The Latest from Boing Boing

Math puzzler: can you make a rectangle with one cut? Presh Talkwalkar of Mind Your Decisions challenges you to "cut the shape into two pieces, using all the area, that can form a rectangle." Read the rest... Which apocalyptic threats are most likely to wipe out Earth's population? Will the human race be wiped out by honeybee extinction, nuclear armageddon, bioterrorism, loss of topsoil, a natural pandemic, a combo-pocalypse, overpopulation, nano-weapons, climate change, flawed super AI, underpopulation, a geo-engineering fail, a grey goo disaster, post-humanity, rising sea levels, a supervolcano, methane release, an asteroid impact, an alien invasion, the Venus syndrome, an unknown unknown, a gamma ray burst, the Matrix scenario, a rogue black hole, the death of the Sun, or the death of the universe? This BBC infographicdoesn't say for, but it gives the likelihood of each panocidal scenario, and when we might expect it. Read the rest... Watch robots generate improvisational jazz music and dance Robotic musicianship doctoral candidate Mason Bretan at Georgia Tech's Center for Music Technology filmed this intriguing robotic jazz performance with three Shimi robots and a larger Shimon robot. Read the rest... WATCH: Semi truck narrowly misses car This fellow was in his car on the freeway, taking a video of two trucks in front of him that had crashed into each other and stopped traffic. Read the rest... Mike Huckabee: Ted Nugent good, Beyoncé bad Former Arkansas governor and presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee defended his love for Ted Nugent (who wrote a song called "Jailbait" about his desire to handcuff and rape a 13-year-old girl) on The Daily Show last night. Read the rest... Long-exposure shot of a rock-climber wearing glowsticks Redditor Shatteredankle went rock-climbing with glowsticks affixed to wrists and ankles, and took a long-exposure shot of the result -- gorgeous. Read the rest... A video of greatness: “Fantastic harmony of camera and monitor !!” A nifty effect, produced in a simple, interesting way. Read the rest... Overspray – a book about the airbrush art that defined the druggy seventies If you’re familiar with LP album sleeves and National Lampoon covers of the 1970s, Overspraywill be your time machine to that era. Read the rest... Egyptian Lover: West Coast Hip Hop Pioneer Taking things to Los Angeles during the early 1980's in this week's Hip Hop Family Tree by Ed Piskor Read the rest... Announcing Apollo 1201: Eradicate DRM within a decade! I have gone back to the Electronic Frontier Foundation to work on a project called Apollo 1201, which will use a combination of code, law, norms and markets to eradicate DRM within a decade: we choose to do this not because it is easy, but because it is hard. Read the rest... Play Zork on Twitter Play classic adventure game Zork simply by tweeting at @zorkplay, by Tom Printy and John Biggs. You'll need patience and a map... Read the rest... Ben Goldacre's "I Think You'll Find It's a Bit More Complicated Than That" Over the past decade, the woo-busting, pharma-fighting Dr Ben Goldacre has written more than 500,000 words of acerbic, entertaining, enlightening and fearlessly combative science journalism and commentary, busting bad math, manipulative abuse of statistics, institutional corruption, media distortion, and newage rubbish of all descriptions. Read the rest... “Jones Big-Ass Truck Rental and Storage Facility,” a very special TV commercial “Now friends, I know many of you may be asking yourself, Now how in the hell can he store all this stuff for such a cheap price?” [via reddit] Read the rest... Stan Lee on "To Tell The Truth" game show (1970) Here's Stan Lee on a 1970 episode of To Tell The Truth, a fun game show where a panel of celebrities had to identify an individual with an unusual profession (in this case, comic book creator) among a group of impostors. Stan Lee is in the second segment, starting around 14 minutes in. (via Dangerous Minds) Read the rest... Game Boy Pokemon mugs Mug Emporium's $12 Game Boy Pokemon mugs come with your choice of Pokemon, though, one supposes, you should really catch them all. (via Geeky Merch) Read the rest... School bus has "Satanic" brake lights Some Memphis, Tennessee parents are outraged at what they perceive to be Satanic symbols in the brake lights of a public school bus. Read the rest... Video: To the Batstroller! "Batmobile Baby Stroller" (Super-Fan Builds) Read the rest... Life inside a DDOS "booter site" The internal records of Lizardsquad's Lizardstresser -- a service that would, for money, flood sites with traffic intended to knock them off the Internet -- were dumped to Mega by Doxbin's former operator, providing an unprecedented public look at the internal workings of booter. Read the rest... Marky Ramone's new memoir A teaser from Marky Ramone's new memoir Punk Rock Blitzkrieg: My Life As a Ramone: We were back at Los Angeles International Airport waiting for our baggage to slide down the ramp and swing around the carousel. Read the rest... The Emoticon Art of Nicholas Mottola Jacobsen "io non tr(emoji), a digital art series by the Italian designer Nicholas Mottola Jacobsen. Read the rest... See Copernicus's scientific instruments from his school days Visitors to the Collegium Maius at what is now the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, can see the very scientific gear used by esteemed alum Nicolaus Copernicus whose famed astronomical model of 1543 put the sun at the center of the solar system. Read the rest... Watch raindrops in slow-motion and learn where that familiar rain smell comes from From MIT, a video about rain: “Using high-speed cameras, MIT researchers observed that when a raindrop hits a surface, it traps tiny air bubbles at the point of contact. Read the rest... The weird crybaby soldiers of sculptor Johnson Tsang A series of porcelain toy soldiers. Read the rest... An oddly comforting video of guinea pigs munching on red bell pepper slices It's an ASMR thing. I mean, the video, and for us, not the rodents. Read the rest... WATCH: Trailer for Haphead, crowdfunded indie cyberpunk series about pro gamers In one week, Toronto's Postopian Pictures -- the people who brought us Ghosts With Shit Jobsand many other delights -- will premiere their crowdfunded cyberpunk series Haphead (previously): Haphead is the story of a girl who’s literally empowered by videogames. Read the rest... The Knowledge: London cabbies' multi-year, grueling training If you want to drive a black cab in London -- the only cars that passengers can hail from the kerb -- you have to pass "The Knowledge," an unbelievably tough exam that tests you on your minute knowledge of every street, landmark, hotel, restaurant, hospital, church, stadium, airline office, club, police station, court, and tourist destination within six miles of Charing Cross station. Read the rest... The best introductory Arduino book just got better Arduino is on open-source electronics prototyping platform that lets you make interactive stuff without having a degree in electrical engineering. For about $25 you can buy a credit card sized circuit board that has input connections (for buttons, knobs, light sensors, microphones, humidity sensors, fart detectors, Internet signals, etc) and output connections (for servo motors, LEDs, buzzers, speakers, stepper motors, vibrators, etc). Read the rest... The $6 "Fantastic" ice scraper is fantastic I bought the "Fantastic" Ice Scraper I have now in 1982 at a gas station in Wisconsin. It’s such a superior scraper that I’ve been careful to make sure it transferred from disposed-of vehicle to replacement vehicle four times since then. Read the rest... People in northern Sweden say "yes" in an unusual way It sounds like they are slurping the last noodle from a bowl of udon. [via] Read the rest... Humans demonstrate how a cantilever bridge works (circa 1890) "To illustrate the design principle behind Scotland’s Forth Bridge, engineer Sir Benjamin Baker offered a personal demonstration." [via] Sir John Fowler (left) and Baker (right) each hold two wooden poles with outstretched arms, forming two diamond shapes. Read the rest...