TL;DR

It’s hard to pick a favorite bike build at The Q YouTube channel. The split wheel one? Square wheels? The bendy, locky one?

For the intersection of people who love engineering, bikes, and ASMR. Go watch.

Nilay typed it this morning in Verge Slack, and I’ve been privately chuckling all day.

Yes, I know it’s technically now called “Google Fi Wireless,” and that the addition of the word “wireless” helps get straight to the point. It’s way more practical than letting people confuse Google Fi with Google Fiber! And yet I continue to LOL.

It doesn’t matter how fast you twist — the creme will stick to one side 80 percent of the time, they found.

Unfortunately, the MIT study results weren’t replicated by the Netherlands’ University of Groningen, but that may be because the Europeans twisted by hand, while the US researchers twisted via machine.

His shares are reportedly worth about 880 million euros ($936 million). Despite being “not a big beer drinker,” it’s a 2007 investment in another brewery, Femsa, that has brought Heineken into the Gates investment fold.

It’s an interesting arrangement, considering the Melinda & Bill Gates Foundation-sponsored study released last year laying out both potential health risks (particularly for people under 40) and benefits from alcohol consumption:
These findings highlight the need for tailored guidelines that discourage alcohol consumption among young people, as well as alcohol control policies and interventions that are targeted especially towards young males.

A Ponzi scheme that has nothing to do with the blockchain? How quaint.

Reva Joyce Stachniw, 71, of Galesburg, Illinois, and Ron Throgmartin, 59, of Buford, Georgia, along with a co-conspirator, ran a Ponzi scheme by fraudulently representing to victims that their investments were backed by short-term investments in Stachniw and Throgmartin’s cattle and marijuana businesses.

The victim-investors gave the conspirators money based on false promises that their investments would be used for legitimate activities related to those businesses. In actuality, the funds were used to pay earlier investors.

Satirical conspiracy theories aside, stuffed birds really are being turned into drones for surveillance purposes.

A team of researchers designed the “ornithopters” to resemble a flying bird in hopes they can be used to stealthily study wildlife — and maybe spy on people and foreign militaries. The team acknowledged to New Scientist that it should “look into research policies for dealing with dead birds before getting more ambitious,” though.

Not quite, but this miniature resin printer created by My N Mi is surprisingly fully-functional and capable of producing delicate, detailed prints despite measuring just 18 x 31 x 41 millimeters (seen via The Awesomer).

That’s about the right size for a typical dollhouse FYI, and it's giving me the same vibes as those addictive miniature-cooking videos.

The community over at Stripperweb has questions for the forum's anonymous owner after a banner appeared last week announcing that, for reasons unknown, it would be shutting down on February 1st.

Described as the “Holy Grail of strippers’ knowledge,” some sex workers are offering to buy the site, while others have swiftly learned Python in order to preserve the forum's vast resources and history.

Yeah, but what about “the college-educated” bastards?

Coder Sébastien Matos has created an interactive webpage that faithfully recreates the scrollbars of various operating systems from the last 30 years (seen via Creative Bloq). Which is your favorite? I’m now hunting for extensions to give my scrollbars an updated (or retro) look.

When software controlling the decade-old “green lighting system” at Minnechaug Regional High failed in August 2021, the lights permanently stuck in their default “on” position, and the school couldn’t track down the original installer’s new owners to fix it.

Now, the issue should finally be resolved over the February break after upgrades, including a new server, control boards, and, yes, a remote override switch.

Was on a Superior Court Clerk’s Office records request (PDF) for theft charges against this guy who allegedly decided Office Space was a good inspiration for a real crime.

The cops say he edited code on an e-commerce site’s checkout basket to redirect shipping fees on some orders to his personal account. And what did he do with the money?

When asked where the money now is, he stated it was “gone.” He clarified that he had used the money to invest in stock options, particularly GameStop stock options, and reiterated that all the money was now gone.

When my friend told me about his New Year’s resolution, I immediately decided to join him: every time he gets a marketing email he doesn’t want, he takes a few seconds to unsubscribe from it.

For the past few days, we’ve been like Legolas and Gimli comparing how many lists we’re no longer on. I know that the spam will inevitably creep back throughout the year, but for the next few months it’s going to be a lot easier to keep my inbox clean.

If you’re looking for a resolution, maybe join us and give this a try.

A lot of things are powered by computers, even retail signage. It’s an easy thing to forget, that is, until they stop working as intended. I adore seeing glitchy displays and kiosks at stores. I especially love seeing the many, many people who walk by them, not seeming to notice or care.

I hope you saw at least one sign that was on the fritz during your holiday travels. If you have a particularly good one to share, send a pic to my email: cameron.faulkner@theverge.com

Is this real life? Is this just parody? I can’t stop giggling either way. Not even ChatGPT can say this little with this many words. My favorite line:

“Cho ended his talk by reminding everyone at LG that the future will be determined by the way we think and act now, which is, ultimately, to prepare for the future.” Oh we will, LG, we will.

A real Jabberwocky moment, this.

Avatar: The Way of the Water is only showing in theaters, meaning you can’t hit pause like you can at home to run to the restroom. Thankfully, Polygon wrote this spoiler-light guide on when during the three-hour “very wet” movie you can excuse yourself without missing out on vital movie moments.

As it turns out, you can skip...quite a bit of it.

If you’re old enough to remember the words “via Hiptop,” then you’ll recognize that instead of being tweet-like, the new Instagram Notes feature takes inspiration from Twitter’s predecessor — AOL Instant Messenger away messages.

The pop-up statuses are hidden away (for now) in the Instagram messages window, but for the Elder Millennial / Young Gen X generation, it’s a return to the days of flirting via vague but also specifically targeted song lyrics.

If the Elf on the Shelf isn’t enough to keep the kids in line, this Yule log tied to the horror movie Smile should be a serviceable reminder that someone is creepily watching to see who’s been naughty or nice.

(If you prefer a stable heart rate over jump scares, there are always other Yule log options like this one from Hades, five hours of Darth Vader’s burning corpse, or a relaxing 45 minutes with Nick Offerman.)

We asked folks here at The Verge about what old electronics they have lying around, and some (or all) of the answers might surprise you.

When was the last time you saw a Moviola?