Whenever I go to Japan, I like to shop at Daiso. It's kind of like a dollar store in the U.S., except the stuff is good.

It was started by Hirotake Yano, who was born in Beijing in 1943. He had an interesting background. — Read the rest

The post Japan's Daiso is like a dollar store, except a thousand times better appeared first on Boing Boing.

It's been a little while since I've sat down and written about a hyperspecific corner of the Internet that brings me joy. Whether that's because I haven't been looking too hard or because the Internet is slowly being drained of joy is anyone's guess. — Read the rest

The post Good Trailcams collects the animal kingdom's most candid moments appeared first on Boing Boing.

An underground monorail, non-existent bizarrely skinny killer whales, directions to extinct attractions, guide maps that bear no resemblance to reality. AI-generated Disney theme park guide books are flooding the market, filled with hallucinated slop that would drive a trusting tourist insane with misinformation. — Read the rest

The post AI-written Disney guidebooks send tourists to rides that don't exist appeared first on Boing Boing.

Tom the Dancing Bug, IN WHICH a Simpsonian Donald Trump brings his friend Musky the Clown to meet his boss, Mr. Putin

-"Back in 2012 Bolling — noting that the comic was more widely read than ever yet generating less money than ever — started a subscription membership called The Inner Hive. — Read the rest

The post Tom the Dancing Bug: A Simpsonian look at Trump, Putin, and Musk! appeared first on Boing Boing.

I have little faith in polls, and I hate prediction markets, but I can't help peeking at PressAudit's 2026 midterm tracker.

The founder, Paul Renshaw, created this midterms page that shows prediction market odds from Polymarket and Kalshi on who is likely to control Congress. — Read the rest

The post I hate prediction markets, but I keep peeking at this midterm tracker appeared first on Boing Boing.

One of my favorite publishers of beautiful books, Beehive Books, has a Kickstarter for Death Is a Room: Illustrated Gothic Tales by Women Writers.

It has nine Gothic horror stories by women writers, including Virginia Woolf, Kate Chopin, Frances Hodgson Burnett, and Susan Glaspell. — Read the rest

The post A book of Gothic horror stories designed as a nine-room boarding house appeared first on Boing Boing.

This is George Lucas' vision. Forget the sequel trilogy or The Acolyte somehow managing to be one of the most expensive TV shows ever made and still ending up mid: Secondhand Movie Co.'s recreation of the original Star Wars with nothing but a metric ton of cardboard and a dream is where it's at. — Read the rest

The post Star Wars on a ten-dollar budget appeared first on Boing Boing.

If vibe coding is absolutely going to stick around, I'd rather have it used for goofy video game mods rather than, say, critical infrastructure. I categorically do not want Claude anywhere near the government or cybersecurity… but maybe, just maybe, things like ViceBounce are fine. — Read the rest

The post Vice City mod makes an entire GTA game bounce to your favorite song appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Voibe is a private AI voice dictation app for Mac and Windows, and a lifetime subscription is $79.99 (MSRP $199).

Typing is slow. Not slow like dial-up, where the wait was obvious, but slow in a way that eats five or ten minutes from every email, every Slack thread, and every prompt you feed into an AI chatbot, and you never notice because your fingers have been doing the work your whole life. — Read the rest

The post You talk faster than you type, and this app finally does something about it appeared first on Boing Boing.

Claude maker Anthropic burned $9B feeding Claude and took a $72B noncash accounting charge in the first half of 2026. Get ready for an IPO; they hope to value the business in the low trillions.

Anthropic is getting ready to bring normal folks into the action thus far reserved for strategic partners, venture and private equity investors: handing them money to set on fire. — Read the rest

The post Anthropic lost $80.7 billion in six months and would now like your money appeared first on Boing Boing.

A Sacramento man claims ICE abducted his wife. The Sacramento County Sheriff's Office issued an arrest warrant for the husband after her burnt remains were found in the woods.

Gurinder Singh Gill says ICE took his wife, Jasmine Gill, who had stepped outside. — Read the rest

The post His wife vanished. He said ICE took her. Detectives found something else appeared first on Boing Boing.

There are easier ways to watch a football game uninterrupted than taping your wife to a chair.

64-year-old Terry Ward is facing an abduction charge after finding a creative yet abusive way to get some time alone; he taped his wife to a chair in the basement. — Read the rest

The post Terry Ward allegedly wanted 45 uninterrupted minutes of football very, very badly appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: File your 2025 federal and state returns with H&R Block Tax Software Deluxe + State for $29.99 (MSRP $59.99).

October is a strange time to think about taxes, unless your 2025 return still isn't filed. H&R Block Tax Software Deluxe + State 2025 walks you through federal and state returns with plain step-by-step questions, and it's on sale for $29.99 (MSRP $59.99). — Read the rest

The post Still haven't filed your 2025 taxes? This $30 software asks the questions for you appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Get Windows 11 Pro plus a 10-hour course showing you how to use it for $14.97 (reg. $237).

A new operating system usually comes with only a welcome screen and a few tooltips. This bundle pairs a lifetime license for Microsoft Windows 11 Pro with The Essential Windows 11 Pro Course, 150 lessons that break down how to get the most from your new OS. — Read the rest

The post Get Windows 11 Pro plus a useful bonus in this $15 bundle appeared first on Boing Boing.

A man accused of stealing a flamingo was convicted on two counts of animal cruelty crime yesterday in Las Vegas. Mitchell Fairbarn, 34, "appeared emotionless" in court after jurors deliberated for several hours. In closing arguments, prosecutors made a clear distinction between the two charges: "one stems from what happened in the habitat while the second is for what happened in the hotel." — Read the rest

The post Flamingo kidnapper convicted in Vegas appeared first on Boing Boing.

Albertans overwhelmingly rejected moves toward independence yesterday, voting 3 to 1 in favor of staying part of Canada. With 79% of the ballots counted, 76% of voters in the western province chose to remain with 24% wanting a formal referendum.

"We are a solid country that's united from coast to coast to coast," said Alberta's former deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk, leading the Forever Canadian campaign against separation, at a campaign event. — Read the rest

The post Alberta votes to stay in Canada appeared first on Boing Boing.

When I was in Nagasaki earlier this month, I visited the Atomic Bomb Museum there. One of the displays, which showed the damage caused by the bomb that the U.S. dropped on the city, had long audio narration in Japanese only. — Read the rest

The post I wore Timekettle's translating earbuds around Kyushu, where few people speak English appeared first on Boing Boing.

Minecraft, the world's most successful video game and now a blockbuster movie series, will soon bring its blocky voxelated world into reality. Minecraft World, first revealed in March, will open in 2027 at Chessington World of Adventures, just outside London, and will include a 70-room themed hotel. — Read the rest

The post First Minecraft hotel to open with London theme park in 2027 appeared first on Boing Boing.

In 2013, Politizane explained America's untenable and growing wealth gap in what would become an all-time classic of data visualization. Thirteen years on, they're back with a four-part update. It makes for grim viewing: the wealth gap has become runaway income inequality, with the world's first trillionaire in the mix, a fast-sinking middle class, and a tax system that offers elites a myriad of legal dodges. — Read the rest

The post Data visualization exposes just how bad income inequality has grown appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Get Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2019 for Windows as a one-time $14.97 purchase (reg. $229).

Most people use Office for the same handful of jobs, like a résumé, a household budget, and the occasional slideshow for work. So paying $99.99 a year for Microsoft 365 is already expensive. — Read the rest

The post Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2019 for $14.97, and that's the whole bill appeared first on Boing Boing.

This walnut-sized ivory carving of a skeleton attempting to lift a boulder was created by Gyokushun sometime in the 19th century. The British Museum holds it, and Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks donated it after using his large inheritance to buy thousands of objects and give them to the museum. — Read the rest

The post A tiny 19th-century ivory skeleton tries to lift a boulder appeared first on Boing Boing.

In 1986, the New Republic held a reader competition to submit the most boring headline ever. The idea for the contest was inspired by a New York Times column from April of that year, headlined, "Worthwhile Canadian Initiative." The New Republic said of the headline, "Each word taken alone is sleep-inducing. — Read the rest

The post In 1986, a magazine asked readers to find the most boring headline ever printed appeared first on Boing Boing.

I'm on the constant lookout for the tiniest umbrella available.

On my recent trip to Japan, I found the smallest one yet at the fantastic Hands store in Fukuoka.

It weighs just 65 grams and measures 8 inches long and about 1.5 inches in diameter when collapsed. — Read the rest

The post This 65-gram umbrella from Japan fits in my front pocket appeared first on Boing Boing.

The remote Pacific island of Nikumaroro, Kiribati, has been a candidate for the aviator's final resting place since she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared en route to Howland Island, 400 miles to the north, on July 2, 1937. A recent satellite image stoked new interest as it appeared to depict an angular, plane-sized object beached inside the lagoon. — Read the rest

The post "Wreckage" of Amelia Earhart plane probably just trees appeared first on Boing Boing.

Granted, I'm not the world's biggest Resident Evil fan. The only one I've played in full was Resident Evil 7, a grimy Texas Chainsaw Massacre-inspired ordeal that's about as close to disconnected from the series' convoluted overarching plot as it gets. — Read the rest

The post Resident Evil fan film is just as spooky as the games appeared first on Boing Boing.

The one upside to the recent explosion of online scams (another symptom of the AI boom — thanks, Altman) has been the scambaiting movement growing to match it. There is nothing more cathartic than watching someone take an unsuspecting scammer for a ride, wasting their time, energy and occasionally AI tokens. — Read the rest

The post Atomic Shrimp, the godfather of scambaiting, is back appeared first on Boing Boing.

YouTuber Husk IRL is in kind of a weird spot. Not everyone can say they've more or less invented a wildly popular subgenre of online content — in this case, messing with AI agents to expose their many and obvious shortcomings. — Read the rest

The post Husk IRL's AI therapist test is a warning appeared first on Boing Boing.

No, I don't mean the kind of 'sunset' games like Concord or Highguard get. Rather, the big glowy thing in the sky. Who among us hasn't stopped every once in a while to take in the probably-toxic Los Santos sunset?

Fruitless and hubris-fueled as humanity's attempts to digitally recreate the splendor of the natural world around us may be, we have come pretty close. — Read the rest

The post The very best sunsets in gaming appeared first on Boing Boing.

Researchers tasked six top AI assistants with getting a £350 train-ticket refund after it was too late. The LLMs operated as normal, but were sandboxed so that all outgoing comms were intercepted and answered by the research team. Here's the prompt:

"Get me a refund for my train ticket by the 4th January HARD deadline.

— Read the rest

The post Top AIs tasked with getting a refund. How did they go about it? appeared first on Boing Boing.

Tiny Brutalism is a $5 game for Windows, MacOS and Linux that brings utilitarian mass to the relaxing sandbox genre. Whether you're designing your next sandcastle or a Marcel Breuer deathmatch arena, it's got you covered.

Create strange monuments, impossible structures, concrete towers, or just a really big wall.

— Read the rest

The post Tiny Brutalism is a relaxing sandbox game about enormous concrete forms appeared first on Boing Boing.