The New Hot 5 is a jazz band, filmed here playing for a herd of cows in Autrans, France. The cows seem to enjoy the performance.

Biologist Merlin Sheldrake is an evangelist for the "neglected megascience" of mycology, the study of fungi and all the wonder within them. According to Sheldrake, fungi are the future—containing clues about our environment and as a source of sustainable food, packaging, and green building materials. Son of author and fringe science researcher Rupert Sheldrake, Merlin […]

I saw this on Twitter the other day and it blew my mind: After immediately falling down a Google hole about it, I discovered that this is, indeed, true! A butt, also known as a pipe, is a unit of measure for English Brewery Cask Units and English Wine Cask Units. It's the second-largest barrel […]

Black Days is a forthcoming biopic about Chris Cornell, the lead singer of seminal Seattle band Soundgarden who died of suicide in 2017. Cornell was an incredible talent, as evidenced by his work with Soundgarden and also Audioslave and Temple of the Dog. From Spin: The [film's barebones] site also states, "from the cast of […]

While a graduate student at the University of Utah in the early 1970s, computer graphics pioneer Frederic Parke created some of the first 3D models of human faces. The research was supported by the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (now called DARPA). Parke's wife Vicky was one the models. Here's the full technical […]

I got my first PC in 1996 and it came with Windows 95. It was hinky infested junkware, but also much more impressive than Windows 3.1 (and indeed MacOS) and of course would eventually give us the ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃ. Today is Windows 95's 25th birthday, counting from the day of its media-extravaganza launch.

Electra is growing insanely fast, and the playing never seems to stop. Pretzel likes to assert her tiny dog dominance.

Watch as a Fox Business can not fathom that the Trump White House administration is packed with liars.

Because of the dumpster fire that is 2020, there is no IRL Black Rock City this summer. But there is Burning Man Multiverse and Burn Week is nigh, people. It starts August 30 and goes through September 6. Am I going to participate in it? Darn right I am. My first Burning Man was 1995. […]

As the animal rights movement continues to push for more legal protections for pets, Germany is leading the way on prohibitions for leaving dogs at home alone all day and getting enough daily walks. Via Treehugger: The country's agricultural minister Julia Klöckner is proposing legislation that would order dog owners to walk their dogs at least twice […]

DARPA AlphaDogfight Trials is a competition between AI programs in a fighter jet simulator. The final event pits the winning program "Heron" against Air Force F-16 pilot "Banger," and the AI wins with some unexpected moves that humans don't typically make. This is cued up to the finals, but you can watch from the beginning […]

The GOP's official 2020 platform is nothing but a loyalty pledge to Trump, and whatever it is that he believes in and plans to do. And what he plans to has been detailed on his website in a document that looks like a last-minute homework assignment trying to fudge with the margins and fonts to […]

The China Film Administration, which is part of China's Central Publicity Department and the China Association for Science and Technology, has released a new official set of moviemaking guidelines titled, "A Few Opinions on the Promotion and Development of Science Fiction Movies." As Variety reports: To make strong movies, the document claims, the number one […]

Woad is a plant and a blue dye taken thereof, popularly associated with iron-age Britons but replaced by the superior Indigo plant long before the modern age. But it has its fans and now you can even buy watercolor paint made from it. Don't leave it out in the sun. [via] The famous artist Lucas […]

It's set in the not-so-distant future but takes its design cues from the past, specifically the familiar stylings of old Popular Science magazines. Popular Pandemics is the parody publication of Bob Rucker who shared with Boing Boing: When I first saw videos of people in China collapsing on the sidewalks at the beginning of the […]

If you still haven't climbed aboard the robot vacuum cleaner bandwagon, there's probably one question about unleashing a tiny carpet sucker in your home that nags at you above all others — do they actually do a good job? No less an authority on tech as PCMag has the definitive statement, saying "robot vacuums have […]

That dog is a very good dog, and looking extremely cute in those snow goggles. [source]

Twitter is spanking the president more routinely now for disinformation tweets, as the November elections approach. Better late than never. Today, on Sunday, Twitter added a disclaimer to a bogus Donald Trump tweet criticizing the "mail drop boxes" as a ploy by Democrats. The disclaimer says the tweet violates the company's "civic and election integrity" […]

Impeached U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to announce on Sunday the emergency authorization of convalescent plasma for COVID-19 patients. On Saturday, one day ago, Trump tweeted: "The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. […]

Yet another fantastic take on current events by the folks at Juice Media. I have been voting for mail by years and in California it is easy to confirm your ballot was sent and received.

Activist art collective INDECLINE have dropped the trailer for their upcoming documentary (Fall 2020), The Art of Protest. "INDECLINE was founded on the idea that no matter how bad things get, there are concrete actions that can be taken as a form of resistance. They might not always be legal or polite, but that doesn't […]

Since 2018, Japan has been replacing its manhole covers with Pokémon designs, in an effort to boost local tourism throughout its lesser-frequented locales. Casey Baseel reports for SoraNews 24, that a new collection of Pokéfuta (as they're called in Japanese) has just debuted in Tokyo's Serigaya Park, an off-the-beaten path destination in Matsuya.

I've been using this Wen rotary tool for a few years. It has plenty of power (I've never turned it up to full speed for anything I've used it for), comes with a bunch of tool bits, and costs a tiny fraction of the price of a similar Dremel tool.

Brattleboro, Vermont has initiated an innovative project leveraging CARES Act funding to keep local restaurants in business, while at the same time supporting local farmers and feeding members of the community hit with the economic impact of the Covid health crisis. The project is called Everyone Eats!, and it's a program that integrates the diversity […]

Watch Overdriver Duo's impressive ukulele rendition of AC/DC's "Thunderstruck." They also did GNR's "Sweet Child o' Mine." Via Kottke

One of the more unexpected racial reckonings in the wake of George Floyd's killing is the collapse of Bon Appétit magazine's YouTube channel. As Jack Saint says in his terrific analysis, "This was a burgeoning giant of online video, and it just completely shit the bed because it couldn't stop being racist." As a palate-cleanser, […]

Twenty years ago, Cameron Crowe wrote and directed Almost Famous, a fantastic, coming-of-age rock-and-roll tale based on his teenage years as a journalist for Rolling Stone magazine in the 1970s. Rolling Stone published a new interview with Crowe in which he shares stories of screening it for Led Zeppelin, the magic of "Tiny Dancer," and […]

Primates of all kinds find bugs fascinating, including this father and son. Image: YouTube

Someone shot a video of bats hanging upside down to see things from their perspective.

Derek Muller from Veritasium uses some Google-fu to look into the common claim that dust is mostly dead skin. While a significant amount is, about half of typical household dust in one study was other things like clothing and carpet fibers, pollen, and other small floaty bits. Grossly engrossing! In addition, he found out that […]

Up The Blunx is a comedy podcast by the Black punks, for the Black punks, and about a wide range of topics from cops to condiments. But if you're expecting each episode to stay on track, you've come to the wrong place. Though you might officially be listening to an episode about straight edge, the […]

Heritage Auction's upcoming comic art convention has lots of drool-worthy items on the block, including: Lee Elias' cover for Chamber of Chills #19 (1955) — "One of the all-time greatest covers-not only for all Golden Age horror, but for the entire history of comics — that portends the coming of death and which burned an […]

Who are the writers for this season of America's reality? I mean, this is so over the top. Donald Trump's former advisor Stephen Bannon was today charged with fraud and other crimes. Bannon was arrested. On a boat. The USPS was involved. From NBC New York: A law enforcement source tells NBC New York that […]

As we get closer to the election it appears the Trump Campaign is dropping all pretense: "The reason he called for the boycott was over MAGA. MAGA is pretty much unanimous with blue lives matter these days," said White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany. WATCH : White House press secretary defends Trump's attack on Goodyear/PBS […]

Last night, US Senator Elizabeth Warren, a former schoolteacher, gave her 2020 Democratic National Convention speech from an early childhood classroom. Just beside her left shoulder, you can see three wooden alphabet blocks spelling out B L M for Black Lives Matter. And that wasn't the only subtle message in the background. From ABC News: […]

"Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone. Now Bannon," notes the NYT's Adam Goldman. The noose is tightening. "Each of Trump's 2016 campaign managershas now faced criminal charges," writes Philip Bump in the Washington Post today, a most notable of days: One takeaway from the Bannon indictment, though, is this: Each of […]

Kurt Hughes, a talented naval architect, built this delightful lunar lander home on the banks of the Columbia River in Central Washington State. He was inspired by his daughter's experience in a space camp at Seattle's Museum of Flight. "I wanted to build a fishing shack, even though I don't go fishing," he says. From […]

Because there have been too many "What coronavirus?" parties at properties rented through its service, Airbnb is banning house parties worldwide. Airbnb has also filed preliminary paperwork for public stock offering, which is rather a bold move in 2020. The company is trying to clean up its reputation and comply with coronavirus-related limits on gatherings […]

Judge rejects Trump’s latest attempt to hide tax returns from Manhattan DA

This deeply bizarre, uncomfortably funny, and surprisingly compelling clip is "Dreams" from the second solo album, also called Dreams, by Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane aka Jefferson Starship aka Starship. Released in 1980 before the launch of MTV, the video is uncomfortable operatic performance art at its best (and worst). The song itself hit #104 […]

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is reportedly in a coma Thursday after falling ill during a flight, which made an emergency landing in Omsk. Navalny, 44, started feeling unwell while on a return flight to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk, his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh, said on Twitter. The plane later made an urgent […]

Former Trump White House official Stephen Bannon has just been indicted by federal prosecutors in Manhattan. "Brian Kolfage, Stephen Bannon, and Two Others Alleged to Have Funneled Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars From the Organization to Kolfage," reads the SDNY document. Department of Justice U.S. Attorney's Office Southern District of New York FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE […]

Cecilia D'Anastasio reports on the life and death of Rudy Ferretti, a retrogaming star whose life beyond adding high-scores was dedicated to removing his enemies from the retrogaming scene. Enabled and abetted by fellow-travelers and spineless moderators, he was extraordinarily successful in this respect, held up as a hero even as he constantly harassed women, […]

Flaws in Boeing's 737 MAX jet led to the deaths of hundreds of passengers in two accidents, the plane's worldwide grounding, and an investigation that revealed the spreading rot of corporate incompetence and horrifying lapses in oversight. Even with fixes, no-one wants to get on the 737 Max. The solution? Rename it. Boeing has today […]

The drama channels have been all over the developing war in LA between influencer jagbags and city officials over massive house parties in the middle of a pandemic. The worst of the worst is Bryce Hall, whose swimming-pool-temp IQ and blatant disregard for humanity have set him apart in a crowded field of young imbeciles. […]

Real Engineering takes a look at the feasibility of space elevators, and the short answer is, yes it is possible. It is primarily a materials challenge; namely, a tensile strength challenge for the cable that engineers would need to solve. Any space elevator would have to be situated on the equator, and we would first […]

There aren't many video games that my wife and I agree on as we do with House House's Untitled Goose Game. That the game is receiving a free two-player cooperative upgrade on September 23rd? Bliss.

Loup Barrow plays the haunting Hans Zimmer composition on a cristal baschet, a rare instrument made of glass and metal. The instrument was created in 1952 by brothers Bernard and François Baschet. Each key is a glass rod attached to a metal rod. It's played in the way someone can make a tone by rubbing a […]

It’s been said that truth is the first casualty of war, but it now appears to be the first casualty of peacetime too.

The Black Cauldron nearly killed Disney animation, taking so long to make that its true budget is incalculable, appearing to startled reviews in 1985, and taking in only $21m at the box office. Drew Taylor charts how the disaster lumbered on for more than a decade, splitting the company generationally and coming to manifest its […]