Boing Boing

Boing Boing

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Carlos Castaneda faked an anthropology classic, then built a cult
Carlos Castaneda’s 1968 book The Teachings of Don Juan recounted his apprenticeship to a peyote-dosing Yaqui shaman named don Juan.
 • Ellsworth Toohey
In 1916 a con man ran a car on water and fleeced Henry Ford
In 1916, a bearded Long Island showman named Louis Enricht gathered reporters on his lawn and offered them a gasoline substitute that would “sell for a…
 • Ellsworth Toohey
Mushrooms got him off antidepressants, so he built TripSitter
Writer John Biggs wanted no part of psychedelics, he writes in his newsletter — he pictured being “trapped in a room with a bunch of weirdos while they…
 • Ellsworth Toohey
Whiskey Pete discovers viruses do not respect vaccine freedom speeches
A certain General George Washington ordered the Continental Army to be mass-inoculated against smallpox in 1777.
 • Jason Weisberger
Companies discover AI is expensive when employees actually use it
Once again, AI is a money incinerator.
 • Jason Weisberger
Grandpa Pudding Brains visits a truck factory, makes haunted chew toy noises
A lesser nation would panic.
 • Jason Weisberger
Kevin Mitnick left the man who helped jail him enough for a Porsche 911
Kevin Mitnick, the legendary hacker, once tried to social-engineer his way into Novell’s network by phoning a network admin named Shawn Nunley late at…
 • Ellsworth Toohey
Teen exits Disneyland ride, learns why you keep your arms, legs, and body inside the boat
Please Remain Seated, Permanezca Sentados Por Favor!
 • Jason Weisberger
AI-designed radio chips look like QR codes and beat human ones
Radio-frequency chips — the parts in every phone, car radar, and satellite link that send and receive signals — have stayed a hand-crafted “dark art…
 • Ellsworth Toohey
What luck, America! Kash Patel’s girlfriend joins Trump’s talent-fleeing Freedom 250 event
America’s 250th birthday celebration has reached the “FBI director’s girlfriend is available” stage of event planning, which is the sort of sentence…
 • Jason Weisberger
Miami Marlins searching for this sad hotdog-less doggo, to treat him to a Dream Day at the ballpark
On Monday, the Miami Marlins hosted a “Bark at the Park” night for their game against the Texas Rangers.
 • Jennifer Sandlin
Zine publisher sentenced to 50 years in prison for “material support to terrorists”
A standard office printer, a paper cutter, and a book binder — that’s the “printing press” the FBI logged when it raided Elizabeth and Ines Soto’s Texas…
 • Ellsworth Toohey
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