SmarterEveryDay's Destin Sandlin captured this astonishing video of the International Space Station transiting Monday's solar eclipse. Fast forward to 3:50 for the magical moment. And in case you missed it, below is NASA's still photo of the ISS transiting the sun at five miles per second.

This astounding video advances one level at a time, from amusing to beautiful. First, bystander Brittany Nyiesha chances across a repossessed vehicle being towed and begins filming. Then we realize that it hasn't been attached properly to the tow truck, but is instead being dragged on its rims. Then it blows through a stop light. Then the car starts flailing wildly, like a ball and chain attached to some huge street weapon in a Mad Max movie —what is going on? The Proper Authorities get involved! And it's still only getting warmed up.

New Orleans is in an official state of emergency, thanks to 15 of its 120 pumps being offline (thanks to chronic underfunding) and a major storm brewing in the Gulf of Mexico. (more…)

If only you could see what Ryan Gosling has seen with your eyes.

In 2016, the Internet Archive convened a decentralized web summit to discuss ways to make the web less centralized and thus less vulnerable to censorship, corporate abuse and "shadow regulation" (I gave one of the keynotes). (more…)

In elementary school, I knew a boy who would impress us by pulling the legs off a daddy longlegs and popping the body in his mouth. I think he would appreciate this Deep Look video about how daddy longlegs can drop up to three of its limbs when threatened by a predator and still survive.

Paradise Gardens, a huge nudist resort that's been open in Cincinnati, Ohio since 1970 is closing its gates. The owners sold to a developer who will build five new homes on the 34 acre property. The resort has raised the ire of neighbors for decades. Just a few years ago, residents complained about the resort's plan to build a nudist adventure park complete with zip lines. Interestingly, the resort's peak time was in the 1990s."We've been for sale for 10 years," (Paradise Resort Inc. president Ron) Coleman told Cincinnati.com. "We just couldn't get a deal done until now."It's a completely different economy now than it used to be back in the 70s and 80s when both parents weren't always working,'' he said. "Now, it's hard for families to schedule a time to utilize the place, which has limited new members."(Thanks, Charles Pescovitz!)

As relaxing, amusing and intriguing as any other: "an impressive Rube Goldberg machine with a 4-minute course. The beads move in a chain reaction divided into several more complex steps, including the one with a whiteboard that turns to release new balls positioned on the back side."

Carl Sagan:Neil deGrasse Tyson:The modern stars of science and its enemies are in alignment. All agree that wonder is more dangerous than certitude.

This is a fascinating deep dive into actors' portrayals of famous people like Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Muhammed Ali, Julia Child, Bob Dylan.From YouTube description: "Dialect coach Erik Singer takes a look at idiolects, better known as the specific way one individual speaks. To best break down this concept, Erik analyzes some actors playing real people. Just how close was Jamie Foxx's Ray Charles? What about Cate Blanchett's portrayal of Bob Dylan? Is Daniel Day-Lewis' Lincoln accurate?"

Three young adults get stoned and talk politics.

SIMPLY JOIN Tom the Dancing Bug's subscription club, INNER HIVE now, and a $25 donation will be made to charities that fight hate groups. Info HERE,

Tim Squirrell, a researcher at the Alt-Right Open Intelligence Initiative at the University of Amsterdam, used Google's BigQuery to analyze "every Reddit comment ever made—all 3 billion of them." He used the results to identify different alt-right groups and the language they use.From Quartz:

Firefighters saved 18 piglets from a barn fire in southern England. The farmer wanted to show her appreciation, so she later offered them some of her piglets – in the form of sausages. And they were scrumptious.(more…)

In this short video, you'll learn how to achieve Johnny Cash's cool textured, rhythmic strumming sound with a playing card.

This week on Maker Update: a servo robot puppet, Raspbian moves to Stretch, a YouTube Live camera, giant gold bricks, trauma shears, and pouring your own knobs. This week’s Cool Tool is a pair of Fluoride Coated Medical Shears.

Less than a year after Ammon Bundy and his terrorist pals were found not guilty for their takeover of Oregon's Malheur Federal Wildlife Reserve (which included a fatal shootout four terrorist pals of Cliven Bundy have been exonerated by a Nevada jury for their 2014 standoff in which they insisted -- at gunpoint -- on the right to graze their private cattle on public lands. (more…)

Top-performing content doesn’t come from pure inspiration. So how do you get the maximum number of eyeballs to see your marketing copy? By analyzing the impact of the keywords within. Serpstat does this all for you. It can monitor up to 200 keywords in your projects, across 10 total domains. They keep track of the top 100 international Google search results for every keyword in their database, and provide a single dashboard to perform detailed page audits and backlink analysis.By collecting this much data, Serpstat offers critical insight about competitors in your niche. It generates detailed reports, and offers an array of data visualization tools to help you better understand where your SEO efforts need work. All of this is to say, Serpstat is a really good, centralized SEO solution, and you can get it here for $34.99.

It's been more than two months since a deadly blaze in Kensington, London -- the richest borough in the UK -- killed at least 80 people when the decorative cladding installed to make the building look nicer to rich people in nearby buildings caused the building to go up like a matchstick. (more…)

The KLF is back. You will follow the instructions, or you will not get your book signed.https://twitter.com/Popjustice/status/899971473087115264https://twitter.com/Popjustice/status/900016863446433792They also welcome volunteers to the Dark Ages.https://twitter.com/BidoLito/status/899993604139225089https://twitter.com/JustSomeWool/status/899953392881213441

You know those "amazing household tips" where you descale showerheads with vinegar and a sandwich bag, or lift carpet indentations with ice cubes, or whatever? Well, I've just found out that a common one in Australia, allegedly, is "wash your underwear in hotel kettles." I honestly don't know if I believe it, but Gizmodo Australia claims it is a thing and, if it is, could you please not?

President Donald Trump's speech on military policy in Afghanistan didn't provide much in the way of specifics about troop numbers or other measures of force commitment or our long-term goals. All that vagueness led to tea-leaf-reading today. Reuters spoke with the top general of the U.S. Air Force, and learned the USAF may intensify air strikes in Afghanistan and expand training of the Afghan air force.(more…)

Director Justin Chon’s new award-winning Sundance film Gook is hit theaters nationwide on August 18th. The film takes place during the time of the Rodney King riots in LA and tells the story of how people within the black and Korean communities were affected. Mp>Korean brothers Eli (played by Chon himself) and Daniel struggle to keep their family-owned shoe-store open in an area of town that is unwelcoming to them. An 11 year old black girl named Kamilla forms a friendship with Eli and Daniel who treat her like family despite her older brother’s warnings to stay away from them. Kamilla’s role in the film represents a bridge between the two struggling communities. The relationships between Eli, Daniel, and Kamilla mirror the chaos of South Central Los Angeles as riots break out and tensions rise between black and Korean communities. While the premise of the film may seem daunting, humor and exceptional acting balance the seriousness of the movie and create a very authentic experience.In a Q and A with Ava DuVernay that followed the screening we attended, Chon explained that his personal life and upbringing directly influenced the plot. Chon felt driven to share this largely untold story because of his personal connection to this devastating time in history. The 25th anniversary of the riots just took place, yet racism and police brutality are still a major problem within our society, which makes the film even more powerful. Chon said “it was now or never” when asked about why he made the film. When asked about his choice of the title - Gook - which means “country” in Korean, but is predominantly used as a racial slur against Asian immigrants, Chon responded by saying that “history cannot be erased.” While viewers may be uncomfortable asking for this ticket at the box office, the point in using such a shocking title is to remind people why it is important to fight against discrimination and racism.The black and white film was edited using Adobe Creative Cloud. Besides the amazing acting and writing, the cinematography was outstanding; everyone who had a part in making this film is someone to look out for. We were truly blown away by this film and highly recommend it.

Medium, the oft-pivoting publisher and platform, recently introduced an alarmingly twee new metric: "claps". If you like an article, you can "clap" for it, or as one might like to say, "give it the clap." And now The Verge reports that they'll be paying writers on the basis of how many claps they get.

Mind-bogglingly wealthy Louise Linton, a Scottish actress, "perilous journeyer to the heart of Africa," and wife of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, posted a photo on Instagram of herself and her husband disembarking from a US Gov't jet. Her caption read:

Best solar eclipse 2017 video ever.(more…)

When Trump was on the campaign trail, he had a surefire racism strategy: he'd say something horribly racist ("Mexicans are rapists") then refuse to back down (giving comfort to overt racists), then finally back down a little (giving comfort to closet racists), then complain that the press wouldn't accept his apology (reinforcing his point that the media was unfair to him and pleasing his whole base). -

Andre F. completes a 33,600 piece jigsaw puzzle called "Wildlife" by Educa. Dimension of the finished puzzle: 224.41 x 61.81 in. He spent a lot of time just turning the pieces right side up![via]

Dan Lyons, a former tech journalist who wrote a funny blog years ago called "Fake Steve Jobs" and wrote one of the best episodes of HBO's Silicon Valley ("White Hat/Black Hat") gave a funny 20-minute talk about his horrible experience in a start-up.From YouTube description:

By the end of the year, Trump and his family will have spent more of the Secret Service's budget than the Obama administration spent in eight years -- enough to exhaust the Secret Service's entire budget for the year and drive 500 Secret Security agents to quit their jobs in disgust. (more…)

After Charlottesville and the murder of Heather Heyer, hitherto Nazi-friendly internet companies have found their boots and their banhammers. The angry right has for some time anticipated this eventuality, and colonized or established replicas of key services and platforms. 8chan, Voat and Gab are the most well-known examples, respectively resembling 4chan, Reddit and Twitter. Adi Robertson writes that the internet's plumbing, the world of domain name registrars and load mitigation, will be harder to replicate. Why the alt-right can’t build an alt-internet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSSTUvqMB3MThis week at Singapore's Hack in the Box conference, researchers Lucas Apa and Cesar Cerrudo from the Argentinian security research company IOActive will present their findings on the defects in humanoid domestic robots from UBTech and Softbank and industrial robot arms from Universal Robots; they're building on research published in March in which they released incomplete findings in order to give vendors a chance to patch the vulnerabilities they discovered. (more…)

Uncanny Japan is a podcast dedicated to the island's most peculiar folklore. I've barely got started but already know I'll have to binge the entire series (note that each episode is coffee-break short, less than 15m). Pictured above, from Episode 7, is a thousand-stitch belt believed to ward off gunfire. [via Metafilter]

Unless you’ve somehow found a way to live without the internet, or have completely eschewed social media, you should really be browsing with a VPN. Your browser traffic reveals tons of information about you — whether you give it up voluntarily in exchange for free services, or even just visit a site that has social sharing buttons. To help minimize your digital fingerprint and stop feeding data to marketing profiles and ISP traffic logs, ZenMate offers an all-in-one privacy solution.This VPN gives you total anonymity online. All of your activity is encrypted and routed through servers in over 30 countries to make you impossible to track. It masks your IP address to keep your physical whereabouts hidden, and also to give you access to region-locked media. Their browser extension lets you easily switch proxy locations, so you can get all of your favorite international television streams, and even circumvent state-imposed censorship while traveling abroad.A 2-year subscription to ZenMate is available in the Boing Boing Store for $89.99.

I learn something new every day. Today I learned some valuable dirty words and phrases in sign language from the deaf folks in this video. Thanks to each and every one of you.("Bullshit" signed is especially satisfying, imo.)(TO)

Peter Biddle writes, "I get I myself into trouble. I don't claim that bad stuff happens to me more often than others - it's more that I find more ways to happen to bad stuff. I actually found a way to get severe hypothermia in 105°F heat." (more…)

Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal is at it again with a smart, funny, and very relevant look at how we construct our beliefs, build our reality tunnels, and why we react so forcefully when the core assumptions of that belief system are threatened.Read the rest of it. Nice touch that there are two version, one with colorful language and one clean, "classroom-friendly version."David McRaney's You Are Not So Smart did a wonderful 3-part series on the backfire effect. You can access the first episode here.

As part of the PROJECT:OBJECT "Illicit Objects" series, Doug Rushkoff writes about his friend and mentor Timothy Leary's silk drug stash box.

https://youtu.be/I_iq5yzJ-DkI've posted this before, but it popped up again on Open Culture and it's still awe-provoking. On a TV game show in 1956 called I've Got a Secret, panelists had to guess what 96-year-old Samuel James Seymour's secret was. When Seymour was five years old, he saw John Wilkes Booth assassinate President Lincoln.This reminds of the astounding fact that the last widow of a civil war veteran was still alive in 2004.

Jonathan Stephen Harris explains how to draw this mindbending anamorphic illusion of a levitating cube in about 15 minutes.

Here in Los Angeles we only saw a partial eclipse, but it was still interesting. My daughter and I were surprised to see circular bumps between our fingers in our hand shadows.

One of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels surprises the hell out of some people yesterday during the Chicago Air and Water Show.

I've had my Fire Tablet for about a year, and have definitely gotten my $40 out of it. (It's usually $50 but on sale this week). I use it in the day to look at my Nest camera that's pointing at our driveway (I get a lot of packages delivered). I also use it to listen to audiobooks, read Kindle books, check email and Twitter, and stream Netflix and Amazon Prime videos. It's not speedy by any stretch of the imagination, but what do you expect for $40?

In the NASA image above, today's total solar eclipse is seen above Madras, Oregon. Photo by Aubrey Gemignani for NASA. Below, our moon blocks out the sun during the solar eclipse in Depoe Bay, Oregon.(more…)

Toaster ovens are the perfect appliance for small things like toasted sandwiches and roasted garlic (try it!), but anything more involved usually requires a full-sized conventional oven.However, despite its small size, the Wolfgang Puck Pressure Oven can handle anything from baked pastries to broiled meats. This kitchen appliance has a minimal countertop footprint, and cooks food nearly twice as fast as conventional ovens without sacrificing flavor. The secret lies in its watertight, pressurized seal. By trapping moisture inside, it’s able to warm up considerably faster. Since it combines the power of a pressure cooker with the form of an oven, you can use it for almost anything — baking personal pizzas, roasting vegetables, reheating leftovers, what have you. It’s even got enough space for a small turkey, so you can eat an intimate Thanksgiving dinner without the 4+ hours of constant basting and temperature checking.The Wolfgang Puck Pressure Oven is being offered in our store for $116.99.

LA Weekly did a nice piece on the new Front Row Legend Esquire guitars made of reclaimed wood benches from the Hollywood Bowl. They also toured Fender's Corona factory. (more…)

This nails it.

Kazakhstani Instagrammer Kanat Nurtazin creates whimsical art that he superimposes onto outdoor scenes. What's especially cool is that the art is often hand-cut from leaves. (more…)

Garnter's Hype Cycle places emerging technologies on a rising-falling-rising curve. I would have put augmented reality ahead of virtual reality, and smart dust in the trough, myself.[via Bruce Sterling]

Lisa Gold is the extraordinary researcher who is perhaps best know for her work with Neal Stephenson, particularly on the Baroque Trilogy. (more…)