The Onion has remained amazingly reliable over the decades; back in 1995 they published the immortal Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia, and in 2008 they posted Idiom Shortage Leaves Nation All Sewed Up In Horse Pies, which I missed at the time but which has now come to my attention (thanks, Bonnie!):

WASHINGTON—A crippling idiom shortage that has left millions of Americans struggling to express themselves spread like tugboat hens throughout the U.S. mainland Tuesday in an unparalleled lingual crisis that now has the entire country six winks short of an icicle.

Since beginning two weeks ago, the deficit in these vernacular phrases has affected nearly every English speaker on the continent, making it virtually impossible to communicate symbolic ideas through a series of words that do not individually share the same meaning as the group of words as a whole. In what many are calling a cast-iron piano tune unlike any on record, idiomatic expression has been devastated nationwide.

“This is an absolute oyster carnival,” said Harvard University linguistics professor Dr. Howard Albright, who noted that the current idiom shortage has been the country’s worst. “I don’t know any other way to describe it.”

Albright said that citizens in the South and West have been hit by the dearth of idioms like babies bite the bedpost, with people in those colorful expression–heavy regions unable to speak about anything related to rain storms, misers, sensations associated with nervousness, difficult or ironic predicaments, surprise at a younger relative’s rapid increase in height, or love. In some areas, what few idioms remain are being bartered or sold at exorbitant prices. And, Albright claims, unless something is done before long to dry out the cinnamon jars, residents of Texas may soon cease speaking altogether.

“These people are desperate,” said Albright, gesturing with his hands to indicate the severity of the problem there. “We’ve never seen anything like it. Some are being forced to choose between feeding their family and praising especially talented professional athletes. It’s as if—it’s really—it is bad.” […]

While it has been difficult to determine the overall mood of average Americans, anecdotal evidence points to a growing discontent that ranges from trudging down the pudding skin to outright anger. In Philadelphia, 71-year-old Melvin Hatcher said he has found himself “egg-hooked” in conversation on a daily basis.

“These politicians want us to believe that throwing a few mud thrones at the problem is going to make it go away,” said Hatcher, a retired African-American boxing trainer and World War II veteran. “They can make all the promises they want, but they will always remain a collection of deceitful people, if you’ll pardon the expression.”

They end by reporting that authorities “urge citizens to skip shy the rickshaw until such time as the flypaper marigolds have a chance to waterfall,” and I can only concur.

Kneecap, three young men from Northern Ireland who rap in Irish, has risen to prominence in recent years, with controversy surrounding its shows and political statements.

(Image credit: Leon Neal/Getty Images)

You’d think the world had run out of challenges for LEGO builders. After all, we’ve seen ‘functional’ lawnmowers, instant-photo Polaroid cameras that spit out LEGO “photos,” and even a ‘working’ rotary phone, all meticulously engineered, all somehow feeling like they’re right at home in the pantheon of LEGO absurdity. Yet, every so often, a builder comes along who ups the ante and rewrites the rules of what counts as “functional.” This time, that crown goes to a Rubik’s Cube, the kind that actually works. Not a blocky facsimile or a fidget toy with half-hearted spin, but a LEGO-built, fully twistable, color-matching, soul-crushing 3×3 Rubik’s Cube that might just be the most precise and satisfying “MOC” (that’s “My Own Creation” for the LEGO uninitiated) you’ll see this season.

Precision is the name of the game with Rubik’s Cubes. Every speedcuber, every fidgeter worth their salt, knows that the difference between a good cube and a mediocre one is measured in microns. A single click or jam, and your whole solve is toast. So making a functioning cube out of LEGO, with its famously not-quite-millimeter-perfect clutch power and those tiny mold-parting lines, feels like tempting fate. Yet here it is, spinning with the kind of smoothness that would make Erno Rubik himself do a double take. The builder, whose project recently surfaced on the LEGO Ideas platform, didn’t just aim for “works in theory.” They built a full-size, color-accurate cube that moves with the same crispness and tactile feedback you expect from a real puzzle.

Designer: Kragle Dog

The mechanism underneath those glossy 3×3 tiles? A clever lattice of LEGO Technic and system bricks, ingeniously stacked and interlocked to mimic the familiar spindle-and-corner arrangement of the original. It’s a feat that takes patience and an obsessive eye for tolerances, because even a fraction of a millimeter’s error can mean the difference between a cube that spins and a cube that simply locks up.

Size-wise, this thing’s a beast. Scale it against a standard Rubik’s Cube, and you’re looking at a puzzle that’s roughly four times the volume of the pocket original, clocking in at 15.6cm or over 6 inches per side. That extra space isn’t wasted, though. It gives the mechanism inside room to breathe and function, letting each axis rotate independently and with minimal play. The outer tiles are color-matched to classic Rubik’s specs, with red, blue, green, yellow, orange, and white plates snapping into place like a proper 80s icon. The result is a cube that looks like it was plucked directly from the world’s nerdiest toy store and dropped onto your desk, ready for a scramble.

“The Rubik’s Cube truly is an iconic toy, shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of the LEGO brick,” says LEGO builder Kragle Dog. “So, being a fan of both LEGO bricks and Rubik’s Cube, I decided to try a new challenge and combine those two legendary toys into one epic idea.” The resulting build uses a staggering 2,216 bricks (that’s just the cube, not counting the base or the Rubik minifigure).

What really gets me is how this project manages to bridge the gap between playful creativity and mechanical purism. Most LEGO MOCs err on the side of whimsy, sacrificing accuracy for charm. Here, though, the builder’s gone full engineer, wrangling LEGO’s sometimes-fussy tolerances into something that actually works. That’s no small feat. The prototype reportedly holds together under repeated twists and turns, resisting the kind of catastrophic blowouts that plague less robust builds. There’s sheer genius in how each piece interlocks, trading the usual friction-fit for a system that’s both sturdy and forgiving. It’s the kind of object that makes you want to pick it up, scramble it, and maybe even try to speedsolve just to see if it can keep up. And no, you’re not allowed to use a Brick Separator to ‘solve’ the cube, even though that’s technically possible.

The flex doesn’t stop at the cube itself. The builder included a custom 357-brick display stand, elevating the puzzle into the realm of functional sculpture. There’s even a minifigure of Erno Rubik, the Hungarian architect who kicked off the global cubing craze back in 1974, complete with his signature hair and a tiny cube of his own. It’s a wink at the history and the culture surrounding the puzzle, and a reminder that behind every great invention is a designer obsessed with the details. The stand’s got just enough visual heft to make it a centerpiece on any shelf, while the figure adds a layer of narrative that most LEGO MOCs skip over in favor of pure form.

If you do want to see this project come to life, it just requires you to vote for it on the LEGO Ideas forum – a platform created for LEGO enthusiasts to share unique creations and vote for their favorite builds. We’ve covered hundreds of MOCs at this point, and I for one continue to be surprised by the kind of ingenuity LEGO builders possess, even after covering this beat for over 10 years!

The post This 2216-piece functional LEGO Rubik’s Cube could be the ultimate desk flex first appeared on Yanko Design.

I received an email from Social Security Administration on July 3, applauding the new 2025 Trump tax law — One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The email said,

The new law includes a provision that eliminates federal income taxes on Social Security benefits for most beneficiaries, providing relief to individuals and couples.

I read the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. This part is not true. The new 2025 Trump tax law doesn’t eliminate federal income tax on Social Security benefits. Social Security is still taxable just as before.

Temporary Senior Deduction

The email from Social Security Administration continued to say:

Additionally, it provides an enhanced deduction for taxpayers aged 65 and older, ensuring that retirees can keep more of what they have earned.

This part is true, but the email failed to mention that the enhanced deduction is only temporary, and it has nothing to do with Social Security anyway.

One Big Beautiful Bill Act created a new $6,000 senior deduction, available only from 2025 through 2028, to seniors 65 and older during those years. It doesn’t matter whether you’re receiving Social Security or not. It doesn’t matter whether you’re even eligible for Social Security or not.

Unrelated to Social Security

If you’re 62 and receiving Social Security, you don’t qualify for this new senior deduction because you’re not 65 yet. Your Social Security is taxable just as before.

If you and your neighbor are both 65, and you’re receiving Social Security but your neighbor isn’t eligible for Social Security because they didn’t pay into it, both of you qualify for this new senior deduction. If you and your neighbor have the same income outside Social Security (pension, interest, dividends, capital gains, etc.), you’ll pay higher taxes than your neighbor when you add your taxable Social Security benefits on top.

If you’re 65 this year and you’re delaying your Social Security, you still qualify for this new senior deduction. When you claim your Social Security next year at 66, your taxes will increase because Social Security is taxable just as before the 2025 Trump tax law.

No Change to AGI

The new temporary senior deduction goes after the standard deduction or itemized deductions. It’s not part of the standard deduction. It’s still available if you itemize deductions. However, it doesn’t lower your AGI. It doesn’t make it easier for you to qualify for things keyed off of the AGI, for example, avoiding higher Medicare premiums under IRMAA. It doesn’t lower state taxes.

No Change to Tax on Social Security

The new senior deduction is just an extra tax benefit for seniors. It has nothing to do with Social Security. It doesn’t remove taxes on Social Security. The new extra tax benefit may be worth more or less than the tax on your Social Security benefits. You have the new tax benefit on one side and the tax on Social Security on the other side. The two are completely unrelated.

It’s like some people saying they picked up $5 on the street and therefore their coffee is free. The two things have nothing to do with each other. You don’t have to buy coffee after picking up $5. The coffee still costs the same whether you picked up $5 or not. The coffee may be more or less than $5. It isn’t free.

Please use my calculator How Much of Your Social Security Benefits Is Taxable? to find out how much of your Social Security benefits is taxable. The new 2025 Trump tax law didn’t change any of that calculation.

Income Phaseout

Not only is the new senior deduction temporary, but it also phases out as your income goes up. You get the full $6,000 deduction if you’re single and your modified adjusted gross income is $75,000 or less ($150,000 or less for married filing jointly; you get $0 deduction if you’re married filing separately).

The modified adjusted gross income is the AGI for most people. You don’t have to add back untaxed Social Security or muni bond interest. The “modified” part is only for foreign earned income exclusion and residents in Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands.

As your income goes up, the deduction is reduced by 6% of any additional income above the $75,000/$150,000 threshold. The deduction disappears when your income is $175,000 or more if you’re single or $250,000 or more if you’re married filing jointly.

The tables below illustrate how the deduction phases out at different income levels. Extrapolate when your income is between the numbers shown in the tables.

Single

Married Filing Jointly

[Image Credit: Google Gemini]

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