https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLGXhDV7LngSenators Bob Corker, Jeff Flake and John McCain talk a big game about not letting the GOP be the handmaiden of trumpist corruption, but when the chips were down last night, they voted with their party and a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Handmaid's Tale to pass legislation that lets financial institutions take away your right to sue them when they defraud you. (more…)

Pioneering rock-and-roller Fats Domino has died at age 89. A self-taught boogie woogie pianist who lived much of his life in New Orleans, Domino's iconic 1950s hits drove the evolution of raw rhythm-and-blues into the emerging rock-and-roll sound. From the New York Times:

Robert Wardhaugh of London Ontario was 14 when he started a game of Dungeons and Dragons. Thirty five years later, he's dungeonmastering the same campaign. His miniature sets are amazing!From Great Big Story:

Here's Gracie Terzian performing the old standard "Bitcoins from Heaven" on a harp ukulele.Thanks, Gary!

Writing in IEEE Spectrum, iFixit's superhero founder Kyle Wiens and Repair.org exective director Gay Gordon-Byrne bring the case for the right to repair (previously) to the engineering community, describing the economic, technical, and environmental benefits of permitting a domestic industry of local, expert technologists to help their neighbors get more out of their gadgets. (more…)

There was a time when monopolistic control over sectors of the US economy was vigorously checked through antitrust enforcement, but the neoliberal ideology of the Chicago economists (Milton Friedman et al) has eroded competition in America by convincing regulators that monopolies only need to be policed under very specific (and almost unheard-of) circumstances. (more…)

Anime floppy disks is dedicated to collecting depictions of floppy disks in anime, but offers occasional special treats such as magneto-optical disks in anime.

Let the right one in. The Verge: "Amazon Key is a new service that lets couriers unlock your front door."

From Entertain the Elk: "A love letter to video stores, horror films, and the AIDA Advertising Method that made the artwork on their VHS covers so effectively grotesque and memorable."

Reality, and all the facts and things in it, are negotiable. Even the clocks on the wall.

A janitor in Osaka turned his small apartment into an impressive miniature weed farm using bonsai techniques. Unfortunately, he got busted. (more…)

Unweldable materials like aluminum can now be fused using additive manufacture techniques. HRL Laboratories did this interesting demonstration. (more…)

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Sorry, but there probably isn’t an antiperspirant on the market that can stop blood sweating.Two Italian doctors published their findings on a 21-year-old woman who experiences short episodes of bleeding from her palms and forehead without any lesions on her skin. Dr. Roberto Magile and Dr. Marzia Caproni didn’t find evidence the patient was attempting to deceive medical professionals and are diagnosing her with hematohidrosis, according to a study in the peer-reviewed Canadian Medical Association Journal.Hematohidrosis, or sweating blood, is said to be a rare medical phenomenon previously linked to biblical explanations, but other examples date much further back.In this most recent case, the patient has episodes ranging from one to five minutes and was treated for depression and anxiety she says stems from stress for enduring the condition for three years, according to the study. The doctors treated the patient with propranolol, a type of beta blocker.Via CMAJ:

Fans of The Perplexus (one of my favorite puzzles) might be interested in Zenth, a 3D wooden labyrinth on Kickstarter. As in The Perplexus, the object is to guide a steel ball through a multiplanar labyrinth. In fact, the creator of Zenth was a student of the creator of The Perplexus, Michael McGinnis (who wrote an article for me about designing The Perplexus when I was editor-in-chief of Make).

Bill O'Reilly has seemingly run out of options for blaming others after a series of sexual harassment allegations canned the former Fox News host. From accusers to the news media, the only logical scapegoat left would surely be his Almighty.During a recent episode of his web series “No Spin News,” O’Reilly spoke candidly about his anger toward God for not protecting him, as more details surrounding allegations have surfaced, according to CNN."You know, am I mad at God? Yeah, I'm mad at him," O'Reilly said. "I wish I had more protection. I wish this stuff didn't happen. I can't explain it to you. Yeah, I'm mad at him."He also admitted people have it “much rougher” than him and that he’s a “bigmouth.”The New York Times reported Saturday that O’Reilly paid $32 million to settle accusations with former Fox News contributor Lis Wiehl. Six other agreements have been made by either O’reilly or the network on his behalf.With this latest rant under his belt, his New York Times bestseller Killing Jesus: A History is beginning to look more like a manifesto.Image: Justin Hoch

In 1957 famed anthropologist Louis Leakey received a $6,000 grant to study wild chimpanzees in Africa, in the hope that observing their behavior would reveal something about early man. In his stead, he sent his secretary, a 26-year-old named Jane Goodall. She had no experience as zoologist, and didn't even have a college degree, but as we now know, she became the world's greatest primatologist. At age 83, she still spends much of her time at Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania pursuing her passion of studying chimpanzees.Director Brett Morgen's new documentary, Jane, focuses mainly on Goodall's earlier work in Tanzania, where she made many groundbreaking discoveries about chimpanzee behavior. We also learn about her personal life -- her mother served as her escort on her first stay in Gombe, and she married wildlife cinematographer Hugo van Lawick, which National Geographic had hired to film her in the early 1960s. She had a child with van Lawick, named him Grub, and sometimes kept him in a spacious, well-ventilated cage to prevent the chimps from eating him.Narrated by Goodall herself, Jane is an intimate profile of a fascinating person I've admired since I was a child. It was a thrill to see old Flo and her child Flint, which I'd read about in her 1967 book, My Friends the Wild Chimpanzees. It was also interesting to see how the chimps slowly got used to Goodall, to the point that they would allow her to play with their babies. (Unfortunately, many of the chimps ended up dying or becoming crippled from polio because of human contact, so Goodall can no longer touch them.)Goodall says she feels like the luckiest person alive, because she gets to spend her life doing the thing she loves the most. I feel we're lucky to have her doing it.Learn more about Jane the movie here.

Freewrite is a single purpose first draft creative writing machine. I got one thinking it'd be a good idea to be disconnected from the internet and limited to just writing. I offer this complimentary Boing Boing exclusive, collector's limited web edition The unabridged Freewriter compositions of Jason Lawrence Weisberger as written November of 2016 through the 24th of October, 2017 for your enjoyment and edificaiton.

A protestor named Ryan Clayton tossed Russian flags at Trump today as the president was walking to a Capitol Hill lunch. The president appeared to respond with a thumbs up."Trump is treason!" Clayton yelled. "Why are you talking about tax cuts when you should be talking about treason?"(ABC News)

Amazon's Kindle e-reader is ten years old! I used the first gen model, and then migrated to the Voyage. I happily read on it every day!I remember when Amazon was being all cagey while wanting to show off their cool new secret "thing." They came to my office and handed over the saddest looking device ever. The original Kindle had floppy buttons and a disastrous keyboard. The thing looked like a smashed cardboard box. I couldn't believe its odd shape.I used an original Kindle for seven years. It is still around here someplace.Looks like my weird original model is just about the only one Amazon won't take as a trade in this week. They are offering all sorts of trade-in deals if you have an old kindle to send them back. I'd recommend getting a refurbished Voyage. Mine is still going super strong after 3 years, with no battery life issues. I've read hundreds of books on it.Amazon isn't celebrating with a new model as it seems pretty hard to improve on what the Kindle already is. This is a single purpose device that really works for pleasure reading.

My artist/designer friend Jonathan Koshi made a series of exquisite letterpress prints of Mario, Ultraman, and other characters reimagined as calaveras (sugar skulls)! The signed, limited edition 12"x12" prints are available for sale just in time for Dia de los Muertos from Koshi's web shop.

Watch these swimmers on Hahei Beach, New Zealand flee from a killer whale, aka an orca, last weekend. "You guys are idiots," says the cameraperson. Killer whales don't attack people in the wild. From the New Zealand Herald:

Since 2010, photographer Noritaka Minami has documented life in Tokyo's Nakagin Tower, a "metabolist" building constructed in 1972 in just one month. Each prefabricated cube attached to the core tower is a 107-square-foot apartment complete with a tiny lavatory. Since designer Kisho Kurokawa's death in 2007, its fate has been uncertain. From National Geographic:

I got to know cartoonist/engineer Tim Hunkin while I was editor-in-chief of Make magazine (here are some of the articles he wrote for me there). Tim has a great sense of humor, and one of the ways he expresses it is by building funny coin-operated amusements with names like “Pet or Meat,” “Autofrisk,” and “My Nuke - Personal Nuclear Reactor”. He has two arcades in England and I would love to visit them sometime.Here's a longer profile of Tim's work:https://youtu.be/S1Lb0Gs5hAYHere' the video for "My Nuke":https://youtu.be/sayuNoQGXfc

My daughter is home sick today. This LEGO Star Wars Vader's TIE Advanced vs. A-Wing Starfighter kit is where her attention is focused.Vader's TIE Advanced is very cool, but the real joy of this set, for me anyways, is the Sabine Wren minifig. Mandalorian Sabine is one of my favorite non-C1-10P characters from Rebels.LEGO Star Wars Vader's TIE Advanced vs. A-Wing Starfighter 75150 via Amazon

Nick Douglas sounds like the reason no-one ever wants to play board games at Douglas family gatherings: "Dick Moves for Winning Board Games.In chess, for example, after skipping over the amusing but practically useless Fool's Mate:

One measure of dysfunction in a housing market is the spread between the cash value of a home and the construction cost of a replacement home on the same site -- in other words, the cost of the dirt the home is sitting on. (more…)

Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures number 2017-14937: in unspecified post-2014 passenger car models, the explosive charge that deploys the airbag is controlled by an instruction that is secured by one of only 256 keypairs, and there is no rate-limit on authentication attempts over the CAN bus. It gets better! "In addition, at least one manufacturer's interpretation of the ISO 26021 standard is that it must be possible to calculate the key directly (i.e., the other 255 key pairs must not be used)." (more…)

The Anatomy of a Thousand Typefaces is an attractive yet simple web-app that makes it easy to find 'n' filter your way through popular fonts, with some interesting stats and visualizations of the set. [via MeFi]

Carrara marble is one of the most sought-after types, and these remarkable images by Bernhard Lang show how enormous some of the quarries are. (more…)

"The Mechanics of History" by Yoann Bourgeois is a marvellously simple idea perfectly executed: acrobats climb stairs around a revolving trampoline, falling languidly from the stairs in rhythm.Here it is in daylight:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH0dKSZMF2sBelow is an earlier exploration of the theme titled "Fugue/Trampoline":

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By a very happy coincidence, Ada Palmer and I are both passing through London on November 8 and we're doing a joint event at the Waterstones in Gower Street, starting at 6:30! The tickets (which include wine) are £6/£4 for students; you can book them here.

Last June, Portugal enacted Law No. 36/2017 which bans putting DRM on public domain media or government works, and allows the public to break DRM that interferes with their rights in copyright, including private copying, accessibility adaptation, archiving, reporting and commentary and more. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCTQLNRZMYkdj BC (previously) writes, "This Ghostbusters bootleg mashup, originally created by myself (BC) and Tribe One of Bootie ATL, is now an official, totally legal (!) release, with new instrumentation, new hype vocals from Atlanta MC Supercrunk, and a new music video. 'We Are Ready To Believe You (Stranger Ghostbusters Mix)' is available on Amazon mp3, Amazon Music, Pandora, Youtube, and all your favorite streaming and digital platforms. DJ BONUS- two instrumental versions, and the acapella, are also available for your personal remixing/atmospheric needs."

A couple in Orlando, Florida ordered plastic storage bins on Amazon. When they received the bins, they were surprised to find 65 pounds of marijuana inside. Now THAT'S Amazon Prime! Police are investigating. From WFTV:

You might think it's an optical illusion but really it's a glitch in the matrix. The insurance adjuster is gonna have a helluva time with this one.

Attention, vintage supercomputer fans! This Cray Research champagne glass is yours for $28.

It is pretty painful to see the recently widowed pregnant wife of a slain United States serviceman have to personally explain the disrespect she was served by the sitting President of the United States because the words of her black, female US Congressperson were not good enough.On Good Morning America, Myeshia Johnson shared memories of her husband Sgt La David Johnson, a highly accomplished US soldier and family man who was recently slain under undisclosed circumstances in Niger.While the Widow Johnson has a number of unanswered questions for the US Government, she makes it very clear that accounts of her call with US President Donald Trump describing him as insensitive are true. Mrs. Johnson describes the call, the attendees, and her tears at Trump's callously failed attempt to offer condolences.Mrs. Johnson additionally explains that Representative Frederica Wilson's (D-FL) much maligned account of the call was "100% correct."

We got this picnic blanket in 2016 and use it every time we go to the beach. It folds out to 60" x 78", and folds up to a 12.5" x 10.6" rectangle complete with handle. The bottom is made of some kind of tough waterproof material and the top is easy to wipe clean. It's padded, and the top surface feels nice and has a pretty leaf pattern.It was $27 when we got it but if you use coupon code BQ9PEOCY you can get it for $16.

Hundreds of biologists, computational scientists, technologists and clinicians from across the world have kicked off a massive effort to build the Human Cell Atlas, a comprehensive reference map of all kinds of human cells to help us understand our complex biology and diagnose and treat myriad diseases. From Nature:

If you're craving some light reading, might I suggest Stephen Hawking's 1965 doctoral thesis "Properties of Expanding Universes." In celebration of "Open Access Week 2017," Cambridge University Library has made Hawking's 117-page thesis freely available online."By making my PhD thesis Open Access, I hope to inspire people around the world to look up at the stars and not down at their feet; to wonder about our place in the universe and to try and make sense of the cosmos," Hawking says. "Anyone, anywhere in the world should have free, unhindered access to not just my research, but to the research of every great and enquiring mind across the spectrum of human understanding."Each generation stands on the shoulders of those who have gone before them, just as I did as a young PhD student in Cambridge, inspired by the work of Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell and Albert Einstein. It's wonderful to hear how many people have already shown an interest in downloading my thesis - hopefully they won't be disappointed now that they finally have access to it!"From the thesis abstract:

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial was released 35 years ago and the tale of a friendly space creature marooned on Earth continues to captivate our imaginations. This month, Quirk books is releasing an illustrated kids' book version of E.T. The large format book features color illustrations throughout by Kim Smith, and is appropriate for very young kids. I received an advance copy and took a few photos:

A family of three (including a 7 year old girl) on a British Airways overnight from Vancouver to London spotted bedbugs crawling on their seats and alerted the crew, but the crew said the flight was sold out and wouldn't move them, so they spent 9 hours getting gnawed by bedbugs, arriving with their skin "absolutely covered" in bites. (more…)

"When Twitter users report harassment on the website, their reports land in one of two queues: one slower-moving line, and one high-priority 'VIP' line for verified users and Twitter employees’ favorite accounts," according to what former Twitter staff told The Daily Beast.And Twitter doesn't seem to want to talk about it:

If you've ever tried to fold a fitted sheet, you probably know you can't just fold it like a regular sheet. If you are like me, you will just wad it up and hide your shameful attempt in the closet. Here's a woman made of better stuff than me, who has conquered the fitted sheet conundrum. The first video shows you how to fold a fitted sheet without elastic all around the edges, and the second video shows how to fold one with elastic all around the edges.https://youtu.be/_Z5k9nWcuFchttps://youtu.be/0dQc8C08fp0

For around $250, Private Jet Studio invites you to book a two-hour photoshoot on a grounded Gulfstream jet at an airstrip in Moscow. Why? To impress people on social media with your (fake) jet-setting lifestyle. Hair stylist and makeup artist costs extra.(Bored Panda)

Back in April, experts warned that Trump's plan to hire 5,000 new Customs and Border Patrol officers was unlikely to succeed: the agency already loses 1,000 employees per year and a significant number of applicants are disqualified on the grounds of past bad actions, from theft to rape to drug smuggling. (more…)

Wonderful 1980 video of Sesame Street's visit to a saxophone factory, complete with a free jazz sax soundtrack. (via Laughing Squid)