Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is dead at 79. The longest-serving judge on the court, he was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986 and became its most outspoken conservative, joining textualist and originalist interpretations of the U.S. Constitution with a scathing attitude that made his dissents and opinions enjoyable to laymen.The New York Times describes him as having led a conservative renaissance on the Supreme Court—one likely to end sharpish having died during a liberal presidency.He was, Judge Richard A. Posner wrote in The New Republic in 2011, “the most influential justice of the last quarter century.” Justice Scalia was a champion of originalism, the theory of constitutional interpretation that seeks to apply the understanding of those who drafted and ratified the Constitution. In Justice Scalia’s hands, originalism generally led to outcomes that pleased political conservatives, but not always. His approach was helpful to criminal defendants in cases involving sentencing and the cross-examination of witnesses. …He was an exceptional stylist who labored over his opinions and took pleasure in finding precisely the right word or phrase. In dissent, he took no prisoners. The author of a majority opinion could be confident that a Scalia dissent would not overlook any shortcomings.

Writer/editor Scott Edelman is legendary in science fiction circles for organizing outings from conventions to spectacular, out-of-the-way restaurants where the food is cheap and mind-blowing (I've eaten some very memorable dim sum with him in Philly, for example). (more…)

The highly-rated Tronsmart Titan 10A/90W 5-Port USB Charger Charging Station with Quick Charge 2.0 Technology sells on Amazon for $38, but if you use code USBTITAN you can get it for $24.

Trapped in a Human Zoo is a documentary about Abraham Ulrikab and his family, who were lured from Labrador to Europe with false promises and then exhibited in zoos along with animals in the late 1800s. All eight family members died of smallpox in Europe, but Abraham kept a diary of his family's ordeal, which was used to make the documentary.This is the story of the incredible journey of eight Inuit who came from Labrador in 1880 to Europe lured by promises of adventures and wealth, only to realize they had been trapped in a world that time has today forgotten; the world of human zoos. Thirty-five thousand indigenous people from around the world were recruited for these zoos.[via]

https://youtu.be/qklUjcHxWCEHenry Rosario Martinez died at the age of 31. He loved poker, so his friends played one last game with him by propping up his corpse and giving him a large pile of chips. Despite Martinez's remarkable poker face, he didn't win.From UPI:Wakes featuring the remains of deceased arranged in lifelike poses are becoming increasingly common in Puerto Rico, with recent examples including a paramedic posed in the back of an ambulance and a man posed at a table playing dominoes.

Anorak received an urgent email from the cousin of Nigerian Astronaut, Air Force Major Abacha Tunde:Subject: Nigerian Astronaut Wants To Come HomeDr. Bakare TundeAstronautics Project ManagerNational Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA)Plot 555Misau StreetPMB 437Garki, Abuja, FCT NIGERIADear Mr. Sir,REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE-STRICTLY CONFIDENTIALI am Dr. Bakare Tunde, the cousin of Nigerian Astronaut, Air Force Major Abacha Tunde. He was the first African in space when he made a secret flight to the Salyut 6 space station in 1979. He was on a later Soviet spaceflight, Soyuz T-16Z to the secret Soviet military space station Salyut 8T in 1989. He was stranded there in 1990 when the Soviet Union was dissolved. His other Soviet crew members returned to earth on the Soyuz T-16Z, but his place was taken up by return cargo. There have been occasional Progrez supply flights to keep him going since that time. He is in good humor, but wants to come home.In the 14-years since he has been on the station, he has accumulated flight pay and interest amounting to almost $ 15,000,000 American Dollars. This is held in a trust at the Lagos National Savings and Trust Association. If we can obtain access to this money, we can place a down payment with the Russian Space Authorities for a Soyuz return flight to bring him back to Earth. I am told this will cost $ 3,000,000 American Dollars. In order to access the his trust fund we need your assistance.Consequently, my colleagues and I are willing to transfer the total amount to your account or subsequent disbursement, since we as civil servants are prohibited by the Code of Conduct Bureau (Civil Service Laws) from opening and/ or operating foreign accounts in our names.Needless to say, the trust reposed on you at this juncture is enormous. In return, we have agreed to offer you 20 percent of the transferred sum, while 10 percent shall be set aside for incidental expenses (internal and external) between the parties in the course of the transaction. You will be mandated to remit the balance 70 percent to other accounts in due course.Kindly expedite action as we are behind schedule to enable us include downpayment in this financial quarter.Please acknowledge the receipt of this message via my direct number 234 (0) 9-234-XXXX only.Yours Sincerely, Dr. Bakare TundeAstronautics Project ManagerXXXX@nasrda.gov.nghttp://www.nasrda.gov.ng/

A beautiful essay in the London Review of Books traces the twists and turns of the Robin Hood story over time, to the era of austerity, where "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor" takes on a completely different complexion. (more…)

During a House Transportation Committee hearing on a proposal to ban vaping on airplanes, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) took a hit from his vaporizer and exhaled a cloud of mist, saying, There is nothing noxious about this whatsoever." The congresswoman sitting next to him waved the cloud away.Rep. Duncan Hunter argued the amendment would make it tough for people with asthma inhalers or people inhaling "medicine of the future" through vaporizers to take their hits on a plane."For freedom's sake," said Hunter.The amendment passed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_RD0uwA3dIEdward Snowden said that Britain's spies have "some of the most extensive surveillance powers in the world," and those powers are about to be dramatically expanded if the Snoopers Charter passes Parliament. (more…)

Andrew Taylor, 36, weighed 332 pounds on January 1st. He decided that was too much for him, and he resolved to eat nothing but potatoes for a year, in the hope that it will cure his binge eating. He shed 22 in January. He is also uploading videos of his progress on YouTube.From Oddity Central:[Taylor] has baked, boiled, and steamed potatoes, and even experimented with odd dishes like potato pancakes. He also includes sweet potatoes for variety, and sometimes uses a plant-based milk for flavor, but he never cooks them with oil. He claims that he gets 99 percent of his daily calorie requirement from potatoes, and the rest from seasoning. He carries potatoes with him everywhere to snack on whenever he’s hungry.Apart from losing weight, Taylor believes eating potatoes has helped heal some of his bad eating habits from the past. “I’ve changed from seeing food as a way of getting comfort or pleasure,” he wrote on his Facebook page ‘Sput Fit’, where he shares frequent updates about his experiment. “I’ve been exercising more, I’m full of energy.”I think I could be happy with a potato diet, as long as I could have sweet potatoes and prepare them with copious amounts of olive oil, coconut oil, or butter.

Graphic designer Sean Tejaratchi made a couple of images depicting so-boring-they're-fascinating View-Master reel. Sean's site, Liar Town, USA is NSFW and very funny.I love everything he does:

Carly Ayres of the design website Core77 interviewed Crave designer and co-founder, Ti Chang about her considerations when designing the Bullet vibrator.The shape of the vibrator itself was developed over many iterations of refining the radius and curvature of the bullet tip. “One of the challenges is that when the tip is too curved, the proportions make it appear too tampon-like and it also extends the product length—which wouldn’t work with our space and size limitations,” Chang says. “Also when it is too curved at the tip, it gives the impression that it is insertable, which it is not.” The final Crave Bullet is machined from metal, a favorite material of Chang’s. “I tend to gravitate toward metals in my designs for aesthetic, durability and tactile qualities,” she says. “Stainless steel became an obvious choice because it is a body-safe, hygienic and non-porous material. It is also very manufacturing-friendly, as it is easy to procure and process.” The body is an extruded thin-walled steel tube about 0.25 millimeters thick that is mechanically pressed and fitted with the other components. Every unit is run through a discharge and charge test to find any issues with the motors and circuitry and ensure it functions properly. Lastly, a compression-molded, removable silicone sleeve is capped over the base of the product, giving users the option of having a softer, more textured feel.

"Working with Daito Manabe, Motoi Ishibashi and their team at Rhizomatiks Research in Tokyo, the goal is to create an intimate and artistic interaction between man and machine," says Marco Tempest of MagicLab.Related, Disney recently filed a patent for what they call "Fixels" (floating pixels), drones that will be used in performances at their theme parks. (NBC News)

In the early 1900s telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell became interested in kite building as part of his research into powered flight. He focused in kites made of tetrahedron cells.From Mashable:Bell built tetrahedral cells with 10-inch spruce rods, with two sides of each pyramidal polygon covered in crimson silk, weighing about an ounce in total.Creating compound assemblies of these pyramid-shaped cells, with shared joints and spars, allowed Bell to scale up his designs without increasing the weight-to-surface area ratio.Bell’s largest tetrahedral design, the “Cygnet,” was composed of 3,393 cells. It successfully flew and carried a human passenger when towed behind a steamship, but was destroyed on landing.That passenger, U.S. Army Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge, would later become the first person to die in a powered airplane flight as a passenger on a Wright Brothers invention.By the way, Mashable has a bunch of great photos of Bell's kites. They are licensed by National Geographic, which charges over $700 per photo to run on the web:I don't get it. If these photos are from the early 1900s, shouldn't they be in the public domain now?

In 1936, postal worker Victor H. Green worked with his colleagues in the Postal Workers Union to create a guide for black travelers navigating a country where many restaurants, hotels, and shops were still "whites only," and the real threat of physical assault and arrest hung in their faces. "You needed The Green Book to tell you where you can go without having doors slammed in your face," civil rights leader Julian Bond once said.The Green Book was updated and in print until 1966. "There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published," reads the introduction.More at Atlas Obscura: "Object of Intrigue: A Jim Crow Era Guide for Black Travelers" (Thanks, David Steinberg!)Previously: "New York Public Library does the public domain right"

It's interesting that OK Go released "Upside Down & Inside Out" on Facebook instead of YouTube. The masters of meticulously choreographed music videos, OK Go, just released their latest: a three-minute clip for their new single Upside Down & Inside Out shot entirely in zero gravity. The video was filmed aboard a reduced gravity aircraft at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center near Moscow over a period of three weeks. It’s being billed around the web as the ‘first music video shot entirely in zero gravity,’ but to be fair, I think astronaut Chris Hadfield beat them to it with his rendition of Bowie’s Space Oddity filmed on the ISS in 2013. https://youtu.be/KaOC9danxNo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvr9AMWEU-cA lovely piece of nostalgic datadiz: the squeals and chirps, converted to a stream of glowing pixels. (more…)

Dating from 1915 to the 1920s, these suffragist Valentines cards are collected by the League of Women Voters, who worked tirelessly to win the vote for women. (more…)

Airbnb's New York data report—ostensibly an anonymized listing of all its hosts in the city—was intended to make the company look honest and to make its hosts look like normal, everyday homeowners. This effort seems to have fallen apart as journalists scrutinize what turns out to be a manicured view of its business.Matt Buchanan writes that the most revealing thing about the 'purge' of bad listings is the fact it let the Airbnb landlords with multiple NYC properties stay on the service, albeit with less listings:Perhaps most clearly indicative of Airbnb’s intentions, though—I mean, beyond its longstanding refusal to implement any real measures to curb illegal listings or to provide the city with what it needs to do so—is that “most hosts affected by the purge were left with some ‘inventory’ on the Airbnb site, indicating that Airbnb did not kick the ‘worst actors’ off the platform.” On average, “most hosts were left with 0.8 Entire Home listings, although the three hosts with the most Entire home listings (with 10, 11 and 12 Entire Homes at November 1, 2015) lost all of their Entire home listings by November 20, 2015.”

“On Wednesday, after many quarters of slowing user growth, Twitter said its monthly visitors in the fourth quarter totaled 320 million — exactly the same as the company reported in the previous quarter,” reports Mike Isaac in the New York Times. “While the number was up 9 percent from a year ago, when monthly active users stood at 288 million, the figures showed that Mr. Dorsey’s recent moves have made little impact in attracting users.” (more…)

Itchy gitchy ya ya dada? Itchy gitchy ya ya here?

Enreverie's $20 "Little Black Gun" earrings are studs made from shells have have been fired, affixed to surgical steel posts, nickel-plated and set with Swarovski crystals. (Thanks, Kyle!) (more…)

1993's epic hero, Doomguy, is back! The next installment of DOOM, the video game that defined our vibrant, gib filled world of FPS play is set to launch on May 13th. Naturally, this is a Friday.I'm dusting off my BFG 9000 and prepping for Cacodemons. Preorder Doom 2016, via Amazon

Melt chocolate into slabs, coat with blue candy-melts, and stud with broken oreos and edible googly eyes and voila: it's as though you blenderized a thousand Cookie Monsters, rolled them flat, and baked them. (more…)

Remember when it looked like the Senate committee that oversees the CIA was writing the notorious CIA Torture Report, and caught the CIA searching their Senate bosses' files to find out what they knew? (more…)

Fabulous Beasts is a new game from indie studio Sensible Object, which combines stacking/balancing (think Jenga) with smart, sensor-enabled blocks that talk to your mobile device as you play the game, creating fun and complex challenges. (more…)

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Macarthur-winning author of the outstanding Between the World and Me, was widely criticized when he condemned Bernie Sanders for saying that reparations for slavery were not a practical political goal (Coates won many prizes and gained much recognition for a superb essay called The Case for Reparations). (more…)

An ancient mystery revealed. (more…)

On the day of his inauguration, Stephen Blades, the 44th president, finds a letter left on his Oval Office desk simply marked “44.” In it, outgoing President Carroll reveals a dark secret that he’s kept throughout his administration. An alien presence has been detected in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. And the beings there are building some sort of massive and potentially threatening structure.President Carroll (obviously “inspired” by George W. Bush) has dragged the United States into two protracted wars and nearly broken the back of the country in the process. Now incoming President Blades learns to his horror that these wars were largely a ruse for achieving combat readiness for a possible alien attack. He also learns that, besides there being a deep black ops program for building next-gen military technology for confronting a possible alien menace, a secret one-way mission, with nine astronauts, has been dispatched by Carroll to the asteroid belt and will be arriving at the site of the alien construct soon. “Mr. President, they’re ready for your swearing in.”And so begins the thrilling and surprisingly complex and tense ride that is Letter 44. Author Charles Soule and artists Alberto Jiménez Alburquerque, Guy Major, and Dan Jackson do an impressive job of creating a rich and layered world within this satisfying sci-fi comic series. The book confidently lays the interleaving stories of the first contact space drama, the cutthroat politics on the home front, and the geopolitical dramas as President Blades tries to carry on with two wars he now knows are shams and to prepare for a potential war coming from the stars. Cross 2001: A Space Odyssey with House of Cards (with a pinch of ol’ Heinleinian polyamory thrown in for spice) and you get some idea of what Letter 44 feels like. 

Letter 44, Volume 1: Escape Velocity sets up the entire chessboard that gets dramatically played out over the two other volumes to date (Volume 2: Red Shift and Volume 3: Dark Matter). If you read Volume 1 and enjoy it, your ride has just begun. There’s a brilliant reveal in Red Shift which caught me by surprise and made me love this series even more. The covers to these book are gorgeous color foil and the artwork inside has a kind of crisp and vivid intensity that I think perfectly renders the fear, suspense, and futility of the story. And besides Soule doing an admirable job of covering a war on three fronts (homeland, global, space), he also doesn’t shy away from dealing with the emotional and sexual complexities of the characters in the trenches of each of these conflicts. There’s a lot going on here and lots of places to get potentially lost, but Letter 44 never lets up, never falters. I found this an extremely satisfying work of original, sweeping science fiction in comic book form.Letter 44, Vol. 1: Escape Velocityby Charles Soule (author) and Alberto Jiménez Alburquerque, Guy Major, and Dan Jackson (illustrators)ONI Press Inc2014, 144 pages, 6.6 x 10 x 0.5 inches (softcover)$16 Buy a copy on Amazon

https://youtu.be/xf2oMz_ECSQIt's a ciliate eat ciliate world. Filmed by Wim van Egmond of the Micropolitan Museum in the Netherlands.[via]

Up in the manicured hills of Los Feliz, a neighborhood that boasts at least three famous murder houses, the one with the weirdest history may be the Perelson house... where, deep in the night of December 6, 1959, a husband and father of three lost his fragile grip and went terribly, shockingly crazy. But the story only starts there.Why did Harold Perelson snap? What does it mean when, without warning, the safety of a family home is shattered from within? And how do you explain what's happened to the house since? This week on HOME: Stories From L.A., a mystery that's endured for almost 60 years, and the crime that set it in motion. Thanks for listening. And if you like what you hear, please subscribe.

https://youtu.be/Mh5LY4Mz15oBill Wurtz made this fun and informative 9-minute history of Japan.

Last-Minute Gifts for LoversShare this on Twitter and Facebook. Where available we use affiliate links, which help support Boing Boing. Thank you for clicking.Silver heart pill container pendant / $100Compartment will fit 6 small antipsychotic pills comfortably.The Womanizer: comes with a "100% orgasm guarantee"It's not a vibrator. It's a gadget that suckles the clitoris. Vanessa Marin, a licensed psychotherapist specializing in sex therapy, said it "induces powerful orgasms in a shockingly short amount of time." — MarkSquare, lightweight plastic flask from StanleySturdy, multicolored flasks that go around the world with you, perfectfor a sneaky V-day cocktail with your sweetie (Previously) — CoryConcrete Park: apocalyptic, afrofuturistic graphic novel of greatnessConcrete Park is a beautifully told war-comic in the tradition of DMZand Transmetropolitan, but with an even more ambitious storyline, filledwith so many warring factions, crosses and double-crosses, and generalbadassery that it's a good thing that the creators chose to use suchstylish infographics, textual notes, and visual tricks to make sense ofit all (Previously) — Cory Laser-cut birchwood landscape rings / $24Beautiful landscape rings to mix and match from Britain—there are houses, trees and mountains (there's also an acrylic tsunami). Read more — CorySex and Drugs: A Journey Beyond LimitsA classic book of blissed-out altered consciousness by Boing Boing patron saint Robert Anton Wilson. — Mark Flashing LED Heart Kit / $10Solder up a special something for your loved one or, better yet, have a romantic maker date and do it yourselves. Ah, love just makes everything glow. — DavidDiamond-Accent Pendant Necklace / $80For those who just need to get the Valentine's Day situation dealt with immediately — Rob Anatomical Heart Necklace / $48Designed by Lost Apostle, the heart is white bronze, approximately 3/4" tap, and comes on a gunmetal chain. Also available as a ring! — David doTERRA “Whisper” essential oil blend for women (fragrance) / $26The ladies love it. The dudes love smelling it. Rose, jasmine, bergamot, cinnamon cistus, vetiver, ylang ylang, cocoa, vanilla, sandalwood, and patchouli. OMFG. — XeniBelgian Darts Set / $120End grain basswood board, scoring rings separated by hydraulically inserted brass, and polished steel-tipped darts with birch wood barrels and shafts.— Rob Pilot Vanishing Point retractible nib fountain pen / $140I love my unique, never leaking Pilot/Namiki Vanishing Point. I have carried it for years and the pen writes as beautifully today as when I bought it. Read More — JasonFull Body Spandex Lycra Suit / $40Enjoy a close encounter of the 4th kind with your loved one! Lelo Lily Vibrator / $76Rechargeable, splash-proof, and impressively powerful with five different vibration modes and 10 speed settings. For internal action, check out the LELO Gigi!Amara Venezuelan Sipping Chocolate / $13. Delicious dark cacao powder and cacao butter. Pure sex, man. This is the real deal. Think of it as what expresso is to coffee: intense, made to be savored with sensual focus. — XeniKawaii Heart Stickers / $5Five bucks a sheet The Magic Wand / $64If you don't have enough Valentine's Day magic. — JasonMoleskine, Large / $16For writing romantic slashficNo! You may not buy an Inflatable T-Rex Costume for your love!Add your suggestions in the comments

You travel around a lot. It might be that jet set life from New York to LA to London to Tokyo, or it might be back and forth from the coffee shop to the office, or from the kitchen to the couch. Any which way, you’re mobile and that’s the way to live. When you code, you like to keep it stable though and that’s why you need this three year subscription to the amazing powers of Codeanywhere that’s now 76% off. Anywhere you are, there are all your coding powers, live on the cloud and ready to be dominated by your very impressive, very mobile skills.With this cloud-based development environment, you can code anywhere in the world, any time from a browser, Apple, or Android device, even a phone or tablet. If you’re working with a team you’ll be able to collaborate in real time using the pair program. Simply connect to your existing code with FTP, SFTP, Dropbox, or Google Drive. Using your container or remote servers you can run any command. To view and pinpoint disparities, you can view different versions of your code and also choose from predefined dev stacks.Never worry again about getting your coding done while traveling or working remotely. It’s all here and it’s all super easy to access and share. For three years, unlock this superpower now for 76% off. Check out the link below for more compatibility details.Save 76% on a 3 year subscription to Codeanywhere in the Boing Boing Store.

The Kikkerland Animal Multi-Tool ($20 on Amazon) is cased in beechwood and has with a flathead screwdriver, Phillips head screwdriver, wire stripper, file, hole punch, bottle opener, and utility knife.

Nathan Yau created an interactive visualization of Consumer Product Safety Commission data on emergency room visits spurred by product-related injuries. At the top are floor and stair injuries followed by various sports and bed injuries. "Why People Visit the Emergency Room" (FlowingData)

See sample pages from this book at Wink.Yay! Another captivating DK book for children has just come out today. 100 Events that Made History is an encyclopedia of ideas, inventions, wars, scientific breakthroughs, disasters (both natural and human-made), and other historical happenings that had a major influence on how our world looks today. The book's colorful collage-art layout is attractive and inviting. I enjoyed this book along with my 12-year-old daughter, and I actually learned a lot of little nuggets that I missed in school. The wide range of topics include the discovery of bronze, Confucius, Teotihuacan, Julius Caesar, the birth of Israel, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first flight, global communications, and about 92 other influential milestones in history. Each are explained with fun facts in 1-2 pages, which isn’t enough to turn readers into scholars on any one subject, but will certainly whet their appetites to devour more on their own. And put together, 100 Events allows readers to connect the dots from the beginning of human ideas to where we are now scientifically, politically, spiritually and socially.100 Events that Made History: Memorable Moments that Shaped the Modern Worldby DKDK Children2016, 128 pages, 8.8 x 11.2 x 0.6 inches $17 Buy a copy on Amazon

Today is Safer Internet Day 2016, and to celebrate Google is giving users 2GB of free Google Drive storage. The only "catch" is that you have to go through a 2-minute security update, which you should do anyway.[via]

The FBI have arrested five of the six top officials of the town of Crystal City, Texas, accusing them of taking bribes and allowing an illegal gambling operation to run in the town of 7,500 people.According to the indictment, those in the town leadership who were charged “used their official positions to enrich themselves by soliciting and accepting payments and other things of value” from [alleged gambling operator, Ngoc Tri Nguyen] and others. The document accuses the officials of voting to award contracts in exchange for bribes, extorting payments from contractors, turning a blind eye to Nguyen’s illegal gaming business while taking action to shut down would-be competitors, and agreeing to reduce Nguyen’s taxes in exchange for him waiving debts, among other dealings.Mayor Ricardo Lopez, the indictment alleges, instructed city inspectors to “make it easy” while looking at Nguyen’s property. Authorities said he also made extra effort to shut down other operators of “8-liner” gaming rooms, which are nominally illegal in Texas but flourish informally in the southern part of the state. In exchange, he allegedly accepted $6,000 from Nguyen to buy a car. (Image: Photo of beautiful, bustling Crystal City Billy Hathorn/Wikipedia)

It's usually OK to wear a piece of fabric on your head, provided it's got a shape that doesn't frighten other domesticated primates. Unfortunately for Waris Ahluwalia, an Indian-American actor and designer, the piece of fabric on his head was in the shape of a turban, a shape that triggers acute panic in certain homo sapiens. As a result, Ahluwalia was prevented from boarding an Aeromexico flight from Mexico City to New York."This morning in Mexico City I was told I could not board my @aeromexico flight to NYC because of my turban," he wrote on Instgram.From The Guardian:For Sikhs, wearing a turban symbolises commitment to the faith.“[Taking the turban off] is not something that I would do in public,” Ahluwalia told the New York Daily News. “That’s akin to asking someone to take off their clothes.” This morning in Mexico City I was told I could not board my @aeromexico flight to NYC because of my turban. #FearisanOpportunitytoEducate #humanrights #dignity #lovenotfear A photo posted by Waris Ahluwalia (@houseofwaris) on Feb 8, 2016 at 5:58am PSTAeromexico made the following statement on their website:Aeromexico is a global airline that has operations in countries around the world, which recognizes and is proud of the diversity of its passengers. Every day we work to ensure strict compliance with the highest safety standards, while we respect and value the culture and beliefs of our customers.We apologize to Mr. Waris Ahluwalia for the bad experience he had with one of our security elements in addressing your flight to New York in the Mexico City International Airport.This case motivates us to ensure that security personnel strengthen its care protocols, always respecting the cultural and religious values ​​of customers.Image: Shutterstock

https://youtu.be/b_ji5MyaLeEA leopard entered a high school grounds in Bangalore India and began attacking people. Six were injured.From HuffPost:Senior police official, S Boralingaiah, said: "It was a long struggle to capture the leopard. Although it was injected with tranquillisers it could be captured only around 20.15 local time when the medication took full effect."

I'm excited really excited for this May's installment of Beyond Brookledge!Both Mark and I are huge fans of Erika Larsen and Bob Self's amazing weekend of magic, comedy, variety and amazing people! In addition to the massively, exhaustingly entertaining 3 day stay in Riverside, California's Mission Inn, last year I returned home inspired, and with a lot of new friends. Beyond Brookledge is an extension of Erika Larsen's amazing Brookledge Follies. The follies are a single evening's performance at a very small, private stage in Los Angeles. Tickets are never for sale, seating is nearly impossible to come by and the show is over far, far too quickly. Beyond Brookledge is an amped up, immersive three day version of Erika's magical evening. I had a chance to speak with Erika last week, and one of the few secrets she could share about this years performance is that the event will be carnival inspired! She advised me to expect something along the lines of a dark, tired carnival years after their hey-day has passed. I would watch shows curated by Erika every day, if I could! I've already bought my ticket for 2016's show! Beyond Brookledge 2016

Tina Hunt, a 49-year-old grandmother received a felony conviction for aggravated battery of a peace officer when she kicked a sheriff's deputy in the shin during a struggle in a lockup. At her trial, the deputy testified that the kick was not painful and left no mark. Nevertheless, because Hunt has two prior convictions for violent crimes decades ago, she faces a mandatory minimum of six years in prison.From Chicago TribuneA Temple University assistant professor in criminal justice who spent nearly a decade working at the Leighton Criminal Court Building as a law clerk called the case an example of inequities in criminal sentencing law."She may very well should have been convicted, but what you see in the sentencing is there's no way to reform," Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve said in a telephone interview. "It's a punitive system. The sins of the past will follow you forever."Image: Shutterstock

Clearly we love multimeters at Boing Boing! This great video, passed on via my friend Dan Rodarte, gives you a quick run down on using this diagnostic tool.

Last June, the founders of Portland's XOXO Conference announced a new co-working space; now they've formalized it, calling it "XOXO Outpost" and promising "something more than just a place to sit on your laptop—a supportive community of amazing people you’re genuinely excited to see every day, and XOXO’s extended network of friends and advisors to help your project succeed." (more…)

A Utah State House of Representatives bill would outlaw doxing—publishing someone's private info with the intent to facilitate harassment—but the EFF says the planned law's language is so broad it would target free speech.At fault, Sam Machkovech reports, is the fact that the law doesn't clearly define its terms.[Lead sponsor State Representative David E.] Lifferth's suggested amendment, on the other hand, offers no such specific, harassment-minded qualifiers in regard to "personal identifying information." The legislation as written would punish citizens for posting a laundry list of information about anyone if a court determined there was intent to annoy, alarm, or offend them, including names, birthdays, phone numbers, place of employment, photographs, or other realistic likenesses. The penalty for first-time offenders would be a class B misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail and a maximum $1,000 fine.Among other things, such legislation might limit citizens' ability to hold public officials and other influential members of society accountable for their actions.Lifferth has promised to fix the bill's language.

https://youtu.be/Si9duk125SEA Florida man "tossed" an alligator into a Palm Beach County Wendy's, reports WPTV, earning 23-year-old Joshua James of aggravated assault and unlawful possession of an alligator."FWC officials say 23-year-old Joshua James pulled up for his order and after a server handed over a drink and turned around James reached into the back of his truck and tossed the 3-and-a-half foot gator through the drive-thru window. The incident report showed a picture of the gator inside the restaurant."The incident, in Loxahatchee, Fla., happened in October last year, but it took U.S. Marshals several months to track him down. James was taken into custody early February, 2016. His mom says he's a harmless prankster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCe7m7mhUxYJulldozer created an amazingly clever digital sundial ("Cadran Solaire Numérique") that precomputes the angle of the sun throughout the day and uses those computations to make hundreds of precise holes calibrated to cast a shadow displaying the present time. (more…)

Does Cyberspace Exist? Is It Free? (more…)