Boing Boing

Boing Boing

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Boing Boing, May 8, 2026
Vanishing soda machines, Meta users, and bag handles
 • Boing Boing
Seattle’s mystery soda machine vanished in 2018 with a goodbye note
For roughly two decades, a battered 1970s Coca-Cola machine sat on the sidewalk outside Broadway Locksmith on East John Street in Seattle’s Capitol…
 • Ellsworth Toohey
No one knows why dark side of Venus has a faint glow
On January 9, 1643, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Riccioli pointed his telescope at Venus and noticed a faint glow on the planet’s unlit…
 • Ellsworth Toohey
Safeway blames a “wood pulp shortage” for its handleless paper bags
Karen Aitchison, a senior who has shopped the Diamond Heights Boulevard Safeway for 30 years, lives three flights up.
 • Ellsworth Toohey
Physicist says the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ isn’t real
When Carlo Rovelli’s bicycle chain comes off, he calls a bike-shop mechanic, never a particle physicist — even though particle physics technically…
 • Ellsworth Toohey
Meta’s daily user count just dropped for the first time ever
Daily active users across Meta’s properties slipped from 3.58 billion to 3.56 billion last quarter, the first decline the company has ever reported.
 • Ellsworth Toohey
Listen to almost 50 years of startup sounds
The Data Drop releases one interactive visual essay every week, and the latest is a collection of startup sounds from 1977 to the present, covering…
 • Gail P Sherman
US and Iran practicing an “Israeli ceasefire,” by shooting at one another
Diplomacy in 2026 increasingly resembles two raccoons fighting inside a dumpster while insisting they are “de-escalating,” and the latest US-Iran…
 • Jason Weisberger
Yellowstone grizzly introduces two hikers to the “find out” phase of wildlife tourism
Yellowstone’s wildlife brochure probably mentions the geysers first, but this week a mother grizzly reminded two hikers that the park’s unofficial…
 • Jason Weisberger
Report says Kash Patel is spiraling over leaks and grilling staff with lie detectors
According to new reporting from Carol Leonnig and Ken Dilanian, already paranoid-looking FBI Director Kash Patel has reportedly ordered polygraph tests…
 • Jason Weisberger
This animator is doing wild things with construction paper
This animation by Philippa Rice uses an innovative technique I haven’t seen before: paper cutouts. The video shows the technique used in different ways…
 • Popkin
Handmade kaleidoscopes that open tiny portals into dreamlike mini universes
Budderscopes is the creative world of artist Kaleb Weber, who makes handmade kaleidoscopes built from glass, mirrors, and found materials.
 • Popkin
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