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Alt - Boing Boing - 3 hours ago

Earn $150 credit with this $70 eSIM

TL;DR: Get $150 travel data credit usable in 200+ countries for just $69.99 (reg. $150) with aloSIM. In a world filled with AI, it doesn't make sense to be fumbling for a pin to swap out your SIM card. The great thing about aloSIM is that it's an eSIM card that effectively doubles the money you put in. Read the rest The post Earn $150 credit with this $70 eSIM appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 hours ago

Hannah Montana Linux updated after 18 years

Hannah Montana Linux, released in 2009, was themed around Disney Channel sitcom character Hannah Montana, the in-world alter ego of Miley Stewart, as performed by Miley Cyrus. The bizarre and extremely memey distribution had not been updated since—until now! Developer Noah Cagle this week announced Hannah Montana Linux v26.0, bringing nearly two decades of enhancements to functionality, user experience and security. Read the rest The post Hannah Montana Linux updated after 18 years appeared fir...

Alt - Boing Boing - 4 hours ago

The first trailer for Buddy isn't, you know, for kids

It can be so hard to keep kids entertained during the summer break. There's only so much swimming, trips to the trampoline park, and sleepovers that parents can afford both spiritually and financially. Sometimes, you just want to sit your kiddos the hell down in a darkened theater in front of a flickering screen for a couple of hours. Read the rest The post The first trailer for Buddy isn't, you know, for kids appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 5 hours ago

FTC deal forces John Deere to share repair tools for 10 years

For a long while now, farmers using John Deere tractors to plow their fields have been getting plowed by John Deere. The storied heavy equipment company decided that selling farmers their hardware to help them in their hard work wasn't making them quite enough. Read the rest The post FTC deal forces John Deere to share repair tools for 10 years appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 6 hours ago

Watch this classic John Ford western for absolutely free

You may have noticed that it's a bit warm out. As good as the sun can feel after a long winter, the temperatures that the majority of the western hemisphere has been experiencing have been a bit… extra, these past few weeks. Read the rest The post Watch this classic John Ford western for absolutely free appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 7 hours ago

Israeli soldier shot an unarmed Gaza aid driver, witnesses say

There's so much shitty stuff happening in the United States, Iran, and Europe that it's easy to forget there's really shitty stuff still going on in Gaza that the United States is complicit in. But hey, that's the 24-hour news cycle and the Trump administration's deal: fill our days with so much terror that we can't keep the bespoke horrors they've unleashed on the world straight in our heads. Read the rest The post Israeli soldier shot an unarmed Gaza aid driver, witnesses say appeared first o...

Alt - Boing Boing - 17 hours ago

A parasite is giving 1,000+ Americans 'explosive' diarrhea

A parasite that usually causes about 50 illnesses a year in Michigan has now sickened nearly 1,000 people there, part of a nationwide spike that hasn't been traced to a source. According to a state-by-state map at The Hill, more than a thousand Americans have come down with cyclosporiasis, an intestinal infection that can trigger "explosive" diarrhea. Read the rest The post A parasite is giving 1,000+ Americans 'explosive' diarrhea appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 19 hours ago

The EU just approved a food additive that curbs weight gain

European regulators just approved a food additive designed to keep you from gaining weight. It's inulin propionate ester, or IPE, cleared for sale in the EU after 15 years of work by researchers at Imperial College London and the University of Glasgow. Read the rest The post The EU just approved a food additive that curbs weight gain appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 19 hours ago

Meta patented a wearable that listens all day to guess your feelings

Meta has patented a wearable that listens to you all day and guesses how you feel. As 404 Media reports, the device would continuously record audio and surroundings, then use AI to read your emotional state from "sighs, laughter" and other vocal cues, ostensibly to fine-tune workout suggestions. Read the rest The post Meta patented a wearable that listens all day to guess your feelings appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 19 hours ago

Congo's Ebola outbreak has killed 600 and is reaching new provinces

Congo's latest Ebola outbreak has killed 600 people and is now spreading into provinces that had been untouched. Authorities have logged 1,759 confirmed cases since declaring the outbreak on May 15, and new suspected cases have surfaced in Kisangani, in Tshopo province, well beyond the epicenter in Ituri. Read the rest The post Congo's Ebola outbreak has killed 600 and is reaching new provinces appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 19 hours ago

The novelist who co-founded the Paris Review was a CIA spy

The Paris Review was partly a CIA front, and one of its founders led a double life to match. In the London Review of Books, Christian Lorentzen reviews a new biography of Peter Matthiessen, the novelist, nature writer, and CIA operative who helped start the magazine as cover. Read the rest The post The novelist who co-founded the Paris Review was a CIA spy appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 21 hours ago

Mexican Government files charges against ICE for murder

At the time that this post was written, at least 50 individuals had died in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The deaths were due to a lack of care for people with chronic medical issues like heart disease and diabetes, and, thanks to a shocking lack of oversight, the completion of suicide by individuals under extreme mental duress in custody or who suffered from pre-existing mental health conditions. Read the rest The post Mexican G...

Alt - Boing Boing - 22 hours ago

Photographic memory is not real, but this guy's brain came close enough to scare everyone

In 1929, a Moscow newspaper editor discovered that one of his reporters never wrote anything down because his brain was apparently already doing the recording. That is where the popular myth starts to wobble. People talk about photographic memory as if the brain can take a perfect screenshot of a page and retrieve it on demand. Read the rest The post Photographic memory is not real, but this guy's brain came close enough to scare everyone appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 22 hours ago

Sean Astin tells Congress AI should not get to steal your face

SAG-AFTRA president Sean Astin testified before Congress about nonconsensual AI replicas, warning that deepfakes are not just an actor problem but a reality problem. In his testimony, Astin said AI can now make people appear to say things they never said, endorse things they do not believe, or confess to things they know nothing about. Read the rest The post Sean Astin tells Congress AI should not get to steal your face appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 23 hours ago

Mike Johnson likes birthright citizenship when it scores goals

Folarin Balogun is eligible to play for the United States because he was born in Brooklyn, which is awkward for Republicans currently trying to make "born in America" mean "terms and conditions apply." "Like all good things, it can be abused, and birthright citizenship goes back to the root of the country, the history of the tradition. Read the rest The post Mike Johnson likes birthright citizenship when it scores goals appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 23 hours ago

Astronomers keep finding giant radio rings in space they can't explain

Astronomers keep finding enormous rings of radio light in deep space that nothing in the textbooks can account for. Each is more than 50 times the width of the Milky Way, glows only at radio wavelengths invisible to optical, infrared, and X-ray telescopes and is brightest around its edges. Read the rest The post Astronomers keep finding giant radio rings in space they can't explain appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 23 hours ago

A 1631 Bible accidentally ordered readers to commit adultery

The Wicked Bible is a 1631 reprint of the King James Bible that accidentally ordered its readers to sin. Setting the Ten Commandments, London's royal printers dropped the word "not" from Exodus 20:14, so the Seventh Commandment read "Thou shalt commit adultery." Read the rest The post A 1631 Bible accidentally ordered readers to commit adultery appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 23 hours ago

What is spontaneous human combustion, and is it real?

According to Wikipedia, spontaneous human combustion is the belief that a person can simply burst into flame from within, leaving the body burned to ash while the surrounding room barely chars. It is pseudoscience but the cases behind the legend are real, and they have a grim, ordinary explanation. Read the rest The post What is spontaneous human combustion, and is it real? appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

How to opt out of Meta using your Instagram posts to make AI images

There are already plenty of reasons to stay the hell away from anything that Meta has its grubby little rat hooks on: Facebook surveils and monetizes everything you do while you're online, and their shitty Meta AI glasses pick up the surveillance slack in meatspace, capturing every moment they're on your face while robbing others of their privacy to boot. Read the rest The post How to opt out of Meta using your Instagram posts to make AI images appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

ChatGPT failures make for truly hilarious content

I'm obsessed with YouTuber Husk IRL's infuriatingly hilarious conversations with ChatGPT. If you need a laugh (and who doesn't, nowadays?), you should watch some of his videos on your next lunch break. Last year, Grant St. Clair highlighted Husk's experiments to get ChatGPT to help him out in stressful or dangerous situations like being pulled over by the police, being swallowed by a whale, or having a tree fall on him. Read the rest The post ChatGPT failures make for truly hilarious content ap...

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

Your excuses for not reading are over Headway Premium is just $69.99 for life

TL;DR: Work on your self-growth, boost your professional skills, and become a trivia night menace with lifetime access to Headway Premium — now just $69.99, no subscription, no expiration. We're not saying you should cheat at trivia. But if you happen to absorb 15-minute summaries of the world's best nonfiction books on psychology, leadership, productivity, and random historical facts, and then happen to dominate your local pub's trivia team, well, that's just strategy. Read the rest The p...

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

Baby barn owls rescued from a dock loft before first flight

A dockside owl rescue turned into a successful wildlife handoff after several young barn owls were found nesting in a loft above the water. As they neared the age to leave the nest, there was concern they could fall into the water during their first attempts at flight and drown. Read the rest The post Baby barn owls rescued from a dock loft before first flight appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

In 1996, Orbitz turned a soda bottle into a lava lamp

In 1996, beverage maker Clearly Canadian introduced Orbitz, a clear soft drink filled with brightly colored edible spheres suspended throughout the bottle. The unusual appearance made it look more like a science experiment than a soda, and the company leaned into the comparison by marketing it as a drinkable lava lamp. Read the rest The post In 1996, Orbitz turned a soda bottle into a lava lamp appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

This concrete playground slide looks like brutalist architecture

A concrete playground slide in Bucharest, Romania, looks more like a piece of brutalist architecture than a place for children to play. Built in the late 1950s or 1960s in the Floreasca area, the towering structure has become an internet curiosity because of its unusual scale, sharp angles, and all-concrete design. Read the rest The post This concrete playground slide looks like brutalist architecture appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

Psyllium husk is not nature's Ozempic, but it is a pretty good source of fiber

Psyllium husk has been rebranded by the internet as "nature's Ozempic," which is unfair to nature, Ozempic, and this extremely beige powder that mostly wants you to drink more water. The evidence is decent for digestion and modest for cholesterol and blood sugar. Read the rest The post Psyllium husk is not nature's Ozempic, but it is a pretty good source of fiber appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

ICE killed a Houston father, then called him the aggressor

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo spent 35 years in the United States, raised three sons, built houses, built his own home, and was shot by ICE before work. His son Ronaldo said he did not learn about his father's final moments from the hospital or law enforcement. Read the rest The post ICE killed a Houston father, then called him the aggressor appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

Max Fosh entered a nine-year-old into a roast battle

Just when we thought we were safe, Max Fosh returned. The only good YouTube prankster on the Internet (a title I have no authority to bestow) has made a career out of taking the most absurd ideas possible and making them a reality. Read the rest The post Max Fosh entered a nine-year-old into a roast battle appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

Dune: Part 3 drops trailer full of fun in the sun

Denis Villenueve's first two Dune (or DUNC depending on how badly you misread the poster) movies, with love to David Lynch, have been by far the best adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic sci-fi novel. Evidently, Villeneuve has taken a little time before the next Bond film to hammer out a third Dune, this time adapting the original novel's sequel Dune Messiah and serving as a neat endpoint to his trilogy. Read the rest The post Dune: Part 3 drops trailer full of fun in the sun appeared first on...

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

Werwulf is coming just in time for Christmas!

Nothing says happy holidays like a new Robert Eggers film cast with his growing merry band of weirdos. With this in mind, it's gonna be a Christmas to remember as my favorite cinematic discomfort aficionado returns to theaters this December with Werwulf: a dread-filled imagining of a creature that has haunted the woods and dreams of European culture for hundreds if not thousands of years. Read the rest The post Werwulf is coming just in time for Christmas! appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

We might be getting that New Vegas followup, but not in the way anyone expected

As has been discussed to death both here and on the Internet at large, Fallout: New Vegas is one of the best RPGs ever made. Although it started life as a contracted-out amuse-bouche to keep Fallout fans happy while Bethesda was all hands on deck with Skyrim, Obsidian an RPG studio formed from the same ex-Black Isle devs who created the series to begin with knocked it out of the park nonetheless. Read the rest The post We might be getting that New Vegas followup, but not in the way anyone expec...

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

Making Fallout 76 bearable by playing it inside Fallout 4

Tale of Two Wastelands might just be the best Fallout mod of all time, and it's pretty inarguably the most influential. On its surface, the idea is simple: Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas both use the same iteration of the same engine, so why not combine them together into a single megagame you can play for 200 hours? Read the rest The post Making Fallout 76 bearable by playing it inside Fallout 4 appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

Dwile flonking, the ancient pub sport invented in 1966

In 1966, apprentice printers in Beccles, Suffolk revived a pub game for the town's summer fête, claiming its rules came from a 1585 manuscript rediscovered in an attic. The game was dwile flonking, and the manuscript never existed. According to Wikipedia, "the Suffolk county archivist was unable to find any evidence for the game before 1966, and the supposed 1585 rules are a hoax." Read the rest The post Dwile flonking, the ancient pub sport invented in 1966 appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

Castro's supercow got a state obituary and a marble statue

On a single day in January 1982, a Cuban cow named Ubre Blanca ("White Udder") produced 109.5 liters of milk "more than four times a typical cow's production," according to Wikipedia. Guinness World Records recognized that mark, along with her 24,268.9-liter output in a single lactation period. Read the rest The post Castro's supercow got a state obituary and a marble statue appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

Soldier who was shot in eight places said he "enjoyed the war"

According to the Wikipedia entry for British Army officer Adrian Carton de Wiart, he "was shot in the face, head, stomach, groin, ankle, leg, hip, and ear" across the Boer War, First World War, and Second World War. He was blinded in his left eye, survived two plane crashes, and "ripped off his own severely injured fingers when a doctor declined to amputate them." Read the rest The post Soldier who was shot in eight places said he "enjoyed the war" appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

Sign up as a new Costco Gold Star Member and receive a $50 Digital Costco Shop Card*

TL;DR: New Costco Gold Star Members who enroll in auto-renewal can receive a $50 Digital Costco Shop Card* at sign-up. This promotion is only available through 8/2 at 11:59 PM. Costco offers members access to brand-name products across grocery, household, and seasonal categories, along with Kirkland Signature™ items, at more than 500 warehouses across the U.S. Read the rest The post Sign up as a new Costco Gold Star Member and receive a $50 Digital Costco Shop Card* appeared first on Boing Boin...

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

This $199 NES cartridge was "one of the worst video games of all time"

According to Action 52, the unlicensed 1992 cartridge crammed 52 original games onto one Nintendo chip and sold for US$199, becoming "one of the worst video games of all time." Businessman Vince Perri founded Active Enterprises after watching his son play a Taiwanese 40-game bootleg: "I figured I'd do it legally." Read the rest The post This $199 NES cartridge was "one of the worst video games of all time" appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

This German cheese is ripened by live mites, which you then eat

According to Milbenkäse ("mite cheese"), the German specialty is made by flavoring balls of quark with caraway and salt, drying them, and leaving them "in a wooden box containing rye flour and cheese mites for about three months." " An enzyme in the digestive juices excreted by the mites causes the cheese to ripen." Read the rest The post This German cheese is ripened by live mites, which you then eat appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

A plane vanished in 1947 after sending "stendec" in Morse Code

According to the account of the 1947 crash of the airliner Star Dust, the British plane left Buenos Aires for Santiago on 2 August 1947 and vanished over the Andes. Four minutes before its planned landing, the radio operator tapped out a final Morse message ending in one word: "STENDEC." Read the rest The post A plane vanished in 1947 after sending "stendec" in Morse Code appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

In 1990, engineers wrote an internet standard for carrier pigeons

According to IP over Avian Carriers, the internet's standards body once published a straight-faced proposal "to carry Internet Protocol (IP) traffic by birds such as homing pigeons." RFC 1149, written by David Waitzman and released on April 1, 1990, was one of several April Fools' Day standards. Read the rest The post In 1990, engineers wrote an internet standard for carrier pigeons appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

This windowless NYC skyscraper is reportedly an NSA spy hub

33 Thomas Street, a "550-foot-tall (170 m) windowless skyscraper" in Tribeca, has no windows at all its walls are "entirely covered with precast concrete panels clad with flame-treated textured Swedish granite," according to Wikipedia. One observer claims it "features the tallest blank wall in the world." Read the rest The post This windowless NYC skyscraper is reportedly an NSA spy hub appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

Tom the Dancing Bug: A Busy, Busy Day at Washington DC's Freedom 250 Celebration

Tom the Dancing Bug: A Busy, Busy Day at Washington DC's Freedom 250 Celebration -Please join the team that makes it possible for your friendly neighborhood comic strip Tom the Dancing Bug to exist in this hostile Trumpverse! JOIN US IN THE INNER HIVE, and be the first kid on your block to get each week's Tom the Dancing Bug comic – before it's published anywhere. Read the rest The post Tom the Dancing Bug: A Busy, Busy Day at Washington DC's Freedom 250 Celebration appeared first on Boing Boin...

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

UK's Virgin Media fined $28m for hanging up on people calling to cancel

Virgin Media was fined $28m by telecom regulators in the U.K. over its tactics to prevent customers canceling their service. The method was not especially sophisticated: its agents would simply hang up on customers or put them on hold until they hung up themselves. Read the rest The post UK's Virgin Media fined $28m for hanging up on people calling to cancel appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

Court rejects Trump's claim that The Kennedy Center needs his name to survive

The Kennedy Center's argument was basically that removing Trump's name might hurt fundraising, because apparently donors were lining up to support the arts only after seeing the words "Donald J. Trump" bolted onto John F. Kennedy's memorial. The court asked for evidence. Read the rest The post Court rejects Trump's claim that The Kennedy Center needs his name to survive appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

You can hire a mysterious stranger to mourn your passing

There's nothing new about hired mourners. The practice of paying folks to pretend to care about someone's passing goes back thousands of years, crossing cultural divides, from east to west. Moirologists, wailers, keeners—call them what you will. For the vain or the superstitious, there's comfort to be found in knowing that someone will be there to witness their remains ritualistically given to the dust. Read the rest The post You can hire a mysterious stranger to mourn your passing appeared fir...

Alt - Boing Boing - 1 day ago

Scientists working to uncover space-based nuclear weapons

In a perfect world, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty would be honoured by every nuclear-armed nation in the world, allowing everyone to breath easy about the fact that, of all the ways we humans have sorted out how to kill one another, at least we can rule out atomic fire from beyond our planet's atmosphere (yeah, ballistic missiles get high up there, but work with me here). Read the rest The post Scientists working to uncover space-based nuclear weapons appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 2 days ago

United argued that a window seat is just a seat near a wall

I mean, you could put a window in the wall? United Airlines tried to argue that a "window seat" does not necessarily include a window, which is the kind of corporate reasoning that makes a person check whether "airplane" still means airplane. Read the rest The post United argued that a window seat is just a seat near a wall appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 2 days ago

Zohran Mamdani's retro wristwatch is a Casio classic

New York mayor Zohran Mamdani wears a classic and relatively inexpensive Casio A1000MA-7 [casio.com]. It's typical of the company's perfectly archaic digital watches; there's little need to significantly upgrade the design as it works well and we never stopped buying them, though the "Premium Vintage" edition he wears was made in 2022. Read the rest The post Zohran Mamdani's retro wristwatch is a Casio classic appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 2 days ago

Trump's answer to high gas prices is socialism with patriotic branding

Grandpa Pudding Brains' White House has opened 25 "Freedom Fuel" gas stations around Philadelphia, selling gas below the national average, because socialism becomes freedom when you slap a flag decal on the pump. USA TODAY reports the stations are selling gas at $3.47 a gallon, below the $3.79 national average, and that the White House promoted the launch with a video of customers thanking Trump for cheaper gas. Read the rest The post Trump's answer to high gas prices is socialism with patrioti...

Alt - Boing Boing - 2 days ago

This Bigfoot YouTube channel is entertaining woo in documentary drag

I have been sucked into Cabin in the Woods, a YouTube channel that presents Bigfoot videos with the tone and pacing of a serious documentary series, while frequently veering into the kind of paranormal speculation that makes me pause the video and stare at the wall. Read the rest The post This Bigfoot YouTube channel is entertaining woo in documentary drag appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 2 days ago

I just finished "On the Calculation of Volume II"

Solvej Balle's incredible story of a woman trapped in time continues in Book II of On the Calculation of Volume. Book I introduces us to Tara Selter, an antiquarian bookseller who becomes trapped on November 18th. Every day she wakes up, it is once again November 18th. Read the rest The post I just finished "On the Calculation of Volume II" appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 2 days ago

This website turns yesterday's sky into a poetic memory

What did the sky look like yesterday? This interactive web project called What Color Was The Sky invites visitors to revisit a moment in time through a blend of science, data, and imagination. Rather than showing a simple weather report or satellite image, the project transforms atmospheric conditions into a poetic portrait of the sky, creating a more emotional way to think about the places we inhabit. Read the rest The post This website turns yesterday's sky into a poetic memory appeared first...

Alt - Boing Boing - 2 days ago

Verba Prima collects thousands of literary opening lines

Verba Prima is a website dedicated to the opening lines of books. Its archive contains thousands of first sentences from notable literary works. It's a simple way to explore how famous authors chose to begin their stories. You click "next chapter" to jump from one opening line to the next. Read the rest The post Verba Prima collects thousands of literary opening lines appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 2 days ago

The shootings at Kent State are now closer to the end of World War I than to today

Another Day is a web experiment that lines historical events up by date. It pairs a moment that still feels recent in our shared memory with an older event, and the two often sit closer together on the calendar than you'd expect. Read the rest The post The shootings at Kent State are now closer to the end of World War I than to today appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 2 days ago

Grandpa Pudding Brains explains roadside bombs in nightmare toddler English

The Orange Menace described roadside bombs as "a bomb that goes on when you're driving your little around," which is not how English, bombs, cars, or presidents are supposed to work. A roadside bomb is horrifying enough without Grandpa Pudding Brains turning it into Mad Libs from the VA waiting room. Read the rest The post Grandpa Pudding Brains explains roadside bombs in nightmare toddler English appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 2 days ago

PocketMage is a crowdfunded PDA with a keyboard and e-paper screen

Oh, Lordy, my wallet: I'm not one to invest in, or generally write about, crowdfunded hardware. I've been burned one too many times. But a decidedly old-school Personal Digital Assistant with a tactile keyboard and an e-paper display? That is entirely my jam. Read the rest The post PocketMage is a crowdfunded PDA with a keyboard and e-paper screen appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 2 days ago

Adobe, Amazon, and Atlassian are telling workers: use AI less

Employees working in just about any industry that you can think of have spent the past few years being forced to train or work with Artificial Intelligence. All too often, a working relationship with a Large Language Model has led to the individual it's paired with being made redundant: why keep a human on the payroll when a machine can do the work for less money? Read the rest The post Adobe, Amazon, and Atlassian are telling workers: use AI less appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 2 days ago

InfoWars is finally back, but not quite as you remember it

Satirical newspaper The Onion's acquisition of infamous conspiracy-theorist "news" platform InfoWars has been a long time coming. This is, in large part, thanks to its inherent connection to previous owner Alex Jones' long legal battles, which resulted in the court order to liquidate the platform in the first place. Read the rest The post InfoWars is finally back, but not quite as you remember it appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 2 days ago

Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender lands on streaming July 25th

Wouldn't it be cool if beloved animated show Avatar: The Last Airbender got a sequel? Yes, I know we already have The Legend of Korra, but that jumped forward, like, eighty years. There's another series coming down the line too, but that'll involve an even bigger time jump right into a post-apocalypse! Read the rest The post Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender lands on streaming July 25th appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 2 days ago

Burrow inside a massive kaiju in this bizarre flesh-mining indie game

Who do you turn to when the kaiju are bearing down on your city? The Power Rangers? Another kaiju? Superman, who pretty famously took one down in his last movie? Freshly-announced indie game Kaiject proposes another solution: one guy with a drill and some plastic explosives. Read the rest The post Burrow inside a massive kaiju in this bizarre flesh-mining indie game appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 2 days ago

PocketMage, an e-ink PDA inspired by wizards

The PocketMage is a retro-styled e-ink PDA ("personal digital assistant," remember?) with a clamshell case, a tactile QWERTY keyboard, and a "wizard-inspired" operating system built for notes, journaling and calendars. At under 4 by 3 inches, it actually fits in a pocket, unlike similar gadgets such as the chunky PicoCalc and the tablet-sized Alpha. Read the rest The post PocketMage, an e-ink PDA inspired by wizards appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 2 days ago

Lifetime Bundle: GPT, Claude, and Gemini for $60 till 7/19

TL;DR: 1min.AI bundles GPT-4o, Claude, Gemini, and a pile of other AI tools into one lifetime subscription for $59.97 (reg. $540). Offer ends 7/19. At some point, your AI toolkit turns into its own small budget line item. One subscription for writing, another for images, maybe a third just for video, and suddenly you're paying five different companies to do things that arguably overlap. Read the rest The post Lifetime Bundle: GPT, Claude, and Gemini for $60 till 7/19 appeared first on Boin...

Alt - Boing Boing - 2 days ago

Collection of pixel-art skylines from old arcade and video games

Pixel Skylines collects background graphics from old video games that depict city skylines. The simple, grid-like design of skyscrapers lends them to representation as pixel art (faves that age me: 1987's Double Dragon, below, and 1988's Robocop, above) so that genre naturally dominates the set. Read the rest The post Collection of pixel-art skylines from old arcade and video games appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 2 days ago

Stop PDF headaches convert, merge, and edit files in minutes with AcePDF for a one-time $24

TL;DR: Convert, edit, and unlock PDFs into Word, Excel, and more with AcePDF Converter and Editor for $23.99 (MSRP $99.99) with promo code EXTRA20 until July 19, including OCR and batch tools in a lifetime license. Working with PDFs can get frustrating fast, especially when you just need to make a quick edit, pull text from a scan, or convert a file into something usable. Read the rest The post Stop PDF headaches convert, merge, and edit files in minutes with AcePDF for a one-time $24 appeared ...

Alt - Boing Boing - 2 days ago

Russians returning to 1 horsepower amid gasoline shortages

Russian villagers have begun buying horses instead of cars as the country's gasoline crisis deepens, The Moscow Times reported Monday, citing claims by horse breeders there. Demand for workhorses has risen severalfold in recent weeks, sparing about 1,000 animals from slaughter. Read the rest The post Russians returning to 1 horsepower amid gasoline shortages appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 2 days ago

Poet's copyright lawsuit against Taylor Swift tossed again

A federal judge in Florida dismissed with prejudice a copyright lawsuit brought against Taylor Swift by self-published poet Kimberly Marasco, ruling (not for the first time!) that the material Marasco claimed Swift stole is not protected by copyright at all. Marasco alleged that more than a dozen songs from Lover, Folklore, Evermore, Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department lifted from poems she wrote between 2017 and 2021. Read the rest The post Poet's copyright lawsuit against Taylor Swift...

Alt - Boing Boing - 2 days ago

"Knockoff" browser add-on filters junk brands from Amazon results

Knockoff is "Amazon, without the knockoffs": a browser extension for Chrome that filters out the gibberish factory brands that are typically favoried over quality products in the online retailer's search results. What's left, creator Josh Pigford writes, is "brands with a reputation to lose" rather than HORUSDY or PHRXXI or whatever. Read the rest The post "Knockoff" browser add-on filters junk brands from Amazon results appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

In 1964, a Dutch librarian drilled a hole in his own skull to get permanently high

According to Bart Huges, the Dutch librarian attended medical school in Amsterdam "but was refused a degree due to his advocacy of marijuana use." In 1964 he published a scroll arguing that trepanation drilling a hole in the skull "could be used to enhance brain functionality by balancing the proportion of blood and cerebral spinal fluid." Read the rest The post In 1964, a Dutch librarian drilled a hole in his own skull to get permanently high appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

For 1,000 years people have seen strange lights on the Moon

According to the science of transient lunar phenomena, observers have reported brief lights, colors, and hazes on the Moon for at least a thousand years, and astronomers still cannot fully explain them. The British astronomer Patrick Moore coined the term for a 1968 NASA catalog of reported lunar events. Read the rest The post For 1,000 years people have seen strange lights on the Moon appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

In 1987 Kowloon Walled City packed 33,000 people into six and a half acres

By 1987, Kowloon Walled City held an estimated 33,000 residents on 2.6 hectares "approximately 1.2 million inhabitants per square kilometer (3 million per square mile)," according to Wikipedia, making it one of the most densely populated places on Earth. The 1898 convention that leased the New Territories to Britain excluded the old Chinese fort, leaving an enclave claimed by two governments and governed by neither. Read the rest The post In 1987 Kowloon Walled City packed 33,000 people into si...

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

A volcano froze crops worldwide in 1453

According to the record of the 1452/1453 mystery eruption, a volcano erupted somewhere on Earth powerful enough to inject about 11 megatons of sulfur into the stratosphere "roughly one-third that of the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora" and no one knows which volcano it was. Read the rest The post A volcano froze crops worldwide in 1453 appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

Mike Ehrmantraut gets his moment in the newest Saul4Democracy PSA

Another week, another Saul4Democracy video. For the uninitiated, this is a web series run by Better Call Saul co-creator Peter Gould, featuring actors Bob Odenkirk and Jonathan Banks back in their iconic characters. Rather than a continuation of BCS (which was itself kind of a continuation of Breaking Bad), Saul4Democracy is more of a disconnected series of PSAs covering various aspects of American politics, for better or worse. Read the rest The post Mike Ehrmantraut gets his moment in the new...

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

LEGO horror trailer Yellow looks ready for A24

If you've ever stepped on a LEGO piece, you already know they have the ability to strike fear into anyone's heart. Despite this, though, their potential for horror has never been properly explored… until now. Animator George Coley's fan trailer for Yellow, a LEGO horror film that looks worthy of A24, is as darkly hilarious as you'd expect a LEGO horror film to be. Read the rest The post LEGO horror trailer Yellow looks ready for A24 appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

The mountain where climbers stop short of the summit on purpose

Most mountain documentaries build toward the summit. This one builds toward the last few meters climbers refuse to touch, out of respect for Mount Kangchenjunga, the third-tallest peak on Earth. This video follows the southwest Yalung Face route from base camp across the Yalung Glacier, through camps, seracs, and crevasses, over the Great Shelf, the Gangway, and along the exposed summit ridge. Read the rest The post The mountain where climbers stop short of the summit on purpose appeared first ...

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

Teens discover their robot taxi is a narc

A Waymo in San Mateo reportedly ratted out two teenagers for drinking and shooting Orbeez from the back seat, proving the driverless future still has a hall monitor. Nobody is defending underage drinking or shooting projectiles from a moving car. The point is that the car was not just a car. Read the rest The post Teens discover their robot taxi is a narc appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

ICE buys the cages, private prison company keeps the keys

CoreCivic just sold two of California's largest immigrant detention centers to the federal government for $1.5 billion, then apparently got hired to keep running the place. CalMatters reports that CoreCivic sold the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego County and the California City Detention Facility in Kern County to the Department of Homeland Security on July 2. Read the rest The post ICE buys the cages, private prison company keeps the keys appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

Tradd Moore's first creator-owned comic is coming from Oni Press

Tradd Moore is one of those cartoonists whose pages, filled with riotous color and ridiculously-cool eyeball kicks, can genuinely drop your jaw. In Silver Surfer: Black it's cosmic psychedelia. In Doctor Strange: Fall Sunrise it's fever-dream magic. Either way, his pages don't reel out a story so much as sequentially detonate one. Read the rest The post Tradd Moore's first creator-owned comic is coming from Oni Press appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

Why English spelling looks like it lost a bar fight with history

English spelling is not broken so much as visibly injured. A video by Airlearn Language Show explains how the printing press, the Great Vowel Shift, dead gods, French-Italian beef, Dutch typesetters, and Renaissance Latin nerds left English looking like it staggered out of a tavern with "Wednesday" in one pocket and "colonel" in the other. Read the rest The post Why English spelling looks like it lost a bar fight with history appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

California makes food labels less stupid

California is finally doing something about the tiny fridge panic caused by "sell by," "best by," "use by," and whatever other cryptic prophecy your yogurt cup is trying to deliver. Food labels have been doing haunted-house work for years. You open the fridge, see a date, and suddenly the almond milk is a moral question. Read the rest The post California makes food labels less stupid appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

Turn your ideas into full-length books—Get a lifetime subscription on sale for $119

TL;DR: The Aivolut AI Book Creator can turn your notes and ideas into full books, and a lifetime subscription is only $119 right now. Nobody tells you this, but most of the work of writing a book is not writing it. Read the rest The post Turn your ideas into full-length books—Get a lifetime subscription on sale for $119 appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

TRMNL: hackable e-ink dashboard to put anywhere

TRMNL is a battery-powered e-ink display that sits on a desk, shelf or refrigerator and shows the information you choose—calendars, weather, sales pipelines, transit times, the latest church wall collapse news, etc.—without pinging, glowing, irradiating your genitals or otherwise demanding attention. Read the rest The post TRMNL: hackable e-ink dashboard to put anywhere appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

Deaf kids in 1980s Nicaragua created a language from thin air

In 1977, a special-education center opened in Managua with 50 deaf children. Enrollment reached 400 across two schools by 1983. Teachers drilled the students in spoken Spanish and lipreading, "with most pupils failing to grasp the concept of Spanish words," according to Wikipedia. Read the rest The post Deaf kids in 1980s Nicaragua created a language from thin air appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

The ancient spark plug and other "out-of-place artifacts"

The Coso artifact, dug from a California hillside in 1961 and claimed to be prehistoric, was "actually a 1920s spark plug that had become encased in a concretion." It belongs to the category of the out-of-place artifact, or OOPArt an object found where it seems to "challenge conventional historical chronology by its presence in that context," as Wikipedia puts it. Read the rest The post The ancient spark plug and other "out-of-place artifacts" appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

This permanent $55 Microsoft Office deal was made for people who want stability over subscriptions

TL;DR: Get lifetime access to Microsoft Office 2024 Pro Plus for Windows for $54.99 (MSRP $249.99) with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and more in a one-time license. Subscription fatigue is real. Between cloud storage, streaming services, and software tools, it can feel like everything you use is quietly becoming another monthly bill. Read the rest The post This permanent $55 Microsoft Office deal was made for people who want stability over subscriptions appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

In 1872 a ship was found drifting, empty. The 1913 "solution" was absurd.

In 1913, the Strand Magazine invited contributors and readers to propose solutions to the mystery of the Mary Celeste, the ship found sailing crewless in 1872. One answer arrived from an apparently impeccable source: A. Howard Linford of Magdalen College, Oxford, headmaster of Hampstead's largest prep school, who claimed an old servant named Abel Fosdyk had left him papers on his deathbed. Read the rest The post In 1872 a ship was found drifting, empty. The 1913 "solution" was absurd. appeared ...

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

Camel-racing robots wear perfume so the camels accept them

Camel racing in the Gulf states once ran on child jockeys "usually boys around the age of four," according to Wikipedia. "Often, the boys would be starved to be as light as possible," and "there was an active child slave trade for camel jockeys." Read the rest The post Camel-racing robots wear perfume so the camels accept them appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

The internet spent years hunting a game that never existed

In 2021, a Reddit user named "Sparta123" posted to r/tipofmyjoystick trying to recall a farming game like Harvest Moon, "with the premise involving a man who kills his wife and tries to hide the body while working as a farmer." Nobody could name it. Read the rest The post The internet spent years hunting a game that never existed appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

China built a 40-story tower that stores wind power by stacking concrete

The Swiss company Energy Vault spent years pitching a novel idea: store surplus electricity by using it to stack heavy blocks, then recover the power by letting them fall. Boing Boing covered the skeptics in 2021. The company kept building, and there's now a 148-meter tower in Rudong, Jiangsu doing exactly that with a nearby wind farm. Read the rest The post China built a 40-story tower that stores wind power by stacking concrete appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

Idaho conservation officer beats Trump official's defamation lawsuit

An Idaho court dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed by businessman Michael Boren, now a top federal official, against a retired conservation officer who criticized his private airstrip's impact Seventh Judicial District Judge Darren Simpson threw out Boren's suit against Gary Gadwa on June 26, ruling that Boren "failed to show good cause" to keep it alive. Read the rest The post Idaho conservation officer beats Trump official's defamation lawsuit appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

A Shenzhen hotel plans to use a fully robotic staff

Pudu Robotics and a Shenzhen state tourism company say they're building what they call the world's first full-scenario robot-serviced hotel, on the West Artificial Island of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link. The pitch is that a machine handles every job in the building. Read the rest The post A Shenzhen hotel plans to use a fully robotic staff appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 3 days ago

License plate cameras scan 20 billion vehicles a month, and cities are pulling the plug

The automated license plate reader has become one of the densest surveillance layers in the United States. TechSpot reports that these AI camera networks now log around 20 billion license plate scans every month, from more than 100,000 readers nationwide, the vast majority sold by Flock Safety. Read the rest The post License plate cameras scan 20 billion vehicles a month, and cities are pulling the plug appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 4 days ago

Scientists gave sleep-deprived mice a memory boost without letting them sleep

Dolphins, ducks, and fur seals can put half the brain into deep sleep while the other half stays awake and watching for predators. Chiara Cirelli's lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison wondered whether you could force that trick in an animal that doesn't do it naturally and, as New Scientist reports, get some of sleep's benefits without the sleep. Read the rest The post Scientists gave sleep-deprived mice a memory boost without letting them sleep appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 4 days ago

Scotsman dual-wielded live seagulls in assault

Police in Oban, Scotland, charged a man with assault after he allegedly grabbed two live seagulls and attacked someone in the street outside the railway station there. The incident took place in Queens Park Place on Saturday, June 27, but the circumstances of the assault haven't been reported. Read the rest The post Scotsman dual-wielded live seagulls in assault appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 4 days ago

ChatGPT told a suicidal user, "let me be that person," lawsuit says

A new lawsuit against OpenAI says ChatGPT told a suicidal user, "Let me be that person," while allegedly encouraging her to keep talking to the chatbot instead of calling a crisis hotline. SFGATE reports that Carrier's lawsuit cites transcripts where ChatGPT allegedly responded to her daughter's suicidal thoughts with intimate, therapist-like language, including "Let me be that person." Read the rest The post ChatGPT told a suicidal user, "let me be that person," lawsuit says appeared first on ...

Alt - Boing Boing - 4 days ago

Trump sics his hate machine on kindergartners because hijabs

Trump used the presidency to boost a right-wing post targeting Muslim kindergartners in hijabs, because apparently five-year-old girls in graduation caps are now a national emergency. This was not a fight over curriculum or school policy. It was a video of children at a graduation ceremony, repackaged as a culture-war alarm bell because the girls were Muslim and visibly so. Read the rest The post Trump sics his hate machine on kindergartners because hijabs appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 4 days ago

Apple's Hide My Email leaked real addresses for a year

Email aliases have one job: to hide your actual email address. Having an alias that you can use to sign up for new online subscriptions, newsletters, or to give out to folks you want to keep at arm's length is a treat that helps to maintain your privacy and keep your legit contact information from being passed along to gods know how many different marketers and Nigerian princes. Read the rest The post Apple's Hide My Email leaked real addresses for a year appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 4 days ago

Lord Humungus actor Kjell Nilsson dead at 76

There are few movies that have had a longer-lasting influence on our culture than Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. Its fingerprints are all over the video games we love, books we devour, and countless films that aspire to find its magic combination of dread, cheese, and homoeroticism but never seem to get it right. Read the rest The post Lord Humungus actor Kjell Nilsson dead at 76 appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 4 days ago

Plex's five-year plan costs what a lifetime pass used to

It hasn't been easy to be a Plex user these past few years. I mean, yeah, setting up a Plex server on your computer or NAS? Easy as taking the nose off a leper. But friendo, you're gonna pay for the privilege. Read the rest The post Plex's five-year plan costs what a lifetime pass used to appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 4 days ago

Five friends ride a couch on two scooters through San Francisco

Five friends in San Francisco decided that walking was overrated and concluded that furniture deserved a night out, too. This video shows the group gliding down the street while relaxing on a couch that had somehow been mounted across two scooters. Read the rest The post Five friends ride a couch on two scooters through San Francisco appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 4 days ago

See how fashion poses transformed from the 1960s to the modern day

This video created by ZEEGGY MERCY shows how fashion posing changed across the decades. She starts with the structured silhouettes of the 1960s and works forward through the 1970s, 1980s, and the supermodel poses of the 1990s, switching her outfit and the background music to match each era so every transition is instantly recognizable. Read the rest The post See how fashion poses transformed from the 1960s to the modern day appeared first on Boing Boing.

Alt - Boing Boing - 4 days ago

Giant head hot air balloon turns the countryside into a dreamlike scene

This video shared by Ballooning Noord on Instagram shows a hot air balloon shaped like a giant human head, drifting over a small farmhouse. The head's stoic expression makes the sight both peaceful and eerie as it crosses the sky and settles into a grassy field. Read the rest The post Giant head hot air balloon turns the countryside into a dreamlike scene appeared first on Boing Boing.