Boing Boing

In 1963, David Bowie (then David Jones), age 16, recorded a demo song “I Never Dreamed” with his band The Konrads. Long thought lost, Konrads drummer David Hadfield found it in the 1990s in an old breadbox. Until now he's kept quiet about the find but has decided to auction it off. It's expected to sell for £10,000. Above is a short clip of the tune. From Omega Auctions:

In 1982, Bruce Springsteen recorded this raw, dark demo of "Born in the USA" during the sessions that would spawn his Nebraska album, my favorite of all his releases. "Born in the USA" is about the impact of the Vietnam War on America and the country's mistreatment of veterans upon their return. Of course the familiar version of the song ultimately released in 1984 has been reinterpreted by many as a patriotic anthem because, y'know, who pays attention to lyrics.(via r/ObscureMedia)

A few days ago, we celebrated the 49th anniversary of the first Moon landing. But while the United States may have been the first to take that giant leap onto the surface and plant a flag, that doesn't mean the moon is a US colony. But the 1967 Outer Space Treaty that prevented a "land grab" on the Moon apparently doesn't address the exploitation of the Moon's resources. Space law professor Frans von der Dunk of the University of Nebraska explains over at Scientific American:

Buying a casket from a funeral home can be damn expensive. The average one costs a little over $2000. And while selling your soul to get one cheaper from Walmart may be tempting, it's not as inexpensive (or as awesome) as making one from a kit sold from Northwoods Casket Company in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. For $599 and some manual labor, you can make their simple pine box model with your own hands.

When I'm flying somewhere for work, I'm often willing to pay for an upgrade to business-class. It's not that I'm am opulent fop who deserves the best--I mean, I live in a motorhome--it's that I can't afford to lose two days of work while I'm on assignment. There;s just not enough space, with the width of my shoulders and my need to work on a laptop, to be productive when I'm seated in coach. If someone puts down their tray table? Game over: I'm stuck listening to music and fretting over the work I should be doing for the duration of my flight. Admittedly, on international flights, having the lay-flat bed that comes with a business class ticket is amazing. Arriving well rested and ready to rock is the best. But I don't think I can get behind all the fancy that comes with a business class seat on Qatar Airways. I'd just be too frigging comfy to be productive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=56&v=eHk12oJGCtkThat you can turn two of these business class suites together to make a double bed or combine four into a meeting room is absolutely insane. Honestly, I can't think of any business, with the exception of giving people the business, where I could afford or justify this level of luxury.

For years, rogue archivist Carl Malamud (previously) has battled for the right to publish the law online in freely readable and shareable formats, through his activist group Public Resource. (more…)

As skate culture has become woven into the fabric of society, exhibitions like Against the Grain: Skate Culture and the Camera (coming to America next year) strive to contextualize its impact on aesthetics. (more…)

Matt Berry, of Darkspace and IT Crowd fame, has produced a covers album of 70s- and 80s-era British TV themes. His rendition of "Are You Being Served?" signals delights to come on October 5.https://soundcloud.com/acidjazzrecs/matt-berry-are-you-being-served-1/s-d82UB"Self-consciously naff, but this actually results in it being kind of cool", says Robin Murray from Clash Magazine. Ffff! Here's nothing naff about it!https://twitter.com/DrMatthewSweet/status/1021393159560089601

https://youtu.be/4k4pMTsa1Kw?t=195Just when the pundits were insisting Sacha Baron Cohen was already outstaying his welcome. From The Palm Beach Post...

Air travel sucks. It’s always cramped. One person, per plane, is paid to bring a tuna and onion sandwich on board so that its odor can be pushed through the air re-circulation system (FAA Regulations, yo), and there’s never enough booze in those wee bottles to make a proper drink from. But hey, at least you don’t have to worry about bed bugs!Oh.From Fox 5 NY:

Booze, the final frontier. This is the marketing death of a childhood memory you prize.Yeah, there's Star Trek-themed vodka to be had. According to io9, CBS and the Silver Screen Bottling Company, have plopped out a Star Trek: The Next Generation-themed line of hooch to help you drink away the fact that the future, despite what Star Trek might have had to say about it, is twelve kinds of terrible. From io9:

Within the space of a week, two women were impaled by giant umbrellas while enjoying a trip to the beach. Both will make full recoveries. British tourist Margaret Reynolds, 67, was hospitalized after an umbrella "went entirely through her ankle" on a New Jersey beach.Here's eyewitness insert4coins, who posted the chilling photo of the scene above:"Bruuuuh holy shit! This lady had an umbrella go through her leg 5 feet away from me! There was a strong gust of wind, there were a couple umbrellas flying. One of the corners of a random one went THROUGH HER FUCKING LEG! That could have been me!"Then, on Sunday, a woman in Maryland's Ocean City was speared through the chest.

Using old toothbrushes, nutrition facts, electronics, vintage beer pull tabs, light bulbs and other junk, pop artist Jason Mecier has created a portrait of Pee-wee Herman. According to Pee-wee himself, some of the materials Mecier used were inspired by the pop culture icon's first film, Pee-wee's Big Adventure. The toothbrushes? Those were prompted by the "mad dog" scene at the beginning of the movie. Remember when Pee-wee poured the Mr. T cereal? That's where the nutrition facts come into play in this piece. He then used the electronics and light bulbs to match the grey in Pee-wee's a-little-too-small suit and to make that bowtie pop, he added red glitter.This is a brand new piece by Mecier. He created it to include in his new book Pop Trash. It will be shown for the first time at La Luz de Jesus Gallery, beginning at the book's launch party on August 3.(Pee-wee Herman)

Mercy For Animals is a group that advocates a plant-based diet, and they have put together a comparison of resources needed to support a plant-based diet vs. an omnivore diet. (more…)

A few years ago, I photoshopped Best Buy, as the last-man-standing on the brick and mortar battlefront of consumer electronics, as "Amazon Showroom." But of late I find myself walking out with the thing I was looking at, having found it meeting my needs and competitively priced. It turns out the company is thriving, writes Bloomberg's Susan Berfield and Matthew Boyle, despite everyone predicting its death.

Some things in life are obvious. The Pope's catholic, the sky's is blue, cryptocurrencies hawked by celebrities were bad investments, if not outright swizzes.

This behind-the-scenes Australian news documentary looks at how those 12 boys and their soccer coach were rescued by divers from that remote cave in Thailand earlier this month. What's interesting is the story is told by the divers who were there.(reddit)

The news cycle isn’t kind to stories that take a long time to be told. Sure, no one ever stops talking about Trump and his uncle Vlad, but despite it all being a part of one two-year long shit show, there’s always something new and horrific to draw the eye. Not so with stories like the ones that are still playing on on the United States’ southern border, daily. Families are still being kept apart, kids barely able to talk are being asked to defend themselves in court, and individuals seeking asylum from the dangers of their homes are being turned away by customs agents or railroaded into custody with less than legal practices.While much of the media has turned its focus to alleged Russian spies sleeping their way into influential positions, The Texas Tribune just keeps on keeping on: their reportage on the tragedies being played out on the U.S./Mexican border is has been absolutely outstanding. But, they’re a non-profit. In order to continue to do the sort of quality journalism that they’ve been churning out of late, they could use a hand.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k_H1KfEMyoRight now, the Texas Tribune is raising funds to open a newsroom in the Rio Grande Valley: an area of the state that, as it’s name suggests, lays along the Mexican border by the Rio Grande River. It’s where you’ll find McAllen and Brownesville – two of the cities where DHS has been splitting up families and stashing kids away in privately operated prisons. It’s ground zero for the Trump administration’s bigoted bullshit.The Tribune accepts one-time donations, monthly installments or a chunk of change given on an annual basis. If you care about what’s being done to reunite families separated at the border and want to ensure that their stories are told, truthfully and in their entirety, you’ll want to follow this link and pony up whatever dough you can afford to part with.Image via Flickr, courtesy of U.S. Customs and Border Protection

"There are a trillion species on this planet. Only nine are used for all sports." Clean comedy and crowd work are both deceptively difficult, but Kellen Erskine manages both in this amusing bit about high school animal mascots. (more…)

Since 2013, the Syria Civil Defense, better known to the world as the White Helmets, have been putting themselves at risk in one of the most dangerous regions in the world. During the Syrian Civil War and throughout the campaign against ISIL in the war-torn country, the White Helmets could always be found working to save whoever they could in the wake of aerial bombardments, artillery barrages and secondary explosions. Their rescues, often made during pitched battles, were completed under great personal risk.Of late, however, the White Helmets have been facing a new threat: The Syrian government. The Syrian government has taken back control of the majority of the areas that the White Helmets operated in – areas once held by anti-government factions. While the White Helmets recused anyone who needed their help, the government sees them as being associated with the rebels. That’s bad news for for the volunteers – bad enough that the United Nations and a number of member states worked together to get them and their families the hell out of the country.From The BBC:

During yesterday's game at Wrigley Field, one of the coaches tossed a ball to a young boy sitting in the front row. But when it slipped through his hands and rolled under his seat, a fully grown gentleman sitting behind him snatched it up and handed it to a woman he was sitting with.

What would happen if a Play-Doh Fun Factory could exert thousands of pounds of pressure? Watch and learn. (more…)

I saw a plain-looking white vending machine inside Obuko Station in Shinjuku. It was selling a variety of small works of art, including a series of white animals vomiting colorful streams of food. They were 200 yen each (about $2). How could I resist? I don't know who the artist is, or anything else about them other than the fact that they are awesome. I need one more to complete the set - a tiger. But they are "blind boxed" which means I don't know what I'm getting until I open the box.

The 1961 Ferrari 250GT California. Less than 100 were made. In Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Cameron's father spent three years restoring this car. It is his love. It is his passion... It is actually a Modena GT Spyder, and it's currently being put up for auction in California:From Mecum Auctions:

Eyes on Cinema posted a newly discovered 1980 interview with Stanley Kubrick in which he explains the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey.Here's what he told journalist Junichi Yaoi:

Twitter appears to have made a cautious, nearly inconsequential step towards deprecating search results for alt-right conspiracy theorists. From Gizmodo:

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are warning people about Del Monte Fresh Produce Vegetable Trays, which are responsible for a multistate outbreak of Cyclospora cayetanensis, a "single-celled parasite that causes an intestinal infection."From the FDA:Most people infected with Cyclospora develop diarrhea, with frequent, sometimes explosive, bowel movements. Other common symptoms include loss of appetite, weight loss, stomach cramps/pain, bloating, increased gas, nausea, and fatigue. Vomiting, body aches, headache, fever, and other flu-like symptoms may be noted. Some people who are infected with Cyclospora do not have any symptoms. If not treated, the illness may last from a few days to a month or longer. Symptoms may seem to go away and then return one or more times (relapse).Washing the vegetables is not enough to prevent getting sick from the parasite.

“TRUTH about his 25-year marriage!” screams the magazine notorious for tearing apart the private lives of public figures with innuendo, speculation and fabrication.Is the ‘Globe’ poised to reveal the sordid truth behind the Fox News pundit's secret dealings as Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s “third client”?Are they lifting the lid on last year's allegation that he sexually harassed a Fox News guest, never having her on his show again after she refused to go back to his hotel room?Will they expose the hypocrisy of the man who secretly used a group of shell companies to buy more than 870 homes across America with the help of HUD funds, while on air attacking President Obama for supporting those funds?Dream on.There’s no mention of Cohen or the sex harassment allegation in the “Special Report” from the tabloid which serves as an unofficial mouthpiece for President Trump, and until recently used Michael Cohen as its conduit between Trump and its pages.The “truth” about Hannity’s marriage? He’s “a family man, who’d rather spend his off-hours with wife Jill Rhodes and their kids . . . "Truly shocking.Not that the ‘Globe’ is afraid to take on the scandal of Hannity’s real estate dealings.“Sean is proud of the fact that he has put his money in areas that badly need investment,” says an unnamed source.If that isn’t holding the rich and powerful accountable, I don’t know what is.The ‘Globe’ sheds its investigative mantle so thoroughly that its cover brazenly hails Hannity as the “Most Powerful Man in America!” explaining in the story that “He has Trump’s ear in a way that few others do.”It’s true, the president and the pundit are known to chat regularly, a level of influence that might rightly spark concern and investigative journalism, rather than this sycophantic whitewash seemingly designed to curry favor with both its subject and the White House.The ‘Globe’ even helpfully explains Fox News’ poster boy’s success: “Hannity hit it big by bashing lamebrained liberal losers."Well, that certainly seems fair and balanced.As is the ‘National Enquirer’ cover which carries a warning from a relative of the newest member of the British Royal Family: “Meghan Will Be Murdered Like Diana!” As so often happens, once we open the rag, the story inside takes a less alarming, and more pleading tone: “Markle Family Warns Queen: Don’t Kill Meghan Like Diana!”The story plunges down several tabloid rabbit holes at once, beginning with the assumption that Princess Diana was murdered by the British Royal Family because of her relationship with Muslim millionaire Dodi Fayed, and then assuming that Meghan’s half-brother, Thomas Markle Jr., has written a letter to Her Majesty the Queen saying it would be “sad to see Meg’s dreams broken if she were to fail in her new position and disappear from the Royal family.”Not exactly a plea to the Queen not to kill his half-sister, but then Mr. Markle Jr. helpfully explains to the ‘Enquirer,' in language that bears the heavy thumbprint of a tabloid editor, “We fear this can only end in heartbreak and disaster - just like Diana!”It’s a story concocted from thin air, and it seems highly likely that money may have exchanged hands for the ‘Enquirer’ to receive a copy of the hand-written letter to the Queen. Did Her Majesty send them the letter? Of course not. It was most likely written for the benefit of the ‘Enquirer,’ and perhaps mailed to Buckingham Palace as an after-thought.Scientology comes in for a double-dose of attack from this week’s ‘Enquirer,’ and though the cult makes for a large and easy target, the tabloid stretches the limits of credulity from force of habit.In its story about church follower Tom Cruise, under the headline "Cult Plans to Bring Tom Back From Dead,” the ‘Enquirer claims that his entourage includes a “Scientology shaman who can zap him back to life with the touch of a finger in case he croaks!”That’s the claim of “church sources and a well-placed mole.” Right.The ‘Enquirer’ fares little better with its two-page spread on “Scientology’s Secret Attack on U.S. Government!” The story claims that the cult infiltrated government agencies and amassed an arsenal of weapons to raid government offices.This “Exclusive FBI Bombshell” under the banner of “News” might be more impressive if it wasn’t lifted from FBI files exposed 41 years ago, reporting on seizures back in 1977. Isn’t news supposed to be, well . . . new?The ‘National Examiner’ revisits its favorite well-worn trope with a cover story about celebrities’ “Sad Last Days!” This week’s lucky winners are Tom Selleck, Joan Collins, Julie Andrews, Sidney Poitier and Carol Channing, all of whom seem to have committed the offense of living long lives, and therefore must be within moments of kicking the bucket. Without shame, the ‘Examiner’ includes in the list 101-year-old Kirk Douglas, which is like shooting fish in a barrel, even though he has topped these lists for the past 25 years, and shows no sign of stopping.Fortunately we have the crack investigative team at ‘Us’ magazine to tell us that Rachel Bilson wore it best, that actress Sanaa Lathan puts Raisinets in her popcorn, that Katie Stevens carries Advil, Zyrtec and a St Anthony pendant in her Status Anxiety backpack, and that the stars are just like us: they eat, drink, carry packages and dress casually for flights. Without this valuable weekly pictorial, how would we ever know?Onwards and downwards . . .

The only thing worse than a horrific tragedy is a horrific tragedy from which nothing decent is salvaged. Florida's youth voter registration is up 41% since the Parkland shooting and the ensuing Republican Party indifference to mass-murder and open contempt for young gun-control advocates. Florida is the nation's largest swing state. 2018 is an election year. (via Naked Capitalism)

The Aurora Award Bundle 4 includes ten books that were finalists for, or won, Canada's Aurora Award for excellence in science fiction and fantasy, including the outstanding Napier's Bones and Sean Stewart's monumental Resurrection Man. (Thanks, Derryl!)

Last week, I linked to a critique of Google's new "confidential mode" for Gmail and Google Docs, which purports to allow you to send people documents without letting them print, copy or forward them. (more…)

Yeochang Yun makes lots of remarkable handmade leather items, but this colorful steampunk piece with cogs and locks is especially impressive. Below are a few other examples: (more…)

I'm writing this on a 2015 MacBook Pro. It's an i5 with 8GB of RAM. It's adequate for most of what I do, but, as I've mentioned in the past, it's been kind of a lemon since I picked it up. It's out of Apple Care now, and that's a concern. I am not made of money. Sooner or later, I'll wind up buying a new laptop. For the past year, I've been considering moving entirely over to Windows as Apple's been doing some weird stuff: keyboards that break down if you get dust in them, processors that are antiques even when the Macs they're in are brand new. Oh, and dongles, so many dongles. When I saw that they were doing something about the keyboards baked into their MacBooks and have begun to spring hardware with the latest chip sets in them, I was hopeful: I've used Macs for close to two decades. I have so much cash sunk into software, I don't want to switch platforms if I can help it. Then I saw that the high end iterations of this year's MacBooks are being throttled--slowed down--because they can't handle the heat generated by their gloriously speedy internals.Sigh.From Apple Insider:

When it gets too hot outside, make like Mako the Husky dog and climb into the ice machine to cool down. Chill out, the machine's owners now use ice from the fridge instead: A few weeks after the original video was shot, Mako's human companions caught this footage of him getting into the ice machine: https://youtu.be/48UbhvYQvtYThanks, Steve!

This $10 dongle is letting me charge my iPhone while also listening to music on wired headphones.I have been carrying wired headphones ever since I got a Nintendo Switch to play Fortnite on while I travel. The Switch hates bluetooth headphones and I'd rather not carry two pairs.This dongle works great and sounds just fine. It costs a lot more at the airport, so order one on Amazon.Lighting Headphone Jack Adapter Dongle for iPhone 7/7Plus 8/8Plus X 10 Aux Audio to 3.5mm Lightning Splitter Adaptor Charge+Earphone+Volume Converter via Amazon

Both Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, and their Bogus Journey are well worth rewatching. I'm looking forward to the next installment. (more…)

A new report from the Institute For the Future on "state-sponsored trolling" documents the rise and rise of government-backed troll armies who terrorize journalists and opposition figures with seemingly endless waves of individuals who bombard their targets with vile vitriol, from racial slurs to rape threats. (more…)

Once upon a time, online services differentiated themselves from competitors by promising not to lock their users in (memorably, Flickr offered an API that would let you export all your photos, your social graph and the comments and other metadata to any other service that had a similar API), but as slumbering antitrust regulators allowed wave after wave of mergers and acquisitions, so tech become Big Tech, walled gardens made a roaring comeback, with services quietly shelving the ability to move between them. (more…)

As Facebook users drift away from the platform, the company is becoming increasingly desperate to lure them back, doubling down on its obnoxious tactic of spamming users whose activity has fallen off with notifications intended to pique their interest in using the service again. (more…)

We're all becoming redundant. I'll be replaced by an algorithm that mimics an embittered hobo that moonlights as a journalist, one day. Your gig? They're trying to sort out ways to have a robot do that, too. It's happened to thatchers, coopers and fletchers. It's the way of things. But that doesn't mean you have to go quietly.

Attacks by paramilitary forces against civilians continue in Nicaragua, for the third consecutive month. Dictator Daniel Ortega blames a “murderous, coup-mongering satanic sect” for the months-long popular uprising against his government. (more…)

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The latest edition of the Civil Service Quarterly from Her Majesty's Government accidentally included a satirical poster from Scarfolk, the nightmarish alternate reality of a perpetually renewed decade of Thatcher/Cthulhu crossovers. (more…)

Feed 19 repetitions of the word "dog" to Google Translate and ask it for a Maori conversion and you get this: "Doomsday Clock is three minutes at twelve. We are experiencing characters and a dramatic developments in the world, which indicate that we are increasingly approaching the end times and Jesus' return." (more…)

A spokeswoman for UK Prime Minister Theresa May has gone to the House of Lords to defend the government's practice of recruiting "child spies," some of them under the age of 15, to gather intelligence "against terrorists, gangs and drug dealers." (more…)

Google has rolled out a "Confidential Mode" for Gmail and Google Docs attachments, promising users that they'll be able to send emails to their contacts that can't be shared, printed or copied. (more…)

Singhealth, a Singaporean public health service, suffered the worst breach in Singaporean history, losing control of 1.5 million peoples' data; included in the breach was prescription data on 160,000 people, including Singapore's prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong. (more…)

Online services increasingly rely on SMS messages for two-factor authentication, which means on the one hand that it's really hard to rip you off without first somehow stealing your phone number, but on the other hand, once someone diverts your SMS messages, they can plunder everything (more…)

The viral hoax video purporting to show child-snatchers kidnapping Indian children continues to fuel lynchmobs, whose death toll has climbed to more than two dozen victims. (more…)

Longtime Donald Trump fixer-lawyer Michael Cohen “secretly recorded a conversation” with Mr. Trump 2 months before the presidential election in which Trump and Cohen “discussed payments” to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claims she had an affair with Trump-- according to lawyers and others familiar with the recording who spoke to the New York Times.(more…)