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The tainted water that poisoned an entire generation of children in Flint, MI, was the most expensive water in America. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9MShtCg4fkIf Star Wars were directed by Paul Verhoeven: what the stormtroopers actually march to, far from John Williams' anti-Imperial minor key propaganda.

In this episode of the Flash Forward podcast we travel to a future where humans have decided to eradicate the most dangerous animal on the planet: mosquitos. How would we do it? Is it even possible? And what are the consequences?Flash Forward: RSS | iTunes | Twitter | Facebook | Web | PatreonWe talk to experts on mosquito ecology, public health, and a guy who’s trying to genetically engineer mosquitoes to eliminate themselves. We talk about everything from how hard it would be to exterminate mosquitoes, to which species we should target, to what the potential side effects might be. Listen for all that and more!▹▹ Full show notesCheck out all the great podcasts that Boing Boing has to offer!

The Freewrite started life as a successful Kickstarter campaign and now it's an object of commerce: a $500 keyboard with a sharp frontlit e-ink screen that gets more than a month's use from a full battery. (more…)

It's always fun to watch a master craftsperson at work. In this case, we get to observe a watchmaker named Harry service a Omega Speedmaster Professional, which has 234 parts, and costs $3,444 on Amazon.Consider there are significantly more old watches that need service each year than there are new watches that need to be made, and yet the Swiss invest so significantly into watchmakers for creation and yet barely consider after-sales service. In this video, we head up to Manfredi Jewels in Greenwich, CT, to talk about this, and see why now more than ever we need qualified repairmen via a detailed look at servicing one of the most iconic timepieces in history – the Omega Speedmaster Professional. For the full story, go to Hodinkee.Several years ago, when I was editor-in-chief of MAKE, I had the delightful inventor Tim Hunkin write an article about learning to be an amateur watch maker. You can read the article on his blog.

“Is he going to eat me? I thought he was. Ahhh! I thought he was real! Is he real? Go away. You go away I say, dinosaur.” (more…)

Two lawmakers are reported to be planning to unveil details of a major encryption bill Wednesday, as the FBI's battle with Apple continues and a debate grows over what role government should play in regulating technology. (more…)

This is a terrific 45-minute video profile of actor Crispin Glover, produced by Brandon Hardesty, who makes video profiles about character actors. The series is called No Small Parts. He also made a video about the actors in "It Follows," one of my favorite horror movies:https://youtu.be/npnu_39tN5Q

Bill Gates has joined Donald Trump in condemning Apple for refusing to backdoor its products at the behest of the FBI, promising that the company that he founded, a waning firm called Microsoft, would happily compromise its security on demand for the US government. (more…)

In less than an hour, Wikileaks will publish a set of TOP-SECRET/COMINT-GAMMA documents -- "the most highly classified documents ever published by a media organization" -- that document NSA spying on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, former French leader Nicolas Sarkozy, and key Japanese and EU trade reps in an attempt to gain an advantage in negotiations regarding climate change and global trade. (more…)

Netroots movements -- grassroots programmers who pitch in on political campaigns -- have been significant factors in US electoral campaigns since the Howard Dean era, and indeed, some of the key players from that era are still deeply involved in campaign tech, but the netroots that's pulling for the Sanders campaign is a significant advance on the netroots of years gone by. (more…)

https://vimeo.com/148156899Nora Al-Badri and Jan Nikolai Nelles, an Iraqi/German artistic duo, covertly scanned a famous looted Egyptian treasure, the Bust of Queen Nefertiti, from its contested perch in Berlin's Neues Museum. (more…)

Kriszti Bozzai, a Hungarian maker who sells on Etsy as Copypastry, will turn your photos into a line-art caricature, extrude it into the third dimension, and 3D print it, so that you can bake cookies that look like you. It's about $50, including the custom art. (more…)

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Rooney Mara has found her guilt regarding her lily-white turn as Tiger Lily in the derided and disastrous Peter Pan prequel "Pan," which set fire to about $200m all told.Even before Joe Wright’s live-action retelling of Peter Pan hit theaters, the production came under fire for casting Rooney Mara as the Native American Tiger Lily, and thousands signed a petition objecting to Mara’s casting. Now, less than a week before the Academy Awards and in the middle of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, Mara has opened up about her own involvement in the whitewashing debate in a new interview with The Telegraph.“I really hate, hate, hate that I am on that side of the whitewashing conversation,” she told The Telegraph. “I really do. I don’t ever want to be on that side of it again. I can understand why people were upset and frustrated.”Tell me, o internet, how Mara came to hate, hate, hate, hate being on the wrong side of the conversation, but only after the movie became a career-blighting bomb.

Chelsea Manning's helpers write, "Citing potential copyright infringement, the Army censored materials on prison censorship from the Electronic Frontier Foundation that weresent to Chelsea by one of her volunteers." (more…)

Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler legendarily had only one testicle. But he also had a "tiny deformed penis," according to researchers who claim to have uncovered the truth in medical records. (more…)

https://youtu.be/9IUhqhkmd3gLuna plays popular music on a Korean traditional instrument called the gayageum.

"Watch 106-year-old Virginia McLaurin fulfill her dream of visiting the White House and meeting President Obama."

Apple has published a letter explaining why it's not complying with the FBI's request to develop a unique version of iOS that would make it trivially easy for the FBI to unlock an iPhone. The FBI has a terrible record of abusing its power, and Apple doesn't want to enable them:[T]he order would set a legal precedent that would expand the powers of the government and we simply don’t know where that would lead us. Should the government be allowed to order us to create other capabilities for surveillance purposes, such as recording conversations or location tracking? This would set a very dangerous precedent....Law enforcement agents around the country have already said they have hundreds of iPhones they want Apple to unlock if the FBI wins this case. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks. Of course, Apple would do our best to protect that key, but in a world where all of our data is under constant threat, it would be relentlessly attacked by hackers and cybercriminals. As recent attacks on the IRS systems and countless other data breaches have shown, no one is immune to cyberattacks.Again, we strongly believe the only way to guarantee that such a powerful tool isn’t abused and doesn’t fall into the wrong hands is to never create it.Check out this post from James Comey, director of the FBI, which appeared on the Lawfare blog on Sunday:We simply want the chance, with a search warrant, to try to guess the terrorist's passcode without the phone essentially self-destructing and without it taking a decade to guess correctly. That's it. We don't want to break anyone's encryption or set a master key loose on the land. I hope thoughtful people will take the time to understand that.This is a joke. There are only a million possible combinations for a six-digit passcode. The FBI wants Apple to create a custom iOS that will allow the FBI to enter password guesses electronically, as fast as the iPhone can process them. The FBI would get the unlock code in less than 24 hours, and they know it. There is no "try."This article from The Intercept shows you how to set up your phone to use an 11-digit passcode, which would "take up to 253 years, and on average 127 years, to crack."From The Intercept:Here are a few final tips to make this long-passcode thing work better:Within the “Touch ID & Passcode” settings screen, make sure to turn on the Erase Data setting to erase all data on your iPhone after 10 failed passcode attempts.Make sure you don’t forget your passcode, or you’ll lose access to all of the data on your iPhone.Don’t use Touch ID to unlock your phone. Your attacker doesn’t need to guess your passcode if she can push your finger onto the home button to unlock it instead. (At least one court has ruled that while the police cannot compel you to disclose your passcode, they can compel you to use your fingerprint to unlock your smartphone.)Don’t use iCloud backups. Your attacker doesn’t need to guess your passcode if she can get a copy of all the same data from Apple’s server, where it’s no longer protected by your passcode.Do make local backups to your computer using iTunes, especially if you are worried about forgetting your iPhone passcode. You can encrypt the backups, too.By choosing a strong passcode, the FBI shouldn’t be able to unlock your encrypted phone, even if it installs a backdoored version of iOS on it. Not unless it has hundreds of years to spare.Image: iPhone Fiasco

Huw Parkinson created this short film, entitled "Winter is Trumping."

A man accused of killing at least 6 people in Kalamazoo was an Uber driver who picked up fares between shootings, reports CNN. The rampage continued for seven hours, according to their source, and Jason Brian Dalton was still looking for fares after he was done. One even joked with him: "you're not the shooter, are you?"For all intents and purposes, he was your average Joe. This was random," said Hadley.Getting appeared to struggle at times for the right words, if there were any, at Sunday's news conference."There is this sense of loss, anger (and) fear," he said. "On top of that, how do you tell the families of these victims that they were not targeted for any other reason than they were a target?"Reading stories about this guy, (taken alive, obviously) I'm struck by how obvious and shopworn the "lone white gunman" stock story is getting. Lots of mental health speculation, he-was-a-good-boy, what could possibly happened with this guy, "Average Joe", etc.

Britain is to hold a referendum this summer on whether to leave the EU. Proponents of "Brexit" want to see less immigration and more self-determination; advocates of staying in the union anticipate horrors both economic and human if the country becomes, once again, an "island".Polls are running neck and neck. Britain is important enough that its departure could deal a mortal blow to the European Union; the Scots and Irish, in particular, are uneasily tied to England's destiny. Meanwhile, the pound is headed south, presumably in search for warmer climes.

https://youtu.be/b5Qh72h8vkkBy Tal Prints. See below for "Chebacca screaming like a grown man in a torture porn movie." [via Kotaku] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SaJYW-vrwM

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Once Seattle became the first city where Uber drivers were allowed to unionize, the drivers started getting "customer service" calls that polled them on their satisfaction with the company, while ham-handedly pushing anti-union messages. (more…)

Inspired by the Library Freedom Project's uncompromising bravery in the face of a DHS threat against a town library in Kilton, NH, that was running a Tor exit node to facilitate private, anonymous communication, the New Hampshire legislature is now considering a bill that would explicitly permit public libraries to "allow the installation and use of cryptographic privacy platforms on public library computers for library patrons use." (more…)

There's a hard-fought lawsuit underway about whether California schools failed in their duty to provide special ed to students, and as a part of that, the court has ordered disclosure of the school records of every California so the plaintiffs can analyze them. (more…)

Five years ago, the city of Calgary gave in to a scientifically illiterate campaign against fluoride in its water supply; five years later, Calgary's grade two children each have an average of 3.8 extra cavities. (more…)

My santoku was dull, and my chef's knife was a disappointment! Dull knives can be dangerous to work with, don't ask how I know. This $20 set of diamond whetstones, and the video above, really helped me out!Set of 3 diamond whetstones (Coarse, Fine and Extra-Fine,) by DMT via Amazon

Michael Hayden sure does love him some drone-killing. (more…)

Apple said no to the government, and the government is pissed. (more…)

Silicon Valley has managed to break apart the long-locked cable TV bundle. On Thursday, The Federal Communications Commission okayed a proposal to let cable TV customers swap out their Comcast or TWC cable boxes for third-party boxes and applications. (more…)

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is preparing its comments to the US Copyright Office on the notoriously abuse-prone DMCA takedown process, which is widely used to commit Internet censorship with perfect impunity. (more…)

Bad News: Das BootUgly break up: Das BootTired after a long day: Das BootParty at my place: Das BootDepression: Das Boot, Uncut miniseries versionDivorce: Das Boot, Directors CutLost a pet or family member: Das Boot, German TV miniseriesWrong party wins election: Das Boothttps://youtu.be/suY06PVK_bIRegistered to vote: Das BootNew child is born: The Last StarfighterDentist appointment tomorrow: Das BootTaking over a Federal Wild Life Preserve to demonstrate whatever: Team America, World Police Birthday, yours: Das BootBirthday, mine: The Magnificent SevenFirst day of school, K-12: Das BootJury duty: Das Boothttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P2jiRPlq2URoad trip: Chitty Chitty Bang BangI am sure there are more.

In an "essay in 50 tweets," Clay Shirky explains how the growth of direct-to-voter channels has ruptured the mainstream political parties in America, who relied upon party power-brokers to enforce a prohibition on mentioning the third-rail topics that are the fissure lines the parties paper over. (more…)

An independent review board has ordered an unspecified health insurer in the northeastern USA to reimburse a patient for a $69,500 exoskelton from Rewalk, whose products enable people with spinal cord injuries to walk. (more…)

Limacina helicina, a mini sea snail, moves using "underwater flight," write researchers in the Journal of Experimental Biology. (more…)

The Kindle edition of Neil Gaiman's Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances is on sale today for $2.Multiple award winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman returns to dazzle, captivate, haunt, and entertain with this third collection of short fiction following Smoke and Mirrors and Fragile Things—which includes a never-before published American Gods story, “Black Dog,” written exclusively for this volume.In this new anthology, Neil Gaiman pierces the veil of reality to reveal the enigmatic, shadowy world that lies beneath. Trigger Warning includes previously published pieces of short fiction—stories, verse, and a very special Doctor Who story that was written for the fiftieth anniversary of the beloved series in 2013—as well “Black Dog,” a new tale that revisits the world of American Gods, exclusive to this collection.Trigger Warning explores the masks we all wear and the people we are beneath them to reveal our vulnerabilities and our truest selves. Here is a rich cornucopia of horror and ghosts stories, science fiction and fairy tales, fabulism and poetry that explore the realm of experience and emotion. In Adventure Story—a thematic companion to The Ocean at the End of the Lane—Gaiman ponders death and the way people take their stories with them when they die. His social media experience A Calendar of Tales are short takes inspired by replies to fan tweets about the months of the year—stories of pirates and the March winds, an igloo made of books, and a Mother’s Day card that portends disturbances in the universe. Gaiman offers his own ingenious spin on Sherlock Holmes in his award-nominated mystery tale The Case of Death and Honey. And Click-Clack the Rattlebag explains the creaks and clatter we hear when we’re all alone in the darkness.A sophisticated writer whose creative genius is unparalleled, Gaiman entrances with his literary alchemy, transporting us deep into the realm of imagination, where the fantastical becomes real and the everyday incandescent. Full of wonder and terror, surprises and amusements, Trigger Warning is a treasury of delights that engage the mind, stir the heart, and shake the soul from one of the most unique and popular literary artists of our day.

Apple has apologized to users whose phones were bricked by a recent update that interpreted third-party repairs as attempts to hack the device. It also released a new update that revives the dead handsets through iTunes.Some customers’ devices are showing ‘Connect to iTunes’ after attempting an iOS update or a restore from iTunes on a Mac or PC. This reports as an Error 53 in iTunes and appears when a device fails a security test. This test was designed to check whether Touch ID works properly before the device leaves the factory.Today, Apple released a software update that allows customers who have encountered this error message to successfully restore their device using iTunes on a Mac or PC.We apologize for any inconvenience, this was designed to be a factory test and was not intended to affect customers. Customers who paid for an out-of-warranty replacement of their device based on this issue should contact AppleCare about a reimbursement.Previously.

https://youtu.be/qBfNJ3-xYwg"This is an amazing piece of 3D art [by Patrick Hughes and on display at Birmingham Art Gallery] where the closest part of the picture appears to be the furthest away, an optical illusion known as "Reverspective". As you move around the painting, the room in the painting appears to move with you."

Pope Francis, according to ABC News, suggested that U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump is "not Christian" due to his building of symbolic walls rather than bridges.The pope's strong dismissal of Trump was in response to measures Trump has proposed on the campaign trail, including building a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border and deporting millions of undocumented immigrants living and working in the U.S.When asked by a reporter, "Can a good Catholic vote for this man?" Francis responded by saying, "Thank God he said I was a politician, because Aristotle defined the human person as 'animal politicus.' So at least I am a human person. As to whether I am a pawn -- well, maybe, I don't know. I'll leave that up to your judgment and that of the people… And then, a person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. It's not quite as if he said, as some have reported, that Trump was not a Christian. But if ever it was obvious to all that Trump believes in little beyond his own vanity, look who it took to say it almost-plainly.Update: This is purportedly Trump's response, but I'm genuinely confused about what reality is at this point.

Another oldie, doing the rounds today thanks to Twitter, is a 2011 "values" poll from Pew Research which found striking differences between how Americans and Europeans think about stuff. (more…)

"And the Americans headed to the West, the final frontier, to boldy go where no man has gone before, and kill a lot more Indians." (more…)

See sample pages from this book at Wink.The Sandman: Overture calls itself “a tale two decades in the making,” and happily lives up to that challenge. Overture is mainly a prequel to the original series, detailing the events immediately preceding Dream’s capture in Sandman #1. Yet author Neil Gaiman manages to sneak in references to the end of the series in a way that makes Overture something of a Sandman Möbius strip. His desire is for fans to read Sandman, then Overture, and then Sandman again, picking up new details on each reading. The interesting thing is despite Gaiman’s feelings, I don’t think Overture actually requires you to have finished Sandman before reading it. Those already familiar with the universe (and Gaiman has created a universe here, there is no doubt) will notice moments that refer to the original storyline, but there’s nothing in here asking you to know what those references mean. Even one moment in the second issue that chronologically takes place after Sandman doesn’t technically spoil anything because new readers won’t have any context to understand what is being spoiled. I truly believe you can pick up Overture and read it as if it were Sandman #0.The story is about Dream of the Endless, Morpheus, the Dream King, the Sandman. After a version of himself is killed galaxies away, Dream has to uncover the truth of what happened, and his journey takes him to the corners of time and space, where he may just have to battle for the fate of the universe. Sandman as a series was known for epic stories that pushed the boundaries of comics, and Overture does its part to present possibly the biggest story yet.I absolutely believe every comics fan should read this. The story is engaging and interesting, and the artwork creatively breaks the form of comics itself. In the introduction, Gaiman mentions asking the artists to draw "impossible" things, and that shows in the unique design work. Artist J.H. Williams creates pages that are more like collages than comics panels, while Dave Stewart uses color to create the most vivid dreamscapes yet seen in Sandman. There are even two large fold-out scenes in the book (the earlier one is pictured above) that are used not only to express the scale of the scene, but are actually story points in and of themselves. Almost every page features some moment worthy of stopping just to admire how Williams made it all connect together. Overture is like reading a dream.As if all that weren’t enough, this collected deluxe edition also has about 50 pages of interviews with the artists and an exclusive gallery of additional artwork. This section covers the process from the writing, to the drawing, to the coloring, even down to the lettering of the speech balloons. You would be hard pressed to find another behind-the-scenes that covers so much in such detail. Comic fans will love it, and I think it’s likely to bring some new fans into the fold as well.– Alex StrineThe Sandman: Overtureby Neil Gaiman (author) and JH Williams III (artist)Vertigo2015, 224 pages, 7.4 x 11.2 x 0.6 inches $15 Buy a copy on Amazon

Adam Savage has a nice collection of bullwhips. In this video he shows off a new addition to his collection - a nylon bullwhip made by a 17-year-old fan.

https://youtu.be/dZ4E2gHoz6gMoyo the baby elephant was saved From drowning when he was only four days old. His rescuers delivered him to Roxy, a woman who rehabilitates wild animals. As the baby elephant has grown, he has become something of a nuisance in the house. He grabs things off kitchen counters, knocks over plants, sticks spoons in his mouth, and pees on the floor. Roxy is very patient with Moyo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkrgUT70MboTim from Grand Illusions (which sells cool cabinet-of-curiosity style stuff) demonstrates the Assassin's Teapot:This teapot comes from China, and it is a trick teapot! Inside there are two separate compartments, and depending where you place your fingers - either covering one hole or covering another hole - you can get the teapot to pour out of either internal compartment. Supposedly, back in the day, it was a way to get rid of an enemy, since you could pour out some tea for yourself and drink it quite safely (provided you had covered the correct hole) and you could then pour a drink for your enemy, and they would unknowingly get what was in the second compartment, maybe poison. I also like his demo of an "atomic trampoline":https://youtu.be/EzFjZJEAt18

[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]Proving that the tabloids have more to offer than just Bat Boy and alien abductions, this week’s masters of stretched plausibility plunge into American politics with their traditional commitment to accuracy and credibility.The U.S. presidential race in the eyes of the National Enquirer is reduced to a series of dubious allegations:Marco Rubio was busted by police at a “notorious ‘cruising’ spot for gay guys” when 18, and partied in an all-male “foam party.”Bernie Sanders in his youth wrote questionable sexual fiction about “a woman on her knees, a woman tied up, a woman abused.”Ted Cruz’s wife Heidi was once picked up by police sitting “with her head in her hands” feet from a Texas expressway, where officers feared “she was a danger to herself.”Hillary Clinton “turned a blind eye” when her husband sexually assaulted other women (Well, that’s certainly a revelation.)And what shocking scandal has the Enquirer unearthed about Donald Trump?“Donald Trump has been hiding a secret,” it declares. “He has even greater support and popularity than even he’s admitted to!”Their investigative team must have dug really deep for that insight, though it’s hard to imagine that Trump could ever be accused of underestimating his own popularity.The Globe, not to be left out in the quest for journalistic gravitas, reveals Hillary and Bill Clinton’s “divorce deal,” in which “if at any point her campaign ends in defeat, they will divorce in six months.” No matter that the Globe has been predicting their break-up for years. They can dream, can’t they?Back in the real world outside Washington D.C., the Globe tells us that "the dying Queen” has ordered Prince William to get hair transplants (because every dying monarch’s fervent wish must be to leave an heir with hair), actor Hugh Jackman has “6 months to live” (because he had a small skin tumor removed from his face, and the Globe’s reporters are all licensed oncologists), and Carnie Wilson is “eating herself to death - again” (presumably she failed the first time, but full marks to her for persistence.)The Globe carries its obligatory story insisting that Robert Wagner murdered Natalie Wood, disclosing that Christopher Walken in a “new police interview” revealed that Wagner had argued with Wood, accusing her of an affair with Walken aboard their yacht in 1981. This “new” interview apparently took place when police reopened their investigation five years ago. And as the Enquirer helpfully notes of Walken’s revelation: “He was sticking to the same story he gave the first time he was questioned.” In other words, Walken said this 35 years ago. That’s what passes as news in the world of the tabloids.Us magazine features actress Eva Longoria explaining “How I Changed My Life,” by gaining a “sexy fiancé, three step-kids, a hit show,” and “survived heartbreak and started over” . . . “inside my $11.4 million mansion.” It must be hard starting over in a second-hand pre-used mansion that you buy from Tom Cruise: you repeatedly imagine him sliding across all your hardwood floors in his socks and tighty-whities and Raybans - but Eva’s bravely battling through.Jennifer Garner takes the People magazine cover, while reveals “How She’s Moving On” after her split from Ben Affleck. People doesn't let the fact that Garner and Affleck jetted off with their kids for a Valentine’s weekend retreat in Montana get in the way of her “moving on.” A “source” reveals: “She seems much more relaxed and is enjoying life.” And that’s how you move on after a break-up, apparently.Sienna Miller wore it best, Lena Dunham is allergic to artichokes, actress Jaimie Alexander has keys, lip balm and what looks like a giant lethal hunting knife in her handbag (because what actress hasn’t needed to skin and dress a wild deer after a night out in Hollywood?), and the stars are just like us: they ride bikes, work out, text and walk, and read newspapers.Seriously? Who reads newspapers these days?Onwards and downwards . . .