The Latest from Boing Boing

Are you a grand jury target? 99.993% chance you'll be indicted. Oh, you're a cop? Nevermind, it's zero. “If Eric Garner’s killer can’t be indicted, what cop possibly could?” Read the rest... Video: Sagan-narrated beautiful short about space travel Erik Wernquist created Wanderers, a lovely short film about the future of space travel with narration by Carl Sagan from his "Pale Blue Dot" recording. Read the rest... Holograms you can touch, via sound waves University of Bristol researchers used sound waves to create a hologram you can "touch." High-frequency sound waves from a speaker array hit your hand to give the illusion of the virtual object's physicality. Read the rest... Uber closes $1.2 billion in funding, despite executives behaving like jerks The ride-on-demand service firm will use the financing “to make substantial investments, particularly in the Asia Pacific region.” Read the rest... The last words of Eric Garner Killed for allegedly selling loose cigarettes. [via] Read the rest... Magnificent Mosque photos At Vantage, Iranian photographer Mohammad Rezi's mesmerizing Mosque photography. Gazing at these photos feels like looking into a kaleidoscope. Read the rest... Described as the "scream of a thousand corpses" -- the Aztec death whistle The Aztec death whistle produces a sound so horrifying, it will chill you to the bone. Described as the "scream of a thousand corpses," the death whistle sounds like the cry of the un-dead, or the torment of a human being burned alive. [via] Read the rest... Fidget ring that's also a city-specific sundial Glashütte's Nomos rings are clever little fidget-rings that act as sundials: you adjust the little sliding rings to the correct date, turn it to the sun, and the shadow cast by the little ring tells you the time. Read the rest... Half-million year old decorative etching on clamshell made by a Homo erectus New Scientist reports on the discovery of the oldest know work of art: a pattern of lines scratched on a freshwater clamshell 300,000 years before humans evolved. Read the rest... Car thief employs getaway skateboard "Experienced skateboarders we talked to gave him low marks." [via] Read the rest... Should science filmmakers tell the truth? These days, television networks air completely fictitious productions as non-fiction documentaries on subjects such as the extinct Megalodon shark or mermaids. Read the rest... Blue Sea Systems 6 bladed fuse box for vehicles I avoided solving the electrical mysteries left by the previous owner of my Volkswagen bus for years. This handy Blue Sea Systems 6 bladed fuse box came along and helped me organize, if not solve, my problems. Read the rest... Fred Armisen cameos in Kate Pierson video SNL alum and Portlandia star Fred Armisen cameos in B-52s founding member Kate Pierson's video for Mister Sister from her upcoming solo album Guitars and Microphones. Read the rest... Time lapse painting with Butch McLogic Artist Butch McLogic digitally paints a piece called "John of Venus." I'm blown away at the subtle shading and the detail. Read the rest... SF Bay: Oakland Jingletown Art Walk, Dec. 6th and 7th This weekend I'll be holiday shopping at Oakland's Jingletown Arts and business communities Art Walk! From photography to food trucks, they'll have it all. Read the rest... Free shipping for 3D printed Makie dolls Makies, the award-winning 3D printed custom dolls featured in our gift guide, have just announced free shipping on UK orders, and on overseas orders of more than $115! Read the rest... Royalty, espionage, and erotica: secrets of the world's tiniest photographs Ben Marks of Collectors Weekly says: "Hunter Oatman-Stanford has just held a magnifying glass up to Stanhope lenses, which were popular from the second half of the 19th century through the first half of the 20th, and were used to help people see the head-of-a-pin-sized microphotographs secreted inside everything from letter openers to thimbles to pocket knives. Read the rest... The 10 best adventure novels from 1965 Joshua Glenn shows why 1965 was a very good year for science fiction, comic books, and spy novels. Read the rest... Why journalists should be free speech partisans Following on the New York Times's decision to continue its critical coverage of China, despite the Chinese government's retaliation against it, Dan Gillmor calls on journalists and news organizations to abandon the pretense of "neutrality" and take a partisan stand for free speech in questions of censorship, surveillance, net neutrality, copyright takedown, and other core issues of speech in the 21st century. Read the rest... Obama Calls For Turret-Mounted Video Cameras On All Police Tanks As always, the Onion's headline nails it. Read the rest... Fantastically detailed Boeing 777 model made from manila folders Luca Iaconi-Stewart is building a "1:60 model of an Air India Boeing 777-300ER made entirely from manila file folders," with an unbelievable level of detail (it even has working mechanisms!) Though Iaconi-Stewart has photo-documented the project in great depth and provided many notes on his progress, I can't find any explanation about the fundamental questions raised by this (amazing!) project: why manila folders? Read the rest... Proposal to fight Twitter abuse with volunteer juries Now that Twitter has admitted it has a troll problem, it has to figure out how to scale up its human review of abuse complaints. Read the rest... Honest store displays Read the rest... Letter to the Editor A commenter—awarded a temporary suspension after writing that unarmed black teen Michael Brown was to blame for his own killing because he was a violent "THIEF"—writes in. Read the rest... Go, Orion! NASA set to launch spacecraft on first step toward manned flights to Mars [Update: Delayed!] Final preparations are under way for NASA's Dec. 4 launch of the Orion spacecraft. Not since the final Space Shuttle mission in 2011 has there been so much excitement around American space flight. Sawyer Rosenstein reports from Cape Canaveral. Read the rest... Fight for the Future gives the FCC a holiday break, asks you to write Congress about Net Neutrality instead Evan from Fight for the Future writes, "In the last two months, net neutrality supporters (like you?) have helped us drive more than 55,000 phone calls to desks at the FCC demanding real Title II net neutrality." That's a lot. Read the rest... Incredible embroidered portraits Cayce Zavaglia hand-embroiders astonishingly hyperrealistic portraits from cotton and silk thread and crewel embroidery wool. "Over the years, I have developed a sewing technique that allows me to blend colors and establish tonalities that resemble the techniques used in classical oil painting," she says. Read the rest... Goodbye Cat Fancy, hello Catster! Dog Fancy and Cat Fancy magazines, publications that are nearly 50 years old, are shutting down, to be replaced by print versions of the Web sites Dogster and Catster. Read the rest... NYC x Ferguson: ambient short film documenting #BlackLivesMatter protests in NYC “An ambient portrait of the protests that took the streets and bridges of NYC, leaderless, sounding like improvised music.” Read the rest... Europe's largest nuclear power plant shut down after “technical fault” Ukraine's energy minister says a "technical fault" in Europe's largest nuclear power plant has forced reduced production of energy, but poses no threat to public safety. Read the rest...