My latest Locus column, "Let’s Get Better at Demanding Better from Tech," looks at how science fiction can make us better critics of technology by imagining how tech could be used in difference social and economic contexts than the one we live in today. (more…)

Created by esteemed riddler Edwin F. Meyer, co-author of The Gedanken Institute Book of Puzzles.(TED-Ed)

Humans have left approximately 400,000 pounds (181,000 kilograms) of "trash" on the lunar surface. That includes probes, rovers, landers, a metallic olive branch, a hammer and falcon feather (for a gravity experiment, image below), two golf balls, a javelin, a urine collection assembly (small), various rakes and hammer, a portrait of James Irwin, 100 $2 bills, flags, and so many more items. In fact, here is NASA's list of manmade objects on the moon, although it hasn't been updated in 6 years. From Space.com:

West Virginia's teachers across the state are participating in an unsanctioned wildcat strike with no end in sight -- thanks in part to the widespread support for their cause among West Virginians, and solidarity from other workers. (more…)

Last December, the accounting giant EY presented a proposal to the failing mega-business Carillion to break it up and sell its profitable parts, keeping it from collapsing and sticking the British taxpayer with billions of pounds' worth of unfunded pension liabilities. (more…)

Remember last year when Trump was considering Mitt Romney to become secretary of state after he was elected? In the end Trump dumped the idea of Romney and Rex Tillerson got the job. Now, a second Steele memo that surfaced in November 2016 reveals that Tillerson might not have really been Trump's idea, but might actually have been a decision made by Trump's boss, the Kremlin.According to The Daily Beast:

Botnik used its predictive AI to generate a Gwyneth Paltrow-style website full of woo: goob! It's all very Poe's Law. (more…)

AliExpress has this and various other cellphones designed to resemble ancient first-gen mobiles of yore. This one can also be used as a battery pack for another phone. All the models are 2G GSM and will therefore only work in the US on T-Mobile, at your own risk. [Thanks, Greg!]Here's video:

I've heard good things about Scrimish, "an epic 10 minute battle of strategy, memory, and misdirection." It's on sale on Amazon for $7 (regularly $15) so I just bought it. The sale ends today. I'll review it after we play a few rounds.

Watch this sign painter use a brush and a pot of ink to flawlessly draw Japanese and Roman letters.

Soon after Frances McDormand received her Oscar for Best Actress for her brilliant performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, the statuette was stolen. After searching high and low for it, McDormand "was spotted crying emotionally outside the [Governor's] ball after giving up the search for the statuette on the premises and departing with her husband, filmmaker Joel Coen," according to USA Today.And then it was found.A man named Terry Bryant was arrested for grand theft for taking the statue. In the video above we see him prancing around, bragging to party-goers about the award that he won. No one noticed McDormand's name, which was already engraved on the statue."Who wants to tell me congratulations!" he says in a state of exuberance. And, in Hollywood fashion, everyone around him congratulates him, acting like they knew who he was and what he won the Oscar for. According to USA Today:

Dayanna Volitich is a 25-year-old social studies teacher at Crystal River Middle School in Florida. She is the host (under the pseudonym “Tiana Dalichov”) of a white nationalist podcast called “Unapologetic.” Sample quote: "So many other researchers have already looked into this and that's just the way it is -- there are races that have higher IQs than others." Citrus County School District Superintendent Sandra Himmel announced on Saturday that Volitich has been “removed from the classroom.”From HuffPost:

From Deep Look:

Lying to grand juries. Beating innocent people. Stealing money. Lying on reports. Dealing drugs. Drunk driving. Threatening people with death. Sexually assaulting people. These are some of the serious offenses committed by 319 New York Police Department employees between 2011 and 2015, according to a BuzzFeed News investigation. The cops weren't imprisoned. They weren't even fired. In fact, they were allowed to keep their jobs and pensions, and many of them are on the streets on New York right now.

Traveling by air's thirsty work. When you're flying, the cold air sucked into an airplane at 30,000 feet keeps everyone alive, but it doesn't have a whole lot of moisture in it. An hour of breathing it in leaves most people's mouths feeling as dry as a popcorn fart. To help sooth our parched mouths, flight attendants dole out free water and soft drinks. According to the Huffington Post, if you want to start drinking as soon as humanly possible, don't order a diet soda: of all the drinks offered as part on an aircraft, they're the most difficult to pour.Diet sodas, and especially Diet Coke, are the bane of flight attendants because they're so much more fizzy than other drinks that it takes a longer time to pour, especially over ice. A passenger request for a glass of Diet Coke can slow down in-flight service to a crawl as the fizzy drink foams up fast and settles down slow, forcing the attendant pouring it to take their time to fill up a glass:

To further the fantasy my VW Westy is the Millennium Falcon, Chewy's bandolier seatbelt pads!Fuzzy, padded and they'll cover luggage straps as well as seat belts. Looks just like you;ve got ammo for your bow-caster.Star Wars Chewbelta Chewbacca Car Seatbelt Shoulder Cover Pad via AmazonImage via Amazon

In January, we let you know that Playboy had sued us. On Valentine's Day, a court tossed their ridiculous complaint out, skeptical that Playboy could even amend it. Playboy didn't bother to try.We are grateful this is over. We are grateful for the wonderful work of the EFF, Durie Tangri, and Blurry Edge, our brilliant attorneys who stood up to Playboy's misguided and imaginary claims. We are glad the court quickly saw right through them.Playboy damaged our business. This lawsuit cost our small team of journalists, artists and creators time and money that would otherwise have been focused on Boing Boing's continued mission to share wonderful things.We are glad the legal system has reaffirmed that linking is legal.Here is a unicorn:(Unicorn courtesy of Trolli)

Coding is one of the most valuable skills to have in today's job market, but with the plethora of programming languages out there, picking the right ones to learn first can be challenging, not to mention expensive. However, there are resources geared toward getting beginners up to speed with the essential tools of the coding trade, like the Pay What You Want: Learn to Code 2018 Bundle.Here's how the deal works: Simply pay what you want, and you'll instantly unlock one of the collection's ten courses. Beat the average price paid, and you'll get the remaining nine at no extra charge.Boasting more than 140 hours of instruction, this collection will familiarize you with core programming languages and tools, like Python, Swift, and JavaScript. Following along its hands-on courses, you'll get real training creating your own apps and projects, like a simple emoji dictionary and a Pokemon Go clone. Plus, this collection even includes training in R, a premier tool for working with mounds of data that's sure to impress potential employers.Now, you can catalyze your coding education with the Pay What You Want: Learn to Code 2018 Bundle, available for a price you choose.

Hey, at least now you know. Buy yourself a coke to celebrate:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMbWedVYNFA

Everyone knows about the trolls and nazis, but The New Yorker's David Zweig wrestles with the other strange pallor that descends on Twitter: the feeling that every moment is a self-conscious baring of oneself in pursuit of the metrics and measurements it applies, "a shameful interest in all those prominently displayed numbers." He installed Ben Grosser's Twitter Demetricator, which hides all that from Twitter (from yourself, if not from others.)

Noodle Pi is described as "the smallest, lightest, most open handheld / wearable computer," a Raspberry Pi tightly packaged with a high-resolution multi-touch screen, battery and camera in a compact 3D-printed all-weather case. About the size of a large smartphone but much thicker and more versatile, the Noodle Pi has a bunch of accessories to go with it including a keyboard/touchpad dock and a "Noodlendo" clip to attach it to a classic game controller.

The human being watching the live feed has perfect comic timing.

knt​.​remembr is a pretty great track from Knxwledge, but man, what I would give to have that wallpaper! Update: thanks to Deb Chachra for identifying the source: Dan Funderburgh's "Vigilant Floral".) (via Dark Roasted Blend) (Hi rez)

The Seasteading Institute is a group of libertarian separatists who dreamed of building an autonomous, contract-governed mini-state on a set of floating platforms in the south Tahiti lagoon of Atimaono; only one problem: they didn't renew their contract with French Polynesia to build their platforms. (more…)

On Tuesday, the CEO of UK certificate reseller Trustico decided to settle an argument with Digicert executive VP Jeremy Rowley by emailing him the private keys for 23,000 TLS certificates that had been issued by Symantec's disgraced Certificate Authority, to prove they had been compromised. (more…)

Celebrity movie-promo videos are getting stranger and stranger. In this one, produced by Vanity Fair, actress Jennifer Lawrence is strapped up to a lie detector machine and asked a series of revealing questions like, "Do you ever fake tan?" (yes), "Do you regret any of your Red Carpet looks?" (yes), "Have you ever Googled yourself?" (yes), and "Do you know anyone in the Illuminati?" (no).Ms. Lawrence is in a movie that opened Friday, no lie.

Earth Wind Map shows the winds blasting over a beautiful, rotatable 3D animated globe. Various modes (click the text on the bottom left) show air, oceanic, particulate and even auroral maps.

Thomas Blanchard (previously) has returned with a video project called DANCE DANCE. (more…)

One of the biggest struggles for jet-setter is managing to charge their devices abroad. But, thankfully, the OMNIA TA502 Travel Adapter is here to put an end to that. This pint-sized charger lets you power up your devices in more than 150 countries, and it's now on sale in the Boing Boing Store.https://www.youtube.com/embed/8rK8mKUxBbYWith this travel-sized charger, you can power up multiple Android and iOS devices alike by simply sliding and locking the appropriate plugs into place. In addition to being intuitive, the charger's sliding design makes it easy to carry and pack. Its 5-in-1 interface supports US/UK/EU/AU and USB-A standards as well as USB BC1.2 Intelligent Chipset Standard to protect USB charging. Plus, the OMNIA includes a built-in LED charging light to indicate your device's charging status.The OMNIA TA502 Travel Adapter normally retails for $49, but you can get it on sale today for $39.99 in the Boing Boing Store.

Southern California might seem like a strange place to study snowflakes, but that's where Ken Libbrecht perfected his technique for making identical snowflakes. (more…)

BookBot is a nifty book retrieval system at North Carolina State University's James B. Hunt Jr. Library. Here's a panoramic book's-eye view of the retrieval process. (more…)

We all know that Poland resisted the Nazi invasion and that Poles and Polish Jews bore the brunt of the Holocaust. But the world is now finding out all about Polish complicty in the Holocaust, thanks to its government trying to ban discussion of it.

Yum Yum Breakfast Burrito, a delightful earworm by Parry Gripp, will make you want to do one of three things: dance, eat a breakfast burrito, or try to forget that you ever clicked the play button. (more…)

On Friday, Netflix announced a new cast member for the upcoming season of Stranger Things. Maya Thurman-Hawke, the 19-year-old daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, will join the hit show as Robin, the "alternative girl."Variety writes:

As you're probably aware, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is against the legalization of cannabis. At a Senate drug hearing in 2016, he even said, "Good people don’t smoke marijuana."Now some enterprising folks are selling General Jeff's "Old Rebel" Session Papers, $5 packs of rolling papers that feature a cartoon image of Sessions smoking a fat joint. It started out as a joke but now they report they are close to selling out.They write:

Finnish comedian Ismo Leikola makes a compelling case that "ass" is the most complicated word in the English language. (more…)

Celia Pool and Alec Mills used to sell period products and soon realized what a tremendous waste it all was, especially those single-use plastic applicators on tampons. So they launched a company called DAME and made the D, a self-cleaning reusable tampon applicator. It's currently on Kickstarter.https://twitter.com/DAMEforGood/status/968558714813911040http://kck.st/2BSZIWi(HelloGiggles)

Former judge and failed Senate candidate Roy Moore is begging his supporters for money to fight a lawsuit filed against him by a woman who accused him of sexually assaulting her as a youngster.

Here's a fascinating finding: When the NRA holds its annual convention, the national rate of gun injuries goes down temporarily by 20% -- seemingly because the 80,000-odd attendees are hanging out and listening to talks, instead of handling their guns.That's the finding by two researchers -- Anupam Jena of Harvard Medical School and Andrew Olenski of Columbia University -- who crunched the numbers. They looked at the rates of hospital ER visits and hospitalizations for firearm injuries, during the actual days of NRA convention dates and in periods three weeks before and after. Sure enough, the accident rate dropped significantly during the convention dates.One would expect, if you took the NRA's own arguments at face value, for its members to be among the best-trained folks around guns, with a relatively low accident rate. But as Scientific American writes ...

While many tech innovations tend to follow a boom and bust cycle, it's safe to say that cloud technology is here to stay. As more companies go digital and leverage data to boost their bottom lines, demand is high for skilled cloud professionals capable of managing it all. The Amazon Web Services Certification Training Mega Bundle can help you join their ranks by preparing you to certify your skills with Amazon Web Services (AWS), a premier cloud service platform, and it's on sale for $69 in the Boing Boing Store.This eight-course collection features more than 50 hours of training to help you ace several AWS certification exams and familiarize you with its most important tools. First, you'll take on the essentials, like navigating the AWS management console and understanding the security measures AWS provides. From there, you'll dive into more complex topics, such as using Amazon S3 to store data and hosting domain names with Amazon Route 53.Now, you can get the Amazon Web Services Certification Training Mega Bundle on sale for $69 in the Boing Boing Store.

Counsel for Darden Restaurants, owners of the Olive Garden, sent a legal threat to the Seinfeld Current Day Twitter account over a tweet reading "respect to @olivegarden for no longer selling AR-15s at all their locations." (more…)

I've written an op-ed on The Wire, a prominent nonprofit publication in India about access to knowledge. Access to scientific knowledge has been colonized by a few publishers who have improperly laid claim to the ocean of knowledge. This situation is morally untenable and contrary to law. It must change because education is a fundamental right.The parallels between companies such as Reed Elsevier and the exploiters of old such as the East India Company are remarkable. Scientists are the new indigo farmers. Journals are the railroads built, not to benefit the population of scholars, but to ship raw materials back to England and high-priced goods back to the universities. Paywalls and DRM are the new salt taxes.The decolonization of knowledge is a great opportunity for our times and I believe India is poised to lead that revolution.

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I'm on the last two cities in my Australia/NZ tour for my novel Walkaway: today, I'm flying to Adelaide for the Adelaide Festival, where I'm appearing in several program items: Breakfast with Papers on Sunday at 8AM; a book signing on Monday at 10AM in Dymocks at Rundle Mall; "Dust Devils," a panel followed by a signing on Monday at 5PM on the West Stage at Pioneer Women's Memorial Garden; and "Craphound," a panel/signing on Tuesday at 5PM on the East Stage at Pioneer Women's Memorial Garden. (more…)

The ACLU's Josh Bell just wrapped up a livestreamed training session for students on their free speech rights and then released the video and slides; these are a great complement to the ACLU's existing know your rights guide for public school students. (more…)

The annual CPAC freakshow reached a new absurdist peak last week when Trump FCC Commissioner was awarded the NRA's Charlton Heston Courage Under Fire Award for his cowardly back-shooting of America's most beloved policy, the sweet and tender Net Neutrality. (more…)

Though its lackluster opening weekend led many to dismiss it as dead on arrival, The Greatest Showman has gone on to become one of the biggest surprise success stories in film history. Hugh Jackman’s gloriously over-the-top circus musical is now one of the highest grossing live-action movie musicals of all time and its soundtrack has been a consistent chart-topper. The film will make a victory lap at this Sunday’s Oscars with what’s sure to be a rousing performance of its nominated song “This Is Me.” So what better way to celebrate The Greatest Showman than by pitting its songs against one another?Written by Dear Evan Hansen songwriting duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, every song on the Greatest Showman soundtrack is a bop in one way or another. In fact, I briefly considered making this list an 11-way tie. But tough choices have to be made, so without further adieu, here’s my ranking of every song of The Greatest Showman soundtrack:11. “Never Enough (Reprise)”https://youtu.be/515CCwsds14We really need to have a talk about which reprises should be included on a musical’s soundtrack. Unless it’s got the narrative resonance of the “My Strongest Suit (Reprise)” from Aida, you probably don’t need it. That’s especially true of this reprise of a song I have some pretty significant issues with anyway (see the next entry for more on that).10. “Never Enough”https://youtu.be/rQWZK5U233sThis wannabe Leona Lewis ballad is hands down the worst thing about The Greatest Showman, and that’s saying something for a movie that tries to recontextualize P.T. Barnum as a hero of the oppressed. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera set the bar for what fake opera music in a musical should sound like, and The Greatest Showman’s version of opera singer Jenny Lind is no Christine Daaé. Plus I find it really odd that the film cast Rebecca Ferguson in this relatively small, singing-heavy role but then had someone else do her singing (The Voice finalist Loren Allred). The bigger problem, however, is that I just don’t believe Jenny’s gesticulation-heavy performance of this lackluster ballad would make Barnum fall in love with her, which is theoretically the whole reason this song exists in the first place.9. “A Million Dreams (Reprise)”https://youtu.be/akdkEh-fzesAnother reprise that works fine in the film, but which definitely didn’t need to be included on the soundtrack. Still, it’s not “Never Enough” and that’s good enough for me.8. “Tightrope”https://youtu.be/He5NctQPXK8I found this song pretty forgettable the first time I saw The Greatest Showman, but I’ve come to appreciate it during the many, many hours I’ve spent listening to the film’s soundtrack. In fact, I think it works better as a standalone track than it does within the film, where it gets a bit lost in the shuffle. “Tightrope” blends its music box melody with an indie pop sound, both of which are complemented quite well by Michelle Williams’ voice. Plus I’m always a fan of giving woefully underwritten wife characters a moment to shine. In the end, however, “Tightrope” just doesn’t feel like an essential part of The Greatest Showman experience.7. “Come Alive”https://youtu.be/ge8gUcf1nBY“Come Alive” is neither the best nor the worst song in The Greatest Showman, but it does win the distinction of being the most baffling. Most of The Greatest Showman’s songs use a modern pop sound to bridge the gap between the movie’s 19th century setting and our contemporary world. But for some inexplicable reason “Come Alive” is just a straight-up ’80s dance track. It sounds like something Baby and Johnny would’ve rehearsed to in Dirty Dancing or that Footloose’s Ren McCormack would’ve cut loose to at prom. In other words: Gloria Estefan called and she wants her song back. I also have some quibbles about the fact that “Come Alive” opens with a metaphor about zombies, which definitely weren’t a cultural touchstone in the 19th century. On the other hand, I’ve yet to listen this song without feeling compelled to get up and dance, which definitely counts for something in my book.6. “The Greatest Show” https://youtu.be/NyVYXRD1AnsLet’s circle back to the idea of reprises for a second. Despite the fact that performances of “The Greatest Show” bookend the film, the song only appears once on the soundtrack as its opening track, which blends the two movie versions together. Though I appreciate that this hybrid version gets The Greatest Showman soundtrack off to an exhilarating start, a final reprise could’ve helped end the soundtrack on a high note too. That being said, “The Greatest Show” definitely does its job establishing The Greatest Showman’s contemporary pop sound. While I don’t love the song’s aggressive, stomp-heavy opening, its chorus is catchy as hell. Plus I tear up every time I hear Zac Efron and Zendaya take over the lead vocal from Hugh Jackman. The show must go on, indeed!5. “Rewrite the Stars”https://youtu.be/Pr7oDJl2blwAdmittedly, this impassioned Efron/Zendaya duet doesn’t fully soar without the film’s breathtaking aerial choreography to accompany it. It’s a solid enough pop song filled with the kind of drama and longing that musicals thrive on. But it’s made truly unforgettable by its thrilling, inventive visuals, which see the two would-be lovers swooping around each other on ropes and hoops. “Rewrite the Stars” takes advantage of The Greatest Showman’s circus setting in a way few of its other production numbers do. It also makes me wish the movie had cut the whole Jenny Lind plot and just given Efron and Zendaya more screentime instead.4. “A Million Dreams”https://youtu.be/pSQk-4fddDIIt’s hard to pinpoint exactly what makes this song so appealing. I don’t really love any of its vocal performances and the lyrics are pretty unimaginative. But “A Million Dreams” features a mixture of yearning, resilience, and joy that makes it an engaging, infectious listen. Plus it builds in a really satisfying way, literally taking Barnum from childhood to adulthood. It’s not a song I would necessarily love if I just heard it on the radio, but it fits perfectly within The Greatest Showman’s overly sincere world. That being said, I do have to dock the song some major points for having Barnum’s wife literally sing the line, “However big, however small / Let me be part of it all.” Come on Charity, let’s aim a little higher than that!3. “This Is Me”https://youtu.be/CjxugyZCfuwAs an anthem and statement of purpose, The Greatest Showman couldn’t ask for a better song than “This Is Me.” The defiant number comes in response to a rare moment in which the film actually depicts Barnum in a less-than-ideal light. It’s a perfect all-purpose “fuck the haters” anthem, and Broadway star Keala Settle absolutely knocks it out of the park. Just try to get through this workshop footage without crying:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLFEvHWD_NE2. “From Now On”https://youtu.be/iW2FUY3N-n0Not since Les Mis has Hugh Jackman’s strained belt gotten such a stellar showcase. “From Now On” both looks and sounds like a lost song from the musical version of Once, which I mean as a compliment. The only downside is that the soundtrack version’s long, quiet intro and melancholy ending keep it from fully working as a standalone track. That also means the Greatest Showman soundtrack kind of peters out with this as its final song, which, again, is why we needed a reprise of “The Greatest Show” to round things out. At its best, however, “From Now On” is folksy but passionate song that reflects the way Barnum has come to appreciate the simpler things in life (like riding an elephant to his daughter’s ballet recital). It also strikes a nice balance between letting Jackman shine while still celebrating the ensemble around him. There’s some great workshop footage of this one too:https://youtu.be/PluaPvhkIMU1. “The Other Side”https://youtu.be/Wk008ADh4iYThe entire reason movie musicals exist is to give us scenes of two men who just can’t quit each other doing synchronized choreography in top hats, and The Greatest Showman doesn’t disappoint. While his soaring love song with Zendaya offers star-crossed romance, Zac Efron’s friction-filled duet with Hugh Jackman provides pure sexual chemistry. It’s also the only song in the movie that actually feels like it belongs in a musical. While the other tracks rely on nebulous pop song imagery, “The Other Side” uses its lyrics to build character, establish a relationship, and move the plot along. Jackman and Efron are both at the top of their showman game, the bar-set choreography is absolutely fantastic, and the moment the duo finally start singing in harmony is the sexiest thing on the entire soundtrack.Agree or disagree with my choices? Just want to talk about how The Greatest Showman is the best movie of all time? Come chat with me on Twitter!

Super Seducer is a simulation game for Playstation on Steam advertised to help players "learn state-of-the-art seduction secrets from the master himself, Richard La Ruina, in this incredibly valuable live action seduction simulator."In the trailer above La Ruina does things like say to women, "If you're not good at cooking you better be real good at sucking dick then." Another game scenario -- say "'I like big boobs,' and try and touch her boobs." La Ruina says, "In the game that's cool, in real life it's totally illegal."