It might not be a huge surprise, in the big scheme of things, but Dell's return to private ownership brought focus to its laptop designs and it is seeing growth in places formerly filled only with doom.Mark Walton explains:

It's true! But if you really want a shot at winning, borrow as much as you can from your local payday loans office, and use the money to buy more tickets![via]

Say you've just scammed someone out of all their financial details using an online fraud, but now you need to call up their bank and impersonate them, and you don't speak their language, have the wrong accent, or are of a different gender -- what do you do? (more…)

Charlotte Heffelmire, 19, of Northern Virginia, lifted a GMC pickup truck off her father after a jack slipped and the vehicle fell on him while he was working on it in the garage. Charlotte is 5-foot-6, 120 pounds, and was barefoot."I felt the weight shift," remembered her father, Eric Heffelmire. "And I said, 'You almost got it,' and then it was just UGHHHHHHRRR, and suddenly I'm pulled out."The falling car sparked a fire beside propane containers. After Charlotte freed her dad, she quickly drove the truck out of the garage and sprayed the flames with a garden hose. Her grandmother and infant niece raced out of the home as it burned.According to NBC Washington, Charlotte "suffered burns to her feet and hands, and a back injury has kept her from returning to the Air Force Academy (where she was a student). She said her plans for the future include public service."There were no reports of a spike in Gamma radiation at the time of the event.

Netflix Secret Categories enables you to search by code for categories like "Spy Action & Adventure," "Campy Movies," "Teen Dramas," "Satanic Stories," and "Alien Sci-Fi."(via /r/InternetIsBeautiful)

The gold standard for researching the effects of diet on health is the self-reported food-diary, which is prone to lots of error, underreporting of "bad" food, and changes in diet that result from simply keeping track of what you're eating. The standard tool for correcting these errors comparisons with more self-reported tests. (more…)

Czech filmmaker Jan Å vankmajer's Tma/Svetlo/Tma ("Darkness Light Darkness"), a stunningly surreal stop-motion animation from 1989.(Thanks, UPSO!)

At the dawn of the 19th century, naturalist Alexander von Humboldt invented the "thematic map," pioneering infographics through the likes of maps annotated with zoological life, temperature, elevations, and other data meant to present an area's "physical phenomena into one image," according to this profile on Atlas Obscura.Above, "a plate from Atlas of Alexander von Humboldt's Kosmos, illustrating the composition of the Earth's crust via color-coding."Below, "a snowflake of clocks illustrates world time zones, with Dresden at the center. "

"The stars look very different today." I've written, on several occasions, though most revealingly here, about glam's desperate importance to those of us marooned in the beige, tract-home nightmare of '70s suburbia.(more…)

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The NSA's Crypto Cat and her friends are a set of trademark-registered kids' characters who have appeared for more than a decade in promotional materials like coloring books that the NSA uses it to encourage kids to grow up to be spies. (more…)

In November of 2014, my crime thriller Cracked was published by Titan Books. Its protagonist is a crack-addicted former fighter and personal trainer, Danielle “Danny” Cleary.Soon after I signed the publishing contract for this series – it will be a trilogy – I realized with a kind of sinking, sickening clarity, that I might be asked about the drug use in the book. While Cracked isn’t about, uh, crack per se, I knew that having an addict for a heroine was going to raise some eyebrows. The drug use, like some of the violence in the book, is precise and detailed.Barbra Leslie's Cracked is available from Amazon.Now, I’ve never been a fighter (although I do like to punch things). But the drug use? Yeah, I didn’t have to make that part up. Ten years ago, after a painful split from my then-husband, I tossed my middle-class, respectable life out the window and dove head-first into a world of dive bars, cocaine and finally, after falling for a guy whose addiction beat mine by many years and orders of magnitude, crack. (This was very out of character for me: I’m one of those people who can’t smoke weed without feeling nauseous, and never had a second’s interest in any hallucinogen or opiate, though à chacun son goût, and all that.) I was able to stop. I’ve been drug-free for about seven years now.Despite all this – and my bookworm English degree, and a life filled with reading nearly everything I could get my hands on – I was never attracted to books about drugs, or written by addicts. I hadn’t really thought about why until now, but my prejudices were along these lines:• Drug books are all like David Cronenberg’s film version of William Burrough’s Naked Lunch: trippy, self-indulgent and hallucinogenic, the equivalent of listening to someone’s bizarre dream, on and on and on, ad nauseum. Literally.• Drug books are written by, for and about men: Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m a feminist, but when it comes to good writing, my politics tend to cede to my love of the work. (I wouldn’t have wanted to hang out with Norman Mailer, for example, but I love some of his writing.) But while I am assured that Burroughs and Hubert Selby, Jr. are brilliant writers, I was never interested in reading their work, as I saw them as drug writers. Also, see ‘trippy and self-indulgent,’ above.• Drug books celebrate and romanticize stupidly bad behaviour: The shenanigans of Hunter S. Thompson and his cronies are boring to me. Am I glad that people like him are (were, in his case, obviously) out there creating a bit of havoc, and that the world isn’t full of suits and nine-to-fivers? Sure. But it doesn’t mean I want to read about their bad-boy exploits. See first two points, above.• Alcohol abuse is the only suitable addictive behaviour in detective fiction.So, in brief, five books in which drugs and drug use spit in the face of the clichés I’ve avoided:Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, 2003The benchmark by which narrative non-fiction should be judged, LeBlanc spent ten years with her subjects, a loose-knit community of in the South Bronx. One of the key players was a notorious and prominent dealer, and many of the people around him were incarcerated as a result of the trials. Random Family shows the true nature and cost of drug trafficking, dealing and using, on real people and their families.More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction by Elizabeth Wurtzel, 2003Love her or hate her, Wurtzel knows her stuff. Intimately. In the months and years after I stopped using, I found myself reading a lot of drug memoirs, both for the ‘thank God I’m not there anymore’ and for a visceral bump of what I was really craving.Wurtzel’s memoir of her addiction is gripping, compelling and the most realistic portrayal of addiction I’ve ever read. She doesn’t demonize or romanticize what she did. She behaved badly, but she had the insight, intelligence and wit to write honestly about it.Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead (2011), Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway (2013) by Sara GranSara Gran’s private investigator Claire DeWitt uses anything and everything to help her solve her cases -- including cocaine and painkillers; she’s the anti-Marple. These books are absolute treasures, brilliantly written, unique, set in a world we both recognize and don’t. The character’s drug use is seamless and natural and, oddly, has a purpose, apart from just getting high. I couldn’t pick which one of these was better, and they both deserve a spot.Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney, 1984It’s really a cliché in itself now, the whiny, self-absorbed, rich-boy cokehead, going from one Manhattan hotspot to another, snorting lines off the backs of toilet tanks and keys. But when I read this a few years after it came out, as a young woman, the only drug books I knew about were about heroin and LSD trips. (Even then, I knew the only drug I would ever want to do would be one that would make me stay up for days; no nodding-out for this girl.) Many imitators would follow, but BLBC was the torchbearer of the 80s coke novel.Barbra Leslie studied film and theatre at York University, then English at the University of Toronto. She has previously published a novel, Nerve, and a screenplay for straightedge films. She’s been a marketing manager for a major Bay Street law firm, criminal law issues officer for a government ministry, and traveled extensively around the world.

"I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't be boring.-- David Bowie David Bowie died today after an 18 month battle with cancer. The pioneering musician and artist had celebrated his 69th birthday on Friday with the release of his new album, Blackstar. Damn, I'm going to miss him. We all are.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYYRH4apXDohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDoW1vFLJp4https://youtu.be/A8u8mODGOlghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2HWuR2mq5Mhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kszLwBaC4Sw

Ever since Keynes's seminal 1930 paper Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren predicted that technological progress would virtually eliminate work by making labor much more productive, economists have puzzled over why Americans' working hours have gotten longer and longer, until they are some of the longest in the world. (more…)

He's the creation of Firebeard, and is available on a solid-blue tee through Neatorama.

For a long time, kids' imaginary friends were a cause for concern: Dr Spock recommended taking kids to "a child psychiatrist, child psychologist or other mental-health counsellor" to figure out what kids with imaginary friends were "lacking;" while Jean Piaget saw imaginary friends as a sign of failure, not of an active imagination, because "The child has no imagination, and what we ascribe to him as such is no more than a lack of coherence." (more…)

On Monday Whitesboro, NY citizens will head to the polls to determine the fate of their racist town seal. The logo, which used to depict a white man in a coonskin cap throttling a native american about the throat, was modified to place the hands of the cracker on the native's shoulders. Whitesboro's mayor feels this is a symbol of camaraderie.

MSNBC caught up with Ben "and Jerry's" Cohen outside a rally for Donald Trump in Burlington, VT, home state to Ben and Jerry's and headquarters for the Bernie Sanders campaign. (more…)

Remember the Hong Kong-based crapgadgeteer Vtech, who breached 6.3 million kids' data from a database whose security was jaw-droppingly poor (no salted hashes, no code-injection countermeasures, no SSL), who then lied and stalled after they were outed? They want to make home security devices that will know everything you say and do in your house. (more…)

It's not just Rep Pete Hoekstra [R-MI] who switched sides in the surveillance debate when he discovered that his beloved NSA had been spying on him -- a whole raft of Congressional NSA cheerleaders have followed the path that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the entire UK Parliament blazed when they learned that, as far as spies were concerned, no one was exempt. (more…)

The idea that global politics are a terrifying blend of natural disasters, belligerence, and deadly military potential isn't unique to this decade, but holy fuck, did it ever just get weird. (more…)

The domestic terrorists occupying the Malheur National Widlife Refuge Building near Burns, Oregon justify their actions with a highly selective -- and largely fabricated -- history of the federal lands they've seized. The truth is a lot sleazier. (more…)

Ditch the bells and whistles and take a classic approach to everyone’s essential accessory. This 100% leather wallet holds your cash and cards, and slips easily into your pocket without even a bulge.

An unintentional oversight in a new Texas law, enabling open-carry advocates to make the world even more dangerous, has opened up Texas state run psychiatric hospitals to guns. Formerly even law enforcement officers would lock up their guns before entering, now everyone is free to defend themselves.This from the Austin American-Statesman:

Shahan's clever and well-edited video interprets' Obi-Wan Kenobi's evasive memories of Prequel Trilogy events in a touching, favorable light.I differ, sadly, so we made the video reply above. With respect to the anonymous authors of the memes, wherever you are.

Can't wait for Season 2 of AMC TV's 'Better Call Saul,' the offshoot of the Breaking Bad multiverse in which our protagonist is the beloved underdog scumbag lawyer played so perfectly by Bob Odenkirk. This is my absolute favorite show right now. Don't fuck it up this season, guys, Season One was perfect perfect perfect perfect and this S2 trailer is too.Better Call Saul Season 2 returns Feb. 15 to AMC.https://youtu.be/uaqFXLTMwTs

My problem with mechanical pencils is that I break the lead tips constantly. I'm not the only one who dislikes mechanical pencils for this reason. In the past, mechanical pencil makers have tried to solve this problem by creating lead formulations that resist snapping, but these kinds of "unbreakable" lead have a plastic feel that's unappealing.Last year Zebra, a Japanese company, introduced a new $6 mechanical pencil with a dual-spring tip that allows the lead to flex under pressure without breaking. In the video below, someone presses a mechanical pencil against a scale and the tip breaks when the scale gets to 1kg. Then they use a Zebra DelGuard pencil and the lead doesn't break until the scale gets to 5kg. https://youtu.be/yLPKEuyBpCU

Lemmy Kilmister of Mötorhead may have been known for his hard drinking, but he'll be forever remembered in an ad for a different beverage. Milk.Just weeks before he died at age 70 from cancer, he shot a TV ad for the Finnish dairy products company Valio. After the rocker's death, Valio ran some of Lemmy's unscripted, improvised material -- which wasn't even part of the ad! -- as a tribute to the heavy metal icon.(more…)

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Via Little Steven's Underground Garage

https://youtu.be/WaawXXqXExoThe Computer Show is set up to look like a cheap cable access technology show from 1983, complete with horrible licensed music. In this episode, the guests are my friend Jesse Genet and her colleague Stephan Ango, founders of Lumi. The hosts of the show pretend they don't understand technology developed after 1983.

This emergency multi-tool has made its way into my camping pack. For less than $3 delivered, what looks like a Spork has been modified to act as a wrench, for several metric nut sizes, screwdriver, and bottle opener. You can, and I have, also use the screwdriver for prying stuff, and the larger central finger hole can accept a rod for leverage.The nut sizes are 10mm, 8mm and 6mm. For fans of BMW Airheads, this comes in handy!Colombia River's Eat N Tool via Amazon

Медведь играет с человеком ("Bear Plays with a Man"). Indeed. (YouTube)

Maine Gov. Paul LePage insists he wasn't being racist when he claimed heroin dealers with names like "D-Money" come to his state and "impregnate a young white girl before they leave."Here's the full quote from his town hall event on Thursday.

This in via Tech Crunch, so take it with a grain of salt, but it appears proto-Dalek's are going to be patrolling our malls.I wonder if Knightscope's parent company is Wilton Knight's Knight Industries?

The government of South Korea is playing loudly amplified anti-North Korea propaganda along the North Korean border today. The sonic assault combines K-Pop music with throwing shade at the North’s nuclear program and its leader Kim Jong Un. North Korea considers the broadcasts to be an act of war.(more…)

Rose Eveleth presents us a history of patented menstrual devices from 1928 on, from cellular tampons that message you when they need changing to a "Nether garment for and method of controlling crotch odors." (more…)

Disgraced comedian Bill Cosby now faces criminal charges over sexual assault allegations, but despite a lifetime of reported abuse and his admission of drugging women, the man still has his defenders.

Scott Slater, a former water lawyer, is the CEO of Cadiz, Inc, a hedge-fund-backed company that's purchased the water rights for 45,000 acres of the Mojave on Route 66, 75 miles northeast of Palm Springs. He wants to pump 814 million gallons of ancient water out of the desert and send it to drought-stricken southern California, where he can soak the thirsty millions for $2.4 billion. (more…)

Heidi Whitehead of Denver is asking for help in identifying the gentleman in this photo. He is in possession of a cell phone that Whitehead's son lost. The phone has an Android app called CM Locker that takes a photo when an incorrect password is entered on a phone, and emails the photo to the phone's owner.From KDVR:

https://youtu.be/67kP_Oh_T50“Super cute. Deer frolicking in a puddle.”(more…)

https://youtu.be/IZeGW61-zQgFolks, don't try this with the gigantic bear you have at home.(more…)

Yasuo Amano, a Tenyo collector, author of the Japanese blog Hey Presto, and all around creative guy recently bought a package of what is known in Japan as “Fan Shaped Sausage.” It appears to be a cross between salami, baloney, or perhaps a luncheon meat as yet undefined.He took out a few slices, put them on a plate, and saw something that no one else in Japan noticed, which is pretty impressive considering its population of almost 200 million people. Said slabs of meat can be used to do a well-known magic trick (or, more rightly, the optical illusion shown above). But it all looks so innocent on the plate.Discovered by Joseph Jastrow in 1889, magicians have been performing this for years and calling them “Magic Boomerangs.” Two pieces of identical size and shape, when placed one below the other, produce the uncanny illusion that one is larger and the other smaller. Take another look up at the lead photo: that ain’t no baloney! Both pieces are exactly the same size.The question of why it looks so amazing can be answered by the first magic set produced in Germany after World War II, in which I discovered said boomerang trick with props that were short and very squat. This produces a much stronger illusion that what magicians have been futzing around with for years.If you want to do magic tricks with your canapés, then you may attempt to order the “Fan-Shaped Sausage” from its manufacturer.As an added bonus, since we’re still on Yamano’s fascination with making magic tricks out of edibles, take a look at this video, in which he manages something miraculous with a French fry and the Tenyo trick “Zig Zag Cig” invented by Hiroshi Kondo decades ago. If you are a habitué at your local McDonald’s, and buy a “Zig Zag Cig” on eBay, you’ll find this to be lots of fun and fool the customers.https://youtu.be/WJb8pBg8Xh8

The annual Consumer Electronics Show is under way in Las Vegas, and we're enjoying the sights and sounds at a distance. Vegas during CES is a lot to handle. Here are 10 images from Reuters photographers that capture some of the more interesting displays over the first few days of the tech showcase.[caption id="attachment_442607" align="aligncenter" width="2000"] The Faraday Future FFZERO1 electric concept car is unveiled. REUTERS[/caption][caption id="attachment_442603" align="aligncenter" width="2000"] An Allie Go, a 360-degree action cam, by IC Real Tech is shown on a helmet. The $599.00 camera uses two sensors with over 180 degree-coverage each and combines the video in the unit using Qualcomm processors. REUTERS[/caption][caption id="attachment_442604" align="aligncenter" width="2000"] A 3D printer for consumers capable of creating multicolor objects. REUTERS[/caption][caption id="attachment_442605" align="aligncenter" width="2000"] A Canhe-Fit pendant for pets is displayed on a toy dog. The fitness tracker monitors your pet's activity level, then an App gives nutritional advice depending on the breed, age and weight of the pet. REUTERS[/caption][caption id="attachment_442606" align="aligncenter" width="2000"] Representatives from the French company Parrot demonstrate a prototype of their new Disco drone at the opening event at CES 2016. The Disco is the first wing-shaped drone which a user can pilot with no learning process, according to the company. REUTERS[/caption][caption id="attachment_442609" align="aligncenter" width="2000"] A smartphone receives real-time information on air quality from an Airmega air purifier from Coway. The WiFi-enabled, smart air purifiers from South Korea range in price from $749.00-$849.00 depending on the size. REUTERS[/caption][caption id="attachment_442610" align="aligncenter" width="2000"] Eric Yu of Royole models the company's foldable Smart Mobile Theater system. The $700.00 system has noise-canceling headphones and a viewing system that is vision correctable so you don't need to wear your glasses, Yu said. REUTERS[/caption][caption id="attachment_442611" align="aligncenter" width="1500"] An aroma module is inserted into a Sensorwake alarm clock. The $109 olfactory alarm clock releases the scents at the programmed time but will also sound an auditory alarm if you don't wake up after three minutes. REUTERS[/caption][caption id="attachment_442612" align="aligncenter" width="2000"] Satoshi Yanagisawa of Japan displays the Orbitrec, a connected 3D printed bicycle by Cerevo, during "CES Unveiled," a preview event of the 2016 International CES trade show, in Las Vegas, Nevada January 4, 2016. The bicycle features 3D printed titanium joints, carbon fiber tubes and a built in sensor module that sends a variety of information to a smartphone. REUTERS[/caption]

An independent civilian appointed by New York's mayor will monitor counterterrorism activities of the New York Police Department, the New York Times reports that lawyers said in court documents Thursday. The news comes as those lawyers attempt to settle two lawsuits about the NYPD's surveillance of Muslims after 9/11.(more…)

Aukey makes smartphone cables, chargers, battery packs, etc. I've tried quite a few things made by Aukey (some were sent for review and others I bought) and have always been happy with the quality. The bluetooth sports headphones made by Aukey are no exception (I bought them). The run about 4 hours on a charge and sound fine for my purposes (90% podcasts and audiobooks, 10% music). Most importantly, they are comfortable, unlike so many earphones I have tried. They are regularly $25, but you can get them for a limited time with the coupon code: 2CHBUTGF.

The new trailer for High-Rise, director Ben Wheatley's film based on the 1975 novel by one of my all-time favorite writers JG Ballard, looks absolutely fantastic. And dig the use of Tangerine Dream's track "Love on a Real Train" (famously first heard in Risky Business)! I can't wait to see this.

We've posted previously about Steve Erenbgerg (Radio Guy)'s online collection of wonderful and strange antique scientific instruments, medical devices, anatomical models, and, of course, radios. SciFri took a video tour, above, of Erenberg's delightful real world cabinet of curiosities!"Things of Beauty: Scientific Instruments of Yore" (YouTube)