My wife's a dive master. When she's working, it's her job to take the divers in her charge under the water and, safely, show them what's worth seeing while they're down there. It's all fish, rays and the occasional shark. I don't recall her ever mentioning fictional mass murderers, but that might be because she's never gone diving in Minnesota.Back in 2013, some genius had the idea to to plant a statue of Jason Voorhees under 120 feet of water at the bottom of a lake in Minnesota. A diver by the name of Curtis Lahr was good enough to take some video of it. Lahr's video is pretty short, but it's long enough to give you a feeling of how surprising/shitty it would be to find the statue waiting for you under so much dark water.

We don't hear as much about ISIS as we used to, but the fight against their particular brand on evil is still being waged.In Syria, for example, a Kurdish militia group called YPG is still waging war on the terrorist group. The YPG is composed of volunteers, drawn largely from areas around and in Syria, but also from countries as far away as the United States. As the militia is currently backed by the United States, it's not a crime for American citizens to find their way to groups like the YPG, get trained up and then deploy to the front lines. Caleb Stevens, a 23 year old from Illinois, felt that he wanted to make a direct impact in the world by standing against those who would do harm to unarmed civilians. After talking to YPG representatives online, he made his way overseas and boned up on the use of Soviet-era small arms before heading to the front lines with his unit in Syria. Caleb took the fight to ISIS, fending them off from civilians for months before he was shot in the calf, bringing his war, at least for the time being, to an end.In the wake of being wounded, he sought out treatment, first at hospitals in Syria, Baghdad and Jordan, before walking into a hospital emergency room in Chicago to be properly patched up.It's one hell of a story, it's covered, in detail, over at the Chicago Tribune.Image: Nûçe Ciwan - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5jA7EiXQsc, CC BY 3.0, Link

Think Progress reports that billionaire Carl Icahn, one of Trump's BFFs, sold 1 million shares of Manitowoc Company Inc. right before Trump announced his tariffs on foreign steel. After the announcement, shares in shares in Manitowoc dropped 6 percent.From NY Mag:

A regular on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Donny Deutsch, who says he was close friends with Trump for 20 years, tells Joe Scarborough, "You felt something shift this week. You really felt the noose tightening."He goes on to say that he is now "truly terrified of what he [Trump] is capable of doing – nothing short of starting a war to protect his hide...What is this man, cornered, dangerous, unhinged now – a very different man than he was 20 years ago – what is he capable of doing?" Deutsch also refers to Trump as twisted, evil and cruel.He admits that he and Trump were as close of friends as friends can be, however, even then he would never have wanted to be in a foxhole with him, but "I always kind of felt like he was in on the joke." Looks like the joke's on us.

The guest this week on my Cool Tools show is Madeline Ashby. Madeline is a science fiction writer and futurist living in Toronto. Her most recent novel, Company Town, was a finalist for the 2017 CBC Books Canada Reads prize. She has also developed science fiction prototypes for the Institute for the Future, SciFutures, Data & Society, Nesta, the Atlantic Council, NASA, and others. (We have hired professional editors to help create our weekly podcasts and video reviews. So far, Cool Tools listeners have pledged $365 a month. Please consider supporting us on Patreon. We have great rewards for people who contribute!)Subscribe to the Cool Tools Show on iTunes | RSS | Transcript | Download MP3 | See all the Cool Tools Show posts on a single pageShow notes:Clarisonic Mia ($169)"The Clarisonic is a device that uses the same technology as something like a Sonicare toothbrush … and other sort of ultra sonic cleaning devices to wash your face. It's a device that has a brush on one end of it and basically vibrates across your face at a certain frequency and vibrates the bristles on a brush head to exfoliate your face, and it works like a dream. And I've owned one for about four years now, and it has yet to die, which I suppose I'm jinxing myself. But all of those four years have been wonderful. ... I bought it when I turned 30 as a gift to myself because I wanted to actually start taking my skin seriously, for once. And I've found that, much like a Sonicare Toothbrush, which I also have, having the device forced me to be more mindful about what I was doing and encouraged me in a good habit, which was washing my face in the morning and at night. The logic behind the Clarisonic is that, because you've exfoliated with this device, anything you put on your skin like serums, or sunscreen, or anything like that, will actually go deeper into your skin. I don't know about the actual science of that, but I do think that anything that actually helps you wash your face is probably good for you in the long term."Women’s Girl on the Go Insulated Trench Coat ($140)“This is the coat from Eddie Bauer that I recommend to everyone. The Girl on the Go Insulated Trench Coat is fully waterproof and has a button-in insulated lining that you can take in or take out. So you can wear it, and I wore mine all over the world. I've worn it in Toronto, in New York. It got me through a New York rainstorm. I wore it at the Gullfoss in Iceland. I've worn it through Scotland. It's really perfect for days where you don't quite know what's gonna happen weather-wise. The lining is sort of thin enough that it's pretty packable, and the coat itself is very light and easy to wear. And crucially, it comes in petite, tall, and plus sizes in a bunch of different colors. So, everyone can have one. It's one of the things that I love and I carry with me everywhere.”Travelon Set of 7 Packing Envelopes ($14)"I use the Travelon Clear Packing Envelopes both for packing, both for travel, and for just everything in my house. There are clear packing envelopes all over my bedroom. I have a couple I carry with me in various bags that I might be using. I'm a big bag full of bags person 'cause it allows me to change bags really easily. It's like "Oh, this is the cosmetics bag. It goes in here. This is the bag full of cables and dongles. It goes here. This is the bag that's full of stickies, and stationary, and pens, and it goes here. And do I need the pens bag today? Yes. Do I need the cosmetics bag today? Yes, or no. And the clear packing envelopes really help with that, in that they can get you through security a bit faster and help you find stuff more quickly.”Hamilton Beach Set 'n Forget Programmable Slow Cooker With Temperature Probe ($37)"The slow cooker that we have at home is the Set and Forget Slow Cooker with a built-in meat thermometer. And in the era of the Instant Pot, I recognize it's probably passé to recommend a slower cooker, but I really like the meat thermometer function that it has because it means you can program the device to bring a piece of meat to temperature and it immediately just kicks off into the warming mode after. So, one of the problems that is endemic to slow cookers, or has been endemic to slow cookers, is that they overcook things. And this prevents you from doing that and works really well."Also mentioned:Company Town"Company Town is the story of Go Jung-Hwa. She's a bodyguard for the United Sex Workers of Canada Union Local 314, on a city that floats around an oil rig, 500 kilometers Northeast of Saint John's Newfoundland. And she is working for the Sex Worker's Union when a new company buys the entire town and instantiates themselves as the new owners. They buy the entire city of New Arcadia, and they ask her to be the bodyguard for the heir to the throne, the heir to the company, a boy named Joel Lynch, who will one day inherit the company and who appears to be getting death threats from the future.”

A typical day over the skies of Russia:"While on the plane, I watched for twenty minutes as a woman dried underwear over a fan of an airplane. None of the passengers made any remarks. The stewardesses laughed."

The New York Times has an article that shows the steps required to buy a gun in 15 different countries. There's actually one country on the list where it's easier to buy a gun than it is in the USA -- Yemen.

This dad finds his son's weed, presumably while doing the laundry, and flushes it down the toilet. Reacting to a child's "wrongdoing" by posting the repercussions online isn't new, but it's such a strange strategy that some parents use to either teach or punish their child (not sure which)."He's making Daddy problems right now. Don't let me find your shit in my house, or this is going to happen," the dad says. I guess the boy should just carry his weed on his person at all times, which could get him in a lot more trouble.The hilarious part is that after the dad flushes, a chunk of weed pops back up. The dad is persistent, flushing again and again, but that little green ball of herb is just as persistent – symbolic, perhaps, of how well this dad's video is going to be received by his son.

REI, which operates a chain of 154 recreational equipment stores in 36 states stores, has stopped ordering products made by Savage Arms, which manufactures assault-style rifles, along with CamelBak water bottles, Camp Chef portable grills, and Giro helmets.From Think Progress:

Earlier this month, I was lucky enough to get my hands on a Pocket Sprite – a $55 piece of game emulation hardware that fits in the palm of your hand. Measuring just an inch wide and two inches tall, the Pocket Sprite looks like the smallest Game Boy you've ever seen. It plays like it too, with A, B, start and selection buttons and a wee display with dimension sized to make playing games from the 1980s and 1990s in their original format feel "right."Out of the box, the Pocket Sprite can play homebrew games designed to work with Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Sega console emulators. Before you ask, yes, this also means that any Game Boy or Sega ROMs you happen to find online will work with the hardware.Before laying hands on it, I was apprehensive about how playable the Pocket Sprite might be. I still carry around a Game Boy Micro console with me, everywhere I go. I find that it's juuuuust small enough to pocket and still large enough that playing Super Mario World for 30 minutes can actually be enjoyable. The Pocket Sprite's way smaller than my GB Micro is. I was surprised by how easy its chunky controls were to use. But I was disappointed by how hard it was to keep track of a game's action on its display. For my eyes, it's just too small. But maybe your experience will be different.Whether or not the Game Sprite is worth $55 really depends on why you're buying it. If you're looking for a device that'll let you revel for hours at a time in the game play that you grew up with, then no – I think it's too small to allow for more than a few minutes of enjoyable game play at a time. On the other hand, if you're interested in it as a curiosity or a toy to hack and tinker with, then it'll likely be a fun purchase for you.Image via Seamus Bellamy

Artist Stephi Lee open up about her childhood selective mutism, where she would only talk to her mom and her best friend. It's cool to see that it got resolved. (more…)

Fans of the Broadway musical Hamilton have been all in a tizzy because "Weird Al" Yankovic worked with Lin-Manuel Miranda on the latest "Hamildrop." It's a squeezebox ditty called "The Hamilton Polka" and it's described as "remixed medley of ‘Hamilton’ hits, featuring Weird Al’s twist on songs like ‘My Shot,’ ‘Wait For It,’ ‘The Schuyler Sisters,’ and more."

We lead busy lives, and while it would be nice to decompress when things get too hectic, our schedules often have different plans for us. The Twisty Glass Mini helps by letting you sneak in a smoke at a moment's notice, and it's on sale for $39.99 in the Boing Boing Store.https://www.youtube.com/embed/wha5uThyAuMEngineered to hold 0.5 grams and deliver a slow, enjoyable burn via the 50% smaller cherry, the Twisty Glass Mini is ideal for squeezing in a smoke on the move. To operate, you just pack the tube, twist the screw, and light the end. It's crafted with five chambers for a smoother hit, and it's water pipe compatible, letting you increase the intensity as you see fit. Plus, the Twisty Glass Mini also includes an exclusive storage case for safer transport on the go.Now, you can get the Twisty Glass Mini on sale for $39.99 in the Boing Boing Store.

Plotters with precision cutters certainly make glass etching easier that making stencils by hand, but it's still very labor intensive. (more…)

The track is "Truth," by Lord Over, and the nightmarish AI video is the work of Artificial Nature. There's even a technical paper describing the techniques used: USING CONDITIONAL ADVERSARIAL NETWORKS TO CREATE A DIGITAL MASK. The man being cut up by computer is Fred Leuchter, I think, the death-chamber designer and holocaust denier.More:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exQfCzmwtSwhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtefKrfDDTc

Tasty teamed up with award-winning sci-fi novelist and Black Panther comics writer Nnedi Okorafor (Black Panther: Long Live the King) to imagine what a signature dish from the fictional African nation Wakanda might be like. Of course, M’Baku would have to make a vegetarian version for himself.

It's pretty cool to watch a 3-millimeter thick sheet of birch transform into a bowl that's laser cut as one long wooden spiral. (more…)

Here’s some unsolicited advice: Try avoiding unsolicited advice! At least that’s the recommendation of Anna Akana, who realized she would too often respond to her friends’ emotional woes by making suggestions about what they should do. After spotting this pattern, Akana decided to change her conversational style and found that her friendships dramatically improved. Now instead of offering advice, Akana just tries to be a supportive sounding board by saying things like, “How does that make you feel?”, “Wow, that sounds really hard, how are you handling it?”, and “I totally understand why you’re upset. What do you think you’re going to do?” You can watch Akana explain her new friendship philosophy right here:https://youtu.be/9bAiXJoNdy0

When it comes to artists producing smart, genre-hopping comedy, one of my favorite up-and-coming groups is Shipwrecked Comedy. Shipwrecked previously produced the delightful literary comedy series Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party, and the group’s latest project is a film noir parody/homage called The Case Of The Gilded Lily. Written by and starring brother/sister duo Sean and Sinead Persaud, the short film follows hardboiled private eye Ford Phillips and fast-talking junior reporter Fig Wineshine as they become embroiled in a case involving a Hollywood starlet. You can watch the full short film right here:https://youtu.be/UqVPzqI9k-YThe Case Of The Gilded Lily is a funny, lovingly made treat for film noir fans. Shipwrecked also released a behind-the-scenes video about the film’s development and production:https://youtu.be/xeTHaS5E0NoYou can watch more on Shipwrecked’s YouTube channel.

Mixing '80s heavy metal hair band RATT with Motown artist Marvin Gaye just shouldn't work, but somehow it does. This mashup by YouTuber Bill McClintock is called "I Heard it Round and Round the Grapevine" and sets Gaye's 1968 soul classic "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" with the hard-rocking track from RATT's 1984 single "Round and Round." It works, I'm telling you.In case you forgot, here's what the two songs sound like separately (I nearly forget RATT's music video starred Milton Berle):https://youtu.be/0u8teXR8VE4https://youtu.be/oi8SFvd4IwoThanks, Soap Plant!

Mary Lou Jepsen was finishing her PhD work in holography at Brown University when she started getting sick. Really sick. After a year of steady decline, she was living in a wheel chair and covered in sores. When she could no longer do simple subtraction in her head, she called it quits. She basically went home to die.That was when a generous professor sprung for an MRI. It revealed a brain tumor – one which had probably afflicted her more subtly since childhood. Shortly after a successful operation, she was firing on all cylinders. Within six months, she completed her Ph.D. and cofounded her first startup. She has since started two more companies; worked in the top engineering echelons of Intel, Google, and Facebook; served briefly as a professor at MIT; and cofounded the One Laptop Per Child initiative.Impelled by her searing personal experience, Mary Lou is now honing a technology which, she believes, will revolutionize high-end medical imaging. Accessing this is problematic enough in the US, with its 50 MRI machines per million people. But there are just two machines per million Mexicans, and poorer countries may have just one system in the capital city – if that. And with scans averaging about $2,700, even lavishly-insured Americans might be inadequately monitored. MRIs are more effective than mammograms at detecting certain types of breast cancer, for instance. But expense precludes their use as frontline diagnostics.Mary Lou believes her technology will be 99.9% cheaper than MRIs (that’s an actual estimate, not a euphemism); radically smaller (the size of a ski cap, not a bedroom); and that its resolution will exceed that of MRIs by a factor of a billion. Yes, that’s an actual “b,” not a typo. And the really cool thing? Her creation might also enable telepathy.If your mind rebels at the scale of these claims, reread Mary Lou’s credentials, then give my interview with her a listen. You can hear it by searching “After On” in your favorite podcast app, or by clicking right here:

Years ago, big tech companies stumbled on a brilliant scheme for collecting data on web-users: they started providing incredibly useful free Javascript libraries to web publishers: whenever a web publisher embedded one of these libraries, it would serve as a tracking beacon for everyone who visited that publisher's site, all without having to get into the messy business of even serving ads. (more…)

The amazing sex-toy review webcomic Oh Joy Sex Toy (previously) enlivens its weekly toons with sex advice and education; they've just announced that their next collection will be Drawn to Sex, the first in a new series of books "for those looking to learn about sex and wince at our bad dad jokes." There'll be a kickstarter soon!

“Oprah Answers Everything!” screams the cover of People magazine, which seems a slight exaggeration since she doesn’t explain why my heating system only breaks down on the coldest days of the year, or why Easter Islanders erected the Moai statues.But the article answers about as much as any story does in this week’s fact-challenged tabloids.“This is Harry’s Real Dad!” proclaims the cover of the National Enquirer, revealing that former Guards officer Mark Dyer is Prince Harry’s biological father. This comes from the same publication that has been telling us for several years that former cavalry officer James Hewitt is "Harry’s Real Father,” as it did on August 12, 2016. As evidence for Dyer’s paternity, the Enquirer cites the fact that both are red-heads. By that logic, Lucille Ball must be Harry’s biological mother.There’s as little sense in the Globe cover story: “FBI Raids Scientology Celebrity Center!” Alongside photos of Tom Cruise and John Travolta it adds: “Darkest secrets of Hollywood’s top megastars exposed!” You have to read almost to the end of the two-page exposé to learn that the FBI raid that seized 20,000 documents occurred in 1977 – years before Cruise, Travolta, Will Smith or Kirstie Alley joined the self-professed Church, so their darkest secrets are unlikely to be exposed just yet.Cruise also appears in this week’s Enquirer in a story claiming that the Hollywood action hero has been seeking sex tips from British porn-star-turned-sex-guru Marcus London, who terms himself a “vagician” for his ability to pleasure women. The story, which lacks any evidence or verifiable detail, claims that “Tom could use some serious pointers,” presumably because being a handsome, wealthy movie star makes it hard to impress a woman.And then there are the stories which seem to have been created just for the hell of it: Angelina Jolie is in therapy because ex-husband Brad Pitt is back with his ex Jennifer Aniston, claims the Enquirer, putting together a string of wouldn’t-it-be-fun-if-this-happened events, while the National Examiner cover story tells us that Prince Charles’ wife “Camilla Put In Mental Ward!” Well, you can’t argue with the facts, even if the entire Royal British press corps managed to miss this story.The Enquirer, always overly generous with its “Exclusive” tags, this week brings us an “Enquirer Exclusive” reporting that “Two-Timer" Ewan McGregor has been “Dumped By Mistress!” It would have been a better exclusive if the identical story hadn’t appeared a week earlier in the Star magazine.People mag brings us an “Exclusive” on the “Most shocking Bachelor finale ever!” about the upcoming episode in which TV's Bachelor star Arie Luyendyk does something so egregious that it “promises to be truly, seriously, the most dramatic final rose ceremony ever” – but for the sake of its delicate readers, won’t say what it is that he does.Us mag has no such concern, revealing in its cover story that – spoiler alert – Luyendyk proposes marriage to one woman, only to change his mind and dump her to pursue the runner-up he had rejected. But it also leaves readers in suspense by not revealing which of the two women gets engaged then dumped, and which one ends up with the man with the personality of a low-salt rice cake.Fortunately we have the crack investigative team at Us mag to tell us that Malin Akerman wore it best, that Vanna White has "worn more than 6,700 dresses – never the same one twice,” that Constance Zimmer carries sunglasses, lipstick and gum in her Clare V tote, and that the stars are just like us: they drink coffee, buy groceries, and put gas in their cars. We see these identical shots so often, I suspect there must be paparazzi who do nothing but hang out at grocery stores and gas stations in Malibu and Beverly Hills.Leave it to the Examiner to tell us that cats have “psychic powers” to “predict bad weather and good fortune – and communicate with spirits!” I expect there must be several cats on the reporting staffs of the tabloids – that would explain their uncanny accuracy.Onwards and downwards . . .

A couple in Phoenix, AZ were allegedly shoplifting from a gas station and made a run for it when the police arrived. But they didn't get very far.They ran alongside a nearby building and hopped the fence, only to land smack dab in the middle of the Peoria Police Department's secured lot. Apparently in their haste they didn't read the large “Peoria Police” sign on their way.When cornered, 29-year-old Salma Hourieh thought it wise to hide under a bench with a security camera pointing right at her. 28-year-old Marwan Al Ebadi, on the other hand, thought he should hop back over the fence where the police had been following them. He was arrested upon landing. They couldn't have made the officers' jobs any easier, and both now face charges of shoplifting and trespassing, as well as drug charges.Moral of the story: If you're going to do something as stupid as shoplifting, don't do it right next to a police station. Duh.Via AP News

When the "Check Engine" light turns on, you usually have to take it to a mechanic so they can diagnose the problem and reset the light. Sometimes the problem is as simple as forgetting to screw your gas cap tightly enough. Other times the problem is a not a problem but a glitch and the light stays on anyway. Instead of spending time and money taking your car to a mechanic, ">this scanner will tell you what the problem is and allow you to reset the "Check Engine" light. I have a Bluetooth scanner that connects to a phone app, but this is a simpler solution -- just plug in and Google the diagnostic code. And it's just $11 on Amazon.

A Brooklyn resident is lucky to be alive. After allegedly accepting a gift of poisoned cheesecake from Viktoria Nasyrova, she began to feel ill. A friend later found the Brooklyn-ite unconscious and surrounded by scattered pills, as if she had apparently attempted suicide. Rushed to a hospital and survived, remembering only a hovering Nasyrova nearby as she passed out.Apparently the victim's passport and other critical identification/work enabling paperwork had been stolen from her apartment, and Nasyrova looks an awful lot like the victim. Someone is in custody. Hope it is the right one.

This Ready Player One fan, who wasn't an admirer of virtual reality, test drives the Seattle-based Haptx haptic glove. The experience converts him into a VR "believer." The Haptx glove isn't yet on the market, but according to their press release, will be available to "select customers" this year.

Junaid Ahmed takes 200 selfies a day, enough to land him on UK's Obsessed with my Body. (more…)

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson now says he is shocked, just shocked, that the new dining set ordered for his office cost $31,000, which was $26,000 more than legally allowed. "I was as surprised as anyone to find out that a $31,000 dining set had been ordered," he said in a statement. "I have requested that the order be canceled. We will find another solution for the furniture replacement."A former former senior HUD official, Helen Foster, said she he was harassed and demoted for questioning orders to buy the furniture and was so distressed that she would vomit on her way home from work every day.That wasn't the only thing to get sick over. From CNN's descriptions of the dining set, it's clear that Carson's taste in decor is vomitous, too:

One of the more interesting methods of gardening that people are trying is the food forest, where they convert a yard into a low-maintenance garden that doesn't really look like one.A lot of urban gardeners point out that the "Back to Eden" / "Food Forest" options are not going to give optimal yields on smaller parcels of land, and certainly are not ideal if you're doing an urban or suburban garden as a commercial venture.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7usvJysMg8• Does The BACK TO EDEN Method Actually WORK!? (YouTube / The Gardening Channel With James Prigioni)

As Boing Boing has written about before, there’s something really satisfying about keeping a handwritten journal. And a concept called “bullet journaling” is currently all the rage when it comes to freeform, customizable life organization. Back in 2016, BuzzFeed published a helpful look at what bullet journaling is and how it works. As the article explains:

I've been getting a lot of review copies of games sent to me lately, so I thought, periodically, I'd share some of what looks interesting and fun to me with Boing Boing readers.Stuffed FablesPlaid Hat Games, $60, 2-4 players, Ages 7+Stuffed Fables, by Mice and Mystics designer, Jerry Hawthorne, is a cooperative story-telling miniatures game that literally takes place inside of an illustrated storybook. I love the backstory here. The game is played within ten adventures that take place in a little girl's bedroom (with each adventure triggered by a milestone event in her life, like moving into a big girl bed). As she sleeps at night, her nightmares come to life and crawl out from under her bed.To defend her from these boogeymen, her beloved stuffed animals ("stuffies") come to life and go to battle against these monsters from her nightmares. The little girl remains none-the-wiser about the epic battles that take place as she slumbers. While the game has a fairy-horror theme, and awesome miniatures to fit that theme, it's not very dark to play. It's rated 7+, and that probably holds true in practice, although the rules and game mechanics might prove a little too fussy for younger attention spans. The plastic miniatures (23 of them), the storybook/gameboards, and all of the rest of the components are gorgeous and very much fit the dreamy/fairy-horror theme. I'm planning on doing a Stuffed Fables game night at my house soon and requiring players to come in PJs and bring their own stuffies. Molly, optional.OGRE Miniatures Set 1SJ Games, $30.53, 2 players, Ages 14+OGRE has a soft spot in my geeky little hexagonal heart because it was the first map and counters wargame I ever bought. This was the ancient "pocket edition" from the late 70s which sold for $2.95. OGRE-love is stronger than ever these days, with a multitude of ways of playing the game (look for a feature on current OGRE madness soon). The latest offering from Steve Jackson Games is a wonderful set of plastic OGRE miniatures.The set includes 40 5mm plastic miniatures, including two OGRE cybertanks (1 Mk III, 1 Mk V). This set is sold as a box of miniatures for use with 6th edition OGRE, but the box also includes the OGRE Lite rules, a lovely pearlescent d6 OGRE die, and two erasable record sheets for your OGREs. With all of this, you basically have everything you need to play (minus an irradiated post-apocalyptic battlefield to further irradiate).Xanathar's Guide to EverythingWizards of the Coast, $29The first major rules supplement to the wildly-popular 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons, Xanathar's Guide to Everything doesn't exactly contain everything (that's the Beholder talking), but it does contain some welcome and exciting additions to the game. This is definitely a book designed to inspire more of the roleplaying and world-building elements of D&D. A lengthy section on subclasses and character class motivations and backstories is designed to add more depth and dimension to your characters. Many of the new spells, such as Ceremony (rituals for marriage, funeral rites, dedications), Mighty Fortress (conjuring a defensive stone fortress from the ground), and Temple of the Gods (conjuring a temple mirage that can trap enemies who attempt to enter it), are all designed to make your characters more true-to-type and gameplay richer and more cinematic. The book also has a section on Tools that character classes use, random encounter tables for different bio-regions, new traps and magic items, a character name generator, and lots more. Throughout, Xanathar, Waterdeep's most notorious Beholder and crime lord, offers his snarky, menacing thoughts in the marginalia. With recent books like Volo's Guide to Monsters, and now Xanathar's Guide to Everything, the D&D manuals themselves are in fine roleplaying character.Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago: Lost ColossusOsprey Games, $16, 2-8 players, Ages 12+Osprey continues to knock it out of the park with their Frostgrave fantasy skirmish game system. Last year saw a new area of the Frostgrave world fleshed out with the release of Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago, a tropical, pirate-y game set within a mysterious, enchanted group of islands that winks in and out of existence every few centuries. With Ghost Archipelago: Lost Colossus, the ethereal islands get a series of interlinked adventures to go on in search of the broken pieces of the Colossus of Argantheon. Finding the pieces of this gigantic ruined statue may provide clues to the Crystal Pool, the lost, magical wellspring of the Archipelago, which grants various powers to those who drink from it.PhotosynthesisBlue Orange Games, $33, 2-4 players, Ages 10+Based on a number of breathless reviews, I bought this game for several people as gifts this past Christmas. Imagine if chess pieces grew as you played and shaded out the pieces of your opponent. That's kind of what happens in Photosynthesis. You're growing trees on a game board. A sun marker moves around the board as you play, shining light on some trees, making them grow, and in the process, throwing shade on other trees, slowing down their growth. The game is easy to learn but has impressive tactical depth as you have to think ahead to where the sun will be in moves ahead and how you can use the position of the sun (and the shade cast by your trees) to slow the growth of your opponents' trees. The artwork for Photosynthesis is gorgeous and the components are top quality. Punching out and assembling all of the trees and counters is a bit of a pain, but the lovely results are worth it.Gaslands: Post-Apocalyptic Vehicular CombatOsprey Games, $14.38, Players 2-6, Ages 11+Nerds of a certain age will likely (and lovingly) remember Car Wars, the Mad Max-y post-apocalyptic car combat game that Steve Jackson released in the 1980s. The game components were minimal and funky (paper battlemats and thin cardboard chits for the vehicles) and the rules were notoriously crunch, but that didn't stop masses of high-domed gamers from falling in love with the world of Car Wars. In a similar vein comes Gaslands, a new vehicular combat game from Osprey with a far more streamlined rule set. Continuing the Osprey formula of engaging game worlds, explored through tight, eminently playable rule sets, all presented in slim, inexpensive rulebooks with lovely and evocative artwork, you can get deep into Gaslands with little cash outlay. Besides the rulebook (which has templates and counters in the back to photocopy, print, and cut), all you need are some weaponized cars to send into battle. For these, you get to convert Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars. [caption id="attachment_576092" align="aligncenter" width="1856"] I had a ball going through my gaming miniatures "bitz box" looking for weapons and gubbins to add to my first Gaslands battlecar.[/caption]I cannot tell you how much fun it is to get some of these metal toy cars (you can get bundles of them on eBay for pocket lint) and to use whatever bits and bobs you have laying around to turn them into road warriors. Gaslands has a great backstory, too. In an alternative universe timeline, humans colonized Mars by the 1980s. All of Earth's rich and elite quickly moved to the Red Planet, eventually returning to Earth to strip it for parts and lay waste to what was left. For the entertainment of the Martians, they created a TV show, your basic Death Race 2000, called Gaslands, where car warriors combat to the death. The year is now 2018, and for the 10th anniversary of the Gaslands TV show, they're offering the winners a one-way ticket to Mars (and to freedom).Kobolds and Cobblestones: Fantasy Game RumblesOsprey Games, $18.18Another recent rules release from Osprey that looks like a lot of fun is Kobolds and Cobblestones. For those familiar with gang-based games like Necromunda, Kobolds... is a similar kind of skirmish game which takes place on the streets of a fantasy city riddled with crime, corruption, and gang rivalry. From a pool of sketchy characters from the standard fantasy races (humans, dwarves, elves, goblins, kobolds, etc) you choose a small gang and go on adventures of plunder, profit, and white-knuckled street fighting. One of the fascinating mechanics of this game (perfect for a game of crime and gang warfare) is that you use playing cards and poker hands to resolve all combat and other actions in the game. You even use the length and width of regular playing cards to measure distance. Neat!Star Wars: LegionFantasy Flight Games, $88, Players 2, Ages 14+The recent release of Star Wars: Legion joins a growing list of Star Wars game titles from FFG. Let's see, there's Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, Star Wars: Force and Destiny, Star Wars: The Card Game, Star Wars: Destiny, Star Wars: Armada, Star Wars: Imperial Assault, Star Wars: X-Wing. And now, Star Wars: Legion. Legion is FFG's attempt at creating a hugely popular Star Wars miniature wargame for ground battles like they did for space combat with X-Wing and Armada. The starter box comes with 33 gorgeous 28mm plastic figures, including an AT-RT, two speeder bikes, Vader and Luke Skywalker. Legion is the only game in this list that I haven't at least seen in person and monkeyed around with. It looks lovely from the video reviews, but I've heard many reservations from my gaming friends about yet another FFG Star Wars money pit and another miniatures battle game to paint up and play. There are so many amazing tabletop miniatures games these days. For me personally, I already have a big investment in X-Wing and Imperial Assault. I have no desire to buy, build, learn, and play another Star Wars game. But, as in all things, Your Mileage May Vary.

A suspected drug dealer may or may not have swallowed his wares when arrested, but he's quite determined not to incriminate himself. He vowed "he would die rather than poop." (more…)

Animation studio Aloe Design uploaded this cool but unsettling video of donuts flying towards a man’s face before the laws of physics suddenly change:https://www.instagram.com/p/Bda5yGMB79z/Even the caption for the video evokes an eerie sci-fi world:

Donald Bell made a great video for Cool Tools about 9 must-have tools for electronic hobbyists. I especially recommend the flush cutters, which cuts wires poking out of circuit board holes. In the video, you'll see how nice boards look when you use flush cutters. The USB soldering iron is also very handy.

It looks like Equifax, a company that apparently specializes in disseminating unsecured user information to anyone with a smattering of technical know-how, has upped its game. Despite having already loosed the personal data of around 143 million people into the wild, Equifax still felt that they could do better. After much effort, they've managed to pinch off the data of 2.4 million more people for identity fraud aficionados to leverage. What an amazing achievement!According to Reuters, despite their zest for massive security breaches, the company has framed its latest efforts with a good deal of humility:

Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell is back, this time with a fantastic 8 minute video about string theory. I finally know why physicists came up with string theory (because the previous model of thinking of particles as dots broke down).

Rhino Stew Productions has produced a new game – David Lynch Teaches Typing.I won't give out too many spoilers here, but suffice to say, it gets weird quickly.

I've been transparent about it elsewhere online, but I'll say it again here: my last career left me with a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (you can drop the 'D' from that if it troubles you, I get it) diagnosis. I spent years, crippled by depression, flashbacks and alcoholism before finding the strength to reach out for help. Thanks to counseling, a few gnarly prescriptions and the support of a strong partner, I've been able to crawl back from the edge. It wasn't easy.After entering counseling, I worked to be more open about my issues. Doing so caused me to lose a gig that I'd had for years, even though they were cool with my performance up until then. It left me feeling more alienated and alone than I had in years. But, a few years later, I'm now in a better head space than I have been in close to two decades. So, saying that, causes that promote awareness and understanding of Post Traumatic Stress and battlefield injuries are close to my heart.This is one of those.As a veteran of the Royal Marines, Tim Crockett's seen his share of combat and knows more than a few soldiers who have been kissed by Post Traumatic Stress during the course of their duties. This year, he'll be rowing a 20-foot long boat across the Atlantic Ocean to help raise awareness, understanding and helping those of us with PTS(D) to get the help we need. It's a 3,000 nautical mile trek that'll start in the Canary Islands and end in Antigua. Crockett will be doing the heavy lifting on this one, and he's got the support of a number of veteran's advocacy groups here in the U.S. and in the United Kingdom. But he's asking for your help on the financial end of things.Crockett's GoFundMe is currently accepting donations, in any amount to help support him in his journey. If you can afford to throw some cash at his quest, you can rest easy in the knowledge that it's going towards a tremendous cause.For more information on Crockett's nautical endeavor, you can hit up his homepage or check in theunseenwounds.orgImage: Tim Crockett, used with permission.

As anyone who travels frequently by bus, plane or train can tell you, important service announcements are best when they're utterly incomprehensible: being able to hear and understand that your gate has changed or that you left your phone at a security checkpoint denies people of that rush of adrenaline and feeling of vitriol that makes getting from point A to B such a rewarding experience.If you've ever wondered how the men and women behind the microphone are able to ensure that no one EVER has a clue of what in the hell they're saying, you'll want to head on over to Paste Magazine – they've got the goods on how New York City subway conductors warm up their voices before going on shift. It's all useful stuff. Knowing this one handy hint alone could help speed you on your way to a new career in the transportation industry:

Trump's buddy President Vladimir Putin has just announced that Russia has new nuclear-capable weapons in the works that "renders defense systems 'useless,'” according to NBC News. To show off his developing nukes, he pairs his announcement with the chilling video above of a nuclear weapon going straight toward Florida.According to NBC:

You should have a Sawyer Mini water filter in your emergency supplies.As a life-long camping gadget freak, the Sawyer Mini may be one of the best tools I've seen yet. Weighing in at only 2oz the Mini will filter 100,000 gallons of water with only minimal maintenance. No awful to use UV lights, no crazy big pump. Just squeeze a bag of water through the filter into your waterbottle.The base kit comes with one 16oz reusable squeeze pouch. You'll likely want to get a few larger bags, I like the 64oz for fairly easy filling in a river or lake, and also being a decent size of water to process in one quick sitting. If you have running or gravity fed water that needs filtration, you can also splice the Mini in.The Mini has a .1 micron filter, and Sawyer claims "this filter was tested to 10 million parts of bacteria and one million parts of protozoa without a single breakthrough — the highest testing level for filtration." The water doesn't taste like chemicals. I remember a boy scout Sierra backpacking trip and iodine purification tablets galore. Gah!For under $20 no emergency survival kit should be without one of these filters.Sawyer Products Mini Water Filtration System via AmazonImage via Amazon

Kazuaki Harada creates lots of charming and funny hand-cranked automata. (more…)

I recently stumbled upon artist Debbie Balboa’s series of Disney princess GIFs, and I love the sense of playful movement they have. Here’s the full series:http://debbie-sketch.tumblr.com/post/170203907723/my-second-set-of-disney-princesseshttp://debbie-sketch.tumblr.com/post/169559360424/first-set-of-my-disney-princessesYou can follow Balboa on Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr. She also takes commissions right here.

Paolo del Toro makes delightful and otherworldly sculptures from felt, most recently working in pastel palettes. (more…)

According to this Vanity Fair video, Tom Hanks has the "secret talent" of changing the ribbon on a circa 1960s (stunning pastel green) Hermes 3000 typewriter. Watch as he does just that.Next up: watching paint dry.Just kidding. This is a cute video. It reminds me of a time, maybe three years ago, when I was at a Digital Detox event at Children's Fairyland in Oakland. The organizers had set up tables of typewriters for people -- milennials -- to play with and I sat nearby watching as they struggled to figure out how to operate them. Most gave up just trying to load the sheet of paper but one gal didn't. She walked right over to me and asked if I could help her out. She knew I was old enough to have typewriter-using knowledge!I remember thinking, at the time, that I should start a YouTube channel for young people on how to work obsolete devices. Now Tom Hanks has upped and stolen my thunder. Thanks, Hanks... ;)

Garnette Cadogan, an old-school flâneur and essayist, wrote a fantastic piece describing the differences between walking while black in his home county of Jamaica, compared to New Orleans and New York City in the US.As he notes, he developed his habit of late-night strolling as a tween in Jamaica of the 1980s, when the streets were wracked with violence, and you could "get killed if a political henchman thought you came from the wrong neighborhood, or even if you wore the wrong color". Yet he found it even more destabilizing to walk in US cities, where he was the subject to endless suspicion from other passersby and the police. He winds up finding it difficult to achieve precisely what city-walking is supposed to permit: That feeling of losing yourself in your surroundings.There's so much great detail and nuanced observation in this piece, you should go read it all; but this passage near the end struck me as particularly deft. Cadogan talks about the randomness -- the capriciousness -- with which police or other people would suddenly threaten him in US cities, and how that's particularly psychologically wearing:

My only objection to Oscillating Fan Youtube is that the subculture fails to provide the model, make and specifications of their fans. Above is 10 hours of a Lakewood. Next up, an hour of a Lasko-brand box fan ("Finally!!!! I found one that sounds right!!!!! Thank you soooooo much!!!!," comments Cateia Jones.)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq_wJFvhfrgHere's a roaring, full-spectrum fan sound that I suspect has had a lot of processing done to it (or is entirely synthetic) despite being presented as a "classic fan sound." (more…)

Donut Squirrel is my new spirit animal.