Is this symbolic for something?

See sample pages from this book at Wink.Born in Australia, Ebony Bizys made the move to Tokyo five years ago and hasn’t looked back since. As the founder of the popular blog Hello Sandwich, Ebony has always been obsessed with Japanese culture, as well as cute stationary, colorful home décor, and all things DIY. This 224-page book manages to cram in as many pretty images, kawaii ideas, and adorable craft projects as it can hold. From a whimsical look into Ebony’s daily life and apartment in Tokyo, to tutorials for pom-pom cardigans and handmade camera straps (among many others), to insight into ‘bento’ and even tips for entertaining, Ebony is certainly one talented and creative lady.For those who aren’t familiar with Ebony’s blog or even Japanese culture, they’re still sure to enjoy this publication for its overload of cute images and inspirational ideas. Ebony’s aim in producing Hello Tokyo was to inspire people to bring more fun and beauty into their everyday life. After reading this book numerous times, I truly believe that she has achieved this. – Melanie DoncasHello Tokyo!: Handmade Projects and Fun Ideas for a Cute Tokyo-Inspired Lifestyle

Jared Sinclair fixed the "fearful symmetry" of his Apple remote with an asparagus band.

Liquid ASS is described as smelling like a fine combination of "butt crack, kind of a sewer smell with a hint of dead animal." It is arguably the worst smell in the world. High school prankster Allen Wittman invented it man years ago from ingredients in his chemistry set. Now it's used by the US military in war simulations to get medics used to the smell of a torn intestine with wasting spilling into the abdominal cavity. 99% Invisible tells the story of Liquid ASS and it's new application to help save lives. You can also buy your own bottle for $10 on Amazon.

Back in July, a hacker dumped the emails and other files from Hacking Team, Italy's notorious cyber-arms dealer. Coincidentally, Vice had recently filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FBI, asking if they were buying cyberweapons from Hacking Team. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc3jVX6cU2MThe $120 Digital Wizard hoodie started out as a 2012 April Fool's prank, but as with other Thinkgeek April Fools products, it proved so popular that they went ahead and made it. (more…)

NASA just released this beautiful composite infrared view of Saturn's moon Titan. The Cassini spacecraft captured the image last month during its flyby about 6,200 miles above the moon's surface. From NASA:

Because Music's Recollection is a click-happy guide to music from the last 10 years. It made me miss the early days of CD-ROM experiments, like Jim Ludtke's work for The Residents.

Setsuko Hara. It’s unlikely you’ve heard her name or seen any of her numerous films, yet she was the muse of one of the world’s greatest filmmakers: Japan’s Yasujiro Ozu. And you may well not have heard of him, either, since none of his films were released in the United States during his lifetime; it was thought they were “too Japanese.” During the 1960s Akira Kurosawa was the director thought to be more accessible to western cultures. While little known to the average person, among cinephiles Ozu is one of the most highly-regarded directors in the history of film, and his movie Tokyo Story is ranked in the top tier of the greatest films ever made, along with Citizen Kane and Vertigo.Welles, Hitchcock, and Ozu.Like most of Ozu’s films, the plot for his 1953 masterpiece Tokyo Story is deceptively simple: an elderly couple travel to Tokyo to visit their children, who have little time to spend with their parents. Only one, the widow of their son who died in the war, is genuinely happy to see them. She is played by Setsuko (pronounced Sets-ko) Hara with a restrained warmth that is unforgettable. The forward movement in Ozu’s films is almost entirely born of emotion, not action. The camera rarely moves.Tokyo Story drapes a blanket of melancholy over its audience and was inspired by Leo McCarey’s 1937 film, Make Way for Tomorrow, which is even more bleak if such a thing is possible. Of McCarey’s film Orson Welles is reputed to said, “Oh my God that’s the saddest movie ever made … It would make a stone cry.”But in Tokyo Story there is an enormous emotional restraint in the performances of the actors — a hallmark of Ozu’s work. Hara is a gentle oasis of care and respect among a squabble of disrespectful children and their families. As noted in Hara’s New York Times obituary, “The novelist Shusaku Endo once wrote, of seeing a Hara film, ‘We would sigh or let out a great breath from the depths of our hearts, for what we felt was precisely this: Can it be possible that there is such a woman in this world?’”What made Hara the perfect actress for Ozu was the fullness with which restrained emotion flooded across her features. Ozu willfully kept any overtly saccharine and maudlin scenes out of his films. Often the major event which you would expect to be one of the most important and climactic scenes (a death, a wedding) is jumped over in time. By not showing, the emotion from them is carried forward by the actors’ restrained performances. There is never any of the overt over-emoting so common in other films. One could describe Ozu’s actors using the title of a well-known book about women in silent films, “They had faces, then.”Late Spring, made in 1949, is among the finest of Hara and Ozu’s collaborations. Also starring his frequent leading man, the marvelous Chishu Ryu as Hara’s father, it is a film laden with personal sacrifice, the inevitable weight of time, and melancholy. A daughter feels she must remain with her elderly father to take care of him, while the father feels he must push his daughter out into the world, and marriage, for her happiness. Hara is the daughter, dutifully tending to the needs of her father, and afraid of embracing her own life. He convinces her to marry by lying and pretending that he is also going to be married. The final scene, which takes place after the daughter has left, finds the father sitting alone in his home. The camera frames only his hand which holds an apple he has slowly peeled — then the apple falls from his hand. Credits roll. It’s like having your guts scooped out.Setsuko Hara made many films with Ozu and, when he died in 1963, she retired shortly afterward, barely in her forties. She gave no believable reason for her retirement. There were unsubstantiated rumors that she and Ozu were lovers; he had spent most of his adult life — after returning from the second World War — looking after his mother.Thereafter Hara went into total seclusion in the Japanese city of Kamakura, home of the Daibutsu (the Great Buddha) and many beautiful shrines. She gave no interviews except, perhaps, one by phone, was not photographed again until her 90th birthday, and stubbornly remained a mystery until she died in September at 95. Even her death was not revealed until months later. No husband, no children, no survivors. She wanted to be alone.The depth of humanity in Ozu’s best films is overwhelming. There are no “over the shoulder” conversational shots: he positions his actors in front of the camera so they address it directly. The characters look straight at you, their eyes into yours — and it was on Setsuko Hara’s face that a panoply of emotion washed over her features in a way that made you think, indeed, “Can it be possible that there is such a woman in this world?”

Japanese ingenuity, particularly when it comes to creating delicious snacks and about five million ways to eat chocolate, never fails to amaze me. Yet I am amazed anew by this latest release from the Bourbon chocolate company (which does, in fact, have a 1.3% alcoholic content making it even more scrumptious).You know that old commercial with the dog smelling bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon? That’s me and chocolate — like an obsessed pooch.So what’s the greatest thing since sliced bread? Sliced chocolate.Yeah, it's just like American cheese but it's separate slices of CHOCOLATE. Where's my marshmallow fluff and two pieces of bread? I want this NOW NOW NOW.You can melt it over pancakes, and probably certain parts of the human body they can’t show in the article.Source: Rocket News

In the wake of heavy criticism from his party over remarks about Muslims, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump warned them he would be more than happy to run as an independent candidate.

Lu Wei is chief of China's State Internet Information Office, a man they call "the gatekeeper of the Chinese internet." According to him, the world's most notorious and ambitious system of Internet censorship is actually just "management." (more…)

For more than a century, the US judiciary has been handing down rulings that affirm that non-US citizens, including those seeking entry into the USA, have no rights under the US Constitution -- rulings that also grant the President the power to exclude people based on race, marital status and other biased grounds. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqGS8yDD5ZAFor two successive Parliaments, the UK Tory party has been trying to pass the most extensive mass-spying bill in the western world. It's called the Snoopers Charter, and after the Paris attacks, it came back with a vengeance. (more…)

All over the world, laws promulgated by the US Trade Representative ban breaking digital locks -- the "Digital Rights Management" technologies that lock up our TVs, tablets, phones, games consoles, cars, insulin pumps, tractors, coffee makers, etc -- even if you're breaking them to do something legal, for example, making "fair use" (like parodies, critiques, and new, transformative works like mashups). (more…)

Follow @RubenBolling on Twitter and Facebook.Please join Tom the Dancing Bug's subscription club, the INNER HIVE, for early access to comics, and more.And/or buy Ruben Bolling’s new book series for kids, The EMU Club Adventures. Book One here. Book Two here.More Tom the Dancing Bug comics on Boing Boing! (more…)

Growing up, I used to fill my shelves with things I collected in my travels. As my radius of movement was only about 5 miles, though, what I amassed was pretty lame. Nowadays, thanks to Internet retail, I never have to leave my home and every day is like Christmas.You my not realize it, but we’re living during the collectable playing card revolution. 10 years ago, I wouldn't have thought about being on a mailing list for collector's decks, but that all changed when I discovered the green Monarchs from Theory11.It’s pretty fancy, and it’d better be. It has to live up to the claim of being “The deck that’s fit for a King”. The box features gold foil on an embossed, durable card stock (gathered from sustainable forests), and feels very substantial.The design is uncluttered, with striking embossed intertwining serpents.I’m just fascinated with their foil-stamping dies—and envious of the designer’s ability to make something so balanced, intricate and beautiful.When you open the box, the first thing you’ll see is the Latin phrase - Cerca Trova – Seek and you shall find.It’s the same messaging that’s found in their Contraband deck, but don’t hold it against them. I think it’s good that these decks nod to each other, because they feel almost as if they’re distant cousins.If you look closely on the backs of the cards you’ll see another Latin phrase – Esto perpetue – let it be eternal. The phrase can be traced back to a man named Paolo Sarpi, who used it as his dying declaration in 1623. He was a Venetian philosopher who cared about the independent Venetian Republic above all else.Here’s a rare portrait of Paolo Sarpi posing with a couple of cards from his Monarch deck. They really give him an air of regality, don't they?You wouldn’t know it by looking at him, but Mr. Sarpi is a bit of a badass. Years before his death, for religious reasons, assassins stabbed him 15 times and left him for dead. He lived on to be a champion for the Republic, which makes his dying words all the more powerful.And wait until you get a load of this! The Great Seal of The State of Idaho shares Paolo’s dying phrase as well!If "Esto Perpetua" was good enough for Paolo and the Great State of Idaho, it has to be good enough for the Monarchs.The decks were designed by an artist named Curtis Jenkins. He runs a “One Stop Shop” design studio called The Neighborhood Studio and his website is fun to poke around in.He won’t tell you himself, but the Monarchs were featured in the movie Now You See Me - which is pretty darned badass!The day that Morgan Freeman holds anything I’ve designed is the day that I drop the mic and walk away into the sunset. Where do you go from there?I guess you could go and make your awesome deck in newer and bolder colors.Here’s the design for their new red Monarchs deck.And wait—there's more! The red and blue versions have gold foil just like the green ones, and the white decks have silver or gold.The face-cards in each deck seem to have much richer color schemes than others I’ve seen and while the number cards seem pretty standard, it doesn’t bother me.As a package, they’re all pretty spectacular.I especially love the design of the Ace of Spades. Again, it’s the same feel for each color but I think it looks extra-classy with the green boxes.If you like to manipulate cards or you’re a collector, this seems like a no brainer to me. What other deck offers penny farthing bicycle Jokers for just $7.95 a pop?Take a minute and check out the Theory11 website . There are so many beautiful things to see.Even in black and white, the Monarchs are awesome!

Return to Boing BoingHere's a guide to the charities the Boingers support in our own annual giving. As always, please add the causes and charities you give to in the forums!Planned Parenthood

On December 19th, the Internet Archive is hosting a telethon for 24 straight hours, an old-fashioned variety show kind of thing with performances and live acts, and you can attend, if you're in San Francisco! Your tickets and donations go to support the Wayback Machine and the Archive's amazing, important work as the Internet's collective memory. (via JWZ)

The scale and virulence of internet harassment often lingers in the news, but three women who have faced down the bullies are sharing their guide to staying safe online.The advice is eminently sensible, well thought-out and derives, sadly, from all-too-familiar experience.

Jane from CC writes, "Creative Commons, the global nonprofit that makes it easier for creators to share their work under simple copyright terms, announced a major milestone in the release of its 2015 State of the Commons Report today: over 1 billion works have been licensed using Creative Commons since the organization was founded." (more…)

This Russian video shows a high-tech, terrifying in-mouth CNC mill that uses built-in cameras and a machine controlled drill to precisely mill out rotten parts of teeth while you clench the machine's anchor in your jaw, whimpering around it (usefully, it doubles as a gag). (via JWZ)

The environmental activism group Greenpeace today disclosed that it led an undercover investigation to expose how easy it is for big oil, gas, or coal companies to pay academics at leading U.S. universities to write research that sheds doubt on climate science, and promotes the commercial interests of the fossil fuel industry.(more…)

A local CBS affiliate in Philadelphia reports that city police are investigating a pig’s head dumped outside an Islamic Center in North Philadelphia.Islam's holy book, the Quran, forbids Muslims from eating pork.The pig’s head showed up outside the Al-Alsqa Islamic Center early this morning.A man who works for a nonprofit inside the center told local TV news the first time Al-Asqa was threatened in this manner was right after the recent terrorist attacks in Paris. They received a voicemail: “Allah… is a peace of pork [expletive]! Allah Sucks!””Philadelphia Mayor-elect Jim Kenney said in a statement today, “The bigotry that desecrated Al-Aqsa mosque has no place in Philadelphia… I ask all Philadelphians to join me in rejecting this despicable act and supporting our Muslim neighbors.”Just last Sunday, President Barack Obama gave a national address about terrorism, and rejected the wave of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim violence sweeping America. Many blame the inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric of GOP Presidential candidate Donald Trump for an uptick in hate crimes like the pig's head.Michael Nutter, the outgoing mayor of Philadelphia, had some thoughts on Donald Trump's hateful comments against Muslims. Said the mayor, “He's an asshole.”Police Investigate Pig’s Head Found Outside Philadelphia Islamic Center [philadelphia.cbslocal.com]

Michael from Muckrock writes, "While patiently noting that their anonymous tipsters thought Lennon was not a 'true revolutionist' because he used drugs, the FBI worked with INS over several years to bolster a case to deport the Beatles' musical genius." (more…)

To a beautiful friend

The Trans Pacific Partnership: it's thousands of pages' worth of dense bureaucratic language setting out the give-and-take of years' worth of secret negotiations. Figuring out what it means for you is a transcendentally difficult process. (more…)

YouTube stars employ a watered-down, carnival-barker style of annunciation to keep viewers interested, says Julie Beck of The Atlantic, who asked to Naomi Baron, a professor of linguistics at American University, to explain what's going on. Baron identified the following distinguishing components of the YouTube voice:

Crafty and eccentric YouTube musician Andrew Huang enjoys performing classical compositions on weird objects.(more…)

See sample pages from this book at Wink.What many Americans may not be aware of is that, from the introduction of the U.S. Patent system, in 1790, up until 1880, every submitted patent document required a model of the invention to accompany it. Thousands upon thousands of models were submitted, so many that buildings had to be built to house them all. In 1994, an upstate New York couple, Ann and Allan Rothschild, began collecting some of these surviving models, eventually amassing some 4,000 items. This model collection forms the basis for Inventing a Better Mousetrap, a beautiful and fascinating exploration of these models, the patents they illustrated, and the sometimes profound import these inventions had on the growth and development of the United States of America.One of the more fascinating dimensions of history is context, understanding the unique circumstances out of which something developed and the impact that development had upon history’s larger canvas. Besides gorgeous photographs and details of each of the models, every chapter (e.g. Steam, Heat, Light & Fire, Leather & Shoes, Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms) provides background on the circumstances that gave rise to the developments it examines. So, for example, in the ATF chapter, we learn about how the 1779 “Corn Patch and Cabin Rights” law, enacted for the Virginia territories (giving settlers 400 acres in what is now Kentucky, if they built a cabin and planted a corn crop), led to massive corn yields in the extremely fertile soil of the region. And with an excess of corn, a large Irish and Scottish immigrant population, and the unique qualities of the limestone- and iron-rich water, we ended up with Kentucky bourbon (and the invention of the machinery to distill it).

 Besides this rich context for the patents, another wonderful dimension to this book is the project section, where six patent models are presented in full DIY detail, allowing you to get seriously hands-on with history, creating replicas of such models as an electromagnetic motor, the first water-heated washing machine, and yes, a mousetrap.Inventing a Better Mousetrap appears at a perfect time, as the maker movement and desktop fabrication technologies are prompting lots of people to learn computer-aided design, model making, and various forms of prototyping. As the initial quote in the book puts it: “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see,” attributed to Winston Churchill. This book is a beautiful, fascinating, and inspiring look backwards, as new, democratizing technologies offer us the possibility of an actively hands-on future.Disclosure: I was the editor on this book and wrote its introduction. Inventing a Better Mousetrap: 200 Years of American History in the Amazing World of Patent Models

https://vimeo.com/148182185Dan Ashwood writes, "I wrote and animated a new holy days carol to memorize and perform at neighbors and homeowners. Take a look!"

Lisa Rein writes, "When Jacob Appelbaum called for transparency in Aaron Swartz's FOIA case, he was talking about Kevin Poulsen's ongoing case against the Department of Homeland Security, a case that MIT managed to intervene in." (more…)

Penguin Magic is a great way to get into magic tricks, and master the art in no time.(more…)

https://vimeo.com/77047228If you love, or fear the ocean, Worse Things Happen At Sea is the art book for you!This doubled sided panorama illustrates man locked in battle with the terrors of the deep. Kellie Strøm spent over 2 years working with a magnifying glass and insanely fine ink pens to create these beautiful illustrations.Kellie Strøm's Worse Things Happen At Sea via Amazon

A new book, Material Innovation: Packaging Design, written by a material science consultant and a design consultant, explores the ways that packaging is being changed by innovations in retail, materials, design, and marketing. (more…)

Denmark's Antipiratgruppen was formed in the early 2000s to fight the Internet over copyright infringement, with members including the MPA and umbrella groups representing record labels, publishers and other media companies. They hired Johan Schlüter, a law firm, to represent them. (more…)

Last week a small company in Dublin called Steorn started taking orders for their USB phone charger. It's on the large side, and is only good for two or three smartphone charges per day, or one tablet charge. So then, why are they asking 1200 euros (about $1275) each for them? Well, for one thing, you don't have to plug them in. But there are other, much cheaper chargers that draw their power from sunlight or some other source and never need to be plugged in. With Steorn's OCube charger you're not paying for convenience, you're paying to be one of the first to own a device that does the impossible -- and that might be on the verge of revolutionizing science and technology.Or at least, that's what Steorn would have us believe.The OCube is the latest iteration of Steorn's Orbo technology. According to Steorn's CEO Shaun McCarthy, engineers there were working up a design for a wind-driven generator to power ATM security cameras back in 2003, when they stumbled upon a strange effect: the generators were putting out more power than they were taking in. Steorn spent the next few years ruling out potential sources of experimental error, and then trying to understand the theoretical basis of the anomaly. Finally they convinced themselves that there was no getting around the conclusion that they'd invented a perpetual motion machine. They'd found a loophole in the way that magnetic fields interact that allowed the law of conservation of energy to be broken, and caused so-called "free energy" to be generated: energy from nothing.A technology that generates free energy would of course be enormously valuable for an endless range of applications, from eliminating the need to burn fossil fuels, to making clean water and electricity cheaper and more accessible to billions of people. It's no wonder then that history is littered with claims of perpetual motion machines, many of them outright hoaxes, and none of them ever having resulted in a practical device. In this context, Steorn found that no academic scientists were willing to endorse their technology, and without scientific backing, no manufacturers were interested in licensing it. So, they decided to reach out directly to the public.In 2006 Steorn ran a full page ad in The Economist, flaunting the impossibility of their claim with the George Bernard Shaw quote, "All great truths begin as blasphemies." The ad offered "a world with an infinite supply of pure energy" and asked for scientists and engineers to apply to be part of a "jury" of experts Steorn was assembling, who would test their technology and go on the record with the results. This was the highest profile free energy claim in recent memory, and it drew a lot of attention -- even Michio Kaku took the time to come out against it. "It's a fraud," he told ABC News, "It's not possible. You can't sue me for quoting the rules of physics."In 2007 Steorn set up a highly polished weekend-long public demonstration of their technology, now dubbed Orbo, at the Kinetica Museum in London. Press releases showed an elegant device, a simple wheel with four magnets set into its edges, mounted in a plexiglass frame and surrounded by an array of magnets fixed at angles along its perimeter. The big day arrived and the demo was... delayed. Then delayed again. And finally cancelled. The device failed, and Steorn blamed it on the hot lights beating down on the museum installation. Then in 2009, Steorn's hand-picked jury of experts came out with their verdict: they had been shown no evidence that Orbo generated excess energy. Finally at the end of 2009 Steorn held another public demo, this time in Dublin. They showed off a new version of their Orbo technology. This one replaced the outer set of permanent magnets with electromagnets, and it was claimed to produce some three times the energy it consumed. However, it was connected to a battery that drove those electromagnets (which it was said to continuously recharge, but which could just as well have been providing all the power itself) and its claims of excess energy production were supported only by cryptic and inconclusive calorimetry tests and oscilloscope readings. This last demo failed to impress, and in the wake of their previous failures, it was widely believed that the world had heard the last of Steorn.But that was not to be. Over the years since, Steorn has managed to convince enough of the right people of the credibility of their technology to gather themselves 20 million euros of investment. They've spun off a separate company, called HephaHeat, to focus on water heating applications of the Orbo technology (HephaHeat is said to have contracts with major water heater manufacturers, but as of yet no products have been announced). And just recently, in a series of online videos, Steorn has unveiled yet another version of Orbo, a "Never-Die Battery" that directly produces electricity without the need to be recharged, ever. Shaun McCarthy has demonstrated the basics of how this new Orbo is put together: it's made of layers of dissimilar conductive metals, with layers of a non-conductive "electret" material sandwiched between them (an electret is a material with an electric field frozen in place, similar to how a permanent magnet has a magnetic field frozen in place). According to McCarthy, this new Orbo works on the same underlying principle as each previous iteration, though you wouldn't know by looking at it; there are no permanent magnets, no electromagnets, no moving parts or control circuitry.What makes this episode different from each of Steorn's previous adventures is that for the first time they are making Orbo-powered products available to the public, to be put to long-term use, tested, and torn apart. Their first products are clunky, impractical and overpriced: the 1200 euros phone charger is to be followed in early 2016 by a 480 euros retro-style non-smart cell phone that never needs charging. Later offerings will include an e-cigarette and a wireless game controller. But the impracticality of this motley collection of devices is beside the point: Steorn wants to get Orbo into as many people's hands as possible, so they won't need the blessing of academic science. People will find out for themselves that Orbo works, and proclaim it over and over on the internet, until the rumble is loud enough that scientists have to take it seriously, and manufacturers want to license it. Then Steorn can leave product development to others, while they focus on lowering the cost and improving the energy density of their core technology. Eventually, Orbo will power every phone, every car, maybe even everything. That seems to be Steorn's hope, anyway.To pull this off, they just have one final hurdle to prove they can overcome: the law of conservation of energy, one of the most basic building blocks of modern physics. Conservation isn't just a pattern that's been seen experimentally again and again; it's the mathematical foundation from which much of physics is derived. For example, conservation has caused physicists to hypothesize the necessity of new, never-before-seen subatomic particles, and the existence of these particles was later confirmed experimentally. Some would say that violation of the law of conservation of energy is unthinkable, because if it didn't work, then all of the electronics and other technology we've built on the back of our understanding of physics wouldn't work either. Then again, paradigms do change in science, and classical Newtonian mechanics fit nearly all the experimental data and formed the basis of a lot of successful science, before being replaced by a more complete understanding in the form of relativity. Overturning science is an extremely high bar for Steorn to vault, but it's not necessarily impossible.Steorn's OCube USB charger is available to be ordered now for delivery within six weeks, for the cost of 1200 euros plus shipping. The OPhone is available for pre-order, for delivery in the first couple months of 2016, for 480 euros plus shipping. For more information, go to orbo.com.If you're interested in finding out whether (and how) Steorn's Orbo technology works, but don't have the money to spend on your own OCube or the expertise to figure out what makes it tick, there's another way to get involved. A group of PhD engineers and scientists from Helsinki University is holding a crowdfunder to raise enough money to purchase an OCube, so they can test it and figure out how it works. A documentary crew is following this project, and contributors will receive a DVD of the finished film.This is a decisive moment for Steorn; once they start taking payments for orders, they're legally obliged to deliver the miracle they've claimed, or else they're on the hook for fraud. It might be the beginning of the end for Steorn, or just the end of the beginning. Either way it continues to be an entertaining ride. And if a future of abundance and the end of global warming just happen to come out of this, so much the better. I plan on ordering my own OCube and putting it to a long term test. For updates, you can follow my blog, Dispatches from the Future.Michael Ferrier is a cognitive scientist, game developer, and curious soul who lives surrounded by chickens in the woods of southeastern Massachusetts. He's been blogging about the mystery that is Steorn since 2007.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ3fpZFWHDMBoing Boing is thrilled to welcome SparkFun as a sponsor this holiday season! Check out their fantastic gift guide!Back in 2003, the world was still celebrating its unexpected triumph over Y2K, and SparkFun was but a twinkle in Nathan Seidle’s eye. Then, after the University of Colorado engineering student shorted out a component for a project and struggled to find a replacement, he threw up his hands in true infomercial style and shouted, “There has to be a better way!” Several credit cards maxed out on inventory and pizza later, SparkFun was born, and through twelve years, 150 employees (and 30 or so dogs), two buildings and over 2,000 DIY electronics products, the company has flourished under the banner of open source accessibility and education on which it was founded.SparkFun also lives up to its name – from its annual Autonomous Vehicle Competition, to letting employees build an apartment inside the office for field testing projects, to years of elaborate electronic office pranks, SparkFun plays as hard as it works. Need more evidence? Check out this year’s edition of their decidedly creative annual gift guide and come away with some excellent ideas for everyone on your list AND an alternative use for all that eggnog.And finally as an added bonus use the promo code BoingBoing2015 for $10 off your order of $50 or more until 12/31/2015. Happy inventing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6r-dw2yMVQAlisha writes, "Ever wonder what happens to the intel Santa Claus collects when deciding if you've been good or bad? Who has access to all your secrets? All that data? Santa has become too powerful, so a young elf decides to risk his life by leaking the Naughty List to the world. We made a holiday stop-motion film trailer parodying Citizenfour, but with an elf at the North Pole."

Read the rest of the Hip Hop Family Tree comics! (more…)

Yesterday, presidential candidate Donald Trump declared that he would block the entry of muslims into the U.S. His rivals immediately condemned him, but what about the international leaders that Trump imagines himself doing business with? Or, indeed, everyday people…

For only $6, you can congratulate your friends and family on their basic human competence and functioning with these elegant Adult Award Ribbons from TheHeirloomTomatos.

One of the wonders of the world may be a "second-hand monument" originally built in Pembrokeshire, Wales, and only later moved to Salisbury.

They're from Middle of Beyond (who make the bigfoot and Krampus sweaters). $20 each, 8" tall: Krampus, Cthulhu, or Baphomet. (via Christian Nightmares)

Keurig had the bright idea of trying to make it impossible to brew coffee with its machines unless the pods were officially-approved by them. The result was a well-deserved failure in the marketplace, but now the company is being "bailed out" by the owners of Peet and Stumptown.

Dogs are amazing, intelligent creatures, and are capable of such complex communication and behavioral intelligence.(more…)

Donald Trump, a Republican candidate for Führer of the United Fascist States of America, said today there should be a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” including Muslim citizens who are currently abroad.(more…)

The 2016 GOP candidates have had a slew of embarrassing domain name losses, but the sudden redirect of JebBush.com to DonaldJTrump.com today is pretty epic.(more…)

Peter from Shelfie writes, "In a press release on Digital Book World, Springer Nature has announced a partnership with Vancouver start-up Shelfie (BitLit) to offer digital bundles on over 100,000 titles from their catalog." (more…)

User experience design is a holistic field that touches on every aspect of the experience the user has with your product, all the way down to opening the box. As a book editor, I've found it useful to apply the principles of UX to crafting books that grab and hold a reader's attention.Reader experience design (or ReadX) is about building a book beginning with the experience you want the reader to have and working backward from there. Obviously, crafting the reader's experience is something we writers, editors, and publishers have struggled with since the heady days of the Egyptian papyrus industry, a time with remarkable similarities to our own (the primary difference, in fact, was that using your "mouse" to "scroll" down when reading an article wouldn't have been any fun for you or for the mouse). Problem is, we often prioritize other goals above the reader's experience, like proving another expert wrong or impressing our peers.In my experience, people who write books to share their domain knowledge with others usually suck at ReadX. It’s next to impossible to un-know something, to think like someone who knows less about your subject than you do (or simply sees it differently). You must constantly remind yourself that your reader is both smarter and less knowledgeable than you assume. (The smarter bit is important. You don't talk down to your reader. You just explain your topic like you would to an intelligent friend in a totally different line of work.) To get this right, this means going to the other side of the table and putting yourself in the mind of your reader over and over again, to make sure you've dropped your assumptions and that you're actually getting through.Remember, learning material in an entirely new area, without previous context or a professor or a study group (as readers of general nonfiction are often asked to do) is incredibly difficult. Have you ever tried to learn a little computer programming? Smart folks—like Doug Rushkoff in Program or Be Programmed—often counsel that all of us, regardless of role, should pick up a least a little code.I think it’s great advice, but what happens when you try?Look anywhere online for a primer for “beginning” programmers. You’ll quickly find that programmers consider you to have reached beginner status once you’re a third-year comp sci student familiar with all the opaque conventions of the command line. The number of assumptions made about your starting knowledge as a “beginner” can be mind-boggling. I’ve read "beginner" guides written by computer programmers that begin by calling out this very problem (!) in other guides before jumping to "step 1: log in to your git repo and sudo your stack exchange. Beep boop beep boop."As a reader approaching a new subject, it doesn’t feel good to encounter this blithe disregard for what "beginner" really constitutes. And we like our readers happy and engaged. So, how do we design for an improved reader experience?