Coding is undeniably one of the most valuable skills to have in today's job market, but between four-year degree programs and pricy coding boot camps, the traditional avenues for gaining this skill aren't particularly economical. However, the web is full of resources that can teach you how to use today's coding tools on your own time and for a fraction of the cost, like the Complete 2018 Learn to Code Bundle, which is on sale for $50 in the Boing Boing Store.Featuring more than 200 hours of training spread across nine courses, this collection will get you up to speed with top programming tools, like Python, Java, and Google Go. Regardless of your experience level, this training will guide you through the core principles of front and back-end web development, and you'll even tackle advanced concepts, like machine learning with Python and customizing a content management system via Bootstrap.The Complete 2018 Learn to Code Bundle is on sale for less than $6/course at $49.99 in the Boing Boing Store.

A Montreal woman is contesting a $169 ticket that a cop got her to sign by making up a new law. She was driving in the carpool lane with her daughter; the cop falsely said that carpool passengers must have driving licenses.

A law intended to stop people from making off-brand DVD players now means that security researchers can’t warn you about dangers from the cameras in your bedroom; that mechanics can’t fix your car; and that your printer won’t take third party ink. (more…)

Centurylink is a giant, scammy telco notorious for larding its customers' bills with fraudulent charges, and instructing its customer service reps to do everything possible not to waive those charges; they also open fake accounts in their customers' names, a la Wells Fargo, and then rack up charges against them. (more…)

“I’m tired of the lies,” says Melania Trump on the cover of this week’s Us magazine, below the headline: “Melania’s Agony.”“Will she stay in the marriage?” asks the mag, following a week of humiliating revelations from the president’s alleged former mistresses.It’s a fair question, but when you read the four-page article, you realize that there isn’t a single quote from Melania in the piece. Not even: “I’m tired of the lies.” If she is indeed “tired of the lies” (and who wouldn’t be in her position?) she may be even more weary of seeing fictional quotes attributed to her on the cover of magazines that claim to be a rung above the supermarket tabloids.Us magazine’s insights into the Trump marriage come from a body language expert who interprets such signals as Melania descending from Air Force One in Florida on March 23 ahead of her husband. The message is clear, says the expert: “She made the decision that I’m not going to be last, and my son is not going to be last.” Or perhaps she was just desperate to get to a bathroom, or Trump asked her to go first, or she was helping son Barron down the stairway, or was feeling air-sick and wanted to get off the plane . . . there are a hundred reasons why she may have deplaned first.Just because any sane woman would be miserable if married to Donald Trump doesn’t give Us free reign to put words in her mouth.“Wedding Scandal – Meghan Betrayed!” screams another story on the cover of Us. So it’s rather disappointing to find the story inside is a mere paragraph reporting that Prince Harry’s future bride has “lost sleep” because her half-sister and her nephew have both signed deals to be live TV wedding correspondents when she ties the knot in May. These are relatives who have made critical comments about Markle for the past year, so that’s hardly new, and certainly doesn’t rise to the level of a “wedding scandal.” It’s the sort of wishful thinking that we routinely see in the tabloids.People magazine hardly fares better with its Royal cover story: “How Love Changed Harry.” The British Prince reportedly “struggled to find his way before meeting Meghan Markle,” but then goes on to describe how he has changed and matured since losing his mother, Princess Diana, when he was 12 years old. Shocked as People may be that Harry has changed since he was a pre-teen, its story makes clear that he’s been changing through the years, and at 33 years old perhaps it’s just maturity that changed him, and Markle simply makes him happy. In fact, People explains that Harry’s interest in military veterans gave him a “newfound sense of purpose” and “a stability that he had long lacked.” Yet that interest came before he met Markle. So really, the entire premise of the article is false – more wishful thinking.Fortunately we have the crack investigative team at Us to tell us that Bella Hadid wore it best, actress Danielle Savre carries exfoliating wipes and rose geranium facial spray in her solar-charged BirkSun backpack (and who doesn’t?), rapper Remy Ma believes that “Waffle Crisp is hands down the best breakfast cereal,” and that the stars are just like us: they carry groceries, pump gas and shop at farmers markets. Those down-to-earth celebs!People magazine routinely takes readers inside celebrity homes, but perhaps Tyrese Gibson should have thought twice about inviting the magazine into his 25,000-sq-ft six-story Georgia mansion. When your living room’s Corinthian columns are dwarfed by an 11-ft tall steel and cadmium yellow gleaming metal replica of Transformers star Bumblebee (with a copy of Optimus Prime in your garden) and your dining room features grandiose gilded thrones at each end of the dining table, you might want to keep your home-decorating skills to yourself.Onwards and downwards . . .

U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to sign a proclamation today to authorize deployment of National Guard troops to the southwest border with Mexico.(more…)

When a couple told their doctor they were moving out of town, the doctor reacted in an unusual way – he cried. Maybe his odd response was due to the fact that, unbeknownst to the couple, the doctor was the biological father to their young daughter, Kelli Rowlette.Let's fast forward. Rowlette, from Washington state, recently took a DNA test with Ancestry.com, only to find out her father wasn't her biological father. In fact, Ancestry said her bio dad was a doctor named Gerald Mortimer who lived 500 miles away. This was so surprising that she told her mother that Ancestry had got it wrong.What she didn't know was that her parents had gone to the same Doctor Mortimer in the 1980s, and her mother had undergone artificial insemination with both her father's sperm and that of an "anonymous donor" who was supposedly a 6-foot tall college student with brown hair and blue eyes (which the doctor was not). The parents had kept the artificial insemination a secret from their daughter, while the doctor had kept the fact that he and their daughter shared the same DNA a secret.Even after the DNA test revealed that Rowlette's biological father was not her father, Rowlette's mom kept mum.According to The Seattle Times:

Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer buried the news that Cambridge Analytica's total body-count was probably 87,000,000 (not 50,000,000 as previously recorded) at the end of a long-winded, mealy-mouthed update on the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal. He offered no explanation for the discrepancy.

Tim Farmer found a giant puffball mushroom in the woods, a fall delicacy that requires a little good luck and timing to enjoy. They are a lot safer than picking other wild mushrooms because they are pretty easy to identify. (more…)

Great news from New Zealand this morning. According to the BBC, the nation's government has passed legislation that will allow individuals who were charged under the country's old laws against homosexuality to have their records wiped clean.Homosexuality was illegal in New Zealand up until 1986. Up until that time, it was possible for men who wanted nothing more than to express their love or to enjoy one another to be slapped with charges with names such as "sodomy, indecency between males and keeping a place of resort for homosexual acts." Anyone charged with these offense before 1986 still has the charge on their official police records. According to the BBC, around 1,000 individuals will have the option to scrub these bullshit charges from their records next year:

If you like 11foot8bridge and its evil cousin 10foot6bridge, you'll love this super slo-mo recreation of a crash from multiple angles. (more…)

This looks really simple – just choose the correct lowercase "looptail" G in the video above. Do it now, before spoilin' it by readin' a lowercase G in the rest of this post.(more…)

On this 1980 episode of 3-2-1 Contact -- the excellent PBS kids TV show about science -- legendary experimental electronic musician Suzanne Ciani explains the basics of synthesizer technology. If you aren't hip to Ciani's music that spans avant-garde, classical, cinematic, and new age genres, I highly recommend you check out the fine anthologies and reissues of her work from the good people at Finders Keepers Records. Below, her stunning track "Paris 1971" from the compilation "Lixiviation 1968-1985." And you can check out Ciani live at this May's Moogfest in Durham, North Carolina.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdnJ7VvU-tg

Facebook could give American users the same privacy enhancements that are coming to European users. But they won't, Mark Zuckerberg admits. Put simply, they aren't legally obliged to.

The congregation of Brazil's São Geraldo Magela church seemed delighted as a drone outfitted with a monstrance containing the eucharist floats up the aisle to their priest at the altar. Once the video was posted to Facebook though, some devout Catholics flipped out, calling it "scandalous" and a "profanation." According to the Catholic Herald, blogger priest John Zuhlsdorf criticized the stunt as "sacrilegious silliness."

Playing video games all day long becomes a healthy sport when you've got one of these genius contraptions. Maker Jeremy Fielding uses a rowing machine to make this human-powered generator, which is needed if the kids want to play their video games, and they have less than one minute to switch rowers – otherwise the power goes out and their game goes kaput.Here's the full video, in which he explains how he made this, as well as four other things made from treadmill parts, including a bench top DC power supply, beautiful clock, wood lathe, and steel-cutting bandsaw:https://youtu.be/h1E4PkHS364

Remember Netcome, the startup I posted about that "promises to preserve your brain for uploading, after they kill you?" Apparently, Netcome had provided $300,000 of a federal grant it received to (legit and amazing) neuroscientist Edward Boyden's MIT laboratory to do some basic research that the company hoped they could potentially apply to their wild project. Technology Review wrote about Netcome's plans, and that they had already received $200,000 in deposits from people wanting to preserve their brains after assisted suicide. Well guess what? The scientific community called bullshit on Netcome's proposition and raised serious ethical concerns about their approach. Now, the MIT Media Lab and Boyden have terminated their contract with Netcome. Here's MIT's fascinating statement on the matter:

The Internet Archive has an incredible free collection of 1980s handheld game console emulators. In 1978, my brother and I played the hell out of Coleco Electronic Quarterback. It's amazing how compelling and addictive a flashing array of LED dashes was back then, and still is. From the Internet Archive:

.cm is the top-level domain for Cameroon, and the major use-case for .cm domains is typosquatting -- registering common .com domains as .cm domains (like microsoft.cm or apple.cm), in the hopes of nabbing traffic from users who fatfinger while typing a domain, and sometimes serving them malware or directing them to scams. (more…)

Seoul-based designer Yang Si Young created the "Library Chair" in answer to a personal challenge: to design a piece of furniture that's also a library; with built-in shelving and a place to read. (more…)

Embattled Trump Secretary of the Interior chair Ryan Zinke (previously) unveiled a plan to raise the service charge for using our nation's parks to $70/day (it's currently $25/day), a move that would price access to national parks out of the budgets of 71% of working-class Americans. (more…)

Creepy (no, seriously) 1980s villain John McAfee has 812,000 Twitter followers, some of whom are not bots, and for the low price of $105,000, he will tweet to them about your cryptocurrency. (more…)

While people aroundthe world were inspired by the resilience, fearlessness and savvy of the students who created a national gun-control movement in the wake of the Parkland shooting, American right-wing leaders looked at these kids and saw evidence of the urgency to destroy public education and replace it with religious private schools and charter schools. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s5lmYujYVoThe woman who opened fire in a YouTube cafeteria, injuring three others then killing herself, was named as Nasim Najafi Aghdam by investigators late yesterday. Frenzied speculation over her motives (alt-right types immediateley sought to portray her as a jihadi) faded to general bafflement: Aghdam was apparently an Iranian Baha’i vegan fitness fan to whom stereotypical political identities seem ill-fitted, especially in light of her bizarre videos: the only clue is her often-expressed anger that YouTube had demonetized her channel. The discussion is already leaning toward issues of mental health, with the necessary caveat that such speculation itself is problematic and tends to assume things about the mentally ill that are untrue.

Gothamist voted to unionize in late 2017; immediately thereafter, its new owner, the evil, Trump-supporting billionaire Joe Ricketts killed it and all its sister publications in a fit of petty revenge against the uppity laborers in word-mines; but then, in February, a consortium of public radio stations announced plans to revive the beloved site, backed by an anonymous donor and the sites' original founders. (more…)

Our smartphones boast pretty powerful cameras, but no matter how advanced they get, they never quite fix the shakiness that comes with trying to take a photo one-handed. This understanding is what produced the ShutterGrip Smartphone Camera Controller, a sturdy smartphone attachment that cuts down on that shaky-cam feel while letting you comfortably snap photos on the move. You can pre-order your own today for $29.99.This device uses a tensioned grip to attach to almost any smartphone—with or without a case—and provides a sturdy, ergonomic handle as well as a wireless shutter button to help you take better photos. You can use it to take pictures wirelessly, and you can even mount it on a tripod thanks to the built-in tripod screw.You can pre-order a ShutterGrip Smartphone Camera Controller today for $29.99 in the Boing Boing Store.

FOLLOW @RubenBolling on the Twitters and a Face Book.JOIN Tom the Dancing Bug's subscription club, the INNER HIVE, for exclusive early access to comics, privately distributed extra comics, secret commentary, and much more.GET Ruben Bolling’s new hit book series for kids, The EMU Club Adventures. (”Filled with wild twists and funny dialogue” -Publishers Weekly) Book One here. Book Two here.More Tom the Dancing Bug comics on Boing Boing! (more…)

To date, Volkswagen has bought back about 350,000 diesel vehicles in the wake of the massive environmental fraud they committed around emissions testing. Here's one of 37 VW graveyards. (more…)

Children being forced to represent themselves in a court case that could determine their future? Sure, why not.

If you were to ask the Indian Space Research Organization, they'd tell you that space is hard: the IRSO has lost communications with one of its satellites mere days after launching it into orbit.According to The Times of India, the IRSO launched the GSAT-6A communications satellite into orbit on March 29. Indian ground control was able to command the satellite to alter its orbit on two separate occasions. Smooth sailing! Then, on Saturday, things went south:

The use of fake cellphone towers, known as Stingrays or IMSI catchers, plays well with the nation's spy agencies and in some police jurisdictions. The authorities just can't get enough of being able to locate or listen in on private phone calls! But when it comes to members of the government being surveilled, well that's a different story.According to Ars Technica, the Feds are are pretty, pretty sure that their mobile phone calls are being monitored by Stingray hardware set up by bad dudes, but they have no idea of who those bad dudes might be, or how to stop them. In a letter brought to light by the Associated Press on Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security's National Protection and Programs Directorate hasn't got a clue of who's responsible for setting up the elicit Stingray hardware and hasn't got any ideas of how they might shut them down:

Dan Gillmor's got an excellent point about tech platforms: they more they act as technological regulators of what we see (the more they spy on us and filter-bubble us), the more they're going to face calls to be political regulators of what we see. (more…)

The early web was heralded as a revolution in participatory media where everyone could make media as well as consuming it. (more…)

Fivethirtyeight studied every election since Trump -- 99 special elections plus regular state elections in NJ and Virginia -- and checked whether there were any strong predictors of whether Trump voters would support a Democratic candidate. (more…)

The excellent Logitech Create keyboard for the iPad Pro that I reviewed last month is on sale for $70. From my earlier review:The Logitech Create iPad Pro keyboard (on sale for $81 on Amazon) has changed the way I use my iPad. Mainly, I'm using my iPad much more often, now that I can enter text with a keyboard. If I'm on a short trip, I'll often take it with me instead of my bulkier MacBook Pro. It works well with Google Docs, which is how I do most of my work.It has a backlit keyboard, which is essential. The keyboard is smaller than a standard keyboard, but it's not so cramped that I resent it when I have to do a lot of writing. I appreciate that it is powered directly from the iPad Pro via the Apple smart connector, because I don't need to remember to charge it. It also doesn't need Bluetooth pairing -- just insert the iPad into the case and start using it.The top row of keys have controls for common things like one-tap to home, screen brightness adjustment, search, language switch, keyboard backlighting adjustment, media controls, volume controls, iPad on/off sleep/wake.The case itself is textured so it won't slip easily when I carry it, and when closed the entire iPad is protected.It's surprisingly thin and light, too. I wish I'd started using it sooner!

Self-described roaring performance artist has a simple business model: he spouts outrageous lies to bring in an audience, then sells them quack remedies whose market has been proven by Gwyeneth Paltrow. (more…)

Bursting through some old and rotten planks in an abandoned park buidling, 13 year-old Jessie Hernandez plummeted into the Los Angeles sewer system. The City of Fallen Angels spared no resource or technology in their 12 hour long search to save the young man.Via RawStory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMsPpO7W4lgDanny Kaye is charming as ever, as he joins a vocal chorus sing to "Do You Ever Think of Me" on the January 22nd, 1964 episode of The Danny Kaye Show.

As posted on the (verified) Twitter account of Warwickshire Police on April 2, this gentleman is on the run.

A duo of grimly determined New Jersey cops were so certain that a man was in possession of marijuana that they went on a lengthy and energetic roadside expedition into his anus to find some. They were disappointed when they discovered the man's anus was empty, but they placed the man under arrest anyway, for having "the odor of marijuana." In the video, the suspect expresses his disbelief at what's happening in a performance worthy of Jeff Spicoli.From APP:

Tacotron 2 is Google's new text-to-speech system, and as heard in the samples below, it sounds indistinguishable from humans.From Quartz:

After the incredible success of the West Virginia teachers' strike, teachers in Oklahoma and Kentucky walked out and now they're joined by teachers in Arizona -- all four of these are "red" states that voted Trump in 2016. (more…)

Please join me this Thursday evening April 5 at San Francisco's California Academy of Sciences NightLife event celebrating the Space Age! At 8:30pm, I'll be speaking about the Voyager Golden Record, the iconic message for extraterrestrials launched into space that my friends Tim Daly, Lawrence Azerrad, and I released on vinyl for the first time here on Earth. I'm honored to be joined in conversation by my friend and mentor Timothy Ferris, the bestselling science author who produced the original Voyager Record back in 1977.There's a stellar lineup of other presenters and happenings at the museum that night too: NASA astronaut Ed Lu, a workshop with the Vintage Synthesizer Museum, a panel on NASA computing technology, space-themed pinball machines, Vetiver's Andy Cabic and DJ Daniel T on the turntables, plenty of far-out art, and much more. I hope to see you there: California Academy of Sciences NightLife: Space AgeThe Voyager Golden Record 3xLP Vinyl Box Set and 2xCD-Book edition will be for sale at the event and also available from OzmaRecords.com.Here's an audio sampler:

Alexander Kott is chief of the Network Science Division at the Army Research Laboratory; in a new paper, he rounds up several years' worth of papers that he wrote or co-authored, along with some essays and articles by others, on what an "Internet of Battle Things" will look like. (more…)

The 1992 point-and-click classic The Dagger of Amon Ra was a high point of the genre's 16-bit era: an intriguing and offbeat adventure with distinctive colorful pixel art and Sierra On-Line co-founder Roberta Williams overseeing the project. For the Campo Santo Review, Duncan Fyfe takes a deep look at a game "steeped in the aesthetics of the 1920s" and a major influence on the forthcoming Into the Valley of the Gods.

Braille Neue is a dual typeface designed by Kosuke Takahashi that overlays Braille and English into one simple font. For sighted people who do not currently know Braille, it's also a great mnemonic for learning Braille characters. (more…)

Thorin is a ragdoll kitteh who might have the world's longest cat tongue if such things are documented. Imagine that sandpaper tongue waking you up in the morning.There's an Instagram of Thorin and friends:https://www.instagram.com/p/BUhwWodFnSb/?taken-by=ragdoll_thorinhttps://www.instagram.com/p/BexNzsoFnv_/?taken-by=ragdoll_thorinhttps://www.instagram.com/p/BSJ3ddeBxvl/?taken-by=ragdoll_thorinhttps://www.instagram.com/p/BLao75LDpdW/?taken-by=ragdoll_thorinhttps://www.instagram.com/p/BG6lENpzNKC/?taken-by=ragdoll_thorin• Time-Travel of a Ragdoll Kitten and his best buddy (YouTube / Ragdoll Thorin)

A small hand pump is very convenient for bicyclists, but can a bike pump be weaponized? YouTuber JoergSprave from The Slingshot Channel gives it a shot. (more…)

The Hoberman Switch Pitch Throwing Ball is a $12 toy that instantiates a dual polyhedron: every time you throw it, it turns inside-out; there's a wealth of scientific literature that explains how this works, including this open-access paper from the Journal of the International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures. Here's JWZ's summary: "The curved body panels that make it look like a sphere hide an internal structure that is a cube; or really, two tetrahedrons embedded in a cube; and when it its its activation energy, the tetrahedron becomes its dual, swapping faces and vertices."