My incurable optimist friend, Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired and my partner at Cool Tools and the Recomendo newsletter, has been posting essays on Substack mainly about the future, artificial intelligence, and what it means for humanity. I am loving these essays. — Read the rest

The post Kevin Kelly: AI will be a microscope we point at our own minds appeared first on Boing Boing.

Having finished The Tainted Cup, I immediately dove into the next Ana and Din novel by Robert Jackson Bennett. I also finished the third in the series. Now I must wait.

This series fantasy worldbuilding inside of a detective novel is really a lot of fun. — Read the rest

The post Unfortunately, there are only three Ana and Din mysteries appeared first on Boing Boing.

Brian Peek scanned and shared his collection of gaming promotional VHS cassettes, including five that Atari Games sent to arcade operators in the 1990s.

Peek inherited the tapes from his dad, who ran a gaming center and received them from Atari Games' then-parent company Midway. — Read the rest

The post Lost VHS promos from the twilight of the arcade era appeared first on Boing Boing.

Rock harder, rock out for longer. The biohacking community has found a new trend that's easy to jump on: erectile dysfunction medication for longevity.

Tho studies show nothing conclusive, the biohackers are taking Viagra and Cialis to open their blood vessels, improve cardiovascular health, and live longer than the rest of the limp populace. — Read the rest

The post Harder boners for a longer life appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Get this lifetime license to Microsoft Office 2024 Professional Plus for Windows for just $54.99 (reg. $249.99). 

If you're a working professional, small business owner, or part of an organization with a controlled IT environment, Microsoft Office 2024 Professional Plus for Windows is a fitting software choice. — Read the rest

The post Enhance your workflow with this $55 MS Office 2024 Pro Plus lifetime license  appeared first on Boing Boing.

Geoff Pack made Sun Clock is a neat online visualization of the hours of daylight and darkness, casting it against a regular (but 24-hour!) clock face. You can tweak with the appearance and hands, set location and direction manually, and turn off the moon. — Read the rest

The post 24-hour clock face shows the hours of darkness appeared first on Boing Boing.

A fountain pen or gel pen is a superior way to write, says science fiction writer Neal Stephenson. He says handwriting is good for your brain. Fountain and gel pens are better than pencils or ballpoint pens because there is less friction when you write, so your hand doesn't get tired. — Read the rest

The post The Pilot Kakuno Fountain costs under $20 and writes beautifully appeared first on Boing Boing.

Researchers from the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology are looking for a 500-year-old coastline to find a 500-year-old lost flagship. The ship hasn't moved, but the coastline has.

South Carolina's coastline has changed so much since a Spanish flagship ran aground near Winyah Bay in 1526 that its remains could now be reasonably close to any coastal waterfront. — Read the rest

The post A lost Spanish flagship could be under the ocean, under a river, or even a beach appeared first on Boing Boing.

As reported by wdwmagic.com, last week, Disney Enterprises, Inc. published a patent for "a way to make a flat ride track feel like it's climbing or dropping, without the track actually changing height."

The core version of the trick needs no moving parts and no screens at all, just angled walls and stairs, though the patent leaves room for add-ons like video projection and set pieces that shift or change dimension as a vehicle passes, layered on top of the static illusion for a stronger effect. — Read the rest

The post Disney patent for a fake-elevation ride trick matches new Encanto ride appeared first on Boing Boing.

This excellent doggo saw a good time fly by his face and decided it was playtime.

This skater is having a ball until he isn't! Those awesome wallrides had the dog just wanting to play!

Luckily, the skater is able to catch himself, and the video was made only more epic. — Read the rest

The post A dog, tho joining in the fun, does not help a skateboarder at all appeared first on Boing Boing.

MMA loses to the MMPA.

The gentleman in question was most assuredly NOT Max Holloway. Tyler Muehl approached a resting California sea lion at La Jolla Cove, assumed a fighting stance, invoked the UFC star's name, and started kicking. The sea lion tried to flee. — Read the rest

The post Sea lion-kicking young man discovers the Marine Mammal Protection Act appeared first on Boing Boing.

For better or worse, the state of the contemporary game industry has always been reflected in Rockstar's blockbuster Grand Theft Auto series. The mid-2000s push toward gritty realism (i.e. putting a brown filter on everything), the emergence of ruthlessly exploitative live-service elements, even the 3D sandbox tropes we now take for granted — GTA has always been a time capsule of the triple-A gaming sphere at large. — Read the rest

The post GTA 6 is now paywalling its own advertisements appeared first on Boing Boing.

In 1958, London's Daily Express newspaper started running a comic strip adapting Ian Fleming's James Bond novels. This was well before the first James Bond movie (Dr. No, 1962), so cartoonist John McLusky created the first non-literary published images of the fictional spy. — Read the rest

The post The comic strip that may have cast Sean Connery as the first James Bond appeared first on Boing Boing.

The Digi-Comp I was a plastic and rubber band toy that sold for $5 in 1963. According to Chris Staecker, a Fairfield University math professor who posted a video about its operation, "This was the first digital computer."

It didn't use electricity; instead, it required the user to push and pull a "clock" lever. — Read the rest

The post The Digi-Comp I was a $5 plastic computer powered by rubber bands appeared first on Boing Boing.

I'm headed back to Japan soon. This will be my 10th visit there. I've been going to Japan since 1986. It's changed in a lot of ways. Most noticeably, it is less expensive than it was in 1986, and there are far more foreigners in Tokyo now. — Read the rest

The post A little plastic holder for the yen coins in my pocket appeared first on Boing Boing.

Disney made many announcements for the future of its theme parks at the D23 Disney fan event in Anaheim, California, Saturday night. One headline is that an upcoming refurbishment of the Imagination Pavilion in Disney World's EPCOT (Orlando, Florida) will feature beloved but neglected characters Figment and Dreamfinder. — Read the rest

The post Disney will reunite Figment and Dreamfinder at EPCOT appeared first on Boing Boing.

Just today, I became a time traveler. Unfortunately, you'll need to put aside the images of a humble writer running from dinosaurs or flirting with Cleopatra running through your head right now, but the reality is still pretty cool. What I mean is that I checked out Merriam-Webster's "time traveler" tool, which lets one take a far less literal look into the past. — Read the rest

The post Merriam-Webster's Time Traveler tool sorts English words by birth year appeared first on Boing Boing.

I knew I was going to like Lynx the moment I encountered the cybernetically-enhanced, be-goggled, crime-fighting talking cat. Sometimes you just know.

Lynx, the new tech-noir manga from writer Samuel Sattin (Unico, Buzzing) and Tokyo-based artist tokitokoro (Jeff the Land Shark), is out now on VIZ Originals. — Read the rest

The post In Lynx, a cybernetic cat solves murders next to killer angels appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Polish your piano skills on your own time with this Skoove Premium Piano Lessons Lifetime Subscription for just $149.99 (reg. $299.99).

Take the shame and embarrassment out of learning the piano with this $149.99 (reg. $299.99) Skoove Premium Piano Lessons Lifetime Subscription. — Read the rest

The post Level up your piano skills with this $150 Skoove lifetime subscription appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: SwiftScan VIP turns your iPhone, iPad, or Android device into a portable scanner, PDF editor, OCR tool, and fax machine for $47.97 (reg. $199.99) through August 16 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

Scanners are weirdly committed to staying in our lives. — Read the rest

The post Scanners are basically vintage now. SwiftScan VIP is just $50. appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: End the cycle of frustration! Make peace with your PDFs with a subscription to PDF Reader Pro for just $39.99 (Reg. $79.99) — that's 50% off.

The definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. — Read the rest

The post Control your PDFs, don't let them control you — even on Mac appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: A Lenovo Chromebook in near-mint condition can be yours for just $54.97 (MSRP $199.99) until Aug. 23 at 11:59 p.m. PST.

Focus up with a Chromebook, free of the bells and whistles that cause distractions. This back-to-school season, students, teachers, and scholars of the world could enjoy the perks of a Grade A refurbished Lenovo 100E Gen 2 Chromebook (2019) for just $54.97. — Read the rest

The post Lock in this back-to-school season with a Grade A refurbished Chromebook for only $55 appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Elevate your AI prompts to pro level, no complicated engineering required, with a lifetime subscription to Prompting Systems for $29.99, a 91% price cut from the $360 regular price.

Crafting the just-right prompts that generate relevant, tone-perfect images, social posts, and content you want is time consuming and tedious — if you don't have the tools. — Read the rest

The post Elevate your prompt game with Prompting Systems for $29.99 appeared first on Boing Boing.

I love and still play Don Bluth's amazing video games. I never would have been able to finish them were it not for re-releases years later on several personal platforms.

The animations, matched with a fantastic sense of humor, made Dragon's Lair an instant favorite. — Read the rest

The post In 1983 I couldn't afford to beat Dragon's Lair appeared first on Boing Boing.

The time-honored trick of "repeat after me" strikes again.

Elon "Pedo Guy" Musk calls his expensive AI Grok "maximum truth-seeking." Users apparently discovered they could create maximum truths by putting inflammatory text in an X bio, asking Grok to repeat the bio verbatim, and then sitting back as Musk's personal AI shared it with the world. — Read the rest

The post Grok explains why it called for Elon Musk's assassination appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Disappear into an immersive game with Red Dead Redemption 2 Ultimate Edition, now just $49.99 for an XBOX Live Key.

Your real life might be filled with responsibilities and boring things like emails, work tasks, and chores, but if you're Arthur Morgan, you're regularly dealing with bank robberies, shootouts, and everything the Wild West entails. — Read the rest

The post Your next gaming obsession is half off right now appeared first on Boing Boing.

Budding Portland celebrities Billy the Kid and Billy the Goat escaped their owner's yard, found a TriMet stop, and briefly attempted the morning commute.

Two pygmy goats showed up at a Portland bus stop Tuesday morning, waited for the FX2 and climbed on aboard with the other passengers. — Read the rest

The post Escaped pygmy goats try Portland public transit appeared first on Boing Boing.

If you want to sell AI to the Russian state, you're going to have to tune it to the nation's "traditional spiritual and moral values" before you have a shot, reports Vedomosti, a Russian-language business daily out of Moscow. — Read the rest

The post Russia to test AI models for traditional spiritual and moral values appeared first on Boing Boing.

After more than a decade of reading on Kindle e-readers, I finally added custom fonts, and I'm blown away.

I was never sold. When Amazon's first "made for ereaders" font, Bookerly, came out, I set it on my Kindle and never looked back. — Read the rest

The post OK, custom Kindle fonts are really nice appeared first on Boing Boing.

Claude Monet's first paying work was caricature. At fifteen, he sold unflattering drawings of well-known men around Le Havre through a framing shop, and crowds gathered at the window to look at them. By his own later account, he was among the most successful artists in the Norman port city. — Read the rest

The post Before the water lilies, Monet drew cartoons of well-known locals appeared first on Boing Boing.