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One wonders what was going through the mind of Edmonson County High School Principal Tommy Hodges when he ordered a teenage girl to get on her knees so he could measure her dress length. The Kentucky school has a dress code requiring skirts to end no more than six inches above the knee.Amanda said she felt “embarrassed” and “humiliated” by having to kneel on the ground, especially with her mom and dad watching.“I didn’t really appreciate having to get down on my knees, especially while I was in a dress,” she said.She said the first time Hodges measured her, she was in dress code, with 5 inches. However, she said Hodges then made her walk across the room with her hands up and kneel back down, to check if her dress would ride up.She said her dress was then 8 inches above the knee, and she went home because she was “technically” out of code. [via]

“Somebody told me.”This is my Friday jam. "Everything She Wants," from 1984 by British pop duo Wham!. This is a perfect pop song, and you can buy it on vinyl. It gives me wiggly dance-chills every time I hear it, and I was around when it first became a solid gold hit in 1984. (more…)

When I was a kid one of my favorite books was George Gamow's One Two Three . . . Infinity: Facts and Speculations of Science. (It's a pity that the current edition has such a crappy cover. Here's the cover to the copy I own, which is much cooler looking). This book taught me about huge numbers, infinity, and the fourth dimension. I loved Gamow's hand-drawn illustrations, too. If you don't have this book, I suspect you will enjoy it.Professor Stewart's Incredible Numbers, by Ian Stewart, reminds me of One Two Three . . . Infinity. It's missing the charming hand-drawn illustrations, but it has many of the same topics in Gamow's book (like the Towers of Hanoi, and the Four Color Map Theory), plus quite a few other fun number-related items that Gamow didn't cover, such as fractals, the Birthday Paradox, and the Sausage Conjecture. When I told my 12-year-old about the Four Color Map Theory, she immediately went to work with colored pencils and paper to prove me wrong. I can't find the fantastically complex maps she came up with, but if I locate them, I'll post them here. She eventually came up with an intuitive understanding of why any map you draw only needs four colors to ensure no two bordering shapes have the same color.

Darwintunes are short musical loops that mutate and evolve as listeners vote: "the higher rated loops get to have sex and have baby loops which form the next generation, to be rated, have sex, have babies and so on."The examples given start out as warbly bursts of random noise. A hundred generations in, and it sounds like kids fooling around with water-filled bottles. https://soundcloud.com/uncoolbob/darwintunes-medley-at-30-generationsFive-hundred in, chords emerge. A thousand mutations in and melodies and rhythm are present…https://soundcloud.com/uncoolbob/darwintunes-medley-at-200-generationsThree-thousand, and drums and textures seem weirdly to emerge from the deep.https://soundcloud.com/uncoolbob/darwintunes-medley-at-5170Eight-thousand generations down the line, and we have something simple and magical…https://soundcloud.com/uncoolbob/darwintunes-medley-at-8700It's a wonderful example of a simple idea: that apparent design shows up fast, and the "designs" are often lovely. This process, repeated for fifty thousand years, has given us all that we make, say and do; it is the process of "cultural evolution".However, the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. For example, how important is human creative input compared to audience selection? Is progress smooth and continuous or step-like? We set up DarwinTunes as a test-bed for the evolution of music, the oldest and most widespread form of culture; and, thanks to your participation, we've shown that reasonably complex and pleasing music can evolve purely under selection by listeners.Check out the full set below. [via r/internetisbeautiful]

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a true-blue fan of intermediate-reader adventures published during the Sixties (1964–73). Attribute this, if you will, to the fact that these books were popular when I was an impressionable adolescent in the late 1970s. The fact remains, the Sixties were a cornucopia producing a flood of extraordinary titles: Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising series, Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy, Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series, Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Joan Aiken’s Wolves Chronicles series, Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wind in the Door, S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders, E.L. Konigsburg’s From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Sure, I dig older kids’ lit from other eras, too. But nothing compares.In anticipation of their 50th anniversaries, this year, here’s my list of the Best Older Kid’s Lit of 1966. Please let me know which favorite titles of yours I’ve overlooked!OLDER KIDS’ LIT on HILOBROW: Best of 1963 | Best of 1964 | Best of 1965 | Best of 1966 | Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Lost Prince (serialized) | YA Sci-Fi | ALSO SEE: Best 1966 Adventures (for Grownups).*In no particular order…René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo’s bande dessinée Asterix adventure Asterix the Legionary. The tenth Asterix story is a particular favorite of mine — because it is a sardonic inversion of one of my favorite sub-genres of adventure: the all-for-one, one-for-all argonautica. In order to rescue a Gaul who has been conscripted into the Roman army and shipped to North Africa, where Julius Caesar was battling Metellus Scipio, Asterix and Obelix enlist in the army themselves. Along with a rag-tag group of conscripts from every corner of the empire — Hemispheric the Goth, Selectivemploymentax the Briton, Gastronomix the Belgian, Neveratalos the Greek, and Ptenisnet the Egyptian (who speaks in hieroglyphics) — our heroes must, for once, help Caesar win a battle.*Lloyd Alexander’s fantasy adventure The Castle of Llyr. The third of five volumes in The Chronicles of Prydain is the series’ most gothic installment: ruined castle, secret identities, lost memories! When heroic princess Eilonwy is forced to continue her education on the Isle of Mona, her companion Taran — assistant pig-keeper and would-be hero — comes along. Joined by the bard Fflewddur Fflam, Prince Gwydion (disguised as a shoemaker), and an incompetent princeling named Rhun, Taran seeks to rescue Eilonwy after she is kidnapped by the sorceress Achren. Along the way, they encounter Glew, a pathetic but dangerous giant, and an enormous mountain cat too. When Taran locates Eilonwy, in a castle that’s sinking into the sea, she doesn’t know him! Fun fact: “Isle of Mona” is a version of Ynys Môn, the Welsh name for the Isle of Anglesey.*Hergé’s bande dessinée Tintin adventure Flight 714. In their 22nd adventure, Tintin, Snowy, Haddock, and Professor Calculus are inadvertently embroiled in the villainous Rastapopoulos’s scheme to kidnap and rob the eccentric aircraft industrialist Laszlo Carreidas. Whisked away to an uncharted Southeastern Asian island, Tintin and his friends must escape from Rastapopoulos and his henchman, Alan, and rescue Carreidas; after which, guided by a telepathic voice (!), they discover a temple hidden inside the island’s volcano. Why do the temple’s ancient statues resemble astronauts? When Rastapopoulos triggers a volcanic eruption, how will any of them survive? Fun fact: Hergé’s story was influenced by the ancient-astronaut theories of French sci-fi comic strip author Robert Charroux. Note that I didn’t let my own children read this Tintin adventure until they were older, because: hypodermics, machine guns, Alan’s shattered teeth.*Joan Aiken’s parallel-history adventure Nightbirds on Nantucket. Having gone down with the ship at the end of the previous installment in Aiken’s terrific Wolves Chronicles, Cockney ne’er-do-well Dido Twite wakes up in the middle of the Arctic sea, aboard a whaler out of Nantucket. While an Ahab-like Captain Casket pursues a magnificent pink whale, his motherless young daughter, Dutiful Penitence, refuses to venture out of her cabin. Dido befriends Penny, then accompanies her to her Aunt Tribulation’s home on Nantucket. The girls soon uncover a Hanoverian plot involving a giant cannon — designed by a Wernher von Braun-type German scientist — that will be fired from Nantucket, and which will destroy England’s Buckingham Palace. Meanwhile, Aunt Tribulation may not be what she seems. As ever, Dido’s use of dialect — “havey-cavey,” “tipple-topped,” “in the nitch” — is awesome. Fun fact: Some Dido Twite fans suggest reading Nightbirds on Nantucket first, then (as prequels) The Whispering Mountain (1968), The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (1962), and Black Hearts in Battersea (1964), before reading the rest of the series in the order of their publication. That’s not how I did it, but I do like the idea.*K.M. Peyton’s sailing adventure Thunder in the Sky. Before K.M. Peyton became famous for innumerable books about girls and ponies, not to mention her romantic Flambards series, she wrote several YA adventures which — like this one — revolve around sailing. So if, like me, you’re a fan of sailing adventures like The Riddle of the Sands, the Swallows and Amazons series, or the Horatio Hornblower books, then check out Peyton’s Windfall (1962), The Maplin Bird (1964), and The Plan for Birdsmarsh (1965). In Thunder in the Sky, which is set during WWI, 16-year-old Sam works on his family’s sailing barge. He is disappointed that his older brother, Gil, doesn’t see it as his patriotic duty to enlist in the fighting; in fact, he begins to suspect that Gil might be an enemy spy. Will a supply run to France — carrying flammable cargo past bomb-dropping dirigibles — end in disaster? Some readers may complain about the exacting detail into which Peyton goes about how barges are sailed. But not this reader! Fun fact: Recommended by the British Library Association as one of the outstanding books for young readers published that year.*Henry Treece’s historical adventures The Bronze Sword, The Queen’s Brooch, and Red Queen, White Queen. Treece, a British poet and author, is best remembered today for his YA historical novels set at the end of the Viking period and during the Roman conquest of Britain. These three novels are set during Queen Boudicca’s uprising against the Romans. The Bronze Sword is the most famous, I suppose, but I’m fond of The Queen’s Brooch, in which Marcus, the son of a Roman Tribune, familiar with Celtic customs and friendly with the Celts, becomes a warrior… only to encounter horrific behavior on the part of tribal chieftains and their Roman conquerors alike. In the end, he becomes a proto-modern figure: adrift in a heartless world. Fun fact: As a poet, Treece was a founder of the New Apocalypse movement, a reaction against the politically oriented, machine-age literature and realist poetry of the 1930s. I also recommended Treece’s Viking Trilogy, which includes Viking’s Dawn (1955), The Road to Miklagard (1957), and Viking’s Sunset (1960); and his 1956 prehistoric yarn, The Golden Strangers, one of my all-time favorite adventures, which depicts the encounter between primitive Britons and Indo-European invaders.*Leon Garfield’s historical adventure Devil-in-the-Fog. If Garfield’s first YA novel, Jack Holborn (1964), was an homage to Robert Louis Stevenson, then his second, Devil-In-The-Fog, pays obeisance to Charles Dickens. George is a member of the traveling Treet family, impoverished but happy thespians; twice a year, a mysterious stranger emerges from foggy London streets and delivers a sum of money to Mr. Treet. When George turns 14, he learns that he is actually the son of a nobleman, Sir John Dexter, with whom he must now live. But his father has been wounded in a duel with his brother, Richard. When Richard escapes from prison, someone tries to kill George. What devil lurks in the fog? To quote a recent Guardian write-up of Garfield’s third novel, Smith (1967): “Not an easy read if you are under eleven, but an enormously satisfying one. The vividness of Garfield’s writing puts the blandness of many modern writers’ prose in the shade.” Fun fact: Devil-in-the-Fog won the inaugural, 1967 Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. *Scott O’Dell’s historical, treasure-seeking adventure The King’s Fifth. Think of The Treasure of Sierra Madre, but set in 1540 and written for older kids. During Vasquez de Coronado’s expedition from Mexico through parts of the present-day southwestern United States, a rogue conquistador strikes out on his own in search of the mythical Seven Cities of Gold. He is accompanied by the story’s narrator, Esteban, a teenage Spanish cartographer who becomes one of the first Europeans to catch sight of the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River. The conquistadors’ lust for gold drives their cruel treatment of the native Indians, and their mutual mistrust. We learn that Esteban is later imprisoned for having found a treasure without submitting the “King’s Fifth,” a tax levied by the King of Spain on precious metals. What has happened to the mule-train of gold? Fun fact: Written by the author of the much-admired YA adventure Island of the Blue Dolphins (1960). In 1982, The King’s Fifth was adapted into the Japanese-French anime TV series The Mysterious Cities of Gold. Oh, and the few good ideas from the Disney movie The Road to El Dorado (2000) appear to have been lifted from O’Dell’s book, too.Sid Fleischman’s historical/tall-tale adventure Chancy and the Grand Rascal. Separated from his family during the Civil War, an Ohio farm boy sets out to locate his orphaned brother and sisters. He soon falls in with a wily, charming, peripatetic con-man and BS artist… who turns out to be his long-lost uncle, Will Buckthorn. Together, Chancy and the Grand Rascal see the world along the Ohio River and the Great Plains frontier, seeking their family and getting into and out of scrapes. After many adventures, they discover that Chancy’s siblings have been taken in by a pretty schoolmarm in Sun Dance, Kansas. What’s a Grand Rascal to do? As a “coming-and-going” kind of man, can he be persuaded to settle down at last? Fun fact: Chancy and the Grand Rascal is the final installment in an extraordinary run of titles that Fleischman cranked out in the early 1960s, including: Mr. Mysterious & Company (1962, his first children’s book), By the Great Horn Spoon! (1963), and The Ghost in the Noonday Sun (1965). I’m also a fan of Jingo Django (1971), which was recently adapted as a Quentin Tarantino movie. Just joshin’.*R. Macherot’s talking-animal bande dessinée adventure Sibyl-Anne Vs. Ratticus. When Ratticus, an aristocratic rat, is kicked out of his ancestral castle, he preys on the mice and other animals in the surrounding forest. It’s up to hot-tempered Sibyl-Anne, her easy-going fiancé Boomer, the cowardly but entrepreneurial crow Floozemaker, the porcupine police sergeant Verboten, and others to stop him. Long before Brian Jacques’ similar Redwall series, here we find a peaceful mouse forced to band together with an unlikely assortment of animals and defend her homeland against the land, sea, and air invasion of an invading rat horde. Fun fact: Serialized, as “Sibylline en Danger,” in the Franco-Belgian comics journal Spirou in 1966 and 1967. I’ve waited for years for this strip to appear in English; in 2011, Fantagraphics’s Kim Thompson translated and published it. Sibyl-Anne Vs. Ratticus comprises the fourth and fifth Sibylline stories.*Happy 50th anniversary!

The Beatles were known as The Quarrymen in 1958. Here's George, John, and Paul (no Ringo), performing "In Spite of All The Danger" on acoustic instruments.Wikipedia has a good article about the song:"In Spite of All the Danger" is one of the first songs recorded by The Quarrymen, then composed of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, pianist John Lowe and drummer Colin Hanton.The song was written by McCartney and Harrison and is the only song to credit the two alone. It is believed to have been recorded on Saturday 12 July 1958 (three days before Lennon's mother's death). However, that recording date is disputed by the group. The recording was made at Percy Phillips' home studio in Liverpool (see 1958 in music), and cost 17 shillings and six pence (87.5p).Here's Paul McCartney, many years later, talking about "In Spite of All The Danger" and performing it solo on guitar:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWBT1PJHJy8[via]

I've gone through a lot of portable USB charging batteries. My current favorite is this model by RAVPower.I love these batteries for keeping my iPhone going in both music, and GPS mode, over long motorcycle rides. By GPS I mean Waze, and Waze is a pig when it comes to battery power! Even with the screen off, and giving only audio cues via bluetooth, that app drains power. I'll also charge the helmet audio system up whenever I stop for coffee,a meal or to stretch my legs. Two 2.4A smart sockets can full speed charge two tablets at once. The 16750 mAh capacity will charge an iPhone back up 6 or so times, or keep just it running for 2-3 days of heavy use while riding. It does take a good 3-5 hrs to charge this brick back up, so make sure to plug it in before you go to sleep. The flashlight on these batteries is just a farkle, but one that can come in handy.RAVPower 16750mAh Portable Charger Most Powerful 4.5A Output External Battery with iSmart Technology via Amazon

Jamie Keeton of Evergreen Park, Illinois says he makes $1,000 a day suctioning cans and other objects to his head. He recently took his show to China and says he will soon land a Guinness World Record for the unique talent."Twenty three years ago, I shaved my head for the first time," Keeton told WZZM13. "And I was at a ball game. I was trying to cool my head down because it was a hot day. And all of a sudden they hit a home run," Keeton said. "I went up to grab it... I missed it, and then said, 'Where's my drink?' Everybody was laughing... The drink was stuck to the back of my head. The drink was pouring out of it."According to one doctor, the ability stems from Keeton's slightly high baseline body temperature of 100 degrees.

Robert Reich (previously), Bill Clinton's Secretary of Labor, asks "Why did the white working class abandon the Democrats?" and answers himself: it's partly about race, but it's mostly about finance. (more…)

The discovery of a 16mm print of Pages of Death means that Gambit Magazine's 15 lost films is now merely 14 lost films. But that leaves plenty of missing classics left to discover, including Batman fights Dracula and, of course, London After Midnight.This 1927 silent horror film was based on the short story “The Hypnotist” by Tod Browning who also happened to direct this film adaptation. The film is noted for starring Lon Chaney with the makeup used for his vampire character being done by himself. The film was a success upon its release by MGM, but all prints have been lost to time. The film is considered to be the most famous and sought after lost film of all time, with Turner Classic Movies airing a reconstructed version of the film using the original script as well as actual production stills.

Oregon Historical Society has posted Pages of Death, a "long-lost" anti-pornography movie in similar vein to the legendary Reefer Madness: "These kids can pick up girly magazines and sex-violence stuff all over town!"It was released in 1962, much later than most of those propaganda exploitation flicks. If it was already old-fashioned at the time it came out, that fact might not be obvious to present-day viewers.The blurb follows… (more…)

They're sold out, but sculptor Turkey Merck is planning another limited run in February. They're $220 each, one of a kind, made to order, and not dishwasher or microwave safe. (via Crazy Abalone)

A heck of an accessory for your punk Bernie tee: the $25 Bernie Cash tee, with $5 to the Bernie 2016 campaign.

Unsurprisingly, the occupied Malheur Wildlife Refuge buildings contain over 4000 native artifacts, belonging to the Burns Paiute tribe. The militant rebels are not making the native Americans feel good about their occupation, and apparently call the natives "savages."The Burns Paiute Tribe is rightly demanding the United States live up to treaty obligations, and prosecute any damages to their artifacts and archaeological resources.Via ICMNT:Occupation leader Ammon Bundy, from Arizona and son of Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher involved in a standoff with the federal government over copy million in unpaid grazing fees on public land, has offered to meet with the tribe but the tribe says he has no right to hold their history hostage and have refused to grant him even the appearance of such authority by meeting with him.“Some of the members of the community were open to them,” Roderique says, “when they first came but now the county chained and locked everything up and said no you can’t have your meeting in town.”Harney County officials have stated they will not allow the militants to use any county-owned building for fear of more takeovers of public property.“They tried to ask us for our gathering center and our facility was booked up. We just kind of laughed and said they want to use our 'savage' facilities?”Roderique was referencing a “Harney County Committee of Safety” website made by supporters of the takeover who profess to exist “to secure the property and lives of the association members from threats from the savages.”

[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]“Hollywood Death Mysteries Solved!”Natalie Wood, Bruce Lee, Sonny Bono, and David Carradine were all murdered, and Richard Burton was beaten to death.That’s according to the expert forensic authority known in academic circles as Globe magazine.Solved?You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.Those of us who thought Sonny Bono died after skiing at high speed into a tree were evidently fooled by brilliant “drug assassins” who beat him to death and planted his body on a ski slope. Because what could be easier than dragging a dead body up a mountain in deep snow?Autopsy photos “could reveal Natalie Wood’s death was a murder.” Because even though medical examiners, police and prosecutors have viewed the photos, the truth won’t be known until the Globe’s pet attorney has seen the pictures. There you go – solved!Richard Burton got into a bar brawl two days before he died. Though officials ruled that long-standing illnesses killed the actor, the Globe assures us it was the fight that killed him. Because Swiss medical experts who examined his body didn’t have the imagination of Globe reporters. Solved!Bruce Lee was poisoned and David Carradine hanged by the same serial killer “who targets celebrities and stages their deaths to look like accidents.”That all makes perfect sense now. I bet the same killer got to Bob Hope and Lucille Ball too. Solved!"David Bowie died of Aids!” screams the National Enquirer, evidently based on the claims made by a former lover in 1987 – despite Bowie having twice taken court-ordered Aids tests and being proven Aids-free, and the lover also testing negative for the disease. Why let the facts get in the way of a good accusation?O.J. Simpson was Bill Cosby’s drug dealer supplying him with knock-out drugs, and Caitlyn Jenner loves Monica Lewinsky, according to the Enquirer. More mysteries – solved!Deaths dominate this week’s celebrity magazines as well. Celine Dion’s “heart is in pieces” after the demise of both her husband and brother days apart. “There are no words,” says “a friend.” Which is true, since Celine didn’t say a word to People mag.David Bowie’s death is Us magazine’s cover story, telling of his wife “Iman’s sad goodbye.” Not that Iman spoke to Us mag either.Who needs to interview the protagonists in a news story? Just talk to “insiders,” “sources,” and “friends.” Reporters with no real quotes? Solved!Fortunately, we have Us mag’s crack reporting team to tell us that Rachel Platten (Who she, Ed?) wore it best, singer Monica carries two iPhones, a prayer card and a $2 bill in her purse, and the stars are just like us: they carry umbrellas, browse newsstands, and cheer for the team.Tyga tells Us mag that he hates root beer and “could eat chicken wings nonstop,” while Bernie Sanders invites People mag into his home to watch him do the laundry, and embraces his rumpled khaki pants saying: “We’re appealing to the American men who have wrinkles in their pants.”There’s the secret to Bernie’s success – solved!Onwards and downwards . . .

https://youtu.be/DmyMtY9ZOlMWith the unsettling closure and uncertain future of a vast original area of Disneyland which has remained mostly undisturbed since park opening in 1955, it seems fitting to reflect upon some things which made it memorable. This is the first of a series of pieces, and also the most indirect — it’ll take me six paragraphs to make my real point.One thing every parent knows is the delight of “the unexpected moment” when your child comes upon a character at a Disney park without warning.There’s less of that these days, with “Character Meet and Greets” having been turned into controlled experiences and fewer instances of the characters simply walking the parks and freely mingling with the guests. (You tend to see much more of this at the Tokyo Disney Resort.)On a trip to Disneyland when my daughter was about 4 or 5 years old just under a decade ago, we entered the park early, passed through Main Street, and were taking the walkway up to Sleeping Beauty Castle that curves to the right, past Snow White’s Grotto. The white marble statues of Snow White and the Dwarfs were a gift from the Ambassador of Italy, I explained to my daughter. They reside in a man-made grotto with a waterfall. On the walkway itself is a full-size replica of the wishing well from the film Snow White. If you lean over and listen, you will hear Snow White singing. My daughter was listening intently, looking into the well, and when she turned around there was Snow White — pretty, indeed, as a picture. But live she was and my daughter’s eyes grew round. Like silver dollars. Snow White knelt, took my daughter’s hand, and for the next five minutes, nothing in the world existed except my daughter’s conversation with Snow White, who was naught but kind and gentle, and most interested in my daughter’s life at that moment. This is the true magic of Disneyland. It was so early that there were no other people in the immediate area. It still happens on occasion, and sometimes even adults get sprinkled with pixie dust. To get from the mainland to Tom Sawyer Island you take a small wooden raft on which you stand for a few minutes. And who piled in right after about 20 of us last November but The Bootstrappers, a rogue bunch of pirate musicians standing mere feet away. It was unexpected, and we were thoroughly delighted … children again for a brief two minutes. The rafts to Tom Sawyer Island, and the island itself (designed, it is said, personally by Mr. Disney) closed on January 11 and will undergo the chop — literally in this case, since half the island is being removed — to make way for a massive 14 acre new land devoted to Star Wars. What exactly will remain of Tom Sawyer Island is unknown to us for the next 18 months, but for the moment, let yourself be serenaded by The Bootstrappers as you make your way across the Rivers of America.

My friend Ian Clarke of Uprizer and Freenet fame recently invested in a Jura Ena Micro 9, a swank, ultra-high-quality espresso machine in which many elements of the brew and milk steam processes are cleverly, thoughtfully automated. Ian was sharing something about how his new purchase was working out for him (he digs it), and I asked him to shoot a video of it so i could share it with our Boing Boing readers. Here it is. (more…)

Our friends at TRNDlabs, who sponsored our Weekend of Wonder, have announced the new SKEYE Nano Drone with Camera. (more…)

Xeni got me addicted to making my own kraut. Life has me addicted to specialized kitchen tools. Combine the two and I've decided I just love this cabbage slicer/shredder.The strong handled, wide stainless steel bladed tool easily converts a cabbage into kraut size slivers. Perfect for mashing and smashing in your kraut jar. Gone are the careful slicing and cutting down of a cabbage with my chef's knife. This feels a lot safer!Cleaning is as easy as rinsing the blade off and lightly wiping it down. The tool is also dishwasher safe.If you like making kraut, this shredder is a cheap and easy way to cut down the cabbage.Westmark Germany Cabbage Slicer with Stainless Steel Blade via Amazon

Bern the White House remixes classic punk tees to show support for the Bernie Sanders campaign -- the best is the Misfits one, with the Ramones one in close second place. (Thanks, Stuart!)

T-Mobile's "Binge On" service advertises itself as a "video optimization" service that publishers and customers opt into, but it's really just throttling for all video, something T-Mobile CEO John Legere vehemently denied, then admitted to. (more…)

https://youtu.be/EskFRVyfonsEoin Stephens calls it "When Hotpoint met Sally." Original washing machine video here. "When Harry Met Sally Scene" here.

Urban planning advocates like Jane Jacobs argued that people who live in neighborhoods should be active in the planning decisions around their homes. (more…)

SplashData's report on the most commonly-used passwords finds a number of traditional disastrously bad choices performing well: "123456" comes out on top, followed by "password".Other popular choices this year were sports, like "football" and "baseball." And "starwars," a newcomer to the list, ranked as the 25th most popular breached password, probably thanks to excitement over the release of the newest movie in the franchise.Passwords are the banes of our increasingly online lives: Nearly everything we sign up for needs a password, and creating a secure one can be a pain. Even when we come up with a good one, we always need more because reusing passwords can leave us exposed if a service we use gets breached.

Republican strategist Rick Wilson, appearing on MSNBC, spoke thusly last night of the online contingent of Trump's racist, sexist support base: "childless single men who masturbate to anime".https://twitter.com/cam_joseph/status/689622097765756928The growing association between the Alt Right and anime (previously: how anime avatars became a warning) is pretty weird, isn't it? The "sociology" seems obvious—a generation of angry, badly-socialized adolescent men letting their nerddom and sexuality curdle in public—but that's the too-easy answer.

This perfectly-edited mashup of 50 Shades of Gray and Mr. Bean has it all: lust, submission, and ill-fitting tweed.

Once you've got a human-shaped 3D model that you've imbued with a suitably squishy physics, what do you do? You could torture thousands of them in a virtual infernal device straight out of The Wasp Factory, but why bother when you can strip them naked and drop them in perfect columns? (via Kottke)

See sample pages from this book at Wink.In my other life as a board member of The Rock Poster Society, the phrase “rock art” just about always equals “rock posters.” For Michael Gillette, though, whose beautiful Drawn in Stereo was published last fall by AMMO Books, rock art encompasses a whole lot more than concert advertisements. Oh sure, Gillette has designed his share of rock posters for bands like Saint Etienne, Colorama, and MGMT, but he’s also created animations for the Beastie Boys and My Morning Jacket, as well as portraits of musicians as diverse as Paul McCartney, Madonna, Jay-Z, and Pink for music magazines and websites like Spin, Mojo, and The Fader. Beyond the music world, his work has even appeared in the hallowed pages of The New Yorker and Esquire (every illustrator’s dream), and he’s been hired by such marquee clients as Levi’s, Nokia, and Sony, for whom he created the cover art for the vinyl version of the “American Hustle” soundtrack.Drawn in Stereo delivers all of this prodigious output in a straightforward, unhurried manner, not unlike the artist’s work. Or so I thought until I read an anecdote in the book’s interview with Elastica’s former lead singer, Justine Frischmann. In that casual conversation between two friends, Gillette admits to having started and finished some of his deadline-driven assignments in only a day, a trick that requires finishing a wet acrylic-on-paper illustration with a hair dryer before delivering it to “a courier at the door.” That interview, as well as the organization of the images in the book, loosely tracks Gillette’s journey from England to California, where he now lives with his wife and their two daughters, but the lack of linearity is a plus. Instead, Gillette organizes Drawn in Stereo along the stylistic choices he’s made, a few of the people he’s known, and the media he’s experimented with – and usually mastered. There’s a section on his drawings, including several from Beck’s 2006 album, “The Information,” followed by a number of moody pieces composed in Photoshop and a smattering of movie posters.But it’s the portraits that really grab us, which shouldn’t be too surprising given the music industry’s preoccupation with personality. Foremost among these are the lovely and sad watercolors from his “Little Angels” series, which depicts fallen music idols such as Kurt Cobain, Biggie Smalls, and Amy Winehouse as children, their guileless faces seemingly lifted from nursery- or elementary-school photos taken on picture day. Later in Drawn in Stereo, we are treated to Brian Eno and David Bowie, each posing as a “Glam Songbird.” The humor of these sumptuously rendered images – Eno the “Art Rock Hopper” is perched on a microphone, Bowie the “Stardust Warbler” grips a mic stand in his talons – is as disarmingly dry as the children in “Little Angels” are tender. Who knew the world of massively commercial pop could inspire such subtlety? – Ben MarksDrawn in Stereoby Michael GilletteAMMO Books2015, 192 pages, 9.7 x 11.2 x 0.8 inches$30 Buy a copy on Amazon

<insert ¡Ay, caramba! joke here> (more…)

Michael from Muckrock writes, "When the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) announced the upcoming launch of their NROL-39 mission back in December 2013, they didn't get quite the response they hoped. That might have had something to do with the mission logo being a gigantic octopus devouring the Earth. Researcher Runa Sandvik wanted to know who approved this and why, so she filed a Freedom of Information Act with the NRO for the development materials that went into the logo. A few months later, the NRO delivered." (more…)

Gentleman juggler Mat Ricardo writes, "Last week I got booked to travel to China and appear on their big world records TV show to pull the biggest tablecloth ever. Here's how none of that happened and I ended up literally fleeing to the airport." (more…)

Evan writes, "Puerta Rican singer Taina Asili has released a new music video, 'Freedom,' that's a perfect anthem for the #BlackLivesMatter movement that illuminates the connections between police violence and mass incarceration. The scene opens as a black woman narrowly escapes arrest at a protest, and then follows her as she evades police, interspersed with images of the same actress portraying a runaway slave on the underground railroad." (more…)

A top list with a difference comes courtesy of physicist Stephen Hawking, who has helpfully enumerated some of the more likely ways humankind might wipe itself from existence. (more…)

Janna sez, "For as little as a dollar a day, you can help demoralize the Bundy Militants. Funds raised will support causes the Bundy Bunch hate; per the Oregonian, monies raised will be donated to a gun control campaign, a group that supports the wildlife refuge the occupiers want to privatize, an organization that has labeled Bundy and company as extremists, and the Native American tribe whose members claim the refuge as their ancestral land."

Corgy Orgy—the work of @labelmaker and @ebaynetflix—is the perfect way to recover from Blue Monday. Best of all, you can make your own GIF orgy! Here's a Jackhammer Jill one I just made for you.

Tarpaulins are critical supplies for disaster relief and humanitarian aid, serving as cover, shelter, carpet and all-round utility infielder. (more…)

Yasutaro Koide, at 112, was the oldest man alive before he died Monday in Nagoya, Japan.His death came only months after being confirmed by Guinness as such, and it leaves the situation of his successor unclear. Susannah Mushatt Jones, 116, of Brooklyn, however, remains the world's oldest person. France's Jeanne Calment, who was 122 years old at his death in 1997, is recognized as the longest-lived person on record.Born in 1903, Koide was born to a world without human flight, ice cream cones, or the Model T. According to USA Today, he said that his secret was "not to smoke, drink or overdo it."

Neglected public payphones in New York City are being turned into "GuyFi" stations: a place where one can rub one out for the sake of "stress relief." Annalee Newitz reports on the wank booths from a company named "Hot Octopus"…The company reported that at least 100 men used the booth on its opening day last week. Of course, public masturbation is illegal—and a rep from Hot Octopuss told Mashable, "We may be insinuating that these booths could be used in whichever way anyone would like to 'self soothe,' [but] the brand is not actively encouraging people to masturbate in public as that is an illegal offense." No word on how fast the Internet connection was, or whether there would be any efforts to help women "self soothe" at a rate equal to men in the workplace.An armed society is a polite society.In NYC, pay phones become free Wi-Fi hotspots—and masturbation stations

Remember how, back in September 2015, researchers revealed that virtually every "smart" baby-monitor they tested was riddled with security vulnerabilities that let strangers seize control over it, spying on you and your family? (more…)

At a Television Critics Association event this weekend, the tension between Netflix and traditional television networks ratcheted up a few notches. TV executives expressed the growing frustration they share over the fat that Netflix refuses to disclose ratings. (more…)

Amazon is advancing its drone program with great speed. This is not a joke. Say goodbye to the brown trucks. (more…)

In a blog post, Netflix says it will vigorously block you from using internet proxies to view shows or movies you're blocked from viewing in your home country. (more…)

It's not always easy to get a Swiss person to laugh, but putting them next to a tree-breaking avalanche sometimes does the trick.

Even after the secret is revealed, I am still fooled!Make your own by downloading this PDF template.

From 1989, Fingers Inc.'s beautiful mix of "Can You Feel It" with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech.

Embrace Pangaea, a "holistic company that provides high-quality herbal detoxes and information to educate clients about natural living" wants you to buy its Herbal Womb Detox Pearls at costs ranging from $85 and $480 and stuff them up your vagina to flush out "toxins" and, depending on which ball you buy, to promote "vaginal tightening" by "tightening the womb" after which your "vaginal canal will shrink." (more…)

In the great tradition of political heroes, Martin Luther King's legacy has been sanitized and purged of its most radical and urgent notions, watered down to a kind of meek pacifism that omits his beliefs in radical political change as a necessary condition of attaining real justice. (more…)

Penthouse, the long-running men's magazine founded by Bob Guccione in 1969, is to cease publication in print. The Wall Street Journal reports that it would be "reimagined" as an online-only affair.“Reimagined for the preferred consumption of content today by consumers, the digital version of Penthouse Magazine will combine and convert everything readers know and love about the print magazine experience to the power of a digital experience,” publisher FriendFinder Network said in a statement.It once sold 5m copies a month, went under in 2004, and was bought by online hookups 'n' porn network FriendFinder—which itself went under in 2013. Its circulation figures aren't known, but was shifting about 200k last time figures were released in the 2000s.

You like zoning out in front of fractals, right? Of course you do!FractalJS is the easiest fractal zoomer yet: just pinch-zoom or scrollwheel and watch it go. There are several sets to choose from, a smoothing option, lots of color schemes, and it's all open-source.Alternatives: Calvin Metcalf's Leaflet has Google Maps-style controls and Alson Kemp's WebFract3D renders sets in three dimensions for an especially bizarre experience.Bonus: Here's a Mandelbrot set being generated on a 50-year-old IBM mainframe. Found any cool fractal stuff on the web lately?