In 2012, North Carolina's Coastal Resources Commission studied the question of sea-level rise and the likelihood that coastal areas would be inundated by severe weather, concluding that the seas were likely to rise by 39" over the century; the Republican legislature, backed by property developers building in low-lying coastal regions, passed a bill prohibiting any such research and decreeing that the seas would rise at the same rate that they had through history, without regard to any science about accelerating rates fueled by climate change. (more…)

Art school Émile Cohl in Lyon, France formally apologized after students noticed that a group photo on the school's United States promotional web site had been manipulated to make several of the people appear to have dark skin. The manipulated photo is at the very top of this post. Below it is another image, without the alterations, from the same series of snapshots. From The Guardian:

Chiako Yamamoto is the first and only female sensei of Japan's revered bonsai masters. She shows trees of various sizes and ages, including those she inherited from relatives generations ago. (more…)

It must be Opposite Week in the tabloids.“JonBenet Ransom Note Reveals Killer!” screams the National Enquirer cover. No, it doesn’t.“Rachel Ray: I Quit” proclaims another Enquirer headline. No, she hasn't.“Queen Bans Meghan From Dad’s Funeral,” “Starsky & Hutch Deathbed Reunion,” “Mickey Mouse Sex Clubs!” No, no, and no.“Queen Survives Assassin Attack!” yells the Globe cover. Never happened.“Tom Cruise: Most Hated Man in Hollywood,” runs a two-page character assassination in the Globe.Not as long as his films continue earning hundreds of millions, and as long as Harvey Weinstein is around.These stories fly in the face of facts with the bravado normally only associated with White House press briefings. JonBenet Ramsey’s ransom note left by her alleged killer reveals a “hidden code and secret message”? Scientifically dubious analysis of the ink flow and pen pressure in the note no more indicate who the killer was than they disclose a coded message. And one wonders why the Enquirer believes this a “breakthrough” when it has spent the past year telling readers that “now-deceased psycho drifter Glenn Meyer” was the infant pageant queen’s killer.Has TV chef Rachel Ray quit? You be the judge: her show is still on the air.Did Queen Elizabeth II ban grand-daughter-in-law Meghan Markle from her father Thomas’s funeral? That seems a tad premature, since the 74-year-old is still alive and kicking. He’s "morbidly obese,” slams the Enquirer, ignoring Thomas Markle’s 40-pound weight loss since his heart surgery in May. Why let the facts get in the way of a good story?What about the “deathbed reunion” of TV’s Starsky & Hutch stars Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul? The duo are reportedly both confirmed to attend a convention in the UK next month – that’s a public meeting, not beside a hospital bed in Intensive Care. Maybe the Enquirer doesn’t quite grasp what a “deathbed” actually is?“Mickey Mouse Sex Clubs?” The Enquirer allegedly found adult swingers clubs in Orlando – shock, horror – which in the rag's view means they are “near” Disney World, and therefore are “Mickey Mouse Sex Clubs!” Perfect logic for Opposite Week.And did Her Royal Highness survive an attack by “Islamic terrorists”? It’s yet another “world exclusive” by Globe Royal correspondents that was missed by the entire British Royal press pack, and the seasoned press corps covering Scotland Yard. How did this attack on The Queen slip under the radar? “The threat has been hushed up,” reports the Globe. How convenient.Most intriguing is the Tom Cruise hatchet job. It’s true that Cruise has alienated some in Hollywood with his devotion to Scientology, his sudden divorce from Nicole Kidman and messy divorce from Katie Holmes, but it’s hard to argue that “Hollywood Hates Tom Cruise” when his films still earn fortunes and every studio would love to be in business with him.Britain's Royals dominate both Us and People magazine covers, with vacuous stories that reveal next to nothing new. “Growing Up Royal” is Us mag’s tale of Prince William and Duchess Kate’s children’s “family barbecues . . . tennis and ballet classes . . studying French & nights of homework.” Truly insightful.People informs readers of the Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle’s “Grace Under Pressure,” telling how she “is coping with family drama . . . and the challenges of the spotlight.” Just like every story about her for the past two years.Fortunately we have the crack investigative team at Us mag to inform us that Lily James wore it best, Jerry O’Connell promises: “I am not Jason Bateman” (though we only have his word on this), that Busy Philipps carries a quartz crystal, Advil and keys in her Clare V cross-body bag, and that the stars are just like us: they ride scooters, feed parking meters, and read books.And “They Multitask!” exclaims Us mag, which seems particularly impressed by actress Meg Ryan performing this astonishing feat. What complex tasks is she juggling simultaneously? "Meg Ryan walked and talked on a day of running errands,” raves the awe-struck publication. Walked AND talked?! Truly impressive I’d have to say, especially since it’s Opposite Week in the tabloids.Onwards and downwards . . .

Over the summer, a spectacular golden bridge opened to the public near Da Nang. In addition to a great view from Vietnam's Ba Na Hills, the Cầu Vàng bridge appears to be supported by a colossal hand. (more…)

In this clip from Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story, Florida gun store owner and George Zimmerman pal Andy Hallinan explains that the Civil War was not about slavery. He is then asked what it was about. [via Lachlan]

The Beach Boys vs the Fat Boys in an epic grudge match.

Maxim Zhestkov (previously) created a mesmerizing exercise involving light refracting within computer-generated crystals. (more…)

Myanmar's head of government, Aung San Suu Kyi, has backed the jailing of reporters who exposed details of the massacre of Rohingya men by her government's armed forces.

After being hammered by hurricane Maria, the residents of the rural Puerto Rican mountain town of Mariana got tired of waiting for the bumbling, privatized, cash-starved power authority to reconnect them to the grid, so the anarchist organizer Christine Nieves founded Proyecto de Apoyo Mutuo, one of a dozen-odd cooperatives across the island to create their own solar grid; by the time the The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority finally put in appearance, Mariana had had power for two whole months. (more…)

The Republican president speaks for the Republican Party.

CVS isn't just in the business of operating retail pharmacies: equally important is its prescription administration services, where it buys drugs from independent pharmacies, marks them up, and sells them to government-run programs like Medicare and prisons, using "spread pricing" to determine the markup that it applies to generic drugs. (more…)

Edge isn't doing so well: Chrome still rules the web roost, and Firefox is resurgent. But Microsoft can do something about that.

One of the most repugnant features of international trade agreements, from TPP to TTIP to CETA, is the "Investor State Dispute Settlement" (ISDS) clause, which gives corporations the power to sue governments to repeal health, safety, and environmental laws if they interfere with the company's profits. (more…)

Who isn’t fascinated by the idea of perpetual motion? Though I know it’s impossible, I’m always on the lookout for things that seem to come close.Like most tops, Limbo is spun from your fingertips – but the hidden USB recharge-able gyroscope is what keeps it going. LIMBO just took the Guinness World Record title for Longest-Running Mechanical Spinning Top with a non-stop spinning time of 27 hours, 9 minutes and 24 seconds! Here is a lovely product shot with its protected secret exposed.When I was a kid, one of my favorite games to play was a frantic board game called Battling Tops where you and your friends each spun a top into a playing field and the last one standing was the winner.This was a ridiculously entertaining game but it gave me a completely different feeling than my LIMBO toy. Instead of a frenzied micro-war playing out in front of me, the goal of LIMBO is to simply stand upright and appear as still as possible.For those who don’t actually know that it’s powered though, LIMBO defies logic. It seems to have the gift of perpetual motion — much like the liquid-filled, drinking glass birdies from my childhood.If you have children and haven’t seen these in action, spend the 5 bucks on one right now. It’s basically a science experiment in a fancy blue top-hat!The bird tips back and forth depending on whether his beak is moist or not. As water evaporates, the temperature in the bird's head lowers and creates a pressure change inside the body, which causes liquid to rise into its head, which makes him dip again. The beak becomes remoistened and the cycle impossibly repeats for hours. If I didn’t have one myself, the drinking glass birdie would seem as impossible as the mofos below who toot around town in their impossi-cars powered by well-placed magnets. But it is not! The drinking glass birdie is science in a fancy blue top hat! Which of course brings me back to LIMBO — the greatest top in the world!If you like things that travel at speeds up to 10,000 RPM while looking like they’re standing still for a long freaking time — then LIMBO is your jam.Either way, please enjoy this Battling Spaceships board game commercial from 1977. It's the same basic idea as Battling Tops only this one comes with an especially annoying curly haired kid.https://youtu.be/DPX92dvGm-g

A Portland, Oregon-based romance novelist has been charged with a crime she once wrote about. (more…)

At today's Apple Event in Cupertino, the company unveiled a Series 4 of its watch, and repositioned it as more of a health device. The Apple Watch Series 4 now packs an electrocardiogram, fall detection, and an impressive updated display. Photos and official launch day details, below. (more…)

At the big Apple Event today in Cupertino, a new iPhone was revealed. Here are official photos we received from Apple, for a closer look. (more…)

That's some mighty fine headline writing from the New York Post for their rehash of Paul McCartney's GQ interview in which he reminisced about masturbating with John Lennon.

Around 73,000 years ago, humans used a chunk of pigment to draw a pattern on a rock in a South African cave. The recently discovered fragment of the rock is now considered to be the oldest known drawing in history. From Science News:

After a poll revealed at 54% of her eligible viewers were not registered voters, with weeks to go before the crucial 2018 midterm elections, Samantha Bee set out to do something to get out the vote. (more…)

Back in July, MGM Resorts -- owner of the Mandalay Bay casino in Las Vegas -- sued more than 1,000 survivors of the mass-shooting that took place in October, 2017, trying to secure a judgment that would prevent any of the survivors from suing the company. (more…)

Reader exchange from the Los Angeles Times:

Apple's big launch event took place in Cupertino today, and here are the big products to track: iPhone Xs, Xr, Xs, Max, and the Apple Watch Series 4. Pre-order begins this Friday. (more…)

It's hard not to think of this mite as a person, and the pen-wielder as a god who throws down obstacles to challenge the person to overcome them.

This is what you end up with when your goal is to make something as cheap as possible: a bag of artificially colored and flavored corn syrup that has a trace of honey in it so you can call it "Honey Sauce" instead of "Sweet Goo That Looks Like Piss."[via]

The lewdly leering Billy-Billy ($340) is a green flowerpot that tells you when it needs water and reminds you to take medication to mask your resentment against the well-meaning younger relative who thought you needed a nightmarish artificial companion.Best line: "Who cares? Billy-Billy cares."

We've been covering the rise and rise of Chinese science fiction here since the early part of the decade, as Chinese authors have been successfully exported to the English-speaking world (a rare feat, as there are enough books written in English to satisfy demand, leading to a real poverty of literature translated into English), which broke through in 2016, when authors like Hao Jingfang took home Hugo awards, along with the incredible Cixin Liu. (more…)

After architect Andrew McClure received a lesson from his cousin on how to use Minecraft, he went to work making a slick looking house in the sandbox game in just two hours.[via Core77]

Use code C37HNQ64 and get this autoranging multimeter from Tacklife for $7. It includes a 9V battery. I have a bunch of different Tacklife products (including a multimeter) and they do a great job.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe recently implemented a goal to introduce 500,000 foreign workers to Japan -- which is experiencing an aging and declining population -- by the year 2020. Currently about 2% of residents in Japan are foreigners. Asian Boss hit the streets of Tokyo to get reactions to the program. Opinions range from positive to dead set against it. One of the most cited reasons for not allowing a large influx of foreigners is because they do not understand Japanese culture and will have a hard time fitting in. One woman said Japanese in general like Americans but dislike non-Japanese Asians. Another woman said she was "scared of foreign drugs coming to Japan."

Lobbyists for "creators" threw their lot in with the giant entertainment companies and the newspaper proprietors and managed to pass the new EU Copyright Directive by a hair's-breadth this morning, in an act of colossal malpractice to harm to working artists will only be exceeded by the harm to everyone who uses the internet for everything else. (more…)

Well, this is a downer: Prozac, a drug taken by millions of folks every day to help them cope with chronic depression and anxiety, has been shown to allow for antibiotic resistance in dangerous strains of bacteria, under laboratory conditions. Prozac is the commercial name for a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor called Fluoxetine. That Fluoxetine could be responsible for making bacterias such as Escherichia coli able to laugh off antibiotics is new. Strangely, the notion that Fluoxetine has the potential to also kill off bacteria, isn't. Scientists held hopes that the drug, along with other SSRIs, might be able to be leveraged in new antimicrobial treatments. According to a recently released report, this could all be shot to hell by the fact that tons of SSRIs, Fluoxetine included, are released into our environment through our sewage systems on a daily basis.From Gizmodo:

FOLLOW @RubenBolling on the Twitters and a Face Book.RESIST! … the temptation to fail to JOIN Tom the Dancing Bug's subscription club, the Proud & Mighty INNER HIVE, for exclusive early access to comics, extra comics, and much more.GET Ruben Bolling’s new hit book series for kids, The EMU Club Adventures. Book One here. Book Two here.More Tom the Dancing Bug comics on Boing Boing! (more…)

Today's press event will have the details, but view source offers an unexpected preview this morning. All Things How, The Verge and others spotted the iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR in files hosted at Apple.com, confirming one speculative device (the Max), revealing another (the XR) and disappearing a third (the rumored XC).

We live in an age dominated by video, and with little more than a camera and a computer, virtually anyone can make a living producing interesting video content. However, competition is stiff, so if you have aspirations of becoming a successful filmmaker or world-class YouTuber, you'll need to give yourself an edge. Breaking down the video creation process from start to finish, the Complete Filmmaker Guide can help you get ahead of the competition, and it's on sale for $14.99.This 5-hour collection gives you a wall-to-wall look at the creative aspects of planning, shooting, and editing videos. From pre-production to editing, you'll familiarize yourself with the guidelines industry experts follow when creating video content. You'll explore production hacks for creating better videos regardless of your equipment, and you'll finish the training ready to capture, organize and create a rough edit.The Complete Filmmaker Guide normally retails for $199.99, but it's available in the Boing Boing Store for $14.99 (92% off).

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo claimed to have known nothing about the state Democratic Party's smearing of primary opponent Cynthia Nixon as an antisemite. But an aide, mistakenly believing himself to be off the record, emailed The New York Post with evidence that suggests otherwise.

Every year, Halloween costumes get weirder and more complicated. Case in point: this inflatable Han-in-Carbonite one.Here's how it works:For $59.99, you get the adult-sized costume (and a battery-operated fan to inflate it), plus gloves and a mask for the full effect.Previously on BB: Other Han-in-Carbonite items(Geeks are Sexy)

To honor the memory of the recently deceased Burt Reynolds, Smokey and the Bandit is headed back to the big screen.According to Variety, the 1977 hit flick will show in 240 AMC theatres for nine days from September 12 to 20.As a child of the '70s with a real love for American trucker culture, I'll be at one of those shows. https://youtu.be/IzMpOvKxXdMhttps://youtu.be/P68J9QHyDV0https://youtu.be/uHZJej98_T0

As the Carolinas prepare for the arrival of Hurricane Florence, currently a Category 4 storm, Senator Jeff Merkley appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show with a document that shows $10,000,000 was diverted from FEMA's budget to pay for ICE detention centers.[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8Z8o69edAI&w=560&h=315]It's believed the transfer of funds took place at the beginning of summer. You know, right before the start of hurricane season. And if that's not enough to make your blood boil, this video of Trump calling his administration's handling of Puerto Rico during and after Hurricane Maria "an incredible, unsung success" should do the trick. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlWG9Yz97E8&w=560&h=315]I'm sure Carolinians are relieved the President of the United States considers 3000 dead Americans an incredible, unsung success. No worries, Outer Banks! He'll be there to throw paper towels at you soon.Trump admin took millions from FEMA for ICE detentions [MSNBC]

https://youtu.be/WRQv9xMQ3E0Michael Moore's latest documentary is a scorching Trump takedown called Fahrenheit 11/9; next Wednesday, all over the USA, theaters will screen a "People's Premiere" of the movie: just indicate your willingness to buy tickets for a nearby screening and once enough of your neighbors sign up, the screening will "tip" and get scheduled (Angelenos, help me get a screening in Alhambra!). The site for doing all this is creaking under the load at the moment, so keep hitting that reload button!

As a million people evacuate the coastal regions of Virginia and North Carolina to escape the damaging winds of Hurricane Florence, the badass scientists of NOAA are flying smack-dab into the storm.

When you walk into a bookshop, chances are that you weren't expecting to walk out with a bookshop. However, that's exactly what happened to Ceisjan Van Heerden after shopping at the Bookends bookstore in Cardigan, Wales. After opting for an early retirement due to medical issues, the bookshop's owner, Paul Morris, decided that he wanted to raffle it off and give a lucky book lover the opportunity to own a shop of their own.From The Guardian:

The internet is perpetually amused and fascinated by the crazy, corkscrewing duck penis, but commonsense dictates that if fella ducks have crazy willies, then lady ducks will have equally amazing hoo-hahs. (more…)

In Walter Scheidel's new book The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century, the Stanford classics prof traces the rise and fall of inequality from humanity's history, showing how over time, the rich get richer and richer, creating an ever-more-unstable situation, until, basically, the world melts down or the people start building guillotines on their doorsteps. (more…)

We already know what kind of a person Trump is. We knew it 17 years ago when he told a TV reporter on 9/11 that his tower was the tallest building in downtown Manhattan now that the World Trade Center had been demolished by terrorists.

Many cultural critics freaked out when people started riding newfangled bicycles in the 19th century. In fact, their complaints sound so much like modern-day writers' complaints about e-scooters, Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post created a quiz to see if you can tell the difference between Victorian and contemporary scolds.A few example questions:"The new two-wheeled transportation options are no casual amusement.""Seize, break, destroy... all such machines found running on the sidewalks.""The gentlemen [x]ing coolly across our city streets and sidewalks at 15 miles an hour, the wind gently flapping their ties and tousling their hair, are indifferent to your angry glares.""It is better to make safe machines than to pooh-pooh the fears of people who don't want to get their craniums cracked."I scored 8/10

A few months ago on Conan, the late Burt Reynolds shared the fantastic and funny origin of one of many iconic moments from Deliverance (1972): "He got a real purty mouth ain’t he." Watch the clip below. And as a bonus, here's the story of Deliverance's inbred banjo boy!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLEL-Gewt6E(via Laughing Squid)

A lot of people can't stand the dedicated Bixby button on Samsung phones because it is easy to accidentally press. And on the Galaxy Note 9, you can't turn off Bixby. So Jerry from Jerry Rig Everything offers a warranty voiding solution -- remove the button and fill the cavity with solid 14k gold, kind of like the way a dentist would fill a tooth cavity with gold. My cheapskate solution: use some black Sugru.