Dick Van Dyke, who recently celebrated his 90th birthday, has written an op-ed in the Hollywood Reporter endorsing Bernie Sanders as the best candidate for senior citizens. (more…)

Gizmodo's Matt Novak filed a clever request to the FCC under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA): what are all the FOIA requests you've "withheld in full"? So they sent him the list. (more…)

If you're a Californian registered Independent/No Party Preference, you are entitled to cast a ballot in the Democratic primary on June 7, but some Orange County poll workers report that they've been instructed to give independent voters "provisional ballots," which, in practice, are rarely if ever counted. (more…)

An independent investigation by The Guardian found 33 cities in 17 US states (including Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit and Milwaukee) are systematically cheating on the tests to monitor lead levels in the municipal water. 21 of those cities used the same cheating techniques that led to criminal charges in the Flint water scandal. (more…)

In my weekly segment on KCRW's “Press Play” news program with host Madeleine Brand, we listen to Elon Musk wax poetic about artificial intelligence and whether life might be a dream--and his plans to send humans to Mars by 2025. (more…)

Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, cringing from the decision for days after it became clear who would win the party's nomination, has finally endorsed Donald Trump's bid to become U.S. President.The Wisconsin Republican has voice reservations over Trump's tone throughout the campaign and disagrees with him on many policy areas. Last month, he met with the likely GOP nominee and still withheld his endorsement. As recent as last week, he was still holding out.But on Thursday he finally acquiesced. In a column in the Janesville Gazette, the Speaker wrote that the two "have more common ground than disagreement." And despite never using the word "endorse" in the article, Ryan's spokesman confirmed it was an official endorsement.For Republicans, obedience or oblivion.

This orphaned baby rhino likes to walk with this girl to school in the morning.Rhinos are endangered across Africa, as demand for their horn fuels ruthless criminal poaching networks. Ol Pejeta is the largest black rhino sanctuary in east Africa, and is also home to the last three northern white rhinos on the planet. When Ringo is ~4 years old, it is hoped he can be released into the wild.(Thanks, McRaney!)

"Either we're going to create simulations that are indistinguishable from reality, or civilization will cease to exist," Musk says. (Recode)More on the Simulation Argument here and here.

See sample pages from this book at Wink.The Science Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained)DK2014, 352 pages, 8 x 9.6 x 1 inches $15 Buy a copy on AmazonThe Science Book is DK publishing’s “greatest hits” of science. Laid out chronologically and full of diagrams and photos, it gives you a coffee table book experience but in a manageable way. No book clocking in at 350-ish pages could be totally comprehensive, yet it includes most of the major scientific milestones from 600 BCE to today without being dry or overwhelming. I found that I was able to gain a better understanding of principles that I only marginally understood, like Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, which is clearly laid out in layman’s terms and with genuinely helpful visuals. Genetics is a particularly complicated topic that has always fascinated me, so I was especially drawn to the chapters that tackled it and found a diagram using bees to explain recessive traits to be one of my favorite features. The individual chapters are broken up into sections and use sidebars and trivia to keep things interesting, so no matter what topic you land on the information is always accessible. I haven’t read it cover to cover, but rather peruse whatever topic catches my eye and always find something I didn’t known before. Textbooks devoted to science have an unfortunate tendency to be dry and technical, so I am especially excited to share The Science Book with my son as he gets older, with the hope that it may help him develop a real interest in science and an appreciation of its value.– Amber Troska

Satellite data from the European Space Agency have revealed that the Earth’s magnetic poles are weakening, and doing so faster than scientists previously thought.From Mysterious Universe:Chris Finlay, one of the researchers with the ESA, says that this new data is groundbreaking in terms of how much it reveals about Earth’s magnetic field: "Swarm data are now enabling us to map detailed changes in Earth’s magnetic field, not just at Earth’s surface but also down at the edge of its source region in the core. Unexpectedly, we are finding rapid localized field changes that seem to be a result of accelerations of liquid metal flowing within the core."From ESA:Although invisible, the magnetic field and electric currents in and around Earth generate complex forces that have immeasurable effects on our everyday lives.The field can be thought of as a huge bubble, protecting us from cosmic radiation and electrically charged atomic particles that bombard Earth in solar winds. However, it is in a permanent state of flux.

Ben Krasnow of Applied Science demonstrates the tiny fingers of a piezoelectric motor. (Here's my interview with Ben from last year.)

Some Donald Trump supporters on 4chan--that time-honored bastion of gentility, courtesy, and sensibility-- hatched a plan on the forum to use sockpuppet Twitter accounts to pit Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton supporters against one other. The plan had a slogan: “Let’s troll Bernie and Hillary supporters systematically.” Their scheme didn’t really work, and has been removed from 4chan. But something like this could be effective in the future--and who knows, another instance of this same political game may be working elsewhere, undetected, right now. (more…)

"Liftblr" is the informal, amorphous community of shoplifters who post their hauls to Tumblr using pseudonymous accounts, offering each other support and encouragement. Most seem to be young women, and their community's discourse often circles back to class war, politics, gender and consumerism. (more…)

If you're an Amazon seller and you pay people to review your products on Amazon, the company may sue you. The online commerce giant sued three sellers today for using sockpuppet accounts to post glowing but phony product reviews. (more…)

Here's Brian Brushwood showing how to do a great mentalism trick. The effect: Brian explains to the spectator that a psychologist once taught him about a famous Robert Frost poem that, when recited, will force the person who hears it to imagine a specific playing card. Brian then recites the poem to the spectator and asks the spectator what card he thought of. Then Brian tells the spectator to do a YouTube search on the psychologist who told Brian about it. The spectator plays the video and the psychologist says the same card the spectator thought of.

Forthcoming game No Mans Sky promises players the experience of exploring a nigh-infinite universe of beautiful, dreamlike worlds. But its fans are far from serene. When a journalist reported a development delay, he was sent death threats--a black hole of rage that expanded to the game's creators when they confirmed the news. (more…)

Dave Maass from EFF says, "Right now, NIST researchers are working with the FBI to develop tattoo recognition technology that police can use to learn as much as possible about people through their tattoos. But an EFF investigation has found that these experiments exploit inmates, with little regard for the research's implications for privacy, free expression, religious freedom, and the right to associate. And so far, researchers have avoided ethical oversight while doing it." (more…)

Between cyber-thieves, government agencies and other shadowy forces, the Web is chock-full of malicious entities looking to co-opt your online data.The solution? A virtual private network (VPN), which helps you browse anonymously and secure your data. You can get one of PC Mag's best reviewed VPNs with Hotspot Shield Elite VPN, now only $39.99 for a premium subscription.Connect to one of Hotspot’s 20+ server locations around the world, and Shield Elite throws an immediate cover of security over all your Web activity. While you surf the Web, you’ll be able to hide your IP address, bypass Internet censorship, avoid malicious sites, and more.Whether you’re shopping online, watching video, or protecting your devices on public Wi-Fi, Hotspot Shield Elite offers full coverage at all times.At just $39.99 (or 59% off MSRP), that works out to full VPN coverage for a few cents a month - so grab this deal now.

Though there are important differences, the parallels between Reagan's political life and Trump's are downright chilling, from their media careers to the way that the press and their own party establishment viewed them. (more…)

Toby Morris (previously) uses animated gifs in his regular cartoon strip for a NZ website; this week, he writes, "I interviewed Hussam, a 16 year old Syrian refugee about how he escaped." (more…)

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[My friend Peter Sheridan is a Los Angeles-based correspondent for British national newspapers. He has covered revolutions, civil wars, riots, wildfires, and Hollywood celebrity misdeeds for longer than he cares to remember. As part of his job, he must read all the weekly tabloids. For the past couple of years, he's been posting terrific weekly tabloid recaps on Facebook and has graciously given us permission to run them on Boing Boing. Enjoy! - Mark]Prince Charles is now a serial killer. Having murdered Princess Diana, he recently ordered the assassination of his “secret daughter” who claimed to be next in line for the British throne. That’s the claim in this week’s Globe magazine, which having had fun for the past two years reporting on ”Sarah” - allegedly conceived in vitro by Charles and Diana during a pre-marital fertility test, and implanted by a devious doctor into his wife’s womb - has now killed her off.As if that wasn’t enough, the Globe declares that “Charles ordered her death.” Presumably because the Tooth Fairy was busy and the Easter Bunny doesn’t do contract hits on innocent women.There has never been a shred of evidence that the Globe’s mystery Sarah ever existed, let alone died. She appears to have been inspired by a 2011 novel The Disappearance of Olivia, which imagined a fictionalized child of Princess Diana’s growing up in Florida.Now - surprise, surprise - Sarah has disappeared while traveling on the Greek isle of Crete, and “a special tracking device she always kept hidden in her clothing” has stopped signaling.Let’s ignore for one moment that there are currently no reports of missing tourists on Crete, and the fact that the Globe wasn’t imaginative to dream up a tracking device embedded under Sarah’s skin rather than in clothing that is easily shed. Why, when Prince Charles' imaginary “secret daughter” fictionally disappears is she first assumed dead, and secondly presumed murdered on her father’s orders? The Globe has the answer: “She knew the truth about Princess’ death in Paris car wreck.” Right. If she ever existed as claimed, Sarah would have been 15 years old and living a life utterly unrelated to the British monarchy when Princess Diana died in 1997. How could she know the truth about anything happening within the Royal Family, let alone events one night in a tunnel in Paris? Perhaps she reads the tabloids - that’s clearly the best way to keep up with the truth about those dastardly Royals.The fate of Prince Charles’ secret daughter has as much of the ring of truth about it as many of the offerings in this week’s tabloids.Bill Cosby was “caught fleeing country!” screams the grammatically-challenged National Enquirer cover, detailing his “plot to escape justice.” But as the 78-year-old disgraced entertainer prepares to face his first criminal trial for sexual assault, the Enquirer claims he has “stashed millions overseas and has plotted his escape from America.” The evidence for this? Zero. It's just what “top law enforcement experts fear.” That should stand up in court.Charlie Sheen “moved to Mexico to satisfy his sick vices!” claims the Enquirer, which claims the actor has purchased a three-home waterfront estate for $1 million in Rosarito. Let’s get real: For Sheen a $15 million mansion would be moving to Mexico. A $1m estate? Just a vacation retreat.On the political front, Hillary Clinton is “freaked out . . . on booze and food binges as Feds expose her lies!” yells the Globe, which actually ran the same story last week with the throw-away line that Hillary is “hooked on pills” amid a larger rant about her physical and mental health. This week Hillary’s alleged predilection for prescription pills is front and center in yet another unsubstantiated attack by the Trump-loving tabloids that alleges: “People are very, very worried about her!” I’d be worried about her too, under all that assault by the tabloids.Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani “elope in Vegas!” says the Globe - except they haven’t. Demi Moore is “painfully thin” and “heading for a deadly collapse,” while Britain’s Princess Kate is being “eaten alive by stress,” claims the Enquirer, for whom being thin is always a life-threatening medical crisis, except when it’s a life-long aspiration.Fortunately we have the crack investigative team from Us magazine to tell us that Kate Hudson wore it best, Paula Abdul believes in UFOs, Roselyn Sanchez carries keys, Chapstick and mascara in her handbag, and the stars are just like us: they drink iced coffee, have facials and walk their dogs - revelations that will doubtless touch many readers and change their lives forever.The “toxic marriage” and “nasty divorce” of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard dominates the covers of People magazine and Us mag respectively. Both promise the "inside story,” but fail to deliver. People mag claims that Depp is possessive, while Heard is freedom-loving, evidently a synonym for screwing around, though she insists she was always faithful. Us mag merely reports the he-said/she-said clash: Heard’s allegations of physical and emotional abuse by Depp, and his army of friends insisting that’s not the gentle peace-loving Caribbean Pirate they all know and love.None of this will matter soon if the National Examiner is right in reporting: “Darth Vader’s Death Star Ready To Attack Earth!” Evidently Saturn’s moon Iapetus bears an uncanny resemblance to Star Wars’ Death Star, complete with a giant crater that looks like the deep-space battle-station's planet-destroying weapon. Photos of Iapetus were taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in 2004, so presumably the Examiner’s scientific team has spent the past 12 years analyzing the images before reaching this devastating conclusion. While conceding that Darth Vader and Imperial Stormtroopers “may not” be living within Iapetus, the mag’s crack reporting team found someone on a UFO web site willing to speculate that “Iapetus is a constructed object, it’s artificial.” And that must mean it has weapons pointed at Earth, because aliens (who say they believe in Paul Abdul, too.)Onwards and downwards . . .

In this presentation from Freedom of the Press Foundation director Trevor Timm talks about what we can do to protect the next generation of whistleblowers. (more…)

When you sign a publishing deal, the contract spells out different royalty rates for different kinds of commercial activity; you get so much every time a copy is sold, and significantly more from every licensing deal for the book. (more…)

Noah Diamond is a Groucho Marx impersonator, actor and singer whose obsession with the Marx Brothers led him, along with his wife, the director Amanda Sisk, to research "I'll Say She Is," a Marx Brothers stage musical that ran to rave reviews in 1924/5 and has not been mounted since. (more…)

Follow @RubenBolling on Twitter and Facebook.Please join Tom the Dancing Bug's subscription club, the INNER HIVE, for early access to comics, and more. And/or buy Ruben Bolling’s new book series for kids, The EMU Club Adventures. Book One here. Book Two here. More Tom the Dancing Bug comics on Boing Boing! (more…)

If you liked Rick Remender's Fear Agent, you'll love his pulpy, break-neck paced, dimension hopping adventure Black Science. [caption id="attachment_464537" align="alignright" width="300"] via Comic Book Resources[/caption]Anarchist scientist Grant McKay has created a device that allows travel between alternate universes! The hope is that his team, comprised of other scientists and his family, will find great advancements in science, and medicine, the sad reality is that McKay's anarchist ways have sent them careening through time and space. Volume one is packed with non-stop action, creepy aliens, and amazingly retro-themed artwork by Matt Scalera and Illustrator Dean White. Black Science reminds me a lot of Lost in Space meets Time Tunnel. The series has a strong feeling of those old 1960s space dramas, and Saturday morning cartoons, but with an updated, adult story. CBR did a great interview with Rick Remender, and shares additional art work.Black Science, Vol 1 by Remender, Scalera, and White via Amazon

Mapchart makes it possible to create maps of the world, of Europe, of the Americas and elsewhere with custom colors, captions and descriptions. For example, here is a map of America that I have made.

David from Atheist shoes (previously) sez, "We've just been successful in raising money for the first Atheist Shoes Missionary Mobile Shoe Shop, which will criss-cross the USA, selling handmade shoes and spreading our European message of godless comfort and joy. The fund-raising is ongoing, as we aim to get a whole fleet of buses on the road. The first US tour begins in September 2016, and will take in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and Texas." (more…)

While recently wallowing in nostalgic thoughts about Cracker Jack I began Googling other types of candy of which I had fond memories as a kid.That was a bad idea because I found exactly what I was looking for and am in line to gain several pounds when my box-o-heaven arrives this week.This itch has needed a scratch since my friend Jim Steinmyer took me to Galco’s in Los Angeles a few months ago. The place looks like it was an old supermarket at one time, but now it houses aisle upon aisle of soft drinks (including a mix-your-own soda bar with lots of syrups — I made a toasted coconut marshmallow creme soda and it was fabulouso, and even better: you’re making it in glass bottles).Most of its business is in a million different types of soda, but off on the left side wall is an enormous amount of retro candy with lots of stuff I hadn’t seen for many decades.Galco’s has a website but it’s primitive and online ordering isn’t quite organized yet — you’ll get a much better idea of the place from the reviews on Yelp, which wax rhapsodic at length about the wonders to be found in the aisles.https://youtu.be/HaVyrQ5YjhY From the Galco web site:Devoted to the art of soda pop and supporting the small businesses behind each bubbly drink, Galco’s Soda Pop Stop features more than 700 flavors of soda at its Los Angeles storefront. Beginning in 1897 as an Italian grocery store, Galco’s changed “flavors” when son John F. Nese took helm of his father’s store in 1995 and lined the shelves with classic, small-batch, exotic and hard-to-find sodas. With a mission to support small soda makers, Galco’s motto is “Freedom of Choice” which mirrors Nese’s determination that customers have the right to choose from more than just a handful of mass-produced, big-business selections.I tried a soda whose name has intrigued me for years: Moxie, the first carbonated bottled beverage in the U.S circa 1887. I had seen the name many times in old newspaper articles and books and assumed that it had gone the way of the dodo. But, there it was on the shelf at Galco’s, and I’m here to tell you that it tastes like bitter crap. If you want to make someone gag, this will do it.Moxie has a very fine website which gives a full history of the drink’s triumphs and travails … who knew? Back in the 1920s, of every feisty kid it was said, “He’s got moxie!” The soda was so popular it entered pop vocab. But it tastes like hell … can’t figure that out. You can read more about the taste of Moxie (the reaction of one drinker was “Blech”!) on this very funny blog where it is deemed to be “a flavor for the few.” Sorry: got sidetracked. What I really want to write about is CANDY.CANDY CANDY CANDY.At the age of 7 I began getting an allowance: 25 cents a week, always given on Friday evening. On Saturday morning I was up with the birdies watching TV, and by about noon (after my weekly dose of Davey and Goliath, Colonel Bleep, Space Ghost, Underdog, Atom Ant, The Flintstones, the Beatles, and Frankenstein, Jr. … and if I got really lucky, Milton the Monster).I put my clothes on and (by myself, mind you) went off to the local candy store on Queens Boulevard to spend that coin burning a hole in my pocket. Unless you’re well on your way to geezerdom like me, you’ll find it hard to believe that for 25 cents you could buy a comic book (12 cents), a candy bar (5 cents), and a small toy of some sort with the remaining 8 cents. As my allowance increased in coming years, Famous Monsters of Filmland and Monster Times were added to my Saturday haul of goodies.Aside: when I went to elementary school, they let us out for lunch. Yeah, really hard to believe, I know. So off we ran to the pizzeria about a block away. I got a quarter every day for lunch and it broke down exactly this way — 2 slices of pizza at 10 cents each, and a large grape drink for a nickel. I remember the unusual taste of the oregano on this particular joint’s pizza to this day.Okay: Nickle Nips, Zero Bars, Clark Bars, Lemonheads, Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy (only chocolate), candy buttons and necklaces, Twizzlers (only grape or chocolate), Chocolate Babies, Gold Rush bubble gum, MALLO CUPS, Regal Crown Sour hard candies, Scooter Pies (made by Burrys), Skybar, Razzles, and right into the zing of a happy Saturday afternoon sugar coma.It seems, in the end, that I have not written much about retro candy. It’s all too overwhelming to think about, and I have ordered about a hundred bucks worth of stuff from oldtimecandy.com, which should be your destination. The prices are good and they have an enormous selection.Pigging out and signing off. Chomp.

Being a lame duck President nearing the end of your term, your thoughts probably turn to what the hell you’re going to do after eight years in the White House. Someone on Barak Obama’s staff probably told him it’s time to loosen up and show folks who he really is. A little late, but what the heck.Fresh from his stint at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner where he did standup comedy that eclipsed host Larry Wilmore (sorry, Larry), Obama and staff have now released a very funny video with some great self-deprecating humor and one genuinely surprising guest. Don’t ruin the fun for your friends by giving anything away, just tell them to watch this.

In 1919, Ohio businessman Arthur Nash decided to run his clothing factory according to the Golden Rule and treat his workers the way he'd want to be treated himself. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll visit Nash's “Golden Rule Factory” and learn the results of his innovative social experiment.We'll also marvel at metabolism and puzzle over the secrets of Chicago pickpockets.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon!

The origin story of Children of Earth and Sky, my current novel, begins with my Croatian editor being the first person ever to tell me about the Uskoks of Senj. He did that as we approached where their stronghold had once been on the Dalmatian coast (the Uskoks are long gone now, a small tourist town remains). I told that road trip story here and another version of the origin story here. By the time I came, many years later, to write a book taking off from that anecdote, the tale did not involve Uskoks, or the Dalmatian Coast. Nor was it formally about the aftermath of the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, or the Holy Roman Empire, the Republics of Venice or Dubrovnik. And Senj had become Senjan.Close, but…I do this all the time. A modus operandi by now. Nearly our known history, but not quite. A ‘spin’ on the past, or a ‘quarter turn to the fantastic’, as one reviewer called it.Provence becomes Arbonne in my novels; Al-Andalus, Al-Rassan; Byzantium, Sarantium; China’s Tang Dynasty morphs into Kitai’s Ninth…I’ve written over the years about how this approach evolved, what underlies it, but just about every interviewer, for print or pixel, on stage or on air asks again, and it reminds me that just because you’ve said something somewhere, it doesn’t mean everyone (or even most people!) will have seen it. I can feel over-identified with certain topics, and a large majority haven’t a clue I’ve said a word about them! It is a corrective. A comment on the nature of our world.So, on the eve of a new book’s release, as that journey from Senj to Senjan leads to Children of Earth and Sky, it seems proper to address the ‘why’ of such a journey. Why isn’t the book set in a ‘real’ place, in our own Europe? Why do I have Seressa instead of Venice and Batiara for Italy? Why a rebel leader named Skandir, instead of Albania’s great Skanderbeg, who inspired my character?There are a multiplicity of reasons by now. But here’s a caveat: be skeptical when writers present intuitive processes as thought-out planning. This was an evolution for me, not a strategic concept. I discovered what I was doing, and why it worked for me. I didn’t lay it out in advance.It largely started at the beginning of the 1990s with A Song For Arbonne. (Tigana, the book that came before, was far more loosely tied to real places and events.) For Arbonne, I read widely in the poems and the lives (as we know them) of the troubadours, and in the history of the Albigensian Crusade and the ‘Courts of Love’ of medieval Provence.I emerged with a number of thoughts, some of them about how the role and status of women in the west took a turn with the conquest of Provence, and how a great deal of political history might also have also done so. I invented troubadours inspired by a few of the real ones, and then I reversed the result of that ‘crusade’ down the Rhone valley. There is almost nothing of the fantastical in the book, the idea of magic is treated as a false, cynical ‘tool’ of organized faiths to frighten and control people. I sharpened the male-female aspect by offering a northern sun god and a goddess in the religion of the south.And I found that I liked what all this allowed me to do. I could work with history but tighten focus on themes. I could have my characters do and think and be what I wanted them to, because they were not the real people. Readers who knew the history would see the riffing involved, those who didn’t would either not miss it or - a bonus, for me - might be moved to do some non-fiction reading of their own, after. (And I always include starter bibliographies.) The historical reversal in Arbonne embodied a thought-experiment. I tried to do it lightly, to let the reader go as far as he or she wanted down that road. If they preferred to just treat the book as a tale … well, each reader makes the book they read. (That’s another essay.) With Lions of Al-Rassan, which followed, new elements came in. This time my research led me to Rodrigo Diaz (El Cid), probably the most potent figure in Spanish history, mythic or real. The intellectual battle as to which of those he really was, and to what degree, lasted well into the 20th century and was bound up in the politics of and after the Spanish Civil War. I also discovered ibn Ammar, the great courtier-poet of Al-Andalus, and I found in my research, to my great delight (it shaped a novel) that these two extraordinary men appeared to have been exiled in the same year by different kings to the same place. Not such a big city, very prominent men, they’d have to have met, I thought. But I realized that I did not want to treat history and real lives as if my own ‘have to have met’ idea was a truth. I didn’t want to set about giving real men invented personalities, relationships, desires and thoughts I imposed on them. And yes of course ‘imposed’ is a loaded word, and yes many brilliant books have been written that do exactly this. I didn’t want to do it that way, though. I saw, for myself, a different approach to the process. Perhaps (probably?) it was because I had begun as a published writer with a traditional fantasy years before, but the creative avenue I was seeing, along with the opportunities it afforded, kept suggesting this quarter-turn to me. I made the setting for that book Al-Rassan, not the actual Al-Andalus. I had characters evoking the two lions I’d researched (and other real figures, too) but clearly not them. I invented a female physician. There were historical parallels, and I let my setting give me license to push her a little further. And - perhaps most of all for this book - I changed the three religions of our history. I wanted to explore interactions not ideologies. To see if the hint of the fantastic allowed me to detach readers somewhat from assumptions, prejudices. If the twist of the fantastic could become a tool serving the emerging heart of the novel: the way in which holy war can destroy the space in which men and women - even powerful ones - might move, and shape their own lives and relationships. It was with Lions that I started to clearly see - and begin to speak about - the strengths of fiction done as near-history as opposed to history. One aspect of this that resonated strongly for me was how it displayed (I dared hope) respect for the real people behind a story. I was inspired by them, not pretending to assume psychological awareness of them. With a figure like El Cid, still so powerful for a culture, it seemed proper to work this way, and it became liberating, too. Then, just as I’d reversed the Albigensian Crusade in the previous book, I telescoped the Reconquista in Lions. The tragedy of a culture’s demise could play out in one or two generations in a novel, not over hundreds of years. Sharpening the focus, again. I was learning the sorts of things I could do with this approach. I suppose I’ve never looked back. The Sarantine Mosaic added elements to the concept, as I began to think more formally now, and write about these issues, especially the idea of not using real people in fiction.The Mosaic pair was where I pushed the idea hardest, perhaps, that my characters and setting are modeled on our world’s, but not identical. Justinian and Theodora’s Constantinople, the building of Hagia Sophia, and Justinian’s Italian Wars … All these were recognizable, but altered, because the books are about Sarantium, not Byzantium, and I had thoughts I wanted to develop and explore that way. About Procopius the historian, about the writers of history, chroniclers and artists, about those artists and the powerful, about Yeats, about random events that can change the world (that’s a recurring motif for me). I had come to realize that this quarter-turn gave me a remarkable degree of freedom in a book. I gained the ability to comment on, interact with, real history. It felt empowering, while retaining the core idea of preserving respect for real lives. Also, on a very basic level - but one that matters if you want to keep readers turning pages - this shift from following the events of history means that even if a reader knows the real story of what happened, he or she cannot be sure they know where the novel they are reading is going. This is, I have often said, a gift to both writer and reader. As a result, by the time I wrote Last Light of the Sun, and then two novels inspired by Tang and Song Dynasty China, I’d had years of thinking about these issues, seeing and shaping ways in which I could add to the concepts, even comment on my earlier work. Ysabel had offered another way to comment on history, but is an exception for me, taking place in our modern world, in the south of France: a book that insisted on being written when we returned to Provence after a decade away. It had not been the project I went there to write. Sometimes that happens. So, briefly told, these are some of the strengths I see in quarter turns. There are also downsides, or risks, to how I work, and I’d be remiss to overlook them. Readers will never learn the year of the Treaty of Utrecht in my novels. They will not assuage any desire to ‘learn the real facts’ about a specific period, the way they might while reading a straightforward historical fiction. Of course those ‘facts’ might have been altered by the author, sometimes significantly. On a mundane level, we readers like categories. Bookstores certainly do, including online ones. If my work slips back and forth between historical fiction and fantasy with themes of today … shelving gets challenging, marketing does. Even labelling does. One agent said to me long ago, ‘Write me a straight historical and watch the advance we get, how many copies we can get sold for you!’ He may have even been right. I’m not certain, but he was a commercial agent and he was referring to exactly this border-blurring aspect of how I write, this challenge to pinning the books down. In the end, I knew then (and still know) that I was a stubborn prairie boy who enjoyed what I did too much, that I saw (and still see) too many strengths emerging from this approach. And I’m reassured, over a great many years now, by so many loyal, thoughtful, ‘I get it’ readers around the world and in many languages. I carried on back then. I still am. This has laid out out some of the reasons, for those coming late, or just trying to sort through for themselves why Senj becomes Senjan.

Rare footage of Elizabeth II meeting Marilyn Monroe emerged from the archives. (more…)

Claire Hentschker's virtual reality trip through The Shining is even more unsettling than it sounds: thirty minutes of scenes from the movie extruded into 3D, so you can look around in all directions as the camera slowly takes you along. Yet the models are all incomplete, taken as they are from Kubrick's footage, leaving the impression of looking into the Overlook and its surrounds from a timeless, warped, supernatural viewpoint. Which is to say: it's perfect.Shining360 is a 30-minute audio-visual experiment for VR derived from the physical space within Stanley Kubrick’s film ‘The Shining.' Using photogrammetry, 3D elements are extracted and extruded from the original film stills, and the subsequent fragments are stitched together and viewed along the original camera path.Many thanks to the Studio for Creative Inquiry. All content derived from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining

If you believe something is bad because it is…bad, or that something is good because, well, it’s good, you probably wouldn’t use that kind of reasoning in an argument – yet, sometimes, without realizing it, that’s exactly what you do.If you think eating shrimp is immoral, you might defend that viewpoint by saying, “People shouldn’t eat shrimp because eating shrimp is unethical.” Ok, yes, got it, but you just looped back around without defending your original assertion. We are going to need to hear some justification for your views on morality.Likewise, when explaining why something is true, we often unwittingly provide false clarity. For instance, you might read something like, “Human beings enjoy looking at each other’s butts because we evolved to appreciate healthy backsides.” Broken down, this is just a rephrasing of, “People like butts because people like butts.” There’s no answer here, no cause to the effect, no argument for or against, no explanation for why the observable is observable.So why do we do this, and why don’t we notice it when other people do it?In this episode, three experts in logic and rationality will explain how circular reasoning leads us to “beg the question” when producing arguments and defending our ideas, beliefs, and behaviors. You will also learn how to identify, defend against, and avoid begging the question, or restating your beliefs without arguing for or against them.This episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast is the sixth in a full season of episodes exploring logical fallacies. The first episode is here.Download – iTunes – Stitcher – RSS – SoundcloudThis episode is brought to you by the MIT Press, publishing Marc Wittmann’s Felt Time The Psychology of How We Perceive Time. Read more about Felt Time and a few other new science, philosophy, language, and technology titles at mitpress.com/smart.This episode of You Are Not So Smart is also brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one platform that makes it fast and easy to create you own professional website or online portfolio. For a free trial and 10 percent off go to Squarespace.com and use the offer code SOSMART.This episode is also sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Get unlimited access to a huge library of The Great Courses lecture series on many fascinating subjects. Start FOR FREE with The Fundamentals of Photography filmed in partnership with The National Geographic and taught by professional photographer Joel Sartore. Click here for a FREE TRIAL.Support the show directly by becoming a patron! Get episodes one-day-early and ad-free. Head over to the YANSS Patreon Page for more details.Bob Blaskiewicz is an assistant professor who teaches, among other subjects, critical thinking at Stockton University. He also writes about logic and reasoning at skepticalhumanities.com, and is a regular guest on the YouTube show The Virtual Skeptics.Julie Galef is the president and co-founder of the Center for Applied Rationality, a non-profit devoted to training people to be better at reasoning and decision-making. She is also the host of the Rationally Speaking Podcast and writes for publications like Slate, Science, Scientific American, and Popular Science. This is her website.Vanessa Hill is an Australian science writer and stop-motion animator who hosts BrainCraft, a PBS series exploring psychology, neuroscience and human behavior. She previously worked for Australia’s national science agency, as a science reporter for ScienceAlert, and has appeared in TIME, The Huffington Post, Scientific American, and Brain Pickings. Her Twitter page is here.In every episode, after I read a bit of self delusion news, I taste a cookie baked from a recipe sent in by a listener/reader. That listener/reader wins a signed copy of my new book, “You Are Now Less Dumb,” and I post the recipe on the YANSS Pinterest page. This episode’s winner is Nimi who sent in a recipe for coconut slice and bake cookies. Send your own recipes to david {at} youarenotsosmart.com.Links and SourcesDownload – iTunes – Stitcher – RSS – SoundcloudPrevious EpisodesBoing Boing PodcastsCookie RecipesThe History of Begging the Question at Language LogBrainCraftCenter for Applied RationalitySkeptical Humanities Your Logical Fallacy IsPBS Idea ChannelA Guide to Logical FallaciesImage Source – iStockPhoto

When John Oliver revealed that Donald Trump's family name had been changed from "Drumpf" and called on America to #makedonalddrumpfagain, it provided a handy hook for a way of talking about the orange one's micron-thick layer of slickness and the everyday rot within it. (more…)

When Marc Edwards was a young Virginia tech engineer, he landed a job with Cadmus Group, an EPA subcontractor who'd been hired to investigate problems with the DC water-supply, but when he discovered a lead contamination crisis and refused to stop talking about it, he was fired. (more…)

Trick out your Mac with an 8-pack of handy Mac apps in this World Class Mac Bundle, now going for over 90% off in the Boing Boing Store.From creative tools to organizational aids, these apps will not only power your projects, but get your Mac running as efficiently as you do.Here's what's in your bundle:Data Rescue 4: Recover data after a hard drive crash or OS reinstallation.Hype 3.5: Animation made easy for videos or websites.Freeway Pro 7: Drag-and-drop website creation, no coding needed.Painter Essentials 5: Sketch or paint with this effect palette.uBar 3: Customize your Mac dock.iStat Menus 5: Real-time Mac system stats right on your Menu bar.Dropzone 3: Supercharge your desktop's drag-and-drop capabilities.Xee 3: A powerful image manager and organizer app.Normally, this app bundle would retail for over $400, so grab this deal now at an over 90% savings.

The folks at Dremel have been featuring different makers, and this month they asked me to be their Dremel Maker. I was happy to do it because I've been using a Dremel Moto-Tool since I was 12.I participated in a Facebook Q&A, offered some tips on Twitter, and made a ukulele from scratch. To make it, referred to the free plans for the acoustic travel uke, available from Circuits and Strings. Here are my build notes. This could be a fun family project.As much as possible, I like to use materials I already have at home. For the neck, I used a piece of wood that was destined for the recycling bin. I'm glad I didn't toss it out. I think it is pine, but I'm not sure. It's 1.5 inches wide, .075 inches high, and two feet long. I cut the end as shown, and glued another cut piece to same end, using wood glue. I clamped it and let it set while I went to work on the rest of the uke.I bought a 6-pack of 6 x 12 x 0.125 inch plywood on Amazon for $11. I used it for the body of the guitar and the fretboard. How did I know how to space the frets? I just held another uke against the new fretboard and marked the spacing with a pencil. If you don't have a uke on hand, here's a fret spacing calculator. Using a square - like the one shown - against a piece of wood's factory edge is a good way to ensure parallel and perpendicular lines.You can see that I used square toothpicks for frets. They work great, and are easier than fret wire. I removed the protruding ends with nail clippers and rounded them with my Moto-Tool.Here's a photo of the freshly glued frets and how I clamped them for drying.The body is made from the same craft plywood. At first I tried to make a square body but then I realized it would be too short for the bridge. This was one of many mistakes I made along the way. I ended up making a rectangular body. The cut-out on the left is for the neck.When gluing the body together, I used a bunch of scrap pieces of wood with right angles for bracing.Instead of regular tuners, I used zither tuning pegs. C.B Gitty sells a 4-pack for $4.19. (Don't forget to buy a tuning key!)Here's a block of wood glued to the inside of the body for the zither pegs to fit into.Back to the neck: I used a rasp to quickly round the edges of the neck, followed by sandpaper. I made a bridge with a few scrap pieces of plywood glued together and shaped it with the Moto-Tool.After gluing the neck and body together, I painted a geometric fireball on the front. I then sprayed many coats of acrylic sealer on the uke, then strung it. Here's the finished instrument (see if you can spot the glaring mistake):If I make another one like this. I'm going to use regular tuning pegs. It's a bit of a hassle using the zither key to tune the ukuele.Here's a sample of the sound. (It sounds better than I can play.):[audio mp3="http://media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/fireball-uke.mp3"][/audio]Many thanks to Dremel for sponsoring me on this build!

The queen of the world's first mega-sized “prosperity gospel” empire has died. (more…)

Researchers are starting to think that Alzheimer’s disease could be caused by microbial infections that cause plaque to form in the brain. This opens the possibility for a vaccination against Alzheimer's.Support for the immune defence idea comes from work by Jacobus Jansen of Maastricht University in the Netherlands. Using MRI brain scans, his team has found that people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease have more permeable blood-brain barriers, suggesting that they may have developed the disease because their brains were more vulnerable to attack. “The microbe hypothesis seems plausible,” says Jansen.If infectious agents are kicking off the formation of plaques, then vaccines could head them off. “You could vaccinate against those pathogens, and potentially prevent this problem arising later in life,” says Moir.If many microbes are involved, immunising against them all will be hard, says Jansen. “But if the frequency of certain pathogens is quite high, there might be a possibility.”In the meantime, don't get a brain infection.

Absolutely beautiful. (Thanks Randy!)

The SkinGun, announced today, was developed by RenovaCare to spray autologous (self-donated) stem cells on patients with chronic wounds and burns.For patients suffering severe burns and other wounds, the prospect of a quick-healing, gentle spray containing their own stem cells will be a promising alternative to conventional skin graft surgery, which can be painful, prone to complications, and slow-to-heal. Based on preliminary case studies, CellMist System patients can be treated within 90 minutes of arriving in an emergency room; a patient’s stem cells are isolated, processed, and sprayed on to wound sites for rapid healing. Preliminary investigational use in Europe and the United States indicate the potential efficacy and safety of RenovaCare’s technologies. Clinical observations point to the potential for regeneration of new skin in as little as four days, rather than the many weeks of painful and risky recovery required by traditional skin graft techniques.

If you are anything like me, at all, you frequently wonder what happened next to Jack Burton and the rest of the Big Trouble in Little China gang? John Carpenter, Eric Powell, and Brian Churilla's Big Trouble in Little China graphic novels tell the tale!I've just started reading these BTiLC graphic novels, they pick up right where the movie left off. I could not be happier! The humor, the characters and the artwork are exactly what I'd have hoped for, if I had any idea these books were being published!You can get the first 3 volumes now, volume 4 is available for pre-order, and releases later this year.Big Trouble in Little China Vol. 1 via AmazonBig Trouble in Little China Vol. 2 via AmazonBig Trouble in Little China Vol. 3 via AmazonBig Trouble In Little China Vol. 4 via Amazon

This satisfying new video from the Crazy Russian Hacker reminds me of Harold E. Edgerton's iconic "Bullet through Apple" photo from 1964, seen below.

Is your David action figure lonely? Get him some much-needed companionship with this poseable Vitruvian Man, which comes "with a movable strut that makes it possible to recreate various scenes." (more…)

Lawyer-turned-data-scientist David Colarusso analyzed 2.2 million sentencing records from Virginia to determine the relationship between race, income and treatment in the criminal justice system. (more…)

The Kiwi Cafe, a vegan restaurant in Tiblisi, the capital of the eastern former Soviet republic of Georgia, was attacked by a mob of jeering, violent men who threw meat at the patrons and shouted, resulting in a brawl. (more…)