On January 1, artist Nina Paley wrote on her blog, "Here are 24 individual goddess gifs to use for whatever. Free Culture. No permission needed. Go crazy. I love you."On January 5, artist Emily Hesse posted this video she made using Paley's animations, which then went viral on Facebook (111K shares as of this writing):https://www.facebook.com/emily.hesse.121/posts/1941418776109862?pnref=storyPaley then responded:

This $7 paring knife feels good in my hand, and unlike my other paring knives it is not lost.In my home, paring knives disappear almost as frequently as socks and Apple Lightning cables. I was buying really cheap replacements at the dollar store, but they'd pretty much come apart in my dishwasher after a few cycles. This Victorinox will be lost long before it breaks.Victorinox 3.25 Inch Paring Knife with Straight Edge, Spear Point, Black via Amazon

The year is early but here's the best news I've seen so far in 2018. Meow Wolf is opening an enormous new "world."The Santa Fe-based arts collective has been searching for a new city for their second permanent installation and has announced their decision to land next in Denver, Colorado. Their first installation, House of Eternal Return, is a trippy 20,000 sq. ft. immersive space built within a gutted bowling alley. Backed by George RR Martin, over 150 artists created this first "world" which follows a clever and detailed narrative. (I spent two consecutive days there in early October and am already planning a return trip... it was that good.)Denver's alt-weekly paper Westword reports:

It turns out that 18th-century pirates liked to curl up a with a good book.In 1718, Queen Anne's Revenge -- the flagship of the infamous pirate Blackbeard -- went aground offshore of North Carolina. The wreck was found in 1996, and last year conservators discovered a mass of wet textile pieces inside a breech-loading cannon. Several of the scraps were printed with uniformly-oriented text, and the conservators realized they'd found tiny fragments of a book.But which book could it be?After a lot of head-scratching, one clue finally helped them figure it out: The piece you see above, with the word "Hilo" in italics. It referred to Ilo, a Spanish settlement in Peru -- which is talked about in the 1712 tome A Voyage to the South Sea, and Round the World, Perform’d in the Years 1708, 1709, 1710 and 1711. From National Geographic:

Taco Bell's new Illuminati-themed ad campaign spurred a warning from southern rocker Charlie Daniels: "Hey Taco Bell The Illuminati is not a frivolous subject," Daniels tweeted last night.My favorite response? "Welcome to Taco Bell, Mr. Daniels, can I take your NEW WORLD ORDER?"Of course, Daniels, best known for the 1979 rousing hit "The Devil Went Down to Georgia"(1979), is vocal about his conservative politics.(MSN)

The Trump Administration just published a small notice in the Federal Register announcing that it would waive the outstanding criminal sanctions against some of the world's largest banks, Citigroup, JPMorgan, Barclays, UBS and Deutsche Bank. (more…)

The Trump administration won't be able to order the cancellation the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program until the outstanding lawsuits about the legality of such an order have been resolved, thanks to a ruling by Federal judge in San Francisco. (more…)

For more than a month, Iran has been rocked by mass demonstrations in its major and outlying cities, but the origin of these protests has been obscure. (more…)

Hampshire's Ipley Cross is a notorious crossroads where cyclists keep getting hit and even killed by motorists, despite the mostly level terrain around the place where two roads cross each other at a seemingly innocuous angle. (more…)

You could write books about the evils of "broken windows" policing and its handmaiden, stop-and-frisk searches (this is a rather good one, in fact), and few places have been more prolific in the racist pursuit of this policy than New York City, where walking-while-brown is a one-way ticket to being stopped, searched, even stripped, all without a warrant or any particularized suspicion. (more…)

Are you prepared for the new year? While others fret over sticking to their resolutions of losing weight or learning a new language, how about you just focus on ringing in 2018 with a wholesome mindset? The Mindful Notebook is a tool to keep you focused and ensure you're starting each day with the proper mindset to reach your goals and fulfill your objectives, and you can get it now for $21.99.Plus, to help you take on 2018 the right way, we're offering an extra 18 percent off the sale price when you plug in the coupon code NEWYEAR18 at checkout.https://www.youtube.com/embed/5GvdKM_OoYgThis journal is divided into three parts to help you take on your daily to-dos with ease. It features a daily inspirational quote on each page to make sure you're properly grounded and motivated. Plus, it includes a Gratitude and Patience section to remind you of what you can be grateful for. Each purchase contributes to the Foundation for a Mindful Society, so you can better yourself and the world around you when you pick one up.Now, you can get The Mindful Notebook on sale for $21.99 in the Boing Boing Store. Plus, you can take an extra 18 percent off when you plug in the NEWYEAR18 coupon code at checkout.

Stephen K. Bannon is departing his post as executive chairman of Breitbart News, the company is said to be announcing on Tuesday.(more…)

In my latest Locus column, "Persuasion, Adaptation, and the Arms Race for Your Attention," I suggest that we might be too worried about the seemingly unstoppable power of opinion-manipulators and their new social media superweapons. (more…)

Since the 1970s, spy agencies have been feeding police forces tips about who to arrest and where to look for evidence, despite the illegality of their practicing surveillance within the USA. (more…)

Trump seemed to think it would be a good idea to send the publisher of Michael Wolff's book, Fire and Fury, a letter demanding it to cease publication and "issue a full and complete retraction and apology." The letter had the effect of boosting sales of the book, and also of giving Henry Holt's lawyer the opportunity to write a hilariously scathing response.The best part is on the last page:

Donald Trump's legal threats against Fire and Fury publishers Macmillan, USA are merely the latest in the series of absurd, unwinnable, doomed legal threats to emanate from Donald Trump, who is an idiot. (more…)

Donald Trump's legal threats against Fire and Fury publishers Macmillan, USA are merely the latest in the series of absurd, unwinnable, doomed legal threats to emanate from Donald Trump, who is an idiot. (more…)

After Trump FCC Chairman Ajit Pai killed Net Neutrality -- a deed so indefensible he literally won't defend it -- activists announced their intention to pressure 30 Senators into calling for a vote to overturn it. (more…)

https://youtu.be/o1qien21GLEDeyshia Hargrave is an English teacher at Rene Rost Middle Schools in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana; on Monday night, she attended a special meeting of the local school board and, when called upon comment period, politely asked why the board superintendants had voted themselves a raise while the teachers in the school district have been subjected to a long-term pay-freeze. (more…)

Over the years, I've peeked into airport chapels and never seen a single person inside. Yet 16 of the country's 20 biggest airports have them. Above is the first example of such a space in the US, Our Lady of the Airways Chapel in Boston's Logan Airport, built in 1951 for airport employees. Wendy Cadge, a sociologist of religion at Brandeis University, has studied these sacred spaces. "Often, it is local, historical and demographic factors, including the religious composition of the region, that influence decisions" about why they're created and how they're used, she writes. From Smithsonian:

A small cohort of 31 healthy young men who took 600mg of ibuprofen twice a day for six weeks developed "compensated hypogonadism" (little balls), because the ibuprofen interfered with their testosterone production and their gonads had to work overtime to compensate. (more…)

In 2017, the big mainstream stories of "near-hits" (aka "near-misses") in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence included episodic dimming of a star caused by possible "alien megastructures," a large object tearing through our solar system, and video captured by a fighter jet of a weird object capable of incredible maneuvers in the sky (video below). Scientific American's Lee Billings looks back at the ET-invoking headlines of last year:

Katy Tur interviewed Fire and Fury author Michael Wolff yesterday, with Tur mostly grilling Wolff on inaccuracies in his book. But what stuck out most was towards the end of the interview, when she asked Wolff if he thought Trump was sexist, racist, xenophobic, and anti-semitic.Tur: Do you think he's sexist? Wolff: YesTur: Do you think he's racist? Wolff: Um, yes.Tur: Xenophobic? Wolff: ... Yeah.Anti-semitic? Wolff: ...“I think he’s aware of who is Jewish in a way that feels creepy,”And then Tur, who did a fine job with the interview up until now, quickly moves on to another topic! Such a creepy thing to hear, and she didn't ask him to elaborate.Here's the full interview:https://youtu.be/Tv8zg5vXcHo?t=16m11s

Until 2017, the biggest bill Americans ever paid for a year's worth of "natural disasters" was $214.8B, back in 2005: in 2017, it was at least $300B, not counting much of the damage to Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria. (more…)

Donald Hanson's "Permanent Redirect" is a very clever piece of Web art that moves location every time it's seen, making it increasingly harder to find. "Most people will probably not see the art," Hanson says.And yes, if you just can't help yourself, you can see a screenshot of the artwork on Twitter posted by someone who used PHP to find it.

It took three weeks for Cincinnati Premier Youth Basketball League to kick out a Kings Mills area team due to their disgustingly racist jerseys with phrases like "Coon" and "Knee Grow" emblazoned on the back. The "Wet Dream Team," as they were officially named, was about to play its fourth game of the season before referees booted them. From Cincinnati.com:Charrise Middleton, the coordinator for Kings Rec Basketball 7-12, told FOX19 NOW:

Mexico's corrupt, failing government that covers up official mass murders by attacking journalists and dissidents with cyberweapons is locked in a stalemate with the country's horrific, mass-murdering gangs, and the Mexican people are caught in the crossfire. (more…)

Nudging -- the idea that a well-designed "choice architecture" can help people make free choices that are better than the ones they would make without the nudge -- has a few well-publicized success stories: the cafeteria where frontloading veggies and other healthful options gets kids to choose carrots over pizza; and the employer-side deduction for retirement savings that gets employees to put aside a little more to retire on (this insight rates a Nobel-adjacent prize*!). (more…)

FOLLOW @RubenBolling on the Twitters and a Face Book.JOIN Tom the Dancing Bug's subscription club, the Proud & Mighty INNER HIVE, for exclusive early access to comics, exclusive extra comics, and exclusively 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…)

2018 is nearly upon us, and if you're like most, you've spent some time considering how you're going to ring the new year in strong. Of course, there are the tried and true resolutions, like shaving off a few pounds or saving up the cash to travel abroad. While these goals are certainly positive (and maybe a tad ambitious), they can fall through the cracks if you're not careful.That's why we're here to propose another goal that's easy to stick to and can pay off huge dividends down the road: Learning how to code. Here are three reasons why learning how to code is a solid resolution for 2018.1. Demand for computer programmers is still highProgramming careers aren't quite as easy to land as they were back when the tech boom was in full swing, but that's not to say that companies aren't chomping at the bit to bring on new talent. The truth is there are are a host of different jobs available under the programming umbrella, and while some sectors may be on the decline, others, like mobile app development and data science are still booming.What's important is that you take the time to learn the tools used by today's most in-demand programming professionals. So, if you're going to capitalize on the demand for mobile app developers, that means understanding core front and back-end development tools, like Swift, C#, and JavaScript.2. Learning to build something on your own can lead to a side hustleOkay, so maybe you're not shopping for a full-blown career in tech. That doesn't mean you can't make a profit from learning how to code. With some dedication and a bit of luck, picking up a side programming project can be just as profitable as taking on a new career in coding. Take the mobile gaming sensation Flappy Bird for example. At its peak, this App Store hit generated more than $50,000 of revenue per day and didn't require a team of triple-A gaming devs to create. In fact, with some basic knowledge in Swift and a few days of spare time, you could build your own Flappy Bird clone at home.The point is that the opportunities are out there to make a profit off your coding knowledge without having to clock into a 9 to 5 career. From creating games to building websites, you can utilize your coding knowledge on your own terms as a freelance programmer.3. Even a basic understanding of coding could help you get a promotion, raise, or make you more productive by automating parts of your job. Consider this: Job market analytics firm Burning Glass conducted a report and found that there were as many as 7 million job openings in 2015 in occupations that called for coding knowledge. What's more, they also discovered that nearly half of all jobs that pay more than $58,000 require some coding skills. This means that taking the time to learn how to code can open several doors that lead to higher-paying, advanced positions.But, even if you're satisfied with your current position, chances are you can make your workload easier by utilizing your coding knowledge to automate certain aspects of your job. If you find yourself mindlessly plugging data into an Excel spreadsheet, you can likely leverage some low-level programming know-how to design a simple script that does it for you.Now, when it comes to acquiring the skills that allow you to do so, you have a few options. You can resort to a formal programming education (and all the classes and student loans that come with it), or you can take a more novel approach and study at home.The Pay What You Want: Learn to Code 2018 Bundle can get you started with the fundamentals of coding with today's most popular languages for a price that you get to choose. From building real iPhone apps with Swift to creating Python web apps, this 10 course collection is the perfect resource to get your education off the ground.Here's how the deal works: Simply pay what you want, and you'll unlock one of the collection's 10 courses instantly. Beat the average price paid, and you'll get the remaining nine at no extra charge.Whether you want to pick up a new side hustle or dive headfirst into a coding career, this training delivers more than 140 hours of hands on content to take you from programming novice to professional, and it can be yours for a price you choose.

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Oprah Winfrey's speech at the Golden Globe awards last night has a lot of people wondering if she's considering a run for President of the United States.

Kansas State Rep. Steve Alford (R) is apparently a real human being living in the year 2018. Listen to him tell an all-white group of people at a "Legislative Coffee" why he thinks marijuana should not be legalized in his state:

Vtech is the Taiwanese kids' crapgadget vendor that breached sensitive data on 6.3 million children and their families, lied about it and covered it up, then added a dirty EULA to its products that made us promise not to sue them if they did it again. (more…)

HQ is a live online trivia game for iPhone only. It takes place at noon and 6pm PT. My family plays every night, along with hundreds of thousands of other people. In each game, 12 questions are asked. You have 10 seconds to answer each question (by clicking on 1 of 3 possible answers). If you guess all 12 correctly, you split a prize pool between $1.000 to $15,000. The best my family has done is getting 10 questions right.NY Mag asked Paul Paquet, who runs the Trivia Hall of Fame, for some some tips on improving your chances.

Missouri, an overwhelmingly poor, GOP-dominated state, where a new "right-to-work" bill will face a referendum on the 2018 ballot, is at the heart of the battle over the nation's surging trade union movement. (more…)

When a German neo-Nazi politician tweeted that German police were trying to "to appease the barbaric, Muslim, rapist hordes of men," her account was briefly suspended -- but when the satirical magazine Titanic put up its own tweet mocking the Nazi, their account was suspended, too. (more…)

https://youtu.be/VcQZAzDVTlAThis 10-hour-long video of nothing but white noise was created by Australian musician Sebastian Tomczak and uploaded to YouTube in 2015. He says five different parties are accusing him of copyright infringement and are demanding the advertising revenue derived from it.From BBC:

A Florida gentleman who had been drinking, taking meth, and who hadn't slept in several days did the responsible thing when he called the police to report a drunk driver - namely himself.“I’m too drunk. I don’t know where I’m at,” the driver, Michael Lester, told the dispatcher.When the operator asked what he'd been doing that night, he said, “I don’t know, driving around, trying to get pulled over, actually.” He later added, “I’m driving on the wrong side of the road."When asked to pull over to the side of road to wait for police, the man kinda did what he was told, but not exactly. “Look, I’m parked in the middle of the road,” he said.Fortunately nobody was hurt.According to AP:

Good news everyone: Scott DesJarlais, a strident anti-choice congressman and beloved Tea Party hero from Tennessee, says God has forgiven for having sex with his patients when he was a doctor and then pressuring them to get abortions.From The Daily Mail:

Salvia divinorum is a plant that is legal in most of the USA and the world, a uniquely powerful psychedelic whose effects are as short-lived (5-10 minutes from first onset to the end of the experience) as they are profound (users generally need to have a "sitter" nearby because they lose control over their bodies and perceptions). (more…)

In 1998, Disney led an entertainment industry lobbying effort that resulted in the term of copyright being extended by 20 years, even for works that had already been created -- a law with an incoherent basis, given that the US copyright system is constitutionally constrained to passing laws to promote new creative works (giving creators more copyright on works they've already created doesn't get them to make new ones, and it reduces the ability of new artists to remix existing works, the way Disney did with the Grimm's fairy tales). (more…)

Stephen Miller, dark lord of the Uncanny Valley, experienced a major system failure on Jake Tapper's CNN show on Sunday. After refusing to answer Tapper's questions about Trump's latest twittertantrum or Donald Jr's meeting with Russian operatives, Miller tried to deliver a script about his master's unpeered intellect. Bored and disgusted, Tapper cut the interview short. Viewers missed the best part, though -- afterwards, Miller violated Asimov's laws for robots by refusing to obey humans' orders to vacate the premises. Security was called to remove the broken droid from the studio.From CNN:

https://youtu.be/j_pM3nAxgi8These videos show rare views of the ocean over the weekend from Old Silver Beach in Cape Cod. Rare because, well, the ocean is frozen enough for people to walk on, and the sea of ice seems to go on forever.

Is there anybody out there? If we don't listen for the answer, we certainly won't hear it. Over at the Planetary Society, Jason Davis posted an excellent survey of the past, present, and future of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. It begins in 1959 with Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison's historic paper "Searching for Interstellar Communications" and Frank Drake's Project Ozma, the first scientific SETI search:

Remember Tiffany's runup to Xmas with the $1000 tin can and the $9000 ball of yarn? It was a pretty shrewd bit of marketing. (more…)

Over 100,000 lonely men who thought they were communicating with women on dating apps were actually chatting with bots. According to the police report, the men paid hefty subscription fees to interact with the fake woman. The apps showed the men porn "as bait, to attract users to download and install and then lure users to continuously upgrade their membership level."Google translation of police report:

The Bombay Frankie Company makes Indian "burritos" in a gas station in Los Angeles. People are going out of their way to get them.

The last 40 years has seen a steady rise of deficit-hawking, in which the world's postwar social safety nets are shredded because the state "can't afford" them -- think of all the times you've heard of national debt being money that "the taxpayers" will have to pay back, and misleading comparisons between sovereign governments (who print their own money) to households and businesses (who don't), as though sovereign state finance was just a scaled-up version of balancing the family check-book. (more…)