Boing Boing

You've seen the political compass, I'm sure: that admirable attempt to map every viewpoint onto two axes. It's been a while since it's gotten an update, hasn't it? Don't we need a political compass for the modern era, capable of reflecting our weird age of knee-jerk, tribalism-focused politics? - Read the rest The post This 64-question compass scores you on 'Chud vs. Woke' and more appeared first on Boing Boing.

Not content with being a writer, podcaster, comedian, science educator, and YouTuber, Hank Green released a gamified productivity app last year. Focus Friend encourages you to stop touching your phone, lest you disturb a little bean's knitting. It's adorable, by the way. - Read the rest The post Pick the hub word last in 4*3 and you lose 100 points appeared first on Boing Boing.

Trump's Great American State Fair has moved past empty booths, busted rides, and a cow named Melania into its next phase of patriotic pageantry: people gagging through a pancake-eating contest.Nothing could be more on brand for Trump. Promise the nation greatness, build a sad fair, fail at electricity, deploy livestock branding, then ask a few poor souls to shovel pancakes into their faces until the audience can see democracy's gag reflex. - Read the rest The post America 250 celebrates with contestants nearly puking pancakes appeared first on Boing Boing.

Earlier this week I wrote about a sweet doggo that went to the Miami Marlins' "Bark at the Park" night for the recent Marlins versus Texas Rangers game. Instead of enjoying the game, that poor pup was, instead, forced to watch a Shiba Inu having the time of its life. - Read the rest The post Jonah the hotdog-less Marlins dog gets his dream day on July 12 appeared first on Boing Boing.

Donald Trump's Great American State Fair, that 16-day celebration of all things America currently underway at the National Mall, kicked off this weekend not with a bang, but with something more akin to a whimper. The fair, which Jason Weisberger here at Boing Boing likened to "a Spirit Halloween installed inside a failing megachurch," is currently limping along, according to many of the hilarious eyewitness accounts from folks who have suffered through a visit so that we don't have to. - Read the rest The post Trump's Great American State Fair is "kind of rubbish" appeared first on Boing Boing.

This giant machine wraps large bales of hay for farm animals. In the video, the machine lifts, spins, and wraps each bale in layers of plastic film. This is done to preserve the hay, creating an airtight seal that helps protect it from rain, mold, and spoilage. - Read the rest The post Watch this massive machine wrap giant hay bales in seconds appeared first on Boing Boing.

I can't stop watching this black cat bite into a cardboard box. The cat doesn't just chew on the cardboard, though. He is extremely precise with his bite marks, lining them all up in a neat little row.The sound it makes each time the cat punctures the cardboard with his teeth is a wonderful form of ASMR. - Read the rest The post Black cat makes perfectly precise cardboard bite marks in a row appeared first on Boing Boing.

This video of a smart crow sledding is one of the coolest things I've ever seen online. The crow uses a lid to slide down a roof on a snowy day. Watching him play makes him seem like a little feathered human. - Read the rest The post Crow repeatedly sleds down a roof using a plastic lid appeared first on Boing Boing.

Whaddaya hear, whaddaya say?! Look, if you're in the typical age bracket of this site's readership, you don't need me to wax poetic about how good The Sopranos is. David Chase's mob masterpiece, which was about America as a whole in all its avaricious glory, has stood the test of time as one of the best-written TV shows ever made, only elevated even further by a full ensemble cast's worth of best-in-career performances. - Read the rest The post The Sopranos is finally getting a 4K box set appeared first on Boing Boing.

An eccentric dentist with the ear of the President had a plan to win the war against Japan. In a letter to FDR, Lytle "Doc" Adams suggested that bats, the "lowest form of animal life ..." could "return the call of Pearl Harbor," by being dropped by the millions on Japanese cities with tiny incendiary devices attached. - Read the rest The post The dentist who convinced FDR to bomb Japan with bats appeared first on Boing Boing.

Of all the trustworthy names a scammer could possibly hijack, Marco Rubio feels like an odd choice. You can choose to be literally anyone, and you pick the Secretary of State who thinks fonts are woke? I think Rubio contacting me would make me even less likely to hand over an Apple gift card, but here we are. - Read the rest The post Scammer impersonates Marco Rubio, demands $300 in Bitcoin appeared first on Boing Boing.

The cannon looks fantastic and works, but the entire process is the adventure.This is a very serious potato cannon, and the deep research undertaken to arrive at such a masterpiece is a joy to watch.Compressed air is fun. - Read the rest The post Man builds a belt-fed potato cannon, because he could appeared first on Boing Boing.

CERN's Large Hadron Collider has collided its last hadron. The 27-kilometer (17-mile) ring, buried dozens of meters underground on the French and Swiss border, begins decommissioning today. The collider will not be dismantled, but upgraded as the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider-a project that will take several years. - Read the rest The post Large Hadron Collider retired for upgrades appeared first on Boing Boing.

Near the south end of the Salton Sea, California has a bubbling mud hole that appears to have looked at roads, rail lines, and pipelines and decided: those belong to me now.The Niland Geyser is the kind of thing California does better than anyone: a geological oddity, a public works problem, a vaguely apocalyptic roadside attraction, and a metaphor with bubbles. - Read the rest The post California's slowest natural disaster is a wandering mud hole appeared first on Boing Boing.

Elon Musk demanded that critics name "a single" person who died because of DOGE-driven foreign aid cuts, and then experienced the rare online phenomenon of receiving exactly what he asked for.This is the hideous little trick at the center of austerity cruelty: demand one body, then pretend the machine is innocent because the bodies are scattered across countries, clinics, villages, supply chains, and months of slow collapse. - Read the rest The post Elon Musk demands one name of someone killed by aid cuts, gets a list appeared first on Boing Boing.

The U.S. Supreme Court today declined to hear President Trump's appeal against a $5 million judgment after he was found liable for sexually abusing the writer E. Jean Carroll. None of the justices dissented from the decision. Trump denied assaulting Carroll in a department store changing room in the 1990s, but jurors found him not just liable for the abuse but also for defaming her. - Read the rest The post Supreme Court rejects Trump appeal of sexual assault verdict appeared first on Boing Boing.

An Irish software firm managing membership of cannabis social clubs left more than a million member records and roughly 985,000 identity-document photos sitting on a server that required no password, according to a security researcher who extracted the data himself after joining a club in Barcelona and decompiling its app. - Read the rest The post A million passports leaked online by marijuana club portal appeared first on Boing Boing.

"Don't judge a book by its cover," they say, but how can one not? The cover's right there. Uncovered is a website that forces the issue by presenting book excerpts without the cover-or the author, or the title!-to distract you. There's no account to set up, nothing to download, and it's free of charge. - Read the rest The post Uncovered: read book samples without knowing who wrote it, what the title is, or looking at the cover appeared first on Boing Boing.

The European Space Agency on Wednesday released the largest and most detailed visible-light image of the Milky Way's center. The picture shows more than 60 million stars in the galactic bulge, glistening along with nebulae and star clusters. It is a mosaic of nine separate pointings, each covering a patch of sky somewhat larger than a full Moon. - Read the rest The post 60 million stars shine in Euclid telescope's new image of the Milky Way appeared first on Boing Boing.

AllRGB is an old-fashioned image gallery on the web. The draw? Each image on it must include, without repetition, one pixel for every RGB value.

IP Crawl is a browseable library of camera systems exposed to the internet. Currently on the favorites list are a swimming pool in Austin, Texas, a boxing ring in New York City, and a marijuana farm in Droitwich, England. If the majority of feeds show private places and suggest operator ignorance or misfortune (you can check your own location for exposed cameras), there are some lovely exteriors such as this view of Lausanne in Switzerland. - Read the rest The post IP Crawl exposes that insecure web camera you never locked down appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR:iProVPNwill protect your privacy when you access global content for the amazing Deal Days price of $14.97 (MSRP $365) for a 5-year subscription. Available only until July 1 at 11:59 p.m. PT.It's time to get a VPN. Right now, you can begin accessing the global internet with powerful security for a seriously good price. - Read the rest The post How to get a 5-year VPN for the cost of a sandwich - that's less than a cent per day appeared first on Boing Boing.

Despite temperatures over 100 degrees, tens of thousands of people attended Budapest's first post-Orban Pride march. Orban's far-right government had prohibited such events, but LBGTQ Hungarians and their friends defied those bans and the new management is more encouraging.

Australia's ban on social media accounts for children has failed to produce an immediate drop in use among adolescents, according to an analysis published this week in The BMJ. The study casts doubt on the world's first national age-based restriction, even as governments in Europe and North America attempt similar measures. - Read the rest The post Australia's social media ban not working, study finds appeared first on Boing Boing.

Almost half of American adults now use AI chatbots, but only 16 percent think the technology will have a positive impact on society-and most expect AI to make society worse. That's according to a Pew Research Center survey which found chatbot use soaring, with roughly a quarter of U.S. - Read the rest The post Americans increasingly hate AI, but love chatting with it appeared first on Boing Boing.

Doctors in Spain suspected that a man suffering from chronic headaches had brain cancer. A scan showed a number of poorly-defined lesions, typical of cancer that has spread from elsewhere in the body. But when they conducted a higher-resolution MRI, they found not tumors but the larvae of pork tapeworm, a parasitic infection. - Read the rest The post Suspected brain cancer turns out to be pork tapeworm infestation appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR:Grab the complete Office 2024 suite with advanced features with theMicrosoft Office 2024 Professional Plus Lifetime Licensefor $54.99 (reg. $249.99).Deal Days is StackSocial's take on Prime Day, and with just 24 hours left, it's your last chance to grab any wishlist items you want at discounted prices. - Read the rest The post Only 24 hours left to score MS Office Pro+ 2024 for $55 with Deal Days appeared first on Boing Boing.

SpaceX stock soared to $251 after its launch then came back to Earth. It traded today at $149, less than ther $150 it opened at following the $135 IPO. Virtually everyone who bought it after the bell on day one has lost money, and Elon is no longer a trillionaire. - Read the rest The post SpaceX stock took a predictable trajectory appeared first on Boing Boing.

Sony unceremoniously announced that it would be deleting 551 movies from PlayStation customers' accounts in the U.K.: no apologies, no refunds, just a cold reminder that the only thing bought was a revokable license to access "content." The wipe is the result of Sony's deal with movie distributor StudioCanal ending. - Read the rest The post Sony deleting 551 movies from own customers' accounts appeared first on Boing Boing.

As a child, I used to be fascinated by the indicators on old radios for faraway cities: magic places such as Warsaw, Nador, Ulaanbatar... and Droitwich. Longwave radio was surely something amazing we had found but already forgotten about, those markings and frequencies being absent from newer devices. - Read the rest The post The BBC ends longwave radio service today appeared first on Boing Boing.

Apple sharply raising the prices of laptops and other gear brought home that the datacenter-driven computer parts shortage is only getting worse. It will be years before prices fall, with RAM at the epicenter of the crisis. The long-awaited Steam Box is $1049 to start, with disappointing specifications. - Read the rest The post Reviving old PCs with Linux now that new ones cost an arm and a leg appeared first on Boing Boing.

Tim Langdell found success publishing computer games in the 8-bit era, but became more famous for his extractive policing of trademarks around the word "Edge." This enterprise seemed to come to an end 15 years ago after courts ordered the trademarks cancelled, with one judge furious at the shenanigans involved. - Read the rest The post Famed "trademark troll" Tim Langdell back on the Edge appeared first on Boing Boing.

Administrators at East Brook Middle School in Paramus, New Jersey, announced that "we immediately collected the yearbooks so the image would not remain in circulation" after it turned out that a baby photo in the 2026 volume was of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. - Read the rest The post Hitler baby photo in school yearbook appeared first on Boing Boing.

When troops from Ohio's National Guard were deployed to Washington D.C. to menace locals as part of President Trump's crime "emergency" there, Sam O'Hara followed them around playing The Imperial March from John Williams' score to The Empire Strikes Back. He was detained by local police, and now he has won what the American Civil Liberties Union describe as a "substantial" financial settlement. - Read the rest The post Man detained after playing Imperial March to troops in D.C. wins "substantial" settlement appeared first on Boing Boing.

When the White House appointed conspiracy theorist Gregg Phillips (previously) to a top job in the Federal Emergency Management Agency, that was not his most interesting sudden movement. Phillips claimed to have experienced teleportation on multiple occasions, including into the Waffle House in Rome, Georgia. - Read the rest The post FEMA official who teleported to Waffle House teleports out of agency appeared first on Boing Boing.

Nicholas Rossi fled the United States after faking his own death, hoping to avoid prosecution on rape charges. Recognized by staff at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland, and extradited, he was eventually convicted in two separate trials in 2024 and sentenced to 10 years to life imprisonment. - Read the rest The post Rapist who faked own death reportedly dead again appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: TheAll-in-One CompTIA Certification Prep Courses Bundleincludes training for certifications covering IT support, networking, cybersecurity, cloud computing, Linux, and more - all for $19.97 (reg. $299) during Deal Days.Not every tech career starts with a computer science degree. - Read the rest The post A crash course in modern IT is on sale for $19.97 during Deal Days appeared first on Boing Boing.

A judge has ordered Huntington Beach to adopt ranked-choice voting after finding that the city's at-large elections diluted Latino voting power, which means Surf City's latest culture-war adventure may end with voters being allowed to rank candidates instead of just picking one. - Read the rest The post Judge orders Huntington Beach to add more democracy to its democracy appeared first on Boing Boing.

Daniel Sanchez-Estrada didn't attend the Fourth of July protest at the Prairieland ICE detention facility in Alvarado, Texas. His wife called him from a prison phone afterward and asked him to move some boxes. The boxes contained leftwing zines. A federal judge sentenced him to 30 years, and federal prosecutor Frank Gatto explained why: "People with that kind of extremist beliefs need extra time in prison. - Read the rest The post A man got 30 years for moving boxes of left-wing zines appeared first on Boing Boing.

The Gary Fadden incident is one of those American folk tales that sounds like it was generated by a gun-store campfire: road rage, a 17-mile chase, a 6'8" weapons salesman named Gary, the Ruger AC-556 made famous by The A-Team, and a jury that ultimately decided the machine-gun shooting was self-defense. - Read the rest The post That time road rage met a 6'8" guy named Gary with a machine gun appeared first on Boing Boing.

House Oversight's Epstein probe took a turn Friday when Chairman James Comer issued two subpoenas to billionaire Leon Black during questioning, after lawmakers said Black refused to answer questions about nondisclosure agreements.This is the Epstein universe doing what it always does: important men, enormous sums of money, sealed agreements, lawyers saying everything is misunderstood, and Congress trying to pry open the drawer marked "please do not open." - Read the rest The post Leon Black's Epstein testimony ends with Congress demanding receipts appeared first on Boing Boing.

A woman lying on the sand at Half Moon Bay's Francis Beach was struck and run over by a lifeguard vehicle, because apparently even relaxing on the beach now requires checking for traffic.

The Great American State Fair, Trump's 16-day National Mall celebration of America's 250th birthday, reportedly began with empty stalls, electrical chaos, and a cow named Melania, which may be the most honest exhibit the administration has produced all year.

Landing somewhere between a smartphone and a dumbphone, the upcoming Commodore Callback 8020 breaks the social media addiction.Commodore went from selling the best-selling computer of all time, the Commodore 64, to bankruptcy, killed off by PC compatibles and the Apple Macintosh. - Read the rest The post The Commodore Callback 8020 is a retro cool audio-centric flip phone that blocks social media apps appeared first on Boing Boing.

OS9Map is a new OpenStreetMap browser for Mac OS 9, which was last updated 24 years ago: three years before the volunteer-maintained mapping service was even founded. The app requires a PowerPC processor, an internet connection, and 16 megabytes of RAM. - Read the rest The post A new map app for Mac OS 9 appeared first on Boing Boing.

A few years back, Jason told me that my body has the marks of an interesting life. It's a nice way of saying that I've had the crap beaten out of me and survived to talk about it and complain whenever a thunderstorm is incoming. - Read the rest The post Man lives with a knife blade in his chest for 8 years appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: TheMagTag Ultra Slim Tracker Cardworks with Apple's Find My app, fits inside wallets and luggage, and is on sale for $19.99 (reg. $59.99).One of the most useful pieces of modern technology might not be a smartphone or smartwatch. - Read the rest The post This tiny tracker card can help you find your stuff for $20 appeared first on Boing Boing.

In 1997, Robert J. Bradbury proposed the matrioshka brain - a hypothetical megastructure of "immense computational capacity powered by a Dyson sphere." The name comes from matryoshka nesting dolls. The idea: wrap a star in multiple concentric Dyson spheres, each one computing with the waste heat of the sphere inside it. - Read the rest The post A computer the size of a star would nest Dyson spheres like Russian dolls appeared first on Boing Boing.

In 1971, Ron Morehead and Al Berry set up camp in the Sierra Nevada mountains to record evidence of Bigfoot. Morehead was a believer. Berry was a skeptic looking to debunk a hoax. On the tape, the two can be heard whispering to each other before distant howls begin. - Read the rest The post In 1971 two campers recorded what a Navy linguist calls a nonhuman language in the Sierra Nevadas appeared first on Boing Boing.

At 2:25 a.m. on February 25, 1942 - less than three months after Pearl Harbor - air raid sirens sounded across Los Angeles County. A total blackout was ordered. At 3:16 a.m., the 37th Coast Artillery Brigade opened fire with .50-caliber machine guns and anti-aircraft shells. - Read the rest The post In 1942 Los Angeles fired 1,440 anti-aircraft rounds at nothing appeared first on Boing Boing.