Boing Boing

https://youtu.be/uZGFTmK6Yk4It's no secret that Boing Boing (along with over 4 million other netizens) loves the Primitive Technology channel on YouTube. We've covered this channel numerous times (about a guy making primitive tech in the wilds of Far North Queensland, Australia with nothing but the gym shorts on his ass). I anxiously await each episode and am like a kid at Christmas when I get the alert that a new one is up.But this month, thanks to one of the reader comments, I made a cool discovery. The videos are without narration. The un-named survivalist, who some have dubbed "Prim," is really good at showing you what he's doing so that you can understand it without explanation, and he writes up decent notes that are published along with the videos. But then I saw the comment: "[Turns on captions] That clever bastard has been talking to us the entire time!!" Whoa.The captions and the notes are pretty similar, but you do get extra content in the captions and you get to see them in situ. I've been using closed captioning on my TV recently and have been delighted to see how much additional information you actually get: background conversations you would never hear, song titles and lyrics, and wonderful sound descriptions like "sexual gasping." So, it's great to discover another instance of CC being useful.

The AP reports that Jeremy Putnam, 31, was arrested in Winchester, Virginia, and charged with "wearing a mask in public," a felony in that state.He was armed with a "sword" in public, which apparently alarmed residents. But they haven't charged him with that; they've charged him with this, a fascinatingly terrible law:§ 18.2-422. Prohibition of wearing of masks in certain places; exceptions.It shall be unlawful for any person over 16 years of age to, with the intent to conceal his identity, wear any mask, hood or other device whereby a substantial portion of the face is hidden or covered so as to conceal the identity of the wearer......with specific exceptions for "traditional holiday costumes," protective or medical masks, or ones for a "bona fide theatrical production or masquerade ball." Putnam is being held at the Northwestern Regional Adult Detention Center.

Barack Obama’s real Kenyan birth certificate has been discovered, President Trump has caught “Russia’s White House spy,” and actor Robert Wagner has been hit by “grand jury murder charges” - if you believe this week’s tabloids.Alas, it’s another basketful of wishful thinking, fact-challenged alternate realities.“Proof Obama was born in Kenya!” screams the ‘Globe’ front cover, declaring his Hawaiian birth certificate a forgery, and publishing “the real deal” issued by the Coast Province General Hospital in Mombasa, the Republic of Kenya, on August 4, 1961. The “damning hospital birth certificate” was revealed by Obama’s own “brother” - actually, his half-brother, Malik Obama.It ’s a great scoop, except for a few minor details: This is the same Kenyan birth certificate we first saw eight years ago; in the early 1960s the term “Coast Province” was not used, as provinces were still referred to as “regions;” the nation was then called the Dominion of Kenya, not the Republic; Mombasa was part of Zanzibar until 1963; and the attending physician named on the certificate worked in Nairobi, not Mombasa. The alleged certificate also uses American-style date notations - month, day, year - rather than the British-style then used in Kenya: day, month, year. And the certificate looks nothing like any Kenyan birth certificate of its time.Apart from that, it’s a good story.Robert Wagner has finally been brought to justice for killing his wife, Natalie Wood, the ‘Globe’ claims on its cover. Except when you read the story inside, it turns out to be more wishful thinking. “Robert Wagner MUST be indicted,” pleads the opening sentence. “New grand jury MUST target Robert Wagner,” screams a headline. Why is that, you wonder? “Damning new forensic evidence and chilling photos ‘implicating’ the actor . . . have finally surfaced.”Except they haven’t. It’s just an unnamed “source close to the cold-case probe” citing unnamed “investigators” who claim that “marks found on her body prove she was choked into unconsciousness and ‘rolled off’ her yacht.” But Natalie Wood, who spent hours in the ocean before her body was recovered in 1981, was covered in bruises when found. The coroner believed she had fallen off the yacht, and it’s clearly difficult to distinguish between bruises from falling off a yacht and being 'rolled off’ it. Old bruises hardly constitute new proof. But wait! The ‘Globe’ reveals that “a secret witness is ready to step forward - and doom Wagner for good!” It's deus ex machina journalism at its best. I bet the butler did it.The ‘National Enquirer’ cover proudly tells us that “Trump Catches Russia’s White House Spy!” and “Now he’s spilling Putin’s secrets.” Who is this nefarious operative trapped by spy-catcher-in-chief Trump? It’s “White House mole Michael Flynn!” crows the ‘Enquirer.’ Excuse me? It’s true that Trump ousted National Security Advisor Flynn in February after it was revealed that he had met with Russian officials and discussed sanctions, and had then lied about it. But White House spokesman Sean Spicer made clear that Flynn had been axed “not based on a legal issue, but based on a trust issue” after “trust between the President and General Flynn had eroded . . . “ It was only after investigations by the FBI, the U.S. Army, and multiple media outlets, that Flynn resigned. But he was hardly “caught” by Trump. And though Flynn seems to have had more ties to Russia than he let on, calling him a “spy” may be a stretch.But the ‘Enquirer story then mysteriously focuses on “KGB spymaster-turned-U.S.-defector Jack Barsky.” Born Albrecht Dittrich, Barsky was sent by the KGB to spy on America in 1978, and was identified to the FBI as a spy in 1992. But Barsky was never charged, having apparently given up espionage by then, and later even wrote a book about life as a KGB spy in America. He’s made no secret of his past, yet the ‘Enquirer’ headline screams that Barsky is “Hiding in Atlanta Lair.” But Barsky, outed as a spy 25 years ago, can hardly be said to have been caught by Trump, any more than Flynn was caught by Trump. It’s all just anti-Russia scare-mongering nonsense.The ‘Enquirer’ also brings us a center-spread proclaiming: “Janet Jackson Love Child Shocker!” The headline continues: “Secret DNA test brings 31-year mystery to a jaw-dropping conclusion!” It’s the antique story alleging that Janet Jackson gave up a baby at birth three decades ago, and then-boyfriend James DeBarge volunteered his DNA sample to prove that Tiffany Whyte of Philadelphia is their love child. And the “jaw-dropping” conclusion? “The life-shattering scientific report determined there is literally ZERO chance of paternity between James and Tiffany,” reports the ‘Enquirer’ - in the 14th paragraph of the non-story. Well, there’s a surprise.At least there’s fun and games to be had with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner. “Jen & Ben Are Having Twins!” claims the ‘Globe,’ reporting that the couple are visiting a fertility doctor. But wait: The ‘Enquirer’ reports that they are still split, and “She’ll take him back only if he can dry out and get in shape" after a stint in rehab. Hang on though - ‘Us’ magazine reports that Affleck and Garner are “putting the children first,” dropping their children off at school and taking them to church - but still living apart, though sharing the same three-acre Pacific Palisades property - Ben in the guesthouse, and Jen in the main mansion. “They are not a couple by any means,” says an “insider.” They must also be exhausted reading so many conflicting tabloid and celebrity mags each week.Fortunately we have ‘Us’ magazine’s crack team of investigative reporters to tell us that Julie Bowen wore it best, singer Vanessa Carlton carries dried sage and matches in her Clare V fanny pack (to purify hotel rooms - though one suspects she burns this in “no smoking” rooms), and that the stars are just like us: they eat take-out, play softball, and spread jam on scones (because that’s how celebrities roll.)‘People’ magazine devotes its cover to the mystery behind one-time “fitness guru” Richard Simmons’ supposed disappearance, not seen in public in nearly three years. The mag promises “the real story,” but offers only speculation and denials. Simmons’ publicist insists that the 68-year-old is fine. Simmons’ brother Lenny agrees: “My brother is fine” and is just tired of the limelight. And then ‘People’ recites all the old concerns: a 911 call last summer after Simmons exhibited “bizarre” behavior, knee surgery, the death of his beloved Dalmatian,and shying away from friends. It’s a litany of old accusations, but “the real story” it’s not.Onwards and downwards . . .

This Inception-like moment as all the doorways form a straight line is both satisfying and mesmerizing. (more…)

Christopher Tan created Retrocade, a delightful 3D printed arcade machine project that lets users play classic games. He's even releasing the files and instructions. (more…)

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has done outstanding work packing a fully capable desktop computer into a package the size of a deck cards—especially one that only costs $35. But if you already have a working laptop, why should you care? Oh, how much you have to learn. Besides operating well as a compact digital media hub, the Raspberry Pi is an exceptional tool for Internet of Things construction, programming robots, hacking, and a whole slew of other cool stuff thanks to accessible, general-purpose inputs and outputs, and an open-source operating system.If you are planning on ordering one of these single-board wonders (or impulsively bought one without any idea of what to do with it), this Raspberry Pi 3 training bundle will give you a nice taste of what you can do with it. Here’s some of what you'll learn:Cybersecurity fundamentals with a Raspberry Pi equipped with Kali, the Linux distribution focused around network penetration testingHow to link several Raspberry Pi boards together to perform complex parallel computationsAdvanced networking and web development techniques that use the Raspberry Pi as a file and web serverRaspberry Pi-powered roboticsThe foundations of IoT devicesWith over 20 hours of instructional material spread across six targeted courses, you’ll get more than a taste of what this delicious platform is capable of. Get the Complete Raspberry Pi 3 Training Bundle for 91% off—just $19.Explore other Best-Sellers in our store:Coding + DevelopmentLearn to Code 2017 Bundle (Pay What You Want)Accessories Twisty Glass BluntD-I-Y CourseRaspberry Pi 3 Course

Carla and I just returned from a one-week trip to Tokyo. It was my sixth visit to Japan's capital, and it was my favorite. For the next few days, I'll be writing about recommended things to do there. See them all here.We arrived at Narita airport about 1:30pm Tokyo time. At the airport, I noticed a lot of vending machines selling SIM cards with high-speed data. You can get a week's worth of unlimited data for less than $10 a day. If your phone is locked, you can rent a wi-fi hot spot for about the same amount. I used a wi-fi hotspot to consult Google Maps many times every day to navigate around the city. Google Maps will also tell you which trains to use to get from one place to another. We also used Yelp to find restaurants and learn when they open and close.There are several ways to get from Narita to Tokyo (about 50 miles). A taxi or Uber costs almost $300 and you will have to deal with traffic. There are also luxury buses, which can take you right to your hotel (provided you are staying in one of the major ones). My favorite way to get to Tokyo from the airport is by train. Both the Narita Express ($28) and the Skyliner ($22) have terminals inside the airport. They are convenient and fast. The Skyliner is faster and cheaper, but stops only at the Ueno and Nippori stations. The Narita Express stops at more places, including Shibuya and Shinjuku. We took the Narita Express because we were staying near the Shinjuku Station.At Shinjuku station we took a taxi to our Airbnb. I've taken a lot of taxi rides in Japan, and in 100% of the cases the following five things were true:1. The driver didn't understand a word of English. (Hand your phone to him with the address displayed on the screen. He'll enter the address in his navigation system.)2. The car was immaculate inside and out.3. The driver was a man.4. The driver got confused if I tried to tip him.5. The driver automatically opened and closed my door for me. Do not try to open and close the yourself because it will strain the mechanism and annoy the heck out of the driver. Cars drive on the left side of the road in Japan, by the way.We took a very short ride to our Airbnb (right next to Yoyogi Park, home to the famous Meiji Jingu, a Shinto shrine) and took the elevator to the 9th floor. Here's what the place looked like, along with views from the balcony:At $225 a night, (here's a referral code you can use to get a $40 Airbnb credit. I'll get $20 in credit if you use it) it's much cheaper than many hotels in the area. It has a kitchen, a loft with two futons, a bedroom with two large beds, a dining area, a Japanese style tub, and a washer/dryer. It also includes a wi-fi hotspot that you can take with you as you travel around Tokyo. By the time we got settled in and took a shower after 16 hours of travel, we were hungry and sleepy. I looked on Yelp and found a place called Vegetable Curry Camp just a few minutes walk from our place. It was a cute tiny restaurant in the basement. They had boxes of fresh vegetables next to the front door, and the decor was "1960 American campground." We got sizzling skillets of fresh vegetable curry and plates of rice. The bill for both of us was less than $20. (In fact, many of the restaurants we went to were a lot cheaper than places in Los Angeles).On the way back, we stopped at one of the ubiquitous konbini (コンビニ, short for convenience store) to buy eggs and onigiri (rice filled with fish or other fillings) for breakfast the next morning. We slept like logs.Stayed tuned for day 2, to find out about Meiji Jingu and the interesting little stores in Harajuku.

I have a Fender Telecaster but no case or stand. It usually sits on a couch. I finally broke down and bought the ChromaCast CC-MINIGS Universal Folding Guitar Stand with Secure Lock for $8.96 on Amazon. It's got a 4.5-star rating on Amazon with over 1,200 reviews.

People in the 400 highest-income households are gnashing their teeth today. If the repeal of Obamacare hadn't stalled, they stood to get tax cuts of about $7 million each. Mother Jones made this graph based on a report from the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities.You know what really gets me? Even among the millionaires, repeal will only net them about $50,000. That's like finding spare change in the sofa cushions for this crowd. Is clawing back a few nickels and dimes really worth immiserating 20 million people?

https://youtu.be/S2BB52xc_ccYou are a king and have invited 1,000 guests to a party. Each guest has brought one bottle of wine. But before any of the wine has been opened, your chief spy takes you aside and tells you that he is certain that one, and only one, bottle of wine contains a poison that will kill anyone who drinks even a drop. The poison takes one hour to kick in. The king has 10 prisoners he doesn't mind killing. How does he use them to identify the poison wine and get rid of the bottle (and the person who brought it) so he can get on with the party?In this video of Scam School, Brian Brushwood gives the answer.Image: @threetails via Twenty20

By day, Scott Weaver is a grocery store clerk. When he's not working, he's making elaborate sculptures out of toothpicks and Elmer's Glue. His tool is a nail clipper. His largest work is called "Rolling Through the Bay." It's a 9-foot sculpture of San Francisco. You drop a marble in it at the top, and it will take a rolling tour through Coit Tower, Chinatown, the Golden Gate Bridge, and other landmarks. It took him over 3,000 hours over a 30-year-year period to make it, and it has 105,387 and 1/2 toothpicks.I saw Scott's work at Maker Faire a few years ago, and it has stuck with me ever since. This video is part of an excellent series called "Coolest Thing I've Ever Made."

Republicans withdrew Trump's favored legislative plan to replace Obamacare on Friday, understanding that they lacked the votes to pass it in the House of Representatives. This despite the president's threat to leave Obamacare as law of the land if they did not give the American Health Care Act an up-or-down hearing today.The GOP bill—a comically mangled "Obamacare Lite" stripped of everything people like about the original and little that they don't—held only a 17% public approval rating, according to a Quinnipiac poll. It attempted to please both conservatives, who want unfettered profitability for insurance companies, and GOP moderates, who are wary of killing quite so many poor people as this would entail.Trump, however, made clear that he isn't blaming House Speaker Paul Ryan for its failure.https://twitter.com/costareports/status/845358347801055233Run, Paul. Run!Update:The GOP's health care bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Health Care Act was scheduled for a House vote today, but was withdrawn just before. In an address, Speaker Paul Ryan said "we were close, but not quite there" and said that the United States would be living with Obamacare "for the foreseeable future."

Founded in 1989, Mr Bongo is an exquisitely-curated indie record (and film) label that uncovers incredible Brazilian psych, rare soul, avant-jazz, and deeply groovy Afrobeat recordings and reissues them in beautiful and informative vinyl and CD packages. Based in Brighton, UK, the label's latest compilation is titled The Original Sound Of Mali and the clips I've heard drive me wild. These 1970s and 1980s cuts from the war-torn West African country are so deeply groovy and raw, culled from tapes that the performers never expected would be heard beyond their local scene. Have a listen below. From an interview with David 'Mr Bongo' Buttle at Ran$om Note: Going back to the beginning, I’ve always been inspired by Mali music. There’s a haunting, heavy quality to it. I used to work with Ali Farka Toure when I worked at World Circuit back in ’88, and I found out about Mali music then. So over the last 20 or 30 years I’ve been getting into the artists featured on this album; Idris Soumaoro, The Rail Band and so on. That process helped me find some of the people involved and start to license stuff. It took a long time; it’s taken about three or four years to put this together...To a certain extent; the record is a document of a certain time that isn’t now. It’s good to draw attention to things though. Just by talking about Mali it opens up a lot of new stories, and that’s what inspired us initially. It’s an ever changing situation. I was really disappointed that the Timbuktu library got destroyed, and all those great documents got destroyed. Mali’s not a place you can go to that easily now. It’s not that safe. It’s really sad what’s happening there. We dedicated the album to Malick Sadibe, and the situation in Mali hasn’t been highlighted that much recently, I guess because we don’t have that Francophone connection in this country. We had that first splurge when the French troops first went in but that was quite a while ago. Hopefully this record will trigger some new interest. 6 Music made this the biggest compilation of the week, and there was a lot of good feedback from people calling in saying they’d like to know more about Mali, so maybe there is a bit of a knowledge gap that this can help fill. The Original Sound of Mali (Mr. Bongo)

Star Wars: Rogue One director Gareth Edwards tells the fascinating backstory behind Darth Vader's brutal stroll down the hallway in Rogue One. (Wired) And if you missed it yesterday, check out the Star Wars: Rogue One ending flow into A New Hope beginning.

In 1948, Moses Asch founded the incredibly influential Folkways Records label to record and share music and sounds from around the world. Along with bringing the music of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, and Elizabeth Cotten to wider audiences, Folkways, acquired in 1987 by Smithsonian, also issued incredible sound recordings from the Ituri rainforest, Navajo Nation, Peru, and many other locations and indigenous peoples across the globe. (In fact, the label provided several tracks for the Voyager Golden Record, now 12+ billion miles from Earth! Researching that project with my partner Tim Daly, a DIY musicologist himself, I've become absolutely enchanted by Folkways. If any of you dear readers have Folkways LPs collecting dust, I'd give them a wonderful home.) Along with music, Folkways released LPs with poetry, language instruction, nature sounds (frogs! insects), and other field recordings. I recently discovered this curious Folkways release from 1964, Sounds of the Office, featuring a time clock, electric typewriter, adding machine, thermofax, pop bottle machine, and of course "coffee break." It reminds me of an early avant-garde tape music composition! You can hear two samples below and more at the Smithsonian Folkways site. "The sounds of the office are essentially sounds of paper and machines. Here are some of them, in a rough chronological sequence, from the start of a day to its end, or at least the end of the morning," wrote the recordist Michael Siegel in the album liner notes.It's interesting to imagine how a contemporary version of this album would sound.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy2VeFSjqZYhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ivrNdxvjt8

In Britain, grounds for divorce are quite specific: adultery, desertion, "unreasonable behavior", the agreement of both parties or five years separation. An appeals court has therefore affirmed another judge's ruling that Tini Owens, 66, is not otherwise permitted to divorce her husband of 39 years.Judge Robin Tolson ruled against Mrs Owens in the family court last year, concluding that her allegations were "of the kind to be expected in marriage" and refused to grant a divorce petition.Three appeal judges, led by Sir James Munby, the most senior family court judge in England and Wales, analysed the case at a hearing in London on Tuesday.Philip Marshall QC, representing Mrs Owens, told the court that the "vast majority" of divorces were undefended in 21st Century England.He said: "It is extraordinarily unusual in modern times for a court to dismiss a petition for divorce."She said the marriage was loveless, desperately unhappy, and that she was left in a wretched state by his manner, tone, insensitivity and mistrust. Her complaint reads like the script of a grim British cringe-humor sitcom: yelling at her in an airport after her failure to buy the right crystal tchotchke from duty free; nasty remarks during dinner with guests; endless passive-aggressive sighing and tutting, etc.He reprimandedthe Respondent saying, “can I say something without youflying off the handle? I have said this before that when you putcardboard in the skip, do it properly and not without anythought about what will happen to it. It was all over the yard. Ihave picked up the big pieces but I want you to clear the restfrom the shrubbery”.Sadly, the law is the law, and if some arsehole wants to be the one arsehole in a generation to cling to its letter all the way to the highest courts in the land, it's still not that court's job to fix it.But the appeal judges, led by Sir James Munby, upheld the original ruling ... "it is not a ground for divorce that you find yourself in a wretchedly unhappy marriage" There's something spectacularly British about the idea of four wigs telling a woman that the misery of her marriage is mandatory. Check out these visions of human joy!That's Tolson, top left, and Munby, top right, and Lady Justice Heather Hallett, another of the appeals court panelists ruling against Mrs. Owens, below. The third was Lady Justice Julia Macur, who has apparently managed to avoid glaring sternly at a kneeling photographer.RTE News:Specialist divorce lawyer Ayesha Vardag says judges should not compel people to stay married."This case highlights the absurdity of fault-based divorce," she said. "If a party is willing to go to the Court of Appeal to fight for a divorce, spending significant sums on the way, there is clearly no future for the marriage. It is beyond archaic that she should have to prove it to a judge. There is no good reason for a court to compel someone to stay married when they clearly do not want to be."She added: "We must push forward with no-fault divorce and end ridiculous charades like this."An interesting aside: a UK court recently affirmed that opposite-sex couples cannot apply for the civil partnerships crafted in an earlier age for same-sex couples who could not marry at all, but which now have the advantage of conferring key benefits of marriage with few of the parochial statutory expectations. Here's the ruling [PDF], some interesting excerpts follow below.It is plain from his judgment that Judge Tolson was unimpressed by the wife’s petition.He variously described it as “hopeless” (judgment, paragraph 2), “anodyne”(paragraph 7), and “scraping the barrel” (paragraph 13). He said it “lacked beefbecause there was none” (paragraph 7). He described paragraphs 3 and 4 as “the only2 grounds which … might in context have provided grounds for divorce.” He said theallegations “are at best flimsy” (paragraph 12). ...46. The judge expressed his conclusion in these words: “In reality I find that the allegations of alleged unreasonablebehaviour in this petition – all of them – are at best flimsy. Iwould not have found unreasonable behaviour on the wife’spleaded case. As it is, having heard both parties give evidence,I am satisfied that the wife has exaggerated the context andseriousness of the allegations to a significant extent. They areall at most minor altercations of a kind to be expected in amarriage. Some are not even that.”Here's Tolson's best line (to be fair, note my ellipses, which elide a lengthy recounting of accusations): I will not overburden thisjudgment by setting out the pleaded allegations in full. This, thewife’s best case, skilfully argued by leading counsel, proceedsby emphasising what he submits is her increased sensitivity tothe husband’s old-school controlling behaviour. ...Having seen him, I hope the husband will forgive mefor describing him as somewhat old-school. I can also find thewife to be more sensitive than most wives. It matters notThe appeals court ruling refers faintly to Tolson having animated media attention with this sort of talk, and recognizes "the hypocrisy and lack of intellectual honesty which is so characteristic a feature of thecurrent law." But it also questions whether the State's interest can he excluded from the institutions it provides. (Don't trust my reading: I'm a British, but I'm not your British)Another good line, from Lady Justice Hallett: "With no enthusiasm whatsoever I have reached the same conclusion on this appeal."Perhaps this is why all those quaint English country villages in TV dramas have the murder rate of Caracas."It may be of little consolation to the wife but she is not totally without remedy under thepresent law. If she waits until February 2020, assuming that she and her husband arestill alive, she will, seemingly, be able to petition"Emphasis mine.

In 2012, Google rolled out Certificate Transparency, a clever system to spot corrupt "Certificate Authorities," the entities who hand out the cryptographic certificates that secure the web. If Certificate Authorities fail to do their jobs, they put the entire electronic realm in danger -- bad certificates could allow anything from eavesdropping on financial transactions to spoofing industrial control systems into accepting malicious software updates. (more…)

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail; when all you have is clip art of a hooded hacker figure... (more…)

Here's a great backstory on the shot of Air Force One that cost a guy his job after commissioning an unannounced low-altitude flight around lower Manhattan. (more…)

Studio North was commissioned to refit an old elevator shaft in a converted warehouse loft in Calgary; they built a tall, narrow library with climbable shelves whose hand- and foot-holds retract into the shelving. (more…)

This nifty crying unicorn candle comes with three colorful wax rainbow horns. Light the horn, and tears of joy start to flow from the unicorn's eyes: (more…)

Trump's distaste for publicly-funded children's programming may or may not be connected to Sesame Street's character Ronald Grump, a grouch who finagles Oscar into relocating from his trash can to Grump Tower. (more…)

CSIR-Tech is the commercial arm of the Indian government's Council of Scientific and Industrial Research; after spending ₹50 crore (about USD7.6M) pursuing more than 13,000 "bio-data patents" (patents of no real value save burnishing the credentials of the scientists whose names appear on them), they have run out of money and shut down. (more…)

Biologist Nipam Patel and his team at UC Berkeley study how butterflies develop wing shape and color by performing surgery on caterpillars, creating translucent windows in their cocoons. (more…)

The chaos surrounding Donald Trump and Paul Ryan's monster of a health care bill grows: a long-planned vote in Congress was called off today, representing a devastating blow to the narcissist-in-chief's bravado. Late news on Thursday night, “The President told Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus to go to the capital and tell Ryan to call a vote tomorrow,” reports MSNBC at 11:30pm ET. (more…)

Trump, his deal-making skills having failed him, simply ordered his party Thursday night to pass his unappetizing Obamacare replacement plan, or else. And the "else" is Obamacare, forever and ever and ever. (more…)

Toronto high-school students have been visiting the USA since their inception; I remember my own high-school trips to Buffalo's Albright Knox gallery warmly. But they are a relic of the past, because the Toronto District School Board will not risk harassment and worse of its students at the US border, where people born to Arab or Muslim families, or in majority-Muslim families, report widespread discrimination. (more…)

In a party-line split, the U.S. Senate today voted to allow internet service providers to retain personal data without permission and sell it to whomever might pay for it.The Senate voted 50:48 in favor of S.J. 34, which would remove the rules and, under the authority of the Congressional Review Act, prevent similar rules from being enacted. It now heads to the House for approval.“If signed by the President, this law would repeal the FCC’s widely-supported broadband privacy framework, and eliminate the requirement that cable and broadband providers offer customers a choice before selling their sensitive, personal information,” said FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and FTC Commissioner Terrell McSweeny in a joint statement.

Despite the widespread belief that meme-warriors won the election through tactical shitposting of photoshopped Pepe the Frogs in Nazi arm-bands, the reality is a lot more complicated. (more…)

The public bathroom at Beijing's Temple of Heaven Park now has a toilet paper dispenser outfitted with a camera and facial recognition technology to prevent toilet paper theft. From the New York Times:Before entering restrooms in the park, visitors must now stare into a computer mounted on the wall for three seconds before a machine dispenses a sheet of toilet paper, precisely two feet in length. If visitors require more, they are out of luck. The machine will not dispense a second roll to the same person for nine minutes.At the Temple of Heaven Park, one of Beijing’s busiest tourist sites, many people said on Monday they were pleased by the new machines.“The people who steal toilet paper are greedy,” said He Zhiqiang, 19, a customer service worker from the northwestern region of Ningxia. “Toilet paper is a public resource. We need to prevent waste...”I agree with park visitor Wang Jianquan, 63: “The sheets are too short.""China’s High-Tech Tool to Fight Toilet Paper Bandits" (NYT)

Israeli makeup magician Ilana Kolihanov created this wonderfully creepy optical illusion. See more of her incredible work on her Instagram feed. A post shared by Ilana Makeup Artist🌻🐙 (@ilana_makeup_artist) on Sep 2, 2016 at 10:02am PDT A post shared by Ilana Makeup Artist🌻🐙 (@ilana_makeup_artist) on Aug 29, 2016 at 2:27pm PDT A post shared by Ilana Makeup Artist🌻🐙 (@ilana_makeup_artist) on Oct 7, 2016 at 3:01pm PDT

Commodore's C64 had a famously decisive, if drab set of 16 colors to choose from, a note of artistic intent amid the unthinking mathematical extremities of other 8-bit color palettes. But did you know there were secret colors? Aaron Bell writes up a discovery that blew his mind many years ago and which, 26 years later, he's finally figured out.If you swap two colours rapidly enough - say at 50 or 60 frames per second - you can fool the eye into seeing something that isn't there. On a machine with sixteen colours, just one or two extra can add a lot to a scene. Since today we all live in the future and you are reading a fully programmable document on a supercomputer, let's try it.The sad part is that the trick doesn't work for most pairings due to the obvious strobing/flickering effect it generates. But now wily coders can add a whole host of new grays to their vivid Commodore palettes. ("The tartan for the clan McPuke" is definitely the best description of the C64 palette I've ever read. I doubt it'll be topped.)I read somewhere this is more or less what's done on cheapo monitors to make you think you're getting 24-bit color.Previously: How the hell did they get 1024 colors out of a 1981 PC?

The Lightning port has thus far resisted the cruel fate that befell the headphone jack, and despite rumors that it may be disappearing come iPhone 8, for the present and foreseeable future, Lightning cables are a hot commodity for iPhone users. As such, we must make do in this strange time in which long, glorified strings are desirable objects. So go ahead and indulge in these 10-foot long Lightning cables, giving you extreme flexibility while you charge.These Lightning cables offer over three times the normal reach of a standard power cord and are 100% MFi-Certified, so you can use them safely without fear of frying your $800 slab of glass. This pack even includes three of them, so you can keep one plugged in behind the bed, one by the couch, and one by the other couch for near-infinite battery life.But seriously, having a cord that will wrap behind a chunky office desk or comfortably reach the back seat of a car is a definite improvement. Also remember that three of these still cost less than one Apple-branded Lightning cable. Get a 3-pack of 10-Ft MFi-certified Lightning cables for $20, reduced from the usual $89 price.Explore other Best-Sellers in our store:Coding + DevelopmentLearn to Code 2017 Bundle (Pay What You Want)Accessories Twisty Glass BluntD-I-Y CourseRaspberry Pi 3 Course

"Faaaaaack!""You SILLY person!"Jesus Chroiiiiist!etcetera.

Troy Hunt, proprietor of the essential Have I Been Pwned (previously) sets out the hard lessons learned through years of cataloging the human costs of breaches from companies that overcollected their customers' data; undersecured it; and then failed to warn their customers that they were at risk. (more…)

Florian Kohler, aka Venom, may look like an unassuming guy, but he's one of the greatest living pool trickshot artists. Tired of claims that his videos are faked, he gathered an audience and compiled his five most viewed trickshot videos. (more…)

Photographer Brian Tomlinson creates beautiful stills of liquids dropped into an aquarium. Some of the results are below: (more…)

This industry video from Korean steelsmiths Dai Han Anchor shows workers forging and testing the largest anchor chains in the world. A fascinating mix of forge technology and cutting-edge quality control awaits. (more…)

Australian artist Joshua Smith makes models of run-down everyday things like dumpsters, but they have such detail and craftsmanship that they are truly remarkable. (more…)

Mister Alphabet is an action-figure designed to cleverly bend and contort into every letter of the Latin alphabet; the website is long on trademark warnings and arty Instagram photos, but short on details, like, "Is this an object of commerce?" and "If so, where does one buy it?" (via Kottke)

Two sisters who were trying to escape violence and poverty in Guatemala for a better life “became so desperately lost trekking across the Texas desert that when they saw a U.S. Customs and Border Protection truck, they waved for help,” reports the Los Angeles Times. An officer in that truck later confined them by force, and sexually assaulted them, one by one. (more…)

Before he worked for the Donald Trump presidential campaign, Paul Manafort worked for a Russian billionaire to help promote Russian president Vladimir Putin's agenda in the United States. (more…)

A white supremacist U.S. military veteran who had a known history of obsessively hating black men told police in New York that he stabbed a homeless black man to death to make a statement. (more…)

This seems like a big escalation in the Trump/Russia investigation story. Late Wednesday, the FBI said it has evidence that associates of Donald Trump communicated with Russia during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, possibly to coordinate the release of Hillary Clinton campaign info via Wikileaks. (more…)

The intrepid counterculture archivists/publishers of Boo-Hooray have posted their "Top 100 Posters" for sale. What a stunning collection of avant-garde art and design. It makes me yearn for the downtown scenes of the prior century. (more…)

The titular track from 1971's (For God's Sake) Give More Power to the People by The Chi-Lites.

Demeter, the fragrance "library" that famously released a cologne with the smell of used paperback books, now offers a Kitten Fur scent. It's available as a cologne, body lotion, shower gel, and other toiletries. (Note: Wow, that's one tiny kitten next to the one ounce bottle in their product photo above.)Cats. Love them or hate them. There is no in between. But everyone loves Kittens! Now after 15 years of effort, Demeter has captured the olfactory essence of the warmth and comfort of that purrfect spot, just behind a kitten's neck.

Tom T. Hall's "May the Force Be With You" always was the first single from his November 1977 album New Train Same Rider. The song hit number 13 on Billboard's "Hot Country Songs" chart and went to number 5 in Canada. Sing along with me now, sweetheart:There is a force that moves our lives from place to placeThere is a force exchanging smiles from face to faceIf we must go and we must go then we will be apartMay the force be with you always sweetheart.There is a force that moves the wind and changes tidesNot that we would but if we should we couldn't hideThe force is all and we as one are but a tiny partMay the force be with you always sweetheart.The force is bigger than the little plans we madeThe force picks winners in the little games we playIf we are part of something bigger we can face the darkMay the force be with you always sweetheart

Daftworld compiled some of the killer samples that Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter made their own. Full versions of the tracks heard here would make for a killer rare groove and disco DJ set!

Here's a sandbox with a topographical map projected onto it. Move sand about, and the map moves with it, like an insane tech demo of some augmented-reality version of classic God-game Populous.Your very own AR sandbox costs $7,050 and it comes with the laptop, projector and camera rig. The software, though, is free of charge. Here's a detailed project report on the prototype if you fancy shaving a few grand off that tag. [via r/interestingasfuck]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NorjCgY8Bj8Correction: this post originally likened the shaping of land to the activities of God. Slartibartfast is the correct object of comparison. Boing Boing regrets the error.