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The iMac Pro starts at $5k, but only it comes in Space Gray, Apple's closest offering to black. The same's true of its peripherals, which are not sold separately. If you like, you can buy a Space Gray set on eBay for $1,525 -- with an hour of bidding to go. [via @mathowie] Only the Keyboard, Mouse and Trackpad. These are the dark ones that come with the iMac Pro and cannot be bought any other way. Unused. I already have a preferred keyboard/mouse combo I chose to use for my configuration and won't be needing these.Or, just get a perfectly-decent Matias knockoff for $100. (Amazon)Update. SOLD for $1525, with no further bids.

This auto-ranging multimeter has good reviews on Amazon. It has an LCD backlight, a non-contact voltage detector, a diode check, 15 minute auto shut-down, and the probes have built-in clips. It's regularly $13, but if you use code 54GCYL5X it's just $7.78

Here's an infographic with 40 scams you should be aware of when you travel. Grifting creeps have tried pulling scams like this on me on various trips but luckily they weren't good enough at their trade to stop me from figuring out what was happening before I lost any money.The Broken CameraSomeone will ask you to take a photo of them and their group of friends. The camera won’t work, and when you go to hand it back, they will drop it can cause it to smash. The entire group will then demand money for repairs, or pickpocket you during the commotion.The Fake Takeaway MenuScam artists will slide fake takeaway menus under your hotel door, in the hope that you order from them on an evening where you don’t feel like going out. You won’t receive any food though, just a frightening bank statement after they have used your card details to make their own copy.The Getaway Taxi DriverWhen you arrive at your hotel from the airport, the taxi driver will kindly take your bags out of the trunk for you. He’ll seem in a rush though, and quickly hop back into his car and drive off as soon as possible. This is because he’s actually left one of your smaller and less memorable bags in his taxi.

Core 77's year-end roundup of "Best How-To's, Fabrication Techniques and Tool Hacks" is a fantastic grab-bag of fascinating, esoteric and useful hacks, tricks and techniques for making things better, running the gamut from building a silencer for your air compressor to weaving a Danish seating surface to fixing a Dremel tool to hacking a drill-press. (more…)

The Juicero was a $400 "juicer" that squeezed packets of DRM-locked fruit pulp, an idea so perverse that it got honorable mention in DRM's worst moments of 2017, and inspired sighs of relief when the business cratered in 2017, as evidence of the fundamental soundness of human judgment in a year plagued by serious lapses in same. (more…)

Paralys reenacts the moment a young woman falls asleep while watching a game show, only to experience sleep paralysis. (more…)

Heart-pounding snowboard footage set to the original version of "Major Tom"? Yes please! (more…)

A friend asked me to follow the flow, and write this hashtag #metoo. Cavafi, the Greek poet who lived all his life by the sea and wrote about everything but the sea, before dying he said: Let me too say something about the sea. (more…)

Wired UK created a beautiful chart to illustrate the miseries of Britain's current occupants. Debt, divorce, welfare cuts and housing prevail, but further down the threads become more tangled. Parking fines?

Marvel is launching a website that allows visitors to create their own comics using the company's pantheon of famous characters. They insist, however, that certain topics not be addressed: social issues, death, farts, and so forth. You wonder: if the trap is so obvious, why walk into it?Here are some highlights from the very long list of no-no’s:“Content that could frighten or upset young children or the parents of young children.”Prescription drugs or over-the-counter medication, vitamins, and dietary supplements.Contraceptives“Suggestive or revealing images,” including “bare midriffs” “Sensationalism,” which is not defined but elucidated with the examples “killer bees, gossip, aliens, scandal, etc.” “Obscenity, bad or offensive language” or “proxies for bad or offensive language.” E.g. no “X@#%!” “Noises related to bodily functions.” No politics, including “alternative lifestyle advocacies” Death “Misleading language” “A copy or parody of current or past Marvel advertising creative” Any “controversial topics,” including “social issues” Double entendres Any amusement parks that aren’t Disney amusement parks Any movie studios that aren’t “affiliated with Marvel” GunsI can't wait to play with this.https://twitter.com/alexdecampi/status/946554968504438798

The Republican tax plan -- more than a 1,000 pages covered in last-minute scribbled annotations and pastebombs, passed without any substantial debate or analysis -- is a fucking mess. (more…)

Despite the official certification of Doug Jones' victory, a quick booting from the courts, pleas from fellow Republicans, and the sheer implausibility of his voter-fraud claims, Roy Moore continues to deny that he lost this month's special Senate election. Though losing by some 20,000 votes after teen sex assault allegations came his way, all that matters is God's truth.“I have stood for truth about God and the Constitution for the people of Alabama. I have no regrets. To God be the glory,” the accused child predator said.“Election fraud experts from across the country have agreed that this was a fraudulent election,” he claimed, offering no specifics.“I’ve had to fight not only the Democrats but also the Republican Senate Leadership fund and more than $50 million in opposition spendingfrom the Washington establishment.”The obvious falseness of Roy Moore's denials on this matter should tell you a lot about Roy Moore's denials on other matters.

By crocheting over a piece of PVC pipe, Redditor Rancor_Emperor's (aka Sean) sister was able to crochet up a purple sweater for her brother's corn snake, Spaghetti. She gifted the long tube to the pet reptile on Christmas.The Dodo shares:“She asked me how long he was, and I was like, ‘Well, he’s about 39 inches last time I measured him.’”...When Sean first showed Spaghetti the sweater, he happily wriggled his way inside of it, according to Sean....“Right before he sticks his head out through the end, he kind of parks it in there and waits,” Sean said. “Then after a minute or two, he’ll poke his head out and he’ll sit there and look around for a while.”Sean posted a photo of Spaghetti in the sweater on Reddit and it blew up, capturing over 152K upvotes.Rescue Snake Gets Special Crocheted Sweater For Christmas(Twisted Sifter)

One of the most magical places on Earth* is hiring. Weeki Wachee in Spring Hill, Florida is auditioning for new full-time mermaids. The Tampa Bay Times reports:Weeki Wachee Springs State Park is an attraction in Hernando County located near the intersection of State Road 50 and U.S. Highway 19. The attraction that opened in 1947 features performers dressed as mermaids and an underwater theater.Weeki Wachee Springs State Park will hold auditions Jan. 13 for what it hopes will be several new additions to its world-famous mermaid squad. Currently, the squad has 17 performing mermaids and three princes.The Weeki Wachee mermaids perform underwater year-round in 72-degree spring water from the head of the Weeki Wachee river. The mermaid show debuted on Oct. 13, 1947, in the theater built of limestone and submerged six feet below the spring’s surface.The park expects at least 50 women to come for the first, and most physically demanding, part of the audition...On the first audition day, aspiring mermaids must complete a timed, 300-yard endurance swim, where they swim both with and against the water’s current. If they finish that successfully, candidates must tread water for 10 to 15 minutes...Candidates will perform underwater ballet moves, like flips, a few feet below water in the park’s submerged mermaid tank that faces a 400-seat auditorium. The underwater audition shows how "comfortable" or "panicky" a candidate looks behind the glass...Then, after the new mermaids are chosen, they must go under a year's worth of training. From getting SCUBA certified to mastering the underwater routines, the up-and-coming water nymphs are faced with some real physical challenges.A feature in The Penny Hoarder describes these challenges:...the Ferris wheel is the most difficult move. For this move, the women drop their hoses, grab each other’s tails and create something like a Ferris wheel as they swim in a loop.“It’s only about 20 or 25 seconds,” Madden [a mermaid] explains. “But you know you’re going to be the one who messes it all up.”And because this is a natural spring, there’s a current, which can move up to 5 mph. The mermaids have to exert additional energy to stay in place.Also consider the water temperature: a brisk 74 degrees year round. Some mermaids emerge from the water shaking uncontrollably after a show. They’re whisked away into the “hot room” so their body temperatures can stabilize.But even through the difficult physical work, each mermaid said they love their job, especially the sisterhood bonds they’ve formed.The bad news? Weeki Wachee's mermaids are paid a paltry $10/hour and must commit to working four days a week. Yikes.*In my opinionAlways wanted to be a mermaid? Weeki Wachee auditions set for Jan. 13 and Under the Sea: These Women Actually Make a Living as Mermaids in Floridaphoto by Daniel Oines

How anatomically correct are animal emoji? Great question, people! And one that the folks at National Geographic News pondered. So they interviewed a bunch of biologists -- who, as one might have predicted, had pretty dim, if hilarious, views on the matter:For instance, Anne Hilborn, a researcher studying cheetahs at Virginia Tech University, takes particular umbrage with the way Microsoft has given their version of a zebra emoji pink ears and nostrils.“Seriously? Even when zebras die of diseases that have them bleed from their orifices, their nostrils aren’t pink,” says Hilborn.Similarly, Hilborn says all the lion emojis are terrible representations. However, she deemed Samsung’s version the most egregious, with what appears to be “an explosion of shaving cream below the nose."But, good news: Bird emoji seem to check out. Mostly! Caterpillars, bats, and leopards, not so much.

Old-school pagers are still in use today -- even though they're wildly insecure. The messages aren't encrypted, so each pager receives every message in its region, and simply discards all the ones that aren't meant for it. The artist Brannon Dorsey leveraged this insecurity to create "Holypager", an art installation that receives all the messages being sent in Chicago, anonymizes them, then displays them on three pagers in an art gallery -- while also printing them on a huge scroll of receipt paper.While creating this artwork, Dorsey has discovered that a substantial percentage of pager messages today are medical, with doctors and hospitals trading info about patients. This, as Dorsey notes, makes it all the more bonkers that such sensitive material is being transmitted in the open:Given the severity of the HIPPA Privacy Act, one would assume that appropriate measures would be taken to prevent this information from being publicly accessible to the general public. This project serves as a reminder that as the complexity and proliferation of digital systems increase the cultural and technological literacy needed to understand the safe and appropriate use of these systems often do not.A video about the project shows what it looks like in action:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KjYzzQ-iUUImage used with permission of Brannon Dorsey(Via Hackaday)

Foster Kamer has advice for people who want a better web in 2018: ditch Facebook and find cool stuff by checking bookmarks, visiting your favorite sites by typing their URLs in your browser bar, or searching for them on your favorite search-engine. (more…)

Katsuobushi (aka bonito) is dried, fermented and smoked tuna and it's incredibly hard. It's so hard that it's possible to fashion a shiv out of it. To do so, you'll need a mandoline, an adjustable wrench, a metal file, a vise to hold it in, an oven, a whetstone and some patience. YouTuber kiwami japan shows the way. You'll not only get a dangerous weapon out of the deal but also a big bag of bonito flakes (which are great for making your food look like it's moving).(SoraNews24)

The game designer and artist Yifat Shaik has just released "The Workplace Saga", a video game based on Conway's "Game of Life" ruleset that runs in Excel as a set of macros. It's an ingenious and lovely way of blending the metaphoric payload of Conway's game (from very simple rules comes complex, gorgeous behavior) with the metaphoric payload of the corporate spreadsheet, which is somewhat the reverse: An attempt to impose order and sanity on the complex mess of everyday reality. I've often thought that digital spreadsheets are some of the most consequential pieces of software ever created. When I suggested this recently on Twitter, Steven Levy pointed me to a fantastic essay he wrote 30 years ago called "A Spreadsheet Way of Knowledge". As he pointed out in that 1984 piece, spreadsheets were allowing everyday worker bees to create models and conduct "what if" experiments with a sophistication previously impossible. The models were often commercially useful (what would happen if we made 35% more widgets at 15% lower cost compared to 80% more widgets at 32% lower cost?) ... but Levy's interviewees also talked about the rich pleasures of model-making itself, quite apart from their subject matter:Spreadsheet models have become a form of expression, and the very act of creating them seem to yield a pleasure unrelated to their utility. Unusual models are duplicated and passed around; these templates are sometimes used by other modelers and sometimes only admired for their elegance.This is what struck me about Shaik's game: "Workplace Saga" taps neatly into the weird joys, and joyful weirdness, hidden inside this otherwise mundane everyday business tool.(Courtesy Debbie Chachra)

On Christmas Eve, Swedish street artist Carolina Falkholt announced her big ball-less Broome Street dick on Instagram ("NO TIME 4 BALL$$," she wrote).Three days later, after much controversy, that building's landlord had begun painting over her four-story tall lifelike phallus.Falkholt shared this statement with Hyperallergic:We live in cultures where sexual violence and sexual abuse are constantly happening. And there are a lot of raped and abused children who have lost their voices due to the shame that comes with having their own bodies violated at a young age. No more bodyshaming. Talking about these subjects in public space is a must for a healthy, nonviolent community/world. And the dialogue created around feminist public art pieces raises awareness. Art is one of the only places left where we can truly be free and discuss whatever difficult topics there are, since art has the ability to translate and transform language in any direction possible.Enormous penis pops up in NYC and Local Residents Complain About Penis Mural on Broome StreetThanks, Dixie!photo via Carolina Falkholt

Last week, SpaceX launched its Falcon 9, freaking out a lot of people in Southern California who thought they were seeing a UFO streak across the sky. Jesse Watson of Yuma, Arizona captured this incredible time-lapse of the awesome moment. He shot 2452 still images that he edited down to 1315 for this stunning video. From his Vimeo post:I scouted four locations that had foregrounds to add depth to the imagery and was uniquely inspiring to my hometown. Location choices were between a favorite local hiking mountain, the Imperial Sand Dunes, or a small hill that resides in the historic downtown area overlooking the city. I ended up choosing the location that overlooked the city, partially because it was the easiest to access with all of my time-lapse gear. I used The Photographer’s Ephemeris and Google Maps to help scouting and initial line up...I have never shot a rocket launch before, so I did not know exactly what to expect as far as exposure or precise location of the rocket in the horizon. I wanted to be prepared to capture comprehensive coverage of the spectacle.

At the University of Chicago in the early 1920s, psychology grad student William Blatz built a remote-controlled trick chair that would collapse when he pressed a switch. (It was padded to avoid injury.) Then he had subjects sit in the chair while wearing electrodes to measure heart rate and other vital signs. Blatz's goal was to "study the physiology of fear under controlled, repeatable conditions." I think he also probably just wanted to build a remote-controlled trick chair. From Weird Universe:Blatz offered this description of their reactions:"The observations of the subjects after the fall, of course, varied, but they were sufficiently in agreement to indicate the arousal of genuine fear in naive subjects. Some examples of these remarks were, 'startled,' 'surprised,' 'frightened,' scared,' etc. In most cases the subjects cried out, and some called the experimenter by name. They all made some effort to escape, thinking an accident had happened. In all cases they acknowledged that they had not anticipated 'anything like it at all.' From these statements, it was concluded that the stimulus was wholly unexpected, and unsuspected."The electrodes registered the effect of the fright. The hearts of the subjects began hammering, and their breathing rapidly increased. Blatz also observed "striking changes in the electrical conditions of the body in the nature of an increased development of the electromotive force.""Dr. Blatz’s Trick Chair of Terror" (Weird Universe)

Five years ago, it looked like big oil and big coal were finally acknowledging the reality of climate change, shifting from the early posture of outright denial and the intermediate strategy of sowing confusion, and moving into an endgame of "clean coal" and monopolizing renewables, but the think tanks they had funneled hundreds of millions in dark money to were not having any of it -- and it's they, not the hydrocarbon barons, who've got the ear of the conspiracy-theorist-in-chief, Donald Trump. (more…)

Michael Joseph Oleksik, of Cocoa, Fla., was charged Friday with criminal mischief after reportedly attacking an ATM machine that gave him too much money. USA Today reports that he caused at least $5000 worth of damage to the device.Authorities said Oleksik can be seen on surveillance video standing at the ATM, pummeling the electronic teller’s touch screen on Nov. 29. A short time later, an apologetic Oleksik called the bank and told a manager that he punched the ATM because he was ‘angry the ATM was giving him too much money and he did not know what to do,’

I could be wrong, but I believe Jack in the Box's "Munchie Meals" have always been geared to the late-night cravings of cannabis users. It sounds like this new "Merry Munchie Meal" is being launched to unequivocally tie the soon-to-be legalization of recreational pot in California to the brand.SFGate reports:As California prepares for legal recreational pot on Jan. 1, the fast-food chain is partnering with a digital media company backed by rapper Snoop Dogg on a new "munchie" meal aimed at cannabis enthusiasts. While marijuana's connection to fast food is well-established, Jack in the Box will become the first national chain to explicitly embrace the drug.The "Merry Munchie Meal," which will be available at three California locations for a week in January for $4.20, features two tacos, french fries, onion rings, five mini churros, three chicken strips and a small drink. The price isn't random: The number 420 is used as a code by potheads.image via Merry JaneThanks, Chris!

While I've been struggling to make a gingerbread house from a simple Trader Joe's kit, the instagrammers that call themselves the Star Wars Bakery have been busy creating this massive gingerbread Class-II Imperial Star Destroyer.Their sweet, meticulously-iced warship was displayed at Stockholm, Sweden headquarters of EA DICE, the video game developer behind the Star Wars: Battlefront games series. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bc4_B6DFBNI/?taken-by=starwars_bakeryhttps://www.instagram.com/p/Bc6n8G_FJTA/?taken-by=starwars_bakeryhttps://www.instagram.com/p/Bc-i8s0FnYo/?taken-by=starwars_bakery(reddit, Neatorama)

A dear friend slipped me these as an Xmas gift; the provenance is unknown, but there's vector art for all your t-shirt, wallpaper and billboard needs. (more…)

Steve Mnuchin is the gilded age cartoon villain that Trump put in charge of the Treasury where he served as one of the architects of the catastrophic Republican tax plan, so naturally someone sent him a giftwrapped box of horse manure with a tag reading "from the American people." (more…)

Comcast, Fox and Frontier have all announced across-the-board price hikes that affect modems, streaming services, and internet service itself. (more…)

Oh, Charter: Chad Pierce and his family bought a house in Newaygo, Michigan, but first they called their local cable monopoly, Charter/Spectrum, and confirmed verbally, online and in writing that the new house could get internet access. (more…)

Washington state is in the midst of suing Comcast over misselling of its "Service Protection Plan," a nearly useless insurance plan that was sold as a way to avoid having to pay fees for faults in your Comcast cable infrastructure. (more…)

The Reckoning [vox.com] examines 105 of the powerful people (all but two of them men) who have been accused of sexual misconduct in 2017. Abusers in media and journalism are relatively widely-exposed, whereas those in other fields seem relatively few in number, at least as Vox counts it. In particular, badly-behaved politicians get headlines, but the list is surprisingly short. More and more people have come forward publicly in recent months with stories like these, of high-ranking men who abuse their power to sexually harass and intimidate others. This kind of abuse is far from new, but in 2017, more and more of these men actually started facing consequences.

[This story is from one of my favorite newsletters, Now I Know. It has over 100,000 subscribers. Sign up for it here. -- Mark] If you're a four-year-old in the United Kingdom, you probably know who Peppa Pig, above, is. The anthropomorphic, snorting pig and her family are a mainstay of children's television there -- and, increasingly, elsewhere -- with unrivaled popularity throughout Great Britain. Each episode features Peppa's family and her friends (and often the friends of her brother, George) exploring the everyday adventures that come with being a preschooler. Take, for example, Wikipedia's description of the first episode of the show's third season, titled "Work and Play:" "When Peppa and Suzy [that's Suzy Sheep, Peppa's best friend] learn that grown-ups must work all day, they decide to play at working in a store. But they quickly get tired of it." It's not very hard-hitting stuff, but little kids tend to like it.As of this writing, there are four seasons of the show totaling 208 episodes, each of which is five minutes. (There's also a ten minute Christmas special.) One of them can be seen below…… but if you’re in Australia, your major broadcaster doesn’t want your preschooler to watch it.https://youtu.be/6lsqsNqqu2QThat episode is called "Spider Web." Wikipedia's description is short but to the point: "There's a spider in the house, so Mummy Pig tells Daddy Pig to get rid of it." The Pig family spend much of the five minutes discussing whether the spider should be able to live with them or not -- Mummy Pig wants it gone, but Daddy Pig notes that spiders eat flies and are therefore good to have around. In the end, the family concludes that spiders are good to have around (although better outside the house than inside). Daddy Pig even makes a new rule: no one is to break a spider’s web, as the spider worked long and hard to build it, and that just wouldn’t be nice."Spider Web" originally aired in the UK on December 21, 2011 and soon was available for broadcast in other areas. Australia was one of those secondary regions -- but it never made it to TV there. Peppa Pig typically airs on ABC 4 Kids in Australia and the ABC (the Australian Broadcasting Company), which operates that channel, declined to air the episode.The problem: spiders in Australia are really dangerous. Really. As Wikipedia notes, “Australia has some highly venomous spiders, including the notorious Sydney funnel-web, its relatives in the Atrax genus, and redback spiders, whose bites can be deadly.” Even though the most common spiders in Australia are generally not very toxic, there are some best avoided. Learning to play nice with spiders is a bad idea if you're an Australian four-year-old.The ABC's decision probably wouldn't have come to light except for a slight error on their part. In August of 2012, a viewer complained that the Spider Web" episode appeared on an ABC-run website. The ABC apologized for their error, and the episode is no longer available there.

If you go to Japan, one thing you'll notice is a lack of garbage cans. This was frustrating for me the first few times I went, but now when I'm there I carry a plastic bag and keep it in my backpack. The village of Kamikatsu in Japan, which I've never visited, is the most extreme anti-trash place in the country. The town of 1500 recycles its trash into 45 different categories.From Great Big Story:While the rest of the country has a recycling rate of around 20 percent, Kamikatsu surpasses its neighbors with a staggering 80 percent. After becoming aware of the dangers of carbon monoxide associated with burning garbage, the town instated the Zero Waste Declaration with the goal of being completely waste-free by 2020.

A 36-year-old gentleman from New York has had a deep fear of the Tasmanian Devil cartoon his entire life. So after his father-in-law, Yunes Doleh, teased him by waving a Taz-like toupee and snarling at him at a funeral, the frightened fellow had Doleh arrested. According to the AP:The Staten Island man [Mazen Dayem] says he’s had a fear of the Tasmanian Devil his entire life. Dayem claims his father-in-law has taken advantage of his phobia since 2013. Dayem filed a restraining order in September following an altercation with Doleh at a restaurant.An attorney for Doleh labeled the case a “family dispute.”Doleh faces charges of criminal contempt and aggravated harassment. Sounds like a bad case of kyrofelonoshophobia – phobia of cartoon characters – to me. https://youtu.be/FOTlNOZB4Zo

Daranide is a drug that was approved for treating glaucoma in 1958; the public domain drug's manufacture has shifted around for decades, sending its price soaring and plummeting from $0.50/dose to $1365, down to free, and now to $109,500, courtesy of Strongbridge Biopharma, new owners of Taro Pharmaceutical Industries, who started making the drug after Merck discontinued its production. (more…)

In the 1870s, French gas fitter Albert Dadas started making strange, compulsive trips to distant towns, with no planning or awareness of what he was doing. His bizarre affliction set off a 20-year epidemic of "mad travelers" in Europe, which evaporated as mysteriously as it had begun. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll consider the parable of pathological tourism and its meaning for psychiatry.We'll also contemplate the importance of sick chickens and puzzle over a farmyard contraption.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon!

Mathematician Henry Sagerman and colleagues developed a cool way to observe non-euclidian geometry from a new vantage point: inside the geometry itself via virtual reality. (more…)

If you've ever observed "wine legs," the rivulets that form when you swirl wine in a glass, you've seen the Marangoni effect. Watch how scientists are using this effect to create tiny motors that emit no pollutants. (more…)

Britain's justice secretary wants to ban miniature cellphones in a hapless effort to be seen to be doing something about prison smuggling. The "Beat the Boss" handsets (Amazon) are barely the size of lipstick or a stick of gum. They're unlocked, dirt cheap, popular with kids, and easily concealed. They are marketed as being virtually metal-free and therefore able to beat the detectors anyone entering a prison must pass through."It's pretty clear that these miniature phones are being advertised and sold with the purpose of being smuggled," Mr Lidington will say in a speech on Monday."I am calling on online retailers and trading websites to take down products that are advertised to evade detection measures in prisons." Looking at the specs, these are 2G GSM handsets and will only work in the U.S. on T-Mobile and (maaaaybe) AT&T."IT REALLY WORKS BUT DIFFICULT TO USE BECAUSE IT IS SO SMALL ❗️❗️❗️," writes verified purchaser Bill Hubner, who I stress is merely an Amazon customer and absolutely not suspected of any clever jailhouse shenanigans.There are several sellers offering this gadget, all obviously identical.eBay UK promised to stop sales of these months ago, according to the BBC, but the site remains well-stocked at press time. Beat the Boss Phone [Amazon]

I have been waiting to find the LEGO Ideas NASA Apollo Saturn V 21309 Building Kit for list price. Amazon is selling it now.This fantastic 1969 piece set looks wonderful. I can not wait to build it with my daughter.Watch out for scalpers.LEGO Ideas Nasa Apollo Saturn V 21309 Building Kit via Amazon

In Partial Information Attacks on Real-world AI, a group of MIT computer science researchers report on their continuing work fooling Google's image-classifier, this time without any knowledge of how the classifier works. (more…)

Designers use metrics and a/b splitting experiments to maximize engagement with their products, seeking out the phrases that trigger emotional responses in users -- like a smart scale that congratulates you on losing weight -- but these systems are context-blind, so they are unable to distinguish between people who might be traumatized by their messages (say, a woman who's just miscarried late in her pregnancy, being congratulated on her "weight loss"). (more…)

Humans have been sporting belts since the Bronze Age and not much has changed concerning their functionality. Sure, there have been minor improvements, like reversible designs or buckles that double as bottle openers, but no major breakthroughs have been made in terms of fit. That is, until now. Boasting a unique, hole-free construction, Men's Trakline Belts by Kore Essentials are paving the way for more durable, comfortable waistbands, and they're available in the Boing Boing Store for $40.https://www.youtube.com/embed/fo8CcBYsNBgThese fashion forward belts feature an indestructible track with over 40 sizing points in 1/4" increments, giving you extremely specific adjustability for waists between 24" and 44". To release or adjust the belt, you simply pinch the small tab under the buckle. Each belt is made with superior top-grain leather for added durability.Plus, you can remove just the buckle itself to easily slip through metal detectors or use it to pop open bottle tops.You can pick up a Men's Trakline Belt for $40 in the Boing Boing Store.

Because "ironic sweaters are so last week," the crew at Good Mythical Morning upped their ugly holiday game with their hilarious "Christmas Booty Song." Bravo, a new tradition is born!But wait, there's more...https://youtu.be/oFqsBveOwaoPreviously: Giant green butt plug looks suspiciously like a christmas tree

Five-year-old TyLon Pittman of Byram, Mississippi wasn't going to take any chances when he thought the Grinch was going to steal his Christmas. After watching Grinch movies on YouTube on Saturday, he did what any concerned citizen would do and quietly called 911 to report him. He hung up a few times before a 911 operator called back and took TyLon's report.Here's the call:https://soundcloud.com/user-477882474/911-call-5-year-old-calls-police-to-report-the-grinch-trying-to-steal-christmasAnd here's a video his older brother TeDera Dwayne Graves II took when officer Lauren Develle arrived for a fun house call:https://www.facebook.com/isthatgraves/videos/pcb.10155743040035115/10155743037455115/?type=3&theaterOn Monday, the story had started making the rounds and TyLon was invited by Officer Develle to apprehend the Grinch. The Clarion Ledger reports:The Grinch could be charged with crimes including attempted theft of Christmas, Develle said. It wasn't as much about charging him for his wrongdoing as keeping a promise to her new friend.Hanging his head, still wearing his Santa outfit, the Grinch put up no fight as he was shut in the holding cell inside the police department."Come here Ty," the Grinch said. Taking the boy's hand in a handshake, he said, "You have saved Christmas for the people of Byram. Your bravery is unmatched. You have saved the day.""Why are you stealing Christmas?" TyLon asked him with an unwavering gaze. After a moment of thought, the Grinch just shrugged his shoulders. https://www.facebook.com/clarionledger/videos/10156049385896385/?lst=759225603%3A680670114%3A1513713796This little guy already knows he wants to be when he grows up: a police officer, of course.To save Christmas, boy calls 911 on the Grinch and Grinch arrested after 5-year-old's heroic 911 call to save ChristmasThanks, Paul!

Two trees in a fancy neighbourhood in Bristol, UK have had strips of anti-bird spikes nailed to their branches, rendering them "literally uninhabitable" by local wildlife, according to local Green Party councillor Paula O'Rourke. (more…)

The National Institutes of Health has lifted a moratorium on scientists mucking around with dangerous infectious disease. Government run review panels will protect us. What could go wrong?The New York Times article shares a number of not exactly concern-reducing quotes from scientists interviewed about this "small step forward." Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, reassures us with statements like: "If someone finds a way to make the Ebola virus more dangerous, I don’t believe that should be available to anybody off the street who could use it for nefarious purposes," and "Physicists long ago learned to distinguish between what can be publicly available and what’s classified." Great.The value of this research to people who don't want to kill millions is made to seem negligible, in the article, as well.

When a boy 9-year-old boy comes home from school down in the dumps because the classroom frog died, his sister has the perfect antidote: surprise tickets for the same night from the "North Pole" to see Lady Gaga. Having dinner at a restaurant, she reveals the surprise. The boy – and his reaction – are just too cute!Reveal pic.twitter.com/ElbgNeG1H7— BB•❄️🐝 (@runs_w_woIves) December 15, 2017Via Mashable