This summer, BB pal Adam Savage of MythBusters and Tested modified a pick-up truck into a mobile movie theater!

Wells Fargo's Board of Directors have finally exercised their right to claw back part of the hundreds of millions of dollars taken home by two senior executives who were compensated on the basis of the fraudulent earnings the bank took in while opening 2,000,000 secret accounts in their customers' names, taking money out of those customers' real accounts to pay for the fees and penalties accrued by the fake accounts, and trashing their customers' credit in the process. (more…)

Yesterday, Google announced "Youtube Go," an "offline first" version of the popular video service designed for the Indian market where internet coverage is intermittent, provided by monopolistic carriers that have a history of network discrimination, and where people have a wide variety of devices, including very low-powered ones. (more…)

We all know that expiration dates on food are as mostly worse than useless. Whether any given stuff is still tasty, though, can be found at the aptly-named stilltasty.com.How long will your favorite food or beverage stay safe and tasty? What's the best way to store it? Get the answers for thousands of items!Some interesting listicles, all somewhat lacking in sourcing: 9 Foods That Last Forever; Yes, Spices Go Bad; and 7 Vegetables That Last A Long Time.Wine is good for 6 months after you open it if you freeze it into ice cubes. For more on frozen wine trickery, read Singly Scruptious's article about it.

Clips of this are going viral as genuine security footage, but it's really a short film by Rasheed Parakkal about how technology helps us find redemption. (more…)

Once just a "gross but versatile" cartoon frog, Pepe slid the rage-greased chute of chan culture into the toilet of offensive memes and popped up on the other side in the Anti-Defamation League's archives. There, he takes his place beside the swastika and the Confederate flag. (more…)

If you have ever swallowed 20 golf balls, a pound of orange peels, or a pound and a half of chicken nuggets, then worried your habits might overwhelm your toilet, you might need this workhorse. (more…)

Since hydrofoil surfing was introduced, Kai Lenny has been experimenting with boards and techniques to the point that he can go out in the open ocean and glide across swells for miles without having to compete for waves. (more…)

Mike Campau recreated Generation Gap, a CGI series of some of the most iconic items from 1980s childhoods, each one lit with gorgeous multi-hued gradients. (more…)

As with each and every episode of his genius 'Sassy Trump' voicedub series, actor-director-comedienne Peter Serafinowicz is using 100% actual Donald Trump's own words here. He's just voicing them differently. More authentically, perhaps.

Bad Little Children's Books by "Arthur C. Gackley" darkly reimagines innocent kids' books from the mid 20th century.

My friend John Edgar Park made this cool MIDI controller in a pizza box with a conductive ink surface.

In 1924 a curious network of catacombs was discovered in Washington D.C. They were traced to Harrison Dyar, a Smithsonian entomologist who had been industriously digging tunnels in the city for almost two decades. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe Dyar's strange hobby -- and the equally bizarre affairs in his personal life.We'll also revisit balloons in World War II and puzzle over a thief's change of heart.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon!

Chemist George Zaidan makes homemade toothpaste using the same ingredients in commercial toothpaste. It includes abrasives, humectants, sweeteners, flavors, foaming agents, thickeners and binders, sodium fluoride, and a few other things. He uses chalk, xylitol, peppermint oil, and glycerine.

A very special edition of of an ongoing series by weird chart-maker Scott Bateman; link to today's edition.

When four named whistleblowers came forward to reveal that they'd been illegally fired from Wells Fargo for reporting that the company was experiencing widespread fraud, it was deja vu all over again: Wells also punished whistleblowers who sounded the alarm during the subprime crisis, and was thus so totally compromised that they needed a $36B taxpayer bailout. (more…)

The Rider Institute has launched an Indiegogo campaign to develop DRACOS, which are broad-spectrum antivirals. If it doesn't work, Dr. Todd Rider (Ph.D. from MIT) could enjoy a great career as a charmingly nerdy YouTube star.Currently there are relatively few prophylactics or therapeutics for viruses, and most that do exist are highly virus- or even strain-specific or have undesirable side effects or other disadvantages. We have developed a radically new, broad-spectrum antiviral therapeutic/prophylactic that has the potential to revolutionize the treatment of viral infections.Our Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizer (DRACO) approach selectively induces apoptosis (cell suicide) in cells containing viral double-stranded RNA (dsRNA). DRACO should recognize virus-infected cells and rapidly kill those cells without harming uninfected cells, thereby terminating the viral infection while minimizing the impact on the host.He is asking for $100,000 to fund his research.

What if UNO were rebooted? JelloApocalypse's If UNO Was An Anime gives the mundane classic all the hackneyed tropes and stock characters of card game tie-in toons.

I've been going to O'Reilly conferences since the first P2P conference in 2001; for 15 years, they've been blowing my mind. (more…)

The legendary cup, designed to punish greedy drinkers, explained masterfully by Salad Fingers' dad Sir Martyn Poliakoff. His YouTube channel is packed with similarly excellent videos wherein lab assistant Neil is persuaded to execute unnerving experiments. (previously.) (more…)

Thinkgeek's $80 Lawn Jawas are a weird mix of kitsch, bad taste, technology, and fandom. (more…)

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has released a simulator that challenges you to be the Chair of the Federal Reserve and "achieve full employment and low inflation." (more…)

I-Dressup is a social media site aimed at teen and tween girls, where users play and interact with fashion. Six days ago, Ars Technica's Dan Goodin contacted I-Dressup to tell them that they were leaking more than 5.5 million cleartext passwords, and that a hacker had already downloaded 2.2 million of them. (more…)

After a poor performance at his first chatfight with Hillary Clinton, millionaire presidential candidate Donald Trump's claiming his mic was too quiet. Just imagine the nightmare of cocaine snuffles and wet smacking noises this video would be at double sensitivity!

After a long hiatus, CineFix revived its "Homemade Shot for Shot" series with this entry for the Suicide Squad trailer. (more…)

Super Mario Bros and other classic games can be run through 3DNes, a nifty 3D emulator. (more…)

The artisan behind this Pokémon "Poké Ball" (aka Monster Ball) masterpiece is Jasper Hams. (more…)

See sample pages from this book at Wink.Industrial Strength Design: How Brooks Stevens Shaped Your World by Glenn AdamsonThe MIT Press2003, 300 pages, 9.5 x 11 x 0.8 inches From $10 Buy a copy on AmazonThis excellent book profiles the most famous industrial designer you’ve never heard of: Brooks Stevens. Sure, you know of designer Jonathan Ive and his Apple products, and maybe Raymond Loewy, who slimmed the Coke bottle and decked out Kennedy’s Air Force One, but flipping through this book you’ll instantly recognize Brooks Stevens’ equally famous mid-century creations: that 3M “Mondrian” packaging, The Excalibur custom car, the Miller beer “soft cross” logo, the “boomerang” patterned Formica, and yes, the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile!Stevens grew up in Milwaukee, and his unpretentious Midwestern work ethic and pro-business attitude was clear in all his work and writing. Unlike other designers who indulged in fantastic and lofty, theoretical designs, Stevens applied his styling skills and practical design sensibilities to suit local manufacturers of lawn mowers, outboard motors, cookware, and vehicles, resulting in increased sales and efficient manufacturing (if not design awards). One of his most famous creations is the phrase “planned obsolescence,” which was widely attacked at the time by Vance Packard in his book The Waste Makers as an example of the manipulation of consumers and crass commercialism. Stevens proudly defended his approach of constant improvements and questioned so-called “good design” as actually elitist, unpractical and most damning of all in his mind, ultimately unprofitable. The debate goes on and you’ll have to come to your own conclusion: are manufacturers’ frequent new product variations kaizen-like progress, or just needless churning of the consumer. (Do you really need that new iPhone 9x?)As an industrial designer trained in the old-school skills of drawing and rendering, I loved seeing the many samples of marker sketches, gouache renderings and airbrushed presentations drawings. Check out the crazy concept cars and boats – it’s like a trip back in time to a mid-sixties auto show.

With this comprehensive course in App & Game Development for iOS and Android, you’ll be able to take full advantage of this career opportunity without committing to going back to school full time. You’ll learn how to build immersive, interactive games and apps from start to finish using Python, C#, Unity, and HTML—some of the most in-demand programming tools available.With over 34 hours of course content, you’ll explore gaming physics and collision detection, use labs and activities to assess your progress, and much more. By the end of the course, you won’t just have created one mobile app—you’ll be ready to create tons more on your own. Right now in the Boing Boing Store, this course is just $34.

I've got a busy couple of weeks coming up! I'm speaking tomorrow at Powell's in Portland, OR for Banned Books Week; on Wednesday, I'm at UC Riverside speaking to a Philosophy and Science Fiction class; on Friday I'll be at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, speaking on Canada's dark decade of policy denial from climate science to digital locks; and then on Oct 6, I'm coming to SFMOMA to talk about museums, technology, and free culture. I hope to see you soon! (Image: Alex Schoenfeldt Photography, www.schoenfeldt.com, CC-BY)

Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey was exposed last week backing a pro-Trump "meme factory" that churns out Nazi-themed images and anti-Hillary Clinton propaganda—then spotted at a Trump rally wearing one of the nativist candidate's T-shirts. He at first walked back his involvement, but Luckey now has the backing of top colleagues at the Facebook-owned virtual reality startup."Everyone at Oculus is free to support the issues or causes that matter to them, whether or not we agree with those views," Oculus CEO Brendan Trexler Iribe wrote on Facebook. "It is important to remember that Palmer acted independently in a personal capacity, and was in no way representing the company."Another executive, Jason Rubin, said that the company did not "condone, or spread hate.""I take him at his word. Those of you who have known me before I joined Oculus know that I would not work in a place that I thought condoned, or spread hate. Nor would I remain silent if I saw it raise its head. I have always believed that games, and now especially VR, have the potential to bring people together. My view is unwavering. I continue to believe that Oculus can make the world a better place."However, the company itself has remained silent on the matter, reports Ars Technica, offering no response to their inquiries.Luckey, a near-billionaire thanks to the Facebook buyout, used some of the cash to juice Nimble America, an organization dedicated to shitposting memes that generally involve offensive stereotypes of politicians, pundits, racial minorities, Jews and other typical targets of the far right. (For their part, outspoken white supremacists seem divided between those who appreciate a wealthy ally and those who count "Cuckey" as an opportunist trying to co-opt the "Alt Right" movement.)https://twitter.com/radiatoryang/status/780424113798152196

A Reddit user took this photo of his girlfriend getting her watch stolen by some kids in Thailand. They didn't know what had happened to the missing watch until they saw this photo. I obscured the kids' faces because they aren't criminals - they are being abused by an adult who is making them do this.

Part of an ongoing series by weird chart-maker Scott Bateman; link to today's edition.

I've written an open letter to HP CEO Dion Weisler on behalf of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, asking him to make amends for his company's bizarre decision to hide a self-destruct sequence in a printer update that went off earlier this month, breaking them so that they would no longer use third-party ink cartridges. (more…)

I did an interview with the Changelog podcast (MP3) about my upcoming talk at the O'Reilly Open Source conference in London, explaining how it is that the free and open web became so closed and unfree, but free and open software stayed so very free, and came to dominate the software landscape. (more…)

I've been writing "design fiction" for years (see, for example, Knights of the Rainbow Table), and when people ask me to explain it, I say something like, "An engineer might make a prototype to give you a sense of how something works; an architect will do a fly-through to give you a sense of its spatial properties; fiction writers produce design fiction to give you a sense of how a technology might feel." (more…)

Sweden's ruling coalition of Social Democrat and Green parties has a tax plan that will make it cheaper to fix broken things and more expensive to buy things that can't be fixed after they break.From FastCo:The proposed legislation would cut regular tax on repairs of bikes, clothes, and shoes from 25% to 12%. Swedes would also be able to claim half the labor cost of appliance repairs (refrigerators, washing machines and other white goods) from their income tax. Together, these tax cuts are expected to cost the country around $54 million per year. This will be more than paid for by the estimated $233 million brought in by a new "chemical tax," which would tax the resources that go into making new goods and computers.

In "A Letter to My Allies on the Left," Rebecca Solnit -- one of my literary and political heroes -- asks the left to give up the practice of reflexively dismissing the good that politicians do, because those politicians also do terrible things. (more…)

Sailorhg's Glitchy website is a drag-and-drop way to glitchify photos.

Tools like Etherpad and Google Docs are transformative ways to collaborate on text (including code); I've used them in contexts as varied as making unofficial transcripts of statements at UN agencies to liveblogging conference presentations -- but they all share a weakness, which is that whomever owns the document server can see everything you're typing. (more…)

Weird twitterbot herder Shardcore writes, "@everytrumpette draws from the large corpus of photographs of the attendees of Trump rallies. A face detection algorithm identifies a member of the crowd, and then zooms in. Who are these people? How can they not only accept, but openly embrace an ideology of hate? This bot examines them, one by one, to try and see the humanity." (more…)

In Sweden a legislative proposal will let repair shops will charge lower sales-tax, and allow people who repair their appliances and bicycles be to write off their expenditures. (more…)

Researchers from the Norwegian Veterinary Institute developed and tested a system for horses and people to communicate using a symbolic language. From the Daily Grail:...Twenty three horses learned to tell trainers if they wanted to wear a blanket or not. Subjects were shown three symbols: a horizontal bar to say "I want a blanket", a blank square for "No change", and a vertical bar for "I don't need a blanket". They learned the meanings in a day or two and using them to convey if they were too warm or too cold, building the case for self-awareness...(In the scientific paper, the researchers write that,) "When horses realized that they were able to communicate with the trainers, i.e. to signal their wishes regarding blanketing, many became very eager in the training or testing situation. Some even tried to attract the attention of the trainers prior to the test sit- uation, by vocalizing and running towards the trainers, and follow their movements. On a number of such occasions the horses were taken out and allowed to make a choice before its regular turn, and signalled that they wanted the blanket to be removed. It turned out that the horses were sweaty underneath the blanket.""Horses can learn to use symbols to communicate their preferences" (Applied Animal Behaviour Science)

A trio of scholars who study the psychology and philosophy of science have written a fantastic paper for Springer's Sythese looking at the way that climate change conspiracy theorists construct their view of the world, and how these conspiracy theories contain self-contradictory theses (like the idea that climate change can't be predicted and the idea that the data shows we're actually headed for an ice-age). (more…)

CloudPress is a responsive WordPress theme builder that allows you to create a whole site in less than 30 minutes. CloudPress comes with tools like pre-built headers, content blocks, and footers—all you have to do is pick what you like, and drag and drop. With your subscription, you get access to 13 professionally designed WordPress themes, over 80 content blocks, 50 elements and widgets, responsive grid-based layouts, and more—everything you need to build a website that's fully functional and that looks great.Plus, you get 10 PRO sites, 3 GB of workspace, and email and priority phone support, for when you just need some help. We think CloudPress is one the best tools for building great sites without extensive developer experience or assistance.You can try it out for yourself with the CloudPress Professional Plan: Lifetime Subscription for 95% off. You could have your website up and running today.

Thank you to the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, for recognizing the greatness of French food and imported macaroni and cheese where it has (d)evolved into its own food group.

A 1989 documentary covering the birth of Batman through to the best on-screen Batman ever, Mr. Adam West.

wxs.ca/iso/ presents a simple "isometric" field of cubes, Q*Bert-style. Click and drag across it and the cubes will rise and fall in series of waves. They also start to flash wild colors... or do they? Yes, they do! (more…)

There are a handful of states that keep records of police force, but they are incomplete records, and they're maintained on paper; contrast that with URSUS, California's new tool that collects every single use of force, storing it in open, transparent free software maintained by Bayes Impact, a nonprofit. (more…)