The Latest from Boing Boing

Corporate sovereignty: already costing the EU billions "Corporate sovereignty" -- in which foreign companies get to sue the government to penalize it for passing environmental and labor laws that undercut profits -- is the one of the most controversial elements of the TAFTA/TTIP trade agreement the EU is negotiating with the US. Read the rest... Sugar Skull - nightmare continues in Charles Burns’ grotesquely fantastic trilogy In May I reviewed Charles Burns’ surreal and darkly realistic graphic novels, X’ed Out (2010) and The Hive (2012), and now the eerie trilogy is complete with the release of Sugar Skull. Read the rest... The psychedelic paintings of Hannah Faith Yata “The pictures forming in my head are ones of domination over nature, the struggle of animals in a changing world,” the artist explains. Read the rest... John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" 50th anniversary Today marks the 50th anniversary of John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, a masterpiece of hard bop, free jazz, and soulful spirituality. Read the rest... Das Keyboard, a chunky, clicky, satisfying keyboard The Das Keyboard 4 Professional Clicky marks the continuing evolution of the Austin company's tribute to the IBM Model M keyboards -- the indestructible, springy, clicky keyboard that was prized and hoarded by professionals for years after it was discontinued. Read the rest... Summary of Torture Report released: Surprise! CIA tortured people and torture doesn't work A summary of the long-awaited report into CIA torture has been released. CNN: "In its most graphic details, an executive summary of the report finds that conditions for detainees at top secret interrogation sites were much harsher than the CIA has previously admitted. Read the rest... Mystery of Bulgaria's green cat finally explained The cat is obviously of Orion origin, but delusional conspiracy theorists claim it is green because it sleeps on "on the top of an abandoned pile of synthetic green paint in a garage." [via] Read the rest... Cooter the chubby pet raccoon, just rolling around the house The remix GIF is better than the original video, honestly. Read the rest... Mr. Dalek Potato Head In the category of must have immediately: Mr. Dalek Potato Head. Read the rest... Those UFO houses In the late 1960s, UFO homes like Finnish architect Matti Suuronen's Futuro Houses were the ultimate in space age cool. Then the 1970s oil shortage happened and the cost of plastic took off, making the Futuro Houses even less practical than they already were. Read the rest... Music: "L'Estro Armonico, Op. 3, Concerto No. 9 in D maj. for violin and strings, RV 230," Antonio Vivaldi (1711) Helps me chill out. Read the rest... Watch: Steve Wozniak on the early days of Apple, and the Apple IIe computer “I built this whole board myself because I wanted the chips in the ultimate, perfect position.” Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple with Steve Jobs and designed the Apple I with him, remembers the early days in this Bloomberg video short. Read the rest... Predictable: bare-rotored flying misletoe-copter at TGIF slices up bystander's face A newspaper photographer reporting on a TGI Friday's flying "Mobile Mistletoe" drone had her face sliced open by the 23" drone's six bare rotors, and Friday's blamed her for the injury, saying she flinched when the restaurant's drone pilot landed a smaller copter on her outstretched hand. Read the rest... Mod TV commercial for Kodak Instamatic (1966) From 1966, this far out mod commercial for the Kodak Instamatic camera with Flash Cubes! Read the rest... Dog knows how to deal with police Bruno took out several police vehicles. Good boy, Bruno! [TV3 via Reddit.] Read the rest... Video: Tribute to space in cinema Max Shishkin's montage of cinematic depictions of outer space, from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) to Interstallar (2014). Here's the full list: «2001: A Space Odyssey» (1968, dir. Read the rest... The First Major Rap Music Tour: A Prelude Building toward the NYC Swatch Watch Fresh Festival in this week's Hip Hop Family Tree strip by Ed Piskor Read the rest... Rocket car may hit 1000 MPH Bloodhound SSC aims to set the world Land Speed Record at 1,609 kph (1,000 mph) by 2016. Chief engineer Mark Chapman: "People ask me if Andy has an ejector seat. He doesn’t, because nobody has designed an ejector seat that can operate at Mach 1.4." Read the rest... San Francisco's Monkeybrains ISP offering gigabit home wireless connections It's $35/month for the service, from San Francisco's coolest indie ISP (founded by Rudy Rucker's son, Rudy Jr, it was the inspiration for Pigspleen, the fictional ISP in my novel Little Brother) and if you opt to pay a little extra, they'll install a free link in a low/medium income neighborhood, too. Read the rest... Saga Volume 4 Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples's high weird, perved-out, freaked out space opera comic Saga is the best visual sf since Transmetropolitan, and the long-awaited volume 4 is a feast of politics, betrayal, gore, revolution, decadence, and Huxleyesque social control through amusement technology. Cory Doctorow blew his mind with it, and is back to tell the tale. Read the rest... Relive Britain's home computer boom with the ZX Vega The Vega console is not merely modeled on the classic ZX Spectrum, one of the more striking early home-computer designs. Read the rest... A farmhouse shrine to obsolete computers York University's Jim Austin, a teacher of neural computing, has accumulated some 1,000 machines across 30 years of collecting obsolete computers. Read the rest... Serial and the uncomfortable sensation of reality radio This American Life offshoot Serial, where Sarah Koenig is presently digging into the 1999 murder of 18 year-old Hae Min Lee, has become a sensation. Read the rest... A haunting war game about civilian survival Polish developer 11bit Studios' recently-released This War of Mine, a bit of a different look at video games' favorite setting. Read the rest... Meteorite Vial Pendant Necklace from our sponsor Shana Logic! From our stupendous sponsor Shana Logic (and outer space) comes this Meteorite Vial Pendant Necklace filled with actual bits of the Campo del Cielo meteorites! Read the rest... The art of Dan Elijah Fajardo Beautiful work from Dan Elijah Fajardo, a graphic artist based in Manila. More at the artist's website, including a cool t-shirt. [via crossconnectmag.com] Read the rest... Using canned ham as a car bumper guard Here's just one of many reasons why I like Jason Torchinsky: Last week, he strapped a couple of canned hams to the rear bumper of his Volkswagen Beetle and backed into another car, just to see what would happen. Read the rest... Device to end airplane armrest battles The Soarigami is a plastic divider meant to extend and split the shared airplane armrest. Company spokesperson Arthur Chang says, "We do anticipate some travelers to have issues with sharing, we feel like this is a great conversation starter." Welp, you lost me there. Soarigami (via CNN) Read the rest... Watch: The Avengers sing Christmas carols “The heroes from the Marvel Cinematic Universe join in heart and song to wish you a Merry Christmas.” Bonus: Groot, the humanoid tree thing in Guardians of the Galaxy, interprets “Jingle Bells.” This video is yet another fun holiday treat from James Covenant, whose Picard carol was a viral hit. Read the rest... The awesome glory that is Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition How imaginary worlds can help save the real world, by Jason Louv Read the rest...