As states pass a wave of laws barred non-neutral ISPs from providing services to state agencies, more than 100 US mayors have pledged to disqualify non-neutral ISPs from getting city contracts as well. (more…)

The Negro Motorist Green Book was a series of annual guides for African-American drivers and holiday-makers who wanted to know where they could find gas-stations, restaurants and hotels that would serve them and which "sunset towns" they should avoid on pain of violence from corrupt, racist law-enforcement. (more…)

Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to be a computer science whiz to create video games. In fact, even if you're a complete novice, you can create your own App Store sensation if you're willing to get your feet wet with the right tools. The School of Game Design helps you learn game development and design at your own pace by giving you access to an enormous library of expert-led training videos, and access is on sale now for $59 in the Boing Boing Store.With the School of Game Design, you'll have access to more than 120-hours of step-by-step training videos covering everything from the absolute design basics to performing advanced techniques with Unity3D. You'll foster both coding and computer artistry skills and also have unlimited access to thousands of dollars in royalty-free game art and textures to bring your own 2D and 3D games to life.Now, you can get in on the School of Game Design on sale for $59, in the Boing Boing Store.

A few weeks ago, Burning Man founder Larry Harvey suffered a massive stroke. Today I have learned that he has passed. He was 70 years old.Marian Goodell, Burning Man's CEO, made the announcement:

When it comes to telling a story, animation is a powerful tool, especially in the realm of marketing. Whether you're pushing a new product or just trying to cultivate a larger following, utilizing fun animations is an effective way to reach new audiences. Animation Studio Pro gives you the tools you need to create animations and graphics that will engage your audience, even if you have zero design or technical coding know-how, and you can get it today for $49.99 in the Boing Boing Store.Used by business heavyweights like NASA, Facebook, and Google, Animatron Studio allows you to make mobile-friendly, entertaining animations in an intuitive, collaborative environment right in your browser. You'll get access to thousands of free, pre-animated characters, backgrounds, and props and have the resources to create fun projects, like explainer videos, HTML5 banners and animations, stunning presentations, and more.You can sign up today for $49.99 in the Boing Boing Store.

Last month, I posted the first of what I hope will be a series of Boing Boing articles looking at the latest tabletop miniature, board, card, and roleplaying games, and some of what's going on in tabletop gaming culture. Here is some of what's been holding my attention this month.Mythic Battles: PantheonMonolith Games, 1-4 Players, Ages 14+I was bummed when I thought I wouldn't have an opportunity to plug this game here on Boing Boing. Mythic Battles: Pantheon was a Kickstarter exclusive game in 2016, a campaign in which Monolith/Mythic Games raked in nearly US$2.7 million. I was lucky enough to be one of the backers. The rewards for the base game and stretch goals amounted to two gigantic doorstop boxes filled with some of the most gorgeous, detailed minis, boards, cards, and other components I've ever seen. There are few recent games (see Rising Sun below) that are lovelier than Mythic Battles. A board game/miniatures hybrid, the Mythic Battles pits (usually) 2 players and their hosts of Greek gods, titans, monsters, and heroes against each other.I cannot tell you how much I love this game. Besides the beautiful miniatures and components, which are all highly evocative of the setting, Mythic Battles: Pantheon has some really unique and interesting game mechanics, mostly driven through an activation deck and special "Art of War" cards, which serve as wild cards that allow you to perform a number of special actions. This really is ultimately a deck management game. Once you get the hang of how to work your deck to your advantage, and the timing and the dramatic turn-arounds triggered by the deck, the game becomes very epic-feeling, quite exciting, and strategically and tactically fulfilling.The reason that I'm mentioning Mythic Battles: Pantheon here is that, in June, Monolith will be launching a second Kickstarter campaign. If you love beautiful, not overly complicated, fun, and very re-playable miniatures and board games, card management games, and Greek mythology, start saving your couch-crack money now and follow the Mythic Battles Facebook page so you'll be ready when they relaunch.Badgers & BurrowsOsprey Games, US$30, 2 Players, Ages 10+ To be honest, I kind of wanted to hate this game. Osprey has been cranking out the miniature skirmish game rule books of late, covering every imaginable genre. When I opened the package for Badgers & Burrows, I thought they might have finally jumped the shark. But when I started thumbing through it, seeing the charming photos of the gaming minis, and reading the rules, I stopped rolling my eyes. I think, hot on the heels of the amazing Stuffed Fables, I am also more open to the idea of kiddie wargames. This really does seem like a fun and engaging gateway game to get tweens, and even younger kids, into fantasy wargaming. And it appears to be engaging enough to hold the attention of adults, too. Like Stuffed Fables, this would be a fantastic family gaming experience. I can only imagine how much fun it would be to help your child put together and paint a warband of bunnies, badgers, mice, rats, and the like.Miniature Wargames magazineAfter I wrote a review of Tabletop Gaming magazine here on Boing Boing, the publisher sent me some copies of their companion magazine, Miniature Wargames. Where Tabletop Gaming covers every flavor of game, from wargames to card games, to RPGs and boardgames, Miniature Wargames exclusively covers all manner of miniature-based wargames, from historicals to miniature games in the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror genres. The mag is heavy on historical games (my least favorite genre) and the design is less sophisticated and engaging than Tabletop. It's a well-done magazine, but if I were ponying up for an exclusive wargaming magazine, I would subscribe to Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy (I have before) or Wargames Illustrated. Actually, what I recommend (to save yourself the exorbitant shipping costs of these European magazines) is to convince your FLGS (Friendly Local Gaming Store) to carry copies of all three and then you can purchase the issues that have the game coverage you're most interested in.Dungeon Degenerates: Hand of DoomGOBLINKO, $70, 1-4 players, Ages 10+ (Not Suitable for Squares)The popularity of tabletop gaming is not only at an all-time high, but so is the quality of the games being produced. High-quality on-demand printing, crowdfunding, 3D design and printing, and the availability of custom component manufacturing at affordable prices have allowed for a new market of small-run indie game producers. If you design it, they will come. Now an indie designer/artist can have a great idea for a game, crowdfund it, and if it's good, s/he will get the needed money and support to produce their game. One game designing/artist couple that is taking full advantage of this current environment is Sean and Kate Äaberg of GOBLINKO. Their crowdfunded game, Dungeon Degenerates, has been a surprise hit, even showing up on popular game programs like Geek & Sundry's Game the Game.The first thing you notice about Dungeon Degenerates is that Sean's psychedelic nightmare artwork wants to melt your eyeballs and make steam shoot out of your ears. If you're already familiar with underground, metal-flecked games like Cave Evil or the eyeball-seering art of Skinner, then you know the aesthetic here. In this context, Sean calls it "dark fantasy medieval punk." The next thing you notice is how many components are in this thing. The gamebox groans with the weight of hundreds of Loot, Encounter, Monster, and other cards, character standies and dash boards, and oodles of other tokens. Managing all of this cardboard crack can become a real job (players have even taken to creating custom organizing inserts), but much of the game is run through these various card decks. Once you have everything set up, these cards actually help with ease of play.Even though Dungeon Degenerates is a board game, it has a distinctly old school D&D feel (OK, if D&D had been co-designed by Gwar). But it also does a cool inverse of classic D&D dungeon delving. In most fantasy games, the party goes into a dungeon in search of adventure and booty. In Dungeon Degenerates, your unsavory band of lowlifes (characters with names like the Corpse Burner, the Witch Smeller, and the Void Witch) are prisoners who have escaped from a dungeon and now run roughshod through the nightmarish kingdom of Würstreich, in search of adventure, loot, and freedom. The core game comes with a Missions book with 20 individual adventures for you and your degenerate friends to go on. You can also link missions together to create an extended campaign. GOBLINKO is also cranking out tons of support materials for the game like extra character packs, miniatures, books detailing the various regions of Würstreich, and more.Not part of the game, but from the same...uh... Degenerate Universe, Sean has just launched a new Kickstarter campaign for a dark fantasy medieval punk tarot deck. Why immerse yourself in all of this psychedelic degeneracy? As the game's back cover copy puts it: "In a land where rot rules, only the degenerates survive." Pearls of wisdom for our time?Rising SunCMON, $85, 3-5 Players, Ages 13+Game designer Eric M. Lang has been on a tremendous roll for a while. He is responsible for such games as Bloodborne, The Others, Blood Rage, Star Wars: The Card Game, Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game, and many more. And game artist Adrian Smith has similarly risen to the top of gameworld conceptualizing, doing a ton of iconic artwork for Games Workshop and teaming up with Eric Lang on such games as The Others and Blood Rage. It is no wonder that hot game company, CMON, has scooped this dynamic duo up as head designer and lead artist, respectively.After the phenomenal success of Blood Rage, the duo has done it again with Rising Sun. Where Blood Rage took place in a mythologized Viking world where warring clans seek power and glory as Ragnarok swiftly approaches, Rising Sun transports players to feudal Japan. I cannot adequately express how beautiful and cool this game is. I had a near religious experience just opening the box and inspecting all of the minis, board, and game components. Digital sculpting and 3D printing have revolutionized miniature production. These miniatures are ridiculously detailed and beautiful (and some, gruesome) to behold. You can even see the textures and patterns on fabric, the weaving on wooden armor, the texture of skin. There are 58 of these jaw-dropping minis in the game.Rising Sun is an area control game for 3-5 players. In a very balanced and clever game mechanic, each player operates a clan (with special abilities specific to each clan) and competes against up to 4 other clans for the highest honor while expanding across the land, building strongholds, and collecting harvests. The game is designed so that you have to form alliances during a very theme-appropriate Tea Ceremony phase (you cannot win without at least allying for a time). But this is a game where you have to "know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em." You can also appeal to the gods of feudal Japan for favors and increased honor (the most important currency in the game). You can appeal to monsters for favors, too, at the expense of honor. Eric Lang always does such an amazing job of distilling the essence of a concept, a culture, a mythology, and creates a game that evokes that essence to an extent that is, quite frankly, magical. Rising Sun is him at the height of that wizardry. And Adrian Smith and the CMON mini and component designers are equally sorcerous in creating impressively lovely and immersive game environments.Gaslands DashboardOsprey's Gaslands, their post-apocalyptic vehicular combat game, continues to be a runaway hit among gaming nerds. We covered the game itself in last month's "What's new in tabletop gaming?" One of the beauties of this and many other rule sets that Osprey has been releasing, is that you have to finish the game yourself. In this case, you have to convert your own Matchbox cars into Mad Max-style combat vehicles and scan, print, and cut out the various dashboards, markers, and templates. This all helps insire people to make cool, custom accessories for their games. And with 3D printing and CNC these days, it doesn't take long for game accessories to show up on sites like Thingiverse. An excellent case in point is this 3D printable Gaslands dashboard to replace to dull little dashboard templates that are available in the back of the rule book. Come on, it has a stick-shifter. You know you want that!Kingdom Death Monster Gear Grid

Closers are paid $1.45/session to log into (usually) men's dating-app accounts and flirt with the women in their queue for 10 minute stretches, as part of a gig-economy company called Vida (Virtual Dating Assistants). (more…)

We made it through another week! I don't know about you, but I'm amazed. Between what we're doing to the planet, what our planet has started to do to us and what we all do to each other, every moment that you're drawing breath is a wee miracle. In the coming days, Donald Trump will be meeting North Korean ruler Kim Jong-Un for a chubby tete-a-tete between a dictator and a wannabe. What could possibly go wrong?Enjoy yourself. It's later than you think.

Taxi, Throw Momma From the Train, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, War of the Roses, Death to Smoochy: Danny DeVito has his wee fingers in so many of the movies and television pies that I've loved over the years. It seems that others feel the love for Troll Foot just as hard as I do. According to The New York Times, the actor, writing and – I'm just going to say it – 4' 10" cultural touchstone, will be by his former Ashbury Park stomping grounds with a day of his own.DeVito's love of New Jersey is no secret. Born and raised in the state, he left in his teens to pursue an acting career in New York. With that panning out pretty well, DeVito kept on moving and made his way to the west coast, because of Hollywood. Despite this, his connection to his home state still runs deep.From The New York Times

"Somewhere along the way, they did something wrong, something dumb... Maybe they even got away with it first and thought they'd never get caught."Hey, hey, hey?

This female trapdoor spider, named Number 16, was the world's oldest known spider. A lifelong resident of the Australian outback, she has just died at age 43. From Curtin University:

School isn't always fun. In fact, during the weeks of back-to-back midterms and finals it can make you want to scream – or break down and have a good ol' fashioned cry. Enter the Cry Closet, Utah University's therapeutic stand-alone tiny room complete with cute plushies you can cuddle with while you let it all out.Rules posted on the Cry Closet include:Knock before entering

In the forests of the Amazon, West Africa, and Asia, villagers often beat on large drums to send messages miles away. While you may think that the patterns are similar to Morse Code, they're actually simplified versions of the villagers' spoken languages, "without consonants or vowels but with enough connection to the original language that speakers can reliably interpret what they mean." In newly published research, University of Cologne linguist Frank Seifart and his colleagues reveal how it's done. From Science:

In 1912, Don the dog took American vaudeville by storm. A European immigrant, Don spoke German, or at least 8 words of it. He reportedly said things like kuchen (“cake”), hunger (same word in English and German), and his own name. A celebrity and media darling, Don went from the stage to starring in newspaper ads for Maltoid Milk-Bone dog treats. Over at Smithsonian, Greg Daugherty tells the whole story of this curious canine:

This is what it looks like from the inside of a car when a drunk driver is behind the wheel. Louise Willard, a 41-year-old school teacher, swerves and sideswipes for a few miles in East Sussex, England, before crashing into a parked car. It was all captured on her dash cam. Bystanders from different points of her weaving journey called the police, but she crashed before they caught up to her.Her blood alcohol content was over twice the legal limit, according to the Sussex Police. They posted this video to "show you exactly what it looks like to drive under the influence of alcohol"She wrecked her car, but she won't need it now that her license has been taken away for two years. Luckily no one was hurt.Image of white car: Sussex police

Master self-publisher and world-renowned author Chuck Tingle has penned a dramatic take on Sean Hannity's failure to disclose.Thanks to BBS commenter Sosumi for pointing this out.News Commentator Sam Hannity Pounded In The Butt By The Fact That He Didn't Disclose He Has The Same Lawyer As The President via Amazon

In early April, Jimmy Kimmel Live and The New Yorker writer Bess Kalb tweeted some cartoon captions that her cousin's 9-year-old daughter, Alice Kassnove, had come up with. And the tweet went viral.(more…)

Krampus LA co-founder (and occasional BB guest blogger) Al Ridenour is taking a stab at podcasting with Bone & Sickle, a show that "celebrates the intertwining of horror and folklore."He writes:

Ask any IT professional worth their salt, and they'll tell you that having the right certifications can make or break your chances when it comes to earning a promotion or getting your foot in the door to an entry-level IT gig. And, while there are a host of certification providers out there, few carry the weight that a certification from CompTIA does.Whether you're aiming to pursue a career in cybersecurity or network administration, CompTIA can certify your knowledge in a host of IT disciplines, and you can prepare to ace its certification exams with the Complete 2018 CompTIA Certification Training Bundle, which is on sale in the Boing Boing Store.Featuring more than 140 hours of content spread across 14 courses, this training will familiarize you with the concepts and ideas you're likely to be tested on during several CompTIA certification exams, including CompTIA's Security+, A+, and Cloud+ certifications. As you progress, you'll develop core IT skills, like detecting network threats and administering enterprise networks, and, with lifetime access, you can make your way through each course on your own time and at the pace that's right for you.Now, you can pick up the Complete 2018 CompTIA Certification Training Bundle on sale for $59. Plus, you can take an extra 30 percent off the sale price when you use the GETSMART coupon code at checkout.

Discovered nearly 110 years ago by a workman on an archaeological dig in Lower Austria, the limestone Venus of Willendorf statuette is guessed to be have been created sometime between 28,000 and 25,000 BCE, aka the "Old Stone Age."The sculpture now lives in Vienna at the city's Natural History Museum.If you crochet, you can make your very own Willendorf Venus. Head to Trishagurumi for the free pattern.Thanks, Amy!

The Guardian posted a fun gallery/quiz today: can you identify which cities these cold war spy maps represent? It's always fun to see London in Cyrillic.

This portable mini cloud was posted to YouTube as a "scallop carrot," but I'm 99% certain there's no such bug. Is it a scale bug? A trashbug that got lucky?

Designer Giulio Iacchetti was inspired by the clean lines of the classic Vespa 98 to create a spec concept for an all electric model. He nicknamed his digital mockup the Vespampère. (more…)

In this silent footage filmed in NASA Langley Research Center's 8ft wind tunnel, we see what happens when a human being is blasted with 457mph gusts. They were trying to find out how safe it was for pilots to stay in their planes after canopies were damaged or removed.

Abba has written and recorded new songs, reports The Guardian, and will release them and tour soon. The band split in 1982 after ruling the seventies with its unique mix of folk music, disco and polyester.

June is Pride month and Disney has already rolled out rainbow mouse ears, with a depiction of Mickey's gloves in a hand-heart, in their U.S. parks. I spotted this pair, which is officially called the "Mickey Mouse Rainbow Love" hat, in Disneyland a couple of weeks ago for $17.99.I bet these ears, along with the rainbow products like trading pins and lanyard pulls, will be a big hit come early October for Gay Days.photo by me

There is, at long last, a public appetite for Doing Something About Facebook (and, by extension, about all of Big Tech); I have been playing with the idea of regulating the outcome, rather than the method: we give Facebook a certain period of time to remedy the situation whereby people "can't afford to leave Facebook" and then, if that situation isn't remedied, impose some sanction and either break them up or give them another go, with more sanctions if they fail. (more…)

Georgie Williams creates cybernetic-inspired tattoos. She's currently doing bookings on the west coast, but she's soon heading out to Oceania next month. (more…)

Kristen Meyer of Salvage Design creates lovely art from foods, rocks, and plants, all arranged meticulously for maximum aesthetic joy. (more…)

Scott Pruitt is Trump's scandal-haunted EPA administrator; yesterday, he was called before a Congressional hearing to account for himself and his lavish, tax-funded spending, as well as the paranoid culture of retaliatory firings and demotions at the EPA. (more…)

It makes me very happy that the "Bad Lip Reading" folks took Zuck's recent testimony footage and made this gem of a video. Could they have been a little harder on Mr. Facebookman himself? Probably so. Still worth a watch though!Previously: Bad Lip Readings on BB

Entertainment just gets weirder and weirder, as evidenced by this Tonight Show clip.Magician David Blaine SEWS HIS MOUTH SHUT as part of his latest trick (which I won't spoil, of course), as Indian actress Priyanka Chopra documents it with her iPhone.The studio's cameras filmed the trick too. You can see the full footage of Blaine's segment here. Don't miss the part where Questlove hilariously distances himself from the group.Blaine starts his North American tour on May 6.

This tornado on the Gulf Coast started out as a water spout when a couple first started recording it from their condo across the water on Sunday. The woman then realizes it's a tornado, but at first the man disagrees, insisting it's still a water spout. Finally it builds up speed and starts crossing the water, towards Fort Walton Beach. "Oh my God! Oh my God!" she shrieks."Get inside!" he tells her. Meanwhile he stays out on the balcony to keep recording.The tornado "moved a pickup truck out of its parking space," according to The Washington Post, and destroyed at least one house, but luckily nobody was hurt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYimlrucN4sMotorcyclist Malik Elizee is spared as his motorcycle is sent flying in an automotive chain reaction.Elizee's motorcycle goes sliding away at a near 90degree angle to the direction it, and Elizee were travelling. Elizee lands on his feet and runs with the momentum.Fear.

Resistentialism is a theory to describe "seemingly spiteful behavior manifested by inanimate objects," where objects that cause problems (like lost keys or a runaway bouncy ball) are said to exhibit a high degree of malice toward humans. [Wikipedia]

I've got nothing. Just... just watch this.

Soldiers that consider themselves part of the many religious traditions that make up what we call modern Heathenry have had the option since 2013 to have their military tombstone marked with a Hammer of Thor, instead of the traditional Christian crosses and Stars of David that most often adorn the stone markers. It seems only fitting then, that a soldier who still draws breath should also be able to mark his faith while serving his country. This seems to be the logic that the U.S. Army used when it created a new exception to the Army's uniform and grooming standards.According to The Army Times, the U.S. Army authorized Sikh soldiers to wear beards – beards are an important tenet of the Sikh faith. As it turns out, the change in military grooming standards now applies to soldiers of all religions: if maintaining facial hair is apart of your God-thing, then you've got a right to rock a beard. That said, in order to do so, you'll have to ask permission to do so.The latest accommodation granted for a religious group is for those who consider themselves to be heathens – adherents to any number of pagan faiths.There is, however, some contention over whether or not the wearing of a beard is an important tenet of Heathenry. From The Army Times:

Comedian Bill Cosby, 80, was found guilty of all three counts of aggravated indecent assault. He drugged and sexually assaulted Andrea Constand in 2004. He could be sentenced to 10 years in prison on each count.From The New York Times:

The folks at Evernote have released a whitepaper called Triple Overload and What You Can Do About It. Triple overload is what happens when you combine data overload, communication overload, and cognitive overload. Here's one tip from the post that makes sense-- collect information in big buckets, not tiny cups:

Brandon Hocura of the excellent Seance Centre record label mined his (and his friends') rare and vintage cassette archive to create this sublime guest mix for the Noise In My Head show on NTS Radio. Listen below, preferably with headphones. Turn on, tune in.Noise In My Head W/ Brandon Hocura (Seance Centre)

Bob Dorough jazz musician and musical director of Schoolhouse Rock, passed away earlier this week, at the age of 94. His voice is instantly recognizable.Lolly, Lolly, Lolly.Via Yahoo Entertainment:

This simple GIF from Gadget Love is pretty pleasing to me.Clone Troopers were not useless in battle.

I'm delivering the annual Kilgour lecture tomorrow morning at 10AM at UNC, and I'll be speaking at Flyleaf Books at 7PM -- be there or be oblong! (more…)

This porch pirate in Tracy, California noticed that he was being surveilled by a doorbell camera so he tried to swipe that too."It's kind of pointless to a certain extent because a lot of these devices store to the cloud," Tracy Police Captain Alex Neicu told Fox40. "So the image is already captured.”Hopefully soon the thief will be too.

Scientists combined multiple imaging technologies to deliver an unprecedented 3D view inside the body of crawling cancer cells, spinal cord circuit development, and immune cells traveling within a zebrafish (above). Nobel laureate Eric Betzig and his colleagues at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute integrate a technology called lattice light sheet microscopy with adaptive optics resulting in a very expensive, 10-foot-long microscope. From HHMI:

China's Citizen Score system combines surveillance of your social media and social graph with your credit report, your purchase history and state spy agencies and police files on you to produce a "trustworthiness" score -- people who score low are denied access to high-speed travel, financial products, and other services like private school for their kids. (more…)

Illinois is one of 18 states where Right to Repair legislation has been introduced -- rules that would force manufacturers to end the practice of undermining the independent repair sector with hidden service documents, unavailable parts, and DRM. (more…)

Checkmarx researchers including Erez Yalon have created a "rogue Alexa skill" that bypasses Amazon's security checks: it lurks silently and unkillably in the background of your Alexa, listening to all speech in range of it and transcribing it, then exfiltrating the text and audio of your speech to the attacker. (more…)

It's been ten years since the publication of my bestselling novel Little Brother; though the novel was written more than a decade ago, and though it deals with networked computers and mobile devices, it remains relevant, widely read, and widely cited even today. (more…)

Our computers are home to a myriad of files and documents, many of which contain sensitive information. While storing this data on your computer is convenient, it's not exactly safe, and with news headlines highlighting data leaks and ransomware attacks on what seems like a daily basis, moving them to a safer location is a solid move. pCloud Premium Plus Cloud Storage gives you an easily accessible place to store your valuable information, and subscriptions are on sale for $29.99 in the Boing Boing Store.With pCloud Premium, you get 2TB of cloud storage and 2TB of download link traffic to keep your sensitive information backed up and secure. pCloud keeps your data safe with a secure 256-bit TLS/SSL connection and lets you sync your data across multiple devices automatically. Plus, if you need to share your files, you can do so safely using download links with full stats, set passwords, and expiration dates.You can sign up for a 1-year plan to pCloud Premium Plus Cloud Storage for $29.99 today.