Boing Boing

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.

Photographer Alireza Rostami scavenged the lens and shutter from his broken Chinese Seagull TLR camera to create this fantastic wrist-worn camera complete with a self-timer. More at PetaPixel.

Peter Taylor was doing research at the UK's Imperial War Museums when he stumbled across the story of parachuting pigeons. In 1914, the British were seeking intelligence about German troop numbers and movement in Belgium. So they parachuted homing pigeons into the region from balloons and planes. Attached to the pigeons were instructions for civilians to write down what they had seen and then to allow the birds to fly back to base. Inspired, Taylor went on to collect unusual war stories and compiled them into two books, Weird War One: Intriguing Items and Fascinating Feats from the First World War and its sequel Weird War Two: Intriguing Items and Surprising Stuff from the Second World War.“It was a mixture of proper research—talking to curators, reading books, trawling through the archives—and suitably strange research: for example, (mis)using the museum’s database by typing in odd words for hours to see what came up (‘Socks,’ ‘Disguise,’ ‘Secret,’ ‘Insect’)," Taylor told Air & Space. "It’s hard to have a completely sensible plan for finding strange and surprising things.”Below, an illustration of a propaganda idea involving flying machines shaped like sharks.

Tomorrow's EU vote on a new copyright directive will determine whether the EU internet will be governed by algorithmic censorship filters whose blacklist anyone can add anything to. (Visit Save Your Internet to tell your MEP to vote against this) (more…)

Trees "talk" to each other in forests. They are part of underground networks based on symbiotic relationships, known as mycorrhiza, with fungi. To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan, the medium is the mushroom. (National Geographic)

The New York Public Library's Riverside branch invites you to check out a necktie, briefcase, or handbag suited for a "job interview, wedding, audition, graduation, prom, or other formal event." It's part of their NYPL Grow Up initiative. From the NYPL:

Three vending machines dispensing crack pipes for $2 each were discovered roadside in Long Island. The machines were marked "PENS" and did indeed contain pens, well, ballpoint pens that had been turned into crack pipes. Town of Brookhaven Supervisor Ed Romaine tested the machine by inserting the required eight quarters and later remarked, "We're going to crack down on this."ABC7NY:

After decades of Thomas the Tank Engine having female and international characters (typically represented by an actual train design from their home countries) conservatives have finally noticed and gotten angry about it. This is because the latest one is from Kenya. In response, the NRA posted pictures of the show's trains in Klan hoods.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm_p3sf9kq4On Wednesday, the EU will vote on whether to force all online platforms to filter user-generated content against massive databases of copyrighted works (anyone can add anything to these databases, without penalties for abuse); not only is this a catastrophe for everyone who writes software that will have to comply with this bonkers idea, it's also a catastrophe for anyone who writes software, period. (more…)

After talking about how it takes a whack of skilled experts to make the stuff most of us take for granted, Andy from How to Make Everything comes to the conclusion that minting your own currency is a dangerous resource-intense pain in the ass.