Of course there are Corgi races!

Congressional investigators looking into connections between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections have found an email from a senior Trump aide that references “a previously unreported effort to arrange a meeting last year between Trump campaign officials and Russian President Vladimir Putin,” CNN reports. (more…)

Joe Sparks' Radiskull and Devil Doll remain my favorite characters of the Dotcom boom. After a long hiatus while working for a company that apparently wouldn't let Joe publish independent work, he is back.Check out his darling new video!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A9EBq0Thy4Representin' Hades!

Mirgayas Shirinskiy (photo) is the fourth senior Russian diplomat to “unexpectedly” die this year under. (more…)

Rarely does a novel grab my attention like Laura Lam's False Hearts. I started reading Laua Lam's False Hearts and could not get out of my chair until I was done. I then rewound my Kindle to page one and handed the device to a friend who read 3-4 chapters before handing it back and saying "Wow, I want to keep reading!" This novel is wonderful.A dystopian tale of near future San Francisco, Lam's world building is excellent. The opening, reminiscent of Roger Zelazny's EPIC Nine Princes in Amber, takes off at a blistering pace and the novel never slows down. A murder mystery surrounding separated-but-formerly-conjoined twins and the oppressive commune they were raised in fascinates.I don't want to spoil anything. Read it yourself.False Hearts: A Novel by Laura Lam via Amazon

I bought these LED string lights for a friend who has been stringing up little incandescent A/C powered plugs on her backyard terrace. These are much better. They don't get ruined by sprinkler water, and you don't need an extension cord. They have a timer function so you don't drain the battery. Two 20-foot strands (60 LEDs per strand) cost $12.

When we speak, sing or shout, what we perceive gets a mighty bass boost from our own head matter. But what the lister (and the microphone) hears — the reedy, whiny, nasal true self! — is their reality. In this video, vocal coach Chris Beatty shows off a neat trick to cutting out the frequencies that only you hear, allowing you to train and temper your tone of speech as others hear it. All you need do it put two thick boards, magazines or notebooks either side of your face — but it's nicer listening to him explain.

Valerie Plame Wilson, who was outed as a CIA operative during the Bush Administration, has put up a GoFundMe page so that she could buy Twitter - and then give Trump the boot. "Donald Trump has done a lot of horrible things on Twitter," says Wilson on her campaign's page. "From emboldening white supremacists to promoting violence against journalists, his tweets damage the country and put people in harm's way." "The company is currently worth nearly $12 billion, with its shares going for around $16," according to USA Today. The goal: $1 billion. That might be a stretch, though. Wilson has raised more than $3,000 since she launched the campaign on August 16."At the current market rate that would require over a billion dollars — but that's a small price to pay to take away Trump's most powerful megaphone and prevent a horrific nuclear war," Plame wrote. If they aren't able to meet that goal, the plan is to buy a "significant stake" in order to push the proposal at the annual stakeholder's meeting, Plame said.And what does Twitter have to say on the matter? No comment as of yet, according to USA Today.Image: crystal.village

Suzanne Ashe was the only Uber driver in Haines, Alaska, and the app wouldn't let her stay logged in and available because the rides came so infrequently. (more…)

The psilocybin in magic mushrooms is a potent psychedelic for animals. But what good is the psilocybin for the shrooms? New genetic research from Ohio State University suggests that the psilocybin might act as an insect repellant, protecting the mushrooms. From New Scientist:The gene cluster (linked to psilocybin production) is found in several distantly related groups, suggesting that the fungi swapped genes in a process called horizontal gene transfer. This is uncommon in mushrooms: it is the first time genes for a compound that is not necessary for the fungi’s survival – called a secondary metabolite – have been found moving between mushroom lineages.Since these genes have survived in multiple species, Slot thinks psilocybin must be useful to the fungi. “Strong selection could be the reason this gene cluster was able to overcome the barriers to horizontal gene transfer,” (researcher Jason Slot) says.Hallucinogenic mushrooms often inhabit areas rich in fungi-eating insects, so Slot suggests psilocybin might protect the fungi, or repel insects from a shared food source, by somehow influencing their behaviour.

After Japan invaded the Philippines in 1941, two American servicemen hatched a desperate plan to sail 3,000 miles to Allied Australia in a 20-foot wooden fishing boat. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll join Rocky Gause and William Osborne as they struggle to avoid the Japanese and reach safety.We'll also tell time in Casablanca and puzzle over a towing fatality.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon!

Famously, federally insured banks and credit-unions won't take deposits from the marijuana industry, even in states where marijuana sales have been legalized; this leaves the weed industry dealing all in cash, from safes in the basement to sacks of money delivered to the tax-office by armored car. (more…)

The Justice Department will scale back a very broad request for data connected to an anti-Trump website, after accusations the demand violated the free speech rights of politically engaged citizens. (more…)

Buried in the New York Times' extraordinary piece on how Mitch McConnell, Senate GOP leader, privately doubts whether President Donald Trump can salvage his administration? This amazing detail that sure doesn't make Trump look innocent on Russia and corruption. (more…)

"About 5,000 carrot-coloured ecstasy tablets in the shape of Donald Trump's head have been seized by German police in the north-western city of Osnabruck," reports the BBC. Police in Germany say the pills and a large amount of cash were found during a search of the vehicle driven by the two suspects and that the drugs have a sales value of nearly $47,000 (€40,000; £37,000).One side of the tablets shows Mr Trump's face and exuberant hairstyle while the president's surname is written on the reverse.

Make America MDMA again. (more…)

The totality of 2017's solar eclipse plunged perhaps 200,000 square miles of America into darkness, but don't be fooled! That soil's worth staggering amounts of money! You can even finance your purchase, through eBay.This is a Jar of soil from the area of greatest duration of the eclipse in Carbondale Illinois. This dirt seen total darkness as the moon traveled in front of the sun (2 minutes and 40 seconds). Plant your special seeds in this dirt and let the magic begin. Ok seriously, it's just dirt, but it is everything I said it is. Hey, if nothing else help a guy out I need new tires for my wife's car ;-) Seriously, I mean it!!!

Here's an amazing video of ants covering someone's hand, spraying acid up towards the other hand that is hovering over them. The amount of acid shooting up is incredible, coming from such tiny creatures. They are probably defending themselves from what they perceive as a threat. According to a 2014 article in Daily Mail, "The formic acid is not harmful to humans and has the same odour as vinegar. However, it is enough to scare off larger predators such as woodpeckers and jay birds, who could wreak havoc on an ant nest."

[via Crappy Off Brands]

The Calgary airport authority has apologised for a botched marketing campaign in which it sold Lexus on the idea of designating some of its parking places as "Lexus only" and then, unbeknownst to the car company, used disabled parking spots for the purpose (presumably, they were luxuriously spacious). (more…)

Enjoy this video of an Iraqi artist's intricate and realistic dioramas, depicting city scenes from around the world, crafted in exile: "When I tried to make a tiny bellows for the old camera, it had to be very very small. Each fold less than a millimeter thick, and I needed about 124 folds."It's presented by Veena Rao at The New York Times.Mr. Alamedy was born in Karbala, Iraq, in 1982, during the Iraq-Iran war. At the time, his father was imprisoned under Saddam Hussein for political reasons, and Mr. Alamedy wasn’t able to meet him until he was 9 years old. His mother taught him to read at a young age and reading quickly became his favorite hobby, as well as a way to escape to calmer and more secure places. Mr. Alamedy credits the novels he read as a primary reason he started building miniatures, “to recreate some of those scenes just as I had imagined them to be in my childhood.”

The Perspective API (previously) is a tool from Google spinoff Jigsaw (previously) that automatically rates comments for their "toxicity" -- a fraught business that catches a lot of dolphins in its tuna net. (more…)

Found this on the Internet and decided that Pom was correct; am therefore now turning the Internet off. Here's a chaser, though:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCAORZphnlY

Mbira musician Patti Broussard treats her fans to a lovely rendition of Hallelujah on an Array mbira. (more…)

Just when you think they can't make foods any weirder, out comes an unusual crossbreed: a cough reliever/candy bar. SoraNews24 reports:Called Kit Kat Nodo Ame Aji, which translates to Kit Kat Cough Drop Flavour, this new chocolate actually delivers a dose of 2.1 percent throat lozenge powder in every serving...Accompanying the unique release is some equally unusual packaging which features the image of Yasutaro Matsuki, a former national soccer player and manager who’s also well-known for his work as a soccer commentator. His enthusiastic commentary acts as the perfect inspiration for the sweet, which has been designed to support Asahi TV sports broadcasts while helping to soothe the throats of supporters as they cheer for the Japanese soccer team.Each box, which contains three individually wrapped Kit Kats, features an image of Matsuki yelling out “It’s one more point! Another point!!” alongside a slogan that reads “There’s a battle there that most definitely can’t be lost”, as a nod to the fact that Kit Kat is pronounced “Kitto Katsu” in Japan, which literally translates to “Surely Win”.If you want to get one, better hurry. The cough drop-flavored Kit Kat is only available until September 5th, and only in Japan.image via PRTimes

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I was recently interviewed about the weekly Recomendo newsletter I write with my Cool Tools colleagues, Kevin Kelly and Claudia Dawson. Here's an excerpt:What is the goal of your newsletter?To give our readers a weekly list of 6 things we love — travel tips, books, TV shows, clothes, tools, websites, podcasts, and so on. We want people to be able to read the entire newsletter in 90 seconds or less, with no fluff or wheel spinning.How do you create your newsletter?We have a shared Google Doc where the three of us write brief reviews of things we like. Once a week, Claudia goes in and selects six items from the doc (two from each of us) and puts them into the weekly newsletter, which gets sent out on Sunday morning.Speaking of the creation process, Recomendo always has super cool and useful recommendations. How do you go about selecting what goes into the newsletter?Speaking for myself (this is Mark), whenever I become aware that I am really appreciative of something (like a phone service, a useful app, a good snack to travel with) I add it to a running list I maintain on workflowy.com. Once a week or so, I will go through that list and write brief recommendations of a few of the items on the list.How many subscribers do you have?As of 29 June 2017, we have published 49 weekly issues and have 11,528 subscribers. Once a month or so, we mention the newsletter on our personal social media accounts, on Cool Tools, and on Boing Boing.Since the interview, our subscriber count has increased to 12,358. Check out Recomendo here.

Nabisco really screwed up in 1971 when they bought Aurora, makers of some really cool monster models. The problem was that Aurora also made a series of models called Monster Scenes that encouraged kids to torture a kidnapped "girl victim" by locking her in a cage, burning her with hot coals, and slicing her open with a pendulum.From Mental Floss:Unknown to Nabisco, Aurora had recently branched out and begun offering entire model kit dioramas. Instead of a single figure, consumers could buy detailed “sets” for their monsters to interact with. There was a guillotine, a razor-sharp pendulum, and a laboratory; a female protagonist, referred to in the copy as “the Victim,” was scantily-clad and ready to be dismembered, beheaded, or trapped in a spiked cage. Kids could also opt to have Vampirella, the top-heavy villain licensed from Warren Publishing, operate the winch and pulley while her plastic captive was shackled to a table.Each kit also contained a comic, which instructed builders on how to assemble the torture scenes for maximum enjoyment. A narrator named Dr. Deadly seemed to opine on the appeal of the Victim once she was fully assembled. “Now that you’ve gotten her all together, I think I like the other way. In pieces … yesssss.”In addition to Fig Newtons, Nabisco realized it had also been peddling tiny torture racks.Images from the book, Aurora Monster Scenes - The Most Controversial Toys of a Generation, by Dennis L. Prince and Andrew P. Yanchus

Yup. He really did. (more…)

Kenyon, a golden retriever, was digging in his Yamhill County, Oregon backyard when he uncovered what his owners thought was a "time capsule." Turns out, the container was packed with 15 ounces of black tar heroin. Yamhill County Sheriff Tim Svenson presented Kenyonwith an "official Yamhill County K9 citation ribbon and named him an honorary narcotics K9 for life." No word on the owner of the geocache Kenyon inadvertently excavated.(KATU2)

Here we go again. Another airplane nightmare. It's as if the airlines are competing for the Most Horrific Flight award. British businessman Andrew Wilkinson boarded a British Airways plane from London to Johannesburg and found that his seat was wet. On further inspection (or sniff) he realized it was urine. He told the flight attendant, and instead of moving him to an empty seat (his seat was in coach, which was full, but there was an available seat in first class), the flight attendant gave him some wipes and told him to clean it himself. (WTF!!) According to Inc.:Wilkinson wasn't upgraded. He was left in the stinking, urine-soaked seat for 11 hours.The flight attendant even had the gall to say to Wilkinson: "You are going to work me hard on this flight, aren't you?"One might imagine that someone in so-called customer service would, indeed, work hard to try and rectify the situation.This doesn't appear to have been the case here.Wilkinson tried to put a plastic bag on the seat, as well as a blanket. A request for a second blanket fell on deaf ears, he said.It wasn't until he tweeted about it later that he received some points from the airline. But Wilkinson says a proper apology would have been better. This story is so absurd I checked other sources (Mirror and Daily Mail) to make sure Inc. wasn't cracking some sort of mid-year April Fool's joke. Image: BriYYZ

Those praising social media for turfing out white supremacists (and those demanding free speech from it), are missing a deeper problem, writes John Herrman: that these commercial simulations of liberal public discourse are broken replicas of it, ultimately ruled by fiat.But what gave these trolls power on platforms wasn’t just their willingness to act in bad faith and to break the rules and norms of their environment. It was their understanding that the rules and norms of platforms were self-serving and cynical in the first place. After all, these platforms draw arbitrary boundaries constantly and with much less controversy — against spammers, concerning profanity or in response to government demands. Believing that private companies must embody or guarantee constitutional rights is one of the internet's worst mistakes. It's not about whether they say yes or no; the plain fact is they can't, even if they want to. They are never free of outside pressure or internal cunning. When we yabber at them to do this or that, we're forgetting that we're just speechcropping. The fact a handful of tech companies are becoming the only public square is a growing problem.

This is from the vocals-only version of Pet Sounds released in 1997, called Stack-O-Vocals.Here's the original version with instruments. I love both versions.https://youtu.be/lD4sxxoJGkA[via Bored Panda]

Here's a guy recording a gas pump that keeps charging after the nozzle is removed. Perhaps it was just a faulty pump, but it's not the first time this has happened at a gas station. Last month, driver Garry McAllister in Texas had the same problem. He took the nozzle out of the pump, but the displayed price kept shooting up. “I felt like I was being robbed and it just seemed like they didn’t really care,” driver Garry McAllister said, according to Click2Houston. Although McAllister did receive a refund for the overcharge and a promise that the pump would be closed until the problem was fixed, a reporter later went to check on the pump and found it was not shut down – it was still over charging customers. McAllister said the clerk promised to put that pump out of service by covering it with a plastic bag so no one else would be overcharged.But at about 11 a.m. Sunday morning KPRC reporter Jake Reiner went back to check on that same gas pump at the Stripes Sunoco station on League City Parkway and found that pump had not been shut down. There was no plastic bag and the pump was still malfunctioning.Reiner said he tested it out and began fueling one of the station's vehicles and it did the same thing with as McAllister claimed.Even with Reiner’s hand off the trigger and no fuel pumping, pump 18 kept charging him. This makes me wonder if overcharging pumps are a scam or just a pump malfunction with incompetent station employees? Pumper beware!

The Tennessee Aquarium recently welcomed some new arrivals: fluorescent flower-hat jellies. (more…)

Swiss researchers have unleashed a robotic eel in Lake Geneva, and their Envirobot successfully detected where the researchers had poured salt along the shore. (more…)

Ellen Pao, a former Reddit chief and partner at Kleiner-Perkins (which she unsuccessfully sued over discrimination), explains How Sexism Works in Silicon Valley. (more…)

Producing hard candy in bulk still required a lot of skill in Victorian times, as Lofty Pursuits demonstrated by making cinnamon hearts on this hard candy press from 1871. (more…)

These amazing plywood art pieces are created in a small work area by Gabriel Schama and his laser cutter Elsie. His work really took off after a successful Kickstarter a few years ago. (more…)

Benjamin Milne: Dave Grohl invited Rick Astley onstage to play an awesome rendition of his hit single 'Never Gonna Give You Up'.As many commentators have pointed out there is a healthy dose of Smells Like Teen Spirit in this especially the Drum intro and the guitar solo - perhaps the best / only time you will catch the foos playing Nirvana so enjoy

Getting to a subway platform from the street often involves navigating stairs as well as a labyrinth of corridors. Architect Candy Chan created remarkably detailed and accurate diagrams of New York City's noted subway entrances and exits, overlaid with transparent parks and buildings. (more…)

The American Civil Liberties Union has released a brief overview of the transgender rights movement, focusing on the 1960s and 1970s, beautifully illustrated by Molly Crabapple. (more…)

The cyberpunks, the Founding Fathers, the 19th Century philosophers, and the Enlightenment thinkers — they each envisioned a perfect democracy powered by a constant multimedia psychedelic freakout in which all information was free, decentralized, democratized, and easy to access.In each era, the dream was the same: A public life for the average citizen that was no longer limited by any kind of information deficit; a life augmented by instant and full access to all the information anyone could ever want. On top of that, they imagined the end of gatekeepers, the public fully able to choose what went into their minds.Download – iTunes – Stitcher – RSS – Soundcloud—This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Get unlimited access to a huge library of The Great Courses lecture series on many fascinating subjects. Start FOR FREE with Your Deceptive Mind taught by neurologist Steven Novella. Learn about how your mind makes sense of the world by lying to itself and others. Click here for a FREE TRIAL.There is no better way to create a website than with Squarespace. Creating your website with Squarespace is a simple, intuitive process. You can add and arrange your content and features with the click of a mouse. Squarespace makes adding a domain to your site simple; if you sign up for a year you’ll receive a custom domain for free for a year. Start your free trial today, at Squarespace.com and enter offer code SOSMART to get 10% off your firstpurchase.Support the show directly by becoming a patron! Get episodes one-day-early and ad-free. Head over to the YANSS Patreon Page for more details.Benjamin Franklin helped create to postal service to disseminate information through a network of newspapers and correspondence, and he thought public libraries, one in every community, would make farmers as educated as the aristocracy. The rationalist philosophers thought that widespread public education would eliminate superstitions. The same was said of public universities, and then computers, and then the internet, and then social media, and then the smart phone. And, in many ways, this dream has been realized.Little did these champions of the Enlightenment know that once we had access to all the facts…well reason and rationality wouldn’t just immediately wash across the land in a giant wave of enlightenment thinking. While that may be happening in some ways, the new media ecosystem has also unshackled some of our deepest psychological tendencies, things that enlightenment thinkers didn’t know about, weren’t worried about, or couldn’t have predicted. Many of which we’ve discussed in previous episodes like the backfire effect, confirmation bias, selective skepticism, filter bubbles and so on. These things have always been with us, but modern technology has provided them with the perfect environment to flourish.In this episode, we explore another such invasive psychological species called active information avoidance, the act of keeping our senses away from information that might be useful, that we know is out there, that would cost us nothing to obtain, but that we’d still rather not learn. From choosing not to open open bills, visit the doctor, check your bank account, or read the nutrition information on the back of that box of Girl Scout Cookies, we each choose to remain ignorant when we’d rather not feel the anguish of illumination, but that same tendency can also cause great harm both to individuals and whole cultures when it spreads through politics, science, markets, and medicine. In this show, you’ll learn how.This episode’s cookie is Caramel Apple Cider Cookies sent in by Ubi Dubium.Links and SourcesDownload – iTunes – Stitcher – RSS – SoundcloudPrevious EpisodesBoing Boing PodcastsCookie RecipesParticipate in George Loewenstein’s New ResearchActive Information AvoidanceGeorge LoewensteinDavid HagmannHow to Operate Your Brain (Leary’s guided trip)George Lakoff’s Book: The Political MindThe Role of Benjamin Franklin in the First Public Library

San Francisco-based artist Lina West creates these beautiful hand-painted mandala stones covered in gorgeous fractal patterns. (more…)

On August 12, 1995, before Internet Archive or Google, Boing Boing conducted a charming interview with John Kricfalusi, creator of Ren & Stimpy. The Boing Boing Digital page still looks the way it did when readers read it on Explorer 1.0 or Netscape Navigator or what-not. (more…)

Brynn Metheny is the undisputed master of mashing up cats and sharks into delightful creatures. Her original series was so popular, she created a sequel this year. (more…)

Steve Price and Lily Hevesh set up a massive domino course that includes homages to classic board and video games, and some sections even use game pieces as part of the action. (more…)

Hold on to your butts, America. Steve Bannon is, as an ally told one reporter, “unchained” after being relieved of his White House duties as Trump's strategic advisorIn an interview this evening, Bannon tells the Weekly Standard he's returning to run Breitbart.com, as he was before becoming Trump's campaign manager exactly one year and one day ago today.Bannon will become Executive Chairman of the white supremacist “alt-right” publishing firm. “I built a f***ing machine at Breitbart,” Bannon said, “And now I’m about to go back...and we’re about to rev that machine up.” (more…)

Don’t miss painter Brandi Milne’s art exhibit which begins this month at the Corey Helford Gallery in Los Angeles. The opening reception will be held on August 19th from 7-11 pm. Milne is a self-taught artist and was born in the late '70s in Anaheim, California. Growing up close to Disneyland had a large impact on her imagination. She was constantly surrounded by classic cartoons, crayons, coloring books, candy, and Disney, which all became influences on her paintings. Milne’s paintings portray a surreal, candy-filled world that reflects emotions such as love, heartbreak, and pain. Milne has displayed her work all over the world and has been featured in Hi Fructose and Bizarre Magazine. Milne has also has two books of her work published. If you live in LA, don’t miss your chance to attend the exhibit and take a look into the unique, fantastical world that Milne has created. Photo of Brandi Milne by Jessica Louise

When this 97-year-old Toronto man was born, the auto industry was just turning mainstream. Roads made for horses were being paved over for automobiles and the "average" family could consider buying a vehicle. (more…)