314 Action is a new group that organizes scientists to run for office; they were founded in opposition to trumpism and the official policy of gagging government scientists and freezing EPA research grants. (more…)

Always liked this.

People who looked at pictures of cute animals "improved performance on tasks that required carefulness." The results of the experiments are in a paper titled The Power of Kawaii, by Hiroshi Nittono , Michiko Fukushima, Akihiro Yano, and Hiroki Moriya, published in the Public Library of Science (PLOS).

Quartz editor Gideon Lichfield has published a science fictional vignette depicting the final backstage moments before the 2025 inauguration of President Mark Zuckerberg's second term. (more…)

The best part of the video is the increasing happiness and confidence you can see on his face as his body transforms. (Isou Dw)

In the immediate aftermath of the Trump administration's gag orders on government employees disclosing taxpayer-funded research results, a series of high-profile "rogue" government agency accounts popped up on Twitter, purporting to be managed by civil servants who are unwilling to abide by the gag order. (more…)

As part of Kickstarter's Make/100 initiative, our good friends at BabyTattoo have put together this beautiful card game, OctoMatch.Straight from Baby Tattoo's agent provocateur Bob Self, himself:

My 10-year-old son Lux is a retro videogame historian who collects and studies 1980s consoles and games with the gravitas of a PhD student working on his thesis. Last year he acquired Nintendo's NES Zapper gun controller from 1984 that was used to play shooting games like Duck Hunt. (Below, a TV commercial for the NES Deluxe Set including the Zapper and R.O.B. The Robotic Operating Buddy.) Unfortunately, the NES Zapper doesn't work with modern LCD televisions. The video above from "Today I Found Out" explains the clever technology behind the NES Zapper gun. And here's a great text explanation from How-To Geek about why it doesn't work on non-CRT screens, something my son already knew but, of course, wanted the Zapper anyway for, er, display purposes:

Colin Mochrie and Ryan Stiles performed their first improv scene together on the British version of Whose Line Is It Anyway? back in 1991. And thus an iconic comedy duo was born.

Writer/performer Laura Hankin sums things up in this darkly funny sketch.

Last year I blogged about the mysterious death of a man found on a remote English moor. Found with only a pocketful of pills and no identifying documents, "Dovestones" sent investigators hunting worldwide in search of answers. They found them: Dovestones was 67-year-old Londoner David Lytton.

If you are tired of blurry handheld photos and shifty group shots, you’ll need a tripod to keep your camera steady and safe from falls. Many tripods rely on device-specific mounts and bulky designs that hinder portability, but the Pocket Tripod PRO allows for sturdy shots, and still fits in your pocket.This immensely clever design offers a stable footprint, with low-profile rotating device grips that can position your phone at any angle. To take balanced landscape shots, split the unit in two pieces to keep your phone supported. When not in use, this handy device flattens into a thin, credit-card shaped slab so you can carry it with you at all times.From iPhones and popular Samsung handsets, to countless lesser-known brands, there is a compatible size available for most current smartphones. For a limited time, get the Pocket Tripod PRO for just $19.99 and save 20% off the regular price to upgrade your mobile photography skills.Explore other Best-Sellers on our network:

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The Marina Bay Sands in Singapore has lots of cool features, but this whirlpool fountain outisde their shopping area could keep some visitors transfixed all day. (more…)

A lot of former congressional staffers agree that the best way to make your voice heard is to call your representatives rather than emailing them. And a new website makes that easier than ever. 5 Calls streamlines the calling process to make it user friendly and convenient. Simply enter your zipcode at the top left and you’ll be given a personalized list of numbers to call about the most pressing issues of the day. Click through topics on the left hand column to access a brief overview of each issue, a script to use when placing the call, and an explanation of why you’re calling a particular office (i.e. it’s one of your Senators or the Army Corps of Engineers is conducting an environmental impact report on the Dakota Access Pipeline).The idea is to motivate people to spend five minutes every day making five phone calls. So far the website has helped facilitate over 36,000 calls and counting. You can learn more on 5calls.org. [via TechCrunch]

Back in 1998, future Donald Trump counselor/spin-master Kellyanne Conway participated in a Washington, D.C. charity event that, for some reason, required her to do a stand-up routine. The results are pretty agonizing. To be fair, Conway kind of understands the structure of a joke. The problem is she really doesn’t know how to deliver one. Oh, and be sure to stick around until 9:05 when she starts singing with a red-feathered boa. Maybe this Saturday Night Live sketch wasn’t too far off after all:https://youtu.be/sb9ybImGwkU[via Mother Jones]

In his first television interview since assuming power last Friday, Donald Trump compares himself to Peyton Manning. Everything else was even weirder. Construction of a wall along the US-Mexico border may begin within a few months.(more…)

Indecline made headlines with a series of naked Trump statues that popped up around the country. Now they are back with Rise Up Thy Young Blood, a project extolling American diversity, created from their blood. Note: if you don't like blood or needles, this video is not be for you. (more…)

I stumbled upon this lovely set of stemless wine glasses decorated with night sky star charts. They come in sets of two with one glass depicting the summer sky and the other depicting the winter one. You can buy the set for $40 over on Cognitive Surplus.

In this animated video, the YouTube channel The School Of Life breaks down the ways in which politeness isn’t necessarily the same thing as warmth. It turns out the secret to being a warmly polite person ultimately comes down to paying attention to other people’s vulnerabilities and needs.[via Laughing Squid]

What can the press do in an increasingly hazardous environment of computational propaganda, a multi-trillion dollar criminal economy, deeply divided populations, and rising authoritarian populism around the world? I wrote a report about a recent convening of over one hundred journalists, publishers, technologists, philanthropists, academic leaders, and policy experts, who came to atInstitute for the Future (I'm on staff there) in Palo Alto to develop media strategies to preserve civic society.

British design company Mainframe created this odd little video called “For Approval.” It features objects that subvert the laws of physics in weird and unexpected ways.https://www.instagram.com/p/BPm1BHngfnL/[via Bored Panda]

Sean Avery carefully constructs flora and fauna from old compact discs and DVDs, the razor-sharp delights are especially beautiful outdoors, where the light glints off each shard. (more…)

In memory of the late Mary Tyler Moore, I present to you Minneapolis punk pioneers Hüsker Dü's killer 1985 cover of "Love Is All Around," Sonny Curtis's theme song to The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The Hüskers' rendition was the flipside to their "Makes No Sense At All" single.

The Blind Photographer is surprising and fascinating. These photos taken by visually impaired photographers, accompanied by a bit of text explaining the photographers’ working processes and inspirations, forced me to rethink the nature of photography:

Atlas Obscura has an article about the original bomb-proof safe that kept the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence safe from attack. I wish as much care would be given to the actual meaning of these documents, too, but it is awfully easy to confuse the menu with the meal.

America's TV sweetheart, Mary Tyler Moore, has passed away.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuuYvQsN-akVia HuffPo:

Whirlpool claims that its new Zera Food Recycler can turn a week’s worth of food waste into fertilizer within 24 hours. It costs $1000, but it looks like magic.[via]

The element Livermorium (element 116, named after Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) was created in 2000. It's in the same column of the periodic table as sulfur and it is speculated that it might be the smelliest of all elements, but since it has a half life of "tens of milliseconds," no one has been able to make the hydrogen compound of it and given it a proper sniff. Also, it's radioactive.

I've not heard of Randy Rainbow until just now, but he is my new YouTube star idol.

San Francisco artist Windy Chien made one new knot every day last year and many of them are exquisite string sculptures. She learned from The Ashley Book of Knots, Clifford W. Ashley's 1944 tome of 4,000 knots.“I like the repetition of knots—it lets me get into a state of flow,” Chien told Wired. “But what I’m primarily interested in is how our eyes follow a line. The line is one of the six building blocks of art, and I’m obsessed with it.”

Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University, explains that Trump is ordering his staffers to tell obviously blatant lies to the press and the public - because it's a sure fire way to for a dictator to have control over his inner circle, even if he can't trust them.(more…)

https://youtu.be/XVQny1bVxWIA group of protesters followed Pat McCrory (the former Republican governor of North Carolina who signed a transphobic bathroom bill in March) and loudly shamed him as he was walking into a building in Washington DC. McCrory ignored the shaming, but now North Carolina state Sen. Dan Bishop wants to pass a law making it illegal to “threaten, intimidate, or retaliate against a present or former North Carolina official in the course of, or on account of, the performance of his or her duties.”From Washington Post:

Gov. Jerry Brown gave a rousing State of the State speech yesterday. Vowing to fight for immigrants, health care, and the environment, Gov. Brown reiterated the stance that California will not quietly allow Trump to dismantle so much of what we hold dear.Here is a brief excerpt:

Yes, I really do "need" a 12V USB charging adaptor with a built-in voltmeter.Driving my VW camper van around, I frequently swap the USB charger with a voltmeter. I'm always curious about how much current my alternator is putting out, and if my house batteries are charging up. I also worry that my kid may plug into the wrong 12V outlets and drain the starting battery. This charger lets me know what is going on as I charge. I NEED TO KNOW!There are a few chargers with voltmeters, I picked this one as it has both 2.4A and 1A charging, the swivel lets me angle it so I can read it while driving, and the display is super easy to read/understand. When the engine is running the voltmeter tells you what current it sees at your 12V port, with the engine off it's reading the charge from the battery.Thanks to help from our readers, I successfully put together and sized my house battery, solar panel and portable fridge to allow me uninterrupted cold storage, regardless how long I stay out. This voltmeter helps me manage the system. I'll write up a post what I ended up going with soon.HAWEEL Rapid LED Dual USB Car Charger Adapter(5V/3.4A output) with LCD Screen Display via Amazon

It's only been a handful of days since Donald Trump took office, but we're already getting strong signals about the sort of administration he intends to run: workers at US government agencies have been banned from making any public disclosures of the research they conduct at public expense until new political minders can be installed to ensure that these facts don't contradict Trump's official narrative; and six journalists have been charged with felonies for covering the protests during the inauguration. (more…)

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent Joohoon David Lee led a human trafficking investigation against the owners of a Las Vegas Korean supper club, while dining for free at a rival's club, running up bills of $1,000-$2,500/night which he never had to pay. (more…)

Many Westerners equate ramen noodles with the cheap dried stuff that poor students and young adults eat, but Criterion Collection is doing their part to change that. They put together this wonderful documentary to support the 4K restoration of "ramen Western" Tampopo, one of the greatest food films ever made. (more…)

Surreal Youtube star and musician That Poppy has a message for you: "Delete Your Facebook." It's timely advice, and sound. (via JWZ)

In this new video, Vox digs into Donald Trump’s insane number of conflicts of interest. You can read a more in-depth exploration of the same topic over at The New York Times.

YouTuber TAOFLEDERMAUS will try to shoot ammunition made of anything viewers send or suggest. After a glassblower named Sam sent them some handmade glass slugs, they shot them with pretty crazy results. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsNHdW0O364Cool S Font is an entire typeface based around the coolest form of the letter "S", that being an elongated awesome hexagonal loop where the form of the letter is created by the illusion of a figure-8 bridging itself."Every letter is as cool as the cool S," writes type designer Tom Goulet. "Make any word look cool."And here is a Chrome extension to turn every font on the web into the Cool S Font.

With racist and discriminatory acts on the rise since Donald Trump’s election, Barnard Center For Research On Women and members of Project NIA created a video that offers six simple tips for what to do if you witness a verbal or physical assault. Having concrete steps in mind will hopefully stop you from just being a bystander. One important thing to remember is that the police can often escalate situations involving people of color and trans folks. The video advises that unless you’ve been specifically asked to do so by the victim, avoid calling the police.

With a few basic tools and household items, Roman UrsuHack transforms used plastic bottles into all sorts of handy objects. (more…)

Josh Glenn says: Here’s an extremely timely episode of Benjamen Walker’s Radiotopian podcast, Theory of Everything. In it, Benjamen and I discuss the obscure spy novel The Twentieth Day of January, about a KGB plot — uncovered by a British intelligence agent — to get their stooge elected president of the US! We speculate about what Trump, and the KGB, may have learned from this book… and how it explains, well, everything.The podcast transcript is posted to HiLobrow.

Tall glass, cracked ice, 4 dashes Angostura bitters, crushed peel of one lime, fill with Holland gin: "It’s strong, it’s bitter—but so is English ale strong and bitter, in many cases." (more…)

Brilliant.

FOLLOW @RubenBolling on the Twitters and a Face Book.JOIN Tom the Dancing Bug's subscription club, the Proud & Mighty INNER HIVE, for exclusive early access to comics, extra comics, and my, oh, my: much more.GET Ruben Bolling’s new hit book series for kids, The EMU Club Adventures. (”A book for the curious and adventurous!” -Cory Doctorow) Book One here. Book Two here.More Tom the Dancing Bug comics on Boing Boing! (more…)

Repeated rainy days and limited opportunities to go outside sometimes put my dogs in a bad spot. When they relieve themselves indoors, Sunny and Honey is the best clean-up solution I've found.The weather has been pretty rough here for most of January. Dog walks have been few and hard to come by. Occasionally someone makes 'a mistake' and when that happens I don't want my home to stink, so out comes the Sunny and Honey.I've tried a number of brands. Sunny and Honey does a wonderful job of removing light stains and eliminating any pee pee smells. It is also very useful on cat and dog vomit, which happens year round. The light mint scent fades very quickly, and with it any sign that someone has made 'a mistake.'As a person who lives with a lot of pets, Sunny and Honey is a must have.Sunny and Honey Pet Stain & Odor Miracle - Enzyme Cleaner for Dog and Cat Urine, Feces, Vomit, Drool via Amazon