Boing Boing

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The present status of this quixotic and strangely persistent quest: 16 ducks carefully compressed into a square compartment with a quick-release cable, suspended vertically from the ceiling. It meets its intended purpose quite well, but one is inexorable drawn to the prospect of further optimization.I propose each duck be attached by the mouth to a canister of compressed air, cabled to begin inflating as soon as the container is released, thereby increasing the pitch and volume of their cries.(To be clear to any passing animal lovers, judgmental aliens, members of future civilizations, etc, this does not concern real ducks)The Cinemagician has reversed it.

Shawn James' American Sanctuary warms the cold Colorado winter enough to get the locals joining in. We had so many awesome experiences during the Colorado tour. Not only was this the highlight of the trip, but one of the highlights in all of our lives. We got a chance to visit a private wolf sanctuary in Colorado, thanks to some awesome folks who hosted us in Fort Collins. Shawn and Baker covered this A.A. Bondy song in one of the enclosures. When the wolves all join in, I get goosebumps. Check out their website for info on how you can help, and be looking for a more in depth video about the whole refuge in the next couple days! This was only a small part of our time there. They used the Zoom H4n portable recorder to get decent sound out in the middle of nowhere. I'd go for the Tascam DR100 II (or the DR40/44), myself. But they can actually sing and stuff, so they can use what the hell they like! [via r/videos]

Sony's Cyber Shot RX1R II is its new flagship compact full-frame camera, with a 35mm f2 fixed Zeiss Sonnar lens, a 42.4-megapixel Exmor R sensor (the same one as in the A7S2), a moire-reducing low-pass filter, and a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.The lack of 4K video is ever so slightly disappointing, but this sort of thing whispers to the still shooters anyway, those who want unparalleled quality with perfectly-chosen limitations. If there's a problem with it (apart from its brutal $2900 price tag) it's that its own baby brother, the RX100 mk4, is itself so good that I can't imagine spending more without going all the way to a full-frame DSLR.

In 1966, UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson told MPs that the UK spy agencies weren't allowed to tap their phones and that if that changed, he'd tell them about it first. In 1997, Prime Minister Tony Blair asserted that this applied to electronic communications. This Monday, UK Home Secretary Theresa May asserted that the "Wilson Doctrine" still applied to MPs. Then, on Wednesday, the investigatory powers tribunal ruled that this was all rubbish. (more…)

Researchers from Japan's Chiba Institute of Technology demonstrated this spherical robot that rolls around until its four legs pop out for scurrying. Like a quadruped robot disguised as a Spheero! From the scientific paper (PDF):We have proposed and developed a new quadruped walking robot with a spherical shell, called "QRoSS". QRoSS is a transformable robot that can store its legs in the spherical shell. The shell not only absorbs external forces from all directions, but also improves mobile performance because of its round shape. In rescue operations at a disaster site, carrying robots into a site is dangerous for operators because doing so may result in a second accident. If QRoSS is used, instead of carrying robots in, they are thrown in, making the operation safe and easy. We developed QRoSS-I and conducted basic experiments to verify performance which includes landing, rising and walking through a series of movements. (via IEEE Spectrum)

Anesthesiologist Jonathan Bourne, of Mammoth Lakes, Ca., has been indicted for 21 felony counts of allegedly looting Native artifacts from private lands and national parks. Indian Country Today shares:“When you remove something from public lands or any land like that that’s sitting there, you’re not just taking an object or something,” Bancroft said. “You’re stealing. You’re stealing from my history, from my culture. You’re affecting my whole being on this planet and where I came from and how I’m connected to it.”Most people don’t even know it’s illegal to take the items, she said.“It’s something that I know a lot of people just can’t grasp, because they talk about it like it’s trash,” Bancroft said. “They think they are entitled to just take anything they want. A lot of them around here are just like, ‘How dare they tell me I can’t go out there and pick this stuff up?’ ”What sets Bourne apart is that he was so taken with his collection—authorities found 30,000 items in his possession—that he carefully documented everything. Bancroft said that although it was his undoing, it could help bring more attention to the issue overall. And serial offenders run rampant, she said.

On November 7th the final show in the Good Measure tour hits Miami. Surfer Blood, "the cleanest, and nicest band in existence!" will spend the day hanging out at The Hall, Joie De Vivre's new 'Bohemian outpost' in the heart of South Beach!Free tickets are available here!

For years seeing a Torx head, that starry topped bolt of frustration, gave me pause.I always seemed to be missing the right size Torx wrench! If I had the right size, it lacked the security dimple. This 13 piece Torx set is my solution.Home electronics frequently want the T6-T8 stuff. Security bolts on my personalized license plates are in the T40-T50 range. Torx keys, or wrenches, are something I use just frequently enough to have been buying, and losing individually. This set has already saved me several trips to the hardware store. The chrome plated ends are resisting the sea air out here very nicely, and even after a year or two, the set looks new. The long length of the handles on the keys comes in very handy, allowing you to reach many of the deepest-set screws by electronics companies. The grippy material is grippy. The holding case keeps them organized and allows me to resist the urge to just keep a key or two in my desk's pencil tray (there is a T6 there from a solo tool run years ago.) No longer does seeing a Torx head make me sigh.Included in the set are sizes: T6, T7, T8, T9, T10, T15, T20, T25, T27, T30, T40, T45, and T50. The ends are dimpled for security screws. Titan 12715 Extra-Long Arm Tamper Resistant Star Key Set - 13 Piece via Amazon

Teruyuki and Yuki Ishikawa are a husband-and-wife team of freelance 3D computer graphics artists from Tokyo. Their latest creation is Saya, and she is going to be the star in the movie they are self-producing. (more…)

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.