In this irresistibly funny follow-up to the breakout bestseller Darth Vader and Son, Vader—Sith Lord and leader of the Galactic Empire—now faces the trials, joys, and mood swings of raising his daughter Leia as she grows from a sweet little girl into a rebellious teenager. Smart and funny illustrations by artist Jeffrey Brown give classic Star Wars moments a twist by bringing these iconic family relations together under one roof. From tea parties to teaching Leia how to fly a TIE fighter, regulating the time she spends talking with friends via R2-D2's hologram, and making sure Leia doesn't leave the house wearing only the a skirted metal bikini, Vader's parenting skills are put hilariously to the test.
At Maker Faire Bay Area 2013 longtime Make pal Kent Barnes kindly opened his everyday carry case and showed me what’s inside. It’s a highly personalized collection of tools, including a flashlight, X-Acto knife, drivers, laser pointer, and lock pick tools. See the video at Makezine.com— Mark
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A car dealership trade union in North Carolina has persuaded the state's Senate Commerce Committee to unanimously approve a law that would prohibit automakers from selling cars.
The bill is being pushed by the North Carolina Automobile Dealers Association, a trade group representing the state’s franchised dealerships. Its sponsor is state Sen. Tom Apodaca, a Republican from Henderson, who has said the goal is to prevent unfair competition between manufacturers and dealers. What makes it “unfair competition” as opposed to plain-old “competition” — something Republicans are typically inclined to favor — is not entirely clear.
It's got a premise that reminds me of something Nicholson Baker would come up with: Fink invents a time machine and travels into the past to visit younger versions of herself to warn herself not to do things that she ended up regretting as an adult. She visits her college-age self and tries to stop her from taking a drug that gives her a bad trip. She tells her high-school-age self not to make out with an unsavory boy. She tries to save her elementary-school-age self from a scary encounter with her mentally ill, violent father when he goes on a rampage with a crowbar. She intervenes dozens of times, but does it do any good? I'll let you read it and decide for yourself.
Unlike Chester 5000-XYV, there's no nudity involved in We Can Fix it!, but it does contain a fair number of scenes in which Fink has sex with versions of herself, and many of the incidents are about Fink's sexual encounters as a teen and young adult. Despite some of the heavy subject matter, Fink tells the story with charm and a light heart and renders it with appealing art.
Matthew says: "Talal Al-Rouqi, a Saudi student in Michigan, brought a pressure cooker filled with meat and rice to his friend's house for dinner. The next day, he was interrogated by FBI agents, who warned him not to venture outside again with the pressure cooker." — Mark
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Hurray! We've added a new podcast to Boing Boing's line-up of high-quality audio disinfotainment. Brian Heater, our Comics Rack columnist, is the host of RiYL, which he describes as “mostly just an excuse to interview people I think are cool.”
The first three episodes feature cool people indeed:
To call this a "cell phone" or a "handheld computer" fails to capture the change that has taken place. It is a change in kind, not just a change in scale, and just as drivers of the earliest cars called them "horseless carriages", our language has not caught up.
So having failed for several days to come up with an adequate term for the device we call a "cell phone," we want to open the discussion up to you. Let us know in the comments what you think we should name it, and we'll feature the best ones in a future newsletter.
Edgertor says: "No list of hacker movies i've found includes this one from 1971, it might also be the earliest!"
A prank that starts with a group of college students creating a fictitious person so they can get a credit card develops into a plot that leaves three of them dead.
With Dean Stockwell and Stephanie Powers! I can't wait to watch it as soon as I'm finished with my hard day of posting links here at the Boing Boing headquarters.
Here's Brian Egenriether's new-and-improved Skittles sorting machine. It's interesting to note that he used machinable epoxy for the parts instead of using a 3D printer. I know 3D printing is the future, but the current crop of home 3D printers make ugly parts. Subtractive fabrication technology makes better looking stuff, at least for now.
This machine sorts Skittles, m&m's and similar candies by color. It is the 3rd revision of the original machine. The inside is now complete and features user-selectable inputs to choose which type of candy to sort. Types not shown include Reese's Pieces and other types of Skittles.
The microcontroller is a BASIC Stamp 2 and the color sensor is made by TAOS. I made most of the parts by hand from a machinable epoxy including the outer case, inner housing, hopper mechanism, 5 way chute, and the the rotating disk inside. The other parts include a piece of PVC, ceramic bowls, telescope parts, wood for the base, and the funnel which was cut from a hummingbird feeder.
Matthew says: "Here's your newest dose of terrornoia: the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office has developed a program called CPAT: Community Partners Against Terrorism, which encourages citizens to report suspicious or unusual behavior in their neighborhoods."
Possible Warning Signs of Terrorism (@ 2:40)
"Tourists love to take pictures. But what sometimes strikes people as unusual is if they're taking pictures of a person, and a bridge is in the background, that's quite normal. For instance, the San Francisco bridge is one that's photographed every day. But if you're here in south Florida, and they're taking picture of a bridge, and there's no one in the foreground, and they're taking many many pictures, then the question becomes...why?"
"So, to recap:
"Taking one picture of a bridge with a person in the foreground: OK.
"Taking many pictures of a bridge without a person in the foreground: TERRIST"
David LaFerriere has drawn a picture on almost every one of his kids' lunch bags since 2008. He uses colored Sharpies to draw on the plastic bags. See all of them (over 1,100!) on his Flickr stream. (Via Colossal; Thanks, Sally!)
Last year I wrote about Remo Camerota's DevoBot project, an iOS application that lets you design DEVO-inspired robot art and play music using unreleased DEVO sounds. It's now available for $0.99 in the iTunes stores.
In this irresistibly funny follow-up to the breakout bestseller Darth Vader and Son, Vader—Sith Lord and leader of the Galactic Empire—now faces the trials, joys, and mood swings of raising his daughter Leia as she grows from a sweet little girl into a rebellious teenager. Smart and funny illustrations by artist Jeffrey Brown give classic Star Wars moments a twist by bringing these iconic family relations together under one roof. From tea parties to teaching Leia how to fly a TIE fighter, regulating the time she spends talking with friends via R2-D2's hologram, and making sure Leia doesn't leave the house wearing only the a skirted metal bikini, Vader's parenting skills are put hilariously to the test.
It's hard to describe how much I like 
Cartoonist Jess Fink, creator of the erotic Victorian-era robot graphic novel 
Hurray! We've added a new podcast to Boing Boing's line-up of high-quality audio disinfotainment. Brian Heater, our 
