Wolf Head crotch underwear "make man looks sexy and wild"

Behold! There is an entire range of Wolf Head Crotch Underwear for gentlemen. They "make man looks sexy and wild" and can be yours for as little as five American dollars.

3D wolf pattern print underwear make man looks sexy and wild

• the wide waist design make man comfortable no tight feeling

• U convex design, large space and breathable

• High quality material and great handwork, perfect gift to boyfriend or husband

Here's a pack of three "Sexy Hipster Wolf Animals", available in several different wolves and also in eagle. [Amazon, via Dangerous Minds]

Migingo Island - Population density: 169,500/sq mi

Uganda and Kenya both claim Minigo Island (Area:0.0008 sq mi) in Lake Victoria belongs to them. One hundred thirty one people live on the island, because they like the valuable fish, as well as the "four pubs, a number of brothels, and a pharmacy."

This short documentary is called "Migingo: The Iron clad Island," by Peter Scott.

Also check out photographer Jesco Denzel's photoessay, Migingo: Business on the Rock.

Not too late to host a "Weeny Witch" Halloween party tonight!

For several decades, the company behind the Skinless brand of hot dogs tried very hard to make "Weeny Witch" parties a thing. Unfortunately it didn't catch on, but perhaps the time is finally right. More information over at Weird Universe, including rules for a delightful party game called "Feeding the Weeny Witch."

Unsecured Internet of Things gadgets get hacked within 40 minutes of being connected to the net

The Atlantic's Andrew McGill set up a virtual server on Amazon's cloud that presented to the internet as a crappy, insecure Internet of Things toaster; 41 minutes later, a hacked IoT device connected to it and tried to hack it. Within a day, the "toaster" had been hacked more than 300 times.
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Get Your Hands On Boing Boing's Best-Selling Deals of October

#1. 10-Ft MFi-Certified Lightning Cable: 3-Pack

With this deal, for the price of one Apple Lightning Cable, you get three ($21.99): now you can keep a cable at work, one in the car, and one at home, too. The cables are MFi certified, so they're guaranteed to work perfectly with your Apple devices. And of course, their 10ft length means you won't have to get out of bed or walk across the room to use your phone while it's powering up. Finally-no more having to deal with a dead phone battery, no matter where you are.

#2. Ultra Soft 1800 Series Bamboo Bed Sheets: 4-Piece Set (White)

There are a lot of ways to unwind after a long day, but our personal favorite is settling down to sleep on these ultra-soft, ultra-luxurious bed sheets. Bamboo Bed Sheets ($32.98) are made with a combination of bamboo yarns and microfiber, and come specially treated and pre-shrunk-so not only are they ridiculously comfortable, they're crazy durable, too. One set includes a flat sheet, a fitted sheet, and two pillowcases.

#3. Piper Computer Kit

The Piper Computer Kit ($279) gives you a real engineering blueprint that you can follow to assemble your own self-contained computer-which runs on the Raspberry Pi 2 Project Board. Once you've assembled your computer, you can access PiperUniverse, an educational Minecraft story mode that will deepen your understanding of computer engineering principles. The Piper Computer Kit makes the perfect present for kids and adults alike.

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Woman wins $43 million on a slot machine, receives steak dinner instead of cash jackpot

Katrina Bookman was excited when her slot machine hit the jackpot: $42,949,672.76. Resorts World Casino in New York was happy to take her money while she was putting it into the machine, but weren't as happy about giving her the prize. MACHINE R BORKED, they told her.

(more…)

The Shadow Brokers dump more intel from the NSA's elite Equation Group

In August, anonymous hacker(s) dumped a cache of cyberweapons that appeared to originate with The Equation Group, an elite, NSA-affiliated hacking squad.
(more…)

62-pound pumpkin modded into a 144-decibel subwoofer

YouTuber Mattizzle008 decided to mod a hallowed-out (get it?) pumpkin to measure its acoustics in a car subwoofer rig. He even took it to Xclusive Autosound to get it metered for science. Turns out pumpkins can get some if you need all that bass.

(more…)

An illustrated microhistory of micronations

Sofie Louise Dam and Andy Warner drew up this charming overview of some of the more notable micronations in world history. (more…)

Wells Fargo blackballed employees who refused to commit fraud, forcing them out of the industry forever

Earlier this month, Planet Money aired an interview with a Wells Fargo whistleblower who was fired for trying to alert the bank to the millions of criminal frauds being committed against its customers, and we learned that the whistleblower had been added to a confidential blacklist used by the finance industry, preventing her from ever getting work in the industry again.
(more…)

French town upholds law against UFOs

After a rash of UFO sightings across France in 1954, Lucien Jeune, mayor of the small southeastern village of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, issued the following law:

Article 1. - The overflight, the landing and the takeoff of aircraft known as flying saucers or flying cigars, whatever their nationality is, are prohibited on the territory of the community.

Article 2. - Any aircraft, known as flying saucer or flying cigar, which should land on the territory of the community will be immediately held in custody.

Article 3. - The forest officer and the city policeman are in charge, each one in what relates to him, of the execution of this decree.

Jeune's son Elie says the law was mostly a publicity stunt. Still, 62 years later, current mayor Claude Avri told news outlet France Bleu that he is "not going to touch the ban."

When the first wave arrives, I'll be on the next flight to Châteauneuf-du-Pape where I can watch the invasion while sipping a rich red.

"French Town Upholds 62-Year-Old Ban on UFOs" (Mysterious Universe)

Listen: free recordings of Edgar Allen Poe stories, read by Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone

If you've got a Spotify account, you can tune into the classic Caedmon Poe recordings (also available on 5 CD), featuring classic tales like The Masque of the Read Death; The Pit and the Pendulum; The Black Cat; The Cask of Amontillado; The Imp of the Perverse and The Gold Bug. (via Diane Duane)

Patient's fart in surgery causes fire, severe burns

A patient at Tokyo Medical University Hospital was undergoing laser surgery on her uterus when she farted, apparently starting a fire that badly burnt her.

"When the patient's intestinal gas leaked into the space of the operation (room), it ignited with the irradiation of the laser, and the burning spread, eventually reaching the surgical drape and causing the fire," according to a report from the hospital.

(The Straits Times)

Watch Pee-wee Herman's Halloween appearances on David Letterman (1983 and 1984)

Pee-wee's sage trick-or-treating advice: "Don't eat any apples you can shave with."

(/r/obscuremedia, thanks UPSO!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8dHJrEig5k

Dance to Ministry's "(Everyday Is) Halloween"

Al Jourgensen may prefer to forget that he once cultivated an English accent and created this underground club hit, but on this day, we happily remember Ministry's "(Everyday Is) Halloween" from 1984. Above, a fan video cut up from horror films.

Really not sure about this livestream from Peter Thiel

Peter Thiel's livestreaming a press event: the PayPal billionaire is explaining why he's supporting Trump, how he's going to speak truth to power, why his comments about women aren't "big" issues, and so on. This is just a taster of what's coming in the new year, obviously.

Can't say it was what I expected but still looking forward to what Disney does with Episode VC!

Chicago has about 40% fewer African-American teachers than in 2001

This month's Mother Jones examines a shocking statistic: "According to the Albert Shanker Institute, which is funded in part by the American Federation of Teachers, the number of black educators has declined sharply in some of the largest urban school districts in the nation. In Philadelphia, the number of black teachers declined by 18.5 percent between 2001 and 2012. In Chicago, the black teacher population dropped by nearly 40 percent. And in New Orleans, there was a 62 percent drop in the number of black teachers." (more…)

Sortkwik keeps your fingers from feeling like desiccated leather

I bought this amazing clear pink substance called Sortkwik so I could have more control of playing cards for magic tricks, as I have naturally dry hands. It has a bit more viscosity than Chapstick. It's meant for people who need to leaf through lots sheets of paper and don't like the idea of licking their thumb. You just swipe your fingertips over the stuff, rub your fingers together for a few seconds, and you are ready for action. I now use it all the time because I hate the feeling of dry fingers and it's not greasy or smelly like lotion. A 3-pack is $7.

Memento Mori – Spectacular book of essays and 500 photos of the dead among us

One of my most unforgettable travel experiences was visiting the Sedlec Ossuary in Kutná Hora, near Prague. This small 19-century monastery chapel would be unremarkable, except that it is decorated with thousands of human bones and skulls. There are skull- and femur-decorated columns, hanging garlands of bones, a chandelier made of every bone in the human body, and a replica of the Schwarzenberg family coat of “arms” – that also includes leg, finger, scapula, and coccyx bones! The memory of that space makes any Halloween display seem tame and unimaginative.

If Kutná Hora isn't in your travel plans, check out Memento Mori, a spectacular book of essays and photographs by UCLA PhD and art historian Paul Koudounaris. His 500 color photographs here are arresting, both in subject matter and photographic technique. The handsome hardbound book includes a stunning centerfold of a bejeweled and gold-encrusted mummy. The detail and visual opulence of the photo justifies the giant four-page spread. I enjoyed reading the informative essays about the use of human bones as a form of remembrance in cultures around the world, from Europe to Thailand, Japan to Peru, and from ancient times to the present day. Here's just one fun fact: there are two venerated human skulls (ñatitas) enshrined in the homicide division of the national law enforcement agency in El Alto, Bolivia. These two cranium crime-stoppers have provided “clues to difficult cases and have been credited with helping to solve hundreds of crimes.”

Memento Mori: The Dead Among Us


by Paul Koudounaris


Thames and Hudson


2015, 208 pages, 9 x 13.3 x 1 inches (hardcover)


$39 Buy a copy on Amazon

See sample pages from this book at Wink.

Teasmade: the classic British bedside tea-brewing alarm-clock, now available in the USA

A decade ago, I made note of the fact that the iconic UK Teasmade alarm-clocks (which automatically brew a cup of tea using an improbable, Wallace-and-Grommity/Heath Robinson set of mechanical actions) were to be reissued, and today I come to find that they now exist and can be purchased in a model that runs on US electrical current.
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Technology post-CELTA (2): Filling in the gaps CELTA left

TeachingEnglish.org.uk: one to bookmark, now! Your CELTA course (CELTA: orginally, "Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults") is a short and intense month-long course and inevitably leaves a few gaps in the knowledge that you will require as a language teacher - and as a job seeker (see previous post in … Continue reading

FBI gets warrant to search Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin's email

Hillary Clinton's email woes won't die.

Federal investigators today obtained a fiercely-sought warrant to begin searching a large cache of emails sent to or from Huma Abedin, longtime confidante and senior aide to Hillary Clinton. Federal law enforcement officials told reporters the warrant was in on Sunday, as prosecutors with the Justice Department and agents from the F.B.I. rushed to review as much of the emails as possible before Election Day, which is now only one week away.

(more…)

Soylent recalls another product amid gastrointestinal mayhem

Soylent, makers of meal-replacement drinks, bars, slime and so forth, have recalled another product after consumers reported trouble down below after consumption.

On Thursday evening, food replacement startup Soylent halted sales of its Soylent 1.6 powder amidst reports that it was making customers sick. Two weeks prior, the company paused sales of its latest product, the Food Bar, after Gizmodo reported that several customers had experienced nausea, vomiting, “uncontrollable diarrhea,” and severe dehydration after consuming the bars. Some customers were admitted to the emergency room due to their symptoms.

In a blog post Thursday evening, Soylent revealed that while the company was reviewing what happened with Food Bars, it “noticed that a handful of consumers (less than 0.1%) who consumed Powder 1.6 over the past several months reported stomach-related symptoms that are consistent with what our Bar customers described.”Although the company wouldn't say which ingredient is causing the illness, it has narrowed down its search, “given there are only a few ingredients that are specific to only [its] bars and Powder 1.6.”

Soylent is a case study in engineers thinking they're smarter than everyone else, but aren't.

This $24.99 dashboard video camera is worth every penny

More and more people are using dashcams to record the road as they drive, and insurance companies are beginning to take the footage more seriously, too. At just $24.99, the Dash-Cam Hi-Res Car Video Camera is one of the cheapest options I've seen, and turns out it does everything I want it to do.

It attaches directly to your car's dashboard and records high-quality video (1920x1080p) of your time on the road. For the most part, you won't ever look at this footage. But if you get into a fender bender or even a serious accident, this camera could pay for itself thousands of times over. 

It's built to perform well under stress. Even if you get into an accident or experience a sudden bump in the road, its G-Sensor technology will keep filming the whole way through. It also includes a substantial 8GB microSD card.

The fact is that at just $24.99, this camera is well worth the purchase. It could turn out to be a lifesaver if something unexpected happens on the road, and I always have a little more piece of mind knowing that it's there. Click here to get yours in the Boing Boing Store today.

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George Clinton: "No funk in da' Trump"

George Clinton has spoken. George supports Hillary for President.

Via APP:

But George Clinton of Parliament Funkadelic has built an empire of funk and he has this to say: "No funk in da' Trump."

Clinton, the musical impresario who founded P-Funk in a barbershop in Plainfield, supports Hillary Clinton (no relation!) for president and is strong in his opposition to Trump.

“He couldn't possibly be in there (the White House), beyond no circumstances, I don't care,” Clinton said. “I'm for her and that's just cut and dry. You have to say something about that and he ain't qualified for that, he's just no way.”

FBI says it is investigating more email "pertinent" to Clinton server (Update: Weiner alert)

FBI Director James Comey writes in a letter sent Friday to congress that the bureau is investigating more emails related to Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email server.

In previous congressional testimony, I referred to the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had completed its investigation of former Secretary Clinton's personal email server. Due to recent developments, I am writing to supplement my previous testimony

In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation. I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.

Although the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant, and I cannot predict how long it will take us to complete this additional work, I believe it is important to update your Committees about our efforts in light of my previous testimony.

The letter's vague. Everyone is losing their shit over it, either thinking it's saying more than it is (there's no suggestion that it's her email), or finding its lack of detail suggestive of a partisan effort to spread fear and doubt days before an election.

https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/792062966879444992

The earlier investigation led to Comey announcing that Clinton's use of personal email was inappropriate but not worthy of charges.

UPDATE: Get this: it's apparently got something to do with Anthony Weiner's teen sext stuff.

Federal law enforcement officials said Friday that the new emails uncovered in the closed investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server were discovered after the F.B.I. seized electronic devices belonging to Huma Abedin, a top aide to Mrs. Clinton, and her husband, Anthony Weiner.

The F.B.I. is investigating illicit text messages that Mr. Weiner sent to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina.

The implication is that Huma Abedin's device has email to or from Hillary on it, and therefore vanishingly unlikely to make a difference to anything.

https://twitter.com/kurteichenwald/status/792075393515724800

Here's Newsweek on why Comey might have been forced to turn this into an October surprise.

UPDATE: Looks like a dead dud.

https://twitter.com/jonfavs/status/792080910464065536

The Triumph of the Will Not

I want to thank Boing Boing for allowing me to introduce my music collection titled The Triumph of the Will Not.
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Marvelous 360 degree ring of Pringles

Jane Espenson is not only a talented TV writer who has worked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, and Once Upon A Time, she is also quite adept at constructing impressive Pringles structures.

"I did it!" she tweeted. "I did it! I built a Pringles ringle! No glue, just physics."

Most impressive to me is how Espenson managed to complete the ring before eating them all, as I most certainly would have done.

WATCH: Trump's Hollywood Walk of Fame star destroyed

Dominic Patten reports that Donald Trump's Hollywood Walk of Fame star was destroyed early Wednesday morning by a man dressed as a city construction worker.

(more…)

Haunting an X-rated movie screening... for science!

In 1960, parapsychologist Anthony Donald Cornell donned a bed sheet and attempted to scare an audience watching an X-rated film in a movie theater. Why? Cornell, a believer in ghosts himself, wanted to understand how people reacted during "apparitional experiences." Today at the BBC, University of Oxford experimental psychologist Matthew Tompkins explores Cornell's strange experiments and considers how his methods may have contributed to the study of "inattentional blindness." Indeed, the ghost in the movie theater experiment is not unlike Daniel Simons and Christopher Chablis's classic "Selective Attention Test" from 1999. If you're not aware of that experiment, the video below is a must-see. From the BBC:

For Cornell, the experiment was another failure. None of the audience reported anything remotely paranormal. Many saw nothing unusual at all: 46% of the respondents had failed to notice the Experimental Apparition when Cornell first passed in front of the screen, and 32% remained completely unaware of it. Even the projectionist, whose job was to watch for anything unusual, reported that he had completely failed to notice the apparition. Those that did see 'something' were not particularly accurate in their descriptions....

For me, these failures to see are by far the most exciting part of the experimental series. The pleasure of reading Cornell's original reports, which were published in 1959 and 1960 in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, is that he writes in matter-of-fact academic prose. He dutifully reports numbers and exact quotes from participants, and walks the reader through the details of his experimental designs without a glimmer of apparent irony. To him, the cinema audience and the X-rated film simply represented an elegant solution to a methodological problem....

Even though inattentional blindness is now an established phenomenon with the scientific community, in general, everyday people are not necessarily aware of it. Contemporary surveys have shown that most people firmly believe that they would notice unexpected objects and events, even if they were paying attention to something else.

"The strange tale of an X-rated haunting" (BBC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo

The 13 best Japanese horror movies

Japanese culture website Tofugu has a rundown of the best Japanese horror movies of all time. Number 6 on the list is Hausu, a cartoonishly gory flick from 1977.

https://youtu.be/NN0HVJ5tkIM

This is what makes Hausu great. It's an absolutely childish horror movie. So much so that the characters are one-dimensional (their names even indicate their behavior). But it all plays into the experience. Watching Hausu as an adult means you're forced to think like a child and find scary the things children find scary. This makes for gory fun when the piano starts dismembering people, blood gushing out its sides.

Sometimes Hausu's blend of silliness and gore is perfect. Other times not so much. But despite the film's imperfection, it works because it's authentic. Though people in 2010 praised Hausu for its "wackiness," I think affection for the film comes from its authenticity. Hausu knows exactly what it wants to be and goes for it full force. Combine that with a childlike perspective and you've got a film worth falling in love with.

Fun book about toys of the '50s, '60s and '70s

There are lots of books about baby boomer toys, but this fun collection is presented from the viewpoint of the kids who played with the toys and includes lots of personal memories and photographs. Sure, there are many interesting facts and histories about well-known toys and their creators. Classic toys and games that are still made today like Tonka trucks, Easy-Bake Oven, G.I. Joe, Matchbox and Hot Wheels, Twister and Mousetrap are featured in loving color photographs and vintage ads. Their stories are well-known, too. For example, writer and artist Johnny Gruelle patented his rag doll design in 1915, the same year his daughter Marcella died after a controversial smallpox vaccination. The Rageddy Ann and Andy dolls and books helped Gruelle keep his memories of his daughter alive.

Famous fads include the '50s Davy Crocket Coonskin Hats, the '60s Troll dolls, and the '70s Pet Rock. Toys always reflect the times they're from and this book provides plenty of cultural and historical background. Only after the heady 1960s and '70s with women's liberation, the sexual revolution, and Black Power movement would there be an anatomically correct African American baby boy doll, Mattel's Baby Tender Love, molded in life-like vinyl skin called Dublon.

Other less well-known toys are long gone from the toy store shelves but live on in the very personal memories (and actual childhood photographs!) featured throughout the book. Home health training specialist Lisa Crawford (b 1963) appropriately recalls the insanely dangerous metal-tipped lawn Jarts. I was delighted to find Make editor and fellow WINK contributor Gareth Branwyn's (b 1958) recollection of using his own Johnny Horizon Environmental Test Kit to get an A+ on a school project (and to keep tabs on any hometown polluters!). Learn the mysteries of Ike-A-Doos, create a Cootie, and check out Schwinn's Lil' Chik for-girls-only line of bikes.

I was charmed by these personal toy stories. I was also lucky enough to see this show of toys at Seattle Museum of History and Industry. Even if you weren't able to see this traveling Minnesota Historical Society-curated show, which ended last month, you can explore these memorable toys with the book.

Toys of the '50s, '60s and '70s

by Kate Roberts and Adam Scher

Minnesota Historical Society Press

2014, 208 pages, 8 x 10 x 0.7 inches (softcover)

$23 Buy a copy on Amazon

See sample pages from this book at Wink.

This highly rated and affordable smartwatch also looks kind of like a real watch

I've never really felt the need to purchase a smartwatch because a lot of them aren't very functional, but at just shy of $30, the Martian Notifier Smartwatch was worth checking out. For that low of a price, it actually does feature an impressive amount of functionality, and comes in handy when you don't want to be carrying around your phone.

When checking the watch out, two things really stood out to me. First there's a little tab on the menu that lets you find your phone when you've misplaced it just by tapping a button. It can even ping you when you forget your phone. Second is that you can snap pictures from your phone remotely which is pretty handy if you're shy about asking someone else to take a picture of you.

The Martian Notifier also has four out of five stars on Amazon (out of over 740 total reviews).

So I suggest checking out this watch even if you've never thought yourself the smartwatch type. It's currently 76% off retail, at just $29.99 for the white, red, or black color options.

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Scientists find first of its kind two-headed shark

University of Malaga scientists were studying the cardiovascular systems of Atlantic sawmill catsharks (catshark (Galeus atlanticus) when they found one with two heads. This is the first time that dicephaly (two-headedness) has been seen in an egg-laying shark. From National Geographic:

The causes of dicephaly aren't known, but the researchers-led by Valentín Sans-Coma of the University of Malaga-suspect that genetics are the most likely culprit (rather than some environmental factor, à la Blinky, the three-eyed fish, from The Simpsons)...

"We see two-headed sharks occasionally," says George Burgess, director of the Florida program for shark research at the Florida Museum of Natural History. "It's an anomaly, caused by a genetic misfire. There are lots of different kinds of genetic misfires, and most don't make it out of the womb."

"There's a reason you don't see a lot of sharks with two heads swimming around: they stand out like a sore thumb, so they get eaten," adds Burgess. "They would have trouble swimming and probably digesting food."

The incredible and dying art of Japanese candy sculpture

Shinri Tezuka, 27, sculpts candy into beautiful, creepy, and very sweet creatures like goldfish and octopuses. The centuries-old practice is called amezaiku, but according to Great Big Story, "today there are only two artists left in Tokyo. Tezuka hopes his elaborate goldfish, frog and octopus designs will inspire the next generation of candy crafters to keep the tradition alive."

Philip Roth donating his personal book collection to Newark Public Library

The Newark Public Library is the scene of Philip Roth's novella Goodbye, Columbus. Now, Roth is donating his personal book collection to that same library. From the New York Times:

Mr. Roth's library, some 4,000 volumes, is now stored mostly at his house in northwest Connecticut, where it has more or less taken over the premises. A room at the back of the house has been given over to nonfiction. It has library shelves, library lighting - everything except a librarian, Mr. Roth said recently on the phone from his New York apartment. Fiction starts in the living room, takes up all the walls in a front study, and has also colonized a guest bedroom upstairs. Copies of Mr. Roth's own books and their many translations are stuffed in closets and piled in the attic. The books that were helpful to Mr. Roth in his research for his novel “The Plot Against America” are all grouped together, as are those he consulted for “Operation Shylock...."

The books will be shelved in Newark exactly as they are in Connecticut - not a window into Mr. Roth's mind exactly, but physical evidence of the eclectic writers who helped shape it: Salinger, Bellow, Malamud, Kafka, Bruno Schulz. Many of the volumes are heavily underlined and annotated...

“I'm 83, and I don't have any heirs,” Mr. Roth said, explaining why he decided to give the library away. “If I had children it might be a different story. It's not a huge library, but it's special to me, and I wanted it preserved as it was, if only for historical interest: What was an American writer reading in the second half of the 20th century.”

"A Scene Right Out of Philip Roth: His Books Come Home to Newark's Library" (New York Times)

Clinton's camp feared Joe Biden run, worked hard to kill it

Hillary Clinton's campaign team "scrambled" after coming to believe Joe Biden would oppose her for the Democratic presidential nomination, reports Fox News. Some delicious, if insidery machinations turned up in campaign chief Joe Podesta's hacked email, as published by Wikileaks:

just three days later, the Biden threat appeared vanquished. Ron Klain, a former Biden chief of staff who is now an operative for the Clinton campaign, emailed Podesta with a cryptic note of thanks.

“It's been a little hard for me to play such a role in the Biden demise – and I am definitely dead to them -- but I'm glad to be on Team HRC, and glad that she had a great debate last night,” Klain wrote.

Six days later, on Oct. 21, Biden, with Obama by his side, gave a news conference from the White House declaring he wouldn't run.

Biden would have sailed away from Trump much earlier and faster than Hillary Clinton did. But beyond the easy victory she's likely to win anyway all told, he doesn't have much to recommend him over her, and lacks many of her - yes, I know! - her scruples.

Memes officially bigger than Jesus

According to Google Trends, the search term "memes" is now more popular than the search term "Jesus," a fact noticed by Dominik Vincent Salonen, @Kuwaddo on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/Kuwaddo/status/790912204237332480

Terrific takedown of fake DIY phone charger tutorial

The fakers at ADDYOLOGY posted a scam video purporting to create a homemade wireless smartphone charger that is both dangerous and useless. The always-entertaining ElectroBOOM did this epic takedown and electronics tutorial. (more…)

Trump brand "loses luster" amid campaign

Trump hotels are slashing their rates to try and maintain occupancy, and similar stories are emerging from other corners of the Trump brand-licensing empire held to be the source of The Donald's wealth. The simple answer is that he's just ruining his brand, but it may be truer to say that his political base is becoming his clientele.

The Republican nominee for president is in danger of losing not just the election, but something dear to a man who claims the marketing value of his name alone is worth $3 billion: the many customers, mostly wealthy, who have stayed at his hotels, played a round at his golf courses or held galas at his oceanside resorts.

Experts say the Trump brand is tarnished and at a tricky crossroads as his appeal shifts from the well-heeled, high-income people he has long courted to a more middle-class base, including the fervent fans he cultivated during the campaign.

There is speculation that he could start a Trump media network as a right-wing alternative to major news outlets, drawing money from advertisers to make up for any weakness in his empire elsewhere. But he may have to pivot fast.

"The current trajectory is very harmful to his businesses," said Scott Galloway, a marketing professor at New York University. "Right now his brands cater to the affluent, who are disproportionately turned off by his activities."

Great moments in space history: farting on the moon

YouTuber Barb Ackue (get it?) was kind enough to upload an important moment in US history: Commander John Young complaining about flatulence while Apollo 16 was on the lunar surface. After working through some technical issues, Young says: (more…)

How Lucky Ducky Gets His Loopholes!

FOLLOW @RubenBolling on the Twitters and a Face Book.

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GET Ruben Bolling's new hit book series for kids, The EMU Club Adventures. (”A book for the curious and adventurous!” -Cory Doctorow) Book One here. Book Two here.

More Tom the Dancing Bug comics on Boing Boing!
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Camp Sundown, where kids allergic to sunlight can gather

Liza Mandelup directed this lovely short documentary on a camp for children with xeroderma pigmentosum, or XP, a genetic skin condition which makes those with the trait extremely sensitive to sunlight. Activities happen during the night, allowing these young people to enjoy the outdoors together. (more…)

Hubble releases shimmering image of a youthful globular cluster

Recent revised estimates upping the number of galaxies in the universe seem even more mind-boggling when contemplating this image released from Hubble this week. It shows NGC 362, one of about 150 globular clusters on the outskirts of just one galaxy, our own Milky Way. (more…)

Everfair: a diverse, ambitious steampunk novel of Fabian socialists and American Black Zionists in Belgian Congo

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AT&T developed a "product" for spying on all its customers and made millions selling it to warrantless cops

AT&T's secret "Hemisphere" product is a database of calls and call-records on all its customers, tracking their location, movements, and interactions -- this data was then sold in secret to American police forces for investigating crimes big and small (even Medicare fraud), on the condition that they never reveal the program's existence.
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Pussy Riot's "Straight Outta Vagina": sacrelicious Russian feminist pop anthem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp-KeVBNz0A

Pussy Riot's video for "Straight Outta Vagina" frames the poppy, danceable song with visuals calculated to enrage the Kremlin, with LA's Ace Hotel standing in for church where various genderbent dancers receive communion while singing the praises of vaginas. Given that the last iteration of this theme landed the musicians in a hard labor gulag where they were subjected to routine sexual assaults, it's a pretty big fuck you to the Russian establishment. (via Bruce Sterling)

Leaked Kremlin memos reveal plan to destabilize Ukraine

The Kiberkhunta hacker group has dumped 2,000 messages from Putin aide Vladislav Surkov's email, including two documents related to the Kremlin's plans to consolidate their annexation of Ukraine: "Priority Action Plan to Destabilize the Social-Political Situation in Ukraine," and "Concrete Action Plan on the Promotion of the Federal Status of Zakarpattia Oblast."
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Warner Bros angry that someone other than the MPAA is running an illegal internal movie server

Warner Bros has sued talent agency Innovative Artists for running an internal-use Google Drive folder that let its clients and staff review movies in the course of their duties. They say the company ripped "screeners" (DVDs sent for review purposes) and put them on the server, whence they leaked onto torrent sites.
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TED talk about remixes and appropriating made by remixing and appropriating TED talks about remixing and appropriating

Paul Fuog pieced this together out of 15 TED talks: it's pretty great, except what's with the low-energy narration? It's not very TED-like.

When the FCC asked about unlocking set-top boxes, the Copyright Office ran to the MPAA

It's been more than 20 years since Congress told the FCC that it should do something about the cable and satellite companies' monopolies over set-top boxes (American households spend more than $200/year to rent these cheap, power-hungry, insecure, badly designed, trailing edge, feature-starved boxes), but it wasn't until this year that the FCC announced its Unlock the Box order and asked for comments.
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Greedy cats become altruistic

Welp those two...

Cats squabble over a saucer of milk, until they are both hit by a crisis of conscience.

History of Mechanical Keyboards

Andrew Lekashman offers a brief pictorial a history of mechanical keyboards, from adding machines to dumb terminals to Symbolics monstrosities to modern blank-key hacker totems. There was a lot of ingenious tech left by the wayside on the way to finding the perfect click.

Pictured above is one not included in the roundup, a particularly beautiful Raytheon(!) model that can be bought on eBay for $300, then sent to me.

Lekashman's tastes are grittier:

Ultrasonic I Plus

This keyboard is acoustic and operates entirely by vibration. This makes it more like a musical instrument than a workplace device. This is something that hasn't been replicated in the keyboard market since 1982. The specific principle that allows it to work is called Time Difference Of Arrival (TDOA). This is like a form of echo-location to measure which key hits the acoustic transfer bar. Whenever a switch is pressed, a metal “slapper” strikes the bar, and transducers measure the sound wave produced, which differs based on the distance of the slapper from the transducer. Typing on the keyboard is delightfully clicky and pleasantly tactile.

How a poorly explained mistake continues to threaten the political career of Hillary Clinton

Ken Crossland has a good explainer piece on the Hillary Clinton email issue that conservatives have used to bludgeon her campaign for months.

Hillary Clinton isn't a technophile. She viewed her set-up as a means to an end. Was it working? Great. Did she care how it worked? No. It's likely as simple as that.

...

I'm pretty convinced, viewing the evidence, that Hillary Clinton believes she's in the right with her email server, that it helped her do her job well, and that it kept America safe. What irks the public is that we know that she knows that we know that Clinton doesn't actually care that she used a private server, and the only thing she laments is that it blew up in her face.

Do not complain about bodega cats on Yelp

Keeping a cat in a NYC bodega is technically against the rules, but everybody loves bodega cats. Everybody but a certain Yelp review, who is now getting a lot of flak for complaining about a bodega cat at SK Deli in the East Village.

You gotta be a miserable gentrifying ass bitch to yelp about the bodega cat pic.twitter.com/rinaytDanY

- سنكامي (@SynKami) October 24, 2016

From Brokelyn:

The reviewer has been getting roasted by fellow Yelpers with comments like: “No one likes you. This deli has pretty much anything you might want out of a deli. Owner is a hard ass but the cat is awesome,” which is about the perfect description for most bodegas in New York.

From Gothamist:

Deli and bodega owners face fines of up to $3,000 for having a cat or cats in their establishments, but they also face fines of $300 for the discovery of rodent fecal matter. Lost inventory is another cost, as rats and mice like to chew through containers and eat the food that is left overnight on shelves like a rodent buffet.

Free cybersecurity course from the University of Helsinki and F-Secure

It's free for anyone to take, and Finns can get credit at the Open University of University of Helsinki (yes, that's what it's called).
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Donald Trump accepts Joe Biden fisticuffs challenge

The election's basically over now and everyone's just having "fun". Millionaire presidential candidate Donald Trump has accepted Vice President Joe Biden's challenge to a fistfight.

"I'd love that. I'd love that. Mr. Tough Guy. You know, he's Mr. Tough Guy. You know when he's Mr. Tough Guy? When he's standing behind a microphone by himself," Trump said.

"Some things in life you could really love doing," Trump added.

Trump's response to the vice president came after Biden said last week he wished he could "take him behind the gym" during a stump speech Friday as he slammed

Trump's 2005 comments that resurfaced earlier this month in which Trump bragged about being able to grope and kiss women without their consent, which Biden called "the textbook definition of sexual assault."

Colin Powell endorses Hillary Clinton

Republican Secretary of State Colin Powell says he's going to vote for Democrat Hillary Clinton instead of his own party's candidate, millionaire reality TV star Donald Trump.

“I am voting for Hillary Clinton,” he said, according to Matthew Cohen, a spokesman for the association. Mr. Powell went on to praise Mrs. Clinton for her skills as a leader and her experience.

Paule Pachter, a Long Island Association board member, said that Mr. Powell was blunt.

“He said he would support Hillary Clinton and he also elaborated on several reason why he felt that Donald Trump was not the right candidate,” he said. “He spoke about his inexperience, he spoke about the messages that he's sending out every day to his supporters, which really paints our country in a negative light across the globe with all our allies.”

Powell had recently expressed some annoyance at Mrs. Clinton dragging him into the private email server imbroglio. I wonder if Trump's foolish and clueless remarks about the attack on Mosul was the last straw.