YouTubers Hannah Hart, Grace Helbig, and Mamrie Hart try out some of the strangest Icelandic candies out there.

The YouTube channel WatchCut Video challenged bartenders to figure out which of these young-looking people are actually under the legal drinking age.

The partition of India and Pakistan divided the region of Kashmir, cuing up decades of protest, military action, and fighting which has claimed 70,000 lives, including protesters killed by the Indian Army. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjLFTlt9Xkc&feature=youtu.bePie-hacking baker Jessica Leigh Clark-Bojin (AKA @thePieous) writes, "I've been experimenting with pushing the boundaries of pie design for just over a year now, but my big white whale - how to make pies 'tall' - had always eluded me... until today. Meet my new invention: Piescrapers! What is a Piescraper? Essentially a pie that is built 'up' using a series of engineering and baking tricks to enhance structural integrity and make tall pies stable, and delicious!" (more…)

The latest installment in the ever-excellent SF-in-SF series returns to San Francisco's American Bookbinders Museum (366 Clementin) this Saturday, with Pat Murphy, Jewelle Gomez & Madeleine Robins; doors open at 5:30 and admission is $10 (no one turned away for lack of funds).

The wording of the memo, dated 15 Sept 1965, suggests that this wasn't the first time it had happened and not even the first time the CIA had to fire agents for food-fighting. (more…)

At Keswick, UK's Lake District Wildlife Park, someone caught footage of what happened when a rat snuck into the gibbon enclosure. I bet the rat won't be back anytime soon.(via DIGG)

The great illustrator Drew Friedman will be exhibiting the portraits he painted for Heroes of the Comics and More Heroes of the Comics at the Museum of Illustration in NYC May 2 to June 3, 2017. (Read my reviews here and here).

University of Michigan mechanical engineering students have built "the world's largest hand-solvable, stationary" Rubik's Cube. Fashioned primarily from aluminum, it weighs 1,500 pounds but can be manipulated by one person. The puzzle is available for solving in the campus's mechanical engineering building. From Michigan Engineering:

https://youtu.be/lZG6UTnkU4gOur friends at Loog, makers of beautiful 3-string guitars, are Kickstarting two new models: the Loog Pro & Loog Mini. The Pro is electric and the Mini is just $79.

Reese Witherspoon doesn't like making love on camera, Julia Roberts is dreaming of an affair in Africa, Barbara Bush only has eight toes, and George Clooney is spending $1.3 million for the delivery of his coming twins.Yes, it's getting harder to sort fact from fiction in this week's tabloids, where reality is an inconvenient truth easily avoided.Barry Manilow is caught in a "gay bigamy scandal!" screams the 'National Enquirer,' which claims that the singer's partner Garry Keif had a secret wife. But that wife died in 2005, 11 years before Keif tied the knot with Manilow. So there was no bigamy. Just a widower getting married, with no scandal.Ellen DeGeneres and partner Portia de Rossi allegedly had a "screeching public fight" that was "caught on camera," the 'Enquirer' claims. But its photo just shows the two women sitting in a car, looking perfectly calm and unflustered. What more proof could you want?Russian Embassy staff "play with sex toys!" claims another 'Enquirer' headline, after intrepid reporters dug through a trash can outside the Russian consulate in New York. But as a host of discarded passport applications found in the trash show, the garbage was discarded by visitors to the consulate and anyone walking along the street, so the Kegel balls the reporters claim to have found, "meant to strengthen a woman's vaginal walls and heighten sexual experiences," could have been dumped there by anyone.The 'Globe' proclaims it has uncovered a "Chuck Berry Autopsy Bombshell" and "cover-up" revealing that the singer "died of AIDS." But Chuck Berry was buried without an autopsy, you say. Yes, and that's the cover-up. "Berry's burial without an autopsy has triggered the scandalous suspicion the sex-crazed Maybellene singer died of AIDS," the 'Globe' explains.Scandalous indeed - but whose "suspicion" is this? "He lived a reckless life sexually," says an unnamed source. "There's a strong belief that's what killed him." Presumably because at 90 years of age he was in the prime of life, taken before his time. What else could possibly have killed him? If it wasn't Vladimir Putin's assassins, it must have been AIDS.Alleged "serial rapist" Bill Cosby has undergone a surgical face lift and skin-lightening treatments "to help charm his sex attack jury," reports the 'Globe,' based on the guidance of a cosmetic surgeon "who hasn't treated the accused predator." Or maybe it's just a photo of Cosby taken in strong sunlight that appears to make his skin tones look lighter?Singer Wynonna Judd "has been hiding a major drug secret - her wild-child daughter has been busted for meth!" claims the 'Enquirer.' Can Judd really be blamed for "hiding" such news? What was she supposed to do? Take out full-page adverts in the tabloids proclaiming her pride at her daughter's arrest?Comedian Don Rickles, who died earlier this month, "took to the grave" several "shocking secrets" including his disappointment not to become host of 'The Tonight Show,' reports the 'National Examiner.' Perhaps they should have read this week's 'Globe,' which claims: "Don Rickles Told All Before He Died!" and proceeds to explain his disappointment at being snubbed by 'The Tonight Show.' It seems that everyone knew Rickles' "secrets" long ago.The tabloids continue their mastery of international geopolitics this week, with the 'Enquirer' cover headline screaming: "What Trump Doesn't Know!" You expect that the 60 pages of this week's edition wouldn't be nearly enough to cover what Trump doesn't know, but the "Enquirer Special Investigation" turns out to be what Trump could have read in any paper or found online for several weeks: a trail of mysteriously dead Russians who may in some way be linked to possible interference with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Admittedly, it seems safe to assume that Trump doesn't know this because by his own admission he barely reads newspapers and gets much of his "news" from 'Fox & Friends.' "Putin Assassins Kill 10 in Election Hacking Cover-Up1" reads the headline, inspired by "FBI special agent Chris Watts' testimony on March 30 to the Senate Intelligence Committee" in which he advised: "Follow the trail of dead Russians." Except his name isn't Chris Watts - it's Clinton Watts. And he's a former FBI special agent, who is now a national security expert with the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University and an advisor at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. If the 'Enquirer' can get those two very public details wrong, how can we trust them when they tell us that "sex and orgies" have aged golfing ace Tiger Woods, singer Carnie Wilson's "23-pound breast implants" have "exploded," or that Pamela Anderson is "quitting Hollywood to live as prisoner with Wikileaks fugitive" Julian Assange?The 'Globe' cover declares President Obama and Hillary Clinton "Guilty of War Crimes!" though the actual story is a slipperly slope of backsliding from reality. The duo aren't in fact "guilty" of "crimes against humanity" because they are simply under investigation "at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands," the 'Globe' concedes. Except neither Obama or Hillary are actually under investigation there. The duo's alleged crime? Funnellng sarin gas to Syria's Bashar al-Assad. Except that as the 'Globe' story progresses, it makes clear that Obama and Hillary never supplied weapons to al-Assad, but allegedly routed weapons from former Libyan dictator General Gaddafi to "Syrian rebels fighting Assad." In other words, Obama and Clinton sent nothing to al-Assad. But the 'Globe' claims that "some of Gaddafi's weapons fell into Assad's hands - and were used in the murderous April 4 sarin attacks." Even if this were true - and we know from bitter past experience how weaponry supplied by the U.S. to Afghanistan rebels fighting the Russian occupation ended up in the hands of the Taliban - it would not incriminate Obama or Clinton in war crimes. It's reassuring to know that 'Globe' readers are discerning enough to understand the truth behind such misleading stories.News you can use comes to us courtsey of the 'Globe,' which claims that "Barbara Bush only has 8 toes!" This bombshell revelation comes from the former First Lady's own granddaughter, Jenna Bush, who publicly stated: "My grandma is missing a toe on each foot." This is the sort of story that screams out for a proper tabloid investigation. Was she born with only eight toes, or did she have ten and has lost two along the way? Were they surgically removed for cosmetic purposes to help her lose weight and squeeze into impossibly small Louboutins? Were they cut off by kidnappers when she was secretly snatched by the Democratic National Committee, whish sent the severed toes to President George H.W. Bush as proof that she was still alive? Or were they stolen by President Obama and Hillary Clinton as part of a toes-for-ransom pay-to-play deal with Vladimir Putin? Enquiring minds want to know.Fortunately we have the intrepid investigative team at 'Us' magazine to tell us that Vanessa Hudgens wore it best, Katherine Heigl's favorite animal on her Utah ranch is Hamlet the pig, actress Candice Patton carries lipstick, keys and passport in her simple canvas backpack, and that the stars are just like us: they shop, take out the trash, and pose for selfies. Oh, those down-to-earth stars!'Us' devotes its cover to its favorite Princess Grace wannabe Royal, actress Meghan Markle, revealing "all the secrets of Markle's road to royalty" and "The Making of a Princess." The secrets? Listen to Prince Harry's advisers telling her not to comment to the media and to stop blogging, which royals require her to curtsey on meeting, and how to address the Queen: "Your majesty" on introduction, and "Ma'am" thereafter. Nothing she couldn't have picked up on the interwebs in under two minutes. Because that's all it takes to make a Princess.'People' magazine brings us its annual "Most Beautiful Woman' issue, proclaiming actress Julia Roberts its 2017 winner, with a cover photo that absolutely hasn't been retouched in the slightest, no wrinkles removed, no forehead creases softened, no blemishes and aging altered - au natural. As if.Leave it to the 'Examiner' to tell us that Australian scientists are building "a real Death Star ray," and that flying prehistoric predators "have survived the end of the dinosaur age - and are still out there!" Giant pterosaurs have reportedly been spotted across the globe, states the magazine, beneath the understated headline: "Golden Dragons Rule the Night Sky." These giant winged creatures have popped up in Oregon, Idaho, and as far afield as Papua New Guinea. Why haven't they been discovered sooner? "Because they are mainly noctural and rare," the 'Examiner' explains. Like Barbara Bush's missing toes, perhaps?Onwards and downwards . . .

A Russian thinktank controlled by Vladimir Putin's government crafted a written plan “to swing the 2016 U.S. presidential election to Donald Trump and undermine voters’ faith in the American electoral system,” reports Reuters, citing three current and four former U.S. officials.Snip:

I read pretty much every Disneyland history and fact book I find. Chris Strodder's The Disneyland Encyclopedia: The Unofficial, Unauthorized, and Unprecedented History of Every Land, Attraction, Restaurant, Shop, and Major Event in the Original Magic Kingdom lives up to its massive title.A simple alphabetical listing of just about every First through Fifth order-of-interest item in the park. Everything from the amazing history of the Golden Horseshoe Review to fun facts about a tobacco shop that disappeared 27 years ago lies between the covers of this book. These are truly encyclopedia style entries and are chock full of facts with less emphasis on story telling. I think it'd be a great book to have at the park.I did a cover-to-cover read through of this at home. I'd prefer to have it electronically on my phone via Kindle to look at while in the park. Go e-version if you can.The Disneyland Encyclopedia: The Unofficial, Unauthorized, and Unprecedented History of Every Land, Attraction, Restaurant, Shop, and Major Event in the Original Magic Kingdom via Amazon

Clocking in around 200 pieces bigger than the retired 2008 LEGO Death Star, this 2016 model looks like one heck of a project. (more…)

Boom.(more…)

A scuba diver managed to record an earthquake on the sea floor.(more…)

American Metalcraft makes restaurant equipment, but you can buy these all-metal taco holders for home use on Amazon. The have a model that holds 2 tacos, and another that holds 3. We use them at least once a week, and love them. Who on earth wants a taco shell sitting on its side, disgorging its contents on the plate? Not me.

A Facebook page that supposedly belongs to RadioShack in Reynoldsburg, OH has gone viral for its outrageously entertaining posts.On April 17 they posted, "We closed. Fuck all of you." And then on April 18, "Always hated all you prick customers anyway." They also show a photo of a lit-up RadioShack sign at night with its "R" and "H-A-C-K" letters burned out so that it reads, "adioS."But is the Facebook site for real? It's hard to tell if the comments are made by a disgruntled employee or if the site is a hoax, although it's weird that the failing company hasn't yet made any comments about it.According to Business Insider:

This woman had a clogged toilet, but lacked a plunger. She decided to bust the clog with her hand, but her hand got stuck in the toilet. The fire department was called, and they broke the toilet with a sledgehammer.

This fellow has a magic fix-it stick, but it is cursed. If you see him, run.

Fujifilm's Instax cameras are fun, but the expense of the cartridges is a drag and you're either into the "illusion of truth" of instant photography or you ain't. The Instax Square heads past this by integrating a display so you can choose whether or not to print a shot. It also prints square photos, like old-fashioned Polaroids (albeit smaller), instead of the usual half-size or widescreen Instax slips. The drag now is the basic price: $280! And despite my pooh-poohing of the idea that instant photography is any more truthful than "best selfie of 100" smartphone photography, I kind of wish they hadn't added filters. I suppose once you have a digital display, you've got some computing power in there, and that kind of feature creep is inevitable. Likewise, there's now a card slot to let you transfer photos to phone or computer. It's out in May, but you can order it already.Fujifilm Instax Square SQ10 Instant Camera [Amazon link]

https://youtu.be/A5jnftBQw2U"No Patrick, mayonnaise is not an instrument," said Squidward, when Patrick asked if the condiment was indeed an instrument. But Squidward got it wrong, as this rockin' 9-track all-mayonnaise jam session proves. Mayonnaise is not just a food.

Bloomberg reports that Juicero, a $400 gadget that "transformed single-serving packets of chopped fruit and vegetables into a refreshing and healthy beverage" displeased investors who feel misled about what it does.See, it turns out that the special bags it uses can simply be squeezed by hand into a glass. Which suggests, in turn, that Juicero is basically a $400 machine that squeezes a bag so you don't have to. But it's internet-connected! Isn't that awesome?

If you're wondering why Nintendo killed its always-sold-out NES Mini at the height of hype and demand, the answer looks like the obvious one: they're apparently readying a new version based on the more advanced SNES platform, allowing more and better games.

Simultaneously racist and cringe-inducing today is the aging Republiclone lawmaker, Florida State Sen. Frank Artiles, calling a black colleague a "fucking asshole," "bitch," and "girl," and declaring that he had risen to his powerful role thanks to "six niggas" in the caucus.He didn't pronounce "niggas" the way he might in order to be clear in his meaning, obviously, and had to explain exactly which kind of racist he was later: the ironically-appropriating kind, not the white-hoods-and-nooses kind. But now that's cleared up, everything's all good.

https://streamable.com/ydbh1Sometimes I suspect that Capybaras are horses that haven't yet realized they've been transformed into giant gerbils.

Though Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan presides over a nominal democracy, he has surrounded himself with all the trappings of dictatorship: spending more than a billion tax-dollars on a "palace" for himself, hiring the mafia to smuggle his money-laundering kid out of Italy ahead of the police, conspiring to launder millions himself, brutalizing protesters, jailing critics and comedians, arresting and purging public institutions of his opposition, and more. (more…)

Kate Imbach looked at all of Melania Trump's Twitter photos with her filmmaker's eye, revealing remarkable patterns of Melania's "dark fairytale" life. (more…)

We understand that even reading a book instead of watching Netflix after work can be difficult, so taking online coding courses is definitely going to be a stretch, but hear us out. Learning to code can be a major asset to pushing your career to the next level, or to help you build a side hustle to take a little stress off the rent. No matter if you already have something of a programming background or are a complete beginner, this coding bundle offered in the Boing Boing Store can give your skill sets and resume a boost.Packed with 150 hours of instructional material covering a diverse range of programming languages and frameworks, the Learn to Code 2017 Bundle comes with lifetime access so you can study as feverishly or as carefully as you'd like. And the big kicker is you can get it all for a price you choose.Pay anything at all and you'll get a 3.5 hour tutorial on JavaScript. Beat the average price, and the rest of the bundle is yours as well.Those courses are:

The vast majority of prisoners like Kenneth Moore held in solitary confinement for extended periods get released with almost no rehabilitation or coping skills. Frontline spent three years inside and outside Maine State Prison documenting the effects on prisoners as they try to return to society after solitary. Be warned, it is as bloody and terrifying as any horror movie. (more…)

David Lesperance is a Canadian-born lawyer who specializes in helping the super-rich secretly buy foreign citizenship so they can escape taxation at home. (more…)

The Alabama Center for Rural Enterprise worked with Houston's National School of Tropical Medicine to sample "soil and water...blood and faecal samples" from Alabama's Lowndes County, a poor rural area. (more…)

UK Prime Minister Theresa May, who surprised the world yesterday when she broke her own promise and called snap elections for June 8, has said that she will not debate the other party leaders before election day. (more…)

North Korea put on a musical spectacle to honor the birthday of the nation's founder, Kim Il Sung, ending with a video in which missiles rain down on the United States and burst into flames. The audience and the current leader Kim Jong Un appeared to love it.(more…)

God Bless America, God Bless Sassy Trump, and God Bless Peter Serafinowicz.(more…)

The Rupert Murdoch and ‎News Corp-owned Wall Street Journal reports Fox News “is preparing to cut ties with its biggest star, Bill O’Reilly,” and a final decision on his “fate could come as early as the next several days.”(more…)

I enjoy her whimsical, upbeat sweetness. I've been listening to this song a lot this week.

Enjoy this video of people who are high on life.

Disney is contemplating opening a luxury Star Wars themed resort next to the Hollywood Studios park at Disney World, which could feature multi-day live-action role-playing games that run overnight, with guests staying all night in the park to interact with costumed characters and automated elements (droids, etc) to game out scenarios. (more…)

A boy shows us how to unlock his amazing Lego safe. Like a puzzle box, he has to push, pull and slide different pieces, some which give him keys to unlock other parts of the safe, until he finally unlocks the last hidden slide-out box that stores his paper money.To see how to make your own Lego safe, here's a tutorial:https://youtu.be/WpIgzDlSqlw

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.Our fourth day in Tokyo was a day of extremes. After breakfast in our Yoyogi Airbnb, Carla and I took the train to Takaosanguchi Station, which is a 1.5 hour, straight shot from Yoyogi Station. Our plan was to climb Mt Takao, a 600-meter tall mountain with lots of hiking trails, a monkey park, a Buddhist temple, and other attractions.It was interesting getting out of Tokyo into a rural area. Buildings were fewer and more far between. Once we got to the station, surrounded by trees and hills, we felt like we were hundreds of miles away from busy Tokyo. One thing that caught our eye outside the station was a large building called the Trick Art Museum. Curious, we walked over and bought tickets. It was a museum dedicated to optical illusions. It consisted mainly of big rooms with trompe l'oeil paintings on the ceilings, floors, and walls. It was an hour well spent. (The photo of my head in a box is from the museum)We then walked along a street leading to the trailhead. It was lined with shops and restaurants catering to Japanese tourists. It happened to be a national holiday so a lot of people were walking around, and the restaurants were crowded.Here's an odd little food market that reminded me of the tiny cluttered groceries in Rarotonga:We'd been hoping to eat at this place, called Ukai Toriyama, but it was booked solid:We ended up eating at a soba (buckwheat) noodle restaurant. We had to wait about 20 minutes. I saw people drinking cups of tea, so I asked our server for some and she pointed to a corner with some urns. I walked over and filled a cup with some tea that looked like dishwater. When a got back to my table and sat on my cushion (no chairs) and took a sip, it tasted like water that noodles had been boiled in. I pulled out my phone and looked up "soba water" and found this on Wikipedia: "After the noodles are eaten, many people enjoy drinking the water in which the noodles were cooked (sobayu 蕎麦湯), mixed with the leftover tsuyu [dipping sauce]." I drank three cups. My meal consisted of soba and vegetable and shrimp tempura. Good place, but I don't remember the name.Now that we were loaded with carbs, we began our ascent. There were several trails to choose from. We picked trail #1, the paved, "easy" trail. It was pretty steep, and we got winded quickly, even though we are both experienced trail walkers. Some older people were walking up the hill very slowly. I was surprised that they had been able to go as far as they had! After about 40 minutes we saw one of the first Westerners of the morning. He was coming down the hill and he looked like a young Hulk Hogan, with headband and sleeveless T-shirt with an American flag on it, and an eagle tattooed on his chest. He was carrying a tall can of Japanese beer. He was happy and energetic when he greeted us."You're about 1/8th of the way up!" He said. I don't know if that was meant to encourage or demoralize us. "There's cold beer at the top!"We continued trudging up the hill. It was beautiful and peaceful. There were signs about monkeys, but I don't know what they said, because they were in Japanese. Eventually we got to a place that had a lot of snack shops, curios shops, and restaurants. There was also a cable car going back to the bottom of the mountain. It made me feel better to believe that the Hulk Hogan clone took the cable car up.This says takoasan [Mt Takao]:We got some snacks, including these sticky grilled mochi balls with sweet miso paste:At this restaurant, you buy a ticket at a vending machine in front, then give it to your server. These places are common in Japan. I wish all restaurants on the planet operated this way.We continued hiking up the trail and came across a lot of amazing Buddhist temple art.By early afternoon, we were ready to go, even though we got only halfway up the mountain. But instead of walking down, we took the cable car, which got us to the train station in just a few minutes.In my next post, I'll tell you about the rest of our day, eating at a grilled pork offal bar in Shinkjuku and the Robot Restaurant in Kabukicho, where I was pleasantly shocked to meet an old friend (hint: it's someone Boing Boing readers know and love).

A break-away bowtie cat collar will add even more saunter to your cat.My daughter decided that our cat Heart needed a bowtie collar. He looks pretty slick.There are an assortment here, via Amazon. Make sure you find a break-away collar, so your cat doesn't get stuck on something, fatally.

Brewster Kahle, who invented the first two search engines and went on to found and run the Internet Archive has published an open letter describing the problems that the W3C's move to standardize DRM for the web without protecting otherwise legal acts, like archiving, will hurt the open web. (more…)

Warped Perception trained their Phantom Flex 4K Slow Motion Camera on an air balloon popping underwater. The result is wonderfully trippy, especially in high-definition. (via Nerdist)

Founded in 1970 as Xerox's R&D division, PARC was a dream factory that brought the world laser printing, Ethernet, the graphical user interface that led to Windows and the Macintosh, ubiquitous computing, and many other technologies that we now take for granted. Why made the place so damn special? Alan Kay, who pioneered networked computing while at Parc, lays out a few of the principles of the research community of which Parc was a hub:

When inventor and MacArthur "genius grant" recipient Saul Griffith started reading papers about global warning that were written in 1974 (the same year he was born) he discovered that "all the problems we face today are familiar from 43 years ago. All the proposed solutions are similar. Merely the motivation was a little different." In this episode of For Future Reference, a new podcast from Institute for the Future, David Pescovitz and I talk with Griffith about how we need new mindsets as much as new technologies to alleviate climate change.Please subscribe to For Future Reference a podcast series about the expanding horizons of science, technology, and culture over the next decade: iTunes, RSS, SoundcloudImage: Kris Krug

What a haul: 100 handsets in a single backpack, found after festival-goers at Coachella trained the "Find My iPhone" app on their missing gadgets.

CelebrityNetWorth.com was a popular, data-driven website whose 12 staffers led serious efforts to research public figures and give a credible estimate of their fortunes. Google liked the look of this, so it made site founder Brian Warner a proposition: let Google include the Big Number as a featured "snippet" atop relevant search results, in return for the snippet linking to the website.Warner, though, knew that the link offer was worthless and said no. Mysteriously, Google started "answering" questions about celebrities' net worth anyway, only occasionally disclosing the source; he seeded his database with a few fake celebrities to prove Google was using CelebrityNetWorth.com's data. The result was just as he predicted when he said no: his site's lost most of its traffic, even as Google depends on it to provide accurate answers.

And it took YouTuber Onrrust "only" 20 steps! Here's the before pic: (more…)