Looks comfy.

Customers and employees at Deep Comics & Games in Huntsville, Alabama got quite a surprise when an out-of-control SUV smashed through their store. Luckily, no one was injured, and the driver was taken to the hospital for observation after having an apparent seizure. (more…)

This is already a thing—the mechanical keyboards subreddit is my God now—but it should be more of a thing.A collection of spacebars [imgur]

This short from sketch comedy group Couch Friends almost defies description. Once the holidays are over, Brendan O'Hare and Cory Snearowski get down to the business of getting rid of their Christmas trees.

Redditor enzyme69 used Blender to generate a picture of Mario "drawn" in crayon; this should be a thing. [via r/GenerativeArt]

LJ Frezza takes a loving look back at how Robocop, Total Recall, and Starship Troopers are wry commentaries on mass media's normalizing effect on sexism, militarism, climate change, corporatism, and state-sponsored terrorism. (more…)

All year round Trevor Pottelberg heads out to a Lake Erie lighthouse near his home in Brownsville, Ontario. His photos capture the changing elements around the unchanging lighthouse. (more…)

With Hillary, Bill, and Chelsea Clinton in the audience, The Color Purple played its final show on Broadway this Sunday. And the musical’s Facebook page live streamed Tony-winning star Cynthia Erivo’s performance of the climatic song “I’m Here.” After she became moved to tears during the number, the crowd leapt to its feet to cheer Erivo on.You can watch the final performance above and the show’s Tony Awards medley right here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k2xzQyT2bk

In the Ways of Seeing post, commenter Frederick_Hagemeiste suggested the 1980 series Shock of the New. The first episode makes a compelling case that engineering had a vast influence on 20th century art. (more…)

Along with activists and everyday citizens, celebrities like Kerry Washington, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jerry Seinfeld, John Legend, Shonda Rhimes, Tom Hanks, Chance The Rapper, and Ellen DeGeneres share their favorite moments from Obama’s presidency in this new video released by The White House.

While it's symbolic that Washington Post Express put the Women's March on Washington on their cover, the cover itself was symbolic for all the wrong reasons. Ouch. (more…)

Aside from Star Wars, Mark Hamill’s second most iconic role is as the voice of The Joker in Batman: The Animated Series. So after Matt Oswalt noted that Donald Trump’s New Year’s tweet sounded like something the Joker might say, Hamill decided to bring that idea to life. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/815185071317676033https://twitter.com/MattOswaltVA/status/815190517747187712https://twitter.com/HamillHimself/status/817824139658432512After a little technical assistance, Hamill tweeted out this delightful (and/or horrifying) recording of himself reading the tweet in his Joker voice:https://twitter.com/HamillHimself/status/817901534948179968So far it's the only one, but since it's labeled "The Trumpster quote #1," here's hoping there will be many more Joker readings to come.

Lauren Duca, a writer for Teen Vogue, recently penned a popular opinion piece about president-elect Donald Trump's constant lying. Martin Shkreli is a disgraced pharmaceutical executive who famously hiked the price of a lifesaving drug before being charged with fraud. A Trump fan, he started tweeting about wanting to date her, despite her clearly finding it unwelcome and ultimately harassing, then took his remarks to direct messages. When she finally, publicly told him to get lost, he downloaded a photo of her, photoshopped his own head onto that of her partner, and made it his Twitter background. Then Twitter itself finally got sick of his shit and suspended him. (more…)

Scott Nelles is a Wisconsin sculptor who works in cast brass and aluminum, making beautiful, whimsical pieces with a strong science fictional flare tinged with strealined dieselpunk. (more…)

As the Trump administration continues its twin trademarks of "not having press conferences" and "being at the center of gnarly scandals involving spycraft and hacking," much of the reporting on what's actually happening in the most powerful country on Earth is based on quotes attributed to anonymous government sources -- people with something to say but who won't let their names be associated with it. (more…)

Canadiana Village is an hour north of Montreal and sports 45 buildings that are intended to recreate rural Quebec life in the 19th century (though only one is habitable); and once served as a destination for school groups and film-crews. Now it's for sale for CAD$2.8M. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdOr5FpLKR8Jake Yapp is a British comedian who specialises in doing high-speed summaries of pop culture phenomena, like this Radio Four in 4 Minutes sketch, which is a work of genuine genius, especially the radio drama bits.

An analysis of passwords found in the 2009 breach of Rockyou -- 32 million accounts -- finds a large number of Biblical references ("jesus"," "heaven", "faith", etc), including a number of Bible verse references ("john316"). (more…)

Do you remember the first time you used a remote control on your television set or favorite toy? It was incredible right? I can honestly say that making my sister believe I had telekinetic powers was fantastic! But as I’ve accumulated more and more remote controls in my life, I’ve become jaded.And then, I got a package from The Wand Company that brought back my old feelings of wonder.Do I care that my wife won’t touch it because it makes her feel silly? Of course not - it just means more magical gestures for me. Now, to turn on my TV, I swipe the wand from vertical to horizontal position and to increase the volume, I simply point it at my receiver and twist.The Kymera Wand has 13 slots into which infrared commands can be stored, and the beautiful thing is that it’ll control ANY infrared device. Right now, I’m only using 4 of the 13 slots and I can’t wait to fill the rest up.PROS

That Gamer created this lovely 8-bit rendition of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," along with many of Queen's other greatest hits. (more…)

Joseph Talbot, a bank executive, was arrested by New York State Police on Dec 29 for DUI, and, as its custom, the Times of Wayne County published his name and mugshot -- something it's done for every local arrest for 28 years. (more…)

Fivethirtyeight's analysis of a Surveymonkey data-set shows that Hillary Clinton would have won the 2016 election if registered Democrats had turned out and voted in larger numbers -- in other words, Hillary's failure to convince registered Democrats to vote, rather than abstain, lost her the election. (more…)

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Here are two bots, Estragon and Vladimr, having a conversation. Currently, 19,691 people are listening in.Robbo says:

This little kid loves Spider-Man and refuses to beat him with a stick.[via]

Pornhub issued its annual data analytics report on how many videos were viewed, the most popular types of video broken down by gender and country, the most and least popular hours of the day for video viewing, and much more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2brguSHR9jcIn this video, a hand-cranked shredder is used to slowly mangle aluminum cans, thereby producing a tingle-inducing crinkling noise that allegedly counts as ASMR. At the end, there is a bonus shredding: a styrofoam box. [via] (more…)

I don't know what this young fellow is saying in in this shooter game, but one presumes that the war isn't going well for him. (Previously.)

The $38 Millennium Falcon wall clock is handmade to order from plywood, birch and MDF by Hamstercheeks in Nottingham, UK, who uses a laser-cutter to turn orders around in 2-5 business days (the clock itself is an AA-powered quartz sweep movement). (via Geekymerch) (more…)

Kamala Harris was just sworn in as a senator from California, but her last gig was as California's Attorney General, and in that role, she decided not to prosecute Trump Treasury Secretary pick Steve Mnuchin, whom her office had identified as presiding over "widespread misconduct" in foreclosing on Californians -- that is, stealing their houses. (more…)

A few years ago Boing Boing shared this documentary about Canadian street artist Peter Gibson a.k.a. Roadsworth, and his Instagram account offers a treasure trove of more his work. Many of Gibson’s designs are politically pointed. As his captions explain, his street murals touch on everything from the refugee crisis to commercialism:https://www.instagram.com/p/BG4H1oyTFHB/?taken-by=roadsworthhttps://www.instagram.com/p/_mje2gTFAZ/?taken-by=roadsworthBut other pieces are more fanciful and playful, like this squirrel that appears to be darting down the road:https://www.instagram.com/p/BHKi2vXDeCs/?taken-by=roadsworthSome of my favorite designs are below, and you can find the full collection of street art, as well as Gibson's other work, on his Roadsworth Instagram account.https://www.instagram.com/p/BG91D3TzFMr/?taken-by=roadsworthhttps://www.instagram.com/p/BEGlLuLzFG6/?taken-by=roadsworthhttps://www.instagram.com/p/_SX22-zFNw/?taken-by=roadsworthhttps://www.instagram.com/p/-_kdorzFCD/?taken-by=roadsworthhttps://www.instagram.com/p/47JhufTFCW/?taken-by=roadsworthhttps://www.instagram.com/p/8TZesRTFG3/?taken-by=roadsworth[via The Laughing Squid]

Of all the nice tributes since art critics John Berger's death on January 2, this Dazed piece is a short and sweet summation of how far ahead of his time he was. The second episode of Ways of Seeing is a brisk jog through the ways in which the male gaze manifests, even in women:

Inspired by this year's Edge question ("What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known?"), Bloomberg columnist Noah Smith enumerates five economic concepts that we would be well-served to familiarize ourselves with: "Endogeneity" (when you don't know whether something is a cause or effect); "Marginal versus average" (something can be good on average, but so bad at the margins that it's a net negative); "Present value and discounting" (how much would you sacrifice today for the promise of something great tomorrow?); "Conditional versus unconditional" (you can hedge a prediction by adding a condition: "Assuming Donald Trump loses the election, the biggest crisis we'll face is a continued transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich"); "Aggregate" (differentiating global effects from local ones: borrowing money reduces your personal net worth, but increases some one else's, so you're getting poorer, they're getting richer and in the aggregate, it's a wash -- governments need to think in aggregate, voters need to think in particular). (more…)

The Facebook page Disney Power shared this utterly delightful reenactment of Disney’s 1998 movie Mulan as performed by a group of talented young Chinese kids. The video seems to have come from a Chinese TV show that specializes in kid-centric movie reenactments. For those not up-to-date on their Disney films, here’s the original animated Mulan sequence for comparison. It will really make you appreciate the little girl who perfectly captures Mulan’s grandmother:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnUEDaeoF0QAnd just for fun, here's a side-by-side version too:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6pcR2M0tzk

Rogue One fills in the gaps between the end of Star Wars: Episode III- Revenge Of The Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV- A New Hope, and while for the most part that allows for some fun fan service (so that’s why the Death Star has such a design flaw), it also raises some questions too. And this hilarious Tumblr post points out one of the biggest ones: http://androidsghost.tumblr.com/post/155141712333/im-just-saying

With awards season upon us, lots of films "based on a true story" are in contention. It gives films a little emotional boost to say it really happened, but how much of the film is true? David McCandless created a metric to quantify it based on scene-by-scene analysts. So Selma hets a 100%, and The Imitation game gets 41.4%. (more…)

There are many options for touring Alta Guajira, the northernmost part of Colombia (and of South America), but overlanding in your own vehicle is definitely choice. The only rub is that many of the roads aren't really roads so much as they are just the tracks of the last vehicle that passed through, and not necessarily in the direction you're headed. So, navigation is tricky for a local, and nigh impossible for a visitor.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7a4QPSo8CwThe various paths that lead to Punta Gallina are unpaved, rocky, and cut through a desert with infamously muddy patches that cars can be stuck in for up to a week. And driving through it during rainy season, as we did, can be especially treacherous.We had a bit of "luck" on our side, if you can call it that. Unfortunately, the Guajira region has been subject to a five year long drought, making the difficult life of the Wayuu people who live there even more difficult. The UN and the Red Cross have both stepped in to try and alleviate the starvation and the lack of water, but providing aid has not been easy. So when we say "lucky," we mean only for the road quality, since we encountered little of the mud we'd been warned so vehemently about, and made it out with very little trauma to our 4Runner.The other bit of luck we had was accidentally stumbling on a tourism agency that specializes in trips to Punta Gallina, while actually searching for different agency all together. That connection ended up being essential to the success of our trip, even though we did not ultimately utilize their services as guides.Most tourists who visit this remote and sparsely populated region go either in a car driven by a local and guided by an English speaker. Or, they are driven to one of the only cities (here, the term is used generously, by city we mean perhaps more than 10 families live in a single area, with a few stores, and likely a kite surfing school or two) and are taken in a boat to other areas with more difficult overlanding logistics. This is a fine option. But you are shuttled from place to place, with little agency for things like choices in food and where to sleep. Likewise, you are sheltered from any kind of responsibility in the area, which was a fascinating, if often upsetting experience.So when we told the first tour agency about our desire to drive ourselves out there, they were a little doubtful."You could," Paola said. But her confirmation of the possibility came with many caveats. About the lack of gas. About navigating the Wayuu rules of the road-- namely stopping at many self-appointed toll spots, where children swarm the car, and do not let you pass until you have given them cookies, or water, or sweets. About the roads, or lack there of, and about the difficulty of navigation.But we were set on going, and so Paola gave us the perfect recommendation: Drive up to El Cabo De La Vela on our own, find the largest hotel in town (a ten room joint, with bucket showers and an adjoining outdoor restaurant) and ask around to see if there were any tours headed to Punta Gallina that we could follow. And so we did.The road to Cabo De La Vela is 50% super easy-- paved, or when not paved, at least well trodden. And 50% difficult navigation through roads that make little to no sense, with a seemingly innumerable number of Wayuu toll stops. Our rations for the tolls-- treats, mostly, purchased from a grocery store in Riohacha-- dwindled much more quickly that we'd anticipated. And in a couple cases, we were very uncertain that we had headed in the correct direction. But we found the city, which is peaceful, and set against a still and tranquil coastline ideal for kite surfing.Paola had called ahead to let her contact in Cabo De La Vela know we were coming. We were easily identifiable, as the only visitors to arrive in a car with California plates. And when Sergei, her contact, found us, he helped us find another tour guide with a group of five that were planning on leaving for Punta Gallina the next day.That night, we camped on the beach, alongside many other visitors, who opted for the hammocks hung in palapas, the favored cheap lodging choice of the area. We purchased more toll fare from a local tienda. And, the next morning, we struck out for Punta Gallina.We trailed a Land Cruiser VX from the Alta Guajira tour company, driven by a congenial man named Tobias. If you've prepped for overlanding, you're likely prepared for this journey. He lead us first to Punta Gallina's famous beach, which rests on the opposite side of a towering sand dune. The water is cool, and the sand is soft. It seems cast in unreality. We'd heard a dubious claim that the sand blew in from sandstorms in the Sahara, which just seems impossible. But it does have a completely different color and texture to the sand at all the other beaches in the region, and makes for a lovely sunning surface between bouts in the cool, blue water.Then, he lead us to a tiny town, which is more a collection of houses surrounding one hotel-restaurant. It sits atop of a cliff overlooking a turquoise lagoon, replete with small collections of mangrove trees, a small dock, and an area in which they rear baby sea turtles for release into the wild. The town itself has more goats than people, no pavement, or even well trodden paths, and a preponderance of chickens. A few parrots live on the property of the hotel, and make the sounds of crying children, laughing adults, and a few wolf-whistles.Tobias then lead us to a few choice scenic outlooks, two of which provided views of an enormous flock of flamingoes not too far away. And then, he lead us to El Faro Punta Gallina, the lighthouse that marks the northernmost point of South America. There, people have created an array of stone stacks on the beach to mark the spot, and we watched the sun set over them, casting weird and beautiful shadows across the sand.As we headed back to the town, Tobias pulled to a halt, and pointed out a detonation crater. It was fifteen years old, he told us, and a relic of the government's war with Pablo Escobar. Escobar's illegal air strip had been just next to El Faro Punta Gallina, and the crater was created when the government bombed the area. It looked about three feet deep, and maybe ten feet across.While the group that arrived officially with the Alta Guajira tours stayed in the hotel (which, they reported, was hot and stuffy, and not super comfortable) we camped below the cliffs just by the docks. It was serene, and silent save for the quiet sound of water lapping against the shore. A cool breeze blew gently all night. We slept like dead people.The next morning, Alta Guajira tours had arranged for their guests to go on a quick boat tour to go look at flamingoes. The boat would drop them off at a farther location, that marked our point of exit from the area. So Adam followed Tobias in the cars, and I joined the boat tour, which led to a flock of about a thousand flamingoes. While I stared at the strange and improbable birds, Adam discussed logistics for getting to Valledupar with Tobias.Of all the driving we've done so far, this has been the most satisfying. The route through the area cuts through salt flats, craggy desert, tiny Wayuu settlements, deep sand patches, cacti and shallow water. However experienced you are as a driver, we absolutely recommend tailing a tour group. The price for this service is tiny compared to the potential for the huge inconvenience of being stranded, lost, or stuck in the mud. Deep mud can often appear to be dry sand, and tricks even those familiar with the landscape. And driving in Wayuu country without a familiar face past 5pm is apparently not a great idea, for reasons no one made clear to us.If you are planning a trip to the area, we also recommend the Alta Guajira tour company. Their services were excellent, Tobias's knowledge of the area was expansive, and also, he was just a nice dude. Bring along gas cans, filled in Riohacha, the last stop with true gas stations. Bring more cookies than you think you'll need, or better yet, bring bags of water. In retrospect, we wished we had brought water, which we hadn't realized was an option until too late. It is a more useful thing to give out in an area beset with difficult survival, drought and poverty,If you are not planning a trip to the area, we highly recommend that you do.Maggie Tokuda-Hall is the author of Also an Octopus, and the cohost of the Let's Not Panic podcast, which chronicles her trip in a Toyota 4Runner from San Francisco to Patagonia.

I bought a Kindle Fire tablet ($49) and (per Jason’s instructions) installed Google Play on it. It’s not a speedy tablet, but it’s great for watching Amazon Video and Netflix, as well as web browsing, monitoring my Nest outdoor camera, and reading ebooks. I paired it with the Plugable full-size folding keyboard (also $49, a compact version is $39) and now I have a decent miniature laptop replacement. The keyboard is the same size as the wireless Apple keyboard I use, but it folds into a shape that fits in my jacket pocket. It feels good to type on the keys. The keyboard’s case can be refolded into a tablet of phone stand. The total weight for the tablet, keyboard, and case is a bit under 1.7 lbs.Here's a video about the features of the Keyboard:https://youtu.be/dwA5OFwP4gw

Intel Director of Incident Response Jackie Stokes has captured the entirety of 2017 in a single image: a watercooler that won't dispense water until it has installed a Windows upgrade (caption: "I just wanted some water...").

Sarah Jeong continues her brilliant, obsessive tear through the Star Wars canon (here's yesterday's post on the difficulties of the Warsverse's storage media and IT systems), this time looking at the outsized role that the lack of obstetric care plays in the collapse of the Old Republic and the rise of the Empire. (more…)

A crisp-voiced narrator gets deep into proper British tea making.

Ada Palmer -- novelist, singer, historian -- just dropped a 10,000 word essay on the nature of progress and historical change that has provided some of the most significant perspective on our own strange moment that I've yet to read -- and in so doing, has provided a set of mental tools for figuring out how to survive 2017 and beyond. (more…)

Jaireme Barrow was tired of thieves stealing his packages, so he made a decoy boom box to scare them away. He writes, "I rigged a box with a 12 Gauge shotgun "blank" to go off when someone attempts to steal it. So far it has proven to be VERY effective."https://youtu.be/2xBcOFX02EI

It is perhaps very telling that all of the review blurbs on the back cover of Andy Partridge and Todd Bernhardt's Complicated Game: Inside the Songs of XTC are written by fellow musicians and songwriters. Andy Partridge has always been a musician's musician.Complicated Game is a series of candid and detailed interviews with Andy Partridge about many of XTC's most well-known songs. Todd Bernhardt, the interviewer, is a fellow musician, XTC mega-fan, and friend of Andy's, so they don't shy away from discussing the nitty-gritty details of chord changes, instruments used, studio hacks, and other compositional and engineering minutia.In the chapter on "Senses Working Overtime," Andy explains how the whole song came about as he was fooling around on a new Martin guitar and he played a "messed-up E-flat." He thought it sounded very Medieval so he tried to find other chords that went with it (A-flat minor and D-flat). He says the rest of the song sort of composed itself from there. We also learn that "English Settlement" was their "new instruments record." The bandmembers had all just gotten new instruments (Andy, the Martin, Dave Gregory, a 12-string Richenbacker, Colin Moulding, a fretless bass) and they were excited to noodle around on them to see what they could do.There are many other interesting and fun revelations in the book. "This is Pop," from White Music, was Andy's way of rejecting the pigeonholing of the punk label, making sure that everyone was reminded that this is pop music, plain and simple, and that ain't a dirty word. About Wasp Star's "Church of Women," Partridge, being uncharacteristically boastful, claims that his guitar solo on that track "is as good as any Steely Dan guitar solo. There! I've said it now." In discussing the very early (1977) Be Bop Deluxe-inspired "Statue of Liberty," Andy reveals that the lyrics came to him while he was playing around with the "real Lou Reed kind of chord change" of C,G, A-minor, back to G. He looked up to see his then-girlfriend and future wife, Marianne, ironing. As she held the iron aloft in one hand, trying to untangle the cord, holding clothes in the other, her hair wild from having just washed it, she looked to Andy like some "weird, futuristic version of the Statue of Liberty." And the song was born. There are countless wonderful little gems like this throughout the book.Complicated Game also includes a walking tour of Swindon, Andy's hometown, and reproductions of original lyric sheets and some of Partridge's design sketches for album art. Jawbone Press has done a really admirable job in putting this collection together.For XTC fans, I cannot recommend Complicated Game game enough. My only criticism of it is that, given how wonderful the included song chapters are, I found myself wishing to read about some of my favorite songs that aren't included (the book features 30 songs). Bernhardt has actually conducted over 80 interviews with Partridge. You can read many more of them on the venerable XTC fansite, Chalkhills, on the Articles and Interviews page (search on the "Song of the Week" entries).

Bernie Sanders presented a large printout of a Trump tweet in the U.S. Senate, to remind that body that Trump is a dangerous moron. Remixes flooded the net, but what if you can't shoop? Bernie.gomix.me is here to save the day! Feed it a tweet ID and it will generate an image of Bernie presenting your tweet in the U.S. Senate. [via Anil Dash]

The Twitter account @gloed_up shared this historical meme:https://twitter.com/gloed_up/status/816713109029191684

Dan Nainan is a 35-year old who often speaks for the Millenials: he crops up in piece after piece as a secondary source, reinforcing whatever angle the story takes on this most endlessly fascinating of generations.Ben Collins writes, however, that he's actually a corporate-gig comedian in his mid-fifties. Moreover, the spokesmillenial thing isn't some clever, media-trolling prankery: Nainan insists he's 35, even as public records says otherwise. He obviously wouldn't pass for his claimed age--even his pro headshots are tell-tale--but seems to be doing quite well for himself as retirement age approaches. Which leaves the rather unsettling question: why?

Here's a fascinating story about advances in forensic anthropology based around a creepy case of an archaeologist who had several open coffins full of human remains in his home. He said they were all legally taken from ancient Guatemalan sites, but new forensics methods showed that some of the bones were pretty new and of different races than the archaeologist claimed. (more…)

YouTube user Margara Francis uploaded this delightful video of a bird enjoying the hell out of a moving sidewalk at the airport. In fact, the bird likes the trip so much, he flies back to take it all over again.[via The Laughing Squid]

Great article by Nick Bilton in Vanity Fair about the future of Twitter.