"Extremists near Aleppo," tweeted the Russian Embassy in London, "received several truckloads of chemical ammo."And just to make sure the news was sufficiently clear, they attached an image of three trucks loaded with weapons: that is, from the cartoon video game world of Command & Conquer.https://twitter.com/RussianEmbassy/status/730701444823826432

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has made a sea-change: now, in addition to making open web standards that anyone can implement, they're creating a video DRM standard designed to prevent people from implementing it unless they have permission from the big movie and TV companies, by invoking the notorious Digital Millennium Copyright Act and its international equivalents. (more…)

Security researcher Matt Blaze noticed this vehicle in Philadelphia. It had a large Google Streetview sticker on the window, but Matt noticed a Philadelphia Office of Fleet Management placard on the windshield. He took a photo of the vehicle and tweeted it, along with the comment, "WTF? Pennsylvania State Police license plate reader SUV camouflaged as Google Street View vehicle."The PA State Police read Matt's tweet and replied via Twitter, "Matt, this is not a PSP vehicle. If this is LPR [license plate reader] technology, other agencies and companies might make use of it."[caption id="attachment_461629" align="alignright" width="1999"] The placard showing the vehicle is owned by the City of Philadelphia. Image: Dustin Slaughter[/caption]So, who is driving around in a vehicle disguised as both a Google Streetview car and is equipped with a license plate reader? Motherboard asked the office of Fleet Management, and got some more information:

In 1970, journalist Hunter S. Thompson, 32, and artist Ralph Steadman were assigned to cover the Kentucky Derby for Scanlan's Monthly magazine. The resulting article, "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" (PDF) was the birth of the good doctor's gonzo journalism and changed first-person reporting forever."When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."Below, Michael D. Ratner's short documentary about "Gonzo @ The Derby." (Thanks, Jordan Kurland!)

I think this took place in the Philippines. It's similar to the video of 80 Amish people who picked up a house and moved it:https://youtu.be/hl5bqHQ4YrY

The Guardian reports that a Republican member of the 9/11 commission is "breaking dramatically" with leaders of the commission by claiming that there is Saudi government employees supported the 9/11 hijackers. John F Lehman, who served as Navy secretary under Reagan, is calling for the declassification of a secret congressional report about the Saudis' role in the 2001 terrorist attack.

The Swedish Court of Appeal is confiscating two domains of the popular torrent directory Pirate Bay. The prosecution did not go after The Pirate Bay directly. Instead, it targeted filed a complaint against Punkt SE (IIS), the organization that manages the .SE domain.From Torrent Freak:

In Germany, media that can make or store copies (drives, copiers, blank optical discs) is subject to a "private copying levy" that is meant to compensate rightsholders for the works that will be copied to it (in return, the levy confers a limited right to make those copies to the purchaser). (more…)

Rosebuttboard.com is a forum for people whose sexual activities include inserting large items into their anuses; the site has been breached by a hacker, who now has details on over 100,000 of its users. (more…)

Do not drink and drive. Watch this.[via Metaspoon]

The new mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, says his election in a divisive campaign that drew attention to his faith should send a message to U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump that Islam and Western values get along just fine.(more…)

Today, the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday unanimously passed legislation to improve safety planning for babies born dependent on opioid drugs. (more…)

People who work in chicken and turkey processing plants run by America's biggest poultry producers are routinely denied bathroom breaks. Because of this, some resort to wearing diapers while they're at work on the processing line, Oxfam America said in a report released Wednesday.`They are in danger of serious health problems,' says the report.(more…)

The United Nations Security Council recently passed a resolution reminding members that intentional attacks on medical facilities are war crimes.(more…)

Aching hands don't just ruin a long trip on a motorcycle, they can turn a leisurely ride into a dangerous nightmare. After ruining my last motorcycle vacation, friends recommended the $10 Cramp Buster as a solution superior to spending lots more on complicated mechanical throttle locks.Cramp Buster is a lever. The most complicated thing about it, at least on my BMW, is getting it on the grip. 1970s BMWs have pretty thick grips, so I bought the "over size" version, and needed it. Once on, its quite simple. Adjust it by spinning it counter clockwise on the grip. Counter-clockwise opens the throttle, and doesn't spin on the grip. I find the plastic lever has a bit more flex to it than I particularly want, but I'm sure I'll get used to it pretty quickly.For riding around the canyon roads near my house, the Cramp Buster didn't come into play much, as its really there to help ease freeway miles. I got to try it out on the 101 for a bit, and the lever allows a much more comfortable cruising position. I'm very much looking forward to trying it on a longer trip, in a week or two!Crampbuster CB3 Black Throttle Mounted Motorcycle Cruise Assist via Amazon

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I bought Thinking Physics, by Lewis C. Epstein in 1984. It's one of my favorite books of brain teasers. They are designed to help you gain a qualitative, intuitive sense of physics. The author stresses that after you read each of the many charmingly illustrated problems in the book, you should put the book away and take your time running a simulation of the problem in your head. This is great advice. (more…)

The World Wide Web Consortium has been co-opted into standardizing a DRM scheme for letting entertainment companies control your browser; what's more, they've rejected even basic safeguards for competition, changing the browser landscape in a way that threatens the kind of disruptive innovation that gave us the Mozilla project and the Firefox browser. (more…)

Negative ESP, or "psi-missing," is when you score far below chance in an ESP test. According to the textbook An Introduction to Parapsychology (2007):

My friends Bethany and Daniel, founders of Technology Will Save Us, have developed the "world’s first active wearable that kids, young and old, can make and code themselves." It's called the Mover, and it looks like a lot of fun to build, program, and use! (more…)

Police in Tallahassee, Florida were on high alert after a message appeared on a sidewalk that looked very similar to the writing and cryptograms written by the Zodiac serial killer in the late 1960s and early 1970s in Northern California. The Zodiac Killer's identity is still unknown. Here's the message:“You were wrong. I am not dead or in the hospital. I’m alive and well and I’m going to start killing again."Turns out, the message was part of an assignment on serial killers and drug cartels in a Florida State University class. According to the Tallahassee Democrat, "the assignment was to write a message in a public forum, take a picture and send it to (professor Iheoma) Nwachukwu.From the Tallahassee Democrat:

Chris Anderson is the CEO of 3D Robotics and founder of DIY Drones. From 2001 through 2012 he was Editor in Chief of Wired Magazine. Before Wired he was with The Economist for seven years in London, Hong Kong and New York. He’s the author of the New York Times bestselling books The Long Tail, and Free, as well as Makers: The New Industrial Revolution. His background is in science. He started with studying physics and doing research at Los Alamos, culminating in six years at the two leading scientific journals, Nature and Science. Chris is also the founder of the site Geekdad. He lives in Berkeley, California with his wife and five children.Subscribe to the Cool Tools Show on iTunes | RSS | Transcript | Download MP3 | See all the Cool Tools Show posts on a single page

Join Tom the Dancing Bug's INNER HIVE in May, and more than the amount of your cost to sign up will be donated to help protect journalists around the world! You get exclusive access to comics and other stuff, and journalists get to do their work exposing corruption without being put in jail.Click here to sign up for the INNER HIVE; click here for information.More Tom the Dancing Bug comics on Boing Boing! (more…)

In Critical Failures, a pissed off Game Master wants Tim, Dave, Julian and Cooper to respect the game, but they just want another beer.Robert Bevan has clearly had it with some of the guys he plays RPGs with. This adventure shows off the best, and worst, of RPG culture. Game rules and loopholes are exploited, and described, as only a regular player can, while no obvious trope is avoided. Get ready for beer'd up gamer bros in a world of orcs!If you want a funny, fast paced, gamers-thrown-magically-into-the-world-of-their-game novel, Critical Failures is it!Critical Failures (Caverns and Creatures Book 1) by Robert Bevan via Amazon

I upgraded my home storage to a Drobo 5N, in January 2014. Over two years later a disc failed, swapping in a new one was no big deal.I have loved Drobo since my 1st generation unit. Much easier than packing a PC case with discs and fighting with whatever the most recent, trendy Linux distribution is, Drobo is a simple, fire and forget solution. Losing a disc on the original unit involved a slow time consuming restore, not so with the newer 5N.A red light started to flash on my Drobo 5N. I didn't notice, but the monitor agent, Drobo Dashboard, did and popped a message up on my laptop. The Drobo archives all my digital photos, and a lot our home media. While everything was still available, my daughter was streaming movies off the unit, I wanted to replace the failed disc quickly.Swapping the disc was as easy as advertised. Unlike a swap on the 1st gen unit, this one keeps functioning at normal speeds with one disc down. I simply popped the red lighted HDD out, and slid in a new one. A few seconds later the disc registered with a green light, and I was done.I find Drobo a fantastic storage solution. Pack it full of discs, plug it in, configure it once and you are good for years. I just use it, and generally forget the physical disc is even in the house. I've heard the complaints about their proprietary file system, but the ease of use is such that I can overlook it.Previously on Boing Boing:Adventures in Drobo-land: upgrading to a Drobo 5N

It's time once again to nominate your digital heroes for the Electronic Frontier Foundation's annual Pioneer Awards; previous winners include Edward Snowden, Carl Malamud, Limor Fried, Laura Poitras, Heddy Lamarr, Aaron Swartz, Gigi Sohn, Bruce Schneier, Zoe Lofgren, Glenn Greenwald, Jon Postel and many others (I am immensely proud to have won one myself!). (more…)

At The New York Times, Lisa Damour tackles the changing vocabulary of talking to teens about marijuana. Once good for standard-issue parental rants about drugs 'n' crime, legalization and research are making the issue more complex. You might even have to talk about the science!

Starfish wasting disease seriously reduced the west coast's population of starfish. This crucial member of the ecosystem's absence has contributed to collapse. Urchin populations are booming, and kelp forests have been depleted. Researchers have found signs of hope, however, and there are a record number of baby sea stars this year!Via the San Jose Mercury News:

Minnesota's SF3609, the Personal Rights in Names Can Endure (PRINCE) Act, is the broadest, most ill-considered publicity rights bill in American history. (more…)

Germany's ruling coalition is modifying the country's legal "Störerhaftung" theory, which currently makes people liable for copyright infringement if they operate an open wifi network that someone else uses for copyright infringement, even if the operator didn't and couldn't know about it. (more…)

As politicians work the campaign trail, one of two things happens: either the stump speech becomes rote and robotic; or it turns into a full-blown, riveting performance. (more…)

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I’m not a scientist, but this sounds amazing: a new two-step application of "new skin" developed at MIT that eliminates wrinkles and bags under the eyes — and it’s not bullshit. Watch this video and read the original article in the New York Times. It also has other medical uses. Amazing!Via The New York Times

Amnesty International says at least 149 detainees have died "in horrendous conditions" at a military detention site in northeastern Nigeria this year. Among them were 11 children under the age of 6 years old, and four babies who are said to have died of untreated measles.(more…)

Mouse says wtf?From Chris Notap:

On a conference call with the Ted Cruz campaign's National Prayer Team, the presidential candidate's wife Heidi Cruz said the fight to get her unelectable husband elected is pretty much exactly like the long and difficult battle to abolish slavery. This makes perfect sense in Ted Cruz World. And that's why he's unfit to govern anything but Ted Cruz World, and not America. (more…)

I’ve known Tomohiro Maeda since he was a teenager.For a period he was well-known in Japan for his many two-hour television specials doing mostly card tricks for famous celebrities seated around a small table. It takes a great magician to keep the high-and-mighty seated for two hours with nothing more than a deck of cards. Above is a good example of one of his recent TV shows in which they also analyzed the brain during the performance of magic (even though it’s in Japanese, you’ll understand the magic tricks with little problem).Tomohiro Maeda now writes life-style articles for magazines while continuing to perform magic at high-priced private events and he recently made a TV commercial for a Japanese credit card company.https://youtu.be/aGsitpmOMLcAnd they also released a behind-the-scenes video.https://youtu.be/FrY-lgna4aII think we all wish we could do magic with our credit cards rather than be indebted to them.Via Hey Presto!

In the video above, you will see just how deceptive Adore Me is. If you don't pay very close attention to the fine print, you will get suckered into a $40/month automatic payment. You can only cancel under certain conditions, and if you do manage to cancel, Adore Me keeps your money.Shana Mueller of Truth in Advertising says:

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The brilliant Jen Lewis, having untanned Trump to ghastly effect, writes that she "had another terrible thought." This time, she tried her hand at photoshopping his presidential rivals so that they have tans just like his. The results are nasty, as you'd expect, but not quite as nasty as the Flame-faced Fuckwit of Fifth Avenue.

Behold the space age beauty of the Paam Tube turntable, created by French designer Yonel Lebovici in 1968. On eBay, they appear to be listed in the $700 range or less if they're non-functional.(via Discogs on Instagram and Paddle8)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc3bPSLdXnk

You'll know Ben Hatke as author of Boing Boing-beloved illustrated kids' books like Little Robot and Zita the Space Girl, but as this Children's Book Week video shows, Hatke is a literal fire-breathing, acrobatic, sword-fighting superhero! (more…)

From the classic Meco album, Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk (1977).

The Associated Press reports that the Stonewall Inn, birthplace of America's most fabulous protest, will become the first national monument to LGBT rights in the U.S.

LA Times reports that a 113 year-old Japanese American newspaper is in danger of going out of business.

Pocket CHIP is a tiny, $50, ARM-based pocket games console with a full keyboard and a Bluetooth interface. (more…)

Polygraph studio created this great timeline of Billboard Top 10 songs from the last 60 years.

Police in Indonesia investigating reports of an "angel" in a remote village discovered not a supernatural avatar of God's will but a blow-up doll. A fisherman found it floating around after a rare solar eclipse and, well, it's a mistake anyone could make: "The timing of the discovery led some to believe the doll had a divine provenance. They have no internet, they don't know what a sex toy is," the AFP quoted a local police chief as saying.

UP Aerospace Inc. launched a 20-foot tall rocket nearly 400,000 feet into the upper atmosphere to test the re-entry of the capsule. Eventually, such a capsule could bring biological samples back to Earth from space.More details on the capsule at NASA.

https://youtu.be/5QajKC_EyXITodd Harrison says: "I use a Weller solder iron to burn off a stubborn wart that I have tried to freeze off many times and failed." He observes, "It'll be a scar - but it won't be a wart anymore."Hackaday has the blow-by-blow: