Rock and roll legend Donovan is on tour again. Celebrating his 70th birthday this May, Donovan will be touring Europe, continuing to spread his message of peace, and love.Via The Bangkok Post:

Following the directions on a large LEGO project can be meditative, while creating your own sculpture or contraption can be exhilarating! LEGO Awesome Ideas helps bring your ideas to life!LEGO Awesome Ideas is a fantastic visual guide to building thematic LEGO models, and creating your own landscapes. From Wild West trains to AT-AT like walkers, this book starts small and shows you how to build up to your big ideas! This guide uses several different environments to teach you, and your child, to build any world you like.Most of the models use standard, pretty easy to find pieces or you can substitute. My eight-year-old and I were able to work out most everything with little trouble.LEGO Awesome Ideas by Daniel Lipkowitz via Amazon

Photographer Gertrude Käsebier received permission from Buffalo Bill Cody to photograph the native tribes people in his Wild West Show. This collection, from the Library of Congress, is wonderful.Via The Vintage News:

The Reid Technique is the go-to method for coercing false confessions in America's police interrogation rooms, and now it's being taught to America's schoolteachers, just as schools are using "zero-tolerance" policies and on-site cops to re-characterize school discipline problems as criminal matters, creating a school-to-prison pipeline. (more…)

A new law passed by the LA city council prohibits homeless people from owning more belongings than can fit in a 60-gallon trashcan with the lid on, and allows police to summarily confiscate any tents that are still standing on public property during daylight hours. (more…)

Robert Altbauer created this series of illustrations depicting crusaders meeting the HP Lovecraft's monsters, annotated in medieval Middle High German. (more…)

Neither of these decks are smokable, but they bring two of my favorite things together: weed and magic! For sleigh of hand, and other tricks, I always prefer the Bicycle brand cards, but the rolling paper inspired cards are fun as well.Bicycle's Hemp Deck has a hemp leaf on the back, but the cards are made of your typical US Playing Cards stock and finish.RAW rolling papers aren't as iconic as Zig-Zag, but if you want to tell a joint rolling story to accompany a magic trick, this deck'll help convince people they are looking at something special. They also come with a bracelet.RAW Rolling Paper Playing Cards via AmazonBicycle Hemp Deck Playing Cards via Amazon

Now that Indiana Governor Mike Pence has signed one of the most extreme anti-abortion laws in the country -- which includes a ban on abortions based on race, sex and disability, requiring abortion doctors to ask invasive personal questions of women seeking to terminate their pregnancies -- women in his state have decided that they will give him the intimate information about their reproductive health that he so obviously craves. (more…)

The Pockit Stroller claims the Guinness World Record for the smallest-folding umbrella stroller ever -- it folds down so small you can put it under your airplane seat or into a shopping bag. (more…)

The Supreme Court's 2014 McCutcheon v FEC ruling eliminated aggregate caps on individual campaign donations, and this paved the way for the DNC and the Hillary Victory Fund to collaborate with 33 state-level Democratic parties to accept $10,000 donations from the millionaires and billionaires who back Clinton, kicking them back up to Hillary, allowing each couple to donate up to $1.32M to the Clinton campaign. (more…)

White cops from Aiken, SC improperly stopped a car driven by a black woman (they claimed the stop was motivated by temporary tags, but driving with current temporary tags is not grounds for a stop), then improperly questioned her passenger, who voluntarily gave them his ID, then induced a drug dog to "alert" on the car, then forced both black people to expose themselves in public, culminating with two officers taking turns sticking their fingers up the passenger's rectum, again, in public. (more…)

On Wednesday, Fairfax and Huffington Post broke the Unaoil story, revealing that they had been leaked a trove of email from an obscure Monaco family business that had acted as a global fixer in bribery and bid-rigging that looted the treasuries and oil-fields of some of the world's poorest countries, from Iraq to Yemen, acting on behalf of blue-chip companies like Rolls-Royce and Halliburton. (more…)

“The avocado is highly regarded by many people as delicious and nutritious, but the most extraordinary thing about avocados may be their very existence.”(more…)

Guess how many times Republican presidential race front-runner Donald Trump said "Excuse me" at a recent Town Hall? “More. Nope, more. Keep guessing. More...”(more…)

There is, finally, a PowerPuff Yourself avatar creator, promoting the new season of the show. The results are surprisingly horrific, even without effort.

Of course there is an entire issue of The Airhead, a BMW Airhead enthusiast e-zine, completely dedicated to the most beautiful motorcycle of all time, the R90S.The term "Airhead" is used to describe the beloved 1970s models of BMWs air-cooled twin cylinder motorcycle, and their loopy owners. There is some great history in the e-zine, and I really enjoy the rider/owner stories. The R90S is a standout in looks, and performance, but comes with the same quirks as the well known line of motorcycle. Quirks seem to be what it is all about.The guys at The Airhead e-zine had this to say about the issue, and their publication:

(more…)

"Start remembering your bathroom experiences again with our new handcrafted toilet paper. Inspired by the makers of yesterday and today." Quilted Northern's April Fool's day joke.

Evan from Fight for the Future writes, "Hey Internet! Ever since SOPA we've all known that copyright laws have a huge impact on the Internet, free speech, innovation, creativity." (more…)

If you like to write with fountain pens, sketch with colored pencils or otherwise enjoy the physical art of writing, Maruman's Mnemosyne is my notebook favorite paper to write on. Quad ruling on paper just makes me feel good, a throw back to college I guess. This fantastic, top-bound and slightly smaller than B5 size notebook has both!Fountain pen inks dry fast, don't bleed through, and all of my pens glide over this paper. The slightly warm, off-white of this paper is also super pleasing to the eye, and is wonderful to work on.Maruman Mnemosyne Inspiration 5 mm Grid 6.3 x 8.3" via Amazon

Triangulart is "a silly graphic editor build in JavaScript to create isometric illustrations"

Jeet Heer writes that Trump will probably lose the election, but he's already changed a GOP that generally controls all other levels of government and is a bellwether for America's political future. (more…)

Like many right-wing commentators, Sean Hannity likes to invoke conservative legends such as William Buckley. But he doesn't actually know much about them, as demonstrated by this exchange on Twitter:https://twitter.com/johntabin/status/715751878957641728https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/715753640871534592The "sock" line is, of course, Buckley's own. Here he is promising to plaster Gore Vidal after the latter mocked him as a "crypto-nazi":https://youtu.be/ZY_nq4tfi24?t=10m46s"Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-nazi or I'll sock you in a goddamn face, and you'll stay plastered," said Buckley.Hannity's a bit like Trump, in this respect: strangely, blithely ignorant of conservatism except as abstraction and ideal. Buckley, here, becomes a prop for Hannity's own dumb and joyless narcissism; far too boring to have ever been enjoyed alone.Also, someone should introduce Hannity to punctuation.https://twitter.com/Mobute/status/715911730908495872

It's been two days since the first article detailing the contents of a trove of leaked emails from Unaoil, an obscure family company from Monaco that was revealed to be the fixers in a global web of bribery in corruption that helped the biggest blue-chip companies on earth loot the oil-fields of some of the world's most vulnerable, poor, and war-torn nations. (more…)

[While I'm away for a week, I'm posting classic Boing Boing entries from the archives. Here's a gem from 2006.]FSM hate mail is a collection of email that Bobby Henderson, author of The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, has received from friendly folks who hope to win him over with their charitable benevolence.Samples:

This is a damned inspiring way to spend 90 minutes; Dawson's speech is a hell of a barn-burner that makes the connection between anti-establishment movements on the right and left (and points out they key difference: Trump will go to the White House to say, 'You're fired!' and Bernie will take office to say 'You're hired!'), Spike Lee makes an impassioned plea for people to talk to their parents about Clinton's actual track record on social justice issues, and Residente minces no words about someone who lauds Kissinger, the architect of Latin American genocide, as a foreign policy inspiration. (more…)

Dan Grover has updated his excellent annual survey of UI trends in Chinese mobile apps with a new installment that covers the t-shirt icon, the happy shopping bag, the moving SEND button, the rise of data-management apps and chatbots, and more. (more…)

Trevor Paglen and Jacob Appelbaum collaborate to create beautiful, acrylic-encased computers that are also Tor nodes, anonymizing data that passes through them, and install the in art galleries all over the world, so that patrons can communicate and browse anonymously, while learning about anonymity and Tor. (more…)

For April Fools, Google rearranged Gmail's UI to replace the normal send button with one that attaches a Minions(TM) Mic Drop GIF animation to outgoing email.

Egypt blocked Facebook's Free Basics Internet service late last year after Facebook refused the Egyptian government's demands to build in the ability to spy on users. Reuters reported the story late Thursday, citing two people familiar with the matter. (more…)

How can you not appreciate how personally Elon Musk cares about the cars his company produces? The man really means it.(more…)

The Federal Communications Commission today approved a $9.25 monthly broadband subsidy to help millions of low-income U.S. households get online. The long-fought expansion of the FCC's Lifeline program is intended to help bridge the digital divide.(more…)

The San Francisco Police Department is in trouble all over again, over claims that officers swapped texts that appear to mock public outcry over a previous texting scandal--stay with me here, now--a previous scandal in which another group of SFPD officers are said to have circulated racist texts.(more…)

Andrés Sepúlveda, identified as a hacker from Colombia, says he and other hackers installed malware to monitor the opponents of Enrique Peña Nieto during the 2012 Mexican presidential campaign, as part of a ‘black propaganda’ operation.(more…)

On today's edition of the KCRW daily news program Press Play, I speak with host Madeleine Brand about what we know, as of today, about any new capabilities the FBI may have acquired in its quest to bypass the security features on Apple iOS devices in various investigations. (more…)

In early 2015, Reddit published a transparency report that contained heading for National Security Requests, noting, "As of January 29, 2015, reddit has never received a National Security Letter, an order under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or any other classified request for user information." (more…)

The marginal quality of the CGI nose really makes it. They should have hired Cyriak.

The numbers in this study are very back-of-the-envelope and assume a worst case: widespread adoption of Bitcoin and not much improvement in Bitcoin mining activity, along with long replacement cycles for older, less efficient mining rigs. Even the best case scenario has Bitcoin consuming a shocking amount of electricity.(more…)

Eve Online ("spreadsheets in space") is the infamously intricate massively multiplayer space trade/conquest game where real cash can be exchanged for in-game currency , making the battles fought there consequential in a way that sets it apart from other games. (more…)

Kolejka ("Queue") is a popular satirical Polish board game that lampoons life under Stalinist rule; the Russian consumer watchdog Rospotrebnadzor has banned publisher IPN, the Polish "Institute of National Remembrance," from distributing its Russian version of the game unless they remove "anti-Russian" elements that are "excessively critical" of the USSR. (more…)

Pissedconsumer has noticed that a bunch of "reputation management" companies are filing lawsuits to get anonymous customer complaints removed, and very quickly identifying the anonymous posters, who swear affidavits okaying the removal of their complaints. (more…)

I was given a tube of Wenol by a seller of antique silver, years ago. Wenol cleans up everything I think to try it on.Wenol is a pink paste containing magic and some jewelers rouge. You rub it on to whatever surface you need to remove tarnish or oxidation from, or just shine up, and then wipe off.I've used this on silverware, jewelry, doorknobs, tools, automotive chrome, and aluminum. Look at what Wenol did for my motorcycle wheels! They are shiny! I had no idea! Cleaning the one wheel took about 20 minutes. Don't pick on my spokes.I found that Wenol takes off light surface crud, and the residue buffs nicely to quite a shine. The magic paste leaves a bit of a film that purportedly helps slow future corrosion.Wenol Metal Polish 3.98-oz. via Amazon

The Acrostic beat poem generator (via) will take any word you give it and use its letters as the starting letter for each line. The results are oftentimes silly, and sometimes uncanny. (more…)

More here. (via Neatorama)

I-Media, a creative agency in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, created this brilliant concept design for Molocow milk. I want to believe!

[While I'm away for a week, I'm posting classic Boing Boing entries from the archives. Here's a gem from 2006.]

"The best record label logo of the 70s?" as posted to Instagram by the fantastic reissue label The Numero Group.

A heavily-bearded Michael Stipe sings a beautifully baroque cover of David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World" as a teaser for tomorrow night's Music of David Bowie tribute concert at Radio City Music Hall, and streaming. (The Tonight Show)

Kim Metcalfe is a Democratic Party superdelegate from Alaska, a state whose party members pledged 81.6% of their support to Bernie Sanders. (more…)

Last spring, in the chaos following the firing of Mattel's CEO (who presided over a disastrous slide in Barbie sales), a Mattel finance executive got an email from his new boss, replacement CEO Christopher Sinclair, ordering the transfer of $3 million to a new Chinese supplier. (more…)