The World Health Organization's new report on cannabidiol (CBD) found that the compound (which does not produce any kind of high -- and may actually counteract the psychoactive properties of THC) is not addictive, has no potential for abuse, and shows promise in a number of medical trials. (more…)

'Tis the season for gift-giving, but sometimes you need a little something for yourself to get through it all in one piece. As such, as a gift to you, you can take an extra 15% off the following items when you enter coupon code GIFTSHOP15 at checkout.Graphene 8K HyperCharger PROThis portable battery pack can charge 3 devices at once, and comes with a built-in connector in case you forget to bring a cable. And If you know you’re going to be away from home for a while, it sticks to the back of your device without any adhesive. Usually $80, we carry it for $39.99, and you can save 15% when you use GIFTSHOP15.Twisty Glass MiniThis smoking accessory makes both rolling papers and pipes obsolete. It fits 0.5 grams of material at a time, and offers smooth hits through its multiple air chambers, and lets you eject ash with a quick twist of the mouthpiece. Save an extra 15% off our usual $39.99 price with coupon code GIFTSHOP15.Guzzle Buddy™The Guzzle Buddy fits on to a variety of glass bottles, so you can be the classiest person at the next festive gathering. It offers a tight seal, and may be put in the freezer for ice-free chilled beverages. It’s normally $19.99 in our store, but GIFTSHOP15 gets you an additional 15% off.SaberLight Rechargeable Flameless Plasma Beam Lighter: 2-PackYou can have a weather-proof flame with these SaberLight Plasma Beam Lighters. They’re rechargeable over USB, and you can keep ‘em in your carry-on luggage without fear of confiscation. A 2-pack typically goes for $29.99 and you can take an extra 15% off with code GIFTSHOP15.DreamScreen HDTV Backlighting and Total Surround KitsMake your TV’s picture extend past the bezels with a DreamScreen HDTV Backlighting and Total Surround Kit. It works with games, live TV shows, and movies at 60 FPS, and can be used to add ambience for music as well. We’ve got a kit for 45”-65” TV sets for $154.99, and you can use GIFTSHOP15 to save an additional 15%.Winc Wine Delivery: 4 BottlesSince it’s not always easy to find the perfect wine at the supermarket, Winc delivers hand-selected bottles to your doorstep. Each package comes with tasting notes and food pairing suggestions, so you can impress guests with your newfound sommelier knowledge. Our normal $26 price means you’re getting each bottle for about $7, but you can save 15% on top of that with coupon code GIFTSHOP15.Star Wars 3D Mega LampsCelebrate the past and future of Star Wars with a 3D Mega Lamp. These custom-fabricated LEDs light up the night with an an eye-catching optical illusion, and are available in a variety of classic shapes like the Millennium Falcon, Darth Vader, and R2-D2. The MSRP is $99, we sell them for $39.99, and you can save an extra 15% off when you enter GIFTSHOP15 at checkout.Fader Stealth DroneThe Fader Stealth Drone is capable of recording video in 720p, and beams footage to your device in real time for first-person POV flight. It’s got LEDs for nighttime flight, adjustable sensitivity for beginners, and a handful of pre-programmed maneuvers at the press of a button. Save about $10 off our normal $69.99 price with code GIFTSHOP15.

Epidemiology is intrinsically at odds with right-wing ideology: the idea that all humans have a shared microbial and viral destiny, one that entwines the poorest and richest among us, which cannot be severed by the highest walls or all the private security in the world is a significant barrier to anyone who dreams of Going Galt and declaring themselves to be responsible only to themselves -- there is no Ayn Rand novel thick enough to stop you from getting antibiotic resistant TB. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PNoJoTpnFkHidden fees awere long ago regulated on utility bills, but time and legal ingenuity (not to mention consumers drifting from phone companies to wireless and cable service providers) has made them commonplace once again. Comcast, says this customer, is robbing you with duplicative and meaningless line-item charges. The end of Net Neutrality is only a new frontier in a well-established treadmill of not-so-optional features, mystery fees and hostile customer service.

Kentuckywired is a project to run fiber between cities in Kentucky, creating a high speed network for the state's operations. It involves a lot of expensive public works -- digging up streets and highways to lay down relatively cheap fiber and conduit (the digging is the expensive part). (more…)

Stone River eLearning has over 2,000 hours of instructional content, and lifetime access is currently available in the Boing Boing Store for $85.To help you start training for a new career, Stone River has courses in a wide variety of subjects. You can learn to write code for the web or develop your own video games with sessions for Bootstrap, Node.js, and Unity3D. If you’re looking to hone your creativity, they’ve got lessons in graphic design, web design, and 3D animation. Every course comes with its own certificate of completion, so you’ll have proof of your new skills to show to potential employers. In addition, you get a complement of eBooks with your subscription, as well as expert guidance to help you choose what to learn next.Whether you’re looking for a pay raise or a new hobby, lifetime membership to Stone River eLearning is available here for $85.

Science Friday's beautiful "File Not Found" series looks at the thorny questions of digital preservation: finding surviving copies of data, preserving the media it is recorded upon, finding working equipment to read that media, finding working software to decode the information once it's read, clearing the rights to archive it, and maintaining safe, long term archives -- all while being mindful of privacy and other equities. (more…)

In a speech to graduates of the FBI Academy, Trump talked about calling on Congress to end "chain migration" and "visa lottery," and compared legal immigrants to trash."You think the countries [are] givin' us their best people? No. What kind of system is that? They come in by a lottery. They give us their worst people. They put 'em in a bin...really the worst of the worst. 'Congratulations, you're going to the United States.' What a system," he said in part of his speech.According to Vox:

Motherboard -- an imprint of Vice -- has announced that it will build a community ISP branching off its Brooklyn headquarters, built on meshing wireless protocols, and connected to the internet via high-speed fiber lines terminating at a network exchange. (more…)

As a Royal Commission in Australia wraps up its investigation into decades of rape by priests (especially rape of children), and decades of Church officials obstructing investigation into the rape, Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart says he'll ask the Pope to change the rules so that celibacy for priests is voluntary, not mandatory. (more…)

UPS was supposed to deliver an inheritance check for $664,850 (846,650 Canadian dollars) to a man whose father died. The check never arrived. When UPS lost it, they decided $32 was fair compensation.According to Fortune:

In defending his vote to dismantle Net Neuratlity rules, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai insisted that not much would change for consumers; ISPs would voluntarily refrain from degrading internet service.Michael Powell, president of the telecom lobbyist N.C.T.A., wrote that the good ol' invisible hand of the free market would ensure that the principles of net neutrality would still be adhered to: "Degrading the internet, blocking speech and trampling what consumers now have come to expect would not be profitable, and the public backlash would be unbearable. Economic self-interest and the pursuit of profits tilts decidedly toward an open internet."Never mind that ISPs often act as local monopolies, immune to competition, and have already been convicted of breaching Net Neutrality on a huge scale, multiple times, affecting 100 million Americans while it was illegal to do so.Of course, ISPs have actually been planning to toss Net Neutrality principles out the window once the rules were revoked, for months.While Net Neutrality rules were firmly in place, Comcast had this pledge on its website for years, and as late as April 25, 2017 (according to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine):On April 26, Ajit Pai announced a vote the start the process of eliminating Net Neutrality rules.On April 27, Comcast somehow had a change of heart regarding its fidelity to Net Neutrality principles, and its website's commitments were suddenly missing a few key promises (see the date in the upper right corner). Those promises are still absent from its website today.Where is the invisible hand of the free market, preventing Comcast from staying faithful to net neutrality? Nowhere to be seen.See Ars Technica, h/t Jon Henshaw

Derek Yach, president of The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, sent a letter to 344 public health researchers and groups inviting them to bid for grants from a $1b fund set up by tobacco giant -- the list was a roster of Yach's former colleagues from his stint at the World Health Organization. (more…)

Chicago boasts one of the nation's most corrupt police forces: Chicago PD ran an off-the-books secret torture site; stole millions from innocents and used the funds to buy illegal surveillance gear; has more than 125,000 outstanding abuse complaints; conducted an illegal extortion racket and a coverup that went to the highest levels; is systemically racist and corrupt; a force that tolerates cops who cover up and celebrate murder (no surprise that the force trained the ex-Gitmo torturer who beat Dr David Dao unconscious for refusing to give up his seat on a United flight). (more…)

What does a Jedi use to open a PDF file?Adobe-Wan Kenobi.

Trump sure knows how to pick 'em. This judiciary nominee, Matthew Spencer Petersen, up for a seat on the US District Court for the District of Columbia, was completely out of his element when asked basic questions at his hearing by GOP Sen. John Kennedy. In fact, he can't answer a single question the way someone qualified for the job should answer. The poor fellow looks awkward and uncomfortable, to say the least."Have you ever tried a jury trial?" Kennedy asked."I have not," Petersen said."Civil?""No.""Criminal?""No.""State or federal court?""I have not.""Do you know what a motion in limine is?""My background is not in litigation. I haven't had to do a deep dive."And it goes on and on.According to CNN:

You’d have to be living in some kind of a news blackout not to have heard chatter about cryptocurrencies recently. The granddaddy of ‘em all – BitCoin – has appreciated roughly 2000% over the past twelve months. This puts the total value of all BitCoin close $300B, making it more valuable than roughly 490 of the companies in the Fortune 500 – and far more valuable than any of the banks that were deemed too big to fail during the financial crisis.So what in the world is going on here? As with all large markets, nobody fully knows. But my interviewee in today’s podcast, Fred Ehrsam, knows this area better than almost anyone. In 2012, he co-founded Coinbase, which is by far the world’s largest consumer-friendly service for storing and trading cryptocurrencies (though its users include many large nonconsumers as well).Although our interview is a spontaneous conversation, Fred and I both put methodical thought into sequencing our topics, as well as the level of depth that we treat each with. The result is a robust introduction for who know nothing about cryptocurrencies, which can also truly fire the neurons of experts in this field. Will AI’s start running on the block chain? Could a full-fledged Uber, Lyft, or AirBnB competitor exist as a cloud-based Smart Contract? And how might the emergence of Ethereum stand in certain a line of historic events that stretches back before the Bronze Age?Those who don’t yet know what a blockchain or a smart contract are should be able to follow the entire conversation, clear through to its complex and rather mindbending conclusions, just by listening carefully (although probably not on 2x speed!). In fact, even if you have only the vaguest conception of cryptocurrencies, parsing all of this could bring you close to a top-percentile understanding of them. You can hear it by searching “After On” in your favorite podcast app, or by clicking right here:Because Fred is so generous and patient in his baseline explanations (for which I’m hugely grateful), stone-cold crypto experts may want to enter the interview around the half-hour mark. That said, I thought I fully grokked the stuff at the start of the episode myself – but talking it through with Fred brought up all kinds of intriguing nuances. So it may be worth a listen for anyone.A quick point of disclosure: I hold a cryptocurrency position myself as an investor. I don’t believe that influenced this interview in any way. But I should point this out anyway, because who really knows what lurks in the subconscious? Also, I can – strangely enough – guarantee that my holdings did not influence my decision to conduct this interview. Because when I first reached out to Fred last month, I was under the false impression that I had long since sold my cryptocurrency. The background research I did for this interview revealed that I’d actually failed to sell it (which is fine, as it turns out).

Remember when the fear of going blind or growing hair on your palms was enough to make you stop masturbating? Neither do I, but apparently The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been spreading a much more “terrifying” myth since the eighties that self pleasure makes you gay.A recently leaked booklet on homosexuality (second edition) for church leaders suggests “early” masturbation could cause adolescents to become gay, according to Newsweek. “Early masturbation experiences introduce the individual to sexual thoughts which may become habit forming and reinforcing to homosexual interests,” according to the booklet.Other absurd declarations about homosexuality included moms coddling their sons could turn them gay, and that it “may involve violent or criminal behavior.”The church has since shifted a bit by allowing people with “same sex attraction” to at least be able to participate in the church, but homosexual acts “violate” Mormon law, according to its website. Masturbation also still seems out of the question.Image: versageek

If the guilt of sneaking off into the basement bathroom to watch a few porn videos on your smartphone wasn’t enough, now avid smut viewers can carry the potential concern of harming the environment.Long gone are the days of high-grossing pornographic DVDs, and The Atlantic raises an interesting possibility that the energy required to stream such vast amounts of porn takes a larger environmental toll than pre-digital consumption.Via the Atlantic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dw7ilzSAcEStormy the cow was recaptured after again escaping the Philadelphia nativity scene in which she is imprisoned. The bovine's second bid for freedom ended after she was found about a block away from the Old City historical neighborhood. Her first saw her reach the I-95 highway, where police surrounded her with cars and summoned a "cow expert" -- do they mean a farmer? -- to help return her to the festive corrall.https://twitter.com/AP_Oddities/status/941692113200304128There is already a Stormy the Escaped Nativity Cow Twitter account.https://twitter.com/stormy_the_cow

Laser Maze is a super-fun electronic board game that challenges players to arrange angled mirrors to route a laser beam from an emitter to a sensor, avoiding obstacles; in The Quantum Game, you undertake the same fundamental task, but with a virtual laser that only emits one photon, and virtual beam-splitters, absorbtive polarizers, quarter-wave plates, polarizing beam splitters, Faraday rotators, and other exotic apparatus. (more…)

Remember how the bad guys got battered on by little Kevin's (Macaulay Culkin) booby traps in the Home Alone series?Well, in these videos from 2015, a group of real-life doctors watched clips from both early 1990s holiday flicks and gave their professional opinion on what life-altering injuries the movie's burglars, Marv (Daniel Stern) and Harry (Joe Pesci), would have sustained. It ain't pretty.https://youtu.be/VIIIuOXs7Sc(Tastefully Offensive)

This one is an oldie but a goodie. From 11 years ago, here's YouTuber EmperorCalebtine singing Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Soul to Squeeze" as cartoon dad Hank Hill. It's so good, isn't it?(reddit)

When I was a child my favorite game was Mousetrap because the experience wasn't simply about rolling dice and moving around a board. Rather, it was an invitation to construct environments with the reward of something special happening.I still enjoy games where you build but I especially love it when they offer clever, valuable lessons as well. Circuit Maze teaches spacial reasoning and electrical engineering with simple to understand concepts. As you play, the levels naturally get more difficult and are challenging even to adults.[embed]https://youtu.be/bMBfj_yTXos?t=1s[/embed]If your child is interested in games at even higher tech levels, there's also a game series called CODE that teaches the valuable superpower of computer coding concepts. I only wish I had access to these games when I was young.

In an unsourced interview reposted at Ragged Claws, Jean "Moebius" Giraud discusses his use of photo reference (more) — a popular topic of late among amateur numpties who think it's "cheating."Update: Disney!https://twitter.com/sylvainsarrailh/status/941589595531153408https://twitter.com/ronniedelcarmen/status/829613374690332672

It won't be arriving in time for Easter, let alone Christmas, but this keyboard features three particularly fabulous qualities: the tiny 40% size, the unstaggered grid layout, and a new type of keyswitch that's both mechanical and low-profile. $150 at Massdrop.

The apotheosis of ASMR. [via Reddit]

You can make six things with the I Love Unicorns Kit (Amazon), though only one of them is, technically, a complete unicorn. The other items, however, when worn together, entitle the wearer to be recognized as an actual unicorn under the German Standards Institute DIN 41439 specification for Cryptozoological Entities. So there's that.

A woman was escorted by police out of the Walnut Creek, Cali., Starbucks after berating a Korean student there for speaking her own language.(more…)

The best personal injury lawyer ad in human history is the chroma key apocalypse of Berger & Green, but this fellow Barry Glazer gives Pittsburgh's finest a run for their money: "I'm in it for vengeance"Here's an interview with Barry, shot by Alexander Rubin:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0kcPp5hnb0

Today NASA and Google found another planet in the Kepler-90 solar system, making it a solar system with eight planets, just like ours.According to Business Insider:

It's well known that the CIA would dose unwitting, innocent people with LSD to see how they would react. Filmmaker Errol Morris has a new docudrama series on Netflix called Wormwood about a Frank Olson, who was given LSD by the CIA without being told, and suffered so badly from it that he jumped out of a window to his death.

New York-based filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, best known for his 2004 indie documentary Super Size Me, admitted Wednesday in a long online confessional that he has a history of sexual abuse towards women.(more…)

"On advice of security, we need to take a brief recess," said Trump FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, just as the he was about to call a vote to kill Net Neutrality after ignoring tens of millions of comments from everyday Americans and expert interventions from the internet's inventors and the world's leading technical experts. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMym_BKWQzk"The Trouble with Bias," Kate Crawford's (previously) keynote at the 2017 Neural Information Processing Systems is a brilliant tour through different ways of thinking about what bias is, and when we should worry about it, specifically in the context of machine learning systems and algorithmic decision making -- the best part is at the end, where she describes what we should do about this stuff, and where to get started. (via 4 Short Links)

The San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals bought a "security robot" to harass homeless people at its Mission District offices, a move that the city has banned and threatened $1,000/day fines for. (more…)

Today, the FCC ignored tens of millions of Americans' views, as well as comments from the world's leading internet scientists and the inventors of the internet, and give a huge regulatory gift to the telcoms sector it is supposed to be regulating, rolling back Net Neutrality and allowing those companies to extort blackmail money from the web publishers you try to access through their lines. (more…)

Viktor Kalvachev is one of the most exciting figures in comics today. I love his art, which reminds me of the great paperback book illustrators of the 1960s. He's the creator of Blue Estate, a hardboiled crime series that takes place in modern day Los Angeles. It’s got a sleazy action hero actor with a passing resemblance to Steven Seagal, the Russian Mafia, the Italian Mafia, a geeky fanboy private eye in his 40s, a B-movie actress, drugs, alcohol, strippers, hookers, and seedy establishments. It’s dirty and gritty and a lot of fun, in an LA Confidential way.Viktor now has a Kickstarter for an art book called Inspire: The Art of Viktor Kalvachev, which I just learned about and backed immediately.Here are some exclusive sample pages from the book:Here's a recent interview with Viktor:https://youtu.be/oDZLBT49eJg

New York Public Library president Tony Marx presides over the largest public library system in America, in a city where 2,000,000 people lack broadband internet access, so he understands as well as anyone the way that libraries bridge the digital divide, a divide that gets deeper and more daunting every day, as key services and opportunities move online. (more…)

The Pineapple Fund was started by some nice person whose early acquisition of bitcoins made him a multimillionaire. He's donating $86 million to different charities, including the EFF (who gets $1 million)

After losing the Alabama special senate election two days ago, Roy Moore remains stuck in the Denial stage of the Kubler-Ross Model of Grief. In a cartoonishly self-important video statement released this morning, Moore's eyes unwaveringly tracked a teleprompter while he recited, "We are indeed in a struggle to preserve our republic, our civilization, and our religion, and to set free a suffering humanity. In this race, we have not received the final count​ to include ​military and provisional ballots. This has been a very close race and we are awaiting certification by the secretary of state."Is it really that surprising that a man who was banned from a shopping mall to stop him from pursuing teenage girls would refuse to bow out gracefully from an election he lost?Alabama's Secretary of State winner said the election winner Doug Jones' chances of not being certified were "highly unlikely."

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has announced a plan to bring down anti-leaker legislation that provides for 20 year prison sentences for whistelblowers who leak in order to prove government wrongdoing, and for the journalists who publish those leaks. (more…)

Congress took $101 million in donations from the telcoms sector, and then, by an amazing coincidence, 107 Republican Congressjerks sent a letter to Donald Trump's FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, exhorting him to kill Net Neutrality without delay. (more…)

The World Inequality Lab -- led by Thomas "Capital in the 21st Century" Piketty -- has published its 2018 World Inequality Report, summarizing the research of 100 academics around the world who investigate and document capital flows from 1980 onward. (more…)

Most of 21st Century Fox's assets now belong to Disney, a company that is famous for its liberal messaging and blockbuster movies that stress social justice themes, from Star Wars to Coco to Frozen, and Rupert Murdoch, the architect of the right-wing takeover of nations on several continents, is now the single largest shareholder in Disney. (more…)

It's summer in Australia, which means people are thinking of cool treats to enjoy in the heat.Then, on Tuesday, the folks at Vegemite ruined everything by making ice pops with their thick, dark yeast spread.After much debate whether it was a joke or not, the Melbourne-based brand tweeted, "We weren't kidding with this one!," and offered up the recipe for the repulsive "Vegemite Icy Poles."

Holiday gift exchanges are often overpopulated with useless junk, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The following items definitely have some novelty appeal, but not without some actual everyday utility. Plus, everything here can be had for 15% off with coupon code GIFTSHOP15.Hyperchiller Coffee Chiller: 2-PackInstead of paying $5 for a cold brew, you can cool your regular coffee in under a minute with a Hyperchiller. With a separate chamber for ice, it won’t water down your beverage, either. A 2-pack usually costs $59.98, but you can save 15% with code GIFTSHOP15.Universal Waterproof Solar ChargerMobile chargers are a great thing to throw in your bag, and this Universal Waterproof Solar Charger can follow you to the ends of the earth. It can charge two devices at once, and will survive in most tech-unfriendly environments. It’s MSRP is $50, we normally sell it for $13.99, and you can get it for an extra 15% off when you enter GIFTSHOP15.IllumiBowl 2.0This motion-activated toilet night light is a godsend for young children and groggy dads alike. It shines in several bright colors, and can be set to put on a disco light show whenever you need to pee. Save 15% off our usual $12.99 price with GIFTSHOP15.XXL Shower SpeakerSinging in the shower is one of must underrated joys of life, and you can give yourself a backing track with an XXL Shower Speaker. It has about a month of battery life on a single charge, and can even answer important phone calls. It costs $19.99 in the Boing Boing Store, and you can save an additional 15% with coupon code GIFTSHOP15.Millennium Falcon Ice MoldsIf you’re planning on throwing a cantina party to celebrate the release of The Last Jedi, these Millennium Falcon Ice Molds will add the perfect touch for your Wookie cocktail. A $15 value, you can pick them up for 15% off our $9.99 price with code GIFTSHOP15.Narwhal BBQ Skewer SetCelebrate the most ethereal beast in the ocean at your nautical barbecue with these Narwhal BBQ Skewers. They’re made of stainless steel, and you get two in a pack. Our sale price is typically $34.99, but you can save 15% when you enter GIFTSHOP15 at checkout.Model PPK Rubber Band GunWhether your favorite James Bond is a gritty Daniel Craig, boorish Sean Connery, or a silly Pierce Brosnan, anyone can enjoy this Model PPK Rubber Band Gun. It launches rubber bands up to 50 feet with semi-automatic action, and you can enter GIFTSHOP15 to take 15% off our $19.99 price.SaberLight Rechargeable Flameless Plasma Beam Lighter: 2-PackThese SaberLight Plasma Beam Lighters work in a downpour, and are totally TSA-approved. And they’re fully rechargeable over USB, so you don’t have to throw them out when they run out of juice. We sell them for $170 less than retail — $29.99 — and you can get an extra 15% off with code GIFTSHOP15.Nut Mini TrackerKeep track of your luggage, keys, or anything else with a Nut Mini Tracker. It’s small enough to put on a keychain, and is compatible with almost any Android or iOS device. The MSRP is $20, we sell it for $14.99, and entering code GIFTSHOP15 at checkout saves you an additional 15%.Car Plug-In Air PurifierIf you’re an Uber driver with high standards for cleanliness, or just like to occasionally eat lunch in your car, you can kill the leftover smells with this Plug-In Air Purifier. It plugs into any standard car outlet, and is $72 less than retail value when you enter GIFTSHOP15.Guzzle Buddy™Drinking wine by yourself doesn’t have to be a dark and lonely affair when you use a Guzzle Buddy. It attaches to any wine bottle to provide you with a classy vessel for a quiet night in. Normally $19.99 in the Boing Boing Store, you can save an extra 15% with code GIFTSHOP15.Twisty Glass MiniReplace your rolling papers with a Twisty Glass Mini. Its glass chamber fits up to a half gram of plant material, and you can eject ashes with a simple twist. We sell it for $39.99, but it’s 15% less than that with coupon code GIFTSHOP15.

Digital media artists Makio&Floz use their AxiDraw drawing machine, which they have dubbed "Jojo le robot," to create plotted portraits. They are currently offering these signed and numbered "Plottraits" to the first 100 people who order. About "Jojo," in the artists' words (translated from French):

Jonathan Kaiman, the Beijing Bureau chief of The Los Angeles Times, reported on the history of how different flavor Kit Kat bars infiltrated Japan.The country is home to an estimated 300 flavors (sake, cherry blossom, French salt, melon, "college tater," wasabi...) that began to transform the traditional chocolate covered wafer into unusual, yet supposedly satisfying snacks in the 1990s. Thanks to a marketing campaign to diversify souvenir shops in Hokkaido, the candy bar has been released in limited edition flavors throughout the past few decades.Like other product launches, Nestle has created some flops, like the Kit Kat cough drop flavor. Regardless, the Kit Kat has maintained its interesting level of innovation in the country.Via the Los Angeles Times: