Smart technology isn't always about leashing all of our household devices to our every whim. Sometimes, it's just about protecting us from ourselves. We've all left the house in the heat of summer for an afternoon or even for a weekend getaway, only to return and discover we left the air conditioner on. Not smart. [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/22/the-sensibo-sky-turns-most-air.html

Don't tell your cardiologist, but the first ingredient of the chocolate chunk Monster Cookie recipe created by Tavel Bristol-Joseph (one of Food and Wine Best New Chefs of 2020) is an entire pound of butter. Join the much-lauded Milk Bar chef Christina Tosi (the genius behind Milk Bar's infamous Crack Pie, which was respectfully re-named [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/22/these-monster-cookies-require.html

Since 2018, Japan has been replacing its manhole covers with Pok'emon designs, in an effort to boost local tourism throughout its lesser-frequented locales. Casey Baseel reports for SoraNews 24, that a new collection of Pok'efuta (as they're called in Japanese) has just debuted in Tokyo's Serigaya Park, an off-the-beaten path destination in Matsuya.

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/22/pokemon-manhole-covers-debut-i.html

I had a friend who was so obsessed with Ikea's Swedish meatballs that he bought them frozen, in bulk, from the IKEA Food Market, and kept a bomb shelter ration's worth in his garage freezer. And this was years before anyone heard of Covid-19, or thought to hoard hand sanitizer or toilet paper. My friend [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/22/make-ikeas-iconic-meatballs.html

And this: today's photo dispatch from a friend-of-a-friend in Phnom Penh. So maybe Covid-19 did not, in fact, originate in a Wuhan wet market as widely reported. Nonetheless, it takes courage to dine at a seafood restaurant with this level of transparency.

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/22/what-definitely-not-to-name-yo.html

Cave City, Kentucky's Wigwam Village Motel #2, a registered National Landmark as well as a culturally-insensitive remnant of roadside kitsch, is currently on the market for $395K. That's 15 conical buildings for the price of one boring rectangular house  quite a deal. Built between the 1930s and 1950s, there was once several of these [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/22/buy-your-own-roadside-attracti.html

Rosatom, the Russian state energy company, posted a documentary about the 1961 Tsar Bomba nuclear weapons test, the most powerful on record. The documentary (itself obviously of the era) contains footage that was previously unreleased, according to commentators. The 50-megaton action starts about 22m in. This video purports to be a compilation of the freshly-declassified [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/22/footage-of-the-tsar-bomba-nucl.html

Years before he played David Brent in The Office, comedian Ricky Gervais sang in a synth-pop group called Seona Dancing. The two-man band, Gervais and his college friend Bill Macrae, was active from 1982 to 1984, splitting up over poor sales. However, one of their songs, "More to Lose," "became an '80s anthem as ubiquitous [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/22/ricky-gervais-was-in-an-80s.html

I've written here before about Irish language and identity stuff, but my friend Darach 'O S'eaghdha was kind of enough to have me onto the popular Irish podcast Motherfocl'oir to talk at length about diaspora, assimilation, colonialism, and the cultural embarrassment of Plastic Paddies with gross green beer and shitty "St. Patty's Day" parties. And [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/22/thom-dunn-talks-about-irish-am.html

Okay, look&we're gonna let you in on a little secret here. You can't really read someone else's mind. Unless you know something the rest of the human race doesn't, you can't actually go inside someone's head, rummage around in it like the kitchen junk drawer and extract deep,  dark secrets. However…"mind-reading" does work. There are [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/22/this-kit-will-teach-you-how-to.html

Barefoot waterskier Benjamin Thompson writes, "The dolphin start wasn't too great but the Butt Slide more than makes up for it." AGREED! 10/10 (Digg) screengrab via Benjamin Thompson/YouTube

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/22/barefoot-waterskiing-extends-i.html

Get ready to sympathy itch. Watch Jack Black go from Grizzly Adams to Mr. Clean in a little over five minutes. Ok, maybe not Mr. Clean but some bald guy. The video ends with a "to be continued" teaser and I'm not sure I want to know what's coming off next& screengrab via JablinksiGames/YouTube Thanks, [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/22/jack-black-removes-his-overgro.html

There aren't many indisputable facts in how to best market a product, but a few facts are overwhelmingly clear. People want pictures. And people demand pictures. A resounding 93 percent of online shoppers say visual content is the key deciding factor is making a purchase. Ninety percent say the quality of those images is the [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/21/product-photographers-are-clea.html

The human being inside the pod in this photo is Alexei Navalny, opposition leader, journalist, and prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The photo was taken by Navalny spokesperson Kira Yarmysh, and is used with her consent. Mr. Navalny is in a coma, and is being loaded on to the plane that will fly [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/21/comatose-alexei-navalny-loaded.html

The U.S. Postal Service on Friday launched a new website to help Americans vote by mail in the November general election. The USPS announced the creation of usps.com/votinginfo earlier today, saying the website is intended to provide the voting public with reliable and accessible info on how to vote by mail. From the site: The [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/21/new-usps-website-helps-america.html

“South Dakotans whose COVID-19 status and other personal information was collected by state agencies may be subject to a data breach that is under federal investigation.”

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/21/covid-19-data-breach-in-south.html

“Rallies planned on Facebook by QAnon supporters or sympathizers that have brought the conspiracy theory offline and into the town squares of dozens of cities in recent weeks.”

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/21/qanon-disinformation-behind-s.html

TikTok is expected to launch a legal challenge as early as Monday against impeached U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order that prohibits transactions with the popular short video app and its China-based owner, ByteDance, reports Reuters late on Friday. From Reuters: Trump issued an executive order on Aug. 14 that gave ByteDance 90 days to [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/21/tiktok-to-challenge-trump-orde.html

"A precious giant panda cub has arrived!" Amazing news on this Friday afternoon, from the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, DC. "We're overjoyed to share that Mei Xiang gave birth at 6:35 p.m. and is caring for her newborn attentively. Positive mothering behaviors include nursing her cub and cuddling it close." There's a live panda [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/21/baby-giant-panda-born-at-natio.html

After a 3-day delay, doctors in Omsk, Russia have finally cleared opposition leader Alexei Navalny to be airlifted to Germany. The investigative journalist and outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin has been in a poisoning-induced coma for 36 hours, say his representatives. Navalny's doctors at a state-run in Omsk say he wasn't poisoned, instead [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/21/russia-agrees-to-let-poisoned.html