In an open letter to Jeremy Corbyn, Neil Wilson explains how Labour can frame its policy on student debt forgiveness after they take power and abolish tuition fees. (more…)

Web content creators who don’t have a solid SEO strategy should take note of Webtexttool. It’s a service that pulls in anonymous data from their entire user base to offer crowdsourced guidance that increases your search page ranks. By analyzing prior user successes, it helps you better gauge how your posts will perform at a given time. And to help you spend less time editing and more time writing, It displays helpful optimization tips while you type.Webtexttool integrates with Microsoft Word, and they also offer an array of plugins for CMS platforms like WordPress, Drupal, and Craft if most of your writing happens in the browser. For inspiration, you can quickly find popular posts in their network with their subject search.You can get a lifetime subscription to Webtexttool in the Boing Boing Store for $49.

This is the best deal I've seen on generic Magic Erasers. Less than ten cents a sponge! Here's my earlier review:The Mr. Clean Magic Eraser a plain looking white sponge that looks like a chunk of cheap mattress foam. You wouldn't think it would do good job of cleaning anything. But it removes stains and scuffs from painted walls and other surfaces without damaging the surfaces. Magic Erasers work with water - no soap or detergent is needed.I used a Magic Eraser once to remove a nail polish stain from some fake leather furniture and it lived up to its name. The stain was completely gone and the upholstery looked as good as new. My friend Mister Jalopy used Magic Sponges to remove decades of built of grime from a pinball machine, making it look like it had just come off the Bally assembly line.I love Magic Erasers. People think of new uses for them all the time. Here's a car detailers who uses it to remove paint scratches and other kinds of surface damage on cars:https://youtu.be/VkBSlD60rDAThe Magic Eraser is a block of melamine foam. How Stuff Works explains why they are so good at removing stains:

Just because English has become the common global tongue doesn’t mean it’s the easiest language to write—even for native speakers. If you're looking to improve your written communication skills, especially on your smartphone, take a look at Ginger Page.Ginger is a cross-platform app that offers corrections for phrasing as well as grammar. It's powered by crowdsourced data and provides editing suggestions with its contextually-aware natural language processing engine. It performs multilingual translation and includes powerful tools for paraphrasing and proofreading so you don't send any typo-ridden emails to your boss.Ginger Page is available on all major desktop and mobile platforms, and can be purchased in the Boing Boing Store for $69.99.

Politicon is a non-partisan “Unconventional Political Convention” that brings Republicans, Democrats, and people of all political stripes together to get worked up over politics. It's a lot of fun, and it goes down in Pasadena, CA on Saturday, July 29th and Sunday, July 30 at the Convention Center. I will be there, hosting and speaking on panels that include the likes of noted Delta airlines seat-swapper Ann Coulter and longtime Donald Trump ally Roger Stone.Buy tickets here. (more…)

The film opens in September, 2017.(more…)

A scrap dealer cleaning out a deceased engineer's basement in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania found two massive 1960s computers, magnetic tape data storage systems, and hundreds of tape reels, all of which was marked as the property of NASA. The scrap dealer called NASA to report what he found and the agency's Office of the Inspector General investigated. It turns out that the fellow was an IBM engineer who worked for NASA in the early 1970s and was given permission to save the stuff as it was being discarded. One space agency's trash is another maker's treasure... From Ars Technica:

Not sure who gets the worst end of this deal, but happy summer weekend.(more…)

(youdontknowimadaog via /r/ATBGE)

Montreal artist Eric Nado transforms vintage typewriters into stunning models of machine guns. As a William S. Burroughs fan, I have great appreciation for this intersection of objects. From Galerie COA:

Nancy Cartwright surprised the heck out of this 13-year old boy when she revealed she is the real voice of Bart Simpson. The look on his face, ha!(more…)

My older daughter and I both like to sketch. We sometimes go the the Art Directors Guild's figure drawing sessions here in Los Angeles on Tuesday nights (only $10!) or we sit on the floor of her room and sketch whatever we want. (I like to use old black-and-white photos I find online for reference.)To store my pencils, charcoals, lead holder, erasers, snap-blade knife, and reading glasses I bought a Lihit Lab Teffa "book style" pencil case ($10 on Amazon). It's not large, but it's designed with "pages" to hold your stuff efficiently. Pens and pencils fit behind straps, and smaller stuff can be stashed in the mesh pouches.Below, a couple of my recent sketches.

Sean Spicer has resigned as President Donald Trump's communications director, and he doesn't like his replacement.(more…)

Scott Edelman writes, "I interviewed George R. R. Martin at a Thai restaurant on Episode 42 of my Eating the Fantastic podcast (MP3), and after I returned home, remembered I'd also interviewed him back in 1993. After digging out the tape, I couldn't resist incorporating his amusing admission about 'a fantasy novel I've been working on off and on for a while' as part of the episode." (more…)

In Hamburg, NY, Kevin Karas' home surveillance camera captured a tornado touching down and lifting his car and pretty much everything else around it right up into the air.(more…)

The Magic of Oz, most likely from the early 1960s, is sometimes referred to as "the worst cartoon ever." I think that is hyperbolic but I appreciate the sentiment.Animation historian Jerry Beck had this to say about it: "The film is a real mystery... and real awful."(via /r/ObscureMedia)

After serving 9 years in prison for armed robbery, O.J. Simpson (70) was granted parole. He could be released on October 1.From ABC News:

In an interview with the New York Times, Donald Trump said that Akie Abe, wife of Japan Prime Minister Abe, didn't even say "hello" to him at the G20 dinner because she doesn't speak English:

An unnamed North American casino was hacked through an on-site fish tank connected to the Internet, reports CNN.(more…)

A gentleman who didn't like AT&T trucks parked in front of his Hialeigh, FL home grabbed his revolver and calmly began shooting at the tires and engine of one, and then another truck. One of AT&T's technicians, Derrick Taylor, called 9-1-1. “He's shooting the truck right now. There's a guy shooting the tires and shooting the engines and everything.”(more…)

Someone put together a Google spreadsheet of Trump administration personal finances. It has links to the disclosure forms of nearly 500 people - Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner, Betsy DeVos, Trump, etc.Trump owes between $55 million to $75 million to Deutsche Bank, the same bank that was fined $10 billion for its part in a Russian money-laundering scheme. That's a massive nothing burger.

U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has widened his investigation into possible collusion between Russia and Donald Trump's presidential campaign. Mueller is looking into Trump's financial dealings with with unsavory Russian businessman, including mobsters and corrupt Kremlin officials.Mueller has his work cut out for him -- the August/September issue of The New Republic has an in-depth article about Trump's "decades-long ties to Russian mafia." Only someone brainwashed by ideology could read this article and not think Trump has been up to no good for a very long time.From The New Republic's press release:

The complexities of how health insurance works in the United States proves to be too much for Donald Trump. He's even having a hard time grasping how much it costs.(more…)

Nagato Iwasaki scours beaches for driftwood he can repurpose into lovely sculptures. (more…)

A young antelope harbors a vicious grudge against this guy, who seems to be half-scared, half-amused by the tiny angry ungulate. The only way he can restrain it is by grabbing it by the horns. He makes a half-hearted attempt to use a towel like a bullfighter's cape, but that doesn't work very well. Hiding behind a pole is a slightly better tactic. The video ends before we find out who wins.

My iPhone 7+ did a faceplant into gravel. There were 3 deep impacts but the screen saver took all the damage.I'm a big fan of these tempered glass screen savers. I've been replacing iPhone screens with increasing frequency over the years, and these glass overlays are much cheaper.The tempered glass does break in instances where the screen would not have, however I'm certain the damage it has fended off has saved me lots of time at the Apple store.I generally prefer a naked phone, in all its sleek minimalist glory, but my daughter insists I take better care of the devices she'll inherit.OMOTON tempered glass screen protectors via Amazon

This is deeply weird but also makes perfect sense. Wow.Created by Ursinarium, inspired by Josh Billinson's tweet:

Martina at Natural Nerd takes Game of Thrones fans through instructions on making a badass-looking Iron Throne phone charger. (more…)

Gilbert Arciniega was an early adopter of shooting videos of 1980s day-to-day life, like this footage of him zipping down Interstate 10, aka the 10 freeway in LA lingo. Includes 1978 Datsun 280Z car radio in the background. (more…)

As I wrote about last month, the hotelier who operates the Toronto property bearing Trump's name was desperate enough to get shut of it that they had bid millions for the right to change the name of the hotel. (more…)

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, having been thrown under the bus by Donald Trump, has clearly run out of fucks to give, and so now he's not only reviving the feel-good anti-drug program that convinced kids to take drugs, not only directing fed cops to arrest people who take weed in states where it's legal -- he's also calling for more civil asset forfeiture, that being the polite name for the widespread, illegal practice of cops stealing your stuff and selling it off to fund off-the-books spending on surveillance gear and other goodies. (more…)

Brad Templeton is founding faculty for Computing and Networks at Singularity University, and Chairman Emeritus and futurist of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the leading cyberspace civil rights foundation. He is on the board of the Foresight Institute. He also advised Google's team developing self-driving cars, and writes about such cars at robocars.com. He also advises Starship on delivery robots and Quanergy in the LIDAR space. He founded ClariNet Communications Corp (the world's first "dot-com" company.) He also created rec.humor.funny, the world's longest running blog. Cool Tools interviewed him about his favorite tools.Subscribe to the Cool Tools Show on iTunes | RSS | Transcript | Download MP3 | See all the Cool Tools Show posts on a single pageShow notes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIa425GQhIsAbove, George Lucas has no time for professional autograph hunters out for a quick buck. Below is another recent clip of Lucas grumpy at the autograph hounds because they're "here to make money. They're not fans." I think he's right!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9ZmHBi4qeM

A Ghost Story is not your typical horror film -- it is a supernatural, philosophical romance that focuses on the life of a ghost and his existential experience of being lost in space and time. The film was directed, written, and edited by David Lowery. One of the most differentiating aspects of the film is that it features a man dressed in a bedsheet with two eye holes. We saw a screening in Los Angeles last night, which was followed by a Q & A with Lowery.From the Q & A we learned that the ghost costume, lighting, color, and aspect ratio were all designed to convey the nostalgia that Lowery was drawn to when writing the screenplay. I was edtited in Premiere Pro with a full Adobe workflow.A scene that’s already under the spotlight is one of Rooney Mara's character grieving and eating a pie for minutes. It’s through these long (sometimes uncomfortably long) shots that Lowery underscores the haunting nature of being a ghost stuck in place and time. He explained to the audience that the length of each shot was representative of the age and perception of the ghost. As the film went on, shots became quicker and more lively.This is likely the most unique film of the summer, and a breath of fresh air for the horror genre. Instead of jump scares or graphic imagery, A Ghost Story sparks a different type of fear, a fear that revolves around the nature of existence.Synopsis:

$12k for a guitar made of the boards where people sat and listened to historic concerts.What kind of pick-up does this fantastically expensive beauty come with? Best I can tell: Black. I hope it sounds really, really good.

In this recently released TED Talk, neuroscientist Anil Seth explains the intricacies of human consciousness and how we all are constantly hallucinating:

Card magician Richard Turner has been "playing the hand he's been dealt" since he was a young boy and became blind.(more…)

Two adult men drowned during their baptisms in the Ungwasi River in the Kilimanjaro Region of Tanzania in Africa.“Following the incident, we have agreed on some measures that will ensure the safety of our followers during baptism in the rivers,” Victory Christian Center pastor Samuel Kamigwa was quoted as saying.From Religion News:

Jerry Foster came back from Vietnam with extensive experience piloting choppers. How he turned that into one of the pioneering careers in aerial coverage of local news is a terrific longread brimming with 1970s nostalgia.(more…)

Eser Dominoes are an interesting proof of concept that won a juried award at the 14th Japan Media Arts Festival.(more…)

Cut & Shut is the latest work by illustrator Chris Labrooy, showing whimsical imaginings of icon VW Beetles and other models come to life. (more…)

In 1986, Cleveland was desperate to put the nickname "Mistake by the Lake" behind them, so they tried to set a world record for a balloon release. Balloonfest takes us through the failures.(more…)

The Knightscope K5 security robot was patrolling a Washington DC office park on MOnday when it met its untimely demise. Apparently the robot rolled too close to the fountain stairs for its own good. From The Guardian:

Information is Beautiful has updated their comparison of artist payments on streaming services, estimating that 2.4 million plays on YouTube will net a whopping $1,472 for an unsigned artist. That's $0.0006 per play!(more…)

This Friday July 21st, Nine Inch Nails will release a 5-song EP titled Add Violence.(more…)

The dongs of the deep have nothing on the hearty Mexican mole lizard, aka dongs of the desert.(more…)

Although fully autonomous vehicles aren’t yet allowed on public streets, they are poised to dominate the roads in the not-too-distant future.But before that happens, Apple, Google, Uber, and other companies now investing in self-driving tech are going to need talented developers that can account for the dizzying array of factors at play when a human gets behind the wheel. (more…)

A comparison of Tommy Wiseau's performance in The Room (2003) and James Franco's portrayal of Tommy Wiseau in The Disaster Artist (2017) teaser trailer.(more…)