George Clinton has spoken. George supports Hillary for President.Via APP:

Al Kooper's amazing album Super Session includes 'Season of the Witch' with Steve Stills on guitar.Donovan says this song is about anxiety, but it gets a lot of play around Halloween.

I’ve often wondered, as I suppose any parent has, what would continue to bind me to the earth if my child died.I don’t know, is the answer. I have two close friends who’ve had young children die, and another friend whose one son committed suicide and the second died of brain cancer. Not sure how they start their days, what they think to push them forward, where their strength comes from. But they have gone on with their lives. I don’t see their pain, but it must lurk somewhere.Perhaps if you’re a religious person you may find some hope in the belief that sooner or later you will be reunited with your loved one, however there is no such consolation for an atheist such as myself. The thought of your child dying seems that it would be an end to all … why write a book, take a trip, watch a movie, eat a meal, take the garbage out? What could seem to have any importance at that point. Still, my friends have persevered. Perhaps it is their spouses that provide the anchor.My own little bundle of joy is now 15 years on this earth, fiercely smart, strong both physically and mentally, yet willful, torn by the contradictions of adolescence, looking for a way forward. Sometimes, well often actually, I am accused of various unspeakable acts, of being old, and so on. Everyone told me that these years would come, but it’s hard to conceive of the hurt and difficulty when they suddenly appear one day: seeing the sweet smiling face of the flesh of your flesh suddenly turn into cold contempt. Fortunately there is often a smile not far off.And yet my child is still the gravity holding me to the earth; a hug worth more than a world of riches; and if I can only coax a laugh once a week instead of daily, it will have to do. And it does.But children do die, and parents struggle to hold on to … something. In this Sunday’s New York Times Jayson Greene penned a solemn essay of both death and life beyond: Children Don’t Always Live. It begins:

(Image: Flickr/Jeff Kubina)I was Googling the name of a talented juggler named Lindsay Benner one evening to find out if her first name was spelled “say” or “sey.” As usual, I often search in “Images” because more interesting things turn up as I scroll down the page. In this case, and Yahweh knows why, I came across a photo of Harry Chapin. Not a juggler, not related to Lindsay Benner. Many of you might not even remember who he is, but I did and so clicked on the image. It led me, shockingly, to the blog of a friend of mine—a magician by the name of Shawn McMaster. He had written an appreciation of Chapin, who died at age 39 on the Long Island Expressway, his VW bug getting squashed by some asshole in an 18-wheeler, setting Chapin’s car on fire and burning him alive. I loved Chapin, and had first attended a concert of his by chance in upstate New York during a summer in the late 1970s when some friends dragged me along. Saw him about four times after that. A great guy and a champion of the hungry—one day you should read about him.While I was watching a performance of his on YouTube (the great rabbit hole of all holes), I noticed on the right side, where all sorts of other performances by Chapin were listed, a deleted scene from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Clicked on that and watched it, then made a note to watch that episode at a later date. Then I saw a “Behind the Music” show on Harry Chapin from VH1 (remember those?) on the right side, and clicked on that. Watched a few moments and then got a strangle hold on myself and commanded myself to STOP. Bookmarked it for later watching and went back to work. Total time lost: about an hour.Not bad, only an hour. I call it “bouncing and blobbing,” which is my poetic way of referring to loping from place to place on the internet until you notice that the sun has gone down, you missed dinner, and it’s time to hit the mattress.Bouncing and blobbing … is it a part of your life? Damn straight it is, and don’t you lie to me honey (channeling Foxy Brown here, another movie I blumbled across on YouTube late one night, which coincidentally co-starred my friend the late Tony Giorgio, a great magician and dice hustler who went straight and became an actor).Bounce, bounce, bounce, blob, blob, blob, the time and energy getting drawn out of me like some soul-sucking digital vacuum clamped onto my eyeballs and forcing my fingers forward on the keyboard. Except when I am commanded to stop, and watch, and listen, and then stop and watch and listen to something else, and then to something else (Anthony Newley and Sammy Davis, Jr. doing a crazy 1970s pop medley on some British TV show) which leads me to a pathetic video of Newley singing later in his life just before kidney cancer killed him, which I discovered by blopping to some article on his entire life story that took another 25 minutes to read. And then somehow I started watching clips of the Graham Norton show, which is really wild and bizarre. Then, of course, there is always Carpool Karaoke with James Cordon and … whomever (and thus I learned that Brittany Spears can’t sing, and won’t sing, while Michelle Obama can rock it, and Lady Gaga has some real pipes).What causes this disease? I’m tired of the election, tired of Wikileaks, tired of the insanity on Facebook (which used to be fun, and sometimes still is, like when I just start scrolling down the “Home” feed and find a link to a video of Astrud Gilberto singing “The Girl from Ipanema” with Stan Getz saxaphoning in the background, which makes me think of her singing “It Might as Well be Spring,” which is a wonderful song from the 1945 film State Fair by Rogers and Hammerstein, which I then have to go find on YouTube and listen to. She goes off key for a moment and that’s bothered the hell out of me for 45 years).Oh, right, tired of the day-to-day corruption in governments around the world, tired of the idiots who voted for Brexit and then realized they didn’t know what it meant, tired of nothing but bad news from the middle east, various Arab countries involved in war, and more shitty news about Boko Haram and ISIS, and tired of reading in The New York Times about the corrupt idiots in the New York City government who’ve been trying to build a subway line down Second Avenue SINCE 1920 and the first three stations are just going to open … soon. It’s the end of 2016. Is this the fucking Twilight Zone or what? Sometimes I am reduced to watching cute cat videos on The Dodo via Huffington Post via Facebook.One day I hit rock bottom, The Lost Weekend, when I accidentally clicked on a box on the right side of YouTube about “The Pimple Popper.” I watched one, and then another, and then “the biggest pimple ever popped” and then on and on for several hours. Omigod … my life had turned into a never-ending cyst-popping pile of pus and sludge of some sort. People getting squirted on, skin exploding, people cursing and covering their noses from the smell.This is the modern definition of Jean-Paul Satre’s play No Exit.Try to turn off your computer. I dare you.

A few weeks ago my good friend John Park created a video demonstration of how to hack the famous Happy Chewbacca mask to trigger your very own audio files. And when my sister Christina told me she was building a Chewbacca-Pinata costume for her son, I naturally shared John’s video with her.https://youtu.be/2gveeXyNoqgWhat my sister ended up creating was the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen.But before sharing some pics and a video of the costume in action, I wanted to set the bar very, very low by showing images of other homemade Chewbacca costumes I found online.It's like looking in a Chewbacca mirror!Boxybacca.

Nintendo sales training video from 1992. Er, as the fellow says, "Hasta Luigi, baby."

https://youtu.be/W9f_0YQ0cpAOregon artist James Landgraf designed a cute little “Dabuccino” water pipe that looks like a Starbucks Frappuccino. He made 500 to sell, but Starbucks was not amused, and successfully sued him for "trademark dilution, trademark infringement, and copyright infringement." Bummer.

As republicans seem to do these days, incumbent GOP senator Mark Kirk tossed a racist slur at his opponent, Representative Tammy Duckworth, out of pure reflex.Via NPR:

With a 20 percent increase in patients during the Major League Baseball playoff games in Chicago, the Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center is preparing for a very busy World Series weekend there. Of course they expect alcohol-related injuries, from falls to DWI-related auto accidents, but cardiac issues are also expected to drive emergency room visits from emotional fans.(Watching the baseball games) could increase their level of anxiety, hence exasperating some of their cardiac issues," emergency department director Anna Scaccia told WGN-TV."Taking their medication as prescribed per their physician, trying to stay as calm as possible. I know that can be difficult.”(image by Brent Payne, CC via Flickr)

My darling Cavalier, Pretzel, gets yucky tear stains that don't smell too great. Well and Good Tear Stain for dogs cleans them up.Pretzel, like many of the Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, I've lived with likes to sleep on my head. Luckily, I'm bald and this serves as a heated, and kinda snuggly, stocking cap. Unfortunately it can smell really, really bad when her tear ducts have formed crunchy masses of fur under her eyes, and around her snout.The stuff works quick and easy, just apply the remover to a cotton ball or a paper towel, and wipe away the stinky stuff.Well & Good Dog Tear Stain Remover, 4 fl. oz. via Amazon

This thrilling stabilized video of Steve Storey tearing down a mountain bike trail reminds me of the speeder bikes ripping through the redwood trees on Endor. Only real.

I enjoy Samuraiguitarist's spaghetti western cover of Europe's "The Final Countdown" much more than the 1986 original below.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jK-NcRmVcw

What's the difference between modern memes and old ones? Edwardian-era bigots used paint, not MS Paint. Adrienne LaFrance writes on "The Weird Familiarity of 100-Year-Old Feminism Memes." Even the same embittered mirthless "humor" prevails—the same fears of emasculation, too—though I rather like this one:

Andrew McGill's internet-connected toaster isn't really a toaster: it's a "honeypot" designed to resemble the insecure "internet of things" gadgets— cameras, LED lightbulbs, fridges, etc—that make up the vast botnets behind recent internet attacks. The honeypot was hacked within an hour.

Ants Eating Stuff to Stock Music is "Nothing more than oddly satisfying time-lapse videos of ants eating stuff all set to random stock music."It's interesting how the ants covered the Rice Krispie Treat and McDonald's Hot Apple Pie with cut leaves. Why?https://youtu.be/lNby04cssvkhttps://youtu.be/qvb8Ab_b1EI

Rogue archivist Carl Malamud writes, "As a so-called rogue archivist, I'm not often the bearer of good news, so I thought folks might be cheered by 3 very positive developments on the open standards front." (more…)

An all-star team of comics and science fiction people -- impressario Glenn Hauman, writer David "Tribbles" Gerrold, and illustrator Ty Templeton -- had their kickstarter for a Seuss/Trek parody "Oh, The Places You'll Boldly Go" unceremoniously shut down when the Seuss estate's notorious attack-lawyers threatened legal action, without any regard for the clear fair use at play. (more…)

Shane Bauer, the investigative journalist whose four month stint in a privately run Louisiana prison was one of 2016's most important pieces of journalism, has published a new piece in Mother Jones, this one detailing his time patrolling with the Three Percent United Patriots and other right-wing militias that are preparing for an epic civil war in which the US government will be overthrown and they will be the only citizens of a new country, with everyone else serving as "worker bees...down in the field growing food, gathering wood." (more…)

“Just as skyscrapers allowed cities to use limited land more efficiently, urban air transportation will use three-dimensional airspace to alleviate transportation congestion on the ground.”Ride-sharing service Uber released a 97-page white paper today that describes a network of “on-demand, fully electric aircraft that take off and land vertically.” The Vertical Takeoff and Landing aircraft are referred to as VTOLs. Uber's proprietary network of VTOL service will be called “Elevate.”(more…)

I bought this leather wallet for $6 from Amazon a month ago. I liked it right away, and after having taken about eight flights since then, I have come to appreciate how great it is to be able to slide my driver license out of the clear plastic pocket (which has a hole so you can remove the card by sliding it with your thumb) and hand it to the friendly TSA officer at the security checkpoint.The wallet shows no signs of wear, and the cards and cash are held tightly in the three different pockets (in addition to the driver license pocket) so they don't fall out. It's probably my favorite wallet, and the least expensive.One of the pockets is advertised as RFID-blocking. I haven't tested it, nor am I concerned about it.

I sometimes fast instead of eating when I travel, but I usually don't go more than 16 hours between meals. Cristi Vlad, a ketogenic diet enthusiast, describes what it is like to go 44 hours without eating. As you can see from his Ketostix (photo above) he is burning a lot of ketones.

"Our guys are behind your father. We need him in there," Dick Yuengling Jr. told Eric Trump this week as he gave the wealthy young scion of the Trump empire a tour of his brewery Pottsville, Pennsylvania.What will Mr. Yuengling's display of support for Trump do the brewery's bottom line? Maybe nothing in the long run, by most comments on Twitter are from people swearing to never drink Yuenglings again (I've included a couple of tweets from Trump supporters to keep things fair and balanced):

TV antennas are making a comeback, and the Ghost Indoor HDTV antenna is a great example of why. Unlike the old bunny ear-style antennas, this compact antenna is barely noticeable and picks up channels easily.Plus with the addition of streaming services like Netflix, we find ourselves with plenty to watch without a pricey monthly cable bill.The Ghost HDTV antenna receives HDTV and digital signals so you can tune into local, national, and regional TV. All you have to do is set it up with the included velcro patches, hook it up to the ANT IN port, and you’re ready to go.The antenna is also slim and discreet, so it won't destroy the look and feel of your home. In fact, one side of it is white, and the other is black, so you can better blend it with your house’s decor.Right now the Ghost HDTV antenna is currently 57% off, and at $15.99, is cheaper than most monthly cable subscriptions. Order yours in the Boing Boing Store today.Also explore the Best-Sellers on our network right now:

“Donald Trump Gets Sassy at the Third Presidential Debate,” a new Sassy Trump collab featuring Peter Serafinowicz's voice, Vic Berger's editing genius, and Donald Trump's own words, at Superdeluxe.[Video Link]

As promised by the headline, nothing more, nothing less, just kittens photographed mid-pounce. The raw adorable feed: Seth Casteel.

Ico and Shadow of the Colossus were beautiful, moody video games; games with a sense of place, of weird looming silences. Before gamers realized they didn't want games to be art after all, these were the games they thought were art. And now, more than a decade on, you can finally get the legendary box paintings as gorgeous "giclee" prints. They're expensive: $100 or so each. (more…)

Created by developer Brian Folts, this nifty program "will take in either a starting point and end point, or a provided file of a route and provide a playthrough of the Google Streetview images that are available." (more…)

Five years ago, Derek Deville launched an amateur rocket into the stratosphere in less than a minute. It still stands as a remarkable achievement, and the onboard camera gives a dizzying sense of the speed and height. (more…)

Ten years after the original series, BBC's widely-acclaimed Planet Earth returns to television in the UK in November and in the US in January 2017.The first episode, Islands, looks at how animals can become very large or very small in those conditions. This adorable swimming sloth looks worth watching the series all the way through:Bonus video: extended trailer:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8aFcHFu8QM• Planet Earth II website

All through 2016, Jessica Leigh Clark-Bojin (aka @ThePieous) has sent us a stream howtos for of amazing, artistic pies -- an HR Giger pie, a James Bond pie, and a Predator pie. Now she's kickstarting a set of pie templates to help you make perfect pop-culture pastry in your own kitchen. (more…)

Last June, the Economist ran this chart: "Lies, Damned Lies, and Directives," which documents decades of flat-out lies about EU regulations that were published in the tabloid press (many invented by the UK's post-Brexit foreign minister and Trumpian hairclown Boris Johnson, whose press colleagues considered him most reckless confabulist on European matters in their ranks). (more…)

Last April, the Icelandic government nearly toppled when Parliament was dissolved, after the Panama Papers revealed that Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson was laundering money with Mossack Fonseca -- only fear of the popular groundswell for the Pirate Party drove the establishment to keep the government limping along -- until now. (more…)

The Newark Public Library is the scene of Philip Roth's novella Goodbye, Columbus. Now, Roth is donating his personal book collection to that same library. From the New York Times:

I've never really felt the need to purchase a smartwatch because a lot of them aren't very functional, but at just shy of $30, the Martian Notifier Smartwatch was worth checking out. For that low of a price, it actually does feature an impressive amount of functionality, and comes in handy when you don't want to be carrying around your phone.When checking the watch out, two things really stood out to me. First there's a little tab on the menu that lets you find your phone when you’ve misplaced it just by tapping a button. It can even ping you when you forget your phone. Second is that you can snap pictures from your phone remotely which is pretty handy if you're shy about asking someone else to take a picture of you.The Martian Notifier also has four out of five stars on Amazon (out of over 740 total reviews).

Jane Espenson is not only a talented TV writer who has worked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, and Once Upon A Time, she is also quite adept at constructing impressive Pringles structures."I did it!" she tweeted. "I did it! I built a Pringles ringle! No glue, just physics."Most impressive to me is how Espenson managed to complete the ring before eating them all, as I most certainly would have done.

Dominic Patten reports that Donald Trump’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star was destroyed early Wednesday morning by a man dressed as a city construction worker.(more…)

In 1960, parapsychologist Anthony Donald Cornell donned a bed sheet and attempted to scare an audience watching an X-rated film in a movie theater. Why? Cornell, a believer in ghosts himself, wanted to understand how people reacted during "apparitional experiences." Today at the BBC, University of Oxford experimental psychologist Matthew Tompkins explores Cornell's strange experiments and considers how his methods may have contributed to the study of "inattentional blindness." Indeed, the ghost in the movie theater experiment is not unlike Daniel Simons and Christopher Chablis's classic "Selective Attention Test" from 1999. If you're not aware of that experiment, the video below is a must-see. From the BBC:

Shinri Tezuka, 27, sculpts candy into beautiful, creepy, and very sweet creatures like goldfish and octopuses. The centuries-old practice is called amezaiku, but according to Great Big Story, "today there are only two artists left in Tokyo. Tezuka hopes his elaborate goldfish, frog and octopus designs will inspire the next generation of candy crafters to keep the tradition alive."

There are lots of books about baby boomer toys, but this fun collection is presented from the viewpoint of the kids who played with the toys and includes lots of personal memories and photographs. Sure, there are many interesting facts and histories about well-known toys and their creators. Classic toys and games that are still made today like Tonka trucks, Easy-Bake Oven, G.I. Joe, Matchbox and Hot Wheels, Twister and Mousetrap are featured in loving color photographs and vintage ads. Their stories are well-known, too. For example, writer and artist Johnny Gruelle patented his rag doll design in 1915, the same year his daughter Marcella died after a controversial smallpox vaccination. The Rageddy Ann and Andy dolls and books helped Gruelle keep his memories of his daughter alive.Famous fads include the '50s Davy Crocket Coonskin Hats, the '60s Troll dolls, and the '70s Pet Rock. Toys always reflect the times they’re from and this book provides plenty of cultural and historical background. Only after the heady 1960s and '70s with women’s liberation, the sexual revolution, and Black Power movement would there be an anatomically correct African American baby boy doll, Mattel’s Baby Tender Love, molded in life-like vinyl skin called Dublon.Other less well-known toys are long gone from the toy store shelves but live on in the very personal memories (and actual childhood photographs!) featured throughout the book. Home health training specialist Lisa Crawford (b 1963) appropriately recalls the insanely dangerous metal-tipped lawn Jarts. I was delighted to find Make editor and fellow WINK contributor Gareth Branwyn’s (b 1958) recollection of using his own Johnny Horizon Environmental Test Kit to get an A+ on a school project (and to keep tabs on any hometown polluters!). Learn the mysteries of Ike-A-Doos, create a Cootie, and check out Schwinn’s Lil’ Chik for-girls-only line of bikes.I was charmed by these personal toy stories. I was also lucky enough to see this show of toys at Seattle Museum of History and Industry. Even if you weren’t able to see this traveling Minnesota Historical Society-curated show, which ended last month, you can explore these memorable toys with the book.Toys of the ‘50s, '60s and '70s

It's free for anyone to take, and Finns can get credit at the Open University of University of Helsinki (yes, that's what it's called). (more…)

Trump hotels are slashing their rates to try and maintain occupancy, and similar stories are emerging from other corners of the Trump brand-licensing empire held to be the source of The Donald's wealth. The simple answer is that he's just ruining his brand, but it may be truer to say that his political base is becoming his clientele.

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The Kiberkhunta hacker group has dumped 2,000 messages from Putin aide Vladislav Surkov's email, including two documents related to the Kremlin's plans to consolidate their annexation of Ukraine: "Priority Action Plan to Destabilize the Social-Political Situation in Ukraine," and "Concrete Action Plan on the Promotion of the Federal Status of Zakarpattia Oblast." (more…)

It's been more than 20 years since Congress told the FCC that it should do something about the cable and satellite companies' monopolies over set-top boxes (American households spend more than $200/year to rent these cheap, power-hungry, insecure, badly designed, trailing edge, feature-starved boxes), but it wasn't until this year that the FCC announced its Unlock the Box order and asked for comments. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp-KeVBNz0APussy Riot's video for "Straight Outta Vagina" frames the poppy, danceable song with visuals calculated to enrage the Kremlin, with LA's Ace Hotel standing in for church where various genderbent dancers receive communion while singing the praises of vaginas. Given that the last iteration of this theme landed the musicians in a hard labor gulag where they were subjected to routine sexual assaults, it's a pretty big fuck you to the Russian establishment. (via Bruce Sterling)

Paul Fuog pieced this together out of 15 TED talks: it's pretty great, except what's with the low-energy narration? It's not very TED-like.

Warner Bros has sued talent agency Innovative Artists for running an internal-use Google Drive folder that let its clients and staff review movies in the course of their duties. They say the company ripped "screeners" (DVDs sent for review purposes) and put them on the server, whence they leaked onto torrent sites. (more…)

AT&T's secret "Hemisphere" product is a database of calls and call-records on all its customers, tracking their location, movements, and interactions -- this data was then sold in secret to American police forces for investigating crimes big and small (even Medicare fraud), on the condition that they never reveal the program's existence. (more…)

The election's basically over now and everyone's just having "fun". Millionaire presidential candidate Donald Trump has accepted Vice President Joe Biden's challenge to a fistfight.