Sovereign immunity prevents one government from using its courts to attack another, but Chinese state-backed industries are taking it to new places, arguing that sovereign immunity means that the US courts have no jurisdiction over Chinese companies whose products are harmful or whose conduct is negligent -- and US courts are buying that argument. (more…)

Chelsea Clinton's husband Marc Mezvinsky is a Goldman Sachs alumnus; in 2014, he founded Hellenic Opportunity, a hedge fund that raised $25M to bet on distressed assets from Greece's collapsed economy, wagering that the country's investors would force it to make deeper cuts to finance payments on the debts. (more…)

George Zimmerman, acquitted in 2013 of murdering Trayvon Martin, plans to auction the gun he used to kill the unarmed teen. The proceeds will be used to "fight violence against Law Enforcement officers" by black activists, Zimmerman says."I am honored and humbled to announce the sale of an American Firearm Icon," he wrote in the description of the gun used to kill the unarmed, black teenager. "The firearm for sale is the firearm that was used to defend my life and end the brutal attack from Trayvon Martin on 2/26/2012.""He wrote that the proceeds will be used to "fight [Black Lives Matter] violence against Law Enforcement officers" and to "ensure the demise of Angela Correy's persecution career and Hillary Clinton's anti-firearm rhetoric," though he hasn't expounded upon how.Zimmerman pursued Martin after finding the 17-year-old's presence in his Florida neighborhood "suspicious," then shot him dead during the resulting confrontation. Martin was visiting a family member who lived nearby; Jurors acquitted Zimmerman after finding that the 200lb Zimmerman was "standing his ground" against the boy, who was black. Zimmerman's last effort to court controversy was his sale of a painting of the Confederate battle flag.

Since its inception as a 2012 Kickstarter, the Reading With Pictures project has gone from strength to strength, culminating in a gorgeous, attractively produced hardcover graphic anthology of delightful comic stories that slot right into standard curriculum in science, math, social studies and language arts. (more…)

Remember those funny atheist protest ads mocking a Noah’s Ark-themed amusement park being built in Williamstown, Kentucky? Two billboard companies with no sense of humor have refused to run the atheist group's funny ads ridiculing The Ark Encounter. (more…)

Henry Mancini's "Pink Panther Theme" (1963) reworked into a major key would make a good soundtrack for a bad 1960s sitcom. (Major vs Minor, via Digg) (more…)

See sample pages from this book at Wink.Deceptive Desserts: A Lady's Guide to Baking Bad!by Christine McConnellRegan Arts2016, 288 pages, 8 x 10 x 1 inches $19 Buy a copy on AmazonTake a ripened crafter, mix in a pinch of YouTube lessons on cake decorating, blend that with a humorous fascination with the macabre, and you’ve got Christine McConnell’s new cookbook, Deceptive Desserts. (more…)

Who were the Harvey Girls, and what were the Harvey Houses in which they worked? It's actually more innocent than it sounds, as Hunter Oatman-Stanford explains in his latest piece at Collectors Weekly. The Harvey Houses were a series of eateries and hotels run by a British ex-pat named Fred Harvey alongside the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad tracks that ran from Chicago to Los Angeles. The Girls were women from the East Coast and Midwest, imported to replace the local, often uncouth male waiters in towns like Raton and Belen, New Mexico. Together, the Girls and the dining establishments they worked in lent an air of respectability to the still-wild American Southwest at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, as Hunter learned when he spoke to Richard Melzer, author of Fred Harvey Houses of the Southwest. Here's a snip from the article:In 1883, Harvey had decided to fire the rowdy male waiters at his restaurant in Raton, New Mexico, and hire respectable young women in their place. Customers responded so positively to the female staff that Harvey began replacing all of his company’s male servers, advertising for women employees in newspapers throughout the Midwestern and Eastern states.Unlike much of the Eastern United States, in small Western outposts, it was acceptable for single young women to work and live away from their parents — though they were often stigmatized as being prostitutes or sexually promiscuous. “The Harvey Company called its servers ‘Harvey Girls’ — not waitresses — because the term waitress had a bad connotation: It was linked to the saloon girls,” who were viewed as bawdy and indecent, Melzer says. “Fred Harvey didn’t want customers thinking there were saloon girls at his restaurants, and he certainly couldn’t recruit respectable women to work there if they thought they’d be working in a saloon-like atmosphere.” To ensure there’d be no confusion, the Harvey Girls were always attired in a conservative black-and-white uniform, just one of many strict job requirements.Harvey had no trouble finding suitable young women, despite the perception that the Wild West would scare them off. In fact, many women jumped at the opportunity for economic independence, adventure, and travel in an era when their prospects were greatly limited. “A lot of them came for the chance to see a different part of the country,” Melzer says. “After six months at a Harvey House, you could be transferred, so even if you started in a small place like Belen, New Mexico, you might eventually get to Santa Fe or to the Grand Canyon. Others came for the money, hoping to send it home to their families, save for their education, or maybe open a business themselves someday.”However, many took jobs with the Fred Harvey Company for a more traditional reason: The high ratio of single men to single women meant they had great prospects for meeting potential husbands. Yet even with such a goal in mind, women who moved west were often required to step out of their traditional roles simply to survive.

[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]How sick do you have to be to love celebrity magazines?People mag this week boasts ads promising to treat migraine, lung cancer, psoriasis, exocrine pancreatic deficiency, irritable bowel syndrome, aging, protein deficiency, blisters, allergies, pneumococcal disease and clogged nasal pores. Presumably the advertisers know their audience.Yet the mag also seems intent on hurrying readers to an early grave with artery-clogging recipes for mustard barbecue ribs and grilled corn with cheese and cayenne, along with ads for cherry and chocolate s’mores, fudge stripe cookies and caramel macchiato.When Us magazine insists that the stars are just like us - this week they walk their dogs, slurp soup and buy in bulk - it doesn’t mention that they’re also fighting depression and chugging diet pills, both of which are advertised in its pages.But if you’re not already sick, this week’s tabloids will get you there.Ten pages jam-packed with Bill Clinton’s alleged mistresses, sex harassment victims and even discredited accusers fill the National Enquirer, which explains “Why Hillary can never be president” because “she covered up predator Bill’s sex crimes.”It’s a claim that bears consideration, but the Enquirer’s full-nuclear-option attack listing Bill Clinton's 36 alleged victims and “Hillary’s decades of terror and threats against women” may seem just a mite politically motivated. Especially when followed by a spread headlined: “We’re backing Donald all the way!” in which “ex-wives Ivana and Marla reveal why Trump’s the only man for the White House.” Because he’s done so much to advance women’s rights, one assumes.How sick must you be to believe the Enquirer’s “world exclusive” claiming that Tom Cruise has not seen ten-year-old daughter Suri since September 2013 because he “has been brainwashed into believing that an ‘evil spirit’ is controlling his innocent little girl”? What the Enquirer actually means is that Cruise hasn’t been photographed in public with Suri in three years, which isn’t exactly the same as not seeing his daughter. But as the Enquirer will tell you, if they don’t see it, it never happened. (And if they report it, it probably never happened either.)It’s a similar logic that has the Enquirer show a photo of Drew Barrymore, freshly split from husband Will Kopelman, in a baggy sweater which prompts an “insider” to say: “It looks like she has a baby bump!” Let’s get this straight: a Kalahari tribesman could look at this photo and say: “It looks like she has a baby bump!” It’s a baggy sweater, fer cryin’ out loud. We don’t need an “insider” to speculate on why an actress wears loose-fitting clothing. An “insider” would actually know. And the Enquirer simply doesn’t, which is par for the course.Beyonce “is rocketing toward a blockbuster $1 billion divorce” from husband Jay Z, claims the Globe, flying in the face of all evidence that she has overcome whatever concerns she may have had over her husband’s alleged infidelity. The Globe also claims that Ted Kennedy’s first wife Joan is writing a “deathbed tell-all,” “feverishly scribbling page after page during the wee hours of the night in a race against time.” A “deathbed” normally conjures up images of hospital ventilators, intravenous drips and painkillers, but evidently to the Globe it means writing long into the night. Which naturally gives the Globe carte blanche to dredge up every Kennedy clan scandal it can think of, because speculation is always more interesting than reality.Kelly Ripa tells “My side of the story” in People magazine, revealing her shock at co-host Michael Strahan’s departure from TV show Live, and I really couldn’t care less.Us magazine brings us Prince’s “final days” hiding his prescription pill addiction from loved ones, and “his last-ditch plea for help.” But that’s just wishful headline writing: Us mag’s story reveals no last-ditch plea for help by the rocker - it was worried aides who called an addiction specialist, and Prince’s lawyer confirms that “the hope was to get him stabilized . . . and convince him” to go to a rehab clinic. Fortunately we have Us mag’s crack investigative team to tell us that Lily Aldridge (Who she, Ed?) wore it best, Caitriona Balfe (Seriously, who she - Ed?) carries mascara, highlighter and an In-N-Out Burger gift card in her Miu Miu satchel, Trevor Noah admits “I love cuddling,” and that Kim Kardashian had an epiphany on her recent trip to Cuba: “Living in the moment having no phone service was so amazing!” If a visit to Cuba stops her posting relentless selfies, I for one would happily donate generously to a fund to keep her there.The ever-optimistic National Examiner reveals details of a “secret” White House economic analysis which foresees “a new Great Depression within months or even weeks,” with U.S. unemployment hitting 40 per cent, average annual salaries dropping to less than $10,000 and uncontrolled inflation. I can’t imagine why the Wall Street Journal hasn’t picked up on this yet.Onwards and downwards . . .

I appeared on the O'Reilly Hardware Podcast this week (MP3, talking about the way that DRM has crept into all our smart devices, which compromises privacy, security and competition. (more…)

For his project Velocipedia, artist/designer Gianluca Gimini asked friends and strangers to draw a men's bicycle from memory. Then he digitally mocked up the designs. Gimini writes:Soon I found out that when confronted with this odd request most people have a very hard time remembering exactly how a bike is made. Some did get close, some actually nailed it perfectly, but most ended up drawing something that was pretty far off from a regular men’s bicycle. Little I knew this is actually a test that psychologists use to demonstrate how our brain sometimes tricks us into thinking we know something even though we don’t.

The Host Committee for this year's Democratic National Convention includes Finance Chair Daniel Hilferty, a health insurance industry lobbyist on the board of America’s Health Insurance Plan (which lead the FUD campaign against Obamacare and is backing the GOP's anti-Obamacare bills), who has donated thousands to PACs supporting GOP candidates like Orin Hatch, Pat Toomey, and Tim Scott. He also donated to the presidential campaigns of Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, and Hillary Clinton. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px-ATxSHGU4John Key, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, was ejected from the country's parliamentary debating chamber yesterday when he repeated ignored the Speaker of the House's calls to yield the floor, continuing to rant even after his microphone had been cut off. (more…)

In a desperate attempt to stop that crazy Nigerian Prince communicating with rogue congressional staffers, the House IT department has banned Yahoo Mail! Seems ransomware attacks are on the rise, and the Government has responded. Via Computerworld:The House’s IT department told staffers that it “will be blocking access to Yahoo Mail on the House Network until further notice. We are making every effort to put other mitigating protections in place so that we can restore full access as soon as possible.”One day before the House sent the email, the FBI posted a warning about ransomware, which has targeted a wide variety of victims ranging from “hospitals, school districts, state and local governments, law enforcement agencies,” as well as large and small businesses.Despite that ransomware is becoming an “epidemic,” too many people are blissfully unaware of the threat. Using a small town in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley as an example, James Scott, a senior fellow at the Institute of Critical Infrastructure Technology, told Newsweek, “I can go to a public computer right now and take down a local hospital in a day.”

As high rises replace their elevator up/down buttons with panels that you enter a floor into, which then direct you to a specific elevator, they create the possibility of adding more cars to each shaft, radically increasing the efficiency and throughput of a building's lifts. (more…)

Test Pilot, a new Firefox plugin from Mozilla, lets you try out features that the company is thinking of launching, contributing both telemetry and explicit feedback that they'll use to plan the product roadmap. (more…)

Give any adult the Makey Makey Invention Kit and they’ll all invariably have the same reaction: I wish I had something like this when I was a kid.But it’s probably best to just put the Makey Makey into the hands where they belong...because children and the imagination of those formative years are all the fuel needed to make this Makey Makey Invention Kit: Collector’s Edition (right now $47.99 in the Boing Boing Store) a Hall of Fame toy-slash-introduction to computer engineering.It’s deceptively simple on the surface, just a set of multi-colored alligator clamps and connecting wires. But the magic of Makey Makey takes shape in what a child brings to it. Wanna use balls of Play-Doh as controller buttons for a real computer game? You can do that. Wanna turn bananas into piano keys that can actually play music? You can do that too. Once a kid grasps the ultra-simple method of connecting real-world objects to virtual outcomes (no programming know-how or expertise needed), they’ll take the fun into areas adults never dreamed of.The Makey Makey can even keep inquisitive adults on the their toes. It’s compatible with both Mac and Windows systems and doesn’t require any special software or training.You’ve got to see the Makey Makey Invention Kit in action to gain a true appreciation for its potential, so get one now at 19% off its regular price.[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfQqh7iCcOU&w=560&h=315]

Almost all of Canada's oil sands production has been shut down by a raging wildfire in Alberta's Fort McMurray region. (more…)

UPDATE This is a couple months old -- I read "Mar 5" as "May 5." My apologies.Ray Tomlinson created the first networked email system in 1971 while working on his MIT doctorate and collaborating on the early ARPAnet at BBN; he used @ -- the at symbol -- to separate the username from the machinename because "it did not appear in user names and did not have any meaning in the TENEX paging program." (more…)

Earlier today I posted the news that Megumi Igarashi (pen name Rokudenashiko) was found guilty of obscenity for distributing a digital file containing a 3D scan of her vulva. Today also marks the publication of her graphic novel memoir, What is Obscenity?, a beautiful little book (with a cover design by Chip Kidd) that uses comics, color photos, and current events to tell Rokudenashiko's story of how she creates pussy-themed art that has the power to frighten government officials into arresting and censoring her.A graphic memoir of a good-for-nothing Japanese artist who has been jailed twice for so-called acts of obscenity and the distribution of pornographic materials yet continues to champion the art of pussy. In a society where one can be censored, pixelated, and punished, Rokudenashiko asks what makes pussy so problematic?Rokudenashiko (“good-for-nothing girl”) is a Japanese artist. She is known for her series of decorated vulva moulds, or "Decoman," a portmanteau of decorated and manko, slang for vagina. Distributing a 3D scan of her genitalia to crowdfunding supporters led to her arrest for alleged violation of Japanese obscenity laws.

NASA announced today that the Kepler mission has verified 1,284 new planets -- the single largest finding of planets to date. (more…)

In 1991, The Simpsons episode called Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? aired, in which Homer becomes an auto-executive and designs a car that is used to show why American auto-manufacturing had failed: now you can own that car. (more…)

"You come upon the track of a bicycle in the mud. Was the bicycle traveling to the left or the right?" Visit Futility Closet for the solution. I haven't looked yet, as I'm still riding a bike in my mind, to see where the tracks go.

Japanese manga artist, Megumi Igarashi, who makes whimsical sculptures from molds of her vulva, was fond guilty of obscenity in Tokyo District Court. She was fined 400,000 yen ($3,670) fine.Megumi Igarashi, who works under the pseudonym Rokudenashiko – or good-for-nothing girl – was arrested in July 2014 after she distributed data that enabled recipients to make 3D prints of her vagina.The 44-year-old was fined 400,000 yen (£2,575), half the penalty demanded by prosecutors, at the Tokyo district court on Monday after she was convicted of distributing “obscene” images. She was cleared of another charge of displaying similar material.Igarashi distributed the data to help raise funds to create a kayak inspired by her genitalia she called “pussy boat.”The judge, Mihoko Tanabe, said that the data, though “flat and inorganic”, realistically portrayed the shape of a vagina and could “sexually arouse viewers”, according to Kyodo News.Remember, in Japan: Penis sculpture good. Vulva sculpture bad.[caption id="attachment_461211" align="alignleft" width="640"] Image: Guilhem Vellut/Flickr[/caption]Previously: Artist arrested for distributing 3D file of her genitals

See sample pages from this book at Wink.Unflatteningby Nick SousanisHarvard University Press2015, 208 pages, 7.5 x 10.2 x 1 inches (softcover)$16 Buy a copy on AmazonIt is remarkable how much we learn in our youth and how fast we learn it. It is a pace that really cannot sustain itself as we age, though we might try to continue to learn as though we were young. In my youth, the newspaper seemed a vast swarm of text and a few images that encircled a hidden prize: the funnies. Comics, in youth, are acceptable, but as we age we regard them more as juvenile diversions. Over time, the picture book gives way to the novel. The non-fiction works in the form of text books and scholarly journals are tools to educate us. Finally, should we pursue learning down the institutional path long enough, we encounter doctoral theses with their many and myriad intertextual references. It is a long-standing joke among academics that it is rare that the thesis they slave over for four or more years ever actually gets read.Nick Sousanis, with his doctoral thesis Unflattening, is a poignant departure from any trend of dissertations written for the sake of being written. More than that, it is meant to be more than a read work. It is an experiential work that asks the reader to not just read, but rather to participate in learning to appreciate imagery on equal terms with orderly lines of written text. This is a dissertation written in comic book format that argues for the power of that medium. One might think about the adage concerning the worth of pictures and thousands of words, and that does come up in the work itself, but this is something more than a trite saying. It is a masterful reinterpretation of how we read and learn, and how our world can be captured and conveyed to our fellows. It dismantles the rigid presumptions we have regarding the inherent value of the written word – especially scholarly writing. It champions the comic, for “while the image is, the text is always about.” Indeed, it is brilliantly argued throughout that “the visual provides expression where words fail.”The title, Unflattening, refers to Edwin A. Abbott's novella Flatland (1884), about a dystopian flatland of two dimensional objects, where a coin would not be seen by others for its circular shape, but rather would be seen edge-on as just a line obscuring the horizon. This is a "linelander," and all linelanders see each other this way. A square of three dimensions frees the coin-shaped object by peeling it from the flat surface so that it might see its brethren and world from above – from the third dimension, just as we would look down upon a page in a geometry textbook. Sousanis, similarly, wishes to peel us away from the linear predominance of the textual world where word follows word follows word. He comes from a background in comics, graphic novels, or whatever phrase you would use to describe his art. Just as his square peels away the coin from lineland to reveal it to be flatland, so too Sousanis convinces us, by both text and deed, of the power of comics. His text is often sparse and pared down to its most necessary elements, but the accompanying visuals draw the eye along and serve as an obvious example that reinforces the sometimes vague text. The deed is the image, for it is the more obvious representation of our lived world, while the text can only describe it. This may all seem obvious, but Sousanis brings to bear so many examples and graphical displays to reinforce his line of argument, that the journey through this work is quite remarkable. Moreover, his endnotes at the back serve not only to acknowledge his textual sources, but also to draw attention to and explain his visual inspirations. Those images that so often sit confined within frames within museum galleries or as a ghettoized section of glossy pages in the middle of an art book, they are given life and agency by Sousanis’ deploying of them as allies to his words. Certainly, it is almost with chagrin that one must only write about such a work when it argues so convincingly that mere text is limited in its conveying of full meaning. It is some solace that the accompanying images from Sousanis’ work will allow readers of this review to gain greater insight in the majesty of his pairing of imagery and text. This is a thinking person’s book and it is most definitely academic, but it is also surprisingly accessible. It draws upon – and draws – so many disciplines and so many real-world instances, that anyone and everyone will find it illuminating. So profound are many of these moments of illumination that they go a long way to rejuvenating our desire to see the world anew, from a child's eyes once more. – Stephen Webb

This home was burned to the ground in the Fort McMurray wildfire. The owners watched their living room go up in smoke via a security camera feed sent to their iPhone.

TV astronomer and author Mark Thompson uses a pig eye he got from his local butcher to demonstrate what happens to people who make the mistake of looking at the sun through a telescope.

Our friend and frequent Boing Boing contributor John Edgar Park built a large cold brew coffee drip tower using laser cut parts, lab glassware, a food-safe solenoid valve, and Arduino-based controller. I'm waiting for him to invite me over for a glass of ice coffee!I love cold brew coffee. Its rich and delicious flavor, and low acidity, means it tastes great over ice. Traditional hot-brewed coffee methods simply can’t compare; when chilled and served on ice they tend to taste diluted and acidic. I have a small commercial drip tower that works very well, however, given the fact that cold brew takes up to 18 hours to brew, it’s disappointing to finish it off in just a few drinks. You can buy large cold-brew towers, but they’re very expensive, aimed at coffee shops. I decided to build a much larger brewing tower from scratch, and to make it considerably higher precision while I was at it — drip rate is everything when it comes to cold brew — using a microcontroller-driven solenoid valve for exact drip rate.

I met Jeff Veen when we worked together at Wired magazine. Jeff came on board in 1994 and built websites for Wired and Hotwired. After that, Jeff went on to do a bunch of cool things, such as launching Typekit (a web font serving service) and serving as Adobe's VP of Design. Today he lives in London and is design partner at True Ventures. (more…)

Antiques Roadshow appraised this "bizarre and wonderful" ceramic jug from the late-19th/early-20th century at $50,000. Turns out, they were mistaken. A woman named Betsy Soule crafted the mug in high school in the 1970s. Soule's friend recognized the piece on TV and alerted her. "As far as its age is concerned, I was fooled, as were some of my colleagues," said Antiques Roadshow's Stephen L. Fletcher in an update. "The techniques of making pottery, in many ways, haven’t changed for centuries…Still, not bad for a high schooler in Oregon.”The current owner paid $300 for the object at an estate sale.“I hated it when it was $30,000 to $50,000, because who wants $30,000 to $50,000 lying around their house?" he told the Bend Bulletin. "Now, it’s on my table, and I love it.”

Fuman Musicoloco performing in Zaragoza, Spain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcMl6xg6f9cLen Peralta writes about a Kickstarter for Renfest: "a new episodic comedy series starring Mary Jo Pehl and Trace Beaulieu of MST3K fame and Dave 'Gruber' Allen from Freaks & Geeks. They are trying to make enough to finish the pilot and hopefully create a full season." (more…)

Fast Company looks into Budweiser's patriotic salute to the upcoming presidential election.The alterations don’t stop with the beer’s name. Almost every bit of type on the Budweiser label has been scrubbed away by Easter Egg patriotism, with new text citing the Pledge of Allegiance, the Star Spangled Banner, and America the Beautiful—all rendered in newly developed hand lettering, inspired by Budweiser’s archives.To name just a few of the updates: "King of Beers" has been changed to "E Pluribus Unum," "The World Renowned" changed to "Land of the Free," and "Anheuser-Busch, Inc." updated to read "Liberty & Justice For All."

Institute for the Future (where David and I are research directors) has a Blockchain Futures Lab blog. Today, Kathi Vian of IFTF presents a scenario involving a "bottom-up distributed toolset for aggregating large groups of people with similar interests, needs, and values into civic affinity groups."This virtual city council is not simply passive profiling, however. You can interact with others to explore the issues with people who are a lot like you, a little like you, or very different from you. These interactions create the opportunities to develop more nuanced affinities with large numbers of people.

Stunning! The National's cover of "Morning Dew," a song penned in 1961 by Bonnie Dobson and later popularized by the Dead, is one of 59 (!) tracks on the Day of the Dead box set they helped produce, featuring Sharon Van Etten, the Flaming Lips, Real Estate, War on Drugs, Jenny Lewis, and many more covering Dead songs. Day of the Dead will be out May 20, with all profits benefiting the HIV/AIDS organization Red Hot.

The beloved Tower of Terror ride at Disneyland California Adventure features some of the most elaborate themeing and set-dressing of any of Disney's built environments, consisting of a series of staged scenes that are reminiscent of interactive theater troupe Punchdrunk's sets, followed by a spectacular thrill-ride -- it rarely has less than a 30 minute wait. (more…)

Lynda Carter, the Wonder Woman of 1970s television, with stunt double Jeannie Epper. If you're not hip to the only screen Wonder Woman that matters, watch the original title sequence below.In your satin tights,Fighting for your rightsAnd the old Red, White and Blue.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_blOQEu9ws(via r/OldSchoolCool)

Though most of the world's largest narcotics gang's aircraft are a lot smaller than the Mexican flagship carrier's planes, the Sinaloa have flown at least one Boeing 727; the planes fly drugs, gang members and bales of cash. (more…)

It's been nearly a year since Tony Yarber, pastor and mayor of Jackson, Mississippi capital and largest city in the state, tweeted that he believed he could pray away potholes, citing Moses's alleged parting of the Red Sea as precedent. (more…)

Exotic polyhedron purveyor Dice Lab's crowning randomizer is its monstrous, $12 120-sided die. (more…)

The Facebook board member will be a Trump delegate to this summer's Republican National Convention, representing California's 12th district. (more…)

Mark Zuckerberg, Kevin Systrom, and Jack Dorsey changed the social media landscape with their creations, and now Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are all tech giants. Now, you can learn the keys to becoming a professional programmer - and create your own social network. Of course, there’s no guarantee you’ll soon be the CEO of a tech titan, but hey...there are less interesting ways to learn a career-making skill.With this Learn to Code 2016: Learn Web Development by Creating a Social Network course bundle - now just $59 in the Boing Boing Store - you’ll get over 108 hours of deep-dive instruction on the web technologies you need to know most. You’ll enjoy full tutorials on Python, HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery, Bootstrap, PHP, MySQL, and Wordpress - and that’s just the start.Once you’ve grasped the basics, you’ll utilize your newfound skills by creating a brand-new social network, applying your practical studies to a real-world build that will test your abilities as well as your entrepreneurial vision.Jump in with access to eight courses:Python Tutorial: Learn by CodingAngularJS for the Real WorldBuild Professional Websites with HTML5 & CSS3Learn Web Development by Creating a Social NetworkPHP OOP & PDO with Projects for BeginnersTotal Web Development CourseThe Complete Ruby on Rails Developer CourseLearn By Example: The Foundations of HTML, CSS & JavaScriptThrough homework assignments, quizzes, exercises and video lectures, you'll not only learn what it takes to start a lucrative new career in web development, but you may found a new Silicon Valley power in the making. Either way, at 93% off its regular price, it’s a small price to pay to re-create yourself.

Oxfam has published an open letter signed by hundreds of respected economists, including Thomas Piketty, which describes tax havens as "serving no useful economic purpose." (more…)

Between 120 and 150 IT workers will be fired from the McClatchy newspaper syndicate (Scramento Bee, Miami Herald, etc), after they have trained IT contractors from India's Wipro to do their jobs. (more…)

These facehugger facewarmers come from Brooklyn weird textiles queen Knitrocious (previously). They're made to order from acrylic yarn and cost $150 each: "Legs have clips so that they can be worn around the head (you know, during sexy time) or unclipped just hang out." (more…)

Magnanimous president-to-be Donald Trump says that despite his proposed ban on muslims entering the U.S., London's new mayor, Sadiq Khan, may be an exception.“There will always be exceptions,” Mr. Trump said when asked in an interview on Monday how his proposed ban would affect London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan. “I was happy to see that,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Khan’s election. “I think it’s a very good thing, and I hope he does a very good job because frankly that would be very, very good.”Asked why, Mr. Trump said, “Because I think if he does a great job, it will really — you lead by example, always lead by example. If he does a good job and frankly if he does a great job, that would be a terrific thing.”Khan's having none of it. He rejected Trump's suggestion that he could be an exception to the proposed Muslim travel ban, saying: "This isn't just about me -- it's about my friends, my family and everyone who comes from a background similar to mine, anywhere in the world."The statement continued: "Donald Trump and those around him think that western liberal values are incompatible with mainstream Islam -- London has proved him wrong."

How does the internet get routed to Greenland? Just how many cables snake their way through the waters of the Caribbean? Submarine Cable Map is exactly that, but it's beautiful and interactive too. [via Internet is Beautiful]

There's an obvious answer to the smallness of statues' penises: the manners and religious prudishness of classical elites. But the issue is more about differing standards of beauty and modern mens' penis anxiety, writes Ellen Oredsson. Which is to say that smaller penises were once regarded as ideal, and many real penises aren't any bigger than the ones on the statues....small penises were more culturally valued is that large penises were associated with very specific characteristics: foolishness, lust and ugliness. There are actually quite a few ancient Greek sculptures that have enormous penises. Here’s one:Small dicks are, then, associated with reason and logic. The argument gets strained when applied to the western renaissance, where imitation and idealism intersect more sharply with religious sentiment.