The Latest from Boing Boing

Why you're so busy The Economist's feature on time-poverty is an absolute must-read, explaining the multi-factorial nature of the modern time crunch, which combines the equivalence of time and money (leading to leisure hours that are as crammed as possible in order to maximize their value), the precarity of the American workplace (meaning that affluent workers work longer hours), and the pace of electronically mediated communications (which makes any kind of refractory pause feel like a wasteful and dull eternity). Read the rest... Drew of “Blame Drew's Cancer” needs a bone marrow donor. Could you be the match? Drew Olanoff has been diagnosed with a recurrence of Hodgkin's Lymphoma. The meme is back, too. He needs a bone marrow donor--just one match. Read the rest... 15-20% of Xmas gifts are crap "The Deadweight Loss of Christmas," published in American Economic Review (Joel Waldfogel, UMN) estimates that "on average, the waste attributable to poorly chosen seasonal gifts was between 15 and 20 per cent of the purchase price of the gift" ($10B/year in the US alone!). Read the rest... Eerie Christmas concert on world's loudest acoustic instrument Shane Speal says: Chasing Steam is a documentary about a strange Christmas concert in York PA, performed on a 100 year old factory steam whistle. Read the rest... Pfizer threatens pharmacists, doctors if they take its name in vain Pfizer's patent on pregabalin -- an anti-epilepsy med -- expires this year, but there's another patent on using the public domain drug to treat neuropathic pain; in a shocking letter to UK doctors, the pharma giant warns of dire consequences should medical professionals dare to prescribe the generic for the patented use. Read the rest... Jailbreaking your cat litter: welcome to the Internet of Feudal Things Jorge loves his Catgenie automated cat-litter tray, but doesn't love spending $350/year on "Sanisolution" (perfumed gunk that makes the litter stick to his cats' feet and gets tracked all over his apartment), but he discovered that the manufacturer uses DRM to stop him from filling the empty Sanisolution reservoir with water. Read the rest... Help improve diverse accessibility for PDX's Open Source Bridge conference Sumana writes, "Open Source Bridge is already a leader among tech conferences in diversity-friendliness -- OSB featured a strong code of conduct, accessibility, well-labelled food for all needs, and cheap & free admissions before they became de rigeur, and in 2014 boasted a gender-balanced slate of speakers." "But they need more money to add childcare, travel scholarships, and more. Read the rest... UPDATE: Ivan Brunetti's Nancy comic strips You asked for them, here they are: a sample of Ivan Brunetti's Nancy comic strips. I think they are great! (See Ivan's feature, My failed attempt to draw the Nancy comic strip.) Read the rest... Cancer and cannabis: How I learned to stop worrying and love medical marijuana For cancer patients, the “medical” part of marijuana is no joke. Cannabis is a magic plant. And it helped save my life. Read the rest... Star Wars and Bat-signal crayons Crayontastik melts down "reputable brand crayons" and recasts them in new forms, like this Star Wars set and these Bat-signal crayons. (via Geeky Merch) Read the rest... Fox affiliate fakes "kill a cop" protester chant Baltimore's WBFF -- a Fox affiliate -- edited protests of an anti-police-violence protest to make it sound like the protesters were chanting "kill a cop." By cutting away from the video mid-chant, FOX's segment paints protestors as explicitly calling for the murder of police. Read the rest... Unkept Promise: Anti-alcohol comic book from 1949 Ethan Persoff has a website called Comics with Problems where he posts old comic books about VD, diabetes, segregation, birth control, poison prevention, etc. Read the rest... WATCH: profile of guitar maker Creston Lea Burlington, Vermont luthier, Creston Lea, builds hand-made electric guitars and basses in a classic American style. This film explores Lea's particular design aesthetic and place in the boutique electric instrument world, as well as his long-time collaboration with artist, Sarah Ryan. Read the rest... Manga cartoonist arrested for her whimsical vagina sculptures Rokudenashiko, a 42-year-old cartoonist from Japan was arrested this summer for distributing 3-D printable data of her vagina. Now she's in trouble with the law again, this time for an “obscene”art display of whimsical sculptures at a store in Tokyo. Read the rest... Atlas of Cities – Dissecting the anatomy of cities from around the world The Atlas of Cities does not graph the usual geographic shapes of cities, but tries to diagram the many other dimensions within cities around the world. Read the rest... Hello! Exploring the Superweird world of Hello Kitty An exhibit at the Japanese American National Museum showcases the beloved 40-year-old British girl known as Hello Kitty Read the rest... Scientology Christmas gifts The Scientology Christmas catalog is pretty much what you'd expect, if you're familiar with the cult: enormously expensive (as in, "mortgage your house and embezzle from your employer") sets of books and DVDs/CDs, as well as crude, tarted up skin galvanometers ("e-meters") that are the holy relics of the faith. Read the rest... Schneier on Sony Hack: It's not terrorism or war. We don't know North Korea did it. What we do know, the security researcher says, is that it is an extreme example of corporate hacking. And it won't be the last. Read the rest... This $30 device helps African-Americans not get shot by cops [via] Read the rest... Sony will allow theaters to show 'The Interview' The Seth Rogen/James Franco comedy will be screened in theaters, including, maybe, on Christmas Day as originally planned by Sony Pictures. Read the rest...