TECH

In June, ICANN announced that over 1,400 new generic top-level domain names (in other words, .wedding, .sex, and .lawyer) were under consideration to join the familiar .com and its kin. Weirdness has ensued. A Brief Technical Lesson In the world of we

Image credit: Flickr user AJ Cann Pocket-sized multitools are a dime a dozen, but the Swiss Army Knife is an icon. Its name is shorthand for versatility and its cross-emblazoned red handle has gone to the North Pole, to the top of Mount Everest, to the d

You may have heard about some new bills making their way through the U.S. Congress, related to piracy on the internet. But what are they and what's the big deal? Here's a simple guide to what the laws are and why so many internet nerds (like myself) are

With its user-generated reviews and recommendations, Yelp can be great for trying to find a fun spot for dinner. But there are plenty of profiles that aren't so helpful, and not just because of the quality of the reviews.

In honor of tonight's mental_floss fantasy football league draft, here's a story on alternative fantasy leagues that first appeared last summer. Fantasy football drafts are firing up, and workplace productivity will soon grind to a halt as half the offic

Soap operas, "soaps" or "my stories," as many a <em>grandmother</em> has called them, are dramas presented in a serial format on daytime television or radio. Their name comes from a time when old serial dramas broadcast on radio had soap manufacturers (Pr

We're all used to posts about the intersection between technology and design, or technology and medicine, but what about technology and fashion? Here are some t-shirts making the most of the latest and greatest tech innovations. (note: a few of these shir

My friend and co-blogger here on the _floss, Rob Lammle, had an awesome post a few weeks back: How to Tweet Your Way Out of a Job. While I wasn't able to find quite as many people who tweeted their way INTO a job, there's at least one in the list below,

A question from reader Josiah: "Do blind people see when they dream? I think there are two sides to the question, dealing with people who were born blind, and those who used to be able to see." Whether visual imagery is present in the dreams of the blin

When I read that a new spider species was named Heteropoda davidbowie in honor of David Bowie, it reminded me of several other celebrities whose names were enshrined in taxonomy because there are so many new spiders being discovered as distinct species. W

If you have an itch, you scratch it. Scratch and itch; they go together like peas and carrots and everyone&mdash;humans, apes, dogs and cats&mdash;knows it. What we didn't understand for a very long time was the physiological connection between the two&md

Everyone knows the video game classics "“ you can't go wrong with Mario, Zelda, or Donkey Kong. But there are some games out there that make you really wonder what the publisher was thinking when they green-lighted the idea. Although, to be fair, a coup