"The Art of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien" is a new collection of the drawings, maps, diagrams, and sketches that Tolkien drew to help him navigate Middle-earth, and the entire complex universe he created for his novels. Edited by Tolkien scholars Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull, the hardcover book contains nearly 200 images, the majority of which have never been published before."The Art of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien" (Amazon)(via Wired)

This cracker that survived the sinking of the Titanic will be on the block October 24 as part of an auction of rare Titanic, Hindenburg and related memorabilia. The cracker was recovered by James Fenwick, a passenger of the SS Carpathia that helped hundreds of Titanic survivors who had escaped the sinking ships on lifeboats. It's estimated that this unusual souvenir will sell for as much as US$18,000. From the auction description:

The Myers-Briggs personality test is the internet's sorting hat, beloved of twittering nerds, Tumblr addicts and Facebook oversharers alike (I'm in House ESFP!) But it's also plainly pseudoscientific, with a cultish marketing dimension growing on the back of its online popularity. Merve Emre takes a look at the woman who created it, a life shrouded in mystery, and the custodians selling it now. (more…)

Stick it out until the end. (Mike Long via Neatorama)

The current Canadaland podcast (MP3) carefully parses out the implications of the Trans Pacific Partnership from the perspective of Internet freedom, censorship, free speech, business, and transparency. (more…)

Andrew C. Chang and Phillip Li undertook a study of "67 papers published in 13 well-regarded economics journals" for the US Federal Reserve and attempted to replicate their conclusions, using the code and data-sets provided by the authors: in two-thirds of cases, they were unable to replicate the findings without help with the authors; with the help of authors, they were still only able to replicate 49% of the papers. (more…)

Amir captured this video of O'Hare Airport's hygiene-freakout toilets that automatically and in a hands-free fashion wrap the seat in fresh, germ- and piss-free plastic film between each user. (more…)

Pee-Wee Herman will play the father of Oswald Cobblepot -- AKA The Penguin -- in season two of Gotham, a role he already nailed in 1992's otherwise meh "Batman Returns," where he depicted Daddy Penguin as a lunatic disciplinarian vaper oligarch. (more…)

Vox parsed out the Bureau of Justice Statistics' numbers on incarceration in prisons (excluding jails) and produced this ghastly visualization tracking the transformaiton of America into the country with the highest rate of incarceration in the history of the world. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw3omlO0vj0Sweden's MOVITS! (presently touring the USA) plays music they call Äppelknyckarjazz ("Apple swiper jazz") that combines big-band swing with hip-hop that's infused with dancehall reggae-style rapping and declaiming (in Swedish). (more…)

Press Start to Play is an anthology of video-game-related science fiction, edited by John Joseph Adams and Daniel "Robopocalypse" Wilson, with stories by some of Boing Boing's favorite SF writers: Ernie Ready Player One Cline, Charlie Jane Anders, Rhianna Pratchett, Catherynne Deathless" Valente, Hugh "Wool" Howey, Austin "Crooked" Grossman, and...me! (the anthology reprints my story Anda's Game, which was adapted into last year's bestselling graphic novel In Real Life). (more…)

This Smartphone Photo Lens Kit arms you with six unique smartphone photography accessories, so you can take high-quality and well-composed photos of any subject from small insects to expansive landscapes.

Originally written as a web serial, this novel about a gamer transported into the world of MMORPGs is hilarious! I read The Bathroom Knight as a novel, and so I can only review it as such. I think it'd have been even more fun as a serial, a format I greatly enjoy.Charles Dean rapidly sets up a fantastic fantasy world! Darwin, our extremely unique protagonist, really loves to play MMORPGs. So much so, he even plans to spend Christmas immersed! After beating up a burglar who interrupts his holiday fun, Darwin is magically transported into a game, and must quest to save the realm and figure himself out.I liked Dean's take on gaming. He both shows the fun and camaraderie of gamers, and the terrible aspects of a "trapped-in-a-game, must level-up" mentality. Character development is pretty good for a freshman novel, and while the use of RPG vernacular occasionally baffled me, mostly it was easy to understand. I think Dean has done a fantastic job having fun with a genre, and not taking it seriously, at all.This is a fun read. I bought it for my Kindle as Dean has apparently spent time, energy and money working with editors. In web serial format the novel is available here free.The Bathrobe Knight: Volume 1

Collar Clips from Migardian Treasure in Gravesend, England makes collar clips in a variety of pop-culture motifs, some obvious and some very subtle indeed: Captain America shields, Captain America stars, Hawkeye and Hydra vs SHIELD; Boba Fett, Vader and Stormtroopers (also available as brooches and earrings). (more…)

The UK humour site Daily Mash nails the UK's transformation into a Torified, bank-centric place where the need for shelter is a vulnerability to exploit in order to enrich yourself at the expense of the people around you with a brilliant short piece: "Tories to build thousands of affordable second homes." (more…)

Inspired by the universality of symbols, the founders of Noun Project began to collect thousands of hand-drawn icons. The concept has since transformed into a massive digital collection of 150,000+ unique icons that fuel the work of designers every day. Spend less time crafting icons and more time putting amazing designs out into the world with two years of Noun Project.

You'll find yourself lost and alone. On a darkened street.

See sample pages from this book at Wink.There’s only one thing in your life that you’ve never yet done but are guaranteed to do. It is our single greatest unsolved mystery and therefore causes a lot of anxiety and a lot of speculation. Some of us think about it often, perhaps more often than we realize. And our collective theories, beliefs, and fascinations abound. Scientist, scholar, inventor, and prolific author Clifford A. Pickover, who has written more than fifty books about science, religion, math, history, and art, has given us a handsome and thoughtful guide to some of our notions about death.Beautifully hardbound with a whimsical, tactilely pleasing cover that will look great on any shelf, this book is a serious, abridged encyclopedia of the macabre. It’s the full stew simmered down to a tasty reduction, and it gives you an amuse-bouche of fact, philosophy, and art, while acknowledging that there is so much more out there on which to dine. Given the bite-sized morsels, you could take a nip of this book here and there, but more likely you’ll devour it in large chunks.There is a lot in this book you already know about, or think you do. But there is a lot to learn as well. For instance, as the guillotine head-chopping craze struck late 1790s France, children played with guillotine toys and young women wore guillotine-shaped earrings. (Now there’s an Etsy idea for you.) From necromancy and thanatourism to kamikaze pilots, sin-eaters, and walking corpse syndrome, Pickover chooses topics wisely from art, literature, science, and our daily traditions from all walks of life throughout time and the globe over. He can’t cover everything, but what he does serve us is well researched and presented, and could easily set you on a path of further discovery.Rather than alphabetical order, the author has chosen a more unusual chronological structure. This might seem odd at first, but it’s interesting to hang our death-related ideas and practices on a timeline of human creation. And the table of contents and index are sufficient for finding what you want to read about. Perhaps best of all, each selection is accompanied by a related piece of art that best represents the topic. Paintings, such as Death and the Miser by master-of-the-creepy, Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch, and photographs, such as the first death certificate of a person killed in a motor vehicle accident, are morbid and delightful decoration. The cover design is what drew me to this book, but I look forward to exploring more of Clifford A. Pickover’s work along the fringe intersections of science and art.Skip the bottle of wine for that Halloween dinner party and bring this for the host instead. It’s a little bit different, a little bit ghoulish, and a great deal of fun. – Aaron DowneyDeath and the Afterlife: A Chronological Journey, from Cremation to Quantum Resurrection

I apparently made a mistake somewhere down the line when I was setting up my family accounts on iCloud. (It's confusing, at least to me.) Now Apple is punishing me by locking me out of my purchased iBooks for 90 days. (more…)

You know, I thought it wasn't possible to create anything funnier than “Farting Priest,” a now classic viral video in which scamming televangelist Robert Tilton is revealed as the gassy fartbag he truly is. (more…)

We should all be so lucky to be loved this much.(more…)

Watch as a crowd of high school students gloriously jeer and taunt the Westboro Baptist hate mongers into a full retreat. (more…)

Living in a place where my daughter frequently has to find creative ways to entertain herself provides me with endless entertainment. Luckily, if I keep her well stocked with art supplies, I get a constant flow of awesome, cute constructions, paintings, drawings and sculpture. Modeling clay is always a win!Hannah made this tiny sculpture of herself, a penguin and she tells me that sheep looking thing is Nemo. I think she went seriously abstract on the dog. Also, please note the tons of pet hair on everything in our home.I hope my daughter enjoys it as much as I do.ALEX Toys Artist Studio 24-Piece Rainbow Modeling Clay Set via Amazon

You won’t need to think twice about going hands-free on the road with Exomount’s easy-to-use car mount. It mounts your smartphone so easily, you literally only need one hand to quickly secure your phone in the perfect position and get driving. Don’t risk a ticket, use the world’s best suction technology to effortlessly mount and unmount your phone on the go.

Tiny1 is a bit of a cosmic mystery: a pocket-size camera dedicated to astronomy. There's little information about it other than it shoots low-light 2.5k timelapses and long exposures, and will come with various high-zoom lenses. A crowdfunding campaign is in the works and set to launch by year's end. [via Uncrate]Here's a photo of the moon taken with a prototype.

Wikileaks has published a leaked draft -- dated Oct, 5, and thus possibly the final text -- of the "Intellectual Property Chapter" of the Trans Pacific Partnership, and it's grim reading. (more…)

This delightful Lovelace & Babbage Analytical Engine is gathering support on LEGO Ideas (formerly CUUSOO) where the community can up-vote fan-made play sets into consideration for production.Featuring Lada Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, this set pays beautiful, Victorian tribute to their collaboration on the mechanical general-purpose computer of his design, including her pioneering work in creating the algorithm that would be used to program it.What's more, the lovely, monochromatic Analytical Engine model can be used to house a Raspberry Pi Linux computer. Swoon.Creator Stewart Lamb Cromar also proposes two bonus sets, an "Ada Junior Classroom" and a "Babbage Tea Party".If you're interested in making this set a reality, please head to LEGO Ideas and support the project. Currently at around 3000 votes, they require 10,000 to be reviewed by LEGO for possible production.Lovelace ande LEGO Ideas set

Under the Stephen Harper government, $8M was given to the John McCain-chaired International Republican Institute, a non-governmental organization started by the US Republican party to advocate for right-wing policies abroad. (more…)

As Boing Boing's King of Typos, I enjoyed this gallery of misspelled signs written by people who love English. Here are a few samples: (more…)

Got a spare 12 bucks? If you’re a fan of the Mouse and you live someplace other than California, Nevada, and Arizona, then you might have fun with this collapsible umbrella that appears to be normal — a solid color — when you open it. When the heavens open and the raindrops fall, they bring out a silhouette of Walt Disney’s best pal on the fabric. Fun, but not in the sun... and it looks like this: (more…)

Eliza writes, "A researcher from Lehigh University has invented a light-based pacemaker for fruit flies, and says a human version is 'not impossible.' The pacemaker relies on the new technique of 'optogenetics,' in which light-sensitive proteins are inserted into certain cells, allowing those cells to be activated by pulses of light. Here, the proteins were inserted into cardiac cells so the researchers could trigger the contractions that produce heartbeats." (more…)

America, wow. Great job. You've really outdone yourself.No longer satisfied with a mere one mass shooting a day, which has been our nation's average so far in 2015, we've upped it to two school shootings today. (more…)

With a style and sound to die for, if you are in the LA Area keep an eye out for Marquis and the Rhythm Howlers!

Ida Lockett of Sacramento, CA was helping her 5-year-old son put together a Playmobil pirate ship kit he'd been given for his birthday when she saw that the instructions told her to put a shackle around the neck of a dark-skinned figurine in torn clothing. (more…)

In the TIME Magazine article "All the Ways Darren Wilson Described Being Afraid of Michael Brown," the former Ferguson police officer describes the August 2014 confrontation that left the teenager dead: “When I grabbed him, the only way I can describe it is I felt like a five-year-old holding on Hulk Hogan.”Wilson's description of an almost-inhuman rage in in the 18 year-old Brown made headlines across the country:

See more photos at Wink.Everyone has their favorite space ship. For some, it’s the Enterprise, for others it’s Red Dwarf, or Battlestar Galactica. It might even be the TARDIS. But for my money, it is, and has always been, The Millennium Falcon. The ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs. The fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy. The iconic space ship that helped launched one of the biggest movie franchises of all time.Now, in this puzzle from Tenyo, our favorite freighter has been given a pop-art makeover, complete with sporty red background and stylized lettering. She’s posed at a jaunty angle, ready to jump into light speed the second Chewie gets it working again. Really, it’s a fun cross between an '80s car poster and the movie poster for The Endless Summer.The puzzle itself measures about one foot by one foot when assembled. It is 144 pieces, but with only three colors, it is not quite as easy as the piece count might suggest. It is made from standard puzzle quality cardboard; the pieces fit together very well, with little coaxing or massaging needed to assemble the puzzle. The image is bright, clear and solidly printed on the cardboard.The puzzle set includes a panel - frame, plastic cover, white card stock puzzle back, and cardboard frame back - as well as puzzle glue, cardboard glue scraper, and a string to hang the frame. The puzzle sits in the frame well and the plastic cover sheet allows framing without gluing for those who may wish to do the puzzle multiple times. (The glue packet has instructions in English.)The set is an excellent gift for anyone who falls in the venn diagram of liking Star Wars, jigsaw puzzles, and decorating their personal space. And for those who can’t get enough pop remixes, Tenyo has produced two more puzzles in this series: a stormtrooper helmet reworking of a 60s flower child poster and a Darth Vader in the comic style of Roy Lichtenstein.– Joel NeffMillennium Falcon jigsaw puzzle

https://youtu.be/k6N_4jGJADYMicrolattice is "a lattice of interconnected hollow tubes with a wall thickness of 100 nanometers, 1,000 times thinner than a human hair." It's made from nickel and is 99.99% air. As a result, it's very light. Here's a video that demonstrates its properties and discusses its potential use in structural reinforcement and shock absorption.[via]

Judge Jerri L. Collins sentenced a woman to three days in jail for contempt of court after refusing to testify at her abuser's trial. (more…)

Looks like a scene from a Kubrick film, but it's just a snapshot of a cat hiding under the blankets. Uploaded by Redditor attigirb.

Inkcase is exactly what you just guessed it is: a phone case with an e-ink screen that provides a simpler, more economical view on your communications. (more…)

Frank VanderSloot is a major Republican donor -- he funneled more than $1M to the Romney campaign -- who is tapped to be one of the kingmakers in the party's leadership race. But the multi-level marketing nutritional supplement billionaire has a dark history he'd like to erase: his many, high-profile, vicious campaigns against gay people. (more…)

Governor Jerry Brown has signed the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which "bars any state law enforcement agency or other investigative entity from compelling a business to turn over any metadata or digital communications—including emails, texts, documents stored in the cloud—without a warrant. It also requires a warrant to track the location of electronic devices like mobile phones, or to search them." (more…)

https://vimeo.com/141628319San Francisco recently doubled the number of walls it was coating with hydrophobic paint, which is supposed to deter wall-pissing by making the urine spray back all over the pee-er. (more…)

Remember Lynndie England, the 21-year-old low-ranking Army Specialist who, along with ten other low-ranking Army personnel, was determined to be responsible for years of systematic torture in Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, thus letting the entire Army chain of command off the hook for any wrongdoing in one of the worst scandals of the unbelievably scandalous Iraq War? (more…)

It’s time for a power upgrade — throw out that tired-out power strip and swap in this family-size USB charger, packed with 6 high-speed ports. With a built-in control chip, Kinkoo optimizes each port to ensure the fastest charging possible for all your devices. The Kinkoo is made from high-grade and durable materials so you can rest assured it will continue to power your devices for years to come.

After this year's San Diego Comic Con, I talked to Joelle Jones, the artist and creator of Lady Killer, a hit comic about Josie Schuller, a midecentury housewife who also happens to be a professional killer. Read on to find out the secret long con of Jones' career, the difference between drawing and writing, and Josie's top tip on parenting. (more…)

Mirko Hanßen puts inline skates on his hands and insanity ensues. (YouTube via Laughing Squid)

On Monday in Prescott Valley, Arizona, a banana-human hybrid opened the door of a business, yelled "Banana!," and tossed in a banana. Then he took off.According to police, the banana was male and wearing jeans and black shoes. They say it was a person in a banana suit, but we all know better.(The Daily Courier)