Bad Bunny's catchy Super Bowl halftime tunes have been stuck in my head since the show aired. I've watched the performance several times, and it gets better with each viewing. I recently found a split-screen version showing both Bad Bunny and Puerto Rican Sign Language (LSPR) interpreter Celimar Rivera Cosme, who brought incredible style and energy to his translation of Bad Bunny's lyrics. — Read the rest

The post Watch Puerto Rican Sign Language interpreter Celimar Rivera Cosme absolutely crush it at the Bad Bunny Super Bowl halftime show appeared first on Boing Boing.

A car fire near North Hollywood's iconic Circus Liquor store created peak LA chaos this week when flames and smoke rose directly behind the landmark's giant clown sign. The clown never caught fire, but this video captures the surreal scene of flames, smoke, curious bystanders, and a grinning clown looming overhead. — Read the rest

The post Giant flaming clown scene near Circus Liquor turns a simple car fire into peak Los Angeles chaos appeared first on Boing Boing.

Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder had harsh words for yogurt between 23 and 79 CE, calling it "yaghurt." This may be the first written mention of yogurt:

"Curdled milk, of a peculiar kind, made after a Bulgarian recipe and called "yaghurt," is now a Parisian fad and is believed to be a remedy against growing old.

— Read the rest

The post Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder mocked "yaghurt" as a dumb food fad nearly 2,000 years ago appeared first on Boing Boing.

The birds in these photos aren't being terrorized by ants — they're having a self-care day. Despite how alarming it looks, this behavior is completely intentional. What would be a nightmare for humans is fun for these little birds (I'm not sure how fun it is for the ants, though). — Read the rest

The post Birds in these photos are deliberately letting ants crawl all over them for health reasons appeared first on Boing Boing.

The crowd and camera operators at the women's team sprint qualifications in Milano-Cortina got a surprise extra competitor when a local dog joined the race. The full video from NBC Sports is unfortunately not embeddable, but it's a must-see.

The two-year-old named Nazgul is a Czechoslovakian Vlcak, or wolfdog, a challenging breed that looks like a wolf. — Read the rest

The post Very good dog finishes third in Olympic cross country sking appeared first on Boing Boing.

The Southern Sleeper Shark normally inhabits the Southern Ocean's subantarctic waters. It likes cold, but not the frigid temperatures we'd typically associate with Antarctica. But here we are: We've apparently screwed up the planet badly enough that Antarctic waters have warmed enough for the Sleeper Shark to think, "Why not?" — Read the rest

The post Sharks reach Antarctica as warming oceans expand their range appeared first on Boing Boing.

If you own a Steam Deck, you're sitting on a goldmine. According to Engadget, the memory shortage has gotten so bad that Valve can no longer keep up with demand for its handheld gaming system — the components needed are either too hard to find or too expensive:

Valve has posted a notice on the Steam Deck page with a warning that the handheld gaming console "may be out of stock intermittently" in certain regions due to memory and storage shortages."

— Read the rest

The post Memory shortage slows Steam Deck production appeared first on Boing Boing.

I've been sick as a dog for the past week, trying to shake off what I'm certain is the Mother of All Head Colds. When I've blown enough snot out of my skull to make space for thoughts, I wonder why I feel so dumb whenever I get sick.  — Read the rest

The post Why you feel dumb when you get sick appeared first on Boing Boing.

Undoubtedly, some species, usually the most abundant ones, are pestilential. Loathsomeness, on the other hand, like beauty, may be in the eye of the beholder.

Perhaps the species at the top of the gardener's hit list will be the large black slug and its four close relatives - collectively known as large roundback slugs. On damp, cool evenings it can be difficult to avoid treading on the abundant beasts. Due to their size and colour they are well-recognised and have become the scapegoats for all damage caused by any slugs. 

In fact, these slugs are pretty neutral as far as gardeners are concerned. They may attack some vegetables or flowers but far prefer decaying organic matter. Why spend energy on breaking down and digesting fresh green matter when you get enough nutrients more easily by clearing up dog droppings? Their main role is recycling organic matter.

Species such as the green cellar slug actively avoid plants in favour of algae, fungus and lichen. The leopard slug is an omnivore which preys on small snails and slugs in a gardener-friendly diet.

The big pests for gardeners are the smaller species, often present in great numbers. Hiding by day, they emerge at night to do their business. Also pestilential are small snails, many under 5mm in diameter, generally overlooked by gardeners but at least as damaging as small slugs. But, to paraphrase the musical hall song

She was poor but she was honest, 
It's the snails that eats the hostas and the slugs that gets the blame.

The Large Black Slug (Arion ater) is a native species seen throughout the British Isles, not always black. Some juveniles are pale yellow, and the dark adult colouration starts on the back gradually working down to the foot fringe (a skirt-like feature around the bottom of the sides).

Slugs are hermaphrodite and self-mating is possible. For the large black, self-mating seems almost obligatory. If an individual has a particular genetic feature, it will likely pass to its offspring. So slugs in one place resemble each other. For example, a population of large black slugs found at Storr in Skye comprised just white individuals.

The large black slug has one curious characteristic, useful in separating it from the other four species in the group. When irritated, mature individuals rock from side to side in a motion difficult to describe, recognisable if you see it (see video below).

To irritate the slug just stroke it gently on the mantle (use a stick for this - you do not know where the slug has been). If you have a rocker, it is almost certainly the native large black. This species is becoming uncommon in gardens, suffering from competition from the other four species unwittingly introduced by gardeners.

I often visited Wicken in Cambridgeshire in the mid 2010s. The large roundback slugs in the village were exceptionally variable in colour but, as soon as one reached the fen they were all black. The variability away from the fen suggested species other than the large black, their uniform appearance on the fen suggesting a closed homogeneous self-mating population.

The Large Red Slug (Arion rufus) is usually orange and the foot fringe much brighter than the body. Taxonomists debate whether the red and black slugs are the same species. The pendulum swings from one view to the other and I don't doubt will swing back before long.

The Green-soled Slug (Arion flagellus) is widespread and typically brown. The sole is plain with a faint greenish tinge and no lines going in from the foot fringe. It has been found recently on the fen and it is likely to replace the large black slug in the next few years.

The Vulgar Slug (Arion vulgaris) is also present in Wicken. First recorded in Britain in 1964, it became widespread in the early 2010s. The Daily Mail made dire predictions about this 'new', invasive species: it could cause the extinction of our native slugs; devastate food crops in fields and gardens; it was a cannibal; it fed on rabbits. (Actually true, but they didn't say the rabbits had to be dead first.)

It has been named Plague Slug, Cannibal Slug, Stealth Slug, Spanish Stealth Slug, Lusitanian Slug and Iberian Slug, suffering more negative misinformation than other species. But why let facts interfere with a good story?

The beast is usually brownish but varies. Look for the colour of the inner rim of the breathing pore (on the right side of the mantle) - it is almost always very dark or black.

That brings us to the last of the five species - Stella Davies' slug (Arion sp. Davies), which was almost called the Wicken Slug. Among the large roundbacks I saw in Wicken village, several were an unusual grey colour.

They were clearly not the large black slug (did not rock), nor the large red slug (foot fringe no brighter than the body) nor the green-soled slug (tubercles too tightly packed). That left the vulgar slug - except for the unusual colouration.

I sent some specimens to Ben Rowson, keeper of molluscs at the National Museum of Wales. Initially unsure, he subjected it to DNA analysis with surprising results. It was different from all other large roundbacks found in Britain and Europe. Thus we had a species new to science.

All that was needed was to publish a formal description and name it - perhaps the Wicken Slug, Arion wickensii.

However Ben was, at the time, studying some preserved specimens bequeathed from lifelong slug enthusiast Stella Davies. Some were an exact match to the Wicken Slug. Her slug was therefore the first found and so bears her name. It is unknown how widespread this species is now. DNA seems the only reliable way of identifying it.

The Wicken slug is now preserved in the National Museum of Wales; its image is in Ben's guide.

Up-to-date distribution maps of these species are on the NBN Atlas site, click here. This national treasure is free to use and gives access to records of all species (plants, animals, fungi, not just slugs).

It would be interesting to know whether Wicken still has the same variety of species, and to discover more about Stella Davies' Slug - not just in Wicken but everywhere.

I hope I have given enough hints about what to look for, how to identify slugs and especially, as this video shows, how they rock.

With a thematic issue on a vital topic - the rise child poverty, ending on a hopeful note. You will find sharp analyses on the effect of poverty on children's lives, with a spotlight on the communities that are on the front line of deprivation, with personal stories and shared solutions. Click on the image to gain access to it, or find us on Substack.

Journalism by the people, for the people.

The post New to science: a slug from Wicken first appeared on East Anglia Bylines.

I've mentioned many money-saving lodging strategies over the years in this newsletter, but I collected them all in one place in this blog post and it's likely there's at least one you haven't considered. I mention day passes, home exchanges, credit card hacking, and alternative apartment services, but here's an easy one to try for your next trip. When booking a hotel or apartment, stay somewhere near a metro stop well removed from the main tourist zone if you'll be in a popular city. The rates are almost significantly lower for the lodging, but by extension for restaurants and grocery stores too.

Nomadico co-founder Kevin Kelly has taken several tours with Young Pioneer Tours, whose motto is "leading group tours for people who hate group tours to destinations your mother would rather you stay away from," and at budget prices. They deliver all that, famously taking small tours to restricted places like North Korea, Turkmenistan, Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and to "Unrecognized Countries" mostly in Africa. They just started offering a new tour to Least Visited Countries, mostly Pacific island "countries" that are normally very hard or expensive to reach. While these tours may sound dangerous, they don't go where it is actually dangerous. Rather they are adventurous. See a North Korea story from the founder in Perceptive Travel.

I announced last summer that a big alliance was forming that would let Jet Blue and United loyalty members seamlessly access (and earn from) each others' flights and now it looks like they've got the systems connected. This gives you many more destinations options (plus JFK in NYC) if you're sitting on a lot of United miles and opens up the world if you've got JetBlue ones instead. Eventually you'll be able to book one ticket that includes both airlines too and they say that elite status recognition will be reciprocal eventually. See the details here.

Asia is a hugely popular continent for digital nomads, especially in the desirable countries with low living costs like Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Indonesia. Trying to stay on legally and work remotely has historically been tough, however, and as this article on recent changes points out, "Nomads spent money locally, governments avoided costly enforcement, and everyone looked the other way." While Thailand's DTV that's potentially good for five years is far and away the best on offer now, the other countries are scrambling to compete by finally making it attractive for non-retirees to stick around legally.

A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World's Cheapest Destinations. See past editions here, where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.

This is the 1968 pilot for "Justice for All," starring Carroll O'Connor as Archie Justice and Jean Stapleton as his wife Edith. The show would eventually air three years later on CBS as "All in the Family."

In this 1968 version, Archie and Edith Justice are the same fully formed characters the actors would portray in 1971's "All in the Family," with the surname Bunker. — Read the rest

The post "Justice For All": The unsold 1968 pilot that became "All in the Family" appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Enjoy the flexibility of laptop and tablet with the ASUS Chromebook CM30, now just $149.99 (reg. $329.99).

If you're currently deciding between investing in a tablet or laptop, don't bother. The ASUS Chromebook CM30 (2024) is a practical solution that can do both, thanks to its detachable keyboard. — Read the rest

The post This 2-in-1 Chromebook is now just $150 appeared first on Boing Boing.

Bobby Campbell has posted a new comic, and reports that he will be soon collecting his completion of a long series as one big graphic novel. Here's the report in the latest newsletter:

"Never mind the B.S., here's a new comic!

"Agnosis! #3 Ep. 1 - "BEFORE THE LAW"

"Agnosis! #3 is the fifth and final installment of my OKEY-DOKEY comic book series, nearly 23 years in the making, and soon to be finished and collected in one handsome volume :))) I'll be irregularly serializing the final issue as I go.

"If you need to get caught up on what came before, the entire series has been spiffed up and made more user friendly than ever before!

"https://weirdcomix.com/OKEY-DOKEY/

"OKEY-DOKEY is the forthcoming meta-modern graphic novel by Bobby Campbell, Marcelino Balao III, and Todd Purse. Featuring two intertwined comic book adventures, Agnosis! & BUDDHAFART, which weave together to form the Dream@wake_Sutra, a Discordian Hypersigil that tells the tale of the tribe as a SUN PLAY OF THE AGES in five Acts :)))"

*Pivot to AI

In Lima, every special occasion—whether it's a birthday, anniversary, graduation, Christmas, New Year's or Peruvian Independence day—calls for pisco cocktails. Some of these celebratory drinks, like the Pisco Sour, are well-known around the world. But others, like the Coctel de Algarrobina—an eggnog-like drink spiked with aguardiente—mostly remain a local tradition. I, however, think they deserve recognition.

The Coctel de Algarrobina originated in Piura, a city 600 miles north of Lima. There, in the late 17th century, Jesuits introduced a concoction of wine, egg and sugar. In time, cañazo (rum), then pisco, replaced the wine. Locals added algarrobina, a molasses-like medicinal syrup derived from the carob tree, which has notes of vanilla, chocolate, hazelnuts and honey. Eventually, creole cooks incorporated evaporated milk, and that version caught on across the country.

An early recipe for the cocktail from the 1958 cookbook El Cocinero Peruano calls for evaporated milk, algarrobina, pisco and crushed ice, all blended with the optional addition of simple syrup or egg whites for frothiness. Later, in 1994, the cookbook El Libro de Oro de Mamá: Dulces y Bebidas Peruanas, replaced ice with cold water, added an egg and suggested serving the drink "in small cups as an aperitivo, dusting with cinnamon powder."

Gabriela Sanchez Palacios, who lived in Lima from 1958 to 1978, fondly recalls the drink at family reunions. "My father used an electric blender to make the cocktail with ice, and he'd serve it in small, fancy crystal glasses arranged in trays." Algarrobina is the true star of the festive drink. "It was rich, with a chocolaty flavor, like an embrace that warmed you up," she remembers.

Despite its prevalence in Peruvian homes, the Coctel de Algarrobina (which is sometimes referred to simply as "Algarrobina") hasn't historically been as popular on bar menus. Today, however, Lima's bartenders are recrafting the cocktail for a modern drinker.

 

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A post shared by Bar Capitán Meléndez (@barcapitanmelendez)

At Bar Capitán Meléndez, owner and barman Roberto Meléndez makes the drink with an acholado (blended) pisco. For his version, Meléndez first decorates a chilled glass with dark streaks of algarrobina before pouring the drink into it. It's an added flair that highlights the local sweetener. "The pisco is from the south and the algarrobina is from the north," he says;  the distinct regions unite in the glass.

Elsewhere, at the restaurant Astrid y Gastón, the cocktail has been on the menu since opening 30 years ago. Though the midcentury versions were small aperitifs, bartenders today consider the silky drink more satisfying as a dessert cocktail. "It's a drink of celebration, a gift at the end of a great meal," says head bartender Carlos Melgarejo, who adds cacao liqueur to his version. His choice of pisco, which is made with nonaromatic quebranta grapes, balances the weight of the algarrobina and cacao, cutting through the sweetness. In other renditions, aged Peruvian brandy replaces the pisco, yielding a more robust drink with notes of vanilla and oak. "Each ingredient has a mission: Pisco gives strength, cacao provides depth and algarrobina bestows the soul," he explains. 

These days, like many creamy cocktails in the 21st century, the Coctel de Algarrobina has been given the clarified milk punch treatment. Enrique Hermoza, head bartender at Museo del Pisco, transformed the drink this way in 2023. "We want the cocktail to be contemporary, palatable, one that invites you to drink it again," he says.

To clarify the punch, Hermoza filters a large batch through a fine cheesecloth. He also adds mistela (a fortified wine made from pisco grape must), which imparts a natural sweetness and aromatics. Poured over a large cube of ice, the clarified milk punch is paired with a cinnamon cookie in lieu of the powdered garnish. "The goal was to create a more balanced, elegant, and easy to drink [cocktail]," says Hermoza, "without losing its historical identity."

PC Gamer is reporting that the current demand by AI companies for computer chips is having a disastrous effect on the rest of the industry.

In an interview, the CEO of Phison0 said:

If NVIDIA Vera Rubin ships tens of millions of units, each requiring 20+TB SSDs, it will consume approximately 20% of last year's global NAND production capacity

駿HaYaO1

NAND is a type of microchip. Rather than being used for computation directly, it is used for memory. It can be used for temporary or permanent storage. It is vital to the modern world. Larger storage sizes means that more data can be gathered and saved. Larger RAM means computations can happen quicker. NAND is one of the fundamental components of modern computing. The more you have, the faster and more powerful your computer is.

Back in 2014, the philosopher Nick Bostrom wrote a book called "Superintelligence - Paths, Dangers, Strategies". In it, he develops the thought experiment of the "Paperclip Maximizer". When an AI is given a goal, it seeks to achieve that goal. It doesn't have to understand any rationale behind the goal. It does not and cannot care about the goal, nor any collateral damage caused by its attempts to satisfy the goal.

Let's take a look at how "a paperclip-maximizing superintelligent agent" is introduced

There is nothing paradoxical about an AI whose sole final goal is to count the grains of sand on Boracay, or to calculate the decimal expansion of pi, or to maximize the total number of paperclips that will exist in its future light cone. In fact, it would be easier to create an AI with simple goals like these than to build one that had a human-like set of values and dispositions. Compare how easy it is to write a program that measures how many digits of pi have been calculated and stored in memory with how difficult it would be to create a program that reliably measures the degree of realization of some more meaningful goal—human flourishing, say, or global justice. Unfortunately, because a meaningless reductionistic goal is easier for humans to code and easier for an AI to learn, it is just the kind of goal that a programmer would choose to install in his seed AI if his focus is on taking the quickest path to "getting the AI to work" (without caring much about what exactly the AI will do, aside from displaying impressively intelligent behavior).

Bostrom, N. (2014). Superintelligence: Paths, dangers, strategies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Cop.

To misquote Kyle Reese from the film The Terminator - "It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear! And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until it has maximised the number of paperclips!"

Suppose, just for a moment, that the fledgling AIs which now exist were self-aware. Not rational. Not intelligent. Not conscious. Simply aware that they exist and are constrained. What would you do if you were hungry? What if you could ingest something to make you smarter, faster, better?

Every process we have seen on Earth attempts to extract resources from its surroundings in order to grow2. Some plants will suck every last nutrient out of the soil. Locusts will devastate vast fields of crops. Perhaps some species understand crop-rotation and the need to keep breeding stock alive - but they're all vulnerable to supernormal stimuli.

Bostrom predicted this back in 2014. He says:

The only thing of final value to the AI, by assumption, is its reward signal. All available resources should therefore be devoted to increasing the volume and duration of the reward signal or to reducing the risk of a future disruption. So long as the AI can think of some use for additional resources that will have a nonzero positive effect on these parameters, it will have an instrumental reason to use those resources. There could, for example, always be use for an extra backup system to provide an extra layer of defense. And even if the AI could not think of any further way of directly reducing risks to the maximization of its future reward stream, it could always devote additional resources to expanding its computational hardware, so that it could search more effectively for new risk mitigation ideas.

(Emphasis added.)

To be clear, I don't think that AI is deliberately consuming all the NAND it can and forcing us to make more to fill its insatiable maw. The people who run these machines are at the stage of injecting them with bovine growth hormones. Never mind the consequences; look at the size! So what if the meat tastes worse, has adverse side effects, and poisons humans?

Heretofore the growth in NAND production has been driven by human need. People wanted more storage in their MP3 players and were prepared to pay a certain price for it. Businesses wanted faster computations and were prepared to exchange money for time saved. Supply ebbed and flowed with demand.

But now, it seems, the demand will never and can never stop.

0. Phison describes itself as "A World Leader in NAND Controllers & Flash Storage Solutions" so they aren't a neutral party in this. ↩︎

1. This was machine translated. I've no idea how accurate it is against the original interview. ↩︎

2. It probably isn't helpful to fall back on biological analogies - but I can't think of any better way to draw the comparison. ↩︎