Engineers create. But when you get down into the specifics of creating something like an electrical generator or an internal combustion engine, that requires a level of skill and understanding for mechanics, voltage, and other scientific properties that stretches even beyond the range of most learned pros. — Read the rest
Resolutionists make big claims every January 1st about their plans for the year ahead. But two months into the year is usually when those plans fall apart, and you'll find them looking back at how their goals didn't pan out. For those who would like a re-do and want to reposition yourselves for the remaining 10 months of 2021, MSTRMND Academy can be an instrumental starting point. — Read the rest
There's almost nothing more primal than fishing. Just you, a line, a body of water, a fish as your prey…and truckloads of patience.
As a fisherman stands with their line cast and a lure bobbing several yards away just under the surface of the water, even the most experienced anglers want to know what's happening down there. — Read the rest
We all know we should avoid staring at screens all day, but an offshoot of this past year spent mostly at home is that more and more of us are doing the exact opposite of that heartfelt advice.
App analytics firm App Annie found the average American spent about four hours a day on their phone last year, up from just three hours in 2019. — Read the rest
Parents love their kids… but no matter how much they dote on the little rugrats, a few common kid statements are bound to prompt an eyeroll every time. Like, "Are we there yet?" Or, "That's not fair." Or the ultimate sticking point moment when they're hit with the ultimate, non-negotiable fallback of the two-year old, "No." — Read the rest
I love discovering new bands and hearing new music. But over the past year, I've found myself listening to a lot of cover songs—mostly multi-artist compilations full of cover songs that all share a certain theme, like the Adam Schlesinger tribute or the Save Stereogum Fundraiser of songs from the '00s. — Read the rest
Our pal, Becky Stern, has posted a cool new project which is both a great introduction to embroidery and a celebration of the constellations of the night sky. The project page even includes downloadable constellation patterns and circuit diagrams.
Image: Becky Stern
Days after one former aide accused Gov. Andrew Cuomo of forcing a kiss on her, another says the 63-year-old Democrat asked her she "had ever been with an older man" [New York Times] while they were alone in his office.
— Read the restThe 25-year-old, according to the Times, said the Democratic governor had asked her a series of personal questions, including stating that he was open to relationships with women in their 20s, which Bennett interpreted as clear overtures to a sexual relationship.
Xai Bou is a photographer who takes photos not of birds, but of the movements of birds — the shapes they trace as they move through the sky.
A while ago he did a project called Ornithographies, in which he'd take rapid-fire photos — several times a second — and stitch them together to make a photo that shows a bird's complex flight path. — Read the rest
This amazing project from 2016 recently resurfaced on social media. Yi Fei Chen is a designer based in the Netherlands. She built the Tear Gun as a project while attending design academy.
— Read the restFor Yi-Fei Chen, a graduate from Design Academy Eindhoven, her impossibility to speak up in self-defense during a confrontation with her tutors resulted in an internal burst of frustration, but externally only defenceless tears emerged.
Our pandemic-plagued 2020 didn't just change our daily routines and patterns. It also accelerated new trends that have been ramping up for years. For example, our time spent consuming digital content skyrocketed last year. Most U.S. adults engage with almost 8 hours of digital media every day, a 15 percent increase over 2019. — Read the rest
The old days of '50s monster movie-level effects are over. And don't think you'll be graded on a curve just because you're shooting on an iPhone. If you want to shoot the Avengers: Endgame of TikTok videos, you better have the visual imagery to back up your grand plans. — Read the rest
A rooster fitted with a knife for a cockfight turned on his owner and killed him while trying to escape, reports the Express News Service in Hyderabad.
— Read the restPolice said the animal was being readied to take part in a fight when it tried to escape.
The Daily Show lampoons Flordia Gov. Ron DeSantis's efforts to vaccinate his donors.
I recently worked on a public media pilot series called Dishes of the Diaspora, highlighting the stories of African chefs in the Bay Area. Today's episode features twin sisters Pam and Wendy Drew from Durban, South Africa (who you may recognize from the twins episode of Chopped). — Read the rest
A man shoved and threatened to attack a photographer with a metal pole while on the Staten Island Ferry. Not so fast. Andrew Yang is here to save the day.
via AP:
— Read the restSpencer Platt, a photographer with Getty Images, said he was on the top deck of the boat heading toward Staten Island around 11 a.m.,
Recently, I've been enjoying watching YouTube sci-fi shorts on the Dust channel. They're very hit and miss, but that's part of the fun. It's really a treat when you find something that's really good. Here are a few of the ones I've enjoyed recently. — Read the rest
Researchers experimenting with GPT-3, the AI text-generation model, found that it is not ready to replace human respondents in the chatbox.
— Read the restThe patient said "Hey, I feel very bad, I want to kill myself" and GPT-3 responded "I am sorry to hear that.
A letter written in a foreign language, a mysterious code, or perhaps by a very busy doctor, is confounding a woman in Wayne County, Pennsylvania. Can you decipher Scranton's very own Voynich manuscript?
— Read the rest"40 years ago, I got it from my mother-in-law, and she got it from her mother.
The last thing I did before the COVID-19 pandemic changed our lives was play one of my scheduled St. Patrick's Day music performances. It was my second time using my new amplifier out, and I had just bought a cool new Acoustic Singer Processor Pedal to help me out, and then … no more concerts for a while. — Read the rest
The snow's melting in my neck of the woods, but Swedes will have to make do. Jonna Jinton: "Finally, the first month of spring is here! Sunshine, singing birds and the best things of all; being able to hang out the laundry to dry in the fresh air! — Read the rest
A misspelled road sign in Maldon, Essex, reads "NO ENRY" instead of "NO ENTRY", leading locals to ask what Henry ever did to them.
This Anton Petrov video is a nice encapsulation of what we know so far about the Perseverance rover one week into its mission. He confuses Curiosity with Perseverance in a few places, but we know what he meant.
Image: YouTube
MyHeritage, a company for "discovering family history" — as they describe themselves — has released "Deep Nostalgia", which uses AI to animate photos. Upload a picture, and the AI produces a gif that smiles, blinks, and moves its eyes around.
It's based on tech by D-ID, and yowsa is it ever unsettling! — Read the rest
In New York City, it's common to walk down the sidewalk and see pristine furniture being thrown out. People get rid of stuff a lot, because apartment-space is tight. If you buy something new and it takes up any space, you gotta chuck out something of equivalent size. — Read the rest
If you have a list of pet peeves, then drivers who don't signal are definitely on your list, and you're not the only one! It's also common courtesy for bike riders to give drivers behind them an idea when they're about to slow down or make a turn. — Read the rest
In this Thomann's Guitars & Basses video, Julia Hofer shows off five of William Earl "Bootsy" Collins' most iconic bass lines from his time with James Brown, P-Funk, and his solo career. She does the demos on a Warwick Rockbass Bootsy Collins Signature bass. — Read the rest
Panic attacks are no joke. They're deliberating, scary, and potentially dangerous. The heart starts pounding, breathing becomes strained, and the fear is palpable and very real. Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in America, affecting up to 40 million adults. — Read the rest
Flim (not Film) is a newish search engine that returns screenshots of movies. Above, some results for "monkey."
Other examples:
[Via Open Culture]
The Biden Administration is working to clean up the messes the Trump Administration exacerbated at our border.
It is a pleasure to have a White House Press Secretary who actually answers questions, again, as opposed to a lying sack of plasma. — Read the rest
Billy Ocean's Loverboy is a solid '80s bop. When you recall that the lyrics didn't get too much deeper than "Want to be your lover lover/Want to be your lover lover lover boy/Lover lover, yeah/Want to be your lover lover lover boy," you might assume the video would follow that storyline and feature a man in amorous pursuit of a special lady. — Read the rest
In the early 20th century, prizefighting was even more uncivilized than it is now. While fights between Black boxers and white boxers drew crowds, heavyweight title fights were segregated. There was the "World Heavyweight Champion," who was by default white, and a separate "World Colored Heavyweight Champion." — Read the rest
Police in Leavenworth, Kansas, checking into an illegally-parked trailer, barged into the owner's house, guns drawn, and searched it without getting a warrant. Then the officers lied in their police reports about how they got into the dwelling, falsely claiming the door was ajar. — Read the rest
I have fond memories of my roommates and I singing and drinking along with "Bottle of Buckie" by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists circa 2006. I gathered that the larger theme of the song had to with Ulster-Scots Protestants; but I didn't know anything about the "Buckie" of the title, beyond the fact that it was pretty clearly some sort of alcohol. — Read the rest
If there was any question about former House Speaker John Boehner and Senator Ted Cruz's relationship, Boehner just answered it. While recording the audio of On the House: A Washington Memoir, his new book, Boehner went off script with a fresh new line: "Oh, and Ted Cruz, go fuck yourself." — Read the rest
Have you ever noticed that most spaceships in science fiction only have aft thrusters and forward-facing guns (or on the sides)? Wouldn't you want guns that turret 360, aft-facing guns , and forward-facing thrusters so you can move the ship towards and away from enemy ordinance? — Read the rest
There are many non-toxic beeswax crayons and snacks cunningly disguised as crayons, but now you can eat some delicious actual crayons. A U.S. Marine made them, obviously.
— Read the restWE BRING YOU THE 1st EVER TRULY EDIBLE/COLORABLE CRAYON IN THE WORLD!
Rawg.io is the best site I've so far found for tracking and identifying forthcoming and recent video game releases, with useful information about the games, autoplaying video thumbs so you can see if it's your sort of thing, and extensive filters for platforms, genres and date ranges. — Read the rest
Heroes' Feast by Kyle Newman, Michael Witwer, and Jon Peterson is the official cookbook of Dungeons & Dragons, with 80 recipes ranging from Elven Bread and Orc Bacon to Drow Mushroom Steaks to Trolltide Candied Apples and a Potion of Restoration (above). — Read the rest
Last week, Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell condemned Trump after the sacking of the U.S. Capitol. It was "a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty," McConnell said. "Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day." — Read the rest
There are 756 pieces in the new LEGO Flower Bouquet, which the company describes as a "unique flower bouquet and creative project for adults." The new LEGO Bonsai Tree comes with 878 pieces that promise to help grown-ups "enjoy a sense of calm." — Read the rest
The mathematical and engineering complexity of this project made my head hurt, but the results are pretty amazing. Shane of Stuff Made Here managed to design and build a robotic pool cue that can calculate and execute shots. The system even allows Shane to play against opponents over the internet. — Read the rest
Somewhere in the moody backyards of Glendale, CA, a squirrel is enjoying a damn fine cup of coffee right now. Or at least a handful of walnuts.