https://youtu.be/kowgYcjRTmEI didn't like it when Snoopy suddenly changed from a cute quadruped to an ugly biped and I didn't like it when I saw this video of a bear walking upright like a human in a New Jersey 'burb. (more…)

Priceonomics reports that the DARE anti-drug program has never worked.

Hold your camera to higher standards with the brand-new iBlazr 2, the most advanced LED flash to date. Simply attach to your smartphone, tablet, or DSLR camera.Conveniently sized and wireless, this premium flash will let you easily take amazing photos in low light situations. It’s a literal snap to use: simply attach to your smartphone, tablet, or DSLR to capture your memories in the quality they deserve.

A paper in Obesity Research & Clinical Practice claims that it is now harder to keep the pounds off than it was 30 years ago, even given the same amount of exercise and food consumption.Olga Khazan reports:

In 1925, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations of similar size and bargaining power could use arbitration, rather than courts, to settle their differences; today, corporations demand that customers and employees agree to use the arbitration system for redress of any grievances, while reserving the right to use the courts to attack humans who offend them. (more…)

A leopard lurched around blindly for five hours in a village in Rajasthan, North India, before wildlife experts tranquilized it and removed a cooking pot from its head.The 150lb animal got stuck after drinking water from the vessel. Locals took photos and videos as it tried to remove the pot, to no avail.It was reportedly "none the worse for wear" after being tranquilized and freed, however, according to the BBC—the only loser being the owner of the now-sawn-off pot.More seriously (and frequently), critters often die after getting their heads stuck in Yoplait snack pots, leading to recurring calls for the company to change the design.

A favored tactic of Tea Party governors this decade has been the imposition of a poll tax in the form of voter ID laws that required voters to present a state-issued ID (usually a driver's license) in order to exercise their franchise. (more…)

In September, the British Labour Party elected a new leader, Jeremy Corbyn, a died-in-the-wool left-wing veteran MP who had been marginalised for decades by the increasingly right-wing Labour party -- how did an unassuming long-shot without much in the way of animal magnetism or rhetorical fire win the party leadership election by the most decisive landslide in British history? (more…)

I wonder how many thousands of kids were introduced to the joy of magic from buying TV Magic Cards after watching this commercial that ran on TV ad nauseum in the early 1970s. (more…)

My friend Rachel Demy has spent a decade managing tours and doing production for bands like The National, St. Vincent, Death Cab for Cutie, and many others. For all those years, she's always had a camera around her neck, seizing rare opportunities to capture fleeting moments of art, joy, sadness, and friendship on and off the stage. Tonight at 7pm, Seattle's The Piranha Shop opens a beautiful show of Rachel's photography and that of Tyler Kalberg who has documented musicians like The Head & The Heart, Damien Jurado, and Modern Kin. The exhibition, titled "Green Room," will be on display until October 4. Catch a glimpse.

In this clip from the new documentary, Brand: A Second Coming, Russell Brand recounts the time he was at a protest in the streets of London. He climbed on top of a police van and took off his clothes. He was so alarmed by his "shrinkage," that he tried to "wank it to normal size."

https://vimeo.com/107262132The idea of Fun Palaces has been incubating among radical librarians for more than half a century, and now it's bursting open as a full-fledged movement. Every library in the Lambeth Borough of London will be a Fun Palace this Saturday, with a wide range of participatory activities ranging from zine and science workshops to participatory theater to kids' games from the amazing Code Club. (more…)

Ghosts, witches and werewolves! Trick, treat and boo! This special edition of Blue Orange Games’ Spot It! is perfect for the days leading up to Halloween. Like the original Spot It!, the circular cards have several different pictures and words printed in bright colors and easy-to-read fonts. Also like the original, the fast-moving game comes with a booklet explaining five different ways to play and is packaged in a sturdy tin. This is a great addition to the game shelf for both fans and novices alike. Happy Halloween! – Joel NeffHalloween Spot It!

Outspoken Genii forum member Brad Henderson has this fascinating public video calling card. Brad reveals, via an "Explaination," the optical illusion behind his business card.I find this curious as Brad apparently does not like it when others share interesting magical effects with the intent of driving interest in the art. I guess it is ok when it helps you book a gig?If you are in the Austin area, we encourage you to see Brad perform! If his routine is half as passionate as his trolling, you are in for a great time!Previously:The Genii Forums, where magicians keep magic secret in public

Way back in 1902, a French manufacturer released a set of trading cards designed by artist Albert Bergeret that imagined the "women of the future." The cards envisioned women stepping into roles that would have seemed fantastical to most ladies at the time: doctor, lawyer, politician, firefighter, even members of the military.Although there's a pin-up quality to many of the images—they're showing an awful lot of arm, after all—there's something charming about this retrofuturistic attempt to expand the role of women in society, even if it was nothing but fantasy at the time. Indeed, fantasy and science fiction can often help us open our minds behind the limitations of the world we live in and imagine a better one instead. In the small and fashionable world of these cards, at least, women were given a more equal role in society, not to mention some spectacular hats.Here are some of my favorites:(Lawyer)(Journalist)(Master of Arms)(General)(Mayor)(Firefighter)Check out the full series of cards here.

The newly released bugs are part of the Stagefright family of vulnerabilities, disclosed by Zimperium Zlabs. (more…)

San Francisco's Swedish American Hall, a beautiful 1907 building on Market Street, has been totally renovated while maintaining its historic detail, and now our friends at Noise Pop are curating a marvelous lineup of intimate performances from some great indie and alt.music artists. Tonight is Milo Greene (video below), tomorrow is Widowspeak, Saturday is Villagers, and next week is a terrific show with The Mynabirds, The Dead Ships, and Bad Bad Hats. Lots more in the coming month as well, and I'm particularly stoked to see Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo on Friday, November 6!

The Slow Mo Guys smash Jell-O with a tennis racket and the super slow motion footage is beautiful.

https://youtu.be/-Xqe-O5VnqkKaty Perry invited a KatyCat named Rayane to join her onstage in Rio, and the young woman couldn't help herself from squeezing, neck-kissing, and licking Katy, who handled the ecstasy-fueled gropiung with professional aplomb.

Oh, Nemo! My Great Pyrenees is going to look great! He'll be wearing this Bantha costume as we wander the entire .4 of a mile that is our neighborhood designated trick-or-treating run.I wish there was a Tauntaun.Rubies Costume Company Star Wars Bantha for Pets via Amazon

Here's the rule: design a 2-sided die that is not coin shaped. Many people have tried, with varying degrees of success. Core77 has a gallery of some attempts. Here are a few: (more…)

After getting caught breaking its own laws with a mass surveillance program, the French government has introduced legislation that mirrors the NSA's rules, giving it the power to spy on all foreigners -- and any French people who happen to be swept up in the dragnet. (more…)

"Eternal September" refers to the Internet as it has been since 1993, when AOL began providing access to USENET. The flood of newbies made the newsgroups feel like the first month of school—but this time, the flood never ceased. Though USENET is a thing of the past, Jason Koebler remembers what it felt like to be a member of a group that saw itself as a deserving incumbent elite, but wasn't really any of those things.

John Sutter, an Oklahoma native, visited Woodward County, where, at first, he could find no one who'd admit to believing in anthropogenic climate change (not even the headmaster of the local academy, who paid out of his own money to erect a statue of a little girl on a triceratops's back with a plaque reading "A dinosaur like this roamed the Earth 5,000 years ago"). (more…)

Wisconsin officials have responded to a rumor that they included the state's myriad of charming lawn ornaments in the annual count of deer: No, no we did not.Reuters reports that the hoax was refuted this week by the Department of Natural Resources.

Jon Hendren, @fart, was mistakenly summoned onto Headline News instead of journalist John Hendren, to talk about whistleblower Ed Snowden. He talked about Edward Scissorhands instead. The clueless, scripted anchor didn't seem to notice the difference.

Moment of truth: Is "Microsoft Office Expert" on your resume, but not totally accurate? This pay what you want bundle will not only help you brush up on old skills, but teach you advanced techniques that will impress your current and future boss. From intricate Excel formulas to Outlook organization hacks, you'll not only boost your career, but your personal life once you dive into these 12 courses.Here is a breakdown of everything included in this bundle:1Microsoft Word 2013 - Basic & Advanced$99 Value2Excel 2013 - Financial Functions Using Excel$99 Value3Excel 2013 - Excel Dashboard$99 Value4Excel 2013 - Excel Graphs and Charts$99 Value5Microsoft Excel 2013$99 Value6Learn Microsoft Outlook 2013$99 Value7Learn Microsoft Powerpoint 2013$99 Value8MS Access 2013 - Advanced$99 Value9Excel 2013 Basic Training Course$99 Value10Excel 2013 - Pivot Table$99 Value11Microsoft OneNote 2013$99 Value12Comprehensive MS Access 2013$99 ValuePay what you want for the Microsoft Office Productivity Bundle today!

These Cthulhu teacups are made by Voodoo Delicious, AKA Michael Palmer from Queensland, Australia. (more…)

GOP presidential candidate and noted scumbag Donald Trump met with a bunch of televangelists, Tea Party “teavangelicals,” and preacher profiteers at his Trump Tower office Monday afternoon.The elite group, which included some megachurch chiefs who have previously been investigated by the federal government for misuse of donations, prayed while performing the “laying on of hands” to infuse him with the Holy Spirit. The goal: Jesus, get our man elected. (more…)

See sample pages from this book at Wink.Calling this book a “kit” might be an exaggeration, but The Superhero Comic Kit does pack a lot of fun into its inviting, oversized pages. The front section has instructions on how to draw various superheroes and villains, as well as how to draw sound effects (yes, there’s a way to draw the sounds that bring superhero comics to life!). Then comes the exciting part where you get to make your own 8-page comic books out of the characters you just learned how to draw, with some prompts to help get your creative fuel pumping. Once you’ve completed one of your stories (there are 12 in total), you can pull it out of the book, fold the pages along the fold lines, and assemble your unique comic book before showing it to the world. The back of the book has two pages of stickers – sound effects and superheroes/villains – to embellish your work. This is a great gift for any creative kid who likes to draw and make up stories.The Superhero Comic Kit

You know those people who nod a lot in meetings, appearing interested even when they are either bored to death or have no idea what the hell is being said? Sarah Cooper has "9 Nodding Strategies for Your Next Meeting."Above: The Slow Nod Followed by a Fast Nod

I don't think my mother ever expected to have such a wild daughter as me. She's an accountant, and we have nothing in common. Maybe because of that, I hang onto what little I know of her teen years in the 1970s like flowers pressed in a book: Her summers in a seaside town, hitchhiking along the road at night with her troublemaker friend. The time my grandfather came to pick her up from the rest stop where she'd gone to hang out with boys, and how he thundered with disapproval.Those are really the only stories I know about her childhood, except for the one where my grandmother forced her to wear a wool dress she despised. I don't know what it would have been like to become a woman right when Summer of Love was ending, with the roulette wheel of the road and strangers' cars your only real way out. Even now our instinct is to think that cars are usually for men. Video games about driving? Always for men.But there is so much more about cars than driving; maybe it's better to say there is so much more to driving than just the car. I do remember when I got a car of my very own for the first time, and printed out a Google map—how powerful I felt that I could drive down the eastern seaboard to go visit a boy. Because I was a girl, a car meant more than simply an ordinary stage on some common, anticipated ascent to social power, the same way the red eyes of a vehicle slowing on a seaside road at night were more than just lights for my mother. They were a beckoning flicker; they were a secret her daughter would come to know years later. https://youtu.be/KDT6b3RR2AMWheels of Aurelia is a driving game that is about that more. You are androgynous, mischief-lipped Lella, driving on the famous Via Aurelia from Rome to the French Riviera in 1978. Along with you is Olga, a femme you met recently at a disco. At the beginning of your trip she asks you why you invited her. You can ask her, if you want, why she accepted.As the Via Aurelia curls and sprawls, Lella and Olga get to know each other, pick up hitchhikers, and get into road races. You as the player have two tasks: First, abstractly, to drive, which you can mostly do one-handed. It feels like being an adult woman, to drive one-handed, smoothly with the mouse. Most of your attention, the other hand, will be on the dialogue. Everyone, from Olga herself to the patchwork characters you may pick up along the way, wants to talk to Lella—they are drawn to her in the way people tend to seek out the queerest woman in the club—easy to speak to because she is "other", easy to experiment on, the receptacle for the car crash of anxiety and identity politics that come from being "a woman in the Pope's country", as Lella herself sometimes puts it.Your choices for Lella's dialogue tend to be pleasingly subtle, mimicking the pall of delicate anxiety that can overhang people trapped in the same car for hours. You pick up a man who swears he's seen the Pope in a UFO. Your choices are not merely to "accept or reject" this person, but to make the elegant distinction between cheerfully affirming him and politely nodding along. As his behavior escalates, taking his side begins to feel genuinely radical, like a protest against a flawed mental healthare system, like shouting out the car window—who gets to decide whose strangeness is all right and whose isn't?After all, you have yet to learn why Lella herself is on the road, what secrets her past contains. You can let this hitchhiker call you "Mamma". You can promise him, gently, that you will not take him back there.All of Wheels of Aurelia asks you to consider your political attitude. Olga, the girl you like, says she can't be a feminist because she wears skirts. She might only be joking, and you can only joke back—either warmly, or with an unkind aftertaste. Eventually a sexist tough guy (Lella calls him only "prick") challenges your right to the road, and makes you race him. You and your straggling passengers, all of you trying to negotiate a complex, bittersweet and fundamentally unfair condition of life, talk as you press the accelerator. As you literally hurtle at breakneck speed for purchase against patriarchy.Each session of Wheels of Aurelia is only about 15 or 20 minutes long, and will come to a natural end based on your decisions. There seem to be eight endings, but each session is different from the last, and you can have conversations in some games that feel suddenly new, no way to know how you unlocked them alongside the lawlessness of the road. Sometimes an encounter will interrupt what feels like a crucial dialogue point; you need to learn not to worry about the "flow" of the story, to embrace its risk of accident, of getting lost. Its jazz spontaneity liberates Wheels of Aurelia somewhat from the systematic feel that other choice-driven dialogue games have—last time I chose this, so this time I'll choose that instead—each trip is a brief flicker of curling road, of seawall and revving engine, a cigarette sometimes coming to Lella's lips, a rarely-seen flirtatious look. The wonderful original music—the insistent hiss of clanging drums, rock guitar, horns surging their punctuation—sounds out a life that almost feels like it could have been yours, in another time. If you had only been standing by the road in the right place.In a nod to driving games of a different sort, you can even choose Lella's car every time you hit the Via Aurelia, and also add your three initials to a classic scoreboard with your completion times. But the driving hardly matters at all. I love Lella. If I'd known her I would have gone to France with her in a heartbeat.Wheels of Aurelia is developed by Santa Ragione. You have just a few days left to buy it for pay-what-you-want as part of a remarkable Humble Weekly Bundle of indie games. If you do nothing else, vote for it on Steam Greenlight so it can be available there.

Historically, the Pokémon franchise has focused its merchandising efforts on the parts of Pokémon characters that were not their butts. But that's about to change, thanks to a new wave of toys, charms and other assorted swag from Japan that will finally allow you to catch them all. All of the butts.There are so many, many ways that you can purchase these Pokémon butts: as cushions, magnets, folders, bags, coasters, coffee cups, and even tape.Nor are you restricted from merely admiring the butts of Pokemon; you can also turn your own butt into a Pokémon with the help of boxer briefs for men and women.The line will go on sale at the Pokémon Amazon.jp store on October 10. But be ready: Rocketnews24 (which also has an item-by-item breakdown in English) suggests that the line is "probably going to sell out pretty fast."

It's not easy living in the big city, especially when you're a lost dog. (more…)

Architects Louise Harpman and Scott Specht own the world's largest collection of disposable plastic coffee cup lids, a seemingly simple product that raises myriad design questions and challenges.From their 2005 Cabinet magazine essay:Although the earliest examples of drink-through lids were designed for cold beverages, the true efflorescence in drink-through lid design and production can be traced to the 1980s, when we, as a culture, decided that it was important, even necessary, to be able to walk, or drive, or commute while drinking hot liquids. A quick survey of the US patent registry reveals nine patents for specialty drink lids in the 1970s, jumping to twenty-six individual patents in the 1980s. 
We began our collection during college in 1984 when the purpose-built cup lids began to appear with some frequency. Up until that time, coffee drinkers who wanted a drink-through lid had to go DIY: beginning from two points along the outer edge of any flat plastic cup lid, the drinker would peel back the plastic rim along two radial axes toward the centerpoint of the lid, creating a jagged wedge of an opening. This operation yielded a reliable aperture, but also a triangular bit of garbage which design writer Phil Patton (RIP - ed.) calls the “guitar pick.” The strategy was serviceable, but inelegant. Some degree of improvement was surely mandated, though not the “dizzying array” of lid designs that we now see. “There is no coffee lid that occupies the same status as the paper clip,” agrees Patton. There is no model that is “the winner.” 
"Peel, Pucker, Pinch, Puncture" (Cabinet)

This peppermill is really great. Not something I replace more than once a decade, I wanted a grinder that stood out and was fun. I've had a set of Shaker style ones, purchased in my late 20s, that just needed to go.This Rocket is looks great. Standing at 14" tall this grinder is certainly part of the conversation. The Rocket feels well made, has adjustable coarseness and grinds pepper.Potential buyers will be happy to know the fins appear slotted in, and unlikely to break off. They appear to be the weak link in the design. If a tip breaks, you can easily re-level the rocket with a few cuts.Suck UK Salt and Pepper Rocket Mill, Brown via Amazon

https://youtu.be/FRHTwVE1eH8“Thai authorities are planning to tighten control over the Internet, creating a single international access point so they can better monitor content,” reports Voice Of America Correspondent Steve Herman in Bangkok.The plan is being called Thailand’s own "Great Firewall," after the colloquial term used to describe the Chinese government's extensive and effective internet censorship system. (more…)

By cpartsalot, who notes: "I have a theory that the reason they have yet to have an official sequel announcement is because the scriptwriters are busy trying to slip in as many Mad Max references as possible past the censors." (via Seanan McGuire)

https://youtu.be/NI9xDBH54kwMargaret writes, "Esteemed NYC game-maker Kevin Cancienne (part of the team behind highly adored Drop 7) is launching Home Free, an utterly unique dog exploration game. It's Minecraft, but you're a dog, and everything's beautiful." (more…)

Where is your Cool Pope now, America? His PR game is undoubtedly on fleek, but he's still beholden to the same homophobic crap we know and love from the Catholic Church, the world's most powerful supporter of impunity for priestly pedophiles.(more…)

Lime Crime, a cosmetic line that's accused of repackaging cheap generic products and infamous for threatening people who give it bad reviews, is the subject of a gripping profile by Arabelle Sicardi.Born from the primordial pixels of Livejournal, the amount of internet drama here is breathtaking. It's a multidimensional labyrinth of "fake deaths, Nazi costumes, legal threats against 13 year-old girls, hacker attacks, class action lawsuits, FDA warnings, credit card fraud, cold sores, and questionably named eyeshadow palettes."Lime Crime's marketing blunders are most spectacular, combining the sanctimonious insensitivity of a fashion house with the mediocrity of an internet rebrandeur.

FOLLOW @RubenBolling on Twitter and Facebook.And FURTHER, please join Tom the Dancing Bug's subscription club, the INNER HIVE for advance access to comics and more stuff.And GET Ruben Bolling's new book, Alien Invasion in My Backyard: An EMU Club Adventure! You can also pre-order the second book in the series: Ghostly Thief of Time: An EMU Club Adventure!Thank you.More Tom the Dancing Bug comics on Boing Boing! (more…)

Daniel Handler (who wrote the excellent "Series of Unfortunate Events" books under the name Lemony Snicket) and his wife, Lisa Brown, announced the $1 million gift to Planned Parenthood on the eve of a possible Congressional shutdown over funding to the agency. (more…)

In Madison alone, 1,000 black children were arrested in 2013, but only 3,247 black children live in Madison. (more…)

Atlas Obscura and Digg have generated an incredible interactive map of punnish-named businesses, neatly organized by category.

A study of so-called Millennials (born since around 1980) ranks the things they actually give money for on the internet. News is at the bottom. At the top: entertainment such as movies, TV, music(!) and games.Poynter's Rick Edmonds:

22 million Americans' most compromising data (from fingerprints to criminal records to identities of family and lovers) was breached in the Office of Personnel Management hack, presumably by hackers working for the Chinese government. (more…)

New Orleans' city analytics team wanted a computer model that predicts the likelihood any given city block will lack alarm coverage. Enter New York city data experts Enigma, who used public data sets to generate simple predictive maps for cities across the U.S.25,000 U.S. residents are killed or injured each year in 1 million fires, reports Enigma, which has appealed for more local governments to upload their data.Flowing Data summarizes the methodology: