I was looking at photos of the Phobos monolith and I came across this 3D anaglyph of Phobos taken by the European Space Agency's Mars Express space probe. If you have a pair of red-blue 3D glasses, take a gander. It's incredible!Mars Express HRSC (High Resolution Stereo Camera) image of Phobos taken on 9 January 2011 at a distance of 100 km with a resolution of 8.1 m/pixel. Use red-blue glasses to fully appreciate this image.Phobos is approximately 27 × 22 × 18 km and orbits Mars at a distance of 6000 km above the planet’s surface, or 9400 km from the centre of the planet.

On Reddit, folks are wondering why these photos of piles of blue powder look like they are 3D. Some don't see the effect, but I do.

The exmormon subreddit is hoppin' today: an anonymous poster, mormondocuments, is burying it in a huge dump of files they claim are church documents. But it looks like a lot of sauce and only a little sizzle: "Nothing really juicy so far, other than the fact that the Church has shitloads of cash and spends it all internally," writes one user.

Reuters reports that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposes listing the rusty patched bumble bee among America's endangered species.Though just one of many species of bumble bee, Bombus affinis's sharp decline is a worry to conservationists. About a quarter of bumble bee species face "a risk of extinction."The agency attributes the decline to a number of factors, including disease, pesticides, climate change and habitat loss.Bumble bees, as distinguished from domesticated honey bees, are essential pollinators of wildflowers and about a third of U.S. crops, from blueberries to tomatoes, said Sarina Jepsen of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, which petitioned the government for protection of the insect.Bumble bees’ annual economic value to farms is estimated at $3.5 billion, according to experts.

The Chelsea Manning Support Network has just emailed us this latest update:Chelsea's board started at 9:30 am CST today. It is expected to take upmost of the day. (The board will give its decision at the end.)As soon as we get a call from Chelsea, we will let you know the news. (Itwill most likely be in the mid-late afternoon Central Standard Time.) (more…)

Graphic novelist and sometime Boing Boing contributor Gene Luen Yang has joined the ranks of the small number of brilliant comic books artists and writers (Alison Bechdel, Ben Katchor, Junot Diaz, and Ta-Nehisi Coates) to be given the prestigious Macarthur genius prize, which is awarded to "individuals who show originality and dedication in their creative pursuits." (more…)

Sumana writes, "'Toward a !!Con Aesthetic describes !!Con, a NYC programming conference focusing on 'joyous, exciting, and surprising moments,' as a counterpublic in software culture. A longtime attendee looks at the subtexts, norms, and approaches that tie together !!Con's talks, including an emphasis on whimsy, spectacle, discovery, vulnerability, and emotion." (more…)

CNN Money has found multiple whistleblowers from Wells Fargo who were willing to go on the record and report that they were fired in retaliation for coming forward to report the massive fraud in which Wells Fargo employees opened up 2,000,000 fake accounts in their customers' names, raiding their real accounts to open them, then racking up fees and penalties, and trashing their customers' credit ratings. (more…)

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In the ten years since Idiocracy came out, the film has become more and more of a documentary, so to mark the anniversary, it's coming back to theaters before the presidential election.Here's President Camacho's State of the Union address:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGUNPMPrxvAHere's a great interview from the Alex Jones Show with Mike Judge, which discusses Idiocracy and the weird rollout it got from the studio.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzR_bfvxDZM• We’ve got what America craves.

Prepare to go down a rabbit hole of modern life in this incredible video for "Bike Engine" by Stylo G x Jacob Plant. (more…)

Reddit and social media have proven that some people will do anything for points, likes, follows and so on, including work for free, so YouTube announced Heroes, a new platform for people who will moderate their site in exchange for points. Ironically/unsurprisingly, the announcement video hasn't gotten many likes. (more…)

Edward Snowden's take on Allo is “Nope.” Google's decision to back off a previously promised privacy feature for Allo earned it a thumbs-down from the NSA whistleblower, who received asylum from Russia after exposing the NSA's secret domestic surveillance programs. Allo, a personal messaging and assistance app which lacks previously promised security safeguards, amounts to “Google Surveillance,” Snowden tweeted Wednesday. So “Don't use Allo.” (more…)

The governor of North Carolina has declared a State of Emergency after violence erupted on the second night of protests in Charlotte, over the police killing of a black man. The governor called for support from the U.S. National Guard, and Highway Patrol officers.The protest tonight escalated into chaos, and what was at first reported as a death of a man in the crowds. (more…)

See sample pages from this book at Wink.Daytripper by Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon Vertigo2011, 256 pages, 6.7 x 10.2 x 0.5 inches (softcover)$12 Buy a copy on AmazonI don’t think it would be too hyperbolic of me to say Daytripper is one of the best graphic novels I’ve ever read. It’s a big story told in small moments. The epic, emotional core is powerful and life affirming, but brothers Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá get there through the lightest touch of character.Without giving too much away (because there is so much to discover), the story is about Brás de Oliva Domingos, an aspiring novelist stuck writing newspaper obituaries. His life is both unique and unremarkable, and we meet Brás at a different age in each chapter. Theses ages are told in a non-linear fashion, and mostly feature life-changing moments. The twist is that these moments rarely seem life changing as they are happening, as is usually the case in real life. We live each day as if it is any other, only noting the important bits later.For Moon and Bá, recognizing the personal is a matter of life or death. Brás spends most of the book pining for more in his life, always dissatisfied with where he is. It’s as if he’s constantly waiting for his “real life” to begin. Moon and Bá suggest that life isn’t the point when you finally find the success you’ve been craving, or when you finally meet the love of your life, or any number of other things. Your life is now, today, in whatever situation you happen to be in. Life is happening all around you, and it’s crucial that you not miss it.The storytelling alone is incredible, but the art pushes the novel to even greater heights. Moon and Bá employ a realistic style that makes their São Paulo feel like the real city. This is crucial considering the more fantastic elements they periodically introduce into the book; they tiptoe across magical realism, and the art helps to keep you grounded. Their work is incredibly rich in detail, while the color has an almost sun bleached quality to it that appears lifelike. This is a masterful novel by any metric.– Alex Strine

After this, Satan won't be attacking Donald Trump anytime soon. Phew! (more…)

Superman Fights Robot."Note: For all flesh tones, use orange color no. 5 very lightly."[via]

Here's a new "Sassy Trump" from Peter Serafinowicz, who uses all Trump's own words but provides a new voice. (more…)

Airplane crashes into another airplane on runway. from WTFIf the plane wing had been an inch lower, or if the pilot would have been an inch taller, this could have been ugly.

Now there are three: Neil Gaiman's best-loved novels are being re-released with gorgeous pulp covers; back in August, it was American Gods, in a month you'll be able to marry it up with the stupendous Anansi Boys, to be followed in November by Neverwhere (painted by Robert E McGinnis, lettering by Todd Klein). (via Neil Gaiman)Update: Ooh, Stardust, too!

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

Netsweeper is a litigious cyberarms dealer that threatened to sue the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab when its researchers outed the company for its work in helping Yemen's despotic regime censor the internet; later, the company dropped its lawsuit. (more…)

Kickstarter to fund six VR films in the next six months, five of which are written and directed by women. She says:One of them, Eagle Bone, directed by Tracy Rector has already been selected to screen at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival (one of five pieces chosen from around the world!) Its the first VR piece to be directed by an Indigenous person in North America. And we are very proud to have been a part of its creation. Another one we are doing is a surreal comedy I have written and hope to direct, called Slow Moving Houses. In addition we are producing Lynn Shelton's first VR piece, Power, Experience Pride by Dacia Saenz, Dom by Netsie Tjirongo and Arcadia Flats (a Werewolf horror) by Joe Jacobs. Its a pretty diverse slate of creative VR projects.

The Chelsea Manning Support Network has just emailed us this latest update:1. Fight for the Future has released the Formal Charge Sheet andaccompanying documents today, that will be used in Chelsea Manning'sdisciplinary board hearing tomorrow. (more…)

Handy is the most convenient solution we've found for booking a house cleaning at the last minute, and they do a really great job. It's as easy as heading to the site, selecting a date and time that works for you and the number of rooms in your home. We've even scheduled emergency cleanings as soon as the following day. Every cleaner that Handy works with is experienced, friendly, background-checked, and insured, so you don’t have to worry about letting a new person into your home. They even have an app with booking management tools so you can book your cleaning on your way to work. Right now, the Boing Boing Store is offering a special 2 Hour Home Cleaning from Handy for just $33 (and if you want a 3 hour cleaning, it’s just $49).

After failing to install Linux on a recent Lenovo laptop, a Reddit user claims to have received a short reply from Lenovo's support team: "This system has a Signature Edition of Windows 10 Home installed. It is locked per our agreement with Microsoft." (more…)

Today, I’ve launched a very special Kickstarter with two friends, Timothy Daly and Lawrence Azerrad. A year in the making (and many more years on our minds), the Voyager Golden Record: 40th Anniversary Edition is the first vinyl release of the stunning golden phonograph record launched by NASA in 1977 aboard the Voyager spacecraft, one of which is now traveling through interstellar space. The original Golden Record was a gift from humanity, an introduction to our civilization for any extraterrestrials who might encounter the spacecraft, perhaps billions of years in the future. But it was also a gift to humanity. And if we meet our goal, you’ll be able to experience it the way it was meant to be played.The Voyager Golden Record contains the story of Earth expressed in sounds, images, and science: Earth's greatest music from myriad cultures and eras, from Bach and Beethoven to Blind Willie Johnson and Chuck Berry, Senegalese percussion to Solomon Island panpipes. Dozens of natural sounds of our planet -- birds, a train, a baby's cry, a kiss -- are collaged into a lovely sound poem. There are spoken greetings in 55 human languages, and one whale language, and more than one hundred images encoded in analog that depict who, and what, we are. Etched on the record’s gold-plated aluminum jacket is a diagram explaining where it came from, and how to play it. Astronomer and science educator Carl Sagan chaired the visionary committee that created the original Voyager Golden Record forty years ago. Astronomer and SETI pioneer Frank Drake was the technical director, writer Ann Druyan was creative director, science writer Timothy Ferris produced the record, artist Jon Lomberg designed it, and artist Linda Salzman Sagan organized the greetings. Voyager I entered interstellar space in 2013. It’s almost 13 billion miles away from Earth, and in about 40,000 years it will be within 1.6 light years of a star in the constellation of Camelopardalis. Voyager II is right on its tail. The creation and launch of the Voyager Golden Record was a testament to the power of science and art to ignite humanity’s sense of curiosity, delight, and wonder. That is the mindset with which as we approach this effort to publicly release the Voyager Golden Record as actual phonograph records for the very first time. It is as relevant now as it was in 1977. Perhaps even more so.An exquisitely-designed objet d'art, our limited edition Voyager Golden Record: 40th Anniversary Edition box set will only be available through this Kickstarter. It is the ultimate album package of the ultimate album package.The LPs will be complemented by a beautifully-designed hardbound book of the captivating images from the original interstellar message, glorious images of the planets returned to Earth from the Voyager probes, compelling essays, and ephemera from the project's history. Included in each set is a color, plastic digital download card with a code to access all of the audio in MP3 or FLAC format. A lithograph of the Golden Record cover diagram, printed with gold metallic ink on archival paper, will be enclosed in the box.We are honored that Timothy Ferris, the original producer of the Golden Record, will be in the recording studio with us to remaster the audio for vinyl, drawing from the highest-quality sources we can.The vast majority of the funds received from this historic reissue will go directly to the high production costs, licensing, and royalties incurred in creating this exquisitely designed and fully-authorized box set. If we hit our goal, we are excited to donate 20% of our net proceeds from this project to the Carl Sagan Institute: The Pale Blue Dot and Beyond at Cornell University.Our hope is that this release of The Golden Record: 40th Anniversary Edition will provoke questions about our place in the universe, open our minds to possibility, and serve as a reminder that the future is really up to all of us.Your support means the world(s) to us. Thank you.Voyager Golden Record: 40th Anniversary Edition (Kickstarter)Video by Remedy EditorialAbove photos and artwork from the original Voyager Golden Record project by NASA/JPL-Caltech, NAIC Arecibo Observatory (a facility of the NSF), and Jon Lomberg. For more background on the original Golden Record, visit Voyager: The Interstellar Mission.

The new conveyor system will open the week of October 3, ferrying books from the vast, subterranean archives beneath Bryant Park to researchers working in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. (more…)

Denver-based street magician Edward Hammond is the subject of this charming short by John Allen that explores magic without focusing on the tricks themselves. (more…)

Ubi ausum, ibi concordia. You may remember director Keith Schofield from the internet classic "porn movies made SFW":https://vimeo.com/66889482If I were writing for a magazine, I'd fall into the trap and say he exposes the pathos of identity and the recursive bathos of being offended by the offended, but then I remembered this is a blog and that he makes really great ads with animals in them.https://vimeo.com/69828650https://vimeo.com/67152198

https://vimeo.com/182262169This great 11-minute 1972 film by Charles and Ray Eames highlights Polaroid's SX-70 model. They went on to create three more commissioned works for Polaroid. (more…)

Sociologist Brooke Harrington got her Trust and Estate Planning certification in order to study the super-secretive world of the wealth managers who are in charge of hiding the $21 trillion controlled by the world's super-rich from tax authorities, feckless descendants, religious leaders, tax justice activists, kidnappers and extortionists. (more…)

Part of the economic argument for free trade deals is that they benefit workers by producing cheaper goods -- even if you lose your manufacturing job, you can buy stuff a lot cheaper with the next job you get. (more…)

Chuck Wendig (previously) celebrates the release of his latest novel Invasive with 25 extremely good pieces of advice for people trying to finish a novel. (more…)

If one of the 2,000,000 fraudulent accounts Wells Fargo opened was in your name, the US government has some advice for you. (more…)

Yesterday, Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf addressed the Senate Banking Committee about his bank's years of fraud, driven by threats of firing for low-level employees if they didn't meet unrealistic sales-targets, overseen by an executive who was given a $125m retirement bonus when she quit last summer, just before the scandal broke (though the bank had known it was going on since 2011). (more…)

According to RCMP investigators, Leston Lawrence would make 210g "pucks" of gold using the mint's "dipping spoon," hide them up his butt, then pawn them for about $6,800, at the Ottawa Gold Buyers in the Westgate Shopping Centre, depositing the cheques at a Royal Bank in the same mall. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjMwGWdqHVQJohn Cleese is played by the Intex Talker, Michael Palin is played by the Dectalk Express ("Perfect Paul modified to sound more like Stephen Hawking"), and the video was made by Per Kristian Risvik, who is an evil genius. I could watch the entirety of the Python oeuvre conducted like this, and in so doing perhaps put behind me John Cleese's shameful support for Brexit. (via Kottke)

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Share this inspiring video with every kid or teen you know who dreams of space. John Streeter of NASA Television has sent us some wonderful NASA TV videos over the years. I love this new one with Vermont-born rock and roll star Grace Potter, about some of the amazing women in the history of the American space program. I hope it inspires a little girl out there to become an astronaut. (more…)

The painter Vincent Van Gogh continues to fascinate, his popularity seeming to grow every year. His creativity came at the price of much misery and madness, and led to his eventual suicide at age 37 in 1890. He had produced approximately 900 paintings but sold only one during his life—and that was to his brother. It has been speculated that he suffered from bi-polar disorder, or possibly a type of epilepsy, and was able to work between episodes of delusion.These few words do an injustice to someone who suffered so greatly while producing art in a new and unique style that has sold for as high as $82 million for a single painting.Several years ago work began on a motion picture titled Loving Vincent, which uses paintings done in the style of Van Gogh to create its visuals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjA6_GcBtcAThe film’s website has an entirely different trailer, which allows us to see the characters speak.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYCYdpqrkpkAnd because you should be wondering how a film in which Van Gogh’s paintings come to life to narrate his own story was made, there is a video on that very subject.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QRuwVhI-MQOne could write at length about all of this, but the videos convey more than words.Something interesting, to me at any rate, is the music used during the making-of video: part of it comes from the soundtrack from the science fiction film Moon.Directed by Duncan Jones (son of David Bowie) and released in 2009, it is a painful meditation on what it means to be human. Not an easy question to answer, particularly within the context of the film. The sole actor for most of the movie is Sam Rockwell, doing gut-wrenching work in the depths of unspeakable melancholy. It’s quite wonderful and was well-reviewed. The late lamented Roger Ebert wrote, “Moon is a superior example of that threatened genre, hard science-fiction … The movie is really all about ideas. It only seems to be about emotions. How real are our emotions, anyway? How real are we?” Not getting the attention it deserved was the film’s score by Clint Mansell (he also scored Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan, among others). It is his music which you can hear behind the director’s voice in the making-of video for Loving Vincent. It is perfectly chosen. Van Gogh, too, struggled with what it meant to be human.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyzlE0nDnj4

Boars, Gore, and Swords podcast's ASOIAF book club - FeastDance #7: "The Fault of Our Complexion" The Boars, Gore, and Swords book club reading of the Boiled Leather chapter order combining George R.R. Martin's A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons continues with this week's "The Fault of Our Complexion." Ivan and Red covered Sansa I (AFFC) in a previous book club episode, and move on to The Kraken’s Daughter (AFFC), and Tyrion III (ADWD). They discuss their further dislike of book Tyrion, various titular line drops, and Asha/Yara Greyjoy's thirsty suitor. For their Patreon donors, they've also begun their Great British Bake Off coverage, so kick in a dollar if you like talking about cakes.To catch up on previous television seasons, the A Song of Ice And Fire books, and other TV and movies, check out the BGaS archive. You can find them on Twitter @boarsgoreswords, like their Facebook fanpage, andemail them. If you want access to extra episodes and content, you can donate to the Patreon.

In 2013, Mike Zuckerman, a self-described culture hacker, attended the White House’s National Day of Civic Hacking. Inspired by what he’d learned there, Mike returned to San Francisco and founded [freespace], an organization that focuses on sustainability and urban tactical development. In the spring of 2016, Mike went to Greece where he spent four months rehabilitating an abandoned clothing factory in the industrial sector of Thessaloniki, turning it into a humane shelter that he and his colleagues named Elpida. Unlike the official migrant camps in Greece, where refugees have little say in the day-to-day operations of the camp, Elpida put its 140 residents in charge, and the results were remarkable. Not only is Elpida much less expensive to run on a per person basis than official camps in Greece, the residents don’t suffer from boredom, restlessness, and disengagement like they do at NGO-run camps.As a pilot model, Elpida offers hope and improved living conditions for refugees in a place where no other NGO was able to provide in this kind of support.Mike has been working with Institute for the Future (where I'm on staff) as an affiliate since 2014 and recently accepted an IFTF fellowship to help uncover and study new paradigms for restoring vulnerable places and space, such as post-disaster sites, informal refugee settlements, and decaying urban neighborhoods.I spoke to Mike about his work at Elpida in August, 2016, just days after he returned from Greece.Listen to the audio podcast interview with Mike Zuckerman here. Subscribe to the IFTF podcast on iTunes | RSS | Soundcloud | Download MP3

The paradox of Iota ($8 on Amazon) is that the cards are small, but you need a decent amount of table space to play the game. You play by adding cards to a grid. There are certain rules for playing cards, depending on how their color, shape, and number matches or doesn't match the neighboring card. We enjoyed playing this game with two players and three players (you can have up to four players). Here's a review:https://youtu.be/36x1mDmEmjg

When Benjamin Franklin wanted someone to like him, he'd ask that person to do him a favor, because he noticed that people who'd done him a nice turn would rationalize this by assuming that they'd done so because they liked him, and so they'd continue to do him other favors in the future based on that affection. (more…)

Sitelock is a major player in online security; a rival, White Fir, thinks its products are subpar, and has published extensive articles explaining why White Fir's products are superior -- articles that Sitelock has targeted with fraudulent copyright claims. (more…)

Netzpolitik is an amazing German activist/journalist organization; in 2015, they braved a treason investigation by publishing Snowden docs that showed that the German intelligence services were conducting illegal surveillance and illegally collaborating with the NSA; now they've done it again, publishing a new leaked oversight report on spying at the Bad Aibling surveillance station. (more…)

The Chelsea Manning Support Network has just emailed us this latest update:1. Chelsea has written an op-ed for the Guardian explaining the painful experience of spending this whole last weekpreparing for her disciplinary board hearing.2. The disciplinary board hearing happens at 9:30 am, Thursday September22, 2016.3. Please sign the petition at FreeChelsea.com4. Please spread the word by sharing these videos by Dan Ellsberg and Michael Stipe.

The EU has ruled that Apple has to pay taxes on the billions it laundered through Ireland by pretending that an empty room with no employees was the company's "head office," a move that has enraged the Business Roundtable, which has sent a letter calling on the EU to respect the "rule of law," whose five signatories have all presided over acts of shameless lawbreaking. (more…)

Washington Post reporter David A. Fahrenthold has been digging into purported billionaire Donald Trump's purported charity and unearths a heck of a story: Trump used $258,000 from his 'charitable' non-profit organization to settle legal problems involving his for-profit businesses. “The settlements were among four newly documented expenditures in which Trump may have violated laws against “self-dealing” — which prohibit nonprofit leaders from using charity money to benefit themselves or their businesses,” Fahrenthold writes.According to Fahrehthold's deep dive into Trump's dirty deals, the repugnantly racist and sexist Republican presidential nominee spent more than a quarter million dollars of funds belonging to his charitable foundation “to settle lawsuits that involved the billionaire’s for-profit businesses.” The reporting is based on interviews with primary sources, and a review of legal documents.From the Washington Post article, which every voter should read in full:Those cases, which together used $258,000 from Trump’s charity, were among four newly documented expenditures in which Trump may have violated laws against “self-dealing” — which prohibit nonprofit leaders from using charity money to benefit themselves or their businesses.In one case, from 2007, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club faced $120,000 in unpaid fines from the town of Palm Beach, Fla., resulting from a dispute over the size of a flagpole.In a settlement, Palm Beach agreed to waive those fines — if Trump’s club made a $100,000 donation to a specific charity for veterans. Instead, Trump sent a check from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, a charity funded almost entirely by other people’s money, according to tax records.In another case, court papers say one of Trump’s golf courses in New York agreed to settle a lawsuit by making a donation to the plaintiff’s chosen charity. A $158,000 donation was made by the Trump Foundation, according to tax records.The devil is in the details, and boy can you see a lot of bedevilment in these details."Trump used $258,000 from his charity to settle legal problems" [washingtonpost.com]