Most cameras capture the position of light rays, producing your average static 2D image. The Lytro dares to be different. Its cutting-edge technology records the direction of these rays, generating images you can later refocus, change perspective within, or view in 3D. Read the rest

“Blacklisted and Lovin' It.” $50 on the official store.tedcruz.org site. Jezebel has the backstory. Still would not have sex with.This is a thing that's real. Read the rest

Three energetic ducklings standing on top of a capybara who is just trying to take a bath. (more…)

“This video made me laugh out loud,” said paleontologist Leif Tapanila, director of the Idaho Museum of Natural History. Read the rest

Early this week I gave an online Arduino sensor workshop, and without this LED jeweler's loupe, I wouldn't have been able to read the tiny markings on many of the components. The battery has lasted for years. It's $2.72 on Amazon with free shipping even if you aren't a Prime member. I'm very happy with mine.

"It's a funny sort of war that produces a lower body count than there was before the war began," writes Jesse Walker for Reason's Hit & Run blog. Read the rest

I want this $190 rock almost as much as I want that $98 stump.

Paul Dawson, a professor of Food Science at Clemson University, investigated the history of the "Five Second Rule" and ran experiments to see how much bacteria actually transfers from the floor onto dropped food. Read the rest

The estranged husband of Amber Telford, 33, hired a private detective to surveil his wife, a dance instructor in Taylorsville, Utah. The detective caught Telford having sex in the dance studio with a fellow who turned out to be the private investigator's own 17-year-old son. Read the rest

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is a village on the island of Anglesey off the coast of Wales, UK. Nice work, Liam Dutton of Channel 4.

Above: a stump for sale for $98 at Design Republic. Below: a video about an artisanal firewood maker. It doesn't really matter that one is real and which one is a parody.

Designed by both Elan Lee (Xbox, ARGs) and Shane Small (Xbox, Marvel), and illustrated by Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal), Exploding Kittens is a self-proclaimed “kitty-powered version of Russian Roulette.” This humorous, tension-building card game was both the most-backed and most-funded project in Kickstarter history in early 2015. Read the rest

R.I.P. Mr. Darcy.

At first I was adverse to posting this fulsome list of 58 commonly misused words and phrases, due to its sheer enormity, but I decided to proscribe it anyway because it is pretty bemusing. Read the rest

A porn app developed by Russian hackers takes your photo, locks your phone, and displays a scary looking message from the "FBI" that says you have to pay a $500 fine for accessing "forbidden pornogaphic sites."This piece of ransomware is called Porn Droid and affects Android devices. Read the rest

"Go fuck yourselves, the lot of you — you sad, attention-grabbing, power-hungry little men," Stipe said, responding to Trump playing REM's hit "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" at a rally yesterday. Read the rest

Jim Stickley of Stickley Online Security uses his handy $8 Utili-Key to open a locked hotel safe at the Horseshoe Hotel in Bossier City, LA. He unscrews the nameplate on the safe, which reveals a physical lock. He then unbends a paper clip, wiggles it around for a while, and viola! the safe is open. He says a thief could use this method to take something from the safe without any sign that the safe had been opened.

San Francisco painter Kelly Tunstall and the People's Print Shop teamed up on this wonderful fine art print, "Cloud Chat," limited to 30 signed/numbered copies for just $40 each! Read the rest

At first, it seems like just another day at the beach for just another seagull. Then you open your tiny yellow beak and sing the song of fire. Read the rest

In South Africa, scientists have unearthed a humanoid species from what appears to be a burial chamber hidden deep inside a system of caves. Read the rest

My friend Stanford neuroscientist Melina Uncapher and her colleagues are piloting a new public project called mymntr meant to create a "user guide for your brain" through brain tests for self-knowledge, interviews with fascinating creative folks to get a sense of the minds behind the madness, and lots of other cool stuff at the intersection of science and culture. Read the rest

Dave Witlock is a practical man. "I have not taken a shower in over 12 years," says the chemical engineer and Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate. Read the rest

Bertie the tortoise broke the world record for the fastest animal in his species, moving at .28 meters/second, beating a tortoise named Charlie's 1977 record of .125 meters/second. Meet Bertie in the video below, celebrating his entry into the new Guinness World Records book.

Having watched Attack on Titan, I enjoyed this video of a live action fight over a slice of pizza at a party, edited anime-style. Every line of dialogue is delivered as a seething throaty whisper or a confused angry shout. There are close-ups of throbbing eyeballs and trembling fists. One second glimpses of complex infographics. Slow camera sweeps over static scenes. They nailed it.[via]

Fans of the Judge John Hodgman podcast know that the harder you interrogate the category "sandwich," the less definitive it becomes, until you find yourself raging over tacos and hot-dogs. Read the rest

Primož Ravnik thought it would be cool to ride down the face of a 200-ft dam. Damn, Primož! Daaaaamn! [Sploid]

Wall Street Journal columnist Geoffrey A Fowler: "There’s a fight brewing between giant tech companies and tinkerers that could impact how we repair gadgets or choose the shop where we get it done by a pro. At issue: Who owns the knowledge required to take apart and repair TVs, phones and other electronics?"

"Long hours, missed family vacations, and significant burnout" — Leigh McMullin on a job so unpleasant there's a cottage industry helping you escape it. Read the rest

Skinning drones with iconic spaceship shells is an absolute natural and I expect to see a lot more of it -- here's a salvo, Air Hogs's Millennium Falcon quadcopter, which hits stores on Sept 15 -- part of a family that includes landspeeders, TIE fighters, X-wings, and speeder bikes. Read the rest

Jhovany Quiroz's art is "the human eye made weird and psychedelic." [Wired] Read the rest

The Guardian's 2-star outlier review of Legend was cleverly misrepresented on the movie poster. Author Benjamin Lee writes on how bad reviews like his can be turned into marketing gold. Read the rest

The musical references of this year's most daunting commercial video game are resonating in surprising and brilliant ways. Read the rest

A team experienced at eerie, atmospheric sci fi is developing a new visual novel with amazing illustrations and a diverse crew. Read the rest

Wes Craven obeyed the gatekeeper's creed: "learn the rules before you break them." Ben Gabriel suggests this is why, despite great success, he never quite earned the same status as Carpenter and Cronenberg—a status he certainly deserves.

Let's Glitch Super Mario World is a YouTube series about the creative destruction and remaking of a classic game, simply by exploiting its glitches. Read the rest

Looks like it's some kind of volcano poop, but NASA's still hedging its bets.The latest images from Dawn reveal surface features as small as 450 feet across. Read the rest

According to a New York Times article published in June 1927, a man with the name and address of Donald Trump's father was arraigned after Klan members attacked cops in Queens, N.Y. Read the rest

Recreate the magic you see around the Web with courses that take you beyond the template. Learn everything about WordPress -- whether you want to know it now or will want to learn it later -- with 12 expert-taught courses. Read the rest

Survivor guitarist and “Eye of the Tiger” co-writer Frankie Sullivan says nobody in their camp granted permission for their 1982 hit song to be featured at a rally for Kim Davis without their permission. Read the rest