Boing Boing

Millions of animals have been hurt or killed in Australia's devastating months-long fire season, but firefighter Sam Mcglone is able to save at least one of them – a baby kangaroo hiding under a log. He wraps the nervous creature in a towel and later takes it to a vet. Read the rest

Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of the iconic Generation X memoir "Prozac Nation" (1994), died today of metastatic breast cancer. She was 52. Wurtzel was also the author of Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women (1999) and More, Now, Again (2002), about her stimulant addiction. Several years ago, she wrote in the New York Times about the BRCA genetic mutation that can result in breast cancer and her own treatment for the disease. From today's New York Times obituary:Writing about her final illness was a natural choice for Ms. Wurtzel, who had for a quarter-century scrutinized her life in relentless detail, becoming a hero to some, especially to many women of her generation and younger, but also drawing scorn. “Prozac Nation,” her first book, published when she was 27, was unvarnished in its accounts of her student days at Harvard, her drug use, her extensive sex life and more...The book became a cultural reference point and part of a new wave of confessional writing.“Lizzie’s literary genius rests not just in her acres of quotable one-liners,” (Wurtzel's lifelong friend, author David) Samuels said by email, “but in her invention of what was really a new form, which has more or less replaced literary fiction — the memoir by a young person no one has ever heard of before. It was a form that Lizzie fashioned in her own image, because she always needed to be both the character and the author.”photo: detail of Prozac Nation book cover Read the rest

If you like to repair your own electronics, this set of screwdrivers probably has what you need. It comes with the following drivers: Phillips (PH000, PH00, PH0, PH1), Torx (T5, T6, T7), Torx Security (T8H, T9H, T10H), Pentalobe (P2, P5, P6), Triwing 3.0, and Slot 2.5. It also comes with a number of other useful tools: spudgers, tweezers, and scissors. It comes with a pouch and Amazon is selling it for Read the rest

BB contributor and DIY science hacker Ariel Waldman recently went on a research expedition to Antarctica to study microscopic extremophiles under the ice. She made a great video series about it and has now created a wonderful interactive tour of this hidden world called "Life Under the Ice." It's damn cool. (Get it? Get it?!) From Ariel's project description:Typically when we think about Antarctica, we think of a place that's barren and lifeless... except for a few penguins. But Antarctica should instead be known as a polar oasis of life, host to countless creatures that are utterly fascinating. They’ve just been invisible to us – until now. Life Under the Ice enables anyone to delve into the microscopic world of Antarctica as an explorer; as if you had been shrunk down and were wading through one large petri dish of curiosities...The collected Antarctic microbes were found living within glaciers, under the sea ice, next to frozen lakes, and in subglacial ponds. Microbes from under the sea ice were discovered in the Southern Ocean’s McMurdo Sound near McMurdo Station and the Erebus Glacier Tongue. Microbes from glaciers and frozen lakes were discovered in the McMurdo Dry Valleys at Lake Bonney and Lake Hoare.Life Under the Ice Read the rest

It seems like Tesla should have some kind of warning system that forces you to press an override icon if you really want to drive with the door open.Model X oopsie from r/IdiotsInCarsImage: Reddit video screenshot Read the rest

Edison Electric Institute created this fantastic public safety video in 1990 with CGI that's been aged to perfection for today's vaporwave music videos.(via r/ObscureMedia) Read the rest

Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, the GOP congressman who became famous when his six brothers and sisters appeared in campaign ads warning people not to vote for him, Tweeted a fake photo that showed former Obama shaking hands with Iranian president Hassan Rouhani with the caption, "The world is a better place without these guys in power."The world is a better place without these guys in power. pic.twitter.com/gDoXQu9vO5— Paul Gosar (@DrPaulGosar) January 6, 2020People pointed out that the photo was a fake based on a 2011 photo of Obama and India's prime minister:U.S. congressman sharing a fake photo. This photoshopped from Obama meeting India's prime minister. https://t.co/7UMjyPwFDQ pic.twitter.com/ckRZx3ktok— andrew kaczynski🤔 (@KFILE) January 6, 2020Gosar pretended he knew that all along, calling everyone who called him out "dim witted":2. The point remains to all but the dimmest: Obama coddled, appeased, nurtured and protected the worlds No. 1 sponsor of terror. The world is better without Obama as president. The world will be better off without Rouhani.— Paul Gosar (@DrPaulGosar) January 6, 2020People responded with their own fakes, like these:That is photoshopped. Just like this one. pic.twitter.com/g6O2KUW0Ml— Mo Latno Bill Phelan (@MoBill) January 6, 2020 pic.twitter.com/hdJBLDDt4p— Gargolito (@gargolito) January 7, 2020And real photos, like this:https://twitter.com/ReelDancing/status/121429982542172979My favorite Gosar fake is the one at the top, created by our own @beschizza. Read the rest

"just thought i would SPRING into action haha do you get it?" writes Beeble. Read the rest

Airbnb has a patent on software that analyzes social media accounts of potential guests and hosts and can supposedly flag people who show signs of “neuroticism and involvement in crimes," "narcissism, Machiavellianism, or psychopathy" or "are perceived as untrustworthy."From Evening Standard:It uses artificial intelligence to mark down those found to be “associated” with fake social network profiles, or those who have given any false details. The patent also suggests users are scored poorly if keywords, images or video associated with them are involved with drugs or alcohol, hate websites or organisations, or sex work.It adds that people “involved in pornography” or who have “authored online content with negative language” will be marked down.An Airbnb spokesperson told Business Insider that it is not using all the screening features listed in the patent.Photo by BROTE studio from Pexels Read the rest

I've been a fan of Blindboy Boatclub since I first discovered "Horse Outside," his hit(?) song with the Rubberbandits (and later, by complete happenstance, ended up staying at the same hotel that's featured in the video). His podcast consistently delivers a random, rambling ménage à trois of weird knowledge, cultural connections, empathy, and utter hilarity, and his delightful short story collections take the traditions of Samuel Beckett and Flann O'Brien and thrust them erotically into the social media sphere.Or, if you want a perfect microcosmic metaphor for his career, there's this Twitter thread, where Blindboy talks about his misconceptions of pizza while growing up in Limerick, which goes from silly childhood observation to profoundly resonant insight about cross-cultural communications in a post-colonial edge. And Ninja Turtles.I finally had a pizza, It was on one of my childhood birthdays, a small frozen one from dunnes, my ma refused to put the oven on for it due to the extravagance of putting an oven on for one item. So she fried it in a pan instead.— Rubber Bandits (@Rubberbandits) January 1, 2020Blindboy was not alone in this strange experience, as the replies swiftly reveal:I have a memory of my late grandfather taking us to get pizza at the Parkway Dunnes in Limerick in the early 90s. You assembled the toppings yourself, and he insisted on piling on a mound of ham cheese &sweetcorn to make a proper feed of it.— Eoin Daly (@eoinmauricedaly) January 1, 2020Because of TMNT I thought marshmallow and pepperoni was a proper pizza topping. Read the rest

A couple of men in Columbus, Mississippi allegedly thought they could collect a $100,000 lottery prize using a ticket with glued-on winning numbers. Instead they were arrested. Didn't they know you have to be a rich white president or financial services executive to commit fraud with impunity?Image by Hermann Traub from Pixabay Read the rest

Every year in Japan, animals escape from zoos in a planned exercise. Except they aren't really animals, they're humans in animal costumes. And they aren't really escaping, they're part of an annual drill to train staff on what to do when a real animal does. While funny to watch, escaped animals are no joke in a country known for earthquakes. Director of Tama Zoological Park, Yutaka Fukuda, told Metro in 2015: ‘In the event of a big earthquake, a tree could fall on a cage, or many other things could occur that may lead to an animal escape. ‘We think it is very important, and it is our responsibility to carry it out with seriousness.’Look for the real lions, their reactions to the drill are priceless.Thanks, Julie!screenshot via The Guardian Read the rest

[I adored Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg's YA graphic novels The Plain Janes and Janes in Love, which were the defining titles for the late, lamented Minx imprint from DC comics. A decade later, the creators have gotten the rights back and there's a new edition Little, Brown. We're honored to have an exclusive transcript of Cecil and Jim in conversation, discussing the origins of Plain Janes. Make no mistake: this reissue is amazing news, and Plain James is an underappreciated monster of a classic, finally getting another day in the spotlight. If you haven't read it, consider yourself lucky, because you're about to get another chance. -Cory]

Bellingcat's Guide To Using Reverse Image Search For Investigations pits Google's reverse image-search tool against Yandex's and Bing's, and finds that Yandex's is far and away the best 00 albeit within a limited, Eastern European-centric set of contexts. Read the rest

If you ever find yourself time-traveling to 1975 and need to impersonate a Disneyland Haunted Mansion ride-operator, we've got you covered: just remember that in 1975, food and drinks were absolutely not allowed past the main gate, and that E-tickets should be torn in half and placed in the ticket box. (Thanks, Changa!) Read the rest

Farmers are increasingly sick of high-tech tractors that are expensive to buy and usually impossible to fix yourself due to their integrated digital technology. According to the Minnesota Star Tribune, "Tractors manufactured in the late 1970s and 1980s are some of the hottest items in farm auctions across the Midwest these days." To be sure, the farmers buying these old machines aren't luddites. In fact, they often customize and retrofit them with contemporary tech like GPS for automatic steering. From the Star Tribune:“The newer machines, any time something breaks, you’ve got to have a computer to fix it,” (BigIron owner Mark) Stock said.There are some good things about the software in newer machines, said Peterson. The dealer will get a warning if something is about to break and can contact the farmer ahead of time to nip the problem in the bud. But if something does break, the farmer is powerless, stuck in the field waiting for a service truck from the dealership to come out to their farm and charge up to $150 per hour for labor.“That goes against the pride of ownership, plus your lifetime of skills you’ve built up being able to fix things,” (Machinery Pete founder Greg) Peterson said...The cheaper repairs for an older tractor mean their life cycle can be extended. A new motor or transmission may cost $10,000 to $15,000, and then a tractor could be good for another 10 or 15 years.Folland has two Versatile 875s manufactured in the early 1980s in Winnipeg and bought a John Deere 4440 last year with 9,000 hours on it, expecting to get another 5,000 hours out of it before he has to make a major repair. Read the rest

In my latest podcast (MP3), I read my Globe and Mail editorial, Science fiction and the unforeseeable future: In the 2020s, let’s imagine better things, where I reflect on what science fiction can tell us about the 2020s for the Globe's end-of-the-decade package; I wrote about how science fiction can't predict the future, but might inspire it, and how the dystopian malaise of science fiction can be turned into a inspiring tale of "adversity met and overcome – hard work and commitment wrenching a limping victory from the jaws of defeat."I describe a scenario for a "Canadian miracle": "As the vast majority of Canadians come to realize the scale of the crisis, they are finally successful in their demand that their government address it unilaterally, without waiting for other countries to agree." Canada goes on a war footing: Full employment is guaranteed to anyone who will work on the energy transition – building wind, tide and solar facilities; power storage systems; electrified transit systems; high-speed rail; and retrofits to existing housing stock for an order-of-magnitude increase in energy and thermal efficiency. All of these are entirely precedented – retrofitting the housing stock is not so different from the job we undertook to purge our homes of lead paint and asbestos, and the cause every bit as urgent. How will we pay for it? The same way we paid for the Second World War: spending the money into existence (much easier now that we can do so with a keyboard rather than a printing press), then running a massive campaign to sequester all that money in war bonds so it doesn’t cause inflation. Read the rest

The best apps of 2019 could be the best deals of 2020. If you missed them last year, here are 10 of our Boing Boing reader favorites - all on sale. Take advantage of deep discounts on apps dedicated to language learning, gaming, graphic design and many more.Degoo Premium: Lifetime 10TB Backup PlanWith this super-secure backup solution, you'll never have to worry about system crashes deleting all of your data. Degoo gives you more backup space than leading cloud systems by a mile, and you can set your files to automatically back up as you go.MSRP: $3600Sale Price: $99.99Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering StormGot a friend (or world leader) who needs a safe outlet for their megalomania? Gift them a copy of this expansion for the latest edition in the world-building, world-beating Civ series that adds in new world wonders and ecological disasters.MSRP: $29.99Sale Price: $19.99Slideshop: Lifetime SubscriptionNeed your presentation to pop? Choose from and customize one of 6,000 template slides, all compatible with leading software like PowerPoint and Keynote.MSRP: $2940Sale Price: $19.99 (down from previous sale price of $39.99)StockUnlimited Vector Plan: Lifetime SubscriptionGraphic design just got a whole lot easier with access to this trove of more than 500,000 vector designs. Use them royalty-free for print or the web.MSRP: $684Sale Price: $34.99Mondly: Lifetime Subscription (All Languages)Short, entertaining lessons help you absorb words and state-of-the-art speech recognition makes sure you get them right in this acclaimed language learning app. Read the rest

In my latest Locus column, Inaction is a Form of Action, I discuss how the US government's unwillingness to enforce its own anti-monopoly laws has resulted in the dominance of a handful of giant tech companies who get to decide what kind of speech is and isn't allowed -- that is, how the USG's complicity in the creation of monopolies allows for a kind of government censorship that somehow does not violate the First Amendment.We're often told that "it's not censorship when a private actor tells you to shut up on their own private platform" -- but when the government decides not to create any public spaces (say, by declining to create publicly owned internet infrastructure) and then allows a handful of private companies to dominate the privately owned world of online communications, then those companies' decisions about who may speak and what they may say become a form of government speech regulation -- albeit one at arm's length.I don't think that the solution to this is regulating the tech platforms so they have better speech rules -- I think it's breaking them up and forcing them to allow interoperability, so that their speech rules no longer dictate what kind of discourse we're allowed to have.Imagine two different restaurants: one prohibits any discussion of any subject the management deems “political” and the other has no such restriction. It’s easy to see that we’d say that you have more right to freely express yourself in the Anything Goes Bistro than in the No Politics at the Table Diner across the street. Read the rest

Last week, a redditor posted that "When I load the Xiaomi camera in my Google home hub I get stills from other people's homes!!" The post included video of the user's tablet showing stills of strangers in their homes, including some of strangers asleep in their bedrooms.A few days later, a googler commented in the thread to say that Google was aware of the problem and had blocked all Xiaomi products from accessing Google Home or Google Assistant. Xiaomi has since issued a statement saying that they had "has always prioritized our users' privacy and information security," and that a Dec 26 update had caused the problem, but only for users with "poor network conditions" (the bug came from a cacheing system). The company says the bug affected 1044 users, and that it has been resolved, but that Xiaomi devices will not get back their Google Assistant and Google Home tools until "the root cause has been completely solved, to ensure that such issues will not happen again."Some analysts have suggested that adversarial interoperability -- where companies don't get to stop competitors from connecting to their systems -- cannot be reconciled with privacy concerns, because companies need to be able to control their systems to protect our privacy. But in this story -- as in so many others -- we see that allowing big companies like Google to decide who can plug into their systems and under what circumstances is no guarantee that they'll only choose wisely. Google and its competitors are completely capable of thoroughly vetting a partner and greenlighting its integration, even when that partner cannot be trusted. Read the rest

Thomas Hofeller was the mastermind behind REDMAP, the tool used by Republican dirty-tricksters to redraw state electoral maps after the 2010 census in order to deliver state and federal legislative seats to Republicans even when the majority of people voted Democrats.Hofeller was a secretive sociopath and had long been estranged from his daughter, Stephanie, a self-described anarchist who only discovered her father had died in 2018 when she read the obit pages of the New York Times. When Stephanie recovered her father's possessions from his home, she came into possession of files detailing the REDMAP plans, files of the sort that he had long exhorted his co-conspirators not to create or retain.Stephanie turned some of her father's files over to the government watchdog Common Cause for use in a lawsuit over North Carolina's redistricting; thanks to the frank admission of racially motivated voter suppression in Thomas's files, the court found that NC's redistricting was illegal.Now, Stephanie has licensed all her father's files under an unspecified Creative Commons license and dumped them on Google Drive for anyone to use, exhorting others to "download and distribute this material, at will. It’s yours (be nice)." Hofeller, for his part, is likely rolling over in his grave. He was secretive about his documents, and knew full well that they could undermine his work.“Emails are the tool of the devil,” one of the training slides on in the trove of files reads. “Treat every statement and document as if it was going to appear on the FRONT PAGE of your local newspaper.” Read the rest

US Air Force research scientist Michael Hansen created Rhasspy as a privacy-oriented alternative to surveilling "voice assistant" products like Google Assistant, Alexa and Siri; the free/open project supports dozens of languages from German, French and English to Mandarin, Vietnamese and Russian, and is designed to run on Raspberry Pi-based devices.It's licensed under the very permissive MIT license, and is presently intended for "advanced users that want to have a voice interface to Home Assistant, but value privacy and freedom above all else."Rhasspy runs even when completely disconnected from the internet, and works well with Home Assistant, Hass.io, and Node-RED.A typical voice assistant (Alexa, Google Home, etc.) solves a number of important problems:1. Deciding when to record audio (wake word) 2. Listening for voice commands (command listener)3. Transcribing command/question (speech to text) 4. Interpreting the speaker's intent from the text (intent recognition) 5. Fulfilling the speaker's intent (intent handling)Rhasspy provides offline, private solutions to problems 1-4 using off-the-shelf toolsRhasspy [Michael Hansen](via Four Short Links) Read the rest

If emojis had sounds, David Lap nails them with his guitar. He "impersonates" all kinds of emojis, including a UFO, cruise ship, monkey, ping pong game, T-Rex, red heart, and many others. Here's another one of his videos where he imitates musical instruments (e.g., flute, harmonica, bagpipes) with his violin. Amazing stuff! Read the rest

Helen Sharman was the first British astronaut and in 1991 became the first woman to visit the Soviet Mir space station. In an interview published in The Guardian yesterday, she made a comment about extraterrestrials, the latter part of which is an eyebrow raiser:"Aliens exist, there’s no two ways about it. There are so many billions of stars out there in the universe that there must be all sorts of different forms of life. Will they be like you and me, made up of carbon and nitrogen? Maybe not. It’s possible they’re here right now and we simply can’t see them." Read the rest

BREAKING: Harvey Weinstein has been charged in Los Angeles with NEW rape and sexual assault charges. Disgraced movie mogul and accused serial sexual abuser Harvey Weinstein is having an extremely bad day.Just hours after his trial for rape kicked off in New York, on the other side of the country LA Country District Attorney Jackie Lacey said Weinstein has been charged in Los Angeles with raping one woman and sexually assaulting another over a two-day period in 2013.He has been charged with one count of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation, sexual penetration by use of force, and sexual battery by restraint. “We believe the evidence will show that the defendant used his power and influence to gain access to his victims and then commit violent crimes against them,” Lacey said. “I want to commend the victims who have come forward and bravely recounted what happened to them. It is my hope that all victims of sexual violence find strength and healing as they move forward.”More from Pilar Melendez at Daily Beast.Harvey Weinstein has been indicted on new sex crime charges in Los Angeles, just as his trial on separate rape and sexual assault charges in New York was poised to get underway, prosecutors announced Monday. https://t.co/i4CvAcMhZF— Nicole Rodriguez (@NicRodriguez) January 6, 2020Harvey Weinstein Hit With Rape & Sexual Battery Charges By L.A. D.A. As NYC Trial Starts https://t.co/A6EzNa5It6 pic.twitter.com/itFXHwxVlk— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) January 6, 2020#HarveyWeinstein - WATCH LIVE: L.A. prosecutors announce new charges. Read the rest

Robotics is tough business. “If you think 2018 was a tough year for robotics companies, 2019 wasn’t any better,” writes Peter Singer. “And that’s especially true for consumer robotics companies, which have the misfortune of dominating the following list.” Here's his well-researched list of a number of notable robotics companies that bit the metallic dust in 2019, and in one case, one company that may manage to reboot itself in 2020.Go enjoy the full list from The Robot Report, but make sure to pour some top-shelf liquid laundry detergent out for dearly departed Laundroid (2015-2019):Tokyo-based Seven Dreamers filed for bankruptcy in April. It was developing the Laundroid laundry-folding robot, which was a staple for several years at CES. However, its size and cost – estimated at $16,500 – were big barriers to adoption.Chores such as folding laundry were supposed to be targets for automation, but many have proven to be too complex to cheaply solve. Seven Dreamers reportedly raised $89 million and had accumulated $20 Remembering robotics companies we lost in 2019 (The Robot Report)Pour one out for Laundroid, the $16,000 laundry folding robotA list of the robot companies we lost last year, and a illustration of what bodes for much at #CES2020 https://t.co/ChQVxafMtx pic.twitter.com/0aXlOiwMGn— Peter W. Singer (@peterwsinger) January 6, 2020 Read the rest

When I was a juvie nerd, I lived for Estes (and Centuri) model rockets. I slept with my Estes catalog (sometimes literally). I would mow lawns, rake leaves, and save up my allowance to order from the catalog. I would have maybe ten dollars to spend and would agonize over each order, trying to squeeze out as many products as possible from my measly earnings.I would finally place the order and wait with agonized impatience for it to arrive. I would always imagine a sizable box showing up in the mail. Every time, the box was disappointingly tiny. But I built what I received with whatever tools and supplies we had in the house, mainly Elmer's glue, scissors, Scotch tape, and (at least for my first rocket) house paint. I cut the balsa wood fins out with a razor blade. By the time I left my rocketry youth behind, I had built around 18 rockets and was Vice President of the Chester Virginia Rocketry Club (we had three members).Several years ago, I unearthed my first rocket (the house-painted one) from the bowels of my basement. It is the only rocket from my childhood that survives. Here it is, in all of its fragile and funky glory:The first time we launched it -- the launch controller connected to the battery in my dad's El Camino -- I had glued the launch lug (the small paper tube that holds the rocket to the launch rod) on crooked, so much so that the friction would not allow the rocket to freely travel up the rod. Read the rest

Clay Per Day is a Dutch sculptor whose Etsy store features grotesque, "realistic" sculptures that mash up the heads of angry babies with spiders and knurled fingers, about the right size for posing on your desk at work. (via Creepbay) Read the rest

In Richmond Heights, Missouri, a woman says she visited a mattress store to test out the beds, finding one so comfortable that she fell asleep. As she snoozed apparently unnoticed, the employees closed the shop for the night. Police were called in the morning. From the St Louis Post-Dispatch:"That's honestly the best mattress endorsement we've ever heard," the police department posted on social media Friday.The store did not want to press charges for trespassing so officers escorted the well-rested customer out of the business, which police declined to name. image: "Shifman Mattress and Boxspring set" by Yahquinn (CC BY-SA 3.0) Read the rest

On Christmas Eve, Brian Kolb [R-Canandaigua] -- then minority leader in the New York State Assembly -- published an op-ed urging New Yorkers to drive sober during the holidays; on New Year's Eve, Kolb wrecked a state-owned official vehicle and then failed a roadside blood-alcohol test.Drunk driving is a pet issue for Kolb, who tweeted "There is no excuse for driving impaired this holiday season" on Dec 26, having co-sponsored Leandra's Law, which makes it "an automatic felony on the first offense to drive drunk with a person age 15 or younger inside the vehicle."Kolb later published a statement admitting to driving drunk: "Last night, I was charged with driving under the influence near my home. This was a terrible lapse in judgment, one I have urged others not to make, and I take full responsibility for it. I want to offer sincere apologies to my family, friends, colleagues, and the people of the 131st Assembly District. I fully recognize the severity of the situation and I am profoundly sorry. There is no excuse and no justification for what occurred Tuesday evening. I made the wrong decision, and it is one I deeply regret."Kolb has since resigned as minority leader in the assembly.After deputies came to the scene, Kolb failed a field sobriety test and was then taken into custody, Henderson said. While at the Ontario County Jail, Kolb was given a Breathalyzer test, which revealed his blood-alcohol content was over 0.08%, Henderson said. Kolb was taken to the Ontario County Jail to be processed. Read the rest

Design site Core 77 took a look at at video analytics company Briefcam's Rapid Recap system, which "simply condenses all footage of things that moved throughout the day, overlapping a time stamp on everyone from gardeners and delivery people to package thieves.Image: YouTube Read the rest

In 2016 an exciting mission was ended. The Rosetta spacecraft made its final maneuver. A controlled hard-landing on the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67p). Before that, Rosetta accompanied the comet for more then 2 years. It researched valuable scientific data, brought a lander on to the comets surface, and took a vast number of pictures. In 2017, ESA released over 40,0000 images from Rosetta's comet mission. Based on this material, Motion Designer Christian Stangl and Composer Wolfgang Stangl worked together to create this short film. The sequences are digitally-enhanced real-footage of the probe. Read the rest

A 24-year-old New Jersey woman booked a camel ride in Morocco through TripAdvisor's Viator tour booking site. The camel she ended up riding was pregnant and it threw her off and she broke her arm, reports the Boston Globe. The woman said doctors in Morocco had to perform surgery on her arm to prevent permanent nerve damage. Now she's suing TripAdvisor for negligence and breach of contract.Photo by Andre Iv on Unsplash Read the rest

The best part of this video showing cops tangling with knife-wielding maniacs is it's at least three layers of cultural recapulation deep: the posed 80s-era "original", the implicitly late-20th-century comic milieux implied by its ironic presentation, the 2000s upload, and its recurring virality in 2020.Thanks to Everything is Terrible, of course.Previously: Chinese police explain how to deal with a knife-wielding attacker Read the rest

The LockPickingLawyer bought a SentrySafe at Home Depot and was able to easily and quickly unlock it by sticking a bent coat hanger through an LED hole and pushing down the solenoid. This looks like a terrible safe.Image: YouTube screenshot Read the rest

On Black Magic Craft, Jeremy usually builds scenery for tabletop fantasy and sci-fi gaming. But, inspired by his new 3D resin printer, he decided to create something just for fun. Given the Nerdisphere's current obsession with The Mandalorian, he settled on a Mandalorian and baby Yoda diorama. The results are impressive, one of the coolest things I've ever seen Jeremy build. The video contains lots of great build tips that can be applied to tabletop gaming terrain, dioramas, or any type of hobby modeling. Good stuff. Read the rest

The infamous 11-f00t-8 bridge of Durham, North Carolina has damaged hundreds of trucks that are too tall to pass under it without getting their tops sheared off. Late last year, the city raised the bridge 8 inches over the objections of 11-foot-8 fans who enjoy watching videos of inattentive truck drivers who don't pay heed to the warning signs. It looks like their concerns were unwarranted, however, as the bridge is already claiming new victims. The latest is the driver of a Penske truck that was barely an inch too tall for the bridge.Image: YouTube screenshot Read the rest

Missed that sale in the chaos of the holiday rush? No worries. We've rounded up 10 of the best deals from the past year on tech, household items, audio gear and much more - all still priced way down.LG B8 Series 55" OLED 4K HDR TVConsumer Reports flagged the B8 as one of 2018's best TV's, and it's still impressive. The set comes equipped with Google Assistant and supports Dolby Visionâ„¢, HDR10, and other major HDR formats.MSRP: $2299.99Sale Price: $1199.99 (down from previous sale price of $1553.99)Damasukasu Japanese 3-Piece Master Chef Hanshu Knife SetThe gray and silver shading on these knives is visually stunning, but they're not just made for show. Each blade is stain and rust-resistant with a precise 12-degree cutting edge.MSRP: $299.99Sale Price: $69.99 (down from previous sale price of $199.99)CBD Gummies 500mgNeed a quick bit of relief from pain or stress? Each of these gluten-free THC-free gummies has up to 9.5 mg of CBD. Of course, neither these statements nor this product has been evaluated by the FDA, and they are not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any disease. Check with your doctor and state laws before ordering.MSRP: $40Sale Price: $29.99ExoGun DreamPro Percussion Massage DeviceSix speeds and a four-hour battery life make the ExoGun a valuable companion at the end of any workout. Change up attachments and target any muscle group for deep relief.MSRP: $599Sale Price: $119.99X3 Hurricane Variable Speed Canless Air DusterKeep your workspace clean with this portable duster that uses a quiet motor capable of blowing ambient air at more than 260 mph. Read the rest

The purpose of automated attendant/interactive voice response phone menu systems is to make you fuck off before you trouble a human being. But such systems have a moral spectrum of their own, in which you cannot be simply dispatched or hung up on. The decision to end the call must be yours. Whoever realized the repellent brutality of Britney Spears' Toxic played over a VoIP compression protocol deserves some kind of reward.Experience it yourself: 858 924 0180Tell me if it works, as I have no inclination to verify the claim myself. Read the rest

This video is apparently from January of 2019, but I saw it on Twitter the other day, accompanying the news about the record-breaking ice melt in Antarctica over the holidays.Did you hear about that? How the ice in Antarctica is melting at alarming rates, because of climate change, which is real? There aren't a lot of humans in Antarctica to witness the gradual encroach of our ecological apocalypse, but it's happening.MAR forced by GFS suggests that the highest melt extent over Antarctica in the modern area (>1979) has been reached on 24-Dec-2019 with ~15%. From Nov 2019 until today, the production of melt water is also a record with 230% higher than average but the melting season is not ended pic.twitter.com/MT0QKCJ47e— Xavier Fettweis (@xavierfettweis) December 27, 2019Anyway, the penguin video. It's a thriller. That chunk of ice cracks off — again, because of rising global temperatures — and poor little penguin dude is stuck there is it floats away, while her other penguin friends are safe on the other side. I don't think I've watched anything this intense since the last time I saw the end of Toy Story 3. I held my breath for damn near a minute, hoping that lil' tuxedo'd waddler would be okay. If we're not gonna freak out about climate change, we should at least be worried about our poor penguin friends!But also, climate change is terrifying, and this penguin is a portent for the future that all of us are headed for. Read the rest

Farouk James isn't the first young man from London to have amazingly good hair, but as you can see, he's clearly in a league of his own. James has a popular instagram; the BBC reports that his mom gets a lot of hate mail from people who are clearly jealous of her son's fabulous mane. But there is a serious angle: despite Britain's generally progressive bent, its creepily precise school uniforms mandate the hair's removal if he is to attend. She's working on getting the sexist policies reformed. Read the rest

James Hatch is a former a Navy SEAL who has dealt with PTSD for nearly half of his 52 years of life. So it was kind of a big deal when he was accepted to Yale University this past fall as a college freshman. While the Fox News crowd may have been eagerly anticipating the meaty clickbait they could mine from the potential cultural clash of this Real American and those whiney radical college protestors, Hatch beat them to the punch by publishing his own reflection on his first semester. Spoiler alert: it's probably one of the most deeply humanistic things I've read in a long time.As the younger students started to express their thoughts, the young woman (truly a unicorn of a human) used the word “safe space” and it hit me forcefully. I come from a place where when I hear that term, I roll my eyes into the back of my vacant skull and laugh from the bottom of my potbelly. This time, I was literally in shock. It hit me that what I thought a “safe space” meant, was not accurate. This young woman, the one who used the phrase, isn’t scared of anything. She is a life-force of goodness and strength. She doesn’t need anyone to provide a comfortable environment for her. What she meant by “safe space” was that she was happy to be in an environment where difficult subjects can be discussed openly, without the risk of disrespect or harsh judgment. This works both ways. Read the rest

Great news for parents sending their kids to American schools: a company called Wonderhoodie sells a bulletproof hoodie for children.Our patented, NIJ-IIIA panels discreetly protects the back and sides of the head. Pull it up when you need it, put it down when you don't3-inches of bulletproof overlap secured by velcro down the middle allows safe zipped or unzipped wear.Full military-style torso protection, no Tetris-panels to 'insert' like low-end competitorsIt's $450 and the logo is optional. Get this: "If you get shot (God forbid) with our hoodies on, we'll send you a replacement hoodie FREE of charge. Just include the police report or news clip"Good to know that if my child gets shot up in school massacre, I can get a replacement hoodie if I send these ghouls the footage. Read the rest

I met Andy Bothwell on Warped Tour in the summer of … 2003, I think? My friends' emo band had somehow secured a spot on the Code Of Tha Cuts Hip-Hop side stage. He jumped on stage to freestyle during a song in his MC alias as Astronautalis, and absolutely blew me away. We did a few shows together over the next couple years, but I've remained a huge fan of his talkin'-blues-indie-rock beats ever since. He's gone on to tour with artists like Tegan & Sara, and recently put out a new collaboration with POS from Doomtree that — coincidentally — includes a song about the late great Joe Strummer.Being that I was a teenager hanging out on Warped Tour, it's perhaps no surprise that I'm a huge of the Clash. But I was surprised to find that this brilliant indie rapper I'd hung out with a few times was hosting Consequence of Sound's new podcast, The Opus, and that the latest season would focus on the only band that matters.Admittedly, I haven't listened to the other seasons of The Opus yet, which focus on albums by Willie Nelson, Ozzy Osbourne, and more. But the three-part series on "London Calling" is absolute essential listening. Bothwell oozes excitement as he talks about the band's magnum opus. He also brings on a diverse range of guests to share their own takes, including Lee "Scratch" Perry, Laura Jane Grace from Against Me!, Donita Sparks, Houston rapper Fat Tony, and more. Read the rest

On Thursday, lucky Walmart shoppers in Edinboro, Pennsylvania were treated to live bedbugs, which were checking out their new home in the men's changing room. Some were roaming around freely while others were living in a pill bottle that someone had placed in a boy's jacket offered by the store.According to CNN:On Friday, health safety company Ecolab confirmed that the insects were bedbugs. An Ecolab employee also reported seeing bedbugs crawling around the men's changing rooms the same day, according to police.A Walmart employee later found a second closed pill bottle containing dead bedbugs in the men's department, police said. "A third-party pest management service has visited the store and we are working with them to assess next steps," the Walmart spokesperson said. "In the meantime, we have blocked off the impacted area.State Police are investigating the matter and looking for the person or people responsible, they said."Bedbugs are tenacious little critters, and don't always clear out after one fumigation (I know this because I had friends who had to move out of their apartment after two failed attempts to get rid of the blood suckers). So it might a while before Walmart sees the last of them.Image: By CDC/ Harvard University, Dr. Gary Alpert; Dr. Harold Harlan; Richard Pollack. Photo Credit: Piotr Naskrecki - http://phil.cdc.gov/phil, Public Domain, Link Read the rest

Whatever your resolution is for the new year, you'll be able to do it better with more sleep. Modern sleep masks are more than just blindfolds. They incorporate 3D contouring, ambient noise blocking and other features designed to help you shut out the world and slow down your busy, conscious mind. Here's 9 of our favorites, most all of which are on sale for 2020.Dreamlight Ease: 100% Light Blocking MaskAt just 2.4 ounces, this mask is perfect for vacations, long plane rides or anywhere you need a little serenity. Its 3D facial mapping technology hugs the contours of any face, leaving the space around the eyes clear - but surrounded in perfect darkness.MSRP: $29Sale Price: $17.99Dreamlight Muse: 100% Light Blocking Cordless Music MaskNeed a soft soundtrack to get to bed? This augmented Dreamlight has the same gentle contouring with a wireless music player embedded around the ears.MSRP: $89Sale Price: $54.99Dreamlight Pro: The World's Smartest Sleep MaskIf you're serious about your sleep, this Pro version of the Dreamlight is a portable lullaby. It comes equipped with sound therapy functionality through the headphones, relaxing, soft lighting on the interior and more, all controllable by a phone app and fully customizable.MSRP: $299Sale Price: $199.99Nodpod® Weighted Sleep MaskThis mask sits securely on any face (in any sleeping position), but that's not all. It uses tiny polyethylene beads to perform the same function as weighted blankets, giving your face gentle pressure to help soothe away anxiety. Read the rest

When most of us think of IT, we picture towering stacks of servers and intense walls of code. And while, yes, servers and code both have their place in any IT pro's day-to-day, they're not nearly as scary as we make them out to be—at least not when you have the right training under your belt. The Complete IT for Beginners Bundle is the perfect introduction for IT newcomers and can make getting your foot in the door much less intimidating.Each course in this 10-course package builds off the one before. You'll get a firm foundation in the basic, language-neutral elements of computer code, then branch out into specific platforms and areas of coding in later lessons.Those lessons include comprehensive training in HTML and Python, both essential languages for any job. There's also a deep dive into the world of cloud computing (and one of its biggest platforms, AWS), web app development and more. By the end, you'll be on your way to earning certifications that will light up any resume and impress IT recruiters.You can get lifetime access to the entire Complete IT for Beginners Bundle for 95% off the retail price.Prices subject to change.You can't beat free! Get $70+ worth of premium Mac apps for free today! Read the rest

Before you type word one on a resume, make sure you've got the basics covered. And, for a myriad of jobs in nearly any field, Microsoft Office skills are absolutely essential.Got the software but don't know where to start? This Ultimate Microsoft Office Certificate Mastery Bundle not only gets you up to speed on some of the most widely-used programs in the Office suite but gives proof that you know how to use them.You'll get step-by-step tutorials on Excel, PowerPoint, Access and (of course) Microsoft Word, starting with the fundamentals and moving on to shortcuts and macros. By the end of it, you'll be able to nail any presentation, lay out complex spreadsheets and even perform data analytics for any company.What makes this Recent Editions bundle particularly comprehensive is the fact that it contains courses on both the 2016 and 2019 versions of the software, so you're prepared to work on more than one generation of software.Right now, the full Ultimate Microsoft Office Certificate Mastery Bundle: Recent Editions is available for 96% off the price of the individual courses.Prices subject to change.You can't beat free! Get $70+ worth of premium Mac apps for free today! Read the rest

The bird seed in our feeder began disappearing overnight, no matter how full it was. I set up an infrared camera to see what was devouring so much seed in such a short amount of time. Here are the culprits! Read the rest

Bare minimum: To make a career as a programmer, you need to know a little about a lot. There are so many languages suited to so many different tasks, it's hard to know where to start.If you're truly just starting, it's hard to find a better curriculum than in the Ultimate Web Coding for Everyone Bundle, a course package that covers just about every major platform on the web from a beginner's perspective.That perspective doesn't mean these classes scratch only the surface. Rather, they're geared to get you versed in the basics quickly and thoroughly so you can get hands-on with more advanced aspects.The eight courses cover workhorse website builders like HTML, JavaScript and Bootstrap 4, back-end support languages like Node.js and MySQL, and versatile tools such as Ruby, PHP, and Python. And how's this for a bonus: The package even comes with a free download of Python 3.Get on track to a full-stack coding career with the Ultimate Web Coding for Everyone Bundle, on sale for 98% off the cost of the individual courses. Read the rest