America's public education system is failing the citizens of Detroit, where the Detroit Regional Workforce Fund reports that 47% of people in Detroit are illiterate. In nearby suburbs, up to one-third are functionally illiterate. (more…)

FBI agents have described the 83% white Bureau as "Trumpland," where conspiracy theories about Sharia law takeovers of America are taken seriously; the far-right, racist nature of so many agents has resulted in the loss, firing, and purging of many of the Bureau's tiny, dwindling minority of Arab and Muslim agents, who have been identified as crucial to the Bureau's counterterrorism mission. (more…)

Scabby the Rat is a giant, inflatable rat that joins New York union workers on the picket line, an enduring symbol of the power of workers against rapacious capital. (more…)

Behold, the Blue Marlin, a "semi-submersible heavy lift ship" that is capable of hoisting and transplanting other, full-sized ships (that is ships as big or bigger than a US Destroyer-class vessel) all around the oceans. (more…)

Ariel Waldman writes, "Neutrinos are tiny particles spit out by supernovas that were rumored to travel faster than light. Even though we still don't have FTL spaceships (sigh), I share with you why neutrinos are still freaking amazing."

The Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee today leaked information to President Donald Trump about the ongoing investigation into whether Trump's campaign collaborated with Russia to swing the election to his favor.(more…)

Lisa from the American Library Assocation writes, "We launched a campaign this afternoon asking anyone who supports libraries to give their Reps a call to ask them to sign on to two Dear Appropriator letters. One full funding for LSTA (which benefits every kind of library), and the second asking the same for the Innovative Approaches to Literacy program." (more…)

Aaron created the Falsum, a fully worked branding guideline with templates and a style guide for a wordmark and logo for resisting Trumpism. (more…)

The National Endowment For the Arts granted the money for the first Sundance Institute lab in 1982. The program's grown to help some of the biggest filmmakers working today: Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Kimberly Peirce, and Darren Aronofsky, among countless independent voices. Esquire profiles just seven. (more…)

On the infrequent occasion I am asked for life advice I refer folks to Mr. T: The Man with the Gold: An Autobiography. It has all the answers.(more…)

You likely remember the incredibly talented Jay Johnson from his role on the ground-breaking comedy Soap. Jay is also a fantastic story teller, I found these tales of his Mickey Mouse watch collection especially touching.Here is an excerpt from Jay's blog, The World is a Stage:

George Michael, 23, had just ended Wham! and launched his solo career when he spoke with Joe Smith, author of Off The Record: An Oral History of Popular Music:

Four people, including an assailant and a police officer, were killed today in an attack at the Houses of Parliament that authorities say was an act of terrorism.Ministers of Parliament were locked in after police shot and killed a man who reportedly ran at the gates by Parliament square and stabbed an officer. Moments earlier, a car had run five people over on nearby Westminster Bridge, leaving at least two dead and twenty injured.Prime Minister Theresa May is to chair an emergency meeting of ministers today, writes the BBC.https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/status/844571045889634304https://twitter.com/metpoliceuk/status/844562478159876097BBC Radio 5 reports that "around three shots" were heard.https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/status/844568472193585152https://twitter.com/thepatrickdaly/status/844561414907985922https://twitter.com/CharlieCooper8/status/844559971790540800https://twitter.com/joncstone/status/844560881501556738https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/status/844567132071350272Update: the BBC posted a map of the area and the events as reported, with a detailed eyewitness report.

Jan Fröjdman used HiRISE satellite data from Mars to create this beautiful and detailed flyby of the planet. Liz Stinson writes that stitching it together took months.

Phone chargers usually only deliver a few volts of juice at a feeble amperage, but they'll deliver a lot more if you give them the chance. The BBC writes that a UK man died in the bathtub after being shocked by a charger connected to an extension cord.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwoqN2UzAEgJohn Deere is notorious for arguing that farmers who buy its tractors actually "license" them because Deere still owns the copyright to the tractors' software; in 2015, the US Copyright Office affirmed that farmers were allowed to jailbreak their tractors to effect repairs and modifications. (more…)

Russian science fiction is rarely cheerful or upbeat, but if you want to read some fantastic dystopian futures, Red Star Tales is the collection for you. (more…)

Johannes writes, "Finally! My award-winning nerd culture documentary TRACEROUTE (previously) can be downloaded on Vimeo On Demand. It was quite a challenge to create it, and huge thanks to all the folks who supported me... including, of course, the Boing Boing crew. I hope you consider buying or renting it. And in case you want a DRM-free option, just contact me."

The World Wide Web Consortium has announced that its members have until April 19 to weigh in on whether the organization should publish Encrypted Media Extensions, its DRM standard for web video, despite the fact that this would give corporations the new right to sue people who engaged in legal activity, from security researchers who revealed defects in browsers to accessibility workers who adapted video for disabled people to scrappy new companies who come up with legal ways to get more use out of your property. (more…)

States across America are considering "Right to Repair" legislation that would guarantee your right to choose who fixes your stuff (or to fix it yourself); but they're fighting stiff headwinds, from the motorcycle makers who claim that fixing your motorcycle should be a crime to Apple, who feel the same way, but about phones. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNzEyDfTrYAJulia is the new muppet with autism who's joined Sesame Street and she's off to an amazing start with this delightful game of "Boing Boing tag." We love you too, Julia! (Thanks,Sam Borgeson!)

The forced transition from analog to digital TV signals was probably met with relative indifference from people with Netflix subscriptions and the “I don’t even own a TV” snoots. But anyone living in the vast swaths of the country that don’t have guaranteed high-speed internet, broadcast TV is a perfectly valid (and 100% free) way to consume media—you’ll just need some new digital hardware.This HD-BLADE digital antenna gives you high definition access to news, live sports and other broadcast-only content without an expensive cable subscription. Just mount it near a window with 3M adhesive and you’ll have all your local channels in an instant, without the pain of stream buffering or tedious account logins. Obviously you can’t skip the commercials, but think of it this way: it’s the cheapest way to catch those priceless local car dealership and personal injury lawyer ads. You can cut the cord but still get the best of the broadcast world.Easily fixable for the best reception, this antenna can pick up signals from up to 25 miles away. Usually $48.99, you can pick up the Solid Signal HD-BLADE Slim HDTV Antenna for just $15.99.

Real Alternatives organizes and funds the notorious, deceptive anti-abortion centers ("crisis pregnancy centers") that pretend to be abortion clinics, luring in women who wish to terminate their pregnancies with deceptive advertising and then lying to them about abortion procedures in an effort to coerce them into carrying their fetuses to term; they got $30,000,000 from the state of Pennsylvania and are now suing the state over an audit that was triggered by nearly $1M worth of unaccounted-for state funding. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s0LnAWGwF4Fictiv is a rapid prototyping company that can take concepts or finished designs and farm them out to a network of CNC and 3D printing companies to have your design fabricated, finished and delivered within 24 hours; to demonstrate their new open IoT platform, they've announced an open-source hardware IoT motorcycle kit that you're meant to be able to assemble in your garage in a weekend, and drive off on by Monday. (more…)

Something about the soundtrack to Hi Stranger tickled neurons untickled for many years. It turned out to be the Windows 95 startup sound slowed 4000%.Here's the original, for reference.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miZHa7ZC6Z0The Windows XP startup sound 800% slower (below) is what you will hear when the singularity tricks you into thinking you are being uploaded to the immortal metamedium, but are really just being eaten.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gV8jzGpOLMAnd here's Windows 2000:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O-JSvzZdYII'm about certain that the governing principle of Windows startup sounds is "Brian Eno sped up a thousand percent")Here's the Windows startup sound slowed to cover 24 hours; if ever I produce a movie or game set in space, this will be the ambient bridge audio. My favorite part begins about nine hours in.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL7I9BWFqdk

A short film written and animated by Kirsten Lepore, starring Garrett Davis. It's part of the Strangers anthology from Late Night Work Club...

If you're a fan of both logs and lights, perhaps a log light would brighten your life. Owen Duggan crafts these beauties in western France. (more…)

Lauren Bowker's UK-based firm The Unseen is currently working on a bunch of cool thermochromic textile and dye applications, like this hair color that responds to heat. (more…)

Mars enthusiast Jan Fröjdman painstakingly composited a fictive flight above real Mars, based on actual images of the surface of Mars. The goal was to make some of Mars' fascinating topography feel more real. All that work paid off. (more…)

In celebration of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Allen Pan built a wonderful home automation system where the interface is an ocarina as seen in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. (Thanks, Lux!)

Senate Republicans have introduced a bill to ensure that the FCC won't be able to prevent your ISP from spying on your internet usage and selling your private information. What does that mean in practice? (more…)

After a few weeks of Donald Trump's presidency, only 37 percent of Americans are happy with it. It's the worst in 72 years of polling for a fresh president, reports Mary Papenfuss.

Mouse is a middling Japanese laptop brand (Engadget stayed on top of it for a while) with an excellent ad agency.

Dennis Coon was unable to stop two roosters kicking off in the yard, but Officer Gobbles was having none of it.

There's 25 stops in all on the US/Canada tour for WALKAWAY, my next novel, an "optimistic disaster novel" that comes out on April 25 (more stops coming soon, as well as publication of my UK tour). (more…)

Weapon physicist Greg Spriggs and his colleagues at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have just uploaded dozens of declassified videos to YouTube of nuclear tests from the 1950s and 1960s. From LLNL:

Wow! An edible drone with extruded vegetable spars that can be flown into famine-affected areas! Reworded press release posts popped up everywhere last week with this image attached. Ian Bogost wasn't buying it. (more…)

This nice little explainer covers the nebulous concept of luck in a fun way. It summarizes the work of Richard Wiseman, who researched self-identified lucky and unlucky people. He found four key distinctions. (more…)

Before artist Nadja Buttendorf gave us "Finger-rings," she created silicone "EARrings" in a variety of skin tones. "Price on request."

BBC Asian Network raised a few eyebrows after tweeting "What is the right punishment for blasphemy?" While it's clear from watching the video all the way through that BBC's Shazia Awan is not taking a side, BBC Asia later apologized. (more…)

Bumper cars are fun, but what if you could ride one in the wild, with a massive engine under the hood? That's what Colin Fuze is finding out as he mods a vintage bumper car. (more…)

Lately virtual reality has been touted as the future of movies, games, journalism, and even sex. Unfortunately, most consumer VR still requires investing in some not-insignificantly expensive equipment. You can, however, get a taste of the VR hype with just your smartphone and this budget-friendly headset.The VRX10 Virtual Reality Headset is 3D-compatible with most smartphones, adding depth and immersion to movies, TV, YouTube videos, and games. Although there definitely isn’t a Youtube-scale repository for VR media yet, there are plenty of sources for VR experience and experimenting. The VRX10 is a neat way to view 360-degree photos on Facebook, New York Times VR, as well as the Google Cardboard media library.We're not saying the VRX10 is Oculus Rift by any means, but VR is only going to become more prevalent and more portable - this is just an affordable chance to check out this new technology and see if it gives you motion sickness. You can get the VRX10 Virtual Reality Headset for 71% off right now at $19.99.

As usual, Analog always shines when it comes to cover art. They've got the fantastic Kelly Freas who supplied rich and colorful depictions for many years. On top of that, the actual printing itself is of decent quality. If you compare this to the issue from the last article, you'll see that having your print lined up perfectly wasn't always the case for magazines like this.I noticed that the pants on the illustration are tailored with a bit of detail around the tail. There's a snap and a zipper. I can't help but wonder if this was outlined explicitly in the story or if Freas, while illustrating, stopped to ponder how a pair of pants for a creature with a tail would work.For the issues from my collection that happen to fall in the 60's through mid 70's, I really enjoy seeing what was actually going in the space program during the same period. For example, this issue was published in March of 1969. Readers would be enjoying this issue while also hearing about the Apolo 9 mission on the radio and TV. This was a period of firsts. Many of the flights were presenting large tasks, being done for the first time in space. Apallo 9 was the first space docking, which included transferring people between the modules. That's pretty wild. I can only imagine the wonder and excitement in the minds of the Sci-Fi community during this time.Publication: Analog, Science Fiction Science Fact

As the approval ratings for Trump, the Republican Party, the Democratic Party and Congress circle the drain, one politician remains trusted by a shockingly large number of politicians: Bernie Sanders, who is polling +41% with independents, +28% with Democrats, and whose approval rating has steadily climbed since he hit the national stage in 2015. (more…)

The great Chuck Berry, “who with his indelible guitar licks, brash self-confidence and memorable songs about cars, girls and wild dance parties did as much as anyone to define rock ’n’ roll’s potential and attitude in its early years,” died on Saturday, the New York Times and others reported Saturday. He was 90.(more…)

Oree makes wooden computer peripherals, and not just the usual keyboard and iPhone cases: also offered are matching touchpads (with optional numpad engraving) and "pebbles"--a gadget that combines a speaker and a wireless phone charger. Everything's offered in maple and walnut, with various engraving options.The keyboard alone isn't unreasonable at $150, but a set seems terribly expensive: you're looking at $500 shipped!

Oh, Nemo! My Great Pyrenees has yet to chew through this $15 rope leash.I tell my housesitters to never leave Nemo tied up to anything. Ignoring the obvious risk he'll pull whatever you've tied him to apart, Nemo only takes a few seconds to chew his way free of most fabric and some braided metal cables. This leash holds up better than most.The woven "mountain climbing rope" takes a bit more mastication and chewing on than a normal ribbon style one. This extends the time you can turn your back from approximated 90 seconds to perhaps 4 minutes. If I go for 5 minutes, I will usually find a Great Pyrenees wandering close to the nearest source of food.The rope is moderately reflective. The handle comfortable. The clip heavy duty. This is a pretty good leash for big dogs.Best Soft reflective Dog training Leash- Chew resistant 4ft. bright nylon increased safety for night walking - for Medium and Large breeds via Amazon

The Legend of Zelda: Art & Artifacts is a mammoth book containing art and errata from practically every Zelda title ever released. Having spent a mere afternoon with it, I feel I've experienced an adolescence-worth of missed gameplay.I've never gotten around to immersing myself in the Zelda games, but was always struck by the their' precision and economy, a world crafted more than built. There's a mysticism, even a darkness to Zelda that seems out of place in Nintendo's cutesy-poo lineup.A heroic cycle, with a eternally-recurring hero and nemesis, every generation of the mythos is a strange echo of another, and the star is a stoic mute boy defined by his tools and under fate's control. Hyrule and its hero are less standard RPG fantasy than a uniquely Japanese new wave murmur, an Elric in Arcadia who brings sunshine rather than storm and never has a single brooding thought and gets to live silently ever after.Published by Dark Horse Books, it's 424 pages long and weighs 6 pounds. It's 12.3 x 9.3 inches long and wide and two inches thick. Notes and other documentation are translated by Aria Tanner, Hisashi Kotobuki, Heidl Plechl and Michael Gombos.Organized roughly by release date (the canonical continuity seems rather murky), there's early animation-style cels, box art, instruction booklets, and even some work from the latest title, Breath of the Wild, released a couple of weeks ago.It goes from exquisitely painted concept art right down to detailed sprite sheets from classic 8-bit outings, and the print quality is outstanding. It's heavy; you could flatten a cat with it.I can tell that the selections are far from exhaustive, though: this is clearly an official Nintendo item made by and for people who like the word "franchise." While it's good and fair that atrocities such as the Philips-licensed CD-i Zelda games are not included, it also means no Katsuya Terada, for example, a brilliant artist whose Zelda work is among the best and the most off-brand going—but which thereby carries less nostalgia value for its audience, perhaps.Beyond some fascinating interviews with the creators, there's not much context, either; it's a companion volume to the "Historia", a similarly bulky book dealing with the world's history in detail.But I have to get it, now, as the art's sucked me in, and I don't have time to play 20 video games to understand what the Hyrule is going on.PROS• Big, beautiful book.

Adobe has long been the industry leader in creative software. Its enduring popularity might be due to the relative ease of pirating Photoshop and the internet proliferation of amateur editing, but more likely it's the result of outstanding interoperability between its professional apps. Mastering every entry into their ever-expanding roster of image-making tools may be overkill if you're not a design professional, but getting up to speed with their most common offerings is not just doable, but a valuable resume point and genuinely useful skill.To gain expertise in Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere, take a look at this Training Bundle. With the Photoshop course, you’ll dive into the monolithic image editor and learn a full set of photo retouching and digital painting techniques. Once you understand the depth of graphics manipulation, you can discover Illustrator’s powerful vector-editing capabilities to make infinitely scalable artwork, edit typography, and craft clean icon and logo designs. Finally, you can explore professional video editing and color correction using Premiere.With this trio of programs under your belt, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a multimedia production powerhouse. Learn them all in the Adobe CC Essentials Training Bundle—just $29.