[This is a very, very dumb crime.] I got my first good laugh in the month of November from this ridiculous scam. The hubris on display here, as well as the high level of effort on the part of the conspirators, is just great. Look at this high-quality costume! [Photo credit: Calif … | Continue reading
[] Try and leave this world a little better than you found it, and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate, you have not wasted your time but have done your best. —Robert Baden-Powell One Foot Tsunami has always been a labor of love. Since 2009, … | Continue reading
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[Let’s do this one more time, everyone.] Today is election day in America. It’s time for America to move past the incredibly unfit Donald Trump, and time to send Kamala Harris to the White House as America’s first female president. America, let’s do this. Here’s how: If You’re Re … | Continue reading
[“[R]arely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.”] British writer Nate White has Donald Trump figured out: Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. … | Continue reading
[Infinity is a mirage.] If you were somehow counting on the infinite monkey theorem to help you accomplish something, a pair of Australian mathematicians have some bad news: “It is not plausible that, even with improved typing speeds or an increase in chimpanzee populations, monk … | Continue reading
[Also, what the hell is a tomato “factory”?] “Seymour! The northern lights are out!” “No, mother. It’s just the local tomato factory.” It does have a strange beauty of its own. I believe I would enjoy a whole “area person disappointed” series. Link: https://www.independent.co.uk/ … | Continue reading
[To err is human. To cover your ass with AI is not divine.] This week, Apple has unveiled a set of artificial intelligence features to the world. The new Apple Intelligence functionality is being touted with two new commercials that pitch a smartphone as a substitute for being at … | Continue reading
[The petard in this case is “racism”.] Over the weekend, Donald Trump held a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City. There, “comedian” Tony Hinchcliffe disparaged multiple minority groups, including Puerto Ricans. That might prove to be a problem for the Trump campaign, … | Continue reading
[Hold Jeff Bezos’s beer.] Not to be outdone by Patrick Soon-Shiong and the Los Angeles Times, billionaire Jeff Bezos has apparently also killed his paper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris. Declaring the paper’s lack of an endorsement just 11 days before the election is a breathtakin … | Continue reading
[He’s right. We ARE all going to be dead soon.] Speaking of the Boston Celtics, Boston.com has a collection of great quotes from their head coach, Joe Mazzulla. [Photo credit: Boston.com on Instagram] Whenever you’re feeling overwhelmed, just remember that we’re all going to be d … | Continue reading
[Two not-actually-that-radical proposals: Billionaires should not exist and news organizations should be publicly funded.] Earlier this month, billionaire owner of the “Los Angeles Times” Patrick Soon-Shiong dictated to the paper’s editorial board that it would not be allowed to … | Continue reading
[You just keep trying to kick that football, Charlie Brown.] I live just down the street from the home of both the Boston Celtics and the Boston Bruins, TD Garden. Games, concerts, and other shows at this arena can impact me greatly, so I frequently want to know “What’s happening … | Continue reading
[Perhaps it would make sense to require manual renewal of regulations every so often.] Though smoking hasn’t been permitted on U.S. flights for decades, I can recall taking notice of a bathroom ashtray on a Virgin flight just a few years ago. The plane was brand-new, with plastic … | Continue reading
[Nuts and gum, together at last!] For most of the 2010s, Virgin America was my preferred way to travel between Boston and San Francisco. Eventually, however, Virgin shuttered their cross-country routes from Boston when they were acquired by the extremely West Coast-based Alaska A … | Continue reading
[Onward. Forward. Upward.] Former president and scourge of the guinea worm Jimmy Carter wasn’t concerned with living to 100. Instead, he wanted to make it to the 2024 presidential election, so he could cast his ballot for Kamala Harris. Now, he’s done it. Next up, he should aim t … | Continue reading
[Science!] Do you have some art in need of restoring? Maybe you can throw some bacteria at it. As Spanish microbiologist Pilar Bosch was casting around for a subject to investigate for her PhD in 2008, she stumbled across a paper suggesting that bacteria, her field, could be used … | Continue reading
[That’s quite a glitch.] Recently, I had the misfortune of taking a Ryanair flight from Ireland to Poland. Though I’d heard horror stories, it was the only direct flight available, and the price was very low. The cost to my soul, however, was quite high. To borrow a phrase from J … | Continue reading
[Who knew raccoons could swarm?] It’s apparently Pacific Northwest Police social media week here at OFT. Today, we head north to Washington state, where one woman found herself surrounded by too many raccoons: [Photo credit: Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office] After decades of feedin … | Continue reading
[Don’t make a liar out of bags.] When police in Oregon stopped a stolen car and searched it, the loaded gun and scales were probably enough to arouse suspicion. Still, the accompanying bag definitely didn’t help: [Photo credit: Portland Police] Amusingly, Vice’s coverage of this … | Continue reading
[“For sale: baby shoes, never worn” is an amazing six-word story, but it’s probably best to not text it to your pregnancy class group.] Recently, a man was apparently dumped by his girlfriend via text message, and found the exchange summarized by AI: On Wednesday, NYC-based softw … | Continue reading
[The way it was never meant to be heard] In 1994, Green Day released their seminal album “Dookie”. It brought both the band and punk music in general into the mainstream, selling tens of millions of copies along the way. Now, 30 years later, they’ve demastered the album. Each of … | Continue reading
[Also, captive trophy hunting is pathetic.] Arthur “Jack” Schubarth, an 81-year-old Montana man, was recently sentenced to six months in federal prison. His misdeed was the illegal use of tissue and testicles from large sheep, which he used to create hybrid sheep for captive trop … | Continue reading
[It’s like tuna fish in a barrel.] I suspect Donald Trump’s ridiculously named social media platform “Truth Social” attracts a people who are likely to be more credulous than average. Scammers looking for prey have certainly found it there, as Gizmodo found out via a FOIA request … | Continue reading
[We’re out of outlaw poets] A few months back, I stumbled on a profile of singer, songwriter, and actor Kris Kristofferson, written by actor, author, and film director Ethan Hawke. It dates from 2009, but it was a tremendous read 15 years later, and again on the occasion of Krist … | Continue reading
[The ethics of zoos are difficult, but disguising one animal as another is pretty clearly wrong.] One Foot Tsunami’s oeuvre is such that when a zoo is caught attempting to pass off a dog as a panda, as happened again last month, I hear about it from readers. But rather than link … | Continue reading
[Guinness 0.0 is legit.] Hannah Twiggs, writing about Guinness’s zero-alcohol incarnation: At first glance, there’s nothing out of the ordinary about a pint of Guinness 0.0. The velvet black pour, the creamy foam head balancing delicately on the rim of the glass, the familiar sat … | Continue reading
[Ursicide ought not to be condoned.] As faithful readers know, only one bear can be crowned champion of Fat Bear Week. Though 2024’s tournament hasn’t even started, it already features more drama and intrigue than ever. Bear #469, no doubt intent on claiming the Fat Bear crown, d … | Continue reading
[It’s still miles better than a CyberTruck.] The US Postal Service is currently in the process of updating its massive fleet of vehicles. When I read that the new trucks were well-loved by mail carriers, despite their goofy looks, I wondered just how weird they might look. It tur … | Continue reading
[This is the sort of awfulness you’d expect from the bogeyman that was the USSR.] Rather than attempting to force women to have children, perhaps Russia could improve its demographics by ending the invasion of Ukraine. Link: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russia-proposes-ban- … | Continue reading
[They might leak out of your phone.] With iOS 18, iPhones have finally gained support for RCS, the text message replacement for SMS and MMS. Android devices, meanwhile, have supported RCS for years. The two platforms are doing things a little differently, though, and it could lea … | Continue reading
[It’s also obviously bad for your health.] A year or two back, I learned about slap fighting. It is the dumbest sport I can recall seeing, and I’ve seen real-life quidditch quadball. In slap fighting, opponents stand across from each other and exchange vicious slaps. There is no … | Continue reading
[I can’t fathom how this happened.] Speaking of exercise leading to very bad things, approximately a quarter of the lacrosse players who participated in a recent workout at Tufts University were later diagnosed with a very serious medical condition. About 50 team members particip … | Continue reading
[Epidemiologists should not be needed after a race.] Speaking of gross events in San Francisco, a Tough Mudder race there seems to have infected a huge number of participants with bacteria that made them quite ill. Exposure to [waist-deep muddy water] is how Sonoma County officia … | Continue reading
[AI will never be able to wear a fleece vest, not go to events, and spend all day at a bar.] Salesforce is a cloud-based software company that represents in my mind all that is awful and corporate in tech. I’m lucky that my only interaction with the company is via Slack, a subsid … | Continue reading
[“A cross between a hammerhead shark and a marital aid”] Five years ago, I met a robot named Marty who was working at the supermarket. It was somewhat disconcerting to be confronted with a near seven-foot-tall automaton while picking up cereal at Stop & Shop. Still, at least it l … | Continue reading
[The investment returns are phenomenal, but the brokerage fee is your immortal soul.] While carving up the information superhighway on my digital surfboard recently, the following image jumped out at me: I stared at it for more than a few seconds before realizing that’s actually … | Continue reading
[This might also be filed under “Billionaires invent the Torment Nexus”.] In today’s edition of “Billionaires should not exist”, here’s Larry Ellison: During an investor Q&A, Ellison described a world where artificial intelligence systems would constantly monitor citizens through … | Continue reading
[Doing one quick lap around Earth] When I saw the headline “Earth to have new mini-moon for two months”, I was pretty intrigued. I may be over the moon coverage, but a second moon? Now that I can get into. Or I could, if it were bigger than 10 meters across, anyway. That’s closer … | Continue reading
[It’s better than being lost in space.] Back in August, I noted that Boeing’s Starliner issues had left astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams stranded on the International Space Station. Since then, the Starliner returned home empty, and without incident. I’m not sure how Wi … | Continue reading
[$125,000 a year on Disney feels like an awful lot.] Out west at Disneyland, Scott and Diana Anderson want badly to belong to a club that will no longer accept them as members. After years of waiting, they gained membership to Disney’s exclusive Club 33 in 2012, and made it the c … | Continue reading
[“The United States government has willfully ignored this nonsensical math problem for decades.”] I invite you to read this piece about the ridiculousness of the American penny, so you can be as bothered by it as I am. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/01/magazine/worthless-p … | Continue reading
[With love and hope, and a hat tip to Aaron Sorkin] I was at a concert last night, and thus did not watch the presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. It is of course impossible to escape hearing the highlights, or in Trump’s case, lowlights. From false claims … | Continue reading
[Behold the wonder of tartrazine!] A chemical called tartrazine, which is found in food dye yellow No. 5, might one day make it possible to temporarily see through skin. That’s disgusting and neat, in equal measure. Link: https://wapo.st/3Zdz6Kb | Continue reading
[People really love their wifi.] Last year, several crew members on the USS Manchester took part in a scheme to rig up their own wifi network via a secret Starlink connection. This was a bad idea. Link: https://www.twz.com/sea/the-story-of-sailors-secretly-installing-starlink-on- … | Continue reading
[“[A]ccidentally perforated a small amount in the outside edge”] When I was a young boy, my parents took me into the city, to see a marching band the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. As we passed through the Lincoln Tunnel en route from New Jersey into New York City, I asked “Are … | Continue reading
[It’s kind of their M.O.] Recently, while being subjected to the inescapable torrent of political awfulness that is Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, a theory came to me. I believe Trump’s 2024 running mate, JD Vance, may have been chosen through indolence. Though I shudder e … | Continue reading
[I’m sure the forthcoming WatchOS 11 will cure this problem right up.] Recently, my Apple dumbwatch developed an apparent hearing problem: Of course, it didn’t actually. Just as the above image indicates, I had indeed asked “Who do the Red Sox play today?”. Aside from the missing … | Continue reading