brown discovered this video, which is literally the most best thing you will ever see, this week: middle-aged Singaporean government officials rapping(ish) about the nation's public-private partnership strategy, with fresh rhymes like "They call me CEO, hear me out everyone/My aim, a vibrant media-hub for the city/Singapore-made content can be number one/Media choice and jobs for everyone." (more…)
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by Boing Boing's Store on (#1N57F)
3D printers are hot, but they're also pricey. While the prospect of cranking out everything we can dream up is enticing, cost is often one factor that keeps us from jumping onto the 3D printing train.Now, thanks to M3D, that doesn’t have to be the case. You can now get its flagship 3D printer--plus four reels of filaments--for just $399 in the Boing Boing Store.This M3D unit isn’t known as the first truly consumer-grade 3D printer on the market for no reason. It's backed by over 12,000 people on Kickstarter, and is both powerful and affordable. Just pop in your filament and you're good to go: the device will print your designs with precision and speed, letting you create everything from statuettes to kitchen utensils and much more.Find out what the 3D printing fuss is about with one of the best reviewed consumer 3D printers around, now 20% off while the deal lasts. And for the next week: if you enter the coupon code “M3D10†during checkout, you can score an additional 10% off your purchase!
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#1N57H)
Last year, Austin police office Bryan Richter approached a woman in a parking lot and told her to get back into her car. He told the woman, a black 26-year-old school teacher that he'd seen her speeding a few minutes earlier. The woman hesitated and questioned him but got in the car. But she kept her feet out of the car. Officer Richter pulled her from the car and violently slammed her to the ground twice. He handcuffed her and arrested her. As she was sitting in the back of a patrol car on the way to jail, Richter's partner explained to the woman that it was necessary to throw her to the ground and handcuff her because black people have "violent tendencies."The officers' superiors reviewed the video and gave Officer Richter the lowest level of discipline: counseling and training. Since that time, the video was viewed by higher ranking members of the force and both officers have been pulled from the streets pending a full investigation. Charges against the woman were dropped.From KVUE:While King was being transported to jail on a charge of resisting arrest, she spoke with Officer Patrick Spradlin about relations between officers and the black community. Police video caught some of Spradlin’s explanations about why some people fear African-Americans.“I can give you a really good idea why it might be that way. Violent tendencies. And I want you to think about that,†Spradlin said on video.Charges against King were dropped after prosecutors saw the video of her being slammed to the ground. Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg said her office viewed the dash camera video two weeks ago and has asked APD’s Special Investigations Unit to assist them. Lehmberg said the case will likely go before a grand jury.
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by Cory Doctorow on (#1N55T)
Laurie Penny, "a radical queer feminist leftist writer burdened with actual principles," has a weird frenemy relationship with trolling, racist, alt-right opportunist Milo Yiannopoulos, who was just permanently banned from Twitter for orchestrating a racist harassment campaign against Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones. (more…)
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#1N52T)
My friend and Cool Tools partner Kevin Kelly was interviewed about his book, The Inevitable. In this video, he discuss what will happen when artificial intelligence is sold like electricity, as a utility.Previously: In the future you will own nothing and have access to everything
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by Rob Beschizza on (#1N4Y3)
Anthony Clune put together a highlight reel of the most interesting and salient moments from last night's keynote address at the Republican National Convention, in which Donald Trump accepted the party's nomination for United States President.
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by Xeni Jardin on (#1N360)
The National Basketball Association won't be holding the 2017 All-Star Game in Charlotte, North Carolina, because of a recently passed state law that discriminates against transgender people. (more…)
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by David Pescovitz on (#1N2ZS)
Available for $1800 OBO in Lynchburg, Virginia:1984 Chevy shorted in great shape with a perfect camouflaged paintjob. 4 wheel drive like new interior, very clean windows. low miles.(Craigslist)
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by Xeni Jardin on (#1N2XA)
Content warning: sexual assault. 20th Century Fox put out a brief today that Roger Ailes has resigned as CEO of Fox News Channel. Ailes departs the conservative television news empire after multiple women accused him of sexual assault.Twenty-First Century Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch will take over as chairman and acting CEO of Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network until a suitably demonic, bulldog-jowled, elderly white male replacement with testicles that look like hamburger meat can be found. (more…)
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by David Pescovitz on (#1N2GR)
Melbourne, Australia's Transport Accident Commission commissioned an artist, trauma surgeon, and road safety engineer to imagine and design a human built to survive car wrecks. The result is Graham, seen above. From Road & Track:"The truth is, our cars have evolved a lot faster than we have," says David Logan, a team member on the project and road safety engineer at the Monash University's accident research center. "Our bodies are just not equipped to handle the forces in common crash scenarios."To deal with these forces, the team came up with Graham. Protecting his brain is a much larger skull intended to absorb forces and fracture upon impact. His face, concave and fatty, is less likely to be damaged. Instead of a silly wobbly neck, he doesn't really have one at all, reducing the potential for spine and back injuries. His skin is also thicker to prevent lacerations, and his ribs have a layer of external air sacks for maximum protectionVideos:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHmqn2tZktohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0fbzAiWMR0
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#1N2GT)
15 minutes of cringe inducing bloopers and casual sexism and racism from local TV news programs.[via]
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by Cory Doctorow on (#1N2GW)
Researchers at UC Riverside and Centro de Investigación CientÃfica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada have published a paper describing their ongoing success in setting a "transparent nanocrystalline yttria-stabilized-zirconia" into patients' skulls, which reveal the patients' brains so that the patients' brains can be zapped with therapeutic lasers. (more…)
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#1N2EX)
I watched this bizarre video a couple of times and couldn't figure out what's going on. I think Folderpirate on Reddit has the best theory:The guy on the bike was in on it. It was a carjacking/kidnapping targeting the first car.Guy on bike stops traffic by trying to cross in front of mark.Mark stops. Argument ensues as cyclist smacks car/yells/is obnoxious/wont move out of way.Mark gets out of car while it's running.Two kidnapper cars come up, grab the mark and his passenger, and steal their car.Also, the guy filming is in on it as well. He's filming this to mail it to whomever they are going to try and get money from.There seems to be a bit more going on. Are the guys in white caps bodyguards? The car that stopped for the bike looks expensive, so maybe it belongs to an oligarch's kid who has two white-capped face-pushing goons to clear the way for him? Whatever happened, it was well planned and smoothly executed, like a scene from a thriller.
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#1N2CY)
I wish this video of Steve Love reverse-lip-syncing characters in Game of Thrones was longer. He's incredible.
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by Boars, Gore, and Swords on (#1N2B8)
The Boars, Gore, and Swords book club forges on with the Boiled Leather chapter order combining George R.R. Martin's A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons. In this week's "Ghost of Sand Snakes Yet to Come," Ivan and Red cover the chapters "The Prophet" and "The Captain of the Guards." They discuss the religious importance of drowning, weapon-based objectophilia, and which European landmarks found their way to Dorne.To catch up on previous television seasons, the A Song of Ice And Fire books, and other TV and movies, check out the BGaS archive. You can find them on Twitter @boarsgoreswords, like their Facebook fanpage, and email them. If you want access to extra episodes and content, you can donate to the Patreon.
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by Wink on (#1N298)
See sample pages from this book at Wink.The Gutsy Girl: Escapades for Your Life of Epic Adventure by Caroline PaulBloomsbury USA2016, 160 pages, 6.4 x 8.6 x 0.7 inches $12 Buy a copy on AmazonIf ever there was a book I wished was around when I was little, it’s The Gutsy Girl. But I’m just as glad to have it in the world now. While I would have read it to pieces as a kid, it also gave grown-up me a powerful reminder: bravery and resilience are skills. Anyone can develop them.The Gutsy Girl comprises author Caroline Paul’s stories of her own (mis)adventures, accompanied by short bios and quotes from other inspiring ladies, and helpful how-tos (make a compass outside, find the North Star, recognize animal tracks, etc.). All together, the book is everything it promises to be: escapades for your life of epic adventures. Throughout the book, Paul models adventure through her own life, from racing a boat she made of milk cartons down a river as a young girl, to white-water rafting and working as a firefighter as an adult. And she shares what she’s learned along the way. While the lessons — about planning, communication, teamwork, knowing your limits and when to push them – and when not to — are valuable, I think the bigger idea is that all of her failures and triumphs are part of a learning process. With each new experience, Paul tests, hones, and ultimately grows her own bravery and resilience. This idea is also sweetly captured by the book’s illustrator Wendy MacNaughton in a drawing titled “The Gutsy-O-Meter.†Readers are asked to rate themselves on a meter that swings from low guts (watching TV and sleeping) to high guts (sleeping to scaling ice cliffs.) If you’re at six (sleeping outside), the book encourages you to try seven (navigating through woods by compass). If you’re already a 10 — watch out world!– Sara Distin at Tiny Bop
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by Futility Closet on (#1N25D)
In 1968 British engineer Donald Crowhurst entered a round-the-world yacht race, hoping to use the prize money to save his failing electronics business. Woefully unprepared and falling behind, he resorted to falsifying a journey around the world. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe the desperate measures that Crowhurst turned to as events spiraled out of his control.We'll also get some updates on Japanese fire balloons and puzzle over a computer that turns on the radio.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon!
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by Bill Barol on (#1N23Q)
This week on HOME: Stories From L.A.: The process by which one place stops being home and another starts -- it's a mysterious thing. It happens, most often, when we're not paying attention. And sometimes, as it did for comedy writer and transplanted East Coaster Janis Hirsch, it happens in stages. First she started to feel at home in Los Angeles; but it was only later, after a series of addresses and a run-in or two with Bette Davis, that she landed in the exact place that would be, finally, her home.HOME is a member of the Boing Boing Podcast Network.Subscribe: iTunes | Android | Email | Google Play | Stitcher | RSSNEW: The HOME mailing list is live. Sign up now for instant-ish notifications of new episodes, behind-the-scenes information about the show and bonus content. It's free and ad-free, and we promise we'll never ever ever sell your address or otherwise use your information to annoy you.
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by Boing Boing's Store on (#1N23S)
It’s no secret that technology is changing the way we all work—but it’s also transforming the way we play. The games of today look nothing like those of 10 or even 20 years ago: these days it’s all about mobile and 3D. And now you can learn to design 3D mobile games with the Intro to Unity 3D Game Development Bundle. With 7 courses including over 267 lessons, this package of lessons includes all you need to know to create a 3D mobile shooter game, even if you have zero coding experience. That’s because Unity has the tools you need to handle design, pixel art, and everything in between. Plus, you’ll even learn how to publish apps and games to the Apple App Store and Google Play.If you’re ready to get started learning how to create unique games that have the potential to be the next big thing in gaming, you’re in luck. Right now, the Unity 3D Game Development Bundle is going for just $19.99 (92% off the regular price of $265).
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#1N23V)
For some reason, when we moved into our house, many of the trims for the recessed lighting were missing. At $14, they are pretty expensive for what you get - a ring of plastic and a disc of frosted glass. Recently I discovered these recessed LED light kits, which include LED lights built into trims. You get 4 for $40 (I've seen them as low as $30 for 4), making them cheaper than the trims!They are dimmable, they don't buzz, and were super easy to install. I love them and I'm going to replace every recessed light in the house with them.
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by David Pescovitz on (#1N204)
Funai Electric Company, maker of VHS video cassette recorders for its brands like Magnavox, Emerson, and Sanyo, has announced that they will stop production on new VHS video cassette records this month.According to the newspaper Nikkei, it's difficult to source the parts and, surprise, sales of new units have continued to plummet.Expect a VHS-only store to appear in a hipster neighborhood near you soon. Y'now, the image just looks... warmer.(Anime News Network)
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by Cory Doctorow on (#1N1ZH)
Laurel writes, "Holdfast is an award-winning free online speculative fiction magazine that celebrates all things fantastic. We are trying to raise enough money to pay our writers and artists for their valuable work and also print a beautiful paperback. After a successful campaign for anthology #1 and winning the British Fantasy Society award for best magazine 2015 - we're hoping to create an even bigger and better anthology this time." (more…)
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by Cory Doctorow on (#1N1ZK)
Available as tees and diecut stickers at Bumperactive.
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by David Pescovitz on (#1N1ZN)
Most of the lightbulbs in your home are probably equivalent to 60 to 100 watts and emit around 800 to 1600 lumens. Above, "electrical overload" fan Photonicinduction fires up a 20,000 watt halogen bulb in a small lab space. Such bulbs are most frequently used on massive film sets. As the gent says, "Mmmm... that is a light bulb." If we had one in our home, my family would still forget to turn it off before leaving the house.
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by David Pescovitz on (#1N1WF)
One million miles from Earth, hanging in space between Earth's gravitational pull and the sun's, is the DSCOVR satellite and NASA's incredible EPIC camera. Every two hours, EPIC takes a photo of Earth "to monitor ozone and aerosol levels in Earth’s atmosphere, cloud height, vegetation properties and the ultraviolet reflectivity of Earth." The above video combines one year of those images.From the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center:The primary objective of DSCOVR, a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Air Force, is to maintain the nation’s real-time solar wind monitoring capabilities, which are critical to the accuracy and lead time of space weather alerts and forecasts from NOAA.
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#1N1RH)
You can download a high-res model of a 3D scan of the command module “Columbia.†(more…)
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by Cory Doctorow on (#1N1P4)
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has just filed a lawsuit that challenges the Constitutionality of Section 1201 of the DMCA, the "Digital Rights Management" provision of the law, a notoriously overbroad law that bans activities that bypass or weaken copyright access-control systems, including reconfiguring software-enabled devices (making sure your IoT light-socket will accept third-party lightbulbs; tapping into diagnostic info in your car or tractor to allow an independent party to repair it) and reporting security vulnerabilities in these devices. (more…)
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by Mark Frauenfelder on (#1N1KF)
Research firm E-Score asked Democrats and Republicans about their favorite shows. Game of Thrones was #1 in the Democrat list, but it didn't appear in the top 10 on the Republican list.Ethnically DiverseOn the Democrats' list, 3 of the top 10 shows: The Haves and the Have Nots on OWN, How to Get Away with Murder on ABC, and Empire on FOX all have a racially diverse cast and have powerful lead roles for women. This reflects the Democratic viewer who is also typically more diverse, with higher concentration of black and female supporters.Good vs. EvilRepublicans enjoy clearer "good vs. evil" characters and storylines compared to the Democrats' favorites. Republicans prefer shows featuring superheroes like The Flash, Arrow and the super intelligent team on Scorpion. Two procedural programs such as NCIS and Blue Bloods also have the "good vs. evil" component, as well as skewing slightly older than some other programs in the list.If you want to watch a show with a member of the opposing party, watch The Walking Dead. Everyone likes The Walking Dead.[via]
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by Rob Beschizza on (#1N1KH)
A Muslim man was booted from a flight after an attendant publicly announced his name and seat number and warned him she was “watching†him. Welcome to American (real ones) Airlines.Mohamed Ahmed Radwan had boarded a plane in Charlotte, North Carolina and the flight attendant went to the tannoy and said: “Mohamed Ahmed, Seat 25-A: I will be watching you.â€The employee made no other announcements about any other passenger. Mr Radwan asked the employee why she had made the announcements. She reportedly responded that he was being “too sensitive†[and] was told he must leave the plane as he had made the first air stewardess “uncomfortableâ€.The company's response: "We thoroughly reviewed these allegations and concluded that no discrimination occurred."The same way bad police use "felt threatened" as an excuse for beatings and killings, bad airlines have settled on "felt uncomfortable" as their lawyer-approved all-bases-covered method of booting Muslims from flights.
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by Rob Beschizza on (#1N1B9)
Sheep in the remote Faeroe islands, between Scotland and Norway, have been fitted with cameras to provide a vast corpus of sheepcam footage. At Sheepview, you may soon be able to explore the windblasted heaths and crags as if you were yourself an ambling, grass-munching ruminant—and help Google to catch up and generate street-view imagery that islanders need.As the sheep walk and graze around the island, the pictures are sent back to Andreassen with GPS co-ordinates, which she then uploads to Google Street View.“Here in the Faroe Islands we have to do things our way,†says Andreassen. “Knowing that we are so small and Google is so big, we felt this was the thing to do.â€So far the Sheep View team have taken panoramic images of five locations on the island. They have also produced 360 video so you can explore the island as if you are, quite literally, a sheep.
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by Rob Beschizza on (#1N19F)
Fox News reports that kids watched as a Wynnewood, Oklahoma police officer used a high-powered rifle, retrieved from his vehicle, to kill a dog after it "lunged at him" when he entered their gated, fenced property searching for someone who had not lived there in a decade.The police chief said the officer was serving a warrant, which gave him legal authority to be on the private property. However, the Malones said they were never shown any warrant. They were only told the officer was looking for someone who had listed that address as his ten years ago...“I respect what the police do, but this was senseless, but he didn’t show any remorse and didn’t even act like he was sorry or anything,†Malone told FOX 25.The Malones believe the death of their dog could have been avoided either by the use of less-lethal force or by fact checking on the warrant.The Wynnewood cops have already been caught in a lie: the chief claims the dog was shot "coming around the house" to attack the officer, but video shows that the dog was killed behind a closed gate in an expansive, open yard. "The police chief said he hasn't seen the video," reports Fox. "He said 'His officers have every right to shoot dogs if they feel in danger.'"The first rule of modern U.S. police training is that you are a soldier. The second rule is kill the dogs.
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by Rob Beschizza on (#1N13J)
Last night, Ted Cruz refused to endorse Republican nominee Donald Trump at the party's national convention in Ohio. This photo's doing the rounds and supposedly shows the moment when it became clear he would not do so. It's sweet revenge for Cruz, to whom Trump was nasty during the primaries. On the one hand, teleprompter shots suggest the endorsement was expected, contrary to some claims. On the other hand, video of the key moment—Cruz telling the audience to vote their conscience—shows Trump not giving much of a damn at all by that point. The photo was from earlier in the speech.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PUSRF9LB50The image above is a low-res close up of this Getty Images photo by Win McNamee.Embed from Getty Images
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by Cory Doctorow on (#1N11Q)
A pilot invented this $18 plastic hook for your belt/waistband that can tow a 25lb rollaboard around the airport behind you, leaving you hands-free as you maneuver the concourse. (more…)
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by Peter Sheridan on (#1MZQV)
“It’s war!†screams the cover of Us magazine.Forget Iraq and Afghanistan, Syria and Nigeria. It’s Kim Kardashian vs Taylor Swift that has Us mag so excited, after the reality TV queen called the singer a “f--king liar.â€People magazine also gets in on the war reporting as Kim and Tay’s “feud explodes†after Kim videoed husband Kanye West asking Swift’s permission to include a song lyric saying they might have sex - but failed to tell Taylor that he was going to call her a “bitch" that he made famous. Therein lies the philosophical difference that evidently is the pop culture equivalent of assassinating the Archduke of Austro-Hungary.The Globe is preoccupied with another battle-front: “Queen Kate’s War With Di’s Brother!†Ignoring for a moment the fact that Kate is neither Queen, nor will she be even when HRH Queen Elizabeth pops her royal clogs, Duchess Kate is supposedly outraged that Diana’s brother, Earl Charles Spencer, is renting out his stately home - and Diana’s last resting place - to well-heeled tourists. for up to $40,000- a-night. Perhaps the Globe is forgetting that Buckingham Palace is currently open to visitors until October 1 for a mere 37 pounds (about $49)?A “Top Secret GOP Convention Plot†to ensure that Donald Trump wins the presidential election is exposed by the National Enquirer. I’m not sure how secret a “convention plot†can be when it’s being televised live every day, but the Enquirer nevertheless reveals Trump’s “7-Step Plan to destroy Hillary.†This supposedly involves the GOP exposing seven dark secrets about the Democratic candidate and her husband, including Hillary’s alleged “lesbian shenanigans,†her spell in an Illinois mental hospital “following a nervous breakdown caused by Bill’s cheating,†Bill’s illegitimate love child with an ex-lover, exposing Monica Lewinsky’s secret diaries, and Hillary’s secret pact to divorce Bill if she loses the election. Let’s see how many of these are even mentioned at the convention, let alone becoming major planks in the GOP platform, shall we?Actor Nick Nolte has only “4 weeks to live!†claims the Globe. “Nolte dead in a month,†agrees the Enquirer. Evidently he is suffering “clogged sinuses†(sounds like a death sentence to me) and “cardiac palpitations.†How do they know he has only days to live? “Friends are worried,†reports the Globe. He was reportedly spotted wandering the streets of Los Angeles “in filthy clothes.†As everyone knows, dirty clothes are an infallible sign of terminal late-stage chronic fashion blindness. Death is sure to follow swiftly (or Kardashianly, depending on which side of that conflict you’re on.). I'm starting a death count-down. Let's see if Mr. Nolte is still with us in four week’s time. He won’t let the tabloids down like Val Kilmer, who over a year ago was given just weeks to live but stubbornly refuses to go. Or Cher, or Bill Clinton, or the Queen, or George Bush, or all the others who have been given weeks to live by the tabloids yet keep clinging on.Hopefully Nolte will live long enough to see the “100 yard-long kraken†which surfaced near Antarctica, according to the National Examiner. I can’t help wondering if its crack team of science reporters might be adding just the merest touch of spin to the satellite photo that supposedly shows a “massive disturbance†breaching the ocean surface and a “fin-like object†in a black patch of sea? Apparently not. “This looks like the kraken,†says Scott Waring of the UFO Sighting Daily website, which certainly sounds like it must be some branch of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. The Examiner quotes a “commenter†who says: “Maybe the stories about the giant monster of the deep are all true.†Hang on a second: what’s a “commenter?†Just a random person making a comment, who they can’t even be bothered to name? Like the kraken, this smells fishy.Michael Caine’s “amazing secret to learning his lines†is also revealed in the Examiner: he repeats them to himself, over and over. Amazing!Fortunately we have Us mag’s crack investigative team to tell us that Lucy Liu wore it best, Zoe Saldana lacks feeling in one finger after a childhood bicycling accident, Abby Elliott (Who she, Ed?) carries lip balm, bobby pins, sunglasses and keys in her straw Clare V bag, and the stars are just like us: they enjoy a cold beer, sip drinks while they stroll, ride bikes and “they hold the phone.†Remarkable. I’m holding my phone right now, and I’ve never felt more like a celebrity.The presence of Kim vs Tay on the cover of both Us and People magazines gives you a good indication of the vacuousness of the rest of the stories inside. People magazine devotes its cover to “The JFK Jr you never knew,†and since almost 100 per cent of People’s readers never met, spoke to or knew the former President’s son, it should be a slam-dunk to tell us something we don’t know. But that's not to be. People, celebrating the 17th anniversary of JFK Jr’s death - because 17 is a prime number? - tells us that John John was “ridiculously handsome,†a “reluctant hunk,†had “brains and brawn . . . but no coordination,†and was “his father’s son.†Well, we never knew that.TV’s Bachelorette suitor JoJo gets rejects a lover in the Fantasy Suite next week, reveals Us, which is good, because we need more room in the Fantasy Suite for the editors of the tabloids and celebrity magazines. We can only hope and pray that they wear their flak jackets and survive another week in the savage trenches of celebrity war reporting.Onwards and downwards . . .
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by David Pescovitz on (#1MZMB)
Police in Greater Manchester, UK report that an 86-year-old woman withdrew cash from an ATM before entering a supermarket where she was confronted by a mugger. "The lady then defended herself by repeatedly hitting the female offender over the head with a packet of bacon," according to a GMP Trafford South post on Facebook. "The offender then retreated and made off from the supermarket."
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by David Pescovitz on (#1MZKM)
A drive through downtown Los Angeles in the 1940s and today. Spoiler: Less traffic then! Uglier now!
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by Xeni Jardin on (#1MZFB)
One great way to commemorate the 47th anniversary of NASA's Apollo 11 moon landing, which took place this day in 1969, is to travel to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC (highly recommended!), and see in person the "Columbia" spacecraft that carried astronauts to the moon. But for those of us who can't get to DC and are feeling the O.G. space spirit, starting today you can explore a virtual reality simulation of the capsule's interior, painstakingly digitized by Smithsonian staff. (more…)
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Maine Man accused of "nearly decapitating" neighbor with machete, burying him with rotting dead deer
by Xeni Jardin on (#1MZD5)
A very bad man in Maine is charged with a very weird murder. Prosecutors say Bruce Akers used a machete to try and decapitate a neighbor (is "nearly decapitating" worse? because that's what happened), then buried the victim's remains together with the partially decomposed carcasses of deer he killed previously.Yep. (more…)
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by Xeni Jardin on (#1MZAJ)
Ever wonder if it's really a good idea for there to be “terrorism watch lists†created by for-profit businesses, with no accountability to the privacy rights of ordinary citizens like you and me? The best-known of these, Thomson Reuters' “World-Check,†recently leaked to the so-called dark web. The database is compiled from public sources, and is sold by Thomson Reuters to vetted clients in government, intelligence agencies, banks, law firms, and the like. (more…)
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by Cory Doctorow on (#1MZ9B)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKGRYypHogo&feature=youtu.beEvan from Fight for the Future writes, "Hey Internet! How about some good news for a change? A bunch of awesome musicians, actors, and activists are teaming up to organize a series of concerts, protests, and teach-ins to spark an uprising and stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the shadowy global deal that threatens Internet freedom, the environment, jobs, and more. Check out this video to see who's on board, and then see if the tour is coming to your town, and get FREE tickets."
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