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Vpnfilter is the malicious software that targets home routers, thought to be the work of Russian state-affiliated hacker group Fancy Bear, that raised alarm last month on the revelation that it had infected half a million home routers around the world. (more…)

https://youtu.be/YFj9pFfmI1MThere’s a video that’s been hanging around on the internet for the last few years and it popped up on my Facebook feed not long ago. I hadn’t seen it before, and it’s intriguing because it subverts expectations. Take a look.The video is only 17 seconds, but it’s more effective than many 120-minute horror films. Why?Because even though there’s no dialogue, there is a moment that is pure misdirection—almost exactly what magicians do when constructing an illusion. The first time you watch it, it’s almost too obvious that the guy under the sheet walks into the table, looks down, then continues around it—but that moment is what makes you think there’s a person under the sheet. Think about it. If Mr. Ghost had made a genuine mistake, they simply would have shot the video a second time without him accidentally bumping into the table. But if he didn’t bump the table, you wouldn’t assume it was some yutz under a sheet.Now you want to know how it’s done. Could it be CGI? No, because it looks like someone made this for about 10 cents. Then what is it? A magic trick that depends upon a secret that is 150 years old. But since it’s not presented as an illusion by a magician, it has fooled everyone. And that’s its best secret.

The Forty Swords arrive at night and, under the cover of darkness, murder an entire village. Only two people survive the slaughter: the infant Elsbeth and her grief-stricken father, Dag​, who slips into a ten year coma. He awakens to find that not only has his daughter grown up alone, she's thrived​ despite him. (more…)

Embattled EPA Director Scott Pruitt went on national TV to announce on behalf of the US government that "I would not agree [CO2 is] a primary contributor to the global warming that we see... There’s a tremendous disagreement about the degree of the impact [of] human activity on the climate." (more…)

Some people are more committed to a cause than others. Ben Lecomte? He’s one of those. In an effort to highlight the stunning amount of damage humanity is doing to the world’s oceans and generate awareness about plastic pollution, the 50-year old adventurer plans on swimming through 1,600km of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Lecomte started his swim this morning in Japan. Provided everything goes according to plan, he’ll finish his aquatic ramblings in 180 days, in San Fransisco. This isn’t his first open water rodeo: according to The Guardian, Lecomte swam across the whole damn Atlantic Ocean back in 1998.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnUK0oBI_s4From The Guardian:The Great Pacific garbage patch, according to the latest March estimate, is twice the size of France and contains nearly 80,000 tonnes of plastic.Also known as the Pacific trash vortex, the patch is caused by the North Pacific gyre – a circle of currents that keep plastic, waste and other pollution trapped.According to scientists, the patch has been growing “exponentially” in recent years. The March estimate found it was 16 times larger than previously expected.As Lecomte makes his way through the garbage patch, he and his support team plan on taking water samples and catching fish to test for plastic pollutants and illustrate how plastics have been infiltrating the food chain. This might sound like a a goofy publicity stunt, but if you take a peek at the endeavor's website, you'll see that Lecomte's efforts have the support of some big scientific guns, including NASA, CMER, the Argonne National Labratory and the University of Montana, just to name a few.If you'd like to keep tabs on the progress that Lecomte and his team are making in their trek across the Pacific Ocean or learn more about how badly we've screwed up our oceans, you'll want to check out The Longest Swim.

YouTuber Ryan Higa admits that he can't dance. When one of his viewers asked if he could dance without moving, he put together this amazing stop-motion video with his friends. This is how it was made:https://youtu.be/6e7wxqOo7ps(Neatorama)

A horse named Bofa Deez Nutz won its first victory on Friday at Oklahoma City's Remington Park. You'll note that the race caller is a master at his craft. Meanwhile, as the horse crossed the finish line, its owner could be heard exclaiming "GOT EEEEM!" (In my imagination anyway.)(Thanks, Dean Putney!)

Intel and Chinese tech firm Ehang UAV have been locked in a battle over the world record for largest drone lightshow, and Ehang recently took the lead with 1,374 drones as voxels.Here's a behind-the-scenes of Intel's worthy entry at PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCd6P7Ya160• EHang Egret’s 1374 drones dancing over the City Wall of Xi’an, achieving the Guinness World Records (YouTube / EHANG)

With Father's Day around the corner, the folks behind A.1. Sauce have rolled out (what they consider to be) the greatest gift for dad's ever: meat-scented candles. The three "meat scents" are Burger, Backyard BBQ, and Original Meat (which they write, "pairs well with dad jokes"). Each candle costs $14.99. (bookofjoe)

Solo: A Star Wars Story, the latest Star Wars feature film and Disney's fourth, offers something new even as it stays connected to the old. I have a few gripes, but Solo is a nice side chapter to the ongoing Star Wars mythos.Set roughly a decade before A New Hope, the original Star Wars film, Solo chronicles the journey of a 20-something Han Solo from an orphan looking for a brighter future to the swaggering but lovable scoundrel originally portrayed by Harrison Ford.Standard backstory fare includes Solo meeting the Wookiee Chewbacca and fellow miscreant Lando Calrissian. We find out where he grew up and how he came by his surname. He acquires the Millenium Falcon and his biggest claim to fame: making the Kessel Run in a record-breaking twelve parsecs. Solo brims with action and humor—I think it's a great stand-alone film.(more…)

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School's class of 2018 got a surprise visit from late night talk show host Jimmy Fallon on Sunday. He took the stage at their graduation ceremony to deliver a humorous and heartfelt commencement speech.When you think of commencement speakers, you think of people who are inspirational, people who are eloquent, people who've changed the world. When you think of high school students, you think of people who are immature, slightly awkward, still learning to be an adult.Welcome to "Opposite Day."The Parkland, Florida students were the survivors of the shooting that happened nearly four months ago on their campus. Seventeen of their classmates and school staff died in the tragedy on February 14, 2018.Fallon said he and his wife and two young girls to the ceremony because "we wanted them to see what hope and light looks like."Watch his full speech in the video above.https://twitter.com/jimmyfallon/status/1003371562194653184

Amazon is selling Sharpies at a great price today: 36 for $11. (Does anyone know how long an unopened Sharpie lasts?)

Well, this should soften Elon Musk’s opinions about journalism: According to Engadget, Musk’s electric car-making baby, Tesla Motors, has had to return almost one quarter of the pre-order money it received from its American customers for the company’s delayed Tesla Model 3.From Engadget:Tesla raked in hundreds of thousands of pre-orders for its Model 3 after it unveiled the vehicle in 2016, but a report from analytics firm Second Measure shows that a good chunk of US pre-orders have since been refunded. As of April, the company's analysis shows that 23 percent of those who placed a pre-order in the US have had their $1,000 deposit refunded. A Tesla spokesperson told Recode that Second Measure's findings didn't match the automaker's own numbers, but declined to say by how much they were off. However, last August, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that 12 percent of reservations had been cancelled at the time – data that aligned with Second Measure's analysis.Engadget’s Mallory Locklear reckons that the rampant production delays associated with the Model 3’s production are a viable culprit for the refund requests. That said, buying any new car, let alone a premium ride like the ones that Tesla offers, is an expensive undertaking. A person’s fortunes can turn pretty quickly within the space of a few months. Having the money to be able plunk down a grand to reserve the right to purchase a new car back then doesn’t translate into being flush enough to seal the deal now.Image: Carlquinn - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

During an interview for an Argentinian news program, Woody Allen declared: "I should be the poster boy for the #MeToo movement. Because I have worked in movies for 50 years. I've worked with hundreds of actresses and not a single one — big ones, famous ones, ones starting out — have ever ever suggested any kind of impropriety at all. I've always had a wonderful record with them."Woody Allen's adopted daughter Dylan Farrow says her father sexually abused her 25 years ago. While Allen was never charged, the judge in the case said Allen's behavior was "grossly inappropriate." [via The Week]Image: By Denis Makarenko/Shutterstock

In most countries, rising productivity means fewer working hours: but US workers, among the world's most productive, put longer hours than other rich-country workers, especially nordic workers -- if America's productivity/hours curve worked like it does in Denmark and Norway, American workers would get an additional 2.2 months of vacation every year. (more…)

PancakeBot 3D prints (somewhat) edible griddlecakes from your own design, or from a library of present options like the Eiffel Tower or a T. rex. (more…)

YouTuber nigahiga took a fan request and made this impressive clip of dancing without moving over the course of a week. (more…)

Americans' median income is $60,000 -- but the average American couldn't stump up $500 to bail themselves out of an emergency, and a third of Americans can't afford food, shelter and healthcare. (more…)

Whether you're going for a weekend at the lake or just leaving the house for an afternoon, you can't always count on finding a power outlet to keep your devices juiced up. Therein lies the value of having a portable charger. This Universal Waterproof Solar Charger has enough space to juice your devices several times over, and it can replenish its power supply with solar power tech. It's available in the Boing Boing Store for $13.99.Boasting a hefty 5,000mAh battery, this portable charger lets you top off your devices wherever you take them. It's compatible with both Android and iOS devices and is designed to be waterproof and shockproof, making it a solid companion for those gritty outdoor adventures.The Universal Waterproof Solar Charger comes in black, blue, green, and yellow colors and is available in the Boing Boing Store for $13.99.

Google knew that Project Maven, its contract to supply AI to US military drones would be unpopular, but they were chasing hundreds of millions of dollars in follow-on contracts, and even though dozens of engineers quit over the project, at least they got a snazzy mission patch. (more…)

Last Monday, UC Berkeley woman's basketball coach Lindsay Gottlieb and her fiance Patrick Martin tried to board a Southwest flight with their one year old, biracial son; they presented the check-in clerk with their son's passport, but the clerk refused to let them fly until she showed the clerk Facebook posts or a birth certificate to prove that she was her son's mother. (more…)

Aeropress has an article that shows the evolution of its coffee maker over time.Even though no BPA was leaching from the polycarbonate, we switched to copolyester in August 2009 so that we could assure people that the AeroPress was BPA free. Initially the copolyester was crystal clear. In September 2010 we added a smoky grey tint because our market research indicated that consumers liked the appearance.It's a lot of fun to make coffee with the Aeropress -- you pour a little water in the piston and put it in the microwave for about 40 seconds. Then you put a microfilter in the cylinder (you get a "years supply" with the Aeropress) and a scoop of ground coffee. The you put the cylinder on top of a cup (the company recommends using a clear mug to make the process even more fun), pour the heated (not boiling -- it'll make the coffee bitter and sour, they say) water, stir for 10 seconds, and press the piston down. A few seconds later, you have a wonderful cup of silky smooth coffee.Here's a video I shot in 2006 that shows how to use an Aeropress:https://youtu.be/dLyQKHLCD_k

Filmmaker Stanley Nelson created The Story of Access, the video shown to all Starbucks employees on the day the store closed for racial sensitivity training. (more…)

Denver police say that at 2:45am MT this morning, an Uber driver murdered his passenger. Details are still emerging.From the Denver Channel:Police said the driver shot the passenger, an adult male, multiple times after getting into some kind of altercation inside the vehicle. According to emergency dispatch communications, the driver called 911 to report the shooting.Officers on the scene attempted to perform CPR on the passenger but the man was pronounced dead at the hospital.Neither the driver nor the passenger has been identified. Police said the driver is being interviewed at the police department headquarters.Images: Macrovector / TY Lim /Shutterstock

This "biohybrid" robotic finger melds a robotic skeleton with living rat muscle. The device is inside a container of water to keep the muscles from withering. The research is on the cover of this week's issue of the journal Science Robotics. Video below. From National Geographic:“If we can combine more of these muscles into a single device, we should be able to reproduce the complex muscular interplay that allows hands, arms, and other parts of the body to function,” says study author Shoji Takeuchi, a mechanical engineer at the University of Tokyo. “Although this is just a preliminary result, our approach might be a great step toward the construction of a more complex biohybrid system.”The research group began looking at living muscle tissue because plastic and metal provided a limited range of movement and flexibility. To grow their robot's muscles, they layered hydrogel sheets filled with myoblasts—rat muscle cells—on a robotic skeleton. The grown muscle is then stimulated with an electric current that forces it to contract."Biohybrid robot powered by an antagonistic pair of skeletal muscle tissues" (Science Robotics)Japanese engineers integrate living muscles into robots.The robots can mimic actions of human finger https://t.co/r5CeluR0Ss(Video courtesy of 2018 Shoji Takeuchi, Institute of Industrial Science, the University of Tokyo) pic.twitter.com/gmCizoYwFh— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) May 30, 2018

That crunching sound you hear is hundreds of thousands of dollars in repair bills. The person who shot the video says: "The larger ship, which had a prom on it, first rammed into the second cruise ship, then backed up, then struck it again with full force pushing it into the street knocking down a street lamp and causing damage to both ships."

"The temptation to pose as an impartial reviewer of one’s own work will be familiar to many authors across history, writes Simon Parkin. "But the Internet has, as with all vices, smoothed the transition from temptation to action."Such self-fluffing is at least supposed to be secret. But the review systems are so crude and easily-gamed that it enables nakedly public manipulation. When The Gamers want to waltz around Amazon's useless "verified purchase" wall to punish a developer for offending them, it's easy...“People would buy our game, not play it, leave the terrible review, and instantly request a refund,” Sean Vanaman, Campo Santo’s co-founder, told me. “It’s a well-worn tactic.” In his estimation, user-review systems such as those used by Valve, Steam’s developer, are so vulnerable to exploitation that they require as much moderation as social-media platforms.Worse, without fake positive reviews, your thing -- your book, your restaurant, your startup -- is at a disadvantage in the apps and platforms that potential customers use to scan for new stuff. Once the medium is corrupt, everyone has to follow suit to survive. Get a load of this wonderful nonsense at TripAdvisor:For the recent test, he created his own fake business, which he called the Shed at Dulwich. (It was named for his garden shed, in Dulwich, London.) He photographed plates of carefully arranged food (created using household products such as shaving cream and dishwasher tablets), bought a burner phone, and added the Shed to the site. Within four weeks, he had posted enough fake reviews to move the spectral establishment into the top two thousand restaurants in London. Eventually, it became the highest-rated restaurant in the city, and Butler was fielding scores of calls from people hoping to book a table. Such was the nonexistent restaurant’s success that it even attracted a one-star review, from what Butler assumes was a rival. “TripAdvisor removed the review on the grounds that it was fake,” he said.

In 1835, Davy Crockett reportedly wrote a letter to his brother-in-law Abner Burgin telling him of a rather strange experience in the Mexican province of Texas just six months before Crockett was killed at the Battle of the Alamo. From the letter:“William and I were pushing through some thicket, clearing the way, when I sat down to mop my brow. I sat for a spell, watching as William made his good and fine progress. I removed my boots and sat with my rations, thinking the afternoon a fine time to lunch. As the birds whistled and chirped, and I ate my small and meager ration, I tapped my axe upon the opposite end of the felled tree I rested upon.“Whether it was the axe’s disturbance or possibly the heat of the sun which caused an apparition to slowly form in front of my eyes, I know not. As a Christian man, I swear to you, Abe, that what spirit came upon me was the shape and shade of a large ape man, the likes we might expect among the more bellicose and hostile Indian tribes in the Territories. The shade formed into the most deformed and ugly countenance. Covered in wild hair, with small and needling eyes, large broken rows of teeth, and the height of three foundlings, I spit upon the ground the bread I was eating.“The monster then addressed a warning to me. Abner, it told me to return from Texas, to flee this Fort and to abandon this lost cause. When I began to question this, the creature spread upon the wind like the morning steam swirls off a frog pond. I swear to you, Abner, that whatever meat or sausage disagreed with me that afternoon, I swore off all beef and hog for a day or so afterward.”"Sasquatch Classics: The Davy Crockett Incident" (Texas Cryptid Hunter via The Anomalist)

Fudgie the Whale is back. But this time it's not just a "whale of a cake," it's a whale of a beer. On Wednesday, Carvel announced a stout brewed with chocolate crunchies and fudge, aptly named Fudgie the Beer. The stout is a limited-edition Father's Day collaboration with craft microbrewery Captain Lawrence Brewing Company in Elmsford, New York. The novelty brew is said to have "smooth cocoa notes with a roasted crunchies finish" and would pair well with "roasted or smoked foods as well as chocolate or espresso desserts." If you have a "whale of a dad" and need to get your hands on this special beer, you'll have to head to New York state, as it's only available at the Captain Lawrence Beer Hall. (If you want some for real, be sure to check when it will be available again. The first batch sold out yesterday evening.)I have just one question: Why, oh why isn't this an ale? It could have been a whALE of a beer. https://youtu.be/3Hr9sjpekp4For old times' sake, here's the original ad for the Fudgie the Whale cake narrated by Tom Carvel himself:https://youtu.be/rS6ki8D7zQA

Cosmic saxophonist, composer, and spiritual jazz revivalist Kamasi Washington has released a new jam inspired by his teenage experiences at the videogame arcade. "Street Fighter Mas" will appear on Washington's forthcoming album "Heaven and Earth" out June 22. Listen:Washington says:When I was younger, I was in between the end of the arcade generation and the beginning of the console generation. We used to go to this place called Rexall to play Street Fighter. At Rexall, there would be different people from different hoods there playing the game. It was the one place that was like an equalizer. It was just about how good you were at Street Fighter...for the most part. In other places, you were afraid of these dudes; there, you would just play the game and it was what it was, you know? I was really good at Street Fighter, so where the song really came from was me jokingly saying I was going to have my own theme song so that when I showed up to play Street Fighter they’d play my theme song before I came in, like a boxer. In the context of the album, it was the connection that we got with those guys in our neighborhood. We used to call them OGs, the older guys that we looked up to.In a lot of ways, for me, video games was the way I connected with them because I was never affiliated with any gangs, but I knew them and I was cool with them and that was mainly through the video games. At an older age I thought how amazing would it be if the OGs could just play the game and solve their problems that way. The meaning within the scope of the record is a connection to the past and all of the many ways we can connect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfnVvptL-8ESenator Ron Wyden [D-OR] has sent a letter to the DHS with his view that "nefarious actors may have exploited" the cellular phone system "to target the communications of American citizens." (more…)

Australian retailers are required to collect 10% Value Added Tax on every sale; Amazon's Australia store collects this tax, but the company has rejected any suggestion that its non-Australian stores should collect the tax on shipments bound for Australia. (more…)

36 Days of Type is a long-running collaborative design project where different artists render letters and numbers in a unique style. This year's entries are as delightful as always. (more…)

In this video, a dead fish is used to tease a Bobbit worm (Eunice aphroditois) into revealing its vicious skill as an ambush predator. Fortunately, it's all happening underwater, far away from me.

In many markets, 20th-century TV stations ran PSAs right before the local evening news reminding parents that they should probably know where their children are. This 1979 gem from Grace Jones may be the best one. (more…)

Naked Prosthetics creates custom-fitted hand and finger prostheses that allow an impressive range of fine motor skills to be done by the wearer, like holding and striking a match or unscrewing a tiny cap.Matt Finney lost parts of two fingers and his thumb from gangrene stemming from a blood clot. It's cool to hear him talk about how this changed his life. Here's some of the many other demonstrations on their channel:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu1s2EW26E0• Naked Prosthetics Matt Finney (YouTube / Naked Prosthetics)

Stevedore Comedy talks about climate change as if it were real in "News From a World Where People Aren't Complete Idiots." Wake up America!

To call Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn [R-TN] a shill for Big Cable is to insult honest, hardworking shills everywhere: she is so deep in hock to Verizon that she has toshill for new subscribers on weekends at a folding table on the sidewalk in front of the Grand Old Opry. (more…)

In "design fiction" and "speculative design," designers and science fiction writers create fictional products and services, which go on to inform real engineering and product design processes. (more…)

Four men with a pickup try to move a boat engine. A woman videotapes it. The engine is suspended on a chain attached to a small crane in the back of the pickup. For some reason, the woman says, "Hit the gas, Doug." For some reason, Doug does as he's told, with disastrous consequences. The woman thinks it's funny. Maybe that's why she told Doug to hit the gas. She knows he'll do anything she tells him to do, and when it leads to trouble, it amuses her.Image: YouTube screenshot

These compostable sacks for poo are better than the ones I was previously using. They are made .Walking my dogs, and general yard clean-up at home, tends to consume 2-4 dog poop bags a day! Ever since supermarkets started charging for bags, I have been buying my own. I started to wonder about how much plastic I was sending to the dump. Quick reading online suggested that cornstarch based bags was the way to go. Internet forums are the one source of truth.These work for picking up poop. They are not terribly hard to open once ripped off the roll and poop stays in them until I have dropped the whole load in the trash. The bags meet US and European compostable standards: ASTM D6400 and EN13432, so they'll breakdown. You do not want to throw these into your home compost pile, however, as dog poo doesn't do well there.PET N PET Compostable Poop Bags Dog Waste Bags Pet Clean up Bags Green Eco-Friendly, Certified By US BPI And EUR VINCOTTE.Meet ASTM 6400, EN13432, 240 Counts Certified via Amazon

Dr. Joon Song, a gynecologist in New York, has filed a $1 million lawsuit against Michelle Levine for leaving bad reviews on Yelp and other review sites.From CBS:“After I got a bill for an ultrasound and a new patient visit, whatever that means, and it was not billed as an annual I wrote a review about it,” she told CBS2’s Lisa Rozner.She says she complained to the doctor’s office, but nothing happened. The lengthy critical review, among other things, complained of “very poor and crooked” business practices and was posted on sites like Yelp, Zocdoc, and Healthgrades.“And I gave them one star on Facebook, which they also put in their complaint,” Levine said.After getting sued, Levine says she took down all her reviews but Dr. Song still wants her to pay around $1 million in damages plus legal fees.Levine has so far spent $20,000 defending herself against the lawsuit. Dr. Song's attorney told CBS: "While everyone is entitled to their opinion, outright lies masquerading as reviews can inflict serious damage to a medical practice or small business."

In a world that all too often heaps accolades on those who claw and manipulate their way to the top with cruelty and hate, it feels so good to chase a story about someone being praised for being a decent human being.Earlier this week, our Rusty Blazenhoff shared the story of Mamoudou Gassama: a 22-year old Malian living in Paris, France, who climbed four floors, on the outside of an apartment building, to save a young child from falling. Gassama was in France as an undocumented immigrant – a fact that quickly changed after saving the child’s life. He was called to meet with the French President who immediately fast-tracked his application for citizenship. Amidst all the hubbub of his good deed, Gassama mentioned two things: That he loves children and that he wants to be a firefighter. The first, because of his selfless deed, is pretty obvious. The second is being taken care of by the people of the city he lives in.From The Guardian:After Gassama’s immigration papers were fast-tracked on Tuesday morning, he visited a fire station to sign up for a 10-month internship with the fire and rescue services, which is expected to pay around €600 (£525) a month. He will receive French citizenship within around three months.Is France perfect? No. Are they seizing on the opportunity for some great optics in light of their less-than-stellar treatment of migrants who come to their nation looking for a better life? Maybe. In any case, I don’t care.It could be the new meds that I’m on making me feel more open to emotions that I haven’t had to handle in decades, or that I’m getting older and can finally appreciate beauty when I see it. When I read about what Gassama had done, breaking cover as an undocumented immigrant to save a life, it tugged at my coat, just a little. Seeing this in The Guardian today, however, moved me to tears. Apparently I'm a huge suck, now.More of this sort of thing, please. The world is far too dark. More light is needed to drive it back.Image: © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5, Link

Robert F Kennedy Jr. is calling for a new investigation into the 1968 assassination of his presidential candidate father. "I didn't feel it was something I could dismiss," said RFJ Jr. who recently met with Sirhan and looked over his father's autopsy report. "I was disturbed that the wrong person might have been convicted of killing my father."Sirhan Sirhan is serving a life sentence for the murder that he confessed to but claims to not remember. From CBS News:On the night of June 5, 1968, Kennedy was celebrating his victory in California's Democratic presidential primary. As he was leaving, he was shot three times...Sirhan was standing in front of Kennedy at the time of the shooting, but an autopsy report found Kennedy was shot at point blank range from behind. Over the years new evidence reportedly shows as many as 13 shots were fired that night. But Sirhan's gun held only eight bullets. That's one reason why many now question Sirhan's guilt – including Robert Kennedy Jr."There were too many bullets. You can't fire 13 shots out of an eight-shot gun," RFK Jr told the Post.

Scotty of the Strange Parts Youtube channel says, "today we're exploring the Industrial Production Materials Market in Yiwu, China, which is filled with all sorts of amazing factory machines and tons of other strange parts of all shapes and sizes. We see injection molding machines, plastic bottle machines, looms of all shapes and sizes, zipper machines - even a machine that makes face masks!"

"I can't be the only person who saw the sparks and thought this," writes Barry Dennen, "so apologies if it's been done already."It has not only been done, but it will be done again forever!

Hawaii's Kilauea volcano has been spewing hypnotic blue flames thanks to the burning brimstone (aka sulfur). (more…)

I’ve used an Apple Magic Trackpad for the past eight years – basically since they became available in Canada. I love them for the fact that all of the muscle memory that I’ve developed using trackpad-based shortcut gestures with my MacBook Pro work exactly the same with the Magic Trackpad while I’m hooked up to an external monitor. What I don’t like is the price. Apple products typically cost more than their Windows or Linux-powered equivalents do. I remember telling myself as I bought my first Cupertino-designed trackpad that the +$100 price was cool because it was an investment in gear that I use, daily, for work. And besides, it’s made by Apple – it’ll last for ever!Five years into owning my first Magic Trackpad, I found myself routinely tearing it apart in order to fix the wee button inside of it that registers clicks. It was a pain in the ass, but I couldn’t afford to buy a replacement. At the time, my wife was finishing her degree – what I pulled in was pretty much it for income. What I’d spend on a new trackpad would buy us groceries for a couple of weeks. My friend Susie found out that I was doing this and told me to cut it out: She had a new Magic Trackpad for me, still in the box, never opened. A week later and my first Magic Trackpad was out with the recycling.Fast forward to 2018.My second Magic Trackpad, which I had been so happy to receive, was on the fritz. On a regular basis, it loses Bluetooth connectivity with my laptop. I put up with it for months, looking for a way to sort the problem out. Frustrated, unable to reliably do work on the large display in my office and facing a tsunami-sized wall of deadlines, I finally broke down and bought a cheap-ass $40 mouse (I checked out less expensive ones too, but they didn't feel right in my hand) so that I could get on with my life. I knew that it would mean that I would have to forgo all of the gestures shortcuts that I used on a regular basis, but with so much work to do, and so little time to do it, it was an accommodation that I was willing to make. I told myself that, when I could afford it, I’d buy a new trackpad.But here’s the thing: A month into using the mouse and I don’t miss my Magic Trackpad at all.Mouse technology (I instantly thought of a critter in a white lab coat building itself an exoskeleton as I typed that) has apparently come a long way in the eight years since I used anything but a trackpad to do my computing with. It's gotten a lot less expensive, too! You can get a good mouse, full of features, for a pretty reasonable price. The Logitech M510 that I picked up at my local big box store is programmable, runs off a pair of AA batteries for a whole stinking year, and can be programmed with, yes, all of the shortcuts I thought I’d miss out on if I wasn’t rocking an Apple-branded trackpad. What’s more, I’ve found that after hours in front of the computer, my wrist doesn’t feel as inflamed as it did when I was using a trackpad to navigate my computer.For close to a decade, I had become so fixed in my ways that I couldn’t see that there were less expensive, just as effective means to achieving my goals. I’ve thought about my attachment to the trackpad I once insisted upon using a lot of late: what else, in my life, do I mistake as being necessary?Anyway, damn good mouse.Image via Logitech

Today I learned that Donald Glover got his rapper name Childish Gambino from this online Wu-Tang Clan name generator. It's not new news (though the info was new to me, and perhaps to you as well), as he mentions it in this 2016 Hollywood Reporter roundtable discussion. He says, "If I had known it was going to be something for real, I wouldn't have used it."Thanks, Robin!

France created a national mechanical telegraph system in the 1790s; in 1834, a pair of crooked bankers named François and Joseph Blanc launched the first cyberattack, poisoning the data that went over the system in order to get a trading advantage in the bond market. (more…)