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When Norway -- historically one of the poorest countries in Europe -- struck oil in the North Sea, the country put the proceeds into a "sovereign wealth" fund that invested it in other industries and used the returns to pay for an extensive welfare state that has given Norwegians one of the highest standards of living in the world. (more…)

In August 1980, an extortionist planted a thousand-pound bomb in Harvey’s Wagon Wheel Casino in western Nevada. Unless the owners paid him $3 million within 24 hours, he said, the bomb would go off and destroy the casino. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe the tense drama that followed and the FBI's efforts to catch the criminal behind it.We'll also consider some dubious lawn care shortcuts and puzzle over why a man would tear up a winning ticket.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon!

Google Maps and similar services are most useful, but who has the most recent space footage of your neighborhood? Check out mapbox, a Landsat viewer that tells you when the satellite image you're looking at was taken, and when a new snap is scheduled. The zoom level really isn't useful for anything at a life-lived level – with the exception of recent weather, disasters, etc – but all services should expose metadata like this.

Infosec consultant Nik Cubrilovic summarizes the evidence for and against Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright's claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the legendary creator of Bitcoin. Cubrilovic comes down hard on Wright.Wright has a history of fabricating evidence in support of his claim that he is Satoshi Nakamoto. Despite his claims of not wanting the notoriety or the attention, he is going to a lot of trouble to construct a reality of himself as Satoshi Nakamoto. In the almost 6 months since the first Wired and Gizmodo stories were published he has had ample opportunity to prove conclusively that he is Satoshi, and the protocol and requirements for doing so are well understood and not onerous. They do not require a 10 page blog post with notepad screenshots of shell scripts explaining Linux commands, file formats or OpenSSL. They also do not involve tightly controlled demonstrations in an environment completely under his control. The real creator of Bitcoin would know this.The burden of proof for anybody claiming to be Nakamoto should be high. In the case of Wright, because of his previous fabrications, that burden is greater. His claims have to be treated with a great amount of skepticism, and his actions treated not as those of a sincere person, but rather as those of a person with a history and reputation for deception. Wright has yet to meet this burden, and until he does, Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto.The key thing is that it should be easy for Satoshi to meet the evidentiary requirements and no big deal to do so under circumstances controlled by others. But Wright's reveal was like a magic trick, carefully staged to prevent scrutiny and to direct attention a certain way. This means it could never succeed in convincing technical minds, no matter how apparently convincing.On the other hand, look at us, a frenzy of attention glued to a conspicuous moron pulling Bitcoin out of a top hat on stage. Who is off in the corner, not participating?

You may not love Microsoft Word, but you’ve definitely used it. Other than being one of the most ubiquitous programs on the planet, it’s been the go-to word processing system for more than a quarter-century because it’s as basic as it gets. But occasionally, you’ve got assignments that beg for a lot more options than simple line justifications and spell checking. Maybe you’re writing a screenplay or instruction manual that requires deeper specialization. Or you’ve got a document with a host of elements that demand extra organizational assistance.Where Word ends, Scrivener 2 picks up the baton - and right now, it’s only $22.50 (50% off its regular price) in the Boing Boing Store. Fire it up and immediately you’ll see how Scrivener’s project-management-based environment and aid functions can automatically adapt to the work style you prefer best.If you want to organize your thoughts before writing, no problem - Scrivener allows you to jot notes in a storyboard format, document your revisions and even look up research that could add another layer of depth to your project. If you want to write first and let all that editing and revision stuff take a backseat, you can do that too. Scrivener 2 adjusts to your workflow, offering up its bevy of specialized helping tools whenever you’re ready.Choose between Scrivener 2 for OS X ($22.50) or Scrivener for Windows ($20) and with both at 50% off, you’ll never find a better time to ditch Word and get with Scrivener 2.

A man in Florida was arrested last week for planning to use “a weapon of mass destruction” at a synagogue near Miami, federal authorities said today. The ill-fated words that James Gonzalo Medina reportedly uttered to the undercover FBI agent who sold him a fake explosive device, words which will likely seal the suspect's fate: “I’m ready, bro!” (more…)

People who fear the TSA's airport body scanners might start driving more instead of flying, and that will raise the number of traffic deaths. That's the argument behind a new legal challenge filed against the Transportation Security Administration today over the much-loathed airport security scanning machines. We have blogged about them zillion times here at Boing Boing. We hate them too. (more…)

Here's a puzzle from Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games column, which ran for many years in Scientific American. I found it in his anthology, My Best Mathematical and Logic Puzzles, which is only $3.76 on Amazon.Imagine that you have three boxes, one containing two black marbles, one containing two white marbles, and the third, one black marble and one white marble. The boxes were labeled for their contents – BB, BW, WW – but someone switched the labels so that every box is now incorrectly labeled. You are allowed to take one marble at a time out of any box, without looking inside, and by this process of sampling you are to determine the contents of all three boxes. What is the smallest number of drawings needed to do this?

Remember Sarah Cooper's brilliant "10 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings"? Here are a few choice bits from her new "Meeting Speak Cheat Sheet":• “This wasn’t on my calendar” = I deleted this from my calendar• “To your earlier point…” = I’m kissing your ass• “That said…” = We’re still not changing anything• “Let’s circle back later” = I need this to be overPreviously:• "15 tricks to appear smart in emails"

https://youtu.be/8f9mhC-low4Granted, the nail was loose, but it is remarkable to see a bee work it out of the hole. Two questions: what was the nail doing in the hole in the first place, and why was the bee so intent on getting it out?[via]

https://youtu.be/C01qpmWAeC0Ricky Jay demonstrates his admirable faculty with playing cards. To learn more about this remarkable person watch the documentary, Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay, which is often available on Netflix.[via]

“We already knew of many asteroids, but they have all been baked by billions of years near the Sun,” says Karen Meech of the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy. “This one is the first uncooked asteroids we could observe: it has been preserved in the best freezer there is.”C/2014 S3 (aka PANSTARRS) was formed about 4.5 billion years ago, close to Earth when it was formed. But PANSTARRS traveled far from the sun, "preserved in the deep freeze of the Oort Cloud for billions of years." Now it is headed back, and astronomers are excited to see what fresh frozen ancient asteroid looks like.Careful study of the light reflected by C/2014 S3 (PANSTARRS) indicates that it is typical of asteroids known as S-type, which are usually found in the inner asteroid main belt. It does not look like a typical comet, which are believed to form in the outer Solar System and are icy, rather than rocky. It appears that the material has undergone very little processing, indicating that it has been deep frozen for a very long time. The very weak comet-like activity associated with C/2014 S3 (PANSTARRS), which is consistent with the sublimation of water ice, is about a million times lower than active long-period comets at a similar distance from the Sun.The authors conclude that this object is probably made of fresh inner Solar System material that has been stored in the Oort Cloud and is now making its way back into the inner Solar System.

Craiglist has something wonderful on it: a vast collection of more than 600 vintage Smith-Corona typewriters, including accessories and marketing literature. Yours for a hundred grand.My collection consists of over 600 typewriter items including the company's first typewriter in the 1880's to one of the company's last typewriters in 2000's and all models in between, along with all types of items that correspond to the typewriters, including ads, accessories, displays, documents, manuals, photos, shipping crates, etc. Smith Corona's products are beautiful, interesting, unique, colorful, and when displayed, fun to look at.I collected the typewriters and related items from 44 of the 50 United States, Washington DC, four Canadian provinces and three foreign countries. I only purchased museum quality items, so the collection would make an instant museum. The collection includes many rare and valuable items.I have decided it is time to sell the collection.The collection is a nice financial investment that consistently increases in value over time due to a large international typewriter collectors market. The collection will only increase in value over time.More pics at the listing!

Long a prime suspect and claimant to the title, Australian entrepreneur and programmer Craig Wright outed himself Monday morning as the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency. "Satoshi is dead," he writes, producing early cryptographic keys associated with Satoshi as evidence.The BBC reports that Wright has provided it other proof to back up his claim, such as using coins known to be owned by Bitcoin's creator.Prominent members of the Bitcoin community and its core development team have also confirmed Mr Wright's claim.Renowned cryptographer Hal Finney was one of the engineers who helped turn Mr Wright's ideas into the Bitcoin protocol, he said."I was the main part of it, but other people helped me," he said.Mr Wright said he planned to release information that would allow others to cryptographically verify that he is Satoshi Nakamoto.Soon after Mr Wright went public, Gavin Andresen, chief scientist at the Bitcoin Foundation, published a blog backing his claim."I believe Craig Steven Wright is the person who invented Bitcoin," he wrote.Jon Matonis, an economist and one of the founding directors of the Bitcoin Foundation, said he was convinced that Mr Wright was who he claimed to be.The Economist, however, reports that skepticism will prevail for a little while yet. And Reddit's r/BitCoin subreddit appears to be mostly unimpressed by the claim, with one rather technical post that purports to debunk the cryptographic evidence Wright offered.Wired thought it was Wright last year, but later decided he was probably part of long con to get people to think he was the brain behind bitcoin.

In a weirdly hostile and creepy press conference in Alabama this week, the state's Supreme Court Chief Justice complained about a variety of foes including “a tranvestite,” plus "atheists, homosexuals and transgender individuals." He says these foes brought forward a politically motivated complaint about his administrative order to probate judges not to issue same-sex marriage licenses. Chief Justice Roy Moore also blamed the Southern Poverty Law Center for getting in the way of his gay marriage squashing orders. (more…)

See sample pages from this book at Wink.Mean Girls Clubby Ryan HeshkaNobrow Press2016, 24 pages, 6.8 x 9.1 x 0.1 inches $6 Buy a copy on AmazonIf your understanding of what a Mean Girls Club consists of is defined by the 2004 Lindsay Lohan film, then Ryan Heshka’s new release from Nobrow Press (as part of their wonderful 17 x 23 series) is going to blow your mind. In Mean Girls Club, Pinky, Sweets, Blackie, McQualude, Wendy, and Wanda aren’t the popular girls in an Illinois high school, rather they are a gang of sociopaths who revel in murder, mayhem, pill popping, and depraved dereliction. Heshka’s 1950s bombshells start their day with ceremonial insect venom transfusions, snake worship, a pill buffet, and a fish slap fight, then go on to wreck havoc in a hospital, movie theater, boutiques, and the streets, only to finish off by jacking a lingerie truck, kidnapping patients and nurses along the way.In a nod to the pulps and pin-ups of the past and rendered in fluorescent pinks and inky blacks, Heskha upends the conventional idea of the B-movie Vixen by adding a layer of such over-the-top brutality and vehemence that it transcends the possible, bringing the trope into the post-ironic age where we have lost the ability to discern what we are meant to take seriously. Is Mean Girls Club to be read as satirical social commentary? Is it just flat out bonkers? Or is it a combination of both? When viewed through various critical lenses, Mean Girls Club demands that the reader ask certain questions: issues of gender and power, fringe vs center, entertainment vs social order. But this sort of critical response probably misses the point of Heskha’s intent.Heskha doesn’t seem to care how we approach his work; this book swings to its own pop-culture rhythm, flat and full of energy and horror – perhaps the perfect narrative for precarious times. The viciousness in this book stands starkly in contrast to the stylized elegance of Heskha’s lines and layouts. Its publisher, Nobrow Press, says it has “A vintage throwback appeal with modern sensibilities ... with appeal to an alternative subculture eager for art that continues to subvert the conventions of the old guard of comics.” It’s all this and more. But one thing for sure, in Mean Girls Club we have an artist making the art he wants to make. And although it may be a bit uncomfortable for some of us to read, it may just be the art we deserve.– Daniel Elkin

From Futility Closet:In 1944, manager Maury Maverick sent this memo to the workers at his government agency. This is the first known usage of gobbledygook to refer to obscure jargon. It wouldn’t be the last.(From the National Archives.)From Wikipedia: The term gobbledygook was coined by Maury Maverick, a former congressman from Texas and former mayor of San Antonio. When Maverick was chairman of the Smaller War Plants Corporation during World War II, he sent a memorandum that said: "Be short and use Plain English. . . . Stay off gobbledygook language." Later, writing in the New York Times Magazine, he defined gobbledygook as "talk or writing which is long, pompous, vague, involved, usually with Latinized words." The allusion was to a turkey, "always gobbledygobbling and strutting with ridiculous pomposity."

Before humans descended on the island of Madagascar there was a species of lemur as a big as gorilla. Today, the largest lemur weighs 20 lbs. (The smallest, the mouse lemur, weighs 1.1 oz, and has "the smallest known brain of any primate, at just 2 grams," according to Wikipdia.). I'm not sure what kind of lemur this is, but it likes to have people scratch its back. (And this is not a video that should make you feel good, says Barbara J. King, an anthropology professor at the College of William and Mary.)

The Colossal Book of Short Puzzles and Problems is a 512-page collection of puzzles from the Martin Gardner's beloved Scientific American column. The easier puzzles are at the front of each section, and become more difficult as you progress. Here's one of the easy ones:In the United States at least eight coins are required to make the sum of 99 cents: a half-dollar, a quarter, two dimes, and four pennies. Imagine yourself the leader of a small, newly independent nation. You have the task of setting up a system of coinage based on the cent as the smallest unit. Your objective is to issue the smallest number of different coins that will enable any value from 1 to 100 cents (inclusive) to be made with no more than two coins. For example, the objective is easily met with 18 coins of the following values:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90.Can you do better? Every value must be obtainable either by one coin or as a sum of two coins. The two coins need not, of course, have different values.

Several years ago, Gary Card created a chart illustrating Prince's hairstyles from 1978 to 2013. After Prince's death, Dazed interviewed Card about the project, originally produced for Beat magazine.Prince tweeted it and it went viral, it was one the most exciting moments of my life, knowing I’d impressed my hero. It came out with little fan fair when it was first printed, it was just some cute tribute by some weird obsessive nerd. I put a gif together of all the changing hair styles and put on Instagram, a couple of months later I was watching some nonsense on TV, when suddenly my phone starts going nuts with notifications, under one of the comments someone wrote, ‘Dude, Prince just tweeted your poster’ and that was it, it was retweeted around the world about ten times a second for two days, it was thrilling to watch. Of all of my achievements in my career, that was my proudest.

https://youtu.be/G_KOQISyfiUA zillion people seem to have seen this video already, but I missed it until I accidentally saw it on Facebook, where it had been posted in early April by HypeDoJo and already has 12 million views.Might sound like a lot, but since the population of the United States alone is 319 million, give or take, there are probably a lot of folks out there who still haven’t seen it. Thought you might enjoy it.I didn’t care for it because I don’t like dogs. Don’t hate me. I have a reason.Growing up in an apartment building in Elmhurst, Queens (one of the five boroughs of New York City, Queens is known as the “borough of the dead” because it has so many large cemeteries that there are more dead folks than living at any given moment), I lived in a very small apartment with my mother. We moved in when my folks split up—I was seven, so 1965—and lived on the fourth floor; naturally I took the elevator a lot.There was a weird bastard, must have been in his thirties (short black hair dotted with some gray, button up shirts that never fit quite right, black corduroy trousers that were inches too short revealing white socks), who lived with his mother on one of the floors above us. Even as a 7-year-old, I could tell this dude had some issues.They had a dog, a medium sized black and white mutt, kept on a red leash. All was fine when Bizarro and his mother travelled the elevator and halls together. No sign of trouble. But by the time I was 10 years of age, the creep used to wait for me when I was taking the elevator alone and no other adults were around, then follow me in with his dog. And from the lobby to the fourth floor, he would purposefully allow the dog a long leash and let it bark and snap at me, sometimes only an inch or two from my hands.I never told anyone.After a few years it occurred to me that I could avoid the dog by taking the stairs, which I had always avoided since they were completely enclosed, somewhat dimly lit, and smelled of piss. However, despite my wariness, I took the stairs two and three at a time, getting up to the fourth floor pretty quickly. And there was no dog.About six months later, on my way down, that weird bastard was waiting for me in the stairs. He grabbed my hand and rubbed it on my crotch for about a second before I started cursing at him (kids from Queens can use foul language like you’ve never heard). Pushed the sucker out of the way and ran past.Then I stopped taking the stairs and resumed using the elevator. I saw a lot less of him after that.As a kid, dogs terrified me, and as an adult, they make me uncomfortable.This will sound really stupid, but it took about 35 years for me to figure out that the weird bastard was using the dog in the elevator to get me to take the stairs. Finally connected those two dots in middle age. Funny thing.There is one dog in the world who has won me over; a dachshund named “Bertie” (short for Albert) and he lives in Los Angeles. Whenever I visit his parents’ home he is most catlike and promptly sits in my lap. He gazes at me lovingly with limpid brown eyes, although it would seem unlikely that he remembers me from year to year. He also likes to play tug ‘o war with you and his blanket. Over the past few years his muzzle has grown white like an ancient spirit, but he doesn’t know it.Perhaps one day I’ll get a dog.But not today.

At an estimated $35bn lifetime cost, the new Hinkley C nuclear power station will be more expensive than any other civil engineering project on planet Earth, reports the BBC. The astronomical costs are disputed, but even the government's own figures put it at $25bn.For that sum you could build a small forest of Burj Khalifas - the world's tallest building, in Dubai, cost a piffling £1bn ($1.5bn). You could also knock up more than 70 miles of particle accelerator. The 17-mile-long Large Hadron Collider, built under the border between France and Switzerland to unlock the secrets of the universe, cost a mere £4bn ($5.8bn). The most expensive bridge ever constructed is the eastern replacement span of the Oakland Bay Bridge in San Francisco, designed to withstand the strongest earthquake seismologists would expect within the next 1,500 years. That cost about £4.5bn ($6.5bn).Even the Great Pyramid would cost less than a billion to make, now, and require only a few hundred workers. But there is one man-made object pricier than a new nuclear power station in a western democracy: the international space station, alleged to have cost more than $100bn.The deal seems strangely shady for something so obviously controversial: driven by political wrangling, with building costs offset to France and the project financed by China in return for a promise that the UK will pay twice the going rate for the electricity -- so expensive that onshore wind farms are cheaper. Even environmentalists OK with nuclear think the idea of a single vast plant powering an entire region is an outdated nightmare in the making.Meanwhile, much smaller plants in France and Finland will apparently be completed at a fraction of the cost -- but at direct taxpayer expense. Whatever you might say about the project or nuclear power, it's a reminder of how comically bad the British are at planning anything that takes more than few years to complete.

The Art of Atari is a new hardcover celebrating the wonderful illustrations of the iconic game company's packaging, catalogs, and other artwork that, according to the book's introduction written by Ernest "Ready Player One" Cline, was "specially commissioned to enhance the Atari experience to further entice children and adults to embrace the new era of electronic entertainment." Speaking from personal experience, it totally worked. The Art of Atari (Amazon)

Charles Gatewood, a pioneering photographer of the underground for nearly 50 years, died today from injuries sustained in a fall from his third-floor balcony. He was 74. From documenting the Beats and the dark alleys of 1970s Mardi Gras to extreme body modification practitioners and sexual fetishists, Charles lived his life as a curious, open-minded photographic anthropologist at the fringes of culture. I first encountered Charles's work in the 1980s through the groundbreaking RE/Search book Modern Primitives and a grainy VHS dub of the documentary "Dances Sacred and Profane" about his quest for individuals "breaking the bounds of convention." We first met in 1993 and I always looked forward to the terrific stories of his travels through the interzones that he happily shared with me. Charles was warm, generous, witty, and very grounded. I feel fortunate that hanging in my home is his marvelous portrait of William Burroughs and Brion Gysin gazing into their dreamachine, an image that inspires me every day.Charles's photography provided a glimpse of the sometimes shocking, always fascinating, and strangely seductive scenes that are waiting for us if we just know where to look. He relentlessly challenged us to open our eyes and minds. I'll miss him.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhq9IgeG_Nk

When game critic Jim Sterling uses video clips of the games he reviews on YouTube, the game companies claim copyright ownership of the video and run ads on Sterling's reviews. He doesn't like that because his videos are funded by Patreon and he doesn't think his audience should have to see ads. So what he does now is add video clips from other game publishers' titles. This causes the different companies to battle for control of the video, and they both lose out.“I figured every time I talk about Nintendo, I’m going to throw in other stuff that gets flagged by Content ID, and just watch the corporations battle it out,” Sterling said. His hope was that by pulling this stunt, he could stop any company from monetizing the video at all, since it wouldn’t be clear who really owned the footage in the first place. And if anybody did manage to monetize the video, they’d probably only get peanuts for it.The scheme panned out just the way he thought it would, Jim Sterling tells Kotaku.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in Oliver Stone's Snowden. Stone went to Russia and met with Snowden several times during the production of the movie, so hopefully it will be somewhat accurate, but you never know with Stone. It's opening on September 16, 2016.Academy Award-winning director Oliver Stone, who brought Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Wall Street and JFK to the big screen, tackles the most important and fascinating true story of the 21st century. Snowden, the politically-charged, pulse-pounding thriller starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Shailene Woodley, reveals the incredible untold personal story of Edward Snowden, the polarizing figure who exposed shocking illegal surveillance activities by the NSA and became one of the most wanted men in the world. He is considered a hero by some, and a traitor by others. No matter which you believe, the epic story of why he did it, who he left behind, and how he pulled it off makes for one of the most compelling films of the year.

Bless their cold, spyin' hearts. The FBI suddenly cares about the rights of technology developers. On Wednesday, the official word came from the federal agency that it will not be disclosing what vulnerability it exploited to force its way in to the San Bernardino attacker's iPhone, because -- can you hear the gentle clutching of pearls?-- “it did not own the rights to the technical method a contractor used to open an Apple iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters and therefore could not submit details of the mechanism for an interagency government review,” as Reuters puts it. (more…)

One of my all-time favorite books is Ron Hale-Evans' Mind Performance Hacks, by Ron Hale-Evans, which has 75 practical tips for becoming a better thinker. I highly recommend it, as well as his follow-up book, Mindhacker (co-written with Marty Hale-Evans)The first tip in the book is a classic, but I suspect many people don't know it. It's a way to make a mental list of ten things. You can use this method to create a shopping list, a packing list, an errand list, or anything else that has ten things or less.To start using this technique, you first have to remember 10 keywords. Once you memorize these words, you can use the same ones for the rest of your life. Here they are:1 :: gun2 :: shoe3 :: tree4 :: door5 :: hive6 :: sticks7 :: heaven8 :: gate9 :: wine10 :: henNotice that the words rhyme with the number they are associated with. You probably have them memorized already.Now, take each item on your list and pair them with a keyword by visualizing the two words in a weird (and therefore memorable) way . Here's how Ron uses the keywords to remember what he needs to bring with him when he leaves his house:1 :: gun :: medicationI never leave the house without this. I imagine a gun firing pills scattershot in all directions.2 :: shoe :: keysI imagine the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe trying to open the front door of her giant shoe with her keys while dozens of her children are tugging on her skirt.3 :: tree :: cell phoneI imagine a tree with a 1920s-style varnished black telephone handset and mouthpiece protruding from it. A pair of bells on the tree ring loudly.4 :: door :: notebookI imagine my Moleskine Mini notebook grown to enormous size. The front cover swings open like a door with a huge Inner Sanctum creak of hinges. (I never go anywhere without my catch [Hack #13].)5 :: hive :: walletI imagine opening my wallet and a swarm of bees flying out into my face. Argh!6 :: sticks :: PDAI imagine using a scratchy wooden stick with leaves as a stylus to write on my PDA. (This also reminds me to bring a stylus, in case I forget in step 10.)7 :: heaven :: eyeglassesI imagine my eyeglasses shining, because they are made out of the same nacreous material as the Pearly Gates.8 :: gate :: handkerchiefI imagine my handkerchief tied to the post of an ordinary garden gate and flapping in the wind like a flag as the gate swings back and forth.9 :: wine :: Swiss Army knifeI imagine that one of the blades of my red Swiss Army knife is actually a miniature wine bottle and that when I open it, a flood of red wine pours out.10 :: hen :: penI imagine that a hen is pecking at a bunch of the four-color pens I use, which lie about on the ground in abundance with some PDA styluses.What if you have more than 10 things you need to remember? Use these keywords, from Peg Bracken's The Compleat I Hate to Cook Book (found by Marty Hale-Evans).1 :: run2 :: zoo3 :: tree4 :: door5 :: alive6 :: stick7 :: heaven8 :: gate9 :: wine10 :: den11 :: football team12 :: delve13 :: hurting14 :: courting15 :: lifting16 :: licking17 :: leavening18 :: waiting19 :: pining20 :: horn of plentyI would change some of the keywords in this list, myself. Coming up with my own keywords would make them more memorable.Image: Shutterstock

After years of speculation and wrangling over his remains, Kennewick Man turns out to be closely related to contemporary, local Native Americans after all.Discovered near Kennewick, Wash., in 1996, the skeleton ended up in a tug of war between tribes in the pacific northwest who wanted to bury the remains, and scientists who wanted to study them. Five Pacific Northwest tribes pressed the Army Corps of Engineers, which has jurisdiction over the bones, to hand them over in accordance with a federal law on the repatriation of remains. However, a group of scientists sued to block the handover, arguing that the skeleton was not associated with a present-day tribe.Federal judges sided with the scientists, and as a result, the corps retained custody of the skeleton and made it available for study. Now that the studies are finished, the 380 bones and bone fragments are locked away in Seattle at the University of Washington’s Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture.Some scientists suggested that Kennewick Man might have been a visitor from the Far North, Siberia or perhaps someplace even more exotic. But when geneticists compared DNA from a hand bone with a wide range of samples, they found that the closest match came from members of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.The burial site will be a secret, so we can have this fight all over again in a few thousand years.

Sebastian Ly Serena's website consists solely of a bizarre HTML contraption that animates form elements until all of them have expanded and the author's email address is exposed. It's built entirely from standard web forms and javascript, ugly as sin, and completely wonderful. [via Hacker News, whose commenters are unimpressed because the underlying code doesn't really model a chain reaction.]

The legendary artist Prince died last week at age 57. Reports are emerging today that prescription opioid pills, specifically Percocet, were found on his person. More of the drug was found in his Minnesota home. (more…)

An Apple employee was found dead in a conference room at One Infinite Loop in Cupertino on Wednesday morning. Early reports indicate the victim was carrying a gun. The name of the deceased has not been released at the time of this blog post. (more…)

In the world of app development, there’s no greater arena to find success than with Android users. About 80% of the smartphones in use today worldwide operate on the Android operating system, so if you build a great app that Android users love, you’re an international rock star. You’ll be able to make sure your million-dollar idea gets created and marketed the right way with The Complete Android Developer Course, now just $17 - 91% off - in the Boing Boing Store.Even if you’re a complete app novice, this course encompassing over 230 lectures and more than 31 hours of content will show you exactly how to work with Android M, the latest and greatest Android platform, and how to get your creations selling on Google Play.Your guide to the Android universe is Rob Percival, a top-rated web developer and instructor who also teaches the popular Complete Web Developer Course. Rob will not only give you the thorough introduction to Android M that you need, but take you through each stage of developing 14 different working apps to show you exactly how it all works.You’ll work on building a currency converter app, a brain training app, a favorite places app and even Uber and Instagram clones using Parse. Over the course of building all these real-world apps, you’ll discover the methods that work best and the ones that don’t so you be able to hit the ground running to develop all your own big ideas.Rob will also show you how to get the most out of bringing your finished apps to the public in Google Play and how to effectively market your creation using Google Ads. Your course even takes you through Android Wear, offering a complete look at the future of wearable computing.It’s all the background you need to succeed in the Android marketplace, so launch that lucrative Android app development career today by picking up this comprehensive course at 91% off its regular price.

https://youtu.be/MShZxnfTJz0According to this video, you can ripen a avocado by wrapping it in foil and putting it in a 250 degree oven for about 10-15 minutes.[via]Image: Shutterstock

Rose Eveleth is a journalist who covers how humans tangle with science and technology. She's the host and producer of Flash Forward, a podcast about the future, and has covered everything from fake tumbleweed farms to sexist prosthetics. Kevin Kelly and I interviewed Rose about her favorite tools on the Cool Tools podcast.Subscribe to the Cool Tools Show on iTunes | RSS | Transcript | Download MP3 | See all the Cool Tools Show posts on a single pageShow notes:Top Tracker, FREE"This is a time tracking tool. Basically, you can tell it projects and you can start and stop tracking. ... It's also useful because it serves to delineate tasks that I'm doing where I have to be very conscious about, "Okay, now I'm going to do this." I have to type it in and I have to push the start button and then, I push the stop button when I'm done. It's a nice way to keep myself focused on a single task. ... I've been using Top Tracker now for about six months and I really like it, so that is my recommendation."IUD"I was trying to think of a technology that I use a lot, because of the podcast, I often think about, "What are surprising technologies that people forget about a lot of the time?" One of the things that I have inside of me that I use everyday to keep me safe and healthy is an IUD. ... I do a lot of reporting on bio hacking and people who put magnets under their skin. .. Three million women in the US have a device inside of them that no one ever talks about as bio hacking ...It's a really popular form of contraceptive that is, in fact, a device inside you, which, I think, is really cool."Slack"It's like a chat room, basically, for your company. You can have different channels. Instead of sending those emails that are just the subject line or just one little thing, or if you have an email chain that goes back and forth forever because it's basically a chat, this takes the place of that ... The thing that's nice about it is that it gives you a little space to chat with people, especially when you are like me where you are home alone all day and you don't talk to any other humans. It's a nice place to talk and you can dip in and out ... I use it a lot for brainstorming."Black Diamond Spot Headlamp ($32)"A headlamp is just basically ... a sweatband that has a light on the front of it. The one that I listed is the one that I use. I like that one. I think it's also the one that The Wirecutter recommends ... I think they're super useful. Of all the things that you might not want to forget, especially on a camping trip when you get up in the middle of the night and it's dark and you cannot find the bathroom, the headlamp is what you need. It's a hands-free thing."

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…)

The new book, Einstein's Puzzle Universe, by Tim Dedopulos, is a compendium of good physics and logic problems. Here's one for you to solve:Imagine that there is an even rope of negligible weight draped over a wheel, which permits it to slide perfectly freely. Equal lengths of the rope descend from either side. On the left side, the rope ends in a 10 kg weight. On the other side, perfectly level with the weight, is a young chimp, also weighing 10 kg. When you give a signal, the chimp will start climbing the rope. Which of the two, the chimp or the weight, will reach the top first?Image: Shutterstock

Our solar system is awesome. (more…)

A Harvard University survey found that among adults between 18 and 29 years of age, 51 percent "do not support capitalism." 42 support it, reports The Washington Post. A third say they support socialism as an alternative.The survey is "difficult to interpret" due to the simplicity of choices and their lack of definition, say pollsters.Capitalism can mean different things to different people, and the newest generation of voters is frustrated with the status quo, broadly speaking. All the same, that a majority of respondents in Harvard University's survey of young adults said they do not support capitalism suggests that today's youngest voters are more focused on the flaws of free markets.

An innocent man was minding his own business one day in 2014, walking out of an Atlanta Wal-Mart with a tomato he'd just bought. An off-duty Atlanta police officer who moonlit doing security at Wal-Mart on the side accused the man of stealing the tomato on his way out of the store, and beats the man so severely that he breaks his leg and severs his artery. More than $75,000 in medical expenses later, the victim now walks with a titanium rod in his leg, with a limp. (more…)

“China's first intelligent security robot debuts in Chongqing,” reads the headline in the Chinese Communist Party official newspaper People's Daily. The riot control robot has a name, “AnBot,” and it's freaking everyone out even more than your regular garden variety riot control robots because the damn thing looks like a Dalek from Doctor Who. And nothing good comes from a Dalek. (more…)

When Jack Kirby bailed from Marvel comics in 1970 and started working for DC, his work become psychedelic and spiritual. Here are some of his wild two-page spreads for The Demon, which ran for 16 issues from 1972-1973.[via]

Oleg Cricket enjoys taking chances in high places. ˢᶜᴱᴺᴱ ᶠᴿᴼᴹ ᴹᵞ ᶠᵁᴸᴸ ᵛᴵᴰᴱᴼ , ᴴᴼᵂ ᴬᴹ ᴵ ˢᵀᴵᴸᴸ ᴬᴸᴵᵛᴱ ? ᴵ ᴰᴼᴺ'ᵀ ᴷᴺᴼᵂ , ᴹᴬᵞᴮᴱ ᴵ'ᴹ ᴵᴹᴹᴼᴿᵀᴬᴸ ? #nophotoshop #KanyeWest #olegcricket A video posted by ᎢᎻᎬ ONᎬ (@olegcricket) on Apr 12, 2016 at 4:12am PDT I promised to show #nophotoshop A video posted by ᎢᎻᎬ ONᎬ (@olegcricket) on Mar 26, 2016 at 9:57am PDT You choose, #live or #die . I know my name and believe me , I'm sure about it . #110 floor A video posted by ᎢᎻᎬ ONᎬ (@olegcricket) on Jan 21, 2016 at 4:20am PST

https://youtu.be/5cQ50i-o_GAIn this video we meet Yutaka Sasaki, a chef who prepares fugu, a fish that contains a lethal neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin. (more…)

https://youtu.be/cJukyZinJ1IMansun, who blogs at Omocoro.jp, constructed an "auto licking machine" to lick cartoon girls. [via]

Hey all you spoiled sons, daughters, and fathers out there! Take 5 and make your Mother’s Day purchase before it’s too late! You’ve got until May 6 – less than two weeks, but no worries. The 7 books listed in this handy Wink Books Gift Guide have been hand-picked for 7 different types of moms: bakers, crafters, survivalists, cocktail mamas, cat lovers, journal addicts, and the all too popular frazzled moms. The best part: all the books on this list can be delivered in 1-2 days. So order now, while supplies and time lasts!For the gourmet pastry chef:Meringueby Jennifer Evans Gardner and Linda Jackson / Gibbs Smith$19 Buy a copy on AmazonA decadent, fancy dessert, meringue is more than just a beautiful white fluff that sits on top of a sweet lemon pie. As it turns out, meringue comes in many different shapes, textures and forms, from melt-in-your-mouth cookies and creamy pies to thick frosting and crisp pavlova shells topped with fruit and whipped cream. This beautiful book is both an art piece as well as a really fun cookbook. Full review and more images.For the mother of cocktails:The Bar Book: Elements of Cocktail Techniqueby Jeffrey Morgenthaler and Alanna Hale / Chronicle Books$20 Buy a copy on AmazonWhile the author does include expertly curated recipes for some must-know cocktails, instead of focusing on what to mix (which can always be found with a quick Google of “How to make a Cosmopolitan”), it focuses on how, why, and when to mix it. A perfect blend of science, theory, philosophy, history, and personality, The Bar Book is a must-read for anyone who wants a deeper look at what exactly it means to be a good bartender. – Michelle KaatzFull review and more images.For the troop leader:Why Knot?by Philippe Petit / Harry N. Abrams$16 Buy a copy on AmazonAny mom with a scouting or survivalist spirit will love this book by tightrope performer Philippe Petit. With neat and simple illustrations, easy-to-follow instructions, and irresistible red shiny rope that comes with the book, Petit teaches us 60 useful knots while weaving historical knotting tales and his own personal anecdotes throughout the pages. His passion is both compelling and infectious. Full review and more images.For the frazzled mom:The Mindfulness Coloring Book Vol 1 & Vol 2by Emma Farrarons / The Experiment$9 Buy Vol. 1 on Amazon$9 Buy Vol. 2 on AmazonI think any book with the word “anti-stress” in the subtitle has an excellent shot at success, but Farrarons’ coloring book for adults is also appealing for its pleasing, just-simple-enough modern designs as well as its smaller size, which makes it less daunting than a lot of the other popular adult coloring books out there. For on-the-go sometimes frazzled mothers (that would include just about all of us!), this is her antidote.Full review and more images.For the journal addict:Let’s Go Letter Hunting: A Field Guide to Typographic Expeditionsby Friends of Type / Princeton Architectural Press$12 Buy a copy on AmazonI have a particular fondness for the themed journal, of which Let’s Go Letter Hunting is a prime example… Besides an introduction to the joys of letter hunting and an anatomy of type page, the bulk of the journal switches between three types of graph paper – dot, isometric, and grid – printed in orange ink… Graph paper is one of my favorite things to draw and dream on. And you can obviously use the notebook however you wish. – Gareth BranwynFull review and more images.For the crafty mama:Pride & Preju-Knits: 12 Genteel Knitting Projects Inspired by Jane Austinby Trixie von Purl / Harper Design$18 Buy a copy on AmazonPride & Preju-Knits contains 12 knitting projects (scenes) based on Jane Austen’s six novels. Every element in these scenes can be knit, including main characters, accessories, animals and furniture. There are detailed instructions…[which] include the materials, the gauge and how to finish off the piece… anyone can appreciate the imaginative handiwork and enjoy this charming little book. – Carole RosnerFull review and more images.For the kitty-cat lover:Felines of New York: A Glimpse into the Lives of New York’s Feline Inhabitantsby Jim Tews / Simon & Schuster$11 Buy this book on AmazonA beautiful book with glossy pages, the photographs of the myriad cats in Felines of New York are as diverse as the cats themselves… Jim Tews takes snapshots of the cats he encounters in New York – both feral and community cats, as well as those that live with human owners. From the purebred to those with dubious origins, the photographs are beautiful portraits of cats in their habitats, and short interviews provide insight to their lives. – Carolyn KohFull review and more images.

Daniel Martin Diaz teamed up with the fine artisans at Pressure Printing to create this stunning new limited edition print, titled Eternal Universe. It's printed on 29″ × 37 ½″ paper, hand-stained, and signed and numbered in a limited edition of 25. Far fucking out.More about the printing process on the Pressure Printing blog.

Unless you’re a programmer or webmaster, the term SQL probably doesn’t mean much to you. But for those looking to understand more about how and why the web works the way that it does, know this - SQL and its process of managing and presenting large data sets is everywhere...and it’s the most in-demand programming skill there is today.For those looking to get a leg up in the race for hugely competitive web development jobs, you couldn’t find a better place to start when by devouring this Ultimate SQL Bootcamp program, now just $49 in the Boing Boing Store.You’ll get access to nine courses that’ll make you as familiar with SQL and all its implications as the back of your hand. A SQL Server, ASP.NET, CSS, C# & jQuery Course: Programmers can’t live on SQL alone...find out how SQL syncs with CSS, jQuery, C# and others to boost your coding power.SQL Database for Beginners: Understand the philosophies behind SQL, including the right ways to set up a database, manage its relationships and craft queries to get the data you want.SQL Tutorial: Learn SQL with MySQL Database: MySQL and PostgreSQL are two of the most important SQL programs around -- learn them here as well as how they can take your databases to the next level.From 0 To 1: Heavy Lifting with SQL & Databases: When the right time to roll out SQL? Find out here as you take a deep dive into joins, aggregate operators, database interfacing and more.Learn Beginner PHP & MySQL the Easy Way: You’ll design a database using MySQL and PHP as you control access, create users, backup your data and monitor its performance.An Introduction to MySQL Database Development: Follow a practical, hands-on course that shows you ways to manipulate your data to find and present what you want.SQL for Marketers: Managing data is critical for marketers...so discover the specific ways SQL can help boost a marketer’s bottom line.SQL Database MasterClass: Go from Pupil to Master: SQL mastery is boiled down to this one master course, covering everything you need to know to score that SQL programming job.Complete WAMP & MySQL Course: WAMP brings together the benefits of Windows, Apache, MySQL, and PHP into the creation of super-fast, super-reliable databases.This kind of immersive SQL experience would normally cost north of $400, so jump on this 87% off discount now and begin planning for your next big gig.