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Jupiter is more beautiful than ever in this footage from NASA, as used by Adrienne Lafrance to illustrate her splendid article about the gas giant. rom far away, the planet looks vaguely beige. But its clouds are a kaleidoscope of warm colors—alternately red, orange, pink, and tan, with some blue. That may be the effect of sunlight breaking down chemicals like ammonia, but scientists aren’t sure. “We still don't know what makes the clouds the colors they are,” Simon said. “Another thing we don’t know is: Why the storms last so long.”In the future, the people who live around Jupiter are going to be really smug, aren't they?Its reputation was once not so grand, Lafrance adds in a follow-up that astronomers used to find the painterly, swirling surface quite unpleasant.It was generally hoped that, in couse [sic] of time, this much respected orb would see the error of his ways, and cease to assume the appearance of an inebriated planet.Sad to relate, however, he has gone from bad to worse, and is just now showing, side by side with the red spot complained of, a number of white ones, which give his countenance an appearance truly sad to behold. No wonder that quiet, staid astronomers, who, from joking, stand aghast at such an exhibition.

The incredible visual effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013) bringing a stop-motion skeleton to life. Below, the classic skeleton fight from Jason and the Argonauts (1963).(via r/movies)https://youtu.be/pF_Fi7x93PY

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For half a decade, studies have been demonstrating a link between sitting and dying, prompting many of us (including me) to try out standing desks. (more…)

Adafruit Industries takes a fascinated look at the VIDEOBLLST_R, an arm-mounted electronic buckler that projects line-art on any night-time surface you aim it at, giving you the power to produce video graffiti on demand. (more…)

There have long been rumors, leaks, and statements about the NSA "breaking" crypto that is widely believed to be unbreakable, and over the years, there's been mounting evidence that in many cases, they can do just that. Now, Alex Halderman and Nadia Heninger, along with a dozen eminent cryptographers have presented a paper at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (a paper that won the ACM's prize for best paper at the conference) that advances a plausible theory as to what's going on. In some ways, it's very simple -- but it's also very, very dangerous, for all of us. (more…)

From Scott Westerfeld, tweeting from the tour for his new, brilliant book "Zeroes": "Plot idea: 97% of the world's scientists contrive an environmental crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires & oil companies." (more…)

Silent Hill is one of games' most iconic horror brands, having spawned some 14 titles and two visually-faithful, if thematically-insulting, movies. If you're not acquainted, I wrote about the founding heart of the series and why it matters so much to fans here.Now, Duncan Fyfe brings us a worthy and entertaining longread about Centralia, Pennsylvania, a coal mining town that shares traits with the illogical, fog-belching purgatory of Silent Hill—and that was used as a site for its movies. It's a haunting read, not least because the people of the area had been through quite a lot before their lost town became a gawking site for tourists and graffitos.Centralia has been on fire for 53 years.Fyfe's piece is part of the Campo Santo Quarterly Review, a regular journal he (beautifully) writes for Campo Santo, the developers of the upcoming (and exciting) Firewatch.

Can you spot the baby in this image? Researchers at the Universities of Cardiff and Cambridge found that volunteers who showed early signs of psychosis were much better at recognizing the baby than a group of people who did not have psychosis.Can't see the baby? Good for you! See the original photo.[via]

In "Beyond Zero and One," neuroscientist Andrew Smart investigates the relationship of hallucinations to consciousness, and raises some provocative and cool questions about how this relates to AI: (more…)

FOLLOW @RubenBolling on Twitter and Facebook.And FURTHER, please join Tom the Dancing Bug's subscription club, the INNER HIVE for advance access to comics and more stuff. And OBTAIN Ruben Bolling's new book, Alien Invasion in My Backyard: An EMU Club Adventure! You can also pre-order the second book in the series: Ghostly Thief of Time: An EMU Club Adventure! More Tom the Dancing Bug comics on Boing Boing! (more…)

The "Word Gap" theory holds that poor kids' school performance is the result of their parents' inability to expose them to rich vocabularies at home. (more…)

Clay Shirky writes, "I wrote about the mobile phone manufacturing powerhouse and tech innovator, Xiaomi, for Columbia Global Reports, looking at both what makes Xiaomi so successful (they were founded when it was possible to take ecommerce and social media for granted, basically), and at the challenge internet services firms face operating in China." (more…)

Once upon a time in Los Angeles, the Tower Records store on the Sunset Strip was a sacred hotspot for rock and roll culture. Since the store closed, a victim of the internet as then reported, there have been threats of demolition and battles that kept it standing. Now, the store they just can't kill returns for a one-night-only bash to celebrate a documentary about the West Hollywood landmark, and the iconic brand it represented. (more…)

Wisconsin's Gravedigger Candles makes beeswax candles cast from a real human spine, where each vertabra burns for about three hours. Comes in large ($36.80), medium ($25.30) and small ($13.80).

The Musée Miniature et Cinéma in Lyon, France is home to more than 100 miniature scenes painstakingly crafted by Dan Ohlmann. The artist is a former cabinetmaker and interior designer who has spent two decades hand-making these pocket universes."The subtle lighting arrangement, the painstaking replication of old textures, the use of the same original materials, all contribute to the creation of a moving poetry that resonates with each new miniature panorama."(via Beautiful/Decay)

https://youtu.be/q-T9M7wN7bESwedish police swarmed on this gentlemanly beard club who were taking a group photo, because the cops received a call from a worried onlooker who believed the group was a a terrorist meet-up. It was not ISIS, ISIL, Al Qaeda, or anything like that. Just a meeting of a beard enthusiast club. Wonder if the ending would have been as mellow if they hadn't all been white guys. (more…)

Breaking news from 84 years ago:BRICK TIED TO COW'S TAIL KNOCKS MILKER UNCONSCIOUSTOLEDO, Ore., Jan 18 — Jack Horsfall, Toledo high school student, decided to stop his cow's practice of switching her tail while he milked. He tied a brick to her tail. The cow switched her tail anyway, and the brick struck Horsfall behind the ear. He fell unconscious. When he had recovered he untied the brick.[caption id="attachment_427646" align="alignnone" width="450"] The Daily Free Press (Carbondale, Illinois) - Jan 21, 1931[/caption][via]

Under TPP, signatories are required to give their judges the power to "order the destruction of devices and products found to be involved in" breaking digital locks, such as those detailed in this year's US Copyright Office Triennial DMCA Hearing docket, which were used to identify critical vulnerabilities in vehicles, surveillance devices, voting machines, medical implants, and many other devices in our world. (more…)

This gallery of public Blue Screen of Death crashes on screens is a great reminder that, as Vice's Rachel Pick says, "life is a farce." (more…)

Lean Project Management, as it name suggests, is a popular method that aims to waste less time and effort during the duration of a project. By focusing on prioritizing tasks, PMs are able to boost productivity, meet goals, and, inevitably, impress the execs. This exam prep course is led by the accredited Management and Strategy Institute, which sends you a high-level Certificate of Completion once you ace the exam. Master Lean, get the certification to prove it, and you’ll have a leg up when you’re aiming to climb the ladder to a mid- or executive-level position.Learn project management skills & Lean principlesShorten project duration & reduce mistakesStudy better ways to prioritize & assign tasksMove at your own pace over the 20-hour courseReceive a Certificate of Completion in the mail after passing the testObtain training materials at no extra costTake the test two more times if you fail at the first attemptProve Your Exceptional PM Skills with a Valuable Lean Method Certification For 74% Off

Jef Raskin (RIP) was the creator of the Macintosh project at Apple. I got to know him pretty well in the last five years or so of his life. He was a delightful curmudgeon, and very creative. He wrote a column for the print edition of bOING bOING about pranks and scams, under the moniker "El Jefe." (I'll get around to posting them one day.) (more…)

Does the idea of inexpensive, biodegradable, everyday teabags horrify and disgust you? Ensure your tea drinking has a chain of environmental destruction all the way back to the bowels of the Earth itself with the Eva Solo Stainless Steel Tea Bag. It comes in small (10g of leaves) or large sizes, is dishwasher safe, and can be re-used indefinitely, thereby paying for itself in only 700 years. [via Uncrate]

Sponsored by Assemblymember Luis Alejo, today California Governor Jerry Brown signed AB30, a bill barring schools from naming teams or mascots "redskins." NBC News shares:The state Assembly overwhelmingly approved the California Racial Mascots Act in May, about a month before the Obama administration went on record telling the Washington Redskins that they would have to change their name before they would be allowed to move to a stadium in Washington, D.C., from their current home in suburban Maryland.In a joint statement with the nonprofit group Change the Mascot, the National Congress of American Indians praised California for "standing on the right side of history by bringing an end to the use of the demeaning and damaging R-word slur in the state's schools."

Three. The left ear, the right ear, and the final frontier.(Thanks, Cash Ashkinos!)

Facebook UK made £105M in 2014, paid £35M in bonuses, and will pay £4,327 in tax.This is a notable improvement on its tax bill for 2013, which was £0 on earnings of £223m. (more…)

Like most self-styled provocateurs, it turns out Lou Reed meant the bad things that he said. A new biography illustrates a racist, sexist wife-beater with so little personal charm he would be regularly discharged from private gatherings. (more…)

Specific color palettes are used by filmmakers to manipulate our emotions, from warm red tones for romances to blue, cold tones for horror flicks. The Dust Bowl-toned "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" (2000) was the first film to be digitally color graded from beginning to end.If you're curious about the psychology of color, check out classics like Johannes Itten's "The Art of Color: The Subjective Experience and Objective Rationale of Color" and the books of Faber Birren.

They're available for pre-order from the Big Bad Toy Store, with delivery estimated for Christmas 2015. They Yahtzee ($35) features a Cthulhu figure dice cup; while the Monopoly ($45) has a selection of Cthulhu player-tokens, Cthulhu money; and Lovecraftian properties. (more…)

Mark Davis worked at a Kmart in Naperville, IL in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Each month, the corporate office mailed a cassette tape to all the stores, which contained easy-listening elevator music and in-house advertisements. Davis saved all 56 cassettes and uploaded them to Archive.org. As Gareth Branwyn says, "I MAY have just gouged my eardrums out." (more…)

Students at the University of Texas at Austin will protest a new law that will allow more guns on campus.Instead of signs, the students are protesting by "strapping gigantic swinging dildos to our backpacks," which is in violation of the campus' obscenity policy.Jessica Jin, who set up the Campus (DILDO) Carry event on Facebook, invokes the argument that allowing more guns on campus will make students safe is a fallacy. She's urging students to send campus leaders that message by strapping on the plastic phalluses."You're carrying a gun to class? Yeah well I'm carrying a HUGE DILDO," Jin says in the group's description. "Just about as effective at protecting us from sociopathic shooters, but much safer for recreational play."

As shot.

I don't know what's going happen to you baby, but I do know that I love ya.

The McClatchy Company, a chain of more than 30 U.S. newspapers, is expected to close its foreign bureaus by the end of the year. The media giant's chief executive denies the rumors, but it kind of sounds like the closures are likely anyway. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnPkM3_jposElections Canada has made an awful mess of voter registration this cycle, mailing cards to old addresses and providing incorrect information about where your polling place is. But don't despair! Although Elections Canada would prefer that you register to vote before going to the polls, you can just show up at an advance poll, or a polling place on election day, with ID, and register to vote on the spot. (more…)

In the latest episode of the Cool Tools Show podcast, Kevin Kelly and I interviewed Andrew Leonard about some of his favorite tools. (more…)

In a Reddit AMA, the eminent physicist warns that while increasing automation could give us a world of "luxurious leisure," that "most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution." (more…)

These 4-packs of MFi-certified Lightning cables are $9. That's $2.25 per 3-foot cable – the lowest price by far I've ever seen for MFi-certified cables. (You can get non-MFi certified cables for less but they suck.) I just bought two 4-packs. UPDATE: Some of the reviewers on Amazon suspect the cables are not MFi certified, and a lot of the reviews were written in exchange for a free or discounted pack of cables. I'll let you know if the 8 cables I ordered are OK.

After reporting 700 pilgrims dead in a stampede near the holy city of Mecca two weeks ago, Saudi authorities have come clean with the true number killed after pressure from investigators: 1,453 were killed and hundreds remain missing.Indeed, Shiite Iran in particular has challenged its Sunni arch-rival’s status as the custodian of Islam’s two holiest sites, warning that if diplomacy doesn’t yield an independent investigation, “the Islamic Republic is also prepared to use the language of force.” Nearly one-third of the deaths in the incident were pilgrims from neighboring Iran.Given all of this, it’s not terribly surprising that a more accurate accounting of the tragedy had to come from an outside source. As Ruth Graham noted last month in The Atlantic, Saudi officials weren’t eager to take responsibility: “In Saudi Arabia, the country’s health minister chalked up the latest incident to a failure to follow instructions, and the head of the Central Hajj Committee blamed ‘some pilgrims from African nationalities.’”In the meantime, hundreds of worshipers still remain missing and so the true extent of last month’s disaster is not fully known.

In China, teens and twentysomethings are wearing little plastic accessories on their heads in the shape of tiny little sprouts, fruit, or flowers. Nobody's exactly sure where or how the trend started, but it's... growing. (more…)

A federal judge says a New York transportation agency was wrong to label some funny subway posters for a documentary on Muslim-American comedians as "political," so they could ban the posters from the NYC subway. One of the six ads for "The Muslims Are Coming!" included the statement: “The Ugly Truth About Muslims: Muslims have great frittata recipes.”[caption id="attachment_427036" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Photo: themuslimsarecoming.com[/caption]Another one of the unfairly banned posters read, “Muslims hate terrorism! They also hate: People who tell you they went to an Ivy League school within 10 seconds of meeting them ... When the deli guy doesn’t put enough schmear on your bagel ... Hipsters who wear winter hats in the summer ... the pickling of everything ...”The judge said it was “utterly unreasonable” for an MTA official to decide an advertisement including the word “Muslims” was political for that reason alone.[caption id="attachment_427037" align="alignnone" width="1370"] Photo: themuslimsarecoming.com[/caption]In the movie, comedians Negin Farsad and Dean Obeidallah lead an all-star Muslim comedy troupe performing in “big cities, small towns, liberal enclaves, conservative hotbeds, rural and everything in between to explore the issue of Islamophobia.”The film also includes comedy bigshots Jon Stewart, David Cross and Lewis Black.From The Guardian's coverage of the MTA ad brouhaha:The ads for the film The Muslims Are Coming! were rejected this year by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the subway system and the rest of the nation’s largest mass transit network. The MTA, which had first approved the ads, later concluded they violated its new ban on political ads.Judge Colleen McMahon said the advertisements, created by two Muslim comedians, were not primarily political.“That the advertisements at issue gently mock prejudice and employ Islamophobia as a comedic device does not make their message ‘prominently or predominantly’ political,” she wrote.[caption id="attachment_427035" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Photo: themuslimsarecoming.com[/caption]The MTA said it was reviewing the judge’s decision.You can download or stream the film on Amazon. More options here, including some theaters around the world.

Beijing, China. If this fascinates you, so long as you are not sitting in it, I highly recommend Tom Vanderbilt's fantastic book "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)."Below, Tom's presentation at our Boing Boing: Ingenuity 2013 conference.https://youtu.be/RA4WaNLR2gU

Everybody's talking aboutRevolution, evolution, masturbationFlagellation, regulation, integrationsMeditations, United NationsCongratulationsImagine Peace

"All I ask is that there's a way to take off the pounds without exercising, or changing what I eat, or how much of it I eat," says Stephen Colbert. "Other than that I am willing to do anything. Well, anything has finally arrived, and it's called Aspire Assist." (more…)

Andrew Mayne (one of our star presenters at Weekend of Wonder 2015) spotted this bizarre sign in Burbank. It implicates the Burbank Police Department in burying a sick man while he was still alive. Whoever made this sign is a fine artist and letterer, and spins a good, semi-coherent story.

This is a scary video. It's a first-person video of a French guy hiking with other backpackers in New Zealand. When they go across a suspension bridge a cable snaps, and one or more of hikers fall off. Fortunately, there's water 25 feet below and there were no serious injuries.[via]

Squatty Potty is a $28 footstool that slides away under your toilet; you use it to bring your knees up to a squatting position while you poop, which makes pooping much, much easier. (more…)

The impossible architecture puzzle game Monument Valley is pretty soothing—it's inspired hours of ASMR videos, if that's your jam—but the newest iOS release from Monument Valley developer Ustwo takes things a step further with a straight up relaxation app.PAUSE, a collaboration between ustwo and Pausable, has a simple concept: You simply press your finger on the screen, and move it slowly to make a colorful, amorphous blob grows larger and larger. Stop moving (or move too fast) and the game will gently try to correct your pace; the idea is to stay present, calm, deliberate.Once the undulating blob fills the screen, the app will tell you to close your eyes, while still rotating one finger around the screen to the thrum of its ambient sounds. Eventually, a bell will ring after the appointed amount of time has elapsed, ideally indicating that at least some of your anxiety has dissipated."Everything started with my own severe stress and depression," says Pausable cofounder Peng Cheng, who eventually became so incapacitated by stress that he couldn't work. After a six-month sabbatical, which included meditation and tai chi, he realized that what helped him most were activities that helped him focus on the here and now. "Most stress exists only in our head and absorb all our attention... to break this pattern I needed to focus on what is physical and tangible, and actively put my attention in the moment."While I can't speak to the scientific benefits of the app, Cheng is correct that there's something soothing and relieving about focusing on one thing at once, especially if your attention is typically fragmented into many tiny splinters by multiple tasks, demands, and pings from your smartphone. Just make sure you turn off notifications before you lose yourself in the supple embrace of the blob. https://youtu.be/D-CrRpQ80aw