“Cat Vs. Boxes” is an adorable animated short directed by Simon Tofield, designed by Liza Nechaeva, and animated by Michael Cotton-Russell and Emma Wakely. For more animated cat videos check out the Simon’s Cat YouTube channel.

Recreate a childhood treat without all the preservatives.

The final season of Star Wars Rebels looks intense.We knew from the beginning of the series run that some of these characters would have to die before the timeline caught up with A New Hope. Rogue One made it clear how Star Wars deals with those situations.May the force be with them.

With recreational pot legal in eight states plus Washington, DC, it's a little surprising that no one has opened a weed-friendly campground until now.What used to be Lake Selmac resort in Selma, Oregon, is now Smoke on the Water campground, which offers boats, kayaks, paddle boards, fishing, a general store (which opens May 6), and, coming soon, a dispensary.The campground was bought by Wayne Zallen, the CEO of Grow Condos, which helps connect cannabis entrepreneurs (growers, bakers, etc) to real estate. He just opened the campground on the appropriate day of 4/20, but said the campground is still in its early stages and needs lots of upgrades.According to Oregon Cannabis Connection:

From the Statue of Liberty and Chipotle to big boobs, Trump and racism, South Koreans tell us what they think of America – and Americans – in this episode of "What Asians Think of America" series by Asian Boss.

Amazon has one-day sale on a bunch of board games, including one of my family's favorites, called Forbidden Island, where you and the other players work together to collect treasure from a rapidly sinking island. It's just $8.39. The pieces look really cool:My daughter and I reviewed the iOS version in Apps For Kids.

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Nature documentaries: the sound is fake, the scenes are concocted, some of the animals are computer animations, and the music is emotionally manipulative. But that's the only way we will sit through them, says Simon Cade, host and creator of this explainer video.

Andy from The Jerx (previously) continues to develop the theory of "audience-centered magic" with an excellent post on the deficiencies of snapping one's fingers to mark the moment at which some magic effect is meant to be happening. (more…)

Every time I go to a Muji store I load up on these fat little newsprint notepads:They cost just $1.25. I bought 10 when I was at JFK a couple of weeks ago. I've also bought a bunch of other Muji items, because they are high quality and reasonably priced. Now Muji has announced that it is going to sell a Muji Hut. It'll cost $28,000 (which includes costs of materials needed for construction, and operating costs of the construction contractor.) and will be sold in Japan only.

The Intercept publishes a previously-unseen set of Snowden docs detailing more than $500,000,000 worth of secret payments by the Japanese government to the NSA, in exchange for access to the NSA's specialized surveillance capabilities, in likely contravention of Japanese privacy law (the secrecy of the program means that the legality was never debated, so no one is sure whether it broke the law). (more…)

Attention mechanical keyboard aficionados! If 40% mechanical keyboards are just too bulky for you, try a 30% one such as the Gherkin, which includes the characters of the alphabet and four arrow keys, which are chorded in various ways to reach capital letters, numbers, function keys and so forth. If 30% mechanical keyboards are just too bulky for you, try a Gherkin with the switches as close together as they will go.

https://twitter.com/topherchris/status/854800629885259776Celebrate disgraced entertainer Bill O'Reilly's professional demise with this remix of Smash Mouth's "All Star" made entirely from a single sample of disgraced entertainer Bill O'Reilly saying his own name. Maybe one day he'll do it live!

If you hate videos depicting karmic road revenge where both parties are at fault, you may enjoy watching this one of a tailgater receiving instant justice. A cyclist realizes he's being menaced by a tailgater only when a Skokie PD cop car pulls in, then pulls them both over. He says "I want you to know that I care" to the cyclist, and busts the driver.

Today in Poe's law comes an advertisement for "Arlan Robotics Service Droid 1.0" (NSFW), which is basically a nightmarish silicone parody of a woman's head mounted on a machine that lurches back and forth like a Victorian automaton bobbing for apples. I thought it was a parody, but technical features are demonstrated ("stop with a single hand", "suction on demand") that indicate otherwise. (more…)

In An Internet Language Built Around Love For The Puppers, Jessica Boddy traces the emergence of dog-flavored memetalk on the Internet.

California criminal defense attorney Rick Horowitz had a juvenile client, he was shocked when the prosecutor in the case told him that to see the evidence against his client, he'd have to log in to evidence.com, run by Taser International (now rebranded as Axon). (more…)

Steven Boyett writes, "Humble Bundle has released a unicorn-themed Bundle, with proceeds to benefit the World Wide Fund for Nature and Fauna & Flora International. For as little as $1.00, you can get Ariel, by Steven R. Boyett (full disclosure: that's me); Unicorn Mountain, by Michael Bishop; Homeward Bound, by Bruce Coville; and Unicorn Triangle, by Patricia McKillip." (more…)

I've always wanted a few tribbles around the house.First introduced in David Gerrold's episode The Trouble with Tribbles, the Tribble a super cuddly invasive species! Spock said they have no purpose but to eat and to reproduce, but that's because a Vulcan doesn't love snuggles!I have one of my own, so this guy'll go on the shelf next to my phaser.Quantum Mechanix Star Trek Tribble Platinum Plush via Amazon

I got this set of 7 fountain pens last year for my daughter, who is studying art in college. She's been incorporating them into her work. The pens have a stainless steel nib and come in seven different ink colors. I just ordered set for myself.

Robots (or spiders, or crawlers) are little computer programs that search engines use to scan and index websites. Robots.txt is a little file placed on webservers to tell search engines what they should and shouldn't index. The Internet Archive isn't a search engine, but has historically obeyed exclusion requests from robots.txt files. But it's changing its mind, because robots.txt is almost always crafted with search engines in mind and rarely reflects the intentions of domain owners when it comes to archiving.

John Deere has turned itself into the poster-child for the DMCA, fighting farmers who say they want to fix their own tractors and access their data by saying that doing so violates the 1998 law's prohibition on bypassing copyright locks. (more…)

All over the world, people who believe in science, facts, and reality are marching for action on climate change, against a backdrop of overt (Trump) and insidious (Trudeau) climate-change denial, which puts the future of our species and its habitat in grave peril. (more…)

They probably just sleep a lot. But still, you can remotely keep an eye on them when you're at work and missing them deeply with this HD monitor from Kodak.If you have a new puppy that destroys everything in sight, or you just want to be a little more security-conscious, this WiFi camera is a great way to stay connected. It streams live HD video to your smartphone, and stores up to a day of footage in the cloud for free.The camera’s smart software learns from false alarms, and it even compiles a pet highlight reel from the daily footage so you can gush over how much cuter your pets are than everyone else's pets. And in the case of emergencies (or bad pup behavior), the monitor provides two-way audio communication so you can get everything sorted out from wherever you are.Additionally, this security camera extends the range of your home wireless network with a built-in WiFi repeater. You can grab this Kodak HD WiFi Pet Monitor in the Boing Boing Store for $72.99.Explore more best-sellers in the Boing Boing Store:

Former U.S. President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama have been enjoying an extended post-presidency vacation around the world, but that's about to end. Barack Obama is slated to break his silence in Chicago on Monday, April 24. If you're hoping he will rip into Donald Trump, we've got sad news for you.(more…)

Former reality television star Donald J. Trump promised late on Friday to reveal plans for a “massive” tax cut for Americans next week. “Tax reform is way too complicated,” he added. Seriously.(more…)

Jason Kottke asked his readers to tell him "what were the best web sites that they knew about that most people have never heard of." I've been going through his curated list of the top 56. My favorite so far is Pink Trombone, a human voice synthesizer. While playing it, I felt my own throat moving to match the cartoon throat. Freaky!

Redditor Old_Gumbo_McGee captured a photo of this triumphant ghost escaping its lightbulb prison. And just yesterday, Linklightt posted the shot below of another specter emerging from a hot cup of Joe. Who you gonna call?

A 90-year-old woman in Mobile, AL wasn't going to let a poisonous snakebite ruin her day. On her way to her weekly Crafty Critters club at church, Nell Toenes thought she saw a pretty leaf and picked it up. It turned out to be a snake that bit her in the hand.Rather than scream and call 9-1-1 like the rest of us might do, the feisty senior stomped on the snake, put it into a jar, and took it with her to church.By the time she met with her craft group, her hand was turning blue. She casually mentioned her encounter with the snake. When they asked her what kind of snake it was, she told them she had no idea and went to retrieve the creature from her car.According to WPMI NBC's Local15TV:

An Instagrammer named Motion Magic uses an app called Plotagraph Pro to create this captivating endless GIFs.From Core77:

I found this on reddit. There's no link to the source. The OP said it was part of a campaign "to promote pet adoption."

Grammy-winning R&B singer/songwriter Anthony Hamilton and his background singers The Hamiltones perform the most beautiful billy goat serenade I’ve ever heard.

As AI improves, the mystery of consciousness interests more programmers and physicists. (more…)

As makeup wearers know, achieving a perfect (and even) winged eyeliner is a monumental feat. So beauty guru and YouTuber Safiya Nygaard tests out three products that claim to make the winged eye-liner application process easier: The Vamp Stamp, The Liner Designer, and Eye Candy Stencils.

If you’re looking for cool, female-centric art to support, look no further than Dead Girl, “a short film about an actress playing dead to keep her career alive.” Created by filmmaker Rachel Sweeney, the project is currently raising money on Kickstarter. As the fundraising page explains:

There is something irresistibly gross about Lucky Peach food photography. The bizarre lightening and color correction, the styling that fluctuates between offbeat and grotesque. It’s so weird, it’s amazing. Aside from it’s unique visual appeal, Lucky Peach is consistently packed with culinary expertise and damn good journalism. Though the magazine will soon be gone, the brand’s fourth (and presumably final) book, All About Eggs, embodies everything that was great about the publication compiled in a kelly green hard cover. All About Eggs really is all about eggs. It examines the egg from every angle. There are essays on the evolution of the egg tart in Asia, an egg-fueled murder in a San Francisco diner, and the egg throughout time. There are guides on deciphering egg carton labels, egg varieties, and egg substitutes. The bright yellow yolk at the center of the book houses strangely photographed finished recipes ranging from deep fried Filipino Kwek Kwek to classic, crisp French Meringues. The egg white pages on either side of the recipe section are generously peppered with egg photo illustration—egg art objects, repurposed egg shells and cartons, egg ephemera, and many, many altered photos of eggs (anthropomorphized, animalized, and otherwise reimagined). If you are at all interested in eggs, you need this book! All About Eggs: Everything We Know About the World's Most Important Food

Carla and I took a one-week trip to Tokyo. It was my sixth visit to Japan's capital, and it was my favorite so far. For the next few days, I'll be writing about recommended things to do there. See them all here.We got back to Shibuya after our day on Mt. Takao at about 5 pm. That gave us enough time to get cleaned up and have dinner in Shinkjuku's "yakitori alley" before heading to Kabukicho for the Robot Restaurant show.The official name for the yakitori alley is Omoide Yokocho (memory alley). It's also known as Piss Alley, but I didn't smell any piss. The grid of narrow pedestrian alleys, crammed with tiny bars restaurants, was as clean as Disneyland's Main Street USA. We got there around 6:30pm and it was already crowded with people ready for beer and grilled meat.We found a place with a couple of available seats around the counter. It was called Ucchan. We sat down and were greeted by a busy staff. We asked for sake and they served it in glasses of crushed ice. This was the first time I had it served that way, and it was wonderful. I noticed that the beer people were drinking had ice in it, too. One of the staff spoke a bit of English and I asked for a combination of grilled meats. He said it was pork only, and I said that was fine. Carla is not a huge fan of pork. She saw menu with a picture of sashimi. "Sashimi kudasai," she said. A few minutes later I got a plate with six skewers of pork, described on the menu as "gibblets, innards, and organ meats." I'd never eaten pig offal before and didn't know what to expect. But everything was mouth watering, spiced and grilled to perfection.Carla's sashimi wasn't fish. We do know that it was raw, not a muscle meat, and from a mammal of some kind. She ate a few slices, and I polished off the rest, washing it down with my sake. It was not bad, but I don't think I'd order it again.Here are a few photos and a video of the highly recommended Ucchan:https://youtu.be/79AKosCaSW8Our bill came to about $20:We then took a five minute walk to Shinkjuku's "red-light district," a neon lit area called Kabukicho. It's loaded with bars and hostess / host clubs. We had reservations for a show there called Robot Restaurant. We were led into the pre-show area, a large, outrageously appointed room that looked like something Liberace would hallucinate on a scopolamine overdose. Carla was still hungry so we looked at the menu. The offerings were straight out of a 1985 Barstow gas station: chicken nuggets, caramel popcorn, onion rings, french fries. They did have edamame, and Carla ordered that. This place gets our vote for the worst food we had. (Everything else we ate in Tokyo was fantastic, with the exception of the Robot Restaurant and a restaurant at the National Museum in Ueno, which I'll get to in a forthcoming post.)The pre-show featured a young woman singing ballads, backed up by musicians in vaguely robotic costumes. It lasted much longer than I expected. By the time we were herded downstairs for the main event, we were exhausted. It probably wasn't a great idea to mix an early morning hike in the mountains with a loud, flashing-lights evening in Kabukicho.The show room was long, dark, narrow, and warm. There was bleacher-like seating on either side. Luckily they were selling drinks, so I bought a couple of bottles of water for Carla and me. After about fifteen minutes the show started. Big wheeled vehicles with people in costumes rolled across the floor. They were shouting and hitting drums. Other people were dancing on the floor. Bright lights pulsed in time to the loud music. The performance lasted about five minutes. When they cleared the stage, we read a story that scrolled on large computer monitors. It was a detailed description about a war between bad people with bad robots and good people with good robots.The next number was similar to the first, but it involved dinosaur robots spitting sparks at each other. When it was over, a man walked up to me and said, "Mark?" I started, not expecting anyone in Japan to know my name. Before I had a change to register who he was, he said, "It's Ruben Bolling! I thought I recognized you!" Ruben, as you know, is the creator of Tom the Dancing Bug, which we feature every week on Boing Boing. Ruben was my frequent host on the Gweek podcast and I had lunch with him in Los Angeles. He was here with his family and it was his first time in Japan. I got to meet his wife and kids, and I introduced them to Carla. We had a few minutes to talk about the things we'd done in Japan and what we were going to do in the days to come, and then we were instructed to return to our seats for the next performance.We watched it, and left during the break, saying good bye to Ruben and his family. I wouldn't say we hated the show, but we didn't especially enjoy it. The performers were talented, and the staff was friendly, so I'm not going to be overly negative about the place. Also, people told me that the show used to be sleazier and more salacious, so I probably would have liked it more back then.(Chris Arkenberg wrote about his visit to Robot Restaurant in 2104 for Boing Boing, and had a better time.)When we got back to the sanctity our our Airbnb, I had an email waiting from Ruben: "In case you were wondering how the robot show ended, I think the evil robots were defeated, but I'm not sure."https://youtu.be/8TmHMl3R8fsIn my next installment, I'll write about our visit to the famous Tsukiji fish market and our sushi making class.

This is NASA's new "space fabric" in development at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.(more…)

Tourists are flocking to Ferryland, Newfoundland, reports Aric Jenkins, and it's all because of a huge chunk of ice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNjxe8ShM-8Microsoft PowerPoint is used to make presentations, to connect one to stock image libraries, and stun audience members with animations, writes Tom Wildenhain. But did you know it can do other things? In fact, it can do anything any other universal computer can, because it is Turing complete: "Only trained PowerPoint professionals should attempt to reproduce this research."https://twitter.com/kjhealy/status/855117401159073793

Most of us need a computer interface implanted in our brains like we need a hole in our head. That said, there are benefits to bridging the gap between mind and machine. Joel Murphy is the founder of OpenBCI, an inexpensive, and non-invasive, brain-computer interface (BCI) platform. People have used OpenBCI to control robots, compose music by thinking about it, develop games, and help individuals who are "locked in" and can't control their bodies communicate with the outside world. Mark Frauenfelder and I interviewed Joel about open source, DIY neurotech in this episode of For Future Reference, a new podcast from Institute for the Future:Please subscribe to For Future Reference: iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud

I like Prince Ea's videos because he talks about important issues in the world: the health of our planet, racism, and being kind to each other. He made a video about a DNA test he took to learn about his heritage and I interviewed him about it.What events in your early years shaped who you are today?Good question, two events. Number one, I had the opportunity to get a decent education. Secondly I received the love of both of my parents. These very important factors that made me the person that I am today.How did you come up with the concept for this video?Well I had the opportunity to work with an amazing creative agency Berlin Cameron and director JJ Augustavo from Skunk, who really put the awesome video together. When I wrote the piece, I just wanted it to come from my heart. Through the MyHeritageDNA test, discovering that I had a connection to a number of ethnicities not only amazed me but visualized what I had been thinking for a long time. Namely, that we can't be restricted to one box. It was this realization and my BA in Anthropology that really helped me come up with the words for the piece.How did you feel after discovering your diverse heritage?That is pretty cool. Despite what society told me, I'm not just "one thing." I, along with every other human, am a mix of many beautiful ethnicities.What can young people do to improve the world?To improve the world they can improve themselves. Good action will arise spontaneously from being a good person. Cultivate the qualities of compassion, patience, love and watch the world change.How do you feel these labels of heritage affect young people today?These labels of heritage may give the young people a sense of pride. This is dangerous because if you pledge allegiance to a particular label, then some people become "other." This inevitably turns into "us" vs "them." When you analyze your own genes, you will find that these labels are not so "solid," after all. There is no "us" vs "them," only "we". I think everyone should take a MyHeritage DNA test, find out the answers and discover more about themselves. Once we have informed ourselves can we then have a better conversation about the labels applied to us.What makes you hopeful for humanity in the future?For every act of unkindness, there are a thousand kind acts. The media shows the world in a particular way but I believe that love and compassion are the higher nature of the human being. As we continue to evolve, we will become a more peaceful, mindful and loving species.

While US attorney general Jeff "Джеффри" Sessions is busy spreading phony anecdotes about the deadly effects of marijuana and pining for the days of the Reagan drug war, 61% of Americans think is should be legal for recreational purposes, according to a CBS poll released today. Eighty-eight percent think it should be legal for medical use.Snip:

When will I learn? After not having the butterfly larvae on hand last time, my daughter thinks I should have pre-ordered the lady bugs. (more…)

"Quid pro quo – I tell you things, you tell me things."Edited by Jon Tomlinson; Narration: Andy Geller; Executive Producer: Dustin McLean (CineFix)

According to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Chigago, Bose uses software to track the music and other audio listened to on its wireless headphones, violating the privacy of its users and selling the information.

This week a professional tennis match in Sarasota, Florida was interrupted by some rather loud sex. Announcer Mike Cation first thought the sounds were recordings coming from the stands but the source was eventually determined to be a nearby apartment. 69-LOVE! From NBC4i:

I know people who live in shipping containers, and a (great) record store in a shipping container, and now I see you can swim in a shipping container. Modpools modify shipping containers into modular and relocatable heated swimming pools. There are also models with dividers so you can turn one half into a hot tub. An 8 x 20' model is $26,000 which is in the same range as a basic in-ground pool. (via Digital Trends)

To celebrate the abusive lying bastard's sacking by Fox News, let's once again enjoy this classic dance remix of his legendary meltdown from the "brown acrylic wig" era of his career.The original:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXZj4Wy58Pk

Kory Stamper, author of the new book Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries describes three criteria Merriam-Webster uses for inclusion of words like truther, binge-watch, photobomb and the 1,000 other words that make the cut in a typical year. (more…)