Sculptor Johnson Tsang (previously) has a cool new series of ceramic busts titled the Open Mind Series. Each one depicts a different way one's mind can be expanded. (more…)

Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull: "Well the laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that. The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia." (more…)

Sara Barnes at My Modern Met profiles photographer Wiebke Haas, whose stunning art photographs of horses have won her global acclaim. (more…)

Manddy Wyckens' gifs of falling girls may trigger your thalassophobia, but they are pretty neat regardless. (more…)

I remember years ago, after a long hot hike, a British friend of mine took a Thermos of Pimm's out of her picnic basket and proceeded to pour us drinks. I still remember how "civilized" I felt sipping my refreshing little plastic cup of Pimm's in the woods. (more…)

On Super Bowl sunday, I usually can be found bowling with friends instead of watching football. We dress up in superhero costumes and award each other silly trophies that we've created just for the occasion. We actually call it the "Super Bowl," because, well, bowling. (more…)

"Phone, wallet, keys." Many of us recite these words to ourselves each time we leave home, or the office, or a friend's house, or anywhere at all. They're the typical essentials we all carry every single day, and would absolutely hate to lose. If you're a Samsung Galaxy S8 user, however, you can trim the list down to, "wallet, keys," when you've encased your phone in these Leather Folio Wallets.Made from minimally treated, vegetable-tanned leather from Horween leather, one of America's oldest tanneries, these cases include a tough, polycarbonate frame and are designed to beautifully patina over time. The case holds 3-6 credit cards, plus folded cash, so you can keep your pockets lean while protecting your phone.You can pick up one of these wallet cases in the Boing Boing Store for $49.95.

UK eye surgeon Rupal Morjaria was poised to operate on a 67-year-old patient when he discovered a "blueish mass" that turned out to be 17 old, lost contact lenses that had fused together; he then recovered 10 more loose, floating lenses from her eye. (more…)

Design firm Dorothy created an alphabet made up entirely of letters from classic rock band logos. I did OK on this one, but the alternative rock one kicked my butt: (more…)

With excellent integration in iOS and desktop browsers alike, 1Password is a very useful password manager for Apple users. Right now you can give it a free try for 60 days.1Password makes it easy to generate secure password strings and keep track of important credentials on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. By keeping all of your passwords encrypted behind a single, long-form pass phrase, you can maintain personal security while still having convenient access to all of your web logins, credit cards, and ID info.It lives on your desktop as a non-intrusive menu bar app, and keeps track of new accounts you create on websites automatically with plugins for Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. Their mobile app offers quick entry into your password vault with touch ID, so you can get into all of your online profiles as easily as on your home computer.Sign up for a 60-day trial with 1Password here in the Boing Boing Store.

Unless you’re fabulously wealthy or have stayed offline and away from news, your summer may be tinged with existential angst. This Trump stuff is super stressful. We invite you to browse this list of some physical and digital comforts in our store, to lighten your load. Unfortunately, you will have to connect to the internet to do that, and pick them up for yourself. Just don't read the news. (more…)

Surfer Filipe Jervis stars in Timing, a short film that encourages everyone to pursue their dreams now, and not wait for the perfect timing. Why? Because it's never the perfect time. (more…)

Naomi Klein (previously) is the author of several voraciously readable, hugely influential books about radical politics, most recently No is Not Enough, which calls for a positive vision for a different, better future, going beyond the idea of replacing Trump, May and other neoliberal leaders with slightly less neoliberal leaders who might be slightly better on climate change or women's reproductive rights -- as the joke goes, "A conservative wants the world to be run by 150 white, male CEOs; a liberal wants to be sure half of them are women and/or people of color." (more…)

On Wednesday, heavily armed and armored Berlin police carried out a series of raids, arresting four suspects in the theft of a $3.9m, 220lb manhole-cover-sized gold coin from Berlin's Bode Museum in March. (more…)

Adam Greenfield's new book Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life (previously) has scored an outstanding review from The Guardian's Steven Poole, who calls it "a landmark primer and spur to more informed and effective opposition" to "the pitiless libertarianism towards which all [Smart Cities] developments seem to lean." (more…)

W Aaron Waychoff, creator of the Falsom Upside-Down ⊥ "Resist" campaign, was inspired by this 2016 post; he writes, "I've made a proof-of-concept encrypting digital camera based on the open source, widely adoped GnuPG. This project uses public key encryption to encrypt every photo the camera takes before writing the encrypted version to memory. Of particular note, there are absolutely no UI changes over what an ordinary point-and-shoot camera provides. No extra keyboards or touch screens are needed as no passwords need be entered." (more…)

Assemblage artist Bernard Pras creates incredible 3D installation portraits from trash. (via @saatchi_gallery Instagram)

In 1971 high school student Juliane Koepcke fell two miles into the Peruvian rain forest when her airliner broke up in a thunderstorm. Miraculously, she survived the fall, but her ordeal was just beginning. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe Juliane's arduous trek through the jungle in search of civilization and help.We'll also consider whether goats are unlucky and puzzle over the shape of doorknobs.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon!

Whenever I've gone to a vintage car show, I've often wondered how they get their engines so sparkling clean. Now I know!This comprehensive how-to video from YouTuber ChrisFix shows exactly how to wash, and then detail, your vehicle's engine bay. It takes about two hours, from start to finish, to get your engine super-shiny clean.I think his "before and after" engine bay photos are particularly satisfying.Note to self: Keep this video handy for your post-Burning Man engine-cleaning needs. (digg)

AntsCanada (previously) has an overpopulation problem in his yellow crazy ant colony, so he added two kinds of carnivorous pitcher plants. The resulting relationship between ant versus plant turned out to be quite fascinating. (more…)

YouTuber TheCraftMaiden decided to make a Harry Potter Golden Egg, and it's a triumph of winging it when trying a craft project. It even has a turnable owl to open it. (more…)

Are you a security researcher planning to present at Black Hat, Defcon, B-Sides or any of this summer's security events? Are you worried a big corporation or the government might attack you for revealing true facts about the defects in the security systems we entrust with our safety, privacy and health? (more…)

In 2015, U.S. intelligence agencies monitoring the communications of Russian agents overheard them talking "about meetings held outside the U.S. involving Russian government officials and Trump business associates or advisers.” That was before Donald J. Trump's presidential campaign began.The Wall Street Journal reports that “In light of the release of emails Tuesday by Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, investigators are going back to” early reports of chatter between Russians in the U.S. and members of Trump's inner circle, to see if they can better understand the intercepted conversations. (more…)

Supermarket tabloids have given us aliens in the White House, Bat Boy, Elvis lives, and the first photos of heaven, but I never thought I’d read this stunning sentence . . .“In May, a new ferry service began moving up to 200 passengers and 1,000 tons of cargo every month between North Korea and the Russian port of Vladivostok.”What the hell is happening at the ‘National Enquirer?’They’ve gone so deep into Donald Trump’s corner that its readers who crave titilating details of celebrity scandal are being fed a weekly diet of Trumped-up propaganda, which this week brings us a cover story and three pages on “Trump’s secret plan to defeat North Korea’s Doomsday machine.”America is evidently under siege by North Korea’s escalating nuclear weapons program, and “Donald Trump has taken bold and extraordinary steps to ensure America survives the siege and emerges with total victory!”That sounds like something that Kim Jong-un’s propaganda machine might churn out, but it’s here in the ‘Enquirer,’ which laboriously details tanker movements between North Korea and Russia, reporting: “It could be oil - or something much more sinister.” Maybe they’re shipping old copies of the ‘Enquirer’ to North Korea - what could be more sinister that that?At least it’s not all geopolitics in this week’s tabloids.Kim Kardashian has been allegedly “caught on drug video” claims the ‘Enquirer,’ though since it was filmed in 2003, that’s neither new or shocking.Dubious reporting abounds in the ‘Enquirer,’ which claims that Natalie Wood “was raped before her death!” The mag explains that a rape kit may have been used during the actress’s autopsy, but no results were ever released. But since when is using a rape kit proof that anyone was actually raped? Hearsay and conjecture: the ingredients for any good tabloid story.The ‘Enquirer’ fails again when exposing Michael Jackson’s “kiddie nude stash.” But it’s not Jacko's promised treasure trove of child porn. Rather it’s a copy of an old magazine with the titles of nudist DVDs circled - a magazine found among "documents of Michael’s management team.” So the 1999 mag could have belonged to one of many people, not just Jackson. And the videos, while showing nudist families, were not pornographic. But why let the facts get in the way of a good story?The ‘Globe’ maintains these high journalistic standards with its cover story claiming that child beauty pageant veteran JonBenet Ramsey's murder has been "finally solved!” Ignoring past ‘Globe’ stories that have repeatedly “solved” JonBenet’s murder by naming convict John Mark Karr as her self-confessed killer, the magazine now claims that convicted sex attacker Keith Schwinaman is her real killer. The “new evidence”? Evidently Schwinaman’s plea deal ensured that he could not be forced to submit his DNA to see if he committed other crimes. He’s clearly hiding something . . . therefore he’s JonBenet’s killer! It seems obvious, doesn’t it? When has the ‘Globe’ ever been wrong before? (Hint - ask John Mark Karr.)“Queen names William King!” screams the ‘National Examiner’ cover headline, scooping all of Fleet Street and the world’s press with this “Royal Shocker!” The Queen has reportedly axed son Charles from succeeding to the throne over his “$250 million divorce.” Only two small problems with these stories: Charles and Camilla haven't filed for divorce, and Charles is still heir to the British throne. I know, picky, picky . . .‘Dancing With the Stars’ nuptials dominate the glossies this week: Julianne Hough’s “dream wedding” occupies the cover and seven pages of ‘People’ magazine, while fellow cast-mate Maksim Chemerkovsky’s wedding to DWTS dancer Peta Murgatroyd takes the cover and six pages of ‘Us’ magazine. “The dresses! The dancing! The ring-bearer dogs!” raves ‘People.’ “The ring, the dress, the afterparty!” rejoices ‘Us.’ What, no ring-bearer dogs for Maks and Peta? Couldn’t they all have saved a fortune and had a double wedding?Blac Chyna tells ‘Us’ mag “my side of the story” in her break-up with Rob Kardashian, the least interesting member of a self-aggrandizing family whose lives are fabricated for the cameras. She reveals next to nothing, proclaiming “I’m taking a classier route.” But where’s the fun in that? And she fails to answer the question on everyones’ lips: Why can’t she figure out how to spell Black China?Fortunately we have the crack investigative team at ‘Us’ magazine to tell us that Vanessa Hudgens wore it best (and still looked terrible), that Fred Savage’s favorite place in the world is his backyard, Real Housewives of New York City newcomer Tinsley Mortimer carries hairspray, sunglasses and tanning cream in her L.L. Bean tote, and that the stars are just like us: they bicycle, eat fruit, and shop at drugstores. Shocking!Rescuing us from dreary details of Russian-Korean trade, the ‘Examiner’ tries to return tabloids to their former glory with news that “Dead Aliens Seen at Roswell Crash Site!” Better yet, the ‘Examiner’ reveals that “UFOs destroyed our nukes!” Apparently ten ICBMs were mysteriously switched to “off-alert” and could not be launched, after UFOs floated above a U.S. military base in Minot, North Dakota, in 1966. It seems a long time for such a revelation to be revealed, but witnesses were reportedly “instructed to keep silent.” Thank goodness someone was finally brave enough to reveal the truth.Onwards and downwards . . .

For the third time in the past three years, hotel guests at 14 Trump properties including Washington, New York and Vancouver, had their personal credit card info exposed to hackers. (more…)

What kind of music do kids with braces listen to? Heavy Metal. What does an orthodontist do during an earthquake? She braces herself.(GIF via /r/Damnthatsinteresting)

It's the US national day to save Net Neutrality: the day when we phone, tweet, email, and show up in person at every congresscritter, senator and FCC Commisioner's office to demand a free, fair and open internet, where the big phone and cable companies don't get to demand bribes from the services you use for delivering them to you. (more…)

He's got those crazy hungry Corgi eyes. (more…)

58% of "right-leaning Americans" believe that colleges and universities "have a negative effect on the country"; only 36% of Republican-leaning voters support higher education. (more…)

On YouTube, Gangnam Style's been the most-played video for five years—a little-known testament to the grim reality of popular culture these days. But no longer! It has finally been dethroned, by Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth's See You Again. Moreover, Despacito, embedded above, seems likely to storm past it in due course.Here's the top 10.1) Wiz Khalifa, See You Again (ft Charlie Puth) - 2,895,373,7092) Psy, Gangnam Style - 2,894,426,4753) Justin Bieber, Sorry - 2,635,572,1614) Mark Ronson, Uptown Funk (ft Bruno Mars) - 2,550,545,7175) Luis Fonsi, Despacito (ft Daddy Yankee) - 2,482,502,7476) Taylor Swift, Shake It Off - 2,248,761,0957) Enrique Iglesias, Bailando - 2,232,756,2288) Maroon 5, Sugar - 2,150,365,6359) Katy Perry, Roar - 2,129,400,97310) Taylor Swift, Blank Space - 2,101,607,657

A fellow traveling from Melbourne to Perth, Australia checked a single can of Emu Export lager. He was surprised when it popped out on the the conveyor belt at baggage claim. “My mate works at the airport and we hatched the plan as a laugh — I half didn’t expect it to come out the other end,” he said.“But when it did it was sent out well in front of all the other luggage, so the baggage handlers obviously appreciated it.”(News.com.au)

In 2012, Google introduced Certificate Transparency, an internet-wide tripwire system designed to catch cryptographic "certificate authorities" who abused their position to produce counterfeit credentials that would allow criminals, governments and police to spy on and tamper with secure internet connections. (more…)

Amazon Prime Day kicks off at the hour, heralding what its hype claims is a better set of deals than the traditional November stampedes. I eagerly hit the previews in expectation of interesting tech bargains and whatnot, but the only things I could find worth buying are are these enormous bagfuls of colorful candy cocks. That said, I can hardly say I'm disappointed.

I enjoyed Rob Reid's 2013 science fiction humor novel, Year Zero, about a pan-galactic conspiracy by aliens who would rather destroy Earth than pay music royalties. Next month, Rob has a new novel coming out called After On, and I'm excited to read it. Here's what my friend Hugh Howey (author of the Wool series) has to say about After On: "Rob Reid doesn’t write science fiction; he writes future history. After On is the best account I’ve read of how superintelligence will arrive and what it will mean for all of us. Hilarious, frightening, believable, and marvelously constructed — After On has it all.”If you want a sneak preview, you can read it on Medium, which is publishing twelve episodic excerpts from After On, starting today. Medium will also publish Rob's After On podcast that explores themes from the novel and interviews folks like Sam Harris, Steve Jurvetson, and Adam Gazzaley -- "on the future of tech, AI, and consciousness."Here's what Rob wrote in a Medium post about his novel:Set in present-day San Francisco, After On is the tale of an imaginary social media startup. A rather diabolical one, which attains consciousness. Its personality then emerges from its roots as a social network. So rather than going all Terminator and killing everyone, it basically becomes a hyper-empowered, superintelligent, 14-year-old brat. Yes, it has playful aspects. But After On is also a serious rumination on super AI risk — as well as on the promises and perils of synthetic biology. It also looks at quantum computing, nihilistic terrorism, privacy & government intrusion, the roots of consciousness, Fermi’s paradox, simulation theory, plus sex & dating in the post-Tinder era.

I think the walls in our house have chicken wire in them because it acts like a Faraday cage. WiFi just doesn't penetrate walls. So I use power-over-ethernet to fill every room with wi-fi. I attached a power-over-ethernet unit to my cable internet modem and plugged it into an AC outlet. In the other rooms of the house, I use wi-fi power-over-ethernet adapters. The internet connection travels through the power wiring of the house. It's not as fast as a wired ethernet connection, but it works well for our purposes, including streaming video. Here's a good starter kit on Amazon.

Psychologists at Johns Hopkins University are currently giving two dozen religious leaders psilocybin, the psychedelic drug in magic mushrooms, to, y'know, see what happens. From The Guardian:Despite most organised religions frowning on the use of illicit substances, Catholic, Orthodox and Presbyterian priests, a Zen Buddhist and several rabbis were recruited. The team has yet to persuade a Muslim imam or Hindu priest to take part, but “just about all the other bases are covered,” according to (study co-leader Dr. William) Richards....“It is too early to talk about results, but generally people seem to be getting a deeper appreciation of their own religious heritage,” he said. “The dead dogma comes alive for them in a meaningful way. They discover they really believe this stuff they’re talking about.”There is also a suggestion that after their psychedelic journey, the leaders’ notions of religion shifted away from the sectarian towards something more universal. “They get a greater appreciation for other world religions. Other ways up the mountain, if you will,” said Richards.“In these transcendental states of consciousness, people seem to get to levels of consciousness that seem universal,” he added. “So a good rabbi can encounter the Buddha within him.”"Religious leaders get high on magic mushrooms ingredient – for science" (The Guardian)

Writing in his official capacity, Archbishop Secretary Arthur Roche has published a letter detailing the Vatican's position on gluten-free Eucharist. (more…)

By the end of the year, Bill Murray and his five brothers are set to open a 6,000-sq. ft Caddyshack-themed restaurant near their Illinois hometown of Wilmette. The new restaurant will be located in Rosemont, a village just north of Chicago.Interestingly, it's not the brother's first eating establishment. In 2001, the six Murray brothers -Bill, Andy, Brian, Ed, Johnny and Joel- opened the inaugural Murray Bros. Caddyshack restaurant in St. Augustine, Florida. Rolling Stone reports: Bill's older brother Brian Doyle-Murray wrote the classic movie, which stars Bill as Carl Spackler, the loveably messed-up greenskeeper who's in constant hot pursuit of an elusive, mischievous gopher. Brian found inspiration for the film when he worked as a caddy at Indian Hill Club in Winnetka. Its flagship restaurant and bar in Florida pays homage to its namesake, with a golf-themed menu that includes crispy potato golf balls, salads aptly listed under "the greens" and items from "the front nine" and "the back nine."The restaurant's slogan is "Eat, Drink and Be Murray."

In 2014, 43 students from Mexico's Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College went missing in Iguala, in the state of Guerrero: they had been detained by police, who turned them over to a criminal militia, who are presumed to have murdered them. (more…)

Remember the helicone toy that changed from a helix to a pine cone? A mathematician just upped the ante with the colorful lollipopter. (more…)

NYMag's David Wallace-Wells breaks it to us ungently: the Paris Climate Accord, torn up by Trump, was already a compromise that likely condemned much of the equatorial belt to crippling heatwaves. Without it, climate change will only be worse.Even if we meet the Paris goals of two degrees warming, cities like Karachi and Kolkata will become close to uninhabitable, annually encountering deadly heat waves like those that crippled them in 2015. At four degrees, the deadly European heat wave of 2003, which killed as many as 2,000 people a day, will be a normal summer. At six, according to an assessment focused only on effects within the U.S. from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, summer labor of any kind would become impossible in the lower Mississippi Valley, and everybody in the country east of the Rockies would be under more heat stress than anyone, anywhere, in the world today. As Joseph Romm has put it in his authoritative primer Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know, heat stress in New York City would exceed that of present-day Bahrain, one of the planet’s hottest spots, and the temperature in Bahrain “would induce hyperthermia in even sleeping humans.” The high-end IPCC estimate, remember, is two degrees warmer still.

https://youtu.be/_bz_GSgxS3wIn six months, a large asteroid is going to hit Earth. It's likely that everyone is going to die. Only a few people know about it, and they are desperately trying to stop it from slamming into the planet. That's the premise of Salvation, a new suspense thriller TV series premiering on CBS this Wednesday, July 12, 2017. Carla and I got an early look at the first episode, and we both loved it for the premise, sense of urgency, moral issues explored, and hints that more is unfolding than meets the eye. Our friends Elizabeth Kruger and Craig Shapiro created the show, so I grabbed them for a quick interview to ask them about what went into making a series that deals with people secretly trying to save humankind.Mark: What's the conflict in Salvation?Liz: An asteroid is going to collide with Earth in 186 days, and if our government and/or others don't come up with new technology to solve the problem, we're going to go the way of the dinosaurs. Adding to that conflict is other countries that are also looking into how to solve the problem, and what do you do if the world itself cannot agree on how to solve a problem? And if you solve it on one side of the world what problems does it create for the other side of the world?Mark: So if the different countries' solutions don't necessarily work in harmony with each other, they could actually conflict with each other.Craig: Well sure. This research just came out last week, and I find it so interesting -- that asteroid that killed all the dinosaurs, had it landed 30 seconds earlier or 30 seconds later there would still be dinosaurs on Earth. It just hit in the exact wrong spot. So we're in the same situation here, which is, what if you could control the asteroid, by slowing it down a thousandth of one percent so it hits 10 minutes later? You could really control where it ends up. That means you've got an unbelievably powerful weapon at your disposal, and nobody can stop you from using it unless they have similar technology.Mark: So one country could save itself at the expense of another continent going kablooey.Craig: That's right, and you know what? That doesn't necessarily make you a ... if you had that moral choice, that's not an easy choice to make, because there's not necessarily a right answer.It's like Scylla and Charybdis, the Greek myth. If you could sacrifice a few to save almost everybody, maybe you should do it. I mean, Odysseus actually chose to sacrifice the few so that everybody else could live. If you go the other way you could lose the whole thing.Mark: I saw the pilot episode of Salvation and I loved it, and one of the things that you learn is that the people who do know about the asteroid, absolutely don't want the public to know, and they'll go to almost any length to keep word from getting out.Liz: Yeah.Mark: Are you just running off your instincts, since you know that it would be a bad thing if the public found out, or did you do some research about how the government handles impending disaster control?Liz: Well, a little of both. We talked it through, we read a lot of different scenarios, and ultimately we thought, okay, if the government gets this information, then all the people on this planet are going to act as if every day is their last. It would create chaos and since no one could do anything to stop it anyway, it makes good sense that the government would not release this information.Craig: What value is there in freaking everyone out, because it doesn't help solve the problem?Liz: Strategically, they need the masses to remain calm because they can't start pouring resources into the world running amok. So we ultimately believed that the government doing this was not just paternalism, but that it actually makes sense in the context of the story. Our characters come around to understanding the value of this. A related question we explore is: if you have this secret, would you tell your loved ones? If you worked for the Pentagon like [Salvation character] Grace Barrows does, and you had this information, if you tell your friends or family members, you've destroyed their life. So is there a value in keeping the secret from them if they can't do anything about it?Craig: It's like the Matrix. Once you know, you can't unknow it.Mark: We are friends, so I know that you have the same feeling I do about governments doing things in secret -- we don't like it. But in certain cases like this one, it absolutely is harmful to let everyone know that there's going to be an asteroid that's going to hit Earth and probably kill everybody.Liz: We looked at it from a philosophical perspective, and we have the characters really examine this.Craig: Wrestle with it.Liz: Because carrying the burden, as one of our characters says, sucks. Everyone around you is living in blissful ignorance and they're allowed to be happy every day, but you know the secret and you can't enjoy the time you have left. So we wrestled with it, and we thought yeah, transparency as an ideal, absolutely, but when you think about the ramifications, and whether it's selfish or selfless to be transparent in the situation ... we looked at it from a philosophical perspective, not a political one.Mark: So these government agents in the show who are assassinating the people who know about it -- I thought of them as the bad guys -- but now I'm thinking, they're like the people in the basement that have to make the decision to smother the crying baby so the Nazis upstairs don't discover everyone hiding below.Liz: Well, I don't want to give away who dies in the pilot, but the story has tentacles, as you will discover, that go much further than the asteroid problem.Craig: The show does ask the question in many different ways and forms, which is: if you knew that the world might be coming to an end, what would you, personally, be willing to do to try to save it? People in the show are going to be tested in ways that they never would have imagined, but they find themselves either rising to places they never knew they could go, or flaming out. Failing.Liz: Right, and also questions we asked ourselves are, okay, so you, Mark Frauenfelder, or me, Liz Kruger, we've never killed a person, but what if you had to kill a person in order to save the world?Mark: Right.Liz: Suddenly all the rules change. You've gotta do things you didn't think you were capable of. It's like being in war, I guess, where suddenly all the rules change. But the thing that's super complicated about the show is the rules change, but not everyone knows they've changed, so now if you do something that goes outside the rules, you may still be held to the consequences for breaking those rules, even though you know that you had to do this in order to-Craig: And to the rest of society you would just seem like you've gone crazy.Mark: You've done a lot of research into asteroids. Do you think that, with today's technology, we would could mitigate the harm of an asteroid on a crash collision path with Earth?Liz: Well, if you found out about it soon enough in order to combat the problem. One problem is that while we know about 90% of near-earth objects, there's 5-10% that we don't know about. There was an asteroid in 1908 that hit a remote area in Siberia. It came in with the force of many nuclear bombs and devastated a huge area. If it had been a populated area - Craig: It would have wiped out a city.Liz: That's right, and so that threat's out there. There are people working on the same kinds of technology that we are dealing with in this story -- gravity tractors and kinetic impactors. In Salvation we take the developing technology and advance it.Craig: We treat it like the Manhattan Project? They always theoretically thought they could build a bomb to save the world if they had to, but they didn't put the resources into it, because they didn't have to, and technology wasn't there yet. But when faced with essentially an extinction level event like World War II, they threw all the resources they could at it, and they did 10 years of work in two years to figure out how the bomb would work and get it in production. We're in the same situation here -- we're taking technologies that are theoretical right now or just in the testing phase, and moving them ahead. There was an article yesterday on space.com about NASA launching a kinetic impactor to see what happens. Mark: What's a kinetic impactor?Craig: If they launch something at an asteroid that basically slams into it, how much can it change the trajectory? We're also looking at a gravity tractor, which uses gravitational pull from a probe's own mass to create a tiny gravitational field. If you could do this far enough in advance of the impending impact -- months, preferably years -- you could theoretically pull an asteroid or comet off course.Liz: Just enough to deflect it so that it doesn't hit Earth.Craig: Right. So all these things are theoretically happening right now. We are speeding up the science because frankly we have to or we're all going to die. We're also working on other kinds of really interesting technology.Liz: Have you ever heard of the EmDrive, the electromagnetic drive?Craig: If you go look it up, you'll be like, "Holy shit, this is unbelievable." It's going to change space travel if they can get it to work.Liz: It's theoretical right now, but people claim that they've seen it work.Craig: It's propulsion without fuel. It defies Newton's third law, which is why some people say it's impossible, but other people say, "Well, it works, we just don't know yet why it works." It's not very big. It uses electromagnets powered by tiny solar panels, and it produces a minuscule amount of thrust, like one Newton. But if you do this in space, you will be continuously accelerating forever. The speculation is you could be at the Moon in like four hours, and you could be at Mars in like four months. So this is unbelievable if they could make it work. Supposedly the Chinese are ready to try it in space now, and there have been experiments here on Earth.Liz: NASA did a paper on it, so we've taken the EmDrive and that concept and our characters are advancing the technology. Mark: We've been talking about the science in the show, but that's not really what it's about, is it?Craig: We treat the science seriously, but it's really about the human endeavor to beat the asteroid, and not so much the nuts and bolts. In the end we're saying, "This is a very human side to science, and we must problem-solve at the highest level that humans can problem-solve if we're going to save the planet." We've spent a lot of time trying to make the science believable and realistic, and interesting, and fun, but mostly just very human.Pictured: Santiago Cabrera. Photo: Ben Mark Holzberg/CBS ©2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved

Espionage Cosmetics has your nerdy nail-art needs covered with the D20-themed $10 Critical Hit nail wraps, circuit board wraps and tentacle wraps. (via Geeky Merch) (more…)

Any time a trader at Enstar Capital's new London Soho offices fancies sushi and Champagne delivered to their desk, they can press a dedicated "Champagne" button that's being installed at each workplace, as a kind of grotesque, guillotine-inspiring homage to Amazon's Dash button, which lets mere mortals order laundry detergent. (more…)

Python is one of the most robust programming languages around, but that doesn’t mean it’s strictly for experts. Thanks to its versatility and elegant, human-readable syntax, Python is a great starter language for novices, and has significant applications for data scientists and web developers alike. To get up to speed with this powerful language, or start your coding journey from the absolute beginning, this Python Programming Bootcamp is currently available in the Boing Boing Store.These nine courses will teach you everything from programming basics like data structures and control flow, to advanced topics like machine learning and data visualization. Here’s the full syllabus:Fast Track Python for NewbiesLearn Python Image Processing by Making Instagram-Style FiltersCreate a Raspberry Pi Smart Security Camera with PythonMaster Data Visualization with PythonThe Complete Python Programming Boot Camp: Beginner to AdvancedLearn Python with 70+ ExercisesPython Programming for Beginners: Learn Python in One DayMachine Learning with PythonPython for Finance: Investment Fundamentals & Data AnalyticsGet this comprehensive bundle in the Boing Boing Store for $39.

Paul Ryan ally Rep. Mike Conaway [R-TX, @ConawayTX11, +1 (202) 225-3605] is the proud owner of $30,000 worth of stock in UnitedHealth, who stand to benefit enormously from Rep Conaway's efforts to destroy Obamacare and replace it with a system that allows insurers to charge more and kick more than 22,000,000 Americans off their insurance. (more…)

Yougov's latest poll numbers put the "unelectable" Jeremy Corbyn and his "unrealistic" "unworkable" political platform eight points ahead of Theresa May and her Conservative Party, who were only able to form a government by allying themselves with the terror-supporting young-Earth creationists of the DUP. (more…)

Although the iPhone 7 and rugged Android devices like the Samsung Galaxy S8 can survive a dunk in the pool, their ergonomics make it difficult to bring them into the shower without risking a shattered screen. That's why the Bluetooth Shower Speaker continues to be awesome.This water-resistant wireless speaker is designed to fit anywhere in your bathroom, thanks to a strong suction cup on its backside. Its playback controls are front and center to let you easily skip tracks and adjust the volume, even when soap gets in your eyes. It can also answer (or reject) phone calls, so you’ll stay just as connected as you want to be.This Bluetooth Shower Speaker is back in the Boing Boing Store for $9.99.