The fellow is just doing his job, which for some reason entails cutting open a cylinder filled with flammable gas. The gas ignites, and things go south from there.

When a woman looked at her husband's phone while he was napping during a flight from Doha, Qatar to Bali, she discovered he was having an affair. After that all hell broke loose, and the fighting couple caused such a commotion that the Qatar Airlines pilot felt it was best to make an emergency landing.According to news.com, "The situation then got 'out of hand' and the pilot made the decision to divert to Chennai, India. The family of three were offloaded at Chennai airport and the plane continued its journey to Bali."The Iranian family never made it to their destination, but instead got on a flight to Kuala Lumpur, before boarding another flight that sent them back to Doha. Luckily those flights made it to their destinations without a hitch.Image: Pixabay

Avoid everyday appliances (speakers, cameras, fridges, juicers, remotes, pets) built around internet-connected computers and designed to fail when the company goes bust— or just wants to brick it for commercial reasons. Logitech, for example, doesn't want to continue paying upstream licensing fees on its Harmony Link devices, so it's shutting them down.

On Saturday, space photographer John Kraus, age 17, captured this magnificent image of the International Space Station transiting the full moon. He took the photo using a Nikon D500 and Nikkor 200-500mm lens on an equatorial mount used for astrophotography. This wasn't a lucky shot. It took John weeks of planning. From Kraus's article at Petapixel:

I love this. When you get a scam email, forward it to me@rescam.org and a bot will keep the scammer busy emailing back and forth with it, giving the scammer less time to rob gullible humans.

A woman enjoying a live spectator sport was smoking a cigarette, when a peace officer walked over and told her to extinguish it. Instead of obeying his order, she held the cigarette towards him, for reasons only she knows. The peace officer sprang into action, whipping out his handcuffs to arrest the woman. She resisted, and when he started dragging her by one arm down the row, she seemed to be unhappy about it. The video ends there.

Politico sent Michael Kruse to a run-down pit town in Pennsylvania to see if Trump voters there are happy with his presidency so far. They're still with him, they don't care about his promises, and don't care that he's constantly golfing and tweeting. They just like the way he talks about the people they hate, and "boy oh boy do they hate kneeling NFL players."

Mean Jean Okerlund interviewed the inimitable Andy Warhol backstage at the 1985 World Wrestling Federation event "The War to Settle the Score." Bonus glimpse of Mr. T and also Cyndi Lauper who was all over the big time wrestling scene at the time.

Move over, ugly Christmas sweaters, because now there's ugly Christmas rompers.The three-pieced collection is the latest offerings from online all-over-pattern clothing retailer Getonfleek. Should you need one (or more), they are priced at $99.99 each.And yes, there is one for Hanukkah too:Previously: A fugly ALF Christmas Sweater exists(Mashable)

Gizmodo's Kashmir Hill continues her excellent investigative work on Facebook's mysterious "People You May Know" system, which has caused consternation among users by making seemingly impossible (and often disturbing) connections, such as "A woman whose father left her family when she was six years old—and saw his then-mistress suggested to her as a Facebook friend 40 years later." (more…)

The logic of Republican "trickle down" economics is that giving "job creators" more money per hour worked incentivizes them to keep working, and thus creating more jobs. (more…)

Disney has ended its blacklisting of the LA Times' movie critics from advance screenings -- a move it took in retaliation for a pair of in-depth, investigative articles that cataloged the one-sided deals it has extracted from the city of Anaheim, where it is the largest employer, taxpayer, charitable giver, and political contributor -- after the nation's movie critics announced that they would not review nor consider for awards any Disney movie. (more…)

About $300 million worth of Ether – the unit of cryptocurrency used on the Ethereum platform – from dozens of digital wallets was permanently locked up today because of one person's mistake.The Ether had been stored in Parity's "multisignature" wallets when a GitHub user, "devops199," came across a detrimental vulnerability. According to Motherboard:

The Wara straw art festival in Japan uses rice straw to create these enormous animal sculptures. (more…)

Sculptor inaeent (aka It's Not Anything Exactly Enterprises, aka Laura C. Hewitt) presses old 1s and 0s from typewriters into her ceramics to create a cool line of binary mugs, bowls, and plates. (more…)

Textile artist Victoria Villasana breathes new life into black and white photos by sewing vividly-colored yarns and threads onto them. Amy Winehouse, Nina Simone, and legal tender all get the treatment. (more…)

I love The Office, and having seen most episodes at least twice, I enjoyed this behind-the-scenes reel of the characters cracking each other up.[via Dooby Brain]

These healthy chews are made of salmon, and come in sizes and consistencies that both my dogs can enjoy! (more…)

If you thought Harvey Weinstein couldn't possibly be any more hideously sickening than you already knew, Ronan Farrow's new piece in the New Yorker reveals he's even worse than you could imagine. Weinstein hired spies to get dirt on actresses he allegedely sexuallty assaulted and on journalists looking into the allegations. In other words, Weinstein had setup an entire shadow organization of lawyers, spies and "former employees from his film enterprises" working for him to suppress the avalanche of sexually abuse allegations against him.

My latest Locus column is "How to Do Everything (Lifehacking Considered Harmful)," the story of how I was present at the birth of "lifehacking" and how, by diligently applying the precept that I should always actively choose how I prioritize my time, I have painted my way into a (generally pleasant) corner that I can't escape from. (more…)

The advent of consumer cloud storage has definitely made digital life better for everyone. No longer do you have to abuse email attachments to store and send things to other people. Going all-in on remote drives also means that a dead hard disk isn’t a completely apocalyptic scenario anymore. And since smartphone manufacturers have decided that regular people don’t need an exposed file system on their pocket computers, cloud storage providers like Dropbox, Google Drive, and iCloud are often the only option for mobile-first customers.But as convenient as these services are, they are also completely opaque in their management of your precious online assets. If any of your files are arbitrarily considered to be in violation of their TOS agreement, or something happens to them in transmission, there’s often little to no recourse. The only way to be 100% confident in the integrity of your archives is to physically own all of your storage devices.Instead of forfeiting all the benefits of online file hosting, take a look at SpiderOak ONE. It’s the only cloud storage system that provides the same easy access, while still offering Edward Snowden-approved safety. Here’s why you should consider switching away from your “free” storage and subscribing to SpiderOak:SecurityThe most important advantage SpiderOak has over other providers is a focus on hardened security protocols. Unlike the other big guys, SpiderOak encrypts everything before it even leaves your computer. Once your files are on their server, there’s absolutely no way for them to read their contents or metadata, and they don’t store your login password anywhere. They won’t rifle through your stuff because it is technically infeasible for them to do so — and the same thing goes for the government or any other nosy third parties.As victims of any of the major security breaches in recent history can attest, SpiderOak’s security measures aren’t just for the tin foil hat crowd. Putting all your faith in the benevolence of massive tech companies just isn’t such a good idea. From Google putting its administrative duties largely in the hands of faceless AIs, to Dropbox electing former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to its board of directors, storing anything online is a liability. It’s up to you to choose who to trust with your data, and SpiderOak’s priorities are much more in line with consumers and private citizens than shareholders or state actors.PriceWhile SpiderOak doesn’t offer a free tier, it’s actually a good thing. Aside from being literally unable to read it, they have no incentive to monetize your data as everyone of their users is a paying customer. And the price isn’t outrageous either: 1 terabyte of space typically costs only $129 per year — and we are offering the same plan in the Boing Boing Store for $39.99. That’s considerably less than any of it’s competitors’ annual pricing, and you get much more in return.Advanced FeaturesWhile it might lack the deep software integration of iCloud, or Google’s document-generating abilities, SpiderOak gives you powerful file recovery capabilities in the event that your main system crashes or gets compromised by malware. Their client is also platform-agnostic — it syncs across virtually any kind of system, including MacOS, iOS, Android, Windows, and Linux. You can share files from their web interface, and even create self-destructing links to give collaborators temporary access.Even if you feel like you’ve got nothing incriminating to hide among your family photos or personal documents, SpiderOak cloud storage is a solid all-around choice for features and price alone. And if you believe that everyone has a right to online privacy, it’s a no-brainer. For ultra-secure file storage with plenty of features for power users, consider a subscription to SpiderOak ONE. A year of access to 1 TB is now $39.99 when you order here.

Teacher Bruce Yeany built a number of physics demonstration props that use balls, tracks, and gravity, and it's a delight to see them in action. He also has videos to show you how to make your own. Very cool! I just subscribe to his YouTube channel, filled with home made science toys.

While I suspect most celebrities would immediately call their attorneys if a paparazzo sneakily shot a nude photo of them and then tried to sell it online, singer Sia took a different approach.The creepy photographer in question snapped the shot of Sia from behind, when she was on vacation, "apparently taken with a long lens," according to The Guardian. And then he tried to sell it online.But she nipped it it in the bud by offering the same photo to the public via Twitter – for free – thereby shutting down the pap's sleazy business scheme before it picked up steam."Someone is apparently trying to sell naked photos of me to my fans. Save your money, here it is for free. Everyday is Christmas!" The last line of her tweet also refers to the title of her latest album, Everyday is Christmas. Brilliant!

Facebook tried to fix its fake news problem by putting comments that included the word "fake" at the top. Software-engineering genius! Sadly it didn't work out, reports the BBC.

In Britain, a mirror-world scandal of harassment and abuse is unfolding. Like its American counterpart, it reaches into high levels of entertainment and government. But unlike America, the "jocular contempt for women" that Richard Rorty feared would return is already on merry display in Parliament itself.https://twitter.com/GregLabour/status/927894487531245568"When I met the Israeli deputy prime minister, he stormed out of the meeting. The Secretary of State got a much more cordial reception," said Sir Desmond Swayne, a conservative MP. "Is it just because she's a lady?"The smarm! The transparently false detachment! The bad comic timing! The sublimated, sneering rage! Affectation as the failure state of eccentricity! If all this is your cup of tea, be sure to check out the latest from Peter Hitchens.Update: more from this charming "Sir Desmond" character:

NASA's Sean Doran posted a new set of Jupiter shots imaged by the Juno probe, and they're stunning: "What a blimmin' gorgeous/diabolical planet. Smörgåsbord"

https://twitter.com/philipmould/status/927542755500359680Art dealer and BBC presenter Philip Mould posted this video showing restoration work on a centuries-old painting. It's more vigorous than you might expect: a solvent tailored to the varnish but safe for the paint, and the resulting slimy mix simply wiped off to reveal surprisingly clear, vibrant color.

One time, just after I moved to California in the mid-nineties, a cool older mom friend of mine insisted that I join her to see a show at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco. She claimed it would change my life and, honestly, it did.That show was El Vez, the Mexican Elvis.Now, singer-songwriter Robert Lopez, the genius behind El Vez, is no Elvis impersonator. He transcends that. He IS the Mexican Elvis. Get me?As you'll see in this short piece about him, his schtick is thick. In it, he aptly describes himself as the "child" of his "true parents," Elvis and Charo. https://youtu.be/Knin4CLq4usTwenty-something years later, he's still doing his thing and it's still as fresh as ever. Now, think of me as that "cool older mom friend" who is insisting you go to his show. There are only four this year and they are all on the west coast, opening with Pony Death Ride:December 20 -- San Francisco, at the Elbo Room (Tickets)December 21 -- San Jose, at The Ritz (Tickets)December 22 -- Los Angeles, at The Echo (Tickets)December 23 -- San Diego, at The CasbahTo sweeten the pot, the retro go-go dance troupe The Devil-Ettes are performing at his San Francisco and San Jose shows.I've seen him perform many times since the nineties and I can attest that he puts on one helluva show. It's always high-haired, high energy, and full of costume changes. Plus, his merchandise is inspired (I still carry around a sequined piece of one of his retired stage costumes all these years later).Can't make it? Well, at the very least, pick up a copy of Sno-Way José, his collection of his Mex-mas classics. You have to order it from his website, which isn't geared for ecommerce sales. Pick up a lock of his hair while you're at it. It's certified by his barber.

After Papa Johns made a big show of denouncing black football players who kneel to protest police violence, the Nazis made a big show of declaring Papa Johns the official pizza of the white nationalist movement. After thinking about this for maybe a day or two too long, Papa Johns has announced that it would prefer it they did not.

true/false is an array of fluorescent tubes covered with movable metal cylinders. The segments are programmed to move in algorithmic patterns, creating a hypnotic effect. (more…)

Ari Weinkle created this cool animation he calls Moodles, where human forms made of noodles reconfiguring as they come in contact with a solid plane. (more…)

Here's a kit to “Grow Your Own Marijuana,” except that it isn’t really marijuana, it’s a Cleome. Apparently these flowering plants are near-dopplegangers to Cannabis in both sight and smell. Who knew?Not sure why anyone would buy this but if you were thinking about it, sorry, it’s only available in the UK for now. Here in California, we can buy real Cannabis plants just by getting a medical card.No, this is not weed. Notice the lack of spikes on the leaves:(RED)

To help raise funds to repair the Kristie's Flyer steam car, Al Ridenour's Krampus Los Angeles Troupe and Drakenstein Art are hosting a raffle of art and prizes, which includes a pair of tickets to the fifth annual Krampus Ball on December 2.

"Something like ten percent of the web flows through Cloudflare's network," states Nick Sullivan, Head of Cryptography for internet "gatekeeping" service Cloudflare.So, in order to keep their client's protected, they need to generate a lot of unpredictable, completely random numbers. That's where this wall of lava lamps comes in.Cloudflare's "Wall of Entropy" sits in the lobby of their headquarters in San Francisco. It uses the unpredictability of its flowing "lava" to assist in randomly generating numbers.On their blog, they explain how it works, for people both with technical and non-technical backgrounds. This is an excerpt from their non-technical explanation:

Mona Lisa Selfie compiles just a fraction of the images taken by the six million annual visitors to the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. (more…)

Golemecha is a seven-foot tall lighted sculpture made from "plastic, welded metal rods, wire mesh, plaster wrap, 3D printed parts, glue, spray paint, borax, branches, roots, tree kits, LED kits, preserved moss, preserved bonsaI, copper plating, and patina kits." (more…)

Indistinguishable from dog food that's been given a run through the dishwasher, this $1,000 tin can from Tiffany & Co. is a quiet invitation, to Americans, to do things that even a year or two ago they would not have dreamed possible. [via]

You decided to read this article on a whim, and I'm glad you did. Not all decisions require a decision matrix. I'm an author, so I use decision matrices to methodically decide what's going to happen in a story. After completing a decision matrix, I'm satisfied with my choice and I can concentrate on writing about the option I selected.In preparing to describe how I use decision matrices to make decisions, I noticed that Boing Boing's primary reference to decision matrices is highlighting another website's flowchart. It's a great flowchart. It's just not a decision matrix.Decision matrices start with a matrix, in this context defined as a rectangular array of elements. A blank spreadsheet is fine. If you abhor spreadsheets, use any other medium you can make rows and columns with, but keep in mind that the decision at the end involves some elementary math. This is an example of customizations I'll suggest while I'm explaining decision matrices, to make the technique work well for you.Now that you have an empty matrix, define the problem you want to solve. If you're into the 5 why's technique, or if you've never tried it before, this is a good place to use it. If you'd rather meditate or walk or shower to let your subconscious define the problem, that may work better for you. A decision matrix is a tool, so make sure you're applying it to the question which will get you the results you want.A simple question which a decision matrix can answer is "What should I write about?" List every possible option in the first column. For fiction, I generally agree with Seth Godin: "If you come up with 20 bad ideas, you'll have a good idea" (2010 interview). This is the brainstorming stage, so if you have time, list every remotely plausible idea and eliminate bad ones later.However, we're in a hurry and we need our writing topic now. Maybe we procrastinated planning for NaNoWriMo. Let's start with four options to choose between:Note that this is a tiny decision matrix. A baby. It is cute. My cell count is usually closer to 300. Also note that the above is an excellent example of using a decision matrix to choose between less than ideal options.Next, list criteria by which to judge your options. I use subjective criteria, but if you want to operationalize concepts and go the objective route, you can. Also, if you don't mind limiting your brainstorming possibilities by listing criteria, you can complete this step before filling the first column with options.Put the criteria in the first row:I fill in my decision matrices by column, so I can compare, say, how awesome haunted lunar bases are to the awesomeness of robot girlfriends. Rating each idea completely before moving on to the next row lets you build a more detailed mental model of how that idea would work before you rate the next one. Do what makes sense to you.I rate how well each criterion applies to the idea on a 1-5 scale, with 5 being YES! and 1 being NO! Note that we are rating options, not ranking them. Reuse ratings as often as needed.The table below indicates that I, personally, couldn't write 100,000 words about bringing a robot girlfriend to dinner. Moon Ghosts and Miasma was Right! sound totally doable. I'm already in the process of writing the best 300,000 words I can about AI, so I'd have to read a lot more before I have enough AI ideas for another 100,000 words. It's still a fun topic, though, so it gets a 3 on that criterion.I weight the most important criteria with a multiplier. Since I write science fiction, awesomeness (both formal and colloquial) is essential. If I happen across a sufficiently awesome idea, I can research and get excited enough about it to write 100,000 words. The multiplier also prevents me from writing 100,000 words on a topic I enjoy, but which few other people are interested in (i.e. it isn't colloquially "awesome").Now, let's make the decision by adding the rows. The row with the highest total is your best option.For even better results, combine your highest rated options where possible. The "haunted" lunar base our protagonist moved to could very well host an AGI. The AGI reaches its limit watching humans jam up in the corridors, so it starts scaring people into efficient traffic patterns and killing the worst flying car drivers. Will our protagonist stop it, or give it access to every city in the solar system? That's a better story than either concept would've been individually.R.E. Stearns wrote her first story on an Apple IIe computer and still kind of misses green text on a black screen. She went on to annoy all of her teachers by reading books while they lectured. Eventually she read and wrote enough to earn a master's degree in curriculum and instruction from the University of Central Florida. She is hoping for an honorary doctorate. When not writing or working, R.E. Stearns reads, plays PC games, and references Internet memes in meatspace. She lives near Orlando, FL with her husband/computer engineer and a cat.About R.E. Stearn's new novel, Barbary Station: Two engineers hijack a spaceship to join some space pirates—only to discover the pirates are hiding from a malevolent AI. Now they have to outwit the AI if they want to join the pirate crew—and survive long enough to enjoy it. Adda and Iridian are newly minted engineers, but aren’t able to find any work in a solar system ruined by economic collapse after an interplanetary war. Desperate for employment, they hijack a colony ship and plan to join a famed pirate crew living in luxury at Barbary Station, an abandoned shipbreaking station in deep space. But when they arrive there, nothing is as expected. The pirates aren’t living in luxury—they’re hiding in a makeshift base welded onto the station’s exterior hull. The artificial intelligence controlling the station’s security system has gone mad, trying to kill all station residents and shooting down any ship that attempts to leave—so there’s no way out. Adda and Iridian have one chance to earn a place on the pirate crew: destroy the artificial intelligence. The last engineer who went up against the AI met an untimely end, and the pirates are taking bets on how the newcomers will die. But Adda and Iridian plan to beat the odds. There’s a glorious future in piracy…if only they can survive long enough.

Televangelist, fraudster, and ex-prisoner Jim Bakker is in a tizzy as he threatens, er, warns his audience that Americans will riot in the streets if Trump is impeached.Via Right Wing Watch:

I've owned the earlier model of Panasonic's nose hair and ear hair trimmer for over ten years, and it still works perfectly. I've never had the sharpen the blades. (Can they even be sharpened?) It's easy to clean - just turn it on and run it under water -- the "'Vortex Cleaning System' draws in water from all sides and spins through the trimmer for easy nasal hair trimmer cleaning in seconds." It uses a single AA battery, which lasts months, even for a astonishingly hirsute personage such as myself.It's regularly $15, but is on sale for $10 on Amazon right now.

Hundreds if not thousands of Astro fans were watching a parade on Friday, celebrating their world-series victory, in a multi-level parking garage when a woman from many levels up dropped her hat. So with a bit of teamwork, this massive group of strangers had a blast tossing her hat up from level to level, cheering every time someone caught it, and cheering some more when it sometimes fell back down a level or two. With a bit of sweat, good aim and laughter, the hat made its way back to the owner.Thanks Mashable!

If you live in LA, I hope to see you at Skylight Books in Silver Lake, where I'll be talking with British cartoonist Tom Gauld about his work, including his latest book, Baking With Kafka. I'm a huge fan of Tom's work (see my reviews of his previous books, Mooncop, You're All Just Jealous of my Jetpack, Goliath, and The Gigantic Robot).Tom also created this lovely Boing Boing T-shirt, which should be in the wardrobe off all discriminating primates.I've never met Tom in person, so I'm excited about this evening!Event date:

Jack Burton is tweeting again! (more…)

Due to apparent proximity to Jesus, Fox News host Ainsley Earhardt feels church is the best place to be shot. No wonder I never go there.Via RawStory:

You probably know the “you cut, I choose” method to split a cake between two people who want as much for themselves as possible: one person cuts the cake into two pieces and the other person gets to choose first. Now, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have applied cake-cutting game theory to the establishment of electoral districts.From 3 Quarks Daily:

Materials scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a way to etch nano-sized patterns into glass so that glare is nearly eliminated.Via c&en:

Parking officials in Culver City, CA take a uniquely perverse pleasure in making impossibly confusing parking signs. This fellow turned their cruelty into our amusement by making a Star Wars opening text crawl out of one their long, long signs.