We all know that Elon Musk is considered to be the real-life Tony Stark from Iron Man. But Frenchman Emile Leray gives Musk a run for his money. Why? Leray turned his broken down car into a working motorcycle to escape the desert of northwest Africa—with only the contents of a simple toolbox and hacksaw. In the movie, Stark had a welder, a hefty supply of equipment, and an assistant to help him construct his Mark I Ironman suit. It took Leray a total of 12 days to build a working motorcycle from his broken down Citroen 2CV. What would you have done if you were placed in his predicament? And who do you think deserves the 'real life Tony Stark' title? [via Chameau D’acier] ... Continue reading →

Finally, some answers! Double Fine not only dubbed its latest creation today, but also showed it off a little with a debut trailer. Led by Ron Gilbert, The Cave is a side-scrolling adventure title that will hit the Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and PC.The Cave will allow players to take up to three out of six playable characters exploring. Each character has their own personality and special abilities, and each has their own storyline. And don’t forget about the Cave itself, which talks to you as you explore its murky depths. According to PCWorld, the game will support local multiplayer, and have controls similar to Metroid or Castlevania. You can watch the debut trailer below. The Cave is set to release sometime in 2013, ... Continue reading →

PHILADELPHIA – When Mitt Romney came to an inner-city charter school here Thursday to promote his new education agenda, he received something of a history lecture about the persecution of blacks in America and the struggles of African American children to meet the academic achievements of their white counterparts. Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney centered a speech Wednesday on the state of the American education system. (Mario Tama - GETTY IMAGES) Seeking to broaden his appeal heading into the general election, Romney was venturing for his first time in this campaign into an impoverished black neighborhood to hear the concerns of local educators and community leaders. But here in the streets of West Philadelphia, the emotion surrounding his contest with the nation’s ... Continue reading →

Warren Buffett's letter to publishers and editors Warren Buffett pledged a "hands-off" policy for the newspapers his company plans to buy. "You should treat public policy issues just as you have in the past," he wrote in a letter to publishers and editors of the Media General Inc. daily newspapers due to become part of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. "I have some strong political views, but Berkshire owns the paper — I don't. And Berkshire will always be non-political." Click here to read the Omaha.com story » Tell us what you think Continue reading →

The National Center for Education Statistics, which maintains a repository of information on all of the country's public schools and districts through its Common Core of Data, has uncovered faulty data on two additional schools in Arizona and Pennsylvania that made it into U.S. News and World Report's rankings of the nation's best high schools. The magazine, which relies in part on data collected by the federal government, listed Estrella Foothills High School in Goodyear, Ariz., as the sixth best in the state out of 118 ranked, with an enrollment of 198 students and 51 teachers. On its website, the high school is displaying a gold medallion marking the honor. But in actuality, the school has an enrollment of about 1,000 students, and the student-teacher ... Continue reading →

by Steve Myers Published May 24, 2012 9:41 am A memo from Times-Picayune publisher Ashton Phelps confirms that the newspaper will cease daily publication, moving to three days a week: Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. The memo also confirms staff cuts, though it doesn’t say how large they will be. Press reports have necessitated our giving you this news now. We realize it will make people anxious, but we do not know enough today to be able to announce how the changes will affect individual employees. We will move as quickly as possible in the coming weeks to make that determination and to inform each of you personally. The memo from Phelps: To all employees: We wanted to make you aware of a news story that ... Continue reading →

Digital Bedtime Stories This is a list of individual book apps, mostly from small publishers, representing our “best of the best” for bedtime reading in 2012. Some of these are lightly interactive, but done in a way that doesn’t lend itself to endless tapping (or over-stimulation). We did not include any of the apps that made our list last year, so please also check out: Top 10 Bedtime Books for iPad (2011) The first post in this two-part series had two “top five” lists, one for our favorite developers of great bedtime book apps and one of five interactive books with bedtime themes that we didn’t want to overlook. But the real heart of this top 25 is here … our list of the very ... Continue reading →

By Mark Frauenfelder at 6:10 pm Tuesday, May 22 A dad says: "My son has a long to do list today!" Where not otherwise specified, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution. Boing Boing is a trademark of Happy Mutants LLC in the United States and other countries. Continue reading →

22 May 2012 Last updated at 07:07 ET Why are fountain pen sales rising? By Steven Brocklehurst BBC News Magazine You might expect that email and the ballpoint pen had killed the fountain pen. But sales are rising, so is the fountain pen a curious example of an old-fashioned object surviving the winds of change? For many people, fountain pens bring back memories of school days full of inky fingers, smudged exercise books and piles of pink blotting paper. But for others, a fat Montblanc or a silver-plated Parker is a treasured item. Prominently displayed, they are associated with long, sinuous lines of cursive script. Sales figures are on the up. Parker, which has manufactured fountain pens since 1888, claims a worldwide "resurgence" in the ... Continue reading →

UPDATED Presumptive GOP nominee Gov. Mitt Romney called today for making federal funding for special education and disadvantaged students portable—meaning the money would follow students to any school their parents choose, including a private school. Under his proposal, parents could also choose to use the funds under Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act at a charter school for online courses, or for tutoring. Title I is funded at $14.5 billion this year, and IDEA is funded at $11.6 billion. And Romney, who unveiled his education agenda at the Latino Coalition's Annual Economic Summit in Washington today, is also calling for an expansion of the DC Opportunity Scholarship program, which President Barack Obama sought to eliminate. He would also make it easier for ... Continue reading →