GIFT GUIDE 2017Here's this year's complete Boing Boing Gift Guide: dozens of great ideas for stocking stuffers, brain-hammers, mind-expanders, terrible toys, badass books and more. Where available, we use Amazon Affiliate links to help keep the world's greatest neurozine online.Gadgets + Gear | Books + Music | Home + Kitchen | Toys + Games | Naughty + Nice GadgetsCoryEdu-Toys Night 'n Day Mechanical GlobeElenco's Night 'n Day Mechanical Globe uses a system of translucent, exposed gears to rotate an internally illuminated globe that displays the seasonally adjusted, real-time night/day terminator as it spins. [Read More]BUYXeniiPhone 8 PlusNow on its eighth numbered generation, the iPhone remains my entire creative studio and almost everything I need to do my work: it replaces my fancy camera, my audio gear and everything else I had to lug around. This thing really is everything. I go big on screen size and storage capacity, with that in mind: the Plus, and 128 GB. BUYDavidAudio Technica AT-LP60Forget those vinyl-destroying, vintage-inspired all-in-one units. They're all crap. The Audio Technica AT-LP60 is a fantastic beginner (or revivalist) turntable for the price. Its built-in pre-amp means all you need to do is plug it any powered speakers with an audio input.You won't find a better turntable than this for under $100 unless you hit the second-hand market.BUYMarkFlitt Flying Pocket Selfie Camera Drone ($100)I honestly didn't expect that this tiny fold-up drone would perform as well as it does. It does a great job of hovering in place, and is easy to control with a smart phone. It's the first drone I can fly without crashing it into a wall or getting it stuck in a tree.BUYRobKano Computer KitBuild your own computer and learn to code art, music, apps, games and more with the Kano Computer Kit, an introduction to the bare metal you just won't get with crap-laden commercial machines. Hundreds of schools use them, and Includes everything you need, including the Pi that acts as its brain, case, speaker, wireless keyboard, RAM, and cables. And unlike most edumuacational computer gear, it looks absolutely cool as heck.BUYJasonAn airbag for your motorcyclistDo you love your motorcyclist? This simple, tether activated airbag inflates less than .10 of a second after a rider becomes separated from their bike. Helping to secure the neck, and protect the torso and internal organs, the Helite Turtle, is a top choice for next-generation motorcycle safety. BUYDavidKindle E-reader loaded with free classicsFor $50, the entry-level Kindle E-reader is priced right, and comes in black or white! This model has a 6” display and the battery lasts for ages between charges. (If you want to get fancy, go for the Kindle Paperwhite with a built-in reading light so you don't bug bedmates.) Load it with free classic books from Project Gutenberg before gifting!BUYMarkIgloohome Deadbolt2 ($238)The Igloohome Deadbolt2 has a programmable keypad instead of a keyhole. It took me about 20 minutes to install on my door. You can send your friends or other people single-use PINs. The smartphone app can also be set so the door unlocks when you touch the keypad - no PIN needed.BUYMarkMixcder Wireless & Wired Over Ear Headphones ($80)I bought these relatively inexpensive headphones for my daughter, who wanted wireless headphones for when she paints and sculpts. These are comfortable, have good sound quality, and pair easily with an iPhone.BUYMarkPacSafe Transit Travel Hoodie ($130)The thing I like about this pocket-covered hoodie is that the interior pockets have little line drawings indicating what you should put in them - pen, eyeglasses, tablet computer, phone, passport, earbuds, wallet, etc. I like having a garment that tells me what to do, it keeps life simple while traveling.BUYRobElf ear earbudsOnce hard to find, these low-end but unique earbuds are now at Amazon. For elves who can't quit their record collection even for a moment, they're still, sadly, only available in lily white. But cheap, at just $13.BUYRobRaspberry Pi 3 Model BThe best $35 you can spend on a wee yet straightforward and accessible barebones computer, Raspberry's Pi is now in its third generation and lives atop a vast and growing ecosystem of accessories, cases and general craziness to have fun with. The latest flagchip model has a 1.2GHz 64-bit quad-core CPU with twice the Pi 2's performance, integrated WiFi and Bluetooth, and backward compatibility with earlier models.BUYXeniBlack & Decker CHV1410L 16-volt Lithium Cordless Dust Buster Hand VacStill the best selling hand vac for keeping your office, home, workshop or hackerspace tidy. CHV1410L has strong suction, and a bagless dirt bowl that's easy to see and empty. Holds a charge for up to 18 months when it's off the charger. High efficiency Lithium ion chargers protect it by automatically shutting off when the battery is charged, so you can store it on the charger.BUYRobArduboyBeautiful 1-bit graphics in your wallet! Arduboy is an open-source platform to create and share games and the hardware is made to the dimensions of a business card. Best of all, this tiny toy is only $50. Want more? The PocketChip, at $70, plays Pico-8 games with a dazzling 16 colors; the dev community is more mature and there are countless games already.BUYRobSecond-gen Apple iPad Pro 12.9-inch With the lastest 12.9" model I've changed my mind about Apple's biggest iPad. Its unmatched pencil latency and powerful processor leave Microsoft (and even Wacom) trailing, while markedly improved third-party applications make Photoshop less critical, at least for me. Finally.BUYBooks and MediaMarkThe EC Artists Library Slipcase (Vol 3 $54)This high quality box set of four hardbound books has 904 pages of the very best comics of the 1950s. Volume one of this series is out of print and sells for over $250. Volume three is just $54. With art by greats like Wally Wood, Joe Orlando, John Severin, and George Evans, this set is a must-have for comic book aficionados.BUYCoryCanadaland Guide to Canada (Published in America), by Jesse Brown and friendsBrown finds plenty of hilarious awfulness in Canada's past and present, especially in the way that Canadians talk about themselves when they expect Americans might be listening to them. From Justin Trudeau (who talks about refugees abandoned by Trump but takes no action to improve their lot, because he's too busy taking away the citizenship rights of naturalised Canadians with objectionable politics, greenlighting climate-destroying pipelines for the Tar Sands, and making the most of the sweeping surveillance powers he promised he'd abolish after taking office) to Rob Ford to Quebec separatism and the long, deplorable traditions of drunken, racist Canadian leaders who are remembered as wise, even-handed leaders, Brown punctures ever bubble that Canadians have ever blown over the border toward our American cousins. [Read more]BUYCoryBriggs Land Volume 1: State of Grace, by Brian WoodStories matter: the recurring narrative of radical Islamic terror in America (a statistical outlier) makes it nearly impossible to avoid equating "terrorist" with "jihadi suicide bomber" -- but the real domestic terror threat is white people, the Dominionists, ethno-nationalists, white separatists, white supremacists and sovereign citizens who target (or infiltrate) cops and blow up buildings. That's what makes Brian Wood's first Briggs Land collection so timely: a gripping story of far-right terror that is empathic but never sympathetic. [Read More]BUYCoryKindred (Graphic Novel), adapted from the novel by Octavia ButlerKindred is the story of Dana, an African-American writer married to a white man in 1976, who finds herself being violently yanked through time and space to the side of her distant ancestor, Rufus, the son of an enslaver who lives on a plantation in antebellum Delaware. Rufus -- a self-destructive, traumatized and spoiled child -- periodically puts himself in mortal danger, and when he does, Dana is torn from 1976 to save him, and is stranded in the violent, totalitarian south until she experiences mortal terror, whereupon she returns to her present, only moments after she left. Luckily for Dana, mortal terror is a commonplace occurance for black people in Delaware in the 19th century. [Read More]BUYMarkThe Magic Machine: A Handbook of Computer Sorcery ($4)This 1990 BASIC programming book is long out-of-print, but is still valid and a great way to explore fractals and artificial life. I loved this book when it came out and just bought a replacement for my lost copy. Use copies are cheap on Amazon. Get it for a smart kid in your life.BUYDavidVoyager Golden Record In 1977, NASA launched two spacecraft, Voyager 1 and 2, on a grand tour of the solar system and into the mysteries of interstellar space. Attached to each ofthese probes is a beautiful golden phonograph record containing the story of our planet expressed in music, sounds, images, and science. It’s a message for any extraterrestrial intelligence that might encounter it. And now you can experience on Earth as a lavish 3xLP Box Set or 2xCD-Book edition.BUYDavidThe Photographs Of Charles Duvelle - Disques OCORA And Collection PROPHETDecades before the term "world music" became common parlance, Charles Duvelle was traveling the globe recording the sounds and sights of indigenous people around the world. To enable us see the world through Duvelle's eyes, Sublime Frequencies' Hisham Mayet in collaboration with Duvelle released this magnificent tome contains field photographs from 1959-1978, a deep interview, a report he prepared for Unesco in 1978, and two CDs of music that will move you. BUYDavidArt Sex Music by Cosey Fanni TuttiThe stunning memoir of musician, artist, and cultural provocateur Cosey Fanni Tutti is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of avant-garde music, performance art, underground culture, radical living, and female empowerment. Best known as co-founder of pioneering industrial groups Coum Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle (famously called “wreckers of civilisation” by a British MP), Cosey has also explored the fringes of sex, music, and creativity as a pornographic model, video artist, electronic composer, and, yes, writer. This is her story so far and it’s a doozy.BUYDavidLittle Book of Wonders: Celebrating the Gifts of the Natural World by Nadia DrakeNational Geographic contributor Nadia Drake’s science writing sings with knowledge, rigor, and her own infectious curiosity. This slim and delightful book is no exception. A lovely miniature wunderkammer of Earth’s magical places, startling phenomena, and amazing wildlife, it pairs beautiful photos with Nadia’s poetic and informative captions that spark the imagination and instill a sense of wonder about our world. BUYDavidDalí: The Wines of GalaFirst published in 1978, Salvador Dalí’s The Wines of Gala is a stunning and strange guide that groups wines “according to the sensations they create in our very depths” such as “Wines of Frivolity,” “Wines of the Impossible,” and “Wines of Light.” Featuring more than 140 of Dalí’s surrealist illustrations, this is the most bizarre, sensual, and sensational book about viticulture and libations that you’ll ever experience.BUYCoryTHEFT: A History of Music, by James Boyle and Jennifer JenkinsTheft traces millennia of musical history, from Plato's injunction against mixing musical styles to the outrage provoked by the troubadours who appropriated sacred music and turned it into bawdy songs about wanting to have sex with hot teenagers (a trick Ray Charles repeated hundreds of years later!); from the racist outrage over rock and roll's challenge to white supremacy to the fights over sampling and the exploitation of African-American musicians who were ripped off 40 years ago versus the interests of their musical progeny whose sample-based music has been distorted and even outlawed by the same musical corporations that screwed the R&B artists, in the name of defending those artists (!). [Read More]BUYCoryThe Free, by Lauren McLaughlinIsaac West is a mixed-race kid who never knew his dad; he and his sister have raised their alcoholic, abusive mother as much as she's raised them. But Isaac has a plan: his little sister Janelle is smart, better than he'll ever be, and he's going to get her out of their mutual hellhole and into a private school -- and to make that happen, he's graduated from petty theft into grand theft auto, under the supervision of his high-school auto-shop teacher, a cut-rate Fagin who trains and oversees a gang of junior car thieves. [Read More]BUYRobThe Complete Elfquest Vol. 4Fresh out in November, this volume contains some of the most exquisite and touching episodes of Wendy and Richard Pini's Elfquest saga, a great alternative to genre fantasy and its grim 'n' gritty modern counterparts. One of America's best indie comics, it's illustrated by Wendy's wonderful artwork – even at its most lighthearted, unanswerable questions of identity, family and freedom lurk between the lines. (Newcomers should not feel they have to start at the beginning, but it sure helps. And you don't have to be a fan to appreciate Line of Beauty, a deep-dive biography of Wendy penned by Richard himself)BUYCoryThe Hardware Hacker: Adventures in Making and Breaking Hardware, by Andrew "bunnie" HuangThe book draws heavily on Huang's own hardware projects, which have included substantial manufacturing in south China, with many hard-won lessons about how things can go wrong and how to make them go right. This is more than a checklist or memoir: it's nothing less than a masterclass in modern manufacturing, and even if you never plan on manufacturing anything, reading these chapters will explain the material world around you like few other texts. [Read More]BUYCoryNew York 2140, by Kim Stanley RobinsonIt's 2140 and trillions of dollars' worth of the world's most valuable real estate is now submerged under fifty feet of water, resulting from two great "surges" where runaway polar melting created sudden, punctuated disasters that displaced billions of people, wiped trillions off the world's balance sheets, and turned the great cities of the world into drowned squatter camps. [Read More]BUYCoryWAKE UP!, by Rick Lieder and Helen FrostLife is a continuing cycle of newness, then growth, and then gone: then birth and growth again. Photographer Rick Lieder started thinking about that theme of new life and new beginnings several years ago, and WAKE UP!, published by Candlewick Press, is the result. Working with his collaborator, poet Helen Frost, our book is about opening eyes—our own, first—and pointing to the world that’s right here, containing us all. Helen and rick are both based in the US Midwest, so we started there, with a world that we didn’t need to travel far to explore, only wake up enough to actually see. [Read More]BUYCoryPenguin Galaxy Boxed Set, introduced by Neil GaimanLast October, Penguin released its Galaxy boxed set, a $133 set of six hardcover reprints of some of science fiction's most canonical titles: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K LeGuin; Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A Heinlein; 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C Clarke; Dune by Frank Herbert; The Once and Future King by TH White; and Neuromancer, by William Gibson. [Read More]BUYCoryBrutal London: Construct Your Own Concrete CapitalBrutal London: Construct Your Own Concrete Capital tells the stories of nine of London's greatest brutalist structures (with an intro by Norman Foster!), including the Barbican Estate, Robin Hood Gardens, Balfron Tower and the National Theatre -- and includes pull-out papercraft models of these buildings for you to assemble and display. [Read More]BUYCorySHADE THE CHANGING GIRL v.1: Earth Girl Made Easy, by Cecil CastellucciLoma Shade, as her own unique character, was a way of being steeped in the world of Shade the Changing Man, while being its own thing. Some people say that Shade the Changing Girl seems to be a direct sequel of the Milligan run. I say not so. I’ve always approached it as a kind of side-quel. Creator Cecil Castellucci wanted to take care to have nods and echoes to them both, but to be able to stand narratively on its own. It was a way of striking out in a new direction while plucking elements from the Ditko original and the Milligan run. [Read More]BUYCoryPaper Girls 1, 2 and 3, by Brian K Vaughanhttps://boingboing.net/2016/12/14/brian-k-vaughan-and-cliff-chan.html https://Paper Girls stars an all-girl cast of newspaper delivery kids for a fictional Cleveland newspaper, circa 1988 -- they are instantly and wholeheartedly likable, like the Goonies or the cast of Stranger Things. They convene on November 1, when the mean teenagers of Cleveland are still out an about and making mischief, picking on the likes of them, and they band together in mutual self-defense. (Don't forget books Two and Three) [Read More]BUYCoryBitch Doctrine: Essays for Dissenting Adults, by Laurie PennyIf you've followed Penny's work, you'll know that the thing that sets her apart from other enraged columnists is her empathy: her ability to understand the self-serving rationalizations, radioactive bullshit, and emotional damage that drives men to threaten her with rape and murder for pointing out that things aren't exactly fair. [Read More]BUYCoryLizard Music, by Daniel PinkwaterLizard Music is a novel about Victor, a kid who falls asleep while doing a model airplane and wakes up when the local TV station is going off the air, who discovers that the true late-night programming comes from humanoid lizards who live in a secret nearby volcano and worship Walter Cronkite. [Read More]BUYCoryLandscape With Invisible Hand, by MT AndersonIn 2002, MT Anderson blew up the YA dystopia world with Feed, his zeitgeisty, prescient novel about "identity crises, consumerism, and star-crossed teenage love in a futuristic society where people connect to the Internet via feeds implanted in their brains" -- in his latest, Landscape with Invisible Hand, Anderson takes us to a world where neoliberal aliens have sold Earth's plutocrats the technologies to make work obsolete and with it, nearly human being on earth. [Read More]BUYRobStories of Your Life and OthersTed Chiang's writing is rare and precise, weaving threads of science fiction into something so haunting and humane I've woken up dreaming about it more than once. Here you can read most of his published work, including the novella that was recently filmed as Arrival and is currently in U.S. theaters. But my favorites are the Borgesian "Tower of Babel," about an engineer breaking through the vault of heaven, and "Division by Zero."BUYCoryThe Power, by Naomi AldermanIn The Power, a day dawns, not so long from now, in which every 15-year-old girl finds herself with the power to deal out electric shocks, emanating from an unsuspected organ called "the skein," which rests along the collarbone. What's more, any woman can do the trick, once a 15 year old shows them how. Chaos. Glorious chaos. [Read More]BUYCoryArchangel, by William GibsonFrom the start of its run in 2016, Archangel went from strength to strength, packing in so many goddamned O.G. cyberpunk eyeball kicks per page that it felt like some kind of cask-strength distillation of all the visual and action elements that gave the original mirrorshades stuff its dark glitter. [Read More]BUYCoryVacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches, by John HodgmanMy first impression of Vacationland was that I'd found a modern version of Steve Martin's classic Cruel Shoes. Hodgman is so very witty, and as he sets up his memoir -- the story of how he was a weird kid raised by loving but largely unconcerned parents -- he has so many tinder-dry asides and beautifully turned sentences and jokes with long fuses that unexpectedly detonate paragraphs later that I was really getting ready to relive my own childhood. [Read More]BUYHomeDavidUnder The Weather SportsPodAs seen on Shark Tank, the Under The Weather SportsPod is a single-person pop-up shelter to sit inside that my big brother Rick came up with a while back. (He was sick of getting soaked at his kids' soccer games and was inspired by a portable toilet he saw by the field.) Under The Weather is designed for spectator sports, fishing, and other outdoor events where it's raining, windy, or cold, but you are either obligated to watch or having so much fun you don't want to leave. BUYXeniSport-Brella XLPortable wind, sun, and rain shelter that's easy to set up. Can you open an umbrella? Can you drive a couple stakes into the ground? You got this, then. Haul it to the beach, outdoor gatherings or events, camping, sports, and you feel like you have a little private room outdoors. Comes in 6 different colors. Provides UPF 50+ shade. Opens to 9 feet wide, has a metallic undercoating for additional sun protection, internal pockets for stakes, valuables, and gear, plus top wind vents and side zippered windows for efficient airflow. Water resistant, weighs only 11.5 pounds. I first saw someone else on our local beach use it, and asked them where they bought it. Amazonned one for myself. Now I use it nearly every weekend, and love it.BUYRob3" Glass PyramidMade of "optically clear crystal" and three inches tall, Amlong's Crystal Pyramid is the best Crystal Pyramid. My bacon is fresh, my airspace dangerous, and my undertakings favored.BUYMarkOXO Good Grips Solid Stainless Steel Ice Cream Scoop ($15)The old ice cream scoop we had wasn't really an ice cream scoop. It was a disher, and was more suited for scooping mashed potatoes than ice cream. When the trigger mechanism on it finally broke, I happily got rid of it and replaced it with the OXO Good Grips Solid Stainless Steel Ice Cream Scoop($15). This surprisingly heavy scoop is made from a solid chunk of stainless steel with a comfortable rubber grip, and comes with a pointed end that digs right into hard ice cream, especially if you run hot water over it. It's supposedly dishwasher safe but why put it in the dishwasher? Just rinse it and dry it with a towel.BUYXeniBrondell SourceI bought the Brondell Source in 2015 and it alleviated allergy symptoms; here's the latest model, adding a touchscreen, remote control and an adjustable air quality sensor. Rids the air of dust and dander and tiny particles you don’t need to be breathing—but also filters volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Three-stage advanced purifier system includes certified True HEPA and Granulated Carbon technology. Glowing light indicator tells you when it’s working. One time my dog farted a particularly noxious plume and this thing kicked into high gear with an emergency red glow. That’s when I knew I’d be giving it a five star recommendation.BUYMarkLynx Sonoma Stainless Steel Countertop Natural Gas Smoker ($2500)This capacious, ultra high-end smoker has a digital control panel, smoker chip box, an instant-reading meat probe. It's got built-in Wi-Fi, of course, so you can monitor the process wherever you are.BUYJasonWise Owl Camping HammockThe comfort to weight ratio of a good camping hammock is off the charts. Durable and easy to set up, you'll be happy anyplace you can find two appropriately spaced trees. BUYXeniCuisinart 14-Cup Food ProcessorThe latest model of the best food processor for people who are serious about broadening their happy foodie horizons. Shove entire fruits and veggies into the giant feed tube. Listen to the 720-watt motor fill a 14-cup work bowl with steel slicing and shredding discs. It still comes with a free recipe book.BUYToys and GamesRobRainbow SlimeA glittery additive mixed with kid-safe Elmer's glue, Rainbow Slime is what you make of it. Fun when forming and flexible when dry, the results are beautiful, weird and extremely cheap at $6 or so. BUYJasonThe Intellivision Flashback ConsoleRemember the unlucky kid with the parents who got them an "Intellivision" instead of an Atari? Make someone that miserable again! With games no one can remember except maybe that OK one with a snake that couldn't touch its tail but isn't SNAFU, the Intellivision really sucked. BUYDavidEjector Seat Button For Your CarA perfect stocking stuffer, this very clever eject button fits into most automobile cigarette lighter sockets. Unfortunately, the product listing clearly states that it's "designed for show only." It is a functional cigarette lighter though so I guess they mean it won't actually trigger your ejector seat. BUYDavidSwish card gameA beautiful and deeply compelling card game, Swish is challenges your spatial perception to find matches of balls and hoops on transparent cards. It’s a wordless game of pattern recognition that has entranced my entire family including our youngest child, age 8.BUYRobBulk Generic LegoYou can get 1000 random pieces of off-brand building bricks for less than $30, guaranteed to "fit tight" and come with "less filler" than the even-cheaper bulk buys.BUYMarkPalomino Blackwing 602 Pencils ($23/doz.)This is a faithful reproduction of the Eberhard Faber original, which is no longer being made. Blackwing 602 have dark, soft lead (the motto printed on the pencil reads"Half the pressure, twice the speed") and features a unique eraser holder. I've been using them for years.BUYJasonMake your own Crazy Aaron's Thinking PuttyThe one thing my 10-year-old enjoys more than making her own floam or slime is playing with Thinking Putty. Textured quite like the legendary Silly Putty of yore, Crazy Aaron's putties come in a rainbow of colors and styles. This set lets you design your own! I am pretty sure Mark could be easily distracted by a can of magnetic Thinking Putty. BUYRobCopic Ciao Marker SetAt about $200, a full set of 72 Copic markers is a pricey proposition. But that's because they're the absolute best, with perfect colors, easy blending, and a big brush tip good for detail and wash alike. Dip an elbow in the water with a relatively inexpensive 12-marker set; great deals on partially-used sets can also be found haunting eBay. BUYJasonBecause cats are totally down with the Dark SideYoda and Chewie as mice for your cat to attack, because all cats align with the Dark Side. Except for Loth-Cats for some reason, but I wouldn't exactly trust them either. BUYJasonStar Wars Viewmaster gift setI am not sure how the whole putting gifts in a sock thing works, but this Darth Vader themed Viewmaster Viewer looks like it'd fit in a traditional Christ inspired gifting sock. Star Wars Viewmaster reels are always pretty sweet. This also makes a good Hanukkah day 4-7 gift for kids who can pull off the entire 8-day challenge. My kid starts getting a hug after day 3.BUYJasonYou sank my holiday experience!While it doesn't look much like the genre-defining 'This game isn't as much fun as a commercial made it look' toy of our youth, Electronic Battleship is now more exciting looking while boastin' the same old lows in game-play disappointment! Eeeeelectronic Battleship is no more fun than regular old Battleship, which is also a pretty god damn boring game. This is an excellent gift for someone you do not like, but want to appear you gave a cool gift at opening time. BUYJasonPrison Life RobloxKnow a kid that just can't behave? Maybe a co-worker? Make sure they understand a life of crime will come to no good. BUYRobMysterious and Indistinct ShirtFabulous yet classy, the Mysterious and Indistinct Shirt is a premium youth tee and "wears rough and tough for kids who play the same way." BUYDavidMastermindInvented in 1970 by an Israeli telecom expert, Mastermind is still the terrific game of strategy, logic, and deduction that you might remember from childhood. True, the packaging lacks the Bond-inspired photo of the dignified man and woman that appeared on the original box, but the game is just as elegant and addictive.BUYCoryLargemouth bass sandalsYou will look amazing in sandals that look like gasping largemouth bass, seriously (max size is a Men's 10, so only the dainty of feed need apply, e.g., not me). [Read More]BUYRobBlank Playing CardsMake your own games! Or just stare at them. Whatever.BUYNaughty + NiceMarkWink Plus ($79)In William Burroughs' novel Naked Lunch, Steely Dan III from Yokohama was the name of a stainless steel sex toy. The USB-chargeable Wink Plus vibrator from Crave is probably not what Old Bill Lee had in mind, because it is quite small, but it is made from stainless steel, and packs quite a vibrational wallop, with five intensity levels and two patterns.BUYRobWolf Crotch UnderwearWith a "convex design, large space and breathable," the 3D Wolf Head Crotch Underwear "make man looks sexy and wild" and can be yours for as little as five American dollars.BUYJasonSpend your holiday season TwistedThe Twisty Glass Blunt is a brain-hammer. Fill the glass chamber with your favorite herb, screw in the brass mouthpiece, and you are prepared to smoke a lot of weed. Perfect for a day at the beach, or an outdoor music festival, the Twisty Glass Blunt is an absolute favorite. I've got the mini as well. BUYJasonPoop emoji Santa HatWar on Christmas? Christmas seems to be integrating into todays meme-filled emoticon world. Now your Santa can proudly display his favorite emoji, or perhaps this is mean to signify something else. BUYREAD THE COMMENTS

"Still Not Dotcom" is Brian McMullen's annual catalog of unregistered .com domains -- as found poetry goes, you'd be hard pressed to find anything funnier. You can also listen to it as a free, unabridged audiobook thanks to KCRW's The Organist. (more…)

The kind folks at Dark Delicacies, my local specialist horror bookstore here in beautiful Burbank, California have volunteered to fill orders for my novels; since they're walking distance from my front door, I'll be popping in there a couple of times every week between now and Xmas to sign and inscribe any orders you place; they make fabulous gifts and also excellent firelighters! Call them at +1-818-556-6660, or email darkdel@darkdel.com.

The US Department of Education's Free Application for Federal Student Aid program requires any student applying for federal aid for college or university to turn over an enormous amount of compromising personal information, including current and previous addresses, driver's license numbers, Green Card numbers, marital details, drug convictions, educational history, tax return details, total cash/savings/checking balances, net worth of all investments, child support received, veterans' benefits, children's details, homelessness status, parents details including SSNs, and much, much more. (more…)

An NBER paper from 2015 tracks the decline in corporate spending on basic science in R&D, which has become a practical, application-focused line-item in corporate budgets, creating a safe, predictable, and slow cycle of innovation. (more…)

Instagram user Lonseometown9 documents their ongoing series of street art that transforms dumped sofas, chairs, and televisions into sad clowns. (more…)

A newly-published overview of self-reported ayahuasca experiences indicates that the hallucinogen can help alleviate eating disorders and reduce alcohol consumption. Now, more scientists are pushing to make it easier to study the drug legally. (more…)

No time to waste opening an entire six-pack one bottle at a time? Now there's finally a solution: Sixoverone, the hexa-opener you never knew you needed.Here's another demo:https://vimeo.com/243069918If you'd rather do it the old fashioned way, efficiency comes with practice.https://youtu.be/Ccc4Wty5Wtc?t=20s• SIXOVERONE (via Indiegogo)

Nahre Sol's Practice Notes channel is a whirlwind tour of music history, with variations of well-known melodies in the styles of different composers, mashups of genres, and other delights. (more…)

Instead of waiting for January 1st to commit to your New Year’s resolutions, you can start teaching yourself programming and app development with this Learn to Code 2018 Bundle. The complete course material is available in the Boing Boing Store for a pay-what-you want price.This collection features 10 comprehensive video courses that will introduce you to full-stack web development, building iOS apps, and data analysis with the R programming language. With over 150 hours of content, you’ll get plenty of experience building professional software and manipulating data using a wide variety of platforms. Here’s what you’ll be studying: Complete Python Web Course: Build 8 Python Web AppsHow to Make a Freaking iPhone App: iOS 11 and Swift 4JavaScript for BeginnersThe Complete PHP MySQL Professional CourseLearn React by Building Real ProjectsProgramming for Complete Beginners in C#The Complete Java 9 Masterclass: Beginner to ExpertBeginner Full Stack Web Development: HTML, CSS, React & NodeAngular Crash Course for Busy DevelopersIntroduction to R ProgrammingYou can pay what you want for the Learn to Code 2018 Bundle.

Musterbrand's Star Wars line sports some amazing garments, like the Rebel and Vader capes, the Skywalker shoes, the Rey Sweater, the Sith coat, and the Skywalker jacket. (more…)

Luminaire's Piano Coat Rack hangs up to 48 garment from pegs that swing in and out of the piece, made from beech, oak, or walnut; it's a clever, space-saving, beautiful design, but at $1800-$4100, it exceeds my coat-rack budget by more than an order of magnitude. (via Yanko Design) (more…)

To the best of my recollection, this was Thanksgiving 1993.I was 21 and living in Chicago. I'd moved there a few months earlier, under the promise of a job at the Second City, a famed comedy club, that evaporated before I'd ever set foot in the door. Being young and refusing to give up, I stayed for the adventure. My apartment was incredibly cheap, and I was performing a lot more than I had been in LA. I thought I'd make this my new home.My two roommates had left town to visit family. Greg, a fellow improvisational comedian who'd suffered the same retracted job offer as I, was off to Massachusetts. Marko, a 6'6" pre-frontally lobotomized hoarder who suffered from homophobia, anti-semitism, and only experienced joy while performing as a children's party clown, was someplace I did not care.Over the many years, I have come to recognize that homophobic, anti-semitic, hoarder, children's party clown roommates come with an increased incidence of violent death. The rent was really cheap. My friend Kevin came into town from Los Angeles, we didn't even think about dinner. Mostly, we liked to drink. We were 21 and it was cold.It was Thursday, everything was closed and we were hungry. We realized it was Thanksgiving. I am absolutely certain this very-good-idea-were-we-not-broke-as-fuck was Kevin's and not mine: we would go to the Chicago Ritz-Carlton and join their Thanksgiving dinner.We decided that appearances would matter and that we should look nice if we intended to have dinner with rich and fancy people at a rich and fancy place. We put on our very nicest clothes. We still looked like shit.Moments after arriving at the Ritz, while I marveled at the lovely reception area, Kevin asked the Concierge for directions to the Thanksgiving Dinner. There is no finer magician than a five-star hotel's Concierge. He had a better idea! If we'd give him just a moment the hotel limousine would deliver us to a theater for dinner and a show! The tickets were going to go to waste, he'd feel great if we used them!The driver was super friendly and happy to give us a ride as well. People at the Ritz-Carlton were very cool. We couldn't believe our good fortune and hopped in the black stretch. We were bound for a theater neither of us had heard of, about 15 minutes away, called The Admiral.Not all theaters have the same sort of show. Once, when serving as the COO of an advertising start-up, one of my finance folk brought an expense to my attention. I needed to see a large charge on a salesperson's company card attributed to the "O'Farrell Theater" in San Francisco. Due to my Thanksgiving experience at The Admiral Theater, I knew immediately why this accountant was concerned. Salespeople shouldn't expense strip clubs.After presenting our tickets, and clearing a brief weapons check, we entered a room full of smoke, enlisted Navy guys, strippers and a full Thanksgiving buffet dinner. We each had two complimentary drink tickets. Tips were not included.The turkey was like cardboard. The gravy, stuffing and mashed potatoes were as one. The cranberry sauce was strangely made from fresh whole cranberries, and the headlining dancer was billed as "Sacajawea the Apache Princess of Fire." I knew this was culturally inappropriate long before I thought of things as culturally inappropriate. It was just wrong. I was mildly horrified. It was free dinner. I was 21.Sacajawea ate fire and juggled fire with her boobs out. We ate cardboard turkey. The Navy guys were thrilled. I paid the $20 for a Polaroid with Sacajawea. I regret having lost it. We did not finish our two drinks. The night ended at the Old Town Ale House. Every night in Chicago should.

America is in the midst of a "retail apocalypse": 6,800 chain stores are closing this year. It's true that online retailers and winner-take-alls like Walmart have delivered the coup de grace that finished off these stores, but the conditions that made them weak enough to kill are driven by Wall Street, not Walmart. (more…)

When Trump's Health and Human Services secretary Tom Price lost his job for chartering private jets to fly him all around America, it left a vacancy in Trump's cabinet of billionaire gators that he's been filling the DC swamp with. (more…)

The Philips Norelco OneBlade hybrid electric trimmer and shaver is regularly $35. Amazon is selling it for $17.47, which is lower than it's ever been. I've heard good things about it, so at this price I bought one.

https://youtu.be/eujd_POookcJimmy DiResta, who makes everything from knives to furniture to musical instruments, recently made this nfty spoon with two business ends. I've whittled quite a few spoons in the last several years, so to see that ball gouge carve out the hollows of the spoon so effortlessly made me envious.

Massive income inequality, combined with Republican attacks on the taxation of the wealthiest, has produced a situation in which the state increasingly depends on extracting fines, interest and debt service from people who grow steadily poorer and less able to pay, and thus the state must turn to ever-more-extreme measures to extract the money it needs to survive. (more…)

Scotty of Strange Parts went to the colorful bustling Chor Bazaar in Mumbai, India. It's chaotic and crammed and exciting. Scotty has videos of other markets he's been visiting lately and they are all worth watching.

Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign are the holy trinity of design tools, and you can get an in-depth introduction to all three with a lifetime subscription to Graphic Design Certification School. It’s usually offered in the Boing Boing Store for $39, but you can get it for $25 if you buy in the next 24 hours.This trio of online courses has over 40 hours of instructional material that will teach you how to create a variety of visual assets. In the Photoshop section, you’ll learn how to professionally retouch images and generate multi-layered raster artwork. Using Illustrator, you’ll get familiar with bezier curves and masks to create clean vector graphics for posters, logos, and digital display. Finally, you can tie it all together to make beautiful print layouts in InDesign.Once you’ve worked through all these lessons, you can show off your skills to employers with certificates for continuing professional development. For today only, lifetime access to Graphic Design Certification School is available for an early Black Friday price of $25.

The Airmega 400S (Amazon) is a luxury air filter, a sci-fi lounge monolith with touch-sensitive controls and a ring of colored light that turns with the air quality. High-end in fit, finish and capacity, it's also very online, with Internet-of-Things features and a stat-tracking app. Do I really need to remote-manage it with a mobile app? Have a username and login for a HEPA filter? No (see below), but the air quality tracking app did tell me two interesting things. First, it assured me that the air quality in my house is already pretty good, curing a certain degree of paranoia. So it mostly stays in sleep mode, silent, wasting no electricity -- unlike the permanently-whirring Honeywell it replaced. Secondly, it told me that air quality goes to hell when anything is cooked. At last! Confirmation of what we suspected all along about the wisdom of burning wet slabs of carbon in our well-insulated houses.I'm intrigued, then, by Airmega's air metrics, yet torn on its long-term value. This is an expensive gadget, after all, going for $650 or so on the street. (UPDATE: A non-IoT version, the Airmega 400 without an S, is available for about $100 less. — Thanks, Tim!)It's about the size of a desktop mini-fridge, significantly larger than most consumer air filters, with three HEPA filters and the promise of full-house coverage. 1,560 square feet, they claim, which would make it competitive on a price-per-square-foot basis with less expensive models. There's a smaller model, the Airmega 300, that claims to cover 1,256 feet and is about $100 cheaper. It's dead quiet, too, especially at the lowest settings. There is not the slightest buzz of vibration. Washing and replacing filters is very easy. It messages you when they need a bath.But still, for all this, it does only one thing: suck air through HEPA filters. And it is $650.It's been in my house for a couple of months now and spends almost all its time off, in smart mode. I sometimes get a bit angry when I walk past it and it's just sat there asleep having decided it doesn't need to filter my clean-enough air. There's something existential about it all. It's weird to pay so much for a machine that's honest about it being unnecessary. Except on bacon sandwiches day, that is, when it kicks into high gear and texts me every 2 minutes with panicky warnings, unrelenting until the bacon is gone.I'm extremely dubious about the utility and wisdom of an IoT air filter. But if you know you need an air filter, and you need one that's attractive, quiet and very high-capacity, where a $300 Honeywell (or HEPA filters duct-taped to a box fan) would just be unacceptably loud, trashy or ugly, the price premium is yours to consider.AIRMEGA 400S Smart Air Purifier [Amazon]Airmega homepage [airmega.com]

FOLLOW @RubenBolling on the Twitters and a Face Book.WE URGE YOU TO JOIN Tom the Dancing Bug's subscription club, the Proud & Mighty INNER HIVE, for exclusive early access to comics, extra comics, and Other Stuff. You can also now join through Patreon!GET Ruben Bolling’s new hit book series for kids, The EMU Club Adventures. (”Filled with wild twists and funny dialogue” -Publishers Weekly) Book One here. Book Two here. More Tom the Dancing Bug comics on Boing Boing! (more…)

ProPublica revealed earlier this year that Facebook allowed housing advertisers to target ads at white people and provided other racist segmentation options. Facebook promised to build a system that would spot and eliminate these ads, but a new investigation demonstrates that it failed to do so.Last week, ProPublica bought dozens of rental housing ads on Facebook, but asked that they not be shown to certain categories of users, such as African Americans, mothers of high school kids, people interested in wheelchair ramps, Jews, expats from Argentina and Spanish speakers.All of these groups are protected under the federal Fair Housing Act, which makes it illegal to publish any advertisement “with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.” Violators can face tens of thousands of dollars in fines.Every single ad was approved within minutes.It seems Facebook only ever does so much as is needed to get rid of bad press. As a promise of change always ends the news cycle, implementation hardly matters.UPDATE Facebook executive Ami Vora posted a statement:“This was a failure in our enforcement and we’re disappointed that we fell short of our commitments. Earlier this year, we added additional safeguards to protect against the abuse of our multicultural affinity tools to facilitate discrimination in housing, credit and employment. The rental housing ads purchased by ProPublica should have but did not trigger the extra review and certifications we put in place due to a technical failure. Our safeguards, including additional human reviewers and machine learning systems have successfully flagged millions of ads and their effectiveness has improved over time. Tens of thousands of advertisers have confirmed compliance with our tighter restrictions, including that they follow all applicable laws. We don’t want Facebook to be used for discrimination and will continue to strengthen our policies, hire more ad reviewers, and refine machine learning tools to help detect violations. Our systems continue to improve but we can do better. While we currently require compliance notifications of advertisers that seek to place ads for housing, employment, and credit opportunities, we will extend this requirement to ALL advertisers who choose to exclude some users from seeing their ads on Facebook to also confirm their compliance with our anti-discrimination policies – and the law.” -Ami Vora, VP Product Management, Facebook

The DC-based transparency group Property of the People successfully sued the White House to force it to disclose its visitor logs; now, in collaboration with Propublica, those logs are online as a free, searchable database. (more…)

Within science fiction, Jo Walton (previously) is legendary for hosting small, intimate gatherings of outstanding conversation and comradeship. (more…)

Reddit has resurfaced this 2012 paper from the New England Journal of Medicine titled "Chocolate Consumption, Cognitive Function, and Nobel Laureates," by Franz H. Messerli, M.D.From the abstract:Chocolate consumption could hypothetically improve cognitive function not only in individuals but in whole populations. Could there be a correlation between a country's level of chocolate consumption and its total number of Nobel laureates per capita?For other amusing spurious correlations here you go.

I am serious about sleepwear, and will not pass on a chance to change into jammies (I travel with them, wear them on long-haul flights, etc), and there's a universe of difference between slopping around in sweats and a tee and wearing actual jim-jams. (more…)

I'm certain the flames are CG, because I've seen a few tire fires in my time, but somewhere out there is a more uncannily scary video of the 60 MPH death wheel. Find it for a special no-reward!https://youtu.be/b6aJrPbeBfg?t=43s

Your kids thought that Elf on the Shelf was a dirty snitch, but just wait until they get a load of this Santa Cam. For just $19.99 you can further perpetuate one of the world's biggest lie to children, the existence of Santa Claus. Because, that jolly guy in the red suit knows when you are sleeping and he knows when you are awake, with or without this (dummy) cam.Santa can "check-in" from the North Pole to see when kids are kind to others, listen to their parents, and make good choices!But wait, there's more! The let's-normalize-survelliance cam comes with the book, The Santa Cam Saves Christmas. A big thanks to SF Slim!

This portable cat prison (Amazon) fully incarcerates your feline friend and you can throw it on just like any other backpack.From the product description:Take your pet out to the ballgame, on a plane, or to the vet in your choice of colors and budget friendly designs. Small pets, such as cats and rabbits can be difficult to keep in carriers. Semi-sphere Design: semi-sphere can stop them from escaping and keeps them safe in your care.Great tips in the Q&A section:Question: What do i do if my animal needs to use the restroomAnswer: Take the cat outI did not photoshop a screaming kitten into the product image. That is the one they market it with.

At $20, the Eufy Genie Smart Speaker With Amazon Alexa is the least expensive hands-free Alexa speaker I know of. I got my first Alexa device last year (a Dot) and my family uses it many times a day to listen to podcasts, get NPR news briefings, weather forecasts, audiobooks, latest bitcoin price, word definitions, Wikipedia entries, kitchen timer and more. I don't have this particular item, but I ordered one for upstairs.

Well before Breaking Bad, and Better Call Saul (and even Mr. Show), Bob Odenkirk showed his comedic chops by playing Charles Manson on the short-lived 1990s TV sketch series The Ben Stiller Show.In two of the skits, he plays the madman as a sort of incarcerated "Heloise" in "Ask Manson." In them, he answers questions on stain removal and car troubles. https://youtu.be/fuiXOoJTeRIThe third one takes a different, and completely inspired, turn. It's Manson as Lassie and it's one of my all-time favorites.I won't say anymore, just watch:https://youtu.be/Z5IrRe2F7qY

Retired Mythbuster and maker extraordinaire Adam Savage (previously) gave up on finding a bag to carry everything he needed and designed his own, a white, Gladstone-style toolbag that costs $225 and ships in time for Christmas. (more…)

There has never been a more urgent moment to merge ethics and technology: this shared spreadsheet of 57 (and counting) university courses on ethics and tech includes links to syllabi, moderated by Colorado University information science assistant prof Casey Fiesler, who runs The Internet Rules Lab (hey, grad students, she's hiring!)

To hear America's fearmongering private health-care shills describe it, socialized medicine is a kind of Soviet death march, where rationed care and long waits are imposed on all and sundry; but if that state of affairs sounds familiar, it's because of how neatly it describes America's dysfunctional private care system, where you need to change doctors every time you change employers, where your care is denied and your prescriptions are deemed unnecessary by faceless insurance-company bureaucrats, and where three quarters of your family doctor's overheads are dedicated to filling in insurance forms in triplicate and chasing payment in a kind of LARP of Terry Gilliam's Brazil or a Stalinist hospital in deepest Siberia. (more…)

My mother used to make an incredible grilled cheese sandwich. It was neither greasy nor too buttery, but simultaneously buttery and toasty. The bread was pan fried golden brown with a nice crunch on the exterior, and it was evenly cooked all the way around and all the way through. I’ve never seen another one like it until last week, when I happened to be in Frisco, Texas, eating at the one-year old restaurant @nerdvana. I had not ordered a grilled cheese sandwich, nor had anyone at my table. But someone had ordered a drink by the name of Tiny Tina’s TKO, which appears on the brunch menu. The first thing you should know is that Tiny Tina’s TKO costs 20 bucks. If that sounds expensive for a drink, you should also know that it will feed two people. That’s brunch for two, with alcoholic beverage, for $20 (plus tax and tip). That’s about what you’d pay to eat at McD’s, but instead you will find yourself in @nerdvana, which is heaven for nerds, gamers, and folks who just like good food and spirits. The portion in Tiny Tina’s glass is a killer Bloody Mary, while the skewers towering from the glass include two hard-boiled eggs, cherry tomatoes, bacon, celery, a big-ass Jalapeño pepper, and an entire grilled cheese sandwich cut into quarters. The only thing I ate was the grilled cheese sandwich, and it was mighty fine. My mama would have been proud.@nerdvana is one year old and owned and run by Kristy Junio-Pitchford. (Full disclosure: I’m the editor and publisher of Genii, The Conjurors’ Magazine, which is owned by Randy Pitchford, husband of Mrs. Pitchford. If the food sucked, I would not be writing this piece.)The menu was created by Mike Junio, while Kristy created the idea of having a Bloody Mary with “ridiculous shit on top” and the restaurant’s manager Cathy Brown developed the final product. Kristy calls her a “baller mixologist.” People are blown away by it and it’s one of the most instagrammable menu items.Also really good is the French Toast, Randy’s concoction the Boss Monster Shake (skewers of chocolate covered strawberries and bananas growing out of a chocolate shake piled with whipped cream and chocolate bits), and at dinner the perfectly cooked and seasoned ribeye steak is as good as any steakhouse but at half the price. @nerdvana is a fun restaurant for people to pig out and hang out. The place is a celebration of video games, with games available for customers to play and live simulcasts to watch of great gamers in competitions. Me, I’m still dreaming of that grilled cheese, the steak, and that chocolate shake.Visit @nerdvana

Oklahoma Republican state Sen. Ralph Shortey has resigned after pleading guilty to trafficking a teenaged boy for sex; when Shortey was serving as Trump's Oklahoma campaign manager, he introduced an anti-sanctuary cities bill, claiming that immigrants trafficked their children for sex. (more…)

Overtaking the sunset, I glide into the mesosphere hours ahead of darkness. Scattered islands beckon under shifting banks of white stratus. I veer toward one but lose sight of it in the clouds, emerging over an isthmus broad and gray in the oceans of Lahellt II. Knuckertail soars down and I land her upon a grass-topped arch, coiled slender and ominous over the shallows like an immense fossil.After visiting a hundred vicious worlds, frozen or burning, gassing me with oxides or crackling with radioactive menace, I think I've found home. Dropping from the canopy to make footfall, I look at the glittering sea. A world warm and quiet and mine declares itself to the exosuit's sensors. Something's not right.•No Man's Sky is a spectacular toy for exploring 18 quintillion uncannily similar worlds. Released a year ago to astronomical hype and sour reviews, it's since become a decent (and improving) game as its creators bolt on base-building, factions, planetside vehicles, narrative threads and evocative if slight multiplayer elements. As of the Atlas Rising update, it's widely hailed as a much more involving journey. But for me, it's neither one thing nor the other. The procedurally-generated worlds still lack depth and intrigue, limiting the appeal of exploration, while the gamery additions call for endless self-directed fetchquesting to make progress. Tweet-length nibbles of story string one instantly-forgotten Mr. Potato Head alien to the next, all immobile but for their looping busywork animations.But the weird dream at the heart of it — jumping to distant solar systems, visiting fabulous unchartered worlds, coasting over psychedelic meadows where bizarre and ungainly alien fauna swarm — sticks with me. Get a glimpse of what we hope our descendants will spiritualize on other worlds, knowing we'll never experience it. Sixty dollars, though!See, then there's the fiddly travel, maddening inventory management, and grinding repetitions. The generated worlds are smoothed noise with no suggestion of geology, nothing hot under the surface. Everything has a meaningless alphabetti-spaghetti name. Though every world is flavored with local color, all have the topology of a lightly whipped frosted cake, uniformly sprinkled with candy bits from the same jar. There are no cities or civilizations, no gas giants, no balls of boiling lead, no forests or fens. Just lots of porta-potties, abandoned prefabs, and glowing relics.What's the point of going anywhere I want if the same things are everywhere?This problem afflicts the flora and fauna too. Though adorable and strange, they're a roll of the dice with no suggestion of ecology, adaptation or habitation. Nothing connects to anything. Darwin would return to England certain both of God's hand and His zero fucks given.Sentient aliens are, like the dumb ones, a hodgepodge of parts with no personality and nothing to remember them by. There are three species, hints of political backdrop, and actions and events described in dialog, but nothing is seen to happen or change.More interesting are the tech tree and trade elements, especially the elaborate bases you can build and the ships you can buy, should you have the determination to earn them. Making a home, a career and a pile of money kept me going for twenty or so hours after I bored of visiting new planets — the key difference between No Man's Sky in late 2017 and last year — until I realized the next objective on my list might take twenty more.The ships are the coolest thing about No Man's Sky, the hard steel heart of its splendid late-seventies aesthetic. Space battles are dumb fun, especially once you have some power-ups. The pleasure of flight is occasionally marred by shifting and glitching in the middle distance, things popping into view and landforms deforming at different levels of detail. This becomes particlarly annoying when cruising low in search of specific things of interest, a constant reminder that No Man's Sky is random noise posing as empty space.•I slip down to a sloping meadow shadowed by the rock arch where Knuckertail perches. Off in the distance, a carved menhir rests at an odd angle and I skip toward it though platinum blooms and crystal hedges. Communion teaches me the Korvax word for sleep. I look back at the ship, a tiny shadow against the sun. The exosuit says it's 19˚ and balmy. As I entertain the idea of this being my avatar's homeworld, I realize that for me, it's perfect point to stop playing. Another step, and I'll just be shooting rocks again. Besides, I see what was bothering me: there's no fauna. But for the grasses and wildflowers on this perfect world, I'm the only thing alive.I rechristen the planet, instantly forgetting its original name, and upload the new one to No Man's Sky's mapping server so that other players may one day benefit from my discovery: "Lovely But Devoid of Life."Rob Beschizza is on Twitter and the e-mail.

With Christmas quickly approaching, the imaginary war on everyone’s favorite imaginary holiday always helps me get in the spirit. The latest Christmas offense is from Starbucks’ recent marketing campaign and “suggestive” coffee cup promoting the LGBTQ community. A commercial unveiling the cups briefly shows two women drinking coffee and placing their hands together while across a table in what is an “obvious” attack on our nation’s faltering morals. The mind-numbing outrage is only being furthered since Starbucks decided to place a pair of unknown hands gripped together that many are debating belong to a same-sex couple. This so called “gay agenda” that Starbucks is said to be pouring down our coffee-addicted throats has given rise to another series of boycotts for the coffee giant, according to the New York Daily News. Via the New York Daily News: Starbucks hasn’t resolved the issue of whether the hands are same-sex or not.The theme of the cups is “Give Good.” Customers are invited to color in the drawings of hearts, presents and a Christmas tree — and those hands.“Each year during the holidays we aim to bring our customers an experience that inspires the spirit of the season,” the coffee chain said in a statement. “And we will continue to embrace and welcome customers from all backgrounds and religions in our stores around the world.”

Check out these wonderful commercials for Chambong, the beverage bong.Drinking things, quickly or slowly, requires that you exercise caution and judgment. Rapidly ingesting alcohol can have some unpredictable effects.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEv1DrfntZ4Chambong - Glassware for rapid Champagne consumption via Amazon

The Upguard Cyber Risk Team has found three Department of Defense mass-storage "buckets" on Amazon that are world-viewable, containing 1.8 billion of social media posts that the DoD scraped from social media over 8 years as part of its global surveillance program. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2hUkDVnXmE&feature=youtu.beOut with the old, in with the old.

I was kerplotzing around the internet today and upon seeing this video had the craziest thought: I’ve been in this place. Now since it involves free diving in the world’s deepest pool, in Italy, there’s no way I’ve even seen the place. Also can’t hold my breath for squat. Tried that recently while watching my friend David Blaine hold his breath for almost 11 minutes in a tank of water. I was really glad that he was in the tank and not me, since I was gasping at the 90 second mark. David Blaine Photographed by Asi WindThinking about the imagery in the video (below), it occurred to me that I was remembering a dream I’ve had many times about swimming underwater in a pool almost identical to this. A creepy feeling. What is it about this pool that seems like a dream … or a nightmare?On a single breath of air, Guillaume Néry explores the deepest pool in the world in Italy: Y40. The action is filmed on breath hold by his wife Julie Gautier.Find all their productions on: www.lesfilmsengloutis.comhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzh0woiH7Jw

Oh, just a baby riding around on a robotic vacuum. Usually it's a cat, but today it's someone's sprog.(Digg)

Brazilian artist Butcher Billy describes himself as a "pop culture butcher obsessively looking for the perfect cut." I think he's found just that with his latest artworks.The nine-piece series imagines each episode of Stranger Things 2, from "MADMAX" to "The Gate," as the cover of an 80s-style paperback book. So cool!Billy's work has been featured several times here on Boing Boing. If his work is your kind of thing, his Instagram is definitely worth following.(Design Taxi)

Press this plush Christmas elf's foot and its tongue starts vibrating, quite suggestively. The Sun reports:The £10 toy has been flying off the shelves at Asda stores across the country with sales reaching a climax even though there is still more than a month to go to the big day.Punters have to press a button in its foot to make its hands move away from its face as it wiggles its tongue at high speed and shouts: "Merry Christmas.""Merry Christmas," indeed.(somenews)

The "replay sessions" captured by surveillance-oriented "analytics" companies like Fullstory allow their customers -- "Walgreens, Zocdoc, Shopify, CareerBuilder, SeatGeek, Wix.com, Digital Ocean, DonorsChoose.org, and more" -- to watch everything you do when you're on their webpages -- every move of the mouse, every keystroke (even keystrokes you delete before submitting), and more, all attached to your real name, stored indefinitely, and shared widely with many, many "partners." (more…)

My grandmother's longtime partner Rusty was a former weightlifter with the sunniest, most reslient disposition of anyone I've known, and the only time I ever saw him reduced to tears was from the pain of a bout of shingles; now a new shingles vaccine called Shingrix has proven almost miraculously effective against the virus (which nearly every person who lives to 80 will suffer from) with a notable lack of downsides. If you're over 50, you should go get it right now. (via Naked Capitalism)

I love bagels. I wanted to learn to make delicious ones at home. I was surprised at how simple it really is. (more…)

Security researchers from Rhino Security Labs have shown that it is trivial to disable the Amazon Cloud Cam that is a crucial component of the Amazon Key product -- a connected home door-lock that allows delivery personnel to open your locked front door and leave your purchases inside -- and have demonstrated attacks that would allow thieves to exploit this weakness to rob your home. (more…)