L.A. County’s COVID hospitalization explosion is literally off the charts
See the original posting on LA Times Science
L.A. County’s explosion of COVID-19 hospitalization is literally off the charts, forcing officials to draw new ones.
Author: Robert
New Part Day: Hackboard 2, an x86 Single-Board Computer
See the original posting on Hackaday
From the old Gumstix boards to everyone’s favorite Raspberry Pi, common single-board computers (SBCs) have traditionally had at least one thing in common: an ARM processor. But that’s not to say hackers and makers haven’t been interested in an SBC with a proper x86 processor. Which is why the $99 …read more
GameStop will reportedly accept Cyberpunk 2077 returns, even if youâve opened the game
See the original posting on The Verge
GameStop reportedly sent a memo to employees telling them to accept returns of Cyberpunk 2077, even in the event the physical game box has already been opened, according to Kotaku and Vice reporter Patrick Klepek. GameStopâs return policy typically doesnât let you return opened games, but GameStop seems to be making an exception for Cyberpunk 2077 after its buggy launch.
You can return PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of game within 30 days of purchase to get a refund, reports Kotaku. GameStop didnât reply to a request for comment, but employees at GameStops in Chicago and Houston confirmed to The Verge by phone that their stores were accepting returns of the game.
Other retailers have also offered refunds of Cyberpunk 2077. Best Buy a…
Driving the XC40 Recharge, Volvoâs first electric crossover with native Android Auto
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Volvoâs first EV is an impressive blend of Swedish ingenuity and electric performance
Watch Nicolas Cage shout expletives in History of Swear Words trailer
See the original posting on The Verge
If youâve ever wondered how profanity actually became profane, Nicolas Cage is here to help you out. The actor is no stranger to swearing, but in Netflixâs upcoming show History of Swear Words heâll be doing it in a more educational way. Though, if the trailerâs indicative of what the show is going to be like, itâll still be very entertaining.
It opens with Cage standing up and just screaming âfuck,â likely a reference to him doing pretty much the exact same thing in Deadfall. It only gets better from there, explaining that apparently the word is an acronym (standing for Fornication Under Consent of the King), and delving into how swear words are understood by the people using and hearing them.
âToss a Coin to your Witcherâ is even catchier broken down into different languages
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Remember this time last year, when everyday didnât bring with it a new horror and people just wanted to talk about The Witcher? Well, now a new video from Netflix is trying to bring back some of that energy, piecing together lyrics from the showâs breakout song, âToss a Coin to your Witcher,â all sung in different languages.
In the video, the song jumps between languages, starting with English before leading into Polish, Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and more. Itâs incredibly charming, with all the different Jaskiers coming together to remind various townspeople and locals to toss a coin to their Witcher. Itâs the holiday season; not tipping at least 20 percent, especially in areas with heavy snowfall and grotesque monsters that…
A Charmander Lamp to Light Up the Garden
See the original posting on Hackaday
[BrittLiv] loves Pokémon and has always wanted to make giant versions of them. Now that they’ve moved out of that apartment, it’s time to make those childhood dreams come true and fill the garden with Pokémon. First up is Charmander, one of [BrittLiv]’s absolute favorites and a perfect candidate for …read more
Instagram creators were promised a $500 sponsorship but ended up with $40 face scrubbers
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All of the women tell the same story of how they were scammed. A company called The SkinGlo emailed them with a tempting deal: it was looking for content to fill its Instagram feed, and its team had chosen them to help. In exchange for five photos of them using The SkinGloâs electric face scrubber â even photos taken just from their phones â theyâd receive â¬450, or about $525 USD. They could even watermark the images and only send over a clean file once they got paid. It seemed like a good deal.
There was one small catch, though. The women would have to buy the companyâs face scrubber themselves, with a 50 percent off discount code, bringing the total to â¬40, or about $48.
Although that stipulation was slightly odd, the company still…
You can now play Microsoftâs Flight Simulator in VR
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Microsoft Flight Simulator has always been about making you feel like a pilot, but youâve never been able to experience it in VR â until today. With todayâs free update, Asobo Studio has added support for OpenXR-compatible headsets, which include Windows Mixed Reality headsets as well as the Valve Index, HTC Vive, and the Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest (if you use a Link cable).
Microsoft originally announced that the VR feature would be coming first to the HP Reverb G2. This latest update includes support for most Windows Mixed Reality headsets, Oculus, Valve, and HTC headsets.
Before, if you wanted to feel like you were really in an airplane while playing Flight Simulator, it would take a lot of computer monitors and some carpentry…
Making And Testing A Cheap DIY Heat Box For Sanitizing Masks
See the original posting on Makezine
Over the past few months, a group of committed volunteers from the Philadelphia Makers Meetup have come together to address the shortage of lifesaving face masks. Our objective was to design a practical, DIY device that could sanitize reusable PPE in accord with the following 6 criteria: Quick, cheap […]
The post Making And Testing A Cheap DIY Heat Box For Sanitizing Masks appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.
Ringâs Mailbox Sensor is one of the nerdier smart home gadgets Iâve tested
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One of my favorite movies when I was growing up was Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. In it, the main protagonist, Wayne Szalinski, is a nerdy scientist-slash-home-gadget-inventor who develops a shrink ray in his attic that accidentally shrinks his kids and two neighbor kids down to the size of gnats.
But it was Wayneâs other inventions that always caught my eye â in particular, his Rube Goldberg-esque system for announcing when the mail has arrived. Iâm no Wayne Szalinski and Iâm certainly not an accomplished engineer, but building a system to let me know when the mail has arrived has been an ongoing smart home goal of mine.
Iâve tried using Zigbee contact sensors mounted inside my mailbox, and Iâve even tried using a motion detector shoved in…
Sonyâs latest PS5 update will tell you if youâre playing the PS4 version of a game
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Sonyâs latest PlayStation 5 update seems to have fixed one of the biggest issues with cross-gen games on the console: making it clearer when players have the PlayStation 4 version of a game installed and notifying them when thereâs a PS5 version available to download.
The feature, spotted by Twitter user Tidux, aims to clarify one of the more frustratingly complex parts of the PlayStation 5. Because the console offers backwards compatibility for all PS4 games â including ones that offer free next-gen PS5 updates, like Assassinâs Creed Valhalla or Destiny 2 â itâs pretty easy to accidentally install the older version of the game.
Microsoft has taken a simpler approach to the system, with its Smart Delivery program that will automatically…
Kit converts a regular bike into a snowbike
See the original posting on Boing Boing
This “Electric SnowBike Kit” by the Canadian firm ENVO lets you replace the back wheel of your bike with a powered snowmobile-style tread, and the front with a snowboard.
The upshot is just delightfully bonkers, as the action in that video will attest. — Read the rest
The 10 best streaming shows on Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN Plus for 2020
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The year 2020 was when most of us went from going out with loved ones to exchanging recommendations on what type of TV show or movie to stream next. One way to suit everyoneâs taste â kids, adults, and sports fans â is to try the Disney Bundle, a streaming pack that consists of Disney Plus, ESPN Plus, and Hulu.
Each of these services offers a slew of streaming options, so for a $12.99-a-month price tag, you are getting a ton of bang for your buck. You can also opt just for Disney Plus at a cost of $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year.
Here are some of my favorites.
Weâve rounded up our favorite and most-used games, apps, and entertainment. Check out our app picks for iPhones, Android phones, PCs, and M1-equipped Macs; our favorite mobile…
The microwaveâs âadd 30 secondsâ button offers an escape from cold digital precision
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The microwave is a cooking tool designed around precision. Punch in how long you need your food to heat up in a microwave, and thatâs what it will do; no more, and no less.
But for all the exactitude that governs the microwave â and that the microwave tries to impose on our food and our cooking â the reality is that things canât be so neatly stuffed into a convenient digital box. Life isnât binary, so many microwaves feature an âadd 30 secondsâ button to give us humans the wiggle room we need within the otherwise unbendable numbers of the countdown clock.
Itâs a button that stands in almost caveman-y opposition to the intended functionality. Instead of calculating the perfect amount of time to reheat or cook your food, it turns out that…
Heavy metal: down the rabbit hole of cast-iron doorstops
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Have you ever seen a cast-iron dog? They were once quite popular, used to prop open doors or to keep doorknobs from damaging the wall behind them. Scott Thompson knows all about doggie doorstops, rabbit and fox doorstops, too, as he has collected hundreds of these antiques. — Read the rest
A Collin’s Lab look at eInk
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When I was an editor at Make:, one of the products I was most proud of that we produced was Collin’s Lab, with Collin Cunningham. When Collin moved over to Adafruit, he took the Lab with him.
Seeing a new Collin’s Lab video is an all-too-rare experience, like spotting a rare butterfly in the wild. — Read the rest
The Quantum X is the world’s first upright water filtration vacuum
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For most of the past century, vacuums were pretty much just vacuums. They suctioned dirt and other debris up off the floor, then passed it through a cloth or paper-based filter that would trap and collect all the dirt.
But, a few decades ago, the water filtration vacuum showed up â and changed the game. — Read the rest
A visit to the Barbie Woodshop
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I recently discovered this Instagram account for Barbie of All Trades. Yes, THAT Barbie. She’s taken up woodworking and has amassed a shopful of gorgeous (1:6 scale) miniature tools. According to her Instagram bio, Barbie Woodshop is a a “father and daughter project that is getting out of hand.” — Read the rest
Explosive forming of a metal sphere
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Low-rez, but deeply satisfying to watch.
Making a metal sphere usually involves stamping or spinning sheet metal. But this video shows a process where they start out with a shape made out of polygons, then turn it into a sphere by bending the metal with an explosion at its center.