Congratulations to young Cooper [Last Name Withheld] of Chesterfield in Derbyshire, who recently travelled to the coastal Belgian town of De Panne and took home the crown in the EC Gull Screeching competition, which is apparently a real thing. Yes, that would be a seagull screeching competition. — Read the rest

There are so many labor-hating corporations eager to make a quick buck off of AI-generated content right now that it can be difficult to remember that, oh yeah, it's actually possible to use computer-based technology to create some cool art sometimes. — Read the rest

Andrew Tate, the so-called "King of Toxic Masculinity" who is good buddies with Elon Musk and was recently charged with human trafficking in Romania, has evolved. Somehow, the former kickboxer has achieved a new level of unprecedented supervillainy. — Read the rest

A neighborhood dog was busted after a family's package — a pair of basketball shoes — was stolen from their porch. And much to the family's chagrin, their own dog was an accomplice to the crime.

At first, the mom — who ordered the shoes for her son — didn't know what happened to their delivery. — Read the rest

Whew, what a rough year it's been for Tucker Carlson. The former Fox News heavyweight has tumbled from the cable news mountaintop, going from the #1 rated show to peddling 8chan conspiracy theories on Twitter.

As TikToker Kat Abu ("I watch conservatives for work but make fun of them for pleasure") lays out, Tucker's spectacular fall from being "one of the most powerful men in America" to a just another ranting right-wing crank interviewing "unhinged lunatics on a dying website" is delicious karmic justice. — Read the rest

TL;DR: Apple innovation doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg. You can score a refurbished MacBook Pro for only $399.99 (reg. $550)! 

As much as people (Android lovers!) try to hate on this brand, it's hard to deny that Apple creates some of the best tech available. — Read the rest

Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump just informed her MAGA fans that the United States is actually a lot bigger than anyone could have guessed.

"We're going to have lawyers in all the major polling locations across the country. We have lawsuits in 81 states right now," announced the stable genius — aka Donald Trump's sycophantic daughter-in-law — on Newsmax. — Read the rest

Massive numbers of 17- and 13-year cicadas—likely the largest broods in centuries—are emerging in parts of the United States. Annoyed and confused by their loud high-pitched buzzing, some residents of Newberry, South Carolina (and probably elsewhere) are calling the cops.

From the AP:

The Newberry County Sheriff's Office sent out a message on Facebook on Tuesday letting people know that the whining sound is just the male cicadas singing to attract mates after more than a decade of being dormant.

In 1985, Mister Rogers was a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show. An audience member asked an excellent question: "Do you ever just cut loose and lose control? Do you ever yell at your wife? I just can't picture you having a knock-down drag-out with your wife." — Read the rest

Poor old Canadian Senator Ted Cruz wants to forget how his golden-haired master made vicious fun of him, his wife, and his father in the 2016 Presidential election. But the bad memories flooded back as David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer took to the stand in Donald Trump's sex scandal cover-up trial, revealing how he would publish demeaning articles about Cruz at Trump's request. — Read the rest

Check out this awesome time-lapse and stop-motion video by Hagerty Media, where they totally revamp a classic Chevy small block 283 engine from a 1966 Chevrolet Chevelle. The amount of work poured into this project is just insane! After lying dormant for 25 years, this beast of an engine gets the full treatment: a deep clean, some serious machine work, a slick paint job, and a meticulous assembly. — Read the rest

I attended a TED talk a couple of weeks ago, and the thesis of one of the speakers really stuck with me (video unavailable as of yet). Professor Miguel Basáñez, of Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, spoke about his theory that while there are around 200 countries in the world, there are three primary cultures. — Read the rest

Neon, the studio behind Ammonite and Anatomy of a Fall, has released a new trailer for their Oscar-nominated animated film Robot Dreams, which is finally getting released in the US. In the trailer, a dog named Dog builds himself a robot. — Read the rest

Eric Adams is one of the most unpopular mayors in New York history. And on Monday, travelers were reminded of his low approval rating when a disruptive passenger verbally attacked him while he was on a flight heading back to New York from Miami. — Read the rest

Bots, scammers, line-sitters, and mercenaries have made it all but impossible to get a reservation directly from a restaurant in New York.

According to Adam Iscoe's piece in The New Yorker, snapping up a prime 8pm Friday table now requires shelling out scalper prices to internet "mercenaries" who deploy bots to hoard reservations. — Read the rest

In 2019, the University of Maine set three Guinness World Records for 3D printing. They had the world's largest 3D printer, the largest solid 3D printed object, and the largest 3D printed boat. The 5000-pound boat was printed in 72 hours. — Read the rest

This is inspired. Waldo Jaquith created a Mastodon bot in response to the cliché email opening sentence of "I hope this email finds you well."

"Twice a day it proposes a novel way to conclude that sentence that opens so many emails," Jaquith explains. — Read the rest

Airlines are notorious for their reluctance to issue refunds for canceled or delayed flights, making the refund process a nightmare for countless travelers. You practically have to beg for a refund, and the airlines employ a bureaucratic labyrinth that makes it very difficult to communicate with them. — Read the rest

The long-held promise of Artificial Intelligence was that machines would do all the drudge work and we would be left to create. In this AI-enabled utopia, assembly, construction, and hard labor of all kinds, as well as boring sorting and filing and such, would be handled by smart machines while we painted pictures, wrote poems, and sang songs together. — Read the rest

North America's Building Trades Unions has had a very long history with Donald Trump — which has been "wasted breath," says the union leader. And after more than 40 years of dealing with the self-centered conman, the union endorsed President Biden today with a scathing video ad against Donald Trump. — Read the rest