This 1953 U.S. Navy training film discusses the mechanisms used by the fire control computers. Yes, mechanical computers calculating fire control for big-ass guns—though 70 years ago, men were still needed to move the dials. [via Hacker News]

The ship's location, direction, speed, and the enemy ship's location, direction, and speed—in a matter of seconds so that the ship's guns may fire accurately and effectively.

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Calculating Empires is a "a genealogy of technology and power since 1500" — a beautiful and interactive monochrome chart you can zoom in and out of to trace the connections between all such things in the modern age. I immediately crash zoomed in and found myself face-to-face with a Debord quote: "In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. — Read the rest

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Here's the fact check of the century, courtesy of The Washington Post's Amy Gardner: '"Donald Trump says he will refuse to accept the election result if he loses again," Biden said. But that's not true. Trump just hasn't said that he would accept. — Read the rest

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In Decatur, Georgia, a momument to the Confederacy stood for 100 years before being removed in 2021. Yesterday it was replaced by a 12 foot statue of John Lewis, the civil rights leader and U.S. Representative who died that year. — Read the rest

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Fox News today reported "Harris Topping Trump" in a renewed sign that one person at the cable broadcaster is fully cognizant of the term's many shades of meaning and is involved in graphic design there.

The numbers beneath the headline—49% to 45%, quoting an Ipsos poll—do suggest intrusive thoughts ahoy for the former president of the United States of America. — Read the rest

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Phil Donahue, the presenter, writer, producer and and host of The Phil Donahue Show, is dead at 88. The longtime TV presence was famed for many achievements off and on-screen.

Donahue became a household name in the daytime talk show space in November 1967 when The Phil Donahue Show premiered on a local news network in Dayton, Ohio.

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As Kamala Harris contemplates her choice of Vice President today, some Republicans are choosing her, including former White House aides to then-president Donald Trump and former GOP congresspersons.

In its Sunday announcement, the Harris campaign also included dozens of prominent current or former Republican figures, some of which now identify with a different party, who have already endorsed the vice president.

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Google explains that Dear Sydney, an AI-promoting ad it has just pulled from wide circulation, did well with test audiences before release. The ad features the father of a fan of world record holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone describing using Google's "Gemini" AI to generate praise for her. — Read the rest

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Adhityaa Chandrasekar broke his laptop's monitor, somehow, but came up with a cunning plan: jailbreak his Kindle Paperwhite 3 and use it as a USB monitor. The monochromatic e-ink device offers about 3-4 frames per second, all of them delightfully easy on the eyes. — Read the rest

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After noise complaints, Des Moines, Iowa, decided to decrease the number of chickens that one is allowed to have within city limits from 30 to 12. Chicken owners protested by holding a chicken parade last week, and now the city is revising its plan to allow for a full complement of chickens, so long as the chickens are licensed. — Read the rest

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OpenAI has developed a system for "watermarking" the output that ChatGPT generates, reports The Wall Street Journal, but has chosen not to deploy it. Google has deployed such a system with Gemini.

OpenAI has a method to reliably detect when someone uses ChatGPT to write an essay or research paper.

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The Sharp Wizard was a series of handheld gadgets from the late-'80s era of "organizers"—more than calculators, but not quite what we'd recognize as tablets. American readers may remember it from an episode of Seinfeld. You may play Tetris on it, as demonstrated below by The Clueless Engineer. — Read the rest

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ETA Prime put together a Linux PC that can handle heavy gaming at 1080p, more or less: it pulls superior performance to a Steam Deck from a Ryzen 5 3500 CPU and Radeon RX590 graphics chip. The key parts were used and gotten from eBay—monitor not included. — Read the rest

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GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump backed out of the scheduled Sept. 10 debate on ABC News with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. But that's OK: he unilaterally decided to have one with her on Fox News instead, in front of a crowd in an arena. — Read the rest

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Louisiana made it a crime to be within 25 feet of an on-duty police officer once asked to leave, a law crafted to make it difficult to record evidence of police misconduct—as happened in the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin. — Read the rest

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People do risky things at the Grand Canyon. Kenneth Field mapped the consequences: 1 national park, 900 deaths.

Inspired by the book, Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon, Kenneth Field created a map that helps tell the stories of more than 900 casualties in Grand Canyon through 2018.

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A BASE jumper attemping an illegal leap into the Grand Canyon died in the effort Thursday. A news release from the National Parks Service reports that the call came in at about 7:30 a.m. and rangers found the body approximately 500 feet down "along with a deployed parachute." — Read the rest

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Section 4.7 of Apple's new guidelines for the App Store allow retro game console and PC emulator apps to offer game downloads. Finally! Developers must otherwise continue to use in-app purchases for digital goods and services, filter objectionable content, block abusive users, and obtain user consent for data sharing. — Read the rest

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Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and his Al Quaeda cronies had a plea deal: admit everything and get life in jail. It didn't go down well with some families of those killed in the 9/11 attacks, and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin yesterday revoked the arrangement. — Read the rest

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The ingredients list is simple: a Raspberry Pi Zero, a wee display, a 3D-printed case, and a keyboard salvaged from a Blackberry. The method is a little more challenging, but you can buy them online for $130. Creator ZitaoTech writes why:

The main reason why I design and built this handheld cyberdeck is to treat this as a lernning tool and also a funny toy for the hackers.

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Game Informer was not just a top game magazine, but one of the most widely-read magazines in the U.S., with a reported circulation of 8 million as recently as 2021. But its entire staff was laid off today, and the magazine's closure announced at its website. — Read the rest

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Behold Sony's PVM-4300, a menacingly-large cathode ray tube television manufactured by the company in 1989. They exported 20 to the United States, writes David L. Farquhar, "just in time for the recession."

Sony's part number suggests it has a 45 inch tube inside.

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Australia, freshly infested with high-definition traffic cameras, is issuing substantial fines to drivers filmed using phones—or holding anything that looks like one, such as a sunglasses case. A woman in Syndey was upset to learn that proving she owns a case consistent with the image is immaterial to the enforcing agency—whose name, "Revenue", seems to offer a clue about the priorities at hand. — Read the rest

The post Driver fined $387 after traffic cameras shoot her holding phone—or a sunglasses case appeared first on Boing Boing.

Footage out of Florida shows a parking lot full of cybertrucks, all vandalized. Tesla leased the lot, according to the filmer of the video, posted to the Only in Broward Instagram account, but apparently made no effort to secure it. — Read the rest

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The Eggcorn Database [via] collects and defines words misheard, mistaken or misspelled as other words—like "Eggcorns" and "acorns"—including etymologies and notable examples. It's an Oxfit dictionary for those eye-twitching moments from internet comments and social media postings. — Read the rest

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23 Words is your new thing to get addicted to for several weeks until you burn out on it and never think about it again until the New York Times buys it and starts suing anyone else who ever made anything like it. — Read the rest

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Young Americans have subtitles on all the time for reasons only weakly-grasped by their elders, but the older generations are following suit for more concrete reasons: they watch a lot of British television but don't understand what anyone is saying.

If you paused a few times to catch lines in Netflix's "Baby Reindeer," "Peaky Blinders" or "Bodkin," or Paramount+'s "Sexy Beast," rest assured, you are not alone.

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Gainax, the famed production company behind Neon Genesis Evangelion and Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, is headed to liquidation. It filed for bankruptcy in Tokyo last month, reports The Japan Times, and has posted a letter of apology to fans. — Read the rest

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A cartoon cat on social media [x.com] has attracted more than a million followers and China's censors hate it. Meet Teacher Li, "China's most feared cat."

On X, unfettered by China's censors, yet accessible through virtual private networks, Mr Li's following grew.

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The far-right has done well in elections to the European parliament—well enough to dominate headlines, but not quite well enough to win. With the center ground crumbling underfoot, EU president Ursula von der Leyen will now need support from both left and right to do whatever it is the EU does. — Read the rest

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American YouTuber and rapper IShowSpeed, known to his parents as Darren Jason Watkins Jr, was sent to hospital after wiping out during the annual cheese-rolling race in Gloucestershire, England. He regrets nothing.

The influencer said the race had further injured a previous leg injury, but added it was worth it.

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John George Todd III, who injured a police officer during the Jan 6, 2021 riot on Capitol Hill and reportedly showed no remorse for his participation in it, is off to jail for 5 years.

After entering the Capitol, Todd repeatedly pushed against officers inside the Rotunda, ignored commands to leave and screamed profanities at police.

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These socks make your feet look like fox paws. Adorable and a bit odd! They're 80% polyester, 10% cotton and 10% spandex, fit up to a men's size 13, and are, quote, "so much realistic, just like real animal paws." There are various other species in the listing, but the fox ones are blatantly superior. — Read the rest

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A trove of internal Google documents leaked this week, offering insight into how the search engine ranks websites. Mia Sato describes it as "an unprecedented look into Google's inner workings" even if it doesn't quite expose the secrets of the "algorithm" that SEO experts would most like to see. — Read the rest

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The Bigme Hibreak is an inexpensive smartphone with an e-ink display, however well that works with an Android-based operating sytem. It has 6GB of RAM, a 5.7" 1440×720 panel and global 4G LTE. Brad Linder at Liliputing describes the appeal and the obvious shortcomings of e-ink, at least when it comes to Android. — Read the rest

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Minecraft, the voxelated open-world everything game, is 15 years old.

Aren't birthdays just great? I still remember crying hysterically after my cousin blew out all the candles on my cake. Needless to say, my 30th birthday party ended on a somber note.

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Two years ago, I wrote about Jeff Dieschburg, an artist in Luxembourg who took work by others, made trivial edits, and won awards with paintings of the results. Sued there by U.S. photographer Jingna Zhang, he won an early verdict in his favour, but has now lost on appeal. — Read the rest

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Cabel Sasser (previously) spotted an early Apple employee's ID card on sale on eBay—a fantastic find for anyone interested in computer history. But he noticed something off about it—the crispness of the typewritten details—and then a few other things, too. — Read the rest

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Roger Corman, who made B-movies cool again by producing 120 of the best, is dead at 98. The director and producer of brilliant movies from Death Race 2000 to the Vincent Price-starring Poe sequence, from The Little Shop of Horrors to A Bucket of Blood, died Thursday at home with his family. — Read the rest

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It's that time of year again, but the Netherlands won't be competing in this year's Eurovision song contest. Its entrant, Joost Klein, was disqualified after a mysterious backstage incident. It's not clear what he did, though "an allegation of intimidation was made to Swedish police by a female member of the production crew" and another source describes "unlawful threats." — Read the rest

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When did you stop using floppy disks? Are you too young to have ever used a floppy disk? Do you wonder what the hell is the thing in that icon that you tap on to save things? Some people, of course, are still using them. — Read the rest

The post Are you still using floppy disks? appeared first on Boing Boing.

Barron Trump, the son of former president Donald Trump and his wife Melania, has "declined" the Florida Republican Party's offer to anoint him a party delegate to the Republican National Convention.

Reacting to what would have marked his youngest child's political debut, the ex-president said he was "all for it".

— Read the rest

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A resident of Chino Hills, California, noticed an odd rock and pile of leaves across the street from a neighbor's home. Upon inspection, they found a hidden camera embedded in clay and a USB power bank under the leaves. Who, asks the woman targeted by the device, is watching her? — Read the rest

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In a statement issued on friday evening, the United States said that Israel may have breached international law with American-supplied weapons. It also said that the flow of munitions will continue all the same.

While the report was a clear rebuke of some Israeli operations in Gaza, it stopped short of definitively saying that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) campaign had breached international law.

— Read the rest

The post US: Israel may have broken international law with our weapons and we will keep sending them more appeared first on Boing Boing.

It's that time of year again, but the Netherlands won't be competing in this year's Eurovision song contest. Its entrant, Joost Klein, was disqualified after a mysterious backstage incident. It's not clear what he did, though "an allegation of intimidation was made to Swedish police by a female member of the production crew" and another source describes "unlawful threats." — Read the rest

The post Netherlands disqualified from Eurovision song contest after mysterious backstage incident appeared first on Boing Boing.

When did you stop using floppy disks? Are you too young to have ever used a floppy disk? Do you wonder what the hell is the thing in that icon that you tap on to save things? Some people, of course, are still using them. — Read the rest

The post Are you still using floppy disks? appeared first on Boing Boing.

Barron Trump, the son of former president Donald Trump and his wife Melania, has "declined" the Florida Republican Party's offer to anoint him a party delegate to the Republican National Convention.

Reacting to what would have marked his youngest child's political debut, the ex-president said he was "all for it".

— Read the rest

The post Barron Trump 'declines' to be Republican delegate appeared first on Boing Boing.

A resident of Chino Hills, California, noticed an odd rock and pile of leaves across the street from a neighbor's home. Upon inspection, they found a hidden camera embedded in clay and a USB power bank under the leaves. Who, asks the woman targeted by the device, is watching her? — Read the rest

The post Woman finds hidden camera disguised as rock pointed at her home appeared first on Boing Boing.

In a statement issued on friday evening, the United States said that Israel may have breached international law with American-supplied weapons. It also said that the flow of munitions will continue all the same.

While the report was a clear rebuke of some Israeli operations in Gaza, it stopped short of definitively saying that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) campaign had breached international law.

— Read the rest

The post US: Israel may have broken international law with our weapons and we will keep sending them more appeared first on Boing Boing.

It's that time of year again, but the Netherlands won't be competing in this year's Eurovision song contest. Its entrant, Joost Klein, was disqualified after a mysterious backstage incident. It's not clear what he did, though "an allegation of intimidation was made to Swedish police by a female member of the production crew" and another source describes "unlawful threats." — Read the rest

The post Netherlands disqualified from Eurovision song contest after mysterious backstage incident appeared first on Boing Boing.