Michael from Muckrock: "Union-busting Walt Disney became cozy with J. Edgar Hoover, the iconic animator's FBI files show, helping shut down dissident workers while infusing Disney programming with fond portrayals of federal enforcement. Disney even wanted to dedicate a special section of Tomorrowland to highlighting the Bureau of tomorrow -- which ended up being a step to far for America's head investigative agency."Giving the Bureau a coveted spot in the “science of tomorrow” wasn’t the only way Walt Disney planned to catapult the FBI into the imaginations of American children. Between January 1956 and December 1957 Disney repeatedly approached the Los Angeles office about devoting an episode of the beloved children’s show “Mickey Mouse Club” to the FBI. Although the objective was to, “acquaint American children with various employment opportunities in numerous fields of American endeavor,” the initial pitch was declined, but after years of negotiation, the episodes eventually aired in January 1958.The Orwellian script has been immortalized within Walt Disney’s declassified FBI file. The script follows the precocious Dirk Metzger, a 13-year-old Mickey Mouse Club reporter and the son of a Marine Corps Colonel, as he meets J. Edgar Hoover, watches agents shoot at a fake Baby Face Nelson, and gets his fingerprints taken. He also gives salient advice to kids like, “take my advice. Never throw a haymaker at a G-man.” The comfort this kid exhibits while learning about FBI investigation tactics and seeing agents shoot at targets with a name and a face is terrifying and exactly to the point. If Dirk Metzger is comfortable with trench-coated agents, why shouldn’t we?Before the show could be made however, the FBI sent Disney three pages of script revisions including taking the gun out of Dirk’s all-American hands. “The handling of a supposedly loaded weapon by a boy of Dirk’s age is not considered appropriate,” a memo from October 22, 1957 reads."He has been quite helpful." Walt Disney's FBI file [Matthew Guariglia/Muckrock]

This is yuge. You can buy it right now from Yandy for seventy dollars. For this sum, you get a "sexy" navy "suit" of equal of greater quality to an actual Trump suit, a red "Make America Great Again" cap, and a combover wig. The wig fails to capture the apricot candyfloss tesseract atop Trump's head, but I'm not an aficionado of sexy Trump costumes, so what do I know?Thus reports CNBC. According to a survey released by the National Retail Federation on Monday, political costumes tied for 10th place in its annual top costume list for adults (though this likely wasn't what they had in mind)."As we've seen for several years, Hollywood and pop culture both have a tremendous impact on how adults and their children decide to dress the part each Halloween, and it's evident some of the biggest newsmakers of the year will be out in full force this fall," NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said.Also on Yandy is a Sexy Charlie Brown costume. I suspect this is not official Peanuts-licensed merchandise.

Say goodbye to your annoying, bulky key ring—KeySmart organizes your keys in one convenient, compact, and lightweight place. Easily attach up to 10 keys, and use the included loop to latch on your car fob as needed. The award-winning KeySmart is meticulously designed to allow for quick and easy key access, and will rid your life of key jingling and jabbing forever.Frame crafted from quality titanium for lightweight bodyBottle opener includedHardware milled from stainless steel for durabilityUnique ‘S’ design made to fit 2x the keys in half the spaceSize accommodates most sizes of keyMade in Chicago[embed]https://youtu.be/d-BPMVPtL9c[/embed]Save 31% On The KeySmart 2.0 Titanium Organizer Today

https://youtu.be/F6PliZbgt4sSPL-T is a brand-new black-and-white puzzle game for iOS about the simplicity of splitting up space. You're compelled to touch and divide squares much in the way you create harmony out of the table rings left by a soda glass, or straight lines from a pile of spilled salt. It's impossible to stop playing with.The core concept is very simple to grasp: Touch a square to split it. Your first touch creates a vertical line, your second a horizontal line, and then a vertical line again. This alternating arrangement lets you plan your dissection, and you aim to split the board as many times as possible before you run out of moves. Ultimately you're scored based on your number of splits while you make even grids—difficult to describe, but instantly sensible and evident to the hand and eye when you try it for yourself. It's designed by Simogo, who is is my favorite mobile game developer. The two-person team is just as at home making visually-distinctive, narratively-driven works like Device 6 and The Sailor's Dream as they are with cute action games like Beat Sneak Bandit or Bumpy Road. Says the developer:In many ways SPL-T is one of the most “purposeful” games we’ve made. Every tiny decision has had long discussions. We’ve weighed arguments against each other. We’ve put in and out features. Tested what feels like one million rules. A simple thing like removing the restart feature might seem like a miss – but it’s deliberately not there, because we want every round of SPL-T to count. We want you to get better at it and get a deeper understanding for it every time you play it. We don’t want you to look at online leaderboards at pointless numbers. We want you to talk to friends playing SPL-T, and we hope it will invite you to talk about strategies together.The developer's crafty reputation has led many to suggest that there has to be more to SPL-T than meets the eye—after all, why should a game of black and white lines and minimal sound have a 69 MB file size? Pure puzzle endeavor or not, I recommend getting on board.SPL-T is $2.99 on the App Store.

https://youtu.be/Liv-EMavw0Q“My wife and I were worried about how the dog would react to a baby, so we kept them apart for a few months. This is when they get introduced to each other.”[Scott Moore, YouTube]

Joinyouinthesun posted 80 classic movie posters, in hi-resolution, with the text removed.80 hi-res, textless posters (some of my favorites)

When we were at the Mission Inn for Weekend of Wonder, this 5-port USB desktop charging station, on sale at Amazon for $10 kept 3 iPhones and a tablet well-fed. I used the additional port to charge a battery pack. The great thing about it is that you can plug it into a wall outlet (which are always in weird places in hotel rooms for some reason) and set the charger on a desk for ready access. It even comes with a suction cup mat to hold your soap in the shower!

Lightning bugs are a sort of magic when you're young, the kind that feels like it escaped from the halls of Hogwarts and somehow reclassified itself as science under the cover of darkness. It's the sort of memory that tends to stay vivid: the moment when you cupped a firefly inside your hands and watched its light seep out between the cracks in your fingers like greenish-yellow fire.In the game Imaginal, you decide to relive one of those memories with a friend by walking through the woods and catching fireflies together after dark, like you used to do as kids. "It'll be super chill," they promise. "We can just hang out, catch some bugs and have a chat." And that's exactly what you do.Armed with a glass jar, you can only capture the bugs while they're illuminated, and if you happen to snag a special blue lightning bug you'll share an insight or an idle thought with your friend—or maybe they'll one with you. Don't bother racing around to each firefly the moment it lights up; it'll almost certainly be too late by the time you reach it, and you'll earn yourself a lot of frustration, but few bugs. Instead, relax: try following one firefly at a time as they bob back and forth in the shadows, and wait for its light to turn on. This isn't Cookie Clicker, it's a gentle, meditative game about spending time with a friend, and one that's particularly pleasant to play before bed.Designed by Lisa Brown with art by Denae Wilkowski and music by Michael McCarthy, Imaginal is pay-what-you-will, and available for download on Windows, Mac and Linux.

A rockslide shut down Mount Carmel Highway in southern Utah's Zion National Park last night. No one was injured. "Crews will have to blast the rock and use heavy machinery to clear it. Due to the rock fall, emergency response is not available on the east side of Zion. The Scenic Drive and Zion Canyon remains open," Park spokeswoman Jin Prugsawan told the Salt Lake Tribune.

See sample pages from this book at Wink.You may have seen my earlier Wink Fun review of Elenco’s terrific Mini-beest Kit, a working miniature model kit of one of Theo Jansen’s amazing animated creatures. I wanted to know more about him and his work so I found a copy of his 2009 book, The Great Pretender. The 240-page volume contains notes, timelines, photos, sketches and family trees for Jansen’s “Animarus,” as he calls his species of moving, breathing, and thinking constructions. He creates magnificent beasts out of the cheapest and lowliest of raw materials: thin wall PVC pipes, packing tape, empty soda bottles, and zip ties. When assembled, the giant, articulated creatures walk along the beach in the Netherlands, powered only by the wind. In the book’s format, each of the verso pages (on the left) have color photographs of the many details about his designs and their construction: hinges and movable joints, leg linkages, molds and fixtures, pneumatic tubing muscles, etc. Each artifact is artfully depicted with low-key lighting and muted backgrounds, like specimens in an archeological volume. There are also beautiful photos of the fully-assembled creatures in their native habitat, strolling along the shore.The recto pages (on the right) carry the text, with chapter-length explanations of his thoughts and processes on how and why he came to create the various versions of his animated “life forms.” There’s Animarus Sabulosa Adolescense (young sand-coated beach animal) and Animarus Vermiculus (worm animal) and about 30 more, each as amazing as the last. Along with explaining the origins of his animals, Jansen also muses about life, evolution, natural selection, sex, gender roles, memes, and many other topics.Jansen originally studied to be a physicist, but ultimately he became an artist. His writing evidences this dual nature. His radical (to the “root”) thinking and his very personal (and humorous!) impressions on even dry, technical matters combine to make for an interesting read. He’ll offer a thought like “animals move by changing shape. Repeated changes in shape result in repeated changes in place.” He expands on the concept, going from worms, to shellfish, to limbs, and then shows examples of his design process, which embody these abstract principles in very concrete and ingenious constructions. By limiting his palette to just a few “junk” materials, he has to be fiendishly clever. He coaxes precision out of low tech materials, “nerves” out of tubing, “muscles” out of bathroom caulk, and even creates a rudimentary type “thinking” that lets his creatures sense and respond to sand conditions. A valuable addition to the volume is a DVD with video interviews, examples of his many other art projects, and plenty of sequences of the Animari in action. After reading the book I had a much fuller appreciation of the mind of Theo Jansen and an understanding of his improbable creations.The Great Pretenderby Theo Jansennai010 publishers2013, 240 pages, 8.5 x 11.2 x 1.1 inches From $90 (used) Buy one on Amazon

If I have to pick the single best Disney theme park in the world, it’s always going to be the one Walt built — Disneyland in Anaheim, California. It really is different, and better, than anyplace else and the people who run it and work there take special pride in that. But the best Disney Resort in the world, taking into account all its parks, hotels, special seasonal events, and transportation (don’t you hate waiting for those buses in Orlando?) has to be The Tokyo Disney Resort. It’s has the second best Magic Kingdom style park in the world, with many unique rides. They’re really big on seasonal events, too, and they go all-out for Halloween.Plenty has been written about Cosplay (i.e., “costume” + “play”) in Tokyo, but people mostly focus on dressing up as manga and anime characters in Harajuku — on the Harajuku Jingu Bridge; coincidentally right next to the cicadas singing in Mejii-Jingu — and in Akihabara. Less well known is that for precisely 10 days in early September and 7 days in late October, The Tokyo Disney Resort has official Cosplay days where adults are allowed to come to Tokyo Disneyland in full costume. Here, however, the only costumes allowed are Disney characters (no surprise). These are not the tired schleppers dragging their kids around you see in the U.S. In Tokyo Disneyland there is a regal quality to the care with which the cosplayers make the costumes and the pride which with they wear them. Photos are generally allowed as long as you ask first. [caption id="attachment_423114" align="alignnone" width="1200"] They think Western guys are cool ... even middle-aged Western guys.[/caption][caption id="attachment_423115" align="alignnone" width="1200"] After you've watched the Cosplayers, head over to Pooh's Hunny Hunt for a souvenir bucket of honey popcorn.[/caption][caption id="attachment_423116" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Once you've washed the honey popcorn off your hands, head on over to the Shootin' Gallery, where in Japan you actually get a badge when you hit all 10 shots for two bucks. Lucky folks get a gold badge (hint: aim for the high rat).[/caption][caption id="attachment_423117" align="alignnone" width="1200"] And of course Tokyo Disneyland has its own Halloween thing going on which trumps anything done in the U.S. parks (and it’s all free with admission—no extra purchase hard ticket events).[/caption]For information about cosplay rules at Tokyo Disneyland, visit the official website (use Google Chrome with automatic translation for best results)

https://youtu.be/f7AblTjKTHkAs performed by Viva Vox in May 2011. The arrangement is by Boris Balunović, and it is conducted by Jasmina Lorin. Ivan Propadović is the soloist. [via r/videos]Heather says it sounds vaguely like something from Spongebob Squarepants.Here's the original:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzGKsXPBILw

https://youtu.be/CZydrXAq2pYIt's not something you see every day at the lights: a small aircraft barreling through the intersection after making an emergency landing on Red Hill Avenue in Irvine, California."Unusual airplane landing," reports YouTuber CalicoStrike. "Nobody hurt."The Orange County Register reports that the plane belongs to a school and likely suffered engine trouble. The Piper Cherokee aircraft landed at 6:18 p.m. near John Wayne Airport at Red Hill and McGaw avenues during rush-hour traffic, coming to a stop at MacArthur Boulevard, Irvine Police spokeswoman Farrah Emami said.There are no injuries or damage to the plane or other vehicles, and an investigation is underway.

Brooklyn-based artist Michael Kagan creates oil paintings of astronauts and other space-themed subjects. They are indeed out of this world. Read the rest

This month marks the 40th anniversary of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here. It's a good time to celebrate that moment, when the portals opened and a stream of cosmic creative force spilled into our reality. Read the rest

Economist Paul Mason's blockbuster manifesto Postcapitalism suggests that markets just can't organize products whose major input isn't labor or material, but information, and that means that, for the first time in history, it's conceivable that we can have a society based on abundance. Read the rest

"There's something mesmerizing about watching little dragons made of semi-viscous cookie batter falling helplessly into heaps and melting into each other." Read the rest

Kirby Ferguson writes, "Everything is a Remix has been polished, merged and rereleased for its fifth anniversary." (more…)

Holly Salzman of Albuquerque, New Mexico went to court to resolve coparenting issues with her ex-husband. The judge ordered Salzman to attend 10 sessions with a counselor named Mary Pepper (Photo). Read the rest

Emmanuel from 2600 Magazine writes, "Trunk Archive has apparently looked over its recent claim against 2600 for its Spring 2012 cover and realized how wrong they were. Read the rest

The Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is like TiVo. You don't "get it" until you get it. It's a plain looking white sponge that looks like a chunk of cheap mattress foam. Read the rest

Last chance to join us at our 3-day extravaganza this weekend in Southern California! Read the rest

Why aren’t there more Black people roaming the campuses of technology companies? Mark S. Luckie has some ideas. Read the rest

PsychGuides.com created the Miss America Morph, which shows how the winners' body mass index has declined over time, while the average American woman's body mass index has increased of the same period. Read the rest

Most contemporary "kids music" sucks. However, my favorite reissue label Light In The Attic is releasing a killer children's vinyl compilation titled "This Record Belongs To______" that includes the likes of Shel Silverstein, Nina Simone, Donovan, Van Dyke Parks, Vashti Bunyan, Woody Guthrie, and many other musical greats, along with a storybook illustrated by the talented Jess Rotter. Read the rest

Devon's new Star Wars wristwatch is $28,500, but at least they make it worth it by throwing in a pair of TIE Fighter cufflinks. Read the rest

Colin Toupé set up his electronic drum kit to trigger animations. Simple idea and wonderfully executed! (more…)

As the vinyl record resurgence continues, the problem is that there simply aren't enough record pressing plants to meet the demand. Indie labels get pushed to the back of the line when the majors place a big order. Read the rest

“Contrary to what conventional wisdom would have you believe…record collecting isn’t about music. Not entirely, anyway,” says music writer Jeff “Chairman” Mao in Dust & Grooves. Read the rest

We Know The Devil is a visual novel about three friends consigned to a miserable Christian summer camp. Eventually they'll have to confront the Devil, which might just be allegorical for how, in a group of three, two will always bond a little more closely. Read the rest

NobodyLikesASmartAss said, "My 4-year old twin girls wanted a Hulk Princess cake for their birthday. So I made one!"[via]

American children are "getting drunk off hand sanitizer like they never have before," reports Vice. Read the rest

In your head, hear this pizza receipt's delivery instructions in the demanding, sinister voice of Brad Dourif.

Created by Bank of America Merrill Lynch's Chief Investment Strategist Michael Hartnett, this illustration shows "free-float equity market capitalization" in billions of dollars.

Was an Australian butcher really a long-lost English aristocrat? Read the rest

Sometimes the creative things people do with games are even more interesting than the games themselves. Read the rest

The ambitious new Sub-Q aims to create a brand new venue for interactive fiction and the players who love it. Fans believe the form is going mainstream in a big way, and there are ever more ways for you—yes, you!—to take part. Read the rest

It's a surprisingly good fit: from the FITC Toronto 2011 Festival. (via JWZ)

Badblood reminds me a little bit of playing Manhunt in the woods as a kid, except for the part where I got brained with a hammer. Read the rest

If you crave a life in design, computer animation or game development, this is the one-stop career-defining package you need. Through more than 200 hours of expert instruction, you’ll learn all aspects of computer-aided design (CAD), animation, engineering, and more. Read the rest

“We must stop demonizing these quiet intelligence professionals and start giving them the tools they need.” Read the rest

New Jersey governor Chris Christie's presidential favorability ratings have been falling since December 2014. He is faring so poorly that a Langer Research poll conducted for ABC News and The Washington Post released today didn't even bother to put Christie on a graph of the Republican candidates. Read the rest

Pups of various breeds lurch, flop, and float through the air in German photographer Julia Christe's wonderful “Freestyle Series.” Read the rest

In Turkey, an ice cream vendor on the streets offers passers-by some wonderfully entertaining magic.(more…)