Republican Congressman Tim Walberg, hailing from the great state of Michigan, knows that climate change is real! Walberg does not think humans need worry though, GOD will take care of it.Really.Via TPM:

I've become a fan of these 'Zen' brand pipe cleaners.Pipe cleaners have become something just handy to keep around the house. Sure, I use them for cleaning pipes -- but carburetors, fermentation airlocks, and children's art projects all benefit by having them around.These have harder bristles and do not shed as much as the softer variants I had been using. The lower shed factor has made them useful for cleaning vaporizers as well as glassware. I just dip them in Formula 420 and scrub away.Clean pipes taste better and, while I am sure it is imaginary, I think I get more stoned.Zen Bundles Zen Pipe Cleaners Hard Bristle, 132 Count. via Amazon

A University of Lincoln researcher on holiday in Morocco noticed that wildlife tourists were mistaking macaques' aggressive facial expressions for kissy faces and responding "by imitating the monkey's facial expression, which generally ended by either aggression by the monkey towards the tourists or the monkey leaving the interaction" -- which leads to monkey bites. (more…)

Inspired by their self-parking cars, Nissan made a self-parking office chair too. No doubt Mary Poppins would be thrilled. Here’s a look at how the chairs were made (turn the captions on for an English translation):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkeoLtLFdO4[via Tastefully Offensive]

Eclectic Method teamed up with ill.Gates to create a catchy remix saluting the 1995 anime classic, Ghost In The Shell.

In honor of its 25th anniversary, Nerdist has a lovely oral history of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “The Inner Light,” the episode where Captain Picard lives an entire life in the span of a few moments. The oral history comes from the episode’s writer, Morgan Gendel, who explains:

"No dogs or hoses were harmed in this video, although they did get water up their noses."

This fundraising text from President Donald Trump to his mob isn't scary or weird at all, nope.(more…)

The clouded leopard isn’t just uber-adorable, its genetic blue print is shared by all modern-day cats.

These animated charts from Bloomberg looking at the possible causes of climate change show that the only thing that has really taken off in the last century is greenhouse gasses. Natural factors - orbital changes, sun temperature variation, volcanoes - have hardly changed. Other human factors - land use, ozone pollution, and aerosol pollution - have actually decreased.

Thirty-one songs from the 6-disc deluxe reissue of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club just came out on iTunes today. I have Apple Music so I started listening to the tracks this morning. I love the "Take 1" tracks of "Getting Better," "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," "She's Leaving Home," and other songs which include the recorded comments and instructions from The Beatles and engineer George Martin in the studio. Especially good: "Within Without You," Take 1, which has no vocals.

This week on Cool Tools' Maker Update by Donald Bell: Bluetooth controlled lights for your skateboard, tracking your hamster health, a classy Kaleidoscope, a tool for finding the center of a circle, beautiful circuit diagrams and Maker Faires. Our featured Cool Tool is the Robert Larson 800-2875 Plastic Center Finder.

One of the most hotly-contested fields of genetics revolves around the genetic lineage of ancient Egyptians. A new study of 90 Pre-Ptolemaic, Ptolemaic, and Roman mummies raises as many questions as it answers. (more…)

"In space, no one can hear you purr."

(KVN via DIGG)

My latest Guardian column is Technology is making the world more unequal. Only technology can fix this; in it, I argue that surveillance and control technology allow ruling elites to hold onto power despite the destabilizing effects of their bad decisions -- but that technology also allows people to form dissident groups and protect them from intrusive states. (more…)

Eminent computer scientist Ed Felten has posted a short, extremely useful taxonomy of four ways that an algorithm can fail to be accountable to the people whose lives it affects: it can be protected by claims of confidentiality ("how it works is a trade secret"); by complexity ("you wouldn't understand how it works"); unreasonableness ("we consider factors supported by data, even when you there's no obvious correlation"); and injustice ("it seems impossible to explain how the algorithm is consistent with law or ethics"). (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aNmbWS--ioA group of scholars and practicioners from the US, Germany and the UK conducted a qualitative study on the "obstacles to adoption of secure communications tools," which was presented to the 38th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. (more…)

"Role-players, boardgamers, writers, coders, artists, graphic designers, teachers, house-cleaners, lucid dreamers, gym-rats, distance runners, commuters" can enjoy over 100 ambient atmospheric loops with names like "Orbital Promenade," "Lunar Outpost," "Testing Chamber" and so on. (more…)

When MEP Julia Reda conducted a wide-ranging and open consultation on updating EU copyright, she came up with some great, sensible reforms: making it legal to take pictures of buildings, making it legal to link to newspapers, creating a Europe-wide set of fair dealing exceptions to copyright, capping copyright terms at life-plus-50 years, and making sure that the rights you get to analog media (like the right to give your books and music to your kids when you die) carries over to digital media. (more…)

Voice of Baceprot is a hard-driving heavy metal band made up of three hijab-wearing Muslim teenaged women who met at school in West Java, Indonesia, and whose rocking out is designed to "combat the stereotype of Muslim women as submissive or voiceless." (more…)

Puddles never fails to amaze. Every performance is more wonderful than the last!

It's early days in the Trump trainwreck, but Rebecca Solnit's astonishing, beautiful, visceral essay "The Loneliness of Donald Trump" may well end up being the defining moment of the Trump presidency, in which Solnit uses the incisive wit that gave us the term "mansplaining" to explain Trump. (more…)

Looking to score some rock? Be sure to ask for "Trump" (also acceptable: "Agent Orange," "Cheeto-in-Chief," "Mango Mussolini," or "Putin's Puppet").(more…)

Valar Morghulis. (And spoilers, obviously.)(more…)

"Isn’t a cocktail as much an experience for the eyes as well as the tongue?" asks Mr. Homegrown of Root Simple. "Thankfully it’s easy to make clear ice free of cloudy impurities. His technique is to fill a small cooler with water and putting it in the freezer. "The insulation in the cooler will cause the water to freeze from the top down. The minerals and impurities in the water that cause cloudy ice will settle to the bottom of the cooler. Later, you will harvest the pristine, clear ice off the top."

https://youtu.be/xQx6gL92wGsEw. While a reporter interviews tennis player Hamou on live TV, he keeps pulling her in with a one-arm embrace and kissing her. He even wraps his arm around her neck at one point. She tries to pull away as she continues to interview him. What she needs to do is clobber him over the head with her mic.

I've been following BurritoGate, the story of two white women in Portland who went to Mexico (barely, they went to Puerto Nuevo,) and liked the burritos. The pair decided to learn to make flour tortillas, ran into some language barriers, and then came back to Portland to serve breakfast burritos one day a week from a taco cart. Social Justice could not stand the 'cultural appropriation.'Thank our lucky stars for the Orange County Register's columnist Gustavo Arellano, who in addition to writing their column "¡Ask a Mexican!" also wrote a book on the history of Mexican food in America! Arellano, very entertainingly, explains the long-standing tradition of EVERYONE 'appropriating' food preparation styles from other cultures. Arellano shares his pride in Mexican cooks awesome ability to steal other cultures food and make it their own, just like everyone else.Via the OC Register:

Watch the men of Dude Perfect squeeze as many trick shots as possible into this five-minute video.

Directed by Rupert Burton, Jon Noorlander and Johnny Likens, this is one of those rare moments where a technical accomplishment—produced to satisfy the ego of brands sponsoring an urban planning conference!—attains spiritual energy.

From Tallahassee, Florida's Lofty Pursuits who offer these "handmade artisinal candies" at $6 for a 2.75oz bag:

100 Movies 100 Numbers 100 Seconds.

I'm a huge fan of the fantastically rude improv/current affairs/high fantasy podcast Hello From the Magic Tavern, I've enjoyed it ever since I binge-listened to the first season halfway through. (more…)

Olivia P. Judson's paper in Nature, The energy expansions of evolution, presents a novel, beautifully written and presented frame for looking at the history of life on Earth: as a series of five epochs in which energy became more abundant and available to lifeforms, allowing them to scale up in complexity and fecundity: geochemical energy, sunlight, oxygen, flesh and fire. (more…)

There was a time when airline execs were paid based on a mix of on-time arrivals, accurate and timely baggage delivery, and profits. Now it's just profits. (more…)

SciShow’s Hank Green breaks down the details of this month’s WannaCry ransomware attack.

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…)

It started when an anonymous Imgur user found an "old Integra cylinder head laying around the shop, collecting dust," which they "dis-assembled and decided to put it to use again." (more…)

If you are camping during rainy season, or just want a TSA-approved lighter, these plasma torches make perfect travel companions. These gas-free lighters create a small plasma beam that’s safer than butane to use and more environmentally friendly. It creates a super-hot, splashproof flame so you can get a campfire going, or have a smoke in the rain. Their lithium-ion batteries get 3 hours of life on a single charge, and power up easily via micro USB cable.A 2-pack of these plasma torch lighters usually costs $200, but you can get them here for just $29.99.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iryExfFgrqIComposited by Sean Doran from images taken by NASA's Juno probe.Previously: Jupiter's south pole.

Medical devices have long been the locus of information security's scariest failures: from the testing and life-support equipment in hospitals to the implants that go in your body: these systems are often designed to harvest titanic amounts of data about you, data you're not allowed to see that's processed by code you're not allowed to audit, with potential felony prosecutions for security researchers who report defects in these systems (only partially mitigated by a limited exemption that expires next year). What's more, it can get much worse. (more…)

After a few words were exchanged on an American Airline flight between Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke and passenger Dan Black, Clarke was displeased. So he sent texts to his officers to harass Black when he got off the plane.According to The Hill:

Linguist Arika Okrent, author of On the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language, explores the etymology of the word "Gross." Art by Sean O'Neill.

Boing Boing welcomes our new sponsor Hydrosys!Having great success keeping that fern in the corner of your apartment alive? Thinking you might want to step up your gardening game, but have no outdoor space? Afraid your neighbors might object to what you are growing in those buckets on your deck? Relax. Things just got a whole lot easier...Growing things at home is fun, safe, and doesn't have to be complicated! Hydrosys hydro- and aeroponic kits can help you become a master indoor farmer with ease! Ten or fifteen years ago it was enough to brew your own beer, now if you want to be cool you probably need to cultivate your own hops. Hydrosys stocks and sells, everything you might need to start growing anything you could possibly imagine, like really almost anything... maybe tomatoes? Or some basil? Perhaps you may even grow some mandrake root! Small home kits can throw off a bounty of salad fixings, flowers or other things that might entertain your guests. I am considering growing a crop of wheat and baking my own bread. Seriously, Hydrosys has an incredible selection of gear for whatever your needs may be. If you are planning a small tabletop hydroponic selection of spices, or want to start your own cartel in your garage, Hydosys has you covered. They sell everything, even media and nutrients, irrigation systems, and seedling nurseries, Hydrosys is your online any-kind-of-plant you wanna grow hydro- and aeroponic superstore. Based in merry old London Town, in the UK, Hydrosys ships from a warehouse in beautiful Spain. They regularly deliver to the United States of America, Canada and Australia. Their eager staff will have your home grow kit in your hot little hands within 10-21 days of ordering! You can also return anything you are dissatisfied with, within 14 days.

This gentleman was so busy taking umbrage at a motorist's driving style that he failed to pay attention to the approaching pole.

Photographer Alessandro Puccinelli is mesmerized by powerful waves. His photo series Intersections captures the fleeting moment when the ocean and the clouds appear to become one. (more…)

Varanasi is one of the great spiritual centers of the world, along with Jerusalem, Mecca, Vatican City. This personal project by filmmaker Aeyaz is a contemplative look at the city and at what comes beyond life. (more…)

I could not have asked for a nicer crowd than the ones who turned up for last night's event at Liverpool One's Waterstones; now I'm looking forward to today's lunchtime signing at Birmingham Waterstones, on my way to tomorrow's Hay Festival event with Adam Rutherford. (more…)

Remember the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, the one that says that presidents aren't supposed to get gifts or payments from foreign governments without Congressional approval? (more…)

The campaign to raise $500K for the UN High Commission on Refugees started with author/comedian Sara Benincasa daring Neil Gaiman to do a dramatic reading of the Cheesecake Factory menu; Gaiman responded that if she raised the half-mil, he'd not only read the Cheesecake Factory's (notoriously florid) menu, he'd follow up with a reading of Dr Seuss's Fox in Socks if the funds hit $1m (I hasten to point out that this activity involves some risk to Gaiman, given the Seuss estate's penchant for bullying acts of copyfraud). (more…)