The Latest from Boing Boing

RIP Karen Black About 5 years ago, my wife and daughters were riding the train to LA after a weekend in San Clemente. Jane, who was five at the time, was walking up and down the aisle saying hello to the passengers. Read the rest... Nixon's resignation letter 39 years ago today, President Nixon quit. (Via This Isn't Happiness) Read the rest... Dad uses KitKat to trick daughter into eating vegetables [Video Link] Via Laughing Squid Read the rest... Compilation of the best Vines of 2013 [Video Link] Over 60 entertaining Vines in one compilation video. (Via Uproxx) Read the rest... Bikram "Yoga" Choudhury accused of rape, sexual harassment, racism, homophobia, and unsafe practices related to the color green Bikram Choudhury, founder of Bikram Yoga and notorious copyright troll, was recently accused of rape and sexual harassment by former students and employees. Read the rest... Danny Hellman's illustration for Gareth Branwyn's new book Danny Hellman did some terrific illustrations for the print edition of bOING bOING. I just saw this illo he did for Gareth Branwyn's upcoming book, Borg Like Me, which was successfully funded on Kickstarter (he's got some awesome stretch goal premiums! Read the rest... Pennsylvania man beats wife with meat William Neugebauer of western Pennsylvania is charged with hitting his wife with a package of frozen ground beef, then running away like a scared little bitch when the cops were called. Read the rest... More on the NSA's weird, deceptive, indefensible definition of "targeted surveillance" The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Mark Rumold has detailed analysis of yesterday's story about the bizarre, misleading way that the NSA uses the word "targeted" in discussions of "targeted surveillance." It comes down to this: the NSA and its defenders continue to claim that the organization only spies on foreigners when they're off US soil, and not on Americans or people in America (why this should comfort those of us who are neither Americans nor in America is a mystery to me). Read the rest... Assault on Equestria: My Little Pony themed D&D game with a young kid! The debut issue of Gygax magazine (a reborn version of the classic Dragon gaming mag) carried an article I wrote explaining the variant D&D rules my then-four-year-old daughter an I were using. Read the rest... Bankrupted by Beanie Babies [Video Link] Chris Robinson produced a short documentary about his family's "sordid past with beanie babies." The tulipomania-like obsession started when Chris' brother wanted to get a Beanie Baby when he was four, and his father got hooked. Read the rest... Deadpool Dead Presidents: Freakazoid-y superhero reboot with evil zombie presidents Earlier this summer, Marvel published Deadpool, Vol. 1: Dead Presidents, a reboot its long-running character Deadpool, a wise-cracking, horribly disfigured, effectively immortal Canadian mercenary who's been kicking around the periphery of the Marvel universe since the 1990s. Read the rest... Fun backyard fort building kit for kids: Fort Magic My 10-year-old daughter and her friends love playing with the Fort Magic kit. It's a box of PVC pipes and connecters, along with clips to attach sheets or tarps. Read the rest... UK sex-workers hit hard by recession The Economist claims that prostitution in the UK has been hard-hit by the down economy, with men treating sex-for-money as a luxury lacking precedence behind rent, petrol and energy bills. Read the rest... Decrypting EFF's DEFCON crypto-challenge tee For this year's DEFCON conference, the Electronic Frontier Foundation released an encryption-puzzle t-shirt (with glow-in-the-dark clues!) designed by EFF Senior Designer Hugh D'Andrade and Staff Technologist Micah Lee. Read the rest... US businesses stand to lose up to $35B as a result of PRISM How Much Will PRISM Cost the U.S. Cloud Computing Industry? [PDF], a report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation -- a highly regarded DC think-tank -- estimates that the US cloud computing companies will lose $22-$35 billion as a result of customers' nervousness about PRISM and other spying programs. Read the rest... Nathan Myhrvold-connected shell corporation forced to settle with victim Patent troll Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures-connected Lodsys, one the many faceless companies founded to obscure exactly who shakes down small businesses with vague patents that represent equally-vague post-Microsoft careers, was forced to settle with a victim this week—but not without exercising some grotesque conditions on it. Read the rest... Nova Scotia's insane cyber bullying law Jesse Brown writes, "Boing Boing readers may remember Rehteah Parsons, the Nova Scotia teen who, in news media shorthand, was driven to suicide last April by cyber bullies. Read the rest... James Risen asks Justice to drop subpoena in CIA secrets-leaking case New York Times reporter James Risen has asked the Justice Department to drop its subpoena in a case involving Jeffrey Sterling, the former CIA agent charged with leaking national security secrets to Risen for his book, "State of War." The NYT has an item here. Read the rest... Crooks rip off nonprofit rape crisis center, then return the stuff with an apology note The day after burglars ripped off the San Bernardino Sexual Assault Services office, they broke back in again and returned everything they'd stolen, with a note reading "We had no idea what we were takeing. Read the rest... NSA, on US soil, systematically searches Americans' cross-border communications without warrants In the New York Times today, Charlie Savage has another new, important story on the National Security Agency's surveillance programs. Read the rest... Lavabit, email service Snowden reportedly used, abruptly shuts down Remember when word circulated that Edward Snowden was using Lavabit, an email service that purports to provide better privacy and security for users than popular web-based free services like Gmail? Read the rest... DNA evidence reopens 50-year-old missing baby case In 1964, a baby was stolen from a Chicago hospital. The FBI later determined that a baby, found in New Jersey, was the missing boy and gave him back to his parents. Read the rest... Shark-centric "Ask Me Anything" on Reddit tomorrow! David Shiffman, a fantastic scientist and ocean blogger, has spent the past week correcting the errors of Discovery's increasingly misleading Shark Week programming. Read the rest... What's inside the stomach of a mako shark? Psst, hey kid. You wanna see some clips from the dissection of one of the largest mako sharks ever caught? Sure you do. Read the rest... Bill to cut off funding to schools that ban brandishing a pastry in a gun-like manner Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Tex.) has introduced legislation that would cut off funding to schools whose zero tolerance policies lead them to punish children for brandishing pastries in the manner of a gun, for making gun-fingers and saying "bang" (or similar), for pointing pretend guns that are smaller than 2" in length, drawing a picture of a gun, making a gun out of legos or pencils or whatnot, or wearing a t-shirt "that supports Second Amendment rights." As the general subject matter and especially item #6 might suggest, in addition to being concerned about sanity in the schoolroom Rep. Read the rest... Meet the woman who keeps Walter White (scientifically) honest The blue meth made by Walter White is bluer than any meth that could actually exist in real life — and other interesting things that you learn while talking to Breaking Bad's scientific advisor, University of Oklahoma chemistry professor Donna Nelson. Read the rest... A big win for consent, privacy, and genome data The family of Henrietta Lacks — a woman whose cervical cancer cells were harvested and used in scientific research for decades without her knowledge or consent — will now play a role in deciding who has access to the Lacks' cell genome data, and for what purposes. Read the rest... Great debunked scientific theories of yesteryear Sheep do not grow on trees. Your dirty laundry cannot give birth to a mouse. Plowing the soil will not ensure plenty of rain. Read the rest... Omni Reboot Boots Up As promised by Jeremy Frommer, the financier who has assembled the largest private collection of Bob Guccione, Omni, Penthouse, and related stuff (a good portion of which is for sale), Omni Reboot is live. Read the rest... Follow us online:   forward to a friend   unsubscribe from this list