Boing Boing

California, the most populous state in the USA and the sixth-largest economy in the world -- will give its residents the chance to vote on an expansive legal recreational week proposal on the ballot paper this coming November. (more…)

Maciej Cegłowski (previously) keynoted the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics conference with a characteristically brilliant speech about the "moral economy of tech" -- that is, the way that treating social problems like software problems allows techies to absolve themselves of the moral consequences of their actions and the harms that result. (more…)

This past Sunday, two opposition political activists in Venezuela were arrested and detained as political prisoners. They're politically active nerds who write about what they believe, who were helping to register voters when they were 'disappeared' by the military. They're people just like us who deserve to be free. (more…)

Folks used to rely on alarms to protect their home - and before that, the family dog. Now, anyone looking to guard their homes can choose from some high-tech options, including the Amaryllo iCamPRO FHD Home Security Camera (now just $219 in the Boing Boing Store).In fact, this 2015 CES “Best of Innovation” award-winner boasts so many features, it’s like a real sentry protecting your home 24/7/365. Its three motion sensors and 360-degree rotating eye covers your entire home with automatic light adjustment for day and night surveillance. When the iCamPRO encounters someone, the unit’s face detection system can identify familiar people, offer greetings to friends or warnings to intruders, and record video of any incident to a microSD card for later review.You can remotely check in on the 256-bit encrypted camera and even sync it with your Google account so it’ll offer you appointment reminders and email alerts. [embed]https://youtu.be/J4S5-6OeMNg[/embed]The Amaryllo iCamPRO offers the ultimate peace of mind for you and your home, and it's 26% off - so grab this faithful protector while the deal lasts.

In a powerful op-ed in the NYT, Bernie Sanders warns the Democratic Party that Brexit shows that many of the left's traditional supporters justifiably feel abandoned by the neoliberal establishments of the "progressive" parties, and will use any opportunity to show their displeasure. (more…)

US election law makes it a crime to knowingly solicit campaign funds from foreign nationals who do not have permanent residence in the USA. (more…)

FOLLOW @RubenBolling on Twitter and Facebook.FRIENDS of Tom the Dancing Bug join its exclusive club, the INNER HIVE, for early access to comics, and more. AND buy Ruben Bolling’s award-winning book series for kids, The EMU Club Adventures. Book One here. Book Two here. More Tom the Dancing Bug comics on Boing Boing! (more…)

Police say that Christy Sheats, the gun nut mom who shot dead her two daughters during a family confrontation that spilled into a Texas street, returned inside to reload before executing her child in view of horrified neighbors. She was still shooting when cops arrived, which is why they killed her.According to a police press release, [husband] Jason Sheats and both daughters managed to flee through the front door. Madison Sheats, who was shot once, soon collapsed and died. Taylor Sheats ran into the street and Christy Sheats followed, shooting Taylor again, police say. Jason Sheats ran to the end of a cul-de-sac and was uninjured.A witness told police Christy Sheats went back inside the home to reload the gun, and then returned and shot Taylor Sheats once more. Taylor Sheats was shot three times, police tell Crimesider. She was airlifted to a hospital, where she died.Police say a deputy with the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office and an officer from nearby Fulshear Police Department responded. The officers saw the woman shooting one of the girls in the street, police say. They say Christy Shears didn't obey the Fulshear officer's demand to drop the handgun and the officer fired once, killing her.The 911 calls reveal Sheats' kids begging for their lives. The witness next described watching the woman, “wearing a purple dress,” stand over one of the female victims with a gun. At one point she appeared to run out of bullets, causing her to go inside, he said.“Hopefully, she’s not getting any more bullets because it looks like she’s going to need some more bullets,” he says.There’s a brief pause before his worst fears apparently came to life.“She’s coming back again ... she has bullets now,” he says before describing seeing the shooter firing away once more.She had 10 guns, just in case Obama took 8 away.

(more…)

In 1969, high priestess of funk Betty Davis recorded two legendary sessions produced by her then-husband Miles Davis at Columbia's 52nd Street Studios in Manhattan. The band consisted of Mitch Mitchell (Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer), John McLaughlin (guitar), Herbie Hancock (keys), Billy Cox (Band of Gypsys bassist), Wayne Shorter (sax), and Larry Young (organ). Teo Macero co-produced. In nearly 50 years, those jams have never been officially released or even bootlegged. Now though, they are available for the first time from the fine folks at Light in the Attic Records. Teaser video below. From the label:These historic sessions—never heard, never bootlegged—predate Miles’ revolutionary album, Bitches Brew, and are the true birth of Miles’ jazz-rock explorations, along with the roots for Betty’s groundbreaking funk that came years later, starting with her self-titled debut in 1973. ...The vibe is intrinsically unique, fresh, and futuristic—jazz heavyweights playing psychedelia, rock, and jazz-fusion long before the term became commonplace. The songs include Betty originals and covers of classics by Creedence and Cream. The concepts explored on these previously unheard sessions fueled concepts that wouldn’t be fully realized until years later with Miles’ seminal On The Corner...This deluxe package is a treasure trove for both Betty and Miles fans, including rare documents from the pen of co-producer Teo Macero, rarely seen photos from legendary photographer Baron Wolman, and new interviews with Mrs. Davis herself, Harvey Brooks, and Hugh Masekela—the entire project overseen with Betty’s full blessing.Betty Davis: The Columbia Years 1968-1969https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXAdZiTemq4

Nicole Nichols' 8-year-old daughter has diabetes; Nichols and her husband have come to rely on Medicaid to help supply life-saving essential medication for their daughter, because their two salaries are insufficient to cover their medical bills, which run in excess of $2000 month in out-of-pocket expenses. (more…)

Competition to feed humans has grown difficult enough that a Seattle couple, Dawn and Ben Ford, opened a food truck for humanity's best friend. Via Life with Dogs: The popularity of food trucks in the United States has exploded recently, and in almost every major city there are a few that specialize in a particular style or flavor profile. This is great because it gives people options to eat foods that they may not have before. This is great for humans, but what about dogs? Is there a food truck for them somewhere? In Washington, the answer is YES!The Seattle Barkery is a new mobile café for dogs. Everything they make and serve is aimed towards giving dogs a similar freedom of choice like we as humans have. For their furry, four legged customers, they have everything from bacon cupcakes and peanut butter pumpkin pretzels, to chicken feet and duck necks.

Mur Lafferty, an amazing author and podcaster, had her mainstream publishing debt in 2013 with the wonderful Shambling Guide to New York City, about a travel writer who gets tapped to write a guidebook for spooks, haints, vampires and werewolves. (more…)

Peter Diamandis, founder and executive chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, presents 10 charts that show progress in absolute poverty, child labor, income spent on food, infant mortality rate, guinea worm infections, teen births, homicide rates, violent crime, education, and literacy. (more…)

Red Cross staffer #1: I have a great idea. Let's make a swimming pool safety poster!Red Cross staffer #2: Yeah! And let's make it cool by adding a floating whale!Four weeks later....Designer: Here's my poster design. Do you have any comments?Red Cross staffers #1 and #2: This is awesome! Good job on the whale, but could you put a little red cross on his whistle? Once you do that, we will send it up the approval chain!Six weeks later....Red Cross staffer #1: 28 staff members have reviewed and approved the poster. They love it!Red Cross staffer #2: I'll email the PDF to the printer. We'll send one to every public pool in the country!Two years later....Person at a public swimming looking at photo: WTF? All the white kids are "cool." Everyone else is "not cool."One day later....Red Cross media relations manager: The American Red Cross appreciates and is sensitive to the concerns raised regarding one of the water safety posters we produced. We deeply apologize for any misunderstanding, as it was absolutely not our intent to offend anyone. As one of the nation’s oldest and largest humanitarian organizations, we are committed to diversity and inclusion in all that we do, every day. To this end, we have removed the poster from our website and Swim App and have discontinued production. We have notified all of our partner aquatic facilities requesting they take down the poster. Our organization has emphasized to our partners and on social media that it was absolutely not our intent to offend anyone and apologized for this inadvertent action. We are currently in the process of completing a formal agreement with a diversity advocacy organization for their guidance moving forward.[via]

After getting 30 parking tickets while in London, a 19-year-old Stanford University student created an app called DoNotPay that lets people fight tickets by chatting with a bot.From The Guardian:The program first works out whether an appeal is possible through a series of simple questions, such as were there clearly visible parking signs, and then guides users through the appeals process.The results speak for themselves. In the 21 months since the free service was launched in London and now New York, [Joshua] Browder says DoNotPay has taken on 250,000 cases and won 160,000, giving it a success rate of 64% appealing over $4m of parking tickets.Browder is working on three other applications of his chatbot lawyer: one that helps people get compensated for flight delays, another that helps people with HIV positive exercise their rights, and another that helps refugees deal with foreign legal systems.

We've had a global shortage of helium for years now, but thanks to an aggressive search in Tanzania, scientists have just discovered 54 billion cubic feet of the gas, an amount that can last for several years. Scientists are calling this new approach to helium exploration a "game changer," according to the AP.The discovery in Tanzania is the result of a new exploration approach for the precious gas that is essential to spacecraft, MRI scanners, nuclear energy, according to the Oxford University statement. Helium also fills party balloons.This is the first time helium has been found intentionally, said the statement. Until now, the gas has been found in small amounts accidentally during oil and gas drilling.Scientists are optimistic that they'll now be able to find more helium in other parts of the world using the same search methods. Read the full story here.

When security firm Sucuri investigated the source of a 50,000-request/second DDoS attack on a jewelry shop, they discovered to their surprise that the attacks originated on a botnet made of hacked 25,500+ CCTV cameras in 105 countries. (more…)

If you want a quality vaping experience, it’s usually going to cost you. Vaporizers that deliver a fast, controlled burn will set you back up to $300, which is why the FEZ Vaporizer (now just $99) is an absolute steal.The FEZ dry herb pen does everything that more expensive models handle at a reduced price. It heats up in under 60 seconds, and you can switch between to three temperature levels to set the optimal burning speed for your herb.Specially designed for dry flower consumption, the FEZ sports a filtration system that eliminates any toxic compounds to produce as pure a vapor as possible.The FEZ’s simple design makes it easy to use, while its USB-powered battery provides a charge that lasts up to 2,000 puffs on a single charge. And while many models are clunkier, the FEZ is only 3.5 inches long, making it ultra-portable.[stackCommerce layout=“3" count=“6" sort="newest"][/stackCommerce]At 28% off MSRP, now’s the time to pick up your FEZ Vaporizer while this deal lasts.

Kyle writes, "The Volt is a fully open source, arduino-based, handmade analog clock that tells time with meters. Available in a DIY install kit, 2 pre-made models, and a mix & match hardware option. The clocks are but with solid black walnut and maple, with faceplates produced in brass, copper, and steel. Only on Kickstarter!" (more…)

I'll bet the tapa isn't fresh, eitherView post on imgur.com

Last July, McKinney, Texas police officer Eric Casebolt made headlines when video surfaced of him pulling his gun on a group of black children in their bathing suits at a pool party, tackling a young girl in her bikini. (more…)

Jeet Heer explains that Republicans fell for Trump because of years of conservative policy that told them science, reason and skepticism were bad. Put simply, they were primed to be suckers: “It’s very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.” Conservative ideology, as Perlstein persuasively argues, is particularly vulnerable to grifters because of its faith in the goodness of business and its concomitant hostility toward regulation—which makes it easy for true believers to buy into the notion that some modern Edison has a miraculous new invention that the Washington elite is conniving to suppress. In Perlstein’s words, “The strategic alliance of snake-oil vendors and conservative true believers points up evidence of another successful long march, of tactics designed to corral fleeceable multitudes all in one place—and the formation of a cast of mind that makes it hard for either them or us to discern where the ideological con ended and the money con began.” There’s another factor at work here: The anti-intellectualism that has been a mainstay of the conservative movement for decades also makes its members easy marks.

Going for the Gold: The Economics of the Olympics, a paper in the Journal of Economic Perspectives analyzes the economics of hosting the Olympics, indicting the numbers game played by bid committees and the IOC. (more…)

Thea video feedback emulator offers a vague memory of fooling with video cameras and a strong flavor of crisp and fractal generative art, The results lurk somewhere between the decades. Click and drag your results for wild (and often brightly-flickering) variations. The creator explains how it works. [via Github]What we’ve found most interesting about video feedback is: the sheer complexity of the images it produces through such simply-defined and implemented spacemaps that really only have to do with the relative positioning of two rectangles. It’s somewhat intuitive, but always surprising.This is all just scratching the surface of the mathematics behind the patterns that video feedback is capable of, but hopefully it’s good enough for a start!P.S. You’ll notice that many of the “interesting” patterns contain regions of diverse sizes. That is, they appear to have a broad range of spatial frequencies. What’s up with that?

In Workarounds to Computer Access inHealthcare Organizations: You Want MyPassword or a Dead Patient?, security researchers from Penn, Dartmouth and USC conducted an excellent piece of ethnographic research on health workers, shadowing them as they moved through their work environments, blithely ignoring, circumventing and sabotaging the information security measures imposed by their IT departments, because in so doing, they were saving lives. (more…)

Well, this sounds like potentially a pretty big deal. Facebook is using smartphone location data to recommend new friends to users, which suggests many possible privacy invasions. This is also a technique NSA uses to track surveillance targets. (more…)

You might could also try Gangstagrass. (more…)

At "Share the Safety," you can buy one of three Smith & Wesson guns, and the good folks at the NRA will send another one just like it to a lucky person in a low income, inner-city neighborhood, "law-abiding urbanites who will for the first time be able to defend themselves against those who prey on the urban poor." It's just like Tom's shoes! (more…)

After Elizabeth Warren accompanied Hillary Clinton today on the campaign trail in Cincinnati, Ohio, former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown brought up the ol' not-a-Cherokee routine once again.Brown said on a call with the RNC that Warren was not Native American, an accusation he's recycled since 2012, when the two were both vying for the same senator seat. According to Politico:At the height of the 2012 campaign, it was reported that Warren had listed herself as having Native American roots at Harvard University. Soon, there was a “full-blown campaign frenzy,” Warren recalls, with Republicans demanding that she prove her Native-American roots and accusing her of getting her job at the elite university by making false claims about her personal background.Today, Brown brought up the tired accusations, once again asking for proof, this time suggesting she take a DNA test. According to the Washington Post:"As you know, she's not Native American," Brown, an early Trump endorser, told reporters on a conference call organized by the Republican National Committee. "She's not 1/32 Cherokee...Harvard can release the records, she can authorize the release of those records, or she can take a DNA test..."Recently, Trump, never to miss an opportunity to question or make fun of one's race, has repeatedly called her "Pocahontas." Never in recent politics has the topic of heritage played such a prominent role during the presidential campaign cycle, which has only just begun.

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.