I bought this wall-mounted magnetic strip to have easy access to tools I need for simple household tasks: opening packages, hanging pictures, assembling furniture, tightening loose nuts, installing door locks, measuring things, simple plumbing repairs, etc. It's much better than keeping the tools in a kitchen drawer, because I can instantly find the tool(s) I need. The magnet is very strong, so I don't have to worry about a tool falling off. The strips come in various lengths. The one I bought is 24 inches long. The shortest I've seen on Amazon is seven inches.

This is from way back in 2012, but Geoff Micks determined which U.S. president would win in a massive knife fight and it is essential reading.The scenario had a few rules—the combatants are in the best health of their presidencies, they're in the Colosseum, each are issued with a standard Gerber Combat Knife, FDR is permitted a motorized wheelchair—but they are otherwise left to their stabby devices.Each president's chances are individually discussed. [via JWZ]

It is time once again for the Edge Annual Question, a mind-bending and boundary-busting online convening of scientists, technologists, and other big thinkers all responding to a single question at the intersection of science and culture. From physicists to artists, cognitive psychologists to journalists, evolutionary biologists to maverick anthropologists, these are people who Edge founder, famed literary agent, and BB pal John Brockman describes as the "third culture (consisting) of those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are." This year, John asked: What do you consider the most interesting (scientific) news? What makes it important?" Nearly two hundred really smart people responded, including Steven Pinker, Nina Jablonski, Freeman Dyson, Stewart Brand, Marti Hearst, Philip Tetlock, Kevin Kelly, Lisa Feldman Barrett, Douglas Rushkoff, Lisa Randall, Alan Alda, Jared Diamond, Pamela McCorduck, and on and on. "Science is the only news," writes Stewart Brand in the introduction. "When you scan through a newspaper or magazine, all the human interest stuff is the same old he-said-she-said, the politics and economics the same sorry cyclic dramas, the fashions a pathetic illusion of newness, and even the technology is predictable if you know the science. Human nature doesn't change much; science does, and the change accrues, altering the world irreversibly.' We now live in a world in which the rate of change is the biggest change." Science has thus become a big story, if not the big story: news that will stay news."2016 : WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER THE MOST INTERESTING RECENT [SCIENTIFIC] NEWS? WHAT MAKES IT IMPORTANT?

In 1984, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope made its television debut on CBS. Mark Hamill himself hosted the introduction to the film, sporting a sharp tuxedo. Classy. Most classy. (Thanks, UPSO!)

The late, great Natalie Cole, who passed away last week, bares her beautiful soul on The Midnight Special in 1975.

A group of white separatist domestic terrorists have occupied the Malheur National Widlife Refuge Building in Burns, Oregon, fronted by the racist terrorist leader Cliven Bundy, who organized supporters to point sniper rifles at federal officers without any consequence in Nevada last year. (more…)

4AM is a prolific computer historian whose practice involves cracking the copy protection on neglected Apple ][+ floppy disks, producing not just games, but voluminous logs that reveal the secret history of the cat-and-mouse between crackers and publishers. (more…)

Cate writes, "I came across a collection of snapshots at a thrift store and recognized the historic nature of the photos, which documented the 14th World Science Fiction Convention.I purchased the photos from a thrift store in Santa Barbara, California on December 31, 2015. I am looking for help to identify attendees featured in the photos." (more…)

The Website Obesity Crisis, Maciej Ceglowski's (previously) Web Directions talk, documents the worsening epidemic of web-site bloat, and dissects the causes. (more…)

The nascent science of hangovers -- launched in earnest in 2009 with the Alcohol Hangover Research Group -- has ruled out all the traditional culprits for your misery. A promising new culprit is inflammatory response to elevated levels of cytokines, molecules that transmit messages through the immune system. (more…)

In Meet the people who have volunteered to die on Mars, Walker Lamond writes about the thousands of people who wanted to compete to be the first humans to travel to Mars and colonize it. The only catch was that they can never come back—ever.Science Fiction legend Kim Stanley Robinson offered a stark wakeup call about the prospects for human survival beyond planet Earth in Our Generation Ships Will Sink. It's an undeniable case for ecological stewardship: put simply, it'll always be easier to make our own world a fit place to live than to terraform other worlds—or to risk spending our children in the deep. It will not surprise you, however, to learn that the traffic charts were mostly dominated by posts such as Mark Frauenfelder's 16-year-old girl who took nude selfie photos faces adult sex charges, a perfect storm of absurdity, injustice and authoritarianism: he knocked the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office for thinking it made sense to charge a 16-year-old girl with two felony sex crimes, with herself as her own victim, for taking nude selfies. Porn actors must wear protective goggles during shoots: California safety standard was another of Mark's top postings, landing at a similar intersection of government, sex and stupidity. (Police awfulness crops up again and again in our most well-read items: Lars Forseti's Unarmed man flags down LAPD seeking help. They shoot him in the head. lurks close to the top 10)Cory Doctorow left London for Los Angeles this year, and made no bones about why he left the U.K. In "my family is moving to Los Angeles in two weeks. Many Londoners understand intuitively why we're going" he charts the growing unpleasantness of Britain's capital city and its diminishing appeal to anyone who isn't very well-off. His blogs post linking to Consumerist's GM says you don't own your car, you just license it and to Annalee Newitz's Gawker item exposing the details of Ashley Madison's sad, bot-powered shakedown of lonely arseholes ("only 1,492 female-profile users ever checked their messages, compared to 20m men.") were also hits.David Pescovitz's top blog posts of the year were "Father and son take same photo for 27 years" and "Dildos dangling from power lines in Portland". If someone could combine long-unfolding nostalgia with sex toys, they'd have the ultimate Boing Boing blog post.Xeni Jardin's post about climate change denier Rupert Murdoch buying National Geographic was a huge hit—the $725 million dollar sale brought an end to more than a century of independence. Other hits from Xeni included how to talk about Caitlyn Jenner: a guide to speaking and writing about transgender people, a useful primer on the happy mutations to language and culture that helped 2015 on its way. Can you guess who Arab-looking man of Syrian descent found in garage building what looks like a bomb is about?This year, I annoyed the right people with Rickrolling is sexist, racist and often transphobic in context. When I wrote that it was highly problematic, especially in its dependence upon the semiotics of cisgendered discourse, I had no idea how many people would become angry without even reading the article.My short story Hakim, the Masked Gamer of Minneapolis remixed Borges, internet madness and narcissism, and won a little praise and many clicks. But not as many as blog posts about porn and a mystery man shitting in golf holes.BB publiser Jason Weisberger's top posts were Bet you recognize this famously sampled song and a charming vintage snapshot of himself as a kid: I was once a student leader: "This is cracking me up, from Santa Monica College's 1989 course catalog." Of his various photographs of Muir Beach, California, the most successful was one where you can't see anything. Turneresque!In the only technique to learn something new, James Altucher warns that learning is both less and more specific than we appreciate: "I had a friend who wanted to get better at painting. But she thought she had to be in Paris, with all the conditions right. She never made it to Paris. Now she sits in a cubicle under fluorescent lights, filling out paperwork all day." Why Bob Ross is the perfect let’s play-er, by Leigh Alexander at Offworld, honored the famous painter’s posthumous return to popular culture, an event that "encapsulates the beauty of watching and learning." Her introspective piece, "All the women I know in video games are tired", charted difficult times for women writers who tackled the genre.Our top review of the year was Laura Hudson's look at a hit video game from director Hidetaka Miyazaki: In Bloodborne's brutal world, I found myself. "I've always wanted to know the difference between perseverance and masochism," she writes. "This is the game that taught me." (more…)

San Bernardino is ground zero for the bunkum industry that sells "behavioral detection" courses to law enforcement, the place where the most cops and government employees are taught to spot "lone wolf" "active shooters" before they snap -- but none of Syed Rizwan Farook's expensively trained co-workers noticed that he and his wife Tashfeen Malik were about to go on a shooting spree. (more…)

Jerry Seinfeld usually brings along a fellow comedian for a ride with him in a vintage car to a coffee shop, but this time he mixed things up a bit by inviting the President to accompany him. Unfortunately, the Secret Service wouldn't let Seinfeld and Obama drive past the White House gate, so they ended up having coffee in the White House basement, which looks like a set for a 1970s sitcom about an aluminum siding telemarketing boilerhose. There, they had a fun conversation while drinking low-quality coffee made in a Mr. Coffee machine. I'm glad they aren't wasting money on Keurig pods, at least. From Crackle: Just Tell Him You’re the President

Adam Driver did a great job but I still prefer the original actor.

Ian Murdock is half of the founding team of Debian, a popular and foundational flavor of GNU/Linux from which Ubuntu and Mint are descended. Earlier this week, he posted a series of bizarre, racialized tweets in which he threatened to commit suicide to call attention to the police brutality he was experiencing. He is now dead, though the cause of his death has not been disclosed. (more…)

Ministers are lobbying to make it a criminal offense for a tech company to inform a user that the UK government is spying on them. (more…)

Today, the City Pages newspaper of Minneapolis published an article by Jay Boller looking into why Maureen Herman had been fired from Babes in Toyland, the iconic punk band she'd been a member of since 1992. Maureen, a close friend of mine, told me a couple of months ago she'd been kicked out because of an essay she wrote in July for Boing Boing, titled "The Jackie Fox rape disclosure shows we still have a lot to learn." In the essay, Maureen wrote about Runaways bassist Jackie Fox's revelation that she'd been drugged and raped by the band's manager, Kim Fowley in 1975. Maureen wrote that Fox's "rape happened in front a roomful of people, including two of her bandmates, Cherie Currie and Joan Jett. In the course of the article’s investigation and Fox’s disclosure, many bystanders have come forward, affirming what they saw and who was present that night in 1975." (Disclosure: I'm also friendly with Jackie. She's been to my house, we play in the same trivia league, and we communicate via email frequently.)Joan Jett, the Runaway's guitarist, responded to the news by denying that the rape happened. Maureen wrote in her essay, "With one nudge of denial from an iconic Joan Jett, we witness the beginnings of the public collapse of Fox’s credibility." A short while after her essay ran on Boing Boing, Maureen was fired by Babe's in Toyland drummer Lori Barbero and lead singer Kat Bjelland.Maureen did not speak publicly about the reasons why she was fired, until December 21, when she posted a note of Facebook that said, "Despite the severe fallout from my own bandmates about writing the article, and it being the catalyst for me getting kicked out of my band, I regret nothing. I will never be silenced, by ANYONE."From City Pages:In the comment thread of her Facebook post, Herman suggests that Barbero was uncomfortable with the essay in part due to her production work for Fea, a band signed to the label owned by former Runaways singer Joan Jett. Barbero says Herman taking issue with that arrangement "caused a little problem," but ultimately was not the reason Herman was fired. Drummer Barbero was quoted by City Pages as saying, "She’s so toxic, I could give a fuck what she says, to be quite honest. It just pushes my buttons, I guess. Over all these years I’ve realized the only thing I can do when anything is negative and toxic, you have to let it go. And that’s the reason we have to have a new bass player. It has nothing to do with rape. The relationship didn't work out and we moved on, and that's really the bottom line."The original version of the City Pages article did not include a statement by Maureen, because Boller had tried to contact Maureen through Facebook's instant messaging service, and Maureen's preferences were set to direct people not on her friends list to a page she doesn't check frequently. However, Boller and Maureen connected later today and Maureen sent him a statement, which was added to the article:“[At the first show back in L.A. in August] Kat gave me a list of seven grievances that Lori had for why I should be kicked out of the band,” Herman says. “The catalyst, Kat told me, was writing the article about Jackie Fox, because [Lori] felt that me being critical of Joan Jett threatened Lori’s business relationship, which I had no idea even existed.”Among the other grievances, according to Herman: Use of psychiatric medication (“the height of ignorance,” says Herman, who has been sober for 12 years).“With Kat’s help, I wrote a response to her grievances, trying to acknowledge my part in any of these things, and a willingness to try and work it out,” Herman says. “What I did not apologize for was the article, because there’s nothing to apologize for. Kat never wanted me out of the band. Kat tried vehemently to keep me in.”Herman says she eventually reached Barbero by phone, and says she was met with the response, “Kat was supposed to fire you.” About a half an hour later, Herman says, she received a text from Bjelland reading, “Sorry, you’re done.”(Image: Ana Viotti/Flickr)

https://youtu.be/dP7k08Ytdq4This street corner in Chilliwack, British Columbia is a real hotspot for petty crime. In this video you can what was captured by a home security camera system in 2015: cars going backwards, arrests, attempted break-ins, drivers doing stupid things, pedestrians making weird noises, trespassers, car chases, beatdowns, muggings, brawls, burglary, and fire hydrant vandalism.[via]

It should suffice to point out that, like the other terrorists, 25-year-old Mohammed Rehman's plotting was not encrypted. Remarkably, Rehman took to Twitter to ask for advice on which of those two targets he should choose: "Westfield shopping centre or London underground?" Rehman asked. "Any advice would be appreciated greatly." The post carried a link to an al-Qaida press release about the 2005 London bombings. Sky News reports that Rehman's Twitter name was "Silent Bomber," with the handle @InService2Godd. As if that weren't enough, his Twitter bio read: "Learn how to make powerful explosives from the comfort of ones' bedroom." The Twitter account has since been suspended.Sky News says Rehman was also openly searching for information about the London bombings and information on how to make bombs: "The same day [as his tweet asking for target suggestions], he trawled YouTube for London bombings and Shehzad Tanweer—one of the 7/7 bombers who he referred to as his 'beloved predecessor.' As well as buying bomb making equipment Rehman searched online for instructions to make explosives and researched violent and extreme Islamic ideology."It's Four Lions for real.

A majestic giant squid (Architeuthis) made the scene at Toyama Bay in central Japan. At an estimated 3.7 meters (12.1 feet), researchers think this was a juvenile."My curiosity was way bigger than fear, so I jumped into the water and go close to it," Diving Shop Kaiyu proprietor Akinobu Kimura told CNN."This squid was not damaged and looked lively, spurting ink and trying to entangle his tentacles around me. I guided the squid toward to the ocean, several hundred meters from the area it was found in, and it disappeared into the deep sea."For more on the mystery and science of the giant squid, don't miss Mark Dery's classic Boing Boing feature: "The Kraken Wakes: What Architeuthis is Trying to Tell Us"

Inimitable singer and bassist Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead and Hawkwind, died yesterday. He was 70. "If you didn't do anything that wasn't good for you it would be a very dull life," he once said. "What are you gonna do? Everything that is pleasant in life is dangerous."Above, my favorite Motörhead song, "Ace of Spades," and below, my favorite Hawkwind song, "Silver Machine." (New York Times)https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=59&v=yao_T2adl14

71 year old Thomas Podgoretsky has resided in the UK for 48 years on a permanent leave to remain visa. He has four British children and six British grandchildren, as well as three British ex-wives. The Home Office has given him 72 hours to prepare for his deportation to the USA, despite his having no living relatives there. (more…)

Read the rest of the Hip Hop Family Tree comics! (more…)

Boleskine House, the infamous Loch Ness estate previously owned by occultist Aleister Crowley and later Led Zeppelin guitarist (and Crowley enthusiast) Jimmy Page, was mostly destroyed in a fire last week. The 18th century residence was a second home for a Dutch family who apparently were out shopping when the fire began, likely in the kitchen. They had purchased the property several years ago from Annette MacGillivray who had bought it from Page and then renovated it.“When we bought it, it was a hovel, just a shell," MacGillivray told The Press and Journal. "We spent a lot of money, stripping it back to the bare walls and re-roofing it. It had four bedrooms, four bathrooms, a huge drawing room, dining room, library and various smaller rooms. It is unlikely it will ever be rebuilt unless there is someone out there with an interest in the occult wanting to spend a lot of money.”

Surfing the Web on a public Wi-Fi connection can be dangerous business. Steer clear of hackers with protection from ZenVPN. You’ll be free to access any of their servers located in 32 locations around the world, and can rest easy knowing your activity and data is fully encrypted. Plus, by virtually traveling across borders, you’ll unblock any sites that face geo-restrictions like Netflix and Hulu. The Internet will be a safer and unrestricted place—so you can officially get your zen on.Enjoy uninterrupted Internet surfing—ZenVPN stays out of your way as it runsEasily download & install the service w/ zero configurationEnjoy top-notch connectivity thanks to meticulous network allocationEncrypt all your traffic, all the timeMake sure your online activity isn’t recorded (no logs!)Join a global network of 32 locations & growingDon’t get blocked from BitTorrent connections (like w/ other VPNs)Save 90% on a 5-year subscription of ZenVPN in the Boing Boing Store.

Forget 8-bit videogames, the vinyl revival, and the resurgence of cassette tapes. Hundreds of households in Scotland are watching black and white television. The data comes from the organization that handles the mandatory licenses required to operate a television set. The annual fee is £145.50 to watch or record on a color set and £49.00 for black and white."It's astounding that more than 550 households in Scotland still watch on a black and white telly, especially now that over half of homes access TV content over the internet, on smart TVs," TV Licensing Scotland spokesman Jason Hill told the BBC News.According to the Museum of Communications' Jim McLauchlan, "There are an increasing number of collectors throughout the UK collecting black and white sets from as early as the 1940s onwards, with some now fetching good prices. In general, younger visitors to the museum show very little interest in the black and white televisions but the occasional senior visitor will comment in a nostalgic way."

I stumbled across Jody DeLucco's Pinterest board of graveyard and cemetery art. It's filled with surprising, funny, sad, and just plain weird gravestones and cemetery markers.

The world's most famous basketball prankster, George "Meadowlark" Lemon of the Harlem Globetrotters, has died at age 83. I was fortunate to see Meadowlark perform with the Globetrotters several times in the 1970s. He was not only a master of the ball, but also a delightful and hilarious performer whose joy was infectious. (CNN)

Neodymium magnets can be so powerful as to be dangerous: you don't want two of them "spotting" one another when a fleshy fingertip is in the way of true love. So how do you ship a 6" one safely?"So, is it really shielded?" asks YouTube's Braniac, chuckling to himself. "No."The magnets featured in the video appear to be from magnetportal.de—what's a good place to buy irresponsible magnets in the U.S.?

Six years ago, I wrote a column comparing IT managers' prohibitions on using your own devices and applications to abstinence-only sex ed: a high-handed approach that leaves its audience ignorant and resentful, and dedicated to undermining you behind your back. (more…)

Writing in the Globe and Mail, University of Toronto Munk Chair of Innovation Studies Dan Breznitz explains how the TPP -- negotiated in secret without any oversight or accountability -- will enrich a few multinationals at the expense of US and Canadian growth, making the whole trade zone less competitive and more ripe to be overtaken by Chinese firms. (more…)

Remember when Internet Person JWZ began to append sarcastic messages to the "This building monitored by CCTV" sign that appeared without warning in his lobby ("FEAR THE UNKNOWN - MONSTERS ARE REAL" "DON'T SUSPECT YOUR NEIGHBOR: REPORT HIM!" "DRONE STRIKES AUTHORIZED 7PM - 5AM")? Eventually he got bored of it, but he's brought it back this Xmas, in Christmas Bauble form. (more…)

Become a Cloud guru with this AWS Associate Certification Bundle. These three courses, all brimming with mini lectures that are just five to 20 minutes long, take you from newbie to pro as efficiently as possible. These classes are designed to help you pass the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate, AWSCertified Developer, and AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate exams—all essential to a career as an AWS professional. Once you become certified for all three, your job prospects will increase dramatically, and you’ll likely give a boost to your salary, too.Prep for all three exams w/ 26 hours of instructionGet a broad overview of the AWS platform & learn about individual elements like Cloud Front, Autoscaling, RDS & moreDive into CloudWatch, the main monitoring solution offered by AWSLearn how to create fault-tolerant architectures in the cloudExplore data managementLearn from video lessons, practice exam questions & discussion forumsGet hands-on practice w/ an 80-minute mock exam at the end of each courseLearn as quickly & efficiently as possible w/ quick lectures (only 5-20 minutes each)Get this AWS Associate Certification Bundle for 87% off in the Boing Boing Store.

Ever since the TSA broke the law and abused him, Sai has been suing them over their illegal conduct, forcing them into court and then demonstrating to the court that the agency refuses to play by any rules, even its own. (more…)

South African photographer Paul Shiakallis produced a series of photos, "Leathered Skins, Unchained Hearts," of the "queens" of Botswana's heavy metal "Marok" scene, mostly in their homes. (more…)

Escape rooms are popular. I'm not surprised. I've been to three of them with my wife and kids, and have enjoyed them all. The latest one we participated in was called The Alchemist, at Escape Room L.A.. On Sunday afternoon the four of us went to a nondescript building on 8th Street in downtown Los Angeles and pressed the button on the intercom next to the locked door. We got buzzed in and rode up to the third floor, where we met the six other players we were going to be locked in a room with. After a staff member explained the rules (no phones, no bathroom breaks, no brute force attacks on combination locks) we were led into a small room with a long table and a wall of old books. The door was locked behind us. We had one hour to figure out how to unlock the door and get out.This is the smallest escape room yet, I thought. Were we going to spend an hour cramped together in here? I put the thought out of my head as I joined the others in going over the clues that would lead to the solving of the various puzzles. It didn't take long for us to crack the first puzzle. As soon as we did, one of the walls slid away to reveal a much larger room: the mysterious laboratory of of the Alchemist, an unseen evil being who was in the final stages of concocting a Philosopher's Stone to take over the world. It was our job to foil the Alchemist by solving a series of puzzles that would unite the elements of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water and let us escape from the room before our time ran out.The Alchemist's lab was so cool looking that I wanted to just stand there and admire it for a while. There were shelves of potions, strange looking devices, and intriguing contraptions on the walls and ceilings. But the clock was ticking (or rather, the sand in the hourglass on a table was running out) so I went to work on the puzzles.Part of the challenge of an escape room is just trying to figure out what the puzzles are. Written clues are rare. Not everything in the room is part of a puzzle. Some items are just there for decoration, but it's not always obvious. It really helps to think out loud so everyone can work together. Linus's Law – "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow" – applies in escape rooms!This was the first time I did an escape room with my 18-year-old daughter. She doesn't like playing games, but she surprised me by how much fun she was having and how much she was interacting with everyone else. She figured out quite a few puzzles that had everyone else stumped. A month earlier, she had been riding in a car that got hit head-on by a drunk driver going 110 mph. She broke her wrist, mangled her ankle, got deep cuts on her face and head, and got whiplash in her entire body. She hasn't felt right physically since the wreck. She has also been dealing with the psychological trauma of the event (her friend who was in the car with her suffered massive brain damage and has been in a coma for 37 days and it is very hard on her) so it was great to see her having fun. She told me that the best part of the escape room was the aha! experience of figuring out how to solve a puzzle and how it would lead to another puzzle, like a chain of surprises. For one hour, she wasn't thinking of anything else other than the strange new world we had entered. I felt the same way.It sure didn't feel like we were in the room for an hour. It felt like 15 minutes. It didn't even matter that we weren't able to escape in time (although we got really close by combining three of the four elements and solving all but one problem remaining to unlock the Fire element and the door out). A staff member went over the game, recapping what we did right, and showed us how to solve the parts we missed.We are going to make escape rooms a regular thing.For more information about The Alchemist visit Escape Room L.A.

Researchers at the ETH Game Technology Center of the Swiss national technical institute in Zürich, have applied their considerable talents to the critical problem of immersion in 2D side-scrolling, 8-bit era games. Witness in this video the splendor of a 360° projected Mario world that unrolls across the walls as players reveal each subsequent tile of the game map.Robert Sumner, founder of the GTC explains: ...we observed that the 8-bit era of gaming had a huge collective influence on so many people, but the actual gaming experience was typically an individual one. We wanted to turn this idea upside down, and elevate the NES console experience into a group experience where the game surrounds a large event, allowing multiple people to play in a collaborative setting. The panoramic stitching and 8-way controller multiplexing hardware were the main ways we accomplished this task.The group submitted the paper "Unfolding the 8-bit Era" to the European Conference on Visual Media Production, and then built the system to unveil at the Eurographics Conference. Utilizing a vintage 8-bit Famicom/NES system and a PC with a point-correspondence vision tracking algorithm, the researchers developed methods to detect the edge of each screen segment, adding it to a continuously expanding texture map in real-time. This panoramic texture is then seamlessly displayed on eight aligned projectors. The vision algorithm requires no prior knowledge about the game, so it is possible to play any side-scroller on this system, such as Super Mario Bros., Castlevania, Metroid, and the like.In order to increase the number of participants in the fun of this large-scale gaming spectacle, the researchers created novel eight-controller multiplexing hardware based upon Arduino that hands the controls from one player’s gamepad to the next at a fixed time interval. Knowing that you’re about to grab the reins and inherit the state in which the previous player has left the hero surely adds a new twist to venerable games.You can check out technical implementation details in the paper.

The Salvation Army has struggled to distance itself from its reputation for homophobia, but a 2014 memo on "LGBT issues" by midwest Commissioner Paul Seiler spells out a number of ways in which the organization discriminates against LGBT employees. (more…)

A film by Jake Rasmussen

Phil Demers worked as an animal trainer at Niagara Falls, Ontario's Marineland for 12 years before resigning because he believed that the animals in his care were being mistreated and he did not believe that his employers would listen to him or his colleagues' warnings about this. (more…)

[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]Did Kim Kardashian lose 45 lbs in one day? This and other unassailable tabloid facts.While the rest of the world is over-indulging during the festive season, weighty matters obsess this week’s tabloids and celebrity magazines.Kim Kardashian “lost 75 lbs in 3 weeks” post-pregnancy, says the National Enquirer, while Star magazine says she lost 30 lbs in 20 days.They could both be right, if Kardashian lost another 45 lbs on her 21st day, which seems entirely plausible.Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton is the “Queen of Lean” and “starving herself to death” as her weight plummets to 98 lbs, says the Enquirer.Tabloid watchers will recall that only six weeks ago the Enquirer warned that Kate weighed 99 lbs and was “wasting away,” so clearly the loss of another 16 precious ounces is cause for grave concern.Meanwhile George Clooney’s wife Amal is “scary-skinny” says the Enquirer, though it doesn’t tell us how much she weighs because they’re too busy explaining how this brilliant human rights lawyer has transformed into "the wife from hell,” cutting Clooney off from old friends and making him sell off his former “love nests,” while she spends $4,695 on an Alexander McQueen dress and $4,000 on a vintage coat.If the Star magazine is right in claiming that Amal has been sobbing to friends that “her career has been on the decline since marrying George,” who could blame her?It seems that some folks just can’t win in the tabloid weight wars.Ice-T’s wife Nicole ‘Coco’ Austin gained a mere 13 lbs in her pregnancy and is now almost back to her pre-baby 137 lbs, she tells Us magazine, but complains of “body bullies” who have accused her of "everything from liposuction to faking her pregnancy.”People magazine piles on with a recipe for a California Almond Cake, which looks like it could single-handedly put back all of Coco's lost poundage in one sitting.How appropriate that the tabloids’ weight-obsessed readers can turn to NBC’s dubious new series, ‘My Diet Is Better Than Your Diet,’ starting on January 7.Meanwhile, Charlie Sheen gives an exclusive interview about his HIV status to the Enquirer - one can only imagine what fresh horrific scandal they unearthed to force him to such humiliation - while Us magazine celebrates Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner’s “Christmas reunion.”People magazine asks who burned alive 19-year-old Jessica Chambers in Courtland, Mississippi, over a year ago, which is a strangely belated and decidedly unseasonal cover story, as if they’re waited 12 months for the slowest celebrity news week of the year before running this.The Walking Dead actress Emily Kinney carries keys, lip balm and a Starbucks gift card in her purse – this exciting feature page never gets old, it’s always so full of surprises. Robin Roberts wore it best (which may be unwanted praise in an “ugly sweater edition”) and the stars are just like us: they play at the beach, chat on their cells, visit markets, run in pairs, and use caulk guns.Wait a minute – what self-respecting celebrity caulks their own floor fixtures, instead of having their personal assistant hire a minion for such menial work? Melissa Gorga, apparently, I had to Google “Melissa Gorga" to learn that she is one of the Real Housewives of New Jersey.Seriously, I think Us magazine is stretching the definition of the world “star” a bit too far here.Onwards and downwards . . .

The Washington Post takes a fond look back at 15 people who became briefly infamous for one reason or another. Some of these villains are new to me, like prankster Sam Pepper, who pretended to execute a man in front of the man's best friend. Others aren't villians at all, such as Ellen Pao, who was harassed out of her job as Reddit's CEO for helping shut down a number of hate speech subreddits, such as r/fatpeoplehate, r/transf*gs, and and r/shitni**erssay.10. Belle Gibson The villain: The 24-year-old Australian blogger and entrepreneur behind “The Whole Pantry” app. The offense: Rose to fame, in large part, by claiming that a healthy diet and alternative medicine had cured her metastatic cancer — when, in fact, she’d never been ill. Gibson also repeatedly said that a portion of the sales from her app, The Whole Pantry, and its accompanying cookbook went to charity, though later investigations suggested that she’d pocketed those funds. Gibson’s fan base imploded almost overnight, and both her former fans and outside observers began demanding explanations. Where she is now: Since March, Gibson has been under investigation by a regional Consumer Affairs department, which, per the Herald Sun, is looking into claims about her fraudulent fundraising practices. Gibson’s publisher has withdrawn her cookbook and Whole Pantry is gone from the app store. In a June interview, she told 60 Minutes she had “lost everything” — an admission for which she was reportedly paid $45,000 AUS.

“They need to get some fucking empathy,” says Tanya dePass, a campaigner for better representation inside game worlds and among those who create them. She curates websites, hosts podcasts, maintains the #INeedDiverseGames tag on Twitter, works as a diversity consultant and speaks at conventions and panels. Work is steady, but change is slow. For critics and activists, the pushback on inclusion is constant, from other gamers and the industry itself. DePass finds it baffling: “why don’t you all like money?” she asks. One of many black women disrupting an insular culture, DePass critiques games and offers an alternatives to often-toxic online communities. Hashtag activism this is not. As DePass notes, “change needs to happen from the ground up.” Lauren Warren is a contributor to Black Girl Nerds, an online community “devoted to promoting nerdiness and Black women and people of color.” In addition to panel appearances, cosplay showcases, TV spots and endorsement by Shonda Rhimes and others, BlackGirlNerds launched two new series profiling women and people of color.“I hope that the Women in Gaming and Diversity in Gaming series reach people who are interested in pursuing careers in the games industry, but may be hesitant because they don’t “see” themselves fitting into the existing corporate culture," Warren writes. "It’s no secret that our presence is lacking behind the scenes on the game development side, on streaming sites and at major industry events and publications. The larger the community, the more visibility we have and the bigger our impact will be in the future.” Warren says that substantive progress towards inclusion requires changing corporate culture, but also its perception by prospective employees. It’s cyclical: the more resistant toward change the industry becomes, the less that women and people of color will want to invest their time and energies into a potentially unwelcoming space. This breeds further insularity. The cycle continues—unless it’s disrupted. Samantha Blackmon is one of the creators of Not Your Mama’s Gamer, a feminist gaming community made up of podcasts, livestreams, critical essays and their latest project, Invisibility Blues, a video series exploring race in gaming.Blackmon told me that issues have gotten better over time, but many mistakes are still being made. “When I look at playable women of color in games now I have more hope, but I still cringe at the characters that fall back on old racist stereotypes and add things like “tribal” costumes and “urban” language patterns," Blackmon wrote, "or some clueless writer’s take on what those language patterns are."Color has meaning. And without people of color involved in the designing process, games are routinely unaware of these meanings. For Black women, this problem arises in a very specific way. DePass used the phrase ‘fantasy-black’ to describe the “not too black” design trope in games. As DePass notes, women in gaming designed to read as “Black” frequently have blue or green eyes, straightened or silver hair, or lightened or red-tinted skin. Preferencing black women who read as biracial or display some otherwise exoticized trait has troubling overlaps with colorism, discrimination based on skin color. Colorism is a serious societal issue, evinced both by the disparity in punishment for black girls with darker or lighter skin and the huge industry of harmful skin-bleaching creams. So while all women in games are subject to staid metrics of desirability, black women have their blackness negotiated in a way that assumes blackness itself is undesirable. (Conversely, black men in games are almost uniformly depicted as having very dark skin—their color is ostensibly measured according to metrics of threat and physicality.) “I know the lack of options is often the result of a lack of diversity amongst the development teams and there is no one present to advocate for creating and pushing these choices," writes Warren. "Real change would need to start there and then consumers will ultimately reap the benefits of having more realistic images to choose from in their gaming experience.” But instead of a robust and dynamic experience, players are instead faced with repetitive, one-dimensional and largely overlapping portrayals of Black women. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the overreliance on the “strong Black woman” trope. This derisive meme limits portrayal of black women in pop culture to, as author Tamara Winfrey-Harris writes, “indefatigable mamas who don’t need help [and] castrating harpies.” Black women in games are the no-nonsense arbiters of sass, toughness and attitude, but their emotional complexities are elided in order to present them as “strong.” This portrayal, as contrasted with portrayals of white femininity in gaming, is expounded upon in Winfrey-Harris’ exploration of the strong black woman: "Society remains uneasy with female strength of any stripe and still prefers and champions delicate damsels—an outdated sentiment that limits all women. But because the damsel’s face is still viewed as unequivocally white and female, it is a particular problem for black women. As long as vulnerability and softness are the basis for acceptable femininity (and acceptable femininity is a requirement for a woman’s life to have value), women who are perpetually framed because of their race as supernaturally indestructible will not be viewed with regard."And although it’s great that characters like Rochelle, Vivienne, or Jacqui Briggs are never damseled, this privileged status belies an assumption that black women never need help or need saving. This double bind is best summarized by Sofia Quintero, creator of the Feminist Love Project, who said the meme of being a “strong black woman” is “a way to practice resiliency and protect myself [but also] allows little space for me to be vulnerable, seek support, and otherwise be fully human.” In video games, where we demand our heroes be independent, both physically and emotionally strong and easily able to compartmentalize their private vs. professional lives, it’s very easy for developers to re-create the superwoman parameters of black femininity rather than challenge them. So what is gaming’s next step in diversifying its portrayal of black women? Latoya Peterson, Editor at Large of Fusion, recently launched The Girl Gamers Project, a web series interviewing women about gender, womanhood and games. Peterson says games need to focus not just on strength but on full personhood for black women.“I don't think it's accurate to paint all black women with [the same] brush of hero - we're complex, and the most fun characters to play are complex," Peterson wrote via email. "Being Mary Jane is a hit because Mary Jane Paul isn't perfect. Games haven't allowed me to explore a black woman in depth - the latest Assassin's Creed is on my list but I haven't played it yet. I think the best way to show the real lives of black women is to dive deeply into backstories. I loved playing as Karin from Shadow Hearts - something like that. Or 355 from Y: The Last Man, just playable. I want to see black women characters focus on their full personhood, the way that Drake, and Max Payne, and Niko get to be funny or quirky or dark.” Heroes aren’t human. And as Black women continue impacting this industry through criticism and community building, they open more and more spaces and opportunities not just to fulfill a role that counts as “diverse,” but to illustrate the diversity of blackwoman hood. In fact, many have turned to space itself as an inspiration.Catt Small’s Prism Shell was influenced by Alien, and Sophia Chester’s Cosmic Callisto Caprica Space Detective was influenced by 50’s b-movies and Mad Men. As gaming continues to evolve, hopefully we’ll see more black women as alien hunters, space detectives, wasteland explorers and—at long last—human beings.Illo: Rob Beschizza

Each of the 12 discs comes with a rich illustrated book, featuring new art by Lorelay Bove. The books include liner notes in which composers, musicians, animators and other production personnel recount previously untold oral histories of the music that underpins Disney's animation, unifying it every bit as much as the storytelling and art styles.There's more than 47,000 words of liner notes in those pages, and more than 20 hours' worth of audio on the discs. Listening to the demos in which the legends of Disney music, from Ashman and Menken to the Shermans give notes to singers whose music I've thrilled to literally all my life is an incredible experience, like getting in a time machine. The archivists who produced this collection went beyond all reason and commercial consideration in pulling this together (I know a few of them). They are part of the trufan machine at Disney who gild releases that celebrate craft and pride, spending money that isn't needed to maximize profit, but is definitely required to maximize art. Disney is full of those people, they're like the people who joined Google because "don't be evil" mattered to them. Like those googlers, these Disney personnel don't harbor any illusions about the company's complement of people who don't share their beliefs (or at least, wouldn't let them get in the way of profits). But they're there because they believe it and it matters to them. People with a sense of mission make everything worth caring about in this world.The 20 hours of audio in this collection tell a story. Not the story in the movies -- the story of the movies. The story of how successive generations of composers, musicians and storytellers taught their progeny all they knew, and of how their progeny ran with that knowledge, expanding the art, bringing in material from the stage and other studios and pop. (more…)

The record industry insists that all unauthorized copies represent lost sales. So Peter "brokep" Sunde, co-founder of The Pirate Bay, has built a machine that makes 100 copies per second of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy," storing them in /dev/null (which is to say, deleting them even as they're created). (more…)

In episode three of Lyssue Paper, Lyss shows us how to make happy holiday sweaters out of tissue paper and pipe cleaners.

Port St. Lucie, Florida police arrested Dawn Meikle after she allegedly attacked her husband, Donald Fitzroy Meikle, for farting too much in bed. When he broke wind, she apparently elbowed him and then kicked him out of their bed. After she allowed him to return, he again passed gas, spurring her to kick and hit him. According to CBS12, Donald Fitzroy Meikle "said he held his wife for his own safety. During the struggle, she suffered a broken lip and he suffered a lot of scratches across his chest." Police stated she also sprayed pepper spray to, er, block him from getting to the bathroom?

Organizers of a demonstration in protest of the police shooting of Jamar Clark by Minneapolis police have been hit with a lawsuit by the Mall of America, which is seeking a court order requiring them to tweet and text a message announcing the cancellation of their protest. (more…)

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