Commemorate the extinction of the dinosaurs with this T. Rex Oven Mitt!

I make comics every week for Webtoons! You should check ‘em out sometime.

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(via Death Valley Is Experiencing a Colorful ‘Superbloom’ - The New York Times) Death Valley at its best; supporting, momentarily, beautiful life.

When the song that became Thriller was first considered for the album that also became Thriller, it was called Starlight and had totally different lyrics.

We need some starlight starlight sun
There ain't no second chance we got to make it while we can
You need the starlight some starlight sun
I need you by my side you give me starlight starlight tonight yeah

Songwriter Rod Temperton explains:

Originally, when I did my Thriller demo, I called it Starlight. Quincy said to me, 'You managed to come up with a title for the last album, see what you can do for this album.' I said, 'Oh great,' so I went back to the hotel, wrote two or three hundred titles, and came up with the title 'Midnight Man'. The next morning, I woke up, and I just said this word... Something in my head just said, this is the title. You could visualise it on the top of the Billboard charts. You could see the merchandising for this one word, how it jumped off the page as 'Thriller'.

That story reminds me of the scene in the hot tub in Boogie Nights where Eddie Adams chooses his stage name:

I just want a name, I want it so it can cut glass, you know, like razor sharp. When I close my eyes, I see this thing, a sign. I see this name in bright blue neon lights with a purple outline. And this name is so bright and so sharp that the sign -- it just blows up because the name is so powerful ... It says "Dirk Diggler."

Thriller and Dirk Diggler. Both great names. (via @aaroncoleman0)

Telephone links are a thing. Like an anchor link you tap to (probably) go to another page, these are links you tap to call a number on a phone-capable device. They’ve been around for quite some time. Yet, they cause me a lot of confusion. For example, many devices will automagically recognize phone numbers and do the linking for us, but not always.

There is enough web traffic on mobile devices and plenty of desktops apps that are capable of making calls, that it’s worth knowing more about phone links.

Default Usage

We have a snippet for phone links on this site that’s been hanging around since 2011:

<a href="tel:1-562-867-5309">1-562-867-5309</a>

This also works on text links:

<a href="tel:1-562-867-5309">Click to Call!</a>

tel: is not so much a feature as it is a protocol, much in the same way that http: and mailto: are protocols for the <a> tag feature. The spec itself has nothing to say about it, though HMTL5 did provide support for custom protocol handlers, which allow such a protocol to be used.

You’re probably wondering why tel: can be considered default usage in the absence of an official spec on it. You can credit this to the fact that it was a proposed standard as far back as 2000 and later adopted by iOS, making it the de facto way to go by roughly 2007. There are other phone-based protocols (which we’ll get to later), but we’ll be focusing on tel: given its relative prominence.

Browser Support

We see tel: pop up as a protocol handler for links with no official documentation; and where there is no documentation, we often see differences in browser support and behavior. That’s not to say that browsers fail to recognize the <a> tag itself. Instead, browsers might make different decisions on what to do when that link is clicked. For example, a browser may assume another app needs to open and will trigger a dialog asking which app to use. In other cases, the link might be ignored altogether.

Styling Phone Links

Styling telephone numbers is like any other link. In fact, it will inherit the default styling for anchors:

a {
  color: orange;
  text-decoration: none;
}

Let’s say we only styles to apply to telephone links. We can do that with a pseudo selector that searches out the tel: text in a given URL:

a[href^="tel:"] {
  color: orange;
  text-decoration: none;
}

Tuts+ has a nice trick using the ::before pseudo selector to add the unicode phone character before the number is displayed:

a[href^="tel:"]:before {
  content: "\260e";
  margin-right: 0.5em;
}

Alternative Phone-Related Links

Believe or not, tel: is not the only way to initiate a phone call with a link. Here are a few other custom phone-based protocol handlers at our disposal.

• callto: Exactly like tel: but used to initiate calls via the Skype app.
• auto-detected: Many browsers will automatically detect a phone number in the HTML and link it up for you—no need to change the markup. iOS, for example, will totally do this, though it did not seem to be the case for Chrome on Android.
• sms: Skip the call and go straight to text message. This seems to be a lot less supported than tel: is among browsers, including mobile.
• fax: Go back to the future with fax machines. Again, spotty reliability.

Best Practices

It’s kinda funny talking about best practices when it comes to something without specifications. The spec does give a brief opinion on the “click to call” idea, but here are a few things to bear in mind when working with telephone numbers and links.

Consider the Context

A telephone link can make for an excellent call-to-action, especially on mobile phones where it reduces the friction between the content and the call. At the same time, telephone links could be considered a hindrance on a desktop experience where a phone call wouldn’t be possible if the device lacks an app that supports it.

One idea would be to create a class specifically for telephone links and attempt to show or hide them based on what we know about the browser. Modernizr and media queries are handy here, though totally imprecise.

Use Country Codes

A country code is not required but could be a nice touch for sites with international traffic. Country codes can be preceded by a + but that too is not required.

<a href="tel:+01-562-867-5309">1-562-867-5309</a>

Search Engine Optimization

SEO experts might have more to add on this than I do, but Google offers a structured data format for local businesses and using it will make telephone links more recognizable to crawlers, formatting them on search results pages in a way that makes the number much more actionable. Dudley Storey provides an excellent overview with the following example:

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/LocalBusiness">
  <h1 itemprop="name">Beach Bunny Swimwear</h1>
  Phone: 
    <span itemprop="telephone">
      <a href="tel:+18506484200">
         850-648-4200
      </a>
    </span>
</div>

On the flip side of wanting search engines to follow phone links, you can add rel="nofollow" to discourage links from being followed and indexed. This might be a good idea for any link not being designated as a call to action since web crawlers would be inclined to try to follow it to nowhere.

<a href="tel:+01-562-867-5309" rel="nofollow">1-562-867-5309</a>

Turning off Number Detection in iOS

If you plan to add phone links to your markup, then you may also want to consider disabling iOS from auto-detecting phone numbers and overriding your styles. Add the following the the document <head> to turn that off:

<meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no">

Further Reading

• Quick Tip: Make Telephone Numbers Do Something by Tuts+
• Adding Phone Numbers To Web Pages With HTML5 and Microdata by Dudley Storey
• Original Draft Proposal 2806 which has been obsolete by Proposal 3966
• Apple URL Scheme Reference

The Current State of Telephone Links is a post from CSS-Tricks

My new favorite YouTube channel is called Primitive Technology. It features mostly silent videos of an Australian man making and building things using only Stone Age technology. He built a hut out of mud, sticks, and leaves:

He made his own charcoal:

To make the charcoal the wood was broken up and stacked in to a mound with the largest pieces in the center and smaller sticks and leaves on the out side. The mound was coated in mud and a hole was left in the top while 8 smaller air holes were made around the base of the mound. A fire was kindled in the top of the mound using hot coals from the fire and the burning process began.

He's also made an axe, a sling, baskets, and a cord drill for starting fires...all completely from scratch. Here's the accompanying blog. (via @craigmod & sarah)

I don’t have high hopes for this (the Obama administration seems hopelessly tied to law enforcement on this subject), but I signed:

The FBI, is demanding that Apple build a “backdoor” to bypass digital locks protecting consumer information on Apple’s popular iPhones.

We the undersigned, oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at hand.

"There are two kinds of people, those who finish what they start and so on."

Hey kids, now you can blame the dog or your dad for eating your homework. Or just do it yourself. This pack of edible paper is even printer-ready for replicating high-quality photographs and graphics in food-grade ink.

The Edible Image Print-On Sheets are compatible with most printers. Sold here in packs of 12, they have a image-ready areas of 7.44" x 9.69", plenty big enough for a birthday cake covered with the Drunk of the Week photo our local paper ran of my friend Cornelius. Once printed, you can cut messages and images with scissors and peel them from a backing to affix to other culinary delights. They also "melt" into icing when applied to decorated cakes and cupcakes.

How large of a pile of strawberry jam can I scoop up in an Edible Spoon made out of Grands Biscuit dough? I don't know, but I can't wait to find out once this groundbreaking Edible Spoon Maker hits the free market. The last thing I saw this cool was a lady on the Food Network sticking leftover mashed potatoes in a waffle iron!

The Edible Spoon Maker cooks several brands of store-bought dough into delicious utensils in about 3 minutes. In addition to Grands, you can also make and mow on spoons of Pillsbury biscuit dough, and Dufour and Pepperidge Farm puff pastry. Roll out your preferred dough and use the included cutter to stamp and cook 4 spoons at a time. The machine works a lot like a waffle maker--plug it in to turn it on, wait for the red light to turn green for preheating, and add your cut spoons. They'll steam during cooking, and should be checked for doneness once the steaming slows.

Here are some things you can eat with an Edible Spoon:

• Ramen. Yes, please.
• Cereal. Yes, please.
• BBQ baked beans. Yes, please.
• Chocolate pudding, chocolate mousse, chocolate syrup. Yes, please. (All together, if possible.)
• Yogurt. Uh...pass.
• Your spooooooooon. Weeeee!

While they don't boast the superhero aesthetic of Darkfin Gloves--more like the hand-got-tangled-up-in-a-jellyfish aesthetic--these Silicone Swimming Fingers consume a lot less room both in your bag and on your body than similar froggifiers made of latex and neoprene.

The webbed gloves slide over the fingers of swimmers, surfers, boogie boarders, divers, and even water aerobicizers to help improve swimming technique, catch waves faster, and increase resistance. The come in sizes Small through Large, and in single pairs or sets of 3.

Something worth fighting for.

image / twitter / facebook / patreon

CutMaps brings hometown pride, or dreams of greener pastures, to your cellphone. The Virginia-based design shop laser cuts city maps into pieces of cherry wood to form the backings for iPhone 5, 6, and 6 Plus cases.

At printing CutMaps was engraving covers only for iPhone. They have 15 US cities, ranging from Atlanta to San Francisco to Washington DC, plus Paris, on show in their online store. The website also indicates they accept custom orders, so if you'd rather cape your iPhone in Brockton, MA than Boston, send them an email through the online contact form.

Note : To be fair, we must say that 9gag and Imgur has already started the transition to mp4/Webm. Great work guys!

Silicon Cowboys is an upcoming documentary about Compaq Computer, one of the first companies to challenge IBM with a compatible computer.

Launched in 1982 by three friends in a Houston diner, Compaq Computer set out to build a portable PC to take on IBM, the world's most powerful tech company. Many had tried cloning the industry leader's code, only to be trounced by IBM and its high-priced lawyers. SILICON COWBOYS explores the remarkable David vs. Goliath story, and eventual demise, of Compaq, an unlikely upstart who altered the future of computing and helped shape the world as we know it today. Directed by Oscar(R)-nominated director Jason Cohen, the film offers a fresh look at the explosive rise of the 1980's PC industry and is a refreshing alternative to the familiar narratives of Jobs, Gates, and Zuckerberg.

There's no trailer yet, but the film is set to debut at SXSW in March. The first season of Halt and Catch Fire had a lot of influences, but the bare-bones story was that of Compaq.

Many reviews mention the similarity of the characters to Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, but the trio of managers from Texas Instruments who left to form Compaq in the early 80s are a much closer fit. The Compaq Portable was the first 100% IBM compatible computer produced.

It takes a toll on the moderators, who have formed a support group for themselves.

There are hotlines and emergency therapists available for someone who is struggling with suicidal thoughts. But picking up a phone and talking to someone is an action many people — especially younger people — are becoming less familiar with in our everyday lives. Would someone in such a heightened emotional state really think to do so?

Recently, the BBC explored an innovative way of addressing this problem, as well as the emotional consequences for the volunteers involved. Writer Felicity Morse interviewed the moderator of Reddit’s Suicide Watch, which follows a simple formula: On the subreddit, posters write about their situation — if they’re feeling suicidal, what has pushed them to this state, etc. — and other Redditors reply to them. That’s it.

“My first thought on discovering the sub was, ‘Oh my god, I’ve gotta get this shut down’ because Reddit is the worst place in the world to do suicide intervention,” the moderator, identified only as Laura, told the BBC. “Then I looked into the background of the sub and discovered it had come about because no matter how much we tried to send people elsewhere or discourage people from talking about their thoughts of suicide, it just kept happening.”

Laura is a Canadian who, along with a team of other volunteers, has helped man Suicide Watch for five years (the subreddit has been around for six); she also works with a suicide hotline, which means she understands the intricacies of suicide prevention. But while Reddit has a reputation for going bonkers on some threads, Suicide Watch has been refreshingly civil and supportive, and a lens into how social media can be utilized as a community tool for good.

There are some ground rules. Volunteers like Laura are constantly watching the subreddit, deleting comments and banning trolls that are deemed threatening or violate the thread’s underlying codes: no abusive or “tough love” language, no suggestions for committing suicide, and no “it gets better” type of empty promises.

But the site also poses some potential problems. Suicide Watch lacks that one thing that all other suicide hotlines have, which is backup emergency services in case a person's threats to commit suicide turn real. All users are anonymous, which of course means you can't trace where a person is or who they are, which makes having 911 on call impossible. But Laura argues that there are perks to the anonymity, too. It allows people to be more open on Suicide Watch than they might otherwise be, able to express their feelings without risk of being found out or stigmatized. 

It’s not easy for Laura and her fellow volunteers, who spend a few hours per day responding to Redditors and kicking trolls out. They’ve created a support group for themselves, in fact. But in the end, Laura and her team know that all they can really do is hope their words help. “You get into an intense rapport with people very quickly, then you hang up and never heard from them again,” she says. “You have to be OK with that. The only way I know to stay sane is to be very rigorously disciplined and not be emotionally invested in anything outside your control. There are always people outside your reach.”

Yuki of “Yukitchen” used potatoes, soy milk, vegetable stock and some Star Wars-inspiration to create a vegan Jabba the Hutt shepherd’s pie.

A sculpted mashed potato Jabba was positioned atop a stew throne and sent through the oven to achieve a golden brown hue. Additional color was then added with wet matcha powder before the familiar facial expression was created using dried seaweed.

Read more on That’s Nerdalicious…