In August, you'll have a chance to own a piece of Smashing Pumpkins history when Billy Corgan sells off over 150 pieces of his used gear, including guitars, basses and amps. These items are all from his personal collection which include, according to the Reverb (where everything will be sold), "the core gear used on the albums and tours all of which helped define Corgan as a musician."(more…)

Because of the UK's dramatic shift from student grants to loans, a startling report from the Institute for Financial Studies predicts that 77.4% of university graduates in the UK's class of 2017 will not repay their full student loan obligations. This is up from 41.5% just six years ago in 2011.(more…)

Chris Isner was a regular guy until an ayahuasca trip gave him clear instructions on creating a trippy style of bas relief wood sculptures. (more…)

SuperDeluxe transformed some Alex Jones crazypants rants into a Bon Iver-esque song. It is hilarious.(more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GBVyVdd_kMWatch as an off-the-shelf Barbie gets a superhero makeover in this delightful tutorial. Includes a list of materials used and a very relaxing voiceover. (more…)

In preparation for the big Bastille Day Military Parade, the French Army is shown in this video rehearsing a Daft Punk medley.The celebratory parade is the world's oldest and longest military one in the world, and happens each year down the Champs-Élysées in Paris.(reddit)

Did you do it? Hmm?(more…)

The number of devices that connect to the internet is ever-increasing, so web technology has to move fast to keep up with their needs. Because both seasoned programmers and novices can get overwhelmed with the rapid churn of frameworks and languages, it makes sense to study lots of different techniques to stay on top of popular programming techniques.(more…)

After a van creamed an electric pole, the sparks started arcing in London, Ontario. The sound and light show was captured by an onlooker. (more…)

Akihiro Ito shared this lovely and relaxing video of Nendo's art piece called Jellyfish Vase, a collection of silicone forms in the shape of vases that are thin enough to sway in gentle water currents.(more…)

⋋║ ՞ ▽ ՞ ║⋌乁[ᓀ˵▾˵ᓂ]ㄏϵ( ‘◇’ )϶（´◉◞⊖◟◉｀）( ˘⊖˘)(more…)

Rep. Beto O’Rourke [D-El Paso] raised over $2.1 million last quarter for a Senate race against bad person Ted Cruz [R-Satan's Asshole], in the form of 46,574 donations, primarily from in-state donors, with $0 coming from PACs. (more…)

A team of public health researchers studies mosquito populations in neighborhoods in Baltimore, looking for correlation between socioeconomic status and mosquitoes. (more…)

If you live in Texas, rejoice: Gov. Greg Abbott has signed House Bill 1935, which, from September 1, will safeguard your right to openly carry a sword, dagger or knife, though not into "schools, colleges, churches and bars." (Image: Thinkgeek) (via Naked Capitalism)

The US is still viewed around the world as the top political power, but perceptions of China's leadership are growing rapidly, especially in African states with heavy Chinese investment, and in Russia. (more…)

Twice in my life I tried seeking help when I was feeling suicidal: once from an in-person counselor, and once from a phone based hotline. Both services failed to provide the support I needed, and I left the experience feeling just as bad, if not worse. Thanks to mobile technology and one great idea, we now have another option — Crisis Text Line — and they need volunteers who can text, particularly late at night, since peak crisis hours are between 8pm and 4am. (more…)

Yesterday in Corpus Christi, Texas a contractor was changing a lock inside an ATM room when he got locked inside without his phone. So he wrote "help me" notes that he slipped through the working ATM receipt slot until someone took him seriously and called the cops. From KRISTV.com:

This converted Sea King helicopter on a camp site in Stirling, Scotland is available for overnight stays at the rate of ~$200/night. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the helicopter doesn't fly. From Helicopter Glamping:

Yesterday's smashing Net Neutrality campaign showed that people have finally woken up to the risks of the highly concentrated telcoms sector using its commercial muscle to decide what kinds of services can flourish in the online world -- but Big Internet doesn't confine its efforts to control the future to playing around with packets. (more…)

The word on the Hill is that Trump will nominate Cheryl Stanton to head the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division, a step up from her current job as head of the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce, where her tenure has been marked by high-profile resignations over her plans to trump up claims against employees she disliked and wanted to fire, and (you can't make this stuff up) a lawsuit by the agency that cleans her house because she refused to pay them. (more…)

Saranap is an unincorporated, loosely governed town in Contra Costa County in Northern California; it is home to a 66,000 square foot temple built by a religion called Sufism Reoriented, which has little to do with traditional Sufiism, being dedicated to the idea that an Indian man called Meher Baba was the reincarnation of Buddha and Christ and God on earth and that he will return in 700 years. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZViIysnxo6YRicky from Inside the Magic writes, "The updated redhead/'wench' auction scene in Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean ride has debuted (along with a killer new Captain Barbossa animatronic). The infamous redhead character now has a gun and is no longer being lusted after, instead helping to run an auction for treasure. The controversial changes have appeared first at Disneyland Paris, with the US versions to follow next year."

Australian woodworker Brendan Stemp found an old fence post with decades of weather damage. After some prep work, he filled the wood gaps with resin and turned a beautiful pot on his lathe. (more…)

As a man, the idea of buying a decent broom filled me with a billowing resentment, a lockjawed defiance at the very notion of replacing pointless labor with quality tools. I liked forcing results from a feeble polyester-fringed stick that would fold like a garden hose if pushed too hard.When the last one broke, though, I was in a dreadful hurry and ended up grabbing the first one I saw under the false impression it was like $5.97. But it wasn't! It was $19.99. Twenty fucking dollars!Even as I stormed from the checkout to the car, though, the weight of it in my hands began whispering to me. Seducing me. Talking to me about the dust it would move, the way it might put even the heaviest clods of muck in their place.Within minutes of deployment on its first job (lawnmower clipping overflow) I was smitten. Something that once took minutes (shoveling my grass dust onto someone else's property) now took a fraction of the time. I immediately rushed to the back of the house to see if it could move the soggy little dunes of mud accreting on the edges of my crappy brick pathway. It did.Lifting it to glint in the sunlight, I envisaged a science-fictional future wherein, firearms prohibited by the vast and sprawling mechanisms of a progressive world government, the last real men develop elaborate martial arts that turn everyday brooms, like this one, into brutally subversive instruments of self-defense and political self-determination.Anyhoo, the Quickie Super-Duty Upright Jobsite Broom is pretty good, and you can pick it up from Home Depot for a few bucks cheaper than it is at Amazon.

Wendy Pini is most famous for Elfquest (above), but her artistic career spans fifty years of pop culture history, from weird lowbrow surrealism to yaoi pastiche. Line of Beauty isn't just a stunning art book covering decades in and beyond epic fantasy, but a powerful yet curiously tentative biography, drawing together threads from a childhood in the Californian sticks to the poisoned promises of Hollywood.That it's so mysterious and unjudgmental (of her, at least) is most remarkable for the fact it was written by her husband, Richard Pini. His book is a crafty invitation to the worlds implied by her work, a mythos that seems misty and intangible even as its details take shape.Born 1951, Wendy was a talent from early childhood, and we learn of the tensions and inspirations that flowed through her to emerge as a personal Elfame: adoptive parents whose emotional abuses hover on the margins of trauma; childhood obsessions and contrasts; and encounters with what were then rare oddities in rural America—manga, weird cartoons, the deeper magics of European and Japanese folklore—which she consumed voraciously.Richard's access to private artwork and private fact far exceeds what a researcher might get to, but flags his story right off as both authorized and intimate. But while uncritical, the narrative stops short of hagiography: there's much evidence of unexpected turns and some evidence of friction in its creation. The focus is on Wendy's deep fascination with Hogarthian serpentine structures and sequential art (hence the title), and her artistic motivation and development. We are invited rather than imposed upon, and the result is a book that feels like the first chapter of something larger upon which others must elaborate.This is, nonetheless, far and away the most complete look at Wendy Pini, her career and artistic journey, yet in print. And it's not just for fans of elf comics, or of fantasy's liminal worlds in general. To anyone interested in the independent comics movement she (among others) galvanized, and the 1970s SFF fandom culture that led to it, Line of Beauty is essential reading.She was one of the first cosplay goddesses--and the Pinis learned only recently that this fact has quietly informed for decades a certain scoffing disrespect for her professional achievements, offspring of the misogyny and gatekeeping that persist in fandom like a stubborn rot.From hundreds in the book, these are just a few examples of her work, each marking phases of a life in art.Biographers usually want to be the last word. Line of Beauty is instead a loving word. I like the questions it left me with: Is Wendy a kinetic cartoonist or a static animator? What is left deliberately unsaid, and what is merely unspoken? Wendy is as associated with Elfquest as Herge is with Tintin or Tove Jansson with Moomin; the magnum opus tends to obscure not only her other work but the artist herself. The evidence - that there is so much more - is here. It’s time to talk about it.Line of Beauty: The Art of Wendy Pini [Flesk Publications](Disclosure: I interviewed Wendy in 2014 and provided the Pinis with the transcripts, which Richard cites occasionally in this book.)

The trailer for the film Awaken by timelapse expert Tom Lowe has so many beautiful shots that it was hard to choose a thumbnail. Below are just a few: (more…)

Anna Christova snapped this fantastic street art project called "CTRL+X," which paints items tagged with graffiti to look as if they've been selected and deleted in Photoshop, revealing the default transparent layer. Below is the before photo: (more…)

This shark stroller almost makes me want to have another baby. Almost. Instead I'm going to get one to push my cat around (not really, Missy would never have that.)However, if I were to have another baby or adopt a more cooperative cat, I would totally get the Shark Buggy by baby brand Maclaren. Designed by British neo-pop surrealist Philip Colbert , the stroller gives the illusion that junior is sitting in the mouth of a dangerous predator (which is probably a metaphor for life).(Cool Mom)Previously: Watch 'Jaws' with your feet dangling in the water

A 39 year old man in Key West Florida has been arrested after police found a large amount of cocaine hidden in a 'Cookie Monster' doll in his vehicle.More like Coke-y Monster.From the Monroe County Sheriff's office:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1RkNDbneEgPaul Bennun writes, "The incomparable Sarah Warren, (creator of feminist slapstick spy caper MLE) has launched a brand new tragicomedy web series called LAX on YouTube, keeping with the TLAs. (more…)

Brad Sherman (D-CA) today introduced articles of impeachment against U.S. President Donald Trump.(more…)

In a now viral video clip from a police bodycam, Aramis Ayala, Florida's first African-American elected state attorney, is pulled over by Orlando cops for what appears to be no good reason.(more…)

NASA's Juno probe just completed the closest ever flyby of Jupiter's Giant Red Spot. The above is a processed version of an image created by Gerald Eichstädt from the Juno imaging data. Juno was passing about 5,600 miles (9,000 kilometers) above the Red Spot. See many more images here. From NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

Brazil's former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been found guilty of corruption charges stemming from a scheme at the state oil company, Petrobras. He will remain free on appeal. Lula remains a very popular politician with widespread public support.(more…)

Five days ago, the World Wide Web Consortium announced that it would go ahead with its project of making DRM for web-video, and that the Director, Tim Berners-Lee had overruled or decided not to act further on all objections about the dangers this posed to legitimate and important activities including security audits, accessibility adaptation and competition. (more…)

A CD containing nine unheard Michael Jackson songs that are reportedly master recording quality will be on the auction block next week. The winner won't have legal distribution rights though. From Rolling Stone:

Acting coach Bob Menery is not a professional sports announcer... yet. Watching him talk gives me the same weird sensation as seeing Mel Blanc do Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny.Below is an older video of Menery experimenting with "the voice."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxb1znK8jg4

The World's Largest Super Soaker is 7 feet long, squirts water at 272 miles per hour, and should not be fired at anyone ever.

The New York Daily Post reports an "unprovoked attack" in which one diner chomped down on another at Brooklyn's Peter Luger Steakhouse.

The FAKE NEWS media has never been so wrong. Or so DIIRRRRRRTY!

It's been two years since Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke lost a lawsuit brought by Marvin Gaye's descendants, who argued that their song "Blurred Lines" infringed Gay's 1977 song "Got to Give It To You," not because it copied the music per se, but because it copied its "vibe." (more…)

Of all the press-stops I did on my tour for my novel Walkaway, I was most excited about my discussion with Katherine Mangu-Ward, editor-in-chief of Reason Magazine, where I knew I would have a challenging and meaty conversation with someone who was fully conversant with the political, technological and social questions the book raised. (more…)

A new study of driver attitudes toward bikers shows that being able to perceive cyclists is influenced by driver attitudes toward cyclists. Those who don't like or don't care about cyclists don't see them even when looking at them. They also found that the social dominance of vehicles means they have a far higher degree of lethality over "alternative" transportation like biking or walking: (more…)

The grounds of the architectural biennial in Lyon France included Aire D’attente, an artistic revitalization of an abandoned lot that grew flax, barley, and hemp for making hempcrete. Cops destroyed it after deciding the art was a pot farm. (more…)

On Independence Day, one American decided to exercise his freedom to ride his motorcycle at speeds up to 147 miles per hour. That and several other freedoms were quickly taken away thanks a police plane which released aerial footage demonstrating an astonishing array of data overlaid. (more…)

Artist Paul Walsh brightens up the streets of Auckland, New Zealand by sprucing up old utility boxes with delightful creatures. (more…)

An intern slipped famed record producer Jimmy Iovine a mixtape of then-unknown Eminem. Dr. Dre got hold of it and the rest is history.In an earlier documentary about their fateful meeting, Dr. Dre describes what happened:

FOLLOW @RubenBolling on the Twitters and a Face Book.JOIN Tom the Dancing Bug's subscription club, the Proud & Mighty INNER HIVE, for exclusive early access to comics, extra comics, and much more.GET Ruben Bolling’s new hit book series for kids, The EMU Club Adventures. (”Filled with wild twists and funny dialogue” -Publishers Weekly) Book One here. Book Two here.More Tom the Dancing Bug comics on Boing Boing! (more…)

Scroll and LOL.(more…)

If you or someone you know is missing 15 pounds of cannabis, the Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s department would like to reunite this lonely pot with its rightful stoner owner.(more…)