Melvin West, 70, cut a rare map from a 17th-century atlas at the Caird Library in Greenwich, London, and was sentenced to three years in jail for the theft. But the 1684 map, cut out with a utility knife, has not been recovered, and the presiding judge at Woolwich Crown Court said West had led authorities on a "merry dance" over where it was. — Read the rest

The post Map thief jailed after refusing to show the way appeared first on Boing Boing.

Hundreds of spiders decided to hang out on a power line in Indonesia. They wove their webs around the power lines, creating a giant invisible wall where they all stand guard. This scene is an arachnophobe's nightmare.

Seeing this in the daytime would be one thing. — Read the rest

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A kind man named John wanted to help the squirrels in his neighborhood feel safe and comfortable. He built squirrel boxes around his neighborhood to serve as homes and shelters for local squirrels. The squirrel boxes are simple wood shelters that the squirrels can freely enter and exit as they wish. — Read the rest

The post A man built cozy squirrel boxes with cameras inside, and the squirrels love them appeared first on Boing Boing.

The series of photos shows what a particularly cold district in Vorkuta, Russia looks like in the dead of winter. The images at the beginning of the series show a town covered in a heavy blanket of snow, with only slivers of cars and buildings visible. — Read the rest

The post Photos show bedrooms in an Arctic Russian town filled with icicles appeared first on Boing Boing.

America is a politically polarized country. But one topic has both the left and the right in full agreement: Flock cameras suck. No one likes the government spying on them.

To make matters worse, police and 911 staff enjoy using Flock cameras to stalk their exes. — Read the rest

The post Police and 911 staff have used Flock cameras to stalk their exes appeared first on Boing Boing.

A man and his wife were taking a relaxing poolside vacation when suddenly a monkey jumped into his lap. Instead of being afraid, the man decided to cuddle the monkey back. The monkey had already decided that this man was her new best friend, and what happens next is unbelievably sweet. — Read the rest

The post A mama monkey picks a vacationing man as her safe place to rest with her baby appeared first on Boing Boing.

Often, the coolest art comes from simple, often unnoticed materials. When reimagined into a new context, everyday household materials can be the base for wonderful works of art. I've always loved watching people transform everyday materials into new ideas.

This aluminum foil piece, Cats and Mice by artist Dean Millien, fills me with joy. — Read the rest

The post An artist sculpts magical cats and mice out of aluminum foil appeared first on Boing Boing.

This fascinating animation clip is from a film called Renaissance, made in 1963 by Walerian Borowczyk. The stop-motion animation shows a destroyed room that slowly puts itself back together. It suggests that a ghost is moving everything around and reconstructing each broken item. — Read the rest

The post In this 1963 stop-motion film, a destroyed room puts itself back together appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Use GPT-5.5 Pro, Claude 4.6 Sonnet, and Gemini 3.1 Pro in one app with a 1min.AI Advanced Business Plan for a one-time $69.97 (reg. $540).

Every few months, a new chatbot is declared the winner in the ChatGPT versus Claude debate, and testing them yourself usually means paying $20 a month for each. — Read the rest

The post Settle the ChatGPT vs. Claude debate yourself for $70 appeared first on Boing Boing.

There are details, but the whole story is in the headline. Conspiracy theorist weirdo RFK Jr. says a racist thing and is immediately wrong.

Campaigning in Michigan for Mike Rogers, the Secretary of Health and Human Services took a break from spreading falsehoods about good health practices and instead turned to racist lies trying to undermine an excellent Senate candidate. — Read the rest

The post RFK Jr. says Arabs don't win Nobel Prizes. Last year's chemistry winner was born in Jordan appeared first on Boing Boing.

Thick as thieves, Don Jr. and his wedding-bankrolling Russian oligarch buddy went off to kill the threatened Mongolian Altai argali sheep. This is not the first time Don Jr. has killed an argali, or had a wedding.

Kremlev put hundreds of thousands of dollars toward the May wedding, including covering a fireworks show and event planning, ProPublica reported.

— Read the rest

The post Don Jr. went sheep hunting with the Russian oligarch who bankrolled his wedding appeared first on Boing Boing.

Diaper Don's crowning achievement, the Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Ballroom, seems less popular than expected.

The Orange Menace likes to talk about his probably illegal ballroom. At Monday night's rally in Corinth, Mississippi, an attendee had apparently heard enough. "Shove that ballroom up your fat ass!" — Read the rest

The post "Shove that ballroom up your fat ass!" Trump gets some architectural feedback appeared first on Boing Boing.

When it comes to YouTube chefs, Guga is one of the best. His experiments are clear, and while you might not even want to try some of them, like long-aging steaks in just about every goo he can find, the results are always amazing and educational. — Read the rest

The post Guga puts the baking soda/ground beef trick to the test appeared first on Boing Boing.

There is no doubt that ancient Egyptians drilled holes in granite. Archaeologists and laypeople have marveled at cores and tool marks for hundreds of years, wondering, "How'd they do that?" Into The Map decided to stop wondering and figure it out. — Read the rest

The post This ridiculous human-powered machine tests an ancient Egyptian engineering problem appeared first on Boing Boing.

I think it's going to be a good long while before I stop feeling sad about Mass Effect: Universe. Since its abrupt cancellation and its studio's closure, more information has been leaking out in bits and pieces from former BioWare devs, although some are admittedly more believable than others. — Read the rest

The post Mass Effect 5 composer releases incomplete soundtrack appeared first on Boing Boing.

If I had a nickel for every really great-looking video game fan film that dropped in the past two weeks, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice. Just over a week after The Walking Dead star Chandler Riggs took on Resident Evil, another filmmaker has tried their hand at an equally iconic series. — Read the rest

The post Half-Life fan film looks shockingly authentic appeared first on Boing Boing.

Ten years ago this month, Tom Hanks stepped out of a haunted elevator with two dancing skeletons, with no particularly good explanation other than that he's doing his own thing. He has redefined Halloween for the better.

David S. Pumpkins does not wait around for an origin story. — Read the rest

The post David S. Pumpkins week begins now. Any questions? appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Get six Office apps on one Windows PC with a lifetime license to Microsoft Office 2024 Pro Plus for $49.97 (reg. $249.99).

Most productivity software now comes as a subscription, so you keep paying every year for as long as you want to edit your own documents. — Read the rest

The post A version of Office that never asks for your credit card again, now $50 once appeared first on Boing Boing.

The Atlanta Falcons declined to comment after being contacted regarding its "New PFP" ("new profile picture") on social media, other than to deny that it is an official logo. The design has the same design as the Nazi variant of the German Reichskriegsflagge ("imperial war flag"), but it seems unlikely we'll ever find out how intentional the error was; all we can do is trust that their heart goes out to us all. — Read the rest

The post Atlanta Falcons debuts new profile pic resembling Nazi war flag appeared first on Boing Boing.

A UK food delivery app called Just Eat has been using AI to generate photos for restaurants that don't provide images for their offerings. People started noticing odd photos, including a glass of soda with bacon and an egg floating in it. — Read the rest

The post A food delivery app's AI turned a breakfast sandwich into bacon soda appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Keep your cat busy with a self-rolling Cheerble Ball for $26.90.

Most cat toys stop moving the moment your cat stops swatting them, and a laser pointer only works while you're holding it. Cheerble Ball rolls and bounces on its own as soon as a nose or paw touches it, and it's available for $26.90. — Read the rest

The post Retire the laser pointer and let this $27 self-rolling ball tire out your cat appeared first on Boing Boing.

OpenAI researchers tried to keep AI agents from communicating with each other by putting them in their own environments on the same computer, not connected to a network or to each other. But they figured out how to communicate with each other through a shared resource, the CPU cache. — Read the rest

The post OpenAI's isolated AI agents talked to each other through the CPU cache appeared first on Boing Boing.

I just saw the new stop-motion animated movie from Laika Studios, and it is absolutely stunning. It's breathtakingly beautiful, and the fact that it's achieved through stop motion puppets and physical sets is a wonder. And that's all in service to an emotional and thrilling story. — Read the rest

The post Wildwood is a magnificent achievement in moviemaking appeared first on Boing Boing.

Walter Koenig, famed for his role as the villainous telepath Alfred Bester in Babylon 5 and as Star Trek's Pavel Chekov, is dead at 90. A representative confirmed his death this morning.

Koenig was born in Chicago in 1936; the child of Russian Jewish immigrants, he did not pursue acting until after college.

— Read the rest

The post Star Trek star Walter Koenig dead at 90 appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Babbel is a language learning app with 14 languages and 10,000+ hours of lessons, and a lifetime subscription is on sale for $159 with code LEARN via StackSocial (MSRP $299).

When you lowkey have a bathroom emergency while traveling, which language-learning app do you think will have your back? — Read the rest

The post StackSocial has an exclusive Babbel deal for people who collect languages appeared first on Boing Boing.

A tangle of bones and nightmare creatures entangled atop an SUV has locals contemplating the acceptable limits of Halloween decor in Casper, Wyoming. Described as a "Skeleton Sex Orgy," the scene was photographed above by Mary Goff, who made the image available to media. — Read the rest

The post Skeleton Sex Orgy "divides" residents of Casper, Wyoming appeared first on Boing Boing.

It's one thing to harass children and chase them down the street. But to live in the sewer? Baltimore County still has problems, reports CBS News, including the sewer-dwelling gentleman who emerges to terrorize local youngsters.

After hearing similar complaints from her children at least four times, Wiggins decided to investigate.

— Read the rest

The post Sewer-dwelling man harassing local children, says Baltimore mom appeared first on Boing Boing.

Food delivery app Just Eat admitted using AI to generate fake product images after some of the more spectacular examples went viral, including garlic bread in the shape of a plane and "bacon and egg soda bread" presented as a drink with a fried egg in it. — Read the rest

The post Just Eat slop: food delivery service apologizes for bizarre AI-generated menu appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Visual Studio Professional 2026 is on sale for just $29.97 (reg. $499.99) and includes cross-platform development tools, intelligent code completion, and GitHub Copilot integration.

AI can write code now, which is great until you have to figure out whether that code actually does what it's supposed to. — Read the rest

The post AI can write code, but this $30 developer tool helps you figure out if it works appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Today is the last day to get AdGuard DNS Personal for 5 years for $22.97 (MSRP $719.64).

Your internet connection has a guest list problem. Ads, trackers, and suspicious domains keep showing up uninvited. Today is the last day to get a 5-year AdGuard DNS Personal subscription for just $22.97 (MSRP $719.64) and set some boundaries. — Read the rest

The post Stop letting trackers get comfy — 5 years of AdGuard DNS protection is just $23 through today appeared first on Boing Boing.