Looking for a way to talk to young kids about LGBTQ issues? The fantastic web series Queer Kid Stuff is here to help! Along with her teddy bear friend Teddy, host and creator Lindsay Amer breaks down complex LGBTQ issues in language that even really young kids can understand. From sexuality to gender to marriage equality to homophobia, Queer Kid Stuff tackles issues that affect the lives of both gay and straight kids. And in doing so, the series makes the world a little safer and easier for everyone.New episodes of Queer Kid Stuff are released every Wednesday on YouTube. And you can support the series on Patreon too.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtrfHbCqnCUhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY2Othr2NKMhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBokVfglKQk

A popular conspiracy theory about millionaire presidential candidate Donald Trump is that his campaign is really just a big advertising effort for his "brand": the Trump name he licenses out to anyone who will pay for it. If this was his plan, Alexandra Bruell writes in the Wall Street Journal, it was a bad one. The tape of him boasting about sexually assaulting women hits particularly hard.

I’ve been playing with my FEEL FLUX for weeks and its hit rate in the amazement department is 100%.Each time you drop the metal ball through the copper tube you’d expect it to zip out the other end but instead, it lazily creeps from one end to the other and dribbles out into your waiting hand.[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6tvKQHCuds]SILENT CATCHA “Silent Catch” is what happens when you toss the ball into the FF and it slowly glides down the sides without making contact with it. I have to say that it’s satisfying and magical every time I pull off the maneuver.As the ball glides down the tube, the magnetic field changes inside the metal wall and when this happens, a bit of voltage is created. This reaction is not unlike a tiny, temporary battery and is called an electromotive force. The movement pattern of the voltage moves down with the ball and looks like this:What could be simpler?The tube’s material is an electrical conductor and drives current around in circles as the ball descends. The scientists at my laboratory tell me that when this happens, a second magnetic field is created that opposes the downward motion of the magnetic ball. The ball wants to fall through the tube at 9.8 meters per second but the field wants to halt it and of course, gravity wins in the end. And here’s the crazy part – the faster the initial downward motion, the more powerful the slowing force becomes.When I throw the ball as hard as I can into the mouth of the tube, the ball doesn’t travel any faster than if I just dropped it in!The image below shows an experiment in which a magnetic field is created by using a liquid battery. As more current from the battery is thrown through the copper coils, a magnetic flux occurs that’s not unlike my new toy.While I don’t know where you can get an old timey liquid battery, I do know that you can get a brand new FF in machined copper here.And the best thing of all is that the FF will look good next to pretty much anything in your office or laboratory.Until very recently, I have pondered the answer to this question:If I’m in an elevator on the 49 floor of my building and my arch nemesis snips the thread that suspends it, will I experience less of an impact if I jump in the air just before the elevator smashes into the bear-trap at the bottom of the shaft?Adam Savage of Mythbusters says that according to the laws of physics, if my nemesis did his job correctly, that it’d be traveling at around 82 kilometers per hour by the time it hit the ground. Even if I could time my jump perfectly, it’d make only a sleight difference in impact speed and I'd still be a gnarled, bloody mess.Ahh, but what if instead of riding in an elevator, I rode down a long copper tube while comfortably sitting in a Feel Flux magnetic ball? I think we all know the answer to that question. Cushy landing city.But if you do find yourself in a "regular elevator" and things go awry, keep your wits about you and remember these lessons from my favorite Lonely Planet video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y-i4NS70MYHopefully it'll never come to that, but my physicist parents taught me that it's better to be safe than sorry.Then again, they also taught me this questionable physicist joke:Q: What did the male magnet say to the female magnet?

A hapless skydiver who lost his shoe shortly after jumping from the plane was able to recover it mid-air, even having time to put it back on. (more…)

When William Harrison disappeared from Campden, England, in 1660, his servant offered an incredible explanation: that he and his family had murdered him. After the family was executed for the crime Harrison reappeared with a bizarre story of his own. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe "the Campden wonder," which one historian has called "perhaps the most baffling of all historical mysteries."We'll also consider Vladimir Putin's dog and puzzle over a little girl's benefactor.Show notesPlease support us on Patreon!

Geofeedia bills itself as a way for marketers to reach potential customers through geotagged "hashtag listening," but they also sell it to police departments for "predicting, analyzing and acting on social media conversations," like, say, peaceful protests. (more…)

Courtesy of Resound.

Luke Cage, the series chronicling a wrongfully-convicted ex-con with superpowers, is making waves with its timely commentary on political and cultural issues. It's so good it even works well recut as corny 90s sitcom Family Matters. (more…)

It's been a rough couple of weeks for millionaire presidential candidate Donald Trump. Despite making a fuss on Twitter by announcing that the "shackles were off" in the wake of criticism from his own party, he cut a tragic figure on the stump today. (more…)

Yesterday, I predicted that a lot of Wells Fargo whistleblowers were going to come forward, given how terribly treated its employees. (more…)

A number of climate change and indigenous land rights activists were arrested today following an attempt to shut off five major oil pipelines from Canada.(more…)

Cybersecurity firm Symantec said today a second hacking group has been trying to rob banks with phony SWIFT messages. That same method nabbed $81 million in a high-profile attack on the central bank of Bangladesh earlier this year.Jim Finkle at Reuters reports:

Mirai, the clumsily written Internet of Things virus that harnessed so many devices in an attack on journalist Brian Krebs that it overloaded Akamai, has now spread to devices in either 164 or 177 countries -- that is, pretty much everywhere with reliable electricity and internet access.

Illustrator Edward Gorey at his finest with this cover for an out-of-print paperback from 1959, Nineteenth Century German Tales.Here is a PDF of the cover story, "The Black Spider," by Jeremias Gotthelf, written in 1842.

John Perry Barlow -- author of the Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace, Grateful Dead lyricist, Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder, character in my novels, and all-round amazing, pioneering guy -- has been hospitalized on and off for a year and a half, is in constant pain, and has limited mobility. (more…)

The Associated Press reports that McDonald's restaurants are to lay off using mascot Ronald McDonald for a while, until the current phase of "creepy clown" sightings fades.

This convenient speaker lets you stream your music or podcast straight from your smartphone while in the shower. The speaker is waterproof, so you don’t have to worry about any safety issues—just stick it to the shower wall with the included suction cup, and pick a track.The built-in controls on the speaker itself mean you can play/pause, skip songs, and turn the power off, right from the speaker. You can even take calls if something really can't wait.This quality Bluetooth Shower Speaker is 85% off, just $9.99 in the Boing Boing Store. Grab one for yourself and a few for holiday gifts. You can never start too soon.Explore more trending deals:

The Elegoo UNO Project Super Starter Kit comes with a bunch of different components, including sensors, a servo motor, a stepper motor, a joystick, a breadboard, and lots more. Most of the reviewers say that the Elegoo UNO is a good Arduino Uno clone. The one thing people have complained about is the tutorials. They say they are poorly written. That's not a problem because there are lots of great Arduino books, and I have a video class on getting started with Arduino on Skillshare that is highly rated. At $32, the components alone are worth the price.

What Am I Doing Here?

Somewhere in Japan, this man is taking a very long time to cross the street.(more…)

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The Trolls is a new indie feature about plucky entrepreneurs who have their lives destroyed by patent trolls, so they patent the act of being a patent troll, and turn the tables!

From Our World in Data: "The US stands out as an outlier: the US spends far more on health than any other country, yet the life expectancy of the American population is not longer but actually shorter than in other countries that spend far less."Why?"[A]dministrative costs in the health sector are higher in the US than in other countries""[L]arge inequality in health spending.... The top 5% of spenders accounts for almost half of all health care spending in the US."

Men with the heads of dogs appear in stories going all the way back to ancient Egypt and Greece. Over at Mysterious Universe, Brent Swancer introduces us to this common character found in weird tales from around the world:

In a CNN op-ed, President Obama outlines his plan for the United States to partner with private companies to get humans to Mars (and back!) by the 2030s.

"Undercover Economist" Tim Harford (previously) has a new book out, Messy, which makes a fascinating and compelling case that we are in real danger from the seductive neatness of computers, which put our messes out of sight, where they grow into great catastrophes. (more…)

All nine of the top Icelandic bankers from the Kaupþing market manipulation case have been found guilty by the country's Supreme Court, which reversed the district court that had acquitted two of the defendants last year. (more…)

If you want to get a piece of information removed from the internet, there are few tools more powerful that a court judgment saying that it is defamatory. A judgment like that will get Google to de-index the result and frighten most web-hosts into getting rid of it. So it follows that the sleaziest end of the "reputation management" industry has occupied itself with securing these court orders at high volumes and low costs. (more…)

Exhibit A:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNaDrnxp3L0&feature=youtu.be&t=2m12sExhibit B:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iMy0969BTw

Talk about some real-life muses.

Artist/Hamilton fan Risa Rodil has created a gorgeous collection of posters featuring lyrics from the musical. You can purchase them as prints, t-shirts, home décor and more. Here are some of my favorites:You can see the full collection of 16 posters on Rodil’s Tumblr.

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As the "cool Pope" and other conservative religious leaders wage a war on "gender ideology," one of the biggest casualties may have been the peace vote to end Colombia's decades-long civil war.Trans rights are increasingly used as a wedge issue by conservatives, and it often involves moral panics around "protecting children" from LGBT people in general and transgender people in particular.

We've all been there.(more…)

Such a bouncy shibber pupper. You need this little fella in your internet today.(more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=Bbq9-SJ74_YDennis Hambek was a Wells Fargo branch manager. In 2005, he found Wells Fargo employees creating fake accounts in their customers' names (in order to meeting the company's punishing sales quotas and avoid being blackballed across the industry). He sent a certified letter about the practice in 2006 to Carrie Tolstedt -- the bank exec who oversaw the fraud and retired weeks ahead of the scandal with a $125,000,000 bonus -- and held onto the receipts. (more…)

Infowars host Alex Jones is one of Donald Trump's more obviously insane supporters. And even for Jones, this latest stunt is pretty insane.(more…)

In this video from The Royal Institution, University of Oxford Accelerator Physicist Dr. Suzie Sheehy explains about how you go about designing a particle accelerator.(more…)

New York-based audio artist Matt McCorkle has created an appropriately surreal remix of the second 2016 Presidential debate last night in St. Louis, MO.I can't stop listening.(more…)

Peter Serafinowicz produces another disgraceful Donald Trump remix voicedub masterpiece.(more…)

“There is no room for objectification of women, or anyone for that matter — not even in the locker room,” Nancy O’Dell says on "Entertainment Tonight."(more…)

Jeffery Russell's The Dungeoneers:Blackfrog Island brings back some of the funniest fantasy I've read!When you need someone to fetch a missing prize from a deep, dank, dark dungeon you call the Dungeoneers. The gang of steel nerved dwarves and their odd-ball accompaniment are back, this time headed to Blackfrog Island! Pirates, the high seas, and zombie rats await our team of deep-dungeon-explorers as they attempt to brave a mysterious island from which no one returns.I really enjoyed Russell's first installment as well.The Dungeoneers: Blackfog Island via Amazon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLsTUN1wVrc&feature=youtu.beRobbo sez, "From the 1943 Busby Berkeley musical extravaganza "The Gang's All Here" - this is Carmen Miranda singing: The Lady In The Tutti-Fruity Hat. At around 3:20 they bring out the really big bananas." (more…)

1Voice's new Bluetooth Wirefree Earbuds are taking the concept of Bluetooth one step further. Unlike typical Bluetooth earbuds, these super small, lightweight earbuds fit snuggly in each ear, and require zero wires. Using Bluetooth 4.2 technology, they deliver high-quality sound without ever getting tangled up.Even if you plan to jog or hit the gym, you won't have to worry about them slipping out of your ears. They’re ergonomically designed to sit in your ears comfortably no matter how aggressive your movements. Each earbud even has its own speaker, Bluetooth chip, battery, and mic, so they can work independently of each other as well as together. It's also noteworthy to mention the impressive four hour playtime on a single charge.You can get a pair of 1Voice Bluetooth Wirefree Earbuds for 55% off (just $52.99) in the Boing Boing Store.Explore more trending deals:

On Saturday, my 13-year-old daughter and I spent a couple of hours sketching, which is one of our favorite activities. I was copying out of a book called Rendering in Pen and Ink, and Jane let me borrow her Micron pens. I loved using these pens. The ink is very dark and was perfect for practicing cross-hatching and the other techniques described in the book. They are inexpensive, too. A set of six Micron Pens, with line widths ranging from 0.20mm to 0.50mm, costs less than $10 on Amazon. I just bought a set for myself.

Django/Zorro

He sings this time!

Nanoengineer engineers at Tsinghua University fed silkworms carbon nanotubes or graphene, both of which are approximately 100 times stronger than steel. The silkworms then spun reinforced silk that, according to Chemical & Engineering News, "twice as tough (as regular silk) and can withstand at least 50% higher stress before breaking."

The Piper Computer Kit is an innovative kit that will not only teach you to build a computer, but help you truly understand how a computer works. You'll follow a real engineering blueprint to assemble your own self-contained computer—which runs on the small but powerful Raspberry Pi 2.Once you’ve actually assembled the computer, you can learn computer engineering principles through PiperUniverse, an educational Minecraft story mode. With PiperUniverse, you’ll explore hardware components and challenges that will further strengthen your computer knowledge. Best of all, the micro USB comes preloaded with a Raspberry Pi version of Minecraft so you can celebrate your creation with some serious gaming.Most importantly, the Piper Computer also functions as an actual Raspberry Pi computer, so there are limitless DIY projects you can explore from there. The Piper Computer may have been created to provide a controlled electronic learning environment for kids, but it's actually a really great and fun way for adults to get their feet wet in DIY.For a limited time, you can get the Piper Computer Kit at a discounted price of just $279.Explore more trending deals: