5+ day, 13+ hour ago   (298+ words) A former Air Force engineer named John Draper used the whistle to make free phone calls and was the subject of a 1971 article in Esquire magazine. He was subsequently caught and arrested based on the publicity from the article and…...

1+ week, 6+ day ago   (399+ words) The Supreme Court of the United States today allowed construction of a massive ballroom on the White House grounds to continue, though Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that it's "probably illegal." The majority instead dodged the issue, ruling 5-4 that the…...

3+ week, 6+ day ago   (428+ words) The Digi-Comp I was a plastic and rubber band toy that sold for $5 in 1963. According to Chris Staecker, a Fairfield University math professor who posted a video about its operation, "This was the first digital computer." It didn't use electricity;…...

1+ mon, 1+ week ago   (336+ words) Black lung among veteran Appalachian miners is back to 1978 levels, at the same time the Trump administration has put stronger silica-dust protections on hold. After a century of mining, accessing Appalachia's remaining thin coal seams requires cutting through far more…...

1+ mon, 1+ week ago   (526+ words) Disclosure: Boing Boing earns a commission on purchases made through links in this post. TL;DR: Get a 1-year Autodesk AutoCAD subscription for $399 instead of $2,095, with professional 2D drafting, 3D modeling, automation tools, and access across desktop, web, and mobile. Precision typically…...

1+ mon, 2+ week ago   (325+ words) In a 360-degree panorama that the rover captured on June 19 and 20, the 4,930th and 4,931st Martian days, or sols, of the mission, the polygonal shapes spread in all directions for as far as the rover can see. They even wrap around the…...

1+ mon, 2+ week ago   (347+ words) In what seems like a story from the late 1990s, and not 2026, Washington's bar-licensure task force wanted to wait until 2027 to give their new high-tech exam time to "work out any issues with its administration." The state Supreme Court chose 2026. You…...

1+ mon, 2+ week ago   (297+ words) Gray Area in San Francisco hands its Grand Theater to the 1990s techno-counterculture on August 12 and 13, when R.U. Sirius and the crowd behind the cyberculture magazine Mondo 2000 stage their second Deliria gathering — two days of film, talks, music, and performance. Previously:• San…...

1+ mon, 2+ week ago   (317+ words) Two men rode to the Space Needle's observation deck, changed into BASE-jumping gear in the restroom, climbed over the glass barrier, and backflipped from the 520-foot platform. Their parachutes opened; Seattle police are still looking for them. Yet another great…...

1+ mon, 2+ week ago   (332+ words) In the 19th-century Kingdom of Travancore, in what is now Kerala, India, every lower-caste person owed a poll tax starting around age 14. The tax on men was called talakkaram, "head tax," or meeshakkaram, "moustache tax." The tax on women was…...