The Latest from Boing Boing

Improving the estimate of US police killings Patrick Ball and the Human Rights Data Analysis Group applied the same statistical rigor that he uses in estimating the scale of atrocities and genocides for Truth and Reconciliation panels in countries like Syria and Guatemala to the problem of estimating killing by US cops, and came up with horrific conclusions. Read the rest... Who will win this year's Nebula Award? On this week's Sword and Laser podcast, Veronica Belmont and Tom Merritt capture the latest developments in science fiction and fantasy. Read the rest... ISIS vs Twitter: A cautionary tale told through data visualization A report by the Brookings Institution analyzed a sample 20,000 ISIS-supporting Twitter accounts, and sought to answer the question of how suspending accounts impacts the community. Read the rest... A Wisconsin grain silo renovated into three-story fort In a great reuse of old infrastructure, a carpenter in West Bend, Wisconsin is turning his family's vacant grain silo into a play room. Read the rest... Apple Watch will have to nail heart rate When Apple releases Apple Watch and Apple Watch Sport in April, expectations will be high. Today, over a dozen watches attempt to monitor heart rate through the wrist, using optical sensors to judge changes in blood flow, but only a few actually work well. Read the rest... What's up with these incredibly prolific twitterbots? Old, highly-retweeted tweets in which I was @'ed keep getting RT'ed by fake twitterbots whose profile photos, bios and names are randomly composited from other Twitter users; they follow each other and spawn at an alarming rate. Read the rest... Hartford, CT says friends can't room together unless some of them are servants Eric writes, "In Hartford, eight adults and three children live in a 6,000-square-foot, nine-bedroom brick mansion --they're longtime friends who pooled money into one bank account, share monthly expenses, take turns cooking dinner and cleaning and consider themselves a family. Read the rest... Judge who invented Ferguson's debtor's prisons owes $170K in tax Judge Ronald J Brockmeyer -- who filled Ferguson's coffers by fining its poorest residents and sent them to inhumane, overcrowded prisons when they couldn't pay a few hundred dollars -- stands accused of fixing fines for his cronies, and owes $170K in unpaid taxes. Read the rest... Albuquerque PD encrypts videos before releasing them in records request Har-har-fuck-you, said Albequerque's murderous, lawless police department, as they fulfilled a records request from Gail Martin, whose husband was killed by them, by sending her encrypted CDs with the relevant videos, then refusing to give her the passwords. Read the rest... Kelly Link talks about her new short story collection David writes, "Whenever I ask guests of Between The Covers who their touchstone writers are, nobody is more often mentioned than Kelly Link. Read the rest... Cat hugs dog, who was missed “Bow-Z remains patient as Jasper gives him hugs aplenty.” [YouTube Link] Read the rest... DMCA abuser ordered to pay $25K to WordPress Straight Pride UK, a homophobic organization, used a fraudulent copyright complaint to censor an article about them, but WordPress fought back. Read the rest... Snow day with Buddy the Golden Retriever, at 960fps Fall in white, snowy, wet-muzzled doggie love. [Video Link, via Reddit] Read the rest... Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones: “Fly, yes. Land, no.” LOL. It's funny because he's gonna be okay. Wishing you the best, Mr. Ford. Read the rest... Jaguar: An exceptional photo shared by a Boing Boing reader “Jaguar - Phoenix Zoo,” a photo shared by photographer and Boing Boing reader Larry Huffmanin our Flickr Pool. Read the rest... NASA launches 2015 SpaceApps Challenge NASA and other space agencies around the world are preparing for the fourth annualInternational Space Apps Challenge, which will be held April 10-12 at more than 135 locations worldwide, including New York. Read the rest... Watch: Gary Groth talks about the the history of Fantagraphics The Comic Archive interviewed Gary Groth about the origins of The Comics Journal and Fantagraphics, the world's greatest book publisher (Jim Woodring, Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes, Hernandez Brothers, Peter Bagge, etc). Read the rest... Sliced playing cards My daughter has picked up one of my bad habits: collecting decks of playing cards, especially unusual ones. She's going to be delighted with this 2-pack of "sliced" cards ($8), which are half as wide as a regular poker deck. I'm excited to see how well they work with magic tricks. Read the rest... Photography: the weird dreamy world of wet ground Over at Vantage, Manuel Plantin’s strange street photography of life reflected in puddles of water. “I fully embrace Zappa’s definition of art — ‘making something out of nothing and then selling it,’” he says. Read the rest... Vaping hoodie with mouthpiece in the drawstring Vaprwear has a vaping chamber in the central pocket that feeds smoke out through the drawstring around the hood; they cost about $100 each, in a variety of styles. No word on washing instructions. Read the rest... Interactive comic explains General Relativity To celebrate the 100th anniversary of General Relativity, the journal Science created an excellent interactive comic explainer of "the theory that conquered the universe." General Relativity(Science) Read the rest... Music: "Destroyer," The Kinks (1981) "Girl, I want you here with me, But I'm really not as cool as I'd like to be." Read the rest... Lubing your cables for fun and safety I always sort of assumed that cables just break. They do, but you can prolong their life with some lube. I kept snapping clutch cables, on my old BMW motorcycle. Read the rest... Video: Domino Etch A Sketch Excellent stop motion magic combined with domino skills by FlippyKat. The Etch A Sketch scene used aprox 1,500 dominoes, and the second scene used aprox 5,500. Both scenes were built several times...some mistakes are quickly shown at the end of the video. Read the rest... An intense barrage of images from modern Shanghai Shanghai Blink. No words, no captions, no white space. Only an intense barrage of images from modern Shanghai, in endless variation. Read the rest... For Harrison Ford “Nice try Lao Che!” Read the rest... Man burned by fajitas while praying can't sue restaurant Applebee's customer Hiram Jimenez was bowing his head to pray over his plate of fajitas when he heard "a loud sizzling noise, followed by 'a pop noise' and then felt a burning sensation in his left eye and on his face." In his lawsuit, Jimenez claims that the popping grease burned his face neck and arms. Read the rest... A better way to husk corn [via] Read the rest... Musical instrument mimics almost any other instrument The Artiphon Instrument 1 can be played like a keyboard, drum, or stringed instrument. It was invented by Mike Butera, who has a doctorate in sound studies. The early bird Kickstarter price is $299. Read the rest...