I'm calling it already: Windows 95 Tips is Blog of the Year.

Update: the creator is Neil Cicierega!

Perpetual Kid sells a $4.50 cartoon vampire ketchup-bottle lid called "Count Ketchup Spread." Affix it and squeeze the bottle, and the ketchup drips out of his fangs. There's also a mustard version: it's an alien head that oozes mustard out of its mouth. Barfstard!

Our hard plastic Count Ketchup Spread Head is a universal cap size that fits most standard upright ketchup bottles and measures 1.75 inches long x 2.5 inches wide x 1 inch deep. To keep your condiments fresh and to prevent contamination, use the original cap for storage.

COUNT KETCHUP SPREAD HEAD (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Elizabeth Bear writes,

Shadow Unit is an ongoing, now five-year-old science fiction web serial about a mysterious "anomaly" that causes affected human beings to simultaneously develop superpowers and sociopathy--and about the law enforcement agents who struggle to contain the crisis.

In more formal terms, it's is a semi-real-time semi-interactive shared-world hyperfiction narrative--which is to say, a story in which you can interact with some of the characters much of the time. It's the brainchild of Emma Bull and Will Shetterly, and is written by Elizabeth Bear, Holly Black, Leah Bobet, Amanda Downum, Sarah Monette, Chelsea Polk, and Stephen Shipman--with art by Amanda Downum and Kyle Cassidy.

Shadow Unit's producers have always made the entire narrative available on a donation model on the website and its associated social media. We've also produced a series of ebooks (available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords)--and the first volume is available as a paper book. For a limited time (We're not yet sure how limited!) we're also giving the first ebook (Shadow Unit #1) away for free.

Shadow Unit 1 (Thanks, Bear)

Here's Slo-As-a-Mofo-Sho's two-minute long video of the super-slo-mo smashing of eggs, in a variety of improbable ways. It turns out that blender-smashing eggs and smashing eggs on a tennis racket are a lot cooler than you might think. The making-of video is pretty great, too.

Slo-As-A-Mofo-Sho - Egg Destruction! (via JWZ)

2600's Emmanuel Goldstein writes,

In the midst of the biggest natural disaster to hit the New York metropolitan area in modern times, most of the staff of community radio station WBAI was prevented from broadcasting - not because of a power outage, but due to management decisions that put prerecorded programming over the airwaves instead of the usual live broadcasts. The hacker/technology program "Off The Hook" has been kept off the air for an unprecedented three weeks, making it impossible to help listeners deal with the technological challenges of losing communications and connectivity throughout the crisis. While a small group of broadcasters was allowed to put live programs on the air during daylight hours, a 6 pm on-air curfew was imposed, effectively locking out the majority of the station staff, including "Off The Hook." This has led the members of the world's longest running hacker radio program to start searching for another broadcast outlet, as it doesn't seem that technology-based programming is taken seriously or considered a priority, based on these actions.

AN OPEN LETTER TO OUR LISTENERS FROM THE STAFF OF "OFF THE HOOK" (Thanks, Emmanuel!)

From the records, it appears that the charity fell far short of its mission. While the origins of the seed money used to start the charity in 2007 are unclear, financial records reviewed by The Huffington Post reveal that the group spent all of its money not on research, but on parties, entertainment, travel and attorney fees.

Mrs. Kelley also made 911 calls to Tampa police this week about trespassing reporters, and claims her property is considered diplomatic soil. "I'm the honorary consul general so they should not be on my property," Kelley said. "I don't know if you want to get diplomatic protection involved as well."

Consul general of what? CrazyVaginaStan?

(Thanks, Antinous)

Adam McKay is talking about the upcoming sequel to Anchorman, and if he's not using generous amounts of hyperbole, this movie might be as epic as Cloud Atlas, which I heard was pretty epic. But here's what we can take away from his latest interview with The Playlist: Anchorman: The Legend Continues will have songs in it, it will deal with new media and the 24-hour news cycle, and basically every single person in comedy will have speaking parts. The bad news: it killed a rap album inspired by Step Brothers that probably had something about boats and hoes on it. Bummer.

(Thanks, Bryan William Jones)

Gen. John Allen, L, who is being investigated for "inappropriate communications" with unpaid military socialite Jill Kelley, R. (ABC NEWS)

Boing Boing pal Andrea James, who is a Wikipedia editor, saw an odd edit when writing the Jill Kelley bio: On 9 February 2012, a US Central Command IP added "Jill Kelley, amateur ambassador and chess player" to Arcadia University's Wikipedia page.

Your theories? I mean, who was that, John fucking Allen? I'm so baffled by this thing, I don't know that I have it in me to even try speculating anymore.

A paper in a 1909 edition of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London described the dissection of Charles Babbage's brain. The whole article is on the Internet Archive, from which the Public Domain Review has plucked it.

Babbage himself decided that he wanted his brain to be donated to science upon his death. In a letter accompanying the donation, his son Henry wrote:

I have no objection…to the idea of preserving the brain…Please therefore do what you consider best…[T]he brain should be known as his, and disposed of in any manner which you consider most conducive to the advancement of human knowledge and the good of the human race.

Half of Babbage’s brain is preserved at the Hunterian Museum in the Royal College of Surgeons in London, the other half is on display in the Science Museum in London.

The Brain of Charles Babbage (1909)

Via Tim Dickinson at Rolling Stone. The chart is by Hilary Sargent (@lilsarg). I don't know who created it, but will add credit when I figure that out.