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Handheld radios might seem a bit archaic, but in an emergency situation, few things will keep you as reliably connected to the outside world. This Emergency Multi-Function Radio & Flashlight takes the utility of the tried-and-true radio and combines it with a powerful flashlight and self-sufficient energy system. It's available in the Boing Boing Store for $18.99.In addition to its bright, built-in LED flashlight, this multi-functional radio features a large solar panel on top and a hand crank, so you can charge it without batteries. It's handheld and easily packaged, making ideal for packing away in an emergency kit. And, it can even charge USB devices via the onboard battery.You can shore up your disaster-relief kit with the Emergency Multi-Function Radio & Flashlight, available in the Boing Boing Store today for $18.99.

John Carreyrou broke the story of Theranos' epic medical fraud. At Wired he now takes a sharp look at its dysfunctional corporate culture, excerpted from his new book on the corrupt Silicon Valley unicorn's spectacular downfall, Bad Blood [Amazon].Not all of it was Elizabeth Holmes, either. COO Sunny Balwani was a quietly stupid office tyrant:[Theranos'] device remained very much a work in progress. The list of its problems was lengthy.The biggest problem of all was the dysfunctional corporate culture in which it was being developed. Holmes and Balwani regarded anyone who raised a concern or an objection as a cynic and a nay-sayer. Employees who persisted in doing so were usually marginalized or fired, while sycophants were promoted.Employees were Balwani’s minions. He expected them to be at his disposal at all hours of the day or night and on weekends. He checked the security logs every morning to see when they badged in and out. Every evening, around 7:30, he made a flyby of the engineering department to make sure people were still at their desks working. With time, some employees grew less afraid of him and devised ways to manage him, as it dawned on them that they were dealing with an erratic man-child of limited intellect and an even more limited attention span. Holmes, by contrast, was savvy yet unreasonable. And it got worse after high-ranking staff quit rather than be party to Theranos going public with its unreliable tech...The resignations infuriated Holmes and Balwani. The following day, they summoned the staff for an all-hands meeting in the cafeteria. Copies of The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho’s famous novel about an Andalusian shepherd boy who finds his destiny by going on a journey to Egypt, had been placed on every chair. Still visibly angry, Holmes told the gathered employees that she was building a religion. If there were any among them who didn’t believe, they should leave. Balwani put it more bluntly: Anyone not prepared to show complete devotion and unmitigated loyalty to the company should “get the fuck out.”You look at all this and wonder at the legal event horizon, for corporate executives, beyond which nothing is truly forbidden. But then you realize that Theranos was a just billion-dollar version of Amy's Baking Company.

Henri is a black cat with an "interminable sense of ennui." He unwittingly came across some internet fame back in 2007 when his caretaker Will Braden posted the first video of him in what would become a short, and quite popular, web series.Now, the feline philosopher has announced his retirement. Well, the time has come. My final video with the annoying thieving filmmaker is here. Now, I will finally be able to officially retire in peace and work on my philosophy without interruptions. I plan on writing the great feline-american novel. I thank all of you for your support and adulation.Merci, Henri.In order, here is the series:https://youtu.be/0M7ibPk37_Uhttps://youtu.be/Q34z5dCmC4MThis one was voted the "best Internet cat video" in 2012https://youtu.be/IiYUzYozsAQhttps://youtu.be/R_fUsssnHPwhttps://youtu.be/egtvaWzIh7ohttps://youtu.be/ELtzZ5lJnBkhttps://youtu.be/Q8jJuTYfa_Ehttps://youtu.be/OUtn3pvWmpghttps://youtu.be/mXfMWMTLgtIhttps://youtu.be/OMOga8x6aLkHenri also has a book: Henri, le Chat Noir: The Existential Musings of an Angst-Filled Cat(Neatorama)

I still buy multi-packs of the red egg. My daughter is into Aaron's Thinking Putty, but I find Silly Putty to be the ultimate fidget toy.Lifting newsprint ruins the putty, so buy a few eggs at once.Original Silly Putty Pack #104-48 6 Pack via Amazon

Showman Mat Ricardo (previously) writes, "I've always thought it was a shame that the resurgence in cabaret and variety shows has tended to be adult-centric. Late night sexy circus shenanigans are all well and good, but variety shows should be for everyone - so I did something about it!" (more…)

Alt-right darling Jordan Peterson is a big fan of hierarchies, which he says are innate to the human condition, something he knows because lobsters have social hierarchies. (more…)

Husqvarna's remote-controlled demolition robots remind me of the machine art performances that Survival Research Laboratories has staged since 1977.Husqvarna bills its machines as "remote workmates ready to tackle your heaviest, most challenging jobs."Compare that to what Survival Research Laboratories founder Mark Pauline told me in a 1993 interview:"The real message of machines isn't that they're helpful workmates," Pauline said. "Like any extension of the human psyche, machines are scary things," he says. When you take the scary human psyche and magnify it hundreds or thousands of times with technology, it's really nightmarish."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcMFycei5Pw(via Uncrate)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94TP4FcWJucIndia's national elections are only a year away, and things aren't looking good for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the ruling party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an authoritarian war criminal who has a mutual love affair with US President Donald Trump. (more…)

Ana Suda and her friend, Mimi Hernandez, were born in the United States. They live in Montana. On early Wednesday morning they went grocery shopping. A uniformed Border Patrol agent heard them speaking Spanish to each other and demanded to see their identification. When they asked him if they were being racially profiled he said, “Ma’am, the reason I asked you for your ID is because I came in here, and I saw that you guys are speaking Spanish, which is very unheard of up here. It’s the fact that it has to do with you guys speaking Spanish in the store, in a state where it’s predominantly English-speaking." He detained the women in the store's parking lot for 35 to 40 minutes before letting them go.When the Washington Post contacted US Border Patrol for a response, a spokesperson said, “U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents and officers are committed to treating everyone with professionalism, dignity and respect while enforcing the laws of the United States. Although most Border Patrol work is conducted in the immediate border area, agents have broad law enforcement authorities and are not limited to a specific geography within the United States. They have the authority to question individuals, make arrests, and take and consider evidence.”Image: Washington Post Video screenshot

Last week, the New York Times revealed that an obscure company called Securus was providing realtime location tracking to law enforcement, without checking the supposed "warrants" provided by cops, and that their system had been abused by a crooked sheriff to track his targets, including a judge (days later, a hacker showed that Securus's security was terrible, and their service would be trivial to hack and abuse). (more…)

Two days ago, the Senate voted to overrule Trump FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and restore Net Neutrality; it was an incredible victory, but unless the same motion passes in the House, it's a symbolic one. (more…)

Tokyo artist Monde created a set of bookends for last week's Tokyo Design Festa that are tall, narrow dioramae containing detailed miniatures of the narrow laneways of Tokyo, with street furniture, signage and cobblestones; alas, these don't appear to be production items (and would need some kind of weight or underbook tongues to serve as effective bookends), but they're lovely to look at! (more…)

Why do 87% of Americans hold a favorable view of Net Neutrality? Not because the vast majority of the country has become wonkishly interested in the intersection of competition policy and telcoms regulation: it's because they care about the internet. (more…)

My daughter has sculpted our likenesses as LEGO Brickheadz.The LEGO Brickheadz Brick Me kit is fairly awesome. My 11 year-old spent an hour or so on each of these, and was excited to point out she put a cool surfer logo on my hat.Amazon currently has these 708 piece sets for $24, which is below list price.LEGO BrickHeadz Go Brick Me 41597 Building Kit (708 Piece) via Amazon

Little doggo pissed this turtle off chewing on his shell (?) and he aint getting away easy!

It's true that the 1% have accumulated a massive share of America's national wealth; but just as significant is the cohort of professionals -- "well-behaved, flannel-suited crowd of lawyers, doctors, dentists, mid-level investment bankers, M.B.A.s with opaque job titles, and assorted other professionals" -- who style themselves as the "meritocratic middle class" but who actually represent the top decile of American wealth, with net worths from $1.2m to $10m. (more…)

If you are an oligarch or criminal looking to exfiltrate and launder your money, London property markets have been your go-to asset class: London lux is real-estate that behaves like cash, thanks to the long line of oligarchs and criminals who'll pay cash for your safe-deposit box in the sky on a few hours' notice, should you need to liquidate ahead of a purge or an indictment. (more…)

For women, getting dressed in 14th-century Europe was apparently a full-time job.So. Many. Layers.That someone – probably some dude that never had to wear the stuff – thought it was a good idea to complicate things by making it so that you couldn't get dressed without assistance from a family member or servant? Ugh.

https://youtu.be/fhHL8_7k82YFor the second year in a row, the MIT Media Lab is giving out a no-strings-attached cash award of $250,000 for "disobedience" that benefits society; the prize is a reaction to MIT's shameful historic instances of throwing disobedient researchers under the bus, from Aaron Swartz to Star Simpson to bunnie Huang. (more…)

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The Senate has successfully voted to overrule FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and save Net Neutrality (provided that Congress and Trump agree); the vote was a squeaker on near straight party lines: all the Dems and independents voted to keep Net Neutrality, and they won the day thanks to help from three Republicans who split from their party: Susan M Collins [R-ME]; John Kennedy [R-LA] and Lisa Murkowski [R-AK]. (more…)

Jiz Lee, Stoya, Nikki Darling, and Asa Akira talk about representation, the marketing of white women vs. women of color in adult movies, and how porn is still a very white industry. And unfortunately you have to click much deeper to find real, respectful diversity."What Porn Stars Want You To Know: We Don't All Look the Same" (Iris)

We live during a time where cyberattacks regularly make news headlines, so it should come as no surprise that cybersecurity professionals are experiencing a surge in demand at even the entry level, making now the ideal time to learn the tools of the trade if you're considering a career switch. The 2018 Supercharged Cybersecurity Bundle offers 12 hours and more 2,700 pages of instruction on the matter, and it's on sale in the Boing Boing Store for $29.99.Regardless of your experience level, this collection is designed to guide you through the tools and techniques these experts use to keep networks secure. You'll get insight into penetration testing techniques and learn how to test a corporate network against threats using cutting-edge tools, like Kali Linux 2. From mobile forensics to Python script development, you'll take your knowledge further in more nuanced fields and emerge ready to tackle today's cyber threats.The 2018 Supercharged Cybersecurity Bundle is available in the Boing Boing Store for $29.99.

Earlier this month, Parliament sternly warned Mark Zuckerberg that if they continued to ignore their polite requests for him to testify, they'd issue a "summons" that could result in his being dragged to Westminster in chains the next time he set foot in the UK. (more…)

FOR THE KIDS IN YOUR LIFE, AND THEIR SUMMER READING: Get Ruben Bolling’s hit book series for kids, The EMU Club Adventures. "The EMU Club inhabits exactly the world I always hoped to live in when I was 12, when the answer to questions like 'Where did I put my toy' led inevitably to alien conspiracies and secret underground tunnels. A book for the curious and adventurous!" -Cory Doctorow, author of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and Little Brother"The type of non-stop action and improbably hilarious fun that only a kid could dream up. ... The EMU Club's adventures perfectly capture the intersection of imagination and wonder - the crossroad that's so often found in cardboard boxes, pillow forts and backyards everywhere."-GeekDadGet Book the First, Alien Invasion in My Backyard, here. Get Book the Second, Ghostly Thief of Time, here. -More Tom the Dancing Bug comics on Boing Boing! (more…)

Yiwu International Trade City in Yiwu, Zhejiang, China is the largest wholesale consumer market in the world. This documentary looks at the people who look after its countless booths. (more…)

Nell Scovell wrote for David Letterman, who in 33 years had a bad track record of hiring women as writers and stand-ups (about 10% of the total). He also admitted having sex with some of the women he hired. Scovell does a close read of Letterman's recent distortions to Tina Fey about his record:In the pre-#MeToo era, Letterman (mostly) got a pass. In addressing the issue with one of Hollywood’s most successful comics, he could have admitted his failings. Instead, he attempted to dodge past criticisms. And while delivered with an air of complete logic, Letterman’s argument is a master class in distortion. Here are the first 170 words of the conversation. See if you can spot the different types of manipulative rhetoric — I counted at least ten.Not that the whole thing was awkward. Fey got in some pretty good ones, for one-a them there lady comedienne types.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SuI14PAKW8• David Letterman Just Can’t Figure Out Why He Never Had Women Writers (The Cut)Image: Wikimedia

Until last week, Kansas was one of 33 states in which cops could have consent with people they'd arrested, provided their sexual partners "consented"; but now, a law prohibits officers from having sex "during the course of a traffic stop, a custodial interrogation, an interview in connection with an investigation, or while the law enforcement officer has such person detained." (more…)

Tom Wolfe, the highly influential journalist at Rolling Stone and Esquire and author of such fantastic works as The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, and The Bonfire of the Vanities, has died at age 88. From the New York Times:In his use of novelistic techniques in his nonfiction, Mr. Wolfe, beginning in the 1960s, helped create the enormously influential hybrid known as the New Journalism...His talent as a writer and caricaturist was evident from the start in his verbal pyrotechnics and perfect mimicry of speech patterns, his meticulous reporting, and his creative use of pop language and explosive punctuation.“As a titlist of flamboyance he is without peer in the Western world,” Joseph Epstein wrote in the The New Republic. “His prose style is normally shotgun baroque, sometimes edging over into machine-gun rococo, as in his article on Las Vegas which begins by repeating the word ‘hernia’ 57 times.”William F. Buckley Jr., writing in National Review, put it more simply: “He is probably the most skillful writer in America — I mean by that he can do more things with words than anyone else.”Image: White House Photo by Susan Sterner

Polish artist Dawid Planeta created his "mini people in the jungle" series to include gentle gargantuan animals which appear before silhouetted humans. (more…)

In a new ruling, US District Judge James Donato included extraordinary recriminations directly against Facebook and its lawyers, whom he upbraided for deliberately misinterpreting his earlier rulings about who can sue Facebook over privacy violations and what kinds of damages they can seek. (more…)

It's no secret that companies are eager to hire new project managers and pay them hefty salaries to ensure their initiatives make it from A to B. However, demand alone isn't quite enough to get your foot in the door as a project manager these days. Without the right certifications, companies will have a hard time believing you have what it takes to merit those handsome project manager salaries. The Essential Project Management Certification Training Bundle can train you to pass a variety of critical certifications, and it's on sale for $69.Featuring five comprehensive courses, this collection is loaded with instruction to help you pass the exams for several certifications, including Project Management Professional (PMP), PRINCE2 Practitioner, and PMI Agile Certified Practitioner. Make your way through each course, and you'll foster skills in leading projects, controlling resources, reducing risk, and a host of other concepts core to becoming a successful project manager.The Essential Project Management Certification Training Bundle is available in the Boing Boing Store for $69.

The #BadStockPhotosOfMyJob has had some worthy entries so far, like OB/GYN Dr. Jennifer Gunter's comment on this gem: "I always give a thumbs up after a pelvic exam, it’s so not creepy at all." (more…)

Saturation divers are specialized workers doing construction or demolition hundreds of feet below the water's surface. This detailed report gives a sense of what it's like to have a grueling routine where a tiny mistake could mean a quick and painful death. (more…)

Two years ago, a freshly-born two-headed fawn was discovered dead in a Minnesota forest by a mushroom hunter. It has now been confirmed, in a recently-published study in The American Midland Naturalist, that the specimen is the first known case of a "conjoined two-headed white-tailed deer brought to full-term gestation and delivered." Fox News reports:"It’s never been described before," said Lou Cornicelli, a co-author on the study and a wildlife research manager for the DNR. "There are a few reported cases of two-headed ungulate fetuses, but nothing delivered to term. So, the uniqueness made it special..."..."Animals that are stillborn, they don’t last long on the landscape because of scavengers," said Cornicelli. "In our case, we were lucky that he found the fawn before it was eaten and turned it into DNR."...Wild Images In Motion Taxidermy mounted the unique two-headed fawn on a bed of greenery, where it lies as though it is just waking from a nap. The mount will eventually be moved to the MNDNR headquarters in St. Paul, where it will be on public display."We all thought it was pretty neat and were glad to be able to show it to the public," said Cornicelli. "The taxidermists, Robert Utne and Jessica Brooks did a great job with the mount and treated it very respectfully."Conjoined White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) Fawnsscreenshots via Prairie Sportsman(Neatorama)

Welcome Ed Piskor back to Boing Boing (previously), where he'll be offering an annotated page-by-page look at the first part of X-Men: Grand Design, his epic retelling of how Marvel comics' pantheon of heroes came to be. Here's page 7 — Eds.Director’s commentary…I wanted to cover lots of ground on this page, for better or worse, in an effort to get to the good stuff ASAP. I estimate several years of Charles’s early academic life transpire in the first three panels. The incessant dialogue in the background was probably something I cribbed from an old issue of Daredevil by Frank Miller when DD’s sense of hearing gets reactivated and becomes even more sensitive than before. For my use here I imagined that Chuck’s mutant senses kicked-in with the fury of the hormonal surges we all felt when going through puberty.Panel 4: I actually stole this line from a guy I know who said it so casually when fondly recalling his shady past. He’s dead now.Panel 7: Mimicking the old style of comics coloring places limits on my palette. I often like to work with as few colors as possible. I’m not always clever enough to keep the palette to just a couple colors, but it sure works fine in this panel.Panel 8: The way my art on X-Men has grown lately I would never use black lines around fire anymore, but something about this blaze at the X-Mansion really conveys a sense of licking-movement to me. Especially when I see it on a screen.The first X-Men Grand Design collection is now available for purchase on Amazon! Stay tuned for another strip this time next week. You can pre-order X-Men: Grand Design, Second Genesis on Amazon today.

George W Bush spent a decade as the record-holder for the worst US president in modern history: a stupid man who weaponized a lie to start a pointless war that rages to this day, the "Heck of a Job, Brownie" president, the "You forgot Poland" president, the "Freedom Fries" president, the torture president, the mass surveillance president, the climate denier, the chimp-faced coked up draft dodger who was a modern hereditary princeling -- probably not even much fun to have a beer with. (more…)

Joining the Mars 2020 rover mission to the Red Planet will be a small helicopter. The Mars Helicopter, with a softball-size fuselage, the autonomous chopper will be solar powered and integrate a small heater so it doesn't seize up at night. From NASA:Once the rover is on the planet’s surface, a suitable location will be found to deploy the helicopter down from the vehicle and place it onto the ground. The rover then will be driven away from the helicopter to a safe distance from which it will relay commands. After its batteries are charged and a myriad of tests are performed, controllers on Earth will command the Mars Helicopter to take its first autonomous flight into history.“We don’t have a pilot and Earth will be several light minutes away, so there is no way to joystick this mission in real time,” said (Mimi Aung, Mars Helicopter project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.) “Instead, we have an autonomous capability that will be able to receive and interpret commands from the (rover on the) ground, and then fly the mission on its own.”“The ability to see clearly what lies beyond the next hill is crucial for future explorers,” said Zurbuchen. “We already have great views of Mars from the surface as well as from orbit. With the added dimension of a bird’s-eye view from a ‘marscopter,’ we can only imagine what future missions will achieve.”Mars 2020 will launch on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, and is expected to reach Mars in February 2021.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOMQOqKRWjU

Whether you're looking to switch careers or advance in the one you're in, chances are you're going to need to add some new skills to your repertoire before you can make your move. While going back to school is certainly an option, Virtual Training Company makes it possible for users to acquire new skills in fields like animation, business, and programming without paying up in student loans or sinking in years of their time. Lifetime memberships are on sale for $99.With a lifetime membership to Virtual Training Company, you'll have access to courses in the fields of animation, business applications, networking and security, programming, graphics, game design, and much more. You'll learn from industry experts in their respective fields, and you can access your training from multiple devices.You can take the first step towards learning a new skill with a lifetime subscription to Virtual Training Company, on sale in the Boing Boing Store for $99.

A teenager livestreaming a demo of a Fortnite cheat he found online got sued by Epic Games, but the case raises questions about who, if anyone, is legally obligated after he clicked the user agreement required to play the game. (more…)

Daniel Kordan is a great photographer who travels to distant lands for stunning astrophotographs among other. Some of his stills are below, but his video of a trip to Greenland has his same eye for natural beauty. (more…)

It's been a long time since I used a floppy disk as a coaster, and I'm not sure I could find one now if I needed to. There's something unsettling, though, about these silicone floppy discs [Amazon] intended for use as coasters: they're convincing at a distance, are otherwise just little slabs of silicone, but are more expensive than the complex mechanical media whose superficial appearance they crudely imitate. Anyway, I ordered a set of 4.

Kjetil Golid wrote code that generates high-definition space invaders for all imaginary Earth-defense needs. The javascript library p5.js is part of the magic.

Been wondering what is happening on Filipino television? Wonder no more. They're dressing up pre-pubescent boys to look like The Bee Gees and then having them cover the band's 1979 hit, "Too Much Heaven." I kid you not. Just look:This clip is from Your Face Sounds Familiar, a show that features celebrities impersonating singers. When not in disco clothes, the trio of young men -- Francis Concepcion, Mackie Empuerto and Kiefer Sanchez -- are in their own band called the TNT Boys. They recently made an appearance on the UK edition of Little Big Shots. Incidentally, TNT stands for Tawag ng Tanghalan which is the amateur singing competition show where they were discovered. Their performance reminded me of this video of Echo, that 7-year-old Filipino boy from a few year's back who sang "More Than a Woman" with his dad.

After a long day of intergalactic smuggling, Han Solo probably cooled off with something a little stronger than a glass of bantha milk. And now, you can channel your inner smuggler with these Millennium Falcon Ice Molds, available in the Boing Boing Store for $9.99.Cooler than carbonite, these dual molds make two fun, intricate ice Millennium Falcons so you can chill your cocktail of choice with some Star Wars flair. Whether you're looking to add some character to your cocktail hour or just step up your Star Wars fandom, these silicone molds let you do so in style. And, with summer coming up, you can trust you'll be using them often to beat the heat.The Millennium Falcon Ice Molds normally retail for $14.99, but they're available in the Boing Boing Store for $9.99, more than 30 percent off the usual price.

Japanese wood joinery (previously) is a highly-refined craft. In this video, YouTuber Third Coast Craftsman creates a free-standing bookshelf inspired by those joinery techniques. (more…)

There's a kind of joke called "a long driveway to a small house," and the cartoon "Parked in My Spot" is a great example. There's not a huge payoff, but the story itself is pretty amusing and nicely animated. Most people respond to stolen parking spots with tales of vengeance and wrath, but this one is more playful thanks to both parties not being too worked up about the situation. (more…)

Last Saturday, Childish Gambino (aka Donald Glover) unleashed "This is America" on the world. In just this one week, the controversial video has already garnered over 95 million views and has ignited quite a conversation about it. Now a YouTuber named LOTI has set the first part of the video to Carly Rae Jepsen's 2012 earworm "Call Me Maybe" and... it syncs up well, really well. See for yourself.Believe me, I wanted to hate it but I can't, not completely. I saw the link in a friend's feed and immediately thought, "Too soon." Early last week, I watched and re-watched the original video to see what it was all about, to really understand its message. Then, I read nearly every article written about it that I could find, including Cory's take on it. He writes, in part:The video is extraordinary on many levels: filled with subtle and overt references to gun violence, racism and inequality; beautifully directed by Hiro Murai; expressively choreographed and superbly danced by Glover and his collaborators.The lyrics are likewise extraordinary, as is Glover's delivery, with long pauses and melodic breaks counterpointed with flat, chanted refrains. But the truth is, and feel free to disagree with me, throwing some pop-fluff on top of something so serious not only brings some levity, but shines its original message even brighter. Or, are we trivializing it already, focusing only on the Glover's moves? The line it walks is a fine one, for sure.Childish Gambino's U.S. tour starts September 6 in Atlanta.Thanks, Mark B.!

Securus Technologies markets a product to law enforcement that taps into realtime cell-tower data from mobile carriers to produce fine-grained location tracking of anyone carrying a phone; it is nominally marketed to find parolees and wandering Alzheimer's patients, but because it has no checks or balances, cops can query it willy-nilly to find anyone's location. (more…)

One of the great things about YouTube is the vicarious pleasure of watching someone do something satisfying that you may not have time or inclination to do yourself. Case in point: this cool speed build of a LEGO ship in a bottle. (more…)