Popular Mechanics and National Instruments put national mail carriers to the test, concealing accelerometers inside packages to see what pressures the boxes were subjected to. USPS was gentlest, but USPS packages fly express via FedEx, so it's a little inconclusive. This is the finding that I'll remember: "Our package received more abuse when marked Fragile or This Side Up."
Mail carriers will abuse your package more if it's marked as "Fragile"
The math-solving horse who fooled scientists still haunts AI research
In early 1900s Germany, a math teacher named Wilhelm von Osten toured the country with Clever Hans, a horse who could apparently add, subtract, multiply, divide, tell time, and answer questions… READ THE REST
The stubborn old belief that certain weather precedes earthquakes
The idea that a particular kind of weather — hot, still, and heavy — arrives just before an earthquake is old and stubborn. One geologist has called earthquake weather one of the… READ THE REST
A chemist invented a fake Frenchman to justify capital L for liters
The International System of Units capitalizes a unit's symbol only when the unit is named for a person, which leaves the liter with a lowercase l that is easy to… READ THE REST
Microsoft Office Pro 2021 is down to $29.97, plus free training
Disclosure: Boing Boing earns a commission on purchases made through links in this post. TL;DR: Pay once for Microsoft Office Pro 2021 and get Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, and more —… READ THE REST
Make ChatGPT, Claude, and other AI tools work better for you with this $30 prompt tool
Disclosure: Boing Boing earns a commission on purchases made through links in this post. TL;DR: Go from idea to an optimized prompt in seconds with this lifetime subscription to Prompting Systems,… READ THE REST
Make an old PC feel new again with this $10 Windows 11 Pro deal
Disclosure: Boing Boing earns a commission on purchases made through links in this post. TL;DR: Give your PC a major productivity boost with this Microsoft Windows 11 Pro license, now just… READ THE REST
