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Kevin Kelly and I surveyed over 1600 people to come up with this list of the top 50 most popular non-fiction podcasts. From our introduction to the list:We made a list of the best factual podcasts by ranking the most popular factual podcasts from the results of an unscientific survey we posted online several months ago. We asked readers of this Cool Tools blog and our social followers to take our survey and rate some suggested podcasts — and to add ones we did not know about. More than 1,600 people filled out the survey, and by the end we had a list of 775 suggested titles. We combined the number of times a podcast was checked together with its average rating to come up with a total score. We then sorted the final list of podcast titles by rank. (The full data dump is here.) We wrote descriptions for the top 50, shown below. (The rankings in this list are biased to our original suggestion list; we’d do the survey differently if we did it again next year.)There are two broad types of factual podcasts; unscripted and scripted. Unscripted shows are usually interviews or discussions that play out as recorded. The producers don’t know, nor have much control, over where the show goes. Scripted shows, on the other hand, will carefully edit interviews after the fact, mixing them with narration, inter-splicing them with other interviews, maybe adding a soundtrack or ambient sounds. They craft the raw factual materials into a highly produced show in the way a reporter might craft a magazine article, rather than just run a Q&A. Scripted shows, on average, take much more energy, time, staff (and money) to make than unscripted shows (with some exceptions). It is no surprise that the highest ranked podcasts are scripted.Image: Tim Wilson from Blaine, MN, USA, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

The New York Times profiles the Unicode Consortium, the nonprofit that “serves as the midwife to new emojis.” People who aren't nerds never cared much about the Unicode Consortium until everyone started caring, a lot, about emoji. (more…)

David Wirth 3D printed a 20lb railgun that fires copper-plated tungsten slugs with 1,800 joules of energy, firing them at 560mph, with so much force that they vaporize on contact with a steel-backed target. (more…)

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When it comes to putting your faith in the Cloud, no solution is more reliable than Backblaze—the worldwide leader in unlimited online backup. This best-in-class solution not only allows access to data from all your devices, but it backs up automatically and continuously so there are zero tasks added to your plate. It’s a simple solution to a complex problem that can often end in disaster. Don’t wait for a computer crash or hacker incident, snag the solution trusted by millions.“I like and can recommend Backblaze." Walt Mossberg, Wall Street JournalBack up all your photos, movies, music & documents automaticallyRetain all deleted files for 30 daysBack up external drives (USB, Firewall & Thunderbolt)Secure your data in data centers w/ 24-hour staff, biometric security & redundant powerEnjoy the security of native Mac & PC coding rather than Java (responsible for 91% of attacks)Back up at optimized speeds so you don’t waste precious hoursLocate your lost computer to help recover itSave 50% on a 1 year subscription of unlimited backup from BackBlaze today.[embed]https://youtu.be/cBtEOne4CaE[/embed]Note: available for new customers only

A Chinese national flag flies as students practice Tai Chi on a high school playground during a Guinness World Record attempt of the largest martial arts display ever. (more…)

Yoshimi Tsujimoto and company burn through Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" on shakuhachi (bamboo flute) and koto. Sure beats Alien Ant Farm's attempt.

Facebook says that starting today, they will notify users “if we believe your account has been targeted or compromised by an attacker suspected of working on behalf of a nation-state.” (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX4XXLb_VuwPoint this gernsbeckian invisible ray gun at a drone, and it will drop from the sky, according to Battelle, the non-profit company that made it. The DroneDefender doesn't make a cool sound when you pull the trigger, though, so I don't like it. From Make:In a press release from Battelle, the gun is stated to use “radio control frequency disruption technologies to safely stop drones in the air, before they can pose a threat to military or civilian safety.” A video accompanying the post describes that it operates on standard GPS and ISM radio bands, allowing for it to interference with commercial UAV signals.Reportedly, the DroneDefender can hit objects up to 400 meters with an effective cone diameter of 30°. This is about as far as Battelle goes with the technical details, so the actual frequency ranges of the rifle still remain unknown.

The Fuck Yeah Psychedelic Cats blog is honestly and accurately named. Note that the web design has the sensibility and orderliness of Louis Wain's crayon tray on a bad day (and flashing lights). If you are still low on psychedelic cats after your visit, I suggest dropping by this Giphy tag.

I have no idea what this thread on a Malay web forum is all about, but the depictions of Western superheroes as Wayang Kulit shadow puppets are incredible. It's the work of Fusion Wayang Kulit, per photos in the thread: here's their Facebook page. Our objective is to revive this Malaysia traditional culture by merging it with fusion element & enhancing it with various multimedia components.Via postjung.com. [Thanks, Wendy!]

The video to Stealing Sheep's latest song begins with an apparently mundane folk dance, but as anyone familiar with such things knows, it's going to get just a little bit stranger with every step.Director Dougal Wilson captures just the right golden-hour atmosphere to make the village—which one is it?—acquire that perfectly timeless, faintly unnerving English vibe. Keep your eyes on the background for pagan treats.I asked Wilson about his techniques and he graciously replied.[It] was shot on the Alexa by Marc Gomez del Moral, and we used a 24-70mm zoom (I think) - but we fixed this around 28mm. The reason for a zoom was so we could do an in-camera zoom into the windmill at 3'03" - but we ended up doing the zoom in post as it was too tricky to do it precisely in camera with so much else going on. We tried our best to make it look like one take but there are some obvious cut points which I'm sure you can see. We wanted to shoot on film but were worried about losing light as we knew the days would be quite long to do all the choreography and Steadicam moves, so we ended up on digital then Jean Clement-Soret at MPC graded it using references from old 1950s/60s postcards and added some grain. Hope that's nerdy enough for you!Stealing Sheep - Apparition [Vimeo]

Almost missed it. The movie's release is about two months out, and this is the one we'll be seeing everywhere until then. Interesting aside: It's not by Drew Struzan, but apparently designed by one Bryan Morton, working with other artists in Struzan's characteristic style.Perhaps it's because it will be reconfigured a thousand different ways across media formats, such as the web banner below? I wouldn't blame Struzan, or anyone else, who just didn't want to engage with this sort of compositional process and the digital separations it would involve.Struzan has created at least one poster for the new movie, and I prefer it. Morton's isn't bad, though, especially by the cereal-box standards of modern movie poster design.https://twitter.com/Galleries1988/status/632636550279401472/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw[Star Wars Official Site]

It's a third-party clip, not sanctioned by Disney, so it's pretty remote/long-lens, but there's still some tantalyzing stuff in this video. From what I know about the Shanghai park, it's going to be pretty bad-ass. Don't miss the brown/yellow smog on the horizon!

Rep Mark Takano [D-CA] posted a help wanted ad to Craigslist seeking a new Speaker for the House of Representatives, a position that's been vacant since Speaker Boehner dropped the mic and walked out on the "ungovernable" radical Tea Party/Freedom Caucus mess that is the Congressional Republican Party.It seems like we’re having a hard time finding the next Speaker, so I created a Craigslist ad to boost our search. [@repmarktakano/Twitter](via Amac)

XKCD 149, AKA Sandwich, is justly treasured as a classic of nerd humor, but there are plenty of other potential punchlines. (more…)

Raspberry Pi may appear to be just a simple miniature computer, but is in fact the key to unlocking limitless hardware and programming projects. With Raspberry Pi, you can develop strong Python coding skills and also program outside objects to be controlled as you please. Intrigued? Score this set of courses to go pro in no time.Here's everything included in the bundle: 1Introduction to Raspberry Pi$199 Value2Hardware Projects Using Raspberry Pi$199 Value3Python Programming for Beginners$99 Value4Real World Guide to Hardware Design$99 Value5PiBot: Build Your Own Raspberry Pi-Powered Robot$29 ValueSave 93% on this complete Raspberry Pi hacker bundle.

Loadingicons should loop, use a constrained color palette, and be fun enough to look at that they could distract a user while a computer or network churns away in the background. (more…)

READ THE FIRST CHAPTERDownload the first chapter free of charge, complete with CONVULSIONS AMONG THE LILIES, an essay by Bijan Stephen. (Don't forget the footnotes.)Material, Volume 1 is available from Amazon and excellent bookstores and comic shops.I know, I hate it too. It feels like a discursion from the main event, a distraction from the central text that interrupts the flow of the story and makes it difficult to pick up where you left off. Footnotes are dense, often maddeningly obscure, and frequently reference other information you need to seek out to understand the basics of what’s going on.And if I hadn’t read the footnotes, I would never have found the Chicago Police’s warehouse for incommunicado detentions and interrogations — which, it turns out, features in Material.My path to the warehouse started when one of my editors at The Guardian, the news organization where I work, asked me late last year to read a manuscript from a man detained at Guantanamo Bay detainee named Mohamedou Ould Slahi before we published excerpts from it. He wanted to see if I could find any non-obvious news lines to pursue. I found one in a footnote.Slahi is among the most brutalized detainees in Guantanamo history. His captors stuffed ice into a jacket placed on his bare chest whilethey punched and kicked him. In addition to the now-familiar noise bombardment and “stress positions”— a euphemism for contorting someone’s body painfully — they threatened to kill him and rape his mother. The footnote said that his interrogations leader was, in civilian life, a Chicago police detective. I wanted to know what someone capable of torture at Guantanamo did as a lawman at home.I grew up in Brooklyn and primarily report on national security. I didn’t know Chicago and its history. But as I found Chicagoans who accused this same detective of abusing them, Chicago activists, criminologists and lawyers taught me about the Windy City’s history of racialized policing. One of them, at the end of a two-hour coffee, offhandedly mentioned that the Chicago police even had an off-the-books warehouse where they held and questioned people without access to attorneys or public notice of their locations, effectively disappearing them. (more…)

In 1910, four Alaskan gold miners set out to climb the highest peak in North America just to show that it could be done. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the surprising story of the Sourdough Expedition, a mountaineering effort that one modern climber calls "superhuman by today's standards."We'll also hear about a ghoulish tourist destination and puzzle over why a painter would blame himself for World War II.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon! (more…)

When 23andme and Ancestry.com began their projects of collecting and retaining the world's DNA, many commentators warned that this would be an irresistible target for authoritarians and criminals, and that it was only a matter of time until cops started showing up at their doors, asking for their customers' most compromising data. (more…)

So your dream nest is on the beaches of Hawaii? Sorry, can’t help you there…but we’re giving away three epic home automation products that will turn your house into a modern fortress. One lucky winner will receive the Nest Thermometer, Cam, and Alarm so you can survey, protect, and regulate the temperature in your home with ease. That’s the short story—in reality, these products do much, much more.Entering is easy—follow the simple steps for a chance to win!Features:Thermostat: Sets an automated temperature schedule & saves you loads of money on your energy billCam: Looks for motion & sends an alert to your phone if it sees somethingAlarm: Packs advanced smoke detection features; even control it from your phoneWhat you win:Nest CamNest AlarmNest ThermostatHow you win:Submit your email address and click ENTER NOW (Make sure it’s valid as this is where we’ll contact the winner)After entering your email address above, share on Twitter for additional entries. The more your friends and followers enter, the more entries you receive. Good luck!Be sure to register with a valid email address so we can contact you if you winLimit one registration per person – registering more than one email address will result in disqualification from this giveawayEnter to win this epic Nest giveaway today in the Boing Boing Store.

When I need to weigh luggage, I use a health scale. First I stand on the scale holding the piece of luggage, then I stand on the scale without holding the luggage. By employing an ancient sorcerer's spell, I can use these two numbers to magically calculate the weight of the luggage. With this handy little luggage scale, though, I no longer have to resort to witchcraft. Except I did use the incantation "47KSC7YA" to melt $3 of the price of the scale on Amazon, and got it for just $7. That's the last time I'll use magick, I promise.

Police in Toronto, Canada arrested a man at a baseball game for hitting a baby with the spray of a beer can he threw from his seat in the stands. (more…)

Learn it. Know it. Live it. (National Geographic)

Shoppers at a Target in Campbell, California on Wednesday were surprised by the sounds of a porn film played over the store's loudspeaker system. Gina Young, shopping with her two 3-year-old children, recorded and posted this recording the event.“We are actively reviewing the situation with the team to better understand what happened and to help ensure this doesn’t happen again,” a Target spokeswoman told the Los Angeles Times.Thing is, it isn't the first time. In July, shoppers at a Target in San Luis Obispo, California heard grunts and moans over the loudspeakers. The store was "evacuated" until the audio was silenced, according to report in the San Luis Obispo Tribune.

A bit of bizarre silliness from Markiplier, who said it is "the result of 8 hours of wasted time in an effort to make the stupidest video I possibly could!"

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The present status of this quixotic and strangely persistent quest: 16 ducks carefully compressed into a square compartment with a quick-release cable, suspended vertically from the ceiling. It meets its intended purpose quite well, but one is inexorable drawn to the prospect of further optimization.I propose each duck be attached by the mouth to a canister of compressed air, cabled to begin inflating as soon as the container is released, thereby increasing the pitch and volume of their cries.(To be clear to any passing animal lovers, judgmental aliens, members of future civilizations, etc, this does not concern real ducks)The Cinemagician has reversed it.

Shawn James' American Sanctuary warms the cold Colorado winter enough to get the locals joining in. We had so many awesome experiences during the Colorado tour. Not only was this the highlight of the trip, but one of the highlights in all of our lives. We got a chance to visit a private wolf sanctuary in Colorado, thanks to some awesome folks who hosted us in Fort Collins. Shawn and Baker covered this A.A. Bondy song in one of the enclosures. When the wolves all join in, I get goosebumps. Check out their website for info on how you can help, and be looking for a more in depth video about the whole refuge in the next couple days! This was only a small part of our time there. They used the Zoom H4n portable recorder to get decent sound out in the middle of nowhere. I'd go for the Tascam DR100 II (or the DR40/44), myself. But they can actually sing and stuff, so they can use what the hell they like! [via r/videos]

Sony's Cyber Shot RX1R II is its new flagship compact full-frame camera, with a 35mm f2 fixed Zeiss Sonnar lens, a 42.4-megapixel Exmor R sensor (the same one as in the A7S2), a moire-reducing low-pass filter, and a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.The lack of 4K video is ever so slightly disappointing, but this sort of thing whispers to the still shooters anyway, those who want unparalleled quality with perfectly-chosen limitations. If there's a problem with it (apart from its brutal $2900 price tag) it's that its own baby brother, the RX100 mk4, is itself so good that I can't imagine spending more without going all the way to a full-frame DSLR.

In 1966, UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson told MPs that the UK spy agencies weren't allowed to tap their phones and that if that changed, he'd tell them about it first. In 1997, Prime Minister Tony Blair asserted that this applied to electronic communications. This Monday, UK Home Secretary Theresa May asserted that the "Wilson Doctrine" still applied to MPs. Then, on Wednesday, the investigatory powers tribunal ruled that this was all rubbish. (more…)

Researchers from Japan's Chiba Institute of Technology demonstrated this spherical robot that rolls around until its four legs pop out for scurrying. Like a quadruped robot disguised as a Spheero! From the scientific paper (PDF):We have proposed and developed a new quadruped walking robot with a spherical shell, called "QRoSS". QRoSS is a transformable robot that can store its legs in the spherical shell. The shell not only absorbs external forces from all directions, but also improves mobile performance because of its round shape. In rescue operations at a disaster site, carrying robots into a site is dangerous for operators because doing so may result in a second accident. If QRoSS is used, instead of carrying robots in, they are thrown in, making the operation safe and easy. We developed QRoSS-I and conducted basic experiments to verify performance which includes landing, rising and walking through a series of movements. (via IEEE Spectrum)

Anesthesiologist Jonathan Bourne, of Mammoth Lakes, Ca., has been indicted for 21 felony counts of allegedly looting Native artifacts from private lands and national parks. Indian Country Today shares:“When you remove something from public lands or any land like that that’s sitting there, you’re not just taking an object or something,” Bancroft said. “You’re stealing. You’re stealing from my history, from my culture. You’re affecting my whole being on this planet and where I came from and how I’m connected to it.”Most people don’t even know it’s illegal to take the items, she said.“It’s something that I know a lot of people just can’t grasp, because they talk about it like it’s trash,” Bancroft said. “They think they are entitled to just take anything they want. A lot of them around here are just like, ‘How dare they tell me I can’t go out there and pick this stuff up?’ ”What sets Bourne apart is that he was so taken with his collection—authorities found 30,000 items in his possession—that he carefully documented everything. Bancroft said that although it was his undoing, it could help bring more attention to the issue overall. And serial offenders run rampant, she said.

On November 7th the final show in the Good Measure tour hits Miami. Surfer Blood, "the cleanest, and nicest band in existence!" will spend the day hanging out at The Hall, Joie De Vivre's new 'Bohemian outpost' in the heart of South Beach!Free tickets are available here!

For years seeing a Torx head, that starry topped bolt of frustration, gave me pause.I always seemed to be missing the right size Torx wrench! If I had the right size, it lacked the security dimple. This 13 piece Torx set is my solution.Home electronics frequently want the T6-T8 stuff. Security bolts on my personalized license plates are in the T40-T50 range. Torx keys, or wrenches, are something I use just frequently enough to have been buying, and losing individually. This set has already saved me several trips to the hardware store. The chrome plated ends are resisting the sea air out here very nicely, and even after a year or two, the set looks new. The long length of the handles on the keys comes in very handy, allowing you to reach many of the deepest-set screws by electronics companies. The grippy material is grippy. The holding case keeps them organized and allows me to resist the urge to just keep a key or two in my desk's pencil tray (there is a T6 there from a solo tool run years ago.) No longer does seeing a Torx head make me sigh.Included in the set are sizes: T6, T7, T8, T9, T10, T15, T20, T25, T27, T30, T40, T45, and T50. The ends are dimpled for security screws. Titan 12715 Extra-Long Arm Tamper Resistant Star Key Set - 13 Piece via Amazon

Teruyuki and Yuki Ishikawa are a husband-and-wife team of freelance 3D computer graphics artists from Tokyo. Their latest creation is Saya, and she is going to be the star in the movie they are self-producing. (more…)

Jupiter is more beautiful than ever in this footage from NASA, as used by Adrienne Lafrance to illustrate her splendid article about the gas giant. rom far away, the planet looks vaguely beige. But its clouds are a kaleidoscope of warm colors—alternately red, orange, pink, and tan, with some blue. That may be the effect of sunlight breaking down chemicals like ammonia, but scientists aren’t sure. “We still don't know what makes the clouds the colors they are,” Simon said. “Another thing we don’t know is: Why the storms last so long.”In the future, the people who live around Jupiter are going to be really smug, aren't they?Its reputation was once not so grand, Lafrance adds in a follow-up that astronomers used to find the painterly, swirling surface quite unpleasant.It was generally hoped that, in couse [sic] of time, this much respected orb would see the error of his ways, and cease to assume the appearance of an inebriated planet.Sad to relate, however, he has gone from bad to worse, and is just now showing, side by side with the red spot complained of, a number of white ones, which give his countenance an appearance truly sad to behold. No wonder that quiet, staid astronomers, who, from joking, stand aghast at such an exhibition.

The incredible visual effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013) bringing a stop-motion skeleton to life. Below, the classic skeleton fight from Jason and the Argonauts (1963).(via r/movies)https://youtu.be/pF_Fi7x93PY

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For half a decade, studies have been demonstrating a link between sitting and dying, prompting many of us (including me) to try out standing desks. (more…)

Adafruit Industries takes a fascinated look at the VIDEOBLLST_R, an arm-mounted electronic buckler that projects line-art on any night-time surface you aim it at, giving you the power to produce video graffiti on demand. (more…)

There have long been rumors, leaks, and statements about the NSA "breaking" crypto that is widely believed to be unbreakable, and over the years, there's been mounting evidence that in many cases, they can do just that. Now, Alex Halderman and Nadia Heninger, along with a dozen eminent cryptographers have presented a paper at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (a paper that won the ACM's prize for best paper at the conference) that advances a plausible theory as to what's going on. In some ways, it's very simple -- but it's also very, very dangerous, for all of us. (more…)

From Scott Westerfeld, tweeting from the tour for his new, brilliant book "Zeroes": "Plot idea: 97% of the world's scientists contrive an environmental crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires & oil companies." (more…)

Silent Hill is one of games' most iconic horror brands, having spawned some 14 titles and two visually-faithful, if thematically-insulting, movies. If you're not acquainted, I wrote about the founding heart of the series and why it matters so much to fans here.Now, Duncan Fyfe brings us a worthy and entertaining longread about Centralia, Pennsylvania, a coal mining town that shares traits with the illogical, fog-belching purgatory of Silent Hill—and that was used as a site for its movies. It's a haunting read, not least because the people of the area had been through quite a lot before their lost town became a gawking site for tourists and graffitos.Centralia has been on fire for 53 years.Fyfe's piece is part of the Campo Santo Quarterly Review, a regular journal he (beautifully) writes for Campo Santo, the developers of the upcoming (and exciting) Firewatch.

Can you spot the baby in this image? Researchers at the Universities of Cardiff and Cambridge found that volunteers who showed early signs of psychosis were much better at recognizing the baby than a group of people who did not have psychosis.Can't see the baby? Good for you! See the original photo.[via]

In "Beyond Zero and One," neuroscientist Andrew Smart investigates the relationship of hallucinations to consciousness, and raises some provocative and cool questions about how this relates to AI: (more…)

FOLLOW @RubenBolling on Twitter and Facebook.And FURTHER, please join Tom the Dancing Bug's subscription club, the INNER HIVE for advance access to comics and more stuff. And OBTAIN Ruben Bolling's new book, Alien Invasion in My Backyard: An EMU Club Adventure! You can also pre-order the second book in the series: Ghostly Thief of Time: An EMU Club Adventure! More Tom the Dancing Bug comics on Boing Boing! (more…)

The "Word Gap" theory holds that poor kids' school performance is the result of their parents' inability to expose them to rich vocabularies at home. (more…)