If you wanted to understand physics, you’d probably want to talk to Albert Einstein. If you were trying to unlock the art of filmmaking, you might want to chat with Martin Scorsese. And if you were interested in the inner workings of basketball, you’d enjoy a sit down with Michael Jordan.

If you’re trying to understand something new, there’s a natural urge to talk with an undisputed master and find out everything they know. By delving into their secrets and following their process, then just maybe you can unlock some of that greatness inside yourself.

That’s the theory behind Big Think Edge, a truly epic video series gathering some of the world’s greatest thinkers with the goal of presenting the keys to their greatness to you.

The Big Think Edge library already includes over 1,000 video lectures, all aimed at inspiring you to take your career to new heights, sharpen your decision-making, and redefine how you reason and approach the world.

And no matter what interests you, the Big Think Edge roster of experts, more than 150 in all, is stellar. 

Comedy legend John Cleese explains how to use your cognitive abilities to find creative solutions and opportunities. Best selling author Malcolm Gladwell covers ways to master your craft and produce your best work. Former Navy SEAL David Goggins reveals the self-motivation it takes to push past negative self-talk and attack the world on your terms.

Bryan Cranston, Shane Battier, Bill Nye, Elon Musk, David Stern, Arianna Huffington, Richard Branson, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and former President Jimmy Carter are just some of the other big names found in the Big Think Edge archives. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/10/access-200-lectures-from-malc.html

An ingenious and practical invention shared by IMGURian @GuzziGuy.

The post became so popular, that the maker has decided to offer them for order from Etsy.

“I realise the price is a bit high, but there's a lot of work and materials in it, it's as sensible as I can make it!”

About the making of:

This is a project that goes back a while. About 9 years ago, I got interested in nixie tubes and built a few clocks from kits; during which I learned of the FLW - Four Letter Word, a toy created in the 70s using huge B7971 nixie-type tubes. The original creator had made a new, updated kit - which I ordered (and obtained the tubes elsewhere), but he went AWOL (causing some drama in the community) and it never arrived.

So worked on my own version with an Arduino - and got it running, but ideally I wanted to make some more for friends etc but a) my electronic skills were not up to converting my breadboard into a PCB; and b) the tubes were expensive even then and not practical to obtain. Not to mention that by then, other folks had made this better than I could. Project shelved, indefinitely.

Cut to late 2019, when I discovered Scott Bezek's split flap project. A lightbulb moment - a splitflap display is arguably the only thing cooler than giant nixie tubes; I'd always wanted to make something with one, but new or old ones are difficult and/or expensive to acquire.

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/10/automatic-swear-machine.html

Okay, now THAT is a selfie.

This is such a cool photography/biology experiment.

Says IMGURian @MxMarx, “I put a petri dish filled with algae under my enlarger and left it on for a week. The algae grew thicker and greener where the image was brighter, so it formed a positive image in the petri dish!”

Scroll through the entire gallery to see how this was done.

Printing photographs on algae

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/10/look-at-this-photo-printed-on.html

At least one of the older white men in this photograph has had close repeated exposure to a person with COVID-19.

This group of white men of advanced age would appear to be at higher risk of coronavirus. Nevertheless, not one of them is wearing a face mask, and none of them are abiding by social distancing guidelines.

What message are they sending?

Why?

President @realDonaldTrump met with Secretary @EsperDoD, @SecPompeo, senior military leadership, and national security team members in the Cabinet Room today. pic.twitter.com/C4Yr2CMeLR

 The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 9, 2020

PHOTO: White House Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/10/the-grim-reaper-is-coming.html

The stupid is what hurts the most. The stupid will eventually break me. Must. Not. Break.

Yet again, impeached president Donald Trump has tweeted something obviously untrue and unbelievably dumb.

78,000 dead Americans is not super great.

We are getting great marks for the handling of the CoronaVirus pandemic, especially the very early BAN of people from China, the infectious source, entering the USA. Compare that to the Obama/Sleepy Joe disaster known as H1N1 Swine Flu. Poor marks, bad polls - didn’t have a clue!

And previously this Sunday morning, on Mother's Day:

When are the Fake Journalists, who received unwarranted Pulitzer Prizes for Russia, Russia, Russia, and the Impeachment Scam, going to turn in their tarnished awards so they can be given to the real journalists who got it right. I’ll give you the names, there are plenty of them!

Below, the tweets.

We are getting great marks for the handling of the CoronaVirus pandemic, especially the very early BAN of people from China, the infectious source, entering the USA. Compare that to the Obama/Sleepy Joe disaster known as H1N1 Swine Flu. Poor marks, bad polls - didn’t have a clue!

 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 10, 2020

When are the Fake Journalists, who received unwarranted Pulitzer Prizes for Russia, Russia, Russia, and the Impeachment Scam, going to turn in their tarnished awards so they can be given to the real journalists who got it right. I’ll give you the names, there are plenty of them!

 Donald J.

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/10/trump-blames-obama-and-biden-f.html

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/10/elon-musk-is-an-asshole.html

It seemed like such a great idea at the time. You wanted to put together a video for a loved one, including all their family and friends singing their praises, making their life look as epic as a Hollywood production.

Oh, it was a Hollywood production, all right. Contributors showed up late and sent weird file formats, editing took forever, the music wasn’t right...and on it went. Before you know it, a simple tribute video you thought might take an hour or two consumed multiple nights and had you cursing the day you ever thought of the idea.

Video montages take work. But by enlisting Tribute to help you assemble your message of love, It’s all a lot more manageable.

In fact, the Tribute process is so easy that you probably won’t have to do more than a few minutes of work to produce a high-quality tribute video that brings tears of joy. No, seriously...Tribute swears 80 percent of their videos elicit actual tears of joy. Of course, there’s no way of knowing their metrics for judging the results of their 500,000 Tribute videos so far...but if they’re close, your odds for an emotional testament to your subject are pretty darn high.

With Tribute, you just enter the emails for all the people you’d like to contribute to the video. Tribute emails your participants, explains the project, and guides your subjects through how to shoot and submit their segment for the finished video.

Once all your videos are in, Tribute will compile all your clips into a touching, polished montage. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/05/09/tribute-will-help-you-create-a.html