It's CPAC! The annual far-right hootenanny for preppers, false-flaggers, climate deniers, truthers, and the sort of person who closes their eyes and thinks of The Fountainhead, featuring Marion Maréchal-Le Pen of France, Nigel Farage, Sean Hannity, and mass-murder enthusiast Wayne LaPierre. (more…)

Candles that smell like a bookstore, old books, or a musty old cellar? Pal, you sure like books!My home is filled with books, and pets. Guess which one lends more to the olfactory nature of my domicile? Frequently, especially after running the carpet deep-cleaner, I'll want to light a candle... or burn a sage Great Pyrenees in effigy.Candle store candles, or simply walking into one of those mall candle-shops, makes me sick-to-my-stomach. Finding candles that help clear the air, rather than fill it with a chemical scent worse than hospital, is pretty tough. Bookstore is working well for me, tho I am not sure which bookstore it is supposed to be. Most of them now smell like their coffee counter.Bookstore - Book Lovers' Soy Candle - 8oz Jar via AmazonImage via Amazon

One of the things that make every RFID implanted US Passport 'safe' is each document's unique cryptographic identifier. Customs and Border Patrol can use this key to verify the authenticity of each passport, if they'd bother to install the software to do so.For 12 years they have not.Via Wired:

Following the unprecedented success of his film Black Panther, director Ryan Coogler shared this sweet thank-you letter via the Marvel Studios Twitter account:https://twitter.com/marvelstudios/status/966115769388998656?s=11The letter reads:

The Giant Magellan Telescope is a marvel of engineering, and Dr. Patrick McCarthy explains the years-long process to make an optic mirror that costs over $20 million. (more…)

While bopping around Italy's Abruzzo National Park, zoologist Paolo Forconi witnessed a pack of three young wolves assaulting a garden variety house pooch. While it takes a few nips from the wolves, their young jaws, according to Forconi, weren't able to do much damage. Tthe dog was able to make its escape through a small hole in a fence.

Ricardo Palacios, a 74-year old rancher, had gotten used to Customs and Border Protection officials tromping across his south Texas ranch lands without permission over the years. But finding a wireless surveillance camera set up in one of his trees? Not OK. Upon discovering the device, Palacios removed it immediately. It wasn't long after that he started receiving calls from CBP and the Texas Rangers demanding that he turn the camera over to them or face charges.Having taken enough of their shit, instead of turning the camera over, Palacios gave the feds something else instead: a lawsuit.According to Ars Technica, Palacios, who's been a lawyer for 50 years, named the two agencies and a CBP agent in a lawsuit that accuses them of violating his constitutional rights, by trespassing on his land, and setting up cameras where ever they damn well please. It's an important case: CBP claims it has a right, within a 100-mile radius of the American border, to stop people (including U.S. citizens, which flies in the face of the Fourth Amendment,) search cars and personal belongings in the name of border security, without a warrant. But this doesn't allow them to go traipsing on to private property in the name of their duties without permission. They're only allowed to do that within 25 miles of the border.Palacios' ranch? It's 35 miles away from the edge of the U.S./Mexican border. This alone would be enough to warrant a suit against the government. But there's more:

Yep, the Harlem Globetrotters are still doing their thing and as evidenced by their YouTube channel (don't miss their "one take" video from last year), these basketball-spinning darlings are doing it better than ever.These courtside jesters recently teamed up students from Georgia Tech's colleges of Industrial Design and Music to make this Rube Goldberg 'trick shot' machine. Watch as their starred, red, white, and blue basketball makes its way through a complicated path from a Globetrotter to an impressive hole-in-one.It's a fun watch (despite all those editing cuts).(Sploid)

Ever had something life changing happen to you in the Big Apple? Here's your chance to mark that emotional occasion on a crowdsourced map of the city.To contribute to Kate Ray's "Crying in Public" map, you'll need to first sign up (no signup required to gawk at other people's hot messes). Then, pick an appropriate emoji that matches your life moment (a peach for "NSFW," crying face for "cried in public," swirly lollipop for "peaked at an altered state", etc.) and place it on the map along with its abbreviated story.P.S. Don't go to the Chipotle at 6th Avenue and W. 13th.(Waxy)

Many of us enjoy the aesthetic of vintage electronics, but trying to use most hardware from the 1950's isn't necessarily practical. This is especially true where speakers are concerned. While most of us can appreciate the old-school feel of retro speakers, they have a hard time matching the convenience and power delivered by today's Bluetooth speakers. The Lofree Poison bridges this gap by offering a cutting-edge speaker wrapped up in a nostalgic design, and it's on sale for $79.99 in the Boing Boing Store.Packaged in a retro, 1950's frame, this Kickstarter success boasts an enhanced bass driver and ultra large diaphragm, allowing it to pump out powerful and full-bodied bass without sacrificing mids and trebles. It utilizes 20-watt amplifiers to boost its sound potential, and it's rated to last up to six hours at a time thanks to its 2000mAh rechargeable battery.Normally retailing for $119, the Lofree Poison is on sale for $79.99 in the Boing Boing Store.

The Chinese Minister of Culture has launched a campaign in Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu and Hebei provinces to end the practice of hiring strippers to draw crowds to funerals -- these crowds are seen as a mark of respect and status for the departed that epitomizes the virtue of "filial piety," regardless of how they are brought in. (more…)

Patrick Ryan wants to be the Democratic nominee for New York's 19th district in the Hudson Valley, a Republican seat that Dems hope to flip; he's gone on record stating that he can do the job because of his entrepreneurial success -- but he didn't mention that he built his career at Berico Technologies by pitching a product to help businesses spy on union organizers and left-wing activists, a plan that included spying on left-wing Democrats and planting fake documents in order to discredit labor unions. (more…)

On Wednesday, President Trump met with mass-shooting survivors to dismiss their pleas for basic gun safety laws that might negatively impact gun manufacturers' profits by instead proposing stupid shit like filling schools with armed veterans and giving guns to teachers. (more…)

Adam Greenfield (previously) is one of the best thinkers when it comes to the social consequences of ubiquitous computing and smart cities; he's the latest contributor Ian Bogost's special series on "smart cities" for The Atlantic (previously: Bruce Sterling, Molly Sauter). (more…)

Ajit Pai's Net Neutrality-killing order is scheduled to go into effect on April 23, and when that happens, it'll be open season on the free, fair and open internet. (more…)

Redbox buys DVDs and then rents them through automated kiosks, including DVDs from Disney that come with download codes to watch the videos through a DRM player. (more…)

The late, lamented Scottish writer Iain Banks (previously) was several kinds of writer, but one of his main claims to fame is his role in developing the idea of fully automated luxury communism, in his beloved Culture novels, a series of wildly original space operas about a post-singularity, post-scarcity cooperative galactic civilization devoted to games, leisure, and artistic pursuits, populated by AIs, city-sized space cruisers, spy networks, and weird bureaucracies. (more…)

This week I found several stories by Anatoly Dneprov, shared free on the series of tubes we call the internet.Anatoly Dneprov, a science teacher, wrote wonderful, fast-paced, and oh-so very representative of Russian's science fiction of the 1950s and 1960s. Not only does Dneprov masterfully communicate the headspace of living in a dystopic society, but his ideas about self-replicating machines, 3D printing and number of other things-to-come are eerie to the point of disbelief.The Purple Mummy is a fantastic story about first contact coming from someplace completely unexpected. In just a few pages, as these stories are short, Dneprov launches quite a few huge ideas, and brings the story to a conclusion that doesn't feel lacking. Advances in medicine, the birth of 3D printing, and some very Russian existentialism over an anti-Universe are all strung together in a way that makes more sense than it should.I also enjoyed his short The Maxwell Equations.Links are via the Internet Archive and offer all the e-versions you might want.

In the 1980s, Nelson Sullivan was ubiquitous in the downtown NYC art and club scene, documenting his community and culture on his handheld video camera.(more…)

Ursula K. Le Guin's "Always Coming Home" (1985) is a combination novel and anthropological study of the Kesh, a culture that "might be going to have lived a long, long time from now in Northern California." Early editions of the book included a cassette of faux "field recordings," indigenous songs, and other audio of the Kesh. Now, the good people at Freedom to Spend are bringing the Kesh experience to vinyl in a lovely limited edition that includes an LP containing the audio of the original cassette, "a deluxe spot printed jacket with illustrations from Always Coming Home, a facsimile of the original lyric sheet, liner notes by Moe Bowstern, multi-format digital download code and a limited edition bookmark letterpressed by Stumptown Printers in Portland, OR." From Freedom to Spend:

Your Woman was a 1997 one-hit wonder from White Town, AKA Jyoti Prakash Mishra, notable for its ultra low-fi stylings, as if right out of the KLF's legendary Manual. A British musician whose second hit was the phrase "better than a no-hit wonder," Mishra recently created this 20th Anniversary Edition for everyone's enjoyment.

Venezuela is in crisis. The South American country has been a sore festered with political turmoil and socioeconomic woes for years now. Unemployment is a pandemic in the country and, thanks to the devaluation of their currency, what little food can be had there, is largely unaffordable by the nation's people. As a result of these conditions, crime has become rampant, countless businesses in the country have shuttered and shortages of the staples we take for granted have become commonplace. Reuters reports that the shortages have begun to effect an unexpected, exclusive group of Venezuelans: organ transplant recipients.According to Reuters, there are around 3,500 organ transplant recipients living in Venezuela today. Thanks to modern medicine, theses recipients have been able to lead largely normal lives. But as the country's ability to afford medicines made in other countries, make their own drugs or pay medical personnel diminishes, the lives of its organ transplant recipients are being put at risk. The drugs needed to keep their new organs from being rejected by their bodies have run out. So far, at least seven of the country's citizens have died as a result, with 35 additional transplant recipients reporting that their new organs are now being rejected by their bodies.The suck doesn't stop there: thanks to the fact that only around half of Venezuela's dialysis machines are operating, tens of thousands of people waiting for lifesaving surgeries are at risk of dying as their blood can't be cleaned of toxins. The doctors who are still working to keep people alive in the country are exhausted and frustrated by the conditions they're now forced to work in:

DC’s Justice League movie was a bit of a mess, so Screen Junkies has plenty to make fun of in this new Honest Trailer—especially Henry Cavill’s weird CGI lip (thanks for that Paramount).https://twitter.com/DanaSchwartzzz/status/931325744667680768The Justice League Honest Trailer also features a pretty impressive collection of the many scenes from the trailers that didn’t make it into the final film thanks to reshoots and rewrites.

Endless Archery is a free browser game similar to Desert Golfing but with archery as the theme and the chunky low-res pixel-precision of Pico-8. I found the basic mechanics more difficult, but once mastered, the procedurally-generated levels are relatively forgiving. I lost half an hour to it last night before an existential crisis set in, it's pretty good!

Python is one of the most popular and versatile programming languages used by developers today, making it an ideal first choice for those looking to kickstart a career in programming. While you could go back to school or sign up for a pricey coding bootcamp, you can learn the essentials of coding with Python at home and for a price you choose with the Pay What You Want: Absolute Python Bundle.Here's how the deal works: Simply pay what you want, and you'll instantly unlock one of the collection's five courses. Beat the average price paid, and you'll get the remaining four at no extra charge.Ideal for beginners and veterans alike, this collection includes more than 50 hours of training on Python's core concepts and associated tools. From understanding variables and strings to automation testing with Selenium, you'll tackle the ideas and techniques critical to creating your own websites. And with lifetime access, you can learn at the pace that's right for you.Simply choose your price, and you can start learning Python with the Pay What You Want: Absolute Python Bundle.

QuillBot rewrites phrases, making it easy to tweak results and understand what it's up to in each variation.

The music is "Lonely Boy" by The Black Keys:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_426RiwST8

One of my favorite things on the internet is Crash Course, a free, high-quality educational YouTube channel that offers “crash courses” on science, math, history, literature, philosophy, and so much more. The channel’s latest project is a 12-week miniseries all about media literacy. Hosted by Jay Smooth, the series aims to give viewers “the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication.” It’s hard to think of a more relevant tool to have in our current political and cultural climate. The series officially launches next, but here’s a preview video of everything it’s going to cover: https://youtu.be/sPwJ0obJya0

The Olho D'Agua river in Bonito, Brazil flooded in early February after a heavy rain, submerging the jungle around it. You'll see in this trippy video that the river's waters are so crystal clear that the path, vegetation and foot bridge are perfectly visible underwater.The footage was captured by a park guide at Recanto Ecologico Rio da Prata, an ecotourism group that operates in that area. They write:

Microsoft founder Bill Gates admittedly hasn't been in a supermarket in a long time, so when Ellen put him up to estimating the prices of some pretty typical grocery store items, he was hilariously lost. Particularly watch the look of pity Ellen gives at the 1:12 mark when the billionaire guesses that a container of Tide Pods is only four dollars.With a lot of help from the audience, Bill was able to get the price right (within a dollar) of three items. Because of his "win," that audience will return for Ellen's popular "12 Days of Giveaways" segment.(reddit)

Every three years, the US Copyright Office creates temporary exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's ban on breaking DRM, provided that people can show that they've been prevented from doing something customary and legitimate with their own property. (more…)

Directed by Howard Smith, "Gizmo" (1977) is a delightful collection of mid-century newsreels celebrating ingenuity, invention, and the eccentric minds who make their wild ideas real.

Click play below and, er, enjoy.

The Palo Alto Weekly in Silicon Valley asked more than 250 residents of that city "How do you define your social class?" From the survey results (PDF):

https://youtu.be/xy2bh1L5_pIComedian Jena Friedman killed it in her recent standup set on Conan. I somehow missed this a couple of weeks ago when it came out. Glad it landed in my feed today.If you liked this, she's got a new special on Adult Swim called "Soft Focus with Jena Friedman" that's hilarious too. Her segment with Gilberto Valle (the "Cannibal Cop") is simultaneously subversive and awkward. Win-win!

Parents know, kids can get really obsessed with making slime. She's not that into baking but give my daughter some Borax and glue and she'll spend hours mixing up batches of slime in our kitchen. She got so into it at one point that I started buying gallon jugs of Elmer's glue just to keep costs down.YouTubers The Holderness Family understand. They turned Cyndi Lauper's 1983 Grammy-winning song "Time after Time" into "Slime after Slime," a silly parody about this messy hobby.Thanks, Heather!

A room full of young children got the opportunity to ask former Oasis lead singer Liam Gallagher nearly anything they wanted.They quizzed him with questions like, "What's your favorite Disney movie?" (Finding Nemo) and "What instruments do you play?"(none).When one boy called him "naughty," Liam wasted no time bringing up his estranged brother Noel, calling him "naughty."It just got more beautifully awkward from there when one rosy-cheeked boy asked the hard-hitting question on everyone's mind, "What's your favorite fart?" (loud ones). Gallagher's sage advice for the young'uns: "If you wanna be a rock star, look out the window, stare at the clouds and do loud farts."Gallagher is currently on a worldwide tour for his hit solo album, As You Were.(COS)

In this powerful new article, BuzzFeed News’ Remy Smidt reports from inside the grassroots activist group that’s been formed by teens who survived the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 dead and 14 wounded. The students have emerged as vocal activists on both social media and traditional media platforms (a CNN excerpt of senior Emma González’s impassioned speech has been shared thousands of times on Twitter). And they’ve inspired a wave of other young activists too; high school students in Maine recently staged a gun control protest in place of a routine lock-down drill.The Marjory Stoneman Douglas students have done an incredible amount of organizing over the past week, including planning the nationwide March for Our Lives demonstration on March 24. And Smidt reports on what it’s like to watch the young activists at work:

A Scottish team of animal biotechnologists announced this week they successfully introduced human stem cells into sheep embryos. Perhaps one day we will all have our very own baaing organ donors.

Using a black plastic comb and a simple wooden toothpick, a girl beckoned some captive dolphins from the other side of their windowed prison.Her dad, Brad Meszaros, writes:

Etienne Bouteille made a twitter bot that "renders hairy balls" every three hours. They're not naughty, unless you benefit from extraordinarily versatile perversions, but they are all very hairy and very balls.Check out Etienne's guide to creating similar bots with Blender and a Raspberry Pi.

One benefit of starring in a show about time travel is that you get to try out looks from a whole bunch of different eras. And while decked out in their 1970s best for the recent third season episode “Here I Go Again,” Legends Of Tomorrow stars Caity Lotz, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, Brandon Routh, and Nick Zano decided to put their outfits to good use in a disco-inspired music video set to the Bee Gee’s “Stayin’ Alive.” Lotz uploaded the hilarious and perfectly choreographed disco tribute on her Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/p/BfLi92GBnfh/?hl=en[Photo: DC's Legends Of Tomorrow; Robert Falconer/The CW]

YouTuber Ingrid Nilsen sat down with Bill Gates to play “How much does the world suck?” and discuss some surprisingly optimistic facts about humanity. The video is a tie-in with Bill and Melinda Gates’ recently released 10th Annual Letter, which this year centers on optimism. You can read the full letter on Gates’ website, but here’s an excerpt of its opening paragraphs:

Based in Barcelona, DJ and music producer Eclectic Method has pulled in the Star Wars universe once again for his newest remix, "Han Solo Song."He writes:

Without changing anything else in their daily routines, three people set out to discover how much they could strengthen their bodies just by doing 100 squats every day for 30 days. For those inspired to start their own 30-day challenge after watching this video, here’s the proper way to do a squat:https://youtu.be/32vfud6KWSk

Going back to school isn't necessarily an option for everyone. Between the time commitments and steep tuition rates, there are obstacles aplenty as far as furthering education is concerned. However, that's not to say it's impossible to learn new skills. Excel with Business lets users access thousands of hours of online learning in Microsoft, business, technology, finance, and even personal wellbeing to get ahead, and one-year subscriptions are on sale for $99 in the Boing Boing Store.With a one-year plan, you'll get unlimited access to more than 50 courses as well as members-only classes and Q&As. Plus, you can earn CPD UK Accredited Certificates of Attainment for each course you complete, validating your training. What's more, you can continue to boost your skills with access to all future courses added during your subscription.A One-Year All Course Access subscription to Excel with Business normally retails for $348, but it's available today for $99.

On November 24, 1982, Depeche Mode, touring Europe for their second album "A Broken Frame," performed on the Swedish television show Casablanca. (via r/ObscureMedia)

Inspired by the $6,000 Alexa-controlled toilet at CES, Jonathan Gleich hacked together his own one-tenth the cost. The base of this smart throne is the Brondell Swash 1400 Luxury Bidet Toilet Seat, available for $650 from Amazon. The other components are a $46 auto flusher, $23 infrared link, and $17 Adafruit Feather HUZZAH microcontroller.Gleich posted directions to make your own over at Instructables: "Alexa Controlled Toilet"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-nKi3zqEgA(via Make:)

In Did Congress Really Expect Us to Whittle Our Own Personal Jailbreaking Tools? -- a new post on EFF's Deeplinks blog -- I describe the bizarre, unfair and increasingly salient US Copyright Office DMCA exemptions process, which is underway right now. (more…)

Astronaut Scott D. Tingle tweeted this postcard from the International Space Station a few days ago. Now that's a room with a view. From NASA's Instagram account: