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Last night at midnight, Halo 5 launched. Will this be the last epic adventure for video gaming's mightiest champion? The Master Chief is back, but all the cockamamie advertising colors our hero as the bad guy. I wish I could tell you if this game is any good! I've certainly been waiting a long time to play it! I purchased my Xbox One at launch, anticipating that Halo 5 would shortly follow. My Xbox has been around for two years now, with nary a Chief sighting. I could have played the Master Chief collection, but I heard poor reviews of its translation to the Xbox One. The only game I've really enjoyed in the interim has been Destiny, which was developed by Halo creators Bungie. There is no small amount of question, in my online Destiny circles, around Halo killing Destiny. Destiny has also felt like Halo, without the amazing backstory and hero. Bungie is creating a backstory, and thus far it is pretty much a dud. The game play, and its mesh of FPS with MMO queues, like farming (sigh) are addictive but it is not Halo. I miss stickies. I long to gloriously dual wield the needler, or have a hell bent for leather Warthog chase! Will Halo 5 kill Destiny?Large online teams of 12 players, mashed with an insane gameplay frame rate, and 4 player campaign mode all sound wonderful! I'm far more interested in the story, however. I have not read any Halo fiction, I have simply played the games, and the Master Chief is my ultimate video game hero. His relationship with his A.I. Cortana is legendary. I like him better than Max Payne, and 343 Studios, the developer Microsoft created to manage the franchise, is setting him up as the bad guy? Come on. It is clear 343/MSFT want to introduce us to some new SPARTANs to carry the franchise forward, Jameson Locke and Nathan Fillion. Jameson Locke is a fictional character, Fillion I am not sure. It also seems Fillion can't decide between Destiny or Halo, he voices characters in both. Anyhow, I can only hope 343 gets the story right, because it looks like they're just going for an obvious 'Chief-gone-rogue then saves us all' story line. We all know what the Chief went through to save humanity 4 times already! I'd say trust him.I'm still waiting for the game to install! I went with the CD/DVD-less version and selected a digital downloaded copy. I didn't get the email with my pre-order code until 10pm last night, and I guess the rush of folks installing tied me up! I'm still downloading and appear to have a few more hours wait.I've heard a few early reports that the game is beautiful, and that the soundtrack brings you right back into the Halo Universe. If you already have installed Halo 5, please let us know in the BBS how you like it. Halo 5 via Amazon

The Orwell estate filed a bogus copyright and publicity right theft against an inactive Cafepress store where no one had ever bought one of the "1984 is already here" shirts or tea-towels on offer from film critic Josh Hadley. (more…)

Just look at it (more…)

The only thing that Disney seems certain about regarding any future Indiana Jones films is they don't plan on subbing in another actor as Indy. “There are a lot of rumours,” the franchise's producer Frank Marshall says. “We haven’t even sat down to talk about Indy yet… at some point we’ll sit down. But there’s a bunch of people who could probably take the baton. … We’re not doing the Bond thing where we’re going to call somebody else Indiana Jones … we have to figure this out.”Sorry, Chris Pratt. Mr. Ford, please put down the blaster and grab the bullwhip.(Comic Book Resources)

https://youtu.be/gEC0pKHJKNMI love Qawwali music, and I am really loving this cute viral Qawwali-themed ad for India dating service TrulyMadly. (more…)

"I hate to think that people are watching this and we walk among them." (more…)

Mars is currently 2.24 astronomical units away.We tend to think of places as being a fixed distance from one another, and this works on scales terrestrial (it's 3,459 miles from London to New York) and cosmic (it's 4.36 light years to Alpha Centauri). But within the solar system, things change quicker. John D. Cook offers the code to let you calculate Mars' distance from Earth at any given time. [via Hacker News]Some interesting take-home facts for the laymen among us: the two worlds orbit anticlockwise; Martian years last 687 days, and the is Earth traveling about 20% faster to boot; and there is no evidence that Mars needs women, though it does show evidence of running water.Here's code for all the planets, sans the useful explanation.Make it easy on yourself with this solar system visualizer.

https://youtu.be/APLz2bTprMAThe Idaho beaver population explosion of 1948 was a big problem. Sarah Palin was still just a twinkle in her father-to-be's eye, so she couldn't be hired to shoot them from a helicopter. So Idaho's Fish and Game department resorted to Plan B: catching the critters, stuffing them into boxes, flying them to remote areas, and dropping them by parachute to their new home. The plan worked! (more…)

Bill Boegeman racked up a student loan debit of $82,961.02 to get a B.S. in social studies education from Minnesota State University, Mankato. It's going to take a very long time to pay it off. (more…)

Expensive fountain pens are lovely, but I want to cry when I lose them. This $15 Metropolitan by Pilot does a nice job of bridging that gap.The weight of its brass barrel gives the Metropolitan a feeling of gravitas. I am using the, impressively for a $15 pen, included converter to fill the pen with Noodler's Heart of Darkness, and the pen flows smoothly. The fine stainless steel nib a pleasure. Overall construction is exactly what I expect from a Pilot pen, it is quite pretty. You may also fill it with a standard Pilot cartridge.As a first fountain pen, or just one you won't terribly mind losing, I highly recommend the Pilot Metropolitan.Pilot Metropolitan Collection Fountain Pen via Amazon

I was raised to play chess in the most boring way imaginable, with both sides developing their pieces into a big symmetrical knot before anything even gets taken. Worse, most chess books basically imagine you to play like a master, preparing your openings and exulting them on the basis of their success and failure at the international level. Instead, everyday players should learn the flawed but brutal attacks of their ancestors, dashing gambits, and all the dirty tricks.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib8XaRKCAfo&ab_channel=thechesswebsiteHere's a video of the Top 7 Aggressive Chess openings. The "unfashionable" King's Gambit comes in at #4 and is a great place to start for people wanting to rediscover chess as a brutal game of wits. It's the chess equivalent of kicking down a door and dashing in, arms windmilling at the enemy.The first thing to know in being a chess troll, though, is to avoid the two tricks usually associated with cheap victories: Fool's Mate and Scholar's Mate. These don't even happen in pubs, are no fun at all, and the attempt is liable to make you the fool.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrUalgPaiPQIf you just want a ploy to get hated for, instead learn the Fried Liver Attack. This is your One Weird Trick for getting into fights at the kind of fancy parties where chess boards come out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPAuO4MqaM0(If you're playing black and looking to deal with white smugly trying to Scholar's mate you, here's how to nail them.)Now, here's a favorite. The Halloween Gambit is a good one to play in those generic "everyone calmly develops their knights" chess games that happen when all either player really knows are the rules.But you know something else, you hustling fucker! All white has to do is "blunder" away a knight a couple of moves in to gain tempo (see pic), then pawn rush the enemy in the face. It's the sort of thing competent players look down on, but what's great about it is you never do anything that makes you look like a competent player, so the inevitable victories are maximally humiliating for one's opponent.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roz1YeJjvUY&ab_channel=thechesswebsitePretend to be a cautious newbie with the Cabbage Attack, nudging all your pawns forward one square at a time until your frustrated enemy makes a stupid mistake. I really love this one and the general principle: be a giant, irritating hedgerow. Good players are not fooled but it's so very annoying for everyone else. The Creepy Crawly Formation is a particularly effective way to make your foe think you're completely dumb:This is the exact opposite of a cheap trap, but it's a super hustle for intermediate players. "Instead of memorizing move after move, sometimes it's good to remember core principles" such as playing slowly and annoyingly and pretending to be a creepy crawly thingy. Works great with the white pieces and the black pieces. (The Hippo runs along similar lines but is less ostentatiously daft and perhaps a bit too legit for blog posts about chess shenanigans.) A great way to be the most annoying chess player anyone you know has ever met is to get good at bringing out the queen early and marauding around with it without doing any significant development. Here's a grandmaster, Hikaru Nakamura, trolling at the highest level.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK-AjbDv0O8&ab_channel=kingscrusherThe Monkey's Bum is not something that you'll get a chance to play much, but the name is so good it has to get mentioned. A weak-looking but fine opening to lure opponents into bad play is the Hillbilly Attack, though if they ignore it you're liable to end up in the same old boring midgame knot. If you've got 15 minutes and are sufficiently interested in chessing, International Master Veliri Lilov offers a tour of some "DEVASTATING" opening traps:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDNMAqvc9ic&ab_channel=iChess.netThe Ponziani Opening is another one that looks like clueless beginner play, and useless against good players, but sharp in pub play, where it's been a classic for centuries. It's not very dashing, though.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaF_o3YOTW0A useful YouTube playlist to continue your studies is GJ_Chess's "Dirty Chess Tricks."

For generations, members of the Kashia band of the Pomo people have been landlocked. For the first time in 200 years, the coastal tribe will once again have unmitigated access to the sea. (more…)

Mitch Martinez licensed a stock footage clip to a Sony music label to use in a video; when the company proceeded to file a Youtube copyright complaint against him and refused to take his calls, he filed a copyright claim against them, told them he was cancelling their license to his footage, and threatened to make them re-edit the music video, removing his footage from it. (more…)

"Hello, you're watching Dish Network's Pirate TV Channel." Apparently only viewers with unauthorized access to Dish Network would see the "Pirate TV" channel that consisted of this message, looping forever.Below, a version from around 2009: "Hello, you're watching Dish Network. Did you know you're a satellite pirate?"https://youtu.be/X_cAzTn3c0Y(via r/ObscureMedia, thanks UPSO!)

In 1837, Italian physician Camilo Golgi devised a reaction to stain the wispy dendrites and axons of neurons, making it possible to see brain cells in situ. In 1875, he published his first scientific drawing made possibly by his chemical reaction, seen here. It's an illustration of the never fibers, gray matter, and other components of a dog's olfactory bulb. "The First Neuron Drawings, 1870s" (The Scientist)

A survey of 1541 randomly selected US adults ranked the country's fears as of 2015. Items that ranked above climate change included corruption, mass surveillance, cyber-terrorism, bio-warfare, identity theft, running out of money, economic collapse, credit card fraud, Obamacare, illness, nuclear attack, meltdowns and civil unrest and tornadoes. (more…)

Researchers at Incapsula have discovered a botnet that runs on compromised CCTV cameras. There are hundreds of millions, if not billions, of these in the field, and like many Internet of Things devices, their security is an afterthought and not fit for purpose. (more…)

The DoJ is currently trying to force Apple to decrypt data stored on a defendant's Iphone, and Apple, to its great credit, is fighting back, arguing that on the one hand, it doesn't have the technical capability to do so; and on the other, should not be required to do so. (more…)

See sample pages from this book at Wink.Scott Snyder's Wytches really worked its creepy magic on me. This trade paperback edition collects the first six issues of the popular comic series, which has received widespread praise and counts Stephen King among its many vocal fans. (more…)

Pulp Flesh has a nice but too-small gallery of swamp erotica paperbacks.

Take good care, baby, let me know...

Is it a wise social strategy to make self-deprecating comments? Hopes and Fears asked this question to a psychologist, two personal-brand consultants, a motivational speaker, and a women's life coach. They all pretty much agreed that it's smart for high-status people to self-deprecate and not smart for low-status people to do so.Lindsay Han, life coach focusing on women:I would think one of two things of the high status person. "Wow, despite you being tough on yourself, you still are looked at as a success. You must be pretty fab to reach that level despite your critical self-talk because that hinders so many people." Or, "He/she is just like me! They have their critical thoughts, but it looks as if they've been able to use them in a way that doesn't hinder their success."For the low-status person I would think, "That's why you're stuck. You haven't moved past your critical self-talk. Consequently, you haven't achieved what you want because of it."

Texas A&M Professor of Management Markus Fitza used a technique called variance decomposition to evaluate the extent to which the performance of companies can be attributed to astute leadership versus the random chance, and concluded that in 70% of cases, CEOs can't be shown to add any value to the companies they run. (more…)

This 1928 London Underground ad is a beautiful and witty example of using data to help people get the best use out of public services. By listing the tube's load at different times of the day, LU helped riders figure out how to avoid crushes, and by making the descriptions funny and insightful, the poster's creators created memorable hooks for putting the info in context. (more…)

Joey from Arizona State University writes, "ASU’s Imagination and Climate Futures Initiative is holding its first-ever Climate Fiction Short Story Contest. First prize is $1,000, and three more winners will receive book bundles signed by Paolo Bacigalupi, who was our annual Climate Futures lecturer last month. The best submissions will be published in an online anthology, and will also be considered for publication in the journal Issues in Science and Technology. The contest will be judged by Kim Stanley Robinson, along with a panel of experts from the Imagination and Climate Futures Initiative." (more…)

What a gem was released upon the internet today! This video of Bob Ross: A Walk in the Woods, was Season 1 Episode 1 of his long-running “anyone can paint” television HOWTO show. (more…)

Hopes&Fears has a beautiful feature up today on the lives of service dogs for people with psychiatric disabilities and mental illnesses. (more…)

Laurie Penny's science fiction story "Blue Monday" is a mean little kick up the ass. I workshopped this story with her last summer at the Clarion West workshop in Seattle and it doesn't get any less punchy on subsequent re-readings. (more…)

Alex Q. Arbuckle of Retronaut published this gallery of 1968 photos of the Wonderland Arcade in Kansas City, Missouri.

Tim Fitzgerald shot video of naked people. Then he shot video of the same people holding the same pose, but wearing clothes. Then other people smeared and splashed green paint on the people's clothes, and Fitzgerald green screened the two superimposed videos to make this amusing and NSFW short film.

Oakley Latch sunglasses have an ingeniously simple special feature: a clip in the temple so you can attach them securely to your shirt when not wearing them. They were designed by skateboarders Eric Boston, Sean Malto, and Curren Caples and skate photographer Atiba Jefferson. Oakley Latch Sunglasses(via Uncrate)

Justin Trudeau is certainly an improvement on outgoing Pherime Minister Stephen Harper. He's unlikely to go on burning Canada's archives and warring on its scientists, and he'll probably stop ignoring the murder of hundreds of aboriginal women and girls, and he's not a racist asshole who plays to other racist assholes to keep power. (more…)

You don’t need years of drone-piloting experience to have a ridiculously fun time with SKEYE Nano. This smooth black quadcopter automatically calibrates each time it hits the sky, so you’re promised an enjoyable ride whether you choose beginner, intermediate, or advanced mode. Use the remote to hover and move through even the smallest of spaces, thanks to SKEYE Nano’s small and nimble design. And with its new, stealth black look, this limited-edition drone will have your fellow drone enthusiasts sick with envy. Throw your cares to the wind, literally, as you throw this drone in the sky and take flight.Epic throw-to-fly functionalityAdvanced 6-axis flight control system w/ adjustable gyro sensitivityBuilt-in LEDs for night flightsCapable of aerobatic flips & exciting maneuvers4 replacement rotor blades for stress-free crashesMatte-black design for a unique stealth styleMiniature size for nimble flight paths3 flight levels from beginner to expertSave 42% on the limited edition matte-black version of the SKEYE Nano Drone today in the Boing Boing Store. [embed]https://youtu.be/n5Hbb_vEw6g[/embed]

Following a mistrial in the Dewey & LeBoeuf case -- a complex financial fraud involving a tony white-shoe law firm -- Bloomberg tries to analyze what happened to the jury, who were unable to convict despite four months of hearings and 22 days' worth of deliberations. (more…)

On October 9, the Supreme Court of Vanuatu found that fourteen members of the government had accepted bribes from the opposition in exchange for a promise of support in a vote of no confidence. Vanuatu's president, Baldwin Lonsdale, was out of the country at the time, leaving speaker Marcellino Pipite as head of state in his absence. As Pipite was one of those convicted, he promptly pardoned himself and his co-conspirators and suspended the country's ombudsman. (more…)

Wikileaks has posted a collection of documents ganked from CIA director John Brennan's email account, which was reportedly hacked by a "teen stoner" earlier this week. (more…)

Our man in the White House, Tom Kalil, Deputy Director for Policy for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, alerts us to the Administration's celebration of Back To The Future Day that includes:* The release of President Obama's updated Strategy for American Innovation* Tom's post on the White House blog about the power of imagination, titled "Science Fiction to Science Fact"* A series of online conversations with scientists and innovators about the future!

Nick Sousanis became a Boing Boing favorite for his 2015 doctoral dissertation in graphic novel form, and since attaining his PhD, he's become a postdoctoral fellow in Comics Studies at the University of Calgary. (more…)

Melbourne, Australia's Lab 22 produced a 3D printed, custom set of ribs and artificial sternum that were implanted into a 54-year-old male Spanish cancer patient's chest-cavity at Salamanca University Hospital. (more…)

If you're experiencing difficulty coming up with appropriately benign things to say about a friend or relative's new offspring, this generator is here to help. [babycompliments.com] (more…)

Anyone who's paid close attention knows that the series should really be called "Hermoine Granger and the Repeated Rescue of the Lazy, Glory-Hogging Boys," but as usual, Mallory Ortberg (previously) brings it all home with some scathing and witty fanfic: (more…)

St. Louis Fire Department captain Garon Mosby calls the fires "arson," but despite the shocking string of racist attacks, major media have hardly breathed a word about the fires. (more…)

What’s your ultimate adventure? Bungee jumping in New Zealand? Learning Spanish with Costa Rican locals? Bottling vino in Tuscany? We want to take you on a trip of epic proportions—and handle the bill.But that’s not all…win a rare Q&A session with star of The Tim Ferriss Experiment, and author of #1 New York Times Best Seller The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss himself. Find out how a four-week trip to Europe changed his life forever, and how to keep your luggage under 10 pounds.We’re throwing in some of our favorite tech gadgets and gear, and for the first time ever, choosing three lucky winners click here to enter!Grand Prize (worth $3,355.95): The Tim Ferriss Round-the-World PrizeTrip Around the World from BootsnAll (worth $3000)Sample route: San Francisco > Boston > Munich > Athens > Istanbul > Dubai > Bangkok > Saigon > Hong Kong > San FranciscoCustomize your route to hit your must-see sitesClick here to map out your dream escape1-Hour Q&A Session with Tim Ferriss—The Ultimate Self-Hack Guru & Best-Selling Author7 Best-Selling Tech EssentialsLithiumCard Wallet Battery with Smartphone ChargerZeroLemon SolarJuice 20000mAh BatteryTwist World Charging StationFYL Built-In Charger BagsKarma LTE Hotspot Keysmart 2.0iFixit Tech Tool Bundle1st Runner Up (worth $1,034.95): The High-Flying DJI Drone PrizeAll hail the DJI Phantom 2—the king of the drones and true aerial photography trailblazer. 1st Runner Up will take home a brand new DJI along with 7 or our top-selling tech essentials!DJI Phantom 2 DroneLithiumCard Wallet Battery with Smartphone ChargerZeroLemon SolarJuice 20000mAh BatteryTwist World Charging StationFYL Built-In Charger BagsKarma LTE Hotspot Keysmart 2.0iFixit Tech Tool Bundle2nd Runner Up (worth $355.95): The Tech-Savvy Tastemaker PrizeScore the 7 gadgets you need this fall—all made by top innovators, all best sellers. Power up outside with a solar battery pack, charge around the world with one plug, and carry it all in the stylish FYL Bag.LithiumCard Wallet Battery with Smartphone ChargerZeroLemon SolarJuice 20000mAh BatteryTwist World Charging StationFYL Built-In Charger BagsKarma LTE Hotspot Keysmart 2.0iFixit Tech Tool Bundle

Austin "Steal Like an Artist" Kleon has posted a fantastic meditation on the idea that "creative people say no" -- the idea that you have to say no in order to get your work done. The piece includes a bunch of amusing, funny, sometimes a little smarmy form-letters that famous artists have used to rebuff correspondents, and I share Kleon's horrified, tempted fascination with these artefacts. (more…)

It is multi-purpose.It is brown.It is tough.It is packaging tape.Give that copywriter a raise

It’s like Clue meets Password, with a little Where’s Waldo thrown in, but with the addition of dreams, interpretations and séances. In Mysterium, a person was murdered in a house and their ghost now haunts the grounds. The ghost needs to communicate with psychics to solve its murder in an effort to be set free. The trick is, the spirit can only communicate through visions and dreams. These dreams are rather vivid and unique as you can see in the cards.One player takes over as the spirit, and it is their job to communicate with the living through dreams, which are represented with a set of beautiful and imaginative illustrations. The spirit draws cards each turn and passes those dreams to the players in an effort to give them each clues. The other players play the role of spirit mediums who must deduce the following, using only the images on the dream cards: who killed the spirit’s mortal formwhat room the horrid event took placewhat foul instrument of destruction was usedWhile the spirit is not allowed to communicate with the mediums or give any clues beyond the cards, the other mediums may talk amongst themselves in an effort to deduce if that dream card about the Knight and the tower means that the Magician was the Killer, or does the dream card with the ship in the tub in the ocean signify poison was used? Trying look for the hidden clues that the Spirit is using to communicate with you gives the game the Where’s Waldo aspect.The game is perfectly designed in 3 acts, and unlike Clue, every turn gives the players a chance to deduce one of the three mysteries. The inclusion of the sand glass timer and the 7 turns (via an imposing cardboard clock) ensures the game is fast paced, orderly despite the insane cards, and playable in 30-45 minutes. The game also includes a streaming sound track to add an extra layer of spookiness. The amazing diversity and quality of the illustrations and heavy stock of the cards and pieces reflect the care of the game design.– John E. WilliamsonMysteriumAsmodeeAges 10 and up, 2-7 players$39 Buy a copy on Amazon

Sean Tejaratchi, the excellent book designer and creator of the Crap Hound zine, made this parody calendar called Michelle Duggar’s Sacred Blessings 2016 Motherhood & Marriage Nature Calendar. It uses actual quotes from a post by Mrs. Duggar, and stock photos of animal mothers with a lot of babies.

https://youtu.be/swdBQ2nC4cA"All the sudden I felt this tremendous stinging in my left leg and I thought it was a wasp or something and I didn't know it was a spider bite," said William Crum (68), the Texas man who drove his car into a motorcycle. Sanders and his girlfriend were knocked off their motorcycle when Crum rammed in them as they tried to pass him on a two-lane road 5 miles north of Granbury. The woman suffered severe road rash, a broken wrist, and deep arm lacerations and was hospitalized in an intensive care unit.Brian Fisher, who was riding in a motorcycle behind Crum and Sanders, captured the ill-timed consequences of the spider bite. When Crum pulled his car over, Fisher went to Crum and said, "What were you doing? You hit them!" "I don't care," Crum replied repeatedly.When a reporter later asked Crum if the spider had left a mark on his leg Crum replied, "It’s swollen right now. It bit me right in the tendon, so right now I have a tendon that’s hurting if I stand. If I walk off I’ll limp."Crum was charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for the incident. The spider remains at large.Here is Fisher's full video on Facebook.