Earbuds can be supremely frustrating. The appearance of a $30 pair doesn't often differ noticeably from a $150 pair. And alarmingly enough, you can't always detect much audio difference between the two either. That often means buying a pair of wireless earbuds for commuting or working out can turn into a crapshoot without some trusty [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/09/04/10-totally-wireless-earbuds-th.html

National newspapers in Britain traditionally call August 'The Silly Season,' the month when news is so slow that even the most ludicrous of stories will sometimes be used to fill a hole on a page. It's the Silly Season that led to a dead carp in Northamptonshire being memorialized on the front page of The [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/09/04/prince-harry-a-drug-kingpin-b.html

Despite never having been invited to screen one of his films at the New York Film Festival, John Waters was happy to design the poster for this year's event. From Film at Lincoln Center: Of the design, John Waters said, "Since none of my films were ever chosen to be in the New York Film [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/09/04/john-waters-designed-this-grea.html

Computer generated unicorns on demand, from @balpha. URL format: https://unicornify.pictures/avatar/$HASH?s=$SIZE $HASH is any hexadecimal number, up to 64 digits.$SIZE is the requested image size in pixels. It should be a power of 2 between 32 and 128 (inclusive). Example: https://unicornify.pictures/avatar/7daf6c79d4802916d83f6266e24850af?s=32 If you want bigger and/or higher-quality images, the avatar generation code (including a command-line app) [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/09/04/use-this-to-generate-one-of-a.html

It took the LockPickingLawyer a fraction of a second to remove the anti-theft lock on a bottle of Grey Goose vodka.

https://boingboing.net/2020/09/04/how-to-open-a-vodka-bottle-ant.html

Before internet treasure Tim from Grand Illusions started socially distancing, he had a great example of how fiberoptic cables work. Think of them as an extremely thin, extremely long camera lens or magnifying glass. When placed atop something such as text, the text is visible at the other end. As he shows, if the image [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/09/04/lovely-demonstration-of-the-op.html

3Blue1Brown has a good two-part introduction to error correction codes, which are what make it possible to check the integrity of data and in some cases fix it.

https://boingboing.net/2020/09/04/how-data-error-correction-work.html

The privately built border wall built by Fisher Sand and Gravel is in danger of failing during a flood, according to an engineering report. From The Texas Tribune: Company president Tommy Fisher, a frequent guest on Fox News, had called the Rio Grande fence the "Lamborghini" of border walls and bragged that his company's methods [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/09/04/trumps-border-wall-will-fail.html

Coby from 545 Lawn Care has a 1985 GMC Van modded to be driveable upside down while seated in the cargo area looking out the rear window. Worth watching just to hear an amazing American upper Midwest northwoods accent. Handles well in the snow, too! Image: YouTube / 545 Lawn Care

https://boingboing.net/2020/09/04/custom-van-that-drives-upside.html

Actor John Boyega — he played Finn in the most recent Star Wars trilogy — is the feature of this month's GQ cover story. There are lots of great insights and anecdotes throughout the lengthy interview, especially as Boyega discusses his diasporic experiences in Nigeria, his mental health, Black fashion, and shifting perspectives of racism [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/09/04/john-boyega-opens-up-about-ra.html

The New York City rats are hungry. That's not a good sign. From the New York Post: "I saw the little pigeon that was hurt and it was kind staggering and injured and out of nowhere, the rat came and just literally attacked it," [Naquazia] Gresham, 32, told The Post on Thursday. One of her [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/09/04/watch-pigeon-vs-rat-a-decide.html

Octavia Butler was the first science fiction writer to win a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship — a particularly impressive feat, considering the hurdles that have traditional stood in the way for both women, and Black people, in publishing and elsewhere. 11 years later, she died of a stroke at the age of 58. And despite her [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/09/04/octavia-butler-just-made-the-n.html

After reports of a casket floating in the South River near Annapolis, Maryland, police responded only to find that it was a dock. [103 WRNR via AP] Photos of the slab were posted to the Facebook page of local station WRNR. In the comments, one Allen Rucker shared a local legend. This is no lie, [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/09/04/underwater-casket-turns-ou.html

On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated just 73 seconds after liftoff. The seven person crew included high school teacher Christa McAuliffe, the first civilian to fly into space. I'll never forget that day nor will anyone who tuned in and watched the tragedy happen in the blink of an eye. Challenger: The [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/09/04/trailer-for-new-docuseries-abo.html

Sure, we call it a portable blender, but for all intents and purposes, these handheld choppers are effective smoothie makers. They have plenty of added utility and are capable of aiding an array of fun kitchen creations of course, but with so many people trying to stay healthy on the go, a portable smoothie maker [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/09/03/the-bevvo-serves-up-awesome-sm.html

Hurricane Laura carved a swath through Gulf Coast, felling trees and destroying buildings. According to the Houston Chronicle there are 230,000 people in Louisiana and another 90,000 in East Texas who still don't have power. As of this writing, there are 15 reported deaths — but most of them weren't related to that physical destruction. [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/09/03/half-of-deaths-from-hurricane.html

With many companies still mostly working from home these days, teamwork and collaboration haven't always been easy to come by. Well, maybe not the old-fashioned way, at least. While you can't sit around a conference table and spitball ideas or run into a co-worker in the break room and hammer out a problem, many organizations [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/09/03/boost-your-microsoft-teams-and.html

We've been trained to think of multitools as nifty little gadgets that slip into your pocket and give you the option of choosing between attachments like a corkscrew or a nail file or a tiny pair of pliers. We don't typically think of a multitool as able to jumpstart a vehicle. Welcome to 2020 and [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/09/03/the-caraide-multi-tool-has-ove.html

Because Trump's followers are members of a cult, they will either deny Trump described American war dead as "losers" and "suckers" or they will wait for Tucker Carlson to explain why it's a good thing Trump said it. From The Atlantic: Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become [&]

https://boingboing.net/2020/09/03/trump-said-americans-who-died.html

I hope your toenails aren't 15 millimeters thick, but if they are, these clippers will accommodate them. They have tons of leverage and reviewers on Amazon love them. The price is good, too.

https://boingboing.net/2020/09/03/great-clippers-for-thick-toena.html