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Dip your dollar into liquid anhydrous ammonia, dry it, and repeat. The surface tension of the boiling and evaporating ammonia shrinks the bill. Caveat: It could prove difficult to use a mini-dollar and mutilating a bill may even be illegal.(Applied Science via Weird Universe)

The monthly Report on Business magazine in the Canadian national paper The Globe and Mail profiled my work on DRM reform, as well as my science fiction writing and my work on Boing Boing. (more…)

The readership of Locus magazine have chosen their favorite fantasy and science fiction works of 2015, and the winners make for a very exciting summer reading list indeed! (more…)

For around US$115 for two hours, you can rent a friend via Tokyo company Client Partners. (No, this isn't code for prostitution.) From Chris Colin's article in The Week:As we nibble at pork with ginger, (rent-a-friend) Yumi cheerfully tells me about the gigs she has had since joining Client Partners. (The six-year-old agency is the largest of its kind in Japan, with eight branches across Tokyo and another that recently opened in Osaka.) There was the mystery writer who wanted her to read the novel he'd toiled away at for 10 years. Another man needed someone to talk with about his aging parents — not in person, but via months of emails. Like Miyabi, Yumi works weddings. For one, she was hired to play the sister of the bride — a real, living woman who was in a family feud that precluded her actual attendance. The mother of the bride was also a rental. The two impostors got along swimmingly.Yumi explains that these are just the more theatrical gigs. The bulk of her clients? They just want basic, uncomplicated companionship. From Yumi's vantage point, the breadth and depth of that need says something profound about her country.There's a word in Japanese, gaman, that translates roughly as "stoic forbearance in the face of the unbearable." It's a deep-seated Japanese value, this idea that you suck it up no matter what. A lot has been happening lately. Anxiety and depression spiked after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The country itself is shrinking, its population plummeting and aging rapidly. And there's the apparently growing problem of people who literally work themselves to death; a third of suicides have been attributed to overwork. All of that, Yumi and Taka say, but you act like everything's fine.Enter the rent-a-friend. Not a miracle cure, no. But maybe a pressure valve. "With us," Yumi says, "people can talk about their feelings without worrying what their real friends think.""Inside Japan's booming rent-a-friend industry" (The Week)

Taking pictures can be challenging. There are a million factors that can influence each shot you take - and unless you’re a trained photographer, you often just focus, click...and cross your fingers.Of course, you can take some of the ambiguity out of your picture-taking with this Hollywood Art Institute Photography Course & Certification package, now only $19.99 in the Boing Boing Store.Across 22 modules, this course will teach you what you need to know - and everything you should avoid - while snapping photos. Access premium video tutorials, articles, e-books, flashcards, and quizzes to really establish and consolidate your grasp of photography fundamentals.Backed by some of the industry's most experienced shooters and teachers, you’ll receive professional certification once the course is finished, plus long-term access to tutors and learning materials beyond your coursework.The Hollywood Art Institute Photography Course & Certification usually runs almost $2,600, so grab access to this course now at over 90% off until the offer expires.

Mian Wei, a Chinese student at the Rhode Island School of Design, has created an experimental series of fake fingertips with randomly generated fingerprints that work with Apple and Android fingerprint authentication schemes, as well as many others. (more…)

See sample pages from this book at Wink.Wherever You Goby Pat Zietlow Miller (author) and Eliza Wheeler (artist)Little, Brown Books for Young Readers2015, 32 pages, 10.2 x 10.2 x 0.5 inches $13 Buy a copy on AmazonA hare packs its bags and takes a bicycle tour in this lovely rhyming picture book. Donning its jaunty chapeau and dapper pea coat, a hare cycles through forests and a covered bridge, past a paddlewheeled seaside inn, and into the evening lights of the big city. Exploring the neon-lit metropolis, it rides atop a trolley, pedals past a jolly carnival, and cruises over Seussian suspension bridges. Continuing on its way, it journeys through an arid desert, over indigo mountains, and back home again.Utilizing pale yellows, greens, and pinks, and drawn with an incredibly thin line, Wherever You Go's deep focus art fills every page with an expansive landscape. Little eyes could get lost for hours searching out minute details. Owls ride in baskets, mice chug along on tugboats, and alligators fish near ponds, and lazy afternoons can be spent examining the intricate scenery. A liltingly poetic storyline about traveling and new experiences is a delightful metaphor for life's journey. – S. Deathrage

It's been nearly a year since I moved from London to Burbank, and in that time, I've been slowly iterating through various online tutorials to be better at charcoal grilling, something I had almost no experience with when I got here. (more…)

The Journal of Sexual Medicine surveyed 1,000 students to determine "how many of them are removing or trimming their pubic hair, their reasons for doing so, the methods they use, as well as how they feel about pubic hair on a potential sexual partner," says Dr. Justin Miller of Sex & Psychology, which presented the findings as an infographic:

https://youtu.be/2eZ12Ez1C7AThis guy says, "I was about to insulate the walls of my house when Rambro broke in and started attacking the bale of glass wool." It looks like they both had a splendid time.

Geometry Global of Hong Kong recreated painting masterpieces with Lego bricks. Maybe they tinted the bricks after the fact in Photoshop, but the effect is still great - they are instantly recognizable despite being very low-rez. I swear I can see the pitchfork in American Gothic.

Gohilla says: "I found this [see photo embed below] on the chassis of my car while I was working on the exhaust system. I know it wasn't there a month ago, because I was under it working on the suspension. A quick search tells me that it's an rfid tracker. What does this mean for me? What do I do?"I found a tracker on my vehicle. I'm worried. What do I do?

"A Brief History of Video Game Controllers," starting with Tennis for Two (1958). My favorite is the pioneering Nintendo Power Glove (1989). (Super Deluxe)

Toward the end of World War II, Japan launched a strange new attack on the United States: thousands of paper balloons that would sail 5,000 miles to drop bombs on the American mainland. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast, we'll tell the curious story of the Japanese fire balloons, the world's first intercontinental weapon.We'll also discuss how to tell time by cannon and puzzle over how to find a lost tortoise.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon!

The sixth season of HBO's Game of Thrones concludes, with what many are sure to call a literally explosive trial and a named character death toll to match. Each week following the show, Boars, Gore, and Swords recaps everything that goes down in the world of Westeros. To discuss this week's "The Winds of Winter," Ivan and Red are joined by Kelly Anneken to discuss Cersei's continuing stylistic reinventions, possible GIF-based meme density, Arya pulling a Cartman, ginger pride, and the greatest ongoing debate within male culture: how many kids you could fight at once. Stick with us now that the season's over as we go into our ASOIAF book club, while alternating with episodes covering other television, movies, and various media.To catch up on previous 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, and email them. If you want access to extra episodes and content, you can donate to the Patreon.

https://youtu.be/D8XGCimh9pYMatthias Wandel is a maker of incredible wooden machines. Check out all his videos on his YouTube channel. In this video, Matthias shows how he uses a club0like kitchen hammer to help chop frozen food. I could use one of these to help me chop sweet potatoes.

Artist Cindy Chin described her process of carving three elephants in the lead of a carpenter's pencil.

https://youtu.be/K5gPoZc8ZmsYouTuber Duggy made this machinima using narration from Carl Sagan and scenes from Grand Theft Auto V.

Arriving in my inbox at a steady clip this morning: a series of phishing emails aimed at Bitcoiners, promising that the sender has found a bug in "the Bitcoin client" and promising "Pay 0.07 BTC today, get 10 BTC for 15 hours." (more…)

Shot by New Horizons on its way out of town. [NASA, via]This picture provides a vivid illustration that Jupiter's atmosphere has more color contrast than any other atmosphere in the solar system, including Earth's. Data obtained from these and other New Horizons images taken during the encounter will provide valuable insight into the processes occurring on this gas giant.

John Quiggin (previously) delivers some of the most salient commentary on the Brexit vote and how it fits in with Syriza, Podemos, Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders (etc) as well as Trump, French neo-fascists, and other hypernationalist movements. (more…)

By Happy Toast, from the B3ta Brexit Challenge.

Ethan Zuckerman -- formerly of Global Voices, now at the MIT Center for Civic Media -- has spent his career trying to find thoughtful, effective ways to use technology as a lever to make positive social change (previously), but that means that he also spends a lot of time in the company of people making dumb, high-profile, destructive suggestions for using technology to "solve" problems in ways that make them much worse. (more…)

Photographer unknown, spotted on Sunset Boulevard.

Experienced shutterbugs with DSLR cameras have boatloads of lens options for capturing the moment. Unfortunately, smartphone photographers often get stuck with their one crummy lens, which means limited zoom and focus for their final image.Step up your smartphone’s photographic power with the Acesori 5-Piece Smartphone Camera Lens Kit, now just $9.99 in the Boing Boing Store.Magnetic rings easily attach one of three custom lens to your Android or Apple device, improving the range and clarity of your smartphone shots. The fish eye, wide angle and macro lenses are made with anti-scratch glass, so they'll handle easily as well.The package also come with metal lanyards and lens covers to keep your lens safe and ready at a moment’s notice.Find out how much better your smartphone pictures can be at 80% off the Acesori Lens Kit’s retail price, while this deal lasts.

Pete notes, "What is scary is how easy it was to make." (Thanks, Pete Smith!)

In his police report, officer Robert Cooper claims he was "barely able to get out of the way" as a teen driver tried to run him over, forcing him to shoot into a moving vehicle. But his own dashcam footage made a liar of him. A police video released Thursday by the State Law Enforcement Division of the May 19 shooting of a motorist by a Forest Acres police officer shows the officer firing seven shots into a slow-moving car as the motorist began to drive away.“Stop! Stop! Do not make me shoot you!” yells the officer, who is on foot in front of the vehicle with his weapon drawn and pointed at the car’s windshield. The driver is inside a small sedan and is the car’s only occupant.The officer fires seven shots, rapidly and from a close distance – perhaps less than 10 feet away – as the car moves slowly, turns toward the officer and then appears to try to go around the officer. The motorist then pulls away from the scene and moves out of range of the officer’s dash-cam, which recorded the event.The "don't make me shoot" line (like "stop resisting") is key to understanding the problem with cops in America: a device to justify escalating confrontations as fast as possible to violence. Forest Acres is giving officer Cooper a paid vacation during its investigation.

It's described as "nightmare fuel" by Digital Trends but I think it's adorable.

Here's a small gallery of the East German secret police's 26th Division, hard at work during the 1980s. (more…)

In many states in America, legislatures have erected punitive, vindictive barriers for women seeking contraception, requiring them to get prescriptions for safe, widely taken medications. (more…)

Some truths are universal. For one, your phone will always run out of power when you most need it. For another, the charging cords that come packaged with your Apple device will fray, split, and rip faster than Usain Bolt in a game of tag.Instead, pick up a charging cord that anyone would have a tough time damaging with the Armour Charge Steel iOS Charging Cable, right now as low as $24.95 in the Boing Boing Store.The Armour Charge isn’t your normal cable - it’s made from 100% stainless steel-woven cabling that’ll protect your phone’s charge from almost anything. Couple that strength with its aluminum housings and you’ve got reliable charging power for any USB 2.0 or Lightning device. Its compact durability make it a perfect travel accessory on the road and a great safeguard against accidental cord-ripping incidents at home.Grab the 1-meter version for $24.95 or the 2-meter edition for $32.95 before this offer expires.

On the Cool Tools Show podcast, Kevin Kelly and I had a wonderful, wide-ranging discussion with Adam Savage, the former co-host of Mythbusters and the editor-in-chief of Tested. Adam is erudite, funny, and very smart. Check out our show notes here.Subscribe to the Cool Tools Show on iTunes | RSS | Transcript | Download MP3 | See all the Cool Tools Show posts on a single page

The Brexit vote wasn't mere xenophobia, it was self-destructive lashing out by people whom the political classes had written off for a generation. (more…)

In the runup to the Brexit vote, the "Leave" campaign repeatedly argued that the National Health Service could receive £350m/week in funds diverted from the money supposedly remitted by the UK to the EU (in reality, that number is radioactively false). (more…)

Accidental surrealism is the best surrealism.

Drivers in Mumbia must pay attention on crowded streets filled with scooters, taxis, and pedestrians.

Need something to sooth your jangled soul today? Pop in the buds, sit back, close your eyes and have a listen to the isolated vocal tracks on the Beach Boys' "God Only Knows." There... that's better. Carl Wilson and the Boys at their finest.[Via Playback FM]

My daughter loves these darling Iwacko erasers, and I kinda do too. You can get a random bag of 30 for $12!These erasers are great quick gifts, or party favors.30 Assorted Iwako Eraser - Animal Collection (30 items will be randomly selected from image shown) via Amazon

Artist and baker Katherine Dey made this creepy-as-hell but probably delicious cake that looks like a Madagascar hissing cockroach. Its innards oozes with Boston cream filling. Dey made a video how-to, below. Just make sure you clean up the crumbs or else the real roaches will come and then who knows what could happen if they realize what you just ate.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge1oe157FLU

In May, Facebook division Oculus broke its longstanding promise not to use DRM to limit its customers' choices, deploying a system that prevented Oculus customers from porting the software they'd purchased to run on non-Oculus hardware. (more…)

Until the 18th century, the seashore was not a place most people would go to relax. In ancient times, it was where you might run into a variety of monsters like Scylla and Charybdis. The shore is also where one might encounter pirates, smallpox, or even a wayward Kraken. Then something changed. Sorbonne University historian Alain Corbin explores this unusual history in the book The Lure of the Sea: The Discovery of the Seaside in the Western World, 1750-1840, one of the sources for a fascinating Smithsonian magazine article about "Inventing the Beach":Around the mid-18th century, according to Corbin, European elites began touting the curative qualities of fresh air, exercise and sea bathing. Especially in Britain, home of the Industrial Revolution, aristocrats and intellectuals became preoccupied with their own health and hygiene. They viewed workers, whose numbers were multiplying in factories and new industrial towns, as strengthened through labor. By comparison, the upper classes seemed fragile and effete: lacking in physical prowess and destined for decline. The notion of the “restorative sea” was born. Physicians prescribed a plunge into chilly waters to invigorate and enliven. The first seaside resort opened on England’s eastern shore in the tiny town of Scarborough near York. Other coastal communities followed, catering to a growing clientele of sea bathers seeking treatment for a number of conditions: melancholy, rickets, leprosy, gout, impotence, tubercular infections, menstrual problems and “hysteria.” In an earlier version of today’s wellness culture, the practice of sea bathing went mainstream...Tracing this remarkable turnaround, “the irresistible awakening of a collective desire for the shore,” Corbin concludes that by 1840, the beach meant something new to Europeans. It had become a place of human consumption; a sought-after “escape” from the city and the drudgery of modern life. The rise of trains and tourism facilitated this cultural and commercial process. Travel became affordable and easy. Middle-class families took to the shore in ever-increasing numbers. In sailors’ jargon, “on the beach” once connoted poverty and helplessness; being stranded or left behind. Now it conveyed health and pleasure. The term “vacation,” once used to describe an involuntary absence from work, was now a desired interlude."Inventing the Beach: The Unnatural History of a Natural Place" (Smithsonian)The Lure of the Sea: The Discovery of the Seaside in the Western World, 1750-1840 (Amazon)photo above by Gray Malin; painting below by Edouard Manet

No protruding buttons on the glass surface of this digital kitchen scale make it easy to wipe down. The graduation is 0.1oz/1g, and can weigh things up to 13 lbs. Use code NVU8KPUX and get it on Amazon for $10.

Not a hotel, not a dorm, not quite a hostel, open by design and communitarian in spirit — Los Angeles-based PodShare is something else. And, potentially, something bigger: An affordable way to foster community in a city that’s increasingly stratified by class. This week, to start Season 3 of HOME: Stories From L.A., it’s the story of one young entrepreneur and her unstoppable enthusiasm for her big idea.HOME is a member of the Boing Boing Podcast Network. Subscribe: iTunes | Android | Email | Google Play | RSS

See sample pages from this book at Wink.Things Organized Neatly: The Art of Arranging the Everyday by Austin RadcliffeUniverse2016, 104 pages, 7.8 x 10 x 0.8 inches$17 Buy a copy on AmazonSimply as advertised. Rows and rows of diverse things neatly organized. This process is often called knolling. The applied organizing logic varies: it can be by size, by color, by age; in rows, in grids, in fitted mosaics. The effect is always hypnotic. Seemingly meaningless collections gain intelligence and order which focuses attention on the parts. The book ranges wide and far in the type of things that are inspected. You will soon knoll your own.

Bleach-toothed motivational speaker Tony Robbins charged between $650 and $3000 for tickets to his 3.5 day Unleash the Power Within seminar outside Dallas, Texas, where participants are taught to walk on hot coals. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l293Qyua5QMWriting good dialogue is a craft few can master. Lewis Criswell draws from a nice survey of recent and classic examples, both good and bad, to explain the craft of designing dialogue. (more…)

Alex Schauer has impressive parkour skills, but just as impressive is cinematographer GimbalNinja, who manages to hold the shot while doing plenty of gymnastics himself: (more…)

Duralex is a French manufacturer of glassware, tableware and cookware. Picardie is one of the lines of of glassware they sell, and it is actually somewhat famous on their own, for good reason. I have had sets of the 3 3/4 oz. and the 12 oz. glasses for about 12 years.The good:They are made from tempered glass, like car windshields, so they are tough and resistant to breaking and chipping. They will survive most falls from table-height, even onto stone or tile floors. In fact I have yet to break one, and I have gone through perhaps six wine glasses in the same time. When they do break, they break into little squarish pebbles rather than sharp shards. (But that is not unique to Duralex.)They come in nine different sizes, from little 3 oz. Old-Fashioned glasses to 16 oz. tumblers.They are relatively thin and light, their strength notwithstanding.They nest and stack nicely.The faceted, swelling design makes the glasses easy to hold, even for small hands, and even when wet.They have an absolutely classic design. They might be the only glasses that people will actually recognize. I saw something very like them in a painting by van Gogh.The bad:There are no bads as such. They might only be the second toughest glasses there are (the first might be the Bormioli Rocco Rock Bar line, which resembles the Picardie line, but doesn't have exactly the same familiar design. Especially, the lip is thicker, which makes them subtly less comfortable to drink from.) The Libbey Gibraltar glasses are similar but made of thicker glass, which makes them heavier. Some people might like that, especially for sipping whiskey. But they don't stack.In sum, Duralex Picardie glasses are a design classic that look as good in a 18th century Provence kitchen as a sleek London flat. They are also durable, light, comfortable, and cheap. They don't have any real flaws. -- Karl ChweDuralex Picardie 12 oz. Clear Tumbler, Set of 6 ($30

Banksy's iconic SWAT Van artwork goes up for auction at Bonhams next week. The piece first appeared in Banksy's infamous 2006 Los Angeles show Barely Legal. The hammer price is expected to hit US$300,000 - $450,000. From Bonhams: Banksy's classic response to fear and tyranny is laughter and in the case of the present work the artist toys with his anti-establishment persona, ridiculing the police not just by depicting a scene in which heavily armed, faceless Special Forces agents are hoodwinked by a small boy but by doing so on the very apparatus of their strength. Banksy's best works combine vicious black humour with a clarity of message that many of the best advertisers would kill for and a rage that simply will not be ignored. His playfulness is the velvet glove that hides the iron fist of a social conscience honed on the streets of Bristol and which found its apotheosis in his breakout show Barely Legal in Los Angeles in 2006...The present work was acquired directly from this exhibition and has remained in the same magnificent collection ever since, coming to the open market now for the first time. Despite the nature of the sculpture the condition is excellent and testament to the care with which the artist approaches even his most challenging works. This is a work that by the artist's own admission was first shown in a 'vandalised warehouse extravaganza' and yet it is worthy of any museum collection in the world.

A federal jury in Los Angeles has just ruled that Led Zeppelin did not swipe the opening to "Stairway to Heaven" from the Spirit song "Taurus." From the New York Times:Mr. Plant and Mr. Page both testified that “Stairway to Heaven” had been composed independently, and that while both bands had played on the same bill a handful of times, they did not recall ever seeing Spirit perform and had no familiarity with “Taurus” until the lawsuit was brought.“I didn’t remember it then, and I don’t remember it now,” Mr. Plant said.The jury found that, although Mr. Page and Mr. Plant had access to “Taurus” before the release of “Stairway to Heaven,” the two songs’ original elements did not contain enough similarities. Before reaching the verdict on Thursday, the jury asked to listen to audio recordings of the introductions to both songs twice.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pPvNqOb6RAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFHLO_2_THg