I mistakenly left my e-reader, a Kindle Voyage behind, in a hotel room last weekend. Faced with with the fear of having lost my most favored device, I pondered its replacement. (more…)

Ben Goldacre (previously) led a team that created the FDAAA Trials Tracker, "A live informatics tool to monitor compliance with FDA requirements to report clinical trial results." (more…)

"Idea-instructions" bills itself as "An ongoing series of nonverbal algorithm assembly instructions", with a half-dozen illustrations of popular computer science concepts covered to date; the latest covers Public-Key Crypto, one of the most important and elusive concepts from modern crypto. (more…)

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It's been less than a year since a public-spirited hacker broke into the servers of Florida stalkerware vendor Retina-X, wiping out all the photos and data the company's customers had stolen from other peoples' phones (including their kids' phones) by installing the spying apps Phonesheriff on them. (more…)

Every city where Uber and Lyft have found a foothold has also faced impossible congestion in the city center; Felix Salmon says this is because drivers are incentivized to come to the city-center despite the traffic (because that's where the fares are) and riders are incentivized to skip public transit when there are a lot of cars around to hail with their apps. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2EgfkhC1eo&feature=youtu.beIn 1993, AT&T ran a series of ads trumpeting the future of the internet, called "You Will." (more…)

Apple employees are hurting themselves walking into the glass walls and doors of the new Apple campus, reports Bloomberg. Apple keeps removing the post-it notes they put up so they know where they are.

My guest this week on the Cool Tools Show is Nelson Dellis. Nelson is one of the leading memory experts in the world, traveling around the world as a Memory Consultant and Keynote Speaker. A four-time USA Memory Champion, mountaineer, and Alzheimer's disease activist, he preaches a lifestyle that combines fitness, both mental and physical, with proper diet and social involvement.Subscribe to the Cool Tools Show on iTunes | RSS | Transcript | Download MP3 | See all the Cool Tools Show posts on a single pageShow notes:Mountain Hardware Ghost Whisperer Jacket"I like to climb, I'm a big climber, and through my charity I do a bunch of big expeditions. So I’ve been up Everest a few times … where you’re dealing with the elements, trying to stay warm and not get cold in different circumstances. You're trying to find the perfect gear that's not too heavy and gets the job done. So I’ve experimented with a bunch of stuff, and in 2016 I was on Everest, and I was introduced to this jacket … and I haven’t stopped using it since. It’s just this really lightweight kind of down jacket that folds up super small, it's super light, and it just has so many different uses. I wear it kind of in between layers, on top of layers, it just stops the wind and just keeps you toasty.”Peak Design Anchor Links for Camera Straps"I love taking video of when I travel, when I climb, even for some of my memory videos, I'm shooting them on the go, interviewing people or trying to get a shot while I explain something and sometimes, I like to go really hand-held to get these angles or to just be run and gunning. Other times, I just have to have it’s strapped around my neck and I'm doing something else, holding something else. So, I kind of go in-between those things and I’ve always hated Canon straps that have these double loops that take like, 10 minutes to sit down and fish them through the little loop and all that stuff and I think the Sony’s DSLRs, which I’ve played with too, have these really annoying kind of clips that make noise if you keep them on, so people take them off … this little kind of contraption is basically getting rid of you ever having to do that again … they don’t bother the camera at all, but you can just latch on when you need the strap or not and it’s awesome for dealing with that kind of stuff.”The Memory Palace Technique"This technique supposedly was invented by the Greeks thousands of years ago and has been used to memorize massive poems and legions of armies’ fighters names and it’s something people had to use back in the day to store information … The technique works around something that our brains are really good at, which is one, thinking in pictures. … The second step is to take advantage of what our brains are also good at, and that is spatial information. We're very spatially aware. Our brain is very good at kind of scanning areas and keeping that information within our heads without really trying. And so, if you think about your house for example, close your eyes and picture yourself standing at your front door. I guarantee you, 99.9% of people listening could close their eyes and walk through their whole house without even trouble, right? … So, if you can take those two things, thinking in pictures and using your house or some place familiar, the spatial information that’s already memorized in your mind, you can actually memorize really large amounts of things, and this is the memory palace … Let’s say you’re memorizing all 45 presidents … You would come with a picture for each of the Presidents' names. So, like, Taft could be a raft, because you'd actually picture a raft, right? Wilson could be a tennis ball, right? Because you think of Wilson tennis, right? Trump’s face is actually memorable, or you could think of an orange … So, you have a picture for each of those things and then what you do is you place the pictures in order, because you want to know the presidents in order, around a path through the place that you’re using as your palace. … So, maybe your picture for Washington is a washing machine filled with a ton of clothes and you picture that washing machine kind of pushed up against the front door and maybe it’s rattling because there’s a ton of stuff in there, it’s really over-loaded and it's just shaking, making a lot of scary noises and kind of banging up against the door so much so that maybe even the wooden door is splintering and kind of shattering. So you kind of combine the images and have them interact with the space.”Art of Memory"This is something I actually helped create with a few other memory friends and it's basically a place to train your memory. I use it to practice, of course. Teach others as well, these techniques. Play memory games online against other memory enthusiasts and you can actually create your memory palaces through our software online … So, it’s just a great kind of tool. All memory training related. Great resource for learning techniques, practicing them and developing your systems.”Also mentioned:Climb For Memory

This small magnifying glass on a stand comes in very handy when I need a third one.Can you hold this?Living solo has taught me that delicate tasks on small objects can be a real pain. Having only a ten-year-old, with the manual dexterity of a 10-year-old, around the house as an assistant sometimes causes a lot of unpleasant yelling. This helpful magnifying glass with some alligator clips reduces my instances of grumping-at-child markedly. SE MZ101B Helping Hand with Magnifying Glass via AmazonImage via Amazon

As a youngster of 10 or 11 I walked around saying "snausages" over and over, just like the dog in this commercial. This was common practice for every kid in my elementary school.Snausages are evidently still for sale, but neither of my dogs have ever seen one.

Press P to pray, or T to do nothing in secular fashion. See how many thoughts and prayers you can rack up before all the children are slaughtered!

So, you've learned you've got a high school reunion coming up. Well, if you've decided to go and want to stave off awkward conversations, take some inspiration from my author friend Benjamin Wachs. Last year, he went to his reunion in upstate New York and brought stacks of laminated flip books he made in advance. His "Benjamin Wachs Small Talk Experience" answered the basic questions about his life since high school and then prompted some more thoughtful ones. It made me smile.Take a look (click on each image to see it bigger):

Asian Star Anchor Chain Co., Ltd. of Jiangsu is a specialized manufacturer with 2000 employees, several regional subsidiaries and some really great chains.Previously: Epic glove ad explains benefits of gloves

I have fond memories of watching ABC's early-1980s comedy The Greatest American Hero and was only mildly surprised to hear they are bringing it back (as a pilot, for now). What was surprising is that the "hero" will be a "heroine" in the reboot.Deadline reports:

Google removed the "view image" button from image search results last night.

Though hardly rekt compilation material, this footage of a feeder river turning into a roiling mess, due to a tanker going through St Lawrence seaway too fast, was good enough to get a captain in trouble and get authorities to enforce the speed limit.

This is the sweet story of married military veterans, John Banvard (100) and Jerry Nadeau (72). John served in World War II and Jerry served in Vietnam. What makes their May-December love story extra special is that when they met in 1993, neither had ever been in a serious relationship with a man (as Jerry says, they were "sort of in the closet"). At that time, John -- a widower of 10 years -- was 75 and Jerry was 47.

I can't believe I have to write this, but maybe jamming other people's shit up your ass isn't a great idea.When done by medical professions, under very specific circumstances, a fecal transplant can mean the difference between life and death: implanting feces containing healthy gut microbiome into a patient's body has been used by doctors as a way to help fight antibiotic-resistant super bugs, like Clostridium difficile. A lot of folks online have been blathering away about how research shows that the same sort of treatment could also act as a cure for obesity. As reported by The Guardian, on hearing this news, people are now shoveling other people's crap into their bodies without a doctor's supervision.What's the problem, you say? Well, before the treatment is administered in a clinical setting, the fecal matter used is screened for disease and other nasties in an effort to make the transplant as safe as possible. Without proper screening, the risk of transferring diseases like Hepititus or HIV from one poo owner to another is pretty high. Additionally, a DIY fecal transplant conducted in the name of losing weight could have the opposite effect. A case study from a few years back illustrated that a woman who underwent a fecal transplant to deal with a drug resistant super bug ended up becoming obese as a result. Oops.So, if you're feel that you could stand to lose a few pounds, take a look at your eating habits, exercise more or visit a doctor for help in losing weight before reaching for a bag of liquefied shit.Image courtesy of Pixabay

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Railway station inspectors in Dongguan, China spotted a woman who hopped on the conveyor belt of an X-ray machine. When questioned, she said she didn't want her handbag stolen, so she rode through the machine, getting an unneeded dose of radiation.Image: PearVideo screenshot

Zayd Manck constructed this incredible model of midtown Manhattan entirely from recycled electronic components. The astounding diorama is 165 x 80cm (5'5" x 32"). (via Neatorama)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxlsaMlI_ng

Hungarian illustrator Sándor Vámos is a master of anamorphic illusions, 3D drawings that emerge from the paper. Don't miss his time-lapse videos either.(via Laughing Squid)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulWEof_TfA4

Apple's been in the headlines over the past few months, for all of the wrong reasons. According to TechCrunch, their PR losing streak isn't going to stop any time soon.TechCrunch reports that an IOS software development house has discovered that two unicode symbols, when inputted into a number of popular iOS apps, will cause the apps to crash. In many instances, once the apps crash, it's impossible to open them again. TechCrunch was able to recreate these crashes on a number of pieces of hardware running iOS and a Mac running the latest version of MacOS:

Good news! This week, folks living in as far north as Michigan may get treated to a stunning light show as Auroras will be shining brighter and further away from the planet’s axis than usual. What a rare treat! The bad news: the same phenomenon that causes the Northern Lights to do their thing could also screw with a few important technologies that we rely on, every day.According to Seeker.com, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has stated that charged solar particles, the result of a ‘moderate’ solar flare barfed out of the Sun on February 12 could cause minor fluctuations in power grids and have an impact on communications with satellites that are currently orbiting the earth. In her story on the issue, Seeker’s Elizabeth Howell took the time to explain how the particles are created:

Finally! "Karate Kid's Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso aren’t the same people they were in high school— but their rivalry hasn’t changed one bit. The Karate Kid saga continues."

Donald Trump says he never had sex with porn star Stormy Daniels, but for some reason Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, admitted that he paid Daniels $130,000 of his own money to keep quiet. Huh? To clear up the confusion, Jimmy Kimmel made this parody commercial.From Wikipedia:

Apple sells you a lie. The bare iPhone looks sleek, but it's as weak and ravenous as a newborn kangaroo joey. In order to survive outside its heavily protected crèche at One Infinite Loop an iPhone must be enveloped in a bulky case and kept near a power source at all times to prevent shutdown from rapid battery depletion.And now that iPhones no longer have a 3.5mm headphone jack, users who want to keep their device charged while using wired headphones must resort to using this confoundin dongle, described by Chaim Gartenberg of The Verge as a "chimerical monster." Behold the Cheero Earphones with Charging Dock ($28).

Alphabet division Sidewalk Labs (a sister company to Google) is poised to spend $50,000,000 to redevelop a piece of Toronto waterfront called Quayside, filling it with "modular, dynamic" buildings that can be reconfigured as their uses change, data-gathering sensors that will help Sidewalk refine its own products and also allow Quayside to tune its zoning, usage, and management from moment to moment, as well as a new Google headquarters and a bunch of startups, and "affordable" micro-apartments starting at 162 square feet. (more…)

This animated gif shows how a dog walks, ambles, paces, trots, canters, and gallups. This is how robots will get around, too.

Like something out of an old Laurel and Hardy film, these two bumblers are more like clowns than burglars. They attempt to break into a building by throwing bricks through the window. But when one of the inept idiots throws a brick, the other runs in front of it, getting whacked right in the head. He crumples to the ground, leaving the other with the grunt work of dragging him away. You couldn't stage this any better if you were working on a set. The only thing missing is a couple of bowler hats.

"The most feared weapon of any dictatorship is satire," says Howard, the Australian who impersonated Kim Jong-un waving a United Korea flag in front of North Korean cheerleaders at the Olympics yesterday. He was rewarded with a none-too-happy response.According to the impersonator, his stunt got him a kick in the shin and angry shouting by North Korean "tough guys." He was then detained by South Korean police, for his own safety, and wasn't allowed to leave until after the game had finished.

Here's a clever, artistic hack: Taking a dot-matrix printer and using its mechanism to tap a pencil against paper -- slowly drawing out a picture as a series of tiny graphite dots.As Hackaday notes:

At r/DataIsBeautiful, academiaadvice posted this map of U.S. gun homicides per 100,000 residents between 2007-2016.

You probably missed out when Nike auctioned off 89 modern-day replicas of Marty McFly's self-lacing sneakers, but that shouldn't stop you from having a pair. While they don't tie themselves, these handcrafted slippers inspired by Marty's futuristic Back to the Future II Air Mags should do the trick. Prices start at $59/pair.(RED, TIWIB)

It would be gauche of me to explain this wonderful moment of web video, but I feel obliged to protect you from any potential disappointment with respect to the interactions of rubber chickens and ceiling fans. It's a sample from this performance by Vitas, Russia's answer to Babylon Zoo:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwzUs1IMdyQ(Nor is the the first wedding of Russian glam pop and chickens)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0HVJ8obNdw

In 1929, from Maine to California, and spots in-between, some spry senior citizens were interviewed for Movietone newsreels. This video is a compilation of those interviews. Keep in mind when watching that everyone featured was born before the mid-1800s. In the reels, you'll hear them recollect stories from their past and see glimpses of what their life as an elderly person is like.The footage is from the University of South Carolina's Moving Image Research Collections and was cleaned up and put on YouTube by guy jones.Here's another one. It features similar interviews but moves into the year 1930. Watch for the farmer at the 2:10 mark, as he doles out some timeless wisdom about "work" vs. "play":https://youtu.be/1cGEe2makeMPreviously: Listen: Voice recordings of black slaves(reddit)

When Facebook rolled out "Messenger Kids," an IM product aimed at the 6-and-up set, it trumpeted that during the product's 18-month development cycle, it had been evaluated by child development experts in order to "safeguard" the young children it was targeting from harm. (more…)

Another mass shooting took place in America today at a high school in Parkland, Broward County, Florida. Several hours after 911 calls first came in, authorities are now reporting that at least 20 injured, 1 dead. A suspect has been taken into custody, alive, according to reports. This is a developing story.(more…)

Trump's election promise to be cruel to brown people manifested most tangibly as a campaign to deport "undocumented criminals" -- but there aren't many of those (migrants are more law-abiding, on average, than native-born Americans), so now ICE is scrambling for other brown people to be cruel to. (more…)

NBC news has compiled a database of 200,000 tweets that Twitter identified as "malicious activity" from Russian trolls in the run up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Bloomberg's American Mall [Bloomberg] is a retro browser game that invites you to simulate trying to revitalize a crumbling shopping mall, taking on the persona of one of four foolish investors who then has to decide whether to give breaks to your struggling retailers, bribe politicians by contributing to their re-election campaigns, chase out rats and punk teenagers, and try various gambits to tempt customers to come to your retail temple. (via 4 Short Links)

The Re:Create coalition has just published Unlocking the Gates: America's New Creative Economy, a quantitative report that uses rigorous statistical methods to derive the total income, by state, earned by creators who use the internet to reach their audiences. (more…)

The Sackler family is best known for the buildings adorned with their names thanks to their acts of philanthropy, which is either motivated by a public spirit, or by the desperate need for some reputation washing as the public becomes increasingly aware that the family fortune was built on the perfection of shady techniques for marketing addictive drugs, which reached its zenith when Perdue, the family pharma business, created the Oxy epidemic, by falsifying addictiveness research and aggressively recruiting doctors to hook their patients on their lethal products. (more…)

Amazon is selling this cool-looking speed cube for $5.21. I love the colors. I have been trying to solve Rubik's Cube for decades. I'll get it one day!

I find food photos on Instagram to be boring, but not Tom Kelley's vintage food shots from the Getty Images archive. These photographs provoke a gut-wrenching emotional response in me. #nofilterneeded"10 Vintage Food Photos That Will Make You Squirm" (Thanks, Ben Cosgrove!)

This cichlid, pulled from Lake Malawi, has lips that resemble those found on some humans.Image: YouTube/RM Videos

Above, Jerusha Willenborg of Wichita, Kansas's Mueller Elementary. Below, Barry White Jr. of Charlotte, NC's Ashley Park Elementary School. It reminds me of my daughter's wonderful second grade teacher Ms. Foskett who at the end of every day took a moment to say goodbye to each student individually however they preferred, with a verbal "bye," hug, handshake, simultaneous clap, high-five, etc. I liked watching this ritual because you could really see in the kids' eyes the connection Ms. Foskett made with each one of them.(via Kottke)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0jgcyfC2r8

The men and women of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) never seem to miss a chance to make themselves look like a shower of bastards. They've gone after a 10-year-old girl as she came out of surgery, separated children from their parents, and have created an environment where calling on the police for help can be a terrifying experience for undocumented immigrants.One could argue that these things all happen as a result of current American legislation, morality be damned. ICE agents are doing exactly what they were empowered to do. As so much of what ICE does makes many people want to take a bath after reading about it, it's heartening to find that not all of the bullshit ICE employees pull is hunky dory under the rule of law. According to the Washington Post, a lawyer in the employ of ICE has been charged with stealing the identities of seven people under investigation by ICE, using their credentials for financial gain.Charged with one count of aggravated identity theft and identity fraud, Raphael A. Sanchez, ICE’s chief legal counsel in Seattle, is up Shit Creek with nary a paddle in sight. According to the charging documents filed against Sanchez, the lawyer allegedly attempted to defraud several financial institutions using the identity information of individuals under investigation by ICE between October 2016- October 2017. There's not a lot of information out there on the extent of Sanchez's alleged crimes, yet. But we could learn more about what he was getting up to soon, as a plea hearing for his case is scheduled for later this week.Image: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Department of Homeland Security) - Public Domain

Every week Donald Bell posts a video about interesting maker projects. This week in Maker Update he looks at an animated wooden sign, new mesh boards from Particle, 3D printed QR coasters, 3D printing on fabric, and his talk with CNC router whiz Jon-A-Tron. This week’s Cool Tool is a Retractable Cardboard Cutter.