Fox News chief Roger Ailes resigns after sexual harassment claims, Murdoch takes over

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Content warning: sexual assault. 20th Century Fox put out a brief today that Roger Ailes has resigned as CEO of Fox News Channel. Ailes departs the conservative television news empire after multiple women accused him of sexual assault.

Twenty-First Century Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch will take over as chairman and acting CEO of Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network until a suitably demonic, bulldog-jowled, elderly white male replacement with testicles that look like hamburger meat can be found.

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at 1:26 pm | | | comments

What does a car crash-proof human look like? Odd. Very odd.

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Melbourne, Australia's Transport Accident Commission commissioned an artist, trauma surgeon, and road safety engineer to imagine and design a human built to survive car wrecks. The result is Graham, seen above. From Road & Track:

"The truth is, our cars have evolved a lot faster than we have," says David Logan, a team member on the project and road safety engineer at the Monash University's accident research center. "Our bodies are just not equipped to handle the forces in common crash scenarios."

To deal with these forces, the team came up with Graham. Protecting his brain is a much larger skull intended to absorb forces and fracture upon impact. His face, concave and fatty, is less likely to be damaged. Instead of a silly wobbly neck, he doesn't really have one at all, reducing the potential for spine and back injuries. His skin is also thicker to prevent lacerations, and his ribs have a layer of external air sacks for maximum protection

Videos:

at 11:13 am | | | comments

What is going on in this video of a Russian freeway incident?

I watched this bizarre video a couple of times and couldn't figure out what's going on. I think Folderpirate on Reddit has the best theory:

The guy on the bike was in on it. It was a carjacking/kidnapping targeting the first car.

  1. Guy on bike stops traffic by trying to cross in front of mark.
  2. Mark stops. Argument ensues as cyclist smacks car/yells/is obnoxious/wont move out of way.
  3. Mark gets out of car while it's running.
  4. Two kidnapper cars come up, grab the mark and his passenger, and steal their car.

Also, the guy filming is in on it as well. He's filming this to mail it to whomever they are going to try and get money from.

There seems to be a bit more going on. Are the guys in white caps bodyguards? The car that stopped for the bike looks expensive, so maybe it belongs to an oligarch's kid who has two white-capped face-pushing goons to clear the way for him? Whatever happened, it was well planned and smoothly executed, like a scene from a thriller.

at 10:55 am | | | comments

Boars, Gore, and Swords podcast continues the A Song of Ice and Fire book club

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The Boars, Gore, and Swords book club forges on with the Boiled Leather chapter order combining George R.R. Martin's A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons. In this week's "Ghost of Sand Snakes Yet to Come," Ivan and Red cover the chapters "The Prophet" and "The Captain of the Guards." They discuss the religious importance of drowning, weapon-based objectophilia, and which European landmarks found their way to Dorne.

To catch up on previous television seasons, the A Song of Ice And Fire books, and other TV and movies, check out the BGaS archive. You can find them on Twitter @boarsgoreswords, like their Facebook fanpage, and email them. If you want access to extra episodes and content, you can donate to the Patreon.

at 10:21 am | | | comments

Wherever you are on the the having guts scale, you can level up with Gutsy Girl

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See sample pages from this book at Wink.

The Gutsy Girl: Escapades for Your Life of Epic Adventure
by Caroline Paul
Bloomsbury USA
2016, 160 pages, 6.4 x 8.6 x 0.7 inches
$12 Buy a copy on Amazon

If ever there was a book I wished was around when I was little, it’s The Gutsy Girl. But I’m just as glad to have it in the world now. While I would have read it to pieces as a kid, it also gave grown-up me a powerful reminder: bravery and resilience are skills. Anyone can develop them.

The Gutsy Girl comprises author Caroline Paul’s stories of her own (mis)adventures, accompanied by short bios and quotes from other inspiring ladies, and helpful how-tos (make a compass outside, find the North Star, recognize animal tracks, etc.). All together, the book is everything it promises to be: escapades for your life of epic adventures.

Throughout the book, Paul models adventure through her own life, from racing a boat she made of milk cartons down a river as a young girl, to white-water rafting and working as a firefighter as an adult. And she shares what she’s learned along the way. While the lessons — about planning, communication, teamwork, knowing your limits and when to push them – and when not to — are valuable, I think the bigger idea is that all of her failures and triumphs are part of a learning process. With each new experience, Paul tests, hones, and ultimately grows her own bravery and resilience.

This idea is also sweetly captured by the book’s illustrator Wendy MacNaughton in a drawing titled “The Gutsy-O-Meter.” Readers are asked to rate themselves on a meter that swings from low guts (watching TV and sleeping) to high guts (sleeping to scaling ice cliffs.) If you’re at six (sleeping outside), the book encourages you to try seven (navigating through woods by compass). If you’re already a 10 — watch out world! – Sara Distin at Tiny Bop

at 10:20 am | | | comments

The story of Donald Crowhurst, who tried to fake sailing around the world in 1968.

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In 1968 British engineer Donald Crowhurst entered a round-the-world yacht race, hoping to use the prize money to save his failing electronics business. Woefully unprepared and falling behind, he resorted to falsifying a journey around the world. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe the desperate measures that Crowhurst turned to as events spiraled out of his control.

We'll also get some updates on Japanese fire balloons and puzzle over a computer that turns on the radio.

Show notes

Please support us on Patreon!

at 9:17 am | | | comments

Belushi, Bette and Beverly Hills

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This week on HOME: Stories From L.A.: The process by which one place stops being home and another starts -- it's a mysterious thing. It happens, most often, when we're not paying attention. And sometimes, as it did for comedy writer and transplanted East Coaster Janis Hirsch, it happens in stages. First she started to feel at home in Los Angeles; but it was only later, after a series of addresses and a run-in or two with Bette Davis, that she landed in the exact place that would be, finally, her home.

HOME is a member of the Boing Boing Podcast Network.

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NEW: The HOME mailing list is live. Sign up now for instant-ish notifications of new episodes, behind-the-scenes information about the show and bonus content. It's free and ad-free, and we promise we'll never ever ever sell your address or otherwise use your information to annoy you. 

at 9:13 am | | | comments

Become a game development rockstar with this Unity 3D training - now under $20

It’s no secret that technology is changing the way we all work—but it’s also transforming the way we play. The games of today look nothing like those of 10 or even 20 years ago: these days it’s all about mobile and 3D.

And now you can learn to design 3D mobile games with the Intro to Unity 3D Game Development Bundle. With 7 courses including over 267 lessons, this package of lessons includes all you need to know to create a 3D mobile shooter game, even if you have zero coding experience.

That’s because Unity has the tools you need to handle design, pixel art, and everything in between. Plus, you’ll even learn how to publish apps and games to the Apple App Store and Google Play.

If you’re ready to get started learning how to create unique games that have the potential to be the next big thing in gaming, you’re in luck. Right now, the Unity 3D Game Development Bundle is going for just $19.99 (92% off the regular price of $265).

at 9:11 am | | | comments

Recessed LED light kit

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For some reason, when we moved into our house, many of the trims for the recessed lighting were missing. At $14, they are pretty expensive for what you get - a ring of plastic and a disc of frosted glass. Recently I discovered these recessed LED light kits, which include LED lights built into trims. You get 4 for $40 (I've seen them as low as $30 for 4), making them cheaper than the trims!

They are dimmable, they don't buzz, and were super easy to install. I love them and I'm going to replace every recessed light in the house with them.

at 9:09 am | | | comments

This month, Japan will manufacture its last VHS video cassette recorder

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Funai Electric Company, maker of VHS video cassette recorders for its brands like Magnavox, Emerson, and Sanyo, has announced that they will stop production on new VHS video cassette records this month.

According to the newspaper Nikkei, it's difficult to source the parts and, surprise, sales of new units have continued to plummet.

Expect a VHS-only store to appear in a hipster neighborhood near you soon. Y'now, the image just looks... warmer.

(Anime News Network)

at 8:46 am | | | comments

Crowdfunding a second anthology of great UK sf magazine Holdfast

Laurel writes, "Holdfast is an award-winning free online speculative fiction magazine that celebrates all things fantastic. We are trying to raise enough money to pay our writers and artists for their valuable work and also print a beautiful paperback. After a successful campaign for anthology #1 and winning the British Fantasy Society award for best magazine 2015 - we're hoping to create an even bigger and better anthology this time." (more…)

at 8:41 am | | | comments

See this fellow test a 20,000 watt light bulb

Most of the lightbulbs in your home are probably equivalent to 60 to 100 watts and emit around 800 to 1600 lumens. Above, "electrical overload" fan Photonicinduction fires up a 20,000 watt halogen bulb in a small lab space. Such bulbs are most frequently used on massive film sets. As the gent says, "Mmmm... that is a light bulb." If we had one in our home, my family would still forget to turn it off before leaving the house.

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at 8:31 am | | | comments

Video of one year on Earth, from one million miles away

One million miles from Earth, hanging in space between Earth's gravitational pull and the sun's, is the DSCOVR satellite and NASA's incredible EPIC camera. Every two hours, EPIC takes a photo of Earth "to monitor ozone and aerosol levels in Earth’s atmosphere, cloud height, vegetation properties and the ultraviolet reflectivity of Earth." The above video combines one year of those images.

From the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center:

The primary objective of DSCOVR, a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Air Force, is to maintain the nation’s real-time solar wind monitoring capabilities, which are critical to the accuracy and lead time of space weather alerts and forecasts from NOAA.

at 8:14 am | | | comments

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