The Latest from Boing Boing

London council threatens freedom of information site for "leaking" info they say doesn't exist A reader writes sez, "Can you leak a decision that has not yet been made? The local council at the London Borough of Enfield seem to think so, and sent a takedown notice to British Freedom of Information website WhatDoTheyKnow.com run by the non-profit mySociety." "The volunteers, staff and trustees who run the site disagreed, so they gave Enfield a week to justify their case, before republishing the request and blogging about it." The notice before action stated that ‘the public availability of this information is or is likely to be highly damaging to Enfield Council’s ability to properly carry out those projects’. Read the rest... Long before Darth Vader, James Earl Jones on Sesame Street In 1969, a young James Earl Jones, considered the first celebrity guest on Sesame Street, was pessimistic about the show, saying that "this Muppet business has got to go, kids will be terrified."Jones had studied acting with Will Lee, better known as Mr. Hooper. James Earl Jones on the Muppet Wiki Read the rest... Magnificent cross-section of an undersea cable. $400/foot Ann Lingard visited the Robin Rigg offshore wind farm in Scottland, and took a photo of a cross section sample of the undersea power cable the wind farm uses. According to Clifford Pickover, the cable costs $400 per foot. Cheap, by audiophile standards! Read the rest... Rudy Rucker and Terry Bisson's "Where the Lost Things Are" It's a hell of an sf story, about the advent of a life-extension drug and the ensuing ghettos of "geezers" who live on the margins of society, marching towards 100 and higher, avoiding armed teen vigilantes -- and the parallel world they discover. Read the rest... Babes in Toyland will play first show in 18 years at Roxy in LA Babes In Toyland, the Minneapolis-born trio Entertainment Weekly dubbed “rock’s first major-label feminists,” have reunited their Fontanelle-era line-up and will play their first live show in 18 years on February 12 at The Roxy Theatre in Los Angeles. Tickets went on sale today. Read the rest... Magic: The Complete Course - How to perform over 100 amazing tricks For the last six months or so my 11-year-old daughter and I have become magic trick fanatics. I’ve purchased quite a few magic books, including several decades-old classic cards trick books that magicians have told me are essential. Read the rest... GOP set up Twitter "numbers stations" to get around Super PAC rules Super PACs are allowed to raise unlimited funds to support election campaigns, but can't coordinate with those campaigns; this especially means that campaigns can't share expensive private poll data with PACs to help fine tune their campaigns -- which is exactly what Republicans did with their cryptic, unlabelled Twitter accounts that acted as dead-drops with messages like "CA-40/43-44/49-44/44-50/36-44/49-10/16/14-52-->49/476-10s" to let affiliated PACs know what the polls had shown. Read the rest... Beautiful brain images take over Times Square Brain City, this beautiful film by Noah Hutton made from neuroimagery collected at leading brain science labs, will screen in New York City just before midnight on Times Square's massive electronic billboards every night this month. Read the rest... Xbox One wireless controller charging station This wireless charging station keeps my Xbox One controllers functional. I hate using disposables in the controllers and swapping batteries is no fun. Read the rest... Calling it already: China's "Chick Chick" is the song of the year By Sinopop star genius Wang Rong. via Laughing Squid. Read the rest... Genomic sequencing finds no single gene basis for extreme longevity Whole genome sequencing has not found any single gene variation responsible for extreme longevity, according to a paper published in PLOS ONE: We have sequenced the genomes of 17 supercentenarians (over 110 years of age) to see if we could uncover the genetic basis for their extreme longevity. Read the rest... Music: "Son Of A Preacher Man," Dusty Springfield Being good isn't always easy. Read the rest... Diarrhea Cruise docks at LA A norovirus outbreak aboard the Crown Princess infected 172 people on the Pacific cruise, including 14 crew members. A spokesperson for Princess Cruises said the ship will receive a stringent "deep cleaning". Read the rest... Tea bags that look like goldfish Make it look like a fish is swimming in your cuppa. From Charm Villa's description of their Goldfish Tea Bags: A tea bag is cut into the shape of an elegant goldfish – the Goldfish Tea Bag. Read the rest... Apple worth more than entire Russian stock market Its capitalisation overtook the combined value of all Russian public companies, writes Srinivasan Sivabalan. Read the rest... Darth Vader Toaster A gadget that burns toast with the image of our Lord Vader was posted here a long time ago—but now it is receiving an upgrade! Read the rest... Diet Racism A soda for people who would never say anything untoward, but can't figure out why there isn't a White History Month. Read the rest... Performance on the soccer field linked to facial structure Read the rest... "Things You Didn't Know About Batman!" with Adam West The only live Batman worth watching, that is, the 1960s TV series, is now out on Blu-ray and DVD, and CineFix interviewed star Adam West who "Reveals Things You Didn't Know About Batman!" Batman The Complete TV Series Limited Edition (Amazon) Read the rest... Glen A. Larson, 1937–2014 The creator of Battlestar Galactica, Knight Rider, Magnum P.I. and Manimal died Friday at 77.Read the rest... Machinima Expo, a virtual film festival, takes place 11/23/2014 Machinima is real-time computer graphics filmmaking. The Machinima Expo, now in its 7th season, will take place on November 23, 2014, from 9am to 4pm PT on its Ustream channel. Read the rest... Slowwwwww Ooooooobleck The always-entertaining and informative Slow Mo Guys dumped some oobleck (aka non-Newtonian fluid) inside a speaker cone and filmed the fantastic results at 1600 frames-per-second. Read the rest... Plush Minecraft blocks The 20cm^3 plush Minecraft TNT block is covered in suede-effect polyester and stuffed with soft foam; for something less explosive, try the Chest or the Log (or get the 10cm set with Grass, TNT, Diamond and Creeper blocks). (via Geeky Merch) Read the rest... Cappuccino in a bell pepper Italian specialty coffee master Ettore Diana introduced a new menu item during a visit to NYC cafe Crave.It: Cappuccino served in a yellow bell pepper. Read the rest... Soup is Monstrous Food Turns out soup is generating a little more controversy than you might expect. Also, carrots. ByDan Lewis Read the rest... What kind of couple buys "His & Hers" stuff? His & Hers Bedding: for the couple who needs to be reminded of their genders, even while they’re asleep. By Matt Maranian. Read the rest... Welcome to Sacred Monkey Forest "It felt like one of those horror-movie moments when a party of teenagers are lost in the woods and stumble upon some cute thing and everyone says, 'Aw, isn't that cute.' Then it turns from cute to evil and kills them." Tom Fassbender takes his kids to a monkey park in Bali. Read the rest... R2D2 measuring cup set (legs become measuring spoons!) The $20 R2D2 measuring cup set decomposes into four measuring cups and his legs turn into four measuring spoons. This set of R2-D2 Measuring Cups disassembles into 4 measuring cups plus 4 measuring spoons and reassembles in a snap (fortunately, it's not as complicated as C-3PO). Read the rest... What "the worst ride in Disney World" teaches us about media strategy Foxxfurr's latest article on Disney theme park history is yet another amazing and insightful read that uses the tenth anniversary of Stitch's Great Escape ("the worst ride in Disney World") as a jumping-off point to show how the history of theme-parks, animation, the elusive 5-12 year old boy market, and the entertainment business all influenced one another. Read the rest... Zombie-killing animal of the week: Ravens Ravens are incredibly intelligent and are natural scavengers," says National Wildlife Federationnaturalist David Mizejewski. "They’d easily rip off chunks of zombie flesh with their heavy beaks until there was nothing left to the undead but bones." Animals eating the zombies is contingent upon the continued existence of animals. Read the rest...