Janelle Shane (previously) is a delightful AI researcher who likes to use machine learning systems to produce absurd, inhuman outputs, such as a list of AI-created notional ice-cream flavors generated by merging a list of real ice-cream flavors with a list of metal band names and pressing "go." Read the rest

According to the official sheet music, the familiar Mr Softee jingle was written in 1960 and is titled "Mr Softee Jingles and Chimes." Read the rest

Pepsico is the low-key -- some might say deliberately hidden -- backer of the Drinkfinity system. As Jaiksmith says, "it's a proprietary bottle that uses proprietary "pods" that are a mix of dry and liquid ingredients, no artificial sweeteners. For $35 you can get a bottle and 16 pods...about twice the cost (per oz) of their other product, Tropicana Orange Juice." Read the rest

Ototo's Flying Spaghetti Monster pasta strainer is a houseware, a religious artefact and a novelty item, all rolled into one $17 package! (via Geeks Are Sexy) Read the rest

On August 2, 2017, security researcher Dylan Houlihan contacted Panera Bread to warn them that their customer loyalty website had a serious defect that allowed attackers to retrieve the names, email and physical addresses, birthdays and last-four of the credit cards for up to seven million customers. Read the rest

40+ years ago a pair of Danish scientists acquired the mistaken belief that Greenlanders had a very low incidence of heart disease (turned out that people who live in extremely rural conditions without access to modern medicine just have a low incidence of reported heart disease); they concluded that the Omega-3s in their diet was responsible and a thousand nutritional supplement fortunes were born. Read the rest

Alternative protein advocates in Europe have been stymied by the hodgepodge of national rules regarding insect consumption, but now the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) will approve applications for edible bugs that will then be legal to serve to Europeans throughout the EU. Read the rest

It's $18 from Gamiss, perfect for your next BBQ. (via Crazy Abalone) Read the rest

Jason Allemann of JK Brickworks (previously documents his latest creation: a poltter that squeezes precise patters of icing onto cookies, built out of Lego Mindstorms, and includes full, downloadable instructions. Read the rest

I fondly remember the unalloyed joy of eating lionfish tacos in the Caribbean, consuming an invasive species that was wrecking a reef preserve; if you've never experienced a similar pleasure, be on the lookout for "jellyfish crisps" made from the huge blooms of jellyfish that are the result of climate change, whose presence is a nuisance and worse. Read the rest

Oobah Butler once had a job writing fake Tripadvisor restaurant reviews for £10/each, paid by restauranteurs; having learned how powerful these reviews were, he decided to turn his south London shed into the best-regarded restaurant in all of London. Read the rest

Tom Colella worked for 20 years as an Instrument Electrical Tradesperson for Aroona Alliance in Western Australia, until he was fired in on Sept 20, 2016 for sneaking off to play golf every Wednesday afternoon and hiding his absences from his employer by putting the PDA that he was obliged to carry -- in order to track his movements -- in a mylar potato-chip bag that acted as a Faraday cage and prevented it from receiving GPS signals and other location-identifying beacons and storing or communicating his location for his employer. Read the rest

Carbohydrate whisperer Jessica Leigh Clark-Bojin (AKA @thePieous) (previously), author of Pies Are Awesome Vol 1 "Pie-Modding": How to Epic-Up Store Bought Pies and Be the Hero of the Party" writes "I've come up with a way of making hand pies in silicone molds that solves the big problems associated with making pies this way - primarily lack of control over the finish and texture. I make a double layer of dough with egg in between the layers, then do a partial bake in the mold juuuuuust long enough for it to retain its shape outside, and then add a very thin layer of extra decorations and complete the bake." Read the rest

Cleveland games developer Max Sledroom went on a Twitter tear about the amazing, surreal, awful design experience that is The Cheesecake Factory, a place whose calorie bombs rank among America's deadliest, and whose strange religious projects have made headlines. Read the rest

Redditor Endeavy created these Halloween-themed skull hotpockets, augmented by dribbles of red, oozing sauce; they used these cake pans to mold the crusts. Read the rest

In 2016, Teaforia raised $12,000,000 in venture capital to manufacture a $1,000 tea infuser that combined proprietary, DRM-encumbered tea pods with a "patent-pending microinfusion technology" and a timer to make cups of tea. Read the rest

American households throw away a lot of food: sometimes it's spoiled, sometimes it's past its "sell-by" date (but still good), sometimes it's blemished, and sometimes it's just an unappetizing leftover. Read the rest