Louis Pope Gratacap was the curator of mineralogy at the American Museum of Natural History from 1880 until his death in 1917. He usually read during his three-hour round trip to the museum from Staten Island. He also wrote novels, and one of them, The New Northland (1915), may be the earliest novel to feature a Tyrannosaurus rex. — Read the rest

The post A museum curator wrote the first T. rex novel on his daily commute appeared first on Boing Boing.

What could possibly be worse than being sick with explosive diarrhea? Being sick with explosive, spicy diarrhea. Unfortunately, it sounds like the latter has been unleashed on America, as everyone's favorite source of cyclospora, Taylor Farms, has issued a recall of its products containing jalapeños. — Read the rest

The post Taylor Farms recalls jalapeño products in 26 states over salmonella appeared first on Boing Boing.

Ten years after Star Wars joined Marvel at Disney, and just in time for the 50th anniversary of A New Hope, the two franchises will get their first-ever crossover, in comic form.

Kevin Smith, who made us consider the fates of the independent contractors on the second Death Star, has been tasked with writing the five-issue series. — Read the rest

The post Kevin Smith writes first Star Wars/Marvel comic crossover appeared first on Boing Boing.

Everyone's been so busy worrying and squawking about Flock that we completely missed the police discovering Meta's shifty-as-hell AI Smart glasses. However, thanks to Florida's Sunshine laws—which demand that everything the cops do on the record down there is available to the public—at least two law enforcement agencies in the state have started issuing the pervy peepers to police. — Read the rest

The post Florida police are using Meta's creepy smart glasses appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Internxt gives you 10TB of encrypted cloud storage for a one-time $359.99 payment (reg. $2,900), with end-to-end encryption, zero-knowledge privacy, and no recurring storage bill.

Cloud storage is useful. Paying rent on your own files forever is less charming. — Read the rest

The post A giant cloud storage upgrade works out to $36 per TB appeared first on Boing Boing.

A programmer named Fogus came across a GitHub argument about chess engine development and wrote about why hobby coding communities are hostile toward large language models. Hobbyists say is working code isn't the goal. They like to build operating systems, programming languages, and console emulators, or try to fit a working program into as few characters as possible. — Read the rest

The post Why hobby coders treat AI-written code as missing the point appeared first on Boing Boing.

The TAC-2 was a famous joystick offered for Commodore's C64, the 8-bit personal computer first sold in 1982, and compatible with the Atari and other systems using the classic 9-pin plug. And now you can buy it again. There are upgrades such as a stronger steel shaft (the original was just a tire valve, according to the press release, which would be typical of the old Commodore) but its otherwise high-fidelity, including the connector (no USB!) — Read the rest

The post TAC-2 is back: the new Commodore reissues an old joystick appeared first on Boing Boing.

Dima Kogan hiked in the San Gabriel Mountains, and a friend wondered which point in the range sits farthest from any road or trail. Kogan went home and computed it, and his notes on the poles of inaccessibility above Los Angeles put the answer at 4,343 meters, or about 2.7 miles, from the nearest one. — Read the rest

The post The farthest you can get from a road in the San Gabriels is 2.7 miles appeared first on Boing Boing.

The US Bureau of Reclamation is resorting to moving water between reservoirs so that Glen Canyon Dam can continue to generate electricity. Darren Orf reported in Popular Mechanics on August 10, 2026, that a long drought has pulled Lake Powell and Lake Mead so low that Hoover Dam's output this year will fall by 40 percent from its full-capacity output. — Read the rest

The post Hoover Dam is set to lose 40% of its maximum power this year appeared first on Boing Boing.

Microsoft, Google, and Amazon's growth depends on two companies that lose tens of billions of dollars a year. In a newsletter post, "Where's Your Ed At" reported on analyst estimates from Wells Fargo, Barclays, UBS, and Deutsche Bank.

Wells Fargo estimates Microsoft's AI revenue at $34.43 billion, with about 70% coming from OpenAI. — Read the rest

The post Microsoft, Google and Amazon now depend on two money-losing AI firms appeared first on Boing Boing.

I Love the 90s! is a website designed to evoke the feel of channel-surfing cable TV in the 1990s. It looks like it was made before HTML was standardized (but is perfectly modern under the hood) and wraps a myriad of low-bitrate standard-def compressed-to-heck YouTubes scanned from VHS tape. — Read the rest

The post I Love the 90s! curates classics of the web and cable TV appeared first on Boing Boing.

A federal rule that targets cartel money laundering has driven customers away from the money-transfer counters at small shops on the US-Mexico border. The Guardian's Lourdes Medrano reported on August 11, 2026 that the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, ordered businesses in 30 border zip codes in Texas and California to file a report on every cash transaction above $200. — Read the rest

The post Border corner stores have filed 700,000 reports on cash transfers appeared first on Boing Boing.

The ComicBooks.com Reading Room is a free online library of old comics that you read in your browser, one deep-zoomable page at a time. Open Culture pointed to it this week. The counter on the front page listed 20,109 books. The site promises "No login, no paywall, no catch." — Read the rest

The post Read 20,000 restored golden-age comics free in your browser appeared first on Boing Boing.

Take twelve words and rearrange them to say the same thing in just five. That's the game.

Sheets.works takes spreadsheets and turns them into dashboards and reports. To show off their chops in a fun way, they release a Data Drop once a week, like a collection of startup sounds or an explanation of why it takes so long to board an airplane. — Read the rest

The post New daily word game challenges you to be succinct appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Take your AI knowledge from basic understanding to exam-ready with The Ultimate AI Learning Bundle: ChatGPT, AI Agents & Microsoft AI Certification for just $24.99 (reg. $145).

The Ultimate AI Learning Bundle: ChatGPT, AI Agents & Microsoft AI Certification is a three-in-one beginner-friendly bundle that will not only help you build ChatGPT fluency but also provide you with agent-building skills and preparation for a Microsoft-backed certification, all in a single $24.99 (reg. — Read the rest

The post Master ChatGPT and AI Agents with this $25 Certification Prep Bundle appeared first on Boing Boing.

Yet another untouched Roman wreck has been discovered off the coast of someplace in the Mediterranean.

This time, off the coast of Sicily. Naturally, Italian Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli declared the sunken boat "one of the most significant underwater archaeological discoveries of recent years." — Read the rest

The post Man, those Romans sure lost a lot of cargo boats appeared first on Boing Boing.

Reading this story made me so damn tired: as part of their effort to replace human employees with delivery robots, DoorDash has come up with a cunning plan: they're gonna use the human employees they want to replace to load delivery robots

Some workers in areas where DoorDash is using its Dot delivery robot are receiving offers through the DoorDash app to load them up.

— Read the rest

The post DoorDash sprints towards replacing its drivers with robots appeared first on Boing Boing.

A whole lotta Canadians love them some Wab Kinew. The current premier of Manitoba (think Minnesota but a whole lot more hockey), Kinew wore a lot of hats before wading into politics: journalist, author and musician. In every one of those roles, his skill with words, calm, friendly demeanor and intelligence made him shine. — Read the rest

The post Manitoba's premier: booze returns when the Epstein files do appeared first on Boing Boing.

I'm not fond of bricking my hardware. But I'm very fond of Valve's SteamOS. If you haven't had the opportunity to mess with a Steam Deck or Steam Machine, SteamOS is a deliciously easy-to-use, low-maintenance Linux distribution tuned to work on their hardware with next-to-no maintenance. — Read the rest

The post SteamOS is coming to more computers appeared first on Boing Boing.

The upcoming hour-long film on Disney+, "Disney Worldbuilders," focuses on how the cinematic visions of seven filmmakers have been realized as physical, immersive areas of Disney theme parks.

The film has more than its share of Disney and former CEO Bob Iger corporate P.R., — Read the rest

The post How Disney builds immersive theme park worlds from their movies appeared first on Boing Boing.