Boing Boing, October 04, 2025
Celebrity deaths, tech upgrades, and the QAnon Shaman's trillion-dollar lawsuit
Happy Saturday! Today we remember Dame Patricia Routledge, beloved for her iconic role as Hyacinth “Bouquet” in Keeping Up Appearances, who passed at 96. In tech news, Wacom’s releasing a surprisingly affordable 14-inch pen display that might make digital artists’ dreams come true at just $299. Meanwhile, Sean “Diddy” Combs faces 50 months behind bars, and the QAnon Shaman filed what might be the most ambitious lawsuit in history - demanding $40 trillion and claiming he’s the rightful president. Because of course he did.
Dame Patricia Routledge kicks the bouquet at 96
Rob Beschizza / 7:23 am PT Sat Oct 4, 2025
Dame Patricia Routledge, most famous for her performance as snobby suburban housewife Hyacinth Bucket in BBC sitcom Keeping up Appearances, is dead at 96. She would surely have appreciated the headline: one of the best running jokes in the show was Hyacinth’s insistence her married name be rendered and spoken “Buckét.”
Routledge’s agent confirmed the news on Friday, Oct. 3, and said she “died peacefully in her sleep this morning surrounded by love,” multiple outlets, including the BBC and Deadline report, citing the PA News agency.
“Even at 96 years old, Dame Patricia’s passion for her work and for connecting with live audiences never waned, just as new generations of audiences have continued to find her through her beloved television roles,” the statement continued. “She will be dearly missed by those closest to her and by her devoted admirers around the world.”
Keeping Up Appearances presented Routledge’s character as a congenial but affected social climber who had advanced from working-class poverty to middle-class prosperity—but not far enough to satisfy a lifetime dreaming of finer things. A cast of tolerant but exhausted family and friends, not least her long-suffering husband Richard, allowed the show to make set-pieces of every consumerist fixation available to the 1990s English homemaker. It is first-rank among UK sitcoms that seem shallow and bland but drip out deep insights and moments of viciously dark humor. Now I find it has a strangely documentary quality.
I have a theory about the show, but today’s not the day. Instead, enjoy these clips.
Wacom One 14 pen display has a bigger screen and smaller price
Rob Beschizza / 3:43 pm PT Fri Oct 3, 2025
Aimed at hobbyists, students and anyone else not in the market for an expensive Cintiq, the Wacom One was a simpler, stripped-down pen display offered for a lower price. Five years since it launched, the lineup’s getting a new model with a big display—and a small price tag aimed at growing competition.
The Wacom One 14 [Wacom] has a 14-inch 1920×1080 IPS display, etched with a paper-like surface treatment and offering 98% sRGB color accuracy. The bezel has shrunk, it’s thinner, it’s lighter, and comes with the battery-free Wacom One pen with 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity, tilt recognition and two side buttons. It doesn’t have the multitouch gestures, 4K resolution or Pro Pen features, but it does have a close-bonded surface for less parallax.
It also now hooks up with a single USB-C cable, requiring Displayport Alt Mode, and comes with a trial edition of Clip Studio Paint Pro. It’s compatible with Mac, PC and ChromeOS.
At $299.95 [Amazon], it’s less than what I paid for my dying Intuos back in the day. Might finally be time to go with a screen.
Sean “Diddy” Combs jailed for 4 years and 2 months
Rob Beschizza / 2:30 pm PT Fri Oct 3, 2025
Music mogul and abuser Sean “Diddy” Combs was sentenced to 50 months in prison following his conviction on two counts of transporting women for prostitution. Prosecutors had asked for 11 years; with credit for time served waiting for his trial, he will be out in about 3 years and 3 months. He must also pay a $500,000 fine, the maximum allowed under the law.
“You used that abuse to get your way, especially when it came to ‘freak-offs’ and hotel nights,” [Judge Arun Subramanian] said. “This was subjugation, and it drove both Ms. Ventura and Jane into thoughts of ending their lives. That is the reality of what happened.”
“The conduct occurred over a decade with tremendous frequency across that time period,” the judge said. “You paid for and organized these acts.”
…
Sean Combs sat expressionless in his seat when the judge issued his sentence. His hands were clasped in his lap and he dropped his head slightly.
The judge went on to thank Cassie Ventura and “Jane” for their testimony.
“You stood up to power,” the judge said. “The number of people who you reached is incalculable.”
Combs’ charges were unrelated to the beating of Ventura captured on security video. He was not convicted on more serious charges of trafficking and racketeering, and earlier paid settlements to victims out of court. It appears Combs was convinced he would receive a very lenient sentence, for some reason.
According to a court filing yesterday, Combs has scheduled seven engagements in October to deliver entrepreneurship, life skills, and mentoring classes to incarcerated people.
“He doesn’t fully grapple with how his actions got him here,” AUSA Christy Slavik argued. “His respect for the law is just lip service.”
QAnon Shaman sues Trump for $40 trillion and declares himself the rightful President of the United States
Jennifer Sandlin / 12:04 pm PT Fri Oct 3, 2025
Jacob Chansley, aka the QAnon Shaman, is suing Donald Trump and the federal government for $40 trillion dollars, which includes $38 trillion to pay off the US government’s debt, $1 trillion to shore up US infrastructure, and $1 trillion for, as he states in the complaint, his “personal, emotional, mental and spiritual torture and years worth of anguish.” In the complaint he also asserts that he, not Trump, is actually the rightful President of the United States. The Phoenix New Times describes the “rambling complaint” where Chansley makes wild claims including that DJs are spies and that the NSA stole Chansley’s work for a Batman movie.
Phoenix New Times provides more details, stating that in the 26-page complaint “that consists of a single paragraph and reads like a manifesto,” The QAnon Shaman:
. . . alleges that his First, Fourth and Second Amendment rights have been violated by a host of parties that are loosely related at best. Named as defendants are Trump, the Federal Reserve, the National Security Agency, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Bank of International Settlements, the state of Israel, Elon Musk’s X Corp., T-Mobile, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Warner Bros. Studios.
Chansley is representing himself in the lawsuit that he filed September 22, 2025 in Maricopa County Superior Court in Arizona. The full set of claims made by Chansley are listed in the Phoenix New Times article, and they’re pretty out there — you really should go read them and see for yourself.
Instead of supplying all of the evidence for his claims, according to the Phoenix New Times, he “included a handwritten URL for a Google Drive folder that he said contains more than 1,000 exhibits that prove his accusations.” It comes as no surprise that the URL didn’t work when Phoenix New Times tried to access it.
I feel bad for Chansley and truly hope that, if he’s mentally ill, he can get the help he needs. In any case, there are some nuggets of actual truth amid the claims, so he’s not all wrong. For instance, the Phoenix New Times writes:
While many of Chansley’s claims are certifiably out there, there are some more defensible critiques of the U.S. government nestled among the conspiracy theories.
For one, he claimed that the American government is violating citizens’ Fifth Amendment rights by allowing an Israeli official to bail on a court hearing and return to Israel after he was charged with trying to pay for sex with a minor in Nevada. Chansley was also sharply critical of America’s penchant for long, pointless wars.
I never thought I’d be agreeing with the QAnon Shaman, but here we are.