The Speedy Stitcher sewing awl ($10 on Amazon) is anything but speedy, but it is useful to have around when you need to repair canvas, leather, or other heavy fabric. Take a look at the video below to see how they work.

I've obtained the 1922 book that demonstrates this classic song should rest in the public domain. Read the rest

How long can you hold onto something good? Is all pleasure fleeting? Is this a comic element of being alive, or a tragic one? Read the rest

Wait for the grin at the end if you doubt our headline.(more…)

If you're using the loo at the Elephant Sand Lounge in Botswana, beware! Smart elephants in the area know where the clean water is, and you're sitting on it. Watch as a thirsty elephant uses the toilet as its water bowl rather than the nearby salty water hole outside.

Country singer Kacey Musgraves just released her remake of Nancy Sinatra's 1966 classic "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'"Musgraves' version is fine, I guess, but why mess with perfection?Above, Nancy Sinatra's 1966 classic "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'"

The young winners of the Girls Make Games grand prize want to make their prototype a reality with the help of professional mentors, artists and programmers. Read the rest

Designer Connor Sherlock's work can immerse you in atmospheric spaces in no time at all. These eerie, moody pieces are so enthralling you often forget about the video gamey bits. Read the rest

John Kelly of the Washington Post spotted a pair of leopard slugs mating on his driveway. He called Megan Paustian, a research biologist who consults for Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, to explain how slug sex works. Read the rest

It's a powerful metaphor for something or other, from the good folks at woodgears.ca, with build notes for your own Slinky-torturing pleasure. (via JWZ)

Apple spends nearly $700,000 to protect Tim Cook, Read the rest

A strange phenomenon is happening in Dallas, TX. Drivers commuting through the neighborhood of Lakeside Park have spotted a massive canopy of webs that runs the length of a football field. Read the rest

Now someone is going to tell me that blowing bubbles near a chameleon is even worse than tickling a slow loris.

Six-year-old Charlotte Campbell of Taupo, New Zealand says she likes her daddy's tattoo. So do I.[via](Image: Alistair Campbell)

Lex is a drug-sniffing police dog. His owner trained Lex by giving him a treat every time he alerted, whether or not Lex was right. Read the rest

Photographer Mark Carwardine got this lovely drone footage of a pod of gray whales frolicking off the coast of Baja California. Unfortunately, the boaters then approach and touch the whales. Read the rest

Fantastic Four is receiving the kind of blistering reviews usually reserved for an Adam Sandler movie. Rotten Tomatoes calls it "dull and downbeat... Read the rest

Over at Vantage, Peter Schafer's beautiful and moving photo essay, "Diary of a Sex Tourist," pegged on Amnesty International's vote in the next few days on whether or not the group will advocate for the decriminalization of sex work. Read the rest

The Sunji Lee Quintet plays Nirvana. Far out! (more…)

The antivirus entrepreneur, who went on the lam in Belize when wanted for questioning about a murder there, has finally found his way behind bars under less romantic circumstances. Read the rest

"We are better people for having known you." (more…)

For when you want to role-play stern schwa and sweet, submissive Whitley Streiber; comes in two models but the $120-130 Splorch is the clear winner. (via JWZ)

It's Never to Late to Go Back to School: 8 Courses, 31+ Hours on Python, JavaScript, jQuery & More Read the rest

Impress the person sitting next to you at the coffeehouse or on the airplane with your knowledge of European philosophy! Human, All Too Human is the BBC and RM Arts' fascinating three-part 1999 documentary series about Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Jean-Paul Sartre. (more…)

May we all contemplate the mysteries of dihydrogen monoxide with such joy.

A surprising survey by Teenwise Minnesota found that bisexual females were five times more likely to have been pregnant than straight females. Questioning and gay males were four times more likely than straight males to report getting someone pregnant. Read the rest

Decades of dog and human pee have corroded the bases of some area light poles, and the city started a program to inspect them before more poles come crashing down. Read the rest

Psychology studies are almost always about WEIRD people: Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic – the kind of people who make up less than 15 percent of the world's population. Read the rest

It was a safe bet that Kate "Hark! A Vagrant! Beaton's first kids' picture book would be amazing, but The Princess and the Pony is incredible.Princess Pinecone is a the smallest warrior in a kingdom of warriors, and she lives for battle. But every year on her birthday, her parents give her a cuddly sweater. What she really wants is a mighty charger, from whose back she might smite other warriors.This year, Princess Pinecone put her foot down. She let it be known that nothing less than a huge, imposing horse would do.Unfortunately, what she got was a cuddly, funny-looking pony whose eyes point in opposite directions. It refuses to be trained for warhorse duties. She rides it into battle anyway. When Otto the Awful spies her on the sidelines and charges her, the pony just stands there, while Princess Pinecone digs for her spitballs. Then it happens: Otto the Awful screeches to a halt, unable to believe how TOTALLY CUTE the pony is.The mighty battle stops. The warriors crowd around the pony. They get in touch with their cuddly sides. So Princess Pinecone shares her supply of excess cuddly sweaters. And they all live happily ever after!Beaton is one of the sharpest, funniest comics creators in the business. Her witty, take-no-prisoners feminism is absolutely on display here, but she doesn't go for an easy girl-power resolution: instead, she lets everyone be both a badass and a sentimentalist.The spreads in this are amazing: the giant fight scene and the warriors in their sweaters? Perfection.It is the perfect, perfect book about girls, gender roles, and adorable ponies.I bought my copy at Los Angeles's outstanding Secret Headquarters, who also sold me one of Beaton's newly published Sketchbooks.The Princess and the Pony [Kate Beaton/Scholastic] Read the rest

Found at Walmart, according to The Today Show.

This horse showed great restraint and, hopefully, taught this child something about not punching horses.

Researchers led by Je-Sung Koh created a biomimetic robot that floats using surface tension and can jump from the surface of water like a water strider insect. Read the rest

Tom and Veronica talk to J-F Dubeau, author of 'The Life Engineered,' about why we should build more robots. Read the rest

In a Reddit AMA, activists DeRay McKesson, Johnetta Elzie and ACLU’s Nus Choudhury talked policing and police reform in America, and surveillance of activists. Read the rest

Moran Cerf (previously) writes, "Can someone else know what we want a little before we do? And if so - who is in charge of our decisions?" Read the rest

This tennis ball-size orb knows what you are thinking. Most of the time it will guess what you have in mind after asking you twenty yes/no questions. Read the rest

The Invisible Deck is one of my favorite trick decks because the effect is simple and stunning. It blows people’s minds. Read the rest

Debris having washed ashore on Réunion, tracing the tides—and the genetics of encrusted barnacles living on the flaperon—gives us new clues to the final resting place of the lost jet.

This autonomous charger is much better than the boring old unit that required collaboration with a human to charge the Tesla.[via]

A lively brawl erupted in Times Square between a man dressed as Spider-Man and a man said to have been harassing other street performers who earn their keep posing for photos with tourists.

The Kings of India playing card deck looks fantastic. It has met its funding goal on Kickstarter, but they have not yet met the stretch goal that will enable the creators, Bhavesh and Reena Mistry, to include embossed details on the box. Read the rest

Shot on a $25,000 budget and a 35-page script that called for lots of improvisation, 1999's The Blair Witch Project made an astounding $248 million in theaters. Mental Floss put together a fun list of 17 facts about the horror movie classic. Read the rest

Scientists at the University of Sussex have published a directory of horse facial expressions. The Equine Facial Action Coding System catalogs "17 discrete facial movements in horses that may indicate mood or intention or just bafflement," reports The Guardian.Boing Boing created this chart that shows each facial expression identified by the scientists. We hope you find it helpful.Image: Wikipedia

Even by the standards of 25-year-old security video, it's grainy and indistinct. But if someone can identify the man visiting Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990, federal investigators could solve a $500m art theft that's kept them in the dark for decades. Read the rest

Ryan Calo writes, "I argue in a new paper that economists and privacy advocates don't need to hate one another... Here's the abstract:" Read the rest

34-year-old Michael Migani was charged with second-degree breach of peace and second-degree reckless endangerment for inserting his saliva-covered finger into the ear of a 4-year-old boy in a Shelton, Connecticut waiting room. When the boy's mother confronted Migani, he left the scene in his car, but police were able to apprehend him before he got too far. He was released on $500 bond.

Board game designer Robin David has made an Alphabear-inspired word game that uses printable playing cards. Read the rest

Cornell Lab of Ornithology may have digitized nearly 150,000 digital audio recordings [via], amounting to 7,513 hours and 10 terabytes of data, but do they have the sound of this mouse that thinks it is a wolf? I think not. (more…)