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There is no Santa Claus, Lassie was played by nine different dogs over the years and, according to a recent lawsuit filed in New York, there isn’t any ginger in Canada Dry Ginger Ale.From USA Today:

You likely remember Steven Seagal from blockbuster films like Hard to Kill, The Glimmer Man, Under Siege and, more recently, his being identified by The Washington Post as a serial sex abuser. That’s just Seagal’s public face on this side of the water. He’s wicked famous overseas, too. Russians purportedly adore the man’s films and value his opinion. He routinely rubs elbows with the country’s elite. In 2016, President Vladimir Putin went so far as to award Seagal a Russian passport. Putin, who apparently loves him some foreshadowing, said that the gifting of the passport was “…a symbol of how fractious ties between Moscow and Washington were starting to improve.” Fast forward a few years: relations between the two Cold War adversaries have indeed improved, thanks to Russia’s meddling with the the U.S. presidential elections, backroom cash deals between Russian oligarchs and well-placed members of the American government and spies screwing their way into the halls of power. Also, very likely, a pee tape. With things going so swimmingly and filth rising to the top, there could be no better time for the Russian Foreign Ministry to announce that, to keep the good vibes for Russia going, they’ve appointed Seagal as their ‘special representative for Russian-U.S. humanitarian ties.’Just let that title soak into your brain until you can’t feel anything at all.From Reuters:

Waterjets are very useful for many kinds of industrial cutting, including this giant handheld one available for firefighters. The PyroLance allows water to enter an enclosed fire without adding dangerous oxygen from opening a door or punching a larger hole. (more…)

Antipodr is a nifty little site that lets visitors learn what's on the opposite side of the globe from any coordinate. For instance, Auckland, New Zealand is directly opposite Venta de Leche in southern Spain. (more…)

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Tech moves faster than virtually any other industry, which means the skills to stay competitive are frequently changing. Case in point, more companies are shifting their production to the new DevOps model, which merges development and operational teams into one, dramatically improving efficiency and product quality. As such, demand is high for DevOps-savvy professionals, and you can train to join their highly-paid ranks with the Pay What You Want DevOps Bundle.Here's how the deal works: pay what you want, and you'll instantly unlock one of the collection's courses. Beat the average price paid, and you'll get the remaining six courses at no extra charge.With courses on Linux shell scripting, Docker, Jenkins, and other industry tools, this training will expose you to the tools DevOps professionals use daily. You'll get a deeper understanding of what exactly DevOps is and why its trending, and you'll foster concrete skills as you learn how to create a basic web app on the cloud, build components on a development stack, and more.Choose your price, and you can start your DevOps education with the Pay What You Want DevOps Bundle.

Research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (paywalled, no Sci-Hub mirror) describes a fascinating experimental outcome in which subjects were asked to enact "meaningless rituals" ("knocking the table with their knuckles, closing their eyes and counting, among other things") before being confronted with a self-control challenge (eating two carrots, then deciding between a third carrot and a chocolate truffle). (more…)

For cyberpunks of a certain vintage, Re/Search press (previously) was absolutely formative -- books like Incredibly Strange Films, Zines!, and, of course, Modern Primitives (RIP, Fakir) were incredibly influential material for the modern happy mutant. (more…)

Last week, it was revealed by a sharp-eyed Redditor that the information kiosks at a mall in Calgary, Canada, were full of software designed to track the age and sex of anyone that stopped to use it. Pretty damn greasy. Greasier still, the management company that operates the mall, Cadillac Fairview admitted that the software was in use at a number of its other properties. The greasiest bit out of all of it? They shrugged off privacy concerns raised by a number of news outlets as there’s nothing in Alberta’s laws that keeps them from doing it without permission, or warning mall patrons that it’s being done. Well, that was last week.From The CBC:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8HB2cQm_AgMarianne Keating from The Tate takes viewers through the complex process of making prints in the style of many of Andy Warhol's most famous silk screen works. (more…)

Captain Jean-Luc Picard is back. This afternoon in Las Vegas, Patrick Stewart announced he was returning to the iconic role in a new Star Trek series for CBS All Access.

John Cage liked to share a list of rules for creativity developed by artist Sister Corita Kent. That list was then typed up and popularized by Cage. They are: (more…)

In the north of Burgandy, France, a group of history buffs are hard at work building a castle, from scratch, using traditional building methods and materials--and they've been at it for TWENTY YEARS. The project is supported entirely on the backs of donations and hard, dedicated, manual labor.Incredible.

Is the WWE becoming a training camp for future politicians? WWE Hall-of-Famer Donald Trump is (sweet Jesus) President of the United States. Former WWF/WWE president and CEO Linda McMahon is the Administrator of the Small Business Association in the Trump Administration. And now WWE legend Kane (real name Glenn Jacobs) is the next mayor of Knox County, Tennessee.Jacobs ran as a conservative Republican and has dabbled in libertarian politics, writing for the controversial website LewRockwell.com. He'll take office on September 1st and hasn't ruled out a return to the WWE. Jacobs previously wrestled as Isaac Yankem, DDS.WWE wrestler Kane wins bid for Knox County mayor [CNN/Euan McKidry] [Photo: Wikimedia Commons]

Zephyr Teachout (previously) isn't just an expert on antitrust law and corruption, and isn't merely a netroots pioneer who has been on the right side of every technology policy fight since the Gore years -- she's also running to be the Attorney General of the State of New York, from which position she plans on gutting Trump on his corrupt business practices, targeting him using the dread emoluments clause. (more…)

In its latest round of shareholder disclosures, Wells Fargo admitted that it "unnecessarily foreclosed" on 400-odd householders (that is, stole their houses) and failed to grant loan modifications to 625 qualified borrowers (this is just the latest revelation about Wells Fargo stealing houses); it's also being investigated for its practice of purchasing low-income housing credits. (via Naked Capitalism)

Earplugs aren't the most stylish accessories to bring to a show, but if you're at all invested in your long-term hearing, you should be packing a pair whenever you go. For those of us who still feel a bit self-conscious sporting those bright foam plugs in the pit, the EarDial Earplugs offer a subtler, smarter way to safeguard your hearing, and they're available in the Boing Boing store for $19.99.Made with a unique low-profile design, EarDial Earplugs don't just dampen noise; they filter it. These invisible earplugs allow you to hear the music and even chat with your friends while keeping harmful decibel levels from damaging your ears. They're made to wear comfortably for hours on end, and even come with a companion app that displays the noise levels around you—letting you know when it's appropriate to pop them in. What's more, they stow inside a sleek aluminum case that can readily clip to your keychain for quick access.Preserve your hearing—and your style with a pair of EarDial Earplugs, on sale for $19.99.

Back in the day, before Amazon and even before the internet, dash buttons took physical form in Reddilist, a handy little wall hanging for the kitchen or pantry with tabs for Instant Vi-Tone, Frostade, or Johnson's Glo-Coat. (more…)

About 10% of plastic ocean pollution is ghost nets, the countless lost or abandoned fishing nets that maim and kill marine life. Jenga Ocean, made of recycled nets, tries to raise awareness, recycle recovered nets, and raise funds to help end this type of pollution. Via Bureo: (more…)

Daniel Mercadante uses colored lights and long exposures to create his Rainbow Roads series of photos. (more…)

Here are some recent game releases of note and some of what I've been up to in hobby gaming over the past month or so.Earlier this year, I wrote a piece about my favorite gaming magazine, UK's Tabletop Gaming. Another gaming mag I subscribe to and enjoy is Casual Game Insider. Where Tabletop Gaming covers all manner of tabletop, miniature, roleplaying, card, and board games, Casual Game Insider focuses on family games, party games, and palate cleansers, games to be played between longer games during a gaming night. In a word, casual games. CSI has something of a fanzine flavor (in a good way). It's obviously a passion and labor of love for those who produce it. They crowdfund the effort and just successfully finished their 7th round of funding. CSI covers every aspect of gaming, from creating, funding, and producing them, to the psychology and sociology of gaming, to gaming history, gaming types, you name it. And they have plenty of reviews and features on currently popular games. A free digital edition of the current issue is available for download (PDF).The Ricks Must Be CrazyCryptozoic Entertainment, $17, 2-4 Players, Ages: 17+Cryptozoic has been killing it with their series of quick, fun, and suitably strange Rick and Morty games. They've released five games so far. Each game is based on an episode of the popular Adult Swim animated series. And each is done in a different style, mechanic, and look and feel, attempting to capture the flavor of the episode it's based upon. In The Ricks Must Be Crazy, 2-4 players travel through four levels of the multiverse (the Rickverse, Microverse, Miniverse, and Teenyverse). To succeed in the game, you need to collect power and victory points and each 'verse (one nested within the other) offers different advantages and disadvantages. Each character has special abilities and each player spends Build tokens to construct contraptions in each 'verse which offer victory points and special abilities. The game proceeds in rounds until the first player reaches a set Victory Point total. One more round is then played and the player with the most VP at that time wins.I love the themes of this game series. It's fun to watch the episode before/after playing the game to see how they interpreted it in game terms. All of the artwork used in the game are stills from the episode and the production on everything is gorgeous and high-quality. The Ricks Must Be Crazy isn't likely the most exciting or smoothest game you'll ever play (doing all of the Power level addition and subtraction on the Power/Victory Point tracker is annoying), but it does a pretty admirable job of capturing the fractal craziness of the episode. Next up: The Pickle Rick Game, housed in a Rick pickle (and due out in early Sept).Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Melee at Murdershroom MarshCryptozoic Entertainment, $26, 2-6 Players, Ages: 15+Epic Spell Wars is a series of wacky and weird psychedelic horror card games featuring dueling "battle wizards" trying to smite the toad stool out of each other. There are currently three games in the series (Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre, Rumble at Castle Tentakill, Melee at Murdershroom Marsh) and a 4th, Panic at the Pleasure Palace, coming later this year. The games are all about bringing the fun--talking cookie-monster/death metal smack to each other over a game of cleverly-stupid, eye-ball-melting spell-casting cards. In each round, players use the cards in their hand to construct a spell with a set syntax. Each spell can be comprised of a 3-part syntax: Source, Quality, and Delivery. These translate to the name of the wizard who first created the spell (Source), a spell descriptor (Quality), and what the spell actually does (Delivery). So, a spell a player might cast could read: Midnight Merlin's Devilicious Power Vortex or King Tut-n-Putts' Smelted LSD. The cards are also further grouped into magical types (e.g. Elemental, Illusion, Primal) and cards can be combined by these magical types to gain advantages. The game basically involves putting together your spell (drawn from the cards in your hand), casting the spell (out loud in a goofy death metal/monster truck rally announcer voice), and resolving the damage as indicated on the cards. Each wizard character, which have names like Zanzabart the Slag Genie and Krazztar the Blood o' Mancer, has a character dashboard for tracking hit points/health. Wizards that die (and they died a lot) still get to draw from a Dead Wizard deck that offers actions the dead wizard can resolve now or that are used in the next round.Mainly what each new game in the series offers is a new setting, a new cast of magical weirdos and dungeon degenerates, and more insanely psychedelic art by Nick Edwards and RS Bixby. You also get special rules or rules tweaks with each new release. Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Melee at Murdershroom Marsh finds the Battle Wizards under the influence of some mind-scouring hallucinogenic drug (the titular "murdershrooms"). They attempt to vaporize each other as usual, but while fighting off hallucinations and madness. New rules for Murdershroom Marsh create some additional card management and play mechanics. Half of the Delivery cards in the deck have two magical types listed, therefore allow you to perform two Power Rolls with that single card. The game also introduces Cantrips. Sources and Quality cards with the Cantrip glyph on them allow you to add cards to your spell (after an indicated number of discards from your hand). And finally, there is Bad Trip, another new glyph found on Source and Quality cards. After you resolve the card as normal, if you have 4 or more different magical glyph types in your spell, you can resolve the Bad Trip card a second time (flashbacks, dude!). As with all of the previous Epic Spell Wars games, you can use the Mudershroom Marsh spell cards and wizards with all of the previous Spell Wars games. In the forthcoming Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Panic at the Pleasure Palace, the Battle Wizards fight off each other (and MTDs: Magically Transmitted Diseases) in a monstrous whorehouse.Conspiracy Theory: Freedom from InformationSteve Jackson Games, $30, 3+ Players, Ages: 13+Conspiracy Theory is Steve Jackson's paranoid answer to black and white card games (*cough* Cards Against Humanity *cough*). As with similar games, a rotating judge chooses a black card with a statement and 1 or 2 missing words on it and players use words from their white-card hand to try and cleverly, creatively, hysterically complete the phrase. The judge for that turn votes on who had the best response. Conspiracy adds a third deck to the mix, a red deck. The red deck, which the judge can pick from, has themes for the responses (funny, serious, insane, etc). Adding this wrinkle makes coming up with worthy responses more challenging. The rules sheet points out that the 500+ cards in this deck can be incorporated into similar games (don't make me fake-cough again).Tiki ToppleGamewright, $14, 2-4 players, Ages: 10+If you've noticed, this month has something of a theme: casual games. One of the companies that rules in the casual/party game space is Gamewright. They know how to make games that are easy to learn, exciting and fun to play, and they produce games that are beautifully illustrated and produced and cleverly marketed. The latest in this party game fare is Tiki Topple, a simple abstract strategy game with a Polynesian flare. 2-4 players try and "stack" (despite "topple" in the title, you build your tiki totem horizontally) their tiki idols in a sequence as it is indicated on a secret card that each player draws. Additional drawn cards indicate what moves players can make to try and arrange their tikis at the top of the totem in the sequence indicated on their secret card. Players do this while trying to avoid Tiki Topple (a card that sends their idol to the bottom) or Tiki Toast, a card that destroys your tiki outright. And that's basically it. This is a great game to play with people who aren't gamers and might be intimidated by a more complicated rule set or longer games. The little plastic tiki idols and all of the game's components are lovely and add to the ambience. Mai Thais, Fog Cutters, and Navy Grog optional. Frostgrave: Maze of MalcorOsprey Games, $20, 2-8 players, Ages: 12+Maze of Malcor is a substantial expansion to Frostgrave, the hit fantasy skirmish game of battling wizards and their warbands fighting over magical items and treasure amongst the thawing ruins of Felstad, a once-frozen city of magic. Maze of Malcor contains rules tweaks and clarifications, an adventure setting in the Collegium of Artistry/Maze of Malcor, a lauded magical school before the fall of the city, and 5 new magical schools, known as The Pentangle. You don't actually play these schools, but your wizards can cast spells from them. As always, the supplement also includes new treasure and new additions to the growing Frostgrave bestiary. For those who got The Grimoire spell deck I wrote about in June, this book explains all of the spells included there that are from The Pentangle schools.Frostgrave MatPWork Wargames, ~$40, 3' x 3'Play mats are all the rage in tabletop gaming. You can now buy neoprene gaming mats (think: giant mouse pads) with art on top simulating just about any gaming terrain you want to play on. PWork Wargames has partnered with Osprey Games to create a line of mats with the bricks, snow, and ruined fragments depicting everyone's favorite frozen city. The mats are available in 3' x 3', 4' x 6', 4' x 4', and 3' x 6'.Snake-MenNorth Star Military Figures, $32I am a huge fan of North Star Military Figures Frostgrave miniatures line. Their boxed sets of multi-part miniatures are some of the coolest, most versatile minis I've ever modeled. Their latest boxed set includes parts to make up to 20 snake-men, a tribe of deadly adversaries found in Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago. Although created for this sister game of Frostgrave proper, the snake-men could easily be used in Frostgrave itself, D&D, or many other fantasy games.https://youtu.be/mrW3P_T41DM Frostgrave Watch It Played seriesThe folks at the YouTube channel, Watch It Played, have put together a really excellent series of videos on learning how to play Frostgrave. If you want to get a feel for this fantasy skirmisher, check them out.I kind of hate Instagram Stories. Most postings there seem like a complete waste of my time. But there are a few makers and miniature painters that I follow and enjoy the temporary videos they post. One of my favorite painters is Malev_Minis. Malev Da Shinobi is a young rapper from SLC, UT who is also a talented pro mini painter. He often does live Instagram painting sessions where he free-raps while he paints. I know, I know... trust me, it's better than it sounds. He's good at both. And his painting is jaw dropping. One night, I'd just put together a Frostgrave archer. I checked my phone and was shocked to see that he had assembled an almost identical model and was beginning to paint it. I watched, transfixed, as he, within an hour or so, painted that figure to a standard I have never achieved. In contrast, my bowmen probably took 5 times as long and only looks half as good.Fantastic MapsOne of the first things that drew me to D&D in my youth was the opportunity to design dungeons and draw maps. I love maps and map-making. This website and YouTube channel offer an excellent series of tutorials on every aspect of map-making, dungeon design and rendering. I think it would be impossible to spend any time here and not dramatically up your cartographic rendering game as a result.Both Cory and I have written about our attraction to Gaslands, the post-apocalyptic vehicular combat game you play with modified Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars. This YouTube gamer just launched a series about Gaslands that looks very promising. This is the best Gaslands battle report I've seen to date.

Audible -- Amazon's audiobook company -- dominates audiobooks, controlling 90% or more of the market; their ACX platform is tailored to indie, self-published authors, and, until recently, it paid them handsomely for any new customers they brought into Audible's fold. (more…)

Two days ago, a source leaked the existence of "Project Dragonfly", a super-secret Google plan to create a censored search-tool for use in China. (more…)

Back in 1977, middle class, white New Yorkers got frustrated over being criminalized for smoking weed, so they got the state legislature to decriminalized simple possession of weed -- merely having weed in your possession became a civil infraction and if you were caught, you might get a ticket, but that's it. (more…)

Epic Games is offering $100 million dollars in prizes at their Fortnite competitions, over the next year or so. The Friday, August 3rd, 2018 installment begins at 2pm PST. (more…)

In the course of my work as a documentary filmmaker, I sometimes find hidden gems. Samuel Fuller’s “The Naked Kiss” is one of them. (more…)

If you're one of the millions of (disproportionately black and brown) people who have been put behind bars in America, there's a good chance you use Jpay (previously) to communicate with your family. (more…)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBYQ7cMJhkQ&feature=youtu.beAaron Oppenheim writes, "I made a lil lazy mashup of Legs and Where The Streets Have No Name (just tempo and key matching) because someone on twitter pointed out that they are basically the same song. It works incredibly well." (more…)

SIM Swapping is a powerful form of fraud in which criminals convince the phone company to switch your phone number to a SIM they control; once they have your phone number, they can bypass the SMS-based two-factor authentication protecting your cryptocurrency wallets, social media accounts, and other valuable systems. (more…)

The official story of the Trump administration's family separation policy is that it came about as a result of "zero tolerance" in which every person who could be charged with a crime would be, and that meant that parents were arrested too, and since the parents were going to jail, their kids had to be held somewhere. (more…)

Alok Menghrajani is a master player of the game of Code Golf, in which you challenge yourself to do something useful in as few characters as possible; his latest triumph is fitting a bootable CDROM image including a fun little retro game into a single tweet. (more…)

Amazon has, over the past few years, become known as a notoriously bad company to work for. Workers from their fulfillment centers, worldwide, complain of low wages, dangerous working conditions, and a stressful environment that tracks every single move that their employees make, right down to how long it takes them to go to the bathroom. Thanks to this in-depth report from The Guardian, you can go on ahead add the company’s refusal to care for their employees in the wake of a workplace injury to the list of reasons to never go to work for Jeff Bezos’ crew. The Guardian frames the report by telling the story of Vickie Shannon Allen: a 49 year-old woman who was employed by Amazon at one of their warehouses in the southern United States. Last year, Allen was injured at work, as the station that she manned was missing a piece of equipment designed to keep the packages she was handling from falling to the floor. With Amazon refusing to resolve the issue, Allen positioned a bin to catch any parcels that might fall and be damaged—she made the mistake of giving a shit. By making the change to her work station, she was forced to stand in a manner that was not as ergonomic as it could be. As a result, over time, she ended up with a back injury. The injury made it difficult to move her arm which, in turn, made it difficult to do her job. Her managers began to send her home on a regular basis as she was unable to keep up with the hectic pace they demanded. She ended up on worker’s compensation.From The Guardian:

Joe Parris (@KTVBJoe) lit the internet on fire today with this tweet:

Stonehenge! Where the demons dwell! Where the banshees live, and they do live well. Stonehenge! Where a man's a man, and the children dance to the Pipes of Pan.Science has uncovered more about who built the 'Henge and who is interred there.Via CNN:

Colbert does a wonderful job of tearing apart the latest Trump family distraction. Ivanka is a waste of America's time.

Shopping for new headphones usually turns into a compromise between power, portability, and price, but in the case of TREBLAB's Z2 Wireless Noise-Cancelling Headphones, you can come out ahead with all three.Named an Amazon's Choice Product, the Z2's earned their name because they boast two times the sound, battery life, and convenience of competing headphones. Featuring top-grade, high-performance neodymium-backed 40mm speakers and T-Quietâ„¢ active noise canceling technology, these headphones drown out unwanted sound, all the while maintaining comfort thanks to their ergonomic fit and secure design.What's more, these headphones boast a colossal 35-hour battery life, allowing you to listen to your music for several days at a time without missing a beat.TREBLAB's Z2 Wireless Noise-Cancelling Headphones normally retail for $259.99, but you can get your own pair on sale today for $78.99 in the Boing Boing Store.

NUTCASE is a deceptively simple cast metal puzzle by legendary puzzlemaker Hanayama. If you're not planning to try it yourself, here's how to solve it. (more…)

Armando Frank, 44, refused to get off his tractor when stopped by police. He demanded to see an arrest warrant. But the cops arresting him didn't have time for that sort of legal stuff. So they attacked him, then killed him when he resisted.

People. Pot. Pies.

Returning to the stores in June, Nintendo's NES Classic game console—a miniaturized version of the 1985 original—outsold the PlayStation, XBox One and its own Switch to rule the hardware charts."The NES Classic was June 2018's highest unit-selling hardware platform, while the PlayStation 4 led the market in dollar sales," wrote Mat Piscatella, an analyst with the NPD Group. "This is the first time a Nintendo Entertainment System console has led in monthly unit sales since NPD tracking began in 1995."Granted, it's only $60 (at least when you can find it) with dozens of free games, but that's not bad for a 33-year design. Now, about that credit-card sized Gameboy Classic everyone's dreaming of...NES Classic [Amazon link]

Microsoft's compact Surface Go is a low-end 2-in-1 laptop, but it's getting rave reviews from sites such as Gizmodo and The Verge thanks to excellent design and balance of price—just $400, but see below—and capability.Giz:

In an interview with Democracy Now, Noam Chomsky talks about Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega's bullshit and what responsibility the United States bears for the current state of the South American nation.If you're interested in reading a transcript of Chomsky's comments, you'll find it, here.

After all the noise made over Weezer covering Toto's Africa, it was only a matter of time before Joseph Williams and the rest of the lads decided what's good for the goose is good for the gander: at a concert in Vancouver, Canada earlier this week Toto unleashed their cover of Hash Pipe upon an undeserving world.

The Miniglobelet series by Beauty of Science shows all the wondrous math and physics occuring at the micrscopic level as crystals form, chemicals combine, and new forms take shape. (more…)

If you’re from just about anywhere in the world, with the exception of the United States, beginning this week you'll find that visiting Canada will feel a whole lot more invasive. Moving forward, it will be necessary for all foreign nationals to provide Canadian Immigration officials with their fingerprints and photographs, if they're applying for a visitor's visa, work permit, want to attend a Canadian university, or if they wish to apply for a work permit or status as a permanent resident.From The Daily Hive:

From the apt metaphor department, Romanian illustrator Andrei Lacatusu's series titled "Social Decay" renders 3D images of logos for social media giants as rusting derelict signs. (more…)

This should be interesting. Special counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly asking to interview Russian pop star Emin Agalarov, who says he helped set up the 2016 Trump Tower meeting. (more…)

"Anna Wintour is staying," leads the New York Times, in the journalistic despite of the century: staggering losses, insane mountains of cash blown on everything from failed websites to occupying 23 floors of 1 World Trade Center.

In New York today, a judge rejected a lawsuit brought against Fox News by the parents of Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee staff member who was killed in 2016. (more…)