Guess how I'm spending Saturday morning? This bicycle chain tool works for both my road bike and my mountain bike that loves to break its chain.Oumers Universal Bike Chain Tool With Chain Hook via Amazon

Storing individual slices of pizza, and other triangular food, just got a whole lot easier thanks to these Pizza Bags by ThinkGeek. One first world problem solved!

Beginning in July, Oregon driver's licenses and state IDs will allow applicants to choose M, F, or X for their gender designation. This follows an open comment period where the overwhelming majority of commenters praised the proposed legislation. (more…)

K. Thor Jenson, one of the enduring lights of web culture, spent two years writing clickbait about balls for a good cause: testicular cancer research.

A majority of the Rhode Island school districts with "1-1" programs where each student is issued a laptop have a blanket policy of spying on the students and everything they do on their laptops, during, before and after school hours, on or off school premises, without any evidence (or even suspicion ) of wrongdoing. (more…)

Thirteen years ago, Pittsburgh's Jerry Lynn carefully lowered an alarm clock on a string, lowering it into a wall from the floor above, part of a cunning plan to identify where to drill a hole by waiting for the alarm to go off. Unfortunately, the string snapped, and the clock's been going off daily ever since.

Theresa May, aloof and clueless, decided not to meet victims of the Grenfell tower fire. Her political rival Jeremy Corbyn and the Queen, however, each managed to fit them in. So May, accustomed as she is to politically transparent changes of heart, decided to meet some victims. It did not go well, and later she was filmed all but running to her car as a crowd taunted her.https://twitter.com/EL4JC/status/875773420549681152

Dave Maass writes, "In the 1890s, a tobacco company included collectors cards featuring 'American Editors' in its cigarette packs. In all, they were 49 white dudes and one woman, and the only diversity was in their beards and mustaches." (more…)

David Robinson used the data from the 28,657 people who self-selected to take the Stack Overflow survey to investigate the relationship between programmer pay and the conventions of using either tabs or spaces to mark indents, and found a persistent, significant correlation between using spaces and bringing home higher pay. (more…)

Make Justice Obstruction Again.(more…)

Next to my trusted Wagner #9 skillet no other single kitchen tool gets as much use as my ChefSteps Joule. Not even my chef's knife. (more…)

Kerry Scharfglass designed his "Commute Deck" as a laptop alternative for his morning commute: it combines a mechanical keyboard (running the TMK open keyboard firmware), a 7", 720p display from Adafruit, a long-life USB battery, and a Raspberry Pi 2 with USB, wifi and Bluetooth dongles, and a little USB hub, all mounted on a laser-cut 1/4" plywood chassis. (more…)

Lynne Patton has no experience with housing policy, claims to have a law degree from a university that says she dropped out after two semesters, claims an affiliation with Yale that no one can explain, and is implicated in the Eric Trump charity scam that directed cash earmarked for children's cancer research into the Trump Organization's pockets -- and as of July 5, she'll oversee billions in spending in the New York housing authorities. On the plus side, she reportedly did a great job as Eric Trump's wedding-planner. (more…)

A driver on California's 210 freeway attempted to block and scare motorcyclists out of lanesplitting.

There are some things I will never understand. This pair of high-tops by "Paris-based fashion house" Maison Margiela is definitely one of them.Looking like something the cat dragged in (after ripping it apart with its claws for hours), these heavily-distressed, pre-destroyed --sorry "Future Destroyed"-- sneakers will set you back $1,425/pair. Oops sorry, you're out of luck, they're already sold out of them over at Neiman Marcus.Instead, may I suggest you go find a nice wood chipper and mangle a pair for yourself? (I checked, the majority of wood chippers out there are cheaper than these sneakers.)(TIWIB)

Amazon announced today it has agreed to buy the Whole Foods grocery chain for $13.4 billion, as the internet retailer eyes a broader expansion of services.(more…)

BDSM porn establishment Kink.com will soon leave the massive Armory building in San Francisco to move its operations to Las Vegas. In the meantime, they are selling off furniture and props from their adult film sets.Their Craigslist ad reads:

Does your garden of earthly delights have room for some out-of-this-world petunias? Night Sky petunias are a cultivar by Selecta, developed in part at Mississippi State University's trial gardens. (more…)

Derek Muller of the YouTube channel Veritasium uses a nifty trick to make visible the invisible air currents, temperature gradients, and differences in air pressure around us. The process is called Schlieren photography and with the right equipment and some precision alignment, you can try it at home. As Muller explains:

A colonoscopy is a very unpleasant selfie. The medical procedure involves having a long, thin, flexible camera inserted up your rectum and into your large intestine to look for ulcers, polyps, and tumors. Nobody looks forward to this. To improve the process, researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder's Advanced Medical Technologies Laboratory designed a worm-like soft robot that employs a wavelike motion, similar to the way the bowel moves, to make its way up your large intestine. From their research abstract:

Donald Trump just claimed that "I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director!"https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/875701471999864833This is an odd tweet for several reasons.1. The man investigating Trump is Special Counsel Robert Mueller, an administration outsider who surely did not tell Trump to fire Comey.2. The people who conspicuously told him to fire Comey—Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein—aren't personally investigating him. Indeed, Sessions is fresh from stonewalling a Senate hearing to cover for his boss.3. Trump admitted on national television he was planning to fire FBI Director Jim Comey anyway, because of the agency's investigation into the Trump campaign's Russian ties.The best guess seems to be that Rosenstein has somehow angered Trump and is being instantly and publicly thrown under the bus in a way that will only serve to expose whatever new scrutiny Trump feels placed under by him.But here's another hypothesis: Trump is just constantly bullshitting. It never stops. It means nothing beyond the passing moment of anxiety it subdues or the vindication it generates. It's the pathological face-saving blabbering of a man whose reality is constantly reconfigured to his own transient satisfaction.

Amazon announced Friday that it was acquiring Whole Foods Market for $13.7bn in cash. Bezos: "they make it fun to eat healthy."Does your tech startup have anything going on with Whole Foods? It doesn't any more.

BuzzFeed Nifty shows off four different ways to do the seemingly impossible: Remove stickers and their gross residue.

Here are the weird adhesive soles you never asked for (though they do appear to be useful).Called Nakefit, this pair of freaky stick-on shoes adhere to the bottom of your feet to protect them from things like hot sand and rocks. They're waterproof, hypoallergenic, have anti-slip pads and, should you need an unusual way to cover your tootsies, available to pre-order on Kickstarter.(Dude)

The Round Rock Parks and Recreation Department posted images of mysterious large footprints reportedly spotted at parks and trails just north of Austin, Texas. Is this Bigfoot or a marketing stunt?"I'm leaning towards not real at least on the top one," area Bigfoot researcher Russell Miller told the Houston Chronicle. "Too narrow at the instep."And, of course, if the "surveillance" camera was capable of capturing the footprints, why didn't it get a shot of the (ahem) "cryptid" that made them?

Biomedical gerontologist Aubrey de Grey has said that the first person likely to live to 1,000 years-old has probably been born already. de Grey's nonprofit lab, and others, some of which are funded by Silicon Valley billionaires, are boldly focused on how science may find a cure for aging. In the new issue of Smithsonian, Elmo Keep writes about these efforts to "hack" mortality and quotes my Institute for the Future colleagues Rachel Maguire and Jake Dunagan, both of whom cast a concerned eye on the obsession with longevity. From Smithsonian:

This year, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles gala honored sculptor Jeff Koons who for decades has created incredibly monuments to popular culture, from steel balloon animals to a bronze "Hulk Elvis" to Michael Jackson and Bubbles the chimp in porcelain.

As we descend from Peak Fidget Spinner into its decadent phase, expect to see more of this. The Backyard Scientist discovered that hiding behind a flimsy plastic folding table is no match for rocket-propelled debris from a fidget spinner experiment gone wrong. (more…)

Ahead of the show’s debut, Disney released the updated title sequence (and theme song!) for the new DuckTales reboot. It sounds great and looks even better. The reboot launches as a TV movie on August 12 before officially debuting its season on September 23. You can learn more on Deadline.

Cephalopods and ceramics fuse in Keiko Masumoto's whimsical updates of traditional Chinese ceramic forms. (more…)

One of the things I love about long summer weekends is catching up on podcasts and filling my mind with something other than bummer political news. The third season of NPR's most popular podcast, Invisibilia, just launched, and I'm really enjoying it.One of their latest episodes is about the minds of dogs. You should subscribe.(more…)

Russian President and funnyman Vladimir Putin joked today that if fired FBI director Jim Comey feels persecuted by U.S. President Donald Trump, Russia will grant him asylum as it has with NSA leaker Edward Snowden.(more…)

I've been looking around for a cordless drill, and today Amazon put this Black + Decker model on sale for $34, so I bought it. I wanted one that was lightweight, has variable speed, and uses a keyless chuck (to accommodate the bits I use with my drill press and corded handheld drill). This one has great reviews on Amazon and for the next 12 hours it's on sale. It comes with a 20-Volt Max Lithium-Ion Battery and charger.

With over 80% of the global smartphone market, Android is by far the most widely-used operating system. Thanks to its open-source underpinnings, adoption of Google’s mobile OS has skyrocketed. It can be found everywhere from laptops to car navigation systems. As such, enterprising mobile developers would be remiss to not consider targeting the platform. And unlike iOS where all apps must be compiled on a Mac, Android development can be done on any desktop computer.Although Android’s strength lies in its versatility, the wide array of versions seen in the wild can make it tough for beginners to get situated. With this ebook bundle, you’ll learn the proper way to make a contemporary Android app using Google’s purpose-built IDE. Your projects will incorporate multimedia, animations, and essential Google APIs. This bundle also covers building high-performance apps for real-time audio, video, and data processing with the Android Native Development Kit.This collection usually goes for $144, but you can get the Android Development eBook Bundle for just $24.

Bus breaks down on the way to the wedding? No problem. Power outage at the reception? The bride did not care. A string of unfortunate events attempted to derail a Virginia bride's big day, but nothing was getting in the way of her happiness.(more…)

https://youtu.be/_dtBUiaAqREEvan built this nifty mechanical laser show on his 3D printer. The gizmo has two rotating cams that tilt a laser pointer up and down and from side to side in such a way that it draws different 3D shapes. In this video he explains the math behind it. You can download the model at Thingiverse.

On June 10 in Santa Monica, California, a motorist exited his Toyota pickup to discuss his overwhelming dissatisfaction with a local cyclist. A series of mishaps ensued.(more…)

Savannah, a 12-year-old girl, is giving a speech at her Utah church but is interrupted when an official at the church cuts off her microphone and tells her to sit down. He apparently did not like the fact that she was saying that God loved all parts of her. "‘I believe I was made the way I am, all parts of me, because of my heavenly parents...They did not mess up when they gave me brown eyes, or when I was born bald. They did not mess up when they gave me freckles, or when they made me to be gay."Although she didn't get to finish her speech in church, she does so here at the end of the video.

If you're an American who's lucky enough to live somewhere that received large influxes of immigrants during the "Age of Mass Migration" (1860 to 1920), congratulations! The immigrants who came to your territory brought along higher incomes, lower unemployment, higher levels of educational attainment -- and no reduction in social cohesion! (more…)

We've been having a lot of fun with LEGO Star Wars. When my daughter heard the Freemaker's new ship was available, she spent a day snapping bricks together!LEGO Star Wars is pretty hilarious. Taking place bewteen Empire and Jedi, The Freemaker Adventures combine the lore of the Star Wars universe with all the cynicism and satire of LEGO. Vader is regularly humiliated.The Freemakers are a family of working scavengers, with a typically cracked droid R0-gR. The Arrowhead is their new ship, built by Rowan and containing a heart of Khyber. I guess khyber crystals are our new midichlorians, and the LEGO folks are making hiliarious 'light' of it all.My 10-year-old built this in a day, completely on her own, and loved it. Next up is a kit from Rebels. She wants The Phantom, largely for the Chopper and Kanan minifigs.LEGO Star Wars The Arrowhead (75186) via Amazon

Anyone who's been to the Paris catacombs knows how claustrophobic and creepy the dim, narrow underground tunnels can be. But two teenage boys got lost for three days in the 150-mile maze, which is lined with the bones of approximately 6-million people.If you stick to the path open to the public, it seems impossible to get lost in this tourist attraction, but veer off the path – which has been illegal to do since 1955 – and you're suddenly in a pitch black labyrinth-style burial ground.According to the Guardian:

I had a hard time watching this one (embedded below), but it stands as a remarkable testament to the fitness of mammalian embodiment to its evolutionary niche: the brutal execution of competition and confrontation. (via, via)https://www.instagram.com/p/BVS2OxllleY/?hl=en

This vintage (2011) clip shows Australian TV host Karl Stefanovic describing his home defense strategy: keeping a "long stabby thing" by the side of the bed. Cohost Lisa Wilkinson reports having a "swordy thing." Correspondent Georgie Gardner also has a long stabby thing, the one you suspected. Nevertheless, there has been some discussion of what Karl's long stabby thing might be; my money is on a four-foot poker, useful for fending off not only burglars but also logical positivists.

The iconic bat-signal will sweep the Los Angeles sky tonight in memory of Adam West, the (best) Batman actor who died on Saturday. L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetii and L.A. Police Department Chief Charlie Beck will flip the switch at 9pm at City Hall. From the Hollywood Reporter:

A class action suit against Wells Fargo alleges that the bank -- which is still embroiled in a scandal over creating literally millions of fraudulent accounts and firing and blacklisting low-level employees who blew the whistle or simply refused to break the law -- silently altered the mortgages of borrowers who were in bankruptcy to extend their repayment schedules by decades, so that they would pay tens -- or hundreds -- of thousands of extra dollars in interest. (more…)

Corgi's fleet-footed technique and Chicken's cautious jabs are evenly matched until a new challenger arrives.

Germany's interior ministry has announced sweeping new surveillance powers ahead of the coming national election, which would include the right to infect residents' computers with malware in order to spy on their encrypted communications (shades of the illegal Bundestrojaner program), ordering tech companies to deliberately introduce defects into their cryptography, and fingerprinting children as young as 6. (more…)

This gorgeous yellow beauty is the handiwork of The Painted Player Guitar Co., a crew of artists and luthiers located in the United Kingdom. This groovy bass guitar is, of course, based on the Beatles' 1968 animated feature, Yellow Submarine.If custom guitars are your thing, be sure to take a look at their whole mind-blowing collection.https://youtu.be/vefJAtG-ZKI(Dangerous Minds)

My friend Jared Hirsch spotted this at a local Bay Area toy store and wasted no time sending me the photographic evidence of its existence.This KISS inflatable tongue is, naturally, fashioned after Gene Simmons' crazy long tongue and is touted to inflate to "3 times its original size!"According to the KISS Museum, an online KISS retail store, "The 'inflatable' feature isn't to make the tongue larger so much as to make it move and twitch as if it were your own. Practice makes perfect!" Alrighty then.In any event, you'll certainly get more for your money with this KISS toy than you would with their "air guitar strings."(RED)

My house key is shaped like a revolver and I am a fan of oddly-shaped keys in general. So, when I saw these cool key blanks by NYC jewelry brand Erica Weiner pop up in my Instagram feed, I stopped in my tracks.